Exclusive or or exclusive disjunction or exclusive alternation, also known as non-equivalence which is the negation of equivalence, is a logical operation that is true if and only if its arguments differ (one is true, the other is false).

It is symbolized by the prefix operator  and by the infix operators XOR (, ,  or ), EOR, EXOR, , , , ⩛, ,  and .

It gains the name "exclusive or" because the meaning of "or" is ambiguous when both operands are true; the exclusive or operator excludes that case. This is sometimes thought of as "one or the other but not both" or "either one or the other". This could be written as "A or B, but not, A and B".

XOR is equivalent to logical inequality (NEQ) since it is true only when the inputs are different (one is true, and one is false). The negation of XOR is the logical biconditional, which yields true if and only if the two inputs are the same, which is equivalent to logical equality (EQ).

Since it is associative, it may be considered to be an n-ary operator which is true if and only if an odd number of arguments are true. That is, a XOR b XOR ... may be treated as XOR(a,b,...).

Definition

The truth table of  shows that it outputs true whenever the inputs differ:

Equivalences, elimination, and introduction
Exclusive disjunction essentially means 'either one, but not both nor none'. In other words, the statement is true if and only if one is true and the other is false. For example, if two horses are racing, then one of the two will win the race, but not both of them. The exclusive disjunction , also denoted by  or , can be expressed in terms of the logical conjunction ("logical and", ), the disjunction ("logical or", ), and the negation () as follows:

The exclusive disjunction  can also be expressed in the following way:

This representation of XOR may be found useful when constructing a circuit or network, because it has only one  operation and small number of  and  operations. A proof of this identity is given below:

It is sometimes useful to write  in the following way:

or:

This equivalence can be established by applying De Morgan's laws twice to the fourth line of the above proof.

The exclusive or is also equivalent to the negation of a logical biconditional, by the rules of material implication (a material conditional is equivalent to the disjunction of the negation of its antecedent and its consequence) and material equivalence.

In summary, we have, in mathematical and in engineering notation:

Negation of the operator

The spirit of De Morgan's laws can be applied, we have:

Relation to modern algebra

Although the operators  (conjunction) and  (disjunction) are very useful in logic systems, they fail a more generalizable structure in the following way:

The systems  and  are monoids, but neither is a group. This unfortunately prevents the combination of these two systems into larger structures, such as a mathematical ring.

However, the system using exclusive or  is an abelian group.  The combination of operators  and  over elements  produce the well-known two-element field .  This field can represent any logic obtainable with the system  and has the added benefit of the arsenal of algebraic analysis tools for fields.

More specifically, if one associates  with 0 and  with 1, one can interpret the logical "AND" operation as multiplication on  and the "XOR" operation as addition on :

The description of a Boolean function as a polynomial in , using this basis, is called the function's algebraic normal form.

Exclusive or in natural language

Disjunction is often understood exclusively in natural languages. In English, the disjunctive word "or" is often understood exclusively, particularly when used with the particle "either". The English example below would normally be understood in conversation as implying that Mary is not both a singer and a poet.

1. Mary is a singer or a poet.

However, disjunction can also be understood inclusively, even in combination with "either". For instance, the first example below shows that "either" can be felicitously used in combination with an outright statement that both disjuncts are true. The second example shows that the exclusive inference vanishes away under downward entailing contexts. If disjunction were understood as exclusive in this example, it would leave open the possibility that some people ate both rice and beans.

2. Mary is either a singer or a poet or both.
3. Nobody ate either rice or beans.

Examples such as the above have motivated analyses of the exclusivity inference as pragmatic conversational implicatures calculated on the basis of an inclusive semantics. Implicatures are typically cancellable and do not arise in downward entailing contexts if their calculation depends on the Maxim of Quantity. However, some researchers have treated exclusivity as a bona fide semantic entailment and proposed nonclassical logics which would validate it.

This behavior of English "or" is also found in other languages. However, many languages have disjunctive constructions which are robustly exclusive such as French soit... soit.

Alternative symbols
The symbol used for exclusive disjunction varies from one field of application to the next, and even depends on the properties being emphasized in a given context of discussion.  In addition to the abbreviation "XOR", any of the following symbols may also be seen:
  was used by George Boole in 1847. Although Boole used  mainly on classes, he also considered the case that  are propositions in , and at the time  is a connective. Furthermore, Boole used it exclusively. Although such use doesn't show the relationship between inclusive disjunction (for which  is almost fixedly used nowadays) and exclusive disjunction, and may also bring about confusions with its other uses, some classical and modern textbooks still keep such use.
  was used by Christine Ladd-Franklin in 1883. Strictly speaking, Ladd used  to express " is-not " or "No  is ", i.e., used  as exclusions, while implicitly  has the meaning of exclusive disjunction since the article is titled as "On the Algebra of Logic".
 , denoting the negation of equivalence, was used by Ernst Schröder in 1890, Although the usage of  as equivalence could be dated back to George Boole in 1847, during the 40 years after Boole, his followers, such as Charles Sanders Peirce, Hugh MacColl, Giuseppe Peano and so on, didn't use  as non-equivalence literally which is possibly because it could be defined from negation and equivalence easily.
  was used by Giuseppe Peano in 1894: ". The sign  corresponds to Latin aut; the sign  to vel." Note that the Latin word "aut" means "exclusive or" and "vel" means "inclusive or", and that Peano use  as inclusive disjunction.
  was used by Izrail Solomonovich Gradshtein (Израиль Соломонович Градштейн) in 1936.
  was used by Claude Shannon in 1938. Shannon borrowed the symbol as exclusive disjunction from Edward Vermilye Huntington in 1904. Huntington borrowed the symbol from Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in 1890 (the original date is not definitely known, but almost certainly it's written after 1685; and 1890 is the publishing time). While both Huntington in 1904 and Leibniz in 1890 used the symbol as an algebraic operation. Furthermore, Huntington in 1904 used the symbol as inclusive disjunction (logical sum) too, and in 1933 used  as inclusive disjunction.
 , also denoting the negation of equivalence, was used by Alonzo Church in 1944.
  (as a prefix operator, ) was used by Józef Maria Bocheński in 1949. Somebody may mistake that it's Jan Łukasiewicz who is the first to use  for exclusive disjunction (it seems that the mistake spreads widely), while neither in 1929 nor in other works did Łukasiewicz make such use. In fact, in 1949 Bocheński introduced a system of Polish notation that names all 16 binary connectives of classical logic which is a compatible extension of the notation of Łukasiewicz in 1929, and in which  for exclusive disjunction appeared at the first time. Bocheński's usage of  as exclusive disjunction has no relationship with the Polish "alternatywa rozłączna" of "exclusive or" and is an accident for which see the table on page 16 of the book in 1949.
 ^, the caret, has been used in several programming languages to denote the bitwise exclusive or operator, beginning with C and also including C++, C#, D, Java, Perl, Ruby, PHP and Python.
 The symmetric difference of two sets  and , which may be interpreted as their elementwise exclusive or, has variously been denoted as , , or .

Properties

If using binary values for true (1) and false (0), then exclusive or works exactly like addition modulo 2.

Computer science

Bitwise operation

Exclusive disjunction is often used for bitwise operations. Examples:
 1 XOR 1 = 0
 1 XOR 0 = 1
 0 XOR 1 = 1
 0 XOR 0 = 0
  XOR  =  (this is equivalent to addition without carry)

As noted above, since exclusive disjunction is identical to addition modulo 2, the bitwise exclusive disjunction of two n-bit strings is identical to the standard vector of addition in the vector space .

