The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet department. It was headed by the postmaster general.

The Postal Service Act, signed by U.S. president George Washington on February 20, 1792, established the department. Postmaster General John McLean, in office from 1823 to 1829, was the first to call it the Post Office Department rather than just the "Post Office." The organization received a boost in prestige when President Andrew Jackson invited his postmaster general, William T. Barry, to sit as a member of the Cabinet in 1829. The Post Office Act of 1872 () elevated the Post Office Department to Cabinet status.

During the American Civil War (1861–1865), postal services in the Confederate States of America were provided by the Confederate States of America Post-office Department, headed by Postmaster General John Henninger Reagan. It faced insurmountable obstacles, especially the requirement that it not run a deficit.

The Postal Reorganization Act was signed by President Richard Nixon on August 12, 1970. It replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with the independent United States Postal Service on July 1, 1971. The regulatory role of the postal services was then transferred to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Foundations
In the early years of the North American colonies, many attempts were made to initiate a postal service. These early attempts were of small scale and usually involved a colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony for example, setting up a location in Boston where one could post a letter back home to England. Other attempts focused on a dedicated postal service between two of the larger colonies, such as Massachusetts and Virginia, but the available services remained limited in scope and disjointed for many years. For example, informal independently run postal routes operated in Boston as early as 1639, with a Boston to New York City service starting in 1672.

A central postal organization came to the colonies in 1691, when Thomas Neale received a 21-year grant from the British Crown for a North American Postal Service. On February 17, 1691, a grant of letters patent from the joint sovereigns, William III and Mary II, empowered him:

to erect, settle, and establish within the chief parts of their majesties' colonies and plantations in America, an office or offices for receiving and dispatching letters and pacquets, and to receive, send, and deliver the same under such rates and sums of money as the planters shall agree to give, and to hold and enjoy the same for the term of twenty-one years.

The patent included the exclusive right to establish and collect a formal postal tax on official documents of all kinds. The tax was repealed a year later. Neale appointed Andrew Hamilton, Governor of New Jersey, as his deputy postmaster. The first postal service in America commenced in February 1692. Rates of postage were fixed and authorized, and measures were taken to establish a post office in each town in Virginia. Massachusetts and the other colonies soon passed postal laws, and a very imperfect post office system was established. Neale's patent expired in 1710, when Parliament extended the English postal system to the colonies. The chief office was established in New York City, where letters were conveyed by regular packets across the Atlantic.

The American Revolution
Before the Revolution, there was only a trickle of business or governmental correspondence between the colonies. Most of the mail went back and forth to counting houses and government offices in London. The revolution made Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, the information hub of the new nation. News, new laws, political intelligence, and military orders circulated with a new urgency, and a postal system was necessary. Journalists took the lead, securing post office legislation that allowed them to reach their subscribers at very low cost, and to exchange news from newspapers between the thirteen states. Overthrowing the London-oriented imperial postal service in 1774–1775, printers enlisted merchants and the new political leadership, and created a new postal system. The United States Post Office (USPO) was created on July 26, 1775, by decree of the Second Continental Congress. Benjamin Franklin headed it briefly.

Before the Revolution, individuals like Benjamin Franklin and William Goddard were the colonial postmasters who managed the mails then and were the general architects of a postal system that started out as an alternative to the Crown Post.

After the Revolution

 The official post office was created in 1792 as the Post Office Department (USPOD). It was based on the Constitutional authority empowering Congress "To establish post offices and post roads". The 1792 law provided for a greatly expanded postal network, and served editors by charging newspapers an extremely low rate. The law guaranteed the sanctity of personal correspondence, and provided the entire country with low-cost access to information on public affairs, while establishing a right to personal privacy.

Rufus Easton was appointed by Thomas Jefferson first postmaster of St. Louis under the recommendation of Postmaster General Gideon Granger. Rufus Easton was the first postmaster and built the first post office west of the Mississippi. At the same time Easton was appointed by Thomas Jefferson, judge of Louisiana Territory, the largest territory in North America. Bruce Adamson wrote that: "Next to Benjamin Franklin, Rufus Easton was one of the most colorful people in United States Postal History." It was Easton who educated Abraham Lincoln's attorney general, Edward Bates. In 1815 Edward Bates moved into the Easton home and lived there for years at Third and Elm. Today this is the site of the Jefferson Memorial Park. In 1806 Postmaster General Gideon Granger wrote a three-page letter to Easton, begging him not to partake in a duel with vice-president Aaron Burr. Two years earlier it was Burr who had shot and killed Alexander Hamilton. Many years later in 1852, Easton's son, Brevet Major-General Langdon Cheves Easton, was commissioned by William T. Sherman, at Fort Union to deliver a letter to Independence, Missouri. Sherman wrote: "In the Spring of 1852, General Sherman mentioned that the quartermaster, Major L.C. Easton, at Fort Union, New Mexico, had occasion to send some message east by a certain date, and contracted with Aubrey to carry it to the nearest post office (then Independence, Missouri), making his compensation conditional on the time consumed. He was supplied with a good horse, and an order on the outgoing trains for exchange. Though the whole route was infested with hostile Indians, and not a house on it, Aubrey started alone with his rifle. He was fortunate in meeting several outward-bound trains, and thereby made frequent changes of horses, some four or five, and reached Independence in six days, having hardly rested or slept the whole way."

To cover long distances, the Post Office used a hub-and-spoke system, with Washington as the hub and chief sorting center. By 1869, with 27,000 local post offices to deal with, it had changed to sorting mail en route in specialized railroad mail cars, called railway post offices, or RPOs. The system of postal money orders began in 1864. Free mail delivery began in the larger cities in 1863.

19th century
The postal system played a crucial role in national expansion. It facilitated expansion of the western American frontier by creating an inexpensive, fast, convenient communication system. Letters from early settlers provided information and boosterism to encourage increased migration to the West, helped scattered families stay in touch and provide assistance, assisted entrepreneurs in finding business opportunities, and made possible regular commercial relationships between merchants in the west and wholesalers and factories back east. The postal service likewise assisted the army in expanding control over the vast western territories. The widespread circulation of important newspapers by mail, such as the New York Weekly Tribune, facilitated coordination among politicians in different states. The postal service helped integrate established areas with the frontier, creating a spirit of nationalism and providing a necessary infrastructure.

The Post Office in the 19th century was a major source of federal patronage. Local postmasterships were rewards for local politicians—often the editors of party newspapers. About three quarters of all federal civilian employees worked for the Post Office. In 1816 it employed 3,341 men, and in 1841, 14,290. The volume of mail expanded much faster than the population, as it carried annually 100 letters and 200 newspapers per 1,000 white population in 1790, and 2,900 letters and 2,700 newspapers per thousand in 1840.

The Post Office Department was enlarged during the tenure of President Andrew Jackson. As the Post Office expanded, difficulties were experienced due to a lack of employees and transportation. The Post Office's employees at that time were still subject to the so-called "spoils" system, where faithful political supporters of the executive branch were appointed to positions in the post office and other government corporations as a reward for their patronage. These appointees rarely had prior experience in postal service and mail delivery. This system of political patronage was replaced in 1883, after passage of the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.

In 1823, ten years after the Post Office had first begun to use steamboats to carry mail between post towns where no roads existed, waterways were declared post roads. Once it became clear that the postal system in the United States needed to expand across the entire country, the use of the railroad to transport the mail was instituted in 1832, on one line in Pennsylvania. All railroads in the United States were designated as post routes, after passage of the Act of July 7, 1838. Mail service by railroad increased rapidly thereafter.

An Act of Congress provided for the issuance of stamps on March 3, 1847, and the postmaster general immediately let a contract to the New York City engraving firm of Rawdon, Wright, Hatch, and Edson. The first stamp issue of the U.S. was offered for sale on July 1, 1847, in New York City, with Boston receiving stamps the following day and other cities thereafter. The 5-cent stamp paid for a letter weighing less than  and traveling less than 300 miles, the 10-cent stamp for deliveries to locations greater than 300 miles, or twice the weight deliverable for the 5-cent stamp.

