Gretchen Esther Whitmer (born August 23, 1971) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the 49th governor of Michigan since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she served in the Michigan House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006 and in the Michigan Senate from 2006 to 2015.

Whitmer was born and raised in Michigan. She is a graduate of Forest Hills Central High School, Michigan State University, and the Detroit College of Law. She ran unsuccessfully for the state House of Representatives in the 1990s before being elected in 2000. In 2006, she became a state senator, a position she kept until 2015. She was the Senate's first female Democratic leader from 2011 to 2015. In 2013, Whitmer gained national attention for a floor speech during a debate on abortion in which she shared her experience of being sexually assaulted. For six months in 2016, she was the prosecutor for Ingham County. Whitmer was elected governor in 2018, defeating Republican nominee and state attorney general Bill Schuette.

As governor, Whitmer has focused on healthcare and infrastructure legislation. In February 2020, she was selected to give the Democratic response to then President Donald Trump's 2020 State of the Union Address. On October 8, the Federal Bureau of Investigation thwarted a militia group's kidnapping plot against Whitmer. Since January 2021, Whitmer has served as one of the vice chairs of the Democratic National Committee. She was reelected governor in 2022, defeating Republican nominee Tudor Dixon.

Early life and education
Gretchen Whitmer was born on August 23, 1971, in Lansing, Michigan, the eldest of three children of Sharon H. "Sherry" Reisig and Richard Whitmer, who were both attorneys. Her father was head of the state department of commerce under Governor William Milliken, a Republican, and the president and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan from 1988 to 2006. Whitmer's mother worked as an assistant attorney general under Michigan Attorney General, Frank J. Kelley. Her parents divorced when she was ten years old. She and her siblings moved with their mother to Grand Rapids; her father traveled from his home in Detroit to visit the family at least once a week.

From 1985 to 1989, Whitmer attended Forest Hills Central High School near Grand Rapids, Michigan, participating in the school's softball and track and field teams.

After graduating from Forest Hills, Whitmer enrolled at Michigan State University to study communications, with the intent of becoming a broadcaster for ESPN. While in college she became an intern for state representative Curtis Hertel, which convinced her to study law. In 1998 she received her Juris Doctor from Michigan State's College of Law and began practicing law at the Dickinson Wright law firm's Lansing offices.

State legislature

House of Representatives

In 2000, Whitmer, then chairwoman of the East Lansing Transportation Commission, was elected to represent the Michigan House of Representatives' 70th district, receiving 17,409 votes and defeating Republican nominee Bill Hollister. She was reelected to the 69th House district in 2002 and 2004. In 2005, she was voted Most Effective Democrat of the Michigan House.

State Senate

In March 2006, Whitmer won a special election to the Michigan State Senate, replacing Virg Bernero, who had been elected mayor of Lansing in November 2005. She was elected to a full term in November, and reelected in 2010. In 2011, Whitmer's Democratic colleagues unanimously chose her to be the Senate Democratic Leader, making her the first woman to lead a party caucus in the Senate. Due to term limits, Whitmer was unable to run for reelection in 2014 and left office in 2015. In 2013, she received national recognition when she discussed her experience of being sexually assaulted. She told the story during a debate about abortion rights, particularly for victims of rape, arguing victims should be allowed to terminate pregnancies that result from rape.

Ingham County prosecutor
On May 11, 2016, it was announced that the judges of Michigan's 30th Judicial Circuit Court had unanimously selected Whitmer to serve the remaining six months of outgoing Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III's term, after he was arrested on March 14, 2016, and charged with 11 counts of involvement with a prostitute and four counts of willful neglect of duty. In a letter dated March 29, 2016, Dunnings announced he would resign effective July 2.

On June 21, 2016, Whitmer was administered the oath of office as prosecutor by Ingham County Circuit Court Chief Judge Janelle Lawless. She said her top priorities during her six months of service would be to determine if any other officials in the prosecutor's office knew about Dunnings's alleged crimes and to change how the office handled domestic violence and sexual assault cases.

On July 22, 2016, Whitmer issued an 11-page report on whether Dunnings's alleged criminal activity had affected cases handled by the office. The report concluded that employees "were never asked to compromise a case or look the other way" and that she had "full confidence that any problem that had existed in this office left with Mr. Dunnings". Whitmer's term expired on December 31, 2016.

Governorship

Elections

2018

On January 3, 2017, Whitmer announced she would run in the 2018 Michigan gubernatorial race. On August 7, 2018, Whitmer became the Democratic nominee for governor of Michigan. She won all 83 counties in the state in the Democratic primary.

In July 2018, Republican officials accused Whitmer of supporting the movement to abolish ICE, a claim that Whitmer disputed. She said that, if elected, she would focus on improving Michigan's fundamentals, such as schools, roads, and water systems. Whitmer's main opponent was Republican Bill Schuette, the term-limited attorney general of Michigan. The two candidates met for a debate on October 12, 2018, in Grand Rapids, at WOOD-TV. A second debate was held at WDIV studios in Detroit on October 24.

Whitmer defeated Schuette in the November 6 election by nearly a 10-point margin.

2022

Whitmer was reelected to a second term in 2022, defeating Republican nominee Tudor Dixon. She won by nearly 11 points, a larger margin than many analysts and election watchers predicted, with polling showing a tightening race in the weeks before election day in what was expected to be a tough midterm election for Democrats in battleground states like Michigan. Whitmer won 18 counties and expanded her margins in several vote-rich, bellwether areas of the state, including Oakland, Macomb, and Kent Counties.

Tenure
Whitmer describes herself as a progressive Democrat, who can work with state legislators from different political perspectives.

As both a gubernatorial candidate and as governor, one of Whitmer's key pledges was to "fix the damn roads", a reference to Michigan's struggling infrastructure. Her initial post-election plan to fund road repairs with a  gas tax increase was deeply unpopular, with one poll finding it opposed by 75% of Michigan voters, including majorities of Democrats and independent voters. Democratic legislators in Michigan's Republican-controlled legislature largely declined to support the plan, which would have nearly tripled Michigan's gas tax and potentially made it the highest in the nation.

Whitmer's first budget earmarked several billions of dollars for investment in infrastructure. In 2019, she struggled with the Republican-controlled legislature to pass a budget and made several concessions.

The gubernatorial election and national conversation during Whitmer's time in office focused largely on healthcare. During the election, she was the only Democratic candidate not to support a single-payer healthcare system. As governor, she has focused on women's healthcare and Medicaid expansion.

In May 2020, the Edenville Dam gave way after awaiting an overdue report on its safety standards. Whitmer directed the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) to form an investigation that "state Republicans, flooding victim advocates and dam safety experts" criticized, concerned that the state's environmental agency would essentially be investigating itself. Guidelines from the Association of State Dam Safety Officials advocate independent investigators. An inquiry launched by the United States House of Representatives later gave the EGLE and FERC a two-week deadline for answers.

After the 2022 Michigan elections, Democrats took control of the Senate and House of Representatives, allowing Whitmer greater control of her legislative agenda. She laid out her plans in her January 26, 2023, State of The State address. She called for a repeal of the state's retirement tax, raising the state's earned income tax credit from 6% to 30%, universal pre-K, investment in renewable energy such as wind and solar power, a repeal of Michigan's now defunct 1931 abortion ban, increasing education spending, stricter regulations on firearms such as universal background checks and a ban on 3D printed guns, the addition of sexual identity and gender identity in the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, and further investment in manufacturing.

COVID-19 pandemic

Whitmer issued a stay-at-home order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. This order was met with broad public approval; a March poll found that 69% of Michigan residents supported Whitmer's actions, including 61% of self-identified Republicans.

After Whitmer extended the order and tightened restrictions in April, an eight-hour protest against the restrictions, organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and co-hosted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, attracted between 3,000 and 4,000 protesters to the Michigan State Capitol. New York Times columnist Charlie Warzel described the demonstration as "twisted, paranoid and racialized", pushed by conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones. Jeanine Pirro of Fox News praised the protesters, saying: "God bless them, it's going to happen all over the country." At the time of the protest, more than 1,900 people in Michigan had died after contracting the virus. On April 29, a Michigan judge upheld the order against legal challenge, ruling: "Our fellow residents have an interest to remain unharmed by a highly communicable and deadly virus. And since the state entered the Union in 1837, it has had the broad power to act for the public health of the entire state when faced with a public crisis."

Polling by the Detroit Regional Chamber in mid-April found that 57% of Michigan residents approved of Whitmer's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the extension, despite the protests. The family of the first child to die of COVID-19 in Michigan expressed support for Whitmer's decision to extend the stay-at-home order on the grounds that social distancing would save lives. LaVondria Herbert, the child's mother, said: "I want to say thank you to the governor for making people go home."

In May 2020, Detroit-based rapper Gmac Cash released a song, "Big Gretch", in support of Whitmer and her handling of the pandemic. In the song, Cash calls to put "Buffs on her face", referring to a brand of buffalo horn sunglasses from Cartier, which Detroiters consider a sign of respect.

On October 2, 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 4–3 that "a state law allowing the governor to declare emergencies and keep them in place without legislative input—the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act—is unconstitutional", and unanimously ruled that the 1976 Emergency Management Act "did not give Whitmer the power, after April 30, to issue or renew any executive orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic after 28 days without Legislative approval". Also on October 2, a petition containing 539,384 signatures was submitted seeking to repeal the 1945 EPGA law allowing Whitmer emergency powers during the pandemic.

In March 2021, Whitmer traveled to Florida for three days to visit her ailing father. The trip was controversial, in part because Whitmer did not self-quarantine on her return, despite voluntary guidelines from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services recommending self-quarantine for a full seven days after travel; Whitmer's staff said she was regularly tested for COVID-19. Further controversy about the trip arose because Air Eagle LLC, the company hired to fly Whitmer to Florida, is not authorized to operate charter flights.

In May 2021, Whitmer was photographed with a large group of unmasked people, with no social distancing, in a bar in East Lansing. The restaurant was violating state-mandated social distancing guidelines that restricted indoor dining to six people per table. Whitmer apologized for the incident.

National profile
In February 2020, Whitmer was selected to deliver the Democratic response to the State of the Union address by then President Donald Trump. Michigan was considered a swing state in the 2020 United States presidential election, and it was speculated that Democrats hoped selecting Whitmer would bolster their chance of winning the state.

