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6,427 | Cheddar, Somerset | Cheddar is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, 9 miles (14 km) north-west of Wells, 11 miles (18 km) south-east of Weston-super-Mare and 18 miles (29 km) south-west of Bristol. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross. The parish had a population of 5,755 in 2011 and an acreage of 8,592 acres (3,477 ha) as of 1961.
Cheddar Gorge, on the northern edge of the village, is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom and includes several show caves, including Gough's Cave. The gorge has been a centre of human settlement since Neolithic times, including a Saxon palace. It has a temperate climate and provides a unique geological and biological environment that has been recognised by the designation of several Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It is also the site of several limestone quarries. The village gave its name to Cheddar cheese and has been a centre for strawberry growing. The crop was formerly transported on the Cheddar Valley rail line, which closed in the late 1960s and is now a cycle path. The village is now a major tourist destination with several cultural and community facilities, including the Cheddar Show Caves Museum.
The village supports a variety of community groups including religious, sporting and cultural organisations. Several of these are based on the site of the Kings of Wessex Academy, which is the largest educational establishment.
The name Cheddar comes from the Old English word ceodor, meaning deep dark cavity or pouch.
There is evidence of occupation from the Neolithic period in Cheddar. Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, estimated to be 9,000 years old, was found in Cheddar Gorge in 1903. Older remains from the Upper Late Palaeolithic era (12,000–13,000 years ago) have been found. There is some evidence of a Bronze Age field system at the Batts Combe quarry site. There is also evidence of Bronze Age barrows at the mound in the Longwood valley, which if man-made it is likely to be a field system. The remains of a Roman villa have been excavated in the grounds of the current vicarage.
The village of Cheddar had been important during the Roman and Saxon eras. There was a royal palace at Cheddar during the Saxon period, which was used on three occasions in the 10th century to host the Witenagemot. The ruins of the palace were excavated in the 1960s. They are located on the grounds of the Kings of Wessex Academy, together with a 14th-century chapel dedicated to St. Columbanus. Roman remains have also been uncovered at the site. Cheddar was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Ceder, meaning "Shear Water", from the Old English scear and Old Welsh dŵr. An alternative spelling in earlier documents, common through the 1850s is Chedder.
As early as 1130 AD, the Cheddar Gorge was recognised as one of the "Four wonders of England". Historically, Cheddar's source of wealth was farming and cheese making for which it was famous as early as 1170 AD. The parish was part of the Winterstoke Hundred.
The manor of Cheddar was deforested in 1337 and Bishop Ralph was granted a licence by the King to create a hunting forest.
As early as 1527 there are records of watermills on the river. In the 17th and 18th centuries, there were several watermills which ground corn and made paper, with 13 mills on the Yeo at the peak, declining to seven by 1791 and just three by 1915. In the Victorian era it also became a centre for the production of clothing. The last mill, used as a shirt factory, closed in the early 1950s.
William Wilberforce saw the poor conditions of the locals when he visited Cheddar in 1789. He inspired Hannah More in her work to improve the conditions of the Mendip miners and agricultural workers. In 1801, 4,400 acres (18 km) of common land were enclosed under the Inclosure Acts.
Tourism of the Cheddar gorge and caves began with the opening of the Cheddar Valley Railway in 1869.
Cheddar, its surrounding villages and specifically the gorge has been subject to flooding. In the Chew Stoke flood of 1968 the flow of water washed large boulders down the gorge, washed away cars, and damaged the cafe and the entrance to Gough's Cave.
Cheddar is recognised as a village. The adjacent settlement of Axbridge, although only about a third the population of Cheddar, is a town. This apparently illogical situation is explained by the relative importance of the two places in historic times. While Axbridge grew in importance as a centre for cloth manufacturing in the Tudor period and gained a charter from King John, Cheddar remained a more dispersed mining and dairy-farming village. Its population grew with the arrival of the railways in the Victorian era and the advent of tourism.
The parish council, which has 15 members who are elected for four years, is responsible for local issues, including setting an annual precept (local rate) to cover the council's operating costs and producing annual accounts for public scrutiny. The parish council evaluates local planning applications and works with the police, district council officers, and neighbourhood watch groups on matters of crime, security, and traffic. The parish council's role also includes initiating projects for the maintenance and repair of parish facilities, as well as consulting with the district council on the maintenance, repair, and improvement of highways, drainage, footpaths, public transport, and street cleaning. Conservation matters (including trees and listed buildings) and environmental issues are also the responsibility of the council.
The village is in the 'Cheddar and Shipham' electoral ward. After including Shipham the total population of the ward taken at the 2011 census is 6,842.
For local government purposes, since 1 April 2023, the village comes under the unitary authority of Somerset Council. Prior to this, it was part of the non-metropolitan district of Sedgemoor, which was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, having previously been part of Axbridge Rural District. Fire, police and ambulance services are provided jointly with other authorities through the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, Avon and Somerset Constabulary and the South Western Ambulance Service.
It is also part of the Wells county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. Prior to Brexit in 2020, it was part of the South West England constituency of the European Parliament.
Cheddar is twinned with Felsberg, Germany and Vernouillet, France, and it has an active programme of exchange visits. Initially, Cheddar twinned with Felsberg in 1984. In 2000, Cheddar twinned with Vernouillet, which had also been twinned with Felsberg. Cheddar also has a friendship link with Ocho Rios in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica.
It is also twinned with the commune of Descartes in the Indre-et-Loire department.
The area is underlain by Black Rock slate, Burrington Oolite and Clifton Down Limestone of the Carboniferous Limestone Series, which contain ooliths and fossil debris on top of Old Red Sandstone, and by Dolomitic Conglomerate of the Keuper. Evidence for Variscan orogeny is seen in the sheared rock and cleaved shales. In many places weathering of these strata has resulted in the formation of immature calcareous soils.
Cheddar Gorge, which is located on the edge of the village, is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom. The gorge is the site of the Cheddar Caves, where Cheddar Man was found in 1903. Older remains from the Upper Late Palaeolithic era (12,000–13,000 years ago) have been found. The caves, produced by the activity of an underground river, contain stalactites and stalagmites. Gough's Cave, which was discovered in 1903, leads around 400 m (437 yd) into the rock-face, and contains a variety of large rock chambers and formations. Cox's Cave, discovered in 1837, is smaller but contains many intricate formations. A further cave houses a children's entertainment walk known as the "Crystal Quest".
Cheddar Gorge, including Cox's Cave, Gough's Cave and other attractions, has become a tourist destination, attracting about 500,000 visitors per year. In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, following its appearance on the 2005 television programme Seven Natural Wonders, Cheddar Gorge was named as the second greatest natural wonder in Britain, surpassed only by the Dan yr Ogof caves.
There are several large and unique Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) around the village.
Cheddar Reservoir is a near-circular artificial reservoir operated by Bristol Water. Dating from the 1930s, it has a capacity of 135 million gallons (614,000 cubic metres). The reservoir is supplied with water taken from the Cheddar Yeo, which rises in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge and is a tributary of the River Axe. The inlet grate for the 54-inch (1.4 m) water pipe that is used to transport the water can be seen next to the sensory garden in Cheddar Gorge. It has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to its wintering waterfowl populations.
Cheddar Wood and the smaller Macall's Wood form a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest from what remains of the wood of the Bishops of Bath and Wells in the 13th century and of King Edmund the Magnificent's wood in the 10th. During the 19th century, its lower fringes were grubbed out to make strawberry fields. Most of these have been allowed to revert to woodland. The wood was coppiced until 1917. This site compromises a wide range of habitats which include ancient and secondary semi-natural broadleaved woodland, unimproved neutral grassland, and a complex mosaic of calcareous grassland and acidic dry dwarf-shrub heath. Cheddar Wood is one of only a few English stations for starved wood-sedge (Carex depauperata). Purple gromwell (Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum), a nationally rare plant, also grows in the wood. Butterflies include silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia), dark green fritillary (Argynnis aglaja), pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne), holly blue (Celastrina argiolus) and brown argus (Aricia agestis). The slug Arion fasciatus, which has a restricted distribution in the south of England, and the soldier beetle Cantharis fusca also occur.
By far the largest of the SSSIs is called Cheddar Complex and covers 441.3 hectares (1,090.5 acres) of the gorge, caves and the surrounding area. It is important because of both biological and geological features. It includes four SSSIs, formerly known as Cheddar Gorge SSSI, August Hole/Longwood Swallet SSSI, GB Cavern Charterhouse SSSI and Charterhouse on-Mendip SSSI. It is partly owned by the National Trust who acquired it in 1910 and partly managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust.
Close to the village and gorge are Batts Combe quarry and Callow Rock quarry, two of the active Quarries of the Mendip Hills where limestone is still extracted. Operating since the early 20th century, Batts Combe is owned and operated by Hanson Aggregates. The output in 2005 was around 4,000 tonnes of limestone per day, one third of which was supplied to an on-site lime kiln, which closed in 2009; the remainder was sold as coated or dusted aggregates. The limestone at this site is close to 99 percent carbonate of calcium and magnesium (dolomite).
The Chelmscombe Quarry finished its work as a limestone quarry in the 1950s and was then used by the Central Electricity Generating Board as a tower testing station. During the 1970s and 1980s it was also used to test the ability of containers of radioactive material to withstand impacts and other accidents.
Along with the rest of South West England, Cheddar has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea, which moderates temperature. The summer months of July and August are the warmest with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C (69.8 °F). In winter mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C (33.8 °F) or 2 °C (35.6 °F) are common. In the summer the Azores high-pressure system affects the south-west of England. Convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine; annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours. Most of the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection. Most of the rainfall in autumn and winter is caused by the Atlantic depressions, which are most active during those seasons. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in). About 8–15 days of snowfall per year is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.
The parish has a population in 2011 of 5,093, with a mean age of 43 years. Residents lived in 2,209 households. The vast majority of households (2,183) gave their ethnic status at the 2001 census as white.
The village gave its name to Cheddar cheese, which is the most popular type of cheese in the United Kingdom. The cheese is now made and consumed worldwide, and only one producer remains in the village.
Since the 1880s, Cheddar's other main produce has been the strawberry, which is grown on the south-facing lower slopes of the Mendip hills. As a consequence of its use for transporting strawberries to market, the since-closed Cheddar Valley line became known as The Strawberry Line after it opened in 1869. The line ran from Yatton to Wells. When the rest of the line was closed and all passenger services ceased, the section of the line between Cheddar and Yatton remained open for goods traffic. It provided a fast link with the main markets for the strawberries in Birmingham and London, but finally closed in 1964, becoming part of the Cheddar Valley Railway Nature Reserve.
Cheddar Ales is a small brewery based in the village, producing beer for local public houses.
Tourism is a significant source of employment. Around 15 percent of employment in Sedgemoor is provided by tourism, but within Cheddar it is estimated to employ as many as 1,000 people. The village also has a youth hostel, and a number of camping and caravan sites.
Cheddar has a number of active service clubs including Cheddar Vale Lions Club, Mendip Rotary and Mendip Inner Wheel Club. The clubs raise money for projects in the local community and hold annual events such as a fireworks display, duck races in the Gorge, a dragon boat race on the reservoir and concerts on the grounds of the nearby St Michael's Cheshire Home.
Several notable people have been born or lived in Cheddar. Musician Jack Bessant, the bass guitarist with the band Reef grew up on his parents' strawberry farm, and Matt Goss and Luke Goss, former members of Bros, lived in Cheddar for nine months as children. Trina Gulliver, ten-time World Professional Darts Champion, previously lived in Cheddar until 2017. The comedian Richard Herring grew up in Cheddar. His 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, The Headmaster's Son is based on his time at The Kings of Wessex School, where his father Keith was the headmaster. The final performance of this show was held at the school in November 2009. He also visited the school in March 2010 to perform his show Hitler Moustache. In May 2013, a community radio station called Pulse was launched.
The market cross in Bath Street dates from the 15th century, with the shelter having been rebuilt in 1834. It has a central octagonal pier, a socket raised on four steps, a hexagonal shelter with six arched four-centred openings, shallow two-stage buttresses at each angle, and an embattled parapet. The shaft is crowned by an abacus with figures in niches, probably from the late 19th century, although the cross is now missing. It was rebuilt by Thomas, Marquess of Bath. It is a scheduled monument (Somerset County No 21) and Grade II* listed building.
In January 2000, the cross was seriously damaged in a traffic accident. By 2002, the cross had been rebuilt and the area around it was redesigned to protect and enhance its appearance. The cross was badly damaged again in March 2012, when a taxi crashed into it late at night demolishing two sides. Repair work, which included the addition of wooden-clad steel posts to protect against future crashes, was completed in November 2012 at a cost of £60,000.
Hannah More, a philanthropist and educator, founded a school in the village in the late 18th century for the children of miners. Her first school was located in a 17th-century house. Now named "Hannah More's Cottage", the Grade II-listed building is used by the local community as a meeting place.
The village is situated on the A371 road which runs from Wincanton, to Weston-super-Mare. It is approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) from the route of the M5 motorway with around a 10 miles (16 km) drive to junction 22.
It was on the Cheddar Valley line, a railway line that was opened in 1869 and closed in 1963. It became known as The Strawberry Line because of the large volume of locally-grown strawberries that it carried. It ran from Yatton railway station through Cheddar to Wells (Tucker Street) railway station and joined the East Somerset Railway to make a through route via Shepton Mallet (High Street) railway station to Witham. Sections of the now-disused railway have been opened as the Strawberry Line Trail, which currently runs from Yatton to Cheddar. The Cheddar Valley line survived until the "Beeching Axe". Towards the end of its life there were so few passengers that diesel railcars were sometimes used. The Cheddar branch closed to passengers on 9 September 1963 and to goods in 1964. The line closed in the 1960s, when it became part of the Cheddar Valley Railway Nature Reserve, and part of the National Cycle Network route 26. The cycle route also intersects with the West Mendip Way and various other footpaths.
The principle bus route is hourly service 126 between Weston-super-Mare and Wells operated by First West of England. Other bus routes include the service 668 from Shipham to Street which runs every couple of hours operated by Libra Travel, as well as the college bus service 66 which runs from Axbridge to the Bridgwater Campus of Bridgwater and Taunton College in the mornings and evenings of college term times and is operated by Bakers Dolphin.
The first school in Cheddar was set up by Hannah More during the 18th Century, however now Cheddar has three schools belonging to the Cheddar Valley Group of Schools, twelve schools that provide Cheddar Valley's three-tier education system. Cheddar First School has ten classes for children between 4 and 9 years. Fairlands Middle School, a middle school categorised as a middle-deemed-secondary school, has 510 pupils between 9 and 13. Fairlands takes children moving up from Cheddar First School as well as other first schools in the Cheddar Valley. The Kings of Wessex Academy, a coeducational comprehensive school, has been rated as "good" by Ofsted. It has 1,176 students aged 13 to 18, including 333 in the sixth form. Kings is a faith school linked to the Church of England. It was awarded the specialist status of Technology College in 2001, enabling it to develop its Information Technology (IT) facilities and improve courses in science, mathematics and design technology. In 2007 it became a foundation school, giving it more control over its own finances. The academy owns and runs a sports centre and swimming pool, Kings Fitness & Leisure, with facilities that are used by students as well as residents. It has since November 2016 been a part of the Wessex Learning Trust which incorporates eight academies from the surrounding area.
The Church of St Andrew dates from the 14th century. It was restored in 1873 by William Butterfield. It is a Grade I listed building and contains some 15th-century stained glass and an altar table of 1631. The chest tomb in the chancel is believed to contain the remains of Sir Thomas Cheddar and is dated 1442. The tower, which rises to 100 feet (30 m), contains a bell dating from 1759 made by Thomas Bilbie of the Bilbie family. The graveyard contains the grave of the hymn writer William Chatterton Dix.
There are also churches for Roman Catholic, Methodist and other denominations, including Cheddar Valley Community Church, who not only meet at the Kings of Wessex School on Sunday, but also have their own site on Tweentown for meeting during the week. The Baptist chapel was built in 1831.
Kings Fitness & Leisure, situated on the grounds of the Kings of Wessex School, provides a venue for various sports and includes a 20-metre swimming pool, racket sport courts, a sports hall, dance studios and a gym. A youth sports festival was held on Sharpham Road Playing Fields in 2009. In 2010 a skatepark was built in the village, funded by the Cheddar Local Action Team.
Cheddar A.F.C., founded in 1892 and nicknamed "The Cheesemen", play in the Western Football League Division One. In 2009 plans were revealed to move the club from its present home at Bowdens Park on Draycott Road to a new larger site.
Cheddar Cricket Club was formed in the late 19th century and moved to Sharpham Road Playing Fields in 1964. They now play in the West of England Premier League Somerset Division. Cheddar Rugby Club, who own part of the Sharpham playing fields, was formed in 1836. The club organises an annual Cheddar Rugby Tournament. Cheddar Lawn Tennis Club, was formed in 1924, and play in the North Somerset League and also has social tennis and coaching. Cheddar Running Club organised an annual half marathon until 2009.
The village is both on the route of the West Mendip Way and Samaritans Way South West. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cheddar is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, 9 miles (14 km) north-west of Wells, 11 miles (18 km) south-east of Weston-super-Mare and 18 miles (29 km) south-west of Bristol. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross. The parish had a population of 5,755 in 2011 and an acreage of 8,592 acres (3,477 ha) as of 1961.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cheddar Gorge, on the northern edge of the village, is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom and includes several show caves, including Gough's Cave. The gorge has been a centre of human settlement since Neolithic times, including a Saxon palace. It has a temperate climate and provides a unique geological and biological environment that has been recognised by the designation of several Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It is also the site of several limestone quarries. The village gave its name to Cheddar cheese and has been a centre for strawberry growing. The crop was formerly transported on the Cheddar Valley rail line, which closed in the late 1960s and is now a cycle path. The village is now a major tourist destination with several cultural and community facilities, including the Cheddar Show Caves Museum.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The village supports a variety of community groups including religious, sporting and cultural organisations. Several of these are based on the site of the Kings of Wessex Academy, which is the largest educational establishment.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name Cheddar comes from the Old English word ceodor, meaning deep dark cavity or pouch.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There is evidence of occupation from the Neolithic period in Cheddar. Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, Cheddar Man, estimated to be 9,000 years old, was found in Cheddar Gorge in 1903. Older remains from the Upper Late Palaeolithic era (12,000–13,000 years ago) have been found. There is some evidence of a Bronze Age field system at the Batts Combe quarry site. There is also evidence of Bronze Age barrows at the mound in the Longwood valley, which if man-made it is likely to be a field system. The remains of a Roman villa have been excavated in the grounds of the current vicarage.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The village of Cheddar had been important during the Roman and Saxon eras. There was a royal palace at Cheddar during the Saxon period, which was used on three occasions in the 10th century to host the Witenagemot. The ruins of the palace were excavated in the 1960s. They are located on the grounds of the Kings of Wessex Academy, together with a 14th-century chapel dedicated to St. Columbanus. Roman remains have also been uncovered at the site. Cheddar was listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Ceder, meaning \"Shear Water\", from the Old English scear and Old Welsh dŵr. An alternative spelling in earlier documents, common through the 1850s is Chedder.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "As early as 1130 AD, the Cheddar Gorge was recognised as one of the \"Four wonders of England\". Historically, Cheddar's source of wealth was farming and cheese making for which it was famous as early as 1170 AD. The parish was part of the Winterstoke Hundred.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The manor of Cheddar was deforested in 1337 and Bishop Ralph was granted a licence by the King to create a hunting forest.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "As early as 1527 there are records of watermills on the river. In the 17th and 18th centuries, there were several watermills which ground corn and made paper, with 13 mills on the Yeo at the peak, declining to seven by 1791 and just three by 1915. In the Victorian era it also became a centre for the production of clothing. The last mill, used as a shirt factory, closed in the early 1950s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "William Wilberforce saw the poor conditions of the locals when he visited Cheddar in 1789. He inspired Hannah More in her work to improve the conditions of the Mendip miners and agricultural workers. In 1801, 4,400 acres (18 km) of common land were enclosed under the Inclosure Acts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Tourism of the Cheddar gorge and caves began with the opening of the Cheddar Valley Railway in 1869.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Cheddar, its surrounding villages and specifically the gorge has been subject to flooding. In the Chew Stoke flood of 1968 the flow of water washed large boulders down the gorge, washed away cars, and damaged the cafe and the entrance to Gough's Cave.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Cheddar is recognised as a village. The adjacent settlement of Axbridge, although only about a third the population of Cheddar, is a town. This apparently illogical situation is explained by the relative importance of the two places in historic times. While Axbridge grew in importance as a centre for cloth manufacturing in the Tudor period and gained a charter from King John, Cheddar remained a more dispersed mining and dairy-farming village. Its population grew with the arrival of the railways in the Victorian era and the advent of tourism.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The parish council, which has 15 members who are elected for four years, is responsible for local issues, including setting an annual precept (local rate) to cover the council's operating costs and producing annual accounts for public scrutiny. The parish council evaluates local planning applications and works with the police, district council officers, and neighbourhood watch groups on matters of crime, security, and traffic. The parish council's role also includes initiating projects for the maintenance and repair of parish facilities, as well as consulting with the district council on the maintenance, repair, and improvement of highways, drainage, footpaths, public transport, and street cleaning. Conservation matters (including trees and listed buildings) and environmental issues are also the responsibility of the council.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The village is in the 'Cheddar and Shipham' electoral ward. After including Shipham the total population of the ward taken at the 2011 census is 6,842.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "For local government purposes, since 1 April 2023, the village comes under the unitary authority of Somerset Council. Prior to this, it was part of the non-metropolitan district of Sedgemoor, which was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, having previously been part of Axbridge Rural District. Fire, police and ambulance services are provided jointly with other authorities through the Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, Avon and Somerset Constabulary and the South Western Ambulance Service.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "It is also part of the Wells county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. Prior to Brexit in 2020, it was part of the South West England constituency of the European Parliament.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Cheddar is twinned with Felsberg, Germany and Vernouillet, France, and it has an active programme of exchange visits. Initially, Cheddar twinned with Felsberg in 1984. In 2000, Cheddar twinned with Vernouillet, which had also been twinned with Felsberg. Cheddar also has a friendship link with Ocho Rios in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica.",
"title": "International relations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "It is also twinned with the commune of Descartes in the Indre-et-Loire department.",
"title": "International relations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The area is underlain by Black Rock slate, Burrington Oolite and Clifton Down Limestone of the Carboniferous Limestone Series, which contain ooliths and fossil debris on top of Old Red Sandstone, and by Dolomitic Conglomerate of the Keuper. Evidence for Variscan orogeny is seen in the sheared rock and cleaved shales. In many places weathering of these strata has resulted in the formation of immature calcareous soils.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Cheddar Gorge, which is located on the edge of the village, is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom. The gorge is the site of the Cheddar Caves, where Cheddar Man was found in 1903. Older remains from the Upper Late Palaeolithic era (12,000–13,000 years ago) have been found. The caves, produced by the activity of an underground river, contain stalactites and stalagmites. Gough's Cave, which was discovered in 1903, leads around 400 m (437 yd) into the rock-face, and contains a variety of large rock chambers and formations. Cox's Cave, discovered in 1837, is smaller but contains many intricate formations. A further cave houses a children's entertainment walk known as the \"Crystal Quest\".",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Cheddar Gorge, including Cox's Cave, Gough's Cave and other attractions, has become a tourist destination, attracting about 500,000 visitors per year. In a 2005 poll of Radio Times readers, following its appearance on the 2005 television programme Seven Natural Wonders, Cheddar Gorge was named as the second greatest natural wonder in Britain, surpassed only by the Dan yr Ogof caves.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "There are several large and unique Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) around the village.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Cheddar Reservoir is a near-circular artificial reservoir operated by Bristol Water. Dating from the 1930s, it has a capacity of 135 million gallons (614,000 cubic metres). The reservoir is supplied with water taken from the Cheddar Yeo, which rises in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge and is a tributary of the River Axe. The inlet grate for the 54-inch (1.4 m) water pipe that is used to transport the water can be seen next to the sensory garden in Cheddar Gorge. It has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) due to its wintering waterfowl populations.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Cheddar Wood and the smaller Macall's Wood form a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest from what remains of the wood of the Bishops of Bath and Wells in the 13th century and of King Edmund the Magnificent's wood in the 10th. During the 19th century, its lower fringes were grubbed out to make strawberry fields. Most of these have been allowed to revert to woodland. The wood was coppiced until 1917. This site compromises a wide range of habitats which include ancient and secondary semi-natural broadleaved woodland, unimproved neutral grassland, and a complex mosaic of calcareous grassland and acidic dry dwarf-shrub heath. Cheddar Wood is one of only a few English stations for starved wood-sedge (Carex depauperata). Purple gromwell (Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum), a nationally rare plant, also grows in the wood. Butterflies include silver-washed fritillary (Argynnis paphia), dark green fritillary (Argynnis aglaja), pearl-bordered fritillary (Boloria euphrosyne), holly blue (Celastrina argiolus) and brown argus (Aricia agestis). The slug Arion fasciatus, which has a restricted distribution in the south of England, and the soldier beetle Cantharis fusca also occur.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "By far the largest of the SSSIs is called Cheddar Complex and covers 441.3 hectares (1,090.5 acres) of the gorge, caves and the surrounding area. It is important because of both biological and geological features. It includes four SSSIs, formerly known as Cheddar Gorge SSSI, August Hole/Longwood Swallet SSSI, GB Cavern Charterhouse SSSI and Charterhouse on-Mendip SSSI. It is partly owned by the National Trust who acquired it in 1910 and partly managed by the Somerset Wildlife Trust.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Close to the village and gorge are Batts Combe quarry and Callow Rock quarry, two of the active Quarries of the Mendip Hills where limestone is still extracted. Operating since the early 20th century, Batts Combe is owned and operated by Hanson Aggregates. The output in 2005 was around 4,000 tonnes of limestone per day, one third of which was supplied to an on-site lime kiln, which closed in 2009; the remainder was sold as coated or dusted aggregates. The limestone at this site is close to 99 percent carbonate of calcium and magnesium (dolomite).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Chelmscombe Quarry finished its work as a limestone quarry in the 1950s and was then used by the Central Electricity Generating Board as a tower testing station. During the 1970s and 1980s it was also used to test the ability of containers of radioactive material to withstand impacts and other accidents.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Along with the rest of South West England, Cheddar has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is approximately 10 °C (50.0 °F). Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea, which moderates temperature. The summer months of July and August are the warmest with mean daily maxima of approximately 21 °C (69.8 °F). In winter mean minimum temperatures of 1 °C (33.8 °F) or 2 °C (35.6 °F) are common. In the summer the Azores high-pressure system affects the south-west of England. Convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine; annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours. Most of the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection. Most of the rainfall in autumn and winter is caused by the Atlantic depressions, which are most active during those seasons. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around 700 mm (28 in). About 8–15 days of snowfall per year is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The parish has a population in 2011 of 5,093, with a mean age of 43 years. Residents lived in 2,209 households. The vast majority of households (2,183) gave their ethnic status at the 2001 census as white.",
"title": "Demography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The village gave its name to Cheddar cheese, which is the most popular type of cheese in the United Kingdom. The cheese is now made and consumed worldwide, and only one producer remains in the village.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Since the 1880s, Cheddar's other main produce has been the strawberry, which is grown on the south-facing lower slopes of the Mendip hills. As a consequence of its use for transporting strawberries to market, the since-closed Cheddar Valley line became known as The Strawberry Line after it opened in 1869. The line ran from Yatton to Wells. When the rest of the line was closed and all passenger services ceased, the section of the line between Cheddar and Yatton remained open for goods traffic. It provided a fast link with the main markets for the strawberries in Birmingham and London, but finally closed in 1964, becoming part of the Cheddar Valley Railway Nature Reserve.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Cheddar Ales is a small brewery based in the village, producing beer for local public houses.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Tourism is a significant source of employment. Around 15 percent of employment in Sedgemoor is provided by tourism, but within Cheddar it is estimated to employ as many as 1,000 people. The village also has a youth hostel, and a number of camping and caravan sites.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Cheddar has a number of active service clubs including Cheddar Vale Lions Club, Mendip Rotary and Mendip Inner Wheel Club. The clubs raise money for projects in the local community and hold annual events such as a fireworks display, duck races in the Gorge, a dragon boat race on the reservoir and concerts on the grounds of the nearby St Michael's Cheshire Home.",
"title": "Culture and community"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Several notable people have been born or lived in Cheddar. Musician Jack Bessant, the bass guitarist with the band Reef grew up on his parents' strawberry farm, and Matt Goss and Luke Goss, former members of Bros, lived in Cheddar for nine months as children. Trina Gulliver, ten-time World Professional Darts Champion, previously lived in Cheddar until 2017. The comedian Richard Herring grew up in Cheddar. His 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, The Headmaster's Son is based on his time at The Kings of Wessex School, where his father Keith was the headmaster. The final performance of this show was held at the school in November 2009. He also visited the school in March 2010 to perform his show Hitler Moustache. In May 2013, a community radio station called Pulse was launched.",
"title": "Culture and community"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The market cross in Bath Street dates from the 15th century, with the shelter having been rebuilt in 1834. It has a central octagonal pier, a socket raised on four steps, a hexagonal shelter with six arched four-centred openings, shallow two-stage buttresses at each angle, and an embattled parapet. The shaft is crowned by an abacus with figures in niches, probably from the late 19th century, although the cross is now missing. It was rebuilt by Thomas, Marquess of Bath. It is a scheduled monument (Somerset County No 21) and Grade II* listed building.",
"title": "Landmarks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In January 2000, the cross was seriously damaged in a traffic accident. By 2002, the cross had been rebuilt and the area around it was redesigned to protect and enhance its appearance. The cross was badly damaged again in March 2012, when a taxi crashed into it late at night demolishing two sides. Repair work, which included the addition of wooden-clad steel posts to protect against future crashes, was completed in November 2012 at a cost of £60,000.",
"title": "Landmarks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Hannah More, a philanthropist and educator, founded a school in the village in the late 18th century for the children of miners. Her first school was located in a 17th-century house. Now named \"Hannah More's Cottage\", the Grade II-listed building is used by the local community as a meeting place.",
"title": "Landmarks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The village is situated on the A371 road which runs from Wincanton, to Weston-super-Mare. It is approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) from the route of the M5 motorway with around a 10 miles (16 km) drive to junction 22.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "It was on the Cheddar Valley line, a railway line that was opened in 1869 and closed in 1963. It became known as The Strawberry Line because of the large volume of locally-grown strawberries that it carried. It ran from Yatton railway station through Cheddar to Wells (Tucker Street) railway station and joined the East Somerset Railway to make a through route via Shepton Mallet (High Street) railway station to Witham. Sections of the now-disused railway have been opened as the Strawberry Line Trail, which currently runs from Yatton to Cheddar. The Cheddar Valley line survived until the \"Beeching Axe\". Towards the end of its life there were so few passengers that diesel railcars were sometimes used. The Cheddar branch closed to passengers on 9 September 1963 and to goods in 1964. The line closed in the 1960s, when it became part of the Cheddar Valley Railway Nature Reserve, and part of the National Cycle Network route 26. The cycle route also intersects with the West Mendip Way and various other footpaths.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The principle bus route is hourly service 126 between Weston-super-Mare and Wells operated by First West of England. Other bus routes include the service 668 from Shipham to Street which runs every couple of hours operated by Libra Travel, as well as the college bus service 66 which runs from Axbridge to the Bridgwater Campus of Bridgwater and Taunton College in the mornings and evenings of college term times and is operated by Bakers Dolphin.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The first school in Cheddar was set up by Hannah More during the 18th Century, however now Cheddar has three schools belonging to the Cheddar Valley Group of Schools, twelve schools that provide Cheddar Valley's three-tier education system. Cheddar First School has ten classes for children between 4 and 9 years. Fairlands Middle School, a middle school categorised as a middle-deemed-secondary school, has 510 pupils between 9 and 13. Fairlands takes children moving up from Cheddar First School as well as other first schools in the Cheddar Valley. The Kings of Wessex Academy, a coeducational comprehensive school, has been rated as \"good\" by Ofsted. It has 1,176 students aged 13 to 18, including 333 in the sixth form. Kings is a faith school linked to the Church of England. It was awarded the specialist status of Technology College in 2001, enabling it to develop its Information Technology (IT) facilities and improve courses in science, mathematics and design technology. In 2007 it became a foundation school, giving it more control over its own finances. The academy owns and runs a sports centre and swimming pool, Kings Fitness & Leisure, with facilities that are used by students as well as residents. It has since November 2016 been a part of the Wessex Learning Trust which incorporates eight academies from the surrounding area.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Church of St Andrew dates from the 14th century. It was restored in 1873 by William Butterfield. It is a Grade I listed building and contains some 15th-century stained glass and an altar table of 1631. The chest tomb in the chancel is believed to contain the remains of Sir Thomas Cheddar and is dated 1442. The tower, which rises to 100 feet (30 m), contains a bell dating from 1759 made by Thomas Bilbie of the Bilbie family. The graveyard contains the grave of the hymn writer William Chatterton Dix.",
"title": "Religious sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "There are also churches for Roman Catholic, Methodist and other denominations, including Cheddar Valley Community Church, who not only meet at the Kings of Wessex School on Sunday, but also have their own site on Tweentown for meeting during the week. The Baptist chapel was built in 1831.",
"title": "Religious sites"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Kings Fitness & Leisure, situated on the grounds of the Kings of Wessex School, provides a venue for various sports and includes a 20-metre swimming pool, racket sport courts, a sports hall, dance studios and a gym. A youth sports festival was held on Sharpham Road Playing Fields in 2009. In 2010 a skatepark was built in the village, funded by the Cheddar Local Action Team.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Cheddar A.F.C., founded in 1892 and nicknamed \"The Cheesemen\", play in the Western Football League Division One. In 2009 plans were revealed to move the club from its present home at Bowdens Park on Draycott Road to a new larger site.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Cheddar Cricket Club was formed in the late 19th century and moved to Sharpham Road Playing Fields in 1964. They now play in the West of England Premier League Somerset Division. Cheddar Rugby Club, who own part of the Sharpham playing fields, was formed in 1836. The club organises an annual Cheddar Rugby Tournament. Cheddar Lawn Tennis Club, was formed in 1924, and play in the North Somerset League and also has social tennis and coaching. Cheddar Running Club organised an annual half marathon until 2009.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The village is both on the route of the West Mendip Way and Samaritans Way South West.",
"title": "Sport"
}
] | Cheddar is a large village and civil parish in the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, 9 miles (14 km) north-west of Wells, 11 miles (18 km) south-east of Weston-super-Mare and 18 miles (29 km) south-west of Bristol. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross. The parish had a population of 5,755 in 2011 and an acreage of 8,592 acres (3,477 ha) as of 1961. Cheddar Gorge, on the northern edge of the village, is the largest gorge in the United Kingdom and includes several show caves, including Gough's Cave. The gorge has been a centre of human settlement since Neolithic times, including a Saxon palace. It has a temperate climate and provides a unique geological and biological environment that has been recognised by the designation of several Sites of Special Scientific Interest. It is also the site of several limestone quarries. The village gave its name to Cheddar cheese and has been a centre for strawberry growing. The crop was formerly transported on the Cheddar Valley rail line, which closed in the late 1960s and is now a cycle path. The village is now a major tourist destination with several cultural and community facilities, including the Cheddar Show Caves Museum. The village supports a variety of community groups including religious, sporting and cultural organisations. Several of these are based on the site of the Kings of Wessex Academy, which is the largest educational establishment. | 2001-09-17T21:11:30Z | 2023-12-11T22:14:17Z | [
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6,429 | Compact disc | The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 in Japan and branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc.
The format was later adapted (as CD-ROM) for general-purpose data storage. Several other formats were further derived, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Photo CD, Picture CD, Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-i), Enhanced Music CD, and Super Audio CD (SACD) which may have a CD-DA layer.
Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and are designed to hold up to 1 hour 14 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio or about 650 MiB of data. Capacity is routinely extended to 1 hour 20 minutes and 700 MiB by arranging data more closely on the same-sized disc. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio, or delivering device drivers.
At the time of the technology's introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard disk drive, which would typically hold 10 MiB. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much storage space as a thousand CDs, while their prices had plummeted to commodity levels. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.
A CD is made from 1.2-millimetre (0.047 in) thick, polycarbonate plastic, and weighs 14–33 grams. From the center outward, components are: the center spindle hole (15 mm), the first-transition area (clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), the program (data) area, and the rim. The inner program area occupies a radius from 25 to 58 mm.
A thin layer of aluminum or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface, making it reflective. The metal is protected by a film of lacquer normally spin coated directly on the reflective layer. The label is printed on the lacquer layer, usually by screen printing or offset printing.
CD data is represented as tiny indentations known as pits, encoded in a spiral track molded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as lands. Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length. The distance between the tracks (the pitch) is 1.6 µm.
When playing an audio CD, a motor within the CD player spins the disc to a scanning velocity of 1.2–1.4 m/s (constant linear velocity, CLV)—equivalent to approximately 500 RPM at the inside of the disc, and approximately 200 RPM at the outside edge. The track on the CD begins at the inside and spirals outward so a disc played from beginning to end slows its rotation rate during playback.
The program area is 86.05 cm and the length of the recordable spiral is 86.05 cm / 1.6 µm = 5.38 km. With a scanning speed of 1.2 m/s, the playing time is 1 hour 14 minutes or 650 MiB of data on a CD-ROM. A disc with data packed slightly more densely is tolerated by most players (though some old ones fail). Using a linear velocity of 1.2 m/s and a narrower track pitch of 1.5 µm increases the playing time to 80 minutes, and data capacity to 700 MiB. Also increases the playing time to 1 1/2 hours, and data capacity to 800 MiB and 1 hour 39 minutes, and data capacity to 870 MiB.
A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength (near infrared) semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits and lands results in a difference in the way the light is reflected. Because the pits are indented into the top layer of the disc and are read through the transparent polycarbonate base, the pits form bumps when read. The laser hits the disc, casting a circle of light wider than the modulated spiral track reflecting partially from the lands and partially from the top of any bumps where they are present. As the laser passes over a pit (bump), its height means that the part of the light reflected from its peak is 1/2 wavelength out of phase with the light reflected from the land around it. This causes partial cancellation of the laser's reflection from the surface. By measuring the reflected intensity change with a photodiode, a modulated signal is read back from the disc.
To accommodate the spiral pattern of data, the laser is placed on a mobile mechanism within the disc tray of any CD player. This mechanism typically takes the form of a sled that moves along a rail. The sled can be driven by a worm gear or linear motor. Where a worm gear is used, a second shorter-throw linear motor, in the form of a coil and magnet, makes fine position adjustments to track eccentricities in the disk at high speed. Some CD drives (particularly those manufactured by Philips during the 1980s and early 1990s) use a swing arm similar to that seen on a gramophone. This mechanism allows the laser to read information from the center to the edge of a disc without having to interrupt the spinning of the disc itself.
The pits and lands do not directly represent the 0s and 1s of binary data. Instead, non-return-to-zero, inverted encoding is used: a change from either pit to land or land to pit indicates a 1, while no change indicates a series of 0s. There must be at least two, and no more than ten 0s between each 1, which is defined by the length of the pit. This, in turn, is decoded by reversing the eight-to-fourteen modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the cross-interleaved Reed–Solomon coding, finally revealing the raw data stored on the disc. These encoding techniques (defined in the Red Book) were originally designed for CD Digital Audio, but they later became a standard for almost all CD formats (such as CD-ROM).
CDs are susceptible to damage during handling and from environmental exposure. Pits are much closer to the label side of a disc, enabling defects and contaminants on the clear side to be out of focus during playback. Consequently, CDs are more likely to suffer damage on the label side of the disc. Scratches on the clear side can be repaired by refilling them with similar refractive plastic or by careful polishing. The edges of CDs are sometimes incompletely sealed, allowing gases and liquids to enter the CD and corrode the metal reflective layer and/or interfere with the focus of the laser on the pits, a condition known as disc rot. The fungus Geotrichum candidum has been found—under conditions of high heat and humidity—to consume the polycarbonate plastic and aluminium found in CDs.
The data integrity of compact discs can be measured using surface error scanning, which can measure the rates of different types of data errors, known as C1, C2, CU and extended (finer-grain) error measurements known as E11, E12, E21, E22, E31 and E32, of which higher rates indicate a possibly damaged or unclean data surface, low media quality, deteriorating media and recordable media written to by a malfunctioning CD writer.
Error scanning can reliably predict data losses caused by media deterioration. Support of error scanning differs between vendors and models of optical disc drives, and extended error scanning (known as "advanced error scanning" in Nero DiscSpeed) has only been available on Plextor and some BenQ optical drives so far, as of 2020.
The digital data on a CD begins at the center of the disc and proceeds toward the edge, which allows adaptation to the different sizes available. Standard CDs are available in two sizes. By far, the most common is 120 millimetres (4.7 in) in diameter, with a 74-, 80, 90, or 99-minute audio capacity and a 650, 700, 800, or 870 MiB (737,280,000-byte) data capacity. Discs are 1.2 millimetres (0.047 in) thick, with a 15 millimetres (0.59 in) center hole. The size of the hole was chosen by Joop Sinjou and based on a Dutch 10-cent coin: a dubbeltje. Philips/Sony patented the physical dimensions.
The official Philips history says the capacity was specified by Sony executive Norio Ohga to be able to contain the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on one disc.
This is a myth according to Kees Immink, as the EFM code format had not yet been decided in December 1979, when the 120 mm size was adopted. The adoption of EFM in June 1980 allowed 30 percent more playing time that would have resulted in 97 minutes for 120 mm diameter or 74 minutes for a disc as small as 100 millimetres (3.9 in). Instead the information density was lowered by 30 percent to keep the playing time at 74 minutes. The 120 mm diameter has been adopted by subsequent formats, including Super Audio CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc. The 80-millimetre (3.1 in) diameter discs ("Mini CDs") can hold up to 24 minutes of music or 210 MiB.
The logical format of an audio CD (officially Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) is described in a document produced in 1980 by the format's joint creators, Sony and Philips. The document is known colloquially as the Red Book CD-DA after the color of its cover. The format is a two-channel 16-bit PCM encoding at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate per channel. Four-channel sound was to be an allowable option within the Red Book format, but has never been implemented. Monaural audio has no existing standard on a Red Book CD; thus, the mono source material is usually presented as two identical channels in a standard Red Book stereo track (i.e., mirrored mono); an MP3 CD, can have audio file formats with mono sound.
CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book specification for an audio CD that allows for the storage of additional text information (e.g., album name, song name, artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored either in the lead-in area of the CD, where there are roughly five kilobytes of space available or in the subcode channels R to W on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes.
Compact Disc + Graphics is a special audio compact disc that contains graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc. The disc can be played on a regular audio CD player, but when played on a special CD+G player, it can output a graphics signal (typically, the CD+G player is hooked up to a television set or a computer monitor); these graphics are almost exclusively used to display lyrics on a television set for karaoke performers to sing along with. The CD+G format takes advantage of the channels R through W. These six bits store the graphics information.
CD + Extended Graphics (CD+EG, also known as CD+XG) is an improved variant of the Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) format. Like CD+G, CD+EG uses basic CD-ROM features to display text and video information in addition to the music being played. This extra data is stored in subcode channels R-W. Very few, if any, CD+EG discs have been published.
Super Audio CD (SACD) is a high-resolution, read-only optical audio disc format that was designed to provide higher-fidelity digital audio reproduction than the Red Book. Introduced in 1999, it was developed by Sony and Philips, the same companies that created the Red Book. SACD was in a format war with DVD-Audio, but neither has replaced audio CDs. The SACD standard is referred to as the Scarlet Book standard.
Titles in the SACD format can be issued as hybrid discs; these discs contain the SACD audio stream as well as a standard audio CD layer which is playable in standard CD players, thus making them backward compatible.
CD-MIDI is a format used to store music-performance data, which upon playback is performed by electronic instruments that synthesize the audio. Hence, unlike the original Red Book CD-DA, these recordings are not digitally sampled audio recordings. The CD-MIDI format is defined as an extension of the original Red Book.
For the first few years of its existence, the CD was a medium used purely for audio. In 1988, the Yellow Book CD-ROM standard was established by Sony and Philips, which defined a non-volatile optical data computer data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive.
Video CD (VCD, View CD, and Compact Disc digital video) is a standard digital format for storing video media on a CD. VCDs are playable in dedicated VCD players, most modern DVD-Video players, personal computers, and some video game consoles. The VCD standard was created in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita, and JVC and is referred to as the White Book standard.
Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS video. Poorly compressed VCD video can sometimes be of lower quality than VHS video, but VCD exhibits block artifacts rather than analog noise and does not deteriorate further with each use. 352×240 (or SIF) resolution was chosen because it is half the vertical and half the horizontal resolution of the NTSC video. 352×288 is a similarly one-quarter PAL/SECAM resolution. This approximates the (overall) resolution of an analog VHS tape, which, although it has double the number of (vertical) scan lines, has a much lower horizontal resolution.
Super Video CD (Super Video Compact Disc or SVCD) is a format used for storing video media on standard compact discs. SVCD was intended as a successor to VCD and an alternative to DVD-Video and falls somewhere between both in terms of technical capability and picture quality.
SVCD has two-thirds the resolution of DVD, and over 2.7 times the resolution of VCD. One CD-R disc can hold up to 60 minutes of standard-quality SVCD-format video. While no specific limit on SVCD video length is mandated by the specification, one must lower the video bit rate, and therefore quality, to accommodate very long videos. It is usually difficult to fit much more than 100 minutes of video onto one SVCD without incurring a significant quality loss, and many hardware players are unable to play a video with an instantaneous bit rate lower than 300 to 600 kilobits per second.
Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and storing photos on a CD. Launched in 1992, the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high-quality images, scanned prints, and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CDs are defined in the Beige Book and conform to the CD-ROM XA and CD-i Bridge specifications as well. They are intended to play on CD-i players, Photo CD players, and any computer with suitable software (irrespective of operating system). The images can also be printed out on photographic paper with a special Kodak machine. This format is not to be confused with Kodak Picture CD, which is a consumer product in CD-ROM format.
The Philips Green Book specifies a standard for interactive multimedia compact discs designed for CD-i players (1993). CD-i discs can contain audio tracks that can be played on regular CD players, but CD-i discs are not compatible with most CD-ROM drives and software. The CD-i Ready specification was later created to improve compatibility with audio CD players, and the CD-i Bridge specification was added to create CD-i-compatible discs that can be accessed by regular CD-ROM drives.
Philips defined a format similar to CD-i called CD-i Ready, which puts CD-i software and data into the pregap of track 1. This format was supposed to be more compatible with older audio CD players.
Enhanced Music CD, also known as CD Extra or CD Plus, is a format that combines audio tracks and data tracks on the same disc by putting audio tracks in a first session and data in a second session. It was developed by Philips and Sony, and it is defined in the Blue Book.
VinylDisc is the hybrid of a standard audio CD and the vinyl record. The vinyl layer on the disc's label side can hold approximately three minutes of music.
In 1995, material costs were 30 cents for the jewel case and 10 to 15 cents for the CD. The wholesale cost of CDs was $0.75 to $1.15, while the typical retail price of a prerecorded music CD was $16.98. On average, the store received 35 percent of the retail price, the record company 27 percent, the artist 16 percent, the manufacturer 13 percent, and the distributor 9 percent. When 8-track cartridges, compact cassettes, and CDs were introduced, each was marketed at a higher price than the format they succeeded, even though the cost to produce the media was reduced. This was done because the perceived value increased. This continued from phonograph records to CDs, but was broken when Apple marketed MP3s for $0.99, and albums for $9.99. The incremental cost, though, to produce an MP3 is negligible.
Recordable Compact Discs, CD-Rs, are injection-molded with a "blank" data spiral. A photosensitive dye is then applied, after which the discs are metalized and lacquer-coated. The write laser of the CD recorder changes the color of the dye to allow the read laser of a standard CD player to see the data, just as it would with a standard stamped disc. The resulting discs can be read by most CD-ROM drives and played in most audio CD players. CD-Rs follow the Orange Book standard.
CD-R recordings are designed to be permanent. Over time, the dye's physical characteristics may change causing read errors and data loss until the reading device cannot recover with error correction methods. Errors can be predicted using surface error scanning. The design life is from 20 to 100 years, depending on the quality of the discs, the quality of the writing drive, and storage conditions. Testing has demonstrated such degradation of some discs in as little as 18 months under normal storage conditions. This failure is known as disc rot, for which there are several, mostly environmental, reasons.
The recordable audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder. These consumer audio CD recorders use SCMS (Serial Copy Management System), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act). The Recordable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-R due to lower production volume and a 3 percent AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.
High-capacity recordable CD is a higher-density recording format that can hold 20% more data than conventional discs. The higher capacity is incompatible with some recorders and recording software.
CD-RW is a re-recordable medium that uses a metallic alloy instead of a dye. The write laser, in this case, is used to heat and alter the properties (amorphous vs. crystalline) of the alloy, and hence change its reflectivity. A CD-RW does not have as great a difference in reflectivity as a pressed CD or a CD-R, and so many earlier CD audio players cannot read CD-RW discs, although most later CD audio players and stand-alone DVD players can. CD-RWs follow the Orange Book standard.
The ReWritable Audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder, which will not (without modification) accept standard CD-RW discs. These consumer audio CD recorders use the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the United States' Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA). The ReWritable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-R due to (a) lower volume and (b) a 3 percent AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.
The Red Book audio specification, except for a simple "anti-copy" statement in the subcode, does not include any copy protection mechanism. Known at least as early as 2001, attempts were made by record companies to market "copy-protected" non-standard compact discs, which cannot be ripped, or copied, to hard drives or easily converted to other formats (like FLAC, MP3 or Vorbis). One major drawback to these copy-protected discs is that most will not play on either computer CD-ROM drives or some standalone CD players that use CD-ROM mechanisms. Philips has stated that such discs are not permitted to bear the trademarked Compact Disc Digital Audio logo because they violate the Red Book specifications. Numerous copy-protection systems have been countered by readily available, often free, software, or even by simply turning off automatic AutoPlay to prevent the running of the DRM executable program. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 in Japan and branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The format was later adapted (as CD-ROM) for general-purpose data storage. Several other formats were further derived, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Photo CD, Picture CD, Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-i), Enhanced Music CD, and Super Audio CD (SACD) which may have a CD-DA layer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and are designed to hold up to 1 hour 14 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio or about 650 MiB of data. Capacity is routinely extended to 1 hour 20 minutes and 700 MiB by arranging data more closely on the same-sized disc. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres (2.4 to 3.1 in); they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio, or delivering device drivers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "At the time of the technology's introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard disk drive, which would typically hold 10 MiB. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much storage space as a thousand CDs, while their prices had plummeted to commodity levels. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A CD is made from 1.2-millimetre (0.047 in) thick, polycarbonate plastic, and weighs 14–33 grams. From the center outward, components are: the center spindle hole (15 mm), the first-transition area (clamping ring), the clamping area (stacking ring), the second-transition area (mirror band), the program (data) area, and the rim. The inner program area occupies a radius from 25 to 58 mm.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A thin layer of aluminum or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface, making it reflective. The metal is protected by a film of lacquer normally spin coated directly on the reflective layer. The label is printed on the lacquer layer, usually by screen printing or offset printing.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "CD data is represented as tiny indentations known as pits, encoded in a spiral track molded into the top of the polycarbonate layer. The areas between pits are known as lands. Each pit is approximately 100 nm deep by 500 nm wide, and varies from 850 nm to 3.5 µm in length. The distance between the tracks (the pitch) is 1.6 µm.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "When playing an audio CD, a motor within the CD player spins the disc to a scanning velocity of 1.2–1.4 m/s (constant linear velocity, CLV)—equivalent to approximately 500 RPM at the inside of the disc, and approximately 200 RPM at the outside edge. The track on the CD begins at the inside and spirals outward so a disc played from beginning to end slows its rotation rate during playback.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The program area is 86.05 cm and the length of the recordable spiral is 86.05 cm / 1.6 µm = 5.38 km. With a scanning speed of 1.2 m/s, the playing time is 1 hour 14 minutes or 650 MiB of data on a CD-ROM. A disc with data packed slightly more densely is tolerated by most players (though some old ones fail). Using a linear velocity of 1.2 m/s and a narrower track pitch of 1.5 µm increases the playing time to 80 minutes, and data capacity to 700 MiB. Also increases the playing time to 1 1/2 hours, and data capacity to 800 MiB and 1 hour 39 minutes, and data capacity to 870 MiB.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A CD is read by focusing a 780 nm wavelength (near infrared) semiconductor laser through the bottom of the polycarbonate layer. The change in height between pits and lands results in a difference in the way the light is reflected. Because the pits are indented into the top layer of the disc and are read through the transparent polycarbonate base, the pits form bumps when read. The laser hits the disc, casting a circle of light wider than the modulated spiral track reflecting partially from the lands and partially from the top of any bumps where they are present. As the laser passes over a pit (bump), its height means that the part of the light reflected from its peak is 1/2 wavelength out of phase with the light reflected from the land around it. This causes partial cancellation of the laser's reflection from the surface. By measuring the reflected intensity change with a photodiode, a modulated signal is read back from the disc.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "To accommodate the spiral pattern of data, the laser is placed on a mobile mechanism within the disc tray of any CD player. This mechanism typically takes the form of a sled that moves along a rail. The sled can be driven by a worm gear or linear motor. Where a worm gear is used, a second shorter-throw linear motor, in the form of a coil and magnet, makes fine position adjustments to track eccentricities in the disk at high speed. Some CD drives (particularly those manufactured by Philips during the 1980s and early 1990s) use a swing arm similar to that seen on a gramophone. This mechanism allows the laser to read information from the center to the edge of a disc without having to interrupt the spinning of the disc itself.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The pits and lands do not directly represent the 0s and 1s of binary data. Instead, non-return-to-zero, inverted encoding is used: a change from either pit to land or land to pit indicates a 1, while no change indicates a series of 0s. There must be at least two, and no more than ten 0s between each 1, which is defined by the length of the pit. This, in turn, is decoded by reversing the eight-to-fourteen modulation used in mastering the disc, and then reversing the cross-interleaved Reed–Solomon coding, finally revealing the raw data stored on the disc. These encoding techniques (defined in the Red Book) were originally designed for CD Digital Audio, but they later became a standard for almost all CD formats (such as CD-ROM).",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "CDs are susceptible to damage during handling and from environmental exposure. Pits are much closer to the label side of a disc, enabling defects and contaminants on the clear side to be out of focus during playback. Consequently, CDs are more likely to suffer damage on the label side of the disc. Scratches on the clear side can be repaired by refilling them with similar refractive plastic or by careful polishing. The edges of CDs are sometimes incompletely sealed, allowing gases and liquids to enter the CD and corrode the metal reflective layer and/or interfere with the focus of the laser on the pits, a condition known as disc rot. The fungus Geotrichum candidum has been found—under conditions of high heat and humidity—to consume the polycarbonate plastic and aluminium found in CDs.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The data integrity of compact discs can be measured using surface error scanning, which can measure the rates of different types of data errors, known as C1, C2, CU and extended (finer-grain) error measurements known as E11, E12, E21, E22, E31 and E32, of which higher rates indicate a possibly damaged or unclean data surface, low media quality, deteriorating media and recordable media written to by a malfunctioning CD writer.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Error scanning can reliably predict data losses caused by media deterioration. Support of error scanning differs between vendors and models of optical disc drives, and extended error scanning (known as \"advanced error scanning\" in Nero DiscSpeed) has only been available on Plextor and some BenQ optical drives so far, as of 2020.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The digital data on a CD begins at the center of the disc and proceeds toward the edge, which allows adaptation to the different sizes available. Standard CDs are available in two sizes. By far, the most common is 120 millimetres (4.7 in) in diameter, with a 74-, 80, 90, or 99-minute audio capacity and a 650, 700, 800, or 870 MiB (737,280,000-byte) data capacity. Discs are 1.2 millimetres (0.047 in) thick, with a 15 millimetres (0.59 in) center hole. The size of the hole was chosen by Joop Sinjou and based on a Dutch 10-cent coin: a dubbeltje. Philips/Sony patented the physical dimensions.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The official Philips history says the capacity was specified by Sony executive Norio Ohga to be able to contain the entirety of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on one disc.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "This is a myth according to Kees Immink, as the EFM code format had not yet been decided in December 1979, when the 120 mm size was adopted. The adoption of EFM in June 1980 allowed 30 percent more playing time that would have resulted in 97 minutes for 120 mm diameter or 74 minutes for a disc as small as 100 millimetres (3.9 in). Instead the information density was lowered by 30 percent to keep the playing time at 74 minutes. The 120 mm diameter has been adopted by subsequent formats, including Super Audio CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc. The 80-millimetre (3.1 in) diameter discs (\"Mini CDs\") can hold up to 24 minutes of music or 210 MiB.",
"title": "Physical details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The logical format of an audio CD (officially Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) is described in a document produced in 1980 by the format's joint creators, Sony and Philips. The document is known colloquially as the Red Book CD-DA after the color of its cover. The format is a two-channel 16-bit PCM encoding at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate per channel. Four-channel sound was to be an allowable option within the Red Book format, but has never been implemented. Monaural audio has no existing standard on a Red Book CD; thus, the mono source material is usually presented as two identical channels in a standard Red Book stereo track (i.e., mirrored mono); an MP3 CD, can have audio file formats with mono sound.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book specification for an audio CD that allows for the storage of additional text information (e.g., album name, song name, artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored either in the lead-in area of the CD, where there are roughly five kilobytes of space available or in the subcode channels R to W on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Compact Disc + Graphics is a special audio compact disc that contains graphics data in addition to the audio data on the disc. The disc can be played on a regular audio CD player, but when played on a special CD+G player, it can output a graphics signal (typically, the CD+G player is hooked up to a television set or a computer monitor); these graphics are almost exclusively used to display lyrics on a television set for karaoke performers to sing along with. The CD+G format takes advantage of the channels R through W. These six bits store the graphics information.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "CD + Extended Graphics (CD+EG, also known as CD+XG) is an improved variant of the Compact Disc + Graphics (CD+G) format. Like CD+G, CD+EG uses basic CD-ROM features to display text and video information in addition to the music being played. This extra data is stored in subcode channels R-W. Very few, if any, CD+EG discs have been published.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Super Audio CD (SACD) is a high-resolution, read-only optical audio disc format that was designed to provide higher-fidelity digital audio reproduction than the Red Book. Introduced in 1999, it was developed by Sony and Philips, the same companies that created the Red Book. SACD was in a format war with DVD-Audio, but neither has replaced audio CDs. The SACD standard is referred to as the Scarlet Book standard.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Titles in the SACD format can be issued as hybrid discs; these discs contain the SACD audio stream as well as a standard audio CD layer which is playable in standard CD players, thus making them backward compatible.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "CD-MIDI is a format used to store music-performance data, which upon playback is performed by electronic instruments that synthesize the audio. Hence, unlike the original Red Book CD-DA, these recordings are not digitally sampled audio recordings. The CD-MIDI format is defined as an extension of the original Red Book.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "For the first few years of its existence, the CD was a medium used purely for audio. In 1988, the Yellow Book CD-ROM standard was established by Sony and Philips, which defined a non-volatile optical data computer data storage medium using the same physical format as audio compact discs, readable by a computer with a CD-ROM drive.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Video CD (VCD, View CD, and Compact Disc digital video) is a standard digital format for storing video media on a CD. VCDs are playable in dedicated VCD players, most modern DVD-Video players, personal computers, and some video game consoles. The VCD standard was created in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita, and JVC and is referred to as the White Book standard.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS video. Poorly compressed VCD video can sometimes be of lower quality than VHS video, but VCD exhibits block artifacts rather than analog noise and does not deteriorate further with each use. 352×240 (or SIF) resolution was chosen because it is half the vertical and half the horizontal resolution of the NTSC video. 352×288 is a similarly one-quarter PAL/SECAM resolution. This approximates the (overall) resolution of an analog VHS tape, which, although it has double the number of (vertical) scan lines, has a much lower horizontal resolution.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Super Video CD (Super Video Compact Disc or SVCD) is a format used for storing video media on standard compact discs. SVCD was intended as a successor to VCD and an alternative to DVD-Video and falls somewhere between both in terms of technical capability and picture quality.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "SVCD has two-thirds the resolution of DVD, and over 2.7 times the resolution of VCD. One CD-R disc can hold up to 60 minutes of standard-quality SVCD-format video. While no specific limit on SVCD video length is mandated by the specification, one must lower the video bit rate, and therefore quality, to accommodate very long videos. It is usually difficult to fit much more than 100 minutes of video onto one SVCD without incurring a significant quality loss, and many hardware players are unable to play a video with an instantaneous bit rate lower than 300 to 600 kilobits per second.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and storing photos on a CD. Launched in 1992, the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high-quality images, scanned prints, and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CDs are defined in the Beige Book and conform to the CD-ROM XA and CD-i Bridge specifications as well. They are intended to play on CD-i players, Photo CD players, and any computer with suitable software (irrespective of operating system). The images can also be printed out on photographic paper with a special Kodak machine. This format is not to be confused with Kodak Picture CD, which is a consumer product in CD-ROM format.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Philips Green Book specifies a standard for interactive multimedia compact discs designed for CD-i players (1993). CD-i discs can contain audio tracks that can be played on regular CD players, but CD-i discs are not compatible with most CD-ROM drives and software. The CD-i Ready specification was later created to improve compatibility with audio CD players, and the CD-i Bridge specification was added to create CD-i-compatible discs that can be accessed by regular CD-ROM drives.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Philips defined a format similar to CD-i called CD-i Ready, which puts CD-i software and data into the pregap of track 1. This format was supposed to be more compatible with older audio CD players.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Enhanced Music CD, also known as CD Extra or CD Plus, is a format that combines audio tracks and data tracks on the same disc by putting audio tracks in a first session and data in a second session. It was developed by Philips and Sony, and it is defined in the Blue Book.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "VinylDisc is the hybrid of a standard audio CD and the vinyl record. The vinyl layer on the disc's label side can hold approximately three minutes of music.",
"title": "Logical format"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 1995, material costs were 30 cents for the jewel case and 10 to 15 cents for the CD. The wholesale cost of CDs was $0.75 to $1.15, while the typical retail price of a prerecorded music CD was $16.98. On average, the store received 35 percent of the retail price, the record company 27 percent, the artist 16 percent, the manufacturer 13 percent, and the distributor 9 percent. When 8-track cartridges, compact cassettes, and CDs were introduced, each was marketed at a higher price than the format they succeeded, even though the cost to produce the media was reduced. This was done because the perceived value increased. This continued from phonograph records to CDs, but was broken when Apple marketed MP3s for $0.99, and albums for $9.99. The incremental cost, though, to produce an MP3 is negligible.",
"title": "Manufacture, cost, and pricing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Recordable Compact Discs, CD-Rs, are injection-molded with a \"blank\" data spiral. A photosensitive dye is then applied, after which the discs are metalized and lacquer-coated. The write laser of the CD recorder changes the color of the dye to allow the read laser of a standard CD player to see the data, just as it would with a standard stamped disc. The resulting discs can be read by most CD-ROM drives and played in most audio CD players. CD-Rs follow the Orange Book standard.",
"title": "Writable compact discs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "CD-R recordings are designed to be permanent. Over time, the dye's physical characteristics may change causing read errors and data loss until the reading device cannot recover with error correction methods. Errors can be predicted using surface error scanning. The design life is from 20 to 100 years, depending on the quality of the discs, the quality of the writing drive, and storage conditions. Testing has demonstrated such degradation of some discs in as little as 18 months under normal storage conditions. This failure is known as disc rot, for which there are several, mostly environmental, reasons.",
"title": "Writable compact discs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The recordable audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder. These consumer audio CD recorders use SCMS (Serial Copy Management System), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act). The Recordable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-R due to lower production volume and a 3 percent AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.",
"title": "Writable compact discs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "High-capacity recordable CD is a higher-density recording format that can hold 20% more data than conventional discs. The higher capacity is incompatible with some recorders and recording software.",
"title": "Writable compact discs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "CD-RW is a re-recordable medium that uses a metallic alloy instead of a dye. The write laser, in this case, is used to heat and alter the properties (amorphous vs. crystalline) of the alloy, and hence change its reflectivity. A CD-RW does not have as great a difference in reflectivity as a pressed CD or a CD-R, and so many earlier CD audio players cannot read CD-RW discs, although most later CD audio players and stand-alone DVD players can. CD-RWs follow the Orange Book standard.",
"title": "Writable compact discs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The ReWritable Audio CD is designed to be used in a consumer audio CD recorder, which will not (without modification) accept standard CD-RW discs. These consumer audio CD recorders use the Serial Copy Management System (SCMS), an early form of digital rights management (DRM), to conform to the United States' Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA). The ReWritable Audio CD is typically somewhat more expensive than CD-R due to (a) lower volume and (b) a 3 percent AHRA royalty used to compensate the music industry for the making of a copy.",
"title": "Writable compact discs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The Red Book audio specification, except for a simple \"anti-copy\" statement in the subcode, does not include any copy protection mechanism. Known at least as early as 2001, attempts were made by record companies to market \"copy-protected\" non-standard compact discs, which cannot be ripped, or copied, to hard drives or easily converted to other formats (like FLAC, MP3 or Vorbis). One major drawback to these copy-protected discs is that most will not play on either computer CD-ROM drives or some standalone CD players that use CD-ROM mechanisms. Philips has stated that such discs are not permitted to bear the trademarked Compact Disc Digital Audio logo because they violate the Red Book specifications. Numerous copy-protection systems have been countered by readily available, often free, software, or even by simply turning off automatic AutoPlay to prevent the running of the DRM executable program.",
"title": "Copy protection"
}
] | The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in October 1982 in Japan and branded as Digital Audio Compact Disc. The format was later adapted for general-purpose data storage. Several other formats were further derived, including write-once audio and data storage (CD-R), rewritable media (CD-RW), Video CD (VCD), Super Video CD (SVCD), Photo CD, Picture CD, Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-i), Enhanced Music CD, and Super Audio CD (SACD) which may have a CD-DA layer. Standard CDs have a diameter of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) and are designed to hold up to 1 hour 14 minutes of uncompressed stereo digital audio or about 650 MiB of data. Capacity is routinely extended to 1 hour 20 minutes and 700 MiB by arranging data more closely on the same-sized disc. The Mini CD has various diameters ranging from 60 to 80 millimetres; they are sometimes used for CD singles, storing up to 24 minutes of audio, or delivering device drivers. At the time of the technology's introduction in 1982, a CD could store much more data than a personal computer hard disk drive, which would typically hold 10 MiB. By 2010, hard drives commonly offered as much storage space as a thousand CDs, while their prices had plummeted to commodity levels. In 2004, worldwide sales of audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and CD-Rs reached about 30 billion discs. By 2007, 200 billion CDs had been sold worldwide. | 2001-09-18T10:32:46Z | 2023-12-28T23:06:15Z | [
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6,431 | Charles Farrar Browne | Charles Farrar Browne (April 26, 1834 – March 6, 1867) was an American humor writer, better known under his nom de plume, Artemus Ward, which as a character, an illiterate rube with "Yankee common sense", Browne also played in public performances. He is considered to be America's first stand-up comedian. His birth name was Brown but he added the "e" after he became famous.
Browne was born in Waterford, Maine. He began his career as a compositor and occasional contributor to the daily and weekly journals. In 1858, in The Plain Dealer newspaper (Cleveland, Ohio), he published the first of the "Artemus Ward" series, which, in collected form, achieved great popularity in both America and England.
Browne's companion at the Plain Dealer, George Hoyt, wrote: "his desk was a rickety table which had been whittled and gashed until it looked as if it had been the victim of lightning. His chair was a fit companion thereto, a wabbling, unsteady affair, sometimes with four and sometimes with three legs. But Browne saw neither the table, nor the chair, nor any person who might be near, nothing, in fact, but the funny pictures which were tumbling out of his brain. When writing, his gaunt form looked ridiculous enough. One leg hung over the arm of his chair like a great hook, while he would write away, sometimes laughing to himself, and then slapping the table in the excess of his mirth."
In 1860, he became editor of the first Vanity Fair, a humorous New York weekly that failed in 1863. At about the same time, he began to appear as a lecturer who, by his droll and eccentric humor, attracted large audiences. Browne was also known as a member of the New York bohemian set which included leader Henry Clapp Jr., Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and actress Adah Isaacs Menken.
In 1863, Browne came to San Francisco to perform as Artemus Ward. An early expert at show business publicity, Browne sent his manager ahead by several weeks to buy advertising in the local papers and promote the show among prominent citizens for endorsements. On November 13, 1863, Browne stood before a packed crowd at Platt's Music Hall, playing the part of Artemus Ward as an illiterate rube but with "Yankee common sense." Writer Bret Harte was in the audience that night and he described it in the Golden Era as capturing American speech: "humor that belongs to the country of boundless prairies, limitless rivers, and stupendous cataracts—that fun which overlies the surface of our national life, which is met in the stage, rail-car, canal and flat-boat, which bursts out over camp-fires and around bar-room stoves."
"Artemus Ward" was a favorite author of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Before presenting "The Emancipation Proclamation" to his Cabinet, Lincoln read to them the latest episode, "Outrage in Utiky", also known as "High-Handed Outrage at Utica".
When Browne performed in Virginia City, Nevada, he met Mark Twain and the two became friends. In his correspondence with Twain, Browne called him "My Dearest Love." Legend has it that, following a stage performance there, Browne, Twain, and Dan De Quille were trekking on a (drunken) rooftop tour of Virginia City until a town constable threatened to blast all three with a shotgun loaded with rock salt. Browne recommended Twain to the editors of the New York Press and urged him to journey to New York.
In 1866, Browne visited England and attracted a large following to his playing Artemus Ward, both as lecturer and for his literary contributions to Punch. But within a year his health gave way and he died of tuberculosis at Southampton on March 6, 1867.
In England Browne was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, but his remains were removed to the United States in 1868 and buried at Elm Vale Cemetery in Waterford, Maine.
In Cleveland, where Browne started his comedy career, an elementary school is named after him, known as Artemus Ward Elementary on W. 140th Street. In the American Garden of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park, a monument of him was erected, next to Mark Twain. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Charles Farrar Browne (April 26, 1834 – March 6, 1867) was an American humor writer, better known under his nom de plume, Artemus Ward, which as a character, an illiterate rube with \"Yankee common sense\", Browne also played in public performances. He is considered to be America's first stand-up comedian. His birth name was Brown but he added the \"e\" after he became famous.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Browne was born in Waterford, Maine. He began his career as a compositor and occasional contributor to the daily and weekly journals. In 1858, in The Plain Dealer newspaper (Cleveland, Ohio), he published the first of the \"Artemus Ward\" series, which, in collected form, achieved great popularity in both America and England.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Browne's companion at the Plain Dealer, George Hoyt, wrote: \"his desk was a rickety table which had been whittled and gashed until it looked as if it had been the victim of lightning. His chair was a fit companion thereto, a wabbling, unsteady affair, sometimes with four and sometimes with three legs. But Browne saw neither the table, nor the chair, nor any person who might be near, nothing, in fact, but the funny pictures which were tumbling out of his brain. When writing, his gaunt form looked ridiculous enough. One leg hung over the arm of his chair like a great hook, while he would write away, sometimes laughing to himself, and then slapping the table in the excess of his mirth.\"",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1860, he became editor of the first Vanity Fair, a humorous New York weekly that failed in 1863. At about the same time, he began to appear as a lecturer who, by his droll and eccentric humor, attracted large audiences. Browne was also known as a member of the New York bohemian set which included leader Henry Clapp Jr., Walt Whitman, Fitz Hugh Ludlow, and actress Adah Isaacs Menken.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1863, Browne came to San Francisco to perform as Artemus Ward. An early expert at show business publicity, Browne sent his manager ahead by several weeks to buy advertising in the local papers and promote the show among prominent citizens for endorsements. On November 13, 1863, Browne stood before a packed crowd at Platt's Music Hall, playing the part of Artemus Ward as an illiterate rube but with \"Yankee common sense.\" Writer Bret Harte was in the audience that night and he described it in the Golden Era as capturing American speech: \"humor that belongs to the country of boundless prairies, limitless rivers, and stupendous cataracts—that fun which overlies the surface of our national life, which is met in the stage, rail-car, canal and flat-boat, which bursts out over camp-fires and around bar-room stoves.\"",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "\"Artemus Ward\" was a favorite author of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Before presenting \"The Emancipation Proclamation\" to his Cabinet, Lincoln read to them the latest episode, \"Outrage in Utiky\", also known as \"High-Handed Outrage at Utica\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "When Browne performed in Virginia City, Nevada, he met Mark Twain and the two became friends. In his correspondence with Twain, Browne called him \"My Dearest Love.\" Legend has it that, following a stage performance there, Browne, Twain, and Dan De Quille were trekking on a (drunken) rooftop tour of Virginia City until a town constable threatened to blast all three with a shotgun loaded with rock salt. Browne recommended Twain to the editors of the New York Press and urged him to journey to New York.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1866, Browne visited England and attracted a large following to his playing Artemus Ward, both as lecturer and for his literary contributions to Punch. But within a year his health gave way and he died of tuberculosis at Southampton on March 6, 1867.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In England Browne was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, but his remains were removed to the United States in 1868 and buried at Elm Vale Cemetery in Waterford, Maine.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In Cleveland, where Browne started his comedy career, an elementary school is named after him, known as Artemus Ward Elementary on W. 140th Street. In the American Garden of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park, a monument of him was erected, next to Mark Twain.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] | Charles Farrar Browne was an American humor writer, better known under his nom de plume, Artemus Ward, which as a character, an illiterate rube with "Yankee common sense", Browne also played in public performances. He is considered to be America's first stand-up comedian. His birth name was Brown but he added the "e" after he became famous. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-09-22T22:38:02Z | [
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6,432 | Caelum | Caelum /ˈsiːləm/ is a faint constellation in the southern sky, introduced in the 1750s by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and counted among the 88 modern constellations. Its name means "chisel" in Latin, and it was formerly known as Caelum Sculptorium ("Engraver's Chisel"); it is a rare word, unrelated to the far more common Latin caelum, meaning "sky", "heaven", or "atmosphere". It is the eighth-smallest constellation, and subtends a solid angle of around 0.038 steradians, just less than that of Corona Australis.
Due to its small size and location away from the plane of the Milky Way, Caelum is a rather barren constellation, with few objects of interest. The constellation's brightest star, Alpha Caeli, is only of magnitude 4.45, and only one other star, (Gamma) γ Caeli, is brighter than magnitude 5 . Other notable objects in Caelum are RR Caeli, a binary star with one known planet approximately 20.13 parsecs (65.7 ly) away; X Caeli, a Delta Scuti variable that forms an optical double with γ Caeli; and HE0450-2958, a Seyfert galaxy that at first appeared as just a jet, with no host galaxy visible.
Caelum was incepted as one of fourteen southern constellations in the 18th century by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, a French astronomer and celebrated of the Age of Enlightenment. It retains its name Burin among French speakers, latinized in his catalogue of 1763 as Caelum Sculptoris (“Engraver's Chisel”).
Francis Baily shortened this name to Caelum, as suggested by John Herschel. In Lacaille's original chart, it was shown as a pair of engraver's tools: a standard burin and more specific shape-forming échoppe tied by a ribbon, but came to be ascribed a simple chisel. Johann Elert Bode stated the name as plural with a singular possessor, Caela Scalptoris – in German (die ) Grabstichel (“the Engraver’s Chisels”) – but this did not stick.
Caelum is bordered by Dorado and Pictor to the south, Horologium and Eridanus to the east, Lepus to the north, and Columba to the west. Covering only 125 square degrees, it ranks 81st of the 88 modern constellations in size.
Its main asterism consists of four stars, and twenty stars in total are brighter than magnitude 6.5 .
The constellation's boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are a 12-sided polygon. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 04 19.5 and 05 05.1 and declinations of −27.02° to −48.74°. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted the three-letter abbreviation “Cae” for the constellation in 1922.
Its main stars are visible in favourable conditions and with a clear southern horizon, for part of the year as far as about the 41st parallel north
These stars avoid being engulfed by daylight for some of every day (when above the horizon) to viewers in mid- and well-inhabited higher latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Caelum shares with (to the north) Taurus, Eridanus and Orion midnight culmination in December (high summer), resulting in this fact. In winter (such as June) the constellation can be observed sufficiently inset from the horizons during its rising before dawn and/or setting after dusk as it culminates then at around mid-day, well above the sun. In South Africa, Argentina, their sub-tropical neighbouring areas and some of Australia in high June the key stars may be traced before dawn in the east; near the equator the stars lose night potential in May to June; they ill-compete with the Sun in northern tropics and sub-tropics from late February to mid-September with March being unfavorable as to post-sunset due to the light of the Milky Way.
Caelum is a faint constellation: It has no star brighter than magnitude 4 and only two stars brighter than magnitude 5.
Lacaille gave six stars Bayer designations, labeling them Alpha (α ) to Zeta (ζ ) in 1756, but omitted Epsilon (ε ) and designated two adjacent stars as Gamma (γ ). Bode extended the designations to Rho (ρ ) for other stars, but most of these have fallen out of use. Caelum is too far south for any of its stars to bear Flamsteed designations.
The brightest star, (Alpha) α Caeli, is a double star, containing an F-type main-sequence star of magnitude 4.45 and a red dwarf of magnitude 12.5 , 20.17 parsecs (65.8 ly) from Earth. (Beta) β Caeli, another F-type star of magnitude 5.05 , is further away, being located 28.67 parsecs (93.5 ly) from Earth. Unlike α, β Caeli is a subgiant star, slightly evolved from the main sequence. (Delta) δ Caeli, also of magnitude 5.05 , is a B-type subgiant and is much farther from Earth, at 216 parsecs (700 ly).
(Gamma) γCaeli is a double-star with a red giant primary of magnitude 4.58 and a secondary of magnitude 8.1 . The primary is 55.59 parsecs (181.3 ly) from Earth. The two components are difficult to resolve with small amateur telescopes because of their difference in visual magnitude and their close separation. This star system forms an optical double with the unrelated X Caeli (previously named γCaeli), a Delta Scuti variable located 98.33 parsecs (320.7 ly) from Earth. These are a class of short-period (six hours at most) pulsating stars that have been used as standard candles and as subjects to study astroseismology. X Caeli itself is also a binary star, specifically a contact binary, meaning that the stars are so close that they share envelopes. The only other variable star in Caelum visible to the naked eye is RV Caeli, a pulsating red giant of spectral type M1III, which varies between magnitudes 6.44 and 6.56 .
Three other stars in Caelum are still occasionally referred to by their Bayer designations, although they are only on the edge of naked-eye visibility. (Nu) ν Caeli is another double star, containing a white giant of magnitude 6.07 and a star of magnitude 10.66, with unknown spectral type. The system is approximately 52.55 parsecs (171.4 ly) away. (Lambda) λ Caeli, at magnitude 6.24, is much redder and farther away, being a red giant around 227 parsecs (740 ly) from Earth. (Zeta) ζ Caeli is even fainter, being only of magnitude 6.36 . This star, located 132 parsecs (430 ly) away, is a K-type subgiant of spectral type K1. The other twelve naked-eye stars in Caelum are not referred to by Bode's Bayer designations anymore, including RV Caeli.
One of the nearest stars in Caelum is the eclipsing binary star RR Caeli, at a distance of 20.13 parsecs (65.7 ly). This star system consists of a dim red dwarf and a white dwarf. Despite its closeness to the Earth, the system's apparent magnitude is only 14.40 due to the faintness of its components, and thus it cannot be easily seen with amateur equipment. In 2012, the system was found to contain a giant planet, and there is evidence for a second substellar body. The system is a post-common-envelope binary and is losing angular momentum over time, which will eventually cause mass transfer from the red dwarf to the white dwarf. In approximately 9–20 billion years, this will cause the system to become a cataclysmic variable.
Due to its small size and location away from the plane of the Milky Way, Caelum is rather devoid of deep-sky objects, and contains no Messier objects. The only deep-sky object in Caelum to receive much attention is HE0450-2958, an unusual Seyfert galaxy. Originally, the jet's host galaxy proved elusive to find, and this jet appeared to be emanating from nothing. Although it has been suggested that the object is an ejected supermassive black hole, the host is now agreed to be a small galaxy that is difficult to see due to light from the jet and a nearby starburst galaxy.
The 13th magnitude planetary nebula PN G243-37.1 is also in the eastern regions of the constellation. It is one of only a few planetary nebulae found in the galactic halo, being 20000±14000 light-years below the Milky Way's 1000 light-year-thick disk.
Galaxies NGC 1595, NGC 1598, and the Carafe galaxy are known as the Carafe group. The Carafe galaxy is a Seyfert galaxy with ring. Its location is 4:28 / -47°54' (2000.0). | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Caelum /ˈsiːləm/ is a faint constellation in the southern sky, introduced in the 1750s by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and counted among the 88 modern constellations. Its name means \"chisel\" in Latin, and it was formerly known as Caelum Sculptorium (\"Engraver's Chisel\"); it is a rare word, unrelated to the far more common Latin caelum, meaning \"sky\", \"heaven\", or \"atmosphere\". It is the eighth-smallest constellation, and subtends a solid angle of around 0.038 steradians, just less than that of Corona Australis.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Due to its small size and location away from the plane of the Milky Way, Caelum is a rather barren constellation, with few objects of interest. The constellation's brightest star, Alpha Caeli, is only of magnitude 4.45, and only one other star, (Gamma) γ Caeli, is brighter than magnitude 5 . Other notable objects in Caelum are RR Caeli, a binary star with one known planet approximately 20.13 parsecs (65.7 ly) away; X Caeli, a Delta Scuti variable that forms an optical double with γ Caeli; and HE0450-2958, a Seyfert galaxy that at first appeared as just a jet, with no host galaxy visible.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Caelum was incepted as one of fourteen southern constellations in the 18th century by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, a French astronomer and celebrated of the Age of Enlightenment. It retains its name Burin among French speakers, latinized in his catalogue of 1763 as Caelum Sculptoris (“Engraver's Chisel”).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Francis Baily shortened this name to Caelum, as suggested by John Herschel. In Lacaille's original chart, it was shown as a pair of engraver's tools: a standard burin and more specific shape-forming échoppe tied by a ribbon, but came to be ascribed a simple chisel. Johann Elert Bode stated the name as plural with a singular possessor, Caela Scalptoris – in German (die ) Grabstichel (“the Engraver’s Chisels”) – but this did not stick.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Caelum is bordered by Dorado and Pictor to the south, Horologium and Eridanus to the east, Lepus to the north, and Columba to the west. Covering only 125 square degrees, it ranks 81st of the 88 modern constellations in size.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Its main asterism consists of four stars, and twenty stars in total are brighter than magnitude 6.5 .",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The constellation's boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are a 12-sided polygon. In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 04 19.5 and 05 05.1 and declinations of −27.02° to −48.74°. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) adopted the three-letter abbreviation “Cae” for the constellation in 1922.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Its main stars are visible in favourable conditions and with a clear southern horizon, for part of the year as far as about the 41st parallel north",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "These stars avoid being engulfed by daylight for some of every day (when above the horizon) to viewers in mid- and well-inhabited higher latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. Caelum shares with (to the north) Taurus, Eridanus and Orion midnight culmination in December (high summer), resulting in this fact. In winter (such as June) the constellation can be observed sufficiently inset from the horizons during its rising before dawn and/or setting after dusk as it culminates then at around mid-day, well above the sun. In South Africa, Argentina, their sub-tropical neighbouring areas and some of Australia in high June the key stars may be traced before dawn in the east; near the equator the stars lose night potential in May to June; they ill-compete with the Sun in northern tropics and sub-tropics from late February to mid-September with March being unfavorable as to post-sunset due to the light of the Milky Way.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Caelum is a faint constellation: It has no star brighter than magnitude 4 and only two stars brighter than magnitude 5.",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Lacaille gave six stars Bayer designations, labeling them Alpha (α ) to Zeta (ζ ) in 1756, but omitted Epsilon (ε ) and designated two adjacent stars as Gamma (γ ). Bode extended the designations to Rho (ρ ) for other stars, but most of these have fallen out of use. Caelum is too far south for any of its stars to bear Flamsteed designations.",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The brightest star, (Alpha) α Caeli, is a double star, containing an F-type main-sequence star of magnitude 4.45 and a red dwarf of magnitude 12.5 , 20.17 parsecs (65.8 ly) from Earth. (Beta) β Caeli, another F-type star of magnitude 5.05 , is further away, being located 28.67 parsecs (93.5 ly) from Earth. Unlike α, β Caeli is a subgiant star, slightly evolved from the main sequence. (Delta) δ Caeli, also of magnitude 5.05 , is a B-type subgiant and is much farther from Earth, at 216 parsecs (700 ly).",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "(Gamma) γCaeli is a double-star with a red giant primary of magnitude 4.58 and a secondary of magnitude 8.1 . The primary is 55.59 parsecs (181.3 ly) from Earth. The two components are difficult to resolve with small amateur telescopes because of their difference in visual magnitude and their close separation. This star system forms an optical double with the unrelated X Caeli (previously named γCaeli), a Delta Scuti variable located 98.33 parsecs (320.7 ly) from Earth. These are a class of short-period (six hours at most) pulsating stars that have been used as standard candles and as subjects to study astroseismology. X Caeli itself is also a binary star, specifically a contact binary, meaning that the stars are so close that they share envelopes. The only other variable star in Caelum visible to the naked eye is RV Caeli, a pulsating red giant of spectral type M1III, which varies between magnitudes 6.44 and 6.56 .",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Three other stars in Caelum are still occasionally referred to by their Bayer designations, although they are only on the edge of naked-eye visibility. (Nu) ν Caeli is another double star, containing a white giant of magnitude 6.07 and a star of magnitude 10.66, with unknown spectral type. The system is approximately 52.55 parsecs (171.4 ly) away. (Lambda) λ Caeli, at magnitude 6.24, is much redder and farther away, being a red giant around 227 parsecs (740 ly) from Earth. (Zeta) ζ Caeli is even fainter, being only of magnitude 6.36 . This star, located 132 parsecs (430 ly) away, is a K-type subgiant of spectral type K1. The other twelve naked-eye stars in Caelum are not referred to by Bode's Bayer designations anymore, including RV Caeli.",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "One of the nearest stars in Caelum is the eclipsing binary star RR Caeli, at a distance of 20.13 parsecs (65.7 ly). This star system consists of a dim red dwarf and a white dwarf. Despite its closeness to the Earth, the system's apparent magnitude is only 14.40 due to the faintness of its components, and thus it cannot be easily seen with amateur equipment. In 2012, the system was found to contain a giant planet, and there is evidence for a second substellar body. The system is a post-common-envelope binary and is losing angular momentum over time, which will eventually cause mass transfer from the red dwarf to the white dwarf. In approximately 9–20 billion years, this will cause the system to become a cataclysmic variable.",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Due to its small size and location away from the plane of the Milky Way, Caelum is rather devoid of deep-sky objects, and contains no Messier objects. The only deep-sky object in Caelum to receive much attention is HE0450-2958, an unusual Seyfert galaxy. Originally, the jet's host galaxy proved elusive to find, and this jet appeared to be emanating from nothing. Although it has been suggested that the object is an ejected supermassive black hole, the host is now agreed to be a small galaxy that is difficult to see due to light from the jet and a nearby starburst galaxy.",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The 13th magnitude planetary nebula PN G243-37.1 is also in the eastern regions of the constellation. It is one of only a few planetary nebulae found in the galactic halo, being 20000±14000 light-years below the Milky Way's 1000 light-year-thick disk.",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Galaxies NGC 1595, NGC 1598, and the Carafe galaxy are known as the Carafe group. The Carafe galaxy is a Seyfert galaxy with ring. Its location is 4:28 / -47°54' (2000.0).",
"title": "Notable features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
] | Caelum is a faint constellation in the southern sky, introduced in the 1750s by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and counted among the 88 modern constellations. Its name means "chisel" in Latin, and it was formerly known as Caelum Sculptorium; it is a rare word, unrelated to the far more common Latin caelum, meaning "sky", "heaven", or "atmosphere". It is the eighth-smallest constellation, and subtends a solid angle of around 0.038 steradians, just less than that of Corona Australis. Due to its small size and location away from the plane of the Milky Way, Caelum is a rather barren constellation, with few objects of interest. The constellation's brightest star, Alpha Caeli, is only of magnitude 4.45, and only one other star, (Gamma) γ 1 Caeli, is brighter than magnitude 5 . Other notable objects in Caelum are RR Caeli, a binary star with one known planet approximately 20.13 parsecs (65.7 ly) away; X Caeli, a Delta Scuti variable that forms an optical double with γ 1 Caeli; and HE0450-2958, a Seyfert galaxy that at first appeared as just a jet, with no host galaxy visible. | 2001-09-19T15:54:28Z | 2023-11-26T12:32:00Z | [
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6,433 | Clarinet | The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell.
Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches. The clarinet family is the largest woodwind family, ranging from the BB♭ contrabass to the E♭ soprano. The B♭ soprano clarinet is the most common type, and is the instrument usually indicated by the word "clarinet".
German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner is generally credited with inventing the clarinet sometime after 1698 by adding a register key to the chalumeau, an earlier single-reed instrument. Over time, additional keywork and airtight pads were added to improve the tone and playability. Today the clarinet is a standard fixture of the orchestra and concert band and is used in classical music, military bands, klezmer, jazz, and other styles.
The word clarinet may have entered the English language via the French clarinette (the feminine diminutive of Old French clarin), or from Provençal clarin ("oboe"), originating from the Latin root clarus ("clear"). The word is related to Middle English clarion, a type of trumpet, the name of which derives from the same root.
The earliest mention of the word clarinette being used for the instrument dates to a 1710 order placed by the Duke of Gronsfeld for two instruments made by Jacob Denner. The English form clarinet is found as early as 1733, and the now-archaic clarionet appears from 1784 until the early 20th century.
A person who plays the clarinet is called a clarinetist (in North American English), a clarinettist (in British English), or simply a clarinet player.
The clarinet's cylindrical bore is the main reason for its distinctive timbre, which varies between the three main registers (the chalumeau, clarion, and altissimo). The A and B♭ clarinets have nearly the same bore and nearly identical tonal quality, although the A typically has a slightly warmer sound. The tone of the E♭ clarinet is brighter and can be heard through loud orchestral textures. The bass clarinet has a characteristically deep, mellow sound, and the alto clarinet sounds similar to the bass, though not as dark.
Clarinets have the largest pitch range of common woodwinds. Nearly all soprano and piccolo clarinets have keywork enabling them to play the E below middle C as their lowest written note. The concert pitch that sounds depends on the individual instrument's transposition (this low E sounds as a concert D3 on a B♭ soprano clarinet, a whole tone lower than the written note). Some B♭ clarinets go to a written E♭3 to match the range of the A clarinet. Bass clarinets have keywork extending the low range to a written E♭ and some have additional keys to enable a written C3. Among the less common members of the clarinet family, contrabass clarinets may have keywork to written D3, C3, or B2; the basset clarinet and basset horn generally go to low C3. Defining the top end of a clarinet's range is difficult, since many advanced players can produce notes well above the highest notes commonly found in method books. G6 is usually the highest note encountered in classical repertoire, but fingerings as high as A7 exist.
The range of a clarinet can be divided into three distinct registers:
The three registers have characteristically different sounds—the chalumeau is rich and dark, the clarion is brighter and sweet, like a trumpet heard from afar, and the altissimo can be piercing and sometimes shrill.
The production of sound by a clarinet follows these steps:
In addition to this primary compression wave, other waves, known as harmonics, are created. Harmonics are caused by factors including the imperfect wobbling and shaking of the reed, the reed sealing the mouthpiece opening for part of the wave cycle (which creates a flattened section of the sound wave), and imperfections (bumps and holes) in the bore. A wide variety of compression waves are created, but only some (primarily the odd harmonics) are reinforced. This in combination with the cut-off frequency (where a significant drop in resonance occurs) results in the characteristic tone of the clarinet.
The bore is cylindrical for most of the tube with an inner bore diameter between 0.575 and 0.585 inches (14.6 and 14.9 mm), but there is a subtle hourglass shape, with the thinnest part below the junction between the upper and lower joint. This hourglass shape, although invisible to the naked eye, helps to correct the pitch and responsiveness of the instrument. The diameter of the bore affects the instrument's sound characteristics. The bell at the bottom of the clarinet flares out to improve the tone and tuning of the lowest notes. The fixed reed and fairly uniform diameter of the clarinet result in an acoustical performance approximating that of a cylindrical stopped pipe. Recorders use a tapered internal bore to overblow at the octave when the thumb/register hole is pinched open, while the clarinet, with its cylindrical bore, overblows at the twelfth.
Most modern clarinets have "undercut" tone holes that improve intonation and sound. Undercutting means chamfering the bottom edge of tone holes inside the bore. Acoustically, this makes the tone hole function as if it were larger, but its main function is to allow the air column to follow the curve up through the tone hole (surface tension) instead of "blowing past" it under the increasingly directional frequencies of the upper registers. Covering or uncovering the tone holes varies the length of the pipe, changing the resonant frequencies of the enclosed air column and hence the pitch. The player moves between the chalumeau and clarion registers through use of the register key. The open register key stops the fundamental frequency from being reinforced, making the reed vibrate at three times the frequency, which produces a note a twelfth above the original note.
Most woodwind instruments have a second register that begins an octave above the first (with notes at twice the frequency of the lower notes). With the aid of an 'octave' or 'register' key, the notes sound an octave higher as the fingering pattern repeats. These instruments are said to overblow at the octave. The clarinet differs, since it acts as a closed-pipe system. The low chalumeau register plays fundamentals, but the clarion (second) register plays the third harmonics, a perfect twelfth higher than the fundamentals. The clarinet is therefore said to overblow at the twelfth. The first several notes of the altissimo (third) range, aided by the register key and venting with the first left-hand hole, play the fifth harmonics, a perfect twelfth plus a major sixth above the fundamentals. The fifth and seventh harmonics are also available, sounding a further sixth and fourth (a flat, diminished fifth) higher respectively; these are the notes of the altissimo register.
The lip position and pressure, shaping of the vocal tract, choice of reed and mouthpiece, amount of air pressure created, and evenness of the airflow account for most of the player's ability to control the tone of a clarinet. Their vocal tract will be shaped to resonate at frequencies associated with the tone being produced. Vibrato, a pulsating change of pitch, is rare in classical literature; however, certain performers, such as Richard Stoltzman, use vibrato in classical music. Special fingerings and lip-bending may be used to play microtonal intervals. There have also been efforts to create a quarter tone clarinet.
Clarinet bodies have been made from a variety of materials including wood, plastic, hard rubber or Ebonite, metal, and ivory. The vast majority of wooden clarinets are made from African blackwood (grenadilla), or, more uncommonly, Honduran rosewood or cocobolo. Historically other woods, particularly boxwood and ebony, were used. Since the mid-20th century, clarinets (particularly student or band models) are also made from plastics, such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). One of the first such blends of plastic was Resonite, a term originally trademarked by Selmer. The Greenline model by Buffet Crampon is made from a composite of resin and the African blackwood powder left over from the manufacture of wooden clarinets.
Metal soprano clarinets were popular in the late 19th century, particularly for military use. Metal is still used for the bodies of some contra-alto and contrabass clarinets and the necks and bells of nearly all alto and larger clarinets.
Mouthpieces are generally made of hard rubber, although some inexpensive mouthpieces may be made of plastic. Other materials such as glass, wood, ivory, and metal have also been used. Ligatures are often made of metal and tightened using one or more adjustment screws; other materials include plastic, string, or fabric.
The clarinet uses a single reed made from the cane of Arundo donax. Reeds may also be manufactured from synthetic materials. The ligature fastens the reed to the mouthpiece. When air is blown through the opening between the reed and the mouthpiece facing, the reed vibrates and produces the clarinet's sound.
Most players buy manufactured reeds, although many make adjustments to these reeds, and some make their own reeds from cane "blanks". Reeds come in varying degrees of hardness, generally indicated on a scale from one (soft) through five (hard). This numbering system is not standardized—reeds with the same number often vary in hardness across manufacturers and models. Reed and mouthpiece characteristics work together to determine ease of playability and tonal characteristics.
The reed is attached to the mouthpiece by the ligature, and the top half-inch or so of this assembly is held in the player's mouth. In the past, string was used to bind the reed to the mouthpiece. The formation of the mouth around the mouthpiece and reed is called the embouchure. The reed is on the underside of the mouthpiece, pressing against the player's lower lip, while the top teeth normally contact the top of the mouthpiece (some players roll the upper lip under the top teeth to form what is called a 'double-lip' embouchure). Adjustments in the strength and shape of the embouchure change the tone and intonation. Players sometimes relieve the pressure on the upper teeth and inner lower lip by attaching a pad to the top of the mouthpiece or putting temporary cushioning on the lower teeth.
The mouthpiece attaches to the barrel. Tuning can be adjusted by using barrels of varying lengths or by pulling out the barrel to increase the instrument's length. On basset horns and lower clarinets, there is a curved metal neck instead of a barrel.
The main body of most clarinets has an upper joint, whose mechanism is mostly operated by the left hand, and a lower joint, mostly operated by the right hand. Some clarinets have a one-piece body. The modern soprano clarinet has numerous tone holes—seven are covered with the fingertips and the rest are operated using a set of 17 keys. The most common system of keys was named the Boehm system by its designer Hyacinthe Klosé after flute designer Theobald Boehm, but it is not the same as the Boehm system used on flutes. The other main key system is the Oehler system, which is used mostly in Germany and Austria. The related Albert system is used by some jazz, klezmer, and eastern European folk musicians. The Albert and Oehler systems are both based on the early Mueller system.
The cluster of keys at the bottom of the upper joint (protruding slightly beyond the cork of the joint) are known as the trill keys and are operated by the right hand. The entire weight of the smaller clarinets is supported by the right thumb behind the lower joint on what is called the thumb rest. Larger clarinets are supported with a neck strap or a floor peg.
Below the main body is a flared end known as the bell. The bell does not amplify the sound but improves the uniformity of the instrument's tone for the lowest notes in each register. For the other notes, the sound is produced almost entirely at the tone holes, and the bell is irrelevant. On basset horns and larger clarinets, the bell curves up and forward and is usually made of metal.
The clarinet has its roots in early single-reed instruments used in Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt. The modern clarinet developed from a Baroque instrument called the chalumeau. This instrument was similar to a recorder, but with a single-reed mouthpiece and a cylindrical bore. Lacking a register key, it was played mainly in its fundamental register, with a limited range of about one and a half octaves. It had eight finger holes, like a recorder, and a written pitch range from F3 to G4. At this time, contrary to modern practice, the reed was placed in contact with the upper lip.
Around the beginning of the 18th century the German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner (or possibly his son Jacob Denner) equipped a chalumeau in the alto register with two keys, one of which enabled access to a higher register. This second register did not begin an octave above the first, as with other woodwind instruments, but started an octave and a perfect fifth higher than the first. A second key, at the top, extended the range of the first register to A4 and, together with the register key, to B♭4. Later, Denner lengthened the bell and provided it with a third key to extend the pitch range down to E3.
After Denner's innovations, other makers added keys to improve tuning and facilitate fingerings and the chalumeau fell into disuse. The clarinet of the Classical period, as used by Mozart, typically had five keys. Mozart suggested extending the clarinet downwards by four semitones to C3, which resulted in the basset clarinet that was about 18 centimetres (7.1 in) longer, made first by Theodor Lotz. In 1791 Mozart composed the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A major for this instrument, with passages ranging down to C3. By the time of Beethoven (c. 1780–1820), the clarinet was a fixed member in the orchestra.
The number of keys was limited because their felt pads did not seal tightly. Baltic-German clarinetist and master clarinet maker Iwan Müller remedied this by countersinking the tone holes for the keys and covering the pads with soft leather. These leather pads sealed the holes better than felt, making it possible to equip the instrument with considerably more keys. In 1812 Müller presented a clarinet with seven finger holes and thirteen keys, which he called "clarinet omnitonic" since it was capable of playing in all keys. It was no longer necessary to use differently tuned clarinets for a different keys. Müller is also considered the inventor of the metal ligature and the thumb rest. During this period the typical embouchure also changed, orienting the mouthpiece with the reed facing downward. This was first recommended in 1782 and became standard by the 1830s.
In the late 1830s, German flute maker Theobald Böhm invented a ring and axle key system for the flute. This key system was first used on the clarinet between 1839 and 1843 by French clarinetist Hyacinthe Klosé in collaboration with instrument maker Louis Auguste Buffet. Their design introduced needle springs for the axles, and the ring keys simplified some complicated fingering patterns. The inventors called this the Boehm clarinet, although Böhm was not involved in its development and the system differed from the one used on the flute. Other key systems have been developed, many built around modifications to the basic Boehm system, including the Full Boehm, Mazzeo, McIntyre, the Benade NX, and the Reform Boehm system, which combined Boehm-system keywork with a German mouthpiece and bore.
The Albert clarinet was developed by Eugène Albert in 1848. This model was based on the Müller clarinet with some changes to keywork, and was also known as the "simple system". It included a "spectacle key" patented by Adolphe Sax and rollers to improve little-finger movement. After 1861, a "patent C sharp" key developed by Joseph Tyler was added to other clarinet models. Improved versions of Albert clarinets were built in Belgium and France for export to the UK and the US.
Around 1860, clarinettist Carl Baermann and instrument maker Georg Ottensteiner developed the patented Baermann/Ottensteiner clarinet. This instrument had new connecting levers, allowing multiple fingering options to operate some of the pads. The Brahms clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld used this clarinet, and the American clarinet soloist Charles Neidich has used a Baermann-Ottensteiner instrument for playing compositions by Brahms.
In the early 20th century, the German clarinetist and clarinet maker Oskar Oehler [de] presented a clarinet using similar fingerings to the Baermann instrument, with significantly more toneholes than the Böhm model. The new clarinet was called the Oehler system clarinet or German clarinet, while the Böhm clarinet has since been called the French clarinet. The French clarinet differs from the German not only in fingering but also in sound. Richard Strauss noted that "French clarinets have a flat, nasal tone, while German ones approximate the singing voice". Among modern instruments the difference is smaller, although intonation differences persist. The use of Oehler clarinets has continued in German and Austrian orchestras.
Today the Boehm system is standard everywhere except in Germany and Austria, where the Oehler clarinet is still used. Some contemporary Dixieland players continue to use Albert system clarinets. The Reform Boehm system is also popular in the Netherlands.
The modern orchestral standard of using soprano clarinets in B♭ and A has to do partly with the history of the instrument and partly with acoustics, aesthetics, and economics. Before about 1800, due to the lack of airtight pads, practical woodwinds could have only a few keys to control accidentals (notes outside their diatonic home scales). The low (chalumeau) register of the clarinet spans a twelfth (an octave plus a perfect fifth) before overblowing, so the clarinet needs keys/holes to produce all nineteen notes in this range. This involves more keywork than on instruments that "overblow" at the octave—oboes, flutes, bassoons, and saxophones need only twelve notes before overblowing. Since clarinets with few keys cannot play chromatically, they are limited to playing in closely related keys. For example, an eighteenth-century clarinet in C could play music in F, C, and G (and their relative minors) with good intonation, but with progressive difficulty and poorer intonation as the key moved away from this range. With the advent of airtight pads and improved key technology, more keys were added to woodwinds and the need for clarinets in multiple keys was reduced. The use of instruments in C, B♭, and A persisted, with each used as specified by the composer.
The lower-pitched clarinets sound "mellower" (less bright), and the C clarinet—the highest and brightest sounding of these three—fell out of favor as the other two could cover its range and their sound was considered better. While the clarinet in C began to fall out of general use around 1850, some composers continued to write C parts, e.g., Bizet's Symphony in C (1855), Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 (1872), Smetana's overture to The Bartered Bride (1866) and Má Vlast (1874), Dvořák's Slavonic Dance Op. 46, No. 1 (1878), Brahms' Symphony No. 4 (1885), Mahler's Symphony No. 6 (1906), and Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (1911).
While technical improvements and an equal-tempered scale reduced the need for two clarinets, the technical difficulty of playing in remote keys persisted, and the A has remained a standard orchestral instrument. By the late 19th century the orchestral clarinet repertoire contained so much music for clarinet in A that it has remained in use.
The orchestra frequently includes two clarinetists, each usually equipped with a B♭ and an A clarinet, and clarinet parts commonly alternate between the instruments. In the 20th century, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler employed many different clarinets, including the E♭ or D soprano clarinets, basset horn, bass clarinet, and/or contrabass clarinet. The practice of using different clarinets to achieve tonal variety was common in 20th-century classical music.
The E♭ clarinet, B♭ clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, and contra-alto/contrabass clarinet are commonly used in concert bands, which generally have multiple B♭ clarinets; there are commonly three or even four B♭ clarinet parts with two to three players per part.
The clarinet is widely used as a solo instrument. The clarinet evolved later than other orchestral woodwind instruments, leaving solo repertoire from the Classical period onward, but few works from the Baroque era. Many clarinet concertos and clarinet sonatas have been written to showcase the instrument, for example those by Mozart and Weber.
Many works of chamber music have been written for the clarinet. Common combinations are:
Groups of clarinets playing together have become increasingly popular among clarinet enthusiasts in recent years. Common forms are:
The clarinet was a central instrument in jazz, beginning with early jazz players in the 1910s. It remained a signature instrument of the genre through much of the big band era into the 1940s. American players Alphonse Picou, Larry Shields, Jimmie Noone, Johnny Dodds, and Sidney Bechet were all prominent early jazz clarinet players. Swing performers such as Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw rose to prominence in the late 1930s.
Beginning in the 1940s, the clarinet faded from its prominent position in jazz. By that time, an interest in Dixieland, a revival of traditional New Orleans jazz, had begun. Pete Fountain was one of the best known performers in this genre. The clarinet's place in the jazz ensemble was usurped by the saxophone, which projects a more powerful sound and uses a less complicated fingering system. The clarinet did not entirely disappear from jazz—prominent players since the 1950s include Stan Hasselgård, Jimmy Giuffre, Eric Dolphy (on bass clarinet), Perry Robinson, and John Carter. In the US, the prominent players on the instrument since the 1980s have included Eddie Daniels, Don Byron, Marty Ehrlich, Ken Peplowski, and others playing in both traditional and contemporary styles.
The clarinet is uncommon, but not unheard of, in rock music. Jerry Martini played clarinet on Sly and the Family Stone's 1968 hit, "Dance to the Music". The Beatles included a trio of clarinets in "When I'm Sixty-Four" from their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. A clarinet is prominently featured in what a Billboard reviewer termed a "Benny Goodman-flavored clarinet solo" in "Breakfast in America", the title song from the Supertramp album of the same name.
Clarinets feature prominently in klezmer music, which employs a distinctive style of playing. The popular Brazilian music style of choro uses the clarinet, as does Albanian saze and Greek kompania folk music, and Bulgarian wedding music. In Turkish folk music, the Albert system clarinet in G is often used, commonly called a "Turkish clarinet". | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches. The clarinet family is the largest woodwind family, ranging from the BB♭ contrabass to the E♭ soprano. The B♭ soprano clarinet is the most common type, and is the instrument usually indicated by the word \"clarinet\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner is generally credited with inventing the clarinet sometime after 1698 by adding a register key to the chalumeau, an earlier single-reed instrument. Over time, additional keywork and airtight pads were added to improve the tone and playability. Today the clarinet is a standard fixture of the orchestra and concert band and is used in classical music, military bands, klezmer, jazz, and other styles.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The word clarinet may have entered the English language via the French clarinette (the feminine diminutive of Old French clarin), or from Provençal clarin (\"oboe\"), originating from the Latin root clarus (\"clear\"). The word is related to Middle English clarion, a type of trumpet, the name of which derives from the same root.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The earliest mention of the word clarinette being used for the instrument dates to a 1710 order placed by the Duke of Gronsfeld for two instruments made by Jacob Denner. The English form clarinet is found as early as 1733, and the now-archaic clarionet appears from 1784 until the early 20th century.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A person who plays the clarinet is called a clarinetist (in North American English), a clarinettist (in British English), or simply a clarinet player.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The clarinet's cylindrical bore is the main reason for its distinctive timbre, which varies between the three main registers (the chalumeau, clarion, and altissimo). The A and B♭ clarinets have nearly the same bore and nearly identical tonal quality, although the A typically has a slightly warmer sound. The tone of the E♭ clarinet is brighter and can be heard through loud orchestral textures. The bass clarinet has a characteristically deep, mellow sound, and the alto clarinet sounds similar to the bass, though not as dark.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Clarinets have the largest pitch range of common woodwinds. Nearly all soprano and piccolo clarinets have keywork enabling them to play the E below middle C as their lowest written note. The concert pitch that sounds depends on the individual instrument's transposition (this low E sounds as a concert D3 on a B♭ soprano clarinet, a whole tone lower than the written note). Some B♭ clarinets go to a written E♭3 to match the range of the A clarinet. Bass clarinets have keywork extending the low range to a written E♭ and some have additional keys to enable a written C3. Among the less common members of the clarinet family, contrabass clarinets may have keywork to written D3, C3, or B2; the basset clarinet and basset horn generally go to low C3. Defining the top end of a clarinet's range is difficult, since many advanced players can produce notes well above the highest notes commonly found in method books. G6 is usually the highest note encountered in classical repertoire, but fingerings as high as A7 exist.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The range of a clarinet can be divided into three distinct registers:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The three registers have characteristically different sounds—the chalumeau is rich and dark, the clarion is brighter and sweet, like a trumpet heard from afar, and the altissimo can be piercing and sometimes shrill.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The production of sound by a clarinet follows these steps:",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In addition to this primary compression wave, other waves, known as harmonics, are created. Harmonics are caused by factors including the imperfect wobbling and shaking of the reed, the reed sealing the mouthpiece opening for part of the wave cycle (which creates a flattened section of the sound wave), and imperfections (bumps and holes) in the bore. A wide variety of compression waves are created, but only some (primarily the odd harmonics) are reinforced. This in combination with the cut-off frequency (where a significant drop in resonance occurs) results in the characteristic tone of the clarinet.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The bore is cylindrical for most of the tube with an inner bore diameter between 0.575 and 0.585 inches (14.6 and 14.9 mm), but there is a subtle hourglass shape, with the thinnest part below the junction between the upper and lower joint. This hourglass shape, although invisible to the naked eye, helps to correct the pitch and responsiveness of the instrument. The diameter of the bore affects the instrument's sound characteristics. The bell at the bottom of the clarinet flares out to improve the tone and tuning of the lowest notes. The fixed reed and fairly uniform diameter of the clarinet result in an acoustical performance approximating that of a cylindrical stopped pipe. Recorders use a tapered internal bore to overblow at the octave when the thumb/register hole is pinched open, while the clarinet, with its cylindrical bore, overblows at the twelfth.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Most modern clarinets have \"undercut\" tone holes that improve intonation and sound. Undercutting means chamfering the bottom edge of tone holes inside the bore. Acoustically, this makes the tone hole function as if it were larger, but its main function is to allow the air column to follow the curve up through the tone hole (surface tension) instead of \"blowing past\" it under the increasingly directional frequencies of the upper registers. Covering or uncovering the tone holes varies the length of the pipe, changing the resonant frequencies of the enclosed air column and hence the pitch. The player moves between the chalumeau and clarion registers through use of the register key. The open register key stops the fundamental frequency from being reinforced, making the reed vibrate at three times the frequency, which produces a note a twelfth above the original note.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Most woodwind instruments have a second register that begins an octave above the first (with notes at twice the frequency of the lower notes). With the aid of an 'octave' or 'register' key, the notes sound an octave higher as the fingering pattern repeats. These instruments are said to overblow at the octave. The clarinet differs, since it acts as a closed-pipe system. The low chalumeau register plays fundamentals, but the clarion (second) register plays the third harmonics, a perfect twelfth higher than the fundamentals. The clarinet is therefore said to overblow at the twelfth. The first several notes of the altissimo (third) range, aided by the register key and venting with the first left-hand hole, play the fifth harmonics, a perfect twelfth plus a major sixth above the fundamentals. The fifth and seventh harmonics are also available, sounding a further sixth and fourth (a flat, diminished fifth) higher respectively; these are the notes of the altissimo register.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The lip position and pressure, shaping of the vocal tract, choice of reed and mouthpiece, amount of air pressure created, and evenness of the airflow account for most of the player's ability to control the tone of a clarinet. Their vocal tract will be shaped to resonate at frequencies associated with the tone being produced. Vibrato, a pulsating change of pitch, is rare in classical literature; however, certain performers, such as Richard Stoltzman, use vibrato in classical music. Special fingerings and lip-bending may be used to play microtonal intervals. There have also been efforts to create a quarter tone clarinet.",
"title": "Characteristics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Clarinet bodies have been made from a variety of materials including wood, plastic, hard rubber or Ebonite, metal, and ivory. The vast majority of wooden clarinets are made from African blackwood (grenadilla), or, more uncommonly, Honduran rosewood or cocobolo. Historically other woods, particularly boxwood and ebony, were used. Since the mid-20th century, clarinets (particularly student or band models) are also made from plastics, such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). One of the first such blends of plastic was Resonite, a term originally trademarked by Selmer. The Greenline model by Buffet Crampon is made from a composite of resin and the African blackwood powder left over from the manufacture of wooden clarinets.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Metal soprano clarinets were popular in the late 19th century, particularly for military use. Metal is still used for the bodies of some contra-alto and contrabass clarinets and the necks and bells of nearly all alto and larger clarinets.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Mouthpieces are generally made of hard rubber, although some inexpensive mouthpieces may be made of plastic. Other materials such as glass, wood, ivory, and metal have also been used. Ligatures are often made of metal and tightened using one or more adjustment screws; other materials include plastic, string, or fabric.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The clarinet uses a single reed made from the cane of Arundo donax. Reeds may also be manufactured from synthetic materials. The ligature fastens the reed to the mouthpiece. When air is blown through the opening between the reed and the mouthpiece facing, the reed vibrates and produces the clarinet's sound.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Most players buy manufactured reeds, although many make adjustments to these reeds, and some make their own reeds from cane \"blanks\". Reeds come in varying degrees of hardness, generally indicated on a scale from one (soft) through five (hard). This numbering system is not standardized—reeds with the same number often vary in hardness across manufacturers and models. Reed and mouthpiece characteristics work together to determine ease of playability and tonal characteristics.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The reed is attached to the mouthpiece by the ligature, and the top half-inch or so of this assembly is held in the player's mouth. In the past, string was used to bind the reed to the mouthpiece. The formation of the mouth around the mouthpiece and reed is called the embouchure. The reed is on the underside of the mouthpiece, pressing against the player's lower lip, while the top teeth normally contact the top of the mouthpiece (some players roll the upper lip under the top teeth to form what is called a 'double-lip' embouchure). Adjustments in the strength and shape of the embouchure change the tone and intonation. Players sometimes relieve the pressure on the upper teeth and inner lower lip by attaching a pad to the top of the mouthpiece or putting temporary cushioning on the lower teeth.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The mouthpiece attaches to the barrel. Tuning can be adjusted by using barrels of varying lengths or by pulling out the barrel to increase the instrument's length. On basset horns and lower clarinets, there is a curved metal neck instead of a barrel.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The main body of most clarinets has an upper joint, whose mechanism is mostly operated by the left hand, and a lower joint, mostly operated by the right hand. Some clarinets have a one-piece body. The modern soprano clarinet has numerous tone holes—seven are covered with the fingertips and the rest are operated using a set of 17 keys. The most common system of keys was named the Boehm system by its designer Hyacinthe Klosé after flute designer Theobald Boehm, but it is not the same as the Boehm system used on flutes. The other main key system is the Oehler system, which is used mostly in Germany and Austria. The related Albert system is used by some jazz, klezmer, and eastern European folk musicians. The Albert and Oehler systems are both based on the early Mueller system.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The cluster of keys at the bottom of the upper joint (protruding slightly beyond the cork of the joint) are known as the trill keys and are operated by the right hand. The entire weight of the smaller clarinets is supported by the right thumb behind the lower joint on what is called the thumb rest. Larger clarinets are supported with a neck strap or a floor peg.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Below the main body is a flared end known as the bell. The bell does not amplify the sound but improves the uniformity of the instrument's tone for the lowest notes in each register. For the other notes, the sound is produced almost entirely at the tone holes, and the bell is irrelevant. On basset horns and larger clarinets, the bell curves up and forward and is usually made of metal.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The clarinet has its roots in early single-reed instruments used in Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt. The modern clarinet developed from a Baroque instrument called the chalumeau. This instrument was similar to a recorder, but with a single-reed mouthpiece and a cylindrical bore. Lacking a register key, it was played mainly in its fundamental register, with a limited range of about one and a half octaves. It had eight finger holes, like a recorder, and a written pitch range from F3 to G4. At this time, contrary to modern practice, the reed was placed in contact with the upper lip.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Around the beginning of the 18th century the German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner (or possibly his son Jacob Denner) equipped a chalumeau in the alto register with two keys, one of which enabled access to a higher register. This second register did not begin an octave above the first, as with other woodwind instruments, but started an octave and a perfect fifth higher than the first. A second key, at the top, extended the range of the first register to A4 and, together with the register key, to B♭4. Later, Denner lengthened the bell and provided it with a third key to extend the pitch range down to E3.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "After Denner's innovations, other makers added keys to improve tuning and facilitate fingerings and the chalumeau fell into disuse. The clarinet of the Classical period, as used by Mozart, typically had five keys. Mozart suggested extending the clarinet downwards by four semitones to C3, which resulted in the basset clarinet that was about 18 centimetres (7.1 in) longer, made first by Theodor Lotz. In 1791 Mozart composed the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra in A major for this instrument, with passages ranging down to C3. By the time of Beethoven (c. 1780–1820), the clarinet was a fixed member in the orchestra.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The number of keys was limited because their felt pads did not seal tightly. Baltic-German clarinetist and master clarinet maker Iwan Müller remedied this by countersinking the tone holes for the keys and covering the pads with soft leather. These leather pads sealed the holes better than felt, making it possible to equip the instrument with considerably more keys. In 1812 Müller presented a clarinet with seven finger holes and thirteen keys, which he called \"clarinet omnitonic\" since it was capable of playing in all keys. It was no longer necessary to use differently tuned clarinets for a different keys. Müller is also considered the inventor of the metal ligature and the thumb rest. During this period the typical embouchure also changed, orienting the mouthpiece with the reed facing downward. This was first recommended in 1782 and became standard by the 1830s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In the late 1830s, German flute maker Theobald Böhm invented a ring and axle key system for the flute. This key system was first used on the clarinet between 1839 and 1843 by French clarinetist Hyacinthe Klosé in collaboration with instrument maker Louis Auguste Buffet. Their design introduced needle springs for the axles, and the ring keys simplified some complicated fingering patterns. The inventors called this the Boehm clarinet, although Böhm was not involved in its development and the system differed from the one used on the flute. Other key systems have been developed, many built around modifications to the basic Boehm system, including the Full Boehm, Mazzeo, McIntyre, the Benade NX, and the Reform Boehm system, which combined Boehm-system keywork with a German mouthpiece and bore.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Albert clarinet was developed by Eugène Albert in 1848. This model was based on the Müller clarinet with some changes to keywork, and was also known as the \"simple system\". It included a \"spectacle key\" patented by Adolphe Sax and rollers to improve little-finger movement. After 1861, a \"patent C sharp\" key developed by Joseph Tyler was added to other clarinet models. Improved versions of Albert clarinets were built in Belgium and France for export to the UK and the US.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Around 1860, clarinettist Carl Baermann and instrument maker Georg Ottensteiner developed the patented Baermann/Ottensteiner clarinet. This instrument had new connecting levers, allowing multiple fingering options to operate some of the pads. The Brahms clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld used this clarinet, and the American clarinet soloist Charles Neidich has used a Baermann-Ottensteiner instrument for playing compositions by Brahms.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In the early 20th century, the German clarinetist and clarinet maker Oskar Oehler [de] presented a clarinet using similar fingerings to the Baermann instrument, with significantly more toneholes than the Böhm model. The new clarinet was called the Oehler system clarinet or German clarinet, while the Böhm clarinet has since been called the French clarinet. The French clarinet differs from the German not only in fingering but also in sound. Richard Strauss noted that \"French clarinets have a flat, nasal tone, while German ones approximate the singing voice\". Among modern instruments the difference is smaller, although intonation differences persist. The use of Oehler clarinets has continued in German and Austrian orchestras.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Today the Boehm system is standard everywhere except in Germany and Austria, where the Oehler clarinet is still used. Some contemporary Dixieland players continue to use Albert system clarinets. The Reform Boehm system is also popular in the Netherlands.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The modern orchestral standard of using soprano clarinets in B♭ and A has to do partly with the history of the instrument and partly with acoustics, aesthetics, and economics. Before about 1800, due to the lack of airtight pads, practical woodwinds could have only a few keys to control accidentals (notes outside their diatonic home scales). The low (chalumeau) register of the clarinet spans a twelfth (an octave plus a perfect fifth) before overblowing, so the clarinet needs keys/holes to produce all nineteen notes in this range. This involves more keywork than on instruments that \"overblow\" at the octave—oboes, flutes, bassoons, and saxophones need only twelve notes before overblowing. Since clarinets with few keys cannot play chromatically, they are limited to playing in closely related keys. For example, an eighteenth-century clarinet in C could play music in F, C, and G (and their relative minors) with good intonation, but with progressive difficulty and poorer intonation as the key moved away from this range. With the advent of airtight pads and improved key technology, more keys were added to woodwinds and the need for clarinets in multiple keys was reduced. The use of instruments in C, B♭, and A persisted, with each used as specified by the composer.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The lower-pitched clarinets sound \"mellower\" (less bright), and the C clarinet—the highest and brightest sounding of these three—fell out of favor as the other two could cover its range and their sound was considered better. While the clarinet in C began to fall out of general use around 1850, some composers continued to write C parts, e.g., Bizet's Symphony in C (1855), Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 (1872), Smetana's overture to The Bartered Bride (1866) and Má Vlast (1874), Dvořák's Slavonic Dance Op. 46, No. 1 (1878), Brahms' Symphony No. 4 (1885), Mahler's Symphony No. 6 (1906), and Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier (1911).",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "While technical improvements and an equal-tempered scale reduced the need for two clarinets, the technical difficulty of playing in remote keys persisted, and the A has remained a standard orchestral instrument. By the late 19th century the orchestral clarinet repertoire contained so much music for clarinet in A that it has remained in use.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The orchestra frequently includes two clarinetists, each usually equipped with a B♭ and an A clarinet, and clarinet parts commonly alternate between the instruments. In the 20th century, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler employed many different clarinets, including the E♭ or D soprano clarinets, basset horn, bass clarinet, and/or contrabass clarinet. The practice of using different clarinets to achieve tonal variety was common in 20th-century classical music.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The E♭ clarinet, B♭ clarinet, alto clarinet, bass clarinet, and contra-alto/contrabass clarinet are commonly used in concert bands, which generally have multiple B♭ clarinets; there are commonly three or even four B♭ clarinet parts with two to three players per part.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The clarinet is widely used as a solo instrument. The clarinet evolved later than other orchestral woodwind instruments, leaving solo repertoire from the Classical period onward, but few works from the Baroque era. Many clarinet concertos and clarinet sonatas have been written to showcase the instrument, for example those by Mozart and Weber.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Many works of chamber music have been written for the clarinet. Common combinations are:",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Groups of clarinets playing together have become increasingly popular among clarinet enthusiasts in recent years. Common forms are:",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The clarinet was a central instrument in jazz, beginning with early jazz players in the 1910s. It remained a signature instrument of the genre through much of the big band era into the 1940s. American players Alphonse Picou, Larry Shields, Jimmie Noone, Johnny Dodds, and Sidney Bechet were all prominent early jazz clarinet players. Swing performers such as Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw rose to prominence in the late 1930s.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Beginning in the 1940s, the clarinet faded from its prominent position in jazz. By that time, an interest in Dixieland, a revival of traditional New Orleans jazz, had begun. Pete Fountain was one of the best known performers in this genre. The clarinet's place in the jazz ensemble was usurped by the saxophone, which projects a more powerful sound and uses a less complicated fingering system. The clarinet did not entirely disappear from jazz—prominent players since the 1950s include Stan Hasselgård, Jimmy Giuffre, Eric Dolphy (on bass clarinet), Perry Robinson, and John Carter. In the US, the prominent players on the instrument since the 1980s have included Eddie Daniels, Don Byron, Marty Ehrlich, Ken Peplowski, and others playing in both traditional and contemporary styles.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The clarinet is uncommon, but not unheard of, in rock music. Jerry Martini played clarinet on Sly and the Family Stone's 1968 hit, \"Dance to the Music\". The Beatles included a trio of clarinets in \"When I'm Sixty-Four\" from their Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. A clarinet is prominently featured in what a Billboard reviewer termed a \"Benny Goodman-flavored clarinet solo\" in \"Breakfast in America\", the title song from the Supertramp album of the same name.",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Clarinets feature prominently in klezmer music, which employs a distinctive style of playing. The popular Brazilian music style of choro uses the clarinet, as does Albanian saze and Greek kompania folk music, and Bulgarian wedding music. In Turkish folk music, the Albert system clarinet in G is often used, commonly called a \"Turkish clarinet\".",
"title": "Usage and repertoire"
}
] | The clarinet is a single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches. The clarinet family is the largest woodwind family, ranging from the BB♭ contrabass to the E♭ soprano. The B♭ soprano clarinet is the most common type, and is the instrument usually indicated by the word "clarinet". German instrument maker Johann Christoph Denner is generally credited with inventing the clarinet sometime after 1698 by adding a register key to the chalumeau, an earlier single-reed instrument. Over time, additional keywork and airtight pads were added to improve the tone and playability. Today the clarinet is a standard fixture of the orchestra and concert band and is used in classical music, military bands, klezmer, jazz, and other styles. | 2001-09-18T12:23:31Z | 2023-12-16T11:27:31Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarinet |
6,434 | Chojnów | Chojnów [ˈxɔjnuf] (German: Haynau, Silesian German: Hoyn, Silesian language: Chojnůw) is a small town in Legnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is located on the Skora river, a tributary of the Kaczawa at an average altitude of 170 m (560 ft) above sea level. Chojnów is the administrative seat of the rural gmina called Gmina Chojnów, although the town is not part of its territory and forms a separate urban gmina. As of December 2021, the town has 13,002 inhabitants.
Chojnów is located 18 km (11 mi) west of Legnica, 26 km (16 mi) east from Bolesławiec and 18 km (11 mi) north of Złotoryja, 5 km (3.1 mi) from the A4 motorway. It has railroad connections to Bolesławiec and Legnica.
The Chojnów coat of arms is a blue escutcheon featuring a white castle with three towers. To the right side of the central tower is a silver crescent moon and to its left side a golden sun. In the gate of the castle is a Silesian Eagle on a yellow background. Chojnów's motto is "Friendly City".
Chojnów is located in the Central-Western part of the Lower Silesia region. The Skora (Leather) River flows through the town in a westerly direction. The city of Chojnów is 5.32 km (2.05 sq mi) in area, including 41% agricultural land.
Chojnów has a connection with the major cities of the country (road and rail) and located 5 kilometres (3 miles) south of Chojnów has the A4 Autostrada. To the South of the town is the surrounding Chojnowska Plain.
The town is first mentioned in a Latin mediaeval document issued in Wrocław on February 26, 1253, stating, the Silesian Duke Henry III when the town is mentioned under the name Honowo. Possible the name of nearby Hainau Island. The name is of Polish origin, and in more modern records from the 19th century, the Polish name appears as Hajnów, while Haynau is the Germanized version of the original Polish name.
The settlement of Haynow was mentioned in a 1272 deed. It was already called a civitas in a 1288 document issued by the Piast duke Henry V of Legnica, and officially received town privileges in 1333 from Duke Bolesław III the Generous. It was part of the duchies of Wrocław, Głogów and Legnica of fragmented Poland and remained under the rule of the Piast dynasty until 1675. Its population was predominantly Polish. In 1292 the first castellan of Chojnów, Bronisław Budziwojowic, was mentioned. In the 14th and early 15th centuries Chojnów was granted various privileges, including staple right and gold mining right, thanks to which it flourished.
The town survived the Hussites, who burned almost the entire town center and castle, but it quickly helped recover its former glory. The largest boom Chojnów experienced was in the 16th century, however by the end of that century began to decline due to fires and epidemic, which claimed many victims in 1613. During the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), there was another outbreak in the city, it was occupied by the Austrians and Swedes and in 1642 it was also plundered by the Swedes. It remained part of the Piast-ruled Duchy of Legnica until its dissolution in 1675, when it was incorporated to Habsburg-ruled Bohemia.
In the 18th century, cloth production developed and a clothmaking school was established in the town. One of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town in the 18th century and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland traveled that route numerous times. In 1740 the town was captured by Prussia and subsequently annexed in 1742. In 1804 it suffered a flood. During the Napoleonic wars there were more epidemics. In 1813 in Chojnów, Napoleon Bonaparte issued instructions regarding the reorganization of the 8th Polish Corps of Prince Józef Poniatowski. The event is commemorated by a plaque in the facade of the Piast Castle. A railway line was opened in the 19th century. Sewer, Gas lighting a Newspaper and a hospital soon followed as the towns economy improved.
The city was not spared in World War II, with 30% of the town being destroyed on February 10, 1945, when Soviet Red Army troops took the abandoned town. After World War II and the implementation of the Oder-Neisse line in 1945, the town passed to the Republic of Poland. It was repopulated by Poles, expelled from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. In 1946 it was renamed Chojnów, a more modern version of the old Polish Hajnów. Also Greeks, refugees of the Greek Civil War, settled in Chojnów.
Chojnów is an industrial and agricultural town. Among local products are: paper, agricultural machinery, chains, metal furniture for hospitals, equipment for the meat industry, beer, wine, leather clothing, and clothing for infants, children and adults.
Among the interesting monuments of Chojnów are the 13th-century castle of the Dukes of Legnica (currently used as a museum), two old churches, the Baszta Tkaczy (Weavers' Tower) and preserved fragments of city walls.
The biggest green area in Chojnów is small forest Park Piastowski (Piast's Park), named after Piast dynasty. Wild animals that can be found in the Chojnów area are roe deer, foxes, rabbits and wild domestic animals, especially cats.
Every year in the first days of June, the Days of Chojnów (Dni Chojnowa) are celebrated. The Whole-Poland bike race Masters has been organized yearly in Chojnów for the past few years.
Chojnów has a Municipal sports and recreation center formed in 2008 holding various events, festivals, reviews, exhibitions, and competitions. The regional Museum is housed in the old Piast era castle. The collections include tiles, relics, and the castle garden. Next to the Museum there is a municipal library. In śródmiejskim Park, near the Town Hall is the amphitheatre.
The local government-run weekly newspaper is Gazeta Chojnowska, which has been published since 1992. It is published biweekly. Editions have a run of 900 copies and it is one of the oldest newspapers in Poland issued without interruption. The Chojnów is the official newspaper of Chojnów with copy run of 750 copies.
In Chojnów, there are two kindergartens, two elementary schools and two middle schools.
Chojnów is in the Catholic deanery of Chojnów and has two parishes, Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and also the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Both parishes have active congregations. There are also two Congregations of Jehovah's witnesses.
Chojnów is twinned with: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Chojnów [ˈxɔjnuf] (German: Haynau, Silesian German: Hoyn, Silesian language: Chojnůw) is a small town in Legnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is located on the Skora river, a tributary of the Kaczawa at an average altitude of 170 m (560 ft) above sea level. Chojnów is the administrative seat of the rural gmina called Gmina Chojnów, although the town is not part of its territory and forms a separate urban gmina. As of December 2021, the town has 13,002 inhabitants.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Chojnów is located 18 km (11 mi) west of Legnica, 26 km (16 mi) east from Bolesławiec and 18 km (11 mi) north of Złotoryja, 5 km (3.1 mi) from the A4 motorway. It has railroad connections to Bolesławiec and Legnica.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Chojnów coat of arms is a blue escutcheon featuring a white castle with three towers. To the right side of the central tower is a silver crescent moon and to its left side a golden sun. In the gate of the castle is a Silesian Eagle on a yellow background. Chojnów's motto is \"Friendly City\".",
"title": "Heraldry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Chojnów is located in the Central-Western part of the Lower Silesia region. The Skora (Leather) River flows through the town in a westerly direction. The city of Chojnów is 5.32 km (2.05 sq mi) in area, including 41% agricultural land.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Chojnów has a connection with the major cities of the country (road and rail) and located 5 kilometres (3 miles) south of Chojnów has the A4 Autostrada. To the South of the town is the surrounding Chojnowska Plain.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The town is first mentioned in a Latin mediaeval document issued in Wrocław on February 26, 1253, stating, the Silesian Duke Henry III when the town is mentioned under the name Honowo. Possible the name of nearby Hainau Island. The name is of Polish origin, and in more modern records from the 19th century, the Polish name appears as Hajnów, while Haynau is the Germanized version of the original Polish name.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The settlement of Haynow was mentioned in a 1272 deed. It was already called a civitas in a 1288 document issued by the Piast duke Henry V of Legnica, and officially received town privileges in 1333 from Duke Bolesław III the Generous. It was part of the duchies of Wrocław, Głogów and Legnica of fragmented Poland and remained under the rule of the Piast dynasty until 1675. Its population was predominantly Polish. In 1292 the first castellan of Chojnów, Bronisław Budziwojowic, was mentioned. In the 14th and early 15th centuries Chojnów was granted various privileges, including staple right and gold mining right, thanks to which it flourished.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The town survived the Hussites, who burned almost the entire town center and castle, but it quickly helped recover its former glory. The largest boom Chojnów experienced was in the 16th century, however by the end of that century began to decline due to fires and epidemic, which claimed many victims in 1613. During the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), there was another outbreak in the city, it was occupied by the Austrians and Swedes and in 1642 it was also plundered by the Swedes. It remained part of the Piast-ruled Duchy of Legnica until its dissolution in 1675, when it was incorporated to Habsburg-ruled Bohemia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the 18th century, cloth production developed and a clothmaking school was established in the town. One of two main routes connecting Warsaw and Dresden ran through the town in the 18th century and Kings Augustus II the Strong and Augustus III of Poland traveled that route numerous times. In 1740 the town was captured by Prussia and subsequently annexed in 1742. In 1804 it suffered a flood. During the Napoleonic wars there were more epidemics. In 1813 in Chojnów, Napoleon Bonaparte issued instructions regarding the reorganization of the 8th Polish Corps of Prince Józef Poniatowski. The event is commemorated by a plaque in the facade of the Piast Castle. A railway line was opened in the 19th century. Sewer, Gas lighting a Newspaper and a hospital soon followed as the towns economy improved.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The city was not spared in World War II, with 30% of the town being destroyed on February 10, 1945, when Soviet Red Army troops took the abandoned town. After World War II and the implementation of the Oder-Neisse line in 1945, the town passed to the Republic of Poland. It was repopulated by Poles, expelled from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union. In 1946 it was renamed Chojnów, a more modern version of the old Polish Hajnów. Also Greeks, refugees of the Greek Civil War, settled in Chojnów.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Chojnów is an industrial and agricultural town. Among local products are: paper, agricultural machinery, chains, metal furniture for hospitals, equipment for the meat industry, beer, wine, leather clothing, and clothing for infants, children and adults.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Among the interesting monuments of Chojnów are the 13th-century castle of the Dukes of Legnica (currently used as a museum), two old churches, the Baszta Tkaczy (Weavers' Tower) and preserved fragments of city walls.",
"title": "Sights and nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The biggest green area in Chojnów is small forest Park Piastowski (Piast's Park), named after Piast dynasty. Wild animals that can be found in the Chojnów area are roe deer, foxes, rabbits and wild domestic animals, especially cats.",
"title": "Sights and nature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Every year in the first days of June, the Days of Chojnów (Dni Chojnowa) are celebrated. The Whole-Poland bike race Masters has been organized yearly in Chojnów for the past few years.",
"title": "Culture and sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Chojnów has a Municipal sports and recreation center formed in 2008 holding various events, festivals, reviews, exhibitions, and competitions. The regional Museum is housed in the old Piast era castle. The collections include tiles, relics, and the castle garden. Next to the Museum there is a municipal library. In śródmiejskim Park, near the Town Hall is the amphitheatre.",
"title": "Culture and sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The local government-run weekly newspaper is Gazeta Chojnowska, which has been published since 1992. It is published biweekly. Editions have a run of 900 copies and it is one of the oldest newspapers in Poland issued without interruption. The Chojnów is the official newspaper of Chojnów with copy run of 750 copies.",
"title": "Culture and sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In Chojnów, there are two kindergartens, two elementary schools and two middle schools.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Chojnów is in the Catholic deanery of Chojnów and has two parishes, Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and also the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Both parishes have active congregations. There are also two Congregations of Jehovah's witnesses.",
"title": "Religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Chojnów is twinned with:",
"title": "Twin towns – sister cities"
}
] | Chojnów is a small town in Legnica County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It is located on the Skora river, a tributary of the Kaczawa at an average altitude of 170 m (560 ft) above sea level. Chojnów is the administrative seat of the rural gmina called Gmina Chojnów, although the town is not part of its territory and forms a separate urban gmina. As of December 2021, the town has 13,002 inhabitants. Chojnów is located 18 km (11 mi) west of Legnica, 26 km (16 mi) east from Bolesławiec and 18 km (11 mi) north of Złotoryja, 5 km (3.1 mi) from the A4 motorway. It has railroad connections to Bolesławiec and Legnica. | 2001-11-11T16:22:12Z | 2023-12-04T19:02:04Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chojn%C3%B3w |
6,435 | Canes Venatici | Canes Venatici (/ˈkeɪniːz vɪˈnætɪsaɪ/) is one of the 88 constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). It is a small northern constellation that was created by Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century. Its name is Latin for 'hunting dogs', and the constellation is often depicted in illustrations as representing the dogs of Boötes the Herdsman, a neighboring constellation.
Cor Caroli is the constellation's brightest star, with an apparent magnitude of 2.9. La Superba (Y CVn) is one of the reddest naked-eye stars and one of the brightest carbon stars. The Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral galaxy tilted face-on to observers on Earth, and was the first galaxy whose spiral nature was discerned. In addition, quasar Ton 618 is one of the most massive black holes with the mass of 66 billion solar masses.
The stars of Canes Venatici are not bright. In classical times, they were listed by Ptolemy as unfigured stars below the constellation Ursa Major in his star catalogue.
In medieval times, the identification of these stars with the dogs of Boötes arose through a mistranslation: some of Boötes's stars were traditionally described as representing the club (Greek: κολλοροβος, kollorobos) of Boötes. When the Greek astronomer Ptolemy's Almagest was translated from Greek to Arabic, the translator Hunayn ibn Ishaq did not know the Greek word and rendered it as a similar-sounding compound Arabic word for a kind of weapon, writing العصا ذات الكُلاب al-'aşā dhāt al-kullāb, which means 'the staff having a hook'.
When the Arabic text was later translated into Latin, the translator, Gerard of Cremona, mistook كُلاب kullāb ('hook') for كِلاب kilāb ('dogs'). Both written words look the same in Arabic text without diacritics, leading Gerard to write it as Hastile habens canes ('spearshaft-having dogs'). In 1533, the German astronomer Peter Apian depicted Boötes as having two dogs with him.
These spurious dogs floated about the astronomical literature until Hevelius decided to make them a separate constellation in 1687. Hevelius chose the name Asterion for the northern dog and Chara for the southern dog, as Canes Venatici, 'the hunting dogs', in his star atlas.
In his star catalogue, the Czech astronomer Antonín Bečvář assigned the names Asterion to β CVn and Chara to α CVn.
Although the International Astronomical Union dropped several constellations in 1930 that were medieval and Renaissance innovations, Canes Venatici survived to become one of the 88 IAU designated constellations.
Canes Venatici is bordered by Ursa Major to the north and west, Coma Berenices to the south, and Boötes to the east. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is "CVn". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 14 sides.
In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 12 06.2 and 14 07.3 , while the declination coordinates are between +27.84° and +52.36°. Covering 465 square degrees, it ranks 38th of the 88 constellations in size.
Canes Venatici contains no very bright stars. The Bayer designation stars, Alpha and Beta Canum Venaticorum are only of third and fourth magnitude respectively. Flamsteed catalogued 25 stars in the constellation, labelling them 1 to 25 Canum Venaticorum (CVn); however, 1 CVn turned out to be in Ursa Major, 13 CVn was in Coma Berenices, and 22 CVn did not exist.
The Giant Void, an extremely large void (part of the universe containing very few galaxies), is within the vicinity of this constellation. It is regarded to be the second largest void ever discovered, slightly larger than the Eridanus Supervoid and smaller than the proposed KBC Void and 1,200 times the volume of expected typical voids. It was discovered in 1988 in a deep-sky survey. Its centre is approximately 1.5 billion light-years away.
Canes Venatici contains five Messier objects, including four galaxies. One of the more significant galaxies in Canes Venatici is the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51, NGC 5194) and NGC 5195, a small barred spiral galaxy that is seen face-on. This was the first galaxy recognised as having a spiral structure, this structure being first observed by Lord Rosse in 1845. It is a face-on spiral galaxy 37 million light-years from Earth. Widely considered to be one of the most beautiful galaxies visible, M51 has many star-forming regions and nebulae in its arms, coloring them pink and blue in contrast to the older yellow core. M 51 has a smaller companion, NGC 5195, that has very few star-forming regions and thus appears yellow. It is passing behind M 51 and may be the cause of the larger galaxy's prodigious star formation.
Other notable spiral galaxies in Canes Venatici are the Sunflower Galaxy (M63, NGC 5055), M94 (NGC 4736), and M106 (NGC 4258).
Ton 618 is a hyperluminous quasar and blazar in this constellation, near its border with the neighboring Coma Berenices. It possesses a black hole with a mass 66 billion times that of the Sun, making it one of the most massive black holes ever measured. There is also a Lyman-alpha blob. | [
{
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"text": "Canes Venatici (/ˈkeɪniːz vɪˈnætɪsaɪ/) is one of the 88 constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). It is a small northern constellation that was created by Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century. Its name is Latin for 'hunting dogs', and the constellation is often depicted in illustrations as representing the dogs of Boötes the Herdsman, a neighboring constellation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cor Caroli is the constellation's brightest star, with an apparent magnitude of 2.9. La Superba (Y CVn) is one of the reddest naked-eye stars and one of the brightest carbon stars. The Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral galaxy tilted face-on to observers on Earth, and was the first galaxy whose spiral nature was discerned. In addition, quasar Ton 618 is one of the most massive black holes with the mass of 66 billion solar masses.",
"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "The stars of Canes Venatici are not bright. In classical times, they were listed by Ptolemy as unfigured stars below the constellation Ursa Major in his star catalogue.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In medieval times, the identification of these stars with the dogs of Boötes arose through a mistranslation: some of Boötes's stars were traditionally described as representing the club (Greek: κολλοροβος, kollorobos) of Boötes. When the Greek astronomer Ptolemy's Almagest was translated from Greek to Arabic, the translator Hunayn ibn Ishaq did not know the Greek word and rendered it as a similar-sounding compound Arabic word for a kind of weapon, writing العصا ذات الكُلاب al-'aşā dhāt al-kullāb, which means 'the staff having a hook'.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "When the Arabic text was later translated into Latin, the translator, Gerard of Cremona, mistook كُلاب kullāb ('hook') for كِلاب kilāb ('dogs'). Both written words look the same in Arabic text without diacritics, leading Gerard to write it as Hastile habens canes ('spearshaft-having dogs'). In 1533, the German astronomer Peter Apian depicted Boötes as having two dogs with him.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "These spurious dogs floated about the astronomical literature until Hevelius decided to make them a separate constellation in 1687. Hevelius chose the name Asterion for the northern dog and Chara for the southern dog, as Canes Venatici, 'the hunting dogs', in his star atlas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In his star catalogue, the Czech astronomer Antonín Bečvář assigned the names Asterion to β CVn and Chara to α CVn.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Although the International Astronomical Union dropped several constellations in 1930 that were medieval and Renaissance innovations, Canes Venatici survived to become one of the 88 IAU designated constellations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Canes Venatici is bordered by Ursa Major to the north and west, Coma Berenices to the south, and Boötes to the east. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, is \"CVn\". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte in 1930, are defined by a polygon of 14 sides.",
"title": "Neighbors and borders"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the equatorial coordinate system, the right ascension coordinates of these borders lie between 12 06.2 and 14 07.3 , while the declination coordinates are between +27.84° and +52.36°. Covering 465 square degrees, it ranks 38th of the 88 constellations in size.",
"title": "Neighbors and borders"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Canes Venatici contains no very bright stars. The Bayer designation stars, Alpha and Beta Canum Venaticorum are only of third and fourth magnitude respectively. Flamsteed catalogued 25 stars in the constellation, labelling them 1 to 25 Canum Venaticorum (CVn); however, 1 CVn turned out to be in Ursa Major, 13 CVn was in Coma Berenices, and 22 CVn did not exist.",
"title": "Prominent stars and deep-sky objects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Giant Void, an extremely large void (part of the universe containing very few galaxies), is within the vicinity of this constellation. It is regarded to be the second largest void ever discovered, slightly larger than the Eridanus Supervoid and smaller than the proposed KBC Void and 1,200 times the volume of expected typical voids. It was discovered in 1988 in a deep-sky survey. Its centre is approximately 1.5 billion light-years away.",
"title": "Prominent stars and deep-sky objects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Canes Venatici contains five Messier objects, including four galaxies. One of the more significant galaxies in Canes Venatici is the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51, NGC 5194) and NGC 5195, a small barred spiral galaxy that is seen face-on. This was the first galaxy recognised as having a spiral structure, this structure being first observed by Lord Rosse in 1845. It is a face-on spiral galaxy 37 million light-years from Earth. Widely considered to be one of the most beautiful galaxies visible, M51 has many star-forming regions and nebulae in its arms, coloring them pink and blue in contrast to the older yellow core. M 51 has a smaller companion, NGC 5195, that has very few star-forming regions and thus appears yellow. It is passing behind M 51 and may be the cause of the larger galaxy's prodigious star formation.",
"title": "Prominent stars and deep-sky objects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Other notable spiral galaxies in Canes Venatici are the Sunflower Galaxy (M63, NGC 5055), M94 (NGC 4736), and M106 (NGC 4258).",
"title": "Prominent stars and deep-sky objects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Ton 618 is a hyperluminous quasar and blazar in this constellation, near its border with the neighboring Coma Berenices. It possesses a black hole with a mass 66 billion times that of the Sun, making it one of the most massive black holes ever measured. There is also a Lyman-alpha blob.",
"title": "Prominent stars and deep-sky objects"
}
] | Canes Venatici is one of the 88 constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). It is a small northern constellation that was created by Johannes Hevelius in the 17th century. Its name is Latin for 'hunting dogs', and the constellation is often depicted in illustrations as representing the dogs of Boötes the Herdsman, a neighboring constellation. Cor Caroli is the constellation's brightest star, with an apparent magnitude of 2.9. La Superba (Y CVn) is one of the reddest naked-eye stars and one of the brightest carbon stars. The Whirlpool Galaxy is a spiral galaxy tilted face-on to observers on Earth, and was the first galaxy whose spiral nature was discerned. In addition, quasar Ton 618 is one of the most massive black holes with the mass of 66 billion solar masses. | 2001-09-18T14:33:22Z | 2023-11-30T20:44:58Z | [
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6,436 | Chamaeleon | Chamaeleon (/kəˈmiːliən/) is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It is named after the chameleon, a kind of lizard. It was first defined in the 16th century.
Chamaeleon was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. Johann Bayer was the first uranographer to put Chamaeleon in a celestial atlas. It was one of many constellations created by European explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries out of unfamiliar Southern Hemisphere stars.
There are four bright stars in Chamaeleon that form a compact diamond-shape approximately 10 degrees from the south celestial pole and about 15 degrees south of Acrux, along the axis formed by Acrux and Gamma Crucis. Alpha Chamaeleontis is a white-hued star of magnitude 4.1, 63 light-years from Earth. Beta Chamaeleontis is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 4.2, 271 light-years from Earth. Gamma Chamaeleontis is a red-hued giant star of magnitude 4.1, 413 light-years from Earth. The other bright star in Chamaeleon is Delta Chamaeleontis, a wide double star. The brighter star is Delta Chamaeleontis, a blue-hued star of magnitude 4.4. Delta Chamaeleontis, the dimmer component, is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude 5.5. They both lie about 350 light years away.
Chamaeleon is also the location of Cha 110913, a unique dwarf star or proto solar system.
In 1999, a nearby open cluster was discovered centered on the star η Chamaeleontis. The cluster, known as either the Eta Chamaeleontis cluster or Mamajek 1, is 8 million years old, and lies 316 light years from Earth.
The constellation contains a number of molecular clouds (the Chamaeleon dark clouds) that are forming low-mass T Tauri stars. The cloud complex lies some 400 to 600 light years from Earth, and contains tens of thousands of solar masses of gas and dust. The most prominent cluster of T Tauri stars and young B-type stars are in the Chamaeleon I cloud, and are associated with the reflection nebula IC 2631.
Chamaeleon contains one planetary nebula, NGC 3195, which is fairly faint. It appears in a telescope at about the same apparent size as Jupiter.
In Chinese astronomy, the stars that form Chamaeleon were classified as the Little Dipper (小斗, Xiǎodǒu) among the Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu) by Xu Guangqi. Chamaeleon is sometimes also called the Frying Pan in Australia. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Chamaeleon (/kəˈmiːliən/) is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It is named after the chameleon, a kind of lizard. It was first defined in the 16th century.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Chamaeleon was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. Johann Bayer was the first uranographer to put Chamaeleon in a celestial atlas. It was one of many constellations created by European explorers in the 15th and 16th centuries out of unfamiliar Southern Hemisphere stars.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "There are four bright stars in Chamaeleon that form a compact diamond-shape approximately 10 degrees from the south celestial pole and about 15 degrees south of Acrux, along the axis formed by Acrux and Gamma Crucis. Alpha Chamaeleontis is a white-hued star of magnitude 4.1, 63 light-years from Earth. Beta Chamaeleontis is a blue-white hued star of magnitude 4.2, 271 light-years from Earth. Gamma Chamaeleontis is a red-hued giant star of magnitude 4.1, 413 light-years from Earth. The other bright star in Chamaeleon is Delta Chamaeleontis, a wide double star. The brighter star is Delta Chamaeleontis, a blue-hued star of magnitude 4.4. Delta Chamaeleontis, the dimmer component, is an orange-hued giant star of magnitude 5.5. They both lie about 350 light years away.",
"title": "Features"
},
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"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Chamaeleon is also the location of Cha 110913, a unique dwarf star or proto solar system.",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1999, a nearby open cluster was discovered centered on the star η Chamaeleontis. The cluster, known as either the Eta Chamaeleontis cluster or Mamajek 1, is 8 million years old, and lies 316 light years from Earth.",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The constellation contains a number of molecular clouds (the Chamaeleon dark clouds) that are forming low-mass T Tauri stars. The cloud complex lies some 400 to 600 light years from Earth, and contains tens of thousands of solar masses of gas and dust. The most prominent cluster of T Tauri stars and young B-type stars are in the Chamaeleon I cloud, and are associated with the reflection nebula IC 2631.",
"title": "Features"
},
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"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Chamaeleon contains one planetary nebula, NGC 3195, which is fairly faint. It appears in a telescope at about the same apparent size as Jupiter.",
"title": "Features"
},
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"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In Chinese astronomy, the stars that form Chamaeleon were classified as the Little Dipper (小斗, Xiǎodǒu) among the Southern Asterisms (近南極星區, Jìnnánjíxīngōu) by Xu Guangqi. Chamaeleon is sometimes also called the Frying Pan in Australia.",
"title": "Equivalents"
}
] | Chamaeleon is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It is named after the chameleon, a kind of lizard. It was first defined in the 16th century. | 2001-09-18T14:37:03Z | 2023-10-09T21:28:14Z | [
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6,437 | Cholesterol | Cholesterol is the principal sterol of all higher animals, distributed in body tissues, especially the brain and spinal cord, and in animal fats and oils.
Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell membranes. In vertebrates, hepatic cells typically produce the greatest amounts. In the brain astrocytes produce cholesterol and transport it to neurons. It is absent among prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), although there are some exceptions, such as Mycoplasma, which require cholesterol for growth. Cholesterol also serves as a precursor for the biosynthesis of steroid hormones, bile acid and vitamin D.
Elevated levels of cholesterol in the blood, especially when bound to low-density lipoprotein (LDL, often referred to as "bad cholesterol"), may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
François Poulletier de la Salle first identified cholesterol in solid form in gallstones in 1769. In 1815, chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul named the compound "cholesterine".
The word cholesterol comes from Ancient Greek chole- 'bile' and stereos 'solid', followed by the chemical suffix -ol for an alcohol.
Cholesterol is essential for all animal life. While most cells are capable of synthesizing it, the majority of cholesterol is ingested or synthesized by hepatocytes and transported in the blood to peripheral cells. The levels of cholesterol in peripheral tissues is dictated by a balance of uptake and export. Under normal conditions, brain cholesterol is separate from peripheral cholesterol, i.e., the dietary and hepatic cholesterol do not cross the blood brain barrier. Rather, astrocytes produce and distribute cholesterol in the brain.
De novo synthesis, both in astrocytes and hepatocytes, occurs by a complex 37-step process. This begins with the mevalonate or HMG-CoA reductase pathway, the target of statin drugs, which encompasses the first 18 steps. This is followed by 19 additional steps to convert the resulting lanosterol into cholesterol. A human male weighing 68 kg (150 lb) normally synthesizes about 1 gram (1,000 mg) of cholesterol per day, and his body contains about 35 g, mostly contained within the cell membranes.
Typical daily cholesterol dietary intake for a man in the United States is 307 mg. Most ingested cholesterol is esterified, which causes it to be poorly absorbed by the gut. The body also compensates for absorption of ingested cholesterol by reducing its own cholesterol synthesis. For these reasons, cholesterol in food, seven to ten hours after ingestion, has little, if any effect on concentrations of cholesterol in the blood. Surprisingly, in rats, blood cholesterol is inversely correlated with cholesterol consumption. The more cholesterol a rat eats the lower the blood cholesterol. During the first seven hours after ingestion of cholesterol, as absorbed fats are being distributed around the body within extracellular water by the various lipoproteins (which transport all fats in the water outside cells), the concentrations increase.
Plants make cholesterol in very small amounts. In larger quantities they produce phytosterols, chemically similar substances which can compete with cholesterol for reabsorption in the intestinal tract, thus potentially reducing cholesterol reabsorption. When intestinal lining cells absorb phytosterols, in place of cholesterol, they usually excrete the phytosterol molecules back into the GI tract, an important protective mechanism. The intake of naturally occurring phytosterols, which encompass plant sterols and stanols, ranges between ≈200–300 mg/day depending on eating habits. Specially designed vegetarian experimental diets have been produced yielding upwards of 700 mg/day.
Cholesterol composes about 30% of all animal cell membranes. It is required to build and maintain membranes and modulates membrane fluidity over the range of physiological temperatures. The hydroxyl group of each cholesterol molecule interacts with water molecules surrounding the membrane, as do the polar heads of the membrane phospholipids and sphingolipids, while the bulky steroid and the hydrocarbon chain are embedded in the membrane, alongside the nonpolar fatty-acid chain of the other lipids. Through the interaction with the phospholipid fatty-acid chains, cholesterol increases membrane packing, which both alters membrane fluidity and maintains membrane integrity so that animal cells do not need to build cell walls (like plants and most bacteria). The membrane remains stable and durable without being rigid, allowing animal cells to change shape and animals to move.
The structure of the tetracyclic ring of cholesterol contributes to the fluidity of the cell membrane, as the molecule is in a trans conformation making all but the side chain of cholesterol rigid and planar. In this structural role, cholesterol also reduces the permeability of the plasma membrane to neutral solutes, hydrogen ions, and sodium ions.
Cholesterol regulates the biological process of substrate presentation and the enzymes that use substrate presentation as a mechanism of their activation. Phospholipase D2 (PLD2) is a well-defined example of an enzyme activated by substrate presentation. The enzyme is palmitoylated causing the enzyme to traffic to cholesterol dependent lipid domains sometimes called "lipid rafts". The substrate of phospholipase D is phosphatidylcholine (PC) which is unsaturated and is of low abundance in lipid rafts. PC localizes to the disordered region of the cell along with the polyunsaturated lipid phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2). PLD2 has a PIP2 binding domain. When PIP2 concentration in the membrane increases, PLD2 leaves the cholesterol-dependent domains and binds to PIP2 where it then gains access to its substrate PC and commences catalysis based on substrate presentation.
Cholesterol is also implicated in cell signaling processes, assisting in the formation of lipid rafts in the plasma membrane, which brings receptor proteins in close proximity with high concentrations of second messenger molecules. In multiple layers, cholesterol and phospholipids, both electrical insulators, can facilitate speed of transmission of electrical impulses along nerve tissue. For many neuron fibers, a myelin sheath, rich in cholesterol since it is derived from compacted layers of Schwann cell or oligodendrocyte membranes, provides insulation for more efficient conduction of impulses. Demyelination (loss of myelin) is believed to be part of the basis for multiple sclerosis.
Cholesterol binds to and affects the gating of a number of ion channels such as the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, GABAA receptor, and the inward-rectifier potassium channel. Cholesterol also activates the estrogen-related receptor alpha (ERRα), and may be the endogenous ligand for the receptor. The constitutively active nature of the receptor may be explained by the fact that cholesterol is ubiquitous in the body. Inhibition of ERRα signaling by reduction of cholesterol production has been identified as a key mediator of the effects of statins and bisphosphonates on bone, muscle, and macrophages. On the basis of these findings, it has been suggested that the ERRα should be de-orphanized and classified as a receptor for cholesterol.
Within cells, cholesterol is also a precursor molecule for several biochemical pathways. For example, it is the precursor molecule for the synthesis of vitamin D in the calcium metabolism and all steroid hormones, including the adrenal gland hormones cortisol and aldosterone, as well as the sex hormones progesterone, estrogens, and testosterone, and their derivatives.
The stratum corneum is the outermost layer of the epidermis. It is composed of terminally differentiated and enucleated corneocytes that reside within a lipid matrix, like "bricks and mortar." Together with ceramides and free fatty acids, cholesterol forms the lipid mortar, a water-impermeable barrier that prevents evaporative water loss. As a rule of thumb, the epidermal lipid matrix is composed of an equimolar mixture of ceramides (≈50% by weight), cholesterol (≈25% by weight), and free fatty acids (≈15% by weight), with smaller quantities of other lipids also being present. Cholesterol sulfate reaches its highest concentration in the granular layer of the epidermis. Steroid sulfate sulfatase then decreases its concentration in the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of the epidermis. The relative abundance of cholesterol sulfate in the epidermis varies across different body sites with the heel of the foot having the lowest concentration.
Cholesterol is recycled in the body. The liver excretes cholesterol into biliary fluids, which are then stored in the gallbladder, which then excretes them in a non-esterified form (via bile) into the digestive tract. Typically, about 50% of the excreted cholesterol is reabsorbed by the small intestine back into the bloodstream.
Almost all animal tissues synthesize cholesterol from acetyl-CoA. All animal cells (exceptions exist within the invertebrates) manufacture cholesterol, for both membrane structure and other uses, with relative production rates varying by cell type and organ function. About 80% of total daily cholesterol production occurs in the liver and the intestines; other sites of higher synthesis rates include the brain, the adrenal glands, and the reproductive organs.
Synthesis within the body starts with the mevalonate pathway where two molecules of acetyl CoA condense to form acetoacetyl-CoA. This is followed by a second condensation between acetyl CoA and acetoacetyl-CoA to form 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA (HMG-CoA).
This molecule is then reduced to mevalonate by the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase. Production of mevalonate is the rate-limiting and irreversible step in cholesterol synthesis and is the site of action for statins (a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs).
Mevalonate is finally converted to isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) through two phosphorylation steps and one decarboxylation step that requires ATP.
Three molecules of isopentenyl pyrophosphate condense to form farnesyl pyrophosphate through the action of geranyl transferase.
Two molecules of farnesyl pyrophosphate then condense to form squalene by the action of squalene synthase in the endoplasmic reticulum.
Oxidosqualene cyclase then cyclizes squalene to form lanosterol.
Finally, lanosterol is converted to cholesterol via either of two pathways, the Bloch pathway, or the Kandutsch-Russell pathway. The final 19 steps to cholesterol contain NADPH and oxygen to help oxidize methyl groups for removal of carbons, mutases to move alkene groups, and NADH to help reduce ketones.
Konrad Bloch and Feodor Lynen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1964 for their discoveries concerning some of the mechanisms and methods of regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.
Biosynthesis of cholesterol is directly regulated by the cholesterol levels present, though the homeostatic mechanisms involved are only partly understood. A higher intake of food leads to a net decrease in endogenous production, whereas a lower intake of food has the opposite effect. The main regulatory mechanism is the sensing of intracellular cholesterol in the endoplasmic reticulum by the protein SREBP (sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 and 2). In the presence of cholesterol, SREBP is bound to two other proteins: SCAP (SREBP cleavage-activating protein) and INSIG-1. When cholesterol levels fall, INSIG-1 dissociates from the SREBP-SCAP complex, which allows the complex to migrate to the Golgi apparatus. Here SREBP is cleaved by S1P and S2P (site-1 protease and site-2 protease), two enzymes that are activated by SCAP when cholesterol levels are low.
The cleaved SREBP then migrates to the nucleus and acts as a transcription factor to bind to the sterol regulatory element (SRE), which stimulates the transcription of many genes. Among these are the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and HMG-CoA reductase. The LDL receptor scavenges circulating LDL from the bloodstream, whereas HMG-CoA reductase leads to an increase in endogenous production of cholesterol. A large part of this signaling pathway was clarified by Dr. Michael S. Brown and Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein in the 1970s. In 1985, they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work. Their subsequent work shows how the SREBP pathway regulates the expression of many genes that control lipid formation and metabolism and body fuel allocation.
Cholesterol synthesis can also be turned off when cholesterol levels are high. HMG-CoA reductase contains both a cytosolic domain (responsible for its catalytic function) and a membrane domain. The membrane domain senses signals for its degradation. Increasing concentrations of cholesterol (and other sterols) cause a change in this domain's oligomerization state, which makes it more susceptible to destruction by the proteasome. This enzyme's activity can also be reduced by phosphorylation by an AMP-activated protein kinase. Because this kinase is activated by AMP, which is produced when ATP is hydrolyzed, it follows that cholesterol synthesis is halted when ATP levels are low.
As an isolated molecule, cholesterol is only minimally soluble in water, or hydrophilic. Because of this, it dissolves in blood at exceedingly small concentrations. To be transported effectively, cholesterol is instead packaged within lipoproteins, complex discoidal particles with exterior amphiphilic proteins and lipids, whose outward-facing surfaces are water-soluble and inward-facing surfaces are lipid-soluble. This allows it to travel through the blood via emulsification. Unbound cholesterol, being amphipathic, is transported in the monolayer surface of the lipoprotein particle along with phospholipids and proteins. Cholesterol esters bound to fatty acid, on the other hand, are transported within the fatty hydrophobic core of the lipoprotein, along with triglyceride.
There are several types of lipoproteins in the blood. In order of increasing density, they are chylomicrons, very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), intermediate-density lipoprotein (IDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Lower protein/lipid ratios make for less dense lipoproteins. Cholesterol within different lipoproteins is identical, although some is carried as its native "free" alcohol form (the cholesterol-OH group facing the water surrounding the particles), while others as fatty acyl esters, known also as cholesterol esters, within the particles.
Lipoprotein particles are organized by complex apolipoproteins, typically 80–100 different proteins per particle, which can be recognized and bound by specific receptors on cell membranes, directing their lipid payload into specific cells and tissues currently ingesting these fat transport particles. These surface receptors serve as unique molecular signatures, which then help determine fat distribution delivery throughout the body.
Chylomicrons, the least dense cholesterol transport particles, contain apolipoprotein B-48, apolipoprotein C, and apolipoprotein E (the principal cholesterol carrier in the brain) in their shells. Chylomicrons carry fats from the intestine to muscle and other tissues in need of fatty acids for energy or fat production. Unused cholesterol remains in more cholesterol-rich chylomicron remnants, and taken up from here to the bloodstream by the liver.
VLDL particles are produced by the liver from triacylglycerol and cholesterol which was not used in the synthesis of bile acids. These particles contain apolipoprotein B100 and apolipoprotein E in their shells, and can be degraded by lipoprotein lipase on the artery wall to IDL. This arterial wall cleavage allows absorption of triacylglycerol and increases the concentration of circulating cholesterol. IDL particles are then consumed in two processes: half is metabolized by HTGL and taken up by the LDL receptor on the liver cell surfaces, while the other half continues to lose triacylglycerols in the bloodstream until they become cholesterol-laden LDL particles.
LDL particles are the major blood cholesterol carriers. Each one contains approximately 1,500 molecules of cholesterol ester. LDL particle shells contain just one molecule of apolipoprotein B100, recognized by LDL receptors in peripheral tissues. Upon binding of apolipoprotein B100, many LDL receptors concentrate in clathrin-coated pits. Both LDL and its receptor form vesicles within a cell via endocytosis. These vesicles then fuse with a lysosome, where the lysosomal acid lipase enzyme hydrolyzes the cholesterol esters. The cholesterol can then be used for membrane biosynthesis or esterified and stored within the cell, so as to not interfere with the cell membranes.
LDL receptors are used up during cholesterol absorption, and its synthesis is regulated by SREBP, the same protein that controls the synthesis of cholesterol de novo, according to its presence inside the cell. A cell with abundant cholesterol will have its LDL receptor synthesis blocked, to prevent new cholesterol in LDL particles from being taken up. Conversely, LDL receptor synthesis proceeds when a cell is deficient in cholesterol.
When this process becomes unregulated, LDL particles without receptors begin to appear in the blood. These LDL particles are oxidized and taken up by macrophages, which become engorged and form foam cells. These foam cells often become trapped in the walls of blood vessels and contribute to atherosclerotic plaque formation. Differences in cholesterol homeostasis affect the development of early atherosclerosis (carotid intima-media thickness). These plaques are the main causes of heart attacks, strokes, and other serious medical problems, leading to the association of so-called LDL cholesterol (actually a lipoprotein) with "bad" cholesterol.
HDL particles are thought to transport cholesterol back to the liver, either for excretion or for other tissues that synthesize hormones, in a process known as reverse cholesterol transport (RCT). Large numbers of HDL particles correlates with better health outcomes, whereas low numbers of HDL particles is associated with atheromatous disease progression in the arteries.
Cholesterol is susceptible to oxidation and easily forms oxygenated derivatives called oxysterols. Three different mechanisms can form these: autoxidation, secondary oxidation to lipid peroxidation, and cholesterol-metabolizing enzyme oxidation. A great interest in oxysterols arose when they were shown to exert inhibitory actions on cholesterol biosynthesis. This finding became known as the "oxysterol hypothesis". Additional roles for oxysterols in human physiology include their participation in bile acid biosynthesis, function as transport forms of cholesterol, and regulation of gene transcription.
In biochemical experiments radiolabelled forms of cholesterol, such as tritiated-cholesterol are used. These derivatives undergo degradation upon storage and it is essential to purify cholesterol prior to use. Cholesterol can be purified using small Sephadex LH-20 columns.
Cholesterol is oxidized by the liver into a variety of bile acids. These, in turn, are conjugated with glycine, taurine, glucuronic acid, or sulfate. A mixture of conjugated and nonconjugated bile acids, along with cholesterol itself, is excreted from the liver into the bile. Approximately 95% of the bile acids are reabsorbed from the intestines, and the remainder are lost in the feces. The excretion and reabsorption of bile acids forms the basis of the enterohepatic circulation, which is essential for the digestion and absorption of dietary fats. Under certain circumstances, when more concentrated, as in the gallbladder, cholesterol crystallises and is the major constituent of most gallstones (lecithin and bilirubin gallstones also occur, but less frequently). Every day, up to 1 g of cholesterol enters the colon. This cholesterol originates from the diet, bile, and desquamated intestinal cells, and can be metabolized by the colonic bacteria. Cholesterol is converted mainly into coprostanol, a nonabsorbable sterol that is excreted in the feces.
Although cholesterol is a steroid generally associated with mammals, the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis is able to completely degrade this molecule and contains a large number of genes that are regulated by its presence. Many of these cholesterol-regulated genes are homologues of fatty acid β-oxidation genes, but have evolved in such a way as to bind large steroid substrates like cholesterol.
Animal fats are complex mixtures of triglycerides, with lesser amounts of both the phospholipids and cholesterol molecules from which all animal (and human) cell membranes are constructed. Since all animal cells manufacture cholesterol, all animal-based foods contain cholesterol in varying amounts. Major dietary sources of cholesterol include red meat, egg yolks and whole eggs, liver, kidney, giblets, fish oil, and butter. Human breast milk also contains significant quantities of cholesterol.
Plant cells synthesize cholesterol as a precursor for other compounds, such as phytosterols and steroidal glycoalkaloids, with cholesterol remaining in plant foods only in minor amounts or absent. Some plant foods, such as avocado, flax seeds and peanuts, contain phytosterols, which compete with cholesterol for absorption in the intestines, and reduce the absorption of both dietary and bile cholesterol. A typical diet contributes on the order of 0.2 gram of phytosterols, which is not enough to have a significant impact on blocking cholesterol absorption. Phytosterols intake can be supplemented through the use of phytosterol-containing functional foods or dietary supplements that are recognized as having potential to reduce levels of LDL-cholesterol.
In 2015, the scientific advisory panel of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture for the 2015 iteration of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans dropped the previously recommended limit of consumption of dietary cholesterol to 300 mg per day with a new recommendation to "eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible" and acknowledging an association between a diet low in cholesterol and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.
A 2013 report by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology recommended focusing on healthy dietary patterns rather than specific cholesterol limits, as they are hard for clinicians and consumers to implement. They recommend the DASH and Mediterranean diet, which are low in cholesterol. A 2017 review by the American Heart Association recommends switching saturated fats for polyunsaturated fats to reduce cardiovascular disease risk.
Some supplemental guidelines have recommended doses of phytosterols in the 1.6–3.0 grams per day range (Health Canada, EFSA, ATP III, FDA). A meta-analysis demonstrated a 12% reduction in LDL-cholesterol at a mean dose of 2.1 grams per day. The benefits of a diet supplemented with phytosterols have also been questioned.
According to the lipid hypothesis, elevated levels of cholesterol in the blood lead to atherosclerosis which may increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, and peripheral artery disease. Since higher blood LDL – especially higher LDL concentrations and smaller LDL particle size – contributes to this process more than the cholesterol content of the HDL particles, LDL particles are often termed "bad cholesterol". High concentrations of functional HDL, which can remove cholesterol from cells and atheromas, offer protection and are commonly referred to as "good cholesterol". These balances are mostly genetically determined, but can be changed by body composition, medications, diet, and other factors. A 2007 study demonstrated that blood total cholesterol levels have an exponential effect on cardiovascular and total mortality, with the association more pronounced in younger subjects. Because cardiovascular disease is relatively rare in the younger population, the impact of high cholesterol on health is larger in older people.
Elevated levels of the lipoprotein fractions, LDL, IDL and VLDL, rather than the total cholesterol level, correlate with the extent and progress of atherosclerosis. Conversely, the total cholesterol can be within normal limits, yet be made up primarily of small LDL and small HDL particles, under which conditions atheroma growth rates are high. A post hoc analysis of the IDEAL and the EPIC prospective studies found an association between high levels of HDL cholesterol (adjusted for apolipoprotein A-I and apolipoprotein B) and increased risk of cardiovascular disease, casting doubt on the cardioprotective role of "good cholesterol".
About one in 250 individuals can have a genetic mutation for the LDL cholesterol receptor that causes them to have familial hypercholesterolemia. Inherited high cholesterol can also include genetic mutations in the PCSK9 gene and the gene for apolipoprotein B.
Elevated cholesterol levels are treatable by a diet that reduces or eliminates saturated fat, trans fats, and high cholesterol foods, often followed by one of various hypolipidemic agents, such as statins, fibrates, cholesterol absorption inhibitors, monoclonal antibody therapy (PCSK9 inhibitors), nicotinic acid derivatives or bile acid sequestrants. There are several international guidelines on the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.
Human trials using HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, known as statins, have repeatedly confirmed that changing lipoprotein transport patterns from unhealthy to healthier patterns significantly lowers cardiovascular disease event rates, even for people with cholesterol values currently considered low for adults. Studies have shown that reducing LDL cholesterol levels by about 38.7 mg/dL with the use of statins can reduce cardiovascular disease and stroke risk by about 21%. Studies have also found that statins reduce atheroma progression. As a result, people with a history of cardiovascular disease may derive benefit from statins irrespective of their cholesterol levels (total cholesterol below 5.0 mmol/L [193 mg/dL]), and in men without cardiovascular disease, there is benefit from lowering abnormally high cholesterol levels ("primary prevention"). Primary prevention in women was originally practiced only by extension of the findings in studies on men, since, in women, none of the large statin trials conducted prior to 2007 demonstrated a significant reduction in overall mortality or in cardiovascular endpoints. Meta-analyses have demonstrated significant reductions in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, without significant heterogeneity by sex.
The 1987 report of National Cholesterol Education Program, Adult Treatment Panels suggests the total blood cholesterol level should be: < 200 mg/dL normal blood cholesterol, 200–239 mg/dL borderline-high, > 240 mg/dL high cholesterol. The American Heart Association provides a similar set of guidelines for total (fasting) blood cholesterol levels and risk for heart disease: Statins are effective in lowering LDL cholesterol and widely used for primary prevention in people at high risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as in secondary prevention for those who have developed cardiovascular disease.
More current testing methods determine LDL ("bad") and HDL ("good") cholesterol separately, allowing cholesterol analysis to be more nuanced. The desirable LDL level is considered to be less than 100 mg/dL (2.6 mmol/L).
Total cholesterol is defined as the sum of HDL, LDL, and VLDL. Usually, only the total, HDL, and triglycerides are measured. For cost reasons, the VLDL is usually estimated as one-fifth of the triglycerides and the LDL is estimated using the Friedewald formula (or a variant): estimated LDL = [total cholesterol] − [total HDL] − [estimated VLDL]. Direct LDL measures are used when triglycerides exceed 400 mg/dL. The estimated VLDL and LDL have more error when triglycerides are above 400 mg/dL.
In the Framingham Heart Study, each 10 mg/dL (0.6 mmol/L) increase in total cholesterol levels increased 30-year overall mortality by 5% and CVD mortality by 9%. While subjects over the age of 50 had an 11% increase in overall mortality, and a 14% increase in cardiovascular disease mortality per 1 mg/dL (0.06 mmol/L) year drop in total cholesterol levels. The researchers attributed this phenomenon to a different correlation, whereby the disease itself increases risk of death, as well as changes a myriad of factors, such as weight loss and the inability to eat, which lower serum cholesterol. This effect was also shown in men of all ages and women over 50 in the Vorarlberg Health Monitoring and Promotion Programme. These groups were more likely to die of cancer, liver diseases, and mental diseases with very low total cholesterol, of 186 mg/dL (10.3 mmol/L) and lower. This result indicates the low-cholesterol effect occurs even among younger respondents, contradicting the previous assessment among cohorts of older people that this is a marker for frailty occurring with age.
Abnormally low levels of cholesterol are termed hypocholesterolemia. Research into the causes of this state is relatively limited, but some studies suggest a link with depression, cancer, and cerebral hemorrhage. In general, the low cholesterol levels seem to be a consequence, rather than a cause, of an underlying illness. A genetic defect in cholesterol synthesis causes Smith–Lemli–Opitz syndrome, which is often associated with low plasma cholesterol levels. Hyperthyroidism, or any other endocrine disturbance which causes upregulation of the LDL receptor, may result in hypocholesterolemia.
The American Heart Association recommends testing cholesterol every 4–6 years for people aged 20 years or older. A separate set of American Heart Association guidelines issued in 2013 indicates that people taking statin medications should have their cholesterol tested 4–12 weeks after their first dose and then every 3–12 months thereafter. For men ages 45 to 65 and women ages 55 to 65, a cholesterol test should occur every 1–2 years, and for seniors over age 65, an annual test should be performed.
A blood sample after 12-hours of fasting is taken by a healthcare professional from an arm vein to measure a lipid profile for a) total cholesterol, b) HDL cholesterol, c) LDL cholesterol, and d) triglycerides. Results may be expressed as "calculated", indicating a calculation of total cholesterol, HDL, and triglycerides.
Cholesterol is tested to determine for "normal" or "desirable" levels if a person has a total cholesterol of 5.2 mmol/L or less (200 mg/dL), an HDL value of more than 1 mmol/L (40 mg/dL, "the higher, the better"), an LDL value of less than 2.6 mmol/L (100 mg/dL), and a triglycerides level of less than 1.7 mmol/L (150 mg/dL). Blood cholesterol in people with lifestyle, aging, or cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, family history of coronary artery disease, or angina, are evaluated at different levels.
Click on genes, proteins and metabolites below to link to respective articles.
Some cholesterol derivatives (among other simple cholesteric lipids) are known to generate the liquid crystalline "cholesteric phase". The cholesteric phase is, in fact, a chiral nematic phase, and it changes colour when its temperature changes. This makes cholesterol derivatives useful for indicating temperature in liquid-crystal display thermometers and in temperature-sensitive paints.
Cholesterol has 256 stereoisomers that arise from its eight stereocenters, although only two of the stereoisomers have biochemical significance (nat-cholesterol and ent-cholesterol, for natural and enantiomer, respectively), and only one occurs naturally (nat-cholesterol). | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cholesterol is the principal sterol of all higher animals, distributed in body tissues, especially the brain and spinal cord, and in animal fats and oils.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell membranes. In vertebrates, hepatic cells typically produce the greatest amounts. In the brain astrocytes produce cholesterol and transport it to neurons. It is absent among prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), although there are some exceptions, such as Mycoplasma, which require cholesterol for growth. Cholesterol also serves as a precursor for the biosynthesis of steroid hormones, bile acid and vitamin D.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Elevated levels of cholesterol in the blood, especially when bound to low-density lipoprotein (LDL, often referred to as \"bad cholesterol\"), may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "François Poulletier de la Salle first identified cholesterol in solid form in gallstones in 1769. In 1815, chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul named the compound \"cholesterine\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The word cholesterol comes from Ancient Greek chole- 'bile' and stereos 'solid', followed by the chemical suffix -ol for an alcohol.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Cholesterol is essential for all animal life. While most cells are capable of synthesizing it, the majority of cholesterol is ingested or synthesized by hepatocytes and transported in the blood to peripheral cells. The levels of cholesterol in peripheral tissues is dictated by a balance of uptake and export. Under normal conditions, brain cholesterol is separate from peripheral cholesterol, i.e., the dietary and hepatic cholesterol do not cross the blood brain barrier. Rather, astrocytes produce and distribute cholesterol in the brain.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "De novo synthesis, both in astrocytes and hepatocytes, occurs by a complex 37-step process. This begins with the mevalonate or HMG-CoA reductase pathway, the target of statin drugs, which encompasses the first 18 steps. This is followed by 19 additional steps to convert the resulting lanosterol into cholesterol. A human male weighing 68 kg (150 lb) normally synthesizes about 1 gram (1,000 mg) of cholesterol per day, and his body contains about 35 g, mostly contained within the cell membranes.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Typical daily cholesterol dietary intake for a man in the United States is 307 mg. Most ingested cholesterol is esterified, which causes it to be poorly absorbed by the gut. The body also compensates for absorption of ingested cholesterol by reducing its own cholesterol synthesis. For these reasons, cholesterol in food, seven to ten hours after ingestion, has little, if any effect on concentrations of cholesterol in the blood. Surprisingly, in rats, blood cholesterol is inversely correlated with cholesterol consumption. The more cholesterol a rat eats the lower the blood cholesterol. During the first seven hours after ingestion of cholesterol, as absorbed fats are being distributed around the body within extracellular water by the various lipoproteins (which transport all fats in the water outside cells), the concentrations increase.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Plants make cholesterol in very small amounts. In larger quantities they produce phytosterols, chemically similar substances which can compete with cholesterol for reabsorption in the intestinal tract, thus potentially reducing cholesterol reabsorption. When intestinal lining cells absorb phytosterols, in place of cholesterol, they usually excrete the phytosterol molecules back into the GI tract, an important protective mechanism. The intake of naturally occurring phytosterols, which encompass plant sterols and stanols, ranges between ≈200–300 mg/day depending on eating habits. Specially designed vegetarian experimental diets have been produced yielding upwards of 700 mg/day.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Cholesterol composes about 30% of all animal cell membranes. It is required to build and maintain membranes and modulates membrane fluidity over the range of physiological temperatures. The hydroxyl group of each cholesterol molecule interacts with water molecules surrounding the membrane, as do the polar heads of the membrane phospholipids and sphingolipids, while the bulky steroid and the hydrocarbon chain are embedded in the membrane, alongside the nonpolar fatty-acid chain of the other lipids. Through the interaction with the phospholipid fatty-acid chains, cholesterol increases membrane packing, which both alters membrane fluidity and maintains membrane integrity so that animal cells do not need to build cell walls (like plants and most bacteria). The membrane remains stable and durable without being rigid, allowing animal cells to change shape and animals to move.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The structure of the tetracyclic ring of cholesterol contributes to the fluidity of the cell membrane, as the molecule is in a trans conformation making all but the side chain of cholesterol rigid and planar. In this structural role, cholesterol also reduces the permeability of the plasma membrane to neutral solutes, hydrogen ions, and sodium ions.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Cholesterol regulates the biological process of substrate presentation and the enzymes that use substrate presentation as a mechanism of their activation. Phospholipase D2 (PLD2) is a well-defined example of an enzyme activated by substrate presentation. The enzyme is palmitoylated causing the enzyme to traffic to cholesterol dependent lipid domains sometimes called \"lipid rafts\". The substrate of phospholipase D is phosphatidylcholine (PC) which is unsaturated and is of low abundance in lipid rafts. PC localizes to the disordered region of the cell along with the polyunsaturated lipid phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2). PLD2 has a PIP2 binding domain. When PIP2 concentration in the membrane increases, PLD2 leaves the cholesterol-dependent domains and binds to PIP2 where it then gains access to its substrate PC and commences catalysis based on substrate presentation.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Cholesterol is also implicated in cell signaling processes, assisting in the formation of lipid rafts in the plasma membrane, which brings receptor proteins in close proximity with high concentrations of second messenger molecules. In multiple layers, cholesterol and phospholipids, both electrical insulators, can facilitate speed of transmission of electrical impulses along nerve tissue. For many neuron fibers, a myelin sheath, rich in cholesterol since it is derived from compacted layers of Schwann cell or oligodendrocyte membranes, provides insulation for more efficient conduction of impulses. Demyelination (loss of myelin) is believed to be part of the basis for multiple sclerosis.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Cholesterol binds to and affects the gating of a number of ion channels such as the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, GABAA receptor, and the inward-rectifier potassium channel. Cholesterol also activates the estrogen-related receptor alpha (ERRα), and may be the endogenous ligand for the receptor. The constitutively active nature of the receptor may be explained by the fact that cholesterol is ubiquitous in the body. Inhibition of ERRα signaling by reduction of cholesterol production has been identified as a key mediator of the effects of statins and bisphosphonates on bone, muscle, and macrophages. On the basis of these findings, it has been suggested that the ERRα should be de-orphanized and classified as a receptor for cholesterol.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Within cells, cholesterol is also a precursor molecule for several biochemical pathways. For example, it is the precursor molecule for the synthesis of vitamin D in the calcium metabolism and all steroid hormones, including the adrenal gland hormones cortisol and aldosterone, as well as the sex hormones progesterone, estrogens, and testosterone, and their derivatives.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The stratum corneum is the outermost layer of the epidermis. It is composed of terminally differentiated and enucleated corneocytes that reside within a lipid matrix, like \"bricks and mortar.\" Together with ceramides and free fatty acids, cholesterol forms the lipid mortar, a water-impermeable barrier that prevents evaporative water loss. As a rule of thumb, the epidermal lipid matrix is composed of an equimolar mixture of ceramides (≈50% by weight), cholesterol (≈25% by weight), and free fatty acids (≈15% by weight), with smaller quantities of other lipids also being present. Cholesterol sulfate reaches its highest concentration in the granular layer of the epidermis. Steroid sulfate sulfatase then decreases its concentration in the stratum corneum, the outermost layer of the epidermis. The relative abundance of cholesterol sulfate in the epidermis varies across different body sites with the heel of the foot having the lowest concentration.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Cholesterol is recycled in the body. The liver excretes cholesterol into biliary fluids, which are then stored in the gallbladder, which then excretes them in a non-esterified form (via bile) into the digestive tract. Typically, about 50% of the excreted cholesterol is reabsorbed by the small intestine back into the bloodstream.",
"title": "Physiology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Almost all animal tissues synthesize cholesterol from acetyl-CoA. All animal cells (exceptions exist within the invertebrates) manufacture cholesterol, for both membrane structure and other uses, with relative production rates varying by cell type and organ function. About 80% of total daily cholesterol production occurs in the liver and the intestines; other sites of higher synthesis rates include the brain, the adrenal glands, and the reproductive organs.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Synthesis within the body starts with the mevalonate pathway where two molecules of acetyl CoA condense to form acetoacetyl-CoA. This is followed by a second condensation between acetyl CoA and acetoacetyl-CoA to form 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA (HMG-CoA).",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "This molecule is then reduced to mevalonate by the enzyme HMG-CoA reductase. Production of mevalonate is the rate-limiting and irreversible step in cholesterol synthesis and is the site of action for statins (a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs).",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Mevalonate is finally converted to isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) through two phosphorylation steps and one decarboxylation step that requires ATP.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Three molecules of isopentenyl pyrophosphate condense to form farnesyl pyrophosphate through the action of geranyl transferase.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Two molecules of farnesyl pyrophosphate then condense to form squalene by the action of squalene synthase in the endoplasmic reticulum.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Oxidosqualene cyclase then cyclizes squalene to form lanosterol.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Finally, lanosterol is converted to cholesterol via either of two pathways, the Bloch pathway, or the Kandutsch-Russell pathway. The final 19 steps to cholesterol contain NADPH and oxygen to help oxidize methyl groups for removal of carbons, mutases to move alkene groups, and NADH to help reduce ketones.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Konrad Bloch and Feodor Lynen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1964 for their discoveries concerning some of the mechanisms and methods of regulation of cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Biosynthesis of cholesterol is directly regulated by the cholesterol levels present, though the homeostatic mechanisms involved are only partly understood. A higher intake of food leads to a net decrease in endogenous production, whereas a lower intake of food has the opposite effect. The main regulatory mechanism is the sensing of intracellular cholesterol in the endoplasmic reticulum by the protein SREBP (sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1 and 2). In the presence of cholesterol, SREBP is bound to two other proteins: SCAP (SREBP cleavage-activating protein) and INSIG-1. When cholesterol levels fall, INSIG-1 dissociates from the SREBP-SCAP complex, which allows the complex to migrate to the Golgi apparatus. Here SREBP is cleaved by S1P and S2P (site-1 protease and site-2 protease), two enzymes that are activated by SCAP when cholesterol levels are low.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The cleaved SREBP then migrates to the nucleus and acts as a transcription factor to bind to the sterol regulatory element (SRE), which stimulates the transcription of many genes. Among these are the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor and HMG-CoA reductase. The LDL receptor scavenges circulating LDL from the bloodstream, whereas HMG-CoA reductase leads to an increase in endogenous production of cholesterol. A large part of this signaling pathway was clarified by Dr. Michael S. Brown and Dr. Joseph L. Goldstein in the 1970s. In 1985, they received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work. Their subsequent work shows how the SREBP pathway regulates the expression of many genes that control lipid formation and metabolism and body fuel allocation.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Cholesterol synthesis can also be turned off when cholesterol levels are high. HMG-CoA reductase contains both a cytosolic domain (responsible for its catalytic function) and a membrane domain. The membrane domain senses signals for its degradation. Increasing concentrations of cholesterol (and other sterols) cause a change in this domain's oligomerization state, which makes it more susceptible to destruction by the proteasome. This enzyme's activity can also be reduced by phosphorylation by an AMP-activated protein kinase. Because this kinase is activated by AMP, which is produced when ATP is hydrolyzed, it follows that cholesterol synthesis is halted when ATP levels are low.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "As an isolated molecule, cholesterol is only minimally soluble in water, or hydrophilic. Because of this, it dissolves in blood at exceedingly small concentrations. To be transported effectively, cholesterol is instead packaged within lipoproteins, complex discoidal particles with exterior amphiphilic proteins and lipids, whose outward-facing surfaces are water-soluble and inward-facing surfaces are lipid-soluble. This allows it to travel through the blood via emulsification. Unbound cholesterol, being amphipathic, is transported in the monolayer surface of the lipoprotein particle along with phospholipids and proteins. Cholesterol esters bound to fatty acid, on the other hand, are transported within the fatty hydrophobic core of the lipoprotein, along with triglyceride.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "There are several types of lipoproteins in the blood. In order of increasing density, they are chylomicrons, very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), intermediate-density lipoprotein (IDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Lower protein/lipid ratios make for less dense lipoproteins. Cholesterol within different lipoproteins is identical, although some is carried as its native \"free\" alcohol form (the cholesterol-OH group facing the water surrounding the particles), while others as fatty acyl esters, known also as cholesterol esters, within the particles.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Lipoprotein particles are organized by complex apolipoproteins, typically 80–100 different proteins per particle, which can be recognized and bound by specific receptors on cell membranes, directing their lipid payload into specific cells and tissues currently ingesting these fat transport particles. These surface receptors serve as unique molecular signatures, which then help determine fat distribution delivery throughout the body.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Chylomicrons, the least dense cholesterol transport particles, contain apolipoprotein B-48, apolipoprotein C, and apolipoprotein E (the principal cholesterol carrier in the brain) in their shells. Chylomicrons carry fats from the intestine to muscle and other tissues in need of fatty acids for energy or fat production. Unused cholesterol remains in more cholesterol-rich chylomicron remnants, and taken up from here to the bloodstream by the liver.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "VLDL particles are produced by the liver from triacylglycerol and cholesterol which was not used in the synthesis of bile acids. These particles contain apolipoprotein B100 and apolipoprotein E in their shells, and can be degraded by lipoprotein lipase on the artery wall to IDL. This arterial wall cleavage allows absorption of triacylglycerol and increases the concentration of circulating cholesterol. IDL particles are then consumed in two processes: half is metabolized by HTGL and taken up by the LDL receptor on the liver cell surfaces, while the other half continues to lose triacylglycerols in the bloodstream until they become cholesterol-laden LDL particles.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "LDL particles are the major blood cholesterol carriers. Each one contains approximately 1,500 molecules of cholesterol ester. LDL particle shells contain just one molecule of apolipoprotein B100, recognized by LDL receptors in peripheral tissues. Upon binding of apolipoprotein B100, many LDL receptors concentrate in clathrin-coated pits. Both LDL and its receptor form vesicles within a cell via endocytosis. These vesicles then fuse with a lysosome, where the lysosomal acid lipase enzyme hydrolyzes the cholesterol esters. The cholesterol can then be used for membrane biosynthesis or esterified and stored within the cell, so as to not interfere with the cell membranes.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "LDL receptors are used up during cholesterol absorption, and its synthesis is regulated by SREBP, the same protein that controls the synthesis of cholesterol de novo, according to its presence inside the cell. A cell with abundant cholesterol will have its LDL receptor synthesis blocked, to prevent new cholesterol in LDL particles from being taken up. Conversely, LDL receptor synthesis proceeds when a cell is deficient in cholesterol.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "When this process becomes unregulated, LDL particles without receptors begin to appear in the blood. These LDL particles are oxidized and taken up by macrophages, which become engorged and form foam cells. These foam cells often become trapped in the walls of blood vessels and contribute to atherosclerotic plaque formation. Differences in cholesterol homeostasis affect the development of early atherosclerosis (carotid intima-media thickness). These plaques are the main causes of heart attacks, strokes, and other serious medical problems, leading to the association of so-called LDL cholesterol (actually a lipoprotein) with \"bad\" cholesterol.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "HDL particles are thought to transport cholesterol back to the liver, either for excretion or for other tissues that synthesize hormones, in a process known as reverse cholesterol transport (RCT). Large numbers of HDL particles correlates with better health outcomes, whereas low numbers of HDL particles is associated with atheromatous disease progression in the arteries.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Cholesterol is susceptible to oxidation and easily forms oxygenated derivatives called oxysterols. Three different mechanisms can form these: autoxidation, secondary oxidation to lipid peroxidation, and cholesterol-metabolizing enzyme oxidation. A great interest in oxysterols arose when they were shown to exert inhibitory actions on cholesterol biosynthesis. This finding became known as the \"oxysterol hypothesis\". Additional roles for oxysterols in human physiology include their participation in bile acid biosynthesis, function as transport forms of cholesterol, and regulation of gene transcription.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In biochemical experiments radiolabelled forms of cholesterol, such as tritiated-cholesterol are used. These derivatives undergo degradation upon storage and it is essential to purify cholesterol prior to use. Cholesterol can be purified using small Sephadex LH-20 columns.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Cholesterol is oxidized by the liver into a variety of bile acids. These, in turn, are conjugated with glycine, taurine, glucuronic acid, or sulfate. A mixture of conjugated and nonconjugated bile acids, along with cholesterol itself, is excreted from the liver into the bile. Approximately 95% of the bile acids are reabsorbed from the intestines, and the remainder are lost in the feces. The excretion and reabsorption of bile acids forms the basis of the enterohepatic circulation, which is essential for the digestion and absorption of dietary fats. Under certain circumstances, when more concentrated, as in the gallbladder, cholesterol crystallises and is the major constituent of most gallstones (lecithin and bilirubin gallstones also occur, but less frequently). Every day, up to 1 g of cholesterol enters the colon. This cholesterol originates from the diet, bile, and desquamated intestinal cells, and can be metabolized by the colonic bacteria. Cholesterol is converted mainly into coprostanol, a nonabsorbable sterol that is excreted in the feces.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Although cholesterol is a steroid generally associated with mammals, the human pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis is able to completely degrade this molecule and contains a large number of genes that are regulated by its presence. Many of these cholesterol-regulated genes are homologues of fatty acid β-oxidation genes, but have evolved in such a way as to bind large steroid substrates like cholesterol.",
"title": "Biosynthesis and regulation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Animal fats are complex mixtures of triglycerides, with lesser amounts of both the phospholipids and cholesterol molecules from which all animal (and human) cell membranes are constructed. Since all animal cells manufacture cholesterol, all animal-based foods contain cholesterol in varying amounts. Major dietary sources of cholesterol include red meat, egg yolks and whole eggs, liver, kidney, giblets, fish oil, and butter. Human breast milk also contains significant quantities of cholesterol.",
"title": "Dietary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Plant cells synthesize cholesterol as a precursor for other compounds, such as phytosterols and steroidal glycoalkaloids, with cholesterol remaining in plant foods only in minor amounts or absent. Some plant foods, such as avocado, flax seeds and peanuts, contain phytosterols, which compete with cholesterol for absorption in the intestines, and reduce the absorption of both dietary and bile cholesterol. A typical diet contributes on the order of 0.2 gram of phytosterols, which is not enough to have a significant impact on blocking cholesterol absorption. Phytosterols intake can be supplemented through the use of phytosterol-containing functional foods or dietary supplements that are recognized as having potential to reduce levels of LDL-cholesterol.",
"title": "Dietary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 2015, the scientific advisory panel of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture for the 2015 iteration of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans dropped the previously recommended limit of consumption of dietary cholesterol to 300 mg per day with a new recommendation to \"eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible\" and acknowledging an association between a diet low in cholesterol and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.",
"title": "Dietary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A 2013 report by the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology recommended focusing on healthy dietary patterns rather than specific cholesterol limits, as they are hard for clinicians and consumers to implement. They recommend the DASH and Mediterranean diet, which are low in cholesterol. A 2017 review by the American Heart Association recommends switching saturated fats for polyunsaturated fats to reduce cardiovascular disease risk.",
"title": "Dietary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Some supplemental guidelines have recommended doses of phytosterols in the 1.6–3.0 grams per day range (Health Canada, EFSA, ATP III, FDA). A meta-analysis demonstrated a 12% reduction in LDL-cholesterol at a mean dose of 2.1 grams per day. The benefits of a diet supplemented with phytosterols have also been questioned.",
"title": "Dietary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "According to the lipid hypothesis, elevated levels of cholesterol in the blood lead to atherosclerosis which may increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, and peripheral artery disease. Since higher blood LDL – especially higher LDL concentrations and smaller LDL particle size – contributes to this process more than the cholesterol content of the HDL particles, LDL particles are often termed \"bad cholesterol\". High concentrations of functional HDL, which can remove cholesterol from cells and atheromas, offer protection and are commonly referred to as \"good cholesterol\". These balances are mostly genetically determined, but can be changed by body composition, medications, diet, and other factors. A 2007 study demonstrated that blood total cholesterol levels have an exponential effect on cardiovascular and total mortality, with the association more pronounced in younger subjects. Because cardiovascular disease is relatively rare in the younger population, the impact of high cholesterol on health is larger in older people.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Elevated levels of the lipoprotein fractions, LDL, IDL and VLDL, rather than the total cholesterol level, correlate with the extent and progress of atherosclerosis. Conversely, the total cholesterol can be within normal limits, yet be made up primarily of small LDL and small HDL particles, under which conditions atheroma growth rates are high. A post hoc analysis of the IDEAL and the EPIC prospective studies found an association between high levels of HDL cholesterol (adjusted for apolipoprotein A-I and apolipoprotein B) and increased risk of cardiovascular disease, casting doubt on the cardioprotective role of \"good cholesterol\".",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "About one in 250 individuals can have a genetic mutation for the LDL cholesterol receptor that causes them to have familial hypercholesterolemia. Inherited high cholesterol can also include genetic mutations in the PCSK9 gene and the gene for apolipoprotein B.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Elevated cholesterol levels are treatable by a diet that reduces or eliminates saturated fat, trans fats, and high cholesterol foods, often followed by one of various hypolipidemic agents, such as statins, fibrates, cholesterol absorption inhibitors, monoclonal antibody therapy (PCSK9 inhibitors), nicotinic acid derivatives or bile acid sequestrants. There are several international guidelines on the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Human trials using HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, known as statins, have repeatedly confirmed that changing lipoprotein transport patterns from unhealthy to healthier patterns significantly lowers cardiovascular disease event rates, even for people with cholesterol values currently considered low for adults. Studies have shown that reducing LDL cholesterol levels by about 38.7 mg/dL with the use of statins can reduce cardiovascular disease and stroke risk by about 21%. Studies have also found that statins reduce atheroma progression. As a result, people with a history of cardiovascular disease may derive benefit from statins irrespective of their cholesterol levels (total cholesterol below 5.0 mmol/L [193 mg/dL]), and in men without cardiovascular disease, there is benefit from lowering abnormally high cholesterol levels (\"primary prevention\"). Primary prevention in women was originally practiced only by extension of the findings in studies on men, since, in women, none of the large statin trials conducted prior to 2007 demonstrated a significant reduction in overall mortality or in cardiovascular endpoints. Meta-analyses have demonstrated significant reductions in all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, without significant heterogeneity by sex.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The 1987 report of National Cholesterol Education Program, Adult Treatment Panels suggests the total blood cholesterol level should be: < 200 mg/dL normal blood cholesterol, 200–239 mg/dL borderline-high, > 240 mg/dL high cholesterol. The American Heart Association provides a similar set of guidelines for total (fasting) blood cholesterol levels and risk for heart disease: Statins are effective in lowering LDL cholesterol and widely used for primary prevention in people at high risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as in secondary prevention for those who have developed cardiovascular disease.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "More current testing methods determine LDL (\"bad\") and HDL (\"good\") cholesterol separately, allowing cholesterol analysis to be more nuanced. The desirable LDL level is considered to be less than 100 mg/dL (2.6 mmol/L).",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Total cholesterol is defined as the sum of HDL, LDL, and VLDL. Usually, only the total, HDL, and triglycerides are measured. For cost reasons, the VLDL is usually estimated as one-fifth of the triglycerides and the LDL is estimated using the Friedewald formula (or a variant): estimated LDL = [total cholesterol] − [total HDL] − [estimated VLDL]. Direct LDL measures are used when triglycerides exceed 400 mg/dL. The estimated VLDL and LDL have more error when triglycerides are above 400 mg/dL.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In the Framingham Heart Study, each 10 mg/dL (0.6 mmol/L) increase in total cholesterol levels increased 30-year overall mortality by 5% and CVD mortality by 9%. While subjects over the age of 50 had an 11% increase in overall mortality, and a 14% increase in cardiovascular disease mortality per 1 mg/dL (0.06 mmol/L) year drop in total cholesterol levels. The researchers attributed this phenomenon to a different correlation, whereby the disease itself increases risk of death, as well as changes a myriad of factors, such as weight loss and the inability to eat, which lower serum cholesterol. This effect was also shown in men of all ages and women over 50 in the Vorarlberg Health Monitoring and Promotion Programme. These groups were more likely to die of cancer, liver diseases, and mental diseases with very low total cholesterol, of 186 mg/dL (10.3 mmol/L) and lower. This result indicates the low-cholesterol effect occurs even among younger respondents, contradicting the previous assessment among cohorts of older people that this is a marker for frailty occurring with age.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Abnormally low levels of cholesterol are termed hypocholesterolemia. Research into the causes of this state is relatively limited, but some studies suggest a link with depression, cancer, and cerebral hemorrhage. In general, the low cholesterol levels seem to be a consequence, rather than a cause, of an underlying illness. A genetic defect in cholesterol synthesis causes Smith–Lemli–Opitz syndrome, which is often associated with low plasma cholesterol levels. Hyperthyroidism, or any other endocrine disturbance which causes upregulation of the LDL receptor, may result in hypocholesterolemia.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The American Heart Association recommends testing cholesterol every 4–6 years for people aged 20 years or older. A separate set of American Heart Association guidelines issued in 2013 indicates that people taking statin medications should have their cholesterol tested 4–12 weeks after their first dose and then every 3–12 months thereafter. For men ages 45 to 65 and women ages 55 to 65, a cholesterol test should occur every 1–2 years, and for seniors over age 65, an annual test should be performed.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "A blood sample after 12-hours of fasting is taken by a healthcare professional from an arm vein to measure a lipid profile for a) total cholesterol, b) HDL cholesterol, c) LDL cholesterol, and d) triglycerides. Results may be expressed as \"calculated\", indicating a calculation of total cholesterol, HDL, and triglycerides.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Cholesterol is tested to determine for \"normal\" or \"desirable\" levels if a person has a total cholesterol of 5.2 mmol/L or less (200 mg/dL), an HDL value of more than 1 mmol/L (40 mg/dL, \"the higher, the better\"), an LDL value of less than 2.6 mmol/L (100 mg/dL), and a triglycerides level of less than 1.7 mmol/L (150 mg/dL). Blood cholesterol in people with lifestyle, aging, or cardiovascular risk factors, such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, family history of coronary artery disease, or angina, are evaluated at different levels.",
"title": "Clinical significance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Click on genes, proteins and metabolites below to link to respective articles.",
"title": "Interactive pathway map"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Some cholesterol derivatives (among other simple cholesteric lipids) are known to generate the liquid crystalline \"cholesteric phase\". The cholesteric phase is, in fact, a chiral nematic phase, and it changes colour when its temperature changes. This makes cholesterol derivatives useful for indicating temperature in liquid-crystal display thermometers and in temperature-sensitive paints.",
"title": "Cholesteric liquid crystals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Cholesterol has 256 stereoisomers that arise from its eight stereocenters, although only two of the stereoisomers have biochemical significance (nat-cholesterol and ent-cholesterol, for natural and enantiomer, respectively), and only one occurs naturally (nat-cholesterol).",
"title": "Stereoisomers"
}
] | Cholesterol is the principal sterol of all higher animals, distributed in body tissues, especially the brain and spinal cord, and in animal fats and oils. Cholesterol is biosynthesized by all animal cells and is an essential structural component of animal cell membranes. In vertebrates, hepatic cells typically produce the greatest amounts. In the brain astrocytes produce cholesterol and transport it to neurons. It is absent among prokaryotes, although there are some exceptions, such as Mycoplasma, which require cholesterol for growth. Cholesterol also serves as a precursor for the biosynthesis of steroid hormones, bile acid and vitamin D. Elevated levels of cholesterol in the blood, especially when bound to low-density lipoprotein, may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. François Poulletier de la Salle first identified cholesterol in solid form in gallstones in 1769. In 1815, chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul named the compound "cholesterine". | 2001-09-18T17:33:20Z | 2023-12-19T04:52:58Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterol |
6,438 | Chromosome | A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are the histones. These proteins, aided by chaperone proteins, bind to and condense the DNA molecule to maintain its integrity. These chromosomes display a complex three-dimensional structure, which plays a significant role in transcriptional regulation.
Chromosomes are normally visible under a light microscope only during the metaphase of cell division (where all chromosomes are aligned in the center of the cell in their condensed form). Before this happens, each chromosome is duplicated (S phase), and both copies are joined by a centromere, resulting either in an X-shaped structure (pictured above), if the centromere is located equatorially, or a two-arm structure, if the centromere is located distally. The joined copies are now called sister chromatids. During metaphase the X-shaped structure is called a metaphase chromosome, which is highly condensed and thus easiest to distinguish and study. In animal cells, chromosomes reach their highest compaction level in anaphase during chromosome segregation.
Chromosomal recombination during meiosis and subsequent sexual reproduction play a significant role in genetic diversity. If these structures are manipulated incorrectly, through processes known as chromosomal instability and translocation, the cell may undergo mitotic catastrophe. Usually, this will make the cell initiate apoptosis leading to its own death, but sometimes mutations in the cell hamper this process and thus cause progression of cancer.
Some use the term chromosome in a wider sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin in cells, either visible or not under light microscopy. Others use the concept in a narrower sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin during cell division, visible under light microscopy due to high condensation.
The word chromosome (/ˈkroʊməˌsoʊm, -ˌzoʊm/) comes from the Greek χρῶμα (chroma, "colour") and σῶμα (soma, "body"), describing their strong staining by particular dyes. The term was coined by the German anatomist Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer, referring to the term chromatin, which was introduced by Walther Flemming.
Some of the early karyological terms have become outdated. For example, Chromatin (Flemming 1880) and Chromosom (Waldeyer 1888), both ascribe color to a non-colored state.
Otto Bütschli was the first scientist to recognize the structures now known as chromosomes.
In a series of experiments beginning in the mid-1880s, Theodor Boveri gave definitive contributions to elucidating that chromosomes are the vectors of heredity, with two notions that became known as 'chromosome continuity' and 'chromosome individuality'.
Wilhelm Roux suggested that each chromosome carries a different genetic configuration, and Boveri was able to test and confirm this hypothesis. Aided by the rediscovery at the start of the 1900s of Gregor Mendel's earlier work, Boveri was able to point out the connection between the rules of inheritance and the behaviour of the chromosomes. Boveri influenced two generations of American cytologists: Edmund Beecher Wilson, Nettie Stevens, Walter Sutton and Theophilus Painter were all influenced by Boveri (Wilson, Stevens, and Painter actually worked with him).
In his famous textbook The Cell in Development and Heredity, Wilson linked together the independent work of Boveri and Sutton (both around 1902) by naming the chromosome theory of inheritance the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory (the names are sometimes reversed). Ernst Mayr remarks that the theory was hotly contested by some famous geneticists: William Bateson, Wilhelm Johannsen, Richard Goldschmidt and T.H. Morgan, all of a rather dogmatic turn of mind. Eventually, complete proof came from chromosome maps in Morgan's own lab.
The number of human chromosomes was published in 1923 by Theophilus Painter. By inspection through the microscope, he counted 24 pairs, which would mean 48 chromosomes. His error was copied by others and it was not until 1956 that the true number, 46, was determined by Indonesia-born cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio.
The prokaryotes – bacteria and archaea – typically have a single circular chromosome, but many variations exist. The chromosomes of most bacteria, which some authors prefer to call genophores, can range in size from only 130,000 base pairs in the endosymbiotic bacteria Candidatus Hodgkinia cicadicola and Candidatus Tremblaya princeps, to more than 14,000,000 base pairs in the soil-dwelling bacterium Sorangium cellulosum. Spirochaetes of the genus Borrelia are a notable exception to this arrangement, with bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease, containing a single linear chromosome.
Prokaryotic chromosomes have less sequence-based structure than eukaryotes. Bacteria typically have a one-point (the origin of replication) from which replication starts, whereas some archaea contain multiple replication origins. The genes in prokaryotes are often organized in operons, and do not usually contain introns, unlike eukaryotes.
Prokaryotes do not possess nuclei. Instead, their DNA is organized into a structure called the nucleoid. The nucleoid is a distinct structure and occupies a defined region of the bacterial cell. This structure is, however, dynamic and is maintained and remodeled by the actions of a range of histone-like proteins, which associate with the bacterial chromosome. In archaea, the DNA in chromosomes is even more organized, with the DNA packaged within structures similar to eukaryotic nucleosomes.
Certain bacteria also contain plasmids or other extrachromosomal DNA. These are circular structures in the cytoplasm that contain cellular DNA and play a role in horizontal gene transfer. In prokaryotes (see nucleoids) and viruses, the DNA is often densely packed and organized; in the case of archaea, by homology to eukaryotic histones, and in the case of bacteria, by histone-like proteins.
Bacterial chromosomes tend to be tethered to the plasma membrane of the bacteria. In molecular biology application, this allows for its isolation from plasmid DNA by centrifugation of lysed bacteria and pelleting of the membranes (and the attached DNA).
Prokaryotic chromosomes and plasmids are, like eukaryotic DNA, generally supercoiled. The DNA must first be released into its relaxed state for access for transcription, regulation, and replication.
Each eukaryotic chromosome consists of a long linear DNA molecule associated with proteins, forming a compact complex of proteins and DNA called chromatin. Chromatin contains the vast majority of the DNA of an organism, but a small amount inherited maternally can be found in the mitochondria. It is present in most cells, with a few exceptions, for example, red blood cells.
Histones are responsible for the first and most basic unit of chromosome organization, the nucleosome.
Eukaryotes (cells with nuclei such as those found in plants, fungi, and animals) possess multiple large linear chromosomes contained in the cell's nucleus. Each chromosome has one centromere, with one or two arms projecting from the centromere, although, under most circumstances, these arms are not visible as such. In addition, most eukaryotes have a small circular mitochondrial genome, and some eukaryotes may have additional small circular or linear cytoplasmic chromosomes.
In the nuclear chromosomes of eukaryotes, the uncondensed DNA exists in a semi-ordered structure, where it is wrapped around histones (structural proteins), forming a composite material called chromatin.
The packaging of DNA into nucleosomes causes a 10 nanometer fibre which may further condense up to 30 nm fibres Most of the euchromatin in interphase nuclei appears to be in the form of 30-nm fibers. Chromatin structure is the more decondensed state, i.e. the 10-nm conformation allows transcription.
During interphase (the period of the cell cycle where the cell is not dividing), two types of chromatin can be distinguished:
In the early stages of mitosis or meiosis (cell division), the chromatin double helix become more and more condensed. They cease to function as accessible genetic material (transcription stops) and become a compact transportable form. The loops of 30-nm chromatin fibers are thought to fold upon themselves further to form the compact metaphase chromosomes of mitotic cells. The DNA is thus condensed about 10,000 fold.
The chromosome scaffold, which is made of proteins such as condensin, TOP2A and KIF4, plays an important role in holding the chromatin into compact chromosomes. Loops of 30 nm structure further condense with scaffold into higher order structures.
This highly compact form makes the individual chromosomes visible, and they form the classic four-arm structure, a pair of sister chromatids attached to each other at the centromere. The shorter arms are called p arms (from the French petit, small) and the longer arms are called q arms (q follows p in the Latin alphabet; q-g "grande"; alternatively it is sometimes said q is short for queue meaning tail in French). This is the only natural context in which individual chromosomes are visible with an optical microscope.
Mitotic metaphase chromosomes are best described by a linearly organized longitudinally compressed array of consecutive chromatin loops.
During mitosis, microtubules grow from centrosomes located at opposite ends of the cell and also attach to the centromere at specialized structures called kinetochores, one of which is present on each sister chromatid. A special DNA base sequence in the region of the kinetochores provides, along with special proteins, longer-lasting attachment in this region. The microtubules then pull the chromatids apart toward the centrosomes, so that each daughter cell inherits one set of chromatids. Once the cells have divided, the chromatids are uncoiled and DNA can again be transcribed. In spite of their appearance, chromosomes are structurally highly condensed, which enables these giant DNA structures to be contained within a cell nucleus.
Chromosomes in humans can be divided into two types: autosomes (body chromosome(s)) and allosome (sex chromosome(s)). Certain genetic traits are linked to a person's sex and are passed on through the sex chromosomes. The autosomes contain the rest of the genetic hereditary information. All act in the same way during cell division. Human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes (22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes), giving a total of 46 per cell. In addition to these, human cells have many hundreds of copies of the mitochondrial genome. Sequencing of the human genome has provided a great deal of information about each of the chromosomes. Below is a table compiling statistics for the chromosomes, based on the Sanger Institute's human genome information in the Vertebrate Genome Annotation (VEGA) database. Number of genes is an estimate, as it is in part based on gene predictions. Total chromosome length is an estimate as well, based on the estimated size of unsequenced heterochromatin regions.
Based on the micrographic characteristics of size, position of the centromere and sometimes the presence of a chromosomal satellite, the human chromosomes are classified into the following groups:
In general, the karyotype is the characteristic chromosome complement of a eukaryote species. The preparation and study of karyotypes is part of cytogenetics.
Although the replication and transcription of DNA is highly standardized in eukaryotes, the same cannot be said for their karyotypes, which are often highly variable. There may be variation between species in chromosome number and in detailed organization. In some cases, there is significant variation within species. Often there is:
Also, variation in karyotype may occur during development from the fertilized egg.
The technique of determining the karyotype is usually called karyotyping. Cells can be locked part-way through division (in metaphase) in vitro (in a reaction vial) with colchicine. These cells are then stained, photographed, and arranged into a karyogram, with the set of chromosomes arranged, autosomes in order of length, and sex chromosomes (here X/Y) at the end.
Like many sexually reproducing species, humans have special gonosomes (sex chromosomes, in contrast to autosomes). These are XX in females and XY in males.
Investigation into the human karyotype took many years to settle the most basic question: How many chromosomes does a normal diploid human cell contain? In 1912, Hans von Winiwarter reported 47 chromosomes in spermatogonia and 48 in oogonia, concluding an XX/XO sex determination mechanism. Painter in 1922 was not certain whether the diploid number of man is 46 or 48, at first favouring 46. He revised his opinion later from 46 to 48, and he correctly insisted on humans having an XX/XY system.
New techniques were needed to definitively solve the problem:
It took until 1954 before the human diploid number was confirmed as 46. Considering the techniques of Winiwarter and Painter, their results were quite remarkable. Chimpanzees, the closest living relatives to modern humans, have 48 chromosomes as do the other great apes: in humans two chromosomes fused to form chromosome 2.
Chromosomal aberrations are disruptions in the normal chromosomal content of a cell and are a major cause of genetic conditions in humans, such as Down syndrome, although most aberrations have little to no effect. Some chromosome abnormalities do not cause disease in carriers, such as translocations, or chromosomal inversions, although they may lead to a higher chance of bearing a child with a chromosome disorder. Abnormal numbers of chromosomes or chromosome sets, called aneuploidy, may be lethal or may give rise to genetic disorders. Genetic counseling is offered for families that may carry a chromosome rearrangement.
The gain or loss of DNA from chromosomes can lead to a variety of genetic disorders. Human examples include:
Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental and/or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa. In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking, and occupational exposure to benzene, insecticides, and perfluorinated compounds. Increased aneuploidy is often associated with increased DNA damage in spermatozoa.
The number of chromosomes in eukaryotes is highly variable (see table). In fact, chromosomes can fuse or break and thus evolve into novel karyotypes. Chromosomes can also be fused artificially. For example, the 16 chromosomes of yeast have been fused into one giant chromosome and the cells were still viable with only somewhat reduced growth rates.
The tables below give the total number of chromosomes (including sex chromosomes) in a cell nucleus. For example, most eukaryotes are diploid, like humans who have 22 different types of autosomes, each present as two homologous pairs, and two sex chromosomes. This gives 46 chromosomes in total. Other organisms have more than two copies of their chromosome types, such as bread wheat, which is hexaploid and has six copies of seven different chromosome types – 42 chromosomes in total.
Normal members of a particular eukaryotic species all have the same number of nuclear chromosomes (see the table). Other eukaryotic chromosomes, i.e., mitochondrial and plasmid-like small chromosomes, are much more variable in number, and there may be thousands of copies per cell.
Asexually reproducing species have one set of chromosomes that are the same in all body cells. However, asexual species can be either haploid or diploid.
Sexually reproducing species have somatic cells (body cells), which are diploid [2n] having two sets of chromosomes (23 pairs in humans), one set from the mother and one from the father. Gametes, reproductive cells, are haploid [n]: They have one set of chromosomes. Gametes are produced by meiosis of a diploid germline cell. During meiosis, the matching chromosomes of father and mother can exchange small parts of themselves (crossover), and thus create new chromosomes that are not inherited solely from either parent. When a male and a female gamete merge (fertilization), a new diploid organism is formed.
Some animal and plant species are polyploid [Xn]: They have more than two sets of homologous chromosomes. Plants important in agriculture such as tobacco or wheat are often polyploid, compared to their ancestral species. Wheat has a haploid number of seven chromosomes, still seen in some cultivars as well as the wild progenitors. The more-common pasta and bread wheat types are polyploid, having 28 (tetraploid) and 42 (hexaploid) chromosomes, compared to the 14 (diploid) chromosomes in the wild wheat.
Prokaryote species generally have one copy of each major chromosome, but most cells can easily survive with multiple copies. For example, Buchnera, a symbiont of aphids has multiple copies of its chromosome, ranging from 10–400 copies per cell. However, in some large bacteria, such as Epulopiscium fishelsoni up to 100,000 copies of the chromosome can be present. Plasmids and plasmid-like small chromosomes are, as in eukaryotes, highly variable in copy number. The number of plasmids in the cell is almost entirely determined by the rate of division of the plasmid – fast division causes high copy number. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are the histones. These proteins, aided by chaperone proteins, bind to and condense the DNA molecule to maintain its integrity. These chromosomes display a complex three-dimensional structure, which plays a significant role in transcriptional regulation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Chromosomes are normally visible under a light microscope only during the metaphase of cell division (where all chromosomes are aligned in the center of the cell in their condensed form). Before this happens, each chromosome is duplicated (S phase), and both copies are joined by a centromere, resulting either in an X-shaped structure (pictured above), if the centromere is located equatorially, or a two-arm structure, if the centromere is located distally. The joined copies are now called sister chromatids. During metaphase the X-shaped structure is called a metaphase chromosome, which is highly condensed and thus easiest to distinguish and study. In animal cells, chromosomes reach their highest compaction level in anaphase during chromosome segregation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Chromosomal recombination during meiosis and subsequent sexual reproduction play a significant role in genetic diversity. If these structures are manipulated incorrectly, through processes known as chromosomal instability and translocation, the cell may undergo mitotic catastrophe. Usually, this will make the cell initiate apoptosis leading to its own death, but sometimes mutations in the cell hamper this process and thus cause progression of cancer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Some use the term chromosome in a wider sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin in cells, either visible or not under light microscopy. Others use the concept in a narrower sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin during cell division, visible under light microscopy due to high condensation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The word chromosome (/ˈkroʊməˌsoʊm, -ˌzoʊm/) comes from the Greek χρῶμα (chroma, \"colour\") and σῶμα (soma, \"body\"), describing their strong staining by particular dyes. The term was coined by the German anatomist Heinrich Wilhelm Waldeyer, referring to the term chromatin, which was introduced by Walther Flemming.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Some of the early karyological terms have become outdated. For example, Chromatin (Flemming 1880) and Chromosom (Waldeyer 1888), both ascribe color to a non-colored state.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Otto Bütschli was the first scientist to recognize the structures now known as chromosomes.",
"title": "History of discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In a series of experiments beginning in the mid-1880s, Theodor Boveri gave definitive contributions to elucidating that chromosomes are the vectors of heredity, with two notions that became known as 'chromosome continuity' and 'chromosome individuality'.",
"title": "History of discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Wilhelm Roux suggested that each chromosome carries a different genetic configuration, and Boveri was able to test and confirm this hypothesis. Aided by the rediscovery at the start of the 1900s of Gregor Mendel's earlier work, Boveri was able to point out the connection between the rules of inheritance and the behaviour of the chromosomes. Boveri influenced two generations of American cytologists: Edmund Beecher Wilson, Nettie Stevens, Walter Sutton and Theophilus Painter were all influenced by Boveri (Wilson, Stevens, and Painter actually worked with him).",
"title": "History of discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In his famous textbook The Cell in Development and Heredity, Wilson linked together the independent work of Boveri and Sutton (both around 1902) by naming the chromosome theory of inheritance the Boveri–Sutton chromosome theory (the names are sometimes reversed). Ernst Mayr remarks that the theory was hotly contested by some famous geneticists: William Bateson, Wilhelm Johannsen, Richard Goldschmidt and T.H. Morgan, all of a rather dogmatic turn of mind. Eventually, complete proof came from chromosome maps in Morgan's own lab.",
"title": "History of discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The number of human chromosomes was published in 1923 by Theophilus Painter. By inspection through the microscope, he counted 24 pairs, which would mean 48 chromosomes. His error was copied by others and it was not until 1956 that the true number, 46, was determined by Indonesia-born cytogeneticist Joe Hin Tjio.",
"title": "History of discovery"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The prokaryotes – bacteria and archaea – typically have a single circular chromosome, but many variations exist. The chromosomes of most bacteria, which some authors prefer to call genophores, can range in size from only 130,000 base pairs in the endosymbiotic bacteria Candidatus Hodgkinia cicadicola and Candidatus Tremblaya princeps, to more than 14,000,000 base pairs in the soil-dwelling bacterium Sorangium cellulosum. Spirochaetes of the genus Borrelia are a notable exception to this arrangement, with bacteria such as Borrelia burgdorferi, the cause of Lyme disease, containing a single linear chromosome.",
"title": "Prokaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Prokaryotic chromosomes have less sequence-based structure than eukaryotes. Bacteria typically have a one-point (the origin of replication) from which replication starts, whereas some archaea contain multiple replication origins. The genes in prokaryotes are often organized in operons, and do not usually contain introns, unlike eukaryotes.",
"title": "Prokaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Prokaryotes do not possess nuclei. Instead, their DNA is organized into a structure called the nucleoid. The nucleoid is a distinct structure and occupies a defined region of the bacterial cell. This structure is, however, dynamic and is maintained and remodeled by the actions of a range of histone-like proteins, which associate with the bacterial chromosome. In archaea, the DNA in chromosomes is even more organized, with the DNA packaged within structures similar to eukaryotic nucleosomes.",
"title": "Prokaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Certain bacteria also contain plasmids or other extrachromosomal DNA. These are circular structures in the cytoplasm that contain cellular DNA and play a role in horizontal gene transfer. In prokaryotes (see nucleoids) and viruses, the DNA is often densely packed and organized; in the case of archaea, by homology to eukaryotic histones, and in the case of bacteria, by histone-like proteins.",
"title": "Prokaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Bacterial chromosomes tend to be tethered to the plasma membrane of the bacteria. In molecular biology application, this allows for its isolation from plasmid DNA by centrifugation of lysed bacteria and pelleting of the membranes (and the attached DNA).",
"title": "Prokaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Prokaryotic chromosomes and plasmids are, like eukaryotic DNA, generally supercoiled. The DNA must first be released into its relaxed state for access for transcription, regulation, and replication.",
"title": "Prokaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Each eukaryotic chromosome consists of a long linear DNA molecule associated with proteins, forming a compact complex of proteins and DNA called chromatin. Chromatin contains the vast majority of the DNA of an organism, but a small amount inherited maternally can be found in the mitochondria. It is present in most cells, with a few exceptions, for example, red blood cells.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Histones are responsible for the first and most basic unit of chromosome organization, the nucleosome.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Eukaryotes (cells with nuclei such as those found in plants, fungi, and animals) possess multiple large linear chromosomes contained in the cell's nucleus. Each chromosome has one centromere, with one or two arms projecting from the centromere, although, under most circumstances, these arms are not visible as such. In addition, most eukaryotes have a small circular mitochondrial genome, and some eukaryotes may have additional small circular or linear cytoplasmic chromosomes.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In the nuclear chromosomes of eukaryotes, the uncondensed DNA exists in a semi-ordered structure, where it is wrapped around histones (structural proteins), forming a composite material called chromatin.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The packaging of DNA into nucleosomes causes a 10 nanometer fibre which may further condense up to 30 nm fibres Most of the euchromatin in interphase nuclei appears to be in the form of 30-nm fibers. Chromatin structure is the more decondensed state, i.e. the 10-nm conformation allows transcription.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "During interphase (the period of the cell cycle where the cell is not dividing), two types of chromatin can be distinguished:",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In the early stages of mitosis or meiosis (cell division), the chromatin double helix become more and more condensed. They cease to function as accessible genetic material (transcription stops) and become a compact transportable form. The loops of 30-nm chromatin fibers are thought to fold upon themselves further to form the compact metaphase chromosomes of mitotic cells. The DNA is thus condensed about 10,000 fold.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The chromosome scaffold, which is made of proteins such as condensin, TOP2A and KIF4, plays an important role in holding the chromatin into compact chromosomes. Loops of 30 nm structure further condense with scaffold into higher order structures.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "This highly compact form makes the individual chromosomes visible, and they form the classic four-arm structure, a pair of sister chromatids attached to each other at the centromere. The shorter arms are called p arms (from the French petit, small) and the longer arms are called q arms (q follows p in the Latin alphabet; q-g \"grande\"; alternatively it is sometimes said q is short for queue meaning tail in French). This is the only natural context in which individual chromosomes are visible with an optical microscope.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Mitotic metaphase chromosomes are best described by a linearly organized longitudinally compressed array of consecutive chromatin loops.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "During mitosis, microtubules grow from centrosomes located at opposite ends of the cell and also attach to the centromere at specialized structures called kinetochores, one of which is present on each sister chromatid. A special DNA base sequence in the region of the kinetochores provides, along with special proteins, longer-lasting attachment in this region. The microtubules then pull the chromatids apart toward the centrosomes, so that each daughter cell inherits one set of chromatids. Once the cells have divided, the chromatids are uncoiled and DNA can again be transcribed. In spite of their appearance, chromosomes are structurally highly condensed, which enables these giant DNA structures to be contained within a cell nucleus.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Chromosomes in humans can be divided into two types: autosomes (body chromosome(s)) and allosome (sex chromosome(s)). Certain genetic traits are linked to a person's sex and are passed on through the sex chromosomes. The autosomes contain the rest of the genetic hereditary information. All act in the same way during cell division. Human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes (22 pairs of autosomes and one pair of sex chromosomes), giving a total of 46 per cell. In addition to these, human cells have many hundreds of copies of the mitochondrial genome. Sequencing of the human genome has provided a great deal of information about each of the chromosomes. Below is a table compiling statistics for the chromosomes, based on the Sanger Institute's human genome information in the Vertebrate Genome Annotation (VEGA) database. Number of genes is an estimate, as it is in part based on gene predictions. Total chromosome length is an estimate as well, based on the estimated size of unsequenced heterochromatin regions.",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Based on the micrographic characteristics of size, position of the centromere and sometimes the presence of a chromosomal satellite, the human chromosomes are classified into the following groups:",
"title": "Eukaryotes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In general, the karyotype is the characteristic chromosome complement of a eukaryote species. The preparation and study of karyotypes is part of cytogenetics.",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Although the replication and transcription of DNA is highly standardized in eukaryotes, the same cannot be said for their karyotypes, which are often highly variable. There may be variation between species in chromosome number and in detailed organization. In some cases, there is significant variation within species. Often there is:",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Also, variation in karyotype may occur during development from the fertilized egg.",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The technique of determining the karyotype is usually called karyotyping. Cells can be locked part-way through division (in metaphase) in vitro (in a reaction vial) with colchicine. These cells are then stained, photographed, and arranged into a karyogram, with the set of chromosomes arranged, autosomes in order of length, and sex chromosomes (here X/Y) at the end.",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Like many sexually reproducing species, humans have special gonosomes (sex chromosomes, in contrast to autosomes). These are XX in females and XY in males.",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Investigation into the human karyotype took many years to settle the most basic question: How many chromosomes does a normal diploid human cell contain? In 1912, Hans von Winiwarter reported 47 chromosomes in spermatogonia and 48 in oogonia, concluding an XX/XO sex determination mechanism. Painter in 1922 was not certain whether the diploid number of man is 46 or 48, at first favouring 46. He revised his opinion later from 46 to 48, and he correctly insisted on humans having an XX/XY system.",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "New techniques were needed to definitively solve the problem:",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "It took until 1954 before the human diploid number was confirmed as 46. Considering the techniques of Winiwarter and Painter, their results were quite remarkable. Chimpanzees, the closest living relatives to modern humans, have 48 chromosomes as do the other great apes: in humans two chromosomes fused to form chromosome 2.",
"title": "Karyotype"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Chromosomal aberrations are disruptions in the normal chromosomal content of a cell and are a major cause of genetic conditions in humans, such as Down syndrome, although most aberrations have little to no effect. Some chromosome abnormalities do not cause disease in carriers, such as translocations, or chromosomal inversions, although they may lead to a higher chance of bearing a child with a chromosome disorder. Abnormal numbers of chromosomes or chromosome sets, called aneuploidy, may be lethal or may give rise to genetic disorders. Genetic counseling is offered for families that may carry a chromosome rearrangement.",
"title": "Aberrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The gain or loss of DNA from chromosomes can lead to a variety of genetic disorders. Human examples include:",
"title": "Aberrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental and/or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa. In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking, and occupational exposure to benzene, insecticides, and perfluorinated compounds. Increased aneuploidy is often associated with increased DNA damage in spermatozoa.",
"title": "Aberrations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The number of chromosomes in eukaryotes is highly variable (see table). In fact, chromosomes can fuse or break and thus evolve into novel karyotypes. Chromosomes can also be fused artificially. For example, the 16 chromosomes of yeast have been fused into one giant chromosome and the cells were still viable with only somewhat reduced growth rates.",
"title": "Number in various organisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The tables below give the total number of chromosomes (including sex chromosomes) in a cell nucleus. For example, most eukaryotes are diploid, like humans who have 22 different types of autosomes, each present as two homologous pairs, and two sex chromosomes. This gives 46 chromosomes in total. Other organisms have more than two copies of their chromosome types, such as bread wheat, which is hexaploid and has six copies of seven different chromosome types – 42 chromosomes in total.",
"title": "Number in various organisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Normal members of a particular eukaryotic species all have the same number of nuclear chromosomes (see the table). Other eukaryotic chromosomes, i.e., mitochondrial and plasmid-like small chromosomes, are much more variable in number, and there may be thousands of copies per cell.",
"title": "Number in various organisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Asexually reproducing species have one set of chromosomes that are the same in all body cells. However, asexual species can be either haploid or diploid.",
"title": "Number in various organisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Sexually reproducing species have somatic cells (body cells), which are diploid [2n] having two sets of chromosomes (23 pairs in humans), one set from the mother and one from the father. Gametes, reproductive cells, are haploid [n]: They have one set of chromosomes. Gametes are produced by meiosis of a diploid germline cell. During meiosis, the matching chromosomes of father and mother can exchange small parts of themselves (crossover), and thus create new chromosomes that are not inherited solely from either parent. When a male and a female gamete merge (fertilization), a new diploid organism is formed.",
"title": "Number in various organisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Some animal and plant species are polyploid [Xn]: They have more than two sets of homologous chromosomes. Plants important in agriculture such as tobacco or wheat are often polyploid, compared to their ancestral species. Wheat has a haploid number of seven chromosomes, still seen in some cultivars as well as the wild progenitors. The more-common pasta and bread wheat types are polyploid, having 28 (tetraploid) and 42 (hexaploid) chromosomes, compared to the 14 (diploid) chromosomes in the wild wheat.",
"title": "Number in various organisms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Prokaryote species generally have one copy of each major chromosome, but most cells can easily survive with multiple copies. For example, Buchnera, a symbiont of aphids has multiple copies of its chromosome, ranging from 10–400 copies per cell. However, in some large bacteria, such as Epulopiscium fishelsoni up to 100,000 copies of the chromosome can be present. Plasmids and plasmid-like small chromosomes are, as in eukaryotes, highly variable in copy number. The number of plasmids in the cell is almost entirely determined by the rate of division of the plasmid – fast division causes high copy number.",
"title": "Number in various organisms"
}
] | A chromosome is a long DNA molecule with part or all of the genetic material of an organism. In most chromosomes the very long thin DNA fibers are coated with packaging proteins; in eukaryotic cells the most important of these proteins are the histones. These proteins, aided by chaperone proteins, bind to and condense the DNA molecule to maintain its integrity. These chromosomes display a complex three-dimensional structure, which plays a significant role in transcriptional regulation. Chromosomes are normally visible under a light microscope only during the metaphase of cell division. Before this happens, each chromosome is duplicated, and both copies are joined by a centromere, resulting either in an X-shaped structure, if the centromere is located equatorially, or a two-arm structure, if the centromere is located distally. The joined copies are now called sister chromatids. During metaphase the X-shaped structure is called a metaphase chromosome, which is highly condensed and thus easiest to distinguish and study. In animal cells, chromosomes reach their highest compaction level in anaphase during chromosome segregation. Chromosomal recombination during meiosis and subsequent sexual reproduction play a significant role in genetic diversity. If these structures are manipulated incorrectly, through processes known as chromosomal instability and translocation, the cell may undergo mitotic catastrophe. Usually, this will make the cell initiate apoptosis leading to its own death, but sometimes mutations in the cell hamper this process and thus cause progression of cancer. Some use the term chromosome in a wider sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin in cells, either visible or not under light microscopy. Others use the concept in a narrower sense, to refer to the individualized portions of chromatin during cell division, visible under light microscopy due to high condensation. | 2001-09-19T18:47:28Z | 2023-12-28T15:31:22Z | [
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6,439 | Charge | Charge or charged may refer to: | [
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] | Charge or charged may refer to: | 2023-06-23T03:52:10Z | [
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|
6,440 | Colonna family | The House of Colonna, also known as Sciarrillo or Sciarra, is an Italian noble family, forming part of the papal nobility. It was powerful in medieval and Renaissance Rome, supplying one pope (Martin V) and many other church and political leaders. The family is notable for its bitter feud with the Orsini family over influence in Rome, until it was stopped by papal bull in 1511. In 1571, the heads of both families married nieces of Pope Sixtus V. Thereafter, historians recorded that "no peace had been concluded between the princes of Christendom, in which they had not been included by name".
According to tradition, the Colonna family is a branch of the Counts of Tusculum — by Peter (1099–1151) son of Gregory III, called Peter "de Columna" from his property the Columna Castle in Colonna, in the Alban Hills. Further back, they trace their lineage past the Counts of Tusculum via Lombard and Italo-Roman nobles, merchants, and clergy through the Early Middle Ages — ultimately claiming origins from the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the gens Julia whose origin is lost in the mists of time but which entered the annals for the first time in 489 BC with the consulship of Gaius Julius Iulus.
The first cardinal from the family was appointed in 1206, when Giovanni Colonna di Carbognano was made Cardinal Deacon of SS. Cosma e Damiano. For many years, Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo (elevated in 1193) was identified as a member of the Colonna family and therefore its first representative in the College of Cardinals, but modern scholars have established that this was based on false information from the beginning of the 16th century.
Giovanni Colonna (born c. 1206) nephew of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna di Carbognano, made his solemn vows as a Dominican around 1228 and received his theological and philosophical training at the Roman studium of Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum. He served as the Provincial of the Roman province of the Dominican Order and led the provincial chapter of 1248 at Anagni. Colonna was appointed as Archbishop of Messina in 1255.
Margherita Colonna (died 1248) was a member of the Franciscan Order. She was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1848.
At this time, a rivalry began with the pro-papal Orsini family, leaders of the Guelph faction. This reinforced the pro-Emperor Ghibelline course that the Colonna family followed throughout the period of conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. Ironically according to their own family legend, the Orsini are also descended from the Julio-Claudian dynasty of ancient Rome.
In 1297, Cardinal Jacopo disinherited his brothers Ottone, Matteo, and Landolfo of their lands. The latter three appealed to Pope Boniface VIII, who ordered Jacopo to return the land, and furthermore hand over the family's strongholds of Colonna, Palestrina, and other towns to the Papacy. Jacopo refused; in May, Boniface removed him from the College of Cardinals and excommunicated him and his followers.
The Colonna family (aside from the three brothers allied with the Pope) declared that Boniface had been elected illegally following the unprecedented abdication of Pope Celestine V. The dispute led to open warfare, and in September, Boniface appointed Landolfo to the command of his army, to put down the revolt of Landolfo's own Colonna relatives. By the end of 1298, Landolfo had captured Colonna, Palestrina and other towns, and razed them to the ground. The family's lands were distributed among Landolfo and his loyal brothers; the rest of the family fled Italy.
The exiled Colonnas allied with the Pope's other great enemy, Philip IV of France, who in his youth had been tutored by Cardinal Egidio Colonna. In September 1303, Sciarra and Philipp's advisor, Guillaume de Nogaret, led a small force into Anagni to arrest Boniface VIII and bring him to France, where he was to stand trial. The two managed to apprehend the pope, and Sciarra reportedly slapped the pope in the face in the process, which was accordingly dubbed the "Outrage of Anagni". The attempt eventually failed after a few days, when locals freed the pope. However, Boniface VIII died on 11 October, allowing France to dominate his weaker successors during the Avignon papacy.
The family remained at the centre of civic and religious life throughout the late Middle Ages. Cardinal Egidio Colonna died at the papal court in Avignon in 1314. An Augustinian, he had studied theology in Paris under St. Thomas of Aquinas to become one of the most authoritative thinkers of his time.
In the 14th century, the family sponsored the decoration of the Church of San Giovanni, most notably the floor mosaics.
In 1328, Louis IV of Germany marched into Italy for his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. As Pope John XXII was residing in Avignon and had publicly declared that he would not crown Louis, the King decided to be crowned by a member of the Roman aristocracy, who proposed Sciarra Colonna. In honor of this event, the Colonna family was granted the privilege of using the imperial pointed crown on top of their coat of arms.
The celebrated poet Petrarch, was a great friend of the family, in particular of Giovanni Colonna and often lived in Rome as a guest of the family. He composed a number of sonnets for special occasions within the Colonna family, including "Colonna the Glorious, the great Latin name upon which all our hopes rest". In this period, the Colonna started claiming they were descendants of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
At the Council of Constance, the Colonna finally succeeded in their papal ambitions when Oddone Colonna was elected on 14 November 1417. As Martin V, he reigned until his death on 20 February 1431.
Vittoria Colonna became famous in the sixteenth century as a poet and a figure in literate circles.
In 1627 Anna Colonna, daughter of Filippo I Colonna, married Taddeo Barberini of the family Barberini; nephew of Pope Urban VIII.
In 1728, the Carbognano branch (Colonna di Sciarra) of the Colonna family added the name Barberini to its family name when Giulio Cesare Colonna di Sciarra married Cornelia Barberini, daughter of the last male Barberini to hold the name and granddaughter of Maffeo Barberini (son of Taddeo Barberini).
The Colonna family have been Prince Assistants to the Papal Throne since 1710, though their papal princely title only dates from 1854.
The family residence in Rome, the Palazzo Colonna, is open to the public every Saturday morning.
The main 'Colonna di Paliano' line is represented today by Prince Marcantonio Colonna di Paliano, Prince and Duke of Paliano (b. 1948), whose heir is Don Giovanni Andrea Colonna di Paliano (b. 1975), and by Don Prospero Colonna di Paliano, Prince of Avella (b. 1956), whose heir is Don Filippo Colonna di Paliano (b. 1995).
The 'Colonna di Stigliano' line is represented by Don Prospero Colonna di Stigliano, Prince of Stigliano (b. 1938), whose heir is his nephew Don Stefano Colonna di Stigliano (b. 1975) principe frederico giuseppe born 1954 | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The House of Colonna, also known as Sciarrillo or Sciarra, is an Italian noble family, forming part of the papal nobility. It was powerful in medieval and Renaissance Rome, supplying one pope (Martin V) and many other church and political leaders. The family is notable for its bitter feud with the Orsini family over influence in Rome, until it was stopped by papal bull in 1511. In 1571, the heads of both families married nieces of Pope Sixtus V. Thereafter, historians recorded that \"no peace had been concluded between the princes of Christendom, in which they had not been included by name\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "According to tradition, the Colonna family is a branch of the Counts of Tusculum — by Peter (1099–1151) son of Gregory III, called Peter \"de Columna\" from his property the Columna Castle in Colonna, in the Alban Hills. Further back, they trace their lineage past the Counts of Tusculum via Lombard and Italo-Roman nobles, merchants, and clergy through the Early Middle Ages — ultimately claiming origins from the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the gens Julia whose origin is lost in the mists of time but which entered the annals for the first time in 489 BC with the consulship of Gaius Julius Iulus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The first cardinal from the family was appointed in 1206, when Giovanni Colonna di Carbognano was made Cardinal Deacon of SS. Cosma e Damiano. For many years, Cardinal Giovanni di San Paolo (elevated in 1193) was identified as a member of the Colonna family and therefore its first representative in the College of Cardinals, but modern scholars have established that this was based on false information from the beginning of the 16th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Giovanni Colonna (born c. 1206) nephew of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna di Carbognano, made his solemn vows as a Dominican around 1228 and received his theological and philosophical training at the Roman studium of Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum. He served as the Provincial of the Roman province of the Dominican Order and led the provincial chapter of 1248 at Anagni. Colonna was appointed as Archbishop of Messina in 1255.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Margherita Colonna (died 1248) was a member of the Franciscan Order. She was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1848.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "At this time, a rivalry began with the pro-papal Orsini family, leaders of the Guelph faction. This reinforced the pro-Emperor Ghibelline course that the Colonna family followed throughout the period of conflict between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. Ironically according to their own family legend, the Orsini are also descended from the Julio-Claudian dynasty of ancient Rome.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1297, Cardinal Jacopo disinherited his brothers Ottone, Matteo, and Landolfo of their lands. The latter three appealed to Pope Boniface VIII, who ordered Jacopo to return the land, and furthermore hand over the family's strongholds of Colonna, Palestrina, and other towns to the Papacy. Jacopo refused; in May, Boniface removed him from the College of Cardinals and excommunicated him and his followers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Colonna family (aside from the three brothers allied with the Pope) declared that Boniface had been elected illegally following the unprecedented abdication of Pope Celestine V. The dispute led to open warfare, and in September, Boniface appointed Landolfo to the command of his army, to put down the revolt of Landolfo's own Colonna relatives. By the end of 1298, Landolfo had captured Colonna, Palestrina and other towns, and razed them to the ground. The family's lands were distributed among Landolfo and his loyal brothers; the rest of the family fled Italy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The exiled Colonnas allied with the Pope's other great enemy, Philip IV of France, who in his youth had been tutored by Cardinal Egidio Colonna. In September 1303, Sciarra and Philipp's advisor, Guillaume de Nogaret, led a small force into Anagni to arrest Boniface VIII and bring him to France, where he was to stand trial. The two managed to apprehend the pope, and Sciarra reportedly slapped the pope in the face in the process, which was accordingly dubbed the \"Outrage of Anagni\". The attempt eventually failed after a few days, when locals freed the pope. However, Boniface VIII died on 11 October, allowing France to dominate his weaker successors during the Avignon papacy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The family remained at the centre of civic and religious life throughout the late Middle Ages. Cardinal Egidio Colonna died at the papal court in Avignon in 1314. An Augustinian, he had studied theology in Paris under St. Thomas of Aquinas to become one of the most authoritative thinkers of his time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In the 14th century, the family sponsored the decoration of the Church of San Giovanni, most notably the floor mosaics.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1328, Louis IV of Germany marched into Italy for his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. As Pope John XXII was residing in Avignon and had publicly declared that he would not crown Louis, the King decided to be crowned by a member of the Roman aristocracy, who proposed Sciarra Colonna. In honor of this event, the Colonna family was granted the privilege of using the imperial pointed crown on top of their coat of arms.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The celebrated poet Petrarch, was a great friend of the family, in particular of Giovanni Colonna and often lived in Rome as a guest of the family. He composed a number of sonnets for special occasions within the Colonna family, including \"Colonna the Glorious, the great Latin name upon which all our hopes rest\". In this period, the Colonna started claiming they were descendants of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "At the Council of Constance, the Colonna finally succeeded in their papal ambitions when Oddone Colonna was elected on 14 November 1417. As Martin V, he reigned until his death on 20 February 1431.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Vittoria Colonna became famous in the sixteenth century as a poet and a figure in literate circles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1627 Anna Colonna, daughter of Filippo I Colonna, married Taddeo Barberini of the family Barberini; nephew of Pope Urban VIII.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In 1728, the Carbognano branch (Colonna di Sciarra) of the Colonna family added the name Barberini to its family name when Giulio Cesare Colonna di Sciarra married Cornelia Barberini, daughter of the last male Barberini to hold the name and granddaughter of Maffeo Barberini (son of Taddeo Barberini).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Colonna family have been Prince Assistants to the Papal Throne since 1710, though their papal princely title only dates from 1854.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The family residence in Rome, the Palazzo Colonna, is open to the public every Saturday morning.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The main 'Colonna di Paliano' line is represented today by Prince Marcantonio Colonna di Paliano, Prince and Duke of Paliano (b. 1948), whose heir is Don Giovanni Andrea Colonna di Paliano (b. 1975), and by Don Prospero Colonna di Paliano, Prince of Avella (b. 1956), whose heir is Don Filippo Colonna di Paliano (b. 1995).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The 'Colonna di Stigliano' line is represented by Don Prospero Colonna di Stigliano, Prince of Stigliano (b. 1938), whose heir is his nephew Don Stefano Colonna di Stigliano (b. 1975) principe frederico giuseppe born 1954",
"title": "History"
}
] | The House of Colonna, also known as Sciarrillo or Sciarra, is an Italian noble family, forming part of the papal nobility. It was powerful in medieval and Renaissance Rome, supplying one pope and many other church and political leaders. The family is notable for its bitter feud with the Orsini family over influence in Rome, until it was stopped by papal bull in 1511. In 1571, the heads of both families married nieces of Pope Sixtus V. Thereafter, historians recorded that "no peace had been concluded between the princes of Christendom, in which they had not been included by name". | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-13T17:36:10Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonna_family |
6,443 | Ceuta | Ceuta (UK: /ˈsjuːtə/, US: /ˈseɪuːtə/, Spanish: [ˈsewta, θewta]; Arabic: سَبْتَة, romanized: Sabtah) is an autonomous city of Spain on the north coast of Africa.
Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territories in Africa and, along with Melilla and the Canary Islands, one of only a few that are permanently inhabited by a civilian population. It was a regular municipality belonging to the province of Cádiz prior to the passing of its Statute of Autonomy in March 1995, as provided by the Spanish Constitution, henceforth becoming an autonomous city.
Ceuta, like Melilla and the Canary Islands, was classified as a free port before Spain joined the European Union. Its population is predominantly Christians and Muslims, with a small minority of Sephardic Jews and Sindhi Hindus, the latter originating in Pakistan.
Spanish is the official language. Spanish and Darija Arabic are the two main spoken languages.
The name Abyla has been said to have been a Punic name ("Lofty Mountain" or "Mountain of God") for Jebel Musa, the southern Pillar of Hercules. The name of the mountain was in fact Habenna (Punic: 𐤀𐤁𐤍, ʾbn, "Stone" or "Stele") or ʾAbin-ḥīq (𐤀𐤁𐤍𐤇𐤒, ʾbnḥq, "Rock of the Bay"), in reference to the nearby Bay of Benzú. The name was hellenized variously as Ápini (Greek: Ἄπινι), Abýla (Ἀβύλα), Abýlē (Ἀβύλη), Ablýx (Ἀβλύξ), and Abilē Stḗlē (Ἀβίλη Στήλη, "Pillar of Abyla") and in Latin as Abyla Mons ("Mount Abyla") or Abyla Columna ("the Pillar of Abyla").
The settlement below Jebel Musa was later renamed for the seven hills around the site, collectively referred to as the "Seven Brothers" (Greek: Ἑπτάδελφοι, translit. Heptádelphoi; Latin: Septem Fratres). In particular, the Roman stronghold at the site took the name "Fort at the Seven Brothers" (Castellum ad Septem Fratres). This was gradually shortened to Septem (Σέπτον Sépton) or, occasionally, Septum or Septa. These clipped forms continued as Berber Sebta and Arabic Sabtan or Sabtah (سبتة), which themselves became Ceuta in Portuguese (pronounced [ˈsewtɐ]) and Spanish (locally pronounced [ˈsewta]).
Controlling access between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar is an important military and commercial chokepoint. The Phoenicians realized the extremely narrow isthmus joining the Peninsula of Almina to the African mainland makes Ceuta eminently defensible and established an outpost there early in the 1st millennium BC. The Greek geographers record it by variations of Abyla, the ancient name of nearby Jebel Musa. Beside Calpe, the other Pillar of Hercules now known as the Rock of Gibraltar, the Phoenicians established Kart at what is now San Roque, Spain. Other good anchorages nearby became Phoenician and then Carthaginian ports at what are now Tangiers and Cádiz.
After Carthage's destruction in the Punic Wars, most of northwest Africa was left to the Roman client states of Numidia and—around Abyla—Mauretania. Punic culture continued to thrive in what the Romans knew as "Septem". After the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC, Caesar and his heirs began annexing north Africa directly as Roman provinces but, as late as Augustus, most of Septem's Berber residents continued to speak and write in Punic.
Caligula assassinated the Mauretanian king Ptolemy in AD 40 and seized his kingdom, which Claudius organized in AD 42, placing Septem in the province of Tingitana and raising it to the level of a colony. It subsequently was romanized and thrived into the late 3rd century, trading heavily with Roman Spain and becoming well known for its salted fish. Roads connected it overland with Tingis (Tangiers) and Volubilis. Under Theodosius I in the late 4th century, Septem still had 10,000 inhabitants, nearly all Christian citizens speaking African Romance, a local dialect of Latin.
Vandals, probably invited by Count Boniface as protection against the empress dowager, crossed the strait near Tingis around 425 and swiftly overran Roman North Africa. Their king Gaiseric focused his attention on the rich lands around Carthage; although the Romans eventually accepted his conquests and he continued to raid them anyway, he soon lost control of Tingis and Septem in a series of Berber revolts. When Justinian decided to reconquer the Vandal lands, his victorious general Belisarius continued along the coast, making Septem a westernmost outpost of the Byzantine Empire around 533. Unlike the former ancient Roman administration, however, Eastern Rome did not push far into hinterland and made the more defensible Septem their regional capital in place of Tingis.
Epidemics, less capable successors and overstretched supply lines forced a retrenchment and left Septem isolated. It is likely that its count (comes) was obliged to pay homage to the Visigoth Kingdom in Spain in the early 7th century. There are no reliable contemporary accounts of the end of the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb around 710. Instead, the rapid Muslim conquest of Spain produced romances concerning Count Julian of Septem and his betrayal of Christendom in revenge for the dishonor that befell his daughter at King Roderick's court. Allegedly with Julian's encouragement and instructions, the Berber convert and freedman Tariq ibn Ziyad took his garrison from Tangiers across the strait and overran the Spanish so swiftly that both he and his master Musa bin Nusayr fell afoul of a jealous caliph, who stripped them of their wealth and titles.
After the death of Julian, sometimes also described as a king of the Ghomara Berbers, Berber converts to Islam took direct control of what they called Sebta. It was then destroyed during their great revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate around 740. Sebta subsequently remained a small village of Muslims and Christians surrounded by ruins until its resettlement in the 9th century by Mâjakas, chief of the Majkasa Berber tribe, who started the short-lived Banu Isam dynasty. His great-grandson briefly allied his tribe with the Idrisids, but Banu Isam rule ended in 931 when he abdicated in favor of Abd ar-Rahman III, the Umayyad ruler of Córdoba.
Chaos ensued with the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031. Following this, Ceuta and Muslim Iberia were controlled by successive North African dynasties. Starting in 1084, the Almoravid Berbers ruled the region until 1147, when the Almohads conquered the land. Apart from Ibn Hud's rebellion in 1232, they ruled until the Tunisian Hafsids established control. The Hafsids' influence in the west rapidly waned, and Ceuta's inhabitants eventually expelled them in 1249. After this, a period of political instability persisted, under competing interests from the Marinids and Granada as well as autonomous rule under the native Banu al-Azafi. The Fez finally conquered the region in 1387, with assistance from Aragon.
On the morning of 21 August 1415, King John I of Portugal led his sons and their assembled forces in a surprise assault that would come to be known as the Conquest of Ceuta. The battle was almost anticlimactic, because the 45,000 men who traveled on 200 Portuguese ships caught the defenders of Ceuta off guard and suffered only eight casualties. By nightfall the town was captured. On the morning of 22 August, Ceuta was in Portuguese hands. Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches was asked to hoist what was to become the flag of Ceuta, which is identical to the flag of Lisbon, but in which the coat of arms derived from that of the Kingdom of Portugal was added to the center; the original Portuguese flag and coat of arms of Ceuta remained unchanged, and the modern-day Ceuta flag features the configuration of the Portuguese shield.
John's son Henry the Navigator distinguished himself in the battle, being wounded during the conquest. The looting of the city proved to be less profitable than expected for John I; he decided to keep the city to pursue further enterprises in the area.
From 1415 to 1437, Pedro de Meneses became the first governor of Ceuta.
The Marinid Sultanate started the 1419 siege but was defeated by the first governor of Ceuta before reinforcements arrived in the form of John, Constable of Portugal and his brother Henry the Navigator who were sent with troops to defend Ceuta.
Under King John I's son, Duarte, the colony at Ceuta rapidly became a drain on the Portuguese treasury. Trans-Saharan trade journeyed instead to Tangier. It was soon realized that without the city of Tangier, possession of Ceuta was worthless. In 1437, Duarte's brothers Henry the Navigator and Fernando, the Saint Prince persuaded him to launch an attack on the Marinid sultanate. The resulting Battle of Tangier (1437), led by Henry, was a debacle. In the resulting treaty, Henry promised to deliver Ceuta back to the Marinids in return for allowing the Portuguese army to depart unmolested, which he reneged on.
Possession of Ceuta would indirectly lead to further Portuguese expansion. The main area of Portuguese expansion, at this time, was the coast of the Maghreb, where there was grain, cattle, sugar, and textiles, as well as fish, hides, wax, and honey.
Ceuta had to endure alone for 43 years, until the position of the city was consolidated with the taking of Ksar es-Seghir (1458), Arzila and Tangier (1471) by the Portuguese.
The city was recognized as a Portuguese possession by the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479) and by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494).
In the 1540s the Portuguese began building the Royal Walls of Ceuta as they are today including bastions, a navigable moat and a drawbridge. Some of these bastions are still standing, like the bastions of Coraza Alta, Bandera and Mallorquines.
Luís de Camões lived in Ceuta between 1549 and 1551, losing his right eye in battle, which influenced his work of poetry Os Lusíadas.
In 1578 King Sebastian of Portugal died at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir (known as the Battle of Three Kings) in what is today northern Morocco, without descendants, triggering the 1580 Portuguese succession crisis. His granduncle, the elderly Cardinal Henry, succeeded him as King, but Henry also had no descendants, having taken holy orders. When the cardinal-king died two years after Sebastian's death, three grandchildren of King Manuel I of Portugal claimed the throne: Infanta Catarina, Duchess of Braganza; António, Prior of Crato; and Philip II of Spain (Uncle of former King Sebastian of Portugal), who would prevail and be crowned King Philip I of Portugal in 1581, uniting the two crowns and overseas empires in what is historically referred to as the "Iberian Union".
During the Iberian Union 1580 to 1640, Ceuta attracted many settlers of Spanish origin. Ceuta became the only city of the Portuguese Empire that sided with Spain, when Portugal regained its independence in the Portuguese Restoration War of 1640.
On 1 January 1668, King Afonso VI of Portugal recognised the formal allegiance of Ceuta to Spain and ceded Ceuta to King Carlos II of Spain by the Treaty of Lisbon.
The city was attacked by Moroccan forces under Moulay Ismail during the Siege of Ceuta (1694–1727). During the longest siege in history, the city underwent changes leading to the loss of its Portuguese character. While most of the military operations took place around the Royal Walls of Ceuta, there were also small-scale penetrations by Spanish forces at various points on the Moroccan coast, and seizure of shipping in the Strait of Gibraltar.
During the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), Spain allowed Britain to occupy Ceuta. Occupation began in 1810, with Ceuta being returned at the conclusion of the Wars.
Disagreements regarding the border of Ceuta resulted in the Hispano-Moroccan War (1859–60), which ended at the Battle of Tetuán.
In July 1936, General Francisco Franco took command of the Spanish Army of Africa and rebelled against the Spanish republican government; his military uprising led to the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. Franco transported troops to mainland Spain in an airlift using transport aircraft supplied by Germany and Italy. Ceuta became one of the first battlegrounds of the uprising: General Franco's rebel nationalist forces seized Ceuta, while at the same time the city came under fire from the air and sea forces of the official republican government.
The Llano Amarillo monument was erected to honor Francisco Franco, it was inaugurated on 13 July 1940. The tall obelisk has since been abandoned, but the shield symbols of the Falange and Imperial Eagle remain visible.
Following the 1947 Partition of India, a substantial number of Sindhi Hindus from current-day Pakistan settled in Ceuta, adding up to a small Hindu community that had existed in Ceuta since 1893, connected to Gibraltar's.
When Spain recognized the independence of Spanish Morocco in 1956, Ceuta and the other plazas de soberanía remained under Spanish rule. Spain considered them integral parts of the Spanish state, but Morocco has disputed this point.
Culturally, modern Ceuta is part of the Spanish region of Andalusia. It was attached to the province of Cádiz until 1925, the Spanish coast being only 20 km (12.5 miles) away. It is a cosmopolitan city, with a large ethnic Arab-Berber Muslim minority as well as Sephardic Jewish and Hindu minorities.
On 5 November 2007, King Juan Carlos I visited the city, sparking great enthusiasm from the local population and protests from the Moroccan government. It was the first time a Spanish head of state had visited Ceuta in 80 years.
Since 2010, Ceuta (and Melilla) have declared the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, an official public holiday. It is the first time a non-Christian religious festival has been officially celebrated in Spanish ruled territory since the Reconquista.
Ceuta is separated by 17 km (11 mi) from the province of Cádiz on the Spanish mainland by the Strait of Gibraltar and it shares a 6.4 km (4 mi) land border with M'diq-Fnideq Prefecture in the Kingdom of Morocco. It has an area of 18.5 km (7 sq mi; 4,571 acres). It is dominated by Monte Anyera, a hill along its western frontier with Morocco, which is guarded by a Spanish military fort. Monte Hacho on the Peninsula of Almina overlooking the port is one of the possible locations of the southern pillar of the Pillars of Hercules of Greek legend (the other possibility being Jebel Musa).
The Ceuta Peninsula has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because the site is part of a migratory bottleneck, or choke point, at the western end of the Mediterranean for large numbers of raptors, storks and other birds flying between Europe and Africa. These include European honey buzzards, black kites, short-toed snake eagles, Egyptian vultures, griffon vultures, black storks, white storks and Audouin's gulls.
Ceuta has a maritime-influenced Mediterranean climate, similar to nearby Spanish and Moroccan cities such as Tarifa, Algeciras or Tangiers. The average diurnal temperature variation is relatively low; the average annual temperature is 18.8 °C (65.8 °F) with average yearly highs of 21.4 °C (70.5 °F) and lows of 15.7 °C (60.3 °F) though the Ceuta weather station has only been in operation since 2003. Ceuta has relatively mild winters for the latitude, while summers are warm yet milder than in the interior of Southern Spain, due to the moderating effect of the Straits of Gibraltar. Summers are very dry, but yearly precipitation is still at 849 mm (33.4 in), which could be considered a humid climate if the summers were not so arid.
Since 1995, Ceuta is, along with Melilla, one of the two autonomous cities of Spain.
Ceuta is known officially in Spanish as Ciudad Autónoma de Ceuta (English: Autonomous City of Ceuta), with a rank between a standard municipality and an autonomous community. Ceuta is part of the territory of the European Union. The city was a free port before Spain joined the European Union in 1986. Now it has a low-tax system within the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union.
Since 1979, Ceuta has held elections to its 25-seat assembly every four years. The leader of its government was the Mayor until the Autonomy Statute provided for the new title of Mayor-President. As of 2011, the People's Party (PP) won 18 seats, keeping Juan Jesús Vivas as Mayor-President, which he has been since 2001. The remaining seats are held by the regionalist Caballas Coalition (4) and the Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, 3).
Owing to its small population, Ceuta elects only one member of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish legislature. As of the November 2019 election, this post is held by María Teresa López of Vox.
Ceuta is subdivided into 63 barriadas ("neighborhoods"), such as Barriada de Berizu, Barriada de P. Alfonso, Barriada del Sarchal, and El Hacho.
Ceuta maintains its own police force.
The defence of the enclave is the responsibility of the Spanish Armed Forces' General Command of Ceuta (COMGECEU). The Spanish Army's combat components of the command include:
The command also includes its headquarters battalion as well as logistics elements.
In 2023, the Spanish Navy replaced the Aresa-class patrol boat P-114 in the territory with the Rodman-class patrol boat Isla de León.
Ceuta itself is only 113 km (70 mi) distant from the main Spanish naval base at Rota on the Spanish mainland. The Spanish Air Force's Morón Air Base is also within 135 km (84 mi) proximity.
The Civil Guard is responsible for border security and protects both the territory's fortified land border as well as its maritime approaches against frequent, and sometimes significant, migrant incursions.
The official currency of Ceuta is the euro. It is part of a special low tax zone in Spain. Ceuta is one of two Spanish port cities on the northern shore of Africa, along with Melilla. They are historically military strongholds, free ports, oil ports, and also fishing ports. Today the economy of the city depends heavily on its port (now in expansion) and its industrial and retail centres. Ceuta Heliport is now used to connect the city to mainland Spain by air. Lidl, Decathlon and El Corte Inglés have branches in Ceuta. There is also a casino. Border trade between Ceuta and Morocco is active because of advantage of tax-free status. Thousands of Moroccan women are involved in the cross-border porter trade daily, as porteadoras. The Moroccan dirham is used in such trade, even though prices are marked in euros.
The city's Port of Ceuta receives high numbers of ferries each day from Algeciras in Andalusia in the south of Spain. The closest airport is Sania Ramel Airport in Morocco.
A single road border checkpoint to the south of Ceuta near Fnideq allows for cars and pedestrians to travel between Morocco and Ceuta. An additional border crossing for pedestrians exists between Benzú and Belyounech on the northern coast. The rest of the border is closed and inaccessible.
There is a bus service throughout the city, and while it does not pass into neighbouring Morocco, it services both frontier crossings.
The following hospitals are located within Ceuta:
As of 2018, its population was 85,144. Due to its location, Ceuta is home to a mixed ethnic and religious population. The two main religious groups are Christians and Muslims. As of 2006 approximately 50% of the population was Christian and approximately 48% Muslim. As of a 2018 estimate, around 67.8% of the city's population were born in Ceuta.
Spanish is the primary and official language of the enclave. Moroccan Arabic (Darija) is widely spoken. In 2021, the Council of Europe demanded that Spain formally recognize the language by 2023.
Christianity has been present in Ceuta continuously from late antiquity, as evidenced by the ruins of a basilica in downtown Ceuta and accounts of the martyrdom of St. Daniel Fasanella and his Franciscans in 1227 during the Almohad Caliphate.
The town's Grand Mosque had been built over a Byzantine-era church. In 1415, the year of the city's conquest, the Portuguese converted the Grand Mosque into Ceuta Cathedral. The present form of the cathedral dates to refurbishments undertaken in the late 17th century, combining baroque and neoclassical elements. It was dedicated to St Mary of the Assumption in 1726.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Ceuta was established in 1417. It incorporated the suppressed Diocese of Tanger in 1570. The Diocese of Ceuta was a suffragan of Lisbon until 1675, when it became a suffragan of Seville. In 1851, Ceuta's administration was notionally merged into the Diocese of Cádiz and Ceuta as part of a concordat between Spain and the Holy See; the union was not actually accomplished, however, until 1879.
Small Jewish and Hindu minorities are also present in the city.
Roman Catholicism is the largest religion in Ceuta. In 2019, the proportion of Ceutans that identify themselves as Roman Catholic was 60.0%. The next largest religion was Islam (36.7%) and only 3.4% of people considered themselves as non-religious (1.5% atheist and 1.9% as non-religious)
Like Melilla, Ceuta attracts African migrants both Christians (Pentecostals mostly) and Muslims who try to use it as an entry to Europe. As a result, the enclave is surrounded by double fences that are 6 m (20 ft) high, and hundreds of migrants congregate near the fences waiting for a chance to cross them. The fences are regularly stormed by migrants trying to claim asylum once they enter Ceuta.
The University of Granada offers undergraduate programs at their campus in Ceuta. Like all areas of Spain, Ceuta is also served by the National University of Distance Education (UNED).
While primary and secondary education are generally offered in Spanish only, a growing number of schools are entering the Bilingual Education Program.
Ceuta is twinned with:
The government of Morocco has repeatedly called for Spain to transfer the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla, along with uninhabited islets such as the islands of Alhucemas, Velez and the Perejil island, drawing comparisons with Spain's territorial claim to Gibraltar. In both cases, the national governments and local populations of the disputed territories reject these claims by a large majority. The Spanish position is that both Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of Spain, and have been since the 16th century, centuries prior to Morocco's independence from Spain and France in 1956, whereas Gibraltar, being a British Overseas Territory, is not and never has been part of the United Kingdom. Morocco has claimed the territories are colonies. One of the chief arguments used by Morocco to reclaim Ceuta comes from geography, as this exclave, which is surrounded by Morocco and the Mediterranean Sea, has no territorial continuity with the rest of Spanish territory. This argument was originally developed by one of the founders of the Moroccan Istiqlal Party, Alal-El Faasi, who openly advocated the Moroccan conquest of Ceuta and other territories under Spanish rule.
In 1986, Spain entered the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However Ceuta and Melilla are not under NATO protection since Article 6 of the treaty limits the coverage to Europe and North America and islands north of the Tropic of Cancer. This contrasts with French Algeria which was explicitly included in the treaty. Legal experts have interpreted that other articles could cover the Spanish North African cities but this interpretation has not been tested in practice. On the occasion of NATO's Madrid Summit in 2022, the issue of the protection Ceuta and Melilla was a prominent one with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stating: "On which territories NATO protects and Ceuta and Melilla, NATO is there to protect all Allies against any threats. At the end of the day, it will always be a political decision to invoke Article 5, but rest assured NATO is there to protect and defend all Allies".
On 21 December 2020, following the affirmations of the Moroccan Prime Minister, Saadeddine Othmani, stating that Ceuta and Melilla "are Moroccan as the Sahara [is]", Spain urgently summoned the Moroccan ambassador to convey that Spain expects all its partners to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its territory in Africa and asked for explanations of Othmani's words. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Ceuta (UK: /ˈsjuːtə/, US: /ˈseɪuːtə/, Spanish: [ˈsewta, θewta]; Arabic: سَبْتَة, romanized: Sabtah) is an autonomous city of Spain on the north coast of Africa.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territories in Africa and, along with Melilla and the Canary Islands, one of only a few that are permanently inhabited by a civilian population. It was a regular municipality belonging to the province of Cádiz prior to the passing of its Statute of Autonomy in March 1995, as provided by the Spanish Constitution, henceforth becoming an autonomous city.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Ceuta, like Melilla and the Canary Islands, was classified as a free port before Spain joined the European Union. Its population is predominantly Christians and Muslims, with a small minority of Sephardic Jews and Sindhi Hindus, the latter originating in Pakistan.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Spanish is the official language. Spanish and Darija Arabic are the two main spoken languages.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The name Abyla has been said to have been a Punic name (\"Lofty Mountain\" or \"Mountain of God\") for Jebel Musa, the southern Pillar of Hercules. The name of the mountain was in fact Habenna (Punic: 𐤀𐤁𐤍, ʾbn, \"Stone\" or \"Stele\") or ʾAbin-ḥīq (𐤀𐤁𐤍𐤇𐤒, ʾbnḥq, \"Rock of the Bay\"), in reference to the nearby Bay of Benzú. The name was hellenized variously as Ápini (Greek: Ἄπινι), Abýla (Ἀβύλα), Abýlē (Ἀβύλη), Ablýx (Ἀβλύξ), and Abilē Stḗlē (Ἀβίλη Στήλη, \"Pillar of Abyla\") and in Latin as Abyla Mons (\"Mount Abyla\") or Abyla Columna (\"the Pillar of Abyla\").",
"title": "Names"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The settlement below Jebel Musa was later renamed for the seven hills around the site, collectively referred to as the \"Seven Brothers\" (Greek: Ἑπτάδελφοι, translit. Heptádelphoi; Latin: Septem Fratres). In particular, the Roman stronghold at the site took the name \"Fort at the Seven Brothers\" (Castellum ad Septem Fratres). This was gradually shortened to Septem (Σέπτον Sépton) or, occasionally, Septum or Septa. These clipped forms continued as Berber Sebta and Arabic Sabtan or Sabtah (سبتة), which themselves became Ceuta in Portuguese (pronounced [ˈsewtɐ]) and Spanish (locally pronounced [ˈsewta]).",
"title": "Names"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Controlling access between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar is an important military and commercial chokepoint. The Phoenicians realized the extremely narrow isthmus joining the Peninsula of Almina to the African mainland makes Ceuta eminently defensible and established an outpost there early in the 1st millennium BC. The Greek geographers record it by variations of Abyla, the ancient name of nearby Jebel Musa. Beside Calpe, the other Pillar of Hercules now known as the Rock of Gibraltar, the Phoenicians established Kart at what is now San Roque, Spain. Other good anchorages nearby became Phoenician and then Carthaginian ports at what are now Tangiers and Cádiz.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "After Carthage's destruction in the Punic Wars, most of northwest Africa was left to the Roman client states of Numidia and—around Abyla—Mauretania. Punic culture continued to thrive in what the Romans knew as \"Septem\". After the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC, Caesar and his heirs began annexing north Africa directly as Roman provinces but, as late as Augustus, most of Septem's Berber residents continued to speak and write in Punic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Caligula assassinated the Mauretanian king Ptolemy in AD 40 and seized his kingdom, which Claudius organized in AD 42, placing Septem in the province of Tingitana and raising it to the level of a colony. It subsequently was romanized and thrived into the late 3rd century, trading heavily with Roman Spain and becoming well known for its salted fish. Roads connected it overland with Tingis (Tangiers) and Volubilis. Under Theodosius I in the late 4th century, Septem still had 10,000 inhabitants, nearly all Christian citizens speaking African Romance, a local dialect of Latin.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Vandals, probably invited by Count Boniface as protection against the empress dowager, crossed the strait near Tingis around 425 and swiftly overran Roman North Africa. Their king Gaiseric focused his attention on the rich lands around Carthage; although the Romans eventually accepted his conquests and he continued to raid them anyway, he soon lost control of Tingis and Septem in a series of Berber revolts. When Justinian decided to reconquer the Vandal lands, his victorious general Belisarius continued along the coast, making Septem a westernmost outpost of the Byzantine Empire around 533. Unlike the former ancient Roman administration, however, Eastern Rome did not push far into hinterland and made the more defensible Septem their regional capital in place of Tingis.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Epidemics, less capable successors and overstretched supply lines forced a retrenchment and left Septem isolated. It is likely that its count (comes) was obliged to pay homage to the Visigoth Kingdom in Spain in the early 7th century. There are no reliable contemporary accounts of the end of the Islamic conquest of the Maghreb around 710. Instead, the rapid Muslim conquest of Spain produced romances concerning Count Julian of Septem and his betrayal of Christendom in revenge for the dishonor that befell his daughter at King Roderick's court. Allegedly with Julian's encouragement and instructions, the Berber convert and freedman Tariq ibn Ziyad took his garrison from Tangiers across the strait and overran the Spanish so swiftly that both he and his master Musa bin Nusayr fell afoul of a jealous caliph, who stripped them of their wealth and titles.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "After the death of Julian, sometimes also described as a king of the Ghomara Berbers, Berber converts to Islam took direct control of what they called Sebta. It was then destroyed during their great revolt against the Umayyad Caliphate around 740. Sebta subsequently remained a small village of Muslims and Christians surrounded by ruins until its resettlement in the 9th century by Mâjakas, chief of the Majkasa Berber tribe, who started the short-lived Banu Isam dynasty. His great-grandson briefly allied his tribe with the Idrisids, but Banu Isam rule ended in 931 when he abdicated in favor of Abd ar-Rahman III, the Umayyad ruler of Córdoba.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Chaos ensued with the fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba in 1031. Following this, Ceuta and Muslim Iberia were controlled by successive North African dynasties. Starting in 1084, the Almoravid Berbers ruled the region until 1147, when the Almohads conquered the land. Apart from Ibn Hud's rebellion in 1232, they ruled until the Tunisian Hafsids established control. The Hafsids' influence in the west rapidly waned, and Ceuta's inhabitants eventually expelled them in 1249. After this, a period of political instability persisted, under competing interests from the Marinids and Granada as well as autonomous rule under the native Banu al-Azafi. The Fez finally conquered the region in 1387, with assistance from Aragon.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On the morning of 21 August 1415, King John I of Portugal led his sons and their assembled forces in a surprise assault that would come to be known as the Conquest of Ceuta. The battle was almost anticlimactic, because the 45,000 men who traveled on 200 Portuguese ships caught the defenders of Ceuta off guard and suffered only eight casualties. By nightfall the town was captured. On the morning of 22 August, Ceuta was in Portuguese hands. Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches was asked to hoist what was to become the flag of Ceuta, which is identical to the flag of Lisbon, but in which the coat of arms derived from that of the Kingdom of Portugal was added to the center; the original Portuguese flag and coat of arms of Ceuta remained unchanged, and the modern-day Ceuta flag features the configuration of the Portuguese shield.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "John's son Henry the Navigator distinguished himself in the battle, being wounded during the conquest. The looting of the city proved to be less profitable than expected for John I; he decided to keep the city to pursue further enterprises in the area.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "From 1415 to 1437, Pedro de Meneses became the first governor of Ceuta.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Marinid Sultanate started the 1419 siege but was defeated by the first governor of Ceuta before reinforcements arrived in the form of John, Constable of Portugal and his brother Henry the Navigator who were sent with troops to defend Ceuta.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Under King John I's son, Duarte, the colony at Ceuta rapidly became a drain on the Portuguese treasury. Trans-Saharan trade journeyed instead to Tangier. It was soon realized that without the city of Tangier, possession of Ceuta was worthless. In 1437, Duarte's brothers Henry the Navigator and Fernando, the Saint Prince persuaded him to launch an attack on the Marinid sultanate. The resulting Battle of Tangier (1437), led by Henry, was a debacle. In the resulting treaty, Henry promised to deliver Ceuta back to the Marinids in return for allowing the Portuguese army to depart unmolested, which he reneged on.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Possession of Ceuta would indirectly lead to further Portuguese expansion. The main area of Portuguese expansion, at this time, was the coast of the Maghreb, where there was grain, cattle, sugar, and textiles, as well as fish, hides, wax, and honey.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Ceuta had to endure alone for 43 years, until the position of the city was consolidated with the taking of Ksar es-Seghir (1458), Arzila and Tangier (1471) by the Portuguese.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The city was recognized as a Portuguese possession by the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479) and by the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In the 1540s the Portuguese began building the Royal Walls of Ceuta as they are today including bastions, a navigable moat and a drawbridge. Some of these bastions are still standing, like the bastions of Coraza Alta, Bandera and Mallorquines.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Luís de Camões lived in Ceuta between 1549 and 1551, losing his right eye in battle, which influenced his work of poetry Os Lusíadas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1578 King Sebastian of Portugal died at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir (known as the Battle of Three Kings) in what is today northern Morocco, without descendants, triggering the 1580 Portuguese succession crisis. His granduncle, the elderly Cardinal Henry, succeeded him as King, but Henry also had no descendants, having taken holy orders. When the cardinal-king died two years after Sebastian's death, three grandchildren of King Manuel I of Portugal claimed the throne: Infanta Catarina, Duchess of Braganza; António, Prior of Crato; and Philip II of Spain (Uncle of former King Sebastian of Portugal), who would prevail and be crowned King Philip I of Portugal in 1581, uniting the two crowns and overseas empires in what is historically referred to as the \"Iberian Union\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "During the Iberian Union 1580 to 1640, Ceuta attracted many settlers of Spanish origin. Ceuta became the only city of the Portuguese Empire that sided with Spain, when Portugal regained its independence in the Portuguese Restoration War of 1640.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "On 1 January 1668, King Afonso VI of Portugal recognised the formal allegiance of Ceuta to Spain and ceded Ceuta to King Carlos II of Spain by the Treaty of Lisbon.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The city was attacked by Moroccan forces under Moulay Ismail during the Siege of Ceuta (1694–1727). During the longest siege in history, the city underwent changes leading to the loss of its Portuguese character. While most of the military operations took place around the Royal Walls of Ceuta, there were also small-scale penetrations by Spanish forces at various points on the Moroccan coast, and seizure of shipping in the Strait of Gibraltar.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "During the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), Spain allowed Britain to occupy Ceuta. Occupation began in 1810, with Ceuta being returned at the conclusion of the Wars.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Disagreements regarding the border of Ceuta resulted in the Hispano-Moroccan War (1859–60), which ended at the Battle of Tetuán.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In July 1936, General Francisco Franco took command of the Spanish Army of Africa and rebelled against the Spanish republican government; his military uprising led to the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. Franco transported troops to mainland Spain in an airlift using transport aircraft supplied by Germany and Italy. Ceuta became one of the first battlegrounds of the uprising: General Franco's rebel nationalist forces seized Ceuta, while at the same time the city came under fire from the air and sea forces of the official republican government.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Llano Amarillo monument was erected to honor Francisco Franco, it was inaugurated on 13 July 1940. The tall obelisk has since been abandoned, but the shield symbols of the Falange and Imperial Eagle remain visible.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Following the 1947 Partition of India, a substantial number of Sindhi Hindus from current-day Pakistan settled in Ceuta, adding up to a small Hindu community that had existed in Ceuta since 1893, connected to Gibraltar's.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "When Spain recognized the independence of Spanish Morocco in 1956, Ceuta and the other plazas de soberanía remained under Spanish rule. Spain considered them integral parts of the Spanish state, but Morocco has disputed this point.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Culturally, modern Ceuta is part of the Spanish region of Andalusia. It was attached to the province of Cádiz until 1925, the Spanish coast being only 20 km (12.5 miles) away. It is a cosmopolitan city, with a large ethnic Arab-Berber Muslim minority as well as Sephardic Jewish and Hindu minorities.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "On 5 November 2007, King Juan Carlos I visited the city, sparking great enthusiasm from the local population and protests from the Moroccan government. It was the first time a Spanish head of state had visited Ceuta in 80 years.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Since 2010, Ceuta (and Melilla) have declared the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, an official public holiday. It is the first time a non-Christian religious festival has been officially celebrated in Spanish ruled territory since the Reconquista.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Ceuta is separated by 17 km (11 mi) from the province of Cádiz on the Spanish mainland by the Strait of Gibraltar and it shares a 6.4 km (4 mi) land border with M'diq-Fnideq Prefecture in the Kingdom of Morocco. It has an area of 18.5 km (7 sq mi; 4,571 acres). It is dominated by Monte Anyera, a hill along its western frontier with Morocco, which is guarded by a Spanish military fort. Monte Hacho on the Peninsula of Almina overlooking the port is one of the possible locations of the southern pillar of the Pillars of Hercules of Greek legend (the other possibility being Jebel Musa).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The Ceuta Peninsula has been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because the site is part of a migratory bottleneck, or choke point, at the western end of the Mediterranean for large numbers of raptors, storks and other birds flying between Europe and Africa. These include European honey buzzards, black kites, short-toed snake eagles, Egyptian vultures, griffon vultures, black storks, white storks and Audouin's gulls.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Ceuta has a maritime-influenced Mediterranean climate, similar to nearby Spanish and Moroccan cities such as Tarifa, Algeciras or Tangiers. The average diurnal temperature variation is relatively low; the average annual temperature is 18.8 °C (65.8 °F) with average yearly highs of 21.4 °C (70.5 °F) and lows of 15.7 °C (60.3 °F) though the Ceuta weather station has only been in operation since 2003. Ceuta has relatively mild winters for the latitude, while summers are warm yet milder than in the interior of Southern Spain, due to the moderating effect of the Straits of Gibraltar. Summers are very dry, but yearly precipitation is still at 849 mm (33.4 in), which could be considered a humid climate if the summers were not so arid.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Since 1995, Ceuta is, along with Melilla, one of the two autonomous cities of Spain.",
"title": "Government and administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Ceuta is known officially in Spanish as Ciudad Autónoma de Ceuta (English: Autonomous City of Ceuta), with a rank between a standard municipality and an autonomous community. Ceuta is part of the territory of the European Union. The city was a free port before Spain joined the European Union in 1986. Now it has a low-tax system within the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union.",
"title": "Government and administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Since 1979, Ceuta has held elections to its 25-seat assembly every four years. The leader of its government was the Mayor until the Autonomy Statute provided for the new title of Mayor-President. As of 2011, the People's Party (PP) won 18 seats, keeping Juan Jesús Vivas as Mayor-President, which he has been since 2001. The remaining seats are held by the regionalist Caballas Coalition (4) and the Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE, 3).",
"title": "Government and administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Owing to its small population, Ceuta elects only one member of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish legislature. As of the November 2019 election, this post is held by María Teresa López of Vox.",
"title": "Government and administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Ceuta is subdivided into 63 barriadas (\"neighborhoods\"), such as Barriada de Berizu, Barriada de P. Alfonso, Barriada del Sarchal, and El Hacho.",
"title": "Government and administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Ceuta maintains its own police force.",
"title": "Government and administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The defence of the enclave is the responsibility of the Spanish Armed Forces' General Command of Ceuta (COMGECEU). The Spanish Army's combat components of the command include:",
"title": "Defence and Civil Guard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The command also includes its headquarters battalion as well as logistics elements.",
"title": "Defence and Civil Guard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In 2023, the Spanish Navy replaced the Aresa-class patrol boat P-114 in the territory with the Rodman-class patrol boat Isla de León.",
"title": "Defence and Civil Guard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Ceuta itself is only 113 km (70 mi) distant from the main Spanish naval base at Rota on the Spanish mainland. The Spanish Air Force's Morón Air Base is also within 135 km (84 mi) proximity.",
"title": "Defence and Civil Guard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Civil Guard is responsible for border security and protects both the territory's fortified land border as well as its maritime approaches against frequent, and sometimes significant, migrant incursions.",
"title": "Defence and Civil Guard"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The official currency of Ceuta is the euro. It is part of a special low tax zone in Spain. Ceuta is one of two Spanish port cities on the northern shore of Africa, along with Melilla. They are historically military strongholds, free ports, oil ports, and also fishing ports. Today the economy of the city depends heavily on its port (now in expansion) and its industrial and retail centres. Ceuta Heliport is now used to connect the city to mainland Spain by air. Lidl, Decathlon and El Corte Inglés have branches in Ceuta. There is also a casino. Border trade between Ceuta and Morocco is active because of advantage of tax-free status. Thousands of Moroccan women are involved in the cross-border porter trade daily, as porteadoras. The Moroccan dirham is used in such trade, even though prices are marked in euros.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The city's Port of Ceuta receives high numbers of ferries each day from Algeciras in Andalusia in the south of Spain. The closest airport is Sania Ramel Airport in Morocco.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "A single road border checkpoint to the south of Ceuta near Fnideq allows for cars and pedestrians to travel between Morocco and Ceuta. An additional border crossing for pedestrians exists between Benzú and Belyounech on the northern coast. The rest of the border is closed and inaccessible.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "There is a bus service throughout the city, and while it does not pass into neighbouring Morocco, it services both frontier crossings.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The following hospitals are located within Ceuta:",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "As of 2018, its population was 85,144. Due to its location, Ceuta is home to a mixed ethnic and religious population. The two main religious groups are Christians and Muslims. As of 2006 approximately 50% of the population was Christian and approximately 48% Muslim. As of a 2018 estimate, around 67.8% of the city's population were born in Ceuta.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Spanish is the primary and official language of the enclave. Moroccan Arabic (Darija) is widely spoken. In 2021, the Council of Europe demanded that Spain formally recognize the language by 2023.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Christianity has been present in Ceuta continuously from late antiquity, as evidenced by the ruins of a basilica in downtown Ceuta and accounts of the martyrdom of St. Daniel Fasanella and his Franciscans in 1227 during the Almohad Caliphate.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The town's Grand Mosque had been built over a Byzantine-era church. In 1415, the year of the city's conquest, the Portuguese converted the Grand Mosque into Ceuta Cathedral. The present form of the cathedral dates to refurbishments undertaken in the late 17th century, combining baroque and neoclassical elements. It was dedicated to St Mary of the Assumption in 1726.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Roman Catholic Diocese of Ceuta was established in 1417. It incorporated the suppressed Diocese of Tanger in 1570. The Diocese of Ceuta was a suffragan of Lisbon until 1675, when it became a suffragan of Seville. In 1851, Ceuta's administration was notionally merged into the Diocese of Cádiz and Ceuta as part of a concordat between Spain and the Holy See; the union was not actually accomplished, however, until 1879.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Small Jewish and Hindu minorities are also present in the city.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Roman Catholicism is the largest religion in Ceuta. In 2019, the proportion of Ceutans that identify themselves as Roman Catholic was 60.0%. The next largest religion was Islam (36.7%) and only 3.4% of people considered themselves as non-religious (1.5% atheist and 1.9% as non-religious)",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Like Melilla, Ceuta attracts African migrants both Christians (Pentecostals mostly) and Muslims who try to use it as an entry to Europe. As a result, the enclave is surrounded by double fences that are 6 m (20 ft) high, and hundreds of migrants congregate near the fences waiting for a chance to cross them. The fences are regularly stormed by migrants trying to claim asylum once they enter Ceuta.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The University of Granada offers undergraduate programs at their campus in Ceuta. Like all areas of Spain, Ceuta is also served by the National University of Distance Education (UNED).",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "While primary and secondary education are generally offered in Spanish only, a growing number of schools are entering the Bilingual Education Program.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Ceuta is twinned with:",
"title": "Twin towns and sister cities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The government of Morocco has repeatedly called for Spain to transfer the sovereignty of Ceuta and Melilla, along with uninhabited islets such as the islands of Alhucemas, Velez and the Perejil island, drawing comparisons with Spain's territorial claim to Gibraltar. In both cases, the national governments and local populations of the disputed territories reject these claims by a large majority. The Spanish position is that both Ceuta and Melilla are integral parts of Spain, and have been since the 16th century, centuries prior to Morocco's independence from Spain and France in 1956, whereas Gibraltar, being a British Overseas Territory, is not and never has been part of the United Kingdom. Morocco has claimed the territories are colonies. One of the chief arguments used by Morocco to reclaim Ceuta comes from geography, as this exclave, which is surrounded by Morocco and the Mediterranean Sea, has no territorial continuity with the rest of Spanish territory. This argument was originally developed by one of the founders of the Moroccan Istiqlal Party, Alal-El Faasi, who openly advocated the Moroccan conquest of Ceuta and other territories under Spanish rule.",
"title": "Dispute with Morocco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 1986, Spain entered the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However Ceuta and Melilla are not under NATO protection since Article 6 of the treaty limits the coverage to Europe and North America and islands north of the Tropic of Cancer. This contrasts with French Algeria which was explicitly included in the treaty. Legal experts have interpreted that other articles could cover the Spanish North African cities but this interpretation has not been tested in practice. On the occasion of NATO's Madrid Summit in 2022, the issue of the protection Ceuta and Melilla was a prominent one with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stating: \"On which territories NATO protects and Ceuta and Melilla, NATO is there to protect all Allies against any threats. At the end of the day, it will always be a political decision to invoke Article 5, but rest assured NATO is there to protect and defend all Allies\".",
"title": "Dispute with Morocco"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "On 21 December 2020, following the affirmations of the Moroccan Prime Minister, Saadeddine Othmani, stating that Ceuta and Melilla \"are Moroccan as the Sahara [is]\", Spain urgently summoned the Moroccan ambassador to convey that Spain expects all its partners to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its territory in Africa and asked for explanations of Othmani's words.",
"title": "Dispute with Morocco"
}
] | Ceuta is an autonomous city of Spain on the north coast of Africa. Bordered by Morocco, it lies along the boundary between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of several Spanish territories in Africa and, along with Melilla and the Canary Islands, one of only a few that are permanently inhabited by a civilian population. It was a regular municipality belonging to the province of Cádiz prior to the passing of its Statute of Autonomy in March 1995, as provided by the Spanish Constitution, henceforth becoming an autonomous city. Ceuta, like Melilla and the Canary Islands, was classified as a free port before Spain joined the European Union. Its population is predominantly Christians and Muslims, with a small minority of Sephardic Jews and Sindhi Hindus, the latter originating in Pakistan. Spanish is the official language. Spanish and Darija Arabic are the two main spoken languages. | 2001-09-25T17:55:13Z | 2023-12-21T09:59:39Z | [
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6,444 | Cleopatra (disambiguation) | Cleopatra (69–30 BC) was the last active Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt before it became a Roman province.
Cleopatra may also refer to: for | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cleopatra (69–30 BC) was the last active Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt before it became a Roman province.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cleopatra may also refer to: for",
"title": ""
}
] | Cleopatra was the last active Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt before it became a Roman province. Cleopatra may also refer to: for | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-08T17:59:10Z | [
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6,445 | Carcinogen | A carcinogen (/kɑːrˈsɪnədʒən/) is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substances are considered carcinogens, but their carcinogenic activity is attributed to the radiation, for example gamma rays and alpha particles, which they emit. Common examples of non-radioactive carcinogens are inhaled asbestos, certain dioxins, and tobacco smoke. Although the public generally associates carcinogenicity with synthetic chemicals, it is equally likely to arise from both natural and synthetic substances. Carcinogens are not necessarily immediately toxic; thus, their effect can be insidious.
Carcinogens are agents in the environment capable of contributing to cancer growth. Carcinogens can be categorized into two different types: activation-dependent and activation-independent, and each nature impacts their level and type of influence when it comes to promoting cancer growth. Activation-dependent carcinogens require metabolic activation or modification to induce cancer, while activation-independents ones do not. Examples of activation-dependent carcinogens range from certain viruses, such as HPV, to consumed alcohol, to excessive amounts of red and processed meats, impacting a person's health in ways they may not immediately associate with cancer. Activation-independent carcinogens, such as ultraviolet rays or nitrosamines in tobacco products, possess characteristics enabling them to interact directly with DNA and other cellular components to cause harm. These include not requiring metabolic action or molecular changes to act, which complements their ability to be electrically excited, permitting them to interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in negatively charged cellular environments. This type of interaction leads to the alteration of DNA nucleotide bases, causing disarrangement of that genetic material. This disarrangement is also responsible for the formation of DNA adducts, segments of DNA which bind to carcinogens, which furthers harm. Eventually, failure in DNA repair mechanisms will lead to a buildup of DNA damage and potentially the development of cancer.
There are many natural carcinogens. Aflatoxin B1, which is produced by the fungus Aspergillus flavus growing on stored grains, nuts and peanut butter, is an example of a potent, naturally occurring microbial carcinogen. Certain viruses such as hepatitis B and human papilloma virus have been found to cause cancer in humans. The first one shown to cause cancer in animals is Rous sarcoma virus, discovered in 1910 by Peyton Rous. Other infectious organisms which cause cancer in humans include some bacteria (e.g. Helicobacter pylori) and helminths (e.g. Opisthorchis viverrini and Clonorchis sinensis).
Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, benzene, kepone, EDB, and asbestos have all been classified as carcinogenic. As far back as the 1930s, industrial smoke and tobacco smoke were identified as sources of dozens of carcinogens, including benzo[a]pyrene, tobacco-specific nitrosamines such as nitrosonornicotine, and reactive aldehydes such as formaldehyde, which is also a hazard in embalming and making plastics. Vinyl chloride, from which PVC is manufactured, is a carcinogen and thus a hazard in PVC production.
CERCLA identifies all radionuclides as carcinogens, although the nature of the emitted radiation (alpha, beta, gamma, or neutron and the radioactive strength), its consequent capacity to cause ionization in tissues, and the magnitude of radiation exposure, determine the potential hazard. Carcinogenicity of radiation depends on the type of radiation, type of exposure, and penetration. For example, alpha radiation has low penetration and is not a hazard outside the body, but emitters are carcinogenic when inhaled or ingested. For example, Thorotrast, a (incidentally radioactive) suspension previously used as a contrast medium in x-ray diagnostics, is a potent human carcinogen known because of its retention within various organs and persistent emission of alpha particles. Low-level ionizing radiation may induce irreparable DNA damage (leading to replicational and transcriptional errors needed for neoplasia or may trigger viral interactions) leading to pre-mature aging and cancer.
Not all types of electromagnetic radiation are carcinogenic. Low-energy waves on the electromagnetic spectrum including radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation and visible light are thought not to be, because they have insufficient energy to break chemical bonds. Evidence for carcinogenic effects of non-ionizing radiation is generally inconclusive, though there are some documented cases of radar technicians with prolonged high exposure experiencing significantly higher cancer incidence.
Higher-energy radiation, including ultraviolet radiation (present in sunlight), x-rays, and gamma radiation, generally is carcinogenic, if received in sufficient doses. For most people, ultraviolet radiations from sunlight is the most common cause of skin cancer. In Australia, where people with pale skin are often exposed to strong sunlight, melanoma is the most common cancer diagnosed in people aged 15–44 years.
Substances or foods irradiated with electrons or electromagnetic radiation (such as microwave, X-ray or gamma) are not carcinogenic. In contrast, non-electromagnetic neutron radiation produced inside nuclear reactors can produce secondary radiation through nuclear transmutation.
Chemicals used in processed and cured meat such as some brands of bacon, sausages and ham may produce carcinogens. For example, nitrites used as food preservatives in cured meat such as bacon have also been noted as being carcinogenic with demographic links, but not causation, to colon cancer. Cooking food at high temperatures, for example grilling or barbecuing meats, may also lead to the formation of minute quantities of many potent carcinogens that are comparable to those found in cigarette smoke (i.e., benzo[a]pyrene). Charring of food looks like coking and tobacco pyrolysis, and produces carcinogens. There are several carcinogenic pyrolysis products, such as polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, which are converted by human enzymes into epoxides, which attach permanently to DNA. Pre-cooking meats in a microwave oven for 2–3 minutes before grilling shortens the time on the hot pan, and removes heterocyclic amine (HCA) precursors, which can help minimize the formation of these carcinogens.
Baking, grilling or broiling food, especially starchy foods, until a toasted crust is formed generates significant concentrations of acrylamide. This discovery in 2002 led to international health concerns. Subsequent research has however found that it is not likely that the acrylamides in burnt or well-cooked food cause cancer in humans; Cancer Research UK categorizes the idea that burnt food causes cancer as a "myth".
There is a strong association of smoking with lung cancer; the risk of developing lung cancer increases significantly in smokers. A large number of known carcinogens are found in cigarette smoke. Potent carcinogens found in cigarette smoke include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH, such as benzo(a)pyrene), benzene, and nitrosamine.
Carcinogens can be classified as genotoxic or nongenotoxic. Genotoxins cause irreversible genetic damage or mutations by binding to DNA. Genotoxins include chemical agents like N-nitroso-N-methylurea (NMU) or non-chemical agents such as ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation. Certain viruses can also act as carcinogens by interacting with DNA.
Nongenotoxins do not directly affect DNA but act in other ways to promote growth. These include hormones and some organic compounds.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an intergovernmental agency established in 1965, which forms part of the World Health Organization of the United Nations. It is based in Lyon, France. Since 1971 it has published a series of Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans that have been highly influential in the classification of possible carcinogens.
The Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) is a United Nations initiative to attempt to harmonize the different systems of assessing chemical risk which currently exist (as of March 2009) around the world. It classifies carcinogens into two categories, of which the first may be divided again into subcategories if so desired by the competent regulatory authority:
The National Toxicology Program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is mandated to produce a biennial Report on Carcinogens. As of June 2011, the latest edition was the 12th report (2011). It classifies carcinogens into two groups:
The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is a private organization best known for its publication of threshold limit values (TLVs) for occupational exposure and monographs on workplace chemical hazards. It assesses carcinogenicity as part of a wider assessment of the occupational hazards of chemicals.
The European Union classification of carcinogens is contained in the Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008. It consists of three categories:
The former European Union classification of carcinogens was contained in the Dangerous Substances Directive and the Dangerous Preparations Directive. It also consisted of three categories:
This assessment scheme is being phased out in favor of the GHS scheme (see above), to which it is very close in category definitions.
Under a previous name, the NOHSC, in 1999 Safe Work Australia published the Approved Criteria for Classifying Hazardous Substances [NOHSC:1008(1999)]. Section 4.76 of this document outlines the criteria for classifying carcinogens as approved by the Australian government. This classification consists of three categories:
Occupational carcinogens are agents that pose a risk of cancer in several specific work-locations:
Disclaimer: The following list is far from being exhaustive.
In this section, the carcinogens implicated as the main causative agents of the four most common cancers worldwide are briefly described. These four cancers are lung, breast, colon, and stomach cancers. Together they account for about 41% of worldwide cancer incidence and 42% of cancer deaths (for more detailed information on the carcinogens implicated in these and other cancers, see references).
Lung cancer (pulmonary carcinoma) is the most common cancer in the world, both in terms of cases (1.6 million cases; 12.7% of total cancer cases) and deaths (1.4 million deaths; 18.2% of total cancer deaths). Lung cancer is largely caused by tobacco smoke. Risk estimates for lung cancer in the United States indicate that tobacco smoke is responsible for 90% of lung cancers. Other factors are implicated in lung cancer, and these factors can interact synergistically with smoking so that total attributable risk adds up to more than 100%. These factors include occupational exposure to carcinogens (about 9-15%), radon (10%) and outdoor air pollution (1-2%). Tobacco smoke is a complex mixture of more than 5,300 identified chemicals. The most important carcinogens in tobacco smoke have been determined by a "Margin of Exposure" approach. Using this approach, the most important tumorigenic compounds in tobacco smoke were, in order of importance, acrolein, formaldehyde, acrylonitrile, 1,3-butadiene, cadmium, acetaldehyde, ethylene oxide, and isoprene. Most of these compounds cause DNA damage by forming DNA adducts or by inducing other alterations in DNA. DNA damages are subject to error-prone DNA repair or can cause replication errors. Such errors in repair or replication can result in mutations in tumor suppressor genes or oncogenes leading to cancer.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer [(1.4 million cases, 10.9%), but ranks 5th as cause of death (458,000, 6.1%)]. Increased risk of breast cancer is associated with persistently elevated blood levels of estrogen. Estrogen appears to contribute to breast carcinogenesis by three processes; (1) the metabolism of estrogen to genotoxic, mutagenic carcinogens, (2) the stimulation of tissue growth, and (3) the repression of phase II detoxification enzymes that metabolize ROS leading to increased oxidative DNA damage. The major estrogen in humans, estradiol, can be metabolized to quinone derivatives that form adducts with DNA. These derivatives can cause depurination, the removal of bases from the phosphodiester backbone of DNA, followed by inaccurate repair or replication of the apurinic site leading to mutation and eventually cancer. This genotoxic mechanism may interact in synergy with estrogen receptor-mediated, persistent cell proliferation to ultimately cause breast cancer. Genetic background, dietary practices and environmental factors also likely contribute to the incidence of DNA damage and breast cancer risk.
Consumption of alcohol has also been linked to an increased risk for breast cancer.
Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer [1.2 million cases (9.4%), 608,000 deaths (8.0%)]. Tobacco smoke may be responsible for up to 20% of colorectal cancers in the United States. In addition, substantial evidence implicates bile acids as an important factor in colon cancer. Twelve studies (summarized in Bernstein et al.) indicate that the bile acids deoxycholic acid (DCA) or lithocholic acid (LCA) induce production of DNA-damaging reactive oxygen species or reactive nitrogen species in human or animal colon cells. Furthermore, 14 studies showed that DCA and LCA induce DNA damage in colon cells. Also 27 studies reported that bile acids cause programmed cell death (apoptosis). Increased apoptosis can result in selective survival of cells that are resistant to induction of apoptosis. Colon cells with reduced ability to undergo apoptosis in response to DNA damage would tend to accumulate mutations, and such cells may give rise to colon cancer. Epidemiologic studies have found that fecal bile acid concentrations are increased in populations with a high incidence of colon cancer. Dietary increases in total fat or saturated fat result in elevated DCA and LCA in feces and elevated exposure of the colon epithelium to these bile acids. When the bile acid DCA was added to the standard diet of wild-type mice invasive colon cancer was induced in 56% of the mice after 8 to 10 months. Overall, the available evidence indicates that DCA and LCA are centrally important DNA-damaging carcinogens in colon cancer.
