The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. Within a few months of their first gig, the line-up settled as Sting (lead vocals, bass guitar, primary songwriter), Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion), and remained unchanged for the rest of the band's history. The Police became globally popular in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s. Emerging in the British new wave scene, they played a style of rock influenced by punk, reggae, and jazz.

Their 1978 debut album, Outlandos d'Amour, reached No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart on the strength of the singles "Roxanne" and "Can't Stand Losing You". Their second album, Reggatta de Blanc (1979), became the first of four consecutive No. 1 studio albums in the UK and Australia; its first two singles, "Message in a Bottle" and "Walking on the Moon", became their first UK number ones. Their next two albums, Zenyatta Mondatta (1980) and Ghost in the Machine (1981), led to further critical and commercial success with two songs, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", becoming UK number-one singles and Top 5 hits in other countries; the former album was their breakthrough into the US reaching number five on the US Billboard 200.

Their final studio album, Synchronicity (1983), was No. 1 in the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy and the US, selling over 8 million copies in the US. Its lead single, "Every Breath You Take", became their fifth UK number one, and only US number one. During this time, the band were considered one of the leaders of the Second British Invasion of the US; in 1983 Rolling Stone labelled them "the first British New Wave act to break through in America on a grand scale, and possibly the biggest band in the world." The Police disbanded in 1986, but reunited in early 2007 for a one-off world tour that ended in August 2008. They were the world's highest-earning musicians in 2008, due to their reunion tour, which was the highest-grossing tour of 2007.

The Police have sold over 75 million records, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The band won a number of music awards, including six Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards—winning Best British Group once, and an MTV Video Music Award. In 2003, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their five studio albums appeared on Rolling Stones list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The band were included among both Rolling Stones and VH1's lists of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

History

1977: Formation
On 25 September 1976, while on tour with the British progressive rock band Curved Air in Newcastle upon Tyne, in the northeast of England, the band's American drummer, Stewart Copeland, met and exchanged phone numbers with ambitious singer-bassist Gordon Sumner a.k.a. Sting, who at the time was playing in a jazz-rock fusion band called Last Exit. On 12 January 1977, Sting relocated to London, and on the day of his arrival, sought out Copeland for a jam session.

Curved Air had recently split up and Copeland, inspired by the contemporary punk rock movement, was eager to form a new band to join the burgeoning London punk scene. While less keen, Sting acknowledged the commercial opportunities, so they formed the Police as a trio, with Corsican guitarist Henry Padovani recruited as the third member. After their debut concert on 1 March 1977 at the Alexandria Club in Newport, Wales (which lasted only ten minutes), the group played London pubs and punk clubs touring as backing band and support act for Cherry Vanilla and for Wayne County & the Electric Chairs. On 1 May 1977, the Police released on Illegal Records their debut single "Fall Out", recorded at Pathway Studios in Islington, North London on 12 February 1977 (a couple of weeks before the band's debut live performance), with a budget of £150. This is the only Police recording featuring Padovani. Mick Jagger reviewed the single in Sounds magazine.

Also in May 1977, former Gong musician Mike Howlett invited Sting to join him in the band project Strontium 90. The drummer Howlett had in mind, Chris Cutler, was unavailable, so Sting took Copeland. The band's fourth member was guitarist Andy Summers. A decade older than Sting and Copeland, Summers was a music industry veteran who had played with Eric Burdon and the Animals and Kevin Ayers among others. Strontium 90 performed at a Gong reunion concert in Paris on 28 May 1977, and played at a London club (under the name of "the Elevators") in July. The band also recorded several demo tracks: these were released (along with live recordings and an early version of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic") 20 years later on the archive album Strontium 90: Police Academy.

Summers' musicality impressed Sting, who was becoming frustrated with Padovani's rudimentary abilities and the limitations they imposed on the Police's potential. Shortly after the Strontium 90 gig, Sting approached Summers to join the band. He agreed, on the condition the band remain a trio, with him replacing Padovani. Restrained by loyalty, Copeland and Sting resisted the idea, and the Police carried on as a four-piece version. However, they only performed live twice: on 25 July 1977 at the Music Machine in London and on 5 August at the Mont de Marsan Punk Festival. Shortly after these two gigs (and an aborted recording session with ex-Velvet Underground member John Cale as producer on 10 August), Summers delivered an ultimatum to the band and Padovani was dismissed. The effect of Summers's arrival was instant: Copeland said: "One by one, Sting's songs had started coming in, and when Andy joined, it opened up new numbers of Sting's we could do, so the material started to get a lot more interesting and Sting started to take a lot more interest in the group."

The Police's power trio line-up of Copeland, Sting, and Summers performed for the first time on 18 August 1977 at Rebecca's club in Birmingham in the West Midlands. A trio was unusual for the time, and this line-up endured for the rest of the band's history. Few punk bands were three-pieces, while contemporary bands pursuing progressive rock, symphonic rock and other sound trends usually expanded their line-ups with support players. The musical background of all three players may have made them suspect to punk purists, with music critic Christopher Gable stating,

The band were also able to draw on influences from reggae to jazz to progressive and pub rock. While still maintaining the main band and attempting to win over punk audiences, Police members continued to moonlight within the art rock scene. In late 1977 and early 1978, Sting and Summers recorded and performed as part of an ensemble led by German experimental composer Eberhard Schoener; Copeland also joined for a time. These performances resulted in three albums, each of them an eclectic mix of rock, electronica and jazz. Various appearances by the Schoener outfit on German television made the German public aware of Sting's unusual high-pitched voice, and helped pave the way for the Police's later popularity.

The bleached-blond hair that became a band trademark happened by accident. In February 1978, the band, desperate for money, was asked to do a commercial for Wrigley's Spearmint chewing gum (directed by Tony Scott) on the condition they dye their hair blond. The commercial was shot with the band, but was shelved and never aired.

1977–1978: Recording contract and Outlandos d'Amour
Copeland's older brother Miles was initially sceptical of the inclusion of Summers in the band, fearing it would undermine their punk credibility, and reluctantly agreed to provide £1,500 to finance the Police's first album. Recording Outlandos d'Amour was difficult, as the band was working on a small budget, with no manager or record deal. It was recorded during off-peak hours at the Surrey Sound Studios in Leatherhead, Surrey, a converted recording facility above a dairy which was run by brothers Chris and Nigel Gray.

During one of his periodic studio visits, Miles heard "Roxanne" for the first time at the end of a session. Where he had been less enthusiastic about the band's other songs, the elder Copeland was immediately struck by the track, and quickly got the Police a record deal with A&M Records on the strength of it. "Roxanne" was issued as a single in the spring of 1978, while other album tracks were still being recorded, but it failed to chart. It also failed to make the BBC's playlist, which the band attributed to the song's depiction of prostitution. A&M consequently promoted the single with posters claiming "Banned by the BBC", though this was a misconception. It was never banned, just not play-listed. Copeland later admitted, "We got a lot of mileage out of it being supposedly banned by the BBC."

The Police made their first television appearance in October 1978, on BBC2's The Old Grey Whistle Test to promote the release of Outlandos d'Amour. Though "Roxanne" was never banned, the BBC did ban the second single from Outlandos d'Amour, "Can't Stand Losing You". This was due to the single's cover, which featured Copeland hanging himself over an ice block being melted by a portable radiator. The single became a minor chart hit, the Police's first, peaking at No. 42 in the UK. The follow-up single, "So Lonely", issued in November 1978, failed to chart. In February 1979, "Roxanne" was issued as a single in North America, where it was warmly received on radio despite the subject matter. The song peaked at No. 31 in Canada and No. 32 in the US, spurring a UK re-release of it in April. The band performed "Roxanne" on BBC1's Top of the Pops, and the re-issue of the song finally gained the band widespread recognition in the UK when it peaked at No. 12 on the UK Singles Chart.

The group's UK success led to gigs in the US at the famous New York City club CBGB, The Rathskeller (The RAT) in Boston and at The Chance in Poughkeepsie, New York, from which "Roxanne" finally debuted on US radio on WPDH, and a gruelling 1979 North American tour in which the band drove themselves and their equipment around the country in a Ford Econoline van. That summer, "Can't Stand Losing You" was also re-released in the UK, becoming a substantial hit, peaking at No. 2. The group's first single, "Fall Out", was reissued in late 1979, peaking at No. 47 in the UK.