In early March, days before the 2020 Michigan Democratic presidential primary, Whitmer endorsed Joe Biden, and joined his campaign as a national co-chair.

In 2020, amid her handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as after tweets in which Trump attacked her and called her "that woman from Michigan", Whitmer gained a greater national profile. Her response to the pandemic was the subject of the cover story of Newsweek May 1, 2020, edition. Also in May, Cecily Strong impersonated Whitmer on an episode of Saturday Night Live. Strong portrayed Whitmer on the show again in February 2021.

Whitmer was vetted by Biden's team as a potential running mate during the 2020 Democratic Party vice presidential candidate selection; Biden confirmed she was on his shortlist in March. Michigan's status as a key swing state was seen as boosting her prospects of being selected. The New York Times reported that she was one of four finalists for the position along with Kamala Harris, Susan Rice, and Elizabeth Warren; Harris was selected. According to some reports, Whitmer removed herself from consideration, urging Biden to choose a Black woman instead. Whitmer's consideration for the position further elevated her national stature.

Whitmer delivered a speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention that praised Biden's work in rescuing the Michigan auto industry and criticized Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whitmer was seen as having strong prospects of being offered a position in Biden's cabinet. On January 9, 2021, she said she was not interested in leaving her role as governor.

In early January 2021, then-President-elect Biden nominated Whitmer as one of the vice chair candidates for the Democratic National Committee; the committee elected Whitmer and the rest of the slate of candidates on January 20 unopposed.

After her 2022 reelection, Whitmer was considered a possible presidential candidate in the event that Biden did not run for reelection. In an article for Vanity Fair, journalist and presidential advisor Jennifer Palmieri endorsed Whitmer as a potential presidential contender. In response to these speculations, Whitmer declared that she would not run for president, intending to serve a full second term as governor. On April 25, 2023, Whitmer was named co-chair of Biden's reelection campaign.

Kidnapping plot

On October 8, 2020, a federal indictment against six men associated with the Wolverine Watchmen, a Michigan-based militia group, was unsealed. The indictment charges the men with plotting to kidnap Whitmer and violently overthrow Michigan's government. The FBI became aware of the scheme in early 2020 after communications among the far-right group were discovered, and via an undercover agent who met with more than a dozen individuals at a meeting in Dublin, Ohio. Another seven men were charged with state crimes in relation to the plot. Facebook is cooperating with the investigation, since the federal criminal complaint detailed how the group used a private Facebook group to discuss the alleged plot.

In the wake of the unsealed indictment, Whitmer, in a livestream, thanked the law enforcement agencies involved in the investigation. She called the plotters "sick and depraved men" and blamed Trump for refusing to explicitly condemn far-right groups and for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In April 2022, two men (Harris and Caserta) were acquitted on all charges on grounds of entrapment by federal authorities. In August 2022, two others (Fox and Barry Croft Jr.) were convicted of conspiracy to kidnap. In October 2022, three others (Morrison, Musico, and Bellar) were convicted of providing material support for a terrorist act. Additionally, Garbin and Franks pleaded guilty.

Policies and political positions

Abortion

During the COVID-19 pandemic, groups within the United States anti-abortion movement criticized Whitmer for allowing abortion procedures to continue in Michigan, stating that they were "life-sustaining". In September 2021, Whitmer began working with the state legislature to repeal a 90-year-old law that banned abortion in Michigan, so as to preserve abortion rights in the state in case Roe v. Wade was overturned. On April 5, 2023, Whitmer signed legislation to repeal Michigan's statutory ban on abortion procedures and drugs.

Corporate incentives
Whitmer is in favor of using corporate incentives to attract business and manufacturing to Michigan. On December 20, 2021, she signed House Bill 4603, creating a $1 billion economic development fund to attract manufacturers to Michigan. The bill had bipartisan support. In a public Facebook post dated April 19, 2012, Whitmer criticized Governor Rick Snyder and his handing over public funds to big business. Her complaint was attached to an article by Tim Skubick.

On February 13, 2023, Whitmer attended a press conference with Ford Motor Company executives at Ford's Romulus facility to announce the creation of Ford Blue Oval Battery Factory on the Marshall Megasite, 1,900 acres of farmland in Marshall Township, Calhoun County. The state has allocated over $1.8 billion to purchase land and prep it for Ford Blue Oval. The move proved contentious as the property, purchased with state funds, was not zoned for heavy industry. Public backlash to the project ensued against the Marshall Megasite and the Ford Motor Company's Blue Oval Battery Park. On May 1, 2023, after a six-hour public hearing, the Marshall City Council voted to change the zoning on the Marshall Megasite to allow for heavy industrial site. Council members had rejected the Joint Planning Committee's recommendation to reject the zoning changes. Marshall residents collected 810 signatures of registered voters within the City of Marshall asking for a referendum. The Marshall City Council rejected the petition submitted by the Committee for Marshall-Not the Megasite. The committee then filed suit against the City of Marshall and the Clerk for refusing to accept the petition. The Detroit Free Press uncovered a connection between Whitmer's campaign connection and a ballot committee which filed a lawsuit against the Committee for Marshall-Not the Megasite. Neither Whitmer's campaign committee nor Whitmer herself confirmed or denied the connection to the ballot committee that filed the lawsuit.

Cannabis legalization

In 2018, as a candidate for governor, Whitmer spoke at Hash Bash to endorse Proposal 1 to legalize recreational cannabis in Michigan. Whitmer said that she had been a longtime supporter of legalizing cannabis, "before it was politically fashionable", and that the time was right to "get it done" so "maybe we can get to work filling those damn potholes" and "regulate it so it doesn't get in the hands of kids". In 2019, as governor, she reappeared at Hash Bash via recorded video message, saying: "We worked hard, we got it done, we made recreational marijuana legal in the state of Michigan."

Education
Whitmer has said she would like to phase in full-day universal pre-k for 4-year-olds in Michigan. She eliminated Michigan's third-grade "read-or-flunk" policy, which she says penalizes students the education system has failed; she wants to work to improve their reading skills. She proposes that all high school students be offered two years of debt-free higher education, either college or post-secondary training for skilled trades.

Whitmer established the Michigan Reconnect program passed with bipartisan support in 2019 after first proposing the program in her State of the State speech as part of her "60 by 30" goal to address workforce talent shortages: having 60% of working-age adults in Michigan with a skill certificate or college degree by 2030. The program allows any Michigander 25 or older without a college degree to enroll tuition-free in an associate degree or professional skills certificate program. In her 2023 State of the State Address, Whitmer called for expanding the program by lowering the minimum age to 21. As of 2023, over 113,000 people had been accepted into the program.

In 2020, Whitmer launched the Futures for Frontliners program, providing tuition-free access to an associate degree or professional certification program for Michiganders who served as essential workers during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2021, more than 120,000 people had applied for the first-of-its-kind program.

Whitmer signed bipartisan legislation in 2022 establishing the Michigan Achievement Scholarship and providing $560 million to fund it. The "sweeping college scholarship program" is the state's largest effort to date to expand affordable access to college education, estimated to provide scholarships for 94% of students at community college, 76% of students at public universities, and 79% of students at private universities and colleges.

Environment
Whitmer has ordered the closure of major oil pipelines in Michigan and supports renewable energy initiatives. She has been endorsed by the Sierra Club's Michigan Chapter. She is a proponent of expanding industry onto agricultural lands and natural areas throughout Michigan, most notably in supporting industrial "Megasites", such as the proposed Marshall Megasite or Michigan Megasite, which would use 1,600 acres of agricultural lands and natural area along the Kalamazoo River for industrial development. Environmentalists at The National Wildlife Federation oppose this, saying that the protection of natural areas is critical for wildlife habitat and in fighting the effects of climate change by offsetting carbon emissions. In February 2019, Whitmer issued an executive order No. 2019-06, which calls for the reorganization of government departments and renamed The Department of Environmental Quality the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. The department that promotes the development of industrial Megasites is thus now under the umbrella of the former Department of Environmental Quality.

Guns

On January 11, 2021, Whitmer called for a ban on all weapons inside the Michigan State Capitol in response to armed protestors in April 2020. In her seven "concrete steps" to deter school shooting, she has called for bans on bump stocks and increasing resources for school resource officers. In 2019, Whitmer joined 11 other governors in calling for stricter gun control laws in the form of  "common sense gun legislation". In 2012, she wrote an open letter to National Rifle Association President Wayne LaPierre on HuffPost about actions to prevent further school violence like the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Health care
Whitmer has said she would fight Republican efforts to take away protections for patients with preexisting conditions. In the State Senate, she successfully worked to expand Medicaid coverage in the state under the Affordable Care Act. She spoke against single-payer healthcare as unrealistic on a state level in 2018 but also said she supports and thinks there is a good opportunity to enact federal-level Medicare for All. She also said she would work to lower the cost of prescription drugs and would get rid of Schuette's drug immunity law, which she believes protects drug companies from legal trouble if their drugs harm or kill people.

During her first term as governor, Whitmer expanded health care coverage to more than one million Michiganders under the state's Medicaid expansion program, Healthy Michigan. She played a key role in passing Michigan's Medicaid expansion in 2013 as Senate minority leader, delivering Democratic votes needed to pass it. Also during her first term, Whitmer established the Healthy Moms Healthy Babies program to help reduce infant mortality rates in low-income populations and address racial disparities in care provided for mothers and infants, and secured an expansion of postpartum Medicaid coverage providing up to 35,000 mothers with health services for a year postpartum to help reduce pregnancy-related deaths.

Whitmer signed a bipartisan bill into law in 2020 to end surprise medical billing in Michigan by requiring providers to negotiate bills for out-of-network emergency services with a patient's insurance company instead of the patient. In 2022, she signed a bipartisan package of bills into law to reduce drug prices and crack down on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The legislation required pharmacists to disclose prices of cheaper generic drugs to patients and required PBMs to be licensed and file transparency reports on their drug pricing.

Immigration
In 2021, Whitmer declared that Michigan was ready to accept Afghan refugee families fleeing the county amid the Taliban takeover following the U.S. withdrawal. She praised Michigan's "rich history of multiculturalism" and said the state was prepared "to help ensure those who arrive in Michigan can get their feet on the ground".