Stomach cancer is the fourth most common cancer [990,000 cases (7.8%), 738,000 deaths (9.7%)]. Helicobacter pylori infection is the main causative factor in stomach cancer. Chronic gastritis (inflammation) caused by H. pylori is often long-standing if not treated. Infection of gastric epithelial cells with H. pylori results in increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS cause oxidative DNA damage including the major base alteration 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG). 8-OHdG resulting from ROS is increased in chronic gastritis. The altered DNA base can cause errors during DNA replication that have mutagenic and carcinogenic potential. Thus H. pylori-induced ROS appear to be the major carcinogens in stomach cancer because they cause oxidative DNA damage leading to carcinogenic mutations. Diet is thought to be a contributing factor in stomach cancer - in Japan where very salty pickled foods are popular, the incidence of stomach cancer is high. Preserved meat such as bacon, sausages, and ham increases the risk while a diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables may reduce the risk. The risk also increases with age. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A carcinogen (/kɑːrˈsɪnədʒən/) is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substances are considered carcinogens, but their carcinogenic activity is attributed to the radiation, for example gamma rays and alpha particles, which they emit. Common examples of non-radioactive carcinogens are inhaled asbestos, certain dioxins, and tobacco smoke. Although the public generally associates carcinogenicity with synthetic chemicals, it is equally likely to arise from both natural and synthetic substances. Carcinogens are not necessarily immediately toxic; thus, their effect can be insidious.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Carcinogens are agents in the environment capable of contributing to cancer growth. Carcinogens can be categorized into two different types: activation-dependent and activation-independent, and each nature impacts their level and type of influence when it comes to promoting cancer growth. Activation-dependent carcinogens require metabolic activation or modification to induce cancer, while activation-independents ones do not. Examples of activation-dependent carcinogens range from certain viruses, such as HPV, to consumed alcohol, to excessive amounts of red and processed meats, impacting a person's health in ways they may not immediately associate with cancer. Activation-independent carcinogens, such as ultraviolet rays or nitrosamines in tobacco products, possess characteristics enabling them to interact directly with DNA and other cellular components to cause harm. These include not requiring metabolic action or molecular changes to act, which complements their ability to be electrically excited, permitting them to interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in negatively charged cellular environments. This type of interaction leads to the alteration of DNA nucleotide bases, causing disarrangement of that genetic material. This disarrangement is also responsible for the formation of DNA adducts, segments of DNA which bind to carcinogens, which furthers harm. Eventually, failure in DNA repair mechanisms will lead to a buildup of DNA damage and potentially the development of cancer.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "There are many natural carcinogens. Aflatoxin B1, which is produced by the fungus Aspergillus flavus growing on stored grains, nuts and peanut butter, is an example of a potent, naturally occurring microbial carcinogen. Certain viruses such as hepatitis B and human papilloma virus have been found to cause cancer in humans. The first one shown to cause cancer in animals is Rous sarcoma virus, discovered in 1910 by Peyton Rous. Other infectious organisms which cause cancer in humans include some bacteria (e.g. Helicobacter pylori) and helminths (e.g. Opisthorchis viverrini and Clonorchis sinensis).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, benzene, kepone, EDB, and asbestos have all been classified as carcinogenic. As far back as the 1930s, industrial smoke and tobacco smoke were identified as sources of dozens of carcinogens, including benzo[a]pyrene, tobacco-specific nitrosamines such as nitrosonornicotine, and reactive aldehydes such as formaldehyde, which is also a hazard in embalming and making plastics. Vinyl chloride, from which PVC is manufactured, is a carcinogen and thus a hazard in PVC production.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "CERCLA identifies all radionuclides as carcinogens, although the nature of the emitted radiation (alpha, beta, gamma, or neutron and the radioactive strength), its consequent capacity to cause ionization in tissues, and the magnitude of radiation exposure, determine the potential hazard. Carcinogenicity of radiation depends on the type of radiation, type of exposure, and penetration. For example, alpha radiation has low penetration and is not a hazard outside the body, but emitters are carcinogenic when inhaled or ingested. For example, Thorotrast, a (incidentally radioactive) suspension previously used as a contrast medium in x-ray diagnostics, is a potent human carcinogen known because of its retention within various organs and persistent emission of alpha particles. Low-level ionizing radiation may induce irreparable DNA damage (leading to replicational and transcriptional errors needed for neoplasia or may trigger viral interactions) leading to pre-mature aging and cancer.",
"title": "Radiation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Not all types of electromagnetic radiation are carcinogenic. Low-energy waves on the electromagnetic spectrum including radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation and visible light are thought not to be, because they have insufficient energy to break chemical bonds. Evidence for carcinogenic effects of non-ionizing radiation is generally inconclusive, though there are some documented cases of radar technicians with prolonged high exposure experiencing significantly higher cancer incidence.",
"title": "Radiation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Higher-energy radiation, including ultraviolet radiation (present in sunlight), x-rays, and gamma radiation, generally is carcinogenic, if received in sufficient doses. For most people, ultraviolet radiations from sunlight is the most common cause of skin cancer. In Australia, where people with pale skin are often exposed to strong sunlight, melanoma is the most common cancer diagnosed in people aged 15–44 years.",
"title": "Radiation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Substances or foods irradiated with electrons or electromagnetic radiation (such as microwave, X-ray or gamma) are not carcinogenic. In contrast, non-electromagnetic neutron radiation produced inside nuclear reactors can produce secondary radiation through nuclear transmutation.",
"title": "Radiation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Chemicals used in processed and cured meat such as some brands of bacon, sausages and ham may produce carcinogens. For example, nitrites used as food preservatives in cured meat such as bacon have also been noted as being carcinogenic with demographic links, but not causation, to colon cancer. Cooking food at high temperatures, for example grilling or barbecuing meats, may also lead to the formation of minute quantities of many potent carcinogens that are comparable to those found in cigarette smoke (i.e., benzo[a]pyrene). Charring of food looks like coking and tobacco pyrolysis, and produces carcinogens. There are several carcinogenic pyrolysis products, such as polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, which are converted by human enzymes into epoxides, which attach permanently to DNA. Pre-cooking meats in a microwave oven for 2–3 minutes before grilling shortens the time on the hot pan, and removes heterocyclic amine (HCA) precursors, which can help minimize the formation of these carcinogens.",
"title": "In prepared food"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Baking, grilling or broiling food, especially starchy foods, until a toasted crust is formed generates significant concentrations of acrylamide. This discovery in 2002 led to international health concerns. Subsequent research has however found that it is not likely that the acrylamides in burnt or well-cooked food cause cancer in humans; Cancer Research UK categorizes the idea that burnt food causes cancer as a \"myth\".",
"title": "In prepared food"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "There is a strong association of smoking with lung cancer; the risk of developing lung cancer increases significantly in smokers. A large number of known carcinogens are found in cigarette smoke. Potent carcinogens found in cigarette smoke include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH, such as benzo(a)pyrene), benzene, and nitrosamine.",
"title": "In cigarettes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Carcinogens can be classified as genotoxic or nongenotoxic. Genotoxins cause irreversible genetic damage or mutations by binding to DNA. Genotoxins include chemical agents like N-nitroso-N-methylurea (NMU) or non-chemical agents such as ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation. Certain viruses can also act as carcinogens by interacting with DNA.",
"title": "Mechanisms of carcinogenicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Nongenotoxins do not directly affect DNA but act in other ways to promote growth. These include hormones and some organic compounds.",
"title": "Mechanisms of carcinogenicity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is an intergovernmental agency established in 1965, which forms part of the World Health Organization of the United Nations. It is based in Lyon, France. Since 1971 it has published a series of Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans that have been highly influential in the classification of possible carcinogens.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) is a United Nations initiative to attempt to harmonize the different systems of assessing chemical risk which currently exist (as of March 2009) around the world. It classifies carcinogens into two categories, of which the first may be divided again into subcategories if so desired by the competent regulatory authority:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The National Toxicology Program of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is mandated to produce a biennial Report on Carcinogens. As of June 2011, the latest edition was the 12th report (2011). It classifies carcinogens into two groups:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) is a private organization best known for its publication of threshold limit values (TLVs) for occupational exposure and monographs on workplace chemical hazards. It assesses carcinogenicity as part of a wider assessment of the occupational hazards of chemicals.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The European Union classification of carcinogens is contained in the Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008. It consists of three categories:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The former European Union classification of carcinogens was contained in the Dangerous Substances Directive and the Dangerous Preparations Directive. It also consisted of three categories:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "This assessment scheme is being phased out in favor of the GHS scheme (see above), to which it is very close in category definitions.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Under a previous name, the NOHSC, in 1999 Safe Work Australia published the Approved Criteria for Classifying Hazardous Substances [NOHSC:1008(1999)]. Section 4.76 of this document outlines the criteria for classifying carcinogens as approved by the Australian government. This classification consists of three categories:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Occupational carcinogens are agents that pose a risk of cancer in several specific work-locations:",
"title": "Common carcinogens"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Disclaimer: The following list is far from being exhaustive.",
"title": "Common carcinogens"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In this section, the carcinogens implicated as the main causative agents of the four most common cancers worldwide are briefly described. These four cancers are lung, breast, colon, and stomach cancers. Together they account for about 41% of worldwide cancer incidence and 42% of cancer deaths (for more detailed information on the carcinogens implicated in these and other cancers, see references).",
"title": "Major carcinogens implicated in the four most common cancers worldwide"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Lung cancer (pulmonary carcinoma) is the most common cancer in the world, both in terms of cases (1.6 million cases; 12.7% of total cancer cases) and deaths (1.4 million deaths; 18.2% of total cancer deaths). Lung cancer is largely caused by tobacco smoke. Risk estimates for lung cancer in the United States indicate that tobacco smoke is responsible for 90% of lung cancers. Other factors are implicated in lung cancer, and these factors can interact synergistically with smoking so that total attributable risk adds up to more than 100%. These factors include occupational exposure to carcinogens (about 9-15%), radon (10%) and outdoor air pollution (1-2%). Tobacco smoke is a complex mixture of more than 5,300 identified chemicals. The most important carcinogens in tobacco smoke have been determined by a \"Margin of Exposure\" approach. Using this approach, the most important tumorigenic compounds in tobacco smoke were, in order of importance, acrolein, formaldehyde, acrylonitrile, 1,3-butadiene, cadmium, acetaldehyde, ethylene oxide, and isoprene. Most of these compounds cause DNA damage by forming DNA adducts or by inducing other alterations in DNA. DNA damages are subject to error-prone DNA repair or can cause replication errors. Such errors in repair or replication can result in mutations in tumor suppressor genes or oncogenes leading to cancer.",
"title": "Major carcinogens implicated in the four most common cancers worldwide"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Breast cancer is the second most common cancer [(1.4 million cases, 10.9%), but ranks 5th as cause of death (458,000, 6.1%)]. Increased risk of breast cancer is associated with persistently elevated blood levels of estrogen. Estrogen appears to contribute to breast carcinogenesis by three processes; (1) the metabolism of estrogen to genotoxic, mutagenic carcinogens, (2) the stimulation of tissue growth, and (3) the repression of phase II detoxification enzymes that metabolize ROS leading to increased oxidative DNA damage. The major estrogen in humans, estradiol, can be metabolized to quinone derivatives that form adducts with DNA. These derivatives can cause depurination, the removal of bases from the phosphodiester backbone of DNA, followed by inaccurate repair or replication of the apurinic site leading to mutation and eventually cancer. This genotoxic mechanism may interact in synergy with estrogen receptor-mediated, persistent cell proliferation to ultimately cause breast cancer. Genetic background, dietary practices and environmental factors also likely contribute to the incidence of DNA damage and breast cancer risk.",
"title": "Major carcinogens implicated in the four most common cancers worldwide"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Consumption of alcohol has also been linked to an increased risk for breast cancer.",
"title": "Major carcinogens implicated in the four most common cancers worldwide"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer [1.2 million cases (9.4%), 608,000 deaths (8.0%)]. Tobacco smoke may be responsible for up to 20% of colorectal cancers in the United States. In addition, substantial evidence implicates bile acids as an important factor in colon cancer. Twelve studies (summarized in Bernstein et al.) indicate that the bile acids deoxycholic acid (DCA) or lithocholic acid (LCA) induce production of DNA-damaging reactive oxygen species or reactive nitrogen species in human or animal colon cells. Furthermore, 14 studies showed that DCA and LCA induce DNA damage in colon cells. Also 27 studies reported that bile acids cause programmed cell death (apoptosis). Increased apoptosis can result in selective survival of cells that are resistant to induction of apoptosis. Colon cells with reduced ability to undergo apoptosis in response to DNA damage would tend to accumulate mutations, and such cells may give rise to colon cancer. Epidemiologic studies have found that fecal bile acid concentrations are increased in populations with a high incidence of colon cancer. Dietary increases in total fat or saturated fat result in elevated DCA and LCA in feces and elevated exposure of the colon epithelium to these bile acids. When the bile acid DCA was added to the standard diet of wild-type mice invasive colon cancer was induced in 56% of the mice after 8 to 10 months. Overall, the available evidence indicates that DCA and LCA are centrally important DNA-damaging carcinogens in colon cancer.",
"title": "Major carcinogens implicated in the four most common cancers worldwide"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Stomach cancer is the fourth most common cancer [990,000 cases (7.8%), 738,000 deaths (9.7%)]. Helicobacter pylori infection is the main causative factor in stomach cancer. Chronic gastritis (inflammation) caused by H. pylori is often long-standing if not treated. Infection of gastric epithelial cells with H. pylori results in increased production of reactive oxygen species (ROS). ROS cause oxidative DNA damage including the major base alteration 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG). 8-OHdG resulting from ROS is increased in chronic gastritis. The altered DNA base can cause errors during DNA replication that have mutagenic and carcinogenic potential. Thus H. pylori-induced ROS appear to be the major carcinogens in stomach cancer because they cause oxidative DNA damage leading to carcinogenic mutations. Diet is thought to be a contributing factor in stomach cancer - in Japan where very salty pickled foods are popular, the incidence of stomach cancer is high. Preserved meat such as bacon, sausages, and ham increases the risk while a diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables may reduce the risk. The risk also increases with age.",
"title": "Major carcinogens implicated in the four most common cancers worldwide"
}
] | A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substances are considered carcinogens, but their carcinogenic activity is attributed to the radiation, for example gamma rays and alpha particles, which they emit. Common examples of non-radioactive carcinogens are inhaled asbestos, certain dioxins, and tobacco smoke. Although the public generally associates carcinogenicity with synthetic chemicals, it is equally likely to arise from both natural and synthetic substances. Carcinogens are not necessarily immediately toxic; thus, their effect can be insidious. Carcinogens are agents in the environment capable of contributing to cancer growth. Carcinogens can be categorized into two different types: activation-dependent and activation-independent, and each nature impacts their level and type of influence when it comes to promoting cancer growth. Activation-dependent carcinogens require metabolic activation or modification to induce cancer, while activation-independents ones do not. Examples of activation-dependent carcinogens range from certain viruses, such as HPV, to consumed alcohol, to excessive amounts of red and processed meats, impacting a person's health in ways they may not immediately associate with cancer. Activation-independent carcinogens, such as ultraviolet rays or nitrosamines in tobacco products, possess characteristics enabling them to interact directly with DNA and other cellular components to cause harm. These include not requiring metabolic action or molecular changes to act, which complements their ability to be electrically excited, permitting them to interact with oxygen and nitrogen atoms in negatively charged cellular environments. This type of interaction leads to the alteration of DNA nucleotide bases, causing disarrangement of that genetic material. This disarrangement is also responsible for the formation of DNA adducts, segments of DNA which bind to carcinogens, which furthers harm. Eventually, failure in DNA repair mechanisms will lead to a buildup of DNA damage and potentially the development of cancer. There are many natural carcinogens. Aflatoxin B1, which is produced by the fungus Aspergillus flavus growing on stored grains, nuts and peanut butter, is an example of a potent, naturally occurring microbial carcinogen. Certain viruses such as hepatitis B and human papilloma virus have been found to cause cancer in humans. The first one shown to cause cancer in animals is Rous sarcoma virus, discovered in 1910 by Peyton Rous. Other infectious organisms which cause cancer in humans include some bacteria (e.g. Helicobacter pylori) and helminths (e.g. Opisthorchis viverrini and Clonorchis sinensis). Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds, benzene, kepone, EDB, and asbestos have all been classified as carcinogenic. As far back as the 1930s, industrial smoke and tobacco smoke were identified as sources of dozens of carcinogens, including benzo[a]pyrene, tobacco-specific nitrosamines such as nitrosonornicotine, and reactive aldehydes such as formaldehyde, which is also a hazard in embalming and making plastics. Vinyl chloride, from which PVC is manufactured, is a carcinogen and thus a hazard in PVC production. | 2001-09-20T02:00:25Z | 2023-12-29T04:12:08Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogen |
6,446 | Camouflage | Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier, and the leaf-mimic katydid's wings. A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate, as well as making general aiming easier. The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. In the open ocean, where there is no background, the principal methods of camouflage are transparency, silvering, and countershading, while the ability to produce light is among other things used for counter-illumination on the undersides of cephalopods such as squid. Some animals, such as chameleons and octopuses, are capable of actively changing their skin pattern and colours, whether for camouflage or for signalling. It is possible that some plants use camouflage to evade being eaten by herbivores.
Military camouflage was spurred by the increasing range and accuracy of firearms in the 19th century. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with the rifle made personal concealment in battle a survival skill. In the 20th century, military camouflage developed rapidly, especially during the First World War. On land, artists such as André Mare designed camouflage schemes and observation posts disguised as trees. At sea, merchant ships and troop carriers were painted in dazzle patterns that were highly visible, but designed to confuse enemy submarines as to the target's speed, range, and heading. During and after the Second World War, a variety of camouflage schemes were used for aircraft and for ground vehicles in different theatres of war. The use of radar since the mid-20th century has largely made camouflage for fixed-wing military aircraft obsolete.
Non-military use of camouflage includes making cell telephone towers less obtrusive and helping hunters to approach wary game animals. Patterns derived from military camouflage are frequently used in fashion clothing, exploiting their strong designs and sometimes their symbolism. Camouflage themes recur in modern art, and both figuratively and literally in science fiction and works of literature.
In ancient Greece, Aristotle (384–322 BC) commented on the colour-changing abilities, both for camouflage and for signalling, of cephalopods including the octopus, in his Historia animalium:
The octopus ... seeks its prey by so changing its colour as to render it like the colour of the stones adjacent to it; it does so also when alarmed.
Camouflage has been a topic of interest and research in zoology for well over a century. According to Charles Darwin's 1859 theory of natural selection, features such as camouflage evolved by providing individual animals with a reproductive advantage, enabling them to leave more offspring, on average, than other members of the same species. In his Origin of Species, Darwin wrote:
When we see leaf-eating insects green, and bark-feeders mottled-grey; the alpine ptarmigan white in winter, the red-grouse the colour of heather, and the black-grouse that of peaty earth, we must believe that these tints are of service to these birds and insects in preserving them from danger. Grouse, if not destroyed at some period of their lives, would increase in countless numbers; they are known to suffer largely from birds of prey; and hawks are guided by eyesight to their prey, so much so, that on parts of the Continent persons are warned not to keep white pigeons, as being the most liable to destruction. Hence I can see no reason to doubt that natural selection might be most effective in giving the proper colour to each kind of grouse, and in keeping that colour, when once acquired, true and constant.
The English zoologist Edward Bagnall Poulton studied animal coloration, especially camouflage. In his 1890 book The Colours of Animals, he classified different types such as "special protective resemblance" (where an animal looks like another object), or "general aggressive resemblance" (where a predator blends in with the background, enabling it to approach prey). His experiments showed that swallow-tailed moth pupae were camouflaged to match the backgrounds on which they were reared as larvae. Poulton's "general protective resemblance" was at that time considered to be the main method of camouflage, as when Frank Evers Beddard wrote in 1892 that "tree-frequenting animals are often green in colour. Among vertebrates numerous species of parrots, iguanas, tree-frogs, and the green tree-snake are examples". Beddard did however briefly mention other methods, including the "alluring coloration" of the flower mantis and the possibility of a different mechanism in the orange tip butterfly. He wrote that "the scattered green spots upon the under surface of the wings might have been intended for a rough sketch of the small flowerets of the plant [an umbellifer], so close is their mutual resemblance." He also explained the coloration of sea fish such as the mackerel: "Among pelagic fish it is common to find the upper surface dark-coloured and the lower surface white, so that the animal is inconspicuous when seen either from above or below."
The artist Abbott Handerson Thayer formulated what is sometimes called Thayer's Law, the principle of countershading. However, he overstated the case in the 1909 book Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, arguing that "All patterns and colors whatsoever of all animals that ever preyed or are preyed on are under certain normal circumstances obliterative" (that is, cryptic camouflage), and that "Not one 'mimicry' mark, not one 'warning color'... nor any 'sexually selected' color, exists anywhere in the world where there is not every reason to believe it the very best conceivable device for the concealment of its wearer", and using paintings such as Peacock in the Woods (1907) to reinforce his argument. Thayer was roundly mocked for these views by critics including Teddy Roosevelt.
The English zoologist Hugh Cott's 1940 book Adaptive Coloration in Animals corrected Thayer's errors, sometimes sharply: "Thus we find Thayer straining the theory to a fantastic extreme in an endeavour to make it cover almost every type of coloration in the animal kingdom." Cott built on Thayer's discoveries, developing a comprehensive view of camouflage based on "maximum disruptive contrast", countershading and hundreds of examples. The book explained how disruptive camouflage worked, using streaks of boldly contrasting colour, paradoxically making objects less visible by breaking up their outlines. While Cott was more systematic and balanced in his view than Thayer, and did include some experimental evidence on the effectiveness of camouflage, his 500-page textbook was, like Thayer's, mainly a natural history narrative which illustrated theories with examples.
Experimental evidence that camouflage helps prey avoid being detected by predators was first provided in 2016, when ground-nesting birds (plovers and coursers) were shown to survive according to how well their egg contrast matched the local environment.
As there is a lack of evidence for camouflage in the fossil record, studying the evolution of camouflage strategies is very difficult. Furthermore, camouflage traits must be both adaptable (provide a fitness gain in a given environment) and heritable (in other words, the trait must undergo positive selection). Thus, studying the evolution of camouflage strategies requires an understanding of the genetic components and various ecological pressures that drive crypsis.
Camouflage is a soft-tissue feature that is rarely preserved in the fossil record, but rare fossilised skin samples from the Cretaceous period show that some marine reptiles were countershaded. The skins, pigmented with dark-coloured eumelanin, reveal that both leatherback turtles and mosasaurs had dark backs and light bellies. There is fossil evidence of camouflaged insects going back over 100 million years, for example lacewings larvae that stick debris all over their bodies much as their modern descendants do, hiding them from their prey. Dinosaurs appear to have been camouflaged, as a 120 million year old fossil of a Psittacosaurus has been preserved with countershading.
Camouflage does not have a single genetic origin. However, studying the genetic components of camouflage in specific organisms illuminates the various ways that crypsis can evolve among lineages.
Many cephalopods have the ability to actively camouflage themselves, controlling crypsis through neural activity. For example, the genome of the common cuttlefish includes 16 copies of the reflectin gene, which grants the organism remarkable control over coloration and iridescence. The reflectin gene is thought to have originated through transposition from symbiotic Aliivibrio fischeri bacteria, which provide bioluminescence to its hosts. While not all cephalopods use active camouflage, ancient cephalopods may have inherited the gene horizontally from symbiotic A. fischeri, with divergence occurred through subsequent gene duplication (such as in the case of Sepia officinalis) or gene loss (as with cephalopods with no active camouflage capabilities). This is unique as an instance of camouflage arising as an instance of horizontal gene transfer from an endosymbiont. However, other methods of horizontal gene transfer are common in the evolution of camouflage strategies in other lineages. Peppered moths and walking stick insects both have camouflage-related genes that stem from transposition events.
The Agouti genes are orthologous genes involved in camouflage across many lineages. They produce yellow and red coloration (phaeomelanin), and work in competition with other genes that produce black (melanin) and brown (eumelanin) colours. In eastern deer mice, over a period of about 8000 years the single agouti gene developed 9 mutations that each made expression of yellow fur stronger under natural selection, and largely eliminated melanin-coding black fur coloration. On the other hand, all black domesticated cats have deletions of the agouti gene that prevent its expression, meaning no yellow or red color is produced. The evolution, history and widespread scope of the agouti gene shows that different organisms often rely on orthologous or even identical genes to develop a variety of camouflage strategies.
While camouflage can increase an organism's fitness, it has genetic and energetic costs. There is a trade-off between detectability and mobility. Species camouflaged to fit a specific microhabitat are less likely to be detected when in that microhabitat, but must spend energy to reach, and sometimes to remain in, such areas. Outside the microhabitat, the organism has a higher chance of detection. Generalized camouflage allows species to avoid predation over a wide range of habitat backgrounds, but is less effective. The development of generalized or specialized camouflage strategies is highly dependent on the biotic and abiotic composition of the surrounding environment.
There are many examples of the tradeoffs between specific and general cryptic patterning. Phestilla melanocrachia, a species of nudibranch that feeds on stony coral, utilizes specific cryptic patterning in reef ecosystems. The nudibranch syphons pigments from the consumed coral into the epidermis, adopting the same shade as the consumed coral. This allows the nudibranch to change colour (mostly between black and orange) depending on the coral system that it inhabits. However, P. melanocrachia can only feed and lay eggs on the branches of host-coral, Platygyra carnosa, which limits the geographical range and efficacy in nudibranch nutritional crypsis. Furthermore, the nudibranch colour change is not immediate, and switching between coral hosts when in search for new food or shelter can be costly.
The costs associated with distractive or disruptive crypsis are more complex than the costs associated with background matching. Disruptive patterns distort the body outline, making it harder to precisely identify and locate. However, disruptive patterns result in higher predation. Disruptive patterns that specifically involve visible symmetry (such as in some butterflies) reduce survivability and increase predation. Some researchers argue that because wing-shape and color pattern are genetically linked, it is genetically costly to develop asymmetric wing colorations that would enhance the efficacy of disruptive cryptic patterning. Symmetry does not carry a high survival cost for butterflies and moths that their predators views from above on a homogeneous background, such as the bark of a tree. On the other hand, natural selection drives species with variable backgrounds and habitats to move symmetrical patterns away from the centre of the wing and body, disrupting their predators' symmetry recognition.
Camouflage can be achieved by different methods, described below. Most of the methods help to hide against a background; but mimesis and motion dazzle protect without hiding. Methods may be applied on their own or in combination. Many mechanisms are visual, but some research has explored the use of techniques against olfactory (scent) and acoustic (sound) detection. Methods may also apply to military equipment.
Some animals' colours and patterns resemble a particular natural background. This is an important component of camouflage in all environments. For instance, tree-dwelling parakeets are mainly green; woodcocks of the forest floor are brown and speckled; reedbed bitterns are streaked brown and buff; in each case the animal's coloration matches the hues of its habitat. Similarly, desert animals are almost all desert coloured in tones of sand, buff, ochre, and brownish grey, whether they are mammals like the gerbil or fennec fox, birds such as the desert lark or sandgrouse, or reptiles like the skink or horned viper. Military uniforms, too, generally resemble their backgrounds; for example khaki uniforms are a muddy or dusty colour, originally chosen for service in South Asia. Many moths show industrial melanism, including the peppered moth which has coloration that blends in with tree bark. The coloration of these insects evolved between 1860 and 1940 to match the changing colour of the tree trunks on which they rest, from pale and mottled to almost black in polluted areas. This is taken by zoologists as evidence that camouflage is influenced by natural selection, as well as demonstrating that it changes where necessary to resemble the local background.
Disruptive patterns use strongly contrasting, non-repeating markings such as spots or stripes to break up the outlines of an animal or military vehicle, or to conceal telltale features, especially by masking the eyes, as in the common frog. Disruptive patterns may use more than one method to defeat visual systems such as edge detection. Predators like the leopard use disruptive camouflage to help them approach prey, while potential prey use it to avoid detection by predators. Disruptive patterning is common in military usage, both for uniforms and for military vehicles. Disruptive patterning, however, does not always achieve crypsis on its own, as an animal or a military target may be given away by factors like shape, shine, and shadow.
The presence of bold skin markings does not in itself prove that an animal relies on camouflage, as that depends on its behaviour. For example, although giraffes have a high contrast pattern that could be disruptive coloration, the adults are very conspicuous when in the open. Some authors have argued that adult giraffes are cryptic, since when standing among trees and bushes they are hard to see at even a few metres' distance. However, adult giraffes move about to gain the best view of an approaching predator, relying on their size and ability to defend themselves, even from lions, rather than on camouflage. A different explanation is implied by young giraffes being far more vulnerable to predation than adults. More than half of all giraffe calves die within a year, and giraffe mothers hide their newly born calves, which spend much of the time lying down in cover while their mothers are away feeding. The mothers return once a day to feed their calves with milk. Since the presence of a mother nearby does not affect survival, it is argued that these juvenile giraffes must be very well camouflaged; this is supported by coat markings being strongly inherited.
The possibility of camouflage in plants has been little studied until the late 20th century. Leaf variegation with white spots may serve as camouflage in forest understory plants, where there is a dappled background; leaf mottling is correlated with closed habitats. Disruptive camouflage would have a clear evolutionary advantage in plants: they would tend to escape from being eaten by herbivores. Another possibility is that some plants have leaves differently coloured on upper and lower surfaces or on parts such as veins and stalks to make green-camouflaged insects conspicuous, and thus benefit the plants by favouring the removal of herbivores by carnivores. These hypotheses are testable.
Some animals, such as the horned lizards of North America, have evolved elaborate measures to eliminate shadow. Their bodies are flattened, with the sides thinning to an edge; the animals habitually press their bodies to the ground; and their sides are fringed with white scales which effectively hide and disrupt any remaining areas of shadow there may be under the edge of the body. The theory that the body shape of the horned lizards which live in open desert is adapted to minimise shadow is supported by the one species which lacks fringe scales, the roundtail horned lizard, which lives in rocky areas and resembles a rock. When this species is threatened, it makes itself look as much like a rock as possible by curving its back, emphasizing its three-dimensional shape. Some species of butterflies, such as the speckled wood, Pararge aegeria, minimise their shadows when perched by closing the wings over their backs, aligning their bodies with the sun, and tilting to one side towards the sun, so that the shadow becomes a thin inconspicuous line rather than a broad patch. Similarly, some ground-nesting birds, including the European nightjar, select a resting position facing the sun. Eliminating shadow was identified as a principle of military camouflage during the Second World War.
Many prey animals have conspicuous high-contrast markings which paradoxically attract the predator's gaze. These distractive markings may serve as camouflage by distracting the predator's attention from recognising the prey as a whole, for example by keeping the predator from identifying the prey's outline. Experimentally, search times for blue tits increased when artificial prey had distractive markings.
Some animals actively seek to hide by decorating themselves with materials such as twigs, sand, or pieces of shell from their environment, to break up their outlines, to conceal the features of their bodies, and to match their backgrounds. For example, a caddisfly larva builds a decorated case and lives almost entirely inside it; a decorator crab covers its back with seaweed, sponges, and stones. The nymph of the predatory masked bug uses its hind legs and a 'tarsal fan' to decorate its body with sand or dust. There are two layers of bristles (trichomes) over the body. On these, the nymph spreads an inner layer of fine particles and an outer layer of coarser particles. The camouflage may conceal the bug from both predators and prey.
Similar principles can be applied for military purposes, for instance when a sniper wears a ghillie suit designed to be further camouflaged by decoration with materials such as tufts of grass from the sniper's immediate environment. Such suits were used as early as 1916, the British army having adopted "coats of motley hue and stripes of paint" for snipers. Cott takes the example of the larva of the blotched emerald moth, which fixes a screen of fragments of leaves to its specially hooked bristles, to argue that military camouflage uses the same method, pointing out that the "device is ... essentially the same as one widely practised during the Great War for the concealment, not of caterpillars, but of caterpillar-tractors, [gun] battery positions, observation posts and so forth."
Movement catches the eye of prey animals on the lookout for predators, and of predators hunting for prey. Most methods of crypsis therefore also require suitable cryptic behaviour, such as lying down and keeping still to avoid being detected, or in the case of stalking predators such as the tiger, moving with extreme stealth, both slowly and quietly, watching its prey for any sign they are aware of its presence. As an example of the combination of behaviours and other methods of crypsis involved, young giraffes seek cover, lie down, and keep still, often for hours until their mothers return; their skin pattern blends with the pattern of the vegetation, while the chosen cover and lying position together hide the animals' shadows. The flat-tail horned lizard similarly relies on a combination of methods: it is adapted to lie flat in the open desert, relying on stillness, its cryptic coloration, and concealment of its shadow to avoid being noticed by predators. In the ocean, the leafy sea dragon sways mimetically, like the seaweeds amongst which it rests, as if rippled by wind or water currents. Swaying is seen also in some insects, like Macleay's spectre stick insect, Extatosoma tiaratum. The behaviour may be motion crypsis, preventing detection, or motion masquerade, promoting misclassification (as something other than prey), or a combination of the two.
Most forms of camouflage are ineffective when the camouflaged animal or object moves, because the motion is easily seen by the observing predator, prey or enemy. However, insects such as hoverflies and dragonflies use motion camouflage: the hoverflies to approach possible mates, and the dragonflies to approach rivals when defending territories. Motion camouflage is achieved by moving so as to stay on a straight line between the target and a fixed point in the landscape; the pursuer thus appears not to move, but only to loom larger in the target's field of vision. The same method can be used for military purposes, for example by missiles to minimise their risk of detection by an enemy. However, missile engineers, and animals such as bats, use the method mainly for its efficiency rather than camouflage.
Animals such as chameleon, frog, flatfish such as the peacock flounder, squid, octopus and even the isopod idotea balthica actively change their skin patterns and colours using special chromatophore cells to resemble their current background, or, as in most chameleons, for signalling. However, Smith's dwarf chameleon does use active colour change for camouflage.
Each chromatophore contains pigment of only one colour. In fish and frogs, colour change is mediated by a type of chromatophore known as melanophores that contain dark pigment. A melanophore is star-shaped; it contains many small pigmented organelles which can be dispersed throughout the cell, or aggregated near its centre. When the pigmented organelles are dispersed, the cell makes a patch of the animal's skin appear dark; when they are aggregated, most of the cell, and the animal's skin, appears light. In frogs, the change is controlled relatively slowly, mainly by hormones. In fish, the change is controlled by the brain, which sends signals directly to the chromatophores, as well as producing hormones.
The skins of cephalopods such as the octopus contain complex units, each consisting of a chromatophore with surrounding muscle and nerve cells. The cephalopod chromatophore has all its pigment grains in a small elastic sac, which can be stretched or allowed to relax under the control of the brain to vary its opacity. By controlling chromatophores of different colours, cephalopods can rapidly change their skin patterns and colours.
On a longer timescale, animals like the Arctic hare, Arctic fox, stoat, and rock ptarmigan have snow camouflage, changing their coat colour (by moulting and growing new fur or feathers) from brown or grey in the summer to white in the winter; the Arctic fox is the only species in the dog family to do so. However, Arctic hares which live in the far north of Canada, where summer is very short, remain white year-round.
The principle of varying coloration either rapidly or with the changing seasons has military applications. Active camouflage could in theory make use of both dynamic colour change and counterillumination. Simple methods such as changing uniforms and repainting vehicles for winter have been in use since World War II. In 2011, BAE Systems announced their Adaptiv infrared camouflage technology. It uses about 1,000 hexagonal panels to cover the sides of a tank. The Peltier plate panels are heated and cooled to match either the vehicle's surroundings (crypsis), or an object such as a car (mimesis), when viewed in infrared.
Countershading uses graded colour to counteract the effect of self-shadowing, creating an illusion of flatness. Self-shadowing makes an animal appear darker below than on top, grading from light to dark; countershading 'paints in' tones which are darkest on top, lightest below, making the countershaded animal nearly invisible against a suitable background. Thayer observed that "Animals are painted by Nature, darkest on those parts which tend to be most lighted by the sky's light, and vice versa". Accordingly, the principle of countershading is sometimes called Thayer's Law. Countershading is widely used by terrestrial animals, such as gazelles and grasshoppers; marine animals, such as sharks and dolphins; and birds, such as snipe and dunlin.
Countershading is less often used for military camouflage, despite Second World War experiments that showed its effectiveness. English zoologist Hugh Cott encouraged the use of methods including countershading, but despite his authority on the subject, failed to persuade the British authorities. Soldiers often wrongly viewed camouflage netting as a kind of invisibility cloak, and they had to be taught to look at camouflage practically, from an enemy observer's viewpoint. At the same time in Australia, zoologist William John Dakin advised soldiers to copy animals' methods, using their instincts for wartime camouflage.
The term countershading has a second meaning unrelated to "Thayer's Law". It is that the upper and undersides of animals such as sharks, and of some military aircraft, are different colours to match the different backgrounds when seen from above or from below. Here the camouflage consists of two surfaces, each with the simple function of providing concealment against a specific background, such as a bright water surface or the sky. The body of a shark or the fuselage of an aircraft is not gradated from light to dark to appear flat when seen from the side. The camouflage methods used are the matching of background colour and pattern, and disruption of outlines.
Counter-illumination means producing light to match a background that is brighter than an animal's body or military vehicle; it is a form of active camouflage. It is notably used by some species of squid, such as the firefly squid and the midwater squid. The latter has light-producing organs (photophores) scattered all over its underside; these create a sparkling glow that prevents the animal from appearing as a dark shape when seen from below. Counterillumination camouflage is the likely function of the bioluminescence of many marine organisms, though light is also produced to attract or to detect prey and for signalling.
Counterillumination has rarely been used for military purposes. "Diffused lighting camouflage" was trialled by Canada's National Research Council during the Second World War. It involved projecting light on to the sides of ships to match the faint glow of the night sky, requiring awkward external platforms to support the lamps. The Canadian concept was refined in the American Yehudi lights project, and trialled in aircraft including B-24 Liberators and naval Avengers. The planes were fitted with forward-pointing lamps automatically adjusted to match the brightness of the night sky. This enabled them to approach much closer to a target – within 3,000 yards (2,700 m) – before being seen. Counterillumination was made obsolete by radar, and neither diffused lighting camouflage nor Yehudi lights entered active service.
Many marine animals that float near the surface are highly transparent, giving them almost perfect camouflage. However, transparency is difficult for bodies made of materials that have different refractive indices from seawater. Some marine animals such as jellyfish have gelatinous bodies, composed mainly of water; their thick mesogloea is acellular and highly transparent. This conveniently makes them buoyant, but it also makes them large for their muscle mass, so they cannot swim fast, making this form of camouflage a costly trade-off with mobility. Gelatinous planktonic animals are between 50 and 90 percent transparent. A transparency of 50 percent is enough to make an animal invisible to a predator such as cod at a depth of 650 metres (2,130 ft); better transparency is required for invisibility in shallower water, where the light is brighter and predators can see better. For example, a cod can see prey that are 98 percent transparent in optimal lighting in shallow water. Therefore, sufficient transparency for camouflage is more easily achieved in deeper waters.
Some tissues such as muscles can be made transparent, provided either they are very thin or organised as regular layers or fibrils that are small compared to the wavelength of visible light. A familiar example is the transparency of the lens of the vertebrate eye, which is made of the protein crystallin, and the vertebrate cornea which is made of the protein collagen. Other structures cannot be made transparent, notably the retinas or equivalent light-absorbing structures of eyes – they must absorb light to be able to function. The camera-type eye of vertebrates and cephalopods must be completely opaque. Finally, some structures are visible for a reason, such as to lure prey. For example, the nematocysts (stinging cells) of the transparent siphonophore Agalma okenii resemble small copepods. Examples of transparent marine animals include a wide variety of larvae, including radiata (coelenterates), siphonophores, salps (floating tunicates), gastropod molluscs, polychaete worms, many shrimplike crustaceans, and fish; whereas the adults of most of these are opaque and pigmented, resembling the seabed or shores where they live. Adult comb jellies and jellyfish obey the rule, often being mainly transparent. Cott suggests this follows the more general rule that animals resemble their background: in a transparent medium like seawater, that means being transparent. The small Amazon river fish Microphilypnus amazonicus and the shrimps it associates with, Pseudopalaemon gouldingi, are so transparent as to be "almost invisible"; further, these species appear to select whether to be transparent or more conventionally mottled (disruptively patterned) according to the local background in the environment.
Where transparency cannot be achieved, it can be imitated effectively by silvering to make an animal's body highly reflective. At medium depths at sea, light comes from above, so a mirror oriented vertically makes animals such as fish invisible from the side. Most fish in the upper ocean such as sardine and herring are camouflaged by silvering.
The marine hatchetfish is extremely flattened laterally, leaving the body just millimetres thick, and the body is so silvery as to resemble aluminium foil. The mirrors consist of microscopic structures similar to those used to provide structural coloration: stacks of between 5 and 10 crystals of guanine spaced about 1⁄4 of a wavelength apart to interfere constructively and achieve nearly 100 per cent reflection. In the deep waters that the hatchetfish lives in, only blue light with a wavelength of 500 nanometres percolates down and needs to be reflected, so mirrors 125 nanometres apart provide good camouflage.
In fish such as the herring which live in shallower water, the mirrors must reflect a mixture of wavelengths, and the fish accordingly has crystal stacks with a range of different spacings. A further complication for fish with bodies that are rounded in cross-section is that the mirrors would be ineffective if laid flat on the skin, as they would fail to reflect horizontally. The overall mirror effect is achieved with many small reflectors, all oriented vertically. Silvering is found in other marine animals as well as fish. The cephalopods, including squid, octopus and cuttlefish, have multilayer mirrors made of protein rather than guanine.
Some deep sea fishes have very black skin, reflecting under 0.5% of ambient light. This can prevent detection by predators or prey fish which use bioluminescence for illumination. Oneirodes had a particularly black skin which reflected only 0.044% of 480 nm wavelength light. The ultra-blackness is achieved with a thin but continuous layer of particles in the dermis, melanosomes. These particles both absorb most of the light, and are sized and shaped so as to scatter rather than reflect most of the rest. Modelling suggests that this camouflage should reduce the distance at which such a fish can be seen by a factor of 6 compared to a fish with a nominal 2% reflectance. Species with this adaptation are widely dispersed in various orders of the phylogenetic tree of bony fishes (Actinopterygii), implying that natural selection has driven the convergent evolution of ultra-blackness camouflage independently many times.
In mimesis (also called masquerade), the camouflaged object looks like something else which is of no special interest to the observer. Mimesis is common in prey animals, for example when a peppered moth caterpillar mimics a twig, or a grasshopper mimics a dry leaf. It is also found in nest structures; some eusocial wasps, such as Leipomeles dorsata, build a nest envelope in patterns that mimic the leaves surrounding the nest.
Mimesis is also employed by some predators and parasites to lure their prey. For example, a flower mantis mimics a particular kind of flower, such as an orchid. This tactic has occasionally been used in warfare, for example with heavily armed Q-ships disguised as merchant ships.
The common cuckoo, a brood parasite, provides examples of mimesis both in the adult and in the egg. The female lays her eggs in nests of other, smaller species of bird, one per nest. The female mimics a sparrowhawk. The resemblance is sufficient to make small birds take action to avoid the apparent predator. The female cuckoo then has time to lay her egg in their nest without being seen to do so. The cuckoo's egg itself mimics the eggs of the host species, reducing its chance of being rejected.
Most forms of camouflage are made ineffective by movement: a deer or grasshopper may be highly cryptic when motionless, but instantly seen when it moves. But one method, motion dazzle, requires rapidly moving bold patterns of contrasting stripes. Motion dazzle may degrade predators' ability to estimate the prey's speed and direction accurately, giving the prey an improved chance of escape. Motion dazzle distorts speed perception and is most effective at high speeds; stripes can also distort perception of size (and so, perceived range to the target). As of 2011, motion dazzle had been proposed for military vehicles, but never applied. Since motion dazzle patterns would make animals more difficult to locate accurately when moving, but easier to see when stationary, there would be an evolutionary trade-off between motion dazzle and crypsis.
An animal that is commonly thought to be dazzle-patterned is the zebra. The bold stripes of the zebra have been claimed to be disruptive camouflage, background-blending and countershading. After many years in which the purpose of the coloration was disputed, an experimental study by Tim Caro suggested in 2012 that the pattern reduces the attractiveness of stationary models to biting flies such as horseflies and tsetse flies. However, a simulation study by Martin How and Johannes Zanker in 2014 suggests that when moving, the stripes may confuse observers, such as mammalian predators and biting insects, by two visual illusions: the wagon-wheel effect, where the perceived motion is inverted, and the barberpole illusion, where the perceived motion is in a wrong direction.
Ship camouflage was occasionally used in ancient times. Philostratus (c. 172–250 AD) wrote in his Imagines that Mediterranean pirate ships could be painted blue-gray for concealment. Vegetius (c. 360–400 AD) says that "Venetian blue" (sea green) was used in the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar sent his speculatoria navigia (reconnaissance boats) to gather intelligence along the coast of Britain; the ships were painted entirely in bluish-green wax, with sails, ropes and crew the same colour. There is little evidence of military use of camouflage on land before 1800, but two unusual ceramics show men in Peru's Mochica culture from before 500 AD, hunting birds with blowpipes which are fitted with a kind of shield near the mouth, perhaps to conceal the hunters' hands and faces. Another early source is a 15th-century French manuscript, The Hunting Book of Gaston Phebus, showing a horse pulling a cart which contains a hunter armed with a crossbow under a cover of branches, perhaps serving as a hide for shooting game. Jamaican Maroons are said to have used plant materials as camouflage in the First Maroon War (c. 1655–1740).
The development of military camouflage was driven by the increasing range and accuracy of infantry firearms in the 19th century. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with weapons such as the Baker rifle made personal concealment in battle essential. Two Napoleonic War skirmishing units of the British Army, the 95th Rifle Regiment and the 60th Rifle Regiment, were the first to adopt camouflage in the form of a rifle green jacket, while the Line regiments continued to wear scarlet tunics. A contemporary study in 1800 by the English artist and soldier Charles Hamilton Smith provided evidence that grey uniforms were less visible than green ones at a range of 150 yards.
In the American Civil War, rifle units such as the 1st United States Sharp Shooters (in the Federal army) similarly wore green jackets while other units wore more conspicuous colours. The first British Army unit to adopt khaki uniforms was the Corps of Guides at Peshawar, when Sir Harry Lumsden and his second in command, William Hodson introduced a "drab" uniform in 1848. Hodson wrote that it would be more appropriate for the hot climate, and help make his troops "invisible in a land of dust". Later they improvised by dyeing cloth locally. Other regiments in India soon adopted the khaki uniform, and by 1896 khaki drill uniform was used everywhere outside Europe; by the Second Boer War six years later it was used throughout the British Army.
During the late 19th century camouflage was applied to British coastal fortifications. The fortifications around Plymouth, England were painted in the late 1880s in "irregular patches of red, brown, yellow and green." From 1891 onwards British coastal artillery was permitted to be painted in suitable colours "to harmonise with the surroundings" and by 1904 it was standard practice that artillery and mountings should be painted with "large irregular patches of different colours selected to suit local conditions."
In the First World War, the French army formed a camouflage corps, led by Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola, employing artists known as camoufleurs to create schemes such as tree observation posts and covers for guns. Other armies soon followed them. The term camouflage probably comes from camoufler, a Parisian slang term meaning to disguise, and may have been influenced by camouflet, a French term meaning smoke blown in someone's face. The English zoologist John Graham Kerr, artist Solomon J. Solomon and the American artist Abbott Thayer led attempts to introduce scientific principles of countershading and disruptive patterning into military camouflage, with limited success. In early 1916 the Royal Naval Air Service began to create dummy air fields to draw the attention of enemy planes to empty land. They created decoy homes and lined fake runways with flares, which were meant to help protect real towns from night raids. This strategy was not common practice and did not succeed at first, but in 1918 it caught the Germans off guard multiple times.
Ship camouflage was introduced in the early 20th century as the range of naval guns increased, with ships painted grey all over. In April 1917, when German U-boats were sinking many British ships with torpedoes, the marine artist Norman Wilkinson devised dazzle camouflage, which paradoxically made ships more visible but harder to target. In Wilkinson's own words, dazzle was designed "not for low visibility, but in such a way as to break up her form and thus confuse a submarine officer as to the course on which she was heading".
In the Second World War, the zoologist Hugh Cott, a protégé of Kerr, worked to persuade the British army to use more effective camouflage methods, including countershading, but, like Kerr and Thayer in the First World War, with limited success. For example, he painted two rail-mounted coastal guns, one in conventional style, one countershaded. In aerial photographs, the countershaded gun was essentially invisible. The power of aerial observation and attack led every warring nation to camouflage targets of all types. The Soviet Union's Red Army created the comprehensive doctrine of Maskirovka for military deception, including the use of camouflage. For example, during the Battle of Kursk, General Katukov, the commander of the Soviet 1st Tank Army, remarked that the enemy "did not suspect that our well-camouflaged tanks were waiting for him. As we later learned from prisoners, we had managed to move our tanks forward unnoticed". The tanks were concealed in previously prepared defensive emplacements, with only their turrets above ground level. In the air, Second World War fighters were often painted in ground colours above and sky colours below, attempting two different camouflage schemes for observers above and below. Bombers and night fighters were often black, while maritime reconnaissance planes were usually white, to avoid appearing as dark shapes against the sky. For ships, dazzle camouflage was mainly replaced with plain grey in the Second World War, though experimentation with colour schemes continued.
As in the First World War, artists were pressed into service; for example, the surrealist painter Roland Penrose became a lecturer at the newly founded Camouflage Development and Training Centre at Farnham Castle, writing the practical Home Guard Manual of Camouflage. The film-maker Geoffrey Barkas ran the Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate during the 1941–1942 war in the Western Desert, including the successful deception of Operation Bertram. Hugh Cott was chief instructor; the artist camouflage officers, who called themselves camoufleurs, included Steven Sykes and Tony Ayrton. In Australia, artists were also prominent in the Sydney Camouflage Group, formed under the chairmanship of Professor William John Dakin, a zoologist from Sydney University. Max Dupain, Sydney Ure Smith, and William Dobell were among the members of the group, which worked at Bankstown Airport, RAAF Base Richmond and Garden Island Dockyard. In the United States, artists like John Vassos took a certificate course in military and industrial camouflage at the American School of Design with Baron Nicholas Cerkasoff, and went on to create camouflage for the Air Force.
Camouflage has been used to protect military equipment such as vehicles, guns, ships, aircraft and buildings as well as individual soldiers and their positions. Vehicle camouflage methods begin with paint, which offers at best only limited effectiveness. Other methods for stationary land vehicles include covering with improvised materials such as blankets and vegetation, and erecting nets, screens and soft covers which may suitably reflect, scatter or absorb near infrared and radar waves. Some military textiles and vehicle camouflage paints also reflect infrared to help provide concealment from night vision devices. After the Second World War, radar made camouflage generally less effective, though coastal boats are sometimes painted like land vehicles. Aircraft camouflage too came to be seen as less important because of radar, and aircraft of different air forces, such as the Royal Air Force's Lightning, were often uncamouflaged.
Many camouflaged textile patterns have been developed to suit the need to match combat clothing to different kinds of terrain (such as woodland, snow, and desert). The design of a pattern effective in all terrains has proved elusive. The American Universal Camouflage Pattern of 2004 attempted to suit all environments, but was withdrawn after a few years of service. Terrain-specific patterns have sometimes been developed but are ineffective in other terrains. The problem of making a pattern that works at different ranges has been solved with multiscale designs, often with a pixellated appearance and designed digitally, that provide a fractal-like range of patch sizes so they appear disruptively coloured both at close range and at a distance. The first genuinely digital camouflage pattern was the Canadian Disruptive Pattern (CADPAT), issued to the army in 2002, soon followed by the American Marine pattern (MARPAT). A pixellated appearance is not essential for this effect, though it is simpler to design and to print.
Hunters of game have long made use of camouflage in the form of materials such as animal skins, mud, foliage, and green or brown clothing to enable them to approach wary game animals. Field sports such as driven grouse shooting conceal hunters in hides (also called blinds or shooting butts). Modern hunting clothing makes use of fabrics that provide a disruptive camouflage pattern; for example, in 1986 the hunter Bill Jordan created cryptic clothing for hunters, printed with images of specific kinds of vegetation such as grass and branches.
Camouflage is occasionally used to make built structures less conspicuous: for example, in South Africa, towers carrying cell telephone antennae are sometimes camouflaged as tall trees with plastic branches, in response to "resistance from the community". Since this method is costly (a figure of three times the normal cost is mentioned), alternative forms of camouflage can include using neutral colours or familiar shapes such as cylinders and flagpoles. Conspicuousness can also be reduced by siting masts near, or on, other structures.
Automotive manufacturers often use patterns to disguise upcoming products. This camouflage is designed to obfuscate the vehicle's visual lines, and is used along with padding, covers, and decals. The patterns' purpose is to prevent visual observation (and to a lesser degree photography), that would subsequently enable reproduction of the vehicle's form factors.
Military camouflage patterns influenced fashion and art from the time of the First World War onwards. Gertrude Stein recalled the cubist artist Pablo Picasso's reaction in around 1915:
I very well remember at the beginning of the war being with Picasso on the boulevard Raspail when the first camouflaged truck passed. It was at night, we had heard of camouflage but we had not seen it and Picasso amazed looked at it and then cried out, yes it is we who made it, that is cubism.
In 1919, the attendants of a "dazzle ball", hosted by the Chelsea Arts Club, wore dazzle-patterned black and white clothing. The ball influenced fashion and art via postcards and magazine articles. The Illustrated London News announced:
The scheme of decoration for the great fancy dress ball given by the Chelsea Arts Club at the Albert Hall, the other day, was based on the principles of "Dazzle", the method of "camouflage" used during the war in the painting of ships ... The total effect was brilliant and fantastic.
More recently, fashion designers have often used camouflage fabric for its striking designs, its "patterned disorder" and its symbolism. Camouflage clothing can be worn largely for its symbolic significance rather than for fashion, as when, during the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, anti-war protestors often ironically wore military clothing during demonstrations against the American involvement in the Vietnam War.
Modern artists such as Ian Hamilton Finlay have used camouflage to reflect on war. His 1973 screenprint of a tank camouflaged in a leaf pattern, Arcadia, is described by the Tate as drawing "an ironic parallel between this idea of a natural paradise and the camouflage patterns on a tank". The title refers to the Utopian Arcadia of poetry and art, and the memento mori Latin phrase Et in Arcadia ego which recurs in Hamilton Finlay's work. In science fiction, Camouflage is a novel about shapeshifting alien beings by Joe Haldeman. The word is used more figuratively in works of literature such as Thaisa Frank's collection of stories of love and loss, A Brief History of Camouflage. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier, and the leaf-mimic katydid's wings. A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate, as well as making general aiming easier. The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. In the open ocean, where there is no background, the principal methods of camouflage are transparency, silvering, and countershading, while the ability to produce light is among other things used for counter-illumination on the undersides of cephalopods such as squid. Some animals, such as chameleons and octopuses, are capable of actively changing their skin pattern and colours, whether for camouflage or for signalling. It is possible that some plants use camouflage to evade being eaten by herbivores.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Military camouflage was spurred by the increasing range and accuracy of firearms in the 19th century. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with the rifle made personal concealment in battle a survival skill. In the 20th century, military camouflage developed rapidly, especially during the First World War. On land, artists such as André Mare designed camouflage schemes and observation posts disguised as trees. At sea, merchant ships and troop carriers were painted in dazzle patterns that were highly visible, but designed to confuse enemy submarines as to the target's speed, range, and heading. During and after the Second World War, a variety of camouflage schemes were used for aircraft and for ground vehicles in different theatres of war. The use of radar since the mid-20th century has largely made camouflage for fixed-wing military aircraft obsolete.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Non-military use of camouflage includes making cell telephone towers less obtrusive and helping hunters to approach wary game animals. Patterns derived from military camouflage are frequently used in fashion clothing, exploiting their strong designs and sometimes their symbolism. Camouflage themes recur in modern art, and both figuratively and literally in science fiction and works of literature.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In ancient Greece, Aristotle (384–322 BC) commented on the colour-changing abilities, both for camouflage and for signalling, of cephalopods including the octopus, in his Historia animalium:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The octopus ... seeks its prey by so changing its colour as to render it like the colour of the stones adjacent to it; it does so also when alarmed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Camouflage has been a topic of interest and research in zoology for well over a century. According to Charles Darwin's 1859 theory of natural selection, features such as camouflage evolved by providing individual animals with a reproductive advantage, enabling them to leave more offspring, on average, than other members of the same species. In his Origin of Species, Darwin wrote:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "When we see leaf-eating insects green, and bark-feeders mottled-grey; the alpine ptarmigan white in winter, the red-grouse the colour of heather, and the black-grouse that of peaty earth, we must believe that these tints are of service to these birds and insects in preserving them from danger. Grouse, if not destroyed at some period of their lives, would increase in countless numbers; they are known to suffer largely from birds of prey; and hawks are guided by eyesight to their prey, so much so, that on parts of the Continent persons are warned not to keep white pigeons, as being the most liable to destruction. Hence I can see no reason to doubt that natural selection might be most effective in giving the proper colour to each kind of grouse, and in keeping that colour, when once acquired, true and constant.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The English zoologist Edward Bagnall Poulton studied animal coloration, especially camouflage. In his 1890 book The Colours of Animals, he classified different types such as \"special protective resemblance\" (where an animal looks like another object), or \"general aggressive resemblance\" (where a predator blends in with the background, enabling it to approach prey). His experiments showed that swallow-tailed moth pupae were camouflaged to match the backgrounds on which they were reared as larvae. Poulton's \"general protective resemblance\" was at that time considered to be the main method of camouflage, as when Frank Evers Beddard wrote in 1892 that \"tree-frequenting animals are often green in colour. Among vertebrates numerous species of parrots, iguanas, tree-frogs, and the green tree-snake are examples\". Beddard did however briefly mention other methods, including the \"alluring coloration\" of the flower mantis and the possibility of a different mechanism in the orange tip butterfly. He wrote that \"the scattered green spots upon the under surface of the wings might have been intended for a rough sketch of the small flowerets of the plant [an umbellifer], so close is their mutual resemblance.\" He also explained the coloration of sea fish such as the mackerel: \"Among pelagic fish it is common to find the upper surface dark-coloured and the lower surface white, so that the animal is inconspicuous when seen either from above or below.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The artist Abbott Handerson Thayer formulated what is sometimes called Thayer's Law, the principle of countershading. However, he overstated the case in the 1909 book Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom, arguing that \"All patterns and colors whatsoever of all animals that ever preyed or are preyed on are under certain normal circumstances obliterative\" (that is, cryptic camouflage), and that \"Not one 'mimicry' mark, not one 'warning color'... nor any 'sexually selected' color, exists anywhere in the world where there is not every reason to believe it the very best conceivable device for the concealment of its wearer\", and using paintings such as Peacock in the Woods (1907) to reinforce his argument. Thayer was roundly mocked for these views by critics including Teddy Roosevelt.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The English zoologist Hugh Cott's 1940 book Adaptive Coloration in Animals corrected Thayer's errors, sometimes sharply: \"Thus we find Thayer straining the theory to a fantastic extreme in an endeavour to make it cover almost every type of coloration in the animal kingdom.\" Cott built on Thayer's discoveries, developing a comprehensive view of camouflage based on \"maximum disruptive contrast\", countershading and hundreds of examples. The book explained how disruptive camouflage worked, using streaks of boldly contrasting colour, paradoxically making objects less visible by breaking up their outlines. While Cott was more systematic and balanced in his view than Thayer, and did include some experimental evidence on the effectiveness of camouflage, his 500-page textbook was, like Thayer's, mainly a natural history narrative which illustrated theories with examples.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Experimental evidence that camouflage helps prey avoid being detected by predators was first provided in 2016, when ground-nesting birds (plovers and coursers) were shown to survive according to how well their egg contrast matched the local environment.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "As there is a lack of evidence for camouflage in the fossil record, studying the evolution of camouflage strategies is very difficult. Furthermore, camouflage traits must be both adaptable (provide a fitness gain in a given environment) and heritable (in other words, the trait must undergo positive selection). Thus, studying the evolution of camouflage strategies requires an understanding of the genetic components and various ecological pressures that drive crypsis.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Camouflage is a soft-tissue feature that is rarely preserved in the fossil record, but rare fossilised skin samples from the Cretaceous period show that some marine reptiles were countershaded. The skins, pigmented with dark-coloured eumelanin, reveal that both leatherback turtles and mosasaurs had dark backs and light bellies. There is fossil evidence of camouflaged insects going back over 100 million years, for example lacewings larvae that stick debris all over their bodies much as their modern descendants do, hiding them from their prey. Dinosaurs appear to have been camouflaged, as a 120 million year old fossil of a Psittacosaurus has been preserved with countershading.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Camouflage does not have a single genetic origin. However, studying the genetic components of camouflage in specific organisms illuminates the various ways that crypsis can evolve among lineages.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Many cephalopods have the ability to actively camouflage themselves, controlling crypsis through neural activity. For example, the genome of the common cuttlefish includes 16 copies of the reflectin gene, which grants the organism remarkable control over coloration and iridescence. The reflectin gene is thought to have originated through transposition from symbiotic Aliivibrio fischeri bacteria, which provide bioluminescence to its hosts. While not all cephalopods use active camouflage, ancient cephalopods may have inherited the gene horizontally from symbiotic A. fischeri, with divergence occurred through subsequent gene duplication (such as in the case of Sepia officinalis) or gene loss (as with cephalopods with no active camouflage capabilities). This is unique as an instance of camouflage arising as an instance of horizontal gene transfer from an endosymbiont. However, other methods of horizontal gene transfer are common in the evolution of camouflage strategies in other lineages. Peppered moths and walking stick insects both have camouflage-related genes that stem from transposition events.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Agouti genes are orthologous genes involved in camouflage across many lineages. They produce yellow and red coloration (phaeomelanin), and work in competition with other genes that produce black (melanin) and brown (eumelanin) colours. In eastern deer mice, over a period of about 8000 years the single agouti gene developed 9 mutations that each made expression of yellow fur stronger under natural selection, and largely eliminated melanin-coding black fur coloration. On the other hand, all black domesticated cats have deletions of the agouti gene that prevent its expression, meaning no yellow or red color is produced. The evolution, history and widespread scope of the agouti gene shows that different organisms often rely on orthologous or even identical genes to develop a variety of camouflage strategies.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "While camouflage can increase an organism's fitness, it has genetic and energetic costs. There is a trade-off between detectability and mobility. Species camouflaged to fit a specific microhabitat are less likely to be detected when in that microhabitat, but must spend energy to reach, and sometimes to remain in, such areas. Outside the microhabitat, the organism has a higher chance of detection. Generalized camouflage allows species to avoid predation over a wide range of habitat backgrounds, but is less effective. The development of generalized or specialized camouflage strategies is highly dependent on the biotic and abiotic composition of the surrounding environment.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "There are many examples of the tradeoffs between specific and general cryptic patterning. Phestilla melanocrachia, a species of nudibranch that feeds on stony coral, utilizes specific cryptic patterning in reef ecosystems. The nudibranch syphons pigments from the consumed coral into the epidermis, adopting the same shade as the consumed coral. This allows the nudibranch to change colour (mostly between black and orange) depending on the coral system that it inhabits. However, P. melanocrachia can only feed and lay eggs on the branches of host-coral, Platygyra carnosa, which limits the geographical range and efficacy in nudibranch nutritional crypsis. Furthermore, the nudibranch colour change is not immediate, and switching between coral hosts when in search for new food or shelter can be costly.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The costs associated with distractive or disruptive crypsis are more complex than the costs associated with background matching. Disruptive patterns distort the body outline, making it harder to precisely identify and locate. However, disruptive patterns result in higher predation. Disruptive patterns that specifically involve visible symmetry (such as in some butterflies) reduce survivability and increase predation. Some researchers argue that because wing-shape and color pattern are genetically linked, it is genetically costly to develop asymmetric wing colorations that would enhance the efficacy of disruptive cryptic patterning. Symmetry does not carry a high survival cost for butterflies and moths that their predators views from above on a homogeneous background, such as the bark of a tree. On the other hand, natural selection drives species with variable backgrounds and habitats to move symmetrical patterns away from the centre of the wing and body, disrupting their predators' symmetry recognition.",
"title": "Evolution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Camouflage can be achieved by different methods, described below. Most of the methods help to hide against a background; but mimesis and motion dazzle protect without hiding. Methods may be applied on their own or in combination. Many mechanisms are visual, but some research has explored the use of techniques against olfactory (scent) and acoustic (sound) detection. Methods may also apply to military equipment.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Some animals' colours and patterns resemble a particular natural background. This is an important component of camouflage in all environments. For instance, tree-dwelling parakeets are mainly green; woodcocks of the forest floor are brown and speckled; reedbed bitterns are streaked brown and buff; in each case the animal's coloration matches the hues of its habitat. Similarly, desert animals are almost all desert coloured in tones of sand, buff, ochre, and brownish grey, whether they are mammals like the gerbil or fennec fox, birds such as the desert lark or sandgrouse, or reptiles like the skink or horned viper. Military uniforms, too, generally resemble their backgrounds; for example khaki uniforms are a muddy or dusty colour, originally chosen for service in South Asia. Many moths show industrial melanism, including the peppered moth which has coloration that blends in with tree bark. The coloration of these insects evolved between 1860 and 1940 to match the changing colour of the tree trunks on which they rest, from pale and mottled to almost black in polluted areas. This is taken by zoologists as evidence that camouflage is influenced by natural selection, as well as demonstrating that it changes where necessary to resemble the local background.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Disruptive patterns use strongly contrasting, non-repeating markings such as spots or stripes to break up the outlines of an animal or military vehicle, or to conceal telltale features, especially by masking the eyes, as in the common frog. Disruptive patterns may use more than one method to defeat visual systems such as edge detection. Predators like the leopard use disruptive camouflage to help them approach prey, while potential prey use it to avoid detection by predators. Disruptive patterning is common in military usage, both for uniforms and for military vehicles. Disruptive patterning, however, does not always achieve crypsis on its own, as an animal or a military target may be given away by factors like shape, shine, and shadow.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The presence of bold skin markings does not in itself prove that an animal relies on camouflage, as that depends on its behaviour. For example, although giraffes have a high contrast pattern that could be disruptive coloration, the adults are very conspicuous when in the open. Some authors have argued that adult giraffes are cryptic, since when standing among trees and bushes they are hard to see at even a few metres' distance. However, adult giraffes move about to gain the best view of an approaching predator, relying on their size and ability to defend themselves, even from lions, rather than on camouflage. A different explanation is implied by young giraffes being far more vulnerable to predation than adults. More than half of all giraffe calves die within a year, and giraffe mothers hide their newly born calves, which spend much of the time lying down in cover while their mothers are away feeding. The mothers return once a day to feed their calves with milk. Since the presence of a mother nearby does not affect survival, it is argued that these juvenile giraffes must be very well camouflaged; this is supported by coat markings being strongly inherited.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The possibility of camouflage in plants has been little studied until the late 20th century. Leaf variegation with white spots may serve as camouflage in forest understory plants, where there is a dappled background; leaf mottling is correlated with closed habitats. Disruptive camouflage would have a clear evolutionary advantage in plants: they would tend to escape from being eaten by herbivores. Another possibility is that some plants have leaves differently coloured on upper and lower surfaces or on parts such as veins and stalks to make green-camouflaged insects conspicuous, and thus benefit the plants by favouring the removal of herbivores by carnivores. These hypotheses are testable.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Some animals, such as the horned lizards of North America, have evolved elaborate measures to eliminate shadow. Their bodies are flattened, with the sides thinning to an edge; the animals habitually press their bodies to the ground; and their sides are fringed with white scales which effectively hide and disrupt any remaining areas of shadow there may be under the edge of the body. The theory that the body shape of the horned lizards which live in open desert is adapted to minimise shadow is supported by the one species which lacks fringe scales, the roundtail horned lizard, which lives in rocky areas and resembles a rock. When this species is threatened, it makes itself look as much like a rock as possible by curving its back, emphasizing its three-dimensional shape. Some species of butterflies, such as the speckled wood, Pararge aegeria, minimise their shadows when perched by closing the wings over their backs, aligning their bodies with the sun, and tilting to one side towards the sun, so that the shadow becomes a thin inconspicuous line rather than a broad patch. Similarly, some ground-nesting birds, including the European nightjar, select a resting position facing the sun. Eliminating shadow was identified as a principle of military camouflage during the Second World War.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Many prey animals have conspicuous high-contrast markings which paradoxically attract the predator's gaze. These distractive markings may serve as camouflage by distracting the predator's attention from recognising the prey as a whole, for example by keeping the predator from identifying the prey's outline. Experimentally, search times for blue tits increased when artificial prey had distractive markings.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Some animals actively seek to hide by decorating themselves with materials such as twigs, sand, or pieces of shell from their environment, to break up their outlines, to conceal the features of their bodies, and to match their backgrounds. For example, a caddisfly larva builds a decorated case and lives almost entirely inside it; a decorator crab covers its back with seaweed, sponges, and stones. The nymph of the predatory masked bug uses its hind legs and a 'tarsal fan' to decorate its body with sand or dust. There are two layers of bristles (trichomes) over the body. On these, the nymph spreads an inner layer of fine particles and an outer layer of coarser particles. The camouflage may conceal the bug from both predators and prey.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Similar principles can be applied for military purposes, for instance when a sniper wears a ghillie suit designed to be further camouflaged by decoration with materials such as tufts of grass from the sniper's immediate environment. Such suits were used as early as 1916, the British army having adopted \"coats of motley hue and stripes of paint\" for snipers. Cott takes the example of the larva of the blotched emerald moth, which fixes a screen of fragments of leaves to its specially hooked bristles, to argue that military camouflage uses the same method, pointing out that the \"device is ... essentially the same as one widely practised during the Great War for the concealment, not of caterpillars, but of caterpillar-tractors, [gun] battery positions, observation posts and so forth.\"",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Movement catches the eye of prey animals on the lookout for predators, and of predators hunting for prey. Most methods of crypsis therefore also require suitable cryptic behaviour, such as lying down and keeping still to avoid being detected, or in the case of stalking predators such as the tiger, moving with extreme stealth, both slowly and quietly, watching its prey for any sign they are aware of its presence. As an example of the combination of behaviours and other methods of crypsis involved, young giraffes seek cover, lie down, and keep still, often for hours until their mothers return; their skin pattern blends with the pattern of the vegetation, while the chosen cover and lying position together hide the animals' shadows. The flat-tail horned lizard similarly relies on a combination of methods: it is adapted to lie flat in the open desert, relying on stillness, its cryptic coloration, and concealment of its shadow to avoid being noticed by predators. In the ocean, the leafy sea dragon sways mimetically, like the seaweeds amongst which it rests, as if rippled by wind or water currents. Swaying is seen also in some insects, like Macleay's spectre stick insect, Extatosoma tiaratum. The behaviour may be motion crypsis, preventing detection, or motion masquerade, promoting misclassification (as something other than prey), or a combination of the two.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Most forms of camouflage are ineffective when the camouflaged animal or object moves, because the motion is easily seen by the observing predator, prey or enemy. However, insects such as hoverflies and dragonflies use motion camouflage: the hoverflies to approach possible mates, and the dragonflies to approach rivals when defending territories. Motion camouflage is achieved by moving so as to stay on a straight line between the target and a fixed point in the landscape; the pursuer thus appears not to move, but only to loom larger in the target's field of vision. The same method can be used for military purposes, for example by missiles to minimise their risk of detection by an enemy. However, missile engineers, and animals such as bats, use the method mainly for its efficiency rather than camouflage.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Animals such as chameleon, frog, flatfish such as the peacock flounder, squid, octopus and even the isopod idotea balthica actively change their skin patterns and colours using special chromatophore cells to resemble their current background, or, as in most chameleons, for signalling. However, Smith's dwarf chameleon does use active colour change for camouflage.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Each chromatophore contains pigment of only one colour. In fish and frogs, colour change is mediated by a type of chromatophore known as melanophores that contain dark pigment. A melanophore is star-shaped; it contains many small pigmented organelles which can be dispersed throughout the cell, or aggregated near its centre. When the pigmented organelles are dispersed, the cell makes a patch of the animal's skin appear dark; when they are aggregated, most of the cell, and the animal's skin, appears light. In frogs, the change is controlled relatively slowly, mainly by hormones. In fish, the change is controlled by the brain, which sends signals directly to the chromatophores, as well as producing hormones.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The skins of cephalopods such as the octopus contain complex units, each consisting of a chromatophore with surrounding muscle and nerve cells. The cephalopod chromatophore has all its pigment grains in a small elastic sac, which can be stretched or allowed to relax under the control of the brain to vary its opacity. By controlling chromatophores of different colours, cephalopods can rapidly change their skin patterns and colours.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "On a longer timescale, animals like the Arctic hare, Arctic fox, stoat, and rock ptarmigan have snow camouflage, changing their coat colour (by moulting and growing new fur or feathers) from brown or grey in the summer to white in the winter; the Arctic fox is the only species in the dog family to do so. However, Arctic hares which live in the far north of Canada, where summer is very short, remain white year-round.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The principle of varying coloration either rapidly or with the changing seasons has military applications. Active camouflage could in theory make use of both dynamic colour change and counterillumination. Simple methods such as changing uniforms and repainting vehicles for winter have been in use since World War II. In 2011, BAE Systems announced their Adaptiv infrared camouflage technology. It uses about 1,000 hexagonal panels to cover the sides of a tank. The Peltier plate panels are heated and cooled to match either the vehicle's surroundings (crypsis), or an object such as a car (mimesis), when viewed in infrared.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Countershading uses graded colour to counteract the effect of self-shadowing, creating an illusion of flatness. Self-shadowing makes an animal appear darker below than on top, grading from light to dark; countershading 'paints in' tones which are darkest on top, lightest below, making the countershaded animal nearly invisible against a suitable background. Thayer observed that \"Animals are painted by Nature, darkest on those parts which tend to be most lighted by the sky's light, and vice versa\". Accordingly, the principle of countershading is sometimes called Thayer's Law. Countershading is widely used by terrestrial animals, such as gazelles and grasshoppers; marine animals, such as sharks and dolphins; and birds, such as snipe and dunlin.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Countershading is less often used for military camouflage, despite Second World War experiments that showed its effectiveness. English zoologist Hugh Cott encouraged the use of methods including countershading, but despite his authority on the subject, failed to persuade the British authorities. Soldiers often wrongly viewed camouflage netting as a kind of invisibility cloak, and they had to be taught to look at camouflage practically, from an enemy observer's viewpoint. At the same time in Australia, zoologist William John Dakin advised soldiers to copy animals' methods, using their instincts for wartime camouflage.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The term countershading has a second meaning unrelated to \"Thayer's Law\". It is that the upper and undersides of animals such as sharks, and of some military aircraft, are different colours to match the different backgrounds when seen from above or from below. Here the camouflage consists of two surfaces, each with the simple function of providing concealment against a specific background, such as a bright water surface or the sky. The body of a shark or the fuselage of an aircraft is not gradated from light to dark to appear flat when seen from the side. The camouflage methods used are the matching of background colour and pattern, and disruption of outlines.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Counter-illumination means producing light to match a background that is brighter than an animal's body or military vehicle; it is a form of active camouflage. It is notably used by some species of squid, such as the firefly squid and the midwater squid. The latter has light-producing organs (photophores) scattered all over its underside; these create a sparkling glow that prevents the animal from appearing as a dark shape when seen from below. Counterillumination camouflage is the likely function of the bioluminescence of many marine organisms, though light is also produced to attract or to detect prey and for signalling.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Counterillumination has rarely been used for military purposes. \"Diffused lighting camouflage\" was trialled by Canada's National Research Council during the Second World War. It involved projecting light on to the sides of ships to match the faint glow of the night sky, requiring awkward external platforms to support the lamps. The Canadian concept was refined in the American Yehudi lights project, and trialled in aircraft including B-24 Liberators and naval Avengers. The planes were fitted with forward-pointing lamps automatically adjusted to match the brightness of the night sky. This enabled them to approach much closer to a target – within 3,000 yards (2,700 m) – before being seen. Counterillumination was made obsolete by radar, and neither diffused lighting camouflage nor Yehudi lights entered active service.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Many marine animals that float near the surface are highly transparent, giving them almost perfect camouflage. However, transparency is difficult for bodies made of materials that have different refractive indices from seawater. Some marine animals such as jellyfish have gelatinous bodies, composed mainly of water; their thick mesogloea is acellular and highly transparent. This conveniently makes them buoyant, but it also makes them large for their muscle mass, so they cannot swim fast, making this form of camouflage a costly trade-off with mobility. Gelatinous planktonic animals are between 50 and 90 percent transparent. A transparency of 50 percent is enough to make an animal invisible to a predator such as cod at a depth of 650 metres (2,130 ft); better transparency is required for invisibility in shallower water, where the light is brighter and predators can see better. For example, a cod can see prey that are 98 percent transparent in optimal lighting in shallow water. Therefore, sufficient transparency for camouflage is more easily achieved in deeper waters.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Some tissues such as muscles can be made transparent, provided either they are very thin or organised as regular layers or fibrils that are small compared to the wavelength of visible light. A familiar example is the transparency of the lens of the vertebrate eye, which is made of the protein crystallin, and the vertebrate cornea which is made of the protein collagen. Other structures cannot be made transparent, notably the retinas or equivalent light-absorbing structures of eyes – they must absorb light to be able to function. The camera-type eye of vertebrates and cephalopods must be completely opaque. Finally, some structures are visible for a reason, such as to lure prey. For example, the nematocysts (stinging cells) of the transparent siphonophore Agalma okenii resemble small copepods. Examples of transparent marine animals include a wide variety of larvae, including radiata (coelenterates), siphonophores, salps (floating tunicates), gastropod molluscs, polychaete worms, many shrimplike crustaceans, and fish; whereas the adults of most of these are opaque and pigmented, resembling the seabed or shores where they live. Adult comb jellies and jellyfish obey the rule, often being mainly transparent. Cott suggests this follows the more general rule that animals resemble their background: in a transparent medium like seawater, that means being transparent. The small Amazon river fish Microphilypnus amazonicus and the shrimps it associates with, Pseudopalaemon gouldingi, are so transparent as to be \"almost invisible\"; further, these species appear to select whether to be transparent or more conventionally mottled (disruptively patterned) according to the local background in the environment.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Where transparency cannot be achieved, it can be imitated effectively by silvering to make an animal's body highly reflective. At medium depths at sea, light comes from above, so a mirror oriented vertically makes animals such as fish invisible from the side. Most fish in the upper ocean such as sardine and herring are camouflaged by silvering.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The marine hatchetfish is extremely flattened laterally, leaving the body just millimetres thick, and the body is so silvery as to resemble aluminium foil. The mirrors consist of microscopic structures similar to those used to provide structural coloration: stacks of between 5 and 10 crystals of guanine spaced about 1⁄4 of a wavelength apart to interfere constructively and achieve nearly 100 per cent reflection. In the deep waters that the hatchetfish lives in, only blue light with a wavelength of 500 nanometres percolates down and needs to be reflected, so mirrors 125 nanometres apart provide good camouflage.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In fish such as the herring which live in shallower water, the mirrors must reflect a mixture of wavelengths, and the fish accordingly has crystal stacks with a range of different spacings. A further complication for fish with bodies that are rounded in cross-section is that the mirrors would be ineffective if laid flat on the skin, as they would fail to reflect horizontally. The overall mirror effect is achieved with many small reflectors, all oriented vertically. Silvering is found in other marine animals as well as fish. The cephalopods, including squid, octopus and cuttlefish, have multilayer mirrors made of protein rather than guanine.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Some deep sea fishes have very black skin, reflecting under 0.5% of ambient light. This can prevent detection by predators or prey fish which use bioluminescence for illumination. Oneirodes had a particularly black skin which reflected only 0.044% of 480 nm wavelength light. The ultra-blackness is achieved with a thin but continuous layer of particles in the dermis, melanosomes. These particles both absorb most of the light, and are sized and shaped so as to scatter rather than reflect most of the rest. Modelling suggests that this camouflage should reduce the distance at which such a fish can be seen by a factor of 6 compared to a fish with a nominal 2% reflectance. Species with this adaptation are widely dispersed in various orders of the phylogenetic tree of bony fishes (Actinopterygii), implying that natural selection has driven the convergent evolution of ultra-blackness camouflage independently many times.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In mimesis (also called masquerade), the camouflaged object looks like something else which is of no special interest to the observer. Mimesis is common in prey animals, for example when a peppered moth caterpillar mimics a twig, or a grasshopper mimics a dry leaf. It is also found in nest structures; some eusocial wasps, such as Leipomeles dorsata, build a nest envelope in patterns that mimic the leaves surrounding the nest.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Mimesis is also employed by some predators and parasites to lure their prey. For example, a flower mantis mimics a particular kind of flower, such as an orchid. This tactic has occasionally been used in warfare, for example with heavily armed Q-ships disguised as merchant ships.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The common cuckoo, a brood parasite, provides examples of mimesis both in the adult and in the egg. The female lays her eggs in nests of other, smaller species of bird, one per nest. The female mimics a sparrowhawk. The resemblance is sufficient to make small birds take action to avoid the apparent predator. The female cuckoo then has time to lay her egg in their nest without being seen to do so. The cuckoo's egg itself mimics the eggs of the host species, reducing its chance of being rejected.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Most forms of camouflage are made ineffective by movement: a deer or grasshopper may be highly cryptic when motionless, but instantly seen when it moves. But one method, motion dazzle, requires rapidly moving bold patterns of contrasting stripes. Motion dazzle may degrade predators' ability to estimate the prey's speed and direction accurately, giving the prey an improved chance of escape. Motion dazzle distorts speed perception and is most effective at high speeds; stripes can also distort perception of size (and so, perceived range to the target). As of 2011, motion dazzle had been proposed for military vehicles, but never applied. Since motion dazzle patterns would make animals more difficult to locate accurately when moving, but easier to see when stationary, there would be an evolutionary trade-off between motion dazzle and crypsis.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "An animal that is commonly thought to be dazzle-patterned is the zebra. The bold stripes of the zebra have been claimed to be disruptive camouflage, background-blending and countershading. After many years in which the purpose of the coloration was disputed, an experimental study by Tim Caro suggested in 2012 that the pattern reduces the attractiveness of stationary models to biting flies such as horseflies and tsetse flies. However, a simulation study by Martin How and Johannes Zanker in 2014 suggests that when moving, the stripes may confuse observers, such as mammalian predators and biting insects, by two visual illusions: the wagon-wheel effect, where the perceived motion is inverted, and the barberpole illusion, where the perceived motion is in a wrong direction.",
"title": "Principles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Ship camouflage was occasionally used in ancient times. Philostratus (c. 172–250 AD) wrote in his Imagines that Mediterranean pirate ships could be painted blue-gray for concealment. Vegetius (c. 360–400 AD) says that \"Venetian blue\" (sea green) was used in the Gallic Wars, when Julius Caesar sent his speculatoria navigia (reconnaissance boats) to gather intelligence along the coast of Britain; the ships were painted entirely in bluish-green wax, with sails, ropes and crew the same colour. There is little evidence of military use of camouflage on land before 1800, but two unusual ceramics show men in Peru's Mochica culture from before 500 AD, hunting birds with blowpipes which are fitted with a kind of shield near the mouth, perhaps to conceal the hunters' hands and faces. Another early source is a 15th-century French manuscript, The Hunting Book of Gaston Phebus, showing a horse pulling a cart which contains a hunter armed with a crossbow under a cover of branches, perhaps serving as a hide for shooting game. Jamaican Maroons are said to have used plant materials as camouflage in the First Maroon War (c. 1655–1740).",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The development of military camouflage was driven by the increasing range and accuracy of infantry firearms in the 19th century. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with weapons such as the Baker rifle made personal concealment in battle essential. Two Napoleonic War skirmishing units of the British Army, the 95th Rifle Regiment and the 60th Rifle Regiment, were the first to adopt camouflage in the form of a rifle green jacket, while the Line regiments continued to wear scarlet tunics. A contemporary study in 1800 by the English artist and soldier Charles Hamilton Smith provided evidence that grey uniforms were less visible than green ones at a range of 150 yards.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In the American Civil War, rifle units such as the 1st United States Sharp Shooters (in the Federal army) similarly wore green jackets while other units wore more conspicuous colours. The first British Army unit to adopt khaki uniforms was the Corps of Guides at Peshawar, when Sir Harry Lumsden and his second in command, William Hodson introduced a \"drab\" uniform in 1848. Hodson wrote that it would be more appropriate for the hot climate, and help make his troops \"invisible in a land of dust\". Later they improvised by dyeing cloth locally. Other regiments in India soon adopted the khaki uniform, and by 1896 khaki drill uniform was used everywhere outside Europe; by the Second Boer War six years later it was used throughout the British Army.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "During the late 19th century camouflage was applied to British coastal fortifications. The fortifications around Plymouth, England were painted in the late 1880s in \"irregular patches of red, brown, yellow and green.\" From 1891 onwards British coastal artillery was permitted to be painted in suitable colours \"to harmonise with the surroundings\" and by 1904 it was standard practice that artillery and mountings should be painted with \"large irregular patches of different colours selected to suit local conditions.\"",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In the First World War, the French army formed a camouflage corps, led by Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola, employing artists known as camoufleurs to create schemes such as tree observation posts and covers for guns. Other armies soon followed them. The term camouflage probably comes from camoufler, a Parisian slang term meaning to disguise, and may have been influenced by camouflet, a French term meaning smoke blown in someone's face. The English zoologist John Graham Kerr, artist Solomon J. Solomon and the American artist Abbott Thayer led attempts to introduce scientific principles of countershading and disruptive patterning into military camouflage, with limited success. In early 1916 the Royal Naval Air Service began to create dummy air fields to draw the attention of enemy planes to empty land. They created decoy homes and lined fake runways with flares, which were meant to help protect real towns from night raids. This strategy was not common practice and did not succeed at first, but in 1918 it caught the Germans off guard multiple times.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Ship camouflage was introduced in the early 20th century as the range of naval guns increased, with ships painted grey all over. In April 1917, when German U-boats were sinking many British ships with torpedoes, the marine artist Norman Wilkinson devised dazzle camouflage, which paradoxically made ships more visible but harder to target. In Wilkinson's own words, dazzle was designed \"not for low visibility, but in such a way as to break up her form and thus confuse a submarine officer as to the course on which she was heading\".",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In the Second World War, the zoologist Hugh Cott, a protégé of Kerr, worked to persuade the British army to use more effective camouflage methods, including countershading, but, like Kerr and Thayer in the First World War, with limited success. For example, he painted two rail-mounted coastal guns, one in conventional style, one countershaded. In aerial photographs, the countershaded gun was essentially invisible. The power of aerial observation and attack led every warring nation to camouflage targets of all types. The Soviet Union's Red Army created the comprehensive doctrine of Maskirovka for military deception, including the use of camouflage. For example, during the Battle of Kursk, General Katukov, the commander of the Soviet 1st Tank Army, remarked that the enemy \"did not suspect that our well-camouflaged tanks were waiting for him. As we later learned from prisoners, we had managed to move our tanks forward unnoticed\". The tanks were concealed in previously prepared defensive emplacements, with only their turrets above ground level. In the air, Second World War fighters were often painted in ground colours above and sky colours below, attempting two different camouflage schemes for observers above and below. Bombers and night fighters were often black, while maritime reconnaissance planes were usually white, to avoid appearing as dark shapes against the sky. For ships, dazzle camouflage was mainly replaced with plain grey in the Second World War, though experimentation with colour schemes continued.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "As in the First World War, artists were pressed into service; for example, the surrealist painter Roland Penrose became a lecturer at the newly founded Camouflage Development and Training Centre at Farnham Castle, writing the practical Home Guard Manual of Camouflage. The film-maker Geoffrey Barkas ran the Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate during the 1941–1942 war in the Western Desert, including the successful deception of Operation Bertram. Hugh Cott was chief instructor; the artist camouflage officers, who called themselves camoufleurs, included Steven Sykes and Tony Ayrton. In Australia, artists were also prominent in the Sydney Camouflage Group, formed under the chairmanship of Professor William John Dakin, a zoologist from Sydney University. Max Dupain, Sydney Ure Smith, and William Dobell were among the members of the group, which worked at Bankstown Airport, RAAF Base Richmond and Garden Island Dockyard. In the United States, artists like John Vassos took a certificate course in military and industrial camouflage at the American School of Design with Baron Nicholas Cerkasoff, and went on to create camouflage for the Air Force.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Camouflage has been used to protect military equipment such as vehicles, guns, ships, aircraft and buildings as well as individual soldiers and their positions. Vehicle camouflage methods begin with paint, which offers at best only limited effectiveness. Other methods for stationary land vehicles include covering with improvised materials such as blankets and vegetation, and erecting nets, screens and soft covers which may suitably reflect, scatter or absorb near infrared and radar waves. Some military textiles and vehicle camouflage paints also reflect infrared to help provide concealment from night vision devices. After the Second World War, radar made camouflage generally less effective, though coastal boats are sometimes painted like land vehicles. Aircraft camouflage too came to be seen as less important because of radar, and aircraft of different air forces, such as the Royal Air Force's Lightning, were often uncamouflaged.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Many camouflaged textile patterns have been developed to suit the need to match combat clothing to different kinds of terrain (such as woodland, snow, and desert). The design of a pattern effective in all terrains has proved elusive. The American Universal Camouflage Pattern of 2004 attempted to suit all environments, but was withdrawn after a few years of service. Terrain-specific patterns have sometimes been developed but are ineffective in other terrains. The problem of making a pattern that works at different ranges has been solved with multiscale designs, often with a pixellated appearance and designed digitally, that provide a fractal-like range of patch sizes so they appear disruptively coloured both at close range and at a distance. The first genuinely digital camouflage pattern was the Canadian Disruptive Pattern (CADPAT), issued to the army in 2002, soon followed by the American Marine pattern (MARPAT). A pixellated appearance is not essential for this effect, though it is simpler to design and to print.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Hunters of game have long made use of camouflage in the form of materials such as animal skins, mud, foliage, and green or brown clothing to enable them to approach wary game animals. Field sports such as driven grouse shooting conceal hunters in hides (also called blinds or shooting butts). Modern hunting clothing makes use of fabrics that provide a disruptive camouflage pattern; for example, in 1986 the hunter Bill Jordan created cryptic clothing for hunters, printed with images of specific kinds of vegetation such as grass and branches.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Camouflage is occasionally used to make built structures less conspicuous: for example, in South Africa, towers carrying cell telephone antennae are sometimes camouflaged as tall trees with plastic branches, in response to \"resistance from the community\". Since this method is costly (a figure of three times the normal cost is mentioned), alternative forms of camouflage can include using neutral colours or familiar shapes such as cylinders and flagpoles. Conspicuousness can also be reduced by siting masts near, or on, other structures.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Automotive manufacturers often use patterns to disguise upcoming products. This camouflage is designed to obfuscate the vehicle's visual lines, and is used along with padding, covers, and decals. The patterns' purpose is to prevent visual observation (and to a lesser degree photography), that would subsequently enable reproduction of the vehicle's form factors.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Military camouflage patterns influenced fashion and art from the time of the First World War onwards. Gertrude Stein recalled the cubist artist Pablo Picasso's reaction in around 1915:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "I very well remember at the beginning of the war being with Picasso on the boulevard Raspail when the first camouflaged truck passed. It was at night, we had heard of camouflage but we had not seen it and Picasso amazed looked at it and then cried out, yes it is we who made it, that is cubism.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 1919, the attendants of a \"dazzle ball\", hosted by the Chelsea Arts Club, wore dazzle-patterned black and white clothing. The ball influenced fashion and art via postcards and magazine articles. The Illustrated London News announced:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The scheme of decoration for the great fancy dress ball given by the Chelsea Arts Club at the Albert Hall, the other day, was based on the principles of \"Dazzle\", the method of \"camouflage\" used during the war in the painting of ships ... The total effect was brilliant and fantastic.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "More recently, fashion designers have often used camouflage fabric for its striking designs, its \"patterned disorder\" and its symbolism. Camouflage clothing can be worn largely for its symbolic significance rather than for fashion, as when, during the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, anti-war protestors often ironically wore military clothing during demonstrations against the American involvement in the Vietnam War.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Modern artists such as Ian Hamilton Finlay have used camouflage to reflect on war. His 1973 screenprint of a tank camouflaged in a leaf pattern, Arcadia, is described by the Tate as drawing \"an ironic parallel between this idea of a natural paradise and the camouflage patterns on a tank\". The title refers to the Utopian Arcadia of poetry and art, and the memento mori Latin phrase Et in Arcadia ego which recurs in Hamilton Finlay's work. In science fiction, Camouflage is a novel about shapeshifting alien beings by Joe Haldeman. The word is used more figuratively in works of literature such as Thaisa Frank's collection of stories of love and loss, A Brief History of Camouflage.",
"title": "Applications"
}
] | Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier, and the leaf-mimic katydid's wings. A third approach, motion dazzle, confuses the observer with a conspicuous pattern, making the object visible but momentarily harder to locate, as well as making general aiming easier. The majority of camouflage methods aim for crypsis, often through a general resemblance to the background, high contrast disruptive coloration, eliminating shadow, and countershading. In the open ocean, where there is no background, the principal methods of camouflage are transparency, silvering, and countershading, while the ability to produce light is among other things used for counter-illumination on the undersides of cephalopods such as squid. Some animals, such as chameleons and octopuses, are capable of actively changing their skin pattern and colours, whether for camouflage or for signalling. It is possible that some plants use camouflage to evade being eaten by herbivores. Military camouflage was spurred by the increasing range and accuracy of firearms in the 19th century. In particular the replacement of the inaccurate musket with the rifle made personal concealment in battle a survival skill. In the 20th century, military camouflage developed rapidly, especially during the First World War. On land, artists such as André Mare designed camouflage schemes and observation posts disguised as trees. At sea, merchant ships and troop carriers were painted in dazzle patterns that were highly visible, but designed to confuse enemy submarines as to the target's speed, range, and heading. During and after the Second World War, a variety of camouflage schemes were used for aircraft and for ground vehicles in different theatres of war. The use of radar since the mid-20th century has largely made camouflage for fixed-wing military aircraft obsolete. Non-military use of camouflage includes making cell telephone towers less obtrusive and helping hunters to approach wary game animals. Patterns derived from military camouflage are frequently used in fashion clothing, exploiting their strong designs and sometimes their symbolism. Camouflage themes recur in modern art, and both figuratively and literally in science fiction and works of literature. | 2001-09-20T10:45:48Z | 2023-12-26T21:59:25Z | [
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6,449 | Clock | A clock or chronometer is a device that measure and display time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, and the year. Devices operating on several physical processes have been used over the millennia.
Some predecessors to the modern clock may be considered "clocks" that are based on movement in nature: A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface. There is a range of duration timers, a well-known example being the hourglass. Water clocks, along with sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments. A major advance occurred with the invention of the verge escapement, which made possible the first mechanical clocks around 1300 in Europe, which kept time with oscillating timekeepers like balance wheels.
Traditionally, in horology (the study of timekeeping), the term clock was used for a striking clock, while a clock that did not strike the hours audibly was called a timepiece. This distinction is not generally made any longer. Watches and other timepieces that can be carried on one's person are usually not referred to as clocks. Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished. The next development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens. A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation. The mechanism of a timepiece with a series of gears driven by a spring or weights is referred to as clockwork; the term is used by extension for a similar mechanism not used in a timepiece. The electric clock was patented in 1840, and electronic clocks were introduced in the 20th century, becoming widespread with the development of small battery-powered semiconductor devices.
The timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object (resonator) that vibrates or oscillates at a particular frequency. This object can be a pendulum, a tuning fork, a quartz crystal, or the vibration of electrons in atoms as they emit microwaves, the last of which is so precise that it serves as the definition of the second.
Clocks have different ways of displaying the time. Analog clocks indicate time with a traditional clock face and moving hands. Digital clocks display a numeric representation of time. Two numbering systems are in use: 12-hour time notation and 24-hour notation. Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays. For the blind and for use over telephones, speaking clocks state the time audibly in words. There are also clocks for the blind that have displays that can be read by touch.
The word clock derives from the medieval Latin word for 'bell'—clocca—and has cognates in many European languages. Clocks spread to England from the Low Countries, so the English word came from the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch Klocke. The word derives from the Middle English clokke, Old North French cloque, or Middle Dutch clocke, all of which mean 'bell'.
The apparent position of the Sun in the sky changes over the course of each day, reflecting the rotation of the Earth. Shadows cast by stationary objects move correspondingly, so their positions can be used to indicate the time of day. A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a (usually) flat surface that has markings that correspond to the hours. Sundials can be horizontal, vertical, or in other orientations. Sundials were widely used in ancient times. With knowledge of latitude, a well-constructed sundial can measure local solar time with reasonable accuracy, within a minute or two. Sundials continued to be used to monitor the performance of clocks until the 1830s, when the use of the telegraph and trains standardized time and time zones between cities.
Many devices can be used to mark the passage of time without respect to reference time (time of day, hours, minutes, etc.) and can be useful for measuring duration or intervals. Examples of such duration timers are candle clocks, incense clocks, and the hourglass. Both the candle clock and the incense clock work on the same principle, wherein the consumption of resources is more or less constant, allowing reasonably precise and repeatable estimates of time passages. In the hourglass, fine sand pouring through a tiny hole at a constant rate indicates an arbitrary, predetermined passage of time. The resource is not consumed but re-used.
Water clocks, along with sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exception being the day-counting tally stick. Given their great antiquity, where and when they first existed is not known and is perhaps unknowable. The bowl-shaped outflow is the simplest form of a water clock and is known to have existed in Babylon and Egypt around the 16th century BC. Other regions of the world, including India and China, also have early evidence of water clocks, but the earliest dates are less certain. Some authors, however, write about water clocks appearing as early as 4000 BC in these regions of the world.
The Macedonian astronomer Andronicus of Cyrrhus supervised the construction of the Tower of the Winds in Athens in the 1st century BC, which housed a large clepsydra inside as well as multiple prominent sundials outside, allowing it to function as a kind of early clocktower. The Greek and Roman civilizations advanced water clock design with improved accuracy. These advances were passed on through Byzantine and Islamic times, eventually making their way back to Europe. Independently, the Chinese developed their own advanced water clocks (水鐘) by 725 AD, passing their ideas on to Korea and Japan.
Some water clock designs were developed independently, and some knowledge was transferred through the spread of trade. Pre-modern societies do not have the same precise timekeeping requirements that exist in modern industrial societies, where every hour of work or rest is monitored and work may start or finish at any time regardless of external conditions. Instead, water clocks in ancient societies were used mainly for astrological reasons. These early water clocks were calibrated with a sundial. While never reaching the level of accuracy of a modern timepiece, the water clock was the most accurate and commonly used timekeeping device for millennia until it was replaced by the more accurate pendulum clock in 17th-century Europe.
Islamic civilization is credited with further advancing the accuracy of clocks through elaborate engineering. In 797 (or possibly 801), the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas together with a "particularly elaborate example" of a water clock. Pope Sylvester II introduced clocks to northern and western Europe around 1000 AD.
The first known geared clock was invented by the great mathematician, physicist, and engineer Archimedes during the 3rd century BC. Archimedes created his astronomical clock, which was also a cuckoo clock with birds singing and moving every hour. It is the first carillon clock as it plays music simultaneously with a person blinking his eyes, surprised by the singing birds. The Archimedes clock works with a system of four weights, counterweights, and strings regulated by a system of floats in a water container with siphons that regulate the automatic continuation of the clock. The principles of this type of clock are described by the mathematician and physicist Hero, who says that some of them work with a chain that turns a gear in the mechanism. Another Greek clock probably constructed at the time of Alexander was in Gaza, as described by Procopius. The Gaza clock was probably a Meteoroskopeion, i.e., a building showing celestial phenomena and the time. It had a pointer for the time and some automations similar to the Archimedes clock. There were 12 doors opening one every hour, with Hercules performing his labors, the Lion at one o'clock, etc., and at night a lamp becomes visible every hour, with 12 windows opening to show the time.
The Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Yi Xing along with government official Liang Lingzan made the escapement in 723 (or 725) to the workings of a water-powered armillary sphere and clock drive, which was the world's first clockwork escapement. The Song dynasty polymath and genius Su Song (1020–1101) incorporated it into his monumental innovation of the astronomical clock tower of Kaifeng in 1088. His astronomical clock and rotating armillary sphere still relied on the use of either flowing water during the spring, summer, and autumn seasons or liquid mercury during the freezing temperatures of winter (i.e., hydraulics).
In Su Song's waterwheel linkwork device, the action of the escapement's arrest and release was achieved by gravity exerted periodically as the continuous flow of liquid-filled containers of a limited size. In a single line of evolution, Su Song's clock therefore united the concepts of the clepsydra and the mechanical clock into one device run by mechanics and hydraulics. In his memorial, Su Song wrote about this concept:
According to your servant's opinion there have been many systems and designs for astronomical instruments during past dynasties all differing from one another in minor respects. But the principle of the use of water-power for the driving mechanism has always been the same. The heavens move without ceasing but so also does water flow (and fall). Thus if the water is made to pour with perfect evenness, then the comparison of the rotary movements (of the heavens and the machine) will show no discrepancy or contradiction; for the unresting follows the unceasing.
Song was also strongly influenced by the earlier armillary sphere created by Zhang Sixun (976 AD), who also employed the escapement mechanism and used liquid mercury instead of water in the waterwheel of his astronomical clock tower. The mechanical clockworks for Su Song's astronomical tower featured a great driving-wheel that was 11 feet in diameter, carrying 36 scoops, into each of which water was poured at a uniform rate from the "constant-level tank". The main driving shaft of iron, with its cylindrical necks supported on iron crescent-shaped bearings, ended in a pinion, which engaged a gear wheel at the lower end of the main vertical transmission shaft. This great astronomical hydromechanical clock tower was about ten metres high (about 30 feet), featured a clock escapement, and was indirectly powered by a rotating wheel either with falling water or liquid mercury. A full-sized working replica of Su Song's clock exists in the Republic of China (Taiwan)'s National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung city. This full-scale, fully functional replica, approximately 12 meters (39 feet) in height, was constructed from Su Song's original descriptions and mechanical drawings. The Chinese escapement spread west and was the source for Western escapement technology.
In the 12th century, Al-Jazari, an engineer from Mesopotamia (lived 1136–1206) who worked for the Artuqid king of Diyar-Bakr, Nasir al-Din, made numerous clocks of all shapes and sizes. The most reputed clocks included the elephant, scribe, and castle clocks, some of which have been successfully reconstructed. As well as telling the time, these grand clocks were symbols of the status, grandeur, and wealth of the Urtuq State. Knowledge of these mercury escapements may have spread through Europe with translations of Arabic and Spanish texts.
The word horologia (from the Greek ὥρα—'hour', and λέγειν—'to tell') was used to describe early mechanical clocks, but the use of this word (still used in several Romance languages) for all timekeepers conceals the true nature of the mechanisms. For example, there is a record that in 1176, Sens Cathedral in France installed an 'horologe', but the mechanism used is unknown. According to Jocelyn de Brakelond, in 1198, during a fire at the abbey of St Edmundsbury (now Bury St Edmunds), the monks "ran to the clock" to fetch water, indicating that their water clock had a reservoir large enough to help extinguish the occasional fire. The word clock (via Medieval Latin clocca from Old Irish clocc, both meaning 'bell'), which gradually supersedes "horologe", suggests that it was the sound of bells that also characterized the prototype mechanical clocks that appeared during the 13th century in Europe.
In Europe, between 1280 and 1320, there was an increase in the number of references to clocks and horologes in church records, and this probably indicates that a new type of clock mechanism had been devised. Existing clock mechanisms that used water power were being adapted to take their driving power from falling weights. This power was controlled by some form of oscillating mechanism, probably derived from existing bell-ringing or alarm devices. This controlled release of power – the escapement – marks the beginning of the true mechanical clock, which differed from the previously mentioned cogwheel clocks. The verge escapement mechanism appeared during the surge of true mechanical clock development, which did not need any kind of fluid power, like water or mercury, to work.
These mechanical clocks were intended for two main purposes: for signalling and notification (e.g., the timing of services and public events) and for modeling the solar system. The former purpose is administrative; the latter arises naturally given the scholarly interests in astronomy, science, and astrology and how these subjects integrated with the religious philosophy of the time. The astrolabe was used both by astronomers and astrologers, and it was natural to apply a clockwork drive to the rotating plate to produce a working model of the solar system.
Simple clocks intended mainly for notification were installed in towers and did not always require faces or hands. They would have announced the canonical hours or intervals between set times of prayer. Canonical hours varied in length as the times of sunrise and sunset shifted. The more sophisticated astronomical clocks would have had moving dials or hands and would have shown the time in various time systems, including Italian hours, canonical hours, and time as measured by astronomers at the time. Both styles of clocks started acquiring extravagant features, such as automata.
In 1283, a large clock was installed at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire in southern England; its location above the rood screen suggests that it was not a water clock. In 1292, Canterbury Cathedral installed a 'great horloge'. Over the next 30 years, there were mentions of clocks at a number of ecclesiastical institutions in England, Italy, and France. In 1322, a new clock was installed in Norwich, an expensive replacement for an earlier clock installed in 1273. This had a large (2 metre) astronomical dial with automata and bells. The costs of the installation included the full-time employment of two clockkeepers for two years.
An elaborate water clock, the 'Cosmic Engine', was invented by Su Song, a Chinese polymath, designed and constructed in China in 1092. This great astronomical hydromechanical clock tower was about ten metres high (about 30 feet) and was indirectly powered by a rotating wheel with falling water and liquid mercury, which turned an armillary sphere capable of calculating complex astronomical problems.
In Europe, there were the clocks constructed by Richard of Wallingford in Albans by 1336, and by Giovanni de Dondi in Padua from 1348 to 1364. They no longer exist, but detailed descriptions of their design and construction survive, and modern reproductions have been made. They illustrate how quickly the theory of the mechanical clock had been translated into practical constructions, and also that one of the many impulses to their development had been the desire of astronomers to investigate celestial phenomena.
The Astrarium of Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio was a complex astronomical clock built between 1348 and 1364 in Padua, Italy, by the doctor and clock-maker Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio. The Astrarium had seven faces and 107 moving gears; it showed the positions of the sun, the moon and the five planets then known, as well as religious feast days. The astrarium stood about 1 metre high, and consisted of a seven-sided brass or iron framework resting on 7 decorative paw-shaped feet. The lower section provided a 24-hour dial and a large calendar drum, showing the fixed feasts of the church, the movable feasts, and the position in the zodiac of the moon's ascending node. The upper section contained 7 dials, each about 30 cm in diameter, showing the positional data for the Primum Mobile, Venus, Mercury, the moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Directly above the 24-hour dial is the dial of the Primum Mobile, so called because it reproduces the diurnal motion of the stars and the annual motion of the sun against the background of stars. Each of the 'planetary' dials used complex clockwork to produce reasonably accurate models of the planets' motion. These agreed reasonably well both with Ptolemaic theory and with observations.
Wallingford's clock had a large astrolabe-type dial, showing the sun, the moon's age, phase, and node, a star map, and possibly the planets. In addition, it had a wheel of fortune and an indicator of the state of the tide at London Bridge. Bells rang every hour, the number of strokes indicating the time. Dondi's clock was a seven-sided construction, 1 metre high, with dials showing the time of day, including minutes, the motions of all the known planets, an automatic calendar of fixed and movable feasts, and an eclipse prediction hand rotating once every 18 years. It is not known how accurate or reliable these clocks would have been. They were probably adjusted manually every day to compensate for errors caused by wear and imprecise manufacture. Water clocks are sometimes still used today, and can be examined in places such as ancient castles and museums. The Salisbury Cathedral clock, built in 1386, is considered to be the world's oldest surviving mechanical clock that strikes the hours.
Clockmakers developed their art in various ways. Building smaller clocks was a technical challenge, as was improving accuracy and reliability. Clocks could be impressive showpieces to demonstrate skilled craftsmanship, or less expensive, mass-produced items for domestic use. The escapement in particular was an important factor affecting the clock's accuracy, so many different mechanisms were tried.
Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century, although they are often erroneously credited to Nuremberg watchmaker Peter Henlein (or Henle, or Hele) around 1511. The earliest existing spring driven clock is the chamber clock given to Phillip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, around 1430, now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Spring power presented clockmakers with a new problem: how to keep the clock movement running at a constant rate as the spring ran down. This resulted in the invention of the stackfreed and the fusee in the 15th century, and many other innovations, down to the invention of the modern going barrel in 1760.
Early clock dials did not indicate minutes and seconds. A clock with a dial indicating minutes was illustrated in a 1475 manuscript by Paulus Almanus, and some 15th-century clocks in Germany indicated minutes and seconds. An early record of a seconds hand on a clock dates back to about 1560 on a clock now in the Fremersdorf collection.
During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished, particularly in the metalworking towns of Nuremberg and Augsburg, and in Blois, France. Some of the more basic table clocks have only one time-keeping hand, with the dial between the hour markers being divided into four equal parts making the clocks readable to the nearest 15 minutes. Other clocks were exhibitions of craftsmanship and skill, incorporating astronomical indicators and musical movements. The cross-beat escapement was invented in 1584 by Jost Bürgi, who also developed the remontoire. Bürgi's clocks were a great improvement in accuracy as they were correct to within a minute a day. These clocks helped the 16th-century astronomer Tycho Brahe to observe astronomical events with much greater precision than before.
The next development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum clock. Galileo had the idea to use a swinging bob to regulate the motion of a time-telling device earlier in the 17th century. Christiaan Huygens, however, is usually credited as the inventor. He determined the mathematical formula that related pendulum length to time (about 99.4 cm or 39.1 inches for the one second movement) and had the first pendulum-driven clock made. The first model clock was built in 1657 in the Hague, but it was in England that the idea was taken up. The longcase clock (also known as the grandfather clock) was created to house the pendulum and works by the English clockmaker William Clement in 1670 or 1671. It was also at this time that clock cases began to be made of wood and clock faces to use enamel as well as hand-painted ceramics.
In 1670, William Clement created the anchor escapement, an improvement over Huygens' crown escapement. Clement also introduced the pendulum suspension spring in 1671. The concentric minute hand was added to the clock by Daniel Quare, a London clockmaker and others, and the second hand was first introduced.
In 1675, Huygens and Robert Hooke invented the spiral balance spring, or the hairspring, designed to control the oscillating speed of the balance wheel. This crucial advance finally made accurate pocket watches possible. The great English clockmaker Thomas Tompion, was one of the first to use this mechanism successfully in his pocket watches, and he adopted the minute hand which, after a variety of designs were trialled, eventually stabilised into the modern-day configuration. The rack and snail striking mechanism for striking clocks, was introduced during the 17th century and had distinct advantages over the 'countwheel' (or 'locking plate') mechanism. During the 20th century there was a common misconception that Edward Barlow invented rack and snail striking. In fact, his invention was connected with a repeating mechanism employing the rack and snail. The repeating clock, that chimes the number of hours (or even minutes) on demand was invented by either Quare or Barlow in 1676. George Graham invented the deadbeat escapement for clocks in 1720.
A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation. The position of a ship at sea could be determined with reasonable accuracy if a navigator could refer to a clock that lost or gained less than about 10 seconds per day. This clock could not contain a pendulum, which would be virtually useless on a rocking ship. In 1714, the British government offered large financial rewards to the value of 20,000 pounds for anyone who could determine longitude accurately. John Harrison, who dedicated his life to improving the accuracy of his clocks, later received considerable sums under the Longitude Act.
In 1735, Harrison built his first chronometer, which he steadily improved on over the next thirty years before submitting it for examination. The clock had many innovations, including the use of bearings to reduce friction, weighted balances to compensate for the ship's pitch and roll in the sea and the use of two different metals to reduce the problem of expansion from heat. The chronometer was tested in 1761 by Harrison's son and by the end of 10 weeks the clock was in error by less than 5 seconds.
The British had dominated watch manufacture for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, but maintained a system of production that was geared towards high quality products for the elite. Although there was an attempt to modernise clock manufacture with mass-production techniques and the application of duplicating tools and machinery by the British Watch Company in 1843, it was in the United States that this system took off. In 1816, Eli Terry and some other Connecticut clockmakers developed a way of mass-producing clocks by using interchangeable parts. Aaron Lufkin Dennison started a factory in 1851 in Massachusetts that also used interchangeable parts, and by 1861 was running a successful enterprise incorporated as the Waltham Watch Company.
In 1815, the English scientist Francis Ronalds published the first electric clock powered by dry pile batteries. Alexander Bain, a Scottish clockmaker, patented the electric clock in 1840. The electric clock's mainspring is wound either with an electric motor or with an electromagnet and armature. In 1841, he first patented the electromagnetic pendulum. By the end of the nineteenth century, the advent of the dry cell battery made it feasible to use electric power in clocks. Spring or weight driven clocks that use electricity, either alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC), to rewind the spring or raise the weight of a mechanical clock would be classified as an electromechanical clock. This classification would also apply to clocks that employ an electrical impulse to propel the pendulum. In electromechanical clocks the electricity serves no time keeping function. These types of clocks were made as individual timepieces but more commonly used in synchronized time installations in schools, businesses, factories, railroads and government facilities as a master clock and slave clocks.
Where an AC electrical supply of stable frequency is available, timekeeping can be maintained very reliably by using a synchronous motor, essentially counting the cycles. The supply current alternates with an accurate frequency of 50 hertz in many countries, and 60 hertz in others. While the frequency may vary slightly during the day as the load changes, generators are designed to maintain an accurate number of cycles over a day, so the clock may be a fraction of a second slow or fast at any time, but will be perfectly accurate over a long time. The rotor of the motor rotates at a speed that is related to the alternation frequency. Appropriate gearing converts this rotation speed to the correct ones for the hands of the analog clock. Time in these cases is measured in several ways, such as by counting the cycles of the AC supply, vibration of a tuning fork, the behaviour of quartz crystals, or the quantum vibrations of atoms. Electronic circuits divide these high-frequency oscillations to slower ones that drive the time display.
The piezoelectric properties of crystalline quartz were discovered by Jacques and Pierre Curie in 1880. The first crystal oscillator was invented in 1917 by Alexander M. Nicholson, after which the first quartz crystal oscillator was built by Walter G. Cady in 1921. In 1927 the first quartz clock was built by Warren Marrison and J.W. Horton at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Canada. The following decades saw the development of quartz clocks as precision time measurement devices in laboratory settings—the bulky and delicate counting electronics, built with vacuum tubes at the time, limited their practical use elsewhere. The National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) based the time standard of the United States on quartz clocks from late 1929 until the 1960s, when it changed to atomic clocks. In 1969, Seiko produced the world's first quartz wristwatch, the Astron. Their inherent accuracy and low cost of production resulted in the subsequent proliferation of quartz clocks and watches.
Currently, atomic clocks are the most accurate clocks in existence. They are considerably more accurate than quartz clocks as they can be accurate to within a few seconds over trillions of years. Atomic clocks were first theorized by Lord Kelvin in 1879. In the 1930s the development of magnetic resonance created practical method for doing this. A prototype ammonia maser device was built in 1949 at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now NIST). Although it was less accurate than existing quartz clocks, it served to demonstrate the concept. The first accurate atomic clock, a caesium standard based on a certain transition of the caesium-133 atom, was built by Louis Essen in 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK. Calibration of the caesium standard atomic clock was carried out by the use of the astronomical time scale ephemeris time (ET). As of 2013, the most stable atomic clocks are ytterbium clocks, which are stable to within less than two parts in 1 quintillion (2×10).
The invention of the mechanical clock in the 13th century initiated a change in timekeeping methods from continuous processes, such as the motion of the gnomon's shadow on a sundial or the flow of liquid in a water clock, to periodic oscillatory processes, such as the swing of a pendulum or the vibration of a quartz crystal, which had the potential for more accuracy. All modern clocks use oscillation.
Although the mechanisms they use vary, all oscillating clocks, mechanical, electric, and atomic, work similarly and can be divided into analogous parts. They consist of an object that repeats the same motion over and over again, an oscillator, with a precisely constant time interval between each repetition, or 'beat'. Attached to the oscillator is a controller device, which sustains the oscillator's motion by replacing the energy it loses to friction, and converts its oscillations into a series of pulses. The pulses are then counted by some type of counter, and the number of counts is converted into convenient units, usually seconds, minutes, hours, etc. Finally some kind of indicator displays the result in human readable form.
The timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object (resonator) that vibrates or oscillates repetitively at a precisely constant frequency.
The advantage of a harmonic oscillator over other forms of oscillator is that it employs resonance to vibrate at a precise natural resonant frequency or "beat" dependent only on its physical characteristics, and resists vibrating at other rates. The possible precision achievable by a harmonic oscillator is measured by a parameter called its Q, or quality factor, which increases (other things being equal) with its resonant frequency. This is why there has been a long-term trend toward higher frequency oscillators in clocks. Balance wheels and pendulums always include a means of adjusting the rate of the timepiece. Quartz timepieces sometimes include a rate screw that adjusts a capacitor for that purpose. Atomic clocks are primary standards, and their rate cannot be adjusted.
Some clocks rely for their accuracy on an external oscillator; that is, they are automatically synchronized to a more accurate clock:
This has the dual function of keeping the oscillator running by giving it 'pushes' to replace the energy lost to friction, and converting its vibrations into a series of pulses that serve to measure the time.
In mechanical clocks, the low Q of the balance wheel or pendulum oscillator made them very sensitive to the disturbing effect of the impulses of the escapement, so the escapement had a great effect on the accuracy of the clock, and many escapement designs were tried. The higher Q of resonators in electronic clocks makes them relatively insensitive to the disturbing effects of the drive power, so the driving oscillator circuit is a much less critical component.
This counts the pulses and adds them up to get traditional time units of seconds, minutes, hours, etc. It usually has a provision for setting the clock by manually entering the correct time into the counter.
This displays the count of seconds, minutes, hours, etc. in a human readable form.
Clocks can be classified by the type of time display, as well as by the method of timekeeping.
Analog clocks usually use a clock face which indicates time using rotating pointers called "hands" on a fixed numbered dial or dials. The standard clock face, known universally throughout the world, has a short "hour hand" which indicates the hour on a circular dial of 12 hours, making two revolutions per day, and a longer "minute hand" which indicates the minutes in the current hour on the same dial, which is also divided into 60 minutes. It may also have a "second hand" which indicates the seconds in the current minute. The only other widely used clock face today is the 24 hour analog dial, because of the use of 24 hour time in military organizations and timetables. Before the modern clock face was standardized during the Industrial Revolution, many other face designs were used throughout the years, including dials divided into 6, 8, 10, and 24 hours. During the French Revolution the French government tried to introduce a 10-hour clock, as part of their decimal-based metric system of measurement, but it did not achieve widespread use. An Italian 6 hour clock was developed in the 18th century, presumably to save power (a clock or watch striking 24 times uses more power).
Another type of analog clock is the sundial, which tracks the sun continuously, registering the time by the shadow position of its gnomon. Because the sun does not adjust to daylight saving time, users must add an hour during that time. Corrections must also be made for the equation of time, and for the difference between the longitudes of the sundial and of the central meridian of the time zone that is being used (i.e. 15 degrees east of the prime meridian for each hour that the time zone is ahead of GMT). Sundials use some or part of the 24 hour analog dial. There also exist clocks which use a digital display despite having an analog mechanism—these are commonly referred to as flip clocks. Alternative systems have been proposed. For example, the "Twelv" clock indicates the current hour using one of twelve colors, and indicates the minute by showing a proportion of a circular disk, similar to a moon phase.
Digital clocks display a numeric representation of time. Two numeric display formats are commonly used on digital clocks:
Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays; many other display technologies are used as well (cathode-ray tubes, nixie tubes, etc.). After a reset, battery change or power failure, these clocks without a backup battery or capacitor either start counting from 12:00, or stay at 12:00, often with blinking digits indicating that the time needs to be set. Some newer clocks will reset themselves based on radio or Internet time servers that are tuned to national atomic clocks. Since the introduction of digital clocks in the 1960s, there has been a notable decline in the use of analog clocks.
Some clocks, called 'flip clocks', have digital displays that work mechanically. The digits are painted on sheets of material which are mounted like the pages of a book. Once a minute, a page is turned over to reveal the next digit. These displays are usually easier to read in brightly lit conditions than LCDs or LEDs. Also, they do not go back to 12:00 after a power interruption. Flip clocks generally do not have electronic mechanisms. Usually, they are driven by AC-synchronous motors.
Clocks with analog quadrants, with a digital component, usually minutes and hours displayed analogously and seconds displayed in digital mode.
For convenience, distance, telephony or blindness, auditory clocks present the time as sounds. The sound is either spoken natural language, (e.g. "The time is twelve thirty-five"), or as auditory codes (e.g. number of sequential bell rings on the hour represents the number of the hour like the bell, Big Ben). Most telecommunication companies also provide a speaking clock service as well.
Word clocks are clocks that display the time visually using sentences. E.g.: "It's about three o'clock." These clocks can be implemented in hardware or software.
Some clocks, usually digital ones, include an optical projector that shines a magnified image of the time display onto a screen or onto a surface such as an indoor ceiling or wall. The digits are large enough to be easily read, without using glasses, by persons with moderately imperfect vision, so the clocks are convenient for use in their bedrooms. Usually, the timekeeping circuitry has a battery as a backup source for an uninterrupted power supply to keep the clock on time, while the projection light only works when the unit is connected to an A.C. supply. Completely battery-powered portable versions resembling flashlights are also available.
Auditory and projection clocks can be used by people who are blind or have limited vision. There are also clocks for the blind that have displays that can be read by using the sense of touch. Some of these are similar to normal analog displays, but are constructed so the hands can be felt without damaging them. Another type is essentially digital, and uses devices that use a code such as Braille to show the digits so that they can be felt with the fingertips.
Some clocks have several displays driven by a single mechanism, and some others have several completely separate mechanisms in a single case. Clocks in public places often have several faces visible from different directions, so that the clock can be read from anywhere in the vicinity; all the faces show the same time. Other clocks show the current time in several time-zones. Watches that are intended to be carried by travellers often have two displays, one for the local time and the other for the time at home, which is useful for making pre-arranged phone calls. Some equation clocks have two displays, one showing mean time and the other solar time, as would be shown by a sundial. Some clocks have both analog and digital displays. Clocks with Braille displays usually also have conventional digits so they can be read by sighted people.
Clocks are in homes, offices and many other places; smaller ones (watches) are carried on the wrist or in a pocket; larger ones are in public places, e.g. a railway station or church. A small clock is often shown in a corner of computer displays, mobile phones and many MP3 players.
The primary purpose of a clock is to display the time. Clocks may also have the facility to make a loud alert signal at a specified time, typically to waken a sleeper at a preset time; they are referred to as alarm clocks. The alarm may start at a low volume and become louder, or have the facility to be switched off for a few minutes then resume. Alarm clocks with visible indicators are sometimes used to indicate to children too young to read the time that the time for sleep has finished; they are sometimes called training clocks.
A clock mechanism may be used to control a device according to time, e.g. a central heating system, a VCR, or a time bomb (see: digital counter). Such mechanisms are usually called timers. Clock mechanisms are also used to drive devices such as solar trackers and astronomical telescopes, which have to turn at accurately controlled speeds to counteract the rotation of the Earth.
Most digital computers depend on an internal signal at constant frequency to synchronize processing; this is referred to as a clock signal. (A few research projects are developing CPUs based on asynchronous circuits.) Some equipment, including computers, also maintains time and date for use as required; this is referred to as time-of-day clock, and is distinct from the system clock signal, although possibly based on counting its cycles.
In Chinese culture, giving a clock (traditional Chinese: 送鐘; simplified Chinese: 送钟; pinyin: sòng zhōng) is often taboo, especially to the elderly as the term for this act is a homophone with the term for the act of attending another's funeral (traditional Chinese: 送終; simplified Chinese: 送终; pinyin: sòngzhōng). This homonymic pair works in both Mandarin and Cantonese, although in most parts of China only clocks and large bells, and not watches, are called "zhong", and watches are commonly given as gifts in China. However, should such a gift be given, the "unluckiness" of the gift can be countered by exacting a small monetary payment so the recipient is buying the clock and thereby counteracting the '送' ("give") expression of the phrase.
For some scientific work timing of the utmost accuracy is essential. It is also necessary to have a standard of the maximum accuracy against which working clocks can be calibrated. An ideal clock would give the time to unlimited accuracy, but this is not realisable. Many physical processes, in particular including some transitions between atomic energy levels, occur at exceedingly stable frequency; counting cycles of such a process can give a very accurate and consistent time—clocks which work this way are usually called atomic clocks. Such clocks are typically large, very expensive, require a controlled environment, and are far more accurate than required for most purposes; they are typically used in a standards laboratory.
Until advances in the late twentieth century, navigation depended on the ability to measure latitude and longitude. Latitude can be determined through celestial navigation; the measurement of longitude requires accurate knowledge of time. This need was a major motivation for the development of accurate mechanical clocks. John Harrison created the first highly accurate marine chronometer in the mid-18th century. The Noon gun in Cape Town still fires an accurate signal to allow ships to check their chronometers. Many buildings near major ports used to have (some still do) a large ball mounted on a tower or mast arranged to drop at a pre-determined time, for the same purpose. While satellite navigation systems such as GPS require unprecedentedly accurate knowledge of time, this is supplied by equipment on the satellites; vehicles no longer need timekeeping equipment.
Clocks can be used to measure varying periods of time in games and sports. Stopwatches can be used to time the performance of track athletes. Chess clocks are used to limit the board game players' time to make a move. In various sports, game clocks measure the duration the game or subdivisions of the game, while other clocks may be used for tracking different durations; these include play clocks, shot clocks, and pitch clocks. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A clock or chronometer is a device that measure and display time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, and the year. Devices operating on several physical processes have been used over the millennia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Some predecessors to the modern clock may be considered \"clocks\" that are based on movement in nature: A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface. There is a range of duration timers, a well-known example being the hourglass. Water clocks, along with sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments. A major advance occurred with the invention of the verge escapement, which made possible the first mechanical clocks around 1300 in Europe, which kept time with oscillating timekeepers like balance wheels.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Traditionally, in horology (the study of timekeeping), the term clock was used for a striking clock, while a clock that did not strike the hours audibly was called a timepiece. This distinction is not generally made any longer. Watches and other timepieces that can be carried on one's person are usually not referred to as clocks. Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished. The next development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens. A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation. The mechanism of a timepiece with a series of gears driven by a spring or weights is referred to as clockwork; the term is used by extension for a similar mechanism not used in a timepiece. The electric clock was patented in 1840, and electronic clocks were introduced in the 20th century, becoming widespread with the development of small battery-powered semiconductor devices.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object (resonator) that vibrates or oscillates at a particular frequency. This object can be a pendulum, a tuning fork, a quartz crystal, or the vibration of electrons in atoms as they emit microwaves, the last of which is so precise that it serves as the definition of the second.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Clocks have different ways of displaying the time. Analog clocks indicate time with a traditional clock face and moving hands. Digital clocks display a numeric representation of time. Two numbering systems are in use: 12-hour time notation and 24-hour notation. Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays. For the blind and for use over telephones, speaking clocks state the time audibly in words. There are also clocks for the blind that have displays that can be read by touch.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The word clock derives from the medieval Latin word for 'bell'—clocca—and has cognates in many European languages. Clocks spread to England from the Low Countries, so the English word came from the Middle Low German and Middle Dutch Klocke. The word derives from the Middle English clokke, Old North French cloque, or Middle Dutch clocke, all of which mean 'bell'.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The apparent position of the Sun in the sky changes over the course of each day, reflecting the rotation of the Earth. Shadows cast by stationary objects move correspondingly, so their positions can be used to indicate the time of day. A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a (usually) flat surface that has markings that correspond to the hours. Sundials can be horizontal, vertical, or in other orientations. Sundials were widely used in ancient times. With knowledge of latitude, a well-constructed sundial can measure local solar time with reasonable accuracy, within a minute or two. Sundials continued to be used to monitor the performance of clocks until the 1830s, when the use of the telegraph and trains standardized time and time zones between cities.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Many devices can be used to mark the passage of time without respect to reference time (time of day, hours, minutes, etc.) and can be useful for measuring duration or intervals. Examples of such duration timers are candle clocks, incense clocks, and the hourglass. Both the candle clock and the incense clock work on the same principle, wherein the consumption of resources is more or less constant, allowing reasonably precise and repeatable estimates of time passages. In the hourglass, fine sand pouring through a tiny hole at a constant rate indicates an arbitrary, predetermined passage of time. The resource is not consumed but re-used.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Water clocks, along with sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exception being the day-counting tally stick. Given their great antiquity, where and when they first existed is not known and is perhaps unknowable. The bowl-shaped outflow is the simplest form of a water clock and is known to have existed in Babylon and Egypt around the 16th century BC. Other regions of the world, including India and China, also have early evidence of water clocks, but the earliest dates are less certain. Some authors, however, write about water clocks appearing as early as 4000 BC in these regions of the world.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Macedonian astronomer Andronicus of Cyrrhus supervised the construction of the Tower of the Winds in Athens in the 1st century BC, which housed a large clepsydra inside as well as multiple prominent sundials outside, allowing it to function as a kind of early clocktower. The Greek and Roman civilizations advanced water clock design with improved accuracy. These advances were passed on through Byzantine and Islamic times, eventually making their way back to Europe. Independently, the Chinese developed their own advanced water clocks (水鐘) by 725 AD, passing their ideas on to Korea and Japan.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Some water clock designs were developed independently, and some knowledge was transferred through the spread of trade. Pre-modern societies do not have the same precise timekeeping requirements that exist in modern industrial societies, where every hour of work or rest is monitored and work may start or finish at any time regardless of external conditions. Instead, water clocks in ancient societies were used mainly for astrological reasons. These early water clocks were calibrated with a sundial. While never reaching the level of accuracy of a modern timepiece, the water clock was the most accurate and commonly used timekeeping device for millennia until it was replaced by the more accurate pendulum clock in 17th-century Europe.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Islamic civilization is credited with further advancing the accuracy of clocks through elaborate engineering. In 797 (or possibly 801), the Abbasid caliph of Baghdad, Harun al-Rashid, presented Charlemagne with an Asian elephant named Abul-Abbas together with a \"particularly elaborate example\" of a water clock. Pope Sylvester II introduced clocks to northern and western Europe around 1000 AD.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The first known geared clock was invented by the great mathematician, physicist, and engineer Archimedes during the 3rd century BC. Archimedes created his astronomical clock, which was also a cuckoo clock with birds singing and moving every hour. It is the first carillon clock as it plays music simultaneously with a person blinking his eyes, surprised by the singing birds. The Archimedes clock works with a system of four weights, counterweights, and strings regulated by a system of floats in a water container with siphons that regulate the automatic continuation of the clock. The principles of this type of clock are described by the mathematician and physicist Hero, who says that some of them work with a chain that turns a gear in the mechanism. Another Greek clock probably constructed at the time of Alexander was in Gaza, as described by Procopius. The Gaza clock was probably a Meteoroskopeion, i.e., a building showing celestial phenomena and the time. It had a pointer for the time and some automations similar to the Archimedes clock. There were 12 doors opening one every hour, with Hercules performing his labors, the Lion at one o'clock, etc., and at night a lamp becomes visible every hour, with 12 windows opening to show the time.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Yi Xing along with government official Liang Lingzan made the escapement in 723 (or 725) to the workings of a water-powered armillary sphere and clock drive, which was the world's first clockwork escapement. The Song dynasty polymath and genius Su Song (1020–1101) incorporated it into his monumental innovation of the astronomical clock tower of Kaifeng in 1088. His astronomical clock and rotating armillary sphere still relied on the use of either flowing water during the spring, summer, and autumn seasons or liquid mercury during the freezing temperatures of winter (i.e., hydraulics).",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In Su Song's waterwheel linkwork device, the action of the escapement's arrest and release was achieved by gravity exerted periodically as the continuous flow of liquid-filled containers of a limited size. In a single line of evolution, Su Song's clock therefore united the concepts of the clepsydra and the mechanical clock into one device run by mechanics and hydraulics. In his memorial, Su Song wrote about this concept:",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "According to your servant's opinion there have been many systems and designs for astronomical instruments during past dynasties all differing from one another in minor respects. But the principle of the use of water-power for the driving mechanism has always been the same. The heavens move without ceasing but so also does water flow (and fall). Thus if the water is made to pour with perfect evenness, then the comparison of the rotary movements (of the heavens and the machine) will show no discrepancy or contradiction; for the unresting follows the unceasing.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Song was also strongly influenced by the earlier armillary sphere created by Zhang Sixun (976 AD), who also employed the escapement mechanism and used liquid mercury instead of water in the waterwheel of his astronomical clock tower. The mechanical clockworks for Su Song's astronomical tower featured a great driving-wheel that was 11 feet in diameter, carrying 36 scoops, into each of which water was poured at a uniform rate from the \"constant-level tank\". The main driving shaft of iron, with its cylindrical necks supported on iron crescent-shaped bearings, ended in a pinion, which engaged a gear wheel at the lower end of the main vertical transmission shaft. This great astronomical hydromechanical clock tower was about ten metres high (about 30 feet), featured a clock escapement, and was indirectly powered by a rotating wheel either with falling water or liquid mercury. A full-sized working replica of Su Song's clock exists in the Republic of China (Taiwan)'s National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung city. This full-scale, fully functional replica, approximately 12 meters (39 feet) in height, was constructed from Su Song's original descriptions and mechanical drawings. The Chinese escapement spread west and was the source for Western escapement technology.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the 12th century, Al-Jazari, an engineer from Mesopotamia (lived 1136–1206) who worked for the Artuqid king of Diyar-Bakr, Nasir al-Din, made numerous clocks of all shapes and sizes. The most reputed clocks included the elephant, scribe, and castle clocks, some of which have been successfully reconstructed. As well as telling the time, these grand clocks were symbols of the status, grandeur, and wealth of the Urtuq State. Knowledge of these mercury escapements may have spread through Europe with translations of Arabic and Spanish texts.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The word horologia (from the Greek ὥρα—'hour', and λέγειν—'to tell') was used to describe early mechanical clocks, but the use of this word (still used in several Romance languages) for all timekeepers conceals the true nature of the mechanisms. For example, there is a record that in 1176, Sens Cathedral in France installed an 'horologe', but the mechanism used is unknown. According to Jocelyn de Brakelond, in 1198, during a fire at the abbey of St Edmundsbury (now Bury St Edmunds), the monks \"ran to the clock\" to fetch water, indicating that their water clock had a reservoir large enough to help extinguish the occasional fire. The word clock (via Medieval Latin clocca from Old Irish clocc, both meaning 'bell'), which gradually supersedes \"horologe\", suggests that it was the sound of bells that also characterized the prototype mechanical clocks that appeared during the 13th century in Europe.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In Europe, between 1280 and 1320, there was an increase in the number of references to clocks and horologes in church records, and this probably indicates that a new type of clock mechanism had been devised. Existing clock mechanisms that used water power were being adapted to take their driving power from falling weights. This power was controlled by some form of oscillating mechanism, probably derived from existing bell-ringing or alarm devices. This controlled release of power – the escapement – marks the beginning of the true mechanical clock, which differed from the previously mentioned cogwheel clocks. The verge escapement mechanism appeared during the surge of true mechanical clock development, which did not need any kind of fluid power, like water or mercury, to work.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "These mechanical clocks were intended for two main purposes: for signalling and notification (e.g., the timing of services and public events) and for modeling the solar system. The former purpose is administrative; the latter arises naturally given the scholarly interests in astronomy, science, and astrology and how these subjects integrated with the religious philosophy of the time. The astrolabe was used both by astronomers and astrologers, and it was natural to apply a clockwork drive to the rotating plate to produce a working model of the solar system.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Simple clocks intended mainly for notification were installed in towers and did not always require faces or hands. They would have announced the canonical hours or intervals between set times of prayer. Canonical hours varied in length as the times of sunrise and sunset shifted. The more sophisticated astronomical clocks would have had moving dials or hands and would have shown the time in various time systems, including Italian hours, canonical hours, and time as measured by astronomers at the time. Both styles of clocks started acquiring extravagant features, such as automata.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1283, a large clock was installed at Dunstable Priory in Bedfordshire in southern England; its location above the rood screen suggests that it was not a water clock. In 1292, Canterbury Cathedral installed a 'great horloge'. Over the next 30 years, there were mentions of clocks at a number of ecclesiastical institutions in England, Italy, and France. In 1322, a new clock was installed in Norwich, an expensive replacement for an earlier clock installed in 1273. This had a large (2 metre) astronomical dial with automata and bells. The costs of the installation included the full-time employment of two clockkeepers for two years.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "An elaborate water clock, the 'Cosmic Engine', was invented by Su Song, a Chinese polymath, designed and constructed in China in 1092. This great astronomical hydromechanical clock tower was about ten metres high (about 30 feet) and was indirectly powered by a rotating wheel with falling water and liquid mercury, which turned an armillary sphere capable of calculating complex astronomical problems.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In Europe, there were the clocks constructed by Richard of Wallingford in Albans by 1336, and by Giovanni de Dondi in Padua from 1348 to 1364. They no longer exist, but detailed descriptions of their design and construction survive, and modern reproductions have been made. They illustrate how quickly the theory of the mechanical clock had been translated into practical constructions, and also that one of the many impulses to their development had been the desire of astronomers to investigate celestial phenomena.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The Astrarium of Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio was a complex astronomical clock built between 1348 and 1364 in Padua, Italy, by the doctor and clock-maker Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio. The Astrarium had seven faces and 107 moving gears; it showed the positions of the sun, the moon and the five planets then known, as well as religious feast days. The astrarium stood about 1 metre high, and consisted of a seven-sided brass or iron framework resting on 7 decorative paw-shaped feet. The lower section provided a 24-hour dial and a large calendar drum, showing the fixed feasts of the church, the movable feasts, and the position in the zodiac of the moon's ascending node. The upper section contained 7 dials, each about 30 cm in diameter, showing the positional data for the Primum Mobile, Venus, Mercury, the moon, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. Directly above the 24-hour dial is the dial of the Primum Mobile, so called because it reproduces the diurnal motion of the stars and the annual motion of the sun against the background of stars. Each of the 'planetary' dials used complex clockwork to produce reasonably accurate models of the planets' motion. These agreed reasonably well both with Ptolemaic theory and with observations.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Wallingford's clock had a large astrolabe-type dial, showing the sun, the moon's age, phase, and node, a star map, and possibly the planets. In addition, it had a wheel of fortune and an indicator of the state of the tide at London Bridge. Bells rang every hour, the number of strokes indicating the time. Dondi's clock was a seven-sided construction, 1 metre high, with dials showing the time of day, including minutes, the motions of all the known planets, an automatic calendar of fixed and movable feasts, and an eclipse prediction hand rotating once every 18 years. It is not known how accurate or reliable these clocks would have been. They were probably adjusted manually every day to compensate for errors caused by wear and imprecise manufacture. Water clocks are sometimes still used today, and can be examined in places such as ancient castles and museums. The Salisbury Cathedral clock, built in 1386, is considered to be the world's oldest surviving mechanical clock that strikes the hours.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Clockmakers developed their art in various ways. Building smaller clocks was a technical challenge, as was improving accuracy and reliability. Clocks could be impressive showpieces to demonstrate skilled craftsmanship, or less expensive, mass-produced items for domestic use. The escapement in particular was an important factor affecting the clock's accuracy, so many different mechanisms were tried.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century, although they are often erroneously credited to Nuremberg watchmaker Peter Henlein (or Henle, or Hele) around 1511. The earliest existing spring driven clock is the chamber clock given to Phillip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, around 1430, now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Spring power presented clockmakers with a new problem: how to keep the clock movement running at a constant rate as the spring ran down. This resulted in the invention of the stackfreed and the fusee in the 15th century, and many other innovations, down to the invention of the modern going barrel in 1760.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Early clock dials did not indicate minutes and seconds. A clock with a dial indicating minutes was illustrated in a 1475 manuscript by Paulus Almanus, and some 15th-century clocks in Germany indicated minutes and seconds. An early record of a seconds hand on a clock dates back to about 1560 on a clock now in the Fremersdorf collection.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished, particularly in the metalworking towns of Nuremberg and Augsburg, and in Blois, France. Some of the more basic table clocks have only one time-keeping hand, with the dial between the hour markers being divided into four equal parts making the clocks readable to the nearest 15 minutes. Other clocks were exhibitions of craftsmanship and skill, incorporating astronomical indicators and musical movements. The cross-beat escapement was invented in 1584 by Jost Bürgi, who also developed the remontoire. Bürgi's clocks were a great improvement in accuracy as they were correct to within a minute a day. These clocks helped the 16th-century astronomer Tycho Brahe to observe astronomical events with much greater precision than before.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The next development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum clock. Galileo had the idea to use a swinging bob to regulate the motion of a time-telling device earlier in the 17th century. Christiaan Huygens, however, is usually credited as the inventor. He determined the mathematical formula that related pendulum length to time (about 99.4 cm or 39.1 inches for the one second movement) and had the first pendulum-driven clock made. The first model clock was built in 1657 in the Hague, but it was in England that the idea was taken up. The longcase clock (also known as the grandfather clock) was created to house the pendulum and works by the English clockmaker William Clement in 1670 or 1671. It was also at this time that clock cases began to be made of wood and clock faces to use enamel as well as hand-painted ceramics.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 1670, William Clement created the anchor escapement, an improvement over Huygens' crown escapement. Clement also introduced the pendulum suspension spring in 1671. The concentric minute hand was added to the clock by Daniel Quare, a London clockmaker and others, and the second hand was first introduced.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In 1675, Huygens and Robert Hooke invented the spiral balance spring, or the hairspring, designed to control the oscillating speed of the balance wheel. This crucial advance finally made accurate pocket watches possible. The great English clockmaker Thomas Tompion, was one of the first to use this mechanism successfully in his pocket watches, and he adopted the minute hand which, after a variety of designs were trialled, eventually stabilised into the modern-day configuration. The rack and snail striking mechanism for striking clocks, was introduced during the 17th century and had distinct advantages over the 'countwheel' (or 'locking plate') mechanism. During the 20th century there was a common misconception that Edward Barlow invented rack and snail striking. In fact, his invention was connected with a repeating mechanism employing the rack and snail. The repeating clock, that chimes the number of hours (or even minutes) on demand was invented by either Quare or Barlow in 1676. George Graham invented the deadbeat escapement for clocks in 1720.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation. The position of a ship at sea could be determined with reasonable accuracy if a navigator could refer to a clock that lost or gained less than about 10 seconds per day. This clock could not contain a pendulum, which would be virtually useless on a rocking ship. In 1714, the British government offered large financial rewards to the value of 20,000 pounds for anyone who could determine longitude accurately. John Harrison, who dedicated his life to improving the accuracy of his clocks, later received considerable sums under the Longitude Act.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 1735, Harrison built his first chronometer, which he steadily improved on over the next thirty years before submitting it for examination. The clock had many innovations, including the use of bearings to reduce friction, weighted balances to compensate for the ship's pitch and roll in the sea and the use of two different metals to reduce the problem of expansion from heat. The chronometer was tested in 1761 by Harrison's son and by the end of 10 weeks the clock was in error by less than 5 seconds.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The British had dominated watch manufacture for much of the 17th and 18th centuries, but maintained a system of production that was geared towards high quality products for the elite. Although there was an attempt to modernise clock manufacture with mass-production techniques and the application of duplicating tools and machinery by the British Watch Company in 1843, it was in the United States that this system took off. In 1816, Eli Terry and some other Connecticut clockmakers developed a way of mass-producing clocks by using interchangeable parts. Aaron Lufkin Dennison started a factory in 1851 in Massachusetts that also used interchangeable parts, and by 1861 was running a successful enterprise incorporated as the Waltham Watch Company.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 1815, the English scientist Francis Ronalds published the first electric clock powered by dry pile batteries. Alexander Bain, a Scottish clockmaker, patented the electric clock in 1840. The electric clock's mainspring is wound either with an electric motor or with an electromagnet and armature. In 1841, he first patented the electromagnetic pendulum. By the end of the nineteenth century, the advent of the dry cell battery made it feasible to use electric power in clocks. Spring or weight driven clocks that use electricity, either alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC), to rewind the spring or raise the weight of a mechanical clock would be classified as an electromechanical clock. This classification would also apply to clocks that employ an electrical impulse to propel the pendulum. In electromechanical clocks the electricity serves no time keeping function. These types of clocks were made as individual timepieces but more commonly used in synchronized time installations in schools, businesses, factories, railroads and government facilities as a master clock and slave clocks.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Where an AC electrical supply of stable frequency is available, timekeeping can be maintained very reliably by using a synchronous motor, essentially counting the cycles. The supply current alternates with an accurate frequency of 50 hertz in many countries, and 60 hertz in others. While the frequency may vary slightly during the day as the load changes, generators are designed to maintain an accurate number of cycles over a day, so the clock may be a fraction of a second slow or fast at any time, but will be perfectly accurate over a long time. The rotor of the motor rotates at a speed that is related to the alternation frequency. Appropriate gearing converts this rotation speed to the correct ones for the hands of the analog clock. Time in these cases is measured in several ways, such as by counting the cycles of the AC supply, vibration of a tuning fork, the behaviour of quartz crystals, or the quantum vibrations of atoms. Electronic circuits divide these high-frequency oscillations to slower ones that drive the time display.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The piezoelectric properties of crystalline quartz were discovered by Jacques and Pierre Curie in 1880. The first crystal oscillator was invented in 1917 by Alexander M. Nicholson, after which the first quartz crystal oscillator was built by Walter G. Cady in 1921. In 1927 the first quartz clock was built by Warren Marrison and J.W. Horton at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Canada. The following decades saw the development of quartz clocks as precision time measurement devices in laboratory settings—the bulky and delicate counting electronics, built with vacuum tubes at the time, limited their practical use elsewhere. The National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) based the time standard of the United States on quartz clocks from late 1929 until the 1960s, when it changed to atomic clocks. In 1969, Seiko produced the world's first quartz wristwatch, the Astron. Their inherent accuracy and low cost of production resulted in the subsequent proliferation of quartz clocks and watches.",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Currently, atomic clocks are the most accurate clocks in existence. They are considerably more accurate than quartz clocks as they can be accurate to within a few seconds over trillions of years. Atomic clocks were first theorized by Lord Kelvin in 1879. In the 1930s the development of magnetic resonance created practical method for doing this. A prototype ammonia maser device was built in 1949 at the U.S. National Bureau of Standards (NBS, now NIST). Although it was less accurate than existing quartz clocks, it served to demonstrate the concept. The first accurate atomic clock, a caesium standard based on a certain transition of the caesium-133 atom, was built by Louis Essen in 1955 at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK. Calibration of the caesium standard atomic clock was carried out by the use of the astronomical time scale ephemeris time (ET). As of 2013, the most stable atomic clocks are ytterbium clocks, which are stable to within less than two parts in 1 quintillion (2×10).",
"title": "History of time-measuring devices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The invention of the mechanical clock in the 13th century initiated a change in timekeeping methods from continuous processes, such as the motion of the gnomon's shadow on a sundial or the flow of liquid in a water clock, to periodic oscillatory processes, such as the swing of a pendulum or the vibration of a quartz crystal, which had the potential for more accuracy. All modern clocks use oscillation.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Although the mechanisms they use vary, all oscillating clocks, mechanical, electric, and atomic, work similarly and can be divided into analogous parts. They consist of an object that repeats the same motion over and over again, an oscillator, with a precisely constant time interval between each repetition, or 'beat'. Attached to the oscillator is a controller device, which sustains the oscillator's motion by replacing the energy it loses to friction, and converts its oscillations into a series of pulses. The pulses are then counted by some type of counter, and the number of counts is converted into convenient units, usually seconds, minutes, hours, etc. Finally some kind of indicator displays the result in human readable form.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object (resonator) that vibrates or oscillates repetitively at a precisely constant frequency.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The advantage of a harmonic oscillator over other forms of oscillator is that it employs resonance to vibrate at a precise natural resonant frequency or \"beat\" dependent only on its physical characteristics, and resists vibrating at other rates. The possible precision achievable by a harmonic oscillator is measured by a parameter called its Q, or quality factor, which increases (other things being equal) with its resonant frequency. This is why there has been a long-term trend toward higher frequency oscillators in clocks. Balance wheels and pendulums always include a means of adjusting the rate of the timepiece. Quartz timepieces sometimes include a rate screw that adjusts a capacitor for that purpose. Atomic clocks are primary standards, and their rate cannot be adjusted.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Some clocks rely for their accuracy on an external oscillator; that is, they are automatically synchronized to a more accurate clock:",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "This has the dual function of keeping the oscillator running by giving it 'pushes' to replace the energy lost to friction, and converting its vibrations into a series of pulses that serve to measure the time.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In mechanical clocks, the low Q of the balance wheel or pendulum oscillator made them very sensitive to the disturbing effect of the impulses of the escapement, so the escapement had a great effect on the accuracy of the clock, and many escapement designs were tried. The higher Q of resonators in electronic clocks makes them relatively insensitive to the disturbing effects of the drive power, so the driving oscillator circuit is a much less critical component.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "This counts the pulses and adds them up to get traditional time units of seconds, minutes, hours, etc. It usually has a provision for setting the clock by manually entering the correct time into the counter.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "This displays the count of seconds, minutes, hours, etc. in a human readable form.",
"title": "Operation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Clocks can be classified by the type of time display, as well as by the method of timekeeping.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Analog clocks usually use a clock face which indicates time using rotating pointers called \"hands\" on a fixed numbered dial or dials. The standard clock face, known universally throughout the world, has a short \"hour hand\" which indicates the hour on a circular dial of 12 hours, making two revolutions per day, and a longer \"minute hand\" which indicates the minutes in the current hour on the same dial, which is also divided into 60 minutes. It may also have a \"second hand\" which indicates the seconds in the current minute. The only other widely used clock face today is the 24 hour analog dial, because of the use of 24 hour time in military organizations and timetables. Before the modern clock face was standardized during the Industrial Revolution, many other face designs were used throughout the years, including dials divided into 6, 8, 10, and 24 hours. During the French Revolution the French government tried to introduce a 10-hour clock, as part of their decimal-based metric system of measurement, but it did not achieve widespread use. An Italian 6 hour clock was developed in the 18th century, presumably to save power (a clock or watch striking 24 times uses more power).",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Another type of analog clock is the sundial, which tracks the sun continuously, registering the time by the shadow position of its gnomon. Because the sun does not adjust to daylight saving time, users must add an hour during that time. Corrections must also be made for the equation of time, and for the difference between the longitudes of the sundial and of the central meridian of the time zone that is being used (i.e. 15 degrees east of the prime meridian for each hour that the time zone is ahead of GMT). Sundials use some or part of the 24 hour analog dial. There also exist clocks which use a digital display despite having an analog mechanism—these are commonly referred to as flip clocks. Alternative systems have been proposed. For example, the \"Twelv\" clock indicates the current hour using one of twelve colors, and indicates the minute by showing a proportion of a circular disk, similar to a moon phase.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Digital clocks display a numeric representation of time. Two numeric display formats are commonly used on digital clocks:",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays; many other display technologies are used as well (cathode-ray tubes, nixie tubes, etc.). After a reset, battery change or power failure, these clocks without a backup battery or capacitor either start counting from 12:00, or stay at 12:00, often with blinking digits indicating that the time needs to be set. Some newer clocks will reset themselves based on radio or Internet time servers that are tuned to national atomic clocks. Since the introduction of digital clocks in the 1960s, there has been a notable decline in the use of analog clocks.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Some clocks, called 'flip clocks', have digital displays that work mechanically. The digits are painted on sheets of material which are mounted like the pages of a book. Once a minute, a page is turned over to reveal the next digit. These displays are usually easier to read in brightly lit conditions than LCDs or LEDs. Also, they do not go back to 12:00 after a power interruption. Flip clocks generally do not have electronic mechanisms. Usually, they are driven by AC-synchronous motors.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Clocks with analog quadrants, with a digital component, usually minutes and hours displayed analogously and seconds displayed in digital mode.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "For convenience, distance, telephony or blindness, auditory clocks present the time as sounds. The sound is either spoken natural language, (e.g. \"The time is twelve thirty-five\"), or as auditory codes (e.g. number of sequential bell rings on the hour represents the number of the hour like the bell, Big Ben). Most telecommunication companies also provide a speaking clock service as well.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Word clocks are clocks that display the time visually using sentences. E.g.: \"It's about three o'clock.\" These clocks can be implemented in hardware or software.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Some clocks, usually digital ones, include an optical projector that shines a magnified image of the time display onto a screen or onto a surface such as an indoor ceiling or wall. The digits are large enough to be easily read, without using glasses, by persons with moderately imperfect vision, so the clocks are convenient for use in their bedrooms. Usually, the timekeeping circuitry has a battery as a backup source for an uninterrupted power supply to keep the clock on time, while the projection light only works when the unit is connected to an A.C. supply. Completely battery-powered portable versions resembling flashlights are also available.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Auditory and projection clocks can be used by people who are blind or have limited vision. There are also clocks for the blind that have displays that can be read by using the sense of touch. Some of these are similar to normal analog displays, but are constructed so the hands can be felt without damaging them. Another type is essentially digital, and uses devices that use a code such as Braille to show the digits so that they can be felt with the fingertips.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Some clocks have several displays driven by a single mechanism, and some others have several completely separate mechanisms in a single case. Clocks in public places often have several faces visible from different directions, so that the clock can be read from anywhere in the vicinity; all the faces show the same time. Other clocks show the current time in several time-zones. Watches that are intended to be carried by travellers often have two displays, one for the local time and the other for the time at home, which is useful for making pre-arranged phone calls. Some equation clocks have two displays, one showing mean time and the other solar time, as would be shown by a sundial. Some clocks have both analog and digital displays. Clocks with Braille displays usually also have conventional digits so they can be read by sighted people.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Clocks are in homes, offices and many other places; smaller ones (watches) are carried on the wrist or in a pocket; larger ones are in public places, e.g. a railway station or church. A small clock is often shown in a corner of computer displays, mobile phones and many MP3 players.",
"title": "Purposes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The primary purpose of a clock is to display the time. Clocks may also have the facility to make a loud alert signal at a specified time, typically to waken a sleeper at a preset time; they are referred to as alarm clocks. The alarm may start at a low volume and become louder, or have the facility to be switched off for a few minutes then resume. Alarm clocks with visible indicators are sometimes used to indicate to children too young to read the time that the time for sleep has finished; they are sometimes called training clocks.",
"title": "Purposes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "A clock mechanism may be used to control a device according to time, e.g. a central heating system, a VCR, or a time bomb (see: digital counter). Such mechanisms are usually called timers. Clock mechanisms are also used to drive devices such as solar trackers and astronomical telescopes, which have to turn at accurately controlled speeds to counteract the rotation of the Earth.",
"title": "Purposes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Most digital computers depend on an internal signal at constant frequency to synchronize processing; this is referred to as a clock signal. (A few research projects are developing CPUs based on asynchronous circuits.) Some equipment, including computers, also maintains time and date for use as required; this is referred to as time-of-day clock, and is distinct from the system clock signal, although possibly based on counting its cycles.",
"title": "Purposes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "In Chinese culture, giving a clock (traditional Chinese: 送鐘; simplified Chinese: 送钟; pinyin: sòng zhōng) is often taboo, especially to the elderly as the term for this act is a homophone with the term for the act of attending another's funeral (traditional Chinese: 送終; simplified Chinese: 送终; pinyin: sòngzhōng). This homonymic pair works in both Mandarin and Cantonese, although in most parts of China only clocks and large bells, and not watches, are called \"zhong\", and watches are commonly given as gifts in China. However, should such a gift be given, the \"unluckiness\" of the gift can be countered by exacting a small monetary payment so the recipient is buying the clock and thereby counteracting the '送' (\"give\") expression of the phrase.",
"title": "Purposes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "For some scientific work timing of the utmost accuracy is essential. It is also necessary to have a standard of the maximum accuracy against which working clocks can be calibrated. An ideal clock would give the time to unlimited accuracy, but this is not realisable. Many physical processes, in particular including some transitions between atomic energy levels, occur at exceedingly stable frequency; counting cycles of such a process can give a very accurate and consistent time—clocks which work this way are usually called atomic clocks. Such clocks are typically large, very expensive, require a controlled environment, and are far more accurate than required for most purposes; they are typically used in a standards laboratory.",
"title": "Purposes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Until advances in the late twentieth century, navigation depended on the ability to measure latitude and longitude. Latitude can be determined through celestial navigation; the measurement of longitude requires accurate knowledge of time. This need was a major motivation for the development of accurate mechanical clocks. John Harrison created the first highly accurate marine chronometer in the mid-18th century. The Noon gun in Cape Town still fires an accurate signal to allow ships to check their chronometers. Many buildings near major ports used to have (some still do) a large ball mounted on a tower or mast arranged to drop at a pre-determined time, for the same purpose. While satellite navigation systems such as GPS require unprecedentedly accurate knowledge of time, this is supplied by equipment on the satellites; vehicles no longer need timekeeping equipment.",
"title": "Purposes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Clocks can be used to measure varying periods of time in games and sports. Stopwatches can be used to time the performance of track athletes. Chess clocks are used to limit the board game players' time to make a move. In various sports, game clocks measure the duration the game or subdivisions of the game, while other clocks may be used for tracking different durations; these include play clocks, shot clocks, and pitch clocks.",
"title": "Purposes"
}
] | A clock or chronometer is a device that measure and display time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month, and the year. Devices operating on several physical processes have been used over the millennia. Some predecessors to the modern clock may be considered "clocks" that are based on movement in nature: A sundial shows the time by displaying the position of a shadow on a flat surface. There is a range of duration timers, a well-known example being the hourglass. Water clocks, along with sundials, are possibly the oldest time-measuring instruments. A major advance occurred with the invention of the verge escapement, which made possible the first mechanical clocks around 1300 in Europe, which kept time with oscillating timekeepers like balance wheels. Traditionally, in horology, the term clock was used for a striking clock, while a clock that did not strike the hours audibly was called a timepiece. This distinction is not generally made any longer. Watches and other timepieces that can be carried on one's person are usually not referred to as clocks. Spring-driven clocks appeared during the 15th century. During the 15th and 16th centuries, clockmaking flourished. The next development in accuracy occurred after 1656 with the invention of the pendulum clock by Christiaan Huygens. A major stimulus to improving the accuracy and reliability of clocks was the importance of precise time-keeping for navigation. The mechanism of a timepiece with a series of gears driven by a spring or weights is referred to as clockwork; the term is used by extension for a similar mechanism not used in a timepiece. The electric clock was patented in 1840, and electronic clocks were introduced in the 20th century, becoming widespread with the development of small battery-powered semiconductor devices. The timekeeping element in every modern clock is a harmonic oscillator, a physical object (resonator) that vibrates or oscillates at a particular frequency.
This object can be a pendulum, a tuning fork, a quartz crystal, or the vibration of electrons in atoms as they emit microwaves, the last of which is so precise that it serves as the definition of the second. Clocks have different ways of displaying the time. Analog clocks indicate time with a traditional clock face and moving hands. Digital clocks display a numeric representation of time. Two numbering systems are in use: 12-hour time notation and 24-hour notation. Most digital clocks use electronic mechanisms and LCD, LED, or VFD displays. For the blind and for use over telephones, speaking clocks state the time audibly in words. There are also clocks for the blind that have displays that can be read by touch. | 2001-09-20T18:58:01Z | 2023-12-29T21:21:49Z | [
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6,451 | Charles Proteus Steinmetz | Charles Proteus Steinmetz (born Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz; April 9, 1865 – October 26, 1923) was an American mathematician and electrical engineer and professor at Union College. He fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers. He made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of hysteresis that enabled engineers to design better electromagnetic apparatus equipment, especially electric motors for use in industry.
At the time of his death, Steinmetz held over 200 patents. A genius in both mathematics and electronics, he did work that earned him the nicknames "Forger of Thunderbolts" and "The Wizard of Schenectady". Steinmetz's equation, Steinmetz solids, Steinmetz curves, and Steinmetz equivalent circuit are all named after him, as are numerous honors and scholarships, including the IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award, one of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers professional society.
Steinmetz was born Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz on April 9, 1865, in Breslau, Province of Silesia, Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland) the son of Caroline (Neubert) and Karl Heinrich Steinmetz. He was baptized as a Lutheran into the Evangelical Church of Prussia. Steinmetz, who stood only 4 ft 0 in (1.22 m) tall as an adult, had dwarfism, hunchback, and hip dysplasia, as did his father and grandfather. Steinmetz attended Johannes Gymnasium and astonished his teachers with his proficiency in mathematics and physics.
Following the Gymnasium, Steinmetz went on to the University of Breslau to begin work on his undergraduate degree in 1883. He was on the verge of finishing his doctorate in 1888 when he came under investigation by the German police for activities on behalf of a socialist university group and articles he had written for a local socialist newspaper.
As socialist meetings and press had been banned in Germany, Steinmetz fled to Zürich in 1889 to escape possible arrest. Cornell University Professor Ronald R. Kline, author of Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist, points to other factors which reinforced Steinmetz's decision to leave his homeland such as financial problems and the prospect of a more harmonious life with his socialist friends and supporters than the stressful domestic circumstances of his father's household.
Faced with an expiring visa, he emigrated to the United States in 1889. He changed his first name to "Charles" in order to sound more American, and chose the middle name "Proteus", a wise hunchbacked character from the Odyssey who knew many secrets, after a childhood epithet given by classmates Steinmetz felt suited him.
Steinmetz was politically active in the US as a technocratic socialist for over thirty years. Following the Bolshevik introduction of a technocratic plan to electrify Russia, Steinmetz spoke of Lenin alongside Albert Einstein as the "two greatest minds of our time." He believed in a corporatist industrial government also covering its human wellfare function.
A member of the original Technical Alliance, which also included Thorstein Veblen and Leland Olds, Steinmetz had great faith in the ability of machines to eliminate human toil and create abundance for all. He put it this way: "Some day we [will] make the good things of life for everybody."
Steinmetz is known for his contribution in three major fields of alternating current (AC) systems theory: hysteresis, steady-state analysis, and transients.
Shortly after arriving in the United States, Steinmetz went to work for Rudolf Eickemeyer in Yonkers, New York, and published in the field of magnetic hysteresis, earning worldwide professional recognition. Eickemeyer's firm developed transformers for use in the transmission of electrical power among many other mechanical and electrical devices. In 1893 Eickemeyer's company, along with all of its patents and designs, was bought by the newly formed General Electric Company, where Steinmetz quickly became known as the engineering wizard in GE's engineering community.
Steinmetz's work revolutionized AC circuit theory and analysis, which had been carried out using complicated, time-consuming calculus-based methods. In the groundbreaking paper, "Complex Quantities and Their Use in Electrical Engineering", presented at a July 1893 meeting published in the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), Steinmetz simplified these complicated methods to "a simple problem of algebra". He systematized the use of complex number phasor representation in electrical engineering education texts, whereby the lower-case letter "j" is used to designate the 90-degree rotation operator in AC system analysis. His seminal books and many other AIEE papers "taught a whole generation of engineers how to deal with AC phenomena".
Steinmetz also greatly advanced the understanding of lightning. His systematic experiments resulted in the first laboratory created "man-made lightning", earning him the nickname the "Forger of Thunderbolts". These were conducted in a football field-sized laboratory at General Electric, using 120,000 volt generators. He also erected a lightning tower to attract natural lightning to study its patterns and effects, which resulted in several theories.
Steinmetz acted in the following professional capacities:
He was granted an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1901 and a doctorate from Union College in 1903.
Steinmetz wrote 13 books and 60 articles, not exclusively about engineering. He was a member and adviser to the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta at Union College, whose chapter house was one of the first electrified residences.
While serving as president of the Schenectady Board of Education, Steinmetz introduced numerous progressive reforms, including extended school hours, school meals, school nurses, special classes for the children of immigrants, and the distribution of free textbooks.
Steinmetz was affected by kyphosis, as were his father and grandfather. In spite of his love for children and family life, Steinmetz remained unmarried, to prevent his spinal deformity from being passed to any offspring.
When Joseph LeRoy Hayden, a loyal and hardworking lab assistant, announced that he would marry and look for his own living quarters, Steinmetz made the unusual proposal of opening his large home, complete with research lab, greenhouse, and office to the Haydens and their prospective family. Hayden favored the idea, but his future wife was wary of the unorthodox arrangement. She agreed after Steinmetz's assurance that she could run the house as she saw fit.
After an uneasy start, the arrangement worked well for all parties, especially after three Hayden children were born. Steinmetz legally adopted Joseph Hayden as his son, becoming grandfather to the youngsters, entertaining them with fantastic stories and spectacular scientific demonstrations. The unusual, harmonious living arrangement lasted for the rest of Steinmetz's life.
Steinmetz founded America's first glider club, but none of its prototypes "could be dignified with the term 'flight'".
Steinmetz was a lifelong agnostic. He died on October 26, 1923, and was buried in Vale Cemetery in Schenectady.
Steinmetz earned wide recognition among the scientific community and numerous awards and honors both during his life and posthumously.
Steinmetz's equation, derived from his experiments, defines the approximate heat energy due to magnetic hysteresis released, per cycle per unit volume of magnetic material. A Steinmetz solid is the solid body generated by the intersection of two or three cylinders of equal radius at right angles. Steinmetz' equivalent circuit is still widely used for the design and testing of induction machines.
One of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the "IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award", is given for major contributions to standardization within the field of electrical and electronics engineering. Other awards include the Certificate of Merit of Franklin Institute, 1908; the Elliott Cresson Medal, 1913; and the Cedergren Medal, 1914. Steinmetz was also an elected member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
The Charles P. Steinmetz Memorial Lecture series was begun in his honor in 1925, sponsored by the Schenectady branch of the IEEE. Through 2017 seventy-three gatherings have taken place, held almost exclusively at Union College, featuring notable figures such as Nobel laureate experimental physicist Robert A. Millikan, helicopter inventor Igor Sikorsky, nuclear submarine pioneer Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (1963), Nobel-winning semiconductor inventor William Shockley, and Internet "founding father" Leonard Kleinrock.
Steinmetz's connection to Union is further celebrated with the annual Steinmetz Symposium, a day-long event in which Union undergraduates give presentations on research they have done. Steinmetz Hall, which houses the Union College computer center, is named after him.
The Charles P. Steinmetz Scholarship is awarded annually by the college, underwritten since its inception in 1923 by the General Electric Company. An additional Charles P. Steinmetz Memorial Scholarship was later established at Union by Marjorie Hayden, daughter of Joseph and Corrine Hayden, and is awarded to students majoring in engineering or physics.
A 1914 "Duplex Drive Brougham" Detroit Electric automobile that once belonged to Steinmetz was purchased by Union College in 1971, and restored for use in campus ceremonies. The Steinmetz car is permanent displayed in the first-floor corridor between the Wold Center and F.W. Olin building.
A Chicago public high school, Steinmetz College Prep, is named for him, as well as a Schenectady public school, the Steinmetz Career and Leadership Academy, formerly Steinmetz Middle-School.
A public park in north Schenectady, New York was named for him in 1931.
In 1983, the US Post Office included Steinmetz in a series of postage stamps commemorating American inventors.
In May 2015, a life-size bronze statue of Charles Steinmetz meeting Thomas Edison by sculptor and caster Dexter Benedict was unveiled on a plaza on the corner of Erie Boulevards and South Ferry Street in Schenectady.
Steinmetz is featured in John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy in one of the biographies. He also serves as a major character in Starling Lawrence's The Lightning Keeper.
Steinmetz is a major character in the novel Electric City by Elizabeth Rosner.
Steinmetz was portrayed in 1959 by the actor Rod Steiger in the CBS television anthology series, The Joseph Cotten Show. The episode focused on his socialist activities in Germany.
A famous anecdote about Steinmetz concerns a troubleshooting consultation at Henry Ford's River Rouge Plant. A humorous aspect of the story is the "itemized bill" he submitted for the work performed.
At the time of his death, Steinmetz held over 200 patents: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Charles Proteus Steinmetz (born Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz; April 9, 1865 – October 26, 1923) was an American mathematician and electrical engineer and professor at Union College. He fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers. He made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of hysteresis that enabled engineers to design better electromagnetic apparatus equipment, especially electric motors for use in industry.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "At the time of his death, Steinmetz held over 200 patents. A genius in both mathematics and electronics, he did work that earned him the nicknames \"Forger of Thunderbolts\" and \"The Wizard of Schenectady\". Steinmetz's equation, Steinmetz solids, Steinmetz curves, and Steinmetz equivalent circuit are all named after him, as are numerous honors and scholarships, including the IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award, one of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers professional society.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Steinmetz was born Karl August Rudolph Steinmetz on April 9, 1865, in Breslau, Province of Silesia, Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland) the son of Caroline (Neubert) and Karl Heinrich Steinmetz. He was baptized as a Lutheran into the Evangelical Church of Prussia. Steinmetz, who stood only 4 ft 0 in (1.22 m) tall as an adult, had dwarfism, hunchback, and hip dysplasia, as did his father and grandfather. Steinmetz attended Johannes Gymnasium and astonished his teachers with his proficiency in mathematics and physics.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Following the Gymnasium, Steinmetz went on to the University of Breslau to begin work on his undergraduate degree in 1883. He was on the verge of finishing his doctorate in 1888 when he came under investigation by the German police for activities on behalf of a socialist university group and articles he had written for a local socialist newspaper.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "As socialist meetings and press had been banned in Germany, Steinmetz fled to Zürich in 1889 to escape possible arrest. Cornell University Professor Ronald R. Kline, author of Steinmetz: Engineer and Socialist, points to other factors which reinforced Steinmetz's decision to leave his homeland such as financial problems and the prospect of a more harmonious life with his socialist friends and supporters than the stressful domestic circumstances of his father's household.",
"title": "Political persecution and emigration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Faced with an expiring visa, he emigrated to the United States in 1889. He changed his first name to \"Charles\" in order to sound more American, and chose the middle name \"Proteus\", a wise hunchbacked character from the Odyssey who knew many secrets, after a childhood epithet given by classmates Steinmetz felt suited him.",
"title": "Political persecution and emigration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Steinmetz was politically active in the US as a technocratic socialist for over thirty years. Following the Bolshevik introduction of a technocratic plan to electrify Russia, Steinmetz spoke of Lenin alongside Albert Einstein as the \"two greatest minds of our time.\" He believed in a corporatist industrial government also covering its human wellfare function.",
"title": "Political activism in the USA"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A member of the original Technical Alliance, which also included Thorstein Veblen and Leland Olds, Steinmetz had great faith in the ability of machines to eliminate human toil and create abundance for all. He put it this way: \"Some day we [will] make the good things of life for everybody.\"",
"title": "Political activism in the USA"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Steinmetz is known for his contribution in three major fields of alternating current (AC) systems theory: hysteresis, steady-state analysis, and transients.",
"title": "Electrical engineering"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Shortly after arriving in the United States, Steinmetz went to work for Rudolf Eickemeyer in Yonkers, New York, and published in the field of magnetic hysteresis, earning worldwide professional recognition. Eickemeyer's firm developed transformers for use in the transmission of electrical power among many other mechanical and electrical devices. In 1893 Eickemeyer's company, along with all of its patents and designs, was bought by the newly formed General Electric Company, where Steinmetz quickly became known as the engineering wizard in GE's engineering community.",
"title": "Electrical engineering"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Steinmetz's work revolutionized AC circuit theory and analysis, which had been carried out using complicated, time-consuming calculus-based methods. In the groundbreaking paper, \"Complex Quantities and Their Use in Electrical Engineering\", presented at a July 1893 meeting published in the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), Steinmetz simplified these complicated methods to \"a simple problem of algebra\". He systematized the use of complex number phasor representation in electrical engineering education texts, whereby the lower-case letter \"j\" is used to designate the 90-degree rotation operator in AC system analysis. His seminal books and many other AIEE papers \"taught a whole generation of engineers how to deal with AC phenomena\".",
"title": "Electrical engineering"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Steinmetz also greatly advanced the understanding of lightning. His systematic experiments resulted in the first laboratory created \"man-made lightning\", earning him the nickname the \"Forger of Thunderbolts\". These were conducted in a football field-sized laboratory at General Electric, using 120,000 volt generators. He also erected a lightning tower to attract natural lightning to study its patterns and effects, which resulted in several theories.",
"title": "Electrical engineering"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Steinmetz acted in the following professional capacities:",
"title": "Professional life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "He was granted an honorary degree from Harvard University in 1901 and a doctorate from Union College in 1903.",
"title": "Professional life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Steinmetz wrote 13 books and 60 articles, not exclusively about engineering. He was a member and adviser to the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta at Union College, whose chapter house was one of the first electrified residences.",
"title": "Professional life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "While serving as president of the Schenectady Board of Education, Steinmetz introduced numerous progressive reforms, including extended school hours, school meals, school nurses, special classes for the children of immigrants, and the distribution of free textbooks.",
"title": "Professional life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Steinmetz was affected by kyphosis, as were his father and grandfather. In spite of his love for children and family life, Steinmetz remained unmarried, to prevent his spinal deformity from being passed to any offspring.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "When Joseph LeRoy Hayden, a loyal and hardworking lab assistant, announced that he would marry and look for his own living quarters, Steinmetz made the unusual proposal of opening his large home, complete with research lab, greenhouse, and office to the Haydens and their prospective family. Hayden favored the idea, but his future wife was wary of the unorthodox arrangement. She agreed after Steinmetz's assurance that she could run the house as she saw fit.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "After an uneasy start, the arrangement worked well for all parties, especially after three Hayden children were born. Steinmetz legally adopted Joseph Hayden as his son, becoming grandfather to the youngsters, entertaining them with fantastic stories and spectacular scientific demonstrations. The unusual, harmonious living arrangement lasted for the rest of Steinmetz's life.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Steinmetz founded America's first glider club, but none of its prototypes \"could be dignified with the term 'flight'\".",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Steinmetz was a lifelong agnostic. He died on October 26, 1923, and was buried in Vale Cemetery in Schenectady.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Steinmetz earned wide recognition among the scientific community and numerous awards and honors both during his life and posthumously.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Steinmetz's equation, derived from his experiments, defines the approximate heat energy due to magnetic hysteresis released, per cycle per unit volume of magnetic material. A Steinmetz solid is the solid body generated by the intersection of two or three cylinders of equal radius at right angles. Steinmetz' equivalent circuit is still widely used for the design and testing of induction machines.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "One of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the \"IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award\", is given for major contributions to standardization within the field of electrical and electronics engineering. Other awards include the Certificate of Merit of Franklin Institute, 1908; the Elliott Cresson Medal, 1913; and the Cedergren Medal, 1914. Steinmetz was also an elected member of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Charles P. Steinmetz Memorial Lecture series was begun in his honor in 1925, sponsored by the Schenectady branch of the IEEE. Through 2017 seventy-three gatherings have taken place, held almost exclusively at Union College, featuring notable figures such as Nobel laureate experimental physicist Robert A. Millikan, helicopter inventor Igor Sikorsky, nuclear submarine pioneer Admiral Hyman G. Rickover (1963), Nobel-winning semiconductor inventor William Shockley, and Internet \"founding father\" Leonard Kleinrock.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Steinmetz's connection to Union is further celebrated with the annual Steinmetz Symposium, a day-long event in which Union undergraduates give presentations on research they have done. Steinmetz Hall, which houses the Union College computer center, is named after him.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Charles P. Steinmetz Scholarship is awarded annually by the college, underwritten since its inception in 1923 by the General Electric Company. An additional Charles P. Steinmetz Memorial Scholarship was later established at Union by Marjorie Hayden, daughter of Joseph and Corrine Hayden, and is awarded to students majoring in engineering or physics.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "A 1914 \"Duplex Drive Brougham\" Detroit Electric automobile that once belonged to Steinmetz was purchased by Union College in 1971, and restored for use in campus ceremonies. The Steinmetz car is permanent displayed in the first-floor corridor between the Wold Center and F.W. Olin building.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "A Chicago public high school, Steinmetz College Prep, is named for him, as well as a Schenectady public school, the Steinmetz Career and Leadership Academy, formerly Steinmetz Middle-School.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "A public park in north Schenectady, New York was named for him in 1931.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1983, the US Post Office included Steinmetz in a series of postage stamps commemorating American inventors.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In May 2015, a life-size bronze statue of Charles Steinmetz meeting Thomas Edison by sculptor and caster Dexter Benedict was unveiled on a plaza on the corner of Erie Boulevards and South Ferry Street in Schenectady.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Steinmetz is featured in John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy in one of the biographies. He also serves as a major character in Starling Lawrence's The Lightning Keeper.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Steinmetz is a major character in the novel Electric City by Elizabeth Rosner.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Steinmetz was portrayed in 1959 by the actor Rod Steiger in the CBS television anthology series, The Joseph Cotten Show. The episode focused on his socialist activities in Germany.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "A famous anecdote about Steinmetz concerns a troubleshooting consultation at Henry Ford's River Rouge Plant. A humorous aspect of the story is the \"itemized bill\" he submitted for the work performed.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "At the time of his death, Steinmetz held over 200 patents:",
"title": "Bibliography"
}
] | Charles Proteus Steinmetz was an American mathematician and electrical engineer and professor at Union College. He fostered the development of alternating current that made possible the expansion of the electric power industry in the United States, formulating mathematical theories for engineers. He made ground-breaking discoveries in the understanding of hysteresis that enabled engineers to design better electromagnetic apparatus equipment, especially electric motors for use in industry. At the time of his death, Steinmetz held over 200 patents. A genius in both mathematics and electronics, he did work that earned him the nicknames "Forger of Thunderbolts" and "The Wizard of Schenectady". Steinmetz's equation, Steinmetz solids, Steinmetz curves, and Steinmetz equivalent circuit are all named after him, as are numerous honors and scholarships, including the IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award, one of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers professional society. | 2001-09-20T21:18:11Z | 2023-12-27T13:01:44Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Proteus_Steinmetz |
6,452 | Charles Martel | Charles Martel (c. 688 – 22 October 741) was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles, also known as "The Hammer" (in Old French, Martel), successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle".
Charles Martel gained a very consequential victory against an Umayyad invasion of Aquitaine at the Battle of Tours, at a time when the Umayyad Caliphate controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Alongside his military endeavours, Charles has been traditionally credited with an influential role in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism.
At the end of his reign, Charles divided Francia between his sons, Carloman and Pepin. The latter became the first king of the Carolingian dynasty. Pepin's son Charlemagne, grandson of Charles, extended the Frankish realms and became the first emperor in the West since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.
Charles, nicknamed "Martel" ("the Hammer") in later chronicles, was a son of Pepin of Herstal and his mistress, possible second wife, Alpaida. He had a brother named Childebrand, who later became the Frankish dux (that is, duke) of Burgundy.
Older historiography commonly describes Charles as "illegitimate", but the dividing line between wives and concubines was not clear-cut in eighth-century Francia. It is likely that the accusation of "illegitimacy" derives from the desire of Pepin's first wife Plectrude to see her progeny as heirs to Pepin's power.
By Charles's lifetime the Merovingians had ceded power to the Mayors of the Palace, who controlled the royal treasury, dispensed patronage, and granted land and privileges in the name of the figurehead king. Charles's father, Pepin of Herstal, had united the Frankish realm by conquering Neustria and Burgundy. Pepin was the first to call himself Duke and Prince of the Franks, a title later taken up by Charles.
In December 714, Pepin of Herstal died. A few months before his death and shortly after the murder of his son Grimoald the Younger, he had, at his wife Plectrude's urging, designated Theudoald, his grandson by their late son Grimoald, his heir in the entire realm. This was immediately opposed by the Austrasian nobles because Theudoald was a child of only eight years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, Plectrude had him imprisoned in Cologne, the city which was intended to be her capital. This prevented an uprising on his behalf in Austrasia, but not in Neustria.
Pepin's death occasioned open conflict between his heirs and the Neustrian nobles who sought political independence from Austrasian control. In 715, Dagobert III named Raganfrid mayor of their palace. On 26 September 715, Raganfrid's Neustrians met the young Theudoald's forces at the Battle of Compiègne. Theudoald was defeated and fled back to Cologne. Before the end of the year, Charles Martel had escaped from prison and been acclaimed mayor by the nobles of Austrasia. That same year, Dagobert III died and the Neustrians proclaimed Chilperic II, the cloistered son of Childeric II, as king.
In 716, Chilperic and Raganfrid together led an army into Austrasia intent on seizing the Pippinid wealth at Cologne. The Neustrians allied with another invading force under Redbad, King of the Frisians and met Charles in battle near Cologne, which was still held by Plectrude. Charles had little time to gather men or prepare and the result was inevitable. The Frisians held off Charles, while the king and his mayor besieged Plectrude at Cologne, where she bought them off with a substantial portion of Pepin's treasure. After that they withdrew. The Battle of Cologne is the only defeat of Charles Martel's career.
Charles retreated to the hills of the Eifel to gather and train men. In April 716, he fell upon the triumphant army near Malmedy as it was returning to Neustria. In the ensuing Battle of Amblève, Charles attacked as the enemy rested at midday. According to one source, he split his forces into several groups which fell at them from many sides. Another suggests that while this was his intention, he then decided, given the enemy's unpreparedness, this was not necessary. In any event, the suddenness of the assault led them to believe they were facing a much larger host. Many of the enemy fled and Charles's troops gathered the spoils of the camp. His reputation increased considerably as a result, and he attracted more followers. This battle is often considered by historians as the turning point in Charles's struggle.
Richard Gerberding points out that up to this time, much of Charles Martel's support was probably from his mother's kindred in the lands around Liege. After Amblève, he seems to have won the backing of the influential Willibrord, founder of the Abbey of Echternach. The abbey had been built on land donated by Plectrude's mother, Irmina of Oeren, but most of Willibrord's missionary work had been carried out in Frisia. In joining Chilperic and Ragqnfrid, Radbod of Frisia sacked Utrecht, burning churches and killing many missionaries. Willibrord and his monks were forced to flee to Echternach. Gerberding suggests that Willibrord had decided that the chances of preserving his life's work were better with a successful field commander like Charles than with Plectrude in Cologne. Willibrord subsequently baptized Martel's son Pepin. Gerberding suggests a likely date of Easter 716. Martel also received support from bishop Pepo of Verdun.
Charles took time to rally more men and prepare. By the following spring, he had attracted enough support to invade Neustria. Charles sent an envoy who proposed a cessation of hostilities if Chilperic would recognize his rights as mayor of the palace in Austrasia. The refusal was not unexpected but served to impress upon Charles's forces the unreasonableness of the Neustrians. They met near Cambrai at the Battle of Vincy on 21 March 717. The victorious Charles Martel pursued the fleeing king and mayor to Paris, but as he was not yet prepared to hold the city, he turned back to deal with Plectrude and Cologne. He took the city and dispersed her adherents. Plectrude was allowed to retire to a convent. Theudoald lived to 741 under his uncle's protection.
Upon this success, Charles proclaimed Chlothar IV king in Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic and deposed Rigobert, archbishop of Reims, replacing him with Milo, a lifelong supporter.
In 718, Chilperic responded to Charles's new ascendancy by making an alliance with Odo the Great (or Eudes, as he is sometimes known), the duke of Aquitaine, who had become independent during the civil war in 715, but was again defeated, at the Battle of Soissons, by Charles. Chilperic fled with his ducal ally to the land south of the Loire and Raganfrid fled to Angers. Soon Chlotar IV died and Odo surrendered King Chilperic in exchange for Charles recognizing his dukedom. Charles recognized Chilperic as king of the Franks in return for legitimate royal affirmation of his own mayoralty over all the kingdoms.
Between 718 and 732, Charles secured his power through a series of victories. Having unified the Franks under his banner, Charles was determined to punish the Saxons who had invaded Austrasia. Therefore, late in 718, he laid waste their country to the banks of the Weser, the Lippe, and the Ruhr. He defeated them in the Teutoburg Forest and thus secured the Frankish border.
When the Frisian leader Radbod died in 719, Charles seized West Frisia without any great resistance on the part of the Frisians, who had been subjected to the Franks but had rebelled upon the death of Pippin. When Chilperic II died in 721, Charles appointed as his successor the son of Dagobert III, Theuderic IV, who was still a minor, and who occupied the throne from 721 to 737. Charles was now appointing the kings whom he supposedly served (rois fainéants). By the end of his reign, he didn't appoint any at all. At this time, Charles again marched against the Saxons. Then the Neustrians rebelled under Raganfrid, who had left the county of Anjou. They were easily defeated in 724 but Raganfrid gave up his sons as hostages in turn for keeping his county. This ended the civil wars of Charles' reign.
The next six years were devoted in their entirety to assuring Frankish authority over the neighboring political groups. Between 720 and 723, Charles was fighting in Bavaria, where the Agilolfing dukes had gradually evolved into independent rulers, recently in alliance with Liutprand the Lombard. He forced the Alemanni to accompany him, and Duke Hugbert submitted to Frankish suzerainty. In 725 he brought back the Agilolfing Princess Swanachild as a second wife.
In 725 and 728, he again entered Bavaria but, in 730, he marched against Lantfrid, Duke of Alemannia, who had also become independent, and killed him in battle. He forced the Alemanni to capitulate to Frankish suzerainty and did not appoint a successor to Lantfrid. Thus, southern Germany once more became part of the Frankish kingdom, as had northern Germany during the first years of the reign.
In 731, after defeating the Saxons, Charles turned his attention to the rival southern realm of Aquitaine, and crossed the Loire, breaking the treaty with Duke Odo. The Franks ransacked Aquitaine twice, and captured Bourges, although Odo retook it. The Continuations of Fredegar allege that Odo called on assistance from the recently established emirate of al-Andalus, but there had been Arab raids into Aquitaine from the 720s onwards. Indeed, the anonymous Chronicle of 754 records a victory for Odo in 721 at the Battle of Toulouse, while the Liber Pontificalis records that Odo had killed 375,000 Saracens. It is more likely that this invasion or raid took place in revenge for Odo's support for a rebel Berber leader named Munnuza.
Whatever the precise circumstances were, it is clear that an army under the leadership of Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi headed north, and after some minor engagements marched on the wealthy city of Tours. According to British medieval historian Paul Fouracre, "Their campaign should perhaps be interpreted as a long-distance raid rather than the beginning of a war". They were, however, defeated by the army of Charles at the Battle of Tours (known in France as the Battle of Poitiers), at a location between the French cities of Tours and Poitiers, in a victory described by the Continuations of Fredegar. According to the historian Bernard Bachrach, the Arab army, mostly mounted, failed to break through the Frankish infantry. News of this battle spread, and may be recorded in Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Book V, ch. 23). However, it is not given prominence in Arabic sources from the period.
Despite his victory, Charles did not gain full control of Aquitaine, and Odo remained duke until 735.
Between his victory of 732 and 735, Charles reorganized the kingdom of Burgundy, replacing the counts and dukes with his loyal supporters, thus strengthening his hold on power. He was forced, by the ventures of Bubo, Duke of the Frisians, to invade independent-minded Frisia again in 734. In that year, he slew the duke at the Battle of the Boarn. Charles ordered the Frisian pagan shrines destroyed, and so wholly subjugated the populace that the region was peaceful for twenty years after.
In 735, Duke Odo of Aquitaine died. Though Charles wished to rule the duchy directly and went there to elicit the submission of the Aquitanians, the aristocracy proclaimed Odo's son, Hunald I of Aquitaine, as duke, and Charles and Hunald eventually recognised each other's position.
In 737, at the tail end of his campaigning in Provence and Septimania, the Merovingian king, Theuderic IV, died. Charles, titling himself maior domus and princeps et dux Francorum, did not appoint a new king and nobody acclaimed one. The throne lay vacant until Charles' death. The interregnum, the final four years of Charles' life, was relatively peaceful although in 738 he compelled the Saxons of Westphalia to submit and pay tribute and in 739 he checked an uprising in Provence where some rebels united under the leadership of Maurontus.
Charles used the relative peace to set about integrating the outlying realms of his empire into the Frankish church. He erected four dioceses in Bavaria (Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising, and Passau) and gave them Boniface as archbishop and metropolitan over all Germany east of the Rhine, with his seat at Mainz. Boniface had been under his protection from 723 on. Indeed, the saint himself explained to his old friend, Daniel of Winchester, that without it he could neither administer his church, defend his clergy nor prevent idolatry.
In 739, Pope Gregory III begged Charles for his aid against Liutprand, but Charles was loath to fight his onetime ally and ignored the plea. Nonetheless, the pope's request for Frankish protection showed how far Charles had come from the days when he was tottering on excommunication, and set the stage for his son and grandson to assert themselves in the peninsula.
Charles Martel died on 22 October 741, at Quierzy-sur-Oise in what is today the Aisne département in the Picardy region of France. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica in Paris.
His territories had been divided among his adult sons a year earlier: to Carloman he gave Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia, and to Pippin the Younger Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and Metz and Trier in the "Mosel duchy". Grifo was given several lands throughout the kingdom, but at a later date, just before Charles died.
Earlier in his life Charles Martel had many internal opponents and felt the need to appoint his own kingly claimant, Chlotar IV. Later, however, the dynamics of rulership in Francia had changed, and no hallowed Merovingian ruler was required. Charles divided his realm among his sons without opposition (though he ignored his young son Bernard). For many historians, Charles Martel laid the foundations for his son Pepin's rise to the Frankish throne in 751, and his grandson Charlemagne's imperial acclamation in 800. However, for Paul Fouracre, while Charles was "the most effective military leader in Francia", his career "finished on a note of unfinished business".
Charles Martel married twice, his first wife being Rotrude of Treves, daughter either of Lambert II, Count of Hesbaye, or of Leudwinus, Count of Treves. They had the following children:
Most of the children married and had issue. Hiltrud married Odilo I (Duke of Bavaria). Landrade was once believed to have married a Sigrand (Count of Hesbania) but Sigrand's wife was more likely the sister of Rotrude. Auda married Theoderic, Count of Autun.
Charles also married a second time, to Swanhild and they had a child named Grifo.
Charles Martel also had a known mistress, Ruodhaid, with whom he had:
Charles Martel also had an unknown mistress:
For early medieval authors, Charles Martel was famous for his military victories. Paul the Deacon for instance attributed a victory against the Saracens actually won by Odo of Aquitaine to Charles. However, alongside this there soon developed a darker reputation, for his alleged abuse of church property. A ninth-century text, the Visio Eucherii, possibly written by Hincmar of Reims, portrayed Martel as suffering in hell for this reason. According to British medieval historian Paul Fouracre, this was "the single most important text in the construction of Charles Martel's reputation as a seculariser or despoiler of church lands".
By the eighteenth century, historians such as Edward Gibbon had begun to portray the Frankish leader as the saviour of Christian Europe from a full-scale Islamic invasion.
In the nineteenth century, the German historian Heinrich Brunner argued that Charles had confiscated church lands in order to fund military reforms that allowed him to defeat the Arab conquests, in this way brilliantly combining two traditions about the ruler. However, Fouracre argued that "...there is not enough evidence to show that there was a decisive change either in the way in which the Franks fought, or in the way in which they organised the resources needed to support their warriors."
Many twentieth-century European historians continued to develop Gibbon's perspectives, such as French medievalist Christian Pfister, who wrote in 1911 that
"Besides establishing a certain unity in Gaul, Charles saved it from a great peril. In 711 the Arabs had conquered Spain. In 720 they crossed the Pyrenees, seized Narbonensis, a dependency of the kingdom of the Visigoths, and advanced on Gaul. By his able policy Odo succeeded in arresting their progress for some years; but a new vali, Abdur Rahman, a member of an extremely fanatical sect, resumed the attack, reached Poitiers, and advanced on Tours, the holy town of Gaul. In October 732—just 100 years after the death of Mahomet—Charles gained a brilliant victory over Abdur Rahman, who was called back to Africa by revolts of the Berbers and had to give up the struggle. ...After his victory, Charles took the offensive".
Similarly, William E. Watson, who wrote of the battle's importance in Frankish and world history in 1993, suggested that
"Had Charles Martel suffered at Tours-Poitiers the fate of King Roderick at the Rio Barbate, it is doubtful that a "do-nothing" sovereign of the Merovingian realm could have later succeeded where his talented major domus had failed. Indeed, as Charles was the progenitor of the Carolingian line of Frankish rulers and grandfather of Charlemagne, one can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had 'Abd al-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732."
And in 1993, the influential political scientist Samuel Huntington saw the battle of Tours as marking the end of the "Arab and Moorish surge west and north".
Other recent historians, however, argue that the importance of the battle is dramatically overstated, both for European history in general and for Charles Martel's reign in particular. This view is typified by Alessandro Barbero, who in 2004 wrote,
"Today, historians tend to play down the significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Arab force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours".
Similarly, in 2002 Tomaž Mastnak wrote:
"The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens—moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule."
More recently, the memory of Charles Martel has been appropriated by far right and white nationalist groups, such as the 'Charles Martel Group' in France, and by the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019. The memory of Charles Martel is a topic of debate in contemporary French politics on both the right and the left.
In the seventeenth century, a legend emerged that Charles Martel had formed the first regular order of knights in France. In 1620, Andre Favyn stated (without providing a source) that among the spoils Charles Martel's forces captured after the Battle of Tours were many genets (raised for their fur) and several of their pelts. Charles Martel gave these furs to leaders amongst his army, forming the first order of knighthood, the Order of the Genet. Favyn's claim was then repeated and elaborated in later works in English, for instance by Elias Ashmole in 1672, and James Coats in 1725. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Charles Martel (c. 688 – 22 October 741) was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles, also known as \"The Hammer\" (in Old French, Martel), successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was \"a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Charles Martel gained a very consequential victory against an Umayyad invasion of Aquitaine at the Battle of Tours, at a time when the Umayyad Caliphate controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Alongside his military endeavours, Charles has been traditionally credited with an influential role in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "At the end of his reign, Charles divided Francia between his sons, Carloman and Pepin. The latter became the first king of the Carolingian dynasty. Pepin's son Charlemagne, grandson of Charles, extended the Frankish realms and became the first emperor in the West since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Charles, nicknamed \"Martel\" (\"the Hammer\") in later chronicles, was a son of Pepin of Herstal and his mistress, possible second wife, Alpaida. He had a brother named Childebrand, who later became the Frankish dux (that is, duke) of Burgundy.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Older historiography commonly describes Charles as \"illegitimate\", but the dividing line between wives and concubines was not clear-cut in eighth-century Francia. It is likely that the accusation of \"illegitimacy\" derives from the desire of Pepin's first wife Plectrude to see her progeny as heirs to Pepin's power.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "By Charles's lifetime the Merovingians had ceded power to the Mayors of the Palace, who controlled the royal treasury, dispensed patronage, and granted land and privileges in the name of the figurehead king. Charles's father, Pepin of Herstal, had united the Frankish realm by conquering Neustria and Burgundy. Pepin was the first to call himself Duke and Prince of the Franks, a title later taken up by Charles.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In December 714, Pepin of Herstal died. A few months before his death and shortly after the murder of his son Grimoald the Younger, he had, at his wife Plectrude's urging, designated Theudoald, his grandson by their late son Grimoald, his heir in the entire realm. This was immediately opposed by the Austrasian nobles because Theudoald was a child of only eight years of age. To prevent Charles using this unrest to his own advantage, Plectrude had him imprisoned in Cologne, the city which was intended to be her capital. This prevented an uprising on his behalf in Austrasia, but not in Neustria.",
"title": "Contesting for power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Pepin's death occasioned open conflict between his heirs and the Neustrian nobles who sought political independence from Austrasian control. In 715, Dagobert III named Raganfrid mayor of their palace. On 26 September 715, Raganfrid's Neustrians met the young Theudoald's forces at the Battle of Compiègne. Theudoald was defeated and fled back to Cologne. Before the end of the year, Charles Martel had escaped from prison and been acclaimed mayor by the nobles of Austrasia. That same year, Dagobert III died and the Neustrians proclaimed Chilperic II, the cloistered son of Childeric II, as king.",
"title": "Contesting for power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 716, Chilperic and Raganfrid together led an army into Austrasia intent on seizing the Pippinid wealth at Cologne. The Neustrians allied with another invading force under Redbad, King of the Frisians and met Charles in battle near Cologne, which was still held by Plectrude. Charles had little time to gather men or prepare and the result was inevitable. The Frisians held off Charles, while the king and his mayor besieged Plectrude at Cologne, where she bought them off with a substantial portion of Pepin's treasure. After that they withdrew. The Battle of Cologne is the only defeat of Charles Martel's career.",
"title": "Contesting for power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Charles retreated to the hills of the Eifel to gather and train men. In April 716, he fell upon the triumphant army near Malmedy as it was returning to Neustria. In the ensuing Battle of Amblève, Charles attacked as the enemy rested at midday. According to one source, he split his forces into several groups which fell at them from many sides. Another suggests that while this was his intention, he then decided, given the enemy's unpreparedness, this was not necessary. In any event, the suddenness of the assault led them to believe they were facing a much larger host. Many of the enemy fled and Charles's troops gathered the spoils of the camp. His reputation increased considerably as a result, and he attracted more followers. This battle is often considered by historians as the turning point in Charles's struggle.",
"title": "Contesting for power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Richard Gerberding points out that up to this time, much of Charles Martel's support was probably from his mother's kindred in the lands around Liege. After Amblève, he seems to have won the backing of the influential Willibrord, founder of the Abbey of Echternach. The abbey had been built on land donated by Plectrude's mother, Irmina of Oeren, but most of Willibrord's missionary work had been carried out in Frisia. In joining Chilperic and Ragqnfrid, Radbod of Frisia sacked Utrecht, burning churches and killing many missionaries. Willibrord and his monks were forced to flee to Echternach. Gerberding suggests that Willibrord had decided that the chances of preserving his life's work were better with a successful field commander like Charles than with Plectrude in Cologne. Willibrord subsequently baptized Martel's son Pepin. Gerberding suggests a likely date of Easter 716. Martel also received support from bishop Pepo of Verdun.",
"title": "Contesting for power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Charles took time to rally more men and prepare. By the following spring, he had attracted enough support to invade Neustria. Charles sent an envoy who proposed a cessation of hostilities if Chilperic would recognize his rights as mayor of the palace in Austrasia. The refusal was not unexpected but served to impress upon Charles's forces the unreasonableness of the Neustrians. They met near Cambrai at the Battle of Vincy on 21 March 717. The victorious Charles Martel pursued the fleeing king and mayor to Paris, but as he was not yet prepared to hold the city, he turned back to deal with Plectrude and Cologne. He took the city and dispersed her adherents. Plectrude was allowed to retire to a convent. Theudoald lived to 741 under his uncle's protection.",
"title": "Contesting for power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Upon this success, Charles proclaimed Chlothar IV king in Austrasia in opposition to Chilperic and deposed Rigobert, archbishop of Reims, replacing him with Milo, a lifelong supporter.",
"title": "Consolidation of power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 718, Chilperic responded to Charles's new ascendancy by making an alliance with Odo the Great (or Eudes, as he is sometimes known), the duke of Aquitaine, who had become independent during the civil war in 715, but was again defeated, at the Battle of Soissons, by Charles. Chilperic fled with his ducal ally to the land south of the Loire and Raganfrid fled to Angers. Soon Chlotar IV died and Odo surrendered King Chilperic in exchange for Charles recognizing his dukedom. Charles recognized Chilperic as king of the Franks in return for legitimate royal affirmation of his own mayoralty over all the kingdoms.",
"title": "Consolidation of power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Between 718 and 732, Charles secured his power through a series of victories. Having unified the Franks under his banner, Charles was determined to punish the Saxons who had invaded Austrasia. Therefore, late in 718, he laid waste their country to the banks of the Weser, the Lippe, and the Ruhr. He defeated them in the Teutoburg Forest and thus secured the Frankish border.",
"title": "Consolidation of power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "When the Frisian leader Radbod died in 719, Charles seized West Frisia without any great resistance on the part of the Frisians, who had been subjected to the Franks but had rebelled upon the death of Pippin. When Chilperic II died in 721, Charles appointed as his successor the son of Dagobert III, Theuderic IV, who was still a minor, and who occupied the throne from 721 to 737. Charles was now appointing the kings whom he supposedly served (rois fainéants). By the end of his reign, he didn't appoint any at all. At this time, Charles again marched against the Saxons. Then the Neustrians rebelled under Raganfrid, who had left the county of Anjou. They were easily defeated in 724 but Raganfrid gave up his sons as hostages in turn for keeping his county. This ended the civil wars of Charles' reign.",
"title": "Consolidation of power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The next six years were devoted in their entirety to assuring Frankish authority over the neighboring political groups. Between 720 and 723, Charles was fighting in Bavaria, where the Agilolfing dukes had gradually evolved into independent rulers, recently in alliance with Liutprand the Lombard. He forced the Alemanni to accompany him, and Duke Hugbert submitted to Frankish suzerainty. In 725 he brought back the Agilolfing Princess Swanachild as a second wife.",
"title": "Consolidation of power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 725 and 728, he again entered Bavaria but, in 730, he marched against Lantfrid, Duke of Alemannia, who had also become independent, and killed him in battle. He forced the Alemanni to capitulate to Frankish suzerainty and did not appoint a successor to Lantfrid. Thus, southern Germany once more became part of the Frankish kingdom, as had northern Germany during the first years of the reign.",
"title": "Consolidation of power"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In 731, after defeating the Saxons, Charles turned his attention to the rival southern realm of Aquitaine, and crossed the Loire, breaking the treaty with Duke Odo. The Franks ransacked Aquitaine twice, and captured Bourges, although Odo retook it. The Continuations of Fredegar allege that Odo called on assistance from the recently established emirate of al-Andalus, but there had been Arab raids into Aquitaine from the 720s onwards. Indeed, the anonymous Chronicle of 754 records a victory for Odo in 721 at the Battle of Toulouse, while the Liber Pontificalis records that Odo had killed 375,000 Saracens. It is more likely that this invasion or raid took place in revenge for Odo's support for a rebel Berber leader named Munnuza.",
"title": "Aquitaine and the Battle of Tours in 732"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Whatever the precise circumstances were, it is clear that an army under the leadership of Abd al-Rahman al-Ghafiqi headed north, and after some minor engagements marched on the wealthy city of Tours. According to British medieval historian Paul Fouracre, \"Their campaign should perhaps be interpreted as a long-distance raid rather than the beginning of a war\". They were, however, defeated by the army of Charles at the Battle of Tours (known in France as the Battle of Poitiers), at a location between the French cities of Tours and Poitiers, in a victory described by the Continuations of Fredegar. According to the historian Bernard Bachrach, the Arab army, mostly mounted, failed to break through the Frankish infantry. News of this battle spread, and may be recorded in Bede's Ecclesiastical History (Book V, ch. 23). However, it is not given prominence in Arabic sources from the period.",
"title": "Aquitaine and the Battle of Tours in 732"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Despite his victory, Charles did not gain full control of Aquitaine, and Odo remained duke until 735.",
"title": "Aquitaine and the Battle of Tours in 732"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Between his victory of 732 and 735, Charles reorganized the kingdom of Burgundy, replacing the counts and dukes with his loyal supporters, thus strengthening his hold on power. He was forced, by the ventures of Bubo, Duke of the Frisians, to invade independent-minded Frisia again in 734. In that year, he slew the duke at the Battle of the Boarn. Charles ordered the Frisian pagan shrines destroyed, and so wholly subjugated the populace that the region was peaceful for twenty years after.",
"title": "Wars of 732–737"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 735, Duke Odo of Aquitaine died. Though Charles wished to rule the duchy directly and went there to elicit the submission of the Aquitanians, the aristocracy proclaimed Odo's son, Hunald I of Aquitaine, as duke, and Charles and Hunald eventually recognised each other's position.",
"title": "Wars of 732–737"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 737, at the tail end of his campaigning in Provence and Septimania, the Merovingian king, Theuderic IV, died. Charles, titling himself maior domus and princeps et dux Francorum, did not appoint a new king and nobody acclaimed one. The throne lay vacant until Charles' death. The interregnum, the final four years of Charles' life, was relatively peaceful although in 738 he compelled the Saxons of Westphalia to submit and pay tribute and in 739 he checked an uprising in Provence where some rebels united under the leadership of Maurontus.",
"title": "Interregnum (737–741)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Charles used the relative peace to set about integrating the outlying realms of his empire into the Frankish church. He erected four dioceses in Bavaria (Salzburg, Regensburg, Freising, and Passau) and gave them Boniface as archbishop and metropolitan over all Germany east of the Rhine, with his seat at Mainz. Boniface had been under his protection from 723 on. Indeed, the saint himself explained to his old friend, Daniel of Winchester, that without it he could neither administer his church, defend his clergy nor prevent idolatry.",
"title": "Interregnum (737–741)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 739, Pope Gregory III begged Charles for his aid against Liutprand, but Charles was loath to fight his onetime ally and ignored the plea. Nonetheless, the pope's request for Frankish protection showed how far Charles had come from the days when he was tottering on excommunication, and set the stage for his son and grandson to assert themselves in the peninsula.",
"title": "Interregnum (737–741)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Charles Martel died on 22 October 741, at Quierzy-sur-Oise in what is today the Aisne département in the Picardy region of France. He was buried at Saint Denis Basilica in Paris.",
"title": "Death and transition in rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "His territories had been divided among his adult sons a year earlier: to Carloman he gave Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia, and to Pippin the Younger Neustria, Burgundy, Provence, and Metz and Trier in the \"Mosel duchy\". Grifo was given several lands throughout the kingdom, but at a later date, just before Charles died.",
"title": "Death and transition in rule"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Earlier in his life Charles Martel had many internal opponents and felt the need to appoint his own kingly claimant, Chlotar IV. Later, however, the dynamics of rulership in Francia had changed, and no hallowed Merovingian ruler was required. Charles divided his realm among his sons without opposition (though he ignored his young son Bernard). For many historians, Charles Martel laid the foundations for his son Pepin's rise to the Frankish throne in 751, and his grandson Charlemagne's imperial acclamation in 800. However, for Paul Fouracre, while Charles was \"the most effective military leader in Francia\", his career \"finished on a note of unfinished business\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Charles Martel married twice, his first wife being Rotrude of Treves, daughter either of Lambert II, Count of Hesbaye, or of Leudwinus, Count of Treves. They had the following children:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Most of the children married and had issue. Hiltrud married Odilo I (Duke of Bavaria). Landrade was once believed to have married a Sigrand (Count of Hesbania) but Sigrand's wife was more likely the sister of Rotrude. Auda married Theoderic, Count of Autun.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Charles also married a second time, to Swanhild and they had a child named Grifo.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Charles Martel also had a known mistress, Ruodhaid, with whom he had:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Charles Martel also had an unknown mistress:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "For early medieval authors, Charles Martel was famous for his military victories. Paul the Deacon for instance attributed a victory against the Saracens actually won by Odo of Aquitaine to Charles. However, alongside this there soon developed a darker reputation, for his alleged abuse of church property. A ninth-century text, the Visio Eucherii, possibly written by Hincmar of Reims, portrayed Martel as suffering in hell for this reason. According to British medieval historian Paul Fouracre, this was \"the single most important text in the construction of Charles Martel's reputation as a seculariser or despoiler of church lands\".",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "By the eighteenth century, historians such as Edward Gibbon had begun to portray the Frankish leader as the saviour of Christian Europe from a full-scale Islamic invasion.",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In the nineteenth century, the German historian Heinrich Brunner argued that Charles had confiscated church lands in order to fund military reforms that allowed him to defeat the Arab conquests, in this way brilliantly combining two traditions about the ruler. However, Fouracre argued that \"...there is not enough evidence to show that there was a decisive change either in the way in which the Franks fought, or in the way in which they organised the resources needed to support their warriors.\"",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Many twentieth-century European historians continued to develop Gibbon's perspectives, such as French medievalist Christian Pfister, who wrote in 1911 that",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "\"Besides establishing a certain unity in Gaul, Charles saved it from a great peril. In 711 the Arabs had conquered Spain. In 720 they crossed the Pyrenees, seized Narbonensis, a dependency of the kingdom of the Visigoths, and advanced on Gaul. By his able policy Odo succeeded in arresting their progress for some years; but a new vali, Abdur Rahman, a member of an extremely fanatical sect, resumed the attack, reached Poitiers, and advanced on Tours, the holy town of Gaul. In October 732—just 100 years after the death of Mahomet—Charles gained a brilliant victory over Abdur Rahman, who was called back to Africa by revolts of the Berbers and had to give up the struggle. ...After his victory, Charles took the offensive\".",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Similarly, William E. Watson, who wrote of the battle's importance in Frankish and world history in 1993, suggested that",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "\"Had Charles Martel suffered at Tours-Poitiers the fate of King Roderick at the Rio Barbate, it is doubtful that a \"do-nothing\" sovereign of the Merovingian realm could have later succeeded where his talented major domus had failed. Indeed, as Charles was the progenitor of the Carolingian line of Frankish rulers and grandfather of Charlemagne, one can even say with a degree of certainty that the subsequent history of the West would have proceeded along vastly different currents had 'Abd al-Rahman been victorious at Tours-Poitiers in 732.\"",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "And in 1993, the influential political scientist Samuel Huntington saw the battle of Tours as marking the end of the \"Arab and Moorish surge west and north\".",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Other recent historians, however, argue that the importance of the battle is dramatically overstated, both for European history in general and for Charles Martel's reign in particular. This view is typified by Alessandro Barbero, who in 2004 wrote,",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "\"Today, historians tend to play down the significance of the battle of Poitiers, pointing out that the purpose of the Arab force defeated by Charles Martel was not to conquer the Frankish kingdom, but simply to pillage the wealthy monastery of St-Martin of Tours\".",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Similarly, in 2002 Tomaž Mastnak wrote:",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "\"The continuators of Fredegar's chronicle, who probably wrote in the mid-eighth century, pictured the battle as just one of many military encounters between Christians and Saracens—moreover, as only one in a series of wars fought by Frankish princes for booty and territory... One of Fredegar's continuators presented the battle of Poitiers as what it really was: an episode in the struggle between Christian princes as the Carolingians strove to bring Aquitaine under their rule.\"",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "More recently, the memory of Charles Martel has been appropriated by far right and white nationalist groups, such as the 'Charles Martel Group' in France, and by the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019. The memory of Charles Martel is a topic of debate in contemporary French politics on both the right and the left.",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In the seventeenth century, a legend emerged that Charles Martel had formed the first regular order of knights in France. In 1620, Andre Favyn stated (without providing a source) that among the spoils Charles Martel's forces captured after the Battle of Tours were many genets (raised for their fur) and several of their pelts. Charles Martel gave these furs to leaders amongst his army, forming the first order of knighthood, the Order of the Genet. Favyn's claim was then repeated and elaborated in later works in English, for instance by Elias Ashmole in 1672, and James Coats in 1725.",
"title": "Reputation and historiography"
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] | Charles Martel was a Frankish political and military leader who, as Duke and Prince of the Franks and Mayor of the Palace, was the de facto ruler of the Franks from 718 until his death. He was a son of the Frankish statesman Pepin of Herstal and a noblewoman named Alpaida. Charles, also known as "The Hammer", successfully asserted his claims to power as successor to his father as the power behind the throne in Frankish politics. Continuing and building on his father's work, he restored centralized government in Francia and began the series of military campaigns that re-established the Franks as the undisputed masters of all Gaul. According to a near-contemporary source, the Liber Historiae Francorum, Charles was "a warrior who was uncommonly ... effective in battle". Charles Martel gained a very consequential victory against an Umayyad invasion of Aquitaine at the Battle of Tours, at a time when the Umayyad Caliphate controlled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Alongside his military endeavours, Charles has been traditionally credited with an influential role in the development of the Frankish system of feudalism. At the end of his reign, Charles divided Francia between his sons, Carloman and Pepin. The latter became the first king of the Carolingian dynasty. Pepin's son Charlemagne, grandson of Charles, extended the Frankish realms and became the first emperor in the West since the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. | 2001-10-11T20:12:18Z | 2023-12-23T22:57:13Z | [
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6,456 | Charles Edward Jones | Colonel Charles Edward ("Chuck") Jones (November 8, 1952 – September 11, 2001) was a United States Air Force officer, an aeronautical engineer, computer programmer, and an astronaut in the USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program. He was killed during the September 11 attacks, aboard American Airlines Flight 11.
Charles Edward Jones was born November 8, 1952, in Clinton, Indiana. He graduated from Wichita East High School in 1970, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Astronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1974, and received a Master of Science degree in Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1980. He entered the USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer program in 1982, and was scheduled to fly on mission STS-71-B in December 1986, but the mission was canceled after the Challenger Disaster in January 1986. He left the Manned Spaceflight Engineer program in 1987.
He later worked for Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., and was Systems Program Director for Intelligence and Information Systems, Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts. Jones later was the manager of space programs for BAE Systems.
Jones was killed at the age of 48 in the attacks of September 11, 2001, aboard American Airlines Flight 11. Jones was flying that day on a routine business trip for BAE Systems, and had been living as a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel in Bedford, Massachusetts, at the time of his death. He was survived by his wife Jeanette.
At the National 9/11 Memorial, Jones is memorialized at the North Pool, on Panel N-74. | [
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"text": "Colonel Charles Edward (\"Chuck\") Jones (November 8, 1952 – September 11, 2001) was a United States Air Force officer, an aeronautical engineer, computer programmer, and an astronaut in the USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program. He was killed during the September 11 attacks, aboard American Airlines Flight 11.",
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"text": "Charles Edward Jones was born November 8, 1952, in Clinton, Indiana. He graduated from Wichita East High School in 1970, earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Astronautical Engineering from the United States Air Force Academy in 1974, and received a Master of Science degree in Astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1980. He entered the USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer program in 1982, and was scheduled to fly on mission STS-71-B in December 1986, but the mission was canceled after the Challenger Disaster in January 1986. He left the Manned Spaceflight Engineer program in 1987.",
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"text": "Jones was killed at the age of 48 in the attacks of September 11, 2001, aboard American Airlines Flight 11. Jones was flying that day on a routine business trip for BAE Systems, and had been living as a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel in Bedford, Massachusetts, at the time of his death. He was survived by his wife Jeanette.",
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] | Colonel Charles Edward ("Chuck") Jones was a United States Air Force officer, an aeronautical engineer, computer programmer, and an astronaut in the USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program. He was killed during the September 11 attacks, aboard American Airlines Flight 11. | 2001-09-21T05:34:26Z | 2023-12-26T04:44:39Z | [
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6,458 | Ceramic | A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, and brick.
The earliest ceramics made by humans were pottery objects (pots, vessels, or vases) or figurines made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials like silica, hardened and sintered in fire. Later, ceramics were glazed and fired to create smooth, colored surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, amorphous ceramic coatings on top of the crystalline ceramic substrates. Ceramics now include domestic, industrial, and building products, as well as a wide range of materials developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering, such as semiconductors.
The word ceramic comes from the Ancient Greek word κεραμικός (keramikós), meaning "of or for pottery" (from κέραμος (kéramos) 'potter's clay, tile, pottery'). The earliest known mention of the root ceram- is the Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-me-we, workers of ceramic, written in Linear B syllabic script. The word ceramic can be used as an adjective to describe a material, product, or process, or it may be used as a noun, either singular or, more commonly, as the plural noun ceramics.
Ceramic material is an inorganic, metallic oxide, nitride, or carbide material. Some elements, such as carbon or silicon, may be considered ceramics. Ceramic materials are brittle, hard, strong in compression, and weak in shearing and tension. They withstand the chemical erosion that occurs in other materials subjected to acidic or caustic environments. Ceramics generally can withstand very high temperatures, ranging from 1,000 °C to 1,600 °C (1,800 °F to 3,000 °F).
The crystallinity of ceramic materials varies widely. Most often, fired ceramics are either vitrified or semi-vitrified, as is the case with earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Varying crystallinity and electron composition in the ionic and covalent bonds cause most ceramic materials to be good thermal and electrical insulators (researched in ceramic engineering). With such a large range of possible options for the composition/structure of a ceramic (nearly all of the elements, nearly all types of bonding, and all levels of crystallinity), the breadth of the subject is vast, and identifiable attributes (hardness, toughness, electrical conductivity) are difficult to specify for the group as a whole. General properties such as high melting temperature, high hardness, poor conductivity, high moduli of elasticity, chemical resistance, and low ductility are the norm, with known exceptions to each of these rules (piezoelectric ceramics, glass transition temperature, superconductive ceramics).
Composites such as fiberglass and carbon fiber, while containing ceramic materials, are not considered to be part of the ceramic family.
Highly oriented crystalline ceramic materials are not amenable to a great range of processing. Methods for dealing with them tend to fall into one of two categories: either making the ceramic in the desired shape by reaction in situ or "forming" powders into the desired shape and then sintering to form a solid body. Ceramic forming techniques include shaping by hand (sometimes including a rotation process called "throwing"), slip casting, tape casting (used for making very thin ceramic capacitors), injection molding, dry pressing, and other variations.
Many ceramics experts do not consider materials with an amorphous (noncrystalline) character (i.e., glass) to be ceramics, even though glassmaking involves several steps of the ceramic process and its mechanical properties are similar to those of ceramic materials. However, heat treatments can convert glass into a semi-crystalline material known as glass-ceramic.
Traditional ceramic raw materials include clay minerals such as kaolinite, whereas more recent materials include aluminium oxide, more commonly known as alumina. Modern ceramic materials, which are classified as advanced ceramics, include silicon carbide and tungsten carbide. Both are valued for their abrasion resistance and are therefore used in applications such as the wear plates of crushing equipment in mining operations. Advanced ceramics are also used in the medical, electrical, electronics, and armor industries.
Human beings appear to have been making their own ceramics for at least 26,000 years, subjecting clay and silica to intense heat to fuse and form ceramic materials. The earliest found so far were in southern central Europe and were sculpted figures, not dishes. The earliest known pottery was made by mixing animal products with clay and firing it at up to 800 °C (1,500 °F). While pottery fragments have been found up to 19,000 years old, it was not until about 10,000 years later that regular pottery became common. An early people that spread across much of Europe is named after its use of pottery: the Corded Ware culture. These early Indo-European peoples decorated their pottery by wrapping it with rope while it was still wet. When the ceramics were fired, the rope burned off but left a decorative pattern of complex grooves on the surface.
The invention of the wheel eventually led to the production of smoother, more even pottery using the wheel-forming (throwing) technique, like the pottery wheel. Early ceramics were porous, absorbing water easily. It became useful for more items with the discovery of glazing techniques, which involved coating pottery with silicon, bone ash, or other materials that could melt and reform into a glassy surface, making a vessel less pervious to water.
Ceramic artifacts have an important role in archaeology for understanding the culture, technology, and behavior of peoples of the past. They are among the most common artifacts to be found at an archaeological site, generally in the form of small fragments of broken pottery called sherds. The processing of collected sherds can be consistent with two main types of analysis: technical and traditional.
The traditional analysis involves sorting ceramic artifacts, sherds, and larger fragments into specific types based on style, composition, manufacturing, and morphology. By creating these typologies, it is possible to distinguish between different cultural styles, the purpose of the ceramic, and the technological state of the people, among other conclusions. Besides, by looking at stylistic changes in ceramics over time, it is possible to separate (seriate) the ceramics into distinct diagnostic groups (assemblages). A comparison of ceramic artifacts with known dated assemblages allows for a chronological assignment of these pieces.
The technical approach to ceramic analysis involves a finer examination of the composition of ceramic artifacts and sherds to determine the source of the material and, through this, the possible manufacturing site. Key criteria are the composition of the clay and the temper used in the manufacture of the article under study: the temper is a material added to the clay during the initial production stage and is used to aid the subsequent drying process. Types of temper include shell pieces, granite fragments, and ground sherd pieces called 'grog'. Temper is usually identified by microscopic examination of the tempered material. Clay identification is determined by a process of refiring the ceramic and assigning a color to it using Munsell Soil Color notation. By estimating both the clay and temper compositions and locating a region where both are known to occur, an assignment of the material source can be made. Based on the source assignment of the artifact, further investigations can be made into the site of manufacture.
The physical properties of any ceramic substance are a direct result of its crystalline structure and chemical composition. Solid-state chemistry reveals the fundamental connection between microstructure and properties, such as localized density variations, grain size distribution, type of porosity, and second-phase content, which can all be correlated with ceramic properties such as mechanical strength σ by the Hall-Petch equation, hardness, toughness, dielectric constant, and the optical properties exhibited by transparent materials.
Ceramography is the art and science of preparation, examination, and evaluation of ceramic microstructures. Evaluation and characterization of ceramic microstructures are often implemented on similar spatial scales to that used commonly in the emerging field of nanotechnology: from nanometers to tens of micrometers (µm). This is typically somewhere between the minimum wavelength of visible light and the resolution limit of the naked eye.
The microstructure includes most grains, secondary phases, grain boundaries, pores, micro-cracks, structural defects, and hardness micro indentions. Most bulk mechanical, optical, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties are significantly affected by the observed microstructure. The fabrication method and process conditions are generally indicated by the microstructure. The root cause of many ceramic failures is evident in the cleaved and polished microstructure. Physical properties which constitute the field of materials science and engineering include the following:
Mechanical properties are important in structural and building materials as well as textile fabrics. In modern materials science, fracture mechanics is an important tool in improving the mechanical performance of materials and components. It applies the physics of stress and strain, in particular the theories of elasticity and plasticity, to the microscopic crystallographic defects found in real materials in order to predict the macroscopic mechanical failure of bodies. Fractography is widely used with fracture mechanics to understand the causes of failures and also verify the theoretical failure predictions with real-life failures.
Ceramic materials are usually ionic or covalent bonded materials. A material held together by either type of bond will tend to fracture before any plastic deformation takes place, which results in poor toughness in these materials. Additionally, because these materials tend to be porous, the pores and other microscopic imperfections act as stress concentrators, decreasing the toughness further, and reducing the tensile strength. These combine to give catastrophic failures, as opposed to the more ductile failure modes of metals.
These materials do show plastic deformation. However, because of the rigid structure of crystalline material, there are very few available slip systems for dislocations to move, and so they deform very slowly.
To overcome the brittle behavior, ceramic material development has introduced the class of ceramic matrix composite materials, in which ceramic fibers are embedded and with specific coatings are forming fiber bridges across any crack. This mechanism substantially increases the fracture toughness of such ceramics. Ceramic disc brakes are an example of using a ceramic matrix composite material manufactured with a specific process.
If a ceramic is subjected to substantial mechanical loading, it can undergo a process called ice-templating, which allows some control of the microstructure of the ceramic product and therefore some control of the mechanical properties. Ceramic engineers use this technique to tune the mechanical properties to their desired application. Specifically, the strength is increased when this technique is employed. Ice templating allows the creation of macroscopic pores in a unidirectional arrangement. The applications of this oxide strengthening technique are important for solid oxide fuel cells and water filtration devices.
To process a sample through ice templating, an aqueous colloidal suspension is prepared to contain the dissolved ceramic powder evenly dispersed throughout the colloid, for example Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). The solution is then cooled from the bottom to the top on a platform that allows for unidirectional cooling. This forces ice crystals to grow in compliance with the unidirectional cooling, and these ice crystals force the dissolved YSZ particles to the solidification front of the solid-liquid interphase boundary, resulting in pure ice crystals lined up unidirectionally alongside concentrated pockets of colloidal particles. The sample is then heated and at the same the pressure is reduced enough to force the ice crystals to sublime and the YSZ pockets begin to anneal together to form macroscopically aligned ceramic microstructures. The sample is then further sintered to complete the evaporation of the residual water and the final consolidation of the ceramic microstructure.
During ice-templating, a few variables can be controlled to influence the pore size and morphology of the microstructure. These important variables are the initial solids loading of the colloid, the cooling rate, the sintering temperature and duration, and the use of certain additives which can influence the microstructural morphology during the process. A good understanding of these parameters is essential to understanding the relationships between processing, microstructure, and mechanical properties of anisotropically porous materials.
Some ceramics are semiconductors. Most of these are transition metal oxides that are II-VI semiconductors, such as zinc oxide. While there are prospects of mass-producing blue LEDs from zinc oxide, ceramicists are most interested in the electrical properties that show grain boundary effects. One of the most widely used of these is the varistor. These are devices that exhibit the property that resistance drops sharply at a certain threshold voltage. Once the voltage across the device reaches the threshold, there is a breakdown of the electrical structure in the vicinity of the grain boundaries, which results in its electrical resistance dropping from several megohms down to a few hundred ohms. The major advantage of these is that they can dissipate a lot of energy, and they self-reset; after the voltage across the device drops below the threshold, its resistance returns to being high. This makes them ideal for surge-protection applications; as there is control over the threshold voltage and energy tolerance, they find use in all sorts of applications. The best demonstration of their ability can be found in electrical substations, where they are employed to protect the infrastructure from lightning strikes. They have rapid response, are low maintenance, and do not appreciably degrade from use, making them virtually ideal devices for this application. Semiconducting ceramics are also employed as gas sensors. When various gases are passed over a polycrystalline ceramic, its electrical resistance changes. With tuning to the possible gas mixtures, very inexpensive devices can be produced.
Under some conditions, such as extremely low temperatures, some ceramics exhibit high-temperature superconductivity. The reason for this is not understood, but there are two major families of superconducting ceramics.
Piezoelectricity, a link between electrical and mechanical response, is exhibited by a large number of ceramic materials, including the quartz used to measure time in watches and other electronics. Such devices use both properties of piezoelectrics, using electricity to produce a mechanical motion (powering the device) and then using this mechanical motion to produce electricity (generating a signal). The unit of time measured is the natural interval required for electricity to be converted into mechanical energy and back again.
The piezoelectric effect is generally stronger in materials that also exhibit pyroelectricity, and all pyroelectric materials are also piezoelectric. These materials can be used to inter-convert between thermal, mechanical, or electrical energy; for instance, after synthesis in a furnace, a pyroelectric crystal allowed to cool under no applied stress generally builds up a static charge of thousands of volts. Such materials are used in motion sensors, where the tiny rise in temperature from a warm body entering the room is enough to produce a measurable voltage in the crystal.
In turn, pyroelectricity is seen most strongly in materials that also display the ferroelectric effect, in which a stable electric dipole can be oriented or reversed by applying an electrostatic field. Pyroelectricity is also a necessary consequence of ferroelectricity. This can be used to store information in ferroelectric capacitors, elements of ferroelectric RAM.
The most common such materials are lead zirconate titanate and barium titanate. Aside from the uses mentioned above, their strong piezoelectric response is exploited in the design of high-frequency loudspeakers, transducers for sonar, and actuators for atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopes.
Temperature increases can cause grain boundaries to suddenly become insulating in some semiconducting ceramic materials, mostly mixtures of heavy metal titanates. The critical transition temperature can be adjusted over a wide range by variations in chemistry. In such materials, current will pass through the material until joule heating brings it to the transition temperature, at which point the circuit will be broken and current flow will cease. Such ceramics are used as self-controlled heating elements in, for example, the rear-window defrost circuits of automobiles.
At the transition temperature, the material's dielectric response becomes theoretically infinite. While a lack of temperature control would rule out any practical use of the material near its critical temperature, the dielectric effect remains exceptionally strong even at much higher temperatures. Titanates with critical temperatures far below room temperature have become synonymous with "ceramic" in the context of ceramic capacitors for just this reason.
Optically transparent materials focus on the response of a material to incoming light waves of a range of wavelengths. Frequency selective optical filters can be utilized to alter or enhance the brightness and contrast of a digital image. Guided lightwave transmission via frequency selective waveguides involves the emerging field of fiber optics and the ability of certain glassy compositions as a transmission medium for a range of frequencies simultaneously (multi-mode optical fiber) with little or no interference between competing wavelengths or frequencies. This resonant mode of energy and data transmission via electromagnetic (light) wave propagation, though low powered, is virtually lossless. Optical waveguides are used as components in Integrated optical circuits (e.g. light-emitting diodes, LEDs) or as the transmission medium in local and long haul optical communication systems. Also of value to the emerging materials scientist is the sensitivity of materials to radiation in the thermal infrared (IR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This heat-seeking ability is responsible for such diverse optical phenomena as night-vision and IR luminescence.
Thus, there is an increasing need in the military sector for high-strength, robust materials which have the capability to transmit light (electromagnetic waves) in the visible (0.4 – 0.7 micrometers) and mid-infrared (1 – 5 micrometers) regions of the spectrum. These materials are needed for applications requiring transparent armor, including next-generation high-speed missiles and pods, as well as protection against improvised explosive devices (IED).
In the 1960s, scientists at General Electric (GE) discovered that under the right manufacturing conditions, some ceramics, especially aluminium oxide (alumina), could be made translucent. These translucent materials were transparent enough to be used for containing the electrical plasma generated in high-pressure sodium street lamps. During the past two decades, additional types of transparent ceramics have been developed for applications such as nose cones for heat-seeking missiles, windows for fighter aircraft, and scintillation counters for computed tomography scanners. Other ceramic materials, generally requiring greater purity in their make-up than those above, include forms of several chemical compounds, including:
For convenience, ceramic products are usually divided into four main types; these are shown below with some examples:
Frequently, the raw materials of modern ceramics do not include clays. Those that do have been classified as:
Ceramics can also be classified into three distinct material categories:
Each one of these classes can be developed into unique material properties. | [
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"title": ""
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"text": "The earliest ceramics made by humans were pottery objects (pots, vessels, or vases) or figurines made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials like silica, hardened and sintered in fire. Later, ceramics were glazed and fired to create smooth, colored surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, amorphous ceramic coatings on top of the crystalline ceramic substrates. Ceramics now include domestic, industrial, and building products, as well as a wide range of materials developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering, such as semiconductors.",
"title": ""
},
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"text": "The word ceramic comes from the Ancient Greek word κεραμικός (keramikós), meaning \"of or for pottery\" (from κέραμος (kéramos) 'potter's clay, tile, pottery'). The earliest known mention of the root ceram- is the Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-me-we, workers of ceramic, written in Linear B syllabic script. The word ceramic can be used as an adjective to describe a material, product, or process, or it may be used as a noun, either singular or, more commonly, as the plural noun ceramics.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Ceramic material is an inorganic, metallic oxide, nitride, or carbide material. Some elements, such as carbon or silicon, may be considered ceramics. Ceramic materials are brittle, hard, strong in compression, and weak in shearing and tension. They withstand the chemical erosion that occurs in other materials subjected to acidic or caustic environments. Ceramics generally can withstand very high temperatures, ranging from 1,000 °C to 1,600 °C (1,800 °F to 3,000 °F).",
"title": "Materials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The crystallinity of ceramic materials varies widely. Most often, fired ceramics are either vitrified or semi-vitrified, as is the case with earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain. Varying crystallinity and electron composition in the ionic and covalent bonds cause most ceramic materials to be good thermal and electrical insulators (researched in ceramic engineering). With such a large range of possible options for the composition/structure of a ceramic (nearly all of the elements, nearly all types of bonding, and all levels of crystallinity), the breadth of the subject is vast, and identifiable attributes (hardness, toughness, electrical conductivity) are difficult to specify for the group as a whole. General properties such as high melting temperature, high hardness, poor conductivity, high moduli of elasticity, chemical resistance, and low ductility are the norm, with known exceptions to each of these rules (piezoelectric ceramics, glass transition temperature, superconductive ceramics).",
"title": "Materials"
},
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"text": "Composites such as fiberglass and carbon fiber, while containing ceramic materials, are not considered to be part of the ceramic family.",
"title": "Materials"
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"text": "Highly oriented crystalline ceramic materials are not amenable to a great range of processing. Methods for dealing with them tend to fall into one of two categories: either making the ceramic in the desired shape by reaction in situ or \"forming\" powders into the desired shape and then sintering to form a solid body. Ceramic forming techniques include shaping by hand (sometimes including a rotation process called \"throwing\"), slip casting, tape casting (used for making very thin ceramic capacitors), injection molding, dry pressing, and other variations.",
"title": "Materials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Many ceramics experts do not consider materials with an amorphous (noncrystalline) character (i.e., glass) to be ceramics, even though glassmaking involves several steps of the ceramic process and its mechanical properties are similar to those of ceramic materials. However, heat treatments can convert glass into a semi-crystalline material known as glass-ceramic.",
"title": "Materials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Traditional ceramic raw materials include clay minerals such as kaolinite, whereas more recent materials include aluminium oxide, more commonly known as alumina. Modern ceramic materials, which are classified as advanced ceramics, include silicon carbide and tungsten carbide. Both are valued for their abrasion resistance and are therefore used in applications such as the wear plates of crushing equipment in mining operations. Advanced ceramics are also used in the medical, electrical, electronics, and armor industries.",
"title": "Materials"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Human beings appear to have been making their own ceramics for at least 26,000 years, subjecting clay and silica to intense heat to fuse and form ceramic materials. The earliest found so far were in southern central Europe and were sculpted figures, not dishes. The earliest known pottery was made by mixing animal products with clay and firing it at up to 800 °C (1,500 °F). While pottery fragments have been found up to 19,000 years old, it was not until about 10,000 years later that regular pottery became common. An early people that spread across much of Europe is named after its use of pottery: the Corded Ware culture. These early Indo-European peoples decorated their pottery by wrapping it with rope while it was still wet. When the ceramics were fired, the rope burned off but left a decorative pattern of complex grooves on the surface.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The invention of the wheel eventually led to the production of smoother, more even pottery using the wheel-forming (throwing) technique, like the pottery wheel. Early ceramics were porous, absorbing water easily. It became useful for more items with the discovery of glazing techniques, which involved coating pottery with silicon, bone ash, or other materials that could melt and reform into a glassy surface, making a vessel less pervious to water.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Ceramic artifacts have an important role in archaeology for understanding the culture, technology, and behavior of peoples of the past. They are among the most common artifacts to be found at an archaeological site, generally in the form of small fragments of broken pottery called sherds. The processing of collected sherds can be consistent with two main types of analysis: technical and traditional.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The traditional analysis involves sorting ceramic artifacts, sherds, and larger fragments into specific types based on style, composition, manufacturing, and morphology. By creating these typologies, it is possible to distinguish between different cultural styles, the purpose of the ceramic, and the technological state of the people, among other conclusions. Besides, by looking at stylistic changes in ceramics over time, it is possible to separate (seriate) the ceramics into distinct diagnostic groups (assemblages). A comparison of ceramic artifacts with known dated assemblages allows for a chronological assignment of these pieces.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The technical approach to ceramic analysis involves a finer examination of the composition of ceramic artifacts and sherds to determine the source of the material and, through this, the possible manufacturing site. Key criteria are the composition of the clay and the temper used in the manufacture of the article under study: the temper is a material added to the clay during the initial production stage and is used to aid the subsequent drying process. Types of temper include shell pieces, granite fragments, and ground sherd pieces called 'grog'. Temper is usually identified by microscopic examination of the tempered material. Clay identification is determined by a process of refiring the ceramic and assigning a color to it using Munsell Soil Color notation. By estimating both the clay and temper compositions and locating a region where both are known to occur, an assignment of the material source can be made. Based on the source assignment of the artifact, further investigations can be made into the site of manufacture.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The physical properties of any ceramic substance are a direct result of its crystalline structure and chemical composition. Solid-state chemistry reveals the fundamental connection between microstructure and properties, such as localized density variations, grain size distribution, type of porosity, and second-phase content, which can all be correlated with ceramic properties such as mechanical strength σ by the Hall-Petch equation, hardness, toughness, dielectric constant, and the optical properties exhibited by transparent materials.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Ceramography is the art and science of preparation, examination, and evaluation of ceramic microstructures. Evaluation and characterization of ceramic microstructures are often implemented on similar spatial scales to that used commonly in the emerging field of nanotechnology: from nanometers to tens of micrometers (µm). This is typically somewhere between the minimum wavelength of visible light and the resolution limit of the naked eye.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The microstructure includes most grains, secondary phases, grain boundaries, pores, micro-cracks, structural defects, and hardness micro indentions. Most bulk mechanical, optical, thermal, electrical, and magnetic properties are significantly affected by the observed microstructure. The fabrication method and process conditions are generally indicated by the microstructure. The root cause of many ceramic failures is evident in the cleaved and polished microstructure. Physical properties which constitute the field of materials science and engineering include the following:",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Mechanical properties are important in structural and building materials as well as textile fabrics. In modern materials science, fracture mechanics is an important tool in improving the mechanical performance of materials and components. It applies the physics of stress and strain, in particular the theories of elasticity and plasticity, to the microscopic crystallographic defects found in real materials in order to predict the macroscopic mechanical failure of bodies. Fractography is widely used with fracture mechanics to understand the causes of failures and also verify the theoretical failure predictions with real-life failures.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Ceramic materials are usually ionic or covalent bonded materials. A material held together by either type of bond will tend to fracture before any plastic deformation takes place, which results in poor toughness in these materials. Additionally, because these materials tend to be porous, the pores and other microscopic imperfections act as stress concentrators, decreasing the toughness further, and reducing the tensile strength. These combine to give catastrophic failures, as opposed to the more ductile failure modes of metals.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "These materials do show plastic deformation. However, because of the rigid structure of crystalline material, there are very few available slip systems for dislocations to move, and so they deform very slowly.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "To overcome the brittle behavior, ceramic material development has introduced the class of ceramic matrix composite materials, in which ceramic fibers are embedded and with specific coatings are forming fiber bridges across any crack. This mechanism substantially increases the fracture toughness of such ceramics. Ceramic disc brakes are an example of using a ceramic matrix composite material manufactured with a specific process.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "If a ceramic is subjected to substantial mechanical loading, it can undergo a process called ice-templating, which allows some control of the microstructure of the ceramic product and therefore some control of the mechanical properties. Ceramic engineers use this technique to tune the mechanical properties to their desired application. Specifically, the strength is increased when this technique is employed. Ice templating allows the creation of macroscopic pores in a unidirectional arrangement. The applications of this oxide strengthening technique are important for solid oxide fuel cells and water filtration devices.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "To process a sample through ice templating, an aqueous colloidal suspension is prepared to contain the dissolved ceramic powder evenly dispersed throughout the colloid, for example Yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). The solution is then cooled from the bottom to the top on a platform that allows for unidirectional cooling. This forces ice crystals to grow in compliance with the unidirectional cooling, and these ice crystals force the dissolved YSZ particles to the solidification front of the solid-liquid interphase boundary, resulting in pure ice crystals lined up unidirectionally alongside concentrated pockets of colloidal particles. The sample is then heated and at the same the pressure is reduced enough to force the ice crystals to sublime and the YSZ pockets begin to anneal together to form macroscopically aligned ceramic microstructures. The sample is then further sintered to complete the evaporation of the residual water and the final consolidation of the ceramic microstructure.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "During ice-templating, a few variables can be controlled to influence the pore size and morphology of the microstructure. These important variables are the initial solids loading of the colloid, the cooling rate, the sintering temperature and duration, and the use of certain additives which can influence the microstructural morphology during the process. A good understanding of these parameters is essential to understanding the relationships between processing, microstructure, and mechanical properties of anisotropically porous materials.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Some ceramics are semiconductors. Most of these are transition metal oxides that are II-VI semiconductors, such as zinc oxide. While there are prospects of mass-producing blue LEDs from zinc oxide, ceramicists are most interested in the electrical properties that show grain boundary effects. One of the most widely used of these is the varistor. These are devices that exhibit the property that resistance drops sharply at a certain threshold voltage. Once the voltage across the device reaches the threshold, there is a breakdown of the electrical structure in the vicinity of the grain boundaries, which results in its electrical resistance dropping from several megohms down to a few hundred ohms. The major advantage of these is that they can dissipate a lot of energy, and they self-reset; after the voltage across the device drops below the threshold, its resistance returns to being high. This makes them ideal for surge-protection applications; as there is control over the threshold voltage and energy tolerance, they find use in all sorts of applications. The best demonstration of their ability can be found in electrical substations, where they are employed to protect the infrastructure from lightning strikes. They have rapid response, are low maintenance, and do not appreciably degrade from use, making them virtually ideal devices for this application. Semiconducting ceramics are also employed as gas sensors. When various gases are passed over a polycrystalline ceramic, its electrical resistance changes. With tuning to the possible gas mixtures, very inexpensive devices can be produced.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Under some conditions, such as extremely low temperatures, some ceramics exhibit high-temperature superconductivity. The reason for this is not understood, but there are two major families of superconducting ceramics.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Piezoelectricity, a link between electrical and mechanical response, is exhibited by a large number of ceramic materials, including the quartz used to measure time in watches and other electronics. Such devices use both properties of piezoelectrics, using electricity to produce a mechanical motion (powering the device) and then using this mechanical motion to produce electricity (generating a signal). The unit of time measured is the natural interval required for electricity to be converted into mechanical energy and back again.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The piezoelectric effect is generally stronger in materials that also exhibit pyroelectricity, and all pyroelectric materials are also piezoelectric. These materials can be used to inter-convert between thermal, mechanical, or electrical energy; for instance, after synthesis in a furnace, a pyroelectric crystal allowed to cool under no applied stress generally builds up a static charge of thousands of volts. Such materials are used in motion sensors, where the tiny rise in temperature from a warm body entering the room is enough to produce a measurable voltage in the crystal.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In turn, pyroelectricity is seen most strongly in materials that also display the ferroelectric effect, in which a stable electric dipole can be oriented or reversed by applying an electrostatic field. Pyroelectricity is also a necessary consequence of ferroelectricity. This can be used to store information in ferroelectric capacitors, elements of ferroelectric RAM.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The most common such materials are lead zirconate titanate and barium titanate. Aside from the uses mentioned above, their strong piezoelectric response is exploited in the design of high-frequency loudspeakers, transducers for sonar, and actuators for atomic force and scanning tunneling microscopes.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Temperature increases can cause grain boundaries to suddenly become insulating in some semiconducting ceramic materials, mostly mixtures of heavy metal titanates. The critical transition temperature can be adjusted over a wide range by variations in chemistry. In such materials, current will pass through the material until joule heating brings it to the transition temperature, at which point the circuit will be broken and current flow will cease. Such ceramics are used as self-controlled heating elements in, for example, the rear-window defrost circuits of automobiles.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "At the transition temperature, the material's dielectric response becomes theoretically infinite. While a lack of temperature control would rule out any practical use of the material near its critical temperature, the dielectric effect remains exceptionally strong even at much higher temperatures. Titanates with critical temperatures far below room temperature have become synonymous with \"ceramic\" in the context of ceramic capacitors for just this reason.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Optically transparent materials focus on the response of a material to incoming light waves of a range of wavelengths. Frequency selective optical filters can be utilized to alter or enhance the brightness and contrast of a digital image. Guided lightwave transmission via frequency selective waveguides involves the emerging field of fiber optics and the ability of certain glassy compositions as a transmission medium for a range of frequencies simultaneously (multi-mode optical fiber) with little or no interference between competing wavelengths or frequencies. This resonant mode of energy and data transmission via electromagnetic (light) wave propagation, though low powered, is virtually lossless. Optical waveguides are used as components in Integrated optical circuits (e.g. light-emitting diodes, LEDs) or as the transmission medium in local and long haul optical communication systems. Also of value to the emerging materials scientist is the sensitivity of materials to radiation in the thermal infrared (IR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This heat-seeking ability is responsible for such diverse optical phenomena as night-vision and IR luminescence.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Thus, there is an increasing need in the military sector for high-strength, robust materials which have the capability to transmit light (electromagnetic waves) in the visible (0.4 – 0.7 micrometers) and mid-infrared (1 – 5 micrometers) regions of the spectrum. These materials are needed for applications requiring transparent armor, including next-generation high-speed missiles and pods, as well as protection against improvised explosive devices (IED).",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In the 1960s, scientists at General Electric (GE) discovered that under the right manufacturing conditions, some ceramics, especially aluminium oxide (alumina), could be made translucent. These translucent materials were transparent enough to be used for containing the electrical plasma generated in high-pressure sodium street lamps. During the past two decades, additional types of transparent ceramics have been developed for applications such as nose cones for heat-seeking missiles, windows for fighter aircraft, and scintillation counters for computed tomography scanners. Other ceramic materials, generally requiring greater purity in their make-up than those above, include forms of several chemical compounds, including:",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "For convenience, ceramic products are usually divided into four main types; these are shown below with some examples:",
"title": "Products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Frequently, the raw materials of modern ceramics do not include clays. Those that do have been classified as:",
"title": "Products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Ceramics can also be classified into three distinct material categories:",
"title": "Products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Each one of these classes can be developed into unique material properties.",
"title": "Products"
}
] | A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, and brick. The earliest ceramics made by humans were pottery objects or figurines made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials like silica, hardened and sintered in fire. Later, ceramics were glazed and fired to create smooth, colored surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, amorphous ceramic coatings on top of the crystalline ceramic substrates. Ceramics now include domestic, industrial, and building products, as well as a wide range of materials developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering, such as semiconductors. The word ceramic comes from the Ancient Greek word κεραμικός (keramikós), meaning "of or for pottery". The earliest known mention of the root ceram- is the Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-me-we, workers of ceramic, written in Linear B syllabic script. The word ceramic can be used as an adjective to describe a material, product, or process, or it may be used as a noun, either singular or, more commonly, as the plural noun ceramics. | 2001-09-21T23:05:23Z | 2023-12-20T05:00:15Z | [
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6,459 | Wuxing (Chinese philosophy) | Wuxing (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng), usually translated as Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including cosmic cycles, the interactions between internal organs, the succession of political regimes, and the properties of herbal medicines.
The agents are Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. The wuxing system has been in use since it was formulated in the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty. It appears in many seemingly disparate fields of early Chinese thought, including music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.
Wuxing originally referred to the five major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Venus), which were conceived as creating five forces of earthly life. This is why the word is composed of Chinese characters meaning "five" (五; wǔ) and "moving" (行; xíng). "Moving" is shorthand for "planets", since the word for planets in Chinese literally translates as "moving stars" (行星; xíngxīng). Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BC) also connect the wuxing to the wude (五德; wǔdé), the Five Virtues and Five Emotions. Scholars believe that various predecessors to the concept of wuxing were merged into one system with many interpretations during the Han dynasty.
Wuxing was first translated into English as "the Five Elements", drawing deliberate parallels with the Western idea of the four elements. This translation is still in common use among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, such as in the name of Five Element acupuncture. However, this analogy is misleading. The four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity, whereas wuxing are "primarily concerned with process, change, and quality". For example, the wuxing element "Wood" is more accurately thought of as the "vital essence" of trees rather than the physical substance wood. This led sinologist Nathan Sivin to propose the alternative translation "five phases" in 1987. But "phase" also fails to capture the full meaning of wuxing. In some contexts, the wuxing are indeed associated with physical substances. Historian of Chinese medicine Manfred Porkert proposed the (somewhat unwieldy) term "Evolutive Phase". Perhaps the most widely accepted translation among modern scholars is "the five agents", proposed by Marc Kalinowski.
In traditional doctrine, the five phases are connected in two cycles of interactions: a generating or creation (生 shēng) cycle, also known as "mother-son"; and an overcoming or destructive (克 kè) cycle, also known as "grandfather-grandson" (see diagram). Each of the two cycles can be analyzed going forward or reversed. There is also an "overacting" or excessive version of the destructive cycle.
The generating cycle (相生 xiāngshēng) is:
The reverse generating cycle (相洩/相泄 xiāngxiè) is:
The destructive cycle (相克 xiāngkè) is:
The excessive destructive cycle (相乘 xiāngchéng) is:
A reverse or deficient destructive cycle (相侮 xiāngwǔ or 相耗 xiānghào) is:
In Ziwei divination, neiyin (纳音) further classifies the Five Elements into 60 ming (命), or life orders, based on the ganzhi. Similar to the astrology zodiac, the ming is used by fortune-tellers to analyse individual personality and destiny.
The wuxing schema is applied to explain phenomena in various fields.
The five phases are around 73 days each and are usually used to describe the transformations of nature rather than their formative states.
The art of feng shui (Chinese geomancy) is based on wuxing, with the structure of the cosmos mirroring the five phases, as well as the eight trigrams. Each phase has a complex network of associations with different aspects of nature (see table): colors, seasons and shapes all interact according to the cycles.
An interaction or energy flow can be expansive, destructive, or exhaustive, depending on the cycle to which it belongs. By understanding these energy flows, a feng shui practitioner attempts to rearrange energy to benefit the client.
According to the Warring States period political philosopher Zou Yan (c. 305–240 BCE), each of the five elements possesses a personified virtue (德; dé), which indicates the foreordained destiny (運; yùn) of a dynasty; hence the cyclic succession of the elements also indicates dynastic transitions. Zou Yan claims that the Mandate of Heaven sanctions the legitimacy of a dynasty by sending self-manifesting auspicious signs in the ritual color (yellow, blue, white, red, and black) that matches the element of the new dynasty (Earth, Wood, Metal, Fire, and Water). From the Qin dynasty onward, most Chinese dynasties invoked the theory of the Five Elements to legitimize their reign.
The interdependence of zangfu networks in the body was said to be a circle of five things, and so mapped by the Chinese doctors onto the five phases.
In order to explain the integrity and complexity of the human body, Chinese medical scientists and physicians use the Five Elements theory to classify the human body's endogenous influences on organs, physiological activities, pathological reactions, and environmental or exogenous influences. This diagnostic capacity is extensively used in traditional five phase acupuncture today, as opposed to the modern eight principles based Traditional Chinese medicine. Furthermore in combination the two systems are the study of postnatal and prenatal influencing on genetics, psychology and sociology.
The Yueling chapter (月令; Yuèlìng) of the Liji (禮記; Lǐjì) and the Huainanzi (淮南子; Huáinánzǐ) make the following correlations:
Tai chi uses the five elements to designate different directions, positions or footwork patterns: forward, backward, left, right and centre, or three steps forward (attack) and two steps back (retreat).
The Five Steps (五步; wǔ bù):
The martial art of xingyiquan uses the five elements metaphorically to represent five different states of combat.
Wuxing heqidao, Gogyo Aikido (五行合气道) is a life art with roots in Confucian, Taoists and Buddhist theory. It centers around applied peace and health studies rather than defence or physical action. It emphasizes the unification of mind, body and environment using the physiological theory of yin, yang and five-element Traditional Chinese medicine. Its movements, exercises, and teachings cultivate, direct, and harmonise the qi.
The Japanese term is gogyo (Japanese:五行, romanized: gogyō). During the 5th and 6th centuries (Kofun period), Japan adopted various philosophical disciplines such as Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism through monks and physicians from China. In particular, wuxing was adapted into gogyo. These theories have been extensively practiced in Japanese acupuncture and traditional Kampo medicine. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Wuxing (Chinese: 五行; pinyin: wǔxíng), usually translated as Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including cosmic cycles, the interactions between internal organs, the succession of political regimes, and the properties of herbal medicines.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The agents are Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. The wuxing system has been in use since it was formulated in the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty. It appears in many seemingly disparate fields of early Chinese thought, including music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Wuxing originally referred to the five major planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Mars, Venus), which were conceived as creating five forces of earthly life. This is why the word is composed of Chinese characters meaning \"five\" (五; wǔ) and \"moving\" (行; xíng). \"Moving\" is shorthand for \"planets\", since the word for planets in Chinese literally translates as \"moving stars\" (行星; xíngxīng). Some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts (before 168 BC) also connect the wuxing to the wude (五德; wǔdé), the Five Virtues and Five Emotions. Scholars believe that various predecessors to the concept of wuxing were merged into one system with many interpretations during the Han dynasty.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Wuxing was first translated into English as \"the Five Elements\", drawing deliberate parallels with the Western idea of the four elements. This translation is still in common use among practitioners of Traditional Chinese medicine, such as in the name of Five Element acupuncture. However, this analogy is misleading. The four elements are concerned with form, substance and quantity, whereas wuxing are \"primarily concerned with process, change, and quality\". For example, the wuxing element \"Wood\" is more accurately thought of as the \"vital essence\" of trees rather than the physical substance wood. This led sinologist Nathan Sivin to propose the alternative translation \"five phases\" in 1987. But \"phase\" also fails to capture the full meaning of wuxing. In some contexts, the wuxing are indeed associated with physical substances. Historian of Chinese medicine Manfred Porkert proposed the (somewhat unwieldy) term \"Evolutive Phase\". Perhaps the most widely accepted translation among modern scholars is \"the five agents\", proposed by Marc Kalinowski.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In traditional doctrine, the five phases are connected in two cycles of interactions: a generating or creation (生 shēng) cycle, also known as \"mother-son\"; and an overcoming or destructive (克 kè) cycle, also known as \"grandfather-grandson\" (see diagram). Each of the two cycles can be analyzed going forward or reversed. There is also an \"overacting\" or excessive version of the destructive cycle.",
"title": "Cycles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The generating cycle (相生 xiāngshēng) is:",
"title": "Cycles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The reverse generating cycle (相洩/相泄 xiāngxiè) is:",
"title": "Cycles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The destructive cycle (相克 xiāngkè) is:",
"title": "Cycles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The excessive destructive cycle (相乘 xiāngchéng) is:",
"title": "Cycles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A reverse or deficient destructive cycle (相侮 xiāngwǔ or 相耗 xiānghào) is:",
"title": "Cycles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In Ziwei divination, neiyin (纳音) further classifies the Five Elements into 60 ming (命), or life orders, based on the ganzhi. Similar to the astrology zodiac, the ming is used by fortune-tellers to analyse individual personality and destiny.",
"title": "Celestial stem"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The wuxing schema is applied to explain phenomena in various fields.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The five phases are around 73 days each and are usually used to describe the transformations of nature rather than their formative states.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The art of feng shui (Chinese geomancy) is based on wuxing, with the structure of the cosmos mirroring the five phases, as well as the eight trigrams. Each phase has a complex network of associations with different aspects of nature (see table): colors, seasons and shapes all interact according to the cycles.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "An interaction or energy flow can be expansive, destructive, or exhaustive, depending on the cycle to which it belongs. By understanding these energy flows, a feng shui practitioner attempts to rearrange energy to benefit the client.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "According to the Warring States period political philosopher Zou Yan (c. 305–240 BCE), each of the five elements possesses a personified virtue (德; dé), which indicates the foreordained destiny (運; yùn) of a dynasty; hence the cyclic succession of the elements also indicates dynastic transitions. Zou Yan claims that the Mandate of Heaven sanctions the legitimacy of a dynasty by sending self-manifesting auspicious signs in the ritual color (yellow, blue, white, red, and black) that matches the element of the new dynasty (Earth, Wood, Metal, Fire, and Water). From the Qin dynasty onward, most Chinese dynasties invoked the theory of the Five Elements to legitimize their reign.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The interdependence of zangfu networks in the body was said to be a circle of five things, and so mapped by the Chinese doctors onto the five phases.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In order to explain the integrity and complexity of the human body, Chinese medical scientists and physicians use the Five Elements theory to classify the human body's endogenous influences on organs, physiological activities, pathological reactions, and environmental or exogenous influences. This diagnostic capacity is extensively used in traditional five phase acupuncture today, as opposed to the modern eight principles based Traditional Chinese medicine. Furthermore in combination the two systems are the study of postnatal and prenatal influencing on genetics, psychology and sociology.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Yueling chapter (月令; Yuèlìng) of the Liji (禮記; Lǐjì) and the Huainanzi (淮南子; Huáinánzǐ) make the following correlations:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Tai chi uses the five elements to designate different directions, positions or footwork patterns: forward, backward, left, right and centre, or three steps forward (attack) and two steps back (retreat).",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Five Steps (五步; wǔ bù):",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The martial art of xingyiquan uses the five elements metaphorically to represent five different states of combat.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Wuxing heqidao, Gogyo Aikido (五行合气道) is a life art with roots in Confucian, Taoists and Buddhist theory. It centers around applied peace and health studies rather than defence or physical action. It emphasizes the unification of mind, body and environment using the physiological theory of yin, yang and five-element Traditional Chinese medicine. Its movements, exercises, and teachings cultivate, direct, and harmonise the qi.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Japanese term is gogyo (Japanese:五行, romanized: gogyō). During the 5th and 6th centuries (Kofun period), Japan adopted various philosophical disciplines such as Taoism, Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism through monks and physicians from China. In particular, wuxing was adapted into gogyo. These theories have been extensively practiced in Japanese acupuncture and traditional Kampo medicine.",
"title": "Gogyo"
}
] | Wuxing, usually translated as Five Phases or Five Agents, is a fivefold conceptual scheme used in many traditional Chinese fields of study to explain a wide array of phenomena, including cosmic cycles, the interactions between internal organs, the succession of political regimes, and the properties of herbal medicines. The agents are Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth. The wuxing system has been in use since it was formulated in the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty. It appears in many seemingly disparate fields of early Chinese thought, including music, feng shui, alchemy, astrology, martial arts, military strategy, I Ching divination, and traditional medicine, serving as a metaphysics based on cosmic analogy. | 2001-09-21T13:26:06Z | 2023-12-21T21:34:57Z | [
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6,462 | Church of Christ, Scientist | The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy, author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and founder of Christian Science. The church was founded "to commemorate the word and works of Christ Jesus" and "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing".
In the early decades of the 20th century, Christian Science churches were founded in communities around the world, though in the last several decades of that century, there was a marked decline in membership, except in Africa, where there has been growth. Headquartered in Boston, the church does not officially report membership, and estimates as to worldwide membership range from under 100,000 to about 400,000.
The church was incorporated by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, following a claimed personal healing in 1866, which she said resulted from reading the Bible. The Bible and Eddy's textbook on Christian healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, are together the church's key doctrinal sources and have been ordained as the church's "dual impersonal pastor".
The First Church of Christ, Scientist publishes the weekly newspaper The Christian Science Monitor in print and online.
Christian Scientists believe that prayer is effective for healing diseases. The Church has collected over 50,000 testimonies of incidents that it considers healing through Christian Science treatment alone. While most of these testimonies represent ailments neither diagnosed nor treated by medical professionals, the Church requires three other people to vouch for any testimony published in any of its official organs, including the Christian Science Journal, Christian Science Sentinel, and Herald of Christian Science; verifiers say that they witnessed the healing or know the testifier well enough to vouch for them.
Christian Scientists may take an intensive two-week "Primary" class from an authorized Christian Science teacher. Those who wish to become "Journal-listed" (accredited) practitioners, devoting themselves full-time to the practice of healing, must first have Primary class instruction. When they have what the church regards as a record of healing, they may submit their names for publication in the directory of practitioners and teachers in the Christian Science Journal. A practitioner who has been listed for at least three years may apply for "Normal" class instruction, given once every three years. Those who receive a certificate are authorized to teach. Both Primary and Normal classes are based on the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. The Primary class focuses on the chapter "Recapitulation" in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. This chapter uses the Socratic method of teaching and contains the "Scientific Statement of Being". The "Normal" class focuses on the platform of Christian Science, contained on pages 330-340 of Science and Health.
The First Church of Christ, Scientist is the legal title of The Mother Church and administrative headquarters of the Christian Science Church. The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity is housed in an 11-story structure originally built for The Christian Science Publishing Society.
An international newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, founded by Eddy in 1908 and winner of seven Pulitzer prizes, is published by the church through the Christian Science Publishing Society.
The Christian Science Board of Directors is a five-person executive entity created by Mary Baker Eddy to conduct the business of the Christian Science Church under the terms defined in the by-laws of the Church Manual. Its functions and restrictions are defined by the Manual.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, church executives undertook a controversial and ambitious foray into electronic broadcast media. The first significant effort was to create a weekly half-hour syndicated television program, The Christian Science Monitor Reports. "Monitor Reports" was anchored in its first season by newspaper veteran Rob Nelson. He was replaced in the second by the Christian Science Monitor's former Moscow correspondent, David Willis.
In October 1991, after a series of conflicts over the boundaries between Christian Science teachings and his journalistic independence, John Hart resigned.
The hundreds of millions lost on broadcasting brought the church to the brink of bankruptcy. However, with the 1991 publication of The Destiny of The Mother Church by the late Bliss Knapp, the church secured a $90 million bequest from the Knapp trust. The trust dictated that the book be published as "Authorized Literature", with neither modification nor comment. Historically, the church had censured Knapp for deviating at several points from Eddy's teaching, and had refused to publish the work. The church's archivist, fired in anticipation of the book's publication, wrote to branch churches to inform them of the book's history. Many Christian Scientists thought the book violated the church's by-laws, and the editors of the church's religious periodicals and several other church employees resigned in protest. Alternate beneficiaries subsequently sued to contest the church's claim it had complied fully with the will's terms, and the church ultimately received only half of the original sum.
The fallout of the broadcasting debacle also sparked a minor revolt among some prominent church members. In late 1993, a group of Christian Scientists filed suit against the Board of Directors, alleging a willful disregard for the Manual of The Mother Church in its financial dealings. The suit was thrown out by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1997, but a lingering discontent with the church's financial matters persists to this day. The Destiny Of The Mother Church ceased publication in September 2023.
In spite of its early meteoric rise, church membership has declined over the past eight decades, according to the church's former treasurer, J. Edward Odegaard. Though the Church is prohibited by the Manual from publishing membership figures, the number of branch churches in the United States has fallen steadily since World War II. In 2009, for the first time in church history, more new members came from Africa than the United States.
In 2005, The Boston Globe reported that the church was considering consolidating Boston operations into fewer buildings and leasing out space in buildings it owned. Church official Philip G. Davis noted that the administration and Colonnade buildings had not been fully used for many years and that vacancy increased after staff reductions in 2004. The church posted an $8 million financial loss in fiscal 2003, and in 2004 cut 125 jobs, a quarter of the staff, at the Christian Science Monitor. Conversely, Davis noted that "the financial situation right now is excellent" and stated that the church was not facing financial problems. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy, author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and founder of Christian Science. The church was founded \"to commemorate the word and works of Christ Jesus\" and \"reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In the early decades of the 20th century, Christian Science churches were founded in communities around the world, though in the last several decades of that century, there was a marked decline in membership, except in Africa, where there has been growth. Headquartered in Boston, the church does not officially report membership, and estimates as to worldwide membership range from under 100,000 to about 400,000.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The church was incorporated by Mary Baker Eddy in 1879, following a claimed personal healing in 1866, which she said resulted from reading the Bible. The Bible and Eddy's textbook on Christian healing, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, are together the church's key doctrinal sources and have been ordained as the church's \"dual impersonal pastor\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The First Church of Christ, Scientist publishes the weekly newspaper The Christian Science Monitor in print and online.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Christian Scientists believe that prayer is effective for healing diseases. The Church has collected over 50,000 testimonies of incidents that it considers healing through Christian Science treatment alone. While most of these testimonies represent ailments neither diagnosed nor treated by medical professionals, the Church requires three other people to vouch for any testimony published in any of its official organs, including the Christian Science Journal, Christian Science Sentinel, and Herald of Christian Science; verifiers say that they witnessed the healing or know the testifier well enough to vouch for them.",
"title": "Beliefs and practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Christian Scientists may take an intensive two-week \"Primary\" class from an authorized Christian Science teacher. Those who wish to become \"Journal-listed\" (accredited) practitioners, devoting themselves full-time to the practice of healing, must first have Primary class instruction. When they have what the church regards as a record of healing, they may submit their names for publication in the directory of practitioners and teachers in the Christian Science Journal. A practitioner who has been listed for at least three years may apply for \"Normal\" class instruction, given once every three years. Those who receive a certificate are authorized to teach. Both Primary and Normal classes are based on the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. The Primary class focuses on the chapter \"Recapitulation\" in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. This chapter uses the Socratic method of teaching and contains the \"Scientific Statement of Being\". The \"Normal\" class focuses on the platform of Christian Science, contained on pages 330-340 of Science and Health.",
"title": "Beliefs and practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The First Church of Christ, Scientist is the legal title of The Mother Church and administrative headquarters of the Christian Science Church. The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity is housed in an 11-story structure originally built for The Christian Science Publishing Society.",
"title": "Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "An international newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, founded by Eddy in 1908 and winner of seven Pulitzer prizes, is published by the church through the Christian Science Publishing Society.",
"title": "Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Christian Science Board of Directors is a five-person executive entity created by Mary Baker Eddy to conduct the business of the Christian Science Church under the terms defined in the by-laws of the Church Manual. Its functions and restrictions are defined by the Manual.",
"title": "Organization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Beginning in the mid-1980s, church executives undertook a controversial and ambitious foray into electronic broadcast media. The first significant effort was to create a weekly half-hour syndicated television program, The Christian Science Monitor Reports. \"Monitor Reports\" was anchored in its first season by newspaper veteran Rob Nelson. He was replaced in the second by the Christian Science Monitor's former Moscow correspondent, David Willis.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In October 1991, after a series of conflicts over the boundaries between Christian Science teachings and his journalistic independence, John Hart resigned.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The hundreds of millions lost on broadcasting brought the church to the brink of bankruptcy. However, with the 1991 publication of The Destiny of The Mother Church by the late Bliss Knapp, the church secured a $90 million bequest from the Knapp trust. The trust dictated that the book be published as \"Authorized Literature\", with neither modification nor comment. Historically, the church had censured Knapp for deviating at several points from Eddy's teaching, and had refused to publish the work. The church's archivist, fired in anticipation of the book's publication, wrote to branch churches to inform them of the book's history. Many Christian Scientists thought the book violated the church's by-laws, and the editors of the church's religious periodicals and several other church employees resigned in protest. Alternate beneficiaries subsequently sued to contest the church's claim it had complied fully with the will's terms, and the church ultimately received only half of the original sum.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The fallout of the broadcasting debacle also sparked a minor revolt among some prominent church members. In late 1993, a group of Christian Scientists filed suit against the Board of Directors, alleging a willful disregard for the Manual of The Mother Church in its financial dealings. The suit was thrown out by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1997, but a lingering discontent with the church's financial matters persists to this day. The Destiny Of The Mother Church ceased publication in September 2023.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In spite of its early meteoric rise, church membership has declined over the past eight decades, according to the church's former treasurer, J. Edward Odegaard. Though the Church is prohibited by the Manual from publishing membership figures, the number of branch churches in the United States has fallen steadily since World War II. In 2009, for the first time in church history, more new members came from Africa than the United States.",
"title": "Controversies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 2005, The Boston Globe reported that the church was considering consolidating Boston operations into fewer buildings and leasing out space in buildings it owned. Church official Philip G. Davis noted that the administration and Colonnade buildings had not been fully used for many years and that vacancy increased after staff reductions in 2004. The church posted an $8 million financial loss in fiscal 2003, and in 2004 cut 125 jobs, a quarter of the staff, at the Christian Science Monitor. Conversely, Davis noted that \"the financial situation right now is excellent\" and stated that the church was not facing financial problems.",
"title": "Controversies"
}
] | The Church of Christ, Scientist was founded in 1879 in Boston, Massachusetts, by Mary Baker Eddy, author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and founder of Christian Science. The church was founded "to commemorate the word and works of Christ Jesus" and "reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing". In the early decades of the 20th century, Christian Science churches were founded in communities around the world, though in the last several decades of that century, there was a marked decline in membership, except in Africa, where there has been growth. Headquartered in Boston, the church does not officially report membership, and estimates as to worldwide membership range from under 100,000 to about 400,000. | 2001-09-21T21:48:36Z | 2023-12-18T20:08:01Z | [
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6,466 | Connecticut | Connecticut (/kəˈnɛtɪkət/ kə-NET-ik-ət) is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. As of the 2020 United States census, Connecticut was home to over 3.6 million residents, its highest decennial count ever, growing every decade since 1790.
The state is bordered by Rhode Island to its east, Massachusetts to its north, New York to its west, and Long Island Sound to its south. Its capital is Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport. Historically, the state is part of New England as well as the tri-state area with New York and New Jersey. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word Connecticut is derived from various anglicized spellings of Quinnetuket, a Mohegan-Pequot word for "long tidal river".
Connecticut's first European settlers were Dutchmen who established a small, short-lived settlement called House of Hope in Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut Rivers. Half of Connecticut was initially claimed by the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, although the first major settlements were established in the 1630s by the English. Thomas Hooker led a band of followers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded the Connecticut Colony; other settlers from Massachusetts founded the Saybrook Colony and the New Haven Colony. The Connecticut and New Haven colonies established documents of Fundamental Orders, considered the first constitutions in America. In 1662, the three colonies were merged under a royal charter, making Connecticut a crown colony. Connecticut was one of the Thirteen Colonies which rejected British rule in the American Revolution. It was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States.
Connecticut is the third-smallest state by area, the 29th most populous, and the fourth most densely populated of the fifty states. It is known as the "Constitution State", the "Nutmeg State", the "Provisions State", and the "Land of Steady Habits". The Connecticut River, Thames River, and ports along Long Island Sound have given Connecticut a strong maritime tradition which continues today. The state also has a long history of hosting the financial services industry, including insurance companies in Hartford County and hedge funds in Fairfield County. As of the 2010 census, it has the highest per-capita income, second-highest level of human development behind Massachusetts, and highest median household income in the United States.
The name Connecticut is derived from the Mohegan-Pequot word that has been translated as "long tidal river" and "upon the long river", both referring to the Connecticut River. Evidence of human presence in the Connecticut region dates to as far back as 10,000 years ago. Stone tools were used for hunting, fishing, and woodworking. Semi-nomadic in lifestyle, these peoples moved seasonally to take advantage of various resources in the area. They shared languages based on Algonquian. The Connecticut region was inhabited by multiple Native American tribes which can be grouped into the Nipmuc, the Sequin or "River Indians" (which included the Tunxis, Schaghticoke, Podunk, Wangunk, Hammonasset, and Quinnipiac), the Mattabesec or "Wappinger Confederacy" and the Pequot-Mohegan. Some of these groups still reside in Connecticut, including the Mohegans, the Pequots, and the Paugusetts.
The first European explorer in Connecticut was Dutchman Adriaen Block, who explored the region in 1614. Dutch fur traders then sailed up the Connecticut River, which they called Versche Rivier ("Fresh River"), and built a fort at Dutch Point in Hartford that they named "House of Hope" (Dutch: Huis van Hoop).
The Connecticut Colony was originally a number of separate, smaller settlements at Windsor, Wethersfield, Saybrook, Hartford, and New Haven. The first English settlers came in 1633 and settled at Windsor, and then at Wethersfield the following year. John Winthrop the Younger of Massachusetts received a commission to create Saybrook Colony at the mouth of the Connecticut River in 1635.
The main body of settlers came in one large group in 1636. They were Puritans from Massachusetts Bay Colony led by Thomas Hooker, who established the Connecticut Colony at Hartford. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were adopted in January 1639, and have been described as the first constitutional document in America.
The Quinnipiack Colony was established by John Davenport, Theophilus Eaton, and others at New Haven in March 1638. The New Haven Colony had its own constitution called "The Fundamental Agreement of the New Haven Colony", signed on June 4, 1639.
The settlements were established without official sanction of the English Crown, and each was an independent political entity. In 1662, Winthrop traveled to England and obtained a charter from Charles II which united the settlements of Connecticut. Historically important colonial settlements included Windsor (1633), Wethersfield (1634), Saybrook (1635), Hartford (1636), New Haven (1638), Fairfield (1639), Guilford (1639), Milford (1639), Stratford (1639), Farmington (1640), Stamford (1641), and New London (1646).
The Pequot War marked the first major clash between colonists and Native Americans in New England. The Pequots reacted with increasing aggression to Colonial settlements in their territory—while simultaneously taking lands from the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes. Settlers responded to a murder in 1636 with a raid on a Pequot village on Block Island; the Pequots laid siege to Saybrook Colony's garrison that autumn, then raided Wethersfield in the spring of 1637. Colonists declared war on the Pequots, organized a band of militia and allies from the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes, and attacked a Pequot village on the Mystic River, with death toll estimates ranging between 300 and 700 Pequots. After suffering another major loss at a battle in Fairfield, the Pequots asked for a truce and peace terms.
The western boundaries of Connecticut have been subject to change over time. The Hartford Treaty with the Dutch was signed on September 19, 1650, but it was never ratified by the British. According to it, the western boundary of Connecticut ran north from Greenwich Bay for a distance of 20 miles (32 km), "provided the said line come not within 10 miles [16 km] of Hudson River". This agreement was observed by both sides until war erupted between England and The Netherlands in 1652. Conflict continued concerning colonial limits until the Duke of York captured New Netherland in 1664.
On the other hand, Connecticut's original Charter in 1662 granted it all the land to the "South Sea"—that is, to the Pacific Ocean. Most Colonial royal grants were for long east–west strips. Connecticut took its grant seriously and established a ninth county between the Susquehanna River and Delaware River named Westmoreland County. This resulted in the brief Pennamite Wars with Pennsylvania.
Yale College was established in 1701, providing Connecticut with an important institution to educate clergy and civil leaders. The Congregational church dominated religious life in the colony and, by extension, town affairs in many parts.
With more than 600 miles (970 km) of coastline including along its navigable rivers, Connecticut developed during its colonial years the antecedents of a maritime tradition that would later produce booms in shipbuilding, marine transport, naval support, seafood production, and leisure boating.
Historical records list the Tryall as the first vessel built in Connecticut Colony, in 1649 at a site on the Connecticut River in present-day Wethersfield. In the two decades leading up to 1776 and the American Revolution, Connecticut boatyards launched about 100 sloops, schooners and brigs according to a database of U.S. customs records maintained online by the Mystic Seaport Museum, the largest being the 180-ton Patient Mary launched in New Haven in 1763. Connecticut's first lighthouse was constructed in 1760 at the mouth of the Thames River with the New London Harbor Lighthouse.
Connecticut designated four delegates to the Second Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, William Williams, and Oliver Wolcott. Connecticut's legislature authorized the outfitting of six new regiments in 1775, in the wake of the clashes between British regulars and Massachusetts militia at Lexington and Concord. There were some 1,200 Connecticut troops on hand at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775. In 1775, David Bushnell invented the Turtle which the following year launched the first submarine attack in history, unsuccessfully against a British warship at anchor in New York Harbor.
In 1777, the British got word of Continental Army supplies in Danbury, and they landed an expeditionary force of some 2,000 troops in Westport. This force then marched to Danbury and destroyed homes and much of the depot. Continental Army troops and militia led by General David Wooster and General Benedict Arnold engaged them on their return march at Ridgefield in 1777. For the winter of 1778–79, General George Washington decided to split the Continental Army into three divisions encircling New York City, where British General Sir Henry Clinton had taken up winter quarters. Major General Israel Putnam chose Redding as the winter encampment quarters for some 3,000 regulars and militia under his command. The Redding encampment allowed Putnam's soldiers to guard the replenished supply depot in Danbury and to support any operations along Long Island Sound and the Hudson River Valley. Some of the men were veterans of the winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the previous winter. Soldiers at the Redding camp endured supply shortages, cold temperatures, and significant snow, with some historians dubbing the encampment "Connecticut's Valley Forge".
The state was also the launching site for a number of raids against Long Island orchestrated by Samuel Holden Parsons and Benjamin Tallmadge, and provided soldiers and material for the war effort, especially to Washington's army outside New York City. General William Tryon raided the Connecticut coast in July 1779, focusing on New Haven, Norwalk, and Fairfield. New London and Groton Heights were raided in September 1781 by Benedict Arnold, who had turned traitor to the British.
At the outset of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress assigned Nathaniel Shaw Jr. of New London as its naval agent in charge of recruiting privateers to seize British vessels as opportunities presented, with nearly 50 operating out of the Thames River which eventually drew the reprisal from the British force led by Arnold.
Connecticut ratified the U.S. Constitution on January 9, 1788, becoming the fifth state.
The state prospered during the era following the American Revolution, as mills and textile factories were built and seaports flourished from trade and fisheries. After Congress established in 1790 the predecessor to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service that would evolve into the U.S. Coast Guard, President Washington assigned Jonathan Maltbie as one of seven masters to enforce customs regulations, with Maltbie monitoring the southern New England coast with a 48-foot cutter sloop named Argus.
In 1786, Connecticut ceded territory to the U.S. government that became part of the Northwest Territory. The state retained land extending across the northern part of present-day Ohio called the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Western Reserve section was settled largely by people from Connecticut, and they brought Connecticut place names to Ohio.
Connecticut made agreements with Pennsylvania and New York which extinguished the land claims within those states' boundaries and created the Connecticut Panhandle. The state then ceded the Western Reserve in 1800 to the federal government, which brought it to its present boundaries (other than minor adjustments with Massachusetts).
For the first time in 1800, Connecticut shipwrights launched more than 100 vessels in a single year. Over the following decade to the doorstep of renewed hostilities with Britain that sparked the War of 1812, Connecticut boatyards constructed close to 1,000 vessels, the most productive stretch of any decade in the 19th century.
During the war, the British launched raids in Stonington and Essex and blockaded vessels in the Thames River. Derby native Isaac Hull became Connecticut's best-known naval figure to win renown during the conflict, as captain of the USS Constitution.
The British blockade during the War of 1812 hurt exports and bolstered the influence of Federalists who opposed the war. The cessation of imports from Britain stimulated the construction of factories to manufacture textiles and machinery. Connecticut came to be recognized as a major center for manufacturing, due in part to the inventions of Eli Whitney and other early innovators of the Industrial Revolution.
The war led to the development of fast clippers that helped extend the reach of New England merchants to the Pacific and Indian oceans. The first half of the 19th century saw as well a rapid rise in whaling, with New London emerging as one of the New England industry's three biggest home ports after Nantucket and New Bedford.
The state was known for its political conservatism, typified by its Federalist party and the Yale College of Timothy Dwight. The foremost intellectuals were Dwight and Noah Webster, who compiled his great dictionary in New Haven. Religious tensions polarized the state, as the Congregational Church struggled to maintain traditional viewpoints, in alliance with the Federalists. The failure of the Hartford Convention in 1814 hurt the Federalist cause, with the Democratic-Republican Party gaining control in 1817.
Connecticut had been governed under the "Fundamental Orders" since 1639, but the state adopted a new constitution in 1818.
Connecticut manufacturers played a major role in supplying the Union forces with weapons and supplies during the Civil War. The state furnished 55,000 men, formed into thirty full regiments of infantry, including two in the U.S. Colored Troops, with several Connecticut men becoming generals. The Navy attracted 250 officers and 2,100 men, and Glastonbury native Gideon Welles was Secretary of the Navy. James H. Ward of Hartford was the first U.S. Naval Officer killed in the Civil War. Connecticut casualties included 2,088 killed in combat, 2,801 dying from disease, and 689 dying in Confederate prison camps.
A surge of national unity in 1861 brought thousands flocking to the colors from every town and city. However, as the war became a crusade to end slavery, many Democrats (especially Irish Catholics) pulled back. The Democrats took a pro-slavery position and included many Copperheads willing to let the South secede. The intensely fought 1863 election for governor was narrowly won by the Republicans.
Connecticut's extensive industry, dense population, flat terrain, and wealth encouraged the construction of railroads starting in 1839. By 1840, 102 miles (164 km) of line were in operation, growing to 402 miles (647 km) in 1850 and 601 miles (967 km) in 1860.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, called the New Haven or "The Consolidated", became the dominant Connecticut railroad company after 1872. J. P. Morgan began financing the major New England railroads in the 1890s, dividing territory so that they would not compete. The New Haven purchased 50 smaller companies, including steamship lines, and built a network of light rails (electrified trolleys) that provided inter-urban transportation for all of southern New England. By 1912, the New Haven operated over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of track with 120,000 employees.
As steam-powered passenger ships proliferated after the Civil War, Noank would produce the two largest built in Connecticut during the 19th century, with the 332-foot wooden steam paddle wheeler Rhode Island launched in 1882, and the 345-foot paddle wheeler Connecticut seven years later. Connecticut shipyards would launch more than 165 steam-powered vessels in the 19th century.
In 1875, the first telephone exchange in the world was established in New Haven.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Connecticut became a major supplier of weaponry to the U.S. military; by 1918, 80% of the state's industries were producing goods for the war effort. Remington Arms in Bridgeport produced half the small-arms cartridges used by the U.S. Army, with other major suppliers including Winchester in New Haven and Colt in Hartford.
Connecticut was also an important U.S. Navy supplier, with Electric Boat receiving orders for 85 submarines, Lake Torpedo Boat building more than 20 subs, and the Groton Iron Works building freighters. On June 21, 1916, the Navy made Groton the site for its East Coast submarine base and school.
The state enthusiastically supported the American war effort in 1917 and 1918 with large purchases of war bonds, a further expansion of industry, and an emphasis on increasing food production on the farms. Thousands of state, local, and volunteer groups mobilized for the war effort and were coordinated by the Connecticut State Council of Defense. Manufacturers wrestled with manpower shortages; Waterbury's American Brass and Manufacturing Company was running at half capacity, so the federal government agreed to furlough soldiers to work there.
In 1919, J. Henry Roraback started the Connecticut Light & Power Co. which became the state's dominant electric utility. In 1925, Frederick Rentschler spurred the creation of Pratt & Whitney in Hartford to develop engines for aircraft; the company became an important military supplier in World War II and one of the three major manufacturers of jet engines in the world.
On September 21, 1938, the most destructive storm in New England history struck eastern Connecticut, killing hundreds of people. The eye of the "Long Island Express" passed just west of New Haven and devastated the Connecticut shoreline between Old Saybrook and Stonington from the full force of wind and waves, even though they had partial protection by Long Island. The hurricane caused extensive damage to infrastructure, homes, and businesses. In New London, a 500-foot (150 m) sailing ship was driven into a warehouse complex, causing a major fire. Heavy rainfall caused the Connecticut River to flood downtown Hartford and East Hartford. An estimated 50,000 trees fell onto roadways.
The advent of lend-lease in support of Britain helped lift Connecticut from the Great Depression, with the state a major production center for weaponry and supplies used in World War II. Connecticut manufactured 4.1% of total U.S. military armaments produced during the war, ranking ninth among the 48 states, with major factories including Colt for firearms, Pratt & Whitney for aircraft engines, Chance Vought for fighter planes, Hamilton Standard for propellers, and Electric Boat for submarines and PT boats. In Bridgeport, General Electric produced a significant new weapon to combat tanks: the bazooka.
On May 13, 1940, Igor Sikorsky made an untethered flight of the first practical helicopter. The helicopter saw limited use in World War II, but future military production made Sikorsky Aircraft's Stratford plant Connecticut's largest single manufacturing site by the start of the 21st century.
Connecticut lost some wartime factories following the end of hostilities, but the state shared in a general post-war expansion that included the construction of highways and resulting in middle-class growth in suburban areas.
Prescott Bush represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1952 to 1963; his son George H. W. Bush and grandson George W. Bush both became presidents of the United States. In 1965, Connecticut ratified its current constitution, replacing the document that had served since 1818.
In 1968, commercial operation began for the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Haddam; in 1970, the Millstone Nuclear Power Station began operations in Waterford. In 1974, Connecticut elected Democratic Governor Ella T. Grasso, who became the first woman in any state to be elected governor without being the wife or widow of a previous governor.
Connecticut's dependence on the defense industry posed an economic challenge at the end of the Cold War. The resulting budget crisis helped elect Lowell Weicker as governor on a third-party ticket in 1990. Weicker's remedy was a state income tax which proved effective in balancing the budget, but only for the short-term. He did not run for a second term, in part because of this politically unpopular move.
In 1992, initial construction was completed on Foxwoods Casino at the Mashantucket Pequots reservation in eastern Connecticut, which became the largest casino in the Western Hemisphere. Mohegan Sun followed four years later.
In 2000, presidential candidate Al Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate, marking the first time that a major party presidential ticket included someone of the Jewish faith. Gore and Lieberman fell five votes short of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the Electoral College. In the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 65 state residents were killed, mostly Fairfield County residents who were working in the World Trade Center. In 2004, Republican Governor John G. Rowland resigned during a corruption investigation, later pleading guilty to federal charges.
Connecticut was hit by three major storms in just over 14 months in 2011 and 2012, with all three causing extensive property damage and electric outages. Hurricane Irene struck Connecticut August 28, and damage totaled $235 million. Two months later, the "Halloween nor'easter" dropped extensive snow onto trees, resulting in snapped branches and trunks that damaged power lines; some areas were without electricity for 11 days. Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey and passed over Connecticut with hurricane force winds and tides up to 12 feet above normal. Many coastal buildings were damaged or destroyed. . Sandy's winds drove storm surges into streets and cut power to 98% of homes and businesses, with more than $360 million in damage.
On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, and then killed himself. The massacre spurred renewed efforts by activists for tighter laws on gun ownership nationally.
In the summer and fall of 2016, Connecticut experienced a drought in many parts of the state, causing some water-use bans. As of November 15, 2016 (2016-11-15), 45% of the state was listed at Severe Drought by the U.S. Drought Monitor, including almost all of Hartford and Litchfield counties. All the rest of the state was in Moderate Drought or Severe Drought, including Middlesex, Fairfield, New London, New Haven, Windham, and Tolland counties. This affected the agricultural economy in the state.
Connecticut is bordered on the south by Long Island Sound, on the west by New York, on the north by Massachusetts, and on the east by Rhode Island. The state capital and fourth largest city is Hartford, and other major cities and towns (by population) include Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury, New Britain, Greenwich, and Bristol. There are 169 incorporated towns in Connecticut, with cities and villages included within some towns.
The highest peak in Connecticut is Bear Mountain in Salisbury in the northwest corner of the state. The highest point is just east of where Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York meet (42°3′ N, 73°29′ W), on the southern slope of Mount Frissell, whose peak lies nearby in Massachusetts. At the opposite extreme, many of the coastal towns have areas that are less than 20 feet (6.1 m) above sea level.
Connecticut has a long maritime history and a reputation based on that history—yet the state has no direct oceanfront (technically speaking). The coast of Connecticut sits on Long Island Sound, which is an estuary. The state's access to the open Atlantic Ocean is both to the west (toward New York City) and to the east (toward the "race" near Rhode Island). Due to this unique geography, Long Island Sound and the Connecticut shoreline are relatively protected from high waves from storms.
The Connecticut River cuts through the center of the state, flowing into Long Island Sound. The most populous metropolitan region centered within the state lies in the Connecticut River Valley. Despite Connecticut's relatively small size, it features wide regional variations in its landscape; for example, in the northwestern Litchfield Hills, it features rolling mountains and horse farms, whereas in areas to the east of New Haven along the coast, the landscape features coastal marshes, beaches, and large scale maritime activities.
Connecticut's rural areas and small towns in the northeast and northwest corners of the state contrast sharply with its industrial cities such as Stamford, Bridgeport, and New Haven, located along the coastal highways from the New York border to New London, then northward up the Connecticut River to Hartford. Many towns in northeastern and northwestern Connecticut center around a green. Near the green typically stand historical visual symbols of New England towns, such as a white church, a colonial meeting house, a colonial tavern or inn, several colonial houses, and so on, establishing a scenic historical appearance maintained for both historic preservation and tourism. Many of the areas in southern and coastal Connecticut have been built up and rebuilt over the years, and look less visually like traditional New England.
The northern boundary of the state with Massachusetts is marked by the Southwick Jog or Granby Notch, an approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) square detour into Connecticut. The origin of this anomaly is clearly established in a long line of disputes and temporary agreements which were finally concluded in 1804, when southern Southwick's residents sought to leave Massachusetts, and the town was split in half.
The southwestern border of Connecticut where it abuts New York State is marked by a panhandle in Fairfield County, containing the towns of Greenwich, Stamford, New Canaan, Darien, and parts of Norwalk and Wilton. This irregularity in the boundary is the result of territorial disputes in the late 17th century, culminating with New York giving up its claim to the area, whose residents considered themselves part of Connecticut, in exchange for an equivalent area extending northwards from Ridgefield to the Massachusetts border, as well as undisputed claim to Rye, New York.
Areas maintained by the National Park Service include Appalachian National Scenic Trail, Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor, and Weir Farm National Historic Site.
Connecticut lies at the rough transition zone between the southern end of the humid continental climate, and the northern portion of the humid subtropical climate. Northern Connecticut generally experiences a climate with cold winters with moderate snowfall and hot, humid summers. Far southern and coastal Connecticut has a climate with cool winters with a mix of rain and infrequent snow, and the long hot and humid summers typical of the middle and lower East Coast.
Connecticut sees a fairly even precipitation pattern with rainfall/snowfall spread throughout the 12 months. Connecticut averages 56% of possible sunshine (higher than the U.S. national average), averaging 2,400 hours of sunshine annually. On average, about one third of days in the state see some amount of precipitation each year. Occasionally, some months may see extremes in precipitation, either much higher or lower than normal, though long term droughts and floods are rare.
Early spring can range from slightly cool (40s to low 50s F) to warm (65 to 70 F), while mid and late spring (late April/May) is warm. By late May, the building Bermuda High creates a southerly flow of warm and humid tropical air, bringing hot weather conditions throughout the state. Average highs are 81 °F (27 °C) in New London and 85 °F (29 °C) in Windsor Locks at the peak of summer in late July. On occasion, heat waves with highs from 90 to 100 °F (38 °C) occur across Connecticut. Connecticut's record high temperature is 106 °F (41 °C) which occurred in Danbury on July 15, 1995. Although summers are sunny in Connecticut, quick moving summer thunderstorms can bring brief downpours with thunder and lightning. Occasionally these thunderstorms can be severe, and the state usually averages one tornado per year. During hurricane season, the remains of tropical cyclones occasionally affect the region, though a direct hit is rare. Some notable hurricanes to impact the state include the 1938 New England hurricane, Hurricane Carol in 1954, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and Hurricane Isaias in 2020.
Weather commonly associated with the fall season typically begins in October and lasts to the first days of December. Daily high temperatures in October and November range from the 50s to 60s (Fahrenheit) with nights in the 40s and upper 30s. Colorful foliage begins across northern parts of the state in early October and moves south and east reaching southeast Connecticut by early November. Far southern and coastal areas, however, have more oak and hickory trees (and fewer maples) and are often less colorful than areas to the north. By December daytime highs are in the 40s °F for much of the state, and average overnight lows are below freezing.
Winters (December through mid-March) are generally cold from south to north in Connecticut. The coldest month (January) has average high temperatures ranging from 38 °F (3 °C) in the coastal lowlands to 33 °F (1 °C) in the inland and northern portions on the state. The lowest temperature recorded in Connecticut is −32 °F (−36 °C) which has been observed twice: in Falls Village on February 16, 1943, and in Coventry on January 22, 1961. The average yearly snowfall ranges from about 60 inches (1,500 mm) in the higher elevations of the northern portion of the state to only 20–25 inches (510–640 mm) along the southeast coast of Connecticut (Branford to Groton). Generally, any locale north or west of Interstate 84 receives the most snow, during a storm, and throughout the season. Most of Connecticut has less than 60 days of snow cover. Snow usually falls from late November to late March in the northern part of the state, and from early December to mid-March in the southern and coastal parts of the state.
During winter every few years, Connecticut can occasionally get heavy snowstorms, called nor'easters, which may produce as much as two feet of snow on rare occasions. Ice storms also occur on occasion, such as the Southern New England ice storm of 1973 and the December 2008 Northeastern United States ice storm. These storms can cause widespread power outages and damage.
Forests consist of a mix of Northeastern coastal forests of oak in southern areas of the state, to the upland New England-Acadian forests in the northwestern parts of the state. Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) is the state flower and is native to low ridges in several parts of Connecticut. Rosebay rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) is also native to eastern uplands of Connecticut and Pachaug State Forest is home to the Rhododendron Sanctuary Trail. Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides), is found in wetlands in the southern parts of the state. Connecticut has one native cactus (Opuntia humifusa), found in sandy coastal areas and low hillsides. Several types of beach grasses and wildflowers are also native to Connecticut. Connecticut spans USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 5b to 7a. Coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone where more southern and subtropical plants are cultivated. In some coastal communities, Magnolia grandiflora (southern magnolia), crape myrtles, scrub palms (Sabal minor), needle palms (Rhapidophyllum hystrix), and other broadleaved evergreens are cultivated in small numbers.
As of the 2020 United States census, Connecticut has a population of 3,605,944, an increase of 31,847 people (0.9%) from the 2010 United States census. Among the census records, 20.4% of the population was under 18.
In 1790, 97% of the population in Connecticut was classified as "rural". The first census in which less than half the population was classified as rural was 1890. In the 2000 census, only 12.3% was considered rural. Most of western and southern Connecticut (particularly the Gold Coast) is strongly associated with New York City; this area is the most affluent and populous region of the state and has high property costs and high incomes. The center of population of Connecticut is located in the town of Cheshire.
According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 2,930 homeless people in Connecticut.
In common with the majority of the United States, non-Hispanic whites have remained the dominant racial and ethnic group in Connecticut. From being 98% of the population in 1940, however, they have declined to 63% of the population as of the 2020 census. These statistics have represented fewer Americans identifying as non-Hispanic white, which has given rise to the Hispanic and Latino American population and Asian American population overall. As of 2011, 46.1% of Connecticut's population younger than age 1 were minorities. As of 2004, 11.4% of the population (400,000) was foreign-born. In 1870, native-born Americans had accounted for 75% of the state's population, but that had dropped to 35% by 1918. Also as of 2000, 81.69% of Connecticut residents age 5 and older spoke English at home and 8.42% spoke Spanish, followed by Italian at 1.59%, French at 1.31%, and Polish at 1.20%.
The largest ancestry groups since 2010 were: 19.3% Italian, 17.9% Irish, 10.7% English, 10.4% German, 8.6% Polish, 6.6% French, 3.0% French Canadian, 2.7% American, 2.0% Scottish, and 1.4% Scotch Irish.
The top countries of origin for Connecticut's immigrants in 2018 were India, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Poland and Ecuador.
Note: Births in table do not add up because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.
A Pew survey of Connecticut residents' religious self-identification showed the following distribution of affiliations in 2014: Protestant 35%, Mormonism 1%, Jewish 3%, Roman Catholic 33%, Orthodox 1%, Non-religious 28%, Jehovah's Witness 1%, Hinduism 1%, Buddhism 1% and Islam 1%. Jewish congregations had 108,280 (3.2%) members in 2000.
The Jewish population is concentrated in the towns near Long Island Sound between Greenwich and New Haven, in Greater New Haven and in Greater Hartford, especially the suburb of West Hartford. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, the largest Christian denominations, by number of adherents, in 2010 were: the Catholic Church, with 1,252,936; the United Church of Christ, with 96,506; and non-denominational Evangelical Protestants, with 72,863.
Recent immigration has brought other non-Christian religions to the state, but the numbers of adherents of other religions are still low. Connecticut is also home to New England's largest Protestant church: The First Cathedral in Bloomfield, Connecticut, located in Hartford County. Hartford is seat to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford, which is sovereign over the Diocese of Bridgeport and the Diocese of Norwich.
By the Public Religion Research Institute's study in 2020, 71% of the population identified as Christian. In contrast to the 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, the irreligious declined from 28% of the population to 21% at the 2020 Public Religion Research Institute's study.
Connecticut's economic output in 2019 as measured by gross domestic product was $289 billion, up from $277.9 billion in 2018.
Connecticut's per capita personal income in 2019 was estimated at $79,087, the highest of any state. There is, however, a great disparity in incomes throughout the state; after New York, Connecticut had the second largest gap nationwide between the average incomes of the top 1% and the average incomes of the bottom 99%. According to a 2018 study by Phoenix Marketing International, Connecticut had the third-largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States, with a ratio of 7.75%. New Canaan is the wealthiest town in Connecticut, with a per capita income of $85,459. Hartford is the poorest municipality in Connecticut, with a per capita income of $13,428 in 2000.
As of December 2019, Connecticut's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.8%, with U.S. unemployment at 3.5% that month. Dating back to 1982, Connecticut recorded its lowest unemployment in 2000 between August and October, at 2.2%. The highest unemployment rate during that period occurred in November and December 2010 at 9.3%, but economists expected record new levels of layoffs as a result of business closures in the spring of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Tax is collected by the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services and by local municipalities.
As of 2012, Connecticut residents had the second highest rate in the nation of combined state and local taxes after New York, at 12.6% of income compared to the national average of 9.9% as reported by the Tax Foundation.
Before 1991, Connecticut had an investment-only income tax system. Income from employment was untaxed, but income from investments was taxed at 13%, the highest rate in the U.S., with no deductions allowed for costs of producing the investment income, such as interest on borrowing.
In 1991, under Governor Lowell P. Weicker Jr., an independent, the system was changed to one in which the taxes on employment income and investment income were equalized at a maximum rate of 4%. The new tax policy drew investment firms to Connecticut; as of 2019, Fairfield County was home to the headquarters for 16 of the 200 largest hedge funds in the world.
As of 2019, the income tax rates on Connecticut individuals were divided into seven tax brackets of 3% (on income up to $10,000); 5% ($10,000–$50,000); 5.5% ($50,000–$100,000); 6% ($100,000–$200,000); 6.5% ($200,000–$250,000); 6.9% ($250,000–$500,000); and 6.99% above $500,000, with additional amounts owed depending on the bracket.
All wages of Connecticut residents are subject to the state's income tax, even if earned outside the state. However, in those cases, Connecticut income tax must be withheld only to the extent the Connecticut tax exceeds the amount withheld by the other jurisdiction. Since New York has higher income tax rates than Connecticut, this effectively means that Connecticut residents who work in New York have no Connecticut income tax withheld. Connecticut permits a credit for taxes paid to other jurisdictions, but since residents who work in other states are still subject to Connecticut income taxation, they may owe taxes if the jurisdictional credit does not fully offset the Connecticut tax amount.
Connecticut levies a 6.35% state sales tax on the retail sale, lease, or rental of most goods. Some items and services in general are not subject to sales and use taxes unless specifically enumerated as taxable by statute. A provision excluding clothing under $50 from sales tax was repealed as of July 1, 2011. There are no additional sales taxes imposed by local jurisdictions. In 2001, Connecticut instituted what became an annual sales tax "holiday" each August lasting one week, when retailers do not have to remit sales tax on certain items and quantities of clothing that has varied from year to year.
State law authorizes municipalities to tax property, including real estate, vehicles and other personal property, with state statute providing varying exemptions, credits and abatements. All assessments are at 70% of fair market value. The maximum property tax credit is $200 per return and any excess may not be refunded or carried forward. According to the Tax Foundation, on a per capita basis in the 2017 fiscal year Connecticut residents paid the 3rd highest average property taxes in the nation after New Hampshire and New Jersey.
As of January 1, 2020, gasoline taxes and fees in Connecticut were 40.13 cents per gallon, 11th highest in the United States which had a nationwide average of 36.13 cents a gallon excluding federal taxes. Diesel taxes and fees as of January 2020 in Connecticut were 46.50 cents per gallon, ninth highest nationally with the U.S. average at 37.91 cents.
In 2019, sales of single-family homes in Connecticut totaled 33,146 units, a 2.1 percent decline from the 2018 transaction total. The median home sold in 2019 recorded a transaction amount of $260,000, up 0.4 percent from 2018.
Connecticut had the seventh highest rate of home foreclosure activity in the country in 2019 at 0.53 percent of the total housing stock.
Finance, insurance and real estate was Connecticut's largest industry in 2018 as ranked by gross domestic product, generating $75.7 billion in GDP that year. Major employers include The Hartford, Travelers, Harman International, Cigna, the Aetna subsidiary of CVS Health, Mass Mutual, People's United Financial, Bank of America, Realogy, Bridgewater Associates, GE Capital, William Raveis Real Estate, and Berkshire Hathaway through reinsurance and residential real estate subsidiaries.
The combined educational, health and social services sector was the largest single industry as ranked by employment, with a combined workforce of 342,600 people at the end of 2019, ranking fourth the year before in GDP at $28.3 billion.
The broad business and professional services sector had the second highest GDP total in Connecticut in 2018 at an estimated $33.7 billion.
Manufacturing was the third biggest industry in 2018 with GDP of $30.8 billion, dominated by Raytheon Technologies formed in the March 2020 merger of Hartford-based United Technologies and Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon Co. As of the merger, Raytheon Technologies employed about 19,000 people in Connecticut through subsidiaries Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace. Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky Aircraft operates Connecticut's single largest manufacturing plant in Stratford, where it makes helicopters.
The world's largest audio equipment manufacturing company Harman International is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. It owns many brands like JBL, Akg and Harman kardon.
Other major manufacturers include the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics, which makes submarines in Groton, Boehringer Ingelheim, a pharmaceuticals manufacturer with its U.S. headquarters in Ridgefield, and ASML, which in Wilton makes precision lithography machines used to create circuitry on semiconductors and flat-screen displays.
Connecticut historically was a center of gun manufacturing, and four gun-manufacturing firms continued to operate in the state as of December 2012, employing 2,000 people: Colt, Stag, Ruger, and Mossberg. Marlin, owned by Remington, closed in April 2011.
Other large components of the Connecticut economy in 2018 included wholesale trade ($18.1 billion in GDP); information services ($13.8 billion); retail ($13.7 billion); arts, entertainment and food services ($9.1 billion); and construction ($8.3 billion).
Tourists spent $9.3 billion in Connecticut in 2017 according to estimates as part of a series of studies commissioned by the state of Connecticut. Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun are the two biggest tourist draws and number among the state's largest employers; both are located on Native American reservations in the southeastern Connecticut.
Connecticut's agricultural production totaled $580 million in 2017, with just over half of that revenue the result of nursery stock production. Milk production totaled $81 million that year, with other major product categories including eggs, vegetables and fruit, tobacco and shellfish.
Connecticut's economy uses less energy to produce each dollar of GDP than all other states except California, Massachusetts, and New York. It uses less energy on a per-capita basis than all but six other states. It has no fossil-fuel resources, but does have renewable resources. Average retail electricity prices are the highest among the 48 contiguous states. While the vast majority of state's overall energy consumption is fossil fuels, nuclear power delivered over 40% of state's electricity generation in 2019. Refuse-derived fuels and other biomass provided the largest share of renewable electricity at about a 3% share. Solar and wind generation have grown in recent years. More than three-quarters of solar generation came from distributed small-scale installations such as rooftop solar in 2019, and there is planning underway to significantly increase renewable generation with the state's offshore wind resource.
The Interstate highways in the state are Interstate 95 (I-95) traveling southwest to northeast along the coast, I-84 traveling southwest to northeast in the center of the state, I-91 traveling north to south in the center of the state, and I-395 traveling north to south near the eastern border of the state. The other major highways in Connecticut are the Merritt Parkway and Wilbur Cross Parkway, which together form Connecticut Route 15 (Route 15), traveling from the Hutchinson River Parkway in New York parallel to I-95 before turning north of New Haven and traveling parallel to I-91, finally becoming a surface road in Berlin. I-95 and Route 15 were originally toll roads; they relied on a system of toll plazas at which all traffic stopped and paid fixed tolls. A series of major crashes at these plazas eventually contributed to the decision to remove the tolls in 1988. Other major arteries in the state include U.S. Route 7 (US 7) in the west traveling parallel to the New York state line, Route 8 farther east near the industrial city of Waterbury and traveling north–south along the Naugatuck River Valley nearly parallel with US 7, and Route 9 in the east.
Between New Haven and New York City, I-95 is one of the most congested highways in the United States. Although I-95 has been widened in several spots, some areas are only three lanes and this strains traffic capacity, resulting in frequent and lengthy rush hour delays. Frequently, the congestion spills over to clog the parallel Merritt Parkway and even US 1. The state has encouraged traffic reduction schemes, including rail use and ride-sharing.
Connecticut also has a very active bicycling community, with one of the highest rates of bicycle ownership and use in the United States, particularly in New Haven. According to the U.S. Census 2006 American Community Survey, New Haven has the highest percentage of commuters who bicycle to work of any major metropolitan center on the East Coast.
Rail is a popular travel mode between New Haven and New York City's Grand Central Terminal. Southwestern Connecticut is served by the Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line, operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Metro-North provides commuter service between New York City and New Haven, with branches to New Canaan, Danbury, and Waterbury. Connecticut lies along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, which features frequent Northeast Regional and Acela Express service from New Haven south to New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Norfolk, VA, as well as north to New London, Providence and Boston. Since 1990, coastal cities and towns between New Haven and New London are also served by the Shore Line East commuter line.
In June 2018, a commuter rail service called the Hartford Line began operating between New Haven and Springfield on Amtrak's New Haven-Springfield Line. Hartford Line service is provided by both Amtrak and the Connecticut Department of Transportation's CT Rail, and in addition to its termini serves New Haven State Street, Wallingford, Meriden, Berlin, Hartford, Windsor, and Windsor Locks. Several infill stations are planned to be added in the near future as of 2021. Amtrak's Vermonter runs from Washington to St. Albans, Vermont via the same line. In July 2019, Amtrak launched the Valley Flyer, which runs between New Haven and Greenfield, Massachusetts.
A proposed commuter rail service, the Central Corridor Rail Line, would connect New London with Norwich, Willimantic, Storrs, and Stafford Springs, with service continuing into Massachusetts and Brattleboro, Vermont.
Statewide bus service is supplied by Connecticut Transit, owned by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, with smaller municipal authorities providing local service. Bus networks are an important part of the transportation system in Connecticut, especially in urban areas like Hartford, Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport and New Haven. Connecticut Transit also operates CTfastrak, a bus rapid transit service between New Britain and Hartford, which opened to the public on March 28, 2015.
Connecticut's largest airport is Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, 15 miles (24 km) north of Hartford. Many residents of central and southern Connecticut also make heavy use of JFK International Airport and Newark International Airports, especially for international travel. Smaller regional air service is provided at Tweed New Haven Regional Airport. Larger civil airports include Danbury Municipal Airport and Waterbury-Oxford Airport in western Connecticut, Hartford–Brainard Airport in central Connecticut, and Groton-New London Airport in eastern Connecticut. Sikorsky Memorial Airport is located in Stratford and mostly services cargo, helicopter and private aviation.
Several ferry services cross Long Island Sound and connect the state to Long Island. The Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Ferry travels between Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Port Jefferson, New York. Ferry service also operates out of New London to Orient, New York; Fishers Island, New York; and Block Island, Rhode Island, which are popular tourist destinations. Two ferries cross the Connecticut River: the Rocky Hill–Glastonbury ferry and the Chester–Hadlyme ferry, the former of which is the oldest continuously operating ferry in the United States, operating since 1655.
Hartford has been the sole capital of Connecticut since 1875. Before then, New Haven and Hartford alternated as dual capitals.
Connecticut is known as the "Constitution State". The origin of this nickname is uncertain, but it likely comes from Connecticut's pivotal role in the federal constitutional convention of 1787, during which Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth helped to orchestrate what became known as the Connecticut Compromise, or the Great Compromise. This plan combined the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan to form a bicameral legislature, a form copied by almost every state constitution since the adoption of the federal constitution. Variations of the bicameral legislature had been proposed by Virginia and New Jersey, but Connecticut's plan was the one that was in effect until the early 20th century, when Senators ceased to be selected by their state legislatures and were instead directly elected. Otherwise, it is still the design of Congress.
The nickname also might refer to the Fundamental Orders of 1638–39. These Fundamental Orders represent the framework for the first formal Connecticut state government written by a representative body in Connecticut. The State of Connecticut government has operated under the direction of four separate documents in the course of the state's constitutional history. After the Fundamental Orders, Connecticut was granted governmental authority by King Charles II of England through the Connecticut Charter of 1662.
Separate branches of government did not exist during this period, and the General Assembly acted as the supreme authority. A constitution similar to the modern U.S. Constitution was not adopted in Connecticut until 1818. Finally, the current state constitution was implemented in 1965. The 1965 constitution absorbed a majority of its 1818 predecessor, but incorporated a handful of important modifications.
The governor heads the executive branch. As of 2020, Ned Lamont is the Governor and Susan Bysiewicz is the Lieutenant Governor; both are Democrats. From 1639 until the adoption of the 1818 constitution, the governor presided over the General Assembly. In 1974, Ella Grasso was elected as the governor of Connecticut. This was the first time in United States history when a woman was a governor without her husband being governor first.
There are several executive departments: Administrative Services, Agriculture, Banking, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Correction, Economic and Community Development, Developmental Services, Construction Services, Education, Emergency Management and Public Protection, Energy & Environmental Protection, Higher Education, Insurance, Labor, Mental Health and Addiction Services, Military, Motor Vehicles, Public Health, Public Utility Regulatory Authority, Public Works, Revenue Services, Social Services, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs. In addition to these departments, there are other independent bureaus, offices and commissions.
In addition to the governor and lieutenant governor, there are four other executive officers named in the state constitution that are elected directly by voters: secretary of the state, treasurer, comptroller, and attorney general. All executive officers are elected to four-year terms.
Connecticut's legislative branch is known as the General Assembly. It is a bicameral legislature consisting of an upper body, the State Senate (36 senators); and a lower body, the House of Representatives (151 representatives). Bills must pass each house in order to become law. The governor can veto bills, but this veto can be overridden by a two-thirds majority in both houses. Per Article XV of the state constitution, Senators and Representatives must be at least 18 years of age and are elected to two-year terms in November on even-numbered years. There also must always be between 30 and 50 senators and 125 to 225 representatives. The Lieutenant Governor presides over the Senate, except when absent from the chamber, when the President pro tempore presides. The Speaker of the House presides over the House. As of 2021, Matthew Ritter is the Speaker of the House of Connecticut.
As of 2021, Connecticut's United States Senators are Richard Blumenthal (Democrat) and Chris Murphy (Democrat). Connecticut has five representatives in the U.S. House, all of whom are Democrats.
Locally elected representatives also develop local ordinances to govern cities and towns. The town ordinances often include noise control and zoning guidelines. However, the State of Connecticut also provides statewide ordinances for noise control as well.
The highest court of Connecticut's judicial branch is the Connecticut Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of Connecticut. The Supreme Court is responsible for deciding on the constitutionality of laws, or cases as they relate to the law. Its proceedings are similar to those of the United States Supreme Court: no testimony is given by witnesses, and the lawyers of the two sides each present oral arguments no longer than thirty minutes. Following a court proceeding, the court may take several months to arrive at a judgment. As of 2020, the Chief Justice is Richard A. Robinson.
In 1818, the court became a separate entity, independent of the legislative and executive branches. The Connecticut Appellate Court is a lesser statewide court, and the Superior Courts are lower courts that resemble county courts of other states.
Connecticut does not have county government, unlike all other states except Rhode Island. Connecticut county governments were mostly eliminated in 1960, with the exception of sheriffs elected in each county. In 2000, the county sheriff was abolished and replaced with the state marshal system, which has districts that follow the old county territories. The judicial system is divided into judicial districts at the trial-court level which largely follow the old county lines. The eight counties are still widely used for purely geographical and statistical purposes, such as weather reports and census reporting.
The state is divided into nine regional councils of government defined by the state Office of Planning and Management, which facilitate regional planning and coordination of services between member towns. The Intragovernmental Policy Division of this Office coordinates regional planning with the administrative bodies of these regions. Each region has an administrative body made up chief executive officers of the member towns. The regions are established for the purpose of planning "coordination of regional and state planning activities; redesignation of logical planning regions and promotion of the continuation of regional planning organizations within the state; and provision for technical aid and the administration of financial assistance to regional planning organizations". By 2015, the State of Connecticut recognized COGs as county equivalents, allowing them to apply for funding and grants made available to county governments in other states. In 2019 the state recommended to the United States Census Bureau that the nine Councils of Governments replace its counties for statistical purposes. This proposal was approved by the Census Bureau in 2022, and will be fully implemented by 2024.
Connecticut shares with the rest of New England a governmental institution called the New England town. The state is divided into 169 towns which serve as the fundamental political jurisdictions. There are also 21 cities, most of which simply follow the boundaries of their namesake towns and have a merged city-town government. There are two exceptions: the City of Groton, which is a subsection of the Town of Groton, and the City of Winsted in the Town of Winchester. There are also nine incorporated boroughs which may provide additional services to a section of town. Naugatuck is a consolidated town and borough.
Connecticut is generally considered to be a blue state. The last Republican presidential candidate to win Connecticut's votes in the Electoral College was George H. W. Bush in 1988.
Connecticut residents who register to vote may declare an affiliation to a political party, may become unaffiliated at will, and may change affiliations subject to certain waiting periods. As of 2022 around 58% of registered voters are enrolled in a political party. The Democratic Party of Connecticut is the largest party in the state by voter registration, with 36% of voters, followed by the Connecticut Republican Party with approximately 20%. An additional 1.6% are registered to third parties. As of 2022, 4 third parties have statewide enrollment privileges (meaning any state resident may register as a member), including the Libertarian Party of Connecticut, the Independent Party of Connecticut, the Connecticut Green Party, and the Connecticut Working Families Party. Connecticut allows electoral fusion, where the same candidate can run on the ballot of more than one political party; this is often used by the Connecticut Working Families Party to cross-endorse Democratic candidates.
In July 2009, the Connecticut legislature overrode a veto by Governor M. Jodi Rell to pass SustiNet, the first significant public-option health care reform legislation in the nation.
In April 2012, both houses of the Connecticut state legislature passed a bill (20 to 16 and 86 to 62) that abolished capital punishment for all future crimes, while 11 inmates who were waiting on the death row at the time could still be executed.
Connecticut ranked third in the nation for educational performance, according to Education Week's Quality Counts 2018 report. It earned an overall score of 83.5 out of 100 points. On average, the country received a score of 75.2. Connecticut posted a B-plus in the Chance-for-Success category, ranking fourth on factors that contribute to a person's success both within and outside the K-12 education system. Connecticut received a mark of B-plus and finished fourth for School Finance. It ranked 12th with a grade of C on the K-12 Achievement Index.
Hartford Public High School (1638) is the third-oldest secondary school in the nation after the Collegiate School (1628) in Manhattan and the Boston Latin School (1635). Today, the Connecticut State Board of Education manages the public school system for children in grades K–12. Board of Education members are appointed by the Governor of Connecticut.
Connecticut has a number of private schools. Private schools may file for approval by the state Department of Education, but are not required to. Per state law, private schools must file yearly attendance reports with the state.
Notable private schools include Choate Rosemary Hall, The Hotchkiss School, Loomis Chaffee School, and Taft School.
Connecticut was home to the nation's first law school, Litchfield Law School, which operated from 1773 to 1833 in Litchfield. Well known universities in the state include Yale University, Wesleyan University, Trinity College, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield University, Quinnipiac University, and the University of Connecticut. The Connecticut State University System includes 4 state universities, and the state also has 12 community colleges. The United States Coast Guard Academy is located in New London.
There are two Connecticut teams in the American Hockey League. The Bridgeport Islanders is a farm team for the New York Islanders which competes at the Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport. The Hartford Wolf Pack is the affiliate of the New York Rangers; they play in the XL Center in Hartford.
The Hartford Yard Goats of the Double-A Northeast are a AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. Also, the Norwich Sea Unicorns play in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League. The New Britain Bees play in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Connecticut Sun of the WNBA currently play at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville. In soccer, Hartford Athletic began play in the USL Championship in 2019.
The state hosts several major sporting events. Since 1952, a PGA Tour golf tournament has been played in the Hartford area. It was originally called the "Insurance City Open" and later the "Greater Hartford Open" and is now known as the Travelers Championship.
Lime Rock Park in Salisbury is a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) road racing course, home to the International Motor Sports Association, SCCA, United States Auto Club, and K&N Pro Series East races. Thompson International Speedway, Stafford Motor Speedway, and Waterford Speedbowl are oval tracks holding weekly races for NASCAR Modifieds and other classes, including the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. The state also hosts several major mixed martial arts events for Bellator MMA and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The Hartford Whalers of the National Hockey League played in Hartford from 1975 to 1997 at the Hartford Civic Center. They departed to Raleigh, North Carolina, after disputes with the state over the construction of a new arena, and they are now known as the Carolina Hurricanes. A baseball team known as the Hartfords (or Hartford Dark Blues) played in the National Association from 1874 to 1875, before becoming charter members of the National League in 1876. The team moved to Brooklyn, New York, and then disbanded one season later. In 1926, Hartford also had a franchise in the National Football League known as the Hartford Blues. From 2000 until 2006 the city was home to the Hartford FoxForce of World TeamTennis.
The Connecticut Huskies are the team of the University of Connecticut (UConn); they play NCAA Division I sports. Both the men's basketball and women's basketball teams have won multiple national championships. In 2004, UConn became the first school in NCAA Division I history to have its men's and women's basketball programs win the national title in the same year; they repeated the feat in 2014 and are still the only Division I school to win both titles in the same year. The UConn women's basketball team holds the record for the longest consecutive winning streak in NCAA college basketball at 111 games, a streak that ended in 2017. The UConn Huskies football team has played in the Football Bowl Subdivision since 2002, and has played in four bowl games.
New Haven biennially hosts "The Game" between the Yale Bulldogs and the Harvard Crimson, the country's second-oldest college football rivalry. Yale alumnus Walter Camp is deemed the "Father of American Football", and he helped develop modern football while living in New Haven. Other Connecticut universities which feature Division I sports teams are Quinnipiac University, Fairfield University, Central Connecticut State University, Sacred Heart University, and the University of Hartford.
The name "Connecticut" originated with the Mohegan word quonehtacut, meaning "place of long tidal river". Connecticut's official nickname is "The Constitution State", adopted in 1959 and based on its colonial constitution of 1638–1639 which was the first in America and, arguably, the world. Connecticut is also unofficially known as "The Nutmeg State", whose origin is unknown. It may have come from its sailors returning from voyages with nutmeg, which was a very valuable spice in the 18th and 19th centuries. It may have originated in the early machined sheet tin nutmeg grinders sold by early Connecticut peddlers. It is also facetiously said to come from Yankee peddlers from Connecticut who would sell small carved nobs of wood shaped to look like nutmeg to unsuspecting customers. George Washington gave Connecticut the title of "The Provisions State" because of the material aid that the state rendered to the American Revolutionary War effort. Connecticut is also known as "The Land of Steady Habits".
According to Webster's New International Dictionary (1993), a person who is a native or resident of Connecticut is a "Connecticuter". There are numerous other terms coined in print but not in use, such as "Connecticotian" (Cotton Mather in 1702) and "Connecticutensian" (Samuel Peters in 1781). Linguist Allen Walker Read suggests the more playful term "Connecticutie". "Nutmegger" is sometimes used, as is "Yankee".
The official state song is "Yankee Doodle". The traditional abbreviation of the state's name is "Conn."; the official postal abbreviation is CT.
Commemorative stamps issued by the United States Postal Service with Connecticut themes include Nathan Hale, Eugene O'Neill, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Noah Webster, Eli Whitney, the whaling ship the Charles W. Morgan, which is docked at Mystic Seaport, and a decoy of a broadbill duck.