In 1847, the U.S. Mail Steamship Company acquired the contract which allowed it to carry the U.S. mails from New York, with stops in New Orleans and Havana, to the Isthmus of Panama for delivery in California. The same year, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had acquired the right to transport mail under contract from the United States Government from the Isthmus of Panama to California. In 1855, William Henry Aspinwall completed the Panama Railway, providing rail service across the Isthmus and cutting to three weeks the transport time for the mails, passengers and goods to California. This remained an important route until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. Railroad companies greatly expanded mail transport service after 1862, and the Railway Mail Service was inaugurated in 1869.

Rail cars designed to sort and distribute mail while rolling were soon introduced. RMS employees sorted mail "on-the-fly" during the journey, and became some of the most skilled workers in the postal service. An RMS sorter had to be able to separate the mail quickly into compartments based on its final destination, before the first destination arrived, and work at the rate of 600 pieces of mail an hour. They were tested regularly for speed and accuracy.

Parcel Post service began with the introduction of International Parcel Post between the U.S. and foreign countries in 1887. That same year, the U.S. Post Office and the postmaster general of Canada established parcel-post service between the two nations. A bilateral parcel-post treaty between the independent (at the time) Kingdom of Hawaii and the USA was signed on December 19, 1888 and put into effect early in 1889. Parcel-post service between the U.S. and other countries grew with the signing of successive postal conventions and treaties. While the Post Office agreed to deliver parcels sent into the country under the UPU treaty, it did not institute a domestic parcel-post service for another twenty-five years.

20th century
The advent of Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in the U.S. in 1896, and the inauguration of a domestic parcel post service by Postmaster General Frank H. Hitchcock in 1913, greatly increased the volume of mail shipped nationwide, and motivated the development of more efficient postal transportation systems. Many rural customers took advantage of inexpensive Parcel Post rates to order goods and products from businesses located hundreds of miles away in distant cities for delivery by mail. From the 1910s to the 1960s, many college students and others used parcel post to mail home dirty laundry, as doing so was less expensive than washing the clothes themselves.

After four-year-old Charlotte May Pierstorff was mailed from her parents to her grandparents in Idaho in 1914, mailing of people was prohibited. In 1917, the Post Office imposed a maximum daily mailable limit of two hundred pounds per customer per day after a business entrepreneur, W. H. Coltharp, used inexpensive parcel-post rates to ship more than eighty thousand masonry bricks some four hundred seven miles via horse-drawn wagon and train for the construction of a bank building in Vernal, Utah.

The advent of parcel post also led to the growth of mail order businesses that substantially increased rural access to modern goods over what was typically stocked in local general stores.

One of the largest organizations of the early 20th century, the Post Office Department is reported to have had nearly 350,000 employees in 1924.

United States Postal Savings System

In 1912, carrier service was announced for establishment in towns of second and third class with $100,000 appropriated by Congress. From January 1, 1911, until July 1, 1967, the United States Post Office Department operated the United States Postal Savings System. An Act of Congress of June 25, 1910, established the Postal Savings System in designated post offices, effective January 1, 1911. The legislation aimed to get money out of hiding, attract the savings of immigrants accustomed to the postal savings system in their native countries, provide safe depositories for people who had lost confidence in banks, and furnish more convenient depositories for working people. The law establishing the system directed the Post Office Department to redeposit most of the money in the system in local banks, where it earned 2.5 percent interest.

The system paid 2% interest per year on deposits. The half-percent difference in interest was intended to pay for the operation of the system. Certificates were issued to depositors as proof of their deposit. Depositors in the system were initially limited to hold a balance of $500, but this was raised to $1,000 in 1916 and to $2,500 in 1918. The initial minimum deposit was $1. In order to save smaller amounts for deposit, customers could purchase a 10-cent postal savings card and 10-cent postal savings stamps to fill it. The card could be used to open or add to an account when its value, together with any attached stamps, amounted to one or more dollars, or it could be redeemed for cash. At its peak in 1947, the system held almost $3.4 billion in deposits, with more than four million depositors using 8,141 postal units.

Airmail

On August 12, 1918, the Post Office Department took over airmail service from the United States Army Air Service (USAAS). Assistant Postmaster General Otto Praeger, appointed Benjamin B. Lipsner to head the civilian-operated Air Mail Service. One of Lipsner's first acts was to hire four pilots, each with at least 1,000 hours' flying experience, paying them an average of $4,000 per year ($ today). The Post Office Department used new Standard JR-1B biplanes specially modified to carry the mail while the war was still in progress, but following the war operated mostly World War I surplus military de Havilland DH-4 aircraft.

During 1918, the Post Office hired an additional 36 pilots. In its first year of operation, the Post Office completed 1,208 airmail flights with 90 forced landings. Of those, 53 were due to weather and 37 to engine failure. By 1920, the Air Mail service had delivered 49 million letters. Domestic air mail became obsolete in 1975, and international air mail in 1995, when the USPS began transporting First-Class mail by air on a routine basis.

The Post Office was the first federal government departments to regulate obscene materials on a national basis. When the U.S. Congress passed the Comstock laws of 1873, it became illegal to send through the U.S. mail any material considered obscene or indecent, or which promoted abortion issues or birth control. Following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling, the Comstock Act became a renewed matter of contention. The Biden administration stated that the Comstock Act does not prohibit mailing abortifacients intended for lawful use, and the law is the subject of an ongoing federal court case.

In 1937 to 1941 The Post Office handled the shipment of gold from the New York City Assay office and Philadelphia Mint to the newly constructed bullion depository at Fort Knox.

U.S. postal strike of 1970

On March 18, 1970, postal workers in New York City—upset over low wages and poor working conditions, and emboldened by the Civil Rights Movement—organized a strike against the United States government. The strike initially involved postal workers in only New York City, but it eventually gained support of over 210,000 United States Post Office Department workers across the nation. While the strike ended without any concessions from the Federal government, it did ultimately allow for postal worker unions and the government to negotiate a contract which gave the unions most of what they wanted, as well as the signing of the Postal Reorganization Act by President Richard Nixon on August 12, 1970. The act replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with a new federal agency, the United States Postal Service, effective July 1, 1971.

See also
 Pony Express, a famous private service in 1860-61 that carried documents to California; it was not part of the post office.
Postage stamps and postal history of the United States

Notes and references

Further reading
 Aneja, Abhay, and Guo Xu. "Strengthening state capacity: Postal reform and innovation during the Gilded Age" (NBER No. w29852,  National Bureau of Economic Research, 2022) online, econometrics
 Blevins, Cameron. Paper Trails: The U.S. Post and the Making of the American West (Oxford University Press, 2021).
 Boustan, Leah Platt, and Robert A. Margo. "Race, segregation, and postal employment: New evidence on spatial mismatch." Journal of Urban Economics 65.1 (2009): 1-10. online

 Bruns, James H. Great American Post Offices (Wiley, 1998), on the buildings online
 Burgess, Samuel M. "Early American postal history." Records of the Columbia Historical Society 50 (1948): 245-263. online
 Campbell-Kelly, Martin. "Data Processing and Technological Change: The Post Office Savings Bank, 1861-1930." Technology and Culture 39.1 (1998): 1-32. online
 Carpenter, Daniel P. "From Patronage to Policy: the Centralization Campaign and Iowa Post Offices, 1890-1915." Annals of Iowa 58 (1999): 291-302. online
 Carpenter, Daniel P. "State building through reputation building: Coalitions of esteem and program innovation in the national postal system, 1883–1913." Studies in American Political Development 14.2 (2000): 121-155. online

 Cullinan, Gerald. The United States Postal Service (Praeger, 1973)
 Foley, Michael S. "A mission unfulfilled: the post office and the distribution of information in rural New England, 1821-1835." Journal of the Early Republic 17.4 (1997): 611-650. online
 Fowler, Dorothy Ganfield. The Cabinet Politician, the Postmasters General 1829–1909 (Columbia University Press, 1943), a major scholarly history online
 Fuller, Wayne E. The American Mail: Enlarger of the Common Life (University of Chicago Press, 1972), a major scholarly history online
 Fuller, Wayne E. RFD: The Changing Face of Rural America (Indiana University Press, 1964).
 Fuller, Wayne E. Morality and the Mail in Nineteenth-Century America (University of Illinois Press, 2003).
 Fuller, Wayne E. "The Populists and the Post Office." Agricultural History 65.1 (1991): 1-16. online
  online, a popular history.
 Glines, Carroll V. The saga of the air mail (Ayer, 1980).
 Hecht, Arthur. "Pennsylvania Postal History of the Eighteenth Century." Pennsylvania History  30.4 (1963): 420-442. online
 Henkin, David M. The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America (University of Chicago Press, 2006).