1979: Reggatta de Blanc

In October 1979, the group released their second album, Reggatta de Blanc, which topped the UK Albums Chart and became the first of four consecutive UK No. 1 studio albums. The album spawned the hit singles "Message in a Bottle" (No. 1 UK, No. 2 Canada, No. 5 Australia) and "Walking on the Moon" (No. 1 UK). The album's singles failed to enter the US top 40, but Reggatta de Blanc still reached No. 25 on the US album charts.

The band's first live performance of "Message in a Bottle" was on the BBC's television show Rock Goes to College filmed at Hatfield Polytechnic College in Hertfordshire. The instrumental title track "Reggatta de Blanc" won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. In February 1980, the single "So Lonely" was reissued in the UK. Originally a non-charting flop when first issued in late 1978, upon re-release the track became a UK top 10 hit, peaking at No. 6.

In March 1980, the Police began their first world tour, which included places that had seldom hosted foreign performers—including Mexico, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Greece and Egypt. The tour was subsequently documented in the film The Police Around the World (1982), directed by Kate and Derek Burbidge, which contains footage shot by Annie Nightingale originally intended for a BBC production The Police in the East.

In May 1980, A&M in the UK released Six Pack, a package containing the five previous A&M singles (not including "Fall Out") in their original sleeves plus a mono alternate take of the album track "The Bed's Too Big Without You" backed with a live version of "Truth Hits Everybody". It reached No. 17 in the UK Singles Chart (although chart regulations introduced later in the decade would have classed it as an album).

1980–1981: Zenyatta Mondatta

Pressured by their record company for a new record and a prompt return to touring, the Police released their third album, Zenyatta Mondatta, in October 1980. The album was recorded in a three-week period in the Netherlands for tax reasons and was completed the night before the band embarked on a new world tour. The album gave the group their third UK No. 1 hit, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" (the UK's best-selling single of 1980) and another hit single, "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da", both of which reached No. 10 in the US.

While the three band members and co-producer Nigel Gray all expressed immediate regret over the rushed recording for the album, which was finished at 4 a.m. on the day the band began their world tour, the album received high praise from critics. The instrumental "Behind My Camel", written by Andy Summers, won the band a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance, while "Don't Stand So Close to Me" won the Grammy for Best Rock Vocal Performance for Duo or Group.

1981–1982: Ghost in the Machine and Brimstone and Treacle
The Police's fourth album, Ghost in the Machine, co-produced by Hugh Padgham, was recorded at Air Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, with the exception of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" which was recorded at Le Studio at Morin Heights, Quebec, Canada, and released in 1981. It featured thicker sounds, layered saxophones, and vocal textures. It spawned the hit singles "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" (featuring pianist Jean Roussel), their fourth UK No. 1 (No. 3 in the U.S.), "Invisible Sun", and "Spirits in the Material World". As the band was unable to agree on a cover picture, the album cover had three red pictographs, digital likenesses of the three band members in the style of segmented LED displays, set against a black background. In the 1980s, Sting and Summers became tax exiles and moved to Ireland (Sting to Roundstone, County Galway, and Summers to Kinsale in County Cork) while Copeland, an American, remained in England. The group opened and closed the 1981 concert film, Urgh! A Music War. The film, which captured the music scene in the wake of punk, was masterminded by Stewart Copeland's brothers Ian and Miles. The film had a limited release but developed a mythic reputation over the years.

At the 1982 Brit Awards in London, the Police received the award for Best British Group. After the Ghost in the Machine Tour concluded in 1982, the group took a sabbatical and each member pursued outside projects. By this time, Sting was becoming a major star, and he established a career beyond the Police by branching out into acting. Back in 1979, he had made a well-received debut as the "Ace Face" in the British drama film Quadrophenia, a film loosely based on The Who's rock opera, followed by a role as a mechanic in love with Eddie Cochran's music in Chris Petit's Radio On. In 1982, Sting furthered his acting career by co-starring in the Richard Loncraine film Brimstone and Treacle. He also had a minor solo hit in the United Kingdom with the movie's theme song, a cover of the 1929 hit "Spread a Little Happiness" (which appeared on the Brimstone & Treacle soundtrack, along with three new Police tracks, "How Stupid Mr Bates", "A Kind of Loving", and "I Burn for You"). Over 1981 and 1982, Summers recorded his first album with Robert Fripp, I Advance Masked.

In 1983, Stewart Copeland composed the musical score for Francis Ford Coppola's film Rumble Fish. The single "Don't Box Me In (theme From Rumble Fish)", a collaboration between Copeland and singer-songwriter Stan Ridgway (of the band Wall of Voodoo) received significant airplay upon release of the film that year. Also in 1983, Sting filmed his first big-budget movie role-playing Feyd-Rautha in David Lynch's Dune. As Sting's fame rose, his relationship with Stewart Copeland deteriorated. Their increasingly strained partnership was further stretched by the pressures of worldwide publicity and fame, conflicting egos, and their financial success. Meanwhile, both Sting's and Summers's marriages failed.

1983: Synchronicity and "The Biggest Band in the World"

In 1983, the Police released their last studio album, Synchronicity, which spawned the hit singles "Every Breath You Take", "Wrapped Around Your Finger", "King of Pain", and "Synchronicity II". By that time, several critics deemed them "the biggest rock band in the world". Recording the album, however, was a tense affair with increasing disputes among the band. The three members recorded their contributions individually in separate rooms and over-dubbed at different times.

The Synchronicity Tour began in Chicago, Illinois in July 1983 at the original Comiskey Park, and on 18 August the band played in front of 70,000 in Shea Stadium, New York. Near the end of the concert, Sting announced: "We'd like to thank the Beatles for lending us their stadium." Looking back, Copeland states, "Playing Shea Stadium was big because, even though I'm a septic tank (rhyming slang for 'Yank'), The Police is an English band and I'm a Londoner – an American Londoner – so it felt like conquering America." They played throughout the UK in December 1983, including four sold out nights at London's Wembley Arena, and the tour ended in Melbourne, Australia on 4 March 1984 at the Melbourne Showgrounds (the final concert featured Sunnyboys, Kids in the Kitchen, Bryan Adams and Australian Crawl, with the Police topping the bill). Sting's look, dominated by his orange-coloured hair (a result of his role in Dune) and tattered clothing, both of which were emphasised in the music videos from the album, carried over into the set for the concert. Except for "King of Pain", the singles were accompanied by music videos directed by Godley & Creme.

Synchronicity became a No. 1 album in both the UK (where it debuted at No. 1) and the US. It stayed at No. 1 in the UK for two weeks and in the US for seventeen weeks. It was nominated for Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, but lost to Michael Jackson's Thriller. "Every Breath You Take" won the Grammy for Song of the Year, beating Jackson's "Billie Jean". "Every Breath You Take" also won the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, while the album won the Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. "Every Breath You Take" also won the American Video Award for Best Group video, and the song won two Ivor Novello Awards in the categories Best Song Musically and Lyrically and Most Performed Work from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

1984–1986: Hiatus, aborted sixth studio album
During the group's 1983 Shea Stadium concert, Sting felt performing at the venue was "Everest" and decided to pursue a solo career, according to the documentary The Last Play at Shea. After the Synchronicity tour ended in March 1984, the band went on hiatus while Sting recorded and toured in support of his successful solo debut LP, the jazz-influenced The Dream of the Blue Turtles, released in June 1985; Copeland recorded and filmed The Rhythmatist (1985); and Summers recorded another album with Robert Fripp (Bewitched, 1984) and the theme song for the film 2010—which was not used in the film, but included on the soundtrack album. At the 1985 Brit Awards held at London's Grosvenor Hotel on 11 February, the band received the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In July the same year, Sting and Copeland participated in Live Aid at Wembley Stadium, London.

In June 1986, the Police reconvened to play three concerts for the Amnesty International A Conspiracy of Hope tour. Their last performance on stage before their split was on 15 June at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. They ended their set with "Invisible Sun", bringing out Bono to sing the final verse. When they finished, they handed U2 their instruments for the all-star finale of "I Shall Be Released". As the lead singer of U2 – who themselves would soon be regarded as the biggest band in the world – Bono stated, "It was a very big moment, like passing a torch."

