The gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ().

This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and from the land. There are many thousands of species of sea snails and slugs, as well as freshwater snails, freshwater limpets, land snails and slugs.

The class Gastropoda is a diverse and highly successful class of mollusks within the phylum Mollusca. It contains a vast total of named species, second only to the insects in overall number. The fossil history of this class goes back to the Late Cambrian. , 721 families of gastropods are known, of which 245 are extinct and appear only in the fossil record, while 476 are currently extant with or without a fossil record.

Gastropoda (previously known as univalves and sometimes spelled "Gasteropoda") are a major part of the phylum Mollusca, and are the most highly diversified class in the phylum, with 65,000 to 80,000 living snail and slug species. The anatomy, behavior, feeding, and reproductive adaptations of gastropods vary significantly from one clade or group to another, so stating many generalities for all gastropods is difficult.

The class Gastropoda has an extraordinary diversification of habitats. Representatives live in gardens, woodland, deserts, and on mountains; in small ditches, great rivers, and lakes; in estuaries, mudflats, the rocky intertidal, the sandy subtidal, the abyssal depths of the oceans, including the hydrothermal vents, and numerous other ecological niches, including parasitic ones.

Although the name "snail" can be, and often is, applied to all the members of this class, commonly this word means only those species with an external shell big enough that the soft parts can withdraw completely into it. Those gastropods without a shell, and those with only a very reduced or internal shell, are usually known as slugs; those with a shell into which they can partly but not completely withdraw are termed semislugs.

The marine shelled species of gastropods include species such as abalone, conches, periwinkles, whelks, and numerous other sea snails that produce seashells that are coiled in the adult stage—though in some, the coiling may not be very visible, for example in cowries. In a number of families of species, such as all the various limpets, the shell is coiled only in the larval stage, and is a simple conical structure after that.

Etymology
In the scientific literature, gastropods were described as "gasteropodes" by  in 1795. The word gastropod comes from Greek  ( 'stomach') and  ( 'foot'), a reference to the fact that the animal's "foot" is positioned below its guts.

The earlier name "univalve" means one valve (or shell), in contrast to bivalves, such as clams, which have two valves or shells.

Diversity
At all taxonomic levels, gastropods are second only to the insects in terms of their diversity.

Gastropods have the greatest numbers of named mollusk species. However, estimates of the total number of gastropod species vary widely, depending on cited sources. The number of gastropod species can be ascertained from estimates of the number of described species of Mollusca with accepted names: about 85,000 (minimum 50,000, maximum 120,000). But an estimate of the total number of Mollusca, including undescribed species, is about 240,000 species. The estimate of 85,000 mollusks includes 24,000 described species of terrestrial gastropods.

Different estimates for aquatic gastropods (based on different sources) give about 30,000 species of marine gastropods, and about 5,000 species of freshwater and brackish gastropods. Many deep-sea species remain to be discovered, as only 0.0001% of the deep-sea floor has been studied biologically. The total number of living species of freshwater snails is about 4,000.

Recently extinct species of gastropods (extinct since 1500) number 444, 18 species are now extinct in the wild (but still exist in captivity), and 69 species are "possibly extinct".

The number of prehistoric (fossil) species of gastropods is at least 15,000 species.

In marine habitats, the continental slope and the continental rise are home to the highest diversity, while the continental shelf and abyssal depths have a low diversity of marine gastropods.

Habitat

Gastropods are found in a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial habitats, from deep ocean trenches to deserts.

Some of the more familiar and better-known gastropods are terrestrial gastropods (the land snails and slugs). Some live in fresh water, but most named species of gastropods live in a marine environment.

Gastropods have a worldwide distribution, from the near Arctic and Antarctic zones to the tropics. They have become adapted to almost every kind of existence on earth, having colonized nearly every available medium.

In habitats where not enough calcium carbonate is available to build a really solid shell, such as on some acidic soils on land, various species of slugs occur, and also some snails with thin, translucent shells, mostly or entirely composed of the protein conchiolin.

Snails such as Sphincterochila boissieri and Xerocrassa seetzeni have adapted to desert conditions. Other snails have adapted to an existence in ditches, near deepwater hydrothermal vents, in oceanic trenches 10,000 meters below the surface, the pounding surf of rocky shores, caves, and many other diverse areas.

Gastropods can be accidentally transferred from one habitat to another by other animals, e.g. by birds.

Anatomy

Snails are distinguished by an anatomical process known as torsion, where the visceral mass of the animal rotates 180° to one side during development, such that the anus is situated more or less above the head. This process is unrelated to the coiling of the shell, which is a separate phenomenon. Torsion is present in all gastropods, but the opisthobranch gastropods are secondarily untorted to various degrees.

Torsion occurs in two stages. The first, mechanistic stage, is muscular, and the second is mutagenetic. The effects of torsion are primarily physiological. The organism develops by asymmetrical growth, with the majority of growth occurring on the left side. This leads to the loss of right-side anatomy that in most bilaterians is a duplicate of the left side anatomy. The essential feature of this asymmetry is that the anus generally lies to one side of the median plane. The gill-combs, the olfactory organs, the foot slime-gland, nephridia, and the auricle of the heart are single or at least are more developed on one side of the body than the other. Furthermore, there is only one genital orifice, which lies on the same side of the body as the anus. Furthermore, the anus becomes redirected to the same space as the head. This is speculated to have some evolutionary function, as prior to torsion, when retracting into the shell, first the posterior end would get pulled in, and then the anterior. Now, the front can be retracted more easily, perhaps suggesting a defensive purpose.

Gastropods typically have a well-defined head with two or four sensory tentacles with eyes, and a ventral foot. The foremost division of the foot is called the propodium. Its function is to push away sediment as the snail crawls. The larval shell of a gastropod is called a protoconch.

Shell

Most shelled gastropods have a one piece shell (with exceptional bivalved gastropods), typically coiled or spiraled, at least in the larval stage. This coiled shell usually opens on the right-hand side (as viewed with the shell apex pointing upward). Numerous species have an operculum, which in many species acts as a trapdoor to close the shell. This is usually made of a horn-like material, but in some molluscs it is calcareous. In the land slugs, the shell is reduced or absent, and the body is streamlined.

Some gastropods have adult shells which are bottom heavy due to the presence of a thick, often broad, convex ventral callus deposit on the inner lip and adapical to the aperture which may be important for gravitational stability.

Body wall
Some sea slugs are very brightly colored. This serves either as a warning, when they are poisonous or contain stinging cells, or to camouflage them on the brightly colored hydroids, sponges, and seaweeds on which many of the species are found.

Lateral outgrowths on the body of nudibranchs are called cerata. These contain an outpocketing of digestive glands called the diverticula.

Sensory organs and nervous system

The sensory organs of gastropods include olfactory organs, eyes, statocysts and mechanoreceptors. Gastropods have no hearing.

In terrestrial gastropods (land snails and slugs), the olfactory organs, located on the tips of the four tentacles, are the most important sensory organ. The chemosensory organs of opisthobranch marine gastropods are called rhinophores.

The majority of gastropods have simple visual organs, eye spots either at the tip or base of the tentacles. However, "eyes" in gastropods range from simple ocelli that only distinguish light and dark, to more complex pit eyes, and even to lens eyes. In land snails and slugs, vision is not the most important sense, because they are mainly nocturnal animals.

The nervous system of gastropods includes the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system. The central nervous system consists of ganglia connected by nerve cells. It includes paired ganglia: the cerebral ganglia, pedal ganglia, osphradial ganglia, pleural ganglia, parietal ganglia and the visceral ganglia. There are sometimes also buccal ganglia.

Digestive system

The radula of a gastropod is usually adapted to the food that a species eats. The simplest gastropods are the limpets and abalones, herbivores that use their hard radula to rasp at seaweeds on rocks.

Many marine gastropods are burrowers, and have a siphon that extends out from the mantle edge. Sometimes the shell has a siphonal canal to accommodate this structure. A siphon enables the animal to draw water into their mantle cavity and over the gill. They use the siphon primarily to "taste" the water to detect prey from a distance. Gastropods with siphons tend to be either predators or scavengers.

Respiratory system

Almost all marine gastropods breathe with a gill, but many freshwater species, and the majority of terrestrial species, have a pallial lung. The respiratory protein in almost all gastropods is hemocyanin, but one freshwater pulmonate family, the Planorbidae, have hemoglobin as the respiratory protein.

In one large group of sea slugs, the gills are arranged as a rosette of feathery plumes on their backs, which gives rise to their other name, nudibranchs. Some nudibranchs have smooth or warty backs with no visible gill mechanism, such that respiration may likely take place directly through the skin.

Circulatory system

Gastropods have open circulatory system and the transport fluid is hemolymph. Hemocyanin is present in the hemolymph as the respiratory pigment.

Excretory system

The primary organs of excretion in gastropods are nephridia, which produce either ammonia or uric acid as a waste product. The nephridium also plays an important role in maintaining water balance in freshwater and terrestrial species. Additional organs of excretion, at least in some species, include pericardial glands in the body cavity, and digestive glands opening into the stomach.

Reproductive system

Courtship is a part of mating behavior in some gastropods, including some of the Helicidae. Again, in some land snails, an unusual feature of the reproductive system of gastropods is the presence and utilization of love darts.

In many marine gastropods other than the opisthobranchs, there are separate sexes (dioecious/gonochoric); most land gastropods, however, are hermaphrodites.

Life cycle

Courtship is a part of the behavior of mating gastropods with some pulmonate families of land snails creating and utilizing love darts, the throwing of which have been identified as a form of sexual selection.

The main aspects of the life cycle of gastropods include:
 Egg laying and the eggs of gastropods
 The embryonic development of gastropods
 The larvae or larval stadium: some gastropods may be trochophore and/or veliger
 Estivation and hibernation (each of these are present in some gastropods only)
 The growth of gastropods
 Courtship and mating in gastropods: fertilization is internal or external according to the species. External fertilization is common in marine gastropods.