In 2019, Whitmer canceled the sale of a former state prison over the purchasing company's plans to operate the facility as an immigrant detention center. A spokesperson said she canceled the sale because the purchasing company could not guarantee that the facility would not be used to house members of families separated by immigration authorities.

Whitmer disapproved of Trump's plan to exclude illegal immigrants from the 2020 United States census. In 2019, she told immigration rights groups that she supported plans to give undocumented immigrants driver's licenses or a form of government ID.

Infrastructure
After running on the slogan "fix the damn roads" during her campaign, Whitmer secured historic funding for Michigan roads and bridges as governor. During her first term, over 16,000 lane miles of roads and 1,200 bridges were repaired across the state. In 2020, Whitmer announced the Rebuilding Michigan program, providing $3.5 billion in state funding for over 120 road projects for the next five years, with a focus on major roads with the greatest economic impact and traffic volume. In 2022, Whitmer signed a bipartisan $5 billion infrastructure deal that included over $400 million for state and local roads and bridges, and an executive order to streamline road repairs directing agencies to speed up permitting for infrastructure projects. Also in 2022, she announced the creation of the Michigan Infrastructure Office to coordinate between agencies and spend infrastructure funding more effectively.

The Michigan Transportation Asset Management Council's 2022 report found that Michigan's roads were "in their best shape in years", with the proportion of roads rated "good" and "fair" increasing while those in "poor" condition decreased. The council's 2023 report found that "slightly fewer roads were in good condition and slightly more were deemed poor" but said it was a good sign that roads had not deteriorated substantially from the gains in the previous year.

Whitmer has invested over $2 billion in water infrastructure improvements since taking office. She secured $1.7 billion in water infrastructure investments as part of a nearly $5 billion bipartisan infrastructure deal signed into law in 2022. The package included major funding for local governments to upgrade their drinking water systems, hundreds of millions to replace an estimated 20,000 lead service lines across the state, and millions more to address other drinking water contaminants. Whitmer created the office of the Clean Water Public Advocate in 2019 and has enforced Michigan's recently updated lead and copper drinking water rule, which has the nation's strictest standards for drinking water contamination.

LGBT rights
Whitmer has been a longtime advocate for expanding Michigan's civil rights to include LGBT individuals, supporting efforts "since her first term in office." She was endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign in both her 2018 and 2022 campaigns for governor. On March 16, 2023, Whitmer signed bipartisan legislation to expand the Elliot Larsen Act to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. The expansion protected LGBT Michiganders from  discrimination in employment and housing. The bill signing "was heralded as a historic advancement in civil rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Michiganders by activists and policymakers." Several Republican lawmakers joined with Democrats in the Michigan House and Senate to pass the bill with by significant margins.

Tax and fiscal policy
As governor, Whitmer has signed several major tax cuts into law. In 2021, she signed bipartisan legislation to eliminate the tampon tax – repealing the state sales tax on all feminine hygiene products. The bipartisan bill provided $7 million in total tax savings. Whitmer signed two bipartisan tax cuts for small businesses into law in 2021, totaling $275 million. In October 2021, she signed legislation into law expanding property tax exemptions, providing $75 million in savings for small businesses. In December 2021, Whitmer signed bipartisan legislation creating a SALT tax cap workaround for small businesses and providing a total of $200 million in tax savings. In 2023, she signed a bipartisan $1 billion package of tax cuts into law. The legislation repealed the retirement tax, quintupled the Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit, and allocated up to $500 million per year of corporate taxes towards the state's fund for business incentives. In 2022, Michigan had the fifth-lowest state and local tax burden in the nation and the lowest in the Midwest, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

Whitmer grew Michigan's rainy-day fund to an all-time high of $1.6 billion in 2022 thanks to a $500 million deposit made in 2021 and an additional $180 million deposit in 2022 as part of bipartisan spending agreements. Under Whitmer, Michigan paid down nearly $14 billion in state debt and went from a projected $3 billion deficit to a $9 billion surplus. Michigan became a "standout for investors" under Whitmer with bond returns outperforming neighboring states. In 2021, S&P and Fitch both announced rating outlook upgrades for Michigan, citing the state's responsible fiscal management and economic success emerging from the pandemic. In 2022, Fitch upgraded Michigan's credit rating from AA to AA+, citing the state's strong fiscal position and economic growth.

Voting rights
On March 28, 2020, Whitmer signed an executive order expanding access to mail-in voting.

Workers' rights
Whitmer supports labor unions. In March 2023, she signed the repeal of the state's 2012 "right-to-work law", making Michigan the first state in 58 years to do this. Whitmer also signed legislation reinstating a prevailing wage law that mandates that contractors hired for projects with the state pay union-level wages.

Personal life
Whitmer and her first husband, Gary Shrewsbury, have two children. The couple divorced, and in 2011 she married dentist Marc P. Mallory, who has three children from his previous marriage. Whitmer and Mallory live in the Michigan Governor's Mansion in Lansing, Michigan with her two daughters and his three sons. They also own a vacation cottage in Antrim County, near Elk Rapids. In May 2021, Whitmer was sharply criticized after being photographed without a mask at a Michigan restaurant, a violation of the state's COVID-19 mandate. She soon apologized publicly.

Whitmer's sister, Liz Whitmer Gereghty, is a Katonah-Lewisboro School Board trustee in Westchester County, New York, and is a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York's 17th district, a swing district held by Republican freshman Mike Lawler, in 2024.

See also
 Electoral history of Gretchen Whitmer
 List of female governors in the United States

References

External links

 Governor Gretchen Whitmer official government website
 Gretchen Whitmer for Governor campaign website

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1971 births
Living people
20th-century American politicians
20th-century American women politicians
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
Democratic Party governors of Michigan

Democratic Party members of the Michigan House of Representatives
Democratic Party Michigan state senators
Michigan State University College of Law alumni
Politicians from Lansing, Michigan
Women state constitutional officers of Michigan
Women state governors of the United States
Women state legislators in Michigan

Gretchen Whitmer


St. Cloud Times is an American, English language daily newspaper headquartered in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The Times is owned by mass media holding company Gannett and is part of the USA Today network of newspapers. The print version of the paper is printed by ECM Publishers in Princeton, Minnesota.

History
The St. Cloud Times and Journal Press was created in 1929 through the merger of several local newspapers, including the St. Cloud Union, The Visitor, St. Cloud Democrat, St. Cloud Journal-Press, and German Language Der Nordstern. The paper was renamed to the St. Cloud Daily Times in 1941, becoming a six-day a week afternoon paper owned by Fred Schilplin. The newspaper was purchased by Speidel Newspapers in 1975, which in turn was purchased by Gannett, the largest newspaper holding company in the United States, in 1977. The Times added a Sunday edition in 1988.

The St. Cloud Journal-Press had previously been known as the "St. Cloud Journal"

St. Cloud was also home to the Minnesota Union newspaper, founded by Sylvanus Lowry, a slave owner from Kentucky, Democratic political boss, and the city's first council president (the office of mayor did not exist) to compete with Radical Republican Jane Swisshelm's Saint Cloud Visiter and to provide a pro-slavery viewpoint. Lowry lived in St. Cloud in 1854 until his death in 1865. Swisshelm left St. Cloud when the Civil War broke out in 1861.

In a May 2010 report by Minnesota Public Radio, St. Cloud State University professor Christopher Lehman claimed that "Lowry founded a pro-slavery newspaper, The Union, which later became the St. Cloud Times." The Minnesota State Historical Society does not reference any holdings for the Lowry paper. The St. Cloud Times history of multiple changes of ownership does not include the Lowry "The Union" paper among the five local publications that merged over time.  "With a population of just over two thousand in 1870, St. Cloud, Minnesota, was a bustling thoroughfare, but not large enough to support the multiple newspapers published in the city."

Legacy of national and state awards
"In its prime, the paper had 40 to 50 people in its newsroom covering three counties and beyond, regularly winning state and even national journalism awards."

In the 32 years between 1985-2017, the St. Cloud Times was named the Minnesota Newspaper Association's daily newspaper of the year 25 times. That honor - the Vance Trophy - is determined by news professionals from outside Minnesota, with new judges each year. The Vance Trophy was won in succession under top editors Don Casey, Susan Ihne, John Bodette and Lisa Schwarz.

In 2017, the Times won the national Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalists award for Breaking News for its coverage of the confession of the murderer of Jacob Wetterling, a 12-year-old St. Joseph, Minn., boy who was abducted at gunpoint in 1989. Team: Kirsti Marohn, David Unze, Stephanie Dickrell, Jenny Berg, David Schwarz and Jason Wachter (photographers). Led by editor Lisa Schwarz.

In 2012, the Times won the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) Best in Business - Innovation Award for a multimedia reporting project about the impact of the Bakken oil boom on Central Minnesota, almost two states away. Judges comments on "Chasing Futures in the Oil Patch" were: "The paper was able to show readers a direct relationship from the boom in North Dakota to St. Cloud's economy. The package showed an extraordinary investment of time, thought and space by the paper to the story, although St. Cloud has limited resources." The project also won first place for in-depth reporting from the Minnesota Society of Professional Journalists. Team: Kevin Allenspach, Kimm Anderson (photographer), Lisa Sabyan (graphic artist). Led by editor Lisa Schwarz.

In 2010, the Times won the national Sigma Delta Chi/Society of Professional Journalists award for Investigative Reporting for an 18-month project exploring the public, economic and personal costs of dozens of failed housing developments in the Great Recession. Team: Kirsti Marohn, Britt Johnson, Lisa Sabyan (graphic artist). Led by editor Lisa Schwarz.

In 2007, the Times won the national Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism: Multimedia for Downtown After Dark, a mulitmedia reporting project that showed a college community what its bar district looked like after everyone but the students, hospitality workers and law enforcement was in bed. Team: Kari Petrie, Dave Schwarz (photographer). Led by editor Lisa Schwarz.

In 2004, the Times embedded reporter Michelle Tan and photographer Dave Schwarz with the 367th Infantry assigned to Bagram, Afghanistan for three weeks. In addition to daily reports, the Times produced a book from their reporting. Led by editor Rene Kaluza.