Census Bureau
Library of Congress
41°36′N 72°42′W / 41.6°N 72.7°W / 41.6; -72.7 | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Connecticut (/kəˈnɛtɪkət/ kə-NET-ik-ət) is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. As of the 2020 United States census, Connecticut was home to over 3.6 million residents, its highest decennial count ever, growing every decade since 1790.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The state is bordered by Rhode Island to its east, Massachusetts to its north, New York to its west, and Long Island Sound to its south. Its capital is Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport. Historically, the state is part of New England as well as the tri-state area with New York and New Jersey. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word Connecticut is derived from various anglicized spellings of Quinnetuket, a Mohegan-Pequot word for \"long tidal river\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Connecticut's first European settlers were Dutchmen who established a small, short-lived settlement called House of Hope in Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut Rivers. Half of Connecticut was initially claimed by the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, although the first major settlements were established in the 1630s by the English. Thomas Hooker led a band of followers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded the Connecticut Colony; other settlers from Massachusetts founded the Saybrook Colony and the New Haven Colony. The Connecticut and New Haven colonies established documents of Fundamental Orders, considered the first constitutions in America. In 1662, the three colonies were merged under a royal charter, making Connecticut a crown colony. Connecticut was one of the Thirteen Colonies which rejected British rule in the American Revolution. It was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Connecticut is the third-smallest state by area, the 29th most populous, and the fourth most densely populated of the fifty states. It is known as the \"Constitution State\", the \"Nutmeg State\", the \"Provisions State\", and the \"Land of Steady Habits\". The Connecticut River, Thames River, and ports along Long Island Sound have given Connecticut a strong maritime tradition which continues today. The state also has a long history of hosting the financial services industry, including insurance companies in Hartford County and hedge funds in Fairfield County. As of the 2010 census, it has the highest per-capita income, second-highest level of human development behind Massachusetts, and highest median household income in the United States.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The name Connecticut is derived from the Mohegan-Pequot word that has been translated as \"long tidal river\" and \"upon the long river\", both referring to the Connecticut River. Evidence of human presence in the Connecticut region dates to as far back as 10,000 years ago. Stone tools were used for hunting, fishing, and woodworking. Semi-nomadic in lifestyle, these peoples moved seasonally to take advantage of various resources in the area. They shared languages based on Algonquian. The Connecticut region was inhabited by multiple Native American tribes which can be grouped into the Nipmuc, the Sequin or \"River Indians\" (which included the Tunxis, Schaghticoke, Podunk, Wangunk, Hammonasset, and Quinnipiac), the Mattabesec or \"Wappinger Confederacy\" and the Pequot-Mohegan. Some of these groups still reside in Connecticut, including the Mohegans, the Pequots, and the Paugusetts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The first European explorer in Connecticut was Dutchman Adriaen Block, who explored the region in 1614. Dutch fur traders then sailed up the Connecticut River, which they called Versche Rivier (\"Fresh River\"), and built a fort at Dutch Point in Hartford that they named \"House of Hope\" (Dutch: Huis van Hoop).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Connecticut Colony was originally a number of separate, smaller settlements at Windsor, Wethersfield, Saybrook, Hartford, and New Haven. The first English settlers came in 1633 and settled at Windsor, and then at Wethersfield the following year. John Winthrop the Younger of Massachusetts received a commission to create Saybrook Colony at the mouth of the Connecticut River in 1635.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The main body of settlers came in one large group in 1636. They were Puritans from Massachusetts Bay Colony led by Thomas Hooker, who established the Connecticut Colony at Hartford. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut were adopted in January 1639, and have been described as the first constitutional document in America.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Quinnipiack Colony was established by John Davenport, Theophilus Eaton, and others at New Haven in March 1638. The New Haven Colony had its own constitution called \"The Fundamental Agreement of the New Haven Colony\", signed on June 4, 1639.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The settlements were established without official sanction of the English Crown, and each was an independent political entity. In 1662, Winthrop traveled to England and obtained a charter from Charles II which united the settlements of Connecticut. Historically important colonial settlements included Windsor (1633), Wethersfield (1634), Saybrook (1635), Hartford (1636), New Haven (1638), Fairfield (1639), Guilford (1639), Milford (1639), Stratford (1639), Farmington (1640), Stamford (1641), and New London (1646).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Pequot War marked the first major clash between colonists and Native Americans in New England. The Pequots reacted with increasing aggression to Colonial settlements in their territory—while simultaneously taking lands from the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes. Settlers responded to a murder in 1636 with a raid on a Pequot village on Block Island; the Pequots laid siege to Saybrook Colony's garrison that autumn, then raided Wethersfield in the spring of 1637. Colonists declared war on the Pequots, organized a band of militia and allies from the Mohegan and Narragansett tribes, and attacked a Pequot village on the Mystic River, with death toll estimates ranging between 300 and 700 Pequots. After suffering another major loss at a battle in Fairfield, the Pequots asked for a truce and peace terms.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The western boundaries of Connecticut have been subject to change over time. The Hartford Treaty with the Dutch was signed on September 19, 1650, but it was never ratified by the British. According to it, the western boundary of Connecticut ran north from Greenwich Bay for a distance of 20 miles (32 km), \"provided the said line come not within 10 miles [16 km] of Hudson River\". This agreement was observed by both sides until war erupted between England and The Netherlands in 1652. Conflict continued concerning colonial limits until the Duke of York captured New Netherland in 1664.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "On the other hand, Connecticut's original Charter in 1662 granted it all the land to the \"South Sea\"—that is, to the Pacific Ocean. Most Colonial royal grants were for long east–west strips. Connecticut took its grant seriously and established a ninth county between the Susquehanna River and Delaware River named Westmoreland County. This resulted in the brief Pennamite Wars with Pennsylvania.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Yale College was established in 1701, providing Connecticut with an important institution to educate clergy and civil leaders. The Congregational church dominated religious life in the colony and, by extension, town affairs in many parts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "With more than 600 miles (970 km) of coastline including along its navigable rivers, Connecticut developed during its colonial years the antecedents of a maritime tradition that would later produce booms in shipbuilding, marine transport, naval support, seafood production, and leisure boating.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Historical records list the Tryall as the first vessel built in Connecticut Colony, in 1649 at a site on the Connecticut River in present-day Wethersfield. In the two decades leading up to 1776 and the American Revolution, Connecticut boatyards launched about 100 sloops, schooners and brigs according to a database of U.S. customs records maintained online by the Mystic Seaport Museum, the largest being the 180-ton Patient Mary launched in New Haven in 1763. Connecticut's first lighthouse was constructed in 1760 at the mouth of the Thames River with the New London Harbor Lighthouse.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Connecticut designated four delegates to the Second Continental Congress who signed the Declaration of Independence: Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, William Williams, and Oliver Wolcott. Connecticut's legislature authorized the outfitting of six new regiments in 1775, in the wake of the clashes between British regulars and Massachusetts militia at Lexington and Concord. There were some 1,200 Connecticut troops on hand at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775. In 1775, David Bushnell invented the Turtle which the following year launched the first submarine attack in history, unsuccessfully against a British warship at anchor in New York Harbor.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1777, the British got word of Continental Army supplies in Danbury, and they landed an expeditionary force of some 2,000 troops in Westport. This force then marched to Danbury and destroyed homes and much of the depot. Continental Army troops and militia led by General David Wooster and General Benedict Arnold engaged them on their return march at Ridgefield in 1777. For the winter of 1778–79, General George Washington decided to split the Continental Army into three divisions encircling New York City, where British General Sir Henry Clinton had taken up winter quarters. Major General Israel Putnam chose Redding as the winter encampment quarters for some 3,000 regulars and militia under his command. The Redding encampment allowed Putnam's soldiers to guard the replenished supply depot in Danbury and to support any operations along Long Island Sound and the Hudson River Valley. Some of the men were veterans of the winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the previous winter. Soldiers at the Redding camp endured supply shortages, cold temperatures, and significant snow, with some historians dubbing the encampment \"Connecticut's Valley Forge\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The state was also the launching site for a number of raids against Long Island orchestrated by Samuel Holden Parsons and Benjamin Tallmadge, and provided soldiers and material for the war effort, especially to Washington's army outside New York City. General William Tryon raided the Connecticut coast in July 1779, focusing on New Haven, Norwalk, and Fairfield. New London and Groton Heights were raided in September 1781 by Benedict Arnold, who had turned traitor to the British.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "At the outset of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress assigned Nathaniel Shaw Jr. of New London as its naval agent in charge of recruiting privateers to seize British vessels as opportunities presented, with nearly 50 operating out of the Thames River which eventually drew the reprisal from the British force led by Arnold.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Connecticut ratified the U.S. Constitution on January 9, 1788, becoming the fifth state.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The state prospered during the era following the American Revolution, as mills and textile factories were built and seaports flourished from trade and fisheries. After Congress established in 1790 the predecessor to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service that would evolve into the U.S. Coast Guard, President Washington assigned Jonathan Maltbie as one of seven masters to enforce customs regulations, with Maltbie monitoring the southern New England coast with a 48-foot cutter sloop named Argus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1786, Connecticut ceded territory to the U.S. government that became part of the Northwest Territory. The state retained land extending across the northern part of present-day Ohio called the Connecticut Western Reserve. The Western Reserve section was settled largely by people from Connecticut, and they brought Connecticut place names to Ohio.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Connecticut made agreements with Pennsylvania and New York which extinguished the land claims within those states' boundaries and created the Connecticut Panhandle. The state then ceded the Western Reserve in 1800 to the federal government, which brought it to its present boundaries (other than minor adjustments with Massachusetts).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "For the first time in 1800, Connecticut shipwrights launched more than 100 vessels in a single year. Over the following decade to the doorstep of renewed hostilities with Britain that sparked the War of 1812, Connecticut boatyards constructed close to 1,000 vessels, the most productive stretch of any decade in the 19th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During the war, the British launched raids in Stonington and Essex and blockaded vessels in the Thames River. Derby native Isaac Hull became Connecticut's best-known naval figure to win renown during the conflict, as captain of the USS Constitution.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The British blockade during the War of 1812 hurt exports and bolstered the influence of Federalists who opposed the war. The cessation of imports from Britain stimulated the construction of factories to manufacture textiles and machinery. Connecticut came to be recognized as a major center for manufacturing, due in part to the inventions of Eli Whitney and other early innovators of the Industrial Revolution.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The war led to the development of fast clippers that helped extend the reach of New England merchants to the Pacific and Indian oceans. The first half of the 19th century saw as well a rapid rise in whaling, with New London emerging as one of the New England industry's three biggest home ports after Nantucket and New Bedford.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The state was known for its political conservatism, typified by its Federalist party and the Yale College of Timothy Dwight. The foremost intellectuals were Dwight and Noah Webster, who compiled his great dictionary in New Haven. Religious tensions polarized the state, as the Congregational Church struggled to maintain traditional viewpoints, in alliance with the Federalists. The failure of the Hartford Convention in 1814 hurt the Federalist cause, with the Democratic-Republican Party gaining control in 1817.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Connecticut had been governed under the \"Fundamental Orders\" since 1639, but the state adopted a new constitution in 1818.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Connecticut manufacturers played a major role in supplying the Union forces with weapons and supplies during the Civil War. The state furnished 55,000 men, formed into thirty full regiments of infantry, including two in the U.S. Colored Troops, with several Connecticut men becoming generals. The Navy attracted 250 officers and 2,100 men, and Glastonbury native Gideon Welles was Secretary of the Navy. James H. Ward of Hartford was the first U.S. Naval Officer killed in the Civil War. Connecticut casualties included 2,088 killed in combat, 2,801 dying from disease, and 689 dying in Confederate prison camps.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A surge of national unity in 1861 brought thousands flocking to the colors from every town and city. However, as the war became a crusade to end slavery, many Democrats (especially Irish Catholics) pulled back. The Democrats took a pro-slavery position and included many Copperheads willing to let the South secede. The intensely fought 1863 election for governor was narrowly won by the Republicans.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Connecticut's extensive industry, dense population, flat terrain, and wealth encouraged the construction of railroads starting in 1839. By 1840, 102 miles (164 km) of line were in operation, growing to 402 miles (647 km) in 1850 and 601 miles (967 km) in 1860.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad, called the New Haven or \"The Consolidated\", became the dominant Connecticut railroad company after 1872. J. P. Morgan began financing the major New England railroads in the 1890s, dividing territory so that they would not compete. The New Haven purchased 50 smaller companies, including steamship lines, and built a network of light rails (electrified trolleys) that provided inter-urban transportation for all of southern New England. By 1912, the New Haven operated over 2,000 miles (3,200 km) of track with 120,000 employees.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "As steam-powered passenger ships proliferated after the Civil War, Noank would produce the two largest built in Connecticut during the 19th century, with the 332-foot wooden steam paddle wheeler Rhode Island launched in 1882, and the 345-foot paddle wheeler Connecticut seven years later. Connecticut shipyards would launch more than 165 steam-powered vessels in the 19th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 1875, the first telephone exchange in the world was established in New Haven.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "When World War I broke out in 1914, Connecticut became a major supplier of weaponry to the U.S. military; by 1918, 80% of the state's industries were producing goods for the war effort. Remington Arms in Bridgeport produced half the small-arms cartridges used by the U.S. Army, with other major suppliers including Winchester in New Haven and Colt in Hartford.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Connecticut was also an important U.S. Navy supplier, with Electric Boat receiving orders for 85 submarines, Lake Torpedo Boat building more than 20 subs, and the Groton Iron Works building freighters. On June 21, 1916, the Navy made Groton the site for its East Coast submarine base and school.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The state enthusiastically supported the American war effort in 1917 and 1918 with large purchases of war bonds, a further expansion of industry, and an emphasis on increasing food production on the farms. Thousands of state, local, and volunteer groups mobilized for the war effort and were coordinated by the Connecticut State Council of Defense. Manufacturers wrestled with manpower shortages; Waterbury's American Brass and Manufacturing Company was running at half capacity, so the federal government agreed to furlough soldiers to work there.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 1919, J. Henry Roraback started the Connecticut Light & Power Co. which became the state's dominant electric utility. In 1925, Frederick Rentschler spurred the creation of Pratt & Whitney in Hartford to develop engines for aircraft; the company became an important military supplier in World War II and one of the three major manufacturers of jet engines in the world.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "On September 21, 1938, the most destructive storm in New England history struck eastern Connecticut, killing hundreds of people. The eye of the \"Long Island Express\" passed just west of New Haven and devastated the Connecticut shoreline between Old Saybrook and Stonington from the full force of wind and waves, even though they had partial protection by Long Island. The hurricane caused extensive damage to infrastructure, homes, and businesses. In New London, a 500-foot (150 m) sailing ship was driven into a warehouse complex, causing a major fire. Heavy rainfall caused the Connecticut River to flood downtown Hartford and East Hartford. An estimated 50,000 trees fell onto roadways.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The advent of lend-lease in support of Britain helped lift Connecticut from the Great Depression, with the state a major production center for weaponry and supplies used in World War II. Connecticut manufactured 4.1% of total U.S. military armaments produced during the war, ranking ninth among the 48 states, with major factories including Colt for firearms, Pratt & Whitney for aircraft engines, Chance Vought for fighter planes, Hamilton Standard for propellers, and Electric Boat for submarines and PT boats. In Bridgeport, General Electric produced a significant new weapon to combat tanks: the bazooka.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "On May 13, 1940, Igor Sikorsky made an untethered flight of the first practical helicopter. The helicopter saw limited use in World War II, but future military production made Sikorsky Aircraft's Stratford plant Connecticut's largest single manufacturing site by the start of the 21st century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Connecticut lost some wartime factories following the end of hostilities, but the state shared in a general post-war expansion that included the construction of highways and resulting in middle-class growth in suburban areas.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Prescott Bush represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1952 to 1963; his son George H. W. Bush and grandson George W. Bush both became presidents of the United States. In 1965, Connecticut ratified its current constitution, replacing the document that had served since 1818.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 1968, commercial operation began for the Connecticut Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Haddam; in 1970, the Millstone Nuclear Power Station began operations in Waterford. In 1974, Connecticut elected Democratic Governor Ella T. Grasso, who became the first woman in any state to be elected governor without being the wife or widow of a previous governor.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Connecticut's dependence on the defense industry posed an economic challenge at the end of the Cold War. The resulting budget crisis helped elect Lowell Weicker as governor on a third-party ticket in 1990. Weicker's remedy was a state income tax which proved effective in balancing the budget, but only for the short-term. He did not run for a second term, in part because of this politically unpopular move.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In 1992, initial construction was completed on Foxwoods Casino at the Mashantucket Pequots reservation in eastern Connecticut, which became the largest casino in the Western Hemisphere. Mohegan Sun followed four years later.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In 2000, presidential candidate Al Gore chose Senator Joe Lieberman as his running mate, marking the first time that a major party presidential ticket included someone of the Jewish faith. Gore and Lieberman fell five votes short of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the Electoral College. In the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 65 state residents were killed, mostly Fairfield County residents who were working in the World Trade Center. In 2004, Republican Governor John G. Rowland resigned during a corruption investigation, later pleading guilty to federal charges.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Connecticut was hit by three major storms in just over 14 months in 2011 and 2012, with all three causing extensive property damage and electric outages. Hurricane Irene struck Connecticut August 28, and damage totaled $235 million. Two months later, the \"Halloween nor'easter\" dropped extensive snow onto trees, resulting in snapped branches and trunks that damaged power lines; some areas were without electricity for 11 days. Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey and passed over Connecticut with hurricane force winds and tides up to 12 feet above normal. Many coastal buildings were damaged or destroyed. . Sandy's winds drove storm surges into streets and cut power to 98% of homes and businesses, with more than $360 million in damage.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, and then killed himself. The massacre spurred renewed efforts by activists for tighter laws on gun ownership nationally.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In the summer and fall of 2016, Connecticut experienced a drought in many parts of the state, causing some water-use bans. As of November 15, 2016 (2016-11-15), 45% of the state was listed at Severe Drought by the U.S. Drought Monitor, including almost all of Hartford and Litchfield counties. All the rest of the state was in Moderate Drought or Severe Drought, including Middlesex, Fairfield, New London, New Haven, Windham, and Tolland counties. This affected the agricultural economy in the state.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Connecticut is bordered on the south by Long Island Sound, on the west by New York, on the north by Massachusetts, and on the east by Rhode Island. The state capital and fourth largest city is Hartford, and other major cities and towns (by population) include Bridgeport, New Haven, Stamford, Waterbury, Norwalk, Danbury, New Britain, Greenwich, and Bristol. There are 169 incorporated towns in Connecticut, with cities and villages included within some towns.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The highest peak in Connecticut is Bear Mountain in Salisbury in the northwest corner of the state. The highest point is just east of where Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York meet (42°3′ N, 73°29′ W), on the southern slope of Mount Frissell, whose peak lies nearby in Massachusetts. At the opposite extreme, many of the coastal towns have areas that are less than 20 feet (6.1 m) above sea level.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Connecticut has a long maritime history and a reputation based on that history—yet the state has no direct oceanfront (technically speaking). The coast of Connecticut sits on Long Island Sound, which is an estuary. The state's access to the open Atlantic Ocean is both to the west (toward New York City) and to the east (toward the \"race\" near Rhode Island). Due to this unique geography, Long Island Sound and the Connecticut shoreline are relatively protected from high waves from storms.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Connecticut River cuts through the center of the state, flowing into Long Island Sound. The most populous metropolitan region centered within the state lies in the Connecticut River Valley. Despite Connecticut's relatively small size, it features wide regional variations in its landscape; for example, in the northwestern Litchfield Hills, it features rolling mountains and horse farms, whereas in areas to the east of New Haven along the coast, the landscape features coastal marshes, beaches, and large scale maritime activities.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Connecticut's rural areas and small towns in the northeast and northwest corners of the state contrast sharply with its industrial cities such as Stamford, Bridgeport, and New Haven, located along the coastal highways from the New York border to New London, then northward up the Connecticut River to Hartford. Many towns in northeastern and northwestern Connecticut center around a green. Near the green typically stand historical visual symbols of New England towns, such as a white church, a colonial meeting house, a colonial tavern or inn, several colonial houses, and so on, establishing a scenic historical appearance maintained for both historic preservation and tourism. Many of the areas in southern and coastal Connecticut have been built up and rebuilt over the years, and look less visually like traditional New England.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The northern boundary of the state with Massachusetts is marked by the Southwick Jog or Granby Notch, an approximately 2.5 miles (4.0 km) square detour into Connecticut. The origin of this anomaly is clearly established in a long line of disputes and temporary agreements which were finally concluded in 1804, when southern Southwick's residents sought to leave Massachusetts, and the town was split in half.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The southwestern border of Connecticut where it abuts New York State is marked by a panhandle in Fairfield County, containing the towns of Greenwich, Stamford, New Canaan, Darien, and parts of Norwalk and Wilton. This irregularity in the boundary is the result of territorial disputes in the late 17th century, culminating with New York giving up its claim to the area, whose residents considered themselves part of Connecticut, in exchange for an equivalent area extending northwards from Ridgefield to the Massachusetts border, as well as undisputed claim to Rye, New York.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Areas maintained by the National Park Service include Appalachian National Scenic Trail, Quinebaug and Shetucket Rivers Valley National Heritage Corridor, and Weir Farm National Historic Site.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Connecticut lies at the rough transition zone between the southern end of the humid continental climate, and the northern portion of the humid subtropical climate. Northern Connecticut generally experiences a climate with cold winters with moderate snowfall and hot, humid summers. Far southern and coastal Connecticut has a climate with cool winters with a mix of rain and infrequent snow, and the long hot and humid summers typical of the middle and lower East Coast.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Connecticut sees a fairly even precipitation pattern with rainfall/snowfall spread throughout the 12 months. Connecticut averages 56% of possible sunshine (higher than the U.S. national average), averaging 2,400 hours of sunshine annually. On average, about one third of days in the state see some amount of precipitation each year. Occasionally, some months may see extremes in precipitation, either much higher or lower than normal, though long term droughts and floods are rare.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Early spring can range from slightly cool (40s to low 50s F) to warm (65 to 70 F), while mid and late spring (late April/May) is warm. By late May, the building Bermuda High creates a southerly flow of warm and humid tropical air, bringing hot weather conditions throughout the state. Average highs are 81 °F (27 °C) in New London and 85 °F (29 °C) in Windsor Locks at the peak of summer in late July. On occasion, heat waves with highs from 90 to 100 °F (38 °C) occur across Connecticut. Connecticut's record high temperature is 106 °F (41 °C) which occurred in Danbury on July 15, 1995. Although summers are sunny in Connecticut, quick moving summer thunderstorms can bring brief downpours with thunder and lightning. Occasionally these thunderstorms can be severe, and the state usually averages one tornado per year. During hurricane season, the remains of tropical cyclones occasionally affect the region, though a direct hit is rare. Some notable hurricanes to impact the state include the 1938 New England hurricane, Hurricane Carol in 1954, Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and Hurricane Isaias in 2020.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Weather commonly associated with the fall season typically begins in October and lasts to the first days of December. Daily high temperatures in October and November range from the 50s to 60s (Fahrenheit) with nights in the 40s and upper 30s. Colorful foliage begins across northern parts of the state in early October and moves south and east reaching southeast Connecticut by early November. Far southern and coastal areas, however, have more oak and hickory trees (and fewer maples) and are often less colorful than areas to the north. By December daytime highs are in the 40s °F for much of the state, and average overnight lows are below freezing.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Winters (December through mid-March) are generally cold from south to north in Connecticut. The coldest month (January) has average high temperatures ranging from 38 °F (3 °C) in the coastal lowlands to 33 °F (1 °C) in the inland and northern portions on the state. The lowest temperature recorded in Connecticut is −32 °F (−36 °C) which has been observed twice: in Falls Village on February 16, 1943, and in Coventry on January 22, 1961. The average yearly snowfall ranges from about 60 inches (1,500 mm) in the higher elevations of the northern portion of the state to only 20–25 inches (510–640 mm) along the southeast coast of Connecticut (Branford to Groton). Generally, any locale north or west of Interstate 84 receives the most snow, during a storm, and throughout the season. Most of Connecticut has less than 60 days of snow cover. Snow usually falls from late November to late March in the northern part of the state, and from early December to mid-March in the southern and coastal parts of the state.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "During winter every few years, Connecticut can occasionally get heavy snowstorms, called nor'easters, which may produce as much as two feet of snow on rare occasions. Ice storms also occur on occasion, such as the Southern New England ice storm of 1973 and the December 2008 Northeastern United States ice storm. These storms can cause widespread power outages and damage.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Forests consist of a mix of Northeastern coastal forests of oak in southern areas of the state, to the upland New England-Acadian forests in the northwestern parts of the state. Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) is the state flower and is native to low ridges in several parts of Connecticut. Rosebay rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) is also native to eastern uplands of Connecticut and Pachaug State Forest is home to the Rhododendron Sanctuary Trail. Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides), is found in wetlands in the southern parts of the state. Connecticut has one native cactus (Opuntia humifusa), found in sandy coastal areas and low hillsides. Several types of beach grasses and wildflowers are also native to Connecticut. Connecticut spans USDA Plant Hardiness Zones 5b to 7a. Coastal Connecticut is the broad transition zone where more southern and subtropical plants are cultivated. In some coastal communities, Magnolia grandiflora (southern magnolia), crape myrtles, scrub palms (Sabal minor), needle palms (Rhapidophyllum hystrix), and other broadleaved evergreens are cultivated in small numbers.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "As of the 2020 United States census, Connecticut has a population of 3,605,944, an increase of 31,847 people (0.9%) from the 2010 United States census. Among the census records, 20.4% of the population was under 18.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "In 1790, 97% of the population in Connecticut was classified as \"rural\". The first census in which less than half the population was classified as rural was 1890. In the 2000 census, only 12.3% was considered rural. Most of western and southern Connecticut (particularly the Gold Coast) is strongly associated with New York City; this area is the most affluent and populous region of the state and has high property costs and high incomes. The center of population of Connecticut is located in the town of Cheshire.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "According to HUD's 2022 Annual Homeless Assessment Report, there were an estimated 2,930 homeless people in Connecticut.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In common with the majority of the United States, non-Hispanic whites have remained the dominant racial and ethnic group in Connecticut. From being 98% of the population in 1940, however, they have declined to 63% of the population as of the 2020 census. These statistics have represented fewer Americans identifying as non-Hispanic white, which has given rise to the Hispanic and Latino American population and Asian American population overall. As of 2011, 46.1% of Connecticut's population younger than age 1 were minorities. As of 2004, 11.4% of the population (400,000) was foreign-born. In 1870, native-born Americans had accounted for 75% of the state's population, but that had dropped to 35% by 1918. Also as of 2000, 81.69% of Connecticut residents age 5 and older spoke English at home and 8.42% spoke Spanish, followed by Italian at 1.59%, French at 1.31%, and Polish at 1.20%.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The largest ancestry groups since 2010 were: 19.3% Italian, 17.9% Irish, 10.7% English, 10.4% German, 8.6% Polish, 6.6% French, 3.0% French Canadian, 2.7% American, 2.0% Scottish, and 1.4% Scotch Irish.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "The top countries of origin for Connecticut's immigrants in 2018 were India, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Poland and Ecuador.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Note: Births in table do not add up because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "A Pew survey of Connecticut residents' religious self-identification showed the following distribution of affiliations in 2014: Protestant 35%, Mormonism 1%, Jewish 3%, Roman Catholic 33%, Orthodox 1%, Non-religious 28%, Jehovah's Witness 1%, Hinduism 1%, Buddhism 1% and Islam 1%. Jewish congregations had 108,280 (3.2%) members in 2000.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "The Jewish population is concentrated in the towns near Long Island Sound between Greenwich and New Haven, in Greater New Haven and in Greater Hartford, especially the suburb of West Hartford. According to the Association of Religion Data Archives, the largest Christian denominations, by number of adherents, in 2010 were: the Catholic Church, with 1,252,936; the United Church of Christ, with 96,506; and non-denominational Evangelical Protestants, with 72,863.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Recent immigration has brought other non-Christian religions to the state, but the numbers of adherents of other religions are still low. Connecticut is also home to New England's largest Protestant church: The First Cathedral in Bloomfield, Connecticut, located in Hartford County. Hartford is seat to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford, which is sovereign over the Diocese of Bridgeport and the Diocese of Norwich.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "By the Public Religion Research Institute's study in 2020, 71% of the population identified as Christian. In contrast to the 2014 study by the Pew Research Center, the irreligious declined from 28% of the population to 21% at the 2020 Public Religion Research Institute's study.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "Connecticut's economic output in 2019 as measured by gross domestic product was $289 billion, up from $277.9 billion in 2018.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Connecticut's per capita personal income in 2019 was estimated at $79,087, the highest of any state. There is, however, a great disparity in incomes throughout the state; after New York, Connecticut had the second largest gap nationwide between the average incomes of the top 1% and the average incomes of the bottom 99%. According to a 2018 study by Phoenix Marketing International, Connecticut had the third-largest number of millionaires per capita in the United States, with a ratio of 7.75%. New Canaan is the wealthiest town in Connecticut, with a per capita income of $85,459. Hartford is the poorest municipality in Connecticut, with a per capita income of $13,428 in 2000.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "As of December 2019, Connecticut's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.8%, with U.S. unemployment at 3.5% that month. Dating back to 1982, Connecticut recorded its lowest unemployment in 2000 between August and October, at 2.2%. The highest unemployment rate during that period occurred in November and December 2010 at 9.3%, but economists expected record new levels of layoffs as a result of business closures in the spring of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Tax is collected by the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services and by local municipalities.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "As of 2012, Connecticut residents had the second highest rate in the nation of combined state and local taxes after New York, at 12.6% of income compared to the national average of 9.9% as reported by the Tax Foundation.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Before 1991, Connecticut had an investment-only income tax system. Income from employment was untaxed, but income from investments was taxed at 13%, the highest rate in the U.S., with no deductions allowed for costs of producing the investment income, such as interest on borrowing.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "In 1991, under Governor Lowell P. Weicker Jr., an independent, the system was changed to one in which the taxes on employment income and investment income were equalized at a maximum rate of 4%. The new tax policy drew investment firms to Connecticut; as of 2019, Fairfield County was home to the headquarters for 16 of the 200 largest hedge funds in the world.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "As of 2019, the income tax rates on Connecticut individuals were divided into seven tax brackets of 3% (on income up to $10,000); 5% ($10,000–$50,000); 5.5% ($50,000–$100,000); 6% ($100,000–$200,000); 6.5% ($200,000–$250,000); 6.9% ($250,000–$500,000); and 6.99% above $500,000, with additional amounts owed depending on the bracket.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "All wages of Connecticut residents are subject to the state's income tax, even if earned outside the state. However, in those cases, Connecticut income tax must be withheld only to the extent the Connecticut tax exceeds the amount withheld by the other jurisdiction. Since New York has higher income tax rates than Connecticut, this effectively means that Connecticut residents who work in New York have no Connecticut income tax withheld. Connecticut permits a credit for taxes paid to other jurisdictions, but since residents who work in other states are still subject to Connecticut income taxation, they may owe taxes if the jurisdictional credit does not fully offset the Connecticut tax amount.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Connecticut levies a 6.35% state sales tax on the retail sale, lease, or rental of most goods. Some items and services in general are not subject to sales and use taxes unless specifically enumerated as taxable by statute. A provision excluding clothing under $50 from sales tax was repealed as of July 1, 2011. There are no additional sales taxes imposed by local jurisdictions. In 2001, Connecticut instituted what became an annual sales tax \"holiday\" each August lasting one week, when retailers do not have to remit sales tax on certain items and quantities of clothing that has varied from year to year.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "State law authorizes municipalities to tax property, including real estate, vehicles and other personal property, with state statute providing varying exemptions, credits and abatements. All assessments are at 70% of fair market value. The maximum property tax credit is $200 per return and any excess may not be refunded or carried forward. According to the Tax Foundation, on a per capita basis in the 2017 fiscal year Connecticut residents paid the 3rd highest average property taxes in the nation after New Hampshire and New Jersey.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "As of January 1, 2020, gasoline taxes and fees in Connecticut were 40.13 cents per gallon, 11th highest in the United States which had a nationwide average of 36.13 cents a gallon excluding federal taxes. Diesel taxes and fees as of January 2020 in Connecticut were 46.50 cents per gallon, ninth highest nationally with the U.S. average at 37.91 cents.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "In 2019, sales of single-family homes in Connecticut totaled 33,146 units, a 2.1 percent decline from the 2018 transaction total. The median home sold in 2019 recorded a transaction amount of $260,000, up 0.4 percent from 2018.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Connecticut had the seventh highest rate of home foreclosure activity in the country in 2019 at 0.53 percent of the total housing stock.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Finance, insurance and real estate was Connecticut's largest industry in 2018 as ranked by gross domestic product, generating $75.7 billion in GDP that year. Major employers include The Hartford, Travelers, Harman International, Cigna, the Aetna subsidiary of CVS Health, Mass Mutual, People's United Financial, Bank of America, Realogy, Bridgewater Associates, GE Capital, William Raveis Real Estate, and Berkshire Hathaway through reinsurance and residential real estate subsidiaries.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "The combined educational, health and social services sector was the largest single industry as ranked by employment, with a combined workforce of 342,600 people at the end of 2019, ranking fourth the year before in GDP at $28.3 billion.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "The broad business and professional services sector had the second highest GDP total in Connecticut in 2018 at an estimated $33.7 billion.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Manufacturing was the third biggest industry in 2018 with GDP of $30.8 billion, dominated by Raytheon Technologies formed in the March 2020 merger of Hartford-based United Technologies and Waltham, Mass.-based Raytheon Co. As of the merger, Raytheon Technologies employed about 19,000 people in Connecticut through subsidiaries Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace. Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sikorsky Aircraft operates Connecticut's single largest manufacturing plant in Stratford, where it makes helicopters.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The world's largest audio equipment manufacturing company Harman International is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. It owns many brands like JBL, Akg and Harman kardon.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Other major manufacturers include the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics, which makes submarines in Groton, Boehringer Ingelheim, a pharmaceuticals manufacturer with its U.S. headquarters in Ridgefield, and ASML, which in Wilton makes precision lithography machines used to create circuitry on semiconductors and flat-screen displays.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Connecticut historically was a center of gun manufacturing, and four gun-manufacturing firms continued to operate in the state as of December 2012, employing 2,000 people: Colt, Stag, Ruger, and Mossberg. Marlin, owned by Remington, closed in April 2011.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Other large components of the Connecticut economy in 2018 included wholesale trade ($18.1 billion in GDP); information services ($13.8 billion); retail ($13.7 billion); arts, entertainment and food services ($9.1 billion); and construction ($8.3 billion).",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "Tourists spent $9.3 billion in Connecticut in 2017 according to estimates as part of a series of studies commissioned by the state of Connecticut. Foxwoods Resort Casino and Mohegan Sun are the two biggest tourist draws and number among the state's largest employers; both are located on Native American reservations in the southeastern Connecticut.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Connecticut's agricultural production totaled $580 million in 2017, with just over half of that revenue the result of nursery stock production. Milk production totaled $81 million that year, with other major product categories including eggs, vegetables and fruit, tobacco and shellfish.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Connecticut's economy uses less energy to produce each dollar of GDP than all other states except California, Massachusetts, and New York. It uses less energy on a per-capita basis than all but six other states. It has no fossil-fuel resources, but does have renewable resources. Average retail electricity prices are the highest among the 48 contiguous states. While the vast majority of state's overall energy consumption is fossil fuels, nuclear power delivered over 40% of state's electricity generation in 2019. Refuse-derived fuels and other biomass provided the largest share of renewable electricity at about a 3% share. Solar and wind generation have grown in recent years. More than three-quarters of solar generation came from distributed small-scale installations such as rooftop solar in 2019, and there is planning underway to significantly increase renewable generation with the state's offshore wind resource.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "The Interstate highways in the state are Interstate 95 (I-95) traveling southwest to northeast along the coast, I-84 traveling southwest to northeast in the center of the state, I-91 traveling north to south in the center of the state, and I-395 traveling north to south near the eastern border of the state. The other major highways in Connecticut are the Merritt Parkway and Wilbur Cross Parkway, which together form Connecticut Route 15 (Route 15), traveling from the Hutchinson River Parkway in New York parallel to I-95 before turning north of New Haven and traveling parallel to I-91, finally becoming a surface road in Berlin. I-95 and Route 15 were originally toll roads; they relied on a system of toll plazas at which all traffic stopped and paid fixed tolls. A series of major crashes at these plazas eventually contributed to the decision to remove the tolls in 1988. Other major arteries in the state include U.S. Route 7 (US 7) in the west traveling parallel to the New York state line, Route 8 farther east near the industrial city of Waterbury and traveling north–south along the Naugatuck River Valley nearly parallel with US 7, and Route 9 in the east.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Between New Haven and New York City, I-95 is one of the most congested highways in the United States. Although I-95 has been widened in several spots, some areas are only three lanes and this strains traffic capacity, resulting in frequent and lengthy rush hour delays. Frequently, the congestion spills over to clog the parallel Merritt Parkway and even US 1. The state has encouraged traffic reduction schemes, including rail use and ride-sharing.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Connecticut also has a very active bicycling community, with one of the highest rates of bicycle ownership and use in the United States, particularly in New Haven. According to the U.S. Census 2006 American Community Survey, New Haven has the highest percentage of commuters who bicycle to work of any major metropolitan center on the East Coast.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Rail is a popular travel mode between New Haven and New York City's Grand Central Terminal. Southwestern Connecticut is served by the Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line, operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Metro-North provides commuter service between New York City and New Haven, with branches to New Canaan, Danbury, and Waterbury. Connecticut lies along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, which features frequent Northeast Regional and Acela Express service from New Haven south to New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, and Norfolk, VA, as well as north to New London, Providence and Boston. Since 1990, coastal cities and towns between New Haven and New London are also served by the Shore Line East commuter line.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "In June 2018, a commuter rail service called the Hartford Line began operating between New Haven and Springfield on Amtrak's New Haven-Springfield Line. Hartford Line service is provided by both Amtrak and the Connecticut Department of Transportation's CT Rail, and in addition to its termini serves New Haven State Street, Wallingford, Meriden, Berlin, Hartford, Windsor, and Windsor Locks. Several infill stations are planned to be added in the near future as of 2021. Amtrak's Vermonter runs from Washington to St. Albans, Vermont via the same line. In July 2019, Amtrak launched the Valley Flyer, which runs between New Haven and Greenfield, Massachusetts.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "A proposed commuter rail service, the Central Corridor Rail Line, would connect New London with Norwich, Willimantic, Storrs, and Stafford Springs, with service continuing into Massachusetts and Brattleboro, Vermont.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Statewide bus service is supplied by Connecticut Transit, owned by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, with smaller municipal authorities providing local service. Bus networks are an important part of the transportation system in Connecticut, especially in urban areas like Hartford, Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport and New Haven. Connecticut Transit also operates CTfastrak, a bus rapid transit service between New Britain and Hartford, which opened to the public on March 28, 2015.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "Connecticut's largest airport is Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, 15 miles (24 km) north of Hartford. Many residents of central and southern Connecticut also make heavy use of JFK International Airport and Newark International Airports, especially for international travel. Smaller regional air service is provided at Tweed New Haven Regional Airport. Larger civil airports include Danbury Municipal Airport and Waterbury-Oxford Airport in western Connecticut, Hartford–Brainard Airport in central Connecticut, and Groton-New London Airport in eastern Connecticut. Sikorsky Memorial Airport is located in Stratford and mostly services cargo, helicopter and private aviation.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "Several ferry services cross Long Island Sound and connect the state to Long Island. The Bridgeport & Port Jefferson Ferry travels between Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Port Jefferson, New York. Ferry service also operates out of New London to Orient, New York; Fishers Island, New York; and Block Island, Rhode Island, which are popular tourist destinations. Two ferries cross the Connecticut River: the Rocky Hill–Glastonbury ferry and the Chester–Hadlyme ferry, the former of which is the oldest continuously operating ferry in the United States, operating since 1655.",
"title": "Transport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "Hartford has been the sole capital of Connecticut since 1875. Before then, New Haven and Hartford alternated as dual capitals.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Connecticut is known as the \"Constitution State\". The origin of this nickname is uncertain, but it likely comes from Connecticut's pivotal role in the federal constitutional convention of 1787, during which Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth helped to orchestrate what became known as the Connecticut Compromise, or the Great Compromise. This plan combined the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan to form a bicameral legislature, a form copied by almost every state constitution since the adoption of the federal constitution. Variations of the bicameral legislature had been proposed by Virginia and New Jersey, but Connecticut's plan was the one that was in effect until the early 20th century, when Senators ceased to be selected by their state legislatures and were instead directly elected. Otherwise, it is still the design of Congress.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "The nickname also might refer to the Fundamental Orders of 1638–39. These Fundamental Orders represent the framework for the first formal Connecticut state government written by a representative body in Connecticut. The State of Connecticut government has operated under the direction of four separate documents in the course of the state's constitutional history. After the Fundamental Orders, Connecticut was granted governmental authority by King Charles II of England through the Connecticut Charter of 1662.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "Separate branches of government did not exist during this period, and the General Assembly acted as the supreme authority. A constitution similar to the modern U.S. Constitution was not adopted in Connecticut until 1818. Finally, the current state constitution was implemented in 1965. The 1965 constitution absorbed a majority of its 1818 predecessor, but incorporated a handful of important modifications.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "The governor heads the executive branch. As of 2020, Ned Lamont is the Governor and Susan Bysiewicz is the Lieutenant Governor; both are Democrats. From 1639 until the adoption of the 1818 constitution, the governor presided over the General Assembly. In 1974, Ella Grasso was elected as the governor of Connecticut. This was the first time in United States history when a woman was a governor without her husband being governor first.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "There are several executive departments: Administrative Services, Agriculture, Banking, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Correction, Economic and Community Development, Developmental Services, Construction Services, Education, Emergency Management and Public Protection, Energy & Environmental Protection, Higher Education, Insurance, Labor, Mental Health and Addiction Services, Military, Motor Vehicles, Public Health, Public Utility Regulatory Authority, Public Works, Revenue Services, Social Services, Transportation, and Veterans Affairs. In addition to these departments, there are other independent bureaus, offices and commissions.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "In addition to the governor and lieutenant governor, there are four other executive officers named in the state constitution that are elected directly by voters: secretary of the state, treasurer, comptroller, and attorney general. All executive officers are elected to four-year terms.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "Connecticut's legislative branch is known as the General Assembly. It is a bicameral legislature consisting of an upper body, the State Senate (36 senators); and a lower body, the House of Representatives (151 representatives). Bills must pass each house in order to become law. The governor can veto bills, but this veto can be overridden by a two-thirds majority in both houses. Per Article XV of the state constitution, Senators and Representatives must be at least 18 years of age and are elected to two-year terms in November on even-numbered years. There also must always be between 30 and 50 senators and 125 to 225 representatives. The Lieutenant Governor presides over the Senate, except when absent from the chamber, when the President pro tempore presides. The Speaker of the House presides over the House. As of 2021, Matthew Ritter is the Speaker of the House of Connecticut.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "As of 2021, Connecticut's United States Senators are Richard Blumenthal (Democrat) and Chris Murphy (Democrat). Connecticut has five representatives in the U.S. House, all of whom are Democrats.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "Locally elected representatives also develop local ordinances to govern cities and towns. The town ordinances often include noise control and zoning guidelines. However, the State of Connecticut also provides statewide ordinances for noise control as well.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "The highest court of Connecticut's judicial branch is the Connecticut Supreme Court, headed by the Chief Justice of Connecticut. The Supreme Court is responsible for deciding on the constitutionality of laws, or cases as they relate to the law. Its proceedings are similar to those of the United States Supreme Court: no testimony is given by witnesses, and the lawyers of the two sides each present oral arguments no longer than thirty minutes. Following a court proceeding, the court may take several months to arrive at a judgment. As of 2020, the Chief Justice is Richard A. Robinson.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "In 1818, the court became a separate entity, independent of the legislative and executive branches. The Connecticut Appellate Court is a lesser statewide court, and the Superior Courts are lower courts that resemble county courts of other states.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "Connecticut does not have county government, unlike all other states except Rhode Island. Connecticut county governments were mostly eliminated in 1960, with the exception of sheriffs elected in each county. In 2000, the county sheriff was abolished and replaced with the state marshal system, which has districts that follow the old county territories. The judicial system is divided into judicial districts at the trial-court level which largely follow the old county lines. The eight counties are still widely used for purely geographical and statistical purposes, such as weather reports and census reporting.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "The state is divided into nine regional councils of government defined by the state Office of Planning and Management, which facilitate regional planning and coordination of services between member towns. The Intragovernmental Policy Division of this Office coordinates regional planning with the administrative bodies of these regions. Each region has an administrative body made up chief executive officers of the member towns. The regions are established for the purpose of planning \"coordination of regional and state planning activities; redesignation of logical planning regions and promotion of the continuation of regional planning organizations within the state; and provision for technical aid and the administration of financial assistance to regional planning organizations\". By 2015, the State of Connecticut recognized COGs as county equivalents, allowing them to apply for funding and grants made available to county governments in other states. In 2019 the state recommended to the United States Census Bureau that the nine Councils of Governments replace its counties for statistical purposes. This proposal was approved by the Census Bureau in 2022, and will be fully implemented by 2024.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "Connecticut shares with the rest of New England a governmental institution called the New England town. The state is divided into 169 towns which serve as the fundamental political jurisdictions. There are also 21 cities, most of which simply follow the boundaries of their namesake towns and have a merged city-town government. There are two exceptions: the City of Groton, which is a subsection of the Town of Groton, and the City of Winsted in the Town of Winchester. There are also nine incorporated boroughs which may provide additional services to a section of town. Naugatuck is a consolidated town and borough.",
"title": "Law and government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "Connecticut is generally considered to be a blue state. The last Republican presidential candidate to win Connecticut's votes in the Electoral College was George H. W. Bush in 1988.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Connecticut residents who register to vote may declare an affiliation to a political party, may become unaffiliated at will, and may change affiliations subject to certain waiting periods. As of 2022 around 58% of registered voters are enrolled in a political party. The Democratic Party of Connecticut is the largest party in the state by voter registration, with 36% of voters, followed by the Connecticut Republican Party with approximately 20%. An additional 1.6% are registered to third parties. As of 2022, 4 third parties have statewide enrollment privileges (meaning any state resident may register as a member), including the Libertarian Party of Connecticut, the Independent Party of Connecticut, the Connecticut Green Party, and the Connecticut Working Families Party. Connecticut allows electoral fusion, where the same candidate can run on the ballot of more than one political party; this is often used by the Connecticut Working Families Party to cross-endorse Democratic candidates.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "In July 2009, the Connecticut legislature overrode a veto by Governor M. Jodi Rell to pass SustiNet, the first significant public-option health care reform legislation in the nation.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "In April 2012, both houses of the Connecticut state legislature passed a bill (20 to 16 and 86 to 62) that abolished capital punishment for all future crimes, while 11 inmates who were waiting on the death row at the time could still be executed.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 131,
"text": "Connecticut ranked third in the nation for educational performance, according to Education Week's Quality Counts 2018 report. It earned an overall score of 83.5 out of 100 points. On average, the country received a score of 75.2. Connecticut posted a B-plus in the Chance-for-Success category, ranking fourth on factors that contribute to a person's success both within and outside the K-12 education system. Connecticut received a mark of B-plus and finished fourth for School Finance. It ranked 12th with a grade of C on the K-12 Achievement Index.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 132,
"text": "Hartford Public High School (1638) is the third-oldest secondary school in the nation after the Collegiate School (1628) in Manhattan and the Boston Latin School (1635). Today, the Connecticut State Board of Education manages the public school system for children in grades K–12. Board of Education members are appointed by the Governor of Connecticut.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 133,
"text": "Connecticut has a number of private schools. Private schools may file for approval by the state Department of Education, but are not required to. Per state law, private schools must file yearly attendance reports with the state.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 134,
"text": "Notable private schools include Choate Rosemary Hall, The Hotchkiss School, Loomis Chaffee School, and Taft School.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 135,
"text": "Connecticut was home to the nation's first law school, Litchfield Law School, which operated from 1773 to 1833 in Litchfield. Well known universities in the state include Yale University, Wesleyan University, Trinity College, Sacred Heart University, Fairfield University, Quinnipiac University, and the University of Connecticut. The Connecticut State University System includes 4 state universities, and the state also has 12 community colleges. The United States Coast Guard Academy is located in New London.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 136,
"text": "There are two Connecticut teams in the American Hockey League. The Bridgeport Islanders is a farm team for the New York Islanders which competes at the Total Mortgage Arena in Bridgeport. The Hartford Wolf Pack is the affiliate of the New York Rangers; they play in the XL Center in Hartford.",
"title": "Sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 137,
"text": "The Hartford Yard Goats of the Double-A Northeast are a AA affiliate of the Colorado Rockies. Also, the Norwich Sea Unicorns play in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League. The New Britain Bees play in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. The Connecticut Sun of the WNBA currently play at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville. In soccer, Hartford Athletic began play in the USL Championship in 2019.",
"title": "Sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 138,
"text": "The state hosts several major sporting events. Since 1952, a PGA Tour golf tournament has been played in the Hartford area. It was originally called the \"Insurance City Open\" and later the \"Greater Hartford Open\" and is now known as the Travelers Championship.",
"title": "Sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 139,
"text": "Lime Rock Park in Salisbury is a 1.5-mile (2.4 km) road racing course, home to the International Motor Sports Association, SCCA, United States Auto Club, and K&N Pro Series East races. Thompson International Speedway, Stafford Motor Speedway, and Waterford Speedbowl are oval tracks holding weekly races for NASCAR Modifieds and other classes, including the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour. The state also hosts several major mixed martial arts events for Bellator MMA and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.",
"title": "Sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 140,
"text": "The Hartford Whalers of the National Hockey League played in Hartford from 1975 to 1997 at the Hartford Civic Center. They departed to Raleigh, North Carolina, after disputes with the state over the construction of a new arena, and they are now known as the Carolina Hurricanes. A baseball team known as the Hartfords (or Hartford Dark Blues) played in the National Association from 1874 to 1875, before becoming charter members of the National League in 1876. The team moved to Brooklyn, New York, and then disbanded one season later. In 1926, Hartford also had a franchise in the National Football League known as the Hartford Blues. From 2000 until 2006 the city was home to the Hartford FoxForce of World TeamTennis.",
"title": "Sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 141,
"text": "The Connecticut Huskies are the team of the University of Connecticut (UConn); they play NCAA Division I sports. Both the men's basketball and women's basketball teams have won multiple national championships. In 2004, UConn became the first school in NCAA Division I history to have its men's and women's basketball programs win the national title in the same year; they repeated the feat in 2014 and are still the only Division I school to win both titles in the same year. The UConn women's basketball team holds the record for the longest consecutive winning streak in NCAA college basketball at 111 games, a streak that ended in 2017. The UConn Huskies football team has played in the Football Bowl Subdivision since 2002, and has played in four bowl games.",
"title": "Sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 142,
"text": "New Haven biennially hosts \"The Game\" between the Yale Bulldogs and the Harvard Crimson, the country's second-oldest college football rivalry. Yale alumnus Walter Camp is deemed the \"Father of American Football\", and he helped develop modern football while living in New Haven. Other Connecticut universities which feature Division I sports teams are Quinnipiac University, Fairfield University, Central Connecticut State University, Sacred Heart University, and the University of Hartford.",
"title": "Sports"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 143,
"text": "The name \"Connecticut\" originated with the Mohegan word quonehtacut, meaning \"place of long tidal river\". Connecticut's official nickname is \"The Constitution State\", adopted in 1959 and based on its colonial constitution of 1638–1639 which was the first in America and, arguably, the world. Connecticut is also unofficially known as \"The Nutmeg State\", whose origin is unknown. It may have come from its sailors returning from voyages with nutmeg, which was a very valuable spice in the 18th and 19th centuries. It may have originated in the early machined sheet tin nutmeg grinders sold by early Connecticut peddlers. It is also facetiously said to come from Yankee peddlers from Connecticut who would sell small carved nobs of wood shaped to look like nutmeg to unsuspecting customers. George Washington gave Connecticut the title of \"The Provisions State\" because of the material aid that the state rendered to the American Revolutionary War effort. Connecticut is also known as \"The Land of Steady Habits\".",
"title": "Etymology and symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 144,
"text": "According to Webster's New International Dictionary (1993), a person who is a native or resident of Connecticut is a \"Connecticuter\". There are numerous other terms coined in print but not in use, such as \"Connecticotian\" (Cotton Mather in 1702) and \"Connecticutensian\" (Samuel Peters in 1781). Linguist Allen Walker Read suggests the more playful term \"Connecticutie\". \"Nutmegger\" is sometimes used, as is \"Yankee\".",
"title": "Etymology and symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 145,
"text": "The official state song is \"Yankee Doodle\". The traditional abbreviation of the state's name is \"Conn.\"; the official postal abbreviation is CT.",
"title": "Etymology and symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 146,
"text": "Commemorative stamps issued by the United States Postal Service with Connecticut themes include Nathan Hale, Eugene O'Neill, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Noah Webster, Eli Whitney, the whaling ship the Charles W. Morgan, which is docked at Mystic Seaport, and a decoy of a broadbill duck.",
"title": "Etymology and symbols"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 147,
"text": "Census Bureau",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 148,
"text": "Library of Congress",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 149,
"text": "41°36′N 72°42′W / 41.6°N 72.7°W / 41.6; -72.7",
"title": "External links"
}
] | Connecticut is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. As of the 2020 United States census, Connecticut was home to over 3.6 million residents, its highest decennial count ever, growing every decade since 1790. The state is bordered by Rhode Island to its east, Massachusetts to its north, New York to its west, and Long Island Sound to its south. Its capital is Hartford, and its most populous city is Bridgeport. Historically, the state is part of New England as well as the tri-state area with New York and New Jersey. The state is named for the Connecticut River which approximately bisects the state. The word Connecticut is derived from various anglicized spellings of Quinnetuket, a Mohegan-Pequot word for "long tidal river". Connecticut's first European settlers were Dutchmen who established a small, short-lived settlement called House of Hope in Hartford at the confluence of the Park and Connecticut Rivers. Half of Connecticut was initially claimed by the Dutch colony New Netherland, which included much of the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, although the first major settlements were established in the 1630s by the English. Thomas Hooker led a band of followers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and founded the Connecticut Colony; other settlers from Massachusetts founded the Saybrook Colony and the New Haven Colony. The Connecticut and New Haven colonies established documents of Fundamental Orders, considered the first constitutions in America. In 1662, the three colonies were merged under a royal charter, making Connecticut a crown colony. Connecticut was one of the Thirteen Colonies which rejected British rule in the American Revolution. It was influential in the development of the federal government of the United States. Connecticut is the third-smallest state by area, the 29th most populous, and the fourth most densely populated of the fifty states. It is known as the "Constitution State", the "Nutmeg State", the "Provisions State", and the "Land of Steady Habits". The Connecticut River, Thames River, and ports along Long Island Sound have given Connecticut a strong maritime tradition which continues today. The state also has a long history of hosting the financial services industry, including insurance companies in Hartford County and hedge funds in Fairfield County. As of the 2010 census, it has the highest per-capita income, second-highest level of human development behind Massachusetts, and highest median household income in the United States. | 2001-10-11T21:58:31Z | 2023-12-31T12:14:43Z | [
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6,468 | Country Liberal Party | The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP), commonly known as the Country Liberals, is a centre-right political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In local politics, it operates in a two-party system with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). It also contests federal elections as an affiliate of the Liberal Party of Australia and National Party of Australia, the two partners in the federal coalition.
The CLP originated in 1971 as a division of the Country Party (later renamed the National Party), the first local branches of which were formed in 1966. It adopted its current name in 1974 to attract Liberal Party supporters, but maintained a sole affiliation with the Country Party until 1979 when it adopted its current joint association. The party dominated the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from the inaugural election in 1974 through to its defeat at the 2001 election, winning eight consecutive elections and providing the territory's first seven chief ministers. Following its defeat in 2001, the party did not return to power until 2012, but was defeated after a single term and has remained in opposition since 2016. The party is currently led by Lia Finocchiaro, who was elected party leader and leader of the opposition in February 2020.
At federal level, the CLP contests elections for the Northern Territory's House of Representatives and Senate seats, which also cover the Australian Indian Ocean Territories. It is registered with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). Its candidates do not form a separate parliamentary party but instead join either the Liberal or National party rooms – for instance, CLP senator Nigel Scullion was a long-serving deputy leader of the Nationals. Its sole current federal legislator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price sits with the National Party.
The CLP's constitution describes it as an "independent conservative" party and commits it to Northern Territory statehood. It has typically prioritised economic development of the territory and originally drew most of its support from Outback towns and the pastoral industry. It later developed a voter base among the urban middle-class populations of Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs (the latter two of which are strongholds for the party). The party has had a fluctuating relationship with the territory's large Indigenous population, notably providing the territory's first Indigenous MP (Hyacinth Tungutalum) and Australia's first Indigenous head of government (Adam Giles).
A party system did not develop in the Northern Territory until the 1960s, due to its small population and lack of regular elections. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) contested elections as early as 1905, but rarely faced an organised opposition; anti-Labor candidates usually stood as independents. The regionalist North Australia Party (NAP), established by Lionel Rose for the 1965 Legislative Council election, has been cited as a predecessor of the CLP.
A Darwin branch of the Country Party was established on 20 July 1966, following by an Alice Springs branch on 29 July. The creation of the branches was spurred by the upcoming 1966 federal election and the announcement by the Northern Territory's federal MP Jock Nelson that he would be retiring from politics. The Country Party achieved its first electoral success with the election of Sam Calder as Nelson's replacement. It subsequently won four out of eleven seats at the 1968 Legislative Council election. A third branch of the party was established in Katherine in February 1971. The branches affiliated with the Federal Council of the Australian Country Party in July 1971, establishing a formal entity with a central council, executive and annual conference. The party was formally named the "Australian Country Party – Northern Territory".
The Country Party primarily drew its support from Alice Springs, small towns, and the pastoral industry, including "a fair proportion of the non-urban Aboriginal vote". The party did not have a strong presence in Darwin. A branch of the Liberal Party, the Country Party's coalition partner at a federal level, had been established in Darwin in 1966, representing commercial interests and urban professionals. The Liberals fielded candidates at the 1968 Legislative Council elections, but by 1970 the local branch had ceased to function. In 1973, the Country Party began actively working to include Liberal supporters within its organisation, spurred by the Whitlam government's announcement of a fully elective Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. Following informal negotiations led by Goff Letts, a joint committee was established to determine changes to the Country Party's constitution and policy. These were officially approved, along with the adoption of the name Country Liberal Party, at the party's annual conference in Alice Springs on 20 July 1974. Per its 2018 constitution, the party reckons 1974 as its founding date.
The Whitlam government passed legislation in 1974 to establish a fully elected unicameral Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, replacing the previous partly elected Legislative Council, which had been in existence since 1947. The CLP won 17 out of 19 seats at the inaugural elections in October 1974, with independents holding the other two seats. Goff Letts became the inaugural majority leader, a title changed to chief minister after the granting of self-government in 1978. The CLP governed the Northern Territory from 1974 until the 2001 election. During this time, it never faced more than nine opposition members. Indeed, the CLP's dominance was so absolute that its internal politics were seen as a bigger threat than any opposition party. This was especially pronounced in the mid-1980s, when a series of party-room coups resulted in the Territory having three Chief Ministers in four years and also saw the creation of the Northern Territory Nationals as a short-lived splinter group under the leadership of former CLP chief minister Ian Tuxworth.
The Whitlam government also passed legislation to give the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (ACT) representation in the federal Senate, with each territory electing two senators. Bernie Kilgariff was elected as the CLP's first senator at the 1975 federal election, sitting alongside Sam Calder in the parliamentary National Country Party. On 3 February 1979 a special conference of the CLP resolved that "the Federal CLP Parliamentarians be permitted to sit in the Party Rooms of their choice in Canberra". Despite personal misgivings, Kilgariff chose to sit with the parliamentary Liberal Party from 8 March 1979 in order that the CLP have representation in both parties, a practice which has been maintained where possible.
At the 2001 election, the Australian Labor Party won government by one seat, ending 27 years of CLP government. The loss marked a major turning point in Northern Territory politics, a result which was exacerbated when, at the 2005 election, the ALP won the second-largest majority government in the history of the Territory, reducing the once-dominant party to just four members in the Legislative Assembly. This result was only outdone by the 1974 election, in which the CLP faced only two independents as opposition. The CLP even lost two seats in Palmerston, an area where the ALP had never come close to winning any seats before.
In the 2001 federal election, the CLP won the newly formed seat of Solomon, based on Darwin/Palmerston, in the House of Representatives. In the 2004 federal election, the CLP held one seat in the House of Representatives, and one seat in the Senate. The CLP lost its federal lower house seat in the 2007 federal election, but regained it when Palmerston deputy mayor Natasha Griggs won back Solomon for the CLP. She sat with the Liberals in the House.
The 2008 election saw the CLP recover from the severe loss it suffered three years earlier, increasing its representation from four to 11 members. Following the 2011 decision of ALP-turned-independent member Alison Anderson to join the CLP, this increased CLP's representation to 12 in the Assembly, leaving the incumbent Henderson Government to govern in minority with the support of Independent MP Gerry Wood.
Historically, the CLP has been particularly dominant in the Territory's two major cities, Darwin/Palmerston and Alice Springs. However, in recent years the ALP has pulled even with the CLP in the Darwin area; indeed, its 2001 victory was fueled by an unexpected swing in Darwin.
The CLP under the leadership of Terry Mills returned to power in the 2012 election with 16 of 25 seats, defeating the incumbent Labor government led by Paul Henderson. In the lead up to the Territory election, CLP Senator Nigel Scullion sharply criticised the Federal Labor government for its suspension of the live cattle trade to Indonesia - an economic mainstay of the territory.
The election victory ended 11 years of ALP rule in the Northern Territory. The victory was also notable for the support it achieved from indigenous people in pastoral and remote electorates. Large swings were achieved in remote Territory electorates (where the indigenous population comprised around two-thirds of voters) and a total of five Aboriginal CLP candidates won election to the Assembly. Among the indigenous candidates elected were high-profile Aboriginal activist Bess Price and former ALP member Alison Anderson. Anderson was appointed Minister for Indigenous Advancement. In a nationally reported speech in November 2012, Anderson condemned welfare dependency and a culture of entitlement in her first ministerial statement on the status of Aboriginal communities in the Territory and said the CLP would focus on improving education and on helping create real jobs for indigenous people.
Adam Giles replaced Mills as Chief Minister of the Northern Territory and party leader at the 2013 CLP leadership ballot on 13 March while Mills was on a trade mission in Japan. Giles was sworn in as Chief Minister on 14 March, becoming the first indigenous head of government of an Australian state or territory.
Willem Westra van Holthe challenged Giles at the 2015 CLP leadership ballot on 2 February and was elected leader by the party room in a late night vote conducted by phone. However, Giles refused to resign as Chief Minister following the vote. On 3 February, ABC News reported that officials were preparing an instrument for Giles' removal by the Administrator. The swearing-in of Westra van Holthe, which had been scheduled for 11:00 local time (01:30 UTC), was delayed. After a meeting of the parliamentary wing of the CLP, Giles announced that he would remain as party leader and Chief Minister, and that Westra van Holthe would be his deputy.
After four defections during the parliamentary term, the CLP was reduced to minority government by July 2015. Giles raised the possibility of an early election on 20 July stating that he would "love" to call a snap poll, but that it was "pretty much impossible to do". Crossbenchers dismissed the notion of voting against a confidence motion to bring down the government.
Territory government legislation passed in February 2016 changed the voting method of single-member electorates from full-preferential voting to optional preferential voting ahead of the 2016 territory election held on 27 August.
Federally, a MediaReach seat-level opinion poll of 513 voters in the seat of Solomon conducted 22−23 June ahead of the 2016 federal election held on 2 July surprisingly found Labor candidate Luke Gosling heavily leading two-term CLP incumbent Natasha Griggs 61–39 on the two-party vote from a large 12.4 percent swing. The CLP lost Solomon to Labor at the election, with Gosling defeating Griggs 56–44 on the two-party vote from a 7.4 percent swing.
Polling ahead of the 2016 Territory election indicated a large swing against the CLP, including a near-total collapse in Darwin/Palmerston. By the time the writs were dropped, commentators had almost universally written off the CLP. At 27 August Territory election, the CLP was swept from power in a massive Labor landslide, suffering easily the worst defeat of a sitting government in Territory history and one of the worst defeats a governing party has ever suffered at the state or territory level in Australia. The party not only lost all of the bush seats it picked up in 2012, but was all but shut out of Darwin/Palmerston, winning only one seat there. All told, the CLP only won two seats, easily its worst showing in an election. Giles himself lost his own seat, becoming the second Majority Leader/Chief Minister to lose his own seat. Even before Giles' defeat was confirmed, second-term MP Gary Higgins—the only surviving member of the Giles cabinet—was named the party's new leader, with Lia Finocchiaro as his deputy. On 20 January 2020, Higgins announced his resignation as party leader and announced his retirement at the next election. Finocchiaro succeeded him as CLP leader and leader of the opposition on 1 February 2020.
Finocchiaro led the CLP to a modest recovery at the 2020 Territory election. The CLP picked up a six-seat swing, boosting its seat count to eight. However, it failed to make significant inroads in Darwin/Palmerston, winning only two seats there, including that of Finocchiaro.
The CLP lost the seat of Daly to Labor in a 2021 by-election, the first time an incumbent government had won a seat from the opposition in territory history.
The CLP stands for office in the Northern Territory Assembly and Federal Parliament of Australia and primarily concerns itself with representing Territory interests. It is a regionally based party, that has parliamentary representation in both the Federal Parliament and at the Territory level. It brands as a party with strong roots in the Territory.
The CLP competes against the Australian Labor Party (Northern Territory Branch) (the local branch of Australia's social-democratic party). It is closely affiliated with, but is independent from the Liberal Party of Australia (a mainly urban, pro-business party comprising mainly liberal membership) and the National Party of Australia (a conservative agrarian and regional interests party).
The foreword to the constitution of the party describes it as an "independent conservative political party". One of the objectives in the party's constitution is to "work toward the achievement of Statehood in the Northern Territory". The party promotes traditional Liberal Party values such as individualism and private enterprise, and what it describes as "progressive" political policy such as full statehood for the Northern Territory.
In February 2023, the party voted to oppose the Voice to Parliament.
Branch delegates and members of the party's Central Council attend the Annual Conference of the Country Liberal Party to decide the party's platform. The Central Council is composed of the party's office bearers, its leaders from the Territory Assembly and the Federal Parliament and representatives of party branches.
The Annual Conference of the Country Liberal Party, attended by branch delegates and members of the party's Central Council, decides matters relating to the party's platform and philosophy. The Central Council administers the party and makes decisions on pre-selections. It is composed of the party's office bearers, its leaders in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, members in the Federal Parliament, and representation from each of the party's branches.
The CLP president has full voting rights with the National Party and observer status with the Liberal Party. Both the Liberals and Nationals receive Country Liberal delegations at their conventions. After federal elections, the CLP directs its federal members and senators as to which of the two other parties they should sit with in the parliamentary chamber. In practice, since the 1980s CLP House members usually sit with the Liberals, while CLP Senators usually sit with the Nationals. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP), commonly known as the Country Liberals, is a centre-right political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In local politics, it operates in a two-party system with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). It also contests federal elections as an affiliate of the Liberal Party of Australia and National Party of Australia, the two partners in the federal coalition.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The CLP originated in 1971 as a division of the Country Party (later renamed the National Party), the first local branches of which were formed in 1966. It adopted its current name in 1974 to attract Liberal Party supporters, but maintained a sole affiliation with the Country Party until 1979 when it adopted its current joint association. The party dominated the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from the inaugural election in 1974 through to its defeat at the 2001 election, winning eight consecutive elections and providing the territory's first seven chief ministers. Following its defeat in 2001, the party did not return to power until 2012, but was defeated after a single term and has remained in opposition since 2016. The party is currently led by Lia Finocchiaro, who was elected party leader and leader of the opposition in February 2020.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "At federal level, the CLP contests elections for the Northern Territory's House of Representatives and Senate seats, which also cover the Australian Indian Ocean Territories. It is registered with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). Its candidates do not form a separate parliamentary party but instead join either the Liberal or National party rooms – for instance, CLP senator Nigel Scullion was a long-serving deputy leader of the Nationals. Its sole current federal legislator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price sits with the National Party.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The CLP's constitution describes it as an \"independent conservative\" party and commits it to Northern Territory statehood. It has typically prioritised economic development of the territory and originally drew most of its support from Outback towns and the pastoral industry. It later developed a voter base among the urban middle-class populations of Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs (the latter two of which are strongholds for the party). The party has had a fluctuating relationship with the territory's large Indigenous population, notably providing the territory's first Indigenous MP (Hyacinth Tungutalum) and Australia's first Indigenous head of government (Adam Giles).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A party system did not develop in the Northern Territory until the 1960s, due to its small population and lack of regular elections. The Australian Labor Party (ALP) contested elections as early as 1905, but rarely faced an organised opposition; anti-Labor candidates usually stood as independents. The regionalist North Australia Party (NAP), established by Lionel Rose for the 1965 Legislative Council election, has been cited as a predecessor of the CLP.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A Darwin branch of the Country Party was established on 20 July 1966, following by an Alice Springs branch on 29 July. The creation of the branches was spurred by the upcoming 1966 federal election and the announcement by the Northern Territory's federal MP Jock Nelson that he would be retiring from politics. The Country Party achieved its first electoral success with the election of Sam Calder as Nelson's replacement. It subsequently won four out of eleven seats at the 1968 Legislative Council election. A third branch of the party was established in Katherine in February 1971. The branches affiliated with the Federal Council of the Australian Country Party in July 1971, establishing a formal entity with a central council, executive and annual conference. The party was formally named the \"Australian Country Party – Northern Territory\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Country Party primarily drew its support from Alice Springs, small towns, and the pastoral industry, including \"a fair proportion of the non-urban Aboriginal vote\". The party did not have a strong presence in Darwin. A branch of the Liberal Party, the Country Party's coalition partner at a federal level, had been established in Darwin in 1966, representing commercial interests and urban professionals. The Liberals fielded candidates at the 1968 Legislative Council elections, but by 1970 the local branch had ceased to function. In 1973, the Country Party began actively working to include Liberal supporters within its organisation, spurred by the Whitlam government's announcement of a fully elective Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. Following informal negotiations led by Goff Letts, a joint committee was established to determine changes to the Country Party's constitution and policy. These were officially approved, along with the adoption of the name Country Liberal Party, at the party's annual conference in Alice Springs on 20 July 1974. Per its 2018 constitution, the party reckons 1974 as its founding date.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Whitlam government passed legislation in 1974 to establish a fully elected unicameral Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, replacing the previous partly elected Legislative Council, which had been in existence since 1947. The CLP won 17 out of 19 seats at the inaugural elections in October 1974, with independents holding the other two seats. Goff Letts became the inaugural majority leader, a title changed to chief minister after the granting of self-government in 1978. The CLP governed the Northern Territory from 1974 until the 2001 election. During this time, it never faced more than nine opposition members. Indeed, the CLP's dominance was so absolute that its internal politics were seen as a bigger threat than any opposition party. This was especially pronounced in the mid-1980s, when a series of party-room coups resulted in the Territory having three Chief Ministers in four years and also saw the creation of the Northern Territory Nationals as a short-lived splinter group under the leadership of former CLP chief minister Ian Tuxworth.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Whitlam government also passed legislation to give the Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory (ACT) representation in the federal Senate, with each territory electing two senators. Bernie Kilgariff was elected as the CLP's first senator at the 1975 federal election, sitting alongside Sam Calder in the parliamentary National Country Party. On 3 February 1979 a special conference of the CLP resolved that \"the Federal CLP Parliamentarians be permitted to sit in the Party Rooms of their choice in Canberra\". Despite personal misgivings, Kilgariff chose to sit with the parliamentary Liberal Party from 8 March 1979 in order that the CLP have representation in both parties, a practice which has been maintained where possible.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "At the 2001 election, the Australian Labor Party won government by one seat, ending 27 years of CLP government. The loss marked a major turning point in Northern Territory politics, a result which was exacerbated when, at the 2005 election, the ALP won the second-largest majority government in the history of the Territory, reducing the once-dominant party to just four members in the Legislative Assembly. This result was only outdone by the 1974 election, in which the CLP faced only two independents as opposition. The CLP even lost two seats in Palmerston, an area where the ALP had never come close to winning any seats before.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In the 2001 federal election, the CLP won the newly formed seat of Solomon, based on Darwin/Palmerston, in the House of Representatives. In the 2004 federal election, the CLP held one seat in the House of Representatives, and one seat in the Senate. The CLP lost its federal lower house seat in the 2007 federal election, but regained it when Palmerston deputy mayor Natasha Griggs won back Solomon for the CLP. She sat with the Liberals in the House.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The 2008 election saw the CLP recover from the severe loss it suffered three years earlier, increasing its representation from four to 11 members. Following the 2011 decision of ALP-turned-independent member Alison Anderson to join the CLP, this increased CLP's representation to 12 in the Assembly, leaving the incumbent Henderson Government to govern in minority with the support of Independent MP Gerry Wood.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Historically, the CLP has been particularly dominant in the Territory's two major cities, Darwin/Palmerston and Alice Springs. However, in recent years the ALP has pulled even with the CLP in the Darwin area; indeed, its 2001 victory was fueled by an unexpected swing in Darwin.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The CLP under the leadership of Terry Mills returned to power in the 2012 election with 16 of 25 seats, defeating the incumbent Labor government led by Paul Henderson. In the lead up to the Territory election, CLP Senator Nigel Scullion sharply criticised the Federal Labor government for its suspension of the live cattle trade to Indonesia - an economic mainstay of the territory.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The election victory ended 11 years of ALP rule in the Northern Territory. The victory was also notable for the support it achieved from indigenous people in pastoral and remote electorates. Large swings were achieved in remote Territory electorates (where the indigenous population comprised around two-thirds of voters) and a total of five Aboriginal CLP candidates won election to the Assembly. Among the indigenous candidates elected were high-profile Aboriginal activist Bess Price and former ALP member Alison Anderson. Anderson was appointed Minister for Indigenous Advancement. In a nationally reported speech in November 2012, Anderson condemned welfare dependency and a culture of entitlement in her first ministerial statement on the status of Aboriginal communities in the Territory and said the CLP would focus on improving education and on helping create real jobs for indigenous people.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Adam Giles replaced Mills as Chief Minister of the Northern Territory and party leader at the 2013 CLP leadership ballot on 13 March while Mills was on a trade mission in Japan. Giles was sworn in as Chief Minister on 14 March, becoming the first indigenous head of government of an Australian state or territory.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Willem Westra van Holthe challenged Giles at the 2015 CLP leadership ballot on 2 February and was elected leader by the party room in a late night vote conducted by phone. However, Giles refused to resign as Chief Minister following the vote. On 3 February, ABC News reported that officials were preparing an instrument for Giles' removal by the Administrator. The swearing-in of Westra van Holthe, which had been scheduled for 11:00 local time (01:30 UTC), was delayed. After a meeting of the parliamentary wing of the CLP, Giles announced that he would remain as party leader and Chief Minister, and that Westra van Holthe would be his deputy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "After four defections during the parliamentary term, the CLP was reduced to minority government by July 2015. Giles raised the possibility of an early election on 20 July stating that he would \"love\" to call a snap poll, but that it was \"pretty much impossible to do\". Crossbenchers dismissed the notion of voting against a confidence motion to bring down the government.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Territory government legislation passed in February 2016 changed the voting method of single-member electorates from full-preferential voting to optional preferential voting ahead of the 2016 territory election held on 27 August.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Federally, a MediaReach seat-level opinion poll of 513 voters in the seat of Solomon conducted 22−23 June ahead of the 2016 federal election held on 2 July surprisingly found Labor candidate Luke Gosling heavily leading two-term CLP incumbent Natasha Griggs 61–39 on the two-party vote from a large 12.4 percent swing. The CLP lost Solomon to Labor at the election, with Gosling defeating Griggs 56–44 on the two-party vote from a 7.4 percent swing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Polling ahead of the 2016 Territory election indicated a large swing against the CLP, including a near-total collapse in Darwin/Palmerston. By the time the writs were dropped, commentators had almost universally written off the CLP. At 27 August Territory election, the CLP was swept from power in a massive Labor landslide, suffering easily the worst defeat of a sitting government in Territory history and one of the worst defeats a governing party has ever suffered at the state or territory level in Australia. The party not only lost all of the bush seats it picked up in 2012, but was all but shut out of Darwin/Palmerston, winning only one seat there. All told, the CLP only won two seats, easily its worst showing in an election. Giles himself lost his own seat, becoming the second Majority Leader/Chief Minister to lose his own seat. Even before Giles' defeat was confirmed, second-term MP Gary Higgins—the only surviving member of the Giles cabinet—was named the party's new leader, with Lia Finocchiaro as his deputy. On 20 January 2020, Higgins announced his resignation as party leader and announced his retirement at the next election. Finocchiaro succeeded him as CLP leader and leader of the opposition on 1 February 2020.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Finocchiaro led the CLP to a modest recovery at the 2020 Territory election. The CLP picked up a six-seat swing, boosting its seat count to eight. However, it failed to make significant inroads in Darwin/Palmerston, winning only two seats there, including that of Finocchiaro.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The CLP lost the seat of Daly to Labor in a 2021 by-election, the first time an incumbent government had won a seat from the opposition in territory history.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The CLP stands for office in the Northern Territory Assembly and Federal Parliament of Australia and primarily concerns itself with representing Territory interests. It is a regionally based party, that has parliamentary representation in both the Federal Parliament and at the Territory level. It brands as a party with strong roots in the Territory.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The CLP competes against the Australian Labor Party (Northern Territory Branch) (the local branch of Australia's social-democratic party). It is closely affiliated with, but is independent from the Liberal Party of Australia (a mainly urban, pro-business party comprising mainly liberal membership) and the National Party of Australia (a conservative agrarian and regional interests party).",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The foreword to the constitution of the party describes it as an \"independent conservative political party\". One of the objectives in the party's constitution is to \"work toward the achievement of Statehood in the Northern Territory\". The party promotes traditional Liberal Party values such as individualism and private enterprise, and what it describes as \"progressive\" political policy such as full statehood for the Northern Territory.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In February 2023, the party voted to oppose the Voice to Parliament.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Branch delegates and members of the party's Central Council attend the Annual Conference of the Country Liberal Party to decide the party's platform. The Central Council is composed of the party's office bearers, its leaders from the Territory Assembly and the Federal Parliament and representatives of party branches.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Annual Conference of the Country Liberal Party, attended by branch delegates and members of the party's Central Council, decides matters relating to the party's platform and philosophy. The Central Council administers the party and makes decisions on pre-selections. It is composed of the party's office bearers, its leaders in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly, members in the Federal Parliament, and representation from each of the party's branches.",
"title": "Organisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The CLP president has full voting rights with the National Party and observer status with the Liberal Party. Both the Liberals and Nationals receive Country Liberal delegations at their conventions. After federal elections, the CLP directs its federal members and senators as to which of the two other parties they should sit with in the parliamentary chamber. In practice, since the 1980s CLP House members usually sit with the Liberals, while CLP Senators usually sit with the Nationals.",
"title": "Organisation"
}
] | The Country Liberal Party of the Northern Territory (CLP), commonly known as the Country Liberals, is a centre-right political party in Australia's Northern Territory. In local politics, it operates in a two-party system with the Australian Labor Party (ALP). It also contests federal elections as an affiliate of the Liberal Party of Australia and National Party of Australia, the two partners in the federal coalition. The CLP originated in 1971 as a division of the Country Party, the first local branches of which were formed in 1966. It adopted its current name in 1974 to attract Liberal Party supporters, but maintained a sole affiliation with the Country Party until 1979 when it adopted its current joint association. The party dominated the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly from the inaugural election in 1974 through to its defeat at the 2001 election, winning eight consecutive elections and providing the territory's first seven chief ministers. Following its defeat in 2001, the party did not return to power until 2012, but was defeated after a single term and has remained in opposition since 2016. The party is currently led by Lia Finocchiaro, who was elected party leader and leader of the opposition in February 2020. At federal level, the CLP contests elections for the Northern Territory's House of Representatives and Senate seats, which also cover the Australian Indian Ocean Territories. It is registered with the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC). Its candidates do not form a separate parliamentary party but instead join either the Liberal or National party rooms – for instance, CLP senator Nigel Scullion was a long-serving deputy leader of the Nationals. Its sole current federal legislator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price sits with the National Party. The CLP's constitution describes it as an "independent conservative" party and commits it to Northern Territory statehood. It has typically prioritised economic development of the territory and originally drew most of its support from Outback towns and the pastoral industry. It later developed a voter base among the urban middle-class populations of Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs. The party has had a fluctuating relationship with the territory's large Indigenous population, notably providing the territory's first Indigenous MP and Australia's first Indigenous head of government. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-25T11:01:43Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Liberal_Party |
6,469 | Canon law | Canon law (from Ancient Greek: κανών, kanon, a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law, or operational policy, governing the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches), the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the individual national churches within the Anglican Communion. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these four bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was originally a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law.
Greek kanon / Ancient Greek: κανών, Arabic qaanoon / قانون, Hebrew kaneh / קָנֶה, 'straight'; a rule, code, standard, or measure; the root meaning in all these languages is 'reed'; see also the Romance-language ancestors of the English word cane.
In the fourth century, the First Council of Nicaea (325) calls canons the disciplinary measures of the church: the term canon, κανὠν, means in Greek, a rule. There is a very early distinction between the rules enacted by the church and the legislative measures taken by the state called leges, Latin for laws.
The Apostolic Canons or Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles is a collection of ancient ecclesiastical decrees (eighty-five in the Eastern, fifty in the Western Church) concerning the government and discipline of the Early Christian Church, incorporated with the Apostolic Constitutions which are part of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.
In the Catholic Church, canon law is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the church's hierarchical authorities to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the church. It was the first modern Western legal system and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West.
In the Latin Church, positive ecclesiastical laws, based directly or indirectly upon immutable divine law or natural law, derive formal authority in the case of universal laws from the supreme legislator (i.e., the Supreme Pontiff), who possesses the totality of legislative, executive, and judicial power in his person, while particular laws derive formal authority from a legislator inferior to the supreme legislator. The actual subject material of the canons is not just doctrinal or moral in nature, but all-encompassing of the human condition, and therefore extending beyond what is taken as revealed truth.
The Catholic Church also includes the main five rites (groups) of churches which are in full union with the Holy See and the Latin Church:
All of these church groups are in full communion with the Supreme Pontiff and are subject to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.
The Catholic Church has what is claimed to be the oldest continuously functioning internal legal system in Western Europe, much later than Roman law but predating the evolution of modern European civil law traditions. What some might describe as "canons" adopted by the Apostles at the Council of Jerusalem in the first century would later be developed into a highly complex legal system encapsulating not just norms of the New Testament, but some elements of the Hebrew (Old Testament), Roman, Visigothic, Saxon, and Celtic legal traditions.
The history of Latin canon law can be divided into four periods: the jus antiquum, the jus novum, the jus novissimum and the Code of Canon Law. In relation to the Code, history can be divided into the jus vetus (all law before the Code) and the jus novum (the law of the Code, or jus codicis).
The canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which had developed some different disciplines and practices, underwent its own process of codification, resulting in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches promulgated in 1990 by Pope John Paul II.
Roman Catholic canon law is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code, principles of legal interpretation, and coercive penalties, though it lacks civilly-binding force in most secular jurisdictions. One example where conflict between secular and canon law occurred was in the English legal system, as well as systems, such as the U.S., that derived from it. Here criminals could apply for the benefit of clergy. Being in holy orders, or fraudulently claiming to be, meant that criminals could opt to be tried by ecclesiastical rather than secular courts. The ecclesiastical courts were generally more lenient. Under the Tudors, the scope of clerical benefit was steadily reduced by Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I. The papacy disputed secular authority over priests' criminal offenses. The benefit of clergy was systematically removed from English legal systems over the next 200 years, although it still occurred in South Carolina in 1827. In English Law, the use of this mechanism, which by that point was a legal fiction used for first offenders, was abolished by the Criminal Law Act 1827.
The academic degrees in Catholic canon law are the J.C.B. (Juris Canonici Baccalaureatus, Bachelor of Canon Law, normally taken as a graduate degree), J.C.L. (Juris Canonici Licentiatus, Licentiate of Canon Law) and the J.C.D. (Juris Canonici Doctor, Doctor of Canon Law). Because of its specialized nature, advanced degrees in civil law or theology are normal prerequisites for the study of canon law.
Much of Catholic canon law's legislative style was adapted from the Roman Code of Justinian. As a result, Roman ecclesiastical courts tend to follow the Roman Law style of continental Europe with some variation, featuring collegiate panels of judges and an investigative form of proceeding, called "inquisitorial", from the Latin "inquirere", to enquire. This is in contrast to the adversarial form of proceeding found in the common law system of English and U.S. law, which features such things as juries and single judges.
The institutions and practices of Catholic canon law paralleled the legal development of much of Europe, and consequently, both modern civil law and common law bear the influences of canon law. As Edson Luiz Sampel, a Brazilian expert in Catholic canon law, says, canon law is contained in the genesis of various institutes of civil law, such as the law in continental Europe and Latin American countries. Indirectly, canon law has significant influence in contemporary society.
Catholic Canonical jurisprudential theory generally follows the principles of Aristotelian-Thomistic legal philosophy. While the term "law" is never explicitly defined in the Catholic Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church cites Aquinas in defining law as "an ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by the one who is in charge of the community" and reformulates it as "a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good".
The law of the Eastern-rite Churches in full communion with the Roman papacy was in much the same state as that of the Latin or Western Church before 1917; much more diversity in legislation existed in the various Eastern Catholic Churches. Each had its own special law, in which custom still played an important part. One major difference in Eastern Europe however, specifically in the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, was in regards to divorce. Divorce started to slowly be allowed in specific instances such as adultery being committed, abuse, abandonment, impotence, and barrenness being the primary justifications for divorce. Eventually, the church began to allow remarriage to occur (for both spouses) post-divorce. In 1929 Pius XI informed the Eastern Churches of his intention to work out a Code for the whole of the Eastern Church. The publication of these Codes for the Eastern Churches regarding the law of persons was made between 1949 through 1958 but finalized nearly 30 years later.
The first Code of Canon Law (1917) was exclusively for the Latin Church, with application to the Eastern Churches only "in cases which pertain to their very nature". After the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965), the Vatican produced the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches which became the first code of Eastern Catholic Canon Law.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, principally through the work of 18th-century Athonite monastic scholar Nicodemus the Hagiorite, has compiled canons and commentaries upon them in a work known as the Pēdálion (Greek: Πηδάλιον, 'Rudder'), so named because it is meant to "steer" the church in her discipline. The dogmatic determinations of the Councils are to be applied rigorously since they are considered to be essential for the church's unity and the faithful preservation of the Gospel.
In the Church of England, the ecclesiastical courts that formerly decided many matters such as disputes relating to marriage, divorce, wills, and defamation, still have jurisdiction of certain church-related matters (e.g. discipline of clergy, alteration of church property, and issues related to churchyards). Their separate status dates back to the 12th century when the Normans split them off from the mixed secular/religious county and local courts used by the Saxons. In contrast to the other courts of England, the law used in ecclesiastical matters is at least partially a civil law system, not common law, although heavily governed by parliamentary statutes. Since the Reformation, ecclesiastical courts in England have been royal courts. The teaching of canon law at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge was abrogated by Henry VIII; thereafter practitioners in the ecclesiastical courts were trained in civil law, receiving a Doctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.) degree from Oxford, or a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree from Cambridge. Such lawyers (called "doctors" and "civilians") were centered at "Doctors Commons", a few streets south of St Paul's Cathedral in London, where they monopolized probate, matrimonial, and admiralty cases until their jurisdiction was removed to the common law courts in the mid-19th century.
Other churches in the Anglican Communion around the world (e.g., the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada) still function under their own private systems of canon law.
In 2002 a Legal Advisors Consultation meeting at Canterbury concluded:
(1) There are principles of canon law common to the churches within the Anglican Communion; (2) Their existence can be factually established; (3) Each province or church contributes through its own legal system to the principles of canon law common within the Communion; (4) these principles have strong persuasive authority and are fundamental to the self-understanding of each of the member churches; (5) These principles have a living force, and contain within themselves the possibility for further development; and (6) The existence of the principles both demonstrates and promotes unity in the Communion.
In Presbyterian and Reformed churches, canon law is known as "practice and procedure" or "church order", and includes the church's laws respecting its government, discipline, legal practice, and worship.
Roman canon law had been criticized by the Presbyterians as early as 1572 in the Admonition to Parliament. The protest centered on the standard defense that canon law could be retained so long as it did not contradict the civil law. According to Polly Ha, the Reformed church government refuted this, claiming that the bishops had been enforcing canon law for 1500 years.
The Book of Concord is the historic doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church, consisting of ten credal documents recognized as authoritative in Lutheranism since the 16th century. However, the Book of Concord is a confessional document (stating orthodox belief) rather than a book of ecclesiastical rules or discipline, like canon law. Each Lutheran national church establishes its own system of church order and discipline, though these are referred to as "canons".
The Book of Discipline contains the laws, rules, policies, and guidelines for The United Methodist Church. Its latest edition was published in 2016.
Catholic
Anglican | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Canon law (from Ancient Greek: κανών, kanon, a 'straight measuring rod, ruler') is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority (church leadership) for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law, or operational policy, governing the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches), the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the individual national churches within the Anglican Communion. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these four bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was originally a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Greek kanon / Ancient Greek: κανών, Arabic qaanoon / قانون, Hebrew kaneh / קָנֶה, 'straight'; a rule, code, standard, or measure; the root meaning in all these languages is 'reed'; see also the Romance-language ancestors of the English word cane.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In the fourth century, the First Council of Nicaea (325) calls canons the disciplinary measures of the church: the term canon, κανὠν, means in Greek, a rule. There is a very early distinction between the rules enacted by the church and the legislative measures taken by the state called leges, Latin for laws.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Apostolic Canons or Ecclesiastical Canons of the Same Holy Apostles is a collection of ancient ecclesiastical decrees (eighty-five in the Eastern, fifty in the Western Church) concerning the government and discipline of the Early Christian Church, incorporated with the Apostolic Constitutions which are part of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.",
"title": "Apostolic Canons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the Catholic Church, canon law is the system of laws and legal principles made and enforced by the church's hierarchical authorities to regulate its external organization and government and to order and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the church. It was the first modern Western legal system and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the Latin Church, positive ecclesiastical laws, based directly or indirectly upon immutable divine law or natural law, derive formal authority in the case of universal laws from the supreme legislator (i.e., the Supreme Pontiff), who possesses the totality of legislative, executive, and judicial power in his person, while particular laws derive formal authority from a legislator inferior to the supreme legislator. The actual subject material of the canons is not just doctrinal or moral in nature, but all-encompassing of the human condition, and therefore extending beyond what is taken as revealed truth.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Catholic Church also includes the main five rites (groups) of churches which are in full union with the Holy See and the Latin Church:",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "All of these church groups are in full communion with the Supreme Pontiff and are subject to the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Catholic Church has what is claimed to be the oldest continuously functioning internal legal system in Western Europe, much later than Roman law but predating the evolution of modern European civil law traditions. What some might describe as \"canons\" adopted by the Apostles at the Council of Jerusalem in the first century would later be developed into a highly complex legal system encapsulating not just norms of the New Testament, but some elements of the Hebrew (Old Testament), Roman, Visigothic, Saxon, and Celtic legal traditions.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The history of Latin canon law can be divided into four periods: the jus antiquum, the jus novum, the jus novissimum and the Code of Canon Law. In relation to the Code, history can be divided into the jus vetus (all law before the Code) and the jus novum (the law of the Code, or jus codicis).",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The canon law of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which had developed some different disciplines and practices, underwent its own process of codification, resulting in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches promulgated in 1990 by Pope John Paul II.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Roman Catholic canon law is a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code, principles of legal interpretation, and coercive penalties, though it lacks civilly-binding force in most secular jurisdictions. One example where conflict between secular and canon law occurred was in the English legal system, as well as systems, such as the U.S., that derived from it. Here criminals could apply for the benefit of clergy. Being in holy orders, or fraudulently claiming to be, meant that criminals could opt to be tried by ecclesiastical rather than secular courts. The ecclesiastical courts were generally more lenient. Under the Tudors, the scope of clerical benefit was steadily reduced by Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I. The papacy disputed secular authority over priests' criminal offenses. The benefit of clergy was systematically removed from English legal systems over the next 200 years, although it still occurred in South Carolina in 1827. In English Law, the use of this mechanism, which by that point was a legal fiction used for first offenders, was abolished by the Criminal Law Act 1827.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The academic degrees in Catholic canon law are the J.C.B. (Juris Canonici Baccalaureatus, Bachelor of Canon Law, normally taken as a graduate degree), J.C.L. (Juris Canonici Licentiatus, Licentiate of Canon Law) and the J.C.D. (Juris Canonici Doctor, Doctor of Canon Law). Because of its specialized nature, advanced degrees in civil law or theology are normal prerequisites for the study of canon law.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Much of Catholic canon law's legislative style was adapted from the Roman Code of Justinian. As a result, Roman ecclesiastical courts tend to follow the Roman Law style of continental Europe with some variation, featuring collegiate panels of judges and an investigative form of proceeding, called \"inquisitorial\", from the Latin \"inquirere\", to enquire. This is in contrast to the adversarial form of proceeding found in the common law system of English and U.S. law, which features such things as juries and single judges.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The institutions and practices of Catholic canon law paralleled the legal development of much of Europe, and consequently, both modern civil law and common law bear the influences of canon law. As Edson Luiz Sampel, a Brazilian expert in Catholic canon law, says, canon law is contained in the genesis of various institutes of civil law, such as the law in continental Europe and Latin American countries. Indirectly, canon law has significant influence in contemporary society.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Catholic Canonical jurisprudential theory generally follows the principles of Aristotelian-Thomistic legal philosophy. While the term \"law\" is never explicitly defined in the Catholic Code of Canon Law, the Catechism of the Catholic Church cites Aquinas in defining law as \"an ordinance of reason for the common good, promulgated by the one who is in charge of the community\" and reformulates it as \"a rule of conduct enacted by competent authority for the sake of the common good\".",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The law of the Eastern-rite Churches in full communion with the Roman papacy was in much the same state as that of the Latin or Western Church before 1917; much more diversity in legislation existed in the various Eastern Catholic Churches. Each had its own special law, in which custom still played an important part. One major difference in Eastern Europe however, specifically in the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, was in regards to divorce. Divorce started to slowly be allowed in specific instances such as adultery being committed, abuse, abandonment, impotence, and barrenness being the primary justifications for divorce. Eventually, the church began to allow remarriage to occur (for both spouses) post-divorce. In 1929 Pius XI informed the Eastern Churches of his intention to work out a Code for the whole of the Eastern Church. The publication of these Codes for the Eastern Churches regarding the law of persons was made between 1949 through 1958 but finalized nearly 30 years later.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The first Code of Canon Law (1917) was exclusively for the Latin Church, with application to the Eastern Churches only \"in cases which pertain to their very nature\". After the Second Vatican Council (1962 - 1965), the Vatican produced the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches which became the first code of Eastern Catholic Canon Law.",
"title": "Catholic Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Eastern Orthodox Church, principally through the work of 18th-century Athonite monastic scholar Nicodemus the Hagiorite, has compiled canons and commentaries upon them in a work known as the Pēdálion (Greek: Πηδάλιον, 'Rudder'), so named because it is meant to \"steer\" the church in her discipline. The dogmatic determinations of the Councils are to be applied rigorously since they are considered to be essential for the church's unity and the faithful preservation of the Gospel.",
"title": "Eastern Orthodox Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In the Church of England, the ecclesiastical courts that formerly decided many matters such as disputes relating to marriage, divorce, wills, and defamation, still have jurisdiction of certain church-related matters (e.g. discipline of clergy, alteration of church property, and issues related to churchyards). Their separate status dates back to the 12th century when the Normans split them off from the mixed secular/religious county and local courts used by the Saxons. In contrast to the other courts of England, the law used in ecclesiastical matters is at least partially a civil law system, not common law, although heavily governed by parliamentary statutes. Since the Reformation, ecclesiastical courts in England have been royal courts. The teaching of canon law at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge was abrogated by Henry VIII; thereafter practitioners in the ecclesiastical courts were trained in civil law, receiving a Doctor of Civil Law (D.C.L.) degree from Oxford, or a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) degree from Cambridge. Such lawyers (called \"doctors\" and \"civilians\") were centered at \"Doctors Commons\", a few streets south of St Paul's Cathedral in London, where they monopolized probate, matrimonial, and admiralty cases until their jurisdiction was removed to the common law courts in the mid-19th century.",
"title": "Anglican Communion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Other churches in the Anglican Communion around the world (e.g., the Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada) still function under their own private systems of canon law.",
"title": "Anglican Communion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 2002 a Legal Advisors Consultation meeting at Canterbury concluded:",
"title": "Anglican Communion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "(1) There are principles of canon law common to the churches within the Anglican Communion; (2) Their existence can be factually established; (3) Each province or church contributes through its own legal system to the principles of canon law common within the Communion; (4) these principles have strong persuasive authority and are fundamental to the self-understanding of each of the member churches; (5) These principles have a living force, and contain within themselves the possibility for further development; and (6) The existence of the principles both demonstrates and promotes unity in the Communion.",
"title": "Anglican Communion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In Presbyterian and Reformed churches, canon law is known as \"practice and procedure\" or \"church order\", and includes the church's laws respecting its government, discipline, legal practice, and worship.",
"title": "Presbyterian and Reformed churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Roman canon law had been criticized by the Presbyterians as early as 1572 in the Admonition to Parliament. The protest centered on the standard defense that canon law could be retained so long as it did not contradict the civil law. According to Polly Ha, the Reformed church government refuted this, claiming that the bishops had been enforcing canon law for 1500 years.",
"title": "Presbyterian and Reformed churches"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The Book of Concord is the historic doctrinal statement of the Lutheran Church, consisting of ten credal documents recognized as authoritative in Lutheranism since the 16th century. However, the Book of Concord is a confessional document (stating orthodox belief) rather than a book of ecclesiastical rules or discipline, like canon law. Each Lutheran national church establishes its own system of church order and discipline, though these are referred to as \"canons\".",
"title": "Lutheranism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Book of Discipline contains the laws, rules, policies, and guidelines for The United Methodist Church. Its latest edition was published in 2016.",
"title": "United Methodist Church"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Catholic",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Anglican",
"title": "External links"
}
] | Canon law is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law, or operational policy, governing the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the individual national churches within the Anglican Communion. The way that such church law is legislated, interpreted and at times adjudicated varies widely among these four bodies of churches. In all three traditions, a canon was originally a rule adopted by a church council; these canons formed the foundation of canon law. | 2001-09-22T05:29:20Z | 2023-08-30T21:25:37Z | [
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6,501 | Columbanus | Columbanus (Irish: Columbán; 543 – 23 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in present-day Italy.
Columbanus taught an Irish monastic rule and penitential practices for those repenting of sins, which emphasised private confession to a priest, followed by penances levied by the priest in reparation for the sins. Columbanus is one of the earliest identifiable Hiberno-Latin writers.
Most of what we know about Columbanus is based on Columbanus' own works (as far as they have been preserved) and Jonas of Susa's Vita Columbani (Life of Columbanus), which was written between 639 and 641.
Jonas entered Bobbio after Columbanus' death but relied on reports of monks who still knew Columbanus. A description of miracles of Columbanus written by an anonymous monk of Bobbio is of much later date. In the second volume of his Acta Sanctorum O.S.B., Mabillon gives the life in full, together with an appendix on the miracles of Columbanus, written by an anonymous member of the Bobbio community.
Columbanus (the Latinised form of Columbán, meaning the white dove) was born in Leinster, Ireland in 543. After his conception, his mother was said to have had a vision of her child's "remarkable genius".
He was first educated under Abbot Sinell of Cluaninis, whose monastery was on an island of the River Erne, in modern County Fermanagh. Under Sinell's instruction, Columbanus composed a commentary on the Psalms.
Columbanus then moved to Bangor Abbey where he studied to become a teacher of the Bible. He was well-educated in the areas of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and the Holy Scriptures. Abbot Comgall taught him Greek and Latin. He stayed at Bangor until c. 590, when Comgall reluctantly gave him permission to travel to the continent.
Columbanus set sail with twelve companions: Attala, Columbanus the Younger, Gallus, Domgal, Cummain, Eogain, Eunan, Gurgano, Libran, Lua, Sigisbert and Waldoleno. They crossed the channel via Cornwall and landed in Saint-Malo, Brittany.
Columbanus then entered Burgundian France. Jonas writes that:
At that time, either because of the numerous enemies from without, or on account of the carelessness of the bishops, the Christian faith had almost departed from that country. The creed alone remained. But the saving grace of penance and the longing to root out the lusts of the flesh were to be found only in a few. Everywhere that he went the noble man [Columbanus] preached the Gospel. And it pleased the people because his teaching was adorned by eloquence and enforced by examples of virtue.
Columbanus and his companions were welcomed by King Guntram of Burgundy, who granted them land at Anegray, where they converted a ruined Roman fortress into a school. Despite its remote location in the Vosges Mountains, the school rapidly attracted so many students that they moved to a new site at Luxeuil and then established a second school at Fontaines. These schools remained under Columbanus' authority, and their rules of life reflected the Celtic tradition in which he had been educated.
As these communities expanded and drew more pilgrims, Columbanus sought greater solitude. Often he would withdraw to a cave seven miles away, with a single companion who acted as messenger between himself and his companions.
Tensions arose in 603 CE when St. Columbanus and his followers argued with Frankish bishops over the exact date of Easter. (St. Columbanus celebrated Easter according to Celtic rites and the Celtic Christian calendar.)
The Frankish bishops may have feared his growing influence. During the first half of the sixth century, the councils of Gaul had given to bishops absolute authority over religious communities. Celtic Christians, Columbanus and his monks used the Irish Easter calculation, a version of Bishop Augustalis's 84-year computus for determining the date of Easter (quartodecimanism), whereas the Franks had adopted the Victorian cycle of 532 years. The bishops objected to the newcomers' continued observance of their own dating, which – among other issues – caused the end of Lent to differ. They also complained about the distinct Irish tonsure.
In 602, the bishops assembled to judge Columbanus, but he did not appear before them as requested. Instead, he sent a letter to the prelates – a strange mixture of freedom, reverence, and charity – admonishing them to hold synods more frequently, and advising them to pay more attention to matters of equal importance to that of the date of Easter. In defence of his following his traditional paschal cycle, he wrote:
I am not the author of this divergence. I came as a poor stranger into these parts for the cause of Christ, Our Saviour. One thing alone I ask of you, holy Fathers, permit me to live in silence in these forests, near the bones of seventeen of my brethren now dead.
When the bishops refused to abandon the matter, Columbanus appealed directly to Pope Gregory I. In the third and only surviving letter, he asks "the holy Pope, his Father" to provide "the strong support of his authority" and to render a "verdict of his favour", apologising for "presuming to argue as it were, with him who sits in the chair of Peter, Apostle and Bearer of the Keys". None of the letters were answered, most likely due to the pope's death in 604.
Columbanus then sent a letter to Gregory's successor, Pope Boniface IV, asking him to confirm the tradition of his elders – if it was not contrary to the Faith – so that he and his monks could follow the rites of their ancestors. Before Boniface responded, Columbanus moved outside the jurisdiction of the Frankish bishops. As the Easter issue appears to end around that time, Columbanus may have stopped celebrating Irish date of Easter after moving to Italy.
Columbanus was also involved in a dispute with members of the Burgundian dynasty. Upon the death of King Guntram of Burgundy, the succession passed to his nephew, Childebert II, the son of his brother Sigebert and Sigebert's wife Brunhilda of Austrasia. When Childebert II died, his territories were divided between his two sons: Theuderic II inherited the Kingdom of Burgundy and Theudebert II inherited the Kingdom of Austrasia. Both were minors and Brunhilda, their grandmother, ruled as their regents.
Theuderic II "very often visited" Columbanus, but when Columbanus rebuked him for having a concubine, Brunhilda became his bitterest foe because she feared the loss of her influence if Theuderic II married. Brunhilda incited the court and Catholic bishops against Columbanus and Theuderic II confronted Columbanus at Luxeuil, accusing him of violating the "common customs" and "not allowing all Christians" in the monastery. Columbanus asserted his independence to run the monastery without interference and was imprisoned at Besançon for execution.
Columbanus escaped and returned to Luxeuil. When the king and his grandmother found out, they sent soldiers to drive him back to Ireland by force, separating him from his monks by insisting that only those from Ireland could accompany him into exile.
Columbanus was taken to Nevers, then travelled by boat down the Loire river to the coast. At Tours he visited the tomb of Martin of Tours, and sent a message to Theuderic II indicating that within three years he and his children would perish. When he arrived at Nantes, he wrote a letter before embarkation to his fellow monks at Luxeuil monastery. The letter urged his brethren to obey Attala, who stayed behind as abbot of the monastic community.
The letter concludes:
They come to tell me the ship is ready. The end of my parchment compels me to finish my letter. Love is not orderly; it is this which has made it confused. Farewell, dear hearts of mine; pray for me that I may live in God.
Soon after the ship set sail from Nantes, a severe storm drove the vessel back ashore. Convinced that his holy passenger caused the tempest, the captain refused further attempts to transport the monk. Columbanus found sanctuary with Chlothar II of Neustria at Soissons, who gave him an escort to the court of King Theudebert II of Austrasia.
Columbanus arrived at Theudebert II's court in Metz in 611, where members of the Luxeuil school met him and Theudebert II granted them land at Bregenz. They travelled up the Rhine via Mainz to the lands of the Suebi and Alemanni in the northern Alps, intending to preach the Gospel to these people. He followed the Rhine river and its tributaries, the Aar and the Limmat, and then on to Lake Zurich. Columbanus chose the village of Tuggen as his initial community, but the work was not successful. He continued north-east by way of Arbon to Bregenz on Lake Constance. Here he found an oratory dedicated to Aurelia of Strasbourg containing three brass images of their tutelary deities. Columbanus commanded Gallus, who knew the local language, to preach to the inhabitants, and many were converted. The three brass images were destroyed, and Columbanus blessed the little church, placing the relics of Aurelia beneath the altar. A monastery was erected, Mehrerau Abbey, and the brethren observed their regular life. Columbanus stayed in Bregenz for about one year.
In the spring of 612, war broke out between Austrasia and Burgundy and Theudebert II was resoundingly beaten by Theuderic II. Austrasia was subsumed under the kingdom of Burgundy and Columbanus was again vulnerable to Theuderic II's opprobrium. When Columbanus' students began to be murdered in the woods, Columbanus decided to cross the Alps into Lombardy.
Gallus remained in this area until his death in 646. About seventy years later at the place of Gallus' cell the Abbey of Saint Gall was founded. The city of St. Gallen originated as an adjoining settlement of the abbey.
Columbanus arrived in Milan in 612 and was welcomed by King Agilulf and Queen Theodelinda of the Lombards. He immediately began refuting the teachings of Arianism, which had enjoyed a degree of acceptance in Italy. He wrote a treatise against Arianism, which has since been lost. In 614, Agilulf granted Columbanus land for a school at the site of a ruined church at Bobbio.
At the king's request, Columbanus wrote a letter to Pope Boniface IV on the controversy over the Three Chapters – writings by Syrian bishops suspected of Nestorianism, which had been condemned in the fifth century as heresy. Pope Gregory I had tolerated in Lombardy those persons who defended the Three Letters, among them King Agilulf. Columbanus agreed to take up the issue on behalf of the king. The letter has a diplomatic tone and begins with an apology that a "foolish Scot" (Scottus, Irishman) would be writing for a Lombard king. After acquainting the pope with the imputations brought against him, he entreats the pontiff to prove his orthodoxy and assemble a council. When critiquing Boniface, he writes that his freedom of speech is consistent with the custom of his country. Some of the language used in the letter might now be regarded as disrespectful, but in that time, faith and austerity could be more indulgent. Columbanus was tactful when making critiques, as he begins the letter expresses with the most affectionate and impassioned devotion to the Holy See.
We Irish, though dwelling at the far ends of the earth, are all disciples of Saint Peter and Saint Paul ... we are bound to the Chair of Peter, and although Rome is great and renowned, through that Chair alone is she looked on as great and illustrious among us ... On account of the two Apostles of Christ, you are almost celestial, and Rome is the head of the whole world, and of the Churches.
Later, he reveals charges against the Papacy so as to encourage Boniface to make concessions:
For, as I hear, you are alleged to favour heretics—God forbid men should believe that this has been, is, or shall be true. For they say that Eutyches, Nestorius, and Dioscorus, old heretics as we know, were favoured at some Council, at the fifth, by Vigilius. Here, as they say, is the cause of the whole calumny; if, as is reported, you also favour thus, or if you know that even (Pope) Vigilius himself died under such a taint, why do you repeat his name against your conscience? Already it is your fault if you have erred from the true belief and made your first faith void; justly do your subordinates oppose you, and justly do they hold no communion with you.
Columbanus' deference towards Rome is sufficiently clear, calling the pope "his Lord and Father in Christ", the "Chosen Watchman", and the "First Pastor, set higher than all mortals", also asserting that "we Irish, inhabitants of the world’s edge, are disciples of Saints Peter and Paul and of all the disciples" and that "the unity of faith has produced in the whole world a unity of power and privilege."
King Agilulf gave Columbanus a tract of land called Bobbio between Milan and Genoa near the Trebbia river, situated in a defile of the Apennine Mountains, to be used as a base for the conversion of the Lombard people. The area contained a ruined church and wastelands known as Ebovium, which had formed part of the lands of the papacy prior to the Lombard invasion. Columbanus wanted this secluded place, for while enthusiastic in the instruction of the Lombards he preferred solitude for his monks and himself. Next to the little church, which was dedicated to Peter the Apostle, Columbanus erected a monastery in 614. Bobbio Abbey at its foundation followed the Rule of Saint Columbanus, based on the monastic practices of Celtic Christianity. For centuries it remained the stronghold of orthodoxy in northern Italy.
During the last year of his life, Columbanus received messenges from King Chlothar II, inviting him to return to Burgundy, now that his enemies were dead. Columbanus did not return, but requested that the king should always protect his monks at Luxeuil Abbey. He prepared for death by retiring to his cave on the mountainside overlooking the Trebbia river, where, according to a tradition, he had dedicated an oratory to Our Lady. Columbanus died at Bobbio on 21 November 615 and is buried there.
The Rule of Saint Columbanus embodied the customs of Bangor Abbey and other Irish monasteries. Much shorter than the Rule of Saint Benedict, the Rule of Saint Columbanus consists of ten chapters, on the subjects of obedience, silence, food, poverty, humility, chastity, choir offices, discretion, mortification, and perfection.
In the first chapter, Columbanus introduces the great principle of his Rule: obedience, absolute and unreserved. The words of seniors should always be obeyed, just as "Christ obeyed the Father up to death for us". One manifestation of this obedience was constant hard labour designed to subdue the flesh, exercise the will in daily self-denial, and set an example of industry in cultivation of the soil. The least deviation from the Rule entailed corporal punishment, or a severe form of fasting. In the second chapter, Columbanus instructs that the rule of silence be "carefully observed", since it is written: "But the nurture of righteousness is silence and peace". He also warns, "Justly will they be damned who would not say just things when they could, but preferred to say with garrulous loquacity what is evil". In the third chapter, Columbanus instructs, "Let the monks' food be poor and taken in the evening, such as to avoid repletion, and their drink such as to avoid intoxication, so that it may both maintain life and not harm". Columbanus continues:
For indeed those who desire eternal rewards must only consider usefulness and use. Use of life must be moderated just as toil must be moderated, since this is true discretion, that the possibility of spiritual progress may be kept with a temperance that punishes the flesh. For if temperance exceeds measure, it will be a vice and not a virtue; for virtue maintains and retains many goods. Therefore we must fast daily, just as we must feed daily; and while we must eat daily, we must gratify the body more poorly and sparingly ...
In the fourth chapter, Columbanus presents the virtue of poverty and of overcoming greed, and that monks should be satisfied with "small possessions of utter need, knowing that greed is a leprosy for monks". Columbanus also instructs that "nakedness and disdain of riches are the first perfection of monks, but the second is the purging of vices, the third the most perfect and perpetual love of God and unceasing affection for things divine, which follows on the forgetfulness of earthly things. Since this is so, we have need of few things, according to the word of the Lord, or even of one." In the fifth chapter, Columbanus warns against vanity, reminding the monks of Jesus' warning in Luke 16:15: "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God's sight." In the sixth chapter, Columbanus instructs that "a monk's chastity is indeed judged in his thoughts" and warns, "What profit is it if he be virgin in body, if he be not virgin in mind? For God, being Spirit."
In the seventh chapter, Columbanus instituted a service of perpetual prayer, known as laus perennis, by which choir succeeded choir, both day and night. In the eighth chapter, Columbanus stresses the importance of discretion in the lives of monks to avoid "the downfall of some, who beginning without discretion and passing their time without a sobering knowledge, have been unable to complete a praiseworthy life". Monks are instructed to pray to God for to "illumine this way, surrounded on every side by the world's thickest darkness". Columbanus continues:
So discretion has got its name from discerning, for the reason that it discerns in us between good and evil, and also between the moderate and the complete. For from the beginning either class has been divided like light and darkness, that is, good and evil, after evil began through the devil's agency to exist by the corruption of good, but through God's agency Who first illumines and then divides. Thus righteous Abel chose the good, but unrighteous Cain fell upon evil.
In the ninth chapter, Columbanus presents mortification as an essential element in the lives of monks, who are instructed, "Do nothing without counsel." Monks are warned to "beware of a proud independence, and learn true lowliness as they obey without murmuring and hesitation". According to the Rule, there are three components to mortification: "not to disagree in mind, not to speak as one pleases with the tongue, not to go anywhere with complete freedom". This mirrors the words of Jesus, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me." (John 6:38) In the tenth and final chapter, Columbanus regulates forms of penance (often corporal) for offences, and it is here that the Rule of Saint Columbanus differs significantly from that of Saint Benedict.
The Communal Rule of Columbanus required monks to fast every day until None or 3 p.m.; this was later relaxed and observed on designated days. Columbanus' Rule regarding diet was very strict. Monks were to eat a limited diet of beans, vegetables, flour mixed with water and small bread of a loaf, taken in the evenings.
The habit of the monks consisted of a tunic of undyed wool, over which was worn the cuculla, or cowl, of the same material. A great deal of time was devoted to various kinds of manual labour, not unlike the life in monasteries of other rules. The Rule of Saint Columbanus was approved of by the Fourth Council of Mâcon in 627, but it was superseded at the close of the century by the Rule of Saint Benedict. For several centuries in some of the greater monasteries the two rules were observed conjointly.
Columbanus did not lead a perfect life. According to Jonas and other sources, he could be impetuous and even headstrong, for by nature he was eager, passionate, and dauntless. These qualities were both the source of his power and the cause of his mistakes. His virtues, however, were quite remarkable. Like many saints, he had a great love for God's creatures. Stories claim that as he walked in the woods, it was not uncommon for birds to land on his shoulders to be caressed, or for squirrels to run down from the trees and nestle in the folds of his cowl. Although a strong defender of Irish traditions, he never wavered in showing deep respect for the Holy See as the supreme authority. His influence in Europe was due to the conversions he effected and to the rule that he composed. It may be that the example and success of Columba in Caledonia inspired him to similar exertions. The life of Columbanus stands as the prototype of missionary activity in Europe, followed by such men as Kilian, Vergilius of Salzburg, Donatus of Fiesole, Wilfrid, Willibrord, Suitbert of Kaiserwerdt, Boniface, and Ursicinus of Saint-Ursanne.
The following are the principal miracles attributed to his intercession:
Jonas relates the occurrence of a miracle during Columbanus' time in Bregenz, when that region was experiencing a period of severe famine.
Although they were without food, they were bold and unterrified in their faith, so that they obtained food from the Lord. After their bodies had been exhausted by three days of fasting, they found so great an abundance of birds, just as the quails formerly covered the camp of the children of Israel, that the whole country near there was filled with birds. The man of God knew that this food had been scattered on the ground for his own safety and that of his brethren, and that the birds had come only because he was there. He ordered his followers first to render grateful praises to the Creator, and then to take the birds as food. And it was a wonderful and stupendous miracle; for the birds were seized according to the father's commands and did not attempt to fly away. The manna of birds remained for three days. On the fourth day, a priest from an adjacent city, warned by divine inspiration, sent a supply of grain to Saint Columban. When the supply of grain arrived, the Omnipotent, who had furnished the winged food to those in want, immediately commanded the phalanxes of birds to depart. We learned this from Eustasius, who was present with the others, under the command of the servant of God. He said that no one of them remembered ever having seen birds of such a kind before; and the food was of so pleasant savor that it surpassed royal viands. Oh, wonderful gift of divine mercy!
Historian Alexander O'Hara states that Columbanus had a "very strong sense of Irish identity ... He's the first person to write about Irish identity, he's the first Irish person that we have a body of literary work from, so even on that point of view he’s very important in terms of Irish identity." In 1950 a congress celebrating the 1,400th anniversary of his birth took place in Luxeuil, France. It was attended by Robert Schuman, Seán MacBride, the future Pope John XXIII, and John A. Costello who said "All statesmen of today might well turn their thoughts to St Columban and his teaching. History records that it was by men like him that civilisation was saved in the 6th century."
Columbanus is also remembered as the first Irish person to be the subject of a biography. An Italian monk named Jonas of Bobbio wrote a biography of him some twenty years after Columbanus’ death. His use of the phrase in 600 AD totius Europae (all of Europe) in a letter to Pope Gregory the Great is the first known use of the expression.
At Saint-Malo in Brittany, there is a granite cross bearing Columbanus's name to which people once came to pray for rain in times of drought. The nearby village of Saint-Coulomb commemorates him in name.
In France, the ruins of Columbanus' first monastery at Annegray are legally protected through the efforts of the Association Internationale des Amis de St Columban, which purchased the site in 1959. The association also owns and protects the site containing the cave, which served as Columbanus' cell, and the holy well that he created nearby. At Luxeuil-les-Bains, the Basilica of Saint Peter stands on the site of Columbanus' first church. A statue near the entrance, unveiled in 1947, shows him denouncing the immoral life of King Theuderic II. Formally an abbey church, the basilica contains old monastic buildings, which have been used as a minor seminary since the nineteenth century. It is dedicated to Columbanus and houses a bronze statue of him in its courtyard.
Luxeuil Abbey in France became the "nursery of saints and apostles". The monastery produced sixty-three apostles who carried his rule, together with the Gospel, into France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. These disciples of Columbanus are credited with founding more than a hundred different monasteries. The canton and town still bearing the name of St. Gallen testify to how well one of his disciples succeeded.
Bobbio Abbey became a renowned center of learning in the Early Middle Ages, so famous that it rivaled the monastic community at Monte Cassino in wealth and prestige. St. Attala continued St. Columbanus' work at Bobbio, proselytizing and collecting religious texts for the abbey's library. In Lombardy, San Colombano al Lambro in Milan, San Colombano Belmonte in Turin, and San Colombano Certénoli in Genoa all take their names from the saint.
The Missionary Society of Saint Columban, founded in 1916, and the Missionary Sisters of St. Columban, founded in 1924, are both dedicated to Columbanus.
The remains of Columbanus are preserved in the crypt at Bobbio Abbey. Many miracles have been credited to his intercession. In 1482, the relics were placed in a new shrine and laid beneath the altar of the crypt. The sacristy at Bobbio possesses a portion of the skull of Columbanus, his knife, wooden cup, bell, and an ancient water vessel, formerly containing sacred relics and said to have been given to him by Pope Gregory I. According to some authorities, twelve teeth of Columbanus were taken from the tomb in the fifteenth century and kept in the treasury, but these have since disappeared.
Columbanus is named in the Roman Martyrology on 23 November, which is his feast day in Ireland. His feast is observed by the Benedictines on 21 November. Columbanus is the patron saint of motorcyclists. In art, Columbanus is represented bearded bearing the monastic cowl, holding in his hand a book with an Irish satchel, and standing in the midst of wolves. Sometimes he is depicted in the attitude of taming a bear, or with sun-beams over his head.
An Anglican bishop suggested Columbanus as a patron of motorcyclists because of his extensive travels through Europe during his lifetime. His patronage was declared by the Vatican in 2002. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Columbanus (Irish: Columbán; 543 – 23 November 615) was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in present-day Italy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Columbanus taught an Irish monastic rule and penitential practices for those repenting of sins, which emphasised private confession to a priest, followed by penances levied by the priest in reparation for the sins. Columbanus is one of the earliest identifiable Hiberno-Latin writers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Most of what we know about Columbanus is based on Columbanus' own works (as far as they have been preserved) and Jonas of Susa's Vita Columbani (Life of Columbanus), which was written between 639 and 641.",
"title": "Sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Jonas entered Bobbio after Columbanus' death but relied on reports of monks who still knew Columbanus. A description of miracles of Columbanus written by an anonymous monk of Bobbio is of much later date. In the second volume of his Acta Sanctorum O.S.B., Mabillon gives the life in full, together with an appendix on the miracles of Columbanus, written by an anonymous member of the Bobbio community.",
"title": "Sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Columbanus (the Latinised form of Columbán, meaning the white dove) was born in Leinster, Ireland in 543. After his conception, his mother was said to have had a vision of her child's \"remarkable genius\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "He was first educated under Abbot Sinell of Cluaninis, whose monastery was on an island of the River Erne, in modern County Fermanagh. Under Sinell's instruction, Columbanus composed a commentary on the Psalms.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Columbanus then moved to Bangor Abbey where he studied to become a teacher of the Bible. He was well-educated in the areas of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, and the Holy Scriptures. Abbot Comgall taught him Greek and Latin. He stayed at Bangor until c. 590, when Comgall reluctantly gave him permission to travel to the continent.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Columbanus set sail with twelve companions: Attala, Columbanus the Younger, Gallus, Domgal, Cummain, Eogain, Eunan, Gurgano, Libran, Lua, Sigisbert and Waldoleno. They crossed the channel via Cornwall and landed in Saint-Malo, Brittany.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Columbanus then entered Burgundian France. Jonas writes that:",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "At that time, either because of the numerous enemies from without, or on account of the carelessness of the bishops, the Christian faith had almost departed from that country. The creed alone remained. But the saving grace of penance and the longing to root out the lusts of the flesh were to be found only in a few. Everywhere that he went the noble man [Columbanus] preached the Gospel. And it pleased the people because his teaching was adorned by eloquence and enforced by examples of virtue.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Columbanus and his companions were welcomed by King Guntram of Burgundy, who granted them land at Anegray, where they converted a ruined Roman fortress into a school. Despite its remote location in the Vosges Mountains, the school rapidly attracted so many students that they moved to a new site at Luxeuil and then established a second school at Fontaines. These schools remained under Columbanus' authority, and their rules of life reflected the Celtic tradition in which he had been educated.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "As these communities expanded and drew more pilgrims, Columbanus sought greater solitude. Often he would withdraw to a cave seven miles away, with a single companion who acted as messenger between himself and his companions.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Tensions arose in 603 CE when St. Columbanus and his followers argued with Frankish bishops over the exact date of Easter. (St. Columbanus celebrated Easter according to Celtic rites and the Celtic Christian calendar.)",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Frankish bishops may have feared his growing influence. During the first half of the sixth century, the councils of Gaul had given to bishops absolute authority over religious communities. Celtic Christians, Columbanus and his monks used the Irish Easter calculation, a version of Bishop Augustalis's 84-year computus for determining the date of Easter (quartodecimanism), whereas the Franks had adopted the Victorian cycle of 532 years. The bishops objected to the newcomers' continued observance of their own dating, which – among other issues – caused the end of Lent to differ. They also complained about the distinct Irish tonsure.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 602, the bishops assembled to judge Columbanus, but he did not appear before them as requested. Instead, he sent a letter to the prelates – a strange mixture of freedom, reverence, and charity – admonishing them to hold synods more frequently, and advising them to pay more attention to matters of equal importance to that of the date of Easter. In defence of his following his traditional paschal cycle, he wrote:",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "I am not the author of this divergence. I came as a poor stranger into these parts for the cause of Christ, Our Saviour. One thing alone I ask of you, holy Fathers, permit me to live in silence in these forests, near the bones of seventeen of my brethren now dead.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "When the bishops refused to abandon the matter, Columbanus appealed directly to Pope Gregory I. In the third and only surviving letter, he asks \"the holy Pope, his Father\" to provide \"the strong support of his authority\" and to render a \"verdict of his favour\", apologising for \"presuming to argue as it were, with him who sits in the chair of Peter, Apostle and Bearer of the Keys\". None of the letters were answered, most likely due to the pope's death in 604.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Columbanus then sent a letter to Gregory's successor, Pope Boniface IV, asking him to confirm the tradition of his elders – if it was not contrary to the Faith – so that he and his monks could follow the rites of their ancestors. Before Boniface responded, Columbanus moved outside the jurisdiction of the Frankish bishops. As the Easter issue appears to end around that time, Columbanus may have stopped celebrating Irish date of Easter after moving to Italy.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Columbanus was also involved in a dispute with members of the Burgundian dynasty. Upon the death of King Guntram of Burgundy, the succession passed to his nephew, Childebert II, the son of his brother Sigebert and Sigebert's wife Brunhilda of Austrasia. When Childebert II died, his territories were divided between his two sons: Theuderic II inherited the Kingdom of Burgundy and Theudebert II inherited the Kingdom of Austrasia. Both were minors and Brunhilda, their grandmother, ruled as their regents.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Theuderic II \"very often visited\" Columbanus, but when Columbanus rebuked him for having a concubine, Brunhilda became his bitterest foe because she feared the loss of her influence if Theuderic II married. Brunhilda incited the court and Catholic bishops against Columbanus and Theuderic II confronted Columbanus at Luxeuil, accusing him of violating the \"common customs\" and \"not allowing all Christians\" in the monastery. Columbanus asserted his independence to run the monastery without interference and was imprisoned at Besançon for execution.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Columbanus escaped and returned to Luxeuil. When the king and his grandmother found out, they sent soldiers to drive him back to Ireland by force, separating him from his monks by insisting that only those from Ireland could accompany him into exile.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Columbanus was taken to Nevers, then travelled by boat down the Loire river to the coast. At Tours he visited the tomb of Martin of Tours, and sent a message to Theuderic II indicating that within three years he and his children would perish. When he arrived at Nantes, he wrote a letter before embarkation to his fellow monks at Luxeuil monastery. The letter urged his brethren to obey Attala, who stayed behind as abbot of the monastic community.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The letter concludes:",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "They come to tell me the ship is ready. The end of my parchment compels me to finish my letter. Love is not orderly; it is this which has made it confused. Farewell, dear hearts of mine; pray for me that I may live in God.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Soon after the ship set sail from Nantes, a severe storm drove the vessel back ashore. Convinced that his holy passenger caused the tempest, the captain refused further attempts to transport the monk. Columbanus found sanctuary with Chlothar II of Neustria at Soissons, who gave him an escort to the court of King Theudebert II of Austrasia.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Columbanus arrived at Theudebert II's court in Metz in 611, where members of the Luxeuil school met him and Theudebert II granted them land at Bregenz. They travelled up the Rhine via Mainz to the lands of the Suebi and Alemanni in the northern Alps, intending to preach the Gospel to these people. He followed the Rhine river and its tributaries, the Aar and the Limmat, and then on to Lake Zurich. Columbanus chose the village of Tuggen as his initial community, but the work was not successful. He continued north-east by way of Arbon to Bregenz on Lake Constance. Here he found an oratory dedicated to Aurelia of Strasbourg containing three brass images of their tutelary deities. Columbanus commanded Gallus, who knew the local language, to preach to the inhabitants, and many were converted. The three brass images were destroyed, and Columbanus blessed the little church, placing the relics of Aurelia beneath the altar. A monastery was erected, Mehrerau Abbey, and the brethren observed their regular life. Columbanus stayed in Bregenz for about one year.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In the spring of 612, war broke out between Austrasia and Burgundy and Theudebert II was resoundingly beaten by Theuderic II. Austrasia was subsumed under the kingdom of Burgundy and Columbanus was again vulnerable to Theuderic II's opprobrium. When Columbanus' students began to be murdered in the woods, Columbanus decided to cross the Alps into Lombardy.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Gallus remained in this area until his death in 646. About seventy years later at the place of Gallus' cell the Abbey of Saint Gall was founded. The city of St. Gallen originated as an adjoining settlement of the abbey.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Columbanus arrived in Milan in 612 and was welcomed by King Agilulf and Queen Theodelinda of the Lombards. He immediately began refuting the teachings of Arianism, which had enjoyed a degree of acceptance in Italy. He wrote a treatise against Arianism, which has since been lost. In 614, Agilulf granted Columbanus land for a school at the site of a ruined church at Bobbio.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "At the king's request, Columbanus wrote a letter to Pope Boniface IV on the controversy over the Three Chapters – writings by Syrian bishops suspected of Nestorianism, which had been condemned in the fifth century as heresy. Pope Gregory I had tolerated in Lombardy those persons who defended the Three Letters, among them King Agilulf. Columbanus agreed to take up the issue on behalf of the king. The letter has a diplomatic tone and begins with an apology that a \"foolish Scot\" (Scottus, Irishman) would be writing for a Lombard king. After acquainting the pope with the imputations brought against him, he entreats the pontiff to prove his orthodoxy and assemble a council. When critiquing Boniface, he writes that his freedom of speech is consistent with the custom of his country. Some of the language used in the letter might now be regarded as disrespectful, but in that time, faith and austerity could be more indulgent. Columbanus was tactful when making critiques, as he begins the letter expresses with the most affectionate and impassioned devotion to the Holy See.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "We Irish, though dwelling at the far ends of the earth, are all disciples of Saint Peter and Saint Paul ... we are bound to the Chair of Peter, and although Rome is great and renowned, through that Chair alone is she looked on as great and illustrious among us ... On account of the two Apostles of Christ, you are almost celestial, and Rome is the head of the whole world, and of the Churches.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Later, he reveals charges against the Papacy so as to encourage Boniface to make concessions:",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "For, as I hear, you are alleged to favour heretics—God forbid men should believe that this has been, is, or shall be true. For they say that Eutyches, Nestorius, and Dioscorus, old heretics as we know, were favoured at some Council, at the fifth, by Vigilius. Here, as they say, is the cause of the whole calumny; if, as is reported, you also favour thus, or if you know that even (Pope) Vigilius himself died under such a taint, why do you repeat his name against your conscience? Already it is your fault if you have erred from the true belief and made your first faith void; justly do your subordinates oppose you, and justly do they hold no communion with you.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Columbanus' deference towards Rome is sufficiently clear, calling the pope \"his Lord and Father in Christ\", the \"Chosen Watchman\", and the \"First Pastor, set higher than all mortals\", also asserting that \"we Irish, inhabitants of the world’s edge, are disciples of Saints Peter and Paul and of all the disciples\" and that \"the unity of faith has produced in the whole world a unity of power and privilege.\"",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "King Agilulf gave Columbanus a tract of land called Bobbio between Milan and Genoa near the Trebbia river, situated in a defile of the Apennine Mountains, to be used as a base for the conversion of the Lombard people. The area contained a ruined church and wastelands known as Ebovium, which had formed part of the lands of the papacy prior to the Lombard invasion. Columbanus wanted this secluded place, for while enthusiastic in the instruction of the Lombards he preferred solitude for his monks and himself. Next to the little church, which was dedicated to Peter the Apostle, Columbanus erected a monastery in 614. Bobbio Abbey at its foundation followed the Rule of Saint Columbanus, based on the monastic practices of Celtic Christianity. For centuries it remained the stronghold of orthodoxy in northern Italy.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "During the last year of his life, Columbanus received messenges from King Chlothar II, inviting him to return to Burgundy, now that his enemies were dead. Columbanus did not return, but requested that the king should always protect his monks at Luxeuil Abbey. He prepared for death by retiring to his cave on the mountainside overlooking the Trebbia river, where, according to a tradition, he had dedicated an oratory to Our Lady. Columbanus died at Bobbio on 21 November 615 and is buried there.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Rule of Saint Columbanus embodied the customs of Bangor Abbey and other Irish monasteries. Much shorter than the Rule of Saint Benedict, the Rule of Saint Columbanus consists of ten chapters, on the subjects of obedience, silence, food, poverty, humility, chastity, choir offices, discretion, mortification, and perfection.",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In the first chapter, Columbanus introduces the great principle of his Rule: obedience, absolute and unreserved. The words of seniors should always be obeyed, just as \"Christ obeyed the Father up to death for us\". One manifestation of this obedience was constant hard labour designed to subdue the flesh, exercise the will in daily self-denial, and set an example of industry in cultivation of the soil. The least deviation from the Rule entailed corporal punishment, or a severe form of fasting. In the second chapter, Columbanus instructs that the rule of silence be \"carefully observed\", since it is written: \"But the nurture of righteousness is silence and peace\". He also warns, \"Justly will they be damned who would not say just things when they could, but preferred to say with garrulous loquacity what is evil\". In the third chapter, Columbanus instructs, \"Let the monks' food be poor and taken in the evening, such as to avoid repletion, and their drink such as to avoid intoxication, so that it may both maintain life and not harm\". Columbanus continues:",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "For indeed those who desire eternal rewards must only consider usefulness and use. Use of life must be moderated just as toil must be moderated, since this is true discretion, that the possibility of spiritual progress may be kept with a temperance that punishes the flesh. For if temperance exceeds measure, it will be a vice and not a virtue; for virtue maintains and retains many goods. Therefore we must fast daily, just as we must feed daily; and while we must eat daily, we must gratify the body more poorly and sparingly ...",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In the fourth chapter, Columbanus presents the virtue of poverty and of overcoming greed, and that monks should be satisfied with \"small possessions of utter need, knowing that greed is a leprosy for monks\". Columbanus also instructs that \"nakedness and disdain of riches are the first perfection of monks, but the second is the purging of vices, the third the most perfect and perpetual love of God and unceasing affection for things divine, which follows on the forgetfulness of earthly things. Since this is so, we have need of few things, according to the word of the Lord, or even of one.\" In the fifth chapter, Columbanus warns against vanity, reminding the monks of Jesus' warning in Luke 16:15: \"You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God's sight.\" In the sixth chapter, Columbanus instructs that \"a monk's chastity is indeed judged in his thoughts\" and warns, \"What profit is it if he be virgin in body, if he be not virgin in mind? For God, being Spirit.\"",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In the seventh chapter, Columbanus instituted a service of perpetual prayer, known as laus perennis, by which choir succeeded choir, both day and night. In the eighth chapter, Columbanus stresses the importance of discretion in the lives of monks to avoid \"the downfall of some, who beginning without discretion and passing their time without a sobering knowledge, have been unable to complete a praiseworthy life\". Monks are instructed to pray to God for to \"illumine this way, surrounded on every side by the world's thickest darkness\". Columbanus continues:",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "So discretion has got its name from discerning, for the reason that it discerns in us between good and evil, and also between the moderate and the complete. For from the beginning either class has been divided like light and darkness, that is, good and evil, after evil began through the devil's agency to exist by the corruption of good, but through God's agency Who first illumines and then divides. Thus righteous Abel chose the good, but unrighteous Cain fell upon evil.",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In the ninth chapter, Columbanus presents mortification as an essential element in the lives of monks, who are instructed, \"Do nothing without counsel.\" Monks are warned to \"beware of a proud independence, and learn true lowliness as they obey without murmuring and hesitation\". According to the Rule, there are three components to mortification: \"not to disagree in mind, not to speak as one pleases with the tongue, not to go anywhere with complete freedom\". This mirrors the words of Jesus, \"For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.\" (John 6:38) In the tenth and final chapter, Columbanus regulates forms of penance (often corporal) for offences, and it is here that the Rule of Saint Columbanus differs significantly from that of Saint Benedict.",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Communal Rule of Columbanus required monks to fast every day until None or 3 p.m.; this was later relaxed and observed on designated days. Columbanus' Rule regarding diet was very strict. Monks were to eat a limited diet of beans, vegetables, flour mixed with water and small bread of a loaf, taken in the evenings.",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The habit of the monks consisted of a tunic of undyed wool, over which was worn the cuculla, or cowl, of the same material. A great deal of time was devoted to various kinds of manual labour, not unlike the life in monasteries of other rules. The Rule of Saint Columbanus was approved of by the Fourth Council of Mâcon in 627, but it was superseded at the close of the century by the Rule of Saint Benedict. For several centuries in some of the greater monasteries the two rules were observed conjointly.",
"title": "Rule of Saint Columbanus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Columbanus did not lead a perfect life. According to Jonas and other sources, he could be impetuous and even headstrong, for by nature he was eager, passionate, and dauntless. These qualities were both the source of his power and the cause of his mistakes. His virtues, however, were quite remarkable. Like many saints, he had a great love for God's creatures. Stories claim that as he walked in the woods, it was not uncommon for birds to land on his shoulders to be caressed, or for squirrels to run down from the trees and nestle in the folds of his cowl. Although a strong defender of Irish traditions, he never wavered in showing deep respect for the Holy See as the supreme authority. His influence in Europe was due to the conversions he effected and to the rule that he composed. It may be that the example and success of Columba in Caledonia inspired him to similar exertions. The life of Columbanus stands as the prototype of missionary activity in Europe, followed by such men as Kilian, Vergilius of Salzburg, Donatus of Fiesole, Wilfrid, Willibrord, Suitbert of Kaiserwerdt, Boniface, and Ursicinus of Saint-Ursanne.",
"title": "Character"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The following are the principal miracles attributed to his intercession:",
"title": "Miracles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Jonas relates the occurrence of a miracle during Columbanus' time in Bregenz, when that region was experiencing a period of severe famine.",
"title": "Miracles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Although they were without food, they were bold and unterrified in their faith, so that they obtained food from the Lord. After their bodies had been exhausted by three days of fasting, they found so great an abundance of birds, just as the quails formerly covered the camp of the children of Israel, that the whole country near there was filled with birds. The man of God knew that this food had been scattered on the ground for his own safety and that of his brethren, and that the birds had come only because he was there. He ordered his followers first to render grateful praises to the Creator, and then to take the birds as food. And it was a wonderful and stupendous miracle; for the birds were seized according to the father's commands and did not attempt to fly away. The manna of birds remained for three days. On the fourth day, a priest from an adjacent city, warned by divine inspiration, sent a supply of grain to Saint Columban. When the supply of grain arrived, the Omnipotent, who had furnished the winged food to those in want, immediately commanded the phalanxes of birds to depart. We learned this from Eustasius, who was present with the others, under the command of the servant of God. He said that no one of them remembered ever having seen birds of such a kind before; and the food was of so pleasant savor that it surpassed royal viands. Oh, wonderful gift of divine mercy!",
"title": "Miracles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Historian Alexander O'Hara states that Columbanus had a \"very strong sense of Irish identity ... He's the first person to write about Irish identity, he's the first Irish person that we have a body of literary work from, so even on that point of view he’s very important in terms of Irish identity.\" In 1950 a congress celebrating the 1,400th anniversary of his birth took place in Luxeuil, France. It was attended by Robert Schuman, Seán MacBride, the future Pope John XXIII, and John A. Costello who said \"All statesmen of today might well turn their thoughts to St Columban and his teaching. History records that it was by men like him that civilisation was saved in the 6th century.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Columbanus is also remembered as the first Irish person to be the subject of a biography. An Italian monk named Jonas of Bobbio wrote a biography of him some twenty years after Columbanus’ death. His use of the phrase in 600 AD totius Europae (all of Europe) in a letter to Pope Gregory the Great is the first known use of the expression.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "At Saint-Malo in Brittany, there is a granite cross bearing Columbanus's name to which people once came to pray for rain in times of drought. The nearby village of Saint-Coulomb commemorates him in name.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In France, the ruins of Columbanus' first monastery at Annegray are legally protected through the efforts of the Association Internationale des Amis de St Columban, which purchased the site in 1959. The association also owns and protects the site containing the cave, which served as Columbanus' cell, and the holy well that he created nearby. At Luxeuil-les-Bains, the Basilica of Saint Peter stands on the site of Columbanus' first church. A statue near the entrance, unveiled in 1947, shows him denouncing the immoral life of King Theuderic II. Formally an abbey church, the basilica contains old monastic buildings, which have been used as a minor seminary since the nineteenth century. It is dedicated to Columbanus and houses a bronze statue of him in its courtyard.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Luxeuil Abbey in France became the \"nursery of saints and apostles\". The monastery produced sixty-three apostles who carried his rule, together with the Gospel, into France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. These disciples of Columbanus are credited with founding more than a hundred different monasteries. The canton and town still bearing the name of St. Gallen testify to how well one of his disciples succeeded.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Bobbio Abbey became a renowned center of learning in the Early Middle Ages, so famous that it rivaled the monastic community at Monte Cassino in wealth and prestige. St. Attala continued St. Columbanus' work at Bobbio, proselytizing and collecting religious texts for the abbey's library. In Lombardy, San Colombano al Lambro in Milan, San Colombano Belmonte in Turin, and San Colombano Certénoli in Genoa all take their names from the saint.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Missionary Society of Saint Columban, founded in 1916, and the Missionary Sisters of St. Columban, founded in 1924, are both dedicated to Columbanus.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The remains of Columbanus are preserved in the crypt at Bobbio Abbey. Many miracles have been credited to his intercession. In 1482, the relics were placed in a new shrine and laid beneath the altar of the crypt. The sacristy at Bobbio possesses a portion of the skull of Columbanus, his knife, wooden cup, bell, and an ancient water vessel, formerly containing sacred relics and said to have been given to him by Pope Gregory I. According to some authorities, twelve teeth of Columbanus were taken from the tomb in the fifteenth century and kept in the treasury, but these have since disappeared.",
"title": "Veneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Columbanus is named in the Roman Martyrology on 23 November, which is his feast day in Ireland. His feast is observed by the Benedictines on 21 November. Columbanus is the patron saint of motorcyclists. In art, Columbanus is represented bearded bearing the monastic cowl, holding in his hand a book with an Irish satchel, and standing in the midst of wolves. Sometimes he is depicted in the attitude of taming a bear, or with sun-beams over his head.",
"title": "Veneration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "An Anglican bishop suggested Columbanus as a patron of motorcyclists because of his extensive travels through Europe during his lifetime. His patronage was declared by the Vatican in 2002.",
"title": "Veneration"
}
] | Columbanus was an Irish missionary notable for founding a number of monasteries after 590 in the Frankish and Lombard kingdoms, most notably Luxeuil Abbey in present-day France and Bobbio Abbey in present-day Italy. Columbanus taught an Irish monastic rule and penitential practices for those repenting of sins, which emphasised private confession to a priest, followed by penances levied by the priest in reparation for the sins. Columbanus is one of the earliest identifiable Hiberno-Latin writers. | 2001-09-23T16:28:06Z | 2023-12-30T02:22:40Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbanus |
6,503 | Concord, New Hampshire | Concord (/ˈkɒŋkərd/) is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Hampshire and the seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2020 census the population was 43,976, making it the 3rd most populous city in New Hampshire after Manchester and Nashua. Governor Benning Wentworth gave the city its current name in 1765 following a boundary dispute with the neighboring town of Bow; the name was meant to signify the new concord, or harmony, between the two towns.
The area was first settled in 1659. On January 17, 1725, the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which then claimed territories west of the Merrimack, granted the Concord area as the Plantation of Penacook. It was settled between 1725 and 1727 and, on February 9, 1734, the town was incorporated as "Rumford." In 1808, Concord was named the official seat of state government. The State House was completed in 1819 and remains the oldest U.S. state capitol wherein the legislature meets in its original chambers.
Concord is entirely within the Merrimack River watershed and the city is centered on the river. The Merrimack runs from northwest to southeast through the city. The city's eastern boundary is formed by the Soucook River, which separates Concord from the town of Pembroke. The Turkey River passes through the southwestern quarter of the city. The city consists of its downtown, including the North End and South End neighborhoods, along with the four villages of Penacook, Concord Heights, East Concord, and West Concord. Penacook sits along the Contoocook River, just before it flows into the Merrimack.
As of 2020, the top employer in the city was the State of New Hampshire, and the largest private employer was Concord Hospital. Concord is home to the University of New Hampshire School of Law, New Hampshire's only law school; St. Paul's School, a private preparatory school; NHTI, a two-year community college; the New Hampshire Police Academy; and the New Hampshire Fire Academy. Concord's Old North Cemetery is the final resting place of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States.
Interstate 89 and Interstate 93 are the two main interstate highways serving the city, and general aviation access is via Concord Municipal Airport. The nearest airport with commercial air service is Manchester–Boston Regional Airport, 23 miles (37 km) to the south. There has been no passenger rail service to Concord since 1981. Historically, the Boston and Maine Railroad served the city.
The area that would become Concord was originally settled thousands of years ago by Abenaki Native Americans called the Pennacook. The tribe fished for migrating salmon, sturgeon, and alewives with nets strung across the rapids of the Merrimack River. The stream was also the transportation route for their birch bark canoes, which could travel from Lake Winnipesaukee to the Atlantic Ocean. The broad sweep of the Merrimack River valley floodplain provided good soil for farming beans, gourds, pumpkins, melons and maize.
The area was first settled by Europeans in 1659 as Penacook, after the Abenaki word "pannukog" meaning "bend in the river," referencing the steep bends of the Merrimack River through the area. On January 17, 1725, the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which then claimed territories west of the Merrimack, granted the Concord area as the Plantation of Penacook. It was settled between 1725 and 1727 by Captain Ebenezer Eastman and others from Haverhill, Massachusetts. On February 9, 1734, the town was incorporated as "Rumford", from which Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, would take his title. It was renamed "Concord" in 1765 by Governor Benning Wentworth following a bitter boundary dispute between Rumford and the town of Bow; the city name was meant to reflect the new concord, or harmony, between the disputant towns. Citizens displaced by the resulting border adjustment were given land elsewhere as compensation. In 1779, New Pennacook Plantation was granted to Timothy Walker Jr. and his associates at what would be incorporated in 1800 as Rumford, Maine, the site of Pennacook Falls.
Concord grew in prominence throughout the 18th century, and some of the earliest houses from this period survive at the northern end of Main Street. In the years following the Revolution, Concord's central geographical location made it a logical choice for the state capital, particularly after Samuel Blodget in 1807 opened a canal and lock system to allow vessels passage around the Amoskeag Falls downriver, connecting Concord with Boston by way of the Middlesex Canal. In 1808, Concord was named the official seat of state government, and in 1816 architect Stuart Park was commissioned to design a new capitol building for the state legislature on land sold to the state by local Quakers. Construction on the State House was completed in 1819, and it remains the oldest capitol in the nation in which the state's legislative branches meet in their original chambers. Concord was also named the seat of Merrimack County in 1823, and the Merrimack County Courthouse was constructed in 1857 in the North End at the site of the Old Town House.
In the early 19th century, much of the city's economy was dominated by furniture-making, printing, and granite quarrying; granite had become a popular building material for many monumental halls in the early United States, and Concord granite was used in the construction of both the New Hampshire State House and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In 1828, Lewis Downing joined J. Stephens Abbot to form Abbot and Downing. Their most famous product was their Concord coach, widely used in the development of the American West, and their enterprise largely boosted and changed the city economy in the mid-19th century. In subsequent years, Concord would also become a hub for the railroad industry, with Penacook a textile manufacturing center using water power from the Contoocook River. The city also around this time started to become a center for the emerging healthcare industry, with New Hampshire State Hospital opening in 1842 as one of the first psychiatric hospitals in the United States. The State Hospital continued to expand throughout the following decades, and in 1891 Concord Hospital opened its doors as Margaret Pillsbury General Hospital, the first general hospital in the state of New Hampshire.
Concord's economy changed once again in the 20th century with the declining railroad and textile industry. The city developed into a center for national politics due to New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, and many presidential candidates still visit the Concord area during campaign season. The city also developed an identity within the emerging space industry, with the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center opening in 1990 to commemorate Alan Shepard, the first American in space from nearby Derry, and Christa McAuliffe, a teacher at Concord High School who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Today, Concord remains a center for politics, law, healthcare, and insurance companies.
Concord is located in south-central New Hampshire at 43°12′24″N 71°32′17″W / 43.20667°N 71.53806°W / 43.20667; -71.53806 (43.2070, −71.5371). It is 38 miles (61 km) north of the Massachusetts border, 40 miles (64 km) west of the Maine border, 54 miles (87 km) east of the Vermont border, and 170 miles (270 km) south of the Canadian border at Pittsburg.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 67.2 square miles (174.0 km). 64.0 square miles (165.7 km) of it are land and 3.2 square miles (8.4 km) of it are water, comprising 4.81% of the city. Concord is drained by the Merrimack River. Penacook Lake, the largest lake in the city and its main source of water, is in the west. The highest point in Concord is 860 feet (260 m) above sea level on Oak Hill, just west of the hill's 970-foot (300 m) summit in neighboring Loudon.
Concord lies fully within the Merrimack River watershed and is centered on the river, which runs from northwest to southeast through the city. Downtown is located on a low terrace to the west of the river, with residential neighborhoods climbing hills to the west and extending southwards towards the town of Bow. To the east of the Merrimack, atop a 100-foot (30 m) bluff, is a flat, sandy plain known as Concord Heights, which has seen most of the city's commercial development since 1960. The eastern boundary of Concord (with the town of Pembroke) is formed by the Soucook River, a tributary of the Merrimack. The Turkey River winds through the southwestern quarter of the city, passing through the campus of St. Paul's School before entering the Merrimack River in Bow. In the northern part of the city, the Contoocook River enters the Merrimack at the village of Penacook.
Concord is 16 miles (26 km) north of Manchester, New Hampshire's largest city, and 66 miles (106 km) north of Boston.
The city of Concord is made up of its downtown, including its North End and South End neighborhoods, plus the four distinct villages of Penacook, Concord Heights, East Concord, and West Concord.
Concord, as with much of New England, is within the humid continental climate zone (Köppen Dfb), with long, cold, snowy winters, warm (and at times humid) summers, and relatively brief autumns and springs. In winter, successive storms deliver moderate to at times heavy snowfall amounts, contributing to the relatively reliable snow cover. In addition, lows reach below 0 °F (−18 °C) on an average 15 nights per year, and the city straddles the border between USDA Hardiness Zone 5b and 6a. However, thaws are frequent, with one to three days per month with 50 °F (10 °C)+ highs from December to February. Summer can bring stretches of humid conditions as well as thunderstorms, and there is an average of 12 days of 90 °F (32 °C)+ highs annually. The window for freezing temperatures on average begins on September 27 and expires on May 14.
The monthly daily average temperature range from 20.6 °F (−6.3 °C) in January to 70.0 °F (21.1 °C) in July. Temperature extremes have ranged from −37 °F (−38 °C) in February 1943 to 102 °F (39 °C) in July 1966.
See or edit raw graph data.
As of the census of 2020, there were 43,976 people residing in the city. The population density was 687.7 people per square mile (265.5 people/km). At the 2010 Census there were 42,695 residents and 10,052 families in the city, as well as 18,852 housing units at an average density of 293.2 per square mile (113.2/km). The racial makeup of the city in 2020 was 84.5% White, 4.9% Black or African American, 1.0% Native American, 4.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.4% from some other race, and 1.8% from two or more races. 4.9% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
In 2010 there were 17,592 households, out of which 28.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.3% were headed by married couples living together, 11.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.9% were non-families. 33.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.0% were someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26, and the average family size was 2.90.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 20.7% under the age of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 28.0% from 25 to 44, 28.2% from 45 to 64, and 13.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39.4 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.9 males.
For the period 2009–2011, the estimated median annual income for a household in the city was $52,695, and the median income for a family was $73,457. Male full-time workers had a median income of $49,228 versus $38,782 for females. The per capita income for the city was $29,296. About 5.5% of families and 10.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.4% of those under age 18 and 5.5% of those age 65 or over.
In 2020, the top employer in the city remained the State of New Hampshire, with over 6,000 employed workers, while the largest private employer was Concord Hospital, with just under 3,000 employees. According to the City of Concord's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top 10 employers in the city for the Fiscal Year 2020 were:
Interstate 89 and Interstate 93 are the two main interstate highways serving Concord, and join just south of the city limits. Interstate 89 links Concord with Lebanon and the state of Vermont to the northwest, while Interstate 93 connects the city to Plymouth, Littleton, and the White Mountains to the north and Manchester and Boston to the south. Interstate 393 is a spur highway leading east from Concord and merging with U.S. Route 4 as a direct route to New Hampshire's Seacoast region. North-south U.S. Route 3 serves as Concord's Main Street, while U.S. Route 202 and New Hampshire Route 9 cross the city from east to west. State routes 13 and 132 also serve the city: Route 13 leads southwest out of Concord towards Goffstown and Milford, while Route 132 travels north parallel to Interstate 93. New Hampshire Route 106 passes through the easternmost part of Concord, crossing I-393 and NH 9 before crossing the Soucook River south into the town of Pembroke. To the north, NH 106 leads to Loudon, Belmont and Laconia.
Historically, Concord served as an important railroad terminal and station for the Boston and Maine Railroad. The former Concord Station was located at what is now a Burlington department store on Storrs Street. The station itself was built in 1860, but the fourth and most famous iteration of the station was built in 1885, which had a brick head house designed by Bradford L. Gilbert. The head house was demolished in 1959 and replaced by a smaller "McGinnis Era" station. By 1967, all passenger rail services to Concord had been discontinued. For 13 months from 1980 to 1981, MBTA Commuter Rail ran two round trips a day between Boston and Concord. The service was discontinued after federal funding was pulled by the Reagan administration. Since then, there has not been any passenger rail service to Concord.
In 2021, Amtrak announced their plan to implement new service between Boston and Concord by 2035.
Local bus service is provided by Concord Area Transit (CAT), with three routes through the city. Regional bus service provided by Concord Coach Lines and Greyhound Lines is available from the Concord Transportation Center at 30 Stickney Avenue next to Exit 14 on Interstate 93, with service south to Boston and points in between, as well as north to Littleton and northeast to Berlin.
General aviation services are available through Concord Municipal Airport, located 2 miles (3 km) east of downtown. There is no commercial air service within the city limits; the nearest such airport is Manchester–Boston Regional Airport, 23 miles (37 km) to the south.
Concord's downtown underwent a significant renovation between 2015 and 2016, during the city's "Complete Streets Improvement Project". At a proposed cost of $12 million, the project promised to deliver on categories of maintenance to aging infrastructure, improved accessibility, increased sustainability, a safer experience for walkers, bikers and motorists alike, and to stimulate economic growth in an increasingly idle downtown. The main infrastructural change was reducing the four-lane street (two in each direction) to two lanes plus a turning lane in the center. The freed-up space would contribute to extra width for bikes to ride in either direction, increased curb size and an added median where there is no need for a turning lane. Concord opted to add shared lane markings for bikes, rather than a dedicated protected bike lane.
By adding curb space, this project created new opportunities for pedestrians to enjoy the downtown. Many power lines were buried, and street trees, colorful benches, art installations, and other green spaces were added, all allowing people to reclaim a space long dominated by cars. Main Street underwent serious traffic calming, including a road diet, increased diagonal parking, widening sidewalks, adding shared lane markings, adding trees, texturing medians and coloring crosswalks red. Another aspect of the new construction was adding heated sidewalk capabilities, utilizing excess steam from the local Concord Steam plant, and minimizing sand and snow blowing needed during the winter months.
Funding for Complete Streets came from a combination of $4,710,000 from a USDOT TIGER grant and the rest from the City of Concord. The project was initially proposed as costing $7,850,000, but ran over budget due to overambitious ideas. After scrapping some of the most expensive offenders, the budget ended up at $14.2 million, with the project actually coming in $1.1 million below that. Although adding final aesthetic touches with the extra money were debated, the city council ended up deciding to save for financially straining years ahead. The design was carried out by McFarland Johnson, IBI Group, and City of Concord Engineering.
Concord is governed via the council-manager system. The city council consists of a mayor and 14 councilors, ten of which are elected to two-year terms representing each of the city wards, while the other four are elected at-large to four-year terms. The mayor is elected directly every two years. The current mayor is Jim Bouley, who has served 14 years as mayor and was elected to a record eighth term on November 2, 2021.
According to the Concord city charter, the mayor chairs the council, however has very few formal powers over the day-to-day management of the city. The actual operations of the city are overseen by the city manager, currently Thomas J. Aspell, Jr. The current police chief is Bradley S. Osgood.
In the New Hampshire Senate, Concord is in the 15th District, represented by Democrat Becky Whitley since December 2020. On the New Hampshire Executive Council, Concord is in the 2nd District, represented by Cinde Warmington, the sole Democrat on the council. In the United States House of Representatives, Concord is in New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district, represented by Democrat Ann McLane Kuster.
New Hampshire Department of Corrections operates the New Hampshire State Prison for Men and New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Concord.
Concord leans strongly Democratic in presidential elections; the last Republican nominee to carry the city was then Vice President George H. W. Bush in 1988. Voter turnout was 72.7% in the 2020 general election, down from 76.2% in 2016, but still above the 2020 national turnout of 66.7%.
Newspapers and journals
Radio
The city is otherwise served by Manchester area stations. New Hampshire Public Radio is headquartered in Concord.
Television
The New Hampshire State House, designed by architect Stuart Park and constructed between 1815 and 1818, is the oldest state house in which the legislature meets in its original chambers. The building was remodeled in 1866, and the third story and west wing were added in 1910.
Across from the State House is the Eagle Hotel on Main Street, which has been a downtown landmark since its opening in 1827. U.S. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison all dined there, and Franklin Pierce spent the night before departing for his inauguration. Other well-known guests included Jefferson Davis, Charles Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt, Richard M. Nixon (who carried New Hampshire in all three of his presidential bids), and Thomas E. Dewey. The hotel closed in 1961.
South from the Eagle Hotel on Main Street is Phenix Hall, which replaced "Old" Phenix Hall, which burned in 1893. Both the old and new buildings featured multi-purpose auditoriums used for political speeches, theater productions, and fairs. Abraham Lincoln spoke at the old hall in 1860; Theodore Roosevelt, at the new hall in 1912.
North on Main Street is the Walker-Woodman House, also known as the Reverend Timothy Walker House, the oldest standing two-story house in Concord. It was built for the Reverend Timothy Walker between 1733 and 1735.
On the north end of Main Street is the Pierce Manse, in which President Franklin Pierce lived in Concord before and following his presidency. The mid-1830s Greek Revival house was moved from Montgomery Street to North Main Street in 1971 to prevent its demolition.
Beaver Meadow Golf Course, located in the northern part of Concord, is one of the oldest golf courses in New England. Besides this golf course, other important sporting venues in Concord include Everett Arena and Memorial Field.
The SNOB (Somewhat North Of Boston) Film Festival, started in the fall of 2002, brings independent films and filmmakers to Concord and has provided an outlet for local filmmakers to display their films. SNOB Film Festival was a catalyst for the building of Red River Theatres, a locally owned, nonprofit, independent cinema in 2007. The SNOB Film Festival is one of the many arts organizations in the city.
Other sites of interest include the Capitol Center for the Arts, the New Hampshire Historical Society, which has two facilities in Concord, and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, a science museum named after Christa McAuliffe, the Concord teacher who died during the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, and Alan Shepard, the Derry-born astronaut who was the second person and first American in space as well as the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon.
Concord's public schools are within the Concord School District, except for schools in the Penacook area of the city, which are within the Merrimack Valley School District, a district which also includes several towns north of Concord. The only public high school in the Concord School District is Concord High School, which has about 2,000 students. The only public middle school in the Concord School District is Rundlett Middle School, which has roughly 1,500 students. Concord School District's elementary schools underwent a major re-configuration in 2012, with three newly constructed schools opening and replacing six previous schools. Kimball School and Walker School were replaced by Christa McAuliffe School on the Kimball School site, Conant School (and Rumford School, which closed a year earlier) were replaced by Abbot-Downing School at the Conant site, and Eastman and Dame schools were replaced by Mill Brook School, serving kindergarten through grade two, located next to Broken Ground Elementary School, serving grades three to five. Beaver Meadow School, the remaining elementary school, was unaffected by the changes.
Concord schools in the Merrimack Valley School District include Merrimack Valley High School and Merrimack Valley Middle School, which are adjacent to each other and to Rolfe Park in Penacook village, and Penacook Elementary School, just south of the village.
Concord has two parochial schools, Bishop Brady High School and Saint John Regional School.
Other area private schools include Concord Christian Academy, Parker Academy, Trinity Christian School, and Shaker Road School. Also in Concord is St. Paul's School, a boarding school located in the city's West End neighborhood.
Concord is home to New Hampshire Technical Institute, the city's primary community college, and Granite State College, which offers online two-year and four-year degrees. The University of New Hampshire School of Law is located near downtown, and the Franklin Pierce University Doctorate of Physical Therapy program also has a location in the city. Concord Hospital recently announced plans to open a joint program with the New England College School of Nursing as part of their Bachelor of Nursing degree. Concord is also a major clinical site of Dartmouth College's Geisel School of Medicine, New Hampshire's only medical school. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Concord (/ˈkɒŋkərd/) is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Hampshire and the seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2020 census the population was 43,976, making it the 3rd most populous city in New Hampshire after Manchester and Nashua. Governor Benning Wentworth gave the city its current name in 1765 following a boundary dispute with the neighboring town of Bow; the name was meant to signify the new concord, or harmony, between the two towns.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The area was first settled in 1659. On January 17, 1725, the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which then claimed territories west of the Merrimack, granted the Concord area as the Plantation of Penacook. It was settled between 1725 and 1727 and, on February 9, 1734, the town was incorporated as \"Rumford.\" In 1808, Concord was named the official seat of state government. The State House was completed in 1819 and remains the oldest U.S. state capitol wherein the legislature meets in its original chambers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Concord is entirely within the Merrimack River watershed and the city is centered on the river. The Merrimack runs from northwest to southeast through the city. The city's eastern boundary is formed by the Soucook River, which separates Concord from the town of Pembroke. The Turkey River passes through the southwestern quarter of the city. The city consists of its downtown, including the North End and South End neighborhoods, along with the four villages of Penacook, Concord Heights, East Concord, and West Concord. Penacook sits along the Contoocook River, just before it flows into the Merrimack.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "As of 2020, the top employer in the city was the State of New Hampshire, and the largest private employer was Concord Hospital. Concord is home to the University of New Hampshire School of Law, New Hampshire's only law school; St. Paul's School, a private preparatory school; NHTI, a two-year community college; the New Hampshire Police Academy; and the New Hampshire Fire Academy. Concord's Old North Cemetery is the final resting place of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Interstate 89 and Interstate 93 are the two main interstate highways serving the city, and general aviation access is via Concord Municipal Airport. The nearest airport with commercial air service is Manchester–Boston Regional Airport, 23 miles (37 km) to the south. There has been no passenger rail service to Concord since 1981. Historically, the Boston and Maine Railroad served the city.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The area that would become Concord was originally settled thousands of years ago by Abenaki Native Americans called the Pennacook. The tribe fished for migrating salmon, sturgeon, and alewives with nets strung across the rapids of the Merrimack River. The stream was also the transportation route for their birch bark canoes, which could travel from Lake Winnipesaukee to the Atlantic Ocean. The broad sweep of the Merrimack River valley floodplain provided good soil for farming beans, gourds, pumpkins, melons and maize.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The area was first settled by Europeans in 1659 as Penacook, after the Abenaki word \"pannukog\" meaning \"bend in the river,\" referencing the steep bends of the Merrimack River through the area. On January 17, 1725, the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which then claimed territories west of the Merrimack, granted the Concord area as the Plantation of Penacook. It was settled between 1725 and 1727 by Captain Ebenezer Eastman and others from Haverhill, Massachusetts. On February 9, 1734, the town was incorporated as \"Rumford\", from which Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, would take his title. It was renamed \"Concord\" in 1765 by Governor Benning Wentworth following a bitter boundary dispute between Rumford and the town of Bow; the city name was meant to reflect the new concord, or harmony, between the disputant towns. Citizens displaced by the resulting border adjustment were given land elsewhere as compensation. In 1779, New Pennacook Plantation was granted to Timothy Walker Jr. and his associates at what would be incorporated in 1800 as Rumford, Maine, the site of Pennacook Falls.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Concord grew in prominence throughout the 18th century, and some of the earliest houses from this period survive at the northern end of Main Street. In the years following the Revolution, Concord's central geographical location made it a logical choice for the state capital, particularly after Samuel Blodget in 1807 opened a canal and lock system to allow vessels passage around the Amoskeag Falls downriver, connecting Concord with Boston by way of the Middlesex Canal. In 1808, Concord was named the official seat of state government, and in 1816 architect Stuart Park was commissioned to design a new capitol building for the state legislature on land sold to the state by local Quakers. Construction on the State House was completed in 1819, and it remains the oldest capitol in the nation in which the state's legislative branches meet in their original chambers. Concord was also named the seat of Merrimack County in 1823, and the Merrimack County Courthouse was constructed in 1857 in the North End at the site of the Old Town House.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the early 19th century, much of the city's economy was dominated by furniture-making, printing, and granite quarrying; granite had become a popular building material for many monumental halls in the early United States, and Concord granite was used in the construction of both the New Hampshire State House and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In 1828, Lewis Downing joined J. Stephens Abbot to form Abbot and Downing. Their most famous product was their Concord coach, widely used in the development of the American West, and their enterprise largely boosted and changed the city economy in the mid-19th century. In subsequent years, Concord would also become a hub for the railroad industry, with Penacook a textile manufacturing center using water power from the Contoocook River. The city also around this time started to become a center for the emerging healthcare industry, with New Hampshire State Hospital opening in 1842 as one of the first psychiatric hospitals in the United States. The State Hospital continued to expand throughout the following decades, and in 1891 Concord Hospital opened its doors as Margaret Pillsbury General Hospital, the first general hospital in the state of New Hampshire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Concord's economy changed once again in the 20th century with the declining railroad and textile industry. The city developed into a center for national politics due to New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary, and many presidential candidates still visit the Concord area during campaign season. The city also developed an identity within the emerging space industry, with the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center opening in 1990 to commemorate Alan Shepard, the first American in space from nearby Derry, and Christa McAuliffe, a teacher at Concord High School who died in the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Today, Concord remains a center for politics, law, healthcare, and insurance companies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Concord is located in south-central New Hampshire at 43°12′24″N 71°32′17″W / 43.20667°N 71.53806°W / 43.20667; -71.53806 (43.2070, −71.5371). It is 38 miles (61 km) north of the Massachusetts border, 40 miles (64 km) west of the Maine border, 54 miles (87 km) east of the Vermont border, and 170 miles (270 km) south of the Canadian border at Pittsburg.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 67.2 square miles (174.0 km). 64.0 square miles (165.7 km) of it are land and 3.2 square miles (8.4 km) of it are water, comprising 4.81% of the city. Concord is drained by the Merrimack River. Penacook Lake, the largest lake in the city and its main source of water, is in the west. The highest point in Concord is 860 feet (260 m) above sea level on Oak Hill, just west of the hill's 970-foot (300 m) summit in neighboring Loudon.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Concord lies fully within the Merrimack River watershed and is centered on the river, which runs from northwest to southeast through the city. Downtown is located on a low terrace to the west of the river, with residential neighborhoods climbing hills to the west and extending southwards towards the town of Bow. To the east of the Merrimack, atop a 100-foot (30 m) bluff, is a flat, sandy plain known as Concord Heights, which has seen most of the city's commercial development since 1960. The eastern boundary of Concord (with the town of Pembroke) is formed by the Soucook River, a tributary of the Merrimack. The Turkey River winds through the southwestern quarter of the city, passing through the campus of St. Paul's School before entering the Merrimack River in Bow. In the northern part of the city, the Contoocook River enters the Merrimack at the village of Penacook.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Concord is 16 miles (26 km) north of Manchester, New Hampshire's largest city, and 66 miles (106 km) north of Boston.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The city of Concord is made up of its downtown, including its North End and South End neighborhoods, plus the four distinct villages of Penacook, Concord Heights, East Concord, and West Concord.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Concord, as with much of New England, is within the humid continental climate zone (Köppen Dfb), with long, cold, snowy winters, warm (and at times humid) summers, and relatively brief autumns and springs. In winter, successive storms deliver moderate to at times heavy snowfall amounts, contributing to the relatively reliable snow cover. In addition, lows reach below 0 °F (−18 °C) on an average 15 nights per year, and the city straddles the border between USDA Hardiness Zone 5b and 6a. However, thaws are frequent, with one to three days per month with 50 °F (10 °C)+ highs from December to February. Summer can bring stretches of humid conditions as well as thunderstorms, and there is an average of 12 days of 90 °F (32 °C)+ highs annually. The window for freezing temperatures on average begins on September 27 and expires on May 14.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The monthly daily average temperature range from 20.6 °F (−6.3 °C) in January to 70.0 °F (21.1 °C) in July. Temperature extremes have ranged from −37 °F (−38 °C) in February 1943 to 102 °F (39 °C) in July 1966.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "See or edit raw graph data.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "As of the census of 2020, there were 43,976 people residing in the city. The population density was 687.7 people per square mile (265.5 people/km). At the 2010 Census there were 42,695 residents and 10,052 families in the city, as well as 18,852 housing units at an average density of 293.2 per square mile (113.2/km). The racial makeup of the city in 2020 was 84.5% White, 4.9% Black or African American, 1.0% Native American, 4.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.4% from some other race, and 1.8% from two or more races. 4.9% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In 2010 there were 17,592 households, out of which 28.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 41.3% were headed by married couples living together, 11.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.9% were non-families. 33.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.0% were someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26, and the average family size was 2.90.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In the city, the population was spread out, with 20.7% under the age of 18, 9.3% from 18 to 24, 28.0% from 25 to 44, 28.2% from 45 to 64, and 13.8% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39.4 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.9 males.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "For the period 2009–2011, the estimated median annual income for a household in the city was $52,695, and the median income for a family was $73,457. Male full-time workers had a median income of $49,228 versus $38,782 for females. The per capita income for the city was $29,296. About 5.5% of families and 10.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 8.4% of those under age 18 and 5.5% of those age 65 or over.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 2020, the top employer in the city remained the State of New Hampshire, with over 6,000 employed workers, while the largest private employer was Concord Hospital, with just under 3,000 employees. According to the City of Concord's Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top 10 employers in the city for the Fiscal Year 2020 were:",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Interstate 89 and Interstate 93 are the two main interstate highways serving Concord, and join just south of the city limits. Interstate 89 links Concord with Lebanon and the state of Vermont to the northwest, while Interstate 93 connects the city to Plymouth, Littleton, and the White Mountains to the north and Manchester and Boston to the south. Interstate 393 is a spur highway leading east from Concord and merging with U.S. Route 4 as a direct route to New Hampshire's Seacoast region. North-south U.S. Route 3 serves as Concord's Main Street, while U.S. Route 202 and New Hampshire Route 9 cross the city from east to west. State routes 13 and 132 also serve the city: Route 13 leads southwest out of Concord towards Goffstown and Milford, while Route 132 travels north parallel to Interstate 93. New Hampshire Route 106 passes through the easternmost part of Concord, crossing I-393 and NH 9 before crossing the Soucook River south into the town of Pembroke. To the north, NH 106 leads to Loudon, Belmont and Laconia.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Historically, Concord served as an important railroad terminal and station for the Boston and Maine Railroad. The former Concord Station was located at what is now a Burlington department store on Storrs Street. The station itself was built in 1860, but the fourth and most famous iteration of the station was built in 1885, which had a brick head house designed by Bradford L. Gilbert. The head house was demolished in 1959 and replaced by a smaller \"McGinnis Era\" station. By 1967, all passenger rail services to Concord had been discontinued. For 13 months from 1980 to 1981, MBTA Commuter Rail ran two round trips a day between Boston and Concord. The service was discontinued after federal funding was pulled by the Reagan administration. Since then, there has not been any passenger rail service to Concord.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 2021, Amtrak announced their plan to implement new service between Boston and Concord by 2035.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Local bus service is provided by Concord Area Transit (CAT), with three routes through the city. Regional bus service provided by Concord Coach Lines and Greyhound Lines is available from the Concord Transportation Center at 30 Stickney Avenue next to Exit 14 on Interstate 93, with service south to Boston and points in between, as well as north to Littleton and northeast to Berlin.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "General aviation services are available through Concord Municipal Airport, located 2 miles (3 km) east of downtown. There is no commercial air service within the city limits; the nearest such airport is Manchester–Boston Regional Airport, 23 miles (37 km) to the south.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Concord's downtown underwent a significant renovation between 2015 and 2016, during the city's \"Complete Streets Improvement Project\". At a proposed cost of $12 million, the project promised to deliver on categories of maintenance to aging infrastructure, improved accessibility, increased sustainability, a safer experience for walkers, bikers and motorists alike, and to stimulate economic growth in an increasingly idle downtown. The main infrastructural change was reducing the four-lane street (two in each direction) to two lanes plus a turning lane in the center. The freed-up space would contribute to extra width for bikes to ride in either direction, increased curb size and an added median where there is no need for a turning lane. Concord opted to add shared lane markings for bikes, rather than a dedicated protected bike lane.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "By adding curb space, this project created new opportunities for pedestrians to enjoy the downtown. Many power lines were buried, and street trees, colorful benches, art installations, and other green spaces were added, all allowing people to reclaim a space long dominated by cars. Main Street underwent serious traffic calming, including a road diet, increased diagonal parking, widening sidewalks, adding shared lane markings, adding trees, texturing medians and coloring crosswalks red. Another aspect of the new construction was adding heated sidewalk capabilities, utilizing excess steam from the local Concord Steam plant, and minimizing sand and snow blowing needed during the winter months.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Funding for Complete Streets came from a combination of $4,710,000 from a USDOT TIGER grant and the rest from the City of Concord. The project was initially proposed as costing $7,850,000, but ran over budget due to overambitious ideas. After scrapping some of the most expensive offenders, the budget ended up at $14.2 million, with the project actually coming in $1.1 million below that. Although adding final aesthetic touches with the extra money were debated, the city council ended up deciding to save for financially straining years ahead. The design was carried out by McFarland Johnson, IBI Group, and City of Concord Engineering.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Concord is governed via the council-manager system. The city council consists of a mayor and 14 councilors, ten of which are elected to two-year terms representing each of the city wards, while the other four are elected at-large to four-year terms. The mayor is elected directly every two years. The current mayor is Jim Bouley, who has served 14 years as mayor and was elected to a record eighth term on November 2, 2021.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "According to the Concord city charter, the mayor chairs the council, however has very few formal powers over the day-to-day management of the city. The actual operations of the city are overseen by the city manager, currently Thomas J. Aspell, Jr. The current police chief is Bradley S. Osgood.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In the New Hampshire Senate, Concord is in the 15th District, represented by Democrat Becky Whitley since December 2020. On the New Hampshire Executive Council, Concord is in the 2nd District, represented by Cinde Warmington, the sole Democrat on the council. In the United States House of Representatives, Concord is in New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district, represented by Democrat Ann McLane Kuster.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "New Hampshire Department of Corrections operates the New Hampshire State Prison for Men and New Hampshire State Prison for Women in Concord.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Concord leans strongly Democratic in presidential elections; the last Republican nominee to carry the city was then Vice President George H. W. Bush in 1988. Voter turnout was 72.7% in the 2020 general election, down from 76.2% in 2016, but still above the 2020 national turnout of 66.7%.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Newspapers and journals",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Radio",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The city is otherwise served by Manchester area stations. New Hampshire Public Radio is headquartered in Concord.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Television",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The New Hampshire State House, designed by architect Stuart Park and constructed between 1815 and 1818, is the oldest state house in which the legislature meets in its original chambers. The building was remodeled in 1866, and the third story and west wing were added in 1910.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Across from the State House is the Eagle Hotel on Main Street, which has been a downtown landmark since its opening in 1827. U.S. Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, and Benjamin Harrison all dined there, and Franklin Pierce spent the night before departing for his inauguration. Other well-known guests included Jefferson Davis, Charles Lindbergh, Eleanor Roosevelt, Richard M. Nixon (who carried New Hampshire in all three of his presidential bids), and Thomas E. Dewey. The hotel closed in 1961.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "South from the Eagle Hotel on Main Street is Phenix Hall, which replaced \"Old\" Phenix Hall, which burned in 1893. Both the old and new buildings featured multi-purpose auditoriums used for political speeches, theater productions, and fairs. Abraham Lincoln spoke at the old hall in 1860; Theodore Roosevelt, at the new hall in 1912.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "North on Main Street is the Walker-Woodman House, also known as the Reverend Timothy Walker House, the oldest standing two-story house in Concord. It was built for the Reverend Timothy Walker between 1733 and 1735.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "On the north end of Main Street is the Pierce Manse, in which President Franklin Pierce lived in Concord before and following his presidency. The mid-1830s Greek Revival house was moved from Montgomery Street to North Main Street in 1971 to prevent its demolition.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Beaver Meadow Golf Course, located in the northern part of Concord, is one of the oldest golf courses in New England. Besides this golf course, other important sporting venues in Concord include Everett Arena and Memorial Field.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The SNOB (Somewhat North Of Boston) Film Festival, started in the fall of 2002, brings independent films and filmmakers to Concord and has provided an outlet for local filmmakers to display their films. SNOB Film Festival was a catalyst for the building of Red River Theatres, a locally owned, nonprofit, independent cinema in 2007. The SNOB Film Festival is one of the many arts organizations in the city.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Other sites of interest include the Capitol Center for the Arts, the New Hampshire Historical Society, which has two facilities in Concord, and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center, a science museum named after Christa McAuliffe, the Concord teacher who died during the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, and Alan Shepard, the Derry-born astronaut who was the second person and first American in space as well as the fifth and oldest person to walk on the Moon.",
"title": "Sites of interest"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Concord's public schools are within the Concord School District, except for schools in the Penacook area of the city, which are within the Merrimack Valley School District, a district which also includes several towns north of Concord. The only public high school in the Concord School District is Concord High School, which has about 2,000 students. The only public middle school in the Concord School District is Rundlett Middle School, which has roughly 1,500 students. Concord School District's elementary schools underwent a major re-configuration in 2012, with three newly constructed schools opening and replacing six previous schools. Kimball School and Walker School were replaced by Christa McAuliffe School on the Kimball School site, Conant School (and Rumford School, which closed a year earlier) were replaced by Abbot-Downing School at the Conant site, and Eastman and Dame schools were replaced by Mill Brook School, serving kindergarten through grade two, located next to Broken Ground Elementary School, serving grades three to five. Beaver Meadow School, the remaining elementary school, was unaffected by the changes.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Concord schools in the Merrimack Valley School District include Merrimack Valley High School and Merrimack Valley Middle School, which are adjacent to each other and to Rolfe Park in Penacook village, and Penacook Elementary School, just south of the village.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Concord has two parochial schools, Bishop Brady High School and Saint John Regional School.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Other area private schools include Concord Christian Academy, Parker Academy, Trinity Christian School, and Shaker Road School. Also in Concord is St. Paul's School, a boarding school located in the city's West End neighborhood.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Concord is home to New Hampshire Technical Institute, the city's primary community college, and Granite State College, which offers online two-year and four-year degrees. The University of New Hampshire School of Law is located near downtown, and the Franklin Pierce University Doctorate of Physical Therapy program also has a location in the city. Concord Hospital recently announced plans to open a joint program with the New England College School of Nursing as part of their Bachelor of Nursing degree. Concord is also a major clinical site of Dartmouth College's Geisel School of Medicine, New Hampshire's only medical school.",
"title": "Education"
}
] | Concord is the capital city of the U.S. state of New Hampshire and the seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2020 census the population was 43,976, making it the 3rd most populous city in New Hampshire after Manchester and Nashua. Governor Benning Wentworth gave the city its current name in 1765 following a boundary dispute with the neighboring town of Bow; the name was meant to signify the new concord, or harmony, between the two towns. The area was first settled in 1659. On January 17, 1725, the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which then claimed territories west of the Merrimack, granted the Concord area as the Plantation of Penacook. It was settled between 1725 and 1727 and, on February 9, 1734, the town was incorporated as "Rumford." In 1808, Concord was named the official seat of state government. The State House was completed in 1819 and remains the oldest U.S. state capitol wherein the legislature meets in its original chambers. Concord is entirely within the Merrimack River watershed and the city is centered on the river. The Merrimack runs from northwest to southeast through the city. The city's eastern boundary is formed by the Soucook River, which separates Concord from the town of Pembroke. The Turkey River passes through the southwestern quarter of the city. The city consists of its downtown, including the North End and South End neighborhoods, along with the four villages of Penacook, Concord Heights, East Concord, and West Concord. Penacook sits along the Contoocook River, just before it flows into the Merrimack. As of 2020, the top employer in the city was the State of New Hampshire, and the largest private employer was Concord Hospital. Concord is home to the University of New Hampshire School of Law, New Hampshire's only law school; St. Paul's School, a private preparatory school; NHTI, a two-year community college; the New Hampshire Police Academy; and the New Hampshire Fire Academy. Concord's Old North Cemetery is the final resting place of Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States. Interstate 89 and Interstate 93 are the two main interstate highways serving the city, and general aviation access is via Concord Municipal Airport. The nearest airport with commercial air service is Manchester–Boston Regional Airport, 23 miles (37 km) to the south. There has been no passenger rail service to Concord since 1981. Historically, the Boston and Maine Railroad served the city. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-18T17:24:53Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concord,_New_Hampshire |
6,505 | Chlorophyceae | The Chlorophyceae are one of the classes of green algae, distinguished mainly on the basis of ultrastructural morphology. They are usually green due to the dominance of pigments chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. The chloroplast may be discoid, plate-like, reticulate, cup-shaped, spiral- or ribbon-shaped in different species. Most of the members have one or more storage bodies called pyrenoids located in the chloroplast. Pyrenoids contain protein besides starch. Some green algae may store food in the form of oil droplets. They usually have a cell wall made up of an inner layer of cellulose and outer layer of pectose.
Vegetative reproduction usually takes place by fragmentation. Asexual reproduction is by flagellated zoospores. And haplospore, perennation (akinate and palmella stage). Asexual reproduction by mitospore absent in spyrogyra. Sexual reproduction shows considerable variation in the type and formation of sex cells and it may be isogamous e.g. Chlamydomonas, Ulothrix, anisogamous e.g. Chlamydomonas, Eudorina or Oogamous e.g. Chlamydomonas, Volvox. Chlamydomonas has all three types of sexual reproduction.
They share many similarities with the higher plants, including the presence of asymmetrical flagellated cells, the breakdown of the nuclear envelope at mitosis, and the presence of phytochromes, flavonoids, and the chemical precursors to the cuticle.
The sole method of reproduction in Chlorella is asexual and azoosporic. The content of the cell divides into 2,4 (B), 8(C) sometimes daughter protoplasts. Each daughter protoplast rounds off to form a non-motile spore. These autospores (spores having the same distinctive shape as the parent cell) are liberated by the rupture of the parent cell wall (D). On release each autospore grows to become a new individual. The presence of sulphur in the culture medium is considered essential for cell division. It takes place even in the dark with sulphur alone as the source material but under light conditions nitrogen also required in addition. Pearsal and Loose (1937) reported the occurrence of motile cells in Chlorella. Bendix (1964) also observed that Chlorella produces motile cells which might be gametes. These observations have an important bearing on the concept of the life cycle of Chlorella, which at present is considered to be strictly asexual in character.
Asexual reproduction in Chlorella ellipsoides has been studied in detail and the following four phases have been observed during the asexual reproduction.
(i) Growth Phase - During this phase the cells grow in size by utilizing the photosynthetic products.
(ii) Ripening phase - In this phase the cells mature and prepare themselves for division.
(iii) Post ripening phase - During this phase, each mature cell divides twice either in dark or in light. The cells formed in dark are known as dark to light phase, cells again grow in size.
(iv) Division Phase - During this phase the parent cell wall ruptures and unicells are released.
As of May 2023, AlgaeBase accepted the following orders in the class Chlorophyceae:
Along with these genera, AlgaeBase recognizes several taxa that are incertae sedis (i.e. unplaced to an order):
Other orders that have been recognized include:
In older classifications, the term Chlorophyceae is sometimes used to apply to all the green algae except the Charales, and the internal division is considerably different. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Chlorophyceae are one of the classes of green algae, distinguished mainly on the basis of ultrastructural morphology. They are usually green due to the dominance of pigments chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. The chloroplast may be discoid, plate-like, reticulate, cup-shaped, spiral- or ribbon-shaped in different species. Most of the members have one or more storage bodies called pyrenoids located in the chloroplast. Pyrenoids contain protein besides starch. Some green algae may store food in the form of oil droplets. They usually have a cell wall made up of an inner layer of cellulose and outer layer of pectose.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Vegetative reproduction usually takes place by fragmentation. Asexual reproduction is by flagellated zoospores. And haplospore, perennation (akinate and palmella stage). Asexual reproduction by mitospore absent in spyrogyra. Sexual reproduction shows considerable variation in the type and formation of sex cells and it may be isogamous e.g. Chlamydomonas, Ulothrix, anisogamous e.g. Chlamydomonas, Eudorina or Oogamous e.g. Chlamydomonas, Volvox. Chlamydomonas has all three types of sexual reproduction.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "They share many similarities with the higher plants, including the presence of asymmetrical flagellated cells, the breakdown of the nuclear envelope at mitosis, and the presence of phytochromes, flavonoids, and the chemical precursors to the cuticle.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The sole method of reproduction in Chlorella is asexual and azoosporic. The content of the cell divides into 2,4 (B), 8(C) sometimes daughter protoplasts. Each daughter protoplast rounds off to form a non-motile spore. These autospores (spores having the same distinctive shape as the parent cell) are liberated by the rupture of the parent cell wall (D). On release each autospore grows to become a new individual. The presence of sulphur in the culture medium is considered essential for cell division. It takes place even in the dark with sulphur alone as the source material but under light conditions nitrogen also required in addition. Pearsal and Loose (1937) reported the occurrence of motile cells in Chlorella. Bendix (1964) also observed that Chlorella produces motile cells which might be gametes. These observations have an important bearing on the concept of the life cycle of Chlorella, which at present is considered to be strictly asexual in character.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Asexual reproduction in Chlorella ellipsoides has been studied in detail and the following four phases have been observed during the asexual reproduction.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "(i) Growth Phase - During this phase the cells grow in size by utilizing the photosynthetic products.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "(ii) Ripening phase - In this phase the cells mature and prepare themselves for division.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "(iii) Post ripening phase - During this phase, each mature cell divides twice either in dark or in light. The cells formed in dark are known as dark to light phase, cells again grow in size.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "(iv) Division Phase - During this phase the parent cell wall ruptures and unicells are released.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "As of May 2023, AlgaeBase accepted the following orders in the class Chlorophyceae:",
"title": "Orders"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Along with these genera, AlgaeBase recognizes several taxa that are incertae sedis (i.e. unplaced to an order):",
"title": "Orders"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Other orders that have been recognized include:",
"title": "Orders"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In older classifications, the term Chlorophyceae is sometimes used to apply to all the green algae except the Charales, and the internal division is considerably different.",
"title": "Orders"
}
] | The Chlorophyceae are one of the classes of green algae, distinguished mainly on the basis of ultrastructural morphology. They are usually green due to the dominance of pigments chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b. The chloroplast may be discoid, plate-like, reticulate, cup-shaped, spiral- or ribbon-shaped in different species. Most of the members have one or more storage bodies called pyrenoids located in the chloroplast. Pyrenoids contain protein besides starch. Some green algae may store food in the form of oil droplets. They usually have a cell wall made up of an inner layer of cellulose and outer layer of pectose. | 2001-09-23T23:51:33Z | 2023-10-15T17:59:30Z | [
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6,508 | Cyril | Cyril (also Cyrillus or Cyryl) is a masculine given name. It is derived from the Greek name Κύριλλος (Kýrillos), meaning 'lordly, masterful', which in turn derives from Greek κυριος (kýrios) 'lord'. There are various variant forms of the name Cyril such as Cyrill, Cyrille, Ciril, Kirill, Kiryl, Kirillos, Kyrylo, Kiril, Kiro, Kyril, Kyrill and Quirrel.
It may also refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cyril (also Cyrillus or Cyryl) is a masculine given name. It is derived from the Greek name Κύριλλος (Kýrillos), meaning 'lordly, masterful', which in turn derives from Greek κυριος (kýrios) 'lord'. There are various variant forms of the name Cyril such as Cyrill, Cyrille, Ciril, Kirill, Kiryl, Kirillos, Kyrylo, Kiril, Kiro, Kyril, Kyrill and Quirrel.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "It may also refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] | Cyril is a masculine given name. It is derived from the Greek name Κύριλλος (Kýrillos), meaning 'lordly, masterful', which in turn derives from Greek κυριος (kýrios) 'lord'. There are various variant forms of the name Cyril such as Cyrill, Cyrille, Ciril, Kirill, Kiryl, Kirillos, Kyrylo, Kiril, Kiro, Kyril, Kyrill and Quirrel. It may also refer to: | 2001-11-13T15:50:05Z | 2023-12-31T01:00:16Z | [
"Template:Intitle",
"Template:Look from",
"Template:Given name",
"Template:About",
"Template:Infobox given name",
"Template:Lang"
] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril |
6,511 | Computational complexity | In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time (generally measured by the number of needed elementary operations) and memory storage requirements. The complexity of a problem is the complexity of the best algorithms that allow solving the problem.
The study of the complexity of explicitly given algorithms is called analysis of algorithms, while the study of the complexity of problems is called computational complexity theory. Both areas are highly related, as the complexity of an algorithm is always an upper bound on the complexity of the problem solved by this algorithm. Moreover, for designing efficient algorithms, it is often fundamental to compare the complexity of a specific algorithm to the complexity of the problem to be solved. Also, in most cases, the only thing that is known about the complexity of a problem is that it is lower than the complexity of the most efficient known algorithms. Therefore, there is a large overlap between analysis of algorithms and complexity theory.
As the amount of resources required to run an algorithm generally varies with the size of the input, the complexity is typically expressed as a function n → f(n), where n is the size of the input and f(n) is either the worst-case complexity (the maximum of the amount of resources that are needed over all inputs of size n) or the average-case complexity (the average of the amount of resources over all inputs of size n). Time complexity is generally expressed as the number of required elementary operations on an input of size n, where elementary operations are assumed to take a constant amount of time on a given computer and change only by a constant factor when run on a different computer. Space complexity is generally expressed as the amount of memory required by an algorithm on an input of size n.
The resource that is most commonly considered is time. When "complexity" is used without qualification, this generally means time complexity.
The usual units of time (seconds, minutes etc.) are not used in complexity theory because they are too dependent on the choice of a specific computer and on the evolution of technology. For instance, a computer today can execute an algorithm significantly faster than a computer from the 1960s; however, this is not an intrinsic feature of the algorithm but rather a consequence of technological advances in computer hardware. Complexity theory seeks to quantify the intrinsic time requirements of algorithms, that is, the basic time constraints an algorithm would place on any computer. This is achieved by counting the number of elementary operations that are executed during the computation. These operations are assumed to take constant time (that is, not affected by the size of the input) on a given machine, and are often called steps.
Formally, the bit complexity refers to the number of operations on bits that are needed for running an algorithm. With most models of computation, it equals the time complexity up to a constant factor. On computers, the number of operations on machine words that are needed is also proportional to the bit complexity. So, the time complexity and the bit complexity are equivalent for realistic models of computation.
Another important resource is the size of computer memory that is needed for running algorithms.
For the class of distributed algorithms that are commonly executed by multiple, interacting parties, the resource that is of most interest is the communication complexity. It is the necessary amount of communication between the executing parties.
The number of arithmetic operations is another resource that is commonly used. In this case, one talks of arithmetic complexity. If one knows an upper bound on the size of the binary representation of the numbers that occur during a computation, the time complexity is generally the product of the arithmetic complexity by a constant factor.
For many algorithms the size of the integers that are used during a computation is not bounded, and it is not realistic to consider that arithmetic operations take a constant time. Therefore, the time complexity, generally called bit complexity in this context, may be much larger than the arithmetic complexity. For example, the arithmetic complexity of the computation of the determinant of a n×n integer matrix is O ( n 3 ) {\displaystyle O(n^{3})} for the usual algorithms (Gaussian elimination). The bit complexity of the same algorithms is exponential in n, because the size of the coefficients may grow exponentially during the computation. On the other hand, if these algorithms are coupled with multi-modular arithmetic, the bit complexity may be reduced to O(n).
In sorting and searching, the resource that is generally considered is the number of entry comparisons. This is generally a good measure of the time complexity if data are suitably organized.
It is impossible to count the number of steps of an algorithm on all possible inputs. As the complexity generally increases with the size of the input, the complexity is typically expressed as a function of the size n (in bits) of the input, and therefore, the complexity is a function of n. However, the complexity of an algorithm may vary dramatically for different inputs of the same size. Therefore, several complexity functions are commonly used.
The worst-case complexity is the maximum of the complexity over all inputs of size n, and the average-case complexity is the average of the complexity over all inputs of size n (this makes sense, as the number of possible inputs of a given size is finite). Generally, when "complexity" is used without being further specified, this is the worst-case time complexity that is considered.
It is generally difficult to compute precisely the worst-case and the average-case complexity. In addition, these exact values provide little practical application, as any change of computer or of model of computation would change the complexity somewhat. Moreover, the resource use is not critical for small values of n, and this makes that, for small n, the ease of implementation is generally more interesting than a low complexity.
For these reasons, one generally focuses on the behavior of the complexity for large n, that is on its asymptotic behavior when n tends to the infinity. Therefore, the complexity is generally expressed by using big O notation.
For example, the usual algorithm for integer multiplication has a complexity of O ( n 2 ) , {\displaystyle O(n^{2}),} this means that there is a constant c u {\displaystyle c_{u}} such that the multiplication of two integers of at most n digits may be done in a time less than c u n 2 . {\displaystyle c_{u}n^{2}.} This bound is sharp in the sense that the worst-case complexity and the average-case complexity are Ω ( n 2 ) , {\displaystyle \Omega (n^{2}),} which means that there is a constant c l {\displaystyle c_{l}} such that these complexities are larger than c l n 2 . {\displaystyle c_{l}n^{2}.} The radix does not appear in these complexity, as changing of radix changes only the constants c u {\displaystyle c_{u}} and c l . {\displaystyle c_{l}.}
The evaluation of the complexity relies on the choice of a model of computation, which consists in defining the basic operations that are done in a unit of time. When the model of computation is not explicitly specified, this is generally meant as being multitape Turing machine.
A deterministic model of computation is a model of computation such that the successive states of the machine and the operations to be performed are completely determined by the preceding state. Historically, the first deterministic models were recursive functions, lambda calculus, and Turing machines. The model of random-access machines (also called RAM-machines) is also widely used, as a closer counterpart to real computers.
When the model of computation is not specified, it is generally assumed to be a multitape Turing machine. For most algorithms, the time complexity is the same on multitape Turing machines as on RAM-machines, although some care may be needed in how data is stored in memory to get this equivalence.
In a non-deterministic model of computation, such as non-deterministic Turing machines, some choices may be done at some steps of the computation. In complexity theory, one considers all possible choices simultaneously, and the non-deterministic time complexity is the time needed, when the best choices are always done. In other words, one considers that the computation is done simultaneously on as many (identical) processors as needed, and the non-deterministic computation time is the time spent by the first processor that finishes the computation. This parallelism is partly amenable to quantum computing via superposed entangled states in running specific quantum algorithms, like e.g. Shor's factorization of yet only small integers (as of March 2018: 21 = 3 × 7).
Even when such a computation model is not realistic yet, it has theoretical importance, mostly related to the P = NP problem, which questions the identity of the complexity classes formed by taking "polynomial time" and "non-deterministic polynomial time" as least upper bounds. Simulating an NP-algorithm on a deterministic computer usually takes "exponential time". A problem is in the complexity class NP, if it may be solved in polynomial time on a non-deterministic machine. A problem is NP-complete if, roughly speaking, it is in NP and is not easier than any other NP problem. Many combinatorial problems, such as the Knapsack problem, the travelling salesman problem, and the Boolean satisfiability problem are NP-complete. For all these problems, the best known algorithm has exponential complexity. If any one of these problems could be solved in polynomial time on a deterministic machine, then all NP problems could also be solved in polynomial time, and one would have P = NP. As of 2017 it is generally conjectured that P ≠ NP, with the practical implication that the worst cases of NP problems are intrinsically difficult to solve, i.e., take longer than any reasonable time span (decades!) for interesting lengths of input.
Parallel and distributed computing consist of splitting computation on several processors, which work simultaneously. The difference between the different model lies mainly in the way of transmitting information between processors. Typically, in parallel computing the data transmission between processors is very fast, while, in distributed computing, the data transmission is done through a network and is therefore much slower.
The time needed for a computation on N processors is at least the quotient by N of the time needed by a single processor. In fact this theoretically optimal bound can never be reached, because some subtasks cannot be parallelized, and some processors may have to wait a result from another processor.
The main complexity problem is thus to design algorithms such that the product of the computation time by the number of processors is as close as possible to the time needed for the same computation on a single processor.
A quantum computer is a computer whose model of computation is based on quantum mechanics. The Church–Turing thesis applies to quantum computers; that is, every problem that can be solved by a quantum computer can also be solved by a Turing machine. However, some problems may theoretically be solved with a much lower time complexity using a quantum computer rather than a classical computer. This is, for the moment, purely theoretical, as no one knows how to build an efficient quantum computer.
Quantum complexity theory has been developed to study the complexity classes of problems solved using quantum computers. It is used in post-quantum cryptography, which consists of designing cryptographic protocols that are resistant to attacks by quantum computers.
The complexity of a problem is the infimum of the complexities of the algorithms that may solve the problem, including unknown algorithms. Thus the complexity of a problem is not greater than the complexity of any algorithm that solves the problems.
It follows that every complexity of an algorithm, that is expressed with big O notation, is also an upper bound on the complexity of the corresponding problem.
On the other hand, it is generally hard to obtain nontrivial lower bounds for problem complexity, and there are few methods for obtaining such lower bounds.
For solving most problems, it is required to read all input data, which, normally, needs a time proportional to the size of the data. Thus, such problems have a complexity that is at least linear, that is, using big omega notation, a complexity Ω ( n ) . {\displaystyle \Omega (n).}
The solution of some problems, typically in computer algebra and computational algebraic geometry, may be very large. In such a case, the complexity is lower bounded by the maximal size of the output, since the output must be written. For example, a system of n polynomial equations of degree d in n indeterminates may have up to d n {\displaystyle d^{n}} complex solutions, if the number of solutions is finite (this is Bézout's theorem). As these solutions must be written down, the complexity of this problem is Ω ( d n ) . {\displaystyle \Omega (d^{n}).} For this problem, an algorithm of complexity d O ( n ) {\displaystyle d^{O(n)}} is known, which may thus be considered as asymptotically quasi-optimal.
A nonlinear lower bound of Ω ( n log n ) {\displaystyle \Omega (n\log n)} is known for the number of comparisons needed for a sorting algorithm. Thus the best sorting algorithms are optimal, as their complexity is O ( n log n ) . {\displaystyle O(n\log n).} This lower bound results from the fact that there are n! ways of ordering n objects. As each comparison splits in two parts this set of n! orders, the number of N of comparisons that are needed for distinguishing all orders must verify 2 N > n ! , {\displaystyle 2^{N}>n!,} which implies N = Ω ( n log n ) , {\displaystyle N=\Omega (n\log n),} by Stirling's formula.
A standard method for getting lower bounds of complexity consists of reducing a problem to another problem. More precisely, suppose that one may encode a problem A of size n into a subproblem of size f(n) of a problem B, and that the complexity of A is Ω ( g ( n ) ) . {\displaystyle \Omega (g(n)).} Without loss of generality, one may suppose that the function f increases with n and has an inverse function h. Then the complexity of the problem B is Ω ( g ( h ( n ) ) ) . {\displaystyle \Omega (g(h(n))).} This is the method that is used to prove that, if P ≠ NP (an unsolved conjecture), the complexity of every NP-complete problem is Ω ( n k ) , {\displaystyle \Omega (n^{k}),} for every positive integer k.
Evaluating the complexity of an algorithm is an important part of algorithm design, as this gives useful information on the performance that may be expected.
It is a common misconception that the evaluation of the complexity of algorithms will become less important as a result of Moore's law, which posits the exponential growth of the power of modern computers. This is wrong because this power increase allows working with large input data (big data). For example, when one wants to sort alphabetically a list of a few hundreds of entries, such as the bibliography of a book, any algorithm should work well in less than a second. On the other hand, for a list of a million of entries (the phone numbers of a large town, for example), the elementary algorithms that require O ( n 2 ) {\displaystyle O(n^{2})} comparisons would have to do a trillion of comparisons, which would need around three hours at the speed of 10 million of comparisons per second. On the other hand, the quicksort and merge sort require only n log 2 n {\displaystyle n\log _{2}n} comparisons (as average-case complexity for the former, as worst-case complexity for the latter). For n = 1,000,000, this gives approximately 30,000,000 comparisons, which would only take 3 seconds at 10 million comparisons per second.
Thus the evaluation of the complexity may allow eliminating many inefficient algorithms before any implementation. This may also be used for tuning complex algorithms without testing all variants. By determining the most costly steps of a complex algorithm, the study of complexity allows also focusing on these steps the effort for improving the efficiency of an implementation. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time (generally measured by the number of needed elementary operations) and memory storage requirements. The complexity of a problem is the complexity of the best algorithms that allow solving the problem.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The study of the complexity of explicitly given algorithms is called analysis of algorithms, while the study of the complexity of problems is called computational complexity theory. Both areas are highly related, as the complexity of an algorithm is always an upper bound on the complexity of the problem solved by this algorithm. Moreover, for designing efficient algorithms, it is often fundamental to compare the complexity of a specific algorithm to the complexity of the problem to be solved. Also, in most cases, the only thing that is known about the complexity of a problem is that it is lower than the complexity of the most efficient known algorithms. Therefore, there is a large overlap between analysis of algorithms and complexity theory.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "As the amount of resources required to run an algorithm generally varies with the size of the input, the complexity is typically expressed as a function n → f(n), where n is the size of the input and f(n) is either the worst-case complexity (the maximum of the amount of resources that are needed over all inputs of size n) or the average-case complexity (the average of the amount of resources over all inputs of size n). Time complexity is generally expressed as the number of required elementary operations on an input of size n, where elementary operations are assumed to take a constant amount of time on a given computer and change only by a constant factor when run on a different computer. Space complexity is generally expressed as the amount of memory required by an algorithm on an input of size n.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The resource that is most commonly considered is time. When \"complexity\" is used without qualification, this generally means time complexity.",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The usual units of time (seconds, minutes etc.) are not used in complexity theory because they are too dependent on the choice of a specific computer and on the evolution of technology. For instance, a computer today can execute an algorithm significantly faster than a computer from the 1960s; however, this is not an intrinsic feature of the algorithm but rather a consequence of technological advances in computer hardware. Complexity theory seeks to quantify the intrinsic time requirements of algorithms, that is, the basic time constraints an algorithm would place on any computer. This is achieved by counting the number of elementary operations that are executed during the computation. These operations are assumed to take constant time (that is, not affected by the size of the input) on a given machine, and are often called steps.",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Formally, the bit complexity refers to the number of operations on bits that are needed for running an algorithm. With most models of computation, it equals the time complexity up to a constant factor. On computers, the number of operations on machine words that are needed is also proportional to the bit complexity. So, the time complexity and the bit complexity are equivalent for realistic models of computation.",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Another important resource is the size of computer memory that is needed for running algorithms.",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "For the class of distributed algorithms that are commonly executed by multiple, interacting parties, the resource that is of most interest is the communication complexity. It is the necessary amount of communication between the executing parties.",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The number of arithmetic operations is another resource that is commonly used. In this case, one talks of arithmetic complexity. If one knows an upper bound on the size of the binary representation of the numbers that occur during a computation, the time complexity is generally the product of the arithmetic complexity by a constant factor.",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "For many algorithms the size of the integers that are used during a computation is not bounded, and it is not realistic to consider that arithmetic operations take a constant time. Therefore, the time complexity, generally called bit complexity in this context, may be much larger than the arithmetic complexity. For example, the arithmetic complexity of the computation of the determinant of a n×n integer matrix is O ( n 3 ) {\\displaystyle O(n^{3})} for the usual algorithms (Gaussian elimination). The bit complexity of the same algorithms is exponential in n, because the size of the coefficients may grow exponentially during the computation. On the other hand, if these algorithms are coupled with multi-modular arithmetic, the bit complexity may be reduced to O(n).",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In sorting and searching, the resource that is generally considered is the number of entry comparisons. This is generally a good measure of the time complexity if data are suitably organized.",
"title": "Resources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "It is impossible to count the number of steps of an algorithm on all possible inputs. As the complexity generally increases with the size of the input, the complexity is typically expressed as a function of the size n (in bits) of the input, and therefore, the complexity is a function of n. However, the complexity of an algorithm may vary dramatically for different inputs of the same size. Therefore, several complexity functions are commonly used.",
"title": "Complexity as a function of input size"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The worst-case complexity is the maximum of the complexity over all inputs of size n, and the average-case complexity is the average of the complexity over all inputs of size n (this makes sense, as the number of possible inputs of a given size is finite). Generally, when \"complexity\" is used without being further specified, this is the worst-case time complexity that is considered.",
"title": "Complexity as a function of input size"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "It is generally difficult to compute precisely the worst-case and the average-case complexity. In addition, these exact values provide little practical application, as any change of computer or of model of computation would change the complexity somewhat. Moreover, the resource use is not critical for small values of n, and this makes that, for small n, the ease of implementation is generally more interesting than a low complexity.",
"title": "Asymptotic complexity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "For these reasons, one generally focuses on the behavior of the complexity for large n, that is on its asymptotic behavior when n tends to the infinity. Therefore, the complexity is generally expressed by using big O notation.",
"title": "Asymptotic complexity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "For example, the usual algorithm for integer multiplication has a complexity of O ( n 2 ) , {\\displaystyle O(n^{2}),} this means that there is a constant c u {\\displaystyle c_{u}} such that the multiplication of two integers of at most n digits may be done in a time less than c u n 2 . {\\displaystyle c_{u}n^{2}.} This bound is sharp in the sense that the worst-case complexity and the average-case complexity are Ω ( n 2 ) , {\\displaystyle \\Omega (n^{2}),} which means that there is a constant c l {\\displaystyle c_{l}} such that these complexities are larger than c l n 2 . {\\displaystyle c_{l}n^{2}.} The radix does not appear in these complexity, as changing of radix changes only the constants c u {\\displaystyle c_{u}} and c l . {\\displaystyle c_{l}.}",
"title": "Asymptotic complexity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The evaluation of the complexity relies on the choice of a model of computation, which consists in defining the basic operations that are done in a unit of time. When the model of computation is not explicitly specified, this is generally meant as being multitape Turing machine.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "A deterministic model of computation is a model of computation such that the successive states of the machine and the operations to be performed are completely determined by the preceding state. Historically, the first deterministic models were recursive functions, lambda calculus, and Turing machines. The model of random-access machines (also called RAM-machines) is also widely used, as a closer counterpart to real computers.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "When the model of computation is not specified, it is generally assumed to be a multitape Turing machine. For most algorithms, the time complexity is the same on multitape Turing machines as on RAM-machines, although some care may be needed in how data is stored in memory to get this equivalence.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In a non-deterministic model of computation, such as non-deterministic Turing machines, some choices may be done at some steps of the computation. In complexity theory, one considers all possible choices simultaneously, and the non-deterministic time complexity is the time needed, when the best choices are always done. In other words, one considers that the computation is done simultaneously on as many (identical) processors as needed, and the non-deterministic computation time is the time spent by the first processor that finishes the computation. This parallelism is partly amenable to quantum computing via superposed entangled states in running specific quantum algorithms, like e.g. Shor's factorization of yet only small integers (as of March 2018: 21 = 3 × 7).",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Even when such a computation model is not realistic yet, it has theoretical importance, mostly related to the P = NP problem, which questions the identity of the complexity classes formed by taking \"polynomial time\" and \"non-deterministic polynomial time\" as least upper bounds. Simulating an NP-algorithm on a deterministic computer usually takes \"exponential time\". A problem is in the complexity class NP, if it may be solved in polynomial time on a non-deterministic machine. A problem is NP-complete if, roughly speaking, it is in NP and is not easier than any other NP problem. Many combinatorial problems, such as the Knapsack problem, the travelling salesman problem, and the Boolean satisfiability problem are NP-complete. For all these problems, the best known algorithm has exponential complexity. If any one of these problems could be solved in polynomial time on a deterministic machine, then all NP problems could also be solved in polynomial time, and one would have P = NP. As of 2017 it is generally conjectured that P ≠ NP, with the practical implication that the worst cases of NP problems are intrinsically difficult to solve, i.e., take longer than any reasonable time span (decades!) for interesting lengths of input.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Parallel and distributed computing consist of splitting computation on several processors, which work simultaneously. The difference between the different model lies mainly in the way of transmitting information between processors. Typically, in parallel computing the data transmission between processors is very fast, while, in distributed computing, the data transmission is done through a network and is therefore much slower.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The time needed for a computation on N processors is at least the quotient by N of the time needed by a single processor. In fact this theoretically optimal bound can never be reached, because some subtasks cannot be parallelized, and some processors may have to wait a result from another processor.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The main complexity problem is thus to design algorithms such that the product of the computation time by the number of processors is as close as possible to the time needed for the same computation on a single processor.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "A quantum computer is a computer whose model of computation is based on quantum mechanics. The Church–Turing thesis applies to quantum computers; that is, every problem that can be solved by a quantum computer can also be solved by a Turing machine. However, some problems may theoretically be solved with a much lower time complexity using a quantum computer rather than a classical computer. This is, for the moment, purely theoretical, as no one knows how to build an efficient quantum computer.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Quantum complexity theory has been developed to study the complexity classes of problems solved using quantum computers. It is used in post-quantum cryptography, which consists of designing cryptographic protocols that are resistant to attacks by quantum computers.",
"title": "Models of computation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The complexity of a problem is the infimum of the complexities of the algorithms that may solve the problem, including unknown algorithms. Thus the complexity of a problem is not greater than the complexity of any algorithm that solves the problems.",
"title": "Problem complexity (lower bounds)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "It follows that every complexity of an algorithm, that is expressed with big O notation, is also an upper bound on the complexity of the corresponding problem.",
"title": "Problem complexity (lower bounds)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "On the other hand, it is generally hard to obtain nontrivial lower bounds for problem complexity, and there are few methods for obtaining such lower bounds.",
"title": "Problem complexity (lower bounds)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "For solving most problems, it is required to read all input data, which, normally, needs a time proportional to the size of the data. Thus, such problems have a complexity that is at least linear, that is, using big omega notation, a complexity Ω ( n ) . {\\displaystyle \\Omega (n).}",
"title": "Problem complexity (lower bounds)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The solution of some problems, typically in computer algebra and computational algebraic geometry, may be very large. In such a case, the complexity is lower bounded by the maximal size of the output, since the output must be written. For example, a system of n polynomial equations of degree d in n indeterminates may have up to d n {\\displaystyle d^{n}} complex solutions, if the number of solutions is finite (this is Bézout's theorem). As these solutions must be written down, the complexity of this problem is Ω ( d n ) . {\\displaystyle \\Omega (d^{n}).} For this problem, an algorithm of complexity d O ( n ) {\\displaystyle d^{O(n)}} is known, which may thus be considered as asymptotically quasi-optimal.",
"title": "Problem complexity (lower bounds)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "A nonlinear lower bound of Ω ( n log n ) {\\displaystyle \\Omega (n\\log n)} is known for the number of comparisons needed for a sorting algorithm. Thus the best sorting algorithms are optimal, as their complexity is O ( n log n ) . {\\displaystyle O(n\\log n).} This lower bound results from the fact that there are n! ways of ordering n objects. As each comparison splits in two parts this set of n! orders, the number of N of comparisons that are needed for distinguishing all orders must verify 2 N > n ! , {\\displaystyle 2^{N}>n!,} which implies N = Ω ( n log n ) , {\\displaystyle N=\\Omega (n\\log n),} by Stirling's formula.",
"title": "Problem complexity (lower bounds)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "A standard method for getting lower bounds of complexity consists of reducing a problem to another problem. More precisely, suppose that one may encode a problem A of size n into a subproblem of size f(n) of a problem B, and that the complexity of A is Ω ( g ( n ) ) . {\\displaystyle \\Omega (g(n)).} Without loss of generality, one may suppose that the function f increases with n and has an inverse function h. Then the complexity of the problem B is Ω ( g ( h ( n ) ) ) . {\\displaystyle \\Omega (g(h(n))).} This is the method that is used to prove that, if P ≠ NP (an unsolved conjecture), the complexity of every NP-complete problem is Ω ( n k ) , {\\displaystyle \\Omega (n^{k}),} for every positive integer k.",
"title": "Problem complexity (lower bounds)"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Evaluating the complexity of an algorithm is an important part of algorithm design, as this gives useful information on the performance that may be expected.",
"title": "Use in algorithm design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "It is a common misconception that the evaluation of the complexity of algorithms will become less important as a result of Moore's law, which posits the exponential growth of the power of modern computers. This is wrong because this power increase allows working with large input data (big data). For example, when one wants to sort alphabetically a list of a few hundreds of entries, such as the bibliography of a book, any algorithm should work well in less than a second. On the other hand, for a list of a million of entries (the phone numbers of a large town, for example), the elementary algorithms that require O ( n 2 ) {\\displaystyle O(n^{2})} comparisons would have to do a trillion of comparisons, which would need around three hours at the speed of 10 million of comparisons per second. On the other hand, the quicksort and merge sort require only n log 2 n {\\displaystyle n\\log _{2}n} comparisons (as average-case complexity for the former, as worst-case complexity for the latter). For n = 1,000,000, this gives approximately 30,000,000 comparisons, which would only take 3 seconds at 10 million comparisons per second.",
"title": "Use in algorithm design"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Thus the evaluation of the complexity may allow eliminating many inefficient algorithms before any implementation. This may also be used for tuning complex algorithms without testing all variants. By determining the most costly steps of a complex algorithm, the study of complexity allows also focusing on these steps the effort for improving the efficiency of an implementation.",
"title": "Use in algorithm design"
}
] | In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time and memory storage requirements. The complexity of a problem is the complexity of the best algorithms that allow solving the problem. The study of the complexity of explicitly given algorithms is called analysis of algorithms, while the study of the complexity of problems is called computational complexity theory. Both areas are highly related, as the complexity of an algorithm is always an upper bound on the complexity of the problem solved by this algorithm. Moreover, for designing efficient algorithms, it is often fundamental to compare the complexity of a specific algorithm to the complexity of the problem to be solved. Also, in most cases, the only thing that is known about the complexity of a problem is that it is lower than the complexity of the most efficient known algorithms. Therefore, there is a large overlap between analysis of algorithms and complexity theory. As the amount of resources required to run an algorithm generally varies with the size of the input, the complexity is typically expressed as a function n → f(n), where n is the size of the input and f(n) is either the worst-case complexity or the average-case complexity. Time complexity is generally expressed as the number of required elementary operations on an input of size n, where elementary operations are assumed to take a constant amount of time on a given computer and change only by a constant factor when run on a different computer. Space complexity is generally expressed as the amount of memory required by an algorithm on an input of size n. | 2001-09-25T00:09:32Z | 2023-11-23T01:45:43Z | [
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6,512 | Coercion | Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. For example, a bully may demand lunch money from a student where refusal results in the student getting beaten.
Common-law systems codify the act of violating a law while under coercion as a duress crime.
Coercion used as leverage may force victims to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm, but also psychological abuse (the latter intended to enhance the perceived credibility of the threat). The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced.
The concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, but various factors distinguish the two. These include the intent, the willingness to cause harm, the result of the interaction, and the options available to the coerced party.
John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, and other political authors argue that the state is coercive. In 1919, Max Weber (1864-1920), building on the view of Ihering (1818-1892), defined a state as "a human community that (successfully) claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force". Morris argues that the state can operate through incentives rather than coercion. Healthcare systems may use informal coercion to make a patient adhere to a doctor's treatment plan. Under certain circumstances, medical staff may use physical coercion to treat a patient involuntarily.
The purpose of coercion is to substitute one's aims for those of the victim. For this reason, many social philosophers have considered coercion as the polar opposite to freedom.
Various forms of coercion are distinguished: first on the basis of the kind of injury threatened, second according to its aims and scope, and finally according to its effects, from which its legal, social, and ethical implications mostly depend.
Physical coercion is the most commonly considered form of coercion, where the content of the conditional threat is the use of force against a victim, their relatives or property. An often used example is "putting a gun to someone's head" (at gunpoint) or putting a "knife under the throat" (at knifepoint or cut-throat) to compel action under the threat that non-compliance may result in the attacker harming or even killing the victim. These are so common that they are also used as metaphors for other forms of coercion.
Armed forces in many countries use firing squads to maintain discipline and intimidate the masses, or opposition, into submission or silent compliance. However, there also are nonphysical forms of coercion, where the threatened injury does not immediately imply the use of force. Byman and Waxman (2000) define coercion as "the use of threatened force, including the limited use of actual force to back up the threat, to induce an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would." Coercion does not in many cases amount to destruction of property or life since compliance is the goal.
Pain compliance is the use of painful stimulus to control or direct an organism.
The purpose of pain compliance is to direct the actions of the subject, and to this end, the pain is lessened or removed when compliance is achieved. This provides incentive to the subject to carry out the action required.
In psychological coercion, the threatened injury regards the victim's relationships with other people. The most obvious example is blackmail, where the threat consists of the dissemination of damaging information. However, many other types are possible e.g. "emotional blackmail", which typically involves threats of rejection from or disapproval by a peer-group, or creating feelings of guilt/obligation via a display of anger or hurt by someone whom the victim loves or respects. | [
{
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"text": "Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. For example, a bully may demand lunch money from a student where refusal results in the student getting beaten.",
"title": ""
},
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"text": "Common-law systems codify the act of violating a law while under coercion as a duress crime.",
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"text": "Coercion used as leverage may force victims to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm, but also psychological abuse (the latter intended to enhance the perceived credibility of the threat). The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced.",
"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "The concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, but various factors distinguish the two. These include the intent, the willingness to cause harm, the result of the interaction, and the options available to the coerced party.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, and other political authors argue that the state is coercive. In 1919, Max Weber (1864-1920), building on the view of Ihering (1818-1892), defined a state as \"a human community that (successfully) claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force\". Morris argues that the state can operate through incentives rather than coercion. Healthcare systems may use informal coercion to make a patient adhere to a doctor's treatment plan. Under certain circumstances, medical staff may use physical coercion to treat a patient involuntarily.",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The purpose of coercion is to substitute one's aims for those of the victim. For this reason, many social philosophers have considered coercion as the polar opposite to freedom.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Various forms of coercion are distinguished: first on the basis of the kind of injury threatened, second according to its aims and scope, and finally according to its effects, from which its legal, social, and ethical implications mostly depend.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Physical coercion is the most commonly considered form of coercion, where the content of the conditional threat is the use of force against a victim, their relatives or property. An often used example is \"putting a gun to someone's head\" (at gunpoint) or putting a \"knife under the throat\" (at knifepoint or cut-throat) to compel action under the threat that non-compliance may result in the attacker harming or even killing the victim. These are so common that they are also used as metaphors for other forms of coercion.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Armed forces in many countries use firing squads to maintain discipline and intimidate the masses, or opposition, into submission or silent compliance. However, there also are nonphysical forms of coercion, where the threatened injury does not immediately imply the use of force. Byman and Waxman (2000) define coercion as \"the use of threatened force, including the limited use of actual force to back up the threat, to induce an adversary to behave differently than it otherwise would.\" Coercion does not in many cases amount to destruction of property or life since compliance is the goal.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Pain compliance is the use of painful stimulus to control or direct an organism.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The purpose of pain compliance is to direct the actions of the subject, and to this end, the pain is lessened or removed when compliance is achieved. This provides incentive to the subject to carry out the action required.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In psychological coercion, the threatened injury regards the victim's relationships with other people. The most obvious example is blackmail, where the threat consists of the dissemination of damaging information. However, many other types are possible e.g. \"emotional blackmail\", which typically involves threats of rejection from or disapproval by a peer-group, or creating feelings of guilt/obligation via a display of anger or hurt by someone whom the victim loves or respects.",
"title": "Overview"
}
] | Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party. It involves a set of forceful actions which violate the free will of an individual in order to induce a desired response. These actions may include extortion, blackmail, or even torture and sexual assault. For example, a bully may demand lunch money from a student where refusal results in the student getting beaten. Common-law systems codify the act of violating a law while under coercion as a duress crime. Coercion used as leverage may force victims to act in a way contrary to their own interests. Coercion can involve not only the infliction of bodily harm, but also psychological abuse. The threat of further harm may also lead to the acquiescence of the person being coerced. The concepts of coercion and persuasion are similar, but various factors distinguish the two. These include the intent, the willingness to cause harm, the result of the interaction, and the options available to the coerced party. John Rawls, Thomas Nagel, Ronald Dworkin, and other political authors argue that the state is coercive. In 1919, Max Weber (1864-1920), building on the view of Ihering (1818-1892),
defined a state as "a human community that (successfully) claims a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force".
Morris argues that the state can operate through incentives rather than coercion. Healthcare systems may use informal coercion to make a patient adhere to a doctor's treatment plan. Under certain circumstances, medical staff may use physical coercion to treat a patient involuntarily. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-12-17T12:16:29Z | [
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6,513 | Client–server model | The client–server model is a distributed application structure that partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a resource or service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers communicate over a computer network on separate hardware, but both client and server may reside in the same system. A server host runs one or more server programs, which share their resources with clients. A client usually does not share any of its resources, but it requests content or service from a server. Clients, therefore, initiate communication sessions with servers, which await incoming requests. Examples of computer applications that use the client–server model are email, network printing, and the World Wide Web.
The "client-server" characteristic describes the relationship of cooperating programs in an application. The server component provides a function or service to one or many clients, which initiate requests for such services. Servers are classified by the services they provide. For example, a web server serves web pages and a file server serves computer files. A shared resource may be any of the server computer's software and electronic components, from programs and data to processors and storage devices. The sharing of resources of a server constitutes a service.
Whether a computer is a client, a server, or both, is determined by the nature of the application that requires the service functions. For example, a single computer can run a web server and file server software at the same time to serve different data to clients making different kinds of requests. The client software can also communicate with server software within the same computer. Communication between servers, such as to synchronize data, is sometimes called inter-server or server-to-server communication.
Generally, a service is an abstraction of computer resources and a client does not have to be concerned with how the server performs while fulfilling the request and delivering the response. The client only has to understand the response based on the well-known application protocol, i.e. the content and the formatting of the data for the requested service.
Clients and servers exchange messages in a request–response messaging pattern. The client sends a request, and the server returns a response. This exchange of messages is an example of inter-process communication. To communicate, the computers must have a common language, and they must follow rules so that both the client and the server know what to expect. The language and rules of communication are defined in a communications protocol. All protocols operate in the application layer. The application layer protocol defines the basic patterns of the dialogue. To formalize the data exchange even further, the server may implement an application programming interface (API). The API is an abstraction layer for accessing a service. By restricting communication to a specific content format, it facilitates parsing. By abstracting access, it facilitates cross-platform data exchange.
A server may receive requests from many distinct clients in a short period. A computer can only perform a limited number of tasks at any moment, and relies on a scheduling system to prioritize incoming requests from clients to accommodate them. To prevent abuse and maximize availability, the server software may limit the availability to clients. Denial of service attacks are designed to exploit a server's obligation to process requests by overloading it with excessive request rates. Encryption should be applied if sensitive information is to be communicated between the client and the server.
When a bank customer accesses online banking services with a web browser (the client), the client initiates a request to the bank's web server. The customer's login credentials may be stored in a database, and the webserver accesses the database server as a client. An application server interprets the returned data by applying the bank's business logic and provides the output to the webserver. Finally, the webserver returns the result to the client web browser for display.
In each step of this sequence of client–server message exchanges, a computer processes a request and returns data. This is the request-response messaging pattern. When all the requests are met, the sequence is complete and the web browser presents the data to the customer.
This example illustrates a design pattern applicable to the client–server model: separation of concerns.
An early form of client–server architecture is remote job entry, dating at least to OS/360 (announced 1964), where the request was to run a job, and the response was the output.
While formulating the client–server model in the 1960s and 1970s, computer scientists building ARPANET (at the Stanford Research Institute) used the terms server-host (or serving host) and user-host (or using-host), and these appear in the early documents RFC 5 and RFC 4. This usage was continued at Xerox PARC in the mid-1970s.
One context in which researchers used these terms was in the design of a computer network programming language called Decode-Encode Language (DEL). The purpose of this language was to accept commands from one computer (the user-host), which would return status reports to the user as it encoded the commands in network packets. Another DEL-capable computer, the server-host, received the packets, decoded them, and returned formatted data to the user-host. A DEL program on the user-host received the results to present to the user. This is a client–server transaction. Development of DEL was just beginning in 1969, the year that the United States Department of Defense established ARPANET (predecessor of Internet).
Client-host and server-host have subtly different meanings than client and server. A host is any computer connected to a network. Whereas the words server and client may refer either to a computer or to a computer program, server-host and client-host always refer to computers. The host is a versatile, multifunction computer; clients and servers are just programs that run on a host. In the client–server model, a server is more likely to be devoted to the task of serving.
An early use of the word client occurs in "Separating Data from Function in a Distributed File System", a 1978 paper by Xerox PARC computer scientists Howard Sturgis, James Mitchell, and Jay Israel. The authors are careful to define the term for readers, and explain that they use it to distinguish between the user and the user's network node (the client). By 1992, the word server had entered into general parlance.
The client-server model does not dictate that server-hosts must have more resources than client-hosts. Rather, it enables any general-purpose computer to extend its capabilities by using the shared resources of other hosts. Centralized computing, however, specifically allocates a large number of resources to a small number of computers. The more computation is offloaded from client-hosts to the central computers, the simpler the client-hosts can be. It relies heavily on network resources (servers and infrastructure) for computation and storage. A diskless node loads even its operating system from the network, and a computer terminal has no operating system at all; it is only an input/output interface to the server. In contrast, a rich client, such as a personal computer, has many resources and does not rely on a server for essential functions.
As microcomputers decreased in price and increased in power from the 1980s to the late 1990s, many organizations transitioned computation from centralized servers, such as mainframes and minicomputers, to rich clients. This afforded greater, more individualized dominion over computer resources, but complicated information technology management. During the 2000s, web applications matured enough to rival application software developed for a specific microarchitecture. This maturation, more affordable mass storage, and the advent of service-oriented architecture were among the factors that gave rise to the cloud computing trend of the 2010s.
In addition to the client-server model, distributed computing applications often use the peer-to-peer (P2P) application architecture.
In the client-server model, the server is often designed to operate as a centralized system that serves many clients. The computing power, memory and storage requirements of a server must be scaled appropriately to the expected workload. Load-balancing and failover systems are often employed to scale the server beyond a single physical machine.
Load balancing is defined as the methodical and efficient distribution of network or application traffic across multiple servers in a server farm. Each load balancer sits between client devices and backend servers, receiving and then distributing incoming requests to any available server capable of fulfilling them.
In a peer-to-peer network, two or more computers (peers) pool their resources and communicate in a decentralized system. Peers are coequal, or equipotent nodes in a non-hierarchical network. Unlike clients in a client-server or client-queue-client network, peers communicate with each other directly. In peer-to-peer networking, an algorithm in the peer-to-peer communications protocol balances load, and even peers with modest resources can help to share the load. If a node becomes unavailable, its shared resources remain available as long as other peers offer it. Ideally, a peer does not need to achieve high availability because other, redundant peers make up for any resource downtime; as the availability and load capacity of peers change, the protocol reroutes requests.
Both client-server and master-slave are regarded as sub-categories of distributed peer-to-peer systems. | [
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"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "The \"client-server\" characteristic describes the relationship of cooperating programs in an application. The server component provides a function or service to one or many clients, which initiate requests for such services. Servers are classified by the services they provide. For example, a web server serves web pages and a file server serves computer files. A shared resource may be any of the server computer's software and electronic components, from programs and data to processors and storage devices. The sharing of resources of a server constitutes a service.",
"title": "Client and server role"
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{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Whether a computer is a client, a server, or both, is determined by the nature of the application that requires the service functions. For example, a single computer can run a web server and file server software at the same time to serve different data to clients making different kinds of requests. The client software can also communicate with server software within the same computer. Communication between servers, such as to synchronize data, is sometimes called inter-server or server-to-server communication.",
"title": "Client and server role"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Generally, a service is an abstraction of computer resources and a client does not have to be concerned with how the server performs while fulfilling the request and delivering the response. The client only has to understand the response based on the well-known application protocol, i.e. the content and the formatting of the data for the requested service.",
"title": "Client and server communication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Clients and servers exchange messages in a request–response messaging pattern. The client sends a request, and the server returns a response. This exchange of messages is an example of inter-process communication. To communicate, the computers must have a common language, and they must follow rules so that both the client and the server know what to expect. The language and rules of communication are defined in a communications protocol. All protocols operate in the application layer. The application layer protocol defines the basic patterns of the dialogue. To formalize the data exchange even further, the server may implement an application programming interface (API). The API is an abstraction layer for accessing a service. By restricting communication to a specific content format, it facilitates parsing. By abstracting access, it facilitates cross-platform data exchange.",
"title": "Client and server communication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A server may receive requests from many distinct clients in a short period. A computer can only perform a limited number of tasks at any moment, and relies on a scheduling system to prioritize incoming requests from clients to accommodate them. To prevent abuse and maximize availability, the server software may limit the availability to clients. Denial of service attacks are designed to exploit a server's obligation to process requests by overloading it with excessive request rates. Encryption should be applied if sensitive information is to be communicated between the client and the server.",
"title": "Client and server communication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "When a bank customer accesses online banking services with a web browser (the client), the client initiates a request to the bank's web server. The customer's login credentials may be stored in a database, and the webserver accesses the database server as a client. An application server interprets the returned data by applying the bank's business logic and provides the output to the webserver. Finally, the webserver returns the result to the client web browser for display.",
"title": "Example"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In each step of this sequence of client–server message exchanges, a computer processes a request and returns data. This is the request-response messaging pattern. When all the requests are met, the sequence is complete and the web browser presents the data to the customer.",
"title": "Example"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "This example illustrates a design pattern applicable to the client–server model: separation of concerns.",
"title": "Example"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "An early form of client–server architecture is remote job entry, dating at least to OS/360 (announced 1964), where the request was to run a job, and the response was the output.",
"title": "Early history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "While formulating the client–server model in the 1960s and 1970s, computer scientists building ARPANET (at the Stanford Research Institute) used the terms server-host (or serving host) and user-host (or using-host), and these appear in the early documents RFC 5 and RFC 4. This usage was continued at Xerox PARC in the mid-1970s.",
"title": "Early history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "One context in which researchers used these terms was in the design of a computer network programming language called Decode-Encode Language (DEL). The purpose of this language was to accept commands from one computer (the user-host), which would return status reports to the user as it encoded the commands in network packets. Another DEL-capable computer, the server-host, received the packets, decoded them, and returned formatted data to the user-host. A DEL program on the user-host received the results to present to the user. This is a client–server transaction. Development of DEL was just beginning in 1969, the year that the United States Department of Defense established ARPANET (predecessor of Internet).",
"title": "Early history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Client-host and server-host have subtly different meanings than client and server. A host is any computer connected to a network. Whereas the words server and client may refer either to a computer or to a computer program, server-host and client-host always refer to computers. The host is a versatile, multifunction computer; clients and servers are just programs that run on a host. In the client–server model, a server is more likely to be devoted to the task of serving.",
"title": "Early history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "An early use of the word client occurs in \"Separating Data from Function in a Distributed File System\", a 1978 paper by Xerox PARC computer scientists Howard Sturgis, James Mitchell, and Jay Israel. The authors are careful to define the term for readers, and explain that they use it to distinguish between the user and the user's network node (the client). By 1992, the word server had entered into general parlance.",
"title": "Early history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The client-server model does not dictate that server-hosts must have more resources than client-hosts. Rather, it enables any general-purpose computer to extend its capabilities by using the shared resources of other hosts. Centralized computing, however, specifically allocates a large number of resources to a small number of computers. The more computation is offloaded from client-hosts to the central computers, the simpler the client-hosts can be. It relies heavily on network resources (servers and infrastructure) for computation and storage. A diskless node loads even its operating system from the network, and a computer terminal has no operating system at all; it is only an input/output interface to the server. In contrast, a rich client, such as a personal computer, has many resources and does not rely on a server for essential functions.",
"title": "Centralized computing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "As microcomputers decreased in price and increased in power from the 1980s to the late 1990s, many organizations transitioned computation from centralized servers, such as mainframes and minicomputers, to rich clients. This afforded greater, more individualized dominion over computer resources, but complicated information technology management. During the 2000s, web applications matured enough to rival application software developed for a specific microarchitecture. This maturation, more affordable mass storage, and the advent of service-oriented architecture were among the factors that gave rise to the cloud computing trend of the 2010s.",
"title": "Centralized computing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In addition to the client-server model, distributed computing applications often use the peer-to-peer (P2P) application architecture.",
"title": "Comparison with peer-to-peer architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the client-server model, the server is often designed to operate as a centralized system that serves many clients. The computing power, memory and storage requirements of a server must be scaled appropriately to the expected workload. Load-balancing and failover systems are often employed to scale the server beyond a single physical machine.",
"title": "Comparison with peer-to-peer architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Load balancing is defined as the methodical and efficient distribution of network or application traffic across multiple servers in a server farm. Each load balancer sits between client devices and backend servers, receiving and then distributing incoming requests to any available server capable of fulfilling them.",
"title": "Comparison with peer-to-peer architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In a peer-to-peer network, two or more computers (peers) pool their resources and communicate in a decentralized system. Peers are coequal, or equipotent nodes in a non-hierarchical network. Unlike clients in a client-server or client-queue-client network, peers communicate with each other directly. In peer-to-peer networking, an algorithm in the peer-to-peer communications protocol balances load, and even peers with modest resources can help to share the load. If a node becomes unavailable, its shared resources remain available as long as other peers offer it. Ideally, a peer does not need to achieve high availability because other, redundant peers make up for any resource downtime; as the availability and load capacity of peers change, the protocol reroutes requests.",
"title": "Comparison with peer-to-peer architecture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Both client-server and master-slave are regarded as sub-categories of distributed peer-to-peer systems.",
"title": "Comparison with peer-to-peer architecture"
}
] | The client–server model is a distributed application structure that partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a resource or service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers communicate over a computer network on separate hardware, but both client and server may reside in the same system. A server host runs one or more server programs, which share their resources with clients. A client usually does not share any of its resources, but it requests content or service from a server. Clients, therefore, initiate communication sessions with servers, which await incoming requests.
Examples of computer applications that use the client–server model are email, network printing, and the World Wide Web. | 2001-09-25T00:45:06Z | 2023-12-27T12:46:35Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client%E2%80%93server_model |
6,514 | County Dublin | County Dublin (Irish: Contae Bhaile Átha Cliath or Contae Átha Cliath) is a county in Ireland, and holds its capital city, Dublin. It is located on the island's east coast, within the province of Leinster. Until 1994, County Dublin (excluding the city) was a single local government area; in that year, the county council was divided into three new administrative counties: Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The four areas form a NUTS III statistical region of Ireland (coded IE061). County Dublin remains a single administrative unit for the purposes of the courts (including the Dublin County Sheriff, circuit court and county registrar), law enforcement (the Garda Dublin metropolitan division) and fire services (Dublin Fire Brigade).
Dublin is Ireland's most populous county, with a population of 1,458,154 as of 2022 – approximately 28% of the Republic of Ireland's total population. Dublin city is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, as well as the largest city on the island of Ireland. Roughly 9 out of every 10 people in County Dublin lives within Dublin city and its suburbs. Several sizeable towns that are considered separate from the city, such as Rush, Donabate and Balbriggan, are located in the far north of the county. Swords, while separated from the city by a green belt around Dublin Airport, is considered a suburban commuter town and an emerging small city.
The third smallest county by land area, Dublin is bordered by Meath to the west and north, Kildare to the west, Wicklow to the south and the Irish Sea to the east. The southern part of the county is dominated by the Dublin Mountains, which rise to around 760 metres (2,500 ft) and contain numerous valleys, reservoirs and forests. The county's east coast is punctuated by several bays and inlets, including Rogerstown Estuary, Broadmeadow Estuary, Baldoyle Bay and most prominently, Dublin Bay. The northern section of the county, today known as Fingal, varies enormously in character, from densely populated suburban towns of the city's commuter belt to flat, fertile plains, which are some of the country's largest horticultural and agricultural hubs.
Dublin is the oldest county in Ireland, and was the first part of the island to be shired following the Norman invasion in the late 1100s. While it is no longer a local government area, Dublin retains a strong identity, and continues to be referred to as both a region and county interchangeably, including at government body level.
County Dublin is named after the city of Dublin, which is an anglicisation of its Old Norse name Dyflin. The city was founded in the 9th century AD by Viking settlers who established the Kingdom of Dublin. The Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical site known as Duiblinn, from which Dyflin took its name. Duiblinn derives from the early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind – from dubh (IPA: [d̪uβ], IPA: [d̪uw], IPA: [d̪uː]) meaning "black, dark", and lind (IPA: [lʲiɲ(d̪ʲ)]) "pool", referring to a dark tidal pool. This tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, to the rear of Dublin Castle.
The hinterland of Dublin in the Norse period was named in Old Norse: Dyflinnar skíði, lit. 'Dublinshire'.
In addition to Dyflin, a Gaelic settlement known as Áth Cliath ("ford of hurdles") was located further up the Liffey, near present-day Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath means "town of the hurdled ford", with Áth Cliath referring to a fording point along the river. Like Duiblinn, an early Christian monastery was also located at Áth Cliath, on the site that is currently occupied by the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church.
Dublin was the first county in Ireland to be shired after the Norman Conquest in the late 12th century. The Normans captured the Kingdom of Dublin from its Norse-Gael rulers and the name was used as the basis for the county's official Anglo-Norman (and later English) name. However, in modern Irish the region was named after the Gaelic settlement of Baile Átha Cliath or simply Áth Cliath. As a result, Dublin is one of four counties in Ireland with a different name origin for both Irish and English – the others being Wexford, Waterford and Wicklow, whose English names are also derived from Old Norse.
The earliest recorded inhabitants of present-day Dublin settled along the mouth of the River Liffey. The remains of five wooden fish traps were discovered near Spencer Dock in 2007. These traps were designed to catch incoming fish at high tide and could be retrieved at low tide. Thin-bladed stone axes were used to craft the traps and radiocarbon dating places them in the Late Mesolithic period (c. 6,100–5,700 BCE).
The Vikings invaded the region in the mid-9th century AD and founded what would become the city of Dublin. Over time they mixed with the natives of the area, becoming Norse–Gaels. The Vikings raided across Ireland, Britain, France and Spain during this period and under their rule Dublin developed into the largest slave market in Western Europe. While the Vikings were formidable at sea, the superiority of Irish land forces soon became apparent, and the kingdom's Norse rulers were first exiled from the region as early as 902. Dublin was captured by the High King of Ireland, Máel Sechnaill II, in 980, who freed the kingdom's Gaelic slaves. Dublin was again defeated by Máel Sechnaill in 988 and forced to accept Brehon law and pay taxes to the High King. Successive defeats at the hands of Brian Boru in 999 and, most famously, at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, relegated Dublin to the status of lesser kingdom.
In 1170, the ousted King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, and his Norman allies agreed to capture Dublin at a war council in Waterford. They evaded the intercepting army of High King Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair by marching through the Wicklow Mountains, arriving outside the walls of Dublin in late September. The King of Dublin, Ascall mac Ragnaill, met with Mac Murchada for negotiations; however, while talks were ongoing, the Normans, led by de Cogan and FitzGerald, stormed Dublin and overwhelmed its defenders, forcing mac Ragnaill to flee to the Northern Isles. Separate attempts to retake Dublin were launched by both Ua Conchobair and mac Ragnaill in 1171, both of which were unsuccessful.
The authority over Ireland established by the Anglo-Norman King Henry II was gradually lost during the Gaelic resurgence from the 13th century onwards. English power diminished so significantly that by the early 16th century English laws and customs were restricted to a small area around Dublin known as "The Pale". The Earl of Kildare's failed rebellion in 1535 reignited Tudor interest in Ireland, and Henry VIII proclaimed the Kingdom of Ireland in 1542, with Dublin as its capital. Over the next 60 years the Tudor conquest spread to every corner of the island, which was fully subdued by 1603.
Despite harsh penal laws and unfavourable trade restrictions imposed upon Ireland, Dublin flourished in the 18th century. The Georgian buildings which still define much of Dublin's architectural landscape to this day were mostly built over a 50-year period spanning from about 1750 to 1800. Bodies such as the Wide Streets Commission completely reshaped the city, demolishing most of medieval Dublin in the process. During the Enlightenment, the penal laws were gradually repealed and members of the Protestant Ascendancy began to regard themselves as citizens of a distinct Irish nation. The Irish Patriot Party, led by Henry Grattan, agitated for greater autonomy from Great Britain, which was achieved under the Constitution of 1782. These freedoms proved short-lived, as the Irish Parliament was abolished under the Acts of Union 1800 and Ireland was incorporated into the United Kingdom. Dublin lost its political status as a capital and went into a marked decline throughout the 19th century, leading to widespread demands to repeal the union.
Although at one time the second city of the British Empire, by the late 1800s Dublin was one of the poorest cities in Europe. The city had the worst housing conditions of anywhere in the United Kingdom, and overcrowding, disease and malnourishment were rife within central Dublin. In 1901, The Irish Times reported that the disease and mortality rates in Calcutta during the 1897 bubonic plague outbreak compared "favourably with those of Dublin at the present moment". Most of the upper and middle class residents of Dublin had moved to wealthier suburbs, and the grand Georgian homes of the 1700s were converted en masse into tenement slums. In 1911, over 20,000 families in Dublin were living in one-room tenements which they rented from wealthy landlords. Henrietta Street was particularly infamous for the density of its tenements, with 845 people living on the street in 1911, including 19 families – totalling 109 people – living in just one house.
After decades of political unrest, Ireland appeared to be on the brink of civil war as a result of the Home Rule Crisis. Despite being the centre of Irish unionism outside of Ulster, Dublin was overwhelmingly in favour of Home Rule. Unionist parties had performed poorly in the county since the 1870s, leading contemporary historian W. E. H. Lecky to conclude that "Ulster unionism is the only form of Irish unionism that is likely to count as a serious political force". Unlike their counterparts in the north, "southern unionists" were a clear minority in the rest of Ireland, and as such were much more willing to co-operate with the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) to avoid partition. Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Belfast unionist Dawson Bates decried the "effusive professions of loyalty and confidence in the Provisional Government" that was displayed by former unionists in the new Irish Free State.
The question of Home Rule was put on hold due to the outbreak of the First World War but was never to be revisited as a series of missteps by the British government, such as executing the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and the Conscription Crisis of 1918, fuelled the Irish revolutionary period. The IPP were nearly wiped out by Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election and, following a brief war of independence, 26 of Ireland's 32 counties seceded from the United Kingdom in December 1922, with Dublin becoming the capital of the Irish Free State, and later the Republic of Ireland.
From the 1960s onwards, Dublin city greatly expanded due to urban renewal works and the construction of large suburbs such as Tallaght, Coolock and Ballymun, which resettled both the rural and urban poor of County Dublin in newer state-built accommodation. Dublin was the driving force behind Ireland's Celtic Tiger period, an era of rapid economic growth that started in the early 1990s. In stark contrast to the turn of the 20th century, Dublin entered the 21st century as one of Europe's richest cities, attracting immigrants and investment from all over the world.
Dublin is the third smallest of Ireland's 32 counties by area, and the largest in terms of population. It is the third-smallest of Leinster's 12 counties in size and the largest by population. Dublin shares a border with three counties – Meath to the north and west, Kildare to the west and Wicklow to the south. To the east, Dublin has an Irish Sea coastline which stretches for 155 kilometres (96 mi).
Dublin is a topographically varied region. The city centre is generally very low-lying, and many areas of coastal Dublin are at or near sea-level. In the south of the county, the topography rises steeply from sea-level at the coast to over 500 metres (1,600 ft) in just a few kilometres. This natural barrier has resulted in densely populated coastal settlements in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and westward urban sprawl in South Dublin. In contrast, Fingal is generally rural in nature and much less densely populated than the rest of the county. Consequently, Fingal is significantly larger than the other three local authorities and covers about 49.5% of County Dublin's land area. Fingal is also perhaps the flattest region in Ireland, with the low-lying Naul Hills rising to a maximum height of just 176 metres (577 ft).
Dublin is bounded to the south by the Wicklow Mountains. Where the mountains extend into County Dublin, they are known locally as the Dublin Mountains (Sléibhte Bhaile Átha Cliath). Kippure, on the Dublin–Wicklow border, is the county's highest mountain, at 757 metres (2,484 ft) above sea level. Crossed by the Dublin Mountains Way, they are a popular amenity area, with Two Rock, Three Rock, Tibradden, Ticknock, Montpelier Hill, and Glenasmole being among the most heavily foot-falled hiking destinations in Ireland. Forest cover extends to over 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) within the county, nearly all of which is located in the Dublin Mountains. With just 6.5% of Dublin under forest, it is the 6th least forested county in Ireland.
Much of the county is drained by its three major rivers – the River Liffey, the River Tolka in north Dublin, and the River Dodder in south Dublin. The Liffey, at 132 kilometres (82 mi) in length, is the 8th longest river in Ireland, and rises near Tonduff in County Wicklow, reaching the Irish Sea at the Dublin Docklands. The Liffey cuts through the centre of Dublin city, and the resultant Northside–Southside divide is an often used social, economic and linguistic distinction. Notable inlets include the central Dublin Bay, Rogerstown Estuary, the estuary of the Broadmeadow and Killiney Bay, under Killiney Hill. Headlands include Howth Head, Drumanagh and the Portraine Shore. In terms of biodiversity, these estuarine and coastal regions are home to a wealth ecologically important areas. County Dublin contains 11 EU-designated Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and 11 Special Protection Areas (SPAs).
The bedrock geology of Dublin consists primarily of Lower Carboniferous limestone, which underlies about two thirds of the entire county, stretching from Skerries to Booterstown. During the Lower Carboniferous (ca. 340 Mya), the area was part of a warm tropical sea inhabited by an abundance of corals, crinoids and brachiopods. The oldest rocks in Dublin are the Cambrian shales located on Howth Head, which were laid down ca. 500 Mya. Disruption following the closure of the Iapetus Ocean approximately 400 Mya resulted in the formation of granite. This is now exposed at the surface from the Dublin Mountains to the coastal areas of Dún Laoghaire. 19th-century Lead extraction and smelting at the Ballycorus Leadmines caused widespread lead poisoning, and the area was once nicknamed "Death Valley".
Dublin is in a maritime temperate oceanic region according to Köppen climate classification. Its climate is characterised by cool winters, mild humid summers, and a lack of temperature extremes. Met Éireann have a number of weather stations in the county, with its two primary stations at Dublin Airport and Casement Aerodrome.
Annual temperatures typically fall within a narrow range. In Merrion Square, the coldest month is February, with an average minimum temperature of 4.1 °C (39.4 °F), and the warmest month is July, with an average maximum temperature of 20.1 °C (68.2 °F). Due to the urban heat island effect, Dublin city has the warmest summertime nights in Ireland. The average minimum temperature at Merrion Square in July is 13.5 °C (56.3 °F), similar to London and Berlin, and the lowest July temperature ever recorded at the station was 7.8 °C (46.0 °F) on 3 July 1974. At Dublin Airport, the driest month is February with 48.8 mm (2 in) of rainfall, and the wettest month is November, with 79.0 mm (3 in) of rain on average.
As the prevailing wind direction in Ireland is from the south and west, the Wicklow Mountains create a rain shadow over much of the county. Dublin's sheltered location makes it the driest place in Ireland, receiving only about half the rainfall of the west coast. Ringsend in the south of Dublin city records the lowest rainfall in the country, with an average annual precipitation of 683 mm (27 in). The wettest area of the county is the Glenasmole Valley, which receives 1,159 mm (46 in) of rainfall per year. As a temperate coastal county, snow is relatively uncommon in lowland areas; however, Dublin is particularly vulnerable to heavy snowfall on rare occasions where cold, dry easterly winds dominate during the winter.
During the late summer and early autumn, Dublin can experience Atlantic storms, which bring strong winds and torrential rain to Ireland. Dublin was the county worst-affected by Hurricane Charley in 1986. It caused severe flooding, especially along the River Dodder, and is reputed to be the worst flood event in Dublin's history. Rainfall records were shattered across the county. Kippure recorded 280 mm (11 in) of rain over a 24-hour period, the greatest daily rainfall total ever recorded in Ireland. The government allocated IR£6,449,000 (equivalent to US$20.5 million in 2020) to repair the damage wrought by Charley. The two reservoirs at Bohernabreena in the Dublin Mountains were upgraded in 2006 after a study into the impact of Hurricane Charley concluded that a slightly larger storm would have caused the reservoir dams to burst, which would have resulted in catastrophic damage and significant loss of life.
In contrast with the Atlantic Coast, the east coast of Ireland has relatively few islands. County Dublin has one of the highest concentrations of islands on the Irish east coast. Colt Island, St. Patrick's Island, Shenick Island and numerous smaller islets are clustered off the coast of Skerries, and are collectively known as the "Skerries Islands Natural Heritage Area". Further out lies Rockabill, which is Dublin's most isolated island, at about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) offshore. Lambay Island, at 250 hectares (620 acres), is the largest island off Ireland's east coast and the easternmost point of County Dublin. Lambay supports one of the largest seabird colonies in Ireland and, curiously, also supports a population of non-native Red-necked wallabies. To the south of Lambay lies a smaller island known as Ireland's Eye – the result of a mistranslation of the island's Irish name by invading Vikings.
Bull Island is a man-made island lying roughly parallel to the shoreline which began to form following the construction of the Bull Wall in 1825. The island is still growing and is currently 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) long and 0.8 kilometres (0.50 mi) wide. In 1981, North Bull Island (Oileán an Tairbh Thuaidh) was designated as a UNESCO biosphere.
For statistical purposes at European level, the county as a whole forms the Dublin Region – a NUTS III entity – which is in turn part of the Eastern and Midland Region, a NUTS II entity. Each of the local authorities have representatives on the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly.
There are ten historic baronies in the county. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they ceased to have any administrative function following the Local Government Act 1898, and any changes to county boundaries after the mid-19th century are not reflected in their extent. The last boundary change of a barony in Dublin was in 1842, when the barony of Balrothery was divided into Balrothery East and Balrothery West. The largest recorded barony in Dublin in 1872 was Uppercross, at 39,032 acres (157.96 km), and the smallest barony was Dublin, at 1,693 acres (6.85 km).
Townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland. There are 1,090 townlands in Dublin, of which 88 are historic town boundaries. These town boundaries are registered as their own townlands and are much larger than rural townlands. The smallest rural townlands in Dublin are just 1 acre in size, most of which are offshore islands (Clare Rock Island, Lamb Island, Maiden Rock, Muglins, Thulla Island). The largest rural townland in Dublin is 2,797 acres (Caastlekelly). The average size of a townland in the county (excluding towns) is 205 acres.
Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, County Dublin was divided into urban districts of Blackrock, Clontarf, Dalkey, Drumcondra, Clonliffe and Glasnevin, Killiney and Ballybrack, Kingstown, New Kilmainham, Pembroke, and Rathmines and Rathgar, and the rural districts of Balrothery, Celbridge No. 2, North Dublin, Rathdown, and South Dublin.
Howth, formerly within the rural district of Dublin North, became an urban district in 1919. Kingstown was renamed Dún Laoghaire in 1920. The rural districts were abolished in 1930.
Balbriggan, in the rural district of Balrothery, had town commissioners under the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act 1854. This became a town council in 2002. In common with all town councils, it was abolished in 2014.
The urban districts were gradually absorbed by the city of Dublin, except for four coastal districts of Blackrock, Dalkey, Dún Laoghaire, and Killiney and Ballybrack, which formed the borough of Dún Laoghaire in 1930.
The city of Dublin had been administered separately since the 13th century. Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, the two areas were defined as the administrative county of Dublin and the county borough of Dublin, with the latter in the city area.
In 1985, County Dublin was divided into three electoral counties: Dublin–Belgard to the southwest (South Dublin from 1991), Dublin–Fingal to the north (Fingal from 1991), and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown to the southeast.
On 1 January 1994, under the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1993, the County Dublin ceased to exist as a local government area, and was succeeded by the counties of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin, each coterminous (with minor boundary adjustments) with the area of the corresponding electoral county. In discussing the legislation, Avril Doyle TD said, "The Bill before us today effectively abolishes County Dublin, and as one born and bred in these parts of Ireland I find it rather strange that we in this House are abolishing County Dublin. I am not sure whether Dubliners realise that that is what we are about today, but in effect that is the case."
Although the Electoral Commission should, as far as practicable, avoid breaching county boundaries when recommending Dáil constituencies, this does not include the boundaries of a city or the boundary between the three counties in Dublin. There is also still a sheriff appointed for County Dublin.
The term "County Dublin" is still in common usage. Many organisations and sporting teams continue to organise on a County Dublin basis. The Placenames Branch of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media maintains a Placenames Database that records all placenames, past and present. County Dublin is listed in the database along with the subdivisions of that county. It is also used as an address for areas within Dublin outside of the Dublin postal district system.
For a period in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, to reduce person-to-person contact, government regulations restricted activity to "within the county in which the relevant residence is situated". Within the regulations, the local government areas of "Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal, South Dublin and Dublin City" were deemed to be a single county (as were the city and the county of Cork, and the city and the county of Galway).
The latest Ordnance Survey Ireland "Discovery Series" (Third Edition 2005) 1:50,000 map of the Dublin Region, Sheet 50, shows the boundaries of the city and three surrounding counties of the region. Extremities of the Dublin Region, in the north and south of the region, appear in other sheets of the series, 43 and 56 respectively.
There are four local authorities whose remit collectively encompasses the geographic area of the county and city of Dublin. These are Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council and Fingal County Council.
Until 1 January 1994, the administrative county of Dublin was administered by Dublin County Council. From that date, its functions were succeeded by Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council, Fingal County Council and South Dublin County Council, each with its county seat, respectively administering the new counties established on that date.
The city was previously designated a county borough and administered by Dublin Corporation. Under the Local Government Act 2001, the country was divided into local government areas of cities and counties, with the county borough of Dublin being designated a city for all purposes, now administered by Dublin City Council. Each local authority is responsible for certain local services such as sanitation, planning and development, libraries, the collection of motor taxation, local roads and social housing.
Dublin, comprising the four local government areas in the county, is a strategic planning area within the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly (EMRA). It is a NUTS Level III region of Ireland. The region is one of eight regions of Ireland for Eurostat statistics at NUTS 3 level. Its NUTS code is IE061.
This area formerly came under the remit of the Dublin Regional Authority. This Authority was dissolved in 2014.
As of the 2022 census, the population of Dublin was 1,458,154, an 8.4% increase since the 2016 Census. The county's population first surpassed 1 million in 1981, and is projected to reach 1.8 million by 2036.
Dublin is Ireland's most populous county, a position it has held since the 1926 Census, when it overtook County Antrim. As of 2022, County Dublin has over twice the population of County Antrim and two and a half times the population of County Cork. Approximately 21% of Ireland's population lives within County Dublin (28% if only the Republic of Ireland is counted). Additionally, Dublin has more people than the combined populations of Ireland's 16 smallest counties.
With an area of just 922 km (356 sq mi), Dublin is by far the most densely populated county in Ireland. The population density of the county is 1,582 people per square kilometre – over 7 times higher than Ireland's second most densely populated county, County Down in Northern Ireland.
During the Celtic Tiger period, a large number of Dublin natives (Dubliners) moved to the rapidly expanding commuter towns in the adjoining counties. As of 2022, approximately 27.2% (345,446) of Dubliners were living outside of County Dublin. People born within Dublin account for 28% of the population of Meath, 32% of Kildare, and 37% of Wicklow. There are 922,744 Dublin natives living within the county, accounting for 63.3% of the population. People born in other Irish counties living within Dublin account for roughly 11% of the population.
Between 2016 and 2022, international migration produced a net increase of 88,300 people. Dublin has the highest proportion of international residents of any county in Ireland, with around 25% of the county's population being born outside of the Republic of Ireland.
As of the 2022 census, 5.6 percent of the county's population was reported as younger than 5 years old, 25.7 percent were between 5 and 25, 55.3 percent were between 25 and 65, and 13.4 percent of the population was older than 65. Of this latter group, 48,865 people (3.4 percent) were over the age of 80, more than doubling since 2016. Across all age groups, there were slightly more females (51.06 percent) than males (48.94 percent).
In 2021, there were 16,596 births within the county, and the average age of a first time mother was 31.9.
Over a quarter (25.2 percent) of County Dublin's population was born outside of the Republic of Ireland. In 2022, Dublin City had the highest percentage of non-nationals in the county (27.3 percent), and South Dublin had the lowest (20.9 percent). Historically, the immigrant population of Dublin was mainly from the United Kingdom and other European Union member states. However, results from the 2022 census revealed that immigrants from non-EU/UK countries were the largest source of foreign-born residents for the first time, accounting for 12.9 percent of the county's population. Those from other European Union member states accounted for 8.3 percent of Dublin's population, and those from the United Kingdom a further 4.1 percent.
Prior to the 2000s, the UK was consistently the largest single source of non-nationals living in Dublin. After declining in the previous two census periods, the number of UK-born residents living in Dublin increased by 5.8 percent between 2016 and 2022. There was a large difference between the number of people living in Dublin who were born in the UK (58,586) and those who held sole-UK citizenship in the 2022 census (22,936). This discrepancy can arise for a variety of factors, such as people born in Northern Ireland claiming Irish citizenship rather than UK citizenship, Irish people born in the UK who now live in Dublin, British people who have become natural citizens, and foreign residents of Dublin who were born in the UK but are not UK citizens. Depending on an individual's responses in the census, all of these examples could result in the country of birth being registered by the CSO as the United Kingdom, but nationality being registered as Irish or a third country.
Following its accession to the EU, the Polish quickly became the fastest growing immigrant community in Dublin. Just 188 Poles applied for Irish work permits in 1999. By 2006 this number had grown to 93,787. After the 2008 Irish economic downturn, as many as 3,000 Poles left Ireland each month. Despite this, Poles remain one of Dublin's largest foreign-born groups. In contrast to more recent arrivals, a large percentage of Dublin's Polish citizens (30.9 percent) also hold Irish citizenship.
Outside of Europe, Indians and Brazilians are the predominant foreign-national groups. As of 2022, Indians were the fastest growing major immigrant group in Dublin, and they are now the county's second largest foreign-born group after the UK. Dublin's Indian community grew by 155.2 percent between 2016 and 2022. There were 29,582 Indian-born residents within Dublin as of 2022, up from 9,884 in the 2011 census. The influx of Indians is driven in part by multinational tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Meta who have located their European headquarters within the county, in areas such as the Silicon Docks and Sandyford. In August 2020, the first dedicated Hindu temple in Ireland was built in Walkinstown.
The number of Brazilian citizens living in Dublin more than tripled between 2011 and 2022, from 4,641 to 16,441. This increase is mainly a result of Ireland's participation in the Brazilian government's Ciência sem Fronteiras programme, which sees thousands of Brazilian students come to study in Ireland each year, many of whom remain in the country afterwards.
Although not fully captured during the census period, Dublin also houses a significant number of Ukrainian refugees under the Temporary Protection Directive. As of October 2023, the number of Ukrainians living in emergency accommodation within the county is estimated to be around 14,000.
According to the Central Statistics Office, in 2022 the population of County Dublin self-identified as:
By ethnicity, in 2022 the population was 80.4% white. Those who identified as White Irish constituted 68.0% of the county's population, and Irish Travellers accounted for a further 0.4%. Caucasians who did not identify as ethnically Irish accounted for 12.0% of the population.
In terms of total numbers, Dublin has the largest non-white population in Ireland, with an estimated 158,653 residents, accounting for 11.1% of the county's population. Over two-fifths (42.2 percent) of Ireland's black residents live within the county. In terms of percentage of population, Fingal has the highest percentage of both black (3.6 percent) and non-white (12.4 percent) residents of any local authority in Ireland. Conversely, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown in the south of the county has one of Ireland's lowest percentages of black residents, with only 0.77% of the population identifying as black in 2022. Additionally, 43.3% of Ireland's multiracial population lives within County Dublin. Those who did not state their ethnicity more than doubled between 2016 and 2022, from 4.1% to 8.5%.
The largest religious denomination by both number of adherents and as a percentage of Dublin's population in 2022 was the Roman Catholic Church, at 57.4 percent. All other Christian denominations including Church of Ireland, Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterian and Methodist accounted for 8.1 percent of Dublin's population. Together, all denominations of Christianity accounted for 65.5 percent of the county's population. According to the 2022 census, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown is the least religious local authority in Ireland, with 23.9 percent of the population declaring themselves non-religious, followed closely by Dublin city (22.6 percent). In the county as a whole, those unaffiliated with any religion represented 20.1 percent of the population, which is the largest percentage of non-religious people of any county in Ireland. A further 9.1 percent of the population did not state their religion, up from just 4.1 percent in 2016.
Of the non-Christian religions, Islam is the largest in terms of number of adherents, with Muslims accounting for 2.6% of the population. After Islam, the largest non-Christian religions in 2022 were Hinduism (1.4 percent) and Buddhism (0.27 percent). While relatively small in absolute terms, County Dublin contains over half of Ireland's Hindu (58.7 percent) residents, and just under half of its Eastern Orthodox (45.3 percent), Islamic (45.0 percent) and Buddhist (41.7 percent) residents.
Dublin and its hinterland has been a Christian diocese since 1028. For centuries, the Primacy of Ireland was disputed between Dublin, the social and political capital of Ireland, and Armagh, site of Saint Patrick's main church, which was founded in 445 AD. In 1353 the dispute was settled by Pope Innocent VI, who proclaimed that the Archbishop of Dublin was Primate of Ireland, while the Archbishop of Armagh was titled Primate of All Ireland. These two distinct titles were replicated in the Church of Ireland following the Reformation. Historically, County Dublin was the epicentre of Protestantism in Ireland outside of Ulster. Records from the 1891 census show that the county was 21.4 percent Protestant towards the end of the 19th century. By the 1911 census this had gradually declined to around 20% due to poor economic conditions, as Dublin Protestants moved to industrial Belfast. Following the War of Independence (1919–1921), Dublin's Protestant community went into a steady decline, falling to 8.5 percent of the population by 1936.
Between 2016 and 2022, the fastest growing religions in Dublin were Hinduism (148.9 percent), Eastern Orthodox (51.6 percent), and Islam (27.9 percent), while the most rapidly declining religions were Evangelicalism (-10.4 percent), Catholicism (−8.7 percent), Jehovah's Witnesses (−5.9 percent) and Buddhism (−5.4 percent).
The boundaries of Dublin City Council form the urban core of the city, often referred to as "Dublin city centre", an area of 117.8 square kilometres. This encompasses the central suburbs of the city, extending as far south as Terenure and Donnybrook; as far north as Ballymun and Donaghmede; and as far west as Ballyfermot. As of 2022, there were 592,713 people living within Dublin city centre. However, as the continuous built-up area extends beyond the city boundaries, the term "Dublin city and suburbs" is commonly employed when referring to the actual extent of Dublin.
Dublin city and suburbs is a CSO-designated urban area which includes the densely populated contiguous built-up area which surrounds Dublin city centre. It encompasses 317.5 km and contains approximately 87% of County Dublin's population (1,263,219 people) as of the 2022 census.
As the city proper does not extend beyond Dublin Airport, the towns of "North County Dublin" such as Swords, Lusk, Rush and Malahide are not considered part of the city, and are recorded by the CSO as separate settlements. Under Ireland's National Planning Framework, these towns are considered part of the Dublin Metropolitan Area (DMA). The DMA also includes towns outside of the county, such as Naas, Leixlip and Maynooth in County Kildare, and Bray and Greystones in County Wicklow, but does not include Balbriggan or Skerries, which are located in the far north of County Dublin.
The Greater Dublin Area (GDA) is a commonly used planning jurisdiction which extends to the wider network of commuter towns that are economically connected to Dublin city. The GDA consists of County Dublin and its three neighboring counties, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow.
With a population of 2.1 million and an area of 6,986 square kilometres, it contains 40% of the population of the State, and covers 9.9% of its land area.
Under CSO classification, an "Urban Area" is a town with a population greater than 1,500. Dublin is the most urbanised county in Ireland, with 98% of its residents residing in urban areas as of 2022. Of Dublin's three non-city local authorities, Fingal has the highest proportion of people living in rural areas (7.9%), while Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown has the lowest (1.19%). The western suburbs of Dublin city such as Tallaght and Blanchardstown have experienced rapid growth in recent decades, and both areas have a population roughly equivalent to Galway city.
County Dublin has the oldest and most extensive transportation infrastructure in Ireland. The Dublin and Kingstown Railway, opened in December 1834, was Ireland's first railway line. The line, which ran from Westland Row to Dún Laoghaire, was originally intended to be used for cargo. However, it proved far more popular with passengers and became the world's first commuter railway line. The line has been upgraded multiple times throughout its history and is still in use to this day, making it the oldest commuter railway route in the world.
Public transport in Dublin was managed by the Dublin Transportation Office until 2009, when it was replaced by the National Transport Authority (NTA). The three pillars currently underpinning the public transport network of the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) are Dublin Suburban Rail, the Luas and the bus system. There are six commuter lines in Dublin, which are managed by Iarnród Éireann. Five of these lines serve as routes between Dublin and towns across the GDA and beyond. The sixth route, known as Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART), is electrified and serves only Dublin and northern Wicklow. The newest addition to Dublin's public transport network is a tram system called the Luas. The service began with two disconnected lines in 2004, with three extensions opened in 2009, 2010 and 2011 before a cross-city link between the lines and further extension opened in 2017.
Historically, Dublin had an extensive tram system which commenced in 1871 and at its peak had over 97 km (60 mi) of active line. It was operated by the Dublin United Transport Company (DUTC) and was very advanced for its day, with near-full electrification from 1901. From the 1920s onwards, the DUTC began to acquire private bus operators and gradually closed some of its lines. Further declines in passenger numbers were driven in part by a belief at the time that trams were outdated and archaic. All tram lines terminated in 1949, except for the tram to Howth, which ran until 1959.
Dublin Bus is the county's largest bus operator, carrying 138 million passengers in 2019. For much of the city, particularly west Dublin, the bus is the only public transport option available, and there are numerous smaller private bus companies in operation across County Dublin. National bus operator Bus Éireann provides long-distance routes to towns and villages located outside of Dublin city and its immediate hinterland.
In November 2005, the government announced a €34 billion initiative called Transport 21 which included a substantial expansion to Dublin's transport network. The project was cancelled in May 2011 in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. Consequently, by 2017 Hugh Creegan, deputy chief of the NTA, stated that there had been a "chronic underinvestment in public transport for more than a decade". By 2019, Dublin was reportedly the 17th most congested city in the world, and had the 5th highest average commute time in the European Union. The Luas and rail network regularly experience significant overcrowding and delays during peak hours, and in 2019 Iarnród Éireann was widely ridiculed for asking commuters to "stagger morning journeys" to alleviate the problem.
The M50 is a 45.5 km (28.3 mi) orbital motorway around Dublin city, and is the busiest motorway in the country. It serves as the centre of both Dublin and Ireland's motorway network, and most of the national primary roads to other cities begin at the M50 and radiate outwards. The current route was built in various sections over the course of 27 years, from 1983 to 2010. All major roads in Ireland are managed by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), which is headquartered in Parkgate Street, Dublin 8. As of 2019, there were over 550,000 cars registered in County Dublin, accounting for 25.3% of all cars registered in the State. Due to the county's small area and high degree of urbanisation, there is a preference for "D" registered used cars throughout Ireland, as they are considered to have undergone less wear and tear.
For international travel, around 1.7 million passengers travel by ferry through Dublin Port each year. A Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead ferry was formerly operated by Stena Line, but the route was closed in 2015. Dublin Airport is Ireland's largest airport, and 32.9 million passengers passed through it in 2019, making it Europe's 12th-busiest airport.
The Dublin Region, which is conterminous with County Dublin, has the largest and most highly developed economy in Ireland, accounting for over two-fifths of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Central Statistics Office estimates that the GDP of the Dublin Region in 2020 was €157.2 billion ($187 billion / £141 billion at 2020 exchange rates). In nominal terms, Dublin's economy is larger than roughly 140 sovereign states. The county's GDP per capita is €107,808 ($117,688 / £92,620), one of the highest regional GDPs per capita in the EU. As of 2019, Dublin also had the highest Human Development Index in Ireland at 0.965, placing it among the most developed places in the world in terms of life expectancy, education and per capita income.
In 2020, average disposable income per person in Dublin was €27,686, or 118% of the national average (€23,400), the highest of any county in Ireland. As Ireland's most populous county, Dublin has the highest total household income in the country, at an estimated €46.8 billion in 2017 – higher than the Border, Midlands, West and South-East regions combined. Dublin residents were the highest per capita tax contributors in the State, returning a total of €15.1 billion in taxes in 2017.
Many of Ireland's most prominent political, educational, cultural and media centres are concentrated south of the River Liffey in Dublin city. Further south, areas like Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey and Killiney have long been some of Dublin's most affluent areas, and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown consistently has the highest average house prices in Ireland. This has resulted in a perceived socio-economic divide in Dublin, between the generally less affluent Northside and the wealthier Southside. In Dublin (both city and county), residents will commonly refer to themselves as a "Northsider" or a "Southsider", and the division is often caricatured in Irish comedy, media and literature, for example Ross O'Carroll-Kelly and Damo and Ivor. References to the divide have also become colloquialisms in their own right, such as "D4" (referring to the Dublin 4 postal district), which is a pejorative term for an upper middle class Irish person.
While the northside-southside divide remains prevalent in popular culture, economic indices such as the Pobal HP deprivation index have shown that the distinction does not reflect economic reality. Many of Dublin's most affluent areas (Clontarf, Raheny, Howth, Portmarnock, Malahide) are located in the north of the county, and many of its most deprived areas (Jobstown, Ballyogan, Ballybrack, Dolphin's Barn, Clondalkin) are located in the south of the county.
Utilising CSO data from the past three censuses, Pobal HP revealed that there was a much higher concentration of below average, disadvantaged and very disadvantaged areas in west Dublin. In 2012, Irish Times columnist Fintan O'Toole posited that the real economic divide in Dublin was not north–south, but east–west – between the older coastal areas of eastern Dublin and the newer sprawling suburbs of western Dublin – and that the perpetuation of the northside–southside "myth" was a convenient way to gloss over class division within the county. O'Toole argued that framing the city's wealth divide as a light-hearted north–south stereotype was easier than having to address the socio-economic impacts of deliberate government policy to remove working-class people from the city centre and settle them on the margins.
Dublin is both a European and Global financial hub, and around 200 of the world's leading financial services firms have operations within the county. In 2017 and 2018 respectively, Dublin was ranked 5th in Europe and 31st globally in the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI). In the mid-1980s, parts of central Dublin had fallen into a state of dereliction and the Irish government pursued an urban regeneration programme. An 11-hectare special economic zone (SEZ) was set up in 1987, known as the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). At the time of its establishment, the SEZ had the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU. The IFSC has since expanded into a 37.8-hectare site centred around the Dublin Docklands. As of 2020, over €1.8 trillion of funds are administered from Ireland.
There was renewed interest in Dublin's financial services sector in the wake of the UK's vote to withdraw from the European Union in 2016. Many firms, including Barclays and Bank of America, pre-emptively moved some of their operations from London to Dublin in anticipation of restricted EU market access. A survey conducted by Ernst & Young in 2021 found that Dublin was the most popular destination for firms in the UK considering relocating to the EU, ahead of Luxembourg and Frankfurt. It is estimated that Dublin's financial sector will grow by about 25% as a direct result of Brexit, and as many as 13,000 jobs could move from the UK to County Dublin in the years immediately after its withdrawal.
The economy of Dublin benefits from substantial amounts of both indigenous and foreign investment. In 2018, the Financial Times ranked Dublin the most attractive large city in the world for Foreign Direct Investment, and the city has been consistently ranked by Forbes as one of the world's most business-friendly. The economy is centered on financial services, the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries, information technology, logistics and storage, professional services, agriculture and tourism. IDA Ireland, the state agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment, was founded in Dublin in 1949.
Dublin has four power plants, all of which are concentrated in the docklands area of Dublin city. Three are natural-gas plants operated by the ESB, and the Poolbeg Incinerator is operated by Covanta Energy. The four plants have a combined capacity of 1.039 GW, roughly 12.5% of the island of Ireland's generation capacity as of 2019. The disused Poolbeg chimneys are the tallest structures in the county, and were granted protection by Dublin city council in 2014.
As a result of Dublin city's location within a sheltered bay at the mouth of a navigable river, shipping has been a key industry in the county since medieval times. By the 18th-century, Dublin was a bustling maritime city and large-scale engineering projects were undertaken to enhance the port's capacity, such as the Great South Wall, which was the largest sea wall in the world at the time of its construction in 1715. Dublin Port was originally located along the Liffey, but gradually moved towards the coast over the centuries as vessel size increased. It is today the largest and busiest port in Ireland. It handles 50% of the Republic of Ireland's trade, and receives 60% of all vessel arrivals.
Dublin Port occupies an area of 259 hectares (640 acres) in one of the most expensive places in the country, with an estimated price per acre of around €10 million. Since the 2000s, there have been calls to relocate Dublin Port out of the city and free up its land for residential and commercial development. This was first proposed by the Progressive Democrats at the height of the Celtic Tiger in 2006, who valued the land at between €25 and €30 billion, although nothing became of this proposal. During the housing crisis of the late 2010s the idea again began to attract supporters, among them economist David McWilliams. Currently, there are no official plans to move the port elsewhere, and the Dublin Port Company strongly opposes relocation.
Dublin hosts the headquarters of some of Ireland's largest multinational corporations, including 14 of the 20 companies which make up the ISEQ 20 index – those with the highest trading volume and market capitalisation of all Irish Stock Exchange listed companies. These are: AIB, Applegreen, Bank of Ireland, Cairn Homes, Continental Group, CRH, Dalata Hotel Group, Flutter Entertainment, Greencoat Renewables, Hibernia REIT, IRES, Origin Enterprises, Ryanair and Smurfit Kappa.
County Dublin receives by far the most overseas tourists of any county in Ireland. This is primarily due to Dublin city's status as Ireland's largest city and its transportation hub. Dublin is also Ireland's most popular destination for domestic tourists. According to Fáilte Ireland, in 2017 Dublin received nearly 6 million overseas tourists, and just under 1.5 million domestic tourists. Most of Ireland's international flights transit through Dublin Airport, and the vast majority of passenger ferry arrivals dock at Dublin Port. In 2019, the port also facilitated 158 cruise ship arrivals. The tourism industry in the county is worth approximately €2.3 billion per year.
As of 2019, 4 of the top 10 fee-paying tourist attractions in Ireland are located within County Dublin, as well as 5 of the top 10 free attractions. The Guinness Storehouse at St. James's Gate is Ireland's most visited tourist attraction, receiving 1.7 million visitors in 2019, and over 20 million total visits since 2000. Additionally, Dublin also contains Ireland's 3rd (Dublin Zoo), 4th (Book of Kells) and 6th (St Patrick's Cathedral) most visited fee-paying attractions. The top free attractions in Dublin are the National Gallery of Ireland, the National Botanic Gardens, the National Museum of Ireland and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, all of which receive over half a million visitors per year.
Despite having the smallest farmed area of any county, Dublin is one of Ireland's major agricultural producers. Dublin is the largest producer of fruit and vegetables in Ireland, the third largest producer of oilseed rape and has the fifth largest fishing industry. Fingal alone produces 55% of Ireland's fresh produce, including soft fruits and berries, apples, lettuces, peppers, asparagus, potatoes, onions, and carrots. As of 2020, the Irish Farmers' Association estimates that the total value of Dublin's agricultural produce is €205 million. According to the CSO, fish landings in the county are worth a further €20 million.
Approximately 41% of the county's land area (38,576 ha) is farmed. Of this, 12,578 ha (31,081 acres) is under tillage, the 9th highest in the country, and 6,500 ha (16,062 acres) is dedicated to fruit & horticulture, the 4th highest. Rural County Dublin is considered a peri-urban region, where an urban environment transitions into a rural one. Due to the growth of Dublin city and its commuter towns in the north of the county, the region is considered to be under significant pressure from urban sprawl. Between 1991 and 2010, the amount of agricultural land within the county decreased by 22.9%. In 2015, the local authorities of Fingal, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown developed a joint Dublin Rural Local Development Strategy aimed at enhancing the region's agricultural output, while also managing and minimising the impact of urbanisation on biodiversity and the identity and culture of rural Dublin.
The county has a small forestry industry that is based almost entirely in the upland areas of south County Dublin. According to the 2017 National Forestry Inventory, 6,011 ha (14,854 acres) of the county was under forest, of which 1,912 ha (4,725 acres) was private forestry. The majority of Dublin's forests are owned by the national forestry company, Coillte. In the absence of increased private planting, the county's commercial timber capacity is expected to decrease in the coming decades, as Coillte intends to convert much of their holdings in the Dublin Mountains into non-commercial mixed forests.
Dublin has 810 individual farms with an average size of 47.6 ha (118 acres), the largest average farm size of any county in Ireland. Roughly 9,400 people within the county are directly employed in either agriculture or the food and drink processing industry. Numerous Irish and multinational food and drink companies are either based in Dublin or have facilities within the county, including Mondelez, Coca-Cola, Mars, Diageo, Kellogg's, Danone, Ornua, Pernod Ricard and Glanbia. In 1954, Tayto Crisps were established in Coolock and developed into cultural phenomenon throughout much of the Republic of Ireland. Its operations and headquarters have since moved to neighbouring County Meath. Another popular crisp brand, Keogh's, are based in Oldtown, Fingal.
In Ireland, spending on education is controlled by the government and the allocation of funds is decided each year in the annual budget. Local authorities retain limited responsibilities such as funding for school meals, service supports costs and the upkeep of libraries.
There are hundreds of primary and secondary schools within County Dublin, most of which are English-language schools. Several international schools are based in Dublin, such as St Kilian's German School and Lycée Français d'Irlande, which teach in foreign languages. There is also a large minority of students attending gaelscoileanna (Irish-language primary schools). There are 34 gaelscoileanna and 10 gaelcholáistí (Irish-language secondary schools) in the county, with a total of 12,950 students as of 2018. In terms of college acceptance rates, gaelcholáistí are consistently the best performing schools in Dublin, and among the best performing in Ireland.
Although the government pays for a large majority of school costs, including teachers' salaries, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest owner of schools in Dublin, and preference is given to Catholic students over non-Catholic students in oversubscribed areas. This has resulted in a growing movement towards non-denominational and co-educational schools in the county.
The majority of private secondary schools in Dublin are still single sex, and continue to have religious patronages with either congregations of the Catholic Church (Spiritans, Sisters of Loreto, Jesuits) or Protestant denominations (Church of Ireland, Presbyterian). Newer private schools which cater for the Leaving Cert cycle such as the Institute of Education and Ashfield College are generally non-denominational and co-educational. In 2018, Nord Anglia International School Dublin opened in Leopardstown, becoming the most expensive private school in Ireland.
As of 2023–24, four of Dublin's third level institutions are listed in the Top 500 of either the Times Higher Education Rankings or the QS World Rankings, placing them amongst the top 5% of all third level institutions in the world. TCD (81), UCD (171) and DCU (436) are within the Top 500 of the QS rankings; and TCD (161), RCSI (201–250), UCD (201–250) and DCU (451-500) and are within the Top 500 of the Times rankings. Newly amalgamated TUD also placed within the world's Top 1,000 universities in the QS rankings, and within the Top 500 for Engineering and Electronics.
County Dublin has four public universities, as well as numerous other colleges, institutes of technology and institutes of further education. Several of Dublin's largest third level institutions and their associated abbreviations are listed below:
For elections to Dáil Éireann, the area of the county is currently divided into eleven constituencies: Dublin Bay North, Dublin Bay South, Dublin Central, Dublin Fingal, Dublin Mid-West, Dublin North-West, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West, Dublin West, and Dún Laoghaire. Together they return 45 deputies (TDs) to the Dáil.
The first Irish Parliament convened in the small village of Castledermot, County Kildare on 18 June 1264. Representatives from seven constituencies were present, one of which was the constituency of Dublin City. Dublin was historically represented in the Irish House of Commons through the constituencies of Dublin City and County Dublin. Three smaller constituencies had been created by the 17th century: Swords; which was created sometime between 1560 and 1585, with Walter Fitzsimons and Thomas Taylor being its first recorded MPs; Newcastle in the west of the county, created in 1613; and Dublin University, which was a university constituency covering Trinity College, also created in 1613. While proceedings of the Irish Parliament were well-documented, many of the records from this time were lost during the shelling of the Four Courts in July 1922.
Following the Acts of Union 1800, Dublin was represented in Westminster through three constituencies from 1801 to 1885: Dublin City, County Dublin and the Dublin University. A series of local government and electoral reforms in the late 19th century radically alerted the county's political map, and by 1918 there were twelve constituencies within County Dublin.
Throughout the twentieth century the representation in Dublin expanded as the population grew. In the Electoral Act 1923, the first division of constituencies arranged by Irish legislation, geographical constituencies in Dublin were 23 of the 147 TDs in geographical constituencies; this contrasts with 45 of 160 at the most recent division.
Twenty-three Dáil Éireann constituencies have been created and abolished within the county since independence, the most recent being the constituencies of Dublin South, Dublin North, Dublin North-Central, Dublin North-East and Dublin South-East, which were abolished in 2016.
Of the fifteen people to have held the office of Taoiseach since 1922, more than half were either born or raised within County Dublin: W. T. Cosgrave, John A. Costello, Seán Lemass, Liam Cosgrave, Charles Haughey (born in County Mayo but raised in Dublin), Garret FitzGerald, Bertie Ahern and Leo Varadkar (Cosgrave held the office of President of the Executive Council; by convention, Taoisigh are numbered to include this position). Conversely, just one of Ireland's nine presidents have hailed from the county, namely Seán T. O'Kelly, who served as president from 1945 to 1959.
The four local government areas in County Dublin form the 4-seat constituency of Dublin in European Parliament elections.
As the capital city, Dublin is the seat of the national parliament of Ireland, the Oireachtas. It is composed of the President of Ireland, Dáil Éireann as a house of representatives, and Seanad Éireann as an upper house. Both houses of the Oireachtas meet in Leinster House, a former ducal palace on Kildare Street. It has been the home of the Irish government since the creation of the Irish Free State. The First Dáil of the revolutionary Irish Republic met in the Round Room of the Mansion House, the present-day residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, in January 1919. The former Irish Parliament, which was abolished in 1801, was located at College Green; Parliament House now holds a branch of Bank of Ireland. Government Buildings, located on Merrion Street, houses the Department of the Taoiseach, the Council Chamber, the Department of Finance, and the Office of the Attorney General.
The president resides in Áras an Uachtaráin in Phoenix Park, a stately ranger's lodge built in 1757. The house was bought by the Crown in 1780 to be used as the summer residence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the British viceroy in the Kingdom of Ireland. Following independence, the lodge was earmarked as the potential home of the Governor-General, but this was highly controversial as it symbolised continued British rule over Ireland, so it was left empty for many years. President Douglas Hyde "temporarily" occupied the building in 1938, as Taoiseach Éamon de Valera intended to demolish it and build a more modest presidential bungalow on the site. Those plans were scrapped during The Emergency and the lodge became the president's permanent residence.
Much like Áras an Uachtaráin, many of the grand estate homes of the former aristocracy were re-purposed for State use in the 20th century. The Deerfield Residence, also in Phoenix Park, is the official residence of the United States Ambassador to Ireland, while Glencairn House in south Dublin is used as the British Ambassador's residence. Farmleigh House, one of the Guinness family residences, was acquired by the government in 1999 for use as the official Irish state guest house.
Many other prominent judicial and political organs are located within Dublin, including the Four Courts, which is the principal seat of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and the Dublin Circuit Court; and the Custom House, which houses the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Once the centuries-long seat of the British government's administration in Ireland, Dublin Castle is now only used for ceremonial purposes, such as policy launches, hosting of State visits, and the inauguration of the president.
Dublin is among the most socially liberal places in Ireland, and popular sentiment on issues such as LGBT rights, abortion and divorce has often foreran the rest of the island. Referendums held on these issues have consistently received much stronger support within Dublin, particularly the south of the county, than the majority of the country. While over 66% of voters nationally voted in favour of the Eighth Amendment in 1983, 58% of voters in Dún Laoghaire and 55% in Dublin South voted against it. In 2018, over 75.5% of voters in County Dublin voted to repeal the amendment, compared with 66.4% nationally.
In 1987, Dublin Senator David Norris took the Irish government to the European Court of Human Rights (see Norris v. Ireland) over the criminalisation of homosexual acts. In 1988, the Court ruled that the law criminalising same sex activities was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular Article 8 which protects the right to respect for private life. The law was held to infringe on the right of adults to engage in acts of their own choice. This led directly to the repeal of the law in 1993. Numerous LGBT events and venues are now located within the county. Dublin Pride is an annual pride parade held on the last Saturday of June and is Ireland's largest public LGBT event. In 2018, an estimated 60,000 people attended. During the 2015 vote to allow same-sex marriage, 71% of County Dublin voted in favour, compared with 62% nationally.
In general, the south-eastern coastal regions of the county such as Dún Laoghaire and Dublin Bay South are a stronghold for the liberal-conservative Fine Gael party. Since the late-2000s the Green Party has also developed a strong support base in these areas. The democratic socialist Sinn Féin party generally performs well in south-central and west Dublin, in areas like Tallaght and Crumlin. In recent elections Sinn Féin have increasingly taken votes in traditional Labour Party areas, whose support has been on the decline since 2016. As a result of the economic crisis, centre-right Fianna Fáil failed to gain a single seat in Dublin in the 2011 general election. This was a first for the long-time dominant party of Irish politics. The party regained a footing in 7 of the 11 Dublin constituencies in 2020, and were also the largest party in Dublin City, Fingal and South Dublin in the 2019 local elections.
Dublin is a dual county in Gaelic games, and it competes at a similar level in both hurling/camogie and Gaelic football. The Dublin county board is the governing body for Gaelic games within the county. The county's current GAA crest, adopted in 2004, represents Dublin's four constituent areas. The castle represents Dublin city, the raven represents Fingal, the Viking longboat represents Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and the book of Saint Tamhlacht in the centre represents South Dublin.
In Gaelic football, the Dublin county team competes annually in Division 1 of the National Football League and the provincial Leinster Senior Football Championship. Dublin is the dominant force of Leinster football, with 62 Leinster Senior Championship wins. Nationally, the county is second only to Kerry for All-Ireland Senior Football Championship titles. The two counties are fierce rivals, and a meeting between them is considered the biggest game in Gaelic football. Dublin has won the All-Ireland on 31 occasions, including a record 6 in a row from 2015 to 2020.
In hurling, the Dublin hurling team currently compete in Division 1B of the National Hurling League and in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship. Dublin is the second most successful hurling county in Leinster after Kilkenny, albeit a distant second, with 24 Leinster hurling titles. The county has seen less success in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, ranking joint-fifth alongside Wexford. Dublin has been in 21 All-Ireland hurling finals, winning just 6, the most recent of which was in 1938.
Within the county, Gaelic football and hurling clubs compete in the Dublin Senior Football Championship and the Dublin Senior Hurling Championship, which were both established in 1887. St Vincents based in Marino and Faughs based in Templeogue are by far the most successful clubs in Dublin their respective sports. Four Dublin football teams have won the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship; St Vincents, Kilmacud Crokes, UCD and Ballyboden St Enda's. Despite their historic dominance in Dublin, Faughs have never won an All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship. Since the early 2010s, Dalkey's Cuala have been the county's main hurling force, and the club won back-to-back All-Ireland's in 2017 and 2018.
Association football (soccer) is one of the most popular sports within the county. While Gaelic games are the most watched sport in Dublin, association football is the most widely played, and there are over 200 amateur football clubs in County Dublin. Dalymount Park in Phibsborough is known as the "home of Irish football", as it is both the country's oldest stadium and the former home ground for the national team from 1904 until 1990. The Republic of Ireland national football team is currently based in the 52,000 seater Aviva Stadium, which was built on the site of the old Lansdowne Road stadium in 2010. Shortly after its completion, the Aviva Stadium hosted the 2011 UEFA Europa League Final. Five League of Ireland football clubs are based within County Dublin; Bohemians F.C., Shamrock Rovers, St Patrick's Athletic, University College Dublin and Shelbourne.
Shamrock Rovers, formerly of Milltown but now based in Tallaght, are the most successful club in the country, with 21 League of Ireland titles. They were also the first Irish side to reach the group stages of a European competition when they qualified for the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League group stage. The Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854, are technically the world's oldest extant football club. However, the club currently only plays rugby union. Bohemians are Ireland's third oldest club currently playing football, after Belfast's Cliftonville F.C. and Athlone Town A.F.C. The Bohemians–Shamrock Rovers rivalry not only involves Dublin's two biggest clubs, but it is also a Northside-Southside rivalry, making it the most intense derby match in the county.
Rugby Union is the county's third most popular sport, after Gaelic games and football. Leinster Rugby play their competitive home games in the RDS Arena & the Aviva Stadium. Donnybrook Stadium hosts Leinster's friendlies and A games, as well as the Ireland A and Women's teams, Leinster Schools and Youths and the home club games of All Ireland League sides Old Wesley and Bective Rangers. County Dublin is home to 13 of the senior rugby union clubs in Ireland, including 5 of the 10 sides in the top division 1A.
Other popular sports in the county include: cricket, hockey, golf, tennis, athletics and equestrian activities. Dublin has two ODI cricket grounds in Castle Avenue and Malahide Cricket Club Ground, and the Phoenix Cricket Club, founded in 1830, is the oldest in Ireland. As with many other sporting organisations in the county, the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club is one of the world's oldest. It hosted the now-discontinued Irish Open from 1879 until 1983. Field hockey, particularly women's field hockey, is becoming increasingly popular within the county. The Ireland women's national field hockey team made it to the 2018 World Cup final, and many of the players on that team were from Dublin clubs, such as UCD, Old Alex, Loreto, Monkstown, Muckross and Railway Union.
The Dublin Horse Show takes place at the RDS, which hosted the Show Jumping World Championships in 1982, and the county has a horse racing track at Leopardstown which hosts the Irish Champion Stakes every September. Dublin houses the national stadium for both boxing (National Stadium) and basketball (National Basketball Arena), and the city hosted the 2003 Special Olympics. Although a small county in size, Dublin contains one third of Leinster's 168 golf courses, and three-time major winner Pádraig Harrington is from Rathfarnham.
Local radio stations include 98FM, FM104, Dublin City FM, Q102, SPIN 1038, Sunshine 106.8, Raidió Na Life and Radio Nova.
Local newspapers include The Echo, and the Liffey Champion.
Most of the area can receive the five main UK television channels as well as the main Irish channels, along with Sky TV and Virgin Media Ireland cable television.