Feeding behavior

The diet of gastropods differs according to the group considered. Marine gastropods include some that are herbivores, detritus feeders, predatory carnivores, scavengers, parasites, and also a few ciliary feeders, in which the radula is reduced or absent. Land-dwelling species can chew up leaves, bark, fruit and decomposing animals while marine species can scrape algae off the rocks on the seafloor. Certain species such as the Archaeogastropda maintain horizontal rows of slender marginal teeth. In some species that have evolved into endoparasites, such as the eulimid Thyonicola doglieli, many of the standard gastropod features are strongly reduced or absent.

A few sea slugs are herbivores and some are carnivores. The carnivorous habit is due to specialisation. Many gastropods have distinct dietary preferences and regularly occur in close association with their food species.

Some predatory carnivorous gastropods include, for example: Cone shells, Testacella, Daudebardia, Turrids, Ghost slug and others.

Genetics
Gastropods exhibit an important degree of variation in mitochondrial gene organization when compared to other animals. Main events of gene rearrangement occurred at the origin of Patellogastropoda and Heterobranchia, whereas fewer changes occurred between the ancestors of Vetigastropoda (only tRNAs D, C and N) and Caenogastropoda (a large single inversion, and translocations of the tRNAs D and N). Within Heterobranchia, gene order seems relatively conserved, and gene rearrangements are mostly related with transposition of tRNA genes.

Geological history and evolution

The first gastropods were exclusively marine, with the earliest representatives of the group appearing in the Late Cambrian (Chippewaella, Strepsodiscus), though their only gastropod character is a coiled shell, so they could lie in the stem lineage, if they are gastropods at all. Earliest Cambrian organisms like Helcionella, Barskovia and Scenella are no longer considered gastropods, and the tiny coiled Aldanella of earliest Cambrian time is probably not even a mollusk.

As such, it's not until the Ordovician that the first crown-group members arise. By the Ordovician period the gastropods were a varied group present in a range of aquatic habitats. Commonly, fossil gastropods from the rocks of the early Palaeozoic era are too poorly preserved for accurate identification. Still, the Silurian genus Poleumita contains fifteen identified species. Fossil gastropods were less common during the Palaeozoic era than bivalves.

Most of the gastropods of the Palaeozoic era belong to primitive groups, a few of which still survive. By the Carboniferous period many of the shapes seen in living gastropods can be matched in the fossil record, but despite these similarities in appearance the majority of these older forms are not directly related to living forms. It was during the Mesozoic era that the ancestors of many of the living gastropods evolved.

One of the earliest known terrestrial (land-dwelling) gastropods is Anthracopupa (=Maturipupa), which is found in the Coal Measures of the Carboniferous period in Europe, but relatives of the modern land snails are rare before the Cretaceous period.

In rocks of the Mesozoic era, gastropods are slightly more common as fossils; their shells are often well preserved. Their fossils occur in ancient beds deposited in both freshwater and marine environments. The "Purbeck Marble" of the Jurassic period and the "Sussex Marble" of the early Cretaceous period, which both occur in southern England, are limestones containing the tightly packed remains of the pond snail Viviparus.

Rocks of the Cenozoic era yield very large numbers of gastropod fossils, many of these fossils being closely related to modern living forms. The diversity of the gastropods increased markedly at the beginning of this era, along with that of the bivalves.

Certain trail-like markings preserved in ancient sedimentary rocks are thought to have been made by gastropods crawling over the soft mud and sand. Although these trace fossils are of debatable origin, some of them do resemble the trails made by living gastropods today.

Gastropod fossils may sometimes be confused with ammonites or other shelled cephalopods. An example of this is Bellerophon from the limestones of the Carboniferous period in Europe, the shell of which is planispirally coiled and can be mistaken for the shell of a cephalopod.

Gastropods are one of the groups that record the changes in fauna caused by the advance and retreat of the Ice Sheets during the Pleistocene epoch.

Cladogram
A cladogram showing the phylogenic relationships of Gastropoda with example species:

Cocculiniformia, Neomphalina and Lower Heterobranchia are not included in the above cladogram.

Taxonomy

Current classification
The present backbone classification of gastropods relies on the results of phylogenomic analyses. Consensus has not been reached yet considering the relationships at the very base of the gastropod tree of life, but otherwise the major groups are known with confidence.

 Gastropoda
 Patellogastropoda
 Adenogonogastropoda (Angiogastropoda)
 Apogastropoda
 Caenogastropoda
 Heterobranchia
 Neritimorpha
 Vetigastropoda (including Neomphaliones)

History
Since Darwin, biological taxonomy has attempted to reflect the phylogeny of organisms, i.e., the tree of life. The classifications used in taxonomy attempt to represent the precise interrelatedness of the various taxa. However, the taxonomy of the Gastropoda is constantly being revised and so the versions shown in various texts can differ in major ways.

In the older classification of the gastropods, there were four subclasses:
 Opisthobranchia (gills to the right and behind the heart).
 Gymnomorpha (no shell)
 Prosobranchia (gills in front of the heart).
 Pulmonata (with a lung instead of gills)

The taxonomy of the Gastropoda is still under revision, and more and more of the old taxonomy is being abandoned, as the results of DNA studies slowly become clearer. Nevertheless, a few of the older terms such as "opisthobranch" and "prosobranch" are still sometimes used in a descriptive way.

New insights based on DNA sequencing of gastropods have produced some revolutionary new taxonomic insights. In the case of the Gastropoda, the taxonomy is now gradually being rewritten to embody strictly monophyletic groups (only one lineage of gastropods in each group). Integrating new findings into a working taxonomy remain challenging. Consistent ranks within the taxonomy at the level of subclass, superorder, order, and suborder have already been abandoned as unworkable. Ongoing revisions of the higher taxonomic levels are expected in the near future.

Convergent evolution, which appears to exist at especially high frequency in gastropods, may account for the observed differences between the older phylogenies, which were based on morphological data, and more recent gene-sequencing studies.

In 2004, Brian Simison and David R. Lindberg showed possible diphyletic origins of the Gastropoda based on mitochondrial gene order and amino acid sequence analyses of complete genes.

In 2005, Philippe Bouchet and Jean-Pierre Rocroi made sweeping changes in the systematics, resulting in the Bouchet & Rocroi taxonomy, which is a step closer to the evolutionary history of the phylum. The Bouchet & Rocroi classification system is based partly on the older systems of classification, and partly on new cladistic research. In the past, the taxonomy of gastropods was largely based on phenetic morphological characters of the taxa. The recent advances are more based on molecular characters from DNA and RNA research. This has made the taxonomical ranks and their hierarchy controversial.

In 2017, Bouchet, Rocroi, and other collaborators published a significantly updated version of the 2005 taxonomy. In the Bouchet et al taxonomy, the authors used unranked clades for taxa above the rank of superfamily (replacing the ranks suborder, order, superorder and subclass), while using the traditional Linnaean approach for all taxa below the rank of superfamily. Whenever monophyly has not been tested, or is known to be paraphyletic or polyphyletic, the term "group" or "informal group" has been used. The classification of families into subfamilies is often not well resolved.

Conservation
Many gastropod species face threats from habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change. Some species are endangered or have become extinct due to these factors. Conservation efforts often focus on protecting their habitats, especially in freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems.

References

Sources
 This article incorporates CC-BY-2.0 text from the following source: Cunha, R. L.; Grande, C.; Zardoya, R. (2009). "Neogastropod phylogenetic relationships based on entire mitochondrial genomes". BMC Evolutionary Biology. 9: 210. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-210. PMC 2741453. PMID 19698157.
 Abbott, R. T. (1989): Compendium of Landshells. A color guide to more than 2,000 of the World's Terrestrial Shells. 240 S., American Malacologists. Melbourne, Fl, Burlington, Ma.
 Abbott, R. T. & Dance, S. P. (1998): Compendium of Seashells. A full-color guide to more than 4,200 of the world's marine shells. 413 S., Odyssey Publishing. El Cajon, Calif.
 Parkinson, B., Hemmen, J. & Groh, K. (1987): Tropical Landshells of the World. 279 S., Verlag Christa Hemmen. Wiesbaden.
 Ponder, W. F. & Lindberg, D. R. (1997): Towards a phylogeny of gastropod molluscs: an analysis using morphological characters. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 119 83–265.
 Robin, A. (2008): Encyclopedia of Marine Gastropods. 480 S., Verlag ConchBooks. Hackenheim.

External links

 Gastropod reproductive behavior
 2004 Linnean taxonomy of gastropods
  – Article about social learning also in gastropods.
 Gastropod photo gallery, mostly fossils, a few modern shells
 A video of a crawling Garden Snail (Cornu aspersum), YouTube
 Grove, S.J. (2018). A Guide to the Seashells and other Marine Molluscs of Tasmania: Molluscs of Tasmania with images

Mollusc classes
Asymmetry
Articles containing video clips
Extant Cambrian first appearances
Taxa named by Georges Cuvier

Gastropoda


Kaoru Moto (April 25, 1917-August 26, 1992) was a United States Army soldier.  He received the Medal of Honor because of his actions in World War II.

Early life
Moto was born in Hawaii to Japanese immigrant parents. He is a Nisei, which means that he is a second generation Japanese-American.

Soldier
Ten months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the US Army in March 1941.

Moto volunteered to be part of the all-Nisei 100th Infantry Battalion.  This army unit was mostly made up of Japanese Americans from Hawaii and the mainland.

For his actions in July 1944, Moto was awarded the Army's second-highest decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC).  In the 1990s, there was a review of service records of Asian Americans who received the DSC during World War II.  Moto's award was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. In a ceremony at the White House on June 21, 2000, his family was presented with his medal by President Bill Clinton. Twenty-one other Asian Americans also received the medal during the ceremony, but only seven of them were still alive.

Medal of Honor citation
Moto's Medal of Honor recognized his conduct in frontline fighting in central Italy in 1944.  Without help from others, he attacked two machine guns; and, although he was wounded, he captured a third machine gun nest.

Acting on his own, Moto silenced two enemy machine gun positions while acting as a scout.  He also destroyed a third even though he was seriously wounded.