 Hodgson, Charles. "The effect of transport infrastructure on the location of economic activity: Railroads and post offices in the American West." Journal of Urban Economics 104 (2018): 59-76. online
 Holmes, Oliver W. and Peter T. Rohrbach. Stagecoach East: Stagecoach Days in the East from the Colonial Period to the Civil War (Smithsonian, 1983)
 John, Richard. Spreading the news: the American postal system from Franklin to Morse (Harvard UP, 1995) online
 Kielbowicz, Richard B. "The press, post office, and flow of news in the early republic." Journal of the Early Republic 3.3 (1983): 255-280.
 Kielbowicz, Richard B. News in the Mail: The Press, Post Office, and Public Information, 1700–1860s (Greenwood Press, 1989).
 Kernell, Samuel, and Michael P. McDonald. "Congress and America's political development: The transformation of the post office from patronage to service." American Journal of Political Science (1999): 792-811. online
 Leary, William Matthew. Aerial Pioneers: The US Air Mail Service, 1918-1927 (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1985) online.
 Marinoni, Astrid, and Maria P. Roche. "You've Got Mail! The Late 19th Century US Postal Service Expansion, Entrepreneurship, and Firm Performance." (Harvard Business School, Working Paper 23-022, 2022). online, statistics and econometrics focused on California in 1880s

 Osborne, Linda Barrett. Who's Got Mail?: The History of Mail in America (2023), popular history. excerpt
 Paul, James CN. "The Post Office and Non-Mailability of Obscenity: An Historical Note." UCLA Law Review 8 (1961): 44+ online.
 Perlman, Elisabeth Ruth, and Steven Sprick Schuster. "Delivering the vote: the political effect of free mail delivery in early twentieth century America."  Journal of Economic History 76.3 (2016): 769-802. online
 Priest, George L. "The history of the postal monopoly in the United States." "Journal of Law and Economics" 18.1 (1975): 33-80. online
 Rogowski, Jon C., et al. "Public infrastructure and economic development: evidence from postal systems." American Journal of Political Science 66.4 (2022): 885-901. online
 Roper, Daniel Calhoun. The United States Post Office: Its Past Record, Present Condition, and Potential Relation to the New World Era (Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1917), online
 Rubio, Philip F. Undelivered: From the Great Postal Strike of 1970 to the Manufactured Crisis of the U.S. Postal Service (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). online
 Rubio, Philip F. There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality (University of North Carolina Press, 2010) online.

 Schroedel, Jean, Melissa Rogers, and Joseph Dietrich. "Structural Racism, the USPS, and Voting by Mail On-and Off-Reservation in Arizona." Studies in American Political Development (2023): 1-16. online
 Shaw, Christopher W. "'Banks of the People': The Life and Death of the U.S. Postal Savings System." Journal of Social History 52.1 (2018): 121-152. online
 Shaw, Christopher W. "'Of Great Benefit': The Origin of Postal Services for Blind Americans." Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 38.3 (2015): 180-191. online
 Stanger, Howard R. "By mail and rail: A history of mail order commerce." in The Routledge Companion to the History of Retailing (Routledge, 2018) pp. 319-339. online
 Steiger, William A. "Lindbergh Flies Air Mail from Springfield." Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 7.2 (1954): 133-148. online
 Van der Linden, F. Robert. Airlines and Air Mail: The Post Office and the Birth of the Commercial Aviation Industry. (University Press of Kentucky, 2002) online.
 Walsh, John, Garth L. Mangum, and John Walsh Jr. Labor Struggle in the Post Office: From Selective Lobbying to Collective Bargaining (ME Sharpe, 1992). online

 Werrell, Kenneth P. " 'Fiasco' revisited: the Air Corps & the 1934 air mail episode." Air Power History 57.1 (2010): 12-29. online

Primary sources
 David, Paul T. The Economics of Air Mail Transportation (Brookings Institution, 1934). online
 Day, J. Edward. My Appointed Round: 929 Days As Postmaster General (1965)
 Eaton, Dorman Bridgman. The "spoils" System and Civil Service Reform in the Custom-house and Post-office at New York (GP Putnam's sons, 1881) online.

 Ganz, Cheryl, ed. Every Stamp Tells a Story: The National Philatelic Collection (Smithsonian, 2014) excerpt

1792 establishments in the United States
1971 disestablishments in Washington, D.C.
Post Office Department

Postal organizations
United States Postal Service

de:Postministerium (Vereinigte Staaten)

United States Post Office Department


Host(s) may refer to:

In Christianity:
 Heavenly host, an army of good angels in Heaven
 Host (Holy Communion), bread in the Eucharist

In culture:
 Presenter, a person who presents an event
 Host (album), a 1999 album by the band Paradise Lost
 Hosts (novel), a Repairman Jack novel by F. Paul Wilson
 Hosts (World of Darkness), antagonists from Werewolf: The Forsaken roleplaying game
 Rutan Host, a fictional extraterrestrial race from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who

In science and engineering:
 Host (network), when in reference to computer networking, an application instance that provides services to its clients (or client computers).
 Host (biology), an organism that harbors a parasite, mutual partner, or commensal partner
 Host (psychology), the most important mental entity in someone who has Dissociative Identity Disorder

In other uses:
 Host (restaurant), a Maître d'
 Host station, a railway station on Melbourne's suburban rail network
 Host, Vis, a small island near Vis, Croatia

Host


Clapping is when you hit your hands together which makes a sound. The harder you hit, the louder the sound, the softer you hit, less the sound.
If hitting by means of hand to hand contact it will make a different sound than if you were to clap against another object, say, your leg.

Sound

Clapping


A poliorceticon (, also transliterated poliorketikon, poliorketika in the plural) is any member of the genre of Byzantine literature dealing with manuals on siege warfare, which is formally known as poliorcetics. As with much Byzantine literature, the poliorcetica tend to be compendia of earlier guides illustrated with Biblical and Classical anecdotes. The extent to which they might be up-to-date or representative of actual experiences in the field is sometimes questionable and greatly depends upon the author.

Composed as they were during the era immediately antecedent to the arrival of heavy artillery, the poliorcetica tend to focus less upon large machines and more upon techniques for bringing men close to fortifications, as well as on ways of undermining these once attacking forces are positioned. These Byzantine manuals also tend to give a good amount of insight on morale and advice on psychological defense employable by those being besieged, either to avoid betrayal or dissension harmful to successful and prolonged defense. They also cover means of avoiding one's own betrayal when invested by a siege.

Two examples of the genre are:

 Parangelmata Poliorcetica (Παραγγέλματα πολιορκητικά) of Hero of Byzantium
 De obsidione toleranda ("On Withstanding Sieges"), anonymous

Although not technically poliorcetica, other Byzantine military texts such as Kekaumenos's Strategikon and Nikephoros Ouranos's Taktika often include sections or chapters dealing with siege operations. Sources which were composed by soldiers or generals themselves are naturally the most invaluable of these for reconstructing actual procedures in the field.

The English word poliorcetic (relating to the siege of cities) derives from Greek poliorkētikos, from poliorkētēs "taker of cities" (from poliorkein to besiege, from polis city + herkos fence, enclosure).

See also
 Byzantine military manuals

Further reading
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed., Age of spirituality: late antique and early Christian art, third to seventh century, no. 189, 1979, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ; full text available online from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries

External links
Original texts, commentary & translations of Hero of Byzantium's Parangelmata Poliorcetica & Geodesia from Dumbarton Oaks.

Sources
 "Byzantine Siege Warfare in Theory and Practice" by Eric McGeer from The Medieval City under Siege

Byzantine military manuals
Siege warfare

Poliorcetica


Convergence within the field of computer science, is a phenomenon in evolutionary computation. It causes evolution to halt because precisely every individual in the population is identical.

Full convergence might be seen in genetic algorithms (a type of evolutionary computation) using only crossover (a way of combining individuals to make new offspring). Premature convergence is when a population has converged to a single solution, but that solution is not as high of quality as expected, i.e. the population has gotten 'stuck'. However, convergence is not necessarily a negative thing, because populations often stabilise after a time, in the sense that the best programs all have a common ancestor and their behaviour is very similar (or identical) both to each other and to that of high fitness programs from the previous generations. Often the term convergence is loosely used. Convergence can be avoided with a variety of diversity-generating techniques.