In July of that year, the trio reunited in the studio to record a new album. However, Copeland broke his collarbone in a fall from a horse and was unable to play the drums. As a result of the tense and short-lived reunion in the studio, "Don't Stand So Close to Me '86" was released in October 1986 as their final single and made it into the UK Top 25. It also appeared on the 1986 compilation Every Breath You Take: The Singles, which reached No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart. A rerecorded version of "De Do Do Do De Da Da Da" was subsequently also included on the DTS-CD release of the Every Breath You Take: The Classics album in 1995. The album has sold over five million copies in the US.

Following the failed effort to record a new studio album, the Police effectively disbanded. In the liner notes to the Police's box set Message in a Box, Summers explains: "The attempt to record a new album was doomed from the outset. The night before we went into the studio Stewart broke his collarbone falling off a horse and that meant we lost our last chance of recovering some rapport just by jamming together. Anyway, it was clear Sting had no real intention of writing any new songs for the Police. It was an empty exercise."

1986–2006: Disbandment

Each band member continued with his solo career over the next 20 years. Sting continued recording and touring as a solo performer to great success. Summers recorded a number of albums, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians. Copeland became a prolific producer of movie and television soundtracks, and he recorded and toured with two new bands, Animal Logic and Oysterhead. However, a few events did bring the Police back together, albeit briefly. Summers played guitar on Sting's album ...Nothing Like the Sun (1987), a favour the singer returned by playing bass on Summers' album Charming Snakes (1990) and later singing lead vocals on "'Round Midnight" for Summers' tribute to Thelonious Monk Green Chimneys (1999). On 2 October 1991 (Sting's 40th birthday), Summers joined Sting on stage at the Hollywood Bowl during The Soul Cages Tour to perform "Walking on the Moon", "Every Breath You Take", and "Message in a Bottle". The performance was broadcast as a pay-per-view event.

On 22 August 1992, Sting married Trudie Styler in an 11th-century chapel in Wiltshire, southwest England. Summers and Copeland were invited to the ceremony and reception. Aware that all band members were present, the wedding guests pressured the trio into playing, and they performed "Roxanne" and "Message in a Bottle". Copeland said later that "after about three minutes, it became 'the thing' again". In 1995 A&M released Live!, a double live album produced by Summers featuring two complete concerts—one recorded on 27 November 1979 at the Orpheum Theatre in Boston during the Reggatta de Blanc tour, and one recorded on 2 November 1983 at the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia, during the Synchronicity Tour (the latter was also documented in the VHS tape Synchronicity Concert in 1984).

On 10 March 2003, the Police were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and performed "Roxanne", "Message in a Bottle", and "Every Breath You Take" live, as a group (the last song was performed alongside Steven Tyler, Gwen Stefani, and John Mayer). In the autumn of 2003, Sting released his autobiography, Broken Music.

In 2004, Copeland and Summers joined Incubus onstage at KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas concert in Los Angeles performing "Roxanne" and "Message in a Bottle". In 2004, Henry Padovani released an album with the participation of Copeland and Sting on one track, reuniting the original Police line-up for the first time since 1977. Also in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Police No. 70 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

In 2006, Stewart Copeland released a rockumentary about the band called Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out, based on Super-8 filming he did when the band was touring and recording in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In October 2006, Andy Summers released One Train Later, an autobiographical memoir detailing his early career and time with the band.

2007–2008: Reunion tour

In early 2007, reports surfaced the trio would reunite for a tour to mark the Police's 30th anniversary, more than 20 years since their split in 1986. On 22 January 2007, the punk wave magazine Side-Line broke the story the Police would reunite for the Grammys, and would perform "Roxanne". Side-Line also stated the Police were to embark on a massive world tour. Billboard magazine later confirmed the news, quoting Summers' 2006 statement as to how the band could have continued post-Synchronicity:
 The band opened the 49th Annual Grammy Awards on 11 February 2007 in Los Angeles, announcing, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are The Police, and we're back!" before launching into "Roxanne".

A&M, the band's record company, promoted the 2007–08 reunion tour as the 30th anniversary of the band's formation and of the release of their first single for A&M, "Roxanne". The Police Reunion Tour began in late May 2007 with two shows in Vancouver. Stewart Copeland gave a scathing review of the show on his own website, which the press interpreted as a feud occurring two gigs into the tour. Copeland later apologised for besmirching "my buddy Sting," and chalked up the comments to "hyper self-criticism".

Tickets for the British leg of the tour sold out within 30 minutes, and the band played two nights at Twickenham Stadium on 8 and 9 September. On 29 and 30 September 2007, Henry Padovani joined the group on stage for the final encore of their two shows in Paris, playing the song "Next to You" as a four-piece band. In October 2007, the group played the largest gig of the reunion tour in Dublin in front of 82,000 fans. The group headlined the TW Classic festival in Werchter, Belgium on 7 June 2008. They also headlined the last night of the 2008 Isle of Wight Festival on 15 June, the Heineken Jammin' Festival in Venice on 23 June and the Sunday night at Hard Rock Calling (previously called Hyde Park Calling) in London on 29 June.

In February 2008, the band announced that, when the tour finished, they would break up again. "There will be no new album, no big new tour," said Sting. "Once we're done with our reunion tour, that's it for The Police." The final show of the tour was on 7 August 2008 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The band performed the opening song, "Message in a Bottle", with the brass band of the New York Metropolitan Police Corp. Later, they performed "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Purple Haze" as a tribute to the rock trios that preceded them: Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. While announcing the show, the group also donated $1 million to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's initiative to plant one million trees in the city by 2017.

The world's highest-earning musicians in 2008, the tour sold 3.7 million tickets and grossed $358 million, making it the third-highest-grossing tour of all time at its conclusion. On 11 November 2008, the Police released Certifiable: Live in Buenos Aires, a Blu-ray, DVD and CD set of the band's two performances in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the tour (1 and 2 December 2007). Those sets with two DVDs also included a documentary shot by Copeland's son Jordan entitled Better Than Therapy as well as some photographs of Buenos Aires taken by Andy Summers.

Musical style
The Police started as a punk rock band, but soon expanded their music vocabulary to incorporate reggae, pop and new wave elements to their sound. In his retrospective assessment, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic argues that the notion of the Police as a punk rock band was true only "in the loosest sense of the term". He states the band's "nervous, reggae-injected pop/rock was punky" and had a "punk spirit" but it "wasn't necessarily punk". A "power trio", the Police are also known as a new wave and post-punk band, with many songs falling in the reggae-fusion genre.

Legacy

In 2003, the Police were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Police number 70 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, and in 2010, the band were ranked 40th on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Four of the band's five studio albums appeared on Rolling Stone'''s 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time: Ghost in the Machine (number 322), Reggatta de Blanc (number 369), Outlandos d'Amour (number 434), and Synchronicity (number 455). In 2008, Q magazine named Synchronicity among the top 10 British Albums of the 1980s.

The primary songwriter for the Police, Sting was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. In Rolling Stone's 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, "Every Breath You Take" ranked number 84 (the highest new wave song on the list), and "Roxanne" ranked number 388. "Message in a Bottle" ranked number 65 in the magazine's 2008 list of the 100 greatest guitar songs. Q magazine named "Every Breath You Take" among the top 10 British Songs of the 1980s, and in a UK-wide poll by ITV in 2015 it was voted The Nation's Favourite 80s Number One. In May 2019, "Every Breath You Take" was recognized by BMI as being the most performed song in their catalogue, overtaking "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" performed by the Righteous Brothers.

With a string of UK number one albums, the Police were among the most commercially successful British bands of the early 1980s, and with success overseas they are typically regarded as in both the vanguard of the Second British Invasion, and the new wave movement. With a history of playing to large audiences (such as Shea Stadium in 1983), the Police were a featured artist in the stadium rock episode of the 2007 BBC/VH1 series Seven Ages of Rock along with Queen, Led Zeppelin, U2 and Bruce Springsteen.

Despite the band's well-documented disagreements with one another, Summers confirmed in 2015 that Sting, Copeland and he are good friends. Summers said, "Despite the general press thing about 'God, they hate each other', it's actually not true, we're very supportive of one another." While remembering his time with The Police fondly and still retaining love for his former bandmates, Copeland recalled in 2022 that working with Sting musically "was like a Prada suit made out of barbed wire" and that, rather than get involved in the creative infighting, Summers would enjoy "throwing bombs" to egg on the younger men. "It was never an ego-clash," Copeland said.