The words of Moto's citation explain:
Private First Class Kaoru Moto distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 7 July 1944, near Castellina, Italy. While serving as first scout, Private First Class Moto observed a machine gun nest that was hindering his platoon's progress. On his own initiative, he made his way to a point ten paces from the hostile position, and killed the enemy machine gunner. Immediately, the enemy assistant gunner opened fire in the direction of Private First Class Moto. Crawling to the rear of the position, Private First Class Moto surprised the enemy soldier, who quickly surrendered. Taking his prisoner with him, Private First Class Moto took a position a few yards from a house to prevent the enemy from using the building as an observation post. While guarding the house and his prisoner, he observed an enemy machine gun team moving into position. He engaged them, and with deadly fire forced the enemy to withdraw. An enemy sniper located in another house fired at Private First Class Moto, severely wounding him. Applying first aid to his wound, he changed position to elude the sniper fire and to advance. Finally relieved of his position, he made his way to the rear for treatment. Crossing a road, he spotted an enemy machine gun nest. Opening fire, he wounded two of the three soldiers occupying the position. Not satisfied with this accomplishment, he then crawled forward to a better position and ordered the enemy soldier to surrender. Receiving no answer, Private First Class Moto fired at the position, and the soldiers surrendered. Private First Class Moto's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.

Related pages
 List of Medal of Honor recipients for World War II
 List of Asian American Medal of Honor recipients
 Posthumous recognition

References

Other websites
 "Army Secretary Lionizes 22 World War II Heroes" at Defense.gov

1917 births
1992 deaths
Military people from Hawaii
United States Army Medal of Honor recipients
American people of World War II

Kaoru Moto


Thermal dissolution  is a method of liquefaction of solid fossil fuels. It is a hydrogen-donor solvent refining process. It may be used for the shale oil extraction and coal liquefaction.  Other liquids extraction processes from solid fuels are pyrolysis and hydrogenation. Compared to hydrogenation, the process of thermal dissolution has milder conditions, simpler process, and no consumption of catalyst.

References

Oil shale technology
Chemical processes
Industrial processes

Thermal dissolution


Thomas Kane McClintock-Bunbury, 2nd Baron Rathdonnell (29 November 1848 – 22 May 1929), was an Anglo-Irish peer, British Army officer and politician.

Biography
He was the son of Captain William Bunbury McClintock-Bunbury and Pauline Caroline Diana Mary Stronge. He was educated at Eton College. He gained a commission in the Leicestershire Yeomanry, and later transferred to regular service in the Royal Scots Greys. In 1876 he served as High Sheriff of Carlow.

Upon the death of his uncle, John McClintock, 1st Baron Rathdonnell, on 17 May 1879, McClintock-Bunbury succeeded to his title by special remainder. He served as a Deputy Lieutenant for County Louth. On 8 April 1889 he was elected as an Irish representative peer and took his seat in the British House of Lords. On 26 February 1890 he became Lord Lieutenant of Carlow, a position he held until 1922. In 1896 he was made the Honorary Colonel of the 6th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles. Between 1918 and his death he was President of the Royal Dublin Society.

In 1921 Lord Rathdonnell was appointed to the Senate of Southern Ireland in his capacity as a peer. He attended the three meetings of the Senate prior to its dissolution in 1922.

He married Katharine Anne Bruen, daughter of Henry Bruen and Mary Margaret Conolly, on 26 February 1874. Their eldest son, William McClintock Bunbury (1878–1900) was an officer in the Royal Scots Greys and died on active service during the Second Boer War in South Africa. He was therefore succeeded in his title by his second son, Thomas.

Arms

References

External links

1848 births
1929 deaths
Barons in the Peerage of Ireland
High Sheriffs of Carlow
Irish representative peers
Leicestershire Yeomanry officers
Lord-Lieutenants of Carlow
Thomas
Members of the Senate of Southern Ireland
People educated at Eton College
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Thomas McClintock-Bunbury, 2nd Baron Rathdonnell


The HESA Shahed 136 (, literally "Witness-136"), or Geran-2 (, literally "Geranium-2") in Russian service, is an Iranian loitering munition in the form of an autonomous pusher-prop drone. It is designed and manufactured by Shahed Aviation Industries.

The munition is designed to attack ground targets from a distance, fired in multiples from a launch rack (in batches of five upwards) to overwhelm air defenses by consuming their resources during the attack. The first public footage of the drone was released in December 2021.

Overview

Description
The aircraft has a cropped delta-wing shape, with a central fuselage blending into the wings and stabilizing rudders at the tips. The nose section contains a warhead estimated to weigh . The engine sits in the rear of the fuselage and drives a two-bladed pusher propeller. The munition is  long with a wingspan of , flies at over , and weighs about . Range has been estimated to be anywhere from between  to as much as . The U.S. Army unclassified worldwide equipment guide states that the Shahed 136 design supports an aerial reconnaissance option, although no cameras were noted in the Geran-2 in Russian service.

Deployment
Because of the portability of the launch frame and drone assembly, the entire unit can be mounted on the back of any military or commercial truck.

The aircraft is launched at a slight upward angle and is assisted in initial flight by rocket launch assistance (RATO). The rocket is jettisoned immediately after launch, whereupon the drone's conventional Iranian-made Mado MD-550 four-cylinder piston engine (possibly a reverse-engineered German Limbach L550E, also used in other Iranian drones such as the Ababil-3) takes over.

Electronics
Despite no markings, experts believe the munition uses a computer processor manufactured by the American company Altera, RF modules by Analog Devices and LDO chips by Microchip Technology.

Inspection of captured drones used by Russia during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine revealed that some Shahed-136 electronics were manufactured from foreign made components, such as a Texas Instruments TMS320 processor, a Polish made fuel pump on behalf of UK-based company TI Fluid Systems and a voltage converter from China.

The Jewish Chronicle reported that dual-use technologies through British universities are used in development.

Confusion with Shahed 131
It is visually similar to the smaller Shahed 131, differing mainly by its wingtip stabilisers extending up and down rather than only up on the Shahed 131. The Shahed 131 has a simple inertial navigation system (INS) and a GPS with some electronic warfare protection, which the Shahed 136 may also have.

Geran-2

Geran-2 is the name of the munition in Russian service. The Washington Post reported an expert on Russian military systems at the CNA Strategy, Policy, Plans and Programs Center suggesting that the Geran-2 may use additional steering methods compared to the standard Iranian Shahed 136. A The Times of Israel correspondent notes that the Iranian navigation system made from civilian components has been replaced with a Russian manufactured flight control unit and microprocessors, using the Russian GLONASS GNSS system rather than U.S. civilian grade GPS, seemingly improving its loitering munition capability. Geran-2 has labeling and paint color matching Russian rather than Iranian munitions. No cameras or short-range sensors were noted.

On 19 November 2022, The Washington Post reported that U.S. intelligence agencies were briefing that Russia and Iran had agreed to the Russian manufacture of the munition, with Iran exporting key components. In summer 2023, the Financial Times  and The Washington Post reported that the Russian manufacturing facility is in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, Tatarstan, with a target of building 6,000 Geran-2s by summer 2025.

In July 2023, UK based Conflict Armament Research studied the remains of two Geran-2s used in Ukraine, concluding they were a new variant manufactured in Russia. They found "major differences in the airframe construction and in the internal units" compared to earlier examples studied, including a fuselage now made of fiberglass over woven carbon fiber rather than lightweight honeycomb. A third of the components showed manufacturing dates from 2020 to 2023, and three Russian components showed dates from January to March 2023. Twelve components showed dates after the start of the invasion in February 2022. Some internal modules were the same as in other Russian weapon systems, including the Kometa satellite navigation module.

Various colloquial terms have been used for these munitions such as "mopeds" or "lawnmowers", alluding to the loud sound of their engine in flight, and "doritos" in reference to their delta-winged silhouette.

Jet-powered version
In September 2023, a trailer for an Iranian state TV documentary on Iranian drone development revealed the existence of a Shahed-136 version powered by a turbojet engine. Jet propulsion would give the one-way attack UAV greater speed and altitude, making it more difficult to intercept compared to the propeller-driven version, a large percentage of which have been able to be shot down in Ukraine by anti-aircraft cannons and even small arms. It also has a nose-mounted camera which the previous version lacks, which could improve navigation or enable terminal guidance. A jet version would be more expensive and complex to manufacture, have reduced range, and have a larger thermal signature making it vulnerable to infrared-guided missiles.

Combat history

2014 Yemeni Civil War
The drone has reportedly been used by the Houthis in the Yemeni Civil War during 2020. There were some reports of its use in the 2019 attack of Saudi oil plants at Abqaiq and Khurais, however The Washington Post reported that other types of drone were used in that attack.

2022 Russian war in Ukraine

During the 2022 war in Ukraine, Russia has used loitering munitions bearing the name Geran-2 (, literally "Geranium-2") against Ukraine. These Geran-2 drones are considered by Ukraine and its Western allies to be redesignated Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.

In the months prior to the confirmation of their use, US intelligence sources and Ukrainian officials have claimed that Iran had supplied Russia with several hundred drones including Shahed-136s, although Iran has repeatedly rejected the claims that it had sent drones for use in Ukraine, saying it is neutral in the war. . However, on 2 September 2022 the Commander of the IRGC General Hossein Salami said at a Tehran arms show that "some major world powers" had purchased Iranian military equipment and his men were "training them to employ the gear". Russia stated it uses unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of domestic manufacture. This may reflect domestic production of these drones within Russia.

On 21 November 2022, a British government minister stated that the number of Shahed-136 loitering munitions used in Ukraine was estimated to be in the low hundreds. In May 2023, the White House National Security Council spokesman suggested roughly 400 had been used so far, saying "Iran has provided Russia with more than 400 UAVs primarily of the Shahed variety".

First appearances

On 13 September 2022, initial use of the Shahed 136 was indicated by photos of the remains of a drone inscribed with -2, operated by Russian forces. According to Rodion Kulahin, the Ukrainian artillery commander of the 92nd Brigade, Shahed 136 drones destroyed four howitzers and two BTRs during the Kharkiv counter-offensive. On 23 September, further use of the drones was recorded in Odesa, where videos of their flyover and subsequent impact were uploaded on various Telegram channels. Notably, the drones were audibly engaged with small arms fire, which did not seem to have shot down any of the aircraft. On 25 September, videos posted on social media shows intensified use of the drone by the Russian forces around Odesa and Dnipro cities. This time, along with small arms, some form of anti-aircraft rotary cannon was employed, along with surface-to-air missiles, downing at least one Geran-2. A number of the drones were able to hit unknown targets, although there are claims the Ukrainian Navy Headquarters in Odesa was hit.