References

External links
Foundations of Genetic Programming

Evolutionary computation

Convergence (evolutionary computing)


Public masquerades play an extremely significant role in the life of the Mende people - one of the two largest ethnic groups in Sierra Leone.

Art historian Ruth Phillips writes that Mende masquerades "are a means of mediating between the general community and the medicine societies that are central to Mende social life. Through masking performances, the public is kept informed of important events which occur in the private domain and is enabled to witness and to share in rituals that transform the status of relatives and friends. The masquerades make visible the powerful medicines (Mende: , sing. hale) of these sodalities without compromising their essential mystery. Maskers personify and dramatize the powers of the medicines and elicit ritualized gestures of respect and tribute from the spectators. At the same time participants and audience drawn into a common sphere of performance, aesthetically heightened by theater, music and dance."

The Mende define the visual features and performance of each masker in relation to a standard set of masquerades. The occasions for each masquerade are fixed according to an annual calendar of ritual and secular events and, within a single celebration, there is a carefully orchestrated sequence of masquerades.

Hale
Hale, meaning "medicine," is believed to be a material substance found in nature that has powerful inherent properties that the officials of Mende secret societies know how to manipulate. These "medicine societies" are the men's Poro society, and women's Sande society, and hale can also refer to these.

The maskers of a medicine society embodies the spirit (ngafa) as well as the power associated with its hale; the Mende refer to maskers by both of these terms. The standard set of Mende maskers includes about a dozen personalities embodying spirits of varying degrees of power and importance. The goboi and  of the Poro society, the sowei of the Sande society, and the  and humoi maskers belonging to the eponymous medicine societies.

Types of maskers and masquerade
The maskers of the Sande and Poro societies are responsible for enforcing laws and are important symbolic presences in the rituals of initiation and in public ceremonies that mark the coronations and funerals of chiefs and society officials. Another group of maskers, including the male gongoli and the female gonde and samawa, are clownlike figures that feature in performances characterized by humor, satire and parody. These maskers are not true haleisia,

Gbini

Gbini is considered to be the most powerful of all Mende maskers. Gbini appears at the final "pulling" ceremony of Poro initiation for a son of the paramount chief and also at the coronation of funeral of a paramount chief. Because of its power, women must stand far back from  and if a woman accidentally touches it, she must be anointed with medicine immediately.

Gbini wears a large leopard skin which indicates its association with the paramount chief. The flat, round headpiece resembles the chief's crown. The headpiece is constructed of animal hide stretched over a bamboo framework. The hide is decorated with cowrie shells and black, white and red strips of cloth that are worked into a geometric pattern. At the center is a round mirror. Several flaps that are similarly decorated hang down from the base of the headpiece and overlap the raffia cape which covers much of the wearer's torso.

Sowei

The Sande society is one of the most influential patrons of the visual arts in West Africa. The Sande sowei masquerades promote and represent the images of women in specific ritual and festive contexts.

The ceremonies of the Sande society are the only occasions in Africa in which women customarily wear masks. Wooden masks worn during these public ceremonies, such as funerals or the installations of chiefs, are called sowo (sing. sowei) and represent the society's guardian spirit. The irreducible elements of sowei are a helmet form, lustrous blackness, beautifully arranged hair, downcast eyes, a closed mouth and an expression of inner spiritual concentration.  The features of the mask illustrate the group's ideal of feminine beauty. The elegant hairstyles also symbolize the importance of social cooperation, since a woman needs the help of her friends to dress her hair.

The Mende honor outstanding carvers of sowei masks, which are typically men, with the name Sowo Gande. According to Philips, the Sowo Gande demonstrates virtuosity through "the triumphant conjuring of new forms which are recognizable variations of old forms."

According to the Mende, hojo- white clay or kaolin- stands for the concept of the Sande society. Symbolically, it reflects a lot of the characteristics the Sande treasure, such as purity and elusiveness. The Sande society daubs objects and people with hojo to indicate that they are under Sande's control and protection and are subject to the full authority of Sande law and punishment. At Sande ceremonies, the pure white of hojo and of the clothes worn by Sande officials is thrown into dramatic contrast with the blackness of sowei masks.

The most important participant in the sowei masquerade is the , "the expert in dancing," the woman who dances in the mask in public and teaches dancing to the girls in the encampment.

An important part of initiation into the Sande society is the taking of a new name, which the girl herself usually chooses.

References

Mende people
African art
Masquerade ceremonies in Africa

Masquerade in Mende culture


Alfred Kranzfelder (10 February 1908 – 10 August 1944) was a German naval officer and a member of the German resistance against Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime.

He was born in Kempten im Allgäu, Bavaria and joined the Reichsmarine in 1927. In 1933 he was promoted to Leutnant zur See and in 1937 as a member of the Kriegsmarine he served on the battleship Admiral Scheer. He was transferred to Berlin for health reasons in February 1940, where he worked in the Operations Department of the 1st Sea War Branch of the Naval High Command as liaison officer to the Foreign Ministry.

He met fellow naval officer Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg in 1943 and became active in the resistance against the Nazi regime. His opportunities to actively participate in the 20 July plot were limited but he was asked to find further potential resistance members in the navy.

He was arrested shortly after Berthold von Stauffenburg on 24 July 1944 and tried by the People's Court on 10 August 1944 with Erich Fellgiebel, Georg Hansen, Fritz-Dietlof von der Schulenburg and Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg. He was sentenced to death by Roland Freisler and executed by hanging on 10 August 1944 at Plötzensee Prison, Berlin.

See also

 List of members of the 20 July plot

External links
dmh de Biography of Alfred Kranzfelder

1908 births
1944 deaths
People executed by hanging at Plötzensee Prison
People from Bavaria executed at Plötzensee Prison
Kriegsmarine personnel of World War II
Executed members of the 20 July plot
Military personnel from the Kingdom of Bavaria
People from Kempten im Allgäu
Reichsmarine personnel

Executed military personnel

Alfred Kranzfelder


Hilary Claire Lister (3 March 1972 – 18 August 2018) was an English record-breaking quadriplegic sailor. She had the progressive condition reflex sympathetic dystrophy and controlled her ship by using sip-and-puff technology for steering and sails.

Lister was born in Hook in Hampshire, as the third of four children born to biochemist mother Pauline and vicar father Colin. Lister was able-bodied until the age of 15. She studied biochemistry at Jesus College, Oxford, between 1991 and 1995, having lost the use of her legs by then. She started a PhD at the University of Kent in 1996 but her condition deteriorated. She lost the use of her arms in 1999 and was unable to finish her doctorate, but was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university. She was introduced to sailing in 2003, which she commented gave her back her sense of freedom and "quite literally" saved her life. Lister married music teacher Clifford in 1999, though they later separated.

On 23 August 2005, Lister was the first quadriplegic to sail solo across the English Channel (in 6 hours and 13 minutes). On 24 July 2007, she became the first female quadriplegic to sail solo around the Isle of Wight (in 11 hours 4 minutes). She won the Sunday Times Helen Rollason Award for Inspiration in 2005. She set off to sail solo around Great Britain on 16 June 2008. Bad weather and technical problems forced her to suspend the attempt on 13 August 2008.

On 21 May 2009, Hilary Lister resumed her attempt from Plymouth. By 14 August she had reached Bridlington, Yorkshire on the east coast. She reached the end of her journey, Dover in Kent, on the evening of 31 August 2009, becoming the first disabled woman to sail solo around Britain. Lister had to be resuscitated six times during her circumnavigation of Britain.

On 8 January 2010, at the Tullett Prebon London International Boat Show, Lister announced her intention to compete in the 2011 Fastnet Race in a Class 40 boat. In April 2010, Hilary sailed around the Kingdom of Bahrain in support of Bahrain Mobility International.

Lister died on 18 August 2018. She was 46.