DiscographyOutlandos d'Amour (1978)Reggatta de Blanc (1979)Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)Ghost in the Machine (1981)Synchronicity (1983)

Concert tours
The Police Around the World Tour (1977–1980)
Zenyatta Mondatta Tour (1980–1981)
Ghost in the Machine Tour (1981–1982)
Synchronicity Tour (1983–1984)
The Police Reunion Tour (2007–2008)

Band members
Sting – bass guitar, lead and backing vocals, double bass, keyboards (1977–1986, 1992, 2003, 2007–2008)
Andy Summers – guitars, backing vocals, keyboards (1977–1986, 1992, 2003, 2007–2008)
Stewart Copeland – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1977–1986, 1992, 2003, 2007–2008)
Henry Padovani – guitars (1977, 2007)

Awards and nominations
Brit Awards
1982: Best British Group
1985: Outstanding Contribution to Music

Grammy Awards

|-
!scope="row" | 1981
| "Reggatta de Blanc"
| rowspan= "2" | Best Rock Instrumental Performance
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan= "2" | 1982
| "Behind My Camel"
|
|-
| "Don't Stand So Close to Me"
| Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
!scope="row" rowspan= "4" | 1984
| rowspan= "2" | Synchronicity| Album of the Year
|
|-
| Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
| rowspan= "2" | "Every Breath You Take"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
!scope="row" | 1986
| The Police Synchronicity Concert
| Best Music Video, Long Form
|
|-

Juno Awards

|-
| rowspan="2" | 1984
| Synchronicity| International Album of the Year
|

People's Choice Awards

|-
| 2008
| Themselves
| Favorite Reunion Tour
|

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
 The Police were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 10 March 2003.

Other lists
Ranked No.70 on Rolling Stone''s Immortals, the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Ranked No.40 on VH1's List of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

See also
List of best-selling music artists
List of highest-grossing concert tours
List of new wave artists
List of reggae rock artists

References

Citations

Sources

External links

1977 establishments in England
1977 in London
A&M Records artists
Brit Award winners
English musical trios
English jazz-rock groups
English new wave musical groups
English pop rock music groups
English post-punk music groups
Grammy Award winners
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
Musical groups established in 1977
Musical groups reestablished in 2007
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Musical groups from London
Reggae rock groups
Second British Invasion artists

The Police


Cawston is a civil parish and suburban village close to the south west of Rugby, on the A4071 (which is in turn just one mile from the M45). The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 3,234.  For hundreds of years the village was basically a hamlet and the two settlements remained separate despite Rugby's continued growth. However, in 2003-04 a new housing development, Cawston Grange, was completed all but connecting the two settlements. Cawston Grange Primary School was built at the same time to educate children in the area aged 4–11 and there is a nursery for pre-school children, as well as a public house and shops.

One of the most significant older buildings in the village is Cawston House. It was built in 1545 by Edward Boughton. The house has been in the hands of several notable titled families and was also used as a convalescent home for troops from Belgium in World War I, a girls' school between 1938 and 1958, and a research and development unit for an engineering company. The house was greatly altered in 1907 and remains the same externally to this day. In 2004 the house was bought by a developer and sub-divided to make a retirement village.

The old Rugby to Leamington railway line ran through the old village (this closure predates the Beeching cuts, but part was still used as a freight line to Rugby Cement works at Long Itchington) and its path can still be walked along. The railway bridge over the A4071 has in recent years gained minor fame for the 'witty' slogans written on it. Examples of such (referring to a different village near Rugby) are "Home rule for Crick" and "Fly Crick air". In August 2007 construction of the Rugby Western Relief Road started just west of the village, a project which was completed in 2010.

References

External links

Multimap Image of Cawston (can zoom in and out)
A more detailed history of Cawston House

Villages in Warwickshire
Rugby, Warwickshire

Cawston, Warwickshire


Isentropic analysis in meteorology is a technique to find the vertical and horizontal motion of airmasses during an adiabatic process above the planetary boundary layer. The change of state of air parcels following isentropic surfaces does not involve exchange of heat with the environment. Such an analysis can also evaluate the airmass stability in the vertical dimension and whether an air parcel crossing such a surface will result in convective or stratiform clouds. It is based on the study of weather maps or vertical cross-sections of the potential temperature values in the troposphere.

On a synoptic scale, isentropic analysis is associated with weather fronts: warm fronts are found where the wind crosses lines of a chosen potential temperature from lower heights to higher ones, while cold fronts are where the wind crosses descending heights. Synoptic clouds and precipitations can thus be better found with these areas of advection than with conventional isobaric maps. From a mesoscale point of view, an air parcel moving vertically will cross isolines of potential temperature and it will be unstable if the value of those lines decrease with altitude, or stable if they increase.

References

Atmospheric thermodynamics
Weather prediction

Isentropic analysis


The 1939 Belgian Grand Prix was a Grand Prix motor race held on 25 June 1939 at Spa-Francorchamps.

Richard Seaman crashed into a tree between Clubhouse and La Source hairpin, causing the fuel line to break. Fuel rushed over the car and the car caught fire. Seaman couldn't move because his right hand was broken and he was also trapped by his steering wheel. After a minute of futile rescue attempts, a Belgian soldier walked into the blaze and freed Seaman. However, he had suffered burns on sixty percent of the body and Britain's most successful pre-war driver died before midnight.

Classification

References

Belgian Grand Prix
Belgian Grand Prix
Grand Prix, 1939

1939 Belgian Grand Prix


The Giardini Botanici Hanbury, also known as Villa Hanbury, are major botanical gardens operated by the University of Genoa. They are located at Corso Montecarlo 43, Mortola Inferiore, several km west of Ventimiglia, Italy.

History

The gardens were established by Sir Thomas Hanbury on a small, steep peninsula jutting southwards from an altitude of 103 meters down into the Mediterranean Sea. He purchased the extant Palazzo Orengo property in 1867, and over decades created the garden with the aid of pharmacologist Daniel Hanbury (his brother), the botanist and landscape designer Ludwig Winter, and scientists including Gustav Cronemayer, Kurt Dinter, and Alwin Berger. In 1912 the Hortus Mortolensis, the catalogue of the garden, contained 5800 species, although the garden itself had more. Hanbury died in 1907, but energetic plantings and improvements resumed after World War I under the direction of his daughter-in-law Lady Dorothy Hanbury.

Restoration

The gardens were severely damaged in World War II, when they became a no-man's land and in 1960 Lady Hanbury sold them to the State of Italy. Initially its care was entrusted to the International Institute of Ligurian Studies but when they withdrew for lack of adequate funds in 1983 responsibility was passed to the University of Genoa. Restoration has been gradually proceeding since 1987 and it was declared a nature preserve in 2000.

On 1 June 2006 the Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali submitted a proposal for the inclusion of the gardens on the list of UNESCO  World Heritage Sites.

In 2007 and 2011 Villa Hanbury was included in the list of the 10 most beautiful gardens in Italy.

Plant collections

Today 9 of the gardens' 18 hectares are under cultivation, and contain about 2500 taxa. Many of the species are plants of Mediterranean climates from the six Mediterranean climate zones of the world.

Major collections include agaves, aloes, and salvia, as well as fine old specimens of Araucaria cunninghamii (planted 1832), Casimiroa edulis (1867), olive trees, Olmediella betschleriana, and Pinus canariensis (1870). An orchard of rare fruits includes Actinidia, Carica, Diospyros, Eugenia, Feijoa, Fortunella, Macadamia, Mespilus germanica, and Persea.

Additional collections feature palms, succulents, Australian trees, citrus, and cultivated flowers. Of particular interest are the Aphyllanthes monspeliensis, Beaucarnea recurvata, Beaucarnea stricta, Caesalpinia sepiaria, Chiranthodendron pentadactylon, Chrysanthemum discoideum, Coronilla juncea, Cupressus guadalupensis, Cupressus lusitanica, Eucalyptus citriodora, Eucalyptus sideroxylon, Eucalyptus microcorys, Mandevilla laxa, Passiflora bryonioides, Passiflora amethistina, Passiflora edulis, Senecio deltoideus, Sollya heterophylla, Thunbergia grandiflora, Thunbergia coccinea, Thunbergia mysorensis, Wigandia urens, and Yucca australis.

Publications

The first index seminum or seed list of the gardens was published in 1883, and contained 557 species; it was published annually thereafter. The seed lists were distributed to other botanical gardens, which could request seeds. In 1908 more than 13,000 packets of seed were despatched.