On 5 October 2022, a Geran-2 struck barracks hosting soldiers from the 72nd Mechanized Brigade in Bila Tserkva.

Ukrainian soldiers claim they can be heard from several kilometers away and are vulnerable to small arms fire.

Ukrainian sources stated they deployed MiG-29 fighter aircraft to shoot down these drones with success, claiming that they used a similar strategy to shoot down cruise missiles such as the Kalibr. However, on 13 October 2022, a Ukrainian MiG-29 crashed in Vinnytsia while attempting to shoot down a Geran-2. According to Ukrainian sources, one version of the incident is that the drone detonated near the jet and shrapnel struck the cockpit which forced the pilot to eject.

October waves
Geran-2 drones participated in the October missile strikes that disabled large sections of the Ukrainian power grid. Ukraine's military said it shot down the first Shahed 136 on September 13, and that 46 of the drones were launched on October 6, 24 on October 10, and 47 on October 17.

In the morning of 17 October Kyiv was attacked again. The drones were engaged by small-caliber ground fire as well as dedicated air-defense systems, but the drones reportedly hit several locations, including the offices of Ukrenergo. Other energy infrastructure facilities were also reported to be attacked, leading to blackouts around the affected infrastructure. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the strikes hit critical energy infrastructure in three regions, knocking out electricity to hundreds of towns and villages. At least 8 people were killed during the day's attack.

The cost-benefit analysis of using these drones in strikes versus the defending air defense systems is in favor of the Shahed drones, being about half the cost of the defenses employed against them, such as emplaced SAM systems. Loitering munitions downed after they have reached cities can lead to large-scale collateral damage from falling wreckage. The average Shahed drone is worth about $20,000. An IRIS-T missile is worth about $430,000 in comparison. From 13 September until 17 October, it has been estimated that Ukraine has spent $28.14 million on defences against these drones.

The US Department of Defense has stated that a number of Iranian experts were deployed to Crimea to provide technical support for the drones used in the attacks.

Ukrainian sources claim that more than 220 of these drones were shot down since 13 September.

In December use of the munitions resumed after a three-week pause. Ukraine suggested the suspension was to modify them for cold weather, but the British Ministry of Defence stated it was likely due to the exhaustion of previous stock followed by a resupply. On 14 December, a Shahed-136 drone that exploded in Kyiv had "For Ryazan" written on in Russian, a reference to attacks on the Dyagilevo air base in Ryazan.

Russian modifications
As of late September 2023, Russian forces have started packing warheads with tungsten ball shrapnel. Given that they are now manufacturing their own Shaheds Russian modifications include "new warheads (tungsten shrapnel), engines, batteries, servomotors and bodies", according to Ukrainian officials who research such weapons. The use of tungsten shrapnel is similar to the warhead on HIMARS GMLRS.

Ukrainian counter efforts

The drones are too slow, fly too low and are too small to be detected by MiG-29 radar. One Ukrainian pilot described the drone's radar picture as similar to a truck on a road. Ukrainian R-73 missiles don't work in cloud cover.  Thus, Ukrainian aircraft can only intercept these drones using their 30mm cannon.   Even with guns, the risk of damage to their own aircraft limits such approaches.

Night interceptions are even harder as pilots have to rely on GPS to know whether they are over a population centre, lest a crashing drone cause collateral damage to civilian areas.  In most cases all the pilots can do is contact ground based air defences to intercept these drones.

Ukraine's Air Force also believe that the drones are used to test the effectiveness of defences prior to missile attacks, to probe for weaknesses. Ukrainian pilot Vadym Voroshylov was credited with downing 5 Shahed drones in a week. However the explosion of the final drone downed his own MiG-29. Ukraine claims an interception rate of "65% and 85%".

A Ukrainian defense attaché in the United States stated that SA-8 missiles and both the Soviet-era ZSU-23-4 and the German-supplied Flakpanzer Gepard SPAAGs have been used to "great effect" against these "relatively crude" drones.

In early November 2022, Forbes reported on Ukrainian efforts to seek "Shahed catchers." Because legacy anti-aircraft weapons are less suited to intercepting swarms of cheap drones, various dedicated counter-UAS systems are being acquired. One is the Anvil made by Anduril Industries, which uses a suite of sensors powered by the company's AI Lattice system to detect and track threats then passes information to Anvil interceptors, which weigh  and have backwards-facing propellers to ram into a target at over . Another is the NiDAR made by MARSS, which has a similar networked sensor package and uses ducted fan quadcopter interceptors that have a top speed of more than . There are also domestic Ukraine options such as the Fowler. All systems are similar in that they use a large number of small interceptors to be able to counter drones launched en-masse simultaneously approaching from different directions.

DShK machine guns fitted with thermal imaging or cameras are among the most cost effective weapons for shooting down these drones. Some are working with searchlights like during World War 2.

Reactions
In response to the initial attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has denounced it as "a collaboration with evil". Diplomatic ties between Iran and Ukraine were subsequently reduced as a consequence of the attacks.

On 18 October 2022 the U.S. State Department accused Iran of violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231 by selling drones to Russia, agreeing with similar assessments by France and the United Kingdom. On 22 October France, Britain and Germany formally called for an investigation by the UN team responsible for UNSCR 2231. Iran's ambassador to the UN responded that these accusations were an erroneous interpretation of paragraph 4 of annex B of the resolution, which clearly states it applies to items that "could contribute to the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems", which these drones could not. Resolution 2231 was adopted after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was signed. The U.S. withdrew from the agreement under the Donald Trump administration in 2018. The embargo on conventional Iranian arms ended in October 2020, but the restrictions on Iran regarding missiles and related technologies are in place until October 2023.

An Iranian Major-General said 22 countries requested to purchase Iranian drones.

Multiple critics including a senior researcher of the Center for Security Studies called the weapon tactically useless, and said that its role is as a weapon of terror against civilians. Others said it can be used to carried out devastating strikes to Ukrainian forces but are unlikely to be a game-changer for the war.

Iran denied sending arms for use in the Ukraine war and Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Iran will not remain indifferent if it is proven that Russia used Iranian drones in the war against Ukraine. On 5 November 2022, Abdollahian said Iran shipped "a small number" of drones to Russia before the war. He repeated Iran will not remain indifferent if proven Russia used Iranian drones against Ukraine. He denounced Ukraine for not showing up at talks to discuss evidence of Russian use of Iranian drones. Iran foreign ministry continued to refute sending weapons for use in the war.

2022 Syria
The U.S. military believes groups allied to Iran used the Shahed 136 in August 2022 against a U.S.-run military base at Al-Tanf in Syrian opposition controlled territory in the Syrian Desert.

2022 Iraqi Kurdistan

In 2022, the IRGC Ground Forces used the Shahed 136 drone in attacks on headquarters of Kurdish separatist group in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.

Operators
In September 2023, the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, denied providing the drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.

 (alleged)

The drones will also be foreign produced at Gomel, Belarus and in the drone factory in Yelabuga.

See also

References

External links

 Animated Video: . Retrieved 27 October 2022.

Shahed 136
149
Military equipment of Iran
Unmanned aerial vehicles of Iran
Unmanned military aircraft of Iran
Aircraft manufactured in Iran
Iranian military aircraft
Single-engined pusher aircraft
High-wing aircraft
V-tail aircraft
Military equipment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Loitering munition

HESA Shahed 136


Peter Kuenstler (December 1919 – 16 November 2010) was a British civil servant and consultant in international social affairs and development. Kuenstler was born in Hampstead, London in December 1919. After preparing at the Hall School and Rugby School, he studied classics at Oriel College, Oxford. He died at his home in Athens, Greece in November 2010 at the age of 90.

Career

1940 to 1948, as a conscientious objector, full-time volunteer youth work at Oxford House, Bethnal Green, east London.
1948 to 1955,  Research Fellow in Youth Work at the Institute of Education at Bristol University. Director of youth work training courses at the International People's College, Elsinore, Denmark, Consultant to British and American occupation authorities in Germany, and to the Governor of Uganda Protectorate.
 1955 to 1964, Secretary of the African Development Trust in London, also lecturing at Department of Social and Administrative Studies at Oxford University, and the London School of Economics UN Adviser on community development to the Government of Greece. Director of a course for African officials given by the German Foundation for Developing Countries, West Berlin.
 1964 to 1979, United Nations interregional adviser on Youth, Interagency Youth Liaison Officer (1967 to 1979) and Adviser to the Government of Botswana on youth and community development.
1980, Visiting Professor at the School of Advanced Social Studies, Case Western Reserve University. Secretary of a working party at the Gulbenkian Foundation, London (1980–82).
 1982 to 1993, Director of the Centre for Employment Initiatives (London and Brussels, including European Commission consultations of over 30 consultations in different countries.
 Subsequently, he led advisory missions to countries in Eastern Europe.

The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) awarded an Honorary Doctorate to Peter Kuenstler in 1962.

References

External links
 Profile at Institute of Social Studies

1919 births
2010 deaths
British civil servants
British conscientious objectors

Peter Kuenstler


Joseph and His Brothers (, ) is a four-part novel by Thomas Mann, written over the course of 16 years. Mann retells the familiar stories of Genesis, from Jacob to Joseph (chapters 27–50), setting it in the historical context of the Amarna Period. Mann considered it his greatest work.

The tetralogy consists of:
 The Stories of Jacob (Die Geschichten Jaakobs; written December 1926 to October 1930, Genesis 27–36)
 Young Joseph (Der junge Joseph; written January 1931 to June 1932, Genesis 37)
 Joseph in Egypt (Joseph in Ägypten; written July 1932 to 23 August 1936, Genesis 38–39)
 Joseph the Provider (Joseph, der Ernährer; written 10 August 1940 to 4 January 1943, Genesis 40–50)

Themes
Mann's presentation of the ancient Orient and the origins of Judaism is influenced by Alfred Jeremias' 1904 Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, emphasizing Babylonian influence in the editing of Genesis, and by the work of Dmitry Merezhkovsky.