Awards
 Winner of The Royal Cruising Club's Seamanship Award, 2005
 Winner of A Woman of the Year 2005–2006 — Women of the Year Charity
 Winner of Woman of the Year 2006 — New Woman Magazine
 Winner of the Helen Rollason Award for Inspiration — Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year 2007
 Winner of the Cosmopolitan Superhero Award — Cosmopolitan Fun & Fearless Women
 Winner of Breast cancer Breakthrough Aspirational non-celebrity, 2009
 Winner of the Vitalise "Woman of Achievement" Award, 2009
 Winner of the SJA Bill McGowan Award, 2009

Other recognition
 Made a UK Sailing Academy Ambassador 2006
 Awarded an honorary PhD by the University of Kent at Canterbury 2007
 Hilary is patron of Mariners of Bewl and the Active Ashford Bursary.
 Kent County Council Invicta Award, April 2010

References

External links
Hilary Lister website
BBC news report of cross-channel sail
The Guardian interview
Article in Oxford Today
(page 7) article by Lister in the Jesus College alumni newsletter
CNN report
Sunday Times award / profile
University of Kent
University of Kent
International Association for Disabled Sailing's report on Lister's Isle of Wight sail

1972 births
2018 deaths
People from Hart District
Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford
Alumni of the University of Kent
Single-handed sailors
English sailors
English disabled sportspeople
People with tetraplegia

Hilary Lister


The Toll House is a historic toll house at 2028 Mountain Road in Burke, Vermont.  It was built in 1940-41 by crews of the Civilian Conservation Corps as an administrative headquarters for Darling State Park, and as a toll house for the Burke Mountain Road.  It is one of the state's finest examples of CCC architecture.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

Description and history
The former Toll House is located in a rural setting on the north slope of Burke Mountain, on the west side of Mountain Road east of the Burke Mountain Academy.  It is a two-story structure, with a rusticated stone first floor and squared log construction on the second.  It is covered by a gabled roof. There are two flanking -story wings, set back from the main block, with similar styling.  The wing nearest the street originally housed the toll facilities for the mountain road and caretaker's quarters, while the main block was designed for public access and offices of the park administration.

Land that made up Darling State Forest was purchased beginning in 1904 by Elmer Darling, owner of the Darling Estate, a large gentleman's farm and country estate on an adjacent ridge.  After his death in 1931, his heirs gave the property on Burke Mountain to the state.  Darling built a carriage road to the summit of Burke Mountain about 1910, which was improved in part by the CCC in the 1930s, when other park facilities, including construction of this house, took place.  The house remained state property until 1969, when it was sold to the operators of the Burke Mountain Ski Area.  They used the building for administrative and residential purposes until 2000, when it was sold into private ownership following the ski area's bankruptcy.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Caledonia County, Vermont

References

Transport infrastructure completed in 1940
Park buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Vermont
Civilian Conservation Corps in Vermont
Buildings and structures in Burke, Vermont
Toll houses on the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places in Caledonia County, Vermont
1940 establishments in Vermont

Toll House (Burke, Vermont)


Steven Russell Trout (born July 30, 1957) is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played Major League Baseball (MLB) during the 1980s.

He is the son of former MLB pitcher Dizzy Trout. He had the nickname "Rainbow".

Career

Chicago White Sox
After attending Thornwood High School in South Holland, Illinois, Trout was drafted by the Chicago White Sox in the first round of the 1976 MLB draft. He played three years in the minor leagues before joining the White Sox and pitching in his first MLB game on July 1, 1978, against the Minnesota Twins.

Chicago Cubs
Before the  season, Trout was traded to the Chicago Cubs along with Warren Brusstar for Scott Fletcher, Pat Tabler, Randy Martz, and Dick Tidrow.  Trout had 32 starts in his first season with the Cubs, going 10–14 with a 4.65 ERA.

The following season in , he stayed in the Cubs rotation, pitching along with Rick Sutcliffe, Dennis Eckersley, and Lee Smith. They led the Cubs to 96 victories and their first trip to the playoffs in 39 years. Steve pitched the Cubs home opener on April 13 against the New York Mets, pitching a complete game and allowing just two hits in the 11–2 victory. On May 30, Trout took a no-hitter into the eighth inning against the Atlanta Braves that was broken up by Albert Hall.

Trout finished the season with a 13–7 record in 31 starts, posting a 3.41 ERA. Steve pitched effectively in the 1984 National League Championship Series against the San Diego Padres, going 8.1 innings for the victory in Game 2, which put the Cubs one victory away from their first World Series since 1945. He pitched in relief in the series-deciding Game 5 in San Diego, which the Cubs lost.

Trout started strong in  with a 6–1 record through June 8, until ulnar nerve problems caused him to miss time on the disabled list, as he was only able to make nine starts for the remainder of the season Trout was traded in  to the New York Yankees, for Bob Tewksbury, Rich Scheid, and Dean Wilkins.

New York Yankees
Trout's acquisition by the New York Yankees in a mid-season trade proved to be a disastrous trade for the Yankees. Though his last two starts with the Cubs were complete game shutouts, and his ERA was one of the best in the National League, with the Yankees he proved unable to locate the strike zone. He walked 37 batters and threw nine wild pitches in 46 innings and lasted an average of only four innings a start in his nine starts Yankee starts. The Yankees traded Trout to Seattle after the 1987 season, paying the Mariners over one million dollars to offset some of Trout's substantial salary.

Seattle Mariners
Trout was traded to the Mariners before the  season with Henry Cotto in exchange for Lee Guetterman, Clay Parker, and Wade Taylor. He pitched infrequently over the next season and a half before being released by the team.

Retirement
Trout runs a baseball clinic from his home in Venice, Florida, from November through April.  It is open to all ages. In 2002, he authored a book about his and his father Dizzy Trout's baseball lives called Home Plate: The Journey of the Most Flamboyant Father and Son Pitching Combination in Major League History.

He has been a pitching coach for the Brockton Rox of the Can-Am League and Chicago's Windy City ThunderBolts of the Frontier League.  On January 25, 2008, it was announced that Trout would be the manager of the Texarkana Gunslingers for their inaugural season

Moloka'i High School in Hawaii hired Trout in March 2010 to be its head coach. Trout answered an ad in the local newspaper.

He started the Chicago-based Trout Baseball Academy in 2015 and conducts baseball camps for children throughout the year.

Trout recently co-wrote a children's illustration book called Loosey-Goosey Baseball that is available for purchase on his website.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times in 2015, Trout sued a North Side baseball camp claiming the camp unlawfully used his name in the source code of their website for monetary gains.

See also
 List of second-generation Major League Baseball players

References

External links

1957 births
Living people
American expatriate baseball players in Canada
Appleton Foxes players
Baseball players from Michigan
Calgary Cannons players
Chicago Cubs players
Chicago White Sox players
Gulf Coast White Sox players
Iowa Oaks players
Knoxville Sox players
Louisville Redbirds players
Major League Baseball pitchers
New York Yankees players
Peoria Chiefs players
Seattle Mariners players
Baseball players from Detroit

Steve Trout


Bruno (920 – 26 January 976), son of Wichmann the Elder and his wife Frederuna, niece of Queen Matilda, wife of Henry the Fowler, served as a Bishop of Verden.

Bruno was appointed to succeed Bishop Amelung, brother of Hermann Billung, in 962. Bruno is best known for his refusal to allow the burial in the church of Hermann due to his excommunication.  Bruno received immunity for the diocese from Emperor Otto I.

According to Thietmar of Merseburg, Hermann's son Bernard, while transporting his father's body to Lüneburg, encountered Bruno and tearfully asked that his father be granted absolution and permitted burial at the church. Bruno refused.

Bruno was held in high regard by the emperor who had designated him successor to Amelung. Because stone was not available, Amelung had erected and consecrated a magnificent wooden church, surpassing all others in size and quality. Archaeological evidence confirms the description of this church.

As Bruno grew old, Emperor Otto II asked that his chaplain Herman, brother of Folkmar (Volkmar), Archbishop of Cologne, be designated as assistant and heir. Bruno respectfully declined, citing his age and mental condition.

References

Roman Catholic bishops of Verden
Medieval German theologians
10th-century Saxon bishops
House of Billung

Bruno (bishop of Verden)


Hannah Grier Coome (October 28, 1837 – February 9, 1921) founded the Anglican Sisterhood of St. John the Divine, and was its first mother superior.