53°25′N 6°15′W / 53.417°N 6.250°W / 53.417; -6.250 | [
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"text": "County Dublin (Irish: Contae Bhaile Átha Cliath or Contae Átha Cliath) is a county in Ireland, and holds its capital city, Dublin. It is located on the island's east coast, within the province of Leinster. Until 1994, County Dublin (excluding the city) was a single local government area; in that year, the county council was divided into three new administrative counties: Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The four areas form a NUTS III statistical region of Ireland (coded IE061). County Dublin remains a single administrative unit for the purposes of the courts (including the Dublin County Sheriff, circuit court and county registrar), law enforcement (the Garda Dublin metropolitan division) and fire services (Dublin Fire Brigade).",
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{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Dublin is Ireland's most populous county, with a population of 1,458,154 as of 2022 – approximately 28% of the Republic of Ireland's total population. Dublin city is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, as well as the largest city on the island of Ireland. Roughly 9 out of every 10 people in County Dublin lives within Dublin city and its suburbs. Several sizeable towns that are considered separate from the city, such as Rush, Donabate and Balbriggan, are located in the far north of the county. Swords, while separated from the city by a green belt around Dublin Airport, is considered a suburban commuter town and an emerging small city.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The third smallest county by land area, Dublin is bordered by Meath to the west and north, Kildare to the west, Wicklow to the south and the Irish Sea to the east. The southern part of the county is dominated by the Dublin Mountains, which rise to around 760 metres (2,500 ft) and contain numerous valleys, reservoirs and forests. The county's east coast is punctuated by several bays and inlets, including Rogerstown Estuary, Broadmeadow Estuary, Baldoyle Bay and most prominently, Dublin Bay. The northern section of the county, today known as Fingal, varies enormously in character, from densely populated suburban towns of the city's commuter belt to flat, fertile plains, which are some of the country's largest horticultural and agricultural hubs.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Dublin is the oldest county in Ireland, and was the first part of the island to be shired following the Norman invasion in the late 1100s. While it is no longer a local government area, Dublin retains a strong identity, and continues to be referred to as both a region and county interchangeably, including at government body level.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "County Dublin is named after the city of Dublin, which is an anglicisation of its Old Norse name Dyflin. The city was founded in the 9th century AD by Viking settlers who established the Kingdom of Dublin. The Viking settlement was preceded by a Christian ecclesiastical site known as Duiblinn, from which Dyflin took its name. Duiblinn derives from the early Classical Irish Dubhlind/Duibhlind – from dubh (IPA: [d̪uβ], IPA: [d̪uw], IPA: [d̪uː]) meaning \"black, dark\", and lind (IPA: [lʲiɲ(d̪ʲ)]) \"pool\", referring to a dark tidal pool. This tidal pool was located where the River Poddle entered the Liffey, to the rear of Dublin Castle.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The hinterland of Dublin in the Norse period was named in Old Norse: Dyflinnar skíði, lit. 'Dublinshire'.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In addition to Dyflin, a Gaelic settlement known as Áth Cliath (\"ford of hurdles\") was located further up the Liffey, near present-day Father Mathew Bridge. Baile Átha Cliath means \"town of the hurdled ford\", with Áth Cliath referring to a fording point along the river. Like Duiblinn, an early Christian monastery was also located at Áth Cliath, on the site that is currently occupied by the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Dublin was the first county in Ireland to be shired after the Norman Conquest in the late 12th century. The Normans captured the Kingdom of Dublin from its Norse-Gael rulers and the name was used as the basis for the county's official Anglo-Norman (and later English) name. However, in modern Irish the region was named after the Gaelic settlement of Baile Átha Cliath or simply Áth Cliath. As a result, Dublin is one of four counties in Ireland with a different name origin for both Irish and English – the others being Wexford, Waterford and Wicklow, whose English names are also derived from Old Norse.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The earliest recorded inhabitants of present-day Dublin settled along the mouth of the River Liffey. The remains of five wooden fish traps were discovered near Spencer Dock in 2007. These traps were designed to catch incoming fish at high tide and could be retrieved at low tide. Thin-bladed stone axes were used to craft the traps and radiocarbon dating places them in the Late Mesolithic period (c. 6,100–5,700 BCE).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Vikings invaded the region in the mid-9th century AD and founded what would become the city of Dublin. Over time they mixed with the natives of the area, becoming Norse–Gaels. The Vikings raided across Ireland, Britain, France and Spain during this period and under their rule Dublin developed into the largest slave market in Western Europe. While the Vikings were formidable at sea, the superiority of Irish land forces soon became apparent, and the kingdom's Norse rulers were first exiled from the region as early as 902. Dublin was captured by the High King of Ireland, Máel Sechnaill II, in 980, who freed the kingdom's Gaelic slaves. Dublin was again defeated by Máel Sechnaill in 988 and forced to accept Brehon law and pay taxes to the High King. Successive defeats at the hands of Brian Boru in 999 and, most famously, at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014, relegated Dublin to the status of lesser kingdom.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1170, the ousted King of Leinster, Diarmait Mac Murchada, and his Norman allies agreed to capture Dublin at a war council in Waterford. They evaded the intercepting army of High King Ruaidrí Ua Conchobair by marching through the Wicklow Mountains, arriving outside the walls of Dublin in late September. The King of Dublin, Ascall mac Ragnaill, met with Mac Murchada for negotiations; however, while talks were ongoing, the Normans, led by de Cogan and FitzGerald, stormed Dublin and overwhelmed its defenders, forcing mac Ragnaill to flee to the Northern Isles. Separate attempts to retake Dublin were launched by both Ua Conchobair and mac Ragnaill in 1171, both of which were unsuccessful.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The authority over Ireland established by the Anglo-Norman King Henry II was gradually lost during the Gaelic resurgence from the 13th century onwards. English power diminished so significantly that by the early 16th century English laws and customs were restricted to a small area around Dublin known as \"The Pale\". The Earl of Kildare's failed rebellion in 1535 reignited Tudor interest in Ireland, and Henry VIII proclaimed the Kingdom of Ireland in 1542, with Dublin as its capital. Over the next 60 years the Tudor conquest spread to every corner of the island, which was fully subdued by 1603.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Despite harsh penal laws and unfavourable trade restrictions imposed upon Ireland, Dublin flourished in the 18th century. The Georgian buildings which still define much of Dublin's architectural landscape to this day were mostly built over a 50-year period spanning from about 1750 to 1800. Bodies such as the Wide Streets Commission completely reshaped the city, demolishing most of medieval Dublin in the process. During the Enlightenment, the penal laws were gradually repealed and members of the Protestant Ascendancy began to regard themselves as citizens of a distinct Irish nation. The Irish Patriot Party, led by Henry Grattan, agitated for greater autonomy from Great Britain, which was achieved under the Constitution of 1782. These freedoms proved short-lived, as the Irish Parliament was abolished under the Acts of Union 1800 and Ireland was incorporated into the United Kingdom. Dublin lost its political status as a capital and went into a marked decline throughout the 19th century, leading to widespread demands to repeal the union.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Although at one time the second city of the British Empire, by the late 1800s Dublin was one of the poorest cities in Europe. The city had the worst housing conditions of anywhere in the United Kingdom, and overcrowding, disease and malnourishment were rife within central Dublin. In 1901, The Irish Times reported that the disease and mortality rates in Calcutta during the 1897 bubonic plague outbreak compared \"favourably with those of Dublin at the present moment\". Most of the upper and middle class residents of Dublin had moved to wealthier suburbs, and the grand Georgian homes of the 1700s were converted en masse into tenement slums. In 1911, over 20,000 families in Dublin were living in one-room tenements which they rented from wealthy landlords. Henrietta Street was particularly infamous for the density of its tenements, with 845 people living on the street in 1911, including 19 families – totalling 109 people – living in just one house.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After decades of political unrest, Ireland appeared to be on the brink of civil war as a result of the Home Rule Crisis. Despite being the centre of Irish unionism outside of Ulster, Dublin was overwhelmingly in favour of Home Rule. Unionist parties had performed poorly in the county since the 1870s, leading contemporary historian W. E. H. Lecky to conclude that \"Ulster unionism is the only form of Irish unionism that is likely to count as a serious political force\". Unlike their counterparts in the north, \"southern unionists\" were a clear minority in the rest of Ireland, and as such were much more willing to co-operate with the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) to avoid partition. Following the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Belfast unionist Dawson Bates decried the \"effusive professions of loyalty and confidence in the Provisional Government\" that was displayed by former unionists in the new Irish Free State.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The question of Home Rule was put on hold due to the outbreak of the First World War but was never to be revisited as a series of missteps by the British government, such as executing the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and the Conscription Crisis of 1918, fuelled the Irish revolutionary period. The IPP were nearly wiped out by Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election and, following a brief war of independence, 26 of Ireland's 32 counties seceded from the United Kingdom in December 1922, with Dublin becoming the capital of the Irish Free State, and later the Republic of Ireland.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "From the 1960s onwards, Dublin city greatly expanded due to urban renewal works and the construction of large suburbs such as Tallaght, Coolock and Ballymun, which resettled both the rural and urban poor of County Dublin in newer state-built accommodation. Dublin was the driving force behind Ireland's Celtic Tiger period, an era of rapid economic growth that started in the early 1990s. In stark contrast to the turn of the 20th century, Dublin entered the 21st century as one of Europe's richest cities, attracting immigrants and investment from all over the world.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Dublin is the third smallest of Ireland's 32 counties by area, and the largest in terms of population. It is the third-smallest of Leinster's 12 counties in size and the largest by population. Dublin shares a border with three counties – Meath to the north and west, Kildare to the west and Wicklow to the south. To the east, Dublin has an Irish Sea coastline which stretches for 155 kilometres (96 mi).",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Dublin is a topographically varied region. The city centre is generally very low-lying, and many areas of coastal Dublin are at or near sea-level. In the south of the county, the topography rises steeply from sea-level at the coast to over 500 metres (1,600 ft) in just a few kilometres. This natural barrier has resulted in densely populated coastal settlements in Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and westward urban sprawl in South Dublin. In contrast, Fingal is generally rural in nature and much less densely populated than the rest of the county. Consequently, Fingal is significantly larger than the other three local authorities and covers about 49.5% of County Dublin's land area. Fingal is also perhaps the flattest region in Ireland, with the low-lying Naul Hills rising to a maximum height of just 176 metres (577 ft).",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Dublin is bounded to the south by the Wicklow Mountains. Where the mountains extend into County Dublin, they are known locally as the Dublin Mountains (Sléibhte Bhaile Átha Cliath). Kippure, on the Dublin–Wicklow border, is the county's highest mountain, at 757 metres (2,484 ft) above sea level. Crossed by the Dublin Mountains Way, they are a popular amenity area, with Two Rock, Three Rock, Tibradden, Ticknock, Montpelier Hill, and Glenasmole being among the most heavily foot-falled hiking destinations in Ireland. Forest cover extends to over 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) within the county, nearly all of which is located in the Dublin Mountains. With just 6.5% of Dublin under forest, it is the 6th least forested county in Ireland.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Much of the county is drained by its three major rivers – the River Liffey, the River Tolka in north Dublin, and the River Dodder in south Dublin. The Liffey, at 132 kilometres (82 mi) in length, is the 8th longest river in Ireland, and rises near Tonduff in County Wicklow, reaching the Irish Sea at the Dublin Docklands. The Liffey cuts through the centre of Dublin city, and the resultant Northside–Southside divide is an often used social, economic and linguistic distinction. Notable inlets include the central Dublin Bay, Rogerstown Estuary, the estuary of the Broadmeadow and Killiney Bay, under Killiney Hill. Headlands include Howth Head, Drumanagh and the Portraine Shore. In terms of biodiversity, these estuarine and coastal regions are home to a wealth ecologically important areas. County Dublin contains 11 EU-designated Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and 11 Special Protection Areas (SPAs).",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The bedrock geology of Dublin consists primarily of Lower Carboniferous limestone, which underlies about two thirds of the entire county, stretching from Skerries to Booterstown. During the Lower Carboniferous (ca. 340 Mya), the area was part of a warm tropical sea inhabited by an abundance of corals, crinoids and brachiopods. The oldest rocks in Dublin are the Cambrian shales located on Howth Head, which were laid down ca. 500 Mya. Disruption following the closure of the Iapetus Ocean approximately 400 Mya resulted in the formation of granite. This is now exposed at the surface from the Dublin Mountains to the coastal areas of Dún Laoghaire. 19th-century Lead extraction and smelting at the Ballycorus Leadmines caused widespread lead poisoning, and the area was once nicknamed \"Death Valley\".",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Dublin is in a maritime temperate oceanic region according to Köppen climate classification. Its climate is characterised by cool winters, mild humid summers, and a lack of temperature extremes. Met Éireann have a number of weather stations in the county, with its two primary stations at Dublin Airport and Casement Aerodrome.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Annual temperatures typically fall within a narrow range. In Merrion Square, the coldest month is February, with an average minimum temperature of 4.1 °C (39.4 °F), and the warmest month is July, with an average maximum temperature of 20.1 °C (68.2 °F). Due to the urban heat island effect, Dublin city has the warmest summertime nights in Ireland. The average minimum temperature at Merrion Square in July is 13.5 °C (56.3 °F), similar to London and Berlin, and the lowest July temperature ever recorded at the station was 7.8 °C (46.0 °F) on 3 July 1974. At Dublin Airport, the driest month is February with 48.8 mm (2 in) of rainfall, and the wettest month is November, with 79.0 mm (3 in) of rain on average.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "As the prevailing wind direction in Ireland is from the south and west, the Wicklow Mountains create a rain shadow over much of the county. Dublin's sheltered location makes it the driest place in Ireland, receiving only about half the rainfall of the west coast. Ringsend in the south of Dublin city records the lowest rainfall in the country, with an average annual precipitation of 683 mm (27 in). The wettest area of the county is the Glenasmole Valley, which receives 1,159 mm (46 in) of rainfall per year. As a temperate coastal county, snow is relatively uncommon in lowland areas; however, Dublin is particularly vulnerable to heavy snowfall on rare occasions where cold, dry easterly winds dominate during the winter.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "During the late summer and early autumn, Dublin can experience Atlantic storms, which bring strong winds and torrential rain to Ireland. Dublin was the county worst-affected by Hurricane Charley in 1986. It caused severe flooding, especially along the River Dodder, and is reputed to be the worst flood event in Dublin's history. Rainfall records were shattered across the county. Kippure recorded 280 mm (11 in) of rain over a 24-hour period, the greatest daily rainfall total ever recorded in Ireland. The government allocated IR£6,449,000 (equivalent to US$20.5 million in 2020) to repair the damage wrought by Charley. The two reservoirs at Bohernabreena in the Dublin Mountains were upgraded in 2006 after a study into the impact of Hurricane Charley concluded that a slightly larger storm would have caused the reservoir dams to burst, which would have resulted in catastrophic damage and significant loss of life.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In contrast with the Atlantic Coast, the east coast of Ireland has relatively few islands. County Dublin has one of the highest concentrations of islands on the Irish east coast. Colt Island, St. Patrick's Island, Shenick Island and numerous smaller islets are clustered off the coast of Skerries, and are collectively known as the \"Skerries Islands Natural Heritage Area\". Further out lies Rockabill, which is Dublin's most isolated island, at about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) offshore. Lambay Island, at 250 hectares (620 acres), is the largest island off Ireland's east coast and the easternmost point of County Dublin. Lambay supports one of the largest seabird colonies in Ireland and, curiously, also supports a population of non-native Red-necked wallabies. To the south of Lambay lies a smaller island known as Ireland's Eye – the result of a mistranslation of the island's Irish name by invading Vikings.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Bull Island is a man-made island lying roughly parallel to the shoreline which began to form following the construction of the Bull Wall in 1825. The island is still growing and is currently 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) long and 0.8 kilometres (0.50 mi) wide. In 1981, North Bull Island (Oileán an Tairbh Thuaidh) was designated as a UNESCO biosphere.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "For statistical purposes at European level, the county as a whole forms the Dublin Region – a NUTS III entity – which is in turn part of the Eastern and Midland Region, a NUTS II entity. Each of the local authorities have representatives on the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "There are ten historic baronies in the county. While baronies continue to be officially defined units, they ceased to have any administrative function following the Local Government Act 1898, and any changes to county boundaries after the mid-19th century are not reflected in their extent. The last boundary change of a barony in Dublin was in 1842, when the barony of Balrothery was divided into Balrothery East and Balrothery West. The largest recorded barony in Dublin in 1872 was Uppercross, at 39,032 acres (157.96 km), and the smallest barony was Dublin, at 1,693 acres (6.85 km).",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Townlands are the smallest officially defined geographical divisions in Ireland. There are 1,090 townlands in Dublin, of which 88 are historic town boundaries. These town boundaries are registered as their own townlands and are much larger than rural townlands. The smallest rural townlands in Dublin are just 1 acre in size, most of which are offshore islands (Clare Rock Island, Lamb Island, Maiden Rock, Muglins, Thulla Island). The largest rural townland in Dublin is 2,797 acres (Caastlekelly). The average size of a townland in the county (excluding towns) is 205 acres.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, County Dublin was divided into urban districts of Blackrock, Clontarf, Dalkey, Drumcondra, Clonliffe and Glasnevin, Killiney and Ballybrack, Kingstown, New Kilmainham, Pembroke, and Rathmines and Rathgar, and the rural districts of Balrothery, Celbridge No. 2, North Dublin, Rathdown, and South Dublin.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Howth, formerly within the rural district of Dublin North, became an urban district in 1919. Kingstown was renamed Dún Laoghaire in 1920. The rural districts were abolished in 1930.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Balbriggan, in the rural district of Balrothery, had town commissioners under the Towns Improvement (Ireland) Act 1854. This became a town council in 2002. In common with all town councils, it was abolished in 2014.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The urban districts were gradually absorbed by the city of Dublin, except for four coastal districts of Blackrock, Dalkey, Dún Laoghaire, and Killiney and Ballybrack, which formed the borough of Dún Laoghaire in 1930.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The city of Dublin had been administered separately since the 13th century. Under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, the two areas were defined as the administrative county of Dublin and the county borough of Dublin, with the latter in the city area.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1985, County Dublin was divided into three electoral counties: Dublin–Belgard to the southwest (South Dublin from 1991), Dublin–Fingal to the north (Fingal from 1991), and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown to the southeast.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "On 1 January 1994, under the Local Government (Dublin) Act 1993, the County Dublin ceased to exist as a local government area, and was succeeded by the counties of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin, each coterminous (with minor boundary adjustments) with the area of the corresponding electoral county. In discussing the legislation, Avril Doyle TD said, \"The Bill before us today effectively abolishes County Dublin, and as one born and bred in these parts of Ireland I find it rather strange that we in this House are abolishing County Dublin. I am not sure whether Dubliners realise that that is what we are about today, but in effect that is the case.\"",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Although the Electoral Commission should, as far as practicable, avoid breaching county boundaries when recommending Dáil constituencies, this does not include the boundaries of a city or the boundary between the three counties in Dublin. There is also still a sheriff appointed for County Dublin.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The term \"County Dublin\" is still in common usage. Many organisations and sporting teams continue to organise on a County Dublin basis. The Placenames Branch of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media maintains a Placenames Database that records all placenames, past and present. County Dublin is listed in the database along with the subdivisions of that county. It is also used as an address for areas within Dublin outside of the Dublin postal district system.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "For a period in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, to reduce person-to-person contact, government regulations restricted activity to \"within the county in which the relevant residence is situated\". Within the regulations, the local government areas of \"Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal, South Dublin and Dublin City\" were deemed to be a single county (as were the city and the county of Cork, and the city and the county of Galway).",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The latest Ordnance Survey Ireland \"Discovery Series\" (Third Edition 2005) 1:50,000 map of the Dublin Region, Sheet 50, shows the boundaries of the city and three surrounding counties of the region. Extremities of the Dublin Region, in the north and south of the region, appear in other sheets of the series, 43 and 56 respectively.",
"title": "Geography and subdivisions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "There are four local authorities whose remit collectively encompasses the geographic area of the county and city of Dublin. These are Dublin City Council, South Dublin County Council, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council and Fingal County Council.",
"title": "Local government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Until 1 January 1994, the administrative county of Dublin was administered by Dublin County Council. From that date, its functions were succeeded by Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council, Fingal County Council and South Dublin County Council, each with its county seat, respectively administering the new counties established on that date.",
"title": "Local government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The city was previously designated a county borough and administered by Dublin Corporation. Under the Local Government Act 2001, the country was divided into local government areas of cities and counties, with the county borough of Dublin being designated a city for all purposes, now administered by Dublin City Council. Each local authority is responsible for certain local services such as sanitation, planning and development, libraries, the collection of motor taxation, local roads and social housing.",
"title": "Local government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Dublin, comprising the four local government areas in the county, is a strategic planning area within the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly (EMRA). It is a NUTS Level III region of Ireland. The region is one of eight regions of Ireland for Eurostat statistics at NUTS 3 level. Its NUTS code is IE061.",
"title": "Local government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "This area formerly came under the remit of the Dublin Regional Authority. This Authority was dissolved in 2014.",
"title": "Local government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "As of the 2022 census, the population of Dublin was 1,458,154, an 8.4% increase since the 2016 Census. The county's population first surpassed 1 million in 1981, and is projected to reach 1.8 million by 2036.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Dublin is Ireland's most populous county, a position it has held since the 1926 Census, when it overtook County Antrim. As of 2022, County Dublin has over twice the population of County Antrim and two and a half times the population of County Cork. Approximately 21% of Ireland's population lives within County Dublin (28% if only the Republic of Ireland is counted). Additionally, Dublin has more people than the combined populations of Ireland's 16 smallest counties.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "With an area of just 922 km (356 sq mi), Dublin is by far the most densely populated county in Ireland. The population density of the county is 1,582 people per square kilometre – over 7 times higher than Ireland's second most densely populated county, County Down in Northern Ireland.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "During the Celtic Tiger period, a large number of Dublin natives (Dubliners) moved to the rapidly expanding commuter towns in the adjoining counties. As of 2022, approximately 27.2% (345,446) of Dubliners were living outside of County Dublin. People born within Dublin account for 28% of the population of Meath, 32% of Kildare, and 37% of Wicklow. There are 922,744 Dublin natives living within the county, accounting for 63.3% of the population. People born in other Irish counties living within Dublin account for roughly 11% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Between 2016 and 2022, international migration produced a net increase of 88,300 people. Dublin has the highest proportion of international residents of any county in Ireland, with around 25% of the county's population being born outside of the Republic of Ireland.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "As of the 2022 census, 5.6 percent of the county's population was reported as younger than 5 years old, 25.7 percent were between 5 and 25, 55.3 percent were between 25 and 65, and 13.4 percent of the population was older than 65. Of this latter group, 48,865 people (3.4 percent) were over the age of 80, more than doubling since 2016. Across all age groups, there were slightly more females (51.06 percent) than males (48.94 percent).",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In 2021, there were 16,596 births within the county, and the average age of a first time mother was 31.9.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Over a quarter (25.2 percent) of County Dublin's population was born outside of the Republic of Ireland. In 2022, Dublin City had the highest percentage of non-nationals in the county (27.3 percent), and South Dublin had the lowest (20.9 percent). Historically, the immigrant population of Dublin was mainly from the United Kingdom and other European Union member states. However, results from the 2022 census revealed that immigrants from non-EU/UK countries were the largest source of foreign-born residents for the first time, accounting for 12.9 percent of the county's population. Those from other European Union member states accounted for 8.3 percent of Dublin's population, and those from the United Kingdom a further 4.1 percent.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Prior to the 2000s, the UK was consistently the largest single source of non-nationals living in Dublin. After declining in the previous two census periods, the number of UK-born residents living in Dublin increased by 5.8 percent between 2016 and 2022. There was a large difference between the number of people living in Dublin who were born in the UK (58,586) and those who held sole-UK citizenship in the 2022 census (22,936). This discrepancy can arise for a variety of factors, such as people born in Northern Ireland claiming Irish citizenship rather than UK citizenship, Irish people born in the UK who now live in Dublin, British people who have become natural citizens, and foreign residents of Dublin who were born in the UK but are not UK citizens. Depending on an individual's responses in the census, all of these examples could result in the country of birth being registered by the CSO as the United Kingdom, but nationality being registered as Irish or a third country.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Following its accession to the EU, the Polish quickly became the fastest growing immigrant community in Dublin. Just 188 Poles applied for Irish work permits in 1999. By 2006 this number had grown to 93,787. After the 2008 Irish economic downturn, as many as 3,000 Poles left Ireland each month. Despite this, Poles remain one of Dublin's largest foreign-born groups. In contrast to more recent arrivals, a large percentage of Dublin's Polish citizens (30.9 percent) also hold Irish citizenship.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Outside of Europe, Indians and Brazilians are the predominant foreign-national groups. As of 2022, Indians were the fastest growing major immigrant group in Dublin, and they are now the county's second largest foreign-born group after the UK. Dublin's Indian community grew by 155.2 percent between 2016 and 2022. There were 29,582 Indian-born residents within Dublin as of 2022, up from 9,884 in the 2011 census. The influx of Indians is driven in part by multinational tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Meta who have located their European headquarters within the county, in areas such as the Silicon Docks and Sandyford. In August 2020, the first dedicated Hindu temple in Ireland was built in Walkinstown.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The number of Brazilian citizens living in Dublin more than tripled between 2011 and 2022, from 4,641 to 16,441. This increase is mainly a result of Ireland's participation in the Brazilian government's Ciência sem Fronteiras programme, which sees thousands of Brazilian students come to study in Ireland each year, many of whom remain in the country afterwards.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Although not fully captured during the census period, Dublin also houses a significant number of Ukrainian refugees under the Temporary Protection Directive. As of October 2023, the number of Ukrainians living in emergency accommodation within the county is estimated to be around 14,000.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "According to the Central Statistics Office, in 2022 the population of County Dublin self-identified as:",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "By ethnicity, in 2022 the population was 80.4% white. Those who identified as White Irish constituted 68.0% of the county's population, and Irish Travellers accounted for a further 0.4%. Caucasians who did not identify as ethnically Irish accounted for 12.0% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In terms of total numbers, Dublin has the largest non-white population in Ireland, with an estimated 158,653 residents, accounting for 11.1% of the county's population. Over two-fifths (42.2 percent) of Ireland's black residents live within the county. In terms of percentage of population, Fingal has the highest percentage of both black (3.6 percent) and non-white (12.4 percent) residents of any local authority in Ireland. Conversely, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown in the south of the county has one of Ireland's lowest percentages of black residents, with only 0.77% of the population identifying as black in 2022. Additionally, 43.3% of Ireland's multiracial population lives within County Dublin. Those who did not state their ethnicity more than doubled between 2016 and 2022, from 4.1% to 8.5%.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The largest religious denomination by both number of adherents and as a percentage of Dublin's population in 2022 was the Roman Catholic Church, at 57.4 percent. All other Christian denominations including Church of Ireland, Eastern Orthodox, Presbyterian and Methodist accounted for 8.1 percent of Dublin's population. Together, all denominations of Christianity accounted for 65.5 percent of the county's population. According to the 2022 census, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown is the least religious local authority in Ireland, with 23.9 percent of the population declaring themselves non-religious, followed closely by Dublin city (22.6 percent). In the county as a whole, those unaffiliated with any religion represented 20.1 percent of the population, which is the largest percentage of non-religious people of any county in Ireland. A further 9.1 percent of the population did not state their religion, up from just 4.1 percent in 2016.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Of the non-Christian religions, Islam is the largest in terms of number of adherents, with Muslims accounting for 2.6% of the population. After Islam, the largest non-Christian religions in 2022 were Hinduism (1.4 percent) and Buddhism (0.27 percent). While relatively small in absolute terms, County Dublin contains over half of Ireland's Hindu (58.7 percent) residents, and just under half of its Eastern Orthodox (45.3 percent), Islamic (45.0 percent) and Buddhist (41.7 percent) residents.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Dublin and its hinterland has been a Christian diocese since 1028. For centuries, the Primacy of Ireland was disputed between Dublin, the social and political capital of Ireland, and Armagh, site of Saint Patrick's main church, which was founded in 445 AD. In 1353 the dispute was settled by Pope Innocent VI, who proclaimed that the Archbishop of Dublin was Primate of Ireland, while the Archbishop of Armagh was titled Primate of All Ireland. These two distinct titles were replicated in the Church of Ireland following the Reformation. Historically, County Dublin was the epicentre of Protestantism in Ireland outside of Ulster. Records from the 1891 census show that the county was 21.4 percent Protestant towards the end of the 19th century. By the 1911 census this had gradually declined to around 20% due to poor economic conditions, as Dublin Protestants moved to industrial Belfast. Following the War of Independence (1919–1921), Dublin's Protestant community went into a steady decline, falling to 8.5 percent of the population by 1936.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Between 2016 and 2022, the fastest growing religions in Dublin were Hinduism (148.9 percent), Eastern Orthodox (51.6 percent), and Islam (27.9 percent), while the most rapidly declining religions were Evangelicalism (-10.4 percent), Catholicism (−8.7 percent), Jehovah's Witnesses (−5.9 percent) and Buddhism (−5.4 percent).",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "The boundaries of Dublin City Council form the urban core of the city, often referred to as \"Dublin city centre\", an area of 117.8 square kilometres. This encompasses the central suburbs of the city, extending as far south as Terenure and Donnybrook; as far north as Ballymun and Donaghmede; and as far west as Ballyfermot. As of 2022, there were 592,713 people living within Dublin city centre. However, as the continuous built-up area extends beyond the city boundaries, the term \"Dublin city and suburbs\" is commonly employed when referring to the actual extent of Dublin.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Dublin city and suburbs is a CSO-designated urban area which includes the densely populated contiguous built-up area which surrounds Dublin city centre. It encompasses 317.5 km and contains approximately 87% of County Dublin's population (1,263,219 people) as of the 2022 census.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "As the city proper does not extend beyond Dublin Airport, the towns of \"North County Dublin\" such as Swords, Lusk, Rush and Malahide are not considered part of the city, and are recorded by the CSO as separate settlements. Under Ireland's National Planning Framework, these towns are considered part of the Dublin Metropolitan Area (DMA). The DMA also includes towns outside of the county, such as Naas, Leixlip and Maynooth in County Kildare, and Bray and Greystones in County Wicklow, but does not include Balbriggan or Skerries, which are located in the far north of County Dublin.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The Greater Dublin Area (GDA) is a commonly used planning jurisdiction which extends to the wider network of commuter towns that are economically connected to Dublin city. The GDA consists of County Dublin and its three neighboring counties, Kildare, Meath and Wicklow.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "With a population of 2.1 million and an area of 6,986 square kilometres, it contains 40% of the population of the State, and covers 9.9% of its land area.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Under CSO classification, an \"Urban Area\" is a town with a population greater than 1,500. Dublin is the most urbanised county in Ireland, with 98% of its residents residing in urban areas as of 2022. Of Dublin's three non-city local authorities, Fingal has the highest proportion of people living in rural areas (7.9%), while Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown has the lowest (1.19%). The western suburbs of Dublin city such as Tallaght and Blanchardstown have experienced rapid growth in recent decades, and both areas have a population roughly equivalent to Galway city.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "County Dublin has the oldest and most extensive transportation infrastructure in Ireland. The Dublin and Kingstown Railway, opened in December 1834, was Ireland's first railway line. The line, which ran from Westland Row to Dún Laoghaire, was originally intended to be used for cargo. However, it proved far more popular with passengers and became the world's first commuter railway line. The line has been upgraded multiple times throughout its history and is still in use to this day, making it the oldest commuter railway route in the world.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Public transport in Dublin was managed by the Dublin Transportation Office until 2009, when it was replaced by the National Transport Authority (NTA). The three pillars currently underpinning the public transport network of the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) are Dublin Suburban Rail, the Luas and the bus system. There are six commuter lines in Dublin, which are managed by Iarnród Éireann. Five of these lines serve as routes between Dublin and towns across the GDA and beyond. The sixth route, known as Dublin Area Rapid Transit (DART), is electrified and serves only Dublin and northern Wicklow. The newest addition to Dublin's public transport network is a tram system called the Luas. The service began with two disconnected lines in 2004, with three extensions opened in 2009, 2010 and 2011 before a cross-city link between the lines and further extension opened in 2017.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Historically, Dublin had an extensive tram system which commenced in 1871 and at its peak had over 97 km (60 mi) of active line. It was operated by the Dublin United Transport Company (DUTC) and was very advanced for its day, with near-full electrification from 1901. From the 1920s onwards, the DUTC began to acquire private bus operators and gradually closed some of its lines. Further declines in passenger numbers were driven in part by a belief at the time that trams were outdated and archaic. All tram lines terminated in 1949, except for the tram to Howth, which ran until 1959.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Dublin Bus is the county's largest bus operator, carrying 138 million passengers in 2019. For much of the city, particularly west Dublin, the bus is the only public transport option available, and there are numerous smaller private bus companies in operation across County Dublin. National bus operator Bus Éireann provides long-distance routes to towns and villages located outside of Dublin city and its immediate hinterland.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "In November 2005, the government announced a €34 billion initiative called Transport 21 which included a substantial expansion to Dublin's transport network. The project was cancelled in May 2011 in the aftermath of the 2008 recession. Consequently, by 2017 Hugh Creegan, deputy chief of the NTA, stated that there had been a \"chronic underinvestment in public transport for more than a decade\". By 2019, Dublin was reportedly the 17th most congested city in the world, and had the 5th highest average commute time in the European Union. The Luas and rail network regularly experience significant overcrowding and delays during peak hours, and in 2019 Iarnród Éireann was widely ridiculed for asking commuters to \"stagger morning journeys\" to alleviate the problem.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The M50 is a 45.5 km (28.3 mi) orbital motorway around Dublin city, and is the busiest motorway in the country. It serves as the centre of both Dublin and Ireland's motorway network, and most of the national primary roads to other cities begin at the M50 and radiate outwards. The current route was built in various sections over the course of 27 years, from 1983 to 2010. All major roads in Ireland are managed by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), which is headquartered in Parkgate Street, Dublin 8. As of 2019, there were over 550,000 cars registered in County Dublin, accounting for 25.3% of all cars registered in the State. Due to the county's small area and high degree of urbanisation, there is a preference for \"D\" registered used cars throughout Ireland, as they are considered to have undergone less wear and tear.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "For international travel, around 1.7 million passengers travel by ferry through Dublin Port each year. A Dún Laoghaire to Holyhead ferry was formerly operated by Stena Line, but the route was closed in 2015. Dublin Airport is Ireland's largest airport, and 32.9 million passengers passed through it in 2019, making it Europe's 12th-busiest airport.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The Dublin Region, which is conterminous with County Dublin, has the largest and most highly developed economy in Ireland, accounting for over two-fifths of national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The Central Statistics Office estimates that the GDP of the Dublin Region in 2020 was €157.2 billion ($187 billion / £141 billion at 2020 exchange rates). In nominal terms, Dublin's economy is larger than roughly 140 sovereign states. The county's GDP per capita is €107,808 ($117,688 / £92,620), one of the highest regional GDPs per capita in the EU. As of 2019, Dublin also had the highest Human Development Index in Ireland at 0.965, placing it among the most developed places in the world in terms of life expectancy, education and per capita income.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "In 2020, average disposable income per person in Dublin was €27,686, or 118% of the national average (€23,400), the highest of any county in Ireland. As Ireland's most populous county, Dublin has the highest total household income in the country, at an estimated €46.8 billion in 2017 – higher than the Border, Midlands, West and South-East regions combined. Dublin residents were the highest per capita tax contributors in the State, returning a total of €15.1 billion in taxes in 2017.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Many of Ireland's most prominent political, educational, cultural and media centres are concentrated south of the River Liffey in Dublin city. Further south, areas like Dún Laoghaire, Dalkey and Killiney have long been some of Dublin's most affluent areas, and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown consistently has the highest average house prices in Ireland. This has resulted in a perceived socio-economic divide in Dublin, between the generally less affluent Northside and the wealthier Southside. In Dublin (both city and county), residents will commonly refer to themselves as a \"Northsider\" or a \"Southsider\", and the division is often caricatured in Irish comedy, media and literature, for example Ross O'Carroll-Kelly and Damo and Ivor. References to the divide have also become colloquialisms in their own right, such as \"D4\" (referring to the Dublin 4 postal district), which is a pejorative term for an upper middle class Irish person.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "While the northside-southside divide remains prevalent in popular culture, economic indices such as the Pobal HP deprivation index have shown that the distinction does not reflect economic reality. Many of Dublin's most affluent areas (Clontarf, Raheny, Howth, Portmarnock, Malahide) are located in the north of the county, and many of its most deprived areas (Jobstown, Ballyogan, Ballybrack, Dolphin's Barn, Clondalkin) are located in the south of the county.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Utilising CSO data from the past three censuses, Pobal HP revealed that there was a much higher concentration of below average, disadvantaged and very disadvantaged areas in west Dublin. In 2012, Irish Times columnist Fintan O'Toole posited that the real economic divide in Dublin was not north–south, but east–west – between the older coastal areas of eastern Dublin and the newer sprawling suburbs of western Dublin – and that the perpetuation of the northside–southside \"myth\" was a convenient way to gloss over class division within the county. O'Toole argued that framing the city's wealth divide as a light-hearted north–south stereotype was easier than having to address the socio-economic impacts of deliberate government policy to remove working-class people from the city centre and settle them on the margins.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Dublin is both a European and Global financial hub, and around 200 of the world's leading financial services firms have operations within the county. In 2017 and 2018 respectively, Dublin was ranked 5th in Europe and 31st globally in the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI). In the mid-1980s, parts of central Dublin had fallen into a state of dereliction and the Irish government pursued an urban regeneration programme. An 11-hectare special economic zone (SEZ) was set up in 1987, known as the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). At the time of its establishment, the SEZ had the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU. The IFSC has since expanded into a 37.8-hectare site centred around the Dublin Docklands. As of 2020, over €1.8 trillion of funds are administered from Ireland.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "There was renewed interest in Dublin's financial services sector in the wake of the UK's vote to withdraw from the European Union in 2016. Many firms, including Barclays and Bank of America, pre-emptively moved some of their operations from London to Dublin in anticipation of restricted EU market access. A survey conducted by Ernst & Young in 2021 found that Dublin was the most popular destination for firms in the UK considering relocating to the EU, ahead of Luxembourg and Frankfurt. It is estimated that Dublin's financial sector will grow by about 25% as a direct result of Brexit, and as many as 13,000 jobs could move from the UK to County Dublin in the years immediately after its withdrawal.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "The economy of Dublin benefits from substantial amounts of both indigenous and foreign investment. In 2018, the Financial Times ranked Dublin the most attractive large city in the world for Foreign Direct Investment, and the city has been consistently ranked by Forbes as one of the world's most business-friendly. The economy is centered on financial services, the pharmaceuticals and biotechnology industries, information technology, logistics and storage, professional services, agriculture and tourism. IDA Ireland, the state agency responsible for attracting foreign direct investment, was founded in Dublin in 1949.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Dublin has four power plants, all of which are concentrated in the docklands area of Dublin city. Three are natural-gas plants operated by the ESB, and the Poolbeg Incinerator is operated by Covanta Energy. The four plants have a combined capacity of 1.039 GW, roughly 12.5% of the island of Ireland's generation capacity as of 2019. The disused Poolbeg chimneys are the tallest structures in the county, and were granted protection by Dublin city council in 2014.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "As a result of Dublin city's location within a sheltered bay at the mouth of a navigable river, shipping has been a key industry in the county since medieval times. By the 18th-century, Dublin was a bustling maritime city and large-scale engineering projects were undertaken to enhance the port's capacity, such as the Great South Wall, which was the largest sea wall in the world at the time of its construction in 1715. Dublin Port was originally located along the Liffey, but gradually moved towards the coast over the centuries as vessel size increased. It is today the largest and busiest port in Ireland. It handles 50% of the Republic of Ireland's trade, and receives 60% of all vessel arrivals.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Dublin Port occupies an area of 259 hectares (640 acres) in one of the most expensive places in the country, with an estimated price per acre of around €10 million. Since the 2000s, there have been calls to relocate Dublin Port out of the city and free up its land for residential and commercial development. This was first proposed by the Progressive Democrats at the height of the Celtic Tiger in 2006, who valued the land at between €25 and €30 billion, although nothing became of this proposal. During the housing crisis of the late 2010s the idea again began to attract supporters, among them economist David McWilliams. Currently, there are no official plans to move the port elsewhere, and the Dublin Port Company strongly opposes relocation.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Dublin hosts the headquarters of some of Ireland's largest multinational corporations, including 14 of the 20 companies which make up the ISEQ 20 index – those with the highest trading volume and market capitalisation of all Irish Stock Exchange listed companies. These are: AIB, Applegreen, Bank of Ireland, Cairn Homes, Continental Group, CRH, Dalata Hotel Group, Flutter Entertainment, Greencoat Renewables, Hibernia REIT, IRES, Origin Enterprises, Ryanair and Smurfit Kappa.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "County Dublin receives by far the most overseas tourists of any county in Ireland. This is primarily due to Dublin city's status as Ireland's largest city and its transportation hub. Dublin is also Ireland's most popular destination for domestic tourists. According to Fáilte Ireland, in 2017 Dublin received nearly 6 million overseas tourists, and just under 1.5 million domestic tourists. Most of Ireland's international flights transit through Dublin Airport, and the vast majority of passenger ferry arrivals dock at Dublin Port. In 2019, the port also facilitated 158 cruise ship arrivals. The tourism industry in the county is worth approximately €2.3 billion per year.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "As of 2019, 4 of the top 10 fee-paying tourist attractions in Ireland are located within County Dublin, as well as 5 of the top 10 free attractions. The Guinness Storehouse at St. James's Gate is Ireland's most visited tourist attraction, receiving 1.7 million visitors in 2019, and over 20 million total visits since 2000. Additionally, Dublin also contains Ireland's 3rd (Dublin Zoo), 4th (Book of Kells) and 6th (St Patrick's Cathedral) most visited fee-paying attractions. The top free attractions in Dublin are the National Gallery of Ireland, the National Botanic Gardens, the National Museum of Ireland and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, all of which receive over half a million visitors per year.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Despite having the smallest farmed area of any county, Dublin is one of Ireland's major agricultural producers. Dublin is the largest producer of fruit and vegetables in Ireland, the third largest producer of oilseed rape and has the fifth largest fishing industry. Fingal alone produces 55% of Ireland's fresh produce, including soft fruits and berries, apples, lettuces, peppers, asparagus, potatoes, onions, and carrots. As of 2020, the Irish Farmers' Association estimates that the total value of Dublin's agricultural produce is €205 million. According to the CSO, fish landings in the county are worth a further €20 million.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Approximately 41% of the county's land area (38,576 ha) is farmed. Of this, 12,578 ha (31,081 acres) is under tillage, the 9th highest in the country, and 6,500 ha (16,062 acres) is dedicated to fruit & horticulture, the 4th highest. Rural County Dublin is considered a peri-urban region, where an urban environment transitions into a rural one. Due to the growth of Dublin city and its commuter towns in the north of the county, the region is considered to be under significant pressure from urban sprawl. Between 1991 and 2010, the amount of agricultural land within the county decreased by 22.9%. In 2015, the local authorities of Fingal, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown developed a joint Dublin Rural Local Development Strategy aimed at enhancing the region's agricultural output, while also managing and minimising the impact of urbanisation on biodiversity and the identity and culture of rural Dublin.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The county has a small forestry industry that is based almost entirely in the upland areas of south County Dublin. According to the 2017 National Forestry Inventory, 6,011 ha (14,854 acres) of the county was under forest, of which 1,912 ha (4,725 acres) was private forestry. The majority of Dublin's forests are owned by the national forestry company, Coillte. In the absence of increased private planting, the county's commercial timber capacity is expected to decrease in the coming decades, as Coillte intends to convert much of their holdings in the Dublin Mountains into non-commercial mixed forests.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Dublin has 810 individual farms with an average size of 47.6 ha (118 acres), the largest average farm size of any county in Ireland. Roughly 9,400 people within the county are directly employed in either agriculture or the food and drink processing industry. Numerous Irish and multinational food and drink companies are either based in Dublin or have facilities within the county, including Mondelez, Coca-Cola, Mars, Diageo, Kellogg's, Danone, Ornua, Pernod Ricard and Glanbia. In 1954, Tayto Crisps were established in Coolock and developed into cultural phenomenon throughout much of the Republic of Ireland. Its operations and headquarters have since moved to neighbouring County Meath. Another popular crisp brand, Keogh's, are based in Oldtown, Fingal.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "In Ireland, spending on education is controlled by the government and the allocation of funds is decided each year in the annual budget. Local authorities retain limited responsibilities such as funding for school meals, service supports costs and the upkeep of libraries.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "There are hundreds of primary and secondary schools within County Dublin, most of which are English-language schools. Several international schools are based in Dublin, such as St Kilian's German School and Lycée Français d'Irlande, which teach in foreign languages. There is also a large minority of students attending gaelscoileanna (Irish-language primary schools). There are 34 gaelscoileanna and 10 gaelcholáistí (Irish-language secondary schools) in the county, with a total of 12,950 students as of 2018. In terms of college acceptance rates, gaelcholáistí are consistently the best performing schools in Dublin, and among the best performing in Ireland.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "Although the government pays for a large majority of school costs, including teachers' salaries, the Roman Catholic Church is the largest owner of schools in Dublin, and preference is given to Catholic students over non-Catholic students in oversubscribed areas. This has resulted in a growing movement towards non-denominational and co-educational schools in the county.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "The majority of private secondary schools in Dublin are still single sex, and continue to have religious patronages with either congregations of the Catholic Church (Spiritans, Sisters of Loreto, Jesuits) or Protestant denominations (Church of Ireland, Presbyterian). Newer private schools which cater for the Leaving Cert cycle such as the Institute of Education and Ashfield College are generally non-denominational and co-educational. In 2018, Nord Anglia International School Dublin opened in Leopardstown, becoming the most expensive private school in Ireland.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "As of 2023–24, four of Dublin's third level institutions are listed in the Top 500 of either the Times Higher Education Rankings or the QS World Rankings, placing them amongst the top 5% of all third level institutions in the world. TCD (81), UCD (171) and DCU (436) are within the Top 500 of the QS rankings; and TCD (161), RCSI (201–250), UCD (201–250) and DCU (451-500) and are within the Top 500 of the Times rankings. Newly amalgamated TUD also placed within the world's Top 1,000 universities in the QS rankings, and within the Top 500 for Engineering and Electronics.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "County Dublin has four public universities, as well as numerous other colleges, institutes of technology and institutes of further education. Several of Dublin's largest third level institutions and their associated abbreviations are listed below:",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "For elections to Dáil Éireann, the area of the county is currently divided into eleven constituencies: Dublin Bay North, Dublin Bay South, Dublin Central, Dublin Fingal, Dublin Mid-West, Dublin North-West, Dublin Rathdown, Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West, Dublin West, and Dún Laoghaire. Together they return 45 deputies (TDs) to the Dáil.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "The first Irish Parliament convened in the small village of Castledermot, County Kildare on 18 June 1264. Representatives from seven constituencies were present, one of which was the constituency of Dublin City. Dublin was historically represented in the Irish House of Commons through the constituencies of Dublin City and County Dublin. Three smaller constituencies had been created by the 17th century: Swords; which was created sometime between 1560 and 1585, with Walter Fitzsimons and Thomas Taylor being its first recorded MPs; Newcastle in the west of the county, created in 1613; and Dublin University, which was a university constituency covering Trinity College, also created in 1613. While proceedings of the Irish Parliament were well-documented, many of the records from this time were lost during the shelling of the Four Courts in July 1922.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Following the Acts of Union 1800, Dublin was represented in Westminster through three constituencies from 1801 to 1885: Dublin City, County Dublin and the Dublin University. A series of local government and electoral reforms in the late 19th century radically alerted the county's political map, and by 1918 there were twelve constituencies within County Dublin.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Throughout the twentieth century the representation in Dublin expanded as the population grew. In the Electoral Act 1923, the first division of constituencies arranged by Irish legislation, geographical constituencies in Dublin were 23 of the 147 TDs in geographical constituencies; this contrasts with 45 of 160 at the most recent division.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Twenty-three Dáil Éireann constituencies have been created and abolished within the county since independence, the most recent being the constituencies of Dublin South, Dublin North, Dublin North-Central, Dublin North-East and Dublin South-East, which were abolished in 2016.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 109,
"text": "Of the fifteen people to have held the office of Taoiseach since 1922, more than half were either born or raised within County Dublin: W. T. Cosgrave, John A. Costello, Seán Lemass, Liam Cosgrave, Charles Haughey (born in County Mayo but raised in Dublin), Garret FitzGerald, Bertie Ahern and Leo Varadkar (Cosgrave held the office of President of the Executive Council; by convention, Taoisigh are numbered to include this position). Conversely, just one of Ireland's nine presidents have hailed from the county, namely Seán T. O'Kelly, who served as president from 1945 to 1959.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 110,
"text": "The four local government areas in County Dublin form the 4-seat constituency of Dublin in European Parliament elections.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 111,
"text": "As the capital city, Dublin is the seat of the national parliament of Ireland, the Oireachtas. It is composed of the President of Ireland, Dáil Éireann as a house of representatives, and Seanad Éireann as an upper house. Both houses of the Oireachtas meet in Leinster House, a former ducal palace on Kildare Street. It has been the home of the Irish government since the creation of the Irish Free State. The First Dáil of the revolutionary Irish Republic met in the Round Room of the Mansion House, the present-day residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, in January 1919. The former Irish Parliament, which was abolished in 1801, was located at College Green; Parliament House now holds a branch of Bank of Ireland. Government Buildings, located on Merrion Street, houses the Department of the Taoiseach, the Council Chamber, the Department of Finance, and the Office of the Attorney General.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 112,
"text": "The president resides in Áras an Uachtaráin in Phoenix Park, a stately ranger's lodge built in 1757. The house was bought by the Crown in 1780 to be used as the summer residence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the British viceroy in the Kingdom of Ireland. Following independence, the lodge was earmarked as the potential home of the Governor-General, but this was highly controversial as it symbolised continued British rule over Ireland, so it was left empty for many years. President Douglas Hyde \"temporarily\" occupied the building in 1938, as Taoiseach Éamon de Valera intended to demolish it and build a more modest presidential bungalow on the site. Those plans were scrapped during The Emergency and the lodge became the president's permanent residence.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 113,
"text": "Much like Áras an Uachtaráin, many of the grand estate homes of the former aristocracy were re-purposed for State use in the 20th century. The Deerfield Residence, also in Phoenix Park, is the official residence of the United States Ambassador to Ireland, while Glencairn House in south Dublin is used as the British Ambassador's residence. Farmleigh House, one of the Guinness family residences, was acquired by the government in 1999 for use as the official Irish state guest house.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 114,
"text": "Many other prominent judicial and political organs are located within Dublin, including the Four Courts, which is the principal seat of the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and the Dublin Circuit Court; and the Custom House, which houses the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Once the centuries-long seat of the British government's administration in Ireland, Dublin Castle is now only used for ceremonial purposes, such as policy launches, hosting of State visits, and the inauguration of the president.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 115,
"text": "Dublin is among the most socially liberal places in Ireland, and popular sentiment on issues such as LGBT rights, abortion and divorce has often foreran the rest of the island. Referendums held on these issues have consistently received much stronger support within Dublin, particularly the south of the county, than the majority of the country. While over 66% of voters nationally voted in favour of the Eighth Amendment in 1983, 58% of voters in Dún Laoghaire and 55% in Dublin South voted against it. In 2018, over 75.5% of voters in County Dublin voted to repeal the amendment, compared with 66.4% nationally.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 116,
"text": "In 1987, Dublin Senator David Norris took the Irish government to the European Court of Human Rights (see Norris v. Ireland) over the criminalisation of homosexual acts. In 1988, the Court ruled that the law criminalising same sex activities was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in particular Article 8 which protects the right to respect for private life. The law was held to infringe on the right of adults to engage in acts of their own choice. This led directly to the repeal of the law in 1993. Numerous LGBT events and venues are now located within the county. Dublin Pride is an annual pride parade held on the last Saturday of June and is Ireland's largest public LGBT event. In 2018, an estimated 60,000 people attended. During the 2015 vote to allow same-sex marriage, 71% of County Dublin voted in favour, compared with 62% nationally.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 117,
"text": "In general, the south-eastern coastal regions of the county such as Dún Laoghaire and Dublin Bay South are a stronghold for the liberal-conservative Fine Gael party. Since the late-2000s the Green Party has also developed a strong support base in these areas. The democratic socialist Sinn Féin party generally performs well in south-central and west Dublin, in areas like Tallaght and Crumlin. In recent elections Sinn Féin have increasingly taken votes in traditional Labour Party areas, whose support has been on the decline since 2016. As a result of the economic crisis, centre-right Fianna Fáil failed to gain a single seat in Dublin in the 2011 general election. This was a first for the long-time dominant party of Irish politics. The party regained a footing in 7 of the 11 Dublin constituencies in 2020, and were also the largest party in Dublin City, Fingal and South Dublin in the 2019 local elections.",
"title": "Politics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 118,
"text": "Dublin is a dual county in Gaelic games, and it competes at a similar level in both hurling/camogie and Gaelic football. The Dublin county board is the governing body for Gaelic games within the county. The county's current GAA crest, adopted in 2004, represents Dublin's four constituent areas. The castle represents Dublin city, the raven represents Fingal, the Viking longboat represents Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown and the book of Saint Tamhlacht in the centre represents South Dublin.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 119,
"text": "In Gaelic football, the Dublin county team competes annually in Division 1 of the National Football League and the provincial Leinster Senior Football Championship. Dublin is the dominant force of Leinster football, with 62 Leinster Senior Championship wins. Nationally, the county is second only to Kerry for All-Ireland Senior Football Championship titles. The two counties are fierce rivals, and a meeting between them is considered the biggest game in Gaelic football. Dublin has won the All-Ireland on 31 occasions, including a record 6 in a row from 2015 to 2020.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 120,
"text": "In hurling, the Dublin hurling team currently compete in Division 1B of the National Hurling League and in the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship. Dublin is the second most successful hurling county in Leinster after Kilkenny, albeit a distant second, with 24 Leinster hurling titles. The county has seen less success in the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship, ranking joint-fifth alongside Wexford. Dublin has been in 21 All-Ireland hurling finals, winning just 6, the most recent of which was in 1938.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 121,
"text": "Within the county, Gaelic football and hurling clubs compete in the Dublin Senior Football Championship and the Dublin Senior Hurling Championship, which were both established in 1887. St Vincents based in Marino and Faughs based in Templeogue are by far the most successful clubs in Dublin their respective sports. Four Dublin football teams have won the All-Ireland Senior Club Football Championship; St Vincents, Kilmacud Crokes, UCD and Ballyboden St Enda's. Despite their historic dominance in Dublin, Faughs have never won an All-Ireland Senior Club Hurling Championship. Since the early 2010s, Dalkey's Cuala have been the county's main hurling force, and the club won back-to-back All-Ireland's in 2017 and 2018.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 122,
"text": "Association football (soccer) is one of the most popular sports within the county. While Gaelic games are the most watched sport in Dublin, association football is the most widely played, and there are over 200 amateur football clubs in County Dublin. Dalymount Park in Phibsborough is known as the \"home of Irish football\", as it is both the country's oldest stadium and the former home ground for the national team from 1904 until 1990. The Republic of Ireland national football team is currently based in the 52,000 seater Aviva Stadium, which was built on the site of the old Lansdowne Road stadium in 2010. Shortly after its completion, the Aviva Stadium hosted the 2011 UEFA Europa League Final. Five League of Ireland football clubs are based within County Dublin; Bohemians F.C., Shamrock Rovers, St Patrick's Athletic, University College Dublin and Shelbourne.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 123,
"text": "Shamrock Rovers, formerly of Milltown but now based in Tallaght, are the most successful club in the country, with 21 League of Ireland titles. They were also the first Irish side to reach the group stages of a European competition when they qualified for the 2011–12 UEFA Europa League group stage. The Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854, are technically the world's oldest extant football club. However, the club currently only plays rugby union. Bohemians are Ireland's third oldest club currently playing football, after Belfast's Cliftonville F.C. and Athlone Town A.F.C. The Bohemians–Shamrock Rovers rivalry not only involves Dublin's two biggest clubs, but it is also a Northside-Southside rivalry, making it the most intense derby match in the county.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 124,
"text": "Rugby Union is the county's third most popular sport, after Gaelic games and football. Leinster Rugby play their competitive home games in the RDS Arena & the Aviva Stadium. Donnybrook Stadium hosts Leinster's friendlies and A games, as well as the Ireland A and Women's teams, Leinster Schools and Youths and the home club games of All Ireland League sides Old Wesley and Bective Rangers. County Dublin is home to 13 of the senior rugby union clubs in Ireland, including 5 of the 10 sides in the top division 1A.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 125,
"text": "Other popular sports in the county include: cricket, hockey, golf, tennis, athletics and equestrian activities. Dublin has two ODI cricket grounds in Castle Avenue and Malahide Cricket Club Ground, and the Phoenix Cricket Club, founded in 1830, is the oldest in Ireland. As with many other sporting organisations in the county, the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club is one of the world's oldest. It hosted the now-discontinued Irish Open from 1879 until 1983. Field hockey, particularly women's field hockey, is becoming increasingly popular within the county. The Ireland women's national field hockey team made it to the 2018 World Cup final, and many of the players on that team were from Dublin clubs, such as UCD, Old Alex, Loreto, Monkstown, Muckross and Railway Union.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 126,
"text": "The Dublin Horse Show takes place at the RDS, which hosted the Show Jumping World Championships in 1982, and the county has a horse racing track at Leopardstown which hosts the Irish Champion Stakes every September. Dublin houses the national stadium for both boxing (National Stadium) and basketball (National Basketball Arena), and the city hosted the 2003 Special Olympics. Although a small county in size, Dublin contains one third of Leinster's 168 golf courses, and three-time major winner Pádraig Harrington is from Rathfarnham.",
"title": "Sport"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 127,
"text": "Local radio stations include 98FM, FM104, Dublin City FM, Q102, SPIN 1038, Sunshine 106.8, Raidió Na Life and Radio Nova.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 128,
"text": "Local newspapers include The Echo, and the Liffey Champion.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 129,
"text": "Most of the area can receive the five main UK television channels as well as the main Irish channels, along with Sky TV and Virgin Media Ireland cable television.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 130,
"text": "53°25′N 6°15′W / 53.417°N 6.250°W / 53.417; -6.250",
"title": "Notes"
}
] | County Dublin is a county in Ireland, and holds its capital city, Dublin. It is located on the island's east coast, within the province of Leinster. Until 1994, County Dublin was a single local government area; in that year, the county council was divided into three new administrative counties: Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin. The four areas form a NUTS III statistical region of Ireland. County Dublin remains a single administrative unit for the purposes of the courts, law enforcement and fire services. Dublin is Ireland's most populous county, with a population of 1,458,154 as of 2022 – approximately 28% of the Republic of Ireland's total population. Dublin city is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Ireland, as well as the largest city on the island of Ireland. Roughly 9 out of every 10 people in County Dublin lives within Dublin city and its suburbs. Several sizeable towns that are considered separate from the city, such as Rush, Donabate and Balbriggan, are located in the far north of the county. Swords, while separated from the city by a green belt around Dublin Airport, is considered a suburban commuter town and an emerging small city. The third smallest county by land area, Dublin is bordered by Meath to the west and north, Kildare to the west, Wicklow to the south and the Irish Sea to the east. The southern part of the county is dominated by the Dublin Mountains, which rise to around 760 metres (2,500 ft) and contain numerous valleys, reservoirs and forests. The county's east coast is punctuated by several bays and inlets, including Rogerstown Estuary, Broadmeadow Estuary, Baldoyle Bay and most prominently, Dublin Bay. The northern section of the county, today known as Fingal, varies enormously in character, from densely populated suburban towns of the city's commuter belt to flat, fertile plains, which are some of the country's largest horticultural and agricultural hubs. Dublin is the oldest county in Ireland, and was the first part of the island to be shired following the Norman invasion in the late 1100s. While it is no longer a local government area, Dublin retains a strong identity, and continues to be referred to as both a region and county interchangeably, including at government body level. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-31T11:29:49Z | [
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6,516 | Cosmological argument | A cosmological argument, in natural theology, is an argument which claims that the existence of God can be inferred from facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe or some totality of objects. A cosmological argument can also sometimes be referred to as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument, or prime mover argument. Whichever term is employed, there are two basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: in esse (essentiality), and in fieri (becoming).
The basic premises of all of these arguments involve the concept of causation. The conclusion of these arguments is that there exists a first cause, subsequently analysed to be God. The history of this argument goes back to Aristotle or earlier, was developed in Neoplatonism and early Christianity and later in medieval Islamic theology during the 9th to 12th centuries, and was re-introduced to medieval Christian theology in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas. The cosmological argument is closely related to the principle of sufficient reason as addressed by Gottfried Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, itself a modern exposition of the claim that "nothing comes from nothing" attributed to Parmenides.
Contemporary defenders of cosmological arguments include William Lane Craig, Robert Koons, and Alexander Pruss.
Plato (c. 427–347 BC) and Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC) both posited first cause arguments, though each had certain notable caveats. In The Laws (Book X), Plato posited that all movement in the world and the Cosmos was "imparted motion". This required a "self-originated motion" to set it in motion and to maintain it. In Timaeus, Plato posited a "demiurge" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the Cosmos.
Aristotle argued against the idea of a first cause, often confused with the idea of a "prime mover" or "unmoved mover" (πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον or primus motor) in his Physics and Metaphysics. Aristotle argued in favor of the idea of several unmoved movers, one powering each celestial sphere, which he believed lived beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, and explained why motion in the universe (which he believed was eternal) had continued for an infinite period of time. Aristotle argued the atomist's assertion of a non-eternal universe would require a first uncaused cause – in his terminology, an efficient first cause – an idea he considered a nonsensical flaw in the reasoning of the atomists.
Like Plato, Aristotle believed in an eternal cosmos with no beginning and no end (which in turn follows Parmenides' famous statement that "nothing comes from nothing"). In what he called "first philosophy" or metaphysics, Aristotle did intend a theological correspondence between the prime mover and a deity; functionally, however, he provided an explanation for the apparent motion of the "fixed stars" (now understood as the daily rotation of the Earth). According to his theses, immaterial unmoved movers are eternal unchangeable beings that constantly think about thinking, but being immaterial, they are incapable of interacting with the cosmos and have no knowledge of what transpires therein. From an "aspiration or desire", the celestial spheres, imitate that purely intellectual activity as best they can, by uniform circular motion. The unmoved movers inspiring the planetary spheres are no different in kind from the prime mover, they merely suffer a dependency of relation to the prime mover. Correspondingly, the motions of the planets are subordinate to the motion inspired by the prime mover in the sphere of fixed stars. Aristotle's natural theology admitted no creation or capriciousness from the immortal pantheon, but maintained a defense against dangerous charges of impiety.
Plotinus, a third-century Platonist, taught that the One transcendent absolute caused the universe to exist simply as a consequence of its existence (creatio ex deo). His disciple Proclus stated "The One is God".
Centuries later, the Islamic philosopher Avicenna (c. 980–1037) inquired into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence (māhiyya) and existence (wuǧūd). He argued that the fact of existence could not be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things, and that form and matter by themselves could not originate and interact with the movement of the Universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Thus, he reasoned that existence must be due to an agent cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must coexist with its effect and be an existing thing.
Steven Duncan writes that it "was first formulated by a Greek-speaking Syriac Christian neo-Platonist, John Philoponus, who claims to find a contradiction between the Greek pagan insistence on the eternity of the world and the Aristotelian rejection of the existence of any actual infinite". Referring to the argument as the "'Kalam' cosmological argument", Duncan asserts that it "received its fullest articulation at the hands of [medieval] Muslim and Jewish exponents of Kalam ("the use of reason by believers to justify the basic metaphysical presuppositions of the faith").
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) adapted and enhanced the argument he found in his reading of Aristotle, Avicenna (the Proof of the Truthful), and Maimonides to form one of the most influential versions of the cosmological argument. His conception of first cause was the idea that the Universe must be caused by something that is itself uncaused, which he claimed is that which we call God:
The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
Importantly, Aquinas' Five Ways, given the second question of his Summa Theologica, are not the entirety of Aquinas' demonstration that the Christian God exists. The Five Ways form only the beginning of Aquinas' Treatise on the Divine Nature.
In the scholastic era, Aquinas formulated the "argument from contingency", following Aristotle in claiming that there must be something to explain why the Universe exists. Since the Universe could, under different circumstances, conceivably not exist (contingency), its existence must have a cause – not merely another contingent thing, but something that exists by necessity (something that must exist in order for anything else to exist). In other words, even if the Universe has always existed, it still owes its existence to an uncaused cause, Aquinas further said: "... and this we understand to be God."
Aquinas's argument from contingency allows for the possibility of a Universe that has no beginning in time. It is a form of argument from universal causation. Aquinas observed that, in nature, there were things with contingent existences. Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist. Thus, according to Aquinas, there must have been a time when nothing existed. If this is so, there would exist nothing that could bring anything into existence. Contingent beings, therefore, are insufficient to account for the existence of contingent beings: there must exist a necessary being whose non-existence is an impossibility, and from which the existence of all contingent beings is ultimately derived.
Aquinas' argument from contingency may also be formulated like this: if each contingently existing being considers himself Bn, then, because he exists contingently, he depends for his existence on a prior being Bn-1. Now, Bn-1 likewise, if it is contingent, depends on Bn-2. Nevertheless, this series cannot go on until Infinity. At a certain time, we will arrive at a B1, the First Being in existence, and since there is no "zeroth" Being or B0, B1 exists Necessarily, i.e. is not a contingent being. This was Aquinas' Third Way, under Question 2, Article 3 in the Summa Theologica
The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz made a similar argument with his principle of sufficient reason in 1714. "There can be found no fact that is true or existent, or any true proposition," he wrote, "without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise, although we cannot know these reasons in most cases." He formulated the cosmological argument succinctly: "Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason ... is found in a substance which ... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself."
Leibniz's argument from contingency is one of the most popular cosmological arguments in philosophy of religion. It attempts to prove the existence of a necessary being and infer that this being is God. Alexander Pruss formulates the argument as follows:
Premise 1 is a form of the principle of sufficient reason stating that all contingently true sentences (i.e. contingent facts) have a sufficient explanation as to why they are the case. Premise 2 refers to what is known as the Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact (abbreviated BCCF), and the BCCF is generally taken to be the logical conjunction of all contingent facts. It can be thought about as the sum total of all contingent reality. Premise 3 then concludes that the BCCF has an explanation, as every contingency does (in virtue of the PSR). It follows that this explanation is non-contingent (i.e. necessary); no contingency can explain the BCCF, because every contingent fact is a part of the BCCF. Statement 5, which is either seen as a premise or a conclusion, infers that the necessary being which explains the totality of contingent facts is God. Several philosophers of religion, such as Joshua Rasmussen and T. Ryan Byerly, have argued for the inference from (4) to (5).
The difference between the arguments from causation in fieri and in esse is a fairly important one. In fieri is generally translated as "becoming", while in esse is generally translated as "in essence". In fieri, the process of becoming, is similar to building a house. Once it is built, the builder walks away, and it stands on its own accord; compare the watchmaker analogy. (It may require occasional maintenance, but that is beyond the scope of the first cause argument.)
In esse (essence) is more akin to the light from a candle or the liquid in a vessel. George Hayward Joyce, SJ, explained that, "where the light of the candle is dependent on the candle's continued existence, not only does a candle produce light in a room in the first instance, but its continued presence is necessary if the illumination is to continue. If it is removed, the light ceases. Again, a liquid receives its shape from the vessel in which it is contained; but were the pressure of the containing sides withdrawn, it would not retain its form for an instant." This form of the argument is far more difficult to separate from a purely first cause argument than is the example of the house's maintenance above, because here the first cause is insufficient without the candle's or vessel's continued existence.
The philosopher Robert Koons has stated a new variant on the cosmological argument. He says that to deny causation is to deny all empirical ideas – for example, if we know our own hand, we know it because of the chain of causes including light being reflected upon one's eyes, stimulating the retina and sending a message through the optic nerve into your brain. He summarised the purpose of the argument as "that if you don't buy into theistic metaphysics, you're undermining empirical science. The two grew up together historically and are culturally and philosophically inter-dependent ... If you say I just don't buy this causality principle – that's going to be a big big problem for empirical science." This in fieri version of the argument therefore does not intend to prove God, but only to disprove objections involving science, and the idea that contemporary knowledge disproves the cosmological argument.
William Lane Craig, who was principally responsible for re-popularizing this argument in Western philosophy, presents it in the following general form:
Craig analyses this cause in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and says that this cause must be uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, spaceless, extraordinarily powerful, and personal.
Duns Scotus, the influential Medieval Christian theologian, created a metaphysical argument for the existence of God. Though it was inspired by Aquinas' argument from motion, he, like other philosophers and theologians, believed that his statement for God's existence could be considered separate to Aquinas'. His explanation for God's existence is long, and can be summarised as follows:
Scotus deals immediately with two objections he can see: first, that there cannot be a first, and second, that the argument falls apart when 1) is questioned. He states that infinite regress is impossible, because it provokes unanswerable questions, like, in modern English, "What is infinity minus infinity?" The second he states can be answered if the question is rephrased using modal logic, meaning that the first statement is instead "It is possible that something can be produced."
Depending on its formulation, the cosmological argument is an example of a positive infinite regress argument. An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. An infinite regress argument is an argument against a theory based on the fact that this theory leads to an infinite regress. A positive infinite regress argument employs the regress in question to argue in support of a theory by showing that its alternative involves a vicious regress. The regress relevant for the cosmological argument is the regress of causes: an event occurred because it was caused by another event that occurred before it, which was itself caused by a previous event, and so on. For an infinite regress argument to be successful, it has to demonstrate not just that the theory in question entails an infinite regress but also that this regress is vicious. Once the viciousness of the regress of causes is established, the cosmological argument can proceed to its positive conclusion by holding that it is necessary to posit a first cause in order to avoid it.
A regress can be vicious due to metaphysical impossibility, implausibility or explanatory failure. It is sometimes held that the regress of causes is vicious because it is metaphysically impossible, i.e. that it involves an outright contradiction. But it is difficult to see where this contradiction lies unless an additional assumption is accepted: that actual infinity is impossible. But this position is opposed to infinity in general, not just specifically to the regress of causes. A more promising view is that the regress of causes is to be rejected because it is implausible. Such an argument can be based on empirical observation, e.g. that, to the best of our knowledge, our universe had a beginning in the form of the Big Bang (albeit the possibility that it existed for eternity before the Big Bang is also not strictly excluded on physics grounds alone). But it can also be based on more abstract principles, like Ockham's razor (parsimony), which posits that we should avoid ontological extravagance by not multiplying entities without necessity. A third option is to see the regress of causes as vicious due to explanatory failure, i.e. that it does not solve the problem it was formulated to solve or that it assumes already in disguised form what it was supposed to explain. According to this position, we seek to explain one event in the present by citing an earlier event that caused it. But this explanation is incomplete unless we can come to understand why this earlier event occurred, which is itself explained by its own cause and so on. At each step, the occurrence of an event has to be assumed. So it fails to explain why anything at all occurs, why there is a chain of causes to begin with.
One objection to the argument asks why first cause is unique in that it does not require any causes. Proponents argue that the first cause is exempt from having a cause, as this is part of what it is to be the first cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue. Critics often press that arguing for the first cause's exemption raises the question of why the first cause is indeed exempt, whereas defenders maintain that this question has been answered by the various arguments, emphasizing that none of the major cosmological arguments rests on the premise that everything has a cause, and so the question does not address the actual premises of an argument and rests on a misunderstanding of them. Defenders also note that the properties of the first cause such as lack of actualized potentials, lack of parts which need to be composed, lack of change, eternality, are precisely the features of that which requires no more fundamental cause, and that other mundane objects require causes for precisely those reasons such as the aforementioned.
William Lane Craig, who popularized and is notable for defending the Kalam cosmological argument, argues that the infinite is impossible, whichever perspective the viewer takes, and so there must always have been one unmoved thing to begin the universe. He uses Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel and the question "What is infinity minus infinity?" to illustrate the idea that the infinite is metaphysically, mathematically, and even conceptually impossible. Other reasons include the fact that it is impossible to count down from infinity, and that, had the universe existed for an infinite amount of time, every possible event, including the final end of the universe, would already have occurred. He therefore states his argument in three points: firstly, everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence; secondly, the universe began to exist; so, thirdly, therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence. Craig argues in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes and thus there must be a first uncaused cause, even if one posits a plurality of causes of the universe. He argues Occam's razor may be employed to remove unneeded further causes of the universe to leave a single uncaused cause.
Secondly, it is argued that the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and argued that causal relations were not true a priori. However, as to whether inductive or deductive reasoning is more valuable remains a matter of debate, with the general conclusion being that neither is prominent. Opponents of the argument tend to argue that it is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience. Andrew Loke replies that, according to the Kalam cosmological argument, only things which begin to exist require a cause. On the other hand, something that is without beginning has always existed and therefore does not require a cause. The Kalam and the Thomistic cosmological argument posit that there cannot be an actual infinite regress of causes, therefore there must be an uncaused first cause that is beginningless and does not require a cause.
According to this objection, the basic cosmological argument merely establishes that a first cause exists, not that it has the attributes of a theistic god, such as omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. This is why the argument is often expanded to assert that at least some of these attributes are necessarily true, for instance in the modern Kalam argument given above.
Defenders of the cosmological arguments also reply that theologians of note are aware of the need to additionally prove other attributes of the first cause beyond that one exists. One notable example of this is found in Aquinas' Summa Theologiae in which much of the first part (Prima Pars) is devoted to establishing the attributes of this first cause, such as its uniqueness, perfection, and intelligence. Thus defenders of cosmological arguments would reply that while it is true that the cosmological argument only establishes a first cause, this is merely the first step which then allows for the demonstration of the other theistic attributes.
A causal loop is a form of predestination paradox arising where traveling backwards in time is deemed a possibility. A sufficiently powerful entity in such a world would have the capacity to travel backwards in time to a point before its own existence, and to then create itself, thereby initiating everything which follows from it.
The usual reason given to refute the possibility of a causal loop is that it requires that the loop as a whole be its own cause. Richard Hanley argues that causal loops are not logically, physically, or epistemically impossible: "[In timed systems,] the only possibly objectionable feature that all causal loops share is that coincidence is required to explain them." However, Andrew Loke argues that causal loop of the type that is supposed to avoid a first cause suffers from the problem of vicious circularity and thus it would not work.
David Hume and later Paul Edwards have invoked a similar principle in their criticisms of the cosmological argument. William L. Rowe has called this the Hume-Edwards principle:
If the existence of every member of a set is explained, the existence of that set is thereby explained.
Nevertheless, David White argues that the notion of an infinite causal regress providing a proper explanation is fallacious. Furthermore, in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the character Demea states that even if the succession of causes is infinite, the whole chain still requires a cause. To explain this, suppose there exists a causal chain of infinite contingent beings. If one asks the question, "Why are there any contingent beings at all?", it does not help to be told that "There are contingent beings because other contingent beings caused them." That answer would just presuppose additional contingent beings. An adequate explanation of why some contingent beings exist would invoke a different sort of being, a necessary being that is not contingent. A response might suppose each individual is contingent but the infinite chain as a whole is not, or the whole infinite causal chain is its own cause.
Severinsen argues that there is an "infinite" and complex causal structure. White tried to introduce an argument "without appeal to the principle of sufficient reason and without denying the possibility of an infinite causal regress". A number of other arguments have been offered to demonstrate that an actual infinite regress cannot exist, viz. the argument for the impossibility of concrete actual infinities, the argument for the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite, the argument from the lack of capacity to begin to exist, and various arguments from paradoxes.
Other defenders of cosmological arguments such as Ed Feser argue that the type of series in which causes are hierarchically dependent (essentially ordered or per se series) one on the other, cannot regress to infinity, even if it may be possible for causal series which are extended backward through time (accidentally ordered or per accidens series) to regress infinitely. The rationale for this is that in a hierarchical per se causal series, each member cannot so much as act without the concurrent actualization or causation of more fundamental members of the series; thus an infinite hierarchical series would mean that the entire series is composed of members none of which can act of itself, which is impossible. An example of such a series would be the composition of water, which depends on the simultaneous composition of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which in turn depend on the simultaneous composition of protons, neutrons, and electrons, etc. into deeper levels of the hierarchy of physical reality. This is contrasted with an accidentally ordered or linear series - parents causing their children to begin to exist, who in turn cause their children to begin to exist - in which one member in the series may continue to act even if whatever caused it has ceased to exist, and so there is seemingly no issue if this type of series regresses infinitely; the impossibility of the infinite regress in an essentially ordered causal series would suffice for at least some varieties of cosmological arguments. Further discussion on this point can be found under essential and accidental causal chains.
Some cosmologists and physicists argue that a challenge to the cosmological argument is the nature of time: "One finds that time just disappears from the Wheeler–DeWitt equation" (Carlo Rovelli). The Big Bang theory states that it is the point in which all dimensions came into existence, the start of both space and time. Then, the question "What was there before the Universe?" makes no sense; the concept of "before" becomes meaningless when considering a situation without time. This has been put forward by J. Richard Gott III, James E. Gunn, David N. Schramm, and Beatrice Tinsley, who said that asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole. However, some cosmologists and physicists do attempt to investigate causes for the Big Bang, using such scenarios as the collision of membranes.
Philosopher Edward Feser argues that most of the classical philosophers' cosmological arguments for the existence of God do not depend on the Big Bang or whether the universe had a beginning. The question is not about what got things started or how long they have been going, but rather what keeps them going. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A cosmological argument, in natural theology, is an argument which claims that the existence of God can be inferred from facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe or some totality of objects. A cosmological argument can also sometimes be referred to as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument, or prime mover argument. Whichever term is employed, there are two basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: in esse (essentiality), and in fieri (becoming).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The basic premises of all of these arguments involve the concept of causation. The conclusion of these arguments is that there exists a first cause, subsequently analysed to be God. The history of this argument goes back to Aristotle or earlier, was developed in Neoplatonism and early Christianity and later in medieval Islamic theology during the 9th to 12th centuries, and was re-introduced to medieval Christian theology in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas. The cosmological argument is closely related to the principle of sufficient reason as addressed by Gottfried Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, itself a modern exposition of the claim that \"nothing comes from nothing\" attributed to Parmenides.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Contemporary defenders of cosmological arguments include William Lane Craig, Robert Koons, and Alexander Pruss.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Plato (c. 427–347 BC) and Aristotle (c. 384–322 BC) both posited first cause arguments, though each had certain notable caveats. In The Laws (Book X), Plato posited that all movement in the world and the Cosmos was \"imparted motion\". This required a \"self-originated motion\" to set it in motion and to maintain it. In Timaeus, Plato posited a \"demiurge\" of supreme wisdom and intelligence as the creator of the Cosmos.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Aristotle argued against the idea of a first cause, often confused with the idea of a \"prime mover\" or \"unmoved mover\" (πρῶτον κινοῦν ἀκίνητον or primus motor) in his Physics and Metaphysics. Aristotle argued in favor of the idea of several unmoved movers, one powering each celestial sphere, which he believed lived beyond the sphere of the fixed stars, and explained why motion in the universe (which he believed was eternal) had continued for an infinite period of time. Aristotle argued the atomist's assertion of a non-eternal universe would require a first uncaused cause – in his terminology, an efficient first cause – an idea he considered a nonsensical flaw in the reasoning of the atomists.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Like Plato, Aristotle believed in an eternal cosmos with no beginning and no end (which in turn follows Parmenides' famous statement that \"nothing comes from nothing\"). In what he called \"first philosophy\" or metaphysics, Aristotle did intend a theological correspondence between the prime mover and a deity; functionally, however, he provided an explanation for the apparent motion of the \"fixed stars\" (now understood as the daily rotation of the Earth). According to his theses, immaterial unmoved movers are eternal unchangeable beings that constantly think about thinking, but being immaterial, they are incapable of interacting with the cosmos and have no knowledge of what transpires therein. From an \"aspiration or desire\", the celestial spheres, imitate that purely intellectual activity as best they can, by uniform circular motion. The unmoved movers inspiring the planetary spheres are no different in kind from the prime mover, they merely suffer a dependency of relation to the prime mover. Correspondingly, the motions of the planets are subordinate to the motion inspired by the prime mover in the sphere of fixed stars. Aristotle's natural theology admitted no creation or capriciousness from the immortal pantheon, but maintained a defense against dangerous charges of impiety.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Plotinus, a third-century Platonist, taught that the One transcendent absolute caused the universe to exist simply as a consequence of its existence (creatio ex deo). His disciple Proclus stated \"The One is God\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Centuries later, the Islamic philosopher Avicenna (c. 980–1037) inquired into the question of being, in which he distinguished between essence (māhiyya) and existence (wuǧūd). He argued that the fact of existence could not be inferred from or accounted for by the essence of existing things, and that form and matter by themselves could not originate and interact with the movement of the Universe or the progressive actualization of existing things. Thus, he reasoned that existence must be due to an agent cause that necessitates, imparts, gives, or adds existence to an essence. To do so, the cause must coexist with its effect and be an existing thing.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Steven Duncan writes that it \"was first formulated by a Greek-speaking Syriac Christian neo-Platonist, John Philoponus, who claims to find a contradiction between the Greek pagan insistence on the eternity of the world and the Aristotelian rejection of the existence of any actual infinite\". Referring to the argument as the \"'Kalam' cosmological argument\", Duncan asserts that it \"received its fullest articulation at the hands of [medieval] Muslim and Jewish exponents of Kalam (\"the use of reason by believers to justify the basic metaphysical presuppositions of the faith\").",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) adapted and enhanced the argument he found in his reading of Aristotle, Avicenna (the Proof of the Truthful), and Maimonides to form one of the most influential versions of the cosmological argument. His conception of first cause was the idea that the Universe must be caused by something that is itself uncaused, which he claimed is that which we call God:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Importantly, Aquinas' Five Ways, given the second question of his Summa Theologica, are not the entirety of Aquinas' demonstration that the Christian God exists. The Five Ways form only the beginning of Aquinas' Treatise on the Divine Nature.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In the scholastic era, Aquinas formulated the \"argument from contingency\", following Aristotle in claiming that there must be something to explain why the Universe exists. Since the Universe could, under different circumstances, conceivably not exist (contingency), its existence must have a cause – not merely another contingent thing, but something that exists by necessity (something that must exist in order for anything else to exist). In other words, even if the Universe has always existed, it still owes its existence to an uncaused cause, Aquinas further said: \"... and this we understand to be God.\"",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Aquinas's argument from contingency allows for the possibility of a Universe that has no beginning in time. It is a form of argument from universal causation. Aquinas observed that, in nature, there were things with contingent existences. Since it is possible for such things not to exist, there must be some time at which these things did not in fact exist. Thus, according to Aquinas, there must have been a time when nothing existed. If this is so, there would exist nothing that could bring anything into existence. Contingent beings, therefore, are insufficient to account for the existence of contingent beings: there must exist a necessary being whose non-existence is an impossibility, and from which the existence of all contingent beings is ultimately derived.",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Aquinas' argument from contingency may also be formulated like this: if each contingently existing being considers himself Bn, then, because he exists contingently, he depends for his existence on a prior being Bn-1. Now, Bn-1 likewise, if it is contingent, depends on Bn-2. Nevertheless, this series cannot go on until Infinity. At a certain time, we will arrive at a B1, the First Being in existence, and since there is no \"zeroth\" Being or B0, B1 exists Necessarily, i.e. is not a contingent being. This was Aquinas' Third Way, under Question 2, Article 3 in the Summa Theologica",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz made a similar argument with his principle of sufficient reason in 1714. \"There can be found no fact that is true or existent, or any true proposition,\" he wrote, \"without there being a sufficient reason for its being so and not otherwise, although we cannot know these reasons in most cases.\" He formulated the cosmological argument succinctly: \"Why is there something rather than nothing? The sufficient reason ... is found in a substance which ... is a necessary being bearing the reason for its existence within itself.\"",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Leibniz's argument from contingency is one of the most popular cosmological arguments in philosophy of religion. It attempts to prove the existence of a necessary being and infer that this being is God. Alexander Pruss formulates the argument as follows:",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Premise 1 is a form of the principle of sufficient reason stating that all contingently true sentences (i.e. contingent facts) have a sufficient explanation as to why they are the case. Premise 2 refers to what is known as the Big Conjunctive Contingent Fact (abbreviated BCCF), and the BCCF is generally taken to be the logical conjunction of all contingent facts. It can be thought about as the sum total of all contingent reality. Premise 3 then concludes that the BCCF has an explanation, as every contingency does (in virtue of the PSR). It follows that this explanation is non-contingent (i.e. necessary); no contingency can explain the BCCF, because every contingent fact is a part of the BCCF. Statement 5, which is either seen as a premise or a conclusion, infers that the necessary being which explains the totality of contingent facts is God. Several philosophers of religion, such as Joshua Rasmussen and T. Ryan Byerly, have argued for the inference from (4) to (5).",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The difference between the arguments from causation in fieri and in esse is a fairly important one. In fieri is generally translated as \"becoming\", while in esse is generally translated as \"in essence\". In fieri, the process of becoming, is similar to building a house. Once it is built, the builder walks away, and it stands on its own accord; compare the watchmaker analogy. (It may require occasional maintenance, but that is beyond the scope of the first cause argument.)",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In esse (essence) is more akin to the light from a candle or the liquid in a vessel. George Hayward Joyce, SJ, explained that, \"where the light of the candle is dependent on the candle's continued existence, not only does a candle produce light in a room in the first instance, but its continued presence is necessary if the illumination is to continue. If it is removed, the light ceases. Again, a liquid receives its shape from the vessel in which it is contained; but were the pressure of the containing sides withdrawn, it would not retain its form for an instant.\" This form of the argument is far more difficult to separate from a purely first cause argument than is the example of the house's maintenance above, because here the first cause is insufficient without the candle's or vessel's continued existence.",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The philosopher Robert Koons has stated a new variant on the cosmological argument. He says that to deny causation is to deny all empirical ideas – for example, if we know our own hand, we know it because of the chain of causes including light being reflected upon one's eyes, stimulating the retina and sending a message through the optic nerve into your brain. He summarised the purpose of the argument as \"that if you don't buy into theistic metaphysics, you're undermining empirical science. The two grew up together historically and are culturally and philosophically inter-dependent ... If you say I just don't buy this causality principle – that's going to be a big big problem for empirical science.\" This in fieri version of the argument therefore does not intend to prove God, but only to disprove objections involving science, and the idea that contemporary knowledge disproves the cosmological argument.",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "William Lane Craig, who was principally responsible for re-popularizing this argument in Western philosophy, presents it in the following general form:",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Craig analyses this cause in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology and says that this cause must be uncaused, beginningless, changeless, timeless, spaceless, extraordinarily powerful, and personal.",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Duns Scotus, the influential Medieval Christian theologian, created a metaphysical argument for the existence of God. Though it was inspired by Aquinas' argument from motion, he, like other philosophers and theologians, believed that his statement for God's existence could be considered separate to Aquinas'. His explanation for God's existence is long, and can be summarised as follows:",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Scotus deals immediately with two objections he can see: first, that there cannot be a first, and second, that the argument falls apart when 1) is questioned. He states that infinite regress is impossible, because it provokes unanswerable questions, like, in modern English, \"What is infinity minus infinity?\" The second he states can be answered if the question is rephrased using modal logic, meaning that the first statement is instead \"It is possible that something can be produced.\"",
"title": "Versions of the argument"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Depending on its formulation, the cosmological argument is an example of a positive infinite regress argument. An infinite regress is an infinite series of entities governed by a recursive principle that determines how each entity in the series depends on or is produced by its predecessor. An infinite regress argument is an argument against a theory based on the fact that this theory leads to an infinite regress. A positive infinite regress argument employs the regress in question to argue in support of a theory by showing that its alternative involves a vicious regress. The regress relevant for the cosmological argument is the regress of causes: an event occurred because it was caused by another event that occurred before it, which was itself caused by a previous event, and so on. For an infinite regress argument to be successful, it has to demonstrate not just that the theory in question entails an infinite regress but also that this regress is vicious. Once the viciousness of the regress of causes is established, the cosmological argument can proceed to its positive conclusion by holding that it is necessary to posit a first cause in order to avoid it.",
"title": "Cosmological argument and infinite regress"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "A regress can be vicious due to metaphysical impossibility, implausibility or explanatory failure. It is sometimes held that the regress of causes is vicious because it is metaphysically impossible, i.e. that it involves an outright contradiction. But it is difficult to see where this contradiction lies unless an additional assumption is accepted: that actual infinity is impossible. But this position is opposed to infinity in general, not just specifically to the regress of causes. A more promising view is that the regress of causes is to be rejected because it is implausible. Such an argument can be based on empirical observation, e.g. that, to the best of our knowledge, our universe had a beginning in the form of the Big Bang (albeit the possibility that it existed for eternity before the Big Bang is also not strictly excluded on physics grounds alone). But it can also be based on more abstract principles, like Ockham's razor (parsimony), which posits that we should avoid ontological extravagance by not multiplying entities without necessity. A third option is to see the regress of causes as vicious due to explanatory failure, i.e. that it does not solve the problem it was formulated to solve or that it assumes already in disguised form what it was supposed to explain. According to this position, we seek to explain one event in the present by citing an earlier event that caused it. But this explanation is incomplete unless we can come to understand why this earlier event occurred, which is itself explained by its own cause and so on. At each step, the occurrence of an event has to be assumed. So it fails to explain why anything at all occurs, why there is a chain of causes to begin with.",
"title": "Cosmological argument and infinite regress"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "One objection to the argument asks why first cause is unique in that it does not require any causes. Proponents argue that the first cause is exempt from having a cause, as this is part of what it is to be the first cause, while opponents argue that this is special pleading or otherwise untrue. Critics often press that arguing for the first cause's exemption raises the question of why the first cause is indeed exempt, whereas defenders maintain that this question has been answered by the various arguments, emphasizing that none of the major cosmological arguments rests on the premise that everything has a cause, and so the question does not address the actual premises of an argument and rests on a misunderstanding of them. Defenders also note that the properties of the first cause such as lack of actualized potentials, lack of parts which need to be composed, lack of change, eternality, are precisely the features of that which requires no more fundamental cause, and that other mundane objects require causes for precisely those reasons such as the aforementioned.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "William Lane Craig, who popularized and is notable for defending the Kalam cosmological argument, argues that the infinite is impossible, whichever perspective the viewer takes, and so there must always have been one unmoved thing to begin the universe. He uses Hilbert's paradox of the Grand Hotel and the question \"What is infinity minus infinity?\" to illustrate the idea that the infinite is metaphysically, mathematically, and even conceptually impossible. Other reasons include the fact that it is impossible to count down from infinity, and that, had the universe existed for an infinite amount of time, every possible event, including the final end of the universe, would already have occurred. He therefore states his argument in three points: firstly, everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence; secondly, the universe began to exist; so, thirdly, therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence. Craig argues in the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes and thus there must be a first uncaused cause, even if one posits a plurality of causes of the universe. He argues Occam's razor may be employed to remove unneeded further causes of the universe to leave a single uncaused cause.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Secondly, it is argued that the premise of causality has been arrived at via a posteriori (inductive) reasoning, which is dependent on experience. David Hume highlighted this problem of induction and argued that causal relations were not true a priori. However, as to whether inductive or deductive reasoning is more valuable remains a matter of debate, with the general conclusion being that neither is prominent. Opponents of the argument tend to argue that it is unwise to draw conclusions from an extrapolation of causality beyond experience. Andrew Loke replies that, according to the Kalam cosmological argument, only things which begin to exist require a cause. On the other hand, something that is without beginning has always existed and therefore does not require a cause. The Kalam and the Thomistic cosmological argument posit that there cannot be an actual infinite regress of causes, therefore there must be an uncaused first cause that is beginningless and does not require a cause.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "According to this objection, the basic cosmological argument merely establishes that a first cause exists, not that it has the attributes of a theistic god, such as omniscience, omnipotence, and omnibenevolence. This is why the argument is often expanded to assert that at least some of these attributes are necessarily true, for instance in the modern Kalam argument given above.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Defenders of the cosmological arguments also reply that theologians of note are aware of the need to additionally prove other attributes of the first cause beyond that one exists. One notable example of this is found in Aquinas' Summa Theologiae in which much of the first part (Prima Pars) is devoted to establishing the attributes of this first cause, such as its uniqueness, perfection, and intelligence. Thus defenders of cosmological arguments would reply that while it is true that the cosmological argument only establishes a first cause, this is merely the first step which then allows for the demonstration of the other theistic attributes.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "A causal loop is a form of predestination paradox arising where traveling backwards in time is deemed a possibility. A sufficiently powerful entity in such a world would have the capacity to travel backwards in time to a point before its own existence, and to then create itself, thereby initiating everything which follows from it.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The usual reason given to refute the possibility of a causal loop is that it requires that the loop as a whole be its own cause. Richard Hanley argues that causal loops are not logically, physically, or epistemically impossible: \"[In timed systems,] the only possibly objectionable feature that all causal loops share is that coincidence is required to explain them.\" However, Andrew Loke argues that causal loop of the type that is supposed to avoid a first cause suffers from the problem of vicious circularity and thus it would not work.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "David Hume and later Paul Edwards have invoked a similar principle in their criticisms of the cosmological argument. William L. Rowe has called this the Hume-Edwards principle:",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "If the existence of every member of a set is explained, the existence of that set is thereby explained.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Nevertheless, David White argues that the notion of an infinite causal regress providing a proper explanation is fallacious. Furthermore, in Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, the character Demea states that even if the succession of causes is infinite, the whole chain still requires a cause. To explain this, suppose there exists a causal chain of infinite contingent beings. If one asks the question, \"Why are there any contingent beings at all?\", it does not help to be told that \"There are contingent beings because other contingent beings caused them.\" That answer would just presuppose additional contingent beings. An adequate explanation of why some contingent beings exist would invoke a different sort of being, a necessary being that is not contingent. A response might suppose each individual is contingent but the infinite chain as a whole is not, or the whole infinite causal chain is its own cause.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Severinsen argues that there is an \"infinite\" and complex causal structure. White tried to introduce an argument \"without appeal to the principle of sufficient reason and without denying the possibility of an infinite causal regress\". A number of other arguments have been offered to demonstrate that an actual infinite regress cannot exist, viz. the argument for the impossibility of concrete actual infinities, the argument for the impossibility of traversing an actual infinite, the argument from the lack of capacity to begin to exist, and various arguments from paradoxes.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Other defenders of cosmological arguments such as Ed Feser argue that the type of series in which causes are hierarchically dependent (essentially ordered or per se series) one on the other, cannot regress to infinity, even if it may be possible for causal series which are extended backward through time (accidentally ordered or per accidens series) to regress infinitely. The rationale for this is that in a hierarchical per se causal series, each member cannot so much as act without the concurrent actualization or causation of more fundamental members of the series; thus an infinite hierarchical series would mean that the entire series is composed of members none of which can act of itself, which is impossible. An example of such a series would be the composition of water, which depends on the simultaneous composition of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, which in turn depend on the simultaneous composition of protons, neutrons, and electrons, etc. into deeper levels of the hierarchy of physical reality. This is contrasted with an accidentally ordered or linear series - parents causing their children to begin to exist, who in turn cause their children to begin to exist - in which one member in the series may continue to act even if whatever caused it has ceased to exist, and so there is seemingly no issue if this type of series regresses infinitely; the impossibility of the infinite regress in an essentially ordered causal series would suffice for at least some varieties of cosmological arguments. Further discussion on this point can be found under essential and accidental causal chains.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Some cosmologists and physicists argue that a challenge to the cosmological argument is the nature of time: \"One finds that time just disappears from the Wheeler–DeWitt equation\" (Carlo Rovelli). The Big Bang theory states that it is the point in which all dimensions came into existence, the start of both space and time. Then, the question \"What was there before the Universe?\" makes no sense; the concept of \"before\" becomes meaningless when considering a situation without time. This has been put forward by J. Richard Gott III, James E. Gunn, David N. Schramm, and Beatrice Tinsley, who said that asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole. However, some cosmologists and physicists do attempt to investigate causes for the Big Bang, using such scenarios as the collision of membranes.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Philosopher Edward Feser argues that most of the classical philosophers' cosmological arguments for the existence of God do not depend on the Big Bang or whether the universe had a beginning. The question is not about what got things started or how long they have been going, but rather what keeps them going.",
"title": "Objections and counterarguments"
}
] | A cosmological argument, in natural theology, is an argument which claims that the existence of God can be inferred from facts concerning causation, explanation, change, motion, contingency, dependency, or finitude with respect to the universe or some totality of objects. A cosmological argument can also sometimes be referred to as an argument from universal causation, an argument from first cause, the causal argument, or prime mover argument. Whichever term is employed, there are two basic variants of the argument, each with subtle yet important distinctions: in esse (essentiality), and in fieri (becoming). The basic premises of all of these arguments involve the concept of causation. The conclusion of these arguments is that there exists a first cause, subsequently analysed to be God. The history of this argument goes back to Aristotle or earlier, was developed in Neoplatonism and early Christianity and later in medieval Islamic theology during the 9th to 12th centuries, and was re-introduced to medieval Christian theology in the 13th century by Thomas Aquinas. The cosmological argument is closely related to the principle of sufficient reason as addressed by Gottfried Leibniz and Samuel Clarke, itself a modern exposition of the claim that "nothing comes from nothing" attributed to Parmenides. Contemporary defenders of cosmological arguments include William Lane Craig, Robert Koons, and Alexander Pruss. | 2001-11-06T15:00:13Z | 2023-12-24T19:30:28Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_argument |
6,517 | Clutch | A clutch is a mechanical device that allows the output shaft to be disconnected from the rotating input shaft. The clutch's input shaft is typically attached to a motor, while the clutch's output shaft is connected to the mechanism that does the work.
In a motor vehicle, the clutch acts as a mechanical linkage between the engine and transmission. By disengaging the clutch, the engine speed (RPM) is no longer determined by the speed of the driven wheels.
Another example of clutch usage is in electric drills. The clutch's input shaft is driven by a motor and the output shaft is connected to the drill bit (via several intermediate components). The clutch allows the drill bit to either spin at the same speed as the motor (clutch engaged), spin at a lower speed as the motor (clutch slipping) or remain stationary while the motor is spinning (clutch disengaged).
A dry clutch uses dry friction to transfer power from the input shaft to the output shaft, for example a friction disk pressing on a car engine's flywheel. The majority of clutches are dry clutches, especially in vehicles with manual transmissions. Slippage of a friction clutch (where the clutch is partially engaged but the shafts are rotating at different speeds) is sometimes required, such as when a motor vehicle accelerates from a standstill; however the slippage should be minimised to avoid increased wear rates.
In a pull-type clutch, pressing the pedal pulls the release bearing to disengage the clutch. In a push-type clutch, pressing the pedal pushes the release bearing to disengage the clutch.
A multi-plate clutch consists of several friction plates arranged concentrically. In some cases, it is used instead of a larger diameter clutch. Drag racing cars use multi-plate clutches to control the rate of power transfer to the wheels as the vehicle accelerates from a standing start.
Some clutch disks include springs designed to change the natural frequency of the clutch disc, in order to reduce NVH within the vehicle. Also, some clutches for manual transmission cars use a clutch delay valve to avoid abrupt engagements of the clutch.
In a wet clutch, the friction material sits in an oil bath (or has flow-through oil) which cools and lubricates the clutch. This can provide smoother engagement and a longer lifespan of the clutch, however wet clutches can have a lower efficiency due to some energy being transferred to the oil. Since the surfaces of a wet clutch can be slippery (as with a motorcycle clutch bathed in engine oil), stacking multiple clutch discs can compensate for the lower coefficient of friction and so eliminate slippage under power when fully engaged.
Wet clutches often use a composite paper material.
A centrifugal clutch automatically engages as the speed of the input shaft increases and disengages as the input shaft speed decreases. Applications include small motorcycles, motor scooters, chainsaws, and some older automobiles.
A cone clutch is similar to dry friction plate clutch, except the friction material is applied to the outside of a conical shaped object. A common application for cone clutches is the synchronizer ring in a manual transmission.
A dog clutch is a non-slip design of clutch which is used in non-synchronous transmissions.
The single-revolution clutch was developed in the 19th century to power machinery such as shears or presses where a single pull of the operating lever or (later) press of a button would trip the mechanism, engaging the clutch between the power source and the machine's crankshaft for exactly one revolution before disengaging the clutch. When the clutch is disengaged, the driven member is stationary. Early designs were typically dog clutches with a cam on the driven member used to disengage the dogs at the appropriate point.
Greatly simplified single-revolution clutches were developed in the 20th century, requiring much smaller operating forces and in some variations, allowing for a fixed fraction of a revolution per operation. Fast action friction clutches replaced dog clutches in some applications, eliminating the problem of impact loading on the dogs every time the clutch engaged.
In addition to their use in heavy manufacturing equipment, single-revolution clutches were applied to numerous small machines. In tabulating machines, for example, pressing the operate key would trip a single revolution clutch to process the most recently entered number. In typesetting machines, pressing any key selected a particular character and also engaged a single rotation clutch to cycle the mechanism to typeset that character. Similarly, in teleprinters, the receipt of each character tripped a single-revolution clutch to operate one cycle of the print mechanism.
In 1928, Frederick G. Creed developed a single-turn spring clutch (see above) that was particularly well suited to the repetitive start-stop action required in teleprinters. In 1942, two employees of Pitney Bowes Postage Meter Company developed an improved single turn spring clutch. In these clutches, a coil spring is wrapped around the driven shaft and held in an expanded configuration by the trip lever. When tripped, the spring rapidly contracts around the power shaft engaging the clutch. At the end of one revolution, if the trip lever has been reset, it catches the end of the spring (or a pawl attached to it), and the angular momentum of the driven member releases the tension on the spring. These clutches have long operating lives—many have performed tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of cycles without the need of maintenance other than occasional lubrication.
Cascaded-pawl single-revolution clutches superseded wrap-spring single-revolution clutches in page printers, such as teleprinters, including the Teletype Model 28 and its successors, using the same design principles. IBM Selectric typewriters also used them. These are typically disc-shaped assemblies mounted on the driven shaft. Inside the hollow disc-shaped drive drum are two or three freely floating pawls arranged so that when the clutch is tripped, the pawls spring outward much like the shoes in a drum brake. When engaged, the load torque on each pawl transfers to the others to keep them engaged. These clutches do not slip once locked up, and they engage very quickly, on the order of milliseconds. A trip projection extends out from the assembly. If the trip lever engaged this projection, the clutch was disengaged. When the trip lever releases this projection, internal springs and friction engage the clutch. The clutch then rotates one or more turns, stopping when the trip lever again engages the trip projection.
Most cars and trucks with a manual transmission use a dry clutch, which is operated by the driver using the left-most pedal. The motion of the pedal is transferred to the clutch using hydraulics (master and slave cylinders) or a cable. The clutch is only disengaged at times when the driver is pressing on the clutch pedal, therefore the default state is for the transmission to be connected to the engine. A "neutral" gear position is provided, so that the clutch pedal can be released with the vehicle remaining stationary.
The clutch is required for standing starts and is usually (but not always) used to assist in synchronising the speeds of the engine and transmission during gear changes, i.e. while reducing the engine speed (RPM) during upshifts and increasing the engine speed during downshifts.
The clutch is usually mounted directly to the face of the engine's flywheel, as this already provides a convenient large-diameter steel disk that can act as one driving plate of the clutch. Some racing clutches use small multi-plate disk packs that are not part of the flywheel. Both clutch and flywheel are enclosed in a conical bellhousing for the gearbox. The friction material used for the clutch disk varies, with a common material being an organic compound resin with a copper wire facing or a ceramic material.
In an automatic transmission, the role of the clutch is performed by a torque converter. However, the transmission itself often includes internal clutches, such as a lock-up clutch to prevent slippage of the torque converter, in order to reduce the energy loss through the transmission and therefore improve fuel economy.
Older belt-driven engine cooling fans often use a heat-activated clutch, in the form of a bimetallic strip. When the temperature is low, the spring winds and closes the valve, which lets the fan spin at about 20% to 30% of the crankshaft speed. As the temperature of the spring rises, it unwinds and opens the valve, allowing fluid past the valve, making the fan spin at about 60% to 90% of crankshaft speed.
A vehicle's air-conditioning compressor often uses magnetic clutches to engage the compressor as required.
Motorcycles typically employ a wet clutch with the clutch riding in the same oil as the transmission. These clutches are usually made up of a stack of alternating friction plates and steel plates. The friction plates have lugs on their outer diameters that lock them into a basket that is turned by the crankshaft. The steel plates have lugs on their inner diameters that lock them to the transmission input shaft. A set of coil springs or a diaphragm spring plate force the plates together when the clutch is engaged.
On motorcycles the clutch is operated by a hand lever on the left handlebar. No pressure on the lever means that the clutch plates are engaged (driving), while pulling the lever back towards the rider disengages the clutch plates through cable or hydraulic actuation, allowing the rider to shift gears or coast. Racing motorcycles often use slipper clutches to eliminate the effects of engine braking, which, being applied only to the rear wheel, can cause instability. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A clutch is a mechanical device that allows the output shaft to be disconnected from the rotating input shaft. The clutch's input shaft is typically attached to a motor, while the clutch's output shaft is connected to the mechanism that does the work.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "In a motor vehicle, the clutch acts as a mechanical linkage between the engine and transmission. By disengaging the clutch, the engine speed (RPM) is no longer determined by the speed of the driven wheels.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Another example of clutch usage is in electric drills. The clutch's input shaft is driven by a motor and the output shaft is connected to the drill bit (via several intermediate components). The clutch allows the drill bit to either spin at the same speed as the motor (clutch engaged), spin at a lower speed as the motor (clutch slipping) or remain stationary while the motor is spinning (clutch disengaged).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A dry clutch uses dry friction to transfer power from the input shaft to the output shaft, for example a friction disk pressing on a car engine's flywheel. The majority of clutches are dry clutches, especially in vehicles with manual transmissions. Slippage of a friction clutch (where the clutch is partially engaged but the shafts are rotating at different speeds) is sometimes required, such as when a motor vehicle accelerates from a standstill; however the slippage should be minimised to avoid increased wear rates.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In a pull-type clutch, pressing the pedal pulls the release bearing to disengage the clutch. In a push-type clutch, pressing the pedal pushes the release bearing to disengage the clutch.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A multi-plate clutch consists of several friction plates arranged concentrically. In some cases, it is used instead of a larger diameter clutch. Drag racing cars use multi-plate clutches to control the rate of power transfer to the wheels as the vehicle accelerates from a standing start.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Some clutch disks include springs designed to change the natural frequency of the clutch disc, in order to reduce NVH within the vehicle. Also, some clutches for manual transmission cars use a clutch delay valve to avoid abrupt engagements of the clutch.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In a wet clutch, the friction material sits in an oil bath (or has flow-through oil) which cools and lubricates the clutch. This can provide smoother engagement and a longer lifespan of the clutch, however wet clutches can have a lower efficiency due to some energy being transferred to the oil. Since the surfaces of a wet clutch can be slippery (as with a motorcycle clutch bathed in engine oil), stacking multiple clutch discs can compensate for the lower coefficient of friction and so eliminate slippage under power when fully engaged.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Wet clutches often use a composite paper material.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A centrifugal clutch automatically engages as the speed of the input shaft increases and disengages as the input shaft speed decreases. Applications include small motorcycles, motor scooters, chainsaws, and some older automobiles.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "A cone clutch is similar to dry friction plate clutch, except the friction material is applied to the outside of a conical shaped object. A common application for cone clutches is the synchronizer ring in a manual transmission.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "A dog clutch is a non-slip design of clutch which is used in non-synchronous transmissions.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The single-revolution clutch was developed in the 19th century to power machinery such as shears or presses where a single pull of the operating lever or (later) press of a button would trip the mechanism, engaging the clutch between the power source and the machine's crankshaft for exactly one revolution before disengaging the clutch. When the clutch is disengaged, the driven member is stationary. Early designs were typically dog clutches with a cam on the driven member used to disengage the dogs at the appropriate point.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Greatly simplified single-revolution clutches were developed in the 20th century, requiring much smaller operating forces and in some variations, allowing for a fixed fraction of a revolution per operation. Fast action friction clutches replaced dog clutches in some applications, eliminating the problem of impact loading on the dogs every time the clutch engaged.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In addition to their use in heavy manufacturing equipment, single-revolution clutches were applied to numerous small machines. In tabulating machines, for example, pressing the operate key would trip a single revolution clutch to process the most recently entered number. In typesetting machines, pressing any key selected a particular character and also engaged a single rotation clutch to cycle the mechanism to typeset that character. Similarly, in teleprinters, the receipt of each character tripped a single-revolution clutch to operate one cycle of the print mechanism.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1928, Frederick G. Creed developed a single-turn spring clutch (see above) that was particularly well suited to the repetitive start-stop action required in teleprinters. In 1942, two employees of Pitney Bowes Postage Meter Company developed an improved single turn spring clutch. In these clutches, a coil spring is wrapped around the driven shaft and held in an expanded configuration by the trip lever. When tripped, the spring rapidly contracts around the power shaft engaging the clutch. At the end of one revolution, if the trip lever has been reset, it catches the end of the spring (or a pawl attached to it), and the angular momentum of the driven member releases the tension on the spring. These clutches have long operating lives—many have performed tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of cycles without the need of maintenance other than occasional lubrication.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Cascaded-pawl single-revolution clutches superseded wrap-spring single-revolution clutches in page printers, such as teleprinters, including the Teletype Model 28 and its successors, using the same design principles. IBM Selectric typewriters also used them. These are typically disc-shaped assemblies mounted on the driven shaft. Inside the hollow disc-shaped drive drum are two or three freely floating pawls arranged so that when the clutch is tripped, the pawls spring outward much like the shoes in a drum brake. When engaged, the load torque on each pawl transfers to the others to keep them engaged. These clutches do not slip once locked up, and they engage very quickly, on the order of milliseconds. A trip projection extends out from the assembly. If the trip lever engaged this projection, the clutch was disengaged. When the trip lever releases this projection, internal springs and friction engage the clutch. The clutch then rotates one or more turns, stopping when the trip lever again engages the trip projection.",
"title": "Types"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Most cars and trucks with a manual transmission use a dry clutch, which is operated by the driver using the left-most pedal. The motion of the pedal is transferred to the clutch using hydraulics (master and slave cylinders) or a cable. The clutch is only disengaged at times when the driver is pressing on the clutch pedal, therefore the default state is for the transmission to be connected to the engine. A \"neutral\" gear position is provided, so that the clutch pedal can be released with the vehicle remaining stationary.",
"title": "Usage in automobiles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The clutch is required for standing starts and is usually (but not always) used to assist in synchronising the speeds of the engine and transmission during gear changes, i.e. while reducing the engine speed (RPM) during upshifts and increasing the engine speed during downshifts.",
"title": "Usage in automobiles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The clutch is usually mounted directly to the face of the engine's flywheel, as this already provides a convenient large-diameter steel disk that can act as one driving plate of the clutch. Some racing clutches use small multi-plate disk packs that are not part of the flywheel. Both clutch and flywheel are enclosed in a conical bellhousing for the gearbox. The friction material used for the clutch disk varies, with a common material being an organic compound resin with a copper wire facing or a ceramic material.",
"title": "Usage in automobiles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In an automatic transmission, the role of the clutch is performed by a torque converter. However, the transmission itself often includes internal clutches, such as a lock-up clutch to prevent slippage of the torque converter, in order to reduce the energy loss through the transmission and therefore improve fuel economy.",
"title": "Usage in automobiles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Older belt-driven engine cooling fans often use a heat-activated clutch, in the form of a bimetallic strip. When the temperature is low, the spring winds and closes the valve, which lets the fan spin at about 20% to 30% of the crankshaft speed. As the temperature of the spring rises, it unwinds and opens the valve, allowing fluid past the valve, making the fan spin at about 60% to 90% of crankshaft speed.",
"title": "Usage in automobiles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "A vehicle's air-conditioning compressor often uses magnetic clutches to engage the compressor as required.",
"title": "Usage in automobiles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Motorcycles typically employ a wet clutch with the clutch riding in the same oil as the transmission. These clutches are usually made up of a stack of alternating friction plates and steel plates. The friction plates have lugs on their outer diameters that lock them into a basket that is turned by the crankshaft. The steel plates have lugs on their inner diameters that lock them to the transmission input shaft. A set of coil springs or a diaphragm spring plate force the plates together when the clutch is engaged.",
"title": "Usage in motorcycles"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "On motorcycles the clutch is operated by a hand lever on the left handlebar. No pressure on the lever means that the clutch plates are engaged (driving), while pulling the lever back towards the rider disengages the clutch plates through cable or hydraulic actuation, allowing the rider to shift gears or coast. Racing motorcycles often use slipper clutches to eliminate the effects of engine braking, which, being applied only to the rear wheel, can cause instability.",
"title": "Usage in motorcycles"
}
] | A clutch is a mechanical device that allows the output shaft to be disconnected from the rotating input shaft. The clutch's input shaft is typically attached to a motor, while the clutch's output shaft is connected to the mechanism that does the work. In a motor vehicle, the clutch acts as a mechanical linkage between the engine and transmission. By disengaging the clutch, the engine speed (RPM) is no longer determined by the speed of the driven wheels. Another example of clutch usage is in electric drills. The clutch's input shaft is driven by a motor and the output shaft is connected to the drill bit. The clutch allows the drill bit to either spin at the same speed as the motor, spin at a lower speed as the motor or remain stationary while the motor is spinning. | 2001-09-25T03:38:56Z | 2023-12-22T21:07:16Z | [
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6,520 | Cow tipping | Cow tipping is the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment. The practice of cow tipping is generally considered an urban legend, and stories of such feats viewed as tall tales. The implication that rural citizens seek such entertainment due to lack of alternatives is viewed as a stereotype. The concept of cow tipping apparently developed in the 1970s, though tales of animals that cannot rise if they fall has historical antecedents dating to the Roman Empire.
Cows routinely lie down and can easily regain their footing unless sick or injured. Scientific studies have been conducted to determine if cow tipping is theoretically possible, with varying conclusions. All agree that cows are large animals that are difficult to surprise and will generally resist attempts to be tipped. Estimates suggest a force of between 3,000 and 4,000 newtons (670 and 900 pounds-force) is needed, and that at least four and possibly as many as fourteen people would be required to achieve this. In real-life situations where cattle have to be laid on the ground, or "cast", such as for branding, hoof care or veterinary treatment, either rope restraints are required or specialized mechanical equipment is used that confines the cow and then tips it over. On rare occasions, cattle can lie down or fall down in proximity to a ditch or hill that restricts their normal ability to rise without help. Cow tipping has many references in popular culture and is also used as a figure of speech.
Some versions of the urban legend suggest that because cows sleep standing up, it is possible to approach them and push them over without the animals reacting. However, cows only sleep lightly while standing up, and they are easily awakened. They lie down to sleep deeply. Furthermore, numerous sources have questioned the practice's feasibility, since most cows weigh over 450 kilograms (990 pounds) and easily resist any lesser force.
A 2005 study led by Margo Lillie, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia, and her student Tracy Boechler, concluded that tipping a cow would require a force of nearly 3,000 newtons (670 lbf) and is therefore impossible to accomplish by a single person. Her calculations found that it would require more than four people to apply enough force to push over a cow, based on an estimate that a single person could exert 660 newtons (150 lbf) of force. However, since a cow can brace itself, Lillie and Boechler suggested that five or six people would, most likely, be needed. Further, cattle are well aware of their surroundings and are very difficult to surprise, due to excellent senses of both smell and hearing. Lillie and Boechler's analysis found that if a cow did not move, the principles of static physics suggest that two people might be able to tip a cow if its centre of mass were pushed over its hooves before the cow could react. However, cows are not rigid or unresponsive, and the faster humans have to move, the less force they can exert. Thus Lillie and Boechler concluded that it is unlikely that cows can actually be tipped over in this way. Lillie stated, "It just makes the physics of it all, in my opinion, impossible."
Although biologist Steven Vogel agrees that it would take a force of about 3,000 newtons to push over a standing cow, he thinks that the study by Lillie and Boechler overestimates the pushing ability of an individual human. Using data from Cotterell and Kamminga, who estimated that humans exert a pushing force of 280 newtons, Vogel suggests that someone applying force at the requisite height to topple a cow might generate a maximum push of no more than 300 newtons. By this calculation, at least 10 people would be needed to tip over a non-reacting cow. However, this combined force requirement, he says, might not be the greatest impediment to such a prank. Standing cows are not asleep and, like other animals, have ever-vigilant reflexes. "If the cow does no more than modestly widen its stance without an overall shift of its center of gravity", he says, "about 4,000 newtons or 14 pushers would be needed—quite a challenge to deploy without angering the cow."
The belief that certain animals cannot rise if pushed over has historical antecedents. Julius Caesar recorded a belief that a European elk had no knee joints and could not get up if it fell. Pliny said the same about the hind legs of an animal he called the achlis, which Pliny's 19th-century translators Bostock and Riley said was merely another name for the elk. They also noted that Pliny's belief about the jointless back legs of the achlis (elk) was false.
In 1255, Louis IX of France gave an elephant to Henry III of England for his menagerie in the Tower of London. A drawing by the historian Matthew Paris for his Chronica Majora can be seen in his bestiary at Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. An accompanying text cites elephant lore suggesting that elephants did not have knees and were unable to get up if they fell.
Journalist Jake Steelhammer believes the American urban myth of cow tipping originated in the 1970s. It "stampeded into the '80s", he says, "when movies like Tommy Boy and Heathers featured cow tipping expeditions." Stories about cow tipping tend to be second-hand, he says, told by someone who does not claim to have tipped a cow but who knows someone else who says they did.
Cattle may need to be deliberately thrown or tipped over for certain types of husbandry practices and medical treatment. When done for medical purposes, this is often called "casting", and when performed without mechanical assistance requires the attachment of 9 to 12 metres (30 to 40 ft) of rope around the body and legs of the animal. After the rope is secured by non-slip bowline knots, it is pulled to the rear until the animal is off-balance. Once the cow is forced to lie down in sternal recumbency (on its chest), it can be rolled onto its side and its legs tied to prevent kicking.
A calf table or calf cradle, also called a "tipping table" or a "throw down", is a relatively modern invention designed to be used on calves that are being branded. A calf is run into a chute, confined, and then tipped by the equipment onto its side for easier branding and castration.
Hydraulic tilt tables for adult cattle have existed since the 1970s and are designed to lift and tip cattle onto their sides to enable veterinary care, particularly of the animals' genitalia, and for hoof maintenance. (Unlike horses, cows generally do not cooperate with a farrier when standing.) A Canadian veterinarian explained, "Using the table is much safer and easier than trying to get underneath to examine the animal", and noted that cows tipped over on a padded table usually stop struggling and become calm fairly quickly. One design, developed at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, included "cow comfort" as a unique aspect of care using this type of apparatus.
Cows may inadvertently tip themselves. Due to their bulk and relatively short legs, cattle cannot roll over. Those that lie down and roll to their sides with their feet pointing uphill may become stuck and unable to rise without assistance, with potentially fatal results. In such cases, two humans can roll or flip a cow onto its other side, so that its feet are aimed downhill, thus allowing it to rise on its own. In one documented case of "real-life cow tipping", a pregnant cow rolled into a gully in New Hampshire and became trapped in an inverted state until rescued by volunteer fire fighters. The owner of the cow commented that he had seen this happen "once or twice" before.
Trauma or illness may also result in a cow unable to rise to its feet. Such animals are sometimes called "downers." Sometimes this occurs as a result of muscle and nerve damage from calving or a disease such as mastitis. Leg injuries, muscle tears, or a massive infection of some sort may also be causes. Downer cows are encouraged to get to their feet and have a much greater chance of recovery if they do. If unable to rise, some have survived—with medical care—as long as 14 days and were ultimately able to get back on their feet. Appropriate medical treatment for a downer cow to prevent further injury includes rolling from one side to the other every three hours, careful and frequent feeding of small amounts of fodder, and access to clean water.
Dead animals may appear to have been tipped over, but this is actually the process of rigor mortis, which stiffens the muscles of the carcass, beginning six to eight hours after death and lasting for one to two days. It is particularly noticeable in the limbs, which stick out straight. Post-mortem bloat also occurs because of gas formation inside the body. The process may result in cattle carcasses that wind up on their back with all four feet in the air.
Assorted individuals have claimed to have performed cow tipping, often while under the influence of alcohol. These claims, to date, cannot be reliably verified, with Jake Swearingen of Modern Farmer noting in 2013 that YouTube, a popular source of videos of challenges and stunts, "fails to deliver one single actual cow-tipping video".
Pranksters have sometimes pushed over artificial cows. Along Chicago's Michigan Avenue in 1999, two "apparently drunk" men felled six fiberglass cows that were part of a Cows on Parade public art exhibit. Four other vandals removed a "Wow cow" sculpture from its lifeguard chair at Oak Street Beach and abandoned it in a pedestrian underpass. A year later, New York City anchored its CowParade art cows, including "A Streetcow Named Desire", to concrete bases "to prevent the udder disrespect of cow-tippers and thieves."
Cow tipping has been featured in films from the 1980s and later, such as Heathers (1988), Tommy Boy (1995), Barnyard (2006), and I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009). It was also used in the title of a 1992 documentary film by Randy Redroad, Cow Tipping—The Militant Indian Waiter.
Variants of cow tipping have also been seen in popular media such as the film Cars (2006), which features a vehicular variant called tractor-tipping, and the video game Fallout: New Vegas, which allows the character to sneak up on and tip over a Brahmin, the game's two-headed cow-like animal. The board game Battle Cattle is based on the practice, with heavily armed cows having "Tipping Defense Numbers."
In The Little Willies song "Lou Reed" from their 2006 self-titled debut album, Norah Jones sings about a fictional event during which musician Lou Reed tips cows in Texas. In another medium, The Big Bang Theory, a television show, uses cow tipping lore as an element to establish the nature of a rural character, Penny.
The term cow tipping is sometimes used as a figure of speech for pushing over something big. In A Giant Cow-Tipping by Savages, author John Weir Close uses the term to describe contemporary mergers and acquisitions. "Tipping sacred cows" has been used as a deliberate mixed metaphor in titles of books on Christian ministry and business management. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cow tipping is the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment. The practice of cow tipping is generally considered an urban legend, and stories of such feats viewed as tall tales. The implication that rural citizens seek such entertainment due to lack of alternatives is viewed as a stereotype. The concept of cow tipping apparently developed in the 1970s, though tales of animals that cannot rise if they fall has historical antecedents dating to the Roman Empire.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cows routinely lie down and can easily regain their footing unless sick or injured. Scientific studies have been conducted to determine if cow tipping is theoretically possible, with varying conclusions. All agree that cows are large animals that are difficult to surprise and will generally resist attempts to be tipped. Estimates suggest a force of between 3,000 and 4,000 newtons (670 and 900 pounds-force) is needed, and that at least four and possibly as many as fourteen people would be required to achieve this. In real-life situations where cattle have to be laid on the ground, or \"cast\", such as for branding, hoof care or veterinary treatment, either rope restraints are required or specialized mechanical equipment is used that confines the cow and then tips it over. On rare occasions, cattle can lie down or fall down in proximity to a ditch or hill that restricts their normal ability to rise without help. Cow tipping has many references in popular culture and is also used as a figure of speech.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Some versions of the urban legend suggest that because cows sleep standing up, it is possible to approach them and push them over without the animals reacting. However, cows only sleep lightly while standing up, and they are easily awakened. They lie down to sleep deeply. Furthermore, numerous sources have questioned the practice's feasibility, since most cows weigh over 450 kilograms (990 pounds) and easily resist any lesser force.",
"title": "Scientific study"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A 2005 study led by Margo Lillie, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia, and her student Tracy Boechler, concluded that tipping a cow would require a force of nearly 3,000 newtons (670 lbf) and is therefore impossible to accomplish by a single person. Her calculations found that it would require more than four people to apply enough force to push over a cow, based on an estimate that a single person could exert 660 newtons (150 lbf) of force. However, since a cow can brace itself, Lillie and Boechler suggested that five or six people would, most likely, be needed. Further, cattle are well aware of their surroundings and are very difficult to surprise, due to excellent senses of both smell and hearing. Lillie and Boechler's analysis found that if a cow did not move, the principles of static physics suggest that two people might be able to tip a cow if its centre of mass were pushed over its hooves before the cow could react. However, cows are not rigid or unresponsive, and the faster humans have to move, the less force they can exert. Thus Lillie and Boechler concluded that it is unlikely that cows can actually be tipped over in this way. Lillie stated, \"It just makes the physics of it all, in my opinion, impossible.\"",
"title": "Scientific study"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Although biologist Steven Vogel agrees that it would take a force of about 3,000 newtons to push over a standing cow, he thinks that the study by Lillie and Boechler overestimates the pushing ability of an individual human. Using data from Cotterell and Kamminga, who estimated that humans exert a pushing force of 280 newtons, Vogel suggests that someone applying force at the requisite height to topple a cow might generate a maximum push of no more than 300 newtons. By this calculation, at least 10 people would be needed to tip over a non-reacting cow. However, this combined force requirement, he says, might not be the greatest impediment to such a prank. Standing cows are not asleep and, like other animals, have ever-vigilant reflexes. \"If the cow does no more than modestly widen its stance without an overall shift of its center of gravity\", he says, \"about 4,000 newtons or 14 pushers would be needed—quite a challenge to deploy without angering the cow.\"",
"title": "Scientific study"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The belief that certain animals cannot rise if pushed over has historical antecedents. Julius Caesar recorded a belief that a European elk had no knee joints and could not get up if it fell. Pliny said the same about the hind legs of an animal he called the achlis, which Pliny's 19th-century translators Bostock and Riley said was merely another name for the elk. They also noted that Pliny's belief about the jointless back legs of the achlis (elk) was false.",
"title": "Historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1255, Louis IX of France gave an elephant to Henry III of England for his menagerie in the Tower of London. A drawing by the historian Matthew Paris for his Chronica Majora can be seen in his bestiary at Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. An accompanying text cites elephant lore suggesting that elephants did not have knees and were unable to get up if they fell.",
"title": "Historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Journalist Jake Steelhammer believes the American urban myth of cow tipping originated in the 1970s. It \"stampeded into the '80s\", he says, \"when movies like Tommy Boy and Heathers featured cow tipping expeditions.\" Stories about cow tipping tend to be second-hand, he says, told by someone who does not claim to have tipped a cow but who knows someone else who says they did.",
"title": "Historical origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Cattle may need to be deliberately thrown or tipped over for certain types of husbandry practices and medical treatment. When done for medical purposes, this is often called \"casting\", and when performed without mechanical assistance requires the attachment of 9 to 12 metres (30 to 40 ft) of rope around the body and legs of the animal. After the rope is secured by non-slip bowline knots, it is pulled to the rear until the animal is off-balance. Once the cow is forced to lie down in sternal recumbency (on its chest), it can be rolled onto its side and its legs tied to prevent kicking.",
"title": "Veterinary and husbandry practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "A calf table or calf cradle, also called a \"tipping table\" or a \"throw down\", is a relatively modern invention designed to be used on calves that are being branded. A calf is run into a chute, confined, and then tipped by the equipment onto its side for easier branding and castration.",
"title": "Veterinary and husbandry practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Hydraulic tilt tables for adult cattle have existed since the 1970s and are designed to lift and tip cattle onto their sides to enable veterinary care, particularly of the animals' genitalia, and for hoof maintenance. (Unlike horses, cows generally do not cooperate with a farrier when standing.) A Canadian veterinarian explained, \"Using the table is much safer and easier than trying to get underneath to examine the animal\", and noted that cows tipped over on a padded table usually stop struggling and become calm fairly quickly. One design, developed at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, included \"cow comfort\" as a unique aspect of care using this type of apparatus.",
"title": "Veterinary and husbandry practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Cows may inadvertently tip themselves. Due to their bulk and relatively short legs, cattle cannot roll over. Those that lie down and roll to their sides with their feet pointing uphill may become stuck and unable to rise without assistance, with potentially fatal results. In such cases, two humans can roll or flip a cow onto its other side, so that its feet are aimed downhill, thus allowing it to rise on its own. In one documented case of \"real-life cow tipping\", a pregnant cow rolled into a gully in New Hampshire and became trapped in an inverted state until rescued by volunteer fire fighters. The owner of the cow commented that he had seen this happen \"once or twice\" before.",
"title": "Veterinary and husbandry practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Trauma or illness may also result in a cow unable to rise to its feet. Such animals are sometimes called \"downers.\" Sometimes this occurs as a result of muscle and nerve damage from calving or a disease such as mastitis. Leg injuries, muscle tears, or a massive infection of some sort may also be causes. Downer cows are encouraged to get to their feet and have a much greater chance of recovery if they do. If unable to rise, some have survived—with medical care—as long as 14 days and were ultimately able to get back on their feet. Appropriate medical treatment for a downer cow to prevent further injury includes rolling from one side to the other every three hours, careful and frequent feeding of small amounts of fodder, and access to clean water.",
"title": "Veterinary and husbandry practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Dead animals may appear to have been tipped over, but this is actually the process of rigor mortis, which stiffens the muscles of the carcass, beginning six to eight hours after death and lasting for one to two days. It is particularly noticeable in the limbs, which stick out straight. Post-mortem bloat also occurs because of gas formation inside the body. The process may result in cattle carcasses that wind up on their back with all four feet in the air.",
"title": "Veterinary and husbandry practices"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Assorted individuals have claimed to have performed cow tipping, often while under the influence of alcohol. These claims, to date, cannot be reliably verified, with Jake Swearingen of Modern Farmer noting in 2013 that YouTube, a popular source of videos of challenges and stunts, \"fails to deliver one single actual cow-tipping video\".",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Pranksters have sometimes pushed over artificial cows. Along Chicago's Michigan Avenue in 1999, two \"apparently drunk\" men felled six fiberglass cows that were part of a Cows on Parade public art exhibit. Four other vandals removed a \"Wow cow\" sculpture from its lifeguard chair at Oak Street Beach and abandoned it in a pedestrian underpass. A year later, New York City anchored its CowParade art cows, including \"A Streetcow Named Desire\", to concrete bases \"to prevent the udder disrespect of cow-tippers and thieves.\"",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Cow tipping has been featured in films from the 1980s and later, such as Heathers (1988), Tommy Boy (1995), Barnyard (2006), and I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009). It was also used in the title of a 1992 documentary film by Randy Redroad, Cow Tipping—The Militant Indian Waiter.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Variants of cow tipping have also been seen in popular media such as the film Cars (2006), which features a vehicular variant called tractor-tipping, and the video game Fallout: New Vegas, which allows the character to sneak up on and tip over a Brahmin, the game's two-headed cow-like animal. The board game Battle Cattle is based on the practice, with heavily armed cows having \"Tipping Defense Numbers.\"",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In The Little Willies song \"Lou Reed\" from their 2006 self-titled debut album, Norah Jones sings about a fictional event during which musician Lou Reed tips cows in Texas. In another medium, The Big Bang Theory, a television show, uses cow tipping lore as an element to establish the nature of a rural character, Penny.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The term cow tipping is sometimes used as a figure of speech for pushing over something big. In A Giant Cow-Tipping by Savages, author John Weir Close uses the term to describe contemporary mergers and acquisitions. \"Tipping sacred cows\" has been used as a deliberate mixed metaphor in titles of books on Christian ministry and business management.",
"title": "In popular culture"
}
] | Cow tipping is the purported activity of sneaking up on any unsuspecting or sleeping upright cow and pushing it over for entertainment. The practice of cow tipping is generally considered an urban legend, and stories of such feats viewed as tall tales. The implication that rural citizens seek such entertainment due to lack of alternatives is viewed as a stereotype. The concept of cow tipping apparently developed in the 1970s, though tales of animals that cannot rise if they fall has historical antecedents dating to the Roman Empire. Cows routinely lie down and can easily regain their footing unless sick or injured. Scientific studies have been conducted to determine if cow tipping is theoretically possible, with varying conclusions. All agree that cows are large animals that are difficult to surprise and will generally resist attempts to be tipped. Estimates suggest a force of between 3,000 and 4,000 newtons is needed, and that at least four and possibly as many as fourteen people would be required to achieve this. In real-life situations where cattle have to be laid on the ground, or "cast", such as for branding, hoof care or veterinary treatment, either rope restraints are required or specialized mechanical equipment is used that confines the cow and then tips it over. On rare occasions, cattle can lie down or fall down in proximity to a ditch or hill that restricts their normal ability to rise without help. Cow tipping has many references in popular culture and is also used as a figure of speech. | 2001-10-04T04:47:08Z | 2023-10-13T20:54:12Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_tipping |
6,526 | Cassandra | Cassandra or Kassandra (/kəˈsændrə/; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, pronounced [kas:ándra], also Greek: Κασσάνδρα, and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.
Cassandra was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her elder brother was Hector, the hero of the Greek-Trojan war. The older and most common versions of the myth state that she was admired by the god Apollo, who sought to win her love by means of the gift of seeing the future. According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favours, but after receiving the gift, she went back on her word. As the enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, he added to it the curse that nobody would believe her prophecies. In other sources, such as Hyginus and Pseudo-Apollodorus, Cassandra broke no promise to Apollo but rather the power of foresight was given to her as an enticement to enter into a romantic engagement, the curse being added only when it failed to produce the result desired by the god.
Later versions on the contrary describe her falling asleep in a temple, where snakes licked (or whispered into) her ears which enabled her to hear the future.
Hjalmar Frisk (Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, 1960–1970) notes "unexplained etymology", citing "various hypotheses" found in Wilhelm Schulze, Edgar Howard Sturtevant, J. Davreux, and Albert Carnoy. R. S. P. Beekes cites García Ramón's derivation of the name from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)kend- "raise". The Online Etymology Dictionary states "though the second element looks like a fem. form of Greek andros "of man, male human being." Watkins suggests PIE *(s)kand- "to shine" as source of second element. The name also has been connected to kekasmai "to surpass, excel."
Cassandra was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the Chronography as "shortish, round-faced, white, mannish figure, good nose, good eyes, dark pupils, blondish, curly, good neck, bulky breasts, small feet, calm, noble, priestly, an accurate prophet foreseeing everything, practicing hard, virgin". Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, she was illustrated as ". . .of moderate stature, round-mouthed, and auburn-haired. Her eyes flashed. She knew the future."
Cassandra was one of the many children born to the king and queen of Troy, Priam and Hecuba. She is the fraternal twin sister of Helenus, as well as the sister to Hector and Paris. One of the oldest and most common versions of her myth states that Cassandra was admired for her beauty and intelligence by the god Apollo, who sought to win her with the gift to see the future.According to Aeschylus, Cassandra promised Apollo favors, but, after receiving the gift, went back on her word and refused Apollo. Since the enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, he added a curse that nobody would believe Cassandra's prophecies.
Cassandra appears in texts written by Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus and Euripides. Each author depicts her prophetic powers differently.
In Homer's work, Cassandra is mentioned a total of four times "as a virgin daughter of Priam, as bewailing Hector's death, as chosen by Agamemnon as his slave mistress after the sack of Troy, and as killed by Clytemnestra over Agamemnon's corpse after Clytemnestra murders him on his return home."
In Virgil's work, Cassandra appears in book two of his epic poem titled Aeneid, with her powers of prophecy restored. In Book 2 of the Aeneid, unlike Homer, Virgil presents Cassandra as having fallen into a mantic state and her prophecies reflect it.
Likewise Seneca the Younger, in his play Agamemnon, has her prophesize why Agamemnon deserves the death he got:
Quid me vocatis sospitem solam e meis, umbrae meorum? te sequor, tota pater Troia sepulte; frater, auxilium Phrygum terrorque Danaum, non ego antiquum decus video aut calentes ratibus ambustis manus, sed lacera membra et saucios vinclo gravi illos lacertos. te sequor… (Ag. 741–747) Why do you call me, the lone survivor of my family, My shades? I follow you, father buried with all of Troy; Brother, bulwark of Trojans, terrorizer of Greeks, I do not see your beauty of old or hands warmed by burnt ships, But your lacerated limbs and those famous shoulders savaged By heavy chains. I follow you…
Later on in Seneca's work, this behavior is reflected in acts 4 and 5 as "Her mantic vision in act 4 will be supplemented by a further (in)sight into what is going on inside the palace in act 5 when she becomes a quasi-messenger and provides a meticulous account of Agamemnon's murder in the bath: 'I see and I am there and I enjoy it, no false vision deceives my eyes: let's watch' (video et intersum et fruor, / imago visus dubia non fallit meos: / spectemus.)"
Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy, but was also cursed by the god Apollo so that her true prophecies would not be believed. Many versions of the myth relate that she incurred the god's wrath by refusing him sexual favours after promising herself to him in exchange for the power of prophecy. In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, she bemoans her relationship with Apollo:
Apollo, Apollo! God of all ways, but only Death's to me, Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named, Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!
And she acknowledges her fault:
I consented [marriage] to Loxias [Apollo] but broke my word. ... Ever since that fault I could persuade no one of anything.
Latin author Hyginus in Fabulae says:
Cassandra, daughter of the king and queen, in the temple of Apollo, exhausted from practising, is said to have fallen asleep; whom, when Apollo wished to embrace her, she did not afford the opportunity of her body. On account of which thing, when she prophesied true things, she was not believed.
Louise Bogan, an American poet, writes that another way Cassandra, as well as her twin brother Helenus, had earned their prophetic powers: "she and her brother Helenus were left overnight in the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo. No reason has been advanced for this night in the temple; perhaps it was a ritual routinely performed by everyone. When their parents looked in on them the next morning, the children were entwined with serpents, which flicked their tongues into the children's ears. This enabled Cassandra and Helenus to divine the future." It would not be until Cassandra is much older that Apollo appears in the same temple and tried to seduce Cassandra, who rejects his advances, and curses her by making her prophecies not be believed.
Her cursed gift from Apollo became an endless pain and frustration to her. She was seen as a liar and a madwoman by her family and by the Trojan people. Because of this, her father, Priam, had locked her away in a chamber and guarded her like the madwoman she was believed to be. Though Cassandra made many predictions that went unbelieved, the one prophecy that was believed was that of Paris being her abandoned brother.
Before the fall of Troy took place, Cassandra foresaw that if Paris goes to Sparta and brings Helen back as his wife, the arrival of Helen will spark the downfall and destruction of Troy during the Trojan War. Despite the prophecy and ignoring Cassandra's warning, Paris still went to Sparta and returned with Helen. While the people of Troy rejoiced, Cassandra, angry with Helen's arrival, furiously snatched away Helen's golden veil and tore at her hair.
In Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid, Cassandra warned the Trojans about the Greeks hiding inside the Trojan Horse, Agamemnon's death, her own demise at the hands of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, her mother Hecuba's fate, Odysseus's ten-year wanderings before returning to his home, and the murder of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra by the latter's children Electra and Orestes. Cassandra predicted that her cousin Aeneas would escape during the fall of Troy and found a new nation in Rome.
Coroebus and Othronus came to the aid of Troy during the Trojan War out of love for Cassandra and in exchange for her hand in marriage, but both were killed. According to one account, Priam offered Cassandra to Telephus's son Eurypylus, in order to induce Eurypylus to fight on the side of the Trojans. Cassandra was also the first to see the body of her brother Hector being brought back to the city.
In The Fall of Troy, told by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Cassandra attempted to warn the Trojan people that Greek warriors were hiding in the Trojan Horse while they were celebrating their victory over the Greeks with feasting. Disbelieving Cassandra, the Trojans resorted to calling her names and hurling insults at her. Attempting to prove herself right, Cassandra took an axe in one hand and a burning torch in the other, and ran towards the Trojan Horse, intent on destroying the Greeks herself, but the Trojans stopped her. The Greeks hiding inside the Horse were relieved, but alarmed by how clearly she had divined their plan.
At the fall of Troy, Cassandra sought shelter in the temple of Athena. There she embraced the wooden statue of Athena in supplication for her protection, but was abducted and brutally raped by Ajax the Lesser. Cassandra clung so tightly to the statue of the goddess that Ajax knocked it from its stand as he dragged her away. The actions of Ajax were a sacrilege because Cassandra was a supplicant at the sanctuary, and under the protection of the goddess Athena and Ajax further defiled the temple by raping Cassandra. In Apollodorus chapter 6, section 6, Ajax's death comes at the hands of both Athena and Poseidon "Athena threw a thunderbolt at the ship of Ajax; and when the ship went to pieces he made his way safe to a rock, and declared that he was saved in spite of the intention of Athena. But Poseidon smote the rock with his trident and split it, and Ajax fell into the sea and perished; and his body, being washed up, was buried by Thetis in Myconos".
In some versions, Cassandra intentionally left a chest behind in Troy, with a curse on whichever Greek opened it first. Inside the chest was an image of Dionysus, made by Hephaestus and presented to the Trojans by Zeus. It was given to the Greek leader Eurypylus as a part of his share of the victory spoils of Troy. When he opened the chest and saw the image of the god, he went mad.
Once Troy had fallen, Cassandra was taken as a pallake (concubine) by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. While he was away at war, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, had taken Aegisthus as her lover. Cassandra and Agamemnon were later killed by either Clytemnestra or Aegisthus. Various sources state that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, who were murdered by Aegisthus.
The final resting place of Cassandra is either in Amyclae or Mycenae. Statues of Cassandra exist both in Amyclae and across the Peleponnese peninsula from Mycenae in Leuctra. In Mycenae, German business man and pioneer archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered in Grave Circle A the graves of Cassandra and Agamemnon and telegraphed back to King George of Greece:
With great joy I announce to Your Majesty that I have discovered the tombs which the tradition proclaimed by Pausanias indicates to be the graves of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon and their companions, all slain at a banquet by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthos.
However, it was later discovered that the graves predated the Trojan War by at least 300 years.
The play Agamemnon from Aeschylus's trilogy Oresteia depicts the king treading the scarlet cloth laid down for him, and walking offstage to his death. After the chorus's ode of foreboding, time is suspended in Cassandra's "mad scene". She has been onstage, silent and ignored. Her madness that is unleashed now is not the physical torment of other characters in Greek tragedy, such as in Euripides' Heracles or Sophocles' Ajax.
According to author Seth Schein, two further familiar descriptions of her madness are that of Heracles in The Women of Trachis or Io in Prometheus Bound. She speaks, disconnectedly and transcendent, in the grip of her psychic possession by Apollo, witnessing past and future events. Schein says, "She evokes the same awe, horror and pity as do schizophrenics". Cassandra is one of those "who often combine deep, true insight with utter helplessness, and who retreat into madness."
Eduard Fraenkel remarked on the powerful contrasts between declaimed and sung dialogue in this scene. The frightened and respectful chorus are unable to comprehend her. She goes to her inevitable offstage murder by Clytemnestra with full knowledge of what is to befall her. | [
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"text": "Cassandra or Kassandra (/kəˈsændrə/; Ancient Greek: Κασσάνδρα, pronounced [kas:ándra], also Greek: Κασσάνδρα, and sometimes referred to as Alexandra) in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed.",
"title": ""
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{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cassandra was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her elder brother was Hector, the hero of the Greek-Trojan war. The older and most common versions of the myth state that she was admired by the god Apollo, who sought to win her love by means of the gift of seeing the future. According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favours, but after receiving the gift, she went back on her word. As the enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, he added to it the curse that nobody would believe her prophecies. In other sources, such as Hyginus and Pseudo-Apollodorus, Cassandra broke no promise to Apollo but rather the power of foresight was given to her as an enticement to enter into a romantic engagement, the curse being added only when it failed to produce the result desired by the god.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Later versions on the contrary describe her falling asleep in a temple, where snakes licked (or whispered into) her ears which enabled her to hear the future.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Hjalmar Frisk (Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg, 1960–1970) notes \"unexplained etymology\", citing \"various hypotheses\" found in Wilhelm Schulze, Edgar Howard Sturtevant, J. Davreux, and Albert Carnoy. R. S. P. Beekes cites García Ramón's derivation of the name from the Proto-Indo-European root *(s)kend- \"raise\". The Online Etymology Dictionary states \"though the second element looks like a fem. form of Greek andros \"of man, male human being.\" Watkins suggests PIE *(s)kand- \"to shine\" as source of second element. The name also has been connected to kekasmai \"to surpass, excel.\"",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Cassandra was described by the chronicler Malalas in his account of the Chronography as \"shortish, round-faced, white, mannish figure, good nose, good eyes, dark pupils, blondish, curly, good neck, bulky breasts, small feet, calm, noble, priestly, an accurate prophet foreseeing everything, practicing hard, virgin\". Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian, she was illustrated as \". . .of moderate stature, round-mouthed, and auburn-haired. Her eyes flashed. She knew the future.\"",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Cassandra was one of the many children born to the king and queen of Troy, Priam and Hecuba. She is the fraternal twin sister of Helenus, as well as the sister to Hector and Paris. One of the oldest and most common versions of her myth states that Cassandra was admired for her beauty and intelligence by the god Apollo, who sought to win her with the gift to see the future.According to Aeschylus, Cassandra promised Apollo favors, but, after receiving the gift, went back on her word and refused Apollo. Since the enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, he added a curse that nobody would believe Cassandra's prophecies.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Cassandra appears in texts written by Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus and Euripides. Each author depicts her prophetic powers differently.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In Homer's work, Cassandra is mentioned a total of four times \"as a virgin daughter of Priam, as bewailing Hector's death, as chosen by Agamemnon as his slave mistress after the sack of Troy, and as killed by Clytemnestra over Agamemnon's corpse after Clytemnestra murders him on his return home.\"",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In Virgil's work, Cassandra appears in book two of his epic poem titled Aeneid, with her powers of prophecy restored. In Book 2 of the Aeneid, unlike Homer, Virgil presents Cassandra as having fallen into a mantic state and her prophecies reflect it.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Likewise Seneca the Younger, in his play Agamemnon, has her prophesize why Agamemnon deserves the death he got:",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Quid me vocatis sospitem solam e meis, umbrae meorum? te sequor, tota pater Troia sepulte; frater, auxilium Phrygum terrorque Danaum, non ego antiquum decus video aut calentes ratibus ambustis manus, sed lacera membra et saucios vinclo gravi illos lacertos. te sequor… (Ag. 741–747) Why do you call me, the lone survivor of my family, My shades? I follow you, father buried with all of Troy; Brother, bulwark of Trojans, terrorizer of Greeks, I do not see your beauty of old or hands warmed by burnt ships, But your lacerated limbs and those famous shoulders savaged By heavy chains. I follow you…",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Later on in Seneca's work, this behavior is reflected in acts 4 and 5 as \"Her mantic vision in act 4 will be supplemented by a further (in)sight into what is going on inside the palace in act 5 when she becomes a quasi-messenger and provides a meticulous account of Agamemnon's murder in the bath: 'I see and I am there and I enjoy it, no false vision deceives my eyes: let's watch' (video et intersum et fruor, / imago visus dubia non fallit meos: / spectemus.)\"",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy, but was also cursed by the god Apollo so that her true prophecies would not be believed. Many versions of the myth relate that she incurred the god's wrath by refusing him sexual favours after promising herself to him in exchange for the power of prophecy. In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, she bemoans her relationship with Apollo:",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Apollo, Apollo! God of all ways, but only Death's to me, Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named, Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old!",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "And she acknowledges her fault:",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "I consented [marriage] to Loxias [Apollo] but broke my word. ... Ever since that fault I could persuade no one of anything.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Latin author Hyginus in Fabulae says:",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Cassandra, daughter of the king and queen, in the temple of Apollo, exhausted from practising, is said to have fallen asleep; whom, when Apollo wished to embrace her, she did not afford the opportunity of her body. On account of which thing, when she prophesied true things, she was not believed.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Louise Bogan, an American poet, writes that another way Cassandra, as well as her twin brother Helenus, had earned their prophetic powers: \"she and her brother Helenus were left overnight in the temple of the Thymbraean Apollo. No reason has been advanced for this night in the temple; perhaps it was a ritual routinely performed by everyone. When their parents looked in on them the next morning, the children were entwined with serpents, which flicked their tongues into the children's ears. This enabled Cassandra and Helenus to divine the future.\" It would not be until Cassandra is much older that Apollo appears in the same temple and tried to seduce Cassandra, who rejects his advances, and curses her by making her prophecies not be believed.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Her cursed gift from Apollo became an endless pain and frustration to her. She was seen as a liar and a madwoman by her family and by the Trojan people. Because of this, her father, Priam, had locked her away in a chamber and guarded her like the madwoman she was believed to be. Though Cassandra made many predictions that went unbelieved, the one prophecy that was believed was that of Paris being her abandoned brother.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Before the fall of Troy took place, Cassandra foresaw that if Paris goes to Sparta and brings Helen back as his wife, the arrival of Helen will spark the downfall and destruction of Troy during the Trojan War. Despite the prophecy and ignoring Cassandra's warning, Paris still went to Sparta and returned with Helen. While the people of Troy rejoiced, Cassandra, angry with Helen's arrival, furiously snatched away Helen's golden veil and tore at her hair.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In Virgil's epic poem, the Aeneid, Cassandra warned the Trojans about the Greeks hiding inside the Trojan Horse, Agamemnon's death, her own demise at the hands of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, her mother Hecuba's fate, Odysseus's ten-year wanderings before returning to his home, and the murder of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra by the latter's children Electra and Orestes. Cassandra predicted that her cousin Aeneas would escape during the fall of Troy and found a new nation in Rome.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Coroebus and Othronus came to the aid of Troy during the Trojan War out of love for Cassandra and in exchange for her hand in marriage, but both were killed. According to one account, Priam offered Cassandra to Telephus's son Eurypylus, in order to induce Eurypylus to fight on the side of the Trojans. Cassandra was also the first to see the body of her brother Hector being brought back to the city.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In The Fall of Troy, told by Quintus Smyrnaeus, Cassandra attempted to warn the Trojan people that Greek warriors were hiding in the Trojan Horse while they were celebrating their victory over the Greeks with feasting. Disbelieving Cassandra, the Trojans resorted to calling her names and hurling insults at her. Attempting to prove herself right, Cassandra took an axe in one hand and a burning torch in the other, and ran towards the Trojan Horse, intent on destroying the Greeks herself, but the Trojans stopped her. The Greeks hiding inside the Horse were relieved, but alarmed by how clearly she had divined their plan.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "At the fall of Troy, Cassandra sought shelter in the temple of Athena. There she embraced the wooden statue of Athena in supplication for her protection, but was abducted and brutally raped by Ajax the Lesser. Cassandra clung so tightly to the statue of the goddess that Ajax knocked it from its stand as he dragged her away. The actions of Ajax were a sacrilege because Cassandra was a supplicant at the sanctuary, and under the protection of the goddess Athena and Ajax further defiled the temple by raping Cassandra. In Apollodorus chapter 6, section 6, Ajax's death comes at the hands of both Athena and Poseidon \"Athena threw a thunderbolt at the ship of Ajax; and when the ship went to pieces he made his way safe to a rock, and declared that he was saved in spite of the intention of Athena. But Poseidon smote the rock with his trident and split it, and Ajax fell into the sea and perished; and his body, being washed up, was buried by Thetis in Myconos\".",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In some versions, Cassandra intentionally left a chest behind in Troy, with a curse on whichever Greek opened it first. Inside the chest was an image of Dionysus, made by Hephaestus and presented to the Trojans by Zeus. It was given to the Greek leader Eurypylus as a part of his share of the victory spoils of Troy. When he opened the chest and saw the image of the god, he went mad.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Once Troy had fallen, Cassandra was taken as a pallake (concubine) by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. While he was away at war, Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, had taken Aegisthus as her lover. Cassandra and Agamemnon were later killed by either Clytemnestra or Aegisthus. Various sources state that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, who were murdered by Aegisthus.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The final resting place of Cassandra is either in Amyclae or Mycenae. Statues of Cassandra exist both in Amyclae and across the Peleponnese peninsula from Mycenae in Leuctra. In Mycenae, German business man and pioneer archeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered in Grave Circle A the graves of Cassandra and Agamemnon and telegraphed back to King George of Greece:",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "With great joy I announce to Your Majesty that I have discovered the tombs which the tradition proclaimed by Pausanias indicates to be the graves of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon and their companions, all slain at a banquet by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthos.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "However, it was later discovered that the graves predated the Trojan War by at least 300 years.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The play Agamemnon from Aeschylus's trilogy Oresteia depicts the king treading the scarlet cloth laid down for him, and walking offstage to his death. After the chorus's ode of foreboding, time is suspended in Cassandra's \"mad scene\". She has been onstage, silent and ignored. Her madness that is unleashed now is not the physical torment of other characters in Greek tragedy, such as in Euripides' Heracles or Sophocles' Ajax.",
"title": "Agamemnon by Aeschylus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "According to author Seth Schein, two further familiar descriptions of her madness are that of Heracles in The Women of Trachis or Io in Prometheus Bound. She speaks, disconnectedly and transcendent, in the grip of her psychic possession by Apollo, witnessing past and future events. Schein says, \"She evokes the same awe, horror and pity as do schizophrenics\". Cassandra is one of those \"who often combine deep, true insight with utter helplessness, and who retreat into madness.\"",
"title": "Agamemnon by Aeschylus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Eduard Fraenkel remarked on the powerful contrasts between declaimed and sung dialogue in this scene. The frightened and respectful chorus are unable to comprehend her. She goes to her inevitable offstage murder by Clytemnestra with full knowledge of what is to befall her.",
"title": "Agamemnon by Aeschylus"
}
] | Cassandra or Kassandra in Greek mythology was a Trojan priestess dedicated to the god Apollo and fated by him to utter true prophecies but never to be believed. In modern usage her name is employed as a rhetorical device to indicate a person whose accurate prophecies, generally of impending disaster, are not believed. Cassandra was a daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her elder brother was Hector, the hero of the Greek-Trojan war. The older and most common versions of the myth state that she was admired by the god Apollo, who sought to win her love by means of the gift of seeing the future. According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favours, but after receiving the gift, she went back on her word. As the enraged Apollo could not revoke a divine power, he added to it the curse that nobody would believe her prophecies. In other sources, such as Hyginus and Pseudo-Apollodorus, Cassandra broke no promise to Apollo but rather the power of foresight was given to her as an enticement to enter into a romantic engagement, the curse being added only when it failed to produce the result desired by the god. Later versions on the contrary describe her falling asleep in a temple, where snakes licked her ears which enabled her to hear the future. | 2001-09-25T20:00:32Z | 2023-12-19T18:25:18Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra |
6,530 | Couplet | A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on (or open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second.
The word "couplet" comes from the French word meaning "two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together". The term "couplet" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia in 1590: "In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere."
While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in iambic pentameter are called heroic couplets. John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in the 18th century were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets. The Poetic epigram is also in the couplet form. Couplets can also appear as part of more complex rhyme schemes, such as sonnets.
Rhyming couplets are one of the simplest rhyme schemes in poetry. Because the rhyme comes so quickly, it tends to call attention to itself. Good rhyming couplets tend to "explode" as both the rhyme and the idea come to a quick close in two lines. Here are some examples of rhyming couplets where the sense as well as the sound "rhymes":
On the other hand, because rhyming couplets have such a predictable rhyme scheme, they can feel artificial and plodding. Here is a Pope parody of the predictable rhymes of his era:
Regular rhyme was not originally a feature of English poetry: Old English verse came in metrically paired units somewhat analogous to couplets, but constructed according to alliterative verse principles. The rhyming couplet entered English verse in the early Middle English period through the imitation of medieval Latin and Old French models. The earliest surviving examples are a metrical paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer in short-line couplets, and the Poema Morale in septenary (or "heptameter") couplets, both dating from the twelfth century.
Rhyming couplets were often used in Middle English and early modern English poetry. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, for instance, is predominantly written in rhyming couplets, and Chaucer also incorporated a concluding couplet into his rhyme royal stanza. Similarly, Shakespearean sonnets often employ rhyming couplets at the end to emphasize the theme. Take one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets, Sonnet 18, for example (the rhyming couplet is shown in italics):
In the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth-century English rhyming couplets achieved the zenith of their prestige in English verse, in the popularity of heroic couplets. The heroic couplet was used by famous poets for ambitious translations of revered Classical texts, for instance, in John Dryden's translation of the Aeneid and in Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad.
Though poets still sometimes write in couplets, the form fell somewhat from favour in English in the twentieth century; contemporary poets writing in English sometimes prefer unrhymed couplets, distinguished by layout rather than by matching sounds.
Couplets called duilian may be seen on doorways in Chinese communities worldwide. Duilian displayed as part of the Chinese New Year festival, on the first morning of the New Year, are called chunlian (春联). These are usually purchased at a market a few days before and glued to the doorframe. The text of the couplets is often traditional and contains hopes for prosperity. Other chunlian reflect more recent concerns. For example, the CCTV New Year's Gala usually promotes couplets reflecting current political themes in mainland China.
Some duilian may consist of two lines of four characters each. Duilian are read from top to bottom where the first line starts from the right.
Tamil literature contains some of the notable examples of ancient couplet poetry. The Tamil language has a rich and refined grammar for couplet poetry, and distichs in Tamil poetry follow the venpa metre. One of the most notable examples of Tamil couplet poetry is the ancient Tamil moral text of the Tirukkural, which contains a total of 1330 couplets written in the kural venpa metre from which the title of the work was derived centuries later. Each Kural couplet is made of exactly 7 words—4 in the first line and 3 in the second. The first word may rhyme with the fourth or the fifth word. Below is an example of a couplet:
In Hindi, a couplet is called a doha, while in Urdu, it is called a sher.
Couplets were the most common form of poetry between the 12th and 18th Centuries, in Hidustani. Famous poets include Kabir, Tulsidas and Rahim Khan-i-Khanan.
Kabir (also known as Kabirdas) is thought to be one of the greatest composers of Hindustani couplets.
The American poet J. V. Cunningham was noted for many distichs included in the various forms of epigrams included in his poetry collections, as exampled here:
Deep summer, and time passes. Sorrow wastesTo a new sorrow. While Time heals time hastes | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on (or open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The word \"couplet\" comes from the French word meaning \"two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together\". The term \"couplet\" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia in 1590: \"In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere.\"",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in iambic pentameter are called heroic couplets. John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in the 18th century were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets. The Poetic epigram is also in the couplet form. Couplets can also appear as part of more complex rhyme schemes, such as sonnets.",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Rhyming couplets are one of the simplest rhyme schemes in poetry. Because the rhyme comes so quickly, it tends to call attention to itself. Good rhyming couplets tend to \"explode\" as both the rhyme and the idea come to a quick close in two lines. Here are some examples of rhyming couplets where the sense as well as the sound \"rhymes\":",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "On the other hand, because rhyming couplets have such a predictable rhyme scheme, they can feel artificial and plodding. Here is a Pope parody of the predictable rhymes of his era:",
"title": "Background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Regular rhyme was not originally a feature of English poetry: Old English verse came in metrically paired units somewhat analogous to couplets, but constructed according to alliterative verse principles. The rhyming couplet entered English verse in the early Middle English period through the imitation of medieval Latin and Old French models. The earliest surviving examples are a metrical paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer in short-line couplets, and the Poema Morale in septenary (or \"heptameter\") couplets, both dating from the twelfth century.",
"title": "In English poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Rhyming couplets were often used in Middle English and early modern English poetry. Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, for instance, is predominantly written in rhyming couplets, and Chaucer also incorporated a concluding couplet into his rhyme royal stanza. Similarly, Shakespearean sonnets often employ rhyming couplets at the end to emphasize the theme. Take one of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets, Sonnet 18, for example (the rhyming couplet is shown in italics):",
"title": "In English poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth-century English rhyming couplets achieved the zenith of their prestige in English verse, in the popularity of heroic couplets. The heroic couplet was used by famous poets for ambitious translations of revered Classical texts, for instance, in John Dryden's translation of the Aeneid and in Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad.",
"title": "In English poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Though poets still sometimes write in couplets, the form fell somewhat from favour in English in the twentieth century; contemporary poets writing in English sometimes prefer unrhymed couplets, distinguished by layout rather than by matching sounds.",
"title": "In English poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Couplets called duilian may be seen on doorways in Chinese communities worldwide. Duilian displayed as part of the Chinese New Year festival, on the first morning of the New Year, are called chunlian (春联). These are usually purchased at a market a few days before and glued to the doorframe. The text of the couplets is often traditional and contains hopes for prosperity. Other chunlian reflect more recent concerns. For example, the CCTV New Year's Gala usually promotes couplets reflecting current political themes in mainland China.",
"title": "In Chinese poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Some duilian may consist of two lines of four characters each. Duilian are read from top to bottom where the first line starts from the right.",
"title": "In Chinese poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Tamil literature contains some of the notable examples of ancient couplet poetry. The Tamil language has a rich and refined grammar for couplet poetry, and distichs in Tamil poetry follow the venpa metre. One of the most notable examples of Tamil couplet poetry is the ancient Tamil moral text of the Tirukkural, which contains a total of 1330 couplets written in the kural venpa metre from which the title of the work was derived centuries later. Each Kural couplet is made of exactly 7 words—4 in the first line and 3 in the second. The first word may rhyme with the fourth or the fifth word. Below is an example of a couplet:",
"title": "In Tamil poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In Hindi, a couplet is called a doha, while in Urdu, it is called a sher.",
"title": "In Hindi poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Couplets were the most common form of poetry between the 12th and 18th Centuries, in Hidustani. Famous poets include Kabir, Tulsidas and Rahim Khan-i-Khanan.",
"title": "In Hindi poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Kabir (also known as Kabirdas) is thought to be one of the greatest composers of Hindustani couplets.",
"title": "In Hindi poetry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The American poet J. V. Cunningham was noted for many distichs included in the various forms of epigrams included in his poetry collections, as exampled here:",
"title": "Distich"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Deep summer, and time passes. Sorrow wastesTo a new sorrow. While Time heals time hastes",
"title": "Distich"
}
] | A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second. | 2001-09-25T21:19:49Z | 2023-11-13T15:09:26Z | [
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6,532 | Charlotte Brontë | Charlotte Brontë (/ˈʃɑːrlət ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the gender neutral pen name Currer Bell. Jane Eyre went on to become a success in publication, and is widely held in high regard in the gothic fiction genre of literature.
She enlisted in school at Roe Head, Mirfield, in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in 1835 as a governess. In 1839, she undertook the role of governess for the Sidgwick family, but left after a few months to return to Haworth, where the sisters opened a school but failed to attract pupils. Instead, they turned to writing and they each first published in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Although her first novel, The Professor, was rejected by publishers, her second novel, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. The sisters admitted to their Bell pseudonyms in 1848, and by the following year were celebrated in London literary circles.
Charlotte Brontë was the last to die of all her siblings. She became pregnant shortly after her wedding in June 1854 but died on 31 March 1855, almost certainly from hyperemesis gravidarum, a complication of pregnancy which causes excessive nausea and vomiting.
Charlotte Brontë was born on 21 April 1816 in Market Street, Thornton (in a house now known as the Brontë Birthplace), west of Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the third of the six children of Maria (née Branwell) and Patrick Brontë (formerly surnamed Brunty), an Irish Anglican clergyman. In 1820 her family moved a few miles to the village of Haworth, on the edge of the moors, where her father had been appointed perpetual curate of St Michael and All Angels Church. Maria died of cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters, Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and a son, Branwell, to be taken care of by her sister, Elizabeth Branwell.
In August 1824, Patrick sent Charlotte, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire. Charlotte maintained that the school's poor conditions permanently affected her health and physical development, and hastened the deaths of Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born 1815), who both died of tuberculosis in June 1825. After the deaths of his older daughters, Patrick removed Charlotte and Emily from the school. Charlotte used the school as the basis for Lowood School in Jane Eyre, which is similarly affected by tuberculosis that is exacerbated by the poor conditions.
At home in Haworth Parsonage, Brontë acted as "the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters". Brontë wrote her first known poem at the age of 13 in 1829, and was to go on to write more than 200 poems in the course of her life. Many of her poems were "published" in their homemade magazine Branwell's Blackwood's Magazine, and concerned the fictional world of Glass Town. She and her surviving siblings – Branwell, Emily and Anne – created this shared world, and began chronicling the lives and struggles of the inhabitants of their imaginary kingdom in 1827. Charlotte, in private letters, called Glass Town "her 'world below', a private escape where she could act out her desires and multiple identities". Charlotte's "predilection for romantic settings, passionate relationships, and high society is at odds with Branwell's obsession with battles and politics and her young sisters' homely North Country realism, none the less at this stage there is still a sense of the writings as a family enterprise".
However, from 1831 onwards, Emily and Anne 'seceded' from the Glass Town Confederacy to create a 'spin-off' called Gondal, which included many of their poems. After 1831, Charlotte and Branwell concentrated on an evolution of the Glass Town Confederacy called Angria. Christine Alexander, a Brontë juvenilia historian, wrote "both Charlotte and Branwell ensured the consistency of their imaginary world. When Branwell exuberantly kills off important characters in his manuscripts, Charlotte comes to the rescue and, in effect, resurrects them for the next stories [...]; and when Branwell becomes bored with his inventions, such as the Glass Town magazine he edits, Charlotte takes over his initiative and keeps the publication going for several more years". The sagas the siblings created were episodic and elaborate, and they exist in incomplete manuscripts, some of which have been published as juvenilia. They provided them with an obsessive interest during childhood and early adolescence, which prepared them for literary vocations in adulthood.
Between 1831 and 1832, Brontë continued her education at a boarding school twenty miles away in Mirfield, Roe Head (now part of Hollybank Special School), where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. In 1833 she wrote a novella, The Green Dwarf, using the name Wellesley. Around about 1833, her stories shifted from tales of the supernatural to more realistic stories. She returned to Roe Head as a teacher from 1835 to 1838. Unhappy and lonely as a teacher at Roe Head, Brontë took out her sorrows in poetry, writing a series of melancholic poems. In "We wove a Web in Childhood" written in December 1835, Brontë drew a sharp contrast between her miserable life as a teacher and the vivid imaginary worlds she and her siblings had created. In another poem "Morning was its freshness still" written at the same time, Brontë wrote "Tis bitter sometimes to recall/Illusions once deemed fair". Many of her poems concerned the imaginary world of Angria, often concerning Byronic heroes, and in December 1836 she wrote to the Poet Laureate Robert Southey asking him for encouragement of her career as a poet. Southey replied, famously, that "Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it even as an accomplishment and a recreation." This advice she respected but did not heed.
In 1839, she took up the first of many positions as governess to families in Yorkshire, a career she pursued until 1841. In particular, from May to July 1839 she was employed by the Sidgwick family at their summer residence, Stone Gappe, in Lothersdale, where one of her charges was John Benson Sidgwick (1835–1927), an unruly child who on one occasion threw the Bible at Charlotte, an incident that may have been the inspiration for a part of the opening chapter of Jane Eyre in which John Reed throws a book at the young Jane. Brontë did not enjoy her work as a governess, noting her employers treated her almost as a slave, constantly humiliating her.
Brontë was of slight build and was less than five feet tall.
In 1842 Charlotte and Emily travelled to Brussels to enrol at the boarding school run by Constantin Héger (1809–1896) and his wife Claire Zoé Parent Héger (1804–1887). During her time in Brussels, Brontë, who favoured the Protestant ideal of an individual in direct contact with God, objected to the stern Catholicism of Madame Héger, which she considered a tyrannical religion that enforced conformity and submission to the Pope. In return for board and tuition Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. Their time at the school was cut short when their aunt Elizabeth Branwell, who had joined the family in Haworth to look after the children after their mother's death, died of internal obstruction in October 1842. Charlotte returned alone to Brussels in January 1843 to take up a teaching post at the school. Her second stay was not happy: she was homesick and deeply attached to Constantin Héger. She returned to Haworth in January 1844 and used the time spent in Brussels as the inspiration for some of the events in The Professor and Villette.
After returning to Haworth, Charlotte and her sisters made headway with opening their own boarding school in the family home. It was advertised as "The Misses Brontë's Establishment for the Board and Education of a limited number of Young Ladies" and inquiries were made to prospective pupils and sources of funding. But none were attracted and in October 1844, the project was abandoned.
In May 1846 Charlotte, Emily, and Anne self-financed the publication of a joint collection of poems under their assumed names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The pseudonyms veiled the sisters' sex while preserving their initials; thus Charlotte was Currer Bell. "Bell" was the middle name of Haworth's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls whom Charlotte later married, and "Currer" was the surname of Frances Mary Richardson Currer who had funded their school (and maybe their father). Of the decision to use noms de plume, Charlotte wrote:
Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called "feminine" – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.
Although only two copies of the collection of poems were sold, the sisters continued writing for publication and began their first novels, continuing to use their noms de plume when sending manuscripts to potential publishers.
Brontë's first manuscript, 'The Professor', did not secure a publisher, although she was heartened by an encouraging response from Smith, Elder & Co. of Cornhill, who expressed an interest in any longer works Currer Bell might wish to send. Brontë responded by finishing and sending a second manuscript in August 1847. Six weeks later, Jane Eyre was published. It tells the story of a plain governess, Jane, who, after difficulties in her early life, falls in love with her employer, Mr Rochester. They marry, but only after Rochester's insane first wife, of whom Jane initially has no knowledge, dies in a dramatic house fire. The book's style was innovative, combining Romanticism, naturalism with gothic melodrama, and broke new ground in being written from an intensely evoked first-person female perspective. Brontë believed art was most convincing when based on personal experience; in Jane Eyre she transformed the experience into a novel with universal appeal.
Jane Eyre had immediate commercial success and initially received favourable reviews. G. H. Lewes wrote that it was "an utterance from the depths of a struggling, suffering, much-enduring spirit", and declared that it consisted of "suspiria de profundis!" (sighs from the depths). Speculation about the identity and gender of the mysterious Currer Bell heightened with the publication of Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell (Emily) and Agnes Grey by Acton Bell (Anne). Accompanying the speculation was a change in the critical reaction to Brontë's work, as accusations were made that the writing was "coarse", a judgement more readily made once it was suspected that Currer Bell was a woman. However, sales of Jane Eyre continued to be strong and may even have increased as a result of the novel developing a reputation as an "improper" book. A talented amateur artist, Brontë personally did the drawings for the second edition of Jane Eyre and in the summer of 1834 two of her paintings were shown at an exhibition by the Royal Northern Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Leeds.
In 1848 Brontë began work on the manuscript of her second novel, Shirley. It was only partially completed when the Brontë family suffered the deaths of three of its members within eight months. In September 1848 Branwell died of chronic bronchitis and marasmus, exacerbated by heavy drinking, although Brontë believed that his death was due to tuberculosis. Branwell may have had a laudanum addiction. Emily became seriously ill shortly after his funeral and died of pulmonary tuberculosis in December 1848. Anne died of the same disease in May 1849. Brontë was unable to write at this time.
After Anne's death Brontë resumed writing as a way of dealing with her grief, and Shirley, which deals with themes of industrial unrest and the role of women in society, was published in October 1849. Unlike Jane Eyre, which is written in the first person, Shirley is written in the third person and lacks the emotional immediacy of her first novel, and reviewers found it less shocking. Brontë, as her late sister's heir, suppressed the republication of Anne's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, an action which had a deleterious effect on Anne's popularity as a novelist and has remained controversial among the sisters' biographers ever since.
In view of the success of her novels, particularly Jane Eyre, Brontë was persuaded by her publisher to make occasional visits to London, where she revealed her true identity and began to move in more exalted social circles, becoming friends with Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Martineau whose sister Rachel had taught Gaskell's daughters. Brontë sent an early copy of Shirley to Martineau whose home at Ambleside she visited. The two friends shared an interest in racial relations and the abolitionist movement; recurrent themes in their writings. Brontë was also acquainted with William Makepeace Thackeray and G.H. Lewes. She never left Haworth for more than a few weeks at a time, as she did not want to leave her ageing father. Thackeray's daughter, writer Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, recalled a visit to her father by Brontë:
…two gentlemen come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, with fair straight hair and steady eyes. She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress with a pattern of faint green moss. She enters in mittens, in silence, in seriousness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This then is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all London talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father wrote the books – the wonderful books. …The moment is so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, genius though she may be, Miss Brontë can barely reach his elbow. My own personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern, specially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. …Everyone waited for the brilliant conversation which never began at all. Miss Brontë retired to the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then to our kind governess… the conversation grew dimmer and more dim, the ladies sat round still expectant, my father was too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to be able to cope with it at all… after Miss Brontë had left, I was surprised to see my father opening the front door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him… long afterwards… Mrs Procter asked me if I knew what had happened. …It was one of the dullest evenings [Mrs Procter] had ever spent in her life… the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club.
Brontë's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell, while not particularly close, was significant in that Gaskell wrote the first biography of Brontë after her death in 1855.
Brontë's third novel, the last published in her lifetime, was Villette, which appeared in 1853. Its main themes include isolation, how such a condition can be borne, and the internal conflict brought about by social repression of individual desire. Its main character, Lucy Snowe, travels abroad to teach in a boarding school in the fictional town of Villette, where she encounters a culture and religion different from her own and falls in love with a man (Paul Emanuel) whom she cannot marry. Her experiences result in a breakdown but eventually, she achieves independence and fulfilment through running her own school. A substantial amount of the novel's dialogue is in the French language. Villette marked Brontë's return to writing from a first-person perspective (that of Lucy Snowe), the technique she had used in Jane Eyre. Another similarity to Jane Eyre lies in the use of aspects of her own life as inspiration for fictional events, in particular her reworking of the time she spent at the pensionnat in Brussels. Villette was acknowledged by critics of the day as a potent and sophisticated piece of writing although it was criticised for "coarseness" and for not being suitably "feminine" in its portrayal of Lucy's desires.
Before the publication of Villette, Brontë received an expected proposal of marriage from Irishman Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate, who had long been in love with her. She initially refused him and her father objected to the union at least partly because of Nicholls's poor financial status. Elizabeth Gaskell, who believed that marriage provided "clear and defined duties" that were beneficial for a woman, encouraged Brontë to consider the positive aspects of such a union and tried to use her contacts to engineer an improvement in Nicholls's finances. According to James Pope-Hennessy in The Flight of Youth, it was the generosity of Richard Monckton Milnes that made the marriage possible. Brontë, meanwhile, was increasingly attracted to Nicholls and by January 1854, she had accepted his proposal. They gained the approval of her father by April and married in June. Her father Patrick had intended to give Charlotte away, but at the last minute decided he could not, and Charlotte had to make her way to the church without him. The married couple took their honeymoon in Banagher, County Offaly, Ireland. By all accounts, her marriage was a success and Brontë found herself very happy in a way that was new to her.
Brontë became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness". She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, three weeks before her 39th birthday. Her death certificate gives the cause of death as phthisis, but biographers including Claire Harman and others suggest that she died from dehydration and malnourishment due to vomiting caused by severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum. Brontë was buried in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.
The Professor, the first novel Brontë had written, was published posthumously in 1857. The fragment of a new novel she had been writing in her last years has been twice completed by recent authors, the more famous version being Emma Brown: A Novel from the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Brontë by Clare Boylan in 2003. Most of her writings about the imaginary country Angria have also been published since her death. In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her.
The daughter of an Irish Anglican clergyman, Brontë was herself an Anglican. In a letter to her publisher, she claims to "love the Church of England. Her Ministers indeed, I do not regard as infallible personages, I have seen too much of them for that – but to the Establishment, with all her faults – the profane Athanasian Creed excluded – I am sincerely attached."
In a letter to Ellen Nussey she wrote:
If I could always live with you, and daily read the bible with you, if your lips and mine could at the same time, drink the same draught from the same pure fountain of Mercy – I hope, I trust, I might one day become better, far better, than my evil wandering thoughts, my corrupt heart, cold to the spirit, and warm to the flesh will now permit me to be.
Elizabeth Gaskell's biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857. It was an important step for a leading female novelist to write a biography of another, and Gaskell's approach was unusual in that, rather than analysing her subject's achievements, she concentrated on private details of Brontë's life, emphasising those aspects that countered the accusations of "coarseness" that had been levelled at her writing. The biography is frank in places, but omits details of Brontë's love for Héger, a married man, as being too much of an affront to contemporary morals and a likely source of distress to Brontë's father, widower, and friends. Mrs. Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Brontë, claiming that he did not allow his children to eat meat. This is refuted by one of Emily Brontë's diary papers, in which she describes preparing meat and potatoes for dinner at the parsonage. It has been argued that Gaskell's approach transferred the focus of attention away from the 'difficult' novels, not just Brontë's, but all the sisters', and began a process of sanctification of their private lives.
Brontë held lifelong correspondence with her former schoolmate Ellen Nussey. 350 of the some 500 letters sent by Brontë to Nussey survive, whereas all of Nussey's letters to Brontë were burned at Nicholls's request. The surviving letters provide most of the information known on Charlotte Brontë's life and are the backbone of her autobiographies.
Brontë's letters to Nussey seem to have romantic undertones:
What shall I do without you? How long are we likely to be separated? Why are we to be denied each other's society- I long to be with you. Why are we to be divided? Surely, Ellen, it must be because we are in danger of loving each other too well-
Ellen, I wish I could live with you always. I begin to cling to you more fondly than ever I did. If we had but a cottage and a competency of our own, I do think we might live and love on till Death without being dependent on any third person for happiness...
how sorely my heart longs for you I need not say... Less than ever can I taste or know pleasure till this work is wound up. And yet I often sit up in bed at night, thinking of and wishing for you.
Some scholars believe it is possible that Charlotte Brontë was in a romantic or sexual relationship with Ellen Nussey. Brontë would certainly have been aware of female same-sex attraction as she lived near Anne Lister.
On 29 July 1913 The Times of London printed four letters Brontë had written to Constantin Héger after leaving Brussels in 1844. Written in French except for one postscript in English, the letters broke the prevailing image of Brontë as an angelic martyr to Christian and female duties that had been constructed by many biographers, beginning with Gaskell. The letters, which formed part of a larger and somewhat one-sided correspondence in which Héger frequently appears not to have replied, reveal that she had been in love with a married man, although they are complex and have been interpreted in numerous ways, including as an example of literary self-dramatisation and an expression of gratitude from a former pupil.
In 1980 a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, on the site of the Madam Heger's school, in honour of Charlotte and Emily.
The Green Dwarf, A Tale of the Perfect Tense was written in 1833 under the pseudonym Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley. It shows the influence of Walter Scott, and Brontë's modifications to her earlier gothic style have led Christine Alexander to comment that, in the work, "it is clear that Brontë was becoming tired of the gothic mode per se".
"At the end of 1839, Brontë said goodbye to her fantasy world in a manuscript called Farewell to Angria. More and more, she was finding that she preferred to escape to her imagined worlds over remaining in reality – and she feared that she was going mad. So she said goodbye to her characters, scenes and subjects. [...] She wrote of the pain she felt at wrenching herself from her 'friends' and venturing into lands unknown". | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Charlotte Brontë (/ˈʃɑːrlət ˈbrɒnti/, commonly /-teɪ/; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the gender neutral pen name Currer Bell. Jane Eyre went on to become a success in publication, and is widely held in high regard in the gothic fiction genre of literature.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "She enlisted in school at Roe Head, Mirfield, in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in 1835 as a governess. In 1839, she undertook the role of governess for the Sidgwick family, but left after a few months to return to Haworth, where the sisters opened a school but failed to attract pupils. Instead, they turned to writing and they each first published in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Although her first novel, The Professor, was rejected by publishers, her second novel, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. The sisters admitted to their Bell pseudonyms in 1848, and by the following year were celebrated in London literary circles.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Charlotte Brontë was the last to die of all her siblings. She became pregnant shortly after her wedding in June 1854 but died on 31 March 1855, almost certainly from hyperemesis gravidarum, a complication of pregnancy which causes excessive nausea and vomiting.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Charlotte Brontë was born on 21 April 1816 in Market Street, Thornton (in a house now known as the Brontë Birthplace), west of Bradford in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the third of the six children of Maria (née Branwell) and Patrick Brontë (formerly surnamed Brunty), an Irish Anglican clergyman. In 1820 her family moved a few miles to the village of Haworth, on the edge of the moors, where her father had been appointed perpetual curate of St Michael and All Angels Church. Maria died of cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters, Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, and a son, Branwell, to be taken care of by her sister, Elizabeth Branwell.",
"title": "Early years and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In August 1824, Patrick sent Charlotte, Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire. Charlotte maintained that the school's poor conditions permanently affected her health and physical development, and hastened the deaths of Maria (born 1814) and Elizabeth (born 1815), who both died of tuberculosis in June 1825. After the deaths of his older daughters, Patrick removed Charlotte and Emily from the school. Charlotte used the school as the basis for Lowood School in Jane Eyre, which is similarly affected by tuberculosis that is exacerbated by the poor conditions.",
"title": "Early years and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "At home in Haworth Parsonage, Brontë acted as \"the motherly friend and guardian of her younger sisters\". Brontë wrote her first known poem at the age of 13 in 1829, and was to go on to write more than 200 poems in the course of her life. Many of her poems were \"published\" in their homemade magazine Branwell's Blackwood's Magazine, and concerned the fictional world of Glass Town. She and her surviving siblings – Branwell, Emily and Anne – created this shared world, and began chronicling the lives and struggles of the inhabitants of their imaginary kingdom in 1827. Charlotte, in private letters, called Glass Town \"her 'world below', a private escape where she could act out her desires and multiple identities\". Charlotte's \"predilection for romantic settings, passionate relationships, and high society is at odds with Branwell's obsession with battles and politics and her young sisters' homely North Country realism, none the less at this stage there is still a sense of the writings as a family enterprise\".",
"title": "Early years and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "However, from 1831 onwards, Emily and Anne 'seceded' from the Glass Town Confederacy to create a 'spin-off' called Gondal, which included many of their poems. After 1831, Charlotte and Branwell concentrated on an evolution of the Glass Town Confederacy called Angria. Christine Alexander, a Brontë juvenilia historian, wrote \"both Charlotte and Branwell ensured the consistency of their imaginary world. When Branwell exuberantly kills off important characters in his manuscripts, Charlotte comes to the rescue and, in effect, resurrects them for the next stories [...]; and when Branwell becomes bored with his inventions, such as the Glass Town magazine he edits, Charlotte takes over his initiative and keeps the publication going for several more years\". The sagas the siblings created were episodic and elaborate, and they exist in incomplete manuscripts, some of which have been published as juvenilia. They provided them with an obsessive interest during childhood and early adolescence, which prepared them for literary vocations in adulthood.",
"title": "Early years and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Between 1831 and 1832, Brontë continued her education at a boarding school twenty miles away in Mirfield, Roe Head (now part of Hollybank Special School), where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. In 1833 she wrote a novella, The Green Dwarf, using the name Wellesley. Around about 1833, her stories shifted from tales of the supernatural to more realistic stories. She returned to Roe Head as a teacher from 1835 to 1838. Unhappy and lonely as a teacher at Roe Head, Brontë took out her sorrows in poetry, writing a series of melancholic poems. In \"We wove a Web in Childhood\" written in December 1835, Brontë drew a sharp contrast between her miserable life as a teacher and the vivid imaginary worlds she and her siblings had created. In another poem \"Morning was its freshness still\" written at the same time, Brontë wrote \"Tis bitter sometimes to recall/Illusions once deemed fair\". Many of her poems concerned the imaginary world of Angria, often concerning Byronic heroes, and in December 1836 she wrote to the Poet Laureate Robert Southey asking him for encouragement of her career as a poet. Southey replied, famously, that \"Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure will she have for it even as an accomplishment and a recreation.\" This advice she respected but did not heed.",
"title": "Early years and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1839, she took up the first of many positions as governess to families in Yorkshire, a career she pursued until 1841. In particular, from May to July 1839 she was employed by the Sidgwick family at their summer residence, Stone Gappe, in Lothersdale, where one of her charges was John Benson Sidgwick (1835–1927), an unruly child who on one occasion threw the Bible at Charlotte, an incident that may have been the inspiration for a part of the opening chapter of Jane Eyre in which John Reed throws a book at the young Jane. Brontë did not enjoy her work as a governess, noting her employers treated her almost as a slave, constantly humiliating her.",
"title": "Early years and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Brontë was of slight build and was less than five feet tall.",
"title": "Early years and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1842 Charlotte and Emily travelled to Brussels to enrol at the boarding school run by Constantin Héger (1809–1896) and his wife Claire Zoé Parent Héger (1804–1887). During her time in Brussels, Brontë, who favoured the Protestant ideal of an individual in direct contact with God, objected to the stern Catholicism of Madame Héger, which she considered a tyrannical religion that enforced conformity and submission to the Pope. In return for board and tuition Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. Their time at the school was cut short when their aunt Elizabeth Branwell, who had joined the family in Haworth to look after the children after their mother's death, died of internal obstruction in October 1842. Charlotte returned alone to Brussels in January 1843 to take up a teaching post at the school. Her second stay was not happy: she was homesick and deeply attached to Constantin Héger. She returned to Haworth in January 1844 and used the time spent in Brussels as the inspiration for some of the events in The Professor and Villette.",
"title": "Brussels and Haworth"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "After returning to Haworth, Charlotte and her sisters made headway with opening their own boarding school in the family home. It was advertised as \"The Misses Brontë's Establishment for the Board and Education of a limited number of Young Ladies\" and inquiries were made to prospective pupils and sources of funding. But none were attracted and in October 1844, the project was abandoned.",
"title": "Brussels and Haworth"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In May 1846 Charlotte, Emily, and Anne self-financed the publication of a joint collection of poems under their assumed names Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. The pseudonyms veiled the sisters' sex while preserving their initials; thus Charlotte was Currer Bell. \"Bell\" was the middle name of Haworth's curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls whom Charlotte later married, and \"Currer\" was the surname of Frances Mary Richardson Currer who had funded their school (and maybe their father). Of the decision to use noms de plume, Charlotte wrote:",
"title": "First publication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called \"feminine\" – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice; we had noticed how critics sometimes use for their chastisement the weapon of personality, and for their reward, a flattery, which is not true praise.",
"title": "First publication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Although only two copies of the collection of poems were sold, the sisters continued writing for publication and began their first novels, continuing to use their noms de plume when sending manuscripts to potential publishers.",
"title": "First publication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Brontë's first manuscript, 'The Professor', did not secure a publisher, although she was heartened by an encouraging response from Smith, Elder & Co. of Cornhill, who expressed an interest in any longer works Currer Bell might wish to send. Brontë responded by finishing and sending a second manuscript in August 1847. Six weeks later, Jane Eyre was published. It tells the story of a plain governess, Jane, who, after difficulties in her early life, falls in love with her employer, Mr Rochester. They marry, but only after Rochester's insane first wife, of whom Jane initially has no knowledge, dies in a dramatic house fire. The book's style was innovative, combining Romanticism, naturalism with gothic melodrama, and broke new ground in being written from an intensely evoked first-person female perspective. Brontë believed art was most convincing when based on personal experience; in Jane Eyre she transformed the experience into a novel with universal appeal.",
"title": "The Professor and Jane Eyre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Jane Eyre had immediate commercial success and initially received favourable reviews. G. H. Lewes wrote that it was \"an utterance from the depths of a struggling, suffering, much-enduring spirit\", and declared that it consisted of \"suspiria de profundis!\" (sighs from the depths). Speculation about the identity and gender of the mysterious Currer Bell heightened with the publication of Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell (Emily) and Agnes Grey by Acton Bell (Anne). Accompanying the speculation was a change in the critical reaction to Brontë's work, as accusations were made that the writing was \"coarse\", a judgement more readily made once it was suspected that Currer Bell was a woman. However, sales of Jane Eyre continued to be strong and may even have increased as a result of the novel developing a reputation as an \"improper\" book. A talented amateur artist, Brontë personally did the drawings for the second edition of Jane Eyre and in the summer of 1834 two of her paintings were shown at an exhibition by the Royal Northern Society for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Leeds.",
"title": "The Professor and Jane Eyre"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 1848 Brontë began work on the manuscript of her second novel, Shirley. It was only partially completed when the Brontë family suffered the deaths of three of its members within eight months. In September 1848 Branwell died of chronic bronchitis and marasmus, exacerbated by heavy drinking, although Brontë believed that his death was due to tuberculosis. Branwell may have had a laudanum addiction. Emily became seriously ill shortly after his funeral and died of pulmonary tuberculosis in December 1848. Anne died of the same disease in May 1849. Brontë was unable to write at this time.",
"title": "Shirley and bereavements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "After Anne's death Brontë resumed writing as a way of dealing with her grief, and Shirley, which deals with themes of industrial unrest and the role of women in society, was published in October 1849. Unlike Jane Eyre, which is written in the first person, Shirley is written in the third person and lacks the emotional immediacy of her first novel, and reviewers found it less shocking. Brontë, as her late sister's heir, suppressed the republication of Anne's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, an action which had a deleterious effect on Anne's popularity as a novelist and has remained controversial among the sisters' biographers ever since.",
"title": "Shirley and bereavements"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In view of the success of her novels, particularly Jane Eyre, Brontë was persuaded by her publisher to make occasional visits to London, where she revealed her true identity and began to move in more exalted social circles, becoming friends with Elizabeth Gaskell and Harriet Martineau whose sister Rachel had taught Gaskell's daughters. Brontë sent an early copy of Shirley to Martineau whose home at Ambleside she visited. The two friends shared an interest in racial relations and the abolitionist movement; recurrent themes in their writings. Brontë was also acquainted with William Makepeace Thackeray and G.H. Lewes. She never left Haworth for more than a few weeks at a time, as she did not want to leave her ageing father. Thackeray's daughter, writer Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie, recalled a visit to her father by Brontë:",
"title": "In society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "…two gentlemen come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, with fair straight hair and steady eyes. She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress with a pattern of faint green moss. She enters in mittens, in silence, in seriousness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This then is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all London talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father wrote the books – the wonderful books. …The moment is so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, genius though she may be, Miss Brontë can barely reach his elbow. My own personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern, specially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. …Everyone waited for the brilliant conversation which never began at all. Miss Brontë retired to the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then to our kind governess… the conversation grew dimmer and more dim, the ladies sat round still expectant, my father was too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to be able to cope with it at all… after Miss Brontë had left, I was surprised to see my father opening the front door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him… long afterwards… Mrs Procter asked me if I knew what had happened. …It was one of the dullest evenings [Mrs Procter] had ever spent in her life… the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club.",
"title": "In society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Brontë's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell, while not particularly close, was significant in that Gaskell wrote the first biography of Brontë after her death in 1855.",
"title": "In society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Brontë's third novel, the last published in her lifetime, was Villette, which appeared in 1853. Its main themes include isolation, how such a condition can be borne, and the internal conflict brought about by social repression of individual desire. Its main character, Lucy Snowe, travels abroad to teach in a boarding school in the fictional town of Villette, where she encounters a culture and religion different from her own and falls in love with a man (Paul Emanuel) whom she cannot marry. Her experiences result in a breakdown but eventually, she achieves independence and fulfilment through running her own school. A substantial amount of the novel's dialogue is in the French language. Villette marked Brontë's return to writing from a first-person perspective (that of Lucy Snowe), the technique she had used in Jane Eyre. Another similarity to Jane Eyre lies in the use of aspects of her own life as inspiration for fictional events, in particular her reworking of the time she spent at the pensionnat in Brussels. Villette was acknowledged by critics of the day as a potent and sophisticated piece of writing although it was criticised for \"coarseness\" and for not being suitably \"feminine\" in its portrayal of Lucy's desires.",
"title": "Villette"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Before the publication of Villette, Brontë received an expected proposal of marriage from Irishman Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate, who had long been in love with her. She initially refused him and her father objected to the union at least partly because of Nicholls's poor financial status. Elizabeth Gaskell, who believed that marriage provided \"clear and defined duties\" that were beneficial for a woman, encouraged Brontë to consider the positive aspects of such a union and tried to use her contacts to engineer an improvement in Nicholls's finances. According to James Pope-Hennessy in The Flight of Youth, it was the generosity of Richard Monckton Milnes that made the marriage possible. Brontë, meanwhile, was increasingly attracted to Nicholls and by January 1854, she had accepted his proposal. They gained the approval of her father by April and married in June. Her father Patrick had intended to give Charlotte away, but at the last minute decided he could not, and Charlotte had to make her way to the church without him. The married couple took their honeymoon in Banagher, County Offaly, Ireland. By all accounts, her marriage was a success and Brontë found herself very happy in a way that was new to her.",
"title": "Marriage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Brontë became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by \"sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness\". She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, three weeks before her 39th birthday. Her death certificate gives the cause of death as phthisis, but biographers including Claire Harman and others suggest that she died from dehydration and malnourishment due to vomiting caused by severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum. Brontë was buried in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The Professor, the first novel Brontë had written, was published posthumously in 1857. The fragment of a new novel she had been writing in her last years has been twice completed by recent authors, the more famous version being Emma Brown: A Novel from the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Brontë by Clare Boylan in 2003. Most of her writings about the imaginary country Angria have also been published since her death. In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The daughter of an Irish Anglican clergyman, Brontë was herself an Anglican. In a letter to her publisher, she claims to \"love the Church of England. Her Ministers indeed, I do not regard as infallible personages, I have seen too much of them for that – but to the Establishment, with all her faults – the profane Athanasian Creed excluded – I am sincerely attached.\"",
"title": "Religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In a letter to Ellen Nussey she wrote:",
"title": "Religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "If I could always live with you, and daily read the bible with you, if your lips and mine could at the same time, drink the same draught from the same pure fountain of Mercy – I hope, I trust, I might one day become better, far better, than my evil wandering thoughts, my corrupt heart, cold to the spirit, and warm to the flesh will now permit me to be.",
"title": "Religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Elizabeth Gaskell's biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857. It was an important step for a leading female novelist to write a biography of another, and Gaskell's approach was unusual in that, rather than analysing her subject's achievements, she concentrated on private details of Brontë's life, emphasising those aspects that countered the accusations of \"coarseness\" that had been levelled at her writing. The biography is frank in places, but omits details of Brontë's love for Héger, a married man, as being too much of an affront to contemporary morals and a likely source of distress to Brontë's father, widower, and friends. Mrs. Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Brontë, claiming that he did not allow his children to eat meat. This is refuted by one of Emily Brontë's diary papers, in which she describes preparing meat and potatoes for dinner at the parsonage. It has been argued that Gaskell's approach transferred the focus of attention away from the 'difficult' novels, not just Brontë's, but all the sisters', and began a process of sanctification of their private lives.",
"title": "The Life of Charlotte Brontë"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Brontë held lifelong correspondence with her former schoolmate Ellen Nussey. 350 of the some 500 letters sent by Brontë to Nussey survive, whereas all of Nussey's letters to Brontë were burned at Nicholls's request. The surviving letters provide most of the information known on Charlotte Brontë's life and are the backbone of her autobiographies.",
"title": "Nussey letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Brontë's letters to Nussey seem to have romantic undertones:",
"title": "Nussey letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "What shall I do without you? How long are we likely to be separated? Why are we to be denied each other's society- I long to be with you. Why are we to be divided? Surely, Ellen, it must be because we are in danger of loving each other too well-",
"title": "Nussey letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Ellen, I wish I could live with you always. I begin to cling to you more fondly than ever I did. If we had but a cottage and a competency of our own, I do think we might live and love on till Death without being dependent on any third person for happiness...",
"title": "Nussey letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "how sorely my heart longs for you I need not say... Less than ever can I taste or know pleasure till this work is wound up. And yet I often sit up in bed at night, thinking of and wishing for you.",
"title": "Nussey letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Some scholars believe it is possible that Charlotte Brontë was in a romantic or sexual relationship with Ellen Nussey. Brontë would certainly have been aware of female same-sex attraction as she lived near Anne Lister.",
"title": "Nussey letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "On 29 July 1913 The Times of London printed four letters Brontë had written to Constantin Héger after leaving Brussels in 1844. Written in French except for one postscript in English, the letters broke the prevailing image of Brontë as an angelic martyr to Christian and female duties that had been constructed by many biographers, beginning with Gaskell. The letters, which formed part of a larger and somewhat one-sided correspondence in which Héger frequently appears not to have replied, reveal that she had been in love with a married man, although they are complex and have been interpreted in numerous ways, including as an example of literary self-dramatisation and an expression of gratitude from a former pupil.",
"title": "Héger letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 1980 a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels, on the site of the Madam Heger's school, in honour of Charlotte and Emily.",
"title": "Héger letters"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The Green Dwarf, A Tale of the Perfect Tense was written in 1833 under the pseudonym Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley. It shows the influence of Walter Scott, and Brontë's modifications to her earlier gothic style have led Christine Alexander to comment that, in the work, \"it is clear that Brontë was becoming tired of the gothic mode per se\".",
"title": "Publications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "\"At the end of 1839, Brontë said goodbye to her fantasy world in a manuscript called Farewell to Angria. More and more, she was finding that she preferred to escape to her imagined worlds over remaining in reality – and she feared that she was going mad. So she said goodbye to her characters, scenes and subjects. [...] She wrote of the pain she felt at wrenching herself from her 'friends' and venturing into lands unknown\".",
"title": "Publications"
}
] | Charlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature. She is best known for her novel Jane Eyre, which she published under the gender neutral pen name Currer Bell. Jane Eyre went on to become a success in publication, and is widely held in high regard in the gothic fiction genre of literature. She enlisted in school at Roe Head, Mirfield, in January 1831, aged 14 years. She left the year after to teach her sisters, Emily and Anne, at home, returning in 1835 as a governess. In 1839, she undertook the role of governess for the Sidgwick family, but left after a few months to return to Haworth, where the sisters opened a school but failed to attract pupils. Instead, they turned to writing and they each first published in 1846 under the pseudonyms of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Although her first novel, The Professor, was rejected by publishers, her second novel, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. The sisters admitted to their Bell pseudonyms in 1848, and by the following year were celebrated in London literary circles. Charlotte Brontë was the last to die of all her siblings. She became pregnant shortly after her wedding in June 1854 but died on 31 March 1855, almost certainly from hyperemesis gravidarum, a complication of pregnancy which causes excessive nausea and vomiting. | 2001-09-26T01:44:55Z | 2023-12-27T12:52:13Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB |
6,533 | Charles Williams (British writer) | Charles Walter Stansby Williams (20 September 1886 – 15 May 1945) was a British poet, novelist, playwright, theologian and literary critic. Most of his life was spent in London, where he was born, but in 1939 he moved to Oxford with the university press for which he worked and was buried there following his early death.
Charles Williams was born in London in 1886, the only son of (Richard) Walter Stansby Williams (1848–1929) and Mary (née Wall). His father Walter was a journalist and foreign business correspondent for an importing firm, writing in French and German, who was a 'regular and valued' contributor of verse, stories and articles to many popular magazines. His mother Mary, the sister of the ecclesiologist and historian J. Charles Wall, was a former milliner (hatmaker), of Islington. He had one sister, Edith, born in 1889. The Williams family lived in 'shabby-genteel' circumstances, owing to Walter's increasing blindness and the decline of the firm by which he was employed, in Holloway. In 1894 the family moved to St Albans in Hertfordshire, where Williams lived until his marriage in 1917.
Educated at St Albans School, Williams was awarded a scholarship to University College London, but he left in 1904 without attempting to gain a degree due to an inability to pay tuition fees.
Williams began work in 1904 in a Methodist bookroom. He was employed by the Oxford University Press (OUP) as a proofreading assistant in 1908 and quickly climbed to the position of editor. He continued to work at the OUP in various positions of increasing responsibility until his death in 1945. One of his greatest editorial achievements was the publication of the first major English-language edition of the works of Søren Kierkegaard. His work was part of the literature event in the art competition at the 1924 Summer Olympics.
Although chiefly remembered as a novelist, Williams also published poetry, works of literary criticism, theology, drama, history, biography, and a voluminous number of book reviews. Some of his best known novels are War in Heaven (1930), Descent into Hell (1937), and All Hallows' Eve (1945). T. S. Eliot, who wrote an introduction for the last of these, described Williams's novels as "supernatural thrillers" because they explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual while also examining the ways in which power, even spiritual power, can corrupt as well as sanctify.
All of Williams's fantasies, unlike those of J. R. R. Tolkien and most of those of C. S. Lewis, are set in the contemporary world. Williams has been described by Colin Manlove as one of the three main writers of "Christian fantasy" in the twentieth century (the other two being C.S. Lewis and T. F. Powys). More recent writers of fantasy novels with contemporary settings, notably Tim Powers, cite Williams as a model and inspiration.
W. H. Auden, one of Williams's greatest admirers, reportedly re-read Williams's extraordinary and highly unconventional history of the church, The Descent of the Dove (1939), every year. Williams's study of Dante entitled The Figure of Beatrice (1944) was very highly regarded at its time of publication and continues to be consulted by Dante scholars today. His work inspired Dorothy L. Sayers to undertake her translation of The Divine Comedy. Williams, however, regarded his most important work to be his extremely dense and complex Arthurian poetry, of which two books were published, Taliessin through Logres (1938) and The Region of the Summer Stars (1944), and more remained unfinished at his death. Some of Williams's essays were collected and published posthumously in Image of the City and Other Essays (1958), edited by Anne Ridler.
Williams gathered many followers and disciples during his lifetime. He was, for a period, a member of the Salvator Mundi Temple of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. He met fellow Anglican Evelyn Underhill in 1937 and would later write the introduction to her published Letters in 1943.
When World War II broke out in 1939, Oxford University Press moved its offices from London to Oxford. Williams was reluctant to leave his beloved city, and his wife Florence refused to go. From the nearly 700 letters he wrote to his wife during the war years, a generous selection has been published — "primarily… love letters," the editor calls them.
But the move to Oxford did allow him to participate regularly in Lewis's literary society known as the Inklings. In this setting Williams was able to read (and improve) his final published novel, All Hallows' Eve, as well as to hear J. R. R. Tolkien read aloud to the group some of his early drafts of The Lord of the Rings. In addition to meeting in Lewis's rooms at Oxford, they also regularly met at The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford (better known by its nickname "The Bird and Baby"). During this time Williams also gave lectures at Oxford on John Milton, William Wordsworth, and other authors, and received an honorary M.A. degree.
Williams is buried in Holywell Cemetery in Oxford. His headstone bears the word "poet" followed by the words "Under the Mercy", a phrase often used by Williams himself.
In 1917 Williams married his first sweetheart, Florence Conway, following a long courtship during which he presented her with a sonnet sequence that would later become his first published book of poetry, The Silver Stair. Their son Michael was born in 1922.
Williams was an unswerving and devoted member of the Church of England, reputedly with a tolerance of the scepticism of others and a firm belief in the necessity of a "doubting Thomas" in any apostolic body.
Although Williams attracted the attention and admiration of some of the most notable writers of his day, including T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, his greatest admirer was probably C. S. Lewis, whose novel That Hideous Strength (1945) has been regarded as partially inspired by his acquaintance with both the man and his novels and poems. Williams came to know Lewis after reading Lewis's then-recently published study The Allegory of Love; he was so impressed he jotted down a letter of congratulation and dropped it in the mail. Coincidentally, Lewis had just finished reading Williams's novel The Place of the Lion and had written a similar note of congratulation. The letters crossed in the mail and led to an enduring and fruitful friendship.
Williams developed the concept of co-inherence and gave rare consideration to the theology of romantic love. Falling in love for Williams was a form of mystical envisioning in which one saw the beloved as he or she was seen through the eyes of God. Co-inherence was a term used in Patristic theology to describe the relationship between the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ and the relationship between the persons of the blessed Trinity. Williams extended the term to include the ideal relationship between the individual parts of God's creation, including human beings. It is our mutual indwelling: Christ in us and we in Christ, interdependent. It is also the web of interrelationships, social and economic and ecological, by which the social fabric and the natural world function. But especially for Williams, co-inherence is a way of talking about the Body of Christ and the communion of saints. For Williams, salvation was not a solitary affair: "The thread of the love of God was strong enough to save you and all the others, but not strong enough to save you alone." He proposed an order, the Companions of the Co-inherence, who would practice substitution and exchange, living in love-in-God, truly bearing one another's burdens, being willing to sacrifice and to forgive, living from and for one another in Christ. According to Gunnar Urang, co-inherence is the focus of all Williams's novels.
He is writing that sort of book in which we begin by saying, let us suppose that this everyday world were at some one point invaded by the marvellous. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Charles Walter Stansby Williams (20 September 1886 – 15 May 1945) was a British poet, novelist, playwright, theologian and literary critic. Most of his life was spent in London, where he was born, but in 1939 he moved to Oxford with the university press for which he worked and was buried there following his early death.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Charles Williams was born in London in 1886, the only son of (Richard) Walter Stansby Williams (1848–1929) and Mary (née Wall). His father Walter was a journalist and foreign business correspondent for an importing firm, writing in French and German, who was a 'regular and valued' contributor of verse, stories and articles to many popular magazines. His mother Mary, the sister of the ecclesiologist and historian J. Charles Wall, was a former milliner (hatmaker), of Islington. He had one sister, Edith, born in 1889. The Williams family lived in 'shabby-genteel' circumstances, owing to Walter's increasing blindness and the decline of the firm by which he was employed, in Holloway. In 1894 the family moved to St Albans in Hertfordshire, where Williams lived until his marriage in 1917.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Educated at St Albans School, Williams was awarded a scholarship to University College London, but he left in 1904 without attempting to gain a degree due to an inability to pay tuition fees.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Williams began work in 1904 in a Methodist bookroom. He was employed by the Oxford University Press (OUP) as a proofreading assistant in 1908 and quickly climbed to the position of editor. He continued to work at the OUP in various positions of increasing responsibility until his death in 1945. One of his greatest editorial achievements was the publication of the first major English-language edition of the works of Søren Kierkegaard. His work was part of the literature event in the art competition at the 1924 Summer Olympics.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Although chiefly remembered as a novelist, Williams also published poetry, works of literary criticism, theology, drama, history, biography, and a voluminous number of book reviews. Some of his best known novels are War in Heaven (1930), Descent into Hell (1937), and All Hallows' Eve (1945). T. S. Eliot, who wrote an introduction for the last of these, described Williams's novels as \"supernatural thrillers\" because they explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual while also examining the ways in which power, even spiritual power, can corrupt as well as sanctify.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "All of Williams's fantasies, unlike those of J. R. R. Tolkien and most of those of C. S. Lewis, are set in the contemporary world. Williams has been described by Colin Manlove as one of the three main writers of \"Christian fantasy\" in the twentieth century (the other two being C.S. Lewis and T. F. Powys). More recent writers of fantasy novels with contemporary settings, notably Tim Powers, cite Williams as a model and inspiration.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "W. H. Auden, one of Williams's greatest admirers, reportedly re-read Williams's extraordinary and highly unconventional history of the church, The Descent of the Dove (1939), every year. Williams's study of Dante entitled The Figure of Beatrice (1944) was very highly regarded at its time of publication and continues to be consulted by Dante scholars today. His work inspired Dorothy L. Sayers to undertake her translation of The Divine Comedy. Williams, however, regarded his most important work to be his extremely dense and complex Arthurian poetry, of which two books were published, Taliessin through Logres (1938) and The Region of the Summer Stars (1944), and more remained unfinished at his death. Some of Williams's essays were collected and published posthumously in Image of the City and Other Essays (1958), edited by Anne Ridler.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Williams gathered many followers and disciples during his lifetime. He was, for a period, a member of the Salvator Mundi Temple of the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross. He met fellow Anglican Evelyn Underhill in 1937 and would later write the introduction to her published Letters in 1943.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "When World War II broke out in 1939, Oxford University Press moved its offices from London to Oxford. Williams was reluctant to leave his beloved city, and his wife Florence refused to go. From the nearly 700 letters he wrote to his wife during the war years, a generous selection has been published — \"primarily… love letters,\" the editor calls them.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "But the move to Oxford did allow him to participate regularly in Lewis's literary society known as the Inklings. In this setting Williams was able to read (and improve) his final published novel, All Hallows' Eve, as well as to hear J. R. R. Tolkien read aloud to the group some of his early drafts of The Lord of the Rings. In addition to meeting in Lewis's rooms at Oxford, they also regularly met at The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford (better known by its nickname \"The Bird and Baby\"). During this time Williams also gave lectures at Oxford on John Milton, William Wordsworth, and other authors, and received an honorary M.A. degree.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Williams is buried in Holywell Cemetery in Oxford. His headstone bears the word \"poet\" followed by the words \"Under the Mercy\", a phrase often used by Williams himself.",
"title": "Early life and education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1917 Williams married his first sweetheart, Florence Conway, following a long courtship during which he presented her with a sonnet sequence that would later become his first published book of poetry, The Silver Stair. Their son Michael was born in 1922.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Williams was an unswerving and devoted member of the Church of England, reputedly with a tolerance of the scepticism of others and a firm belief in the necessity of a \"doubting Thomas\" in any apostolic body.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Although Williams attracted the attention and admiration of some of the most notable writers of his day, including T. S. Eliot and W. H. Auden, his greatest admirer was probably C. S. Lewis, whose novel That Hideous Strength (1945) has been regarded as partially inspired by his acquaintance with both the man and his novels and poems. Williams came to know Lewis after reading Lewis's then-recently published study The Allegory of Love; he was so impressed he jotted down a letter of congratulation and dropped it in the mail. Coincidentally, Lewis had just finished reading Williams's novel The Place of the Lion and had written a similar note of congratulation. The letters crossed in the mail and led to an enduring and fruitful friendship.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Williams developed the concept of co-inherence and gave rare consideration to the theology of romantic love. Falling in love for Williams was a form of mystical envisioning in which one saw the beloved as he or she was seen through the eyes of God. Co-inherence was a term used in Patristic theology to describe the relationship between the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ and the relationship between the persons of the blessed Trinity. Williams extended the term to include the ideal relationship between the individual parts of God's creation, including human beings. It is our mutual indwelling: Christ in us and we in Christ, interdependent. It is also the web of interrelationships, social and economic and ecological, by which the social fabric and the natural world function. But especially for Williams, co-inherence is a way of talking about the Body of Christ and the communion of saints. For Williams, salvation was not a solitary affair: \"The thread of the love of God was strong enough to save you and all the others, but not strong enough to save you alone.\" He proposed an order, the Companions of the Co-inherence, who would practice substitution and exchange, living in love-in-God, truly bearing one another's burdens, being willing to sacrifice and to forgive, living from and for one another in Christ. According to Gunnar Urang, co-inherence is the focus of all Williams's novels.",
"title": "Theology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "He is writing that sort of book in which we begin by saying, let us suppose that this everyday world were at some one point invaded by the marvellous.",
"title": "Works"
}
] | Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, playwright, theologian and literary critic. Most of his life was spent in London, where he was born, but in 1939 he moved to Oxford with the university press for which he worked and was buried there following his early death. | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-10-31T00:34:01Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Williams_(British_writer) |
6,535 | Celery | Celery (Apium graveolens) is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, leaves or hypocotyl are eaten and used in cooking. Celery seed powder is used as a spice.
Celery leaves are pinnate to bipinnate with rhombic leaflets 3–6 centimetres (1–2+1⁄2 inches) long and 2–4 cm (1–1+1⁄2 in) broad. The flowers are creamy-white, 2–3 mm (3⁄32–1⁄8 in) in diameter, and are produced in dense compound umbels. The seeds are broad ovoid to globose, 1.5–2 mm (1⁄16–5⁄64 in) long and wide. Modern cultivars have been selected for either solid petioles, leaf stalks, or a large hypocotyl. A celery stalk readily separates into "strings" which are bundles of angular collenchyma cells exterior to the vascular bundles.
Wild celery, Apium graveolens var. graveolens, grows to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) tall. Celery is a biennial plant that occurs around the globe. It produces flowers and seeds only during its second year. The first cultivation is thought to have happened in the Mediterranean region, where the natural habitats were salty and wet, or marshy soils near the coast where celery grew in agropyro-rumicion-plant communities.
North of the Alps, wild celery is found only in the foothill zone on soils with some salt content. It prefers moist or wet, nutrient rich, muddy soils. It cannot be found in Austria and is increasingly rare in Germany.
First attested and printed in English as "sellery" by John Evelyn in 1664, the modern English word "celery" derives from the French céleri, in turn from Italian seleri, the plural of selero, which comes from Late Latin selinon, the latinisation of the Ancient Greek: σέλινον, romanized: selinon, "celery". The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek se-ri-no, written in Linear B syllabic script.
Celery was described by Carl Linnaeus in Volume One of his Species Plantarum in 1753.
The plants are raised from seed, sown either in a hot bed or in the open garden according to the season of the year, and, after one or two thinnings and transplantings, they are, on attaining a height of 15–20 cm (6–8 in), planted out in deep trenches for convenience of blanching, which is effected by earthing up to exclude light from the stems. Development of self-blanching varieties of celery, which do not need to be earthed up, dominate both the commercial and amateur market.
Celery was first grown as a winter and early spring vegetable. It was considered a cleansing tonic to counter the deficiencies of a winter diet based on salted meats without fresh vegetables. By the 19th century, the season for celery in England had been extended, to last from the beginning of September to late in April.
In North America, commercial production of celery is dominated by the cultivar called 'Pascal' celery. Gardeners can grow a range of cultivars, many of which differ from the wild species, mainly in having stouter leaf stems. They are ranged under two classes, white and red. The stalks grow in tight, straight, parallel bunches, and are typically marketed fresh that way. They are sold without roots and only a small amount of green leaf remaining.
The stalks can be eaten raw, or as an ingredient in salads, or as a flavoring in soups, stews, and pot roasts.
In Europe, the variety called celeriac (also known as celery root), Apium graveolens var. rapaceum, is also popular. It is grown because its hypocotyl forms a large bulb, white on the inside, which can be kept for months in winter and mostly serves as a key ingredient in soup. It can also be shredded and used in salads. The leaves are used as seasoning; the small, fibrous stalks find only marginal use.
Leaf celery (Chinese celery, Apium graveolens var. secalinum) is a cultivar from East Asia that grows in marshlands. Leaf celery has characteristically thin skin stalks and a stronger taste and smell compared to other cultivars. It is used as a flavoring in soups and sometimes pickled as a side dish.
The wild form of celery is known as "smallage". It has a furrowed stalk with wedge-shaped leaves, the whole plant having a coarse, earthy taste, and a distinctive smell. The stalks are not usually eaten (except in soups or stews in French cuisine), but the leaves may be used in salads, and its seeds are those sold as a spice. With cultivation and blanching, the stalks lose their acidic qualities and assume the mild, sweetish, aromatic taste particular to celery as a salad plant.
Because wild celery is rarely eaten, yet susceptible to the same diseases as more well-used cultivars, it is often removed from fields to help prevent transmission of viruses like celery mosaic virus.
Harvesting occurs when the average size of celery in a field is marketable; due to extremely uniform crop growth, fields are harvested only once. The petioles and leaves are removed and harvested; celery is packed by size and quality (determined by color, shape, straightness and thickness of petiole, stalk and midrib length and absence of disease, cracks, splits, insect damage and rot). During commercial harvesting, celery is packaged into cartons which contain between 36 and 48 stalks and weigh up to 27 kg (60 lb). Under optimal conditions, celery can be stored for up to seven weeks from 0–2 °C (32–36 °F). Inner stalks may continue growing if kept at temperatures above 0 °C (32 °F). Shelf life can be extended by packaging celery in anti-fogging, micro-perforated shrink wrap. Freshly cut petioles of celery are prone to decay, which can be prevented or reduced through the use of sharp blades during processing, gentle handling, and proper sanitation.
Celery stalk may be preserved through pickling by first removing the leaves, then boiling the stalks in water before finally adding vinegar, salt, and vegetable oil.
In the past, restaurants used to store celery in a container of water with powdered vegetable preservative, but it was found that the sulfites in the preservative caused allergic reactions in some people. In 1986, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the use of sulfites on fruits and vegetables intended to be eaten raw.
Celery is eaten around the world as a vegetable. In North America and Europe the crisp petiole (leaf stalk) is used. In Europe the hypocotyl is also used as a root vegetable. The leaves are strongly flavored and are used less often, either as a flavoring in soups and stews or as a dried herb. Celery, onions, and bell peppers are the "holy trinity" of Louisiana Creole and Cajun cuisine. Celery, onions, and carrots make up the French mirepoix, often used as a base for sauces and soups. Celery is a staple in many soups. It is used in the Iranian stew khoresh karafs.
Celery leaves are frequently used in cooking to add a mild spicy flavor to foods, similar to, but milder than black pepper. Celery leaves are suitable dried and sprinkled on baked, fried or roasted fish or meats, or as part of a blend of fresh seasonings suitable for use in soups and stews. They may also be eaten raw, mixed into a salad or as a garnish.
In temperate countries, celery is also grown for its seeds. Actually very small fruit, these "seeds" yield a valuable essential oil that is used in the perfume industry. The oil contains the chemical compound apiole. Celery seeds can be used as flavoring or spice, either as whole seeds or ground.
Celery seeds can be ground and mixed with salt to produce celery salt. Celery salt can be made from an extract of the roots or by using dried leaves. Celery salt is used as a seasoning, in cocktails (commonly to enhance the flavor of Bloody Mary cocktails), on the Chicago-style hot dog, and in Old Bay Seasoning. Similarly, combinations of celery powder and salt are used to flavor and preserve cured pork and other processed meats as an alternative to industrial curing salt. The naturally occurring nitrites in celery work synergistically with the added salt to cure food.
In 2019, a trend of drinking celery juice was reported in the United States, based on "detoxification" claims posted on a blog. The claims have no scientific basis, but the trend caused a sizable spike in celery prices.
Raw celery is 95% water, 3% carbohydrates, 0.7% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). A 100-gram (3+1⁄2-ounce) reference serving provides 16 calories of food energy, and is a rich source of vitamin K, providing 28% of the Daily Value, with no other micronutrients in significant content (table).
Celery is among a small group of foods that may provoke allergic reactions; for people with celery allergy, exposure can cause potentially fatal anaphylactic shock. Cases of allergic reaction to ingestion of celery root have also been reported in pollen-sensitive individuals resulting in gastrointestinal disorders and other symptoms, although in most cases, celery sensitivity is not considered clinically significant. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, foods that contain or may contain celery, even in trace amounts, must be clearly marked.
The Apium graveolens plant has an OPALS allergy scale rating of 4 out of 10, indicating moderate potential to cause allergic reactions, exacerbated by over-use of the same plant throughout a garden. Celery has caused skin rashes and cross-reactions with carrots and ragweed.
The main chemicals responsible for the aroma and taste of celery are butylphthalide and sedanolide.
Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf note that celery leaves and inflorescences were part of the garlands found in the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun (died 1323 BC), and celery mericarps dated to the seventh century BC were recovered in the Heraion of Samos. However, they note A. graveolens grows wild in these areas, it is hard to decide whether these remains represent wild or cultivated forms." Only by classical antiquity is it thought that celery was cultivated.
M. Fragiska mentions an archeological find of celery dating to the 9th century BC, at Kastanas; however, the literary evidence for ancient Greece is far more abundant. In Homer's Iliad, the horses of the Myrmidons graze on wild celery that grows in the marshes of Troy, and in Odyssey, there is mention of the meadows of violet and wild celery surrounding Calypso's Cave.
In the Capitulary of Charlemagne, compiled c. 800, apium appears, as does olisatum, or alexanders, among medicinal herbs and vegetables the Frankish emperor desired to see grown. At some later point in medieval Europe, celery displaced alexanders.
The name "celery" retraces the plant's route of successive adoption in European cooking, as the English "celery" (1664) is derived from the French céleri coming from the Lombard term, seleri, from the Latin selinon, borrowed from Greek.
Celery's late arrival in the English kitchen is an end-product of the long tradition of seed selection needed to reduce the sap's bitterness and increase its sugars. By 1699, John Evelyn could recommend it in his Acetaria. A Discourse of Sallets: "Sellery, apium Italicum, (and of the Petroseline Family) was formerly a stranger with us (nor very long since in Italy) is a hot and more generous sort of Macedonian Persley or Smallage... and for its high and grateful Taste is ever plac'd in the middle of the Grand Sallet, at our Great Men's tables, and Praetors feasts, as the Grace of the whole Board".
Celery makes a minor appearance in colonial American gardens; its culinary limitations are reflected in the observation by the author of A Treatise on Gardening, by a Citizen of Virginia that it is "one of the species of parsley". Its first extended treatment in print was in Bernard M'Mahon's American Gardener's Calendar (1806).
After the mid-19th century, continued selections for refined crisp texture and taste brought celery to American tables, where it was served in celery vases to be salted and eaten raw. Celery was so popular in the United States during the 19th century and early 20th century that the New York Public Library's historical menu archive shows that it was the third most popular dish in New York City menus during that time, behind only coffee and tea. In those days, celery cost more than caviar, as it was difficult to cultivate. There were also many varieties of celery back then that are no longer around because they are difficult to grow and do not ship well.
A chthonian symbol among the ancient Greeks, celery was said to have sprouted from the blood of Kadmilos, father of the Cabeiri, chthonian divinities celebrated in Samothrace, Lemnos, and Thebes. The spicy odor and dark leaf color encouraged this association with the cult of death. In classical Greece, celery leaves were used as garlands for the dead, and the wreaths of the winners at the Isthmian Games were first made of celery before being replaced by crowns made of pine. According to Pliny the Elderin Achaea, the garland worn by the winners of the sacred Nemean Games was also made of celery. The Ancient Greek colony of Selinous (Ancient Greek: Σελινοῦς, Selinous), on Sicily, was named after wild parsley that grew abundantly there; Selinountian coins depicted a parsley leaf as the symbol of the city. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Celery (Apium graveolens) is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, leaves or hypocotyl are eaten and used in cooking. Celery seed powder is used as a spice.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Celery leaves are pinnate to bipinnate with rhombic leaflets 3–6 centimetres (1–2+1⁄2 inches) long and 2–4 cm (1–1+1⁄2 in) broad. The flowers are creamy-white, 2–3 mm (3⁄32–1⁄8 in) in diameter, and are produced in dense compound umbels. The seeds are broad ovoid to globose, 1.5–2 mm (1⁄16–5⁄64 in) long and wide. Modern cultivars have been selected for either solid petioles, leaf stalks, or a large hypocotyl. A celery stalk readily separates into \"strings\" which are bundles of angular collenchyma cells exterior to the vascular bundles.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Wild celery, Apium graveolens var. graveolens, grows to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) tall. Celery is a biennial plant that occurs around the globe. It produces flowers and seeds only during its second year. The first cultivation is thought to have happened in the Mediterranean region, where the natural habitats were salty and wet, or marshy soils near the coast where celery grew in agropyro-rumicion-plant communities.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "North of the Alps, wild celery is found only in the foothill zone on soils with some salt content. It prefers moist or wet, nutrient rich, muddy soils. It cannot be found in Austria and is increasingly rare in Germany.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "First attested and printed in English as \"sellery\" by John Evelyn in 1664, the modern English word \"celery\" derives from the French céleri, in turn from Italian seleri, the plural of selero, which comes from Late Latin selinon, the latinisation of the Ancient Greek: σέλινον, romanized: selinon, \"celery\". The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek se-ri-no, written in Linear B syllabic script.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Celery was described by Carl Linnaeus in Volume One of his Species Plantarum in 1753.",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The plants are raised from seed, sown either in a hot bed or in the open garden according to the season of the year, and, after one or two thinnings and transplantings, they are, on attaining a height of 15–20 cm (6–8 in), planted out in deep trenches for convenience of blanching, which is effected by earthing up to exclude light from the stems. Development of self-blanching varieties of celery, which do not need to be earthed up, dominate both the commercial and amateur market.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Celery was first grown as a winter and early spring vegetable. It was considered a cleansing tonic to counter the deficiencies of a winter diet based on salted meats without fresh vegetables. By the 19th century, the season for celery in England had been extended, to last from the beginning of September to late in April.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In North America, commercial production of celery is dominated by the cultivar called 'Pascal' celery. Gardeners can grow a range of cultivars, many of which differ from the wild species, mainly in having stouter leaf stems. They are ranged under two classes, white and red. The stalks grow in tight, straight, parallel bunches, and are typically marketed fresh that way. They are sold without roots and only a small amount of green leaf remaining.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The stalks can be eaten raw, or as an ingredient in salads, or as a flavoring in soups, stews, and pot roasts.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In Europe, the variety called celeriac (also known as celery root), Apium graveolens var. rapaceum, is also popular. It is grown because its hypocotyl forms a large bulb, white on the inside, which can be kept for months in winter and mostly serves as a key ingredient in soup. It can also be shredded and used in salads. The leaves are used as seasoning; the small, fibrous stalks find only marginal use.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Leaf celery (Chinese celery, Apium graveolens var. secalinum) is a cultivar from East Asia that grows in marshlands. Leaf celery has characteristically thin skin stalks and a stronger taste and smell compared to other cultivars. It is used as a flavoring in soups and sometimes pickled as a side dish.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The wild form of celery is known as \"smallage\". It has a furrowed stalk with wedge-shaped leaves, the whole plant having a coarse, earthy taste, and a distinctive smell. The stalks are not usually eaten (except in soups or stews in French cuisine), but the leaves may be used in salads, and its seeds are those sold as a spice. With cultivation and blanching, the stalks lose their acidic qualities and assume the mild, sweetish, aromatic taste particular to celery as a salad plant.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Because wild celery is rarely eaten, yet susceptible to the same diseases as more well-used cultivars, it is often removed from fields to help prevent transmission of viruses like celery mosaic virus.",
"title": "Cultivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Harvesting occurs when the average size of celery in a field is marketable; due to extremely uniform crop growth, fields are harvested only once. The petioles and leaves are removed and harvested; celery is packed by size and quality (determined by color, shape, straightness and thickness of petiole, stalk and midrib length and absence of disease, cracks, splits, insect damage and rot). During commercial harvesting, celery is packaged into cartons which contain between 36 and 48 stalks and weigh up to 27 kg (60 lb). Under optimal conditions, celery can be stored for up to seven weeks from 0–2 °C (32–36 °F). Inner stalks may continue growing if kept at temperatures above 0 °C (32 °F). Shelf life can be extended by packaging celery in anti-fogging, micro-perforated shrink wrap. Freshly cut petioles of celery are prone to decay, which can be prevented or reduced through the use of sharp blades during processing, gentle handling, and proper sanitation.",
"title": "Harvesting and storage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Celery stalk may be preserved through pickling by first removing the leaves, then boiling the stalks in water before finally adding vinegar, salt, and vegetable oil.",
"title": "Harvesting and storage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In the past, restaurants used to store celery in a container of water with powdered vegetable preservative, but it was found that the sulfites in the preservative caused allergic reactions in some people. In 1986, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the use of sulfites on fruits and vegetables intended to be eaten raw.",
"title": "Harvesting and storage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Celery is eaten around the world as a vegetable. In North America and Europe the crisp petiole (leaf stalk) is used. In Europe the hypocotyl is also used as a root vegetable. The leaves are strongly flavored and are used less often, either as a flavoring in soups and stews or as a dried herb. Celery, onions, and bell peppers are the \"holy trinity\" of Louisiana Creole and Cajun cuisine. Celery, onions, and carrots make up the French mirepoix, often used as a base for sauces and soups. Celery is a staple in many soups. It is used in the Iranian stew khoresh karafs.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Celery leaves are frequently used in cooking to add a mild spicy flavor to foods, similar to, but milder than black pepper. Celery leaves are suitable dried and sprinkled on baked, fried or roasted fish or meats, or as part of a blend of fresh seasonings suitable for use in soups and stews. They may also be eaten raw, mixed into a salad or as a garnish.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In temperate countries, celery is also grown for its seeds. Actually very small fruit, these \"seeds\" yield a valuable essential oil that is used in the perfume industry. The oil contains the chemical compound apiole. Celery seeds can be used as flavoring or spice, either as whole seeds or ground.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Celery seeds can be ground and mixed with salt to produce celery salt. Celery salt can be made from an extract of the roots or by using dried leaves. Celery salt is used as a seasoning, in cocktails (commonly to enhance the flavor of Bloody Mary cocktails), on the Chicago-style hot dog, and in Old Bay Seasoning. Similarly, combinations of celery powder and salt are used to flavor and preserve cured pork and other processed meats as an alternative to industrial curing salt. The naturally occurring nitrites in celery work synergistically with the added salt to cure food.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 2019, a trend of drinking celery juice was reported in the United States, based on \"detoxification\" claims posted on a blog. The claims have no scientific basis, but the trend caused a sizable spike in celery prices.",
"title": "Uses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Raw celery is 95% water, 3% carbohydrates, 0.7% protein, and contains negligible fat (table). A 100-gram (3+1⁄2-ounce) reference serving provides 16 calories of food energy, and is a rich source of vitamin K, providing 28% of the Daily Value, with no other micronutrients in significant content (table).",
"title": "Nutrition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Celery is among a small group of foods that may provoke allergic reactions; for people with celery allergy, exposure can cause potentially fatal anaphylactic shock. Cases of allergic reaction to ingestion of celery root have also been reported in pollen-sensitive individuals resulting in gastrointestinal disorders and other symptoms, although in most cases, celery sensitivity is not considered clinically significant. In the European Union and the United Kingdom, foods that contain or may contain celery, even in trace amounts, must be clearly marked.",
"title": "Allergies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The Apium graveolens plant has an OPALS allergy scale rating of 4 out of 10, indicating moderate potential to cause allergic reactions, exacerbated by over-use of the same plant throughout a garden. Celery has caused skin rashes and cross-reactions with carrots and ragweed.",
"title": "Allergies"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The main chemicals responsible for the aroma and taste of celery are butylphthalide and sedanolide.",
"title": "Chemistry"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Daniel Zohary and Maria Hopf note that celery leaves and inflorescences were part of the garlands found in the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun (died 1323 BC), and celery mericarps dated to the seventh century BC were recovered in the Heraion of Samos. However, they note A. graveolens grows wild in these areas, it is hard to decide whether these remains represent wild or cultivated forms.\" Only by classical antiquity is it thought that celery was cultivated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "M. Fragiska mentions an archeological find of celery dating to the 9th century BC, at Kastanas; however, the literary evidence for ancient Greece is far more abundant. In Homer's Iliad, the horses of the Myrmidons graze on wild celery that grows in the marshes of Troy, and in Odyssey, there is mention of the meadows of violet and wild celery surrounding Calypso's Cave.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In the Capitulary of Charlemagne, compiled c. 800, apium appears, as does olisatum, or alexanders, among medicinal herbs and vegetables the Frankish emperor desired to see grown. At some later point in medieval Europe, celery displaced alexanders.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The name \"celery\" retraces the plant's route of successive adoption in European cooking, as the English \"celery\" (1664) is derived from the French céleri coming from the Lombard term, seleri, from the Latin selinon, borrowed from Greek.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Celery's late arrival in the English kitchen is an end-product of the long tradition of seed selection needed to reduce the sap's bitterness and increase its sugars. By 1699, John Evelyn could recommend it in his Acetaria. A Discourse of Sallets: \"Sellery, apium Italicum, (and of the Petroseline Family) was formerly a stranger with us (nor very long since in Italy) is a hot and more generous sort of Macedonian Persley or Smallage... and for its high and grateful Taste is ever plac'd in the middle of the Grand Sallet, at our Great Men's tables, and Praetors feasts, as the Grace of the whole Board\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Celery makes a minor appearance in colonial American gardens; its culinary limitations are reflected in the observation by the author of A Treatise on Gardening, by a Citizen of Virginia that it is \"one of the species of parsley\". Its first extended treatment in print was in Bernard M'Mahon's American Gardener's Calendar (1806).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "After the mid-19th century, continued selections for refined crisp texture and taste brought celery to American tables, where it was served in celery vases to be salted and eaten raw. Celery was so popular in the United States during the 19th century and early 20th century that the New York Public Library's historical menu archive shows that it was the third most popular dish in New York City menus during that time, behind only coffee and tea. In those days, celery cost more than caviar, as it was difficult to cultivate. There were also many varieties of celery back then that are no longer around because they are difficult to grow and do not ship well.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "A chthonian symbol among the ancient Greeks, celery was said to have sprouted from the blood of Kadmilos, father of the Cabeiri, chthonian divinities celebrated in Samothrace, Lemnos, and Thebes. The spicy odor and dark leaf color encouraged this association with the cult of death. In classical Greece, celery leaves were used as garlands for the dead, and the wreaths of the winners at the Isthmian Games were first made of celery before being replaced by crowns made of pine. According to Pliny the Elderin Achaea, the garland worn by the winners of the sacred Nemean Games was also made of celery. The Ancient Greek colony of Selinous (Ancient Greek: Σελινοῦς, Selinous), on Sicily, was named after wild parsley that grew abundantly there; Selinountian coins depicted a parsley leaf as the symbol of the city.",
"title": "History"
}
] | Celery is a marshland plant in the family Apiaceae that has been cultivated as a vegetable since antiquity. Celery has a long fibrous stalk tapering into leaves. Depending on location and cultivar, either its stalks, leaves or hypocotyl are eaten and used in cooking. Celery seed powder is used as a spice. | 2001-09-26T11:51:02Z | 2023-12-28T00:40:02Z | [
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6,536 | CPM | CPM may refer to: | [
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|
6,537 | Celestines | The Celestines were a Roman Catholic monastic order, a branch of the Benedictines, founded in 1244. At the foundation of the new rule, they were called Hermits of St Damiano, or Moronites (or Murronites), and did not assume the appellation of Celestines until after the election of their founder, Peter of Morone (Pietro Murrone), to the Papacy as Celestine V. They used the post-nominal initials O.S.B. Cel. The last house closed in 1785.
The fame of the holy life and the austerities practised by Pietro Morone in his solitude on the Mountain of Majella, near Sulmona, attracted many visitors, several of whom were moved to remain and share his mode of life. They built a small convent on the spot inhabited by the holy hermit, which became too small for the accommodation of those who came to share their life of privations. Peter of Morone (later Pope Celestine V), their founder, built a number of other small oratories in that neighborhood.
Around the year 1254, Peter of Morone gave the order a rule formulated in accordance with his own practices. In 1264 the new institution was approved as a branch of the Benedictines by Urban IV; however, the next pope Pope Gregory X had commanded that all orders founded since the prior Lateran Council should not be further multiplied. Hearing a rumor that the order was to be suppressed, the reclusive Peter traveled to Lyon, where the Pope was holding a council. There he persuaded Gregory to approve his new order, making it a branch of the Benedictines and following the rule of Saint Benedict, but adding to it additional severities and privations. Gregory took it under the Papal protection, assured to it the possession of all property it might acquire, and endowed it with exemption from the authority of the ordinary. Nothing more was needed to ensure the rapid spread of the new association and Peter the hermit of Morone lived to see himself "Superior-General" to thirty-six monasteries and more than six hundred monks.
As soon as he had seen his new order thus consolidated he gave up the government of it to a certain Robert, and retired once again to an even more remote site to devote himself to solitary penance and prayer. Shortly afterwards, in a chapter of the order held in 1293, the original monastery of Majella being judged to be too desolate and exposed to too rigorous a climate, it was decided that the Abbey of the Holy Spirit at Monte Morrone, located in Sulmona, should be the headquarters of the order and the residence of the General-Superior, where it continued for centuries. The next year Peter of Morrone, despite his reluctance, was elected Pope by the name of Celestine V. From there on, the order he had founded took the name of Celestines. During his short reign as Pope, the former hermit confirmed the rule of the order, which he had himself composed, and conferred on the society a variety of special graces and privileges. In the only creation of cardinals promoted by him, among the twelve raised to the purple, there were two monks of his order. He also visited personally the Benedictine monastery on Monte Cassino, where he persuaded the monks to accept his more rigorous rule. He sent fifty monks of his order to introduce it, who remained there, however, for only a few months.
After the death of the founder the order was favoured and privileged by Benedict XI, and rapidly spread through Italy, Germany, Flanders, and France, where they were received by Philip the Fair in 1300.
The administration of the order was carried on somewhat after the pattern of Cluny, that is all monasteries were subject to the Abbey of the Holy Ghost at Sulmona, and these dependent houses were divided into provinces. The Celestines had ninety-six houses in Italy, twenty-one in France, and a few in Germany.
Subsequently, the French Celestines, with the consent of the Italian superiors of the order, and of Pope Martin V in 1427, obtained the privilege of making new constitutions for themselves, which they did in the 17th century in a series of regulations accepted by the provincial chapter in 1667. At that time the French congregation of the order was composed of twenty-one monasteries, the head of which was that of Paris, and was governed by a Provincial with the authority of General. Paul V was a notable benefactor of the order. The order became extinct in the eighteenth century.
According to their special constitutions the Celestines were bound to say matins in the choir at two o'clock in the morning, and always to abstain from eating meat, save in illness. The distinct rules of their order with regard to fasting are numerous, but not more severe than those of similar congregations, though much more so than is required by the old Benedictine rule. In reading their minute directions for divers degrees of abstinence on various days, it is impossible to avoid being struck by the conviction that the great object of the framers of these rules was the general purpose of ensuring an ascetic mode of life.
The Celestines wore a white woollen cassock bound with a linen band, and a leathern girdle of the same colour, with a scapular unattached to the body of the dress, and a black hood. It was not permitted to them to wear any shirt save of serge. Their dress in short was very like that of the Cistercians. But it is a tradition in the order that in the time of the founder they wore a coarse brown cloth. The church and monastery of San Pietro in Montorio originally belonged to the Celestines in Rome; but they were turned out of it by Sixtus IV to make way for Franciscans, receiving from the Pope in exchange the Church of St Eusebius of Vercelli with the adjacent mansion for a monastery. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Celestines were a Roman Catholic monastic order, a branch of the Benedictines, founded in 1244. At the foundation of the new rule, they were called Hermits of St Damiano, or Moronites (or Murronites), and did not assume the appellation of Celestines until after the election of their founder, Peter of Morone (Pietro Murrone), to the Papacy as Celestine V. They used the post-nominal initials O.S.B. Cel. The last house closed in 1785.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The fame of the holy life and the austerities practised by Pietro Morone in his solitude on the Mountain of Majella, near Sulmona, attracted many visitors, several of whom were moved to remain and share his mode of life. They built a small convent on the spot inhabited by the holy hermit, which became too small for the accommodation of those who came to share their life of privations. Peter of Morone (later Pope Celestine V), their founder, built a number of other small oratories in that neighborhood.",
"title": "Founding"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Around the year 1254, Peter of Morone gave the order a rule formulated in accordance with his own practices. In 1264 the new institution was approved as a branch of the Benedictines by Urban IV; however, the next pope Pope Gregory X had commanded that all orders founded since the prior Lateran Council should not be further multiplied. Hearing a rumor that the order was to be suppressed, the reclusive Peter traveled to Lyon, where the Pope was holding a council. There he persuaded Gregory to approve his new order, making it a branch of the Benedictines and following the rule of Saint Benedict, but adding to it additional severities and privations. Gregory took it under the Papal protection, assured to it the possession of all property it might acquire, and endowed it with exemption from the authority of the ordinary. Nothing more was needed to ensure the rapid spread of the new association and Peter the hermit of Morone lived to see himself \"Superior-General\" to thirty-six monasteries and more than six hundred monks.",
"title": "Founding"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "As soon as he had seen his new order thus consolidated he gave up the government of it to a certain Robert, and retired once again to an even more remote site to devote himself to solitary penance and prayer. Shortly afterwards, in a chapter of the order held in 1293, the original monastery of Majella being judged to be too desolate and exposed to too rigorous a climate, it was decided that the Abbey of the Holy Spirit at Monte Morrone, located in Sulmona, should be the headquarters of the order and the residence of the General-Superior, where it continued for centuries. The next year Peter of Morrone, despite his reluctance, was elected Pope by the name of Celestine V. From there on, the order he had founded took the name of Celestines. During his short reign as Pope, the former hermit confirmed the rule of the order, which he had himself composed, and conferred on the society a variety of special graces and privileges. In the only creation of cardinals promoted by him, among the twelve raised to the purple, there were two monks of his order. He also visited personally the Benedictine monastery on Monte Cassino, where he persuaded the monks to accept his more rigorous rule. He sent fifty monks of his order to introduce it, who remained there, however, for only a few months.",
"title": "Founding"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "After the death of the founder the order was favoured and privileged by Benedict XI, and rapidly spread through Italy, Germany, Flanders, and France, where they were received by Philip the Fair in 1300.",
"title": "Founding"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The administration of the order was carried on somewhat after the pattern of Cluny, that is all monasteries were subject to the Abbey of the Holy Ghost at Sulmona, and these dependent houses were divided into provinces. The Celestines had ninety-six houses in Italy, twenty-one in France, and a few in Germany.",
"title": "Founding"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Subsequently, the French Celestines, with the consent of the Italian superiors of the order, and of Pope Martin V in 1427, obtained the privilege of making new constitutions for themselves, which they did in the 17th century in a series of regulations accepted by the provincial chapter in 1667. At that time the French congregation of the order was composed of twenty-one monasteries, the head of which was that of Paris, and was governed by a Provincial with the authority of General. Paul V was a notable benefactor of the order. The order became extinct in the eighteenth century.",
"title": "Founding"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "According to their special constitutions the Celestines were bound to say matins in the choir at two o'clock in the morning, and always to abstain from eating meat, save in illness. The distinct rules of their order with regard to fasting are numerous, but not more severe than those of similar congregations, though much more so than is required by the old Benedictine rule. In reading their minute directions for divers degrees of abstinence on various days, it is impossible to avoid being struck by the conviction that the great object of the framers of these rules was the general purpose of ensuring an ascetic mode of life.",
"title": "Description of order"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Celestines wore a white woollen cassock bound with a linen band, and a leathern girdle of the same colour, with a scapular unattached to the body of the dress, and a black hood. It was not permitted to them to wear any shirt save of serge. Their dress in short was very like that of the Cistercians. But it is a tradition in the order that in the time of the founder they wore a coarse brown cloth. The church and monastery of San Pietro in Montorio originally belonged to the Celestines in Rome; but they were turned out of it by Sixtus IV to make way for Franciscans, receiving from the Pope in exchange the Church of St Eusebius of Vercelli with the adjacent mansion for a monastery.",
"title": "Description of order"
}
] | The Celestines were a Roman Catholic monastic order, a branch of the Benedictines, founded in 1244. At the foundation of the new rule, they were called Hermits of St Damiano, or Moronites, and did not assume the appellation of Celestines until after the election of their founder, Peter of Morone, to the Papacy as Celestine V. They used the post-nominal initials O.S.B. Cel. The last house closed in 1785. | 2023-07-25T22:48:10Z | [
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6,539 | Cessna | Cessna (/ˈsɛsnə/) is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation also headquartered in Wichita. The company produced small, piston-powered aircraft, as well as business jets. For much of the mid-to-late 20th century, Cessna was one of the highest-volume and most diverse producers of general aviation aircraft in the world. It was founded in 1927 by Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos and was purchased by General Dynamics in 1985, then by Textron, Inc. in 1992. In March 2014, when Textron purchased the Beechcraft and Hawker Aircraft corporations, Cessna ceased operations as a subsidiary company, and joined the others as one of the three distinct brands produced by Textron Aviation.
Throughout its history, and especially in the years following World War II, Cessna became best-known for producing high-wing, small piston aircraft. Its most popular and iconic aircraft is the Cessna 172, delivered since 1956 (with a break from 1986–1996), with more sold than any other aircraft in history. Since the first model was delivered in 1972, the brand has also been well known for its Citation family of low-wing business jets which vary in size.
Clyde Cessna, a farmer in Rago, Kansas, built his own aircraft and flew it in June 1911. He was the first person to do so between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Cessna started his wood-and-fabric aircraft ventures in Enid, Oklahoma, testing many of his early planes on the salt flats. When bankers in Enid refused to lend him more money to build his planes, he moved to Wichita.
Cessna Aircraft was formed when Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos became partners in the Cessna-Roos Aircraft Company in 1927. Roos resigned just one month into the partnership, selling back his interest to Cessna. Shortly afterward, Roos's name was dropped from the company name.
The Cessna DC-6 earned certification on the same day as the stock market crash of 1929, October 29, 1929.
In 1932, the Cessna Aircraft Company closed due to the Great Depression.
However, the Cessna CR-3 custom racer made its first flight in 1933. The plane won the 1933 American Air Race in Chicago and later set a new world speed record for engines smaller than 500 cubic inches by averaging 237 mph (381 km/h).
Cessna's nephews, brothers Dwane and Dwight Wallace, bought the company from Cessna in 1934. They reopened it and began the process of building it into what would become a global success.
The Cessna C-37 was introduced in 1937 as Cessna's first seaplane when equipped with Edo floats. In 1940, Cessna received their largest order to date, when they signed a contract with the U.S. Army for 33 specially equipped Cessna T-50s, their first twin engine plane. Later in 1940, the Royal Canadian Air Force placed an order for 180 T-50s.
Cessna returned to commercial production in 1946, after the revocation of wartime production restrictions (L-48), with the release of the Model 120 and Model 140. The approach was to introduce a new line of all-metal aircraft that used production tools, dies and jigs, rather than the hand-built tube-and-fabric construction process used before the war.
The Model 140 was named by the US Flight Instructors Association as the "Outstanding Plane of the Year" in 1948.
Cessna's first helicopter, the Cessna CH-1, received FAA type certification in 1955.
Cessna introduced the Cessna 172 in 1956. It became the most produced airplane in history. During the post-World War II era, Cessna was known as one of the "Big Three" in general aviation aircraft manufacturing, along with Piper and Beechcraft.
In 1959, Cessna acquired Aircraft Radio Corporation (ARC), of Boonton, New Jersey, a leading manufacturer of aircraft radios. During these years, Cessna expanded the ARC product line, and rebranded ARC radios as "Cessna" radios, making them the "factory option" for avionics in new Cessnas. However, during this time, ARC radios suffered a severe decline in quality and popularity. Cessna kept ARC as a subsidiary until 1983, selling it to avionics-maker Sperry.
In 1960, Cessna acquired McCauley Industrial Corporation, of Ohio, a leading manufacturer of propellers for light aircraft. McCauley became the world's leading producer of general aviation aircraft propellers, largely through their installation on Cessna airplanes.
In 1960, Cessna affiliated itself with Reims Aviation of Reims, France. In 1963, Cessna produced its 50,000th airplane, a Cessna 172.
Cessna's first business jet, the Cessna Citation I, performed its maiden flight on September 15, 1969.
Cessna produced its 100,000th single-engine airplane in 1975.
In 1985, Cessna ceased to be an independent company. It was purchased by General Dynamics Corporation and became a wholly owned subsidiary. Production of the Cessna Caravan began. General Dynamics in turn sold Cessna to Textron in 1992.
Late in 2007, Cessna purchased the bankrupt Columbia Aircraft company for US$26.4M and would continue production of the Columbia 350 and 400 as the Cessna 350 and Cessna 400 at the Columbia factory in Bend, Oregon. However, production of both aircraft had ended by 2018.
On November 27, 2007, Cessna announced the then-new Cessna 162 would be built in the People's Republic of China by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, which is a subsidiary of the China Aviation Industry Corporation I (AVIC I), a Chinese government-owned consortium of aircraft manufacturers. Cessna reported that the decision was made to save money and also that the company had no more plant capacity in the United States at the time. Cessna received much negative feedback for this decision, with complaints centering on the recent quality problems with Chinese production of other consumer products, China's human rights record, exporting of jobs and China's less than friendly political relationship with the United States. The customer backlash surprised Cessna and resulted in a company public relations campaign. In early 2009, the company attracted further criticism for continuing plans to build the 162 in China while laying off large numbers of workers in the United States. In the end, the Cessna 162 was not a commercial success and only a small number were delivered before production was cancelled.
The company's business suffered notably during the late-2000s recession, laying off more than half its workforce between January 2009 and September 2010.
On November 4, 2008, Cessna's parent company, Textron, indicated that Citation production would be reduced from the original 2009 target of 535 "due to continued softening in the global economic environment" and that this would result in an undetermined number of lay-offs at Cessna.
On November 8, 2008, at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Expo, CEO Jack Pelton indicated that sales of Cessna aircraft to individual buyers had fallen, but piston and turboprop sales to businesses had not. "While the economic slowdown has created a difficult business environment, we are encouraged by brisk activity from new and existing propeller fleet operators placing almost 200 orders for 2009 production aircraft," Pelton stated.
Beginning in January 2009, a total of 665 jobs were cut at Cessna's Wichita and Bend, Oregon plants. The Cessna factory at Independence, Kansas, which builds the Cessna piston-engined aircraft and the Cessna Mustang, did not see any layoffs, but one third of the workforce at the former Columbia Aircraft facility in Bend was laid off. This included 165 of the 460 employees who built the Cessna 350 and 400. The remaining 500 jobs were eliminated at the main Cessna Wichita plant.
In January 2009, the company laid off an additional 2,000 employees, bringing the total to 4,600. The job cuts included 120 at the Bend, Oregon, facility reducing the plant that built the Cessna 350 and 400 to fewer than half the number of workers that it had when Cessna bought it. Other cuts included 200 at the Independence, Kansas, plant that builds the single-engined Cessnas and the Mustang, reducing that facility to 1,300 workers.
On April 29, 2009, the company suspended the Citation Columbus program and closed the Bend, Oregon, facility. The Columbus program was finally cancelled in early July 2009. The company reported, "Upon additional analysis of the business jet market related to this product offering, we decided to formally cancel further development of the Citation Columbus". With the 350 and 400 production moving to Kansas, the company indicated that it would lay off 1,600 more workers, including the remaining 150 employees at the Bend plant and up to 700 workers from the Columbus program.
In early June 2009, Cessna laid off an additional 700 salaried employees, bringing the total number of lay-offs to 7,600, which was more than half the company's workers at the time.
The company closed its three Columbus, Georgia, manufacturing facilities between June 2010 and December 2011. The closures included the new 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m) facility that was opened in August 2008 at a cost of US$25M, plus the McCauley Propeller Systems plant. These closures resulted in total job losses of 600 in Georgia. Some of the work was relocated to Cessna's Independence, Kansas, or Mexican facilities.
Cessna's parent company, Textron, posted a loss of US$8M in the first quarter of 2010, largely driven by continuing low sales at Cessna, which were down 44%. Half of Cessna's workforce remained laid-off and CEO Jack Pelton stated that he expected the recovery to be long and slow.
In September 2010, a further 700 employees were laid off, bringing the total to 8,000 jobs lost. CEO Jack Pelton indicated this round of layoffs was due to a "stalled [and] lackluster economy" and noted that while the number of orders cancelled for jets had been decreasing, new orders had not met expectations. Pelton added, "our strategy is to defend and protect our current markets while investing in products and services to secure our future, but we can do this only if we succeed in restructuring our processes and reducing our costs."
On May 2, 2011, CEO Jack J. Pelton retired. The new CEO, Scott A. Ernest, started on May 31, 2011. Ernest joined Textron after 29 years at General Electric, where he had most recently served as vice president and general manager, global supply chain for GE Aviation. Ernest previously worked for Textron CEO Scott Donnelly when both worked at General Electric.
In September 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed a US$2.4 million fine against the company for its failure to follow quality assurance requirements while producing fiberglass components at its plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. Excess humidity meant that the parts did not cure correctly and quality assurance did not detect the problems. The failure to follow procedures resulted in the delamination in flight of a 7 ft (2.1 m) section of one Cessna 400's wing skin from the spar while the aircraft was being flown by an FAA test pilot. The aircraft was landed safely. The FAA also discovered 82 other aircraft parts that had been incorrectly made and not detected by the company's quality assurance. The investigation resulted in an emergency Airworthiness Directive that affected 13 Cessna 400s.
Since March 2012, Cessna has been pursuing building business jets in China as part of a joint venture with Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). The company stated that it intends to eventually build all aircraft models in China, saying "The agreements together pave the way for a range of business jets, utility single-engine turboprops and single-engine piston aircraft to be manufactured and certified in China."
In late April 2012, the company added 150 workers in Wichita as a result of anticipated increased demand for aircraft production. Overall, they have cut more than 6000 jobs in the Wichita plant since 2009.
In March 2014, Cessna ceased operations as a company and instead became a brand of Textron Aviation.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Cessna's marketing department followed the lead of Detroit automakers and came up with many unique marketing terms in an effort to differentiate its product line from their competitors.
Other manufacturers and the aviation press widely ridiculed and spoofed many of the marketing terms, but Cessna built and sold more aircraft than any other manufacturer during the boom years of the 1960s and 1970s.
Generally, the names of Cessna models do not follow a theme, but there is usually logic to the numbering: the 100 series are the light singles, the 200s are the heftier, the 300s are light to medium twins, the 400s have "wide oval" cabin-class accommodation and the 500s are jets. Many Cessna models have names starting with C for the sake of alliteration (e.g. Citation, Crusader, Chancellor).
Cessna marketing terminology includes:
In October 2020, Textron Aviation was producing the following Cessna-branded models: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cessna (/ˈsɛsnə/) is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation also headquartered in Wichita. The company produced small, piston-powered aircraft, as well as business jets. For much of the mid-to-late 20th century, Cessna was one of the highest-volume and most diverse producers of general aviation aircraft in the world. It was founded in 1927 by Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos and was purchased by General Dynamics in 1985, then by Textron, Inc. in 1992. In March 2014, when Textron purchased the Beechcraft and Hawker Aircraft corporations, Cessna ceased operations as a subsidiary company, and joined the others as one of the three distinct brands produced by Textron Aviation.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Throughout its history, and especially in the years following World War II, Cessna became best-known for producing high-wing, small piston aircraft. Its most popular and iconic aircraft is the Cessna 172, delivered since 1956 (with a break from 1986–1996), with more sold than any other aircraft in history. Since the first model was delivered in 1972, the brand has also been well known for its Citation family of low-wing business jets which vary in size.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Clyde Cessna, a farmer in Rago, Kansas, built his own aircraft and flew it in June 1911. He was the first person to do so between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Cessna started his wood-and-fabric aircraft ventures in Enid, Oklahoma, testing many of his early planes on the salt flats. When bankers in Enid refused to lend him more money to build his planes, he moved to Wichita.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Cessna Aircraft was formed when Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos became partners in the Cessna-Roos Aircraft Company in 1927. Roos resigned just one month into the partnership, selling back his interest to Cessna. Shortly afterward, Roos's name was dropped from the company name.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Cessna DC-6 earned certification on the same day as the stock market crash of 1929, October 29, 1929.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1932, the Cessna Aircraft Company closed due to the Great Depression.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "However, the Cessna CR-3 custom racer made its first flight in 1933. The plane won the 1933 American Air Race in Chicago and later set a new world speed record for engines smaller than 500 cubic inches by averaging 237 mph (381 km/h).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Cessna's nephews, brothers Dwane and Dwight Wallace, bought the company from Cessna in 1934. They reopened it and began the process of building it into what would become a global success.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Cessna C-37 was introduced in 1937 as Cessna's first seaplane when equipped with Edo floats. In 1940, Cessna received their largest order to date, when they signed a contract with the U.S. Army for 33 specially equipped Cessna T-50s, their first twin engine plane. Later in 1940, the Royal Canadian Air Force placed an order for 180 T-50s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Cessna returned to commercial production in 1946, after the revocation of wartime production restrictions (L-48), with the release of the Model 120 and Model 140. The approach was to introduce a new line of all-metal aircraft that used production tools, dies and jigs, rather than the hand-built tube-and-fabric construction process used before the war.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Model 140 was named by the US Flight Instructors Association as the \"Outstanding Plane of the Year\" in 1948.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Cessna's first helicopter, the Cessna CH-1, received FAA type certification in 1955.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Cessna introduced the Cessna 172 in 1956. It became the most produced airplane in history. During the post-World War II era, Cessna was known as one of the \"Big Three\" in general aviation aircraft manufacturing, along with Piper and Beechcraft.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In 1959, Cessna acquired Aircraft Radio Corporation (ARC), of Boonton, New Jersey, a leading manufacturer of aircraft radios. During these years, Cessna expanded the ARC product line, and rebranded ARC radios as \"Cessna\" radios, making them the \"factory option\" for avionics in new Cessnas. However, during this time, ARC radios suffered a severe decline in quality and popularity. Cessna kept ARC as a subsidiary until 1983, selling it to avionics-maker Sperry.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1960, Cessna acquired McCauley Industrial Corporation, of Ohio, a leading manufacturer of propellers for light aircraft. McCauley became the world's leading producer of general aviation aircraft propellers, largely through their installation on Cessna airplanes.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1960, Cessna affiliated itself with Reims Aviation of Reims, France. In 1963, Cessna produced its 50,000th airplane, a Cessna 172.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Cessna's first business jet, the Cessna Citation I, performed its maiden flight on September 15, 1969.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Cessna produced its 100,000th single-engine airplane in 1975.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In 1985, Cessna ceased to be an independent company. It was purchased by General Dynamics Corporation and became a wholly owned subsidiary. Production of the Cessna Caravan began. General Dynamics in turn sold Cessna to Textron in 1992.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Late in 2007, Cessna purchased the bankrupt Columbia Aircraft company for US$26.4M and would continue production of the Columbia 350 and 400 as the Cessna 350 and Cessna 400 at the Columbia factory in Bend, Oregon. However, production of both aircraft had ended by 2018.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "On November 27, 2007, Cessna announced the then-new Cessna 162 would be built in the People's Republic of China by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, which is a subsidiary of the China Aviation Industry Corporation I (AVIC I), a Chinese government-owned consortium of aircraft manufacturers. Cessna reported that the decision was made to save money and also that the company had no more plant capacity in the United States at the time. Cessna received much negative feedback for this decision, with complaints centering on the recent quality problems with Chinese production of other consumer products, China's human rights record, exporting of jobs and China's less than friendly political relationship with the United States. The customer backlash surprised Cessna and resulted in a company public relations campaign. In early 2009, the company attracted further criticism for continuing plans to build the 162 in China while laying off large numbers of workers in the United States. In the end, the Cessna 162 was not a commercial success and only a small number were delivered before production was cancelled.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The company's business suffered notably during the late-2000s recession, laying off more than half its workforce between January 2009 and September 2010.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "On November 4, 2008, Cessna's parent company, Textron, indicated that Citation production would be reduced from the original 2009 target of 535 \"due to continued softening in the global economic environment\" and that this would result in an undetermined number of lay-offs at Cessna.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "On November 8, 2008, at the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) Expo, CEO Jack Pelton indicated that sales of Cessna aircraft to individual buyers had fallen, but piston and turboprop sales to businesses had not. \"While the economic slowdown has created a difficult business environment, we are encouraged by brisk activity from new and existing propeller fleet operators placing almost 200 orders for 2009 production aircraft,\" Pelton stated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Beginning in January 2009, a total of 665 jobs were cut at Cessna's Wichita and Bend, Oregon plants. The Cessna factory at Independence, Kansas, which builds the Cessna piston-engined aircraft and the Cessna Mustang, did not see any layoffs, but one third of the workforce at the former Columbia Aircraft facility in Bend was laid off. This included 165 of the 460 employees who built the Cessna 350 and 400. The remaining 500 jobs were eliminated at the main Cessna Wichita plant.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In January 2009, the company laid off an additional 2,000 employees, bringing the total to 4,600. The job cuts included 120 at the Bend, Oregon, facility reducing the plant that built the Cessna 350 and 400 to fewer than half the number of workers that it had when Cessna bought it. Other cuts included 200 at the Independence, Kansas, plant that builds the single-engined Cessnas and the Mustang, reducing that facility to 1,300 workers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "On April 29, 2009, the company suspended the Citation Columbus program and closed the Bend, Oregon, facility. The Columbus program was finally cancelled in early July 2009. The company reported, \"Upon additional analysis of the business jet market related to this product offering, we decided to formally cancel further development of the Citation Columbus\". With the 350 and 400 production moving to Kansas, the company indicated that it would lay off 1,600 more workers, including the remaining 150 employees at the Bend plant and up to 700 workers from the Columbus program.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In early June 2009, Cessna laid off an additional 700 salaried employees, bringing the total number of lay-offs to 7,600, which was more than half the company's workers at the time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The company closed its three Columbus, Georgia, manufacturing facilities between June 2010 and December 2011. The closures included the new 100,000-square-foot (9,300 m) facility that was opened in August 2008 at a cost of US$25M, plus the McCauley Propeller Systems plant. These closures resulted in total job losses of 600 in Georgia. Some of the work was relocated to Cessna's Independence, Kansas, or Mexican facilities.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Cessna's parent company, Textron, posted a loss of US$8M in the first quarter of 2010, largely driven by continuing low sales at Cessna, which were down 44%. Half of Cessna's workforce remained laid-off and CEO Jack Pelton stated that he expected the recovery to be long and slow.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In September 2010, a further 700 employees were laid off, bringing the total to 8,000 jobs lost. CEO Jack Pelton indicated this round of layoffs was due to a \"stalled [and] lackluster economy\" and noted that while the number of orders cancelled for jets had been decreasing, new orders had not met expectations. Pelton added, \"our strategy is to defend and protect our current markets while investing in products and services to secure our future, but we can do this only if we succeed in restructuring our processes and reducing our costs.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "On May 2, 2011, CEO Jack J. Pelton retired. The new CEO, Scott A. Ernest, started on May 31, 2011. Ernest joined Textron after 29 years at General Electric, where he had most recently served as vice president and general manager, global supply chain for GE Aviation. Ernest previously worked for Textron CEO Scott Donnelly when both worked at General Electric.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In September 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed a US$2.4 million fine against the company for its failure to follow quality assurance requirements while producing fiberglass components at its plant in Chihuahua, Mexico. Excess humidity meant that the parts did not cure correctly and quality assurance did not detect the problems. The failure to follow procedures resulted in the delamination in flight of a 7 ft (2.1 m) section of one Cessna 400's wing skin from the spar while the aircraft was being flown by an FAA test pilot. The aircraft was landed safely. The FAA also discovered 82 other aircraft parts that had been incorrectly made and not detected by the company's quality assurance. The investigation resulted in an emergency Airworthiness Directive that affected 13 Cessna 400s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Since March 2012, Cessna has been pursuing building business jets in China as part of a joint venture with Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC). The company stated that it intends to eventually build all aircraft models in China, saying \"The agreements together pave the way for a range of business jets, utility single-engine turboprops and single-engine piston aircraft to be manufactured and certified in China.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In late April 2012, the company added 150 workers in Wichita as a result of anticipated increased demand for aircraft production. Overall, they have cut more than 6000 jobs in the Wichita plant since 2009.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In March 2014, Cessna ceased operations as a company and instead became a brand of Textron Aviation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "During the 1950s and 1960s, Cessna's marketing department followed the lead of Detroit automakers and came up with many unique marketing terms in an effort to differentiate its product line from their competitors.",
"title": "Marketing initiatives"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Other manufacturers and the aviation press widely ridiculed and spoofed many of the marketing terms, but Cessna built and sold more aircraft than any other manufacturer during the boom years of the 1960s and 1970s.",
"title": "Marketing initiatives"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Generally, the names of Cessna models do not follow a theme, but there is usually logic to the numbering: the 100 series are the light singles, the 200s are the heftier, the 300s are light to medium twins, the 400s have \"wide oval\" cabin-class accommodation and the 500s are jets. Many Cessna models have names starting with C for the sake of alliteration (e.g. Citation, Crusader, Chancellor).",
"title": "Marketing initiatives"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Cessna marketing terminology includes:",
"title": "Marketing initiatives"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In October 2020, Textron Aviation was producing the following Cessna-branded models:",
"title": "Aircraft models"
}
] | Cessna is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation also headquartered in Wichita. The company produced small, piston-powered aircraft, as well as business jets. For much of the mid-to-late 20th century, Cessna was one of the highest-volume and most diverse producers of general aviation aircraft in the world. It was founded in 1927 by Clyde Cessna and Victor Roos and was purchased by General Dynamics in 1985, then by Textron, Inc. in 1992. In March 2014, when Textron purchased the Beechcraft and Hawker Aircraft corporations, Cessna ceased operations as a subsidiary company, and joined the others as one of the three distinct brands produced by Textron Aviation. Throughout its history, and especially in the years following World War II, Cessna became best-known for producing high-wing, small piston aircraft. Its most popular and iconic aircraft is the Cessna 172, delivered since 1956, with more sold than any other aircraft in history. Since the first model was delivered in 1972, the brand has also been well known for its Citation family of low-wing business jets which vary in size. | 2001-09-26T14:07:03Z | 2023-12-25T01:34:41Z | [
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6,542 | Czesław Miłosz | Czesław Miłosz (/ˈmiːlɒʃ/ MEE-losh, US also /-lɔːʃ, -wɒʃ, -wɔːʃ/ -lawsh, -wosh, -wawsh, Polish: [ˈt͡ʂɛswaf ˈmiwɔʂ] ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. He primarily wrote his poetry in Polish. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".
Miłosz survived the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II and became a cultural attaché for the Polish government during the postwar period. When communist authorities threatened his safety, he defected to France and ultimately chose exile in the United States, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry—particularly about his wartime experience—and his appraisal of Stalinism in a prose book, The Captive Mind, brought him renown as a leading émigré artist and intellectual.
Throughout his life and work, Miłosz tackled questions of morality, politics, history, and faith. As a translator, he introduced Western works to a Polish audience, and as a scholar and editor, he championed a greater awareness of Slavic literature in the West. Faith played a role in his work as he explored his Catholicism and personal experience. He wrote in Polish and English.
Miłosz died in Kraków, Poland, in 2004. He is interred in Skałka, a church known in Poland as a place of honor for distinguished Poles.
Czesław Miłosz was born on 30 June 1911, in the village of Šeteniai (Polish: Szetejnie), Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now Kėdainiai district, Kaunas County, Lithuania). He was the son of Aleksander Miłosz (1883–1959), a Polish civil engineer, and his wife, Weronika (née Kunat; 1887–1945).
Miłosz was born into a prominent family. On his mother's side, his grandfather was Zygmunt Kunat, a descendant of a Polish family that traced its lineage to the 13th century and owned an estate in Krasnogruda (in present-day Poland). Having studied agriculture in Warsaw, Zygmunt settled in Šeteniai after marrying Miłosz's grandmother, Jozefa, a descendant of the noble Syruć family, which was of Lithuanian origin. One of her ancestors, Szymon Syruć [pl], had been personal secretary to Stanisław I, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Miłosz's paternal grandfather, Artur Miłosz, was also from a noble family and fought in the 1863 January Uprising for Polish independence. Miłosz's grandmother, Stanisława, was a doctor's daughter from Riga, Latvia, and a member of the German-Polish von Mohl family. The Miłosz estate was in Serbiny, a name that Miłosz's biographer Andrzej Franaszek [pl] has suggested could indicate Serbian origin; it is possible the Miłosz family originated in Serbia and settled in present-day Lithuania after being expelled from Germany centuries earlier. Miłosz's father was born and educated in Riga. Miłosz's mother was born in Šeteniai and educated in Kraków.
Despite this noble lineage, Miłosz's childhood on his maternal grandfather's estate in Šeteniai lacked the trappings of wealth or the customs of the upper class. He memorialized his childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley [pl], and a 1959 memoir, Native Realm [pl]. In these works, he described the influence of his Catholic grandmother, Jozefa, his burgeoning love for literature, and his early awareness, as a member of the Polish gentry in Lithuania, of the role of class in society.
Miłosz's early years were marked by upheaval. When his father was hired to work on infrastructure projects in Siberia, he and his mother traveled to be with him. After World War I broke out in 1914, Miłosz's father was conscripted into the Russian army, tasked with engineering roads and bridges for troop movements. Miłosz and his mother were sheltered in Vilnius when the German army captured it in 1915. Afterward, they once again joined Miłosz's father, following him as the front moved further into Russia, where, in 1917, Miłosz's brother, Andrzej, was born. Finally, after moving through Estonia and Latvia, the family returned to Šeteniai in 1918. But the Polish–Soviet War broke out in 1919, during which Miłosz's father was involved in a failed attempt to incorporate the newly independent Lithuania into the Second Polish Republic, resulting in his expulsion from Lithuania and the family's move to what was then known as Wilno, which had come under Polish control after the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1920. The Polish-Soviet War continued, forcing the family to move again. At one point during the conflict, Polish soldiers fired at Miłosz and his mother, an episode he recounted in Native Realm. The family returned to Wilno after the war ended in 1921.
Despite the interruptions of wartime wanderings, Miłosz proved to be an exceptional student with a facility for languages. He ultimately learned Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, English, French, and Hebrew. After graduation from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Wilno, he entered Stefan Batory University in 1929 as a law student. While at university, Miłosz joined a student group called Academic Club of Wilno Wanderers and Intellectuals [pl] and a student poetry group called Żagary [pl], along with the young poets Jerzy Zagórski, Teodor Bujnicki, Aleksander Rymkiewicz [pl], Jerzy Putrament, and Józef Maśliński [pl]. His first published poems appeared in the university's student magazine in 1930.
In 1931, he visited Paris, where he first met his distant cousin, Oscar Milosz, a French-language poet of Lithuanian descent who had become a Swedenborgian. Oscar became a mentor and inspiration. Returning to Wilno, Miłosz's early awareness of class difference and sympathy for those less fortunate than himself inspired his defense of Jewish students at the university who were being harassed by an anti-Semitic mob. Stepping between the mob and the Jewish students, Miłosz fended off attacks. One student was killed when a rock was thrown at his head.
Miłosz's first volume of poetry, A Poem on Frozen Time [pl], was published in Polish in 1933. In the same year, he publicly read his poetry at an anti-racist "Poetry of Protest" event in Wilno, occasioned by Hitler's rise to power in Germany. In 1934, he graduated with a law degree, and the poetry group Żagary disbanded. Miłosz relocated to Paris on a scholarship to study for one year and write articles for a newspaper back in Wilno. In Paris, he frequently met with his cousin Oscar.
By 1936, he had returned to Wilno, where he worked on literary programs at Polish Radio Wilno. His second poetry collection, Three Winters [pl], was published that same year, eliciting from one critic a comparison to Adam Mickiewicz. After only one year at Radio Wilno, Miłosz was dismissed due to an accusation that he was a left-wing sympathizer: as a student, he had adopted socialist views from which, by then, he had publicly distanced himself, and he and his boss, Tadeusz Byrski [pl], had produced programming that included performances by Jews and Byelorussians, which angered right-wing nationalists. After Byrski made a trip to the Soviet Union, an anonymous complaint was lodged with the management of Radio Wilno that the station housed a communist cell, and Byrski and Miłosz were dismissed. In summer 1937, Miłosz moved to Warsaw, where he found work at Polish Radio and met his future wife, Janina [pl] (née Dłuska; 1909–1986), who was at the time married to another man.
Miłosz was in Warsaw when it was bombarded as part of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Along with colleagues from Polish Radio, he escaped the city, making his way to Lwów. But when he learned that Janina had remained in Warsaw with her parents, he looked for a way back. The Soviet invasion of Poland thwarted his plans, and, to avoid the incoming Red Army, he fled to Bucharest. There he obtained a Lithuanian identity document and Soviet visa that allowed him to travel by train to Kyiv and then Wilno. After the Red Army invaded Lithuania, he procured fake documents that he used to enter the part of German-occupied Poland the Germans had dubbed the "General Government". It was a difficult journey, mostly on foot, that ended in summer 1940. Finally back in Warsaw, he reunited with Janina.
Like many Poles at the time, to evade notice by German authorities, Miłosz participated in underground activities. For example, with higher education officially forbidden to Poles, he attended underground lectures by Władysław Tatarkiewicz, the Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics. He translated Shakespeare's As You Like It and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land into Polish. Along with his friend the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski, he also arranged for the publication of his third volume of poetry, Poems [pl], under a pseudonym in September 1940. The pseudonym was "Jan Syruć" and the title page said the volume had been published by a fictional press in Lwów in 1939; in fact, it may have been the first clandestine book published in occupied Warsaw. In 1942, Miłosz arranged for the publication of an anthology of Polish poets, Invincible Song: Polish Poetry of War Time, by an underground press.
Miłosz's riskiest underground wartime activity was aiding Jews in Warsaw, which he did through an underground socialist organization called Freedom. His brother, Andrzej, was also active in helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland; in 1943, Andrzej transported the Polish Jew Seweryn Tross and his wife from Vilnius to Warsaw. Miłosz took in the Trosses, found them a hiding place, and supported them financially. The Trosses ultimately died during the Warsaw Uprising. Miłosz helped at least three other Jews in similar ways: Felicja Wołkomińska and her brother and sister.
Despite his willingness to engage in underground activity and vehement opposition to the Nazis, Miłosz did not join the Polish Home Army. In later years, he explained that this was partly out of an instinct for self-preservation and partly because he saw its leadership as right-wing and dictatorial. He also did not participate in the planning or execution of the Warsaw Uprising. According to Polish literary historian Irena Grudzińska-Gross [pl], he saw the uprising as a "doomed military effort" and lacked the "patriotic elation" for it. He called the uprising "a blameworthy, lightheaded enterprise", but later criticized the Red Army for failing to support it when it had the opportunity to do so.
As German troops began torching Warsaw buildings in August 1944, Miłosz was captured and held in a prisoner transit camp; he was later rescued by a Catholic nun—a stranger to him—who pleaded with the Germans on his behalf. Once freed, he and Janina escaped the city, ultimately settling in a village outside Kraków, where they were staying when the Red Army swept through Poland in January 1945, after Warsaw had been largely destroyed.
In the preface to his 1953 book The Captive Mind, Miłosz wrote, "I do not regret those years in Warsaw, which was, I believe, the most agonizing spot in the whole of terrorized Europe. Had I then chosen emigration, my life would certainly have followed a very different course. But my knowledge of the crimes which Europe has witnessed in the twentieth century would be less direct, less concrete than it is". Immediately after the war, Miłosz published his fourth poetry collection, Rescue; it focused on his wartime experiences and contains some of his most critically praised work, including the 20-poem cycle "The World," composed like a primer for naïve schoolchildren, and the cycle "Voices of Poor People". The volume also contains some of his most frequently anthologized poems, including "A Song on the End of the World", "Campo dei Fiori [it]", and "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto".
From 1945 to 1951, Miłosz served as a cultural attaché for the newly formed People's Republic of Poland. It was in this capacity that he first met Jane Zielonko, the future translator of The Captive Mind, with whom he had a brief relationship. He moved from New York City to Washington, D.C., and finally to Paris, organizing and promoting Polish cultural occasions such as musical concerts, art exhibitions, and literary and cinematic events. Although he was a representative of Poland, which had become a Soviet satellite country behind the Iron Curtain, he was not a member of any communist party. In The Captive Mind, he explained his reasons for accepting the role:
My mother tongue, work in my mother tongue, is for me the most important thing in life. And my country, where what I wrote could be printed and could reach the public, lay within the Eastern Empire. My aim and purpose was to keep alive freedom of thought in my own special field; I sought in full knowledge and conscience to subordinate my conduct to the fulfillment of that aim. I served abroad because I was thus relieved from direct pressure and, in the material which I sent to my publishers, could be bolder than my colleagues at home. I did not want to become an émigré and so give up all chance of taking a hand in what was going on in my own country.
Miłosz did not publish a book while he was a representative of the Polish government. Instead, he wrote articles for various Polish periodicals introducing readers to American writers like Eliot, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell, and W. H. Auden. He also translated into Polish Shakespeare's Othello and the work of Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Pablo Neruda, and others.
In 1947, Miłosz's son, Anthony, was born in Washington, D.C.
In 1948, Miłosz arranged for the Polish government to fund a Department of Polish Studies at Columbia University. Named for Adam Mickiewicz, the department featured lectures by Manfred Kridl, Miłosz's friend who was then on the faculty of Smith College, and produced a scholarly book about Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz's granddaughter wrote a letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the president of Columbia University, to express her approval, but the Polish American Congress, an influential group of Polish émigrés, denounced the arrangement in a letter to Eisenhower that they shared with the press, which alleged a communist infiltration at Columbia. Students picketed and called for boycotts. One faculty member resigned in protest. Despite the controversy, the department was established, the lectures took place, and the book was produced, but the department was discontinued in 1954 when funding from Poland ceased.
In 1949, Miłosz visited Poland for the first time since joining its diplomatic corps and was appalled by the conditions he saw, including an atmosphere of pervasive fear of the government. After returning to the U.S., he began to look for a way to leave his post, even soliciting advice from Albert Einstein, whom he met in the course of his duties.
As the Polish government, influenced by Joseph Stalin, became more oppressive, his superiors began to view Miłosz as a threat: he was outspoken in his reports to Warsaw and met with people not approved by his superiors. Consequently, his superiors called him "an individual who ideologically is totally alien". Toward the end of 1950, when Janina was pregnant with their second child, Miłosz was recalled to Warsaw, where in December 1950 his passport was confiscated, ostensibly until it could be determined that he did not plan to defect. After intervention by Poland's foreign minister, Zygmunt Modzelewski, Miłosz's passport was returned. Realizing that he was in danger if he remained in Poland, Miłosz left for Paris in January 1951.
Upon arriving in Paris, Miłosz went into hiding, aided by the staff of the Polish émigré magazine Kultura. With his wife and son still in the United States, he applied to enter the U.S. and was denied. At the time, the U.S. was in the grip of McCarthyism, and influential Polish émigrés had convinced American officials that Miłosz was a communist. Unable to leave France, Miłosz was not present for the birth of his second son, John Peter, in Washington, D.C., in 1951.
With the United States closed to him, Miłosz requested—and was granted—political asylum in France. After three months in hiding, he announced his defection at a press conference and in a Kultura article, "No", that explained his refusal to live in Poland or continue working for the Polish regime. He was the first artist of note from a communist country to make public his reasons for breaking ties with his government. His case attracted attention in Poland, where his work was banned and he was attacked in the press, and in the West, where prominent individuals voiced criticism and support. For example, the future Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, then a supporter of the Soviet Union, attacked him in a communist newspaper as "The Man Who Ran Away". On the other hand, Albert Camus, another future Nobel laureate, visited Miłosz and offered his support. Another supporter during this period was the Swiss philosopher Jeanne Hersch, with whom Miłosz had a brief romantic affair.
Miłosz was finally reunited with his family in 1953, when Janina and the children joined him in France. That same year saw the publication of The Captive Mind, a nonfiction work that uses case studies to dissect the methods and consequences of Soviet communism, which at the time had prominent admirers in the West. The book brought Miłosz his first readership in the United States, where it was credited by some on the political left (such as Susan Sontag) with helping to change perceptions about communism. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers described it as a "significant historical document". It became a staple of political science courses and is considered a classic work in the study of totalitarianism.
Miłosz's years in France were productive. In addition to The Captive Mind, he published two poetry collections (Daylight (1954) and A Treatise on Poetry (1957)), two novels (The Seizure of Power [pl] (1955) and The Issa Valley (1955)), and a memoir (Native Realm (1959)). All were published in Polish by an émigré press in Paris.
Andrzej Franaszek has called A Treatise on Poetry Miłosz's magnum opus, while the scholar Helen Vendler compared it to The Waste Land, a work "so powerful that it bursts the bounds in which it was written—the bounds of language, geography, epoch". A long poem divided into four sections, A Treatise on Poetry surveys Polish history, recounts Miłosz's experience of war, and explores the relationship between art and history.
In 1956, Miłosz and Janina were married.
In 1960, Miłosz was offered a position as a visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. With this offer, and with the climate of McCarthyism abated, he was able to move to the United States. He proved to be an adept and popular teacher, and was offered tenure after only two months. The rarity of this, and the degree to which he had impressed his colleagues, are underscored by the fact that Miłosz lacked a PhD and teaching experience. Yet his deep learning was obvious, and after years of working administrative jobs that he found stifling, he told friends that he was in his element in a classroom. With stable employment as a tenured professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Miłosz was able to secure American citizenship and purchase a home in Berkeley.
Miłosz began to publish scholarly articles in English and Polish on a variety of authors, including Fyodor Dostoevsky. But despite his successful transition to the U.S., he described his early years at Berkeley as frustrating, as he was isolated from friends and viewed as a political figure rather than a great poet. (In fact, some of his Berkeley faculty colleagues, unaware of his creative output, expressed astonishment when he won the Nobel Prize.) His poetry was not available in English, and he was not able to publish in Poland.
As part of an effort to introduce American readers to his poetry, as well as to his fellow Polish poets' work, Miłosz conceived and edited the anthology Postwar Polish Poetry [pl], which was published in English in 1965. American poets like W.S. Merwin, and American scholars like Clare Cavanagh, have credited it with a profound impact. It was many English-language readers' first exposure to Miłosz's poetry, as well as that of Polish poets like Wisława Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, and Tadeusz Różewicz. (In the same year, Miłosz's poetry also appeared in the first issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, an English-language journal founded by prominent literary figures Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. The issue also featured Miroslav Holub, Yehuda Amichai, Ivan Lalić, Vasko Popa, Zbigniew Herbert, and Andrei Voznesensky.) In 1969, Miłosz's textbook The History of Polish Literature was published in English. He followed this with a volume of his own work, Selected Poems (1973), some of which he translated into English himself. This was his first anthology of poetry published in English language.
At the same time, Miłosz continued to publish in Polish with an émigré press in Paris. His poetry collections from this period include King Popiel and Other Poems (1962), Bobo’s Metamorphosis (1965), City Without a Name (1969), and From the Rising of the Sun (1974).
During Miłosz's time at Berkeley, the campus became a hotbed of student protest, notably as the home of the Free Speech Movement, which has been credited with helping to "define a generation of student activism" across the United States. Miłosz's relationship to student protesters was sometimes antagonistic: he called them "spoiled children of the bourgeoisie" and their political zeal naïve. At one campus event in 1970, he mocked protesters who claimed to be demonstrating for peace and love: "Talk to me about love when they come into your cell one morning, line you all up, and say 'You and you, step forward—it’s your time to die—unless any of your friends loves you so much he wants to take your place!'" Comments like these were in keeping with his stance toward American counterculture of the 1960s in general. For example, in 1968, when Miłosz was listed as a signatory of an open letter of protest written by poet and counterculture figure Allen Ginsberg and published in The New York Review of Books, Miłosz responded by calling the letter "dangerous nonsense" and insisting that he had not signed it.
After 18 years, Miłosz retired from teaching in 1978. To mark the occasion, he was awarded a "Berkeley Citation", the University of California's equivalent of an honorary doctorate. But when his wife, Janina, fell ill and required expensive medical treatment, Miłosz returned to teaching seminars. This year also marked the publication of his second English-language poetry anthology, Bells in Winter.
On 9 October 1980, the Swedish Academy announced that Miłosz had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The award catapulted him to global fame. On the day the prize was announced, Miłosz held a brief press conference and then left to teach a class on Dostoevsky. In his Nobel lecture, Miłosz described his view of the role of the poet, lamented the tragedies of the 20th century, and paid tribute to his cousin Oscar.
Many Poles became aware of Miłosz for the first time when he won the Nobel Prize. After a 30-year ban in Poland, his writing was finally published there in limited selections. He was also able to visit Poland for the first time since fleeing in 1951 and was greeted by crowds with a hero's welcome. He met with leading Polish figures like Lech Wałęsa and Pope John Paul II. At the same time, his early work, until then only available in Polish, began to be translated into English and many other languages.
In 1981, Miłosz was appointed the Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, where he was invited to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. He used the opportunity, as he had before becoming a Nobel laureate, to draw attention to writers who had been unjustly imprisoned or persecuted. The lectures were published as The Witness of Poetry [pl] (1983).
Miłosz continued to publish work in Polish through his longtime publisher in Paris, including the poetry collections Hymn of the Pearl (1981) and Unattainable Earth (1986), and the essay collection Beginning with My Streets (1986).
In 1986, Miłosz's wife, Janina, died.
In 1988, Miłosz's Collected Poems appeared in English; it was the first of several attempts to collect all his poetry into a single volume. After the fall of communism in Poland, he split his time between Berkeley and Kraków, and he began to publish his writing in Polish with a publisher based in Kraków. When Lithuania broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991, Miłosz visited for the first time since 1939. In 2000, he moved to Kraków.
In 1992, Miłosz married Carol Thigpen, an academic at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. They remained married until her death in 2002. His work from the 1990s includes the poetry collections Facing the River (1994) and Roadside Dog [pl] (1997), and the collection of short prose Miłosz’s ABC’s (1997). Miłosz's last stand-alone volumes of poetry were This [pl] (2000), and The Second Space (2002). Uncollected poems written afterward appeared in English in New and Selected Poems (2004) and, posthumously, in Selected and Last Poems (2011).
Czesław Miłosz died on 14 August 2004, at his Kraków home, aged 93. He was given a state funeral at the historic Mariacki Church in Kraków. Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka attended, as did the former president of Poland, Lech Wałęsa. Thousands of people lined the streets to witness his coffin moved by military escort to his final resting place at Skałka Roman Catholic Church, where he was one of the last to be commemorated. In front of that church, the poets Seamus Heaney, Adam Zagajewski, and Robert Hass read Miłosz's poem "In Szetejnie" in Polish, French, English, Russian, Lithuanian, and Hebrew—all the languages Miłosz knew. Media from around the world covered the funeral.
Protesters threatened to disrupt the proceedings on the grounds that Miłosz was anti-Polish, anti-Catholic, and had signed a petition supporting gay and lesbian freedom of speech and assembly. Pope John Paul II, along with Miłosz's confessor, issued public messages confirming that Miłosz had received the sacraments, which quelled the protest.
Miłosz's brother, Andrzej Miłosz (1917–2002), was a Polish journalist, translator, and documentary film producer. His work included Polish documentaries about his brother.
Miłosz's son, Anthony, is a composer and software designer. He studied linguistics, anthropology, and chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, and neuroscience at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. In addition to releasing recordings of his own compositions, he has translated some of his father's poems into English.
In addition to the Nobel Prize in Literature, Miłosz received the following awards:
Miłosz was named a distinguished visiting professor or fellow at many institutions, including the University of Michigan and University of Oklahoma, where he was a Puterbaugh Fellow in 1999. He was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, Jagiellonian University, Catholic University of Lublin, and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. Vytautas Magnus University and Jagiellonian University have academic centers named for Miłosz.
In 1992, Miłosz was made an honorary citizen of Lithuania, where his birthplace was made into a museum and conference center. In 1993, he was made an honorary citizen of Kraków.
His books also received awards. His first, A Poem on Frozen Time, won an award from the Union of Polish Writers in Wilno. The Seizure of Power received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize). The collection Roadside Dog received a Nike Award in Poland.
In 1989, Miłosz was named one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust, in recognition of his efforts to save Jews in Warsaw during World War II.
Miłosz has also been honored posthumously. The Polish Parliament declared 2011, the centennial of his birth, the "Year of Miłosz". It was marked by conferences and tributes throughout Poland, as well as in New York City, at Yale University, and at the Dublin Writers Festival, among many other locations. The same year, he was featured on a Lithuanian postage stamp. Streets are named for him near Paris, Vilnius, and in the Polish cities of Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk, Białystok, and Wrocław. In Gdańsk there is a Czesław Miłosz Square. In 2013, a primary school in Vilnius was named for Miłosz, joining schools in Mierzecice, Poland, and Schaumburg, Illinois, that bear his name.
In 1978, the Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky called Miłosz "one of the great poets of our time; perhaps the greatest". Miłosz has been cited as an influence by numerous writers—contemporaries and succeeding generations. For example, scholars have written about Miłosz's influence on the writing of Seamus Heaney, and Clare Cavanagh has identified the following poets as having benefited from Miłosz's influence: Robert Pinsky, Edward Hirsch, Rosanna Warren, Robert Hass, Charles Simic, Mary Karr, Carolyn Forché, Mark Strand, Ted Hughes, Joseph Brodsky, and Derek Walcott.
By being smuggled into Poland, Miłosz's writing was a source of inspiration to the anti-communist Solidarity movement there in the early 1980s. Lines from his poem "You Who Wronged [pl]" are inscribed on the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 in Gdańsk, where Solidarity originated.
Of the effect of Miłosz's edited volume Postwar Polish Poetry on English-language poets, Merwin wrote, "Miłosz’s book had been a talisman and had made most of the literary bickering among the various ideological encampments, then most audible in the poetic doctrines in English, seem frivolous and silly". Similarly, the British poet and scholar Donald Davie argued that, for many English-language writers, Miłosz's work encouraged an expansion of poetry to include multiple viewpoints and an engagement with subjects of intellectual and historical importance: "I have suggested, going for support to the writings of Miłosz, that no concerned and ambitious poet of the present day, aware of the enormities of twentieth-century history, can for long remain content with the privileged irresponsibility allowed to, or imposed on, the lyric poet".
Miłosz's writing continues to be the subject of academic study, conferences, and cultural events. His papers, including manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials, are housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
Miłosz's birth in a time and place of shifting borders and overlapping cultures, and his later naturalization as an American citizen, have led to competing claims about his nationality. Although his family identified as Polish and Polish was his primary language, and although he frequently spoke of Poland as his country, he also publicly identified himself as one of the last citizens of the multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Writing in a Polish newspaper in 2000, he claimed, "I was born in the very center of Lithuania and so have a greater right than my great forebear, Mickiewicz, to write 'O Lithuania, my country.'" But in his Nobel lecture, he said, "My family in the 16th century already spoke Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish and in Ireland English, so I am a Polish, not a Lithuanian, poet". Public statements such as these, and numerous others, inspired discussion about his nationality, including a claim that he was "arguably the greatest spokesman and representative of a Lithuania that, in Miłosz’s mind, was bigger than its present incarnation". Others have viewed Miłosz as an American author, hosting exhibitions and writing about him from that perspective and including his work in anthologies of American poetry.
But in The New York Review of Books in 1981, the critic John Bayley wrote, "nationality is not a thing [Miłosz] can take seriously; it would be hard to imagine a greater writer more emancipated from even its most subtle pretensions". Echoing this notion, the scholar and diplomat Piotr Wilczek argued that, even when he was greeted as a national hero in Poland, Miłosz "made a distinct effort to remain a universal thinker". Speaking at a ceremony to celebrate his birth centenary in 2011, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė stressed that Miłosz's works "unite the Lithuanian and Polish people and reveal how close and how fruitful the ties between our people can be".
Though raised Catholic, Miłosz as a young man came to adopt a "scientific, atheistic position mostly", though he later returned to the Catholic faith. He translated parts of the Bible into Polish, and allusions to Catholicism pervade his poetry, culminating in a long 2001 poem, "A Theological Treatise". For some critics, Miłosz's belief that literature should provide spiritual fortification was outdated: Franaszek suggests that Miłosz's belief was evidence of a "beautiful naïveté", while David Orr, citing Miłosz's dismissal of "poetry which does not save nations or people", accused him of "pompous nonsense".
Miłosz expressed some criticism of both Catholicism and Poland (a majority-Catholic country), causing furor in some quarters when it was announced that he would be interred in Kraków's historic Skałka church. Cynthia Haven writes that, to some readers, Miłosz's embrace of Catholicism can seem surprising and complicates the understanding of him and his work.
Miłosz's body of work comprised multiple literary genres: poetry, fiction (particularly the novel), autobiography, scholarship, personal essay, and lectures. His letters are also of interest to scholars and lay readers; for example, his correspondence with writers such as Jerzy Andrzejewski, Witold Gombrowicz, and Thomas Merton have been published.
At the outset of his career, Miłosz was known as a "catastrophist" poet—a label critics applied to him and other poets from the Żagary poetry group to describe their use of surreal imagery and formal inventiveness in reaction to a Europe beset by extremist ideologies and war. While Miłosz evolved away from the apocalyptic view of catastrophist poetry, he continued to pursue formal inventiveness throughout his career. As a result, his poetry demonstrates a wide-ranging mastery of form, from long or epic poems (e.g., A Treatise on Poetry) to poems of just two lines (e.g., "On the Death of a Poet" from the collection This), and from prose poems and free verse to classic forms such as the ode or elegy. Some of his poems use rhyme, but many do not. In numerous cases, Miłosz used form to illuminate meaning in his poetry; for example, by juxtaposing variable stanzas to accentuate ideas or voices that challenge each other.
Miłosz's work is known for its complexity; according to the scholars Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, Miłosz "prided himself on being an esoteric writer accessible to a mere handful of readers". Nevertheless, some common themes are readily apparent throughout his body of work.
The poet, critic, and frequent Miłosz translator Robert Hass has described Miłosz as "a poet of great inclusiveness", with a fidelity to capturing life in all of its sensuousness and multiplicities. According to Hass, Miłosz's poems can be viewed as "dwelling in contradiction", where one idea or voice is presented only to be immediately challenged or changed. According to English poet Donald Davie, this allowance for contradictory voices—a shift from the solo lyric voice to a chorus—is among the most important aspects of Miłosz's work.
The poetic chorus is deployed not just to highlight the complexity of the modern world but also to search for morality, another of Miłosz's recurrent themes. Nathan and Quinn write, "Miłosz’s work is devoted to unmasking man’s fundamental duality; he wants to make his readers admit the contradictory nature of their own experience" because doing so "forces us to assert our preferences as preferences". That is, it forces readers to make conscious choices, which is the arena of morality. At times, Miłosz's exploration of morality was explicit and concrete, such as when, in The Captive Mind, he ponders the right way to respond to three Lithuanian women who were forcibly moved to a Russian communal farm and wrote to him for help, or when, in the poems "Campo Dei Fiori" and "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto", he addresses survivor's guilt and the morality of writing about another's suffering.
Miłosz's exploration of morality takes place in the context of history, and confrontation with history is another of his major themes. Vendler wrote, "for Miłosz, the person is irrevocably a person in history, and the interchange between external event and the individual life is the matrix of poetry". Having experienced both Nazism and Stalinism, Miłosz was particularly concerned with the notion of "historical necessity", which, in the 20th century, was used to justify human suffering on a previously unheard-of scale. Yet Miłosz did not reject the concept entirely. Nathan and Quinn summarize Miłosz's appraisal of historical necessity as it appears in his essay collection Views from San Francisco Bay [pl]: "Some species rise, others fall, as do human families, nations, and whole civilizations. There may well be an internal logic to these transformations, a logic that when viewed from sufficient distance has its own elegance, harmony, and grace. Our reason tempts us to be enthralled by this superhuman splendor; but when so enthralled we find it difficult to remember, except perhaps as an element in an abstract calculus, the millions of individuals, the millions upon millions, who unwillingly paid for this splendor with pain and blood".
Miłosz's willingness to accept a form of logic in history points to another recurrent aspect of his writing: his capacity for wonder, amazement, and, ultimately, faith—not always religious faith, but "faith in the objective reality of a world to be known by the human mind but not constituted by that mind". At other times, Miłosz was more explicitly religious in his work. According to scholar and translator Michael Parker, "crucial to any understanding of Miłosz’s work is his complex relationship to Catholicism". His writing is filled with allusions to Christian figures, symbols, and theological ideas, though Miłosz was closer to Gnosticism, or what he called Manichaeism, in his personal beliefs, viewing the universe as ruled by an evil whose influence human beings must try to escape. From this perspective, "he can at once admit that the world is ruled by necessity, by evil, and yet still find hope and sustenance in the beauty of the world. History reveals the pointlessness of human striving, the instability of human things; but time also is the moving image of eternity". According to Hass, this viewpoint left Miłosz "with the task of those heretical Christians…to suffer time, to contemplate being, and to live in the hope of the redemption of the world".
Miłosz had numerous literary and intellectual influences, although scholars of his work—and Miłosz himself, in his writings—have identified the following as significant: Oscar Miłosz (who inspired Miłosz's interest in the metaphysical) and, through him, Emanuel Swedenborg; Lev Shestov; Simone Weil (whose work Miłosz translated into Polish); Dostoevsky; William Blake (whose concept of "Ulro" Miłosz borrowed for his book The Land of Ulro [pl]), and Eliot. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Czesław Miłosz (/ˈmiːlɒʃ/ MEE-losh, US also /-lɔːʃ, -wɒʃ, -wɔːʃ/ -lawsh, -wosh, -wawsh, Polish: [ˈt͡ʂɛswaf ˈmiwɔʂ] ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. He primarily wrote his poetry in Polish. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who \"voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Miłosz survived the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II and became a cultural attaché for the Polish government during the postwar period. When communist authorities threatened his safety, he defected to France and ultimately chose exile in the United States, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry—particularly about his wartime experience—and his appraisal of Stalinism in a prose book, The Captive Mind, brought him renown as a leading émigré artist and intellectual.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Throughout his life and work, Miłosz tackled questions of morality, politics, history, and faith. As a translator, he introduced Western works to a Polish audience, and as a scholar and editor, he championed a greater awareness of Slavic literature in the West. Faith played a role in his work as he explored his Catholicism and personal experience. He wrote in Polish and English.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Miłosz died in Kraków, Poland, in 2004. He is interred in Skałka, a church known in Poland as a place of honor for distinguished Poles.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Czesław Miłosz was born on 30 June 1911, in the village of Šeteniai (Polish: Szetejnie), Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now Kėdainiai district, Kaunas County, Lithuania). He was the son of Aleksander Miłosz (1883–1959), a Polish civil engineer, and his wife, Weronika (née Kunat; 1887–1945).",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Miłosz was born into a prominent family. On his mother's side, his grandfather was Zygmunt Kunat, a descendant of a Polish family that traced its lineage to the 13th century and owned an estate in Krasnogruda (in present-day Poland). Having studied agriculture in Warsaw, Zygmunt settled in Šeteniai after marrying Miłosz's grandmother, Jozefa, a descendant of the noble Syruć family, which was of Lithuanian origin. One of her ancestors, Szymon Syruć [pl], had been personal secretary to Stanisław I, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania. Miłosz's paternal grandfather, Artur Miłosz, was also from a noble family and fought in the 1863 January Uprising for Polish independence. Miłosz's grandmother, Stanisława, was a doctor's daughter from Riga, Latvia, and a member of the German-Polish von Mohl family. The Miłosz estate was in Serbiny, a name that Miłosz's biographer Andrzej Franaszek [pl] has suggested could indicate Serbian origin; it is possible the Miłosz family originated in Serbia and settled in present-day Lithuania after being expelled from Germany centuries earlier. Miłosz's father was born and educated in Riga. Miłosz's mother was born in Šeteniai and educated in Kraków.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Despite this noble lineage, Miłosz's childhood on his maternal grandfather's estate in Šeteniai lacked the trappings of wealth or the customs of the upper class. He memorialized his childhood in a 1955 novel, The Issa Valley [pl], and a 1959 memoir, Native Realm [pl]. In these works, he described the influence of his Catholic grandmother, Jozefa, his burgeoning love for literature, and his early awareness, as a member of the Polish gentry in Lithuania, of the role of class in society.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Miłosz's early years were marked by upheaval. When his father was hired to work on infrastructure projects in Siberia, he and his mother traveled to be with him. After World War I broke out in 1914, Miłosz's father was conscripted into the Russian army, tasked with engineering roads and bridges for troop movements. Miłosz and his mother were sheltered in Vilnius when the German army captured it in 1915. Afterward, they once again joined Miłosz's father, following him as the front moved further into Russia, where, in 1917, Miłosz's brother, Andrzej, was born. Finally, after moving through Estonia and Latvia, the family returned to Šeteniai in 1918. But the Polish–Soviet War broke out in 1919, during which Miłosz's father was involved in a failed attempt to incorporate the newly independent Lithuania into the Second Polish Republic, resulting in his expulsion from Lithuania and the family's move to what was then known as Wilno, which had come under Polish control after the Polish–Lithuanian War of 1920. The Polish-Soviet War continued, forcing the family to move again. At one point during the conflict, Polish soldiers fired at Miłosz and his mother, an episode he recounted in Native Realm. The family returned to Wilno after the war ended in 1921.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Despite the interruptions of wartime wanderings, Miłosz proved to be an exceptional student with a facility for languages. He ultimately learned Polish, Lithuanian, Russian, English, French, and Hebrew. After graduation from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Wilno, he entered Stefan Batory University in 1929 as a law student. While at university, Miłosz joined a student group called Academic Club of Wilno Wanderers and Intellectuals [pl] and a student poetry group called Żagary [pl], along with the young poets Jerzy Zagórski, Teodor Bujnicki, Aleksander Rymkiewicz [pl], Jerzy Putrament, and Józef Maśliński [pl]. His first published poems appeared in the university's student magazine in 1930.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1931, he visited Paris, where he first met his distant cousin, Oscar Milosz, a French-language poet of Lithuanian descent who had become a Swedenborgian. Oscar became a mentor and inspiration. Returning to Wilno, Miłosz's early awareness of class difference and sympathy for those less fortunate than himself inspired his defense of Jewish students at the university who were being harassed by an anti-Semitic mob. Stepping between the mob and the Jewish students, Miłosz fended off attacks. One student was killed when a rock was thrown at his head.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Miłosz's first volume of poetry, A Poem on Frozen Time [pl], was published in Polish in 1933. In the same year, he publicly read his poetry at an anti-racist \"Poetry of Protest\" event in Wilno, occasioned by Hitler's rise to power in Germany. In 1934, he graduated with a law degree, and the poetry group Żagary disbanded. Miłosz relocated to Paris on a scholarship to study for one year and write articles for a newspaper back in Wilno. In Paris, he frequently met with his cousin Oscar.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "By 1936, he had returned to Wilno, where he worked on literary programs at Polish Radio Wilno. His second poetry collection, Three Winters [pl], was published that same year, eliciting from one critic a comparison to Adam Mickiewicz. After only one year at Radio Wilno, Miłosz was dismissed due to an accusation that he was a left-wing sympathizer: as a student, he had adopted socialist views from which, by then, he had publicly distanced himself, and he and his boss, Tadeusz Byrski [pl], had produced programming that included performances by Jews and Byelorussians, which angered right-wing nationalists. After Byrski made a trip to the Soviet Union, an anonymous complaint was lodged with the management of Radio Wilno that the station housed a communist cell, and Byrski and Miłosz were dismissed. In summer 1937, Miłosz moved to Warsaw, where he found work at Polish Radio and met his future wife, Janina [pl] (née Dłuska; 1909–1986), who was at the time married to another man.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Miłosz was in Warsaw when it was bombarded as part of the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. Along with colleagues from Polish Radio, he escaped the city, making his way to Lwów. But when he learned that Janina had remained in Warsaw with her parents, he looked for a way back. The Soviet invasion of Poland thwarted his plans, and, to avoid the incoming Red Army, he fled to Bucharest. There he obtained a Lithuanian identity document and Soviet visa that allowed him to travel by train to Kyiv and then Wilno. After the Red Army invaded Lithuania, he procured fake documents that he used to enter the part of German-occupied Poland the Germans had dubbed the \"General Government\". It was a difficult journey, mostly on foot, that ended in summer 1940. Finally back in Warsaw, he reunited with Janina.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Like many Poles at the time, to evade notice by German authorities, Miłosz participated in underground activities. For example, with higher education officially forbidden to Poles, he attended underground lectures by Władysław Tatarkiewicz, the Polish philosopher and historian of philosophy and aesthetics. He translated Shakespeare's As You Like It and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land into Polish. Along with his friend the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski, he also arranged for the publication of his third volume of poetry, Poems [pl], under a pseudonym in September 1940. The pseudonym was \"Jan Syruć\" and the title page said the volume had been published by a fictional press in Lwów in 1939; in fact, it may have been the first clandestine book published in occupied Warsaw. In 1942, Miłosz arranged for the publication of an anthology of Polish poets, Invincible Song: Polish Poetry of War Time, by an underground press.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Miłosz's riskiest underground wartime activity was aiding Jews in Warsaw, which he did through an underground socialist organization called Freedom. His brother, Andrzej, was also active in helping Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland; in 1943, Andrzej transported the Polish Jew Seweryn Tross and his wife from Vilnius to Warsaw. Miłosz took in the Trosses, found them a hiding place, and supported them financially. The Trosses ultimately died during the Warsaw Uprising. Miłosz helped at least three other Jews in similar ways: Felicja Wołkomińska and her brother and sister.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Despite his willingness to engage in underground activity and vehement opposition to the Nazis, Miłosz did not join the Polish Home Army. In later years, he explained that this was partly out of an instinct for self-preservation and partly because he saw its leadership as right-wing and dictatorial. He also did not participate in the planning or execution of the Warsaw Uprising. According to Polish literary historian Irena Grudzińska-Gross [pl], he saw the uprising as a \"doomed military effort\" and lacked the \"patriotic elation\" for it. He called the uprising \"a blameworthy, lightheaded enterprise\", but later criticized the Red Army for failing to support it when it had the opportunity to do so.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "As German troops began torching Warsaw buildings in August 1944, Miłosz was captured and held in a prisoner transit camp; he was later rescued by a Catholic nun—a stranger to him—who pleaded with the Germans on his behalf. Once freed, he and Janina escaped the city, ultimately settling in a village outside Kraków, where they were staying when the Red Army swept through Poland in January 1945, after Warsaw had been largely destroyed.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the preface to his 1953 book The Captive Mind, Miłosz wrote, \"I do not regret those years in Warsaw, which was, I believe, the most agonizing spot in the whole of terrorized Europe. Had I then chosen emigration, my life would certainly have followed a very different course. But my knowledge of the crimes which Europe has witnessed in the twentieth century would be less direct, less concrete than it is\". Immediately after the war, Miłosz published his fourth poetry collection, Rescue; it focused on his wartime experiences and contains some of his most critically praised work, including the 20-poem cycle \"The World,\" composed like a primer for naïve schoolchildren, and the cycle \"Voices of Poor People\". The volume also contains some of his most frequently anthologized poems, including \"A Song on the End of the World\", \"Campo dei Fiori [it]\", and \"A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto\".",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "From 1945 to 1951, Miłosz served as a cultural attaché for the newly formed People's Republic of Poland. It was in this capacity that he first met Jane Zielonko, the future translator of The Captive Mind, with whom he had a brief relationship. He moved from New York City to Washington, D.C., and finally to Paris, organizing and promoting Polish cultural occasions such as musical concerts, art exhibitions, and literary and cinematic events. Although he was a representative of Poland, which had become a Soviet satellite country behind the Iron Curtain, he was not a member of any communist party. In The Captive Mind, he explained his reasons for accepting the role:",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "My mother tongue, work in my mother tongue, is for me the most important thing in life. And my country, where what I wrote could be printed and could reach the public, lay within the Eastern Empire. My aim and purpose was to keep alive freedom of thought in my own special field; I sought in full knowledge and conscience to subordinate my conduct to the fulfillment of that aim. I served abroad because I was thus relieved from direct pressure and, in the material which I sent to my publishers, could be bolder than my colleagues at home. I did not want to become an émigré and so give up all chance of taking a hand in what was going on in my own country.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Miłosz did not publish a book while he was a representative of the Polish government. Instead, he wrote articles for various Polish periodicals introducing readers to American writers like Eliot, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell, and W. H. Auden. He also translated into Polish Shakespeare's Othello and the work of Walt Whitman, Carl Sandburg, Pablo Neruda, and others.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "In 1947, Miłosz's son, Anthony, was born in Washington, D.C.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1948, Miłosz arranged for the Polish government to fund a Department of Polish Studies at Columbia University. Named for Adam Mickiewicz, the department featured lectures by Manfred Kridl, Miłosz's friend who was then on the faculty of Smith College, and produced a scholarly book about Mickiewicz. Mickiewicz's granddaughter wrote a letter to Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the president of Columbia University, to express her approval, but the Polish American Congress, an influential group of Polish émigrés, denounced the arrangement in a letter to Eisenhower that they shared with the press, which alleged a communist infiltration at Columbia. Students picketed and called for boycotts. One faculty member resigned in protest. Despite the controversy, the department was established, the lectures took place, and the book was produced, but the department was discontinued in 1954 when funding from Poland ceased.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1949, Miłosz visited Poland for the first time since joining its diplomatic corps and was appalled by the conditions he saw, including an atmosphere of pervasive fear of the government. After returning to the U.S., he began to look for a way to leave his post, even soliciting advice from Albert Einstein, whom he met in the course of his duties.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "As the Polish government, influenced by Joseph Stalin, became more oppressive, his superiors began to view Miłosz as a threat: he was outspoken in his reports to Warsaw and met with people not approved by his superiors. Consequently, his superiors called him \"an individual who ideologically is totally alien\". Toward the end of 1950, when Janina was pregnant with their second child, Miłosz was recalled to Warsaw, where in December 1950 his passport was confiscated, ostensibly until it could be determined that he did not plan to defect. After intervention by Poland's foreign minister, Zygmunt Modzelewski, Miłosz's passport was returned. Realizing that he was in danger if he remained in Poland, Miłosz left for Paris in January 1951.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Upon arriving in Paris, Miłosz went into hiding, aided by the staff of the Polish émigré magazine Kultura. With his wife and son still in the United States, he applied to enter the U.S. and was denied. At the time, the U.S. was in the grip of McCarthyism, and influential Polish émigrés had convinced American officials that Miłosz was a communist. Unable to leave France, Miłosz was not present for the birth of his second son, John Peter, in Washington, D.C., in 1951.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "With the United States closed to him, Miłosz requested—and was granted—political asylum in France. After three months in hiding, he announced his defection at a press conference and in a Kultura article, \"No\", that explained his refusal to live in Poland or continue working for the Polish regime. He was the first artist of note from a communist country to make public his reasons for breaking ties with his government. His case attracted attention in Poland, where his work was banned and he was attacked in the press, and in the West, where prominent individuals voiced criticism and support. For example, the future Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda, then a supporter of the Soviet Union, attacked him in a communist newspaper as \"The Man Who Ran Away\". On the other hand, Albert Camus, another future Nobel laureate, visited Miłosz and offered his support. Another supporter during this period was the Swiss philosopher Jeanne Hersch, with whom Miłosz had a brief romantic affair.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Miłosz was finally reunited with his family in 1953, when Janina and the children joined him in France. That same year saw the publication of The Captive Mind, a nonfiction work that uses case studies to dissect the methods and consequences of Soviet communism, which at the time had prominent admirers in the West. The book brought Miłosz his first readership in the United States, where it was credited by some on the political left (such as Susan Sontag) with helping to change perceptions about communism. The German philosopher Karl Jaspers described it as a \"significant historical document\". It became a staple of political science courses and is considered a classic work in the study of totalitarianism.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Miłosz's years in France were productive. In addition to The Captive Mind, he published two poetry collections (Daylight (1954) and A Treatise on Poetry (1957)), two novels (The Seizure of Power [pl] (1955) and The Issa Valley (1955)), and a memoir (Native Realm (1959)). All were published in Polish by an émigré press in Paris.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Andrzej Franaszek has called A Treatise on Poetry Miłosz's magnum opus, while the scholar Helen Vendler compared it to The Waste Land, a work \"so powerful that it bursts the bounds in which it was written—the bounds of language, geography, epoch\". A long poem divided into four sections, A Treatise on Poetry surveys Polish history, recounts Miłosz's experience of war, and explores the relationship between art and history.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In 1956, Miłosz and Janina were married.",
"title": "Life in Europe"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In 1960, Miłosz was offered a position as a visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. With this offer, and with the climate of McCarthyism abated, he was able to move to the United States. He proved to be an adept and popular teacher, and was offered tenure after only two months. The rarity of this, and the degree to which he had impressed his colleagues, are underscored by the fact that Miłosz lacked a PhD and teaching experience. Yet his deep learning was obvious, and after years of working administrative jobs that he found stifling, he told friends that he was in his element in a classroom. With stable employment as a tenured professor of Slavic languages and literatures, Miłosz was able to secure American citizenship and purchase a home in Berkeley.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Miłosz began to publish scholarly articles in English and Polish on a variety of authors, including Fyodor Dostoevsky. But despite his successful transition to the U.S., he described his early years at Berkeley as frustrating, as he was isolated from friends and viewed as a political figure rather than a great poet. (In fact, some of his Berkeley faculty colleagues, unaware of his creative output, expressed astonishment when he won the Nobel Prize.) His poetry was not available in English, and he was not able to publish in Poland.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "As part of an effort to introduce American readers to his poetry, as well as to his fellow Polish poets' work, Miłosz conceived and edited the anthology Postwar Polish Poetry [pl], which was published in English in 1965. American poets like W.S. Merwin, and American scholars like Clare Cavanagh, have credited it with a profound impact. It was many English-language readers' first exposure to Miłosz's poetry, as well as that of Polish poets like Wisława Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, and Tadeusz Różewicz. (In the same year, Miłosz's poetry also appeared in the first issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, an English-language journal founded by prominent literary figures Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort. The issue also featured Miroslav Holub, Yehuda Amichai, Ivan Lalić, Vasko Popa, Zbigniew Herbert, and Andrei Voznesensky.) In 1969, Miłosz's textbook The History of Polish Literature was published in English. He followed this with a volume of his own work, Selected Poems (1973), some of which he translated into English himself. This was his first anthology of poetry published in English language.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "At the same time, Miłosz continued to publish in Polish with an émigré press in Paris. His poetry collections from this period include King Popiel and Other Poems (1962), Bobo’s Metamorphosis (1965), City Without a Name (1969), and From the Rising of the Sun (1974).",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "During Miłosz's time at Berkeley, the campus became a hotbed of student protest, notably as the home of the Free Speech Movement, which has been credited with helping to \"define a generation of student activism\" across the United States. Miłosz's relationship to student protesters was sometimes antagonistic: he called them \"spoiled children of the bourgeoisie\" and their political zeal naïve. At one campus event in 1970, he mocked protesters who claimed to be demonstrating for peace and love: \"Talk to me about love when they come into your cell one morning, line you all up, and say 'You and you, step forward—it’s your time to die—unless any of your friends loves you so much he wants to take your place!'\" Comments like these were in keeping with his stance toward American counterculture of the 1960s in general. For example, in 1968, when Miłosz was listed as a signatory of an open letter of protest written by poet and counterculture figure Allen Ginsberg and published in The New York Review of Books, Miłosz responded by calling the letter \"dangerous nonsense\" and insisting that he had not signed it.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "After 18 years, Miłosz retired from teaching in 1978. To mark the occasion, he was awarded a \"Berkeley Citation\", the University of California's equivalent of an honorary doctorate. But when his wife, Janina, fell ill and required expensive medical treatment, Miłosz returned to teaching seminars. This year also marked the publication of his second English-language poetry anthology, Bells in Winter.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "On 9 October 1980, the Swedish Academy announced that Miłosz had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The award catapulted him to global fame. On the day the prize was announced, Miłosz held a brief press conference and then left to teach a class on Dostoevsky. In his Nobel lecture, Miłosz described his view of the role of the poet, lamented the tragedies of the 20th century, and paid tribute to his cousin Oscar.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Many Poles became aware of Miłosz for the first time when he won the Nobel Prize. After a 30-year ban in Poland, his writing was finally published there in limited selections. He was also able to visit Poland for the first time since fleeing in 1951 and was greeted by crowds with a hero's welcome. He met with leading Polish figures like Lech Wałęsa and Pope John Paul II. At the same time, his early work, until then only available in Polish, began to be translated into English and many other languages.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 1981, Miłosz was appointed the Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University, where he was invited to deliver the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures. He used the opportunity, as he had before becoming a Nobel laureate, to draw attention to writers who had been unjustly imprisoned or persecuted. The lectures were published as The Witness of Poetry [pl] (1983).",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Miłosz continued to publish work in Polish through his longtime publisher in Paris, including the poetry collections Hymn of the Pearl (1981) and Unattainable Earth (1986), and the essay collection Beginning with My Streets (1986).",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In 1986, Miłosz's wife, Janina, died.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 1988, Miłosz's Collected Poems appeared in English; it was the first of several attempts to collect all his poetry into a single volume. After the fall of communism in Poland, he split his time between Berkeley and Kraków, and he began to publish his writing in Polish with a publisher based in Kraków. When Lithuania broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991, Miłosz visited for the first time since 1939. In 2000, he moved to Kraków.",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 1992, Miłosz married Carol Thigpen, an academic at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. They remained married until her death in 2002. His work from the 1990s includes the poetry collections Facing the River (1994) and Roadside Dog [pl] (1997), and the collection of short prose Miłosz’s ABC’s (1997). Miłosz's last stand-alone volumes of poetry were This [pl] (2000), and The Second Space (2002). Uncollected poems written afterward appeared in English in New and Selected Poems (2004) and, posthumously, in Selected and Last Poems (2011).",
"title": "Life in the United States"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Czesław Miłosz died on 14 August 2004, at his Kraków home, aged 93. He was given a state funeral at the historic Mariacki Church in Kraków. Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka attended, as did the former president of Poland, Lech Wałęsa. Thousands of people lined the streets to witness his coffin moved by military escort to his final resting place at Skałka Roman Catholic Church, where he was one of the last to be commemorated. In front of that church, the poets Seamus Heaney, Adam Zagajewski, and Robert Hass read Miłosz's poem \"In Szetejnie\" in Polish, French, English, Russian, Lithuanian, and Hebrew—all the languages Miłosz knew. Media from around the world covered the funeral.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Protesters threatened to disrupt the proceedings on the grounds that Miłosz was anti-Polish, anti-Catholic, and had signed a petition supporting gay and lesbian freedom of speech and assembly. Pope John Paul II, along with Miłosz's confessor, issued public messages confirming that Miłosz had received the sacraments, which quelled the protest.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Miłosz's brother, Andrzej Miłosz (1917–2002), was a Polish journalist, translator, and documentary film producer. His work included Polish documentaries about his brother.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Miłosz's son, Anthony, is a composer and software designer. He studied linguistics, anthropology, and chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, and neuroscience at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. In addition to releasing recordings of his own compositions, he has translated some of his father's poems into English.",
"title": "Family"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In addition to the Nobel Prize in Literature, Miłosz received the following awards:",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Miłosz was named a distinguished visiting professor or fellow at many institutions, including the University of Michigan and University of Oklahoma, where he was a Puterbaugh Fellow in 1999. He was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received honorary doctorates from Harvard University, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, Jagiellonian University, Catholic University of Lublin, and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. Vytautas Magnus University and Jagiellonian University have academic centers named for Miłosz.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In 1992, Miłosz was made an honorary citizen of Lithuania, where his birthplace was made into a museum and conference center. In 1993, he was made an honorary citizen of Kraków.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "His books also received awards. His first, A Poem on Frozen Time, won an award from the Union of Polish Writers in Wilno. The Seizure of Power received the Prix Littéraire Européen (European Literary Prize). The collection Roadside Dog received a Nike Award in Poland.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In 1989, Miłosz was named one of the \"Righteous Among the Nations\" at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust, in recognition of his efforts to save Jews in Warsaw during World War II.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Miłosz has also been honored posthumously. The Polish Parliament declared 2011, the centennial of his birth, the \"Year of Miłosz\". It was marked by conferences and tributes throughout Poland, as well as in New York City, at Yale University, and at the Dublin Writers Festival, among many other locations. The same year, he was featured on a Lithuanian postage stamp. Streets are named for him near Paris, Vilnius, and in the Polish cities of Kraków, Poznań, Gdańsk, Białystok, and Wrocław. In Gdańsk there is a Czesław Miłosz Square. In 2013, a primary school in Vilnius was named for Miłosz, joining schools in Mierzecice, Poland, and Schaumburg, Illinois, that bear his name.",
"title": "Honors"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In 1978, the Russian-American poet Joseph Brodsky called Miłosz \"one of the great poets of our time; perhaps the greatest\". Miłosz has been cited as an influence by numerous writers—contemporaries and succeeding generations. For example, scholars have written about Miłosz's influence on the writing of Seamus Heaney, and Clare Cavanagh has identified the following poets as having benefited from Miłosz's influence: Robert Pinsky, Edward Hirsch, Rosanna Warren, Robert Hass, Charles Simic, Mary Karr, Carolyn Forché, Mark Strand, Ted Hughes, Joseph Brodsky, and Derek Walcott.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "By being smuggled into Poland, Miłosz's writing was a source of inspiration to the anti-communist Solidarity movement there in the early 1980s. Lines from his poem \"You Who Wronged [pl]\" are inscribed on the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 in Gdańsk, where Solidarity originated.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Of the effect of Miłosz's edited volume Postwar Polish Poetry on English-language poets, Merwin wrote, \"Miłosz’s book had been a talisman and had made most of the literary bickering among the various ideological encampments, then most audible in the poetic doctrines in English, seem frivolous and silly\". Similarly, the British poet and scholar Donald Davie argued that, for many English-language writers, Miłosz's work encouraged an expansion of poetry to include multiple viewpoints and an engagement with subjects of intellectual and historical importance: \"I have suggested, going for support to the writings of Miłosz, that no concerned and ambitious poet of the present day, aware of the enormities of twentieth-century history, can for long remain content with the privileged irresponsibility allowed to, or imposed on, the lyric poet\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Miłosz's writing continues to be the subject of academic study, conferences, and cultural events. His papers, including manuscripts, correspondence, and other materials, are housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Miłosz's birth in a time and place of shifting borders and overlapping cultures, and his later naturalization as an American citizen, have led to competing claims about his nationality. Although his family identified as Polish and Polish was his primary language, and although he frequently spoke of Poland as his country, he also publicly identified himself as one of the last citizens of the multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Writing in a Polish newspaper in 2000, he claimed, \"I was born in the very center of Lithuania and so have a greater right than my great forebear, Mickiewicz, to write 'O Lithuania, my country.'\" But in his Nobel lecture, he said, \"My family in the 16th century already spoke Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish and in Ireland English, so I am a Polish, not a Lithuanian, poet\". Public statements such as these, and numerous others, inspired discussion about his nationality, including a claim that he was \"arguably the greatest spokesman and representative of a Lithuania that, in Miłosz’s mind, was bigger than its present incarnation\". Others have viewed Miłosz as an American author, hosting exhibitions and writing about him from that perspective and including his work in anthologies of American poetry.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "But in The New York Review of Books in 1981, the critic John Bayley wrote, \"nationality is not a thing [Miłosz] can take seriously; it would be hard to imagine a greater writer more emancipated from even its most subtle pretensions\". Echoing this notion, the scholar and diplomat Piotr Wilczek argued that, even when he was greeted as a national hero in Poland, Miłosz \"made a distinct effort to remain a universal thinker\". Speaking at a ceremony to celebrate his birth centenary in 2011, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė stressed that Miłosz's works \"unite the Lithuanian and Polish people and reveal how close and how fruitful the ties between our people can be\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Though raised Catholic, Miłosz as a young man came to adopt a \"scientific, atheistic position mostly\", though he later returned to the Catholic faith. He translated parts of the Bible into Polish, and allusions to Catholicism pervade his poetry, culminating in a long 2001 poem, \"A Theological Treatise\". For some critics, Miłosz's belief that literature should provide spiritual fortification was outdated: Franaszek suggests that Miłosz's belief was evidence of a \"beautiful naïveté\", while David Orr, citing Miłosz's dismissal of \"poetry which does not save nations or people\", accused him of \"pompous nonsense\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Miłosz expressed some criticism of both Catholicism and Poland (a majority-Catholic country), causing furor in some quarters when it was announced that he would be interred in Kraków's historic Skałka church. Cynthia Haven writes that, to some readers, Miłosz's embrace of Catholicism can seem surprising and complicates the understanding of him and his work.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Miłosz's body of work comprised multiple literary genres: poetry, fiction (particularly the novel), autobiography, scholarship, personal essay, and lectures. His letters are also of interest to scholars and lay readers; for example, his correspondence with writers such as Jerzy Andrzejewski, Witold Gombrowicz, and Thomas Merton have been published.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "At the outset of his career, Miłosz was known as a \"catastrophist\" poet—a label critics applied to him and other poets from the Żagary poetry group to describe their use of surreal imagery and formal inventiveness in reaction to a Europe beset by extremist ideologies and war. While Miłosz evolved away from the apocalyptic view of catastrophist poetry, he continued to pursue formal inventiveness throughout his career. As a result, his poetry demonstrates a wide-ranging mastery of form, from long or epic poems (e.g., A Treatise on Poetry) to poems of just two lines (e.g., \"On the Death of a Poet\" from the collection This), and from prose poems and free verse to classic forms such as the ode or elegy. Some of his poems use rhyme, but many do not. In numerous cases, Miłosz used form to illuminate meaning in his poetry; for example, by juxtaposing variable stanzas to accentuate ideas or voices that challenge each other.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Miłosz's work is known for its complexity; according to the scholars Leonard Nathan and Arthur Quinn, Miłosz \"prided himself on being an esoteric writer accessible to a mere handful of readers\". Nevertheless, some common themes are readily apparent throughout his body of work.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The poet, critic, and frequent Miłosz translator Robert Hass has described Miłosz as \"a poet of great inclusiveness\", with a fidelity to capturing life in all of its sensuousness and multiplicities. According to Hass, Miłosz's poems can be viewed as \"dwelling in contradiction\", where one idea or voice is presented only to be immediately challenged or changed. According to English poet Donald Davie, this allowance for contradictory voices—a shift from the solo lyric voice to a chorus—is among the most important aspects of Miłosz's work.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The poetic chorus is deployed not just to highlight the complexity of the modern world but also to search for morality, another of Miłosz's recurrent themes. Nathan and Quinn write, \"Miłosz’s work is devoted to unmasking man’s fundamental duality; he wants to make his readers admit the contradictory nature of their own experience\" because doing so \"forces us to assert our preferences as preferences\". That is, it forces readers to make conscious choices, which is the arena of morality. At times, Miłosz's exploration of morality was explicit and concrete, such as when, in The Captive Mind, he ponders the right way to respond to three Lithuanian women who were forcibly moved to a Russian communal farm and wrote to him for help, or when, in the poems \"Campo Dei Fiori\" and \"A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto\", he addresses survivor's guilt and the morality of writing about another's suffering.",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Miłosz's exploration of morality takes place in the context of history, and confrontation with history is another of his major themes. Vendler wrote, \"for Miłosz, the person is irrevocably a person in history, and the interchange between external event and the individual life is the matrix of poetry\". Having experienced both Nazism and Stalinism, Miłosz was particularly concerned with the notion of \"historical necessity\", which, in the 20th century, was used to justify human suffering on a previously unheard-of scale. Yet Miłosz did not reject the concept entirely. Nathan and Quinn summarize Miłosz's appraisal of historical necessity as it appears in his essay collection Views from San Francisco Bay [pl]: \"Some species rise, others fall, as do human families, nations, and whole civilizations. There may well be an internal logic to these transformations, a logic that when viewed from sufficient distance has its own elegance, harmony, and grace. Our reason tempts us to be enthralled by this superhuman splendor; but when so enthralled we find it difficult to remember, except perhaps as an element in an abstract calculus, the millions of individuals, the millions upon millions, who unwillingly paid for this splendor with pain and blood\".",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Miłosz's willingness to accept a form of logic in history points to another recurrent aspect of his writing: his capacity for wonder, amazement, and, ultimately, faith—not always religious faith, but \"faith in the objective reality of a world to be known by the human mind but not constituted by that mind\". At other times, Miłosz was more explicitly religious in his work. According to scholar and translator Michael Parker, \"crucial to any understanding of Miłosz’s work is his complex relationship to Catholicism\". His writing is filled with allusions to Christian figures, symbols, and theological ideas, though Miłosz was closer to Gnosticism, or what he called Manichaeism, in his personal beliefs, viewing the universe as ruled by an evil whose influence human beings must try to escape. From this perspective, \"he can at once admit that the world is ruled by necessity, by evil, and yet still find hope and sustenance in the beauty of the world. History reveals the pointlessness of human striving, the instability of human things; but time also is the moving image of eternity\". According to Hass, this viewpoint left Miłosz \"with the task of those heretical Christians…to suffer time, to contemplate being, and to live in the hope of the redemption of the world\".",
"title": "Work"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Miłosz had numerous literary and intellectual influences, although scholars of his work—and Miłosz himself, in his writings—have identified the following as significant: Oscar Miłosz (who inspired Miłosz's interest in the metaphysical) and, through him, Emanuel Swedenborg; Lev Shestov; Simone Weil (whose work Miłosz translated into Polish); Dostoevsky; William Blake (whose concept of \"Ulro\" Miłosz borrowed for his book The Land of Ulro [pl]), and Eliot.",
"title": "Work"
}
] | Czesław Miłosz was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. He primarily wrote his poetry in Polish. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts". Miłosz survived the German occupation of Warsaw during World War II and became a cultural attaché for the Polish government during the postwar period. When communist authorities threatened his safety, he defected to France and ultimately chose exile in the United States, where he became a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His poetry—particularly about his wartime experience—and his appraisal of Stalinism in a prose book, The Captive Mind, brought him renown as a leading émigré artist and intellectual. Throughout his life and work, Miłosz tackled questions of morality, politics, history, and faith. As a translator, he introduced Western works to a Polish audience, and as a scholar and editor, he championed a greater awareness of Slavic literature in the West. Faith played a role in his work as he explored his Catholicism and personal experience. He wrote in Polish and English. Miłosz died in Kraków, Poland, in 2004. He is interred in Skałka, a church known in Poland as a place of honor for distinguished Poles. | 2001-09-26T16:34:31Z | 2023-11-18T16:20:45Z | [
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6,543 | Carnivore | A carnivore /ˈkɑːrnɪvɔːr/, or meat-eater (Latin, caro, genitive carnis, meaning meat or "flesh" and vorare meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other soft tissues) whether through hunting or scavenging.