Mann sets the story in the 14th century BC and makes Akhenaten the pharaoh who appoints Joseph his vice-regent. Joseph is aged 28 at the ascension of Akhenaten, which would mean he was born about 1380 BC in standard Egyptian chronology, and Jacob in the mid-1420s BC. Other contemporary rulers mentioned include Tushratta and Suppiluliuma.

A dominant topic of the novel is Mann's exploration of the status of mythology and his presentation of the Late Bronze Age mindset with regard to mythical truths and the emergence of monotheism. Events of the story of Genesis are frequently associated and identified with other mythic topics.

Central is the notion of underworld and the mythical descent to the underworld. Jacob's sojourn in Mesopotamia (hiding from the wrath of Esau) is paralleled with Joseph's life in Egypt (exiled by the jealousy of his brothers), and on a smaller scale his captivity in the well; they are further identified with the "hellraid" of Inanna-Ishtar-Demeter, the Mesopotamian Tammuz myth, the Jewish Babylonian captivity as well as the Harrowing of Hell of Jesus Christ.

Abraham is repeatedly presented as the man who "discovered God" (a Hanif, or discoverer of monotheism). Jacob as Abraham's heir is charged with further elaborating this discovery. Joseph is surprised to find Akhenaten on the same path (although Akhenaten is not the "right person" for the path), and Joseph's success with the pharaoh is largely due to the latter's sympathy for "Abrahamic" theology. Such a connection of (proto-)Judaism and Atenism had been suggested before Mann, most notably by Sigmund Freud in his Moses and Monotheism, which had appeared in 1939, just before Mann began work on the tetralogy's fourth part—although in the last installment of Mann's work, Akhenaten is postulated as the Pharaoh of the Exodus contemporary of Moses, while Mann in his novella "Das Gesetz" (1944) casts Ramesses II in that role.

As Joseph is saved from the well and sold to Egypt, he adopts a new name, Osarseph, replacing the Yo- element with a reference to Osiris to indicate that he is now in the underworld. This change of name to account for changing circumstances encourages Amenhotep to change his own name to Akhenaten.

The tetralogy closes with a detailed account of Jacob's famous Blessing of his sons and their tribes, his death and the funeral. The characters of the individual brothers are determined by epithets taken from the text of the Blessing of Jacob throughout the details; thus Reuben is "turbulent as the waters" (and associated with Aquarius by Jacob). Simeon and Levi are known as the "twins" (and associated with Gemini), even though they are a year apart, and portrayed as violent bullies. Juda is a lion (Leo), and inherits Abraham's blessing since Jacob disrobes his elder brothers of their birthright. Zebulun shows predilection for Phoenicians and seafaring. Jacob calls "bony" Issachar a donkey to evoke Asellus, γ and δ of Cancer. Dan is sharp-witted and "suited as a judge" (Libra). Asher is fond of dainties. Joseph is blessed by Jacob in his dual aspect of male (Dumuzi, god of seed and harvest), with reference to Taurus, and female (since for Jacob, his beloved Rachel lives on in Joseph, and in his affinity with the nourishing Earth), with reference to Virgo. As Jacob comes to Benjamin, his strength is almost gone, and with his last breath he rather incoherently compares his youngest son with a wolf, partly because of Lupus in Scorpio.

Chapter structure
Each one of the four books is divided into seven chapters, each of which is divided into further subdivisions. The first and last book also comprise a "Prelude" each.

The Tales of Jacob
Prelude. Descent into Hell
I. By the Well
II. Jacob and Esau
III. The story of Dinah
IV. The flight
V. Serving Laban
VI. The Sisters
VII. Rachel

Young Joseph
I. Thoth
II. Abraham
III. Joseph and Benjamin
IV. The Dreamer
V. The Journey to the Brothers
VI. The Stone Before the Grave
VII. He Who Was Mangled

Joseph in Egypt
I. The Journey Downwards
II. The Entrance into Sheol
III. The Arrival
IV. The Highest
V. The Man of the Blessing
VI. The Smitten One
VII. The Pit

Joseph the Provider
Prelude in the Upper Circles
I. The Second Pit
II. The Summons
III. The Cretan Loggia
IV. The Time of Enfranchisement
V. Tamar
VI. The God-Story
VII. The Lost Is Found

Editions and translations
Die Geschichten Jaakobs. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
Der junge Joseph. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
Joseph in Ägypten. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
Joseph der Ernährer. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main.
Hungarian translation by György Sárközy. Budapest: Athenaeum, 1946.
Finnish translation by Lauri Hirvensalo. Helsinki/Porvoo: WSOY, 1947.
English translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. .
Hebrew translation by Mordechai Avi Shaul. Merhavia, Israel: Hakibbutz Haartzi Hashomer Hatzair. 4 Vol, 1957-1959.
Spanish translation by Jose Maria Souviron and Hernán del Solar. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Ercilla. 2 Vol, 1962.
Russian translation by Solomon Apt. Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. 2 Vol, 1968.
English translation by John E. Woods. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. .
Dutch translation by Thijs Pollmann. Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam, 2014. .

See also

 Osarseph
 Moses and Monotheism
 Akhenaten
 Meritaten

References
 Jan Assmann: Thomas Mann und Ägypten. Mythos und Monotheismus in den Josephsromanen. C. H. Beck Verlag, München 2006.
 Thomas L. Jeffers, "God, Man, the Devil—and Thomas Mann", Commentary (November 2005), 77–83.
 Hermann Kurzke: Mondwanderungen. Ein Wegweiser durch Thomas Manns Josephs-Roman. Fischer Verlag Frankfurt am Main 2004.
 Bernd-Jürgen Fischer: Handbuch zu Thomas Manns "Josephsromanen". Tübingen/Basel: Francke 2002.
 Raymond Cunningham: Myth and Politics in Thomas Mann's 'Joseph und seine Brüder''', Hans-Dieter Heinz Akademischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1985.
 Elaine Murdaugh: Salvation in the Secular: The Moral Law in Thomas Mann's 'Joseph und seine Brüder''', Stuttgart 1976.

External links
 Friedemann W. Golka: Die biblische Josephsgeschichte und Thomas Manns Roman

1933 German-language novels
1936 German-language novels
1943 German-language novels
1944 German-language novels
Novels set in the 14th century BC
Novels by Thomas Mann
Cultural depictions of Joseph (Genesis)
Children of Jacob
Modernist novels
Novels based on the Bible
Egypt in the Hebrew Bible
Novels set in ancient Egypt
Cultural depictions of Akhenaten
Novels about siblings
Inanna

Joseph and His Brothers


The Vita-Salute San Raffaele University ( Also known as UniSR) is a private university in Milan, Italy. It was founded in 1996 and is organized in three departments; Medicine, Philosophy and Psychology.

History and profile
The Vita-Salute San Raffaele University was first established in 1996 with the Department of Psychology stemming from the Department of Cognitive Science founded by Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini with Andrea Moro in 1993. The program follows the general-cognitive and the experimental-clinical lines of thought.

The San Raffaele College and University was fundamentally born as the offspring of an internationally renowned research hospital structure, where students attend basic research laboratories in many research fields, including neurology, neurosurgery, diabetology, molecular biology, AIDS studies among others. It has expanded since then to include research fields in Cognitive Science and Philosophy. Among the issues that are being studied in this university, beside clinical issues, are: philosophy of science, perception, biolinguistics, generative grammar and vision. San Raffaele University is a private university but all the professors teaching there do have the same status as public university professors and must have undergone a national selection as all other university professors in the country, such as the case of the Università Cattolica or the Bocconi University in Milan.

The Faculty of Medicine and Surgery proposes courses in Medicine and Surgery and in Biotechnology, both with strong scientific connotations, where the students go on ward rounds from their very first year. Moreover, the University Courses in Nursing and in Physiotherapy offer advanced teaching together with intense practical clinical training. In addition to these courses the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University also houses a number of Medical Training Programmes.

From 1999 a new Department has been created: the Department of Philosophy.

A new medical course was commenced alongside the Italian medical course in 2010. The International MD Program at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University has been designed to foster a new kind of doctor. This doctor will possess the necessary human, cultural, and professional values to provide healthcare and share ideas in today's globalized world. The course is entirely in English and offers an innovative curriculum. Half of the seats are reserved for EU citizens while the other half for Non-EU citizens, making it truly international.

On July 18, 2011, the Italian national newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore published a general ranking of Italian universities. Vita-Salute San Raffaele University was awarded the top placement among Italian private universities.

The University has two student residences on campus; Cascina Melghera and Cassinella.

Departments

Medicine
Advanced Degree Course of Medicine and Surgery (in Italian)
International MD Program (in English)
Degree Course in Nursing
Degree Course in Physiotherapy
Degree Course in Dental Care
Degree Course in Biotechnology
Advanced Degree Course of Medical, Molecular and Cellular Biotechnology

Psychology
Degree Course in Psychological Sciences
Advanced Degree Course of Clinical Psychology
Advanced Interdepartmental Degree Course in Cognitive Neuroscience (including dept. of Medical Studies and Philosophy)
Degree Course of Sciences of Communication

Philosophy
Degree Course in Philosophy
Advanced Degree Course in Philosophy
PhD Program in Philosophy and Cognitive Sciences

See also
San Raffaele Hospital
List of Italian universities

External links
 Vita-Salute San Raffaele University Website
 Vita-Salute San Raffaele University Website San Raffaele International MD Program

Educational institutions established in 1996
Universities in Milan
1996 establishments in Italy

Vita-Salute San Raffaele University


Al & Leon were a prominent American Lindy Hop and jazz dance duo. The two members were Al Minns and Leon James. They were most famous for their film and stage performances in the 1930s and 1940s both on their own, and as part of the Harlem-based Whitey's Lindy Hoppers. They appeared in the Marx Brothers film A Day at the Races. They also appeared on US television programs in the 1950s and 1960s, highlighting the jazz dances they and their cohorts helped to pioneer at the Savoy Ballroom in New York, as well as working throughout their lives to promote the dances to new generations.