Early and family life

Sarah Hannah Roberta Grier was born in the Carrying Place, Upper Canada, to Rev. John Grier, a high church Anglican minister who had emigrated from Ireland in 1823 and been ordained in Quebec, and his wife Eliza Lilias Geddes. Hannah (as she preferred) was their third daughter and sixth child. Her parents took responsibility for her education at home, which also for a time was in Belleville. One sister, Rose Jane Elizabeth Grier, became a teacher, and ultimately principal of the Bishop Strachan School in Toronto. On July 23, 1859, Hannah married civil engineer Charles Horace Coome, who worked on the Grand Trunk Railway, and the couple initially lived in Kingston.

In 1862 Charles Coome accepted an engineering job in Britain, and the couple moved across the Atlantic. While in Britain, Hannah Coome became acquainted with the Oxford Movement as well as the Community of St Mary the Virgin in Wantage and felt drawn to mission work. She also became pregnant, but lost what would be her only child after a severe fall which also required a long convalescence.

The couple returned to North America in 1876, but a year later, Charles Coome died in Chicago. Hannah Coome continued to live in the American city with a nephew and a brother for several years, and supported herself by teaching Decorative Art, as well as by embroidering hangings and other decorations for churches.

Nonetheless, by 1881, Hannah Coome considered entering a religious community, especially returning to Wantage, England to join the Community of St. Mary the Virgin. Instead, at a party arranged by her sister Rose as she went to Toronto in 1881, Hannah Coome met Reverend Ogden Pulteney Ford (high churchman and priest at three parishes in Toronto) and Georgina Broughall (wife of the rector of St. Stephen in the Fields Church), who told her about their plans to form a similar sisterhood there in Toronto. The Canadian group also held an organizational meeting and others in the winter.

Sisterhood of St. John the Divine
Thus, in June, 1882, Coome and Amelia Elizabeth (Aimée) Hare travelled to Peekskill, New York for two years' formation at the Sisters of St Mary, a relatively new Anglican educational and nursing order led by Harriet Starr Cannon, while the Canadian group did further fundraising and organization, including within the Family Compact for which Rose and Hannah Coome may have qualified. Hannah Coome and Aimee Hare trained with the American sisters in their hospital and social missions in New York City. Upon completing their novitiate, Coome professed religious vows on September 8, 1884 at the Peekskill motherhouse, and she and Hare returned to Toronto.

In Toronto, the new sisters continued to find support from Rev. Ford, who became Coome's spiritual director. At first, Sister Hannah and Novice Aimee stayed with Rose Coome at the Bishop Strachan school, but their supporters soon managed to purchase a house near Rev. Ford's Church of St. Matthias. They called themselves the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine after a London parish in Kennington where Coome had found spiritual support years earlier. Moreover, an English sister from an order with a similar name (Sr. Anna Lomas, of the Community of the Nursing Sisters of St. John the Divine) had gone to Canada circa 1878, but failed to form a community. In any event, Bishop Arthur Sweatman recognized the new order in a ceremony on St. John's Day, 1884.

Early in their ministry, Sister (or later Mother) Hannah, Novice Aimee and various postulants experienced taunts from Protestants who considered their uniform, similar to widow's garb at the time, excessively "papist" (Catholic). Some Orangemen even threatened to burn down their house, but were ultimately converted.

However, they had barely established themselves when Bishop Sweatman and later the Provincial Synod requested their support in Saskatchewan, as a result of the North-West Rebellion. Thus in May, 1885, Mother Hannah, Novice Aimee, two postulants and three nursing graduates embarked by train and boat for Moose Jaw, where they established a hospital to nurse wounded or otherwise ill soldiers. Their mission succeeded, so that on their return to Toronto in July, not only had Mother Hannah received a medal from the Government of Canada, opposition to their mission lessened. Mother Hannah adopted a Rule derived from that of the Peekskill community (itself modeled on the Rule of St. Benedict), which provided for prayer as well as good works.

In 1886 the new order accepted responsibility for a house on Larch Street from the parish of St. George the Martyr, designed to care for the elderly, although at the time no sisters other than Mother Hannah had taken full religious vows. On June 1, 1888, the new order laid the cornerstone for the city's first surgical hospital for women, St. John's, but Rev. Ford did not live to see the project completed, succumbing to cancer.

Nonetheless, the community continued. Rev. Alexander Bethune (headmaster of Trinity College School, Coome's longtime friend and son of former bishop Alexander Bethune) agreed to be their warden. The hospital was dedicated on May 2, 1889, and by year's end the newly incorporated community adopted its bylaws and other organizational documents, as well as moved to larger quarters on Major Street where the motherhouse would remain for sixty years. The needs of their elderly patients outgrew the house on Larch Street, so the order accepted another on John Street, which in turn eventually proved too small. In 1906, the sisterhood built the Church Home for the Aged at Bellevue and Oxford Streets in the Kensington neighborhood, and added another wing the following year.

In 1892 the sisterhood accepted its first long-term foundation outside Toronto, taking over Bishop Bethune College, a boarding school in Oshawa. Increasingly over time, the community not only trained nurses and ministered to the elderly, but also ran schools and orphanages, serving the handicapped and poor in both large cities and rural areas. It grew to over 500 associates by 1930.

Death and legacy
Mother Hannah suffered from sciatica, overwork, and continued complications of her miscarriage for many years, but only retired at age 79. The Sisters elected her niece, Dora Grier, to succeed her as Mother Superior. Coome was heartbroken by her sister Rose's death in October, 1920, and died herself, surrounded by her sisterhood, on Ash Wednesday, February 9, 1921. After a funeral at St. Thomas' Church, where the community usually worshiped, she was buried at St. James Cemetery affiliated with the Cathedral in Toronto. She rests beside fourteen sisters and novices of the order who knew her, and one infant who died the previous year.

The order she founded at various times had houses in Ontario, Quebec (mission work at the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Montreal), Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan (Qu'Appelle Diocesan School in Regina), and Alberta (St. John's House for unmarried mothers), as well as continued to maintain relations with similar orders in the United States and England. In 1933, it helped establish a rehabilitation hospital in north Toronto, now St. John's Rehab Hospital. Twenty years later they moved their motherhouse to Willowdale, Toronto near that hospital. Their ministry also offers religious retreats, with current active houses in Toronto, as well as Victoria, British Columbia.

References

See also
 A Memoir of the Life and Work of Hannah Grier Coome, Mother-foundress of the Sisterhood of St. John the Divine, Toronto, Canada (London, 1933).
Religious communities in the American Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Church of Canada (rev. ed., New York, 1956. The Sisterhood of Saint John the Divine, 1884–1984 (4th revision, Willowdale [Toronto], 1984).

1837 births
1921 deaths
19th-century Christian saints
20th-century Christian saints
Canadian Anglicans
Burials at St. James Cemetery, Toronto

Hannah Grier Coome


Good Night, and Good Luck (stylized as good night, and good luck.) is a 2005 historical drama film about American television news directed by George Clooney, with the movie starring David Strathairn, Patricia Clarkson, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jr., and Frank Langella as well as Clooney himself. The film was co-written by Clooney and Grant Heslov, and it portrays the conflict between veteran journalist Edward R. Murrow (Strathairn) and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, especially relating to the anti-communist Senator's actions with the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Although released in black and white, it was filmed on color film stock, but on a grayscale set, and was color-corrected to black and white during post-production. It focuses on the theme of media responsibility, and also addresses what occurs when U.S. journalism offer voices of dissent from government policy. The movie takes its title (which ends with a period or full stop) from the line with which Murrow routinely signed off his broadcasts.

The film was a box office success and received critical acclaim for Clooney's direction, the writing, cinematography, production design and performances (particularly Strathairn's). It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Strathairn.

Plot

On 25 Oct 1958, at a gathering entitled  'A Salute to Edward R Murrow', Ed Murrow delivers a speech where he mentions Senator McCarthy among others.  The film then reverts to October 14, 1953, in the CBS Studios, with on screen titles explaining that McCarthy has claimed that there are over 200 Communists in the US government.

Fred Friendly and the news team discuss the latest news stories for the forthcoming episodes, and  Murrow declares that he wants to go after the American military, who have tried and convicted a member of the Air Force, Milo Radulovich, because his sister and father have been accused of being communist sympathisers. Murrow mentions that the charges against Radulovich were in a sealed envelope and that nobody saw them, suggesting that they investigate the story to see if it is worth covering.