The technical term for mammals in the order Carnivora is carnivoran, and they are so-named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet, but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion.
Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters; a few, such as the large and small cats (felidae) are obligate carnivores (see below). Other classes of carnivore are highly variable. The Ursids, for example: While the Arctic polar bear eats meat almost exclusively (more than 90% of its diet is meat), almost all other bear species are omnivorous, and one species, the giant panda, is nearly exclusively herbivorous.
Dietary carnivory is not a distinguishing trait of the order: Many mammals with highly carnivorous diets are not members of the order Carnivora. Cetaceans, for example, all eat other animals, but are paradoxically members of the almost exclusively plant-eating hooved mammals.
Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are called hypercarnivores or obligate carnivores, while those that also consume non-animal food are called mesocarnivores, or facultative carnivores, or omnivores (there are no clear distinctions). A carnivore at the top of the food chain (adults not preyed upon by other animals) is termed an apex predator, regardless of whether it is an obligate or facultative carnivore.
Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants (predominantly insectivores) and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi (preying mostly on microscopic invertebrates, such as nematodes, amoebae, and springtails).
Carnivores are sometimes characterized by their type of prey. For example, animals that eat mainly insects and similar invertebrates are called insectivores, while those that eat mainly fish are called piscivores.
Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to the percentage of meat in their diet. The diet of a hypercarnivore consists of more than 70% meat, that of a mesocarnivore 30–70%, and that of a hypocarnivore less than 30%, with the balance consisting of non-animal foods, such as fruits, other plant material, or fungi.
Omnivores also consume both animal and non-animal food, and apart from their more general definition, there is no clearly defined ratio of plant vs. animal material that distinguishes a facultative carnivore from an omnivore.
Obligate or "true" carnivores are those whose diet requires nutrients found only in animal flesh. While obligate carnivores might be able to ingest small amounts of plant matter, they lack the necessary physiology required to fully digest it. Some obligate carnivorous mammals will ingest vegetation as an emetic, a food that upsets their stomachs, to self-induce vomiting.
Obligate carnivores are diverse. The amphibian axolotl consumes mainly worms and larvae in its environment, but if necessary will consume algae. All felids, including the domestic cat, require a diet of primarily animal flesh and organs. Specifically, cats have high protein requirements and their metabolisms appear unable to synthesize essential nutrients such as retinol, arginine, taurine, and arachidonic acid; thus, in nature, they must consume flesh to supply these nutrients.
Characteristics commonly associated with carnivores include strength, speed, and keen senses for hunting, as well as teeth and claws for capturing and tearing prey. However, some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers, lacking the physical characteristics to bring down prey; in addition, most hunting carnivores will scavenge when the opportunity arises. Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems, as they are not required to break down the tough cellulose found in plants.
Many hunting animals have evolved eyes facing forward, enabling depth perception. This is almost universal among mammalian predators, while most reptile and amphibian predators have eyes facing sideways.
Predation (the eating of one living creature by another for nutrition) predates the rise of commonly recognized carnivores by hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of years. Indeed: It began with single-celled organisms, before multicellular creatures, and so carnivory predates the clear distinction between plants and animals (herbivory / carnivory).
The earliest predators were microbial organisms, which engulfed or grazed on others. Because the earliest fossil record is the poorest, these first predators could date back anywhere between 1 and over 2.7 Gya (billion years ago).
The rise of eukaryotic cells at around 2.7 Gya, the rise of multicellular organisms at about 2 Gya, and the rise of mobile predators (around 600 Mya – 2 Gya, probably around 1 Gya) have all been attributed to early predatory behavior, and many very early remains show evidence of boreholes or other markings attributed to small predator species.
Among more familiar species, the first vertebrate carnivores were fish, and then amphibians that moved on to land. Early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores. The first tetrapods, or land-dwelling vertebrates, were piscivorous amphibians called labyrinthodonts. They gave rise to insectivorous vertebrates and, later, to predators of other tetrapods.
Some scientists assert that Dimetrodon "was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself." While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types: tetrapods (carnivory) and then plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation; in contrast, a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials.
In the Mesozoic, some theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex are thought probably to have been obligate carnivores.
Though the theropods were the larger carnivores, several carnivorous mammal groups were already present. Most notable are the gobiconodontids, the triconodontid Jugulator, the deltatheroidans and Cimolestes. Many of these, such as Repenomamus, Jugulator and Cimolestes, were among the largest mammals in their faunal assemblages, capable of attacking dinosaurs.
In the early-to-mid-Cenozoic, the dominant predator forms were mammals: hyaenodonts, oxyaenids, entelodonts, ptolemaiidans, arctocyonids and mesonychians, representing a great diversity of eutherian carnivores in the northern continents and Africa. In South America, sparassodonts were dominant, while Australia saw the presence of several marsupial predators, such as the dasyuromorphs and thylacoleonids. From the Miocene to the present, the dominant carnivorous mammals have been carnivoramorphs.
Most carnivorous mammals, from dogs to deltatheridiums, share several dental adaptations, such as carnassialiforme teeth, long canines and even similar tooth replacement patterns. Most aberrant are thylacoleonids, with a diprodontan dentition completely unlike that of any other mammal; and eutriconodonts like gobiconodontids and Jugulator, with a three-cusp anatomy which nevertheless functioned similarly to carnassials. | [
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"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A carnivore /ˈkɑːrnɪvɔːr/, or meat-eater (Latin, caro, genitive carnis, meaning meat or \"flesh\" and vorare meaning \"to devour\"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other soft tissues) whether through hunting or scavenging.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The technical term for mammals in the order Carnivora is carnivoran, and they are so-named because most member species in the group have a carnivorous diet, but the similarity of the name of the order and the name of the diet causes confusion.",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Many but not all carnivorans are meat eaters; a few, such as the large and small cats (felidae) are obligate carnivores (see below). Other classes of carnivore are highly variable. The Ursids, for example: While the Arctic polar bear eats meat almost exclusively (more than 90% of its diet is meat), almost all other bear species are omnivorous, and one species, the giant panda, is nearly exclusively herbivorous.",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Dietary carnivory is not a distinguishing trait of the order: Many mammals with highly carnivorous diets are not members of the order Carnivora. Cetaceans, for example, all eat other animals, but are paradoxically members of the almost exclusively plant-eating hooved mammals.",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Animals that depend solely on animal flesh for their nutrient requirements are called hypercarnivores or obligate carnivores, while those that also consume non-animal food are called mesocarnivores, or facultative carnivores, or omnivores (there are no clear distinctions). A carnivore at the top of the food chain (adults not preyed upon by other animals) is termed an apex predator, regardless of whether it is an obligate or facultative carnivore.",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Outside the animal kingdom, there are several genera containing carnivorous plants (predominantly insectivores) and several phyla containing carnivorous fungi (preying mostly on microscopic invertebrates, such as nematodes, amoebae, and springtails).",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Carnivores are sometimes characterized by their type of prey. For example, animals that eat mainly insects and similar invertebrates are called insectivores, while those that eat mainly fish are called piscivores.",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Carnivores may alternatively be classified according to the percentage of meat in their diet. The diet of a hypercarnivore consists of more than 70% meat, that of a mesocarnivore 30–70%, and that of a hypocarnivore less than 30%, with the balance consisting of non-animal foods, such as fruits, other plant material, or fungi.",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Omnivores also consume both animal and non-animal food, and apart from their more general definition, there is no clearly defined ratio of plant vs. animal material that distinguishes a facultative carnivore from an omnivore.",
"title": "Nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Obligate or \"true\" carnivores are those whose diet requires nutrients found only in animal flesh. While obligate carnivores might be able to ingest small amounts of plant matter, they lack the necessary physiology required to fully digest it. Some obligate carnivorous mammals will ingest vegetation as an emetic, a food that upsets their stomachs, to self-induce vomiting.",
"title": "Obligate carnivores"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Obligate carnivores are diverse. The amphibian axolotl consumes mainly worms and larvae in its environment, but if necessary will consume algae. All felids, including the domestic cat, require a diet of primarily animal flesh and organs. Specifically, cats have high protein requirements and their metabolisms appear unable to synthesize essential nutrients such as retinol, arginine, taurine, and arachidonic acid; thus, in nature, they must consume flesh to supply these nutrients.",
"title": "Obligate carnivores"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Characteristics commonly associated with carnivores include strength, speed, and keen senses for hunting, as well as teeth and claws for capturing and tearing prey. However, some carnivores do not hunt and are scavengers, lacking the physical characteristics to bring down prey; in addition, most hunting carnivores will scavenge when the opportunity arises. Carnivores have comparatively short digestive systems, as they are not required to break down the tough cellulose found in plants.",
"title": "Characteristics of carnivores"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Many hunting animals have evolved eyes facing forward, enabling depth perception. This is almost universal among mammalian predators, while most reptile and amphibian predators have eyes facing sideways.",
"title": "Characteristics of carnivores"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Predation (the eating of one living creature by another for nutrition) predates the rise of commonly recognized carnivores by hundreds of millions (perhaps billions) of years. Indeed: It began with single-celled organisms, before multicellular creatures, and so carnivory predates the clear distinction between plants and animals (herbivory / carnivory).",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The earliest predators were microbial organisms, which engulfed or grazed on others. Because the earliest fossil record is the poorest, these first predators could date back anywhere between 1 and over 2.7 Gya (billion years ago).",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The rise of eukaryotic cells at around 2.7 Gya, the rise of multicellular organisms at about 2 Gya, and the rise of mobile predators (around 600 Mya – 2 Gya, probably around 1 Gya) have all been attributed to early predatory behavior, and many very early remains show evidence of boreholes or other markings attributed to small predator species.",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Among more familiar species, the first vertebrate carnivores were fish, and then amphibians that moved on to land. Early tetrapods were large amphibious piscivores. The first tetrapods, or land-dwelling vertebrates, were piscivorous amphibians called labyrinthodonts. They gave rise to insectivorous vertebrates and, later, to predators of other tetrapods.",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Some scientists assert that Dimetrodon \"was the first terrestrial vertebrate to develop the curved, serrated teeth that enable a predator to eat prey much larger than itself.\" While amphibians continued to feed on fish and later insects, reptiles began exploring two new food types: tetrapods (carnivory) and then plants (herbivory). Carnivory was a natural transition from insectivory for medium and large tetrapods, requiring minimal adaptation; in contrast, a complex set of adaptations was necessary for feeding on highly fibrous plant materials.",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the Mesozoic, some theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex are thought probably to have been obligate carnivores.",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Though the theropods were the larger carnivores, several carnivorous mammal groups were already present. Most notable are the gobiconodontids, the triconodontid Jugulator, the deltatheroidans and Cimolestes. Many of these, such as Repenomamus, Jugulator and Cimolestes, were among the largest mammals in their faunal assemblages, capable of attacking dinosaurs.",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In the early-to-mid-Cenozoic, the dominant predator forms were mammals: hyaenodonts, oxyaenids, entelodonts, ptolemaiidans, arctocyonids and mesonychians, representing a great diversity of eutherian carnivores in the northern continents and Africa. In South America, sparassodonts were dominant, while Australia saw the presence of several marsupial predators, such as the dasyuromorphs and thylacoleonids. From the Miocene to the present, the dominant carnivorous mammals have been carnivoramorphs.",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Most carnivorous mammals, from dogs to deltatheridiums, share several dental adaptations, such as carnassialiforme teeth, long canines and even similar tooth replacement patterns. Most aberrant are thylacoleonids, with a diprodontan dentition completely unlike that of any other mammal; and eutriconodonts like gobiconodontids and Jugulator, with a three-cusp anatomy which nevertheless functioned similarly to carnassials.",
"title": "Prehistory of carnivory"
}
] | A carnivore, or meat-eater, is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues whether through hunting or scavenging. | 2001-11-10T13:38:51Z | 2023-12-05T09:50:50Z | [
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6,546 | Celts | The Celts (/kɛlts/, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples (/ˈkɛltɪk/) were a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii; and the Galatians. The relation between ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world is unclear and debated; for example over the ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group.
The history of pre-Celtic Europe and Celtic origins is debated. The traditional "Celtic from the East" theory, says the proto-Celtic language arose in the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, named after grave sites in southern Germany, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links the Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it (c. 1200–500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria, and with the following La Tène culture (c. 450 BC onward), named after the La Tène site in Switzerland. It proposes that Celtic culture spread westward and southward from these areas by diffusion or migration. A newer theory, "Celtic from the West", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward. Another newer theory, "Celtic from the Centre", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions. After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia, Turkey.
The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic languages are attested from the 4th century AD in Ogham inscriptions, though they were clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century AD. Elements of Celtic mythology are recorded in early Irish and early Welsh literature. Most written evidence of the early Celts comes from Greco-Roman writers, who often grouped the Celts as barbarian tribes. They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids.
The Celts were often in conflict with the Romans, such as in the Roman–Gallic wars, the Celtiberian Wars, the conquest of Gaul and conquest of Britain. By the 1st century AD, most Celtic territories had become part of the Roman Empire. By c. 500, due to Romanisation and the migration of Germanic tribes, Celtic culture had mostly become restricted to Ireland, western and northern Britain, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from surrounding cultures.
Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scots and Manx) and the Celtic Britons (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia. Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival.
The first recorded use of the name 'Celts' – as Κελτοί (Keltoi) in Ancient Greek – was by Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC, when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille), southern Gaul. In the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the source of the Danube and in the far west of Europe. The etymology of Keltoi is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *kʲel 'to hide' (seen also in Old Irish ceilid, and Modern Welsh celu), *kʲel 'to heat' or *kel 'to impel'. It may come from the Celtic language. Linguist Kim McCone supports this view and notes that Celt- is found in the names of several ancient Gauls such as Celtillus, father of Vercingetorix. He suggests it meant the people or descendants of "the hidden one", noting the Gauls claimed descent from an underworld god (according to Commentarii de Bello Gallico), and linking it with the Germanic Hel. Others view it as a name coined by Greeks; among them linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, who suggests it meant "the tall ones".
In the first century BC, Roman leader Julius Caesar reported that the Gauls called themselves 'Celts', Latin: Celtae, in their own tongue. Thus whether it was given to them by others or not, it was used by the Celts themselves. Greek geographer Strabo, writing about Gaul towards the end of the first century BC, refers to the "race which is now called both Gallic and Galatic", though he also uses Celtica as another name for Gaul. He reports Celtic peoples in Iberia too, calling them Celtiberi and Celtici. Pliny the Elder noted the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed.
A Latin name for the Gauls, Galli (pl.), may come from a Celtic ethnic name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansion into Italy from the early fifth century BC. Its root may be Proto-Celtic *galno, meaning "power, strength" (whence Old Irish gal "boldness, ferocity", Welsh gallu "to be able, power"). The Greek name Γαλάται (Galatai, Latinized Galatae) most likely has the same origin, referring to the Gauls who invaded southeast Europe and settled in Galatia. The suffix -atai might be a Greek inflection. Linguist Kim McCone suggests it comes from Proto-Celtic *galatis ("ferocious, furious"), and was not originally an ethnic name but a name for young warrior bands. He says "If the Gauls' initial impact on the Mediterranean world was primarily a military one typically involving fierce young *galatīs, it would have been natural for the Greeks to apply this name for the type of Keltoi that they usually encountered".
Because Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Κελτοί (Keltoi) or Celtae, some scholars prefer not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands. However, they spoke Celtic languages, shared other cultural traits, and Roman historian Tacitus says the Britons resembled the Gauls in customs and religion.
For at least 1,000 years the name Celt was not used at all, and nobody called themselves Celts or Celtic, until from about 1700, after the word 'Celtic' was rediscovered in classical texts, it was applied for the first time to the distinctive culture, history, traditions, language of the modern Celtic nations – Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man. 'Celt' is a modern English word, first attested in 1707 in the writing of Edward Lhuyd, whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of the early Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain. The English words Gaul, Gauls (pl.) and Gaulish (first recorded in the 16–17th centuries) come from French Gaule and Gaulois, a borrowing from Frankish *Walholant, "Roman land" (see Gaul: Name), the root of which is Proto-Germanic *walha-, "foreigner, Roman, Celt", whence the English word 'Welsh' (Old English wælisċ). Proto-Germanic *walha comes from the name of the Volcae, a Celtic tribe who lived first in southern Germany and central Europe, then migrated to Gaul. This means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin Gallia (which should have produced *Jaille in French), though it does refer to the same ancient region.
Celtic refers to a language family and, more generally, means "of the Celts" or "in the style of the Celts". Several archaeological cultures are considered Celtic, based on unique sets of artefacts. The link between language and artefact is aided by the presence of inscriptions. The modern idea of a Celtic cultural identity or "Celticity" focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts, and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology. Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common "racial" ("race" is contemporarily an invalid epistemolical and genetic concept) origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect a common cultural and linguistic heritage more than a genetic one. Celtic cultures seem to have been diverse, with the use of a Celtic language being the main thing they had in common.
Today, the term 'Celtic' generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany; also called the Celtic nations. These are the regions where Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent. The four are Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton; plus two recent revivals, Cornish (a Brittonic language) and Manx (a Goidelic language). There are also attempts to reconstruct Cumbric, a Brittonic language of northern Britain. Celtic regions of mainland Europe are those whose residents claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language survives; these include western Iberia, i.e. Portugal and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura).
Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of the British and Irish islands, and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating Insular Celts from Britain and so are grouped accordingly.
The Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. By the time Celts are first mentioned in written records around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of western mainland Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Britain. The languages developed into Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brittonic branches, among others.
The mainstream view during most of the twentieth century is that the Celts and the proto-Celtic language arose out of the Urnfield culture of central Europe around 1000 BC, spreading westward and southward over the following few hundred years. The Urnfield culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, circa 1200 BC to 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the Hallstatt culture (c. 800 to 500 BC) developing out of the Urnfield culture in a wide region north of the Alps. The Hallstatt culture developed into the La Tène culture from about 450 BC, which came to be identified with Celtic art.
In 1846, Johann Georg Ramsauer unearthed an ancient grave field with distinctive grave goods at Hallstatt, Austria. Because the burials "dated to roughly the time when Celts are mentioned near the Danube by Herodotus, Ramsauer concluded that the graves were Celtic". Similar sites and artifacts were found over a wide area, which were named the 'Hallstatt culture'. In 1857, the archaeological site of La Tène was discovered in Switzerland. The huge collection of artifacts had a distinctive style. Artifacts of this 'La Tène style' were found elsewhere in Europe, "particularly in places where people called Celts were known to have lived and early Celtic languages are attested. As a result, these items quickly became associated with the Celts, so much so that by the 1870s scholars began to regard finds of the La Tène as 'the archaeological expression of the Celts'". This cultural network was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style were still seen in Gallo-Roman artifacts. In Britain and Ireland, the La Tène style survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art.
The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to be challenged in the latter 20th century, when it was accepted that the oldest known Celtic-language inscriptions were those of Lepontic from the 6th century BC and Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC. These were found in northern Italy and Iberia, neither of which were part of the 'Hallstatt' nor 'La Tène' cultures at the time. The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory was partly based on ancient Greco-Roman writings, such as the Histories of Herodotus, which placed the Celts at the source of the Danube. However, Stephen Oppenheimer shows that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees, which would place the Ancient Celts in a region which is more in agreement with later classical writers and historians (i.e. in Gaul and Iberia). The theory was also partly based on the abundance of inscriptions bearing Celtic personal names in the Eastern Hallstatt region (Noricum). However, Patrick Sims-Williams notes that these date to the later Roman era, and says they suggest "relatively late settlement by a Celtic-speaking elite".
In the late 20th century, the Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to fall out of favour with some scholars, which was influenced by new archaeological finds. 'Celtic' began to refer primarily to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single culture or ethnic group. A new theory suggested that Celtic languages arose earlier, along the Atlantic coast (including Britain, Ireland, Armorica and Iberia), long before evidence of 'Celtic' culture is found in archaeology. Myles Dillon and Nora Kershaw Chadwick argued that "Celtic settlement of the British Isles" might date to the Bell Beaker culture of the Copper and Bronze Age (from c. 2750 BC). Martín Almagro Gorbea (2001) also proposed that Celtic arose in the 3rd millennium BC, suggesting that the spread of the Bell Beaker culture explained the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the Celtic peoples. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero reviewed and built on Almagro Gorbea's work to present a model for the origin of Celtic archaeological groups in Iberia and proposing a rethinking of the meaning of "Celtic".
John T. Koch and Barry Cunliffe have developed this 'Celtic from the West' theory. It proposes that the proto-Celtic language arose along the Atlantic coast and was the lingua franca of the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural network, later spreading inland and eastward. More recently, Cunliffe proposes that proto-Celtic had arisen in the Atlantic zone even earlier, by 3000 BC, and spread eastwards with the Bell Beaker culture over the following millennium. His theory is partly based on glottochronology, the spread of ancient Celtic-looking placenames, and thesis that the Tartessian language was Celtic. However, the proposal that Tartessian was Celtic is widely rejected by linguists, many of whom regard it as unclassified.
Celticist Patrick Sims-Williams (2020) notes that in current scholarship, 'Celt' is primarily a linguistic label. In his 'Celtic from the Centre' theory, he argues that the proto-Celtic language did not originate in central Europe nor the Atlantic, but in-between these two regions. He suggests that it "emerged as a distinct Indo-European dialect around the second millennium BC, probably somewhere in Gaul [centered in modern France] [...] whence it spread in various directions and at various speeds in the first millennium BC". Sims-Williams says this avoids the problematic idea "that Celtic was spoken over a vast area for a very long time yet somehow avoided major dialectal splits", and "it keeps Celtic fairly close to Italy, which suits the view that Italic and Celtic were in some way linked".
The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age. The earliest records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy), the oldest of which pre-date the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions, appearing from the early La Tène period in the area of Massilia, are in Gaulish, which was written in the Greek alphabet until the Roman conquest. Celtiberian inscriptions, using their own Iberian script, appear later, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions.
Besides epigraphic evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy (place names).
Arnaiz-Villena et al. (2017) demonstrated that Celtic-related populations of the European Atlantic (Orkney Islands, Scottish, Irish, British, Bretons, Basques, Galicians) shared a common HLA system.
Other genetic research does not support the notion of a significant genetic link between these populations, beyond the fact that they are all West Europeans. Early European Farmers did settle Britain (and all of Northern Europe) in the Neolithic; however, recent genetics research has found that, between 2400 and 2000 BC, over 90% of British DNA was overturned by European Steppe Herders in a migration that brought large amounts of Steppe DNA (including the R1b haplogroup) to western Europe. Modern autosomal genetic clustering is testament to this fact, as both modern and Iron Age British and Irish samples cluster genetically very closely with other North Europeans, and less so with Galicians, Basques or those from the south of France.
The concept that the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures could be seen not just as chronological periods but as "Culture Groups", entities composed of people of the same ethnicity and language, had started to grow by the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century the belief that these "Culture Groups" could be thought of in racial or ethnic terms was held by Gordon Childe, whose theory was influenced by the writings of Gustaf Kossinna. As the 20th century progressed, the ethnic interpretation of La Tène culture became more strongly rooted, and any findings of La Tène culture and flat inhumation cemeteries were linked to the Celts and the Celtic language.
In various academic disciplines the Celts were considered a Central European Iron Age phenomenon, through the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène. However, archaeological finds from the Halstatt and La Tène culture were rare in Iberia, southwestern France, northern and western Britain, southern Ireland and Galatia and did not provide enough evidence for a culture like that of Central Europe. It is equally difficult to maintain that the origin of the Iberian Celts can be linked to the preceding Urnfield culture. This has resulted in a newer theory that introduces a 'proto-Celtic' substratum and a process of Celticisation, having its initial roots in the Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture.
The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from Greek, and later Etruscan civilisations. A shift of settlement centres took place in the 4th century. The western La Tène culture corresponds to historical Celtic Gaul. Whether this means that the whole of La Tène culture can be attributed to a unified Celtic people is difficult to assess; archaeologists have repeatedly concluded that language and material culture do not necessarily run parallel. Frey notes that in the 5th century, "burial customs in the Celtic world were not uniform; rather, localised groups had their own beliefs, which, in consequence, also gave rise to distinct artistic expressions". Thus, while the La Tène culture is certainly associated with the Gauls, the presence of La Tène artefacts may be due to cultural contact and does not imply the permanent presence of Celtic speakers.
The Greek historian Ephorus of Cyme in Asia Minor, writing in the 4th century BC, believed the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine and were "driven from their homes by the frequency of wars and the violent rising of the sea". Polybius published a history of Rome about 150 BC in which he describes the Gauls of Italy and their conflict with Rome. Pausanias in the 2nd century AD says that the Gauls "originally called Celts", "live on the remotest region of Europe on the coast of an enormous tidal sea". Posidonius described the southern Gauls about 100 BC. Though his original work is lost, later writers such as Strabo used it. The latter, writing in the early 1st century AD, deals with Britain and Gaul as well as Hispania, Italy and Galatia. Caesar wrote extensively about his Gallic Wars in 58–51 BC. Diodorus Siculus wrote about the Celts of Gaul and Britain in his 1st-century history.
Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the heartland of the people they call Celts was in southern Gaul. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts, but that the Romans referred to both as Gauls (linguistically the Gauls were certainly Celts). Before the discoveries at Hallstatt and La Tène, it was generally considered that the Celtic heartland was southern Gaul, see Encyclopædia Britannica for 1813.
The Romans knew the Celts then living in present-day France as Gauls. The territory of these peoples probably included the Low Countries, the Alps and present-day northern Italy. Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars described the 1st-century BC descendants of those Gauls.
Eastern Gaul became the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation resembled that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted coinage. Texts with Greek characters from southern Gaul have survived from the 2nd century BC.
Greek traders founded Massalia about 600 BC, with some objects (mostly drinking ceramic vessels) being traded up the Rhône valley. But trade became disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in the Italian peninsula. The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a mostly Celtic-speaking Gaul. Rome wanted land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124–123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the Roman province of Gallia Transalpina developed along the Mediterranean coast. The Romans knew the remainder of Gaul as Gallia Comata – "Long-haired Gaul."
In 58 BC the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but Julius Caesar forced them back. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC had overrun most of Gaul. In 52 BC Vercingetorix led a revolt against Roman occupation but was defeated at the Battle of Alesia and surrendered.
Following the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC, Caesar's Celtica formed the main part of Roman Gaul, becoming the province of Gallia Lugdunensis. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne. The Romans attached large swathes of this region to neighbouring provinces Belgica and Aquitania, particularly under Augustus.
Place- and personal-name analysis and inscriptions suggest that Gaulish was spoken over most of what is now France.
Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts did acknowledge their presence in the Iberian Peninsula as a material culture relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. However, since according to the definition of the Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were supposedly rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe, the presence of Celtic culture in that region was generally not fully recognised. Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions.
In addition to Gauls infiltrating from the north of the Pyrenees, the Roman and Greek sources mention Celtic populations in three parts of the Iberian Peninsula: the eastern part of the Meseta (inhabited by the Celtiberians), the southwest (Celtici, in modern-day Alentejo) and the northwest (Gallaecia and Asturias). A modern scholarly review found several archaeological groups of Celts in Spain:
The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticisation process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of Celticisation of the southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the Callaici and Bracari in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.
John T. Koch of Aberystwyth University suggested that Tartessian inscriptions of the 8th century BC might be classified as Celtic. This would mean that Tartessian is the earliest attested trace of Celtic by a margin of more than a century.
In Germany by the late Bronze Age, the Urnfield culture (c. 1300 BC – c. 750 BC) had replaced the Bell Beaker, Unetice and Tumulus cultures in central Europe, whilst the Nordic Bronze Age had developed in Scandinavia and northern Germany. The Hallstatt culture, which had developed from the Urnfield culture, was the predominant Western and Central European culture from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and during the early Iron Age (8th to 6th centuries BC). It was followed by the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC).
The people who had adopted these cultural characteristics in central and southern Germany are regarded as Celts. Celtic cultural centres developed in central Europe during the late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC until 700 BC). Some, like the Heuneburg, the oldest city north of the Alps, grew to become important cultural centres of the Iron Age in Central Europe, that maintained trade routes to the Mediterranean. In the 5th century BC the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a Celtic city at the Danube – Pyrene, that historians attribute to the Heuneburg. Beginning around 700 BC (or later), Germanic peoples (Germanic tribes) from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany expanded south and gradually replaced the Celtic peoples in Central Europe.
The Canegrate culture represented the first migratory wave of the proto-Celtic population from the northwest part of the Alps that, through the Alpine passes, had already penetrated and settled in the western Po valley between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como (Scamozzina culture). It has also been proposed that a more ancient proto-Celtic presence can be traced back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, when North Westwern Italy appears closely linked regarding the production of bronze artefacts, including ornaments, to the western groups of the Tumulus culture. La Tène cultural material appeared over a large area of mainland Italy, the southernmost example being the Celtic helmet from Canosa di Puglia.
Italy is home to Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC). Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy, from the Alps to Umbria. According to the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout present-day France – with the notable exception of Aquitaine – and in Italy, which testifies the importance of Celtic heritage in the peninsula.
In 391 BC, Celts "who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apennine Mountains and the Alps" according to Diodorus Siculus. The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) was inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan. Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.
At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC, a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.
The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.
The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the Scordisci, established their capital at Singidunum (present-day Belgrade, Serbia) in the 3rd century BC. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a dense population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.
The Serdi were a Celtic tribe inhabiting Thrace. They were located around and founded Serdika (Bulgarian: Сердика, Latin: Ulpia Serdica, Greek: Σαρδῶν πόλις), now Sofia in Bulgaria, which reflects their ethnonym. They would have established themselves in this area during the Celtic migrations at the end of the 4th century BC, though there is no evidence for their existence before the 1st century BC. Serdi are among traditional tribal names reported into the Roman era. They were gradually Thracianized over the centuries but retained their Celtic character in material culture up to a late date. According to other sources they may have been simply of Thracian origin, according to others they may have become of mixed Thraco-Celtic origin. Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.
For Venceslas Kruta, Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense Celtic settlement.
The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia. A Celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava's mint was displayed on the old Slovak 5-crown coin.
As there is no archaeological evidence for large-scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.
There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283–246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II.
All living Celtic languages today belong to the Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in Iron Age Britain and Ireland. They separated into a Goidelic and a Brittonic branch early on. By the time of the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, the Insular Celts were made up of the Celtic Britons, the Gaels (or Scoti), and the Picts (or Caledonians).
Linguists have debated whether a Celtic language came to the British Isles and then split, or whether the two branches arrived separately. The older view was that Celtic influence in the Isles was the result of successive migrations or invasions from the European mainland by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over several centuries, accounting for the P-Celtic vs. Q-Celtic isogloss. This view has been challenged by the hypothesis that the islands' Celtic languages form an Insular Celtic dialect group. In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars often dated the "arrival" of Celtic culture in Britain (via an invasion model) to the 6th century BC, corresponding to archaeological evidence of Hallstatt influence and the appearance of chariot burials in what is now England. Cunliffe and Koch propose in their newer 'Celtic from the West' theory that Celtic languages reached the Isles earlier, with the Bell Beaker culture c.2500 BC, or even before this. More recently, a major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain in the Bronze Age from 1300 to 800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from Gaul. From 1000 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain, but not northern Britain. The authors see this as a "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain". There was much less immigration during the Iron Age, so it is likely that Celtic reached Britain before then. Cunliffe suggests that a branch of Celtic was already spoken in Britain, and the Bronze Age migration introduced the Brittonic branch.
Like many Celtic peoples on the mainland, the Insular Celts followed an Ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids. Some of the southern British tribes had strong links with Gaul and Belgica, and minted their own coins. During the Roman occupation of Britain, a Romano-British culture emerged in the southeast. The Britons and Picts in the north, and the Gaels of Ireland, remained outside the empire. During the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 400s AD, there was significant Anglo-Saxon settlement of eastern and southern Britain, and some Gaelic settlement of its western coast. During this time, some Britons migrated to the Armorican peninsula, where their culture became dominant. Meanwhile, much of northern Britain (Scotland) became Gaelic. By the 10th century AD, the Insular Celtic peoples had diversified into the Brittonic-speaking Welsh (in Wales), Cornish (in Cornwall), Bretons (in Brittany) and Cumbrians (in the Old North); and the Gaelic-speaking Irish (in Ireland), Scots (in Scotland) and Manx (on the Isle of Man).
Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Celtae or Κελτοί (Keltoi), leading some scholars to question the use of the term 'Celt' for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands. The first historical account of the islands was by the Greek geographer Pytheas, who sailed around what he called the "Pretannikai nesoi" (the "Pretannic isles") around 310–306 BC. In general, classical writers referred to the Britons as Pretannoi (in Greek) or Britanni (in Latin). Strabo, writing in Roman times, distinguished between the Celts and Britons. However, Roman historian Tacitus says the Britons resembled the Celts of Gaul in customs and religion.
Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of Britain. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman tribal boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government.
The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanised and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.
The Roman occupation of Gaul, and to a lesser extent of Britain, led to Roman-Celtic syncretism. In the case of the continental Celts, this eventually resulted in a language shift to Vulgar Latin, while the Insular Celts retained their language.
There was also considerable cultural influence exerted by Gaul on Rome, particularly in military matters and horsemanship, as the Gauls often served in the Roman cavalry. The Romans adopted the Celtic cavalry sword, the spatha, and Epona, the Celtic horse goddess.
To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Iron Age Celtic social structure based formally on class and kingship, although this may only have been a particular late phase of organisation in Celtic societies. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by Caesar and others in the Gaul of the 1st century BC.
In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is also evidence of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas which had close contact with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies portray them as being divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle of primogeniture in which succession goes to the first-born son.
Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Patterns of settlement varied from decentralised to urban. The popular stereotype of non-urbanised societies settled in hillforts and duns, drawn from Britain and Ireland (there are about 3,000 hill forts known in Britain) contrasts with the urban settlements present in the core Hallstatt and La Tène areas, with the many significant oppida of Gaul late in the first millennium BC, and with the towns of Gallia Cisalpina.
Slavery, as practised by the Celts, was very likely similar to the better documented practice in ancient Greece and Rome. Slaves were acquired from war, raids, and penal and debt servitude. Slavery was hereditary, though manumission was possible. The Old Irish and Welsh words for 'slave', cacht and caeth respectively, are cognate with Latin captus 'captive' suggesting that the slave trade was an early means of contact between Latin and Celtic societies. In the Middle Ages, slavery was especially prevalent in the Celtic countries. Manumissions were discouraged by law and the word for "female slave", cumal, was used as a general unit of value in Ireland.
There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman and sometimes Greek alphabets. The Ogham script, an Early Medieval alphabet, was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by monasteries. Celtic art also produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites.
In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative: for example, they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans. However, despite being outdated, Celtic chariot tactics were able to repel the invasions of Britain attempted by Julius Caesar.
According to Diodorus Siculus:
The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.
During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts or tunics and long trousers (called braccae by the Romans). Clothes were made of wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were worn in the winter. Brooches and armlets were used, but the most famous item of jewellery was the torc, a neck collar of metal, sometimes gold. The horned Waterloo Helmet in the British Museum, which long set the standard for modern images of Celtic warriors, is in fact a unique survival, and may have been a piece for ceremonial rather than military wear.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the pre-Roman Celtic societies were linked to the network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia. Archaeologists have discovered large prehistoric trackways crossing bogs in Ireland and Germany. Due to their substantial nature, these are believed to have been created for wheeled transport as part of an extensive roadway system that facilitated trade. The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver and gold. Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and jewellery for international trade, particularly with the Romans.
The myth that the Celtic monetary system consisted of wholly barter is a common one, but is in part false. The monetary system was complex and is still not understood (much like the late Roman coinages), and due to the absence of large numbers of coin items, it is assumed that "proto-money" was used. This included bronze items made from the early La Tène period and onwards, which were often in the shape of axeheads, rings, or bells. Due to the large number of these present in some burials, it is thought they had a relatively high monetary value, and could be used for "day to day" purchases. Low-value coinages of potin, a bronze alloy with high tin content, were minted in most Celtic areas of the continent and in South-East Britain prior to the Roman conquest of these lands. Higher-value coinages, suitable for use in trade, were minted in gold, silver, and high-quality bronze. Gold coinage was much more common than silver coinage, despite being worth substantially more, as while there were around 100 mines in Southern Britain and Central France, silver was more rarely mined. This was due partly to the relative sparsity of mines and the amount of effort needed for extraction compared to the profit gained. As the Roman civilisation grew in importance and expanded its trade with the Celtic world, silver and bronze coinage became more common. This coincided with a major increase in gold production in Celtic areas to meet the Roman demand, due to the high value Romans put on the metal. The large number of gold mines in France is thought to be a major reason why Caesar invaded.
Very few reliable sources exist regarding Celtic views on gender roles, though some archaeological evidence suggests their views may have differed from those of the Greco-Roman world, which tended to be less egalitarian. Some Iron Age burials in northeastern Gaul suggest women may have had roles in warfare during the earlier La Tène period, but the evidence is far from conclusive. Celtic individuals buried with both female jewellery and weaponry have been found, such as the Vix Grave in northeastern Gaul, and there are questions about the gender of some individuals buried with weaponry. However, it has been suggested that the weapons indicate high social rank rather than masculinity.
Most written accounts of the Ancient Celts are from the Romans and Greeks, though it is not clear how accurate these are. Roman historians Ammianus Marcellinus and Tacitus mentioned Celtic women inciting, participating in, and leading battles. Plutarch reports that Celtic women acted as ambassadors to avoid a war among Celtic chiefdoms in the Po valley during the 4th century BC. Posidonius' anthropological comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial practices, and the strength and courage of their women. Cassius Dio suggests there was great sexual freedom among women in Celtic Britain:
... a very witty remark is reported to have been made by the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta. When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied: "We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest". Such was the retort of the British woman.
Barry Cunliffe writes that such references are "likely to be ill-observed" and meant to portray the Celts as outlandish "barbarians". Historian Lisa Bitel argues the descriptions of Celtic women warriors are not credible. She says some Roman and Greek writers wanted to show that the barbarian Celts lived in "an upside-down world [...] and a standard ingredient in such a world was the manly warrior woman".
The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Politics that the Celts of southeastern Europe approved of male homosexuality. Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote in his Bibliotheca historica that although Gaulish women were beautiful, the men had "little to do with them" and it was a custom for men to sleep on animal skins with two younger males. He further claimed that "the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused". His claim was later repeated by Greco-Roman writers Athenaeus and Ammianus. David Rankin, in Celts and the Classical World, suggests some of these claims refer to bonding rituals in warrior groups, which required abstinence from women at certain times, and says it probably reflects "the warlike character of early contacts between the Celts and the Greeks".
Under Brehon Law, which was written down in early Medieval Ireland after conversion to Christianity, a woman had the right to divorce her husband and gain his property if he was unable to perform his marital duties due to impotence, obesity, homosexual inclination or preference for other women.
Celtic art is generally used by art historians to refer to art of the La Tène period across Europe, while the Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, that is what "Celtic art" evokes for much of the general public, is called Insular art in art history. Both styles absorbed considerable influences from non-Celtic sources, but retained a preference for geometrical decoration over figurative subjects, which are often extremely stylised when they do appear; narrative scenes only appear under outside influence. Energetic circular forms, triskeles and spirals are characteristic. Much of the surviving material is in precious metal, which no doubt gives a very unrepresentative picture, but apart from Pictish stones and the Insular high crosses, large monumental sculpture, even with decorative carving, is very rare; possibly it was originally common in wood. Celts were also able to create developed musical instruments such as the carnyces, these famous war trumpets used before the battle to frighten the enemy, as the best preserved found in Tintignac (Gaul) in 2004 and which were decorated with a boar head or a snake head.
The interlace patterns that are often regarded as typical of "Celtic art" were characteristic of the whole of the British Isles, a style referred to as Insular art, or Hiberno-Saxon art. This artistic style incorporated elements of La Tène, Late Roman, and, most importantly, animal Style II of Germanic Migration Period art. The style was taken up with great skill and enthusiasm by Celtic artists in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts. Equally, the forms used for the finest Insular art were all adopted from the Roman world: Gospel books like the Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne, chalices like the Ardagh Chalice and Derrynaflan Chalice, and penannular brooches like the Tara Brooch and Roscrea Brooch. These works are from the period of peak achievement of Insular art, which lasted from the 7th to the 9th centuries, before the Viking attacks sharply set back cultural life.
In contrast the less well known but often spectacular art of the richest earlier Continental Celts, before they were conquered by the Romans, often adopted elements of Roman, Greek and other "foreign" styles (and possibly used imported craftsmen) to decorate objects that were distinctively Celtic. After the Roman conquests, some Celtic elements remained in popular art, especially Ancient Roman pottery, of which Gaul was actually the largest producer, mostly in Italian styles, but also producing work in local taste, including figurines of deities and wares painted with animals and other subjects in highly formalised styles. Roman Britain also took more interest in enamel than most of the Empire, and its development of champlevé technique was probably important to the later Medieval art of the whole of Europe, of which the energy and freedom of Insular decoration was an important element. Rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century.
The Coligny calendar, which was found in 1897 in Coligny, Ain, was engraved on a bronze tablet, preserved in 73 fragments, that originally was 1.48 metres (4 feet 10 inches) wide and 0.9 metres (2 feet 11 inches) high (Lambert p. 111). Based on the style of lettering and the accompanying objects, it probably dates to the end of the 2nd century. It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in Gaulish. The restored tablet contains 16 vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over 5 years.
French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that it was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world.
Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.
The Celts were described by classical writers such as Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like "wild beasts", and as hordes. Dionysius said that their
"manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at no target, as if they intended to cut to pieces the entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armour and all".
Such descriptions have been challenged by contemporary historians.
Polybius (2.33) indicates that the principal Celtic weapon was a long bladed sword which was used for hacking edgewise rather than stabbing. Celtic warriors are described by Polybius and Plutarch as frequently having to cease fighting in order to straighten their sword blades. This claim has been questioned by some archaeologists, who note that Noric steel, steel produced in Celtic Noricum, was famous in the Roman Empire period and was used to equip the Roman military. However, Radomir Pleiner, in The Celtic Sword (1993) argues that "the metallographic evidence shows that Polybius was right up to a point", as around one third of surviving swords from the period might well have behaved as he describes. In addition to these long bladed slashing swords, spears and specialized javelins were also used.
Polybius also asserts that certain of the Celts fought naked, "The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life." According to Livy, this was also true of the Celts of Asia Minor.
Celts had a reputation as head hunters. Paul Jacobsthal says, "Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world." Writing in the first century BC, Greek historians Posidonius and Diodorus Siculus said Celtic warriors cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle, hung them from the necks of their horses, then nailed them up outside their homes. Strabo wrote in the same century that Celts embalmed the heads of their most esteemed enemies in cedar oil and put them on display. Roman historian Livy wrote that the Boii beheaded a defeated Roman general after the Battle of Silva Litana, covered his skull in gold, and used it as a ritual cup. Archaeologists have found evidence that heads were embalmed and displayed by the southern Gauls. In another example, at the southern Gaulish site of Entremont, there stood a pillar carved with skulls, within which were niches where human skulls were kept, nailed into position. Roquepertuse nearby has similar carved heads and skull niches. Many lone carved heads have been found in Celtic regions, some with two or three faces. Examples include the Mšecké Žehrovice Head and the Corleck Head.
Severed heads are a common motif in Insular Celtic myths, and there are many tales in which 'living heads' preside over feasts or speak prophecies. The beheading game is a motif in Irish myth and Arthurian legend, most famously in the tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off. There are also many legends in Celtic regions of saints who carry their own severed heads. In Irish myth, the severed heads of warriors are called the mast or nuts of the goddess Macha.
Like other European Iron Age societies, the Celts practised a polytheistic religion and belived in an afterlife. Celtic religion varied by region and over time, but had "broad structural similarities", and there was "a basic religious homogeneity" among the Celtic peoples. Because the ancient Celts did not have writing, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts, and literature from the early Christian period.
The names of over two hundred Celtic deities have survived (see list of Celtic deities), although it is likely that many of these were alternative names, regional names or titles for the same deity. Some deities were venerated only in one region, but others were more widely known. According to Miranda Aldhouse-Green, the Celts were also animists, believing that every part of the natural world had a spirit.
The Celts seem to have had a father god, who was often a god of the tribe and of the dead (Toutatis probably being one name for him); and a mother goddess who was associated with the land, earth and fertility (Dea Matrona probably being one name for her). The mother goddess could also take the form of a war goddess as protectress of her tribe and its land. There also seems to have been a male celestial god—identified with Taranis—associated with thunder, the wheel, and the bull. There were gods of skill and craft, such as the pan-regional god Lugus, and the smith god Gobannos. Celtic healing deities were often associated with sacred springs, such as Sirona and Borvo. Other pan-regional deities include the horned god Cernunnos, the horse and fertility goddess Epona, the divine son Maponos, as well as Belenos, Ogmios, and Sucellos. Caesar says the Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld. Triplicity is a common theme in Celtic cosmology, and a number of deities were seen as threefold, for example the Three Mothers.
Celtic religious ceremonies were overseen by priests known as druids, who also served as judges, teachers, and lore-keepers. Other classes of druids performed sacrifices for the perceived benefit of the community. There is evidence that ancient Celtic peoples sacrificed animals, almost always livestock or working animals. It appears some were offered wholly to the gods (by burying or burning), while some were shared between gods and humans (part eaten and part offered). There is also some evidence that ancient Celts sacrificed humans, and some Greco-Roman sources claim the Gauls sacrificed criminals by burning them in a wicker man.
The Romans said the Celts held ceremonies in sacred groves and other natural shrines, called nemetons. Some Celtic peoples built temples or ritual enclosures of varying shapes (such as the Romano-Celtic temple and viereckschanze), though they also maintained shrines at natural sites. Celtic peoples often made votive offerings: treasured items deposited in water and wetlands, or in ritual shafts and wells, often in the same place over generations. Modern clootie wells might be a continuation of this.
Most surviving Celtic mythology belongs to the Insular Celtic peoples: Irish mythology has the largest written body of myths, followed by Welsh mythology. These were written down in the early Middle Ages, mainly by Christian scribes.
The supernatural race called the Tuatha Dé Danann are believed to represent the main Celtic gods of Ireland. Their traditional rivals are the Fomóire, whom they defeat in the Battle of Mag Tuired. Barry Cunliffe says the underlying structure in Irish myth was a dualism between the male tribal god and the female goddess of the land. The Dagda seems to have been the chief god and the Morrígan his consort, each of whom had other names. One common motif is the sovereignty goddess, who represents the land and bestows sovereignty on a king by marrying him. The goddess Brigid was linked with nature as well as poetry, healing and smithing.
Some figures in medieval Insular Celtic myth have ancient continental parallels: Irish Lugh and Welsh Lleu are cognate with Lugus, Goibniu and Gofannon with Gobannos, Macán and Mabon with Maponos, while Macha and Rhiannon may be counterparts of Epona.
In Insular Celtic myth, the Otherworld is a parallel realm where the gods dwell. Some mythical heroes visit it by entering ancient burial mounds or caves, by going under water or across the western sea, or after being offered a silver apple branch by an Otherworld resident. Irish myth says that the spirits of the dead travel to the house of Donn (Tech Duinn), a legendary ancestor; this echoes Caesar's comment that the Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld.
Insular Celtic peoples celebrated four seasonal festivals, known to the Gaels as Beltaine (1 May), Lughnasa (1 August), Samhain (1 November) and Imbolc (1 February).
The Roman invasion of Gaul brought a great deal of Celtic peoples into the Roman Empire. Roman culture had a profound effect on the Celtic tribes which came under the empire's control. Roman influence led to many changes in Celtic religion, the most noticeable of which was the weakening of the druid class, especially religiously; the druids were to eventually disappear altogether. Romano-Celtic deities also began to appear: these deities often had both Roman and Celtic attributes, combined the names of Roman and Celtic deities, or included couples with one Roman and one Celtic deity. Other changes included the adaptation of the Jupiter Column, a sacred column set up in many Celtic regions of the empire, primarily in northern and eastern Gaul. Another major change in religious practice was the use of stone monuments to represent gods and goddesses. The Celts had probably only created wooden cult images (including monuments carved into trees, which were known as sacred poles) before the Roman conquest.
While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Ireland and Scotland began to move from Celtic polytheism to Christianity in the 5th century. Ireland was converted by missionaries from Britain, such as Saint Patrick. Later missionaries from Ireland were a major source of missionary work in Scotland, Anglo-Saxon parts of Britain, and central Europe (see Hiberno-Scottish mission). Celtic Christianity, the forms of Christianity that took hold in Britain and Ireland at this time, had for some centuries only limited and intermittent contact with Rome and continental Christianity, as well as some contacts with Coptic Christianity. Some elements of Celtic Christianity developed, or retained, features that made them distinct from the rest of Western Christianity, most famously their conservative method of calculating the date of Easter. In 664, the Synod of Whitby began to resolve these differences, mostly by adopting the current Roman practices, which the Gregorian Mission from Rome had introduced to Anglo-Saxon England.
Genetic studies on the limited amount of material available suggest continuity between Iron Age people from areas considered Celtic and the earlier Bell Beaker culture of Bronze Age Western Europe. Like the Bell Beakers, ancient Celts carried a substantial amount of Western Steppe Herders ancestry, which is derived from Yamnaya pastoralists who expanded westwards from the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age and associated with the initial spread of Indo-European languages. This ancestry was particularly prevalent among Celts of Northwest Europe. Examined individuals overwhelmingly carry types of the paternal haplogroup R-M269, while the maternal haplogroups H and U are frequent. These lineages are associated with steppe ancestry. The spread of Celts into Iberia and the emergence of the Celtiberians is associated with an increase in north-central European ancestry in Iberia, and may be connected to the expansion of the Urnfield culture. The paternal haplogroup haplogroup I2a1a1a has been detected among Celtiberians. There appears to have been significant gene flow among Celtic peoples of Western Europe during the Iron Age. While the Gauls of southern France display genetic links with the Celtiberians, the Gauls of northern France display links with Great Britain and Sweden. Modern populations of Western Europe, particularly those who still speak Celtic languages, display substantial genetic continuity with the Iron Age populations of the same areas.
Geography
Organisations | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Celts (/kɛlts/, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples (/ˈkɛltɪk/) were a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii; and the Galatians. The relation between ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world is unclear and debated; for example over the ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The history of pre-Celtic Europe and Celtic origins is debated. The traditional \"Celtic from the East\" theory, says the proto-Celtic language arose in the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, named after grave sites in southern Germany, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links the Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it (c. 1200–500 BC), named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria, and with the following La Tène culture (c. 450 BC onward), named after the La Tène site in Switzerland. It proposes that Celtic culture spread westward and southward from these areas by diffusion or migration. A newer theory, \"Celtic from the West\", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward. Another newer theory, \"Celtic from the Centre\", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions. After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia, Turkey.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic languages are attested from the 4th century AD in Ogham inscriptions, though they were clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century AD. Elements of Celtic mythology are recorded in early Irish and early Welsh literature. Most written evidence of the early Celts comes from Greco-Roman writers, who often grouped the Celts as barbarian tribes. They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Celts were often in conflict with the Romans, such as in the Roman–Gallic wars, the Celtiberian Wars, the conquest of Gaul and conquest of Britain. By the 1st century AD, most Celtic territories had become part of the Roman Empire. By c. 500, due to Romanisation and the migration of Germanic tribes, Celtic culture had mostly become restricted to Ireland, western and northern Britain, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from surrounding cultures.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels (Irish, Scots and Manx) and the Celtic Britons (Welsh, Cornish, and Bretons) of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia. Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The first recorded use of the name 'Celts' – as Κελτοί (Keltoi) in Ancient Greek – was by Greek geographer Hecataeus of Miletus in 517 BC, when writing about a people living near Massilia (modern Marseille), southern Gaul. In the fifth century BC, Herodotus referred to Keltoi living around the source of the Danube and in the far west of Europe. The etymology of Keltoi is unclear. Possible roots include Indo-European *kʲel 'to hide' (seen also in Old Irish ceilid, and Modern Welsh celu), *kʲel 'to heat' or *kel 'to impel'. It may come from the Celtic language. Linguist Kim McCone supports this view and notes that Celt- is found in the names of several ancient Gauls such as Celtillus, father of Vercingetorix. He suggests it meant the people or descendants of \"the hidden one\", noting the Gauls claimed descent from an underworld god (according to Commentarii de Bello Gallico), and linking it with the Germanic Hel. Others view it as a name coined by Greeks; among them linguist Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel, who suggests it meant \"the tall ones\".",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In the first century BC, Roman leader Julius Caesar reported that the Gauls called themselves 'Celts', Latin: Celtae, in their own tongue. Thus whether it was given to them by others or not, it was used by the Celts themselves. Greek geographer Strabo, writing about Gaul towards the end of the first century BC, refers to the \"race which is now called both Gallic and Galatic\", though he also uses Celtica as another name for Gaul. He reports Celtic peoples in Iberia too, calling them Celtiberi and Celtici. Pliny the Elder noted the use of Celtici in Lusitania as a tribal surname, which epigraphic findings have confirmed.",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A Latin name for the Gauls, Galli (pl.), may come from a Celtic ethnic name, perhaps borrowed into Latin during the Celtic expansion into Italy from the early fifth century BC. Its root may be Proto-Celtic *galno, meaning \"power, strength\" (whence Old Irish gal \"boldness, ferocity\", Welsh gallu \"to be able, power\"). The Greek name Γαλάται (Galatai, Latinized Galatae) most likely has the same origin, referring to the Gauls who invaded southeast Europe and settled in Galatia. The suffix -atai might be a Greek inflection. Linguist Kim McCone suggests it comes from Proto-Celtic *galatis (\"ferocious, furious\"), and was not originally an ethnic name but a name for young warrior bands. He says \"If the Gauls' initial impact on the Mediterranean world was primarily a military one typically involving fierce young *galatīs, it would have been natural for the Greeks to apply this name for the type of Keltoi that they usually encountered\".",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Because Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Κελτοί (Keltoi) or Celtae, some scholars prefer not to use the term for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands. However, they spoke Celtic languages, shared other cultural traits, and Roman historian Tacitus says the Britons resembled the Gauls in customs and religion.",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "For at least 1,000 years the name Celt was not used at all, and nobody called themselves Celts or Celtic, until from about 1700, after the word 'Celtic' was rediscovered in classical texts, it was applied for the first time to the distinctive culture, history, traditions, language of the modern Celtic nations – Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and the Isle of Man. 'Celt' is a modern English word, first attested in 1707 in the writing of Edward Lhuyd, whose work, along with that of other late 17th-century scholars, brought academic attention to the languages and history of the early Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain. The English words Gaul, Gauls (pl.) and Gaulish (first recorded in the 16–17th centuries) come from French Gaule and Gaulois, a borrowing from Frankish *Walholant, \"Roman land\" (see Gaul: Name), the root of which is Proto-Germanic *walha-, \"foreigner, Roman, Celt\", whence the English word 'Welsh' (Old English wælisċ). Proto-Germanic *walha comes from the name of the Volcae, a Celtic tribe who lived first in southern Germany and central Europe, then migrated to Gaul. This means that English Gaul, despite its superficial similarity, is not actually derived from Latin Gallia (which should have produced *Jaille in French), though it does refer to the same ancient region.",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Celtic refers to a language family and, more generally, means \"of the Celts\" or \"in the style of the Celts\". Several archaeological cultures are considered Celtic, based on unique sets of artefacts. The link between language and artefact is aided by the presence of inscriptions. The modern idea of a Celtic cultural identity or \"Celticity\" focuses on similarities among languages, works of art, and classical texts, and sometimes also among material artefacts, social organisation, homeland and mythology. Earlier theories held that these similarities suggest a common \"racial\" (\"race\" is contemporarily an invalid epistemolical and genetic concept) origin for the various Celtic peoples, but more recent theories hold that they reflect a common cultural and linguistic heritage more than a genetic one. Celtic cultures seem to have been diverse, with the use of a Celtic language being the main thing they had in common.",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Today, the term 'Celtic' generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany; also called the Celtic nations. These are the regions where Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent. The four are Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton; plus two recent revivals, Cornish (a Brittonic language) and Manx (a Goidelic language). There are also attempts to reconstruct Cumbric, a Brittonic language of northern Britain. Celtic regions of mainland Europe are those whose residents claim a Celtic heritage, but where no Celtic language survives; these include western Iberia, i.e. Portugal and north-central Spain (Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Extremadura).",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Continental Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of mainland Europe and Insular Celts are the Celtic-speaking people of the British and Irish islands, and their descendants. The Celts of Brittany derive their language from migrating Insular Celts from Britain and so are grouped accordingly.",
"title": "Names and terminology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Celtic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. By the time Celts are first mentioned in written records around 400 BC, they were already split into several language groups, and spread over much of western mainland Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Britain. The languages developed into Celtiberian, Goidelic and Brittonic branches, among others.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The mainstream view during most of the twentieth century is that the Celts and the proto-Celtic language arose out of the Urnfield culture of central Europe around 1000 BC, spreading westward and southward over the following few hundred years. The Urnfield culture was preeminent in central Europe during the late Bronze Age, circa 1200 BC to 700 BC. The spread of iron-working led to the Hallstatt culture (c. 800 to 500 BC) developing out of the Urnfield culture in a wide region north of the Alps. The Hallstatt culture developed into the La Tène culture from about 450 BC, which came to be identified with Celtic art.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1846, Johann Georg Ramsauer unearthed an ancient grave field with distinctive grave goods at Hallstatt, Austria. Because the burials \"dated to roughly the time when Celts are mentioned near the Danube by Herodotus, Ramsauer concluded that the graves were Celtic\". Similar sites and artifacts were found over a wide area, which were named the 'Hallstatt culture'. In 1857, the archaeological site of La Tène was discovered in Switzerland. The huge collection of artifacts had a distinctive style. Artifacts of this 'La Tène style' were found elsewhere in Europe, \"particularly in places where people called Celts were known to have lived and early Celtic languages are attested. As a result, these items quickly became associated with the Celts, so much so that by the 1870s scholars began to regard finds of the La Tène as 'the archaeological expression of the Celts'\". This cultural network was overrun by the Roman Empire, though traces of La Tène style were still seen in Gallo-Roman artifacts. In Britain and Ireland, the La Tène style survived precariously to re-emerge in Insular art.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to be challenged in the latter 20th century, when it was accepted that the oldest known Celtic-language inscriptions were those of Lepontic from the 6th century BC and Celtiberian from the 2nd century BC. These were found in northern Italy and Iberia, neither of which were part of the 'Hallstatt' nor 'La Tène' cultures at the time. The Urnfield-Hallstatt theory was partly based on ancient Greco-Roman writings, such as the Histories of Herodotus, which placed the Celts at the source of the Danube. However, Stephen Oppenheimer shows that Herodotus seemed to believe the Danube rose near the Pyrenees, which would place the Ancient Celts in a region which is more in agreement with later classical writers and historians (i.e. in Gaul and Iberia). The theory was also partly based on the abundance of inscriptions bearing Celtic personal names in the Eastern Hallstatt region (Noricum). However, Patrick Sims-Williams notes that these date to the later Roman era, and says they suggest \"relatively late settlement by a Celtic-speaking elite\".",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the late 20th century, the Urnfield-Hallstatt theory began to fall out of favour with some scholars, which was influenced by new archaeological finds. 'Celtic' began to refer primarily to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single culture or ethnic group. A new theory suggested that Celtic languages arose earlier, along the Atlantic coast (including Britain, Ireland, Armorica and Iberia), long before evidence of 'Celtic' culture is found in archaeology. Myles Dillon and Nora Kershaw Chadwick argued that \"Celtic settlement of the British Isles\" might date to the Bell Beaker culture of the Copper and Bronze Age (from c. 2750 BC). Martín Almagro Gorbea (2001) also proposed that Celtic arose in the 3rd millennium BC, suggesting that the spread of the Bell Beaker culture explained the wide dispersion of the Celts throughout western Europe, as well as the variability of the Celtic peoples. Using a multidisciplinary approach, Alberto J. Lorrio and Gonzalo Ruiz Zapatero reviewed and built on Almagro Gorbea's work to present a model for the origin of Celtic archaeological groups in Iberia and proposing a rethinking of the meaning of \"Celtic\".",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "John T. Koch and Barry Cunliffe have developed this 'Celtic from the West' theory. It proposes that the proto-Celtic language arose along the Atlantic coast and was the lingua franca of the Atlantic Bronze Age cultural network, later spreading inland and eastward. More recently, Cunliffe proposes that proto-Celtic had arisen in the Atlantic zone even earlier, by 3000 BC, and spread eastwards with the Bell Beaker culture over the following millennium. His theory is partly based on glottochronology, the spread of ancient Celtic-looking placenames, and thesis that the Tartessian language was Celtic. However, the proposal that Tartessian was Celtic is widely rejected by linguists, many of whom regard it as unclassified.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Celticist Patrick Sims-Williams (2020) notes that in current scholarship, 'Celt' is primarily a linguistic label. In his 'Celtic from the Centre' theory, he argues that the proto-Celtic language did not originate in central Europe nor the Atlantic, but in-between these two regions. He suggests that it \"emerged as a distinct Indo-European dialect around the second millennium BC, probably somewhere in Gaul [centered in modern France] [...] whence it spread in various directions and at various speeds in the first millennium BC\". Sims-Williams says this avoids the problematic idea \"that Celtic was spoken over a vast area for a very long time yet somehow avoided major dialectal splits\", and \"it keeps Celtic fairly close to Italy, which suits the view that Italic and Celtic were in some way linked\".",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Proto-Celtic language is usually dated to the Late Bronze Age. The earliest records of a Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions of Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy), the oldest of which pre-date the La Tène period. Other early inscriptions, appearing from the early La Tène period in the area of Massilia, are in Gaulish, which was written in the Greek alphabet until the Roman conquest. Celtiberian inscriptions, using their own Iberian script, appear later, after about 200 BC. Evidence of Insular Celtic is available only from about 400 AD, in the form of Primitive Irish Ogham inscriptions.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Besides epigraphic evidence, an important source of information on early Celtic is toponymy (place names).",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Arnaiz-Villena et al. (2017) demonstrated that Celtic-related populations of the European Atlantic (Orkney Islands, Scottish, Irish, British, Bretons, Basques, Galicians) shared a common HLA system.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Other genetic research does not support the notion of a significant genetic link between these populations, beyond the fact that they are all West Europeans. Early European Farmers did settle Britain (and all of Northern Europe) in the Neolithic; however, recent genetics research has found that, between 2400 and 2000 BC, over 90% of British DNA was overturned by European Steppe Herders in a migration that brought large amounts of Steppe DNA (including the R1b haplogroup) to western Europe. Modern autosomal genetic clustering is testament to this fact, as both modern and Iron Age British and Irish samples cluster genetically very closely with other North Europeans, and less so with Galicians, Basques or those from the south of France.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The concept that the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures could be seen not just as chronological periods but as \"Culture Groups\", entities composed of people of the same ethnicity and language, had started to grow by the end of the 19th century. At the beginning of the 20th century the belief that these \"Culture Groups\" could be thought of in racial or ethnic terms was held by Gordon Childe, whose theory was influenced by the writings of Gustaf Kossinna. As the 20th century progressed, the ethnic interpretation of La Tène culture became more strongly rooted, and any findings of La Tène culture and flat inhumation cemeteries were linked to the Celts and the Celtic language.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In various academic disciplines the Celts were considered a Central European Iron Age phenomenon, through the cultures of Hallstatt and La Tène. However, archaeological finds from the Halstatt and La Tène culture were rare in Iberia, southwestern France, northern and western Britain, southern Ireland and Galatia and did not provide enough evidence for a culture like that of Central Europe. It is equally difficult to maintain that the origin of the Iberian Celts can be linked to the preceding Urnfield culture. This has resulted in a newer theory that introduces a 'proto-Celtic' substratum and a process of Celticisation, having its initial roots in the Bronze Age Bell Beaker culture.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The La Tène culture developed and flourished during the late Iron Age (from 450 BC to the Roman conquest in the 1st century BC) in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It developed out of the Hallstatt culture without any definite cultural break, under the impetus of considerable Mediterranean influence from Greek, and later Etruscan civilisations. A shift of settlement centres took place in the 4th century. The western La Tène culture corresponds to historical Celtic Gaul. Whether this means that the whole of La Tène culture can be attributed to a unified Celtic people is difficult to assess; archaeologists have repeatedly concluded that language and material culture do not necessarily run parallel. Frey notes that in the 5th century, \"burial customs in the Celtic world were not uniform; rather, localised groups had their own beliefs, which, in consequence, also gave rise to distinct artistic expressions\". Thus, while the La Tène culture is certainly associated with the Gauls, the presence of La Tène artefacts may be due to cultural contact and does not imply the permanent presence of Celtic speakers.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Greek historian Ephorus of Cyme in Asia Minor, writing in the 4th century BC, believed the Celts came from the islands off the mouth of the Rhine and were \"driven from their homes by the frequency of wars and the violent rising of the sea\". Polybius published a history of Rome about 150 BC in which he describes the Gauls of Italy and their conflict with Rome. Pausanias in the 2nd century AD says that the Gauls \"originally called Celts\", \"live on the remotest region of Europe on the coast of an enormous tidal sea\". Posidonius described the southern Gauls about 100 BC. Though his original work is lost, later writers such as Strabo used it. The latter, writing in the early 1st century AD, deals with Britain and Gaul as well as Hispania, Italy and Galatia. Caesar wrote extensively about his Gallic Wars in 58–51 BC. Diodorus Siculus wrote about the Celts of Gaul and Britain in his 1st-century history.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Diodorus Siculus and Strabo both suggest that the heartland of the people they call Celts was in southern Gaul. The former says that the Gauls were to the north of the Celts, but that the Romans referred to both as Gauls (linguistically the Gauls were certainly Celts). Before the discoveries at Hallstatt and La Tène, it was generally considered that the Celtic heartland was southern Gaul, see Encyclopædia Britannica for 1813.",
"title": "Origins"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Romans knew the Celts then living in present-day France as Gauls. The territory of these peoples probably included the Low Countries, the Alps and present-day northern Italy. Julius Caesar in his Gallic Wars described the 1st-century BC descendants of those Gauls.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Eastern Gaul became the centre of the western La Tène culture. In later Iron Age Gaul, the social organisation resembled that of the Romans, with large towns. From the 3rd century BC the Gauls adopted coinage. Texts with Greek characters from southern Gaul have survived from the 2nd century BC.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Greek traders founded Massalia about 600 BC, with some objects (mostly drinking ceramic vessels) being traded up the Rhône valley. But trade became disrupted soon after 500 BC and re-oriented over the Alps to the Po valley in the Italian peninsula. The Romans arrived in the Rhone valley in the 2nd century BC and encountered a mostly Celtic-speaking Gaul. Rome wanted land communications with its Iberian provinces and fought a major battle with the Saluvii at Entremont in 124–123 BC. Gradually Roman control extended, and the Roman province of Gallia Transalpina developed along the Mediterranean coast. The Romans knew the remainder of Gaul as Gallia Comata – \"Long-haired Gaul.\"",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 58 BC the Helvetii planned to migrate westward but Julius Caesar forced them back. He then became involved in fighting the various tribes in Gaul, and by 55 BC had overrun most of Gaul. In 52 BC Vercingetorix led a revolt against Roman occupation but was defeated at the Battle of Alesia and surrendered.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Following the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC, Caesar's Celtica formed the main part of Roman Gaul, becoming the province of Gallia Lugdunensis. This territory of the Celtic tribes was bounded on the south by the Garonne and on the north by the Seine and the Marne. The Romans attached large swathes of this region to neighbouring provinces Belgica and Aquitania, particularly under Augustus.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Place- and personal-name analysis and inscriptions suggest that Gaulish was spoken over most of what is now France.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Until the end of the 19th century, traditional scholarship dealing with the Celts did acknowledge their presence in the Iberian Peninsula as a material culture relatable to the Hallstatt and La Tène cultures. However, since according to the definition of the Iron Age in the 19th century Celtic populations were supposedly rare in Iberia and did not provide a cultural scenario that could easily be linked to that of Central Europe, the presence of Celtic culture in that region was generally not fully recognised. Modern scholarship, however, has clearly proven that Celtic presence and influences were most substantial in what is today Spain and Portugal (with perhaps the highest settlement saturation in Western Europe), particularly in the central, western and northern regions.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In addition to Gauls infiltrating from the north of the Pyrenees, the Roman and Greek sources mention Celtic populations in three parts of the Iberian Peninsula: the eastern part of the Meseta (inhabited by the Celtiberians), the southwest (Celtici, in modern-day Alentejo) and the northwest (Gallaecia and Asturias). A modern scholarly review found several archaeological groups of Celts in Spain:",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The origins of the Celtiberians might provide a key to understanding the Celticisation process in the rest of the Peninsula. The process of Celticisation of the southwestern area of the peninsula by the Keltoi and of the northwestern area is, however, not a simple Celtiberian question. Recent investigations about the Callaici and Bracari in northwestern Portugal are providing new approaches to understanding Celtic culture (language, art and religion) in western Iberia.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "John T. Koch of Aberystwyth University suggested that Tartessian inscriptions of the 8th century BC might be classified as Celtic. This would mean that Tartessian is the earliest attested trace of Celtic by a margin of more than a century.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In Germany by the late Bronze Age, the Urnfield culture (c. 1300 BC – c. 750 BC) had replaced the Bell Beaker, Unetice and Tumulus cultures in central Europe, whilst the Nordic Bronze Age had developed in Scandinavia and northern Germany. The Hallstatt culture, which had developed from the Urnfield culture, was the predominant Western and Central European culture from the 12th to 8th centuries BC and during the early Iron Age (8th to 6th centuries BC). It was followed by the La Tène culture (5th to 1st centuries BC).",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The people who had adopted these cultural characteristics in central and southern Germany are regarded as Celts. Celtic cultural centres developed in central Europe during the late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC until 700 BC). Some, like the Heuneburg, the oldest city north of the Alps, grew to become important cultural centres of the Iron Age in Central Europe, that maintained trade routes to the Mediterranean. In the 5th century BC the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned a Celtic city at the Danube – Pyrene, that historians attribute to the Heuneburg. Beginning around 700 BC (or later), Germanic peoples (Germanic tribes) from southern Scandinavia and northern Germany expanded south and gradually replaced the Celtic peoples in Central Europe.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The Canegrate culture represented the first migratory wave of the proto-Celtic population from the northwest part of the Alps that, through the Alpine passes, had already penetrated and settled in the western Po valley between Lake Maggiore and Lake Como (Scamozzina culture). It has also been proposed that a more ancient proto-Celtic presence can be traced back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, when North Westwern Italy appears closely linked regarding the production of bronze artefacts, including ornaments, to the western groups of the Tumulus culture. La Tène cultural material appeared over a large area of mainland Italy, the southernmost example being the Celtic helmet from Canosa di Puglia.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Italy is home to Lepontic, the oldest attested Celtic language (from the 6th century BC). Anciently spoken in Switzerland and in Northern-Central Italy, from the Alps to Umbria. According to the Recueil des Inscriptions Gauloises, more than 760 Gaulish inscriptions have been found throughout present-day France – with the notable exception of Aquitaine – and in Italy, which testifies the importance of Celtic heritage in the peninsula.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 391 BC, Celts \"who had their homes beyond the Alps streamed through the passes in great strength and seized the territory that lay between the Apennine Mountains and the Alps\" according to Diodorus Siculus. The Po Valley and the rest of northern Italy (known to the Romans as Cisalpine Gaul) was inhabited by Celtic-speakers who founded cities such as Milan. Later the Roman army was routed at the battle of Allia and Rome was sacked in 390 BC by the Senones.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "At the battle of Telamon in 225 BC, a large Celtic army was trapped between two Roman forces and crushed.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The defeat of the combined Samnite, Celtic and Etruscan alliance by the Romans in the Third Samnite War sounded the beginning of the end of the Celtic domination in mainland Europe, but it was not until 192 BC that the Roman armies conquered the last remaining independent Celtic kingdoms in Italy.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The Celts also expanded down the Danube river and its tributaries. One of the most influential tribes, the Scordisci, established their capital at Singidunum (present-day Belgrade, Serbia) in the 3rd century BC. The concentration of hill-forts and cemeteries shows a dense population in the Tisza valley of modern-day Vojvodina, Serbia, Hungary and into Ukraine. Expansion into Romania was however blocked by the Dacians.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Serdi were a Celtic tribe inhabiting Thrace. They were located around and founded Serdika (Bulgarian: Сердика, Latin: Ulpia Serdica, Greek: Σαρδῶν πόλις), now Sofia in Bulgaria, which reflects their ethnonym. They would have established themselves in this area during the Celtic migrations at the end of the 4th century BC, though there is no evidence for their existence before the 1st century BC. Serdi are among traditional tribal names reported into the Roman era. They were gradually Thracianized over the centuries but retained their Celtic character in material culture up to a late date. According to other sources they may have been simply of Thracian origin, according to others they may have become of mixed Thraco-Celtic origin. Further south, Celts settled in Thrace (Bulgaria), which they ruled for over a century, and Anatolia, where they settled as the Galatians (see also: Gallic Invasion of Greece). Despite their geographical isolation from the rest of the Celtic world, the Galatians maintained their Celtic language for at least 700 years. St Jerome, who visited Ancyra (modern-day Ankara) in 373 AD, likened their language to that of the Treveri of northern Gaul.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "For Venceslas Kruta, Galatia in central Turkey was an area of dense Celtic settlement.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Boii tribe gave their name to Bohemia, Bologna and possibly Bavaria, and Celtic artefacts and cemeteries have been discovered further east in what is now Poland and Slovakia. A Celtic coin (Biatec) from Bratislava's mint was displayed on the old Slovak 5-crown coin.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "As there is no archaeological evidence for large-scale invasions in some of the other areas, one current school of thought holds that Celtic language and culture spread to those areas by contact rather than invasion. However, the Celtic invasions of Italy and the expedition in Greece and western Anatolia, are well documented in Greek and Latin history.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "There are records of Celtic mercenaries in Egypt serving the Ptolemies. Thousands were employed in 283–246 BC and they were also in service around 186 BC. They attempted to overthrow Ptolemy II.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "All living Celtic languages today belong to the Insular Celtic languages, derived from the Celtic languages spoken in Iron Age Britain and Ireland. They separated into a Goidelic and a Brittonic branch early on. By the time of the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century AD, the Insular Celts were made up of the Celtic Britons, the Gaels (or Scoti), and the Picts (or Caledonians).",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Linguists have debated whether a Celtic language came to the British Isles and then split, or whether the two branches arrived separately. The older view was that Celtic influence in the Isles was the result of successive migrations or invasions from the European mainland by diverse Celtic-speaking peoples over several centuries, accounting for the P-Celtic vs. Q-Celtic isogloss. This view has been challenged by the hypothesis that the islands' Celtic languages form an Insular Celtic dialect group. In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars often dated the \"arrival\" of Celtic culture in Britain (via an invasion model) to the 6th century BC, corresponding to archaeological evidence of Hallstatt influence and the appearance of chariot burials in what is now England. Cunliffe and Koch propose in their newer 'Celtic from the West' theory that Celtic languages reached the Isles earlier, with the Bell Beaker culture c.2500 BC, or even before this. More recently, a major archaeogenetics study uncovered a migration into southern Britain in the Bronze Age from 1300 to 800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from Gaul. From 1000 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain, but not northern Britain. The authors see this as a \"plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain\". There was much less immigration during the Iron Age, so it is likely that Celtic reached Britain before then. Cunliffe suggests that a branch of Celtic was already spoken in Britain, and the Bronze Age migration introduced the Brittonic branch.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Like many Celtic peoples on the mainland, the Insular Celts followed an Ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids. Some of the southern British tribes had strong links with Gaul and Belgica, and minted their own coins. During the Roman occupation of Britain, a Romano-British culture emerged in the southeast. The Britons and Picts in the north, and the Gaels of Ireland, remained outside the empire. During the end of Roman rule in Britain in the 400s AD, there was significant Anglo-Saxon settlement of eastern and southern Britain, and some Gaelic settlement of its western coast. During this time, some Britons migrated to the Armorican peninsula, where their culture became dominant. Meanwhile, much of northern Britain (Scotland) became Gaelic. By the 10th century AD, the Insular Celtic peoples had diversified into the Brittonic-speaking Welsh (in Wales), Cornish (in Cornwall), Bretons (in Brittany) and Cumbrians (in the Old North); and the Gaelic-speaking Irish (in Ireland), Scots (in Scotland) and Manx (on the Isle of Man).",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Classical writers did not call the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland Celtae or Κελτοί (Keltoi), leading some scholars to question the use of the term 'Celt' for the Iron Age inhabitants of those islands. The first historical account of the islands was by the Greek geographer Pytheas, who sailed around what he called the \"Pretannikai nesoi\" (the \"Pretannic isles\") around 310–306 BC. In general, classical writers referred to the Britons as Pretannoi (in Greek) or Britanni (in Latin). Strabo, writing in Roman times, distinguished between the Celts and Britons. However, Roman historian Tacitus says the Britons resembled the Celts of Gaul in customs and religion.",
"title": "Distribution"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Under Caesar the Romans conquered Celtic Gaul, and from Claudius onward the Roman empire absorbed parts of Britain. Roman local government of these regions closely mirrored pre-Roman tribal boundaries, and archaeological finds suggest native involvement in local government.",
"title": "Romanisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The native peoples under Roman rule became Romanised and keen to adopt Roman ways. Celtic art had already incorporated classical influences, and surviving Gallo-Roman pieces interpret classical subjects or keep faith with old traditions despite a Roman overlay.",
"title": "Romanisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The Roman occupation of Gaul, and to a lesser extent of Britain, led to Roman-Celtic syncretism. In the case of the continental Celts, this eventually resulted in a language shift to Vulgar Latin, while the Insular Celts retained their language.",
"title": "Romanisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "There was also considerable cultural influence exerted by Gaul on Rome, particularly in military matters and horsemanship, as the Gauls often served in the Roman cavalry. The Romans adopted the Celtic cavalry sword, the spatha, and Epona, the Celtic horse goddess.",
"title": "Romanisation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "To the extent that sources are available, they depict a pre-Christian Iron Age Celtic social structure based formally on class and kingship, although this may only have been a particular late phase of organisation in Celtic societies. Patron-client relationships similar to those of Roman society are also described by Caesar and others in the Gaul of the 1st century BC.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In the main, the evidence is of tribes being led by kings, although some argue that there is also evidence of oligarchical republican forms of government eventually emerging in areas which had close contact with Rome. Most descriptions of Celtic societies portray them as being divided into three groups: a warrior aristocracy; an intellectual class including professions such as druid, poet, and jurist; and everyone else. In historical times, the offices of high and low kings in Ireland and Scotland were filled by election under the system of tanistry, which eventually came into conflict with the feudal principle of primogeniture in which succession goes to the first-born son.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Little is known of family structure among the Celts. Patterns of settlement varied from decentralised to urban. The popular stereotype of non-urbanised societies settled in hillforts and duns, drawn from Britain and Ireland (there are about 3,000 hill forts known in Britain) contrasts with the urban settlements present in the core Hallstatt and La Tène areas, with the many significant oppida of Gaul late in the first millennium BC, and with the towns of Gallia Cisalpina.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Slavery, as practised by the Celts, was very likely similar to the better documented practice in ancient Greece and Rome. Slaves were acquired from war, raids, and penal and debt servitude. Slavery was hereditary, though manumission was possible. The Old Irish and Welsh words for 'slave', cacht and caeth respectively, are cognate with Latin captus 'captive' suggesting that the slave trade was an early means of contact between Latin and Celtic societies. In the Middle Ages, slavery was especially prevalent in the Celtic countries. Manumissions were discouraged by law and the word for \"female slave\", cumal, was used as a general unit of value in Ireland.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "There are only very limited records from pre-Christian times written in Celtic languages. These are mostly inscriptions in the Roman and sometimes Greek alphabets. The Ogham script, an Early Medieval alphabet, was mostly used in early Christian times in Ireland and Scotland (but also in Wales and England), and was only used for ceremonial purposes such as inscriptions on gravestones. The available evidence is of a strong oral tradition, such as that preserved by bards in Ireland, and eventually recorded by monasteries. Celtic art also produced a great deal of intricate and beautiful metalwork, examples of which have been preserved by their distinctive burial rites.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In some regards the Atlantic Celts were conservative: for example, they still used chariots in combat long after they had been reduced to ceremonial roles by the Greeks and Romans. However, despite being outdated, Celtic chariot tactics were able to repel the invasions of Britain attempted by Julius Caesar.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "According to Diodorus Siculus:",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "The Gauls are tall of body with rippling muscles and white of skin and their hair is blond, and not only naturally so for they also make it their practice by artificial means to increase the distinguishing colour which nature has given it. For they are always washing their hair in limewater and they pull it back from the forehead to the nape of the neck, with the result that their appearance is like that of Satyrs and Pans since the treatment of their hair makes it so heavy and coarse that it differs in no respect from the mane of horses. Some of them shave the beard but others let it grow a little; and the nobles shave their cheeks but they let the moustache grow until it covers the mouth.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "During the later Iron Age the Gauls generally wore long-sleeved shirts or tunics and long trousers (called braccae by the Romans). Clothes were made of wool or linen, with some silk being used by the rich. Cloaks were worn in the winter. Brooches and armlets were used, but the most famous item of jewellery was the torc, a neck collar of metal, sometimes gold. The horned Waterloo Helmet in the British Museum, which long set the standard for modern images of Celtic warriors, is in fact a unique survival, and may have been a piece for ceremonial rather than military wear.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Archaeological evidence suggests that the pre-Roman Celtic societies were linked to the network of overland trade routes that spanned Eurasia. Archaeologists have discovered large prehistoric trackways crossing bogs in Ireland and Germany. Due to their substantial nature, these are believed to have been created for wheeled transport as part of an extensive roadway system that facilitated trade. The territory held by the Celts contained tin, lead, iron, silver and gold. Celtic smiths and metalworkers created weapons and jewellery for international trade, particularly with the Romans.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The myth that the Celtic monetary system consisted of wholly barter is a common one, but is in part false. The monetary system was complex and is still not understood (much like the late Roman coinages), and due to the absence of large numbers of coin items, it is assumed that \"proto-money\" was used. This included bronze items made from the early La Tène period and onwards, which were often in the shape of axeheads, rings, or bells. Due to the large number of these present in some burials, it is thought they had a relatively high monetary value, and could be used for \"day to day\" purchases. Low-value coinages of potin, a bronze alloy with high tin content, were minted in most Celtic areas of the continent and in South-East Britain prior to the Roman conquest of these lands. Higher-value coinages, suitable for use in trade, were minted in gold, silver, and high-quality bronze. Gold coinage was much more common than silver coinage, despite being worth substantially more, as while there were around 100 mines in Southern Britain and Central France, silver was more rarely mined. This was due partly to the relative sparsity of mines and the amount of effort needed for extraction compared to the profit gained. As the Roman civilisation grew in importance and expanded its trade with the Celtic world, silver and bronze coinage became more common. This coincided with a major increase in gold production in Celtic areas to meet the Roman demand, due to the high value Romans put on the metal. The large number of gold mines in France is thought to be a major reason why Caesar invaded.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Very few reliable sources exist regarding Celtic views on gender roles, though some archaeological evidence suggests their views may have differed from those of the Greco-Roman world, which tended to be less egalitarian. Some Iron Age burials in northeastern Gaul suggest women may have had roles in warfare during the earlier La Tène period, but the evidence is far from conclusive. Celtic individuals buried with both female jewellery and weaponry have been found, such as the Vix Grave in northeastern Gaul, and there are questions about the gender of some individuals buried with weaponry. However, it has been suggested that the weapons indicate high social rank rather than masculinity.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Most written accounts of the Ancient Celts are from the Romans and Greeks, though it is not clear how accurate these are. Roman historians Ammianus Marcellinus and Tacitus mentioned Celtic women inciting, participating in, and leading battles. Plutarch reports that Celtic women acted as ambassadors to avoid a war among Celtic chiefdoms in the Po valley during the 4th century BC. Posidonius' anthropological comments on the Celts had common themes, primarily primitivism, extreme ferocity, cruel sacrificial practices, and the strength and courage of their women. Cassius Dio suggests there was great sexual freedom among women in Celtic Britain:",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "... a very witty remark is reported to have been made by the wife of Argentocoxus, a Caledonian, to Julia Augusta. When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied: \"We fulfill the demands of nature in a much better way than do you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men, whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest\". Such was the retort of the British woman.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Barry Cunliffe writes that such references are \"likely to be ill-observed\" and meant to portray the Celts as outlandish \"barbarians\". Historian Lisa Bitel argues the descriptions of Celtic women warriors are not credible. She says some Roman and Greek writers wanted to show that the barbarian Celts lived in \"an upside-down world [...] and a standard ingredient in such a world was the manly warrior woman\".",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "The Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote in his Politics that the Celts of southeastern Europe approved of male homosexuality. Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote in his Bibliotheca historica that although Gaulish women were beautiful, the men had \"little to do with them\" and it was a custom for men to sleep on animal skins with two younger males. He further claimed that \"the young men will offer themselves to strangers and are insulted if the offer is refused\". His claim was later repeated by Greco-Roman writers Athenaeus and Ammianus. David Rankin, in Celts and the Classical World, suggests some of these claims refer to bonding rituals in warrior groups, which required abstinence from women at certain times, and says it probably reflects \"the warlike character of early contacts between the Celts and the Greeks\".",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Under Brehon Law, which was written down in early Medieval Ireland after conversion to Christianity, a woman had the right to divorce her husband and gain his property if he was unable to perform his marital duties due to impotence, obesity, homosexual inclination or preference for other women.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "Celtic art is generally used by art historians to refer to art of the La Tène period across Europe, while the Early Medieval art of Britain and Ireland, that is what \"Celtic art\" evokes for much of the general public, is called Insular art in art history. Both styles absorbed considerable influences from non-Celtic sources, but retained a preference for geometrical decoration over figurative subjects, which are often extremely stylised when they do appear; narrative scenes only appear under outside influence. Energetic circular forms, triskeles and spirals are characteristic. Much of the surviving material is in precious metal, which no doubt gives a very unrepresentative picture, but apart from Pictish stones and the Insular high crosses, large monumental sculpture, even with decorative carving, is very rare; possibly it was originally common in wood. Celts were also able to create developed musical instruments such as the carnyces, these famous war trumpets used before the battle to frighten the enemy, as the best preserved found in Tintignac (Gaul) in 2004 and which were decorated with a boar head or a snake head.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The interlace patterns that are often regarded as typical of \"Celtic art\" were characteristic of the whole of the British Isles, a style referred to as Insular art, or Hiberno-Saxon art. This artistic style incorporated elements of La Tène, Late Roman, and, most importantly, animal Style II of Germanic Migration Period art. The style was taken up with great skill and enthusiasm by Celtic artists in metalwork and illuminated manuscripts. Equally, the forms used for the finest Insular art were all adopted from the Roman world: Gospel books like the Book of Kells and Book of Lindisfarne, chalices like the Ardagh Chalice and Derrynaflan Chalice, and penannular brooches like the Tara Brooch and Roscrea Brooch. These works are from the period of peak achievement of Insular art, which lasted from the 7th to the 9th centuries, before the Viking attacks sharply set back cultural life.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "In contrast the less well known but often spectacular art of the richest earlier Continental Celts, before they were conquered by the Romans, often adopted elements of Roman, Greek and other \"foreign\" styles (and possibly used imported craftsmen) to decorate objects that were distinctively Celtic. After the Roman conquests, some Celtic elements remained in popular art, especially Ancient Roman pottery, of which Gaul was actually the largest producer, mostly in Italian styles, but also producing work in local taste, including figurines of deities and wares painted with animals and other subjects in highly formalised styles. Roman Britain also took more interest in enamel than most of the Empire, and its development of champlevé technique was probably important to the later Medieval art of the whole of Europe, of which the energy and freedom of Insular decoration was an important element. Rising nationalism brought Celtic revivals from the 19th century.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "The Coligny calendar, which was found in 1897 in Coligny, Ain, was engraved on a bronze tablet, preserved in 73 fragments, that originally was 1.48 metres (4 feet 10 inches) wide and 0.9 metres (2 feet 11 inches) high (Lambert p. 111). Based on the style of lettering and the accompanying objects, it probably dates to the end of the 2nd century. It is written in Latin inscriptional capitals, and is in Gaulish. The restored tablet contains 16 vertical columns, with 62 months distributed over 5 years.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "French archaeologist J. Monard speculated that it was recorded by druids wishing to preserve their tradition of timekeeping in a time when the Julian calendar was imposed throughout the Roman Empire. However, the general form of the calendar suggests the public peg calendars (or parapegmata) found throughout the Greek and Roman world.",
"title": "Society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Tribal warfare appears to have been a regular feature of Celtic societies. While epic literature depicts this as more of a sport focused on raids and hunting rather than organised territorial conquest, the historical record is more of tribes using warfare to exert political control and harass rivals, for economic advantage, and in some instances to conquer territory.",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "The Celts were described by classical writers such as Strabo, Livy, Pausanias, and Florus as fighting like \"wild beasts\", and as hordes. Dionysius said that their",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "\"manner of fighting, being in large measure that of wild beasts and frenzied, was an erratic procedure, quite lacking in military science. Thus, at one moment they would raise their swords aloft and smite after the manner of wild boars, throwing the whole weight of their bodies into the blow like hewers of wood or men digging with mattocks, and again they would deliver crosswise blows aimed at no target, as if they intended to cut to pieces the entire bodies of their adversaries, protective armour and all\".",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Such descriptions have been challenged by contemporary historians.",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Polybius (2.33) indicates that the principal Celtic weapon was a long bladed sword which was used for hacking edgewise rather than stabbing. Celtic warriors are described by Polybius and Plutarch as frequently having to cease fighting in order to straighten their sword blades. This claim has been questioned by some archaeologists, who note that Noric steel, steel produced in Celtic Noricum, was famous in the Roman Empire period and was used to equip the Roman military. However, Radomir Pleiner, in The Celtic Sword (1993) argues that \"the metallographic evidence shows that Polybius was right up to a point\", as around one third of surviving swords from the period might well have behaved as he describes. In addition to these long bladed slashing swords, spears and specialized javelins were also used.",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Polybius also asserts that certain of the Celts fought naked, \"The appearance of these naked warriors was a terrifying spectacle, for they were all men of splendid physique and in the prime of life.\" According to Livy, this was also true of the Celts of Asia Minor.",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Celts had a reputation as head hunters. Paul Jacobsthal says, \"Amongst the Celts the human head was venerated above all else, since the head was to the Celt the soul, centre of the emotions as well as of life itself, a symbol of divinity and of the powers of the other-world.\" Writing in the first century BC, Greek historians Posidonius and Diodorus Siculus said Celtic warriors cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle, hung them from the necks of their horses, then nailed them up outside their homes. Strabo wrote in the same century that Celts embalmed the heads of their most esteemed enemies in cedar oil and put them on display. Roman historian Livy wrote that the Boii beheaded a defeated Roman general after the Battle of Silva Litana, covered his skull in gold, and used it as a ritual cup. Archaeologists have found evidence that heads were embalmed and displayed by the southern Gauls. In another example, at the southern Gaulish site of Entremont, there stood a pillar carved with skulls, within which were niches where human skulls were kept, nailed into position. Roquepertuse nearby has similar carved heads and skull niches. Many lone carved heads have been found in Celtic regions, some with two or three faces. Examples include the Mšecké Žehrovice Head and the Corleck Head.",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "Severed heads are a common motif in Insular Celtic myths, and there are many tales in which 'living heads' preside over feasts or speak prophecies. The beheading game is a motif in Irish myth and Arthurian legend, most famously in the tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the Green Knight picks up his own severed head after Gawain has struck it off. There are also many legends in Celtic regions of saints who carry their own severed heads. In Irish myth, the severed heads of warriors are called the mast or nuts of the goddess Macha.",
"title": "Warfare and weapons"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Like other European Iron Age societies, the Celts practised a polytheistic religion and belived in an afterlife. Celtic religion varied by region and over time, but had \"broad structural similarities\", and there was \"a basic religious homogeneity\" among the Celtic peoples. Because the ancient Celts did not have writing, evidence about their religion is gleaned from archaeology, Greco-Roman accounts, and literature from the early Christian period.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "The names of over two hundred Celtic deities have survived (see list of Celtic deities), although it is likely that many of these were alternative names, regional names or titles for the same deity. Some deities were venerated only in one region, but others were more widely known. According to Miranda Aldhouse-Green, the Celts were also animists, believing that every part of the natural world had a spirit.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "The Celts seem to have had a father god, who was often a god of the tribe and of the dead (Toutatis probably being one name for him); and a mother goddess who was associated with the land, earth and fertility (Dea Matrona probably being one name for her). The mother goddess could also take the form of a war goddess as protectress of her tribe and its land. There also seems to have been a male celestial god—identified with Taranis—associated with thunder, the wheel, and the bull. There were gods of skill and craft, such as the pan-regional god Lugus, and the smith god Gobannos. Celtic healing deities were often associated with sacred springs, such as Sirona and Borvo. Other pan-regional deities include the horned god Cernunnos, the horse and fertility goddess Epona, the divine son Maponos, as well as Belenos, Ogmios, and Sucellos. Caesar says the Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld. Triplicity is a common theme in Celtic cosmology, and a number of deities were seen as threefold, for example the Three Mothers.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "Celtic religious ceremonies were overseen by priests known as druids, who also served as judges, teachers, and lore-keepers. Other classes of druids performed sacrifices for the perceived benefit of the community. There is evidence that ancient Celtic peoples sacrificed animals, almost always livestock or working animals. It appears some were offered wholly to the gods (by burying or burning), while some were shared between gods and humans (part eaten and part offered). There is also some evidence that ancient Celts sacrificed humans, and some Greco-Roman sources claim the Gauls sacrificed criminals by burning them in a wicker man.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "The Romans said the Celts held ceremonies in sacred groves and other natural shrines, called nemetons. Some Celtic peoples built temples or ritual enclosures of varying shapes (such as the Romano-Celtic temple and viereckschanze), though they also maintained shrines at natural sites. Celtic peoples often made votive offerings: treasured items deposited in water and wetlands, or in ritual shafts and wells, often in the same place over generations. Modern clootie wells might be a continuation of this.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Most surviving Celtic mythology belongs to the Insular Celtic peoples: Irish mythology has the largest written body of myths, followed by Welsh mythology. These were written down in the early Middle Ages, mainly by Christian scribes.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The supernatural race called the Tuatha Dé Danann are believed to represent the main Celtic gods of Ireland. Their traditional rivals are the Fomóire, whom they defeat in the Battle of Mag Tuired. Barry Cunliffe says the underlying structure in Irish myth was a dualism between the male tribal god and the female goddess of the land. The Dagda seems to have been the chief god and the Morrígan his consort, each of whom had other names. One common motif is the sovereignty goddess, who represents the land and bestows sovereignty on a king by marrying him. The goddess Brigid was linked with nature as well as poetry, healing and smithing.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "Some figures in medieval Insular Celtic myth have ancient continental parallels: Irish Lugh and Welsh Lleu are cognate with Lugus, Goibniu and Gofannon with Gobannos, Macán and Mabon with Maponos, while Macha and Rhiannon may be counterparts of Epona.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "In Insular Celtic myth, the Otherworld is a parallel realm where the gods dwell. Some mythical heroes visit it by entering ancient burial mounds or caves, by going under water or across the western sea, or after being offered a silver apple branch by an Otherworld resident. Irish myth says that the spirits of the dead travel to the house of Donn (Tech Duinn), a legendary ancestor; this echoes Caesar's comment that the Gauls believed they all descended from a god of the dead and underworld.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Insular Celtic peoples celebrated four seasonal festivals, known to the Gaels as Beltaine (1 May), Lughnasa (1 August), Samhain (1 November) and Imbolc (1 February).",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "The Roman invasion of Gaul brought a great deal of Celtic peoples into the Roman Empire. Roman culture had a profound effect on the Celtic tribes which came under the empire's control. Roman influence led to many changes in Celtic religion, the most noticeable of which was the weakening of the druid class, especially religiously; the druids were to eventually disappear altogether. Romano-Celtic deities also began to appear: these deities often had both Roman and Celtic attributes, combined the names of Roman and Celtic deities, or included couples with one Roman and one Celtic deity. Other changes included the adaptation of the Jupiter Column, a sacred column set up in many Celtic regions of the empire, primarily in northern and eastern Gaul. Another major change in religious practice was the use of stone monuments to represent gods and goddesses. The Celts had probably only created wooden cult images (including monuments carved into trees, which were known as sacred poles) before the Roman conquest.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "While the regions under Roman rule adopted Christianity along with the rest of the Roman empire, unconquered areas of Ireland and Scotland began to move from Celtic polytheism to Christianity in the 5th century. Ireland was converted by missionaries from Britain, such as Saint Patrick. Later missionaries from Ireland were a major source of missionary work in Scotland, Anglo-Saxon parts of Britain, and central Europe (see Hiberno-Scottish mission). Celtic Christianity, the forms of Christianity that took hold in Britain and Ireland at this time, had for some centuries only limited and intermittent contact with Rome and continental Christianity, as well as some contacts with Coptic Christianity. Some elements of Celtic Christianity developed, or retained, features that made them distinct from the rest of Western Christianity, most famously their conservative method of calculating the date of Easter. In 664, the Synod of Whitby began to resolve these differences, mostly by adopting the current Roman practices, which the Gregorian Mission from Rome had introduced to Anglo-Saxon England.",
"title": "Religion and mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "Genetic studies on the limited amount of material available suggest continuity between Iron Age people from areas considered Celtic and the earlier Bell Beaker culture of Bronze Age Western Europe. Like the Bell Beakers, ancient Celts carried a substantial amount of Western Steppe Herders ancestry, which is derived from Yamnaya pastoralists who expanded westwards from the Pontic–Caspian steppe during the late Neolithic and the early Bronze Age and associated with the initial spread of Indo-European languages. This ancestry was particularly prevalent among Celts of Northwest Europe. Examined individuals overwhelmingly carry types of the paternal haplogroup R-M269, while the maternal haplogroups H and U are frequent. These lineages are associated with steppe ancestry. The spread of Celts into Iberia and the emergence of the Celtiberians is associated with an increase in north-central European ancestry in Iberia, and may be connected to the expansion of the Urnfield culture. The paternal haplogroup haplogroup I2a1a1a has been detected among Celtiberians. There appears to have been significant gene flow among Celtic peoples of Western Europe during the Iron Age. While the Gauls of southern France display genetic links with the Celtiberians, the Gauls of northern France display links with Great Britain and Sweden. Modern populations of Western Europe, particularly those who still speak Celtic languages, display substantial genetic continuity with the Iron Age populations of the same areas.",
"title": "Genetics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Geography",
"title": "External links"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Organisations",
"title": "External links"
}
] | The Celts or Celtic peoples were a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia, identified by their use of Celtic languages and other cultural similarities. Major Celtic groups included the Gauls; the Celtiberians and Gallaeci of Iberia; the Britons and Gaels of Britain and Ireland; the Boii; and the Galatians. The relation between ethnicity, language and culture in the Celtic world is unclear and debated; for example over the ways in which the Iron Age people of Britain and Ireland should be called Celts. In current scholarship, 'Celt' primarily refers to 'speakers of Celtic languages' rather than to a single ethnic group. The history of pre-Celtic Europe and Celtic origins is debated. The traditional "Celtic from the East" theory, says the proto-Celtic language arose in the late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe, named after grave sites in southern Germany, which flourished from around 1200 BC. This theory links the Celts with the Iron Age Hallstatt culture which followed it, named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria, and with the following La Tène culture, named after the La Tène site in Switzerland. It proposes that Celtic culture spread westward and southward from these areas by diffusion or migration. A newer theory, "Celtic from the West", suggests proto-Celtic arose earlier, was a lingua franca in the Atlantic Bronze Age coastal zone, and spread eastward. Another newer theory, "Celtic from the Centre", suggests proto-Celtic arose between these two zones, in Bronze Age Gaul, then spread in various directions. After the Celtic settlement of Southeast Europe in the 3rd century BC, Celtic culture reached as far east as central Anatolia, Turkey. The earliest undisputed examples of Celtic language are the Lepontic inscriptions from the 6th century BC. Continental Celtic languages are attested almost exclusively through inscriptions and place-names. Insular Celtic languages are attested from the 4th century AD in Ogham inscriptions, though they were clearly being spoken much earlier. Celtic literary tradition begins with Old Irish texts around the 8th century AD. Elements of Celtic mythology are recorded in early Irish and early Welsh literature. Most written evidence of the early Celts comes from Greco-Roman writers, who often grouped the Celts as barbarian tribes. They followed an ancient Celtic religion overseen by druids. The Celts were often in conflict with the Romans, such as in the Roman–Gallic wars, the Celtiberian Wars, the conquest of Gaul and conquest of Britain. By the 1st century AD, most Celtic territories had become part of the Roman Empire. By c. 500, due to Romanisation and the migration of Germanic tribes, Celtic culture had mostly become restricted to Ireland, western and northern Britain, and Brittany. Between the 5th and 8th centuries, the Celtic-speaking communities in these Atlantic regions emerged as a reasonably cohesive cultural entity. They had a common linguistic, religious and artistic heritage that distinguished them from surrounding cultures. Insular Celtic culture diversified into that of the Gaels and the Celtic Britons of the medieval and modern periods. A modern Celtic identity was constructed as part of the Romanticist Celtic Revival in Britain, Ireland, and other European territories such as Galicia. Today, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton are still spoken in parts of their former territories, while Cornish and Manx are undergoing a revival. | 2001-10-28T09:18:54Z | 2023-12-18T23:24:09Z | [
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6,547 | Conductor | Conductor or conduction may refer to: | [
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|
6,548 | Claude Monet | Oscar-Claude Monet (UK: /ˈmɒneɪ/, US: /moʊˈneɪ, məˈ-/, French: [klod mɔnɛ]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, exhibited in 1874 (the "exhibition of rejects") initiated by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon.
Monet was raised in Le Havre, Normandy, and became interested in the outdoors and drawing from an early age. Although his mother, Louise-Justine Aubrée Monet, supported his ambitions to be a painter, his father, Claude-Adolphe, disapproved and wanted him to pursue a career in business. He was very close to his mother, but she died in January 1857 when he was sixteen years old, and he was sent to live with his childless, widowed but wealthy aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. He went on to study at the Académie Suisse, and under the academic history painter Charles Gleyre, where he was a classmate of Auguste Renoir. His early works include landscapes, seascapes, and portraits, but attracted little attention. A key early influence was Eugène Boudin who introduced him to the concept of plein air painting. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, also in northern France, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project, including a water-lily pond.
Monet's ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. Among the best-known examples are his series of haystacks (1890–1891), paintings of Rouen Cathedral (1892–1894), and the paintings of water lilies in his garden in Giverny that occupied him continuously for the last 20 years of his life.
Frequently exhibited and successful during his lifetime, Monet's fame and popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century when he became one of the world's most famous painters and a source of inspiration for a burgeoning group of artists.
Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptised in the local Paris church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar. Despite being baptised Catholic, Monet later became an atheist.
In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father, a wholesale merchant, wanted him to go into the family's ship-chandling and grocery business, but Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer, and supported Monet's desire for a career in art.
On 1 April 1851, he entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He was an apathetic student who, after showing skill in art from young age, began drawing caricatures and portraits of acquaintances at age 15 for money. He began his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. In around 1858, he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who would encourage Monet to develop his techniques, teach him the "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting and take Monet on painting excursions. Monet thought of Boudin as his master, whom "he owed everything to" for his later success.
In 1857, his mother died. He lived with his father and aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre; Lecadre would be a source of support for Monet in his early art career.
From 1858 to 1860, Monet continued his studies in Paris, where he enrolled in Académie Suisse and met Camille Pissarro in 1859. He was called for military service and served under the Chasseurs d'Afrique (African Hunters), in Algeria, from 1861 to 1862. His time in Algeria had a powerful effect on Monet, who later said that the light and vivid colours of North Africa "contained the gem of my future researches". Illness forced his return to Le Havre, where he bought out his remaining service and met Johan Barthold Jongkind, who together with Boudin was an important mentor to Monet.
Upon his return to Paris, with the permission of his father, he divided his time between his childhood home and the countryside and enrolled in Charles Gleyre's studio, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Frédéric Bazille. Bazille eventually became his closest friend. In search of motifs, they traveled to Honfleur where Monet painted several "studies" of the harbor and the mouth of the Seine. Monet often painted alongside Renoir and Alfred Sisley, both of whom shared his desire to articulate new standards of beauty in conventional subjects.
During this time he painted Women in Garden, his first successful large-scale painting, and Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, the "most important painting of Monet's early period". Having debuted at the Salon in 1865 with La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide and Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur to large praise, he hoped Le déjeuner sur l'herbe would help him break through into the Salon of 1866. He could not finish it in a timely manner and instead submitted The Woman in the Green Dress and Pavé de Chailly to acceptance. Thereafter, he submitted works to the Salon annually until 1870, but they were accepted by the juries only twice, in 1866 and 1868. He sent no more works to the Salon until his single, final attempt in 1880. His work was considered radical, "discouraged at all official levels".
In 1867 his then-mistress, Camille Doncieux—whom he had met two years earlier as a model for his paintings—gave birth to their first child, Jean. Monet had a strong relationship with Jean, claiming that Camille was his lawful wife so Jean would be considered legitimate. Monet's father stopped financially supporting him as a result of the relationship. Earlier in the year Monet had been forced to move to his aunt's house in Sainte-Adresse. There he immersed himself in his work, although a temporary problem with his eyesight, probably related to stress, prevented him from working in sunlight. Monet loved his family dearly, painting many portraits of them such as child with a cup, a portrait of Jean Monet. This painting in particular shows the first signs of Monets’ later famous impressionistic work.
With help from the art collector Louis-Joachim Gaudibert, he reunited with Camille and moved to Étretat the following year. Around this time, he was trying to establish himself as a figure painter who depicted the "explicitly contemporary, bourgeois", an intention that continued into the 1870s. He did evolve his painting technique and integrate stylistic experimentation in his plein-air style—as evidenced by The Beach at Sainte-Adresse and On the Bank of the Seine respectively, the former being his "first sustained campaign of painting that involved tourism".
Several of his paintings had been purchased by Gaudibert, who commissioned a painting of his wife, alongside other projects; the Gaudiberts were for two years "the most supportive of Monet's hometown patrons". Monet would later be financially supported by the artist and art collector Gustave Caillebotte, Bazille and perhaps Gustave Courbet, although creditors still pursued him.
He married Camille on 28 June 1870, just before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. During the war, he and his family lived in London and the Netherlands to avoid conscription. Monet and Charles-François Daubigny lived in self-imposed exile. While living in London, Monet met his old friend Pissarro, the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and befriended his first and primary art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel; an encounter that would be decisive for his career. There he saw and admired the works of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner and was impressed by Turner's treatment of light, especially in the works depicting the fog on the Thames. He repeatedly painted the Thames, Hyde Park and Green Park. In the spring of 1871, his works were refused authorisation for inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition and police suspected him of revolutionary activities. That same year he learned of his father's death.
The family moved to Argenteuil in 1871, where he, influenced by his time with Dutch painters, mostly painted the Seine's surrounding area. He acquired a sailboat to paint on the river. In 1874, he signed a six-and-a-half year lease and moved into a newly built "rose-colored house with green shutters" in Argenteuil, where he painted fifteen paintings of his garden from a panoramic perspective. Paintings such as Gladioli marked what was likely the first time Monet had cultivated a garden for the purpose of his art. The house and garden became the "single most important" motif of his final years in Argenteuil. For the next four years, he painted mostly in Argenteuil and took an interest in the colour theories of chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul. For three years of the decade, he rented a large villa in Saint-Denis for a thousand francs per year. Camille Monet on a Garden Bench displays the garden of the villa, and what some have argued to be Camille's grief upon learning of her father's death.
Monet and Camille were often in financial straits during this period—they were unable to pay their hotel bill during the summer of 1870 and likely lived on the outskirts of London as a result of insufficient funds. An inheritance from his father, together with sales of his paintings, did, however, enable them to hire two servants and a gardener by 1872. Following the successful exhibition of some maritime paintings and the winning of a silver medal at Le Havre, Monet's paintings were seized by creditors, from whom they were bought back by a shipping merchant, Gaudibert, who was also a patron of Boudin.
When Durand-Ruel's previous support of Monet and his peers began to decline, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and Berthe Morisot exhibited their work independently; they did so under the name the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers for which Monet was a leading figure in its formation. He was inspired by the style and subject matter of his slightly older contemporaries, Pissarro and Édouard Manet. The group, whose title was chosen to avoid association with any style or movement, were unified in their independence from the Salon and rejection of the prevailing academicism. Monet gained a reputation as the foremost landscape painter of the group.
At the first exhibition, in 1874, Monet displayed, among others, Impression, Sunrise, The Luncheon and Boulevard des Capucines. The art critic Louis Leroy wrote a hostile review. Taking particular notice of Impression, Sunrise (1872), a hazy depiction of Le Havre port and stylistic detour, he coined the term "Impressionism". Conservative critics and the public derided the group, with the term initially being ironic and denoting the painting as unfinished. More progressive critics praised the depiction of modern life—Louis Edmond Duranty called their style a "revolution in painting". He later regretted inspiring the name, as he believed that they were a group "whose majority had nothing impressionist".
The total attendance is estimated at 3500. Monet priced Impression: Sunrise at 1000 francs but failed to sell it. The exhibition was open to anyone prepared to pay 60 francs and gave artists the opportunity to show their work without the interference of a jury. Another exhibition was held in 1876, again in opposition to the Salon. Monet displayed 18 paintings, including The Beach at Sainte-Adresse which showcased multiple Impressionist characteristics.
For the third exhibition, on 5 April 1877, he selected seven paintings from the dozen he had made of Gare Saint-Lazare in the past three months, the first time he had "synced as many paintings of the same site, carefully coordinating their scenes and temporalities". The paintings were well received by critics, who especially praised the way he captured the arrival and departures of the trains. By the fourth exhibition his involvement was by means of negotiation on Caillebotte's part. His last time exhibiting with the Impressionists was in 1882—four years before the final Impressionist exhibition.
Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Morisot, Cézanne and Sisley proceeded to experiment with new methods of depicting reality. They rejected the dark, contrasting lighting of romantic and realist paintings, in favour of the pale tones of their peers' paintings such as those by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Boudin. After developing methods for painting transient effects, Monet would go on to seek more demanding subjects, new patrons and collectors; his paintings produced in the early 1870s left a lasting impact on the movement and his peers—many of whom moved to Argenteuil as a result of admiring his depiction.
In 1875, he returned to figure painting with Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, after effectively abandoning it with The Luncheon. His interest in the figure continued for the next four years—reaching its crest in 1877 and concluding altogether in 1890. In an "unusually revealing" letter to Théodore Duret, Monet discussed his revitalised interest: "I am working like never before on a new endeavour figures in plein air, as I understand them. This is an old dream, one that has always obsessed me and that I would like to master once and for all. But it is all so difficult! I am working very hard, almost to the point of making myself ill".
In 1876, Camille Monet became seriously ill. Their second son, Michel, was born in 1878, after which Camille's health deteriorated further. In the autumn of that year, they moved to the village of Vétheuil where they shared a house with the family of Ernest Hoschedé, a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts who had commissioned four paintings from Monet. In 1878, Camille was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She died the next year. Her death, alongside financial difficulties—once having to leave his house to avoid creditors—afflicted Monet's career; Hoschedé had recently purchased several paintings but soon went bankrupt, leaving for Paris in hopes of regaining his fortune, as interest in the Impressionists dwindled.
Monet made a study in oils of his late wife. Many years later, he confessed to his friend Georges Clemenceau that his need to analyse colours was both a joy and a torment to him. He explained: "I one day found myself looking at my beloved wife's dead face and just systematically noting the colours according to an automatic reflex". John Berger describes the work as "a blizzard of white, grey, purplish paint ... a terrible blizzard of loss which will forever efface her features. In fact there can be very few death-bed paintings which have been so intensely felt or subjectively expressive."
Monet's study of the Seine continued. He submitted two paintings to the Salon in 1880, one of which was accepted. He began to abandon Impressionist techniques as his paintings utilised darker tones and displayed environments, such as the Seine river, in harsh weather. For the rest of the decade, he focused on the elemental aspect of nature. His personal life influenced his distancing from the Impressionists. He returned to Étretat and expressed in letters to Alice Hoschedé—who he would marry in 1892, following her husband's death the preceding year—a desire to die. In 1881, he moved with Alice and her children to Poissy and again sold his paintings to Durand-Ruel. Alice's third daughter, Suzanne, would become Monet's "preferred model", after Camille.
In April 1883, looking out the window of the train between Vernon and Gasny, he discovered Giverny in Normandy. That same year his first major retrospective show was held.
Monet's struggles with creditors ended following prosperous trips; he went to Bordighera in 1884, and brought back 50 landscapes. He travelled to the Netherlands in 1886 to paint the tulips. He soon met and became friends with Gustave Geffroy, who published an article on Monet. Despite his qualms, Monet's paintings were sold in America and contributed towards his financial security. In contrast to the last two decades of his career, Monet favoured working alone—and felt that he was always better when he did, having regularly "long[ed] for solitude, away from crowded tourist resorts and sophisticated urban settings". Such a desire was recurrent in his letters to Alice.
In 1883, Monet and his family rented a house and gardens in Giverny, which provided him domestic stability he had not yet enjoyed. The house was situated near the main road between the towns of Vernon and Gasny at Giverny. There was a barn that doubled as a painting studio, orchards and a small garden. The house was close enough to the local schools for the children to attend, and the surrounding landscape provided numerous natural areas for Monet to paint.
The family worked and built up the gardens, and Monet's fortunes began to change for the better as Durand-Ruel had increasing success in selling his paintings. The gardens were Monet's greatest source of inspiration for 40 years. In 1890, Monet purchased the house. During the 1890s, Monet built a greenhouse and a second studio, a spacious building well lit with skylights.
Monet wrote daily instructions to his gardener, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and invoices for his floral purchases and his collection of botany books. As Monet's wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even after he hired seven gardeners. Monet purchased additional land with a water meadow. White water lilies local to France were planted along with imported cultivars from South America and Egypt, resulting in a range of colours including yellow, blue and white lilies that turned pink with age. In 1902, he increased the size of his water garden by nearly 4000 square metres; the pond was enlarged in 1901 and 1910 with easels installed all around to allow different perspectives to be captured.
Dissatisfied with the limitations of Impressionism, Monet began to work on series of paintings displaying single subjects—haystacks, poplars and the Rouen Cathedral—to resolve his frustration. These series of paintings provided widespread critical and financial success; in 1898, 61 paintings were exhibited at the Petit gallery. He also begun a series of Mornings on the Seine, which portrayed the dawn hours of the river. In 1887 and 1889 he displayed a series of paintings of Belle Île to rave reviews by critics. Monet chose the location in the hope of finding a "new aesthetic language that bypassed learned formulas, one that would be both true to nature and unique to him as an individual, not like anyone else."
In 1899, he began painting the water lilies that would occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life, being his last and "most ambitious" sequence of paintings. He had exhibited this first group of pictures of the garden, devoted primarily to his Japanese bridge, in 1900. He returned to London—now residing at the prestigious Savoy Hotel—in 1899 to produce a series that included 41 paintings of Waterloo bridge, 34 of Charing Cross bridge and 19 of the House of Parliament. Monet's final journey would be to Venice, with Alice in 1908.
Depictions of the water lilies, with alternating light and mirror-like reflections, became an integral part of his work. By the mid-1910s Monet had achieved "a completely new, fluid, and somewhat audacious style of painting in which the water-lily pond became the point of departure for an almost abstract art". Claude Roger-Marx noted in a review of Monet's successful 1909 exhibition of the first Water Lilies series that he had "reached the ultimate degree of abstraction and imagination joined to the real". This exhibition, entitled Waterlilies, a Series of Waterscape, consisted of 42 canvases, his "largest and most unified series to date". He would ultimately make over 250 paintings of the Waterlilies.
At his house, Monet met with artists, writers, intellectuals and politicians from France, England, Japan and the United States. In the summer of 1887 he met John Singer Sargent whose experimentation with figure painting out of doors intrigued him; the pair went on to frequently influence each other.
Monet's second wife, Alice, died in 1911, and his oldest son, Jean, who had married Alice's daughter, Blanche, Monet's particular favourite, died in 1914. Their deaths left Monet depressed, as Blanche cared for him. It was during this time that Monet began to develop the first signs of possible cataracts. In 1913, Monet travelled to London to consult the German ophthalmologist Richard Liebreich. He was prescribed new glasses and rejected cataract surgery for the right eye. The next year, Monet, encouraged by Clemenceau, made plans to construct a new, large studio that he could use to create a "decorative cycle of paintings devoted to the water garden".
In the following years, his perception of colour suffered; his broad strokes were broader and his paintings were increasingly darker. To achieve his desired outcome, he began to label his tubes of paint, kept a strict order on his palette and wore a straw hat to negate glare. He approached painting by formulating the ideas and features in his mind, taking the "motif in large masses" and transcribing them through memory and imagination. This was due to him being "insensitive" to the "finer shades of tonalities and colors seen close up".
Monet's output decreased as he became withdrawn, although he did produce several panel paintings for the French Government, from 1914 to 1918 to great financial success and he would later create works for the state. His work on the "cycle of paintings" mostly occurred around 1916 to 1921. Cataract surgery was once again recommended, this time by Clemenceau. Monet—who was apprehensive, following Honoré Daumier and Mary Cassatt's botched surgeries—stated that he would rather have poor sight and perhaps abandon painting than forego "a little of these things that I love". In 1919, Monet began a series of landscape paintings, "in full force" although he was not pleased with the outcome. By October the weather caused Monet to cease plein air painting and the next month he sold four of the eleven Water Lilies paintings, despite his then-reluctance to relinquish his work. The series inspired praise from his peers; his later works were well received by dealers and collectors, and he received 200,000 francs from one collector.
In 1922 a prescription of mydriatics provided short-lived relief. He eventually underwent cataract surgery in 1923. Persistent cyanopsia and aphakic spectacles proved to be a struggle. Now "able to see the real colours", he began to destroy canvases from his pre-operative period. Upon receiving tinted Zeiss lenses, Monet was laudatory, although his left eye soon had to be entirely covered by a black lens. By 1925, his visual impairment was improved and he began to retouch some of his pre-operative works, with bluer water lilies than before.
During World War I, in which his younger son, Michel, served, Monet painted a Weeping Willow series as homage to the French fallen soldiers. He became deeply dedicated to the decorations of his garden during the war.
Monet has been described as "the driving force behind Impressionism". Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. His free flowing style and use of colour have been described as "almost ethereal" and the "[epitome] of impressionist style"; Impression, Sunrise is an example of the "fundamental" Impressionist principle of depicting only that which is purely visible. Monet was fascinated with the effects of light, and painting en plein air—he believed that his only "merit lies in having painted directly in front of nature, seeking to render my impressions of the most fleeting effects" Wanting to "paint the air", he often combined modern life subjects in outdoor light.
Monet made light the central focus of his paintings. To capture its variations, he would sometimes complete a painting in one sitting, often without preparation. He wished to demonstrate how light altered colour and perception of reality. His interest in light and reflection began in the late 1860s and lasted throughout his career. During his first time in London, he developed an admiration for the relationship between the artist and motifs—for what he deemed the "envelope". He utilised pencil drawings to quickly note subjects and motifs for future reference.
Monet's portrayal of landscapes emphasised industrial elements such as railways and factories; his early seascapes featured brooding nature depicted with muted colours and local residents. Critic, and friend of Monet, Théodore Duret noted, in 1874, that he was "little attracted by rustic scenes...He [felt] particularly drawn towards nature when it is embellished and towards urban scenes and for preference he paint[ed] flowery gardens, parks and groves." When depicting figures and landscapes in tandem, Monet wished for the landscape to not be a mere backdrop and the figures not to be dominate the composition. His dedication to such a portrayal of landscapes resulted in Monet reprimanding Renoir for defying it. He often depicted the suburban and rural leisure activities of Paris and as a young artist experimented with still lifes. From the 1870s onwards, he gradually moved away from suburban and urban landscapes—when they were depicted it was to further his study of light. Contemporary critics—and later academics—felt that with his choice of showcasing Belle Île, he had indicated a desire to move away from the modern culture of Impressionist paintings and instead towards primitive nature.
After meeting Boudin, Monet dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as a young man, he visited the Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists. The five years that he spent at Argenteuil, spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected the academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying "I like to paint as a bird sings." Boudin, Daubigny, Jongkind, Courbet, and Corot were among Monet's influences and he would often work in accordance with developments in avant-garde art.
In 1877 a series of paintings at St-Lazare Station had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent. He was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape. The study of the effects of atmosphere was to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject (such as his water lilies series) in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926. In his later career, Monet "transcended" the Impressionist style and begun to push the boundaries of art.
Monet refined his palette in the 1870s, consciously minimising the use of darker tones and favouring pastel colours. This coincided with his softer approach, using smaller and more varied brush strokes. His palette would again undergo change in the 1880s, with more emphasis than before on harmony between warm and cold hues. Following his optical operation in 1923, Monet returned to his style from before a decade ago. He forwent garish colours or "coarse application" for emphasised colour schemes of blue and green. Whilst suffering from cataracts, his paintings were more broad and abstract—from the late 1880s onwards, he had simplified his compositions and sought subjects which could offer broad colour and tone. He increasingly used red and yellow tones, a trend that first started following his trip to Venice. Monet often travelled alone at this time—from France to Normandy to London; to the Rivera and Rouen—in search of new and more challenging subjects.
The stylistic change was likely a by-product of the disorder and not an intentional choice. Monet would often work on large canvases due to the deterioration of his eyesight and by 1920 he admitted that he had grown too accustomed to broad painting to return to small canvases. The influence of his cataracts on his output has been a topic of discussion among academics; Lane et al. (1997) argues the occurrence of a deterioration from the late 1860s onwards led to a diminishing of sharp lines. Gardens were a focus throughout his art, becoming prominent in his later work, especially during the last decade of his life. Daniel Wildenstein noted a "seamless" continuity in his paintings that was "enriched by innovation".
From the 1880s onwards—and particularly in the 1890s—Monet's series of paintings of specific subjects sought to document the different conditions of light and weather. As light and weather changed throughout the day, he switched between canvases—sometimes working on as many as eight at one time—usually spending an hour on each. In 1895, he exhibited 20 paintings of Rouen Cathedral, showcasing the façade in different conditions of light, weather and atmosphere. The paintings do not focus on the grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry. For this series, he experimented with creating his own frames.
His first series exhibited was of haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet travelled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, including a series of paintings in Venice. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London, Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, and Views of Westminster Bridge. Helen Gardner writes:
Monet, with a scientific precision, has given us an unparalleled and unexcelled record of the passing of time as seen in the movement of light over identical forms.
Following his return from London, Monet painted mostly from nature, in his own garden; its water lilies, its pond and its bridge. From 22 November to 15 December 1900, another exhibition dedicated to him was held at the Durand-Ruel gallery, with around ten versions of the Water Lilies exhibited. This same exhibition was organized in February 1901 in New York City, where it was met with great success.
In 1901, Monet enlarged the pond of his home by buying a meadow located on the other side of the Ru, the local watercourse. He then divided his time between work on nature and work in his studio.
The canvases dedicated to the water lilies evolved with the changes made to his garden. In addition, around 1905, Monet gradually modified his aesthetics by abandoning the perimeter of the body of water and therefore modifying perspective. He also changed the shape and size of his canvases by moving from rectangular stretchers to square and then circular stretchers.
These canvases were created with great difficulty: Monet spent a significant amount of time reworking them in order to find the perfect effects and impressions. When he deemed them unsuccessful he did not hesitate to destroy them. He continually postponed the Durand-Ruel exhibition until he was satisfied with the works. After several postponements dating back to 1906, the exhibition titled Les Nymphéas ended up opening on 6 May 1909. Comprising forty-eight paintings dating from 1903 to 1908, representing a series of landscapes and water lily scenes, this exhibition was once again a success.
Monet died of lung cancer on 5 December 1926 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery. Monet had insisted that the occasion be simple; thus, only about fifty people attended the ceremony. At his funeral, Clemenceau removed the black cloth draped over the coffin, stating: "No black for Monet!" and replaced it with a flower-patterned cloth. At the time of his death, Waterlilies was "technically unfinished".
Monet's home, garden, and water lily pond were bequeathed by Michel to the French Academy of Fine Arts (part of the Institut de France) in 1966. Through the Fondation Claude Monet, the house and gardens were opened for visits in 1980, following restoration. In addition to souvenirs of Monet and other objects of his life, the house contains his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The house and garden, along with the Museum of Impressionism, are major attractions in Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world.
Speaking of Monet's body of work, Wildenstein said that it is "so extensive that its very ambition and diversity challenges our understanding of its importance". His paintings produced at Giverny and under the influence of cataracts have been said to create a link between Impressionism and twentieth-century art and modern abstract art, respectively. His later works were a "major" inspiration to Objective abstraction. Ellsworth Kelly, following a formative experience at Giverny, paid homage to Monet's works created there with Tableau Vert (1952). Monet has been called an "intermediary" between tradition and modernism—his work has been examined in relation to postmodernism—and was an influence to Bazille, Sisley, Renoir and Pissarro. Monet is now the most famous of the Impressionists; as a result of his contributions to the movement, he "exerted a huge influence on late 19th-century art".
In May 1927, 27 panel paintings were displayed in the Musée de l'Orangerie, following lengthy negotiations with the French government. Due to his later works being ignored by artists, art historians, critics and the public few attended the showing. In the 1950s, Monet's later works were "rediscovered" by the Abstract Expressionists, and those adjacent like Clement Greenberg, who used a similar canvases and held a disinterest in the blunt and ideological art of the war. A 1952 essay by André Masson helped change the perception of the paintings and inspire appreciation that begin to take shape in 1956–1957. The next year, a fire in the Museum of Modern Art would see the Water Lilies paintings acquired by them burn. The large scale nature of Monet's later paintings proved to be difficult for some museums, which resulted in them altering the framing.
In 1978, Monet's garden in Giverny—which had grown decrepit over fifty years—was restored and opened to the public. In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Londres, le Parlement, trouée de soleil dans le brouillard; 1904), sold for US$20.1 million. In 2006, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society published a paper providing evidence that these were painted in situ at St Thomas' Hospital over the river Thames. In 1981, Ronald Pickvance noted that Monet's works after 1880 were increasingly receiving scholarly attention.
Falaises près de Dieppe (Cliffs Near Dieppe) has been stolen on two occasions: once in 1998 (in which the museum's curator was convicted of the theft and jailed for five years and two months along with two accomplices) and most recently in August 2007. It was recovered in June 2008.
On 14 November 2001, a Google Doodle was made for Claude Monet's 161st birthday, depicting the Google logo in Monet's signature style. It was the first Google Doodle made for someone's birthday.
Monet's Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil, an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine near Paris, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder for a record $41.4 million at Christie's auction in New York on 6 May 2008. The previous record for his painting stood at $36.5 million. A few weeks later, Le bassin aux nymphéas (from the water lilies series) sold at Christie's 24 June 2008 auction in London for £40,921,250 ($80,451,178), nearly doubling the record for the artist. This purchase represented one of the top 20 highest prices paid for a painting at the time.
In October 2013, Monet's paintings L'Eglise de Vétheuil and Le Bassin aux Nympheas became subjects of a legal case in New York against New York-based Vilma Bautista, one-time aide to Imelda Marcos, wife of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, after she sold Le Bassin aux Nympheas for $32 million to a Swiss buyer. The said Monet paintings, along with two others, were acquired by Imelda during her husband's presidency and allegedly bought using the nation's funds. Bautista's lawyer claimed that the aide sold the painting for Imelda but did not have a chance to give her the money. The Philippine government seeks the return of the painting. Le Bassin aux Nympheas, also known as Japanese Footbridge over the Water-Lily Pond at Giverny, is part of Monet's famed Water Lilies series.
Under the Nazi regime, both in Germany from 1933 and in German-occupied countries until 1945, Jewish art collectors of Monet were looted by Nazis and their agents. Several of the stolen artworks have been returned to their rightful owners, while others have been the object of court battles. In 2014, during the spectacular discovery of a hidden trove of art in Munich, a Monet that had belonged to a Jewish retail magnate was found in the suitcase of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one of Hitler's official art dealers of looted art, Hildebrand Gurlitt.
Examples of Nazi-looted Monet works include:
Monet's Le Palais Ducal, and his 1880 work, Poppy Field near Vétheuil, formerly in the collection of Max Emden, have been the object of restitution claims. "La Mare, Snow Effect" ("La Mare, effect de neige") was the object of a settlement with the heirs of Richard Semmel. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Oscar-Claude Monet (UK: /ˈmɒneɪ/, US: /moʊˈneɪ, məˈ-/, French: [klod mɔnɛ]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term \"Impressionism\" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, exhibited in 1874 (the \"exhibition of rejects\") initiated by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Monet was raised in Le Havre, Normandy, and became interested in the outdoors and drawing from an early age. Although his mother, Louise-Justine Aubrée Monet, supported his ambitions to be a painter, his father, Claude-Adolphe, disapproved and wanted him to pursue a career in business. He was very close to his mother, but she died in January 1857 when he was sixteen years old, and he was sent to live with his childless, widowed but wealthy aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. He went on to study at the Académie Suisse, and under the academic history painter Charles Gleyre, where he was a classmate of Auguste Renoir. His early works include landscapes, seascapes, and portraits, but attracted little attention. A key early influence was Eugène Boudin who introduced him to the concept of plein air painting. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, also in northern France, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project, including a water-lily pond.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Monet's ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. Among the best-known examples are his series of haystacks (1890–1891), paintings of Rouen Cathedral (1892–1894), and the paintings of water lilies in his garden in Giverny that occupied him continuously for the last 20 years of his life.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Frequently exhibited and successful during his lifetime, Monet's fame and popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century when he became one of the world's most famous painters and a source of inspiration for a burgeoning group of artists.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptised in the local Paris church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar. Despite being baptised Catholic, Monet later became an atheist.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father, a wholesale merchant, wanted him to go into the family's ship-chandling and grocery business, but Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer, and supported Monet's desire for a career in art.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "On 1 April 1851, he entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts. He was an apathetic student who, after showing skill in art from young age, began drawing caricatures and portraits of acquaintances at age 15 for money. He began his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. In around 1858, he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who would encourage Monet to develop his techniques, teach him the \"en plein air\" (outdoor) techniques for painting and take Monet on painting excursions. Monet thought of Boudin as his master, whom \"he owed everything to\" for his later success.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1857, his mother died. He lived with his father and aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre; Lecadre would be a source of support for Monet in his early art career.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "From 1858 to 1860, Monet continued his studies in Paris, where he enrolled in Académie Suisse and met Camille Pissarro in 1859. He was called for military service and served under the Chasseurs d'Afrique (African Hunters), in Algeria, from 1861 to 1862. His time in Algeria had a powerful effect on Monet, who later said that the light and vivid colours of North Africa \"contained the gem of my future researches\". Illness forced his return to Le Havre, where he bought out his remaining service and met Johan Barthold Jongkind, who together with Boudin was an important mentor to Monet.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Upon his return to Paris, with the permission of his father, he divided his time between his childhood home and the countryside and enrolled in Charles Gleyre's studio, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Frédéric Bazille. Bazille eventually became his closest friend. In search of motifs, they traveled to Honfleur where Monet painted several \"studies\" of the harbor and the mouth of the Seine. Monet often painted alongside Renoir and Alfred Sisley, both of whom shared his desire to articulate new standards of beauty in conventional subjects.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "During this time he painted Women in Garden, his first successful large-scale painting, and Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, the \"most important painting of Monet's early period\". Having debuted at the Salon in 1865 with La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide and Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur to large praise, he hoped Le déjeuner sur l'herbe would help him break through into the Salon of 1866. He could not finish it in a timely manner and instead submitted The Woman in the Green Dress and Pavé de Chailly to acceptance. Thereafter, he submitted works to the Salon annually until 1870, but they were accepted by the juries only twice, in 1866 and 1868. He sent no more works to the Salon until his single, final attempt in 1880. His work was considered radical, \"discouraged at all official levels\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 1867 his then-mistress, Camille Doncieux—whom he had met two years earlier as a model for his paintings—gave birth to their first child, Jean. Monet had a strong relationship with Jean, claiming that Camille was his lawful wife so Jean would be considered legitimate. Monet's father stopped financially supporting him as a result of the relationship. Earlier in the year Monet had been forced to move to his aunt's house in Sainte-Adresse. There he immersed himself in his work, although a temporary problem with his eyesight, probably related to stress, prevented him from working in sunlight. Monet loved his family dearly, painting many portraits of them such as child with a cup, a portrait of Jean Monet. This painting in particular shows the first signs of Monets’ later famous impressionistic work.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "With help from the art collector Louis-Joachim Gaudibert, he reunited with Camille and moved to Étretat the following year. Around this time, he was trying to establish himself as a figure painter who depicted the \"explicitly contemporary, bourgeois\", an intention that continued into the 1870s. He did evolve his painting technique and integrate stylistic experimentation in his plein-air style—as evidenced by The Beach at Sainte-Adresse and On the Bank of the Seine respectively, the former being his \"first sustained campaign of painting that involved tourism\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Several of his paintings had been purchased by Gaudibert, who commissioned a painting of his wife, alongside other projects; the Gaudiberts were for two years \"the most supportive of Monet's hometown patrons\". Monet would later be financially supported by the artist and art collector Gustave Caillebotte, Bazille and perhaps Gustave Courbet, although creditors still pursued him.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "He married Camille on 28 June 1870, just before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War. During the war, he and his family lived in London and the Netherlands to avoid conscription. Monet and Charles-François Daubigny lived in self-imposed exile. While living in London, Monet met his old friend Pissarro, the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and befriended his first and primary art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel; an encounter that would be decisive for his career. There he saw and admired the works of John Constable and J. M. W. Turner and was impressed by Turner's treatment of light, especially in the works depicting the fog on the Thames. He repeatedly painted the Thames, Hyde Park and Green Park. In the spring of 1871, his works were refused authorisation for inclusion in the Royal Academy exhibition and police suspected him of revolutionary activities. That same year he learned of his father's death.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The family moved to Argenteuil in 1871, where he, influenced by his time with Dutch painters, mostly painted the Seine's surrounding area. He acquired a sailboat to paint on the river. In 1874, he signed a six-and-a-half year lease and moved into a newly built \"rose-colored house with green shutters\" in Argenteuil, where he painted fifteen paintings of his garden from a panoramic perspective. Paintings such as Gladioli marked what was likely the first time Monet had cultivated a garden for the purpose of his art. The house and garden became the \"single most important\" motif of his final years in Argenteuil. For the next four years, he painted mostly in Argenteuil and took an interest in the colour theories of chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul. For three years of the decade, he rented a large villa in Saint-Denis for a thousand francs per year. Camille Monet on a Garden Bench displays the garden of the villa, and what some have argued to be Camille's grief upon learning of her father's death.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Monet and Camille were often in financial straits during this period—they were unable to pay their hotel bill during the summer of 1870 and likely lived on the outskirts of London as a result of insufficient funds. An inheritance from his father, together with sales of his paintings, did, however, enable them to hire two servants and a gardener by 1872. Following the successful exhibition of some maritime paintings and the winning of a silver medal at Le Havre, Monet's paintings were seized by creditors, from whom they were bought back by a shipping merchant, Gaudibert, who was also a patron of Boudin.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "When Durand-Ruel's previous support of Monet and his peers began to decline, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, and Berthe Morisot exhibited their work independently; they did so under the name the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers for which Monet was a leading figure in its formation. He was inspired by the style and subject matter of his slightly older contemporaries, Pissarro and Édouard Manet. The group, whose title was chosen to avoid association with any style or movement, were unified in their independence from the Salon and rejection of the prevailing academicism. Monet gained a reputation as the foremost landscape painter of the group.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "At the first exhibition, in 1874, Monet displayed, among others, Impression, Sunrise, The Luncheon and Boulevard des Capucines. The art critic Louis Leroy wrote a hostile review. Taking particular notice of Impression, Sunrise (1872), a hazy depiction of Le Havre port and stylistic detour, he coined the term \"Impressionism\". Conservative critics and the public derided the group, with the term initially being ironic and denoting the painting as unfinished. More progressive critics praised the depiction of modern life—Louis Edmond Duranty called their style a \"revolution in painting\". He later regretted inspiring the name, as he believed that they were a group \"whose majority had nothing impressionist\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The total attendance is estimated at 3500. Monet priced Impression: Sunrise at 1000 francs but failed to sell it. The exhibition was open to anyone prepared to pay 60 francs and gave artists the opportunity to show their work without the interference of a jury. Another exhibition was held in 1876, again in opposition to the Salon. Monet displayed 18 paintings, including The Beach at Sainte-Adresse which showcased multiple Impressionist characteristics.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "For the third exhibition, on 5 April 1877, he selected seven paintings from the dozen he had made of Gare Saint-Lazare in the past three months, the first time he had \"synced as many paintings of the same site, carefully coordinating their scenes and temporalities\". The paintings were well received by critics, who especially praised the way he captured the arrival and departures of the trains. By the fourth exhibition his involvement was by means of negotiation on Caillebotte's part. His last time exhibiting with the Impressionists was in 1882—four years before the final Impressionist exhibition.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Morisot, Cézanne and Sisley proceeded to experiment with new methods of depicting reality. They rejected the dark, contrasting lighting of romantic and realist paintings, in favour of the pale tones of their peers' paintings such as those by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Boudin. After developing methods for painting transient effects, Monet would go on to seek more demanding subjects, new patrons and collectors; his paintings produced in the early 1870s left a lasting impact on the movement and his peers—many of whom moved to Argenteuil as a result of admiring his depiction.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1875, he returned to figure painting with Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, after effectively abandoning it with The Luncheon. His interest in the figure continued for the next four years—reaching its crest in 1877 and concluding altogether in 1890. In an \"unusually revealing\" letter to Théodore Duret, Monet discussed his revitalised interest: \"I am working like never before on a new endeavour figures in plein air, as I understand them. This is an old dream, one that has always obsessed me and that I would like to master once and for all. But it is all so difficult! I am working very hard, almost to the point of making myself ill\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 1876, Camille Monet became seriously ill. Their second son, Michel, was born in 1878, after which Camille's health deteriorated further. In the autumn of that year, they moved to the village of Vétheuil where they shared a house with the family of Ernest Hoschedé, a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts who had commissioned four paintings from Monet. In 1878, Camille was diagnosed with uterine cancer. She died the next year. Her death, alongside financial difficulties—once having to leave his house to avoid creditors—afflicted Monet's career; Hoschedé had recently purchased several paintings but soon went bankrupt, leaving for Paris in hopes of regaining his fortune, as interest in the Impressionists dwindled.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Monet made a study in oils of his late wife. Many years later, he confessed to his friend Georges Clemenceau that his need to analyse colours was both a joy and a torment to him. He explained: \"I one day found myself looking at my beloved wife's dead face and just systematically noting the colours according to an automatic reflex\". John Berger describes the work as \"a blizzard of white, grey, purplish paint ... a terrible blizzard of loss which will forever efface her features. In fact there can be very few death-bed paintings which have been so intensely felt or subjectively expressive.\"",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Monet's study of the Seine continued. He submitted two paintings to the Salon in 1880, one of which was accepted. He began to abandon Impressionist techniques as his paintings utilised darker tones and displayed environments, such as the Seine river, in harsh weather. For the rest of the decade, he focused on the elemental aspect of nature. His personal life influenced his distancing from the Impressionists. He returned to Étretat and expressed in letters to Alice Hoschedé—who he would marry in 1892, following her husband's death the preceding year—a desire to die. In 1881, he moved with Alice and her children to Poissy and again sold his paintings to Durand-Ruel. Alice's third daughter, Suzanne, would become Monet's \"preferred model\", after Camille.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In April 1883, looking out the window of the train between Vernon and Gasny, he discovered Giverny in Normandy. That same year his first major retrospective show was held.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Monet's struggles with creditors ended following prosperous trips; he went to Bordighera in 1884, and brought back 50 landscapes. He travelled to the Netherlands in 1886 to paint the tulips. He soon met and became friends with Gustave Geffroy, who published an article on Monet. Despite his qualms, Monet's paintings were sold in America and contributed towards his financial security. In contrast to the last two decades of his career, Monet favoured working alone—and felt that he was always better when he did, having regularly \"long[ed] for solitude, away from crowded tourist resorts and sophisticated urban settings\". Such a desire was recurrent in his letters to Alice.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 1883, Monet and his family rented a house and gardens in Giverny, which provided him domestic stability he had not yet enjoyed. The house was situated near the main road between the towns of Vernon and Gasny at Giverny. There was a barn that doubled as a painting studio, orchards and a small garden. The house was close enough to the local schools for the children to attend, and the surrounding landscape provided numerous natural areas for Monet to paint.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The family worked and built up the gardens, and Monet's fortunes began to change for the better as Durand-Ruel had increasing success in selling his paintings. The gardens were Monet's greatest source of inspiration for 40 years. In 1890, Monet purchased the house. During the 1890s, Monet built a greenhouse and a second studio, a spacious building well lit with skylights.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Monet wrote daily instructions to his gardener, precise designs and layouts for plantings, and invoices for his floral purchases and his collection of botany books. As Monet's wealth grew, his garden evolved. He remained its architect, even after he hired seven gardeners. Monet purchased additional land with a water meadow. White water lilies local to France were planted along with imported cultivars from South America and Egypt, resulting in a range of colours including yellow, blue and white lilies that turned pink with age. In 1902, he increased the size of his water garden by nearly 4000 square metres; the pond was enlarged in 1901 and 1910 with easels installed all around to allow different perspectives to be captured.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Dissatisfied with the limitations of Impressionism, Monet began to work on series of paintings displaying single subjects—haystacks, poplars and the Rouen Cathedral—to resolve his frustration. These series of paintings provided widespread critical and financial success; in 1898, 61 paintings were exhibited at the Petit gallery. He also begun a series of Mornings on the Seine, which portrayed the dawn hours of the river. In 1887 and 1889 he displayed a series of paintings of Belle Île to rave reviews by critics. Monet chose the location in the hope of finding a \"new aesthetic language that bypassed learned formulas, one that would be both true to nature and unique to him as an individual, not like anyone else.\"",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 1899, he began painting the water lilies that would occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life, being his last and \"most ambitious\" sequence of paintings. He had exhibited this first group of pictures of the garden, devoted primarily to his Japanese bridge, in 1900. He returned to London—now residing at the prestigious Savoy Hotel—in 1899 to produce a series that included 41 paintings of Waterloo bridge, 34 of Charing Cross bridge and 19 of the House of Parliament. Monet's final journey would be to Venice, with Alice in 1908.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Depictions of the water lilies, with alternating light and mirror-like reflections, became an integral part of his work. By the mid-1910s Monet had achieved \"a completely new, fluid, and somewhat audacious style of painting in which the water-lily pond became the point of departure for an almost abstract art\". Claude Roger-Marx noted in a review of Monet's successful 1909 exhibition of the first Water Lilies series that he had \"reached the ultimate degree of abstraction and imagination joined to the real\". This exhibition, entitled Waterlilies, a Series of Waterscape, consisted of 42 canvases, his \"largest and most unified series to date\". He would ultimately make over 250 paintings of the Waterlilies.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "At his house, Monet met with artists, writers, intellectuals and politicians from France, England, Japan and the United States. In the summer of 1887 he met John Singer Sargent whose experimentation with figure painting out of doors intrigued him; the pair went on to frequently influence each other.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Monet's second wife, Alice, died in 1911, and his oldest son, Jean, who had married Alice's daughter, Blanche, Monet's particular favourite, died in 1914. Their deaths left Monet depressed, as Blanche cared for him. It was during this time that Monet began to develop the first signs of possible cataracts. In 1913, Monet travelled to London to consult the German ophthalmologist Richard Liebreich. He was prescribed new glasses and rejected cataract surgery for the right eye. The next year, Monet, encouraged by Clemenceau, made plans to construct a new, large studio that he could use to create a \"decorative cycle of paintings devoted to the water garden\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In the following years, his perception of colour suffered; his broad strokes were broader and his paintings were increasingly darker. To achieve his desired outcome, he began to label his tubes of paint, kept a strict order on his palette and wore a straw hat to negate glare. He approached painting by formulating the ideas and features in his mind, taking the \"motif in large masses\" and transcribing them through memory and imagination. This was due to him being \"insensitive\" to the \"finer shades of tonalities and colors seen close up\".",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Monet's output decreased as he became withdrawn, although he did produce several panel paintings for the French Government, from 1914 to 1918 to great financial success and he would later create works for the state. His work on the \"cycle of paintings\" mostly occurred around 1916 to 1921. Cataract surgery was once again recommended, this time by Clemenceau. Monet—who was apprehensive, following Honoré Daumier and Mary Cassatt's botched surgeries—stated that he would rather have poor sight and perhaps abandon painting than forego \"a little of these things that I love\". In 1919, Monet began a series of landscape paintings, \"in full force\" although he was not pleased with the outcome. By October the weather caused Monet to cease plein air painting and the next month he sold four of the eleven Water Lilies paintings, despite his then-reluctance to relinquish his work. The series inspired praise from his peers; his later works were well received by dealers and collectors, and he received 200,000 francs from one collector.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "In 1922 a prescription of mydriatics provided short-lived relief. He eventually underwent cataract surgery in 1923. Persistent cyanopsia and aphakic spectacles proved to be a struggle. Now \"able to see the real colours\", he began to destroy canvases from his pre-operative period. Upon receiving tinted Zeiss lenses, Monet was laudatory, although his left eye soon had to be entirely covered by a black lens. By 1925, his visual impairment was improved and he began to retouch some of his pre-operative works, with bluer water lilies than before.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "During World War I, in which his younger son, Michel, served, Monet painted a Weeping Willow series as homage to the French fallen soldiers. He became deeply dedicated to the decorations of his garden during the war.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Monet has been described as \"the driving force behind Impressionism\". Crucial to the art of the Impressionist painters was the understanding of the effects of light on the local colour of objects, and the effects of the juxtaposition of colours with each other. His free flowing style and use of colour have been described as \"almost ethereal\" and the \"[epitome] of impressionist style\"; Impression, Sunrise is an example of the \"fundamental\" Impressionist principle of depicting only that which is purely visible. Monet was fascinated with the effects of light, and painting en plein air—he believed that his only \"merit lies in having painted directly in front of nature, seeking to render my impressions of the most fleeting effects\" Wanting to \"paint the air\", he often combined modern life subjects in outdoor light.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Monet made light the central focus of his paintings. To capture its variations, he would sometimes complete a painting in one sitting, often without preparation. He wished to demonstrate how light altered colour and perception of reality. His interest in light and reflection began in the late 1860s and lasted throughout his career. During his first time in London, he developed an admiration for the relationship between the artist and motifs—for what he deemed the \"envelope\". He utilised pencil drawings to quickly note subjects and motifs for future reference.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Monet's portrayal of landscapes emphasised industrial elements such as railways and factories; his early seascapes featured brooding nature depicted with muted colours and local residents. Critic, and friend of Monet, Théodore Duret noted, in 1874, that he was \"little attracted by rustic scenes...He [felt] particularly drawn towards nature when it is embellished and towards urban scenes and for preference he paint[ed] flowery gardens, parks and groves.\" When depicting figures and landscapes in tandem, Monet wished for the landscape to not be a mere backdrop and the figures not to be dominate the composition. His dedication to such a portrayal of landscapes resulted in Monet reprimanding Renoir for defying it. He often depicted the suburban and rural leisure activities of Paris and as a young artist experimented with still lifes. From the 1870s onwards, he gradually moved away from suburban and urban landscapes—when they were depicted it was to further his study of light. Contemporary critics—and later academics—felt that with his choice of showcasing Belle Île, he had indicated a desire to move away from the modern culture of Impressionist paintings and instead towards primitive nature.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "After meeting Boudin, Monet dedicated himself to searching for new and improved methods of painterly expression. To this end, as a young man, he visited the Salon and familiarised himself with the works of older painters, and made friends with other young artists. The five years that he spent at Argenteuil, spending much time on the River Seine in a little floating studio, were formative in his study of the effects of light and reflections. He began to think in terms of colours and shapes rather than scenes and objects. He used bright colours in dabs and dashes and squiggles of paint. Having rejected the academic teachings of Gleyre's studio, he freed himself from theory, saying \"I like to paint as a bird sings.\" Boudin, Daubigny, Jongkind, Courbet, and Corot were among Monet's influences and he would often work in accordance with developments in avant-garde art.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 1877 a series of paintings at St-Lazare Station had Monet looking at smoke and steam and the way that they affected colour and visibility, being sometimes opaque and sometimes translucent. He was to further use this study in the painting of the effects of mist and rain on the landscape. The study of the effects of atmosphere was to evolve into a number of series of paintings in which Monet repeatedly painted the same subject (such as his water lilies series) in different lights, at different hours of the day, and through the changes of weather and season. This process began in the 1880s and continued until the end of his life in 1926. In his later career, Monet \"transcended\" the Impressionist style and begun to push the boundaries of art.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Monet refined his palette in the 1870s, consciously minimising the use of darker tones and favouring pastel colours. This coincided with his softer approach, using smaller and more varied brush strokes. His palette would again undergo change in the 1880s, with more emphasis than before on harmony between warm and cold hues. Following his optical operation in 1923, Monet returned to his style from before a decade ago. He forwent garish colours or \"coarse application\" for emphasised colour schemes of blue and green. Whilst suffering from cataracts, his paintings were more broad and abstract—from the late 1880s onwards, he had simplified his compositions and sought subjects which could offer broad colour and tone. He increasingly used red and yellow tones, a trend that first started following his trip to Venice. Monet often travelled alone at this time—from France to Normandy to London; to the Rivera and Rouen—in search of new and more challenging subjects.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The stylistic change was likely a by-product of the disorder and not an intentional choice. Monet would often work on large canvases due to the deterioration of his eyesight and by 1920 he admitted that he had grown too accustomed to broad painting to return to small canvases. The influence of his cataracts on his output has been a topic of discussion among academics; Lane et al. (1997) argues the occurrence of a deterioration from the late 1860s onwards led to a diminishing of sharp lines. Gardens were a focus throughout his art, becoming prominent in his later work, especially during the last decade of his life. Daniel Wildenstein noted a \"seamless\" continuity in his paintings that was \"enriched by innovation\".",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "From the 1880s onwards—and particularly in the 1890s—Monet's series of paintings of specific subjects sought to document the different conditions of light and weather. As light and weather changed throughout the day, he switched between canvases—sometimes working on as many as eight at one time—usually spending an hour on each. In 1895, he exhibited 20 paintings of Rouen Cathedral, showcasing the façade in different conditions of light, weather and atmosphere. The paintings do not focus on the grand Medieval building, but on the play of light and shade across its surface, transforming the solid masonry. For this series, he experimented with creating his own frames.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "His first series exhibited was of haystacks, painted from different points of view and at different times of the day. Fifteen of the paintings were exhibited at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1891. In 1892 he produced twenty-six views of Rouen Cathedral. Between 1883 and 1908, Monet travelled to the Mediterranean, where he painted landmarks, landscapes, and seascapes, including a series of paintings in Venice. In London he painted four series: the Houses of Parliament, London, Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge, and Views of Westminster Bridge. Helen Gardner writes:",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Monet, with a scientific precision, has given us an unparalleled and unexcelled record of the passing of time as seen in the movement of light over identical forms.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Following his return from London, Monet painted mostly from nature, in his own garden; its water lilies, its pond and its bridge. From 22 November to 15 December 1900, another exhibition dedicated to him was held at the Durand-Ruel gallery, with around ten versions of the Water Lilies exhibited. This same exhibition was organized in February 1901 in New York City, where it was met with great success.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In 1901, Monet enlarged the pond of his home by buying a meadow located on the other side of the Ru, the local watercourse. He then divided his time between work on nature and work in his studio.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The canvases dedicated to the water lilies evolved with the changes made to his garden. In addition, around 1905, Monet gradually modified his aesthetics by abandoning the perimeter of the body of water and therefore modifying perspective. He also changed the shape and size of his canvases by moving from rectangular stretchers to square and then circular stretchers.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "These canvases were created with great difficulty: Monet spent a significant amount of time reworking them in order to find the perfect effects and impressions. When he deemed them unsuccessful he did not hesitate to destroy them. He continually postponed the Durand-Ruel exhibition until he was satisfied with the works. After several postponements dating back to 1906, the exhibition titled Les Nymphéas ended up opening on 6 May 1909. Comprising forty-eight paintings dating from 1903 to 1908, representing a series of landscapes and water lily scenes, this exhibition was once again a success.",
"title": "Method"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Monet died of lung cancer on 5 December 1926 at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery. Monet had insisted that the occasion be simple; thus, only about fifty people attended the ceremony. At his funeral, Clemenceau removed the black cloth draped over the coffin, stating: \"No black for Monet!\" and replaced it with a flower-patterned cloth. At the time of his death, Waterlilies was \"technically unfinished\".",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Monet's home, garden, and water lily pond were bequeathed by Michel to the French Academy of Fine Arts (part of the Institut de France) in 1966. Through the Fondation Claude Monet, the house and gardens were opened for visits in 1980, following restoration. In addition to souvenirs of Monet and other objects of his life, the house contains his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The house and garden, along with the Museum of Impressionism, are major attractions in Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world.",
"title": "Death"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Speaking of Monet's body of work, Wildenstein said that it is \"so extensive that its very ambition and diversity challenges our understanding of its importance\". His paintings produced at Giverny and under the influence of cataracts have been said to create a link between Impressionism and twentieth-century art and modern abstract art, respectively. His later works were a \"major\" inspiration to Objective abstraction. Ellsworth Kelly, following a formative experience at Giverny, paid homage to Monet's works created there with Tableau Vert (1952). Monet has been called an \"intermediary\" between tradition and modernism—his work has been examined in relation to postmodernism—and was an influence to Bazille, Sisley, Renoir and Pissarro. Monet is now the most famous of the Impressionists; as a result of his contributions to the movement, he \"exerted a huge influence on late 19th-century art\".",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In May 1927, 27 panel paintings were displayed in the Musée de l'Orangerie, following lengthy negotiations with the French government. Due to his later works being ignored by artists, art historians, critics and the public few attended the showing. In the 1950s, Monet's later works were \"rediscovered\" by the Abstract Expressionists, and those adjacent like Clement Greenberg, who used a similar canvases and held a disinterest in the blunt and ideological art of the war. A 1952 essay by André Masson helped change the perception of the paintings and inspire appreciation that begin to take shape in 1956–1957. The next year, a fire in the Museum of Modern Art would see the Water Lilies paintings acquired by them burn. The large scale nature of Monet's later paintings proved to be difficult for some museums, which resulted in them altering the framing.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In 1978, Monet's garden in Giverny—which had grown decrepit over fifty years—was restored and opened to the public. In 2004, London, the Parliament, Effects of Sun in the Fog (Londres, le Parlement, trouée de soleil dans le brouillard; 1904), sold for US$20.1 million. In 2006, the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society published a paper providing evidence that these were painted in situ at St Thomas' Hospital over the river Thames. In 1981, Ronald Pickvance noted that Monet's works after 1880 were increasingly receiving scholarly attention.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Falaises près de Dieppe (Cliffs Near Dieppe) has been stolen on two occasions: once in 1998 (in which the museum's curator was convicted of the theft and jailed for five years and two months along with two accomplices) and most recently in August 2007. It was recovered in June 2008.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "On 14 November 2001, a Google Doodle was made for Claude Monet's 161st birthday, depicting the Google logo in Monet's signature style. It was the first Google Doodle made for someone's birthday.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Monet's Le Pont du chemin de fer à Argenteuil, an 1873 painting of a railway bridge spanning the Seine near Paris, was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder for a record $41.4 million at Christie's auction in New York on 6 May 2008. The previous record for his painting stood at $36.5 million. A few weeks later, Le bassin aux nymphéas (from the water lilies series) sold at Christie's 24 June 2008 auction in London for £40,921,250 ($80,451,178), nearly doubling the record for the artist. This purchase represented one of the top 20 highest prices paid for a painting at the time.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In October 2013, Monet's paintings L'Eglise de Vétheuil and Le Bassin aux Nympheas became subjects of a legal case in New York against New York-based Vilma Bautista, one-time aide to Imelda Marcos, wife of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, after she sold Le Bassin aux Nympheas for $32 million to a Swiss buyer. The said Monet paintings, along with two others, were acquired by Imelda during her husband's presidency and allegedly bought using the nation's funds. Bautista's lawyer claimed that the aide sold the painting for Imelda but did not have a chance to give her the money. The Philippine government seeks the return of the painting. Le Bassin aux Nympheas, also known as Japanese Footbridge over the Water-Lily Pond at Giverny, is part of Monet's famed Water Lilies series.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Under the Nazi regime, both in Germany from 1933 and in German-occupied countries until 1945, Jewish art collectors of Monet were looted by Nazis and their agents. Several of the stolen artworks have been returned to their rightful owners, while others have been the object of court battles. In 2014, during the spectacular discovery of a hidden trove of art in Munich, a Monet that had belonged to a Jewish retail magnate was found in the suitcase of Cornelius Gurlitt, the son of one of Hitler's official art dealers of looted art, Hildebrand Gurlitt.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Examples of Nazi-looted Monet works include:",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Monet's Le Palais Ducal, and his 1880 work, Poppy Field near Vétheuil, formerly in the collection of Max Emden, have been the object of restitution claims. \"La Mare, Snow Effect\" (\"La Mare, effect de neige\") was the object of a settlement with the heirs of Richard Semmel.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] | Oscar-Claude Monet was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, exhibited in 1874 initiated by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon. Monet was raised in Le Havre, Normandy, and became interested in the outdoors and drawing from an early age. Although his mother, Louise-Justine Aubrée Monet, supported his ambitions to be a painter, his father, Claude-Adolphe, disapproved and wanted him to pursue a career in business. He was very close to his mother, but she died in January 1857 when he was sixteen years old, and he was sent to live with his childless, widowed but wealthy aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. He went on to study at the Académie Suisse, and under the academic history painter Charles Gleyre, where he was a classmate of Auguste Renoir. His early works include landscapes, seascapes, and portraits, but attracted little attention. A key early influence was Eugène Boudin who introduced him to the concept of plein air painting. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, also in northern France, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project, including a water-lily pond. Monet's ambition to document the French countryside led to a method of painting the same scene many times so as to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. Among the best-known examples are his series of haystacks (1890–1891), paintings of Rouen Cathedral (1892–1894), and the paintings of water lilies in his garden in Giverny that occupied him continuously for the last 20 years of his life. Frequently exhibited and successful during his lifetime, Monet's fame and popularity soared in the second half of the 20th century when he became one of the world's most famous painters and a source of inspiration for a burgeoning group of artists. | 2001-10-15T16:59:25Z | 2023-12-30T02:06:23Z | [
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6,555 | Carthage | Carthage (Arabic: قَرْطَاج, romanized: Qarṭāj) was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. It became the capital city of the civilisation of Ancient Carthage and later Roman Carthage.
The city developed from a Canaanite Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. The legendary Queen Elissa, Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. In the myth, Dido asked for land from a local tribe, which told her that she could get as much land as an oxhide could cover. She cut the oxhide into strips and laid out the perimeters of the new city. As Carthage prospered at home, the polity sent colonists abroad as well as magistrates to rule the colonies.
The ancient city was destroyed in the nearly-three year siege of Carthage by the Roman Republic during the Third Punic War in 146 BC. It was re-developed a century later as Roman Carthage, which became the major city of the Roman Empire in the province of Africa. The question of Carthaginian decline and demise has remained a subject of literary, political, artistic, and philosophical debates in both ancient and modern histories.
Late antique and medieval Carthage continued to play an important cultural and economic role in the Byzantine period. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire. It remained occupied during the Muslim period and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period when it was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade. The Hafsids decided to destroy its defenses so it could not be used as a base by a hostile power again. It also continued to function as an episcopal see.
The regional power had shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919. The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830, by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage. The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984. The site of the ruins is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The name Carthage (/ˈkɑːrθɪdʒ/ KAR-thij) is the Early Modern anglicisation of Middle French Carthage /kartaʒə/, from Latin Carthāgō and Karthāgō (cf. Greek Karkhēdōn (Καρχηδών) and Etruscan *Carθaza) from the Punic qrt-ḥdšt (𐤒𐤓𐤕 𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕) "new city", implying it was a "new Tyre". The Latin adjective pūnicus, meaning "Phoenician", is reflected in English in some borrowings from Latin – notably the Punic Wars and the Punic language.
The Modern Standard Arabic form Qarṭāj (قرطاج) is an adoption of French Carthage, replacing an older local toponym reported as Cartagenna that directly continued the Latin name.
Carthage was built on a promontory with sea inlets to the north and the south. The city's location made it master of the Mediterranean's maritime trade. All ships crossing the sea had to pass between Sicily and the coast of Tunisia, where Carthage was built, affording it great power and influence. Two large, artificial harbors were built within the city, one for harboring the city's prodigious navy of 220 warships and the other for mercantile trade. A walled tower overlooked both harbors. The city had massive walls, 37 km (23 mi) long, which was longer than the walls of comparable cities. Most of the walls were on the shore and so could be less impressive, as Carthaginian control of the sea made attack from that direction difficult. The 4.0 to 4.8 km (2.5 to 3 mi) of wall on the isthmus to the west were truly massive and were never penetrated.
Carthage was one of the largest cities of the Hellenistic period and was among the largest cities in preindustrial history. Whereas by AD 14, Rome had at least 750,000 inhabitants and in the following century may have reached 1 million, the cities of Alexandria and Antioch numbered only a few hundred thousand or less. According to the history of Herodian, Carthage rivaled Alexandria for second place in the Roman empire.
The Punic Carthage was divided into four equally sized residential areas with the same layout. The Punic had religious areas, market places, council house, towers, a theater, and a huge necropolis; roughly in the middle of the city stood a high citadel called the Byrsa. Surrounding Carthage were walls "of great strength" said in places to rise above 13 m, being nearly 10 m thick, according to ancient authors. To the west, three parallel walls were built. The walls altogether ran for about 33 kilometres (21 miles) to encircle the city. The heights of the Byrsa were additionally fortified; this area being the last to succumb to the Romans in 146 BC. Originally the Romans had landed their army on the strip of land extending southward from the city.
Outside the city walls of Carthage is the Chora or farm lands of Carthage. Chora encompassed a limited area: the north coastal tell, the lower Bagradas river valley (inland from Utica), Cape Bon, and the adjacent sahel on the east coast. Punic culture here achieved the introduction of agricultural sciences first developed for lands of the eastern Mediterranean, and their adaptation to local African conditions.
The urban landscape of Carthage is known in part from ancient authors, augmented by modern digs and surveys conducted by archeologists. The "first urban nucleus" dating to the seventh century, in area about 10 hectares (25 acres), was apparently located on low-lying lands along the coast (north of the later harbors). As confirmed by archaeological excavations, Carthage was a "creation ex nihilo", built on 'virgin' land, and situated at what was then the end of a peninsula. Here among "mud brick walls and beaten clay floors" (recently uncovered) were also found extensive cemeteries, which yielded evocative grave goods like clay masks. "Thanks to this burial archaeology we know more about archaic Carthage than about any other contemporary city in the western Mediterranean." Already in the eighth century, fabric dyeing operations had been established, evident from crushed shells of murex (from which the 'Phoenician purple' was derived). Nonetheless, only a "meager picture" of the cultural life of the earliest pioneers in the city can be conjectured, and not much about housing, monuments or defenses. The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) imagined early Carthage, when his legendary character Aeneas had arrived there:
"Aeneas found, where lately huts had been, marvelous buildings, gateways, cobbled ways, and din of wagons. There the Tyrians were hard at work: laying courses for walls, rolling up stones to build the citadel, while others picked out building sites and plowed a boundary furrow. Laws were being enacted, magistrates and a sacred senate chosen. Here men were dredging harbors, there they laid the deep foundations of a theatre, and quarried massive pillars... ."
The two inner harbors, named cothon in Punic, were located in the southeast; one being commercial, and the other for war. Their definite functions are not entirely known, probably for the construction, outfitting, or repair of ships, perhaps also loading and unloading cargo. Larger anchorages existed to the north and south of the city. North and west of the cothon were located several industrial areas, e.g., metalworking and pottery (e.g., for amphora), which could serve both inner harbors, and ships anchored to the south of the city.
About the Byrsa, the citadel area to the north, considering its importance our knowledge of it is patchy. Its prominent heights were the scene of fierce combat during the fiery destruction of the city in 146 BC. The Byrsa was the reported site of the Temple of Eshmun (the healing god), at the top of a stairway of sixty steps. A temple of Tanit (the city's queen goddess) was likely situated on the slope of the 'lesser Byrsa' immediately to the east, which runs down toward the sea. Also situated on the Byrsa were luxury homes.
South of the citadel, near the cothon was the tophet, a special and very old cemetery, which when begun lay outside the city's boundaries. Here the Salammbô was located, the Sanctuary of Tanit, not a temple but an enclosure for placing stone stelae. These were mostly short and upright, carved for funeral purposes. The presence of infant skeletons from here may indicate the occurrence of child sacrifice, as claimed in the Bible, although there has been considerable doubt among archeologists as to this interpretation and many consider it simply a cemetery devoted to infants. Probably the tophet burial fields were "dedicated at an early date, perhaps by the first settlers." Recent studies, on the other hand, indicate that child sacrifice was practiced by the Carthaginians.
Between the sea-filled cothon for shipping and the Byrsa heights lay the agora [Greek: "market"], the city-state's central marketplace for business and commerce. The agora was also an area of public squares and plazas, where the people might formally assemble, or gather for festivals. It was the site of religious shrines, and the location of whatever were the major municipal buildings of Carthage. Here beat the heart of civic life. In this district of Carthage, more probably, the ruling suffets presided, the council of elders convened, the tribunal of the 104 met, and justice was dispensed at trials in the open air.
Early residential districts wrapped around the Byrsa from the south to the north east. Houses usually were whitewashed and blank to the street, but within were courtyards open to the sky. In these neighborhoods multistory construction later became common, some up to six stories tall according to an ancient Greek author. Several architectural floorplans of homes have been revealed by recent excavations, as well as the general layout of several city blocks. Stone stairs were set in the streets, and drainage was planned, e.g., in the form of soakaways leaching into the sandy soil. Along the Byrsa's southern slope were located not only fine old homes, but also many of the earliest grave-sites, juxtaposed in small areas, interspersed with daily life.
Artisan workshops were located in the city at sites north and west of the harbors. The location of three metal workshops (implied from iron slag and other vestiges of such activity) were found adjacent to the naval and commercial harbors, and another two were further up the hill toward the Byrsa citadel. Sites of pottery kilns have been identified, between the agora and the harbors, and further north. Earthenware often used Greek models. A fuller's shop for preparing woolen cloth (shrink and thicken) was evidently situated further to the west and south, then by the edge of the city. Carthage also produced objects of rare refinement. During the 4th and 3rd centuries, the sculptures of the sarcophagi became works of art. "Bronze engraving and stone-carving reached their zenith."
The elevation of the land at the promontory on the seashore to the north-east (now called Sidi Bou Saïd), was twice as high above sea level as that at the Byrsa (100 m and 50 m). In between runs a ridge, several times reaching 50 m; it continues northwestward along the seashore, and forms the edge of a plateau-like area between the Byrsa and the sea. Newer urban developments lay here in these northern districts.
Due to the Roman's leveling of the city, the original Punic urban landscape of Carthage was largely lost. Since 1982, French archaeologist Serge Lancel excavated a residential area of the Punic Carthage on top of Byrsa hill near the Forum of the Roman Carthage. The neighborhood can be dated back to early second century BC, and with its houses, shops, and private spaces, is significant for what it reveals about daily life of the Punic Carthage.
The remains have been preserved under embankments, the substructures of the later Roman forum, whose foundation piles dot the district. The housing blocks are separated by a grid of straight streets about 6 m (20 ft) wide, with a roadway consisting of clay; in situ stairs compensate for the slope of the hill. Construction of this type presupposes organization and political will, and has inspired the name of the neighborhood, "Hannibal district", referring to the legendary Punic general or sufet (consul) at the beginning of the second century BC. The habitat is typical, even stereotypical. The street was often used as a storefront/shopfront; cisterns were installed in basements to collect water for domestic use, and a long corridor on the right side of each residence led to a courtyard containing a sump, around which various other elements may be found. In some places, the ground is covered with mosaics called punica pavement, sometimes using a characteristic red mortar.
Punic culture and agricultural sciences, after arriving at Carthage from the eastern Mediterranean, gradually adapted to the local conditions. The merchant harbor at Carthage was developed after settlement of the nearby Punic town of Utica, and eventually the surrounding African countryside was brought into the orbit of the Punic urban centers, first commercially, then politically. Direct management over cultivation of neighbouring lands by Punic owners followed. A 28-volume work on agriculture written in Punic by Mago, a retired army general (c. 300), was translated into Latin and later into Greek. The original and both translations have been lost; however, some of Mago's text has survived in other Latin works. Olive trees (e.g., grafting), fruit trees (pomegranate, almond, fig, date palm), viniculture, bees, cattle, sheep, poultry, implements, and farm management were among the ancient topics which Mago discussed. As well, Mago addresses the wine-maker's art (here a type of sherry).
In Punic farming society, according to Mago, the small estate owners were the chief producers. They were, two modern historians write, not absent landlords. Rather, the likely reader of Mago was "the master of a relatively modest estate, from which, by great personal exertion, he extracted the maximum yield." Mago counselled the rural landowner, for the sake of their own 'utilitarian' interests, to treat carefully and well their managers and farm workers, or their overseers and slaves. Yet elsewhere these writers suggest that rural land ownership provided also a new power base among the city's nobility, for those resident in their country villas. By many, farming was viewed as an alternative endeavour to an urban business. Another modern historian opines that more often it was the urban merchant of Carthage who owned rural farming land to some profit, and also to retire there during the heat of summer. It may seem that Mago anticipated such an opinion, and instead issued this contrary advice (as quoted by the Roman writer Columella):
The man who acquires an estate must sell his house, lest he prefer to live in the town rather than in the country. Anyone who prefers to live in a town has no need of an estate in the country." "One who has bought land should sell his town house, so that he will have no desire to worship the household gods of the city rather than those of the country; the man who takes greater delight in his city residence will have no need of a country estate.
The issues involved in rural land management also reveal underlying features of Punic society, its structure and stratification. The hired workers might be considered 'rural proletariat', drawn from the local Berbers. Whether there remained Berber landowners next to Punic-run farms is unclear. Some Berbers became sharecroppers. Slaves acquired for farm work were often prisoners of war. In lands outside Punic political control, independent Berbers cultivated grain and raised horses on their lands. Yet within the Punic domain that surrounded the city-state of Carthage, there were ethnic divisions in addition to the usual quasi feudal distinctions between lord and peasant, or master and serf. This inherent instability in the countryside drew the unwanted attention of potential invaders. Yet for long periods Carthage was able to manage these social difficulties.
The many amphorae with Punic markings subsequently found about ancient Mediterranean coastal settlements testify to Carthaginian trade in locally made olive oil and wine. Carthage's agricultural production was held in high regard by the ancients, and rivaled that of Rome – they were once competitors, e.g., over their olive harvests. Under Roman rule, however, grain production (wheat and barley) for export increased dramatically in 'Africa'; yet these later fell with the rise in Roman Egypt's grain exports. Thereafter olive groves and vineyards were re-established around Carthage. Visitors to the several growing regions that surrounded the city wrote admiringly of the lush green gardens, orchards, fields, irrigation channels, hedgerows (as boundaries), as well as the many prosperous farming towns located across the rural landscape.
Accordingly, the Greek author and compiler Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), who enjoyed access to ancient writings later lost, and on which he based most of his writings, described agricultural land near the city of Carthage c. 310 BC:
It was divided into market gardens and orchards of all sorts of fruit trees, with many streams of water flowing in channels irrigating every part. There were country homes everywhere, lavishly built and covered with stucco. ... Part of the land was planted with vines, part with olives and other productive trees. Beyond these, cattle and sheep were pastured on the plains, and there were meadows with grazing horses.
Greek cities contested with Carthage for the Western Mediterranean culminating in the Sicilian Wars and the Pyrrhic War over Sicily, while the Romans fought three wars against Carthage, known as the Punic Wars, from the Latin "Punic" meaning "Phoenician", as Carthage was a Phoenician colony grown into an empire.
The Carthaginian republic was one of the longest-lived and largest states in the ancient Mediterranean. Reports relay several wars with Syracuse and finally, Rome, which eventually resulted in the defeat and destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. The Carthaginians were Phoenician settlers originating in the Mediterranean coast of the Near East. They spoke Canaanite, a Semitic language, and followed a local variety of the ancient Canaanite religion, the Punic religion. The Carthaginians travelled widely across the seas and set up numerous colonies. Unlike Greek, Phoenician, and Tyrian colonizers who "only required colonies to pay due respect for their home-cities", Carthage is said to have "sent its own magistrates to govern overseas settlements".
The fall of Carthage came at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC at the Battle of Carthage. Despite initial devastating Roman naval losses and Hannibal's 15-year occupation of much of Roman Italy, who was on the brink of defeat but managed to recover, the end of the series of wars resulted in the end of Carthaginian power and the complete destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus. The Romans pulled the Phoenician warships out into the harbor and burned them before the city, and went from house to house, capturing and enslaving the people. About 50,000 Carthaginians were sold into slavery. The city was set ablaze and razed to the ground, leaving only ruins and rubble. After the fall of Carthage, Rome annexed the majority of the Carthaginian colonies, including other North African locations such as Volubilis, Lixus, Chellah. Today a "Carthaginian peace" can refer to any brutal peace treaty demanding total subjugation of the defeated side.
Since at least 1863, it has been claimed that Carthage was sown with salt after being razed, but there is no evidence for this.
When Carthage fell, its nearby rival Utica, a Roman ally, was made capital of the region and replaced Carthage as the leading center of Punic trade and leadership. It had the advantageous position of being situated on the outlet of the Medjerda River, Tunisia's only river that flowed all year long. However, grain cultivation in the Tunisian mountains caused large amounts of silt to erode into the river. This silt accumulated in the harbor until it became useless, and Rome was forced to rebuild Carthage.
By 122 BC, Gaius Gracchus founded a short-lived colony, called Colonia Iunonia, after the Latin name for the Punic goddess Tanit, Iuno Caelestis. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The Senate abolished the colony some time later, to undermine Gracchus' power.
After this ill-fated effort, a new city of Carthage was built on the same land by Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, and by the first century, it had grown to be the second-largest city in the western half of the Roman Empire, with a peak population of 500,000. It was the center of the province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the Empire. Among its major monuments was an amphitheater.
Carthage also became a center of early Christianity (see Carthage (episcopal see)). In the first of a string of rather poorly reported councils at Carthage a few years later, no fewer than 70 bishops attended. Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, against which Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing. At the Council of Carthage (397), the biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed. The Christians at Carthage conducted persecutions against the pagans, during which the pagan temples, notably the famous Temple of Juno Caelesti, were destroyed.
The Vandals under Gaiseric invaded Africa in 429. They relinquished the facade of their allied status to Rome and defeated the Roman general Bonifacius to seize Carthage, the once most treasured province of Rome. The 5th-century Roman bishop Victor Vitensis mentions in his Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provincia that the Vandals destroyed parts of Carthage, including various buildings and churches. Once in power, the ecclesiastical authorities were persecuted, the locals were aggressively taxed, and naval raids were routinely launched on Romans in the Mediterranean.
After a failed attempt to recapture the city in the fifth century, the Eastern Roman Empire finally subdued the Vandals in the Vandalic War in 533–534 and made Carthage capital of Byzantine North Africa. Thereafter, the city became the seat of the praetorian prefecture of Africa, which was made into an exarchate during the emperor Maurice's reign, as was Ravenna on the Italian Peninsula. These two exarchates were the western bulwarks of the Byzantine Empire, all that remained of its power in the West. In the early seventh century Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Carthage, overthrew the Byzantine emperor Phocas, whereupon his son Heraclius succeeded to the imperial throne.
The Roman Exarchate of Africa was not able to withstand the seventh-century Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. The Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 686 sent a force led by Zuhayr ibn Qays, who won a battle over the Romans and Berbers led by King Kusaila of the Kingdom of Altava on the plain of Kairouan, but he could not follow that up. In 695, Hassan ibn al-Nu'man captured Carthage and advanced into the Atlas Mountains. An imperial fleet arrived and retook Carthage, but in 698, Hasan ibn al-Nu'man returned and defeated Emperor Tiberios III at the 698 Battle of Carthage. Roman imperial forces withdrew from all of Africa except Ceuta. Fearing that the Byzantine Empire might reconquer it, they decided to destroy Roman Carthage in a scorched earth policy and establish their headquarters somewhere else. Its walls were torn down, the water supply from its aqueducts cut off, the agricultural land was ravaged and its harbors made unusable.
The destruction of the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to the Byzantine Empire's influence in the region.
It is clear from archaeological evidence that the town of Carthage continued to be occupied, as did the neighborhood of Bjordi Djedid. The Baths of Antoninus continued to function in the Arab period and the eleventh-century historian Al-Bakri stated that they were still in good condition at that time. They also had production centers nearby. It is difficult to determine whether the continued habitation of some other buildings belonged to Late Byzantine or Early Arab period. The Bir Ftouha church may have continued to remain in use although it is not clear when it became uninhabited. Constantine the African was born in Carthage.
The Medina of Tunis, originally a Berber settlement, was established as the new regional center under the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century. Under the Aghlabids, the people of Tunis revolted numerous times, but the city profited from economic improvements and quickly became the second most important in the kingdom. It was briefly the national capital, from the end of the reign of Ibrahim II in 902, until 909, when the Shi'ite Berbers took over Ifriqiya and founded the Fatimid Caliphate.
Carthage remained a residential see until the high medieval period, and is mentioned in two letters of Pope Leo IX dated 1053, written in reply to consultations regarding a conflict between the bishops of Carthage and Gummi. In each of the two letters, Pope Leo declares that, after the Bishop of Rome, the first archbishop and chief metropolitan of the whole of Africa is the bishop of Carthage. Later, an archbishop of Carthage named Cyriacus was imprisoned by the Arab rulers because of an accusation by some Christians. Pope Gregory VII wrote Cyriacus a letter of consolation, repeating the hopeful assurances of the primacy of the Church of Carthage, "whether the Church of Carthage should still lie desolate or rise again in glory". By 1076, Cyriacus was set free, but there was only one other bishop in the province. These are the last of whom there is mention in that period of the history of the see.
The fortress of Carthage was used by the Muslims until Hafsid era and was captured by the Crusaders during the Eighth Crusade. The inhabitants of Carthage were slaughtered by the Crusaders after they took it, and it was used as a base of operations against the Hafsids. After repelling them, Muhammad I al-Mustansir decided to raze Cathage's defenses in order to prevent a repeat.
Carthage is some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) east-northeast of Tunis; the settlements nearest to Carthage were the town of Sidi Bou Said to the north and the village of Le Kram to the south. Sidi Bou Said was a village which had grown around the tomb of the eponymous sufi saint (d. 1231), which had been developed into a town under Ottoman rule in the 18th century. Le Kram was developed in the late 19th century under French administration as a settlement close to the port of La Goulette.
In 1881, Tunisia became a French protectorate, and in the same year Charles Lavigerie, who was archbishop of Algiers, became apostolic administrator of the vicariate of Tunis. In the following year, Lavigerie became a cardinal. He "saw himself as the reviver of the ancient Christian Church of Africa, the Church of Cyprian of Carthage", and, on 10 November 1884, was successful in his great ambition of having the metropolitan see of Carthage restored, with himself as its first archbishop. In line with the declaration of Pope Leo IX in 1053, Pope Leo XIII acknowledged the revived Archdiocese of Carthage as the primatial see of Africa and Lavigerie as primate.
The Acropolium of Carthage (Saint Louis Cathedral of Carthage) was erected on Byrsa hill in 1884.
The Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe conducted a first survey of the topography of the archaeological site (published in 1833). Antiquarian interest was intensified following the publication of Flaubert's Salammbô in 1858. Charles Ernest Beulé performed some preliminary excavations of Roman remains on Byrsa hill in 1860. A more systematic survey of both Punic and Roman-era remains is due to Alfred Louis Delattre, who was sent to Tunis by cardinal Charles Lavigerie in 1875 on both an apostolic and an archaeological mission. Audollent (1901, p. 203) cites Delattre and Lavigerie to the effect that in the 1880s, locals still knew the area of the ancient city under the name of Cartagenna (i.e. reflecting the Latin n-stem Carthāgine).
Auguste Audollent divides the area of Roman Carthage into four quarters, Cartagenna, Dermèche, Byrsa and La Malga. Cartagenna and Dermèche correspond with the lower city, including the site of Punic Carthage; Byrsa is associated with the upper city, which in Punic times was a walled citadel above the harbour; and La Malga is linked with the more remote parts of the upper city in Roman times.
French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. René Dussaud identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice.
A temple at Amman (1400–1250 BC) excavated and reported upon by J.B. Hennessy in 1966, shows the possibility of bestial and human sacrifice by fire. While evidence of child sacrifice in Canaan was the object of academic disagreement, with some scholars arguing that merely children's cemeteries had been unearthed in Carthage, the mixture of children's with animal bones as well as associated epigraphic evidence involving mention of mlk led some to believe that, at least in Carthage, child sacrifice was indeed common practice. However, though the animals were surely sacrificed, this does not entirely indicate that the infants were, and in fact the bones indicate the opposite. Rather, the animal sacrifice was likely done to, in some way, honour the deceased.
A study conducted in 1970 by M. Chabeuf, the then Doctor of Science from the University of Paris, showed little difference between 17 modern Tunisians, and 68 Punic remains. An analysis the following year on 42 North-West African skulls dating back to Roman times concluded that they were overall similar to modern Berbers and other Mediterranean populations, especially eastern Iberians. They also noted the presence of one outlier in Tunisia who appears to have inherited mechtoid traits, which led them to hypothesize the persistence of such affinities well into the Punic and Roman era.
M. C. Chamla and D Ferembach (1988) in their entry dealing with the craniometric conclusions of Protohistorical Algerians and Punics in the region of Tunisia, found strong sexual dimorphism with male skulls being robust. Mediterranean elements were dominant, but Mechtoid features, as well as 'Negroid' traits were present in some of the samples. Overall, Punic burials showed affinities with Algerians, Roman Era skulls from Tarragona (Spain), Guanches, and to a lesser extent Abydos (XVIIIth dynasty), Etruscans, Bronze Age Syrians (Euphrates) and skulls from Lozere (France). The anthropological position of the Algerian and Punic people when it comes to populations of the Mediterranean Basin agreed quite well with the geographical situation.
Jehan Desanges stated that "In the Punic burial grounds, negroid remains were not rare and there were black auxiliaries in the Carthaginian army who were certainly not Nilotics".
In 1990, Shomarka Keita, a biological anthropologist, had conducted a craniometric study which featured a set of remains from Northern Africa. He examined a sample of 49 Maghreban crania which included skulls from pre-Roman Carthage and concluded that, although they were heterogeneous, many of them showed physical similarities to crania from equatorial Africa, ancient Egypt, and Kush. S.O.Y. Keita's report in 2018, found the pre-Roman Carthaginian series to be intermediate between the Phoenician and Maghrebian. He noted the findings are consistent with an interpretation that it reflects both local and Levantine ancestry due to specific interactions in the ancient period.
In 2016, an ancient Carthaginian individual, who was excavated from a Punic tomb in Byrsa Hill, was found to belong to the rare U5b2c1 maternal haplogroup. The Young Man of Byrsa specimen dates from the late 6th century BC, and his lineage is believed to represent early gene flow from Iberia to the Maghreb. Craniometric analysis of the young man indicated likely Mediterranean/European ancestry as opposed to African or Asian.
Due to its coastal location, Carthage Archeological Site is vulnerable to sea level rise. In 2022, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report included it in the list of African cultural sites which would be threatened by flooding and coastal erosion by the end of the century, but only if climate change followed RCP 8.5, which is the scenario of high and continually increasing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the warming of over 4 °C., and is no longer considered very likely. The other, more plausible scenarios result in lower warming levels and consequently lower sea level rise: yet, sea levels would continue to increase for about 10,000 years under all of them. Even if the warming is limited to 1.5 °C, global sea level rise is still expected to exceed 2–3 m (7–10 ft) after 2000 years (and higher warming levels will see larger increases by then), consequently exceeding 2100 levels of sea level rise under RCP 8.5 (~0.75 m (2 ft) with a range of 0.5–1 m (2–3 ft)) well before the year 4000. Thus, it is a matter of time before the Carthage Archeological Site is threatened by rising water levels, unless it can be protected by adaptation efforts such as sea walls.
The commune of Carthage was created by a decree of the Bey of Tunis on 15 June 1919, during the rule of Naceur Bey.
In 1920, the first seaplane base was built on the Lake of Tunis for the seaplanes of Compagnie Aéronavale. The Tunis Airfield opened in 1938, serving around 5,800 passengers annually on the Paris-Tunis route. During World War II, the airport was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force as a headquarters and command control base for the Italian Campaign of 1943. Construction on the Tunis-Carthage Airport, which was fully funded by France, began in 1944, and in 1948 the airport become the main hub for Tunisair.
In the 1950s the Lycée Français de Carthage was established to serve French families in Carthage. In 1961 it was given to the Tunisian government as part of the Independence of Tunisia, so the nearby Collège Maurice Cailloux in La Marsa, previously an annex of the Lycée Français de Carthage, was renamed to the Lycée Français de La Marsa and began serving the lycée level. It is currently the Lycée Gustave Flaubert.
After Tunisian independence in 1956, the Tunis conurbation gradually extended around the airport, and Carthage (قرطاج Qarṭāj) is now a suburb of Tunis, covering the area between Sidi Bou Said and Le Kram. Its population as of January 2013 was estimated at 21,276, mostly attracting the more wealthy residents. If Carthage is not the capital, it tends to be the political pole, a "place of emblematic power" according to Sophie Bessis, leaving to Tunis the economic and administrative roles. The Carthage Palace (the Tunisian presidential palace) is located in the coast.
The suburb has six train stations of the TGM line between Le Kram and Sidi Bou Said: Carthage Salammbo (named for the ancient children’s cemetery where it stands), Carthage Byrsa (named for Byrsa hill), Carthage Dermech (Dermèche), Carthage Hannibal (named for Hannibal), Carthage Présidence (named for the Presidential Palace) and Carthage Amilcar (named for Hamilcar).
The merchants of Carthage were in part heirs of the Mediterranean trade developed by Phoenicia, and so also heirs of the rivalry with Greek merchants. Business activity was accordingly both stimulated and challenged. Cyprus had been an early site of such commercial contests. The Phoenicians then had ventured into the western Mediterranean, founding trading posts, including Utica and Carthage. The Greeks followed, entering the western seas where the commercial rivalry continued. Eventually it would lead, especially in Sicily, to several centuries of intermittent war. Although Greek-made merchandise was generally considered superior in design, Carthage also produced trade goods in abundance. That Carthage came to function as a manufacturing colossus was shown during the Third Punic War with Rome. Carthage, which had previously disarmed, then was made to face the fatal Roman siege. The city "suddenly organised the manufacture of arms" with great skill and effectiveness. According to Strabo (63 BC – AD 21) in his Geographica:
[Carthage] each day produced one hundred and forty finished shields, three hundred swords, five hundred spears, and one thousand missiles for the catapults... . Furthermore, [Carthage although surrounded by the Romans] built one hundred and twenty decked ships in two months... for old timber had been stored away in readiness, and a large number of skilled workmen, maintained at public expense.
The textiles industry in Carthage probably started in private homes, but the existence of professional weavers indicates that a sort of factory system later developed. Products included embroidery, carpets, and use of the purple murex dye (for which the Carthaginian isle of Djerba was famous). Metalworkers developed specialized skills, i.e., making various weapons for the armed forces, as well as domestic articles, such as knives, forks, scissors, mirrors, and razors (all articles found in tombs). Artwork in metals included vases and lamps in bronze, also bowls, and plates. Other products came from such crafts as the potters, the glassmakers, and the goldsmiths. Inscriptions on votive stele indicate that many were not slaves but 'free citizens'.
Phoenician and Punic merchant ventures were often run as a family enterprise, putting to work its members and its subordinate clients. Such family-run businesses might perform a variety of tasks: own and maintain the ships, providing the captain and crew; do the negotiations overseas, either by barter or buying and selling, of their own manufactured commodities and trade goods, and native products (metals, foodstuffs, etc.) to carry and trade elsewhere; and send their agents to stay at distant outposts in order to make lasting local contacts, and later to establish a warehouse of shipped goods for exchange, and eventually perhaps a settlement. Over generations, such activity might result in the creation of a wide-ranging network of trading operations. Ancillary would be the growth of reciprocity between different family firms, foreign and domestic.
State protection was extended to its sea traders by the Phoenician city of Tyre and later likewise by the daughter city-state of Carthage. Stéphane Gsell, the well-regarded French historian of ancient North Africa, summarized the major principles guiding the civic rulers of Carthage with regard to its policies for trade and commerce:
Both the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians were well known in antiquity for their secrecy in general, and especially pertaining to commercial contacts and trade routes. Both cultures excelled in commercial dealings. Strabo (63 BC–AD 21) the Greek geographer wrote that before its fall (in 146 BC) Carthage enjoyed a population of 700,000, and directed an alliance of 300 cities. The Greek historian Polybius (c. 203–120) referred to Carthage as "the wealthiest city in the world".
A "suffet" (possibly two) was elected by the citizens, and held office with no military power for a one-year term. Carthaginian generals marshalled mercenary armies and were separately elected. From about 550 to 450 the Magonid family monopolized the top military position; later the Barcid family acted similarly. Eventually it came to be that, after a war, the commanding general had to testify justifying his actions before a court of 104 judges.
Aristotle (384–322) discusses Carthage in his work, Politica; he begins: "The Carthaginians are also considered to have an excellent form of government." He briefly describes the city as a "mixed constitution", a political arrangement with cohabiting elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, i.e., a king (Gk: basileus), a council of elders (Gk: gerusia), and the people (Gk: demos). Later Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 204–122, Greek) in his Histories would describe the Roman Republic in more detail as a mixed constitution in which the Consuls were the monarchy, the Senate the aristocracy, and the Assemblies the democracy.
Evidently Carthage also had an institution of elders who advised the Suffets, similar to a Greek gerusia or the Roman Senate. We do not have a Punic name for this body. At times its members would travel with an army general on campaign. Members also formed permanent committees. The institution had several hundred members drawn from the wealthiest class who held office for life. Vacancies were probably filled by recruitment from among the elite, i.e., by co-option. From among its members were selected the 104 Judges mentioned above. Later the 104 would come to evaluate not only army generals but other office holders as well. Aristotle regarded the 104 as most important; he compared it to the ephorate of Sparta with regard to control over security. In Hannibal's time, such a Judge held office for life. At some stage there also came to be independent self-perpetuating boards of five who filled vacancies and supervised (non-military) government administration.
Popular assemblies also existed at Carthage. When deadlocked the Suffets and the quasi-senatorial institution of elders might request the assembly to vote; also, assembly votes were requested in very crucial matters in order to achieve political consensus and popular coherence. The assembly members had no legal wealth or birth qualification. How its members were selected is unknown, e.g., whether by festival group or urban ward or another method.
The Greeks were favourably impressed by the constitution of Carthage; Aristotle had a separate study of it made which unfortunately is lost. In his Politica he states: "The government of Carthage is oligarchical, but they successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of the people after another by sending them to their colonies." "[T]heir policy is to send some [poorer citizens] to their dependent towns, where they grow rich." Yet Aristotle continues, "[I]f any misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted, there would be no way of restoring peace by legal means." Aristotle remarked also:
Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remain loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.
The city-state of Carthage, whose citizens were mainly Libyphoenicians (of Phoenician ancestry born in Africa), dominated and exploited an agricultural countryside composed mainly of native Berber sharecroppers and farmworkers, whose affiliations to Carthage were open to divergent possibilities. Beyond these more settled Berbers and the Punic farming towns and rural manors, lived the independent Berber tribes, who were mostly pastoralists.
In the brief, uneven review of government at Carthage found in his Politica Aristotle mentions several faults. Thus, "that the same person should hold many offices, which is a favorite practice among the Carthaginians." Aristotle disapproves, mentioning the flute-player and the shoemaker. Also, that "magistrates should be chosen not only for their merit but for their wealth." Aristotle's opinion is that focus on pursuit of wealth will lead to oligarchy and its evils.
[S]urely it is a bad thing that the greatest offices... should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For, whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honorable, the other citizens are sure to follow their example; and, where virtue has not the first place, their aristocracy cannot be firmly established.
In Carthage the people seemed politically satisfied and submissive, according to the historian Warmington. They in their assemblies only rarely exercised the few opportunities given them to assent to state decisions. Popular influence over government appears not to have been an issue at Carthage. Being a commercial republic fielding a mercenary army, the people were not conscripted for military service, an experience which can foster the feel for popular political action. But perhaps this misunderstands the society; perhaps the people, whose values were based on small-group loyalty, felt themselves sufficiently connected to their city's leadership by the very integrity of the person-to-person linkage within their social fabric. Carthage was very stable; there were few openings for tyrants. Only after defeat by Rome devastated Punic imperial ambitions did the people of Carthage seem to question their governance and to show interest in political reform.
In 196, following the Second Punic War (218–201), Hannibal, still greatly admired as a Barcid military leader, was elected suffet. When his reforms were blocked by a financial official about to become a judge for life, Hannibal rallied the populace against the 104 judges. He proposed a one-year term for the 104, as part of a major civic overhaul. Additionally, the reform included a restructuring of the city's revenues, and the fostering of trade and agriculture. The changes rather quickly resulted in a noticeable increase in prosperity. Yet his incorrigible political opponents cravenly went to Rome, to charge Hannibal with conspiracy, namely, plotting war against Rome in league with Antiochus the Hellenic ruler of Syria. Although the Roman Scipio Africanus resisted such manoeuvre, eventually intervention by Rome forced Hannibal to leave Carthage. Thus, corrupt city officials efficiently blocked Hannibal in his efforts to reform the government of Carthage.
Mago (6th century) was King of Carthage; the head of state, war leader, and religious figurehead. His family was considered to possess a sacred quality. Mago's office was somewhat similar to that of a pharaoh, but although kept in a family it was not hereditary, it was limited by legal consent. Picard, accordingly, believes that the council of elders and the popular assembly are late institutions. Carthage was founded by the king of Tyre who had a royal monopoly on this trading venture. Thus it was the royal authority stemming from this traditional source of power that the King of Carthage possessed. Later, as other Phoenician ship companies entered the trading region, and so associated with the city-state, the King of Carthage had to keep order among a rich variety of powerful merchants in their negotiations among themselves and over risky commerce across the Mediterranean. Under these circumstance, the office of king began to be transformed. Yet it was not until the aristocrats of Carthage became wealthy owners of agricultural lands in Africa that a council of elders was institutionalized at Carthage.
Most ancient literature concerning Carthage comes from Greek and Roman sources as Carthage's own documents were destroyed by the Romans. Apart from inscriptions, hardly any Punic literature has survived, and none in its own language and script. A brief catalogue would include:
"[F]rom the Greek author Plutarch [(c. 46 – c. 120)] we learn of the 'sacred books' in Punic safeguarded by the city's temples. Few Punic texts survive, however." Once "the City Archives, the Annals, and the scribal lists of Suffets" existed, but evidently these were destroyed in the horrific fires during the Roman capture of the city in 146 BC.
Yet some Punic books (Latin: libri punici) from the libraries of Carthage reportedly did survive the fires. These works were apparently given by Roman authorities to the newly augmented Berber rulers. Over a century after the fall of Carthage, the Roman politician-turned-author Gaius Sallustius Crispus or Sallust (86–34) reported his having seen volumes written in Punic, which books were said to be once possessed by the Berber king, Hiempsal II (r. 88–81). By way of Berber informants and Punic translators, Sallust had used these surviving books to write his brief sketch of Berber affairs.
Probably some of Hiempsal II's libri punici, that had escaped the fires that consumed Carthage in 146 BC, wound up later in the large royal library of his grandson Juba II (r. 25 BC–AD 24). Juba II not only was a Berber king, and husband of Cleopatra's daughter, but also a scholar and author in Greek of no less than nine works. He wrote for the Mediterranean-wide audience then enjoying classical literature. The libri punici inherited from his grandfather surely became useful to him when composing his Libyka, a work on North Africa written in Greek. Unfortunately, only fragments of Libyka survive, mostly from quotations made by other ancient authors. It may have been Juba II who 'discovered' the five-centuries-old 'log book' of Hanno the Navigator, called the Periplus, among library documents saved from fallen Carthage.
In the end, however, most Punic writings that survived the destruction of Carthage "did not escape the immense wreckage in which so many of Antiquity's literary works perished." Accordingly, the long and continuous interactions between Punic citizens of Carthage and the Berber communities that surrounded the city have no local historian. Their political arrangements and periodic crises, their economic and work life, the cultural ties and social relations established and nourished (infrequently as kin), are not known to us directly from ancient Punic authors in written accounts. Neither side has left us their stories about life in Punic-era Carthage.
Regarding Phoenician writings, few remain and these seldom refer to Carthage. The more ancient and most informative are cuneiform tablets, c. 1600–1185, from ancient Ugarit, located to the north of Phoenicia on the Syrian coast; it was a Canaanite city politically affiliated with the Hittites. The clay tablets tell of myths, epics, rituals, medical and administrative matters, and also correspondence. The highly valued works of Sanchuniathon, an ancient priest of Beirut, who reportedly wrote on Phoenician religion and the origins of civilization, are themselves completely lost, but some little content endures twice removed. Sanchuniathon was said to have lived in the 11th century, which is considered doubtful. Much later a Phoenician History by Philo of Byblos (64–141) reportedly existed, written in Greek, but only fragments of this work survive. An explanation proffered for why so few Phoenician works endured: early on (11th century) archives and records began to be kept on papyrus, which does not long survive in a moist coastal climate. Also, both Phoenicians and Carthaginians were well known for their secrecy.
Thus, of their ancient writings we have little of major interest left to us by Carthage, or by Phoenicia the country of origin of the city founders. "Of the various Phoenician and Punic compositions alluded to by the ancient classical authors, not a single work or even fragment has survived in its original idiom." "Indeed, not a single Phoenician manuscript has survived in the original [language] or in translation." We cannot therefore access directly the line of thought or the contour of their worldview as expressed in their own words, in their own voice. Ironically, it was the Phoenicians who "invented or at least perfected and transmitted a form of writing [the alphabet] that has influenced dozens of cultures including our own."
As noted, the celebrated ancient books on agriculture written by Mago of Carthage survives only via quotations in Latin from several later Roman works.
The scant remains of what was once a great city are reflected upon in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration, Carthage, to an engraving of a painting by J. Salmon, published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837 with quotes from Sir Grenville Temple's Journal.
The protagonist in Isaac Asimov's 1956 science-fiction short story "The Dead Past" is an academic professor obsessed with debunking historical perceptions of Carthage. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Carthage (Arabic: قَرْطَاج, romanized: Qarṭāj) was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. It became the capital city of the civilisation of Ancient Carthage and later Roman Carthage.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The city developed from a Canaanite Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. The legendary Queen Elissa, Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. In the myth, Dido asked for land from a local tribe, which told her that she could get as much land as an oxhide could cover. She cut the oxhide into strips and laid out the perimeters of the new city. As Carthage prospered at home, the polity sent colonists abroad as well as magistrates to rule the colonies.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The ancient city was destroyed in the nearly-three year siege of Carthage by the Roman Republic during the Third Punic War in 146 BC. It was re-developed a century later as Roman Carthage, which became the major city of the Roman Empire in the province of Africa. The question of Carthaginian decline and demise has remained a subject of literary, political, artistic, and philosophical debates in both ancient and modern histories.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Late antique and medieval Carthage continued to play an important cultural and economic role in the Byzantine period. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire. It remained occupied during the Muslim period and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period when it was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade. The Hafsids decided to destroy its defenses so it could not be used as a base by a hostile power again. It also continued to function as an episcopal see.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The regional power had shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919. The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830, by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage. The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984. The site of the ruins is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The name Carthage (/ˈkɑːrθɪdʒ/ KAR-thij) is the Early Modern anglicisation of Middle French Carthage /kartaʒə/, from Latin Carthāgō and Karthāgō (cf. Greek Karkhēdōn (Καρχηδών) and Etruscan *Carθaza) from the Punic qrt-ḥdšt (𐤒𐤓𐤕 𐤇𐤃𐤔𐤕) \"new city\", implying it was a \"new Tyre\". The Latin adjective pūnicus, meaning \"Phoenician\", is reflected in English in some borrowings from Latin – notably the Punic Wars and the Punic language.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Modern Standard Arabic form Qarṭāj (قرطاج) is an adoption of French Carthage, replacing an older local toponym reported as Cartagenna that directly continued the Latin name.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Carthage was built on a promontory with sea inlets to the north and the south. The city's location made it master of the Mediterranean's maritime trade. All ships crossing the sea had to pass between Sicily and the coast of Tunisia, where Carthage was built, affording it great power and influence. Two large, artificial harbors were built within the city, one for harboring the city's prodigious navy of 220 warships and the other for mercantile trade. A walled tower overlooked both harbors. The city had massive walls, 37 km (23 mi) long, which was longer than the walls of comparable cities. Most of the walls were on the shore and so could be less impressive, as Carthaginian control of the sea made attack from that direction difficult. The 4.0 to 4.8 km (2.5 to 3 mi) of wall on the isthmus to the west were truly massive and were never penetrated.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Carthage was one of the largest cities of the Hellenistic period and was among the largest cities in preindustrial history. Whereas by AD 14, Rome had at least 750,000 inhabitants and in the following century may have reached 1 million, the cities of Alexandria and Antioch numbered only a few hundred thousand or less. According to the history of Herodian, Carthage rivaled Alexandria for second place in the Roman empire.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Punic Carthage was divided into four equally sized residential areas with the same layout. The Punic had religious areas, market places, council house, towers, a theater, and a huge necropolis; roughly in the middle of the city stood a high citadel called the Byrsa. Surrounding Carthage were walls \"of great strength\" said in places to rise above 13 m, being nearly 10 m thick, according to ancient authors. To the west, three parallel walls were built. The walls altogether ran for about 33 kilometres (21 miles) to encircle the city. The heights of the Byrsa were additionally fortified; this area being the last to succumb to the Romans in 146 BC. Originally the Romans had landed their army on the strip of land extending southward from the city.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Outside the city walls of Carthage is the Chora or farm lands of Carthage. Chora encompassed a limited area: the north coastal tell, the lower Bagradas river valley (inland from Utica), Cape Bon, and the adjacent sahel on the east coast. Punic culture here achieved the introduction of agricultural sciences first developed for lands of the eastern Mediterranean, and their adaptation to local African conditions.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The urban landscape of Carthage is known in part from ancient authors, augmented by modern digs and surveys conducted by archeologists. The \"first urban nucleus\" dating to the seventh century, in area about 10 hectares (25 acres), was apparently located on low-lying lands along the coast (north of the later harbors). As confirmed by archaeological excavations, Carthage was a \"creation ex nihilo\", built on 'virgin' land, and situated at what was then the end of a peninsula. Here among \"mud brick walls and beaten clay floors\" (recently uncovered) were also found extensive cemeteries, which yielded evocative grave goods like clay masks. \"Thanks to this burial archaeology we know more about archaic Carthage than about any other contemporary city in the western Mediterranean.\" Already in the eighth century, fabric dyeing operations had been established, evident from crushed shells of murex (from which the 'Phoenician purple' was derived). Nonetheless, only a \"meager picture\" of the cultural life of the earliest pioneers in the city can be conjectured, and not much about housing, monuments or defenses. The Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC) imagined early Carthage, when his legendary character Aeneas had arrived there:",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "\"Aeneas found, where lately huts had been, marvelous buildings, gateways, cobbled ways, and din of wagons. There the Tyrians were hard at work: laying courses for walls, rolling up stones to build the citadel, while others picked out building sites and plowed a boundary furrow. Laws were being enacted, magistrates and a sacred senate chosen. Here men were dredging harbors, there they laid the deep foundations of a theatre, and quarried massive pillars... .\"",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The two inner harbors, named cothon in Punic, were located in the southeast; one being commercial, and the other for war. Their definite functions are not entirely known, probably for the construction, outfitting, or repair of ships, perhaps also loading and unloading cargo. Larger anchorages existed to the north and south of the city. North and west of the cothon were located several industrial areas, e.g., metalworking and pottery (e.g., for amphora), which could serve both inner harbors, and ships anchored to the south of the city.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "About the Byrsa, the citadel area to the north, considering its importance our knowledge of it is patchy. Its prominent heights were the scene of fierce combat during the fiery destruction of the city in 146 BC. The Byrsa was the reported site of the Temple of Eshmun (the healing god), at the top of a stairway of sixty steps. A temple of Tanit (the city's queen goddess) was likely situated on the slope of the 'lesser Byrsa' immediately to the east, which runs down toward the sea. Also situated on the Byrsa were luxury homes.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "South of the citadel, near the cothon was the tophet, a special and very old cemetery, which when begun lay outside the city's boundaries. Here the Salammbô was located, the Sanctuary of Tanit, not a temple but an enclosure for placing stone stelae. These were mostly short and upright, carved for funeral purposes. The presence of infant skeletons from here may indicate the occurrence of child sacrifice, as claimed in the Bible, although there has been considerable doubt among archeologists as to this interpretation and many consider it simply a cemetery devoted to infants. Probably the tophet burial fields were \"dedicated at an early date, perhaps by the first settlers.\" Recent studies, on the other hand, indicate that child sacrifice was practiced by the Carthaginians.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Between the sea-filled cothon for shipping and the Byrsa heights lay the agora [Greek: \"market\"], the city-state's central marketplace for business and commerce. The agora was also an area of public squares and plazas, where the people might formally assemble, or gather for festivals. It was the site of religious shrines, and the location of whatever were the major municipal buildings of Carthage. Here beat the heart of civic life. In this district of Carthage, more probably, the ruling suffets presided, the council of elders convened, the tribunal of the 104 met, and justice was dispensed at trials in the open air.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Early residential districts wrapped around the Byrsa from the south to the north east. Houses usually were whitewashed and blank to the street, but within were courtyards open to the sky. In these neighborhoods multistory construction later became common, some up to six stories tall according to an ancient Greek author. Several architectural floorplans of homes have been revealed by recent excavations, as well as the general layout of several city blocks. Stone stairs were set in the streets, and drainage was planned, e.g., in the form of soakaways leaching into the sandy soil. Along the Byrsa's southern slope were located not only fine old homes, but also many of the earliest grave-sites, juxtaposed in small areas, interspersed with daily life.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Artisan workshops were located in the city at sites north and west of the harbors. The location of three metal workshops (implied from iron slag and other vestiges of such activity) were found adjacent to the naval and commercial harbors, and another two were further up the hill toward the Byrsa citadel. Sites of pottery kilns have been identified, between the agora and the harbors, and further north. Earthenware often used Greek models. A fuller's shop for preparing woolen cloth (shrink and thicken) was evidently situated further to the west and south, then by the edge of the city. Carthage also produced objects of rare refinement. During the 4th and 3rd centuries, the sculptures of the sarcophagi became works of art. \"Bronze engraving and stone-carving reached their zenith.\"",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The elevation of the land at the promontory on the seashore to the north-east (now called Sidi Bou Saïd), was twice as high above sea level as that at the Byrsa (100 m and 50 m). In between runs a ridge, several times reaching 50 m; it continues northwestward along the seashore, and forms the edge of a plateau-like area between the Byrsa and the sea. Newer urban developments lay here in these northern districts.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Due to the Roman's leveling of the city, the original Punic urban landscape of Carthage was largely lost. Since 1982, French archaeologist Serge Lancel excavated a residential area of the Punic Carthage on top of Byrsa hill near the Forum of the Roman Carthage. The neighborhood can be dated back to early second century BC, and with its houses, shops, and private spaces, is significant for what it reveals about daily life of the Punic Carthage.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The remains have been preserved under embankments, the substructures of the later Roman forum, whose foundation piles dot the district. The housing blocks are separated by a grid of straight streets about 6 m (20 ft) wide, with a roadway consisting of clay; in situ stairs compensate for the slope of the hill. Construction of this type presupposes organization and political will, and has inspired the name of the neighborhood, \"Hannibal district\", referring to the legendary Punic general or sufet (consul) at the beginning of the second century BC. The habitat is typical, even stereotypical. The street was often used as a storefront/shopfront; cisterns were installed in basements to collect water for domestic use, and a long corridor on the right side of each residence led to a courtyard containing a sump, around which various other elements may be found. In some places, the ground is covered with mosaics called punica pavement, sometimes using a characteristic red mortar.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Punic culture and agricultural sciences, after arriving at Carthage from the eastern Mediterranean, gradually adapted to the local conditions. The merchant harbor at Carthage was developed after settlement of the nearby Punic town of Utica, and eventually the surrounding African countryside was brought into the orbit of the Punic urban centers, first commercially, then politically. Direct management over cultivation of neighbouring lands by Punic owners followed. A 28-volume work on agriculture written in Punic by Mago, a retired army general (c. 300), was translated into Latin and later into Greek. The original and both translations have been lost; however, some of Mago's text has survived in other Latin works. Olive trees (e.g., grafting), fruit trees (pomegranate, almond, fig, date palm), viniculture, bees, cattle, sheep, poultry, implements, and farm management were among the ancient topics which Mago discussed. As well, Mago addresses the wine-maker's art (here a type of sherry).",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In Punic farming society, according to Mago, the small estate owners were the chief producers. They were, two modern historians write, not absent landlords. Rather, the likely reader of Mago was \"the master of a relatively modest estate, from which, by great personal exertion, he extracted the maximum yield.\" Mago counselled the rural landowner, for the sake of their own 'utilitarian' interests, to treat carefully and well their managers and farm workers, or their overseers and slaves. Yet elsewhere these writers suggest that rural land ownership provided also a new power base among the city's nobility, for those resident in their country villas. By many, farming was viewed as an alternative endeavour to an urban business. Another modern historian opines that more often it was the urban merchant of Carthage who owned rural farming land to some profit, and also to retire there during the heat of summer. It may seem that Mago anticipated such an opinion, and instead issued this contrary advice (as quoted by the Roman writer Columella):",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The man who acquires an estate must sell his house, lest he prefer to live in the town rather than in the country. Anyone who prefers to live in a town has no need of an estate in the country.\" \"One who has bought land should sell his town house, so that he will have no desire to worship the household gods of the city rather than those of the country; the man who takes greater delight in his city residence will have no need of a country estate.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The issues involved in rural land management also reveal underlying features of Punic society, its structure and stratification. The hired workers might be considered 'rural proletariat', drawn from the local Berbers. Whether there remained Berber landowners next to Punic-run farms is unclear. Some Berbers became sharecroppers. Slaves acquired for farm work were often prisoners of war. In lands outside Punic political control, independent Berbers cultivated grain and raised horses on their lands. Yet within the Punic domain that surrounded the city-state of Carthage, there were ethnic divisions in addition to the usual quasi feudal distinctions between lord and peasant, or master and serf. This inherent instability in the countryside drew the unwanted attention of potential invaders. Yet for long periods Carthage was able to manage these social difficulties.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The many amphorae with Punic markings subsequently found about ancient Mediterranean coastal settlements testify to Carthaginian trade in locally made olive oil and wine. Carthage's agricultural production was held in high regard by the ancients, and rivaled that of Rome – they were once competitors, e.g., over their olive harvests. Under Roman rule, however, grain production (wheat and barley) for export increased dramatically in 'Africa'; yet these later fell with the rise in Roman Egypt's grain exports. Thereafter olive groves and vineyards were re-established around Carthage. Visitors to the several growing regions that surrounded the city wrote admiringly of the lush green gardens, orchards, fields, irrigation channels, hedgerows (as boundaries), as well as the many prosperous farming towns located across the rural landscape.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Accordingly, the Greek author and compiler Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC), who enjoyed access to ancient writings later lost, and on which he based most of his writings, described agricultural land near the city of Carthage c. 310 BC:",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "It was divided into market gardens and orchards of all sorts of fruit trees, with many streams of water flowing in channels irrigating every part. There were country homes everywhere, lavishly built and covered with stucco. ... Part of the land was planted with vines, part with olives and other productive trees. Beyond these, cattle and sheep were pastured on the plains, and there were meadows with grazing horses.",
"title": "Topography, layout, and society"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Greek cities contested with Carthage for the Western Mediterranean culminating in the Sicilian Wars and the Pyrrhic War over Sicily, while the Romans fought three wars against Carthage, known as the Punic Wars, from the Latin \"Punic\" meaning \"Phoenician\", as Carthage was a Phoenician colony grown into an empire.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Carthaginian republic was one of the longest-lived and largest states in the ancient Mediterranean. Reports relay several wars with Syracuse and finally, Rome, which eventually resulted in the defeat and destruction of Carthage in the Third Punic War. The Carthaginians were Phoenician settlers originating in the Mediterranean coast of the Near East. They spoke Canaanite, a Semitic language, and followed a local variety of the ancient Canaanite religion, the Punic religion. The Carthaginians travelled widely across the seas and set up numerous colonies. Unlike Greek, Phoenician, and Tyrian colonizers who \"only required colonies to pay due respect for their home-cities\", Carthage is said to have \"sent its own magistrates to govern overseas settlements\".",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The fall of Carthage came at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC at the Battle of Carthage. Despite initial devastating Roman naval losses and Hannibal's 15-year occupation of much of Roman Italy, who was on the brink of defeat but managed to recover, the end of the series of wars resulted in the end of Carthaginian power and the complete destruction of the city by Scipio Aemilianus. The Romans pulled the Phoenician warships out into the harbor and burned them before the city, and went from house to house, capturing and enslaving the people. About 50,000 Carthaginians were sold into slavery. The city was set ablaze and razed to the ground, leaving only ruins and rubble. After the fall of Carthage, Rome annexed the majority of the Carthaginian colonies, including other North African locations such as Volubilis, Lixus, Chellah. Today a \"Carthaginian peace\" can refer to any brutal peace treaty demanding total subjugation of the defeated side.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Since at least 1863, it has been claimed that Carthage was sown with salt after being razed, but there is no evidence for this.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "When Carthage fell, its nearby rival Utica, a Roman ally, was made capital of the region and replaced Carthage as the leading center of Punic trade and leadership. It had the advantageous position of being situated on the outlet of the Medjerda River, Tunisia's only river that flowed all year long. However, grain cultivation in the Tunisian mountains caused large amounts of silt to erode into the river. This silt accumulated in the harbor until it became useless, and Rome was forced to rebuild Carthage.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "By 122 BC, Gaius Gracchus founded a short-lived colony, called Colonia Iunonia, after the Latin name for the Punic goddess Tanit, Iuno Caelestis. The purpose was to obtain arable lands for impoverished farmers. The Senate abolished the colony some time later, to undermine Gracchus' power.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "After this ill-fated effort, a new city of Carthage was built on the same land by Julius Caesar in the period from 49 to 44 BC, and by the first century, it had grown to be the second-largest city in the western half of the Roman Empire, with a peak population of 500,000. It was the center of the province of Africa, which was a major breadbasket of the Empire. Among its major monuments was an amphitheater.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Carthage also became a center of early Christianity (see Carthage (episcopal see)). In the first of a string of rather poorly reported councils at Carthage a few years later, no fewer than 70 bishops attended. Tertullian later broke with the mainstream that was increasingly represented in the West by the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, but a more serious rift among Christians was the Donatist controversy, against which Augustine of Hippo spent much time and parchment arguing. At the Council of Carthage (397), the biblical canon for the western Church was confirmed. The Christians at Carthage conducted persecutions against the pagans, during which the pagan temples, notably the famous Temple of Juno Caelesti, were destroyed.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The Vandals under Gaiseric invaded Africa in 429. They relinquished the facade of their allied status to Rome and defeated the Roman general Bonifacius to seize Carthage, the once most treasured province of Rome. The 5th-century Roman bishop Victor Vitensis mentions in his Historia Persecutionis Africanae Provincia that the Vandals destroyed parts of Carthage, including various buildings and churches. Once in power, the ecclesiastical authorities were persecuted, the locals were aggressively taxed, and naval raids were routinely launched on Romans in the Mediterranean.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "After a failed attempt to recapture the city in the fifth century, the Eastern Roman Empire finally subdued the Vandals in the Vandalic War in 533–534 and made Carthage capital of Byzantine North Africa. Thereafter, the city became the seat of the praetorian prefecture of Africa, which was made into an exarchate during the emperor Maurice's reign, as was Ravenna on the Italian Peninsula. These two exarchates were the western bulwarks of the Byzantine Empire, all that remained of its power in the West. In the early seventh century Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Carthage, overthrew the Byzantine emperor Phocas, whereupon his son Heraclius succeeded to the imperial throne.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Roman Exarchate of Africa was not able to withstand the seventh-century Muslim conquest of the Maghreb. The Umayyad Caliphate under Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan in 686 sent a force led by Zuhayr ibn Qays, who won a battle over the Romans and Berbers led by King Kusaila of the Kingdom of Altava on the plain of Kairouan, but he could not follow that up. In 695, Hassan ibn al-Nu'man captured Carthage and advanced into the Atlas Mountains. An imperial fleet arrived and retook Carthage, but in 698, Hasan ibn al-Nu'man returned and defeated Emperor Tiberios III at the 698 Battle of Carthage. Roman imperial forces withdrew from all of Africa except Ceuta. Fearing that the Byzantine Empire might reconquer it, they decided to destroy Roman Carthage in a scorched earth policy and establish their headquarters somewhere else. Its walls were torn down, the water supply from its aqueducts cut off, the agricultural land was ravaged and its harbors made unusable.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The destruction of the Exarchate of Africa marked a permanent end to the Byzantine Empire's influence in the region.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "It is clear from archaeological evidence that the town of Carthage continued to be occupied, as did the neighborhood of Bjordi Djedid. The Baths of Antoninus continued to function in the Arab period and the eleventh-century historian Al-Bakri stated that they were still in good condition at that time. They also had production centers nearby. It is difficult to determine whether the continued habitation of some other buildings belonged to Late Byzantine or Early Arab period. The Bir Ftouha church may have continued to remain in use although it is not clear when it became uninhabited. Constantine the African was born in Carthage.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Medina of Tunis, originally a Berber settlement, was established as the new regional center under the Umayyad Caliphate in the early 8th century. Under the Aghlabids, the people of Tunis revolted numerous times, but the city profited from economic improvements and quickly became the second most important in the kingdom. It was briefly the national capital, from the end of the reign of Ibrahim II in 902, until 909, when the Shi'ite Berbers took over Ifriqiya and founded the Fatimid Caliphate.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Carthage remained a residential see until the high medieval period, and is mentioned in two letters of Pope Leo IX dated 1053, written in reply to consultations regarding a conflict between the bishops of Carthage and Gummi. In each of the two letters, Pope Leo declares that, after the Bishop of Rome, the first archbishop and chief metropolitan of the whole of Africa is the bishop of Carthage. Later, an archbishop of Carthage named Cyriacus was imprisoned by the Arab rulers because of an accusation by some Christians. Pope Gregory VII wrote Cyriacus a letter of consolation, repeating the hopeful assurances of the primacy of the Church of Carthage, \"whether the Church of Carthage should still lie desolate or rise again in glory\". By 1076, Cyriacus was set free, but there was only one other bishop in the province. These are the last of whom there is mention in that period of the history of the see.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The fortress of Carthage was used by the Muslims until Hafsid era and was captured by the Crusaders during the Eighth Crusade. The inhabitants of Carthage were slaughtered by the Crusaders after they took it, and it was used as a base of operations against the Hafsids. After repelling them, Muhammad I al-Mustansir decided to raze Cathage's defenses in order to prevent a repeat.",
"title": "Ancient history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Carthage is some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) east-northeast of Tunis; the settlements nearest to Carthage were the town of Sidi Bou Said to the north and the village of Le Kram to the south. Sidi Bou Said was a village which had grown around the tomb of the eponymous sufi saint (d. 1231), which had been developed into a town under Ottoman rule in the 18th century. Le Kram was developed in the late 19th century under French administration as a settlement close to the port of La Goulette.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "In 1881, Tunisia became a French protectorate, and in the same year Charles Lavigerie, who was archbishop of Algiers, became apostolic administrator of the vicariate of Tunis. In the following year, Lavigerie became a cardinal. He \"saw himself as the reviver of the ancient Christian Church of Africa, the Church of Cyprian of Carthage\", and, on 10 November 1884, was successful in his great ambition of having the metropolitan see of Carthage restored, with himself as its first archbishop. In line with the declaration of Pope Leo IX in 1053, Pope Leo XIII acknowledged the revived Archdiocese of Carthage as the primatial see of Africa and Lavigerie as primate.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The Acropolium of Carthage (Saint Louis Cathedral of Carthage) was erected on Byrsa hill in 1884.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe conducted a first survey of the topography of the archaeological site (published in 1833). Antiquarian interest was intensified following the publication of Flaubert's Salammbô in 1858. Charles Ernest Beulé performed some preliminary excavations of Roman remains on Byrsa hill in 1860. A more systematic survey of both Punic and Roman-era remains is due to Alfred Louis Delattre, who was sent to Tunis by cardinal Charles Lavigerie in 1875 on both an apostolic and an archaeological mission. Audollent (1901, p. 203) cites Delattre and Lavigerie to the effect that in the 1880s, locals still knew the area of the ancient city under the name of Cartagenna (i.e. reflecting the Latin n-stem Carthāgine).",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Auguste Audollent divides the area of Roman Carthage into four quarters, Cartagenna, Dermèche, Byrsa and La Malga. Cartagenna and Dermèche correspond with the lower city, including the site of Punic Carthage; Byrsa is associated with the upper city, which in Punic times was a walled citadel above the harbour; and La Malga is linked with the more remote parts of the upper city in Roman times.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "French-led excavations at Carthage began in 1921, and from 1923 reported finds of a large quantity of urns containing a mixture of animal and children's bones. René Dussaud identified a 4th-century BC stela found in Carthage as depicting a child sacrifice.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "A temple at Amman (1400–1250 BC) excavated and reported upon by J.B. Hennessy in 1966, shows the possibility of bestial and human sacrifice by fire. While evidence of child sacrifice in Canaan was the object of academic disagreement, with some scholars arguing that merely children's cemeteries had been unearthed in Carthage, the mixture of children's with animal bones as well as associated epigraphic evidence involving mention of mlk led some to believe that, at least in Carthage, child sacrifice was indeed common practice. However, though the animals were surely sacrificed, this does not entirely indicate that the infants were, and in fact the bones indicate the opposite. Rather, the animal sacrifice was likely done to, in some way, honour the deceased.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "A study conducted in 1970 by M. Chabeuf, the then Doctor of Science from the University of Paris, showed little difference between 17 modern Tunisians, and 68 Punic remains. An analysis the following year on 42 North-West African skulls dating back to Roman times concluded that they were overall similar to modern Berbers and other Mediterranean populations, especially eastern Iberians. They also noted the presence of one outlier in Tunisia who appears to have inherited mechtoid traits, which led them to hypothesize the persistence of such affinities well into the Punic and Roman era.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "M. C. Chamla and D Ferembach (1988) in their entry dealing with the craniometric conclusions of Protohistorical Algerians and Punics in the region of Tunisia, found strong sexual dimorphism with male skulls being robust. Mediterranean elements were dominant, but Mechtoid features, as well as 'Negroid' traits were present in some of the samples. Overall, Punic burials showed affinities with Algerians, Roman Era skulls from Tarragona (Spain), Guanches, and to a lesser extent Abydos (XVIIIth dynasty), Etruscans, Bronze Age Syrians (Euphrates) and skulls from Lozere (France). The anthropological position of the Algerian and Punic people when it comes to populations of the Mediterranean Basin agreed quite well with the geographical situation.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Jehan Desanges stated that \"In the Punic burial grounds, negroid remains were not rare and there were black auxiliaries in the Carthaginian army who were certainly not Nilotics\".",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In 1990, Shomarka Keita, a biological anthropologist, had conducted a craniometric study which featured a set of remains from Northern Africa. He examined a sample of 49 Maghreban crania which included skulls from pre-Roman Carthage and concluded that, although they were heterogeneous, many of them showed physical similarities to crania from equatorial Africa, ancient Egypt, and Kush. S.O.Y. Keita's report in 2018, found the pre-Roman Carthaginian series to be intermediate between the Phoenician and Maghrebian. He noted the findings are consistent with an interpretation that it reflects both local and Levantine ancestry due to specific interactions in the ancient period.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In 2016, an ancient Carthaginian individual, who was excavated from a Punic tomb in Byrsa Hill, was found to belong to the rare U5b2c1 maternal haplogroup. The Young Man of Byrsa specimen dates from the late 6th century BC, and his lineage is believed to represent early gene flow from Iberia to the Maghreb. Craniometric analysis of the young man indicated likely Mediterranean/European ancestry as opposed to African or Asian.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Due to its coastal location, Carthage Archeological Site is vulnerable to sea level rise. In 2022, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report included it in the list of African cultural sites which would be threatened by flooding and coastal erosion by the end of the century, but only if climate change followed RCP 8.5, which is the scenario of high and continually increasing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the warming of over 4 °C., and is no longer considered very likely. The other, more plausible scenarios result in lower warming levels and consequently lower sea level rise: yet, sea levels would continue to increase for about 10,000 years under all of them. Even if the warming is limited to 1.5 °C, global sea level rise is still expected to exceed 2–3 m (7–10 ft) after 2000 years (and higher warming levels will see larger increases by then), consequently exceeding 2100 levels of sea level rise under RCP 8.5 (~0.75 m (2 ft) with a range of 0.5–1 m (2–3 ft)) well before the year 4000. Thus, it is a matter of time before the Carthage Archeological Site is threatened by rising water levels, unless it can be protected by adaptation efforts such as sea walls.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The commune of Carthage was created by a decree of the Bey of Tunis on 15 June 1919, during the rule of Naceur Bey.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In 1920, the first seaplane base was built on the Lake of Tunis for the seaplanes of Compagnie Aéronavale. The Tunis Airfield opened in 1938, serving around 5,800 passengers annually on the Paris-Tunis route. During World War II, the airport was used by the United States Army Air Force Twelfth Air Force as a headquarters and command control base for the Italian Campaign of 1943. Construction on the Tunis-Carthage Airport, which was fully funded by France, began in 1944, and in 1948 the airport become the main hub for Tunisair.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "In the 1950s the Lycée Français de Carthage was established to serve French families in Carthage. In 1961 it was given to the Tunisian government as part of the Independence of Tunisia, so the nearby Collège Maurice Cailloux in La Marsa, previously an annex of the Lycée Français de Carthage, was renamed to the Lycée Français de La Marsa and began serving the lycée level. It is currently the Lycée Gustave Flaubert.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "After Tunisian independence in 1956, the Tunis conurbation gradually extended around the airport, and Carthage (قرطاج Qarṭāj) is now a suburb of Tunis, covering the area between Sidi Bou Said and Le Kram. Its population as of January 2013 was estimated at 21,276, mostly attracting the more wealthy residents. If Carthage is not the capital, it tends to be the political pole, a \"place of emblematic power\" according to Sophie Bessis, leaving to Tunis the economic and administrative roles. The Carthage Palace (the Tunisian presidential palace) is located in the coast.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "The suburb has six train stations of the TGM line between Le Kram and Sidi Bou Said: Carthage Salammbo (named for the ancient children’s cemetery where it stands), Carthage Byrsa (named for Byrsa hill), Carthage Dermech (Dermèche), Carthage Hannibal (named for Hannibal), Carthage Présidence (named for the Presidential Palace) and Carthage Amilcar (named for Hamilcar).",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The merchants of Carthage were in part heirs of the Mediterranean trade developed by Phoenicia, and so also heirs of the rivalry with Greek merchants. Business activity was accordingly both stimulated and challenged. Cyprus had been an early site of such commercial contests. The Phoenicians then had ventured into the western Mediterranean, founding trading posts, including Utica and Carthage. The Greeks followed, entering the western seas where the commercial rivalry continued. Eventually it would lead, especially in Sicily, to several centuries of intermittent war. Although Greek-made merchandise was generally considered superior in design, Carthage also produced trade goods in abundance. That Carthage came to function as a manufacturing colossus was shown during the Third Punic War with Rome. Carthage, which had previously disarmed, then was made to face the fatal Roman siege. The city \"suddenly organised the manufacture of arms\" with great skill and effectiveness. According to Strabo (63 BC – AD 21) in his Geographica:",
"title": "Trade and business"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "[Carthage] each day produced one hundred and forty finished shields, three hundred swords, five hundred spears, and one thousand missiles for the catapults... . Furthermore, [Carthage although surrounded by the Romans] built one hundred and twenty decked ships in two months... for old timber had been stored away in readiness, and a large number of skilled workmen, maintained at public expense.",
"title": "Trade and business"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The textiles industry in Carthage probably started in private homes, but the existence of professional weavers indicates that a sort of factory system later developed. Products included embroidery, carpets, and use of the purple murex dye (for which the Carthaginian isle of Djerba was famous). Metalworkers developed specialized skills, i.e., making various weapons for the armed forces, as well as domestic articles, such as knives, forks, scissors, mirrors, and razors (all articles found in tombs). Artwork in metals included vases and lamps in bronze, also bowls, and plates. Other products came from such crafts as the potters, the glassmakers, and the goldsmiths. Inscriptions on votive stele indicate that many were not slaves but 'free citizens'.",
"title": "Trade and business"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Phoenician and Punic merchant ventures were often run as a family enterprise, putting to work its members and its subordinate clients. Such family-run businesses might perform a variety of tasks: own and maintain the ships, providing the captain and crew; do the negotiations overseas, either by barter or buying and selling, of their own manufactured commodities and trade goods, and native products (metals, foodstuffs, etc.) to carry and trade elsewhere; and send their agents to stay at distant outposts in order to make lasting local contacts, and later to establish a warehouse of shipped goods for exchange, and eventually perhaps a settlement. Over generations, such activity might result in the creation of a wide-ranging network of trading operations. Ancillary would be the growth of reciprocity between different family firms, foreign and domestic.",
"title": "Trade and business"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "State protection was extended to its sea traders by the Phoenician city of Tyre and later likewise by the daughter city-state of Carthage. Stéphane Gsell, the well-regarded French historian of ancient North Africa, summarized the major principles guiding the civic rulers of Carthage with regard to its policies for trade and commerce:",
"title": "Trade and business"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Both the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians were well known in antiquity for their secrecy in general, and especially pertaining to commercial contacts and trade routes. Both cultures excelled in commercial dealings. Strabo (63 BC–AD 21) the Greek geographer wrote that before its fall (in 146 BC) Carthage enjoyed a population of 700,000, and directed an alliance of 300 cities. The Greek historian Polybius (c. 203–120) referred to Carthage as \"the wealthiest city in the world\".",
"title": "Trade and business"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "A \"suffet\" (possibly two) was elected by the citizens, and held office with no military power for a one-year term. Carthaginian generals marshalled mercenary armies and were separately elected. From about 550 to 450 the Magonid family monopolized the top military position; later the Barcid family acted similarly. Eventually it came to be that, after a war, the commanding general had to testify justifying his actions before a court of 104 judges.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Aristotle (384–322) discusses Carthage in his work, Politica; he begins: \"The Carthaginians are also considered to have an excellent form of government.\" He briefly describes the city as a \"mixed constitution\", a political arrangement with cohabiting elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, i.e., a king (Gk: basileus), a council of elders (Gk: gerusia), and the people (Gk: demos). Later Polybius of Megalopolis (c. 204–122, Greek) in his Histories would describe the Roman Republic in more detail as a mixed constitution in which the Consuls were the monarchy, the Senate the aristocracy, and the Assemblies the democracy.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Evidently Carthage also had an institution of elders who advised the Suffets, similar to a Greek gerusia or the Roman Senate. We do not have a Punic name for this body. At times its members would travel with an army general on campaign. Members also formed permanent committees. The institution had several hundred members drawn from the wealthiest class who held office for life. Vacancies were probably filled by recruitment from among the elite, i.e., by co-option. From among its members were selected the 104 Judges mentioned above. Later the 104 would come to evaluate not only army generals but other office holders as well. Aristotle regarded the 104 as most important; he compared it to the ephorate of Sparta with regard to control over security. In Hannibal's time, such a Judge held office for life. At some stage there also came to be independent self-perpetuating boards of five who filled vacancies and supervised (non-military) government administration.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Popular assemblies also existed at Carthage. When deadlocked the Suffets and the quasi-senatorial institution of elders might request the assembly to vote; also, assembly votes were requested in very crucial matters in order to achieve political consensus and popular coherence. The assembly members had no legal wealth or birth qualification. How its members were selected is unknown, e.g., whether by festival group or urban ward or another method.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "The Greeks were favourably impressed by the constitution of Carthage; Aristotle had a separate study of it made which unfortunately is lost. In his Politica he states: \"The government of Carthage is oligarchical, but they successfully escape the evils of oligarchy by enriching one portion of the people after another by sending them to their colonies.\" \"[T]heir policy is to send some [poorer citizens] to their dependent towns, where they grow rich.\" Yet Aristotle continues, \"[I]f any misfortune occurred, and the bulk of the subjects revolted, there would be no way of restoring peace by legal means.\" Aristotle remarked also:",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Many of the Carthaginian institutions are excellent. The superiority of their constitution is proved by the fact that the common people remain loyal to the constitution; the Carthaginians have never had any rebellion worth speaking of, and have never been under the rule of a tyrant.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "The city-state of Carthage, whose citizens were mainly Libyphoenicians (of Phoenician ancestry born in Africa), dominated and exploited an agricultural countryside composed mainly of native Berber sharecroppers and farmworkers, whose affiliations to Carthage were open to divergent possibilities. Beyond these more settled Berbers and the Punic farming towns and rural manors, lived the independent Berber tribes, who were mostly pastoralists.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "In the brief, uneven review of government at Carthage found in his Politica Aristotle mentions several faults. Thus, \"that the same person should hold many offices, which is a favorite practice among the Carthaginians.\" Aristotle disapproves, mentioning the flute-player and the shoemaker. Also, that \"magistrates should be chosen not only for their merit but for their wealth.\" Aristotle's opinion is that focus on pursuit of wealth will lead to oligarchy and its evils.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "[S]urely it is a bad thing that the greatest offices... should be bought. The law which allows this abuse makes wealth of more account than virtue, and the whole state becomes avaricious. For, whenever the chiefs of the state deem anything honorable, the other citizens are sure to follow their example; and, where virtue has not the first place, their aristocracy cannot be firmly established.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "In Carthage the people seemed politically satisfied and submissive, according to the historian Warmington. They in their assemblies only rarely exercised the few opportunities given them to assent to state decisions. Popular influence over government appears not to have been an issue at Carthage. Being a commercial republic fielding a mercenary army, the people were not conscripted for military service, an experience which can foster the feel for popular political action. But perhaps this misunderstands the society; perhaps the people, whose values were based on small-group loyalty, felt themselves sufficiently connected to their city's leadership by the very integrity of the person-to-person linkage within their social fabric. Carthage was very stable; there were few openings for tyrants. Only after defeat by Rome devastated Punic imperial ambitions did the people of Carthage seem to question their governance and to show interest in political reform.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "In 196, following the Second Punic War (218–201), Hannibal, still greatly admired as a Barcid military leader, was elected suffet. When his reforms were blocked by a financial official about to become a judge for life, Hannibal rallied the populace against the 104 judges. He proposed a one-year term for the 104, as part of a major civic overhaul. Additionally, the reform included a restructuring of the city's revenues, and the fostering of trade and agriculture. The changes rather quickly resulted in a noticeable increase in prosperity. Yet his incorrigible political opponents cravenly went to Rome, to charge Hannibal with conspiracy, namely, plotting war against Rome in league with Antiochus the Hellenic ruler of Syria. Although the Roman Scipio Africanus resisted such manoeuvre, eventually intervention by Rome forced Hannibal to leave Carthage. Thus, corrupt city officials efficiently blocked Hannibal in his efforts to reform the government of Carthage.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Mago (6th century) was King of Carthage; the head of state, war leader, and religious figurehead. His family was considered to possess a sacred quality. Mago's office was somewhat similar to that of a pharaoh, but although kept in a family it was not hereditary, it was limited by legal consent. Picard, accordingly, believes that the council of elders and the popular assembly are late institutions. Carthage was founded by the king of Tyre who had a royal monopoly on this trading venture. Thus it was the royal authority stemming from this traditional source of power that the King of Carthage possessed. Later, as other Phoenician ship companies entered the trading region, and so associated with the city-state, the King of Carthage had to keep order among a rich variety of powerful merchants in their negotiations among themselves and over risky commerce across the Mediterranean. Under these circumstance, the office of king began to be transformed. Yet it was not until the aristocrats of Carthage became wealthy owners of agricultural lands in Africa that a council of elders was institutionalized at Carthage.",
"title": "Constitution of state"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Most ancient literature concerning Carthage comes from Greek and Roman sources as Carthage's own documents were destroyed by the Romans. Apart from inscriptions, hardly any Punic literature has survived, and none in its own language and script. A brief catalogue would include:",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "\"[F]rom the Greek author Plutarch [(c. 46 – c. 120)] we learn of the 'sacred books' in Punic safeguarded by the city's temples. Few Punic texts survive, however.\" Once \"the City Archives, the Annals, and the scribal lists of Suffets\" existed, but evidently these were destroyed in the horrific fires during the Roman capture of the city in 146 BC.",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Yet some Punic books (Latin: libri punici) from the libraries of Carthage reportedly did survive the fires. These works were apparently given by Roman authorities to the newly augmented Berber rulers. Over a century after the fall of Carthage, the Roman politician-turned-author Gaius Sallustius Crispus or Sallust (86–34) reported his having seen volumes written in Punic, which books were said to be once possessed by the Berber king, Hiempsal II (r. 88–81). By way of Berber informants and Punic translators, Sallust had used these surviving books to write his brief sketch of Berber affairs.",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Probably some of Hiempsal II's libri punici, that had escaped the fires that consumed Carthage in 146 BC, wound up later in the large royal library of his grandson Juba II (r. 25 BC–AD 24). Juba II not only was a Berber king, and husband of Cleopatra's daughter, but also a scholar and author in Greek of no less than nine works. He wrote for the Mediterranean-wide audience then enjoying classical literature. The libri punici inherited from his grandfather surely became useful to him when composing his Libyka, a work on North Africa written in Greek. Unfortunately, only fragments of Libyka survive, mostly from quotations made by other ancient authors. It may have been Juba II who 'discovered' the five-centuries-old 'log book' of Hanno the Navigator, called the Periplus, among library documents saved from fallen Carthage.",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "In the end, however, most Punic writings that survived the destruction of Carthage \"did not escape the immense wreckage in which so many of Antiquity's literary works perished.\" Accordingly, the long and continuous interactions between Punic citizens of Carthage and the Berber communities that surrounded the city have no local historian. Their political arrangements and periodic crises, their economic and work life, the cultural ties and social relations established and nourished (infrequently as kin), are not known to us directly from ancient Punic authors in written accounts. Neither side has left us their stories about life in Punic-era Carthage.",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Regarding Phoenician writings, few remain and these seldom refer to Carthage. The more ancient and most informative are cuneiform tablets, c. 1600–1185, from ancient Ugarit, located to the north of Phoenicia on the Syrian coast; it was a Canaanite city politically affiliated with the Hittites. The clay tablets tell of myths, epics, rituals, medical and administrative matters, and also correspondence. The highly valued works of Sanchuniathon, an ancient priest of Beirut, who reportedly wrote on Phoenician religion and the origins of civilization, are themselves completely lost, but some little content endures twice removed. Sanchuniathon was said to have lived in the 11th century, which is considered doubtful. Much later a Phoenician History by Philo of Byblos (64–141) reportedly existed, written in Greek, but only fragments of this work survive. An explanation proffered for why so few Phoenician works endured: early on (11th century) archives and records began to be kept on papyrus, which does not long survive in a moist coastal climate. Also, both Phoenicians and Carthaginians were well known for their secrecy.",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Thus, of their ancient writings we have little of major interest left to us by Carthage, or by Phoenicia the country of origin of the city founders. \"Of the various Phoenician and Punic compositions alluded to by the ancient classical authors, not a single work or even fragment has survived in its original idiom.\" \"Indeed, not a single Phoenician manuscript has survived in the original [language] or in translation.\" We cannot therefore access directly the line of thought or the contour of their worldview as expressed in their own words, in their own voice. Ironically, it was the Phoenicians who \"invented or at least perfected and transmitted a form of writing [the alphabet] that has influenced dozens of cultures including our own.\"",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "As noted, the celebrated ancient books on agriculture written by Mago of Carthage survives only via quotations in Latin from several later Roman works.",
"title": "Contemporary sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "The scant remains of what was once a great city are reflected upon in Letitia Elizabeth Landon's poetical illustration, Carthage, to an engraving of a painting by J. Salmon, published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837 with quotes from Sir Grenville Temple's Journal.",
"title": "In art and literature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "The protagonist in Isaac Asimov's 1956 science-fiction short story \"The Dead Past\" is an academic professor obsessed with debunking historical perceptions of Carthage.",
"title": "In art and literature"
}
] | Carthage was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classical world. It became the capital city of the civilisation of Ancient Carthage and later Roman Carthage. The city developed from a Canaanite Phoenician colony into the capital of a Punic empire which dominated large parts of the Southwest Mediterranean during the first millennium BC. The legendary Queen Elissa, Alyssa or Dido, originally from Tyre, is regarded as the founder of the city, though her historicity has been questioned. In the myth, Dido asked for land from a local tribe, which told her that she could get as much land as an oxhide could cover. She cut the oxhide into strips and laid out the perimeters of the new city. As Carthage prospered at home, the polity sent colonists abroad as well as magistrates to rule the colonies. The ancient city was destroyed in the nearly-three year siege of Carthage by the Roman Republic during the Third Punic War in 146 BC. It was re-developed a century later as Roman Carthage, which became the major city of the Roman Empire in the province of Africa. The question of Carthaginian decline and demise has remained a subject of literary, political, artistic, and philosophical debates in both ancient and modern histories. Late antique and medieval Carthage continued to play an important cultural and economic role in the Byzantine period. The city was sacked and destroyed by Umayyad forces after the Battle of Carthage in 698 to prevent it from being reconquered by the Byzantine Empire. It remained occupied during the Muslim period and was used as a fort by the Muslims until the Hafsid period when it was taken by the Crusaders with its inhabitants massacred during the Eighth Crusade. The Hafsids decided to destroy its defenses so it could not be used as a base by a hostile power again. It also continued to function as an episcopal see. The regional power had shifted to Kairouan and the Medina of Tunis in the medieval period, until the early 20th century, when it began to develop into a coastal suburb of Tunis, incorporated as Carthage municipality in 1919. The archaeological site was first surveyed in 1830, by Danish consul Christian Tuxen Falbe. Excavations were performed in the second half of the 19th century by Charles Ernest Beulé and by Alfred Louis Delattre. The Carthage National Museum was founded in 1875 by Cardinal Charles Lavigerie. Excavations performed by French archaeologists in the 1920s first attracted an extraordinary amount of attention because of the evidence they produced for child sacrifice. There has been considerable disagreement among scholars concerning whether child sacrifice was practiced by ancient Carthage. The open-air Carthage Paleo-Christian Museum has exhibits excavated under the auspices of UNESCO from 1975 to 1984. The site of the ruins is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. | 2001-10-17T18:16:41Z | 2023-12-31T12:20:02Z | [
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6,556 | Coprime integers | In number theory, two integers a and b are coprime, relatively prime or mutually prime if the only positive integer that is a divisor of both of them is 1. Consequently, any prime number that divides a does not divide b, and vice versa. This is equivalent to their greatest common divisor (GCD) being 1. One says also a is prime to b or a is coprime with b.
The numbers 8 and 9 are coprime, despite the fact that neither—considered individually—is a prime number, since 1 is their only common divisor. On the other hand, 6 and 9 are not coprime, because they are both divisible by 3. The numerator and denominator of a reduced fraction are coprime, by definition.
When the integers a and b are coprime, the standard way of expressing this fact in mathematical notation is to indicate that their greatest common divisor is one, by the formula gcd(a, b) = 1 or (a, b) = 1. In their 1989 textbook Concrete Mathematics, Ronald Graham, Donald Knuth, and Oren Patashnik proposed an alternative notation a ⊥ b {\displaystyle a\perp b} to indicate that a and b are relatively prime and that the term "prime" be used instead of coprime (as in a is prime to b).
A fast way to determine whether two numbers are coprime is given by the Euclidean algorithm and its faster variants such as binary GCD algorithm or Lehmer's GCD algorithm.
The number of integers coprime with a positive integer n, between 1 and n, is given by Euler's totient function, also known as Euler's phi function, φ(n).
A set of integers can also be called coprime if its elements share no common positive factor except 1. A stronger condition on a set of integers is pairwise coprime, which means that a and b are coprime for every pair (a, b) of different integers in the set. The set {2, 3, 4} is coprime, but it is not pairwise coprime since 2 and 4 are not relatively prime.
The numbers 1 and −1 are the only integers coprime with every integer, and they are the only integers that are coprime with 0.
A number of conditions are equivalent to a and b being coprime:
As a consequence of the third point, if a and b are coprime and br ≡ bs (mod a), then r ≡ s (mod a). That is, we may "divide by b" when working modulo a. Furthermore, if b1, b2 are both coprime with a, then so is their product b1b2 (i.e., modulo a it is a product of invertible elements, and therefore invertible); this also follows from the first point by Euclid's lemma, which states that if a prime number p divides a product bc, then p divides at least one of the factors b, c.
As a consequence of the first point, if a and b are coprime, then so are any powers a and b.
If a and b are coprime and a divides the product bc, then a divides c. This can be viewed as a generalization of Euclid's lemma.
The two integers a and b are coprime if and only if the point with coordinates (a, b) in a Cartesian coordinate system would be "visible" via an unobstructed line of sight from the origin (0, 0), in the sense that there is no point with integer coordinates anywhere on the line segment between the origin and (a, b). (See figure 1.)
In a sense that can be made precise, the probability that two randomly chosen integers are coprime is 6/π, which is about 61% (see § Probability of coprimality, below).
Two natural numbers a and b are coprime if and only if the numbers 2 – 1 and 2 – 1 are coprime. As a generalization of this, following easily from the Euclidean algorithm in base n > 1:
A set of integers S = { a 1 , a 2 , … , a n } {\displaystyle S=\{a_{1},a_{2},\dots ,a_{n}\}} can also be called coprime or setwise coprime if the greatest common divisor of all the elements of the set is 1. For example, the integers 6, 10, 15 are coprime because 1 is the only positive integer that divides all of them.
If every pair in a set of integers is coprime, then the set is said to be pairwise coprime (or pairwise relatively prime, mutually coprime or mutually relatively prime). Pairwise coprimality is a stronger condition than setwise coprimality; every pairwise coprime finite set is also setwise coprime, but the reverse is not true. For example, the integers 4, 5, 6 are (setwise) coprime (because the only positive integer dividing all of them is 1), but they are not pairwise coprime (because gcd(4, 6) = 2).
The concept of pairwise coprimality is important as a hypothesis in many results in number theory, such as the Chinese remainder theorem.
It is possible for an infinite set of integers to be pairwise coprime. Notable examples include the set of all prime numbers, the set of elements in Sylvester's sequence, and the set of all Fermat numbers.
Two ideals A and B in a commutative ring R are called coprime (or comaximal) if A + B = R . {\displaystyle A+B=R.} This generalizes Bézout's identity: with this definition, two principal ideals (a) and (b) in the ring of integers Z {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} } are coprime if and only if a and b are coprime. If the ideals A and B of R are coprime, then A B = A ∩ B ; {\displaystyle AB=A\cap B;} furthermore, if C is a third ideal such that A contains BC, then A contains C. The Chinese remainder theorem can be generalized to any commutative ring, using coprime ideals.
Given two randomly chosen integers a and b, it is reasonable to ask how likely it is that a and b are coprime. In this determination, it is convenient to use the characterization that a and b are coprime if and only if no prime number divides both of them (see Fundamental theorem of arithmetic).
Informally, the probability that any number is divisible by a prime (or in fact any integer) p is 1 p ; {\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{p}};} for example, every 7th integer is divisible by 7. Hence the probability that two numbers are both divisible by p is 1 p 2 , {\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{p^{2}}},} and the probability that at least one of them is not is 1 − 1 p 2 . {\displaystyle 1-{\tfrac {1}{p^{2}}}.} Any finite collection of divisibility events associated to distinct primes is mutually independent. For example, in the case of two events, a number is divisible by primes p and q if and only if it is divisible by pq; the latter event has probability 1 p q . {\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{pq}}.} If one makes the heuristic assumption that such reasoning can be extended to infinitely many divisibility events, one is led to guess that the probability that two numbers are coprime is given by a product over all primes,
Here ζ refers to the Riemann zeta function, the identity relating the product over primes to ζ(2) is an example of an Euler product, and the evaluation of ζ(2) as π/6 is the Basel problem, solved by Leonhard Euler in 1735.
There is no way to choose a positive integer at random so that each positive integer occurs with equal probability, but statements about "randomly chosen integers" such as the ones above can be formalized by using the notion of natural density. For each positive integer N, let PN be the probability that two randomly chosen numbers in { 1 , 2 , … , N } {\displaystyle \{1,2,\ldots ,N\}} are coprime. Although PN will never equal 6/π exactly, with work one can show that in the limit as N → ∞ , {\displaystyle N\to \infty ,} the probability PN approaches 6/π.
More generally, the probability of k randomly chosen integers being coprime is 1 ζ ( k ) . {\displaystyle {\tfrac {1}{\zeta (k)}}.}
All pairs of positive coprime numbers (m, n) (with m > n) can be arranged in two disjoint complete ternary trees, one tree starting from (2, 1) (for even–odd and odd–even pairs), and the other tree starting from (3, 1) (for odd–odd pairs). The children of each vertex (m, n) are generated as follows:
This scheme is exhaustive and non-redundant with no invalid members. This can be proved by remarking that, if ( a , b ) {\displaystyle (a,b)} is a coprime pair with a > b , {\displaystyle a>b,} then
In all cases ( m , n ) {\displaystyle (m,n)} is a "smaller" coprime pair with m > n . {\displaystyle m>n.} This process of "computing the father" can stop only if either a = 2 b {\displaystyle a=2b} or a = 3 b . {\displaystyle a=3b.} In these cases, coprimality, implies that the pair is either ( 2 , 1 ) {\displaystyle (2,1)} or ( 3 , 1 ) . {\displaystyle (3,1).}
In machine design, an even, uniform gear wear is achieved by choosing the tooth counts of the two gears meshing together to be relatively prime. When a 1:1 gear ratio is desired, a gear relatively prime to the two equal-size gears may be inserted between them.
In pre-computer cryptography, some Vernam cipher machines combined several loops of key tape of different lengths. Many rotor machines combine rotors of different numbers of teeth. Such combinations work best when the entire set of lengths are pairwise coprime.
This concept can be extended to other algebraic structures than Z ; {\displaystyle \mathbb {Z} ;} for example, polynomials whose greatest common divisor is 1 are called coprime polynomials. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In number theory, two integers a and b are coprime, relatively prime or mutually prime if the only positive integer that is a divisor of both of them is 1. Consequently, any prime number that divides a does not divide b, and vice versa. This is equivalent to their greatest common divisor (GCD) being 1. One says also a is prime to b or a is coprime with b.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The numbers 8 and 9 are coprime, despite the fact that neither—considered individually—is a prime number, since 1 is their only common divisor. On the other hand, 6 and 9 are not coprime, because they are both divisible by 3. The numerator and denominator of a reduced fraction are coprime, by definition.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "When the integers a and b are coprime, the standard way of expressing this fact in mathematical notation is to indicate that their greatest common divisor is one, by the formula gcd(a, b) = 1 or (a, b) = 1. In their 1989 textbook Concrete Mathematics, Ronald Graham, Donald Knuth, and Oren Patashnik proposed an alternative notation a ⊥ b {\\displaystyle a\\perp b} to indicate that a and b are relatively prime and that the term \"prime\" be used instead of coprime (as in a is prime to b).",
"title": "Notation and testing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A fast way to determine whether two numbers are coprime is given by the Euclidean algorithm and its faster variants such as binary GCD algorithm or Lehmer's GCD algorithm.",
"title": "Notation and testing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The number of integers coprime with a positive integer n, between 1 and n, is given by Euler's totient function, also known as Euler's phi function, φ(n).",
"title": "Notation and testing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "A set of integers can also be called coprime if its elements share no common positive factor except 1. A stronger condition on a set of integers is pairwise coprime, which means that a and b are coprime for every pair (a, b) of different integers in the set. The set {2, 3, 4} is coprime, but it is not pairwise coprime since 2 and 4 are not relatively prime.",
"title": "Notation and testing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The numbers 1 and −1 are the only integers coprime with every integer, and they are the only integers that are coprime with 0.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A number of conditions are equivalent to a and b being coprime:",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "As a consequence of the third point, if a and b are coprime and br ≡ bs (mod a), then r ≡ s (mod a). That is, we may \"divide by b\" when working modulo a. Furthermore, if b1, b2 are both coprime with a, then so is their product b1b2 (i.e., modulo a it is a product of invertible elements, and therefore invertible); this also follows from the first point by Euclid's lemma, which states that if a prime number p divides a product bc, then p divides at least one of the factors b, c.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "As a consequence of the first point, if a and b are coprime, then so are any powers a and b.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "If a and b are coprime and a divides the product bc, then a divides c. This can be viewed as a generalization of Euclid's lemma.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The two integers a and b are coprime if and only if the point with coordinates (a, b) in a Cartesian coordinate system would be \"visible\" via an unobstructed line of sight from the origin (0, 0), in the sense that there is no point with integer coordinates anywhere on the line segment between the origin and (a, b). (See figure 1.)",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In a sense that can be made precise, the probability that two randomly chosen integers are coprime is 6/π, which is about 61% (see § Probability of coprimality, below).",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Two natural numbers a and b are coprime if and only if the numbers 2 – 1 and 2 – 1 are coprime. As a generalization of this, following easily from the Euclidean algorithm in base n > 1:",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A set of integers S = { a 1 , a 2 , … , a n } {\\displaystyle S=\\{a_{1},a_{2},\\dots ,a_{n}\\}} can also be called coprime or setwise coprime if the greatest common divisor of all the elements of the set is 1. For example, the integers 6, 10, 15 are coprime because 1 is the only positive integer that divides all of them.",
"title": "Coprimality in sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "If every pair in a set of integers is coprime, then the set is said to be pairwise coprime (or pairwise relatively prime, mutually coprime or mutually relatively prime). Pairwise coprimality is a stronger condition than setwise coprimality; every pairwise coprime finite set is also setwise coprime, but the reverse is not true. For example, the integers 4, 5, 6 are (setwise) coprime (because the only positive integer dividing all of them is 1), but they are not pairwise coprime (because gcd(4, 6) = 2).",
"title": "Coprimality in sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The concept of pairwise coprimality is important as a hypothesis in many results in number theory, such as the Chinese remainder theorem.",
"title": "Coprimality in sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "It is possible for an infinite set of integers to be pairwise coprime. Notable examples include the set of all prime numbers, the set of elements in Sylvester's sequence, and the set of all Fermat numbers.",
"title": "Coprimality in sets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Two ideals A and B in a commutative ring R are called coprime (or comaximal) if A + B = R . {\\displaystyle A+B=R.} This generalizes Bézout's identity: with this definition, two principal ideals (a) and (b) in the ring of integers Z {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} } are coprime if and only if a and b are coprime. If the ideals A and B of R are coprime, then A B = A ∩ B ; {\\displaystyle AB=A\\cap B;} furthermore, if C is a third ideal such that A contains BC, then A contains C. The Chinese remainder theorem can be generalized to any commutative ring, using coprime ideals.",
"title": "Coprimality in ring ideals"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Given two randomly chosen integers a and b, it is reasonable to ask how likely it is that a and b are coprime. In this determination, it is convenient to use the characterization that a and b are coprime if and only if no prime number divides both of them (see Fundamental theorem of arithmetic).",
"title": "Probability of coprimality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Informally, the probability that any number is divisible by a prime (or in fact any integer) p is 1 p ; {\\displaystyle {\\tfrac {1}{p}};} for example, every 7th integer is divisible by 7. Hence the probability that two numbers are both divisible by p is 1 p 2 , {\\displaystyle {\\tfrac {1}{p^{2}}},} and the probability that at least one of them is not is 1 − 1 p 2 . {\\displaystyle 1-{\\tfrac {1}{p^{2}}}.} Any finite collection of divisibility events associated to distinct primes is mutually independent. For example, in the case of two events, a number is divisible by primes p and q if and only if it is divisible by pq; the latter event has probability 1 p q . {\\displaystyle {\\tfrac {1}{pq}}.} If one makes the heuristic assumption that such reasoning can be extended to infinitely many divisibility events, one is led to guess that the probability that two numbers are coprime is given by a product over all primes,",
"title": "Probability of coprimality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Here ζ refers to the Riemann zeta function, the identity relating the product over primes to ζ(2) is an example of an Euler product, and the evaluation of ζ(2) as π/6 is the Basel problem, solved by Leonhard Euler in 1735.",
"title": "Probability of coprimality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "There is no way to choose a positive integer at random so that each positive integer occurs with equal probability, but statements about \"randomly chosen integers\" such as the ones above can be formalized by using the notion of natural density. For each positive integer N, let PN be the probability that two randomly chosen numbers in { 1 , 2 , … , N } {\\displaystyle \\{1,2,\\ldots ,N\\}} are coprime. Although PN will never equal 6/π exactly, with work one can show that in the limit as N → ∞ , {\\displaystyle N\\to \\infty ,} the probability PN approaches 6/π.",
"title": "Probability of coprimality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "More generally, the probability of k randomly chosen integers being coprime is 1 ζ ( k ) . {\\displaystyle {\\tfrac {1}{\\zeta (k)}}.}",
"title": "Probability of coprimality"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "All pairs of positive coprime numbers (m, n) (with m > n) can be arranged in two disjoint complete ternary trees, one tree starting from (2, 1) (for even–odd and odd–even pairs), and the other tree starting from (3, 1) (for odd–odd pairs). The children of each vertex (m, n) are generated as follows:",
"title": "Generating all coprime pairs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "This scheme is exhaustive and non-redundant with no invalid members. This can be proved by remarking that, if ( a , b ) {\\displaystyle (a,b)} is a coprime pair with a > b , {\\displaystyle a>b,} then",
"title": "Generating all coprime pairs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In all cases ( m , n ) {\\displaystyle (m,n)} is a \"smaller\" coprime pair with m > n . {\\displaystyle m>n.} This process of \"computing the father\" can stop only if either a = 2 b {\\displaystyle a=2b} or a = 3 b . {\\displaystyle a=3b.} In these cases, coprimality, implies that the pair is either ( 2 , 1 ) {\\displaystyle (2,1)} or ( 3 , 1 ) . {\\displaystyle (3,1).}",
"title": "Generating all coprime pairs"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In machine design, an even, uniform gear wear is achieved by choosing the tooth counts of the two gears meshing together to be relatively prime. When a 1:1 gear ratio is desired, a gear relatively prime to the two equal-size gears may be inserted between them.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In pre-computer cryptography, some Vernam cipher machines combined several loops of key tape of different lengths. Many rotor machines combine rotors of different numbers of teeth. Such combinations work best when the entire set of lengths are pairwise coprime.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "This concept can be extended to other algebraic structures than Z ; {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {Z} ;} for example, polynomials whose greatest common divisor is 1 are called coprime polynomials.",
"title": "Generalizations"
}
] | In number theory, two integers a and b are coprime, relatively prime or mutually prime if the only positive integer that is a divisor of both of them is 1. Consequently, any prime number that divides a does not divide b, and vice versa. This is equivalent to their greatest common divisor (GCD) being 1. One says also a is prime to b or a is coprime with b. The numbers 8 and 9 are coprime, despite the fact that neither—considered individually—is a prime number, since 1 is their only common divisor. On the other hand, 6 and 9 are not coprime, because they are both divisible by 3. The numerator and denominator of a reduced fraction are coprime, by definition. | 2001-09-26T22:47:21Z | 2023-12-20T08:18:16Z | [
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6,557 | Control unit | The control unit (CU) is a component of a computer's central processing unit (CPU) that directs the operation of the processor. A CU typically uses a binary decoder to convert coded instructions into timing and control signals that direct the operation of the other units (memory, arithmetic logic unit and input and output devices, etc.).
Most computer resources are managed by the CU. It directs the flow of data between the CPU and the other devices. John von Neumann included the control unit as part of the Von Neumann architecture. In modern computer designs, the control unit is typically an internal part of the CPU with its overall role and operation unchanged since its introduction.
The simplest computers use a multicycle microarchitecture. These were the earliest designs. They are still popular in the very smallest computers, such as the embedded systems that operate machinery.
In a computer, the control unit often steps through the instruction cycle successively. This consists of fetching the instruction, fetching the operands, decoding the instruction, executing the instruction, and then writing the results back to memory. When the next instruction is placed in the control unit, it changes the behavior of the control unit to complete the instruction correctly. So, the bits of the instruction directly control the control unit, which in turn controls the computer.
The control unit may include a binary counter to tell the control unit's logic what step it should do.
Multicycle control units typically use both the rising and falling edges of their square-wave timing clock. They operate a step of their operation on each edge of the timing clock, so that a four-step operation completes in two clock cycles. This doubles the speed of the computer, given the same logic family.
Many computers have two different types of unexpected events. An interrupt occurs because some type of input or output needs software attention in order to operate correctly. An exception is caused by the computer's operation. One crucial difference is that the timing of an interrupt cannot be predicted. Another is that some exceptions (e.g. a memory-not-available exception) can be caused by an instruction that needs to be restarted.
Control units can be designed to handle interrupts in one of two typical ways. If a quick response is most important, a control unit is designed to abandon work to handle the interrupt. In this case, the work in process will be restarted after the last completed instruction. If the computer is to be very inexpensive, very simple, very reliable, or to get more work done, the control unit will finish the work in process before handling the interrupt. Finishing the work is inexpensive, because it needs no register to record the last finished instruction. It is simple and reliable because it has the fewest states. It also wastes the least amount of work.
Exceptions can be made to operate like interrupts in very simple computers. If virtual memory is required, then a memory-not-available exception must retry the failing instruction.
It is common for multicycle computers to use more cycles. Sometimes it takes longer to take a conditional jump, because the program counter has to be reloaded. Sometimes they do multiplication or division instructions by a process, something like binary long multiplication and division. Very small computers might do arithmetic, one or a few bits at a time. Some other computers have very complex instructions that take many steps.
Many medium-complexity computers pipeline instructions. This design is popular because of its economy and speed.
In a pipelined computer, instructions flow through the computer. This design has several stages. For example, it might have one stage for each step of the Von Neumann cycle. A pipelined computer usually has "pipeline registers" after each stage. These store the bits calculated by a stage so that the logic gates of the next stage can use the bits to do the next step.
It is common for even numbered stages to operate on one edge of the square-wave clock, while odd-numbered stages operate on the other edge. This speeds the computer by a factor of two compared to single-edge designs.
In a pipelined computer, the control unit arranges for the flow to start, continue, and stop as a program commands. The instruction data is usually passed in pipeline registers from one stage to the next, with a somewhat separated piece of control logic for each stage. The control unit also assures that the instruction in each stage does not harm the operation of instructions in other stages. For example, if two stages must use the same piece of data, the control logic assures that the uses are done in the correct sequence.
When operating efficiently, a pipelined computer will have an instruction in each stage. It is then working on all of those instructions at the same time. It can finish about one instruction for each cycle of its clock. When a program makes a decision, and switches to a different sequence of instructions, the pipeline sometimes must discard the data in process and restart. This is called a "stall." When two instructions could interfere, sometimes the control unit must stop processing a later instruction until an earlier instruction completes. This is called a "pipeline bubble" because a part of the pipeline is not processing instructions. Pipeline bubbles can occur when two instructions operate on the same register.
Interrupts and unexpected exceptions also stall the pipeline. If a pipelined computer abandons work for an interrupt, more work is lost than in a multicycle computer. Predictable exceptions do not need to stall. For example, if an exception instruction is used to enter the operating system, it does not cause a stall.
Speed? For the same speed of electronic logic, it can do more instructions per second than a multicycle computer. Also, even though the electronic logic has a fixed maximum speed, a pipelined computer can be made faster or slower by varying the number of stages in the pipeline. With more stages, each stage does less work, and so the stage has fewer delays from the logic gates.
Economy? A pipelined model of a computer often has the least logic gates per instruction per second, less than either a multicycle or out-of-order computer. Why? The average stage is less complex than a multicycle computer. An out-of-order computer usually has large amounts of idle logic at any given instant. Similar calculations usually show that a pipelined computer uses less energy per instruction.
However, a pipelined computer is usually more complex and more costly than a comparable multicycle computer. It typically has more logic gates, registers and a more complex control unit. In a like way, it might use more total energy, while using less energy per instruction. Out-of-order CPUs can usually do more instructions per second because they can do several instructions at once.
Control units use many methods to keep a pipeline full and avoid stalls. For example, even simple control units can assume that a backwards branch, to a lower-numbered, earlier instruction, is a loop, and will be repeated. So, a control unit with this design will always fill the pipeline with the backwards branch path. If a compiler can detect the most frequently-taken direction of a branch, the compiler can just produce instructions so that the most frequently taken branch is the preferred direction of branch. In a like way, a control unit might get hints from the compiler: Some computers have instructions that can encode hints from the compiler about the direction of branch.
Some control units do branch prediction: A control unit keeps an electronic list of the recent branches, encoded by the address of the branch instruction. This list has a few bits for each branch to remember the direction that was taken most recently.
Some control units can do speculative execution, in which a computer might have two or more pipelines, calculate both directions of a branch, and then discard the calculations of the unused direction.
Results from memory can become available at unpredictable times because very fast computers cache memory. That is, they copy limited amounts of memory data into very fast memory. The CPU must be designed to process at the very fast speed of the cache memory. Therefore, the CPU might stall when it must access main memory directly. In modern PCs, main memory is as much as three hundred times slower than cache.
To help this, out-of-order CPUs and control units were developed to process data as it becomes available. (See next section)
But what if all the calculations are complete, but the CPU is still stalled, waiting for main memory? Then, a control unit can switch to an alternative thread of execution whose data has been fetched while the thread was idle. A thread has its own program counter, a stream of instructions and a separate set of registers. Designers vary the number of threads depending on current memory technologies and the type of computer. Typical computers such as PCs and smart phones usually have control units with a few threads, just enough to keep busy with affordable memory systems. Database computers often have about twice as many threads, to keep their much larger memories busy. Graphic processing units (GPUs) usually have hundreds or thousands of threads, because they have hundreds or thousands of execution units doing repetitive graphic calculations.
When a control unit permits threads, the software also has to be designed to handle them. In general-purpose CPUs like PCs and smartphones, the threads are usually made to look very like normal time-sliced processes. At most, the operating system might need some awareness of them. In GPUs, the thread scheduling usually cannot be hidden from the application software, and is often controlled with a specialized subroutine library.
A control unit can be designed to finish what it can. If several instructions can be completed at the same time, the control unit will arrange it. So, the fastest computers can process instructions in a sequence that can vary somewhat, depending on when the operands or instruction destinations become available. Most supercomputers and many PC CPUs use this method. The exact organization of this type of control unit depends on the slowest part of the computer.
When the execution of calculations is the slowest, instructions flow from memory into pieces of electronics called "issue units." An issue unit holds an instruction until both its operands and an execution unit are available. Then, the instruction and its operands are "issued" to an execution unit. The execution unit does the instruction. Then the resulting data is moved into a queue of data to be written back to memory or registers. If the computer has multiple execution units, it can usually do several instructions per clock cycle.
It is common to have specialized execution units. For example, a modestly priced computer might have only one floating-point execution unit, because floating point units are expensive. The same computer might have several integer units, because these are relatively inexpensive, and can do the bulk of instructions.
One kind of control unit for issuing uses an array of electronic logic, a "scoreboard"" that detects when an instruction can be issued. The "height" of the array is the number of execution units, and the "length" and "width" are each the number of sources of operands. When all the items come together, the signals from the operands and execution unit will cross. The logic at this intersection detects that the instruction can work, so the instruction is "issued" to the free execution unit. An alternative style of issuing control unit implements the Tomasulo algorithm, which reorders a hardware queue of instructions. In some sense, both styles utilize a queue. The scoreboard is an alternative way to encode and reorder a queue of instructions, and some designers call it a queue table.
With some additional logic, a scoreboard can compactly combine execution reordering, register renaming and precise exceptions and interrupts. Further it can do this without the power-hungry, complex content-addressable memory used by the Tomasulo algorithm.
If the execution is slower than writing the results, the memory write-back queue always has free entries. But what if the memory writes slowly? Or what if the destination register will be used by an "earlier" instruction that has not yet issued? Then the write-back step of the instruction might need to be scheduled. This is sometimes called "retiring" an instruction. In this case, there must be scheduling logic on the back end of execution units. It schedules access to the registers or memory that will get the results.
Retiring logic can also be designed into an issuing scoreboard or a Tomasulo queue, by including memory or register access in the issuing logic.
Out of order controllers require special design features to handle interrupts. When there are several instructions in progress, it is not clear where in the instruction stream an interrupt occurs. For input and output interrupts, almost any solution works. However, when a computer has virtual memory, an interrupt occurs to indicate that a memory access failed. This memory access must be associated with an exact instruction and an exact processor state, so that the processor's state can be saved and restored by the interrupt. A usual solution preserves copies of registers until a memory access completes.
Also, out of order CPUs have even more problems with stalls from branching, because they can complete several instructions per clock cycle, and usually have many instructions in various stages of progress. So, these control units might use all of the solutions used by pipelined processors.
Some computers translate each single instruction into a sequence of simpler instructions. The advantage is that an out of order computer can be simpler in the bulk of its logic, while handling complex multi-step instructions. x86 Intel CPUs since the Pentium Pro translate complex CISC x86 instructions to more RISC-like internal micro-operations.
In these, the "front" of the control unit manages the translation of instructions. Operands are not translated. The "back" of the CU is an out-of-order CPU that issues the micro-operations and operands to the execution units and data paths.
Many modern computers have controls that minimize power usage. In battery-powered computers, such as those in cell-phones, the advantage is longer battery life. In computers with utility power, the justification is to reduce the cost of power, cooling or noise.
Most modern computers use CMOS logic. CMOS wastes power in two common ways: By changing state, i.e. "active power," and by unintended leakage. The active power of a computer can be reduced by turning off control signals. Leakage current can be reduced by reducing the electrical pressure, the voltage, making the transistors with larger depletion regions or turning off the logic completely.
Active power is easier to reduce because data stored in the logic is not affected. The usual method reduces the CPU's clock rate. Most computer systems use this method. It is common for a CPU to idle during the transition to avoid side-effects from the changing clock.
Most computers also have a "halt" instruction. This was invented to stop non-interrupt code so that interrupt code has reliable timing. However, designers soon noticed that a halt instruction was also a good time to turn off a CPU's clock completely, reducing the CPU's active power to zero. The interrupt controller might continue to need a clock, but that usually uses much less power than the CPU.
These methods are relatively easy to design, and became so common that others were invented for commercial advantage. Many modern low-power CMOS CPUs stop and start specialized execution units and bus interfaces depending on the needed instruction. Some computers even arrange the CPU's microarchitecture to use transfer-triggered multiplexers so that each instruction only utilises the exact pieces of logic needed.
One common method is to spread the load to many CPUs, and turn off unused CPUs as the load reduces. The operating system's task switching logic saves the CPUs' data to memory. In some cases, one of the CPUs can be simpler and smaller, literally with fewer logic gates. So, it has low leakage, and it is the last to be turned off, and the first to be turned on. Also it then is the only CPU that requires special low-power features. A similar method is used in most PCs, which usually have an auxiliary embedded CPU that manages the power system. However, in PCs, the software is usually in the BIOS, not the operating system.
Theoretically, computers at lower clock speeds could also reduce leakage by reducing the voltage of the power supply. This affects the reliability of the computer in many ways, so the engineering is expensive, and it is uncommon except in relatively expensive computers such as PCs or cellphones.
Some designs can use very low leakage transistors, but these usually add cost. The depletion barriers of the transistors can be made larger to have less leakage, but this makes the transistor larger and thus both slower and more expensive. Some vendors use this technique in selected portions of an IC by constructing low leakage logic from large transistors that some processes provide for analog circuits. Some processes place the transistors above the surface of the silicon, in "fin fets", but these processes have more steps, so are more expensive. Special transistor doping materials (e.g. hafnium) can also reduce leakage, but this adds steps to the processing, making it more expensive. Some semiconductors have a larger band-gap than silicon. However, these materials and processes are currently (2020) more expensive than silicon.
Managing leakage is more difficult, because before the logic can be turned-off, the data in it must be moved to some type of low-leakage storage.
Some CPUs make use of a special type of flip-flop (to store a bit) that couples a fast, high-leakage storage cell to a slow, large (expensive) low-leakage cell. These two cells have separated power supplies. When the CPU enters a power saving mode (e.g. because of a halt that waits for an interrupt), data is transferred to the low-leakage cells, and the others are turned off. When the CPU leaves a low-leakage mode (e.g. because of an interrupt), the process is reversed.
Older designs would copy the CPU state to memory, or even disk, sometimes with specialized software. Very simple embedded systems sometimes just restart.
All modern CPUs have control logic to attach the CPU to the rest of the computer. In modern computers, this is usually a bus controller. When an instruction reads or writes memory, the control unit either controls the bus directly, or controls a bus controller. Many modern computers use the same bus interface for memory, input and output. This is called "memory-mapped I/O". To a programmer, the registers of the I/O devices appear as numbers at specific memory addresses. x86 PCs use an older method, a separate I/O bus accessed by I/O instructions.
A modern CPU also tends to include an interrupt controller. It handles interrupt signals from the system bus. The control unit is the part of the computer that responds to the interrupts.
There is often a cache controller to cache memory. The cache controller and the associated cache memory is often the largest physical part of a modern, higher-performance CPU. When the memory, bus or cache is shared with other CPUs, the control logic must communicate with them to assure that no computer ever gets out-of-date old data.
Many historic computers built some type of input and output directly into the control unit. For example, many historic computers had a front panel with switches and lights directly controlled by the control unit. These let a programmer directly enter a program and debug it. In later production computers, the most common use of a front panel was to enter a small bootstrap program to read the operating system from disk. This was annoying. So, front panels were replaced by bootstrap programs in read-only memory.
Most PDP-8 models had a data bus designed to let I/O devices borrow the control unit's memory read and write logic. This reduced the complexity and expense of high speed I/O controllers, e.g. for disk.
The Xerox Alto had a multitasking microprogrammable control unit that performed almost all I/O. This design provided most of the features of a modern PC with only a tiny fraction of the electronic logic. The dual-thread computer was run by the two lowest-priority microthreads. These performed calculations whenever I/O was not required. High priority microthreads provided (in decreasing priority) video, network, disk, a periodic timer, mouse, and keyboard. The microprogram did the complex logic of the I/O device, as well as the logic to integrate the device with the computer. For the actual hardware I/O, the microprogram read and wrote shift registers for most I/O, sometimes with resistor networks and transistors to shift output voltage levels (e.g. for video). To handle outside events, the microcontroller had microinterrupts to switch threads at the end of a thread's cycle, e.g. at the end of an instruction, or after a shift-register was accessed. The microprogram could be rewritten and reinstalled, which was very useful for a research computer.
Thus a program of instructions in memory will cause the CU to configure a CPU's data flows to manipulate the data correctly between instructions. This results in a computer that could run a complete program and require no human intervention to make hardware changes between instructions (as had to be done when using only punch cards for computations before stored programmed computers with CUs were invented).
Hardwired control units are implemented through use of combinational logic units, featuring a finite number of gates that can generate specific results based on the instructions that were used to invoke those responses. Hardwired control units are generally faster than the microprogrammed designs.
This design uses a fixed architecture—it requires changes in the wiring if the instruction set is modified or changed. It can be convenient for simple, fast computers.
A controller that uses this approach can operate at high speed; however, it has little flexibility. A complex instruction set can overwhelm a designer who uses ad hoc logic design.
The hardwired approach has become less popular as computers have evolved. Previously, control units for CPUs used ad hoc logic, and they were difficult to design.
The idea of microprogramming was introduced by Maurice Wilkes in 1951 as an intermediate level to execute computer program instructions. Microprograms were organized as a sequence of microinstructions and stored in special control memory. The algorithm for the microprogram control unit, unlike the hardwired control unit, is usually specified by flowchart description. The main advantage of a microprogrammed control unit is the simplicity of its structure. Outputs from the controller are by microinstructions. The microprogram can be debugged and replaced very like software.
A popular variation on microcode is to debug the microcode using a software simulator. Then, the microcode is a table of bits. This is a logical truth table, that translates a microcode address into the control unit outputs. This truth table can be fed to a computer program that produces optimized electronic logic. The resulting control unit is almost as easy to design as microprogramming, but it has the fast speed and low number of logic elements of a hard wired control unit. The practical result resembles a Mealy machine or Richards controller. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The control unit (CU) is a component of a computer's central processing unit (CPU) that directs the operation of the processor. A CU typically uses a binary decoder to convert coded instructions into timing and control signals that direct the operation of the other units (memory, arithmetic logic unit and input and output devices, etc.).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Most computer resources are managed by the CU. It directs the flow of data between the CPU and the other devices. John von Neumann included the control unit as part of the Von Neumann architecture. In modern computer designs, the control unit is typically an internal part of the CPU with its overall role and operation unchanged since its introduction.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The simplest computers use a multicycle microarchitecture. These were the earliest designs. They are still popular in the very smallest computers, such as the embedded systems that operate machinery.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In a computer, the control unit often steps through the instruction cycle successively. This consists of fetching the instruction, fetching the operands, decoding the instruction, executing the instruction, and then writing the results back to memory. When the next instruction is placed in the control unit, it changes the behavior of the control unit to complete the instruction correctly. So, the bits of the instruction directly control the control unit, which in turn controls the computer.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The control unit may include a binary counter to tell the control unit's logic what step it should do.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Multicycle control units typically use both the rising and falling edges of their square-wave timing clock. They operate a step of their operation on each edge of the timing clock, so that a four-step operation completes in two clock cycles. This doubles the speed of the computer, given the same logic family.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Many computers have two different types of unexpected events. An interrupt occurs because some type of input or output needs software attention in order to operate correctly. An exception is caused by the computer's operation. One crucial difference is that the timing of an interrupt cannot be predicted. Another is that some exceptions (e.g. a memory-not-available exception) can be caused by an instruction that needs to be restarted.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Control units can be designed to handle interrupts in one of two typical ways. If a quick response is most important, a control unit is designed to abandon work to handle the interrupt. In this case, the work in process will be restarted after the last completed instruction. If the computer is to be very inexpensive, very simple, very reliable, or to get more work done, the control unit will finish the work in process before handling the interrupt. Finishing the work is inexpensive, because it needs no register to record the last finished instruction. It is simple and reliable because it has the fewest states. It also wastes the least amount of work.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Exceptions can be made to operate like interrupts in very simple computers. If virtual memory is required, then a memory-not-available exception must retry the failing instruction.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "It is common for multicycle computers to use more cycles. Sometimes it takes longer to take a conditional jump, because the program counter has to be reloaded. Sometimes they do multiplication or division instructions by a process, something like binary long multiplication and division. Very small computers might do arithmetic, one or a few bits at a time. Some other computers have very complex instructions that take many steps.",
"title": "Multicycle control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Many medium-complexity computers pipeline instructions. This design is popular because of its economy and speed.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In a pipelined computer, instructions flow through the computer. This design has several stages. For example, it might have one stage for each step of the Von Neumann cycle. A pipelined computer usually has \"pipeline registers\" after each stage. These store the bits calculated by a stage so that the logic gates of the next stage can use the bits to do the next step.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "It is common for even numbered stages to operate on one edge of the square-wave clock, while odd-numbered stages operate on the other edge. This speeds the computer by a factor of two compared to single-edge designs.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In a pipelined computer, the control unit arranges for the flow to start, continue, and stop as a program commands. The instruction data is usually passed in pipeline registers from one stage to the next, with a somewhat separated piece of control logic for each stage. The control unit also assures that the instruction in each stage does not harm the operation of instructions in other stages. For example, if two stages must use the same piece of data, the control logic assures that the uses are done in the correct sequence.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "When operating efficiently, a pipelined computer will have an instruction in each stage. It is then working on all of those instructions at the same time. It can finish about one instruction for each cycle of its clock. When a program makes a decision, and switches to a different sequence of instructions, the pipeline sometimes must discard the data in process and restart. This is called a \"stall.\" When two instructions could interfere, sometimes the control unit must stop processing a later instruction until an earlier instruction completes. This is called a \"pipeline bubble\" because a part of the pipeline is not processing instructions. Pipeline bubbles can occur when two instructions operate on the same register.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Interrupts and unexpected exceptions also stall the pipeline. If a pipelined computer abandons work for an interrupt, more work is lost than in a multicycle computer. Predictable exceptions do not need to stall. For example, if an exception instruction is used to enter the operating system, it does not cause a stall.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Speed? For the same speed of electronic logic, it can do more instructions per second than a multicycle computer. Also, even though the electronic logic has a fixed maximum speed, a pipelined computer can be made faster or slower by varying the number of stages in the pipeline. With more stages, each stage does less work, and so the stage has fewer delays from the logic gates.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Economy? A pipelined model of a computer often has the least logic gates per instruction per second, less than either a multicycle or out-of-order computer. Why? The average stage is less complex than a multicycle computer. An out-of-order computer usually has large amounts of idle logic at any given instant. Similar calculations usually show that a pipelined computer uses less energy per instruction.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "However, a pipelined computer is usually more complex and more costly than a comparable multicycle computer. It typically has more logic gates, registers and a more complex control unit. In a like way, it might use more total energy, while using less energy per instruction. Out-of-order CPUs can usually do more instructions per second because they can do several instructions at once.",
"title": "Pipelined control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Control units use many methods to keep a pipeline full and avoid stalls. For example, even simple control units can assume that a backwards branch, to a lower-numbered, earlier instruction, is a loop, and will be repeated. So, a control unit with this design will always fill the pipeline with the backwards branch path. If a compiler can detect the most frequently-taken direction of a branch, the compiler can just produce instructions so that the most frequently taken branch is the preferred direction of branch. In a like way, a control unit might get hints from the compiler: Some computers have instructions that can encode hints from the compiler about the direction of branch.",
"title": "Preventing stalls"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Some control units do branch prediction: A control unit keeps an electronic list of the recent branches, encoded by the address of the branch instruction. This list has a few bits for each branch to remember the direction that was taken most recently.",
"title": "Preventing stalls"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Some control units can do speculative execution, in which a computer might have two or more pipelines, calculate both directions of a branch, and then discard the calculations of the unused direction.",
"title": "Preventing stalls"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Results from memory can become available at unpredictable times because very fast computers cache memory. That is, they copy limited amounts of memory data into very fast memory. The CPU must be designed to process at the very fast speed of the cache memory. Therefore, the CPU might stall when it must access main memory directly. In modern PCs, main memory is as much as three hundred times slower than cache.",
"title": "Preventing stalls"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "To help this, out-of-order CPUs and control units were developed to process data as it becomes available. (See next section)",
"title": "Preventing stalls"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "But what if all the calculations are complete, but the CPU is still stalled, waiting for main memory? Then, a control unit can switch to an alternative thread of execution whose data has been fetched while the thread was idle. A thread has its own program counter, a stream of instructions and a separate set of registers. Designers vary the number of threads depending on current memory technologies and the type of computer. Typical computers such as PCs and smart phones usually have control units with a few threads, just enough to keep busy with affordable memory systems. Database computers often have about twice as many threads, to keep their much larger memories busy. Graphic processing units (GPUs) usually have hundreds or thousands of threads, because they have hundreds or thousands of execution units doing repetitive graphic calculations.",
"title": "Preventing stalls"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "When a control unit permits threads, the software also has to be designed to handle them. In general-purpose CPUs like PCs and smartphones, the threads are usually made to look very like normal time-sliced processes. At most, the operating system might need some awareness of them. In GPUs, the thread scheduling usually cannot be hidden from the application software, and is often controlled with a specialized subroutine library.",
"title": "Preventing stalls"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "A control unit can be designed to finish what it can. If several instructions can be completed at the same time, the control unit will arrange it. So, the fastest computers can process instructions in a sequence that can vary somewhat, depending on when the operands or instruction destinations become available. Most supercomputers and many PC CPUs use this method. The exact organization of this type of control unit depends on the slowest part of the computer.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "When the execution of calculations is the slowest, instructions flow from memory into pieces of electronics called \"issue units.\" An issue unit holds an instruction until both its operands and an execution unit are available. Then, the instruction and its operands are \"issued\" to an execution unit. The execution unit does the instruction. Then the resulting data is moved into a queue of data to be written back to memory or registers. If the computer has multiple execution units, it can usually do several instructions per clock cycle.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "It is common to have specialized execution units. For example, a modestly priced computer might have only one floating-point execution unit, because floating point units are expensive. The same computer might have several integer units, because these are relatively inexpensive, and can do the bulk of instructions.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "One kind of control unit for issuing uses an array of electronic logic, a \"scoreboard\"\" that detects when an instruction can be issued. The \"height\" of the array is the number of execution units, and the \"length\" and \"width\" are each the number of sources of operands. When all the items come together, the signals from the operands and execution unit will cross. The logic at this intersection detects that the instruction can work, so the instruction is \"issued\" to the free execution unit. An alternative style of issuing control unit implements the Tomasulo algorithm, which reorders a hardware queue of instructions. In some sense, both styles utilize a queue. The scoreboard is an alternative way to encode and reorder a queue of instructions, and some designers call it a queue table.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "With some additional logic, a scoreboard can compactly combine execution reordering, register renaming and precise exceptions and interrupts. Further it can do this without the power-hungry, complex content-addressable memory used by the Tomasulo algorithm.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "If the execution is slower than writing the results, the memory write-back queue always has free entries. But what if the memory writes slowly? Or what if the destination register will be used by an \"earlier\" instruction that has not yet issued? Then the write-back step of the instruction might need to be scheduled. This is sometimes called \"retiring\" an instruction. In this case, there must be scheduling logic on the back end of execution units. It schedules access to the registers or memory that will get the results.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Retiring logic can also be designed into an issuing scoreboard or a Tomasulo queue, by including memory or register access in the issuing logic.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Out of order controllers require special design features to handle interrupts. When there are several instructions in progress, it is not clear where in the instruction stream an interrupt occurs. For input and output interrupts, almost any solution works. However, when a computer has virtual memory, an interrupt occurs to indicate that a memory access failed. This memory access must be associated with an exact instruction and an exact processor state, so that the processor's state can be saved and restored by the interrupt. A usual solution preserves copies of registers until a memory access completes.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Also, out of order CPUs have even more problems with stalls from branching, because they can complete several instructions per clock cycle, and usually have many instructions in various stages of progress. So, these control units might use all of the solutions used by pipelined processors.",
"title": "Out of order control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Some computers translate each single instruction into a sequence of simpler instructions. The advantage is that an out of order computer can be simpler in the bulk of its logic, while handling complex multi-step instructions. x86 Intel CPUs since the Pentium Pro translate complex CISC x86 instructions to more RISC-like internal micro-operations.",
"title": "Translating control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In these, the \"front\" of the control unit manages the translation of instructions. Operands are not translated. The \"back\" of the CU is an out-of-order CPU that issues the micro-operations and operands to the execution units and data paths.",
"title": "Translating control units"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Many modern computers have controls that minimize power usage. In battery-powered computers, such as those in cell-phones, the advantage is longer battery life. In computers with utility power, the justification is to reduce the cost of power, cooling or noise.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Most modern computers use CMOS logic. CMOS wastes power in two common ways: By changing state, i.e. \"active power,\" and by unintended leakage. The active power of a computer can be reduced by turning off control signals. Leakage current can be reduced by reducing the electrical pressure, the voltage, making the transistors with larger depletion regions or turning off the logic completely.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Active power is easier to reduce because data stored in the logic is not affected. The usual method reduces the CPU's clock rate. Most computer systems use this method. It is common for a CPU to idle during the transition to avoid side-effects from the changing clock.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Most computers also have a \"halt\" instruction. This was invented to stop non-interrupt code so that interrupt code has reliable timing. However, designers soon noticed that a halt instruction was also a good time to turn off a CPU's clock completely, reducing the CPU's active power to zero. The interrupt controller might continue to need a clock, but that usually uses much less power than the CPU.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "These methods are relatively easy to design, and became so common that others were invented for commercial advantage. Many modern low-power CMOS CPUs stop and start specialized execution units and bus interfaces depending on the needed instruction. Some computers even arrange the CPU's microarchitecture to use transfer-triggered multiplexers so that each instruction only utilises the exact pieces of logic needed.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "One common method is to spread the load to many CPUs, and turn off unused CPUs as the load reduces. The operating system's task switching logic saves the CPUs' data to memory. In some cases, one of the CPUs can be simpler and smaller, literally with fewer logic gates. So, it has low leakage, and it is the last to be turned off, and the first to be turned on. Also it then is the only CPU that requires special low-power features. A similar method is used in most PCs, which usually have an auxiliary embedded CPU that manages the power system. However, in PCs, the software is usually in the BIOS, not the operating system.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Theoretically, computers at lower clock speeds could also reduce leakage by reducing the voltage of the power supply. This affects the reliability of the computer in many ways, so the engineering is expensive, and it is uncommon except in relatively expensive computers such as PCs or cellphones.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Some designs can use very low leakage transistors, but these usually add cost. The depletion barriers of the transistors can be made larger to have less leakage, but this makes the transistor larger and thus both slower and more expensive. Some vendors use this technique in selected portions of an IC by constructing low leakage logic from large transistors that some processes provide for analog circuits. Some processes place the transistors above the surface of the silicon, in \"fin fets\", but these processes have more steps, so are more expensive. Special transistor doping materials (e.g. hafnium) can also reduce leakage, but this adds steps to the processing, making it more expensive. Some semiconductors have a larger band-gap than silicon. However, these materials and processes are currently (2020) more expensive than silicon.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Managing leakage is more difficult, because before the logic can be turned-off, the data in it must be moved to some type of low-leakage storage.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Some CPUs make use of a special type of flip-flop (to store a bit) that couples a fast, high-leakage storage cell to a slow, large (expensive) low-leakage cell. These two cells have separated power supplies. When the CPU enters a power saving mode (e.g. because of a halt that waits for an interrupt), data is transferred to the low-leakage cells, and the others are turned off. When the CPU leaves a low-leakage mode (e.g. because of an interrupt), the process is reversed.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Older designs would copy the CPU state to memory, or even disk, sometimes with specialized software. Very simple embedded systems sometimes just restart.",
"title": "Control units for low-powered computers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "All modern CPUs have control logic to attach the CPU to the rest of the computer. In modern computers, this is usually a bus controller. When an instruction reads or writes memory, the control unit either controls the bus directly, or controls a bus controller. Many modern computers use the same bus interface for memory, input and output. This is called \"memory-mapped I/O\". To a programmer, the registers of the I/O devices appear as numbers at specific memory addresses. x86 PCs use an older method, a separate I/O bus accessed by I/O instructions.",
"title": "Integrating with the Computer"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "A modern CPU also tends to include an interrupt controller. It handles interrupt signals from the system bus. The control unit is the part of the computer that responds to the interrupts.",
"title": "Integrating with the Computer"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "There is often a cache controller to cache memory. The cache controller and the associated cache memory is often the largest physical part of a modern, higher-performance CPU. When the memory, bus or cache is shared with other CPUs, the control logic must communicate with them to assure that no computer ever gets out-of-date old data.",
"title": "Integrating with the Computer"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Many historic computers built some type of input and output directly into the control unit. For example, many historic computers had a front panel with switches and lights directly controlled by the control unit. These let a programmer directly enter a program and debug it. In later production computers, the most common use of a front panel was to enter a small bootstrap program to read the operating system from disk. This was annoying. So, front panels were replaced by bootstrap programs in read-only memory.",
"title": "Integrating with the Computer"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Most PDP-8 models had a data bus designed to let I/O devices borrow the control unit's memory read and write logic. This reduced the complexity and expense of high speed I/O controllers, e.g. for disk.",
"title": "Integrating with the Computer"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Xerox Alto had a multitasking microprogrammable control unit that performed almost all I/O. This design provided most of the features of a modern PC with only a tiny fraction of the electronic logic. The dual-thread computer was run by the two lowest-priority microthreads. These performed calculations whenever I/O was not required. High priority microthreads provided (in decreasing priority) video, network, disk, a periodic timer, mouse, and keyboard. The microprogram did the complex logic of the I/O device, as well as the logic to integrate the device with the computer. For the actual hardware I/O, the microprogram read and wrote shift registers for most I/O, sometimes with resistor networks and transistors to shift output voltage levels (e.g. for video). To handle outside events, the microcontroller had microinterrupts to switch threads at the end of a thread's cycle, e.g. at the end of an instruction, or after a shift-register was accessed. The microprogram could be rewritten and reinstalled, which was very useful for a research computer.",
"title": "Integrating with the Computer"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Thus a program of instructions in memory will cause the CU to configure a CPU's data flows to manipulate the data correctly between instructions. This results in a computer that could run a complete program and require no human intervention to make hardware changes between instructions (as had to be done when using only punch cards for computations before stored programmed computers with CUs were invented).",
"title": "Functions of the control unit"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Hardwired control units are implemented through use of combinational logic units, featuring a finite number of gates that can generate specific results based on the instructions that were used to invoke those responses. Hardwired control units are generally faster than the microprogrammed designs.",
"title": "Hardwired control unit"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "This design uses a fixed architecture—it requires changes in the wiring if the instruction set is modified or changed. It can be convenient for simple, fast computers.",
"title": "Hardwired control unit"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "A controller that uses this approach can operate at high speed; however, it has little flexibility. A complex instruction set can overwhelm a designer who uses ad hoc logic design.",
"title": "Hardwired control unit"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The hardwired approach has become less popular as computers have evolved. Previously, control units for CPUs used ad hoc logic, and they were difficult to design.",
"title": "Hardwired control unit"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The idea of microprogramming was introduced by Maurice Wilkes in 1951 as an intermediate level to execute computer program instructions. Microprograms were organized as a sequence of microinstructions and stored in special control memory. The algorithm for the microprogram control unit, unlike the hardwired control unit, is usually specified by flowchart description. The main advantage of a microprogrammed control unit is the simplicity of its structure. Outputs from the controller are by microinstructions. The microprogram can be debugged and replaced very like software.",
"title": "Microprogram control unit"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "A popular variation on microcode is to debug the microcode using a software simulator. Then, the microcode is a table of bits. This is a logical truth table, that translates a microcode address into the control unit outputs. This truth table can be fed to a computer program that produces optimized electronic logic. The resulting control unit is almost as easy to design as microprogramming, but it has the fast speed and low number of logic elements of a hard wired control unit. The practical result resembles a Mealy machine or Richards controller.",
"title": "Combination methods of design"
}
] | The control unit (CU) is a component of a computer's central processing unit (CPU) that directs the operation of the processor. A CU typically uses a binary decoder to convert coded instructions into timing and control signals that direct the operation of the other units. Most computer resources are managed by the CU. It directs the flow of data between the CPU and the other devices. John von Neumann included the control unit as part of the Von Neumann architecture. In modern computer designs, the control unit is typically an internal part of the CPU with its overall role and operation unchanged since its introduction. | 2001-09-26T22:51:14Z | 2023-11-03T15:53:09Z | [
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6,558 | Cello | The cello (/ˈtʃɛloʊ/ CHEL-oh), or violoncello (/ˌvaɪələnˈtʃɛloʊ/ VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh, Italian pronunciation: [vjolonˈtʃɛllo]), is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages.
Played by a cellist or violoncellist, it enjoys a large solo repertoire with and without accompaniment, as well as numerous concerti. As a solo instrument, the cello uses its whole range, from bass to soprano, and in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, it often plays the bass part, where it may be reinforced an octave lower by the double basses. Figured bass music of the Baroque era typically assumes a cello, viola da gamba or bassoon as part of the basso continuo group alongside chordal instruments such as organ, harpsichord, lute, or theorbo. Cellos are found in many other ensembles, from modern Chinese orchestras to cello rock bands.
The name cello is derived from the ending of the Italian violoncello, which means "little violone". Violone ("big viola") was a large-sized member of viol (viola da gamba) family or the violin (viola da braccio) family. The term "violone" today usually refers to the lowest-pitched instrument of the viols, a family of stringed instruments that went out of fashion around the end of the 17th century in most countries except England and, especially, France, where they survived another half-century before the louder violin family came into greater favour in that country as well. In modern symphony orchestras, it is the second largest stringed instrument (the double bass is the largest). Thus, the name "violoncello" contained both the augmentative "-one" ("big") and the diminutive "-cello" ("little"). By the turn of the 20th century, it had become common to shorten the name to 'cello, with the apostrophe indicating the missing stem. It is now customary to use "cello" without apostrophe as the full designation. Viol is derived from the root viola, which was derived from Medieval Latin vitula, meaning stringed instrument.
Cellos are tuned in fifths, starting with C2 (two octaves below middle C), followed by G2, D3, and then A3. It is tuned in the exact same intervals and strings as the viola, but an octave lower. Similar to the double bass, the cello has an endpin that rests on the floor to support the instrument's weight. The cello is most closely associated with European classical music. The instrument is a part of the standard orchestra, as part of the string section, and is the bass voice of the string quartet (although many composers give it a melodic role as well), as well as being part of many other chamber groups.
Among the most well-known Baroque works for the cello are Johann Sebastian Bach's six unaccompanied Suites. Other significant works include Sonatas and Concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, and solo sonatas by Francesco Geminiani and Giovanni Bononcini. Domenico Gabrielli was one of the first composers to treat the cello as a solo instrument. As a basso continuo instrument the cello may have been used in works by Francesca Caccini (1587–1641), Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677) with pieces such as Il primo libro di madrigali, per 2–5 voci e basso continuo, op. 1 and Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729) who wrote six sonatas for violin and basso continuo. The earliest known manual for learning the cello, Francesco Supriani's Principij da imparare a suonare il violoncello e con 12 Toccate a solo (before 1753), dates from this era. As the title of the work suggests, it contains 12 toccatas for solo cello, which along with Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites, are some of the first works of that type.
From the Classical era, the two concertos by Joseph Haydn in C major and D major stand out, as do the five sonatas for cello and pianoforte of Ludwig van Beethoven, which span the important three periods of his compositional evolution. Other outstanding examples include the three Concerti by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Capricci by dall'Abaco, and Sonatas by Flackton, Boismortier, and Luigi Boccherini. A Divertimento for Piano, Clarinet, Viola and Cello is among the surviving works by Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1739–1807). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart supposedly wrote a Cello Concerto in F major, K. 206a in 1775, but this has since been lost. His Sinfonia Concertante in A major, K. 320e includes a solo part for cello, along with the violin and viola, although this work is incomplete and only exists in fragments, therefore it is given an Anhang number (Anh. 104).
Well-known works of the Romantic era include the Robert Schumann Concerto, the Antonín Dvořák Concerto, the first Camille Saint-Saëns Concerto, as well as the two sonatas and the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms. A review of compositions for cello in the Romantic era must include the German composer Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847) who wrote Fantasia in G Minor for cello and piano and a Capriccio in A-flat for cello.
Compositions from the late-19th and early 20th century include three cello sonatas (including the Cello Sonata in C Minor written in 1880) by Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Claude Debussy's Sonata for Cello and Piano, and unaccompanied cello sonatas by Zoltán Kodály and Paul Hindemith. Pieces including cello were written by American Music Center founder Marion Bauer (1882–1955) (two trio sonatas for flute, cello, and piano) and Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901–1953) (Diaphonic suite No. 2 for bassoon and cello).
The cello's versatility made it popular with many composers in this era, such as Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten, György Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski and Henri Dutilleux. Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969) was writing for cello in the mid 20th century with Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra (1951), Concerto No. 2 for Cello and Orchestra (1963) and in 1964 composed her Quartet for four cellos.
In the 2010s, the instrument is found in popular music, but was more commonly used in 1970s pop and disco music. Today it is sometimes featured in pop and rock recordings, examples of which are noted later in this article. The cello has also appeared in major hip-hop and R & B performances, such as singers Rihanna and Ne-Yo's 2007 performance at the American Music Awards. The instrument has also been modified for Indian classical music by Nancy Lesh and Saskia Rao-de Haas.
The violin family, including cello-sized instruments, emerged c. 1500 as a family of instruments distinct from the viola da gamba family. The earliest depictions of the violin family, from northern Italy c. 1530, show three sizes of instruments, roughly corresponding to what we now call violins, violas, and cellos. Contrary to a popular misconception, the cello did not evolve from the viola da gamba, but existed alongside it for about two and a half centuries. The violin family is also known as the viola da braccio (meaning viola for the arm) family, a reference to the primary way the members of the family are held. This is to distinguish it from the viola da gamba (meaning viola for the leg) family, in which all the members are all held with the legs. The likely predecessors of the violin family include the lira da braccio and the rebec. The earliest surviving cellos are made by Andrea Amati, the first known member of the celebrated Amati family of luthiers.
The direct ancestor to the violoncello was the bass violin. Monteverdi referred to the instrument as "basso de viola da braccio" in Orfeo (1607). Although the first bass violin, possibly invented as early as 1538, was most likely inspired by the viol, it was created to be used in consort with the violin. The bass violin was actually often referred to as a "violone", or "large viola", as were the viols of the same period. Instruments that share features with both the bass violin and the viola da gamba appear in Italian art of the early 16th century.
The invention of wire-wound strings (fine wire around a thin gut core), c. 1660 in Bologna, allowed for a finer bass sound than was possible with purely gut strings on such a short body. Bolognese makers exploited this new technology to create the cello, a somewhat smaller instrument suitable for solo repertoire due to both the timbre of the instrument and the fact that the smaller size made it easier to play virtuosic passages. This instrument had disadvantages as well, however. The cello's light sound was not as suitable for church and ensemble playing, so it had to be doubled by organ, theorbo, or violone.
Around 1700, Italian players popularized the cello in northern Europe, although the bass violin (basse de violon) continued to be used for another two decades in France. Many existing bass violins were literally cut down in size to convert them into cellos according to the smaller pattern developed by Stradivarius, who also made a number of old pattern large cellos (the 'Servais'). The sizes, names, and tunings of the cello varied widely by geography and time. The size was not standardized until c. 1750.
Despite similarities to the viola da gamba, the cello is actually part of the viola da braccio family, meaning "viol of the arm", which includes, among others, the violin and viola. Though paintings like Bruegel's "The Rustic Wedding", and Jambe de Fer in his Epitome Musical suggest that the bass violin had alternate playing positions, these were short-lived and the more practical and ergonomic a gamba position eventually replaced them entirely.
Baroque-era cellos differed from the modern instrument in several ways. The neck has a different form and angle, which matches the baroque bass-bar and stringing. The fingerboard is usually shorter than that of the modern cello, as the highest notes are not often called for in baroque music. Modern cellos have an endpin at the bottom to support the instrument (and transmit some of the sound through the floor), while Baroque cellos are held only by the calves of the player. Modern bows curve in and are held at the frog; Baroque bows curve out and are held closer to the bow's point of balance. Modern strings normally have a metal core, although some use a synthetic core; Baroque strings are made of gut, with the G and C strings wire-wound. Modern cellos often have fine tuners connecting the strings to the tailpiece, which makes it much easier to tune the instrument, but such pins are rendered ineffective by the flexibility of the gut strings used on Baroque cellos. Overall, the modern instrument has much higher string tension than the Baroque cello, resulting in a louder, more projecting tone, with fewer overtones. In addition, the instrument was less standardized in size and number of strings; a smaller, five-string variant (the violoncello piccolo) was commonly used as a solo instrument and five-string instruments are occasionally specified in the Baroque repertoire.
Few educational works specifically devoted to the cello existed before the 18th century and those that do exist contain little value to the performer beyond simple accounts of instrumental technique. One of the earliest cello manuals is Michel Corrette's Méthode, thèorique et pratique pour apprendre en peu de temps le violoncelle dans sa perfection (Paris, 1741).
Cellos are part of the standard symphony orchestra, which usually includes eight to twelve cellists. The cello section, in standard orchestral seating, is located on stage left (the audience's right) in the front, opposite the first violin section. However, some orchestras and conductors prefer switching the positioning of the viola and cello sections. The principal cellist is the section leader, determining bowings for the section in conjunction with other string principals, playing solos, and leading entrances (when the section begins to play its part). Principal players always sit closest to the audience.
The cellos are a critical part of orchestral music; all symphonic works involve the cello section, and many pieces require cello soli or solos. Much of the time, cellos provide part of the low-register harmony for the orchestra. Often, the cello section plays the melody for a brief period, before returning to the harmony role. There are also cello concertos, which are orchestral pieces that feature a solo cellist accompanied by an entire orchestra.
There are numerous cello concertos – where a solo cello is accompanied by an orchestra – notably 25 by Vivaldi, 12 by Boccherini, at least three by Haydn, three by C. P. E. Bach, two by Saint-Saëns, two by Dvořák, and one each by Robert Schumann, Lalo, and Elgar. There were also some composers who, while not otherwise cellists, did write cello-specific repertoire, such as Nikolaus Kraft who wrote six cello concertos. Beethoven's Triple Concerto for Cello, Violin and Piano and Brahms' Double Concerto for Cello and Violin are also part of the concertante repertoire although in both cases the cello shares solo duties with at least one other instrument. Moreover, several composers wrote large-scale pieces for cello and orchestra, which are concertos in all but name. Some familiar "concertos" are Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Quixote, Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, Bloch's Schelomo and Bruch's Kol Nidrei.
In the 20th century, the cello repertoire grew immensely. This was partly due to the influence of virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who inspired, commissioned, and premiered dozens of new works. Among these, Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto, Britten's Cello Symphony, the concertos of Shostakovich and Lutosławski as well as Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain... have already become part of the standard repertoire. Other major composers who wrote concertante works for him include Messiaen, Jolivet, Berio, and Penderecki. In addition, Arnold, Barber, Glass, Hindemith, Honegger, Ligeti, Myaskovsky, Penderecki, Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos and Walton also wrote major concertos for other cellists, notably for Gaspar Cassadó, Aldo Parisot, Gregor Piatigorsky, Siegfried Palm and Julian Lloyd Webber.
There are also many sonatas for cello and piano. Those written by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Brahms, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Fauré, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Poulenc, Carter, and Britten are particularly well known.
Other important pieces for cello and piano include Schumann's five Stücke im Volkston and transcriptions like Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata (originally for arpeggione and piano), César Franck's Cello Sonata (originally a violin sonata, transcribed by Jules Delsart with the composer's approval), Stravinsky's Suite italienne (transcribed by the composer – with Gregor Piatigorsky – from his ballet Pulcinella) and Bartók's first rhapsody (also transcribed by the composer, originally for violin and piano).
There are pieces for cello solo, Johann Sebastian Bach's six Suites for Cello (which are among the best-known solo cello pieces), Kodály's Sonata for Solo Cello and Britten's three Cello Suites. Other notable examples include Hindemith's and Ysaÿe's Sonatas for Solo Cello, Dutilleux's Trois Strophes sur le Nom de Sacher, Berio's Les Mots Sont Allés, Cassadó's Suite for Solo Cello, Ligeti's Solo Sonata, Carter's two Figments and Xenakis' Nomos Alpha and Kottos.
There are also modern solo pieces written for cello. Such as Julie-O by Mark Summer.
The cello is a member of the traditional string quartet as well as string quintets, sextet or trios and other mixed ensembles. There are also pieces written for two, three, four, or more cellos; this type of ensemble is also called a "cello choir" and its sound is familiar from the introduction to Rossini's William Tell Overture as well as Zaccharia's prayer scene in Verdi's Nabucco. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture also starts with a cello ensemble, with four cellos playing the top lines and two violas playing the bass lines. As a self-sufficient ensemble, its most famous repertoire is Heitor Villa-Lobos' first of his Bachianas Brasileiras for cello ensemble (the fifth is for soprano and 8 cellos). Other examples are Offenbach's cello duets, quartet, and sextet, Pärt's Fratres for eight cellos and Boulez' Messagesquisse for seven cellos, or even Villa-Lobos' rarely played Fantasia Concertante (1958) for 32 cellos. The 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (or "the Twelve" as they have since taken to being called) specialize in this repertoire and have commissioned many works, including arrangements of well-known popular songs.