The first catalogues of the gardens, one alphabetical and one systematic, were published by Gustav Cronemeyer in 1889, and contained about 3600 species. A second edition was published by Kurt Dinter in 1897. The third edition, published in 1912 by Alwin Berger with the title Hortus Mortolensis, contained almost 6000 species. The wild flowers of the gardens were separately catalogued by Berger in 1907.

The principal publications of the gardens are:

 Gustav Cronemeyer (1889). Alphabetical Catalogue of plants growing in the open air in the garden of Thomas Hanbury, Palazzo Orengo, La Mortola near Ventimiglia, Italy. Erfurt: G.A. Koenig.
  (1889). Systematic catalogue of plants growing in the open air in the garden of Thomas Hanbury F.L.S., Knight of the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, and Officer of the Cross of the Crown of Italy: Palazzo Orengo, La Mortola near Ventimiglia, Italy. Erfurt: G.A. Koenig.
 Kurt Dinter (1897). Alphabetical Catalogue of plants growing in the open air in the garden of Thomas Hanbury, Palazzo Orengo, La Mortola near Ventimiglia, Italy. Genoa: Waser.
 Alwin Berger (1905). Florula Mortolensis. An enumeration of the plants growing wild at La Mortola. Ventimiglia: Billi.
   (1912). Hortus Mortolensis : enumeratio plantarum in horto Mortolensi cultarum: Alphabetical catalogue of plants growing in the garden of the late Sir T. Hanbury at La Mortola, Ventimiglia, Italy. London: West, Newman.

See also

 Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub - biome
 List of botanical gardens in Italy

References

Further reading
 Hanbury Botanical Gardens, undated brochure from the gardens
 Giardini Botanici Hanbury, undated tourist brochure

External links
 Official website
 Area protetta regionale Giardini Botanici Hanbury
 Convention on Biological Diversity - Botanic Gardens of Italy

Botanical gardens in Italy
Villas in Liguria
Buildings and structures in Liguria
Gardens in Liguria
Province of Imperia

Giardini Botanici Hanbury


A gate, street, road or ruid, is a bit laund that connects twa or mair places. For ordinar a gate haes been makkit easy tae traivel on, for ensaumple bi takkin awa trees an stanes sae the grund is mair evenly. Awtho mony gates is makkit oot o graivel an brouk, some is makkit frae concrete or brick.

Fowk haes been makkin gates for a lang time. Roman gates an the Incan caddie gates is faur-kent. But transport bi river wis for ordinar mair easy an faster nor transport bi the gate. In the industrial revolution, the railwey wis inventit. A railwey is a special type o gate, uisin airn rails. Gates is nou for ordinar biggit for wheeled vehicles, like caurs, tae traivel alang.

Ither kynds o gate

 loanins
 wynds
 vennels
 causeys
 motorweys

Gate


Vantablack is a substance made of carbon nanotubes.  Scientists at Surrey NanoSystems invented it in 2014.  They invented it so scientists and engineers could use it in inventions.  In 2016, artists started fighting over Vantablack, for example Anish Kapoor and Stuart Semple.

Vantablack can absorb 99.965 percent of the light that hits it. Because it absorbs so much light, it looks very dark and black. In 2014, it was the blackest black thing in the world.  It could make a flat circle look like a deep hole.  Artist Anish Kapoor thought Vantablack would be good in art.  In 2016, Kapoor made a deal with Surrey NanoSystems.  He bought the exclusive rights to use Vantablack in art.  This means Kapoor is the only artist allowed to use that black paint.

Some artists did not like that Kapoor wanted to be the only artist who could use Vantablack paint.  For example, Christian Furr said "All the best artists have had a thing for pure black – Turner, Manet, Goya... This black is like dynamite in the art world. We should be able to use it. It isn't right that it belongs to one man."

Another artist Stuart Semple invented another pigment in 2016. He named it "Pinkest Pink". Semple sold Pinkest Pink to other artists on his website. But he added words to the order form in which his buyers had to promise not to give any Pinkest Pink to Anish Kapoor:

By adding this product to your cart you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor, you are in no way affiliated to Anish Kapoor, you are not purchasing this item on behalf of Anish Kapoor or an associate of Anish Kapoor. To the best of your knowledge, information and belief this paint will not make its way into the hands of Anish Kapoor.

Semple said: "I thought I might sell one or two, but the website itself would be almost like a piece of performance art, and the pink jar would be like an artwork." This means he did not think many people would care that he was not selling his pink paint to Anish Kapoor. He also said he did it "to raise a dialogue in a debate about ownership and elitism and privilege and access to the arts".

Anish Kapoor found out about Semple's rule.  He posted a picture on Instagram. The picture had a jar of Pinkest Pink and a middle finger (an insulting hand signal) covered in Pinkest Pink.

Many people saw Kapoor's Instagram picture.  They wrote to Semple asking him to make a black paint like Vantablack.  In 2017, Semple made black pigments called "Better Black", "Black 2.0" and "Black 3.0".  He made a glitter paint called "Diamond Dust".  He would not sell any to Anish Kapoor.  Semple's black paint was not as black as Vantablack, but it was very, very black.  It was also much easier to use and cost much less money.  One tube of Black 3.0 cost ₤21.99. Semple also opened an art store in London and said he would not let Anish Kapoor come inside it.

Anish Kapoor told Buzzfeed news that his lawyers would take action against Semple because Semple was using his name so people would buy paint from him.  Semple said later that Kapoor never sued him.

In 2019, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology made a paint even blacker than Vantablack.  This paint could absorb 99.995 percent of light.  MIT artist Diemut Strebe made artwork using this paint: Strebe painted a $2 million yellow diamond black with this paint.  This made the diamond almost disappear.  Strebe named the artwork The Redemption of Vanity. It is at the New York Stock Exchange.

Strebe and the scientists said "The project can also be interpreted as a statement against British artist Anish Kapoor's purchase of" Vantablack.  They said any artist who wanted could use their new paint.

References

Art
Nanotechnology
Controversies

Vantablack


The De Beers Diamond Consortium is a South African-British corporation that specializes in diamond mining, diamond exploitation, diamond retail, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors.  The company is active in open-pit, large-scale alluvial and coastal mining. It operates in 35 countries and mining takes place in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Canada and Australia.

From its inception in 1888 until the start of the 21st century, De Beers controlled 80% to 85% of rough diamond distribution and was considered a monopoly. As of 2000, the company's control of the world diamond supply decreased to 63%.

The company was founded in 1888 by British businessman Cecil Rhodes, who was financed by the South African diamond magnate Alfred Beit and the London-based N M Rothschild & Sons bank. In 1926, Ernest Oppenheimer, a German immigrant to Britain and later South Africa who had earlier founded mining company Anglo American with American financier J. P. Morgan, was elected to the board of De Beers. He built and consolidated the company's global monopoly over the diamond industry until his death in 1957. During this time, he was involved in a number of controversies, including price fixing and trust behaviour, and was accused of not releasing industrial diamonds for the U.S. war effort during World War II.

In 2011, Anglo American took control of De Beers after buying the Oppenheimers' family stake of 40% for US$5.1 billion (£3.2 billion) and increasing its stake to 85%, ending the 80-year Oppenheimer control of the company.

History

Foundation

The name 'De Beers' was derived from the two Dutch settlers, brothers Diederik Arnoldus de Beer (1825–1878) and Johannes Nicolaas de Beer (1830–1883), who owned a South African farm named Vooruitzicht (Dutch for "prospect" or "outlook") near Zandfontein in the Boshof District of Orange Free State. After they discovered diamonds on their land, the increasing demands of the British government forced them to sell their farm on 31 July 1871 to merchant Alfred Johnson Ebden (1820–1908) for £6,600. Vooruitzicht would become the site of the Big Hole and the De Beers mine, two successful diamond mines. Their name, which was given to one of the mines, subsequently became associated with the company.

Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the British South Africa Company, got his start by renting water pumps to miners during the diamond rush that started in 1869, when an 83.5 carat diamond called the 'Star of South Africa' was found at Hopetown near the Orange River in South Africa. He invested the profits of this operation into buying up claims of small mining operators, with his operations soon expanding into a separate mining company. He soon secured funding from the Rothschild family, who would finance his business expansion. De Beers Consolidated Mines was formed in 1888 by the merger of the companies of Barney Barnato and Cecil Rhodes, by which time the company was the sole owner of all diamond mining operations in the country. In 1889, Rhodes negotiated a strategic agreement with the London-based Diamond Syndicate, which agreed to purchase a fixed quantity of diamonds at an agreed price, thereby regulating output and maintaining prices. The agreement soon proved to be very successful – for example, during the trade slump of 1891–1892, supply was simply curtailed to maintain the price. Rhodes was concerned about the break-up of the new monopoly, stating to shareholders in 1896 that the company's "only risk is the sudden discovery of new mines, which human nature will work recklessly to the detriment of us all".