In computer science, exclusive disjunction has several uses:
 It tells whether two bits are unequal.
 It is an optional bit-flipper (the deciding input chooses whether to invert the data input).
 It tells whether there is an odd number of 1 bits ( is true if and only if an odd number of the variables are true), which is equal to the parity bit returned by a parity function.

In logical circuits, a simple adder can be made with an XOR gate to add the numbers, and a series of AND, OR and NOT gates to create the carry output.

On some computer architectures, it is more efficient to store a zero in a register by XOR-ing the register with itself (bits XOR-ed with themselves are always zero) instead of loading and storing the value zero.

In simple threshold-activated neural networks, modeling the XOR function requires a second layer because XOR is not a linearly separable function.

Exclusive-or is sometimes used as a simple mixing function in cryptography, for example, with one-time pad or Feistel network systems.

Exclusive-or is also heavily used in block ciphers such as AES (Rijndael) or Serpent and in block cipher implementation (CBC, CFB, OFB or CTR).

Similarly, XOR can be used in generating entropy pools for hardware random number generators.  The XOR operation preserves randomness, meaning that a random bit XORed with a non-random bit will result in a random bit.  Multiple sources of potentially random data can be combined using XOR, and the unpredictability of the output is guaranteed to be at least as good as the best individual source.

XOR is used in RAID 3–6 for creating parity information.  For example, RAID can "back up" bytes  and  from two (or more) hard drives by XORing the just mentioned bytes, resulting in () and writing it to another drive.  Under this method, if any one of the three hard drives are lost, the lost byte can be re-created by XORing bytes from the remaining drives. For instance,  if the drive containing  is lost,  and  can be XORed to recover the lost byte.

XOR is also used to detect an overflow in the result of a signed binary arithmetic operation. If the leftmost retained bit of the result is not the same as the infinite number of digits to the left, then that means overflow occurred. XORing those two bits will give a "1" if there is an overflow.

XOR can be used to swap two numeric variables in computers, using the XOR swap algorithm; however this is regarded as more of a curiosity and not encouraged in practice.

XOR linked lists leverage XOR properties in order to save space to represent doubly linked list data structures.

In computer graphics, XOR-based drawing methods are often used to manage such items as bounding boxes and cursors on systems without alpha channels or overlay planes.

Encodings
It is also called "not left-right arrow" (\nleftrightarrow) in LaTeX-based markdown (). Apart from the ASCII codes, the operator is encoded at  and , both in block mathematical operators.

See also

Notes

External links

 All About XOR
 Proofs of XOR properties and applications of XOR, CS103: Mathematical Foundations of Computing, Stanford University

Dichotomies
Logical connectives
Semantics

Exclusive or


Yas Island () is an island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Development started in 2006, to transform it into a tourist attraction, mainly focussed on motorsport.

The Yas Marina Circuit is a large part of Yas Island, which has hosted the Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix since 2009, as the last race in the calendar. In 2010 Ferrari World was opened next to the circuit, which contains Formula Rossa, the world's fastest roller coaster which has a top speed of 240kph (149mph).

Other popular attractions on the island are Yas Waterworld, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi.

References

Geography of the United Arab Emirates
Islands of Asia

Yas Island


A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find.  In most countries, a search warrant cannot be issued in aid of civil process.

Jurisdictions that respect the rule of law and a right to privacy constrain police powers, and typically require search warrants or an equivalent procedure for searches police conducted in the course of a criminal investigation. The laws usually make an exception for hot pursuit: a police officer following a criminal who has fled the scene of a crime has the right to enter a property where the criminal has sought shelter. The necessity for a search warrant and its abilities vary from country to country. In certain authoritarian nations, police officers may be allowed to search individuals and property without having to obtain court permission or provide justification for their actions.

United Kingdom
In England and Wales, a local magistrate issues search warrants, which require that a constable provide evidence that supports the warrant application.

Under Section 18(5)a of  Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, a constable can conduct a search immediately without an inspector's authorisation. This subsection allows a constable to search the home of a suspect(s) under arrest in their presence before they take the suspect to a police station (or other custody location). Under Section 32 of Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, a constable who arrests a person who is on their own property or has just left their premises, may immediately search both the suspect and the immediate area.

In Scotland, a country operating on the distinct legal system of Scots law compared to England and Wales – the restrictions governing the use and execution of search warrants are set out under Part XIII under the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. Search warrants must be signed by a Sheriff after a petition from police.

Gas company officials may enter a home to inspect, repair, or replace gas meters by obtaining a warrant.

Canada
To get a warrant, police must present a judge with an ITO (information to obtain) form that contains reasonable and probable grounds to believe an offence has been or is being committed and that the authorization sought will afford evidence of that offence. This hearing is , meaning only the crown is present. This fact obliges the police to include any known facts that hurt their application.

After a search the occupants have a copy of the warrant and may get hold of the ITO through crown disclosure if the occupant(s) are charged. There are numerous different warrant procedures in the Criminal Code, some have specific requirements such as being served during daytime or having a named supervising officer present in the case of a home search. If these (see link) requirements are not met by the police the evidence found may become inadmissible against the accused at trial.

India
Under section 93 of IPC, a search warrant can be issued by a court if:
(1) (a) Where any Court has reason to believe that a person to whom a summons order under section 91 or a requisition under
sub-section (1) of section 92 has been, or might be, addressed, will not or would not produce the document or thing as required by such summons or requisition, or
(b) where such document or thing is not known to the Court to be in the possession of any person, or
(c) where the Court considers that the purposes of any inquiry, trial or other proceeding under this Code will be served by a general search or inspection, it may issue a search-warrant; and the person to whom such warrant is directed, may search or inspect in accordance therewith and the provisions hereinafter contained.
(2) The Court may, if it thinks fit, specify in the warrant the particular place or part thereof to which only the search or inspection shall extend; and the person charged with the execution of such warrant shall then search or inspect only the place or part so specified.
(3) Nothing contained in this section shall authorise any Magistrate other than a District Magistrate or Chief Judicial Magistrate to grant a warrant to search for a document, parcel or other thing in the custody of the postal or telegraph authority.

United States

Under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, most police searches require a search warrant based on probable cause. The absence of valid consent or an exception to the warrant requirement  (whether for purposes of effecting a search or an arrest) normally requires a warrant for police entry in an individual's home. The probable cause standard for obtaining a search warrant is lower than the quantum of proof required for a later criminal conviction, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Under the Fourth Amendment, search warrants must be reasonable and particular. This means that a search warrant must reasonably identify the items to be searched for and the place where law enforcement officials are authorized to search for those items. Unless an exception to the warrant requirement applies, the search of other buildings or areas of a building, persons or vehicles, or the search for additional items that do not reasonably fall under the original warrant, will normally require additional search warrants.

To obtain a search warrant, an officer must prove to a magistrate or judge that probable cause exists for the proposed search, based upon direct information (i.e., the officer's personal observation) or other reliable information. An application for a search warrant will often rely upon hearsay information, such as information obtained from a confidential informant, as long as probable cause exists based on the totality of the circumstances. Police can seize both property and persons under a search warrant.  The rationale is that evidence police collect without a search warrant may not be sufficient to convict, but may be sufficient to suggest that a warrant would allow police to find enough evidence to convict.

The issue of federal warrants is determined under Title 18 of the United States Code. The law has been restated and extended under Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Federal search warrants may be prepared on Form AO 93, Search and Seizure Warrant. Although the laws are broadly similar, each state has its own laws and rules of procedure governing the issuance of warrants.

Search warrants are normally available to the public.  On the other hand, they may be sealed if they contain sensitive information.