The cello is less common in popular music than in classical music. Several bands feature a cello in their standard line-up, including Hoppy Jones of the Ink Spots and Joe Kwon of the Avett Brothers. The more common use in pop and rock is to bring the instrument in for a particular song. In the 1960s, artists such as the Beatles and Cher used the cello in popular music, in songs such as The Beatles' "Yesterday", "Eleanor Rigby" and "Strawberry Fields Forever", and Cher's "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)". "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys includes the cello in its instrumental ensemble, which includes a number of instruments unusual for this sort of music. Bass guitarist Jack Bruce, who had originally studied music on a performance scholarship for cello, played a prominent cello part in "As You Said" on Cream's Wheels of Fire studio album (1968).
In the 1970s, the Electric Light Orchestra enjoyed great commercial success taking inspiration from so-called "Beatlesque" arrangements, adding the cello (and violin) to the standard rock combo line-up and in 1978 the UK based rock band, Colosseum II, collaborated with cellist Julian Lloyd Webber on the recording Variations. Most notably, Pink Floyd included a cello solo in their 1970 epic instrumental "Atom Heart Mother". Bass guitarist Mike Rutherford of Genesis was originally a cellist and included some cello parts in their Foxtrot album.
Established non-traditional cello groups include Apocalyptica, a group of Finnish cellists best known for their versions of Metallica songs, Rasputina, a group of cellists committed to an intricate cello style intermingled with Gothic music, the Massive Violins, an ensemble of seven singing cellists known for their arrangements of rock, pop and classical hits, Von Cello, a cello fronted rock power trio, Break of Reality who mix elements of classical music with the more modern rock and metal genre, Cello Fury, a cello rock band that performs original rock/classical crossover music, and Jelloslave, a Minneapolis-based Cello duo with two percussionists. These groups are examples of a style that has become known as cello rock. The crossover string quartet bond also includes a cellist. Silenzium and Cellissimo Quartet are Russian (Novosibirsk) groups playing rock and metal and having more and more popularity in Siberia. Cold Fairyland from Shanghai, China is using a cello along a Pipa as the main solo instrument to create East meets West progressive (folk) rock.
More recent bands who have used the cello include Clean Bandit, Aerosmith, The Auteurs, Nirvana, Oasis, Ra Ra Riot, Smashing Pumpkins, James, Talk Talk, Phillip Phillips, OneRepublic, Electric Light Orchestra and the baroque rock band Arcade Fire. An Atlanta-based trio, King Richard's Sunday Best, also uses a cellist in their lineup. So-called "chamber pop" artists like Kronos Quartet, The Vitamin String Quartet and Margot and the Nuclear So and So's have also recently made cello common in modern alternative rock. Heavy metal band System of a Down has also made use of the cello's rich sound. The indie rock band The Stiletto Formal are known for using a cello as a major staple of their sound, similarly, the indie rock band Canada employs two cello players in their lineup. The orch-rock group, The Polyphonic Spree, which has pioneered the use of stringed and symphonic instruments, employs the cello in very creative ways for many of their "psychedelic-esque" melodies. The first wave screamo band I Would Set Myself On Fire For You featured a cello as well as a viola to create a more folk-oriented sound. The band, Panic! at the Disco uses a cello in their song, "Build God, Then We'll Talk", with lead vocalist Brendon Urie recording the cello solo himself. The Lumineers added cellist Nela Pekarek to the band in 2010. Radiohead makes frequent use of cello in their music, notably for the songs "Burn The Witch" and "Glass Eyes" in 2016.
In jazz, bassists Oscar Pettiford and Harry Babasin were among the first to use the cello as a solo instrument; both tuned their instruments in fourths, an octave above the double bass. Fred Katz (who was not a bassist) was one of the first notable jazz cellists to use the instrument's standard tuning and arco technique. Contemporary jazz cellists include Abdul Wadud, Diedre Murray, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, David Darling, Lucio Amanti, Akua Dixon, Ernst Reijseger, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Tom Cora and Erik Friedlander. Modern musical theatre pieces like Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years, Duncan Sheik's Spring Awakening, Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins, and Ricky Ian Gordon's My Life with Albertine use small string ensembles (including solo cellos) to a prominent extent.
In Indian Classical music Saskia Rao-de Haas is a well-established soloist as well as playing duets with her sitarist husband Pt. Shubhendra Rao. Other cellists performing Indian classical music are Nancy Lesh (Dhrupad) and Anup Biswas. Both Rao and Lesh play the cello sitting cross-legged on the floor.
The cello can also be used in bluegrass and folk music, with notable players including Ben Sollee of the Sparrow Quartet and the "Cajun cellist" Sean Grissom, as well as Vyvienne Long who, in addition to her own projects, has played for those of Damien Rice. Cellists such as Natalie Haas, Abby Newton, and Liz Davis Maxfield have contributed significantly to the use of cello playing in Celtic folk music, often with the cello featured as a primary melodic instrument and employing the skills and techniques of traditional fiddle playing. Lindsay Mac is becoming well known for playing the cello like a guitar, with her cover of The Beatles' "Blackbird".
The cello is typically made from carved wood, although other materials such as carbon fiber or aluminum may be used. A traditional cello has a spruce top, with maple for the back, sides, and neck. Other woods, such as poplar or willow, are sometimes used for the back and sides. Less expensive cellos frequently have tops and backs made of laminated wood. Laminated cellos are widely used in elementary and secondary school orchestras and youth orchestras, because they are much more durable than carved wood cellos (i.e., they are less likely to crack if bumped or dropped) and they are much less expensive.
The top and back are traditionally hand-carved, though less expensive cellos are often machine-produced. The sides, or ribs, are made by heating the wood and bending it around forms. The cello body has a wide top bout, narrow middle formed by two C-bouts, and wide bottom bout, with the bridge and F holes just below the middle. The top and back of the cello have a decorative border inlay known as purfling. While purfling is attractive, it is also functional: if the instrument is struck, the purfling can prevent cracking of the wood. A crack may form at the rim of the instrument but spreads no further. Without purfling, cracks can spread up or down the top or back. Playing, traveling and the weather all affect the cello and can increase a crack if purfling is not in place. Less expensive instruments typically have painted purfling.
The fingerboard and pegs on a cello are generally made from ebony, as it is strong and does not wear out easily.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) as well as German luthier G.A. Pfretzschner produced an unknown number of aluminum cellos (in addition to aluminum double basses and violins). Cello manufacturer Luis & Clark constructs cellos from carbon fibre. Carbon fibre instruments are particularly suitable for outdoor playing because of the strength of the material and its resistance to humidity and temperature fluctuations. Luis & Clark has produced over 1000 cellos, some of which are owned by cellists such as Yo-Yo Ma and Josephine van Lier.
Above the main body is the carved neck. The neck has a curved cross-section on its underside, which is where the player's thumb runs along the neck during playing. The neck leads to a pegbox and the scroll, which are all normally carved out of a single piece of wood, usually maple. The fingerboard is glued to the neck and extends over the body of the instrument. The fingerboard is given a curved shape, matching the curve on the bridge. Both the fingerboard and bridge need to be curved so that the performer can bow individual strings. If the cello were to have a flat fingerboard and bridge, as with a typical guitar, the performer would only be able to bow the leftmost and rightmost two strings or bow all the strings. The performer would not be able to play the inner two strings alone.
The nut is a raised piece of wood, fitted where the fingerboard meets the pegbox, in which the strings rest in shallow slots or grooves to keep them the correct distance apart. The pegbox houses four tapered tuning pegs, one for each string. The pegs are used to tune the cello by either tightening or loosening the string. The pegs are called "friction pegs", because they maintain their position by friction. The scroll is a traditional ornamental part of the cello and a feature of all other members of the violin family. Ebony is usually used for the tuning pegs, fingerboard, and nut, but other hardwoods, such as boxwood or rosewood, can be used. Black fittings on low-cost instruments are often made from inexpensive wood that has been blackened or "ebonized" to look like ebony, which is much harder and more expensive. Ebonized parts such as tuning pegs may crack or split, and the black surface of the fingerboard will eventually wear down to reveal the lighter wood underneath.
Historically, cello strings had cores made out of catgut, which, despite its name, is made from sheep or goat intestines. Most modern strings used in the 2010s are wound with metallic materials like aluminum, titanium and chromium. Cellists may mix different types of strings on their instruments. The pitches of the open strings are C, G, D, and A (black note heads in the playing range figure above), unless alternative tuning (scordatura) is specified by the composer. Some composers (e.g. Ottorino Respighi in the final movement of ‘’The Pines of Rome’’) ask that the low C be tuned down to a B-flat so that the performer can play a different low note on the lowest open string.
The tailpiece and endpin are found in the lower part of the cello. The tailpiece is the part of the cello to which the "ball ends" of the strings are attached by passing them through holes. The tailpiece is attached to the bottom of the cello. The tailpiece is traditionally made of ebony or another hardwood, but can also be made of plastic or steel on lower-cost instruments. It attaches the strings to the lower end of the cello and can have one or more fine tuners. The fine tuners are used to make smaller adjustments to the pitch of the string. The fine tuners can increase the tension of each string (raising the pitch) or decrease the tension of the string (lowering the pitch). When the performer is putting on a new string, the fine tuner for that string is normally reset to a middle position, and then the peg is turned to bring the string up to pitch. The fine turners are used for subtle, minor adjustments to pitch, such as tuning a cello to the oboe's 440 Hz A note or tuning the cello to a piano.
The endpin or spike is made of wood, metal, or rigid carbon fiber and supports the cello in playing position. The endpin can be retracted into the hollow body of the instrument when the cello is being transported in its case. This makes the cello easier to move about. When the performer wishes to play the cello, the endpin is pulled out to lengthen it. The endpin is locked into the player's preferred length with a screw mechanism. The adjustable nature of endpins enables performers of different ages and body sizes to adjust the endpin length to suit them. In the Baroque period, the cello was held between the calves, as there was no endpin at that time. The endpin was "introduced by Adrien Servais c. 1845 to give the instrument greater stability". Modern endpins are retractable and adjustable; older ones were removed when not in use. (The word "endpin" sometimes also refers to the button of wood located at this place in all instruments in the violin family, but this is usually called "tailpin".) The sharp tip of the cello's endpin is sometimes capped with a rubber tip that protects the tip from dulling and prevents the cello from slipping on the floor. Many cellists use a rubber pad with a metal cup to keep the tip from slipping on the floor. A number of accessories exist to keep the endpin from slipping; these include ropes that attach to the chair leg and other devices.
The bridge holds the strings above the cello and transfers their vibrations to the top of the instrument and the soundpost inside (see below). The bridge is not glued but rather held in place by the tension of the strings. The bridge is usually positioned by the cross point of the "f-hole" (i.e., where the horizontal line occurs in the "f"). The f-holes, named for their shape, are located on either side of the bridge and allow air to move in and out of the instrument as part of the sound-production process. The f-holes also act as access points to the interior of the cello for repairs or maintenance. Sometimes a small length of rubber hose containing a water-soaked sponge, called a Dampit, is inserted through the f-holes and serves as a humidifier. This keeps the wood components of the cello from drying out.
Internally, the cello has two important features: a bass bar, which is glued to the underside of the top of the instrument, and a round wooden sound post, a solid wooden cylinder which is wedged between the top and bottom plates. The bass bar, found under the bass foot of the bridge, serves to support the cello's top and distribute the vibrations from the strings to the body of the instrument. The soundpost, found under the treble side of the bridge, connects the back and front of the cello. Like the bridge, the soundpost is not glued but is kept in place by the tensions of the bridge and strings. Together, the bass bar and sound post transfer the strings' vibrations to the top (front) of the instrument (and to a lesser extent the back), acting as a diaphragm to produce the instrument's sound.
Cellos are constructed and repaired using hide glue, which is strong but reversible, allowing for disassembly when needed. Tops may be glued on with diluted glue since some repairs call for the removal of the top. Theoretically, hide glue is weaker than the body's wood, so as the top or back shrinks side-to-side, the glue holding it lets go and the plate does not crack. Cellists repairing cracks in their cello do not use regular wood glue, because it cannot be steamed open when a repair has to be made by a luthier.
Traditionally, bows are made from pernambuco or brazilwood. Both come from the same species of tree (Caesalpinia echinata), but Pernambuco, used for higher-quality bows, is the heartwood of the tree and is darker in color than brazilwood (which is sometimes stained to compensate). Pernambuco is a heavy, resinous wood with great elasticity, which makes it an ideal wood for instrument bows. Horsehair is stretched out between the two ends of the bow. The taut horsehair is drawn over the strings, while being held roughly parallel to the bridge and perpendicular to the strings, to produce sound. A small knob is twisted to increase or decrease the tension of the horsehair. The tension on the bow is released when the instrument is not being used. The amount of tension a cellist puts on the bow hair depends on the preferences of the player, the style of music being played, and for students, the preferences of their teacher.
Bows are also made from other materials, such as carbon fibre—stronger than wood—and fiberglass (often used to make inexpensive, lower-quality student bows). An average cello bow is 73 cm (29 in) long (shorter than a violin or viola bow) 3 cm (1.2 in) high (from the frog to the stick) and 1.5 cm (0.59 in) wide. The frog of a cello bow typically has a rounded corner like that of a viola bow, but is wider. A cello bow is roughly 10 g (0.35 oz) heavier than a viola bow, which in turn is roughly 10 g (0.35 oz) heavier than a violin bow.
Bow hair is traditionally horsehair, though synthetic hair, in varying colors, is also used. Prior to playing, the musician tightens the bow by turning a screw to pull the frog (the part of the bow under the hand) back and increase the tension of the hair. Rosin is applied by the player to make the hair sticky. Bows need to be re-haired periodically. Baroque style (1600–1750) cello bows were much thicker and were formed with a larger outward arch when compared to modern cello bows. The inward arch of a modern cello bow produces greater tension, which in turn gives off a louder sound.
The cello bow has also been used to play electric guitars. Jimmy Page pioneered its application on tracks such as "Dazed and Confused". The post-rock Icelandic band Sigur Rós's lead singer often plays guitar using a cello bow.
In 1989, the German cellist Michael Bach began developing a curved bow, encouraged by John Cage, Dieter Schnebel, Mstislav Rostropovich and Luigi Colani: and since then many pieces have been composed especially for it. This curved bow (BACH.Bow) is a convex curved bow which, unlike the ordinary bow, renders possible polyphonic playing on the various strings of the instrument. The solo repertoire for violin and cello by J. S. Bach the BACH.Bow is particularly suited to it: and it was developed with this in mind, polyphonic playing being required, as well as monophonic.
When a string is bowed or plucked, it vibrates and moves the air around it, producing sound waves. Because the string is quite thin, not much air is moved by the string itself, and consequently, if the string was not mounted on a hollow body, the sound would be weak. In acoustic stringed instruments such as the cello, this lack of volume is solved by mounting the vibrating string on a larger hollow wooden body. The vibrations are transmitted to the larger body, which can move more air and produce a louder sound. Different designs of the instrument produce variations in the instrument's vibrational patterns and thus change the character of the sound produced. A string's fundamental pitch can be adjusted by changing its stiffness, which depends on tension and length. Tightening a string stiffens it by increasing both the outward forces along its length and the net forces it experiences during a distortion. A cello can be tuned by adjusting the tension of its strings, by turning the tuning pegs mounted on its pegbox and tension adjusters (fine tuners) on the tailpiece.
A string's length also affects its fundamental pitch. Shortening a string stiffens it by increasing its curvature during a distortion and subjecting it to larger net forces. Shortening the string also reduces its mass, but does not alter the mass per unit length, and it is the latter ratio rather than the total mass which governs the frequency. The string vibrates in a standing wave whose speed of propagation is given by T m {\displaystyle {\sqrt {\frac {T}{m}}}} , where T is the tension and m is the mass per unit length; there is a node at either end of the vibrating length, and thus the vibrating length l is half a wavelength. Since the frequency of any wave is equal to the speed divided by the wavelength, we have f r e q u e n c y = 1 2 l ⋅ T m {\displaystyle frequency={\frac {1}{2l}}\cdot {\sqrt {\frac {T}{m}}}} . (Some writers, including Muncaster (cited below) use the Greek letter μ in place of m.) Thus shortening a string increases the frequency, and thus the pitch. Because of this effect, you can raise and change the pitch of a string by pressing it against the fingerboard in the cello's neck and effectively shortening it. Likewise strings with less mass per unit length, if under the same tension, will have a higher frequency and thus higher pitch than more massive strings. This is a prime reason why the different strings on all string instruments have different fundamental pitches, with the lightest strings having the highest pitches.
A played note of E or F-sharp has a frequency that is often very close to the natural resonating frequency of the body of the instrument, and if the problem is not addressed this can set the body into near resonance. This may cause an unpleasant sudden amplification of this pitch, and additionally a loud beating sound results from the interference produced between these nearby frequencies; this is known as the “wolf tone” because it is an unpleasant growling sound. The wood resonance appears to be split into two frequencies by the driving force of the sounding string. These two periodic resonances beat with each other. This wolf tone must be eliminated or significantly reduced for the cello to play the nearby notes with a pleasant tone. This can be accomplished by modifying the cello front plate, attaching a wolf eliminator (a metal cylinder or a rubber cylinder encased in metal), or moving the soundpost.
When a string is bowed or plucked to produce a note, the fundamental note is accompanied by higher frequency overtones. Each sound has a particular recipe of frequencies that combine to make the total sound.
Playing the cello is done while seated with the instrument supported on the floor by the endpin. The right hand bows (or sometimes plucks) the strings to sound the notes. The left-hand fingertips stop the strings along their length, determining the pitch of each fingered note. Stopping the string closer to the bridge results in a higher-pitched sound because the vibrating string length has been shortened. On the contrary, a string stopped closer to the tuning pegs produces a lower sound. In the neck positions (which use just less than half of the fingerboard, nearest the top of the instrument), the thumb rests on the back of the neck, some people use their thumb as a marker of their position; in thumb position (a general name for notes on the remainder of the fingerboard) the thumb usually rests alongside the fingers on the string. Then, the side of the thumb is used to play notes. The fingers are normally held curved with each knuckle bent, with the fingertips in contact with the string. If a finger is required on two (or more) strings at once to play perfect fifths (in double stops or chords), it is used flat. The contact point can move slightly away from the nail to the finger's pad in slower or more expressive playing, allowing a fuller vibrato.
Vibrato is a small oscillation in the pitch of a note, usually considered an expressive technique. The closer towards the bridge the note is, the smaller the oscillation needed to create the effect. Harmonics played on the cello fall into two classes; natural and artificial. Natural harmonics are produced by lightly touching (but not depressing) the string at certain places and then bowing (or, rarely, plucking) the string. For example, the halfway point of the string will produce a harmonic that is one octave above the unfingered (open) string. Natural harmonics only produce notes that are part of the harmonic series on a particular string. Artificial harmonics (also called false harmonics or stopped harmonics), in which the player depresses the string fully with one finger while touching the same string lightly with another finger, can produce any note above middle C. Glissando (Italian for "sliding") is an effect achieved by sliding the finger up or down the fingerboard without releasing the string. This causes the pitch to rise and fall smoothly, without separate, discernible steps.
In cello playing, the bow is much like the breath of a wind instrument player. Arguably, it is a major factor in the expressiveness of the playing. The right hand holds the bow and controls the duration and character of the notes. In general, the bow is drawn across the strings roughly halfway between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge, in a direction perpendicular to the strings; however, the player may wish to move the bow's point of contact higher or lower depending on the desired sound. The bow is held and manipulated with all five fingers of the right hand, with the thumb opposite the fingers and closer to the cellist's body. Tone production and volume of sound depend on a combination of several factors. The four most important ones are weight applied to the string, the angle of the bow on the string, bow speed, and the point of contact of the bow hair with the string (sometimes abbreviated WASP).
Double stops involve the playing of two notes simultaneously. Two strings are fingered at once, and the bow is drawn to sound them both. Often, in pizzicato playing, the string is plucked directly with the fingers or thumb of the right hand. However, the strings may be plucked with a finger of the left hand in certain advanced pieces, either so that the cellist can play bowed notes on another string along with pizzicato notes or because the speed of the piece would not allow the player sufficient time to pluck with the right hand. In musical notation, pizzicato is often abbreviated as "pizz." The position of the hand in pizzicato is commonly slightly over the fingerboard and away from the bridge.
A player using the col legno technique strikes or rubs the strings with the wood of the bow rather than the hair. In spiccato playing, the bow still moves in a horizontal motion on the string but is allowed to bounce, generating a lighter, somewhat more percussive sound. In staccato, the player moves the bow a small distance and stops it on the string, making a short sound, the rest of the written duration being taken up by silence. Legato is a technique in which notes are smoothly connected without breaks. It is indicated by a slur (curved line) above or below – depending on their position on the staff – the notes of the passage that is to be played legato.
Sul ponticello ("on the bridge") refers to bowing closer to (or nearly on) the bridge, while sul tasto ("on the fingerboard") calls for bowing nearer to (or over) the end of the fingerboard. At its extreme, sul ponticello produces a harsh, shrill sound with emphasis on overtones and high harmonics. In contrast, sul tasto produces a more flute-like sound that emphasizes the note's fundamental frequency and produces softened overtones. Composers have used both techniques, particularly in an orchestral setting, for special sounds and effects.
Standard-sized cellos are referred to as "full-size" or "4⁄4" but are also made in smaller (fractional) sizes, including 7⁄8, 3⁄4, 1⁄2, 1⁄4, 1⁄8, 1⁄10, and 1⁄16. The fractions refer to volume rather than length, so a 1/2 size cello is much longer than half the length of a full size. The smaller cellos are identical to standard cellos in construction, range, and usage, but are simply scaled-down for the benefit of children and shorter adults.
Cellos in sizes larger than 4⁄4 do exist, and cellists with unusually large hands may require such a non-standard instrument. Cellos made before c. 1700 tended to be considerably larger than those made and commonly played today. Around 1680, changes in string-making technology made it possible to play lower-pitched notes on shorter strings. The cellos of Stradivari, for example, can be clearly divided into two models: the style made before 1702, characterized by larger instruments (of which only three exist in their original size and configuration), and the style made during and after 1707, when Stradivari began making smaller cellos. This later model is the design most commonly used by modern luthiers. The scale length of a 4⁄4 cello is about 70 cm (27+1⁄2 in). The new size offered fuller tonal projection and a greater range of expression. The instrument in this form was able to contribute to more pieces musically and offered the possibility of greater physical dexterity for the player to develop technique.
There are many accessories for the cello.
Cellos are made by luthiers, specialists in building and repairing stringed instruments, ranging from guitars to violins. The following luthiers are notable for the cellos they have produced:
A person who plays the cello is called a cellist. For a list of notable cellists, see the list of cellists and Category:Cellists.
Specific instruments are famous (or become famous) for a variety of reasons. An instrument's notability may arise from its age, the fame of its maker, its physical appearance, its acoustic properties, and its use by notable performers. The most famous instruments are generally known for all of these things. The most highly prized instruments are now collector's items and are priced beyond the reach of most musicians. These instruments are typically owned by some kind of organization or investment group, which may loan the instrument to a notable performer. For example, the Davidov Stradivarius, which is currently in the possession of one of the most widely known living cellists, Yo-Yo Ma, is actually owned by the Vuitton Foundation.
Some notable cellos: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The cello (/ˈtʃɛloʊ/ CHEL-oh), or violoncello (/ˌvaɪələnˈtʃɛloʊ/ VY-ə-lən-CHEL-oh, Italian pronunciation: [vjolonˈtʃɛllo]), is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Played by a cellist or violoncellist, it enjoys a large solo repertoire with and without accompaniment, as well as numerous concerti. As a solo instrument, the cello uses its whole range, from bass to soprano, and in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, it often plays the bass part, where it may be reinforced an octave lower by the double basses. Figured bass music of the Baroque era typically assumes a cello, viola da gamba or bassoon as part of the basso continuo group alongside chordal instruments such as organ, harpsichord, lute, or theorbo. Cellos are found in many other ensembles, from modern Chinese orchestras to cello rock bands.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The name cello is derived from the ending of the Italian violoncello, which means \"little violone\". Violone (\"big viola\") was a large-sized member of viol (viola da gamba) family or the violin (viola da braccio) family. The term \"violone\" today usually refers to the lowest-pitched instrument of the viols, a family of stringed instruments that went out of fashion around the end of the 17th century in most countries except England and, especially, France, where they survived another half-century before the louder violin family came into greater favour in that country as well. In modern symphony orchestras, it is the second largest stringed instrument (the double bass is the largest). Thus, the name \"violoncello\" contained both the augmentative \"-one\" (\"big\") and the diminutive \"-cello\" (\"little\"). By the turn of the 20th century, it had become common to shorten the name to 'cello, with the apostrophe indicating the missing stem. It is now customary to use \"cello\" without apostrophe as the full designation. Viol is derived from the root viola, which was derived from Medieval Latin vitula, meaning stringed instrument.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Cellos are tuned in fifths, starting with C2 (two octaves below middle C), followed by G2, D3, and then A3. It is tuned in the exact same intervals and strings as the viola, but an octave lower. Similar to the double bass, the cello has an endpin that rests on the floor to support the instrument's weight. The cello is most closely associated with European classical music. The instrument is a part of the standard orchestra, as part of the string section, and is the bass voice of the string quartet (although many composers give it a melodic role as well), as well as being part of many other chamber groups.",
"title": "General description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Among the most well-known Baroque works for the cello are Johann Sebastian Bach's six unaccompanied Suites. Other significant works include Sonatas and Concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, and solo sonatas by Francesco Geminiani and Giovanni Bononcini. Domenico Gabrielli was one of the first composers to treat the cello as a solo instrument. As a basso continuo instrument the cello may have been used in works by Francesca Caccini (1587–1641), Barbara Strozzi (1619–1677) with pieces such as Il primo libro di madrigali, per 2–5 voci e basso continuo, op. 1 and Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (1665–1729) who wrote six sonatas for violin and basso continuo. The earliest known manual for learning the cello, Francesco Supriani's Principij da imparare a suonare il violoncello e con 12 Toccate a solo (before 1753), dates from this era. As the title of the work suggests, it contains 12 toccatas for solo cello, which along with Johann Sebastian Bach's Cello Suites, are some of the first works of that type.",
"title": "General description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "From the Classical era, the two concertos by Joseph Haydn in C major and D major stand out, as do the five sonatas for cello and pianoforte of Ludwig van Beethoven, which span the important three periods of his compositional evolution. Other outstanding examples include the three Concerti by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Capricci by dall'Abaco, and Sonatas by Flackton, Boismortier, and Luigi Boccherini. A Divertimento for Piano, Clarinet, Viola and Cello is among the surviving works by Duchess Anna Amalia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1739–1807). Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart supposedly wrote a Cello Concerto in F major, K. 206a in 1775, but this has since been lost. His Sinfonia Concertante in A major, K. 320e includes a solo part for cello, along with the violin and viola, although this work is incomplete and only exists in fragments, therefore it is given an Anhang number (Anh. 104).",
"title": "General description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Well-known works of the Romantic era include the Robert Schumann Concerto, the Antonín Dvořák Concerto, the first Camille Saint-Saëns Concerto, as well as the two sonatas and the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms. A review of compositions for cello in the Romantic era must include the German composer Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847) who wrote Fantasia in G Minor for cello and piano and a Capriccio in A-flat for cello.",
"title": "General description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Compositions from the late-19th and early 20th century include three cello sonatas (including the Cello Sonata in C Minor written in 1880) by Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Claude Debussy's Sonata for Cello and Piano, and unaccompanied cello sonatas by Zoltán Kodály and Paul Hindemith. Pieces including cello were written by American Music Center founder Marion Bauer (1882–1955) (two trio sonatas for flute, cello, and piano) and Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901–1953) (Diaphonic suite No. 2 for bassoon and cello).",
"title": "General description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The cello's versatility made it popular with many composers in this era, such as Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Benjamin Britten, György Ligeti, Witold Lutoslawski and Henri Dutilleux. Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969) was writing for cello in the mid 20th century with Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra (1951), Concerto No. 2 for Cello and Orchestra (1963) and in 1964 composed her Quartet for four cellos.",
"title": "General description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In the 2010s, the instrument is found in popular music, but was more commonly used in 1970s pop and disco music. Today it is sometimes featured in pop and rock recordings, examples of which are noted later in this article. The cello has also appeared in major hip-hop and R & B performances, such as singers Rihanna and Ne-Yo's 2007 performance at the American Music Awards. The instrument has also been modified for Indian classical music by Nancy Lesh and Saskia Rao-de Haas.",
"title": "General description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The violin family, including cello-sized instruments, emerged c. 1500 as a family of instruments distinct from the viola da gamba family. The earliest depictions of the violin family, from northern Italy c. 1530, show three sizes of instruments, roughly corresponding to what we now call violins, violas, and cellos. Contrary to a popular misconception, the cello did not evolve from the viola da gamba, but existed alongside it for about two and a half centuries. The violin family is also known as the viola da braccio (meaning viola for the arm) family, a reference to the primary way the members of the family are held. This is to distinguish it from the viola da gamba (meaning viola for the leg) family, in which all the members are all held with the legs. The likely predecessors of the violin family include the lira da braccio and the rebec. The earliest surviving cellos are made by Andrea Amati, the first known member of the celebrated Amati family of luthiers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The direct ancestor to the violoncello was the bass violin. Monteverdi referred to the instrument as \"basso de viola da braccio\" in Orfeo (1607). Although the first bass violin, possibly invented as early as 1538, was most likely inspired by the viol, it was created to be used in consort with the violin. The bass violin was actually often referred to as a \"violone\", or \"large viola\", as were the viols of the same period. Instruments that share features with both the bass violin and the viola da gamba appear in Italian art of the early 16th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The invention of wire-wound strings (fine wire around a thin gut core), c. 1660 in Bologna, allowed for a finer bass sound than was possible with purely gut strings on such a short body. Bolognese makers exploited this new technology to create the cello, a somewhat smaller instrument suitable for solo repertoire due to both the timbre of the instrument and the fact that the smaller size made it easier to play virtuosic passages. This instrument had disadvantages as well, however. The cello's light sound was not as suitable for church and ensemble playing, so it had to be doubled by organ, theorbo, or violone.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Around 1700, Italian players popularized the cello in northern Europe, although the bass violin (basse de violon) continued to be used for another two decades in France. Many existing bass violins were literally cut down in size to convert them into cellos according to the smaller pattern developed by Stradivarius, who also made a number of old pattern large cellos (the 'Servais'). The sizes, names, and tunings of the cello varied widely by geography and time. The size was not standardized until c. 1750.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Despite similarities to the viola da gamba, the cello is actually part of the viola da braccio family, meaning \"viol of the arm\", which includes, among others, the violin and viola. Though paintings like Bruegel's \"The Rustic Wedding\", and Jambe de Fer in his Epitome Musical suggest that the bass violin had alternate playing positions, these were short-lived and the more practical and ergonomic a gamba position eventually replaced them entirely.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Baroque-era cellos differed from the modern instrument in several ways. The neck has a different form and angle, which matches the baroque bass-bar and stringing. The fingerboard is usually shorter than that of the modern cello, as the highest notes are not often called for in baroque music. Modern cellos have an endpin at the bottom to support the instrument (and transmit some of the sound through the floor), while Baroque cellos are held only by the calves of the player. Modern bows curve in and are held at the frog; Baroque bows curve out and are held closer to the bow's point of balance. Modern strings normally have a metal core, although some use a synthetic core; Baroque strings are made of gut, with the G and C strings wire-wound. Modern cellos often have fine tuners connecting the strings to the tailpiece, which makes it much easier to tune the instrument, but such pins are rendered ineffective by the flexibility of the gut strings used on Baroque cellos. Overall, the modern instrument has much higher string tension than the Baroque cello, resulting in a louder, more projecting tone, with fewer overtones. In addition, the instrument was less standardized in size and number of strings; a smaller, five-string variant (the violoncello piccolo) was commonly used as a solo instrument and five-string instruments are occasionally specified in the Baroque repertoire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Few educational works specifically devoted to the cello existed before the 18th century and those that do exist contain little value to the performer beyond simple accounts of instrumental technique. One of the earliest cello manuals is Michel Corrette's Méthode, thèorique et pratique pour apprendre en peu de temps le violoncelle dans sa perfection (Paris, 1741).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Cellos are part of the standard symphony orchestra, which usually includes eight to twelve cellists. The cello section, in standard orchestral seating, is located on stage left (the audience's right) in the front, opposite the first violin section. However, some orchestras and conductors prefer switching the positioning of the viola and cello sections. The principal cellist is the section leader, determining bowings for the section in conjunction with other string principals, playing solos, and leading entrances (when the section begins to play its part). Principal players always sit closest to the audience.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The cellos are a critical part of orchestral music; all symphonic works involve the cello section, and many pieces require cello soli or solos. Much of the time, cellos provide part of the low-register harmony for the orchestra. Often, the cello section plays the melody for a brief period, before returning to the harmony role. There are also cello concertos, which are orchestral pieces that feature a solo cellist accompanied by an entire orchestra.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "There are numerous cello concertos – where a solo cello is accompanied by an orchestra – notably 25 by Vivaldi, 12 by Boccherini, at least three by Haydn, three by C. P. E. Bach, two by Saint-Saëns, two by Dvořák, and one each by Robert Schumann, Lalo, and Elgar. There were also some composers who, while not otherwise cellists, did write cello-specific repertoire, such as Nikolaus Kraft who wrote six cello concertos. Beethoven's Triple Concerto for Cello, Violin and Piano and Brahms' Double Concerto for Cello and Violin are also part of the concertante repertoire although in both cases the cello shares solo duties with at least one other instrument. Moreover, several composers wrote large-scale pieces for cello and orchestra, which are concertos in all but name. Some familiar \"concertos\" are Richard Strauss' tone poem Don Quixote, Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme, Bloch's Schelomo and Bruch's Kol Nidrei.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In the 20th century, the cello repertoire grew immensely. This was partly due to the influence of virtuoso cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who inspired, commissioned, and premiered dozens of new works. Among these, Prokofiev's Symphony-Concerto, Britten's Cello Symphony, the concertos of Shostakovich and Lutosławski as well as Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain... have already become part of the standard repertoire. Other major composers who wrote concertante works for him include Messiaen, Jolivet, Berio, and Penderecki. In addition, Arnold, Barber, Glass, Hindemith, Honegger, Ligeti, Myaskovsky, Penderecki, Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos and Walton also wrote major concertos for other cellists, notably for Gaspar Cassadó, Aldo Parisot, Gregor Piatigorsky, Siegfried Palm and Julian Lloyd Webber.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "There are also many sonatas for cello and piano. Those written by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Brahms, Grieg, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Fauré, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Poulenc, Carter, and Britten are particularly well known.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Other important pieces for cello and piano include Schumann's five Stücke im Volkston and transcriptions like Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata (originally for arpeggione and piano), César Franck's Cello Sonata (originally a violin sonata, transcribed by Jules Delsart with the composer's approval), Stravinsky's Suite italienne (transcribed by the composer – with Gregor Piatigorsky – from his ballet Pulcinella) and Bartók's first rhapsody (also transcribed by the composer, originally for violin and piano).",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "There are pieces for cello solo, Johann Sebastian Bach's six Suites for Cello (which are among the best-known solo cello pieces), Kodály's Sonata for Solo Cello and Britten's three Cello Suites. Other notable examples include Hindemith's and Ysaÿe's Sonatas for Solo Cello, Dutilleux's Trois Strophes sur le Nom de Sacher, Berio's Les Mots Sont Allés, Cassadó's Suite for Solo Cello, Ligeti's Solo Sonata, Carter's two Figments and Xenakis' Nomos Alpha and Kottos.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "There are also modern solo pieces written for cello. Such as Julie-O by Mark Summer.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The cello is a member of the traditional string quartet as well as string quintets, sextet or trios and other mixed ensembles. There are also pieces written for two, three, four, or more cellos; this type of ensemble is also called a \"cello choir\" and its sound is familiar from the introduction to Rossini's William Tell Overture as well as Zaccharia's prayer scene in Verdi's Nabucco. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture also starts with a cello ensemble, with four cellos playing the top lines and two violas playing the bass lines. As a self-sufficient ensemble, its most famous repertoire is Heitor Villa-Lobos' first of his Bachianas Brasileiras for cello ensemble (the fifth is for soprano and 8 cellos). Other examples are Offenbach's cello duets, quartet, and sextet, Pärt's Fratres for eight cellos and Boulez' Messagesquisse for seven cellos, or even Villa-Lobos' rarely played Fantasia Concertante (1958) for 32 cellos. The 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (or \"the Twelve\" as they have since taken to being called) specialize in this repertoire and have commissioned many works, including arrangements of well-known popular songs.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The cello is less common in popular music than in classical music. Several bands feature a cello in their standard line-up, including Hoppy Jones of the Ink Spots and Joe Kwon of the Avett Brothers. The more common use in pop and rock is to bring the instrument in for a particular song. In the 1960s, artists such as the Beatles and Cher used the cello in popular music, in songs such as The Beatles' \"Yesterday\", \"Eleanor Rigby\" and \"Strawberry Fields Forever\", and Cher's \"Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)\". \"Good Vibrations\" by the Beach Boys includes the cello in its instrumental ensemble, which includes a number of instruments unusual for this sort of music. Bass guitarist Jack Bruce, who had originally studied music on a performance scholarship for cello, played a prominent cello part in \"As You Said\" on Cream's Wheels of Fire studio album (1968).",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In the 1970s, the Electric Light Orchestra enjoyed great commercial success taking inspiration from so-called \"Beatlesque\" arrangements, adding the cello (and violin) to the standard rock combo line-up and in 1978 the UK based rock band, Colosseum II, collaborated with cellist Julian Lloyd Webber on the recording Variations. Most notably, Pink Floyd included a cello solo in their 1970 epic instrumental \"Atom Heart Mother\". Bass guitarist Mike Rutherford of Genesis was originally a cellist and included some cello parts in their Foxtrot album.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Established non-traditional cello groups include Apocalyptica, a group of Finnish cellists best known for their versions of Metallica songs, Rasputina, a group of cellists committed to an intricate cello style intermingled with Gothic music, the Massive Violins, an ensemble of seven singing cellists known for their arrangements of rock, pop and classical hits, Von Cello, a cello fronted rock power trio, Break of Reality who mix elements of classical music with the more modern rock and metal genre, Cello Fury, a cello rock band that performs original rock/classical crossover music, and Jelloslave, a Minneapolis-based Cello duo with two percussionists. These groups are examples of a style that has become known as cello rock. The crossover string quartet bond also includes a cellist. Silenzium and Cellissimo Quartet are Russian (Novosibirsk) groups playing rock and metal and having more and more popularity in Siberia. Cold Fairyland from Shanghai, China is using a cello along a Pipa as the main solo instrument to create East meets West progressive (folk) rock.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "More recent bands who have used the cello include Clean Bandit, Aerosmith, The Auteurs, Nirvana, Oasis, Ra Ra Riot, Smashing Pumpkins, James, Talk Talk, Phillip Phillips, OneRepublic, Electric Light Orchestra and the baroque rock band Arcade Fire. An Atlanta-based trio, King Richard's Sunday Best, also uses a cellist in their lineup. So-called \"chamber pop\" artists like Kronos Quartet, The Vitamin String Quartet and Margot and the Nuclear So and So's have also recently made cello common in modern alternative rock. Heavy metal band System of a Down has also made use of the cello's rich sound. The indie rock band The Stiletto Formal are known for using a cello as a major staple of their sound, similarly, the indie rock band Canada employs two cello players in their lineup. The orch-rock group, The Polyphonic Spree, which has pioneered the use of stringed and symphonic instruments, employs the cello in very creative ways for many of their \"psychedelic-esque\" melodies. The first wave screamo band I Would Set Myself On Fire For You featured a cello as well as a viola to create a more folk-oriented sound. The band, Panic! at the Disco uses a cello in their song, \"Build God, Then We'll Talk\", with lead vocalist Brendon Urie recording the cello solo himself. The Lumineers added cellist Nela Pekarek to the band in 2010. Radiohead makes frequent use of cello in their music, notably for the songs \"Burn The Witch\" and \"Glass Eyes\" in 2016.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In jazz, bassists Oscar Pettiford and Harry Babasin were among the first to use the cello as a solo instrument; both tuned their instruments in fourths, an octave above the double bass. Fred Katz (who was not a bassist) was one of the first notable jazz cellists to use the instrument's standard tuning and arco technique. Contemporary jazz cellists include Abdul Wadud, Diedre Murray, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, David Darling, Lucio Amanti, Akua Dixon, Ernst Reijseger, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Tom Cora and Erik Friedlander. Modern musical theatre pieces like Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years, Duncan Sheik's Spring Awakening, Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins, and Ricky Ian Gordon's My Life with Albertine use small string ensembles (including solo cellos) to a prominent extent.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In Indian Classical music Saskia Rao-de Haas is a well-established soloist as well as playing duets with her sitarist husband Pt. Shubhendra Rao. Other cellists performing Indian classical music are Nancy Lesh (Dhrupad) and Anup Biswas. Both Rao and Lesh play the cello sitting cross-legged on the floor.",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The cello can also be used in bluegrass and folk music, with notable players including Ben Sollee of the Sparrow Quartet and the \"Cajun cellist\" Sean Grissom, as well as Vyvienne Long who, in addition to her own projects, has played for those of Damien Rice. Cellists such as Natalie Haas, Abby Newton, and Liz Davis Maxfield have contributed significantly to the use of cello playing in Celtic folk music, often with the cello featured as a primary melodic instrument and employing the skills and techniques of traditional fiddle playing. Lindsay Mac is becoming well known for playing the cello like a guitar, with her cover of The Beatles' \"Blackbird\".",
"title": "Modern use"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The cello is typically made from carved wood, although other materials such as carbon fiber or aluminum may be used. A traditional cello has a spruce top, with maple for the back, sides, and neck. Other woods, such as poplar or willow, are sometimes used for the back and sides. Less expensive cellos frequently have tops and backs made of laminated wood. Laminated cellos are widely used in elementary and secondary school orchestras and youth orchestras, because they are much more durable than carved wood cellos (i.e., they are less likely to crack if bumped or dropped) and they are much less expensive.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The top and back are traditionally hand-carved, though less expensive cellos are often machine-produced. The sides, or ribs, are made by heating the wood and bending it around forms. The cello body has a wide top bout, narrow middle formed by two C-bouts, and wide bottom bout, with the bridge and F holes just below the middle. The top and back of the cello have a decorative border inlay known as purfling. While purfling is attractive, it is also functional: if the instrument is struck, the purfling can prevent cracking of the wood. A crack may form at the rim of the instrument but spreads no further. Without purfling, cracks can spread up or down the top or back. Playing, traveling and the weather all affect the cello and can increase a crack if purfling is not in place. Less expensive instruments typically have painted purfling.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The fingerboard and pegs on a cello are generally made from ebony, as it is strong and does not wear out easily.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa) as well as German luthier G.A. Pfretzschner produced an unknown number of aluminum cellos (in addition to aluminum double basses and violins). Cello manufacturer Luis & Clark constructs cellos from carbon fibre. Carbon fibre instruments are particularly suitable for outdoor playing because of the strength of the material and its resistance to humidity and temperature fluctuations. Luis & Clark has produced over 1000 cellos, some of which are owned by cellists such as Yo-Yo Ma and Josephine van Lier.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Above the main body is the carved neck. The neck has a curved cross-section on its underside, which is where the player's thumb runs along the neck during playing. The neck leads to a pegbox and the scroll, which are all normally carved out of a single piece of wood, usually maple. The fingerboard is glued to the neck and extends over the body of the instrument. The fingerboard is given a curved shape, matching the curve on the bridge. Both the fingerboard and bridge need to be curved so that the performer can bow individual strings. If the cello were to have a flat fingerboard and bridge, as with a typical guitar, the performer would only be able to bow the leftmost and rightmost two strings or bow all the strings. The performer would not be able to play the inner two strings alone.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The nut is a raised piece of wood, fitted where the fingerboard meets the pegbox, in which the strings rest in shallow slots or grooves to keep them the correct distance apart. The pegbox houses four tapered tuning pegs, one for each string. The pegs are used to tune the cello by either tightening or loosening the string. The pegs are called \"friction pegs\", because they maintain their position by friction. The scroll is a traditional ornamental part of the cello and a feature of all other members of the violin family. Ebony is usually used for the tuning pegs, fingerboard, and nut, but other hardwoods, such as boxwood or rosewood, can be used. Black fittings on low-cost instruments are often made from inexpensive wood that has been blackened or \"ebonized\" to look like ebony, which is much harder and more expensive. Ebonized parts such as tuning pegs may crack or split, and the black surface of the fingerboard will eventually wear down to reveal the lighter wood underneath.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Historically, cello strings had cores made out of catgut, which, despite its name, is made from sheep or goat intestines. Most modern strings used in the 2010s are wound with metallic materials like aluminum, titanium and chromium. Cellists may mix different types of strings on their instruments. The pitches of the open strings are C, G, D, and A (black note heads in the playing range figure above), unless alternative tuning (scordatura) is specified by the composer. Some composers (e.g. Ottorino Respighi in the final movement of ‘’The Pines of Rome’’) ask that the low C be tuned down to a B-flat so that the performer can play a different low note on the lowest open string.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The tailpiece and endpin are found in the lower part of the cello. The tailpiece is the part of the cello to which the \"ball ends\" of the strings are attached by passing them through holes. The tailpiece is attached to the bottom of the cello. The tailpiece is traditionally made of ebony or another hardwood, but can also be made of plastic or steel on lower-cost instruments. It attaches the strings to the lower end of the cello and can have one or more fine tuners. The fine tuners are used to make smaller adjustments to the pitch of the string. The fine tuners can increase the tension of each string (raising the pitch) or decrease the tension of the string (lowering the pitch). When the performer is putting on a new string, the fine tuner for that string is normally reset to a middle position, and then the peg is turned to bring the string up to pitch. The fine turners are used for subtle, minor adjustments to pitch, such as tuning a cello to the oboe's 440 Hz A note or tuning the cello to a piano.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The endpin or spike is made of wood, metal, or rigid carbon fiber and supports the cello in playing position. The endpin can be retracted into the hollow body of the instrument when the cello is being transported in its case. This makes the cello easier to move about. When the performer wishes to play the cello, the endpin is pulled out to lengthen it. The endpin is locked into the player's preferred length with a screw mechanism. The adjustable nature of endpins enables performers of different ages and body sizes to adjust the endpin length to suit them. In the Baroque period, the cello was held between the calves, as there was no endpin at that time. The endpin was \"introduced by Adrien Servais c. 1845 to give the instrument greater stability\". Modern endpins are retractable and adjustable; older ones were removed when not in use. (The word \"endpin\" sometimes also refers to the button of wood located at this place in all instruments in the violin family, but this is usually called \"tailpin\".) The sharp tip of the cello's endpin is sometimes capped with a rubber tip that protects the tip from dulling and prevents the cello from slipping on the floor. Many cellists use a rubber pad with a metal cup to keep the tip from slipping on the floor. A number of accessories exist to keep the endpin from slipping; these include ropes that attach to the chair leg and other devices.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The bridge holds the strings above the cello and transfers their vibrations to the top of the instrument and the soundpost inside (see below). The bridge is not glued but rather held in place by the tension of the strings. The bridge is usually positioned by the cross point of the \"f-hole\" (i.e., where the horizontal line occurs in the \"f\"). The f-holes, named for their shape, are located on either side of the bridge and allow air to move in and out of the instrument as part of the sound-production process. The f-holes also act as access points to the interior of the cello for repairs or maintenance. Sometimes a small length of rubber hose containing a water-soaked sponge, called a Dampit, is inserted through the f-holes and serves as a humidifier. This keeps the wood components of the cello from drying out.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Internally, the cello has two important features: a bass bar, which is glued to the underside of the top of the instrument, and a round wooden sound post, a solid wooden cylinder which is wedged between the top and bottom plates. The bass bar, found under the bass foot of the bridge, serves to support the cello's top and distribute the vibrations from the strings to the body of the instrument. The soundpost, found under the treble side of the bridge, connects the back and front of the cello. Like the bridge, the soundpost is not glued but is kept in place by the tensions of the bridge and strings. Together, the bass bar and sound post transfer the strings' vibrations to the top (front) of the instrument (and to a lesser extent the back), acting as a diaphragm to produce the instrument's sound.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Cellos are constructed and repaired using hide glue, which is strong but reversible, allowing for disassembly when needed. Tops may be glued on with diluted glue since some repairs call for the removal of the top. Theoretically, hide glue is weaker than the body's wood, so as the top or back shrinks side-to-side, the glue holding it lets go and the plate does not crack. Cellists repairing cracks in their cello do not use regular wood glue, because it cannot be steamed open when a repair has to be made by a luthier.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Traditionally, bows are made from pernambuco or brazilwood. Both come from the same species of tree (Caesalpinia echinata), but Pernambuco, used for higher-quality bows, is the heartwood of the tree and is darker in color than brazilwood (which is sometimes stained to compensate). Pernambuco is a heavy, resinous wood with great elasticity, which makes it an ideal wood for instrument bows. Horsehair is stretched out between the two ends of the bow. The taut horsehair is drawn over the strings, while being held roughly parallel to the bridge and perpendicular to the strings, to produce sound. A small knob is twisted to increase or decrease the tension of the horsehair. The tension on the bow is released when the instrument is not being used. The amount of tension a cellist puts on the bow hair depends on the preferences of the player, the style of music being played, and for students, the preferences of their teacher.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Bows are also made from other materials, such as carbon fibre—stronger than wood—and fiberglass (often used to make inexpensive, lower-quality student bows). An average cello bow is 73 cm (29 in) long (shorter than a violin or viola bow) 3 cm (1.2 in) high (from the frog to the stick) and 1.5 cm (0.59 in) wide. The frog of a cello bow typically has a rounded corner like that of a viola bow, but is wider. A cello bow is roughly 10 g (0.35 oz) heavier than a viola bow, which in turn is roughly 10 g (0.35 oz) heavier than a violin bow.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Bow hair is traditionally horsehair, though synthetic hair, in varying colors, is also used. Prior to playing, the musician tightens the bow by turning a screw to pull the frog (the part of the bow under the hand) back and increase the tension of the hair. Rosin is applied by the player to make the hair sticky. Bows need to be re-haired periodically. Baroque style (1600–1750) cello bows were much thicker and were formed with a larger outward arch when compared to modern cello bows. The inward arch of a modern cello bow produces greater tension, which in turn gives off a louder sound.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The cello bow has also been used to play electric guitars. Jimmy Page pioneered its application on tracks such as \"Dazed and Confused\". The post-rock Icelandic band Sigur Rós's lead singer often plays guitar using a cello bow.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In 1989, the German cellist Michael Bach began developing a curved bow, encouraged by John Cage, Dieter Schnebel, Mstislav Rostropovich and Luigi Colani: and since then many pieces have been composed especially for it. This curved bow (BACH.Bow) is a convex curved bow which, unlike the ordinary bow, renders possible polyphonic playing on the various strings of the instrument. The solo repertoire for violin and cello by J. S. Bach the BACH.Bow is particularly suited to it: and it was developed with this in mind, polyphonic playing being required, as well as monophonic.",
"title": "Construction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "When a string is bowed or plucked, it vibrates and moves the air around it, producing sound waves. Because the string is quite thin, not much air is moved by the string itself, and consequently, if the string was not mounted on a hollow body, the sound would be weak. In acoustic stringed instruments such as the cello, this lack of volume is solved by mounting the vibrating string on a larger hollow wooden body. The vibrations are transmitted to the larger body, which can move more air and produce a louder sound. Different designs of the instrument produce variations in the instrument's vibrational patterns and thus change the character of the sound produced. A string's fundamental pitch can be adjusted by changing its stiffness, which depends on tension and length. Tightening a string stiffens it by increasing both the outward forces along its length and the net forces it experiences during a distortion. A cello can be tuned by adjusting the tension of its strings, by turning the tuning pegs mounted on its pegbox and tension adjusters (fine tuners) on the tailpiece.",
"title": "Physics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "A string's length also affects its fundamental pitch. Shortening a string stiffens it by increasing its curvature during a distortion and subjecting it to larger net forces. Shortening the string also reduces its mass, but does not alter the mass per unit length, and it is the latter ratio rather than the total mass which governs the frequency. The string vibrates in a standing wave whose speed of propagation is given by T m {\\displaystyle {\\sqrt {\\frac {T}{m}}}} , where T is the tension and m is the mass per unit length; there is a node at either end of the vibrating length, and thus the vibrating length l is half a wavelength. Since the frequency of any wave is equal to the speed divided by the wavelength, we have f r e q u e n c y = 1 2 l ⋅ T m {\\displaystyle frequency={\\frac {1}{2l}}\\cdot {\\sqrt {\\frac {T}{m}}}} . (Some writers, including Muncaster (cited below) use the Greek letter μ in place of m.) Thus shortening a string increases the frequency, and thus the pitch. Because of this effect, you can raise and change the pitch of a string by pressing it against the fingerboard in the cello's neck and effectively shortening it. Likewise strings with less mass per unit length, if under the same tension, will have a higher frequency and thus higher pitch than more massive strings. This is a prime reason why the different strings on all string instruments have different fundamental pitches, with the lightest strings having the highest pitches.",
"title": "Physics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "A played note of E or F-sharp has a frequency that is often very close to the natural resonating frequency of the body of the instrument, and if the problem is not addressed this can set the body into near resonance. This may cause an unpleasant sudden amplification of this pitch, and additionally a loud beating sound results from the interference produced between these nearby frequencies; this is known as the “wolf tone” because it is an unpleasant growling sound. The wood resonance appears to be split into two frequencies by the driving force of the sounding string. These two periodic resonances beat with each other. This wolf tone must be eliminated or significantly reduced for the cello to play the nearby notes with a pleasant tone. This can be accomplished by modifying the cello front plate, attaching a wolf eliminator (a metal cylinder or a rubber cylinder encased in metal), or moving the soundpost.",
"title": "Physics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "When a string is bowed or plucked to produce a note, the fundamental note is accompanied by higher frequency overtones. Each sound has a particular recipe of frequencies that combine to make the total sound.",
"title": "Physics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Playing the cello is done while seated with the instrument supported on the floor by the endpin. The right hand bows (or sometimes plucks) the strings to sound the notes. The left-hand fingertips stop the strings along their length, determining the pitch of each fingered note. Stopping the string closer to the bridge results in a higher-pitched sound because the vibrating string length has been shortened. On the contrary, a string stopped closer to the tuning pegs produces a lower sound. In the neck positions (which use just less than half of the fingerboard, nearest the top of the instrument), the thumb rests on the back of the neck, some people use their thumb as a marker of their position; in thumb position (a general name for notes on the remainder of the fingerboard) the thumb usually rests alongside the fingers on the string. Then, the side of the thumb is used to play notes. The fingers are normally held curved with each knuckle bent, with the fingertips in contact with the string. If a finger is required on two (or more) strings at once to play perfect fifths (in double stops or chords), it is used flat. The contact point can move slightly away from the nail to the finger's pad in slower or more expressive playing, allowing a fuller vibrato.",
"title": "Playing technique"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Vibrato is a small oscillation in the pitch of a note, usually considered an expressive technique. The closer towards the bridge the note is, the smaller the oscillation needed to create the effect. Harmonics played on the cello fall into two classes; natural and artificial. Natural harmonics are produced by lightly touching (but not depressing) the string at certain places and then bowing (or, rarely, plucking) the string. For example, the halfway point of the string will produce a harmonic that is one octave above the unfingered (open) string. Natural harmonics only produce notes that are part of the harmonic series on a particular string. Artificial harmonics (also called false harmonics or stopped harmonics), in which the player depresses the string fully with one finger while touching the same string lightly with another finger, can produce any note above middle C. Glissando (Italian for \"sliding\") is an effect achieved by sliding the finger up or down the fingerboard without releasing the string. This causes the pitch to rise and fall smoothly, without separate, discernible steps.",
"title": "Playing technique"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In cello playing, the bow is much like the breath of a wind instrument player. Arguably, it is a major factor in the expressiveness of the playing. The right hand holds the bow and controls the duration and character of the notes. In general, the bow is drawn across the strings roughly halfway between the end of the fingerboard and the bridge, in a direction perpendicular to the strings; however, the player may wish to move the bow's point of contact higher or lower depending on the desired sound. The bow is held and manipulated with all five fingers of the right hand, with the thumb opposite the fingers and closer to the cellist's body. Tone production and volume of sound depend on a combination of several factors. The four most important ones are weight applied to the string, the angle of the bow on the string, bow speed, and the point of contact of the bow hair with the string (sometimes abbreviated WASP).",
"title": "Playing technique"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Double stops involve the playing of two notes simultaneously. Two strings are fingered at once, and the bow is drawn to sound them both. Often, in pizzicato playing, the string is plucked directly with the fingers or thumb of the right hand. However, the strings may be plucked with a finger of the left hand in certain advanced pieces, either so that the cellist can play bowed notes on another string along with pizzicato notes or because the speed of the piece would not allow the player sufficient time to pluck with the right hand. In musical notation, pizzicato is often abbreviated as \"pizz.\" The position of the hand in pizzicato is commonly slightly over the fingerboard and away from the bridge.",
"title": "Playing technique"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "A player using the col legno technique strikes or rubs the strings with the wood of the bow rather than the hair. In spiccato playing, the bow still moves in a horizontal motion on the string but is allowed to bounce, generating a lighter, somewhat more percussive sound. In staccato, the player moves the bow a small distance and stops it on the string, making a short sound, the rest of the written duration being taken up by silence. Legato is a technique in which notes are smoothly connected without breaks. It is indicated by a slur (curved line) above or below – depending on their position on the staff – the notes of the passage that is to be played legato.",
"title": "Playing technique"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Sul ponticello (\"on the bridge\") refers to bowing closer to (or nearly on) the bridge, while sul tasto (\"on the fingerboard\") calls for bowing nearer to (or over) the end of the fingerboard. At its extreme, sul ponticello produces a harsh, shrill sound with emphasis on overtones and high harmonics. In contrast, sul tasto produces a more flute-like sound that emphasizes the note's fundamental frequency and produces softened overtones. Composers have used both techniques, particularly in an orchestral setting, for special sounds and effects.",
"title": "Playing technique"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Standard-sized cellos are referred to as \"full-size\" or \"4⁄4\" but are also made in smaller (fractional) sizes, including 7⁄8, 3⁄4, 1⁄2, 1⁄4, 1⁄8, 1⁄10, and 1⁄16. The fractions refer to volume rather than length, so a 1/2 size cello is much longer than half the length of a full size. The smaller cellos are identical to standard cellos in construction, range, and usage, but are simply scaled-down for the benefit of children and shorter adults.",
"title": "Sizes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Cellos in sizes larger than 4⁄4 do exist, and cellists with unusually large hands may require such a non-standard instrument. Cellos made before c. 1700 tended to be considerably larger than those made and commonly played today. Around 1680, changes in string-making technology made it possible to play lower-pitched notes on shorter strings. The cellos of Stradivari, for example, can be clearly divided into two models: the style made before 1702, characterized by larger instruments (of which only three exist in their original size and configuration), and the style made during and after 1707, when Stradivari began making smaller cellos. This later model is the design most commonly used by modern luthiers. The scale length of a 4⁄4 cello is about 70 cm (27+1⁄2 in). The new size offered fuller tonal projection and a greater range of expression. The instrument in this form was able to contribute to more pieces musically and offered the possibility of greater physical dexterity for the player to develop technique.",
"title": "Sizes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "There are many accessories for the cello.",
"title": "Accessories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Cellos are made by luthiers, specialists in building and repairing stringed instruments, ranging from guitars to violins. The following luthiers are notable for the cellos they have produced:",
"title": "Instrument makers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "A person who plays the cello is called a cellist. For a list of notable cellists, see the list of cellists and Category:Cellists.",
"title": "Cellists"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Specific instruments are famous (or become famous) for a variety of reasons. An instrument's notability may arise from its age, the fame of its maker, its physical appearance, its acoustic properties, and its use by notable performers. The most famous instruments are generally known for all of these things. The most highly prized instruments are now collector's items and are priced beyond the reach of most musicians. These instruments are typically owned by some kind of organization or investment group, which may loan the instrument to a notable performer. For example, the Davidov Stradivarius, which is currently in the possession of one of the most widely known living cellists, Yo-Yo Ma, is actually owned by the Vuitton Foundation.",
"title": "Famous instruments"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Some notable cellos:",
"title": "Famous instruments"
}
] | The cello, or violoncello, is a bowed string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, D3 and A3. The viola's four strings are each an octave higher. Music for the cello is generally written in the bass clef, with tenor clef, and treble clef used for higher-range passages. Played by a cellist or violoncellist, it enjoys a large solo repertoire with and without accompaniment, as well as numerous concerti. As a solo instrument, the cello uses its whole range, from bass to soprano, and in chamber music such as string quartets and the orchestra's string section, it often plays the bass part, where it may be reinforced an octave lower by the double basses. Figured bass music of the Baroque era typically assumes a cello, viola da gamba or bassoon as part of the basso continuo group alongside chordal instruments such as organ, harpsichord, lute, or theorbo. Cellos are found in many other ensembles, from modern Chinese orchestras to cello rock bands. | 2001-09-26T23:48:41Z | 2023-12-10T16:10:20Z | [
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6,559 | Control store | A control store is the part of a CPU's control unit that stores the CPU's microprogram. It is usually accessed by a microsequencer. A control store implementation whose contents are unalterable is known as a Read Only Memory (ROM) or Read Only Storage (ROS); one whose contents are alterable is known as a Writable Control Store (WCS).
Early control stores were implemented as a diode-array accessed via address decoders, a form of read-only memory. This tradition dates back to the program timing matrix on the MIT Whirlwind, first described in 1947. Modern VLSI processors instead use matrices of field-effect transistors to build the ROM and/or PLA structures used to control the processor as well as its internal sequencer in a microcoded implementation. IBM System/360 used a variety of techniques: CCROS (Card Capacitor Read-Only Storage) on the Model 30, TROS (Transformer Read-Only Storage) on the Model 40, and BCROS (Balanced Capacitor Read-Only Storage) on Models 50, 65 and 67.
Some computers were built using "writable microcode" — rather than storing the microcode in ROM or hard-wired logic, the microcode was stored in a RAM called a writable control store or WCS. Such a computer is sometimes called a Writable Instruction Set Computer or WISC. Many of these machines were experimental laboratory prototypes, such as the WISC CPU/16 and the RTX 32P.
The original System/360 models had read-only control store, but later System/360, System/370 and successor models loaded part or all of their microprograms from floppy disks or other DASD into a writable control store consisting of ultra-high speed random-access read–write memory. The System/370 architecture included a facility called Initial-Microprogram Load (IML or IMPL) that could be invoked from the console, as part of Power On Reset (POR) or from another processor in a tightly coupled multiprocessor complex. This permitted IBM to easily repair microprogramming defects in the field. Even when the majority of the control store is stored in ROM, computer vendors would often sell writable control store as an option, allowing the customers to customize the machine's microprogram. Other vendors, e.g., IBM, use the WCS to run microcode for emulator features and hardware diagnostics.
Other commercial machines that used writable microcode include the Burroughs Small Systems (1970s and 1980s), the Xerox processors in their Lisp machines and Xerox Star workstations, the DEC VAX 8800 ("Nautilus") family, and the Symbolics L- and G-machines (1980s). Some DEC PDP-10 machines stored their microcode in SRAM chips (about 80 bits wide x 2 Kwords), which was typically loaded on power-on through some other front-end CPU. Many more machines offered user-programmable writable control stores as an option (including the HP 2100, DEC PDP-11/60 and Varian Data Machines V-70 series minicomputers). The Mentec M11 and Mentec M1 stored its microcode in SRAM chips, loaded on power-on through another CPU. The Data General Eclipse MV/8000 ("Eagle") had a SRAM writable control store, loaded on power-on through another CPU.
WCS offered several advantages including the ease of patching the microprogram and, for certain hardware generations, faster access than ROMs could provide. User-programmable WCS allowed the user to optimize the machine for specific purposes. However, it also had the disadvantage of making possible malicious users negatively affecting the system and data.
Some CPU designs compile the instruction set to a writable RAM or FLASH inside the CPU (such as the Rekursiv processor and the Imsys Cjip), or an FPGA (reconfigurable computing).
Several Intel CPUs in the x86 architecture family have writable microcode, starting with the Pentium Pro in 1995. This has allowed bugs in the Intel Core 2 microcode and Intel Xeon microcode to be fixed in software, rather than requiring the entire chip to be replaced. Such fixes can be installed by Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, or the motherboard BIOS.
The control store usually has a register on its outputs. The outputs that go back into the sequencer to determine the next address have to go through some sort of register to prevent the creation of a race condition. In most designs all of the other bits also go through a register. This is because the machine will work faster if the execution of the next microinstruction is delayed by one cycle. This register is known as a pipeline register. Very often the execution of the next microinstruction is dependent on the result of the current microinstruction, which will not be stable until the end of the current microcycle. It can be seen that either way, all of the outputs of the control store go into one big register. Historically it used to be possible to buy EPROMs with these register bits on the same chip.
The clock signal determining the clock rate, which is the cycle time of the system, primarily clocks this register. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A control store is the part of a CPU's control unit that stores the CPU's microprogram. It is usually accessed by a microsequencer. A control store implementation whose contents are unalterable is known as a Read Only Memory (ROM) or Read Only Storage (ROS); one whose contents are alterable is known as a Writable Control Store (WCS).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Early control stores were implemented as a diode-array accessed via address decoders, a form of read-only memory. This tradition dates back to the program timing matrix on the MIT Whirlwind, first described in 1947. Modern VLSI processors instead use matrices of field-effect transistors to build the ROM and/or PLA structures used to control the processor as well as its internal sequencer in a microcoded implementation. IBM System/360 used a variety of techniques: CCROS (Card Capacitor Read-Only Storage) on the Model 30, TROS (Transformer Read-Only Storage) on the Model 40, and BCROS (Balanced Capacitor Read-Only Storage) on Models 50, 65 and 67.",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Some computers were built using \"writable microcode\" — rather than storing the microcode in ROM or hard-wired logic, the microcode was stored in a RAM called a writable control store or WCS. Such a computer is sometimes called a Writable Instruction Set Computer or WISC. Many of these machines were experimental laboratory prototypes, such as the WISC CPU/16 and the RTX 32P.",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The original System/360 models had read-only control store, but later System/360, System/370 and successor models loaded part or all of their microprograms from floppy disks or other DASD into a writable control store consisting of ultra-high speed random-access read–write memory. The System/370 architecture included a facility called Initial-Microprogram Load (IML or IMPL) that could be invoked from the console, as part of Power On Reset (POR) or from another processor in a tightly coupled multiprocessor complex. This permitted IBM to easily repair microprogramming defects in the field. Even when the majority of the control store is stored in ROM, computer vendors would often sell writable control store as an option, allowing the customers to customize the machine's microprogram. Other vendors, e.g., IBM, use the WCS to run microcode for emulator features and hardware diagnostics.",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Other commercial machines that used writable microcode include the Burroughs Small Systems (1970s and 1980s), the Xerox processors in their Lisp machines and Xerox Star workstations, the DEC VAX 8800 (\"Nautilus\") family, and the Symbolics L- and G-machines (1980s). Some DEC PDP-10 machines stored their microcode in SRAM chips (about 80 bits wide x 2 Kwords), which was typically loaded on power-on through some other front-end CPU. Many more machines offered user-programmable writable control stores as an option (including the HP 2100, DEC PDP-11/60 and Varian Data Machines V-70 series minicomputers). The Mentec M11 and Mentec M1 stored its microcode in SRAM chips, loaded on power-on through another CPU. The Data General Eclipse MV/8000 (\"Eagle\") had a SRAM writable control store, loaded on power-on through another CPU.",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "WCS offered several advantages including the ease of patching the microprogram and, for certain hardware generations, faster access than ROMs could provide. User-programmable WCS allowed the user to optimize the machine for specific purposes. However, it also had the disadvantage of making possible malicious users negatively affecting the system and data.",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Some CPU designs compile the instruction set to a writable RAM or FLASH inside the CPU (such as the Rekursiv processor and the Imsys Cjip), or an FPGA (reconfigurable computing).",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Several Intel CPUs in the x86 architecture family have writable microcode, starting with the Pentium Pro in 1995. This has allowed bugs in the Intel Core 2 microcode and Intel Xeon microcode to be fixed in software, rather than requiring the entire chip to be replaced. Such fixes can be installed by Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, or the motherboard BIOS.",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The control store usually has a register on its outputs. The outputs that go back into the sequencer to determine the next address have to go through some sort of register to prevent the creation of a race condition. In most designs all of the other bits also go through a register. This is because the machine will work faster if the execution of the next microinstruction is delayed by one cycle. This register is known as a pipeline register. Very often the execution of the next microinstruction is dependent on the result of the current microinstruction, which will not be stable until the end of the current microcycle. It can be seen that either way, all of the outputs of the control store go into one big register. Historically it used to be possible to buy EPROMs with these register bits on the same chip.",
"title": "Implementation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The clock signal determining the clock rate, which is the cycle time of the system, primarily clocks this register.",
"title": "Implementation"
}
] | A control store is the part of a CPU's control unit that stores the CPU's microprogram. It is usually accessed by a microsequencer. A control store implementation whose contents are unalterable is known as a Read Only Memory (ROM) or Read Only Storage (ROS); one whose contents are alterable is known as a Writable Control Store (WCS). | 2002-02-25T15:51:15Z | 2023-12-25T11:00:08Z | [
"Template:Cite journal",
"Template:Cite newsgroup",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Cite magazine",
"Template:Wikibooks",
"Template:CPU technologies",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:Cite manual",
"Template:Cite mailing list"
] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_store |
6,561 | Columba | Columba (/kəˈlʌmbəˌ ˈkɒlʌmbə/) or Colmcille (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the patron saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.
Columba studied under some of Ireland's most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country. Around 563 AD he and his twelve companions crossed to Dunaverty near Southend, Argyll, in Kintyre before settling in Iona in Scotland, then part of the Ulster kingdom of Dál Riata, where they founded a new abbey as a base for spreading Celtic Christianity among the pagan Northern Pictish kingdoms. He remained active in Irish politics, though he spent most of the remainder of his life in Scotland. Three surviving early medieval Latin hymns may be attributed to him.
Columba was born to Fedlimid and Eithne of the Cenél Conaill in Gartan, a district beside Lough Gartan, in Tír Chonaill (mainly modern County Donegal) in what is now Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. On his father's side, he is claimed as being the great-great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, a pseudo-historical Irish high king of the 5th century. He was baptised in Temple-Douglas, in the County Donegal parish of Conwal (midway between Gartan and Letterkenny), by his teacher and foster-uncle Cruithnechán.
Columba lived in the remote district of what is now Glencolmcille for roughly 5 years, which was named after him. It is not known for sure if his name at birth was Colmcille or if he adopted this name later in life; Adomnán (Eunan) of Iona thought it was his birth name but other Irish sources have claimed his name at birth was Crimthann (meaning 'fox'). In the Irish language his name means 'dove', which is the same name as the Prophet Jonah (Jonah in Hebrew is also 'dove'), which Adomnán of Iona, as well as other early Irish writers, were aware of, although it is not clear if he was deliberately named after Jonah or not. Columba is also Latin for dove. (See also the bird genus Columba.)
When sufficiently advanced in letters he entered the monastic school of Movilla, at Newtownards, under Finnian of Movilla who had studied at Ninian's "Magnum Monasterium" on the shores of Galloway. He was about twenty, and a deacon when, having completed his training at Movilla, he travelled southwards into Leinster, where he became a pupil of an aged bard named Gemman. On leaving him, Columba entered the monastery of Clonard, governed at that time by Finnian, noted for sanctity and learning. Here he imbibed the traditions of the Welsh Church, for Finnian had been trained in the schools of David.
In early Christian Ireland, the druidic tradition collapsed due to the spread of the new Christian faith. The study of Latin learning and Christian theology in monasteries flourished. Columba became a pupil at the monastic school at Clonard Abbey, situated on the River Boyne in modern County Meath. During the sixth century, some of the most significant names in the history of Celtic Christianity studied at the Clonard monastery. The average number of scholars under instruction at Clonard was said to be 300. Columba was one of twelve students of Finnian of Clonard who became known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. He became a monk and eventually was ordained a priest.
Another preceptor of Columba was Mobhí Clárainech, whose monastery at Glasnevin was frequented by such famous men as Cainnech of Aghaboe, Comgall, and Ciarán. A pestilence which devastated Ireland in 544 caused the dispersion of Mobhi's disciples, and Columba returned to Ulster, the land of his kindred. He was a striking figure of great stature and powerful build, with a loud, melodious voice which could be heard from one hilltop to another.
The foundation of several important monasteries marked the following years: Derry, at the southern edge of Inishowen; Durrow, County Offaly; Kells, County Meath; and Swords. While at Derry it is said that he planned a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem, but did not proceed farther than Tours. From Tours, he brought a copy of those gospels that had lain on the bosom of Martin for 100 years. This relic was deposited in Derry. St Colmcille is also believed to have established a Church on Inishkea North, County Mayo which is named St Colmcille’s Church.
Some traditions assert that sometime around 560 Columba became involved in a quarrel with Finnian of Moville of Movilla Abbey over a psalter. Columba copied the manuscript at the scriptorium under Finnian, intending to keep the copy. Finnian disputed his right to keep it. There is a suggestion that this conflict resulted in the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne in Cairbre Drom Cliabh (now in County Sligo) in 561, during which many men were killed. Richard Sharpe, translator of Adomnán's Life of St. Columba (referenced in the bibliography below) makes a stern caution at this point against accepting the many references that link the battle and Columba's leaving of Ireland, even though there is evidence in the annals that Columba supported his own king against the high king. Political conflicts that had existed for some time resulted in the clan Neill's battle against King Diarmait at Cooldrevny in 561. An issue, for example, was the king's violation of the right of sanctuary belonging to Columba's person as a monk on the occasion of the murder of Prince Curnan, Columba's kinsman.
Prince Curnan of Connacht, who had fatally injured a rival in a hurling match and had taken refuge with Columba, was dragged from his protector's arms and slain by Diarmaid's men, in defiance of the rights of sanctuary.
A synod of clerics and scholars threatened to excommunicate him for these deaths, but Brendan of Birr spoke on his behalf. Eventually, the process was deemed a miscarriage of justice. Columba's own conscience was uneasy, and on the advice of an aged hermit, Molaise, he resolved to expiate his sense of offence by departing Ireland. The term "exile" is used in some references. This, too, can be disputed, for the term "pilgrimage" is used more frequently in the literature about him. A marker at Stroove Beach on the Inishowen Peninsula commemorates the place where Columba set sail for Scotland. He left Ireland, but through the following years, he returned several times in relationships with the communities he had founded there.
Columba's copy of the psalter has been traditionally associated with the Cathach of St. Columba. In 574/575, during his return for the Synod of Drum Ceat, he founded the monastery of Drumcliff in Cairbre, now County Sligo, near the battlefield.
In 563, he travelled to Scotland with twelve companions (said to include Odran of Iona) in a wicker currach covered with leather. According to legend he first landed on the Kintyre Peninsula, near Southend. However, being still in sight of his native land, he moved farther north up the west coast of Scotland. The island of Iona was made over to him by his kinsman Conall mac Comgaill King of Dál Riata, who perhaps had invited him to come to Scotland in the first place. However, there is a sense in which he was not leaving his native people, as the Ulster Gaels had been colonising the west coast of Scotland for the previous couple of centuries. Aside from the services he provided guiding the only centre of literacy in the region, his reputation as a holy man led to his role as a diplomat among the tribes.
There are also many stories of miracles which he performed during his work to convert the Picts, the most famous being his encounter with an unidentified animal that some have equated with the Loch Ness Monster in 565. It is said that he banished a ferocious "water beast" to the depths of the River Ness after it had killed a Pict and then tried to attack Columba's disciple, Lugne (see Vita Columbae Book 2 below). He visited the pagan King Bridei, King of Fortriu, at his base in Inverness, winning Bridei's respect, although not his conversion. He subsequently played a major role in the politics of the country.
He was also very energetic in his work as a missionary, and, in addition to founding several churches in the Hebrides, he worked to turn his monastery at Iona into a school for missionaries. He was a renowned man of letters, having written several hymns and being credited with having transcribed 300 books. One of the few, if not the only, times he left Scotland was towards the end of his life, when he returned to Ireland to found the monastery at Durrow.
According to traditional sources, Columba died in Iona on Sunday, 9 June 597, and was buried by his monks in the abbey he created. However, Dr. Daniel P. Mc Carthy disputes this and assigns a date of 593 to Columba's death. The Annals record the first raid made upon Iona in 795, with further raids occurring in 802, 806, and 825. Columba's relics were finally removed in 849 and divided between Scotland and Ireland.
In Ireland, the saint is commonly known as Colmcille.
Colmcille is one of the three patron saints of Ireland, after Patrick and Brigid of Kildare.
Colmcille is the patron saint of the city of Derry, where he founded a monastic settlement in c. 540. The name of the city in Irish is Doire Cholm Cille and is derived from the native oak trees in the area and the city's association with Colmcille. The Catholic Church of Saint Colmcille's Long Tower, and the Church of Ireland St Augustine's Church both claim to stand at the spot of this original settlement. The Church of Ireland Cathedral, St Columb's Cathedral, and the largest park in the city, St. Columb's Park, are named in his honour. The Catholic Boys' Grammar School, St Columb's College, has him as Patron and namesake.
St. Columba's National School in Drumcondra is a girls' school named after the saint.
St. Colmcille's Primary School and St. Colmcille's Community School are two schools in Knocklyon, Dublin, named after him, with the former having an annual day dedicated to the saint on 9 June.
The town of Swords, Dublin was reputedly founded by Colmcille in 560 AD. St Colmcille's Boys' National School and St. Colmcille's Girls’ National School, both located in the town of Swords, are also named after the Saint as is one of the local gaelic teams, Naomh Colmcille.
The Columba Press, a religious and spiritual book company based in Dublin, is named after Colmcille.
Aer Lingus, Ireland's national flag carrier has named one of its Airbus A330 aircraft in commemoration of the saint (reg: EI-DUO).
Columba is credited as being a leading figure in the revitalisation of monasticism. The Clan Malcolm/Clan McCallum claims its name from Columba and was reputedly founded by the descendants of his original followers. It is also said that Clan Robertson Clan Donnachaidh / Duncan are heirs of Columba. Clan MacKinnon may also have some claim to being spiritual descendants of St Columba as after he founded his monastery on Isle Iona, the MacKinnons were the abbots of the church for centuries. Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk speculated that Clan MacKinnon belonged to the kindred of Columba, noting the MacKinnon Arms bore the hand of Columba holding the Cross, and the several Mackinnon abbots of Iona.
The cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Argyll and the Isles is placed under the patronage of Saint Columba, as are numerous Catholic schools and parishes throughout the nation. The Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church of Scotland, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England also have parishes dedicated to him. The village of Kilmacolm in Renfrewshire is also derived from Colmcille's name.
St Columba's Hospice, a prominent hospice in Edinburgh, is named after the saint.
Columba currently has two poems attributed to him: "Adiutor Laborantium" and "Altus Prosator". Both poems are examples of Abecedarian hymns in Latin written while Columba was at the Iona Abbey.
The shorter of the two poems, "Adiutor Laborantium" consists of twenty-seven lines of eight syllables each, with each line following the format of an Abecedarian hymn using the Classical Latin alphabet save for lines 10–11 and 25–27. The content of the poem addresses God as a helper, ruler, guard, defender and lifter for those who are good and an enemy of sinners whom he will punish.
"Altus Prosator" consists of twenty-three stanzas sixteen syllables long, with the first containing seven lines and six lines in each subsequent stanza. It uses the same format and alphabet as "Adiutor Laborantium" except with each stanza starting with a different letter rather than each line. The poem tells a story over three parts split into the beginning of time, history of Creation, and the Apocalypse or end of time.
As of 2011, Canadians who are of Scottish ancestry are the third largest ethnic group in the country and thus Columba's name is to be found attached to Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian parishes. This is particularly the case in eastern Canada, apart from French-speaking Quebec.
Throughout the US there are numerous parishes within the Catholic and Episcopalian denominations dedicated to Columba. Within the Protestant tradition the Presbyterian Church (which has its roots in Scottish Presbyterianism) also has parishes named in honour of Columba. Columba is the patron saint of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio. The Cathedral there is named for him.
Iona University, a small Catholic liberal arts college whose main campus is located in New Rochelle, New York, is named after the island on which Columba established his first monastery in Scotland, as is Iona College in Windsor, Ontario, Iona Presentation College, Perth, and Iona College Geelong in Charlemont, Victoria.
There are at least four pipe bands named for him; one each from Tullamore, Ireland, from Derry, Northern Ireland, from Kearny, New Jersey, and from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
St. Columba's School, one of the most prominent English-Medium schools in India, run by the Irish Christian Brothers, is also named after the saint.
The Munich GAA is named München Colmcilles.
Saint Columba's Feast Day, 9 June, has been designated as International Celtic Art Day. The Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow, great medieval masterpieces of Celtic art, are associated with Columba.
Benjamin Britten composed A Hymn of St Columba for choir and organ in 1962, setting a poem by the saint, on the occasion of the 1,400th anniversary of his voyage to Iona.
Columba is honored in the Anglican communion as well, including the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, on 9 June.
The main source of information about Columba's life is the Life of Columba (Latin: Vita Columbae), a hagiography written by Adomnán, one of Columba's successors at Iona, in the style of "saint's lives" narratives that had become widespread throughout medieval Europe. Both the Life of Columba and Bede (672/673–735) record Columba's visit to Bridei. Whereas Adomnán just tells us that Columba visited Bridei, Bede relates a later, perhaps Pictish tradition, whereby Columba actually converts the Pictish king. Another early source is a poem in praise of Columba, most probably commissioned by Columba's kinsman, the King of the Uí Néill clan. It was almost certainly written within three or four years of Columba's death and is the earliest vernacular poem in European history. It consists of 25 stanzas of four verses of seven syllables each, called the Amra Coluim Chille.
Through the reputation of its venerable founder and its position as a major European centre of learning, Columba's Iona became a place of pilgrimage. Columba is historically revered as a warrior saint and was often invoked for victory in battle. Some of his relics were removed in 849 and divided between Alba and Ireland. Relics of Columba were carried before Scottish armies in the reliquary made at Iona in the mid-8th century, called the Brecbennoch. Legend has it that the Brecbennoch was carried to the Battle of Bannockburn (24 June 1314) by the vastly outnumbered Scots army and the intercession of Columba helped them to victory. Since the 19th century the "Brecbennoch of St. Columba" has been identified with the Monymusk Reliquary, although this is now doubted by scholars.
In the Antiphoner of Inchcolm Abbey, the "Iona of the East" (situated on an island in the Firth of Forth), a 14th-century prayer begins O Columba spes Scotorum... "O Columba, hope of the Scots". | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Columba (/kəˈlʌmbəˌ ˈkɒlʌmbə/) or Colmcille (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the patron saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Columba studied under some of Ireland's most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country. Around 563 AD he and his twelve companions crossed to Dunaverty near Southend, Argyll, in Kintyre before settling in Iona in Scotland, then part of the Ulster kingdom of Dál Riata, where they founded a new abbey as a base for spreading Celtic Christianity among the pagan Northern Pictish kingdoms. He remained active in Irish politics, though he spent most of the remainder of his life in Scotland. Three surviving early medieval Latin hymns may be attributed to him.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Columba was born to Fedlimid and Eithne of the Cenél Conaill in Gartan, a district beside Lough Gartan, in Tír Chonaill (mainly modern County Donegal) in what is now Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. On his father's side, he is claimed as being the great-great-grandson of Niall of the Nine Hostages, a pseudo-historical Irish high king of the 5th century. He was baptised in Temple-Douglas, in the County Donegal parish of Conwal (midway between Gartan and Letterkenny), by his teacher and foster-uncle Cruithnechán.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Columba lived in the remote district of what is now Glencolmcille for roughly 5 years, which was named after him. It is not known for sure if his name at birth was Colmcille or if he adopted this name later in life; Adomnán (Eunan) of Iona thought it was his birth name but other Irish sources have claimed his name at birth was Crimthann (meaning 'fox'). In the Irish language his name means 'dove', which is the same name as the Prophet Jonah (Jonah in Hebrew is also 'dove'), which Adomnán of Iona, as well as other early Irish writers, were aware of, although it is not clear if he was deliberately named after Jonah or not. Columba is also Latin for dove. (See also the bird genus Columba.)",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "When sufficiently advanced in letters he entered the monastic school of Movilla, at Newtownards, under Finnian of Movilla who had studied at Ninian's \"Magnum Monasterium\" on the shores of Galloway. He was about twenty, and a deacon when, having completed his training at Movilla, he travelled southwards into Leinster, where he became a pupil of an aged bard named Gemman. On leaving him, Columba entered the monastery of Clonard, governed at that time by Finnian, noted for sanctity and learning. Here he imbibed the traditions of the Welsh Church, for Finnian had been trained in the schools of David.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In early Christian Ireland, the druidic tradition collapsed due to the spread of the new Christian faith. The study of Latin learning and Christian theology in monasteries flourished. Columba became a pupil at the monastic school at Clonard Abbey, situated on the River Boyne in modern County Meath. During the sixth century, some of the most significant names in the history of Celtic Christianity studied at the Clonard monastery. The average number of scholars under instruction at Clonard was said to be 300. Columba was one of twelve students of Finnian of Clonard who became known as the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. He became a monk and eventually was ordained a priest.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Another preceptor of Columba was Mobhí Clárainech, whose monastery at Glasnevin was frequented by such famous men as Cainnech of Aghaboe, Comgall, and Ciarán. A pestilence which devastated Ireland in 544 caused the dispersion of Mobhi's disciples, and Columba returned to Ulster, the land of his kindred. He was a striking figure of great stature and powerful build, with a loud, melodious voice which could be heard from one hilltop to another.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The foundation of several important monasteries marked the following years: Derry, at the southern edge of Inishowen; Durrow, County Offaly; Kells, County Meath; and Swords. While at Derry it is said that he planned a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem, but did not proceed farther than Tours. From Tours, he brought a copy of those gospels that had lain on the bosom of Martin for 100 years. This relic was deposited in Derry. St Colmcille is also believed to have established a Church on Inishkea North, County Mayo which is named St Colmcille’s Church.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Some traditions assert that sometime around 560 Columba became involved in a quarrel with Finnian of Moville of Movilla Abbey over a psalter. Columba copied the manuscript at the scriptorium under Finnian, intending to keep the copy. Finnian disputed his right to keep it. There is a suggestion that this conflict resulted in the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne in Cairbre Drom Cliabh (now in County Sligo) in 561, during which many men were killed. Richard Sharpe, translator of Adomnán's Life of St. Columba (referenced in the bibliography below) makes a stern caution at this point against accepting the many references that link the battle and Columba's leaving of Ireland, even though there is evidence in the annals that Columba supported his own king against the high king. Political conflicts that had existed for some time resulted in the clan Neill's battle against King Diarmait at Cooldrevny in 561. An issue, for example, was the king's violation of the right of sanctuary belonging to Columba's person as a monk on the occasion of the murder of Prince Curnan, Columba's kinsman.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Prince Curnan of Connacht, who had fatally injured a rival in a hurling match and had taken refuge with Columba, was dragged from his protector's arms and slain by Diarmaid's men, in defiance of the rights of sanctuary.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "A synod of clerics and scholars threatened to excommunicate him for these deaths, but Brendan of Birr spoke on his behalf. Eventually, the process was deemed a miscarriage of justice. Columba's own conscience was uneasy, and on the advice of an aged hermit, Molaise, he resolved to expiate his sense of offence by departing Ireland. The term \"exile\" is used in some references. This, too, can be disputed, for the term \"pilgrimage\" is used more frequently in the literature about him. A marker at Stroove Beach on the Inishowen Peninsula commemorates the place where Columba set sail for Scotland. He left Ireland, but through the following years, he returned several times in relationships with the communities he had founded there.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Columba's copy of the psalter has been traditionally associated with the Cathach of St. Columba. In 574/575, during his return for the Synod of Drum Ceat, he founded the monastery of Drumcliff in Cairbre, now County Sligo, near the battlefield.",
"title": "Early life in Ireland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "In 563, he travelled to Scotland with twelve companions (said to include Odran of Iona) in a wicker currach covered with leather. According to legend he first landed on the Kintyre Peninsula, near Southend. However, being still in sight of his native land, he moved farther north up the west coast of Scotland. The island of Iona was made over to him by his kinsman Conall mac Comgaill King of Dál Riata, who perhaps had invited him to come to Scotland in the first place. However, there is a sense in which he was not leaving his native people, as the Ulster Gaels had been colonising the west coast of Scotland for the previous couple of centuries. Aside from the services he provided guiding the only centre of literacy in the region, his reputation as a holy man led to his role as a diplomat among the tribes.",
"title": "Scotland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "There are also many stories of miracles which he performed during his work to convert the Picts, the most famous being his encounter with an unidentified animal that some have equated with the Loch Ness Monster in 565. It is said that he banished a ferocious \"water beast\" to the depths of the River Ness after it had killed a Pict and then tried to attack Columba's disciple, Lugne (see Vita Columbae Book 2 below). He visited the pagan King Bridei, King of Fortriu, at his base in Inverness, winning Bridei's respect, although not his conversion. He subsequently played a major role in the politics of the country.",
"title": "Scotland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "He was also very energetic in his work as a missionary, and, in addition to founding several churches in the Hebrides, he worked to turn his monastery at Iona into a school for missionaries. He was a renowned man of letters, having written several hymns and being credited with having transcribed 300 books. One of the few, if not the only, times he left Scotland was towards the end of his life, when he returned to Ireland to found the monastery at Durrow.",
"title": "Scotland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "According to traditional sources, Columba died in Iona on Sunday, 9 June 597, and was buried by his monks in the abbey he created. However, Dr. Daniel P. Mc Carthy disputes this and assigns a date of 593 to Columba's death. The Annals record the first raid made upon Iona in 795, with further raids occurring in 802, 806, and 825. Columba's relics were finally removed in 849 and divided between Scotland and Ireland.",
"title": "Scotland"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In Ireland, the saint is commonly known as Colmcille.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Colmcille is one of the three patron saints of Ireland, after Patrick and Brigid of Kildare.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Colmcille is the patron saint of the city of Derry, where he founded a monastic settlement in c. 540. The name of the city in Irish is Doire Cholm Cille and is derived from the native oak trees in the area and the city's association with Colmcille. The Catholic Church of Saint Colmcille's Long Tower, and the Church of Ireland St Augustine's Church both claim to stand at the spot of this original settlement. The Church of Ireland Cathedral, St Columb's Cathedral, and the largest park in the city, St. Columb's Park, are named in his honour. The Catholic Boys' Grammar School, St Columb's College, has him as Patron and namesake.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "St. Columba's National School in Drumcondra is a girls' school named after the saint.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "St. Colmcille's Primary School and St. Colmcille's Community School are two schools in Knocklyon, Dublin, named after him, with the former having an annual day dedicated to the saint on 9 June.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The town of Swords, Dublin was reputedly founded by Colmcille in 560 AD. St Colmcille's Boys' National School and St. Colmcille's Girls’ National School, both located in the town of Swords, are also named after the Saint as is one of the local gaelic teams, Naomh Colmcille.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Columba Press, a religious and spiritual book company based in Dublin, is named after Colmcille.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Aer Lingus, Ireland's national flag carrier has named one of its Airbus A330 aircraft in commemoration of the saint (reg: EI-DUO).",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Columba is credited as being a leading figure in the revitalisation of monasticism. The Clan Malcolm/Clan McCallum claims its name from Columba and was reputedly founded by the descendants of his original followers. It is also said that Clan Robertson Clan Donnachaidh / Duncan are heirs of Columba. Clan MacKinnon may also have some claim to being spiritual descendants of St Columba as after he founded his monastery on Isle Iona, the MacKinnons were the abbots of the church for centuries. Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk speculated that Clan MacKinnon belonged to the kindred of Columba, noting the MacKinnon Arms bore the hand of Columba holding the Cross, and the several Mackinnon abbots of Iona.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Argyll and the Isles is placed under the patronage of Saint Columba, as are numerous Catholic schools and parishes throughout the nation. The Scottish Episcopal Church, the Church of Scotland, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of England also have parishes dedicated to him. The village of Kilmacolm in Renfrewshire is also derived from Colmcille's name.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "St Columba's Hospice, a prominent hospice in Edinburgh, is named after the saint.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Columba currently has two poems attributed to him: \"Adiutor Laborantium\" and \"Altus Prosator\". Both poems are examples of Abecedarian hymns in Latin written while Columba was at the Iona Abbey.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The shorter of the two poems, \"Adiutor Laborantium\" consists of twenty-seven lines of eight syllables each, with each line following the format of an Abecedarian hymn using the Classical Latin alphabet save for lines 10–11 and 25–27. The content of the poem addresses God as a helper, ruler, guard, defender and lifter for those who are good and an enemy of sinners whom he will punish.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "\"Altus Prosator\" consists of twenty-three stanzas sixteen syllables long, with the first containing seven lines and six lines in each subsequent stanza. It uses the same format and alphabet as \"Adiutor Laborantium\" except with each stanza starting with a different letter rather than each line. The poem tells a story over three parts split into the beginning of time, history of Creation, and the Apocalypse or end of time.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "As of 2011, Canadians who are of Scottish ancestry are the third largest ethnic group in the country and thus Columba's name is to be found attached to Catholic, Anglican and Presbyterian parishes. This is particularly the case in eastern Canada, apart from French-speaking Quebec.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Throughout the US there are numerous parishes within the Catholic and Episcopalian denominations dedicated to Columba. Within the Protestant tradition the Presbyterian Church (which has its roots in Scottish Presbyterianism) also has parishes named in honour of Columba. Columba is the patron saint of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio. The Cathedral there is named for him.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Iona University, a small Catholic liberal arts college whose main campus is located in New Rochelle, New York, is named after the island on which Columba established his first monastery in Scotland, as is Iona College in Windsor, Ontario, Iona Presentation College, Perth, and Iona College Geelong in Charlemont, Victoria.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "There are at least four pipe bands named for him; one each from Tullamore, Ireland, from Derry, Northern Ireland, from Kearny, New Jersey, and from Cape Cod, Massachusetts.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "St. Columba's School, one of the most prominent English-Medium schools in India, run by the Irish Christian Brothers, is also named after the saint.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The Munich GAA is named München Colmcilles.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Saint Columba's Feast Day, 9 June, has been designated as International Celtic Art Day. The Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow, great medieval masterpieces of Celtic art, are associated with Columba.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Benjamin Britten composed A Hymn of St Columba for choir and organ in 1962, setting a poem by the saint, on the occasion of the 1,400th anniversary of his voyage to Iona.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Columba is honored in the Anglican communion as well, including the Church of England and the Episcopal Church, on 9 June.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The main source of information about Columba's life is the Life of Columba (Latin: Vita Columbae), a hagiography written by Adomnán, one of Columba's successors at Iona, in the style of \"saint's lives\" narratives that had become widespread throughout medieval Europe. Both the Life of Columba and Bede (672/673–735) record Columba's visit to Bridei. Whereas Adomnán just tells us that Columba visited Bridei, Bede relates a later, perhaps Pictish tradition, whereby Columba actually converts the Pictish king. Another early source is a poem in praise of Columba, most probably commissioned by Columba's kinsman, the King of the Uí Néill clan. It was almost certainly written within three or four years of Columba's death and is the earliest vernacular poem in European history. It consists of 25 stanzas of four verses of seven syllables each, called the Amra Coluim Chille.",
"title": "Sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Through the reputation of its venerable founder and its position as a major European centre of learning, Columba's Iona became a place of pilgrimage. Columba is historically revered as a warrior saint and was often invoked for victory in battle. Some of his relics were removed in 849 and divided between Alba and Ireland. Relics of Columba were carried before Scottish armies in the reliquary made at Iona in the mid-8th century, called the Brecbennoch. Legend has it that the Brecbennoch was carried to the Battle of Bannockburn (24 June 1314) by the vastly outnumbered Scots army and the intercession of Columba helped them to victory. Since the 19th century the \"Brecbennoch of St. Columba\" has been identified with the Monymusk Reliquary, although this is now doubted by scholars.",
"title": "Sources"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In the Antiphoner of Inchcolm Abbey, the \"Iona of the East\" (situated on an island in the Firth of Forth), a 14th-century prayer begins O Columba spes Scotorum... \"O Columba, hope of the Scots\".",
"title": "Sources"
}
] | Columba or Colmcille was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He founded the important abbey on Iona, which became a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the patron saint of Derry. He was highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts, and is remembered today as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. Columba studied under some of Ireland's most prominent church figures and founded several monasteries in the country. Around 563 AD he and his twelve companions crossed to Dunaverty near Southend, Argyll, in Kintyre before settling in Iona in Scotland, then part of the Ulster kingdom of Dál Riata, where they founded a new abbey as a base for spreading Celtic Christianity among the pagan Northern Pictish kingdoms. He remained active in Irish politics, though he spent most of the remainder of his life in Scotland. Three surviving early medieval Latin hymns may be attributed to him. | 2001-09-27T07:48:35Z | 2023-12-29T07:04:23Z | [
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6,562 | Conditional proof | A conditional proof is a proof that takes the form of asserting a conditional, and proving that the antecedent of the conditional necessarily leads to the consequent.
The assumed antecedent of a conditional proof is called the conditional proof assumption (CPA). Thus, the goal of a conditional proof is to demonstrate that if the CPA were true, then the desired conclusion necessarily follows. The validity of a conditional proof does not require that the CPA be true, only that if it were true it would lead to the consequent.
Conditional proofs are of great importance in mathematics. Conditional proofs exist linking several otherwise unproven conjectures, so that a proof of one conjecture may immediately imply the validity of several others. It can be much easier to show a proposition's truth to follow from another proposition than to prove it independently.
A famous network of conditional proofs is the NP-complete class of complexity theory. There is a large number of interesting tasks (see List of NP-complete problems), and while it is not known if a polynomial-time solution exists for any of them, it is known that if such a solution exists for some of them, one exists for all of them. Similarly, the Riemann hypothesis has many consequences already proven.
As an example of a conditional proof in symbolic logic, suppose we want to prove A → C (if A, then C) from the first two premises below: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A conditional proof is a proof that takes the form of asserting a conditional, and proving that the antecedent of the conditional necessarily leads to the consequent.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The assumed antecedent of a conditional proof is called the conditional proof assumption (CPA). Thus, the goal of a conditional proof is to demonstrate that if the CPA were true, then the desired conclusion necessarily follows. The validity of a conditional proof does not require that the CPA be true, only that if it were true it would lead to the consequent.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Conditional proofs are of great importance in mathematics. Conditional proofs exist linking several otherwise unproven conjectures, so that a proof of one conjecture may immediately imply the validity of several others. It can be much easier to show a proposition's truth to follow from another proposition than to prove it independently.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A famous network of conditional proofs is the NP-complete class of complexity theory. There is a large number of interesting tasks (see List of NP-complete problems), and while it is not known if a polynomial-time solution exists for any of them, it is known that if such a solution exists for some of them, one exists for all of them. Similarly, the Riemann hypothesis has many consequences already proven.",
"title": "Overview"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "As an example of a conditional proof in symbolic logic, suppose we want to prove A → C (if A, then C) from the first two premises below:",
"title": "Symbolic logic"
}
] | A conditional proof is a proof that takes the form of asserting a conditional, and proving that the antecedent of the conditional necessarily leads to the consequent. | 2001-09-27T04:01:03Z | 2023-10-15T23:12:00Z | [
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"Template:Transformation rules",
"Template:No footnotes"
] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional_proof |
6,563 | Conjunction introduction | Conjunction introduction (often abbreviated simply as conjunction and also called and introduction or adjunction) is a valid rule of inference of propositional logic. The rule makes it possible to introduce a conjunction into a logical proof. It is the inference that if the proposition P {\displaystyle P} is true, and the proposition Q {\displaystyle Q} is true, then the logical conjunction of the two propositions P {\displaystyle P} and Q {\displaystyle Q} is true. For example, if it is true that "it is raining", and it is true that "the cat is inside", then it is true that "it is raining and the cat is inside". The rule can be stated:
where the rule is that wherever an instance of " P {\displaystyle P} " and " Q {\displaystyle Q} " appear on lines of a proof, a " P ∧ Q {\displaystyle P\land Q} " can be placed on a subsequent line.
The conjunction introduction rule may be written in sequent notation:
where P {\displaystyle P} and Q {\displaystyle Q} are propositions expressed in some formal system, and ⊢ {\displaystyle \vdash } is a metalogical symbol meaning that P ∧ Q {\displaystyle P\land Q} is a syntactic consequence if P {\displaystyle P} and Q {\displaystyle Q} are each on lines of a proof in some logical system; | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Conjunction introduction (often abbreviated simply as conjunction and also called and introduction or adjunction) is a valid rule of inference of propositional logic. The rule makes it possible to introduce a conjunction into a logical proof. It is the inference that if the proposition P {\\displaystyle P} is true, and the proposition Q {\\displaystyle Q} is true, then the logical conjunction of the two propositions P {\\displaystyle P} and Q {\\displaystyle Q} is true. For example, if it is true that \"it is raining\", and it is true that \"the cat is inside\", then it is true that \"it is raining and the cat is inside\". The rule can be stated:",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "where the rule is that wherever an instance of \" P {\\displaystyle P} \" and \" Q {\\displaystyle Q} \" appear on lines of a proof, a \" P ∧ Q {\\displaystyle P\\land Q} \" can be placed on a subsequent line.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The conjunction introduction rule may be written in sequent notation:",
"title": "Formal notation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "where P {\\displaystyle P} and Q {\\displaystyle Q} are propositions expressed in some formal system, and ⊢ {\\displaystyle \\vdash } is a metalogical symbol meaning that P ∧ Q {\\displaystyle P\\land Q} is a syntactic consequence if P {\\displaystyle P} and Q {\\displaystyle Q} are each on lines of a proof in some logical system;",
"title": "Formal notation"
}
] | Conjunction introduction is a valid rule of inference of propositional logic. The rule makes it possible to introduce a conjunction into a logical proof. It is the inference that if the proposition P is true, and the proposition Q is true, then the logical conjunction of the two propositions P and Q is true. For example, if it is true that "it is raining", and it is true that "the cat is inside", then it is true that "it is raining and the cat is inside". The rule can be stated: where the rule is that wherever an instance of " P " and " Q " appear on lines of a proof, a " P ∧ Q " can be placed on a subsequent line. | 2022-06-13T16:48:56Z | [
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|
6,566 | English in the Commonwealth of Nations | The use of the English language in current and former member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited from British colonisation, with some exceptions. English serves as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations.
Commonwealth English (CE or CwE) is very diverse, and many regions (notably Australia, Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean) have developed their own local varieties of the language. In Cyprus, it does not have official status but is widely used as a lingua franca. English is spoken as a first or second language in most of the Commonwealth.
Written English in the current and former Commonwealth generally favours British English spelling as opposed to American English, with some exceptions, particularly in Canada, where there are strong influences from neighbouring American English. Few Commonwealth countries besides Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have produced their own English dictionaries and style guides, and may rely on those produced in other countries.
Southern Hemisphere native varieties of English began to develop during the 18th century, with the colonisation of Australasia and South Africa. Australian English and New Zealand English are closely related to each other, and share some similarities with South African English (though it has unique influences from indigenous African languages, and Dutch influences it inherited along with the development of Afrikaans from Dutch).
Canadian English contains elements of British English and American English, as well as many Canadianisms and some French influences. It is the product of several waves of immigration and settlement, from Britain, Ireland, France, the United States, and around the world, over a period of more than two centuries. Modern Canadian English has taken significant vocabulary and spelling from the shared political and social institutions of Commonwealth countries.
Caribbean English is influenced by the English-based Creole varieties spoken, but they are not one and the same. There is a great deal of variation in the way English is spoken, with a "Standard English" at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum and Creole languages at the other. These dialects have roots in 17th-century British and Irish English, and African languages, plus localised influences from other colonial languages including French, Spanish, and Dutch; unlike most native varieties of English, West Indian dialects often tend to be syllable-timed rather than stress-timed.
Second-language varieties of English in Africa and Asia have often undergone "indigenisation"; that is, each English-speaking community has developed (or is in the process of developing) its own standards of usage, often under the influence of local languages. These dialects are sometimes referred to as New Englishes (McArthur, p. 36); most of them inherited non-rhoticity from Southern British English.
Several dialects of West African English exist, with a lot of regional variation and some influence from indigenous languages. West African English tends to be syllable-timed, and its phoneme inventory is much simpler than that of Received Pronunciation; this sometimes affects mutual intelligibility with native varieties of English. A distinctive North African English, often with significant influences from Bantu languages such as Swahili, is spoken in countries such as Kenya or Tanzania, particularly in Nairobi and other cities where there is an expanding middle class, for whom English is increasingly being used in the home as the first language.
Small communities of native English speakers can be found in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia; the dialects spoken are similar to native South African English.
English was introduced into the subcontinent by the British Raj. Among the partitioned post-independent countries, India has the largest English-speaking population in the Commonwealth, although comparatively very few speakers of Indian English are first-language speakers. The same is true of English spoken in other parts of South Asia, e.g. Pakistani English, Sri Lankan English, Bangladeshi English and Myanmar English. South Asian English phonology is highly variable; stress, rhythm and intonation are generally different from those of native varieties. There are also several peculiarities at the levels of morphology, syntax and usage, some of which can also be found among educated speakers.
Southeast Asian English comprises Singapore English, Malaysian English, and Brunei English; it features some influence from Malay and Chinese languages, as well as Indian English.
Hong Kong ceased to be part of the Commonwealth in 1997. Nonetheless, the English language there still enjoys status as an official language.
Other languages: | [
{
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"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Commonwealth English (CE or CwE) is very diverse, and many regions (notably Australia, Brunei, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean) have developed their own local varieties of the language. In Cyprus, it does not have official status but is widely used as a lingua franca. English is spoken as a first or second language in most of the Commonwealth.",
"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "Written English in the current and former Commonwealth generally favours British English spelling as opposed to American English, with some exceptions, particularly in Canada, where there are strong influences from neighbouring American English. Few Commonwealth countries besides Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have produced their own English dictionaries and style guides, and may rely on those produced in other countries.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Southern Hemisphere native varieties of English began to develop during the 18th century, with the colonisation of Australasia and South Africa. Australian English and New Zealand English are closely related to each other, and share some similarities with South African English (though it has unique influences from indigenous African languages, and Dutch influences it inherited along with the development of Afrikaans from Dutch).",
"title": "Native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Canadian English contains elements of British English and American English, as well as many Canadianisms and some French influences. It is the product of several waves of immigration and settlement, from Britain, Ireland, France, the United States, and around the world, over a period of more than two centuries. Modern Canadian English has taken significant vocabulary and spelling from the shared political and social institutions of Commonwealth countries.",
"title": "Native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Caribbean English is influenced by the English-based Creole varieties spoken, but they are not one and the same. There is a great deal of variation in the way English is spoken, with a \"Standard English\" at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum and Creole languages at the other. These dialects have roots in 17th-century British and Irish English, and African languages, plus localised influences from other colonial languages including French, Spanish, and Dutch; unlike most native varieties of English, West Indian dialects often tend to be syllable-timed rather than stress-timed.",
"title": "Native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Second-language varieties of English in Africa and Asia have often undergone \"indigenisation\"; that is, each English-speaking community has developed (or is in the process of developing) its own standards of usage, often under the influence of local languages. These dialects are sometimes referred to as New Englishes (McArthur, p. 36); most of them inherited non-rhoticity from Southern British English.",
"title": "Non-native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Several dialects of West African English exist, with a lot of regional variation and some influence from indigenous languages. West African English tends to be syllable-timed, and its phoneme inventory is much simpler than that of Received Pronunciation; this sometimes affects mutual intelligibility with native varieties of English. A distinctive North African English, often with significant influences from Bantu languages such as Swahili, is spoken in countries such as Kenya or Tanzania, particularly in Nairobi and other cities where there is an expanding middle class, for whom English is increasingly being used in the home as the first language.",
"title": "Non-native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Small communities of native English speakers can be found in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia; the dialects spoken are similar to native South African English.",
"title": "Non-native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "English was introduced into the subcontinent by the British Raj. Among the partitioned post-independent countries, India has the largest English-speaking population in the Commonwealth, although comparatively very few speakers of Indian English are first-language speakers. The same is true of English spoken in other parts of South Asia, e.g. Pakistani English, Sri Lankan English, Bangladeshi English and Myanmar English. South Asian English phonology is highly variable; stress, rhythm and intonation are generally different from those of native varieties. There are also several peculiarities at the levels of morphology, syntax and usage, some of which can also be found among educated speakers.",
"title": "Non-native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Southeast Asian English comprises Singapore English, Malaysian English, and Brunei English; it features some influence from Malay and Chinese languages, as well as Indian English.",
"title": "Non-native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Hong Kong ceased to be part of the Commonwealth in 1997. Nonetheless, the English language there still enjoys status as an official language.",
"title": "Non-native varieties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Other languages:",
"title": "See also"
}
] | The use of the English language in current and former member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited from British colonisation, with some exceptions. English serves as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations. Commonwealth English is very diverse, and many regions have developed their own local varieties of the language. In Cyprus, it does not have official status but is widely used as a lingua franca. English is spoken as a first or second language in most of the Commonwealth. Written English in the current and former Commonwealth generally favours British English spelling as opposed to American English, with some exceptions, particularly in Canada, where there are strong influences from neighbouring American English. Few Commonwealth countries besides Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom have produced their own English dictionaries and style guides, and may rely on those produced in other countries. | 2001-09-27T10:21:28Z | 2023-12-09T14:23:10Z | [
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6,569 | Charles McCarry | Charles McCarry (June 14, 1930 – February 26, 2019) was an American writer, primarily of spy fiction, and a former undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency.
McCarry's family came from The Berkshires area of western Massachusetts. He was born in Pittsfield, and lived in Virginia. He graduated from Dalton High School.
McCarry began his writing career in the United States Army as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes. He served from 1948 to 1951 and achieved the rank of sergeant. He received initial training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was stationed in Germany for almost two years and at Camp Pickett, Virginia for about a year.
After his army service, he was a speechwriter in the early Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1958, at the invitation of Cord Meyer, he accepted a post with the CIA, for whom he traveled the globe as a deep cover operative. He took a leave of absence to work for the 1960 Nixon campaign, writing for vice-presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge. He left the CIA for the last time in 1967, becoming a writer of spy novels.
McCarry was also an editor-at-large for National Geographic and contributed pieces to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Saturday Evening Post, and other national publications.
McCarry believed that "the best novels are about ordinary things: love, betrayal, death, trust, loneliness, marriage, fatherhood." In 1988 McCarry described the themes of his novels to date as "ordinary things – love, death, betrayal and the American dream."
McCarry wrote that: "After I resigned [from the CIA], intending to spend the rest of my life writing fiction and knowing what tricks the mind can play when the gates are thrown wide open, as they are by the act of writing, between the imagination and that part of the brain in which information is stored, I took the precaution of writing a closely remembered narrative of my clandestine experiences. After correcting the manuscript, I burned it. What I kept for my own use was the atmosphere of secret life: How it worked on the five senses and what it did to the heart and mind. All the rest went up in flames, setting me free henceforth to make it all up. In all important matters, such as the creation of characters and the invention of plots, with rare and minor exceptions, that is what I have done. And, as might be expected, when I have been weak enough to use something that really happened as an episode in a novel, it is that piece of scrap, buried in a landfill of the imaginary, readers invariably refuse to believe."
McCarry was an admirer of the work of Eric Ambler and W. Somerset Maugham, especially the latter's Ashenden stories. He was also an admirer of Richard Condon, author of The Manchurian Candidate (1959).
Ten of McCarry's novels involve the life story of a fictional character named Paul Christopher, who grew up in pre-Nazi Germany, and later served in the Marines and became an operative for a U.S. government entity known as "the Outfit", meant to represent the Central Intelligence Agency.
These books are, in order of publication:
Alternately, in chronological order of events depicted:
The Wall Street Journal described McCarry in 2013 as "the dean of American spy writers". The New Republic magazine called him "poet laureate of the CIA"; and Otto Penzler described him as "the greatest espionage writer that America has ever produced." Jonathan Yardley, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Washington Post, calls him a "'serious' novelist" whose work may include "the best novel ever written about life in high-stakes Washington, D.C." In 2004 P. J. O'Rourke called him "the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue."
The film Wrong is Right (1982), starring Sean Connery, was loosely based on McCarry's novel, The Better Angels (1979).
Otto Penzler, editor: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Charles McCarry (June 14, 1930 – February 26, 2019) was an American writer, primarily of spy fiction, and a former undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency.",
"title": ""
},
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"paragraph_id": 1,
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"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "McCarry began his writing career in the United States Army as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes. He served from 1948 to 1951 and achieved the rank of sergeant. He received initial training at Fort Benning, Georgia, and was stationed in Germany for almost two years and at Camp Pickett, Virginia for about a year.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "After his army service, he was a speechwriter in the early Administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1958, at the invitation of Cord Meyer, he accepted a post with the CIA, for whom he traveled the globe as a deep cover operative. He took a leave of absence to work for the 1960 Nixon campaign, writing for vice-presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge. He left the CIA for the last time in 1967, becoming a writer of spy novels.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "McCarry was also an editor-at-large for National Geographic and contributed pieces to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, the Saturday Evening Post, and other national publications.",
"title": "Biography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "McCarry believed that \"the best novels are about ordinary things: love, betrayal, death, trust, loneliness, marriage, fatherhood.\" In 1988 McCarry described the themes of his novels to date as \"ordinary things – love, death, betrayal and the American dream.\"",
"title": "Approach to writing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "McCarry wrote that: \"After I resigned [from the CIA], intending to spend the rest of my life writing fiction and knowing what tricks the mind can play when the gates are thrown wide open, as they are by the act of writing, between the imagination and that part of the brain in which information is stored, I took the precaution of writing a closely remembered narrative of my clandestine experiences. After correcting the manuscript, I burned it. What I kept for my own use was the atmosphere of secret life: How it worked on the five senses and what it did to the heart and mind. All the rest went up in flames, setting me free henceforth to make it all up. In all important matters, such as the creation of characters and the invention of plots, with rare and minor exceptions, that is what I have done. And, as might be expected, when I have been weak enough to use something that really happened as an episode in a novel, it is that piece of scrap, buried in a landfill of the imaginary, readers invariably refuse to believe.\"",
"title": "Approach to writing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "McCarry was an admirer of the work of Eric Ambler and W. Somerset Maugham, especially the latter's Ashenden stories. He was also an admirer of Richard Condon, author of The Manchurian Candidate (1959).",
"title": "Approach to writing"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Ten of McCarry's novels involve the life story of a fictional character named Paul Christopher, who grew up in pre-Nazi Germany, and later served in the Marines and became an operative for a U.S. government entity known as \"the Outfit\", meant to represent the Central Intelligence Agency.",
"title": "Paul Christopher series"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "These books are, in order of publication:",
"title": "Paul Christopher series"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Alternately, in chronological order of events depicted:",
"title": "Paul Christopher series"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Wall Street Journal described McCarry in 2013 as \"the dean of American spy writers\". The New Republic magazine called him \"poet laureate of the CIA\"; and Otto Penzler described him as \"the greatest espionage writer that America has ever produced.\" Jonathan Yardley, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Washington Post, calls him a \"'serious' novelist\" whose work may include \"the best novel ever written about life in high-stakes Washington, D.C.\" In 2004 P. J. O'Rourke called him \"the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue.\"",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The film Wrong is Right (1982), starring Sean Connery, was loosely based on McCarry's novel, The Better Angels (1979).",
"title": "Adaptations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Otto Penzler, editor:",
"title": "Other books and publications"
}
] | Charles McCarry was an American writer, primarily of spy fiction, and a former undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. | 2022-11-15T03:04:22Z | [
"Template:Infobox writer",
"Template:Cite book",
"Template:ISFDB name",
"Template:Authority control",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Reflist",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Cite news",
"Template:Gale",
"Template:IMDb name"
] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_McCarry |
|
6,571 | Cimbri | The Cimbri (Greek Κίμβροι, Kímbroi; Latin Cimbri) were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that they lived in Jutland, which in some classical texts was called the Cimbrian peninsula. There is no direct evidence for the language they spoke, though some scholars argue that it was a Germanic language, while others argue that it was Celtic.
Together with the Teutones and the Ambrones, they fought the Roman Republic between 113 and 101 BC during the Cimbrian War. The Cimbri were initially successful, particularly at the Battle of Arausio, in which a large Roman army was routed. They then raided large areas in Gaul and Hispania. In 101 BC, during an attempted invasion of the Italian peninsula, the Cimbri were decisively defeated at the Battle of Vercellae by Gaius Marius, and their king, Boiorix, was killed. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebellious gladiators in the Third Servile War.
The origin of the name Cimbri is unknown. One etymology is PIE *tḱim-ro- "inhabitant", from tḱoi-m- "home" (> English home), itself a derivation from tḱei- "live" (> Greek κτίζω, Latin sinō); then, the Germanic *himbra- finds an exact cognate in Slavic sębrъ "farmer" (> Croatian, Serbian sebar, Russian сябёр syabyor).
The name has also been related to the word kimme meaning "rim", i.e., "the people of the coast". Finally, since Antiquity, the name has been related to that of the Cimmerians.
The name of the Danish region Himmerland (Old Danish Himbersysel) has been proposed to be a derivative of their name. According to such proposals, the word Cimbri with a c would be an older form before Grimm's law (PIE k > Germanic h). Alternatively, Latin c- represents an attempt to render the unfamiliar Proto-Germanic h = [x] (Latin h was [h] but was becoming silent in common speech at the time), perhaps due to Celtic-speaking interpreters (a Celtic intermediary would also explain why Germanic *Þeuðanōz became Latin Teutones).
Because of the similarity of the names, the Cimbri have been at times associated with Cymry, the Welsh name for themselves. However, Cymry is derived from Brittonic *Kombrogi, meaning "compatriots", and is linguistically unrelated to Cimbri.
Scholars generally see the Cimbri as a Germanic tribe originating in Jutland, but archaeologists have found no clear indications of any mass migration from Jutland in the early Iron Age. The Gundestrup Cauldron, which was deposited in a bog in Himmerland in the 2nd or 1st century BC, shows that there was some sort of contact with southeastern Europe, but it is uncertain if this contact can be associated with the Cimbrian militia expeditions against Rome of the 1st Century BC. It is known that the peoples of Northern Europe and the British Isles participated in annual partial population seasonal Winter migrations southward to what is now central Iberia and southern France where goods and resources were traded and cross-culture marriages were arranged.
Advocates for a northern homeland point to Greek and Roman sources that associate the Cimbri with the Jutland peninsula. According to the Res gestae (ch. 26) of Augustus, the Cimbri were still found in the area around the turn of the 1st century AD:
My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri, to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea, and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans of that same region through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people.
The contemporary Greek geographer Strabo testified that the Cimbri still existed as a Germanic tribe, presumably in the "Cimbric peninsula" (since they are said to live by the North Sea and to have paid tribute to Augustus):
As for the Cimbri, some things that are told about them are incorrect and others are extremely improbable. For instance, one could not accept such a reason for their having become a wandering and piratical folk as this that while they were dwelling on a Peninsula they were driven out of their habitations by a great flood-tide; for in fact they still hold the country which they held in earlier times; and they sent as a present to Augustus the most sacred kettle in their country, with a plea for his friendship and for an amnesty of their earlier offences, and when their petition was granted they set sail for home; and it is ridiculous to suppose that they departed from their homes because they were incensed on account of a phenomenon that is natural and eternal, occurring twice every day. And the assertion that an excessive flood-tide once occurred looks like a fabrication, for when the ocean is affected in this way it is subject to increases and diminutions, but these are regulated and periodical.
On the map of Ptolemy, the "Kimbroi" are placed on the northernmost part of the peninsula of Jutland, i.e., in the modern landscape of Himmerland south of Limfjorden (since Vendsyssel-Thy north of the fjord was at that time a group of islands).
Some time before 100 BC many of the Cimbri, as well as the Teutons and Ambrones, migrated south-east. After several unsuccessful battles with the Boii and other Celtic tribes, they appeared c. 113 BC in Noricum, where they invaded the lands of one of Rome's allies, the Taurisci.
On the request of the Roman consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, sent to defend the Taurisci, they retreated, only to find themselves deceived and attacked at the Battle of Noreia, where they defeated the Romans. Only a storm, which separated the combatants, saved the Roman forces from complete annihilation.
Now the road to Italy was open, but they turned west towards Gaul. They came into frequent conflict with the Romans, who usually came out the losers. In Commentarii de Bello Gallico the Aduatuci —Belgians of Cimbrian origin—repeatedly sided with Rome's enemies. In 109 BC, they defeated a Roman army under the consul Marcus Junius Silanus, who was the commander of Gallia Narbonensis. In 107 BC they defeated another Roman army under the consul Gaius Cassius Longinus, who was killed at the Battle of Burdigala (modern day Bordeaux) against the Tigurini, who were allies of the Cimbri.
It was not until 105 BC that they planned an attack on the Roman Republic itself. At the Rhône, the Cimbri clashed with the Roman armies. Discord between the Roman commanders, the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio and the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, hindered Roman coordination and so the Cimbri succeeded in first defeating the legate Marcus Aurelius Scaurus and later inflicted a devastating defeat on Caepio and Maximus at the Battle of Arausio. The Romans lost as many as 80,000 men, according to Livy; Mommsen (in his History of Rome) thought that excluded auxiliary cavalry and non-combatants who brought the total loss closer to 112,000. Other estimates are much smaller, but by any account a large Roman army was routed.
Rome was in panic, and the terror cimbricus became proverbial. Everyone expected to soon see the new Gauls outside of the gates of Rome. Desperate measures were taken: contrary to the Roman constitution, Gaius Marius, who had defeated Jugurtha, was elected consul and supreme commander for five years in a row (104–100 BC).
In 104–103 BC, the Cimbri had turned to the Iberian Peninsula where they pillaged far and wide, until they were confronted by a coalition of Celtiberians. Defeated, the Cimbri returned to Gaul, where they joined their allies, the Teutons. During this time, C. Marius had the time to prepare and, in 102 BC, he was ready to meet the Teutons and the Ambrones at the Rhône. These two tribes intended to pass into Italy through the western passes, while the Cimbri and the Tigurines were to take the northern route across the Rhine and later across the Central Eastern Alps.
At the estuary of the Isère, the Teutons and the Ambrones met Marius, whose well-defended camp they did not manage to overrun. Instead, they pursued their route, and Marius followed them. At Aquae Sextiae, the Romans won two battles and took the Teuton king Teutobod prisoner.
The Cimbri had penetrated through the Alps into northern Italy. The consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus had not dared to fortify the passes, but instead he had retreated behind the river Po, and so the land was open to the invaders. The Cimbri did not hurry, and the victors of Aquae Sextiae had the time to arrive with reinforcements. At the Battle of Vercellae, at the confluence of the river Sesia with the Po, in 101 BC, the long voyage of the Cimbri also came to an end.
It was a devastating defeat. Two chieftains, Lugius and Boiorix, died on the field, while the other chieftains Caesorix and Claodicus were captured. The women killed both themselves and their children in order to avoid slavery. The Cimbri were annihilated, although some may have survived to return to the homeland where a population with this name was residing in northern Jutland in the 1st century AD, according to the sources quoted above. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebelling gladiators in the Third Servile War.
However, Justin's epitome of Trogus, 38.4, has Mithridates the Great state that the Cimbri are ravaging Italy while the Social War is going on, i.e. at some time in 90–88 BC, thus more than a decade later, after sending ambassadors to the Cimbri to request military aid; judging from the context they must have been living in North Eastern Europe at the time.
According to Julius Caesar, the Belgian tribe of the Atuatuci "was descended from the Cimbri and Teutoni, who, upon their march into our province and Italy, set down such of their stock and stuff as they could not drive or carry with them on the near (i.e. west) side of the Rhine, and left six thousand men of their company there as guard and garrison" (Gall. 2.29, trans. Edwards). They founded the city of Atuatuca in the land of the Belgic Eburones, whom they dominated. Thus Ambiorix king of the Eburones paid tribute and gave his son and nephew as hostages to the Atuatuci (Gall. 6.27). In the first century AD, the Eburones were replaced or absorbed by the Germanic Tungri, and the city was known as Atuatuca Tungrorum, i.e. the modern city of Tongeren.
The population of modern-day Himmerland claims to be the heirs of the ancient Cimbri. The adventures of the Cimbri are described by the Danish Nobel Prize–winning author Johannes V. Jensen, himself born in Himmerland, in the novel Cimbrernes Tog (1922), included in the epic cycle Den lange Rejse (English The Long Journey, 1923). The so-called Cimbrian bull ("Cimbrertyren"), a sculpture by Anders Bundgaard, was erected on 14 April 1937 in a central town square in Aalborg, the capital of the region of North Jutland.
A German ethnic minority speaking the Cimbrian language, having settled in the mountains between Vicenza, Verona, and Trento in Italy (also known as Seven Communities), is also called the Cimbri. For hundreds of years this isolated population and its present 4,400 inhabitants have claimed to be the direct descendants of the Cimbri retreating to this area after the Roman victory over their tribe. However, it is more likely that Bavarians settled here in the Middle Ages. Most linguists remain committed to the hypothesis of a medieval (11th to 12th century AD) immigration to explain the presence of small German-speaking communities in the north of Italy. Some genetic studies seem to prove a Celtic, not Germanic, descent for most inhabitants in the region that is reinforced by Gaulish toponyms such as those ending with the suffix -ago < Celtic -*ako(n) (e.g. Asiago is clearly the same place name as the numerous variants – Azay, Aisy, Azé, Ezy – in France, all of which derive from *Asiacum < Gaulish *Asiāko(n)). On the other hand, the original place names in the region, from the specifically localized language known as 'Cimbro' are still in use alongside the more modern names today. These indicate a different origin (e.g., Asiago is known also by its original Cimbro name of Sleghe). The Cimbrian origin myth was popularized by humanists in the 14th century.
Despite these connections to southern Germany, belief in a Himmerland origin persisted well into modern times. On one occasion in 1709, for instance, Frederick IV of Denmark paid the region's inhabitants a visit and was greeted as their king. The population, which kept its independence during the time of the Venice Republic, was later severely devastated by World War I. As a result, many Cimbri have left this mountainous region of Italy, effectively forming a worldwide diaspora.
The Cimbri are depicted as ferocious warriors who did not fear death. The host was followed by women and children on carts. Aged women, priestesses, dressed in white sacrificed the prisoners of war and sprinkled their blood, the nature of which allowed them to see what was to come.
Strabo gives this vivid description of the Cimbric folklore:
Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise.
If the Cimbri did in fact come from Jutland, evidence that they practiced ritualistic sacrifice may be found in the Haraldskær Woman discovered in Jutland in the year 1835. Noosemarks and skin piercing were evident and she had been thrown into a bog rather than buried or cremated. Furthermore, the Gundestrup cauldron, found in Himmerland, may be a sacrificial vessel like the one described in Strabo's text. In style, the work looks like Thracian silver work, while many of the engravings are Celtic objects.
A major problem in determining whether the Cimbri were speaking a Celtic language or a Germanic language is that, at that time, the Greeks and Romans tended to refer to all groups to the north of their sphere of influence as Gauls, Celts, or Germani rather indiscriminately. Caesar seems to be one of the first authors to distinguish the two groups, and he had a political motive for doing so (it was an argument in favour of the Rhine border). Yet, one cannot always trust Caesar and Tacitus when they ascribe individuals and tribes to one or the other category, although Caesar made clear distinctions between the two cultures. Some ancient sources categorize the Cimbri as a Germanic tribe, but some ancient authors include the Cimbri among the Celts.
There are few direct testimonies to the language of the Cimbri: referring to the Northern Ocean (the Baltic or the North Sea), Pliny the Elder states: "Philemon says that it is called Morimarusa, i.e. the Dead Sea, by the Cimbri, until the promontory of Rubea, and after that Cronium." The contemporary Gaulish terms for "sea" and "dead" appear to have been mori and *maruo-; compare their well-attested modern Insular Celtic cognates muir and marbh (Irish), môr and marw (Welsh), and mor and marv (Breton). The same word for "sea" is also known from Germanic, but with an a (*mari-), whereas a cognate of marbh is unknown in all dialects of Germanic. Yet, given that Pliny had not heard the word directly from a Cimbric informant, it cannot be ruled out that the word is in fact Gaulish instead.
The known Cimbri chiefs have Celtic names, including Boiorix (which may mean "King of the Boii" or, more literally, "King of Strikers"), Gaesorix (which means "Spear King"), and Lugius (which may be named after the Celtic god Lugus). Other evidence to the language of the Cimbri is circumstantial: thus, we are told that the Romans enlisted Gaulish Celts to act as spies in the Cimbri camp before the final showdown with the Roman army in 101 BC.
Jean Markale wrote that the Cimbri were associated with the Helvetii, and more especially with the indisputably Celtic Tigurini. These associations may link to a common ancestry, recalled from two hundred years previous, but that is not certain. Henri Hubert states "All these names are Celtic, and they cannot be anything else". Some authors take a different perspective.
Countering the argument of a Celtic origin is the literary evidence that the Cimbri originally came from northern Jutland, an area with no Celtic placenames, instead only Germanic ones. This does not rule out Cimbric Gallicization during the period when they lived in Gaul. Boiorix, who may have had a Celtic if not a Celticized Germanic name, was king of the Cimbri after they moved away from their ancestral home of northern Jutland. Boiorix and his tribe lived around Celtic peoples during his era as J. B. Rives points out in his introduction to Tacitus' Germania; furthermore, the name "Boiorix" can be seen as having either Proto-Germanic or Celtic roots.
The science fiction story "Delenda Est" by Poul Anderson depicts an alternate history in which Hannibal won the Second Punic War and destroyed Rome, but Carthage proved unable to rule Italy – which fell into utter chaos. Thus, there was no one to stop the Cimbri two hundred years later. They filled the vacuum, conquered Italy, assimilated the local population to their own culture and by the equivalent of the 20th century had made of Italy a flourishing, technologically advanced kingdom speaking a Germanic language.
Cimbri is referenced in Italo Calvino's novel If on a Winter's Night a Traveller as a fictional country that warred with a similarly fictionalised version of Cimmeria, thus imposing its own written language onto the Cimmerians.
Jeff Hein’s historical fiction series The Cimbrian War tells the story of the Cimbri and their migration across Iron-Age Europe. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Cimbri (Greek Κίμβροι, Kímbroi; Latin Cimbri) were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people (or Gaulish), Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that they lived in Jutland, which in some classical texts was called the Cimbrian peninsula. There is no direct evidence for the language they spoke, though some scholars argue that it was a Germanic language, while others argue that it was Celtic.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Together with the Teutones and the Ambrones, they fought the Roman Republic between 113 and 101 BC during the Cimbrian War. The Cimbri were initially successful, particularly at the Battle of Arausio, in which a large Roman army was routed. They then raided large areas in Gaul and Hispania. In 101 BC, during an attempted invasion of the Italian peninsula, the Cimbri were decisively defeated at the Battle of Vercellae by Gaius Marius, and their king, Boiorix, was killed. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebellious gladiators in the Third Servile War.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The origin of the name Cimbri is unknown. One etymology is PIE *tḱim-ro- \"inhabitant\", from tḱoi-m- \"home\" (> English home), itself a derivation from tḱei- \"live\" (> Greek κτίζω, Latin sinō); then, the Germanic *himbra- finds an exact cognate in Slavic sębrъ \"farmer\" (> Croatian, Serbian sebar, Russian сябёр syabyor).",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name has also been related to the word kimme meaning \"rim\", i.e., \"the people of the coast\". Finally, since Antiquity, the name has been related to that of the Cimmerians.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The name of the Danish region Himmerland (Old Danish Himbersysel) has been proposed to be a derivative of their name. According to such proposals, the word Cimbri with a c would be an older form before Grimm's law (PIE k > Germanic h). Alternatively, Latin c- represents an attempt to render the unfamiliar Proto-Germanic h = [x] (Latin h was [h] but was becoming silent in common speech at the time), perhaps due to Celtic-speaking interpreters (a Celtic intermediary would also explain why Germanic *Þeuðanōz became Latin Teutones).",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Because of the similarity of the names, the Cimbri have been at times associated with Cymry, the Welsh name for themselves. However, Cymry is derived from Brittonic *Kombrogi, meaning \"compatriots\", and is linguistically unrelated to Cimbri.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Scholars generally see the Cimbri as a Germanic tribe originating in Jutland, but archaeologists have found no clear indications of any mass migration from Jutland in the early Iron Age. The Gundestrup Cauldron, which was deposited in a bog in Himmerland in the 2nd or 1st century BC, shows that there was some sort of contact with southeastern Europe, but it is uncertain if this contact can be associated with the Cimbrian militia expeditions against Rome of the 1st Century BC. It is known that the peoples of Northern Europe and the British Isles participated in annual partial population seasonal Winter migrations southward to what is now central Iberia and southern France where goods and resources were traded and cross-culture marriages were arranged.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Advocates for a northern homeland point to Greek and Roman sources that associate the Cimbri with the Jutland peninsula. According to the Res gestae (ch. 26) of Augustus, the Cimbri were still found in the area around the turn of the 1st century AD:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "My fleet sailed from the mouth of the Rhine eastward as far as the lands of the Cimbri, to which, up to that time, no Roman had ever penetrated either by land or by sea, and the Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and other peoples of the Germans of that same region through their envoys sought my friendship and that of the Roman people.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The contemporary Greek geographer Strabo testified that the Cimbri still existed as a Germanic tribe, presumably in the \"Cimbric peninsula\" (since they are said to live by the North Sea and to have paid tribute to Augustus):",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "As for the Cimbri, some things that are told about them are incorrect and others are extremely improbable. For instance, one could not accept such a reason for their having become a wandering and piratical folk as this that while they were dwelling on a Peninsula they were driven out of their habitations by a great flood-tide; for in fact they still hold the country which they held in earlier times; and they sent as a present to Augustus the most sacred kettle in their country, with a plea for his friendship and for an amnesty of their earlier offences, and when their petition was granted they set sail for home; and it is ridiculous to suppose that they departed from their homes because they were incensed on account of a phenomenon that is natural and eternal, occurring twice every day. And the assertion that an excessive flood-tide once occurred looks like a fabrication, for when the ocean is affected in this way it is subject to increases and diminutions, but these are regulated and periodical.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "On the map of Ptolemy, the \"Kimbroi\" are placed on the northernmost part of the peninsula of Jutland, i.e., in the modern landscape of Himmerland south of Limfjorden (since Vendsyssel-Thy north of the fjord was at that time a group of islands).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Some time before 100 BC many of the Cimbri, as well as the Teutons and Ambrones, migrated south-east. After several unsuccessful battles with the Boii and other Celtic tribes, they appeared c. 113 BC in Noricum, where they invaded the lands of one of Rome's allies, the Taurisci.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On the request of the Roman consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo, sent to defend the Taurisci, they retreated, only to find themselves deceived and attacked at the Battle of Noreia, where they defeated the Romans. Only a storm, which separated the combatants, saved the Roman forces from complete annihilation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Now the road to Italy was open, but they turned west towards Gaul. They came into frequent conflict with the Romans, who usually came out the losers. In Commentarii de Bello Gallico the Aduatuci —Belgians of Cimbrian origin—repeatedly sided with Rome's enemies. In 109 BC, they defeated a Roman army under the consul Marcus Junius Silanus, who was the commander of Gallia Narbonensis. In 107 BC they defeated another Roman army under the consul Gaius Cassius Longinus, who was killed at the Battle of Burdigala (modern day Bordeaux) against the Tigurini, who were allies of the Cimbri.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "It was not until 105 BC that they planned an attack on the Roman Republic itself. At the Rhône, the Cimbri clashed with the Roman armies. Discord between the Roman commanders, the proconsul Quintus Servilius Caepio and the consul Gnaeus Mallius Maximus, hindered Roman coordination and so the Cimbri succeeded in first defeating the legate Marcus Aurelius Scaurus and later inflicted a devastating defeat on Caepio and Maximus at the Battle of Arausio. The Romans lost as many as 80,000 men, according to Livy; Mommsen (in his History of Rome) thought that excluded auxiliary cavalry and non-combatants who brought the total loss closer to 112,000. Other estimates are much smaller, but by any account a large Roman army was routed.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Rome was in panic, and the terror cimbricus became proverbial. Everyone expected to soon see the new Gauls outside of the gates of Rome. Desperate measures were taken: contrary to the Roman constitution, Gaius Marius, who had defeated Jugurtha, was elected consul and supreme commander for five years in a row (104–100 BC).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In 104–103 BC, the Cimbri had turned to the Iberian Peninsula where they pillaged far and wide, until they were confronted by a coalition of Celtiberians. Defeated, the Cimbri returned to Gaul, where they joined their allies, the Teutons. During this time, C. Marius had the time to prepare and, in 102 BC, he was ready to meet the Teutons and the Ambrones at the Rhône. These two tribes intended to pass into Italy through the western passes, while the Cimbri and the Tigurines were to take the northern route across the Rhine and later across the Central Eastern Alps.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "At the estuary of the Isère, the Teutons and the Ambrones met Marius, whose well-defended camp they did not manage to overrun. Instead, they pursued their route, and Marius followed them. At Aquae Sextiae, the Romans won two battles and took the Teuton king Teutobod prisoner.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Cimbri had penetrated through the Alps into northern Italy. The consul Quintus Lutatius Catulus had not dared to fortify the passes, but instead he had retreated behind the river Po, and so the land was open to the invaders. The Cimbri did not hurry, and the victors of Aquae Sextiae had the time to arrive with reinforcements. At the Battle of Vercellae, at the confluence of the river Sesia with the Po, in 101 BC, the long voyage of the Cimbri also came to an end.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "It was a devastating defeat. Two chieftains, Lugius and Boiorix, died on the field, while the other chieftains Caesorix and Claodicus were captured. The women killed both themselves and their children in order to avoid slavery. The Cimbri were annihilated, although some may have survived to return to the homeland where a population with this name was residing in northern Jutland in the 1st century AD, according to the sources quoted above. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebelling gladiators in the Third Servile War.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "However, Justin's epitome of Trogus, 38.4, has Mithridates the Great state that the Cimbri are ravaging Italy while the Social War is going on, i.e. at some time in 90–88 BC, thus more than a decade later, after sending ambassadors to the Cimbri to request military aid; judging from the context they must have been living in North Eastern Europe at the time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "According to Julius Caesar, the Belgian tribe of the Atuatuci \"was descended from the Cimbri and Teutoni, who, upon their march into our province and Italy, set down such of their stock and stuff as they could not drive or carry with them on the near (i.e. west) side of the Rhine, and left six thousand men of their company there as guard and garrison\" (Gall. 2.29, trans. Edwards). They founded the city of Atuatuca in the land of the Belgic Eburones, whom they dominated. Thus Ambiorix king of the Eburones paid tribute and gave his son and nephew as hostages to the Atuatuci (Gall. 6.27). In the first century AD, the Eburones were replaced or absorbed by the Germanic Tungri, and the city was known as Atuatuca Tungrorum, i.e. the modern city of Tongeren.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The population of modern-day Himmerland claims to be the heirs of the ancient Cimbri. The adventures of the Cimbri are described by the Danish Nobel Prize–winning author Johannes V. Jensen, himself born in Himmerland, in the novel Cimbrernes Tog (1922), included in the epic cycle Den lange Rejse (English The Long Journey, 1923). The so-called Cimbrian bull (\"Cimbrertyren\"), a sculpture by Anders Bundgaard, was erected on 14 April 1937 in a central town square in Aalborg, the capital of the region of North Jutland.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "A German ethnic minority speaking the Cimbrian language, having settled in the mountains between Vicenza, Verona, and Trento in Italy (also known as Seven Communities), is also called the Cimbri. For hundreds of years this isolated population and its present 4,400 inhabitants have claimed to be the direct descendants of the Cimbri retreating to this area after the Roman victory over their tribe. However, it is more likely that Bavarians settled here in the Middle Ages. Most linguists remain committed to the hypothesis of a medieval (11th to 12th century AD) immigration to explain the presence of small German-speaking communities in the north of Italy. Some genetic studies seem to prove a Celtic, not Germanic, descent for most inhabitants in the region that is reinforced by Gaulish toponyms such as those ending with the suffix -ago < Celtic -*ako(n) (e.g. Asiago is clearly the same place name as the numerous variants – Azay, Aisy, Azé, Ezy – in France, all of which derive from *Asiacum < Gaulish *Asiāko(n)). On the other hand, the original place names in the region, from the specifically localized language known as 'Cimbro' are still in use alongside the more modern names today. These indicate a different origin (e.g., Asiago is known also by its original Cimbro name of Sleghe). The Cimbrian origin myth was popularized by humanists in the 14th century.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Despite these connections to southern Germany, belief in a Himmerland origin persisted well into modern times. On one occasion in 1709, for instance, Frederick IV of Denmark paid the region's inhabitants a visit and was greeted as their king. The population, which kept its independence during the time of the Venice Republic, was later severely devastated by World War I. As a result, many Cimbri have left this mountainous region of Italy, effectively forming a worldwide diaspora.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Cimbri are depicted as ferocious warriors who did not fear death. The host was followed by women and children on carts. Aged women, priestesses, dressed in white sacrificed the prisoners of war and sprinkled their blood, the nature of which allowed them to see what was to come.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Strabo gives this vivid description of the Cimbric folklore:",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Their wives, who would accompany them on their expeditions, were attended by priestesses who were seers; these were grey-haired, clad in white, with flaxen cloaks fastened on with clasps, girt with girdles of bronze, and bare-footed; now sword in hand these priestesses would meet with the prisoners of war throughout the camp, and having first crowned them with wreaths would lead them to a brazen vessel of about twenty amphorae; and they had a raised platform which the priestess would mount, and then, bending over the kettle, would cut the throat of each prisoner after he had been lifted up; and from the blood that poured forth into the vessel some of the priestesses would draw a prophecy, while still others would split open the body and from an inspection of the entrails would utter a prophecy of victory for their own people; and during the battles they would beat on the hides that were stretched over the wicker-bodies of the wagons and in this way produce an unearthly noise.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "If the Cimbri did in fact come from Jutland, evidence that they practiced ritualistic sacrifice may be found in the Haraldskær Woman discovered in Jutland in the year 1835. Noosemarks and skin piercing were evident and she had been thrown into a bog rather than buried or cremated. Furthermore, the Gundestrup cauldron, found in Himmerland, may be a sacrificial vessel like the one described in Strabo's text. In style, the work looks like Thracian silver work, while many of the engravings are Celtic objects.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "A major problem in determining whether the Cimbri were speaking a Celtic language or a Germanic language is that, at that time, the Greeks and Romans tended to refer to all groups to the north of their sphere of influence as Gauls, Celts, or Germani rather indiscriminately. Caesar seems to be one of the first authors to distinguish the two groups, and he had a political motive for doing so (it was an argument in favour of the Rhine border). Yet, one cannot always trust Caesar and Tacitus when they ascribe individuals and tribes to one or the other category, although Caesar made clear distinctions between the two cultures. Some ancient sources categorize the Cimbri as a Germanic tribe, but some ancient authors include the Cimbri among the Celts.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "There are few direct testimonies to the language of the Cimbri: referring to the Northern Ocean (the Baltic or the North Sea), Pliny the Elder states: \"Philemon says that it is called Morimarusa, i.e. the Dead Sea, by the Cimbri, until the promontory of Rubea, and after that Cronium.\" The contemporary Gaulish terms for \"sea\" and \"dead\" appear to have been mori and *maruo-; compare their well-attested modern Insular Celtic cognates muir and marbh (Irish), môr and marw (Welsh), and mor and marv (Breton). The same word for \"sea\" is also known from Germanic, but with an a (*mari-), whereas a cognate of marbh is unknown in all dialects of Germanic. Yet, given that Pliny had not heard the word directly from a Cimbric informant, it cannot be ruled out that the word is in fact Gaulish instead.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The known Cimbri chiefs have Celtic names, including Boiorix (which may mean \"King of the Boii\" or, more literally, \"King of Strikers\"), Gaesorix (which means \"Spear King\"), and Lugius (which may be named after the Celtic god Lugus). Other evidence to the language of the Cimbri is circumstantial: thus, we are told that the Romans enlisted Gaulish Celts to act as spies in the Cimbri camp before the final showdown with the Roman army in 101 BC.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Jean Markale wrote that the Cimbri were associated with the Helvetii, and more especially with the indisputably Celtic Tigurini. These associations may link to a common ancestry, recalled from two hundred years previous, but that is not certain. Henri Hubert states \"All these names are Celtic, and they cannot be anything else\". Some authors take a different perspective.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Countering the argument of a Celtic origin is the literary evidence that the Cimbri originally came from northern Jutland, an area with no Celtic placenames, instead only Germanic ones. This does not rule out Cimbric Gallicization during the period when they lived in Gaul. Boiorix, who may have had a Celtic if not a Celticized Germanic name, was king of the Cimbri after they moved away from their ancestral home of northern Jutland. Boiorix and his tribe lived around Celtic peoples during his era as J. B. Rives points out in his introduction to Tacitus' Germania; furthermore, the name \"Boiorix\" can be seen as having either Proto-Germanic or Celtic roots.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The science fiction story \"Delenda Est\" by Poul Anderson depicts an alternate history in which Hannibal won the Second Punic War and destroyed Rome, but Carthage proved unable to rule Italy – which fell into utter chaos. Thus, there was no one to stop the Cimbri two hundred years later. They filled the vacuum, conquered Italy, assimilated the local population to their own culture and by the equivalent of the 20th century had made of Italy a flourishing, technologically advanced kingdom speaking a Germanic language.",
"title": "In fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Cimbri is referenced in Italo Calvino's novel If on a Winter's Night a Traveller as a fictional country that warred with a similarly fictionalised version of Cimmeria, thus imposing its own written language onto the Cimmerians.",
"title": "In fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Jeff Hein’s historical fiction series The Cimbrian War tells the story of the Cimbri and their migration across Iron-Age Europe.",
"title": "In fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
] | The Cimbri were an ancient tribe in Europe. Ancient authors described them variously as a Celtic people, Germanic people, or even Cimmerian. Several ancient sources indicate that they lived in Jutland, which in some classical texts was called the Cimbrian peninsula. There is no direct evidence for the language they spoke, though some scholars argue that it was a Germanic language, while others argue that it was Celtic. Together with the Teutones and the Ambrones, they fought the Roman Republic between 113 and 101 BC during the Cimbrian War. The Cimbri were initially successful, particularly at the Battle of Arausio, in which a large Roman army was routed. They then raided large areas in Gaul and Hispania. In 101 BC, during an attempted invasion of the Italian peninsula, the Cimbri were decisively defeated at the Battle of Vercellae by Gaius Marius, and their king, Boiorix, was killed. Some of the surviving captives are reported to have been among the rebellious gladiators in the Third Servile War. | 2001-10-01T21:29:52Z | 2023-12-17T22:39:38Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimbri |
6,576 | Cleveland Browns | The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The Browns play their home games at Cleveland Browns Stadium, which opened in 1999, with administrative offices and training facilities in Berea, Ohio. The Browns' official club colors are brown, orange, and white. They are unique among the 32 member franchises of the NFL in that they do not have a logo on their helmets.
The franchise was founded in 1944 by Brown and businessman Arthur B. McBride as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), and began play in 1946. The Browns dominated the AAFC, compiling a 47–4–3 record in the league's four seasons and winning its championship in each. When the AAFC folded after the 1949 season, the Browns joined the NFL along with the San Francisco 49ers and the original Baltimore Colts. The Browns won a championship in their inaugural NFL season, as well as in the 1954, 1955, and 1964 seasons, and in a feat unequaled in any of the North American major professional sports, played in their league championship game in each of their first 10 years of existence, winning seven of those games. From 1965 to 1995, they qualified to play in the NFL playoffs 14 times, but did not win another championship or play in the Super Bowl during that period.
In 1995, owner Art Modell, who had purchased the Browns in 1961, announced plans to move the team to Baltimore. After threats of legal action from the city of Cleveland and fans, a compromise was reached in early 1996 that allowed Modell to establish the Baltimore Ravens as a new franchise while retaining the contracts of all Browns personnel. The Browns' intellectual property, including team name, logos, training facility, and history, were kept in trust and the franchise was regarded by the NFL as suspended for three seasons. While several of the then-30 existing franchises considered re-locating to Cleveland, in 1998 it was confirmed that the NFL would field 31 teams when the Browns resumed play in 1999, thus while the 1999 Browns were not technically considered to be an expansion franchise, the club's roster was re-stocked via an expansion draft.
Since resuming operations in 1999, the Browns have struggled to find success, especially during the 2010s when they did not post one winning season throughout that decade. They have had only four winning seasons (2002, 2007, 2020, and 2023), two playoff appearances (2002 and 2020), and one playoff win (2020), winning less than one third of their games in total, and in 2017 were only the second team in NFL history to have a 0–16 season after the 2008 Detroit Lions. The franchise has also been noted for a lack of stability with head coaches (10 full time - including two who were fired after only one season - and two interim since 1999) and quarterbacks (37 different starters since 1999). From 2003 to 2019, the Browns had a 17-season playoff drought, which ended during the 2020 season. They are one of four teams to have never appeared in a Super Bowl, along with the Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, and Jacksonville Jaguars; however, the Browns played in seven NFL Championship games in the pre-Super Bowl era (winning four).
The Cleveland Browns were founded in 1944 when taxi-cab magnate Arthur B. "Mickey" McBride secured a Cleveland franchise in the newly formed All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Paul Brown was the team's namesake and first coach. The Browns began play in 1946 in the AAFC. The Browns won each of the league's four championship games before the league dissolved in 1949. The team then moved to the more established National Football League (NFL), where it continued to dominate. Between 1950 and 1955, Cleveland reached the NFL championship game every year, winning three times.
McBride and his partners sold the team to a group of Cleveland businessmen in 1953 for a then-unheard-of $600,000. Eight years later, the team was sold again, this time to a group led by New York advertising executive Art Modell. Modell fired Brown before the 1963 season, but the team continued to win behind running back Jim Brown. The Browns won the championship in 1964 and reached the title game the following season, losing to the Green Bay Packers.
When the AFL and NFL merged before the 1970 season, Cleveland became part of the new American Football Conference (AFC). While the Browns made it back to the playoffs in 1971 and 1972, they fell into mediocrity through the mid-1970s. A revival of sorts took place in 1979 and 1980, when quarterback Brian Sipe engineered a series of last-minute wins and the Browns came to be called the "Kardiac Kids". Under Sipe, however, the Browns did not make it past the first round of the playoffs. Quarterback Bernie Kosar, whom the Browns drafted in 1985, led the team to three AFC Championship games in the late 1980s but lost each time to the Denver Broncos.
In 1995, Modell announced he was relocating the Browns to Baltimore, sowing a mix of outrage and bitterness among Cleveland's dedicated fan base. Negotiations and legal battles led to an agreement where Modell would be allowed to take his personnel to Baltimore as an expansion franchise, called the Baltimore Ravens, but would leave Cleveland the Browns' colors, logos and heritage for a reactivated Browns franchise that would take the field no later than 1999.
After three years of inactivity while Cleveland Stadium was demolished and Cleveland Browns Stadium was built on its site, the Browns were reactivated and started play again in 1999 under new owner Al Lerner. The Browns struggled throughout the 2000s and 2010s, posting a record of 101–234–1 (.302) since their 1999 return. The Browns have only posted three winning seasons and two playoff appearances (2002, 2020) since returning to the NFL. The team's struggles have been magnified since 2012, when the Lerner family sold the team to businessman Jimmy Haslam. In six seasons under Haslam's ownership, the Browns went through four head coaches and four general managers, none of whom had found success. In 2016 and 2017 under head coach Hue Jackson, the Browns went 1–31 (.031, including a winless 0–16 season in 2017), the worst two-year stretch in NFL history, and received the number one overall draft pick in both of those years. In 2020, the Browns secured their first playoff berth since 2002 by defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 17 and finishing the season 11–5.
The Browns are the only National Football League team without a helmet logo. The logoless helmet serves as the Browns' official logo. The organization has used several promotional logos throughout the years; players' numbers were painted on the helmets from 1957 to 1960; and an unused "CB" logo was created in 1965. But for much of their history, the Browns' helmets have been an unadorned burnt orange color with a top stripe of dark brown (officially called "seal brown") divided by a white stripe.
The team has had various promotional logos throughout the years, such as the "Brownie Elf" mascot or a Brown "B" in a white football. While Art Modell did away with the elf in the mid-1960s (believing it to be too childish), its use has been revived since the team's return in 1999. The popularity of the Dawg Pound section at First Energy Stadium has led to a brown and orange dog being used for various Browns functions. But overall, the orange, logo-less helmet continues as the primary trademark of the Cleveland Browns. The Browns have used special commemorative logos during individual seasons, such as the 1999 logo to celebrate the team's return to the NFL, a 60th-anniversary logo for the 2006 season, and a 75th-anniversary logo in 2021.
The current logos and wordmarks were introduced on February 24, 2015, with the helmet design remaining largely as is, the only differences being minor color changes to the shade of orange used on the helmet and the facemask being changed from gray to brown. A new secondary "dawg" logo was introduced in 2023. The logo, featuring a bull mastiff dog, was created by graphic designer Houston Mark and was the winning entry of a fan vote. It features numerous small homages to the city of Cleveland, state of Ohio, and the team's history.
For the 2022 season, by virtue of a fan poll, a version of the Brownie elf logo was featured at midfield at FirstEnergy Stadium.
The original designs of the jerseys, pants, and socks remained mostly the same, but the helmets went through many significant revisions throughout the years. The Browns uniforms saw their first massive change prior to the 2015 season.
Jerseys:
Pants:
Socks:
Helmet: Solid white (1946–1949); solid white for day games and solid orange for night games (1950–1951); orange with a single white stripe (1952–1956); orange with a single white stripe and brown numerals on the sides (1957–1959); orange with a brown-white-brown stripe sequence and brown numerals on the sides (1960); orange with a brown-white-brown stripe sequence (1961–1995 and 1999–present).
Over the years, the Browns have had on-and-off periods of wearing white for their home games, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, as well as in the early 2000s after the team returned to the league. Until recently, when more NFL teams have started to wear white at home at least once a season, the Browns were the only non-subtropical team north of the Mason-Dixon line to wear white at home on a regular basis.
Secondary numerals (called "TV numbers") first appeared on the jersey sleeves in 1961. Over the years, there have been minor revisions to the sleeve stripes, the first occurring in 1968 (brown jerseys worn in early season) and 1969 (white and brown jerseys) when stripes began to be silkscreened onto the sleeves and separated from each other to prevent color bleeding. However, the basic five-stripe sequence has remained intact (with the exception of the 1984 season). A recent revision was the addition of the initials "AL" to honor team owner Al Lerner who died in 2002; this was removed in 2013 upon Jimmy Haslam assuming ownership of the team.
Orange pants with a brown-white-brown stripe sequence were worn from 1975 to 1983 and become symbolic of the "Kardiac Kids" era. The orange pants were worn again occasionally in 2003 and 2004.
Other than the helmet, the uniform was completely redesigned for the 1984 season. New striping patterns appeared on the white jerseys, brown jerseys and pants. Solid brown socks were worn with brown jerseys and solid orange socks were worn with white jerseys. Brown numerals on the white jerseys were outlined in orange. White numerals on the brown jerseys were double outlined in brown and orange. (Orange numerals double outlined in brown and white appeared briefly on the brown jerseys in one pre-season game.) However, this particular uniform set was not popular with the fans, and in 1985 the uniform was returned to a look similar to the original design. It remained that way until 1995.
In 1999, the expansion Browns adopted the traditional design with two exceptions: first, the TV numbers, previously on the sleeves, were moved to the shoulders; and second, the orange-brown-orange pants stripes were significantly widened.
Experimentation with the uniform design began in 2002. An alternate orange jersey was introduced that season as the NFL encouraged teams to adopt a third jersey, and a major design change was made when solid brown socks appeared for the first time since 1984 and were used with white, brown and orange jerseys. Other than 1984, striped socks (matching the jersey stripes) had been a signature design element in the team's traditional uniform. The white striped socks appeared occasionally with the white jerseys in 2003–2005 and 2007.
Experimentation continued in 2003 and 2004 when the traditional orange-brown-orange stripes on the white pants were replaced by two variations of a brown-orange-brown sequence, one in which the stripes were joined (worn with white jerseys) and the other in which they were separated by white (worn with brown jerseys). The joined sequence was used exclusively with both jerseys in 2005. In 2006, the traditional orange-brown-orange sequence returned.
Additionally in 2006, the team reverted to an older uniform style, featuring gray face masks; the original stripe pattern on the brown jersey sleeves (The white jersey has had that sleeve stripe pattern on a consistent basis since the 1985 season.) and the older, darker shade of brown.
The Browns wore brown pants for the first time in team history on August 18, 2008, preseason game against the New York Giants. The pants contain no stripes or markings. The team had the brown pants created as an option for their away uniform when they integrated the gray facemask in 2006. They were not worn again until the Browns "family" scrimmage on August 9, 2009 with white-striped socks. The Browns have continued to wear the brown pants throughout the 2009 season. Browns quarterback Brady Quinn supported the team's move to wearing the brown pants full-time, claiming that the striped pattern on the white pants "prohibit[ed] mobility". However, the fans generally did not like the brown pants, and after being used for only one season, the team returned to their white shirt-on-white pants in 2010. Coach Eric Mangini told The Plain Dealer the Browns won't use the brown pants anymore. "It wasn't very well-received," Mangini said. "I hope we can get to the point where we can wear fruit on our heads and people wouldn't notice." At the time, the brown pants weren't officially dropped by the team, but simply not used.
The Browns chose to wear white at home for the 2011 season, and wound up wearing white for all 16 games as when they were on the road, the home team would wear their darker colored uniform.
The Browns brought back the brown pants in their home game against the Buffalo Bills on October 3, 2013, on Thursday Night Football, pairing them with the brown jerseys. It marked the first time the team wore an all-brown combination in team history.
On April 14, 2015, the Cleveland Browns unveiled their new uniform combinations, consisting of the team's colors of orange, brown and white.
The Browns brought back the all-brown look for the NFL Color Rush program in 2016, minus the white elements. In 2018, despite the Color Rush program being discontinued, the uniform was worn at home three times. For the 2019 season, the Browns promoted this uniform to their primary home uniform and donned it for six home games as well as any away game in which the home team wore white.
The club unveiled a new uniform design for the 2020 season. The new uniform design pays homage to the Browns' classic uniform design from years past.
In 2023, the Browns introduced new "White Out" uniforms, an all-white uniform, featuring a white helmet, that will be worn during select home games. This will mark the first time since 1950 the Browns will have non-orange helmets. The white helmets, which will feature an orange stripe down the middle flanked by two brown stripes (basically inverting the regular helmet's colors), are an homage to the early years of the franchise.
The Browns have rivalries with all three of their AFC North opponents. In addition, the team has had historical rivalries with the Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers, and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans.
Often called the "Turnpike Rivalry", the Browns' biggest rival has long been the Pittsburgh Steelers. Former Browns owner Art Modell scheduled home games against the Steelers on Saturday nights from 1964 to 1970 to help fuel the rivalry. The rivalry has also been fueled by the proximity of the two teams, number of championships both teams have won, players and personnel having played and/or coached for both sides, and personal bitterness. The teams have played twice annually since 1950, making it the oldest rivalry in the AFC and the fifth-oldest rivalry in the NFL. Though the Browns dominated this rivalry early in the series (winning the first eight meetings and posting a 31–9 record in the 1950s and 1960s), the Steelers went 15–5 in the 1970s and 36–9–1 since the Browns returned to the league in 1999. The Steelers have been particularly dominant in Pittsburgh, posting a 44–7 record when hosting the Browns since 1970, including to winning streaks of 16 games (1970–85) and 17 games (2004–20).
The Steelers currently hold a 79–61–1 lead. The Browns and Steelers met in the playoffs in 1994, 2002, and 2020, with the Steelers holding a 2–1 lead in the postseason series. Though the rivalry has cooled in Pittsburgh due to the Modell move as well as the Browns' poor play since 1999, the Steelers still remain the top rival for Cleveland.
Originally conceived due to the personal animosity between Paul Brown and Art Modell, the "Battle of Ohio" between the Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals has been fueled by the sociocultural differences between Cincinnati and Cleveland, a shared history between the two teams, and similar team colors, as Brown used the exact shade of orange for the Bengals that he used for the Browns. (Though this has changed since then, as the Bengals now use a brighter shade of orange.) Modell, in fact, moved the Browns to the AFC after the AFL–NFL merger in order to have a rivalry with the Bengals. The rivalry has also produced two of the eleven highest-scoring games in NFL history. Cincinnati has the all-time edge 52–48. While the Bengals have a 28–21 edge since the Browns returned to the NFL in 1999, this series has been more competitive than the Browns' series with their other division rivals, and the Browns have won 9 of the last 11 meetings.
Created as a result of the Browns' relocation controversy, the rivalry between the Browns and Baltimore Ravens was more directed at Art Modell than the team itself, and is simply considered a divisional game in Baltimore. This matchup is more bitter for Cleveland than the others due to the fact that the draft picks for 1995 to 1998 resulted in the rosters that won the Super Bowl for the Ravens in 2000. Had Modell not moved the team, these teams, drafted by general manager and former Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome, might have given the Browns a title after a 35-year drought. The Ravens lead the overall series 34–12. The two teams have not met in the playoffs.
The Browns' rivalry with the Detroit Lions began in the 1950s, when the Browns and Lions played each other in four NFL Championship Games. The Lions won three of those championships, while the Browns won one. This was arguably one of the NFL's best rivalries in the 1950s. Since the NFL-AFL merger of 1970, the teams have met much less frequently with the Browns' move to the AFC. From 2002 to 2014, the two teams played an annual preseason game known as the "Great Lakes Classic".
The Browns had a brief rivalry with the Denver Broncos that arose from three AFC Championship Games from 1986 to 1989. In the 1986 AFC Championship, quarterback John Elway led The Drive to secure a tie in the waning moments at Cleveland Municipal Stadium; the Broncos went on to win in 23–20 in overtime. One year later, the two teams met again in the 1987 AFC Championship game at Mile High Stadium. Denver took a 21–3 lead, but Browns' quarterback Bernie Kosar threw four touchdown passes to tie the game at 31–31 halfway through the 4th quarter. After a long drive, John Elway threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to running back Sammy Winder to give Denver a 38–31 lead. Cleveland advanced to Denver's 8-yard line with 1:12 left, but Broncos' safety Jeremiah Castille stripped Browns' running back Earnest Byner of the football at the 2-yard line—a play that has been called The Fumble by Browns' fans. The Broncos recovered it, gave Cleveland an intentional safety, and went on to win 38–33. The two teams met yet again in the 1989 AFC Championship at Mile High Stadium, which the Broncos easily won by a score of 37–21.
This short-lived rivalry also featured a controversial 16–13 Browns' win at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in the 1989 regular season. The game was decided by a Matt Bahr 48-yard field goal as time expired - a kick that barely cleared the crossbar. Bahr's field goal came after referee Tom Dooley ordered the teams to switch ends of the field midway through the 4th quarter, thanks to rowdy Dawg Pound fans who pelted the Broncos with dog biscuits, eggs and other debris. The switch gave the Browns a small, timely wind advantage to finish the game.
More recently, the rivalry has cooled off as the Broncos won 11 straight meetings from 1991 to 2015 before Cleveland broke that streak with a narrow 17–16 win in 2018. Denver leads the overall series, 24–7.
The most competitive team in the AAFC era for the Browns was the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco finished second to the Browns in each of the four seasons that the league played. Two of the Browns' four losses in that era were to the 49ers (including a loss that ended the Browns' 29-game unbeaten streak); the rivalry did not last into the NFL years, particularly after the teams were placed in opposite conferences in 1970. The rivalry has turned into a friendly relationship as many 49ers personnel helped the Browns relaunch in 1999, specifically former 49ers president and CEO Carmen Policy and vice president/director of football operations Dwight Clark, who were hired by the expansion Browns in the same roles. In addition, 49ers owners John York and Denise DeBartolo York reside in Youngstown, 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Cleveland. Long-time Browns placekicker and fan favorite Phil Dawson and backup quarterback Colt McCoy signed with the 49ers in 2014.
The Browns' rivalry with the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans dates back to the Browns and then-Oilers being placed in the AFC Central after the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. As such, the teams played each other twice annually from 1970 until 2002 when divisional realignment placed the Browns in the AFC North and the now-Titans in the AFC South (excluding 1996-98 when the Browns were inactive). The teams have met much less frequently since 2002. The Browns lead the overall series 37–32, and the 69 meetings with the Oilers/Titans are the third-most of any Cleveland opponent, trailing only the Steelers and Bengals.
The height of this rivalry was during the 1980s. Oilers head coach Jerry Glanville and Marty Schottenheimer shared several bitter exchanges during the decade and the Browns and Oilers had their only playoff meeting in the 1988 Wild Card Round, in which the Oilers came away with a narrow 24–23 victory. There have been a few memorable games in recent years. In 2014, the Browns erased a 28–3 deficit to come away with a 29–28 win. In a December 2020 contest with playoff implications for both teams, the Browns jumped to a 38–7 halftime lead, setting a franchise record for points in the first half. However, Tennessee rallied in the second half but came up just short as the Browns hung on for a 41–35 win.
A 2006 study conducted by Bizjournal determined that Browns fans are the most loyal fans in the NFL. The study, while not scientific, was largely based on fan loyalty during winning and losing seasons, attendance at games, and challenges confronting fans (such as inclement weather or long-term poor performance of their team). The study noted that Browns fans filled 99.8% of the seats at Cleveland Browns Stadium during the last seven seasons, despite a combined record of 36–76 over that span.
Perhaps the most visible Browns fans are those that can be found in the Dawg Pound. Originally the name for the bleacher section located in the open (east) end of old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the current incarnation is likewise located in the east end of FirstEnergy Stadium and still features hundreds of orange and brown clad fans sporting various canine-related paraphernalia. The fans adopted that name in 1984 after members of the Browns defense used it to describe the team's defense.
Retired cornerback Hanford Dixon, who played his entire career for the Browns (1981–1989), is credited with naming the Cleveland Browns defense 'The Dawgs' in the mid-1980s. Dixon and teammates Frank Minnifield and Eddie Johnson would bark at each other and to the fans in the bleachers at the Cleveland Stadium to fire them up. It was from Dixon's naming that the Dawg Pound subsequently took its title. The fans adopted that name in the years after. Due to this nickname, since the team's revival the Browns have used a bulldog as an alternate logo.
The most prominent organization of Browns fans is the Browns Backers Worldwide (BBW). The organization has approximately 305,000 members and Browns Backers clubs can be found in every major city in the United States, and in a number of military bases throughout the world, with the largest club being in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, the organization has a sizable foreign presence in places as far away as Egypt, Australia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and McMurdo Station in Antarctica. According to The Official Fan Club of the Cleveland Browns, the two largest international fan clubs are in Alon Shvut, West Bank and Niagara, Canada, with Alon Shvut having 129 members and Niagara having 310.
Following former Browns owner Randy Lerner's acquisition of English soccer club Aston Villa, official Villa outlets started selling Cleveland Browns goods such as jerseys and NFL footballs. This has raised interest in England and strengthened the link between the two sporting clubs. Aston Villa supporters have set up an organization known as the Aston (Villa) Browns Backers of Birmingham.
The Cleveland Browns have the fourth-largest number of players enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with a total of 17 enshrined players elected based on their performance with the Browns, and nine more players or coaches elected who spent at least one year with the Browns franchise. No Browns players were inducted in the inaugural induction class of 1963. Otto Graham was the first Browns player to be enshrined as a member of the class of 1965, and the most recent Browns player to be included in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is Joe Thomas, who was a member of the class of 2023, who is the first member inducted that played in the 21st century.
The Cleveland Browns legends program honors former Browns who made noteworthy contributions to the history of the franchise. In addition to all the Hall of Famers listed above, the Legends list includes:
Beginning in 2010, the Browns established a Ring of Honor, honoring the greats from the past by having their names displayed around the upper deck of FirstEnergy Stadium. The inaugural class in the Browns Ring of Honor was unveiled during the home opener on September 19, 2010, and featured the 16 Hall of Famers listed above who went into the Hall of Fame as Browns. In 2018, Joe Thomas was entered into the Ring of Honor with the number 10,363 – commemorating his NFL record of consecutive snaps played on offense. In 2019, four-time Pro Bowl linebacker Clay Matthews Jr. was entered into the Ring of Honor.
Numerous Browns players and staff have had statues made in their honor:
In and around First Energy Stadium
In and around Cleveland
Browns players featured on murals in downtown Cleveland include:
Radio
WKNR (850 AM), WKRK-FM (92.3 FM), and WNCX (98.5 FM) serve as co-flagship stations for the Cleveland Browns Radio Network.
Jim Donovan serves as play-by-play announcer, calling games on-site alongside commentator Nathan Zegura – who made news when he had to serve an eight-game suspension due to arguing with officials during a game in 2018 when he was sideline reporter, and former NFL player and current WKNR host Je'Rod Cherry, who serves as sideline analyst/reporter. Cherry, WKRK's Ken Carman and Andy Baskin, and Cleveland area native/former NFL player Tyvis Powell host the network pregame show, while WKRK's Jeff Phelps and Powell host the network postgame show.
Spanish language broadcasts are heard on WNZN 89.1 FM with announcers Rafa Hernández-Brito and Octavio Sequera.
TV
Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS-TV 5 serves as the broadcast TV home of the Browns, airing year-round team programming as well as all non-network preseason games, with the broadcast team of Chris Rose (play-by-play), former Browns left tackle Joe Thomas (analyst), and Aditi Kinkhabwala (sidelines). Bally Sports Great Lakes is the cable outlet for the team, airing various Browns related programming during the season.
Honors
The Browns in-house production team won a pair of Lower Great Lakes Emmy Awards in 2005. One was for a primetime special honoring the 1964 NFL Championship team (The 1964 Championship Show) and one was for a commercial spot (The Paperboy).
The Browns have (either directly or indirectly) been featured in various movies and TV shows over the years. Notable examples include: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The Browns play their home games at Cleveland Browns Stadium, which opened in 1999, with administrative offices and training facilities in Berea, Ohio. The Browns' official club colors are brown, orange, and white. They are unique among the 32 member franchises of the NFL in that they do not have a logo on their helmets.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The franchise was founded in 1944 by Brown and businessman Arthur B. McBride as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), and began play in 1946. The Browns dominated the AAFC, compiling a 47–4–3 record in the league's four seasons and winning its championship in each. When the AAFC folded after the 1949 season, the Browns joined the NFL along with the San Francisco 49ers and the original Baltimore Colts. The Browns won a championship in their inaugural NFL season, as well as in the 1954, 1955, and 1964 seasons, and in a feat unequaled in any of the North American major professional sports, played in their league championship game in each of their first 10 years of existence, winning seven of those games. From 1965 to 1995, they qualified to play in the NFL playoffs 14 times, but did not win another championship or play in the Super Bowl during that period.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1995, owner Art Modell, who had purchased the Browns in 1961, announced plans to move the team to Baltimore. After threats of legal action from the city of Cleveland and fans, a compromise was reached in early 1996 that allowed Modell to establish the Baltimore Ravens as a new franchise while retaining the contracts of all Browns personnel. The Browns' intellectual property, including team name, logos, training facility, and history, were kept in trust and the franchise was regarded by the NFL as suspended for three seasons. While several of the then-30 existing franchises considered re-locating to Cleveland, in 1998 it was confirmed that the NFL would field 31 teams when the Browns resumed play in 1999, thus while the 1999 Browns were not technically considered to be an expansion franchise, the club's roster was re-stocked via an expansion draft.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Since resuming operations in 1999, the Browns have struggled to find success, especially during the 2010s when they did not post one winning season throughout that decade. They have had only four winning seasons (2002, 2007, 2020, and 2023), two playoff appearances (2002 and 2020), and one playoff win (2020), winning less than one third of their games in total, and in 2017 were only the second team in NFL history to have a 0–16 season after the 2008 Detroit Lions. The franchise has also been noted for a lack of stability with head coaches (10 full time - including two who were fired after only one season - and two interim since 1999) and quarterbacks (37 different starters since 1999). From 2003 to 2019, the Browns had a 17-season playoff drought, which ended during the 2020 season. They are one of four teams to have never appeared in a Super Bowl, along with the Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, and Jacksonville Jaguars; however, the Browns played in seven NFL Championship games in the pre-Super Bowl era (winning four).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The Cleveland Browns were founded in 1944 when taxi-cab magnate Arthur B. \"Mickey\" McBride secured a Cleveland franchise in the newly formed All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Paul Brown was the team's namesake and first coach. The Browns began play in 1946 in the AAFC. The Browns won each of the league's four championship games before the league dissolved in 1949. The team then moved to the more established National Football League (NFL), where it continued to dominate. Between 1950 and 1955, Cleveland reached the NFL championship game every year, winning three times.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "McBride and his partners sold the team to a group of Cleveland businessmen in 1953 for a then-unheard-of $600,000. Eight years later, the team was sold again, this time to a group led by New York advertising executive Art Modell. Modell fired Brown before the 1963 season, but the team continued to win behind running back Jim Brown. The Browns won the championship in 1964 and reached the title game the following season, losing to the Green Bay Packers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "When the AFL and NFL merged before the 1970 season, Cleveland became part of the new American Football Conference (AFC). While the Browns made it back to the playoffs in 1971 and 1972, they fell into mediocrity through the mid-1970s. A revival of sorts took place in 1979 and 1980, when quarterback Brian Sipe engineered a series of last-minute wins and the Browns came to be called the \"Kardiac Kids\". Under Sipe, however, the Browns did not make it past the first round of the playoffs. Quarterback Bernie Kosar, whom the Browns drafted in 1985, led the team to three AFC Championship games in the late 1980s but lost each time to the Denver Broncos.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1995, Modell announced he was relocating the Browns to Baltimore, sowing a mix of outrage and bitterness among Cleveland's dedicated fan base. Negotiations and legal battles led to an agreement where Modell would be allowed to take his personnel to Baltimore as an expansion franchise, called the Baltimore Ravens, but would leave Cleveland the Browns' colors, logos and heritage for a reactivated Browns franchise that would take the field no later than 1999.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "After three years of inactivity while Cleveland Stadium was demolished and Cleveland Browns Stadium was built on its site, the Browns were reactivated and started play again in 1999 under new owner Al Lerner. The Browns struggled throughout the 2000s and 2010s, posting a record of 101–234–1 (.302) since their 1999 return. The Browns have only posted three winning seasons and two playoff appearances (2002, 2020) since returning to the NFL. The team's struggles have been magnified since 2012, when the Lerner family sold the team to businessman Jimmy Haslam. In six seasons under Haslam's ownership, the Browns went through four head coaches and four general managers, none of whom had found success. In 2016 and 2017 under head coach Hue Jackson, the Browns went 1–31 (.031, including a winless 0–16 season in 2017), the worst two-year stretch in NFL history, and received the number one overall draft pick in both of those years. In 2020, the Browns secured their first playoff berth since 2002 by defeating the Pittsburgh Steelers in week 17 and finishing the season 11–5.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Browns are the only National Football League team without a helmet logo. The logoless helmet serves as the Browns' official logo. The organization has used several promotional logos throughout the years; players' numbers were painted on the helmets from 1957 to 1960; and an unused \"CB\" logo was created in 1965. But for much of their history, the Browns' helmets have been an unadorned burnt orange color with a top stripe of dark brown (officially called \"seal brown\") divided by a white stripe.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The team has had various promotional logos throughout the years, such as the \"Brownie Elf\" mascot or a Brown \"B\" in a white football. While Art Modell did away with the elf in the mid-1960s (believing it to be too childish), its use has been revived since the team's return in 1999. The popularity of the Dawg Pound section at First Energy Stadium has led to a brown and orange dog being used for various Browns functions. But overall, the orange, logo-less helmet continues as the primary trademark of the Cleveland Browns. The Browns have used special commemorative logos during individual seasons, such as the 1999 logo to celebrate the team's return to the NFL, a 60th-anniversary logo for the 2006 season, and a 75th-anniversary logo in 2021.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The current logos and wordmarks were introduced on February 24, 2015, with the helmet design remaining largely as is, the only differences being minor color changes to the shade of orange used on the helmet and the facemask being changed from gray to brown. A new secondary \"dawg\" logo was introduced in 2023. The logo, featuring a bull mastiff dog, was created by graphic designer Houston Mark and was the winning entry of a fan vote. It features numerous small homages to the city of Cleveland, state of Ohio, and the team's history.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "For the 2022 season, by virtue of a fan poll, a version of the Brownie elf logo was featured at midfield at FirstEnergy Stadium.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The original designs of the jerseys, pants, and socks remained mostly the same, but the helmets went through many significant revisions throughout the years. The Browns uniforms saw their first massive change prior to the 2015 season.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Jerseys:",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Pants:",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Socks:",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Helmet: Solid white (1946–1949); solid white for day games and solid orange for night games (1950–1951); orange with a single white stripe (1952–1956); orange with a single white stripe and brown numerals on the sides (1957–1959); orange with a brown-white-brown stripe sequence and brown numerals on the sides (1960); orange with a brown-white-brown stripe sequence (1961–1995 and 1999–present).",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Over the years, the Browns have had on-and-off periods of wearing white for their home games, particularly in the 1970s and 80s, as well as in the early 2000s after the team returned to the league. Until recently, when more NFL teams have started to wear white at home at least once a season, the Browns were the only non-subtropical team north of the Mason-Dixon line to wear white at home on a regular basis.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Secondary numerals (called \"TV numbers\") first appeared on the jersey sleeves in 1961. Over the years, there have been minor revisions to the sleeve stripes, the first occurring in 1968 (brown jerseys worn in early season) and 1969 (white and brown jerseys) when stripes began to be silkscreened onto the sleeves and separated from each other to prevent color bleeding. However, the basic five-stripe sequence has remained intact (with the exception of the 1984 season). A recent revision was the addition of the initials \"AL\" to honor team owner Al Lerner who died in 2002; this was removed in 2013 upon Jimmy Haslam assuming ownership of the team.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Orange pants with a brown-white-brown stripe sequence were worn from 1975 to 1983 and become symbolic of the \"Kardiac Kids\" era. The orange pants were worn again occasionally in 2003 and 2004.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Other than the helmet, the uniform was completely redesigned for the 1984 season. New striping patterns appeared on the white jerseys, brown jerseys and pants. Solid brown socks were worn with brown jerseys and solid orange socks were worn with white jerseys. Brown numerals on the white jerseys were outlined in orange. White numerals on the brown jerseys were double outlined in brown and orange. (Orange numerals double outlined in brown and white appeared briefly on the brown jerseys in one pre-season game.) However, this particular uniform set was not popular with the fans, and in 1985 the uniform was returned to a look similar to the original design. It remained that way until 1995.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1999, the expansion Browns adopted the traditional design with two exceptions: first, the TV numbers, previously on the sleeves, were moved to the shoulders; and second, the orange-brown-orange pants stripes were significantly widened.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Experimentation with the uniform design began in 2002. An alternate orange jersey was introduced that season as the NFL encouraged teams to adopt a third jersey, and a major design change was made when solid brown socks appeared for the first time since 1984 and were used with white, brown and orange jerseys. Other than 1984, striped socks (matching the jersey stripes) had been a signature design element in the team's traditional uniform. The white striped socks appeared occasionally with the white jerseys in 2003–2005 and 2007.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Experimentation continued in 2003 and 2004 when the traditional orange-brown-orange stripes on the white pants were replaced by two variations of a brown-orange-brown sequence, one in which the stripes were joined (worn with white jerseys) and the other in which they were separated by white (worn with brown jerseys). The joined sequence was used exclusively with both jerseys in 2005. In 2006, the traditional orange-brown-orange sequence returned.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Additionally in 2006, the team reverted to an older uniform style, featuring gray face masks; the original stripe pattern on the brown jersey sleeves (The white jersey has had that sleeve stripe pattern on a consistent basis since the 1985 season.) and the older, darker shade of brown.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Browns wore brown pants for the first time in team history on August 18, 2008, preseason game against the New York Giants. The pants contain no stripes or markings. The team had the brown pants created as an option for their away uniform when they integrated the gray facemask in 2006. They were not worn again until the Browns \"family\" scrimmage on August 9, 2009 with white-striped socks. The Browns have continued to wear the brown pants throughout the 2009 season. Browns quarterback Brady Quinn supported the team's move to wearing the brown pants full-time, claiming that the striped pattern on the white pants \"prohibit[ed] mobility\". However, the fans generally did not like the brown pants, and after being used for only one season, the team returned to their white shirt-on-white pants in 2010. Coach Eric Mangini told The Plain Dealer the Browns won't use the brown pants anymore. \"It wasn't very well-received,\" Mangini said. \"I hope we can get to the point where we can wear fruit on our heads and people wouldn't notice.\" At the time, the brown pants weren't officially dropped by the team, but simply not used.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The Browns chose to wear white at home for the 2011 season, and wound up wearing white for all 16 games as when they were on the road, the home team would wear their darker colored uniform.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Browns brought back the brown pants in their home game against the Buffalo Bills on October 3, 2013, on Thursday Night Football, pairing them with the brown jerseys. It marked the first time the team wore an all-brown combination in team history.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "On April 14, 2015, the Cleveland Browns unveiled their new uniform combinations, consisting of the team's colors of orange, brown and white.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Browns brought back the all-brown look for the NFL Color Rush program in 2016, minus the white elements. In 2018, despite the Color Rush program being discontinued, the uniform was worn at home three times. For the 2019 season, the Browns promoted this uniform to their primary home uniform and donned it for six home games as well as any away game in which the home team wore white.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The club unveiled a new uniform design for the 2020 season. The new uniform design pays homage to the Browns' classic uniform design from years past.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 2023, the Browns introduced new \"White Out\" uniforms, an all-white uniform, featuring a white helmet, that will be worn during select home games. This will mark the first time since 1950 the Browns will have non-orange helmets. The white helmets, which will feature an orange stripe down the middle flanked by two brown stripes (basically inverting the regular helmet's colors), are an homage to the early years of the franchise.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The Browns have rivalries with all three of their AFC North opponents. In addition, the team has had historical rivalries with the Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, San Francisco 49ers, and Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Often called the \"Turnpike Rivalry\", the Browns' biggest rival has long been the Pittsburgh Steelers. Former Browns owner Art Modell scheduled home games against the Steelers on Saturday nights from 1964 to 1970 to help fuel the rivalry. The rivalry has also been fueled by the proximity of the two teams, number of championships both teams have won, players and personnel having played and/or coached for both sides, and personal bitterness. The teams have played twice annually since 1950, making it the oldest rivalry in the AFC and the fifth-oldest rivalry in the NFL. Though the Browns dominated this rivalry early in the series (winning the first eight meetings and posting a 31–9 record in the 1950s and 1960s), the Steelers went 15–5 in the 1970s and 36–9–1 since the Browns returned to the league in 1999. The Steelers have been particularly dominant in Pittsburgh, posting a 44–7 record when hosting the Browns since 1970, including to winning streaks of 16 games (1970–85) and 17 games (2004–20).",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The Steelers currently hold a 79–61–1 lead. The Browns and Steelers met in the playoffs in 1994, 2002, and 2020, with the Steelers holding a 2–1 lead in the postseason series. Though the rivalry has cooled in Pittsburgh due to the Modell move as well as the Browns' poor play since 1999, the Steelers still remain the top rival for Cleveland.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Originally conceived due to the personal animosity between Paul Brown and Art Modell, the \"Battle of Ohio\" between the Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals has been fueled by the sociocultural differences between Cincinnati and Cleveland, a shared history between the two teams, and similar team colors, as Brown used the exact shade of orange for the Bengals that he used for the Browns. (Though this has changed since then, as the Bengals now use a brighter shade of orange.) Modell, in fact, moved the Browns to the AFC after the AFL–NFL merger in order to have a rivalry with the Bengals. The rivalry has also produced two of the eleven highest-scoring games in NFL history. Cincinnati has the all-time edge 52–48. While the Bengals have a 28–21 edge since the Browns returned to the NFL in 1999, this series has been more competitive than the Browns' series with their other division rivals, and the Browns have won 9 of the last 11 meetings.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Created as a result of the Browns' relocation controversy, the rivalry between the Browns and Baltimore Ravens was more directed at Art Modell than the team itself, and is simply considered a divisional game in Baltimore. This matchup is more bitter for Cleveland than the others due to the fact that the draft picks for 1995 to 1998 resulted in the rosters that won the Super Bowl for the Ravens in 2000. Had Modell not moved the team, these teams, drafted by general manager and former Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome, might have given the Browns a title after a 35-year drought. The Ravens lead the overall series 34–12. The two teams have not met in the playoffs.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The Browns' rivalry with the Detroit Lions began in the 1950s, when the Browns and Lions played each other in four NFL Championship Games. The Lions won three of those championships, while the Browns won one. This was arguably one of the NFL's best rivalries in the 1950s. Since the NFL-AFL merger of 1970, the teams have met much less frequently with the Browns' move to the AFC. From 2002 to 2014, the two teams played an annual preseason game known as the \"Great Lakes Classic\".",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The Browns had a brief rivalry with the Denver Broncos that arose from three AFC Championship Games from 1986 to 1989. In the 1986 AFC Championship, quarterback John Elway led The Drive to secure a tie in the waning moments at Cleveland Municipal Stadium; the Broncos went on to win in 23–20 in overtime. One year later, the two teams met again in the 1987 AFC Championship game at Mile High Stadium. Denver took a 21–3 lead, but Browns' quarterback Bernie Kosar threw four touchdown passes to tie the game at 31–31 halfway through the 4th quarter. After a long drive, John Elway threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to running back Sammy Winder to give Denver a 38–31 lead. Cleveland advanced to Denver's 8-yard line with 1:12 left, but Broncos' safety Jeremiah Castille stripped Browns' running back Earnest Byner of the football at the 2-yard line—a play that has been called The Fumble by Browns' fans. The Broncos recovered it, gave Cleveland an intentional safety, and went on to win 38–33. The two teams met yet again in the 1989 AFC Championship at Mile High Stadium, which the Broncos easily won by a score of 37–21.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "This short-lived rivalry also featured a controversial 16–13 Browns' win at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in the 1989 regular season. The game was decided by a Matt Bahr 48-yard field goal as time expired - a kick that barely cleared the crossbar. Bahr's field goal came after referee Tom Dooley ordered the teams to switch ends of the field midway through the 4th quarter, thanks to rowdy Dawg Pound fans who pelted the Broncos with dog biscuits, eggs and other debris. The switch gave the Browns a small, timely wind advantage to finish the game.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "More recently, the rivalry has cooled off as the Broncos won 11 straight meetings from 1991 to 2015 before Cleveland broke that streak with a narrow 17–16 win in 2018. Denver leads the overall series, 24–7.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The most competitive team in the AAFC era for the Browns was the San Francisco 49ers. San Francisco finished second to the Browns in each of the four seasons that the league played. Two of the Browns' four losses in that era were to the 49ers (including a loss that ended the Browns' 29-game unbeaten streak); the rivalry did not last into the NFL years, particularly after the teams were placed in opposite conferences in 1970. The rivalry has turned into a friendly relationship as many 49ers personnel helped the Browns relaunch in 1999, specifically former 49ers president and CEO Carmen Policy and vice president/director of football operations Dwight Clark, who were hired by the expansion Browns in the same roles. In addition, 49ers owners John York and Denise DeBartolo York reside in Youngstown, 60 miles (97 km) southeast of Cleveland. Long-time Browns placekicker and fan favorite Phil Dawson and backup quarterback Colt McCoy signed with the 49ers in 2014.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Browns' rivalry with the Houston Oilers/Tennessee Titans dates back to the Browns and then-Oilers being placed in the AFC Central after the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. As such, the teams played each other twice annually from 1970 until 2002 when divisional realignment placed the Browns in the AFC North and the now-Titans in the AFC South (excluding 1996-98 when the Browns were inactive). The teams have met much less frequently since 2002. The Browns lead the overall series 37–32, and the 69 meetings with the Oilers/Titans are the third-most of any Cleveland opponent, trailing only the Steelers and Bengals.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The height of this rivalry was during the 1980s. Oilers head coach Jerry Glanville and Marty Schottenheimer shared several bitter exchanges during the decade and the Browns and Oilers had their only playoff meeting in the 1988 Wild Card Round, in which the Oilers came away with a narrow 24–23 victory. There have been a few memorable games in recent years. In 2014, the Browns erased a 28–3 deficit to come away with a 29–28 win. In a December 2020 contest with playoff implications for both teams, the Browns jumped to a 38–7 halftime lead, setting a franchise record for points in the first half. However, Tennessee rallied in the second half but came up just short as the Browns hung on for a 41–35 win.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "A 2006 study conducted by Bizjournal determined that Browns fans are the most loyal fans in the NFL. The study, while not scientific, was largely based on fan loyalty during winning and losing seasons, attendance at games, and challenges confronting fans (such as inclement weather or long-term poor performance of their team). The study noted that Browns fans filled 99.8% of the seats at Cleveland Browns Stadium during the last seven seasons, despite a combined record of 36–76 over that span.",
"title": "Fan base"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Perhaps the most visible Browns fans are those that can be found in the Dawg Pound. Originally the name for the bleacher section located in the open (east) end of old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the current incarnation is likewise located in the east end of FirstEnergy Stadium and still features hundreds of orange and brown clad fans sporting various canine-related paraphernalia. The fans adopted that name in 1984 after members of the Browns defense used it to describe the team's defense.",
"title": "Fan base"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Retired cornerback Hanford Dixon, who played his entire career for the Browns (1981–1989), is credited with naming the Cleveland Browns defense 'The Dawgs' in the mid-1980s. Dixon and teammates Frank Minnifield and Eddie Johnson would bark at each other and to the fans in the bleachers at the Cleveland Stadium to fire them up. It was from Dixon's naming that the Dawg Pound subsequently took its title. The fans adopted that name in the years after. Due to this nickname, since the team's revival the Browns have used a bulldog as an alternate logo.",
"title": "Fan base"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The most prominent organization of Browns fans is the Browns Backers Worldwide (BBW). The organization has approximately 305,000 members and Browns Backers clubs can be found in every major city in the United States, and in a number of military bases throughout the world, with the largest club being in Phoenix, Arizona. In addition, the organization has a sizable foreign presence in places as far away as Egypt, Australia, Japan, Sri Lanka, and McMurdo Station in Antarctica. According to The Official Fan Club of the Cleveland Browns, the two largest international fan clubs are in Alon Shvut, West Bank and Niagara, Canada, with Alon Shvut having 129 members and Niagara having 310.",
"title": "Fan base"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Following former Browns owner Randy Lerner's acquisition of English soccer club Aston Villa, official Villa outlets started selling Cleveland Browns goods such as jerseys and NFL footballs. This has raised interest in England and strengthened the link between the two sporting clubs. Aston Villa supporters have set up an organization known as the Aston (Villa) Browns Backers of Birmingham.",
"title": "Fan base"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The Cleveland Browns have the fourth-largest number of players enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame with a total of 17 enshrined players elected based on their performance with the Browns, and nine more players or coaches elected who spent at least one year with the Browns franchise. No Browns players were inducted in the inaugural induction class of 1963. Otto Graham was the first Browns player to be enshrined as a member of the class of 1965, and the most recent Browns player to be included in the Pro Football Hall of Fame is Joe Thomas, who was a member of the class of 2023, who is the first member inducted that played in the 21st century.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The Cleveland Browns legends program honors former Browns who made noteworthy contributions to the history of the franchise. In addition to all the Hall of Famers listed above, the Legends list includes:",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Beginning in 2010, the Browns established a Ring of Honor, honoring the greats from the past by having their names displayed around the upper deck of FirstEnergy Stadium. The inaugural class in the Browns Ring of Honor was unveiled during the home opener on September 19, 2010, and featured the 16 Hall of Famers listed above who went into the Hall of Fame as Browns. In 2018, Joe Thomas was entered into the Ring of Honor with the number 10,363 – commemorating his NFL record of consecutive snaps played on offense. In 2019, four-time Pro Bowl linebacker Clay Matthews Jr. was entered into the Ring of Honor.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Numerous Browns players and staff have had statues made in their honor:",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In and around First Energy Stadium",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "In and around Cleveland",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Browns players featured on murals in downtown Cleveland include:",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Radio",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "WKNR (850 AM), WKRK-FM (92.3 FM), and WNCX (98.5 FM) serve as co-flagship stations for the Cleveland Browns Radio Network.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Jim Donovan serves as play-by-play announcer, calling games on-site alongside commentator Nathan Zegura – who made news when he had to serve an eight-game suspension due to arguing with officials during a game in 2018 when he was sideline reporter, and former NFL player and current WKNR host Je'Rod Cherry, who serves as sideline analyst/reporter. Cherry, WKRK's Ken Carman and Andy Baskin, and Cleveland area native/former NFL player Tyvis Powell host the network pregame show, while WKRK's Jeff Phelps and Powell host the network postgame show.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Spanish language broadcasts are heard on WNZN 89.1 FM with announcers Rafa Hernández-Brito and Octavio Sequera.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "TV",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS-TV 5 serves as the broadcast TV home of the Browns, airing year-round team programming as well as all non-network preseason games, with the broadcast team of Chris Rose (play-by-play), former Browns left tackle Joe Thomas (analyst), and Aditi Kinkhabwala (sidelines). Bally Sports Great Lakes is the cable outlet for the team, airing various Browns related programming during the season.",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Honors",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The Browns in-house production team won a pair of Lower Great Lakes Emmy Awards in 2005. One was for a primetime special honoring the 1964 NFL Championship team (The 1964 Championship Show) and one was for a commercial spot (The Paperboy).",
"title": "Media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The Browns have (either directly or indirectly) been featured in various movies and TV shows over the years. Notable examples include:",
"title": "References in popular culture"
}
] | The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The Browns play their home games at Cleveland Browns Stadium, which opened in 1999, with administrative offices and training facilities in Berea, Ohio. The Browns' official club colors are brown, orange, and white. They are unique among the 32 member franchises of the NFL in that they do not have a logo on their helmets. The franchise was founded in 1944 by Brown and businessman Arthur B. McBride as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC), and began play in 1946. The Browns dominated the AAFC, compiling a 47–4–3 record in the league's four seasons and winning its championship in each. When the AAFC folded after the 1949 season, the Browns joined the NFL along with the San Francisco 49ers and the original Baltimore Colts. The Browns won a championship in their inaugural NFL season, as well as in the 1954, 1955, and 1964 seasons, and in a feat unequaled in any of the North American major professional sports, played in their league championship game in each of their first 10 years of existence, winning seven of those games. From 1965 to 1995, they qualified to play in the NFL playoffs 14 times, but did not win another championship or play in the Super Bowl during that period. In 1995, owner Art Modell, who had purchased the Browns in 1961, announced plans to move the team to Baltimore. After threats of legal action from the city of Cleveland and fans, a compromise was reached in early 1996 that allowed Modell to establish the Baltimore Ravens as a new franchise while retaining the contracts of all Browns personnel. The Browns' intellectual property, including team name, logos, training facility, and history, were kept in trust and the franchise was regarded by the NFL as suspended for three seasons. While several of the then-30 existing franchises considered re-locating to Cleveland, in 1998 it was confirmed that the NFL would field 31 teams when the Browns resumed play in 1999, thus while the 1999 Browns were not technically considered to be an expansion franchise, the club's roster was re-stocked via an expansion draft. Since resuming operations in 1999, the Browns have struggled to find success, especially during the 2010s when they did not post one winning season throughout that decade. They have had only four winning seasons, two playoff appearances, and one playoff win (2020), winning less than one third of their games in total, and in 2017 were only the second team in NFL history to have a 0–16 season after the 2008 Detroit Lions. The franchise has also been noted for a lack of stability with head coaches and quarterbacks. From 2003 to 2019, the Browns had a 17-season playoff drought, which ended during the 2020 season. They are one of four teams to have never appeared in a Super Bowl, along with the Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, and Jacksonville Jaguars; however, the Browns played in seven NFL Championship games in the pre-Super Bowl era. | 2001-10-11T20:43:29Z | 2023-12-29T07:26:40Z | [
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6,579 | Carbine | A carbine (/ˈkɑːrbiːn/ KAR-been or /ˈkɑːrbaɪn/ KAR-byn) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges.
The smaller size and lighter weight of carbines make them easier to handle. They are typically issued to high-mobility troops such as special operations soldiers and paratroopers, as well as to mounted, artillery, logistics, or other non-infantry personnel whose roles do not require full-sized rifles, although there is a growing tendency for carbines to be issued to front-line soldiers to offset the increasing weight of other issued equipment. An example of this is the M4 carbine, the standard issue carbine of the United States Armed Forces.
The name comes from its first users — cavalry troopers called "carabiniers", from the French carabine, from Old French carabin (soldier armed with a musket), whose origin is unclear. One theory connects it to an "ancient engine of war" called a calabre; another connects it to Medieval Latin Calabrinus 'Calabrian'; yet another, less likely, to escarrabin, gravedigger, from the scarab beetle.
In 1432, the Joseon dynasty under the reign of Sejong the Great introduced the world's first handgun, named Chongtong (총통). The chongtong has a total length of 13.8 cm, inner diameter of 0.9 cm, and outer diameter of 1.4 cm. It is held by its cheolheumja (철흠자, iron tong-handle), which allows a quick change of barrel for the next shot, and fires chase-jeon (차세전, a contemporary type of standardized arrow) with a maximum fatal range of 200 footsteps (≈250 meters). Initially, Joseon considered the gun a failure due to its short effective range, but the chongtong quickly saw use after fielding to the frontier provinces starting in June 1437. chongtong was used by both soldiers of different units and by civilians, including women and children, as a personal defense weapon. The gun was notably used by chetamja (체탐자, special reconnaissance), whose mission was to infiltrate enemy territory, and by carabiniers carrying multiple guns, who benefited from its compact size.
The carbine was originally developed for cavalry. The start of early modern warfare about the 16th century had infantry armed with firearms, prompting cavalry to do the same, even though reloading muzzle loading firearms while moving mounted was highly impractical. Some cavalry, such as the German Reiters, added one or more pistols, while other cavalry, such as harquebusiers, tried various shorter, lightened versions of the infantry arquebus weapons – the first carbines. But these weapons were still difficult to reload while mounted, and the saber often remained main weapon of such cavalry. Dragoons and other mounted infantry that dismounted for battles usually adopted standard infantry firearms, though some favored versions that were less encumbering when riding – something that could be arranged to hang clear of the rider's elbows and horse's legs.
While more portable, carbines had the general disadvantages of less accuracy and power than the longer guns of the infantry. During Napoleonic warfare, pistol and carbine-armed cavalry generally transitioned into traditional melee cavalry or dragoons. Carbines found increased use outside of standard cavalry and infantry, such as support and artillery troops, who might need to defend themselves from attack but would be hindered by keeping full-sized weapons with them continuously; a common title for many short rifles in the late 19th century was artillery carbine.
As the rifled musket replaced the smoothbore firearms for infantry in the mid 19th century, carbine versions were also developed; this was often developed separately from the infantry rifles and, in many cases, did not even use the same ammunition, which made for supply difficulties.
A notable weapon developed towards the end of the American Civil War by the Union was the Spencer carbine, one of the first breechloading, repeating weapons. It had a spring-powered, removable tube magazine in the buttstock which held seven rounds and could be reloaded by inserting spare tubes. It was intended to give the cavalry a replacement weapon which could be fired from horseback without the need for awkward reloading after each shot – although it saw service mostly with dismounted troopers, as was typical of cavalry weapons during that war.
In the late 19th century, it became common for a number of nations to make bolt-action rifles in both full-length and carbine versions. One of the most popular and recognizable carbines were the lever-action Winchester carbines, with several versions available firing revolver cartridges. This made it an ideal choice for cowboys and explorers, as well as other inhabitants of the American West, who could carry a revolver and a carbine, both using the same ammunition.
The Lee Enfield Cavalry Carbine, a shortened version of the standard British Army infantry rifle was introduced in 1896, although it did not become the standard British cavalry weapon until 1903.
In late 1918, France developed the Chauchat-Ribeyrolles for tank crews to defend themselves. Developed from the Fusil Automatique Modèle 1917, the stock was replaced with a pistol grip, and the barrel is significantly shorter at 340 mm (13 in) resulting in an overall length of 575 mm (22.6 in).
In the decades following World War I, the standard battle rifle used by armies around the world had been growing shorter, either by redesign or by the general issue of carbine versions instead of full-length rifles. This move was initiated by the U.S. Model 1903 Springfield, which was originally produced in 1907 with a short 610 mm (24 in) barrel, providing a short rifle that was longer than a carbine but shorter than a typical rifle, so it could be issued to all troops without need for separate versions. Other nations followed suit after World War I, when they learned that their traditional long-barreled rifles provided little benefit in the trenches and merely proved a hindrance to the soldiers. Examples include the Russian Model 1891 rifle, originally with an 800 mm (31 in) barrel, later shortened to 730 mm (29 in) in 1930, and to 510 mm (20 in) in 1938, the German Mauser Gewehr 98 rifles went from 740 mm (29 in) in 1898 to 600 mm (24 in) in 1935 as the Karabiner 98k (K98k or Kar98k), or "short carbine".
The barrel lengths in rifles used by the United States did not change between the bolt-action M1903 rifle of World War I and the World War II M1 Garand rifle, because the 610 mm (24 in) barrel on the M1903 was still shorter than even the shortened versions of the Model 1891 and Gewehr 98. The U.S. M1 carbine was more of a traditional carbine in that it was significantly shorter and lighter, with a 450.9 mm (17.75 in) barrel, than the M1 Garand rifle, and that it was intended for rear-area troops who could not be hindered with full-sized rifles but needed something more powerful and accurate than a Model 1911 pistol (although this did not stop soldiers from using them on the front line). Contrary to popular belief, and even what some books claim, in spite of both being designated "M1", the M1 Carbine was not a shorter version of the .30-06 M1 Garand, as is typical for most rifles and carbines, but it was a wholly different design, firing a smaller, less-powerful cartridge. The "M1" designates each as the first model in the new U.S. designation system, which no longer used the year of introduction but a sequential series of numbers starting at "1": the M1 Carbine and M1 Rifle.
The United Kingdom developed a "Jungle Carbine" version of their Lee–Enfield service rifle, featuring a shorter barrel, flash suppressor, and manufacturing modifications designed to decrease the rifle's weight Officially titled Rifle, No. 5 Mk I, it was introduced in the closing months of World War II, but it did not see widespread service until the Korean War, the Mau Mau Uprising, and the Malayan Emergency as well as the Vietnam War.
A shorter weapon was more convenient when riding in a truck, armored personnel carrier, helicopter, or aircraft, and also when engaged in close-range combat. Based on the combat experience of World War II, the criteria used for selecting infantry weapons began to change. Unlike previous wars, which were often fought mainly from fixed lines and trenches, World War II was a highly mobile war, often fought in cities, forests, or other areas where mobility and visibility were restricted. In addition, improvements in artillery made moving infantry in open areas even less practical than it had been.
The majority of enemy contacts were at ranges of less than 300 metres (330 yards), and the enemy was exposed to fire for only short periods of time as they moved from cover to cover. Most rounds fired were not aimed at an enemy combatant but instead fired in the enemy's direction to keep them from moving and from firing back. These situations did not require a heavy rifle, firing full-power rifle bullets with long-range accuracy. A less-powerful weapon would still produce casualties at the shorter ranges encountered in actual combat, and the reduced recoil would allow more shots to be fired in the short amount of time an enemy was visible. The lower-powered round would also weigh less, allowing a soldier to carry more ammunition. With no need of a long barrel to fire full-power ammunition, a shorter barrel could be used. A shorter barrel made the weapon weigh less, was easier to handle in tight spaces, and was easier to shoulder quickly to fire a shot at an unexpected target. Full-automatic fire was also considered a desirable feature, allowing the soldier to fire short bursts of three to five rounds, increasing the probability of a hit on a moving target.
The Germans had experimented with selective-fire carbines firing rifle cartridges during the early years of World War II. These were determined to be less than ideal, as the recoil of full-power rifle cartridges caused the weapon to be uncontrollable in full-automatic fire. They then developed an intermediate-power cartridge round, which was accomplished by reducing the power and the length of the standard 7.92×57mm Mauser rifle cartridge to create the 7.92×33mm kurz (short) cartridge. A selective-fire weapon was developed to fire this shorter cartridge, eventually resulting in the Sturmgewehr 44, later translated as "assault rifle" (also frequently called "machine carbines" by Allied intelligence, a quite accurate assessment, in fact). Very shortly after World War II, the USSR adopted a similar weapon, the ubiquitous AK-47, the first model in the famed Kalashnikov-series, which became the standard Soviet infantry weapon and which has been produced and exported in extremely large numbers up through the present day.
Although the United States had developed the M2 Carbine, a selective-fire version of the M1 Carbine during WW2, the .30 Carbine cartridge was closer to a pistol round in power, making it more of a submachine gun than an assault rifle. It was also adopted only in very small numbers and issued to few troops (the semi-automatic M1 carbine was produced in a 10-to-1 ratio to the M2), while the AK47 was produced by the millions and was standard-issue to all Soviet troops, as well as those of many other nations. The U.S. was slow to follow suit, insisting on retaining a full-power, 7.62×51mm NATO rifle, the M14 (although this was selective fire).
In the 1950s, the British developed the .280 British, an intermediate cartridge, and a select-fire bullpup assault rifle to fire it, the EM-2. They pressed for the U.S. to adopt it so it could become a NATO-standard round, but the U.S. insisted on retaining a full-power, .30 caliber round. This forced NATO to adopt the 7.62×51mm NATO round (which in reality is only slightly different ballistically from the .308 Winchester), to maintain commonality. The British eventually adopted the 7.62mm FN FAL, and the U.S. adopted the 7.62mm M14 rifle. These rifles are both what is known as battle rifles and were a few inches shorter than the standard-issue rifles they replaced (22-inch (560 mm) barrel as opposed to 24 inches (610 mm) for the M1 Garand), although they were still full-powered rifles, with selective fire capability. These can be compared to the even shorter, less-powerful assault rifle, which might be considered the "carbine branch of weapons development", although indeed, there are now carbine variants of many of the assault rifles which had themselves seemed quite small and light when adopted.
By the 1960s, after becoming involved in war in Vietnam, the U.S. did an abrupt about-face and decided to standardize on the intermediate 5.56×45mm round (based on the .223 Remington varmint cartridge) fired from the new, lightweight M16 rifle, leaving NATO to hurry and catch up. Many of the NATO countries could not afford to re-equip so soon after the recent 7.62mm standardization, leaving them armed with full-power 7.62mm battle rifles for some decades afterwards, although by this point, the 5.56mm has been adopted by almost all NATO countries and many non-NATO nations as well. This 5.56mm NATO round was even lighter and smaller than the Soviet 7.62×39mm AK-47 cartridge but possessed higher velocity. In U.S. service, the M16 assault rifle replaced the M14 as the standard infantry weapon, although the M14 continued to be used by designated marksmen. Although at 20 inches (510 mm), the barrel of the M16 was shorter than that of the M14, it was still designated a "rifle" rather than a "carbine", and it was still longer than the AK-47, which used a 16-inch (410 mm) barrel. (The SKS – an interim, semi-automatic, weapon adopted a few years before the AK-47 was put into service – was designated a carbine, even though its 20-inch (510 mm) barrel was significantly longer than the AK series' 16.3 inches (410 mm). This is because of the Kalashnikov's revolutionary nature, which altered the old paradigm. Compared to previous rifles, particularly the Soviets' initial attempts at semi-automatic rifles, such as the 24-inch (610 mm) SVT-40, the SKS was significantly shorter. The Kalashnikov altered traditional notions and ushered in a change in what was considered a "rifle" in military circles.)
In 1974, shortly after the introduction of the 5.56mm NATO, the USSR began to issue a new Kalashnikov variant, the AK-74, chambered in the small-bore 5.45×39mm cartridge, which was a standard 7.62×39mm necked down to take a smaller, lighter, faster bullet. It soon became standard issue in Soviet nations, although many of the nations with export Kalashnikovs retained the larger 7.62×39mm round. In 1995, the People's Republic of China adopted a new 5.8×42mm cartridge to match the modern trend in military ammunition, replacing the previous 7.62×39mm and 5.45×39mm round as standard.
Later, even lighter carbine variants of many of these short-barreled assault rifles came to be adopted as the standard infantry weapon. In much modern tactical thinking, only a certain number of soldiers need to retain longer-range weapons, serving as designated marksmen. The rest can carry lighter, shorter-ranged weapons for close quarters combat and suppressive fire. This is basically a more extreme extension of the idea that brought the original assault rifle. Another factor is that with the increasing weight of technology, sighting systems, ballistic armor, etc., the only way to reduce the burden on the modern soldier was to equip them with a smaller, lighter weapon. Also, modern soldiers rely a great deal on vehicles and helicopters to transport them around the battle area, and a longer weapon can be a serious hindrance to entering and exiting these vehicles. Development of lighter assault rifles continued, matched by developments in even lighter carbines. In spite of the short barrels of the new assault rifles, carbine variants like the 5.45×39mm AKS-74U and Colt Commando were being developed for use when mobility was essential and a submachine gun was not sufficiently powerful. The AKS-74U featured an extremely short 8.1-inch (210 mm) barrel which necessitated redesigning and shortening the gas-piston and integrating front sights onto the gas tube; the Colt Commando was a bit longer, at 11.5 inches (290 mm). Neither was adopted as standard issue, although the U.S. did later adopt the somewhat longer M4 carbine, with a 14.5-inch (370 mm) barrel.
In 1994, the U.S. had adopted the M4 carbine, a derivative of the M16 family which fired the same 5.56mm cartridge but was lighter and shorter (in overall length and barrel length), resulting in marginally reduced range and power, although offering better mobility and lighter weight to offset the weight of equipment and armor that a modern soldier has to carry.
In spite of the benefits of the modern carbine, many armies are experiencing a certain backlash against the universal equipping of soldiers with carbines and lighter rifles in general, and are equipping selected soldiers, usually designated marksmen, with higher-powered rifles. Another problem comes from the loss of muzzle velocity caused by the shorter barrel, which when coupled with the typical small, lightweight bullets, causes effectiveness to be diminished; a 5.56mm gets its lethality from its high velocity, and when fired from the 14.5-inch (370 mm) M4 carbine, its power, penetration, and range are diminished. Thus, there has been a move towards adopting a slightly more powerful cartridge tailored for high performance from both long and short barrels. The U.S. has experimented with a new, slightly larger and heavier caliber such as the 6.5mm Grendel or 6.8mm Remington SPC, which are heavier and thus retain more effectiveness at lower muzzle velocities.
While the U.S. Army adopted the M4 carbine in 1994, the U.S. Marine Corps retained their 20-inch (510 mm) barrel M16A4 rifles long afterwards, citing the increased range and effectiveness over the carbine version; officers were required to carry an M4 carbine rather than an M9 pistol, as Army officers do. Because the Marine Corps emphasizes "every Marine a rifleman", the lighter carbine was considered a suitable compromise between a rifle and a pistol. Marines with restricted mobility such as vehicle operators, or a greater need for mobility such as squad leaders, were issued M4 carbines. In 2015, the Marine Corps approved the M4 carbine for standard issue to front-line Marines, replacing the M16A4 rifle. The rifles are issued to support troops while the carbines go to the front-line Marines, in a reversal of the traditional roles of "rifles for the front line, carbines for the rear".
Special forces need to perform fast, decisive operations, frequently airborne or boat-mounted. A pistol, though light and quick to operate, is viewed as not having enough power, firepower, or range. A submachine gun has selective fire, but firing a pistol cartridge and having a short barrel and sight radius, it is not accurate or powerful enough at longer ranges. Submachine guns also tend to have poorer armor and cover penetration than rifles and carbines firing rifle ammunition. Consequently, carbines have gained wide acceptance among United States Special Operations Command, United Kingdom Special Forces, and other communities, having relatively light weight, large magazine capacity, selective fire, and much better range and penetration than a submachine gun.
The smaller size and relative lighter weight of carbines makes them easier to handle in close-quarter situations such as urban engagements, when deploying from military vehicles, or in any situation where space is confined. The disadvantages of carbines relative to rifles include inferior long-range accuracy and a shorter effective range. These comparisons refer to carbines (short-barreled rifles) of the same power and class as the regular full-sized rifles.
Compared to submachine guns, carbines have a greater effective range and are capable of penetrating helmets and body armor when used with armor-piercing ammunition. However, submachine guns are still used by military special forces and police SWAT teams for close quarters battle because they are "a pistol caliber weapon that's easy to control, and less likely to over-penetrate the target." Also, carbines are harder to maneuver in tight encounters where superior range and stopping power at distance are not great considerations.
Firing the same ammunition as standard-issue rifles or pistols gives carbines the advantage of standardization over those personal defense weapons that require proprietary cartridges.
The modern usage of the term carbine covers much the same scope as it always had, namely lighter weapons (generally rifles) with barrels up to 20 inches (510 mm) in length. These weapons can be considered carbines, while rifles with barrels longer than 20 inches (510 mm) are generally not considered carbines unless specifically named so. Conversely, many rifles have barrels shorter than 20 inches, yet are not considered carbines. The AK series rifles has an almost universal barrel length of 16.3 inches (410 mm), well within carbine territory, yet has always been considered a rifle, perhaps because it was designed as such and not shortened from a longer weapon. Modern carbines use ammunition ranging from that used in light pistols up to powerful rifle cartridges, with the usual exception of high-velocity magnum cartridges. In the more powerful cartridges, the short barrel of a carbine has significant disadvantages in velocity, and the high residual pressure, and frequently still-burning powder and gases, when the bullet exits the barrel results in substantially greater muzzle blast. Flash suppressors are a common, partial solution to this problem, although even the best flash suppressors are hard put to deal with the excess flash from the still-burning powder leaving the short barrel (and they also add several inches to the length of the barrel, diminishing the purpose of having a short barrel in the first place).
The typical carbine is the pistol-caliber carbine. These first appeared soon after metallic cartridges became common. These were developed as "companions" to the popular revolvers of the day, firing the same cartridge but allowing more velocity and accuracy than the revolver. These were carried by cowboys, lawmen, and others in the Old West. The classic combination would be a Winchester lever-action carbine and a Colt Single Action Army revolver in .44-40 or .38-40. During the 20th century, this trend continued with more modern and powerful smokeless revolver cartridges, in the form of Winchester and Marlin lever action carbines chambered in .38 Special/.357 Magnum and .44 Special/.44 Magnum.
Modern equivalents include the Ruger Police Carbine and Ruger PC Carbine, which uses the same magazine as the Ruger pistols of the same caliber, and the (discontinued) Marlin Camp Carbine, which, in .45 ACP, used M1911 magazines. The Ruger Model 44 and Ruger Deerfield Carbine were both carbines chambered in .44 Magnum. The Beretta Cx4 Storm shares magazines with many Beretta pistols and is designed to be complementary to the Beretta Px4 Storm pistol. The Hi-Point 995TS are popular, economical and reliable alternatives to other pistol caliber carbines in the United States, and their magazines can be used in the Hi-Point C-9 pistol. Another example is the Kel-Tec SUB-2000 series chambered in either 9mm Parabellum or .40 S&W, which can be configured to accept Glock, Beretta, S&W, or SIG pistol magazines. The SUB-2000 also has the somewhat unusual (although not unique) ability to fold in half.
The primary advantage of a carbine over a pistol using the same ammunition is controllability. The combination of firing from the shoulder, longer sight-radius, three points of contact (firing hand, support hand, and shoulder), and precision offer a significantly more user-friendly platform. Carbines like the Kel-Tec SUB-2000, Hi Point 995TS, Just Right Carbines (JR Carbine), and Beretta Cx4 Storm have the ability to mount user friendly optics, lights and lasers thanks to them having accessory rails, which make target acquisition and engagement much easier.
The longer barrel can offer increased velocity and, with it, greater energy and effective range due to the propellant having more time to burn. However, loss in bullet velocity can happen where the propellant is utilised before the bullet reaches the muzzle, combined with the friction from the barrel on the bullet. As long guns, pistol-caliber carbines may be less legally restricted than handguns in some jurisdictions. Compared to carbines chambered in intermediate or rifle calibers, such as .223 Remington and 7.62×54mmR, pistol-caliber carbines generally experience less of an increase in external ballistic properties as a result of the propellant. The drawback is that one loses the primary benefits of a handgun, i.e. portability and concealability, resulting in a weapon almost the size of, but less accurate than, a long-gun, but not much more powerful than a pistol.
Also widely produced are semi-automatic and typically longer-barreled derivatives of select-fire submachine guns, such as the FN PS90, HK USC, KRISS Vector, Thompson carbine, CZ Scorpion S1 Carbine, and the Uzi carbine. In order to be sold legally in many countries, the barrel must meet a minimum length (16 inches (410 mm) in the United States). So the original submachine gun is given a legal-length barrel and made into a semi-automatic firearm, transforming it into a carbine. Though less common, pistol-caliber conversions of centerfire rifles like the AR-15 are commercially available.
Some handguns used to come from the factory with mounting lugs for a shoulder stock, notably including the "Broomhandle" Mauser C96, Luger P.08, and Browning Hi-Power. In the case of the first two, the pistol could come with a hollow wooden stock that doubled as a holster.
Carbine conversion kits are commercially available for many other pistols, including M1911, and most Glocks. These can either be simple shoulder stocks fitted to a pistol or full carbine conversion kits, which are at least 26 in (660 mm) long and replace the pistol's barrel with one at least 16 in (410 mm) long for compliance with the United States law. In the United States, fitting a shoulder stock to a handgun with a barrel less than 16 inches (410 mm) long possibly turns said firearm into a short-barreled rifle, which may be in violation of the National Firearms Act: this is currently being adjudicated by the courts.
Under the National Firearms Act of 1934, firearms with shoulder stocks or originally manufactured as a rifle and barrels less than 16 in (410 mm) in length are classified as short-barreled rifles. Short-barreled rifles are restricted similarly to short-barreled shotguns, requiring a $200 tax paid prior to manufacture or transfer – a process which can take several months. Because of this, firearms with barrels of less than 16 in (410 mm) and a shoulder stock are uncommon. A list of firearms not covered by the NFA due to their antique status may be found here or due to their Curio and Relic status may be found here; these lists includes a number of carbines with barrels less than the minimum legal length and firearms that are "primarily collector's items and are not likely to be used as weapons and, therefore, are excluded from the provisions of the National Firearms Act." Machine guns, as their own class of firearm, are not subject to requirements of other class firearms.
Distinct from simple shoulder stock kits, full carbine conversion kits are not classified as short-barreled rifles. By replacing the pistol barrel with one at least 16 in (410 mm) in length and having an overall length of at least 26 in (660 mm), a carbine converted pistol may be treated as a standard rifle under Title I of the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). However, certain "Broomhandle" Mauser C96, Luger, and Browning Hi-Power Curio & Relic pistols with their originally issued stock attached only may retain their pistol classification.
Carbines without a stock and not originally manufactured as a rifle are not classified as rifles or short barreled rifles. A carbine manufactured under 26 in (660 mm) in length without a forward vertical grip will be a pistol and, state law notwithstanding, can be carried concealed without creating an unregistered Any Other Weapon. A nearly identical carbine with an overall length of 26 in (660 mm) or greater is simply an unclassified firearm under Title I of the Gun Control Act of 1968, as the Any Other Weapon catch-all only applies to firearms under 26 in (660 mm) or that have been concealed. However, a modification intending to fire from the shoulder and bypass the regulation of short-barreled rifles is considered the unlawful possession and manufacture of an unregistered short-barreled rifle.
In some historical cases, the term machine carbine was the official title for submachine guns, such as the British Sten and Australian Owen guns. The semiautomatic-only version of the Sterling submachine gun was also officially called a "carbine". The original Sterling semi-auto would be classed a "short barrel rifle" under the U.S. National Firearms Act, but fully legal long-barrel versions of the Sterling have been made for the U.S. collector market. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A carbine (/ˈkɑːrbiːn/ KAR-been or /ˈkɑːrbaɪn/ KAR-byn) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The smaller size and lighter weight of carbines make them easier to handle. They are typically issued to high-mobility troops such as special operations soldiers and paratroopers, as well as to mounted, artillery, logistics, or other non-infantry personnel whose roles do not require full-sized rifles, although there is a growing tendency for carbines to be issued to front-line soldiers to offset the increasing weight of other issued equipment. An example of this is the M4 carbine, the standard issue carbine of the United States Armed Forces.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The name comes from its first users — cavalry troopers called \"carabiniers\", from the French carabine, from Old French carabin (soldier armed with a musket), whose origin is unclear. One theory connects it to an \"ancient engine of war\" called a calabre; another connects it to Medieval Latin Calabrinus 'Calabrian'; yet another, less likely, to escarrabin, gravedigger, from the scarab beetle.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1432, the Joseon dynasty under the reign of Sejong the Great introduced the world's first handgun, named Chongtong (총통). The chongtong has a total length of 13.8 cm, inner diameter of 0.9 cm, and outer diameter of 1.4 cm. It is held by its cheolheumja (철흠자, iron tong-handle), which allows a quick change of barrel for the next shot, and fires chase-jeon (차세전, a contemporary type of standardized arrow) with a maximum fatal range of 200 footsteps (≈250 meters). Initially, Joseon considered the gun a failure due to its short effective range, but the chongtong quickly saw use after fielding to the frontier provinces starting in June 1437. chongtong was used by both soldiers of different units and by civilians, including women and children, as a personal defense weapon. The gun was notably used by chetamja (체탐자, special reconnaissance), whose mission was to infiltrate enemy territory, and by carabiniers carrying multiple guns, who benefited from its compact size.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The carbine was originally developed for cavalry. The start of early modern warfare about the 16th century had infantry armed with firearms, prompting cavalry to do the same, even though reloading muzzle loading firearms while moving mounted was highly impractical. Some cavalry, such as the German Reiters, added one or more pistols, while other cavalry, such as harquebusiers, tried various shorter, lightened versions of the infantry arquebus weapons – the first carbines. But these weapons were still difficult to reload while mounted, and the saber often remained main weapon of such cavalry. Dragoons and other mounted infantry that dismounted for battles usually adopted standard infantry firearms, though some favored versions that were less encumbering when riding – something that could be arranged to hang clear of the rider's elbows and horse's legs.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "While more portable, carbines had the general disadvantages of less accuracy and power than the longer guns of the infantry. During Napoleonic warfare, pistol and carbine-armed cavalry generally transitioned into traditional melee cavalry or dragoons. Carbines found increased use outside of standard cavalry and infantry, such as support and artillery troops, who might need to defend themselves from attack but would be hindered by keeping full-sized weapons with them continuously; a common title for many short rifles in the late 19th century was artillery carbine.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "As the rifled musket replaced the smoothbore firearms for infantry in the mid 19th century, carbine versions were also developed; this was often developed separately from the infantry rifles and, in many cases, did not even use the same ammunition, which made for supply difficulties.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A notable weapon developed towards the end of the American Civil War by the Union was the Spencer carbine, one of the first breechloading, repeating weapons. It had a spring-powered, removable tube magazine in the buttstock which held seven rounds and could be reloaded by inserting spare tubes. It was intended to give the cavalry a replacement weapon which could be fired from horseback without the need for awkward reloading after each shot – although it saw service mostly with dismounted troopers, as was typical of cavalry weapons during that war.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the late 19th century, it became common for a number of nations to make bolt-action rifles in both full-length and carbine versions. One of the most popular and recognizable carbines were the lever-action Winchester carbines, with several versions available firing revolver cartridges. This made it an ideal choice for cowboys and explorers, as well as other inhabitants of the American West, who could carry a revolver and a carbine, both using the same ammunition.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Lee Enfield Cavalry Carbine, a shortened version of the standard British Army infantry rifle was introduced in 1896, although it did not become the standard British cavalry weapon until 1903.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In late 1918, France developed the Chauchat-Ribeyrolles for tank crews to defend themselves. Developed from the Fusil Automatique Modèle 1917, the stock was replaced with a pistol grip, and the barrel is significantly shorter at 340 mm (13 in) resulting in an overall length of 575 mm (22.6 in).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the decades following World War I, the standard battle rifle used by armies around the world had been growing shorter, either by redesign or by the general issue of carbine versions instead of full-length rifles. This move was initiated by the U.S. Model 1903 Springfield, which was originally produced in 1907 with a short 610 mm (24 in) barrel, providing a short rifle that was longer than a carbine but shorter than a typical rifle, so it could be issued to all troops without need for separate versions. Other nations followed suit after World War I, when they learned that their traditional long-barreled rifles provided little benefit in the trenches and merely proved a hindrance to the soldiers. Examples include the Russian Model 1891 rifle, originally with an 800 mm (31 in) barrel, later shortened to 730 mm (29 in) in 1930, and to 510 mm (20 in) in 1938, the German Mauser Gewehr 98 rifles went from 740 mm (29 in) in 1898 to 600 mm (24 in) in 1935 as the Karabiner 98k (K98k or Kar98k), or \"short carbine\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The barrel lengths in rifles used by the United States did not change between the bolt-action M1903 rifle of World War I and the World War II M1 Garand rifle, because the 610 mm (24 in) barrel on the M1903 was still shorter than even the shortened versions of the Model 1891 and Gewehr 98. The U.S. M1 carbine was more of a traditional carbine in that it was significantly shorter and lighter, with a 450.9 mm (17.75 in) barrel, than the M1 Garand rifle, and that it was intended for rear-area troops who could not be hindered with full-sized rifles but needed something more powerful and accurate than a Model 1911 pistol (although this did not stop soldiers from using them on the front line). Contrary to popular belief, and even what some books claim, in spite of both being designated \"M1\", the M1 Carbine was not a shorter version of the .30-06 M1 Garand, as is typical for most rifles and carbines, but it was a wholly different design, firing a smaller, less-powerful cartridge. The \"M1\" designates each as the first model in the new U.S. designation system, which no longer used the year of introduction but a sequential series of numbers starting at \"1\": the M1 Carbine and M1 Rifle.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The United Kingdom developed a \"Jungle Carbine\" version of their Lee–Enfield service rifle, featuring a shorter barrel, flash suppressor, and manufacturing modifications designed to decrease the rifle's weight Officially titled Rifle, No. 5 Mk I, it was introduced in the closing months of World War II, but it did not see widespread service until the Korean War, the Mau Mau Uprising, and the Malayan Emergency as well as the Vietnam War.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A shorter weapon was more convenient when riding in a truck, armored personnel carrier, helicopter, or aircraft, and also when engaged in close-range combat. Based on the combat experience of World War II, the criteria used for selecting infantry weapons began to change. Unlike previous wars, which were often fought mainly from fixed lines and trenches, World War II was a highly mobile war, often fought in cities, forests, or other areas where mobility and visibility were restricted. In addition, improvements in artillery made moving infantry in open areas even less practical than it had been.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The majority of enemy contacts were at ranges of less than 300 metres (330 yards), and the enemy was exposed to fire for only short periods of time as they moved from cover to cover. Most rounds fired were not aimed at an enemy combatant but instead fired in the enemy's direction to keep them from moving and from firing back. These situations did not require a heavy rifle, firing full-power rifle bullets with long-range accuracy. A less-powerful weapon would still produce casualties at the shorter ranges encountered in actual combat, and the reduced recoil would allow more shots to be fired in the short amount of time an enemy was visible. The lower-powered round would also weigh less, allowing a soldier to carry more ammunition. With no need of a long barrel to fire full-power ammunition, a shorter barrel could be used. A shorter barrel made the weapon weigh less, was easier to handle in tight spaces, and was easier to shoulder quickly to fire a shot at an unexpected target. Full-automatic fire was also considered a desirable feature, allowing the soldier to fire short bursts of three to five rounds, increasing the probability of a hit on a moving target.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Germans had experimented with selective-fire carbines firing rifle cartridges during the early years of World War II. These were determined to be less than ideal, as the recoil of full-power rifle cartridges caused the weapon to be uncontrollable in full-automatic fire. They then developed an intermediate-power cartridge round, which was accomplished by reducing the power and the length of the standard 7.92×57mm Mauser rifle cartridge to create the 7.92×33mm kurz (short) cartridge. A selective-fire weapon was developed to fire this shorter cartridge, eventually resulting in the Sturmgewehr 44, later translated as \"assault rifle\" (also frequently called \"machine carbines\" by Allied intelligence, a quite accurate assessment, in fact). Very shortly after World War II, the USSR adopted a similar weapon, the ubiquitous AK-47, the first model in the famed Kalashnikov-series, which became the standard Soviet infantry weapon and which has been produced and exported in extremely large numbers up through the present day.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Although the United States had developed the M2 Carbine, a selective-fire version of the M1 Carbine during WW2, the .30 Carbine cartridge was closer to a pistol round in power, making it more of a submachine gun than an assault rifle. It was also adopted only in very small numbers and issued to few troops (the semi-automatic M1 carbine was produced in a 10-to-1 ratio to the M2), while the AK47 was produced by the millions and was standard-issue to all Soviet troops, as well as those of many other nations. The U.S. was slow to follow suit, insisting on retaining a full-power, 7.62×51mm NATO rifle, the M14 (although this was selective fire).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the 1950s, the British developed the .280 British, an intermediate cartridge, and a select-fire bullpup assault rifle to fire it, the EM-2. They pressed for the U.S. to adopt it so it could become a NATO-standard round, but the U.S. insisted on retaining a full-power, .30 caliber round. This forced NATO to adopt the 7.62×51mm NATO round (which in reality is only slightly different ballistically from the .308 Winchester), to maintain commonality. The British eventually adopted the 7.62mm FN FAL, and the U.S. adopted the 7.62mm M14 rifle. These rifles are both what is known as battle rifles and were a few inches shorter than the standard-issue rifles they replaced (22-inch (560 mm) barrel as opposed to 24 inches (610 mm) for the M1 Garand), although they were still full-powered rifles, with selective fire capability. These can be compared to the even shorter, less-powerful assault rifle, which might be considered the \"carbine branch of weapons development\", although indeed, there are now carbine variants of many of the assault rifles which had themselves seemed quite small and light when adopted.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "By the 1960s, after becoming involved in war in Vietnam, the U.S. did an abrupt about-face and decided to standardize on the intermediate 5.56×45mm round (based on the .223 Remington varmint cartridge) fired from the new, lightweight M16 rifle, leaving NATO to hurry and catch up. Many of the NATO countries could not afford to re-equip so soon after the recent 7.62mm standardization, leaving them armed with full-power 7.62mm battle rifles for some decades afterwards, although by this point, the 5.56mm has been adopted by almost all NATO countries and many non-NATO nations as well. This 5.56mm NATO round was even lighter and smaller than the Soviet 7.62×39mm AK-47 cartridge but possessed higher velocity. In U.S. service, the M16 assault rifle replaced the M14 as the standard infantry weapon, although the M14 continued to be used by designated marksmen. Although at 20 inches (510 mm), the barrel of the M16 was shorter than that of the M14, it was still designated a \"rifle\" rather than a \"carbine\", and it was still longer than the AK-47, which used a 16-inch (410 mm) barrel. (The SKS – an interim, semi-automatic, weapon adopted a few years before the AK-47 was put into service – was designated a carbine, even though its 20-inch (510 mm) barrel was significantly longer than the AK series' 16.3 inches (410 mm). This is because of the Kalashnikov's revolutionary nature, which altered the old paradigm. Compared to previous rifles, particularly the Soviets' initial attempts at semi-automatic rifles, such as the 24-inch (610 mm) SVT-40, the SKS was significantly shorter. The Kalashnikov altered traditional notions and ushered in a change in what was considered a \"rifle\" in military circles.)",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In 1974, shortly after the introduction of the 5.56mm NATO, the USSR began to issue a new Kalashnikov variant, the AK-74, chambered in the small-bore 5.45×39mm cartridge, which was a standard 7.62×39mm necked down to take a smaller, lighter, faster bullet. It soon became standard issue in Soviet nations, although many of the nations with export Kalashnikovs retained the larger 7.62×39mm round. In 1995, the People's Republic of China adopted a new 5.8×42mm cartridge to match the modern trend in military ammunition, replacing the previous 7.62×39mm and 5.45×39mm round as standard.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Later, even lighter carbine variants of many of these short-barreled assault rifles came to be adopted as the standard infantry weapon. In much modern tactical thinking, only a certain number of soldiers need to retain longer-range weapons, serving as designated marksmen. The rest can carry lighter, shorter-ranged weapons for close quarters combat and suppressive fire. This is basically a more extreme extension of the idea that brought the original assault rifle. Another factor is that with the increasing weight of technology, sighting systems, ballistic armor, etc., the only way to reduce the burden on the modern soldier was to equip them with a smaller, lighter weapon. Also, modern soldiers rely a great deal on vehicles and helicopters to transport them around the battle area, and a longer weapon can be a serious hindrance to entering and exiting these vehicles. Development of lighter assault rifles continued, matched by developments in even lighter carbines. In spite of the short barrels of the new assault rifles, carbine variants like the 5.45×39mm AKS-74U and Colt Commando were being developed for use when mobility was essential and a submachine gun was not sufficiently powerful. The AKS-74U featured an extremely short 8.1-inch (210 mm) barrel which necessitated redesigning and shortening the gas-piston and integrating front sights onto the gas tube; the Colt Commando was a bit longer, at 11.5 inches (290 mm). Neither was adopted as standard issue, although the U.S. did later adopt the somewhat longer M4 carbine, with a 14.5-inch (370 mm) barrel.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In 1994, the U.S. had adopted the M4 carbine, a derivative of the M16 family which fired the same 5.56mm cartridge but was lighter and shorter (in overall length and barrel length), resulting in marginally reduced range and power, although offering better mobility and lighter weight to offset the weight of equipment and armor that a modern soldier has to carry.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In spite of the benefits of the modern carbine, many armies are experiencing a certain backlash against the universal equipping of soldiers with carbines and lighter rifles in general, and are equipping selected soldiers, usually designated marksmen, with higher-powered rifles. Another problem comes from the loss of muzzle velocity caused by the shorter barrel, which when coupled with the typical small, lightweight bullets, causes effectiveness to be diminished; a 5.56mm gets its lethality from its high velocity, and when fired from the 14.5-inch (370 mm) M4 carbine, its power, penetration, and range are diminished. Thus, there has been a move towards adopting a slightly more powerful cartridge tailored for high performance from both long and short barrels. The U.S. has experimented with a new, slightly larger and heavier caliber such as the 6.5mm Grendel or 6.8mm Remington SPC, which are heavier and thus retain more effectiveness at lower muzzle velocities.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "While the U.S. Army adopted the M4 carbine in 1994, the U.S. Marine Corps retained their 20-inch (510 mm) barrel M16A4 rifles long afterwards, citing the increased range and effectiveness over the carbine version; officers were required to carry an M4 carbine rather than an M9 pistol, as Army officers do. Because the Marine Corps emphasizes \"every Marine a rifleman\", the lighter carbine was considered a suitable compromise between a rifle and a pistol. Marines with restricted mobility such as vehicle operators, or a greater need for mobility such as squad leaders, were issued M4 carbines. In 2015, the Marine Corps approved the M4 carbine for standard issue to front-line Marines, replacing the M16A4 rifle. The rifles are issued to support troops while the carbines go to the front-line Marines, in a reversal of the traditional roles of \"rifles for the front line, carbines for the rear\".",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Special forces need to perform fast, decisive operations, frequently airborne or boat-mounted. A pistol, though light and quick to operate, is viewed as not having enough power, firepower, or range. A submachine gun has selective fire, but firing a pistol cartridge and having a short barrel and sight radius, it is not accurate or powerful enough at longer ranges. Submachine guns also tend to have poorer armor and cover penetration than rifles and carbines firing rifle ammunition. Consequently, carbines have gained wide acceptance among United States Special Operations Command, United Kingdom Special Forces, and other communities, having relatively light weight, large magazine capacity, selective fire, and much better range and penetration than a submachine gun.",
"title": "Modern history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The smaller size and relative lighter weight of carbines makes them easier to handle in close-quarter situations such as urban engagements, when deploying from military vehicles, or in any situation where space is confined. The disadvantages of carbines relative to rifles include inferior long-range accuracy and a shorter effective range. These comparisons refer to carbines (short-barreled rifles) of the same power and class as the regular full-sized rifles.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Compared to submachine guns, carbines have a greater effective range and are capable of penetrating helmets and body armor when used with armor-piercing ammunition. However, submachine guns are still used by military special forces and police SWAT teams for close quarters battle because they are \"a pistol caliber weapon that's easy to control, and less likely to over-penetrate the target.\" Also, carbines are harder to maneuver in tight encounters where superior range and stopping power at distance are not great considerations.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Firing the same ammunition as standard-issue rifles or pistols gives carbines the advantage of standardization over those personal defense weapons that require proprietary cartridges.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The modern usage of the term carbine covers much the same scope as it always had, namely lighter weapons (generally rifles) with barrels up to 20 inches (510 mm) in length. These weapons can be considered carbines, while rifles with barrels longer than 20 inches (510 mm) are generally not considered carbines unless specifically named so. Conversely, many rifles have barrels shorter than 20 inches, yet are not considered carbines. The AK series rifles has an almost universal barrel length of 16.3 inches (410 mm), well within carbine territory, yet has always been considered a rifle, perhaps because it was designed as such and not shortened from a longer weapon. Modern carbines use ammunition ranging from that used in light pistols up to powerful rifle cartridges, with the usual exception of high-velocity magnum cartridges. In the more powerful cartridges, the short barrel of a carbine has significant disadvantages in velocity, and the high residual pressure, and frequently still-burning powder and gases, when the bullet exits the barrel results in substantially greater muzzle blast. Flash suppressors are a common, partial solution to this problem, although even the best flash suppressors are hard put to deal with the excess flash from the still-burning powder leaving the short barrel (and they also add several inches to the length of the barrel, diminishing the purpose of having a short barrel in the first place).",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The typical carbine is the pistol-caliber carbine. These first appeared soon after metallic cartridges became common. These were developed as \"companions\" to the popular revolvers of the day, firing the same cartridge but allowing more velocity and accuracy than the revolver. These were carried by cowboys, lawmen, and others in the Old West. The classic combination would be a Winchester lever-action carbine and a Colt Single Action Army revolver in .44-40 or .38-40. During the 20th century, this trend continued with more modern and powerful smokeless revolver cartridges, in the form of Winchester and Marlin lever action carbines chambered in .38 Special/.357 Magnum and .44 Special/.44 Magnum.",
"title": "Pistol-caliber carbines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Modern equivalents include the Ruger Police Carbine and Ruger PC Carbine, which uses the same magazine as the Ruger pistols of the same caliber, and the (discontinued) Marlin Camp Carbine, which, in .45 ACP, used M1911 magazines. The Ruger Model 44 and Ruger Deerfield Carbine were both carbines chambered in .44 Magnum. The Beretta Cx4 Storm shares magazines with many Beretta pistols and is designed to be complementary to the Beretta Px4 Storm pistol. The Hi-Point 995TS are popular, economical and reliable alternatives to other pistol caliber carbines in the United States, and their magazines can be used in the Hi-Point C-9 pistol. Another example is the Kel-Tec SUB-2000 series chambered in either 9mm Parabellum or .40 S&W, which can be configured to accept Glock, Beretta, S&W, or SIG pistol magazines. The SUB-2000 also has the somewhat unusual (although not unique) ability to fold in half.",
"title": "Pistol-caliber carbines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The primary advantage of a carbine over a pistol using the same ammunition is controllability. The combination of firing from the shoulder, longer sight-radius, three points of contact (firing hand, support hand, and shoulder), and precision offer a significantly more user-friendly platform. Carbines like the Kel-Tec SUB-2000, Hi Point 995TS, Just Right Carbines (JR Carbine), and Beretta Cx4 Storm have the ability to mount user friendly optics, lights and lasers thanks to them having accessory rails, which make target acquisition and engagement much easier.",
"title": "Pistol-caliber carbines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The longer barrel can offer increased velocity and, with it, greater energy and effective range due to the propellant having more time to burn. However, loss in bullet velocity can happen where the propellant is utilised before the bullet reaches the muzzle, combined with the friction from the barrel on the bullet. As long guns, pistol-caliber carbines may be less legally restricted than handguns in some jurisdictions. Compared to carbines chambered in intermediate or rifle calibers, such as .223 Remington and 7.62×54mmR, pistol-caliber carbines generally experience less of an increase in external ballistic properties as a result of the propellant. The drawback is that one loses the primary benefits of a handgun, i.e. portability and concealability, resulting in a weapon almost the size of, but less accurate than, a long-gun, but not much more powerful than a pistol.",
"title": "Pistol-caliber carbines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Also widely produced are semi-automatic and typically longer-barreled derivatives of select-fire submachine guns, such as the FN PS90, HK USC, KRISS Vector, Thompson carbine, CZ Scorpion S1 Carbine, and the Uzi carbine. In order to be sold legally in many countries, the barrel must meet a minimum length (16 inches (410 mm) in the United States). So the original submachine gun is given a legal-length barrel and made into a semi-automatic firearm, transforming it into a carbine. Though less common, pistol-caliber conversions of centerfire rifles like the AR-15 are commercially available.",
"title": "Pistol-caliber carbines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Some handguns used to come from the factory with mounting lugs for a shoulder stock, notably including the \"Broomhandle\" Mauser C96, Luger P.08, and Browning Hi-Power. In the case of the first two, the pistol could come with a hollow wooden stock that doubled as a holster.",
"title": "Pistol-caliber carbines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Carbine conversion kits are commercially available for many other pistols, including M1911, and most Glocks. These can either be simple shoulder stocks fitted to a pistol or full carbine conversion kits, which are at least 26 in (660 mm) long and replace the pistol's barrel with one at least 16 in (410 mm) long for compliance with the United States law. In the United States, fitting a shoulder stock to a handgun with a barrel less than 16 inches (410 mm) long possibly turns said firearm into a short-barreled rifle, which may be in violation of the National Firearms Act: this is currently being adjudicated by the courts.",
"title": "Pistol-caliber carbines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Under the National Firearms Act of 1934, firearms with shoulder stocks or originally manufactured as a rifle and barrels less than 16 in (410 mm) in length are classified as short-barreled rifles. Short-barreled rifles are restricted similarly to short-barreled shotguns, requiring a $200 tax paid prior to manufacture or transfer – a process which can take several months. Because of this, firearms with barrels of less than 16 in (410 mm) and a shoulder stock are uncommon. A list of firearms not covered by the NFA due to their antique status may be found here or due to their Curio and Relic status may be found here; these lists includes a number of carbines with barrels less than the minimum legal length and firearms that are \"primarily collector's items and are not likely to be used as weapons and, therefore, are excluded from the provisions of the National Firearms Act.\" Machine guns, as their own class of firearm, are not subject to requirements of other class firearms.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Distinct from simple shoulder stock kits, full carbine conversion kits are not classified as short-barreled rifles. By replacing the pistol barrel with one at least 16 in (410 mm) in length and having an overall length of at least 26 in (660 mm), a carbine converted pistol may be treated as a standard rifle under Title I of the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA). However, certain \"Broomhandle\" Mauser C96, Luger, and Browning Hi-Power Curio & Relic pistols with their originally issued stock attached only may retain their pistol classification.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Carbines without a stock and not originally manufactured as a rifle are not classified as rifles or short barreled rifles. A carbine manufactured under 26 in (660 mm) in length without a forward vertical grip will be a pistol and, state law notwithstanding, can be carried concealed without creating an unregistered Any Other Weapon. A nearly identical carbine with an overall length of 26 in (660 mm) or greater is simply an unclassified firearm under Title I of the Gun Control Act of 1968, as the Any Other Weapon catch-all only applies to firearms under 26 in (660 mm) or that have been concealed. However, a modification intending to fire from the shoulder and bypass the regulation of short-barreled rifles is considered the unlawful possession and manufacture of an unregistered short-barreled rifle.",
"title": "Legal issues"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In some historical cases, the term machine carbine was the official title for submachine guns, such as the British Sten and Australian Owen guns. The semiautomatic-only version of the Sterling submachine gun was also officially called a \"carbine\". The original Sterling semi-auto would be classed a \"short barrel rifle\" under the U.S. National Firearms Act, but fully legal long-barrel versions of the Sterling have been made for the U.S. collector market.",
"title": "Legal issues"
}
] | A carbine is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and lighter weight of carbines make them easier to handle. They are typically issued to high-mobility troops such as special operations soldiers and paratroopers, as well as to mounted, artillery, logistics, or other non-infantry personnel whose roles do not require full-sized rifles, although there is a growing tendency for carbines to be issued to front-line soldiers to offset the increasing weight of other issued equipment. An example of this is the M4 carbine, the standard issue carbine of the United States Armed Forces. | 2001-10-01T18:34:38Z | 2023-12-28T22:55:39Z | [
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6,583 | Chinese cuisine | Chinese cuisine comprises cuisines originating from China, as well as from Chinese people from other parts of the world. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has profoundly influenced many other cuisines in Asia and beyond, with modifications made to cater to local palates. Chinese food staples such as rice, soy sauce, noodles, tea, chili oil, and tofu, and utensils such as chopsticks and the wok, can now be found worldwide.
The world's earliest eating establishments recognizable as restaurants in the modern sense first emerged in Song dynasty China during the 11th and 12th centuries. Street food became an integral aspect of Chinese food culture during the Tang dynasty, and the street food culture of much of Southeast Asia was established by workers imported from China during the late 19th century.
The preferences for seasoning and cooking techniques of Chinese provinces depend on differences in social class, religion, historical background, and ethnic groups. Geographic features including mountains, rivers, forests, and deserts also have a strong effect on the local available ingredients, considering that the climate of China varies from tropical in the south to subarctic in the northeast. Imperial royal and noble preference also plays a role in the change of Chinese cuisine. Because of imperial expansion and trading, ingredients and cooking techniques from other cultures have been integrated into Chinese cuisines over time.
There are numerous regional, religious, and ethnic styles of Chinese cuisine found within China and abroad. Chinese cuisine is highly diverse and most frequently categorised into provincial divisions, although these province-level classifications consist of many more styles within themselves. The most praised Four Great Traditions in Chinese cuisine are Chuan, Lu, Yue, and Huaiyang, representing cuisines of West, North, South, and East China, respectively. The modern Eight Cuisines of China are Anhui (徽菜; Huīcài), Guangdong (粵菜; Yuècài), Fujian (閩菜; Mǐncài), Hunan (湘菜; Xiāngcài), Jiangsu (蘇菜; Sūcài), Shandong (魯菜; Lǔcài), Sichuan (川菜; Chuāncài), and Zhejiang (浙菜; Zhècài) cuisines.
Color, scent and taste are the three traditional aspects used to describe Chinese food, as well as the meaning, appearance, and nutrition of the food. Cooking should be appraised with respect to the ingredients used, knife work, cooking time, and seasoning.
In comparison of meat consumption across cuisines worldwide, Chinese cuisine is particularly unique for its broadly strong and heavy emphasis on pork dishes (as opposed to beef or poultry dishes, with the exception of Chinese Islamic cuisine).
Chinese society greatly valued gastronomy, and developed an extensive study of the subject based on its traditional medical beliefs. Chinese culture initially centered around the North China Plain. The first domesticated crops seem to have been the foxtail and broomcorn varieties of millet, while rice was cultivated in the south. By 2000 BC, wheat had arrived from western Asia. These grains were typically served as warm noodle soups instead of baked into bread as in Europe. Nobles hunted various wild game and consumed mutton, pork and dog as these animals were domesticated. Grain was stored against famine and flood and meat was preserved with salt, vinegar, curing, and fermenting. The flavor of the meat was enhanced by cooking it in animal fats though this practice was mostly restricted to the wealthy.
By the time of Confucius in the late Zhou, gastronomy had become a high art. Confucius discussed the principles of dining:
The rice would never be too white, the meat would never be too finely cut... When it was not cooked right, man would not eat. When it was cooked bad, man would not eat. When the meat was not cut properly, man would not eat. When the food was not prepared with the right sauce, man would not eat. Although there are plenty of meats, they should not be cooked more than staple food. There is no limit for alcohol, before a man gets drunk.
The Lüshi chunqiu notes: "Only if one is chosen as the Son of Heaven will the tastiest delicacies be prepared [for him]."
The Zhaohun (4-3rd c. BC) gives some examples: turtle ragout, honey cakes and beer (chilled with ice).
During Shi Huangdi's Qin dynasty, the empire expanded into the south. By the time of the Han dynasty, the different regions and cuisines of China's people were linked by major canals and leading to greater complexity in the different regional cuisines. Not only is food seen as giving "qi", energy, but the food is also about maintaining yin and yang. The philosophy behind it was rooted in the I Ching and Chinese traditional medicine: food was judged for color, aroma, taste, and texture and a good meal was expected to balance the Four Natures ('hot', warm, cool, and 'cold') and the Five Tastes (pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, and salty). Salt was used as a preservative from early times, but in cooking was added in the form of soy sauce, and not at the table.
By the Later Han period (2nd century), writers frequently complained of lazy aristocrats who did nothing but sit around all day eating smoked meats and roasts.
During the Han dynasty, the Chinese developed methods of food preservation for military rations during campaigns such as drying meat into jerky and cooking, roasting, and drying grain. Chinese legends claim that the roasted, flat bread shaobing was brought back from the Xiyu (the Western Regions, a name for Central Asia) by the Han dynasty General Ban Chao, and that it was originally known as hubing (胡餅, lit. "barbarian bread"). The shaobing is believed to be descended from the hubing. Shaobing is believed to be related to the Persian nan and Central Asian nan, as well as the Middle Eastern pita. Foreign westerners made and sold sesame cakes in China during the Tang dynasty.
During the Southern and Northern dynasties non-Han people like the Xianbei of Northern Wei introduced their cuisine to northern China, and these influences continued up to the Tang dynasty, popularizing meat like mutton and dairy products like goat milk, yogurts, and Kumis among even Han people. It was during the Song dynasty that Han Chinese developed an aversion to dairy products and abandoned the dairy foods introduced earlier.
The Han Chinese rebel Wang Su who received asylum in the Xianbei Northern Wei after fleeing from Southern Qi, at first could not stand eating dairy products like goat's milk and meat like mutton and had to consume tea and fish instead, but after a few years he was able to eat yogurt and lamb, and the Xianbei Emperor asked him which of the foods of China (Zhongguo) he preferred, fish vs mutton and tea vs yogurt.
The great migration of Chinese people south during the invasions preceding and during the Song dynasty increased the relative importance of southern Chinese staples such as rice and congee. Su Dongpo has improved the red braised pork as Dongpo pork. The dietary and culinary habits also changed greatly during this period, with many ingredients such as soy sauce and Central Asian influenced foods becoming widespread and the creation of important cookbooks such as the Shanjia Qinggong (Chinese: 山家清供; pinyin: shanjia qinggong) and the Wushi Zhongkuilu (Chinese: 吳氏中饋錄; pinyin: wushi zhoungkuilu) showing the respective esoteric foods and common household cuisine of the time.
The Yuan and Qing dynasties introduced Mongolian and Manchu cuisine, warm northern dishes that popularized hot pot cooking. During the Yuan dynasty many Muslim communities emerged in China, who practiced a porkless cuisine now preserved by Hui restaurants throughout the country. Yunnan cuisine is unique in China for its cheeses like Rubing and Rushan cheese made by the Bai people, and its yogurt, the yogurt may have been due to a combination of Mongolian influence during the Yuan dynasty, the Central Asian settlement in Yunnan, and the proximity and influence of India and Tibet on Yunnan.
As part of the last leg of the Columbian Exchange, Spanish and Portuguese traders began introducing foods from the New World to China through the port cities of Canton and Macau. Mexican chili peppers became essential ingredients in Sichuan cuisine and calorically dense potatoes and corn became staple foods across the northern plains.
During the Qing dynasty, Chinese gastronomes such as Yuan Mei focused upon the primary goal of extracting the maximum flavour of each ingredient. As noted in his culinary work the Suiyuan shidan, however, the fashions of cuisine at the time were quite varied and in some cases were flamboyantly ostentatious, especially when the display served also a formal ceremonial purpose, as in the case of the Manchu Han Imperial Feast.
As the pace of life increases in modern China, fast food like fried noodles, fried rice and gaifan (dish over rice) become more and more popular.
There are a variety of styles of cooking in China, but most Chinese chefs classified eight regional cuisines according to their distinct tastes and local characteristics. A number of different styles contribute to Chinese cuisine but perhaps the best known and most influential are Cantonese cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine (specifically Huaiyang cuisine) and Sichuan cuisine. These styles are distinctive from one another due to factors such as availability of resources, climate, geography, history, cooking techniques and lifestyle. One style may favour the use of garlic and shallots over chili and spices, while another may favour preparing seafood over other meats and fowl. Jiangsu cuisine favours cooking techniques such as braising and stewing, while Sichuan cuisine employs baking. Zhejiang cuisine focuses more on serving fresh food and shares some traits in common with Japanese food. Fujian cuisine is famous for its delicious seafood and soups and the use of spices. Hunan cuisine is famous for its hot and sour taste. Anhui cuisine incorporates wild food for an unusual taste and is wilder than Fujian cuisine.
Based on the raw materials and ingredients used, the method of preparation and cultural differences, a variety of foods with different flavors and textures are prepared in different regions of the country. Many traditional regional cuisines rely on basic methods of preservation such as drying, salting, pickling and fermentation.
In addition, the "rice theory" attempts to describe cultural differences between north and south China; in the north, noodles are more consumed due to wheat being widely grown whereas in the south, rice is more preferred as it has historically been more cultivated there.
Chinese ancestors successfully planted millet, rice, and other grains about 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. Wheat, another staple, took another three or four thousand years. For the first time, grains provided people with a steady supply of food. Because of the lack of various foods, Chinese people had to adapt to new eating habits. Meat was scarce, and so people cooked with small amounts of meat and rice or noodles.
Rice is a primary staple food for people from rice farming areas in southern China. Steamed rice, usually white rice, is the most commonly eaten form. People in South China also like to use rice to make congee as breakfast. Rice is also used to produce beer, baijiu and vinegar. Glutinous rice ("sticky rice") is a variety of rice used in special dishes such as lotus leaf rice and glutinous rice balls.
In wheat-farming areas in Northern China, people largely rely on flour-based food, such as noodles, bing (bread), jiaozi (a kind of Chinese dumplings), and mantou (a type of steamed buns). Wheat likely "appeared in the lower Yellow River around 2600 Before Common Era (BCE), followed by Gansu and Xinjiang around 1900 BCE and finally occurred in the middle Yellow River and Tibet regions by 1600 BCE".
Chinese noodles come dry or fresh in a variety of sizes, shapes and textures and are often served in soups or fried as toppings. Some varieties, such as Shou Mian (寿面, literally noodles of longevity), is an avatar of long life and good health according to Chinese traditions. Noodles can be served hot or cold with different toppings, with broth, and occasionally dry (as is the case with mi-fen). Noodles are commonly made with rice flour or wheat flour, but other flours such as soybean are also used in minor groups. Some noodles names describe their methods of creation, such as the hand-pulled noodle.
Tofu is made of soybeans and is another popular food product that supplies protein. The production process of tofu varies from region to region, resulting in different kinds of tofu with a wide range of texture and taste. Other products such as soy milk, soy paste, soy oil, and fermented soy sauce are also important in Chinese cooking.
There are many kinds of soybean products, including tofu skin, smoked tofu, dried tofu, and fried tofu.
Stinky tofu is fermented tofu. Like blue cheese or durian, it has a very distinct, potent and strong smell, and is an acquired taste. Hard stinky tofu is often deep-fried and paired with soy sauce or salty spice. Soft stinky tofu is usually used as a spread on steamed buns.
Doufuru is another type of fermented tofu that has a salty taste. Doufuru can be pickled together with soy beans, red yeast rice or chili to create different color and flavor. This is more of a pickled type of tofu and is not as strongly scented as stinky tofu. Doufuru has the consistency of slightly soft blue cheese, and a taste similar to Japanese miso paste, but less salty. Doufuru can be used as a spread on steamed buns, or paired with rice congee.
Sufu is one other type of fermented tofu that goes through ageing process. The color (red, white, green) and flavor profile can determine the type of sufu it is. This kind of tofu is usually eaten alongside breakfast rice.
Soybean milk is soybean-based milk. It is a morning beverage, and it has many benefits to human health.
Apart from vegetables that can be commonly seen, some unique vegetables used in Chinese cuisine include baby corn, bok choy, snow peas, Chinese eggplant, Chinese broccoli, and straw mushrooms. Other vegetables, including bean sprouts, pea vine tips, watercress, lotus roots, chestnuts, water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots, are also used in different cuisines of China.
Because of different climate and soil conditions, cultivars of green beans, peas, and mushrooms can be found in rich variety.
A variety of dried or pickled vegetables are also processed, especially in drier or colder regions where fresh vegetables were hard to get out of season.
Seasonings such as fresh ginger root, garlic, scallion, cilantro and sesame are widely used in many regional cuisines. Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, fennel, cloves and white peppers and smart weed are also used in different regions.
To add extra flavor to the dishes, many Chinese cuisines also contain dried Chinese mushrooms, dried baby shrimp, dried tangerine peel, and dried Sichuan chillies.
When it comes to sauces, China is home to soy sauce, which is made from fermented soybeans and wheat. A number of sauces are also based on fermented soybeans, including hoisin sauce, ground bean sauce and yellow bean sauce. There are also different sauces preferred by regional cuisines, oyster sauce, fish sauce and furu (fermented tofu) are also widely used. Vinegar also has a variety with different flavors: clear rice vinegar, Chinkiang black rice vinegar, Shanxi vinegar, Henghe vinegar etc.
Generally, seasonal fruits serve as the most common form of dessert consumed after dinner.
Dim sum (点心), originally means a small portion of food, can refer to dessert, or pastries. Later to avoid disambiguation, tian dian (甜点) and gao dian (糕点) are used to describe desserts and pastries.
Traditionally, Chinese desserts are sweet foods and dishes that are served with tea, usually during the meal, or at the end of meals in Chinese cuisine.
Besides being served as dim sum along with tea, pastries are used for celebration of traditional festivals. The most famous one is moon cake, used to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.
A wide variety of Chinese desserts are available, mainly including steamed and boiled sweet snacks. Bing is an umbrella term for all breads in Chinese, also including pastries and sweets. These are baked wheat-flour-based confections, with different stuffings including red bean paste, jujube, and a variety of others. Su (酥) is another kind of pastry made with more amount of oil, making the confection more friable. Chinese candies and sweets, called táng (糖) are usually made with cane sugar, malt sugar, honey, nuts, and fruit. Gao or Guo are rice-based snacks that are typically steamed and may be made from glutinous or normal rice.
Another cold dessert is called baobing, which is shaved ice with sweet syrup. Chinese jellies are known collectively in the language as ices. Many jelly desserts are traditionally set with agar and are flavoured with fruits, known as guodong (果冻), though gelatine based jellies are also common in contemporary desserts.
Chinese dessert soups are typically sweet and served hot.
European pastries are also seen in China, like mille-feuille, crème brûlée, and cheesecake, but they are generally not as popular because the Chinese preference of dessert is mildly sweet and less oily.
Many types of street foods, which vary from region to region, can be eaten as snacks or light dinner. Prawn crackers are an often-consumed snack in Southeast China.
Chinese in earlier dynasties evidently drank milk and ate dairy products, although not necessarily from cows, but perhaps kumis (fermented mare's milk) or goat's milk.
Historically, many Chinese chefs tried not to use milk, because of the high rate of lactose intolerance among the Chinese population. However, today, dairy products are increasingly used in Chinese cuisine, such as the "double skin milk" dessert in Guangdong Province, the Rubing (milk cake) cheese in Yunnan, and yoghurt in Qinghai and Xinjiang. China has a wide variety of dairy desserts that are very popular.
Cold dishes are usually served before the main meal. Besides salad and pickles as appetizers, they can range from jelly, beancurd, noodle salad, cooked meat and sausages, to jellyfish or cold soups.
Chinese sausages vary from region to region. The most common sausage is made of pork and pork fat. The flavor is generally salty-sweet in Southern China. In other parts of China, sausages are salted to be preserved. Chinese sausage is prepared in many different ways, including oven-roasting, stir-frying, and steaming.
In some part of South China, soups are served between the cold dishes and the main dishes. In other parts of China, soups are served between the main dish and staple foods, before desserts or fruit salad. There are many traditional Chinese soups, such as wonton soup, herbal chicken soup, hot and sour soup, winter melon soup, and so on.
Tea plays an important role in Chinese dining culture. In China, there are two main types of tea, one is made from dried tea leaves, the other one is made by extracts from tea leaves. Baijiu and huangjiu as strong alcoholic beverages are preferred by many people as well. Wine is not so popular as other drinks in China that are consumed whilst dining, although they are usually available in the menu.
As well as with dim sum, many Chinese drink their tea with snacks such as nuts, plums, dried fruit (in particular jujube), small sweets, melon seeds, and waxberry. China was the earliest country to cultivate and drink tea, which is enjoyed by people from all social classes. Tea processing began after the Qin and Han dynasties.
The different types of Chinese tea include black, white, green, yellow, oolong, and dark tea. Chinese tea is often classified into several different categories according to the species of plant from which it is sourced, the region in which it is grown, and the method of production used. Some of these types are green tea, oolong tea, black tea, scented tea, white tea, and compressed tea. There are four major tea plantation regions: Jiangbei, Jiangnan, Huanan and the southwestern region. Well known types of green tea include Longjing, Huangshan, Mao Feng, Bilochun, Putuofeng Cha, and Liu'an Guapian. China is the world's largest exporter of green tea.
One of the most ubiquitous accessories in modern China, after a wallet or purse and an umbrella, is a double-walled insulated glass thermos with tea leaves in the top behind a strainer.
The importance of baijiu (lit. "white liquor") in China (99.5% of its alcoholic market) makes it the most-consumed alcoholic spirit in the world. It dates back to the introduction of distilling during the Song dynasty; can be made from wheat, corn, or rice; and is usually around 120 proof (60% ABV). The most ubiquitous brand is the cheap Er guo tou, but Mao Tai is the premium baijiu. Other popular brands include Kang, Lu Zhou Te Qu, and Wu Liang Ye.
Huangjiu (lit. "yellow liquor") is not distilled and is a strong rice wine (10–15% ABV). Popular brands include Shaoxing Lao Jiu, Shaoxing Hua Diao, and Te Jia Fan.
While fermented grain beverages have been brewed in China for over 9,000 years, it has been long overshadowed by stronger alcohol like Baijiu and Huangjiu.
Chinese herb tea, also known as medicinal herbal tea, is a kind of tea made from Chinese medicinal herbs.
Soy milk, almond milk, walnut milk and coconut milk are also drunk during the meal in different regions. In some parts of China, hawthorn and jujube juice are preferred. A small shot of fruit vinegar is served as an appetizer in Shanxi.
Where there are historical immigrant Chinese populations, the style of food has evolved and been adapted to local tastes and ingredients, and modified by the local cuisine, to greater or lesser extents. This has resulted in a deep Chinese influence on other national cuisines such as Cambodian cuisine, Filipino cuisine, Singaporean cuisine, Thai cuisine and Vietnamese cuisine. There are also a large number of forms of fusion cuisine, often popular in the country in question. Some, such as ramen (Japanese Chinese cuisine) have become popular internationally.
Deep-fried meat combined with sweet and sour sauce as a cooking style receives an enormous preference outside of China. Therefore, many similar international Chinese cuisines are invented based on sweet and sour sauce, including Sweet and sour chicken (Europe and North America), Manchurian chicken (India) or tangsuyuk (South Korea). The Hawaiian pizza was inspired by Chinese sweet and sour flavors.
Apart from the host country, the dishes developed in overseas Chinese cuisines are heavily dependent on the cuisines derived from the origin of the Chinese immigrants. In Korean Chinese cuisine, the dishes derive primarily from Shandong cuisine while Filipino Chinese cuisine is strongly influenced by Fujian cuisine. American Chinese cuisine has distinctive dishes (such as chop suey) originally based on Cantonese cuisine, which are more popular among non-Chinese Americans than with Chinese Americans themselves.
According to the report released by China's largest on-demand service platform in 2018, there are over 600,000 Chinese restaurants overseas. The report also pointed out that hotpot is the most popular food in the foreign market. Sichuan cuisine and some Chinese snacks and fast food followed in second and third place, respectively.
Youths should not begin eating before their elders do. When eating from a bowl, one should not hold it with its bottom part, because it resembles the act of begging. Chopsticks are the main eating utensils for Chinese food, which can be used to cut and pick up food. When someone is taking a break from eating at the table, they should not put the chopstick into the rice vertically, because it resembles the Chinese traditional funeral tribute, which involves putting chopsticks inside a bowl of rice vertically. It is considered inappropriate to use knives on the dining table. Chopsticks should not be waved around in the air or played with. Food should first be taken from the plate in front. It is considered impolite to stare at a plate. Watching TV, using mobile phones or doing other activities while eating is considered in poor taste. If an older person puts food in a younger person's bowl, the younger person should thank them.
Food plays various roles in social and cultural life. In Chinese folk religion, ancestor veneration is conducted by offering food to ancestors and Chinese festivals involve the consumption and preparation of specific foods which have symbolic meanings attached to them. Specific religions in China have their own cuisines such as the Taoist diet, Buddhist cuisine and Chinese Islamic Cuisine.
The Kaifeng Jews in Henan province once had their own Chinese Jewish cuisine but the community has largely died out in the modern era and not much is known about the specifics of their cuisine but they did influence foods eaten in their region and some of their dishes remain. Chinese dishes with purported Kaifeng Jewish roots include Kaifeng xiao long bao, Mayuxing bucket-shaped chicken, Chrysanthemum hot pot, and Four Treasures.
Food also plays a role in daily life. The formality of the meal setting can signify what kind of relationship people have with one another, and the type of food can indicate ones' social status and their country of origin. In a formal setting, up to sixteen of any combination of hot and cold dishes would be served to respect the guests. On the other hand, in a casual setting, people would eat inexpensive meals such as at food stalls or homemade food. The typical disparity in food in the Chinese society between the wealthy and everyone below that group lies in the rarity and cost of the food or ingredient, such as shark fins and bear paws.
Depending on whether one chooses to have rice or a meal that is made of wheat flour such as bread or noodles as their main source of food, people within a similar culture or of a different background can make an assumption of the other's country of origin from the south or north of China. Different foods have different symbolic meanings. Mooncakes and dumplings are symbolic of the Mid-autumn festival and the Spring Festival, respectively. Pear symbolizes bad luck due to its similarity in pronunciation of 'away' in the native language and noodle means living a long life for its length.
In Chinese philosophy, food frequently conveys a message. A Chinese philosophy I Ching says, "Gentlemen use eating as a way to attain happiness. They should be aware of what they say, and refrain from eating too much."
Chinese culture has guidelines in how and when food are eaten. Chinese people typically eat three meals a day. Breakfast is served around 6–9am, lunch is served around 12–2pm, and dinner is served around 6–9pm. Within the Chinese culture, families do follow different traditions. In some families, the elderly members and youngsters get their meal first, then the mother and father, and then the children and teenagers. Other families have the male and female eat separately at different seating area. Whatever tradition the family decide to follow, it is intended to show respect to members of the family. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Chinese cuisine comprises cuisines originating from China, as well as from Chinese people from other parts of the world. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has profoundly influenced many other cuisines in Asia and beyond, with modifications made to cater to local palates. Chinese food staples such as rice, soy sauce, noodles, tea, chili oil, and tofu, and utensils such as chopsticks and the wok, can now be found worldwide.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The world's earliest eating establishments recognizable as restaurants in the modern sense first emerged in Song dynasty China during the 11th and 12th centuries. Street food became an integral aspect of Chinese food culture during the Tang dynasty, and the street food culture of much of Southeast Asia was established by workers imported from China during the late 19th century.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The preferences for seasoning and cooking techniques of Chinese provinces depend on differences in social class, religion, historical background, and ethnic groups. Geographic features including mountains, rivers, forests, and deserts also have a strong effect on the local available ingredients, considering that the climate of China varies from tropical in the south to subarctic in the northeast. Imperial royal and noble preference also plays a role in the change of Chinese cuisine. Because of imperial expansion and trading, ingredients and cooking techniques from other cultures have been integrated into Chinese cuisines over time.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "There are numerous regional, religious, and ethnic styles of Chinese cuisine found within China and abroad. Chinese cuisine is highly diverse and most frequently categorised into provincial divisions, although these province-level classifications consist of many more styles within themselves. The most praised Four Great Traditions in Chinese cuisine are Chuan, Lu, Yue, and Huaiyang, representing cuisines of West, North, South, and East China, respectively. The modern Eight Cuisines of China are Anhui (徽菜; Huīcài), Guangdong (粵菜; Yuècài), Fujian (閩菜; Mǐncài), Hunan (湘菜; Xiāngcài), Jiangsu (蘇菜; Sūcài), Shandong (魯菜; Lǔcài), Sichuan (川菜; Chuāncài), and Zhejiang (浙菜; Zhècài) cuisines.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Color, scent and taste are the three traditional aspects used to describe Chinese food, as well as the meaning, appearance, and nutrition of the food. Cooking should be appraised with respect to the ingredients used, knife work, cooking time, and seasoning.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In comparison of meat consumption across cuisines worldwide, Chinese cuisine is particularly unique for its broadly strong and heavy emphasis on pork dishes (as opposed to beef or poultry dishes, with the exception of Chinese Islamic cuisine).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Chinese society greatly valued gastronomy, and developed an extensive study of the subject based on its traditional medical beliefs. Chinese culture initially centered around the North China Plain. The first domesticated crops seem to have been the foxtail and broomcorn varieties of millet, while rice was cultivated in the south. By 2000 BC, wheat had arrived from western Asia. These grains were typically served as warm noodle soups instead of baked into bread as in Europe. Nobles hunted various wild game and consumed mutton, pork and dog as these animals were domesticated. Grain was stored against famine and flood and meat was preserved with salt, vinegar, curing, and fermenting. The flavor of the meat was enhanced by cooking it in animal fats though this practice was mostly restricted to the wealthy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "By the time of Confucius in the late Zhou, gastronomy had become a high art. Confucius discussed the principles of dining:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The rice would never be too white, the meat would never be too finely cut... When it was not cooked right, man would not eat. When it was cooked bad, man would not eat. When the meat was not cut properly, man would not eat. When the food was not prepared with the right sauce, man would not eat. Although there are plenty of meats, they should not be cooked more than staple food. There is no limit for alcohol, before a man gets drunk.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Lüshi chunqiu notes: \"Only if one is chosen as the Son of Heaven will the tastiest delicacies be prepared [for him].\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Zhaohun (4-3rd c. BC) gives some examples: turtle ragout, honey cakes and beer (chilled with ice).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "During Shi Huangdi's Qin dynasty, the empire expanded into the south. By the time of the Han dynasty, the different regions and cuisines of China's people were linked by major canals and leading to greater complexity in the different regional cuisines. Not only is food seen as giving \"qi\", energy, but the food is also about maintaining yin and yang. The philosophy behind it was rooted in the I Ching and Chinese traditional medicine: food was judged for color, aroma, taste, and texture and a good meal was expected to balance the Four Natures ('hot', warm, cool, and 'cold') and the Five Tastes (pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, and salty). Salt was used as a preservative from early times, but in cooking was added in the form of soy sauce, and not at the table.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "By the Later Han period (2nd century), writers frequently complained of lazy aristocrats who did nothing but sit around all day eating smoked meats and roasts.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "During the Han dynasty, the Chinese developed methods of food preservation for military rations during campaigns such as drying meat into jerky and cooking, roasting, and drying grain. Chinese legends claim that the roasted, flat bread shaobing was brought back from the Xiyu (the Western Regions, a name for Central Asia) by the Han dynasty General Ban Chao, and that it was originally known as hubing (胡餅, lit. \"barbarian bread\"). The shaobing is believed to be descended from the hubing. Shaobing is believed to be related to the Persian nan and Central Asian nan, as well as the Middle Eastern pita. Foreign westerners made and sold sesame cakes in China during the Tang dynasty.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "During the Southern and Northern dynasties non-Han people like the Xianbei of Northern Wei introduced their cuisine to northern China, and these influences continued up to the Tang dynasty, popularizing meat like mutton and dairy products like goat milk, yogurts, and Kumis among even Han people. It was during the Song dynasty that Han Chinese developed an aversion to dairy products and abandoned the dairy foods introduced earlier.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Han Chinese rebel Wang Su who received asylum in the Xianbei Northern Wei after fleeing from Southern Qi, at first could not stand eating dairy products like goat's milk and meat like mutton and had to consume tea and fish instead, but after a few years he was able to eat yogurt and lamb, and the Xianbei Emperor asked him which of the foods of China (Zhongguo) he preferred, fish vs mutton and tea vs yogurt.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The great migration of Chinese people south during the invasions preceding and during the Song dynasty increased the relative importance of southern Chinese staples such as rice and congee. Su Dongpo has improved the red braised pork as Dongpo pork. The dietary and culinary habits also changed greatly during this period, with many ingredients such as soy sauce and Central Asian influenced foods becoming widespread and the creation of important cookbooks such as the Shanjia Qinggong (Chinese: 山家清供; pinyin: shanjia qinggong) and the Wushi Zhongkuilu (Chinese: 吳氏中饋錄; pinyin: wushi zhoungkuilu) showing the respective esoteric foods and common household cuisine of the time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Yuan and Qing dynasties introduced Mongolian and Manchu cuisine, warm northern dishes that popularized hot pot cooking. During the Yuan dynasty many Muslim communities emerged in China, who practiced a porkless cuisine now preserved by Hui restaurants throughout the country. Yunnan cuisine is unique in China for its cheeses like Rubing and Rushan cheese made by the Bai people, and its yogurt, the yogurt may have been due to a combination of Mongolian influence during the Yuan dynasty, the Central Asian settlement in Yunnan, and the proximity and influence of India and Tibet on Yunnan.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "As part of the last leg of the Columbian Exchange, Spanish and Portuguese traders began introducing foods from the New World to China through the port cities of Canton and Macau. Mexican chili peppers became essential ingredients in Sichuan cuisine and calorically dense potatoes and corn became staple foods across the northern plains.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "During the Qing dynasty, Chinese gastronomes such as Yuan Mei focused upon the primary goal of extracting the maximum flavour of each ingredient. As noted in his culinary work the Suiyuan shidan, however, the fashions of cuisine at the time were quite varied and in some cases were flamboyantly ostentatious, especially when the display served also a formal ceremonial purpose, as in the case of the Manchu Han Imperial Feast.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "As the pace of life increases in modern China, fast food like fried noodles, fried rice and gaifan (dish over rice) become more and more popular.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "There are a variety of styles of cooking in China, but most Chinese chefs classified eight regional cuisines according to their distinct tastes and local characteristics. A number of different styles contribute to Chinese cuisine but perhaps the best known and most influential are Cantonese cuisine, Shandong cuisine, Jiangsu cuisine (specifically Huaiyang cuisine) and Sichuan cuisine. These styles are distinctive from one another due to factors such as availability of resources, climate, geography, history, cooking techniques and lifestyle. One style may favour the use of garlic and shallots over chili and spices, while another may favour preparing seafood over other meats and fowl. Jiangsu cuisine favours cooking techniques such as braising and stewing, while Sichuan cuisine employs baking. Zhejiang cuisine focuses more on serving fresh food and shares some traits in common with Japanese food. Fujian cuisine is famous for its delicious seafood and soups and the use of spices. Hunan cuisine is famous for its hot and sour taste. Anhui cuisine incorporates wild food for an unusual taste and is wilder than Fujian cuisine.",
"title": "Regional cuisines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Based on the raw materials and ingredients used, the method of preparation and cultural differences, a variety of foods with different flavors and textures are prepared in different regions of the country. Many traditional regional cuisines rely on basic methods of preservation such as drying, salting, pickling and fermentation.",
"title": "Regional cuisines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In addition, the \"rice theory\" attempts to describe cultural differences between north and south China; in the north, noodles are more consumed due to wheat being widely grown whereas in the south, rice is more preferred as it has historically been more cultivated there.",
"title": "Regional cuisines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Chinese ancestors successfully planted millet, rice, and other grains about 8,000 to 9,000 years ago. Wheat, another staple, took another three or four thousand years. For the first time, grains provided people with a steady supply of food. Because of the lack of various foods, Chinese people had to adapt to new eating habits. Meat was scarce, and so people cooked with small amounts of meat and rice or noodles.",
"title": "Staple foods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Rice is a primary staple food for people from rice farming areas in southern China. Steamed rice, usually white rice, is the most commonly eaten form. People in South China also like to use rice to make congee as breakfast. Rice is also used to produce beer, baijiu and vinegar. Glutinous rice (\"sticky rice\") is a variety of rice used in special dishes such as lotus leaf rice and glutinous rice balls.",
"title": "Staple foods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In wheat-farming areas in Northern China, people largely rely on flour-based food, such as noodles, bing (bread), jiaozi (a kind of Chinese dumplings), and mantou (a type of steamed buns). Wheat likely \"appeared in the lower Yellow River around 2600 Before Common Era (BCE), followed by Gansu and Xinjiang around 1900 BCE and finally occurred in the middle Yellow River and Tibet regions by 1600 BCE\".",
"title": "Staple foods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Chinese noodles come dry or fresh in a variety of sizes, shapes and textures and are often served in soups or fried as toppings. Some varieties, such as Shou Mian (寿面, literally noodles of longevity), is an avatar of long life and good health according to Chinese traditions. Noodles can be served hot or cold with different toppings, with broth, and occasionally dry (as is the case with mi-fen). Noodles are commonly made with rice flour or wheat flour, but other flours such as soybean are also used in minor groups. Some noodles names describe their methods of creation, such as the hand-pulled noodle.",
"title": "Staple foods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Tofu is made of soybeans and is another popular food product that supplies protein. The production process of tofu varies from region to region, resulting in different kinds of tofu with a wide range of texture and taste. Other products such as soy milk, soy paste, soy oil, and fermented soy sauce are also important in Chinese cooking.",
"title": "Soybean products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "There are many kinds of soybean products, including tofu skin, smoked tofu, dried tofu, and fried tofu.",
"title": "Soybean products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Stinky tofu is fermented tofu. Like blue cheese or durian, it has a very distinct, potent and strong smell, and is an acquired taste. Hard stinky tofu is often deep-fried and paired with soy sauce or salty spice. Soft stinky tofu is usually used as a spread on steamed buns.",
"title": "Soybean products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Doufuru is another type of fermented tofu that has a salty taste. Doufuru can be pickled together with soy beans, red yeast rice or chili to create different color and flavor. This is more of a pickled type of tofu and is not as strongly scented as stinky tofu. Doufuru has the consistency of slightly soft blue cheese, and a taste similar to Japanese miso paste, but less salty. Doufuru can be used as a spread on steamed buns, or paired with rice congee.",
"title": "Soybean products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Sufu is one other type of fermented tofu that goes through ageing process. The color (red, white, green) and flavor profile can determine the type of sufu it is. This kind of tofu is usually eaten alongside breakfast rice.",
"title": "Soybean products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Soybean milk is soybean-based milk. It is a morning beverage, and it has many benefits to human health.",
"title": "Soybean products"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Apart from vegetables that can be commonly seen, some unique vegetables used in Chinese cuisine include baby corn, bok choy, snow peas, Chinese eggplant, Chinese broccoli, and straw mushrooms. Other vegetables, including bean sprouts, pea vine tips, watercress, lotus roots, chestnuts, water chestnuts, and bamboo shoots, are also used in different cuisines of China.",
"title": "Vegetables"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Because of different climate and soil conditions, cultivars of green beans, peas, and mushrooms can be found in rich variety.",
"title": "Vegetables"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "A variety of dried or pickled vegetables are also processed, especially in drier or colder regions where fresh vegetables were hard to get out of season.",
"title": "Vegetables"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Seasonings such as fresh ginger root, garlic, scallion, cilantro and sesame are widely used in many regional cuisines. Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, fennel, cloves and white peppers and smart weed are also used in different regions.",
"title": "Herbs and seasonings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "To add extra flavor to the dishes, many Chinese cuisines also contain dried Chinese mushrooms, dried baby shrimp, dried tangerine peel, and dried Sichuan chillies.",
"title": "Herbs and seasonings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "When it comes to sauces, China is home to soy sauce, which is made from fermented soybeans and wheat. A number of sauces are also based on fermented soybeans, including hoisin sauce, ground bean sauce and yellow bean sauce. There are also different sauces preferred by regional cuisines, oyster sauce, fish sauce and furu (fermented tofu) are also widely used. Vinegar also has a variety with different flavors: clear rice vinegar, Chinkiang black rice vinegar, Shanxi vinegar, Henghe vinegar etc.",
"title": "Herbs and seasonings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Generally, seasonal fruits serve as the most common form of dessert consumed after dinner.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Dim sum (点心), originally means a small portion of food, can refer to dessert, or pastries. Later to avoid disambiguation, tian dian (甜点) and gao dian (糕点) are used to describe desserts and pastries.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Traditionally, Chinese desserts are sweet foods and dishes that are served with tea, usually during the meal, or at the end of meals in Chinese cuisine.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Besides being served as dim sum along with tea, pastries are used for celebration of traditional festivals. The most famous one is moon cake, used to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "A wide variety of Chinese desserts are available, mainly including steamed and boiled sweet snacks. Bing is an umbrella term for all breads in Chinese, also including pastries and sweets. These are baked wheat-flour-based confections, with different stuffings including red bean paste, jujube, and a variety of others. Su (酥) is another kind of pastry made with more amount of oil, making the confection more friable. Chinese candies and sweets, called táng (糖) are usually made with cane sugar, malt sugar, honey, nuts, and fruit. Gao or Guo are rice-based snacks that are typically steamed and may be made from glutinous or normal rice.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Another cold dessert is called baobing, which is shaved ice with sweet syrup. Chinese jellies are known collectively in the language as ices. Many jelly desserts are traditionally set with agar and are flavoured with fruits, known as guodong (果冻), though gelatine based jellies are also common in contemporary desserts.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Chinese dessert soups are typically sweet and served hot.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "European pastries are also seen in China, like mille-feuille, crème brûlée, and cheesecake, but they are generally not as popular because the Chinese preference of dessert is mildly sweet and less oily.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Many types of street foods, which vary from region to region, can be eaten as snacks or light dinner. Prawn crackers are an often-consumed snack in Southeast China.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Chinese in earlier dynasties evidently drank milk and ate dairy products, although not necessarily from cows, but perhaps kumis (fermented mare's milk) or goat's milk.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Historically, many Chinese chefs tried not to use milk, because of the high rate of lactose intolerance among the Chinese population. However, today, dairy products are increasingly used in Chinese cuisine, such as the \"double skin milk\" dessert in Guangdong Province, the Rubing (milk cake) cheese in Yunnan, and yoghurt in Qinghai and Xinjiang. China has a wide variety of dairy desserts that are very popular.",
"title": "Desserts and snacks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Cold dishes are usually served before the main meal. Besides salad and pickles as appetizers, they can range from jelly, beancurd, noodle salad, cooked meat and sausages, to jellyfish or cold soups.",
"title": "Cold dishes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Chinese sausages vary from region to region. The most common sausage is made of pork and pork fat. The flavor is generally salty-sweet in Southern China. In other parts of China, sausages are salted to be preserved. Chinese sausage is prepared in many different ways, including oven-roasting, stir-frying, and steaming.",
"title": "Cold dishes"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In some part of South China, soups are served between the cold dishes and the main dishes. In other parts of China, soups are served between the main dish and staple foods, before desserts or fruit salad. There are many traditional Chinese soups, such as wonton soup, herbal chicken soup, hot and sour soup, winter melon soup, and so on.",
"title": "Soups"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Tea plays an important role in Chinese dining culture. In China, there are two main types of tea, one is made from dried tea leaves, the other one is made by extracts from tea leaves. Baijiu and huangjiu as strong alcoholic beverages are preferred by many people as well. Wine is not so popular as other drinks in China that are consumed whilst dining, although they are usually available in the menu.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "As well as with dim sum, many Chinese drink their tea with snacks such as nuts, plums, dried fruit (in particular jujube), small sweets, melon seeds, and waxberry. China was the earliest country to cultivate and drink tea, which is enjoyed by people from all social classes. Tea processing began after the Qin and Han dynasties.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The different types of Chinese tea include black, white, green, yellow, oolong, and dark tea. Chinese tea is often classified into several different categories according to the species of plant from which it is sourced, the region in which it is grown, and the method of production used. Some of these types are green tea, oolong tea, black tea, scented tea, white tea, and compressed tea. There are four major tea plantation regions: Jiangbei, Jiangnan, Huanan and the southwestern region. Well known types of green tea include Longjing, Huangshan, Mao Feng, Bilochun, Putuofeng Cha, and Liu'an Guapian. China is the world's largest exporter of green tea.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "One of the most ubiquitous accessories in modern China, after a wallet or purse and an umbrella, is a double-walled insulated glass thermos with tea leaves in the top behind a strainer.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The importance of baijiu (lit. \"white liquor\") in China (99.5% of its alcoholic market) makes it the most-consumed alcoholic spirit in the world. It dates back to the introduction of distilling during the Song dynasty; can be made from wheat, corn, or rice; and is usually around 120 proof (60% ABV). The most ubiquitous brand is the cheap Er guo tou, but Mao Tai is the premium baijiu. Other popular brands include Kang, Lu Zhou Te Qu, and Wu Liang Ye.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Huangjiu (lit. \"yellow liquor\") is not distilled and is a strong rice wine (10–15% ABV). Popular brands include Shaoxing Lao Jiu, Shaoxing Hua Diao, and Te Jia Fan.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "While fermented grain beverages have been brewed in China for over 9,000 years, it has been long overshadowed by stronger alcohol like Baijiu and Huangjiu.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Chinese herb tea, also known as medicinal herbal tea, is a kind of tea made from Chinese medicinal herbs.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Soy milk, almond milk, walnut milk and coconut milk are also drunk during the meal in different regions. In some parts of China, hawthorn and jujube juice are preferred. A small shot of fruit vinegar is served as an appetizer in Shanxi.",
"title": "Drinks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Where there are historical immigrant Chinese populations, the style of food has evolved and been adapted to local tastes and ingredients, and modified by the local cuisine, to greater or lesser extents. This has resulted in a deep Chinese influence on other national cuisines such as Cambodian cuisine, Filipino cuisine, Singaporean cuisine, Thai cuisine and Vietnamese cuisine. There are also a large number of forms of fusion cuisine, often popular in the country in question. Some, such as ramen (Japanese Chinese cuisine) have become popular internationally.",
"title": "Outside China"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Deep-fried meat combined with sweet and sour sauce as a cooking style receives an enormous preference outside of China. Therefore, many similar international Chinese cuisines are invented based on sweet and sour sauce, including Sweet and sour chicken (Europe and North America), Manchurian chicken (India) or tangsuyuk (South Korea). The Hawaiian pizza was inspired by Chinese sweet and sour flavors.",
"title": "Outside China"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Apart from the host country, the dishes developed in overseas Chinese cuisines are heavily dependent on the cuisines derived from the origin of the Chinese immigrants. In Korean Chinese cuisine, the dishes derive primarily from Shandong cuisine while Filipino Chinese cuisine is strongly influenced by Fujian cuisine. American Chinese cuisine has distinctive dishes (such as chop suey) originally based on Cantonese cuisine, which are more popular among non-Chinese Americans than with Chinese Americans themselves.",
"title": "Outside China"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "According to the report released by China's largest on-demand service platform in 2018, there are over 600,000 Chinese restaurants overseas. The report also pointed out that hotpot is the most popular food in the foreign market. Sichuan cuisine and some Chinese snacks and fast food followed in second and third place, respectively.",
"title": "Outside China"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Youths should not begin eating before their elders do. When eating from a bowl, one should not hold it with its bottom part, because it resembles the act of begging. Chopsticks are the main eating utensils for Chinese food, which can be used to cut and pick up food. When someone is taking a break from eating at the table, they should not put the chopstick into the rice vertically, because it resembles the Chinese traditional funeral tribute, which involves putting chopsticks inside a bowl of rice vertically. It is considered inappropriate to use knives on the dining table. Chopsticks should not be waved around in the air or played with. Food should first be taken from the plate in front. It is considered impolite to stare at a plate. Watching TV, using mobile phones or doing other activities while eating is considered in poor taste. If an older person puts food in a younger person's bowl, the younger person should thank them.",
"title": "Dining etiquette"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Food plays various roles in social and cultural life. In Chinese folk religion, ancestor veneration is conducted by offering food to ancestors and Chinese festivals involve the consumption and preparation of specific foods which have symbolic meanings attached to them. Specific religions in China have their own cuisines such as the Taoist diet, Buddhist cuisine and Chinese Islamic Cuisine.",
"title": "Relation to Chinese philosophy and religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "The Kaifeng Jews in Henan province once had their own Chinese Jewish cuisine but the community has largely died out in the modern era and not much is known about the specifics of their cuisine but they did influence foods eaten in their region and some of their dishes remain. Chinese dishes with purported Kaifeng Jewish roots include Kaifeng xiao long bao, Mayuxing bucket-shaped chicken, Chrysanthemum hot pot, and Four Treasures.",
"title": "Relation to Chinese philosophy and religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "Food also plays a role in daily life. The formality of the meal setting can signify what kind of relationship people have with one another, and the type of food can indicate ones' social status and their country of origin. In a formal setting, up to sixteen of any combination of hot and cold dishes would be served to respect the guests. On the other hand, in a casual setting, people would eat inexpensive meals such as at food stalls or homemade food. The typical disparity in food in the Chinese society between the wealthy and everyone below that group lies in the rarity and cost of the food or ingredient, such as shark fins and bear paws.",
"title": "Relation to Chinese philosophy and religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Depending on whether one chooses to have rice or a meal that is made of wheat flour such as bread or noodles as their main source of food, people within a similar culture or of a different background can make an assumption of the other's country of origin from the south or north of China. Different foods have different symbolic meanings. Mooncakes and dumplings are symbolic of the Mid-autumn festival and the Spring Festival, respectively. Pear symbolizes bad luck due to its similarity in pronunciation of 'away' in the native language and noodle means living a long life for its length.",
"title": "Relation to Chinese philosophy and religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In Chinese philosophy, food frequently conveys a message. A Chinese philosophy I Ching says, \"Gentlemen use eating as a way to attain happiness. They should be aware of what they say, and refrain from eating too much.\"",
"title": "Relation to Chinese philosophy and religion"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Chinese culture has guidelines in how and when food are eaten. Chinese people typically eat three meals a day. Breakfast is served around 6–9am, lunch is served around 12–2pm, and dinner is served around 6–9pm. Within the Chinese culture, families do follow different traditions. In some families, the elderly members and youngsters get their meal first, then the mother and father, and then the children and teenagers. Other families have the male and female eat separately at different seating area. Whatever tradition the family decide to follow, it is intended to show respect to members of the family.",
"title": "Relation to Chinese philosophy and religion"
}
] | Chinese cuisine comprises cuisines originating from China, as well as from Chinese people from other parts of the world. Because of the Chinese diaspora and historical power of the country, Chinese cuisine has profoundly influenced many other cuisines in Asia and beyond, with modifications made to cater to local palates. Chinese food staples such as rice, soy sauce, noodles, tea, chili oil, and tofu, and utensils such as chopsticks and the wok, can now be found worldwide. The world's earliest eating establishments recognizable as restaurants in the modern sense first emerged in Song dynasty China during the 11th and 12th centuries. Street food became an integral aspect of Chinese food culture during the Tang dynasty, and the street food culture of much of Southeast Asia was established by workers imported from China during the late 19th century. The preferences for seasoning and cooking techniques of Chinese provinces depend on differences in social class, religion, historical background, and ethnic groups. Geographic features including mountains, rivers, forests, and deserts also have a strong effect on the local available ingredients, considering that the climate of China varies from tropical in the south to subarctic in the northeast. Imperial royal and noble preference also plays a role in the change of Chinese cuisine. Because of imperial expansion and trading, ingredients and cooking techniques from other cultures have been integrated into Chinese cuisines over time. There are numerous regional, religious, and ethnic styles of Chinese cuisine found within China and abroad. Chinese cuisine is highly diverse and most frequently categorised into provincial divisions, although these province-level classifications consist of many more styles within themselves. The most praised Four Great Traditions in Chinese cuisine are Chuan, Lu, Yue, and Huaiyang, representing cuisines of West, North, South, and East China, respectively. The modern Eight Cuisines of China are Anhui, Guangdong, Fujian, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shandong, Sichuan, and Zhejiang cuisines. Color, scent and taste are the three traditional aspects used to describe Chinese food, as well as the meaning, appearance, and nutrition of the food. Cooking should be appraised with respect to the ingredients used, knife work, cooking time, and seasoning. In comparison of meat consumption across cuisines worldwide, Chinese cuisine is particularly unique for its broadly strong and heavy emphasis on pork dishes. | 2001-09-25T22:14:09Z | 2023-12-25T16:54:54Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisine |
6,585 | Constantin Brâncuși | Constantin Brâncuși (Romanian: [konstanˈtin brɨŋˈkuʃʲ] ; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child, he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Brâncuși sought inspiration in non-European cultures as a source of primitive exoticism, as did Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, André Derain, and others. However, other influences emerge from Romanian folk art traceable through Byzantine and Dionysian traditions.
Brâncuși grew up in the village of Hobița, Gorj, near Târgu Jiu, close to Romania's Carpathian Mountains, an area known for its rich tradition of folk crafts, particularly woodcarving. Geometric patterns of the region are seen in his later works such as the Endless Column created in 1918.
His parents Nicolae and Maria Brâncuși were poor peasants who earned a meagre living through back-breaking labor; from the age of seven, Constantin herded the family's flock of sheep. He showed talent for carving objects out of wood and often ran away from home to escape the bullying of his father and older brothers.
At the age of nine, Brâncuși left the village to work in the nearest large town. At the age of eleven, he went into the service of a grocer in Slatina; and then he became a domestic in a public house in Craiova, where he remained for several years. When he was 18, Brâncuși created a violin by hand with materials he found around his workplace. Impressed by Brâncuși's talent for carving, an industrialist enrolled him in the Craiova School of Arts and Crafts (școala de arte și meserii), where he pursued his love for woodworking, graduating with honors in 1898.
He then enrolled in the Bucharest School of Fine Arts, where he received academic training in sculpture. He worked hard and quickly distinguished himself as talented. One of his earliest surviving works, under the guidance of his anatomy teacher, Dimitrie Gerota, is a masterfully rendered écorché (statue of a man with skin removed to reveal the muscles underneath) which was exhibited at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903. Though just an anatomical study, it foreshadowed the sculptor's later efforts to reveal essence rather than merely copy outward appearance.
In 1903, Brâncuși traveled to Munich, and from there to Paris. In Paris, he was welcomed by the community of artists and intellectuals brimming with new ideas. He worked for two years in the workshop of Antonin Mercié of the École des Beaux-Arts and was invited to enter the workshop of Auguste Rodin. Even though he admired the eminent Rodin he left the Rodin studio after only two months, saying, "Nothing can grow under big trees."
After leaving Rodin's workshop, Brâncuși began developing the revolutionary style for which he is known. His first commissioned work, The Prayer, was part of a gravestone memorial. It depicts a young woman crossing herself as she kneels, and marks the first step toward abstracted, non-literal representation, and shows his drive to depict "not the outer form but the idea, the essence of things." He also began doing more carving, rather than the method popular with his contemporaries, that of modeling in clay or plaster which would be cast in metal, and by 1908 he worked almost exclusively by carving.
In the following few years, he made many versions of Sleeping Muse and The Kiss, further simplifying forms to geometrical and sparse objects.
His works became popular in France, Romania, and the United States. Collectors, notably John Quinn, bought his pieces, and reviewers praised his works. In 1913 Brâncuși's work was displayed at both the Salon des Indépendants and the first exhibition in the U.S. of modern art, the Armory Show.
In 1920, he developed a notorious reputation with the entry of Princess X in the Salon. The phallic appearance of this large, gleaming bronze piece scandalized the Salon and, despite Brâncuși's explanation that it was simply meant to represent the essence of womanhood, it was removed from the exhibition. Princess X was revealed to be Princess Marie Bonaparte, direct descendant of the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The sculpture has been interpreted by some as symbolizing her obsession with the penis and her lifelong quest to achieve vaginal orgasm, with the help of Sigmund Freud.
Around this time, Brâncuși began crafting the bases for his sculptures with much care and originality because he considered them important to the works themselves.
One of his major groups of sculptures involved the Bird in Space — simple abstract shapes representing a bird in flight. The works are based on his earlier Măiastra series. In Romanian folklore the Măiastra is a beautiful golden bird who foretells the future and cures the blind. Over the following 20 years, Brâncuși made multiple versions of Bird in Space out of marble or bronze. Athena Tacha Spear's book, Brâncuși's Birds, (CAA monographs XXI, NYU Press, New York, 1969), first sorted out the 36 versions and their development, from the early Măiastra, to the Golden Bird of the late teens, to the Bird in Space, which emerged in the early 1920s and which Brâncuși developed throughout his life.
One of these versions caused a major controversy in 1926 when photographer Edward Steichen purchased it and shipped it to the United States. Customs officers did not accept the Bird as a work of art and assessed customs duty on its import as an industrial item. After protracted court proceedings, this assessment was overturned, thus confirming the Bird's status as a duty-exempt work of art. The verdict was somewhat influenced by the Judge Justice Waite's personal appreciation of the art calling it 'beautiful', 'symmetrical', and 'ornamental'. The ruling also established the important principle that "art" does not have to involve a realistic representation of nature, and that it was legitimate for it to simply represent an abstract concept – in this case "flight".
His work became increasingly popular in the U.S, where he visited several times during his life. Worldwide fame in 1933 brought him the commission of building a meditation temple, the Temple of Deliverance, in India for the Maharajah of Indore, Yeshwant Rao Holkar. Holkar had commissioned three "L'Oiseau dans l'Espace"—in bronze, black and white marble—previously, but when Brâncuși went to India in 1937 to complete the plans and begin construction, the Mahrajah was away and, supposedly, lost interest in the project which was to be an homage to his wife, the Maharani Margaret Holkar, who had died when he returned. Of the three birds, the bronze one is in the collection of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, and the two marble birds are currently in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, Australia.
In 1938, he finished the World War I monument in Târgu-Jiu where he had spent much of his childhood. Table of Silence, The Gate of the Kiss, and Endless Column commemorate the courage and sacrifice of Romanians who in 1916 defended Târgu Jiu from the forces of the Central Powers. The restoration of this ensemble was spearheaded by the World Monuments Fund and was completed in 2004.
The Târgu Jiu ensemble marks the apex of his artistic career. In his remaining 19 years he created fewer than 15 pieces, mostly reworking earlier themes, and while his fame grew, he withdrew. Brâncuși received his first retrospective in 1955 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 1955 Life magazine reported, "Wearing white pajamas and a yellow gnome-like cap, Brâncuși today hobbles about his studio tenderly caring for and communing with the silent host of fish, birds, heads, and endless columns which he created."
Brâncuși was cared for in his later years by a Romanian refugee couple. He became a French citizen in 1952 in order to make the caregivers his heirs, and to bequeath his studio and its contents to the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris. In 2021, for IRCAM and Centre Pompidou's Festival Manifeste, the intermedial large-scale installation Infinite Light Columns / Constellations of The Future, tribute to Constantin Brancusi by artists duo Arotin & Serghei has been installed on Renzo Piano's IRCAM Tower on Centre Pompidou Square, on the opposite site to Brancusi's Studio.
Brâncuși dressed simply, reflective of his Romanian peasant background. His studio was reminiscent of the houses of the peasants from his native region: there was a big slab of rock as a table and a primitive fireplace, similar to those found in traditional houses in his native Oltenia, while the rest of the furniture was made by him out of wood. Brâncuși would cook his own food, traditional Romanian dishes, with which he would treat his guests.
Brâncuși held a large spectrum of interests, from science to music, and was known to play the violin. He would sing old Romanian folk songs, often expressing his feelings of homesickness. After the installment of communism, the artist never permanently returned to his native Romania, but did visit eight times.
His circle of friends included artists and intellectuals in Paris such as Amedeo Modigliani, Ezra Pound, Henri Pierre Roché, Guillaume Apollinaire, Louise Bourgeois, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Rousseau, Peggy Guggenheim, Tristan Tzara, and Fernand Léger. He was an old friend of Romany Marie, who was also Romanian, and referred Isamu Noguchi to her café in Greenwich Village. Although surrounded by the Parisian avant-garde, Brâncuși never lost contact with Romania and had friends from the community of Romanian artists and intellectuals living in Paris, including Benjamin Fondane, George Enescu, Theodor Pallady, Camil Ressu, Nicolae Dărăscu, Panait Istrati, Traian Vuia, Eugène Ionesco, Emil Cioran, Natalia Dumitresco, and Paul Celan. Another Romanian scholar wrote on Brancusi, Mircea Eliade.
Brâncuși held a particular interest in mythology, especially Romanian mythology, folk tales, and traditional art (which also had a strong influence on his works), but he became interested in African and Mediterranean art as well.
A talented handyman, he built his own phonograph and made most of his furniture, utensils, and doorways. His worldview valued "differentiating the essential from the ephemeral," with Plato, Lao-Tzu, and Milarepa as influences. Reportedly, he had a copy of the first ever translation from the Tibetan into French of Jacques Bacot's Le poete tibetain Milarepa: ses crimes, ses épreuves, son Nirvana that he kept by his bedside. He identified closely with Milarepa's mountain existence since Brancusi himself came from the Carpathian Mountains of Romania and he often thought he was a reincarnation of Milarepa. He was a saint-like idealist and near ascetic, turning his workshop into a place where visitors noted the deep spiritual atmosphere. However, particularly through the 1910s and 1920s, he was known as a pleasure seeker and merrymaker in his bohemian circle. He enjoyed cigarettes, good wine, and the company of women. He had one child, John Moore, with the New Zealand pianist Vera Moore, whom he never acknowledged.
Brâncuși died on March 16, 1957, aged 81. He was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. This cemetery also displays statues that Brâncuși carved for deceased artists.
At his death, Brâncuși left 1200 photographs and 215 sculptures. He bequeathed part of his collection to the French state on condition that his workshop be rebuilt as it was on the day he died. This reconstruction of his studio, adjacent to the Pompidou Centre, is open to the public. Brâncuși's studio inspired Swedish architect Klas Anshelm's design of the Malmö Konsthall, which opened in 1975.
In September of 1957, African American sculptor Richard Hunt traveled from Chicago to Paris to view Brancusi's studio. Hunt’s visit left an enduring impression on the 22-year-old artist, not only because of the artistic influence of Brancusi and exploration of biomorphic abstraction in sculpture but also because of the way which Hunt chose to live the majority of his life. Like Brancusi, Hunt slept in his own studio surrounded by his art and the tools used in his practice for much of his life.
In 1962, Georg Olden used Brâncuși's Bird in Space as the inspiration behind his design of the Clio Award statuette.
In November 1971, Brâncuși Memorial House [ro] was established in his birth village Hobița, as a branch of the Gorj County Muzeum [ro].
Brâncuși was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy in 1990.
Google commemorated his 135th birthday with a Doodle in 2011 consisting of seven of his works.
Brâncuși's works are housed in museums around the world: in Romania at the National Museum of Art and Craiova Art Museum, in the US at the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the former holding the largest collection of Brâncuși sculptures in the United States.
Constantin Brâncuși University in Târgu Jiu and a metro station in Bucharest are named after him.
In 2015, the Romanian Parliament declared February 19 "The Brâncuși Day", a working holiday in Romania.
Director Mick Davis plans to make a biographical film about Brâncuși called The Sculptor, and British director Peter Greenaway said in 2017 that he is working on a film called Walking to Paris, a film which shows Brâncuși's journey from Bucharest to Paris.
Brâncuși's piece Madame L.R. sold for €29.185 million ($37.2 million) in 2009, setting a record price for a sculpture sold at auction.
In May 2018, La Jeune Fille Sophistiquée (Portrait de Nancy Cunard), a polished bronze on a carved marble base (1932), sold for US$71 million (with fees) at Christie's New York, setting a world record auction price for the artist.
Both Bird in Space and Sleeping Muse I are sculptures of animate objects; however, unlike ones from Ancient Greece or Rome, or those from the High Renaissance period, these works of art are more abstract in style.
Bird in Space is a series from the 1920s. One of these, constructed in 1925 using wood, stone, and marble (Richler 178) stands around 72 inches tall and consists of a narrow feather standing erect on a wooden base. Similar models, but made from materials such as bronze, were also produced by Brâncuși and placed in exhibitions.