The Second Boer War proved to be a challenging time for the company. Kimberley was besieged as soon as war broke out, thereby threatening the company's valuable mines. Rhodes personally moved into the city at the onset of the siege in order to put political pressure on the British government to divert military resources towards relieving the siege rather than more strategic war objectives. Despite being at odds with the military, Rhodes placed the full resources of the company at the disposal of the defenders, manufacturing shells, defences, an armoured train and a gun named Long Cecil in the company workshops.

Oppenheimer control
In 1898, diamonds were discovered on farms near Pretoria, Transvaal. One led to the discovery of the Premier Mine. The Premier Mine was registered in 1902 and the Cullinan Diamond, the largest rough diamond ever discovered, was found there in 1905. (The Premier Mine was renamed the Cullinan Mine in 2003). However, its owner refused to join the De Beers cartel. Instead, the mine started selling to a pair of independent dealers named Bernard and Ernest Oppenheimer, thereby weakening the De Beers stronghold.
Francis Oats, who became Chairman of De Beers in 1908, was dismissive of the threats from the Premier Mine and the finds in German South West Africa.
However, production soon equalled all of the De Beers mines combined. Ernest Oppenheimer was appointed the local agent for the powerful London Syndicate, rising to the position of mayor of Kimberley within 10 years. He understood the core principle that underpinned De Beers's success, stating in 1910 that "common sense tells us that the only way to increase the value of diamonds is to make them scarce, that is to reduce production".

During World War I, the Premier mine was finally absorbed into De Beers. When Rhodes died in 1902, De Beers controlled 90% of the world's diamond production. Ernest Oppenheimer took over the chairmanship of the company in 1929, after buying shares and being appointed to the board in 1926. Oppenheimer was very concerned about the discovery of diamonds in 1908 in German South West Africa, fearing that the increased supply would swamp the market and force prices down. Former CIA chief Admiral Stansfield Turner claimed that De Beers restricted US access to industrial diamonds needed for the country's war effort during World War II.

During the early 1930s, the company conducted experimental work which in large part pioneered the use of diamond drills. This was highly preferable to more expensive and rarer carbons previously in use. The Free State Gold Rush was made possible in part due to this innovation, as the fields required deep drilling to reach gold-bearing reefs.

In May 1955, Ernest Oppenheimer opened the new headquarters which combined the operations of Anglo American and the De Beers group. After Ernest died in November 1957, operation of Anglo and De Beers were passed on to his son, Harry Oppenheimer. Under Harry, the company expanded to several different countries around the globe, including Canada, Australia, Malaysia, Portugal, Zambia, and Tanzania. In South Africa, Harry opposed apartheid, arguing that it hindered economic growth. Despite this, De Beers has been criticized for profiting from the system during the apartheid period. By 1973, Anglo and De Beers accounted for 10 percent of South Africa's gross national product and 30 percent of the country's exports.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, De Beers attempted to secretly enter the United States' diamond market, being forced to divest its American assets in 1975 to avoid the risk of violating anti-trust laws. Harry Oppenheimer stepped down as the chairman and director of Anglo-American and De Beers in December 1982.

21st-century changes

During the 20th century, De Beers used several methods to leverage its dominant position to influence the international diamond market. First, it attempted to convince independent producers to join its single channel monopoly.  When that did not work, it flooded the market with diamonds similar to those of producers who refused to join in, depressing their price and undermining return for the resistant. It also purchased and stockpiled diamonds produced by other manufacturers as well as surplus diamonds in order to control prices by limiting supply. Finally, it bought diamonds when prices fell considerably naturally, to constrict supply and drive their value back up, such as during the Great Depression.

In 2000, the De Beers business model changed because of factors such as the decision by producers in Canada and Australia to distribute diamonds outside the De Beers channel, as well as increasingly negative publicity surrounding blood diamonds, which forced De Beers to protect its image by limiting sales to its own mined products.

The combination of a more fragmented and thus more competitive diamond market, increased transparency, and greater liquidity, caused De Beers's market share of rough diamonds to fall from as high as 90% in the 1980s to 29.5% in 2019.

Seeing these developing trends, the Oppenheimer family announced in November 2011 its intention to sell its entire 40% stake in De Beers to Anglo American plc, thereby increasing Anglo American's ownership of the company to 85% (with the remaining 15%  owned by the Government of the Republic of Botswana).
The transaction was worth £3.2 billion (US$5.1 billion) in cash and ended the Oppenheimer dynasty's 80-year ownership of De Beers.

Marketing

De Beers successfully advertised diamonds to manipulate consumer demand. One of the most effective marketing strategies has been the marketing of diamonds as a symbol of love and commitment. Copywriter Frances Gerety (1916–1999) working for N. W. Ayer & Son coined the famous advertising slogan, 'A Diamond is Forever', in 1947. In 2000, Advertising Age magazine named 'A Diamond is Forever' the best advertising slogan of the 20th century. The slogan may have inspired the James Bond book, film and song title Diamonds Are Forever.

Other successful campaigns include the 'eternity ring' (meant as a symbol of continuing affection and appreciation), the 'trilogy ring' (meant to represent the past, present, and future of a relationship) and the 'right hand ring' (meant to be bought and worn by women as a symbol of independence).

De Beers ran television advertisements featuring silhouettes of people wearing diamonds, set to the music of 'Palladio' by Karl Jenkins. The campaign, titled "Shadows and Lights" first ran in the first quarter of 1993. The song would later inspire a compilation album, Diamond Music, released in 1996, which features the 'Palladio' suite. A 2010 commercial for Verizon Wireless parodied the De Beers spots.

In May 2018, De Beers introduced a new brand called "Lightbox" that are made with synthetic diamonds. The synthetic stones start at $200 for a quarter carat to $800 for full carat diamond. The new lab-grown diamond retail for about one-tenth the cost of naturally occurring diamonds. The new brand began selling in September 2018 and are produced in Gresham, Oregon, a $94 million facility using the region's cheap electricity, which opened in 2018 with the capacity for 500,000 rough carats of diamonds per year.

Operations

Mining in Botswana takes place through the mining company Debswana, a 50–50 joint venture with the Government of the Republic of Botswana. It operates four mines – Jwaneng, Orapa, Letlhakane and Damtshaa, though Damtshaa was put on care and maintenance in 2015.

In Namibia, mining is carried out through Namdeb Holdings, a 50–50 joint venture with the Government of the Republic of Namibia. Namdeb Holdings is made up of Debmarine Namibia (covering offshore mining) and Namdeb Diamond Corporation (land-based coastal mining). For offshore mining, motor vessels are used, including the sixth and latest, the N$2.3 billion SS Nujoma, the world's most advanced diamond exploration and sampling vessel, which began full operations in June 2017.

De Beers Consolidated Mines is responsible for the De Beers mining in South Africa. It is 74% owned by De Beers and 26% by a broad-based black economic empowerment partner, Ponahalo Investments. There are two mines – Venetia and Voorspoed.

In 2008, De Beers began production at the Snap Lake mine in the Northwest Territories, Canada; this was the first De Beers mine outside Africa and was Canada's first completely underground diamond mine. However, production was suspended when the mine was put on care and maintenance in 2015. De Beers opened the Victor mine in Ontario, Canada, the same year, a day after Snap Lake. This was followed by the opening of the company's third mine in Canada, Gahcho Kue, in September 2016.

Trading of rough diamonds takes place through two channels – De Beers Global Sightholder Sales (GSS) and De Beers Auction Sales. GSS sells about 90% of De Beers's rough diamonds, by value, and features wholly owned and joint venture operations in South Africa (De Beers Sightholder Sales South Africa), Botswana (DTCB), and Namibia (NDTC). They sort, value and sell 33% (2013) of the world's rough diamonds by value.

There are two main types of customer for rough diamonds – Sightholders and Accredited Buyers. Sightholders have a term contract. Accredited Buyers (a customer type introduced in 2014–15) have a more ad hoc arrangement. De Beers also sells about 10% of its rough diamonds through online auction sales. The company pioneered the approach in 2008 when it broke with 44 years of direct sales to hold the diamond industry's first online international auction sale. It is now the world's leader in this kind of auction sale.