Exceptions

Certain searches do not require a search warrant. For example,

 Consent: a warrant is not required when a person in control of the object or property gives consent for the search.
 Hot pursuit of a felon (to prevent a felon's escape or ability to harm others);
 Imminent destruction of evidence: where evidence might be destroyed before a warrant can be properly obtained;
 Emergency searches: such as when someone is heard screaming, yelling, or calling for help inside a dwelling; or
Search incident to arrest (to mitigate the risk of harm to the arresting officers specifically).
 Public safety: a warrantless search may be permissible in an emergency situation where the public is in danger.
 Plain view: evidence is in the plain view of law enforcement officers, from a lawful vantage point (with similar exceptions that include plain smell, where the officer detects an odor that clearly indicates the presence of contraband or criminal activity).

In a plain view case, the officer is legitimately on the premises, his observation is from a legitimate vantage point, and it is immediately obvious that the evidence is contraband. The plain view rule applies, for example, when the officer has pulled the suspect over for a seat belt violation and sees a syringe on the passenger seat.

Protective sweep
If the subject is arrested in a home or vehicle, police may perform a protective search to make sure that there are no weapons within the vicinity. For example, they may search for weapons in the room where they arrested the subject of a warrant, and conduct a "protective sweep" of the premises if they reasonably suspect that other individuals may be hiding.

Rental properties and hotel rooms
With rented property, a landlord may refuse to allow law enforcement to search a tenant's apartment without a search warrant, and police must obtain a warrant under the same guidelines as if the tenant were the owner of the property.

People who are occupying rooms at hotels or motels have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their rooms. However, a warrantless search may be possible if the hotel guest has property in their room a considerable period of time after the scheduled check-out time.

Motor vehicle exception
As first established by Carroll v. United States (1925), police are allowed to search a vehicle without a search warrant when they have probable cause to believe that evidence or contraband is located in a vehicle. When police arrest an individual shortly after the individual has exited a vehicle, the police may conduct a full search of the suspect's person, any area within that person's immediate reach, and the passenger compartment of the recently occupied vehicle for weapons or any other contraband. However, Arizona v. Gant (2009) limits such searches to circumstances where the arrested person could have accessed the vehicle, or when the vehicle could contain evidence of the crime the person is arrested for. As per Collins v. Virginia (2018), the exception does not apply when the vehicle is within the home or curtilage of the home of its owner.

Border search exception

Under The Border Search Exception custom and immigration officers are not required to have a warrant or probable cause to conduct searches and seizures at international borders and their functional equivalents.

This doctrine is not actually an exception to the Fourth Amendment, but rather to the Amendment's requirement for a warrant or probable cause. Balanced against the sovereign's interests at the border are the Fourth Amendment rights of entrants. Not only is the expectation of privacy less at the border than in the interior, the Fourth Amendment balance between the interests of the Government and the privacy right of the individual is also struck much more favorably to the Government at the border. This balance at international borders means that routine searches are "reasonable" there, and therefore do not violate the Fourth Amendment's proscription against "unreasonable searches and seizures".

Delayed notice
A sneak and peek search warrant (officially called a delayed notice warrant and also a covert entry search warrant or a surreptitious entry search warrant) is a search warrant authorizing the law enforcement officers executing it to effect physical entry into private premises without the owner's or the occupant's permission or knowledge and to clandestinely search the premises.

Gag orders
In California, the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act mandates that in certain cases concerning electronic search warrants that the court issue gag orders "[...] prohibiting any party providing information from notifying any other party that information has been sought [...]".

See also

Arrest warrant
National Security Letter
No-knock warrant, to enter a property without occupant notification
Parallel construction – the untruthful description of the origins of evidence, to avoid laws about search or otherwise
Police
Reverse search warrant
Sneak and peek warrant, to clandestinely look inside a property
Search and seizure
Sugar bowl (legal maxim)
Writ of Assistance

Notes and references

Warrants
Law enforcement terminology
Searches and seizures

Search warrant


Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about  in diameter (fresh and fully mature), dark red, and contains a stone which encloses a single pepper seed. Peppercorns and the ground pepper derived from them may be described simply as pepper, or more precisely as black pepper (cooked and dried unripe fruit), green pepper (dried unripe fruit), or white pepper (ripe fruit seeds).

Black pepper is native to the Malabar Coast of India, and the Malabar pepper is extensively cultivated there and in other tropical regions.

Ground, dried, and cooked peppercorns have been used since antiquity, both for flavour and as a traditional medicine. Black pepper is the world's most traded spice, and is one of the most common spices added to cuisines around the world. Its spiciness is due to the chemical compound piperine, which is a different kind of spicy from the capsaicin characteristic of chili peppers. It is ubiquitous in the Western world as a seasoning, and is often paired with salt and available on dining tables in shakers or mills.

Etymology
The word pepper derives from Old English pipor, Latin piper, and . The Greek likely derives from Dravidian pippali, meaning "long pepper". Sanskrit pippali shares the same meaning.

In the 16th century, people began using pepper to also mean the New World chili pepper (genus Capsicum), which is not closely related.

Varieties

Processed peppercorns come in a variety of colours, any one of which may be used in food preparation, especially common peppercorn sauce.

Black pepper
Black pepper is produced from the still-green, unripe drupe of the pepper plant. The drupes are cooked briefly in hot water, both to clean them and to prepare them for drying. The heat ruptures cell walls in the pepper, speeding the work of browning enzymes during drying. The drupes dry in the sun or by machine for several days, during which the pepper skin around the seed shrinks and darkens into a thin, wrinkled black layer. Once dry, the spice is called black peppercorn. On some estates, the berries are separated from the stem by hand and then sun-dried without boiling.

After the peppercorns are dried, pepper spirit and oil can be extracted from the berries by crushing them. Pepper spirit is used in many medicinal and beauty products. Pepper oil is also used as an ayurvedic massage oil and in certain beauty and herbal treatments.

White pepper
White pepper consists solely of the seed of the ripe fruit of the pepper plant, with the thin darker-coloured skin (flesh) of the fruit removed. This is usually accomplished by a process known as retting, where fully ripe red pepper berries are soaked in water for about a week so the flesh of the peppercorn softens and decomposes; rubbing then removes what remains of the fruit, and the naked seed is dried. Sometimes the outer layer is removed from the seed through other mechanical, chemical, or biological methods.

Ground white pepper is commonly used in Chinese, Thai, and Portuguese cuisines. It finds occasional use in other cuisines in salads, light-coloured sauces, and mashed potatoes as a substitute for black pepper, because black pepper would visibly stand out. However, white pepper lacks certain compounds present in the outer layer of the drupe, resulting in a different overall flavour.

Green pepper
Green pepper, like black pepper, is made from unripe drupes. Dried green peppercorns are treated in a way that retains the green colour, such as with sulfur dioxide, canning, or freeze-drying. Pickled peppercorns, also green, are unripe drupes preserved in brine or vinegar.

Fresh, unpreserved green pepper drupes are used in some cuisines like Thai cuisine and Tamil cuisine. Their flavour has been described as "spicy and fresh", with a "bright aroma." They decay quickly if not dried or preserved, making them unsuitable for international shipping.

Red peppercorns
Red peppercorns usually consist of ripe peppercorn drupes preserved in brine and vinegar. Ripe red peppercorns can also be dried using the same colour-preserving techniques used to produce green pepper.

Pink pepper and other plants
Pink peppercorns are the fruits of the Peruvian pepper tree, Schinus molle, or its relative, the Brazilian pepper tree, Schinus terebinthifolius, plants from a different family (Anacardiaceae). As they are members of the cashew family, they may cause allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, for persons with a tree nut allergy.