Decline and Downsizing
The Times had daily circulation of more than 30,000, nearing 40,000 on Sundays, as recently as the mid-2000s and employed more than 40 people in the newsroom and more than 250 on site in its printing, advertising and business operations.

The presses were retired in 2009 due to proximity of a larger company-owned printing operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area.

In 2018, the building at 3000 7th Ave. North was sold, along with other Gannett real estate nationwide, to Twenty Lake Holding, a subsidiary of Alden Global Capital. The Times relocated its then-35 total employees to a custom-remodeled, leased property at 24 Eighth Avenue South in downtown St. Cloud on April 1, 2019.

Following its 2018 purchase by Gatehouse Media, parent company Gannett eliminated more than half (12,000+) of its newsroom jobs nationwide between 2019 and 2022, cuts substantially deeper than the rate of newspaper revenue decline. The downsizing is blamed in part on millions of dollars in debt payments related to the Gatehouse/Gannett deal.

The Times' editor resigned in July 2022, leaving a news staff of nine behind. After layoffs in August 2022, voluntary buyouts in December 2022 and resignations, a single reporter remained by December 2022 to cover Minnesota's fifth largest metropolitan area, with a population of 200,000. Industry observers referred to the shell publication as a 'ghost paper'.

Axios (website) asked Gannett in December 2022 how the bare-bones St. Cloud staff could keep producing a daily paper. The email response: "While incredibly difficult, implementing these efficiencies and responding decisively to the ongoing macroeconomic volatility will continue to propel Gannett's future."

The last remaining news reporter at the paper resigned in January 2023 to join St. Cloud Live, a new, free online publication produced by The Forum Communications Company, headquartered in Fargo North Dakota, 155 miles northwest of St. Cloud by Interstate 94.  (A sports reporter was hired later in 2023 as the Times' next sole news staffer.)

Forum Chief Content Office Mary Jo Hotzler said: "St. Cloud, from a geographical standpoint, makes sense. But more than that, we are deeply committed to local journalism and see a need in St. Cloud."

In 2022, Gannett ended newspaper delivery of the Times, distributing the paper through the U.S. Mail instead, eliminating a separate Saturday edition and delivering the Sunday paper on Saturday instead.

Online Digital
The newspaper's website, sctimes.com, was established in 1998., and refers to the publication as the "SC Times".  The publication offers readers a 'digital only' option.

References

External links
Official website

Newspapers published in Minnesota
1861 establishments in Minnesota
Newspapers established in 1861
St. Cloud, Minnesota

St. Cloud Times


UC Browser is a  web browser developed by mobile internet company UCWeb, a subsidiary of the Alibaba Group. It was the most popular mobile browser in India and Indonesia, and the second most popular one in China as of 2017. Its world-wide browser share as of May 2022 is 0.86% overall (and 1.48% on smartphones) according to StatCounter.

Originally launched in April 2004 as a Java-only application, it was subsequently made available on a number of platforms including Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, Java ME, Symbian, Windows Phone, and Microsoft Windows. As of 2020, Android is the only OS still supported by the browser.

It has been the subject of several security and privacy controversies, and was banned in India on June 29, 2020, shortly after the 2020–2022 China–India skirmishes started.

Functionality
UC Browser is a cross-platform web browser primarily targeted at mobile phones. It is known for its small app size and data compression technology, making it popular in emerging markets where people tend to have mobile phones with more limited device memory and internet bandwidth. In particular, the browser is unique in its use of proxy servers, which run data through UCWeb servers before sending it to the user's device, enabling data compression but also posing privacy risks. Additional features of the browser include cloud acceleration, multi-file format downloading, HTML5 web app and cloud syncing features, and "fast download", a feature that downloads files in multiple parts simultaneously.

Platforms
UC Browser is available as both an Android app and an iOS app, and is also available on several other older or discontinued mobile operating systems including BlackBerry OS, Symbian, and Windows Phone. While primarily a mobile app, UCWeb also offers a Microsoft Windows desktop version (there is no macOS version).

Data compression
UC Browser uses proxy servers to compress web pages before sending them to users. This process requires less memory on the user's device and lowers data costs; however, it also poses privacy and security risks as all of the data accessed by the user through UC Browser first runs through a UCWeb server, rather than going directly to the user's device.

UC+: HTML5, WebApp and add-ons
In July 2013, UCWeb announced the UC+ Open Platform. The platform consists of a WebApp store, an add-on platform and an Application Bookmark Platform. It went live with the launch of UC Browser v9.2 for Android.

Developers can use a provided SDK to create programs that the browser runs in different scenarios. Users can download and install them from the browser's add-on panel. Examples include sharing to social media, webpage translation, augmented reality, and voice control. The Application Bookmark Platform allows partner websites to put up a QR code on UC Browser for users to scan, which adds the webpage to their bookmarks. This platform was among the first in China.

Download management
The browser supports simultaneous downloads and includes a download manager, including pages for offline reading. It supports pausing and resuming downloads. The current version of the download manager has features designed to solve common problems while downloading, such as an intermittent internet connection and mislabeled files. The download process can continue after the app is closed, and can also automatically resume if the download is interrupted. The download manager sorts downloaded files by type and places them in respective folders.

Cloud system
UCWeb claims that the cloud system used by the browser tends to fetch data from the closest servers available, making the loading process quicker and smoother for users.

Privacy and security vulnerabilities

In May 2015, National Security Agency (NSA) documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden indicated that UC Browser leaks sensitive data like international mobile subscriber identities, international mobile station equipment identities, MSISDN's, Android ID's, MAC addresses, and geolocation and Wi-Fi-related data without any encryption. These leaks were used by intelligence agencies to track users. The documents also revealed that the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) had identified UC Browser as a security weak point. Its widespread use in China, India and Indonesia made it particularly attractive to ASD. The documents revealed that in cooperation with its Five Eyes partners, ASD hacked the UC Browser and infected smartphones with spyware. The ASD declined to comment in relation to the revelations.

Following the leaks, the Citizen Lab based at the University of Toronto published an independent report corroborating numerous privacy and security issues with both the English language and Chinese language editions of the Android version of UC Browser. The report criticized the transmission of personally identifiable information to various commercial analytics tools and the transmission of user search queries without encryption. They also managed to bypass the encryption of UC Browser, leading them to accuse UCWeb of using non-effective encryption systems to transmit personally identifiable subscriber data, mobile device identifiers, and user geolocation data.

In May 2016, Alibaba Group provided Citizen Lab with updated versions of UC Browser in order to verify their security fixes to these issues. The subsequent update published by Citizen Lab indicated that not all of the previously identified data leaks and privacy breaches had been fixed in UC Browser.

In 2017, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), a scientific research unit within India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), began a technical investigation into the "several major privacy and security vulnerabilities that would seriously expose users of UC Browser to surveillance and other privacy violations" alleged in the report. C-DAC found that the browser (which was the second-most-used browser in India) had been sending user data to Chinese servers and that it retains control over a user's device DNS even after the browser is deleted.

In March 2019, analysts at the anti-malware firm Doctor Web publicly disclosed that UC Browser and UC Browser Mini for Android was downloading and installing extra modules from the company's own servers via an unprotected HTTP channel. This exposed browser users to arbitrary remote code execution if an attacker was able to perform a man-in-the-middle attack to deliver malicious module (but no cases of exploitation were publicly disclosed). Furthermore, this violates Google Play policies that forbid Google Play apps from downloading any executable code from any sources outside of Google Play. In June 2020, a new version of its UC browser was added to the Google Play store with updated settings that comply with the store's security guidelines.

In May 2019, Indian security researcher Arif Khan reported that the URL address bars on the UC Browser and UC Browser Mini apps were susceptible to URL spoofing.

In June 2021, it was discovered that the app is recording user data and sending IP addresses to Alibaba servers.

Market adoption

UC Browser gained significant popularity in China, India, and Indonesia in 2012 through 2017 and still retains some popularity in China. In October 2012, UC Browser topped Opera in Google Play's free Android app download category in India for the first time. Google Zeitgeist 2013 showed that the "Most Searched Mobile Apps" in India were dominated by messaging and browsing apps, with WhatsApp and UC Browser topping the rankings for the most searches on mobile in 2013. As of March 2014, UC Browser had over 500 million users, largely in China, India, and Indonesia, and as of 2016 it had more than 100 million monthly active users. According to the app analytics firm App Annie, UC Browser was the 8th most downloaded mobile app of the 2010–2019 decade.

However, according to independent web analytics firm StatCounter, UC Browser had never been the leading browser in China and had never exceeded 20% browser share there. As of March 2021, Google Chrome had 43% browser share, while UC Browser had 18%.

In India UC Browser was the leading browser from October 2013 through June 2017, peaking at 46% browser share. As of March 2021, Google Chrome had 85% browser share, while UC Browser had 4.3% share.

In Indonesia UC Browser was the leading browser from July 2015 much of the time until March 2017, peaking at 51% browser share. As of March 2021, Google Chrome had 81% browser share, while UC Browser had 1.9% share.

The number of users of UC Browser may be significantly affected by the May 2020 recommendation by India's National Security Council following the 2020 China–India skirmishes that UC Browser and other Chinese-owned apps be blocked due to cyber-security concerns.

History
UC Browser was initially launched in April 2004 as a J2ME-only application.

The logo of UC Browser was redesigned in 2012, from a cartoon squirrel to a more abstract and stylized squirrel that's more in line with American designs.

In May 2013, UCWeb customized its browser for Vodafone's Indian customers.

In August 2013, UC Browser provided distribution channels of companies like AppURL Initiative and partnered with distributor Gameloft to sell its products.

In 2013 also it announced a partnership with Trend Micro, under which both companies worked to provide mobile web safety assessments in the browser.

On June 26, 2020, the Government of India banned UC Browser, along with 58 other Chinese apps such as TikTok and WeChat, citing data and privacy issues and claiming that it is a "threat to the sovereignty and integrity" of the country. Many experts believe that the move was a retaliation to the 2020 China–India skirmishes between India and China.

In March 2021 the browser was removed from several Chinese app stores over a complaint that it was selling misleading medical adverts when searching for hospitals in the browser. It was still available on Apple Inc's Chinese app store.