Sleeping Muse I has different versions as well; one, from 1909 to 1910, is made of marble and measures 6 ¾ in. in height (Adams 549). This is a model of a head, without a body, with markings to show features such as hair, nose, lips, and closed eyes. In A History of Western Art, Adams says that the sculpture has "an abstract, curvilinear quality and a smooth contour that create an impression of elegance" (549). The qualities which produce the effect can particularly be seen in the shape of the eyes and in the set of the mouth. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Constantin Brâncuși (Romanian: [konstanˈtin brɨŋˈkuʃʲ] ; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child, he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Brâncuși sought inspiration in non-European cultures as a source of primitive exoticism, as did Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, André Derain, and others. However, other influences emerge from Romanian folk art traceable through Byzantine and Dionysian traditions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Brâncuși grew up in the village of Hobița, Gorj, near Târgu Jiu, close to Romania's Carpathian Mountains, an area known for its rich tradition of folk crafts, particularly woodcarving. Geometric patterns of the region are seen in his later works such as the Endless Column created in 1918.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "His parents Nicolae and Maria Brâncuși were poor peasants who earned a meagre living through back-breaking labor; from the age of seven, Constantin herded the family's flock of sheep. He showed talent for carving objects out of wood and often ran away from home to escape the bullying of his father and older brothers.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "At the age of nine, Brâncuși left the village to work in the nearest large town. At the age of eleven, he went into the service of a grocer in Slatina; and then he became a domestic in a public house in Craiova, where he remained for several years. When he was 18, Brâncuși created a violin by hand with materials he found around his workplace. Impressed by Brâncuși's talent for carving, an industrialist enrolled him in the Craiova School of Arts and Crafts (școala de arte și meserii), where he pursued his love for woodworking, graduating with honors in 1898.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "He then enrolled in the Bucharest School of Fine Arts, where he received academic training in sculpture. He worked hard and quickly distinguished himself as talented. One of his earliest surviving works, under the guidance of his anatomy teacher, Dimitrie Gerota, is a masterfully rendered écorché (statue of a man with skin removed to reveal the muscles underneath) which was exhibited at the Romanian Athenaeum in 1903. Though just an anatomical study, it foreshadowed the sculptor's later efforts to reveal essence rather than merely copy outward appearance.",
"title": "Early years"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1903, Brâncuși traveled to Munich, and from there to Paris. In Paris, he was welcomed by the community of artists and intellectuals brimming with new ideas. He worked for two years in the workshop of Antonin Mercié of the École des Beaux-Arts and was invited to enter the workshop of Auguste Rodin. Even though he admired the eminent Rodin he left the Rodin studio after only two months, saying, \"Nothing can grow under big trees.\"",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "After leaving Rodin's workshop, Brâncuși began developing the revolutionary style for which he is known. His first commissioned work, The Prayer, was part of a gravestone memorial. It depicts a young woman crossing herself as she kneels, and marks the first step toward abstracted, non-literal representation, and shows his drive to depict \"not the outer form but the idea, the essence of things.\" He also began doing more carving, rather than the method popular with his contemporaries, that of modeling in clay or plaster which would be cast in metal, and by 1908 he worked almost exclusively by carving.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the following few years, he made many versions of Sleeping Muse and The Kiss, further simplifying forms to geometrical and sparse objects.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "His works became popular in France, Romania, and the United States. Collectors, notably John Quinn, bought his pieces, and reviewers praised his works. In 1913 Brâncuși's work was displayed at both the Salon des Indépendants and the first exhibition in the U.S. of modern art, the Armory Show.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "In 1920, he developed a notorious reputation with the entry of Princess X in the Salon. The phallic appearance of this large, gleaming bronze piece scandalized the Salon and, despite Brâncuși's explanation that it was simply meant to represent the essence of womanhood, it was removed from the exhibition. Princess X was revealed to be Princess Marie Bonaparte, direct descendant of the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. The sculpture has been interpreted by some as symbolizing her obsession with the penis and her lifelong quest to achieve vaginal orgasm, with the help of Sigmund Freud.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Around this time, Brâncuși began crafting the bases for his sculptures with much care and originality because he considered them important to the works themselves.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "One of his major groups of sculptures involved the Bird in Space — simple abstract shapes representing a bird in flight. The works are based on his earlier Măiastra series. In Romanian folklore the Măiastra is a beautiful golden bird who foretells the future and cures the blind. Over the following 20 years, Brâncuși made multiple versions of Bird in Space out of marble or bronze. Athena Tacha Spear's book, Brâncuși's Birds, (CAA monographs XXI, NYU Press, New York, 1969), first sorted out the 36 versions and their development, from the early Măiastra, to the Golden Bird of the late teens, to the Bird in Space, which emerged in the early 1920s and which Brâncuși developed throughout his life.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "One of these versions caused a major controversy in 1926 when photographer Edward Steichen purchased it and shipped it to the United States. Customs officers did not accept the Bird as a work of art and assessed customs duty on its import as an industrial item. After protracted court proceedings, this assessment was overturned, thus confirming the Bird's status as a duty-exempt work of art. The verdict was somewhat influenced by the Judge Justice Waite's personal appreciation of the art calling it 'beautiful', 'symmetrical', and 'ornamental'. The ruling also established the important principle that \"art\" does not have to involve a realistic representation of nature, and that it was legitimate for it to simply represent an abstract concept – in this case \"flight\".",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "His work became increasingly popular in the U.S, where he visited several times during his life. Worldwide fame in 1933 brought him the commission of building a meditation temple, the Temple of Deliverance, in India for the Maharajah of Indore, Yeshwant Rao Holkar. Holkar had commissioned three \"L'Oiseau dans l'Espace\"—in bronze, black and white marble—previously, but when Brâncuși went to India in 1937 to complete the plans and begin construction, the Mahrajah was away and, supposedly, lost interest in the project which was to be an homage to his wife, the Maharani Margaret Holkar, who had died when he returned. Of the three birds, the bronze one is in the collection of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, and the two marble birds are currently in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, Australia.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In 1938, he finished the World War I monument in Târgu-Jiu where he had spent much of his childhood. Table of Silence, The Gate of the Kiss, and Endless Column commemorate the courage and sacrifice of Romanians who in 1916 defended Târgu Jiu from the forces of the Central Powers. The restoration of this ensemble was spearheaded by the World Monuments Fund and was completed in 2004.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Târgu Jiu ensemble marks the apex of his artistic career. In his remaining 19 years he created fewer than 15 pieces, mostly reworking earlier themes, and while his fame grew, he withdrew. Brâncuși received his first retrospective in 1955 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. In 1955 Life magazine reported, \"Wearing white pajamas and a yellow gnome-like cap, Brâncuși today hobbles about his studio tenderly caring for and communing with the silent host of fish, birds, heads, and endless columns which he created.\"",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Brâncuși was cared for in his later years by a Romanian refugee couple. He became a French citizen in 1952 in order to make the caregivers his heirs, and to bequeath his studio and its contents to the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris. In 2021, for IRCAM and Centre Pompidou's Festival Manifeste, the intermedial large-scale installation Infinite Light Columns / Constellations of The Future, tribute to Constantin Brancusi by artists duo Arotin & Serghei has been installed on Renzo Piano's IRCAM Tower on Centre Pompidou Square, on the opposite site to Brancusi's Studio.",
"title": "Working in Paris"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Brâncuși dressed simply, reflective of his Romanian peasant background. His studio was reminiscent of the houses of the peasants from his native region: there was a big slab of rock as a table and a primitive fireplace, similar to those found in traditional houses in his native Oltenia, while the rest of the furniture was made by him out of wood. Brâncuși would cook his own food, traditional Romanian dishes, with which he would treat his guests.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Brâncuși held a large spectrum of interests, from science to music, and was known to play the violin. He would sing old Romanian folk songs, often expressing his feelings of homesickness. After the installment of communism, the artist never permanently returned to his native Romania, but did visit eight times.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "His circle of friends included artists and intellectuals in Paris such as Amedeo Modigliani, Ezra Pound, Henri Pierre Roché, Guillaume Apollinaire, Louise Bourgeois, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Rousseau, Peggy Guggenheim, Tristan Tzara, and Fernand Léger. He was an old friend of Romany Marie, who was also Romanian, and referred Isamu Noguchi to her café in Greenwich Village. Although surrounded by the Parisian avant-garde, Brâncuși never lost contact with Romania and had friends from the community of Romanian artists and intellectuals living in Paris, including Benjamin Fondane, George Enescu, Theodor Pallady, Camil Ressu, Nicolae Dărăscu, Panait Istrati, Traian Vuia, Eugène Ionesco, Emil Cioran, Natalia Dumitresco, and Paul Celan. Another Romanian scholar wrote on Brancusi, Mircea Eliade.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Brâncuși held a particular interest in mythology, especially Romanian mythology, folk tales, and traditional art (which also had a strong influence on his works), but he became interested in African and Mediterranean art as well.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "A talented handyman, he built his own phonograph and made most of his furniture, utensils, and doorways. His worldview valued \"differentiating the essential from the ephemeral,\" with Plato, Lao-Tzu, and Milarepa as influences. Reportedly, he had a copy of the first ever translation from the Tibetan into French of Jacques Bacot's Le poete tibetain Milarepa: ses crimes, ses épreuves, son Nirvana that he kept by his bedside. He identified closely with Milarepa's mountain existence since Brancusi himself came from the Carpathian Mountains of Romania and he often thought he was a reincarnation of Milarepa. He was a saint-like idealist and near ascetic, turning his workshop into a place where visitors noted the deep spiritual atmosphere. However, particularly through the 1910s and 1920s, he was known as a pleasure seeker and merrymaker in his bohemian circle. He enjoyed cigarettes, good wine, and the company of women. He had one child, John Moore, with the New Zealand pianist Vera Moore, whom he never acknowledged.",
"title": "Personal life"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Brâncuși died on March 16, 1957, aged 81. He was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. This cemetery also displays statues that Brâncuși carved for deceased artists.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "At his death, Brâncuși left 1200 photographs and 215 sculptures. He bequeathed part of his collection to the French state on condition that his workshop be rebuilt as it was on the day he died. This reconstruction of his studio, adjacent to the Pompidou Centre, is open to the public. Brâncuși's studio inspired Swedish architect Klas Anshelm's design of the Malmö Konsthall, which opened in 1975.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In September of 1957, African American sculptor Richard Hunt traveled from Chicago to Paris to view Brancusi's studio. Hunt’s visit left an enduring impression on the 22-year-old artist, not only because of the artistic influence of Brancusi and exploration of biomorphic abstraction in sculpture but also because of the way which Hunt chose to live the majority of his life. Like Brancusi, Hunt slept in his own studio surrounded by his art and the tools used in his practice for much of his life.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 1962, Georg Olden used Brâncuși's Bird in Space as the inspiration behind his design of the Clio Award statuette.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In November 1971, Brâncuși Memorial House [ro] was established in his birth village Hobița, as a branch of the Gorj County Muzeum [ro].",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Brâncuși was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy in 1990.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Google commemorated his 135th birthday with a Doodle in 2011 consisting of seven of his works.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Brâncuși's works are housed in museums around the world: in Romania at the National Museum of Art and Craiova Art Museum, in the US at the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the former holding the largest collection of Brâncuși sculptures in the United States.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Constantin Brâncuși University in Târgu Jiu and a metro station in Bucharest are named after him.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In 2015, the Romanian Parliament declared February 19 \"The Brâncuși Day\", a working holiday in Romania.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Director Mick Davis plans to make a biographical film about Brâncuși called The Sculptor, and British director Peter Greenaway said in 2017 that he is working on a film called Walking to Paris, a film which shows Brâncuși's journey from Bucharest to Paris.",
"title": "Death and legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Brâncuși's piece Madame L.R. sold for €29.185 million ($37.2 million) in 2009, setting a record price for a sculpture sold at auction.",
"title": "Art market"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In May 2018, La Jeune Fille Sophistiquée (Portrait de Nancy Cunard), a polished bronze on a carved marble base (1932), sold for US$71 million (with fees) at Christie's New York, setting a world record auction price for the artist.",
"title": "Art market"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Both Bird in Space and Sleeping Muse I are sculptures of animate objects; however, unlike ones from Ancient Greece or Rome, or those from the High Renaissance period, these works of art are more abstract in style.",
"title": "Selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Bird in Space is a series from the 1920s. One of these, constructed in 1925 using wood, stone, and marble (Richler 178) stands around 72 inches tall and consists of a narrow feather standing erect on a wooden base. Similar models, but made from materials such as bronze, were also produced by Brâncuși and placed in exhibitions.",
"title": "Selected works"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Sleeping Muse I has different versions as well; one, from 1909 to 1910, is made of marble and measures 6 ¾ in. in height (Adams 549). This is a model of a head, without a body, with markings to show features such as hair, nose, lips, and closed eyes. In A History of Western Art, Adams says that the sculpture has \"an abstract, curvilinear quality and a smooth contour that create an impression of elegance\" (549). The qualities which produce the effect can particularly be seen in the shape of the eyes and in the set of the mouth.",
"title": "Selected works"
}
] | Constantin Brâncuși was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century and a pioneer of modernism, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child, he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes clean geometrical lines that balance forms inherent in his materials with the symbolic allusions of representational art. Brâncuși sought inspiration in non-European cultures as a source of primitive exoticism, as did Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, André Derain, and others. However, other influences emerge from Romanian folk art traceable through Byzantine and Dionysian traditions. | 2001-09-27T22:30:40Z | 2023-12-22T02:21:47Z | [
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6,586 | Claus Sluter | Claus Sluter (1340s in Haarlem – 1405 or 1406 in Dijon) was a Dutch sculptor, living in the Duchy of Burgundy from about 1380. He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that came into full flower with the work of Jan van Eyck and others in the next generation.
The name "Claes de Slutere van Herlam" is inscribed in the Register of the Corporation of Stonemasons and Sculptors of Brussels around the years 1379/1380. He then moved to the Burgundian capital of Dijon, where from 1385 to 1389 he was the assistant of Jean de Marville, court sculptor to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. From 1389 to his death he was court sculptor himself, with the rank of valet de chambre. He was succeeded by his nephew Claus de Werve.
Sluter's most significant work is the so-called Well of Moses (1395–1403), or the Great Cross. It was created for the Carthusian monastery of Champmol, which was founded by Philip the Bold right outside Dijon in 1383. For many years, the top portion was thought to have included (along with Christ on a cross), sculptures of the Virgin and John the Evangelist. However it was more likely just Christ, with Mary Magdalene kneeling at the foot of the cross. The cross, and whatever was on the terrace below, was destroyed at some point after 1736 and before 1789, probable because the roof of the building protecting the monument collapsed. Some fragments from the original Cross are preserved in the Musée Archéologique de Dijon. Life-sized figures representing Old Testament prophets and kings (Moses, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, Zachariah, and Isaiah) stand around the base, holding phylacteries and books inscribed with verses from their respective texts, which were interpreted in the Middle Ages as typological prefigurations of the sacrifice of Christ. The work's physical structure, in which the Old Testament figures support those of the New Dispensation, literalizes the typological iconography. The pedestal surmounts a hexagonal fountain. The entire monument is executed in limestone quarried from Tonnerre and Asnières.
The portal of the former mortuary chapel of Champmol is positioned a few feet away from the Well of Moses. It consists of three sculptural groups by Sluter: a standing Madonna and Child at the trumeau; the duke and St. John, his patron saint, at the left jamb and the duchess and her patron saint, Catherine, at the right one. Sluter was also responsible for the main part of the work on Philip's tomb, which (restored and partly reconstructed) has been moved to the Museum of Fine Arts which is housed in the former ducal palace in Dijon.
Sluter was one of the sculptors of the pleurants, or mourners, which occupy niches below the tombs of Philip the Bold, his wife Margaret, and John the Fearless. | [
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"text": "The name \"Claes de Slutere van Herlam\" is inscribed in the Register of the Corporation of Stonemasons and Sculptors of Brussels around the years 1379/1380. He then moved to the Burgundian capital of Dijon, where from 1385 to 1389 he was the assistant of Jean de Marville, court sculptor to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. From 1389 to his death he was court sculptor himself, with the rank of valet de chambre. He was succeeded by his nephew Claus de Werve.",
"title": "Life"
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"text": "Sluter's most significant work is the so-called Well of Moses (1395–1403), or the Great Cross. It was created for the Carthusian monastery of Champmol, which was founded by Philip the Bold right outside Dijon in 1383. For many years, the top portion was thought to have included (along with Christ on a cross), sculptures of the Virgin and John the Evangelist. However it was more likely just Christ, with Mary Magdalene kneeling at the foot of the cross. The cross, and whatever was on the terrace below, was destroyed at some point after 1736 and before 1789, probable because the roof of the building protecting the monument collapsed. Some fragments from the original Cross are preserved in the Musée Archéologique de Dijon. Life-sized figures representing Old Testament prophets and kings (Moses, David, Daniel, Jeremiah, Zachariah, and Isaiah) stand around the base, holding phylacteries and books inscribed with verses from their respective texts, which were interpreted in the Middle Ages as typological prefigurations of the sacrifice of Christ. The work's physical structure, in which the Old Testament figures support those of the New Dispensation, literalizes the typological iconography. The pedestal surmounts a hexagonal fountain. The entire monument is executed in limestone quarried from Tonnerre and Asnières.",
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"text": "The portal of the former mortuary chapel of Champmol is positioned a few feet away from the Well of Moses. It consists of three sculptural groups by Sluter: a standing Madonna and Child at the trumeau; the duke and St. John, his patron saint, at the left jamb and the duchess and her patron saint, Catherine, at the right one. Sluter was also responsible for the main part of the work on Philip's tomb, which (restored and partly reconstructed) has been moved to the Museum of Fine Arts which is housed in the former ducal palace in Dijon.",
"title": "Work"
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"text": "Sluter was one of the sculptors of the pleurants, or mourners, which occupy niches below the tombs of Philip the Bold, his wife Margaret, and John the Fearless.",
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] | Claus Sluter was a Dutch sculptor, living in the Duchy of Burgundy from about 1380. He was the most important northern European sculptor of his age and is considered a pioneer of the "northern realism" of the Early Netherlandish painting that came into full flower with the work of Jan van Eyck and others in the next generation. | 2001-09-27T22:32:20Z | 2023-12-12T15:32:29Z | [
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6,587 | Cadillac, Michigan | Cadillac (/ˈkædəlæk/ KADD-ə-lack) is a city in and county seat of Wexford County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 10,371 at the 2020 census, making it the second most-populated city in the Northern Michigan region, after Traverse City.
Cadillac was settled as early as 1871 and formerly known as the village of Clam Lake before incorporating as a city in 1877. The city is located upon the shores of Lake Cadillac, connected by the Clam Lake Canal to Lake Mitchell. The Clam River, which begins Cadillac, is part of the Muskegon River watershed. Cadillac is the junction of three major highways: US Highway 131, M-55, and M-115. The geographic center of Michigan is approximately five miles (8.0 km) north-northwest of Cadillac. Cadillac is the primary city of the Cadillac micropolitan area, which includes all of Wexford County and Missaukee County to the east, and had population of 48,725 at the 2020 census.
European explorers and fur traders visited this area from the 18th century, most of them initially French and French-Canadians who traded with regional Native Americans. More permanent communities were not established until the late 19th century. Initial settlements developed from logging camps and the logging industry.
In 1871, the first sawmill began operations at Clam Lake. Originally called the Pioneer Mill, it was built by John R. Yale. That same year, George A. Mitchell, a prominent local banker and railroad entrepreneur, and Adam Gallinger, a local carpenter, formed the Clam Lake Canal Improvement and Construction Company. Two years later, the Clam Lake Canal was constructed between Big and Little Clam lakes, known as present-day Lakes Mitchell and Lake Cadillac. Sawmill owners used the canal to transport timber from Big Clam Lake to the mills and railroad sites on Little Clam Lake. The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad (G.R. & I. Railroad) had reached the area in 1872.
The settlement of Clam Lake was incorporated as a village in 1874. George Mitchell was elected as the first mayor. The village was incorporated as a city in 1877 and renamed Cadillac, after Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, a French colonist who started the first permanent settlement at Detroit in 1701.
The Wexford County seat of government, originally located in Sherman, was moved to Manton in 1881, as the result of a compromise between the feuding residents of Cadillac and Sherman. Cadillac partisans, however, won the county seat by a county-wide vote in April 1882. The day following the election, a sheriff's posse left the city for Manton by special train to seize the county records. After they arrived and collected a portion of the materials, however, an angry crowd confronted the Cadillac men and drove them out of town.
When the sheriff returned to Cadillac, he encountered a force consisting of several hundred armed men; this group reportedly included a brass band. The Sheriff's force, some of whom may have been intoxicated, traveled back to Manton to seize the remaining records. Although Manton residents confronted the Cadillac men and barricaded the courthouse, the posse successfully seized the documents. They returned to Cadillac in dubious glory.
In 1878, Ephraim Shay perfected his Shay locomotive, which was particularly effective in its ability to climb steep grades, maneuver sharp turns, and accommodate imperfections in railroad tracks. Cadillac was home to the Michigan Iron Works Company, which manufactured the Shay locomotive for a short time in the early 1880s. The lumber industry continued to dominate the city, attracting a large immigrant labor force, most of whom were Swedish. (Later Cadillac made sister city arrangements with Mölnlycke, Sweden, and Rovaniemi, Finland).
In 1899, the Cadillac Club formed, the forerunner of the Cadillac Area Chamber of Commerce.
By the early 20th century, with the lumber depleted, the timber industry was in decline. Today, manufacturers employ 30% of residents. Cadillac's range of industries includes the manufacture of pleasure boats, automotive parts, water-well components, vacuum cleaners, and rubber products.
In 1936, the U.S. Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps developed the Caberfae Ski Area during the Great Depression as an investment in future economic development. This resulted in promotion of this area as a tourist center. Caberfae remains in operation today, as the oldest ski resort in the midwest. Tourism and outdoor recreation have since become an important sector of Cadillac's economy.
In the summer, tourists travel to the city and region for boating, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, and camping. During the fall, hunting and color tours are popular. The winter is possibly the busiest season; the area can be found packed with downhill skiers, cross-country skiers, ice-fishers, snow-shoers and–most of all-snowmobilers. The North American Snowmobile Festival (NASF) is held on frozen Lake Cadillac every winter.
Thirsty's, a gas station on M-55 west of Cadillac, was the home of Samantha or "Sam The Bear" from the 1970s through the late 1990s, when Sam died of old age. Sam was the only brown bear in captivity in the US at the time to hibernate naturally. Sam lived in a large cage in front of the gas station and was fed ice cream cones by tourists every summer.
In October 1975 the rock group Kiss visited Cadillac and performed at the Cadillac High School gymnasium. They played the concert to honor the Cadillac High School football team. In previous years, the team had compiled a record of sixteen consecutive victories, but the 1974 squad opened the season with two losses. The assistant coach, Jim Neff, an English teacher and rock'n'roll fan, thought to inspire the team by playing Kiss music in the locker room. He also connected the team's game plan, K-I-S-S or "Keep It Simple Stupid", with the band. The team went on to win seven straight games and their conference co-championship. After learning of their association with the team's success, the band decided to visit the school and play for the homecoming game.
Cadillac maintains a number of state historic landmarks. Most are marked with a green "Michigan Historical Marker" sign, which includes a description of the landmark. Six sites with the city are marked: Cadillac Carnegie Library, Charles T. Mitchell House, Clam Lake Canal, Cobbs & Mitchell Building, Cobbs & Mitchell No. 1, and the Shay Locomotive (pictured at the right). Two more are in the near Cadillac area: Caberfae Ski Resort and Greenwood Disciples of Christ Church; and another two are in surrounding Wexford County, marking Battle of Manton and the First Wexford County Court House.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.02 square miles (23.36 km), of which 7.16 square miles (18.54 km) is land and 1.86 square miles (4.82 km) is water.
The 1,150-acre (5 km) Lake Cadillac is entirely within the city limits. The larger, 2,580-acre (10 km) Lake Mitchell is nearby on the west side of the city, with 1,760 feet (540 m) of shoreline within the city's municipal boundary. The lakes were connected by a stream which was replaced in 1873 by the Clam Lake Canal. The canal was featured on Ripley's Believe It or Not in the 1970s due to the phenomenon that in winter the canal freezes before the lakes and then after the lakes freeze, the canal thaws and remains unfrozen for the rest of the winter.
Cadillac is located at the eastern edge of what is now managed as the Manistee National Forest. The surrounding area is heavily wooded, with mixed hardwood and conifer forests. Christmas tree farming has been important to the area agricultural industry. Cadillac was chosen in 1988 to donate the holiday tree installed at the lawn of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.
The area surrounding Cadillac is primarily rural, and is considered to be part of Northern Michigan. Given the small size of nearby communities, the city is a major commercial and industrial hub of the region.
The commercial center of the city is located on the eastern edge of Lake Cadillac. Most downtown buildings range from two to five stories in height. Many face Mitchell Street, the city's tree-lined main street and traditional corridor of travel through town. The downtown contains a movie theater, gift shops, restaurants, a bookstore, specialty food stores, jewelers, clothing retailers, and various other businesses.
The Courthouse Hill Historic District, recognized in April 2005, lies adjacent to the city's commercial center. The District contains a number of large Victorian-style residences built by the lumber barons and businessmen who helped develop the city in the 1870s. Population and building density is highest in this area.
On the western bank of Lake Cadillac, where M-55 intersects M-115, is what is locally referred to as Cadillac West. This is a small commercial district, bordering Mitchell State Park and the two lakes; it caters mostly to tourists. It contains a number of motels and restaurants.
Along the northern and southern stretches of the lake are the main residential areas of the city. They are generally of low to moderate density, characterized primarily by single-family structures.
Cadillac experiences a typical northern Michigan climate, undergoing temperate seasonal changes, influenced by the presence of Lake Michigan and the inevitable lake effect. Winters are generally cold with large amounts of snowfall. Summers are warm. The average high temperature in July is 80 °F (27 °C) and the average low in January is 12 °F (−11 °C). Summer temperatures can exceed 90 °F (32 °C), and winter temperatures can drop below 0 °F (−18 °C). Average annual rainfall is 30 inches (76 cm), and average annual snowfall is 81 inches (210 cm) . Snowfall typically occurs between the months of November and March. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Cadillac has a humid continental climate, abbreviated "Dfb" on climate maps.
Cadillac has two superfund sites, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. One is located at 1100 Wright Street, the former site of Kysor Industrial Corp, which operations resulted in toxic wastes. The other is located at 1002 6th Street, the former site of Northernaire Plating. Its operations also produced hazardous wastes, which produced contamination.
As of the census of 2010, there were 10,355 people, 4,280 households, and 2,625 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,446.2 inhabitants per square mile (558.4/km). There were 4,927 housing units at an average density of 688.1 per square mile (265.7/km). The racial makeup of the city was 95.6% White, 0.5% African American, 0.6% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 1.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.8% of the population.
There were 4,280 households, of which 32.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.2% were married couples living together, 16.4% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.7% had a male householder with no wife present, and 38.7% were non-families. 32.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 and the average family size was 2.90.
The median age in the city was 36.5 years. 24.7% of residents were under the age of 18; 10% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 24.4% were from 25 to 44; 23.8% were from 45 to 64; and 17.1% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.4% male and 52.6% female.
As of the census of 2000, there were 10,000 people, 4,118 households, and 2,577 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,466.0 inhabitants per square mile (566.0/km). There were 4,466 housing units at an average density of 654.7 per square mile (252.8/km). The racial makeup of the city was 96.55% White, 0.21% Black or African American, 0.92% Native American, 0.63% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.28% from other races, and 1.38% from two or more races. 1.18% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There were 4,118 households, out of which 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.9% were married couples living together, 14.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.4% were non-families. 31.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.96.
In the city, the population was spread out, with 26.2% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 27.9% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.4 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $29,899, and the median income for a family was $36,825. Males had a median income of $29,773 versus $21,283 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,801. About 10.9% of families and 13.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.4% of those under age 18 and 13.3% of those age 65 or over.
Cadillac was incorporated as a city in 1877. It is a home rule city with a Council-Manager form of government-one.
Current council members are Shari Spoelman, Antoinette Schippers, Arthur Stevens, James Dean and Carla Filkins (mayor). The present City Manager is Marcus Peccia.
Cadillac is located in Michigan's 2nd congressional district, represented by Republican John Moolenaar.
Manufacturing has been the greatest employer in Cadillac since the logging industry. More than 26% of the city's labor force is employed in manufacturing. Three industrial parks are located within the city limits, comprising 7% of the total land use in Cadillac. Their operations generate 47% of the city's tax base. Much of the city's economic performance is determined by the fortunes of local industry.
The center of the city is generally perceived to have a "small-town-feel". In the summer, the downtown fills with tourists, many from southern Michigan. The city center is one block from Lake Cadillac. For visitors by boat who dock at the public docks, it is nearly as accessible by boat as it is by car. The city's immediate proximity to two lakes, as well as Manistee National Forest, Pere Marquette State Forest, Mitchell State Park and a number of major highways, has established tourism as a significant sector of the local economy.
During the winter months, Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell freeze over and the city becomes covered with snow. Cadillac is connected to a number of trail systems popular with winter recreation enthusiasts. The city integrates unusually well into the corridors of travel created by snowmobilers.
Cadillac is also known as Chestnut Town, USA. The local area has a relatively high number of American chestnut trees, planted by pioneers from New York and Pennsylvania who settled in western Michigan. A blight in the early 20th century killed nearly every American Chestnut tree, but those in western Michigan had developed a mysterious resistance and survived.
According to the city's 2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the principal employers in the city were:
Cadillac's public education system has a total of 10 schools, with approximately 3,100 students and 166 teachers with a student:teacher ratio of 19.1:1. Cadillac has 4 private primary and secondary schools with approximately 394 students, 20 teachers and a student:teacher ratio of 20:1.
The city has two high schools: Cadillac High School and Innovation High School. The area also has a junior high school, covering grades 7 and 8, located adjacent to the high school, and a middle school, Mackinaw Trail Middle School, covering grades 5 and 6. There are four elementary schools, Forest View Elementary, Franklin Elementary, Kenwood Elementary, and Lincoln Elementary.
Cadillac also has an alternative high school, located in the building that formerly housed Cooley Elementary School. Adult high school and GED courses are offered there as well. As a whole, the programs at Cooley are part of a curriculum that aids individuals in overcoming the exceptional obstacles to their educational and workforce goals.
Vocational career training is available to high school students free of charge in Cadillac and nearby schools at Wexford–Missaukee Intermediate School District (ISD) Career Tech Center (formerly Wexford-Missaukee Vocational Center or Voc-Tech). Students are bussed for part of the day to the Career Tech Center from their respective schools and receive credits toward high school graduation. Students are also able to earn certification in a chosen trade. Courses include:
Cosmetology is offered through the Career Tech Center, but at an off-campus location in downtown Cadillac. Adults can attend the vocational or cosmetology school with tuition or financial aid for certification.
Cadillac hosts the Wexford-Missaukee ISD Special Education for residents of the two counties who are in need of special services. This school is on the same campus as the Career Tech Center.
The class of 2006 was the largest class to go through Cadillac Public Schools.
Cadillac offers several options for private religious education.
Cadillac Heritage Christian offers nondenominational Christian education from pre-K through 12th grade. It is a coed school with 98 students and a teacher:student ratio of 1:11. Graduating classes are typically between 3–12 students.
Northview Adventist School has 16 students in grades 1–10 as of 2020. It is a coed Seventh Day Adventist School. They operate in a one-room format, with one teacher that doubles as the principal, and one or two teachers assistants. They also have a multitude of volunteers that runs a library, band, and physical education, among other things. They do not participate in competitive sports.
Noah's Ark Day School is a small alternative non-denominational Christian school for students in pre-K through first grade only. It is coed with 42 students and 1 teacher.
Cadillac's largest and most well-known private school is St. Ann School, a coed private Roman Catholic school with 236 students in grades pre-K through 7. The teacher:student ratio is 1:26. St. Ann is a member of the National Catholic Education Association. No Catholic high school education is offered at St. Ann School, and students typically attend public school for grades 8–12.
Northwoods Aviation, located at Wexford County Airport, offers training programs for piloting and servicing aircraft. Northwoods Aviation also offers primary instruction for those interested in sport pilot, private, and commercial certificates.
The Cadillac Institute of Cosmetology (formerly Cadillac Academy of Beauty) is a full service teaching salon in downtown Cadillac that offers training for general cosmetologists and specialized technicians to high school students through a partnership with Wexford-Missaukee Intermediate School District. Training is also available to adult students though private courses on a tuition basis. Upon completion of the program, students are qualified to take the state board exam to become a licensed cosmetologist or specialty technician.
The Baker College-Cadillac campus occupies 66 acres (270,000 m) just outside the City of Cadillac. The school has an enrollment of more than 1,300 students and offers Associate's and bachelor's degrees, in addition to professional certifications.
Cadillac is situated as the confluence of three highways: US 131, M-55 and M-115. Prior to 2001, the northern end of the freeway portion of US 131 was located at the southern entrance to Cadillac. With the construction of a bypass, the US 131 freeway was extended around the east side of the city. The former route of the highway through downtown Cadillac was redesignated as BUS US 131. In the city, BUS US 131 is named Mitchell Street, after George Mitchell, but may be referred to as main street.
The city is serviced by rail via the Great Lakes Central Railroad. This is primarily a freight line, although passenger service is expected in the future.
The White Pine Trail's northern terminus is in Cadillac. The trail, which stretches 92 miles (148 km) and originates from Comstock Park, follows an abandoned railroad bed into the center of the city. The trail is paved from the village of Leroy 16 miles north to Cadillac. | [
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{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cadillac was settled as early as 1871 and formerly known as the village of Clam Lake before incorporating as a city in 1877. The city is located upon the shores of Lake Cadillac, connected by the Clam Lake Canal to Lake Mitchell. The Clam River, which begins Cadillac, is part of the Muskegon River watershed. Cadillac is the junction of three major highways: US Highway 131, M-55, and M-115. The geographic center of Michigan is approximately five miles (8.0 km) north-northwest of Cadillac. Cadillac is the primary city of the Cadillac micropolitan area, which includes all of Wexford County and Missaukee County to the east, and had population of 48,725 at the 2020 census.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "European explorers and fur traders visited this area from the 18th century, most of them initially French and French-Canadians who traded with regional Native Americans. More permanent communities were not established until the late 19th century. Initial settlements developed from logging camps and the logging industry.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1871, the first sawmill began operations at Clam Lake. Originally called the Pioneer Mill, it was built by John R. Yale. That same year, George A. Mitchell, a prominent local banker and railroad entrepreneur, and Adam Gallinger, a local carpenter, formed the Clam Lake Canal Improvement and Construction Company. Two years later, the Clam Lake Canal was constructed between Big and Little Clam lakes, known as present-day Lakes Mitchell and Lake Cadillac. Sawmill owners used the canal to transport timber from Big Clam Lake to the mills and railroad sites on Little Clam Lake. The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad (G.R. & I. Railroad) had reached the area in 1872.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The settlement of Clam Lake was incorporated as a village in 1874. George Mitchell was elected as the first mayor. The village was incorporated as a city in 1877 and renamed Cadillac, after Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, a French colonist who started the first permanent settlement at Detroit in 1701.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Wexford County seat of government, originally located in Sherman, was moved to Manton in 1881, as the result of a compromise between the feuding residents of Cadillac and Sherman. Cadillac partisans, however, won the county seat by a county-wide vote in April 1882. The day following the election, a sheriff's posse left the city for Manton by special train to seize the county records. After they arrived and collected a portion of the materials, however, an angry crowd confronted the Cadillac men and drove them out of town.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "When the sheriff returned to Cadillac, he encountered a force consisting of several hundred armed men; this group reportedly included a brass band. The Sheriff's force, some of whom may have been intoxicated, traveled back to Manton to seize the remaining records. Although Manton residents confronted the Cadillac men and barricaded the courthouse, the posse successfully seized the documents. They returned to Cadillac in dubious glory.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1878, Ephraim Shay perfected his Shay locomotive, which was particularly effective in its ability to climb steep grades, maneuver sharp turns, and accommodate imperfections in railroad tracks. Cadillac was home to the Michigan Iron Works Company, which manufactured the Shay locomotive for a short time in the early 1880s. The lumber industry continued to dominate the city, attracting a large immigrant labor force, most of whom were Swedish. (Later Cadillac made sister city arrangements with Mölnlycke, Sweden, and Rovaniemi, Finland).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1899, the Cadillac Club formed, the forerunner of the Cadillac Area Chamber of Commerce.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "By the early 20th century, with the lumber depleted, the timber industry was in decline. Today, manufacturers employ 30% of residents. Cadillac's range of industries includes the manufacture of pleasure boats, automotive parts, water-well components, vacuum cleaners, and rubber products.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1936, the U.S. Forest Service and the Civilian Conservation Corps developed the Caberfae Ski Area during the Great Depression as an investment in future economic development. This resulted in promotion of this area as a tourist center. Caberfae remains in operation today, as the oldest ski resort in the midwest. Tourism and outdoor recreation have since become an important sector of Cadillac's economy.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In the summer, tourists travel to the city and region for boating, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, and camping. During the fall, hunting and color tours are popular. The winter is possibly the busiest season; the area can be found packed with downhill skiers, cross-country skiers, ice-fishers, snow-shoers and–most of all-snowmobilers. The North American Snowmobile Festival (NASF) is held on frozen Lake Cadillac every winter.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Thirsty's, a gas station on M-55 west of Cadillac, was the home of Samantha or \"Sam The Bear\" from the 1970s through the late 1990s, when Sam died of old age. Sam was the only brown bear in captivity in the US at the time to hibernate naturally. Sam lived in a large cage in front of the gas station and was fed ice cream cones by tourists every summer.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In October 1975 the rock group Kiss visited Cadillac and performed at the Cadillac High School gymnasium. They played the concert to honor the Cadillac High School football team. In previous years, the team had compiled a record of sixteen consecutive victories, but the 1974 squad opened the season with two losses. The assistant coach, Jim Neff, an English teacher and rock'n'roll fan, thought to inspire the team by playing Kiss music in the locker room. He also connected the team's game plan, K-I-S-S or \"Keep It Simple Stupid\", with the band. The team went on to win seven straight games and their conference co-championship. After learning of their association with the team's success, the band decided to visit the school and play for the homecoming game.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Cadillac maintains a number of state historic landmarks. Most are marked with a green \"Michigan Historical Marker\" sign, which includes a description of the landmark. Six sites with the city are marked: Cadillac Carnegie Library, Charles T. Mitchell House, Clam Lake Canal, Cobbs & Mitchell Building, Cobbs & Mitchell No. 1, and the Shay Locomotive (pictured at the right). Two more are in the near Cadillac area: Caberfae Ski Resort and Greenwood Disciples of Christ Church; and another two are in surrounding Wexford County, marking Battle of Manton and the First Wexford County Court House.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 9.02 square miles (23.36 km), of which 7.16 square miles (18.54 km) is land and 1.86 square miles (4.82 km) is water.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The 1,150-acre (5 km) Lake Cadillac is entirely within the city limits. The larger, 2,580-acre (10 km) Lake Mitchell is nearby on the west side of the city, with 1,760 feet (540 m) of shoreline within the city's municipal boundary. The lakes were connected by a stream which was replaced in 1873 by the Clam Lake Canal. The canal was featured on Ripley's Believe It or Not in the 1970s due to the phenomenon that in winter the canal freezes before the lakes and then after the lakes freeze, the canal thaws and remains unfrozen for the rest of the winter.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Cadillac is located at the eastern edge of what is now managed as the Manistee National Forest. The surrounding area is heavily wooded, with mixed hardwood and conifer forests. Christmas tree farming has been important to the area agricultural industry. Cadillac was chosen in 1988 to donate the holiday tree installed at the lawn of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The area surrounding Cadillac is primarily rural, and is considered to be part of Northern Michigan. Given the small size of nearby communities, the city is a major commercial and industrial hub of the region.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The commercial center of the city is located on the eastern edge of Lake Cadillac. Most downtown buildings range from two to five stories in height. Many face Mitchell Street, the city's tree-lined main street and traditional corridor of travel through town. The downtown contains a movie theater, gift shops, restaurants, a bookstore, specialty food stores, jewelers, clothing retailers, and various other businesses.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Courthouse Hill Historic District, recognized in April 2005, lies adjacent to the city's commercial center. The District contains a number of large Victorian-style residences built by the lumber barons and businessmen who helped develop the city in the 1870s. Population and building density is highest in this area.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "On the western bank of Lake Cadillac, where M-55 intersects M-115, is what is locally referred to as Cadillac West. This is a small commercial district, bordering Mitchell State Park and the two lakes; it caters mostly to tourists. It contains a number of motels and restaurants.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Along the northern and southern stretches of the lake are the main residential areas of the city. They are generally of low to moderate density, characterized primarily by single-family structures.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Cadillac experiences a typical northern Michigan climate, undergoing temperate seasonal changes, influenced by the presence of Lake Michigan and the inevitable lake effect. Winters are generally cold with large amounts of snowfall. Summers are warm. The average high temperature in July is 80 °F (27 °C) and the average low in January is 12 °F (−11 °C). Summer temperatures can exceed 90 °F (32 °C), and winter temperatures can drop below 0 °F (−18 °C). Average annual rainfall is 30 inches (76 cm), and average annual snowfall is 81 inches (210 cm) . Snowfall typically occurs between the months of November and March. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Cadillac has a humid continental climate, abbreviated \"Dfb\" on climate maps.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Cadillac has two superfund sites, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. One is located at 1100 Wright Street, the former site of Kysor Industrial Corp, which operations resulted in toxic wastes. The other is located at 1002 6th Street, the former site of Northernaire Plating. Its operations also produced hazardous wastes, which produced contamination.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "As of the census of 2010, there were 10,355 people, 4,280 households, and 2,625 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,446.2 inhabitants per square mile (558.4/km). There were 4,927 housing units at an average density of 688.1 per square mile (265.7/km). The racial makeup of the city was 95.6% White, 0.5% African American, 0.6% Native American, 1.0% Asian, 0.4% from other races, and 1.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.8% of the population.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "There were 4,280 households, of which 32.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 39.2% were married couples living together, 16.4% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.7% had a male householder with no wife present, and 38.7% were non-families. 32.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.34 and the average family size was 2.90.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The median age in the city was 36.5 years. 24.7% of residents were under the age of 18; 10% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 24.4% were from 25 to 44; 23.8% were from 45 to 64; and 17.1% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 47.4% male and 52.6% female.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "As of the census of 2000, there were 10,000 people, 4,118 households, and 2,577 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,466.0 inhabitants per square mile (566.0/km). There were 4,466 housing units at an average density of 654.7 per square mile (252.8/km). The racial makeup of the city was 96.55% White, 0.21% Black or African American, 0.92% Native American, 0.63% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.28% from other races, and 1.38% from two or more races. 1.18% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "There were 4,118 households, out of which 32.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.9% were married couples living together, 14.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.4% were non-families. 31.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.96.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "In the city, the population was spread out, with 26.2% under the age of 18, 9.6% from 18 to 24, 27.9% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 16.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.4 males.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The median income for a household in the city was $29,899, and the median income for a family was $36,825. Males had a median income of $29,773 versus $21,283 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,801. About 10.9% of families and 13.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.4% of those under age 18 and 13.3% of those age 65 or over.",
"title": "Demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Cadillac was incorporated as a city in 1877. It is a home rule city with a Council-Manager form of government-one.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Current council members are Shari Spoelman, Antoinette Schippers, Arthur Stevens, James Dean and Carla Filkins (mayor). The present City Manager is Marcus Peccia.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Cadillac is located in Michigan's 2nd congressional district, represented by Republican John Moolenaar.",
"title": "Government"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Manufacturing has been the greatest employer in Cadillac since the logging industry. More than 26% of the city's labor force is employed in manufacturing. Three industrial parks are located within the city limits, comprising 7% of the total land use in Cadillac. Their operations generate 47% of the city's tax base. Much of the city's economic performance is determined by the fortunes of local industry.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The center of the city is generally perceived to have a \"small-town-feel\". In the summer, the downtown fills with tourists, many from southern Michigan. The city center is one block from Lake Cadillac. For visitors by boat who dock at the public docks, it is nearly as accessible by boat as it is by car. The city's immediate proximity to two lakes, as well as Manistee National Forest, Pere Marquette State Forest, Mitchell State Park and a number of major highways, has established tourism as a significant sector of the local economy.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "During the winter months, Lake Cadillac and Lake Mitchell freeze over and the city becomes covered with snow. Cadillac is connected to a number of trail systems popular with winter recreation enthusiasts. The city integrates unusually well into the corridors of travel created by snowmobilers.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Cadillac is also known as Chestnut Town, USA. The local area has a relatively high number of American chestnut trees, planted by pioneers from New York and Pennsylvania who settled in western Michigan. A blight in the early 20th century killed nearly every American Chestnut tree, but those in western Michigan had developed a mysterious resistance and survived.",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "According to the city's 2019 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the principal employers in the city were:",
"title": "Economy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Cadillac's public education system has a total of 10 schools, with approximately 3,100 students and 166 teachers with a student:teacher ratio of 19.1:1. Cadillac has 4 private primary and secondary schools with approximately 394 students, 20 teachers and a student:teacher ratio of 20:1.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The city has two high schools: Cadillac High School and Innovation High School. The area also has a junior high school, covering grades 7 and 8, located adjacent to the high school, and a middle school, Mackinaw Trail Middle School, covering grades 5 and 6. There are four elementary schools, Forest View Elementary, Franklin Elementary, Kenwood Elementary, and Lincoln Elementary.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Cadillac also has an alternative high school, located in the building that formerly housed Cooley Elementary School. Adult high school and GED courses are offered there as well. As a whole, the programs at Cooley are part of a curriculum that aids individuals in overcoming the exceptional obstacles to their educational and workforce goals.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Vocational career training is available to high school students free of charge in Cadillac and nearby schools at Wexford–Missaukee Intermediate School District (ISD) Career Tech Center (formerly Wexford-Missaukee Vocational Center or Voc-Tech). Students are bussed for part of the day to the Career Tech Center from their respective schools and receive credits toward high school graduation. Students are also able to earn certification in a chosen trade. Courses include:",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Cosmetology is offered through the Career Tech Center, but at an off-campus location in downtown Cadillac. Adults can attend the vocational or cosmetology school with tuition or financial aid for certification.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Cadillac hosts the Wexford-Missaukee ISD Special Education for residents of the two counties who are in need of special services. This school is on the same campus as the Career Tech Center.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The class of 2006 was the largest class to go through Cadillac Public Schools.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Cadillac offers several options for private religious education.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Cadillac Heritage Christian offers nondenominational Christian education from pre-K through 12th grade. It is a coed school with 98 students and a teacher:student ratio of 1:11. Graduating classes are typically between 3–12 students.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Northview Adventist School has 16 students in grades 1–10 as of 2020. It is a coed Seventh Day Adventist School. They operate in a one-room format, with one teacher that doubles as the principal, and one or two teachers assistants. They also have a multitude of volunteers that runs a library, band, and physical education, among other things. They do not participate in competitive sports.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Noah's Ark Day School is a small alternative non-denominational Christian school for students in pre-K through first grade only. It is coed with 42 students and 1 teacher.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Cadillac's largest and most well-known private school is St. Ann School, a coed private Roman Catholic school with 236 students in grades pre-K through 7. The teacher:student ratio is 1:26. St. Ann is a member of the National Catholic Education Association. No Catholic high school education is offered at St. Ann School, and students typically attend public school for grades 8–12.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Northwoods Aviation, located at Wexford County Airport, offers training programs for piloting and servicing aircraft. Northwoods Aviation also offers primary instruction for those interested in sport pilot, private, and commercial certificates.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Cadillac Institute of Cosmetology (formerly Cadillac Academy of Beauty) is a full service teaching salon in downtown Cadillac that offers training for general cosmetologists and specialized technicians to high school students through a partnership with Wexford-Missaukee Intermediate School District. Training is also available to adult students though private courses on a tuition basis. Upon completion of the program, students are qualified to take the state board exam to become a licensed cosmetologist or specialty technician.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Baker College-Cadillac campus occupies 66 acres (270,000 m) just outside the City of Cadillac. The school has an enrollment of more than 1,300 students and offers Associate's and bachelor's degrees, in addition to professional certifications.",
"title": "Education"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Cadillac is situated as the confluence of three highways: US 131, M-55 and M-115. Prior to 2001, the northern end of the freeway portion of US 131 was located at the southern entrance to Cadillac. With the construction of a bypass, the US 131 freeway was extended around the east side of the city. The former route of the highway through downtown Cadillac was redesignated as BUS US 131. In the city, BUS US 131 is named Mitchell Street, after George Mitchell, but may be referred to as main street.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The city is serviced by rail via the Great Lakes Central Railroad. This is primarily a freight line, although passenger service is expected in the future.",
"title": "Transportation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The White Pine Trail's northern terminus is in Cadillac. The trail, which stretches 92 miles (148 km) and originates from Comstock Park, follows an abandoned railroad bed into the center of the city. The trail is paved from the village of Leroy 16 miles north to Cadillac.",
"title": "Transportation"
}
] | Cadillac is a city in and county seat of Wexford County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 10,371 at the 2020 census, making it the second most-populated city in the Northern Michigan region, after Traverse City. Cadillac was settled as early as 1871 and formerly known as the village of Clam Lake before incorporating as a city in 1877. The city is located upon the shores of Lake Cadillac, connected by the Clam Lake Canal to Lake Mitchell. The Clam River, which begins Cadillac, is part of the Muskegon River watershed. Cadillac is the junction of three major highways: US Highway 131, M-55, and M-115. The geographic center of Michigan is approximately five miles (8.0 km) north-northwest of Cadillac. Cadillac is the primary city of the Cadillac micropolitan area, which includes all of Wexford County and Missaukee County to the east, and had population of 48,725 at the 2020 census. | 2001-09-30T22:50:18Z | 2023-09-15T23:23:26Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac,_Michigan |
6,589 | COINTELPRO | COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive, including feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights and Black power movements (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr., the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party), environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements (including Puerto Rican independence groups such as the Young Lords and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party), a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the far-right group National States' Rights Party.
The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971. Many of the tactics used in COINTELPRO are alleged to have seen continued use including; discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; illegal violence; and assassination. According to a Senate report, the FBI's motivation was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order".
Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized" by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers targeted include Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Marshall Conway. Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, and withholding of exculpatory evidence.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and especially their leaders. Under Hoover, the official in charge of COINTELPRO was assistant director William C. Sullivan. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of the programs, giving written approval for limited wiretapping of Martin Luther King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so". Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.
Centralized operations under COINTELPRO officially began in August 1956 with a program designed to "increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections" inside the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Tactics included anonymous phone calls, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits, and the creation of documents that would divide the American communist organization internally. An October 1956 memo from Hoover reclassified the FBI's ongoing surveillance of black leaders, including it within COINTELPRO, with the justification that the movement was infiltrated by communists. In 1956, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T. R. M. Howard, a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee, Emmett Till, and other African Americans in the South. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an African-American civil rights organization, was founded in 1957, the FBI began to monitor and target the group almost immediately, focusing particularly on Bayard Rustin, Stanley Levison, and eventually Martin Luther King Jr.
After the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Hoover singled out King as a major target for COINTELPRO. Under pressure from Hoover to focus on King, Sullivan wrote:
In the light of King's powerful demagogic speech ... We must mark him now if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.
Soon after, the FBI was systematically bugging King's home and his hotel rooms, as they were now aware that King was growing in stature daily as the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement.
In the mid-1960s, King began to publicly criticize the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most "notorious liar" in the United States. In his 1991 memoir, Washington Post journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide. Historian Taylor Branch documents an anonymous "suicide package" sent by the FBI on November 21, 1964, that contained audio recordings obtained through tapping King's phone and placing bugs throughout various hotel rooms over the past two years, and that was created two days after the announcement of King's impending Nobel Peace Prize. The tape, which was prepared by FBI audio technician John Matter, documented a series of sexual indiscretions by King combined with a letter telling him: "There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation". King was subsequently informed that the audio would be released to the media if he did not acquiesce and commit suicide prior to accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. When King refused to satisfy their coercion tactics, FBI Associate Director, Cartha D. DeLoach, commenced a media campaign offering the surveillance transcript to various news organizations, including Newsweek and Newsday. Even by 1969, as has been noted elsewhere, "[FBI] efforts to 'expose' Martin Luther King Jr. had not slackened even though King had been dead for a year. [The Bureau] furnished ammunition to opponents that enabled attacks on King's memory, and ... tried to block efforts to honor the slain leader."
During the same period the program also targeted Malcolm X. While an FBI spokesman has denied that the FBI was "directly" involved in Malcolm's murder in 1965, it is documented that the Bureau worked to "widen the rift" between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad through infiltration and the "sparking of acrimonious debates within the organization", rumor-mongering, and other tactics designed to foster internal disputes, which ultimately led to Malcolm's assassination. The FBI heavily infiltrated Malcolm's Organization of Afro-American Unity in the final months of his life. The Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Malcolm X by Manning Marable asserts that most of the men who plotted Malcolm's assassination were never apprehended and that the full extent of the FBI's involvement in his death cannot be known.
Amidst the urban unrest of July–August 1967, the FBI began "COINTELPRO–BLACK HATE", which focused on King and the SCLC, as well as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), the Deacons for Defense and Justice, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Nation of Islam. BLACK HATE established the Ghetto Informant Program and instructed 23 FBI offices to "disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate type organizations".
A March 1968 memo stated the program's goal was to "prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups"; to "Prevent the RISE OF A 'MESSIAH' who could unify ... the militant black nationalist movement"; "to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence [against authorities]"; to "Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining RESPECTABILITY, by discrediting them to ... both the responsible community and to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy"; and to "prevent the long-range GROWTH of militant black organizations, especially among youth". Dr. King was said to have potential to be the "messiah" figure, should he abandon nonviolence and integrationism, and Kwame Ture was noted to have "the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way" as he was portrayed as someone who espoused a much more militant vision of "black power". While the FBI was particularly concerned with leaders and organizers, they did not limit their scope of target to the heads of organizations. Individuals such as writers were also listed among the targets of operations.
This program coincided with a broader federal effort to prepare military responses for urban riots and began increased collaboration between the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and the Department of Defense. The CIA launched its own domestic espionage project in 1967 called Operation CHAOS. A particular target was the Poor People's Campaign, a national effort organized by King and the SCLC to occupy Washington, DC. The FBI monitored and disrupted the campaign on a national level, while using targeted smear tactics locally to undermine support for the march. The Black Panther Party was another targeted organization, wherein the FBI collaborated to destroy the party from the inside out.
Overall, COINTELPRO encompassed disruption and sabotage of the Socialist Workers Party (1961), the Ku Klux Klan (1964), the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party (1967), and the entire New Left social/political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). A later investigation by the Senate's Church Committee (see below) stated that "COINTELPRO began in 1956, in part because of frustration with Supreme Court rulings limiting the Government's power to proceed overtly against dissident groups." Official congressional committees and several court cases have concluded that COINTELPRO operations against communist and socialist groups exceeded statutory limits on FBI activity and violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association.
The program was secret until March 8, 1971, when the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI burgled an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, took several dossiers, and exposed the program by passing this material to news agencies. The boxing match known as the Fight of the Century between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in March 1971 provided cover for the activist group to successfully pull off the burglary. Muhammad Ali was a COINTELPRO target because he had joined the Nation of Islam and the anti-war movement.
Many news organizations initially refused to immediately publish the information, with the notable exception of The Washington Post. After affirming the reliability of the documents, it published them on the front page (in defiance of the Attorney General's request), prompting other organizations to follow suit. Within the year, Director J. Edgar Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over, and that all future counterintelligence operations would be handled case by case.
Additional documents were revealed in the course of separate lawsuits filed against the FBI by NBC correspondent Carl Stern, the Socialist Workers Party, and a number of other groups. In 1976 the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, commonly referred to as the "Church Committee" after its chairman, Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), launched a major investigation of the FBI and COINTELPRO. Many released documents have been partly or entirely redacted.
The Final Report of the Select Committee castigated the conduct of the intelligence community in its domestic operations (including COINTELPRO) in no uncertain terms:
The Committee finds that the domestic activities of the intelligence community at times violated specific statutory prohibitions and infringed the constitutional rights of American citizens. The legal questions involved in intelligence programs were often not considered. On other occasions, they were intentionally disregarded in the belief that because the programs served the "national security" the law did not apply. While intelligence officers on occasion failed to disclose to their superiors programs which were illegal or of questionable legality, the Committee finds that the most serious breaches of duty were those of senior officials, who were responsible for controlling intelligence activities and generally failed to assure compliance with the law. Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that ... the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.
The Church Committee documented a history of the FBI (initially called BOI until 1936) exercising political repression as far back as World War I, and through the 1920s, when agents were charged with rounding up "anarchists, communists, socialists, reformists and revolutionaries" for deportation. From 1936 through 1976, the domestic operations were increased against political and anti-war groups.
The intended effect of the FBI's COINTELPRO was to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, or otherwise neutralize" groups that the FBI officials believed were "subversive" by instructing FBI field operatives to:
At its inception, the program's main target was the Communist Party.
In an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr in February 1996, Noam Chomsky—a political activist and MIT professor of linguistics—spoke about the purpose and the targets of COINTELPRO, saying:
COINTELPRO was a program of subversion carried out not by a couple of petty crooks but by the national political police, the FBI, under four administrations ... by the time it got through, I won't run through the whole story, it was aimed at the entire new left, at the women's movement, at the whole black movement, it was extremely broad. Its actions went as far as political assassination.
According to the Church Committee:
While the declared purposes of these programs were to protect the "national security" or prevent violence, Bureau witnesses admit that many of the targets were nonviolent and most had no connections with a foreign power. Indeed, nonviolent organizations and individuals were targeted because the Bureau believed they represented a "potential" for violence—and nonviolent citizens who were against the war in Vietnam were targeted because they gave "aid and comfort" to violent demonstrators by lending respectability to their cause.
The imprecision of the targeting is demonstrated by the inability of the Bureau to define the subjects of the programs. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included "a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black". Thus, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist "Hate Group".
Furthermore, the actual targets were chosen from a far broader group than the titles of the programs would imply. The CPUSA program targeted not only Communist Party members but also sponsors of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee and civil rights leaders allegedly under Communist influence or deemed to be not sufficiently "anti-Communist". The Socialist Workers Party program included non-SWP sponsors of anti-war demonstrations which were cosponsored by the SWP or the Young Socialist Alliance, its youth group. The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from the Panthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and included every Black Student Union and many other black student groups. New Left targets ranged from the SDS to the InterUniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy, from Antioch College ("vanguard of the New Left") to the New Mexico Free University and other "alternate" schools, and from underground newspapers to students' protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs with four-letter words on them.
Examples of surveillance, spanning all presidents from FDR to Nixon, both legal and illegal, contained in the Church Committee report:
Groups that were known to be targets of COINTELPRO operations include:
The COINTELPRO operators targeted multiple groups at once and encouraged splintering of these groups from within. In letter-writing campaigns (wherein false letters were sent on behalf of members of parties), the FBI ensured that groups would not unite in their causes. For instance, they launched a campaign specifically to alienate the Black Panther Party from the Mau Maus, Young Lords, Young Patriots and SDS. These racially diverse groups had been building alliances, in part due to charismatic leaders such as Fred Hampton and his attempts to create a "Rainbow Coalition". The FBI was concerned with ensuring that groups could not gain traction through unity, specifically across racial lines. One of the main ways of targeting these groups was to arouse suspicion between the different parties and causes. In this way the bureau took on a divide-and-conquer offensive.
The COINTELPRO documents show numerous cases of the FBI's intentions to prevent and disrupt protests against the Vietnam War. Many techniques were used to accomplish this task. "These included promoting splits among antiwar forces, encouraging red-baiting of socialists, and pushing violent confrontations as an alternative to massive, peaceful demonstrations." One 1966 COINTELPRO operation tried to redirect the Socialist Workers Party from their pledge of support for the antiwar movement.
The FBI has said that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics have claimed that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO targeted groups such as the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the American Indian Movement, Earth First!, and the anti-globalization movement.
According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used five main methods during COINTELPRO:
The FBI specifically developed tactics intended to heighten tension and hostility between various factions in the black power movement, for example between the Black Panthers and the US Organization. For instance, the FBI sent a fake letter to the US Organization exposing a supposed Black Panther plot to murder the head of the US Organization, Ron Karenga. They then intensified this by spreading falsely attributed cartoons in the black communities pitting the Black Panther Party against the US Organization. This resulted in numerous deaths, among which were San Diego Black Panther Party members John Huggins, Bunchy Carter and Sylvester Bell. Another example of the FBI's anonymous letter writing campaign is how they turned the Blackstone Rangers head, Jeff Fort, against former ally Fred Hampton, by stating that Hampton had a hit on Fort. They also were instrumental in developing the rift between Black Panther Party leaders Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, as executed through false letters inciting the two leaders of the Black Panther Party.
Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a former Black Panther, reflects on how these tactics made him feel, saying he had a combat mentality and felt like he was at war with the government. When asked about why he thinks the Black Panthers were targeted he said, "In the United States, the equivalent of the military was the local police. During the early sixties, at the height of the civil rights movement, and the human rights movement, the police in the United States became increasingly militaristic. They began to train out of military bases in the United States. The Law Enforcement Assistance Act supplied local police with military technology, everything from assault rifles to army personnel carriers. In his opinion, the Counterintelligence Program went hand-in-hand with the militarization of the police in the Black community, with the militarization of police in America."
The FBI also conspired with the police departments of many U.S. cities (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Chicago) to encourage repeated raids on Black Panther homes—often with little or no evidence of violations of federal, state, or local laws—which resulted in the police killing many members of the Black Panther Party, most notably Chicago Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969. Whether or not the FBI sanctioned his killing remains unproven. Before the death of Hampton, long-term infiltrator, William O'Neal, shared floor plans of his apartment with the COINTELPRO team. He then gave Hampton a dose of secobarbital that rendered Hampton unconscious during the raid on his home.
In order to eliminate black militant leaders whom they considered dangerous, the FBI is believed to have worked with local police departments to target specific individuals, accuse them of crimes they did not commit, suppress exculpatory evidence and falsely incarcerate them. Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a Black Panther Party leader, was incarcerated for 27 years before a California Superior Court vacated his murder conviction, ultimately freeing him. Appearing before the court, an FBI agent testified that he believed Pratt had been framed, because both the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department knew he had not been in the area at the time the murder occurred.
Some sources claim that the FBI conducted more than 200 "black bag jobs", which were warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members.
In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black Panther Party had concluded that in his city, at least, the Panthers were primarily engaged in feeding breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo implying the agent's career goals would be directly affected by his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the Black Panther Party was "a violence-prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means".
Hoover supported using false claims to attack his political enemies. In one memo he wrote: "Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt the Black Panther Party and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge."
Viola's family endured Hoover's claiming that cuts on her arm from the car's shattered window indicated "recent drug use" and that her proximity to Moton resembled "a necking party," despite an autopsy revealing no traces of drugs in her system and indicating she hadn't had sex recently before her death.
—On the FBI's targeting of Viola Liuzzo
In one particularly controversial 1965 incident, white civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo was murdered by Ku Klux Klansmen, who gave chase and fired shots into her car after noticing that her passenger was a young black man; one of the Klansmen was Gary Thomas Rowe, an acknowledged FBI informant. The FBI spread rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement. FBI records show that J. Edgar Hoover personally communicated these insinuations to President Johnson.
FBI informant Rowe has also been implicated in some of the most violent crimes of the 1960s civil rights era, including attacks on the Freedom Riders and the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.
The ACLU has claimed the FBI supported an extreme right-wing group of former Minutemen, transforming it into a group called the Secret Army Organization that targeted groups, activists, and leaders involved in the Anti-War Movement, using both intimidation and violent acts.
Hoover ordered preemptive action "to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence."
The final report of the Church Committee concluded:
Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been illegally collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret and biased informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone "bugs", surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous—and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations—have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity.
Groups and individuals have been assaulted, repressed, harassed and disrupted because of their political views, social beliefs and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory, harmful and vicious tactics have been employed—including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform.
Governmental officials—including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law—have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.
The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them.
While COINTELPRO was officially terminated in April 1971, domestic espionage continued. Between 1972 and 1974, it is documented that the Bureau planted over 500 bugs without a warrant and opened over 2,000 pieces of personal mail. More recent targets of covert action include the American Indian Movement (AIM), Earth First!, and Committees in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Documents released under the FOIA show that the FBI tracked the late David Halberstam—a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author—for more than two decades. "Counterterrorism" guidelines implemented during the Reagan administration have been described as allowing a return to COINTELPRO tactics. Some radical groups accuse factional opponents of being FBI informants or assume the FBI is infiltrating the movement. COINTELPRO survivor Filiberto Ojeda Rios was killed by the FBI's hostage rescue team in 2005, his death described by a United Nations special committee as an assassination.
Environmentalist Eric McDavid convicted on arson charges was released after documents emerged demonstrating that the FBI informant in his Earth Liberation Front group provided crucial leadership, information, and material without which the crime could not have been committed, repeating the same pattern of behavior of COINTELPRO. It has been claimed these sorts of practices have become widespread in FBI "counter-terrorism" cases targeting Muslims in the 2009 Bronx terrorism plot and others.
Authors such as Ward Churchill, Rex Weyler, and Peter Matthiessen allege that the federal government intended to acquire uranium deposits on the Lakota tribe's reservation land, and that this motivated a larger government conspiracy against AIM activists on the Pine Ridge reservation. Others believe COINTELPRO continues and similar actions are being taken against activist groups. Caroline Woidat says that, with respect to Native Americans, COINTELPRO should be understood within a historical context in which "Native Americans have been viewed and have viewed the world themselves through the lens of conspiracy theory." Other authors argue that while some conspiracy theories related to COINTELPRO are unfounded, the issue of ongoing government surveillance and repression is real.
FBI Agent Richard G. Held is known to have increased FBI support for the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON) squads, who were a private paramilitary group established in 1972 by the elected tribal chairman, Dick Wilson under authority of the Oglala Sioux. AIM accused GOONs of involvement in 300 assaults and 64 homicides of political opponents. Despite this, The Bureau rarely investigated them and instead used its resources overwhelmingly to prosecute AIM. In 2000, the FBI released a report regarding these alleged unsolved violent deaths on Pine Ridge reservation and accounted for most of the deaths, and disputed the claims of unsolved murders. The report stated that only four deaths were unsolved and that some deaths were not murders.
In April 2018, the Atlanta Black Star characterized the FBI as still engaging in COINTELPRO behavior by surveilling the Black Lives Matter movement. Internal documents dated as late as 2017 showed that the FBI had surveilled the movement. In 2014, the FBI tracked a Black Lives Matter activist using surveillance tactics which The Intercept found "reminiscent of a rich American history of targeting black Americans," including COINTELPRO. This practice, along with the imprisonment of black activists for their views, has been associated with the new FBI designation of "Black Identity Extremists".
Defending Rights & Dissent, a civil liberties group, cataloged known instances of First Amendment abuses and political surveillance by the FBI since 2010. The organization found that the FBI devoted disproportionate resources to spy on peaceful left-leaning civil society groups, including Occupy Wall Street, economic justice advocates, racial justice movements, environmentalists, Abolish ICE, and various anti-war movements.
In December 2012, the FBI released redacted documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director of PCJF, said the documents showed that FBI counterterrorism agents had monitored the Occupy movement from its inception in August 2011 and that the FBI acted improperly by collecting "information on people's free-speech actions" and entering it into "unregulated databases, a vast storehouse of information widely disseminated to a range of law-enforcement and, apparently, private entities" (see Domestic Security Alliance Council). The FBI also communicated with the New York Stock Exchange, banks, private businesses and state and local police forces about the movement. In 2014, the PCJF obtained an additional 4,000 pages of unclassified documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, showing "details of the scrutiny of the Occupy protests in 2011 and 2012 by law enforcement officers, federal officials, security contractors and others."
In October 2020, Katie Reiter, chief of staff to Michigan state Senator Rosemary Bayer, had an FBI task force come to her house and aggressively question her about a draft bill she had recently discussed which would have limited the use of tear gas against protesters. Reiter had discussed the proposed ban on tear gas on a private 90-minute Zoom call with Bayer and a handful of other staffers. Reiter says the two officers refused to answer any questions about how they became aware of her private meeting. The Intercept reported about the incident: “Reiter said that the FBI’s visit left her confused and fearful. ‘It has impacted my sleep, it has caused me quite a bit of anxiety,’ she said. ‘And it has certainly impacted how we talk. I try not to let it, I’ll just be like, ‘No, we’re going to talk about this.’ But it's in my mind all the time.’” A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment on the record, as did a spokesperson for Zoom. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program; 1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive, including feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights and Black power movements (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr., the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party), environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements (including Puerto Rican independence groups such as the Young Lords and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party), a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the far-right group National States' Rights Party.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971. Many of the tactics used in COINTELPRO are alleged to have seen continued use including; discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; illegal violence; and assassination. According to a Senate report, the FBI's motivation was \"protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order\".",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and \"neutralized\" by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers targeted include Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Marshall Conway. Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, and withholding of exculpatory evidence.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to \"expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize\" the activities of these movements and especially their leaders. Under Hoover, the official in charge of COINTELPRO was assistant director William C. Sullivan. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of the programs, giving written approval for limited wiretapping of Martin Luther King's phones \"on a trial basis, for a month or so\". Hoover extended the clearance so his men were \"unshackled\" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Centralized operations under COINTELPRO officially began in August 1956 with a program designed to \"increase factionalism, cause disruption and win defections\" inside the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). Tactics included anonymous phone calls, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audits, and the creation of documents that would divide the American communist organization internally. An October 1956 memo from Hoover reclassified the FBI's ongoing surveillance of black leaders, including it within COINTELPRO, with the justification that the movement was infiltrated by communists. In 1956, Hoover sent an open letter denouncing Dr. T. R. M. Howard, a civil rights leader, surgeon, and wealthy entrepreneur in Mississippi who had criticized FBI inaction in solving recent murders of George W. Lee, Emmett Till, and other African Americans in the South. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), an African-American civil rights organization, was founded in 1957, the FBI began to monitor and target the group almost immediately, focusing particularly on Bayard Rustin, Stanley Levison, and eventually Martin Luther King Jr.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "After the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Hoover singled out King as a major target for COINTELPRO. Under pressure from Hoover to focus on King, Sullivan wrote:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In the light of King's powerful demagogic speech ... We must mark him now if we have not done so before, as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Soon after, the FBI was systematically bugging King's home and his hotel rooms, as they were now aware that King was growing in stature daily as the most prominent leader of the civil rights movement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In the mid-1960s, King began to publicly criticize the Bureau for giving insufficient attention to the use of terrorism by white supremacists. Hoover responded by publicly calling King the most \"notorious liar\" in the United States. In his 1991 memoir, Washington Post journalist Carl Rowan asserted that the FBI had sent at least one anonymous letter to King encouraging him to commit suicide. Historian Taylor Branch documents an anonymous \"suicide package\" sent by the FBI on November 21, 1964, that contained audio recordings obtained through tapping King's phone and placing bugs throughout various hotel rooms over the past two years, and that was created two days after the announcement of King's impending Nobel Peace Prize. The tape, which was prepared by FBI audio technician John Matter, documented a series of sexual indiscretions by King combined with a letter telling him: \"There is only one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal, fraudulent self is bared to the nation\". King was subsequently informed that the audio would be released to the media if he did not acquiesce and commit suicide prior to accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. When King refused to satisfy their coercion tactics, FBI Associate Director, Cartha D. DeLoach, commenced a media campaign offering the surveillance transcript to various news organizations, including Newsweek and Newsday. Even by 1969, as has been noted elsewhere, \"[FBI] efforts to 'expose' Martin Luther King Jr. had not slackened even though King had been dead for a year. [The Bureau] furnished ammunition to opponents that enabled attacks on King's memory, and ... tried to block efforts to honor the slain leader.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "During the same period the program also targeted Malcolm X. While an FBI spokesman has denied that the FBI was \"directly\" involved in Malcolm's murder in 1965, it is documented that the Bureau worked to \"widen the rift\" between Malcolm and Elijah Muhammad through infiltration and the \"sparking of acrimonious debates within the organization\", rumor-mongering, and other tactics designed to foster internal disputes, which ultimately led to Malcolm's assassination. The FBI heavily infiltrated Malcolm's Organization of Afro-American Unity in the final months of his life. The Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Malcolm X by Manning Marable asserts that most of the men who plotted Malcolm's assassination were never apprehended and that the full extent of the FBI's involvement in his death cannot be known.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Amidst the urban unrest of July–August 1967, the FBI began \"COINTELPRO–BLACK HATE\", which focused on King and the SCLC, as well as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM), the Deacons for Defense and Justice, Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Nation of Islam. BLACK HATE established the Ghetto Informant Program and instructed 23 FBI offices to \"disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate type organizations\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "A March 1968 memo stated the program's goal was to \"prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups\"; to \"Prevent the RISE OF A 'MESSIAH' who could unify ... the militant black nationalist movement\"; \"to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence [against authorities]\"; to \"Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining RESPECTABILITY, by discrediting them to ... both the responsible community and to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy\"; and to \"prevent the long-range GROWTH of militant black organizations, especially among youth\". Dr. King was said to have potential to be the \"messiah\" figure, should he abandon nonviolence and integrationism, and Kwame Ture was noted to have \"the necessary charisma to be a real threat in this way\" as he was portrayed as someone who espoused a much more militant vision of \"black power\". While the FBI was particularly concerned with leaders and organizers, they did not limit their scope of target to the heads of organizations. Individuals such as writers were also listed among the targets of operations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "This program coincided with a broader federal effort to prepare military responses for urban riots and began increased collaboration between the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and the Department of Defense. The CIA launched its own domestic espionage project in 1967 called Operation CHAOS. A particular target was the Poor People's Campaign, a national effort organized by King and the SCLC to occupy Washington, DC. The FBI monitored and disrupted the campaign on a national level, while using targeted smear tactics locally to undermine support for the march. The Black Panther Party was another targeted organization, wherein the FBI collaborated to destroy the party from the inside out.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Overall, COINTELPRO encompassed disruption and sabotage of the Socialist Workers Party (1961), the Ku Klux Klan (1964), the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party (1967), and the entire New Left social/political movement, which included antiwar, community, and religious groups (1968). A later investigation by the Senate's Church Committee (see below) stated that \"COINTELPRO began in 1956, in part because of frustration with Supreme Court rulings limiting the Government's power to proceed overtly against dissident groups.\" Official congressional committees and several court cases have concluded that COINTELPRO operations against communist and socialist groups exceeded statutory limits on FBI activity and violated constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and association.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The program was secret until March 8, 1971, when the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI burgled an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, took several dossiers, and exposed the program by passing this material to news agencies. The boxing match known as the Fight of the Century between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in March 1971 provided cover for the activist group to successfully pull off the burglary. Muhammad Ali was a COINTELPRO target because he had joined the Nation of Islam and the anti-war movement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Many news organizations initially refused to immediately publish the information, with the notable exception of The Washington Post. After affirming the reliability of the documents, it published them on the front page (in defiance of the Attorney General's request), prompting other organizations to follow suit. Within the year, Director J. Edgar Hoover declared that the centralized COINTELPRO was over, and that all future counterintelligence operations would be handled case by case.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Additional documents were revealed in the course of separate lawsuits filed against the FBI by NBC correspondent Carl Stern, the Socialist Workers Party, and a number of other groups. In 1976 the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate, commonly referred to as the \"Church Committee\" after its chairman, Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), launched a major investigation of the FBI and COINTELPRO. Many released documents have been partly or entirely redacted.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Final Report of the Select Committee castigated the conduct of the intelligence community in its domestic operations (including COINTELPRO) in no uncertain terms:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Committee finds that the domestic activities of the intelligence community at times violated specific statutory prohibitions and infringed the constitutional rights of American citizens. The legal questions involved in intelligence programs were often not considered. On other occasions, they were intentionally disregarded in the belief that because the programs served the \"national security\" the law did not apply. While intelligence officers on occasion failed to disclose to their superiors programs which were illegal or of questionable legality, the Committee finds that the most serious breaches of duty were those of senior officials, who were responsible for controlling intelligence activities and generally failed to assure compliance with the law. Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that ... the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Church Committee documented a history of the FBI (initially called BOI until 1936) exercising political repression as far back as World War I, and through the 1920s, when agents were charged with rounding up \"anarchists, communists, socialists, reformists and revolutionaries\" for deportation. From 1936 through 1976, the domestic operations were increased against political and anti-war groups.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The intended effect of the FBI's COINTELPRO was to \"expose, disrupt, misdirect, or otherwise neutralize\" groups that the FBI officials believed were \"subversive\" by instructing FBI field operatives to:",
"title": "Intended effects"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "At its inception, the program's main target was the Communist Party.",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In an interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr in February 1996, Noam Chomsky—a political activist and MIT professor of linguistics—spoke about the purpose and the targets of COINTELPRO, saying:",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "COINTELPRO was a program of subversion carried out not by a couple of petty crooks but by the national political police, the FBI, under four administrations ... by the time it got through, I won't run through the whole story, it was aimed at the entire new left, at the women's movement, at the whole black movement, it was extremely broad. Its actions went as far as political assassination.",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "According to the Church Committee:",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "While the declared purposes of these programs were to protect the \"national security\" or prevent violence, Bureau witnesses admit that many of the targets were nonviolent and most had no connections with a foreign power. Indeed, nonviolent organizations and individuals were targeted because the Bureau believed they represented a \"potential\" for violence—and nonviolent citizens who were against the war in Vietnam were targeted because they gave \"aid and comfort\" to violent demonstrators by lending respectability to their cause.",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The imprecision of the targeting is demonstrated by the inability of the Bureau to define the subjects of the programs. The Black Nationalist program, according to its supervisor, included \"a great number of organizations that you might not today characterize as black nationalist but which were in fact primarily black\". Thus, the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference was labeled as a Black Nationalist \"Hate Group\".",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Furthermore, the actual targets were chosen from a far broader group than the titles of the programs would imply. The CPUSA program targeted not only Communist Party members but also sponsors of the National Committee to Abolish the House Un-American Activities Committee and civil rights leaders allegedly under Communist influence or deemed to be not sufficiently \"anti-Communist\". The Socialist Workers Party program included non-SWP sponsors of anti-war demonstrations which were cosponsored by the SWP or the Young Socialist Alliance, its youth group. The Black Nationalist program targeted a range of organizations from the Panthers to SNCC to the peaceful Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and included every Black Student Union and many other black student groups. New Left targets ranged from the SDS to the InterUniversity Committee for Debate on Foreign Policy, from Antioch College (\"vanguard of the New Left\") to the New Mexico Free University and other \"alternate\" schools, and from underground newspapers to students' protesting university censorship of a student publication by carrying signs with four-letter words on them.",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Examples of surveillance, spanning all presidents from FDR to Nixon, both legal and illegal, contained in the Church Committee report:",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Groups that were known to be targets of COINTELPRO operations include:",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The COINTELPRO operators targeted multiple groups at once and encouraged splintering of these groups from within. In letter-writing campaigns (wherein false letters were sent on behalf of members of parties), the FBI ensured that groups would not unite in their causes. For instance, they launched a campaign specifically to alienate the Black Panther Party from the Mau Maus, Young Lords, Young Patriots and SDS. These racially diverse groups had been building alliances, in part due to charismatic leaders such as Fred Hampton and his attempts to create a \"Rainbow Coalition\". The FBI was concerned with ensuring that groups could not gain traction through unity, specifically across racial lines. One of the main ways of targeting these groups was to arouse suspicion between the different parties and causes. In this way the bureau took on a divide-and-conquer offensive.",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The COINTELPRO documents show numerous cases of the FBI's intentions to prevent and disrupt protests against the Vietnam War. Many techniques were used to accomplish this task. \"These included promoting splits among antiwar forces, encouraging red-baiting of socialists, and pushing violent confrontations as an alternative to massive, peaceful demonstrations.\" One 1966 COINTELPRO operation tried to redirect the Socialist Workers Party from their pledge of support for the antiwar movement.",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The FBI has said that it no longer undertakes COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-like operations. However, critics have claimed that agency programs in the spirit of COINTELPRO targeted groups such as the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, the American Indian Movement, Earth First!, and the anti-globalization movement.",
"title": "Range of targets"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used five main methods during COINTELPRO:",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The FBI specifically developed tactics intended to heighten tension and hostility between various factions in the black power movement, for example between the Black Panthers and the US Organization. For instance, the FBI sent a fake letter to the US Organization exposing a supposed Black Panther plot to murder the head of the US Organization, Ron Karenga. They then intensified this by spreading falsely attributed cartoons in the black communities pitting the Black Panther Party against the US Organization. This resulted in numerous deaths, among which were San Diego Black Panther Party members John Huggins, Bunchy Carter and Sylvester Bell. Another example of the FBI's anonymous letter writing campaign is how they turned the Blackstone Rangers head, Jeff Fort, against former ally Fred Hampton, by stating that Hampton had a hit on Fort. They also were instrumental in developing the rift between Black Panther Party leaders Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton, as executed through false letters inciting the two leaders of the Black Panther Party.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a former Black Panther, reflects on how these tactics made him feel, saying he had a combat mentality and felt like he was at war with the government. When asked about why he thinks the Black Panthers were targeted he said, \"In the United States, the equivalent of the military was the local police. During the early sixties, at the height of the civil rights movement, and the human rights movement, the police in the United States became increasingly militaristic. They began to train out of military bases in the United States. The Law Enforcement Assistance Act supplied local police with military technology, everything from assault rifles to army personnel carriers. In his opinion, the Counterintelligence Program went hand-in-hand with the militarization of the police in the Black community, with the militarization of police in America.\"",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The FBI also conspired with the police departments of many U.S. cities (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Philadelphia, Chicago) to encourage repeated raids on Black Panther homes—often with little or no evidence of violations of federal, state, or local laws—which resulted in the police killing many members of the Black Panther Party, most notably Chicago Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969. Whether or not the FBI sanctioned his killing remains unproven. Before the death of Hampton, long-term infiltrator, William O'Neal, shared floor plans of his apartment with the COINTELPRO team. He then gave Hampton a dose of secobarbital that rendered Hampton unconscious during the raid on his home.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In order to eliminate black militant leaders whom they considered dangerous, the FBI is believed to have worked with local police departments to target specific individuals, accuse them of crimes they did not commit, suppress exculpatory evidence and falsely incarcerate them. Elmer \"Geronimo\" Pratt, a Black Panther Party leader, was incarcerated for 27 years before a California Superior Court vacated his murder conviction, ultimately freeing him. Appearing before the court, an FBI agent testified that he believed Pratt had been framed, because both the FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department knew he had not been in the area at the time the murder occurred.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Some sources claim that the FBI conducted more than 200 \"black bag jobs\", which were warrantless surreptitious entries, against the targeted groups and their members.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 1969 the FBI special agent in San Francisco wrote Hoover that his investigation of the Black Panther Party had concluded that in his city, at least, the Panthers were primarily engaged in feeding breakfast to children. Hoover fired back a memo implying the agent's career goals would be directly affected by his supplying evidence to support Hoover's view that the Black Panther Party was \"a violence-prone organization seeking to overthrow the Government by revolutionary means\".",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Hoover supported using false claims to attack his political enemies. In one memo he wrote: \"Purpose of counterintelligence action is to disrupt the Black Panther Party and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge.\"",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Viola's family endured Hoover's claiming that cuts on her arm from the car's shattered window indicated \"recent drug use\" and that her proximity to Moton resembled \"a necking party,\" despite an autopsy revealing no traces of drugs in her system and indicating she hadn't had sex recently before her death.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "—On the FBI's targeting of Viola Liuzzo",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In one particularly controversial 1965 incident, white civil rights worker Viola Liuzzo was murdered by Ku Klux Klansmen, who gave chase and fired shots into her car after noticing that her passenger was a young black man; one of the Klansmen was Gary Thomas Rowe, an acknowledged FBI informant. The FBI spread rumors that Liuzzo was a member of the Communist Party and had abandoned her children to have sexual relationships with African Americans involved in the civil rights movement. FBI records show that J. Edgar Hoover personally communicated these insinuations to President Johnson.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "FBI informant Rowe has also been implicated in some of the most violent crimes of the 1960s civil rights era, including attacks on the Freedom Riders and the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The ACLU has claimed the FBI supported an extreme right-wing group of former Minutemen, transforming it into a group called the Secret Army Organization that targeted groups, activists, and leaders involved in the Anti-War Movement, using both intimidation and violent acts.",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Hoover ordered preemptive action \"to pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise their potential for violence.\"",
"title": "Methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The final report of the Church Committee concluded:",
"title": "Illegal surveillance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Too many people have been spied upon by too many Government agencies and too much information has been illegally collected. The Government has often undertaken the secret surveillance of citizens on the basis of their political beliefs, even when those beliefs posed no threat of violence or illegal acts on behalf of a hostile foreign power. The Government, operating primarily through secret and biased informants, but also using other intrusive techniques such as wiretaps, microphone \"bugs\", surreptitious mail opening, and break-ins, has swept in vast amounts of information about the personal lives, views, and associations of American citizens. Investigations of groups deemed potentially dangerous—and even of groups suspected of associating with potentially dangerous organizations—have continued for decades, despite the fact that those groups did not engage in unlawful activity.",
"title": "Illegal surveillance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Groups and individuals have been assaulted, repressed, harassed and disrupted because of their political views, social beliefs and their lifestyles. Investigations have been based upon vague standards whose breadth made excessive collection inevitable. Unsavory, harmful and vicious tactics have been employed—including anonymous attempts to break up marriages, disrupt meetings, ostracize persons from their professions, and provoke target groups into rivalries that might result in deaths. Intelligence agencies have served the political and personal objectives of presidents and other high officials. While the agencies often committed excesses in response to pressure from high officials in the Executive branch and Congress, they also occasionally initiated improper activities and then concealed them from officials whom they had a duty to inform.",
"title": "Illegal surveillance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Governmental officials—including those whose principal duty is to enforce the law—have violated or ignored the law over long periods of time and have advocated and defended their right to break the law.",
"title": "Illegal surveillance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The Constitutional system of checks and balances has not adequately controlled intelligence activities. Until recently the Executive branch has neither delineated the scope of permissible activities nor established procedures for supervising intelligence agencies. Congress has failed to exercise sufficient oversight, seldom questioning the use to which its appropriations were being put. Most domestic intelligence issues have not reached the courts, and in those cases when they have reached the courts, the judiciary has been reluctant to grapple with them.",
"title": "Illegal surveillance"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "While COINTELPRO was officially terminated in April 1971, domestic espionage continued. Between 1972 and 1974, it is documented that the Bureau planted over 500 bugs without a warrant and opened over 2,000 pieces of personal mail. More recent targets of covert action include the American Indian Movement (AIM), Earth First!, and Committees in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Documents released under the FOIA show that the FBI tracked the late David Halberstam—a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author—for more than two decades. \"Counterterrorism\" guidelines implemented during the Reagan administration have been described as allowing a return to COINTELPRO tactics. Some radical groups accuse factional opponents of being FBI informants or assume the FBI is infiltrating the movement. COINTELPRO survivor Filiberto Ojeda Rios was killed by the FBI's hostage rescue team in 2005, his death described by a United Nations special committee as an assassination.",
"title": "Later similar operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Environmentalist Eric McDavid convicted on arson charges was released after documents emerged demonstrating that the FBI informant in his Earth Liberation Front group provided crucial leadership, information, and material without which the crime could not have been committed, repeating the same pattern of behavior of COINTELPRO. It has been claimed these sorts of practices have become widespread in FBI \"counter-terrorism\" cases targeting Muslims in the 2009 Bronx terrorism plot and others.",
"title": "Later similar operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "Authors such as Ward Churchill, Rex Weyler, and Peter Matthiessen allege that the federal government intended to acquire uranium deposits on the Lakota tribe's reservation land, and that this motivated a larger government conspiracy against AIM activists on the Pine Ridge reservation. Others believe COINTELPRO continues and similar actions are being taken against activist groups. Caroline Woidat says that, with respect to Native Americans, COINTELPRO should be understood within a historical context in which \"Native Americans have been viewed and have viewed the world themselves through the lens of conspiracy theory.\" Other authors argue that while some conspiracy theories related to COINTELPRO are unfounded, the issue of ongoing government surveillance and repression is real.",
"title": "Later similar operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "FBI Agent Richard G. Held is known to have increased FBI support for the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON) squads, who were a private paramilitary group established in 1972 by the elected tribal chairman, Dick Wilson under authority of the Oglala Sioux. AIM accused GOONs of involvement in 300 assaults and 64 homicides of political opponents. Despite this, The Bureau rarely investigated them and instead used its resources overwhelmingly to prosecute AIM. In 2000, the FBI released a report regarding these alleged unsolved violent deaths on Pine Ridge reservation and accounted for most of the deaths, and disputed the claims of unsolved murders. The report stated that only four deaths were unsolved and that some deaths were not murders.",
"title": "Later similar operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In April 2018, the Atlanta Black Star characterized the FBI as still engaging in COINTELPRO behavior by surveilling the Black Lives Matter movement. Internal documents dated as late as 2017 showed that the FBI had surveilled the movement. In 2014, the FBI tracked a Black Lives Matter activist using surveillance tactics which The Intercept found \"reminiscent of a rich American history of targeting black Americans,\" including COINTELPRO. This practice, along with the imprisonment of black activists for their views, has been associated with the new FBI designation of \"Black Identity Extremists\".",
"title": "Later similar operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Defending Rights & Dissent, a civil liberties group, cataloged known instances of First Amendment abuses and political surveillance by the FBI since 2010. The organization found that the FBI devoted disproportionate resources to spy on peaceful left-leaning civil society groups, including Occupy Wall Street, economic justice advocates, racial justice movements, environmentalists, Abolish ICE, and various anti-war movements.",
"title": "Later similar operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "In December 2012, the FBI released redacted documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF). Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director of PCJF, said the documents showed that FBI counterterrorism agents had monitored the Occupy movement from its inception in August 2011 and that the FBI acted improperly by collecting \"information on people's free-speech actions\" and entering it into \"unregulated databases, a vast storehouse of information widely disseminated to a range of law-enforcement and, apparently, private entities\" (see Domestic Security Alliance Council). The FBI also communicated with the New York Stock Exchange, banks, private businesses and state and local police forces about the movement. In 2014, the PCJF obtained an additional 4,000 pages of unclassified documents through a Freedom of Information Act request, showing \"details of the scrutiny of the Occupy protests in 2011 and 2012 by law enforcement officers, federal officials, security contractors and others.\"",
"title": "Later similar operations"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "In October 2020, Katie Reiter, chief of staff to Michigan state Senator Rosemary Bayer, had an FBI task force come to her house and aggressively question her about a draft bill she had recently discussed which would have limited the use of tear gas against protesters. Reiter had discussed the proposed ban on tear gas on a private 90-minute Zoom call with Bayer and a handful of other staffers. Reiter says the two officers refused to answer any questions about how they became aware of her private meeting. The Intercept reported about the incident: “Reiter said that the FBI’s visit left her confused and fearful. ‘It has impacted my sleep, it has caused me quite a bit of anxiety,’ she said. ‘And it has certainly impacted how we talk. I try not to let it, I’ll just be like, ‘No, we’re going to talk about this.’ But it's in my mind all the time.’” A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment on the record, as did a spokesperson for Zoom.",
"title": "Later similar operations"
}
] | COINTELPRO was a series of covert and illegal projects actively conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic American political organizations. FBI records show COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals the FBI deemed subversive, including feminist organizations, the Communist Party USA, anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights and Black power movements, environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements, a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and the far-right group National States' Rights Party. The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971. Many of the tactics used in COINTELPRO are alleged to have seen continued use including; discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; illegal violence; and assassination. According to a Senate report, the FBI's motivation was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order". Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized" by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers targeted include Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Marshall Conway. Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, and withholding of exculpatory evidence. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued directives governing COINTELPRO, ordering FBI agents to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of these movements and especially their leaders. Under Hoover, the official in charge of COINTELPRO was assistant director William C. Sullivan. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy personally authorized some of the programs, giving written approval for limited wiretapping of Martin Luther King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so". Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy. | 2001-09-28T05:07:46Z | 2023-10-24T16:20:08Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO |
6,590 | Cruise missile | A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets, that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at an approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of traveling at high subsonic, supersonic, or hypersonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory.
The idea of an "aerial torpedo" was shown in the British 1909 film The Airship Destroyer in which flying torpedoes controlled wirelessly are used to bring down airships bombing London.
In 1916, the American aviator Lawrence Sperry built and patented an "aerial torpedo", the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, a small biplane carrying a TNT charge, a Sperry autopilot and barometric altitude control. Inspired by the experiments, the United States Army developed a similar flying bomb called the Kettering Bug. Germany had also flown trials with remote-controlled aerial gliders (Torpedogleiter) built by Siemens-Schuckert beginning in 1916.
In the Interwar Period, Britain's Royal Aircraft Establishment developed the Larynx (Long Range Gun with Lynx Engine), which underwent a few flight tests in the 1920s.
In the Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev headed the GIRD-06 cruise missile project from 1932 to 1939, which used a rocket-powered boost-glide bomb design. The 06/III (RP-216) and 06/IV (RP-212) contained gyroscopic guidance systems. The vehicle was designed to boost to 28 km altitude and glide a distance of 280 km, but test flights in 1934 and 1936 only reached an altitude of 500 meters.
In 1944, during World War II, Germany deployed the first operational cruise missiles. The V-1, often called a flying bomb, contained a gyroscope guidance system and was propelled by a simple pulsejet engine, the sound of which gave it the nickname of "buzz bomb" or "doodlebug". Accuracy was sufficient only for use against very large targets (the general area of a city), while the range of 250 km was significantly lower than that of a bomber carrying the same payload. The main advantages were speed (although not sufficient to outperform contemporary propeller-driven interceptors) and expendability. The production cost of a V-1 was only a small fraction of that of a V-2 supersonic ballistic missile with a similar-sized warhead. Unlike the V-2, the initial deployments of the V-1 required stationary launch ramps which were susceptible to bombardment. Nazi Germany, in 1943, also developed the Mistel composite aircraft program, which can be seen as a rudimentary air-launched cruise missile, where a piloted fighter-type aircraft was mounted atop an unpiloted bomber-sized aircraft that was packed with explosives to be released while approaching the target. Bomber-launched variants of the V-1 saw limited operational service near the end of the war, with the pioneering V-1's design reverse-engineered by the Americans as the Republic-Ford JB-2 cruise missile.
Immediately after the war, the United States Air Force had 21 different guided missile projects, including would-be cruise missiles. All but four were cancelled by 1948: the Air Materiel Command Banshee, the SM-62 Snark, the SM-64 Navaho, and the MGM-1 Matador. The Banshee design was similar to Operation Aphrodite; like Aphrodite, it failed, and was canceled in April 1949. Concurrently, the US Navy's Operation Bumblebee, was conducted at Topsail Island, North Carolina, from c. 1 June 1946, to 28 July 1948. Bumblebee produced proof-of-concept technologies that influenced the US military's other missile projects.
During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented further with the concept, of deploying early cruise missiles from land, submarines, and aircraft. The main outcome of the United States Navy submarine missile project was the SSM-N-8 Regulus missile, based upon the V-1.
The United States Air Force's first operational surface-to-surface missile was the winged, mobile, nuclear-capable MGM-1 Matador, also similar in concept to the V-1. Deployment overseas began in 1954, first to West Germany and later to the Republic of China and South Korea. On 7 November 1956, the U.S. Air Force deployed Matador units in West Germany, whose missiles were capable of striking targets in the Warsaw Pact, from their fixed day-to-day sites to unannounced dispersed launch locations. This alert was in response to the crisis posed by the Soviet attack on Hungary which suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
Between 1957 and 1961 the United States followed an ambitious and well-funded program to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile, Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (SLAM). It was designed to fly below the enemy's radar at speeds above Mach 3 and carry hydrogen bombs that it would drop along its path over enemy territory. Although the concept was proven sound and the 500-megawatt engine finished a successful test run in 1961, no airworthy device was ever completed. The project was finally abandoned in favor of ICBM development.
While ballistic missiles were the preferred weapons for land targets, heavy nuclear and conventional weapon tipped cruise missiles were seen by the USSR as a primary weapon to destroy United States naval carrier battle groups. Large submarines (for example, Echo and Oscar classes) were developed to carry these weapons and shadow United States battle groups at sea, and large bombers (for example, Backfire, Bear, and Blackjack models) were equipped with the weapons in their air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) configuration.
Cruise missiles can be categorized by size, speed (subsonic or supersonic), range, and whether launched from land, air, surface ship, or submarine. Often versions of the same missile are produced for different launch platforms; sometimes air- and submarine-launched versions are a little lighter and smaller than land- and ship-launched versions.
Guidance systems can vary across missiles. Some missiles can be fitted with any of a variety of navigation systems (Inertial navigation, TERCOM, or satellite navigation). Larger cruise missiles can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead, while smaller ones carry only conventional warheads.
A hypersonic cruise missile travels at least five times the speed of sound (Mach 5).
These missiles travel faster than the speed of sound, usually using ramjet engines. The range is typically 100–500 km, but can be greater. Guidance systems vary.
Examples:
The United States, Russia, North Korea, India, Iran, South Korea, Israel, France, China and Pakistan have developed several long-range subsonic cruise missiles. These missiles have a range of over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) and fly at about 800 kilometres per hour (500 mph). They typically have a launch weight of about 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb) and can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead. Earlier versions of these missiles used inertial navigation; later versions use much more accurate TERCOM and DSMAC systems. Most recent versions can use satellite navigation.
Examples:
These missiles are about the same size and weight and fly at similar speeds to the above category. Guidance systems vary.
Examples:
These are subsonic missiles that weigh around 500 kilograms (1,102 lb) and have a range of up to 300 km (190 mi).
Examples:
The most common mission for cruise missiles is to attack relatively high-value targets such as ships, command bunkers, bridges and dams. Modern guidance systems permit accurate attacks.
As of 2001, the BGM-109 Tomahawk missile model has become a significant part of the United States naval arsenal. It gives ships and submarines a somewhat accurate, long-range, conventional land attack weapon. Each costs about US$1.99 million. Both the Tomahawk and the AGM-86 were used extensively during Operation Desert Storm. On 7 April 2017, during the Syrian Civil War, U.S. warships fired more than 50 cruise missiles into a Syrian airbase in retaliation for a Syrian chemical weapons attack against a rebel stronghold.
The United States Air Force (USAF) deploys an air-launched cruise missile, the AGM-86 ALCM. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is the exclusive delivery vehicle for the AGM-86 and AGM-129 ACM. Both missile types are configurable for either conventional or nuclear warheads.
The USAF adopted the AGM-86 for its bomber fleet while AGM-109 was adapted to launch from trucks and ships and adopted by the USAF and Navy. The truck-launched versions, and also the Pershing II and SS-20 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, were later destroyed under the bilateral INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty with the USSR.
The British Royal Navy (RN) also operates cruise missiles, specifically the U.S.-made Tomahawk, used by the RN's nuclear submarine fleet. UK conventional warhead versions were first fired in combat by the RN in 1999, during the Kosovo War (the United States fired cruise missiles in 1991). The Royal Air Force uses the Storm Shadow cruise missile on its Typhoon and previously its Tornado GR4 aircraft. It is also used by France, where it is known as SCALP EG, and carried by the Armée de l'Air's Mirage 2000 and Rafale aircraft.
India and Russia have jointly developed the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos. There are three versions of the Brahmos: ship/land-launched, air-launched, and sub-launched. The ship/land-launched version was operational as of late 2007. The Brahmos have the capability to attack targets on land. Russia also continues to operate other cruise missiles: the SS-N-12 Sandbox, SS-N-19 Shipwreck, SS-N-22 Sunburn and SS-N-25 Switchblade. Germany and Spain operate the Taurus missile while Pakistan has made the Babur missile Both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) have designed several cruise missile variants, such as the well-known C-802, some of which are capable of carrying biological, chemical, nuclear, and conventional warheads.
China has CJ-10 land attack cruise missile which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Additionally, China appears to have tested a hypersonic cruise missile in August 2021, a claim it denies.
The French Force de Frappe nuclear forces include both land and sea-based bombers with Air-Sol Moyenne Portée (ASMP) high-speed medium-range nuclear cruise missiles. Two models are in use, ASMP and a newer ASMP-Ameliorer Plus (ASMP-A), which was developed in 1999. An estimated 40 to 50 were produced.
India in 2017 successfully flight-tested its indigenous Nirbhay ('Fearless') land-attack cruise missile, which can deliver nuclear warheads to a strike range of 1,000 km. Nirbhay had been flight-tested successfully.
The Israel Defense Forces reportedly deploy the medium-range air-launched Popeye Turbo ALCM and the Popeye Turbo SLCM medium-long range cruise missile with nuclear warheads on Dolphin class submarines.
Pakistan currently has four cruise missile systems: the air-launched Ra'ad-I and its enhanced version Ra'ad-II; the ground and submarine launched Babur; ship-launched Harbah missile and surface launched Zarb missile. Both, Ra'ad and Babur, can carry nuclear warheads between 10 and 25 kt, and deliver them to targets at a range of up to 300 km (190 mi) and 450 km (280 mi) respectively. Babur has been in service with the Pakistan Army since 2010, and Pakistan Navy since 2018.
Russia has Kh-55SM cruise missiles, with a range similar to the United States' AGM-129 range of 3000 km, but are able to carry a more powerful warhead of 200 kt. They are equipped with a TERCOM system which allows them to cruise at an altitude lower than 110 meters at subsonic speeds while obtaining a CEP accuracy of 15 meters with an inertial navigation system. They are air-launched from either Tupolev Tu-95s, Tupolev Tu-22Ms, or Tupolev Tu-160s, each able to carry 16 for the Tu-95, 12 for the Tu-160, and 4 for the Tu-22M. A stealth version of the missile, the Kh-101 is in development. It has similar qualities as the Kh-55, except that its range has been extended to 5,000 km, is equipped with a 1,000 kg conventional warhead, and has stealth features which reduce its probability of intercept.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the most recent cruise missile developed was the Kalibr missile which entered production in the early 1990s and was officially inducted into the Russian arsenal in 1994. However, it only saw its combat debut on 7 October 2015, in Syria as a part of the Russian military campaign in Syria. The missile has been used 14 more times in combat operations in Syria since its debut.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union was attempting to develop cruise missiles. In this short time frame, the Soviet Union was working on nearly ten different types of cruise missiles. However, due to resources, most of the initial types of cruise missiles developed by the Soviet Union were Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles or Submarine-Launched Cruise Missiles (SLCMs). The SS-N-1 cruise missile was developed to have different configurations to be fired from a submarine or a ship. However, as time progressed, the Soviet Union began to work on air-launched cruise missiles as well (ALCM). These ACLM missiles were typically delivered via bombers designated as "Blinders" or "Backfire". The missiles in this configuration were called the AS-1, and AS-2 with eventual new variants with more development time. The main purpose of Soviet-based cruise missiles was to have defense and offensive mechanisms against enemy ships; in other words, most of the Soviet cruise missiles were anti-ship missiles. In the 1980s the Soviet Union had developed an arsenal of cruise missiles nearing 600 platforms which consisted of land, sea, and air delivery systems.
The United States has deployed nine nuclear cruise missiles at one time or another.
Currently, cruise missiles are among the most expensive of single-use weapons, up to several million dollars apiece. One consequence of this is that its users face difficult choices in target allocation, to avoid expending the missiles on targets of low value. For instance, during the 2001 strikes on Afghanistan the United States attacked targets of very low monetary value with cruise missiles, which led many to question the efficiency of the weapon. However, proponents of the cruise missile counter that the weapon can not be blamed for poor target selection, and the same argument applies to other types of UAVs: they are cheaper than human pilots when total training and infrastructure costs are taken into account, not to mention the risk of loss of personnel. As demonstrated in Libya in 2011 and prior conflicts, cruise missiles are much more difficult to detect and intercept than other aerial assets (reduced radar cross-section, infrared and visual signature due to smaller size), suiting them to attacks against static air defense systems.
https://uslivenic.com/3m22-zircon-missile-russias-fastest-missile/ | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets, that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at an approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of traveling at high subsonic, supersonic, or hypersonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The idea of an \"aerial torpedo\" was shown in the British 1909 film The Airship Destroyer in which flying torpedoes controlled wirelessly are used to bring down airships bombing London.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "In 1916, the American aviator Lawrence Sperry built and patented an \"aerial torpedo\", the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, a small biplane carrying a TNT charge, a Sperry autopilot and barometric altitude control. Inspired by the experiments, the United States Army developed a similar flying bomb called the Kettering Bug. Germany had also flown trials with remote-controlled aerial gliders (Torpedogleiter) built by Siemens-Schuckert beginning in 1916.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In the Interwar Period, Britain's Royal Aircraft Establishment developed the Larynx (Long Range Gun with Lynx Engine), which underwent a few flight tests in the 1920s.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev headed the GIRD-06 cruise missile project from 1932 to 1939, which used a rocket-powered boost-glide bomb design. The 06/III (RP-216) and 06/IV (RP-212) contained gyroscopic guidance systems. The vehicle was designed to boost to 28 km altitude and glide a distance of 280 km, but test flights in 1934 and 1936 only reached an altitude of 500 meters.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In 1944, during World War II, Germany deployed the first operational cruise missiles. The V-1, often called a flying bomb, contained a gyroscope guidance system and was propelled by a simple pulsejet engine, the sound of which gave it the nickname of \"buzz bomb\" or \"doodlebug\". Accuracy was sufficient only for use against very large targets (the general area of a city), while the range of 250 km was significantly lower than that of a bomber carrying the same payload. The main advantages were speed (although not sufficient to outperform contemporary propeller-driven interceptors) and expendability. The production cost of a V-1 was only a small fraction of that of a V-2 supersonic ballistic missile with a similar-sized warhead. Unlike the V-2, the initial deployments of the V-1 required stationary launch ramps which were susceptible to bombardment. Nazi Germany, in 1943, also developed the Mistel composite aircraft program, which can be seen as a rudimentary air-launched cruise missile, where a piloted fighter-type aircraft was mounted atop an unpiloted bomber-sized aircraft that was packed with explosives to be released while approaching the target. Bomber-launched variants of the V-1 saw limited operational service near the end of the war, with the pioneering V-1's design reverse-engineered by the Americans as the Republic-Ford JB-2 cruise missile.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Immediately after the war, the United States Air Force had 21 different guided missile projects, including would-be cruise missiles. All but four were cancelled by 1948: the Air Materiel Command Banshee, the SM-62 Snark, the SM-64 Navaho, and the MGM-1 Matador. The Banshee design was similar to Operation Aphrodite; like Aphrodite, it failed, and was canceled in April 1949. Concurrently, the US Navy's Operation Bumblebee, was conducted at Topsail Island, North Carolina, from c. 1 June 1946, to 28 July 1948. Bumblebee produced proof-of-concept technologies that influenced the US military's other missile projects.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "During the Cold War, both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented further with the concept, of deploying early cruise missiles from land, submarines, and aircraft. The main outcome of the United States Navy submarine missile project was the SSM-N-8 Regulus missile, based upon the V-1.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The United States Air Force's first operational surface-to-surface missile was the winged, mobile, nuclear-capable MGM-1 Matador, also similar in concept to the V-1. Deployment overseas began in 1954, first to West Germany and later to the Republic of China and South Korea. On 7 November 1956, the U.S. Air Force deployed Matador units in West Germany, whose missiles were capable of striking targets in the Warsaw Pact, from their fixed day-to-day sites to unannounced dispersed launch locations. This alert was in response to the crisis posed by the Soviet attack on Hungary which suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Between 1957 and 1961 the United States followed an ambitious and well-funded program to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile, Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (SLAM). It was designed to fly below the enemy's radar at speeds above Mach 3 and carry hydrogen bombs that it would drop along its path over enemy territory. Although the concept was proven sound and the 500-megawatt engine finished a successful test run in 1961, no airworthy device was ever completed. The project was finally abandoned in favor of ICBM development.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "While ballistic missiles were the preferred weapons for land targets, heavy nuclear and conventional weapon tipped cruise missiles were seen by the USSR as a primary weapon to destroy United States naval carrier battle groups. Large submarines (for example, Echo and Oscar classes) were developed to carry these weapons and shadow United States battle groups at sea, and large bombers (for example, Backfire, Bear, and Blackjack models) were equipped with the weapons in their air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) configuration.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Cruise missiles can be categorized by size, speed (subsonic or supersonic), range, and whether launched from land, air, surface ship, or submarine. Often versions of the same missile are produced for different launch platforms; sometimes air- and submarine-launched versions are a little lighter and smaller than land- and ship-launched versions.",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Guidance systems can vary across missiles. Some missiles can be fitted with any of a variety of navigation systems (Inertial navigation, TERCOM, or satellite navigation). Larger cruise missiles can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead, while smaller ones carry only conventional warheads.",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "A hypersonic cruise missile travels at least five times the speed of sound (Mach 5).",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "These missiles travel faster than the speed of sound, usually using ramjet engines. The range is typically 100–500 km, but can be greater. Guidance systems vary.",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Examples:",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The United States, Russia, North Korea, India, Iran, South Korea, Israel, France, China and Pakistan have developed several long-range subsonic cruise missiles. These missiles have a range of over 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) and fly at about 800 kilometres per hour (500 mph). They typically have a launch weight of about 1,500 kilograms (3,300 lb) and can carry either a conventional or a nuclear warhead. Earlier versions of these missiles used inertial navigation; later versions use much more accurate TERCOM and DSMAC systems. Most recent versions can use satellite navigation.",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Examples:",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "These missiles are about the same size and weight and fly at similar speeds to the above category. Guidance systems vary.",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Examples:",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "These are subsonic missiles that weigh around 500 kilograms (1,102 lb) and have a range of up to 300 km (190 mi).",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Examples:",
"title": "Categories"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The most common mission for cruise missiles is to attack relatively high-value targets such as ships, command bunkers, bridges and dams. Modern guidance systems permit accurate attacks.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "As of 2001, the BGM-109 Tomahawk missile model has become a significant part of the United States naval arsenal. It gives ships and submarines a somewhat accurate, long-range, conventional land attack weapon. Each costs about US$1.99 million. Both the Tomahawk and the AGM-86 were used extensively during Operation Desert Storm. On 7 April 2017, during the Syrian Civil War, U.S. warships fired more than 50 cruise missiles into a Syrian airbase in retaliation for a Syrian chemical weapons attack against a rebel stronghold.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The United States Air Force (USAF) deploys an air-launched cruise missile, the AGM-86 ALCM. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is the exclusive delivery vehicle for the AGM-86 and AGM-129 ACM. Both missile types are configurable for either conventional or nuclear warheads.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The USAF adopted the AGM-86 for its bomber fleet while AGM-109 was adapted to launch from trucks and ships and adopted by the USAF and Navy. The truck-launched versions, and also the Pershing II and SS-20 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, were later destroyed under the bilateral INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty with the USSR.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The British Royal Navy (RN) also operates cruise missiles, specifically the U.S.-made Tomahawk, used by the RN's nuclear submarine fleet. UK conventional warhead versions were first fired in combat by the RN in 1999, during the Kosovo War (the United States fired cruise missiles in 1991). The Royal Air Force uses the Storm Shadow cruise missile on its Typhoon and previously its Tornado GR4 aircraft. It is also used by France, where it is known as SCALP EG, and carried by the Armée de l'Air's Mirage 2000 and Rafale aircraft.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "India and Russia have jointly developed the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos. There are three versions of the Brahmos: ship/land-launched, air-launched, and sub-launched. The ship/land-launched version was operational as of late 2007. The Brahmos have the capability to attack targets on land. Russia also continues to operate other cruise missiles: the SS-N-12 Sandbox, SS-N-19 Shipwreck, SS-N-22 Sunburn and SS-N-25 Switchblade. Germany and Spain operate the Taurus missile while Pakistan has made the Babur missile Both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) have designed several cruise missile variants, such as the well-known C-802, some of which are capable of carrying biological, chemical, nuclear, and conventional warheads.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "China has CJ-10 land attack cruise missile which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Additionally, China appears to have tested a hypersonic cruise missile in August 2021, a claim it denies.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The French Force de Frappe nuclear forces include both land and sea-based bombers with Air-Sol Moyenne Portée (ASMP) high-speed medium-range nuclear cruise missiles. Two models are in use, ASMP and a newer ASMP-Ameliorer Plus (ASMP-A), which was developed in 1999. An estimated 40 to 50 were produced.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "India in 2017 successfully flight-tested its indigenous Nirbhay ('Fearless') land-attack cruise missile, which can deliver nuclear warheads to a strike range of 1,000 km. Nirbhay had been flight-tested successfully.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Israel Defense Forces reportedly deploy the medium-range air-launched Popeye Turbo ALCM and the Popeye Turbo SLCM medium-long range cruise missile with nuclear warheads on Dolphin class submarines.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Pakistan currently has four cruise missile systems: the air-launched Ra'ad-I and its enhanced version Ra'ad-II; the ground and submarine launched Babur; ship-launched Harbah missile and surface launched Zarb missile. Both, Ra'ad and Babur, can carry nuclear warheads between 10 and 25 kt, and deliver them to targets at a range of up to 300 km (190 mi) and 450 km (280 mi) respectively. Babur has been in service with the Pakistan Army since 2010, and Pakistan Navy since 2018.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Russia has Kh-55SM cruise missiles, with a range similar to the United States' AGM-129 range of 3000 km, but are able to carry a more powerful warhead of 200 kt. They are equipped with a TERCOM system which allows them to cruise at an altitude lower than 110 meters at subsonic speeds while obtaining a CEP accuracy of 15 meters with an inertial navigation system. They are air-launched from either Tupolev Tu-95s, Tupolev Tu-22Ms, or Tupolev Tu-160s, each able to carry 16 for the Tu-95, 12 for the Tu-160, and 4 for the Tu-22M. A stealth version of the missile, the Kh-101 is in development. It has similar qualities as the Kh-55, except that its range has been extended to 5,000 km, is equipped with a 1,000 kg conventional warhead, and has stealth features which reduce its probability of intercept.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the most recent cruise missile developed was the Kalibr missile which entered production in the early 1990s and was officially inducted into the Russian arsenal in 1994. However, it only saw its combat debut on 7 October 2015, in Syria as a part of the Russian military campaign in Syria. The missile has been used 14 more times in combat operations in Syria since its debut.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Soviet Union was attempting to develop cruise missiles. In this short time frame, the Soviet Union was working on nearly ten different types of cruise missiles. However, due to resources, most of the initial types of cruise missiles developed by the Soviet Union were Sea-Launched Cruise Missiles or Submarine-Launched Cruise Missiles (SLCMs). The SS-N-1 cruise missile was developed to have different configurations to be fired from a submarine or a ship. However, as time progressed, the Soviet Union began to work on air-launched cruise missiles as well (ALCM). These ACLM missiles were typically delivered via bombers designated as \"Blinders\" or \"Backfire\". The missiles in this configuration were called the AS-1, and AS-2 with eventual new variants with more development time. The main purpose of Soviet-based cruise missiles was to have defense and offensive mechanisms against enemy ships; in other words, most of the Soviet cruise missiles were anti-ship missiles. In the 1980s the Soviet Union had developed an arsenal of cruise missiles nearing 600 platforms which consisted of land, sea, and air delivery systems.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The United States has deployed nine nuclear cruise missiles at one time or another.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Currently, cruise missiles are among the most expensive of single-use weapons, up to several million dollars apiece. One consequence of this is that its users face difficult choices in target allocation, to avoid expending the missiles on targets of low value. For instance, during the 2001 strikes on Afghanistan the United States attacked targets of very low monetary value with cruise missiles, which led many to question the efficiency of the weapon. However, proponents of the cruise missile counter that the weapon can not be blamed for poor target selection, and the same argument applies to other types of UAVs: they are cheaper than human pilots when total training and infrastructure costs are taken into account, not to mention the risk of loss of personnel. As demonstrated in Libya in 2011 and prior conflicts, cruise missiles are much more difficult to detect and intercept than other aerial assets (reduced radar cross-section, infrared and visual signature due to smaller size), suiting them to attacks against static air defense systems.",
"title": "Deployment"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "https://uslivenic.com/3m22-zircon-missile-russias-fastest-missile/",
"title": "References"
}
] | A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial or naval targets, that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at an approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of traveling at high subsonic, supersonic, or hypersonic speeds, are self-navigating, and are able to fly on a non-ballistic, extremely low-altitude trajectory. | 2001-10-09T18:36:16Z | 2023-12-30T07:31:11Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile |
6,591 | Crete | Crete (/kriːt/ KREET; Greek: Κρήτη, Modern: Kríti [ˈkriti], Ancient: Krḗtē [krɛ̌ːtεː]) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete rests about 160 km (99 mi) south of the Greek mainland, and about 100 km (62 mi) southwest of Anatolia. Crete has an area of 8,450 km (3,260 sq mi) and a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi). It bounds the southern border of the Aegean Sea, with the Sea of Crete (or North Cretan Sea) to the north and the Libyan Sea (or South Cretan Sea) to the south. Crete covers 260 km from west to east but is narrow from north to south, spanning three longitudes but only half a latitude.
Crete and a number of islands and islets that surround it constitute the Region of Crete (Greek: Περιφέρεια Κρήτης), which is the southernmost of the 13 top-level administrative units of Greece, and the fifth most populous of Greece's regions. Its capital and largest city is Heraklion, on the north shore of the island. As of 2020, the region had a population of 636,504. The Dodecanese are located to the northeast of Crete, while the Cyclades are situated to the north, separated by the Sea of Crete. The Peloponnese is to the region's northwest.
Crete was the centre of Europe's first advanced civilization, the Minoans, from 2700 to 1420 BC. The Minoan civilization was overrun by the Mycenaean civilization from mainland Greece. Crete was later ruled by Rome, then successively by the Byzantine Empire, Andalusian Arabs, the Venetian Republic, and the Ottoman Empire. In 1898 Crete, whose people had for some time wanted to join the Greek state, achieved independence from the Ottomans, formally becoming the Cretan State. Crete became part of Greece in December 1913.
The island is mostly mountainous, and its character is defined by a high mountain range crossing from west to east. It includes Crete's highest point, Mount Ida, and the range of the White Mountains (Lefka Ori) with 30 summits above 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) in altitude and the Samaria Gorge, a World Biosphere Reserve. Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits (such as its own poetry and music). The Nikos Kazantzakis airport at Heraklion and the Daskalogiannis airport at Chania serve international travelers. The Minoan palace at Knossos is also located in Heraklion.
The earliest references to the island of Crete come from texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, where the island is referred to as Kaptara. This is repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and the Bible (Caphtor). It was known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu or kftı͗w, strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island.
The current name Crete is first attested in the 15th century BC in Mycenaean Greek texts, written in Linear B, through the words ke-re-te (𐀐𐀩𐀳, *Krētes; later Greek: Κρῆτες [krɛː.tes], plural of Κρής [krɛːs]) and ke-re-si-jo (𐀐𐀩𐀯𐀍, *Krēsijos; later Greek: Κρήσιος [krέːsios], 'Cretan'). In Ancient Greek, the name Crete (Κρήτη) first appears in Homer's Odyssey. Its etymology is unknown. One proposal derives it from a hypothetical Luwian word *kursatta (compare kursawar 'island', kursattar 'cutting, sliver'). Another proposal suggests that it derives from the ancient Greek word "κραταιή" (krataie̅), meaning strong or powerful, the reasoning being that Crete was the strongest thalassocracy during ancient times.
In Latin, the name of the island became Creta. The original Arabic name of Crete was Iqrīṭiš (Arabic: اقريطش < (τῆς) Κρήτης), but after the Emirate of Crete's establishment of its new capital at ربض الخندق Rabḍ al-Ḫandaq (modern Heraklion; Greek: Ηράκλειο, Irákleio), both the city and the island became known as Χάνδαξ (Chandax) or Χάνδακας (Chandakas), which gave Latin, Italian, and Venetian Candia, from which were derived French Candie and English Candy or Candia. Under Ottoman rule, in Ottoman Turkish, Crete was called Girit (كريد). In the Hebrew Bible, Crete is referred to as (כְּרֵתִים) "kretim".
Crete is the largest island in Greece and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located in the southern part of the Aegean Sea separating the Aegean from the Libyan Sea.
The island has an elongated shape: it spans 260 km (160 mi) from east to west, is 60 km (37 mi) at its widest point, and narrows to as little as 12 km (7.5 mi) (close to Ierapetra). Crete covers an area of 8,336 km (3,219 sq mi), with a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi); to the north, it broaches the Sea of Crete (Greek: Κρητικό Πέλαγος); to the south, the Libyan Sea (Greek: Λιβυκό Πέλαγος); in the west, the Myrtoan Sea, and toward the east the Carpathian Sea. It lies approximately 160 km (99 mi) south of the Greek mainland.
There are a number of peninsulas and gulfs on the north side of Crete, from west to east these include: Gramvousa peninsula, gulf of Kissamos, Rodopos peninsula, gulf of Chania, Akrotiri peninsula, Souda Bay, Apokoronas cape, gulf of Almiros, gulf of Heraklion, Aforesmenos cape, gulf of Mirabello, gulf of Sitia and the Sideros peninsula. On the south side of Crete is the gulf of Messaras and Cape Lithinon.
Crete is mountainous, and its character is defined by a high mountain range crossing from west to east, formed by six different groups of mountains:
These mountains lavish Crete with valleys, such as Amari valley, fertile plateaus, such as Lasithi plateau, Omalos and Nidha; caves, such as Gourgouthakas, Diktaion, and Idaion (the birthplace of the ancient Greek god Zeus); and a number of gorges.
The mountains have been seen as a key feature of the island's distinctiveness, especially since the time of Romantic travellers' writing. Contemporary Cretans distinguish between highlanders and lowlanders; the former often claim to reside in places affording a higher/better climatic and moral environment. In keeping with the legacy of Romantic authors, the mountains are seen as having determined their residents' 'resistance' to past invaders which relates to the oft-encountered idea that highlanders are 'purer' in terms of less intermarriages with occupiers. For residents of mountainous areas, such as Sfakia in western Crete, the aridness and rockiness of the mountains is emphasised as an element of pride and is often compared to the alleged soft-soiled mountains of others parts of Greece or the world.
The island has a number of gorges, such as the Samariá Gorge, Imbros Gorge, Kourtaliotiko Gorge, Ha Gorge, Platania Gorge, the Gorge of the Dead (at Kato Zakros, Sitia) and Richtis Gorge and (Richtis) waterfall at Exo Mouliana in Sitia.
The rivers of Crete include the Geropotamos River, the Koiliaris, the Anapodiaris, the Almiros, the Giofyros, the Keritis, and Megas Potamos. There are only two freshwater lakes in Crete: Lake Kournas and Lake Agia, which are both in Chania regional unit. Lake Voulismeni at the coast, at Aghios Nikolaos, was formerly a freshwater lake but is now connected to the sea, in Lasithi. Three artificial lakes created by dams also exist in Crete: the lake of Aposelemis Dam, the lake of Potamos Dam, and the lake of Mpramiana Dam.
A large number of islands, islets, and rocks hug the coast of Crete. Many are visited by tourists, some are only visited by archaeologists and biologists. Some are environmentally protected. A small sample of the islands includes:
Off the south coast, the island of Gavdos is located 26 nautical miles (48 km) south of Hora Sfakion and is the southernmost point of Europe.
Crete straddles two climatic zones, the Mediterranean and the semi-arid climate, mainly falling within the former. As such, the climate in Crete is primarily a hot-summer Mediterranean (Csa) climate while some areas in the south and east have a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSh). The higher elevations fall into the warm-summer Mediterranean climate category (Csb) while the mountain peaks (>2,000 meters) might feature a cold-summer Mediterranean climate (Csc) or a continental climate (Dfb or Dfc).
The atmosphere can be quite humid, depending on the proximity to the sea, while winter is fairly mild. Snowfall is common on the mountains between November and May, but rare in the low-lying areas. While some mountain tops are snow-capped for most of the year, near the coast snow stays on the ground for a few minutes or hours. However, an exceptional cold snap swept the island in February 2004, during which the entire island was blanketed with snow. During the Cretan summer, average temperatures reach the high 20s to low 30s Celsius (mid 80s to mid 90s Fahrenheit), with maxima touching the upper 30s to mid 40s.
The south coast, including the Mesara Plain and Asterousia Mountains, falls in the North African climatic zone, enjoying significantly more sunny days and high temperatures throughout the year. There, date palms bear fruit, and swallows remain year-round rather than migrate to Africa. The fertile region around Ierapetra, on the southeastern corner of the island, has year-round agricultural production, with summer vegetables and fruit produced in greenhouses throughout the winter. Western Crete (Chania province) receives more rain and the soils there suffer more erosion compared to the Eastern part of Crete.
According to the Hellenic National Meteorological Service, South Crete receives the most sunshine in Greece with more than 3,257 hours of sunshine per year.
Crete is the most populous island in Greece with a population of more than 600,000 people. Approximately 42% live in Crete's main cities and towns whilst 45% live in rural areas.
Crete with its nearby islands form the Crete Region (Greek: Περιφέρεια Κρήτης, Periféria Krítis, [periˈferia ˈkritis]), one of the 13 regions of Greece which were established in the 1987 administrative reform. Under the 2010 Kallikratis plan, the powers and authority of the regions were redefined and extended. The region is based at Heraklion and is divided into four regional units (pre-Kallikratis prefectures). From west to east these are: Chania, Rethymno, Heraklion, and Lasithi. These are further subdivided into 24 municipalities.
The region's governor is, since 1 January 2011, Stavros Arnaoutakis, who was elected in the November 2010 local administration elections for the Panhellenic Socialist Movement.
Heraklion is the largest city and capital of Crete, holding more than a fourth of the island's population. Chania was the capital until 1971. The principal cities are:
According to official census data by the Hellenic Statistical Authority, the region's population has increased by 1,343 people between 2011 and 2021, experiencing a rise of 0.22%. The island is home to 308,608 men and 315,800 women, accounting for 49.4% and 50.6% of the population respectively.
The island is divided into four regional units, Heraklion, Rethymno, Chania, and Lasithi.
The economy of Crete is predominantly based on services and tourism. However, agriculture also plays an important role and Crete is one of the few Greek islands that can support itself without a tourism industry. The economy began to change visibly during the 1970s as tourism gained in importance. Although an emphasis remains on agriculture and stock breeding, because of the climate and terrain of the island, there has been a drop in manufacturing, and an observable expansion in its service industries (mainly tourism-related). All three sectors of the Cretan economy (agriculture/farming, processing-packaging, services), are directly connected and interdependent. The island has a per capita income much higher than the Greek average, whereas unemployment is at approximately 4%, one-sixth of that of the country overall.
As in many regions of Greece, viticulture and olive groves are significant; oranges, citrons and avocadoes are also cultivated. Until recently there were restrictions on the import of bananas to Greece, therefore bananas were grown on the island, predominantly in greenhouses. Dairy products are important to the local economy and there are a number of specialty cheeses such as mizithra, anthotyros, and kefalotyri.
20% of Greek wine is produced in Crete, mostly in the region of Peza
The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was €9.4 billion in 2018, accounting for 5.1% of Greek economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €17,800 or 59% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 68% of the EU average. Crete is the region in Greece with the fifth highest GDP per capita.
The island has three significant airports, Nikos Kazantzakis at Heraklion, the Daskalogiannis airport at Chania and the smaller Sitia airport. The first two serve international routes, acting as the main gateways to the island for travellers. Work has begun plan to replace Heraklion airport with a new airport at Kasteli, where there is presently an air force base, and the new Kasteli Airport is due to open by 2027.
The island is well served by ferries, mostly from Piraeus, by ferry companies such as Minoan Lines and ANEK Lines with links to the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands. Seajets also operates routes to Cyclades.
The main ports from west to east are at Kissamos (ferry link to Peloponnese), Souda (Chania), Rethymno, Heraklion (links to Cyclades), Agios Nikolaos and Sitia (link to Dodecanese).
Most of Crete is served by the road network. A modern highway is currently being upgraded along the north coast connecting the four major cities (Motorway 90), the sections bypassing the main cities (Heraklion to Malia, Rethymno, Chania to Kolymvari) are at motorway standard, while the sections in between, and west to Kissamos and east to Sitia, should be completed by 2028. A link will also connect to the new Kasteli international airport .
In addition, a European Union study has been devised to promote a modern highway to connect the northern and southern parts of the island via a tunnel. The study proposal includes a 15.7 km (9.8 mi) section of road between the villages of Agia Varvara and Agia Deka in central Crete. The new road section forms part of the route between Messara in the south and Crete's largest city Heraklion, which houses the island's biggest airport and ferry links with mainland Greece.
Also, during the 1930s there was a narrow-gauge industrial railway in Heraklion, from Giofyros in the west side of the city to the port. There are now no railway lines on Crete. The government is planning the construction of a line from Chania to Heraklion via Rethymno.
The construction sector in Crete responded well during the pandemic and has come out strong in the post-recession recovery period. Total construction spending recovered and is expected to peak a record high (approximately 8% higher than 2019 average levels) signalling consistent expansion in construction projects and real estate investments in Crete. The evolution of the private sector in Crete is tightly linked with the demand for tourism-related investments. Moreover, the recovery of the tourism sector is expected to lead to further growth in housing prices and rental demand.
Newspapers have reported that the Ministry of Mercantile Marine is ready to support the agreement between Greece, South Korea, Dubai Ports World and China for the construction of a large international container port and free trade zone in southern Crete near Tympaki; the plan is to expropriate 850 ha (2,100 acres) of land. The port would handle two million containers per year, but the project has not been universally welcomed because of its environmental, economic and cultural impact. As of January 2013, the project has still not been confirmed, although there is mounting pressure to approve it, arising from Greece's difficult economic situation.
There are plans for underwater cables going from mainland Greece to Israel and Egypt passing by Crete and Cyprus: EuroAfrica Interconnector and EuroAsia Interconnector. They would connect Crete electrically with mainland Greece, ending energy isolation of Crete. At present Greece covers electricity cost differences for Crete of around €300 million per year.
In the later Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, under the Minoans, Crete had a highly developed, literate civilization. It has been ruled by various ancient Greek entities, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Emirate of Crete, the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. After a brief period of independence (1897–1913) under a provisional Cretan government, it joined the Kingdom of Greece. It was occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Stone tools suggest that archaic humans may have visited Crete as early as 130,000 years ago, but there is no evidence of permanent settlement of the island until the Neolithic, around 7,000 BCE. Settlements dating to the aceramic Neolithic in the 7th millennium BC, used cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and dogs as well as domesticated cereals and legumes; ancient Knossos was the site of one of these major Neolithic (then later Minoan) sites. Other neolithic settlements include those at Kephala, Magasa, and Trapeza.
During the Bronze Age, Crete was the centre of the Minoan civilization, notable for its art, its writing systems such as Linear A, and for its massive building complexes including the palace at Knossos. Its economy benefited from a network of trade around much of the Mediterranean, and Minoan cultural influence extended to Cyprus, Canaan, and Egypt. Some scholars have speculated that legends such as that of the minotaur have a historical basis in Minoan times.
In 1420 BC, the Minoan civilization was subsumed by the Mycenaean civilization from mainland Greece. The oldest samples of writing in the Greek language, as identified by Michael Ventris, is the Linear B archive from Knossos, dated approximately to 1425–1375 BC.
After the Bronze Age collapse, Crete was settled by new waves of Greeks from the mainland. A number of city states developed in the Archaic period. There was limited contact with mainland Greece, and Greek historiography shows little interest in Crete, as a result, there are few literary sources.
During the 6th to 4th centuries BC, Crete was comparatively free from warfare. The Gortyn code (5th century BC) is evidence for how codified civil law established a balance between aristocratic power and civil rights.
In the late 4th century BC, the aristocratic order began to collapse due to endemic infighting among the elite, and Crete's economy was weakened by prolonged wars between city states. During the 3rd century BC, Gortyn, Kydonia (Chania), Lyttos and Polyrrhenia challenged the primacy of ancient Knossos.
While the cities continued to prey upon one another, they invited into their feuds mainland powers like Macedon and its rivals Rhodes and Ptolemaic Egypt. In 220 BC the island was tormented by a war between two opposing coalitions of cities. As a result, the Macedonian king Philip V gained hegemony over Crete which lasted to the end of the Cretan War (205–200 BC), when the Rhodians opposed the rise of Macedon and the Romans started to interfere in Cretan affairs.
In the 2nd century BC Ierapytna (Ierapetra) gained supremacy on eastern Crete.
Crete was involved in the Mithridatic Wars, initially repelling an attack by Roman general Marcus Antonius Creticus in 71 BC. Nevertheless, a ferocious three-year campaign soon followed under Quintus Caecilius Metellus, equipped with three legions. Crete was conquered by Rome in 69 BC, earning for Metellus the title "Creticus". Gortyn was made capital of the island, and Crete became a Roman province, along with Cyrenaica that was called Creta et Cyrenaica. Archaeological remains suggest that Crete under Roman rule witnessed prosperity and increased connectivity with other parts of the Empire. In the 2nd century AD, at least three cities in Crete (Lyttos, Gortyn, Hierapytna) joined the Panhellenion, a league of Greek cities founded by the emperor Hadrian. When Diocletian redivided the Empire, Crete was placed, along with Cyrene, under the diocese of Moesia, and later by Constantine I to the diocese of Macedonia.
Crete was separated from Cyrenaica c. 297. It remained a province within the eastern half of the Roman Empire, usually referred to as the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire after the establishment of a second capital in Constantinople by Constantine in 330. Crete was subjected to an attack by Vandals in 467, the great earthquakes of 365 and 415, a raid by Slavs in 623, Arab raids in 654 and the 670s, and again in the 8th century. In c. 732, the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian transferred the island from the jurisdiction of the Pope to that of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
In the 820s, after 900 years as a Roman island, Crete was captured by Andalusian Muwallads led by Abu Hafs, who established the Emirate of Crete. The Byzantines launched a campaign that took most of the island back in 842 and 843 under Theoktistos. Further Byzantine campaigns in 911 and 949 failed. In 960–61, Nikephoros Phokas' campaign restored Crete to the Byzantine Empire, after a century and a half of Arab control.
In 961, Nikephoros Phokas returned the island to Byzantine rule after expelling the Arabs. Extensive efforts at conversion of the populace were undertaken, led by John Xenos and Nikon "the Metanoeite". The reconquest of Crete was a major achievement for the Byzantines, as it restored Byzantine control over the Aegean littoral and diminished the threat of Saracen pirates, for which Crete had provided a base of operations.
In 1204, the Fourth Crusade seized and sacked the imperial capital of Constantinople. Crete was initially granted to leading Crusader Boniface of Montferrat in the partition of spoils that followed. However, Boniface sold his claim to the Republic of Venice, whose forces made up the majority of the Crusade. Venice's rival the Republic of Genoa immediately seized the island and it was not until 1212 that Venice secured Crete as a colony.
From 1212, during Venice's rule, which lasted more than four centuries, a Renaissance swept through the island as is evident from the artistic works dating to that period. Known as The Cretan School or Post-Byzantine Art, it is among the last flowerings of the artistic traditions of the fallen empire. This included the painter El Greco and the writers Nicholas Kalliakis (1645–1707), Georgios Kalafatis (professor) (c. 1652–1720), Andreas Musalus (c. 1665–1721) and Vitsentzos Kornaros.
Under the rule of the Catholic Venetians, the city of Candia was reputed to be the best fortified city of the Eastern Mediterranean. The three main forts were located at Gramvousa, Spinalonga, and Fortezza at Rethymnon. Other fortifications include the Kazarma fortress at Sitia and Frangokastello in Sfakia.
In 1492, Jews expelled from Spain settled on the island. In 1574–77, Crete was under the rule of Giacomo Foscarini as Proveditor General, Sindace and Inquisitor. According to Starr's 1942 article, the rule of Giacomo Foscarini was a Dark Age for Jews and Greeks. Under his rule, non-Catholics had to pay high taxes with no allowances. In 1627, there were 800 Jews in the city of Candia, about seven percent of the city's population. Marco Foscarini was the Doge of Venice during this time.
The Ottomans conquered Crete (Girit Eyâleti) in 1669, after the siege of Candia. Many Greek Cretans fled to other regions of the Republic of Venice after the Ottoman–Venetian Wars, some even prospering such as the family of Simone Stratigo (c. 1733 – c. 1824) who migrated to Dalmatia from Crete in 1669.
Islamic presence on the island, aside from the interlude of the Arab occupation, was cemented by the Ottoman conquest. Most Cretan Muslims were local Greek converts who spoke Cretan Greek, but in the island's 19th-century political context they came to be viewed by the Christian population as Turks. Contemporary estimates vary, but on the eve of the Greek War of Independence (1830), as much as 45% of the population of the island may have been Muslim. A number of Sufi orders were widespread throughout the island, the Bektashi order being the most prevalent, possessing at least five tekkes. Many Cretan Turks fled Crete because of the unrest, settling in Turkey, Rhodes, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. By 1900, 11% of the population was Muslim. Those remaining were relocated in the 1924 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
During Easter of 1770, a revolt against Ottoman rule in Crete was started by Daskalogiannis, a shipowner from Sfakia who was promised support by Orlov's fleet which never arrived. Daskalogiannis eventually surrendered to the Ottoman authorities. Today, the airport at Chania is named after him.
During the Greek war of independence, Sultan Mahmud II granted rule over Crete to Egypt's ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha in exchange for his military support. Crete was subsequently left out of the new Greek state established under the London Protocol of 1830. Its administration by Muhammad Ali was confirmed in the Convention of Kütahya of 1833, but direct Ottoman rule was re-established by the Convention of London of 3 July 1840.
Heraklion was surrounded by high walls and bastions and extended westward and southward by the 17th century. The most opulent area of the city was the northeastern quadrant where the elite were gathered. The city had received another name under the rule of the Ottomans, "the deserted city". The urban policy that the Ottoman applied to Candia was a two-pronged approach. The first was the religious endowments. It made the Ottoman elite contribute to building and rehabilitating the ruined city. The other method was to boost the population and the urban revenue by selling off urban properties. According to Molly Greene (2001) there were numerous records of real-estate transactions during the Ottoman rule. In the deserted city, minorities received equal rights in purchasing property. Christians and Jews were also able to buy and sell in the real-estate market.
The Cretan Revolt of 1866–1869 or Great Cretan Revolution (Greek: Κρητική Επανάσταση του 1866) was a three-year uprising against Ottoman rule, the third and largest in a series of revolts between the end of the Greek War of Independence in 1830 and the establishment of the independent Cretan State in 1898. A particular event which caused strong reactions among the liberal circles of western Europe was the Holocaust of Arkadi. The event occurred in November 1866, as a large Ottoman force besieged the Arkadi Monastery, which served as the headquarters of the rebellion. In addition to its 259 defenders, over 700 women and children had taken refuge in the monastery. After a few days of hard fighting, the Ottomans broke into the monastery. At that point, the abbot of the monastery set fire to the gunpowder stored in the monastery's vaults, causing the death of most of the rebels and the women and children sheltered there.
Following the repeated uprisings in 1841, 1858, 1889, 1895 and 1897 by the Cretan people, who wanted to join Greece, the Great Powers decided to restore order and in February 1897 sent in troops. The island was subsequently garrisoned by troops from Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia; Germany and Austro-Hungary withdrawing from the occupation in early 1898. During this period Crete was governed through a committee of admirals from the remaining four Powers. In March 1898 the Powers decreed, with the reluctant consent of the Sultan, that the island would be granted autonomy under Ottoman suzerainty in the near future.
In September 1898 the Candia massacre in Candia, modern Heraklion, left over 500 Cretan Christians and 14 British servicemen dead at the hands of Muslim irregulars. As a result, the Admirals ordered the expulsion of all Ottoman troops and administrators from the island, a move that was ultimately completed by early November. The decision to grant autonomy to the island was enforced and a High Commissioner, Prince George of Greece, appointed, arriving to take up his post in December 1898. The flag of the Cretan State was chosen by the Powers, with the white star representing the Ottoman suzerainty over the island.
In 1905, disagreements between Prince George and minister Eleftherios Venizelos over the question of the enosis (union with Greece), such as the Prince's autocratic style of government, resulted in the Theriso revolt, one of the leaders being Eleftherios Venizelos.
Prince George resigned as High Commissioner and was replaced by Alexandros Zaimis, a former Greek prime minister, in 1906. In 1908, taking advantage of domestic turmoil in Turkey as well as the timing of Zaimis's vacation away from the island, the Cretan deputies unilaterally declared union with Greece.
With the outbreak of the First Balkan War, the Greek government declared that Crete was now Greek territory. This was not recognised internationally until 1 December 1913.
During World War II, the island was the scene of the Battle of Crete in May 1941. The initial 11-day battle was bloody and left more than 11,000 soldiers and civilians killed or wounded. As a result of the fierce resistance from both Allied forces and civilian Cretan locals, the invasion force suffered heavy casualties, and Adolf Hitler forbade further large-scale paratroop operations for the rest of the war.
During the initial and subsequent occupation, German firing squads routinely executed male civilians in reprisal for the death of German soldiers; civilians were rounded up randomly in local villages for the mass killings, such as at the Massacre of Kondomari and the Viannos massacres. Two German generals were later tried and executed for their roles in the killing of 3,000 of the island's inhabitants.
In the aftermath of the Dekemvriana in Athens, Cretan leftists were targeted by the right-wing paramilitary organization National Organization of Rethymno (EOR), which engaged in attacks in the villages of Koxare and Melampes, as well as Rethymno in January 1945. Those attacks did not escalate into a full-scale insurgency as they did in the Greek mainland and the Cretan ELAS did not surrender its weapons after the Treaty of Varkiza. An uneasy truce was maintained until 1947, with a series of arrests of notable communists in Chania and Heraklion. Encouraged by orders from the central organization in Athens, KKE launched an insurgency in Crete; marking the beginning of the Greek Civil War on the island. In eastern Crete the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) struggled to establish its presence in Dikti and Psilorites. On 1 July 1947, the surviving 55 fighters of DSE were ambushed south of Psilorites, the few surviving members of the unit managed to join the rest of DSE in Lefka Ori.
The Lefka Ori region in the west offered more favourable conditions for DSE's insurgency. In the summer of 1947 DSE raided and looted the Maleme Airport and motor depot at Chrysopigi. Its numbers swelled to approximately 300 fighters. The rise of DSE numbers compounded with crop failure on the island created serious logistical issues for the insurgents. The communists resorted to cattle rustling and crop confiscations which solved the problem only temporarily. In the autumn of 1947, the Greek government offered generous amnesty terms to Cretan DSE fighters and mountain bandits, many of whom opted to abandon armed struggle or defect to the nationalists. On 4 July 1948, government troops launched a large scale offensive on Samariá Gorge. Many DSE soldiers were killed in the fighting while the survivors broke into small armed bands. In October 1948, the secretary of the Cretan KKE Giorgos Tsitilos was killed in an ambush. By the following month only 34 DSE fighters remained active in Lefka Ori. The insurgency in Crete gradually withered away, with the last two hold outs surrendering in 1974, 25 years after the conclusion of the war in mainland Greece.
Crete is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Greece. 15% of all arrivals in Greece come through the city of Heraklion (port and airport), while charter journeys to Heraklion make up about 20% of all charter flights in Greece Archived 29 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine. The number of hotel beds on the island increased by 53% in the period between 1986 and 1991.
Today, the island's tourism infrastructure includes a wide range of accommodation; including large luxury hotels with their complete facilities, swimming pools, sports and recreation, smaller family-owned apartments, camping facilities and others. Visitors reach the island via two international airports in Heraklion and Chania and a smaller airport in Sitia (international charter and domestic flights started in May 2012) or by boat to the main ports of Heraklion, Chania, Rethimno, Agios Nikolaos and Sitia.
Popular tourist attractions include the archaeological sites of the Minoan civilisation, the Venetian old city and port of Chania, the Venetian castle at Rethymno, the gorge of Samaria, the islands of Chrysi, Elafonisi, Gramvousa, Spinalonga and the Palm Beach of Vai, which is the largest natural palm forest in Europe.
Crete has an extensive bus system with regular services across the north of the island and from north to south. There are two regional bus stations in Heraklion. Bus routes and timetables can be found on KTEL website.
Crete's mild climate attracts interest from northern Europeans who want a holiday home or residence on the island. EU citizens have the right to freely buy property and reside with little formality. In the cities of Heraklion and Chania, the average price per square metre of apartments ranges from €1,670 to €1,700. A growing number of real estate companies cater mainly to British immigrants, followed by Dutch, German, Scandinavian and other European nationalities wishing to own a home in Crete. The British immigrants are concentrated in the western regional units of Chania and Rethymno and to a lesser extent in Heraklion and Lasithi.
The area has a large number of archaeological sites, including the Minoan sites of Knossos, Malia (not to be confused with the town of the same name), Zakros, Petras and Phaistos, the classical site of Gortys, and the diverse archaeology of the island of Koufonisi, which includes Minoan, Roman, and World War II era ruins (nb. due to conservation concerns, access to Koufonisi has been restricted for the last few years).
There are museums throughout Crete. The Heraklion Archaeological Museum displays most of the archaeological finds from the Minoan era and was reopened in 2014.
Helen Briassoulis, in a qualitative analysis, proposed in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism that Crete is affected by tourism applying pressure to it to develop at an unhealthy rate, and that informal, internal systems within the country are forced to adapt. According to her, these forces have strengthened in three stages: from the period from 1960 to 1970, 1970–1990, and 1990 to the present. During this first period, tourism was a largely positive force, pushing modern developments like running water and electricity onto the largely rural countryside. However, beginning in the second period and especially in the third period leading up to the present day, tourist companies became more pushy with deforestation and pollution of Crete's natural resources. The country is then pulled into an interesting parity, where these companies only upkeep those natural resources that are directly essential to their industry.
Crete is isolated from mainland Europe, Asia, and Africa, and this is reflected in the diversity of the fauna and flora. As a result, the fauna and flora of Crete have many clues to the evolution of species. There are no animals that are dangerous to humans on the island of Crete in contrast to other parts of Greece. Indeed, the ancient Greeks attributed the lack of large mammals such as bears, wolves, jackals, and venomous snakes, to the labour of Hercules (who took a live Cretan bull to the Peloponnese). Hercules wanted to honor the birthplace of Zeus by removing all "harmful" and "venomous" animals from Crete. Later, Cretans believed that the island was cleared of dangerous creatures by the Apostle Paul, who lived on the island of Crete for two years, with his exorcisms and blessings.
The Natural History Museum of Crete, operates under the direction of the University of Crete and two aquariums – Aquaworld in Hersonissos and Cretaquarium in Gournes, display sea creatures common in Cretan waters.
Dwarf elephants, dwarf hippopotamus, dwarf mammoths, dwarf deer, and giant flightless owls were native to Pleistocene Crete. Their ancestors could have reached the island in the time of the Messinian salinity crisis.
Mammals of Crete include the vulnerable kri-kri, Capra aegagrus cretica that can be seen in the national park of the Samaria Gorge and on Thodorou, Dia and Agioi Pantes (islets off the north coast), the Cretan wildcat and the Cretan spiny mouse. Other terrestrial mammals include subspecies of the Cretan marten, the Cretan weasel, the Cretan badger, the Cretan wildcat, the long-eared hedgehog, and the edible dormouse.
The Cretan shrew, a type of white-toothed shrew is considered endemic to the island of Crete because this species of shrew is unknown elsewhere. It is a relic species of the Crocidura shrews of which fossils have been found that can be dated to the Pleistocene era. Today it can only be found in the highlands of Crete. It is considered to be the only surviving remnant of the endemic species of the Pleistocene Mediterranean islands.
Bat species include: Blasius's horseshoe bat, the lesser horseshoe bat, the greater horseshoe bat, the lesser mouse-eared bat, Geoffroy's bat, the whiskered bat, Kuhl's pipistrelle, the common pipistrelle, Savi's pipistrelle, the serotine bat, the long-eared bat, Schreibers' bat and the European free-tailed bat.
Varieties of birds include eagles (can be seen in Lasithi), swallows (throughout Crete in the summer and year-round in the south of the island), pelicans (along the coast), and common cranes (including Gavdos and Gavdopoula). The Cretan mountains and gorges are refuges for the endangered lammergeier vulture. Bird species include: the golden eagle, Bonelli's eagle, the bearded vulture or lammergeier, the griffon vulture, Eleonora's falcon, peregrine falcon, lanner falcon, European kestrel, tawny owl, little owl, hooded crow, alpine chough, red-billed chough, and the Eurasian hoopoe. The population of griffon vultures in Crete is the largest insular one of the species in the world and consists of the majority of the griffon vulture population in Greece.
Tortoises can be seen throughout the island. Snakes can be found hiding under rocks. Toads and frogs reveal themselves when it rains.
Reptiles include the Aegean wall lizard, Balkan green lizard, common chameleon, ocellated skink, snake-eyed skink, moorish gecko, Turkish gecko, Kotschy's gecko, spur-thighed tortoise, and the Caspian turtle.
There are four species of snake on the island and these are not dangerous to humans. The four species include the leopard snake (locally known as Ochendra), the Balkan whip snake (locally called Dendrogallia), the dice snake (called Nerofido in Greek), and the only venomous snake is the nocturnal cat snake which has evolved to deliver a weak venom at the back of its mouth to paralyse geckos and small lizards, and is not dangerous to humans.
Sea turtles include the green turtle and the loggerhead turtle which are both threatened species. The loggerhead turtle nests and hatches on north-coast beaches around Rethymno and Chania, and south-coast beaches along the gulf of Mesara.
Amphibians include the European green toad, American bullfrog (introduced), European tree frog, and the Cretan marsh frog (endemic).
Cicadas, known locally as Tzitzikia, make a distinctive repetitive tzi tzi sound that becomes louder and more frequent on hot summer days. Butterfly species include the swallowtail butterfly. Moth species include the hummingbird moth. There are several species of scorpion such as Euscorpius carpathicus whose venom is generally no more potent than a mosquito bite.
River crabs include the semi-terrestrial Potamon potamios crab. Edible snails are widespread and can cluster in the hundreds waiting for rainfall to reinvigorate them.
Apart from terrestrial mammals, the seas around Crete are rich in large marine mammals, a fact unknown to most Greeks at present, although reported since ancient times. The Minoan frescoes depicting dolphins in Queen's Megaron at Knossos indicate that Minoans were well aware of and celebrated these creatures. Apart from the endangered Mediterranean monk seal, which lives in almost all the coasts of the country, Greece hosts whales, sperm whales, dolphins and porpoises. The area south of Crete, known as the Greek Abyss, hosts many of them. Squid, octopus, sea turtles and hammerhead sharks can be found along the coast.
Some of the fish that can be seen in the waters around Crete include: scorpion fish, dusky grouper, east Atlantic peacock wrasse, five-spotted wrasse, weever fish, common stingray, brown ray, mediterranean black goby, pearly razorfish, star-gazer, painted comber, damselfish, and the flying gurnard.
The Cretaquarium and the Aquaworld Aquarium, are two of the three aquariums in the Greece. They are located in Gournes and Hersonissos respectively.
The Minoans contributed to the deforestation of Crete. Further deforestation occurred in the 1600s "so that no more local supplies of firewood were available".
Common wildflowers include: camomile, daisy, gladiolus, hyacinth, iris, poppy, cyclamen and tulip, among others. There are more than 200 different species of wild orchid on the island and this includes 14 varieties of Ophrys cretica. Crete has a rich variety of indigenous herbs including common sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Rare herbs include the endemic Cretan dittany. and ironwort, Sideritis syriaca, known as Malotira (Μαλοτήρα). Varieties of cactus include the edible prickly pear. Common trees on the island include the chestnut, cypress, oak, olive tree, pine, plane, and tamarisk. Trees tend to be taller to the west of the island where water is more abundant.
Environmentally protected areas include the island of Elafonisi on the coast of southwestern Crete, the palm forest of Vai in eastern Crete and the Dionysades (both in the municipality of Sitia, Lasithi). Vai has a palm beach and is the largest natural palm forest in Europe. The island of Chrysi, 15 kilometres (9 miles) south of Ierapetra, has the largest naturally-grown Juniperus macrocarpa forest in Europe. Samaria Gorge is a World Biosphere Reserve and Richtis Gorge is protected for its landscape diversity. Also, Sitia UNESCO Global Geopark, added in 2015 in UNESCO Geoparks, is located on the easternmost edge of Crete.
Crete has a strong association with ancient Greek gods but is also connected with the Minoan civilization.
According to Greek mythology, the Diktaean Cave at Mount Dikti was the birthplace of the god Zeus. The Paximadia islands were the birthplace of the goddess Artemis and the god Apollo. Their mother, the goddess Leto, was worshipped at Phaistos. The goddess Athena bathed in Lake Voulismeni. Zeus launched a lightning bolt at a giant lizard that was threatening Crete. The lizard immediately turned to stone and became the lizard-shaped island of Dia, which can be seen from Knossos. The islets of Lefkai were the result of a musical contest between the Sirens and the Muses. The Muses were so anguished to have lost that they plucked the feathers from the wings of their rivals; the Sirens turned white and fell into the sea at Aptera ("featherless"), where they formed the islands in the bay that were called Lefkai (the islands of Souda and Leon). Heracles, in one of his labors, took the Cretan bull to the Peloponnese. Europa and Zeus made love at Gortys and conceived the kings of Crete: Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon, and Minos.
The labyrinth of the Palace of Knossos was the setting for the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in which the Minotaur was slain by Theseus. Icarus and Daedalus were captives of King Minos and crafted wings to escape. After his death, King Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades, while Rhadamanthys became the ruler of the Elysian fields.
Crete has its own distinctive Mantinades poetry. The island is known for its Mantinades-based music (typically performed with the Cretan lyra and the laouto) and has many indigenous dances, the most noted of which is the Pentozali. Since the 1980s and certainly in the 1990s onwards there has been a proliferation of Cultural Associations that teach dancing (in Western Crete where many focus on rizitiko singing). These Associations often perform in official events but also become stages for people to meet and engage in traditionalist practices. The topic of tradition and the role of Cultural Associations in reviving it is often debated throughout Crete.
Cretan authors have made important contributions to Greek literature throughout the modern period; major names include Vikentios Kornaros, creator of the 17th-century epic romance Erotokritos (Greek Ερωτόκριτος), and, in the 20th century, Nikos Kazantzakis. In the Renaissance, Crete was the home of the Cretan School of icon painting, which influenced El Greco and through him subsequent European painting.
Cretans are proud of their island and customs, and men often don elements of traditional dress in everyday life: knee-high black riding boots (stivania), vráka breeches tucked into the boots at the knee, black shirt and black headdress consisting of a fishnet-weave kerchief worn wrapped around the head or draped on the shoulders (mantili / kefalomantilo). Men often grow large mustaches as a mark of pride, manhood and valiance.
Cretan society is known in Greece and internationally for family and clan vendettas which persist on the island to date. Cretans also have a tradition of keeping firearms at home, stemming from the era of resistance against the Ottoman Empire. Nearly every rural household on Crete has at least one unregistered gun. Guns are subject to strict regulation from the Greek government, and in recent years an effort to control firearms in Crete has been undertaken by the Greek police, but with limited success.
Crete has many football clubs playing in the local leagues. During the 2011–12 season, OFI Crete, which plays at Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium (Iraklion), and Ergotelis F.C., which plays at the Pankritio Stadium (Iraklion) were both members of the Greek Superleague. During the 2012–13 season, OFI Crete, which plays at Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium (Iraklion), and Platanias F.C., which plays at the Perivolia Municipal Stadium, near Chania, are both members of the Greek Superleague.
Notable people from Crete include: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Crete (/kriːt/ KREET; Greek: Κρήτη, Modern: Kríti [ˈkriti], Ancient: Krḗtē [krɛ̌ːtεː]) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete rests about 160 km (99 mi) south of the Greek mainland, and about 100 km (62 mi) southwest of Anatolia. Crete has an area of 8,450 km (3,260 sq mi) and a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi). It bounds the southern border of the Aegean Sea, with the Sea of Crete (or North Cretan Sea) to the north and the Libyan Sea (or South Cretan Sea) to the south. Crete covers 260 km from west to east but is narrow from north to south, spanning three longitudes but only half a latitude.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Crete and a number of islands and islets that surround it constitute the Region of Crete (Greek: Περιφέρεια Κρήτης), which is the southernmost of the 13 top-level administrative units of Greece, and the fifth most populous of Greece's regions. Its capital and largest city is Heraklion, on the north shore of the island. As of 2020, the region had a population of 636,504. The Dodecanese are located to the northeast of Crete, while the Cyclades are situated to the north, separated by the Sea of Crete. The Peloponnese is to the region's northwest.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Crete was the centre of Europe's first advanced civilization, the Minoans, from 2700 to 1420 BC. The Minoan civilization was overrun by the Mycenaean civilization from mainland Greece. Crete was later ruled by Rome, then successively by the Byzantine Empire, Andalusian Arabs, the Venetian Republic, and the Ottoman Empire. In 1898 Crete, whose people had for some time wanted to join the Greek state, achieved independence from the Ottomans, formally becoming the Cretan State. Crete became part of Greece in December 1913.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The island is mostly mountainous, and its character is defined by a high mountain range crossing from west to east. It includes Crete's highest point, Mount Ida, and the range of the White Mountains (Lefka Ori) with 30 summits above 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) in altitude and the Samaria Gorge, a World Biosphere Reserve. Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits (such as its own poetry and music). The Nikos Kazantzakis airport at Heraklion and the Daskalogiannis airport at Chania serve international travelers. The Minoan palace at Knossos is also located in Heraklion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The earliest references to the island of Crete come from texts from the Syrian city of Mari dating from the 18th century BC, where the island is referred to as Kaptara. This is repeated later in Neo-Assyrian records and the Bible (Caphtor). It was known in ancient Egyptian as Keftiu or kftı͗w, strongly suggesting a similar Minoan name for the island.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The current name Crete is first attested in the 15th century BC in Mycenaean Greek texts, written in Linear B, through the words ke-re-te (𐀐𐀩𐀳, *Krētes; later Greek: Κρῆτες [krɛː.tes], plural of Κρής [krɛːs]) and ke-re-si-jo (𐀐𐀩𐀯𐀍, *Krēsijos; later Greek: Κρήσιος [krέːsios], 'Cretan'). In Ancient Greek, the name Crete (Κρήτη) first appears in Homer's Odyssey. Its etymology is unknown. One proposal derives it from a hypothetical Luwian word *kursatta (compare kursawar 'island', kursattar 'cutting, sliver'). Another proposal suggests that it derives from the ancient Greek word \"κραταιή\" (krataie̅), meaning strong or powerful, the reasoning being that Crete was the strongest thalassocracy during ancient times.",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In Latin, the name of the island became Creta. The original Arabic name of Crete was Iqrīṭiš (Arabic: اقريطش < (τῆς) Κρήτης), but after the Emirate of Crete's establishment of its new capital at ربض الخندق Rabḍ al-Ḫandaq (modern Heraklion; Greek: Ηράκλειο, Irákleio), both the city and the island became known as Χάνδαξ (Chandax) or Χάνδακας (Chandakas), which gave Latin, Italian, and Venetian Candia, from which were derived French Candie and English Candy or Candia. Under Ottoman rule, in Ottoman Turkish, Crete was called Girit (كريد). In the Hebrew Bible, Crete is referred to as (כְּרֵתִים) \"kretim\".",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Crete is the largest island in Greece and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located in the southern part of the Aegean Sea separating the Aegean from the Libyan Sea.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The island has an elongated shape: it spans 260 km (160 mi) from east to west, is 60 km (37 mi) at its widest point, and narrows to as little as 12 km (7.5 mi) (close to Ierapetra). Crete covers an area of 8,336 km (3,219 sq mi), with a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi); to the north, it broaches the Sea of Crete (Greek: Κρητικό Πέλαγος); to the south, the Libyan Sea (Greek: Λιβυκό Πέλαγος); in the west, the Myrtoan Sea, and toward the east the Carpathian Sea. It lies approximately 160 km (99 mi) south of the Greek mainland.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "There are a number of peninsulas and gulfs on the north side of Crete, from west to east these include: Gramvousa peninsula, gulf of Kissamos, Rodopos peninsula, gulf of Chania, Akrotiri peninsula, Souda Bay, Apokoronas cape, gulf of Almiros, gulf of Heraklion, Aforesmenos cape, gulf of Mirabello, gulf of Sitia and the Sideros peninsula. On the south side of Crete is the gulf of Messaras and Cape Lithinon.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Crete is mountainous, and its character is defined by a high mountain range crossing from west to east, formed by six different groups of mountains:",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "These mountains lavish Crete with valleys, such as Amari valley, fertile plateaus, such as Lasithi plateau, Omalos and Nidha; caves, such as Gourgouthakas, Diktaion, and Idaion (the birthplace of the ancient Greek god Zeus); and a number of gorges.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The mountains have been seen as a key feature of the island's distinctiveness, especially since the time of Romantic travellers' writing. Contemporary Cretans distinguish between highlanders and lowlanders; the former often claim to reside in places affording a higher/better climatic and moral environment. In keeping with the legacy of Romantic authors, the mountains are seen as having determined their residents' 'resistance' to past invaders which relates to the oft-encountered idea that highlanders are 'purer' in terms of less intermarriages with occupiers. For residents of mountainous areas, such as Sfakia in western Crete, the aridness and rockiness of the mountains is emphasised as an element of pride and is often compared to the alleged soft-soiled mountains of others parts of Greece or the world.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The island has a number of gorges, such as the Samariá Gorge, Imbros Gorge, Kourtaliotiko Gorge, Ha Gorge, Platania Gorge, the Gorge of the Dead (at Kato Zakros, Sitia) and Richtis Gorge and (Richtis) waterfall at Exo Mouliana in Sitia.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The rivers of Crete include the Geropotamos River, the Koiliaris, the Anapodiaris, the Almiros, the Giofyros, the Keritis, and Megas Potamos. There are only two freshwater lakes in Crete: Lake Kournas and Lake Agia, which are both in Chania regional unit. Lake Voulismeni at the coast, at Aghios Nikolaos, was formerly a freshwater lake but is now connected to the sea, in Lasithi. Three artificial lakes created by dams also exist in Crete: the lake of Aposelemis Dam, the lake of Potamos Dam, and the lake of Mpramiana Dam.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "A large number of islands, islets, and rocks hug the coast of Crete. Many are visited by tourists, some are only visited by archaeologists and biologists. Some are environmentally protected. A small sample of the islands includes:",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Off the south coast, the island of Gavdos is located 26 nautical miles (48 km) south of Hora Sfakion and is the southernmost point of Europe.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Crete straddles two climatic zones, the Mediterranean and the semi-arid climate, mainly falling within the former. As such, the climate in Crete is primarily a hot-summer Mediterranean (Csa) climate while some areas in the south and east have a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification: BSh). The higher elevations fall into the warm-summer Mediterranean climate category (Csb) while the mountain peaks (>2,000 meters) might feature a cold-summer Mediterranean climate (Csc) or a continental climate (Dfb or Dfc).",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The atmosphere can be quite humid, depending on the proximity to the sea, while winter is fairly mild. Snowfall is common on the mountains between November and May, but rare in the low-lying areas. While some mountain tops are snow-capped for most of the year, near the coast snow stays on the ground for a few minutes or hours. However, an exceptional cold snap swept the island in February 2004, during which the entire island was blanketed with snow. During the Cretan summer, average temperatures reach the high 20s to low 30s Celsius (mid 80s to mid 90s Fahrenheit), with maxima touching the upper 30s to mid 40s.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The south coast, including the Mesara Plain and Asterousia Mountains, falls in the North African climatic zone, enjoying significantly more sunny days and high temperatures throughout the year. There, date palms bear fruit, and swallows remain year-round rather than migrate to Africa. The fertile region around Ierapetra, on the southeastern corner of the island, has year-round agricultural production, with summer vegetables and fruit produced in greenhouses throughout the winter. Western Crete (Chania province) receives more rain and the soils there suffer more erosion compared to the Eastern part of Crete.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "According to the Hellenic National Meteorological Service, South Crete receives the most sunshine in Greece with more than 3,257 hours of sunshine per year.",
"title": "Physical geography and climate"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Crete is the most populous island in Greece with a population of more than 600,000 people. Approximately 42% live in Crete's main cities and towns whilst 45% live in rural areas.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Crete with its nearby islands form the Crete Region (Greek: Περιφέρεια Κρήτης, Periféria Krítis, [periˈferia ˈkritis]), one of the 13 regions of Greece which were established in the 1987 administrative reform. Under the 2010 Kallikratis plan, the powers and authority of the regions were redefined and extended. The region is based at Heraklion and is divided into four regional units (pre-Kallikratis prefectures). From west to east these are: Chania, Rethymno, Heraklion, and Lasithi. These are further subdivided into 24 municipalities.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The region's governor is, since 1 January 2011, Stavros Arnaoutakis, who was elected in the November 2010 local administration elections for the Panhellenic Socialist Movement.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Heraklion is the largest city and capital of Crete, holding more than a fourth of the island's population. Chania was the capital until 1971. The principal cities are:",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "According to official census data by the Hellenic Statistical Authority, the region's population has increased by 1,343 people between 2011 and 2021, experiencing a rise of 0.22%. The island is home to 308,608 men and 315,800 women, accounting for 49.4% and 50.6% of the population respectively.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The island is divided into four regional units, Heraklion, Rethymno, Chania, and Lasithi.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The economy of Crete is predominantly based on services and tourism. However, agriculture also plays an important role and Crete is one of the few Greek islands that can support itself without a tourism industry. The economy began to change visibly during the 1970s as tourism gained in importance. Although an emphasis remains on agriculture and stock breeding, because of the climate and terrain of the island, there has been a drop in manufacturing, and an observable expansion in its service industries (mainly tourism-related). All three sectors of the Cretan economy (agriculture/farming, processing-packaging, services), are directly connected and interdependent. The island has a per capita income much higher than the Greek average, whereas unemployment is at approximately 4%, one-sixth of that of the country overall.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "As in many regions of Greece, viticulture and olive groves are significant; oranges, citrons and avocadoes are also cultivated. Until recently there were restrictions on the import of bananas to Greece, therefore bananas were grown on the island, predominantly in greenhouses. Dairy products are important to the local economy and there are a number of specialty cheeses such as mizithra, anthotyros, and kefalotyri.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "20% of Greek wine is produced in Crete, mostly in the region of Peza",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Gross domestic product (GDP) of the region was €9.4 billion in 2018, accounting for 5.1% of Greek economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was €17,800 or 59% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 68% of the EU average. Crete is the region in Greece with the fifth highest GDP per capita.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The island has three significant airports, Nikos Kazantzakis at Heraklion, the Daskalogiannis airport at Chania and the smaller Sitia airport. The first two serve international routes, acting as the main gateways to the island for travellers. Work has begun plan to replace Heraklion airport with a new airport at Kasteli, where there is presently an air force base, and the new Kasteli Airport is due to open by 2027.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The island is well served by ferries, mostly from Piraeus, by ferry companies such as Minoan Lines and ANEK Lines with links to the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands. Seajets also operates routes to Cyclades.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The main ports from west to east are at Kissamos (ferry link to Peloponnese), Souda (Chania), Rethymno, Heraklion (links to Cyclades), Agios Nikolaos and Sitia (link to Dodecanese).",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Most of Crete is served by the road network. A modern highway is currently being upgraded along the north coast connecting the four major cities (Motorway 90), the sections bypassing the main cities (Heraklion to Malia, Rethymno, Chania to Kolymvari) are at motorway standard, while the sections in between, and west to Kissamos and east to Sitia, should be completed by 2028. A link will also connect to the new Kasteli international airport .",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In addition, a European Union study has been devised to promote a modern highway to connect the northern and southern parts of the island via a tunnel. The study proposal includes a 15.7 km (9.8 mi) section of road between the villages of Agia Varvara and Agia Deka in central Crete. The new road section forms part of the route between Messara in the south and Crete's largest city Heraklion, which houses the island's biggest airport and ferry links with mainland Greece.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Also, during the 1930s there was a narrow-gauge industrial railway in Heraklion, from Giofyros in the west side of the city to the port. There are now no railway lines on Crete. The government is planning the construction of a line from Chania to Heraklion via Rethymno.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The construction sector in Crete responded well during the pandemic and has come out strong in the post-recession recovery period. Total construction spending recovered and is expected to peak a record high (approximately 8% higher than 2019 average levels) signalling consistent expansion in construction projects and real estate investments in Crete. The evolution of the private sector in Crete is tightly linked with the demand for tourism-related investments. Moreover, the recovery of the tourism sector is expected to lead to further growth in housing prices and rental demand.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Newspapers have reported that the Ministry of Mercantile Marine is ready to support the agreement between Greece, South Korea, Dubai Ports World and China for the construction of a large international container port and free trade zone in southern Crete near Tympaki; the plan is to expropriate 850 ha (2,100 acres) of land. The port would handle two million containers per year, but the project has not been universally welcomed because of its environmental, economic and cultural impact. As of January 2013, the project has still not been confirmed, although there is mounting pressure to approve it, arising from Greece's difficult economic situation.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "There are plans for underwater cables going from mainland Greece to Israel and Egypt passing by Crete and Cyprus: EuroAfrica Interconnector and EuroAsia Interconnector. They would connect Crete electrically with mainland Greece, ending energy isolation of Crete. At present Greece covers electricity cost differences for Crete of around €300 million per year.",
"title": "Human geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In the later Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, under the Minoans, Crete had a highly developed, literate civilization. It has been ruled by various ancient Greek entities, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Emirate of Crete, the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire. After a brief period of independence (1897–1913) under a provisional Cretan government, it joined the Kingdom of Greece. It was occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Stone tools suggest that archaic humans may have visited Crete as early as 130,000 years ago, but there is no evidence of permanent settlement of the island until the Neolithic, around 7,000 BCE. Settlements dating to the aceramic Neolithic in the 7th millennium BC, used cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and dogs as well as domesticated cereals and legumes; ancient Knossos was the site of one of these major Neolithic (then later Minoan) sites. Other neolithic settlements include those at Kephala, Magasa, and Trapeza.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "During the Bronze Age, Crete was the centre of the Minoan civilization, notable for its art, its writing systems such as Linear A, and for its massive building complexes including the palace at Knossos. Its economy benefited from a network of trade around much of the Mediterranean, and Minoan cultural influence extended to Cyprus, Canaan, and Egypt. Some scholars have speculated that legends such as that of the minotaur have a historical basis in Minoan times.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 1420 BC, the Minoan civilization was subsumed by the Mycenaean civilization from mainland Greece. The oldest samples of writing in the Greek language, as identified by Michael Ventris, is the Linear B archive from Knossos, dated approximately to 1425–1375 BC.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "After the Bronze Age collapse, Crete was settled by new waves of Greeks from the mainland. A number of city states developed in the Archaic period. There was limited contact with mainland Greece, and Greek historiography shows little interest in Crete, as a result, there are few literary sources.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "During the 6th to 4th centuries BC, Crete was comparatively free from warfare. The Gortyn code (5th century BC) is evidence for how codified civil law established a balance between aristocratic power and civil rights.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In the late 4th century BC, the aristocratic order began to collapse due to endemic infighting among the elite, and Crete's economy was weakened by prolonged wars between city states. During the 3rd century BC, Gortyn, Kydonia (Chania), Lyttos and Polyrrhenia challenged the primacy of ancient Knossos.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "While the cities continued to prey upon one another, they invited into their feuds mainland powers like Macedon and its rivals Rhodes and Ptolemaic Egypt. In 220 BC the island was tormented by a war between two opposing coalitions of cities. As a result, the Macedonian king Philip V gained hegemony over Crete which lasted to the end of the Cretan War (205–200 BC), when the Rhodians opposed the rise of Macedon and the Romans started to interfere in Cretan affairs.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In the 2nd century BC Ierapytna (Ierapetra) gained supremacy on eastern Crete.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Crete was involved in the Mithridatic Wars, initially repelling an attack by Roman general Marcus Antonius Creticus in 71 BC. Nevertheless, a ferocious three-year campaign soon followed under Quintus Caecilius Metellus, equipped with three legions. Crete was conquered by Rome in 69 BC, earning for Metellus the title \"Creticus\". Gortyn was made capital of the island, and Crete became a Roman province, along with Cyrenaica that was called Creta et Cyrenaica. Archaeological remains suggest that Crete under Roman rule witnessed prosperity and increased connectivity with other parts of the Empire. In the 2nd century AD, at least three cities in Crete (Lyttos, Gortyn, Hierapytna) joined the Panhellenion, a league of Greek cities founded by the emperor Hadrian. When Diocletian redivided the Empire, Crete was placed, along with Cyrene, under the diocese of Moesia, and later by Constantine I to the diocese of Macedonia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Crete was separated from Cyrenaica c. 297. It remained a province within the eastern half of the Roman Empire, usually referred to as the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire after the establishment of a second capital in Constantinople by Constantine in 330. Crete was subjected to an attack by Vandals in 467, the great earthquakes of 365 and 415, a raid by Slavs in 623, Arab raids in 654 and the 670s, and again in the 8th century. In c. 732, the Emperor Leo III the Isaurian transferred the island from the jurisdiction of the Pope to that of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "In the 820s, after 900 years as a Roman island, Crete was captured by Andalusian Muwallads led by Abu Hafs, who established the Emirate of Crete. The Byzantines launched a campaign that took most of the island back in 842 and 843 under Theoktistos. Further Byzantine campaigns in 911 and 949 failed. In 960–61, Nikephoros Phokas' campaign restored Crete to the Byzantine Empire, after a century and a half of Arab control.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "In 961, Nikephoros Phokas returned the island to Byzantine rule after expelling the Arabs. Extensive efforts at conversion of the populace were undertaken, led by John Xenos and Nikon \"the Metanoeite\". The reconquest of Crete was a major achievement for the Byzantines, as it restored Byzantine control over the Aegean littoral and diminished the threat of Saracen pirates, for which Crete had provided a base of operations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In 1204, the Fourth Crusade seized and sacked the imperial capital of Constantinople. Crete was initially granted to leading Crusader Boniface of Montferrat in the partition of spoils that followed. However, Boniface sold his claim to the Republic of Venice, whose forces made up the majority of the Crusade. Venice's rival the Republic of Genoa immediately seized the island and it was not until 1212 that Venice secured Crete as a colony.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "From 1212, during Venice's rule, which lasted more than four centuries, a Renaissance swept through the island as is evident from the artistic works dating to that period. Known as The Cretan School or Post-Byzantine Art, it is among the last flowerings of the artistic traditions of the fallen empire. This included the painter El Greco and the writers Nicholas Kalliakis (1645–1707), Georgios Kalafatis (professor) (c. 1652–1720), Andreas Musalus (c. 1665–1721) and Vitsentzos Kornaros.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Under the rule of the Catholic Venetians, the city of Candia was reputed to be the best fortified city of the Eastern Mediterranean. The three main forts were located at Gramvousa, Spinalonga, and Fortezza at Rethymnon. Other fortifications include the Kazarma fortress at Sitia and Frangokastello in Sfakia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "In 1492, Jews expelled from Spain settled on the island. In 1574–77, Crete was under the rule of Giacomo Foscarini as Proveditor General, Sindace and Inquisitor. According to Starr's 1942 article, the rule of Giacomo Foscarini was a Dark Age for Jews and Greeks. Under his rule, non-Catholics had to pay high taxes with no allowances. In 1627, there were 800 Jews in the city of Candia, about seven percent of the city's population. Marco Foscarini was the Doge of Venice during this time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "The Ottomans conquered Crete (Girit Eyâleti) in 1669, after the siege of Candia. Many Greek Cretans fled to other regions of the Republic of Venice after the Ottoman–Venetian Wars, some even prospering such as the family of Simone Stratigo (c. 1733 – c. 1824) who migrated to Dalmatia from Crete in 1669.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Islamic presence on the island, aside from the interlude of the Arab occupation, was cemented by the Ottoman conquest. Most Cretan Muslims were local Greek converts who spoke Cretan Greek, but in the island's 19th-century political context they came to be viewed by the Christian population as Turks. Contemporary estimates vary, but on the eve of the Greek War of Independence (1830), as much as 45% of the population of the island may have been Muslim. A number of Sufi orders were widespread throughout the island, the Bektashi order being the most prevalent, possessing at least five tekkes. Many Cretan Turks fled Crete because of the unrest, settling in Turkey, Rhodes, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. By 1900, 11% of the population was Muslim. Those remaining were relocated in the 1924 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "During Easter of 1770, a revolt against Ottoman rule in Crete was started by Daskalogiannis, a shipowner from Sfakia who was promised support by Orlov's fleet which never arrived. Daskalogiannis eventually surrendered to the Ottoman authorities. Today, the airport at Chania is named after him.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "During the Greek war of independence, Sultan Mahmud II granted rule over Crete to Egypt's ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha in exchange for his military support. Crete was subsequently left out of the new Greek state established under the London Protocol of 1830. Its administration by Muhammad Ali was confirmed in the Convention of Kütahya of 1833, but direct Ottoman rule was re-established by the Convention of London of 3 July 1840.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Heraklion was surrounded by high walls and bastions and extended westward and southward by the 17th century. The most opulent area of the city was the northeastern quadrant where the elite were gathered. The city had received another name under the rule of the Ottomans, \"the deserted city\". The urban policy that the Ottoman applied to Candia was a two-pronged approach. The first was the religious endowments. It made the Ottoman elite contribute to building and rehabilitating the ruined city. The other method was to boost the population and the urban revenue by selling off urban properties. According to Molly Greene (2001) there were numerous records of real-estate transactions during the Ottoman rule. In the deserted city, minorities received equal rights in purchasing property. Christians and Jews were also able to buy and sell in the real-estate market.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The Cretan Revolt of 1866–1869 or Great Cretan Revolution (Greek: Κρητική Επανάσταση του 1866) was a three-year uprising against Ottoman rule, the third and largest in a series of revolts between the end of the Greek War of Independence in 1830 and the establishment of the independent Cretan State in 1898. A particular event which caused strong reactions among the liberal circles of western Europe was the Holocaust of Arkadi. The event occurred in November 1866, as a large Ottoman force besieged the Arkadi Monastery, which served as the headquarters of the rebellion. In addition to its 259 defenders, over 700 women and children had taken refuge in the monastery. After a few days of hard fighting, the Ottomans broke into the monastery. At that point, the abbot of the monastery set fire to the gunpowder stored in the monastery's vaults, causing the death of most of the rebels and the women and children sheltered there.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Following the repeated uprisings in 1841, 1858, 1889, 1895 and 1897 by the Cretan people, who wanted to join Greece, the Great Powers decided to restore order and in February 1897 sent in troops. The island was subsequently garrisoned by troops from Great Britain, France, Italy and Russia; Germany and Austro-Hungary withdrawing from the occupation in early 1898. During this period Crete was governed through a committee of admirals from the remaining four Powers. In March 1898 the Powers decreed, with the reluctant consent of the Sultan, that the island would be granted autonomy under Ottoman suzerainty in the near future.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "In September 1898 the Candia massacre in Candia, modern Heraklion, left over 500 Cretan Christians and 14 British servicemen dead at the hands of Muslim irregulars. As a result, the Admirals ordered the expulsion of all Ottoman troops and administrators from the island, a move that was ultimately completed by early November. The decision to grant autonomy to the island was enforced and a High Commissioner, Prince George of Greece, appointed, arriving to take up his post in December 1898. The flag of the Cretan State was chosen by the Powers, with the white star representing the Ottoman suzerainty over the island.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "In 1905, disagreements between Prince George and minister Eleftherios Venizelos over the question of the enosis (union with Greece), such as the Prince's autocratic style of government, resulted in the Theriso revolt, one of the leaders being Eleftherios Venizelos.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Prince George resigned as High Commissioner and was replaced by Alexandros Zaimis, a former Greek prime minister, in 1906. In 1908, taking advantage of domestic turmoil in Turkey as well as the timing of Zaimis's vacation away from the island, the Cretan deputies unilaterally declared union with Greece.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "With the outbreak of the First Balkan War, the Greek government declared that Crete was now Greek territory. This was not recognised internationally until 1 December 1913.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "During World War II, the island was the scene of the Battle of Crete in May 1941. The initial 11-day battle was bloody and left more than 11,000 soldiers and civilians killed or wounded. As a result of the fierce resistance from both Allied forces and civilian Cretan locals, the invasion force suffered heavy casualties, and Adolf Hitler forbade further large-scale paratroop operations for the rest of the war.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "During the initial and subsequent occupation, German firing squads routinely executed male civilians in reprisal for the death of German soldiers; civilians were rounded up randomly in local villages for the mass killings, such as at the Massacre of Kondomari and the Viannos massacres. Two German generals were later tried and executed for their roles in the killing of 3,000 of the island's inhabitants.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "In the aftermath of the Dekemvriana in Athens, Cretan leftists were targeted by the right-wing paramilitary organization National Organization of Rethymno (EOR), which engaged in attacks in the villages of Koxare and Melampes, as well as Rethymno in January 1945. Those attacks did not escalate into a full-scale insurgency as they did in the Greek mainland and the Cretan ELAS did not surrender its weapons after the Treaty of Varkiza. An uneasy truce was maintained until 1947, with a series of arrests of notable communists in Chania and Heraklion. Encouraged by orders from the central organization in Athens, KKE launched an insurgency in Crete; marking the beginning of the Greek Civil War on the island. In eastern Crete the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE) struggled to establish its presence in Dikti and Psilorites. On 1 July 1947, the surviving 55 fighters of DSE were ambushed south of Psilorites, the few surviving members of the unit managed to join the rest of DSE in Lefka Ori.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "The Lefka Ori region in the west offered more favourable conditions for DSE's insurgency. In the summer of 1947 DSE raided and looted the Maleme Airport and motor depot at Chrysopigi. Its numbers swelled to approximately 300 fighters. The rise of DSE numbers compounded with crop failure on the island created serious logistical issues for the insurgents. The communists resorted to cattle rustling and crop confiscations which solved the problem only temporarily. In the autumn of 1947, the Greek government offered generous amnesty terms to Cretan DSE fighters and mountain bandits, many of whom opted to abandon armed struggle or defect to the nationalists. On 4 July 1948, government troops launched a large scale offensive on Samariá Gorge. Many DSE soldiers were killed in the fighting while the survivors broke into small armed bands. In October 1948, the secretary of the Cretan KKE Giorgos Tsitilos was killed in an ambush. By the following month only 34 DSE fighters remained active in Lefka Ori. The insurgency in Crete gradually withered away, with the last two hold outs surrendering in 1974, 25 years after the conclusion of the war in mainland Greece.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "Crete is one of the most popular holiday destinations in Greece. 15% of all arrivals in Greece come through the city of Heraklion (port and airport), while charter journeys to Heraklion make up about 20% of all charter flights in Greece Archived 29 July 2020 at the Wayback Machine. The number of hotel beds on the island increased by 53% in the period between 1986 and 1991.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "Today, the island's tourism infrastructure includes a wide range of accommodation; including large luxury hotels with their complete facilities, swimming pools, sports and recreation, smaller family-owned apartments, camping facilities and others. Visitors reach the island via two international airports in Heraklion and Chania and a smaller airport in Sitia (international charter and domestic flights started in May 2012) or by boat to the main ports of Heraklion, Chania, Rethimno, Agios Nikolaos and Sitia.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "Popular tourist attractions include the archaeological sites of the Minoan civilisation, the Venetian old city and port of Chania, the Venetian castle at Rethymno, the gorge of Samaria, the islands of Chrysi, Elafonisi, Gramvousa, Spinalonga and the Palm Beach of Vai, which is the largest natural palm forest in Europe.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "Crete has an extensive bus system with regular services across the north of the island and from north to south. There are two regional bus stations in Heraklion. Bus routes and timetables can be found on KTEL website.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "Crete's mild climate attracts interest from northern Europeans who want a holiday home or residence on the island. EU citizens have the right to freely buy property and reside with little formality. In the cities of Heraklion and Chania, the average price per square metre of apartments ranges from €1,670 to €1,700. A growing number of real estate companies cater mainly to British immigrants, followed by Dutch, German, Scandinavian and other European nationalities wishing to own a home in Crete. The British immigrants are concentrated in the western regional units of Chania and Rethymno and to a lesser extent in Heraklion and Lasithi.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "The area has a large number of archaeological sites, including the Minoan sites of Knossos, Malia (not to be confused with the town of the same name), Zakros, Petras and Phaistos, the classical site of Gortys, and the diverse archaeology of the island of Koufonisi, which includes Minoan, Roman, and World War II era ruins (nb. due to conservation concerns, access to Koufonisi has been restricted for the last few years).",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "There are museums throughout Crete. The Heraklion Archaeological Museum displays most of the archaeological finds from the Minoan era and was reopened in 2014.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "Helen Briassoulis, in a qualitative analysis, proposed in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism that Crete is affected by tourism applying pressure to it to develop at an unhealthy rate, and that informal, internal systems within the country are forced to adapt. According to her, these forces have strengthened in three stages: from the period from 1960 to 1970, 1970–1990, and 1990 to the present. During this first period, tourism was a largely positive force, pushing modern developments like running water and electricity onto the largely rural countryside. However, beginning in the second period and especially in the third period leading up to the present day, tourist companies became more pushy with deforestation and pollution of Crete's natural resources. The country is then pulled into an interesting parity, where these companies only upkeep those natural resources that are directly essential to their industry.",
"title": "Tourism"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "Crete is isolated from mainland Europe, Asia, and Africa, and this is reflected in the diversity of the fauna and flora. As a result, the fauna and flora of Crete have many clues to the evolution of species. There are no animals that are dangerous to humans on the island of Crete in contrast to other parts of Greece. Indeed, the ancient Greeks attributed the lack of large mammals such as bears, wolves, jackals, and venomous snakes, to the labour of Hercules (who took a live Cretan bull to the Peloponnese). Hercules wanted to honor the birthplace of Zeus by removing all \"harmful\" and \"venomous\" animals from Crete. Later, Cretans believed that the island was cleared of dangerous creatures by the Apostle Paul, who lived on the island of Crete for two years, with his exorcisms and blessings.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "The Natural History Museum of Crete, operates under the direction of the University of Crete and two aquariums – Aquaworld in Hersonissos and Cretaquarium in Gournes, display sea creatures common in Cretan waters.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Dwarf elephants, dwarf hippopotamus, dwarf mammoths, dwarf deer, and giant flightless owls were native to Pleistocene Crete. Their ancestors could have reached the island in the time of the Messinian salinity crisis.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "Mammals of Crete include the vulnerable kri-kri, Capra aegagrus cretica that can be seen in the national park of the Samaria Gorge and on Thodorou, Dia and Agioi Pantes (islets off the north coast), the Cretan wildcat and the Cretan spiny mouse. Other terrestrial mammals include subspecies of the Cretan marten, the Cretan weasel, the Cretan badger, the Cretan wildcat, the long-eared hedgehog, and the edible dormouse.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "The Cretan shrew, a type of white-toothed shrew is considered endemic to the island of Crete because this species of shrew is unknown elsewhere. It is a relic species of the Crocidura shrews of which fossils have been found that can be dated to the Pleistocene era. Today it can only be found in the highlands of Crete. It is considered to be the only surviving remnant of the endemic species of the Pleistocene Mediterranean islands.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Bat species include: Blasius's horseshoe bat, the lesser horseshoe bat, the greater horseshoe bat, the lesser mouse-eared bat, Geoffroy's bat, the whiskered bat, Kuhl's pipistrelle, the common pipistrelle, Savi's pipistrelle, the serotine bat, the long-eared bat, Schreibers' bat and the European free-tailed bat.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Varieties of birds include eagles (can be seen in Lasithi), swallows (throughout Crete in the summer and year-round in the south of the island), pelicans (along the coast), and common cranes (including Gavdos and Gavdopoula). The Cretan mountains and gorges are refuges for the endangered lammergeier vulture. Bird species include: the golden eagle, Bonelli's eagle, the bearded vulture or lammergeier, the griffon vulture, Eleonora's falcon, peregrine falcon, lanner falcon, European kestrel, tawny owl, little owl, hooded crow, alpine chough, red-billed chough, and the Eurasian hoopoe. The population of griffon vultures in Crete is the largest insular one of the species in the world and consists of the majority of the griffon vulture population in Greece.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Tortoises can be seen throughout the island. Snakes can be found hiding under rocks. Toads and frogs reveal themselves when it rains.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Reptiles include the Aegean wall lizard, Balkan green lizard, common chameleon, ocellated skink, snake-eyed skink, moorish gecko, Turkish gecko, Kotschy's gecko, spur-thighed tortoise, and the Caspian turtle.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "There are four species of snake on the island and these are not dangerous to humans. The four species include the leopard snake (locally known as Ochendra), the Balkan whip snake (locally called Dendrogallia), the dice snake (called Nerofido in Greek), and the only venomous snake is the nocturnal cat snake which has evolved to deliver a weak venom at the back of its mouth to paralyse geckos and small lizards, and is not dangerous to humans.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "Sea turtles include the green turtle and the loggerhead turtle which are both threatened species. The loggerhead turtle nests and hatches on north-coast beaches around Rethymno and Chania, and south-coast beaches along the gulf of Mesara.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "Amphibians include the European green toad, American bullfrog (introduced), European tree frog, and the Cretan marsh frog (endemic).",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "Cicadas, known locally as Tzitzikia, make a distinctive repetitive tzi tzi sound that becomes louder and more frequent on hot summer days. Butterfly species include the swallowtail butterfly. Moth species include the hummingbird moth. There are several species of scorpion such as Euscorpius carpathicus whose venom is generally no more potent than a mosquito bite.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "River crabs include the semi-terrestrial Potamon potamios crab. Edible snails are widespread and can cluster in the hundreds waiting for rainfall to reinvigorate them.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Apart from terrestrial mammals, the seas around Crete are rich in large marine mammals, a fact unknown to most Greeks at present, although reported since ancient times. The Minoan frescoes depicting dolphins in Queen's Megaron at Knossos indicate that Minoans were well aware of and celebrated these creatures. Apart from the endangered Mediterranean monk seal, which lives in almost all the coasts of the country, Greece hosts whales, sperm whales, dolphins and porpoises. The area south of Crete, known as the Greek Abyss, hosts many of them. Squid, octopus, sea turtles and hammerhead sharks can be found along the coast.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "Some of the fish that can be seen in the waters around Crete include: scorpion fish, dusky grouper, east Atlantic peacock wrasse, five-spotted wrasse, weever fish, common stingray, brown ray, mediterranean black goby, pearly razorfish, star-gazer, painted comber, damselfish, and the flying gurnard.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "The Cretaquarium and the Aquaworld Aquarium, are two of the three aquariums in the Greece. They are located in Gournes and Hersonissos respectively.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "The Minoans contributed to the deforestation of Crete. Further deforestation occurred in the 1600s \"so that no more local supplies of firewood were available\".",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "Common wildflowers include: camomile, daisy, gladiolus, hyacinth, iris, poppy, cyclamen and tulip, among others. There are more than 200 different species of wild orchid on the island and this includes 14 varieties of Ophrys cretica. Crete has a rich variety of indigenous herbs including common sage, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. Rare herbs include the endemic Cretan dittany. and ironwort, Sideritis syriaca, known as Malotira (Μαλοτήρα). Varieties of cactus include the edible prickly pear. Common trees on the island include the chestnut, cypress, oak, olive tree, pine, plane, and tamarisk. Trees tend to be taller to the west of the island where water is more abundant.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "Environmentally protected areas include the island of Elafonisi on the coast of southwestern Crete, the palm forest of Vai in eastern Crete and the Dionysades (both in the municipality of Sitia, Lasithi). Vai has a palm beach and is the largest natural palm forest in Europe. The island of Chrysi, 15 kilometres (9 miles) south of Ierapetra, has the largest naturally-grown Juniperus macrocarpa forest in Europe. Samaria Gorge is a World Biosphere Reserve and Richtis Gorge is protected for its landscape diversity. Also, Sitia UNESCO Global Geopark, added in 2015 in UNESCO Geoparks, is located on the easternmost edge of Crete.",
"title": "Fauna and flora"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "Crete has a strong association with ancient Greek gods but is also connected with the Minoan civilization.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "According to Greek mythology, the Diktaean Cave at Mount Dikti was the birthplace of the god Zeus. The Paximadia islands were the birthplace of the goddess Artemis and the god Apollo. Their mother, the goddess Leto, was worshipped at Phaistos. The goddess Athena bathed in Lake Voulismeni. Zeus launched a lightning bolt at a giant lizard that was threatening Crete. The lizard immediately turned to stone and became the lizard-shaped island of Dia, which can be seen from Knossos. The islets of Lefkai were the result of a musical contest between the Sirens and the Muses. The Muses were so anguished to have lost that they plucked the feathers from the wings of their rivals; the Sirens turned white and fell into the sea at Aptera (\"featherless\"), where they formed the islands in the bay that were called Lefkai (the islands of Souda and Leon). Heracles, in one of his labors, took the Cretan bull to the Peloponnese. Europa and Zeus made love at Gortys and conceived the kings of Crete: Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon, and Minos.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "The labyrinth of the Palace of Knossos was the setting for the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in which the Minotaur was slain by Theseus. Icarus and Daedalus were captives of King Minos and crafted wings to escape. After his death, King Minos became a judge of the dead in Hades, while Rhadamanthys became the ruler of the Elysian fields.",
"title": "Mythology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Crete has its own distinctive Mantinades poetry. The island is known for its Mantinades-based music (typically performed with the Cretan lyra and the laouto) and has many indigenous dances, the most noted of which is the Pentozali. Since the 1980s and certainly in the 1990s onwards there has been a proliferation of Cultural Associations that teach dancing (in Western Crete where many focus on rizitiko singing). These Associations often perform in official events but also become stages for people to meet and engage in traditionalist practices. The topic of tradition and the role of Cultural Associations in reviving it is often debated throughout Crete.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "Cretan authors have made important contributions to Greek literature throughout the modern period; major names include Vikentios Kornaros, creator of the 17th-century epic romance Erotokritos (Greek Ερωτόκριτος), and, in the 20th century, Nikos Kazantzakis. In the Renaissance, Crete was the home of the Cretan School of icon painting, which influenced El Greco and through him subsequent European painting.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Cretans are proud of their island and customs, and men often don elements of traditional dress in everyday life: knee-high black riding boots (stivania), vráka breeches tucked into the boots at the knee, black shirt and black headdress consisting of a fishnet-weave kerchief worn wrapped around the head or draped on the shoulders (mantili / kefalomantilo). Men often grow large mustaches as a mark of pride, manhood and valiance.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "Cretan society is known in Greece and internationally for family and clan vendettas which persist on the island to date. Cretans also have a tradition of keeping firearms at home, stemming from the era of resistance against the Ottoman Empire. Nearly every rural household on Crete has at least one unregistered gun. Guns are subject to strict regulation from the Greek government, and in recent years an effort to control firearms in Crete has been undertaken by the Greek police, but with limited success.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 107,
"text": "Crete has many football clubs playing in the local leagues. During the 2011–12 season, OFI Crete, which plays at Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium (Iraklion), and Ergotelis F.C., which plays at the Pankritio Stadium (Iraklion) were both members of the Greek Superleague. During the 2012–13 season, OFI Crete, which plays at Theodoros Vardinogiannis Stadium (Iraklion), and Platanias F.C., which plays at the Perivolia Municipal Stadium, near Chania, are both members of the Greek Superleague.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 108,
"text": "Notable people from Crete include:",
"title": "Notable people"
}
] | Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and Corsica. Crete rests about 160 km (99 mi) south of the Greek mainland, and about 100 km (62 mi) southwest of Anatolia. Crete has an area of 8,450 km2 (3,260 sq mi) and a coastline of 1,046 km (650 mi). It bounds the southern border of the Aegean Sea, with the Sea of Crete to the north and the Libyan Sea to the south. Crete covers 260 km from west to east but is narrow from north to south, spanning three longitudes but only half a latitude. Crete and a number of islands and islets that surround it constitute the Region of Crete, which is the southernmost of the 13 top-level administrative units of Greece, and the fifth most populous of Greece's regions. Its capital and largest city is Heraklion, on the north shore of the island. As of 2020, the region had a population of 636,504. The Dodecanese are located to the northeast of Crete, while the Cyclades are situated to the north, separated by the Sea of Crete. The Peloponnese is to the region's northwest. Crete was the centre of Europe's first advanced civilization, the Minoans, from 2700 to 1420 BC. The Minoan civilization was overrun by the Mycenaean civilization from mainland Greece. Crete was later ruled by Rome, then successively by the Byzantine Empire, Andalusian Arabs, the Venetian Republic, and the Ottoman Empire. In 1898 Crete, whose people had for some time wanted to join the Greek state, achieved independence from the Ottomans, formally becoming the Cretan State. Crete became part of Greece in December 1913. The island is mostly mountainous, and its character is defined by a high mountain range crossing from west to east. It includes Crete's highest point, Mount Ida, and the range of the White Mountains with 30 summits above 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) in altitude and the Samaria Gorge, a World Biosphere Reserve. Crete forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece, while retaining its own local cultural traits. The Nikos Kazantzakis airport at Heraklion and the Daskalogiannis airport at Chania serve international travelers. The Minoan palace at Knossos is also located in Heraklion. | 2001-09-28T06:50:20Z | 2023-12-30T06:09:19Z | [
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6,592 | Cyclades | The Cyclades (/ˈsɪklədiːz/; Greek: Κυκλάδες, romanized: Kykládes, IPA: [ciˈkla.ðes]) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name (Κυκλάδες νήσοι, Kykládes nísoi, 'encircling islands') refers to the archipelago forming a circle around the sacred island of Delos. The largest island of the Cyclades is Naxos, however the most populated is Syros.
The significant Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Cycladic culture is best known for its schematic, flat sculptures carved out of the islands' pure white marble centuries before the great Middle Bronze Age Minoan civilization arose in Crete to the south. (These figures have been looted from burials to satisfy a thriving Cycladic antiquities market since the early 20th century.)
A distinctive Neolithic culture amalgamating Anatolian and mainland Greek elements arose in the western Aegean before 4000 BCE, based on emmer and wild-type barley, sheep and goats, pigs, and tuna that were apparently speared from small boats (Rutter). Excavated sites include Chalandriani, Phylakopi, Skarkos, Saliagos and Kephala (on Kea) with signs of copperworking, Each of the small Cycladic islands could support no more than a few thousand people, though Late Cycladic boat models show that fifty oarsmen could be assembled from the scattered communities (Rutter), and when the highly organized palace-culture of Crete arose, the islands faded into insignificance, with the exception of Delos, which retained its archaic reputation as a sanctuary throughout antiquity and until the emergence of Christianity.
The first archaeological excavations of the 1880s, undertaken by antiquaries such as Theodore Bent at Antiparos in early 1884, were followed by systematic work by the British School at Athens and by Christos Tsountas, who investigated burial sites on several islands in 1898–1899 and coined the term "Cycladic civilization". Interest lagged, and then picked up in the mid-20th century, as collectors competed for the modern-looking figures that seemed so similar to sculpture by Jean Arp or Constantin Brâncuși. Sites were looted and a brisk trade in forgeries arose. The context for many of these Cycladic figurines has been mostly destroyed and their meaning may never be completely understood.
Another intriguing and mysterious object is that of the Cycladic frying pans. More accurate archaeology has revealed the broad outlines of a farming and seafaring culture that had emigrated from Anatolia c. 5000 BCE. Early Cycladic culture evolved in three phases, between c. 3300 – 2000 BCE, when it was increasingly swamped in the rising influence of Minoan Crete. The culture of mainland Greece contemporary with Cycladic culture is known as the Helladic period.
In recent decades the Cyclades have become popular with European and other tourists, and as a result there have been problems with erosion, pollution, and water shortages.
The Cyclades includes about 220 islands, the major ones being Amorgos, Anafi, Andros, Antiparos, Delos, Ios, Kea, Kimolos, Kythnos, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Folegandros, Serifos, Sifnos, Sikinos, Syros, Tinos, and Thira or Santoríni. There are also many minor islands (the Lesser Cyclades) including Donousa, Eschati, Gyaros, Irakleia, Koufonisia, Makronisos, Rineia, and Schoinousa. The name "Cyclades" refers to the islands forming a circle ("circular islands") around the sacred island of Delos. Most of the smaller islands are uninhabited.
Ermoupoli on Syros is the chief town and administrative center of the former prefecture.
The islands are peaks of a submerged mountainous terrain, with the exception of two volcanic islands, Milos and Santorini. The climate is generally dry and mild, but with the exception of Naxos, the soil is not very fertile; agricultural produce includes wine, fruit, wheat, olive oil, and tobacco. Lower temperatures are registered in higher elevations and these areas do not usually see wintry weather.
The Cyclades are bounded to the south by the Sea of Crete.
The Cyclades Prefecture (Greek: Νομός Κυκλάδων) was one of the prefectures of Greece. As a part of the 2011 Kallikratis government reform, the prefecture was abolished, and its territory was divided into nine regional units of the South Aegean region:
The prefecture was subdivided into the following municipalities and communities. These have been reorganised at the 2011 Kallikratis reform as well.
Note: Provinces no longer hold any legal status in Greece.
Local specialities of the Cyclades include:
37°00′N 25°10′E / 37.000°N 25.167°E / 37.000; 25.167 | [
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"text": "The Cyclades (/ˈsɪklədiːz/; Greek: Κυκλάδες, romanized: Kykládes, IPA: [ciˈkla.ðes]) are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name (Κυκλάδες νήσοι, Kykládes nísoi, 'encircling islands') refers to the archipelago forming a circle around the sacred island of Delos. The largest island of the Cyclades is Naxos, however the most populated is Syros.",
"title": ""
},
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"text": "The significant Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Cycladic culture is best known for its schematic, flat sculptures carved out of the islands' pure white marble centuries before the great Middle Bronze Age Minoan civilization arose in Crete to the south. (These figures have been looted from burials to satisfy a thriving Cycladic antiquities market since the early 20th century.)",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "A distinctive Neolithic culture amalgamating Anatolian and mainland Greek elements arose in the western Aegean before 4000 BCE, based on emmer and wild-type barley, sheep and goats, pigs, and tuna that were apparently speared from small boats (Rutter). Excavated sites include Chalandriani, Phylakopi, Skarkos, Saliagos and Kephala (on Kea) with signs of copperworking, Each of the small Cycladic islands could support no more than a few thousand people, though Late Cycladic boat models show that fifty oarsmen could be assembled from the scattered communities (Rutter), and when the highly organized palace-culture of Crete arose, the islands faded into insignificance, with the exception of Delos, which retained its archaic reputation as a sanctuary throughout antiquity and until the emergence of Christianity.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The first archaeological excavations of the 1880s, undertaken by antiquaries such as Theodore Bent at Antiparos in early 1884, were followed by systematic work by the British School at Athens and by Christos Tsountas, who investigated burial sites on several islands in 1898–1899 and coined the term \"Cycladic civilization\". Interest lagged, and then picked up in the mid-20th century, as collectors competed for the modern-looking figures that seemed so similar to sculpture by Jean Arp or Constantin Brâncuși. Sites were looted and a brisk trade in forgeries arose. The context for many of these Cycladic figurines has been mostly destroyed and their meaning may never be completely understood.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Another intriguing and mysterious object is that of the Cycladic frying pans. More accurate archaeology has revealed the broad outlines of a farming and seafaring culture that had emigrated from Anatolia c. 5000 BCE. Early Cycladic culture evolved in three phases, between c. 3300 – 2000 BCE, when it was increasingly swamped in the rising influence of Minoan Crete. The culture of mainland Greece contemporary with Cycladic culture is known as the Helladic period.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In recent decades the Cyclades have become popular with European and other tourists, and as a result there have been problems with erosion, pollution, and water shortages.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Cyclades includes about 220 islands, the major ones being Amorgos, Anafi, Andros, Antiparos, Delos, Ios, Kea, Kimolos, Kythnos, Milos, Mykonos, Naxos, Paros, Folegandros, Serifos, Sifnos, Sikinos, Syros, Tinos, and Thira or Santoríni. There are also many minor islands (the Lesser Cyclades) including Donousa, Eschati, Gyaros, Irakleia, Koufonisia, Makronisos, Rineia, and Schoinousa. The name \"Cyclades\" refers to the islands forming a circle (\"circular islands\") around the sacred island of Delos. Most of the smaller islands are uninhabited.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Ermoupoli on Syros is the chief town and administrative center of the former prefecture.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The islands are peaks of a submerged mountainous terrain, with the exception of two volcanic islands, Milos and Santorini. The climate is generally dry and mild, but with the exception of Naxos, the soil is not very fertile; agricultural produce includes wine, fruit, wheat, olive oil, and tobacco. Lower temperatures are registered in higher elevations and these areas do not usually see wintry weather.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Cyclades are bounded to the south by the Sea of Crete.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The Cyclades Prefecture (Greek: Νομός Κυκλάδων) was one of the prefectures of Greece. As a part of the 2011 Kallikratis government reform, the prefecture was abolished, and its territory was divided into nine regional units of the South Aegean region:",
"title": "Administration"
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"text": "The prefecture was subdivided into the following municipalities and communities. These have been reorganised at the 2011 Kallikratis reform as well.",
"title": "Administration"
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"text": "Note: Provinces no longer hold any legal status in Greece.",
"title": "Administration"
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"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Local specialities of the Cyclades include:",
"title": "Cuisine"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "37°00′N 25°10′E / 37.000°N 25.167°E / 37.000; 25.167",
"title": "External links"
}
] | The Cyclades are an island group in the Aegean Sea, southeast of mainland Greece and a former administrative prefecture of Greece. They are one of the island groups which constitute the Aegean archipelago. The name refers to the archipelago forming a circle around the sacred island of Delos. The largest island of the Cyclades is Naxos, however the most populated is Syros. | 2002-02-25T15:43:11Z | 2023-11-16T12:08:28Z | [
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6,596 | Computer vision | Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g. in the forms of decisions. Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images (the input to the retina in the human analog) into descriptions of the world that make sense to thought processes and can elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.
The scientific discipline of computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences, views from multiple cameras, multi-dimensional data from a 3D scanner, 3D point clouds from LiDaR sensors, or medical scanning devices. The technological discipline of computer vision seeks to apply its theories and models to the construction of computer vision systems.
Sub-domains of computer vision include scene reconstruction, object detection, event detection, activity recognition, video tracking, object recognition, 3D pose estimation, learning, indexing, motion estimation, visual servoing, 3D scene modeling, and image restoration.
Adopting computer vision technology might be painstaking for organizations as there is no single point solution for it. There are very few companies that provide a unified and distributed platform or an Operating System where computer vision applications can be easily deployed and managed.
Computer vision is an interdisciplinary field that deals with how computers can be made to gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to automate tasks that the human visual system can do. "Computer vision is concerned with the automatic extraction, analysis and understanding of useful information from a single image or a sequence of images. It involves the development of a theoretical and algorithmic basis to achieve automatic visual understanding." As a scientific discipline, computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences, views from multiple cameras, or multi-dimensional data from a medical scanner. As a technological discipline, computer vision seeks to apply its theories and models for the construction of computer vision systems.
In the late 1960s, computer vision began at universities that were pioneering artificial intelligence. It was meant to mimic the human visual system, as a stepping stone to endowing robots with intelligent behavior. In 1966, it was believed that this could be achieved through an undergraduate summer project, by attaching a camera to a computer and having it "describe what it saw".
What distinguished computer vision from the prevalent field of digital image processing at that time was a desire to extract three-dimensional structure from images with the goal of achieving full scene understanding. Studies in the 1970s formed the early foundations for many of the computer vision algorithms that exist today, including extraction of edges from images, labeling of lines, non-polyhedral and polyhedral modeling, representation of objects as interconnections of smaller structures, optical flow, and motion estimation.
The next decade saw studies based on more rigorous mathematical analysis and quantitative aspects of computer vision. These include the concept of scale-space, the inference of shape from various cues such as shading, texture and focus, and contour models known as snakes. Researchers also realized that many of these mathematical concepts could be treated within the same optimization framework as regularization and Markov random fields. By the 1990s, some of the previous research topics became more active than others. Research in projective 3-D reconstructions led to better understanding of camera calibration. With the advent of optimization methods for camera calibration, it was realized that a lot of the ideas were already explored in bundle adjustment theory from the field of photogrammetry. This led to methods for sparse 3-D reconstructions of scenes from multiple images. Progress was made on the dense stereo correspondence problem and further multi-view stereo techniques. At the same time, variations of graph cut were used to solve image segmentation. This decade also marked the first time statistical learning techniques were used in practice to recognize faces in images (see Eigenface). Toward the end of the 1990s, a significant change came about with the increased interaction between the fields of computer graphics and computer vision. This included image-based rendering, image morphing, view interpolation, panoramic image stitching and early light-field rendering.
Recent work has seen the resurgence of feature-based methods, used in conjunction with machine learning techniques and complex optimization frameworks. The advancement of Deep Learning techniques has brought further life to the field of computer vision. The accuracy of deep learning algorithms on several benchmark computer vision data sets for tasks ranging from classification, segmentation and optical flow has surpassed prior methods.
Solid-state physics is another field that is closely related to computer vision. Most computer vision systems rely on image sensors, which detect electromagnetic radiation, which is typically in the form of either visible or infrared light. The sensors are designed using quantum physics. The process by which light interacts with surfaces is explained using physics. Physics explains the behavior of optics which are a core part of most imaging systems. Sophisticated image sensors even require quantum mechanics to provide a complete understanding of the image formation process. Also, various measurement problems in physics can be addressed using computer vision, for example, motion in fluids.
Neurobiology has greatly influenced the development of computer vision algorithms. Over the last century, there has been an extensive study of eyes, neurons, and brain structures devoted to the processing visual stimuli in both humans and various animals. This has led to a coarse, yet convoluted, description of how natural vision systems operate in order to solve certain vision-related tasks. These results have led to a sub-field within computer vision where artificial systems are designed to mimic the processing and behavior of biological systems at different levels of complexity. Also, some of the learning-based methods developed within computer vision (e.g. neural net and deep learning based image and feature analysis and classification) have their background in neurobiology. The Neocognitron, a neural network developed in the 1970s by Kunihiko Fukushima, is an early example of computer vision taking direct inspiration from neurobiology, specifically the primary visual cortex.
Some strands of computer vision research are closely related to the study of biological vision—indeed, just as many strands of AI research are closely tied with research into human intelligence, and the use of stored knowledge to interpret, integrate and utilize visual information. The field of biological vision studies and models the physiological processes behind visual perception in humans and other animals. Computer vision, on the other hand, develops and describes the algorithms implemented in software and hardware behind artificial vision systems. An interdisciplinary exchange between biological and computer vision has proven fruitful for both fields.
Yet another field related to computer vision is signal processing. Many methods for processing of one-variable signals, typically temporal signals, can be extended in a natural way to the processing of two-variable signals or multi-variable signals in computer vision. However, because of the specific nature of images, there are many methods developed within computer vision that have no counterpart in the processing of one-variable signals. Together with the multi-dimensionality of the signal, this defines a subfield in signal processing as a part of computer vision.
Robot navigation sometimes deals with autonomous path planning or deliberation for robotic systems to navigate through an environment. A detailed understanding of these environments is required to navigate through them. Information about the environment could be provided by a computer vision system, acting as a vision sensor and providing high-level information about the environment and the robot.
Besides the above-mentioned views on computer vision, many of the related research topics can also be studied from a purely mathematical point of view. For example, many methods in computer vision are based on statistics, optimization or geometry. Finally, a significant part of the field is devoted to the implementation aspect of computer vision; how existing methods can be realized in various combinations of software and hardware, or how these methods can be modified in order to gain processing speed without losing too much performance. Computer vision is also used in fashion eCommerce, inventory management, patent search, furniture, and the beauty industry.
The fields most closely related to computer vision are image processing, image analysis and machine vision. There is a significant overlap in the range of techniques and applications that these cover. This implies that the basic techniques that are used and developed in these fields are similar, something which can be interpreted as there is only one field with different names. On the other hand, it appears to be necessary for research groups, scientific journals, conferences, and companies to present or market themselves as belonging specifically to one of these fields and, hence, various characterizations which distinguish each of the fields from the others have been presented. In image processing, the input is an image and the output is an image as well, whereas in computer vision, an image or a video is taken as an input and the output could be an enhanced image, an understanding of the content of an image or even behavior of a computer system based on such understanding.
Computer graphics produces image data from 3D models, and computer vision often produces 3D models from image data. There is also a trend towards a combination of the two disciplines, e.g., as explored in augmented reality.
The following characterizations appear relevant but should not be taken as universally accepted:
Photogrammetry also overlaps with computer vision, e.g., stereophotogrammetry vs. computer stereo vision.
Applications range from tasks such as industrial machine vision systems which, say, inspect bottles speeding by on a production line, to research into artificial intelligence and computers or robots that can comprehend the world around them. The computer vision and machine vision fields have significant overlap. Computer vision covers the core technology of automated image analysis which is used in many fields. Machine vision usually refers to a process of combining automated image analysis with other methods and technologies to provide automated inspection and robot guidance in industrial applications. In many computer-vision applications, computers are pre-programmed to solve a particular task, but methods based on learning are now becoming increasingly common. Examples of applications of computer vision include systems for:
One of the most prominent application fields is medical computer vision, or medical image processing, characterized by the extraction of information from image data to diagnose a patient. An example of this is the detection of tumours, arteriosclerosis or other malign changes, and a variety of dental pathologies; measurements of organ dimensions, blood flow, etc. are another example. It also supports medical research by providing new information: e.g., about the structure of the brain, or the quality of medical treatments. Applications of computer vision in the medical area also include enhancement of images interpreted by humans—ultrasonic images or X-ray images, for example—to reduce the influence of noise.
A second application area in computer vision is in industry, sometimes called machine vision, where information is extracted for the purpose of supporting a production process. One example is quality control where details or final products are being automatically inspected in order to find defects. One of the most prevalent fields for such inspection is the Wafer industry in which every single Wafer is being measured and inspected for inaccuracies or defects to prevent a computer chip from coming to market in an unusable manner. Another example is a measurement of the position and orientation of details to be picked up by a robot arm. Machine vision is also heavily used in the agricultural processes to remove undesirable food stuff from bulk material, a process called optical sorting.
Military applications are probably one of the largest areas of computer vision. The obvious examples are the detection of enemy soldiers or vehicles and missile guidance. More advanced systems for missile guidance send the missile to an area rather than a specific target, and target selection is made when the missile reaches the area based on locally acquired image data. Modern military concepts, such as "battlefield awareness", imply that various sensors, including image sensors, provide a rich set of information about a combat scene that can be used to support strategic decisions. In this case, automatic processing of the data is used to reduce complexity and to fuse information from multiple sensors to increase reliability.
One of the newer application areas is autonomous vehicles, which include submersibles, land-based vehicles (small robots with wheels, cars, or trucks), aerial vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The level of autonomy ranges from fully autonomous (unmanned) vehicles to vehicles where computer-vision-based systems support a driver or a pilot in various situations. Fully autonomous vehicles typically use computer vision for navigation, e.g., for knowing where they are or mapping their environment (SLAM), for detecting obstacles. It can also be used for detecting certain task-specific events, e.g., a UAV looking for forest fires. Examples of supporting systems are obstacle warning systems in cars, cameras and LiDAR sensors in vehicles, and systems for autonomous landing of aircraft. Several car manufacturers have demonstrated systems for autonomous driving of cars. There are ample examples of military autonomous vehicles ranging from advanced missiles to UAVs for recon missions or missile guidance. Space exploration is already being made with autonomous vehicles using computer vision, e.g., NASA's Curiosity and CNSA's Yutu-2 rover.
Materials such as rubber and silicon are being used to create sensors that allow for applications such as detecting micro undulations and calibrating robotic hands. Rubber can be used in order to create a mold that can be placed over a finger, inside of this mold would be multiple strain gauges. The finger mold and sensors could then be placed on top of a small sheet of rubber containing an array of rubber pins. A user can then wear the finger mold and trace a surface. A computer can then read the data from the strain gauges and measure if one or more of the pins is being pushed upward. If a pin is being pushed upward then the computer can recognize this as an imperfection in the surface. This sort of technology is useful in order to receive accurate data on imperfections on a very large surface. Another variation of this finger mold sensor are sensors that contain a camera suspended in silicon. The silicon forms a dome around the outside of the camera and embedded in the silicon are point markers that are equally spaced. These cameras can then be placed on devices such as robotic hands in order to allow the computer to receive highly accurate tactile data.
Other application areas include:
Each of the application areas described above employ a range of computer vision tasks; more or less well-defined measurement problems or processing problems, which can be solved using a variety of methods. Some examples of typical computer vision tasks are presented below.
Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions. Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images (the input of the retina) into descriptions of the world that can interface with other thought processes and elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.
The classical problem in computer vision, image processing, and machine vision is that of determining whether or not the image data contains some specific object, feature, or activity. Different varieties of recognition problem are described in the literature.
Currently, the best algorithms for such tasks are based on convolutional neural networks. An illustration of their capabilities is given by the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge; this is a benchmark in object classification and detection, with millions of images and 1000 object classes used in the competition. Performance of convolutional neural networks on the ImageNet tests is now close to that of humans. The best algorithms still struggle with objects that are small or thin, such as a small ant on a stem of a flower or a person holding a quill in their hand. They also have trouble with images that have been distorted with filters (an increasingly common phenomenon with modern digital cameras). By contrast, those kinds of images rarely trouble humans. Humans, however, tend to have trouble with other issues. For example, they are not good at classifying objects into fine-grained classes, such as the particular breed of dog or species of bird, whereas convolutional neural networks handle this with ease.
Several specialized tasks based on recognition exist, such as:
Several tasks relate to motion estimation where an image sequence is processed to produce an estimate of the velocity either at each points in the image or in the 3D scene or even of the camera that produces the images. Examples of such tasks are:
Given one or (typically) more images of a scene, or a video, scene reconstruction aims at computing a 3D model of the scene. In the simplest case, the model can be a set of 3D points. More sophisticated methods produce a complete 3D surface model. The advent of 3D imaging not requiring motion or scanning, and related processing algorithms is enabling rapid advances in this field. Grid-based 3D sensing can be used to acquire 3D images from multiple angles. Algorithms are now available to stitch multiple 3D images together into point clouds and 3D models.
Image restoration comes into picture when the original image is degraded or damaged due to some external factors like lens wrong positioning, transmission interference, low lighting or motion blurs etc. which is referred to as noise. When the images are degraded or damaged the information to be extracted from that also gets damaged. Therefore we need to recover or restore the image as it was intended to be. The aim of image restoration is the removal of noise (sensor noise, motion blur, etc.) from images. The simplest possible approach for noise removal is various types of filters such as low-pass filters or median filters. More sophisticated methods assume a model of how the local image structures look, to distinguish them from noise. By first analyzing the image data in terms of the local image structures, such as lines or edges, and then controlling the filtering based on local information from the analysis step, a better level of noise removal is usually obtained compared to the simpler approaches.
An example in this field is inpainting.
The organization of a computer vision system is highly application-dependent. Some systems are stand-alone applications that solve a specific measurement or detection problem, while others constitute a sub-system of a larger design which, for example, also contains sub-systems for control of mechanical actuators, planning, information databases, man-machine interfaces, etc. The specific implementation of a computer vision system also depends on whether its functionality is pre-specified or if some part of it can be learned or modified during operation. Many functions are unique to the application. There are, however, typical functions that are found in many computer vision systems.
Image-understanding systems (IUS) include three levels of abstraction as follows: low level includes image primitives such as edges, texture elements, or regions; intermediate level includes boundaries, surfaces and volumes; and high level includes objects, scenes, or events. Many of these requirements are entirely topics for further research.
The representational requirements in the designing of IUS for these levels are: representation of prototypical concepts, concept organization, spatial knowledge, temporal knowledge, scaling, and description by comparison and differentiation.
While inference refers to the process of deriving new, not explicitly represented facts from currently known facts, control refers to the process that selects which of the many inference, search, and matching techniques should be applied at a particular stage of processing. Inference and control requirements for IUS are: search and hypothesis activation, matching and hypothesis testing, generation and use of expectations, change and focus of attention, certainty and strength of belief, inference and goal satisfaction.
There are many kinds of computer vision systems; however, all of them contain these basic elements: a power source, at least one image acquisition device (camera, ccd, etc.), a processor, and control and communication cables or some kind of wireless interconnection mechanism. In addition, a practical vision system contains software, as well as a display in order to monitor the system. Vision systems for inner spaces, as most industrial ones, contain an illumination system and may be placed in a controlled environment. Furthermore, a completed system includes many accessories such as camera supports, cables and connectors.
Most computer vision systems use visible-light cameras passively viewing a scene at frame rates of at most 60 frames per second (usually far slower).
A few computer vision systems use image-acquisition hardware with active illumination or something other than visible light or both, such as structured-light 3D scanners, thermographic cameras, hyperspectral imagers, radar imaging, lidar scanners, magnetic resonance images, side-scan sonar, synthetic aperture sonar, etc. Such hardware captures "images" that are then processed often using the same computer vision algorithms used to process visible-light images.
While traditional broadcast and consumer video systems operate at a rate of 30 frames per second, advances in digital signal processing and consumer graphics hardware has made high-speed image acquisition, processing, and display possible for real-time systems on the order of hundreds to thousands of frames per second. For applications in robotics, fast, real-time video systems are critically important and often can simplify the processing needed for certain algorithms. When combined with a high-speed projector, fast image acquisition allows 3D measurement and feature tracking to be realized.
Egocentric vision systems are composed of a wearable camera that automatically take pictures from a first-person perspective.
As of 2016, vision processing units are emerging as a new class of processor, to complement CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs) in this role. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g. in the forms of decisions. Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images (the input to the retina in the human analog) into descriptions of the world that make sense to thought processes and can elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The scientific discipline of computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences, views from multiple cameras, multi-dimensional data from a 3D scanner, 3D point clouds from LiDaR sensors, or medical scanning devices. The technological discipline of computer vision seeks to apply its theories and models to the construction of computer vision systems.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Sub-domains of computer vision include scene reconstruction, object detection, event detection, activity recognition, video tracking, object recognition, 3D pose estimation, learning, indexing, motion estimation, visual servoing, 3D scene modeling, and image restoration.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Adopting computer vision technology might be painstaking for organizations as there is no single point solution for it. There are very few companies that provide a unified and distributed platform or an Operating System where computer vision applications can be easily deployed and managed.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Computer vision is an interdisciplinary field that deals with how computers can be made to gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to automate tasks that the human visual system can do. \"Computer vision is concerned with the automatic extraction, analysis and understanding of useful information from a single image or a sequence of images. It involves the development of a theoretical and algorithmic basis to achieve automatic visual understanding.\" As a scientific discipline, computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences, views from multiple cameras, or multi-dimensional data from a medical scanner. As a technological discipline, computer vision seeks to apply its theories and models for the construction of computer vision systems.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the late 1960s, computer vision began at universities that were pioneering artificial intelligence. It was meant to mimic the human visual system, as a stepping stone to endowing robots with intelligent behavior. In 1966, it was believed that this could be achieved through an undergraduate summer project, by attaching a camera to a computer and having it \"describe what it saw\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "What distinguished computer vision from the prevalent field of digital image processing at that time was a desire to extract three-dimensional structure from images with the goal of achieving full scene understanding. Studies in the 1970s formed the early foundations for many of the computer vision algorithms that exist today, including extraction of edges from images, labeling of lines, non-polyhedral and polyhedral modeling, representation of objects as interconnections of smaller structures, optical flow, and motion estimation.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The next decade saw studies based on more rigorous mathematical analysis and quantitative aspects of computer vision. These include the concept of scale-space, the inference of shape from various cues such as shading, texture and focus, and contour models known as snakes. Researchers also realized that many of these mathematical concepts could be treated within the same optimization framework as regularization and Markov random fields. By the 1990s, some of the previous research topics became more active than others. Research in projective 3-D reconstructions led to better understanding of camera calibration. With the advent of optimization methods for camera calibration, it was realized that a lot of the ideas were already explored in bundle adjustment theory from the field of photogrammetry. This led to methods for sparse 3-D reconstructions of scenes from multiple images. Progress was made on the dense stereo correspondence problem and further multi-view stereo techniques. At the same time, variations of graph cut were used to solve image segmentation. This decade also marked the first time statistical learning techniques were used in practice to recognize faces in images (see Eigenface). Toward the end of the 1990s, a significant change came about with the increased interaction between the fields of computer graphics and computer vision. This included image-based rendering, image morphing, view interpolation, panoramic image stitching and early light-field rendering.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Recent work has seen the resurgence of feature-based methods, used in conjunction with machine learning techniques and complex optimization frameworks. The advancement of Deep Learning techniques has brought further life to the field of computer vision. The accuracy of deep learning algorithms on several benchmark computer vision data sets for tasks ranging from classification, segmentation and optical flow has surpassed prior methods.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Solid-state physics is another field that is closely related to computer vision. Most computer vision systems rely on image sensors, which detect electromagnetic radiation, which is typically in the form of either visible or infrared light. The sensors are designed using quantum physics. The process by which light interacts with surfaces is explained using physics. Physics explains the behavior of optics which are a core part of most imaging systems. Sophisticated image sensors even require quantum mechanics to provide a complete understanding of the image formation process. Also, various measurement problems in physics can be addressed using computer vision, for example, motion in fluids.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Neurobiology has greatly influenced the development of computer vision algorithms. Over the last century, there has been an extensive study of eyes, neurons, and brain structures devoted to the processing visual stimuli in both humans and various animals. This has led to a coarse, yet convoluted, description of how natural vision systems operate in order to solve certain vision-related tasks. These results have led to a sub-field within computer vision where artificial systems are designed to mimic the processing and behavior of biological systems at different levels of complexity. Also, some of the learning-based methods developed within computer vision (e.g. neural net and deep learning based image and feature analysis and classification) have their background in neurobiology. The Neocognitron, a neural network developed in the 1970s by Kunihiko Fukushima, is an early example of computer vision taking direct inspiration from neurobiology, specifically the primary visual cortex.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Some strands of computer vision research are closely related to the study of biological vision—indeed, just as many strands of AI research are closely tied with research into human intelligence, and the use of stored knowledge to interpret, integrate and utilize visual information. The field of biological vision studies and models the physiological processes behind visual perception in humans and other animals. Computer vision, on the other hand, develops and describes the algorithms implemented in software and hardware behind artificial vision systems. An interdisciplinary exchange between biological and computer vision has proven fruitful for both fields.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Yet another field related to computer vision is signal processing. Many methods for processing of one-variable signals, typically temporal signals, can be extended in a natural way to the processing of two-variable signals or multi-variable signals in computer vision. However, because of the specific nature of images, there are many methods developed within computer vision that have no counterpart in the processing of one-variable signals. Together with the multi-dimensionality of the signal, this defines a subfield in signal processing as a part of computer vision.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Robot navigation sometimes deals with autonomous path planning or deliberation for robotic systems to navigate through an environment. A detailed understanding of these environments is required to navigate through them. Information about the environment could be provided by a computer vision system, acting as a vision sensor and providing high-level information about the environment and the robot.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Besides the above-mentioned views on computer vision, many of the related research topics can also be studied from a purely mathematical point of view. For example, many methods in computer vision are based on statistics, optimization or geometry. Finally, a significant part of the field is devoted to the implementation aspect of computer vision; how existing methods can be realized in various combinations of software and hardware, or how these methods can be modified in order to gain processing speed without losing too much performance. Computer vision is also used in fashion eCommerce, inventory management, patent search, furniture, and the beauty industry.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The fields most closely related to computer vision are image processing, image analysis and machine vision. There is a significant overlap in the range of techniques and applications that these cover. This implies that the basic techniques that are used and developed in these fields are similar, something which can be interpreted as there is only one field with different names. On the other hand, it appears to be necessary for research groups, scientific journals, conferences, and companies to present or market themselves as belonging specifically to one of these fields and, hence, various characterizations which distinguish each of the fields from the others have been presented. In image processing, the input is an image and the output is an image as well, whereas in computer vision, an image or a video is taken as an input and the output could be an enhanced image, an understanding of the content of an image or even behavior of a computer system based on such understanding.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Computer graphics produces image data from 3D models, and computer vision often produces 3D models from image data. There is also a trend towards a combination of the two disciplines, e.g., as explored in augmented reality.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The following characterizations appear relevant but should not be taken as universally accepted:",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Photogrammetry also overlaps with computer vision, e.g., stereophotogrammetry vs. computer stereo vision.",
"title": "Related fields"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Applications range from tasks such as industrial machine vision systems which, say, inspect bottles speeding by on a production line, to research into artificial intelligence and computers or robots that can comprehend the world around them. The computer vision and machine vision fields have significant overlap. Computer vision covers the core technology of automated image analysis which is used in many fields. Machine vision usually refers to a process of combining automated image analysis with other methods and technologies to provide automated inspection and robot guidance in industrial applications. In many computer-vision applications, computers are pre-programmed to solve a particular task, but methods based on learning are now becoming increasingly common. Examples of applications of computer vision include systems for:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "One of the most prominent application fields is medical computer vision, or medical image processing, characterized by the extraction of information from image data to diagnose a patient. An example of this is the detection of tumours, arteriosclerosis or other malign changes, and a variety of dental pathologies; measurements of organ dimensions, blood flow, etc. are another example. It also supports medical research by providing new information: e.g., about the structure of the brain, or the quality of medical treatments. Applications of computer vision in the medical area also include enhancement of images interpreted by humans—ultrasonic images or X-ray images, for example—to reduce the influence of noise.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "A second application area in computer vision is in industry, sometimes called machine vision, where information is extracted for the purpose of supporting a production process. One example is quality control where details or final products are being automatically inspected in order to find defects. One of the most prevalent fields for such inspection is the Wafer industry in which every single Wafer is being measured and inspected for inaccuracies or defects to prevent a computer chip from coming to market in an unusable manner. Another example is a measurement of the position and orientation of details to be picked up by a robot arm. Machine vision is also heavily used in the agricultural processes to remove undesirable food stuff from bulk material, a process called optical sorting.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Military applications are probably one of the largest areas of computer vision. The obvious examples are the detection of enemy soldiers or vehicles and missile guidance. More advanced systems for missile guidance send the missile to an area rather than a specific target, and target selection is made when the missile reaches the area based on locally acquired image data. Modern military concepts, such as \"battlefield awareness\", imply that various sensors, including image sensors, provide a rich set of information about a combat scene that can be used to support strategic decisions. In this case, automatic processing of the data is used to reduce complexity and to fuse information from multiple sensors to increase reliability.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "One of the newer application areas is autonomous vehicles, which include submersibles, land-based vehicles (small robots with wheels, cars, or trucks), aerial vehicles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The level of autonomy ranges from fully autonomous (unmanned) vehicles to vehicles where computer-vision-based systems support a driver or a pilot in various situations. Fully autonomous vehicles typically use computer vision for navigation, e.g., for knowing where they are or mapping their environment (SLAM), for detecting obstacles. It can also be used for detecting certain task-specific events, e.g., a UAV looking for forest fires. Examples of supporting systems are obstacle warning systems in cars, cameras and LiDAR sensors in vehicles, and systems for autonomous landing of aircraft. Several car manufacturers have demonstrated systems for autonomous driving of cars. There are ample examples of military autonomous vehicles ranging from advanced missiles to UAVs for recon missions or missile guidance. Space exploration is already being made with autonomous vehicles using computer vision, e.g., NASA's Curiosity and CNSA's Yutu-2 rover.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Materials such as rubber and silicon are being used to create sensors that allow for applications such as detecting micro undulations and calibrating robotic hands. Rubber can be used in order to create a mold that can be placed over a finger, inside of this mold would be multiple strain gauges. The finger mold and sensors could then be placed on top of a small sheet of rubber containing an array of rubber pins. A user can then wear the finger mold and trace a surface. A computer can then read the data from the strain gauges and measure if one or more of the pins is being pushed upward. If a pin is being pushed upward then the computer can recognize this as an imperfection in the surface. This sort of technology is useful in order to receive accurate data on imperfections on a very large surface. Another variation of this finger mold sensor are sensors that contain a camera suspended in silicon. The silicon forms a dome around the outside of the camera and embedded in the silicon are point markers that are equally spaced. These cameras can then be placed on devices such as robotic hands in order to allow the computer to receive highly accurate tactile data.",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Other application areas include:",
"title": "Applications"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Each of the application areas described above employ a range of computer vision tasks; more or less well-defined measurement problems or processing problems, which can be solved using a variety of methods. Some examples of typical computer vision tasks are presented below.",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g., in the forms of decisions. Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images (the input of the retina) into descriptions of the world that can interface with other thought processes and elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory.",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The classical problem in computer vision, image processing, and machine vision is that of determining whether or not the image data contains some specific object, feature, or activity. Different varieties of recognition problem are described in the literature.",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Currently, the best algorithms for such tasks are based on convolutional neural networks. An illustration of their capabilities is given by the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge; this is a benchmark in object classification and detection, with millions of images and 1000 object classes used in the competition. Performance of convolutional neural networks on the ImageNet tests is now close to that of humans. The best algorithms still struggle with objects that are small or thin, such as a small ant on a stem of a flower or a person holding a quill in their hand. They also have trouble with images that have been distorted with filters (an increasingly common phenomenon with modern digital cameras). By contrast, those kinds of images rarely trouble humans. Humans, however, tend to have trouble with other issues. For example, they are not good at classifying objects into fine-grained classes, such as the particular breed of dog or species of bird, whereas convolutional neural networks handle this with ease.",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Several specialized tasks based on recognition exist, such as:",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Several tasks relate to motion estimation where an image sequence is processed to produce an estimate of the velocity either at each points in the image or in the 3D scene or even of the camera that produces the images. Examples of such tasks are:",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Given one or (typically) more images of a scene, or a video, scene reconstruction aims at computing a 3D model of the scene. In the simplest case, the model can be a set of 3D points. More sophisticated methods produce a complete 3D surface model. The advent of 3D imaging not requiring motion or scanning, and related processing algorithms is enabling rapid advances in this field. Grid-based 3D sensing can be used to acquire 3D images from multiple angles. Algorithms are now available to stitch multiple 3D images together into point clouds and 3D models.",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Image restoration comes into picture when the original image is degraded or damaged due to some external factors like lens wrong positioning, transmission interference, low lighting or motion blurs etc. which is referred to as noise. When the images are degraded or damaged the information to be extracted from that also gets damaged. Therefore we need to recover or restore the image as it was intended to be. The aim of image restoration is the removal of noise (sensor noise, motion blur, etc.) from images. The simplest possible approach for noise removal is various types of filters such as low-pass filters or median filters. More sophisticated methods assume a model of how the local image structures look, to distinguish them from noise. By first analyzing the image data in terms of the local image structures, such as lines or edges, and then controlling the filtering based on local information from the analysis step, a better level of noise removal is usually obtained compared to the simpler approaches.",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "An example in this field is inpainting.",
"title": "Typical tasks"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The organization of a computer vision system is highly application-dependent. Some systems are stand-alone applications that solve a specific measurement or detection problem, while others constitute a sub-system of a larger design which, for example, also contains sub-systems for control of mechanical actuators, planning, information databases, man-machine interfaces, etc. The specific implementation of a computer vision system also depends on whether its functionality is pre-specified or if some part of it can be learned or modified during operation. Many functions are unique to the application. There are, however, typical functions that are found in many computer vision systems.",
"title": "System methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Image-understanding systems (IUS) include three levels of abstraction as follows: low level includes image primitives such as edges, texture elements, or regions; intermediate level includes boundaries, surfaces and volumes; and high level includes objects, scenes, or events. Many of these requirements are entirely topics for further research.",
"title": "System methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The representational requirements in the designing of IUS for these levels are: representation of prototypical concepts, concept organization, spatial knowledge, temporal knowledge, scaling, and description by comparison and differentiation.",
"title": "System methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "While inference refers to the process of deriving new, not explicitly represented facts from currently known facts, control refers to the process that selects which of the many inference, search, and matching techniques should be applied at a particular stage of processing. Inference and control requirements for IUS are: search and hypothesis activation, matching and hypothesis testing, generation and use of expectations, change and focus of attention, certainty and strength of belief, inference and goal satisfaction.",
"title": "System methods"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "There are many kinds of computer vision systems; however, all of them contain these basic elements: a power source, at least one image acquisition device (camera, ccd, etc.), a processor, and control and communication cables or some kind of wireless interconnection mechanism. In addition, a practical vision system contains software, as well as a display in order to monitor the system. Vision systems for inner spaces, as most industrial ones, contain an illumination system and may be placed in a controlled environment. Furthermore, a completed system includes many accessories such as camera supports, cables and connectors.",
"title": "Hardware"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Most computer vision systems use visible-light cameras passively viewing a scene at frame rates of at most 60 frames per second (usually far slower).",
"title": "Hardware"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "A few computer vision systems use image-acquisition hardware with active illumination or something other than visible light or both, such as structured-light 3D scanners, thermographic cameras, hyperspectral imagers, radar imaging, lidar scanners, magnetic resonance images, side-scan sonar, synthetic aperture sonar, etc. Such hardware captures \"images\" that are then processed often using the same computer vision algorithms used to process visible-light images.",
"title": "Hardware"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "While traditional broadcast and consumer video systems operate at a rate of 30 frames per second, advances in digital signal processing and consumer graphics hardware has made high-speed image acquisition, processing, and display possible for real-time systems on the order of hundreds to thousands of frames per second. For applications in robotics, fast, real-time video systems are critically important and often can simplify the processing needed for certain algorithms. When combined with a high-speed projector, fast image acquisition allows 3D measurement and feature tracking to be realized.",
"title": "Hardware"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Egocentric vision systems are composed of a wearable camera that automatically take pictures from a first-person perspective.",
"title": "Hardware"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "As of 2016, vision processing units are emerging as a new class of processor, to complement CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs) in this role.",
"title": "Hardware"
}
] | Computer vision tasks include methods for acquiring, processing, analyzing and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical or symbolic information, e.g. in the forms of decisions. Understanding in this context means the transformation of visual images into descriptions of the world that make sense to thought processes and can elicit appropriate action. This image understanding can be seen as the disentangling of symbolic information from image data using models constructed with the aid of geometry, physics, statistics, and learning theory. The scientific discipline of computer vision is concerned with the theory behind artificial systems that extract information from images. The image data can take many forms, such as video sequences, views from multiple cameras, multi-dimensional data from a 3D scanner, 3D point clouds from LiDaR sensors, or medical scanning devices. The technological discipline of computer vision seeks to apply its theories and models to the construction of computer vision systems. Sub-domains of computer vision include scene reconstruction, object detection, event detection, activity recognition, video tracking, object recognition, 3D pose estimation, learning, indexing, motion estimation, visual servoing, 3D scene modeling, and image restoration. Adopting computer vision technology might be painstaking for organizations as there is no single point solution for it. There are very few companies that provide a unified and distributed platform or an Operating System where computer vision applications can be easily deployed and managed. | 2001-10-25T00:22:59Z | 2023-12-20T20:58:58Z | [
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6,597 | Curry | Curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. In southern India, leaves from the curry tree may be included.
There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in traditional cuisine depends on regional cultural tradition and personal preferences. Such dishes have names that refer to their ingredients, spicing, and cooking methods. Outside the Indian subcontinent, a curry is a dish from Southeast Asia which uses coconut milk or spice pastes, commonly eaten over rice. Curries may contain fish, meat, poultry, or shellfish, either alone or in combination with vegetables. Others are vegetarian. Dry curries are cooked using small amounts of liquid, which is allowed to evaporate, leaving the other ingredients coated with the spice mixture. Wet curries contain significant amounts of sauce or gravy based on broth, coconut cream or coconut milk, dairy cream or yogurt, or legume purée, sautéed crushed onion, or tomato purée.
Curry powder, a commercially prepared mixture of spices marketed in the West, was first exported to Britain in the 18th century when Indian merchants sold a concoction of spices, similar to garam masala, to the British East India Company returning to Britain.
Curry is an anglicised form of the Tamil கறி kaṟi meaning 'sauce' or 'relish for rice' that uses the leaves of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii). The word kari is also used in other Dravidian languages, namely in Malayalam, Kannada and Kodava with the meaning of "vegetables (or meat) of any kind (raw or boiled), curry". Kaṟi is described in a mid-17th century Portuguese cookbook by members of the British East India Company, who were trading with Tamil merchants along the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, becoming known as a "spice blend ... called kari podi or curry powder". The first appearance in its anglicised form (spelled currey) was in Hannah Glasse's 1747 book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy.
The word cury in the 1390s English cookbook, The Forme of Cury, is unrelated, coming from the Middle French word cuire, meaning 'to cook'.
Archaeological evidence dating to 2600 BCE from Mohenjo-daro suggests the use of mortar and pestle to pound spices including mustard, fennel, cumin, and tamarind pods with which they flavoured food. Black pepper is native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia and has been known to Indian cooking since at least 2000 BCE.
The three basic ingredients of the spicy stew were ginger, garlic, and turmeric. Using a method called "starch grain analysis", archaeologists identified the residue of these spices in both skeletons and pottery shards from excavations in India, finding that turmeric and ginger were present.
The establishment of the Mughal Empire, in the early 16th century, also influenced some curries, especially in the north. Another influence was the establishment of the Portuguese trading centre in Goa in 1510, resulting in the introduction of chili pepper, tomatoes and potatoes to India from the Americas, as a byproduct of the Columbian Exchange.
The British lumped all sauce-based dishes under the generic name 'curry'. It was introduced to English cuisine from Anglo-Indian cooking in the 17th century, as spicy sauces were added to plain boiled and cooked meats. Curry was first served in coffee houses in Britain from 1809, and has been increasingly popular in Great Britain, with major jumps in the 1940s and the 1970s. During the 19th century, curry was carried to the Caribbean by Indian indentured workers in the British sugar industry. Since the mid-20th century, curries of many national styles have become popular far from their origins, and increasingly become part of international fusion cuisine.
India is the home of curry, and many Indian dishes are curry-based, prepared by adding different types of vegetables, lentils, or meats. The content of the curry and style of preparation vary by region. Most curries are water-based, with occasional use of dairy and coconut milk. Curry dishes are usually thick and spicy and are eaten along with steamed rice and a variety of Indian breads. The popular rogan josh, for example, from Kashmiri cuisine, is a wet curry of lamb with a red gravy coloured by Kashmiri chillies and an extract of the red flowers of the cockscomb plant (mawal). Goshtaba (large lamb meatballs cooked in yoghurt gravy) is another curry dish from the Wazwan tradition occasionally found in Western restaurants.
Curries in Bengali cuisine include seafood and fresh fish. Mustard seeds and mustard oil are added to many recipes, as are poppy seeds. Emigrants from the Sylhet district of Bangladesh founded the curry house industry in Britain, while in Sylhet some restaurants run by expatriates specialise in British-style Indian food.
Curry spread to other regions of Asia. Although not an integral part of Chinese cuisine, curry powder is added to some dishes in the southern part of China. The curry powder sold in Chinese grocery stores is similar to Madras curry powder but with addition of star anise and cinnamon. The former Portuguese colony of Macau has its own culinary traditions and curry dishes, including Galinha à portuguesa and curry crab. Portuguese sauce is a sauce flavoured with curry and thickened with coconut milk.
Japanese curry is usually eaten as karē raisu – curry, rice, and often pickled vegetables, served on the same plate and eaten with a spoon, a common lunchtime canteen dish. It is less spicy and seasoned than Indian and Southeast Asian curries, being more of a thick stew than a curry. British people brought curry from the Indian colony back to Britain and introduced it to Japan during the Meiji period (1868 to 1912), after Japan ended its policy of national self-isolation (sakoku), and curry in Japan was categorised as a Western dish. Its spread across the country is attributed to its use in the Japanese Army and Navy which adopted it extensively as convenient field and naval canteen cooking, allowing even conscripts from the remotest countryside to experience the dish. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force traditionally have curry every Friday for lunch and many ships have their own recipes. The standard Japanese curry contains onions, carrots, potatoes, and sometimes celery, and a meat that is cooked in a large pot. Sometimes grated apples or honey are added for additional sweetness and other vegetables are sometimes used instead.
Curry was popularized in Korean cuisine when Ottogi entered the Korean food industry with a curry powder in 1969. Korean curry, usually served with rice, is characterized by the golden yellow colour of turmeric. Curry tteokbokki is made of tteok (rice cakes), eomuk (fish cakes), eggs, vegetables, and curry. Curry can be added to Korean dishes such as bokkeumbap (fried rice), sundubujjigae (silken tofu stew), fried chicken, vegetable stir-fries, and salads.
Indian Indonesian cuisine consists of adaptations of authentic dishes from India, as well as original creations inspired by the diverse food culture of Indonesia. Curry in Indonesian is kari and in Javanese is kare. In Indonesian cuisine especially in Bandung, there is a dish called lontong kari, a combined of lontong and beef yellow curry soup. In Javanese cuisine, kare rajungan, blue swimmer crab curry has become a delicacy of Tuban Regency, East Java. Rendang, the national dish of Indonesia, which is originated from Minang, is drier and contains mostly meat and more coconut milk than a conventional Malaysian curry; it was mentioned in Malay literature in the 1550s by Hikayat Amir Hamzah.
Malaysian cuisine may have initially incorporated curries via the Indian population, but it has become a staple among the Malay and Chinese populations there. Malaysian curries typically use turmeric-rich curry powders, coconut milk, shallots, ginger, belacan (shrimp paste), chili peppers, and garlic. Tamarind is also often used.
In Burmese cuisine, curries are broadly called hin. Burmese curries generally consist of protein that is simmered in a curry base of aromatics including shallots, onions, ginger, and garlic, alongside dried spices like turmeric, paprika, and garam masala. Burmese curries generally differ from other Southeast Asian curries in that dried spices are also used commonly to season the dishes, while coconut milk is only used sparingly for select dishes.
In the Philippines, two kinds of curry traditions are seen corresponding with the cultural divide between the Hispanicised north and Indianised/Islamised south. In the northern areas, a linear range of new curry recipes could be seen. The most common is a variant of the native ginataang manok (chicken cooked in coconut milk) dish with the addition of curry powder, known as the "Filipino chicken curry". This is the usual curry dish that northern Filipinos are familiar with. Similarly, other northern Filipino dishes that can be considered "curries" are usually ginataan (cooked with coconut milk) variants of other native meat or seafood dishes such as adobo, kaldereta, and mechado, that simply add curry powder or non-native Indian spices.
In Thai cuisine, curries are called kaeng, and usually consist of meat, fish or vegetables in a sauce based on a paste made from chilies, onions or shallots, garlic, and shrimp paste. Additional spices and herbs define the type of curry. Local ingredients, such as chili peppers, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal are used and, in central and southern Thai cuisine, coconut milk. Northern and northeastern Thai curries generally do not contain coconut milk. Due to the use of sugar and coconut milk, Thai curries tend to be sweeter than Indian curries. In the West, some of the Thai curries are described by colour; red curries use red chilies while green curries use green chilies. Yellow curry—called kaeng kari (by various spellings) in Thai, of which a literal translation could be "curry soup"—is more similar to Indian curries, with the use of turmeric, cumin, and other dried spices. A few stir-fried Thai dishes also use an Indian style curry powder (Thai: phong kari).
In Vietnamese cuisine, it is known as cà ri and it is made ingredients such as coconut milk, potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro, chicken along with coriander and green onions. This dish is more like soup than Indian curry. Goat meat curry is also available, but only in a few special restaurants in Vietnam. Curry is often served with bread, vermicelli or rice. Curry is considered a dish in the south. The other ingredients of the curry are very diverse, depending on the meat ingredients, the main fruit for cooking curry as well as the chef's creativity. Vietnamese curries are also made with coconut milk, red cashew, onions, ginger, meat of all kinds (pig, goat, beef, chicken, sheep, crocodile, ostrich and seafood), potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, radishes, vegetables, etc.
Consumption of curry spread to South Africa with the migration of people from the Indian subcontinent to the region in the colonial era. African curries, Cape Malay curries and Natal curries include the traditional Natal curry, the Durban curry, Bunny chow, and roti rolls. South African curries appear to have been founded in both KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, while other curries developed across the country over the late 20th century and early 21st century to include ekasi, coloured, and Afrikaner curries. Durban has the largest population of Indians outside of India in the world. Bunny chow or a "set", a South African standard, consists of either lamb, chicken or bean curry poured into a tunnelled-out loaf of bread to be eaten with one's fingers by dipping pieces of the bread into it.
Curry is very popular in the United Kingdom, with a curry house in nearly every town. Such is the popularity of curry in the United Kingdom, it has frequently been called its "adopted national dish". It was estimated that in 2016 there were 12,000 curry houses, employing 100,000 people and with annual combined sales of approximately £4.2 billion.
The food offered is Indian food cooked to British taste, but with increasing demand for authentic Indian styles. As of 2015, curry houses accounted for a fifth of the restaurant business in the UK, but, being historically a low wage sector, they were plagued by a shortage of labour. Established Indian immigrants from South Asia were moving on to other occupations; there were difficulties in training Europeans to cook curry; and immigration restrictions, which require payment of a high wage to skilled immigrants, had crimped the supply of new cooks.
"Curry powder", as available in certain western markets, is a commercial spice blend, and first sold by Indian merchants to European colonial traders. This resulted in the export of a derived version of Indian concoction of spices. and commercially available from the late 18th century, with brands such as Crosse & Blackwell and Sharwood's persisting to the present. British traders introduced the powder to Meiji Japan, in the mid-19th century, where it became known as Japanese curry. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. In southern India, leaves from the curry tree may be included.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in traditional cuisine depends on regional cultural tradition and personal preferences. Such dishes have names that refer to their ingredients, spicing, and cooking methods. Outside the Indian subcontinent, a curry is a dish from Southeast Asia which uses coconut milk or spice pastes, commonly eaten over rice. Curries may contain fish, meat, poultry, or shellfish, either alone or in combination with vegetables. Others are vegetarian. Dry curries are cooked using small amounts of liquid, which is allowed to evaporate, leaving the other ingredients coated with the spice mixture. Wet curries contain significant amounts of sauce or gravy based on broth, coconut cream or coconut milk, dairy cream or yogurt, or legume purée, sautéed crushed onion, or tomato purée.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Curry powder, a commercially prepared mixture of spices marketed in the West, was first exported to Britain in the 18th century when Indian merchants sold a concoction of spices, similar to garam masala, to the British East India Company returning to Britain.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Curry is an anglicised form of the Tamil கறி kaṟi meaning 'sauce' or 'relish for rice' that uses the leaves of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii). The word kari is also used in other Dravidian languages, namely in Malayalam, Kannada and Kodava with the meaning of \"vegetables (or meat) of any kind (raw or boiled), curry\". Kaṟi is described in a mid-17th century Portuguese cookbook by members of the British East India Company, who were trading with Tamil merchants along the Coromandel Coast of southeast India, becoming known as a \"spice blend ... called kari podi or curry powder\". The first appearance in its anglicised form (spelled currey) was in Hannah Glasse's 1747 book The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The word cury in the 1390s English cookbook, The Forme of Cury, is unrelated, coming from the Middle French word cuire, meaning 'to cook'.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Archaeological evidence dating to 2600 BCE from Mohenjo-daro suggests the use of mortar and pestle to pound spices including mustard, fennel, cumin, and tamarind pods with which they flavoured food. Black pepper is native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia and has been known to Indian cooking since at least 2000 BCE.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The three basic ingredients of the spicy stew were ginger, garlic, and turmeric. Using a method called \"starch grain analysis\", archaeologists identified the residue of these spices in both skeletons and pottery shards from excavations in India, finding that turmeric and ginger were present.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The establishment of the Mughal Empire, in the early 16th century, also influenced some curries, especially in the north. Another influence was the establishment of the Portuguese trading centre in Goa in 1510, resulting in the introduction of chili pepper, tomatoes and potatoes to India from the Americas, as a byproduct of the Columbian Exchange.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The British lumped all sauce-based dishes under the generic name 'curry'. It was introduced to English cuisine from Anglo-Indian cooking in the 17th century, as spicy sauces were added to plain boiled and cooked meats. Curry was first served in coffee houses in Britain from 1809, and has been increasingly popular in Great Britain, with major jumps in the 1940s and the 1970s. During the 19th century, curry was carried to the Caribbean by Indian indentured workers in the British sugar industry. Since the mid-20th century, curries of many national styles have become popular far from their origins, and increasingly become part of international fusion cuisine.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "India is the home of curry, and many Indian dishes are curry-based, prepared by adding different types of vegetables, lentils, or meats. The content of the curry and style of preparation vary by region. Most curries are water-based, with occasional use of dairy and coconut milk. Curry dishes are usually thick and spicy and are eaten along with steamed rice and a variety of Indian breads. The popular rogan josh, for example, from Kashmiri cuisine, is a wet curry of lamb with a red gravy coloured by Kashmiri chillies and an extract of the red flowers of the cockscomb plant (mawal). Goshtaba (large lamb meatballs cooked in yoghurt gravy) is another curry dish from the Wazwan tradition occasionally found in Western restaurants.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Curries in Bengali cuisine include seafood and fresh fish. Mustard seeds and mustard oil are added to many recipes, as are poppy seeds. Emigrants from the Sylhet district of Bangladesh founded the curry house industry in Britain, while in Sylhet some restaurants run by expatriates specialise in British-style Indian food.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Curry spread to other regions of Asia. Although not an integral part of Chinese cuisine, curry powder is added to some dishes in the southern part of China. The curry powder sold in Chinese grocery stores is similar to Madras curry powder but with addition of star anise and cinnamon. The former Portuguese colony of Macau has its own culinary traditions and curry dishes, including Galinha à portuguesa and curry crab. Portuguese sauce is a sauce flavoured with curry and thickened with coconut milk.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Japanese curry is usually eaten as karē raisu – curry, rice, and often pickled vegetables, served on the same plate and eaten with a spoon, a common lunchtime canteen dish. It is less spicy and seasoned than Indian and Southeast Asian curries, being more of a thick stew than a curry. British people brought curry from the Indian colony back to Britain and introduced it to Japan during the Meiji period (1868 to 1912), after Japan ended its policy of national self-isolation (sakoku), and curry in Japan was categorised as a Western dish. Its spread across the country is attributed to its use in the Japanese Army and Navy which adopted it extensively as convenient field and naval canteen cooking, allowing even conscripts from the remotest countryside to experience the dish. The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force traditionally have curry every Friday for lunch and many ships have their own recipes. The standard Japanese curry contains onions, carrots, potatoes, and sometimes celery, and a meat that is cooked in a large pot. Sometimes grated apples or honey are added for additional sweetness and other vegetables are sometimes used instead.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Curry was popularized in Korean cuisine when Ottogi entered the Korean food industry with a curry powder in 1969. Korean curry, usually served with rice, is characterized by the golden yellow colour of turmeric. Curry tteokbokki is made of tteok (rice cakes), eomuk (fish cakes), eggs, vegetables, and curry. Curry can be added to Korean dishes such as bokkeumbap (fried rice), sundubujjigae (silken tofu stew), fried chicken, vegetable stir-fries, and salads.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Indian Indonesian cuisine consists of adaptations of authentic dishes from India, as well as original creations inspired by the diverse food culture of Indonesia. Curry in Indonesian is kari and in Javanese is kare. In Indonesian cuisine especially in Bandung, there is a dish called lontong kari, a combined of lontong and beef yellow curry soup. In Javanese cuisine, kare rajungan, blue swimmer crab curry has become a delicacy of Tuban Regency, East Java. Rendang, the national dish of Indonesia, which is originated from Minang, is drier and contains mostly meat and more coconut milk than a conventional Malaysian curry; it was mentioned in Malay literature in the 1550s by Hikayat Amir Hamzah.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Malaysian cuisine may have initially incorporated curries via the Indian population, but it has become a staple among the Malay and Chinese populations there. Malaysian curries typically use turmeric-rich curry powders, coconut milk, shallots, ginger, belacan (shrimp paste), chili peppers, and garlic. Tamarind is also often used.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In Burmese cuisine, curries are broadly called hin. Burmese curries generally consist of protein that is simmered in a curry base of aromatics including shallots, onions, ginger, and garlic, alongside dried spices like turmeric, paprika, and garam masala. Burmese curries generally differ from other Southeast Asian curries in that dried spices are also used commonly to season the dishes, while coconut milk is only used sparingly for select dishes.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the Philippines, two kinds of curry traditions are seen corresponding with the cultural divide between the Hispanicised north and Indianised/Islamised south. In the northern areas, a linear range of new curry recipes could be seen. The most common is a variant of the native ginataang manok (chicken cooked in coconut milk) dish with the addition of curry powder, known as the \"Filipino chicken curry\". This is the usual curry dish that northern Filipinos are familiar with. Similarly, other northern Filipino dishes that can be considered \"curries\" are usually ginataan (cooked with coconut milk) variants of other native meat or seafood dishes such as adobo, kaldereta, and mechado, that simply add curry powder or non-native Indian spices.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In Thai cuisine, curries are called kaeng, and usually consist of meat, fish or vegetables in a sauce based on a paste made from chilies, onions or shallots, garlic, and shrimp paste. Additional spices and herbs define the type of curry. Local ingredients, such as chili peppers, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, galangal are used and, in central and southern Thai cuisine, coconut milk. Northern and northeastern Thai curries generally do not contain coconut milk. Due to the use of sugar and coconut milk, Thai curries tend to be sweeter than Indian curries. In the West, some of the Thai curries are described by colour; red curries use red chilies while green curries use green chilies. Yellow curry—called kaeng kari (by various spellings) in Thai, of which a literal translation could be \"curry soup\"—is more similar to Indian curries, with the use of turmeric, cumin, and other dried spices. A few stir-fried Thai dishes also use an Indian style curry powder (Thai: phong kari).",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "In Vietnamese cuisine, it is known as cà ri and it is made ingredients such as coconut milk, potatoes, sweet potatoes, taro, chicken along with coriander and green onions. This dish is more like soup than Indian curry. Goat meat curry is also available, but only in a few special restaurants in Vietnam. Curry is often served with bread, vermicelli or rice. Curry is considered a dish in the south. The other ingredients of the curry are very diverse, depending on the meat ingredients, the main fruit for cooking curry as well as the chef's creativity. Vietnamese curries are also made with coconut milk, red cashew, onions, ginger, meat of all kinds (pig, goat, beef, chicken, sheep, crocodile, ostrich and seafood), potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, radishes, vegetables, etc.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Consumption of curry spread to South Africa with the migration of people from the Indian subcontinent to the region in the colonial era. African curries, Cape Malay curries and Natal curries include the traditional Natal curry, the Durban curry, Bunny chow, and roti rolls. South African curries appear to have been founded in both KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape, while other curries developed across the country over the late 20th century and early 21st century to include ekasi, coloured, and Afrikaner curries. Durban has the largest population of Indians outside of India in the world. Bunny chow or a \"set\", a South African standard, consists of either lamb, chicken or bean curry poured into a tunnelled-out loaf of bread to be eaten with one's fingers by dipping pieces of the bread into it.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Curry is very popular in the United Kingdom, with a curry house in nearly every town. Such is the popularity of curry in the United Kingdom, it has frequently been called its \"adopted national dish\". It was estimated that in 2016 there were 12,000 curry houses, employing 100,000 people and with annual combined sales of approximately £4.2 billion.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The food offered is Indian food cooked to British taste, but with increasing demand for authentic Indian styles. As of 2015, curry houses accounted for a fifth of the restaurant business in the UK, but, being historically a low wage sector, they were plagued by a shortage of labour. Established Indian immigrants from South Asia were moving on to other occupations; there were difficulties in training Europeans to cook curry; and immigration restrictions, which require payment of a high wage to skilled immigrants, had crimped the supply of new cooks.",
"title": "By region"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "\"Curry powder\", as available in certain western markets, is a commercial spice blend, and first sold by Indian merchants to European colonial traders. This resulted in the export of a derived version of Indian concoction of spices. and commercially available from the late 18th century, with brands such as Crosse & Blackwell and Sharwood's persisting to the present. British traders introduced the powder to Meiji Japan, in the mid-19th century, where it became known as Japanese curry.",
"title": "Curry powder"
}
] | Curry is a dish with a sauce seasoned with spices, mainly associated with South Asian cuisine. In southern India, leaves from the curry tree may be included. There are many varieties of curry. The choice of spices for each dish in traditional cuisine depends on regional cultural tradition and personal preferences. Such dishes have names that refer to their ingredients, spicing, and cooking methods. Outside the Indian subcontinent, a curry is a dish from Southeast Asia which uses coconut milk or spice pastes, commonly eaten over rice. Curries may contain fish, meat, poultry, or shellfish, either alone or in combination with vegetables. Others are vegetarian. Dry curries are cooked using small amounts of liquid, which is allowed to evaporate, leaving the other ingredients coated with the spice mixture. Wet curries contain significant amounts of sauce or gravy based on broth, coconut cream or coconut milk, dairy cream or yogurt, or legume purée, sautéed crushed onion, or tomato purée. Curry powder, a commercially prepared mixture of spices marketed in the West, was first exported to Britain in the 18th century when Indian merchants sold a concoction of spices, similar to garam masala, to the British East India Company returning to Britain. | 2001-09-30T18:35:34Z | 2023-12-21T20:39:02Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curry |
6,598 | Camel | A camel (from Latin: camelus and Greek: κάμηλος (kamēlos) from Ancient Semitic: gāmāl) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus Camelus that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provide food (milk and meat) and textiles (fiber and felt from hair). Camels are working animals especially suited to their desert habitat and are a vital means of transport for passengers and cargo. There are three surviving species of camel. The one-humped dromedary makes up 94% of the world's camel population, and the two-humped Bactrian camel makes up 6%. The wild Bactrian camel is a separate species and is now critically endangered.
The word camel is also used informally in a wider sense, where the more correct term is "camelid", to include all seven species of the family Camelidae: the true camels (the above three species), along with the "New World" camelids: the llama, the alpaca, the guanaco, and the vicuña, which belong to the separate tribe Lamini. Camelids originated in North America during the Eocene, with the ancestor of modern camels, Paracamelus, migrating across the Bering land bridge into Asia during the late Miocene, around 6 million years ago.
Three species are extant:
The average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years. A full-grown adult dromedary camel stands 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) at the shoulder and 2.15 m (7 ft 1 in) at the hump. Bactrian camels can be a foot taller. Camels can run at up to 65 km/h (40 mph) in short bursts and sustain speeds of up to 40 km/h (25 mph). Bactrian camels weigh 300 to 1,000 kg (660 to 2,200 lb) and dromedaries 300 to 600 kg (660 to 1,320 lb). The widening toes on a camel's hoof provide supplemental grip for varying soil sediments.
The male dromedary camel has an organ called a dulla in his throat, a large, inflatable sac that he extrudes from his mouth when in rut to assert dominance and attract females. It resembles a long, swollen, pink tongue hanging out of the side of the camel's mouth. Camels mate by having both male and female sitting on the ground, with the male mounting from behind. The male usually ejaculates three or four times within a single mating session. Camelids are the only ungulates to mate in a sitting position.
Camels do not directly store water in their humps; they are reservoirs of fatty tissue. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields a greater mass of water than that of the fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water.
Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. The dromedary camel can drink as seldom as once every 10 days even under very hot conditions, and can lose up to 30% of its body mass due to dehydration. Unlike other mammals, camels' red blood cells are oval rather than circular in shape. This facilitates the flow of red blood cells during dehydration and makes them better at withstanding high osmotic variation without rupturing when drinking large amounts of water: a 600 kg (1,300 lb) camel can drink 200 L (53 US gal) of water in three minutes.
Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other mammals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C (93 °F) at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C (104 °F) by sunset, before they cool off at night again. In general, to compare between camels and the other livestock, camels lose only 1.3 liters of fluid intake every day while the other livestock lose 20 to 40 liters per day. Maintaining the brain temperature within certain limits is critical for animals; to assist this, camels have a rete mirabile, a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other which utilizes countercurrent blood flow to cool blood flowing to the brain. Camels rarely sweat, even when ambient temperatures reach 49 °C (120 °F). Any sweat that does occur evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat; the heat of vaporization therefore comes from body heat rather than ambient heat. Camels can withstand losing 25% of their body weight in water, whereas most other mammals can withstand only about 12–14% dehydration before cardiac failure results from circulatory disturbance.
When the camel exhales, water vapor becomes trapped in their nostrils and is reabsorbed into the body as a means to conserve water. Camels eating green herbage can ingest sufficient moisture in milder conditions to maintain their bodies' hydrated state without the need for drinking.
The camel's thick coat insulates it from the intense heat radiated from desert sand; a shorn camel must sweat 50% more to avoid overheating. During the summer the coat becomes lighter in color, reflecting light as well as helping avoid sunburn. The camel's long legs help by keeping its body farther from the ground, which can heat up to 70 °C (158 °F). Dromedaries have a pad of thick tissue over the sternum called the pedestal. When the animal lies down in a sternal recumbent position, the pedestal raises the body from the hot surface and allows cooling air to pass under the body.
Camels' mouths have a thick leathery lining, allowing them to chew thorny desert plants. Long eyelashes and ear hairs, together with nostrils that can close, form a barrier against sand. If sand gets lodged in their eyes, they can dislodge it using their translucent third eyelid (also known as the nictitating membrane). The camels' gait and widened feet help them move without sinking into the sand.
The kidneys and intestines of a camel are very efficient at reabsorbing water. Camels' kidneys have a 1:4 cortex to medulla ratio. Thus, the medullary part of a camel's kidney occupies twice as much area as a cow's kidney. Secondly, renal corpuscles have a smaller diameter, which reduces surface area for filtration. These two major anatomical characteristics enable camels to conserve water and limit the volume of urine in extreme desert conditions. Camel urine comes out as a thick syrup, and camel faeces are so dry that they do not require drying when used to fuel fires.
The camel immune system differs from those of other mammals. Normally, the Y-shaped antibody molecules consist of two heavy (or long) chains along the length of the Y, and two light (or short) chains at each tip of the Y. Camels, in addition to these, also have antibodies made of only two heavy chains, a trait that makes them smaller and more durable. These "heavy-chain-only" antibodies, discovered in 1993, are thought to have developed 50 million years ago, after camelids split from ruminants and pigs. Camels suffer from surra caused by Trypanosoma evansi wherever camels are domesticated in the world, and resultantly camels have evolved trypanolytic antibodies as with many mammals. In the future, nanobody/single-domain antibody therapy will surpass natural camel antibodies by reaching locations currently unreachable due to natural antibodies' larger size. Such therapies may also be suitable for other mammals. Tran et al. 2009 provides a new reference test for surra (T. evansi) of camel. They use recombinant Invariant Surface Glycoprotein 75 (rISG75, an Invariant Surface Glycoprotein) and ELISA. The Tran test has high test specificity and appears likely to work just as well for T. evansi in other hosts, and for a pan-Trypanozoon test, which would also be useful for T. b. brucei, T. b. gambiense, T. b. rhodesiense, and T. equiperdum.
The karyotypes of different camelid species have been studied earlier by many groups, but no agreement on chromosome nomenclature of camelids has been reached. A 2007 study flow sorted camel chromosomes, building on the fact that camels have 37 pairs of chromosomes (2n=74), and found that the karyotype consisted of one metacentric, three submetacentric, and 32 acrocentric autosomes. The Y is a small metacentric chromosome, while the X is a large metacentric chromosome.
The hybrid camel, a hybrid between Bactrian and dromedary camels, has one hump, though it has an indentation 4–12 cm (1.6–4.7 in) deep that divides the front from the back. The hybrid is 2.15 m (7 ft 1 in) at the shoulder and 2.32 m (7 ft 7 in) tall at the hump. It weighs an average of 650 kg (1,430 lb) and can carry around 400 to 450 kg (880 to 990 lb), which is more than either the dromedary or Bactrian can.
According to molecular data, the wild Bactrian camel (C. ferus) separated from the domestic Bactrian camel (C. bactrianus) about 1 million years ago. New World and Old World camelids diverged about 11 million years ago. In spite of this, these species can hybridize and produce viable offspring. The cama is a camel-llama hybrid bred by scientists to see how closely related the parent species are. Scientists collected semen from a camel via an artificial vagina and inseminated a llama after stimulating ovulation with gonadotrophin injections. The cama is halfway in size between a camel and a llama and lacks a hump. It has ears intermediate between those of camels and llamas, longer legs than the llama, and partially cloven hooves. Like the mule, camas are sterile, despite both parents having the same number of chromosomes.
The earliest known camel, called Protylopus, lived in North America 40 to 50 million years ago (during the Eocene). It was about the size of a rabbit and lived in the open woodlands of what is now South Dakota. By 35 million years ago, the Poebrotherium was the size of a goat and had many more traits similar to camels and llamas. The hoofed Stenomylus, which walked on the tips of its toes, also existed around this time, and the long-necked Aepycamelus evolved in the Miocene. The split between the tribes Camelini, which contains modern camels and Lamini, modern llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, and guanacos, is estimated to have occurred over 16 million years ago.
The ancestor of modern camels, Paracamelus, migrated into Eurasia from North America via Beringia during the late Miocene, between 7.5 and 6.5 million years ago. During the Pleistocene, around 3 to 1 million years ago, the North American Camelidae spread to South America as part of the Great American Interchange via the newly formed Isthmus of Panama, where they gave rise to guanacos and related animals. Populations of Paracamelus continued to exist in the North American Arctic into the Early Pleistocene. This creature is estimated to have stood around nine feet (2.7 metres) tall. The Bactrian camel diverged from the dromedary about 1 million years ago, according to the fossil record.
The last camel native to North America was Camelops hesternus, which vanished along with horses, short-faced bears, mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, sabertooth cats, and many other megafauna as part of the Quaternary extinction event, coinciding with the migration of humans from Asia at the end of the Pleistocene, around 13–11,000 years ago.
Like horses, camels originated in North America and eventually spread across Beringia to Asia. They survived in the Old World, and eventually humans domesticated them and spread them globally. Along with many other megafauna in North America, the original wild camels were wiped out during the spread of the first indigenous peoples of the Americas from Asia into North America, 10 to 12,000 years ago; although fossils have never been associated with definitive evidence of hunting.
Most camels surviving today are domesticated. Although feral populations exist in Australia, India and Kazakhstan, wild camels survive only in the wild Bactrian camel population of the Gobi Desert.
When humans first domesticated camels is disputed. Dromedaries may have first been domesticated by humans in Somalia or South Arabia sometime during the 3rd millennium BC, the Bactrian in central Asia around 2,500 BC, as at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran. A study from 2016, which genotyped and used world-wide sequencing of modern and ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), suggested that they were initially domesticated in the southeast Arabian Peninsula, with the Bactrian type later being domesticated around Central Asia.
Martin Heide's 2010 work on the domestication of the camel tentatively concludes that humans had domesticated the Bactrian camel by at least the middle of the third millennium somewhere east of the Zagros Mountains, with the practice then moving into Mesopotamia. Heide suggests that mentions of camels "in the patriarchal narratives may refer, at least in some places, to the Bactrian camel", while noting that the camel is not mentioned in relationship to Canaan. Heide and Joris Peters reasserted that conclusion in their 2021 study on the subject.
In 2009-2013, excavations in the Timna Valley by Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef discovered what may be the earliest domestic camel bones yet found in Israel or even outside the Arabian Peninsula, dating to around 930 BC. This garnered considerable media coverage, as it is strong evidence that the stories of Abraham, Jacob, Esau, and Joseph were written after this time.
The existence of camels in Mesopotamia—but not in the eastern Mediterranean lands—is not a new idea. The historian Richard Bulliet did not think that the occasional mention of camels in the Bible meant that the domestic camels were common in the Holy Land at that time. The archaeologist William F. Albright, writing even earlier, saw camels in the Bible as an anachronism.
The official report by Sapir-Hen and Ben-Joseph notes:
The introduction of the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) as a pack animal to the southern Levant ... substantially facilitated trade across the vast deserts of Arabia, promoting both economic and social change (e.g., Kohler 1984; Borowski 1998: 112–116; Jasmin 2005). This ... has generated extensive discussion regarding the date of the earliest domestic camel in the southern Levant (and beyond) (e.g., Albright 1949: 207; Epstein 1971: 558–584; Bulliet 1975; Zarins 1989; Köhler-Rollefson 1993; Uerpmann and Uerpmann 2002; Jasmin 2005; 2006; Heide 2010; Rosen and Saidel 2010; Grigson 2012). Most scholars today agree that the dromedary was exploited as a pack animal sometime in the early Iron Age (not before the 12th century [BC])
and concludes:
Current data from copper smelting sites of the Aravah Valley enable us to pinpoint the introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant more precisely based on stratigraphic contexts associated with an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates. The data indicate that this event occurred not earlier than the last third of the 10th century [BC] and most probably during this time. The coincidence of this event with a major reorganization of the copper industry of the region—attributed to the results of the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I—raises the possibility that the two were connected, and that camels were introduced as part of the efforts to improve efficiency by facilitating trade.
Desert tribes and Mongolian nomads use camel hair for tents, yurts, clothing, bedding and accessories. Camels have outer guard hairs and soft inner down, and the fibers are sorted by color and age of the animal. The guard hairs can be felted for use as waterproof coats for the herdsmen, while the softer hair is used for premium goods. The fiber can be spun for use in weaving or made into yarns for hand knitting or crochet. Pure camel hair is recorded as being used for western garments from the 17th century onwards, and from the 19th century a mixture of wool and camel hair was used.
By at least 1200 BC the first camel saddles had appeared, and Bactrian camels could be ridden. The first saddle was positioned to the back of the camel, and control of the Bactrian camel was exercised by means of a stick. However, between 500 and 100 BC, Bactrian camels came into military use. New saddles, which were inflexible and bent, were put over the humps and divided the rider's weight over the animal. In the seventh century BC the military Arabian saddle evolved, which again improved the saddle design slightly.
Military forces have used camel cavalries in wars throughout Africa, the Middle East, and into the modern-day Border Security Force (BSF) of India (though as of July 2012, the BSF planned the replacement of camels with ATVs). The first documented use of camel cavalries occurred in the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Armies have also used camels as freight animals instead of horses and mules.
The East Roman Empire used auxiliary forces known as dromedarii, whom the Romans recruited in desert provinces. The camels were used mostly in combat because of their ability to scare off horses at close range (horses are afraid of the camels' scent), a quality famously employed by the Achaemenid Persians when fighting Lydia in the Battle of Thymbra (547 BC).
The United States Army established the U.S. Camel Corps, stationed in California, in the 19th century. One may still see stables at the Benicia Arsenal in Benicia, California, where they nowadays serve as the Benicia Historical Museum. Though the experimental use of camels was seen as a success (John B. Floyd, Secretary of War in 1858, recommended that funds be allocated towards obtaining a thousand more camels), the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 saw the end of the Camel Corps: Texas became part of the Confederacy, and most of the camels were left to wander away into the desert.
France created a méhariste camel corps in 1912 as part of the Armée d'Afrique in the Sahara in order to exercise greater control over the camel-riding Tuareg and Arab insurgents, as previous efforts to defeat them on foot had failed. The Free French Camel Corps fought during World War II, and camel-mounted units remained in service until the end of French rule over Algeria in 1962.
In 1916, the British created the Imperial Camel Corps. It was originally used to fight the Senussi, but was later used in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I. The Imperial Camel Corps comprised infantrymen mounted on camels for movement across desert, though they dismounted at battle sites and fought on foot. After July 1918, the Corps began to become run down, receiving no new reinforcements, and was formally disbanded in 1919.
In World War I, the British Army also created the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, which consisted of a group of Egyptian camel drivers and their camels. The Corps supported British war operations in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria by transporting supplies to the troops.
The Somaliland Camel Corps was created by colonial authorities in British Somaliland in 1912; it was disbanded in 1944.
Bactrian camels were used by Romanian forces during World War II in the Caucasian region. At the same period the Soviet units operating around Astrakhan in 1942 adopted local camels as draft animals due to shortage of trucks and horses, and kept them even after moving out of the area. Despite severe losses, some of these camels ended up as far west as to Berlin itself.
The Bikaner Camel Corps of British India fought alongside the British Indian Army in World Wars I and II.
The Tropas Nómadas (Nomad Troops) were an auxiliary regiment of Sahrawi tribesmen serving in the colonial army in Spanish Sahara (today Western Sahara). Operational from the 1930s until the end of the Spanish presence in the territory in 1975, the Tropas Nómadas were equipped with small arms and led by Spanish officers. The unit guarded outposts and sometimes conducted patrols on camelback.
At the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, in Saudi Arabia, thousands of camels are paraded and are judged on their lips and humps. The festival also features camel racing and camel milk tasting and has combined prize money of $57m (£40m). In 2018, 12 camels were disqualified from the beauty contest after it was discovered their owners had tried to improve their camel's good looks with injections of botox, into the animals' lips, noses and jaws. In 2021 over 40 camels were disqualified for acts of tampering and deception in beautifying camels.
Camel milk is a staple food of desert nomad tribes and is sometimes considered a meal itself; a nomad can live on only camel milk for almost a month.
Camel milk can readily be made into yogurt, but can only be made into butter if it is soured first, churned, and a clarifying agent is then added. Until recently, camel milk could not be made into camel cheese because rennet was unable to coagulate the milk proteins to allow the collection of curds. Developing less wasteful uses of the milk, the FAO commissioned Professor J.P. Ramet of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires, who was able to produce curdling by the addition of calcium phosphate and vegetable rennet in the 1990s. The cheese produced from this process has low levels of cholesterol and is easy to digest, even for the lactose intolerant.
Camel milk can also be made into ice cream.
Camels provide food in the form of meat and milk. Approximately 3.3 million camels and camelids are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. A camel carcass can provide a substantial amount of meat. The male dromedary carcass can weigh 300–400 kg (661–882 lb), while the carcass of a male Bactrian can weigh up to 650 kg (1,433 lb). The carcass of a female dromedary weighs less than the male, ranging between 250 and 350 kg (550 and 770 lb). The brisket, ribs and loin are among the preferred parts, and the hump is considered a delicacy. The hump contains "white and sickly fat", which can be used to make the khli (preserved meat) of mutton, beef, or camel. On the other hand, camel milk and meat are rich in protein, vitamins, glycogen, and other nutrients making them essential in the diet of many people. From chemical composition to meat quality, the dromedary camel is the preferred breed for meat production. It does well even in arid areas due to its unusual physiological behaviors and characteristics, which include tolerance to extreme temperatures, radiation from the sun, water paucity, rugged landscape and low vegetation. Camel meat is reported to taste like coarse beef, but older camels can prove to be very tough, although camel meat becomes tenderer the more it is cooked.
Camel is one of the animals that can be ritually slaughtered and divided into three portions (one for the home, one for extended family/social networks, and one for those who cannot afford to slaughter an animal themselves) for the qurban of Eid al-Adha.
The Abu Dhabi Officers' Club serves a camel burger mixed with beef or lamb fat in order to improve the texture and taste. In Karachi, Pakistan, some restaurants prepare nihari from camel meat. Specialist camel butchers provide expert cuts, with the hump considered the most popular.
Camel meat has been eaten for centuries. It has been recorded by ancient Greek writers as an available dish at banquets in ancient Persia, usually roasted whole. The Roman emperor Heliogabalus enjoyed camel's heel. Camel meat is mainly eaten in certain regions, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and other arid regions where alternative forms of protein may be limited or where camel meat has had a long cultural history. Camel blood is also consumable, as is the case among pastoralists in northern Kenya, where camel blood is drunk with milk and acts as a key source of iron, vitamin D, salts and minerals.
A 2005 report issued jointly by the Saudi Ministry of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details four cases of human bubonic plague resulting from the ingestion of raw camel liver.
Camel meat is also occasionally found in Australian cuisine: for example, a camel lasagna is available in Alice Springs. Australia has exported camel meat, primarily to the Middle East but also to Europe and the US, for many years. The meat is very popular among East African Australians, such as Somalis, and other Australians have also been buying it. The feral nature of the animals means they produce a different type of meat to farmed camels in other parts of the world, and it is sought after because it is disease-free, and a unique genetic group. Demand is outstripping supply, and governments are being urged not to cull the camels, but redirect the cost of the cull into developing the market. Australia has seven camel dairies, which produce milk, cheese and skincare products in addition to meat.
Muslims consider camel meat halal (Arabic: حلال, 'allowed'). However, according to some Islamic schools of thought, a state of impurity is brought on by the consumption of it. Consequently, these schools hold that Muslims must perform wudhu (ablution) before the next time they pray after eating camel meat. Also, some Islamic schools of thought consider it haram (Arabic: حرام, 'forbidden') for a Muslim to perform Salat in places where camels lie, as it is said to be a dwelling place of the Shaytan (Arabic: شيطان, 'Devil'). According to Abu Yusuf (d.798), the urine of camel may be used for medical treatment if necessary, but according to Abū Ḥanīfah, the drinking of camel urine is discouraged.
The Islamic texts contain several stories featuring camels. In the story of the people of Thamud, the prophet Salih miraculously brings forth a naqat (Arabic: ناقة, 'milch-camel') out of a rock. After the prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina, he allowed his she-camel to roam there; the location where the camel stopped to rest determined the location where he would build his house in Medina.
According to Jewish tradition, camel meat and milk are not kosher. Camels possess only one of the two kosher criteria; although they chew their cud, they do not possess cloven hooves: "But these you shall not eat among those that bring up the cud and those that have a cloven hoof: the camel, because it brings up its cud, but does not have a [completely] cloven hoof; it is unclean for you."
What may be the oldest carvings of camels were discovered in 2018 in Saudi Arabia. They were analysed by researchers from several scientific disciplines and, in 2021, were estimated to be 7,000 to 8,000 years old. The dating of rock art is made difficult by the lack of organic material in the carvings that may be tested, so the researchers attempting to date them tested animal bones found associated with the carvings, assessed erosion patterns, and analysed tool marks in order to determine a correct date for the creation of the sculptures. This Neolithic dating would make the carvings significantly older than Stonehenge (5,000 years old) and the Egyptian pyramids at Giza (4,500 years old) and it predates estimates for the domestication of camels.
There are approximately 14 million camels alive as of 2010, with 90% being dromedaries. Dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and South Asia). The Horn region alone has the largest concentration of camels in the world, where the dromedaries constitute an important part of local nomadic life. They provide nomadic people in Somalia and Ethiopia with milk, food, and transportation.
Over one million dromedary camels are estimated to be feral in Australia, descended from those introduced as a method of transport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This population is growing about 8% per year; it was estimated at around 700,000 in 2008. Representatives of the Australian government have culled more than 100,000 of the animals in part because the camels use too much of the limited resources needed by sheep farmers.
A small population of introduced camels, dromedaries and Bactrians, wandered through Southwestern United States after having been imported in the 19th century as part of the U.S. Camel Corps experiment. When the project ended, they were used as draft animals in mines and escaped or were released. Twenty-five U.S. camels were bought and exported to Canada during the Cariboo Gold Rush.
The Bactrian camel is, as of 2010, reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, most of which are domesticated. The Wild Bactrian camel is a separate species and is the only truly wild (as opposed to feral) camel in the world. The wild camels are critically endangered and number approximately 1400, inhabiting the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts in China and Mongolia.
Notes
Bibliography
Further reading | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "A camel (from Latin: camelus and Greek: κάμηλος (kamēlos) from Ancient Semitic: gāmāl) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus Camelus that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as \"humps\" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provide food (milk and meat) and textiles (fiber and felt from hair). Camels are working animals especially suited to their desert habitat and are a vital means of transport for passengers and cargo. There are three surviving species of camel. The one-humped dromedary makes up 94% of the world's camel population, and the two-humped Bactrian camel makes up 6%. The wild Bactrian camel is a separate species and is now critically endangered.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The word camel is also used informally in a wider sense, where the more correct term is \"camelid\", to include all seven species of the family Camelidae: the true camels (the above three species), along with the \"New World\" camelids: the llama, the alpaca, the guanaco, and the vicuña, which belong to the separate tribe Lamini. Camelids originated in North America during the Eocene, with the ancestor of modern camels, Paracamelus, migrating across the Bering land bridge into Asia during the late Miocene, around 6 million years ago.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Three species are extant:",
"title": "Taxonomy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years. A full-grown adult dromedary camel stands 1.85 m (6 ft 1 in) at the shoulder and 2.15 m (7 ft 1 in) at the hump. Bactrian camels can be a foot taller. Camels can run at up to 65 km/h (40 mph) in short bursts and sustain speeds of up to 40 km/h (25 mph). Bactrian camels weigh 300 to 1,000 kg (660 to 2,200 lb) and dromedaries 300 to 600 kg (660 to 1,320 lb). The widening toes on a camel's hoof provide supplemental grip for varying soil sediments.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The male dromedary camel has an organ called a dulla in his throat, a large, inflatable sac that he extrudes from his mouth when in rut to assert dominance and attract females. It resembles a long, swollen, pink tongue hanging out of the side of the camel's mouth. Camels mate by having both male and female sitting on the ground, with the male mounting from behind. The male usually ejaculates three or four times within a single mating session. Camelids are the only ungulates to mate in a sitting position.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Camels do not directly store water in their humps; they are reservoirs of fatty tissue. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields a greater mass of water than that of the fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. The dromedary camel can drink as seldom as once every 10 days even under very hot conditions, and can lose up to 30% of its body mass due to dehydration. Unlike other mammals, camels' red blood cells are oval rather than circular in shape. This facilitates the flow of red blood cells during dehydration and makes them better at withstanding high osmotic variation without rupturing when drinking large amounts of water: a 600 kg (1,300 lb) camel can drink 200 L (53 US gal) of water in three minutes.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other mammals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C (93 °F) at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C (104 °F) by sunset, before they cool off at night again. In general, to compare between camels and the other livestock, camels lose only 1.3 liters of fluid intake every day while the other livestock lose 20 to 40 liters per day. Maintaining the brain temperature within certain limits is critical for animals; to assist this, camels have a rete mirabile, a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other which utilizes countercurrent blood flow to cool blood flowing to the brain. Camels rarely sweat, even when ambient temperatures reach 49 °C (120 °F). Any sweat that does occur evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat; the heat of vaporization therefore comes from body heat rather than ambient heat. Camels can withstand losing 25% of their body weight in water, whereas most other mammals can withstand only about 12–14% dehydration before cardiac failure results from circulatory disturbance.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "When the camel exhales, water vapor becomes trapped in their nostrils and is reabsorbed into the body as a means to conserve water. Camels eating green herbage can ingest sufficient moisture in milder conditions to maintain their bodies' hydrated state without the need for drinking.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The camel's thick coat insulates it from the intense heat radiated from desert sand; a shorn camel must sweat 50% more to avoid overheating. During the summer the coat becomes lighter in color, reflecting light as well as helping avoid sunburn. The camel's long legs help by keeping its body farther from the ground, which can heat up to 70 °C (158 °F). Dromedaries have a pad of thick tissue over the sternum called the pedestal. When the animal lies down in a sternal recumbent position, the pedestal raises the body from the hot surface and allows cooling air to pass under the body.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Camels' mouths have a thick leathery lining, allowing them to chew thorny desert plants. Long eyelashes and ear hairs, together with nostrils that can close, form a barrier against sand. If sand gets lodged in their eyes, they can dislodge it using their translucent third eyelid (also known as the nictitating membrane). The camels' gait and widened feet help them move without sinking into the sand.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The kidneys and intestines of a camel are very efficient at reabsorbing water. Camels' kidneys have a 1:4 cortex to medulla ratio. Thus, the medullary part of a camel's kidney occupies twice as much area as a cow's kidney. Secondly, renal corpuscles have a smaller diameter, which reduces surface area for filtration. These two major anatomical characteristics enable camels to conserve water and limit the volume of urine in extreme desert conditions. Camel urine comes out as a thick syrup, and camel faeces are so dry that they do not require drying when used to fuel fires.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The camel immune system differs from those of other mammals. Normally, the Y-shaped antibody molecules consist of two heavy (or long) chains along the length of the Y, and two light (or short) chains at each tip of the Y. Camels, in addition to these, also have antibodies made of only two heavy chains, a trait that makes them smaller and more durable. These \"heavy-chain-only\" antibodies, discovered in 1993, are thought to have developed 50 million years ago, after camelids split from ruminants and pigs. Camels suffer from surra caused by Trypanosoma evansi wherever camels are domesticated in the world, and resultantly camels have evolved trypanolytic antibodies as with many mammals. In the future, nanobody/single-domain antibody therapy will surpass natural camel antibodies by reaching locations currently unreachable due to natural antibodies' larger size. Such therapies may also be suitable for other mammals. Tran et al. 2009 provides a new reference test for surra (T. evansi) of camel. They use recombinant Invariant Surface Glycoprotein 75 (rISG75, an Invariant Surface Glycoprotein) and ELISA. The Tran test has high test specificity and appears likely to work just as well for T. evansi in other hosts, and for a pan-Trypanozoon test, which would also be useful for T. b. brucei, T. b. gambiense, T. b. rhodesiense, and T. equiperdum.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The karyotypes of different camelid species have been studied earlier by many groups, but no agreement on chromosome nomenclature of camelids has been reached. A 2007 study flow sorted camel chromosomes, building on the fact that camels have 37 pairs of chromosomes (2n=74), and found that the karyotype consisted of one metacentric, three submetacentric, and 32 acrocentric autosomes. The Y is a small metacentric chromosome, while the X is a large metacentric chromosome.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The hybrid camel, a hybrid between Bactrian and dromedary camels, has one hump, though it has an indentation 4–12 cm (1.6–4.7 in) deep that divides the front from the back. The hybrid is 2.15 m (7 ft 1 in) at the shoulder and 2.32 m (7 ft 7 in) tall at the hump. It weighs an average of 650 kg (1,430 lb) and can carry around 400 to 450 kg (880 to 990 lb), which is more than either the dromedary or Bactrian can.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "According to molecular data, the wild Bactrian camel (C. ferus) separated from the domestic Bactrian camel (C. bactrianus) about 1 million years ago. New World and Old World camelids diverged about 11 million years ago. In spite of this, these species can hybridize and produce viable offspring. The cama is a camel-llama hybrid bred by scientists to see how closely related the parent species are. Scientists collected semen from a camel via an artificial vagina and inseminated a llama after stimulating ovulation with gonadotrophin injections. The cama is halfway in size between a camel and a llama and lacks a hump. It has ears intermediate between those of camels and llamas, longer legs than the llama, and partially cloven hooves. Like the mule, camas are sterile, despite both parents having the same number of chromosomes.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The earliest known camel, called Protylopus, lived in North America 40 to 50 million years ago (during the Eocene). It was about the size of a rabbit and lived in the open woodlands of what is now South Dakota. By 35 million years ago, the Poebrotherium was the size of a goat and had many more traits similar to camels and llamas. The hoofed Stenomylus, which walked on the tips of its toes, also existed around this time, and the long-necked Aepycamelus evolved in the Miocene. The split between the tribes Camelini, which contains modern camels and Lamini, modern llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, and guanacos, is estimated to have occurred over 16 million years ago.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The ancestor of modern camels, Paracamelus, migrated into Eurasia from North America via Beringia during the late Miocene, between 7.5 and 6.5 million years ago. During the Pleistocene, around 3 to 1 million years ago, the North American Camelidae spread to South America as part of the Great American Interchange via the newly formed Isthmus of Panama, where they gave rise to guanacos and related animals. Populations of Paracamelus continued to exist in the North American Arctic into the Early Pleistocene. This creature is estimated to have stood around nine feet (2.7 metres) tall. The Bactrian camel diverged from the dromedary about 1 million years ago, according to the fossil record.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The last camel native to North America was Camelops hesternus, which vanished along with horses, short-faced bears, mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, sabertooth cats, and many other megafauna as part of the Quaternary extinction event, coinciding with the migration of humans from Asia at the end of the Pleistocene, around 13–11,000 years ago.",
"title": "Biology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Like horses, camels originated in North America and eventually spread across Beringia to Asia. They survived in the Old World, and eventually humans domesticated them and spread them globally. Along with many other megafauna in North America, the original wild camels were wiped out during the spread of the first indigenous peoples of the Americas from Asia into North America, 10 to 12,000 years ago; although fossils have never been associated with definitive evidence of hunting.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Most camels surviving today are domesticated. Although feral populations exist in Australia, India and Kazakhstan, wild camels survive only in the wild Bactrian camel population of the Gobi Desert.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "When humans first domesticated camels is disputed. Dromedaries may have first been domesticated by humans in Somalia or South Arabia sometime during the 3rd millennium BC, the Bactrian in central Asia around 2,500 BC, as at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran. A study from 2016, which genotyped and used world-wide sequencing of modern and ancient mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), suggested that they were initially domesticated in the southeast Arabian Peninsula, with the Bactrian type later being domesticated around Central Asia.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Martin Heide's 2010 work on the domestication of the camel tentatively concludes that humans had domesticated the Bactrian camel by at least the middle of the third millennium somewhere east of the Zagros Mountains, with the practice then moving into Mesopotamia. Heide suggests that mentions of camels \"in the patriarchal narratives may refer, at least in some places, to the Bactrian camel\", while noting that the camel is not mentioned in relationship to Canaan. Heide and Joris Peters reasserted that conclusion in their 2021 study on the subject.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 2009-2013, excavations in the Timna Valley by Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef discovered what may be the earliest domestic camel bones yet found in Israel or even outside the Arabian Peninsula, dating to around 930 BC. This garnered considerable media coverage, as it is strong evidence that the stories of Abraham, Jacob, Esau, and Joseph were written after this time.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The existence of camels in Mesopotamia—but not in the eastern Mediterranean lands—is not a new idea. The historian Richard Bulliet did not think that the occasional mention of camels in the Bible meant that the domestic camels were common in the Holy Land at that time. The archaeologist William F. Albright, writing even earlier, saw camels in the Bible as an anachronism.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The official report by Sapir-Hen and Ben-Joseph notes:",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The introduction of the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) as a pack animal to the southern Levant ... substantially facilitated trade across the vast deserts of Arabia, promoting both economic and social change (e.g., Kohler 1984; Borowski 1998: 112–116; Jasmin 2005). This ... has generated extensive discussion regarding the date of the earliest domestic camel in the southern Levant (and beyond) (e.g., Albright 1949: 207; Epstein 1971: 558–584; Bulliet 1975; Zarins 1989; Köhler-Rollefson 1993; Uerpmann and Uerpmann 2002; Jasmin 2005; 2006; Heide 2010; Rosen and Saidel 2010; Grigson 2012). Most scholars today agree that the dromedary was exploited as a pack animal sometime in the early Iron Age (not before the 12th century [BC])",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "and concludes:",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Current data from copper smelting sites of the Aravah Valley enable us to pinpoint the introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant more precisely based on stratigraphic contexts associated with an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates. The data indicate that this event occurred not earlier than the last third of the 10th century [BC] and most probably during this time. The coincidence of this event with a major reorganization of the copper industry of the region—attributed to the results of the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I—raises the possibility that the two were connected, and that camels were introduced as part of the efforts to improve efficiency by facilitating trade.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Desert tribes and Mongolian nomads use camel hair for tents, yurts, clothing, bedding and accessories. Camels have outer guard hairs and soft inner down, and the fibers are sorted by color and age of the animal. The guard hairs can be felted for use as waterproof coats for the herdsmen, while the softer hair is used for premium goods. The fiber can be spun for use in weaving or made into yarns for hand knitting or crochet. Pure camel hair is recorded as being used for western garments from the 17th century onwards, and from the 19th century a mixture of wool and camel hair was used.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "By at least 1200 BC the first camel saddles had appeared, and Bactrian camels could be ridden. The first saddle was positioned to the back of the camel, and control of the Bactrian camel was exercised by means of a stick. However, between 500 and 100 BC, Bactrian camels came into military use. New saddles, which were inflexible and bent, were put over the humps and divided the rider's weight over the animal. In the seventh century BC the military Arabian saddle evolved, which again improved the saddle design slightly.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Military forces have used camel cavalries in wars throughout Africa, the Middle East, and into the modern-day Border Security Force (BSF) of India (though as of July 2012, the BSF planned the replacement of camels with ATVs). The first documented use of camel cavalries occurred in the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Armies have also used camels as freight animals instead of horses and mules.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The East Roman Empire used auxiliary forces known as dromedarii, whom the Romans recruited in desert provinces. The camels were used mostly in combat because of their ability to scare off horses at close range (horses are afraid of the camels' scent), a quality famously employed by the Achaemenid Persians when fighting Lydia in the Battle of Thymbra (547 BC).",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The United States Army established the U.S. Camel Corps, stationed in California, in the 19th century. One may still see stables at the Benicia Arsenal in Benicia, California, where they nowadays serve as the Benicia Historical Museum. Though the experimental use of camels was seen as a success (John B. Floyd, Secretary of War in 1858, recommended that funds be allocated towards obtaining a thousand more camels), the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 saw the end of the Camel Corps: Texas became part of the Confederacy, and most of the camels were left to wander away into the desert.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "France created a méhariste camel corps in 1912 as part of the Armée d'Afrique in the Sahara in order to exercise greater control over the camel-riding Tuareg and Arab insurgents, as previous efforts to defeat them on foot had failed. The Free French Camel Corps fought during World War II, and camel-mounted units remained in service until the end of French rule over Algeria in 1962.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "In 1916, the British created the Imperial Camel Corps. It was originally used to fight the Senussi, but was later used in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I. The Imperial Camel Corps comprised infantrymen mounted on camels for movement across desert, though they dismounted at battle sites and fought on foot. After July 1918, the Corps began to become run down, receiving no new reinforcements, and was formally disbanded in 1919.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In World War I, the British Army also created the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, which consisted of a group of Egyptian camel drivers and their camels. The Corps supported British war operations in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria by transporting supplies to the troops.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The Somaliland Camel Corps was created by colonial authorities in British Somaliland in 1912; it was disbanded in 1944.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Bactrian camels were used by Romanian forces during World War II in the Caucasian region. At the same period the Soviet units operating around Astrakhan in 1942 adopted local camels as draft animals due to shortage of trucks and horses, and kept them even after moving out of the area. Despite severe losses, some of these camels ended up as far west as to Berlin itself.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The Bikaner Camel Corps of British India fought alongside the British Indian Army in World Wars I and II.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The Tropas Nómadas (Nomad Troops) were an auxiliary regiment of Sahrawi tribesmen serving in the colonial army in Spanish Sahara (today Western Sahara). Operational from the 1930s until the end of the Spanish presence in the territory in 1975, the Tropas Nómadas were equipped with small arms and led by Spanish officers. The unit guarded outposts and sometimes conducted patrols on camelback.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "At the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, in Saudi Arabia, thousands of camels are paraded and are judged on their lips and humps. The festival also features camel racing and camel milk tasting and has combined prize money of $57m (£40m). In 2018, 12 camels were disqualified from the beauty contest after it was discovered their owners had tried to improve their camel's good looks with injections of botox, into the animals' lips, noses and jaws. In 2021 over 40 camels were disqualified for acts of tampering and deception in beautifying camels.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Camel milk is a staple food of desert nomad tribes and is sometimes considered a meal itself; a nomad can live on only camel milk for almost a month.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Camel milk can readily be made into yogurt, but can only be made into butter if it is soured first, churned, and a clarifying agent is then added. Until recently, camel milk could not be made into camel cheese because rennet was unable to coagulate the milk proteins to allow the collection of curds. Developing less wasteful uses of the milk, the FAO commissioned Professor J.P. Ramet of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires, who was able to produce curdling by the addition of calcium phosphate and vegetable rennet in the 1990s. The cheese produced from this process has low levels of cholesterol and is easy to digest, even for the lactose intolerant.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Camel milk can also be made into ice cream.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Camels provide food in the form of meat and milk. Approximately 3.3 million camels and camelids are slaughtered each year for meat worldwide. A camel carcass can provide a substantial amount of meat. The male dromedary carcass can weigh 300–400 kg (661–882 lb), while the carcass of a male Bactrian can weigh up to 650 kg (1,433 lb). The carcass of a female dromedary weighs less than the male, ranging between 250 and 350 kg (550 and 770 lb). The brisket, ribs and loin are among the preferred parts, and the hump is considered a delicacy. The hump contains \"white and sickly fat\", which can be used to make the khli (preserved meat) of mutton, beef, or camel. On the other hand, camel milk and meat are rich in protein, vitamins, glycogen, and other nutrients making them essential in the diet of many people. From chemical composition to meat quality, the dromedary camel is the preferred breed for meat production. It does well even in arid areas due to its unusual physiological behaviors and characteristics, which include tolerance to extreme temperatures, radiation from the sun, water paucity, rugged landscape and low vegetation. Camel meat is reported to taste like coarse beef, but older camels can prove to be very tough, although camel meat becomes tenderer the more it is cooked.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Camel is one of the animals that can be ritually slaughtered and divided into three portions (one for the home, one for extended family/social networks, and one for those who cannot afford to slaughter an animal themselves) for the qurban of Eid al-Adha.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Abu Dhabi Officers' Club serves a camel burger mixed with beef or lamb fat in order to improve the texture and taste. In Karachi, Pakistan, some restaurants prepare nihari from camel meat. Specialist camel butchers provide expert cuts, with the hump considered the most popular.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Camel meat has been eaten for centuries. It has been recorded by ancient Greek writers as an available dish at banquets in ancient Persia, usually roasted whole. The Roman emperor Heliogabalus enjoyed camel's heel. Camel meat is mainly eaten in certain regions, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and other arid regions where alternative forms of protein may be limited or where camel meat has had a long cultural history. Camel blood is also consumable, as is the case among pastoralists in northern Kenya, where camel blood is drunk with milk and acts as a key source of iron, vitamin D, salts and minerals.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "A 2005 report issued jointly by the Saudi Ministry of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details four cases of human bubonic plague resulting from the ingestion of raw camel liver.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Camel meat is also occasionally found in Australian cuisine: for example, a camel lasagna is available in Alice Springs. Australia has exported camel meat, primarily to the Middle East but also to Europe and the US, for many years. The meat is very popular among East African Australians, such as Somalis, and other Australians have also been buying it. The feral nature of the animals means they produce a different type of meat to farmed camels in other parts of the world, and it is sought after because it is disease-free, and a unique genetic group. Demand is outstripping supply, and governments are being urged not to cull the camels, but redirect the cost of the cull into developing the market. Australia has seven camel dairies, which produce milk, cheese and skincare products in addition to meat.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Muslims consider camel meat halal (Arabic: حلال, 'allowed'). However, according to some Islamic schools of thought, a state of impurity is brought on by the consumption of it. Consequently, these schools hold that Muslims must perform wudhu (ablution) before the next time they pray after eating camel meat. Also, some Islamic schools of thought consider it haram (Arabic: حرام, 'forbidden') for a Muslim to perform Salat in places where camels lie, as it is said to be a dwelling place of the Shaytan (Arabic: شيطان, 'Devil'). According to Abu Yusuf (d.798), the urine of camel may be used for medical treatment if necessary, but according to Abū Ḥanīfah, the drinking of camel urine is discouraged.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Islamic texts contain several stories featuring camels. In the story of the people of Thamud, the prophet Salih miraculously brings forth a naqat (Arabic: ناقة, 'milch-camel') out of a rock. After the prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina, he allowed his she-camel to roam there; the location where the camel stopped to rest determined the location where he would build his house in Medina.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "According to Jewish tradition, camel meat and milk are not kosher. Camels possess only one of the two kosher criteria; although they chew their cud, they do not possess cloven hooves: \"But these you shall not eat among those that bring up the cud and those that have a cloven hoof: the camel, because it brings up its cud, but does not have a [completely] cloven hoof; it is unclean for you.\"",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "What may be the oldest carvings of camels were discovered in 2018 in Saudi Arabia. They were analysed by researchers from several scientific disciplines and, in 2021, were estimated to be 7,000 to 8,000 years old. The dating of rock art is made difficult by the lack of organic material in the carvings that may be tested, so the researchers attempting to date them tested animal bones found associated with the carvings, assessed erosion patterns, and analysed tool marks in order to determine a correct date for the creation of the sculptures. This Neolithic dating would make the carvings significantly older than Stonehenge (5,000 years old) and the Egyptian pyramids at Giza (4,500 years old) and it predates estimates for the domestication of camels.",
"title": "Domestication"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "There are approximately 14 million camels alive as of 2010, with 90% being dromedaries. Dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and South Asia). The Horn region alone has the largest concentration of camels in the world, where the dromedaries constitute an important part of local nomadic life. They provide nomadic people in Somalia and Ethiopia with milk, food, and transportation.",
"title": "Distribution and numbers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Over one million dromedary camels are estimated to be feral in Australia, descended from those introduced as a method of transport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This population is growing about 8% per year; it was estimated at around 700,000 in 2008. Representatives of the Australian government have culled more than 100,000 of the animals in part because the camels use too much of the limited resources needed by sheep farmers.",
"title": "Distribution and numbers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "A small population of introduced camels, dromedaries and Bactrians, wandered through Southwestern United States after having been imported in the 19th century as part of the U.S. Camel Corps experiment. When the project ended, they were used as draft animals in mines and escaped or were released. Twenty-five U.S. camels were bought and exported to Canada during the Cariboo Gold Rush.",
"title": "Distribution and numbers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The Bactrian camel is, as of 2010, reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, most of which are domesticated. The Wild Bactrian camel is a separate species and is the only truly wild (as opposed to feral) camel in the world. The wild camels are critically endangered and number approximately 1400, inhabiting the Gobi and Taklamakan Deserts in China and Mongolia.",
"title": "Distribution and numbers"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Notes",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Bibliography",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Further reading",
"title": "References"
}
] | A camel is an even-toed ungulate in the genus Camelus that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. Camels have long been domesticated and, as livestock, they provide food and textiles. Camels are working animals especially suited to their desert habitat and are a vital means of transport for passengers and cargo. There are three surviving species of camel. The one-humped dromedary makes up 94% of the world's camel population, and the two-humped Bactrian camel makes up 6%. The wild Bactrian camel is a separate species and is now critically endangered. The word camel is also used informally in a wider sense, where the more correct term is "camelid", to include all seven species of the family Camelidae: the true camels, along with the "New World" camelids: the llama, the alpaca, the guanaco, and the vicuña, which belong to the separate tribe Lamini. Camelids originated in North America during the Eocene, with the ancestor of modern camels, Paracamelus, migrating across the Bering land bridge into Asia during the late Miocene, around 6 million years ago. | 2001-10-01T04:17:13Z | 2023-12-30T21:06:30Z | [
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6,599 | Chaldea | Chaldea (/kælˈdiːə/) was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether Kasdim in fact means Chaldean or refers to the south Mesopotamian Kaldu.
During a period of weakness in the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes of West Semitic-speaking migrants arrived in the region from the Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BC. The earliest waves consisted of Suteans and Arameans, followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affect the powerful kingdom and empire of Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia, which repelled these incursions.
These nomadic Chaldeans settled in the far southeastern portion of Babylonia, chiefly on the left bank of the Euphrates. Though for a short time the name commonly referred to the whole of southern Mesopotamia in Hebraic literature, this was a geographical and historical misnomer as Chaldea proper was in fact only the plain in the far southeast formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending about 640 kilometres (400 mi) along the course of these rivers and averaging about 160 km (100 mi) in width. There were several kings of Chaldean origins who ruled Babylonia. From 626 BC to 539 BC, a ruling family referred to as the Chaldean dynasty, named after their possible Chaldean origin, ruled the kingdom at its height under the Neo-Babylonian Empire, although the final ruler of this empire, Nabonidus (556–539 BC) (and his son and regent Belshazzar) was a usurper of Assyrian ancestry.
The name Chaldaea is a latinization of the Greek Khaldaía (Χαλδαία), a hellenization of Akkadian māt Kaldu or Kašdu, suggesting an underlying /kaɬdu/. The name appears in Hebrew in the Bible as Kaśdim (כשדים) and in Aramaic as Kaśdāy (כשדי).
In the Bible (Book of Genesis 22:22), the name "Kesed"(כשׂד, ancient pronunciation /kaɬd/) , the singular form of "Kasdim"(כַּשְׂדִּים), meaning Chaldeans. Kesed is identified as son of Abraham's brother Nahor (and brother of Kemuel the father of Aram), residing in Aram Naharaim. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100) also links Arphaxad and Chaldaea, in his Antiquities of the Jews, stating, “Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, who are now called Chaldeans.”
In the early period, between the early 9th century and late 7th century BC, mat Kaldi was the name of a small sporadically independent migrant-founded territory under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) in southeastern Babylonia, extending to the western shores of the Persian Gulf.
The expression mat Bit Yâkin is also used, apparently synonymously. Bit Yâkin was the name of the largest and most powerful of the five tribes of the Chaldeans, or equivalently, their territory. The original extension of Bit Yâkin is not known precisely, but it extended from the lower Tigris into the Arabian Peninsula. Sargon II mentions it as extending as far as Dilmun or "sea-land" (littoral Eastern Arabia). "Chaldea" or mat Kaldi generally referred to the low, marshy, alluvial land around the estuaries of the Tigris and Euphrates, which at the time discharged their waters through separate mouths into the sea.
The tribal capital Dur Yâkin was the original seat of Marduk-Baladan.
The king of Chaldea was also called the king of Bit Yakin, just as the kings of Babylonia and Assyria were regularly styled simply king of Babylon or Assur, the capital city in each case. In the same way, what is now known as the Persian Gulf was sometimes called "the Sea of Bit Yakin", and sometimes "the Sea of the Land of Chaldea".
"Chaldea" came to be used in a wider sense, of Southern Mesopotamia in general, following the brief ascendancy of the Chaldeans during 608–557 BC. This is especially the case in the Hebrew Bible, which was substantially composed during this period (roughly corresponding to the period of Babylonian captivity). The Book of Jeremiah makes frequent reference to the Chaldeans (King James Version Chaldees following LXX Χαλδαίοι; in Biblical Hebrew as Kasdîm כַּשְׂדִּים). Book of Habakkuk 1:6 calls them "that bitter and hasty nation" (הַגֹּוי הַמַּר וְהַנִּמְהָר). Book of Isaiah 23:13 DRB states, “Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people, the Assyrians founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have brought it to ruin.”
Unlike the East Semitic Akkadian-speaking Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians, whose ancestors had been established in Mesopotamia since at least the 30th century BC, the Chaldeans were not a native Mesopotamian people, but were late 10th or early 9th century BC West Semitic Levantine migrants to the southeastern corner of the region, who had played no part in the previous 3,000 years or so of Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian Mesopotamian civilization and history.
The ancient Chaldeans seem to have migrated into Mesopotamia sometime between c. 940–860 BC, a century or so after other new Semitic arrivals, the Arameans and the Suteans, appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. According to Ran Zadok, they first appear in written record in cylinder inscriptions of the King of Mari Aššur-ketta-lēšir II (late 12th-early 11th century BC), which record them reaching Messopotamia as early as the 11th century BC. They later appear in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III during the 850s BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of semi-nomadic foreign peoples from invading and settling in the land.
Though belonging to the same West Semitic speaking ethnic group and migrating from the same Levantine regions as the earlier arriving Aramaeans, they are to be differentiated; the Assyrian king Sennacherib, for example, carefully distinguishes them in his inscriptions.
The Chaldeans were for a time able to keep their identity despite the dominant native Assyro-Babylonian (Sumero-Akkadian-derived) culture although, as was the case for the earlier Amorites, Kassites and Suteans before them, by the time Babylon fell in 539 BC, perhaps before, the Chaldeans ceased to exist as a specific race of people.
In the Hebrew Bible, "Ur of the Chaldees" (Ur Kaśdim) is cited as the starting point of the patriarch Abraham's journey to Canaan.
Ancient Chaldeans originally spoke a West Semitic language similar to the ancient Aramaic language. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III introduced an Eastern Aramaic dialect as the lingua franca of his empire in the mid-8th century BC. As a result of this innovation, in late periods both the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects of Akkadian became marginalized, and Akkadian influenced Mesopotamian Aramaic took its place across Mesopotamia, including among the Chaldeans, and later, also the Levant. One form of this once widespread Aramaic language was used in some books of the Hebrew Bible (the Book of Daniel and the Book of Ezra). The use of the name "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee) to describe it, first introduced by Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), became common in early Aramaic studies, but that misnomer was later corrected, when modern scholars concluded that the Aramaic dialect used in the Hebrew Bible was not related to the ancient Chaldeans and their language.
Ancient Chaldeans believed in "three heavens".
The region that the Chaldeans eventually made their homeland was in relatively poor southeastern Mesopotamia, at the head of the Persian Gulf. They appear to have migrated into southern Babylonia from the Levant at some unknown point between the end of the reign of Ninurta-kudurri-usur II (a contemporary of Tiglath-Pileser II) circa 940 BC, and the start of the reign of Marduk-zakir-shumi I in 855 BC, although there is no historical proof of their existence prior to the late 850s BC.
For perhaps a century or so after settling in the area, these semi-nomadic migrant Chaldean tribes had no impact on the pages of history, seemingly remaining subjugated by the native Akkadian speaking kings of Babylon or by perhaps regionally influential Aramean tribes. The main players in southern Mesopotamia during this period were Babylonia and Assyria, together with Elam to the east and the Aramaeans, who had already settled in the region a century or so prior to the arrival of the Chaldeans.
The very first written historical attestation of the existence of Chaldeans occurs in 852 BC, in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, who mentions invading the southeastern extremes of Babylonia and subjugating one Mushallim-Marduk, the chief of the Amukani tribe and overall leader of the Kaldu tribes, together with capturing the town of Baqani, extracting tribute from Adini, chief of the Bet-Dakkuri, another Chaldean tribe.
Shalmaneser III had invaded Babylonia at the request of its own king, Marduk-zakir-shumi I, who, being threatened by his own rebellious relations, together with powerful Aramean tribes pleaded with the more powerful Assyrian king for help. The subjugation of the Chaldean tribes by the Assyrian king appears to have been an aside, as they were not at that time a powerful force or a threat to the native Babylonian king.
Important Kaldu tribes and their regions in southeastern Babylonia were Bit-Yâkin (the original area the Chaldeans settled in on the Persian Gulf), Bet-Dakuri, Bet-Adini, Bet-Amukkani, and Bet-Shilani.
Chaldean leaders had by this time already adopted Assyro-Babylonian names, religion, language, and customs, indicating that they had become Akkadianized to a great degree.
The Chaldeans remained quietly ruled by the native Babylonians (who were in turn subjugated by their Assyrian relations) for the next seventy-two years, only coming to historical prominence for the first time in Babylonia in 780 BC, when a previously unknown Chaldean named Marduk-apla-usur usurped the throne from the native Babylonian king Marduk-bel-zeri (790–780 BC). The latter was a vassal of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser IV (783–773 BC), who was otherwise occupied quelling a civil war in Assyria at the time.
This was to set a precedent for all future Chaldean aspirations on Babylon during the Neo-Assyrian Empire; always too weak to confront a strong Assyria alone and directly, the Chaldeans awaited periods when Assyrian kings were distracted elsewhere in their vast empire, or engaged in internal conflicts, then, in alliance with other powers stronger than themselves (usually Elam), they made a bid for control over Babylonia.