The bark of Drimys winteri ("canelo" or "winter's bark") is used as a substitute for pepper in cold and temperate regions of Chile and Argentina, where it is easily found and readily available. In New Zealand, the seeds of kawakawa (Piper excelsum), a relative of black pepper, are sometimes used as pepper; the leaves of Pseudowintera colorata ("mountain horopito") are another replacement for pepper. Several plants in the United States are also used as pepper substitutes, such as field pepperwort, least pepperwort, shepherd's purse, horseradish, and field pennycress.

Plants

The pepper plant is a perennial woody vine growing up to  in height on supporting trees, poles, or trellises. It is a spreading vine, rooting readily where trailing stems touch the ground. The leaves are alternate, entire,  long and  across. The flowers are small, produced on pendulous spikes  long at the leaf nodes, the spikes lengthening up to  as the fruit matures.

Pepper can be grown in soil that is neither too dry nor susceptible to flooding, moist, well-drained, and rich in organic matter (the vines do not do well over an altitude of  above sea level). The plants are propagated by cuttings about  long, tied up to neighbouring trees or climbing frames at distances of about  apart; trees with rough bark are favoured over those with smooth bark, as the pepper plants climb rough bark more readily. Competing plants are cleared away, leaving only sufficient trees to provide shade and permit free ventilation. The roots are covered in leaf mulch and manure, and the shoots are trimmed twice a year. On dry soils, the young plants require watering every other day during the dry season for the first three years. The plants bear fruit from the fourth or fifth year, and then typically for seven years. The cuttings are usually cultivars, selected both for yield and quality of fruit.

A single stem bears 20 to 30 fruiting spikes. The harvest begins as soon as one or two fruits at the base of the spikes begin to turn red, and before the fruit is fully mature, and still hard; if allowed to ripen completely, the fruits lose pungency, and ultimately fall off and are lost. The spikes are collected and spread out to dry in the sun, then the peppercorns are stripped off the spikes.

Black pepper is native either to Southeast Asia or South Asia. Within the genus Piper, it is most closely related to other Asian species such as P. caninum.

Wild pepper grows in the Western Ghats region of India. Into the 19th century, the forests contained expansive wild pepper vines, as recorded by the Scottish physician Francis Buchanan (also a botanist and geographer) in his book A journey from Madras through the countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar (Volume III). However, deforestation resulted in wild pepper growing in more limited forest patches from Goa to Kerala, with the wild source gradually decreasing as the quality and yield of the cultivated variety improved. No successful grafting of commercial pepper on wild pepper has been achieved to date.

Production and trade

In 2020, Vietnam was the world's largest producer and exporter of black peppercorns, producing 270,192 tonnes or 36% of the world total (table). Other major producers were Brazil, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, China, and Malaysia. Global pepper production varies annually according to crop management, disease, and weather. Peppercorns are among the most widely traded spice in the world, accounting for 20% of all spice imports.

History
Black pepper is native to South Asia and Southeast Asia, and has been known to Indian cooking since at least 2000 BCE. J. Innes Miller notes that while pepper was grown in southern Thailand and in Malaysia, its most important source was India, particularly the Malabar Coast, in what is now the state of Kerala. The lost ancient port city of Muziris in Kerala, famous for exporting black pepper and various other spices, gets mentioned in a number of classical historical sources for its trade with Roman Empire, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Levant, and Yemen. Peppercorns were a much-prized trade good, often referred to as "black gold" and used as a form of commodity money. The legacy of this trade remains in some Western legal systems that recognize the term "peppercorn rent" as a token payment for something that is, essentially, a gift.

The ancient history of black pepper is often interlinked with (and confused with) that of long pepper, the dried fruit of closely related Piper longum. The Romans knew of both and often referred to either as just piper. In fact, the popularity of long pepper did not entirely decline until the discovery of the New World and of chili peppers. Chili peppers—some of which, when dried, are similar in shape and taste to long pepper—were easier to grow in a variety of locations more convenient to Europe. Before the 16th century, pepper was being grown in Java, Sunda, Sumatra, Madagascar, Malaysia, and everywhere in Southeast Asia. These areas traded mainly with China, or used the pepper locally. Ports in the Malabar area also served as a stop-off point for much of the trade in other spices from farther east in the Indian Ocean.

Ancient times
Black peppercorns were found stuffed in the nostrils of Ramesses II, placed there as part of the mummification rituals shortly after his death in 1213 BCE. Little else is known about the use of pepper in ancient Egypt and how it reached the Nile from the Malabar Coast of South Asia.

Pepper (both long and black) was known in Greece at least as early as the fourth century BCE, though it was probably an uncommon and expensive item that only the very rich could afford.

By the time of the early Roman Empire, especially after Rome's conquest of Egypt in 30 BCE, open-ocean crossing of the Arabian Sea direct to Chera dynasty southern India's Malabar Coast was near routine. Details of this trading across the Indian Ocean have been passed down in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. According to the Greek geographer Strabo, the early empire sent a fleet of around 120 ships on an annual trip to India and back. The fleet timed its travel across the Arabian Sea to take advantage of the predictable monsoon winds. Returning from India, the ships travelled up the Red Sea, from where the cargo was carried overland or via the Nile-Red Sea canal to the Nile River, barged to Alexandria, and shipped from there to Italy and Rome. The rough geographical outlines of this same trade route would dominate the pepper trade into Europe for a millennium and a half to come.

With ships sailing directly to the Malabar coast, Malabar black pepper was now travelling a shorter trade route than long pepper, and the prices reflected it. Pliny the Elder's Natural History tells us the prices in Rome around 77 CE: "Long pepper ... is 15 denarii per pound, while that of white pepper is seven, and of black, four." Pliny also complains, "There is no year in which India does not drain the Roman Empire of 50 million sesterces", and further moralizes on pepper:

He does not state whether the 50 million was the actual amount of money which found its way to India or the total retail cost of the items in Rome, and, elsewhere, he cites a figure of 100 million sesterces.

Black pepper was a well-known and widespread, if expensive, seasoning in the Roman Empire. Apicius' De re coquinaria, a third-century cookbook probably based at least partly on one from the first century CE, includes pepper in a majority of its recipes. Edward Gibbon wrote, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that pepper was "a favorite ingredient of the most expensive Roman cookery".

Postclassical Europe
Pepper was so valuable that it was often used as collateral or even currency. The taste for pepper (or the appreciation of its monetary value) was passed on to those who would see Rome fall. Alaric, king of the Visigoths, included 3,000 pounds of pepper as part of the ransom he demanded from Rome when he besieged the city in the fifth century. After the fall of Rome, others took over the middle legs of the spice trade, first the Persians and then the Arabs; Innes Miller cites the account of Cosmas Indicopleustes, who travelled east to India, as proof that "pepper was still being exported from India in the sixth century". By the end of the Early Middle Ages, the central portions of the spice trade were firmly under Islamic control. Once into the Mediterranean, the trade was largely monopolized by Italian powers, especially Venice and Genoa. The rise of these city-states was funded in large part by the spice trade.

A riddle authored by Saint Aldhelm, a seventh-century Bishop of Sherborne, sheds some light on black pepper's role in England at that time:

It is commonly believed that during the Middle Ages, pepper was often used to conceal the taste of partially rotten meat. No evidence supports this claim, and historians view it as highly unlikely; in the Middle Ages, pepper was a luxury item, affordable only to the wealthy, who certainly had unspoiled meat available, as well. In addition, people of the time certainly knew that eating spoiled food would make them sick. Similarly, the belief that pepper was widely used as a preservative is questionable; it is true that piperine, the compound that gives pepper its spiciness, has some antimicrobial properties, but at the concentrations present when pepper is used as a spice, the effect is small. Salt is a much more effective preservative, and salt-cured meats were common fare, especially in winter. However, pepper and other spices certainly played a role in improving the taste of long-preserved meats.