See also

 CM Browser
 QQ browser
 Opera (web browser)
 Opera Mini, a server-based compressing browsing system
 Bolt (web browser), a discontinued server-based compressing browsing system
 List of web browsers

References

Java device platform
Java platform software
Mobile web browsers
Android web browsers
IOS web browsers
Windows Phone software
Symbian software
2004 software
Alibaba Group
Internet censorship in India

UC Browser


Richard "Dick" Bailey Scotton AO (19 December 1930 – 1 October 2019) was an Australian health economist,  best known as one of the original key policy advisers who designed the Australian Medibank program—Australia's first and current system of publicly funded universal health care, now known as Medicare.

Scotton was educated at the University of Sydney where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Economics.  In June 2000 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for "service to social reform as a leading health economist and policy analyst, particularly through the development of the Medibank scheme."

Medibank

Between 1965 and 1970, Scotton worked with John Deeble to formulate a universal health care system for Australia. At that time, Australia was coming to the end of more than two decades of conservative government by the Liberal-National Coalition under Prime Ministers Robert Menzies, Harold Holt John Gorton and William McMahon. The Liberal and National parties opposed such a system, and so the plan was initially rejected. However, the Government's attitude changed in 1972 with the election of the reformist Whitlam Labor Government, who had campaigned promising to implement free universal health care in Australia for the first time.

Scotton then entered the public service to implement the Medibank program (known later Medicare) as chairman of the Health Insurance Commission (1973–1976). He worked closely with Social Security Minister Bill Hayden as a Special Advisor for several years.  In his autobiography, Hayden said that, "The struggle for Medibank ... was indisputably the most furiously fought domestic policy issues at any time since the ... nationalisation and health services battles of the Chifley Government in 1949."  "Dick Scotton and John Deeble, creaters of the Medibank health insurance concept,", he added, "were remarkably adept academics, endlessly bouncing new policy ideas. What's more, they were able to develop practical working systems with which to implement the ideas."

Academic career

Scotton spent part of his career at the University of Melbourne. He then held senior administrative positions in the Health Commission of Victoria and the Victorian Accident Compensation Commission. He then returned to academia as a professorial fellow in health economics at Monash University's Centre for Health Program Evaluation. In 2000, Scotton retired from full-time work.

References

1930 births
2019 deaths
Health economists
Australian economists
Academic staff of Monash University
Academic staff of the University of Melbourne
Officers of the Order of Australia
Medicare Australia
People from Lithgow, New South Wales

Richard Scotton


Irmgard Seefried (born Köngetried, Bavaria, 9 October 1919; died Vienna, 24 November 1988) was a famous German soprano who sang opera and lieder.

Irmgard Seefried was born in Köngetried, near Mindelheim, Bavaria, Germany.  She studied at Augsburg University.  Her first appearance in opera was in Aachen where she sang the role of the priestess in Verdi's Aida in 1940. She soon began to sing leading parts, and in 1943 she sang the part of Eva in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Vienna State Opera conducted by Karl Böhm. Since then, she belonged to the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera until she retired in 1976.

She sang at the Salzburg Festival nearly every year and gave many recitals.  She appeared at the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden in London from 1947 to 1949, and also La Scala in Milan, Edinburgh Festival, etc. She sang at the  Metropolitan Opera in New York  during the 1953 -a1954 season the role of Susanna in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro

She is especially remembered for her singing of the music of Mozart and Richard Strauss, but she also sang in other composers' operas; the title role in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Eva in Der Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Blanche in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, and the title role in Janáček's Káťa Kabanová. She was a great lieder singer and several of her Salzburg Festival recitals were recorded.  She left many recordings of oratorio and sacred music by Bach, Mozart, Haydn (including at least four different performances of the Angel Gabriel in Die Schöpfung), Brahms, Fauré, Beethoven, Dvořák, and Stravinsky.

Although she was a high soprano, she performed, and recorded, both the trousers roles of the Composer in Strauss's  Ariadne auf Naxos and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier.

She often sang with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, who said in an interview that Seefried could do easily some things which other singers struggled all their lives to do.

She was married to the Austrian violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan from 1948 until her death.

After retirement, she taught students at Vienna Music Academy and Salzburg Mozarteum. She died aged 69 in Vienna in 1988.

1919 births
1988 deaths
German singers
Sopranos
German opera singers

Irmgard Seefried


Francisco Calderón Guardia (13 June 1906 – 17 July 1977) was a Costa Rican politician.

Guardia was a member of the influential Calderón-Guardia family, born in San Jose, the son of Rafael Ángel Calderón Muñoz and Ana Maria Guardia Mora.  He was married three times, first in 1937 with Leticia G.H.G. Bernini, second with Josefina Gonzalez and third in 1965 with Maria Luisa Lopez Mejia.

During the presidential administration of his brother Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, Francisco Calderón Guardia was Secretary of the Interior (1940-1942) and Minister of Public Security (1942-1944). From 1940 until 1944, Guardia was third Vice President of Costa Rica. During which time he served for five days (1 to 5 December 1941) as the interim President, while his brother was on a trip to Nicaragua.  He was first Vice President of Costa Rica in the following administration of Teodoro Picado Michalski, 1944-1948.

After the civil war of 1948, Guardia and his brothers fled to Nicaragua. Later he moved to Mexico, from whence he returned to Costa Rica in 1958. He was again a member of the Costa Rican government as a deputy from 1958 to 1962 in the administration of Mario Echandi Jiménez. In 1966, he joined with his brother, Rafael Ángel, in forming the National Unification Party, and after his brother's death in 1970, Guardia became the most prominent figure in the party.

Francisco Calderón Guardia died in San Jose, Costa Rica, on 17 July 1977.

Notes

External links
 Picture of Francisco Calderón Guardia from Life Magazine in 1955, accessed 30 November 2008

Vice presidents of Costa Rica
1906 births
1977 deaths
Government ministers of Costa Rica
National Unification Party (Costa Rica) politicians

Francisco Calderón Guardia


The Butcher Boy is a 1997 Irish black comedy film directed by Neil Jordan. The film was based on Patrick McCabe's 1992 novel of the same name and McCabe co-wrote the screenplay with Jordan.

Set in the early 1960s, The Butcher Boy is about Francie Brady (Eamonn Owens), a 12-year-old boy who retreats into a violent fantasy world to escape the reality of his dysfunctional family; as his circumstances worsen, his sanity deteriorates and he begins acting out, with increasing brutality. The film won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 48th Berlin International Film Festival in 1998 and a Special Mention for Owens "astonishing lead". It also won the European Film Award for Best Cinematographer for Adrian Biddle.

The Butcher Boy was also the final film produced by The Geffen Film Company, and was released before their closure in 1998.

Plot
The film is set in Ireland in the early 1960s in the small town of Clones. Francie Brady is a 12-year-old boy whose imagination is fuelled by television - aliens, communists, the Atomic Age. When his mother suffers a nervous breakdown and ultimately commits suicide, he is left in the care of his father, an emotionally distant and ill-tempered alcoholic. Francie spends most of his time with his best friend Joe Purcell talking about "gangsters, cowboys and Indians, comic-book monsters and the early-1960s threat of nuclear annihilation." However, when Francie's growing conflict with another boy, Phillip Nugent, and his mother begins to go too far, he ends up at reform school. Here, he is molested by Father Sullivan, and finds solace only in his fantasies about a foul-mouthed Virgin Mary. He returns home to find Joe has outgrown him and befriended Phillip Nugent. Before long, his father has drunk himself to death. Faced with being left completely alone in the world, Francie loses his grip on reality and lashes out with uncontrollable brutality, which shocks his provincial hometown.

Cast

Production
The screen rights to the book were bought by Neil Jordan in 1992 during the filming of Interview with the Vampire. The adaptation is mostly faithful to the novel, but there are some differences, the principal change being the ending. In the book, Francie is not seen to leave prison, and attempts to forge a friendship with an inmate similar to the one he had with Joe. In the film, a much older Francie is released from prison at the end to be brought to a halfway house. He picks a snowdrop, echoing the opening of the film.

Casting the child to play Francie was difficult. With no previous filming experiences, Eamonn Owens and Alan Boyle (who played Francie's best friend, Joe) were found at the local school in Killeshandra in County Cavan where casting assistant Maureen Hughes went to visit her uncle. Owens' younger brother Ciaran was also cast. Jordan cast O'Connor because "she looks like the Virgin Mary."

Adaptation
Patrick McCabe's accomplishment with The Butcher Boy was deemed unattainable in a film. During the screenwriting process, McCabe wrote two drafts that digressed from the original novel, like "planets within planets within planets" according to Jordan, consequently, Jordan wrote the third draft that was more faithful to the novel. Jordan cast McCabe in the role of town drunk Jimmy the Skite.

Jordan captures Francie's mental illness by using voice-overs where the adult narrator Francie speaks with the child Francie. Andrew O'Hehir at Salon Entertainment criticizes Jordan and McCabe for an occasional "flavor of an after-school special purveying didactic lessons about abuse and victimization," and losing "the novel's Beckettian ambiguity." However, he argues that Jordan "brings a tenderness and sweetness" to the otherwise unforgiving subject matter.

Reception
The reception of the film has been generally positive. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes shows a 77% rating based on 61 reviews and an average rating of 7.4/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Equal parts comical and harrowing, The Butcher Boy is a sobering tale of abuse told with an imaginative lyricism that is by turns inspired and distracting."

Andrew O'Hehir of Salon said, "Neil Jordan's sweetly tragicomic movie" has "elaborate fantasy sequences [that] feel like irrelevant amusements." He also praises the film as "a compelling exploration of the permeable border between normal childhood and full-on insanity."
Jeffrey M. Anderson at Combustible Celluloid called the film "a roller-coaster ride for your brain. It's the most alive and deeply-felt movie I've seen in 1998." Emanuel Levy at Variety said it is "Neil Jordan's most accomplished and brilliant film to date."

Owens received widespread acclaim for his performance; he was awarded a Special Mention at the Berlin Film Festival in 1998.

The film grossed £1,807,666 ($3 million) in the UK and Ireland, the highest-grossing Irish film of the year. In the United States and Canada, it grossed $1,995,911 for a worldwide total of over $5 million.