De Beers employs more than 30,000 people around the globe on five continents, with more than 17,000 employees in Africa. Almost 8,000 people are employed in Botswana, around 6,200 in South Africa, nearly 2,900 in Namibia, some 1,260 in Canada and about 320 in exploration.

In February 2020, De Beers reported its worst set of earnings since the company was bought by miner Anglo American in 2012.

Business structure and brands
On 4 November 2011, Anglo American plc and CHL Holdings announced their agreement for Anglo American to acquire an incremental interest in De Beers, increasing Anglo American's 45% shareholding in the world's leading diamond company to 85%. De Beers plc was originally incorporated as De Beers Société Anonyme in 2000 in Luxembourg. Following the closure of this office, the company was reclassified as De Beers plc in 2017, with its head office now in Jersey. It is made up of two shareholdings: Anglo American plc has an 85% shareholding and the Government of the Republic of Botswana owns 15% directly. De Beers plc is the holding company of The De Beers Group of Companies. It is involved in many parts of the diamond value chain, from mining to sales, and is made up of a series of joint ventures and wholly owned operations.

The joint ventures are:
 Debmarine Namibia
 Debswana
 DTCB
 Namdeb
 NDTC

The wholly owned operations are in southern Africa and Canada. Also wholly owned are Forevermark, De Beers Jewellers, the International Institute of Diamond Valuation, De Beers Ventures, the International Institute of Diamond Grading & Research and Element Six (Umicore has a 40% stake in Element Six's abrasives division).

Forevermark

Forevermark was launched in 2008 as one of the two diamond brands from The De Beers Group of Companies. According to the company website, "Each Forevermark diamond is inscribed with a promise: that it is beautiful, rare and responsibly sourced." Forevermark diamonds are inscribed with an icon and unique identification number, albeit invisibly to the naked eye: the Forevermark inscription is th of a micron deep. This inscription helps distinguish Forevermark diamonds from other natural diamonds though, similarly to when distinguishing natural diamonds from synthetic diamonds, it requires specialist detection equipment to view. The inscription also helps maintain scarcity: the Forevermark website boasts that only a tiny percentage of diamonds qualify for the Forevermark brand.

De Beers Jewellers
De Beers Diamond Jewellers (DBDJ) was established in 2001 as a 50:50 joint venture between The De Beers Group of Companies and LVMH, the French luxury goods company. The first De Beers boutique opened in 2002 on London's Old Bond Street as the brand's flagship store. Since then, stores have opened in various cities around the world. In March 2017, The De Beers Group of Companies acquired LVMH's 50% shareholding in DBDJ and new name De Beers Jewellers was unveiled.

De Beers Ventures

De Beers Ventures was established by De Beers Group in June 2017 to consider minority stake investments in start-ups and growth companies that could be of benefit to De Beers Group or the broader diamond sector.

The International Institute of Diamond Grading & Research

The International Institute of Diamond Grading & Research (IIDGR) was set up by De Beers in 2008, with the aim of providing a range of services and equipment in the field of diamond verification. It is based in London, Antwerp and, from 2015, in Surat, India. The IIDGR works only on diamonds that meet the requirements of the United Nations' World Diamond Council Kimberley Process.

Blood diamonds and the Kimberley Process

In 1999, a campaign by Global Witness to highlight the role of diamonds in international conflicts led to a review by the United Nations. The initial focus of the UN's investigation was on Jonas Savimbi's UNITA movement in Angola, which was found to have bartered uncut diamonds for weaponry despite international economic and diplomatic sanctions being in effect through United Nations Security Council Resolution 1173.

In 1999, De Beers Group stopped all outside buying of diamonds in order to guarantee the conflict-free status of their diamonds effective from 26 March 2000.

In December 2000, following the recommendations of the Fowler Report, the UN adopted the landmark General Assembly Resolution A/RES/55/56 supporting the creation of an international certification scheme for rough diamonds. By November 2002, negotiations between governments, the international diamond industry, led by De Beers, and civil society organisations resulted in the creation of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS), which sets out the requirements for controlling rough diamond production and trade and became effective in 2003.

De Beers states that 100% of the diamonds it now sells are conflict-free and that all De Beers diamonds are purchased in compliance with national law, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme and its own Diamond Best Practice Principles. The Kimberley process has helped restore the reputation of the industry, as well as eliminating sources of excess supply.

In 2018, De Beers used blockchain technology to successfully track 100 high-value diamonds. The diamonds were tracked through the manufacturing process from the mine to the retailer in order to ensure their quality and conflict-free status.

In 2019, they launched their own end-to-end traceability platform called Tracr to enable all diamonds to be identified and traced as they move from the mine to the store. Signet and the Russian-based Alrosa are using the technology.

Corporate affairs

In August 2017, De Beers partnered with the Stanford Graduate School of Business to accelerate business ventures to market in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. As part of two programs, the partnership is set to help teach early entrepreneurs how to commercialize their business ideas. The partnership is a three-year, $3 million deal.

In September 2017, De Beers partnered with UN Women to help the advancement of women within the company and the countries it operates in. In 2018, the two entities launched a program to support 500 women micro-entrepreneurs in Blouberg and Musina communities, near De Beers's Venetia diamond mine.

In May 2018, De Beers's group company Element Six launched a lab-grown diamond brand to sell jewelry directly to consumers.

Former operations
International Institute of Diamond Valuation

The International Institute of Diamond Valuation (IIDV) was launched by De Beers Group in March 2016. Operating in partnership with diamond jewellery retailers, it provided a reselling service for all diamonds, regardless of value. In April 2019, De Beers closed its IIDV division.

Legal issues

Sherman Antitrust Act
During World War II, Ernest Oppenheimer attempted to negotiate a way around the Sherman Antitrust Act by proposing that De Beers register a US branch of the Diamond Syndicate Incorporated. In this way, his company could provide the US with the industrial diamonds it desperately sought for the war effort in return for immunity from prosecution after the war; however his proposal was rejected by the US Justice Department when it was discovered that De Beers had no intention of stockpiling any industrial diamonds in the US. In 1945, the Justice Department finally filed an antitrust case against De Beers, but the case was dismissed as the company had no presence on US soil.

Relocation of indigenous San people in Botswana
In Botswana, a long dispute has existed between the interests of the mining company, De Beers, and the San (Bushman) tribe. The San have been facing threats of forcible relocation since 1980s, when the diamond resources were discovered. A campaign was fought in an attempt to bring an end to what the indigenous rights organisation, Survival International, considers to be a genocide of a tribe that has been living in those lands for tens of thousands of years. Several international fashion models, including Iman, Lily Cole and Erin O'Connor, who were previously involved with advertising for the companies' diamonds, supported the campaign. De Beers sold its mine in Botswana to Gem Diamonds in 2007.

Industrial diamonds
In 2004, De Beers pled guilty and paid a US$10 million fine to the United States Department of Justice to settle a 1994 charge that De Beers had colluded with General Electric to fix the price of industrial diamonds. In 2008, De Beers agreed to pay a US$295 million class-action settlement after accusations of price fixing. The company appealed the decision but ended up paying the settlement in 2013.

European Commission
In February 2006, De Beers entered into legally binding commitments with the European Commission to cease purchasing rough diamonds from Russian mining company Alrosa as of the end of 2008 in order to ensure competition between the two companies.

South Africa's rough diamond trade
In 2014, the Leverhulme Centre for the Study of Value, based at the University of Manchester, published a report authored by Sarah Bracking and Khadija Sharife, identifying over US$3.3 billion in price fixing within the South African rough diamond trade from 2004 to 2012, leading to an estimated deficit in tax paid of ZAR 1 billion per year. The report found significant evidence of profit shifting through volume and value manipulation. Sharife simultaneously published an article disclosing the political system that cultivated revenue leakage, including the donation of De Beers staff to the State Diamond Trader (SDT). The report, like the article, utilised aggregated data produced by the Kimberley Process (KP) certificates of import-exports, relying on figures listed by the diamond companies themselves, in which De Beers was the dominant player. The South African Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) disclosed that De Beers did not authorise them to publish figures involving values, sales, pricing and other data, preventing transparency of the industry.