Its exorbitant price during the Middle Ages – and the monopoly on the trade held by Venice – was one of the inducements that led the Portuguese to seek a sea route to India. In 1498, Vasco da Gama became the first person to reach India by sailing around Africa (see Age of Discovery); asked by Arabs in Calicut (who spoke Spanish and Italian) why they had come, his representative replied, "we seek Christians and spices". Though this first trip to India by way of the southern tip of Africa was only a modest success, the Portuguese quickly returned in greater numbers and eventually gained much greater control of trade on the Arabian Sea. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas with the Spanish granted Portugal exclusive rights to the half of the world where black pepper originated.

However, the Portuguese proved unable to monopolize the spice trade. Older Arab and Venetian trade networks successfully imported enormous quantities of spices, and pepper once again flowed through Alexandria and Italy, as well as around Africa. In the 17th century, the Portuguese lost almost all of their valuable Indian Ocean trade to the Dutch and the English, who, taking advantage of the Spanish rule over Portugal during the Iberian Union (1580–1640), occupied by force almost all Portuguese interests in the area. The pepper ports of Malabar began to trade increasingly with the Dutch in the period 1661–1663.

As pepper supplies into Europe increased, the price of pepper declined (though the total value of the import trade generally did not). Pepper, which in the early Middle Ages had been an item exclusively for the rich, started to become more of an everyday seasoning among those of more average means. Today, pepper accounts for one-fifth of the world's spice trade.

China
It is possible that black pepper was known in China in the second century BCE, if poetic reports regarding an explorer named Tang Meng (唐蒙) are correct. Sent by Emperor Wu to what is now south-west China, Tang Meng is said to have come across something called jujiang or "sauce-betel". He was told it came from the markets of Shu, an area in what is now the Sichuan province. The traditional view among historians is that "sauce-betel" is a sauce made from betel leaves, but arguments have been made that it actually refers to pepper, either long or black.

In the third century CE, black pepper made its first definite appearance in Chinese texts, as hujiao or "foreign pepper". It does not appear to have been widely known at the time, failing to appear in a fourth-century work describing a wide variety of spices from beyond China's southern border, including long pepper. By the 12th century, however, black pepper had become a popular ingredient in the cuisine of the wealthy and powerful, sometimes taking the place of China's native Sichuan pepper (the tongue-numbing dried fruit of an unrelated plant).

Marco Polo testifies to pepper's popularity in 13th-century China, when he relates what he is told of its consumption in the city of Kinsay (Hangzhou): "... Messer Marco heard it stated by one of the Great Kaan's officers of customs that the quantity of pepper introduced daily for consumption into the city of Kinsay amounted to 43 loads, each load being equal to 223 lbs."

During the course of the Ming treasure voyages in the early 15th century, Admiral Zheng He and his expeditionary fleets returned with such a large amount of black pepper that the once-costly luxury became a common commodity.

Traditional medicine, phytochemicals, and research

Like many eastern spices, pepper was historically both a seasoning and a traditional medicine. Pepper appears in the Buddhist Samaññaphala Sutta, chapter five, as one of the few medicines a monk is allowed to carry. Long pepper, being stronger, was often the preferred medication, but both were used. Black pepper (or perhaps long pepper) was believed to cure several illnesses, such as constipation, insomnia, oral abscesses, sunburn, and toothaches, among others. Various sources from the fifth century onward recommended pepper to treat eye problems, often by applying salves or poultices made with pepper directly to the eye. Though current medical research has yet to confirm any treatment benefit to humans, several benefits have been shown in animal modeling experiments.

Pepper contains phytochemicals, including amides, piperidines, pyrrolidines, and trace amounts of safrole, which may be carcinogenic in laboratory rodents.

Piperine is under study for its potential to increase absorption of selenium, vitamin B12, beta-carotene, and curcumin, as well as other compounds.

Pepper is known to cause sneezing. Some sources say that piperine, a substance present in black pepper, irritates the nostrils, causing the sneezing. Few, if any, controlled studies have been carried out to answer the question.

Piperine is also under study for a variety of possible physiological effects, although this work is preliminary and mechanisms of activity for piperine in the human body remain unknown.

Nutrition
One tablespoon (6 grams) of ground black pepper contains moderate amounts of vitamin K (13% of the daily value or DV), iron (10% DV), and manganese (18% DV), with trace amounts of other essential nutrients, protein, and dietary fibre.

Flavour

Pepper gets its spicy heat mostly from piperine derived from both the outer fruit and the seed. Black pepper contains between 4.6 and 9.7% piperine by mass, and white pepper slightly more than that. Refined piperine, by weight, is about one percent as hot as the capsaicin found in chili peppers. The outer fruit layer, left on black pepper, also contains aroma-contributing terpenes, including germacrene (11%), limonene (10%), pinene (10%), alpha-phellandrene (9%), and beta-caryophyllene (7%), which give citrusy, woody, and floral notes. These scents are mostly missing in white pepper, as the fermentation and other processing removes the fruit layer (which also contains some of the spicy piperine). Other flavours also commonly develop in this process, some of which are described as off-flavours when in excess: Primarily 3-methylindole (pig manure-like), 4-methylphenol (horse manure), 3-methylphenol (phenolic), and butyric acid (cheese). The aroma of pepper is attributed to rotundone (3,4,5,6,7,8-Hexahydro-3α,8α-dimethyl-5α-(1-methylethenyl)azulene-1(2H)-one), a sesquiterpene originally discovered in the tubers of Cyperus rotundus, which can be detected in concentrations of 0.4 nanograms/l in water and in wine: rotundone is also present in marjoram, oregano, rosemary, basil, thyme, and geranium, as well as in some Shiraz wines.

Pepper loses flavour and aroma through evaporation, so airtight storage helps preserve its spiciness longer. Pepper can also lose flavour when exposed to light, which can transform piperine into nearly tasteless isochavicine. Once ground, pepper's aromatics can evaporate quickly; most culinary sources recommend grinding whole peppercorns immediately before use for this reason. Handheld pepper mills or grinders, which mechanically grind or crush whole peppercorns, are used for this as an alternative to pepper shakers that dispense ground pepper. Spice mills such as pepper mills were found in European kitchens as early as the 14th century, but the mortar and pestle used earlier for crushing pepper have remained a popular method for centuries, as well.

Enhancing the flavour profile of peppercorns (including piperine and essential oils), prior to processing, has been attempted through the postharvest application of ultraviolet-C light (UV-C).

See also
 False black pepper – Embelia ribes is a species in the family Primulaceae (the primrose family)

References

Bibliography

External links

Crops originating from India
Essential oils
Indian spices
Medicinal plants of Asia
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors
Non-timber forest products
Pepper trade
Piper (plant)
Spices
Plants described in 1753

Black pepper


Zamoyski Code ( or Zbiór praw sądowych na mocy konstytucji roku 1776 przez J.W. Andrzeja Zamoyskiego ekskanclerza koronnego ułożony... [Collection of court laws requested by constitution of 1776 designed by former chancellor Andrzej Zamoyski]) was a major, progressive legislation, proposed by Andrzej Zamoyski, Grand Chancellor of the Crown of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 1776. This legislation was an attempt of codification of the previously uncodified law of the Commonwealth. It was opposed by several conservative and foreign factions and eventually rejected by the sejm of 1780.