Awards

Soundtrack

Elliot Goldenthal composed the soundtrack for the film, which was released on CD in 1998. Goldenthal for this score mixes many different music genres and styles, yet this is one of his most melodic scores. The title song is performed by Sinéad O'Connor.

Home media
A widescreen, closed-captioned version of the film was released on DVD on 13 February 2007 by Warner Home Video. The disc contains deleted scenes and an audio commentary by Neil Jordan.

References

External links

1997 films
1997 black comedy films
1997 comedy-drama films
Irish comedy-drama films
English-language Irish films
American comedy-drama films
1990s English-language films
Films directed by Neil Jordan
Fiction with unreliable narrators
Magic realism films
Films about mental health
Films about dysfunctional families
Films based on Irish novels
The Geffen Film Company films
Warner Bros. films
Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in film
Films scored by Elliot Goldenthal
1990s American films

The Butcher Boy (1997 film)


The Guangzhou–Hankou or Yuehan railway is a former railroad in China which once connected Guangzhou on the Pearl River in the south with Wuchang on the Yangtze River in the north. At the Yangtze, the railway carriages were ferried to Hankou, which then connected to the Beijing–Hankou railway. It was constructed from 1900 to 1936 and, from their former romanizations, was known at the time as the .

The completion of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge in 1957 finally linked the two lines into a single contiguous railway and its former track now forms the southern leg of the Beijing–Guangzhou railway.

History

In 1897, a concession for the Beijing–Hankou railway was awarded to a Belgian consortium backed by French financing. The British were then the dominant foreign power in China, and the Belgian concession would keep the important route out of British hands. To prevent the French from controlling the entire route between Beijing and Guangzhou, the Chinese government actively sought American involvement in the Guangzhou–Hankou railway.  A concession for the southern railway was awarded to the American China Development Company in 1898.

Construction on the project began in 1900, with the southern terminus on the east bank of the Pearl River. The  branch line to Sanshui ("Samshui") via Foshan ("Fatshan") was constructed westward from the west bank of the Pearl from 1902 to 1904.

A diplomatic crisis erupted when it was discovered that a Belgian consortium had purchased a controlling interest in the American China Development Company. This subverted the original intention of awarding different railway lines to different foreign powers. The American financier J. P. Morgan bought a large stake in the company in November 1904, but the concession was cancelled on November 19, 1904. Morgan demanded  in compensation but settled for  million, representing treble damages for the  already spent on the construction of the railway, plus  to redeem the concession.

The railway was completed in 1936.

See also
 Theodone C. Hu
 Guangzhou–Sanshui railway
 Rail transport & History of rail transport in China
 List of railways in China

References

Railway lines in China
Rail transport in Guangdong
Rail transport in Hubei
Rail transport in Hunan
Railway lines opened in 1936
1936 establishments in China

Guangzhou–Hankou railway


Taipei Zoo is a metro and a gondola station in Taipei, Taiwan. It is a terminal station on the Wenhu Line and the Maokong Gondola. It will be a future transfer station for the Circular Line in 2029. The station code of the Wenhu Line station is BR01 and the future station code of the Circular Line station will be Y01.

Station layout information
The platforms of the Wenhu Line are above ground level. Platform 1 is for Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center. Platform 2 is not in service, because Taipei Zoo is the terminal station. The Circular line platforms will be accessible in the future through an underground platform.

Around the station
Taipei Zoo
Maokong Gondola

Railway stations in Taipei

Taipei Zoo station


Yahtzee is a dice game made by Milton Bradley (a company that has since been acquired and assimilated by Hasbro). It was first marketed under the name of Yahtzee by game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe in 1956. The game is a development of earlier dice games such as Poker Dice, Yacht and Generala. It is also similar to Yatzy, which is popular in Scandinavia.

The objective of the game is to score points by rolling five dice to make certain combinations. The dice can be rolled up to three times in a turn to try to make various scoring combinations and dice must remain in the box. A game consists of thirteen rounds. After each round, the player chooses which scoring category is to be used for that round. Once a category has been used in the game, it cannot be used again. The scoring categories have varying point values, some of which are fixed values and others for which the score depends on the value of the dice. A Yahtzee is five-of-a-kind and scores 50 points, the highest of any category. The winner is the player who scores the most points.

Yahtzee was marketed by the E.S. Lowe Company from 1956 until 1973. In 1973, the Milton Bradley Company purchased the E.S. Lowe Company and assumed the rights to produce and sell Yahtzee. During Lowe's ownership, over 40 million Yahtzee games were sold worldwide. According to the current owner, Hasbro, as of 2007, 50 million Yahtzee games are sold each year. A classic edition is currently being marketed by Winning Moves Games USA.

History
The overall concept of Yahtzee traces its roots to a number of traditional dice games. Among these are the game Generala, the German game of Kniffel and the English games of Poker Dice and Cheerio.

The most important predecessor of Yahtzee is the dice game Yacht, which is an English cousin of Generala and dates back to at least 1938. Wood classifies Yacht, and a similar three-dice game called Crag, as sequence dice games. Yahtzee is similar to Yacht in both name and content. Although Yahtzee is clearly derived from Yacht, it differed from it in a number of significant ways:
It introduced the upper section bonus.
It included the three-of-a-kind category.
In Yacht both straights are a sequence of five (Big Straight is 2–3–4–5–6, Little Straight is 1–2–3–4–5). Yahtzee introduced the sequence of four straight (the Small Straight).
It introduced Yahtzee bonuses and the Joker rule.
There were also a number of scoring differences.

The present-day commercial Yahtzee began when toy and game entrepreneur Edwin S. Lowe filed Yahtzee as a trademark with the U.S. Patent Office on April 19, 1956. The first commercial usage of the name Yahtzee was a few weeks earlier on April 3. Lowe classified his product as a Poker Dice Game. Lowe is also responsible for introducing Bingo to the U.S. market.

According to Hasbro, the game was invented by an anonymous Canadian couple, who called it The Yacht Game because they played it on their yacht with their friends. Later they asked Lowe if he would make up some sets to be given as gifts to their friends who enjoyed the game. Lowe perceived the possibility of marketing the game, and acquired the rights to the game from the couple in exchange for 1,000 gift sets. This story is expanded by Lowe in the 1973 book A Toy is Born by Marvin Kaye. According to Lowe, the game did not initially do well commercially, since the rules and appeal were not easily conveyed in an advertisement. Eventually, he had the idea of organizing Yahtzee parties at which people could play the game and thereby gain a first-hand appreciation of it. The idea was successful, and enthusiasts quickly popularized the game through word of mouth.

The E.S. Lowe Company sold Yahtzee from 1956 to 1973. During Lowe's ownership, a number of changes were made to the game's packaging, contents, and appearance. Between 1956 and 1961, the game's advertising slogan was changed from "The Game That Makes You Think While Having Fun" to "The Fun Game That Makes Thinking Fun!"

The game and its contents were copyrighted by Lowe in 1956, 1961, 1967, and 1972. In 1973, Milton Bradley purchased the E.S. Lowe Company and assumed the rights to produce and sell Yahtzee. During Lowe's ownership over 40 million Yahtzee games were sold in America and around the globe. The game has maintained its popularity. According to current owner Hasbro, as of 2007, 50 million Yahtzee games are sold each year.

Over time, the Yahtzee logo has taken several forms. The original version of the logo was used throughout the entire period that the game was produced solely by the Lowe company. After 1973, the logo changed various times. This logo is found on the scorecards and the game box(es).

A game called Yatzie was included in a game set called LUCK - 15 Grand Dice Games. Another game, Yap, shows close similarities to Yahtzee; this game was copyrighted by Robert Cissne in 1952.

Rules

The game consists of a number of rounds. In each round, a player gets three rolls of the dice, although they can choose to end their turn after one or two rolls. After the first roll the player can save any dice they want and re-roll the other dice. This procedure is repeated after the second roll. The player has complete choice as to which dice to roll. It is possible to re-roll both dice that were or were not rolled before.

The Yahtzee scorecard contains 13 different category boxes and in each round, after the third roll, the player must choose one of these categories. The score entered in the box depends on how well the five dice match the scoring rule for the category. Details of the scoring rules for each category are given below. As an example, one of the categories is called Three of a Kind. The scoring rule for this category means that a player only scores if at least three of the five dice are the same value. The game is completed after 13 rounds by each player, with each of the 13 boxes filled. The total score is calculated by summing all thirteen boxes, together with any bonuses.

The Yahtzee scorecard contains 13 scoring boxes divided into upper and lower sections.

Upper section
In the upper section there are six boxes. The score in each of these boxes is determined by adding the total number of dice matching that box.

If a player scores a total of 63 or more points in these six boxes, a bonus of 35 is added to the upper section score. Although 63 points corresponds to scoring exactly three-of-a-kind for each of the six boxes, a common way to get the bonus is by scoring four-of-a-kind for some numbers so that fewer of other numbers are needed. A player can earn the bonus even if they score a "0" in an upper section box.

In order to gauge how well a player is doing in the upper section, they often refer to being "up" or "down" compared to the average of three required for each box. So that if a player scores four "sixes" they will be "6 up"; while if they then score just two "twos" they will then be only "4 up". Similarly, if a player starts with two "twos" they will be "2 down".

Lower section
The lower section contains a number of poker-themed categories with specific point values:

Some players count five of the same number (called a "Yahtzee") as being a valid Full House. However, the official rule is that a Full House is "three of one number and two of another". Small Straight and Large Straight are sometimes called Low and High, Short and Long Straight, or Little and Big Straights.

If a category is chosen but the dice do not match the requirements of the category the player scores 0 in that category. Some combinations offer the player a choice as to which category to score them under; e.g., a full house could be scored in the Full House, the Three-Of-A-Kind, or the Chance categories. The Chance category is often used for a turn that will not score well in any other category.

Yahtzee bonuses and Joker rules

A Yahtzee occurs when all five dice are the same. If the player throws a Yahtzee and has already filled the Yahtzee box with a score of 50, they score a Yahtzee bonus and get an extra 100 points. However, if they throw a Yahtzee and have filled the Yahtzee category with a score of 0, they do not get a Yahtzee bonus.