Filmography

 Jazz Dance (1954)
 TV appearance: The DuPont Show of the Week: Chicago and All That Jazz (1961)

External links
 Al Minns / Leon James on Streetswing.com
 Al & Leon search on YouTube featuring samples of their work

American dance groups
Lindy Hop
Entertainer duos

Al & Leon


Cedar Grove Plantation, also known as the Charles Walker House, is a Greek Revival plantation house located near Faunsdale, Marengo County, Alabama.   It is notable in having been the residence of Nicola Marschall for a brief period while the Walker family owned the property.  The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 13 July 1993 as a part of the Plantation Houses of the Alabama Canebrake and Their Associated Outbuildings Multiple Property Submission.

History
The house had its beginnings in 1830 with the construction of a two-story log house by Dougal and Malcolm McAlpin, two brothers from Scotland.  In 1848 Charles and Margaret Walker purchased the property and hired a builder from Virginia, Theophilus Fowler, to begin construction of the main house. The house served as the center of the large plantation, Charles Walker owned 154 slaves in 1860.  The former log house is believed to have been incorporated into the main house to become the dining room and a bedroom.  The house remained under construction until 1858.

Nicola Marschall was a friend of the Walker family and lived with them briefly at their home.  The two-story schoolhouse behind the main house is believed to have been used by him as a studio during his time there.  This schoolhouse served as a school for children in the area until 1925. The house remained in the Walker family until 1982.

Description
The house is a two-story frame structure with a gabled roof and double veranda.  It is built in a vernacular Greek Revival style. The original porch was altered in 1915 from a one-story design with simple turned wooden columns, spanned by arched latticework, to the multi-level configuration with paneled box columns seen today.

Gallery

References

National Register of Historic Places in Marengo County, Alabama
Historic districts in Marengo County, Alabama
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama
Greek Revival houses in Alabama
Plantation houses in Alabama
Houses in Marengo County, Alabama
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama

Cedar Grove Plantation


The Huntress, also known as Helena Wayne, is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character is the daughter of the Batman and Catwoman (Selina Kyle) of an alternate universe established in the early 1960s and referred to as "Earth-Two", where the Golden Age stories took place. A modern-day predecessor (and retroactive namesake) of Helena Wayne as Huntress with no blood-relation to Batman or Catwoman, Helena Bertinelli, was additionally co-created by the character's co-creator Joe Staton in 1989, originally intended as a reinvention of the character following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, before being retconned as different characters.

Actress Ashley Scott portrayed Helena Kyle / The Huntress in the 2002 television series Birds of Prey and reprised her role in the annual Arrowverse crossover "Crisis on Infinite Earths".

Publication history
The Huntress was created as a response to All Star Comics inker Bob Layton's suggestion that a revamped Earth-Two Batgirl be added to the lineup of the Justice Society of America. Penciller Joe Staton recounted how the character was designed:

Staton also admitted that the character's costume was heavily inspired by the Black Cat. The title Huntress was borrowed from "relatively obscure Golden Age villainess" Paula Brooks. Helena's first appearance was in DC Super Stars #17 (November/December 1977), which told her origin, and then All Star Comics #69 (December 1977), which came out the same day, and revealed her existence to the Justice Society of America. She appeared in Batman Family #17-20 when it expanded into the Dollar Comics format for its last few issues. The bulk of her solo stories appeared as backup features in issues of Wonder Woman beginning with issue #271 (September 1980). These stories, almost all of which were written by Levitz and pencilled by Staton, tended to a noir style, with the Huntress typically combating street-level crime rather than costumed supervillains.

Following the character's death and erasure from history in Crisis on Infinite Earths #12 (March 1986), DC created a new Huntress (Helena Bertinelli), whose costume and weaponry are similar to that of Helena Wayne, and whose adventures were drawn by Staton.

Post-Crisis Earth-2 version
Following 52 (2007), DC Comics superheroes' fictional world was newly established as a collection of 52 parallel-world "universes". An alternate rebooted version of the Helena Wayne character now resides on post-Crisis Earth-2 and has appeared in Justice Society of America (vol. 3) in issues set on the parallel world of Earth-2.

Fictional character biography

Origin
Helena was born in 1957 to Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle Wayne, and grew up enjoying the benefits of being in a wealthy household. As a youth, she enjoyed a thorough education, as well as being trained by her parents, Batman and Catwoman, to become a super-athlete. As a young girl she was amazed to learn that her father was the Batman and embraced Dick Grayson as her older brother. She also looked up to Alfred as a second father. After Yale College and Yale Law School, she joined the law firm of Cranston and Grayson, one of whose partners was Dick Grayson, alias Robin.

In 1976, criminal Silky Cernak blackmailed his old boss Selina Kyle into resuming action once again as Catwoman, an act which eventually led to her death. Helena, deciding to bring Cernak to justice, created a costume for herself, fashioned some weapons from her parents' equipment (including her eventual trademark weapon, a crossbow), and set out to bring him in. After accomplishing this, Helena decided to continue to fight crime, under the code name "the Huntress".

Allies and enemies
After her mother's death, Helena moved out of Wayne Manor and into a Gotham City apartment. She soon found herself involved with the Justice Society of America (her father's old team) and formally joined the group in All Star Comics #72. Helena was also briefly associated with the superhero group Infinity, Inc., a team made up of second-generation superheroes, mostly the children of JSA members.

Helena also struck up a friendship with fellow new superheroine Power Girl, who was also a part of both the JSA and Infinity Inc. In addition to Power Girl, Helena frequently worked with Robin and with a new hero named Blackwing. Some of her foes were the Thinker, the Joker, Lion-Mane (one of her mother's embittered former minions), Karnage, the Crime lord, the Boa, and the Earthworm. Her lover for a time was Gotham District Attorney Harry Sims. Despite the fact that she proposed a partnership ("I nail'em, you jail'em"), their relationship grew difficult in that he knew of her secret identity and was constantly worrying about her safety. She briefly flirted with Robin who, cited her father's choice in looking for a wife, told her that a normal man would not be able to satisfy her.

She made several visits to Earth-One. Her first was in Batman Family #17, where she met the Earth-One Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Batwoman, and fought the Earth-One Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Madame Zodiac. Seeing in him her father returned to her, she took to calling the Earth-One Batman her "Uncle Bruce", and built a familiar relationship with him. As a member of the Justice Society, she participated in several of the annual JLA/JSA meetings, most of which took place on Earth-One. She also participated in the battle against the Adjudicator as part of the female force of multiple Earths led by the Earth-One Wonder Woman. Other heroines involved in this adventure included Zatanna, Supergirl, the Phantom Lady, Madame Xanadu, Power Girl, the Black Canary, Wonder Girl, Raven and Starfire.

Despite the fact that she did love her mother and became the Huntress to avenge her death, she secretly feared that she might follow in her mother's footsteps. Either fighting a demonic version of her mother in a drug-induced haze or fighting her mother's Earth-One counterpart (who had never reformed), Helena had a difficult time coming to grips with her mother's criminal career, even going so far as to seek therapy. Looking at her mother's Earth-One counterpart, she secretly hoped that one day that the Earth-One Catwoman would reform.

Death in Crisis on Infinite Earths
Helena's last solo appearance was before the 1985 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths; her storyline ended with the Harbinger contemplating the coming Crisis.

The Huntress participated in the battle to save all Creation from the Anti-Monitor and while she, along with dozens of other heroes, succeeded in preventing the villain from erasing the universe from having ever existed, she nevertheless failed to prevent the end of the multiverse. While parts of Earth-Two, along with other Earths, were grafted onto Earth-One creating the post-Crisis Earth, Earth-Two itself was destroyed. The Huntress was traumatized to learn that her Earth and her family not only no longer existed but, with history rewritten, had never existed.

Despite collapsing in her Robin's arms at one point, she galvanized herself for the last battle wherein she (along with her Robin and Kole) died saving several children from the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons. After Crisis ended, Helena Wayne, like her parents and Earth-Two's Dick Grayson, disappeared and was forgotten.

Her last appearance was in Superman/Batman #27, wherein Power Girl, whose memories of Earth-Two were restored, recollects an adventure she had with the Huntress in which they clash with the Ultra-Humanite and Brainwave, the Ultra-Humanite having briefly trapped Superman and Batman's minds in the bodies of their cousin and daughter, respectively.

Return in Infinite Crisis
Following the events of Infinite Crisis and 52, the multiverse is effectively restored and among those universes is Earth-2, complete with the Huntress.

In Justice Society of America (vol. 3) Annual #1, Power Girl is sent to Earth-2 by Gog. There, she is discovered by the Huntress who recognizes her as the Power Girl from their world who went missing after the first Crisis. In this new Earth-2, the citizens remember having been the only Earth in existence following the Crisis. The Huntress re-initiates Power Girl into an amalgamated Justice Society Infinity (an Infinity Inc. and Justice Society merger) and brings her up to speed on her life. Following the death of Alfred, the Huntress has become more estranged from her friends; Robin serves in the Batman's place as a global protector, while the Huntress protects the streets of Gotham. As all her father's rogues gallery have begun to die, an aged Joker makes plans to recreate Two-Face by scarring acid on the Huntress' would-be fiancée, D.A. Harry Sims. The Huntress attempts to kill him, and is stopped by Power Girl; the Joker's plan to take the Huntress out with him backfires, and he dies of old age and prolonged exposure to his own chemicals. However, the Huntress confesses to Power Girl that it is Robin she truly loves, but Sims' injuries leave her feeling obligated to remain with him as he suffered his burns after he had proposed to her, but before she had the chance to say "No".

The Huntress has not only returned along with Earth-Two but, as Helena Kyle, she has even been born into the mainstream DC Universe. Her mother is still Selina Kyle, though Helena's father is initially unknown. Many assume it is the Batman, but it is eventually claimed that the father was Slam Bradley's son. Despite initially quitting being  Catwoman to care for her, Selina ultimately puts Helena up for adoption under the Batman's arrangement for fear she would be unable to protect her.

A month after Helena is placed with a new family, the Catwoman asks sorceress Zatanna to erase her memories of Helena and to make her stop thinking of herself as a heroine. Zatanna refuses, because such an act would be cruel to both mother and daughter and because Selina was already on the path to becoming a heroine on her own.