History
In 1776, the Sejm of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, on the initiative of the Polish king Stanisław August Poniatowski, commissioned former Grand Chancellor of the Crown, Andrzej Zamoyski, to draft a new legal code. A commission, headed by Zamoyski, and including other notable members, such as Józef Wybicki and Joachim Chreptowicz, was created. By 1778, under Zamoyski's direction, a code (Zbiór praw sądowych, also known from his name as Zamoyski's Code[x]) had been produced and published in print.

The code would have strengthened royal power, made all officials answerable to the Sejm, placed the clergy and their finances under state supervision, gave more privileges to the townsfolk, reduced serfdom, and deprived landless szlachta of many of their legal immunities.

Opposition
Zamoyski Code was opposed by several factions. Internally, conservative szlachta were afraid that the Code would strengthen the power of the Polish king and the government and replace the anarchy-like Golden Freedoms with absolutist rule. Representatives of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were afraid that it would weaken the Duchy's autonomy, part of which was entailed a semi-separate legal system (the code would replace the Third Lithuanian Statue). These sentiments were used by two foreign powers, which did not want to see the Code passed for their own separate reasons: the Vatican (Holy See) opposed the Code, as it limited ecclesiastical law throughout the Commonwealth, replacing it with secular law; Russian Empire saw the Code as going too far in reforming and strengthening the inefficient and Russia-dependent Polish governance. Working together, in an unlikely alliance between the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Russia, papal nuncio Giovanni Andrea Archetti and Russian ambassador Otto Magnus von Stackelberg jointly bribed deputies to the Polish Sejm in exchange for their opposition to the Code.

Foreign influence, which secretly fueled the already existing internal opposition, ensured the Code was initially postponed (it was first to be presented to the Sejm in 1778) and then defeated during the Sejm in 1780.

Legacy
Zamoyski Code was one of the series of proposed progressive reforms, which would culminate in the Constitution of May 3, 1791. The constitution had a provision that the law was to be codified, and the new codification project, Poniatowski Code (named after King Poniatowski), drew much inspiration from the Zamoyski Code.

References

Further reading
 E. Borkowska-Bagieńska, Zbiór praw sądowych Andrzeja Zamoyskiego [Collection of court laws of Andrzej Zamoyski], Poznań 1986.
 Mieczysław Tarnawski, Kodeks Zamoyskiego na tle stosunków kościelno-państwowych za czasów Stanisława Augusta [Zamoyski Code on the background of state-church relationship of the times of Stanislaw August], Lwów, 1916

1776 in law
1776 in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth
Legal history of Poland

Zamoyski Code


Torricella Sicura is a town and comune in the province of Teramo, in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. It is located in the natural park known as the "Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park".

Geography
The town is located about  from the provincial capital of Teramo. It is divided into neighborhoods :
Torricella Oscura
Torricella Scarpone - the area surrounding the town castle
Torricella Romana - the area surrounding the house of the illustrious Romani family
Torricella Case Nuove - area in which homes have most recently been constructed
Centro - town centre

History
The town most likely takes the first part of its name from an ancient castle once found just to the north.  The local gentry still refer to this area as "lu castille" (the castle).  In the late 18th century there is mention of a tunnel that led from the castle to the surrounding countryside.  Legend has it that somewhere in this area is an enormous grotto containing a vast treasure under the watchful of an enormous serpent.  The second part of the town's name, "Sicura" is thought to be a derivation of "Sicula", with reference to an indigenous people living in the area in the first millennium BC.

Surrounding the town are vestiges of Roman Empire and High Middle Ages epochs.  Also present are temple ruins, ancient Roman graves, and a mysterious altar dedicated to an unknown deity.  One monumental inscription is dedicated to the High Priestess "Numisia" and others speak of the presence of a thermal bathhouse.

Sights
Located in the town is a private museum devoted to the folklore of Torricella Sicura and the surrounding area.  It includes more than 16,000 pieces of memorabilia divided into three main sections.  The first is a presentation of very detailed and accurate historical farming scenes done in miniature 1:5 scale.  The second is collection of farming tools, many of which date from the 19th and early 20th centuries.  The third portion is a "virtual museum" in which information about the customs and typical professions of the past is presented in a multimedia internet site.  The founder of the museum, Gino Di Benedetto, has taken great care and expense to make his collection of historical objects as authentic as possible.
The main place of worship in Torricella Sicura is the Parish Church, Saint Paul the Apostle, named after the patron saint of the town.  It is located in the center of Torricella Sicura and is noted for its majestic bell tower.
A smaller church is called Madonna delle Vergini (Madonna of the Virgins), often referred to as "Chiesa della Cona" (Church of the Icon) in reference to its links to the Virgin Mother.

Famous residents
Torricella Sicura is known as the birthplace of Mario Capuani, a young doctor who supported the Italian partisans and was subsequently shot to death by German troops during the last phases of World War II.

Frazioni (outlying areas)
Abetemozzo, Antanemuccio, Borgonovo, Colle Fiorito, Colle Sansonesco, Corvacchiano, Costumi, Faognano, Fornaci, Galliano, Ginepri, Ioanella, Magliano, Morricone, Pastignano, Piano Grande, Poggio Rattieri, Poggio Valle, Prognetto, San Felice, San Pietro ad Azzano, Santa Chiara, Santo Stefano, Scorzone, Tizzano, Valle Piola, Villa Popolo, Villa Riccio, Villa Tofo

References

External links
 Commune of Torricella Sicura  .
Mario Capuani
Folklore Museum of Gino Di Benedetto
Parish of Torricella Sicura - Saint Paul the Apostle

Cities and towns in Abruzzo

Torricella Sicura


is a video game console-only sequel to the 1983 Namco/Midway arcade game Mappy. The game was developed by TOSE and published by Namco in Japan and Taxan in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was later released by Bandai Namco Entertainment for the Wii U Virtual Console worldwide in February 2015, and on the Nintendo Switch Online Service in March 2022.

Storyline
Mappy must travel through various themed areas, collecting six target items in each one, while attempting to avoid Goro and his gang of Meowkies. The target items differ depending on the story:
 Story 1: It is Mapico's birthday, and the task is to collect cheese as her present.
 Story 2: Mappy wishes to marry Mapico, and must collect wedding rings.
 Story 3: Mappy and Mapico are having a Christmas party, and Christmas trees must be collected.
 Story 4: It is Mappy Jr.'s birthday, and the task is to collect baseballs for his present.

After completing Story 4, it loops back to the first story.

There are eight areas with various unique features, and Goro wears costumes corresponding to each theme:
 Railroad Town
 Western World
 Tropical World
 Jungle World
 Pirate World
 Ghost Town
 Seventh Avenue
 Milky Town

Gameplay
The gameplay is similar to the original Mappy, where the player must collect items and avoid enemies with the assistance of trampolines that will break if jumped on too many times before landing (Jungle World being the one exception to this). Unlike the original, the doors and Microwave Doors are not present, and instead stage specific counterattack items can be used. Mappy can perform a short jump to trigger these items as well as collect the target items; he can also jump over the Meowkies if timed well. In addition, Mappy can carry a number of distraction items (up to 15) to temporarily stop enemies from pursuing:

 Cat Toys - Meowkies will dance around these, and the players can harmlessly pass them by. Goro will not be affected.
 Gold Coin - Goro will dance around this and not harm Mappy. Meowkies will not be affected.
 Silver Vine Pots - Meowkies will lose consciousness. Goro will not be affected.
 Fish - This will bounce forward in the direction Mappy's face. Both Goro and the Meowkies will chase it.

In the Ghost Town, Mappy will use a flashlight to ward off the ghosts, and can travel the stage with a balloon.