See also
 Blood diamond
 Canadian diamonds
 De Beers Diamond Oval
 Julian Ogilvie Thompson
 List of diamonds
 List of synthetic diamond manufacturers
 Peace in Africa (ship), diamond mining dredge
 Synthetic diamond
 The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds (TV documentary)

Notes

References

External links

 De Beers Group
 De Beers Jewellers

Companies based in the City of Westminster
Diamond dealers
Monopolies
Mining in Africa
Mining in Canada
Mining in Botswana
Mining in Namibia
Mining in South Africa
Trade monopolies
Non-renewable resource companies established in 1888
1888 establishments in the Orange Free State
Luxury brands
Rothschild & Co
2011 mergers and acquisitions

De Beers


Selo Soemardjan (May 23, 1915 in Yogyakarta – June 11, 2003 in Jakarta), also spelled as Selo Sumarjan or Selo Sumardjan, was a well known senior academic in sociology at the University of Indonesia, and is known as the Pioneer of Indonesian Social Sciences. He was awarded with the title Kanjeng Pangeran Haryo, a knighthood from the Yogyakarta Sultanate.

Selo Soemardjan obtained his PhD at Cornell University. After his return from the United States in 1959, he held a range of academic posts, although the majority of his time was spent at UI and the Social Sciences Foundation (Yayasan Ilmu-ilmu Sosial — YIIS) which he co-founded and headed for three decades.

Background and education
He began his career as a government bureaucrat in Java, serving as a district head in a rural area outside Yogyakarta. The term Selo was actually not his name, but a title attributed to Soemardjan's occupation as scribe/secretary to the Yogyakarta government, when he worked as regent of Kulonprogo. However, the term became so embedded with his real name Soemardjan, hence Selo Soemardjan became his proper name.

During the revolutionary period 1945–1950, he was secretary to Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX, a major figure in the struggle for independence.  In 1948, an American student named George McTurnan Kahin was doing research in Yogyakarta. Kahin asked Minister of Education Ali Sastroamidjojo to suggest a suitable candidate as a research assistant. Sastroamidjojo suggested Selo Soemardjan, who was a civil servant, secretary to Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX.

The situation became even more unstable. Social change that took place during Indonesia's struggle for independence compelled Soemardjan to study sociology. Kahin helped him to get the documents needed to study at Cornell, with sponsorship from the Ford Foundation, and, in February 1956, he went to Cornell, where he studied all the European theories of sociology. In 1959, Soemardjan returned to Yogyakarta to undertake research on social change for his PhD, and after six months, he went back to Cornell to complete his thesis and sit for exams.

Below are several educational establishments he was involved with:

 HIS, Yogyakarta (1921–1928)
 MULO, Yogyakarta (1928–1931)
 MOSVIA, Magelang (1931–1934)
 Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, AS (PhD 1959)

Career and Works
Upon his graduation from Cornell, Mohammad Sadli of Faculty of Economics in the University of Indonesia asked him to teach sociology in his department. As the only teacher in the department without a background in economics, he taught a subject that was titled "Non-economic Factors in Economic Development."

Later on, Soemardjan established the Faculty of Social Sciences in the University of Indonesia and held the post of Dean for ten years. He was appointed as professor and later on as professor emeritus.

In 1968, after General Suharto officially replaced Sukarno as president, Sadli and his colleagues (often known as the Berkeley Mafia) became the architects of Indonesia's economic policy. Selo Soemardjan was involved in the analysis of non-economic factors.

As a professor, Soemardjan was able to explain sociology theories by using a layman's term, citing everyday examples that are encountered particularly from his past experience as a civil servant.

 Regent of Kulonprogo Regency and Staff of Yogyakarta Sultanate / Yogyakarta Provincial Government (1935–1949)
 Civilian Chief of Staff for Jakarta Raya (1949–1950)
 Head of Defence Staff Secretariat in Prime Minister's Cabinet (1950–1956)
 Secretary for State Supervisory Agency (1959–1961)
 Head of Department of State
 Secretary for the State Auditing Board
 Secretary for Minister of State of Economics, Finance, and Industry (1966–1973)
 Secretary for Indonesian Vice President Sultan Hamengkubuwono IX (1973–1978)
 Assistant for Indonesian Vice President in Social Welfare (1978–1983)
 Advisor for Indonesian President (1983–2003)
 Lecturer in Faculty of Law Universitas Indonesia
 Founder of Faculty of Social Sciences in Universitas Indonesia
 Professor in Faculty of Economics Universitas Indonesia
 Professor Emeritus in Universitas Indonesia

Publications
 Social Changes in Yogyakarta (1962)
 Gerakan 10 Mei 1963 di Sukabumi (1963)
 Desentralisasi Pemerintahan
 Tokoh sosiologi yang terkenal

Award and Honors
 Bintang Mahaputra Utama (17 August 1994)
 Gelar ilmuwan utama sosiologi (30 August 1994)
 Anugerah Hamengkubuwono (HB) IX from Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) (19 January 2002)

Personal life
Selo Soemardjan was married to R.R. Soeleki Brotoatmodjo, a midwife and a car-racer. They had six children, all of them living in Jakarta, Indonesia. They had fifteen grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

He died in 2003 due to a heart attack at the age of 88 years. He is buried in Kuncen Cemetery, Yogyakarta.

After his death, the Selo Soemardjan Research Center was established in 2004.

References
 Celebrating Indonesia
 Tokoh Indonesia (In Indonesian)
 Apa Siapa (In Indonesian)
 In Memoriam (In Indonesian)
 In Memoriam (In Indonesian)

1915 births
2003 deaths
People from Yogyakarta
Javanese people
Cornell University alumni
Academic staff of the University of Indonesia

Selo Soemardjan


Fred Lanting is a multi-breed American Kennel Club (AKC) judge, United Kennel Club (UKC) all breed judge and handler as well as other show organizations in the U.S. and abroad.  He is best known for being the author of "The Total German Shepherd Dog" and "Canine Hip Dysplasia and Other Orthopedics Disorders".  He also tours the world conducting lectures and seminars on canine health as well as judging UKC, Sieger, and other registry shows.

Early German Shepherd career
Lanting owned his first German Shepherd Dog in 1947, but did not begin breeding them until 1966, when he moved to Toledo, Ohio. He also began showing his dogs in obedience and breed conformation trials.  He started to get the attention of other owners and he was often hired to handle their dogs in both rings.  He spent most weekends during the 1960s and 1970s showing dogs in the Great Lakes region of the US and Canada.

AKC judge
In 1979, Lanting began judging AKC shows. He was AKC-licensed to judge German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Boxers, greyhounds, and whippets and later got international judging licenses from national kennel clubs overseas. He has judged and lectured in more than 30 countries.

A letter to AKC dated May 6, 2000, from Darrell Hayes asked for an explanation of Lanting's alleged advertising in the February 2000 Plumb Creek show in Colorado. Lanting had placed information about a colleague in Pakistan who was looking to import a working Rottweiler and a Labrador Retriever to improve the gene pools in that country. AKC claimed that Lanting was using his judging privileges to his advantage and was in violation of AKC's "no trafficking" rule ("buy, sell, and in any way trade in or traffic in dogs as a means of livelihood in whole or in part" (Chapter 7, Section 1, Rules, March 2001)). Lanting denies these allegations, stating his sole motive was to altruistically help serious breeders in that country to improve their dogs.

On May 15, 2000, the AKC temporarily suspended Lanting's judging privileges and in November 2000 he was suspended indefinitely. At the February 10, 2006, board of directors meeting, the board received a request from Lanting for reinstatement. The board voted to reinstate his AKC judging privileges effective May 15, 2015.

Non AKC Judging
Fred still judges SV / Sieger style shows (German shepherds). He is also approved to judge for the KC (UK) German shepherds, Rottweilers, Boxers, Whippets, Greyhounds, and Shibas as well as a UKC all-breed judge. Fred is currently an internationally licensed judge with the Dog Club of China and an internationally licensed all breed conformation judge for several other registries.

Seminars
Fred currently conducts seminars on canine hip dysplasia (and other orthopedic issues) including genetic prevention, nutrition, diagnosis and treatment, and more.  He also presents seminars on an analytical approach to evaluating dogs (from picking puppies to conformation judging), Schutzhund training and problem solving, anatomy, and the evolution of the American German Shepherd Dog.

Published works
Source:
 The Total German Shepherd Dog
 Canine Hip Dysplasia and Other Orthopedic Problems

References

External links

Living people
Dog shows and showing
American male writers
1932 births

Fred Lanting