Five days later Friendly, Murrow, and Mickelson, CBS director, watch footage of Wershba interviewing Milo Radulovich; Mickelson criticises the report as being unbalanced and accuses he reporter of editorialising. Military men come to Friendly's office, attempting to persuade him not to broadcast the story, but CBS go ahead and the segment features on Murrow's show See It Now.
The focus of the news team shifts to going after McCarthy himself. In one clip, McCarthy accuses a man who was provided with an attorney by the American Civil Liberties Union  (ACLU) in 1932 of being a communist.

During the segment on McCarthy, Murrow personally invites the Senator on the show to defend the claims made about his corrupt influence. As the story continues, Murrow challenges McCarthy's questioning techniques, and the untruths he espouses in his hearings. Murrow notes that the ACLU is not on the list that McCarthy claims it to be, and that it has in fact been commended by several US presidents.

Shirley reads out mostly favorable reports from the newspaper, but one journalist, O'Brien, accuses Hollenbeck, a CBS journalist, of being a "pinko", meaning a communist sympathizer. The team are informed that the Air Force has reinstated the wrongfully terminated Radulovich.

McCarthy appears on the show on April 6 1954, and addresses the camera directly without interruption, accusing Murrow of being a communist, something that Murrow suspected would happen. In the proceeding show, Murrow gives his response, where he unequivocally denies the accusation that he was a member of the Communist party and highlights that anyone who criticizes or opposes Senator McCarthy's methods is accused of being a communist. From this point on, the tide turns on McCarthy and he himself is investigated, due to charges the Army has made against him and his Operation. John Aaron later announces this in the newsroom, but the celebration is cut short when a phone call to Friendly informs the news team that Hollenbeck has committed suicide by gassing himself.

We see footage of the Army-McCarthy hearings, where a lawyer questions McCarthy's sense of decency. Shortly after, CBS chief executive Paley speaks with Murrow and Friendly in his office and tells them they have lost one of their major sponsors, and as a result he will only give them five more one-hour episodes, and also move their slot from Tuesday night to Sunday afternoon.

Paley speaks to Friendly privately and informs him that he needs to fire some people. The film ends with Murrow finishing his speech from the opening scene, extolling the importance of ideas and information. Murrow concludes his speech with his iconic catchphrase "Good night, and good luck."

Cast

Production
In September 2005, Clooney explained his interest in the story to an audience at the New York Film Festival: "I thought it was a good time to raise the idea of using fear to stifle political debate." Having majored in journalism in college, Clooney was well-versed in the subject matter. His father, Nick Clooney, was a television journalist for many years, appearing as an anchorman in Cincinnati, Ohio; Salt Lake City, Utah; Los Angeles, California; and Buffalo, New York. The elder Clooney also ran for Congress in 2004.

George Clooney was paid $1 each for writing, directing, and acting in Good Night, and Good Luck, which cost $7.5 million to make. Due to an injury he received on the set of Syriana a few months earlier, Clooney could not pass the tests to be insured. He then mortgaged his own house in Los Angeles in order to make the film. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and former eBay president Jeffrey Skoll invested money in the project as executive producers. The film ultimately grossed more than $54 million worldwide.

The CBS offices and studios seen in the movie were all sets on a sound stage. To accomplish a pair of scenes showing characters going up an elevator, different "floors" of the building were laid out on the same level. The "elevator" was actually built on a large turntable at the intersection of the two floor sets and rotated once the doors were closed. When the doors reopened, the actors appeared to be in a different location. In doing so, the movie exercised a bit of dramatic license—the CBS executive offices at the time were located at 485 Madison Avenue. CBS News was located in an office building just north of Grand Central Terminal (demolished and now the site of the MetLife Building); and the See It Now studio was located in Grand Central Terminal itself, above the waiting room. For dramatic effect, all three areas were depicted as being in the same building.

Clooney and producer Grant Heslov decided to use only archival footage of Joseph McCarthy in his depiction. As all of that footage was black-and-white, that determined the color scheme of the film. A young Robert F. Kennedy is also shown in the movie during McCarthy's hearing sessions. He was then a staff member on the Senate subcommittee chaired by McCarthy.

Music
A small jazz combo starring jazz singer Dianne Reeves was hired to record the soundtrack to the movie. This combo (Peter Martin, Christoph Luty, Jeff Hamilton and Matt Catingub) was featured in the movie in several scenes; for example, in one scene the newsmen pass a studio where she is recording with the rest of the band. The CD is Dianne Reeves's second featuring jazz standards (including "How High the Moon", "I've Got My Eyes on You", "Too Close For Comfort", "Straighten Up and Fly Right" and "One for My Baby"), and it won the Grammy Award in 2006 for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

Soundtrack
The soundtrack to Good Night, and Good Luck was released on September 27, 2005. The film's score was composed by Jim Papoulis.

Reception and legacy

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 226 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's critics consensus states: "A passionate and concise cinematic civics lesson, Good Night, and Good Luck has plenty to say about today's political and cultural climate, and its ensemble cast is stellar." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100 based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert, in his Chicago Sun-Times review, contends that "the movie is not really about the abuses of McCarthy, but about the process by which Murrow and his team eventually brought about his downfall (some would say his self-destruction). It is like a morality play, from which we learn how journalists should behave. It shows Murrow as fearless, but not flawless." Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's film review show At the Movies each gave the film five stars, making Good Night, and Good Luck the only other film besides Brokeback Mountain to receive such a score from the hosts in 2005. Both described the film as "beautiful", but also praised Clooney for the film's importance. Pomeranz commented that, "[The film] is so important, because it's about things that are really vital today, like the responsibility of the press and examining the press' role in forming opinion." David noted: "Though [the film] is in black-and-white, there's nothing monochromatic about Clooney's passion for his subject or the importance of his message."

Jack Shafer, at the time a libertarian-leaning columnist for the online magazine Slate, accused the film of continuing what he characterizes as the hagiography of Murrow. Clooney's film gives the impression that Murrow brought down McCarthy single-handedly, while Shafer notes that in reality much of the mainstream media, many Democrats and some Republicans were condemning him before Murrow. Furthermore, Shafer writes, evidence obtained via the declassified Venona espionage program confirmed that many Soviet agents and sympathizers were in fact in positions of influence in the U.S. government, a disclosure the film entirely overlooks: "Clooney and company ignore the material that might argue against their simple-minded thesis about Murrow, the era, and the press to produce an after school special".

One complaint about the film among test audiences was their belief that the actor playing McCarthy was too over the top, not realizing that the film used actual archive footage of McCarthy himself.

Accolades

The film received six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Director (Clooney), and Actor (Strathairn). It was also nominated for six BAFTAs at the 2005 BAFTA Awards, and four Golden Globes at the 2006 Golden Globe Awards. The American Film Institute named Good Night, and Good Luck as one of the Top Ten Movies of 2005.

Television series
As of November 2022, AMC is developing a television series adaptation of the film with Jonathan Glatzer as showrunner and Clooney as executive producer.

See also

 2005 in film
 George Clooney filmography
 History of CBS
 McCarthyism
 Tail Gunner Joe
 Television news in the United States

References

External links

 Good Night, and Good Luck at Turner Classic Movies

Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album
2005 films
2005 independent films
2000s historical drama films
2000s political drama films
Japanese black-and-white films
Japanese historical drama films
French black-and-white films
French historical drama films
French political drama films
British black-and-white films
British historical drama films
British political drama films
American black-and-white films
American historical drama films
American political drama films
Drama films based on actual events
English-language French films
English-language Japanese films
European Film Awards winners (films)
Films about freedom of expression
Films set in the 1950s
Films about McCarthyism
Films about television
Films about the Hollywood blacklist
Films directed by George Clooney
Films produced by Grant Heslov
Films set in 1953
Films set in 1958
Japanese films set in New York City
British films set in New York City
Films with screenplays by George Clooney
Films with screenplays by Grant Heslov
Davis Films films
Redbus Pictures films
Tohokushinsha films
Metropolitan Filmexport films
Lionsgate films
Participant (company) films
Procedural films
Warner Independent Pictures films
Warner Bros. films
Biographical films about journalists
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
2000s British films
2000s Japanese films
2000s French films

Good Night, and Good Luck


Fulk I of Anjou (870 – 942), called the Red (, ), was first the viscount of Anjou, then Count of Anjou until his death. He was the Count of Tours, Count of Nantes, and a lay abbot. Fulk increased the size of the county of Anjou as well as the prestige of his family.