In order to finish a stage, the player must collect all six target items and then proceed to the exit on the right. Sometimes in certain stories is necessary to locate a subarea to obtain a special item before exiting. If takes too long to finish an area, a warning chime will sound and the music will speed up, and eventually a Goro Coin will chase Mappy as well, which cannot be attacked or distracted.

 In the Ghost Town, sometimes the subarea where the player must enter is reminiscent of the original Mappy game, complete with its theme music playing. However, there is only a doorway that leads to the next area, while all others warp the player to a different doorway instead.

Once reaching the last area (Milky Town) and collecting all the items, they must enter the castle and play an extra area; the six target items within must be collected and brought to Mapico or Mappy Jr. before the music ends. Failing to do this, the players must retry the extra area until they are successful. When successful, bonus points are awarded and the game starts the next story in the first area. Later stories alter the stage layouts and the enemies become much faster.

In some areas a bonus subarea can be found. These bonus subareas can reward with additional distraction items and extra lives. In order to access these, Mappy must be carrying no distraction items and must jump on a particular trampoline without any controller input; if successful, Mappy will then be sent upwards to the bonus subarea.

Legacy
Mappy-Land is one of the games included in the compilation Namco Museum Archives Vol. 2.

References

1986 video games
Mappy
Namco games
Nintendo Entertainment System games
Nintendo Switch Online games
Platformers
Tose (company) games
Video games about mice and rats
Video games about police officers
Video games developed in Japan
Virtual Console games
Virtual Console games for Wii U

Mappy-Land


The Congress Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges was a land tract in northeast Ohio that was established by the Congress early in the 19th century.  It is located south of the Connecticut Western Reserve and Firelands, east of the Congress Lands South and East of the First Principal Meridian, north of the United States Military District and Seven Ranges, and west of Pennsylvania.

History
Acquired by Great Britain from France following the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Ohio Country had been closed to white settlement by the Proclamation of 1763.  The United States claimed the region after the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War.  The Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 as a formal means of surveying, selling, and settling the land and raising revenue.  Land was to be systematically surveyed into square "townships", six miles (9.656 km) on a side created by lines running north-south intersected by east-west lines.  Townships were to be arranged in north-south rows called ranges. These townships were sub-divided into thirty-six "sections" of one square mile (2.59 km²) or 640 acres. These ranges, townships, and sections were to be systematically numbered.

The first north-south line, Eastern Ohio Meridian, was to be the western boundary of Pennsylvania, sometimes called Ellicott's Line after Andrew Ellicott, who had been in charge of surveying it, and the first east-west line (called the Geographer's Line or Base Line) was to begin where the Pennsylvania boundary touched the north bank of the Ohio River, the Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey. The Geographer's Line was to extend westward through "the whole territory" which at that time was meant to include lands lying between the Ohio River and Lake Erie.

A problem with this plan was that Connecticut had a claim on lands north of the 41st parallel north latitude.  Thus, on May 9, 1786, Congress instructed Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, to continue his survey only south of the Geographers line.  Hutchins group completed surveying seven ranges by 1787, and presented plats to Congress in 1788 for the tract that became known as the Seven Ranges.

On June 1, 1796, Congress created the United States Military District, sometimes called the USMD Lands, or USMD Survey. The district was west of the Old Seven Ranges and south of the Greenville Treaty Line.

The Survey
An un-surveyed tract of land in eastern Ohio remained north of the Seven Ranges and Military District, and south of the Connecticut Western Reserve.  In that gap, extending
westward from the Pennsylvania line to the Tuscarawas River, lands were surveyed circa 1801 under the Act of May 18, 1796. The ranges and townships followed those of the original Seven Ranges, ranges being numbered westward from Pennsylvania, and townships within each range numbered from south to north starting at the Ohio River, known as the Ohio River Base, thus having townships in adjacent ranges with different numbers.  Sections were numbered according to the 1796 pattern.

The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 had established land west of the Tuscarawas as reserved for Indians, and not open to American settlement.  With the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805, Indian land west of the Tuscarawas River, between Lake Eire and the Greeneville Treaty Line, and east of a line 120 miles west of Pennsylvania, or about  82° 51'  W longitude, was ceded by six tribes.  Congress Lands in this ceded area were surveyed 1806-07. This survey had six mile square townships and continued the range, township, and section numbering system of the Ohio River Survey, section numbering being based on the 1796 land act.

The two surveys of 1801 and 1806-07 became known as the Congress Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges.

Muskingum River Survey

This area consists of only two townships, within the Congress
Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges and bounded on the north by the Connecticut Western Reserve. Townships are numbered 1 and 2 north, and the range is 10 west. The range continues the numbering of the Ohio River Survey. This survey was conducted in 1800.  The civil townships of Lawrence Township, Stark County, Ohio and Franklin Township, Summit County, Ohio correspond to this survey.

Land Sales

Section 4 of the Land Act of May 18, 1796 provided that the lands between the Seven Ranges and the Western Reserve be sold at "Pittsburg".  The Land Act of May 10, 1800 established the Steubenville Federal Land Office for sale of these lands.  The Act of March 3, 1807 established a land office for the Congress Lands North of Old Seven Ranges that ended up in Canton, creating the Canton Land District.  The Act of February 25, 1811 moved the office to Wooster but kept the name Canton Land District.  Sales were also conducted from the nation's capital at the General Land Office.  Local offices were eventually closed.  The State of Ohio also eventually sold lands granted to them by the federal government, such as section 16 of each township.

Modern Times

The Tract today includes all or part of these counties in Ohio: Ashland, Carroll, Columbiana, Crawford, Holmes, Knox, Mahoning, Morrow, Richland, Stark, Summit, and Wayne.

See also
Ohio Lands
Congress Lands
Historic regions of the United States

Notes

References

External links
Ohio History Central- Congress Lands
Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources: Map of Original Land Subdivisions of Ohio (pdf)

Former regions and territories of the United States
Geography of Ohio
Pre-statehood history of Ohio
History of the Midwestern United States
Surveying of the United States
Ashland County, Ohio
Carroll County, Ohio
Columbiana County, Ohio
Crawford County, Ohio
Holmes County, Ohio
Knox County, Ohio
Mahoning County, Ohio
Morrow County, Ohio
Richland County, Ohio
Stark County, Ohio
Summit County, Ohio
Wayne County, Ohio


Tiridates III (or Trdat III) was the king of Armenia (286-330), and was also known as Tiridates the Great. (Some scholars may be wrong because they call him as Trdat IV as a result of the fact that Tiridates I of Armenia reigned twice.) In 301, Tiridates made Christianity as the sole religion in Armenia, making Armenia the first Christian state in the world.

References
Translated from the Armenian: Mihran Kurdoghlian, Badmoutioun Hayots, A. hador [Armenian History, volume I],  Athens, Greece, 1994, pg. 96-105.
The Library of Congress - Armenia - A Country Study
Yuri Babayan - Tiridates the Great

Monarchs of Armenia
286 births
330 deaths

Tiridates III of Armenia


Wm. Stage, also known as William Stage (born June 30, 1951) is an American journalist, author, and photographer, with a focus on the area and history of the American Midwest and St. Louis, Missouri. From 1982 to 2004 he worked for the weekly newspaper The Riverfront Times, producing three columns, with the best known being Street Talk, where over the years he photographed and interviewed more than 8,500 random individuals about miscellaneous topics. He is also known for his documentary work on a special kind of historical outdoor advertising: vintage brick wall signs. As of 2016, he has authored 11 books, a combination of photography, non-fiction, and fiction, including Ghost Signs: Brick Wall Signs in America (1989), Mound City Chronicles (1991), and Litchfield: A Strange and Twisted Saga of Murder in the Midwest (1998). His photographs have appeared in multiple works, including the cover photograph on the Oxford University Press book, For the Common Good (2002). In 2001, Stage, who had been adopted as an infant, tracked down his biological family, a search which led to a Canadian television documentary and formed the basis for his 2009 memoir Fool for Life. In 2007, Stage was a guest commentator on the St. Louis NPR affiliate, KWMU-FM.