In either case they then select a category, as usual. Scoring is the same as normal except that, if the Upper Section box corresponding to the Yahtzee has been used, the Full House, Small Straight and Large Straight categories can be used to score 25, 30 or 40 (respectively) even though the dice do not meet the normal requirement for those categories. In this case the Yahtzee is said to act as a "Joker".

There are two alternative versions of the Joker rule used.

Forced Joker rule
In the official rules the player must act in the following way:

 If the corresponding Upper Section box is unused then that category must be used.
 If the corresponding Upper Section box has been used already, a Lower Section box must be used. The Yahtzee acts as a Joker so that the Full House, Small Straight and Large Straight categories can be used to score 25, 30 or 40 (respectively).
 If the corresponding Upper Section box and all Lower Section boxes have been used, an unused Upper Section box must be used, scoring 0.

Free choice Joker rule
In the simpler, alternative version of the Joker rule the player retains the free choice as to which category to use, but the Yahtzee can only be used as a Joker if the corresponding Upper Section box has been used. If the corresponding Upper Section box is unused the Yahtzee would score 0 if the Full House, Small Straight or Large Straight categories were chosen.

Original Joker rule
The original game rules released in 1956 contain a difference from the above rules. The booklet stated that additional Yahtzees must be used as Jokers in the Lower Section and did not allow for their use in the Upper Section. This rule was changed when the game was re-copyrighted in 1961.

The winner is the player with the highest total. The rules do not specify what happens in the event of a tie.

Maximum score
The highest possible score is 1,575 and involves throwing 13 Yahtzees, scoring 12 Yahtzee bonuses of 100 points each, as well as 375 in the other categories.
The 375 is achieved by scoring five aces (5), five twos (10), five threes (15), five fours (20), five fives (25), five sixes (30), the Upper Section bonus (35), five sixes scored as Three-of-a-kind (30), five sixes scored as a four-of-a-kind (30), a full house (25), a small straight (30), a large straight (40), a Yahtzee (50), and five sixes scored as chance (30). The score of 1,575 requires using the "Joker" rules for the full house, small straight, and large straight categories.

The highest possible score without a Yahtzee bonus is 351, which is achieved with scoring a five-of-a-kind as a Yahtzee, 84 in the Upper Section (four-of-a-kind in each category), and 29 in each of 3 of a kind, 4 of a kind, and Chance. The highest possible score without rolling a five-of-a-kind is 301.

Commercial versions

Deluxe and collector editions
Deluxe edition games have been sold alongside the regular issue games since the early 1960s. They all contain components that are more luxurious than standard game parts. In recent years, a number of collector issue Yahtzees have been sold as well. Some of these collector issues have dice that replace the pips with certain symbols connected to a theme, but still correspond to the numbers one to six.

Travel Yahtzee
Since the 1970s, Travel Yahtzee has been sold in various forms as part of Milton Bradley's line of travel games.

 In the past, the travel form of Yahtzee was composed of the five dice contained in a special apparatus (see image at the right). "Rolling" the dice is initiated by turning the apparatus over, running it on one hand and turning it upright to see the faces of the dice. Dice to be saved for the next roll are locked by snapping the reverse of the apparatus.
 Currently, a zip-up cloth deluxe folio edition is sold. It consists of the set of dice, the cup, the scorecards and a tray for the dice to roll on, which includes a holder for the dice to be saved for the next roll. The cup has an oblong lip for easy storage.
 In addition to the game folio, Hasbro also released Yahtzee to Go. It comes with a dice cup that stores the dice and contents. This is similar to the original Travel Yahtzee only without the apparatus. This is sold in tandem with the game folio.
 There also exists a red circular travel edition, which includes the dice and scorecards as well as a collapsible cup and detachable dice holder. The bottom half of the case acts as a dice tray. This one uses a different logo from the standard one (the name of the game in uppercase with an exclamation point in front of a green oval) and it is sold outside the United States.
 There are also miniature versions of the game sold in sets contained either in cups that act as keychains (by the company Basic Fun)  or in specially shaped pens (by the company Stylus).

Electronic versions
Various Yahtzee console games have been sold over the years including an early version on the TI-99/4A computer as well as a 1978 version introduced on the Apple II computer. In 1996, the game was first released to PC and Mac users by Atari. The Ultimate Yahtzee CD-ROM game contained standard Yahtzee as well as other varieties. Later, GameHouse also released an authorized special version of the game for Windows users. It was re-released by Hasbro Interactive in 2001 with 700 free hours of AOL.

There are also several electronic versions of the game such as a handheld LCD version, and a cell phone version called Yahtzee Deluxe, which feature the original rules along with Duplicate and Rainbow modes, as well as independently produced versions for the Palm OS and Pocket PC and several cellphone models. The version for the Nintendo Game Boy was licensed from Hasbro and was produced by DSI Games and Black Lantern Studios Inc. It was sold in a three pack that included Life, Pay Day, and Yahtzee. The game has also been released for the iPod, iPod Touch and the iPhone, to be purchased through the iTunes Store,  as well as Google Play. Both the iOS App and the Android App are published by Scopely. Yahtzee is available on the Xbox 360 in the Family Game Night game by Hasbro. Pogo.com released a version in 2009, and the game is also available on the Pogo Facebook site as well.

Related games

A number of related games under the Yahtzee brand have been produced. They all commonly use dice as the primary tool for gameplay, but all differ generally. The first was Triple Yahtzee, developed in 1972. The game has inspired two short-lived television game shows: 1975's Spin-Off on CBS and 1988's syndicated Yahtzee.

Online versions
There are a large number of versions of Yahtzee which can be played online or are available to download.

 "Open Yahtzee" is a cross-platform open-source (free) version of Yahtzee for one player.
 "YachtC" is a commercially available free app on the Google Play Store. It has 3 variations: The traditional version, a "7-sided" dice version called "Lucky7", and a "TriColor" version similar to Kismet
"Gidd.io" is a free multiplayer platform where Yahtzee can be played online with up to 20 players.

Similar games
There are a large number of related games. Yatzy is one of the most popular. Yatzy rules and scoring categories are somewhat different from Yahtzee:
The bonus for reaching 63 or more points in the Upper Section is normally 50 points.
There are two extra boxes for the "One Pair" and "Two Pair" categories. These score the total of the pair(s) involved. For instance, 5-5-4-4-1 will score 10 points in the One Pair box and 18 in the Two Pair box. In the Two Pair category, the pairs must be different.
The Three-of-a-Kind and Four-of-a-Kind categories are scored using the total of the needed number of same-faced dice. For instance, 5-5-5-5-6 will score 20 points in Four-of-a-Kind and 15 points in Three-of-a-Kind. This scoring rule is the same as the Four-of-a-Kind scoring used in Yacht.
Full House scores the total of all dice, as in Yacht.
Small Straight and Large Straight have the same definitions as in Yacht. A Small Straight is 1-2-3-4-5 and scores 15 points (the total of the dice faces); the Large Straight is 2-3-4-5-6 and scores 20 points (again the combined value of the dice).
There are no Yahtzee bonuses or Joker rule. Yahtzees can be scored in other categories under the normal scoring rules. For example, a Yahtzee of sixes will score 12 in the One Pair box, 18 in Three-of-a-Kind, 24 in Four-of-a-Kind, 30 in Sixes or Chance and 0 in Two Pair, Full House, Small Straight and Large Straight boxes.

Other related games include:
 Balut is the name of a Danish dice game played by expatriates in many countries all over the world. The name of the game is taken from balut eggs.
 Kismet has dice with multiple-colored pips. Both numbers and colors are taken into account when scoring.
 Yamb has several (usually 4) columns filled with special restrictions and MINIMAX categories with the bigger score if the higher is difference between min and max.

References

External links

 The Yahtzee! Page (fansite)
 P-Yahtzee - Solution, variants, statistics, tactics
 Regular Yahtzee Game Rules / Instructions

Sequence dice games
Milton Bradley Company games
IOS games
IPod games
1950s toys
Products introduced in 1956

Yahtzee


Tales of Kidd Funkadelic is the eighth studio album by the band Funkadelic, released in September 1976. It was their final album on the Westbound record label.  The tracks were recorded during the same sessions as their first release for Warner Brothers Records,  Hardcore Jollies; which was released a month later.  Two tracks from Tales of Kidd Funkadelic, the single "Undisco Kidd" and the party anthem "Take Your Dead Ass Home!" have been staples in the band's live performances since the album's 1976 release, and can be heard on the 1977 Parliament concert album Live: P-Funk Earth Tour. The album opener "Butt-To-Buttresuscitation" and the song "I'm Never Gonna Tell It" were included in the band's live shows during the early 2000s.
The song "Let's Take It to the People" has been sampled by hip-hop band A Tribe Called Quest for their song "Everything Is Fair", on their album The Low End Theory.

Kidd Funkadelic was/is the nickname for guitarist Michael Hampton.

Track listing

Side One
 "Butt-to-Butt Resuscitation" (George Clinton, Eddie Hazel, Bernie Worrell, Michael Hampton) - 3:53
 "Let's Take It to the People" (Clinton, Hazel, Garry Shider) - 1:50
 "Undisco Kidd" (Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Worrell) (released as a single-Westbound 5029) - 6:34
 "Take Your Dead Ass Home! (Say Som'n Nasty)" (Clinton, Glenn Goins, Shider, Worrell) - 7:18

Side Two
 "I'm Never Gonna Tell It" (Clinton, Worrell) - 3:41
 "Tales of Kidd Funkadelic (Opusdelite Years)" (Clinton, Worrell) - 12:56
 "How Do Yeaw View You?" (Clinton, Collins, Worrell) (released as the B-side to "Undisco Kidd) - 3:39

Funkadelic Main Invasion Force (Personnel)
Guitars: Michael Hampton, Garry Shider, Glenn Goins
Keyboards, Synthesizers: Bernie Worrell
Bass: Cordell "Boogie" Mosson
Drums: Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey
Percussion: Calvin Simon
Vocals: George Clinton, Ray Davis, Glen Goins, Clarence "Fuzzy" Haskins, Calvin Simon, Garry Shider, Grady Thomas
Maggotusi Vocal Choir (Backup Vocals): Jessica Cleaves, Cynthia Davis, Donna Davis, Debbie Edwards, Taka Kahn, Pamela Vincent, Debbie Wright, Gary "Mudbone" Cooper

Spastic Funkadelic Alumni

Eddie Hazel: Guitar
Billy "Bass" Nelson: Bass guitar
William "Bootsy" Collins: Bass guitar
Ron Bykowski: Lead guitar

References

External links
 Tales of Kidd Funkadelic at Discogs
 The Motherpage

Funkadelic albums
Westbound Records albums
1976 albums
Albums with cover art by Pedro Bell

Tales of Kidd Funkadelic


A treadwheel crane (Latin: magna rota) is a wooden, human powered hoisting and lowering device. It was primarily used during the Roman period and the Middle Ages in the building of castles and cathedrals. The often heavy charge is lifted as the individual inside the treadwheel crane walks. The rope attached to a pulley is turned onto a spindle by the rotation of the wheel thus allowing the device to hoist or lower the affixed pallet.