The New 52

The Helena Wayne incarnation of the Huntress returned in the wake of DC's The New 52 relaunch with a six-issue Huntress miniseries that was released in October 2011. Alongside Power Girl, she later starred in a revival of the Worlds' Finest series, written by Paul Levitz and drawn by George Pérez and Kevin Maguire. In the post-Flashpoint Earth 2 continuity, Helena Wayne was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman (Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle Wayne). She was also the only Robin to her father's Batman identity and a more ruthless character than previously seen. As well as Catwoman of Earth 2, who dies in an attack on a Gotham building under crossfire, Batman of Earth 2 is killed along with that world's Superman and Wonder Woman during an attempted Apokoliptian invasion. Helena only adopts the Huntress identity after accidentally arriving on Prime Earth through a Boom Tube, along with the Earth 2 Supergirl who changes to her subsequent Power Girl identity several years later. The Worlds' Finest storyline explores how Helena and Power Girl arrived on the mainstream DC Earth and their attempts to return to their source Earth. It starts five years after their arrival.

DC Rebirth
In the 2016–2019 run of Batman penned by Tom King as part of the DC Rebirth era, Selina and Bruce reconnected and fell in love once more, with the two almost marrying. In the possible futures of the story called "Last Rites" (in Batman (vol. 3) Annual #2) and the series Batman/Catwoman, Selina falls pregnant with Bruce's child whom they name Helena. After Bruce's death in a flash-forward she helps her widowed mother come to terms with it and ends up becoming the new Batwoman.

Dawn of DC
A version of the character is reintroduced in a flashforward depicted in Geoff Johns' one-shot The New Golden Age, which deals with never-before-seen characters being returned to history after having been removed, changing the DC timeline. In a future scene, a young Helena is being stalked by "The Stranger". Late one night, Helena spots Batman in her home and stabs him, only for him to reveal himself as her father Bruce. Her mother Selena is furious, knowing that this will start Helena down the tragic road taken by various Robins in the past. Because of this, Bruce retired from being Batman. Further in the future still, when Bruce is murdered, an adult Helena swears vengeance, becoming Huntress. When Huntress and her makeshift incarnation of the JSA confronted the Stranger, he killed most of its members which also resulted in Huntress being sent back in time to the 1940s where Johnny Thunder and Thunderbolt find her body. When she meets the Justice Society of that time, Doctor Fate tried to find out who the enemy she faced was only to suffer some electrical feedback that knocked everyone down. Huntress was later flung to the present where she meets the Khalid Nassour version of Doctor Fate, Deadman, and Detective Chimp. After telling them about what happened in her future, Doctor Fate takes Huntress to the Justice Society of America while Detective Chimp and Deadman take the snow globe she had to Madame Xanadu to see if she can provide them with some answers. Upon arriving, Huntress helps the JSA out by defeating Angle Man causing the Bizarros that he summoned from another reality to disappear. They hear her story of what happened in her future and her encounter with Per Degaton as they decide to call in the rest of the JSA. Just then, Per Degaton arrives with plans to take out the JSA. As Per Degaton goes on the attack, Huntress saves Power Girl from the Kryptonite ring on Per Degaton's hand by shooting the finger that has it enabling Power Girl to attack Per Degaton enough for him to retreat. Afterwards, Power Girl thanked Huntress for saving her life. Power Girl later informs the Justice Society of America, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, and Detective Chimp that Huntress is en route to Gotham City. Later that night, she finds Batman subduing Mister Toad. Huntress states that she is his daughter from an alternate timeline and is here to save him. After Huntress explained herself to Batman, the JSA, Madame Xanadu, Deadman, and Detective Chimp catch up to them. Madame Xanadu explains that the snow globe in question is keeping her alive and that it's the same snow globe that Batman stole from the Time Masters. They are then attacked by Per Degaton and the different versions of the Time Masters. When Doctor Fate got ahold of the snow globe, she summoned the JSA members from across time including the ones from the possible future that Huntress comes from. Once Per Degaton is defeated and imprisoned in the Flashpoint reality within the snow globe, the possible future that Huntress comes from disappears with her still existing. Her narration states that Batman has mentioned that she is among the paradoxes that shouldn't be remaining and doesn't want her to move in with her as Huntress takes her leave. Bruce does move Helena into her own place in New York City until the Hourman android can find an alternative. Helena does mention to Bruce that Catwoman is unavailable to hear about what transpired. Huntress later talks with Power Girl about the growing ranks of the Justice Society of America and how it's version in her time had Gentleman Ghost, Harlequin's Son, and Red Lantern's daughter Ruby in their ranks. She states that if that ends up happening, they should start with getting Solomon Grundy on their side.

Powers and abilities
The Huntress is a highly skilled gymnast and is also skilled at hand-to-hand combat. In addition, she is an expert markswoman, with her trademark weapon being a crossbow.

Collected editions
In January 2020, coinciding with the film Birds of Prey, DC Comics published The Huntress: Origins (), a trade paperback which was a re-release of 2006's Huntress: Darknight Daughter under a new title.

In other media

 Helena Wayne / Huntress appears in Legends of the Superheroes, portrayed by Barbara Joyce.
 Bruce Timm spoke of bringing Helena Wayne / Huntress into Batman Beyond as an alternative to having a "Batgirl Beyond".
 Helena Wayne / Huntress, renamed Helena Kyle, appears in Birds of Prey, portrayed by Ashley Scott. This version is based primarily on her Bronze Age comics counterpart and is the half-metahuman daughter of Batman and Catwoman, the latter of whom raised Helena without revealing who her father was until Catwoman was murdered by Clayface and Barbara Gordon took over raising her. Having inherited her mother's powers, such as enhanced agility, strength, healing, and a sixth sense for danger, Helena forms the titular Birds of Prey with Gordon and Dinah Redmond to fight crime in New Gotham City in Batman's stead.
 Helena Kyle makes a cameo appearance in "Crisis on Infinite Earths", portrayed again by Ashley Scott.

Analysis and reception
Editor Paul Levitz justified the creation of Helena Wayne by a wish to bring more diversity into the comic books, for the ALL-STAR JSA group, and to give Power Girl (the only female in the groups at the time) someone to contrast with and befriend.

Reviewers Michael Eury and Gina Misiroglu found the character of Helena Wayne "intriguingly distinguished by her parentage". This incarnation of the Huntress "so enthralled DC readers fascinated by the heroine's lineage and motivation" that she was spun out into her own successful series. When the character was eliminated by DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths series, it "was too popular to fully jettison from the DC universe", leading to the creation of Helena Bertinelli as the next Huntress.

References

External links
JSA Fact File: The Huntress
Earth-2 Huntress (Helena Wayne) Index

Characters created by Paul Levitz
Batman characters
Characters created by Bob Layton
Characters created by Joe Orlando
Comics characters introduced in 1977
DC Comics female superheroes
DC Comics martial artists
DC Comics superheroes
Earth-Two
Female soldier and warrior characters in comics
Fictional characters from parallel universes
Fictional archers
Fictional lawyers
Superheroes who are adopted
Robin (character)
Vigilante characters in comics

Huntress (Helena Wayne)


The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began when he took office as the 16th President of the United States on March 4, 1861. It ended with his death on April 15, 1865. During his presidency he claimed more prerogatives than any other president had done before him. As a result, the small and relatively limited powers of the president grew enormously during his time in office. When Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election, he did it without the support of any of the Southern states. Since the 1830s, Southern states had talked about secession, but it became a serious issue in 1860. Between the election and Lincoln's Inauguration in March of 1861, seven states had seceded from the Union. They formed the Confederate States of America (CSA). When Confederates attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 and captured it the next day, this started the American Civil War. While having little previous military experience, Lincoln still managed to stand out as a great war president. In 1863, his Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in Southern states. It led directly to the abolition of slavery in the United States. Given later that year, his Gettysburg Address is and remains one of the most important speeches in American history. In 1865, as the Civil war was ending he was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer. His death made Lincoln a martyr to the Union cause. He is widely recognized as the greatest president in U.S. history.

Lincoln's 1860 presidential campaign
By this time Lincoln was well-known in Illinois politics. In 1858 he had debated Stephen A. Douglas in a bid for the United States Senate and lost. At the time, U.S. senators were elected by their state legislatures. So both Lincoln and Douglas were trying for their respective parties to win control of the Illinois legislature. Although Illinois was a free state, the main issue of all seven debates was slavery.

Lincoln spent the next 16 months making speeches for a number of Republican candidates in the North. This both made him many political friends and also was in preparation for his run for President. Up to this time the strongest candidate was William H. Seward of New York. Seward was strongly opposed to slavery anywhere in the U.S. Lincoln took a more moderate view and was opposed to the spread of slavery in new states to the West.

As Lincoln became more popular in the newly-formed Republican Party he was invited to give speeches in a number of states. In October of 1859, he was invited to speak at Henry Ward Beecher's church in Brooklyn, New York. Lincoln spent months preparing for this speech; more time than he had spent on any speech he had given during the senatorial debates. At the last minute, the site for his speech was moved to the Cooper Union in Manhattan. Lincoln knew why he had been asked to give the address. He was being promoted as an alternative to Seward and other possible Republican candidates. The Cooper Union address got Lincoln the attention he needed to become the Republican candidate for president in 1860.

In April 1860, the Democrats held their political convention, the Southern Democrats walked out and the convention closed without nominating a candidate. The two sides each held their own conventions two months later.
Stephen Douglas was the candidate of the Northern Democrats. John C. Breckinridge ran for the Southern Democrats. John Bell, the Senator from Tennessee, ran for the Constitutional Union Party. The split in the Democratic party almost guaranteed Lincoln could win the presidency. At the beginning of 1860, Lincoln was not a major candidate for President. On November6, 1860, with 39% of the popular vote and a majority in the Electoral College, Lincoln was elected President. Voter turnout for the election was 81.2%, the second highest in American history.

Secession crisis of 1860–1861

In November of 1860, with Lincoln the apparent winner, a crisis that had been smoldering for at least a decade erupted. Southerners were outraged by the election of Lincoln, who opposed slavery in territories and new states. They began to act almost immediately. James Chesnut, Jr., Senator from South Carolina, resigned just four days after the election. President James Buchanan only made things worse. In December, he wrote a message to Congress. In it he stated he thought secession was illegal. But he added that the federal government could not act to stop any states from leaving the Union. Northerners could not understand how Buchanan could say such a thing. After that, Buchanan's cabinet began falling apart. Howell Cobb, the Secretary of the Treasury who was from Georgia, told Buchanan he quit. A week later, Lewis Cass, the Secretary of State (from Michigan) left because Buchanan had done nothing to stop the secession crisis.