Career

Born , Fulk was the son of Count Ingelger and Adelais de Amboise.

He ruled the county of Anjou from  to 942, first as Viscount then in 929 as Count. It is not known why there was a period of time between Ingelger's rule and his son Fulk's. In 899 he became Viscount of Tours and in 905, Count of Tours. About 900-918 he was Count of Nantes. He increased the territory of the county of Anjou. During his reign, he was permanently at war with the Normans and the Bretons. He lost Nantes to the Normans in 919. Normans and their Viking allies often invaded Brittany and Anjou. , Ingelger, Fulk's oldest son was killed defending Anjou against Norman attacks.

Fulk built important connections for his family. His wife's family helped secure his countship of Nantes. His son Guy became the Bishop of Soissons. Fulk also succeeded his father-in-law, Warnerius, as lay abbot of Saint-Aubin. Fulk was lay abbot of St. Lézin as well. Through these many positions Fulk elevated his family's status and fortune. Fulk I died .

Family

Fulk married Roscille de Loches. She was the daughter of Warnerius (Widone),Seigneur de Loches, de Villentrois, & de la Haye, and his wife Tecandra. He and Roscille had:

 Ingelger († bef. 927).
 Guy (Wido), Bishop of Soissons († 970).
 Fulk II. Succeeded his father as Count of Anjou.

Notes

References

870s births
940s deaths
Counts of Anjou

Fulk I of Anjou


John III of Schoenberg (died: 26 September 1517 in Zeitz) was from 1492 to 1517 Bishop of Naumburg-Zeitz.

Origin
John was a member of the noble Schoenberg family, which provided several bishops to the dioceses of Naumburg and Meisse.  He was coadjutor to his uncle Dietrich IV of Schoenberg from 1483 and succeeded him in 1492.  His parents were Henry of Schoenberg at Stollberg (d. 1507), who was captain of Schellenberg and Wolkenstein and an advisor to the Duke, and his wife, Ilse von Pflugk.

Life
John studied at the University of Leipzig, and in Cologne.  He was dean of Magdeburg, a canon of Meissen, provost at Bautzen and then magister scholarum of the cathedral chapter in Meissen. Pope Innocent VIII appointed him bishop, even though the cathedral chapter objected. The lucrative silver mining at Schneeberg continued.  John III had a habit of appointing relatives to ecclesiastical offices, including two of his brothers.  There indications that he may have been temporary mentally "confused" towards the end of his life.

In 1511 the chapter proposed to appoint canon Vincent of Schleinitz as coadjutor, but the House of Wettin saw to it that their candidate Philip of the Palatinate was appointed instead.

John died in 1517 and was buried in Naumburg Cathedral.  A bronze plaque of his tomb has survived.

References and sources
 Heinz Wießner: Das Bistum Naumburg 1 - Die Diözese 2, in: Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte (eds.): Germania Sacra, NF 35,2, Die Bistumer der Kirchenprovinz Magdeburg, Berlin/New York, 1998, pp. 938–951.

Roman Catholic bishops of Naumburg
Thuringian nobility
15th-century German people
16th-century German people
1517 deaths
Year of birth unknown

John III of Schönberg


Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen (30 July 1878 – 12 August 1964) was a Danish engineer and industrialist.

Life
The son of a shipmaster who died when Rasmussen was still a young child, he attended middle school in Nakskov and in 1894 began an apprenticeship in Copenhagen. His mother died when he was 19, he then moved to Nykøbing where he continued his training  mployed by a local engine maker.

In 1898 Rasmussen moved to Germany in order to take classes in mechanical and electrical engineering at the Hochschule Mittweida university of applied sciences in Saxony. However, he was relegated two years later due to inadequate academic achievements and continued his studies at the newly established University of Applied Sciences of Zwickau where he took his exams in 1902. One year later he registered his first utility model (Gebrauchsmuster) on a turning tool in Zwickau.

Rasmussen established the DKW motorcycle manufacturing factory Zschopauer Motorenwerke in 1921 and later automobile Framo. Rasmussen acquired a majority interest in Audi Automobilwerke in 1928, which four years later became Auto Union AG with the merger of Zschopauer Motorenwerke, Audi and others.

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the following Great Depression hit Rasmussen's businesses hard, as demand for motor-bikes and passenger cars slumped. In 1930 the Saxony Regional Bank, which had financed Rasmussen's business expansion in the 1920s, installed Richard Bruhn (1886 - 1964) on the board of Audi and there followed a brutal pruning and rationalization of the various auto-businesses that Rasmussen had accumulated. The outcome was the founding of Auto Union in Summer 1932 with just four component businesses, being Audi, DKW, Horch and the car producing piece of Wanderer. The Auto Union group rapidly grew to become Germany's second auto producer, behind only Opel in terms of passenger car market share. After World War II, DKW moved to West Germany, with the original factory becoming MZ.

Rasmussen remained on the board until 1934 when he was removed following "differences" with fellow board members. He then left Zwickau and purchased an estate at Sacrow which today has become a district in Potsdam, and where he lived with his family till 1945.  In 1945 he joined the flight from the Soviet army, relocating to Flensburg, and in 1947 he returned to Denmark.

From 1947 he lived in Hareskovby, where in the 1950s he built motor-bikes under the DISA name. After his 75th birthday he and his wife moved to Copenhagen.

See also
 Auto Union
 August Horch

References

European founders of automobile manufacturers
Danish businesspeople
20th-century Danish engineers
Danish company founders
People from Nakskov
1878 births
1964 deaths

Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen


The Ugly Duckling is a one-act play by A.A. Milne written .

Plot
The king and queen are worried because their daughter, Princess Camilla, is very plain, or rather appears to be plain because of a spell put on her at birth. The spell says that only the eyes of true love will reveal her beauty. Her parents come up with a plan to marry her to a prince from a far-away land who is unaware of what she looks like. They force Camilla to trade places with her beautiful but silly maid, Dulcibella, before the prince arrives.

However, Prince Simon has also disguised himself as his servant Carlo, and dressed Carlo up as the prince because he felt he wasn't handsome enough. Both the pretend prince and princess are insanely dull-witted, which just adds to the entertainment. Before the marriage of the two servants dressed as royalty, the real prince meets the real princess and they reveal their identity and begin to understand each other.

Prince Simon tells Princess Camilla that she is very beautiful, although all other princes have found her to be hideously ugly. Then the princess reveals that she was given a gift from her great aunt that would make everyone ignorant of her real beauty, so that she wouldn't grow up vain – until the day she met her one true love. The play ends with a riddle, required to be answered correctly by the prince before he can wed the princess.

What is it which has four legs and mews like a cat?
— The Chancellor

Despite the fact that Carlo, the mock-prince, was given the correct answer beforehand, he answers incorrectly. The answer clearly should have been "cat", but Carlo's answer was "dog". Yet with some quick thinking from Prince Simon, Carlo gets all the answer right because Simon claims that what is referred to in this country as "cat" is referred to as "dog" in the mock-prince's country.

In our country, we have an animal to which we have given the name "dog," or, in the local dialect of the more mountainous districts, "doggie." It sits by the fireside and purrs. — The Prince

At the very end, the king wonders why Princess Camilla is suddenly beautiful when the audience can see that it is because of the blessing–curse coming to fruition—Camilla has found her true love, the first one to whom she appears lovely.

Adaptations
The Fall 2009 issue of the University of San Francisco literary journal Switchback features a story by Charles Haddox, "The Ugly Duckling", about a girl who has her own ugly duckling experience after being chosen to play the role of Princess Camilla in her junior high school's production of the play.

In 1985 "The Ugly Duckling" was adapted by Simon Johnston for two actors and a music trio ( www.simonjohnston.ca ). It was commissioned by Laura Schlessinger, Artistic Director of Music Mosaic (The New Concert Theatre Society) based in Canmore Alberta. Allan Bell composed the music and Bev Ross wrote the libretto. The production, directed by Simon Johnston, featured knee-high puppets designed and constructed by Felix Mirbt of Sutton, Quebec. Karen Skidmore and Patrick Meschukuleit performed all the roles, songs and puppet manipulation.

References

1946 plays
Plays by A. A. Milne

The Ugly Duckling (play)