Early life

Wm. Stage was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan and immediately given up for adoption by his 19-year-old unwed mother. For three months he lived under the care of Catholic sisters in the St. Agnes Foundling Home, also in Kalamazoo, until he was adopted and taken to Grand Rapids, becoming the only child of Bill and Virginia Stage. As a boy, he took a keen interest in zoology and botany, roaming the woods and farmlands near his home. In 1969, he graduated from Catholic Central High School, and two weeks after his 18th birthday, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was sent to Germany as a medic / ambulance driver. It was there he attended the University of Maryland Evening Division, studying English composition and German language. After the Army, he began natural history studies at Thomas Jefferson College, the now-defunct "hippie college," located on the campus of Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan; he graduated four years later with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree [B Ph].

Epidemiologist
In 1978, at the age of 26, while working as an ambulance driver in Grand Rapids, he was recruited by Atlanta's Centers For Disease Control and assigned to the St. Louis City Health Department as a public health officer / STD epidemiologist. He was charged with interviewing those infected with STDs, primarily gonorrhea and syphilis, identifying others that they had been in contact with, and ensuring that all were properly treated. His work involved identifying which diseases were in the population, and when/if other new diseases were appearing. It was during this period, the early 1980s, when HIV/AIDS first appeared, so Stage and his colleagues saw from a clinical perspective the damage done by this disease. This exposure became the basis for his 2015 novel, Creatures on Display.

Writing and publishing
Stage began his journalist work in college, where as part of a work-study program, he wrote for the City of Grand Rapids Newsletter. After his move to St. Louis to work as a public health office, he began freelancing as a feature writer for local newspapers and magazines. In 1982, when his medical supervisors wanted to transfer Stage to work at a federal penitentiary, he left his position with the CDC to devote himself to journalism and photography.

by July 1982, Stage had been hired full-time with The Riverfront Times, a St. Louis-based alternative newsweekly which was founded by Ray Hartmann in 1977. He stayed with the paper until 2004, producing three different regular columns over a 22-year period, plus numerous magazine-style features. Have A Weird Day: Reflections and Ruminations on the St. Louis Experience, is a collection of expository writings that appeared in The Riverfront Times under a column titled "Mississippi Mud." From 2003 to 2013, he was a columnist with the St. Charles County [MO] Business Record. He has taught feature writing at the Defense Information School, Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana; and photojournalism at Saint Louis University School for Professional Studies. He is a 1995 alumnus of the week-long Missouri Photo Workshop, offered since 1949 by the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Journalism and held in a different Missouri town each year.

For three years [2005–2008] Stage and his pre-teen daughter Margaret E. Stage produced a monthly for-profit newspaper, Black White & Read All Over, which they distributed in the Lafayette Square neighborhood of St. Louis. In 2010, father and daughter collaborated again with the publication of The Painted Ad: A Postcard Book of Vintage Brick Wall Signs. This work followed the lead of his first book, Ghost Signs: Brick Wall Signs in America, which was the first commercially produced and distributed book on the subject. The authorship of Ghost Signs earned Stage a seat on the board of The Society For Commercial Archeology, at the time based in the Smithsonian Institution and later based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Stage founded two publishing companies. Cumquat Publishing Company, which wholesales art and novelty postcards to bookstores and museum gift shops, while Floppinfish Publishing Company Ltd. is a small-scale book publisher.

In 2001, at the age of 50, Stage found his natural family, first making contact with his biological mother and her children, and later making contact with the children of his late biological father. His lifelong identity as an only child was suddenly altered; he now had a "new family," a second set of relatives including a mother, seven half-brothers and sisters as well as numerous aunts and cousins scattered throughout the eastern United States and Nova Scotia. In 2004, Stage was the subject of an episode of  "Past Lives,"
 a documentary-style show on Canadian TV that focuses on people in search of their roots. The half-hour program, filmed on Cape Breton Island, ran Canada-wide and was seen in re-runs for four years. These events were humorously chronicled in a December 2003 cover story in The Riverfront Times and formed the core of Stage's comic memoir Fool For Life. Five years in the writing, Fool was well received by both the reading public and critics alike and bolstered Stage's reputation as a prose humorist.

In 2007, Stage began voicing guest commentaries on KWMU-FM, the NPR affiliate in St. Louis. Topics ranged from the folly of Daylight Saving Time to the joys of ice skating.

In 2010, Stage's prose turned from creating nonfiction to fiction. He published a collection of short stories, Not Waving Drowning (2011), and then Creatures on Display (2015), his first full-length novel, based on his experience as an STD epidemiologist during his years of working for the CDC.

Photography
As of 2016, Stage has authored four books on photography, largely falling into the genre of street photography. While doing a popular column for The Riverfront Times, "Street Talk," Stage posed quirky or philosophical man-on-the-street questions to unwitting subjects, of whom he also obtained a photo. Overall, he captured more than 8,500 faces on film, featuring people from every walk of life, including celebrities and notables such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Dick Gregory, Jimmy Carter, Kurt Vonnegut, Ken Kesey, Queen Ida, Sir Edmund Hillary, and Jerry Seinfeld. A select collection of those portraits became a book, Pictures of People. Some of his photos have been widely exhibited and purchased for inclusion in various private collections.

Starting in the mid-1970s, Stage began documenting a bygone form of advertising where signs were painted on walls of brick buildings, and then faded over the years. Some of these wall signs, dating back to the 1800s, have become known as ghost signs. In 1989, he published a book of his photographs, Ghost Signs: Brick Wall Signs in America, then in 2011 The Painted Ad: A Postcard Book of Vintage Brick Wall Signs, and in 2013 under The History Press, Fading Ads of St. Louis, a collection of vintage advertisements found on brick buildings around St. Louis.

In 2014, a major exposition of his 36 years of work in photography, Pictures of People, was presented at the Sheldon Concert Hall & Art Galleries in St. Louis.

Personal
Wm. Stage lives in St. Louis with his wife, Mary, and their six daughters.

Works

Photographic

Ghost Signs: Brick Wall Signs in America [1989]
Pictures Of People [2006]
The Painted Ad: A Postcard Book of Vintage Brick Wall Signs [2011] with Margaret Stage
 Fading Ads of St. Louis [2013]

Nonfiction

Fiction / memoir

Fool For Life [2009]
Not Waving, Drowning [2012]
Creatures On Display – A Novel [2015]

As contributor

Photographs appear in St. Louis: Home On The River – Urban Tapestry Series – Towery Publishing Inc., 1995
Photographs appear in St. Louis: For The Record – Urban Tapestry Series – Towery Publishing Inc., 1999
Cover photograph "Three Of A Kind" appears on For the Common Good? American Civic Life and the Golden Age of Fraternity – Jason Kaufman, author – Oxford University Press Inc. 2002
Photographs appear in Outhouses – Holly L. Bollinger, author – MBI Publishing Company, 2005
Photographs appear in St. Louis Seen & Unseen – Michael Kilfoy, author – Virginia Publishing, 2006
 Introduction to Fading Ads of New York City – Frank Jump, author – The History Press, 2011

References

Living people
1951 births
American male journalists
Writers from Grand Rapids, Michigan
Writers from Kalamazoo, Michigan
Writers from St. Louis
American photographers
Grand Valley State University alumni

Wm. Stage