South Carolina was the first to take action. Leaders there had warned that if a Republican won the 1868 election, they would leave the Union. On December 20, 1860 in a special convention, they passed a unanimous resolution to secede. In January of 1861 they were followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana. Texas seceded on February 1. While resolutions for secession were prepared in other states, no more were passed during this period.

While Buchanan did nothing, several senators made speeches in Congress trying to calm things down. The Peace Conference of 1861 was held at the Willard Hotel in Washington on February 4, 1861. Of the 33 states, 21 sent delegates. Former President John Tyler, a native of Virginia, was elected the presiding officer. The convention lasted for about two weeks. During that time a number of proposals were created that were then delivered to Congress. A number of compromises were worked out that would take the form of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution. But none were passed by Congress. At Lincoln's inauguration, he rode in a carriage beside the outgoing president. Buchanan is quoted as saying to Lincoln, "If you are as happy entering the presidency as I am leaving it, then you are a very happy man." Within weeks, four more slave states seceded and the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter.

Lincoln's 1st inaugural address
On March 4, 1861, Lincoln gave his first inaugural address as part of his being sworn in as 16th President of the United States. The speech was primarily addressed to the people of the South. It was intended to lay out Lincoln's intended policies and desires toward the South where seven states had formed the Confederate States of America. His speech was written in a spirit of friendship toward the seceded states. He touched on several points. Lincoln promised not to interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed. He said there would be no Federal hostility towards the states that had seceded for the time being. The Federal Government would "hold, occupy, and possess" its property. It would also collect its taxes. He closed his speech with the warning:

Lincoln administration
Lincoln's presidency lasted for about four years. It ran from March 4, 1861 until he was shot by a Confederate sympathizer and died on April 15, 1865. Nearly all of his time in office was consumed by the Civil War. From his election by the Electoral College on February 15 to his inauguration on March 4, Lincoln had little time to assemble a cabinet.

Lincoln's cabinet

Lincoln's cabinet was unique in American history. It included all of his major rivals for the 1860 Republican nomination. As part of the political negotiations leading up to the nomination, some had been promised a position in the cabinet. It was not a harmonious group as most of them did not like each other. They had different ideas about governing the country, different ethics and different personalities. In particular, Simon Cameron, was forced on Lincoln by a deal struck with the Pennsylvania delegates at the Republican Convention. He already had a reputation for being incompetent and corrupt. Per the agreement he was Lincoln's Secretary of War.

Members included:
 Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln's first Vice President (1861–1865).
 Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's second Vice President (1865–1865) and 17th President of the United States.
 Salmon P. Chase, United States Secretary of the Treasury. In 1864 he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
 Simon Cameron, Secretary of War (1861–1862).
 Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War (1862–1865).
 William H. Seward, Secretary of State (1861–1865).
 Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy (1861–1865).
 Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General (1861–1864).
 Edward Bates, Attorney General (1861–1864).

Domestic affairs
The Lincoln administration found itself tasked with guiding the country through its darkest days. He inherited the problems from his predecessor, President James Buchanan. In his own inaugural address four years earlier, Buchan had called the issues of slavery "happily, a matter of but little practical importance." Buchanan took the position he did not have the power to do anything about the impending civil war. He said: "It is beyond the power of any president, no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the states. Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question." As the civil war approached, under Buchanan's presidency the country slid into a recession.

Rather than ignore or accept the situation, Lincoln had to mend a broken nation or see it torn apart. Between the presidential election and his inauguration, the seven states that seceded formed the Confederate States of America. Their constitution was patterned after the United States Constitution with four differences. It supported states' Sovereignty. It guaranteed slavery would always exist in the Confederate states. It did not allow the Southern Congress to establish protective tariffs. It also limited the term of president of the Confederate states to 6 years. Jefferson Davis was elected as president of the CSA. He was a Mississippi slave owner, a U.S. senator and had also been secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce. The CSA assumed several philosophical positions that differed from those of the United States. It assumed the United States was merely an association of sovereign states as they had been under the Articles of Confederation before the acceptance of the U.S. Constitution. They maintained that as such, each state was free to leave the association of states. The North saw the Union as a permanent country. Lincoln pointed out that each state had given up its own sovereignty when it ratified and accepted the Constitution. He also argued that no state had the right to revolt against their country, the United States of America. But Lincoln remained silent about the CSA from their formation until his inauguration. He repeated his campaign promise, that as President he would take no steps to stop or limit slavery in those states where it already existed. However, he did not accept the proposals made by the Peace Commission. Demonstrating his peaceful intentions, his inaugural address was aimed at preventing other Southern states from joining the CSA. They were not enemies. He would not attack the CSA but would keep and maintain all property of the United States government that existed in the Southern states.

A day after his inauguration, Lincoln received a dispatch from Major Robert Anderson. He was the commander of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. He informed Lincoln that if the fort was not resupplied soon, he and his men would have to leave. Lincoln thought of a way to resupply the fort without starting any fighting. He would send unarmed supply ships to Fort Sumter. He informed CSA President Davis of his intentions. This way, the U.S. would not start any fighting but would retain the fort as Lincoln had promised they would. Immediately Davis sent General P. G. T. Beauregard to force the fort's surrender before the supply ships could arrive. At 4:30 a.m. on the morning on April 12, 1861, Confederate guns began a bombardment of Fort Sumter. After 33 hours, Major Anderson surrendered the fort. This was the start of the Civil War.

The war lasted for four years. The North did not anticipate the South would fight almost to the last man to defend its "freedom". The South had no idea that the North, led by Lincoln, would show an iron will to preserve the Union at all costs.

Foreign affairs

One of Lincoln's military strategies was to blockade the South's ports and approximately  of shoreline. At the start of the war, with only a few ships, this was all but impossible. By war's end, the Union had captured or destroyed 1500 blockade runners. But with nearly 5 out of 6 shops able to evade the blockade, Great Britain argued it was not recognized by international law as it was a "paper blockade." The Confederacy was able to ship only a small part of its main cash crop, cotton, to England during the war. Three years before the war the South had shipped 10 million bales of cotton a year. During the war they shipped a total of only 500,000 bales. But English manufacturers had stockpiled large quantities of Southern cotton from the huge exports before the war. What they had on hand carried them through most of the war.

In 1861, both the Confederacy and the Union wanted the help of Great Britain. The North counted on them because of their condemnation of slavery. The Confederacy counted on their help because of the great importance their cotton had to Britain's economy. So both sides had diplomatic relations with Great Britain. The South needed Britain's help to win the war. Also, without the aid of Britain, France would not dare interfere even though they were already friendly with the South. On May 4, 1861, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation declaring Britain's neutrality in the war and recognizing the Confederacy as a belligerent in the conflict. This enraged Lincoln. Seward, his Secretary of State, had already issued instructions to the new minister to Britain to quit and come home should the Queen recognize the Confederacy. France followed with a similar declaration which also recognized the CSA as a nation. Seward warned both nations of the possibility of war with the United States over this issue.

British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston sent a fleet of naval warships to the western Atlantic in preparation for a surprise attack on New York City. They intended to use the world's largest ship, the SS Great Eastern as a troop transport. They saw a strike against New York would be a strike against the U.S. center of commerce. But in the spring of 1862, the British learned of the Union ironclad warship, the USS Monitor. This cancelled any invasion plans. While the British Navy had ironclad warships, they required deep water to navigate. The Monitor and Northern ships like her could destroy British ships should they try to blockade Northern ports. Russia was also concerned the British and/or French might step in. During the summer of 1862, a coalition of nations considered stepping in to mediate the war. These included Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia. But in the fall of 1863, Tsar Alexander II of Russia sent his navy to protect the United States from any invasion by Great Britain and France. Their Baltic fleet began arriving in New York harbor on September 24, 1863. The Russian Far East fleet was sent to San Francisco.

For the remainder of the war, most European countries had little to gain by recognizing the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. Lincoln was diplomatic in his handling of two Confederates who had been arrested on the British ship the Trent. He ordered them both released. Crop failures in Europe made Union agricultural products popular. Egypt and India were able to supply the cotton that was formerly bought from the South before the war. The Union was also a good customer for small arms and other manufactured goods from Europe. However, dozens of blockade runners and warships were constructed for the Confederate Navy by English shipbuilders during the war.

Lincoln as commander in chief

In 1861, the American Civil war was the first modern total war. And in 1861, nobody in the United States knew how to fight one. Men could be enlisted and war goods could be manufactured, but generals took time to train. The general in chief of the army in 1861 was Winfield Scott, in charge of an army of only about 16,000 men. Scott was both old and old school (meaning he had no modern training). Quite a few officers had been trained at West Point, but at the time West Point taught engineering, mathematics and fortifications. It taught very little about strategy and nothing about leading large formations of soldiers in the field. None had learned anything about staff work or how to manage an army except those few who could read French or who had any military experience in Europe. One of the worst problems is that field commanders did not even have accurate maps of the areas they had to move and fight in. Except in the West, local maps did not exist for many parts of the country. Unlike Jefferson Davis, who did have military experience, Lincoln had almost none.

Lincoln faced a very steep learning curve when the war started. But Lincoln was a quick study. He had taught himself to be a lawyer. Learning military strategy proved to be something else he could do very well. He read books on strategy, military history and learned from the successes and failures of his troops in the field. He also learned from the enemy's military tactics. He learned so well that by 1862, historian T. Harry William said about him: "Lincoln stands out as a great war president, probably the greatest in our history, and a great natural strategist, a better one than any of his generals." Although there is no evidence he ever read Karl von Clausewitz's On War, his actions followed the book's central argument: "The political objective is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose. Therefore, it is clear that war should never be thought of as something autonomous but always as an instrument of policy."

Notes

References

Other websites
 President Abraham Lincoln 1st Inaugural Address; YouTube
 Lincoln and Davis: War Presidents: YouTube
 Abraham Lincoln vs. the British Empire - part 1: YouTube
 Abraham Lincoln vs. the British Empire - part 2:YouTube

Abraham Lincoln

Presidency of Abraham Lincoln