History

Ancient Rome

The Roman Polyspaston crane, from Ancient Greek πολύσπαστον (polúspaston, "compound pulley"), when worked by four men at both sides of the winch, could lift 3000 kg. In case the winch was replaced by a treadwheel, the maximum load even doubled to 6000 kg at only half the crew, since the treadwheel possesses a much bigger mechanical advantage due to its larger diameter. This meant that, in comparison to the construction of the ancient Egyptian pyramids, where about 50 men were needed to move a 2.5 ton stone block up the ramp (50 kg per person), the lifting capability of the Roman Polyspaston proved to be 60 times more efficient (3000 kg per person). There are two surviving reliefs of Roman treadwheel cranes, the Haterii tombstone from the late first century AD being particularly detailed. De_architectura contains a description of Polyspaston crane.

For larger weights of up to 100 t, Roman engineers set up a wooden lifting tower, a rectangular trestle which was so constructed that the column could be lifted upright in the middle of the structure by the means of human and animal-powered capstans placed on the ground around the tower.

Middle Ages

During the High Middle Ages, the treadwheel crane was reintroduced on a large scale after the technology had fallen into disuse in western Europe with the demise of the Western Roman Empire. The earliest reference to a treadwheel (magna rota) reappears in archival literature in France about 1225, followed by an illuminated depiction in a manuscript of probably also French origin dating to 1240. In navigation, the earliest uses of harbor cranes are documented for Utrecht in 1244, Antwerp in 1263, Bruges in 1288 and Hamburg in 1291, while in England the treadwheel is not recorded before 1331.

Generally, vertical transport could be done more safely and inexpensively by cranes than by customary methods. Typical areas of application were harbours, mines, and, in particular, building sites where the treadwheel crane played a pivotal role in the construction of the lofty Gothic cathedrals. Nevertheless, both archival and pictorial sources of the time suggest that newly introduced machines like treadwheels or wheelbarrows did not completely replace more labor-intensive methods like ladders, hods and handbarrows. Rather, old and new machinery continued to coexist on medieval construction sites and harbours.

Apart from treadwheels, medieval depictions also show cranes to be powered manually by windlasses with radiating spokes, cranks and by the 15th century also by windlasses shaped like a ship's wheel. To smooth out irregularities of impulse and get over 'dead-spots' in the lifting process flywheels are known to be in use as early as 1123.

The exact process by which the treadwheel crane was reintroduced is not recorded, although its return to construction sites has undoubtedly to be viewed in close connection with the simultaneous rise of Gothic architecture. The reappearance of the treadwheel crane may have resulted from a technological development of the windlass from which the treadwheel structurally and mechanically evolved. Alternatively, the medieval treadwheel may represent a deliberate reinvention of its Roman counterpart drawn from Vitruvius' De architectura which was available in many monastic libraries. Its reintroduction may have been inspired, as well, by the observation of the labor-saving qualities of the waterwheel with which early treadwheels shared many structural similarities.

Structure and placement

The medieval treadwheel was a large wooden wheel turning around a central shaft with a treadway wide enough for two workers walking side by side. While the earlier 'compass-arm' wheel had spokes directly driven into the central shaft, the more advanced 'clasp-arm' type featured arms arranged as chords to the wheel rim, giving the possibility of using a thinner shaft and providing thus a greater mechanical advantage.

Contrary to a popularly held belief, cranes on medieval building sites were neither placed on the extremely lightweight scaffolding used at the time nor on the thin walls of the Gothic churches which were incapable of supporting the weight of both hoisting machine and load. Rather, cranes were placed in the initial stages of construction on the ground, often within the building. When a new floor was completed, and massive tie beams of the roof connected the walls, the crane was dismantled and reassembled on the roof beams from where it was moved from bay to bay during construction of the vaults. Thus, the crane 'grew' and 'wandered' with the building with the result that today all extant construction cranes in England are found in church towers above the vaulting and below the roof, where they remained after building construction for bringing material for repairs aloft.

Less frequently, medieval illuminations also show cranes mounted on the outside of walls with the stand of the machine secured to putlogs.

Mechanics and operation

In contrast to modern cranes, medieval cranes and hoists - much like their counterparts in Greece and Rome - were primarily capable of a vertical lift, and not used to move loads for a considerable distance horizontally as well. Accordingly, lifting work was organized at the workplace in a different way than today. In building construction, for example, it is assumed that the crane lifted the stone blocks either from the bottom directly into place, or from a place opposite the centre of the wall from where it could deliver the blocks for two teams working at each end of the wall. Additionally, the crane master who usually gave orders at the treadwheel workers from outside the crane was able to manipulate the movement laterally by a small rope attached to the load. Slewing cranes which allowed a rotation of the load and were thus particularly suited for dockside work appeared as early as 1340. While ashlar blocks were directly lifted by sling, lewis or devil's clamp (German Teufelskralle), other objects were placed before in containers like pallets, baskets, wooden boxes or barrels.

It is noteworthy that medieval cranes rarely featured ratchets or brakes to forestall the load from running backward. This curious absence is explained by the high friction force exercised by medieval treadwheels which normally prevented the wheel from accelerating beyond control.

Harbour usage

According to the "present state of knowledge" unknown in antiquity, stationary harbour cranes are considered a new development of the Middle Ages. The typical harbour crane was a pivoting structure equipped with double treadwheels. These cranes were placed docksides for the loading and unloading of cargo where they replaced or complemented older lifting methods like see-saws, winches and yards.

Two different types of harbour cranes can be identified with a varying geographical distribution: While gantry cranes which pivoted on a central vertical axle were commonly found at the Flemish and Dutch coastside, German sea and inland harbours typically featured tower cranes where the windlass and treadwheels were situated in a solid tower with only jib arm and roof rotating. Dockside cranes were not adopted in the Mediterranean region and the highly developed Italian ports where authorities continued to rely on the more labor-intensive method of unloading goods by ramps beyond the Middle Ages.

Unlike construction cranes where the work speed was determined by the relatively slow progress of the masons, harbour cranes usually featured double treadwheels to speed up loading. The two treadwheels whose diameter is estimated to be 4 m or larger were attached to each side of the axle and rotated together. Their capacity was 2–3 tons which apparently corresponded to the customary size of marine cargo. Today, according to one survey, fifteen treadwheel harbour cranes from pre-industrial times are still extant throughout Europe. Some harbour cranes were specialised at mounting masts to newly built sailing ships, such as in Danzig, Cologne and Bremen. Beside these stationary cranes, floating cranes which could be flexibly deployed in the whole port basin came into use by the 14th century.

Surviving examples

Original
A treadwheel crane survives at Chesterfield, Derbyshire and is housed in the Museum. It has been dated to the early 14th century and was housed in the top of the church tower until its removal in 1947. It was reconstructed in the Museum for its opening in 1994.

A treadwheel crane survives at Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom. It dates from the late 17th or early 18th century and formerly stood in Friary Street. It was moved in 1970, having last been used ca. 1960 to move materials for Guildford Cathedral. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade II* listed building.

A treadwheel crane survives at Harwich, Essex, United Kingdom. It was built in 1667 and formerly stood in the Naval Yard. It was moved to Harwich Green in 1932. The crane has two treadwheels of  diameter by  wide on an axle  diameter. It is the only double wheel treadwheel crane in the United Kingdom. The crane is a Grade II* listed building.

Reconstructions
A reconstruction of a 13th-century treadwheel crane can be seen in action at the site Guédelon Castle, Treigny, France. It is used for lifting mortar, rubble, ashlar blocks, and wood. The object of Guédelon Castle is to build a fortress castle using only the techniques and materials of 13th-century medieval France.

 () (), Gdańsk was built before 1366. It was destroyed by the soviet troops during the fighting for the city in early 1945. The brick structure survived, the wooden parts have been restored.

A reconstruction of a double wheel treadwheel crane is in use at Prague Castle, Czech Republic.

A Treadwheel Crane was used in the film Evan Almighty, when Evan complained to God that he needed a crane to construct the Ark in suburban Washington, D.C.

References

Sources

External links

Ancient Treadwheel Crane in Cathedral of Strasbourg

Cranes (machines)
Animal engines
Obsolete technologies

Treadwheel crane


Shapur (Persian: شاپور یکم) was the seventh ruler of the Bavand dynasty, who ruled briefly in 825. He was the son and successor of Shahriyar I.

Reign
Just when Shapur had ascended the Bavandid throne, the Qarinvand Mazyar, whom Shapur's father Shahriyar I along with Mazyar's uncle Vinda-Umid had expelled from Tabaristan, returned with an Abbasid army, and invaded the territories of Shapur and Vinda-Umid, where he defeated them both. Vinda-Umid was killed, whilst Shapur was taken hostage.

Shapur, knowing that Mazyar planned to have him killed, sent a secret message to the Abbasid governor of Tabaristan, Musa ibn Hafs, willing to pay him 100,000 dirhams if he would assert him as his own prisoner. Musa responded by saying his best shot would be by converting to Islam and become a client of the caliph. Musa, nervous of Mazyar learning of his secret communication with Shapur, asked him how he would react if Shapur converted to Islam and offered to become a client of the caliph. Mazyar gave no answer, but had Shapur beheaded the same day, which greatly angered Musa.

References

Sources

Bavand dynasty
9th-century monarchs in Asia
9th-century Iranian people
825 deaths
Year of birth unknown
Zoroastrian monarchs

Shapur (Bavandid ruler)