Shalmaneser IV attacked and defeated Marduk-apla-user, retaking northern Babylonia and forcing on him a border treaty in Assyria's favour. The Assyrians allowed him to remain on the throne, although subject to Assyria. Eriba-Marduk, another Chaldean, succeeded him in 769 BC and his son, Nabu-shuma-ishkun in 761 BC, with both being dominated by the new Assyrian king Ashur-Dan III (772–755 BC). Babylonia appears to have been in a state of chaos during this time, with the north occupied by Assyria, its throne occupied by foreign Chaldeans, and continual civil unrest throughout the land.
The Chaldean rule proved short-lived. A native Babylonian king named Nabonassar (748–734 BC) defeated and overthrew the Chaldean usurpers in 748 BC, restored indigenous rule, and successfully stabilised Babylonia. The Chaldeans once more faded into obscurity for the next three decades. During this time both the Babylonians and the Chaldean and Aramean migrant groups who had settled in the land once more fell completely under the yoke of the powerful Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), a ruler who introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the empire. The Assyrian king at first made Nabonassar and his successor native Babylonian kings Nabu-nadin-zeri, Nabu-suma-ukin II and Nabu-mukin-zeri his subjects, but decided to rule Babylonia directly from 729 BC. He was followed by Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC), who also ruled Babylon in person.
When Sargon II (722–705 BC) ascended the throne of the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC after the death of Shalmaneser V, he was forced to launch a major campaign in his subject states of Persia, Mannea and Media in Ancient Iran to defend his territories there. He defeated and drove out the Scythians and Cimmerians who had attacked Assyria's Persian and Median vassal colonies in the region. At the same time, Egypt began encouraging and supporting the rebellion against Assyria in Israel and Canaan, forcing the Assyrians to send troops to deal with the Egyptians.
These events allowed the Chaldeans to once more attempt to assert themselves. While the Assyrian king was otherwise occupied defending his Iranian colonies from the Scythians and Cimmerians and driving the Egyptians from Canaan, Marduk-apla-iddina II (the Biblical Merodach-Baladan) of Bit-Yâkin, allied himself with the powerful Elamite kingdom and the native Babylonians, briefly seizing control of Babylon between 721 and 710 BC. With the Scythians and Cimmerians vanquished, the Medes and Persians pledging loyalty, and the Egyptians defeated and ejected from southern Canaan, Sargon II was free at last to deal with the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Elamites. He attacked and deposed Marduk-apla-adding II in 710 BC, also defeating his Elamite allies in the process. After defeat by the Assyrians, Merodach-Baladan fled to his protectors in Elam
In 703, Merodach-Baladan very briefly regained the throne from a native Akkadian-Babylonian ruler Marduk-zakir-shumi II, who was a puppet of the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib (705–681 BC). He was once more soundly defeated at Kish, and once again fled to Elam where he died in exile after one final failed attempt to raise a revolt against Assyria in 700 BC, this time not in Babylon, but in the Chaldean tribal land of Bit-Yâkin. A native Babylonian king named Bel-ibni (703–701 BC) was placed on the throne as a puppet of Assyria.
The next challenge to Assyrian domination came from the Elamites in 694 BC, with Nergal-ushezib deposing and murdering Ashur-nadin-shumi (700–694 BC), the Assyrian prince who was king of Babylon and son of Sennacherib. The Chaldeans and Babylonians again allied with their more powerful Elamite neighbors in this endeavour. This prompted the enraged Assyrian king Sennacherib to invade and subjugate Elam and Chaldea and to sack Babylon, laying waste to and largely destroying the city. Babylon was regarded as a sacred city by all Mesopotamians, including the Assyrians, and this act eventually resulted in Sennacherib's being murdered by his own sons while he was praying to the god Nisroch in Nineveh.
Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) succeeded Sennacherib as ruler of the Assyrian Empire. He completely rebuilt Babylon and brought peace to the region. He conquered Egypt, Nubia and Libya and entrenched his mastery over the Persians, Medes, Parthians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Arameans, Israelites, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Urartians, Pontic Greeks, Cilicians, Phrygians, Lydians, Manneans and Arabs. For the next 60 or so years, Babylon and Chaldea remained peacefully under direct Assyrian control. The Chaldeans remained subjugated and quiet during this period, and the next major revolt in Babylon against the Assyrian empire was fermented not by a Chaldean, Babylonian or Elamite, but by Shamash-shum-ukin, who was an Assyrian king of Babylon, and elder brother of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BC), the new ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.
Shamash-shum-ukin (668–648 BC) had become infused with Babylonian nationalism after sixteen years peacefully subject to his brother, and despite being Assyrian himself, declared that the city of Babylon and not Nineveh or Assur should be the seat of the empire.
In 652 BC, he raised a powerful coalition of peoples resentful of their subjugation to Assyria against his own brother Ashurbanipal. The alliance included the Babylonians, Persians, Chaldeans, Medes, Elamites, Sultans, Arameans, Israelites, Arabs and Canaanites, together with some disaffected elements among the Assyrians themselves. After a bitter struggle lasting five years, the Assyrian king triumphed over his rebellious brother in 648 BC, Elam was utterly destroyed, and the Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Chaldeans, Arabs, and others were savagely punished. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was then placed on the throne of Babylon to rule on behalf of Ashurbanipal. The next 22 years were peaceful, and neither the Babylonians nor Chaldeans posed a threat to the dominance of Ashurbanipal.
However, after the death of the mighty Ashurbanipal (and Kandalanu) in 627 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire descended into a series of bitter internal dynastic civil wars that were to be the cause of its downfall.
Ashur-etil-ilani (626–623 BC) ascended to the throne of the empire in 626 BC but was immediately engulfed in a torrent of fierce rebellions instigated by rival claimants. He was deposed in 623 BC by an Assyrian general (turtanu) named Sin-shumu-lishir (623–622 BC), who was also declared king of Babylon. Sin-shar-ishkun (622–612 BC), the brother of Ashur-etil-ilani, took back the throne of empire from Sin-shumu-lishir in 622 BC, but was then himself faced with unremitting rebellion against his rule by his own people. Continual conflict among the Assyrians led to a myriad of subject peoples, from Cyprus to Persia and The Caucasus to Egypt, quietly reasserting their independence and ceasing to pay tribute to Assyria.
Nabopolassar, a previously obscure and unknown Chaldean chieftain, followed the opportunistic tactics laid down by previous Chaldean leaders to take advantage of the chaos and anarchy gripping Assyria and Babylonia and seized the city of Babylon in 620 BC with the help of its native Babylonian inhabitants.
Sin-shar-ishkun amassed a powerful army and marched into Babylon to regain control of the region. Nabopolassar was saved from likely destruction because yet another massive Assyrian rebellion broke out in Assyria proper, including the capital Nineveh, which forced the Assyrian king to turn back in order to quell the revolt. Nabopolassar took advantage of this situation, seizing the ancient city of Nippur in 619 BC, a mainstay of pro-Assyrianism in Babylonia, and thus Babylonia as a whole.
However, his position was still far from secure, and bitter fighting continued in the Babylonian heartlands from 620 to 615 BC, with Assyrian forces encamped in Babylonia in an attempt to eject Nabopolassar. Nabopolassar attempted a counterattack, marched his army into Assyria proper in 616 BC, and tried to besiege Assur and Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), but was defeated by Sin-shar-ishkun and chased back into Babylonia after being driven from Idiqlat (modern Tikrit) at the southernmost end of Assyria. A stalemate seemed to have ensued, with Nabopolassar unable to make any inroads into Assyria despite its greatly weakened state, and Sin-shar-ishkun unable to eject Nabopolassar from Babylonia due to constant rebellions and civil war among his own people.
Nabopolassar's position, and the fate of the Assyrian empire, was sealed when he entered into an alliance with another of Assyria's former vassals, the Medes, the now dominant people of what was to become Persia. The Median Cyaxares had also recently taken advantage of the anarchy in the Assyrian Empire, while officially still a vassal of Assyria, he took the opportunity to meld the Iranian peoples; the Medes, Persians, Sagartians and Parthians, into a large and powerful Median-dominated force. The Medes, Persians, Parthians, Chaldeans and Babylonians formed an alliance that also included the Scythians and Cimmerians to the north.
While Sin-shar-ishkun was fighting both the rebels in Assyria and the Chaldeans and Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia, Cyaxares (hitherto a vassal of Assyria), in alliance with the Scythians and Cimmerians launched a surprise attack on civil-war-beleaguered Assyria in 615 BC, sacking Kalhu (the Biblical Calah/Nimrud) and taking Arrapkha (modern Kirkuk). Nabopolassar, still pinned down in southern Mesopotamia, was not involved in this major breakthrough against Assyria. From this point however, the alliance of Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Sagartians, Scythians and Cimmerians fought in unison against Assyria.
Despite the sorely depleted state of Assyria, bitter fighting ensued. Throughout 614 BC the alliance of powers continued to make inroads into Assyria itself, although in 613 BC the Assyrians somehow rallied to score a number of counterattacking victories over the Medes-Persians, Babylonians-Chaldeans and Scythians-Cimmerians. This led to a coalition of forces ranged against it to unite and launch a massive combined attack in 612 BC, finally besieging and sacking Nineveh in late 612 BC, killing Sin-shar-ishkun in the process.
A new Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit II (612–605 BC), took the crown amidst the house-to-house fighting in Nineveh, and refused a request to bow in vassalage to the rulers of the alliance. He managed to fight his way out of Nineveh and reach the northern Assyrian city of Harran, where he founded a new capital. Assyria resisted for another seven years until 605 BC, when the remnants of the Assyrian army and the army of the Egyptians, whose 26th Dynasty had formed a brief allied coalition with the Assyrians, were defeated at Karchemish. Nabopolassar and his Median, Scythian and Cimmerian allies were now in possession of much of the huge Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Egyptians had belatedly come to the aid of Assyria, which they would have hoped to support as a secure buffer between Egypt and the new powers of Babylon, Medes and Persians, having already been raided by the Scythians.
The Chaldean king of Babylon now ruled all of southern Mesopotamia (Assyria in the north was ruled by the Medes), and the former Assyrian possessions of Aram (Syria), Phoenicia, Israel, Cyprus, Edom, Philistia, and parts of Arabia, while the Medes took control of the former Assyrian colonies in Ancient Iran, Asia Minor and the Caucasus.
Nabopolassar was not able to enjoy his success for long, dying in 604 BC, only one year after the victory at Karchemish. He was succeeded by his son, who took the name Nebuchadnezzar II, after the unrelated 12th century BC native Akkadian-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I, indicating the extent to which the migrant Chaldeans had become infused with native Mesopotamian culture.
Nebuchadnezzar II and his allies may well have been forced to deal with remnants of Assyrian resistance based in and around Dur-Katlimmu, as Assyrian imperial records continue to be dated in this region between 604 and 599 BC. In addition, the Egyptians remained in the region an attempt to revive the Asian colonies of the ancient Egyptian Empire.
Nebuchadnezzar II was to prove himself to be the greatest of the Chaldean rulers, rivaling another non-native ruler, the 18th century BC Amorite king Hammurabi, as the greatest king of Babylon. He was a patron of the cities and a spectacular builder, rebuilding all of Babylonia's major cities on a lavish scale. His building activity at Babylon, expanding on the earlier major and impressive rebuilding of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, helped to turn it into the immense and beautiful city of legend. Babylon covered more than 8 km (3 sq mi), surrounded by moats and ringed by a double circuit of walls. The Euphrates flowed through the center of the city, spanned by a beautiful stone bridge. At the center of the city rose the giant ziggurat called Etemenanki, "House of the Frontier Between Heaven and Earth," which lay next to the Temple of Marduk. He is also believed by many historians to have built The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (although others believe these gardens were built much earlier by an Assyrian king in Nineveh) for his wife, a Median princess from the green mountains, so that she would feel at home.
A capable leader, Nebuchadnezzar II conducted successful military campaigns; cities like Tyre, Sidon and Damascus were subjugated. He also conducted numerous campaigns in Asia Minor against the Scythians, Cimmerians, and Lydians. Like their Assyrian relations, the Babylonians had to campaign yearly in order to control their colonies.
In 601 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II was involved in a major but inconclusive battle against the Egyptians. In 599 BC, he invaded Arabia and routed the Arabs at Qedar. In 597 BC, he invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem after the siege of Jerusalem (597 BC) and deposed its king Jehoiachin, carrying the Israelites into captivity in Babylon. Egyptian and Babylonian armies fought each other for control of the Near East throughout much of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and this encouraged king Zedekiah of Judah to revolt. After an eighteen-month siege, Jerusalem was captured in 587 BC, thousands of Jews were deported to Babylon, and Solomon's Temple was razed to the ground.
Nebuchadnezzar successfully fought the Pharaohs Psammetichus II and Apries throughout his reign, and during the reign of Pharaoh Amasis in 568 BC it is rumoured that he may have briefly invaded Egypt itself.
By 572, Nebuchadnezzar was in full control of Babylonia, Chaldea, Aramea (Syria), Phonecia, Israel, Judah, Philistia, Samarra, Jordan, northern Arabia, and parts of Asia Minor. Nebuchadnezzar died of illness in 562 BC after a one-year co-reign with his son, Amel-Marduk, who was deposed in 560 BC after a reign of only two years.
Neriglissar succeeded Amel-Marduk. It is unclear as to whether he was in fact an ethnic Chaldean or a native Babylonian nobleman, as he was not related by blood to Nabopolassar's descendants, having married into the ruling family. He conducted successful military campaigns against the Hellenic inhabitants of Cilicia, which had threatened Babylonian interests. Neriglissar reigned for only four years and was succeeded by the youthful Labashi-Marduk in 556 BC. Again, it is unclear whether he was a Chaldean or a native Babylonian.
Labashi-Marduk reigned only for a matter of months, being deposed by Nabonidus in late 556 BC. Nabonidus was certainly not a Chaldean, but an Assyrian from Harran, the last capital of Assyria, and proved to be the final native Mesopotamian king of Babylon. He and his son, the regent Belshazzar, were deposed by the Persians under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC.
When the Babylonian Empire was absorbed into the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the name "Chaldean" lost its meaning in reference to a particular ethnicity or land, but lingered for a while as a term solely and explicitly used to describe a societal class of astrologers and astronomers in southern Mesopotamia. The original Chaldean tribe had long ago became Akkadianized, adopting Akkadian culture, religion, language and customs, blending into the majority native population, and eventually wholly disappearing as a distinct race of people, as had been the case with other preceding migrant peoples, such as the Amorites, Kassites, Suteans and Arameans of Babylonia.
The Persians considered this Chaldean societal class to be masters of reading and writing, and especially versed in all forms of incantation, sorcery, witchcraft, and the magical arts. They spoke of astrologists and astronomers as Chaldeans, and it is used with this specific meaning in the Book of Daniel (Dan. i. 4, ii. 2 et seq.) and by classical writers, such as Strabo.
The disappearance of the Chaldeans as an ethnicity and Chaldea as a land is evidenced by the fact that the Persian rulers of the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC) did not retain a province called "Chaldea", nor did they refer to "Chaldeans" as a race of people in their written annals. This is in contrast to Assyria, and for a time Babylonia also, where the Persians retained the names Assyria and Babylonia as designations for distinct geo-political entities within the Achaemenid Empire. In the case of the Assyrians in particular, Achaemenid records show Assyrians holding important positions within the empire, particularly with regards to military and civil administration.
The term Chaldean was still in use at the time of Cicero (106–43 BC) long after the Chaldeans had disappeared. In one of his speeches he mentioned "Chaldean astrologers", and he spoke of them more than once in his De Divinatione. Other classical Latin writers who speak of them as distinguished for their knowledge of astronomy and astrology are Pliny the Elder, Valerius Maximus, Aulus Gellius, Cato the Elder, Lucretius, and Juvenal. Horace in his Carpe diem ode speaks of the "Babylonian calculations" (Babylonii numeri), the horoscopes of astrologers consulted regarding the future.
In the late antiquity, a variant of Aramaic that was used in some books of the Bible was misnamed as Chaldean by Jerome of Stridon. That inaccurate usage continued down the centuries in Western Europe, and it was still customary during the nineteenth century, until the misnomer was corrected by scholars. In West Asian, Greek and Hebraic sources, however, the term for the language spoken in Mesopotamia was commonly "Assyrian" and later also "Syriac". Accordingly, in the earliest recorded "Western" mentions of the Christians of what is now Iraq and nearby countries, "Chaldean" is used with reference to their language. In 1220/1, Jacques de Vitry wrote that "they denied that Mary was the Mother of God and claimed that Christ existed in two persons. They consecrated leavened bread and used the 'Chaldean' (Syriac) language". In the fifteenth century the term "Chaldeans" was first applied specifically to Assyrians living in Cyprus who entered a union with Rome, and no longer merely with reference to their language but the name of a new church.
The terms "Assyrian", and its derivative Syrian remained the common ethnic term for the Aramaic-speaking inhabitants of Northern Mesopotamia. These were used by the people themselves and their Persian, Armenian, Arab, Greek, Georgian and Kurdish neighbours both before and after the advent of Christianity in Iraq, Northeast Syria, Southeast Turkey and Northwest Iran. The Assyrian continuity in these regions is well documented.
Media related to Chaldea at Wikimedia Commons | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Chaldea (/kælˈdiːə/) was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether Kasdim in fact means Chaldean or refers to the south Mesopotamian Kaldu.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "During a period of weakness in the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes of West Semitic-speaking migrants arrived in the region from the Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BC. The earliest waves consisted of Suteans and Arameans, followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affect the powerful kingdom and empire of Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia, which repelled these incursions.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "These nomadic Chaldeans settled in the far southeastern portion of Babylonia, chiefly on the left bank of the Euphrates. Though for a short time the name commonly referred to the whole of southern Mesopotamia in Hebraic literature, this was a geographical and historical misnomer as Chaldea proper was in fact only the plain in the far southeast formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending about 640 kilometres (400 mi) along the course of these rivers and averaging about 160 km (100 mi) in width. There were several kings of Chaldean origins who ruled Babylonia. From 626 BC to 539 BC, a ruling family referred to as the Chaldean dynasty, named after their possible Chaldean origin, ruled the kingdom at its height under the Neo-Babylonian Empire, although the final ruler of this empire, Nabonidus (556–539 BC) (and his son and regent Belshazzar) was a usurper of Assyrian ancestry.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name Chaldaea is a latinization of the Greek Khaldaía (Χαλδαία), a hellenization of Akkadian māt Kaldu or Kašdu, suggesting an underlying /kaɬdu/. The name appears in Hebrew in the Bible as Kaśdim (כשדים) and in Aramaic as Kaśdāy (כשדי).",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the Bible (Book of Genesis 22:22), the name \"Kesed\"(כשׂד, ancient pronunciation /kaɬd/) , the singular form of \"Kasdim\"(כַּשְׂדִּים), meaning Chaldeans. Kesed is identified as son of Abraham's brother Nahor (and brother of Kemuel the father of Aram), residing in Aram Naharaim. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100) also links Arphaxad and Chaldaea, in his Antiquities of the Jews, stating, “Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, who are now called Chaldeans.”",
"title": "Name"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In the early period, between the early 9th century and late 7th century BC, mat Kaldi was the name of a small sporadically independent migrant-founded territory under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) in southeastern Babylonia, extending to the western shores of the Persian Gulf.",
"title": "Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The expression mat Bit Yâkin is also used, apparently synonymously. Bit Yâkin was the name of the largest and most powerful of the five tribes of the Chaldeans, or equivalently, their territory. The original extension of Bit Yâkin is not known precisely, but it extended from the lower Tigris into the Arabian Peninsula. Sargon II mentions it as extending as far as Dilmun or \"sea-land\" (littoral Eastern Arabia). \"Chaldea\" or mat Kaldi generally referred to the low, marshy, alluvial land around the estuaries of the Tigris and Euphrates, which at the time discharged their waters through separate mouths into the sea.",
"title": "Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The tribal capital Dur Yâkin was the original seat of Marduk-Baladan.",
"title": "Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The king of Chaldea was also called the king of Bit Yakin, just as the kings of Babylonia and Assyria were regularly styled simply king of Babylon or Assur, the capital city in each case. In the same way, what is now known as the Persian Gulf was sometimes called \"the Sea of Bit Yakin\", and sometimes \"the Sea of the Land of Chaldea\".",
"title": "Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "\"Chaldea\" came to be used in a wider sense, of Southern Mesopotamia in general, following the brief ascendancy of the Chaldeans during 608–557 BC. This is especially the case in the Hebrew Bible, which was substantially composed during this period (roughly corresponding to the period of Babylonian captivity). The Book of Jeremiah makes frequent reference to the Chaldeans (King James Version Chaldees following LXX Χαλδαίοι; in Biblical Hebrew as Kasdîm כַּשְׂדִּים). Book of Habakkuk 1:6 calls them \"that bitter and hasty nation\" (הַגֹּוי הַמַּר וְהַנִּמְהָר). Book of Isaiah 23:13 DRB states, “Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people, the Assyrians founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have brought it to ruin.”",
"title": "Land"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Unlike the East Semitic Akkadian-speaking Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians, whose ancestors had been established in Mesopotamia since at least the 30th century BC, the Chaldeans were not a native Mesopotamian people, but were late 10th or early 9th century BC West Semitic Levantine migrants to the southeastern corner of the region, who had played no part in the previous 3,000 years or so of Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian Mesopotamian civilization and history.",
"title": "Ancient Chaldeans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The ancient Chaldeans seem to have migrated into Mesopotamia sometime between c. 940–860 BC, a century or so after other new Semitic arrivals, the Arameans and the Suteans, appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. According to Ran Zadok, they first appear in written record in cylinder inscriptions of the King of Mari Aššur-ketta-lēšir II (late 12th-early 11th century BC), which record them reaching Messopotamia as early as the 11th century BC. They later appear in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III during the 850s BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of semi-nomadic foreign peoples from invading and settling in the land.",
"title": "Ancient Chaldeans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Though belonging to the same West Semitic speaking ethnic group and migrating from the same Levantine regions as the earlier arriving Aramaeans, they are to be differentiated; the Assyrian king Sennacherib, for example, carefully distinguishes them in his inscriptions.",
"title": "Ancient Chaldeans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Chaldeans were for a time able to keep their identity despite the dominant native Assyro-Babylonian (Sumero-Akkadian-derived) culture although, as was the case for the earlier Amorites, Kassites and Suteans before them, by the time Babylon fell in 539 BC, perhaps before, the Chaldeans ceased to exist as a specific race of people.",
"title": "Ancient Chaldeans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "In the Hebrew Bible, \"Ur of the Chaldees\" (Ur Kaśdim) is cited as the starting point of the patriarch Abraham's journey to Canaan.",
"title": "Ancient Chaldeans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Ancient Chaldeans originally spoke a West Semitic language similar to the ancient Aramaic language. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III introduced an Eastern Aramaic dialect as the lingua franca of his empire in the mid-8th century BC. As a result of this innovation, in late periods both the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects of Akkadian became marginalized, and Akkadian influenced Mesopotamian Aramaic took its place across Mesopotamia, including among the Chaldeans, and later, also the Levant. One form of this once widespread Aramaic language was used in some books of the Hebrew Bible (the Book of Daniel and the Book of Ezra). The use of the name \"Chaldean\" (Chaldaic, Chaldee) to describe it, first introduced by Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), became common in early Aramaic studies, but that misnomer was later corrected, when modern scholars concluded that the Aramaic dialect used in the Hebrew Bible was not related to the ancient Chaldeans and their language.",
"title": "Ancient Chaldeans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Ancient Chaldeans believed in \"three heavens\".",
"title": "Ancient Chaldeans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The region that the Chaldeans eventually made their homeland was in relatively poor southeastern Mesopotamia, at the head of the Persian Gulf. They appear to have migrated into southern Babylonia from the Levant at some unknown point between the end of the reign of Ninurta-kudurri-usur II (a contemporary of Tiglath-Pileser II) circa 940 BC, and the start of the reign of Marduk-zakir-shumi I in 855 BC, although there is no historical proof of their existence prior to the late 850s BC.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "For perhaps a century or so after settling in the area, these semi-nomadic migrant Chaldean tribes had no impact on the pages of history, seemingly remaining subjugated by the native Akkadian speaking kings of Babylon or by perhaps regionally influential Aramean tribes. The main players in southern Mesopotamia during this period were Babylonia and Assyria, together with Elam to the east and the Aramaeans, who had already settled in the region a century or so prior to the arrival of the Chaldeans.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The very first written historical attestation of the existence of Chaldeans occurs in 852 BC, in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III, who mentions invading the southeastern extremes of Babylonia and subjugating one Mushallim-Marduk, the chief of the Amukani tribe and overall leader of the Kaldu tribes, together with capturing the town of Baqani, extracting tribute from Adini, chief of the Bet-Dakkuri, another Chaldean tribe.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Shalmaneser III had invaded Babylonia at the request of its own king, Marduk-zakir-shumi I, who, being threatened by his own rebellious relations, together with powerful Aramean tribes pleaded with the more powerful Assyrian king for help. The subjugation of the Chaldean tribes by the Assyrian king appears to have been an aside, as they were not at that time a powerful force or a threat to the native Babylonian king.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Important Kaldu tribes and their regions in southeastern Babylonia were Bit-Yâkin (the original area the Chaldeans settled in on the Persian Gulf), Bet-Dakuri, Bet-Adini, Bet-Amukkani, and Bet-Shilani.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Chaldean leaders had by this time already adopted Assyro-Babylonian names, religion, language, and customs, indicating that they had become Akkadianized to a great degree.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The Chaldeans remained quietly ruled by the native Babylonians (who were in turn subjugated by their Assyrian relations) for the next seventy-two years, only coming to historical prominence for the first time in Babylonia in 780 BC, when a previously unknown Chaldean named Marduk-apla-usur usurped the throne from the native Babylonian king Marduk-bel-zeri (790–780 BC). The latter was a vassal of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser IV (783–773 BC), who was otherwise occupied quelling a civil war in Assyria at the time.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "This was to set a precedent for all future Chaldean aspirations on Babylon during the Neo-Assyrian Empire; always too weak to confront a strong Assyria alone and directly, the Chaldeans awaited periods when Assyrian kings were distracted elsewhere in their vast empire, or engaged in internal conflicts, then, in alliance with other powers stronger than themselves (usually Elam), they made a bid for control over Babylonia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Shalmaneser IV attacked and defeated Marduk-apla-user, retaking northern Babylonia and forcing on him a border treaty in Assyria's favour. The Assyrians allowed him to remain on the throne, although subject to Assyria. Eriba-Marduk, another Chaldean, succeeded him in 769 BC and his son, Nabu-shuma-ishkun in 761 BC, with both being dominated by the new Assyrian king Ashur-Dan III (772–755 BC). Babylonia appears to have been in a state of chaos during this time, with the north occupied by Assyria, its throne occupied by foreign Chaldeans, and continual civil unrest throughout the land.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Chaldean rule proved short-lived. A native Babylonian king named Nabonassar (748–734 BC) defeated and overthrew the Chaldean usurpers in 748 BC, restored indigenous rule, and successfully stabilised Babylonia. The Chaldeans once more faded into obscurity for the next three decades. During this time both the Babylonians and the Chaldean and Aramean migrant groups who had settled in the land once more fell completely under the yoke of the powerful Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), a ruler who introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the empire. The Assyrian king at first made Nabonassar and his successor native Babylonian kings Nabu-nadin-zeri, Nabu-suma-ukin II and Nabu-mukin-zeri his subjects, but decided to rule Babylonia directly from 729 BC. He was followed by Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC), who also ruled Babylon in person.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "When Sargon II (722–705 BC) ascended the throne of the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC after the death of Shalmaneser V, he was forced to launch a major campaign in his subject states of Persia, Mannea and Media in Ancient Iran to defend his territories there. He defeated and drove out the Scythians and Cimmerians who had attacked Assyria's Persian and Median vassal colonies in the region. At the same time, Egypt began encouraging and supporting the rebellion against Assyria in Israel and Canaan, forcing the Assyrians to send troops to deal with the Egyptians.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "These events allowed the Chaldeans to once more attempt to assert themselves. While the Assyrian king was otherwise occupied defending his Iranian colonies from the Scythians and Cimmerians and driving the Egyptians from Canaan, Marduk-apla-iddina II (the Biblical Merodach-Baladan) of Bit-Yâkin, allied himself with the powerful Elamite kingdom and the native Babylonians, briefly seizing control of Babylon between 721 and 710 BC. With the Scythians and Cimmerians vanquished, the Medes and Persians pledging loyalty, and the Egyptians defeated and ejected from southern Canaan, Sargon II was free at last to deal with the Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Elamites. He attacked and deposed Marduk-apla-adding II in 710 BC, also defeating his Elamite allies in the process. After defeat by the Assyrians, Merodach-Baladan fled to his protectors in Elam",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In 703, Merodach-Baladan very briefly regained the throne from a native Akkadian-Babylonian ruler Marduk-zakir-shumi II, who was a puppet of the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib (705–681 BC). He was once more soundly defeated at Kish, and once again fled to Elam where he died in exile after one final failed attempt to raise a revolt against Assyria in 700 BC, this time not in Babylon, but in the Chaldean tribal land of Bit-Yâkin. A native Babylonian king named Bel-ibni (703–701 BC) was placed on the throne as a puppet of Assyria.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The next challenge to Assyrian domination came from the Elamites in 694 BC, with Nergal-ushezib deposing and murdering Ashur-nadin-shumi (700–694 BC), the Assyrian prince who was king of Babylon and son of Sennacherib. The Chaldeans and Babylonians again allied with their more powerful Elamite neighbors in this endeavour. This prompted the enraged Assyrian king Sennacherib to invade and subjugate Elam and Chaldea and to sack Babylon, laying waste to and largely destroying the city. Babylon was regarded as a sacred city by all Mesopotamians, including the Assyrians, and this act eventually resulted in Sennacherib's being murdered by his own sons while he was praying to the god Nisroch in Nineveh.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) succeeded Sennacherib as ruler of the Assyrian Empire. He completely rebuilt Babylon and brought peace to the region. He conquered Egypt, Nubia and Libya and entrenched his mastery over the Persians, Medes, Parthians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Arameans, Israelites, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Urartians, Pontic Greeks, Cilicians, Phrygians, Lydians, Manneans and Arabs. For the next 60 or so years, Babylon and Chaldea remained peacefully under direct Assyrian control. The Chaldeans remained subjugated and quiet during this period, and the next major revolt in Babylon against the Assyrian empire was fermented not by a Chaldean, Babylonian or Elamite, but by Shamash-shum-ukin, who was an Assyrian king of Babylon, and elder brother of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BC), the new ruler of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Shamash-shum-ukin (668–648 BC) had become infused with Babylonian nationalism after sixteen years peacefully subject to his brother, and despite being Assyrian himself, declared that the city of Babylon and not Nineveh or Assur should be the seat of the empire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In 652 BC, he raised a powerful coalition of peoples resentful of their subjugation to Assyria against his own brother Ashurbanipal. The alliance included the Babylonians, Persians, Chaldeans, Medes, Elamites, Sultans, Arameans, Israelites, Arabs and Canaanites, together with some disaffected elements among the Assyrians themselves. After a bitter struggle lasting five years, the Assyrian king triumphed over his rebellious brother in 648 BC, Elam was utterly destroyed, and the Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Chaldeans, Arabs, and others were savagely punished. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu was then placed on the throne of Babylon to rule on behalf of Ashurbanipal. The next 22 years were peaceful, and neither the Babylonians nor Chaldeans posed a threat to the dominance of Ashurbanipal.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "However, after the death of the mighty Ashurbanipal (and Kandalanu) in 627 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire descended into a series of bitter internal dynastic civil wars that were to be the cause of its downfall.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Ashur-etil-ilani (626–623 BC) ascended to the throne of the empire in 626 BC but was immediately engulfed in a torrent of fierce rebellions instigated by rival claimants. He was deposed in 623 BC by an Assyrian general (turtanu) named Sin-shumu-lishir (623–622 BC), who was also declared king of Babylon. Sin-shar-ishkun (622–612 BC), the brother of Ashur-etil-ilani, took back the throne of empire from Sin-shumu-lishir in 622 BC, but was then himself faced with unremitting rebellion against his rule by his own people. Continual conflict among the Assyrians led to a myriad of subject peoples, from Cyprus to Persia and The Caucasus to Egypt, quietly reasserting their independence and ceasing to pay tribute to Assyria.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Nabopolassar, a previously obscure and unknown Chaldean chieftain, followed the opportunistic tactics laid down by previous Chaldean leaders to take advantage of the chaos and anarchy gripping Assyria and Babylonia and seized the city of Babylon in 620 BC with the help of its native Babylonian inhabitants.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Sin-shar-ishkun amassed a powerful army and marched into Babylon to regain control of the region. Nabopolassar was saved from likely destruction because yet another massive Assyrian rebellion broke out in Assyria proper, including the capital Nineveh, which forced the Assyrian king to turn back in order to quell the revolt. Nabopolassar took advantage of this situation, seizing the ancient city of Nippur in 619 BC, a mainstay of pro-Assyrianism in Babylonia, and thus Babylonia as a whole.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "However, his position was still far from secure, and bitter fighting continued in the Babylonian heartlands from 620 to 615 BC, with Assyrian forces encamped in Babylonia in an attempt to eject Nabopolassar. Nabopolassar attempted a counterattack, marched his army into Assyria proper in 616 BC, and tried to besiege Assur and Arrapha (modern Kirkuk), but was defeated by Sin-shar-ishkun and chased back into Babylonia after being driven from Idiqlat (modern Tikrit) at the southernmost end of Assyria. A stalemate seemed to have ensued, with Nabopolassar unable to make any inroads into Assyria despite its greatly weakened state, and Sin-shar-ishkun unable to eject Nabopolassar from Babylonia due to constant rebellions and civil war among his own people.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Nabopolassar's position, and the fate of the Assyrian empire, was sealed when he entered into an alliance with another of Assyria's former vassals, the Medes, the now dominant people of what was to become Persia. The Median Cyaxares had also recently taken advantage of the anarchy in the Assyrian Empire, while officially still a vassal of Assyria, he took the opportunity to meld the Iranian peoples; the Medes, Persians, Sagartians and Parthians, into a large and powerful Median-dominated force. The Medes, Persians, Parthians, Chaldeans and Babylonians formed an alliance that also included the Scythians and Cimmerians to the north.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "While Sin-shar-ishkun was fighting both the rebels in Assyria and the Chaldeans and Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia, Cyaxares (hitherto a vassal of Assyria), in alliance with the Scythians and Cimmerians launched a surprise attack on civil-war-beleaguered Assyria in 615 BC, sacking Kalhu (the Biblical Calah/Nimrud) and taking Arrapkha (modern Kirkuk). Nabopolassar, still pinned down in southern Mesopotamia, was not involved in this major breakthrough against Assyria. From this point however, the alliance of Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Sagartians, Scythians and Cimmerians fought in unison against Assyria.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Despite the sorely depleted state of Assyria, bitter fighting ensued. Throughout 614 BC the alliance of powers continued to make inroads into Assyria itself, although in 613 BC the Assyrians somehow rallied to score a number of counterattacking victories over the Medes-Persians, Babylonians-Chaldeans and Scythians-Cimmerians. This led to a coalition of forces ranged against it to unite and launch a massive combined attack in 612 BC, finally besieging and sacking Nineveh in late 612 BC, killing Sin-shar-ishkun in the process.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "A new Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit II (612–605 BC), took the crown amidst the house-to-house fighting in Nineveh, and refused a request to bow in vassalage to the rulers of the alliance. He managed to fight his way out of Nineveh and reach the northern Assyrian city of Harran, where he founded a new capital. Assyria resisted for another seven years until 605 BC, when the remnants of the Assyrian army and the army of the Egyptians, whose 26th Dynasty had formed a brief allied coalition with the Assyrians, were defeated at Karchemish. Nabopolassar and his Median, Scythian and Cimmerian allies were now in possession of much of the huge Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Egyptians had belatedly come to the aid of Assyria, which they would have hoped to support as a secure buffer between Egypt and the new powers of Babylon, Medes and Persians, having already been raided by the Scythians.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Chaldean king of Babylon now ruled all of southern Mesopotamia (Assyria in the north was ruled by the Medes), and the former Assyrian possessions of Aram (Syria), Phoenicia, Israel, Cyprus, Edom, Philistia, and parts of Arabia, while the Medes took control of the former Assyrian colonies in Ancient Iran, Asia Minor and the Caucasus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Nabopolassar was not able to enjoy his success for long, dying in 604 BC, only one year after the victory at Karchemish. He was succeeded by his son, who took the name Nebuchadnezzar II, after the unrelated 12th century BC native Akkadian-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I, indicating the extent to which the migrant Chaldeans had become infused with native Mesopotamian culture.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Nebuchadnezzar II and his allies may well have been forced to deal with remnants of Assyrian resistance based in and around Dur-Katlimmu, as Assyrian imperial records continue to be dated in this region between 604 and 599 BC. In addition, the Egyptians remained in the region an attempt to revive the Asian colonies of the ancient Egyptian Empire.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Nebuchadnezzar II was to prove himself to be the greatest of the Chaldean rulers, rivaling another non-native ruler, the 18th century BC Amorite king Hammurabi, as the greatest king of Babylon. He was a patron of the cities and a spectacular builder, rebuilding all of Babylonia's major cities on a lavish scale. His building activity at Babylon, expanding on the earlier major and impressive rebuilding of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, helped to turn it into the immense and beautiful city of legend. Babylon covered more than 8 km (3 sq mi), surrounded by moats and ringed by a double circuit of walls. The Euphrates flowed through the center of the city, spanned by a beautiful stone bridge. At the center of the city rose the giant ziggurat called Etemenanki, \"House of the Frontier Between Heaven and Earth,\" which lay next to the Temple of Marduk. He is also believed by many historians to have built The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (although others believe these gardens were built much earlier by an Assyrian king in Nineveh) for his wife, a Median princess from the green mountains, so that she would feel at home.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "A capable leader, Nebuchadnezzar II conducted successful military campaigns; cities like Tyre, Sidon and Damascus were subjugated. He also conducted numerous campaigns in Asia Minor against the Scythians, Cimmerians, and Lydians. Like their Assyrian relations, the Babylonians had to campaign yearly in order to control their colonies.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "In 601 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II was involved in a major but inconclusive battle against the Egyptians. In 599 BC, he invaded Arabia and routed the Arabs at Qedar. In 597 BC, he invaded Judah, captured Jerusalem after the siege of Jerusalem (597 BC) and deposed its king Jehoiachin, carrying the Israelites into captivity in Babylon. Egyptian and Babylonian armies fought each other for control of the Near East throughout much of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and this encouraged king Zedekiah of Judah to revolt. After an eighteen-month siege, Jerusalem was captured in 587 BC, thousands of Jews were deported to Babylon, and Solomon's Temple was razed to the ground.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Nebuchadnezzar successfully fought the Pharaohs Psammetichus II and Apries throughout his reign, and during the reign of Pharaoh Amasis in 568 BC it is rumoured that he may have briefly invaded Egypt itself.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "By 572, Nebuchadnezzar was in full control of Babylonia, Chaldea, Aramea (Syria), Phonecia, Israel, Judah, Philistia, Samarra, Jordan, northern Arabia, and parts of Asia Minor. Nebuchadnezzar died of illness in 562 BC after a one-year co-reign with his son, Amel-Marduk, who was deposed in 560 BC after a reign of only two years.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Neriglissar succeeded Amel-Marduk. It is unclear as to whether he was in fact an ethnic Chaldean or a native Babylonian nobleman, as he was not related by blood to Nabopolassar's descendants, having married into the ruling family. He conducted successful military campaigns against the Hellenic inhabitants of Cilicia, which had threatened Babylonian interests. Neriglissar reigned for only four years and was succeeded by the youthful Labashi-Marduk in 556 BC. Again, it is unclear whether he was a Chaldean or a native Babylonian.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Labashi-Marduk reigned only for a matter of months, being deposed by Nabonidus in late 556 BC. Nabonidus was certainly not a Chaldean, but an Assyrian from Harran, the last capital of Assyria, and proved to be the final native Mesopotamian king of Babylon. He and his son, the regent Belshazzar, were deposed by the Persians under Cyrus the Great in 539 BC.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "When the Babylonian Empire was absorbed into the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the name \"Chaldean\" lost its meaning in reference to a particular ethnicity or land, but lingered for a while as a term solely and explicitly used to describe a societal class of astrologers and astronomers in southern Mesopotamia. The original Chaldean tribe had long ago became Akkadianized, adopting Akkadian culture, religion, language and customs, blending into the majority native population, and eventually wholly disappearing as a distinct race of people, as had been the case with other preceding migrant peoples, such as the Amorites, Kassites, Suteans and Arameans of Babylonia.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Persians considered this Chaldean societal class to be masters of reading and writing, and especially versed in all forms of incantation, sorcery, witchcraft, and the magical arts. They spoke of astrologists and astronomers as Chaldeans, and it is used with this specific meaning in the Book of Daniel (Dan. i. 4, ii. 2 et seq.) and by classical writers, such as Strabo.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The disappearance of the Chaldeans as an ethnicity and Chaldea as a land is evidenced by the fact that the Persian rulers of the Achaemenid Empire (539–330 BC) did not retain a province called \"Chaldea\", nor did they refer to \"Chaldeans\" as a race of people in their written annals. This is in contrast to Assyria, and for a time Babylonia also, where the Persians retained the names Assyria and Babylonia as designations for distinct geo-political entities within the Achaemenid Empire. In the case of the Assyrians in particular, Achaemenid records show Assyrians holding important positions within the empire, particularly with regards to military and civil administration.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The term Chaldean was still in use at the time of Cicero (106–43 BC) long after the Chaldeans had disappeared. In one of his speeches he mentioned \"Chaldean astrologers\", and he spoke of them more than once in his De Divinatione. Other classical Latin writers who speak of them as distinguished for their knowledge of astronomy and astrology are Pliny the Elder, Valerius Maximus, Aulus Gellius, Cato the Elder, Lucretius, and Juvenal. Horace in his Carpe diem ode speaks of the \"Babylonian calculations\" (Babylonii numeri), the horoscopes of astrologers consulted regarding the future.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "In the late antiquity, a variant of Aramaic that was used in some books of the Bible was misnamed as Chaldean by Jerome of Stridon. That inaccurate usage continued down the centuries in Western Europe, and it was still customary during the nineteenth century, until the misnomer was corrected by scholars. In West Asian, Greek and Hebraic sources, however, the term for the language spoken in Mesopotamia was commonly \"Assyrian\" and later also \"Syriac\". Accordingly, in the earliest recorded \"Western\" mentions of the Christians of what is now Iraq and nearby countries, \"Chaldean\" is used with reference to their language. In 1220/1, Jacques de Vitry wrote that \"they denied that Mary was the Mother of God and claimed that Christ existed in two persons. They consecrated leavened bread and used the 'Chaldean' (Syriac) language\". In the fifteenth century the term \"Chaldeans\" was first applied specifically to Assyrians living in Cyprus who entered a union with Rome, and no longer merely with reference to their language but the name of a new church.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The terms \"Assyrian\", and its derivative Syrian remained the common ethnic term for the Aramaic-speaking inhabitants of Northern Mesopotamia. These were used by the people themselves and their Persian, Armenian, Arab, Greek, Georgian and Kurdish neighbours both before and after the advent of Christianity in Iraq, Northeast Syria, Southeast Turkey and Northwest Iran. The Assyrian continuity in these regions is well documented.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Media related to Chaldea at Wikimedia Commons",
"title": "External links"
}
] | Chaldea was a small country that existed between the late 10th or early 9th and mid-6th centuries BC, after which the country and its people were absorbed and assimilated into the indigenous population of Babylonia. Semitic-speaking, it was located in the marshy land of the far southeastern corner of Mesopotamia and briefly came to rule Babylon. The Hebrew Bible uses the term כשדים (Kaśdim) and this is translated as Chaldaeans in the Greek Old Testament, although there is some dispute as to whether Kasdim in fact means Chaldean or refers to the south Mesopotamian Kaldu. During a period of weakness in the East Semitic-speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes of West Semitic-speaking migrants arrived in the region from the Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BC. The earliest waves consisted of Suteans and Arameans, followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affect the powerful kingdom and empire of Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia, which repelled these incursions. These nomadic Chaldeans settled in the far southeastern portion of Babylonia, chiefly on the left bank of the Euphrates. Though for a short time the name commonly referred to the whole of southern Mesopotamia in Hebraic literature, this was a geographical and historical misnomer as Chaldea proper was in fact only the plain in the far southeast formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris, extending about 640 kilometres (400 mi) along the course of these rivers and averaging about 160 km (100 mi) in width. There were several kings of Chaldean origins who ruled Babylonia. From 626 BC to 539 BC, a ruling family referred to as the Chaldean dynasty, named after their possible Chaldean origin, ruled the kingdom at its height under the Neo-Babylonian Empire, although the final ruler of this empire, Nabonidus was a usurper of Assyrian ancestry. | 2001-09-28T23:24:15Z | 2023-11-10T18:21:45Z | [
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6,600 | Currying | In mathematics and computer science, currying is the technique of translating the evaluation of a function that takes multiple arguments into evaluating a sequence of functions, each with a single argument. For example, currying a function f {\displaystyle f} that takes three arguments creates a nested unary function g {\displaystyle g} , so that the code
gives x {\displaystyle x} the same value as the code
or called in sequence,
In a more mathematical language, a function that takes two arguments, one from X {\displaystyle X} and one from Y {\displaystyle Y} , and produces outputs in Z , {\displaystyle Z,} by currying is translated into a function that takes a single argument from X {\displaystyle X} and produces as outputs functions from Y {\displaystyle Y} to Z . {\displaystyle Z.} This is a natural one-to-one correspondence between these two types of functions, so that the sets together with functions between them form a Cartesian closed category. The currying of a function with more than two arguments can then be defined by induction. Currying is related to, but not the same as, partial application.
Currying is useful in both practical and theoretical settings. In functional programming languages, and many others, it provides a way of automatically managing how arguments are passed to functions and exceptions. In theoretical computer science, it provides a way to study functions with multiple arguments in simpler theoretical models which provide only one argument. The most general setting for the strict notion of currying and uncurrying is in the closed monoidal categories, which underpins a vast generalization of the Curry–Howard correspondence of proofs and programs to a correspondence with many other structures, including quantum mechanics, cobordisms and string theory. It was introduced by Gottlob Frege, developed by Moses Schönfinkel, and further developed by Haskell Curry.
Uncurrying is the dual transformation to currying, and can be seen as a form of defunctionalization. It takes a function f {\displaystyle f} whose return value is another function g {\displaystyle g} , and yields a new function f ′ {\displaystyle f'} that takes as parameters the arguments for both f {\displaystyle f} and g {\displaystyle g} , and returns, as a result, the application of f {\displaystyle f} and subsequently, g {\displaystyle g} , to those arguments. The process can be iterated.
Currying provides a way for working with functions that take multiple arguments, and using them in frameworks where functions might take only one argument. For example, some analytical techniques can only be applied to functions with a single argument. Practical functions frequently take more arguments than this. Frege showed that it was sufficient to provide solutions for the single argument case, as it was possible to transform a function with multiple arguments into a chain of single-argument functions instead. This transformation is the process now known as currying. All "ordinary" functions that might typically be encountered in mathematical analysis or in computer programming can be curried. However, there are categories in which currying is not possible; the most general categories which allow currying are the closed monoidal categories.
Some programming languages almost always use curried functions to achieve multiple arguments; notable examples are ML and Haskell, where in both cases all functions have exactly one argument. This property is inherited from lambda calculus, where multi-argument functions are usually represented in curried form.
Currying is related to, but not the same as partial application. In practice, the programming technique of closures can be used to perform partial application and a kind of currying, by hiding arguments in an environment that travels with the curried function.
Suppose we have a function f : R × R → R {\displaystyle f:\mathbb {R} \times \mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {R} } which takes two real number ( R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } ) arguments and outputs real numbers, and it is defined by f ( x , y ) = x + y 2 {\displaystyle f(x,y)=x+y^{2}} . Currying translates this into a function h {\displaystyle h} which takes a single real argument and outputs functions from R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } to R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} } . In symbols, h : R → R R {\displaystyle h:\mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {R} ^{\mathbb {R} }} , where R R {\displaystyle \mathbb {R} ^{\mathbb {R} }} denotes the set of all functions that take a single real argument and produce real outputs. For every real number x {\displaystyle x} , define the function h x : R → R {\displaystyle h_{x}:\mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {R} } by h x ( y ) = x + y 2 {\displaystyle h_{x}(y)=x+y^{2}} , and then define the function h : R → R R {\displaystyle h:\mathbb {R} \to \mathbb {R} ^{\mathbb {R} }} by h ( x ) = h x {\displaystyle h(x)=h_{x}} . So for instance, h ( 2 ) {\displaystyle h(2)} is the function that sends its real argument y {\displaystyle y} to the output 2 + y 2 {\displaystyle 2+y^{2}} , or h ( 2 ) ( y ) = h 2 ( y ) = 2 + y 2 {\displaystyle h(2)(y)=h_{2}(y)=2+y^{2}} . We see that in general
so that the original function f {\displaystyle f} and its currying h {\displaystyle h} convey exactly the same information. In this situation, we also write
This also works for functions with more than two arguments. If f {\displaystyle f} were a function of three arguments f ( x , y , z ) {\displaystyle f(x,y,z)} , its currying h {\displaystyle h} would have the property
The "Curry" in "Currying" is a reference to logician Haskell Curry, who used the concept extensively, but Moses Schönfinkel had the idea six years before Curry. The alternative name "Schönfinkelisation" has been proposed. In the mathematical context, the principle can be traced back to work in 1893 by Frege.
The originator of the word "currying" is not clear. David Turner says the word was coined by Christopher Strachey in his 1967 lecture notes Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages, but although the concept is mentioned and Curry is mentioned in the context of higher-order functions, the word "currying" does not appear in the notes and Curry is not associated with the concept. John C. Reynolds defined "currying" in a 1972 paper, but did not claim to have coined the term.
Currying is most easily understood by starting with an informal definition, which can then be molded to fit many different domains. First, there is some notation to be established. The notation X → Y {\displaystyle X\to Y} denotes all functions from X {\displaystyle X} to Y {\displaystyle Y} . If f {\displaystyle f} is such a function, we write f : X → Y {\displaystyle f\colon X\to Y} . Let X × Y {\displaystyle X\times Y} denote the ordered pairs of the elements of X {\displaystyle X} and Y {\displaystyle Y} respectively, that is, the Cartesian product of X {\displaystyle X} and Y {\displaystyle Y} . Here, X {\displaystyle X} and Y {\displaystyle Y} may be sets, or they may be types, or they may be other kinds of objects, as explored below.
Given a function
currying constructs a new function
That is, h {\displaystyle h} takes an argument from X {\displaystyle X} and returns a function that maps Y {\displaystyle Y} to Z {\displaystyle Z} . It is defined by
for x {\displaystyle x} from X {\displaystyle X} and y {\displaystyle y} from Y {\displaystyle Y} . We then also write
Uncurrying is the reverse transformation, and is most easily understood in terms of its right adjoint, the function apply . {\displaystyle \operatorname {apply} .}
In set theory, the notation Y X {\displaystyle Y^{X}} is used to denote the set of functions from the set X {\displaystyle X} to the set Y {\displaystyle Y} . Currying is the natural bijection between the set A B × C {\displaystyle A^{B\times C}} of functions from B × C {\displaystyle B\times C} to A {\displaystyle A} , and the set ( A C ) B {\displaystyle (A^{C})^{B}} of functions from B {\displaystyle B} to the set of functions from C {\displaystyle C} to A {\displaystyle A} . In symbols:
Indeed, it is this natural bijection that justifies the exponential notation for the set of functions. As is the case in all instances of currying, the formula above describes an adjoint pair of functors: for every fixed set C {\displaystyle C} , the functor B ↦ B × C {\displaystyle B\mapsto B\times C} is left adjoint to the functor A ↦ A C {\displaystyle A\mapsto A^{C}} .
In the category of sets, the object Y X {\displaystyle Y^{X}} is called the exponential object.
In the theory of function spaces, such as in functional analysis or homotopy theory, one is commonly interested in continuous functions between topological spaces. One writes Hom ( X , Y ) {\displaystyle {\text{Hom}}(X,Y)} (the Hom functor) for the set of all functions from X {\displaystyle X} to Y {\displaystyle Y} , and uses the notation Y X {\displaystyle Y^{X}} to denote the subset of continuous functions. Here, curry {\displaystyle {\text{curry}}} is the bijection
while uncurrying is the inverse map. If the set Y X {\displaystyle Y^{X}} of continuous functions from X {\displaystyle X} to Y {\displaystyle Y} is given the compact-open topology, and if the space Y {\displaystyle Y} is locally compact Hausdorff, then
is a homeomorphism. This is also the case when X {\displaystyle X} , Y {\displaystyle Y} and Y X {\displaystyle Y^{X}} are compactly generated, although there are more cases.
One useful corollary is that a function is continuous if and only if its curried form is continuous. Another important result is that the application map, usually called "evaluation" in this context, is continuous (note that eval is a strictly different concept in computer science.) That is,
eval : Y X × X → Y ( f , x ) ↦ f ( x ) {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}&&{\text{eval}}:Y^{X}\times X\to Y\\&&(f,x)\mapsto f(x)\end{aligned}}}
is continuous when Y X {\displaystyle Y^{X}} is compact-open and Y {\displaystyle Y} locally compact Hausdorff. These two results are central for establishing the continuity of homotopy, i.e. when X {\displaystyle X} is the unit interval I {\displaystyle I} , so that Z I × Y ≅ ( Z Y ) I {\displaystyle Z^{I\times Y}\cong (Z^{Y})^{I}} can be thought of as either a homotopy of two functions from Y {\displaystyle Y} to Z {\displaystyle Z} , or, equivalently, a single (continuous) path in Z Y {\displaystyle Z^{Y}} .
In algebraic topology, currying serves as an example of Eckmann–Hilton duality, and, as such, plays an important role in a variety of different settings. For example, loop space is adjoint to reduced suspensions; this is commonly written as
where [ A , B ] {\displaystyle [A,B]} is the set of homotopy classes of maps A → B {\displaystyle A\rightarrow B} , and Σ A {\displaystyle \Sigma A} is the suspension of A, and Ω A {\displaystyle \Omega A} is the loop space of A. In essence, the suspension Σ X {\displaystyle \Sigma X} can be seen as the cartesian product of X {\displaystyle X} with the unit interval, modulo an equivalence relation to turn the interval into a loop. The curried form then maps the space X {\displaystyle X} to the space of functions from loops into Z {\displaystyle Z} , that is, from X {\displaystyle X} into Ω Z {\displaystyle \Omega Z} . Then curry {\displaystyle {\text{curry}}} is the adjoint functor that maps suspensions to loop spaces, and uncurrying is the dual.
The duality between the mapping cone and the mapping fiber (cofibration and fibration) can be understood as a form of currying, which in turn leads to the duality of the long exact and coexact Puppe sequences.
In homological algebra, the relationship between currying and uncurrying is known as tensor-hom adjunction. Here, an interesting twist arises: the Hom functor and the tensor product functor might not lift to an exact sequence; this leads to the definition of the Ext functor and the Tor functor.
In order theory, that is, the theory of lattices of partially ordered sets, curry {\displaystyle {\text{curry}}} is a continuous function when the lattice is given the Scott topology. Scott-continuous functions were first investigated in the attempt to provide a semantics for lambda calculus (as ordinary set theory is inadequate to do this). More generally, Scott-continuous functions are now studied in domain theory, which encompasses the study of denotational semantics of computer algorithms. Note that the Scott topology is quite different than many common topologies one might encounter in the category of topological spaces; the Scott topology is typically finer, and is not sober.
The notion of continuity makes its appearance in homotopy type theory, where, roughly speaking, two computer programs can be considered to be homotopic, i.e. compute the same results, if they can be "continuously" refactored from one to the other.
In theoretical computer science, currying provides a way to study functions with multiple arguments in very simple theoretical models, such as the lambda calculus, in which functions only take a single argument. Consider a function f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle f(x,y)} taking two arguments, and having the type ( X × Y ) → Z {\displaystyle (X\times Y)\to Z} , which should be understood to mean that x must have the type X {\displaystyle X} , y must have the type Y {\displaystyle Y} , and the function itself returns the type Z {\displaystyle Z} . The curried form of f is defined as
where λ {\displaystyle \lambda } is the abstractor of lambda calculus. Since curry takes, as input, functions with the type ( X × Y ) → Z {\displaystyle (X\times Y)\to Z} , one concludes that the type of curry itself is
The → operator is often considered right-associative, so the curried function type X → ( Y → Z ) {\displaystyle X\to (Y\to Z)} is often written as X → Y → Z {\displaystyle X\to Y\to Z} . Conversely, function application is considered to be left-associative, so that f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle f(x,y)} is equivalent to
That is, the parenthesis are not required to disambiguate the order of the application.
Curried functions may be used in any programming language that supports closures; however, uncurried functions are generally preferred for efficiency reasons, since the overhead of partial application and closure creation can then be avoided for most function calls.
In type theory, the general idea of a type system in computer science is formalized into a specific algebra of types. For example, when writing f : X → Y {\displaystyle f\colon X\to Y} , the intent is that X {\displaystyle X} and Y {\displaystyle Y} are types, while the arrow → {\displaystyle \to } is a type constructor, specifically, the function type or arrow type. Similarly, the Cartesian product X × Y {\displaystyle X\times Y} of types is constructed by the product type constructor × {\displaystyle \times } .
The type-theoretical approach is expressed in programming languages such as ML and the languages derived from and inspired by it: CaML, Haskell and F#.
The type-theoretical approach provides a natural complement to the language of category theory, as discussed below. This is because categories, and specifically, monoidal categories, have an internal language, with simply-typed lambda calculus being the most prominent example of such a language. It is important in this context, because it can be built from a single type constructor, the arrow type. Currying then endows the language with a natural product type. The correspondence between objects in categories and types then allows programming languages to be re-interpreted as logics (via Curry–Howard correspondence), and as other types of mathematical systems, as explored further, below.
Under the Curry–Howard correspondence, the existence of currying and uncurrying is equivalent to the logical theorem ( ( A ∧ B ) → C ) ⇔ ( A → ( B → C ) ) {\displaystyle ((A\land B)\to C)\Leftrightarrow (A\to (B\to C))} , as tuples (product type) corresponds to conjunction in logic, and function type corresponds to implication.
The exponential object Q P {\displaystyle Q^{P}} in the category of Heyting algebras is normally written as material implication P → Q {\displaystyle P\to Q} . Distributive Heyting algebras are Boolean algebras, and the exponential object has the explicit form ¬ P ∨ Q {\displaystyle \neg P\lor Q} , thus making it clear that the exponential object really is material implication.
The above notions of currying and uncurrying find their most general, abstract statement in category theory. Currying is a universal property of an exponential object, and gives rise to an adjunction in cartesian closed categories. That is, there is a natural isomorphism between the morphisms from a binary product f : ( X × Y ) → Z {\displaystyle f\colon (X\times Y)\to Z} and the morphisms to an exponential object g : X → Z Y {\displaystyle g\colon X\to Z^{Y}} .
This generalizes to a broader result in closed monoidal categories: Currying is the statement that the tensor product and the internal Hom are adjoint functors; that is, for every object B {\displaystyle B} there is a natural isomorphism:
Here, Hom denotes the (external) Hom-functor of all morphisms in the category, while B ⇒ C {\displaystyle B\Rightarrow C} denotes the internal hom functor in the closed monoidal category. For the category of sets, the two are the same. When the product is the cartesian product, then the internal hom B ⇒ C {\displaystyle B\Rightarrow C} becomes the exponential object C B {\displaystyle C^{B}} .
Currying can break down in one of two ways. One is if a category is not closed, and thus lacks an internal hom functor (possibly because there is more than one choice for such a functor). Another way is if it is not monoidal, and thus lacks a product (that is, lacks a way of writing down pairs of objects). Categories that do have both products and internal homs are exactly the closed monoidal categories.
The setting of cartesian closed categories is sufficient for the discussion of classical logic; the more general setting of closed monoidal categories is suitable for quantum computation.
The difference between these two is that the product for cartesian categories (such as the category of sets, complete partial orders or Heyting algebras) is just the Cartesian product; it is interpreted as an ordered pair of items (or a list). Simply typed lambda calculus is the internal language of cartesian closed categories; and it is for this reason that pairs and lists are the primary types in the type theory of LISP, Scheme and many functional programming languages.
By contrast, the product for monoidal categories (such as Hilbert space and the vector spaces of functional analysis) is the tensor product. The internal language of such categories is linear logic, a form of quantum logic; the corresponding type system is the linear type system. Such categories are suitable for describing entangled quantum states, and, more generally, allow a vast generalization of the Curry–Howard correspondence to quantum mechanics, to cobordisms in algebraic topology, and to string theory. The linear type system, and linear logic are useful for describing synchronization primitives, such as mutual exclusion locks, and the operation of vending machines.
Currying and partial function application are often conflated. One of the significant differences between the two is that a call to a partially applied function returns the result right away, not another function down the currying chain; this distinction can be illustrated clearly for functions whose arity is greater than two.
Given a function of type f : ( X × Y × Z ) → N {\displaystyle f\colon (X\times Y\times Z)\to N} , currying produces curry ( f ) : X → ( Y → ( Z → N ) ) {\displaystyle {\text{curry}}(f)\colon X\to (Y\to (Z\to N))} . That is, while an evaluation of the first function might be represented as f ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) {\displaystyle f(1,2,3)} , evaluation of the curried function would be represented as f curried ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) {\displaystyle f_{\text{curried}}(1)(2)(3)} , applying each argument in turn to a single-argument function returned by the previous invocation. Note that after calling f curried ( 1 ) {\displaystyle f_{\text{curried}}(1)} , we are left with a function that takes a single argument and returns another function, not a function that takes two arguments.
In contrast, partial function application refers to the process of fixing a number of arguments to a function, producing another function of smaller arity. Given the definition of f {\displaystyle f} above, we might fix (or 'bind') the first argument, producing a function of type partial ( f ) : ( Y × Z ) → N {\displaystyle {\text{partial}}(f)\colon (Y\times Z)\to N} . Evaluation of this function might be represented as f partial ( 2 , 3 ) {\displaystyle f_{\text{partial}}(2,3)} . Note that the result of partial function application in this case is a function that takes two arguments.
Intuitively, partial function application says "if you fix the first argument of the function, you get a function of the remaining arguments". For example, if function div stands for the division operation x/y, then div with the parameter x fixed at 1 (i.e., div 1) is another function: the same as the function inv that returns the multiplicative inverse of its argument, defined by inv(y) = 1/y.
The practical motivation for partial application is that very often the functions obtained by supplying some but not all of the arguments to a function are useful; for example, many languages have a function or operator similar to plus_one. Partial application makes it easy to define these functions, for example by creating a function that represents the addition operator with 1 bound as its first argument.
Partial application can be seen as evaluating a curried function at a fixed point, e.g. given f : ( X × Y × Z ) → N {\displaystyle f\colon (X\times Y\times Z)\to N} and a ∈ X {\displaystyle a\in X} then curry ( partial ( f ) a ) ( y ) ( z ) = curry ( f ) ( a ) ( y ) ( z ) {\displaystyle {\text{curry}}({\text{partial}}(f)_{a})(y)(z)={\text{curry}}(f)(a)(y)(z)} or simply partial ( f ) a = curry 1 ( f ) ( a ) {\displaystyle {\text{partial}}(f)_{a}={\text{curry}}_{1}(f)(a)} where curry 1 {\displaystyle {\text{curry}}_{1}} curries f's first parameter.
Thus, partial application is reduced to a curried function at a fixed point. Further, a curried function at a fixed point is (trivially), a partial application. For further evidence, note that, given any function f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle f(x,y)} , a function g ( y , x ) {\displaystyle g(y,x)} may be defined such that g ( y , x ) = f ( x , y ) {\displaystyle g(y,x)=f(x,y)} . Thus, any partial application may be reduced to a single curry operation. As such, curry is more suitably defined as an operation which, in many theoretical cases, is often applied recursively, but which is theoretically indistinguishable (when considered as an operation) from a partial application.
So, a partial application can be defined as the objective result of a single application of the curry operator on some ordering of the inputs of some function. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In mathematics and computer science, currying is the technique of translating the evaluation of a function that takes multiple arguments into evaluating a sequence of functions, each with a single argument. For example, currying a function f {\\displaystyle f} that takes three arguments creates a nested unary function g {\\displaystyle g} , so that the code",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "gives x {\\displaystyle x} the same value as the code",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "or called in sequence,",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In a more mathematical language, a function that takes two arguments, one from X {\\displaystyle X} and one from Y {\\displaystyle Y} , and produces outputs in Z , {\\displaystyle Z,} by currying is translated into a function that takes a single argument from X {\\displaystyle X} and produces as outputs functions from Y {\\displaystyle Y} to Z . {\\displaystyle Z.} This is a natural one-to-one correspondence between these two types of functions, so that the sets together with functions between them form a Cartesian closed category. The currying of a function with more than two arguments can then be defined by induction. Currying is related to, but not the same as, partial application.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Currying is useful in both practical and theoretical settings. In functional programming languages, and many others, it provides a way of automatically managing how arguments are passed to functions and exceptions. In theoretical computer science, it provides a way to study functions with multiple arguments in simpler theoretical models which provide only one argument. The most general setting for the strict notion of currying and uncurrying is in the closed monoidal categories, which underpins a vast generalization of the Curry–Howard correspondence of proofs and programs to a correspondence with many other structures, including quantum mechanics, cobordisms and string theory. It was introduced by Gottlob Frege, developed by Moses Schönfinkel, and further developed by Haskell Curry.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Uncurrying is the dual transformation to currying, and can be seen as a form of defunctionalization. It takes a function f {\\displaystyle f} whose return value is another function g {\\displaystyle g} , and yields a new function f ′ {\\displaystyle f'} that takes as parameters the arguments for both f {\\displaystyle f} and g {\\displaystyle g} , and returns, as a result, the application of f {\\displaystyle f} and subsequently, g {\\displaystyle g} , to those arguments. The process can be iterated.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Currying provides a way for working with functions that take multiple arguments, and using them in frameworks where functions might take only one argument. For example, some analytical techniques can only be applied to functions with a single argument. Practical functions frequently take more arguments than this. Frege showed that it was sufficient to provide solutions for the single argument case, as it was possible to transform a function with multiple arguments into a chain of single-argument functions instead. This transformation is the process now known as currying. All \"ordinary\" functions that might typically be encountered in mathematical analysis or in computer programming can be curried. However, there are categories in which currying is not possible; the most general categories which allow currying are the closed monoidal categories.",
"title": "Motivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Some programming languages almost always use curried functions to achieve multiple arguments; notable examples are ML and Haskell, where in both cases all functions have exactly one argument. This property is inherited from lambda calculus, where multi-argument functions are usually represented in curried form.",
"title": "Motivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Currying is related to, but not the same as partial application. In practice, the programming technique of closures can be used to perform partial application and a kind of currying, by hiding arguments in an environment that travels with the curried function.",
"title": "Motivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Suppose we have a function f : R × R → R {\\displaystyle f:\\mathbb {R} \\times \\mathbb {R} \\to \\mathbb {R} } which takes two real number ( R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } ) arguments and outputs real numbers, and it is defined by f ( x , y ) = x + y 2 {\\displaystyle f(x,y)=x+y^{2}} . Currying translates this into a function h {\\displaystyle h} which takes a single real argument and outputs functions from R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } to R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} } . In symbols, h : R → R R {\\displaystyle h:\\mathbb {R} \\to \\mathbb {R} ^{\\mathbb {R} }} , where R R {\\displaystyle \\mathbb {R} ^{\\mathbb {R} }} denotes the set of all functions that take a single real argument and produce real outputs. For every real number x {\\displaystyle x} , define the function h x : R → R {\\displaystyle h_{x}:\\mathbb {R} \\to \\mathbb {R} } by h x ( y ) = x + y 2 {\\displaystyle h_{x}(y)=x+y^{2}} , and then define the function h : R → R R {\\displaystyle h:\\mathbb {R} \\to \\mathbb {R} ^{\\mathbb {R} }} by h ( x ) = h x {\\displaystyle h(x)=h_{x}} . So for instance, h ( 2 ) {\\displaystyle h(2)} is the function that sends its real argument y {\\displaystyle y} to the output 2 + y 2 {\\displaystyle 2+y^{2}} , or h ( 2 ) ( y ) = h 2 ( y ) = 2 + y 2 {\\displaystyle h(2)(y)=h_{2}(y)=2+y^{2}} . We see that in general",
"title": "Motivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "so that the original function f {\\displaystyle f} and its currying h {\\displaystyle h} convey exactly the same information. In this situation, we also write",
"title": "Motivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "This also works for functions with more than two arguments. If f {\\displaystyle f} were a function of three arguments f ( x , y , z ) {\\displaystyle f(x,y,z)} , its currying h {\\displaystyle h} would have the property",
"title": "Motivation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The \"Curry\" in \"Currying\" is a reference to logician Haskell Curry, who used the concept extensively, but Moses Schönfinkel had the idea six years before Curry. The alternative name \"Schönfinkelisation\" has been proposed. In the mathematical context, the principle can be traced back to work in 1893 by Frege.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The originator of the word \"currying\" is not clear. David Turner says the word was coined by Christopher Strachey in his 1967 lecture notes Fundamental Concepts in Programming Languages, but although the concept is mentioned and Curry is mentioned in the context of higher-order functions, the word \"currying\" does not appear in the notes and Curry is not associated with the concept. John C. Reynolds defined \"currying\" in a 1972 paper, but did not claim to have coined the term.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Currying is most easily understood by starting with an informal definition, which can then be molded to fit many different domains. First, there is some notation to be established. The notation X → Y {\\displaystyle X\\to Y} denotes all functions from X {\\displaystyle X} to Y {\\displaystyle Y} . If f {\\displaystyle f} is such a function, we write f : X → Y {\\displaystyle f\\colon X\\to Y} . Let X × Y {\\displaystyle X\\times Y} denote the ordered pairs of the elements of X {\\displaystyle X} and Y {\\displaystyle Y} respectively, that is, the Cartesian product of X {\\displaystyle X} and Y {\\displaystyle Y} . Here, X {\\displaystyle X} and Y {\\displaystyle Y} may be sets, or they may be types, or they may be other kinds of objects, as explored below.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Given a function",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "currying constructs a new function",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "That is, h {\\displaystyle h} takes an argument from X {\\displaystyle X} and returns a function that maps Y {\\displaystyle Y} to Z {\\displaystyle Z} . It is defined by",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "for x {\\displaystyle x} from X {\\displaystyle X} and y {\\displaystyle y} from Y {\\displaystyle Y} . We then also write",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Uncurrying is the reverse transformation, and is most easily understood in terms of its right adjoint, the function apply . {\\displaystyle \\operatorname {apply} .}",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "In set theory, the notation Y X {\\displaystyle Y^{X}} is used to denote the set of functions from the set X {\\displaystyle X} to the set Y {\\displaystyle Y} . Currying is the natural bijection between the set A B × C {\\displaystyle A^{B\\times C}} of functions from B × C {\\displaystyle B\\times C} to A {\\displaystyle A} , and the set ( A C ) B {\\displaystyle (A^{C})^{B}} of functions from B {\\displaystyle B} to the set of functions from C {\\displaystyle C} to A {\\displaystyle A} . In symbols:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Indeed, it is this natural bijection that justifies the exponential notation for the set of functions. As is the case in all instances of currying, the formula above describes an adjoint pair of functors: for every fixed set C {\\displaystyle C} , the functor B ↦ B × C {\\displaystyle B\\mapsto B\\times C} is left adjoint to the functor A ↦ A C {\\displaystyle A\\mapsto A^{C}} .",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the category of sets, the object Y X {\\displaystyle Y^{X}} is called the exponential object.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In the theory of function spaces, such as in functional analysis or homotopy theory, one is commonly interested in continuous functions between topological spaces. One writes Hom ( X , Y ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{Hom}}(X,Y)} (the Hom functor) for the set of all functions from X {\\displaystyle X} to Y {\\displaystyle Y} , and uses the notation Y X {\\displaystyle Y^{X}} to denote the subset of continuous functions. Here, curry {\\displaystyle {\\text{curry}}} is the bijection",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "while uncurrying is the inverse map. If the set Y X {\\displaystyle Y^{X}} of continuous functions from X {\\displaystyle X} to Y {\\displaystyle Y} is given the compact-open topology, and if the space Y {\\displaystyle Y} is locally compact Hausdorff, then",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "is a homeomorphism. This is also the case when X {\\displaystyle X} , Y {\\displaystyle Y} and Y X {\\displaystyle Y^{X}} are compactly generated, although there are more cases.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "One useful corollary is that a function is continuous if and only if its curried form is continuous. Another important result is that the application map, usually called \"evaluation\" in this context, is continuous (note that eval is a strictly different concept in computer science.) That is,",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "eval : Y X × X → Y ( f , x ) ↦ f ( x ) {\\displaystyle {\\begin{aligned}&&{\\text{eval}}:Y^{X}\\times X\\to Y\\\\&&(f,x)\\mapsto f(x)\\end{aligned}}}",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "is continuous when Y X {\\displaystyle Y^{X}} is compact-open and Y {\\displaystyle Y} locally compact Hausdorff. These two results are central for establishing the continuity of homotopy, i.e. when X {\\displaystyle X} is the unit interval I {\\displaystyle I} , so that Z I × Y ≅ ( Z Y ) I {\\displaystyle Z^{I\\times Y}\\cong (Z^{Y})^{I}} can be thought of as either a homotopy of two functions from Y {\\displaystyle Y} to Z {\\displaystyle Z} , or, equivalently, a single (continuous) path in Z Y {\\displaystyle Z^{Y}} .",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In algebraic topology, currying serves as an example of Eckmann–Hilton duality, and, as such, plays an important role in a variety of different settings. For example, loop space is adjoint to reduced suspensions; this is commonly written as",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "where [ A , B ] {\\displaystyle [A,B]} is the set of homotopy classes of maps A → B {\\displaystyle A\\rightarrow B} , and Σ A {\\displaystyle \\Sigma A} is the suspension of A, and Ω A {\\displaystyle \\Omega A} is the loop space of A. In essence, the suspension Σ X {\\displaystyle \\Sigma X} can be seen as the cartesian product of X {\\displaystyle X} with the unit interval, modulo an equivalence relation to turn the interval into a loop. The curried form then maps the space X {\\displaystyle X} to the space of functions from loops into Z {\\displaystyle Z} , that is, from X {\\displaystyle X} into Ω Z {\\displaystyle \\Omega Z} . Then curry {\\displaystyle {\\text{curry}}} is the adjoint functor that maps suspensions to loop spaces, and uncurrying is the dual.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The duality between the mapping cone and the mapping fiber (cofibration and fibration) can be understood as a form of currying, which in turn leads to the duality of the long exact and coexact Puppe sequences.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In homological algebra, the relationship between currying and uncurrying is known as tensor-hom adjunction. Here, an interesting twist arises: the Hom functor and the tensor product functor might not lift to an exact sequence; this leads to the definition of the Ext functor and the Tor functor.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In order theory, that is, the theory of lattices of partially ordered sets, curry {\\displaystyle {\\text{curry}}} is a continuous function when the lattice is given the Scott topology. Scott-continuous functions were first investigated in the attempt to provide a semantics for lambda calculus (as ordinary set theory is inadequate to do this). More generally, Scott-continuous functions are now studied in domain theory, which encompasses the study of denotational semantics of computer algorithms. Note that the Scott topology is quite different than many common topologies one might encounter in the category of topological spaces; the Scott topology is typically finer, and is not sober.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The notion of continuity makes its appearance in homotopy type theory, where, roughly speaking, two computer programs can be considered to be homotopic, i.e. compute the same results, if they can be \"continuously\" refactored from one to the other.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In theoretical computer science, currying provides a way to study functions with multiple arguments in very simple theoretical models, such as the lambda calculus, in which functions only take a single argument. Consider a function f ( x , y ) {\\displaystyle f(x,y)} taking two arguments, and having the type ( X × Y ) → Z {\\displaystyle (X\\times Y)\\to Z} , which should be understood to mean that x must have the type X {\\displaystyle X} , y must have the type Y {\\displaystyle Y} , and the function itself returns the type Z {\\displaystyle Z} . The curried form of f is defined as",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "where λ {\\displaystyle \\lambda } is the abstractor of lambda calculus. Since curry takes, as input, functions with the type ( X × Y ) → Z {\\displaystyle (X\\times Y)\\to Z} , one concludes that the type of curry itself is",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The → operator is often considered right-associative, so the curried function type X → ( Y → Z ) {\\displaystyle X\\to (Y\\to Z)} is often written as X → Y → Z {\\displaystyle X\\to Y\\to Z} . Conversely, function application is considered to be left-associative, so that f ( x , y ) {\\displaystyle f(x,y)} is equivalent to",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "That is, the parenthesis are not required to disambiguate the order of the application.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Curried functions may be used in any programming language that supports closures; however, uncurried functions are generally preferred for efficiency reasons, since the overhead of partial application and closure creation can then be avoided for most function calls.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In type theory, the general idea of a type system in computer science is formalized into a specific algebra of types. For example, when writing f : X → Y {\\displaystyle f\\colon X\\to Y} , the intent is that X {\\displaystyle X} and Y {\\displaystyle Y} are types, while the arrow → {\\displaystyle \\to } is a type constructor, specifically, the function type or arrow type. Similarly, the Cartesian product X × Y {\\displaystyle X\\times Y} of types is constructed by the product type constructor × {\\displaystyle \\times } .",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The type-theoretical approach is expressed in programming languages such as ML and the languages derived from and inspired by it: CaML, Haskell and F#.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The type-theoretical approach provides a natural complement to the language of category theory, as discussed below. This is because categories, and specifically, monoidal categories, have an internal language, with simply-typed lambda calculus being the most prominent example of such a language. It is important in this context, because it can be built from a single type constructor, the arrow type. Currying then endows the language with a natural product type. The correspondence between objects in categories and types then allows programming languages to be re-interpreted as logics (via Curry–Howard correspondence), and as other types of mathematical systems, as explored further, below.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Under the Curry–Howard correspondence, the existence of currying and uncurrying is equivalent to the logical theorem ( ( A ∧ B ) → C ) ⇔ ( A → ( B → C ) ) {\\displaystyle ((A\\land B)\\to C)\\Leftrightarrow (A\\to (B\\to C))} , as tuples (product type) corresponds to conjunction in logic, and function type corresponds to implication.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The exponential object Q P {\\displaystyle Q^{P}} in the category of Heyting algebras is normally written as material implication P → Q {\\displaystyle P\\to Q} . Distributive Heyting algebras are Boolean algebras, and the exponential object has the explicit form ¬ P ∨ Q {\\displaystyle \\neg P\\lor Q} , thus making it clear that the exponential object really is material implication.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The above notions of currying and uncurrying find their most general, abstract statement in category theory. Currying is a universal property of an exponential object, and gives rise to an adjunction in cartesian closed categories. That is, there is a natural isomorphism between the morphisms from a binary product f : ( X × Y ) → Z {\\displaystyle f\\colon (X\\times Y)\\to Z} and the morphisms to an exponential object g : X → Z Y {\\displaystyle g\\colon X\\to Z^{Y}} .",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "This generalizes to a broader result in closed monoidal categories: Currying is the statement that the tensor product and the internal Hom are adjoint functors; that is, for every object B {\\displaystyle B} there is a natural isomorphism:",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Here, Hom denotes the (external) Hom-functor of all morphisms in the category, while B ⇒ C {\\displaystyle B\\Rightarrow C} denotes the internal hom functor in the closed monoidal category. For the category of sets, the two are the same. When the product is the cartesian product, then the internal hom B ⇒ C {\\displaystyle B\\Rightarrow C} becomes the exponential object C B {\\displaystyle C^{B}} .",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Currying can break down in one of two ways. One is if a category is not closed, and thus lacks an internal hom functor (possibly because there is more than one choice for such a functor). Another way is if it is not monoidal, and thus lacks a product (that is, lacks a way of writing down pairs of objects). Categories that do have both products and internal homs are exactly the closed monoidal categories.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The setting of cartesian closed categories is sufficient for the discussion of classical logic; the more general setting of closed monoidal categories is suitable for quantum computation.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The difference between these two is that the product for cartesian categories (such as the category of sets, complete partial orders or Heyting algebras) is just the Cartesian product; it is interpreted as an ordered pair of items (or a list). Simply typed lambda calculus is the internal language of cartesian closed categories; and it is for this reason that pairs and lists are the primary types in the type theory of LISP, Scheme and many functional programming languages.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "By contrast, the product for monoidal categories (such as Hilbert space and the vector spaces of functional analysis) is the tensor product. The internal language of such categories is linear logic, a form of quantum logic; the corresponding type system is the linear type system. Such categories are suitable for describing entangled quantum states, and, more generally, allow a vast generalization of the Curry–Howard correspondence to quantum mechanics, to cobordisms in algebraic topology, and to string theory. The linear type system, and linear logic are useful for describing synchronization primitives, such as mutual exclusion locks, and the operation of vending machines.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Currying and partial function application are often conflated. One of the significant differences between the two is that a call to a partially applied function returns the result right away, not another function down the currying chain; this distinction can be illustrated clearly for functions whose arity is greater than two.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Given a function of type f : ( X × Y × Z ) → N {\\displaystyle f\\colon (X\\times Y\\times Z)\\to N} , currying produces curry ( f ) : X → ( Y → ( Z → N ) ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{curry}}(f)\\colon X\\to (Y\\to (Z\\to N))} . That is, while an evaluation of the first function might be represented as f ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) {\\displaystyle f(1,2,3)} , evaluation of the curried function would be represented as f curried ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) {\\displaystyle f_{\\text{curried}}(1)(2)(3)} , applying each argument in turn to a single-argument function returned by the previous invocation. Note that after calling f curried ( 1 ) {\\displaystyle f_{\\text{curried}}(1)} , we are left with a function that takes a single argument and returns another function, not a function that takes two arguments.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In contrast, partial function application refers to the process of fixing a number of arguments to a function, producing another function of smaller arity. Given the definition of f {\\displaystyle f} above, we might fix (or 'bind') the first argument, producing a function of type partial ( f ) : ( Y × Z ) → N {\\displaystyle {\\text{partial}}(f)\\colon (Y\\times Z)\\to N} . Evaluation of this function might be represented as f partial ( 2 , 3 ) {\\displaystyle f_{\\text{partial}}(2,3)} . Note that the result of partial function application in this case is a function that takes two arguments.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Intuitively, partial function application says \"if you fix the first argument of the function, you get a function of the remaining arguments\". For example, if function div stands for the division operation x/y, then div with the parameter x fixed at 1 (i.e., div 1) is another function: the same as the function inv that returns the multiplicative inverse of its argument, defined by inv(y) = 1/y.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The practical motivation for partial application is that very often the functions obtained by supplying some but not all of the arguments to a function are useful; for example, many languages have a function or operator similar to plus_one. Partial application makes it easy to define these functions, for example by creating a function that represents the addition operator with 1 bound as its first argument.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Partial application can be seen as evaluating a curried function at a fixed point, e.g. given f : ( X × Y × Z ) → N {\\displaystyle f\\colon (X\\times Y\\times Z)\\to N} and a ∈ X {\\displaystyle a\\in X} then curry ( partial ( f ) a ) ( y ) ( z ) = curry ( f ) ( a ) ( y ) ( z ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{curry}}({\\text{partial}}(f)_{a})(y)(z)={\\text{curry}}(f)(a)(y)(z)} or simply partial ( f ) a = curry 1 ( f ) ( a ) {\\displaystyle {\\text{partial}}(f)_{a}={\\text{curry}}_{1}(f)(a)} where curry 1 {\\displaystyle {\\text{curry}}_{1}} curries f's first parameter.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Thus, partial application is reduced to a curried function at a fixed point. Further, a curried function at a fixed point is (trivially), a partial application. For further evidence, note that, given any function f ( x , y ) {\\displaystyle f(x,y)} , a function g ( y , x ) {\\displaystyle g(y,x)} may be defined such that g ( y , x ) = f ( x , y ) {\\displaystyle g(y,x)=f(x,y)} . Thus, any partial application may be reduced to a single curry operation. As such, curry is more suitably defined as an operation which, in many theoretical cases, is often applied recursively, but which is theoretically indistinguishable (when considered as an operation) from a partial application.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "So, a partial application can be defined as the objective result of a single application of the curry operator on some ordering of the inputs of some function.",
"title": "Contrast with partial function application"
}
] | In mathematics and computer science, currying is the technique of translating the evaluation of a function that takes multiple arguments into evaluating a sequence of functions, each with a single argument. For example, currying a function f that takes three arguments creates a nested unary function g , so that the code gives x the same value as the code or called in sequence, In a more mathematical language, a function that takes two arguments, one from X and one from Y , and produces outputs in Z , by currying is translated into a function that takes a single argument from X and produces as outputs functions from Y to Z . This is a natural one-to-one correspondence between these two types of functions, so that the sets together with functions between them form a Cartesian closed category. The currying of a function with more than two arguments can then be defined by induction. Currying is related to, but not the same as, partial application. Currying is useful in both practical and theoretical settings. In functional programming languages, and many others, it provides a way of automatically managing how arguments are passed to functions and exceptions. In theoretical computer science, it provides a way to study functions with multiple arguments in simpler theoretical models which provide only one argument. The most general setting for the strict notion of currying and uncurrying is in the closed monoidal categories, which underpins a vast generalization of the Curry–Howard correspondence of proofs and programs to a correspondence with many other structures, including quantum mechanics, cobordisms and string theory. It was introduced by Gottlob Frege, developed by Moses Schönfinkel,
and further developed by Haskell Curry. Uncurrying is the dual transformation to currying, and can be seen as a form of defunctionalization. It takes a function f whose return value is another function g , and yields a new function f ′ that takes as parameters the arguments for both f and g , and returns, as a result, the application of f and subsequently, g , to those arguments. The process can be iterated. | 2001-09-29T01:26:15Z | 2023-12-05T23:13:02Z | [
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6,601 | Cyrus | Cyrus (Persian: کوروش) is a male given name. It is the given name of a number of Persian kings. Most notably it refers to Cyrus the Great (c. 600-530 BC). Cyrus is also the name of Cyrus I of Anshan (c. 650 BC), King of Persia and the grandfather of Cyrus the Great; and Cyrus the Younger (died 401 BC), brother to the Persian King Artaxerxes II of Persia.
Cyrus, as a word in English, is the Latinized form of the Greek Κῦρος, Kȳros, from Old Persian 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 Kūruš. According to the inscriptions the name is reflected in Elamite Kuraš, Babylonian Ku(r)-raš/-ra-áš and Imperial Aramaic kwrš. The modern Persian form of the name is Kūroš.
The etymology of Cyrus has been and continues to be a topic of discussion amongst historians, linguists, and scholars of Iranology. The Old Persian name "kuruš" has been interpreted in various forms such as "the Sun", "like Sun", "young", "hero," and "humiliator of the enemy in verbal contest" and the Elamite "kuraš" has been translated as one "who bestows care".
The name has appeared on many monuments and inscriptions in Old Persian. There is also the record of a small inscription in Morghab (southwestern Iran) on which there is the sentence (adam kūruš xšāyaθiya haxāmanišiya) in Old Persian meaning (I am Cyrus the Achaemenian King). After a questionable proposal by the German linguist F. H. Weissbach that Darius the Great was the first to inscribe in Persian, it had previously been concluded by some scholars that the inscription in Morghab refers to Cyrus the Younger. This proposal was the result of a false interpretation of a passage in paragraph 70 of Behistun inscription by Darius the Great. Based on many arguments, the accepted theory among modern scholars is that the inscription does belong to Cyrus the Great.
There are interpretations of name of Cyrus by classical authors identifying with or referring to the Persian word for "Sun". The Historian Plutarch (46 - 120) states that "the sun, which, in the Persian language, is called Cyrus". Also the Physician Ctesias who served in the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes II of Persia writes in his book Persica as summarized by Photios that the name Cyrus is from Persian word "Khur" (the sun). These are, however, not accepted by modern scholars.
Regarding the etymology of Old Persian kuruš, linguists have proposed various etymologies based on Iranian languages as well as non-Indo-European ones. According to Tavernier, the name kuraš, attested in Elamite texts, is likely "the original form" as there is no Elamite or Babylonian spelling ku-ru-uš in the transcriptions of Old Persian ku-u-r(u)-u-š. That is, according to Tavernier, kuraš is an Elamite name and means "to bestow care". Others, such as Schmitt, Hoffmann maintain that the Persian Kuruš, which according to Skalmowsky, may be connected to (or a borrowing from) the IE Kúru- from Old Indic can give an etymology of the Elamite kuraš. In this regard the Old Persian kuruš is considered with the following etymologies: One proposal is discussed by the linguist Janos Harmatta that refers to the common Iranian root "kur-" (be born) of many words in Old, middle, and new Iranian languages (e.g. Kurdish). Accordingly, the name Kūruš means "young, youth...". Other Iranian etymologies have been proposed. The Indian proposal of Skalmowsky goes down to "to do, accomplish". Another theory is the suggestion of Karl Hoffmann that kuruš goes down to a -ru derivation from the IE root *(s)kau meaning "to humiliate" and accordingly "kuruš" (hence "Cyrus") means "humiliator (of the enemy in verbal contest)".
People and fictional characters named Cyrus include: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cyrus (Persian: کوروش) is a male given name. It is the given name of a number of Persian kings. Most notably it refers to Cyrus the Great (c. 600-530 BC). Cyrus is also the name of Cyrus I of Anshan (c. 650 BC), King of Persia and the grandfather of Cyrus the Great; and Cyrus the Younger (died 401 BC), brother to the Persian King Artaxerxes II of Persia.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cyrus, as a word in English, is the Latinized form of the Greek Κῦρος, Kȳros, from Old Persian 𐎤𐎢𐎽𐎢𐏁 Kūruš. According to the inscriptions the name is reflected in Elamite Kuraš, Babylonian Ku(r)-raš/-ra-áš and Imperial Aramaic kwrš. The modern Persian form of the name is Kūroš.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The etymology of Cyrus has been and continues to be a topic of discussion amongst historians, linguists, and scholars of Iranology. The Old Persian name \"kuruš\" has been interpreted in various forms such as \"the Sun\", \"like Sun\", \"young\", \"hero,\" and \"humiliator of the enemy in verbal contest\" and the Elamite \"kuraš\" has been translated as one \"who bestows care\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name has appeared on many monuments and inscriptions in Old Persian. There is also the record of a small inscription in Morghab (southwestern Iran) on which there is the sentence (adam kūruš xšāyaθiya haxāmanišiya) in Old Persian meaning (I am Cyrus the Achaemenian King). After a questionable proposal by the German linguist F. H. Weissbach that Darius the Great was the first to inscribe in Persian, it had previously been concluded by some scholars that the inscription in Morghab refers to Cyrus the Younger. This proposal was the result of a false interpretation of a passage in paragraph 70 of Behistun inscription by Darius the Great. Based on many arguments, the accepted theory among modern scholars is that the inscription does belong to Cyrus the Great.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "There are interpretations of name of Cyrus by classical authors identifying with or referring to the Persian word for \"Sun\". The Historian Plutarch (46 - 120) states that \"the sun, which, in the Persian language, is called Cyrus\". Also the Physician Ctesias who served in the court of the Persian king Artaxerxes II of Persia writes in his book Persica as summarized by Photios that the name Cyrus is from Persian word \"Khur\" (the sun). These are, however, not accepted by modern scholars.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Regarding the etymology of Old Persian kuruš, linguists have proposed various etymologies based on Iranian languages as well as non-Indo-European ones. According to Tavernier, the name kuraš, attested in Elamite texts, is likely \"the original form\" as there is no Elamite or Babylonian spelling ku-ru-uš in the transcriptions of Old Persian ku-u-r(u)-u-š. That is, according to Tavernier, kuraš is an Elamite name and means \"to bestow care\". Others, such as Schmitt, Hoffmann maintain that the Persian Kuruš, which according to Skalmowsky, may be connected to (or a borrowing from) the IE Kúru- from Old Indic can give an etymology of the Elamite kuraš. In this regard the Old Persian kuruš is considered with the following etymologies: One proposal is discussed by the linguist Janos Harmatta that refers to the common Iranian root \"kur-\" (be born) of many words in Old, middle, and new Iranian languages (e.g. Kurdish). Accordingly, the name Kūruš means \"young, youth...\". Other Iranian etymologies have been proposed. The Indian proposal of Skalmowsky goes down to \"to do, accomplish\". Another theory is the suggestion of Karl Hoffmann that kuruš goes down to a -ru derivation from the IE root *(s)kau meaning \"to humiliate\" and accordingly \"kuruš\" (hence \"Cyrus\") means \"humiliator (of the enemy in verbal contest)\".",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "People and fictional characters named Cyrus include:",
"title": "Etymology"
}
] | Cyrus is a male given name. It is the given name of a number of Persian kings. Most notably it refers to Cyrus the Great. Cyrus is also the name of Cyrus I of Anshan, King of Persia and the grandfather of Cyrus the Great; and Cyrus the Younger, brother to the Persian King Artaxerxes II of Persia. | 2001-10-01T06:50:48Z | 2023-10-28T18:36:55Z | [
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6,603 | Case | Case or CASE may refer to: | [
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] | Case or CASE may refer to: | 2001-09-29T15:54:58Z | 2023-12-25T14:12:53Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case |
6,604 | Rendering (computer graphics) | Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined in a scene file containing objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. The scene file contains geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information describing the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a digital image or raster graphics image file. The term "rendering" is analogous to the concept of an artist's impression of a scene. The term "rendering" is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing program to produce the final video output.
Rendering is one of the major sub-topics of 3D computer graphics, and in practice it is always connected to the others. It is the last major step in the graphics pipeline, giving models and animation their final appearance. With the increasing sophistication of computer graphics since the 1970s, it has become a more distinct subject.
Rendering has uses in architecture, video games, simulators, movie and TV visual effects, and design visualization, each employing a different balance of features and techniques. A wide variety of renderers are available for use. Some are integrated into larger modeling and animation packages, some are stand-alone, and some are free open-source projects. On the inside, a renderer is a carefully engineered program based on multiple disciplines, including light physics, visual perception, mathematics, and software development.
Though the technical details of rendering methods vary, the general challenges to overcome in producing a 2D image on a screen from a 3D representation stored in a scene file are handled by the graphics pipeline in a rendering device such as a GPU. A GPU is a purpose-built device that assists a CPU in performing complex rendering calculations. If a scene is to look relatively realistic and predictable under virtual lighting, the rendering software must solve the rendering equation. The rendering equation does not account for all lighting phenomena, but instead acts as a general lighting model for computer-generated imagery.
In the case of 3D graphics, scenes can be pre-rendered or generated in realtime. Pre-rendering is a slow, computationally intensive process that is typically used for movie creation, where scenes can be generated ahead of time, while real-time rendering is often done for 3D video games and other applications that must dynamically create scenes. 3D hardware accelerators can improve realtime rendering performance.
When the pre-image (a wireframe sketch usually) is complete, rendering is used, which adds in bitmap textures or procedural textures, lights, bump mapping and relative position to other objects. The result is a completed image the consumer or intended viewer sees.
For movie animations, several images (frames) must be rendered, and stitched together in a program capable of making an animation of this sort. Most 3D image editing programs can do this.
A rendered image can be understood in terms of a number of visible features. Rendering research and development has been largely motivated by finding ways to simulate these efficiently. Some relate directly to particular algorithms and techniques, while others are produced together.
Many rendering algorithms have been researched, and software used for rendering may employ a number of different techniques to obtain a final image.
Tracing every particle of light in a scene is nearly always completely impractical and would take a stupendous amount of time. Even tracing a portion large enough to produce an image takes an inordinate amount of time if the sampling is not intelligently restricted.
Therefore, a few loose families of more-efficient light transport modeling techniques have emerged:
The fourth type of light transport technique, radiosity is not usually implemented as a rendering technique but instead calculates the passage of light as it leaves the light source and illuminates surfaces. These surfaces are usually rendered to the display using one of the other three techniques.
Most advanced software combines two or more of the techniques to obtain good-enough results at reasonable cost.
Another distinction is between image order algorithms, which iterate over pixels of the image plane, and object order algorithms, which iterate over objects in the scene. Generally object order is more efficient, as there are usually fewer objects in a scene than pixels.
A high-level representation of an image necessarily contains elements in a different domain from pixels. These elements are referred to as primitives. In a schematic drawing, for instance, line segments and curves might be primitives. In a graphical user interface, windows and buttons might be the primitives. In rendering of 3D models, triangles and polygons in space might be primitives.
If a pixel-by-pixel (image order) approach to rendering is impractical or too slow for some task, then a primitive-by-primitive (object order) approach to rendering may prove useful. Here, one loop through each of the primitives, determines which pixels in the image it affects, and modifies those pixels accordingly. This is called rasterization, and is the rendering method used by all current graphics cards.
Rasterization is frequently faster than pixel-by-pixel rendering. First, large areas of the image may be empty of primitives; rasterization will ignore these areas, but pixel-by-pixel rendering must pass through them. Second, rasterization can improve cache coherency and reduce redundant work by taking advantage of the fact that the pixels occupied by a single primitive tend to be contiguous in the image. For these reasons, rasterization is usually the approach of choice when interactive rendering is required; however, the pixel-by-pixel approach can often produce higher-quality images and is more versatile because it does not depend on as many assumptions about the image as rasterization.
The older form of rasterization is characterized by rendering an entire face (primitive) as a single color. Alternatively, rasterization can be done in a more complicated manner by first rendering the vertices of a face and then rendering the pixels of that face as a blending of the vertex colors. This version of rasterization has overtaken the old method as it allows the graphics to flow without complicated textures (a rasterized image when used face by face tends to have a very block-like effect if not covered in complex textures; the faces are not smooth because there is no gradual color change from one primitive to the next). This newer method of rasterization utilizes the graphics card's more taxing shading functions and still achieves better performance because the simpler textures stored in memory use less space. Sometimes designers will use one rasterization method on some faces and the other method on others based on the angle at which that face meets other joined faces, thus increasing speed and not hurting the overall effect.
In ray casting the geometry which has been modeled is parsed pixel by pixel, line by line, from the point of view outward, as if casting rays out from the point of view. Where an object is intersected, the color value at the point may be evaluated using several methods. In the simplest, the color value of the object at the point of intersection becomes the value of that pixel. The color may be determined from a texture-map. A more sophisticated method is to modify the color value by an illumination factor, but without calculating the relationship to a simulated light source. To reduce artifacts, a number of rays in slightly different directions may be averaged.
Ray casting involves calculating the "view direction" (from camera position), and incrementally following along that "ray cast" through "solid 3d objects" in the scene, while accumulating the resulting value from each point in 3D space. This is related and similar to "ray tracing" except that the raycast is usually not "bounced" off surfaces (where the "ray tracing" indicates that it is tracing out the lights path including bounces). "Ray casting" implies that the light ray is following a straight path (which may include traveling through semi-transparent objects). The ray cast is a vector that can originate from the camera or from the scene endpoint ("back to front", or "front to back"). Sometimes the final light value is derived from a "transfer function" and sometimes it's used directly.
Rough simulations of optical properties may be additionally employed: a simple calculation of the ray from the object to the point of view is made. Another calculation is made of the angle of incidence of light rays from the light source(s), and from these as well as the specified intensities of the light sources, the value of the pixel is calculated. Another simulation uses illumination plotted from a radiosity algorithm, or a combination of these two.
Ray tracing aims to simulate the natural flow of light, interpreted as particles. Often, ray tracing methods are utilized to approximate the solution to the rendering equation by applying Monte Carlo methods to it. Some of the most used methods are path tracing, bidirectional path tracing, or Metropolis light transport, but also semi realistic methods are in use, like Whitted Style Ray Tracing, or hybrids. While most implementations let light propagate on straight lines, applications exist to simulate relativistic spacetime effects.
In a final, production quality rendering of a ray traced work, multiple rays are generally shot for each pixel, and traced not just to the first object of intersection, but rather, through a number of sequential 'bounces', using the known laws of optics such as "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection" and more advanced laws that deal with refraction and surface roughness.
Once the ray either encounters a light source, or more probably once a set limiting number of bounces has been evaluated, then the surface illumination at that final point is evaluated using techniques described above, and the changes along the way through the various bounces evaluated to estimate a value observed at the point of view. This is all repeated for each sample, for each pixel.
In distribution ray tracing, at each point of intersection, multiple rays may be spawned. In path tracing, however, only a single ray or none is fired at each intersection, utilizing the statistical nature of Monte Carlo experiments.
As a brute-force method, ray tracing has been too slow to consider for real-time, and until recently too slow even to consider for short films of any degree of quality, although it has been used for special effects sequences, and in advertising, where a short portion of high quality (perhaps even photorealistic) footage is required.
However, efforts at optimizing to reduce the number of calculations needed in portions of a work where detail is not high or does not depend on ray tracing features have led to a realistic possibility of wider use of ray tracing. There is now some hardware accelerated ray tracing equipment, at least in prototype phase, and some game demos which show use of real-time software or hardware ray tracing.
Neural rendering is a rendering method using artificial neural networks. Neural rendering includes image-based rendering methods that are used to reconstruct 3D models from 2-dimensional images.One of these methods are photogrammetry, which is a method in which a collection of images from multiple angles of an object are turned into a 3D model. There have also been recent developments in generating and rendering 3D models from text and coarse paintings by notably Nvidia, Google and various other companies.
Radiosity is a method which attempts to simulate the way in which directly illuminated surfaces act as indirect light sources that illuminate other surfaces. This produces more realistic shading and seems to better capture the 'ambience' of an indoor scene. A classic example is a way that shadows 'hug' the corners of rooms.
The optical basis of the simulation is that some diffused light from a given point on a given surface is reflected in a large spectrum of directions and illuminates the area around it.
The simulation technique may vary in complexity. Many renderings have a very rough estimate of radiosity, simply illuminating an entire scene very slightly with a factor known as ambiance. However, when advanced radiosity estimation is coupled with a high quality ray tracing algorithm, images may exhibit convincing realism, particularly for indoor scenes.
In advanced radiosity simulation, recursive, finite-element algorithms 'bounce' light back and forth between surfaces in the model, until some recursion limit is reached. The colouring of one surface in this way influences the colouring of a neighbouring surface, and vice versa. The resulting values of illumination throughout the model (sometimes including for empty spaces) are stored and used as additional inputs when performing calculations in a ray-casting or ray-tracing model.
Due to the iterative/recursive nature of the technique, complex objects are particularly slow to emulate. Prior to the standardization of rapid radiosity calculation, some digital artists used a technique referred to loosely as false radiosity by darkening areas of texture maps corresponding to corners, joints and recesses, and applying them via self-illumination or diffuse mapping for scanline rendering. Even now, advanced radiosity calculations may be reserved for calculating the ambiance of the room, from the light reflecting off walls, floor and ceiling, without examining the contribution that complex objects make to the radiosity – or complex objects may be replaced in the radiosity calculation with simpler objects of similar size and texture.
Radiosity calculations are viewpoint independent which increases the computations involved, but makes them useful for all viewpoints. If there is little rearrangement of radiosity objects in the scene, the same radiosity data may be reused for a number of frames, making radiosity an effective way to improve on the flatness of ray casting, without seriously impacting the overall rendering time-per-frame.
Because of this, radiosity is a prime component of leading real-time rendering methods, and has been used from beginning-to-end to create a large number of well-known recent feature-length animated 3D-cartoon films.
One problem that any rendering system must deal with, no matter which approach it takes, is the sampling problem. Essentially, the rendering process tries to depict a continuous function from image space to colors by using a finite number of pixels. As a consequence of the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem (or Kotelnikov theorem), any spatial waveform that can be displayed must consist of at least two pixels, which is proportional to image resolution. In simpler terms, this expresses the idea that an image cannot display details, peaks or troughs in color or intensity, that are smaller than one pixel.
If a naive rendering algorithm is used without any filtering, high frequencies in the image function will cause ugly aliasing to be present in the final image. Aliasing typically manifests itself as jaggies, or jagged edges on objects where the pixel grid is visible. In order to remove aliasing, all rendering algorithms (if they are to produce good-looking images) must use some kind of low-pass filter on the image function to remove high frequencies, a process called antialiasing.
Due to the large number of calculations, a work in progress is usually only rendered in detail appropriate to the portion of the work being developed at a given time, so in the initial stages of modeling, wireframe and ray casting may be used, even where the target output is ray tracing with radiosity. It is also common to render only parts of the scene at high detail, and to remove objects that are not important to what is currently being developed.
For real-time, it is appropriate to simplify one or more common approximations, and tune to the exact parameters of the scenery in question, which is also tuned to the agreed parameters to get the most 'bang for the buck'.
The implementation of a realistic renderer always has some basic element of physical simulation or emulation – some computation which resembles or abstracts a real physical process.
The term "physically based" indicates the use of physical models and approximations that are more general and widely accepted outside rendering. A particular set of related techniques have gradually become established in the rendering community.
The basic concepts are moderately straightforward, but intractable to calculate; and a single elegant algorithm or approach has been elusive for more general purpose renderers. In order to meet demands of robustness, accuracy and practicality, an implementation will be a complex combination of different techniques.
Rendering research is concerned with both the adaptation of scientific models and their efficient application.
This is the key academic/theoretical concept in rendering. It serves as the most abstract formal expression of the non-perceptual aspect of rendering. All more complete algorithms can be seen as solutions to particular formulations of this equation.
Meaning: at a particular position and direction, the outgoing light (Lo) is the sum of the emitted light (Le) and the reflected light. The reflected light being the sum of the incoming light (Li) from all directions, multiplied by the surface reflection and incoming angle. By connecting outward light to inward light, via an interaction point, this equation stands for the whole 'light transport' – all the movement of light – in a scene.
The bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) expresses a simple model of light interaction with a surface as follows:
Light interaction is often approximated by the even simpler models: diffuse reflection and specular reflection, although both can ALSO be BRDFs.
Rendering is practically exclusively concerned with the particle aspect of light physics – known as geometrical optics. Treating light, at its basic level, as particles bouncing around is a simplification, but appropriate: the wave aspects of light are negligible in most scenes, and are significantly more difficult to simulate. Notable wave aspect phenomena include diffraction (as seen in the colours of CDs and DVDs) and polarisation (as seen in LCDs). Both types of effect, if needed, are made by appearance-oriented adjustment of the reflection model.
Though it receives less attention, an understanding of human visual perception is valuable to rendering. This is mainly because image displays and human perception have restricted ranges. A renderer can simulate a wide range of light brightness and color, but current displays – movie screen, computer monitor, etc. – cannot handle so much, and something must be discarded or compressed. Human perception also has limits, and so does not need to be given large-range images to create realism. This can help solve the problem of fitting images into displays, and, furthermore, suggest what short-cuts could be used in the rendering simulation, since certain subtleties will not be noticeable. This related subject is tone mapping.
Mathematics used in rendering includes: linear algebra, calculus, numerical mathematics, signal processing, and Monte Carlo methods.
Rendering for movies often takes place on a network of tightly connected computers known as a render farm.
The current state of the art in 3-D image description for movie creation is the Mental Ray scene description language designed at Mental Images and RenderMan Shading Language designed at Pixar (compare with simpler 3D fileformats such as VRML or APIs such as OpenGL and DirectX tailored for 3D hardware accelerators).
Other renderers (including proprietary ones) can and are sometimes used, but most other renderers tend to miss one or more of the often needed features like good texture filtering, texture caching, programmable shaders, highend geometry types like hair, subdivision or nurbs surfaces with tesselation on demand, geometry caching, raytracing with geometry caching, high quality shadow mapping, speed or patent-free implementations. Other highly sought features these days may include interactive photorealistic rendering (IPR) and hardware rendering/shading. | [
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"text": "Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined in a scene file containing objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. The scene file contains geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information describing the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a digital image or raster graphics image file. The term \"rendering\" is analogous to the concept of an artist's impression of a scene. The term \"rendering\" is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing program to produce the final video output.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Rendering is one of the major sub-topics of 3D computer graphics, and in practice it is always connected to the others. It is the last major step in the graphics pipeline, giving models and animation their final appearance. With the increasing sophistication of computer graphics since the 1970s, it has become a more distinct subject.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Rendering has uses in architecture, video games, simulators, movie and TV visual effects, and design visualization, each employing a different balance of features and techniques. A wide variety of renderers are available for use. Some are integrated into larger modeling and animation packages, some are stand-alone, and some are free open-source projects. On the inside, a renderer is a carefully engineered program based on multiple disciplines, including light physics, visual perception, mathematics, and software development.",
"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "Though the technical details of rendering methods vary, the general challenges to overcome in producing a 2D image on a screen from a 3D representation stored in a scene file are handled by the graphics pipeline in a rendering device such as a GPU. A GPU is a purpose-built device that assists a CPU in performing complex rendering calculations. If a scene is to look relatively realistic and predictable under virtual lighting, the rendering software must solve the rendering equation. The rendering equation does not account for all lighting phenomena, but instead acts as a general lighting model for computer-generated imagery.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In the case of 3D graphics, scenes can be pre-rendered or generated in realtime. Pre-rendering is a slow, computationally intensive process that is typically used for movie creation, where scenes can be generated ahead of time, while real-time rendering is often done for 3D video games and other applications that must dynamically create scenes. 3D hardware accelerators can improve realtime rendering performance.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "When the pre-image (a wireframe sketch usually) is complete, rendering is used, which adds in bitmap textures or procedural textures, lights, bump mapping and relative position to other objects. The result is a completed image the consumer or intended viewer sees.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "For movie animations, several images (frames) must be rendered, and stitched together in a program capable of making an animation of this sort. Most 3D image editing programs can do this.",
"title": "Usage"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A rendered image can be understood in terms of a number of visible features. Rendering research and development has been largely motivated by finding ways to simulate these efficiently. Some relate directly to particular algorithms and techniques, while others are produced together.",
"title": "Features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Many rendering algorithms have been researched, and software used for rendering may employ a number of different techniques to obtain a final image.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Tracing every particle of light in a scene is nearly always completely impractical and would take a stupendous amount of time. Even tracing a portion large enough to produce an image takes an inordinate amount of time if the sampling is not intelligently restricted.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Therefore, a few loose families of more-efficient light transport modeling techniques have emerged:",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The fourth type of light transport technique, radiosity is not usually implemented as a rendering technique but instead calculates the passage of light as it leaves the light source and illuminates surfaces. These surfaces are usually rendered to the display using one of the other three techniques.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Most advanced software combines two or more of the techniques to obtain good-enough results at reasonable cost.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Another distinction is between image order algorithms, which iterate over pixels of the image plane, and object order algorithms, which iterate over objects in the scene. Generally object order is more efficient, as there are usually fewer objects in a scene than pixels.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "A high-level representation of an image necessarily contains elements in a different domain from pixels. These elements are referred to as primitives. In a schematic drawing, for instance, line segments and curves might be primitives. In a graphical user interface, windows and buttons might be the primitives. In rendering of 3D models, triangles and polygons in space might be primitives.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "If a pixel-by-pixel (image order) approach to rendering is impractical or too slow for some task, then a primitive-by-primitive (object order) approach to rendering may prove useful. Here, one loop through each of the primitives, determines which pixels in the image it affects, and modifies those pixels accordingly. This is called rasterization, and is the rendering method used by all current graphics cards.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Rasterization is frequently faster than pixel-by-pixel rendering. First, large areas of the image may be empty of primitives; rasterization will ignore these areas, but pixel-by-pixel rendering must pass through them. Second, rasterization can improve cache coherency and reduce redundant work by taking advantage of the fact that the pixels occupied by a single primitive tend to be contiguous in the image. For these reasons, rasterization is usually the approach of choice when interactive rendering is required; however, the pixel-by-pixel approach can often produce higher-quality images and is more versatile because it does not depend on as many assumptions about the image as rasterization.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The older form of rasterization is characterized by rendering an entire face (primitive) as a single color. Alternatively, rasterization can be done in a more complicated manner by first rendering the vertices of a face and then rendering the pixels of that face as a blending of the vertex colors. This version of rasterization has overtaken the old method as it allows the graphics to flow without complicated textures (a rasterized image when used face by face tends to have a very block-like effect if not covered in complex textures; the faces are not smooth because there is no gradual color change from one primitive to the next). This newer method of rasterization utilizes the graphics card's more taxing shading functions and still achieves better performance because the simpler textures stored in memory use less space. Sometimes designers will use one rasterization method on some faces and the other method on others based on the angle at which that face meets other joined faces, thus increasing speed and not hurting the overall effect.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In ray casting the geometry which has been modeled is parsed pixel by pixel, line by line, from the point of view outward, as if casting rays out from the point of view. Where an object is intersected, the color value at the point may be evaluated using several methods. In the simplest, the color value of the object at the point of intersection becomes the value of that pixel. The color may be determined from a texture-map. A more sophisticated method is to modify the color value by an illumination factor, but without calculating the relationship to a simulated light source. To reduce artifacts, a number of rays in slightly different directions may be averaged.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Ray casting involves calculating the \"view direction\" (from camera position), and incrementally following along that \"ray cast\" through \"solid 3d objects\" in the scene, while accumulating the resulting value from each point in 3D space. This is related and similar to \"ray tracing\" except that the raycast is usually not \"bounced\" off surfaces (where the \"ray tracing\" indicates that it is tracing out the lights path including bounces). \"Ray casting\" implies that the light ray is following a straight path (which may include traveling through semi-transparent objects). The ray cast is a vector that can originate from the camera or from the scene endpoint (\"back to front\", or \"front to back\"). Sometimes the final light value is derived from a \"transfer function\" and sometimes it's used directly.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Rough simulations of optical properties may be additionally employed: a simple calculation of the ray from the object to the point of view is made. Another calculation is made of the angle of incidence of light rays from the light source(s), and from these as well as the specified intensities of the light sources, the value of the pixel is calculated. Another simulation uses illumination plotted from a radiosity algorithm, or a combination of these two.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Ray tracing aims to simulate the natural flow of light, interpreted as particles. Often, ray tracing methods are utilized to approximate the solution to the rendering equation by applying Monte Carlo methods to it. Some of the most used methods are path tracing, bidirectional path tracing, or Metropolis light transport, but also semi realistic methods are in use, like Whitted Style Ray Tracing, or hybrids. While most implementations let light propagate on straight lines, applications exist to simulate relativistic spacetime effects.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In a final, production quality rendering of a ray traced work, multiple rays are generally shot for each pixel, and traced not just to the first object of intersection, but rather, through a number of sequential 'bounces', using the known laws of optics such as \"angle of incidence equals angle of reflection\" and more advanced laws that deal with refraction and surface roughness.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Once the ray either encounters a light source, or more probably once a set limiting number of bounces has been evaluated, then the surface illumination at that final point is evaluated using techniques described above, and the changes along the way through the various bounces evaluated to estimate a value observed at the point of view. This is all repeated for each sample, for each pixel.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In distribution ray tracing, at each point of intersection, multiple rays may be spawned. In path tracing, however, only a single ray or none is fired at each intersection, utilizing the statistical nature of Monte Carlo experiments.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "As a brute-force method, ray tracing has been too slow to consider for real-time, and until recently too slow even to consider for short films of any degree of quality, although it has been used for special effects sequences, and in advertising, where a short portion of high quality (perhaps even photorealistic) footage is required.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "However, efforts at optimizing to reduce the number of calculations needed in portions of a work where detail is not high or does not depend on ray tracing features have led to a realistic possibility of wider use of ray tracing. There is now some hardware accelerated ray tracing equipment, at least in prototype phase, and some game demos which show use of real-time software or hardware ray tracing.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Neural rendering is a rendering method using artificial neural networks. Neural rendering includes image-based rendering methods that are used to reconstruct 3D models from 2-dimensional images.One of these methods are photogrammetry, which is a method in which a collection of images from multiple angles of an object are turned into a 3D model. There have also been recent developments in generating and rendering 3D models from text and coarse paintings by notably Nvidia, Google and various other companies.",
"title": "Techniques"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Radiosity is a method which attempts to simulate the way in which directly illuminated surfaces act as indirect light sources that illuminate other surfaces. This produces more realistic shading and seems to better capture the 'ambience' of an indoor scene. A classic example is a way that shadows 'hug' the corners of rooms.",
"title": "Radiosity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The optical basis of the simulation is that some diffused light from a given point on a given surface is reflected in a large spectrum of directions and illuminates the area around it.",
"title": "Radiosity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The simulation technique may vary in complexity. Many renderings have a very rough estimate of radiosity, simply illuminating an entire scene very slightly with a factor known as ambiance. However, when advanced radiosity estimation is coupled with a high quality ray tracing algorithm, images may exhibit convincing realism, particularly for indoor scenes.",
"title": "Radiosity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In advanced radiosity simulation, recursive, finite-element algorithms 'bounce' light back and forth between surfaces in the model, until some recursion limit is reached. The colouring of one surface in this way influences the colouring of a neighbouring surface, and vice versa. The resulting values of illumination throughout the model (sometimes including for empty spaces) are stored and used as additional inputs when performing calculations in a ray-casting or ray-tracing model.",
"title": "Radiosity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Due to the iterative/recursive nature of the technique, complex objects are particularly slow to emulate. Prior to the standardization of rapid radiosity calculation, some digital artists used a technique referred to loosely as false radiosity by darkening areas of texture maps corresponding to corners, joints and recesses, and applying them via self-illumination or diffuse mapping for scanline rendering. Even now, advanced radiosity calculations may be reserved for calculating the ambiance of the room, from the light reflecting off walls, floor and ceiling, without examining the contribution that complex objects make to the radiosity – or complex objects may be replaced in the radiosity calculation with simpler objects of similar size and texture.",
"title": "Radiosity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Radiosity calculations are viewpoint independent which increases the computations involved, but makes them useful for all viewpoints. If there is little rearrangement of radiosity objects in the scene, the same radiosity data may be reused for a number of frames, making radiosity an effective way to improve on the flatness of ray casting, without seriously impacting the overall rendering time-per-frame.",
"title": "Radiosity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Because of this, radiosity is a prime component of leading real-time rendering methods, and has been used from beginning-to-end to create a large number of well-known recent feature-length animated 3D-cartoon films.",
"title": "Radiosity"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "One problem that any rendering system must deal with, no matter which approach it takes, is the sampling problem. Essentially, the rendering process tries to depict a continuous function from image space to colors by using a finite number of pixels. As a consequence of the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem (or Kotelnikov theorem), any spatial waveform that can be displayed must consist of at least two pixels, which is proportional to image resolution. In simpler terms, this expresses the idea that an image cannot display details, peaks or troughs in color or intensity, that are smaller than one pixel.",
"title": "Sampling and filtering"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "If a naive rendering algorithm is used without any filtering, high frequencies in the image function will cause ugly aliasing to be present in the final image. Aliasing typically manifests itself as jaggies, or jagged edges on objects where the pixel grid is visible. In order to remove aliasing, all rendering algorithms (if they are to produce good-looking images) must use some kind of low-pass filter on the image function to remove high frequencies, a process called antialiasing.",
"title": "Sampling and filtering"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Due to the large number of calculations, a work in progress is usually only rendered in detail appropriate to the portion of the work being developed at a given time, so in the initial stages of modeling, wireframe and ray casting may be used, even where the target output is ray tracing with radiosity. It is also common to render only parts of the scene at high detail, and to remove objects that are not important to what is currently being developed.",
"title": "Optimization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "For real-time, it is appropriate to simplify one or more common approximations, and tune to the exact parameters of the scenery in question, which is also tuned to the agreed parameters to get the most 'bang for the buck'.",
"title": "Optimization"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The implementation of a realistic renderer always has some basic element of physical simulation or emulation – some computation which resembles or abstracts a real physical process.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The term \"physically based\" indicates the use of physical models and approximations that are more general and widely accepted outside rendering. A particular set of related techniques have gradually become established in the rendering community.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The basic concepts are moderately straightforward, but intractable to calculate; and a single elegant algorithm or approach has been elusive for more general purpose renderers. In order to meet demands of robustness, accuracy and practicality, an implementation will be a complex combination of different techniques.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Rendering research is concerned with both the adaptation of scientific models and their efficient application.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "This is the key academic/theoretical concept in rendering. It serves as the most abstract formal expression of the non-perceptual aspect of rendering. All more complete algorithms can be seen as solutions to particular formulations of this equation.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Meaning: at a particular position and direction, the outgoing light (Lo) is the sum of the emitted light (Le) and the reflected light. The reflected light being the sum of the incoming light (Li) from all directions, multiplied by the surface reflection and incoming angle. By connecting outward light to inward light, via an interaction point, this equation stands for the whole 'light transport' – all the movement of light – in a scene.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) expresses a simple model of light interaction with a surface as follows:",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Light interaction is often approximated by the even simpler models: diffuse reflection and specular reflection, although both can ALSO be BRDFs.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Rendering is practically exclusively concerned with the particle aspect of light physics – known as geometrical optics. Treating light, at its basic level, as particles bouncing around is a simplification, but appropriate: the wave aspects of light are negligible in most scenes, and are significantly more difficult to simulate. Notable wave aspect phenomena include diffraction (as seen in the colours of CDs and DVDs) and polarisation (as seen in LCDs). Both types of effect, if needed, are made by appearance-oriented adjustment of the reflection model.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Though it receives less attention, an understanding of human visual perception is valuable to rendering. This is mainly because image displays and human perception have restricted ranges. A renderer can simulate a wide range of light brightness and color, but current displays – movie screen, computer monitor, etc. – cannot handle so much, and something must be discarded or compressed. Human perception also has limits, and so does not need to be given large-range images to create realism. This can help solve the problem of fitting images into displays, and, furthermore, suggest what short-cuts could be used in the rendering simulation, since certain subtleties will not be noticeable. This related subject is tone mapping.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Mathematics used in rendering includes: linear algebra, calculus, numerical mathematics, signal processing, and Monte Carlo methods.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Rendering for movies often takes place on a network of tightly connected computers known as a render farm.",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "The current state of the art in 3-D image description for movie creation is the Mental Ray scene description language designed at Mental Images and RenderMan Shading Language designed at Pixar (compare with simpler 3D fileformats such as VRML or APIs such as OpenGL and DirectX tailored for 3D hardware accelerators).",
"title": "Academic core"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Other renderers (including proprietary ones) can and are sometimes used, but most other renderers tend to miss one or more of the often needed features like good texture filtering, texture caching, programmable shaders, highend geometry types like hair, subdivision or nurbs surfaces with tesselation on demand, geometry caching, raytracing with geometry caching, high quality shadow mapping, speed or patent-free implementations. Other highly sought features these days may include interactive photorealistic rendering (IPR) and hardware rendering/shading.",
"title": "Academic core"
}
] | Rendering or image synthesis is the process of generating a photorealistic or non-photorealistic image from a 2D or 3D model by means of a computer program. The resulting image is referred to as the render. Multiple models can be defined in a scene file containing objects in a strictly defined language or data structure. The scene file contains geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information describing the virtual scene. The data contained in the scene file is then passed to a rendering program to be processed and output to a digital image or raster graphics image file. The term "rendering" is analogous to the concept of an artist's impression of a scene. The term "rendering" is also used to describe the process of calculating effects in a video editing program to produce the final video output. Rendering is one of the major sub-topics of 3D computer graphics, and in practice it is always connected to the others. It is the last major step in the graphics pipeline, giving models and animation their final appearance. With the increasing sophistication of computer graphics since the 1970s, it has become a more distinct subject. Rendering has uses in architecture, video games, simulators, movie and TV visual effects, and design visualization, each employing a different balance of features and techniques. A wide variety of renderers are available for use. Some are integrated into larger modeling and animation packages, some are stand-alone, and some are free open-source projects. On the inside, a renderer is a carefully engineered program based on multiple disciplines, including light physics, visual perception, mathematics, and software development. Though the technical details of rendering methods vary, the general challenges to overcome in producing a 2D image on a screen from a 3D representation stored in a scene file are handled by the graphics pipeline in a rendering device such as a GPU. A GPU is a purpose-built device that assists a CPU in performing complex rendering calculations. If a scene is to look relatively realistic and predictable under virtual lighting, the rendering software must solve the rendering equation. The rendering equation does not account for all lighting phenomena, but instead acts as a general lighting model for computer-generated imagery. In the case of 3D graphics, scenes can be pre-rendered or generated in realtime. Pre-rendering is a slow, computationally intensive process that is typically used for movie creation, where scenes can be generated ahead of time, while real-time rendering is often done for 3D video games and other applications that must dynamically create scenes. 3D hardware accelerators can improve realtime rendering performance. | 2001-09-29T15:55:57Z | 2023-11-17T12:02:00Z | [
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6,606 | Cartridge | Cartridge may refer to: | [
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] | Cartridge may refer to: | 2023-07-15T14:59:26Z | [
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|
6,607 | Chaosium | Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include Call of Cthulhu, based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft, RuneQuest Glorantha, Pendragon, based on Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and 7th Sea, "swashbuckling and sorcery" set in a fantasy 17th century Europe.
Many of Chaosium’s product lines are based upon literary sources. While Stafford himself has been described as "one of the most decorated game designers of all time" and "the grand shaman of gaming", multiple other notable game designers have written for Chaosium. These include David Conyers, Matthew Costello, Larry DiTillio, Paul Fricker, David A. Hargrave, Rob Heinsoo, Keith Herber, Jennell Jaquays, Katharine Kerr, Reiner Knizia, Charlie Krank, Robin Laws, Penelope Love, Mark Morrison, Steve Perrin, Sandy Petersen, Ken Rolston, Ken St. Andre, Jonathan Tweet, John Wick, and Lynn Willis, among others.
Greg Stafford founded "The Chaosium" in 1975, deriving the name partly from his home, which was near the Oakland Coliseum, combining "coliseum" with "chaos". His purpose was to publish his first board game White Bear and Red Moon (later renamed Dragon Pass), a board game set in his fantasy world of Glorantha.
In 1978, Chaosium published Steve Perrin's roleplaying game RuneQuest, also set in Glorantha, following up with a second edition in 1980 and various supplements over the next six years.
In 1980, the company officially incorporated as Chaosium Inc. That year, Stafford and Lynn Willis simplified the RuneQuest rules into the 16-page Basic Role-Playing (BRP). These simulationist, skill-based generic rules formed the basis of many of Chaosium's later "d100" RPGs, most notably Call of Cthulhu, first published in 1982.
Chaosium entered into a licensing agreement with Avalon Hill in 1983 to produce a third edition of RuneQuest. Avalon Hill manufactured and marketed the game, while Chaosium was responsible for acquisitions, design, development, and layout. Ken Rolston managed the line as "Rune Czar".
One of the first RPGs by a female lead designer was published by Chaosium: Kerie Campbell-Robson's 1986 release Hawkmoon. 1986 also saw the release of Ghostbusters with West End Games. Designed by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Greg Stafford, it was the first RPG to use the dice pool mechanic. West End would also use the system as the basis of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game and, eventually, the D6 System.
In 1996, it was prematurely reported that Chaosium had secured the rights to publish a collectible card game based on the video game Doom.
In 1998, following the financial failure of the collectible card game Mythos, Greg Stafford resigned as Chaosium president and left the company, along with Sandy Petersen (although they both remained shareholders). Chaosium effectively split up into various successor companies, each maintaining its focus on a few of the company's products. Stafford took the rights to his game setting Glorantha, setting up the company Issaries, Inc. to continue publishing this line (later licensing it to Moon Design Publications, along with the game HeroQuest).
Long-time employees and part-owners Charlie Krank and Lynn Willis remained at Chaosium as President and Editor-in-Chief respectively, continuing on with Call of Cthulhu as the main product line. Lynn Willis retired in 2008 due to poor health and died in 2013.
Problems and delays fulfilling the Kickstarters for the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu led Stafford and Petersen to return to active roles at Chaosium in June 2015. Charlie Krank subsequently left the company.
Later that year at Gen Con 2015, Stafford and Petersen announced Moon Design Publications were now part of the Chaosium ownership, and the four principals of Moon Design (Rick Meints, Jeff Richard, Michael O'Brien, and Neil Robinson) had become the new Chaosium management team. Chaosium once again became the licensed publisher for RuneQuest, HeroQuest, and other products related to Glorantha and continued to publish the Call of Cthulhu line. Stafford served as chair of the company board and creative consultant until his death in October 2018. Since retiring from the board in 2019, Petersen has done occasional freelance work for the company, as did original RuneQuest creator Steve Perrin until his death in 2021.
As part of its financial reorganization, the new management closed the company office and warehouse in Hayward, California, ending Chaosium's long association with the San Francisco Bay Area. The company is now based in Ann Arbor, Michigan and uses a fulfillment house model for distribution of product.
Delivery of the core rewards of the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Kickstarter finally commenced in April 2016. The new edition went on to win nine of the ten awards it was nominated for at the Gen Con 2017 ENnie Awards.
After the consolidation and reorganization of the mid-decade, the company was again poised to expand its offerings through a combination of acquisitions, new licenses, and distribution deals.
Greg Stafford's King Arthur Pendragon and Prince Valiant roleplaying games returned to Chaosium ownership on December 11, 2018.
On April 2, 2019, Chaosium acquired the rights to the 7th Sea product line (both Second Edition and Khitai Kickstarters) from John Wick, including back stock of books published so far.
On November 30, 2019, Chaosium acquired the rights to produce a role-playing game based on Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London urban fantasy novels.
In the spring of 2020, Chaosium took over distribution of the English translations of Spanish fantasy game Aquelarre and French Ice Age roleplaying game Würm, both of which had been successfully kickstarted by Nocturnal Media. In February 2021, they added Upwind, an original game kickstarted by Nocturnal Media and Biohazard Games, to that list.
On August 20, 2021, Chaosium acquired the rights to Cthulhu Britannica and World War Cthulhu, formerly produced under license by Cubicle 7 until 2017.
On October 26, 2021, Moon Design Publishing announced it was forming a partnership with Black Monk Games of Poland and a new company, The Chaosium Group, was being formed to manage both.
Chaosium began publishing a line of non-game books (primarily fiction) in 1993. Many titles are themed around H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and related topics, although the first work published was Greg Stafford's fantasy work King of Sartar, set in his mythic world Glorantha.
Cassilda's Song, a 2015 anthology based on Robert W. Chambers's King in Yellow and written entirely by women, was nominated for two 2016 World Fantasy Awards.
In May, 2017, Chaosium appointed award-winning author and editor James Lowder as executive editor of fiction. Lowder had previously served as a consultant for Chaosium, helping the company and freelancers resolve payment and contract problems with past fiction projects.
Although not published by Chaosium, the ongoing Wild Cards series of superhero science fiction originated from a long-running Superworld campaign gamemastered by Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin and his circle of fellow writers who played in his game.
Three magazines have been published by Chaosium to promote its products:
Chaosium won the 2017 Silver Ennie Award for "Fan’s Choice for Best Publisher".
Chaosium is part of the Bits and Mortar alliance. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include Call of Cthulhu, based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft, RuneQuest Glorantha, Pendragon, based on Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and 7th Sea, \"swashbuckling and sorcery\" set in a fantasy 17th century Europe.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Many of Chaosium’s product lines are based upon literary sources. While Stafford himself has been described as \"one of the most decorated game designers of all time\" and \"the grand shaman of gaming\", multiple other notable game designers have written for Chaosium. These include David Conyers, Matthew Costello, Larry DiTillio, Paul Fricker, David A. Hargrave, Rob Heinsoo, Keith Herber, Jennell Jaquays, Katharine Kerr, Reiner Knizia, Charlie Krank, Robin Laws, Penelope Love, Mark Morrison, Steve Perrin, Sandy Petersen, Ken Rolston, Ken St. Andre, Jonathan Tweet, John Wick, and Lynn Willis, among others.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Greg Stafford founded \"The Chaosium\" in 1975, deriving the name partly from his home, which was near the Oakland Coliseum, combining \"coliseum\" with \"chaos\". His purpose was to publish his first board game White Bear and Red Moon (later renamed Dragon Pass), a board game set in his fantasy world of Glorantha.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In 1978, Chaosium published Steve Perrin's roleplaying game RuneQuest, also set in Glorantha, following up with a second edition in 1980 and various supplements over the next six years.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1980, the company officially incorporated as Chaosium Inc. That year, Stafford and Lynn Willis simplified the RuneQuest rules into the 16-page Basic Role-Playing (BRP). These simulationist, skill-based generic rules formed the basis of many of Chaosium's later \"d100\" RPGs, most notably Call of Cthulhu, first published in 1982.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Chaosium entered into a licensing agreement with Avalon Hill in 1983 to produce a third edition of RuneQuest. Avalon Hill manufactured and marketed the game, while Chaosium was responsible for acquisitions, design, development, and layout. Ken Rolston managed the line as \"Rune Czar\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "One of the first RPGs by a female lead designer was published by Chaosium: Kerie Campbell-Robson's 1986 release Hawkmoon. 1986 also saw the release of Ghostbusters with West End Games. Designed by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Greg Stafford, it was the first RPG to use the dice pool mechanic. West End would also use the system as the basis of Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game and, eventually, the D6 System.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1996, it was prematurely reported that Chaosium had secured the rights to publish a collectible card game based on the video game Doom.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 1998, following the financial failure of the collectible card game Mythos, Greg Stafford resigned as Chaosium president and left the company, along with Sandy Petersen (although they both remained shareholders). Chaosium effectively split up into various successor companies, each maintaining its focus on a few of the company's products. Stafford took the rights to his game setting Glorantha, setting up the company Issaries, Inc. to continue publishing this line (later licensing it to Moon Design Publications, along with the game HeroQuest).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Long-time employees and part-owners Charlie Krank and Lynn Willis remained at Chaosium as President and Editor-in-Chief respectively, continuing on with Call of Cthulhu as the main product line. Lynn Willis retired in 2008 due to poor health and died in 2013.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Problems and delays fulfilling the Kickstarters for the 7th edition of Call of Cthulhu led Stafford and Petersen to return to active roles at Chaosium in June 2015. Charlie Krank subsequently left the company.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Later that year at Gen Con 2015, Stafford and Petersen announced Moon Design Publications were now part of the Chaosium ownership, and the four principals of Moon Design (Rick Meints, Jeff Richard, Michael O'Brien, and Neil Robinson) had become the new Chaosium management team. Chaosium once again became the licensed publisher for RuneQuest, HeroQuest, and other products related to Glorantha and continued to publish the Call of Cthulhu line. Stafford served as chair of the company board and creative consultant until his death in October 2018. Since retiring from the board in 2019, Petersen has done occasional freelance work for the company, as did original RuneQuest creator Steve Perrin until his death in 2021.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "As part of its financial reorganization, the new management closed the company office and warehouse in Hayward, California, ending Chaosium's long association with the San Francisco Bay Area. The company is now based in Ann Arbor, Michigan and uses a fulfillment house model for distribution of product.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Delivery of the core rewards of the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Kickstarter finally commenced in April 2016. The new edition went on to win nine of the ten awards it was nominated for at the Gen Con 2017 ENnie Awards.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After the consolidation and reorganization of the mid-decade, the company was again poised to expand its offerings through a combination of acquisitions, new licenses, and distribution deals.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Greg Stafford's King Arthur Pendragon and Prince Valiant roleplaying games returned to Chaosium ownership on December 11, 2018.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "On April 2, 2019, Chaosium acquired the rights to the 7th Sea product line (both Second Edition and Khitai Kickstarters) from John Wick, including back stock of books published so far.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "On November 30, 2019, Chaosium acquired the rights to produce a role-playing game based on Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London urban fantasy novels.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the spring of 2020, Chaosium took over distribution of the English translations of Spanish fantasy game Aquelarre and French Ice Age roleplaying game Würm, both of which had been successfully kickstarted by Nocturnal Media. In February 2021, they added Upwind, an original game kickstarted by Nocturnal Media and Biohazard Games, to that list.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "On August 20, 2021, Chaosium acquired the rights to Cthulhu Britannica and World War Cthulhu, formerly produced under license by Cubicle 7 until 2017.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "On October 26, 2021, Moon Design Publishing announced it was forming a partnership with Black Monk Games of Poland and a new company, The Chaosium Group, was being formed to manage both.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Chaosium began publishing a line of non-game books (primarily fiction) in 1993. Many titles are themed around H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and related topics, although the first work published was Greg Stafford's fantasy work King of Sartar, set in his mythic world Glorantha.",
"title": "Fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Cassilda's Song, a 2015 anthology based on Robert W. Chambers's King in Yellow and written entirely by women, was nominated for two 2016 World Fantasy Awards.",
"title": "Fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In May, 2017, Chaosium appointed award-winning author and editor James Lowder as executive editor of fiction. Lowder had previously served as a consultant for Chaosium, helping the company and freelancers resolve payment and contract problems with past fiction projects.",
"title": "Fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Although not published by Chaosium, the ongoing Wild Cards series of superhero science fiction originated from a long-running Superworld campaign gamemastered by Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin and his circle of fellow writers who played in his game.",
"title": "Fiction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Three magazines have been published by Chaosium to promote its products:",
"title": "Magazines"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Chaosium won the 2017 Silver Ennie Award for \"Fan’s Choice for Best Publisher\".",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Chaosium is part of the Bits and Mortar alliance.",
"title": "See also"
}
] | Chaosium Inc. is a publisher of tabletop role-playing games established by Greg Stafford in 1975. Chaosium's major titles include Call of Cthulhu, based on the horror fiction stories of H. P. Lovecraft, RuneQuest Glorantha, Pendragon, based on Thomas Mallory's Le Morte d'Arthur, and 7th Sea, "swashbuckling and sorcery" set in a fantasy 17th century Europe. Many of Chaosium’s product lines are based upon literary sources. While Stafford himself has been described as "one of the most decorated game designers of all time" and "the grand shaman of gaming", multiple other notable game designers have written for Chaosium. These include David Conyers, Matthew Costello, Larry DiTillio, Paul Fricker, David A. Hargrave, Rob Heinsoo, Keith Herber, Jennell Jaquays, Katharine Kerr, Reiner Knizia, Charlie Krank, Robin Laws, Penelope Love, Mark Morrison, Steve Perrin, Sandy Petersen, Ken Rolston, Ken St. Andre, Jonathan Tweet, John Wick, and Lynn Willis, among others. | 2001-11-10T05:11:09Z | 2023-12-30T14:46:48Z | [
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6,610 | Carolina Panthers | The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The team is headquartered in Bank of America Stadium in Uptown Charlotte; which also serves as the team's home field. The Panthers are supported throughout the Carolinas; although the team has played its home games in Charlotte since 1996, it played its home games at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina during its first season in 1995.
The Panthers were announced as the league's 29th franchise in 1993 and began playing in 1995 under the original owner and founder Jerry Richardson. The Panthers played well in their first two years, finishing 7–9 in 1995 (an all-time best for an NFL expansion team's first season) and 12–4 the following year, winning the NFC West before ultimately losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game. They did not have another winning season until 2003 when they won the NFC Championship Game and reached Super Bowl XXXVIII, losing 32–29 to the New England Patriots. After recording playoff appearances in 2005 and 2008, the team failed to record another playoff appearance until 2013, the first of three consecutive NFC South titles. After losing in the divisional round to the San Francisco 49ers in 2013 and the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Panthers returned to the Super Bowl in 2015 but lost to the Denver Broncos. Since then, the team has appeared in the playoffs only once, in 2017. The team's five NFC South titles since the division's establishment in 2002 rank second only to the New Orleans Saints.
As of 2022, the Carolina Panthers remain the newest club in the NFC, excluding the Seahawks who were founded in 1976 but moved to the NFC in 2002. The franchise is legally registered as Panther Football, LLC. and are controlled by David Tepper, whose purchase of the team from founder Jerry Richardson was unanimously approved by league owners on May 22, 2018. The club, which Forbes valued at approximately US$2.3 billion in 2018, is estimated at $4.1 billion by it in 2023.
On December 15, 1987, entrepreneur Jerry Richardson announced his bid for an NFL expansion franchise in the Carolinas. A North Carolina native, Richardson was a former wide receiver on the Baltimore Colts who had used his 1959 league championship bonus to co-franchise the first Hardee's restaurant in Spartanburg, SC, eventually expanding to a chain of franchises as co-founder of Spartan Food Systems before becoming president and CEO of Flagstar. Richardson drew his inspiration to pursue an NFL franchise from George Shinn, who had made a successful bid for an expansion National Basketball Association (NBA) team in Charlotte, the Charlotte Hornets. Richardson founded Richardson Sports, a partnership consisting of himself, his family, and a number of businessmen from North and South Carolina who were also recruited to be limited partners. Richardson looked at four potential locations for a stadium, ultimately choosing uptown Charlotte.
To highlight the demand for professional football in the Carolinas, Richardson Sports held preseason games around the area from 1989 to 1991. The first two games were held at Carter–Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, while the third and final game was held at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina. The matchups were between existing NFL teams. In 1991, the group formally filed an application for the open expansion spot, and on October 26, 1993, the 28 NFL owners unanimously named the Carolina Panthers as the 29th member of the NFL.
The Panthers first competed in the 1995 NFL season; they were one of two expansion teams to begin playing that year, the other being the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Panthers were put in the NFC West to increase the size of that division to five teams; there were already two other southeastern teams in the division, the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints. Former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dom Capers was named the first head coach. The team finished its inaugural season 7–9, the best performance ever from a first-year expansion team. They performed even better in their second season, finishing with a 12–4 record and winning the NFC West division, as well as securing a first-round bye. The Panthers beat the defending Super Bowl champions Dallas Cowboys in the divisional round before losing the NFC Championship Game to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Green Bay Packers. The team managed only a 7–9 finish in 1997 and slipped to 4–12 in 1998, leading to Capers' dismissal as head coach.
The Panthers hired former San Francisco 49ers head coach George Seifert to replace Capers, and he led the team to an 8–8 record in 1999. The team finished 7–9 in 2000 and fell to 1–15 in 2001, winning their first game but losing their last 15. This performance tied the NFL record for most losses in a single season, and it broke the record held by the winless 1976 Buccaneers for most consecutive losses in a single season (both records have since been broken by the 2008 Lions), leading the Panthers to fire Seifert.
After the NFL's expansion to 32 teams in 2002, the Panthers were relocated from the NFC West to the newly created NFC South division. The Panthers' rivalries with the Falcons and Saints were maintained, and they would be joined by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. New York Giants defensive coordinator John Fox was hired to replace Seifert and led the team to a 7–9 finish in 2002. Although the team's defense gave up very few yards, ranking the second-best in the NFL in yards conceded, they were hindered by an offense that ranked as the second-worst in the league in yards gained.
The Panthers improved to 11–5 in the 2003 regular season, winning the NFC South and making it to Super Bowl XXXVIII before losing to the New England Patriots, 32–29, in what was immediately hailed by sportswriter Peter King as the "Greatest Super Bowl of all time". King felt the game "was a wonderful championship battle, full of everything that makes football dramatic, draining, enervating, maddening, fantastic, exciting" and praised, among other things, the unpredictability, coaching, and conclusion. The game is still viewed as one of the best Super Bowls of all time, and in the opinion of Charlotte-based NPR reporter Scott Jagow, the Panthers' Super Bowl appearance represented the arrival of Charlotte onto the national scene.
Following a 1–7 start in 2004, the Panthers rebounded to win six of their last seven games despite losing 14 players for the season due to injury. They lost their last game to New Orleans, finishing the 2004 season at 7–9. Had they won the game, the Panthers would have made the playoffs. The team improved to 11–5 in 2005, finishing second in the division behind Tampa Bay and clinching a playoff berth as a wild-card. In the first round of the playoffs, the Panthers went on the road to face the New York Giants, beating them 23–0 for the NFL's first playoff shutout against a home team since 1980. The following week, they beat Chicago 29–21 on the road, but lost key players Julius Peppers, a defensive end, and DeShaun Foster, a running back, who were both injured during the game. The Panthers were then defeated 34–14 by the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game, ending their season. Although the Panthers went into the 2006 season as favorites to win the NFC South and the free agent signing of Keyshawn Johnson, they finished with a disappointing 8–8 record. The team finished the 2007 season with a 7–9 record after losing quarterback Jake Delhomme early in the season due to an elbow injury.
In 2008, the Panthers rebounded with a 12–4 regular season record, winning the NFC South and securing a first-round bye. They were eliminated in the divisional round of the playoffs, losing 33–13 to the eventual NFC Champion Arizona Cardinals after Delhomme turned the ball over six times. Delhomme's struggles carried over into the 2009 season, where he threw 18 interceptions in the first 11 games before breaking a finger in his throwing hand. The Panthers were at a 4–7 record before Delhomme's season-ending injury, and his backup, Matt Moore, led the team to a 4–1 finish to the season for an 8–8 overall record. In 2010, after releasing Delhomme in the offseason, the Panthers finished with a league-worst (2–14) record; their offense was the worst in the league. John Fox's contract expired after the season ended, and the team did not retain him or his staff.
The team hired Ron Rivera to replace Fox as head coach and drafted Auburn's Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton with the first overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. The Panthers opened the 2011 season 2–6, but finished with a 6–10 record, and Newton was awarded the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award after setting the NFL record for most rushing touchdowns from a quarterback (14) in a single season and becoming the first rookie NFL quarterback to throw for over 4,000 yards in a single season. He also was the first rookie quarterback to rush for over 500 yards in a single season. After strengthening the defense with future all-pro Luke Kuechly in the 2012 draft, the Panthers again opened the 2012 season poorly, losing five out of their first six games, leading longtime general manager Marty Hurney to be fired in response. The team slid to a 2–8 record before winning five of their last six games, resulting in a 7–9 record. This strong finish helped save Rivera's job. The Panthers had a winning season the following year, finishing with a 12–4 record and winning their third NFC South title and another playoff bye, but they were beaten by the 49ers in the Divisional Round. In 2014, the Panthers opened the season with two wins, but after 12 games, sat at 3–8–1 due in part to a seven-game winless streak. A four-game winning streak to end the season secured the team their second consecutive NFC South championship and a playoff berth, despite a losing record of 7–8–1. The Panthers defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 27–16, in the wild card round to advance to the divisional playoffs, where they lost to eventual NFC champion Seattle, 31–17. The 2015 season saw the Panthers start the season 14–0 and finish the season 15–1, which tied for the best regular-season record in NFC history. During the same season, Cam Newton was named NFL MVP. The Panthers also secured their third consecutive NFC South championship, as well as their first overall top-seeded playoff berth. In the 2015–16 playoffs, the Panthers defeated the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Divisional playoffs, 31–24, after shutting them out in the first half, 31–0, and the Arizona Cardinals, 49–15, in the NFC Championship Game to advance to Super Bowl 50, their first Super Bowl appearance since the 2003 season. The Panthers lost a defensive struggle to the AFC champion Denver Broncos, 24–10. In the 2016 season, the Panthers regressed on their 15–1 record from 2015, posting a 6–10 record and a last-place finish in the NFC South, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2012, and losing the division title to the second-seeded Falcons, who went on to represent the NFC in Super Bowl LI. In 2017, the Panthers finished with an 11–5 record and a #5 seed. However, they lost to the New Orleans Saints 31–26 in the Wild Card Round, their first loss in that round in franchise history.
On May 16, 2018, David Tepper, formerly a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, finalized an agreement to purchase the Panthers. The sale price was nearly $2.3 billion, a record. The agreement was approved by the league owners on May 22, 2018. The sale officially closed on July 9, 2018. After starting 6–2, the Panthers finished the 2018 season 7–9. They began the 2019 season 5–3 but lost the last eight games to finish 5–11; late in the season, Tepper fired Rivera as head coach. Perry Fewell finished the season as interim coach, going 0–4.
On January 7, 2020, the Panthers hired Baylor head coach Matt Rhule as head coach. On January 15, 2020, Luke Kuechly announced his retirement from the league. On March 17, 2020, The Panthers signed Teddy Bridgewater to a three-year $63 million contract. On March 24, the Carolina Panthers released their 2011 1st overall pick and 2015 MVP quarterback Cam Newton. The Panthers had a difficult 2020 season, losing several close games. They would finish 5–11 for the second straight year.
Following the season, the Panthers traded for Sam Darnold from the New York Jets and shipped Bridgewater to the Denver Broncos. On November 11, 2021, the Panthers signed Cam Newton to a one-year deal after Darnold was put on injured reserve. However, the Panthers' struggles continued; despite winning their first three games of the 2021 season, they finished 5–12 and ended the season on a seven-game losing streak.
After the Panthers began the season with a 1–4 record, Rhule was fired as head coach on October 10, 2022, finishing his tenure with an 11–27 record in two and a half seasons. Steve Wilks was named interim head coach as a result. The Panthers then initiated a rebuild, trading players such as Robbie Anderson and Christian McCaffrey. Steve Wilks would go 6–6 as the interim head coach, as the Panthers would finish the season with a 7–10 record.
On January 26, 2023, former Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich was hired as head coach. Reich was the first starting QB in Panthers history in 1995. In the 2023 NFL Draft, Reich's first as the Panthers Head Coach, the Panthers selected their potential franchise quarterback in Bryce Young with the first overall pick.
On November 27, 2023, Reich was fired after a 1–10 start.
The shape of the Panthers logo was designed to mimic the outline of both North Carolina and South Carolina. The Panthers changed their logo and logotype in 2012, the first such change in team history. According to the team, the changes were designed to give their logo an "aggressive, contemporary look" as well as to give it a more three-dimensional feel. The primary tweaks were made in the eye and mouth, where the features, particularly the muscular brow and fangs, are more pronounced, creating a more menacing look. The revised logo has a darker shade of blue over the black logo, compared to the old design, which had a shade similar to teal on top of black.
By the time they had been announced as the 29th NFL team in October 1993, the Panthers' logo and helmet design had already been finalized, but the uniform design was still under creation. After discussion, the Panthers organization decided on jerseys colored white, black, and blue and pants colored white and silver. The exact tone of blue, which they decided would be "process blue" (a shade lighter than Duke's and darker than North Carolina's), was the most difficult color to choose.
The team's uniform has remained largely the same since its creation, with only minor alterations, such as changing the sock color of the team's black uniforms from blue to black and changing the team's shoes from white to black. Richardson, a self-described traditionalist, said that no major uniform changes would be made in his lifetime.
The Panthers have three main jersey colors: black, white, and blue. Their blue jerseys, designated their alternate uniforms, are the newest and were introduced in 2002. NFL regulations allow the team to use the blue jersey up to two times in any given season. In all other games, the team must wear either their white or black jerseys; in NFL games, the home team decides whether to wear a dark or white jersey, while the away team wears the opposite. Usually the Panthers opt for white or blue when the weather is expected to be hot and for black when the weather is expected to be cold.
The Panthers typically pair their white jerseys with white pants and blue socks, while the black and blue jerseys are paired with silver pants and black socks; there have only been a few exceptions to these combinations. The first such instance was in 1998 when the team paired their white jerseys with silver pants in a game against the Indianapolis Colts. The second instance was in 2012 during a game against the Denver Broncos when they paired their black jerseys with new black pants; this created an all-black uniform, with the exception of blue socks and silver helmets. The decision to wear blue socks was made by team captain Steve Smith, who felt the blue socks gave the uniforms a more distinct appearance compared with other teams that have all-black uniforms. The all-black uniforms won the "Greatest Uniform in NFL History" contest, a fan-voted contest run by NFL.com in July 2013. In July 2013, the team's equipment manager, Jackie Miles, said the Panthers intended to use the all-black uniform more in the future. The Panthers wore the all-black uniform three times the following season, once each in the preseason and regular season, and the third time during the home divisional round playoff game vs the 49ers. During the Panthers' 2015 Thanksgiving Day game against the Dallas Cowboys, they debuted an all-blue uniform as part of Nike's "Color Rush" series.
The 2018 season saw the Panthers debut the following new combinations:
The team's uniform did not change significantly after Nike became the NFL's jersey supplier in 2012, but the collar was altered to honor former Panthers player and coach Sam Mills by featuring the phrase "Keep Pounding". Nike had conceived the idea, and the team supported the concept as a way to expose newer fans to the legacy of Mills, who died of cancer in 2005. Mills had introduced the phrase, which has since become a team slogan, in a speech that he gave to the players and coaches prior to their 2003 playoff game against Dallas; in the speech, Mills compared his fight against cancer with the team's on-field battle, saying "When I found out I had cancer, there were two things I could do – quit or keep pounding. I'm a fighter. I kept pounding. You're fighters, too. Keep pounding!"
In 2019, the Panthers unveiled new uniforms. The new uniforms are Nike's "Vapor Untouchable" and have only minor differences: the tapered strips on the pants are replaced by stripes that extend down to the socks, the reflective shoulder cloth was replaced and the hip logos were also removed. The uniforms keep the same basic look, colors, and numbers as the originals. As the 2019 season was the team's 25th, the Panthers sported a 25th-anniversary patch on their uniforms. In the 2019 season, the Panthers continued to use the new pant-jersey color combinations from 2018 while bringing back the silver pants with their black jerseys.
In Week 9 of the 2021 season, the Panthers wore black jerseys with white pants for the first time in a home game against the Patriots. Then in Week 17 against the Saints, the Panthers wore an all-white set (white jerseys, white pants, and white socks) for the first time.
Starting in 2022, the Panthers added an alternate black helmet to be paired with the all-black uniform set. In Week 7 against the Buccaneers, the Panthers added a new combination featuring white jerseys, black pants, and white socks.
In 2023, the Panthers unveiled slightly updated uniforms. The blue was now a closer shade to the team's "process blue" color and the shoulder stripes became straighter and did not extended all the way around the shoulder.
The Panthers played their first season at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina, as their facility in uptown Charlotte was still under construction. Ericsson Stadium, called Bank of America Stadium since 2004, opened in the summer of 1996. The stadium was specially designed by HOK Sports Facilities Group for football and also serves as the headquarters and administrative offices of the Panthers. On some days, the stadium offers public tours for a fee. Private tours for groups are offered for a fee seven days a week, though there are some exceptions, and such tours must be arranged in advance.
Two bronze panther statues flank each of the stadium's three main entrances; they are the largest sculptures ever commissioned in the United States. The names of the team's original PSL owners are engraved on the base of each statue. The first two people in the Panthers Hall of Honor, team executive Mike McCormack and linebacker Sam Mills, are honored with life-sized bronze statues outside the stadium. Mills, in addition to being the only player in the Hall of Honor for over 20 years, is the only player to have had his jersey number (#51) retired by the Panthers as of 2016.
The Panthers have three open-air fields next to Bank of America Stadium where they currently hold their practices; during the 1995 season, when the team played their home games in South Carolina, the team held their practices at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Because the practice fields, along with the stadium, are located in uptown Charlotte, the fields are directly visible from skyscrapers as well as from a four-story condominium located across the street. According to Mike Cranston, a running joke said that the Panthers' division rivals had pooled their resources to purchase a room on the building's top floor and that a fire at the condominium was caused by the Panthers organization. In order to prevent people from seeing inside the field while the team is practicing, the team has added "strategically planted trees and a tarp over the ... fence surrounding the fields". Additionally, they employ a security team to watch for and chase away any people who stop alongside the fence surrounding the field. In the event of bad weather, the team moves their practices to an indoor sports facility about 10 miles (16 km) from the stadium. The team does not own this facility. The Panthers have hosted their annual training camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, since 1995.
The Panthers were planning on building a $1 billion team headquarters and training facility on a 240-acre (0.97 km) in Rock Hill, South Carolina, nicknamed "The Rock". After six months of discussions and state approval of $115 million in incentives, the formal announcement of the team's plan for a new practice facility came on June 5, 2019. Rock Hill mayor John Gettys described the project at that time as the biggest in the city's history. Groundbreaking took place in July 2019, and it was expected to be completed by summer 2023. The agreement with Rock Hill, however, ended up being terminated on April 19, 2022, with owner David Tepper filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The Panthers are supported in both North Carolina and South Carolina; South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley declared July 30, 2012, "Carolina Panthers Day" in her state, saying that "when it comes to professional teams, the Carolina Panthers are the team that South Carolina calls their own". During the 2016 NFC Championship and Super Bowl, the hashtag #OneCarolina was used by college and professional sports teams from North Carolina and South Carolina to show unified support for the Panthers.
Pat Yasinskas of ESPN.com observed in 2012 that while there is "a bit of a wine-and-cheese atmosphere at Panthers games ... there is a strong core of die-hard fans who bring energy to Bank of America Stadium. Charlotte lives and dies with the Panthers because there aren't a lot of other options in the sports world". Sports Illustrated graded the Panthers as having the 10th highest "NFL Fan Value Experience" in 2007, attributing much of the fan atmosphere to the team's newness when compared to the established basketball fanbase. They also observed that the stadium has scattered parking lots, each of which has a different tailgating style. Some have fried chicken, pork, or Carolina-style barbecue, while others have live bands and televisions. Pickup football games in the parking lots are common. The Carolina Panthers have sold out all home games since December 2002, and their home attendance has ranked in the NFL's top ten since 2006.
Sir Purr, an anthropomorphic black panther who wears a jersey numbered '00', has been the Panthers' mascot since their first season. During games, Sir Purr provides sideline entertainment through skits and "silly antics". The mascot participates in a number of community events year-round, including a monthly visit to the patients at Levine Children's Hospital. Sir Purr also hosts the annual Mascot Bowl, an event which pits pro and college mascots against each other during halftime at a selected Panthers home game.
The team's cheerleaders are the Carolina Topcats who lead cheers and entertain fans at home games. The TopCats participate in both corporate and charity events. In March 2022, the Carolina Topcats became the first NFL cheerleading team to have a transgender member, Justine Lindsay. The team's drumline is PurrCussion, an ensemble of snare, tenor, and bass drummers as well as cymbal players. PurrCussion performs for fans outside the stadium and introduces players prior to home games; it consists of drummers from across the Carolinas.
Starting with the 2012 season, the Panthers introduced the Keep Pounding Drum, inspired by the aforementioned motivational speech by Sam Mills before the team's 2004 playoff game against the Cowboys. Prior to each home game, an honorary drummer hits the six-foot-tall drum four times to signify the four quarters of an American football game. According to the team, the drummers "come from a variety of backgrounds and occupations, but all have overcome a great trial or adversity that has not only made them strong but also pushes them to make others around them stronger". Drummers have included current and former Panthers players, military veterans, Make-A-Wish children, and athletes from other sports, including NBA MVP and Charlotte native Stephen Curry, US women's national soccer team players Whitney Engen and Heather O'Reilly, and 7 time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson.
During the inaugural season of the Panthers, the team had an official fight song, which the team played before each home game. The song, "Stand and Cheer", remains the team's official fight song, but the team does not typically play it before home games. Due to negative fan reaction "Stand and Cheer" was pulled in 1999. Since 2006, the song has returned. The team plays Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" after home victories. A "keep pounding" chant was introduced during the 2012 season which starts before the opening kickoff of each home game. As prompted by the video boards, one side of the stadium shouts "keep" and the other side replies with "pounding". The chant is similar to ones that take place at college football games.
The Carolina Panthers support a variety of non-profits in North and South Carolina through the Carolina Panthers Charities. Four annual scholarships are awarded to student athletes through the Carolina Panthers Graduate Scholarship and the Carolina Panthers Players Sam Mills Memorial Scholarship programs. Carolina Panthers Charities also offers grants to non-profits that support education, athletics, and human services in the community. The Panthers and Fisher Athletic have provided six equipment grants to high school football teams in the Carolinas each year since 2010. Carolina Panthers Charities raises funds at three annual benefits: the Countdown to Kickoff Luncheon, the team's first public event each season; Football 101, an educational workshop for fans; and the Weekend Warrior Flag Football Tournament, a two-day non-contact flag football tournament. Another annual benefit is Taste of the Panthers, a gourmet food tasting which raises funds for Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.
In 2003 the Panthers and Carolinas HealthCare Foundation established the Keep Pounding Fund, a fundraising initiative to support cancer research and patient support programs. The Panthers community has raised more than $1.4 million for the fund through direct donations, charity auctions, blood drives, and an annual 5k stadium run. The Panthers and Levine Children's Hospital coordinate monthly hospital visits and VIP game-day experiences for terminally ill or hospitalized children.
In addition to these team-specific efforts, the Panthers participate in a number of regular initiatives promoted by the NFL and USA Football, the league's youth football development partner. These include USA Football Month, held throughout August to encourage and promote youth football; A Crucial Catch, the league's Breast Cancer Awareness Month program; Salute to Service, held throughout November to support military families and personnel; and PLAY 60, which encourages young NFL fans to be active for at least 60 minutes each day.
Radio coverage is provided by flagship station WRFX and through the Carolina Panthers Radio Network, with affiliates throughout the Carolinas and Virginia. The Panthers' radio broadcasting team is led by play-by-play voice Anish Shroff, with Jake Delhomme as color analyst, and WBT sports director Jim Szoke as studio host. The radio network broadcasts pre-game coverage, games with commentary, and post-game wrap-ups. It also live-broadcasts Panther Talk, a weekly event at Bank of America Stadium which offers fans a chance to meet a player and ask questions of the staff.
National broadcasting and cable television networks cover regular-season games, as well as some preseason games. Locally, Fox affiliate WJZY airs most regular-season games, while home games against an AFC team typically air on CBS affiliate WBTV. Any appearances on Monday Night Football are simulcast on ABC affiliate WSOC-TV, while any appearances on Thursday Night Football are simulcast on WSOC. Sunday night and some Thursday night games are aired on NBC affiliate WCNC-TV.
All preseason games and team specials are televised by the Carolina Panthers Television Network on flagship station WSOC-TV in Charlotte and fourteen affiliate stations throughout the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee. WSOC took over as the Panthers' television partner for the 2019 season, replacing longtime television partner WCCB, which had retained this role after losing the Fox affiliation to WJZY in 2013. As of 2021, the preseason television broadcasting team consists of play-by-play commentator Taylor Zarzour, color analyst and former Panthers player Steve Smith, and sideline reporter Kristen Balboni. The network also hosts The Panthers Huddle, a weekly show focusing on the Panthers' upcoming opponent.
The Panthers also offer game broadcasts in Spanish throughout both Carolinas and Mexico, with Jaime Moreno and Toño Ramos providing commentary.
The Panthers have developed heated rivalries with the three fellow members of the NFC South (the Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and New Orleans Saints). The team's fiercest rivals are the Falcons and Buccaneers.
The Falcons are a natural geographic rival for the Panthers, as Atlanta is only 230 miles (370 km) south on I-85. The two teams have played each other twice a year since the Panthers' inception, and games between the two teams feature large numbers of the visiting team's fans.
The Panthers' rivalry with Tampa Bay has been described as the most intense in the NFC South. The rivalry originated in 2002 with the formation of the NFC South, but became particularly heated before the 2003 season with verbal bouts between players on the two teams. It escalated further when the Panthers went to Tampa Bay and beat them in what ESPN.com writer Pat Yasinskas described as "one of the most physical contests in recent memory". The rivalry has resulted in a number of severe injuries for players on both teams, some of which were caused by foul play. One of these plays, an illegal hit on Tampa Bay punt returner Clifton Smith, sparked a brief melee between the teams in 2009.
The Carolina Panthers Hall of Honor was established in 1997 to honor individuals for their contributions to the Carolina Panthers organization.
The Carolina Panthers have retired one number.
Nominees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which "honor[s] individuals who have made outstanding contributions to professional football", are determined by a 46-member selection committee. At least 80% of voters must approve the nominee for him to be inducted.
Jerry Richardson was the founder and first owner of the Carolina Panthers. Richardson and his family owned about 48% of the team, with the remaining 52% owned by a group of 14 limited partners. Richardson and the other investors paid $206 million for the rights to start the team in 1993.
Mike McCormack, a Hall of Fame lineman for the Cleveland Browns and former coach and executive for the Seattle Seahawks, was the Panthers' first team president, presiding in that role from 1994 until his retirement in 1997; McCormack was inducted as the first person in the Carolina Panthers Hall of Honor later that year. Jerry Richardson's son, Mark, was appointed as the team's second president in 1997 and served in that role until he stepped down in 2009. His brother Jon, who had been president of Bank of America Stadium, stepped down at the same time. The resignations of Mark and Jon Richardson were unexpected, as it was thought that the two would eventually take over the team from their father. Mark Richardson was replaced by Danny Morrison, who had previously served as the athletic director of both Texas Christian University and Wofford College, Richardson's alma mater. Morrison resigned in early 2017. The role was vacant until August 2018, when Tom Glick was hired as team president. He had previously served as the COO of Manchester City.
On May 16, 2018, David Tepper, formerly a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, finalized an agreement to purchase the Carolina Panthers, for nearly $2.3 billion, a record at the time. The agreement was approved by the league owners on May 22, 2018. According to Forbes, the Panthers are worth approximately $2.3 billion as of 2018. They ranked the Carolina Panthers as the 21st-most valuable NFL team and the 36th-most valuable sports team in the world.
The Carolina Panthers have had six head coaches. Dom Capers was the head coach from 1995 to 1998 and led the team to one playoff appearance. Counting playoff games, he finished with a record of 31–35 (.470). George Seifert coached the team from 1999 to 2001, recording 16 wins and 32 losses (.333). John Fox, the team's longest-tenured head coach, led the team from 2002 to 2010 and coached the team to three playoff appearances including Super Bowl XXXVIII which the Panthers lost. Including playoff games, Fox ended his tenure with a 78–74 (.513) record, making him the first Panthers coach to finish his tenure with the team with a winning record. Ron Rivera held the position from 2011 to 2019 and led the team to four playoff appearances including Super Bowl 50. Counting playoff games, he has a career record of 79–67–1 (.541). Statistically, Rivera holds the highest winning percentage of any Panthers head coach. On December 3, 2019, following a home loss against the Washington Redskins that sent the team's record to 5–7, Rivera was fired by David Tepper. Perry Fewell, then the defensive backs coach for the team, was named interim head coach the same day. On January 7, 2020, Matt Rhule was hired to be the Panthers head coach. Rhule was fired during his third season, with Steve Wilks taking over on an interim basis. Frank Reich was hired head coach on January 26, 2023. Frank Reich was let go as head coach on November 27, 2023.
Since they began playing football in 1995, the Panthers have been to four NFC Championship Games; they lost two (1996 and 2005) and won two (2003 and 2015). The Panthers have won six division championships: the NFC West championship in 1996 and the NFC South championship in 2003, 2008, 2013, 2014, and 2015. They have finished as runners-up in their division six times, finishing second-place in the NFC West in 1997 and 1999 and finishing second-place in the NFC South in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2012. They have qualified for the playoffs 8 times, most recently in 2017.
Kicker John Kasay is the team's career points leader. Kasay scored 1,482 points during his 16 seasons (1995–2010) with the Panthers. Quarterback Cam Newton is the Panthers' career passing leader; he threw for 29,041 yards over his nine seasons with the team (2011–2020). Running back Jonathan Stewart is the career rushing leader for the Carolina Panthers. Stewart, during his tenure with the team (2008–2018), rushed for 6,868 yards with the Panthers. Wide receiver Steve Smith, the team's leading receiver, recorded 12,197 receiving yards during his 13-year (2001–2013) tenure with the team.
Notes
Footnotes | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The team is headquartered in Bank of America Stadium in Uptown Charlotte; which also serves as the team's home field. The Panthers are supported throughout the Carolinas; although the team has played its home games in Charlotte since 1996, it played its home games at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina during its first season in 1995.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Panthers were announced as the league's 29th franchise in 1993 and began playing in 1995 under the original owner and founder Jerry Richardson. The Panthers played well in their first two years, finishing 7–9 in 1995 (an all-time best for an NFL expansion team's first season) and 12–4 the following year, winning the NFC West before ultimately losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game. They did not have another winning season until 2003 when they won the NFC Championship Game and reached Super Bowl XXXVIII, losing 32–29 to the New England Patriots. After recording playoff appearances in 2005 and 2008, the team failed to record another playoff appearance until 2013, the first of three consecutive NFC South titles. After losing in the divisional round to the San Francisco 49ers in 2013 and the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Panthers returned to the Super Bowl in 2015 but lost to the Denver Broncos. Since then, the team has appeared in the playoffs only once, in 2017. The team's five NFC South titles since the division's establishment in 2002 rank second only to the New Orleans Saints.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "As of 2022, the Carolina Panthers remain the newest club in the NFC, excluding the Seahawks who were founded in 1976 but moved to the NFC in 2002. The franchise is legally registered as Panther Football, LLC. and are controlled by David Tepper, whose purchase of the team from founder Jerry Richardson was unanimously approved by league owners on May 22, 2018. The club, which Forbes valued at approximately US$2.3 billion in 2018, is estimated at $4.1 billion by it in 2023.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "On December 15, 1987, entrepreneur Jerry Richardson announced his bid for an NFL expansion franchise in the Carolinas. A North Carolina native, Richardson was a former wide receiver on the Baltimore Colts who had used his 1959 league championship bonus to co-franchise the first Hardee's restaurant in Spartanburg, SC, eventually expanding to a chain of franchises as co-founder of Spartan Food Systems before becoming president and CEO of Flagstar. Richardson drew his inspiration to pursue an NFL franchise from George Shinn, who had made a successful bid for an expansion National Basketball Association (NBA) team in Charlotte, the Charlotte Hornets. Richardson founded Richardson Sports, a partnership consisting of himself, his family, and a number of businessmen from North and South Carolina who were also recruited to be limited partners. Richardson looked at four potential locations for a stadium, ultimately choosing uptown Charlotte.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "To highlight the demand for professional football in the Carolinas, Richardson Sports held preseason games around the area from 1989 to 1991. The first two games were held at Carter–Finley Stadium in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, while the third and final game was held at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, South Carolina. The matchups were between existing NFL teams. In 1991, the group formally filed an application for the open expansion spot, and on October 26, 1993, the 28 NFL owners unanimously named the Carolina Panthers as the 29th member of the NFL.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The Panthers first competed in the 1995 NFL season; they were one of two expansion teams to begin playing that year, the other being the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Panthers were put in the NFC West to increase the size of that division to five teams; there were already two other southeastern teams in the division, the Atlanta Falcons and the New Orleans Saints. Former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Dom Capers was named the first head coach. The team finished its inaugural season 7–9, the best performance ever from a first-year expansion team. They performed even better in their second season, finishing with a 12–4 record and winning the NFC West division, as well as securing a first-round bye. The Panthers beat the defending Super Bowl champions Dallas Cowboys in the divisional round before losing the NFC Championship Game to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Green Bay Packers. The team managed only a 7–9 finish in 1997 and slipped to 4–12 in 1998, leading to Capers' dismissal as head coach.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The Panthers hired former San Francisco 49ers head coach George Seifert to replace Capers, and he led the team to an 8–8 record in 1999. The team finished 7–9 in 2000 and fell to 1–15 in 2001, winning their first game but losing their last 15. This performance tied the NFL record for most losses in a single season, and it broke the record held by the winless 1976 Buccaneers for most consecutive losses in a single season (both records have since been broken by the 2008 Lions), leading the Panthers to fire Seifert.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "After the NFL's expansion to 32 teams in 2002, the Panthers were relocated from the NFC West to the newly created NFC South division. The Panthers' rivalries with the Falcons and Saints were maintained, and they would be joined by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. New York Giants defensive coordinator John Fox was hired to replace Seifert and led the team to a 7–9 finish in 2002. Although the team's defense gave up very few yards, ranking the second-best in the NFL in yards conceded, they were hindered by an offense that ranked as the second-worst in the league in yards gained.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Panthers improved to 11–5 in the 2003 regular season, winning the NFC South and making it to Super Bowl XXXVIII before losing to the New England Patriots, 32–29, in what was immediately hailed by sportswriter Peter King as the \"Greatest Super Bowl of all time\". King felt the game \"was a wonderful championship battle, full of everything that makes football dramatic, draining, enervating, maddening, fantastic, exciting\" and praised, among other things, the unpredictability, coaching, and conclusion. The game is still viewed as one of the best Super Bowls of all time, and in the opinion of Charlotte-based NPR reporter Scott Jagow, the Panthers' Super Bowl appearance represented the arrival of Charlotte onto the national scene.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Following a 1–7 start in 2004, the Panthers rebounded to win six of their last seven games despite losing 14 players for the season due to injury. They lost their last game to New Orleans, finishing the 2004 season at 7–9. Had they won the game, the Panthers would have made the playoffs. The team improved to 11–5 in 2005, finishing second in the division behind Tampa Bay and clinching a playoff berth as a wild-card. In the first round of the playoffs, the Panthers went on the road to face the New York Giants, beating them 23–0 for the NFL's first playoff shutout against a home team since 1980. The following week, they beat Chicago 29–21 on the road, but lost key players Julius Peppers, a defensive end, and DeShaun Foster, a running back, who were both injured during the game. The Panthers were then defeated 34–14 by the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game, ending their season. Although the Panthers went into the 2006 season as favorites to win the NFC South and the free agent signing of Keyshawn Johnson, they finished with a disappointing 8–8 record. The team finished the 2007 season with a 7–9 record after losing quarterback Jake Delhomme early in the season due to an elbow injury.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 2008, the Panthers rebounded with a 12–4 regular season record, winning the NFC South and securing a first-round bye. They were eliminated in the divisional round of the playoffs, losing 33–13 to the eventual NFC Champion Arizona Cardinals after Delhomme turned the ball over six times. Delhomme's struggles carried over into the 2009 season, where he threw 18 interceptions in the first 11 games before breaking a finger in his throwing hand. The Panthers were at a 4–7 record before Delhomme's season-ending injury, and his backup, Matt Moore, led the team to a 4–1 finish to the season for an 8–8 overall record. In 2010, after releasing Delhomme in the offseason, the Panthers finished with a league-worst (2–14) record; their offense was the worst in the league. John Fox's contract expired after the season ended, and the team did not retain him or his staff.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The team hired Ron Rivera to replace Fox as head coach and drafted Auburn's Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Cam Newton with the first overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. The Panthers opened the 2011 season 2–6, but finished with a 6–10 record, and Newton was awarded the AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award after setting the NFL record for most rushing touchdowns from a quarterback (14) in a single season and becoming the first rookie NFL quarterback to throw for over 4,000 yards in a single season. He also was the first rookie quarterback to rush for over 500 yards in a single season. After strengthening the defense with future all-pro Luke Kuechly in the 2012 draft, the Panthers again opened the 2012 season poorly, losing five out of their first six games, leading longtime general manager Marty Hurney to be fired in response. The team slid to a 2–8 record before winning five of their last six games, resulting in a 7–9 record. This strong finish helped save Rivera's job. The Panthers had a winning season the following year, finishing with a 12–4 record and winning their third NFC South title and another playoff bye, but they were beaten by the 49ers in the Divisional Round. In 2014, the Panthers opened the season with two wins, but after 12 games, sat at 3–8–1 due in part to a seven-game winless streak. A four-game winning streak to end the season secured the team their second consecutive NFC South championship and a playoff berth, despite a losing record of 7–8–1. The Panthers defeated the Arizona Cardinals, 27–16, in the wild card round to advance to the divisional playoffs, where they lost to eventual NFC champion Seattle, 31–17. The 2015 season saw the Panthers start the season 14–0 and finish the season 15–1, which tied for the best regular-season record in NFC history. During the same season, Cam Newton was named NFL MVP. The Panthers also secured their third consecutive NFC South championship, as well as their first overall top-seeded playoff berth. In the 2015–16 playoffs, the Panthers defeated the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Divisional playoffs, 31–24, after shutting them out in the first half, 31–0, and the Arizona Cardinals, 49–15, in the NFC Championship Game to advance to Super Bowl 50, their first Super Bowl appearance since the 2003 season. The Panthers lost a defensive struggle to the AFC champion Denver Broncos, 24–10. In the 2016 season, the Panthers regressed on their 15–1 record from 2015, posting a 6–10 record and a last-place finish in the NFC South, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2012, and losing the division title to the second-seeded Falcons, who went on to represent the NFC in Super Bowl LI. In 2017, the Panthers finished with an 11–5 record and a #5 seed. However, they lost to the New Orleans Saints 31–26 in the Wild Card Round, their first loss in that round in franchise history.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "On May 16, 2018, David Tepper, formerly a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, finalized an agreement to purchase the Panthers. The sale price was nearly $2.3 billion, a record. The agreement was approved by the league owners on May 22, 2018. The sale officially closed on July 9, 2018. After starting 6–2, the Panthers finished the 2018 season 7–9. They began the 2019 season 5–3 but lost the last eight games to finish 5–11; late in the season, Tepper fired Rivera as head coach. Perry Fewell finished the season as interim coach, going 0–4.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On January 7, 2020, the Panthers hired Baylor head coach Matt Rhule as head coach. On January 15, 2020, Luke Kuechly announced his retirement from the league. On March 17, 2020, The Panthers signed Teddy Bridgewater to a three-year $63 million contract. On March 24, the Carolina Panthers released their 2011 1st overall pick and 2015 MVP quarterback Cam Newton. The Panthers had a difficult 2020 season, losing several close games. They would finish 5–11 for the second straight year.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Following the season, the Panthers traded for Sam Darnold from the New York Jets and shipped Bridgewater to the Denver Broncos. On November 11, 2021, the Panthers signed Cam Newton to a one-year deal after Darnold was put on injured reserve. However, the Panthers' struggles continued; despite winning their first three games of the 2021 season, they finished 5–12 and ended the season on a seven-game losing streak.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "After the Panthers began the season with a 1–4 record, Rhule was fired as head coach on October 10, 2022, finishing his tenure with an 11–27 record in two and a half seasons. Steve Wilks was named interim head coach as a result. The Panthers then initiated a rebuild, trading players such as Robbie Anderson and Christian McCaffrey. Steve Wilks would go 6–6 as the interim head coach, as the Panthers would finish the season with a 7–10 record.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "On January 26, 2023, former Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich was hired as head coach. Reich was the first starting QB in Panthers history in 1995. In the 2023 NFL Draft, Reich's first as the Panthers Head Coach, the Panthers selected their potential franchise quarterback in Bryce Young with the first overall pick.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "On November 27, 2023, Reich was fired after a 1–10 start.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The shape of the Panthers logo was designed to mimic the outline of both North Carolina and South Carolina. The Panthers changed their logo and logotype in 2012, the first such change in team history. According to the team, the changes were designed to give their logo an \"aggressive, contemporary look\" as well as to give it a more three-dimensional feel. The primary tweaks were made in the eye and mouth, where the features, particularly the muscular brow and fangs, are more pronounced, creating a more menacing look. The revised logo has a darker shade of blue over the black logo, compared to the old design, which had a shade similar to teal on top of black.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "By the time they had been announced as the 29th NFL team in October 1993, the Panthers' logo and helmet design had already been finalized, but the uniform design was still under creation. After discussion, the Panthers organization decided on jerseys colored white, black, and blue and pants colored white and silver. The exact tone of blue, which they decided would be \"process blue\" (a shade lighter than Duke's and darker than North Carolina's), was the most difficult color to choose.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The team's uniform has remained largely the same since its creation, with only minor alterations, such as changing the sock color of the team's black uniforms from blue to black and changing the team's shoes from white to black. Richardson, a self-described traditionalist, said that no major uniform changes would be made in his lifetime.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Panthers have three main jersey colors: black, white, and blue. Their blue jerseys, designated their alternate uniforms, are the newest and were introduced in 2002. NFL regulations allow the team to use the blue jersey up to two times in any given season. In all other games, the team must wear either their white or black jerseys; in NFL games, the home team decides whether to wear a dark or white jersey, while the away team wears the opposite. Usually the Panthers opt for white or blue when the weather is expected to be hot and for black when the weather is expected to be cold.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The Panthers typically pair their white jerseys with white pants and blue socks, while the black and blue jerseys are paired with silver pants and black socks; there have only been a few exceptions to these combinations. The first such instance was in 1998 when the team paired their white jerseys with silver pants in a game against the Indianapolis Colts. The second instance was in 2012 during a game against the Denver Broncos when they paired their black jerseys with new black pants; this created an all-black uniform, with the exception of blue socks and silver helmets. The decision to wear blue socks was made by team captain Steve Smith, who felt the blue socks gave the uniforms a more distinct appearance compared with other teams that have all-black uniforms. The all-black uniforms won the \"Greatest Uniform in NFL History\" contest, a fan-voted contest run by NFL.com in July 2013. In July 2013, the team's equipment manager, Jackie Miles, said the Panthers intended to use the all-black uniform more in the future. The Panthers wore the all-black uniform three times the following season, once each in the preseason and regular season, and the third time during the home divisional round playoff game vs the 49ers. During the Panthers' 2015 Thanksgiving Day game against the Dallas Cowboys, they debuted an all-blue uniform as part of Nike's \"Color Rush\" series.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The 2018 season saw the Panthers debut the following new combinations:",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The team's uniform did not change significantly after Nike became the NFL's jersey supplier in 2012, but the collar was altered to honor former Panthers player and coach Sam Mills by featuring the phrase \"Keep Pounding\". Nike had conceived the idea, and the team supported the concept as a way to expose newer fans to the legacy of Mills, who died of cancer in 2005. Mills had introduced the phrase, which has since become a team slogan, in a speech that he gave to the players and coaches prior to their 2003 playoff game against Dallas; in the speech, Mills compared his fight against cancer with the team's on-field battle, saying \"When I found out I had cancer, there were two things I could do – quit or keep pounding. I'm a fighter. I kept pounding. You're fighters, too. Keep pounding!\"",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "In 2019, the Panthers unveiled new uniforms. The new uniforms are Nike's \"Vapor Untouchable\" and have only minor differences: the tapered strips on the pants are replaced by stripes that extend down to the socks, the reflective shoulder cloth was replaced and the hip logos were also removed. The uniforms keep the same basic look, colors, and numbers as the originals. As the 2019 season was the team's 25th, the Panthers sported a 25th-anniversary patch on their uniforms. In the 2019 season, the Panthers continued to use the new pant-jersey color combinations from 2018 while bringing back the silver pants with their black jerseys.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In Week 9 of the 2021 season, the Panthers wore black jerseys with white pants for the first time in a home game against the Patriots. Then in Week 17 against the Saints, the Panthers wore an all-white set (white jerseys, white pants, and white socks) for the first time.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Starting in 2022, the Panthers added an alternate black helmet to be paired with the all-black uniform set. In Week 7 against the Buccaneers, the Panthers added a new combination featuring white jerseys, black pants, and white socks.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 2023, the Panthers unveiled slightly updated uniforms. The blue was now a closer shade to the team's \"process blue\" color and the shoulder stripes became straighter and did not extended all the way around the shoulder.",
"title": "Logo and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The Panthers played their first season at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina, as their facility in uptown Charlotte was still under construction. Ericsson Stadium, called Bank of America Stadium since 2004, opened in the summer of 1996. The stadium was specially designed by HOK Sports Facilities Group for football and also serves as the headquarters and administrative offices of the Panthers. On some days, the stadium offers public tours for a fee. Private tours for groups are offered for a fee seven days a week, though there are some exceptions, and such tours must be arranged in advance.",
"title": "Stadium and practice facilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Two bronze panther statues flank each of the stadium's three main entrances; they are the largest sculptures ever commissioned in the United States. The names of the team's original PSL owners are engraved on the base of each statue. The first two people in the Panthers Hall of Honor, team executive Mike McCormack and linebacker Sam Mills, are honored with life-sized bronze statues outside the stadium. Mills, in addition to being the only player in the Hall of Honor for over 20 years, is the only player to have had his jersey number (#51) retired by the Panthers as of 2016.",
"title": "Stadium and practice facilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Panthers have three open-air fields next to Bank of America Stadium where they currently hold their practices; during the 1995 season, when the team played their home games in South Carolina, the team held their practices at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Because the practice fields, along with the stadium, are located in uptown Charlotte, the fields are directly visible from skyscrapers as well as from a four-story condominium located across the street. According to Mike Cranston, a running joke said that the Panthers' division rivals had pooled their resources to purchase a room on the building's top floor and that a fire at the condominium was caused by the Panthers organization. In order to prevent people from seeing inside the field while the team is practicing, the team has added \"strategically planted trees and a tarp over the ... fence surrounding the fields\". Additionally, they employ a security team to watch for and chase away any people who stop alongside the fence surrounding the field. In the event of bad weather, the team moves their practices to an indoor sports facility about 10 miles (16 km) from the stadium. The team does not own this facility. The Panthers have hosted their annual training camp at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, since 1995.",
"title": "Stadium and practice facilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The Panthers were planning on building a $1 billion team headquarters and training facility on a 240-acre (0.97 km) in Rock Hill, South Carolina, nicknamed \"The Rock\". After six months of discussions and state approval of $115 million in incentives, the formal announcement of the team's plan for a new practice facility came on June 5, 2019. Rock Hill mayor John Gettys described the project at that time as the biggest in the city's history. Groundbreaking took place in July 2019, and it was expected to be completed by summer 2023. The agreement with Rock Hill, however, ended up being terminated on April 19, 2022, with owner David Tepper filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.",
"title": "Stadium and practice facilities"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The Panthers are supported in both North Carolina and South Carolina; South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley declared July 30, 2012, \"Carolina Panthers Day\" in her state, saying that \"when it comes to professional teams, the Carolina Panthers are the team that South Carolina calls their own\". During the 2016 NFC Championship and Super Bowl, the hashtag #OneCarolina was used by college and professional sports teams from North Carolina and South Carolina to show unified support for the Panthers.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Pat Yasinskas of ESPN.com observed in 2012 that while there is \"a bit of a wine-and-cheese atmosphere at Panthers games ... there is a strong core of die-hard fans who bring energy to Bank of America Stadium. Charlotte lives and dies with the Panthers because there aren't a lot of other options in the sports world\". Sports Illustrated graded the Panthers as having the 10th highest \"NFL Fan Value Experience\" in 2007, attributing much of the fan atmosphere to the team's newness when compared to the established basketball fanbase. They also observed that the stadium has scattered parking lots, each of which has a different tailgating style. Some have fried chicken, pork, or Carolina-style barbecue, while others have live bands and televisions. Pickup football games in the parking lots are common. The Carolina Panthers have sold out all home games since December 2002, and their home attendance has ranked in the NFL's top ten since 2006.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Sir Purr, an anthropomorphic black panther who wears a jersey numbered '00', has been the Panthers' mascot since their first season. During games, Sir Purr provides sideline entertainment through skits and \"silly antics\". The mascot participates in a number of community events year-round, including a monthly visit to the patients at Levine Children's Hospital. Sir Purr also hosts the annual Mascot Bowl, an event which pits pro and college mascots against each other during halftime at a selected Panthers home game.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The team's cheerleaders are the Carolina Topcats who lead cheers and entertain fans at home games. The TopCats participate in both corporate and charity events. In March 2022, the Carolina Topcats became the first NFL cheerleading team to have a transgender member, Justine Lindsay. The team's drumline is PurrCussion, an ensemble of snare, tenor, and bass drummers as well as cymbal players. PurrCussion performs for fans outside the stadium and introduces players prior to home games; it consists of drummers from across the Carolinas.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Starting with the 2012 season, the Panthers introduced the Keep Pounding Drum, inspired by the aforementioned motivational speech by Sam Mills before the team's 2004 playoff game against the Cowboys. Prior to each home game, an honorary drummer hits the six-foot-tall drum four times to signify the four quarters of an American football game. According to the team, the drummers \"come from a variety of backgrounds and occupations, but all have overcome a great trial or adversity that has not only made them strong but also pushes them to make others around them stronger\". Drummers have included current and former Panthers players, military veterans, Make-A-Wish children, and athletes from other sports, including NBA MVP and Charlotte native Stephen Curry, US women's national soccer team players Whitney Engen and Heather O'Reilly, and 7 time NASCAR Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "During the inaugural season of the Panthers, the team had an official fight song, which the team played before each home game. The song, \"Stand and Cheer\", remains the team's official fight song, but the team does not typically play it before home games. Due to negative fan reaction \"Stand and Cheer\" was pulled in 1999. Since 2006, the song has returned. The team plays Neil Diamond's \"Sweet Caroline\" after home victories. A \"keep pounding\" chant was introduced during the 2012 season which starts before the opening kickoff of each home game. As prompted by the video boards, one side of the stadium shouts \"keep\" and the other side replies with \"pounding\". The chant is similar to ones that take place at college football games.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The Carolina Panthers support a variety of non-profits in North and South Carolina through the Carolina Panthers Charities. Four annual scholarships are awarded to student athletes through the Carolina Panthers Graduate Scholarship and the Carolina Panthers Players Sam Mills Memorial Scholarship programs. Carolina Panthers Charities also offers grants to non-profits that support education, athletics, and human services in the community. The Panthers and Fisher Athletic have provided six equipment grants to high school football teams in the Carolinas each year since 2010. Carolina Panthers Charities raises funds at three annual benefits: the Countdown to Kickoff Luncheon, the team's first public event each season; Football 101, an educational workshop for fans; and the Weekend Warrior Flag Football Tournament, a two-day non-contact flag football tournament. Another annual benefit is Taste of the Panthers, a gourmet food tasting which raises funds for Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In 2003 the Panthers and Carolinas HealthCare Foundation established the Keep Pounding Fund, a fundraising initiative to support cancer research and patient support programs. The Panthers community has raised more than $1.4 million for the fund through direct donations, charity auctions, blood drives, and an annual 5k stadium run. The Panthers and Levine Children's Hospital coordinate monthly hospital visits and VIP game-day experiences for terminally ill or hospitalized children.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In addition to these team-specific efforts, the Panthers participate in a number of regular initiatives promoted by the NFL and USA Football, the league's youth football development partner. These include USA Football Month, held throughout August to encourage and promote youth football; A Crucial Catch, the league's Breast Cancer Awareness Month program; Salute to Service, held throughout November to support military families and personnel; and PLAY 60, which encourages young NFL fans to be active for at least 60 minutes each day.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Radio coverage is provided by flagship station WRFX and through the Carolina Panthers Radio Network, with affiliates throughout the Carolinas and Virginia. The Panthers' radio broadcasting team is led by play-by-play voice Anish Shroff, with Jake Delhomme as color analyst, and WBT sports director Jim Szoke as studio host. The radio network broadcasts pre-game coverage, games with commentary, and post-game wrap-ups. It also live-broadcasts Panther Talk, a weekly event at Bank of America Stadium which offers fans a chance to meet a player and ask questions of the staff.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "National broadcasting and cable television networks cover regular-season games, as well as some preseason games. Locally, Fox affiliate WJZY airs most regular-season games, while home games against an AFC team typically air on CBS affiliate WBTV. Any appearances on Monday Night Football are simulcast on ABC affiliate WSOC-TV, while any appearances on Thursday Night Football are simulcast on WSOC. Sunday night and some Thursday night games are aired on NBC affiliate WCNC-TV.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "All preseason games and team specials are televised by the Carolina Panthers Television Network on flagship station WSOC-TV in Charlotte and fourteen affiliate stations throughout the Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia, and Tennessee. WSOC took over as the Panthers' television partner for the 2019 season, replacing longtime television partner WCCB, which had retained this role after losing the Fox affiliation to WJZY in 2013. As of 2021, the preseason television broadcasting team consists of play-by-play commentator Taylor Zarzour, color analyst and former Panthers player Steve Smith, and sideline reporter Kristen Balboni. The network also hosts The Panthers Huddle, a weekly show focusing on the Panthers' upcoming opponent.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Panthers also offer game broadcasts in Spanish throughout both Carolinas and Mexico, with Jaime Moreno and Toño Ramos providing commentary.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The Panthers have developed heated rivalries with the three fellow members of the NFC South (the Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and New Orleans Saints). The team's fiercest rivals are the Falcons and Buccaneers.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Falcons are a natural geographic rival for the Panthers, as Atlanta is only 230 miles (370 km) south on I-85. The two teams have played each other twice a year since the Panthers' inception, and games between the two teams feature large numbers of the visiting team's fans.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The Panthers' rivalry with Tampa Bay has been described as the most intense in the NFC South. The rivalry originated in 2002 with the formation of the NFC South, but became particularly heated before the 2003 season with verbal bouts between players on the two teams. It escalated further when the Panthers went to Tampa Bay and beat them in what ESPN.com writer Pat Yasinskas described as \"one of the most physical contests in recent memory\". The rivalry has resulted in a number of severe injuries for players on both teams, some of which were caused by foul play. One of these plays, an illegal hit on Tampa Bay punt returner Clifton Smith, sparked a brief melee between the teams in 2009.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The Carolina Panthers Hall of Honor was established in 1997 to honor individuals for their contributions to the Carolina Panthers organization.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "The Carolina Panthers have retired one number.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Nominees for the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which \"honor[s] individuals who have made outstanding contributions to professional football\", are determined by a 46-member selection committee. At least 80% of voters must approve the nominee for him to be inducted.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Jerry Richardson was the founder and first owner of the Carolina Panthers. Richardson and his family owned about 48% of the team, with the remaining 52% owned by a group of 14 limited partners. Richardson and the other investors paid $206 million for the rights to start the team in 1993.",
"title": "Ownership and Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Mike McCormack, a Hall of Fame lineman for the Cleveland Browns and former coach and executive for the Seattle Seahawks, was the Panthers' first team president, presiding in that role from 1994 until his retirement in 1997; McCormack was inducted as the first person in the Carolina Panthers Hall of Honor later that year. Jerry Richardson's son, Mark, was appointed as the team's second president in 1997 and served in that role until he stepped down in 2009. His brother Jon, who had been president of Bank of America Stadium, stepped down at the same time. The resignations of Mark and Jon Richardson were unexpected, as it was thought that the two would eventually take over the team from their father. Mark Richardson was replaced by Danny Morrison, who had previously served as the athletic director of both Texas Christian University and Wofford College, Richardson's alma mater. Morrison resigned in early 2017. The role was vacant until August 2018, when Tom Glick was hired as team president. He had previously served as the COO of Manchester City.",
"title": "Ownership and Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "On May 16, 2018, David Tepper, formerly a minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, finalized an agreement to purchase the Carolina Panthers, for nearly $2.3 billion, a record at the time. The agreement was approved by the league owners on May 22, 2018. According to Forbes, the Panthers are worth approximately $2.3 billion as of 2018. They ranked the Carolina Panthers as the 21st-most valuable NFL team and the 36th-most valuable sports team in the world.",
"title": "Ownership and Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Carolina Panthers have had six head coaches. Dom Capers was the head coach from 1995 to 1998 and led the team to one playoff appearance. Counting playoff games, he finished with a record of 31–35 (.470). George Seifert coached the team from 1999 to 2001, recording 16 wins and 32 losses (.333). John Fox, the team's longest-tenured head coach, led the team from 2002 to 2010 and coached the team to three playoff appearances including Super Bowl XXXVIII which the Panthers lost. Including playoff games, Fox ended his tenure with a 78–74 (.513) record, making him the first Panthers coach to finish his tenure with the team with a winning record. Ron Rivera held the position from 2011 to 2019 and led the team to four playoff appearances including Super Bowl 50. Counting playoff games, he has a career record of 79–67–1 (.541). Statistically, Rivera holds the highest winning percentage of any Panthers head coach. On December 3, 2019, following a home loss against the Washington Redskins that sent the team's record to 5–7, Rivera was fired by David Tepper. Perry Fewell, then the defensive backs coach for the team, was named interim head coach the same day. On January 7, 2020, Matt Rhule was hired to be the Panthers head coach. Rhule was fired during his third season, with Steve Wilks taking over on an interim basis. Frank Reich was hired head coach on January 26, 2023. Frank Reich was let go as head coach on November 27, 2023.",
"title": "Ownership and Administration"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Since they began playing football in 1995, the Panthers have been to four NFC Championship Games; they lost two (1996 and 2005) and won two (2003 and 2015). The Panthers have won six division championships: the NFC West championship in 1996 and the NFC South championship in 2003, 2008, 2013, 2014, and 2015. They have finished as runners-up in their division six times, finishing second-place in the NFC West in 1997 and 1999 and finishing second-place in the NFC South in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2012. They have qualified for the playoffs 8 times, most recently in 2017.",
"title": "Team records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Kicker John Kasay is the team's career points leader. Kasay scored 1,482 points during his 16 seasons (1995–2010) with the Panthers. Quarterback Cam Newton is the Panthers' career passing leader; he threw for 29,041 yards over his nine seasons with the team (2011–2020). Running back Jonathan Stewart is the career rushing leader for the Carolina Panthers. Stewart, during his tenure with the team (2008–2018), rushed for 6,868 yards with the Panthers. Wide receiver Steve Smith, the team's leading receiver, recorded 12,197 receiving yards during his 13-year (2001–2013) tenure with the team.",
"title": "Team records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Notes",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Footnotes",
"title": "References"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "",
"title": "External links"
}
] | The Carolina Panthers are a professional American football team based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Panthers compete in the National Football League (NFL), as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The team is headquartered in Bank of America Stadium in Uptown Charlotte; which also serves as the team's home field. The Panthers are supported throughout the Carolinas; although the team has played its home games in Charlotte since 1996, it played its home games at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina during its first season in 1995. The Panthers were announced as the league's 29th franchise in 1993 and began playing in 1995 under the original owner and founder Jerry Richardson. The Panthers played well in their first two years, finishing 7–9 in 1995 and 12–4 the following year, winning the NFC West before ultimately losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game. They did not have another winning season until 2003 when they won the NFC Championship Game and reached Super Bowl XXXVIII, losing 32–29 to the New England Patriots. After recording playoff appearances in 2005 and 2008, the team failed to record another playoff appearance until 2013, the first of three consecutive NFC South titles. After losing in the divisional round to the San Francisco 49ers in 2013 and the Seattle Seahawks in 2014, the Panthers returned to the Super Bowl in 2015 but lost to the Denver Broncos. Since then, the team has appeared in the playoffs only once, in 2017. The team's five NFC South titles since the division's establishment in 2002 rank second only to the New Orleans Saints. As of 2022, the Carolina Panthers remain the newest club in the NFC, excluding the Seahawks who were founded in 1976 but moved to the NFC in 2002. The franchise is legally registered as Panther Football, LLC. and are controlled by David Tepper, whose purchase of the team from founder Jerry Richardson was unanimously approved by league owners on May 22, 2018. The club, which Forbes valued at approximately US$2.3 billion in 2018, is estimated at $4.1 billion by it in 2023. | 2001-09-29T21:03:36Z | 2023-12-31T23:56:55Z | [
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6,611 | Chicago Bears | The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The Bears have won nine NFL Championships, including one Super Bowl (XX in 1986), and hold the NFL record for the most enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the most retired jersey numbers. The Bears have also recorded the second-most victories of any NFL franchise, only behind the Green Bay Packers, who they have a long-standing rivalry with.
The franchise was founded in Decatur, Illinois, on September 20, 1920, and became professional on September 17, 1920, and moved to Chicago in 1921. It is one of only two remaining franchises from the NFL's founding in 1920, along with the Arizona Cardinals, which was originally also in Chicago. The team played home games at Wrigley Field on Chicago's North Side through the 1970 season; they now play at Soldier Field on the Near South Side, adjacent to Lake Michigan.
The team headquarters, Halas Hall, is in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. The Bears practice at adjoining facilities there during the season, and began hosting Training Camp at Halas Hall in 2020 after major renovations.
In March of 1920 a man telephoned me ... George Chamberlain and he was general superintendent of the A.E. Staley Company ... In 1919, [the company's Fellowship Club] had formed a football team. It had done well against other local teams but Mr. Staley wanted to build it into a team that could compete successfully with the best semi-professional and industrial teams in the country ... Mr. Chamberlain asked if I would like to come to Decatur and work for the Staley Company.
Originally named the Decatur Staleys, the club was established by the A. E. Staley food starch company of Decatur, Illinois as a company team. This was the typical start for several early professional football franchises. The team played independently in 1919, winning the Central Illinois Championship. The company hired George Halas and Edward "Dutch" Sternaman in 1920 to run the team. The 1920 Decatur Staleys season was their inaugural regular season completed in the newly formed American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League (NFL) in 1922).
Full control of the team was turned over to Halas and Sternaman in 1921. Official team and league records cite Halas as the founder as he took over the team in 1920 when it became a charter member of the NFL.
The team relocated to Chicago in 1921, where the club was renamed the Chicago Staleys. Under an agreement reached by Halas and Sternaman with Staley, Halas purchased the rights to the club from Staley for US$100.
In 1922, Halas changed the team name from the Staleys to the Bears. The team moved into Wrigley Field, which was home to the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise. As with several early NFL franchises, the Bears derived their nickname from their city's baseball team (some directly, some indirectly – like the Bears, whose young are called "cubs"). Halas liked the bright orange-and-blue colors of his alma mater, the University of Illinois, and the Bears adopted those colors as their own, albeit in a darker shade of each (the blue is Pantone 5395, navy blue, and the orange is Pantone 1665, similar to burnt orange).
The Staleys/Bears dominated the league in the early years. Their rivalry with the Chicago Cardinals, the oldest in the NFL (and a crosstown rival from 1920 to 1959), was key in four out of the first six league titles. During the league's first six years, the Bears lost twice to the Canton Bulldogs (who took two league titles over that span), and split with their crosstown rival Cardinals (going 4–4–2 against each other over that span), but no other team in the league defeated the Bears more than a single time. During that span, the Bears posted 34 shutouts.
The Bears' rivalry with the Green Bay Packers is one of the oldest and most storied in American professional sports, dating back to 1921 (the Green Bay Packers were an independent team until they joined the NFL in 1921). In one infamous incident that year, Halas got the Packers expelled from the league in order to prevent their signing a particular player, and then graciously got them re-admitted after the Bears had closed the deal with that player.
The franchise was an early success under Halas, capturing the NFL Championship in 1921 and remaining competitive throughout the decade. In 1924 the Bears claimed the Championship after defeating the Cleveland Bulldogs on December 7, even putting the title "World's Champions" on their 1924 team photo. But the NFL had ruled that games after November 30 did not count towards league standings, and the Bears had to settle for second place behind Cleveland. Their only losing season came in 1929.
During the 1920s the club was responsible for triggering the NFL's long-standing rule that a player could not be signed until his college's senior class had graduated. The NFL took that action as a consequence of the Bears' aggressive signing of famous University of Illinois player Red Grange within a day of his final game as a collegian.
Despite much of the on-field success, the Bears were a team in trouble. They faced the problem of increased operating costs and flatlined attendance. The Bears would only draw roughly 5,000–6,000 fans a game, while a University of Chicago game would draw 40,000–50,000 fans a game. By adding top college football draw Red Grange to the roster, the Bears knew that they found something to draw more fans to their games. C.C. Pyle was able to secure a $2,000 per game contract for Grange, and in one of the first games, the Bears defeated the Green Bay Packers, 21–0. However, Grange remained on the sidelines while learning the team's plays from Bears quarterback Joey Sternaman. Later in 1925, The Bears would go on a barnstorming tour, showing off the best football player of the day. 75,000 people paid to see Grange lead the Bears to a 17–7 victory over the Los Angeles Tigers, who were a quickly put together team of West Coast college all-stars. After a loss to San Francisco, the Bears cruised to a 60–3 over a semi-pro team called the Portland All Stars.
Any hopes that Grange would lead the Bears to glory in 1926 were quickly dashed. A failed contract talk led to Grange bolting to the AFL's New York Yankees, owned by Pyle. The Bears also lost star quarterback Joey Sternaman, who joined the Chicago Bulls of the AFL. The Bears replaced Grange with Paddy Driscoll, a star football player in his own right. The Bears used the money made from the Grange barn-storming tour to sign the man that replaced him. Grange split his time between making movies and playing football. However, the time was not right to have two competing pro football leagues, and the AFL folded after only one season. Grange would return to the Bears.
After the financial losses of the 1932 Championship season, Halas' partner Dutch Sternaman left the organization. Halas maintained full control of the Bears until his death in 1983. He also coached the team off-and-on for forty seasons, an NFL record. In the 1932 "Unofficial" NFL Championship, the Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans in the first NFL playoff game. Due to blizzard conditions in Chicago, the game was played at Chicago Stadium, marking it as the first indoor American football game.
The success of the playoff game led the NFL to institute a championship game. In the first NFL Championship, the Bears played against the New York Giants, defeating them 23–21. The teams met again in the 1934 NFL Championship where the Giants, wearing sneakers defeated the Bears 30–13 on a cold, icy day at the Polo Grounds.
From 1940 to 1947, quarterback Sid Luckman led the Bears to victories in four out of the five NFL Championship Games in which they appeared. The team acquired the University of Chicago's discarded nickname "Monsters of the Midway" and their now-famous helmet wishbone-C, as well as a newly penned theme song that declared them "The Pride and Joy of Illinois". One famous victory during that period was their 73–0 victory over the favored Washington Redskins at Griffith Stadium in the 1940 NFL Championship Game; the score is still an NFL record for lopsided results. The secret behind the one-sided outcome was the introduction of a new offensive formation by Halas. The T-formation, as Halas named it, involved two running backs instead of the traditional one in the backfield. Luckman established himself as one of the franchise's most elite quarterbacks. Between 1939 and 1950, he set the Bears' passing records for most career touchdowns, yards, and completions. Many of Luckman's records stood for decades before they were eclipsed by Jay Cutler in 2014. Cutler then went on to break Luckman's franchise record for most career passing touchdowns a year later in 2015.
After declining throughout the 1950s, the team rebounded in 1963 to capture its eighth NFL Championship, which would be its last until 1985. The late 1960s and early-1970s produced notable players like Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, and Brian Piccolo, who died of embryonal carcinoma in 1970. The American television network ABC aired a movie about Piccolo in 1971 entitled Brian's Song, starring James Caan and Billy Dee Williams in the roles of Piccolo and Sayers respectively; Jack Warden won an Emmy Award for his performance as Halas. The movie was later released for theater screenings after first being shown on television. Despite Hall of Fame careers, Butkus and Sayers would also have their careers cut short due to injuries, hamstringing the Bears of this era.
Halas retired as coach in 1967 and spent the rest of his days in the front office. He became the only person to be involved with the NFL throughout the first 60 years of its existence. He was also a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first induction class in 1963. As the only living founder of the NFL at the February 1970 merger between the NFL and the American Football League, the owners honored Halas by electing him the first President of the National Football Conference, a position that he held until his death in 1983. In his honor, the NFL named the NFC Championship trophy as the George Halas Memorial Trophy.
After the merger, the Bears finished the 1970 season last place in their division, a repeat of their placing in the 1969 season. In 1975, the Bears drafted Walter Payton from Jackson State University with their first pick. He won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award in the 1977–78 season. Payton would go on to eclipse Jim Brown's NFL career rushing record in 1984 before retiring in 1987, and would hold the mark until 2002, when Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys surpassed it. Payton's career and personality would capture the hearts of Bear fans, who called him "Sweetness". He died from a rare form of liver cancer in 1999 at the age of 45.
On November 1, 1983, a day after the death of George Halas, his oldest daughter, Virginia McCaskey, took over as the majority owner of the team. Her husband, Ed McCaskey, succeeded her father as the chairman of the board. Their son Michael became the third president in team history. Mrs. McCaskey holds the honorary title of "secretary of the board of directors", but the 90-year–old matriarch has been called the glue that holds the franchise together. Mrs. McCaskey's reign as the owner of the Bears was not planned, as her father originally earmarked her brother, George "Mugs" Halas Jr. as the heir apparent to the franchise. However, he died of a severe heart attack in 1979. Her impact on the team is well-noted as her own family has dubbed her "The First Lady of Sports", and the Chicago Sun-Times has listed her as one of Chicago's most powerful women.
Mike Ditka, a tight end for the Bears from 1961 to 1966, was hired to coach the team by George Halas in 1982. His gritty personality earned him the nickname "Iron Mike". The team reached the NFC Championship game in 1984. In the 1985 season the fire in the Bears–Packers rivalry was re-lit when Ditka used 315-pound defensive tackle "Refrigerator" Perry as a running back in a touchdown play at Lambeau Field, against the Packers. The Bears won their ninth NFL Championship, first since the AFL-NFL merger, in Super Bowl XX after the 1985 season in which they dominated the NFL with their then-revolutionary 46 defense and a cast of characters that recorded the novelty rap song "The Super Bowl Shuffle". The season was notable in that the Bears had only one loss, the "unlucky 13th" game of the season, a Monday night affair in which they were defeated by the Miami Dolphins. At the time, much was made of the fact that the 1972 Dolphins were the only franchise in history to have had an undefeated season and post-season. The Dolphins came close to setting up a rematch in the Super Bowl, but lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC title game. "The Super Bowl Shuffle" was videotaped the day after that Monday night loss in Miami.
After the 1985 Championship season, the Bears remained competitive throughout the 1980s but failed to return to the Super Bowl under Ditka. Between the firing of Ditka and the hiring of Lovie Smith, the Bears had two head coaches, Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron. While both head coaches led the team to the playoffs once (Wannstedt in 1994 and Jauron in 2001), neither was able to accumulate a winning record or bring the Bears back to the Super Bowl. Therefore, the 1990s was largely considered to be a disappointment.
Before the Bears hired Jauron in January 1999, Dave McGinnis (Arizona's defensive coordinator, and a former Bears assistant under Ditka and Wannstedt) backed out of taking the head coaching position. The Bears scheduled a press conference to announce the hiring before McGinnis agreed to contract terms. Soon after Jauron's hiring, Mrs. McCaskey fired her son Michael as president, replacing him with Ted Phillips and promoting Michael to chairman of the board. Phillips, the current Bears president, became the first man outside of the Halas-McCaskey family to run the team.
Lovie Smith, hired on January 15, 2004, is the third post-Ditka head coach. Joining the Bears as a rookie head coach, Smith brought the highly successful Tampa 2 defensive scheme with him to Chicago. Before his second season with the Bears, the team rehired their former offensive coordinator and then Illinois head coach Ron Turner to improve the Bears' struggling offense. In 2005, the Bears won their division and reached the playoffs for the first time in four years. Their previous playoff berth was earned by winning the NFC Central in 2001. The Bears improved upon their success the following season, by clinching their second consecutive NFC North title during Week 13 of the 2006 season, winning their first playoff game since 1995, and earning a trip to Super Bowl XLI. However, they fell short of the championship, losing 29–17 to the Indianapolis Colts. Following the 2006 season, the club decided to give Smith a contract extension through 2011, at roughly $5 million per year. This comes a season after being the lowest-paid head coach in the National Football League.
The club has played in over a thousand games since becoming a charter member of the NFL in 1920. Through the 2010 season, they led the NFL in overall franchise wins with 704 and had an overall record of 704–512–42 (going 687–494–42 during the regular season and 17–18 in the playoffs). On November 18, 2010, the Bears recorded franchise win number 700 in a win against the Miami Dolphins.
The Bears made one of the biggest trades in franchise history, acquiring Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler from the Denver Broncos in exchange for Kyle Orton and draft picks on April 2, 2009. After a disappointing 2009 campaign with the team going 7–9, Mike Martz was hired as the team's offensive coordinator on February 1, 2010. On March 5, 2010, the Bears signed defensive end Julius Peppers, running back Chester Taylor, and tight end Brandon Manumaleuna, spending over $100 million on the first day of free agency. Also during the 2010 offseason, Michael McCaskey was replaced by brother George McCaskey as chairman of the Bears. With a 38–34 win against the New York Jets, the Bears clinched the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye for the 2010–11 NFL playoffs. In their first Playoff game since Super Bowl XLI, The Bears defeated the No. 4 seed Seattle Seahawks 35–24 in the Divisional Round. The Bears reached the NFC Championship Game, where they played Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field – only the second playoff meeting between the two storied rivals, the only other game played in 1941. The Bears lost the game, 21–14.
The team started the 2011 season strong with a 7–3 record, and running back Matt Forté led the NFL in total yards from scrimmage. Eventually, quarterback Jay Cutler fractured his thumb, and Forté also was lost for the season against the Kansas City Chiefs after spraining his MCL, and the Bears, with Caleb Hanie playing, lost five straight before winning against the Minnesota Vikings with Josh McCown starting over Hanie. At season's end, general manager Jerry Angelo was fired, and former Chiefs director of scouting and former Bears scout Phil Emery was brought in. Offensive coordinator Mike Martz resigned, and eventually retired, and was replaced by offensive line coach Mike Tice. The Bears made another notable move by trading for Miami Dolphins receiver and Pro Bowl MVP Brandon Marshall. The Bears became the first team in NFL history to return six interceptions for touchdowns in the first seven games of the season, with another pick-six by Brian Urlacher in Week 9 bringing Chicago two behind the record set by the 1961 San Diego Chargers. However, the Bears missed the playoffs with a record of 10–6 (after starting the season 7–1, the first team to start with the record and miss the playoffs since the 1996 Washington Redskins), and Smith was fired on December 31.
Then-CFL head coach and former NFL journeyman Marc Trestman was hired to succeed Smith after an exhaustive search that included at least 13 known candidates. On March 20, 2013, Brian Urlacher's 13-year tenure with the Bears ended when both sides failed to agree on a contract. The Trestman era began on September 8 with a 24–21 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, making Trestman the fourth head coach in Bears history to win in his coaching debut, after George Halas (1920), Neill Armstrong (1978) and Dick Jauron (1999). The Bears ended the 2013 season 8–8, barely missing the playoffs after losing in the final week of the season to the Packers. Despite having a second-ranked offense that set numerous franchise records, the defense greatly worsened as it set franchise worsts in categories like yards allowed (6,313).
The following season was a disaster for the Bears, with the offense regressing to finish outside the top 20 in scoring. The team also allowed 50-point games in two straight weeks against the Patriots and Packers, including a franchise-high 42 points and NFL-record six touchdowns allowed in the first half against the latter, to become the first team since the 1923 Rochester Jeffersons to allow at least 50 points in consecutive games. The Bears ended the year 5–11 and last in the NFC North. Trestman and Emery were fired after the season ended.
The Bears hired Ryan Pace of the New Orleans Saints to be their new general manager on January 8, 2015. On January 16, 2015, John Fox accepted a four-year deal to become head coach. In Fox's first season as head coach, the Bears saw improvements from 2014; after USA Today projected the Bears to win three games, they doubled that total and finished the season with a 6–10 record, including a Thanksgiving win over the Packers at Lambeau Field.
However, during the 2016 season, the Bears regressed heavily, compiling a 3–13 record (their worst since the NFL's change to 16-game seasons in 1978). The season included several injuries to starters and secondary players, including Jay Cutler, who only played five games as a result of two separate injuries. Backup quarterback Brian Hoyer started the next three games before a broken arm put him out for the season. He was replaced by Matt Barkley, who made his first career start with the Bears. None of the three quarterbacks returned for the 2017 season.
In the 2017 NFL Draft, the team selected quarterback Mitchell Trubisky with the second-overall pick, who sat behind newly signed quarterback Mike Glennon for the first four games before taking over. The Bears ended the season 5–11 and again finished last in the NFC North. On January 1, 2018, Fox was fired, ending his tenure in Chicago with a 14–34 record.
The Bears hired Matt Nagy from the Kansas City Chiefs as their new head coach in January 2018. General manager Ryan Pace signed receivers Taylor Gabriel, Allen Robinson, and Trey Burton in the offseason to complement second-year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. The Bears also acquired linebacker Khalil Mack in a block-blockbuster trade from the Oakland Raiders to further bolster their defense, sending a package of draft picks that includes 2019 and 2020 1st round draft picks in exchange. Nagy's Bears clinched the NFC North on December 16, 2018, for the first time since 2010 with a 24–17 victory over the Green Bay Packers. The Bears finished the 2018 season with a 12–4 record. They lost to the defending Super Bowl Champions Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round of the playoffs after Cody Parkey's game-winning field goal attempt was partially tipped and hit the uprights in the final seconds of the game, a play coined the "Double Doink". Despite the first-round exit, Nagy was named Coach of the Year by the Pro Football Writers Association and Associated Press. He was the first Bears coach to be given the AP award since Lovie Smith in 2005 and the fifth in team history.
In 2019, the team regressed to an 8–8 record, though Nagy's combined 20 wins in 2018 and 2019 were the most by a Bears head coach in his first two seasons. During the year, renovations to Halas Hall were completed, allowing the team to move Training Camp from Ward Field on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois to Lake Forest for 2020.
The Bears opened the 2020 season with a 5–1 record. However, they lost their next six games. The Bears won three of their last four games to finish the season with an 8–8 record. Despite their finish, the Bears qualified for the 2020–21 NFL playoffs, which was expanded to include one additional wildcard team from each conference. The New Orleans Saints defeated the Bears in the opening round of the playoffs, 21–9. The team did not re-sign Trubisky after the 2020 season and instead allowed him to become a free agent.
Prior to the 2021 season, the Bears traded up in the 2021 NFL Draft to select quarterback Justin Fields 11th overall. The team also signed veteran quarterback Andy Dalton in free agency. Dalton was initially declared the Bears starting quarterback, but Fields won the position after Dalton was injured. The Bears finished the season with a 6–11 record and missed the playoffs. Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace were fired after the season's conclusion. Nagy posted a 34–33 record over four seasons with two playoff berths, while Pace compiled a 48–65 record over seven seasons.
On January 25, 2022, the Bears hired Ryan Poles as their general manager. The team hired Matt Eberflus as the franchise's 17th head coach two days later. The Bears struggled throughout the 2022 season, which included a franchise-record 10-game losing streak. They finished with an NFL worst 3–14 record, which secured the team the first overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. The Bears traded the first overall pick to the Carolina Panthers in exchange for wide receiver D. J. Moore and multiple draft picks.
The team is primarily owned by the heirs of George Halas. His daughter, Virginia Halas McCaskey (holds 22.6% of the team stocks), is the principal owner and votes the stock for her 11 children and two nephews (3.8% each) and the Brizzolara family stocks (8.33%), which amounts to an 80.33% ownership share, allowing her to control the team. Pat Ryan, former chairman and CEO of Aon Corp., and former Aon director Andrew J. McKenna's estate own 19.67% of the club. Ryan is also a board member.
In 2020, Forbes magazine reported that the franchise is worth $3.525 billion, making it the seventh richest franchise in the NFL. Chicago is the third largest media market in the United States.
In a Crain's Chicago Business article, one businessman described his wishes for the team to maximize its potential. In 2009, Yahoo! Sports listed the McCaskeys as the third worst owner in the NFL, stating "[T]hey get less for what they've got than any team in our league."
The club was founded by A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company owner Augustus Eugene Staley in 1919 and was own by the company until 1921. In 1922 Staley felt he could no longer afford the expensive burden of pro football and transferred the team ownership to Halas and paid him $5,000 for a sponsorship deal that kept the Staleys name for one more year. Halas than added Edward "Dutch" Sternaman as a second owner, while the Bears were incorporated at a NFL's meeting on 28 January 1922 as "a new league team" after its name change. At season's end, the two competed with agent Bill Harley for ownership of the Staleys, after he negotiated a contract that was to give his brother Chic Harley and himself one-third ownership of the team as part of his contract. However, Halas and Sternaman claimed that contract was voided when a physical revealed health impairments resultant from Harley's time in the war. The other league owners agreed to nullify the deal in favor of the Halas/Sternaman partnership by an 8–2 vote. In addition, Halas and Sternaman offered a share of the team to Paddy Driscoll, but the move was blocked by the owners in the NFL's June meeting, after the Chicago Cardinals (Driscoll's team) activated the league's reserve clause.
In 1931 Sternaman offered to sell his part to his partner Halas for $38,000 to focus on his other businesses. Halas’ purchase agreement with Sternaman was to be paid off in installments, and stipulated that if Halas defaulted on any of the payments, ownership of the team reverted back to Sternaman. Halas raised the initial funding by selling ownership stake to Ralph Brizzolara (8.33%), Jim McMillen ($5,000) and George Trafton mother which contribute $20,000 (Halas later bought her out for $40,000). Charles Bidwill purchased $5,000 in stock in 1933 (which was later bought off of his widow Violet for $50,000 in 1949) and he also arranged a bank loan for the remaining $5,000 needed to pay off Sternaman:
"But it was a mighty close call. As I remember, I finally got all the money together at 11:10 a.m. on the day the final note came due. Forfeit time was 12 o’clock noon."
Halas remained the club's president and principal owner until his death on October 31, 1983.
Halas's children, George Halas Jr. ("Mugs") and Virginia McCaskey acquired stock in the team through prior gifts and sales. After "Mugs" death in 1979, Halas, Sr. owned a 49.35% interest in the Bears, the estate of Halas Jr. owned a 19.67% interest, Virginia McCaskey, Jim Finks (3.5%, which he would later relinquished when he resigned as the team GM), Charles Brizzolara, Robert and Carol Brizzolara in joint tenancy, and Nancy Lorenz owned the remaining outstanding shares. In 1981, the shareholders merged the Bears with a newly formed Delaware-incorporated organization, the Chicago Bears Football Club, Inc..
In 1987, "Mugs" estate executor wanted to sell his stocks and challenges the legality of a 1981 corporate reorganization and the other owners right of first refusal, while his heirs Christine and Stephen Halas tried to keep their father stocks, asking a Cook County Probate Court judge not to allow the sale. They failed to block the Chicago Bears from buying their 19.67% ownership of the football team, and sold their share for $17.5 million in 1988. Bears then-president Michael McCaskey called the purchase a "terrific financial burden", and the team would later sell those stocks to Chicago-area businessmen Andrew McKenna and Patrick Ryan for undisclosed sum in 1990. At the time it was also speculate that they invested to help the Bears lobby lawmakers for a domed stadium. In 2017 the NFL approved a sale of shares from Halas Jr. children (unreported whom or how much) to the McCaskey family for undisclosed sum.
The team has major sponsorship deals with Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Miller Brewing Company, PNC Financial Services, United Airlines, Verizon, Xfinity, and Proven IT. The team was the first in the NFL to have a presenting sponsor, with the 2004 season advertised as "Bears Football presented by BankOne (now Chase)". Additionally, the Bears have an agreement with WFLD (the Fox owned-and-operated station in Chicago) to broadcast pre-season football games.
The club has had few official logos throughout their history. When the team was known as the Decatur Staleys in 1920, they used A. E. Staley's logo as football was intended to help promote the company. The first Chicago Bears logo was introduced in 1940, depicting a black bear running with a football. The next logo, introduced in 1946, featured a navy blue bear on top of a football.
In 1962, the Bears introduced their trademark "wishbone-C" logo for the first time. Initially white with a black outline, the logo is similar to the "C" long worn on the Cincinnati Reds' baseball caps, and very closely resembles the University of Chicago Maroons' "C" logo introduced in 1898. The change in the Bears' logo was due to the addition of logos on helmets, which professional football teams began adding in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Before the 2003 season, the team had two unofficial mascots named "Rocky" and "Bearman". "Rocky" was a man who donned a #1 Bears jersey, carried a megaphone, and started chants all over Soldier Field during the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, in a fashion similar to Fireman Ed. There is no known source of who "Rocky" was, and presumably currently lives in Northwestern Indiana. Don Wachter, also known as "Bearman", is a season ticket holder who decided in 1995 that he could also assist the team by cheerleading, similar to Rocky. The club allowed him to run across the field with a large Bears flag during player introductions and each team score (a role currently done by the Bears 4th Phase and Bears captains). In 1996, he donned his "costume" of face paint, bear head and arms, and a number 46 jersey. "Bearman" was forced to stop wearing his costume with the introduction of Staley Da Bear in 2003; however, in 2005, Wachter was allowed in costume again.
Staley Da Bear is an anthropomorphic bear with a customized No. 00 jersey, with blue and orange eyes, synonymous with the team's main colors. His name is eponymous to corn processing company A. E. Staley, who founded the Bears' franchise. Like Rocky and Bearman, he entertains Bears fans, but like other NFL mascots, and mascots in general, Staley also makes various visits to charity events, parties, Chicago Rush AFL games, and other Bears-related events, as well as taking part in various games with his "furballs" against youth football teams at halftime.
The team also formerly had their own cheerleading squad called the Chicago Honey Bears, who were formed in 1976. However, Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey terminated them after the 1985 season. The squad's uniforms have changed 3 times: from 1976 to 1979, the uniform was a white bodysuit with navy blue sleeves, then from 1980 to 1984 it became a white bodysuit, but with orange sleeves and the navy was moved to the trim, and in the squad's final season in 1985, the uniform was redesigned with an orange sequin vest.
Since 1998, the Bears have partnered with 'A Safe Place,' a domestic violence shelter in Waukegan, Illinois. In June 2017, current and former Bears employees helped with renovations at the shelter by ripping up carpet, painting walls, demolishing a kitchen and building a fence. The Bears have also provided financial support throughout the years.
The Green Bay Packers are the Bears' biggest rivals since their team's inception in 1920. The Green Bay Packers currently have the lead at 103–95–6, and the teams have met twice in the postseason. The Bears won the 1941 meeting, 33–14, and eventually defeated the New York Giants in the 1941 NFL Championship Game, and the Packers won the 2011 meeting, 21–14, en route to a Super Bowl XLV win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The teams' first meeting was a victory for the Bears (known as the Staleys at the time) in 1921 in a shutout, 20–0. The Packers claimed their first win over the Bears in 1925, 14–10. The 1924 matchup (which ended in a 3–0 win for Chicago) was notable for featuring the first-ever ejection of players in a game in NFL history, as Frank Hanny of the Bears and Walter Voss of the Packers were ejected for punching each other. The rivalry also featured one of the last successful fair catch kicks in 1968, when Bears kicker Mac Percival kicked the game-winning field goal.
The NFL's oldest rivalry. The Bears originally had an intense intra-city rivalry with the Chicago Cardinals, lasting until 1959 when the Cardinals moved to St. Louis. The rivalry's importance waned further after the Cardinals relocated to the Phoenix metropolitan area in 1988 and eventually became the Arizona Cardinals. While it is the oldest continuing matchup in the NFL, the Bears and Cardinals have yet to meet in the playoffs. The Bears lead the all-time series 59–28–6, and during the Cardinals' tenure in Chicago, the Bears went 47–19–6 against them.
The Detroit Lions and Bears have faced off since the Lions' inception in 1930, when they were known as the Portsmouth Spartans, with the Spartans winning, 7–6, and Chicago winning the second meeting, 14–6. Since then, the Bears have led the series, 99–74–5. The rivalry grew in 1932, when the Bears and Spartans met in the first-ever postseason game in NFL history, with the Bears winning the game 9–0. The game also was known as the first pro "indoor football" game, as the game took place in indoor Chicago Stadium due to a blizzard at the time. The game also started the forward pass.
Chicago and Minnesota took each other on in the Vikings' inaugural game, with the Vikings defeating the Bears in a 37–13 rout, and Minnesota currently holds the series lead 60–54–2.
The Bears and the New York Giants squared off in six NFL championship games, more than any common match-up in either the NFL championship game or Super Bowl. The Bears won four of the six championship games, which included the Sneakers Game that the Giants won in the 1934 NFL Championship Game. The two teams also met in the 1985 and 1990 playoffs, splitting each meeting en route to a Super Bowl championship (Bears in Super Bowl XX, Giants in Super Bowl XXV). The Bears lead the all-time series 36–24–2.
The Bears holds historic minor rivalry with its former NFC Central foe Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Chicago currently holds the series lead 40-21. Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the Bears and Bucs play at least once every three years.
The Bears and San Francisco 49ers were regular foes while both played in the Western Conference. The rilvary grow during the 1980's, as both teams were constant playoff contenders in the NFC. The 49ers currently holds the series lead 35-33-1 and 3-0 in the playoffs. Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the Bears and 49ers play at least once every three years.
The two franchises first met in the 1937 NFL season and played annually until the 1980 NFL season, while from 1995–2015 the two teams were part of the Chicago-St. Louis rivalries in the four major leagues. Chicago currently holds the series lead 54-39-3 (1-1 in the playoffs). Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the Bears and Rams play at least once every three years.
The AFC member Miami Dolphins and the Bears met less than 20 times but most of them were memorable. The most notable was the 1985 shootout at Monday Night, as Miami handing Chicago their first, and only, regular-season loss for the year, while keeping the 1972 Dolphins as the only perfect team in NFL history. Miami currently holds the series lead 10-4. Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the teams play at least once every four years.
Chicago had a fierce instate rivalry with the Rock Island Independents in the league first decade, with the Bears winning the series 8-1-4.
The Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs and the Staleys/Bears rivalry was between the two NFL's powerhouses in the 1920's, with games usually attracting the most fans, and the outcome often decided the fate of NFL Championship (1921-1924). The rivalry grow after the 1921 season, when the Staleys star Guy Chamberlin joined the Bulldogs and led them to Three consecutive championships, including a tiebreaker win over the Bears in 1924. Chicago won the series 4-3.
Soldier Field, located on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, is the current home of the Bears. The Bears moved to Soldier Field in 1971 after outgrowing Wrigley Field, the team's home for 50 years. After the AFL-NFL Merger, the newly merged league wanted their teams to play in stadiums that could hold at least 50,000 fans. Even with the portable bleachers that the team brought into Wrigley, the stadium could still only hold 46,000. At first, the Bears were supposed to play at Dyche Stadium (now called Ryan Field), but Northwestern University's residential neighbors objected, and the agreement was cancelled. The original home of the Bears was Staley Field at Decatur, Illinois, back when the team was known as the Decatur Staleys, before they move to Chicago in 1921.
Soldier Field's playing turf was changed from natural grass to astroturf before the 1971 season, and then back to natural grass in time for the start of the 1988 season. Throughout its history, Soldier Field's field maintenance has been done by the Chicago Park District (the municipal entity of which the Bears lease the field from) by disparate district employees assigned to it, rather than a permanent team-employed grounds crew, to some controversy among players for its rough surface. This arrangement caused a lot of disagreements with the city throughout the years, with the Bears attempting to agree on a new stadium since 1986. The stadium was the site of the infamous Fog Bowl playoff game between the Bears and Philadelphia Eagles.
In 2002, the stadium was closed and rebuilt with only the exterior wall of the stadium being preserved. It was closed on Sunday, January 20, 2002, a day after the Bears lost in the playoffs. It reopened on September 27, 2003, after a complete rebuild (the second in the stadium's history). Many fans refer to the rebuilt stadium as "New Soldier Field". During the 2002 season, the Bears played their home games at the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium in Champaign, where they went 3–5.
Many critics have negative views of the new stadium. They believe that its current structure has made it more of an eyesore than a landmark; some have dubbed it the "Mistake on the Lake". Soldier Field was stripped of its National Historic Landmark designation on February 17, 2006.
In the 2005 season, the Bears won the NFC North Division and the No. 2 Seed in the NFC Playoffs, entitling them to play at least one home game in the postseason. The team hosted (and lost) their divisional round match on January 15, 2006, against the Carolina Panthers. This was the first playoff game at Soldier Field since the stadium reopened.
The stadium's end zones and midfield were not painted until the 1982 season. The design sported on the field included the bolded word "Chicago" rendered in Highway Gothic in both end zones. In 1983, the end zone design returned, with the addition of a large wishbone "C" Bears logo painted at midfield. These field markings remained unchanged until the 1996 season. In 1996 the midfield wishbone "C" was changed to a large blue Bears head, and the end zone design were painted with "Bears" in cursive. This new design remained until the 1999 season, at which point the artwork was returned to the classic "Chicago" and the "C". In the new Soldier Field, the artwork was tweaked to where one end zone had the word "Chicago" bolded and the other had "Bears".
In June 2021, the Bears submitted a bid to purchase the Arlington International Racecourse in Arlington Heights, Illinois from Churchill Downs. Despite negotiations between the city of Chicago to upgrade Soldier Field, the Bears entered into an agreement with Churchill Downs to purchase the Arlington International Racecourse in September 2021 for $197.2 million. The sale of the property which includes 326 acres of potential space for development was officially closed on February 15, 2023.
From its inception up until 1930 the Staleys/Bears conducted their summer training camp in their home stadiums: Staley Field (Decatur, Illinois) and later Cubs' Park (Chicago). In 1930 the first moved to Mills Stadium in Chicago and from 1931-1934 at Loyola University Chicago, Logan Square Baseball Park, Notre Dame University and Lane Tech College Prep High School (respectively). In 1935 they started to conduct their training camps at a prominent location, when they started practicing at St. John's Northwestern Military Academy (Delafield, Wisconsin) for a decade.
In 1944 they moved to St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana and stayed there for 30 years. This location was the place of the famous automobile accident on July 27, 1964 that killed Bears players Willie Galimore and Bo Farrington, after Galimore's Volkswagen left the road on a curve and rolled, a few miles from the team's training camp.
From 1975 to 1984 they conduct their summer training camp in Lake Forest College, at the original Halas Hall (the practice and front office facility for the Bears from 1977 until 1997). The practice field was later renamed Farwell Field and serves as the main field for Foresters football and soccer.
From 1984 to 2001, the Bears held pre-season training camp in Ralph E. Davis Pioneer Stadium at University of Wisconsin–Platteville. They were considered a member of the "Cheese League" that in 1999 consisted of the Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs, with each team practicing at a different university in Wisconsin. In 2001, the Illinois General Assembly asked the Bears to move to an Illinois practice facility in order to raise funds for remodeling Soldier Field. Before the Bears left, they donated $250,000 to UW–Platteville for a new computer lab, which was named "The Bears Den". On June 16, 2014, the stadium was damaged by a tornado and the Bears donate $50,000 to the school relief fund.
From 2002 to 2019, the Bears held their summer training camp at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais. Although the Bears had an agreement to continue practicing at the university through 2022, they moved the camp, permanently, into the recently renovated Halas Hall in 2020.
While the Super Bowl XX champion Bears were a fixture of mainstream American pop culture in the 1980s, the Bears made a prior mark with the 1971 American TV movie Brian's Song starring Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers and James Caan as Brian Piccolo. The film told of how Piccolo helped Sayers recover from a devastating knee injury to return to his status as one of the league's best players, and how Sayers in turn helped the Piccolo family through Brian's fatal illness. A 2001 remake of the movie for ABC starred Sean Maher as Piccolo and Mekhi Phifer as Sayers.
The 1985 team is also remembered for recording the song "The Super Bowl Shuffle", which reached number forty-one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for a Grammy Award. The music video for the song depicts the team rapping that they are "not here to start no trouble" but instead "just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle". The team took a risk by recording and releasing the song before the playoffs had even begun, but were able to avoid embarrassment by going on to win Super Bowl XX by a then-record margin of 46–10. That game was one of the most-watched television events in history according to the Nielsen ratings system; the game had a rating of 48.3, ranking it seventh in all-time television history.
In addition to the "Super Bowl Shuffle" rap song, the Bears' success in the 1980s – and especially the personality of head coach Mike Ditka – inspired a recurring sketch on the American sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live, called "Bill Swerski's Superfans". The sketch featured Cheers co-star George Wendt, a Chicago native, as host of a radio talk-show (similar in tone to WGN radio's "The Sportswriters"), with co-panelists Carl Wollarski (Robert Smigel), Pat Arnold (Mike Myers) and Todd O'Connor (Chris Farley). To hear them tell it, "Da Bears" and Coach Ditka could do no wrong. The sketch stopped after Ditka was fired in 1993. The sketch usually showed the panelists chugging beer and eating lots of Polish sausage, and often featured Todd getting so agitated about what was happening with the Bears that he suffered a heart attack, but quickly recovered (through self-administered CPR). The sketch also features the cast predicting unrealistic blowout victories for Bears games. Da Super Fan sketch has not been brought back by SNL, with the exception of a single appearance by Horatio Sanz as a Super Fan for the Cubs on "Weekend Update" in 2003. Outside of SNL, George Wendt reprised his role of Swerski in the opening promo of Super Bowl XL on ABC.
On TV shows based in Chicago such as The Bob Newhart Show, Married... with Children, Family Matters, Still Standing, According to Jim, Early Edition and The Bernie Mac Show, the main characters are all Bears fans, and have worn Bears' jerseys and T-shirts on some occasions. Some episodes even show them watching Bears games. Roseanne is another TV show based in Illinois (albeit not in Chicago itself) to feature the Bears as the consensus household favorite, as 'Dan Connor' John Goodman is seen wearing Bears hats in several episodes. That '70s Show featured several Bears references, as it was based in Wisconsin, home of the Packers. On one episode while the gang is at a Bears vs. Packers game, Eric comes to the seat in a Walter Payton jersey and is booed by the surrounding Packers fans. In an episode of the Disney Channel show Shake It Up, based in Chicago, recurring character Dina Garcia (Ainsley Bailey) sold scalped Chicago Bears tickets. More recently, Modern Family character Cameron Tucker has been shown as a Bears fan. In an episode of the Disney Channel show "I Didn't Do It", based in Chicago, Lindy Watson (Olivia Holt) and Logan Watson (Austin North) try to get a football signed by NFL Hall of Famer Dick Butkus after destroying their fathers Butkus signed ball, Alshon Jeffery also makes a cameo appearance as well.
Ditka's success and popularity in Chicago has led him to land analyst roles on various American football pregame shows. Ditka worked for both the NFL on NBC and CBS's The NFL Today, and he currently works on ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown and provided Friday night analysis on the Bears on WBBM-TV's 2 on Football with former WBBM-TV sports director Mark Malone. He is also the color analyst for all local broadcasts of Bears preseason games. Ditka also co-starred himself alongside actor Will Ferrell in the 2005 comedy film Kicking & Screaming.
Also, Ditka, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, William "Refrigerator" Perry and Brian Urlacher are among Bears figures known for their appearances in TV commercials. Urlacher, whose jersey was among the league's best-selling in 2002, was featured on Nike commercials with former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick.
In the 1961 Hanna-Barbera animated short "Rah Rah Bear", Yogi Bear helps the Bears beat the New York Giants. The Bears were later depicted in an episode of the 1985 cartoon version of the NBC sitcom Punky Brewster, where the Bears are playing the Green Bay Packers.
Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) from the National Lampoon's Vacation series appears in some scenes wearing a navy blue with burnt orange scripting Chicago Bears ball cap. He wears the same Chicago Bears cap throughout all four Vacation movies.
Currently, WMVP (1000 AM) broadcast Bears games with Jeff Joniak doing the play-by-play, along with color commentator Tom Thayer, who played for the Bears from 1985 to 1992. Over the years, many Bears play-by-play broadcasters have included play-by-play announcers Jack Brickhouse, Joe McConnell and Wayne Larrivee, and color commentators Hub Arkush, Dick Butkus, Jim Hart and Irv Kupcinet.
Spanish radio station WLEY-FM aired the Bears games from 2012 to 2014. Since 2015, WRTO and WVIV-FM air Bears games in Spanish.
Preseason games air on WFLD (channel 32). The announcers are Adam Amin (play-by-play), Jim Miller (color commentary) and Lou Canellis (sideline reporter). WFLD also carries the majority of the team's regular season games through the NFL on Fox. Any Bears home games against AFC teams are aired on the CBS O&O station, WBBM-TV, which was the Bears' unofficial "home" station from 1956 until Fox won the NFC rights in 1995. Sunday Night games are broadcast on WMAQ-TV, the NBC O&O station, with ESPN Monday Night Football games rotating between WLS-TV and WCIU-TV (dependent on opponent, along with ABC's Monday night entertainment schedule).
Patrick Mannelly holds the record for the most seasons in a Bears uniform with 16. On the other hand, Steve McMichael holds the record for most consecutive games played by a Bear with 191; he accomplished the feat from 1981 to 1993. In second place is Payton, who played 186 games from 1975 to 1987 at running back, a position considered to be conducive to injury, only missing one game in a span of 13 seasons.
Kicker Robbie Gould became the Bears' all-time scoring leader in Week 5 of 2015 season overtaking placekicker Kevin Butler who previously held the club record for scoring the most points in his ten-year Bear career. He scored 1,116 points as the Bears kicker from 1985 to 1995. He is followed by running back Walter Payton, with 750 points. Payton holds the team record for career rushing yards with 16,726. That was an NFL record until Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys broke it in 2002. Former Bears running back Matt Forte, who started playing for the Bears in 2008, is the closest to Payton's record with 6,985 yards. Forte also holds the team's single season record for rookies in rushing attempts, rushing yards and receptions. Mark Bortz holds the record for most Bear playoff appearances, with 13 between 1983 and 1994, and is followed by Kevin Butler, Dennis Gentry, Dan Hampton, Jay Hilgenberg, Steve McMichael, Ron Rivera, Mike Singletary, and Keith Van Horne, who have each played in 12 playoff games.
The 1940 Chicago Bears team holds the record for the biggest margin of victory in an NFL game (playoff or regular season) with a 73–0 victory over the Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL Championship Game. The largest home victory for the Bears came in a 61–7 result against the Green Bay Packers in 1980. The largest defeat in club history was a 52–0 loss against the Baltimore Colts in 1964. The club recorded undefeated regular seasons in 1934 and 1942, but (unlike the 1972 Dolphins) did not win the championship game in either season. In 1934, the club completed a 13–0 record but were defeated by the New York Giants, and in 1942 the club completed an 11–0 record but were defeated by the Redskins. Had the Bears won either championship, the club would have completed a championship three-peat – a feat completed only by the Packers (twice), although no team has done it since the AFL-NFL merger. Halas holds the team record for coaching the most seasons with 40 and for having the most career victories of 324. Halas' victories record stood until Don Shula surpassed Halas in 1993. Ditka is the closest Bears coach to Halas, with 112 career victories. No other Bears coach has recorded over 100 victories with the team.
During the 2006 season, return specialist Devin Hester set several kick return records. He currently holds the franchise record for most return yards with 2,261. He had six touchdown returns, setting a record for most returns in a single season. In 2007, he recorded another six touchdown season from returns. One of the most notable of these returns came on November 12, 2006, when he returned a missed field goal for a 108-yard touchdown. The record tied former teammate Nathan Vasher's previous record, which was set almost a year earlier. Additionally, Hester set a Super Bowl record by becoming the first player to return an opening kick of a Super Bowl for a touchdown. On December 20, 2010, Hester set an NFL record for most touchdowns on a punt or kickoff return with his 14th career return coming against the Minnesota Vikings. In 2011, Hester broke the record for the most punt returns against the Carolina Panthers.
In 2012, Charles Tillman set the record for most forced fumbles in a single game with 4 against the Tennessee Titans. Also against the Titans, Chicago became the first team in league history to score a touchdown pass, a touchdown run, an interception return for a touchdown, and a blocked kick/punt for a score in the same quarter. Tillman and teammate Lance Briggs became the first pair in NFL history to return an interception for a touchdown in consecutive games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Dallas Cowboys.
This is a partial list of the Bears' last five completed seasons. For the full season-by-season franchise results, see List of Chicago Bears seasons.
Note: The Finish, Wins, Losses, and Ties columns list regular season results and exclude any postseason play.
As of January 8, 2023
In the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Bears have the most enshrined primary members with 30; the club also has had seven Hall of Famers spend a minor portion of their career with the franchise. Founder, owner, head coach, and player George Halas, halfback Bronko Nagurski, and Red Grange were a part of the original class of inductees in 1963. The franchise saw 14 individuals inducted into the Hall of Fame from 1963 to 1967. Offensive tackle Jim Covert and defensive end Ed Sprinkle are the most recent Chicago Bear inductees, both being inducted as seniors as part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's centennial class of 2020. In 2023 Chuck Howley, who only played minor portion of his career with the Bears, was elected as a Seniors candidate.
In addition, Ray Bray was enshrined in Helms Athletic Foundation Pro Football Hall of Fame, which was established in 1950 and preceded the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's the only Bears member from the Helms Athletic Foundation hall to not be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame was founded in 1979 and honors sports greats associated with the Chicago metropolitan area. As of 2023, there are 59 honorees enshrined in the hall with connection to the Bears.
The Bears have retired 14 uniform numbers, which is the most in the NFL, and ranks fourth behind the basketball Boston Celtics (23), baseball New York Yankees (21), and hockey Montreal Canadiens (15) for the most in major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. The Bears retired Mike Ditka's number 89 jersey on December 9, 2013. It is the last number that the Bears retired.
In honor of the team's centennial anniversary, on May 20, 2019, the Chicago Bears unveiled the Top 100 players in franchise history, as voted on by Hall of Fame writers Don Pierson and Dan Pompei, two of the most famous journalists that have ever covered the club in their long history. At the time of the publish, the list included 27 Pro Football Hall of Famers, while two more inductees would join in the 2020 Centennial class (Jim Covert and Ed Sprinkle).
Among the 100 Greatest, four active players made the list, including safety Eddie Jackson (96), defensive lineman Akiem Hicks (75), offensive lineman Kyle Long (74) and Khalil Mack (60), who had only played only one season with the team at the time of the unveiling of the list. Long would retire the following year.
On a later date, Chicagobears.com released a list titled "Top 10: Best of the rest" that featured the top 10 snubs from the centennial list. The players include (in a following order): Alex Brown, Thomas Jones, Dave Whitsell, Curtis Conway, Tim Jennings, Leslie Frazier, Roberto Garza, Marty Booker, Nathan Vasher and William Perry.
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee. Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist. Helms Athletic Foundation Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee. PFRA Hall of Very Good inductee.
During the week of June 3, 2019 the All-Time Team was announced in parts each day starting with the All-Time defensive players, followed by the All-Time specialists and then the All-Time offensive players. Bold indicates those elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Larry Mayer of the Chicagobears.com would later state, that according to the voters "if they had included a long-snapper on the team it would have been Patrick Mannelly".
As a Chicago Bear | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The Bears have won nine NFL Championships, including one Super Bowl (XX in 1986), and hold the NFL record for the most enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the most retired jersey numbers. The Bears have also recorded the second-most victories of any NFL franchise, only behind the Green Bay Packers, who they have a long-standing rivalry with.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The franchise was founded in Decatur, Illinois, on September 20, 1920, and became professional on September 17, 1920, and moved to Chicago in 1921. It is one of only two remaining franchises from the NFL's founding in 1920, along with the Arizona Cardinals, which was originally also in Chicago. The team played home games at Wrigley Field on Chicago's North Side through the 1970 season; they now play at Soldier Field on the Near South Side, adjacent to Lake Michigan.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The team headquarters, Halas Hall, is in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. The Bears practice at adjoining facilities there during the season, and began hosting Training Camp at Halas Hall in 2020 after major renovations.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In March of 1920 a man telephoned me ... George Chamberlain and he was general superintendent of the A.E. Staley Company ... In 1919, [the company's Fellowship Club] had formed a football team. It had done well against other local teams but Mr. Staley wanted to build it into a team that could compete successfully with the best semi-professional and industrial teams in the country ... Mr. Chamberlain asked if I would like to come to Decatur and work for the Staley Company.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Originally named the Decatur Staleys, the club was established by the A. E. Staley food starch company of Decatur, Illinois as a company team. This was the typical start for several early professional football franchises. The team played independently in 1919, winning the Central Illinois Championship. The company hired George Halas and Edward \"Dutch\" Sternaman in 1920 to run the team. The 1920 Decatur Staleys season was their inaugural regular season completed in the newly formed American Professional Football Association (later renamed the National Football League (NFL) in 1922).",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Full control of the team was turned over to Halas and Sternaman in 1921. Official team and league records cite Halas as the founder as he took over the team in 1920 when it became a charter member of the NFL.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "The team relocated to Chicago in 1921, where the club was renamed the Chicago Staleys. Under an agreement reached by Halas and Sternaman with Staley, Halas purchased the rights to the club from Staley for US$100.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In 1922, Halas changed the team name from the Staleys to the Bears. The team moved into Wrigley Field, which was home to the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise. As with several early NFL franchises, the Bears derived their nickname from their city's baseball team (some directly, some indirectly – like the Bears, whose young are called \"cubs\"). Halas liked the bright orange-and-blue colors of his alma mater, the University of Illinois, and the Bears adopted those colors as their own, albeit in a darker shade of each (the blue is Pantone 5395, navy blue, and the orange is Pantone 1665, similar to burnt orange).",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The Staleys/Bears dominated the league in the early years. Their rivalry with the Chicago Cardinals, the oldest in the NFL (and a crosstown rival from 1920 to 1959), was key in four out of the first six league titles. During the league's first six years, the Bears lost twice to the Canton Bulldogs (who took two league titles over that span), and split with their crosstown rival Cardinals (going 4–4–2 against each other over that span), but no other team in the league defeated the Bears more than a single time. During that span, the Bears posted 34 shutouts.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The Bears' rivalry with the Green Bay Packers is one of the oldest and most storied in American professional sports, dating back to 1921 (the Green Bay Packers were an independent team until they joined the NFL in 1921). In one infamous incident that year, Halas got the Packers expelled from the league in order to prevent their signing a particular player, and then graciously got them re-admitted after the Bears had closed the deal with that player.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The franchise was an early success under Halas, capturing the NFL Championship in 1921 and remaining competitive throughout the decade. In 1924 the Bears claimed the Championship after defeating the Cleveland Bulldogs on December 7, even putting the title \"World's Champions\" on their 1924 team photo. But the NFL had ruled that games after November 30 did not count towards league standings, and the Bears had to settle for second place behind Cleveland. Their only losing season came in 1929.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "During the 1920s the club was responsible for triggering the NFL's long-standing rule that a player could not be signed until his college's senior class had graduated. The NFL took that action as a consequence of the Bears' aggressive signing of famous University of Illinois player Red Grange within a day of his final game as a collegian.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Despite much of the on-field success, the Bears were a team in trouble. They faced the problem of increased operating costs and flatlined attendance. The Bears would only draw roughly 5,000–6,000 fans a game, while a University of Chicago game would draw 40,000–50,000 fans a game. By adding top college football draw Red Grange to the roster, the Bears knew that they found something to draw more fans to their games. C.C. Pyle was able to secure a $2,000 per game contract for Grange, and in one of the first games, the Bears defeated the Green Bay Packers, 21–0. However, Grange remained on the sidelines while learning the team's plays from Bears quarterback Joey Sternaman. Later in 1925, The Bears would go on a barnstorming tour, showing off the best football player of the day. 75,000 people paid to see Grange lead the Bears to a 17–7 victory over the Los Angeles Tigers, who were a quickly put together team of West Coast college all-stars. After a loss to San Francisco, the Bears cruised to a 60–3 over a semi-pro team called the Portland All Stars.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Any hopes that Grange would lead the Bears to glory in 1926 were quickly dashed. A failed contract talk led to Grange bolting to the AFL's New York Yankees, owned by Pyle. The Bears also lost star quarterback Joey Sternaman, who joined the Chicago Bulls of the AFL. The Bears replaced Grange with Paddy Driscoll, a star football player in his own right. The Bears used the money made from the Grange barn-storming tour to sign the man that replaced him. Grange split his time between making movies and playing football. However, the time was not right to have two competing pro football leagues, and the AFL folded after only one season. Grange would return to the Bears.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "After the financial losses of the 1932 Championship season, Halas' partner Dutch Sternaman left the organization. Halas maintained full control of the Bears until his death in 1983. He also coached the team off-and-on for forty seasons, an NFL record. In the 1932 \"Unofficial\" NFL Championship, the Bears defeated the Portsmouth Spartans in the first NFL playoff game. Due to blizzard conditions in Chicago, the game was played at Chicago Stadium, marking it as the first indoor American football game.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The success of the playoff game led the NFL to institute a championship game. In the first NFL Championship, the Bears played against the New York Giants, defeating them 23–21. The teams met again in the 1934 NFL Championship where the Giants, wearing sneakers defeated the Bears 30–13 on a cold, icy day at the Polo Grounds.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "From 1940 to 1947, quarterback Sid Luckman led the Bears to victories in four out of the five NFL Championship Games in which they appeared. The team acquired the University of Chicago's discarded nickname \"Monsters of the Midway\" and their now-famous helmet wishbone-C, as well as a newly penned theme song that declared them \"The Pride and Joy of Illinois\". One famous victory during that period was their 73–0 victory over the favored Washington Redskins at Griffith Stadium in the 1940 NFL Championship Game; the score is still an NFL record for lopsided results. The secret behind the one-sided outcome was the introduction of a new offensive formation by Halas. The T-formation, as Halas named it, involved two running backs instead of the traditional one in the backfield. Luckman established himself as one of the franchise's most elite quarterbacks. Between 1939 and 1950, he set the Bears' passing records for most career touchdowns, yards, and completions. Many of Luckman's records stood for decades before they were eclipsed by Jay Cutler in 2014. Cutler then went on to break Luckman's franchise record for most career passing touchdowns a year later in 2015.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "After declining throughout the 1950s, the team rebounded in 1963 to capture its eighth NFL Championship, which would be its last until 1985. The late 1960s and early-1970s produced notable players like Dick Butkus, Gale Sayers, and Brian Piccolo, who died of embryonal carcinoma in 1970. The American television network ABC aired a movie about Piccolo in 1971 entitled Brian's Song, starring James Caan and Billy Dee Williams in the roles of Piccolo and Sayers respectively; Jack Warden won an Emmy Award for his performance as Halas. The movie was later released for theater screenings after first being shown on television. Despite Hall of Fame careers, Butkus and Sayers would also have their careers cut short due to injuries, hamstringing the Bears of this era.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Halas retired as coach in 1967 and spent the rest of his days in the front office. He became the only person to be involved with the NFL throughout the first 60 years of its existence. He was also a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first induction class in 1963. As the only living founder of the NFL at the February 1970 merger between the NFL and the American Football League, the owners honored Halas by electing him the first President of the National Football Conference, a position that he held until his death in 1983. In his honor, the NFL named the NFC Championship trophy as the George Halas Memorial Trophy.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "After the merger, the Bears finished the 1970 season last place in their division, a repeat of their placing in the 1969 season. In 1975, the Bears drafted Walter Payton from Jackson State University with their first pick. He won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award in the 1977–78 season. Payton would go on to eclipse Jim Brown's NFL career rushing record in 1984 before retiring in 1987, and would hold the mark until 2002, when Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys surpassed it. Payton's career and personality would capture the hearts of Bear fans, who called him \"Sweetness\". He died from a rare form of liver cancer in 1999 at the age of 45.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "On November 1, 1983, a day after the death of George Halas, his oldest daughter, Virginia McCaskey, took over as the majority owner of the team. Her husband, Ed McCaskey, succeeded her father as the chairman of the board. Their son Michael became the third president in team history. Mrs. McCaskey holds the honorary title of \"secretary of the board of directors\", but the 90-year–old matriarch has been called the glue that holds the franchise together. Mrs. McCaskey's reign as the owner of the Bears was not planned, as her father originally earmarked her brother, George \"Mugs\" Halas Jr. as the heir apparent to the franchise. However, he died of a severe heart attack in 1979. Her impact on the team is well-noted as her own family has dubbed her \"The First Lady of Sports\", and the Chicago Sun-Times has listed her as one of Chicago's most powerful women.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Mike Ditka, a tight end for the Bears from 1961 to 1966, was hired to coach the team by George Halas in 1982. His gritty personality earned him the nickname \"Iron Mike\". The team reached the NFC Championship game in 1984. In the 1985 season the fire in the Bears–Packers rivalry was re-lit when Ditka used 315-pound defensive tackle \"Refrigerator\" Perry as a running back in a touchdown play at Lambeau Field, against the Packers. The Bears won their ninth NFL Championship, first since the AFL-NFL merger, in Super Bowl XX after the 1985 season in which they dominated the NFL with their then-revolutionary 46 defense and a cast of characters that recorded the novelty rap song \"The Super Bowl Shuffle\". The season was notable in that the Bears had only one loss, the \"unlucky 13th\" game of the season, a Monday night affair in which they were defeated by the Miami Dolphins. At the time, much was made of the fact that the 1972 Dolphins were the only franchise in history to have had an undefeated season and post-season. The Dolphins came close to setting up a rematch in the Super Bowl, but lost to the New England Patriots in the AFC title game. \"The Super Bowl Shuffle\" was videotaped the day after that Monday night loss in Miami.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "After the 1985 Championship season, the Bears remained competitive throughout the 1980s but failed to return to the Super Bowl under Ditka. Between the firing of Ditka and the hiring of Lovie Smith, the Bears had two head coaches, Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron. While both head coaches led the team to the playoffs once (Wannstedt in 1994 and Jauron in 2001), neither was able to accumulate a winning record or bring the Bears back to the Super Bowl. Therefore, the 1990s was largely considered to be a disappointment.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Before the Bears hired Jauron in January 1999, Dave McGinnis (Arizona's defensive coordinator, and a former Bears assistant under Ditka and Wannstedt) backed out of taking the head coaching position. The Bears scheduled a press conference to announce the hiring before McGinnis agreed to contract terms. Soon after Jauron's hiring, Mrs. McCaskey fired her son Michael as president, replacing him with Ted Phillips and promoting Michael to chairman of the board. Phillips, the current Bears president, became the first man outside of the Halas-McCaskey family to run the team.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Lovie Smith, hired on January 15, 2004, is the third post-Ditka head coach. Joining the Bears as a rookie head coach, Smith brought the highly successful Tampa 2 defensive scheme with him to Chicago. Before his second season with the Bears, the team rehired their former offensive coordinator and then Illinois head coach Ron Turner to improve the Bears' struggling offense. In 2005, the Bears won their division and reached the playoffs for the first time in four years. Their previous playoff berth was earned by winning the NFC Central in 2001. The Bears improved upon their success the following season, by clinching their second consecutive NFC North title during Week 13 of the 2006 season, winning their first playoff game since 1995, and earning a trip to Super Bowl XLI. However, they fell short of the championship, losing 29–17 to the Indianapolis Colts. Following the 2006 season, the club decided to give Smith a contract extension through 2011, at roughly $5 million per year. This comes a season after being the lowest-paid head coach in the National Football League.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The club has played in over a thousand games since becoming a charter member of the NFL in 1920. Through the 2010 season, they led the NFL in overall franchise wins with 704 and had an overall record of 704–512–42 (going 687–494–42 during the regular season and 17–18 in the playoffs). On November 18, 2010, the Bears recorded franchise win number 700 in a win against the Miami Dolphins.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Bears made one of the biggest trades in franchise history, acquiring Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler from the Denver Broncos in exchange for Kyle Orton and draft picks on April 2, 2009. After a disappointing 2009 campaign with the team going 7–9, Mike Martz was hired as the team's offensive coordinator on February 1, 2010. On March 5, 2010, the Bears signed defensive end Julius Peppers, running back Chester Taylor, and tight end Brandon Manumaleuna, spending over $100 million on the first day of free agency. Also during the 2010 offseason, Michael McCaskey was replaced by brother George McCaskey as chairman of the Bears. With a 38–34 win against the New York Jets, the Bears clinched the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye for the 2010–11 NFL playoffs. In their first Playoff game since Super Bowl XLI, The Bears defeated the No. 4 seed Seattle Seahawks 35–24 in the Divisional Round. The Bears reached the NFC Championship Game, where they played Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field – only the second playoff meeting between the two storied rivals, the only other game played in 1941. The Bears lost the game, 21–14.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "The team started the 2011 season strong with a 7–3 record, and running back Matt Forté led the NFL in total yards from scrimmage. Eventually, quarterback Jay Cutler fractured his thumb, and Forté also was lost for the season against the Kansas City Chiefs after spraining his MCL, and the Bears, with Caleb Hanie playing, lost five straight before winning against the Minnesota Vikings with Josh McCown starting over Hanie. At season's end, general manager Jerry Angelo was fired, and former Chiefs director of scouting and former Bears scout Phil Emery was brought in. Offensive coordinator Mike Martz resigned, and eventually retired, and was replaced by offensive line coach Mike Tice. The Bears made another notable move by trading for Miami Dolphins receiver and Pro Bowl MVP Brandon Marshall. The Bears became the first team in NFL history to return six interceptions for touchdowns in the first seven games of the season, with another pick-six by Brian Urlacher in Week 9 bringing Chicago two behind the record set by the 1961 San Diego Chargers. However, the Bears missed the playoffs with a record of 10–6 (after starting the season 7–1, the first team to start with the record and miss the playoffs since the 1996 Washington Redskins), and Smith was fired on December 31.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Then-CFL head coach and former NFL journeyman Marc Trestman was hired to succeed Smith after an exhaustive search that included at least 13 known candidates. On March 20, 2013, Brian Urlacher's 13-year tenure with the Bears ended when both sides failed to agree on a contract. The Trestman era began on September 8 with a 24–21 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, making Trestman the fourth head coach in Bears history to win in his coaching debut, after George Halas (1920), Neill Armstrong (1978) and Dick Jauron (1999). The Bears ended the 2013 season 8–8, barely missing the playoffs after losing in the final week of the season to the Packers. Despite having a second-ranked offense that set numerous franchise records, the defense greatly worsened as it set franchise worsts in categories like yards allowed (6,313).",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The following season was a disaster for the Bears, with the offense regressing to finish outside the top 20 in scoring. The team also allowed 50-point games in two straight weeks against the Patriots and Packers, including a franchise-high 42 points and NFL-record six touchdowns allowed in the first half against the latter, to become the first team since the 1923 Rochester Jeffersons to allow at least 50 points in consecutive games. The Bears ended the year 5–11 and last in the NFC North. Trestman and Emery were fired after the season ended.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Bears hired Ryan Pace of the New Orleans Saints to be their new general manager on January 8, 2015. On January 16, 2015, John Fox accepted a four-year deal to become head coach. In Fox's first season as head coach, the Bears saw improvements from 2014; after USA Today projected the Bears to win three games, they doubled that total and finished the season with a 6–10 record, including a Thanksgiving win over the Packers at Lambeau Field.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "However, during the 2016 season, the Bears regressed heavily, compiling a 3–13 record (their worst since the NFL's change to 16-game seasons in 1978). The season included several injuries to starters and secondary players, including Jay Cutler, who only played five games as a result of two separate injuries. Backup quarterback Brian Hoyer started the next three games before a broken arm put him out for the season. He was replaced by Matt Barkley, who made his first career start with the Bears. None of the three quarterbacks returned for the 2017 season.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In the 2017 NFL Draft, the team selected quarterback Mitchell Trubisky with the second-overall pick, who sat behind newly signed quarterback Mike Glennon for the first four games before taking over. The Bears ended the season 5–11 and again finished last in the NFC North. On January 1, 2018, Fox was fired, ending his tenure in Chicago with a 14–34 record.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The Bears hired Matt Nagy from the Kansas City Chiefs as their new head coach in January 2018. General manager Ryan Pace signed receivers Taylor Gabriel, Allen Robinson, and Trey Burton in the offseason to complement second-year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. The Bears also acquired linebacker Khalil Mack in a block-blockbuster trade from the Oakland Raiders to further bolster their defense, sending a package of draft picks that includes 2019 and 2020 1st round draft picks in exchange. Nagy's Bears clinched the NFC North on December 16, 2018, for the first time since 2010 with a 24–17 victory over the Green Bay Packers. The Bears finished the 2018 season with a 12–4 record. They lost to the defending Super Bowl Champions Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round of the playoffs after Cody Parkey's game-winning field goal attempt was partially tipped and hit the uprights in the final seconds of the game, a play coined the \"Double Doink\". Despite the first-round exit, Nagy was named Coach of the Year by the Pro Football Writers Association and Associated Press. He was the first Bears coach to be given the AP award since Lovie Smith in 2005 and the fifth in team history.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "In 2019, the team regressed to an 8–8 record, though Nagy's combined 20 wins in 2018 and 2019 were the most by a Bears head coach in his first two seasons. During the year, renovations to Halas Hall were completed, allowing the team to move Training Camp from Ward Field on the campus of Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois to Lake Forest for 2020.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The Bears opened the 2020 season with a 5–1 record. However, they lost their next six games. The Bears won three of their last four games to finish the season with an 8–8 record. Despite their finish, the Bears qualified for the 2020–21 NFL playoffs, which was expanded to include one additional wildcard team from each conference. The New Orleans Saints defeated the Bears in the opening round of the playoffs, 21–9. The team did not re-sign Trubisky after the 2020 season and instead allowed him to become a free agent.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Prior to the 2021 season, the Bears traded up in the 2021 NFL Draft to select quarterback Justin Fields 11th overall. The team also signed veteran quarterback Andy Dalton in free agency. Dalton was initially declared the Bears starting quarterback, but Fields won the position after Dalton was injured. The Bears finished the season with a 6–11 record and missed the playoffs. Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace were fired after the season's conclusion. Nagy posted a 34–33 record over four seasons with two playoff berths, while Pace compiled a 48–65 record over seven seasons.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "On January 25, 2022, the Bears hired Ryan Poles as their general manager. The team hired Matt Eberflus as the franchise's 17th head coach two days later. The Bears struggled throughout the 2022 season, which included a franchise-record 10-game losing streak. They finished with an NFL worst 3–14 record, which secured the team the first overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. The Bears traded the first overall pick to the Carolina Panthers in exchange for wide receiver D. J. Moore and multiple draft picks.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The team is primarily owned by the heirs of George Halas. His daughter, Virginia Halas McCaskey (holds 22.6% of the team stocks), is the principal owner and votes the stock for her 11 children and two nephews (3.8% each) and the Brizzolara family stocks (8.33%), which amounts to an 80.33% ownership share, allowing her to control the team. Pat Ryan, former chairman and CEO of Aon Corp., and former Aon director Andrew J. McKenna's estate own 19.67% of the club. Ryan is also a board member.",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 2020, Forbes magazine reported that the franchise is worth $3.525 billion, making it the seventh richest franchise in the NFL. Chicago is the third largest media market in the United States.",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "In a Crain's Chicago Business article, one businessman described his wishes for the team to maximize its potential. In 2009, Yahoo! Sports listed the McCaskeys as the third worst owner in the NFL, stating \"[T]hey get less for what they've got than any team in our league.\"",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The club was founded by A. E. Staley Manufacturing Company owner Augustus Eugene Staley in 1919 and was own by the company until 1921. In 1922 Staley felt he could no longer afford the expensive burden of pro football and transferred the team ownership to Halas and paid him $5,000 for a sponsorship deal that kept the Staleys name for one more year. Halas than added Edward \"Dutch\" Sternaman as a second owner, while the Bears were incorporated at a NFL's meeting on 28 January 1922 as \"a new league team\" after its name change. At season's end, the two competed with agent Bill Harley for ownership of the Staleys, after he negotiated a contract that was to give his brother Chic Harley and himself one-third ownership of the team as part of his contract. However, Halas and Sternaman claimed that contract was voided when a physical revealed health impairments resultant from Harley's time in the war. The other league owners agreed to nullify the deal in favor of the Halas/Sternaman partnership by an 8–2 vote. In addition, Halas and Sternaman offered a share of the team to Paddy Driscoll, but the move was blocked by the owners in the NFL's June meeting, after the Chicago Cardinals (Driscoll's team) activated the league's reserve clause.",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "In 1931 Sternaman offered to sell his part to his partner Halas for $38,000 to focus on his other businesses. Halas’ purchase agreement with Sternaman was to be paid off in installments, and stipulated that if Halas defaulted on any of the payments, ownership of the team reverted back to Sternaman. Halas raised the initial funding by selling ownership stake to Ralph Brizzolara (8.33%), Jim McMillen ($5,000) and George Trafton mother which contribute $20,000 (Halas later bought her out for $40,000). Charles Bidwill purchased $5,000 in stock in 1933 (which was later bought off of his widow Violet for $50,000 in 1949) and he also arranged a bank loan for the remaining $5,000 needed to pay off Sternaman:",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "\"But it was a mighty close call. As I remember, I finally got all the money together at 11:10 a.m. on the day the final note came due. Forfeit time was 12 o’clock noon.\"",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Halas remained the club's president and principal owner until his death on October 31, 1983.",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Halas's children, George Halas Jr. (\"Mugs\") and Virginia McCaskey acquired stock in the team through prior gifts and sales. After \"Mugs\" death in 1979, Halas, Sr. owned a 49.35% interest in the Bears, the estate of Halas Jr. owned a 19.67% interest, Virginia McCaskey, Jim Finks (3.5%, which he would later relinquished when he resigned as the team GM), Charles Brizzolara, Robert and Carol Brizzolara in joint tenancy, and Nancy Lorenz owned the remaining outstanding shares. In 1981, the shareholders merged the Bears with a newly formed Delaware-incorporated organization, the Chicago Bears Football Club, Inc..",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "In 1987, \"Mugs\" estate executor wanted to sell his stocks and challenges the legality of a 1981 corporate reorganization and the other owners right of first refusal, while his heirs Christine and Stephen Halas tried to keep their father stocks, asking a Cook County Probate Court judge not to allow the sale. They failed to block the Chicago Bears from buying their 19.67% ownership of the football team, and sold their share for $17.5 million in 1988. Bears then-president Michael McCaskey called the purchase a \"terrific financial burden\", and the team would later sell those stocks to Chicago-area businessmen Andrew McKenna and Patrick Ryan for undisclosed sum in 1990. At the time it was also speculate that they invested to help the Bears lobby lawmakers for a domed stadium. In 2017 the NFL approved a sale of shares from Halas Jr. children (unreported whom or how much) to the McCaskey family for undisclosed sum.",
"title": "Ownership"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The team has major sponsorship deals with Dr Pepper Snapple Group, Miller Brewing Company, PNC Financial Services, United Airlines, Verizon, Xfinity, and Proven IT. The team was the first in the NFL to have a presenting sponsor, with the 2004 season advertised as \"Bears Football presented by BankOne (now Chase)\". Additionally, the Bears have an agreement with WFLD (the Fox owned-and-operated station in Chicago) to broadcast pre-season football games.",
"title": "Sponsorships"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The club has had few official logos throughout their history. When the team was known as the Decatur Staleys in 1920, they used A. E. Staley's logo as football was intended to help promote the company. The first Chicago Bears logo was introduced in 1940, depicting a black bear running with a football. The next logo, introduced in 1946, featured a navy blue bear on top of a football.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "In 1962, the Bears introduced their trademark \"wishbone-C\" logo for the first time. Initially white with a black outline, the logo is similar to the \"C\" long worn on the Cincinnati Reds' baseball caps, and very closely resembles the University of Chicago Maroons' \"C\" logo introduced in 1898. The change in the Bears' logo was due to the addition of logos on helmets, which professional football teams began adding in the late 1950s and early 1960s.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Before the 2003 season, the team had two unofficial mascots named \"Rocky\" and \"Bearman\". \"Rocky\" was a man who donned a #1 Bears jersey, carried a megaphone, and started chants all over Soldier Field during the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s, in a fashion similar to Fireman Ed. There is no known source of who \"Rocky\" was, and presumably currently lives in Northwestern Indiana. Don Wachter, also known as \"Bearman\", is a season ticket holder who decided in 1995 that he could also assist the team by cheerleading, similar to Rocky. The club allowed him to run across the field with a large Bears flag during player introductions and each team score (a role currently done by the Bears 4th Phase and Bears captains). In 1996, he donned his \"costume\" of face paint, bear head and arms, and a number 46 jersey. \"Bearman\" was forced to stop wearing his costume with the introduction of Staley Da Bear in 2003; however, in 2005, Wachter was allowed in costume again.",
"title": "Team culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Staley Da Bear is an anthropomorphic bear with a customized No. 00 jersey, with blue and orange eyes, synonymous with the team's main colors. His name is eponymous to corn processing company A. E. Staley, who founded the Bears' franchise. Like Rocky and Bearman, he entertains Bears fans, but like other NFL mascots, and mascots in general, Staley also makes various visits to charity events, parties, Chicago Rush AFL games, and other Bears-related events, as well as taking part in various games with his \"furballs\" against youth football teams at halftime.",
"title": "Team culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The team also formerly had their own cheerleading squad called the Chicago Honey Bears, who were formed in 1976. However, Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey terminated them after the 1985 season. The squad's uniforms have changed 3 times: from 1976 to 1979, the uniform was a white bodysuit with navy blue sleeves, then from 1980 to 1984 it became a white bodysuit, but with orange sleeves and the navy was moved to the trim, and in the squad's final season in 1985, the uniform was redesigned with an orange sequin vest.",
"title": "Team culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "Since 1998, the Bears have partnered with 'A Safe Place,' a domestic violence shelter in Waukegan, Illinois. In June 2017, current and former Bears employees helped with renovations at the shelter by ripping up carpet, painting walls, demolishing a kitchen and building a fence. The Bears have also provided financial support throughout the years.",
"title": "Team culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Green Bay Packers are the Bears' biggest rivals since their team's inception in 1920. The Green Bay Packers currently have the lead at 103–95–6, and the teams have met twice in the postseason. The Bears won the 1941 meeting, 33–14, and eventually defeated the New York Giants in the 1941 NFL Championship Game, and the Packers won the 2011 meeting, 21–14, en route to a Super Bowl XLV win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. The teams' first meeting was a victory for the Bears (known as the Staleys at the time) in 1921 in a shutout, 20–0. The Packers claimed their first win over the Bears in 1925, 14–10. The 1924 matchup (which ended in a 3–0 win for Chicago) was notable for featuring the first-ever ejection of players in a game in NFL history, as Frank Hanny of the Bears and Walter Voss of the Packers were ejected for punching each other. The rivalry also featured one of the last successful fair catch kicks in 1968, when Bears kicker Mac Percival kicked the game-winning field goal.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The NFL's oldest rivalry. The Bears originally had an intense intra-city rivalry with the Chicago Cardinals, lasting until 1959 when the Cardinals moved to St. Louis. The rivalry's importance waned further after the Cardinals relocated to the Phoenix metropolitan area in 1988 and eventually became the Arizona Cardinals. While it is the oldest continuing matchup in the NFL, the Bears and Cardinals have yet to meet in the playoffs. The Bears lead the all-time series 59–28–6, and during the Cardinals' tenure in Chicago, the Bears went 47–19–6 against them.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The Detroit Lions and Bears have faced off since the Lions' inception in 1930, when they were known as the Portsmouth Spartans, with the Spartans winning, 7–6, and Chicago winning the second meeting, 14–6. Since then, the Bears have led the series, 99–74–5. The rivalry grew in 1932, when the Bears and Spartans met in the first-ever postseason game in NFL history, with the Bears winning the game 9–0. The game also was known as the first pro \"indoor football\" game, as the game took place in indoor Chicago Stadium due to a blizzard at the time. The game also started the forward pass.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Chicago and Minnesota took each other on in the Vikings' inaugural game, with the Vikings defeating the Bears in a 37–13 rout, and Minnesota currently holds the series lead 60–54–2.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The Bears and the New York Giants squared off in six NFL championship games, more than any common match-up in either the NFL championship game or Super Bowl. The Bears won four of the six championship games, which included the Sneakers Game that the Giants won in the 1934 NFL Championship Game. The two teams also met in the 1985 and 1990 playoffs, splitting each meeting en route to a Super Bowl championship (Bears in Super Bowl XX, Giants in Super Bowl XXV). The Bears lead the all-time series 36–24–2.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The Bears holds historic minor rivalry with its former NFC Central foe Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Chicago currently holds the series lead 40-21. Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the Bears and Bucs play at least once every three years.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "The Bears and San Francisco 49ers were regular foes while both played in the Western Conference. The rilvary grow during the 1980's, as both teams were constant playoff contenders in the NFC. The 49ers currently holds the series lead 35-33-1 and 3-0 in the playoffs. Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the Bears and 49ers play at least once every three years.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "The two franchises first met in the 1937 NFL season and played annually until the 1980 NFL season, while from 1995–2015 the two teams were part of the Chicago-St. Louis rivalries in the four major leagues. Chicago currently holds the series lead 54-39-3 (1-1 in the playoffs). Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the Bears and Rams play at least once every three years.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "The AFC member Miami Dolphins and the Bears met less than 20 times but most of them were memorable. The most notable was the 1985 shootout at Monday Night, as Miami handing Chicago their first, and only, regular-season loss for the year, while keeping the 1972 Dolphins as the only perfect team in NFL history. Miami currently holds the series lead 10-4. Under the current NFL scheduling formula, the teams play at least once every four years.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Chicago had a fierce instate rivalry with the Rock Island Independents in the league first decade, with the Bears winning the series 8-1-4.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The Canton/Cleveland Bulldogs and the Staleys/Bears rivalry was between the two NFL's powerhouses in the 1920's, with games usually attracting the most fans, and the outcome often decided the fate of NFL Championship (1921-1924). The rivalry grow after the 1921 season, when the Staleys star Guy Chamberlin joined the Bulldogs and led them to Three consecutive championships, including a tiebreaker win over the Bears in 1924. Chicago won the series 4-3.",
"title": "Rivalries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "Soldier Field, located on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, is the current home of the Bears. The Bears moved to Soldier Field in 1971 after outgrowing Wrigley Field, the team's home for 50 years. After the AFL-NFL Merger, the newly merged league wanted their teams to play in stadiums that could hold at least 50,000 fans. Even with the portable bleachers that the team brought into Wrigley, the stadium could still only hold 46,000. At first, the Bears were supposed to play at Dyche Stadium (now called Ryan Field), but Northwestern University's residential neighbors objected, and the agreement was cancelled. The original home of the Bears was Staley Field at Decatur, Illinois, back when the team was known as the Decatur Staleys, before they move to Chicago in 1921.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "Soldier Field's playing turf was changed from natural grass to astroturf before the 1971 season, and then back to natural grass in time for the start of the 1988 season. Throughout its history, Soldier Field's field maintenance has been done by the Chicago Park District (the municipal entity of which the Bears lease the field from) by disparate district employees assigned to it, rather than a permanent team-employed grounds crew, to some controversy among players for its rough surface. This arrangement caused a lot of disagreements with the city throughout the years, with the Bears attempting to agree on a new stadium since 1986. The stadium was the site of the infamous Fog Bowl playoff game between the Bears and Philadelphia Eagles.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "In 2002, the stadium was closed and rebuilt with only the exterior wall of the stadium being preserved. It was closed on Sunday, January 20, 2002, a day after the Bears lost in the playoffs. It reopened on September 27, 2003, after a complete rebuild (the second in the stadium's history). Many fans refer to the rebuilt stadium as \"New Soldier Field\". During the 2002 season, the Bears played their home games at the University of Illinois' Memorial Stadium in Champaign, where they went 3–5.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "Many critics have negative views of the new stadium. They believe that its current structure has made it more of an eyesore than a landmark; some have dubbed it the \"Mistake on the Lake\". Soldier Field was stripped of its National Historic Landmark designation on February 17, 2006.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "In the 2005 season, the Bears won the NFC North Division and the No. 2 Seed in the NFC Playoffs, entitling them to play at least one home game in the postseason. The team hosted (and lost) their divisional round match on January 15, 2006, against the Carolina Panthers. This was the first playoff game at Soldier Field since the stadium reopened.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The stadium's end zones and midfield were not painted until the 1982 season. The design sported on the field included the bolded word \"Chicago\" rendered in Highway Gothic in both end zones. In 1983, the end zone design returned, with the addition of a large wishbone \"C\" Bears logo painted at midfield. These field markings remained unchanged until the 1996 season. In 1996 the midfield wishbone \"C\" was changed to a large blue Bears head, and the end zone design were painted with \"Bears\" in cursive. This new design remained until the 1999 season, at which point the artwork was returned to the classic \"Chicago\" and the \"C\". In the new Soldier Field, the artwork was tweaked to where one end zone had the word \"Chicago\" bolded and the other had \"Bears\".",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "In June 2021, the Bears submitted a bid to purchase the Arlington International Racecourse in Arlington Heights, Illinois from Churchill Downs. Despite negotiations between the city of Chicago to upgrade Soldier Field, the Bears entered into an agreement with Churchill Downs to purchase the Arlington International Racecourse in September 2021 for $197.2 million. The sale of the property which includes 326 acres of potential space for development was officially closed on February 15, 2023.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "From its inception up until 1930 the Staleys/Bears conducted their summer training camp in their home stadiums: Staley Field (Decatur, Illinois) and later Cubs' Park (Chicago). In 1930 the first moved to Mills Stadium in Chicago and from 1931-1934 at Loyola University Chicago, Logan Square Baseball Park, Notre Dame University and Lane Tech College Prep High School (respectively). In 1935 they started to conduct their training camps at a prominent location, when they started practicing at St. John's Northwestern Military Academy (Delafield, Wisconsin) for a decade.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In 1944 they moved to St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana and stayed there for 30 years. This location was the place of the famous automobile accident on July 27, 1964 that killed Bears players Willie Galimore and Bo Farrington, after Galimore's Volkswagen left the road on a curve and rolled, a few miles from the team's training camp.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 74,
"text": "From 1975 to 1984 they conduct their summer training camp in Lake Forest College, at the original Halas Hall (the practice and front office facility for the Bears from 1977 until 1997). The practice field was later renamed Farwell Field and serves as the main field for Foresters football and soccer.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 75,
"text": "From 1984 to 2001, the Bears held pre-season training camp in Ralph E. Davis Pioneer Stadium at University of Wisconsin–Platteville. They were considered a member of the \"Cheese League\" that in 1999 consisted of the Green Bay Packers, New Orleans Saints and Kansas City Chiefs, with each team practicing at a different university in Wisconsin. In 2001, the Illinois General Assembly asked the Bears to move to an Illinois practice facility in order to raise funds for remodeling Soldier Field. Before the Bears left, they donated $250,000 to UW–Platteville for a new computer lab, which was named \"The Bears Den\". On June 16, 2014, the stadium was damaged by a tornado and the Bears donate $50,000 to the school relief fund.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 76,
"text": "From 2002 to 2019, the Bears held their summer training camp at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais. Although the Bears had an agreement to continue practicing at the university through 2022, they moved the camp, permanently, into the recently renovated Halas Hall in 2020.",
"title": "Stadium"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 77,
"text": "While the Super Bowl XX champion Bears were a fixture of mainstream American pop culture in the 1980s, the Bears made a prior mark with the 1971 American TV movie Brian's Song starring Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers and James Caan as Brian Piccolo. The film told of how Piccolo helped Sayers recover from a devastating knee injury to return to his status as one of the league's best players, and how Sayers in turn helped the Piccolo family through Brian's fatal illness. A 2001 remake of the movie for ABC starred Sean Maher as Piccolo and Mekhi Phifer as Sayers.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 78,
"text": "The 1985 team is also remembered for recording the song \"The Super Bowl Shuffle\", which reached number forty-one on the Billboard Hot 100 and was nominated for a Grammy Award. The music video for the song depicts the team rapping that they are \"not here to start no trouble\" but instead \"just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle\". The team took a risk by recording and releasing the song before the playoffs had even begun, but were able to avoid embarrassment by going on to win Super Bowl XX by a then-record margin of 46–10. That game was one of the most-watched television events in history according to the Nielsen ratings system; the game had a rating of 48.3, ranking it seventh in all-time television history.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 79,
"text": "In addition to the \"Super Bowl Shuffle\" rap song, the Bears' success in the 1980s – and especially the personality of head coach Mike Ditka – inspired a recurring sketch on the American sketch comedy program Saturday Night Live, called \"Bill Swerski's Superfans\". The sketch featured Cheers co-star George Wendt, a Chicago native, as host of a radio talk-show (similar in tone to WGN radio's \"The Sportswriters\"), with co-panelists Carl Wollarski (Robert Smigel), Pat Arnold (Mike Myers) and Todd O'Connor (Chris Farley). To hear them tell it, \"Da Bears\" and Coach Ditka could do no wrong. The sketch stopped after Ditka was fired in 1993. The sketch usually showed the panelists chugging beer and eating lots of Polish sausage, and often featured Todd getting so agitated about what was happening with the Bears that he suffered a heart attack, but quickly recovered (through self-administered CPR). The sketch also features the cast predicting unrealistic blowout victories for Bears games. Da Super Fan sketch has not been brought back by SNL, with the exception of a single appearance by Horatio Sanz as a Super Fan for the Cubs on \"Weekend Update\" in 2003. Outside of SNL, George Wendt reprised his role of Swerski in the opening promo of Super Bowl XL on ABC.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 80,
"text": "On TV shows based in Chicago such as The Bob Newhart Show, Married... with Children, Family Matters, Still Standing, According to Jim, Early Edition and The Bernie Mac Show, the main characters are all Bears fans, and have worn Bears' jerseys and T-shirts on some occasions. Some episodes even show them watching Bears games. Roseanne is another TV show based in Illinois (albeit not in Chicago itself) to feature the Bears as the consensus household favorite, as 'Dan Connor' John Goodman is seen wearing Bears hats in several episodes. That '70s Show featured several Bears references, as it was based in Wisconsin, home of the Packers. On one episode while the gang is at a Bears vs. Packers game, Eric comes to the seat in a Walter Payton jersey and is booed by the surrounding Packers fans. In an episode of the Disney Channel show Shake It Up, based in Chicago, recurring character Dina Garcia (Ainsley Bailey) sold scalped Chicago Bears tickets. More recently, Modern Family character Cameron Tucker has been shown as a Bears fan. In an episode of the Disney Channel show \"I Didn't Do It\", based in Chicago, Lindy Watson (Olivia Holt) and Logan Watson (Austin North) try to get a football signed by NFL Hall of Famer Dick Butkus after destroying their fathers Butkus signed ball, Alshon Jeffery also makes a cameo appearance as well.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 81,
"text": "Ditka's success and popularity in Chicago has led him to land analyst roles on various American football pregame shows. Ditka worked for both the NFL on NBC and CBS's The NFL Today, and he currently works on ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown and provided Friday night analysis on the Bears on WBBM-TV's 2 on Football with former WBBM-TV sports director Mark Malone. He is also the color analyst for all local broadcasts of Bears preseason games. Ditka also co-starred himself alongside actor Will Ferrell in the 2005 comedy film Kicking & Screaming.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 82,
"text": "Also, Ditka, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon, William \"Refrigerator\" Perry and Brian Urlacher are among Bears figures known for their appearances in TV commercials. Urlacher, whose jersey was among the league's best-selling in 2002, was featured on Nike commercials with former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 83,
"text": "In the 1961 Hanna-Barbera animated short \"Rah Rah Bear\", Yogi Bear helps the Bears beat the New York Giants. The Bears were later depicted in an episode of the 1985 cartoon version of the NBC sitcom Punky Brewster, where the Bears are playing the Green Bay Packers.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 84,
"text": "Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) from the National Lampoon's Vacation series appears in some scenes wearing a navy blue with burnt orange scripting Chicago Bears ball cap. He wears the same Chicago Bears cap throughout all four Vacation movies.",
"title": "In popular culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 85,
"text": "Currently, WMVP (1000 AM) broadcast Bears games with Jeff Joniak doing the play-by-play, along with color commentator Tom Thayer, who played for the Bears from 1985 to 1992. Over the years, many Bears play-by-play broadcasters have included play-by-play announcers Jack Brickhouse, Joe McConnell and Wayne Larrivee, and color commentators Hub Arkush, Dick Butkus, Jim Hart and Irv Kupcinet.",
"title": "Broadcast media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 86,
"text": "Spanish radio station WLEY-FM aired the Bears games from 2012 to 2014. Since 2015, WRTO and WVIV-FM air Bears games in Spanish.",
"title": "Broadcast media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 87,
"text": "Preseason games air on WFLD (channel 32). The announcers are Adam Amin (play-by-play), Jim Miller (color commentary) and Lou Canellis (sideline reporter). WFLD also carries the majority of the team's regular season games through the NFL on Fox. Any Bears home games against AFC teams are aired on the CBS O&O station, WBBM-TV, which was the Bears' unofficial \"home\" station from 1956 until Fox won the NFC rights in 1995. Sunday Night games are broadcast on WMAQ-TV, the NBC O&O station, with ESPN Monday Night Football games rotating between WLS-TV and WCIU-TV (dependent on opponent, along with ABC's Monday night entertainment schedule).",
"title": "Broadcast media"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 88,
"text": "Patrick Mannelly holds the record for the most seasons in a Bears uniform with 16. On the other hand, Steve McMichael holds the record for most consecutive games played by a Bear with 191; he accomplished the feat from 1981 to 1993. In second place is Payton, who played 186 games from 1975 to 1987 at running back, a position considered to be conducive to injury, only missing one game in a span of 13 seasons.",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 89,
"text": "Kicker Robbie Gould became the Bears' all-time scoring leader in Week 5 of 2015 season overtaking placekicker Kevin Butler who previously held the club record for scoring the most points in his ten-year Bear career. He scored 1,116 points as the Bears kicker from 1985 to 1995. He is followed by running back Walter Payton, with 750 points. Payton holds the team record for career rushing yards with 16,726. That was an NFL record until Emmitt Smith of the Dallas Cowboys broke it in 2002. Former Bears running back Matt Forte, who started playing for the Bears in 2008, is the closest to Payton's record with 6,985 yards. Forte also holds the team's single season record for rookies in rushing attempts, rushing yards and receptions. Mark Bortz holds the record for most Bear playoff appearances, with 13 between 1983 and 1994, and is followed by Kevin Butler, Dennis Gentry, Dan Hampton, Jay Hilgenberg, Steve McMichael, Ron Rivera, Mike Singletary, and Keith Van Horne, who have each played in 12 playoff games.",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 90,
"text": "The 1940 Chicago Bears team holds the record for the biggest margin of victory in an NFL game (playoff or regular season) with a 73–0 victory over the Washington Redskins in the 1940 NFL Championship Game. The largest home victory for the Bears came in a 61–7 result against the Green Bay Packers in 1980. The largest defeat in club history was a 52–0 loss against the Baltimore Colts in 1964. The club recorded undefeated regular seasons in 1934 and 1942, but (unlike the 1972 Dolphins) did not win the championship game in either season. In 1934, the club completed a 13–0 record but were defeated by the New York Giants, and in 1942 the club completed an 11–0 record but were defeated by the Redskins. Had the Bears won either championship, the club would have completed a championship three-peat – a feat completed only by the Packers (twice), although no team has done it since the AFL-NFL merger. Halas holds the team record for coaching the most seasons with 40 and for having the most career victories of 324. Halas' victories record stood until Don Shula surpassed Halas in 1993. Ditka is the closest Bears coach to Halas, with 112 career victories. No other Bears coach has recorded over 100 victories with the team.",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 91,
"text": "During the 2006 season, return specialist Devin Hester set several kick return records. He currently holds the franchise record for most return yards with 2,261. He had six touchdown returns, setting a record for most returns in a single season. In 2007, he recorded another six touchdown season from returns. One of the most notable of these returns came on November 12, 2006, when he returned a missed field goal for a 108-yard touchdown. The record tied former teammate Nathan Vasher's previous record, which was set almost a year earlier. Additionally, Hester set a Super Bowl record by becoming the first player to return an opening kick of a Super Bowl for a touchdown. On December 20, 2010, Hester set an NFL record for most touchdowns on a punt or kickoff return with his 14th career return coming against the Minnesota Vikings. In 2011, Hester broke the record for the most punt returns against the Carolina Panthers.",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 92,
"text": "In 2012, Charles Tillman set the record for most forced fumbles in a single game with 4 against the Tennessee Titans. Also against the Titans, Chicago became the first team in league history to score a touchdown pass, a touchdown run, an interception return for a touchdown, and a blocked kick/punt for a score in the same quarter. Tillman and teammate Lance Briggs became the first pair in NFL history to return an interception for a touchdown in consecutive games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Dallas Cowboys.",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 93,
"text": "This is a partial list of the Bears' last five completed seasons. For the full season-by-season franchise results, see List of Chicago Bears seasons.",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 94,
"text": "Note: The Finish, Wins, Losses, and Ties columns list regular season results and exclude any postseason play.",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 95,
"text": "As of January 8, 2023",
"title": "Statistics and records"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 96,
"text": "In the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Bears have the most enshrined primary members with 30; the club also has had seven Hall of Famers spend a minor portion of their career with the franchise. Founder, owner, head coach, and player George Halas, halfback Bronko Nagurski, and Red Grange were a part of the original class of inductees in 1963. The franchise saw 14 individuals inducted into the Hall of Fame from 1963 to 1967. Offensive tackle Jim Covert and defensive end Ed Sprinkle are the most recent Chicago Bear inductees, both being inducted as seniors as part of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's centennial class of 2020. In 2023 Chuck Howley, who only played minor portion of his career with the Bears, was elected as a Seniors candidate.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 97,
"text": "In addition, Ray Bray was enshrined in Helms Athletic Foundation Pro Football Hall of Fame, which was established in 1950 and preceded the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He's the only Bears member from the Helms Athletic Foundation hall to not be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 98,
"text": "The Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame was founded in 1979 and honors sports greats associated with the Chicago metropolitan area. As of 2023, there are 59 honorees enshrined in the hall with connection to the Bears.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 99,
"text": "The Bears have retired 14 uniform numbers, which is the most in the NFL, and ranks fourth behind the basketball Boston Celtics (23), baseball New York Yankees (21), and hockey Montreal Canadiens (15) for the most in major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada. The Bears retired Mike Ditka's number 89 jersey on December 9, 2013. It is the last number that the Bears retired.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 100,
"text": "In honor of the team's centennial anniversary, on May 20, 2019, the Chicago Bears unveiled the Top 100 players in franchise history, as voted on by Hall of Fame writers Don Pierson and Dan Pompei, two of the most famous journalists that have ever covered the club in their long history. At the time of the publish, the list included 27 Pro Football Hall of Famers, while two more inductees would join in the 2020 Centennial class (Jim Covert and Ed Sprinkle).",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 101,
"text": "Among the 100 Greatest, four active players made the list, including safety Eddie Jackson (96), defensive lineman Akiem Hicks (75), offensive lineman Kyle Long (74) and Khalil Mack (60), who had only played only one season with the team at the time of the unveiling of the list. Long would retire the following year.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 102,
"text": "On a later date, Chicagobears.com released a list titled \"Top 10: Best of the rest\" that featured the top 10 snubs from the centennial list. The players include (in a following order): Alex Brown, Thomas Jones, Dave Whitsell, Curtis Conway, Tim Jennings, Leslie Frazier, Roberto Garza, Marty Booker, Nathan Vasher and William Perry.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 103,
"text": "Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee. Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist. Helms Athletic Foundation Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee. PFRA Hall of Very Good inductee.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 104,
"text": "During the week of June 3, 2019 the All-Time Team was announced in parts each day starting with the All-Time defensive players, followed by the All-Time specialists and then the All-Time offensive players. Bold indicates those elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 105,
"text": "Larry Mayer of the Chicagobears.com would later state, that according to the voters \"if they had included a long-snapper on the team it would have been Patrick Mannelly\".",
"title": "Players of note"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 106,
"text": "As a Chicago Bear",
"title": "Players of note"
}
] | The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The Bears have won nine NFL Championships, including one Super Bowl, and hold the NFL record for the most enshrinees in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the most retired jersey numbers. The Bears have also recorded the second-most victories of any NFL franchise, only behind the Green Bay Packers, who they have a long-standing rivalry with. The franchise was founded in Decatur, Illinois, on September 20, 1920, and became professional on September 17, 1920, and moved to Chicago in 1921. It is one of only two remaining franchises from the NFL's founding in 1920, along with the Arizona Cardinals, which was originally also in Chicago. The team played home games at Wrigley Field on Chicago's North Side through the 1970 season; they now play at Soldier Field on the Near South Side, adjacent to Lake Michigan. The team headquarters, Halas Hall, is in the Chicago suburb of Lake Forest, Illinois. The Bears practice at adjoining facilities there during the season, and began hosting Training Camp at Halas Hall in 2020 after major renovations. | 2001-10-26T21:05:27Z | 2023-12-30T10:22:13Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Bears |
6,612 | Cincinnati Bengals | The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The club's home games are held in downtown Cincinnati at Paycor Stadium.
Former Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown began planning for the creation of the Bengals franchise in 1965, and Cincinnati's city council approved the construction of Riverfront Stadium in 1966. Finally, in 1967, the Bengals were founded when a group headed by Brown received franchise approval by the American Football League (AFL) on May 23, 1967, and they began play in the 1968 season. Brown was the Bengals' head coach from their inception to 1975. After being dismissed as the Browns' head coach by Art Modell (who had purchased a majority interest in the team in 1961) in January 1963, Brown had shown interest in establishing another NFL franchise in Ohio and looked at both Cincinnati and Columbus. He ultimately chose the former when a deal between the city, Hamilton County, and Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds (who were seeking a replacement for the obsolete Crosley Field) was struck that resulted in an agreement to build a multipurpose stadium which could host both baseball and football games. Due to the impending merger of the AFL and the NFL, which was scheduled to take full effect in the 1970 season, Brown agreed to join the AFL as its 10th and final franchise. The Bengals, like the other former AFL teams, were assigned to the AFC following the merger. Cincinnati was also selected because, like their neighbors the Reds, they could draw from several large neighboring cities (Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky; Columbus, Dayton, and Springfield, Ohio) that are all no more than 110 miles (180 km) away from downtown Cincinnati, along with Indianapolis, until the Baltimore Colts relocated there prior to the 1984 NFL season. After Paul Brown's death in 1991, controlling interest in the team was inherited by his son, Mike Brown. In 2011, Brown purchased shares of the team owned by the estate of co-founder Austin Knowlton and is now the majority owner of the Bengals franchise.
The Bengals won the AFC championship in 1981, 1988, and in 2021. After the first two conference championships, they lost to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowls XVI and XXIII. The 1990s and the early 2000s were a period of great struggle. During that era they were occasionally referred to as "The Bungles," a term coined by Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope, due to their struggles and poor performance. Following the 1990 season, the team went 14 years without posting a winning record, during which time the team did not qualify to play in the NFL playoffs. The Bengals had several head coaches, and several of their top draft picks did not pan out. The team does not have an official general manager. However, Duke Tobin is often, though incorrectly, referred to as the Bengals' general manager because he handles most personnel decisions. In a 2011 survey, Brown was rated as among the worst team owners in American professional sports. The team's fortunes improved in the mid-2000s and they continued up until the mid-2010s, which saw them become more consistent postseason contenders, but they continued to struggle past the regular season. The turning point for the Bengals was during the 2021 season, when they won their first playoff game in 31 years and made back-to-back AFC Championship games. In 2021, they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 27–24 in overtime and advanced to Super Bowl LVI, their first appearance in the Super Bowl in 33 years, but this time, they lost to the Los Angeles Rams 23–20. The following season in 2022, they also made the AFC Championship game but lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Chiefs, at the same exact score as in Super Bowl LVI.
In a Forbes article on the value of NFL teams as of August 2022, the Cincinnati Bengals were ranked last with a value of $3 billion.
In 1967, an ownership group led by Paul Brown was granted a franchise in the American Football League. Brown named the team the Bengals in order "to give it a link with past professional football in Cincinnati". Another Cincinnati Bengals team had existed in the city and played in three previous American Football Leagues from 1937 to 1942. The city's world-renowned zoo was also home to a rare white Bengal tiger.
In a possible insult to Art Modell – or possibly as a homage to the Massillon Tigers – Brown chose the exact shade of orange used by his former team. He added black as the secondary color. Brown chose a very simple logo: the word "BENGALS" in black lettering. One of the potential helmet designs Brown rejected was a striped motif that was similar to the helmets adopted by the team in 1981 still in use today; however, that design featured yellow stripes on a turquoise helmet which were more uniform in width. The Bengals began play in the 1968 season.
In 1966, the American Football League agreed to a merger with its older and more established rival, the National Football League. Among the terms of the merger was that the AFL was permitted to add one additional franchise; the NFL wanted an even number of clubs in the merged league, so a team needed to be added to bring the number of clubs in the merged league to 26 teams.
For the AFL, a key motive behind their agreement to accept a new team was that the guarantee of an eventual place in the NFL meant the league could charge a steep expansion fee of $10 million – 400 times the $25,000 the original eight owners paid when they founded the league in 1960. The cash from the new team provided the American Football League with the funds needed to pay the indemnities required to be paid by the AFL to the NFL, as stipulated by the merger agreement.
Prior to the merger's announcement, Brown had not seriously considered joining the American Football League and was not a supporter of what he openly regarded to be an inferior competition, once famously stating that "I didn't pay ten million dollars to be in the AFL." However, with the announcement of the merger, Brown realized that the AFL expansion franchise would likely be his only realistic path back into the NFL in the short to medium term, and ultimately acquiesced to joining the AFL after learning that the team was guaranteed to become an NFL franchise after the merger was completed in 1970.
There was also a major problem: Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds were in need of a facility to replace Crosley Field, which they had used since 1912. By this time, the small park was antiquated and rundown, and parking issues had plagued the city since the early 1950s, while the park also lacked modern amenities – issues that were exacerbated by the Mill Creek Expressway (I-75) project that ran alongside the park.
While New York City – which had lost both its National League teams in 1957 after the Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles, and the Giants relocated to San Francisco – had actively courted Reds owner Powel Crosley to relocate his team there, Crosley was adamant that the Reds remain in Cincinnati and tolerated the worsening problems with the Crosley Field location.
With assistance from Ohio governor Jim Rhodes, Hamilton County and the Cincinnati city council agreed to build a single multi-purpose facility on the dilapidated riverfront section of the city: the new facility had to be ready by the opening of the 1970 NFL season, and was officially named Riverfront Stadium.
With the completion of the merger in 1970, the Cleveland Browns were one of three NFL teams that agreed to move to the AFL-based American Football Conference to give both conferences an equal number of teams and were placed in the AFC Central, the same division as the Bengals. An instant rivalry was born, fueled initially by Paul Brown's rivalry with Art Modell.
For their first two seasons, the Bengals played at Nippert Stadium, the current home of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. The team held training camp at Wilmington College in Wilmington, through the 1968 preseason. The team finished its first season with a 3–11 record and running back Paul Robinson, who rushed for 1,023 yards, and was named the AFL Rookie of the Year.
Founder Paul Brown coached the team for its first eight seasons. One of Brown's college draft strategies was to draft players from non-traditional football schools. Punter/wide receiver Pat McInally attended Harvard University, and linebacker Reggie Williams attended Dartmouth College and served on Cincinnati city council while on the Bengals' roster. Because of this policy, many former players went on to have successful careers in commentary and broadcasting as well as the arts. In addition, Brown had a knack for locating and recognizing pro football talent in unusual places.
In 1970, the Bengals moved to play at Riverfront Stadium, a home they shared with the Cincinnati Reds until the team moved to Paul Brown Stadium in 2000. Notable players of the 1970 team included Virgil Carter, Chip Meyers, Jack Meckstroth, Bob Trumpy, and Lemar Parrish. Virgil Carter threw for 1,647 yards. Chip Myers paced all receivers, catching 32 passes for 542 yards. Bob Trumpy contributed to the receiving game, too. The team reached the playoffs three times during that decade, but could not win any of those postseason games. In 1975, the team posted an 11–3 record, giving them what remains the highest winning percentage (.786) in franchise history. But it only earned them a wild card spot in the playoffs, behind the 12–2 Pittsburgh Steelers, who went on to win the Super Bowl; the Bengals lost to the Oakland Raiders 31–28 in the divisional playoffs.
The Bengals reached the Super Bowl twice during the 1980s – in Super Bowl XVI and Super Bowl XXIII – and lost against the San Francisco 49ers both times. The team appeared in the playoffs in 1990, making it to the second round before losing to the Los Angeles Raiders.
Before the following season got underway, Paul Brown died at age 82. Due to declining health, he had already transferred control to his son, Mike Brown, but was reported to still influence the daily operations of the team. The Bengals' fortunes changed for the worse as the team posted 14 consecutive non-winning seasons and were saddled with numerous draft busts.
The Bengals began to emerge from that dismal period into a new era of increased consistency, however, after the team finished with its worst record in history, 2–14, which led to the hiring of Marvin Lewis as head coach in 2003. Carson Palmer, the future star quarterback, was drafted in 2003, but did not play a snap that whole season, as Jon Kitna had a comeback year (voted NFL Comeback Player of the Year). Despite Kitna's success, Palmer was promoted to starting quarterback the following season. Under Palmer, the team advanced to the playoffs for the first time since 1990 in the 2005 season, which also was the first time the team had a winning percentage above .500 since 1990.
The Bengals returned to the playoffs again in 2009 in a season that included the franchise's first-ever division sweep. This was especially impressive since two of the teams swept by the Bengals – the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens – had made it to the AFC Championship Game the previous season. Marvin Lewis was rewarded for the accomplishment with the NFL Coach of the Year Award. In the 2010 season, the Bengals posted a 4–12 record.
Following the disappointing 2010 season, quarterback Carson Palmer demanded to be traded. When the Bengals refused to do so, Palmer announced his retirement from the NFL. He later was moved at the NFL trade deadline to the Oakland Raiders. In the 2011 NFL draft, the Bengals selected wide receiver A. J. Green in the first round and quarterback Andy Dalton in the second round.
The Bengals improved to 9–7 in the 2011 season, and clinched a playoff spot. Dalton and Green became the most prolific rookie WR-QB duo in history, connecting 65 times for 1,057 yards. However, they lost to the Houston Texans, 31–10, in the Wild Card round. In the 2012 season, the Bengals clinched a playoff spot once more with a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, going to the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time since 1982. However, the Bengals faced the Texans in the first round yet again and took another early exit, losing 19–13.
In the 2013 season, for the third straight year, the Bengals clinched a playoff berth and also won the AFC North, finishing with an 11–5 record. But once again, the Bengals were defeated in the wild card round, this time by the San Diego Chargers, 27–10. Most of the blame was put on Andy Dalton, who threw two interceptions and fumbled on a forward dive. This made the Bengals 0–5 in playoff games since Mike Brown took over as owner. The 2014 season started well, with the Bengals winning their first three contests against the Baltimore Ravens, Atlanta Falcons, and Tennessee Titans. However, they lost their Week 5 road matchup with the New England Patriots, 43–17. An overtime tie with the Carolina Panthers and a shutout loss to the Indianapolis Colts followed the primetime loss to the Patriots. Finishing the season 10–5–1 as the fifth seed, they lost to the Colts, 26–10, in the first round of the playoffs. This was the first time the franchise made the playoffs four straight seasons.
In 2015, the Bengals got out to a franchise-best 8–0 start with a 31–10 win over the Cleveland Browns. Unfortunately, in Week 14 they would lose starting quarterback Andy Dalton to injury. He would not return that season leaving A. J. McCarron to start under center. Additionally, they lost to the division rival Pittsburgh Steelers, 18–16, in the Wild Card round in the final minute, making them the first franchise in NFL history to lose five straight opening-round playoff games. This frustration continued in 2016 for the Bengals: they finished the 2016 campaign with a 6–9–1 record, losing several key players to injury, including A. J. Green, Giovani Bernard, and Jeremy Hill. They missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010, marking the first time Andy Dalton missed the playoffs as the Bengals' starting quarterback. One notable game was a 27–27 tie against the Washington Redskins which was played in London in 2016.
Following a rough 2016 season, the Bengals looked forward into 2017. However, after starting 0–3, the Bengals never found their footing. At one point in the season, the Bengals were 5–9. There were rumors that Marvin Lewis would not return for the next season as the Bengals' head coach. However, after two come-from-behind victories over the Lions and Ravens that eliminated both teams from the playoffs, the Bengals finished 7–9. The final two games were convincing enough for owner Mike Brown to give Lewis a new two-year contract.
The 2018 campaign began with promise for the Bengals under Lewis. Cincinnati began the season with a 4–1 record with impressive wins over the Colts, Ravens, Falcons, and Dolphins. However, the Bengals suffered many setbacks after the hot start: defensive coordinator Teryl Austin was fired mid-season because of defensive woes, A. J. Green was injured and officially out for the last four games, and Andy Dalton injured his thumb in the Bengals' first game against the Browns and replaced by Jeff Driskel for the rest of the season. The Bengals ended 2018 with a final record of 6–10 and finished last place in the AFC North. On December 31, 2018, with one year to go on his contract, Lewis and the Bengals mutually parted ways after three straight losing seasons under his watch.
In 2019, they hired head coach Zac Taylor. The 2019 campaign started off with reasonable success, with the Bengals barely losing to Seattle 21–20 at CenturyLink Field; but what started with promise ended in disaster. The Bengals then lost 10 more games and were 0–11 heading into December 2019. To open the month of December, they got their first win of the season against the Jets, 22–6, in Cincinnati. They eventually lost to the Patriots and then to the Dolphins, 38–35, in overtime after Dalton led the team back from 23 points down in the fourth quarter. With the loss to the Dolphins, the Bengals officially clinched the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. They capped off the season with a win against the Cleveland Browns, finishing 2–14, equaling the 2002 season as the team's worst record in history.
In 2020, the Bengals improved under rookie Joe Burrow, but lost him to a season-ending injury in Week 11 to the Washington Football Team that all but ended their season. They finished 4–11–1.
In 2021, the Bengals won the AFC North with a 10–7 record, which included dominant sweeps of the rival Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens. Led by Joe Burrow, who was playing in his first full season after recovering from his devastating knee injury in Week 11 of his rookie season and rookie receiver, and Burrow's college teammate at LSU, Ja'Marr Chase, Cincinnati would win the AFC North for the first time since 2015. They beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 34–31, in a Week 17 thriller to clinch the division. They then won their first playoff game since the 1990 season, beating the Las Vegas Raiders, 26–19, in the Wild Card round. After that, they upset the top-seeded Tennessee Titans, 19–16, when Evan McPherson kicked a game-winning 52-yard field goal. A week later, they advanced to their first Super Bowl since 1989 when McPherson kicked a 33-yard field goal in overtime to cap off a comeback from being down 21–3 and shock the No. 2 seed Chiefs, 27–24. They lost a close Super Bowl to the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI, 23–20.
In Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season, the Bengals lost, 23–20, to the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime, breaking a three-game winning streak the Bengals had against Pittsburgh. After falling to a 4–4 record in Week 8, the Bengals proceeded to win 8 straight games to close the season and earn a 3 seed in the AFC playoffs. They defeated divisional rival Baltimore in the first round 24–17, behind a 98-yard fumble recovery returned for a touchdown by Sam Hubbard. Despite missing three starting offensive linemen, the Bengals followed that up with a decisive 27–10 road win over the favored Buffalo Bills to reach a second straight AFC Championship appearance for the first time in franchise history. Once again, they faced the Kansas City Chiefs in the Championship Game, but this time they lost 23–20, in another thriller game.
When the team debuted in 1968, the Bengals' uniforms were modeled after the Cleveland Browns. When Paul Brown was fired by Art Modell, Brown still owned the equipment used by Cleveland, so after the firing, Paul Brown packed up all his equipment, which he then used for his new team in Cincinnati. The Cleveland Browns' team colors were brown, orange, and white, and their helmets were solid orange with a white dorsal stripe over the crest.
The Bengals' team colors were orange, black, and white, and their helmets were a similar shade of orange, with the only variations being the word "Bengals" in black block letters (with a white outline) on either side of the helmet and no stripe on the helmet. The Cincinnati Bengals were unique in the NFL, as they did not have secondary uniform numbers on the jerseys (called "TV numbers") until they appeared on the sleeves in the 1980 season; they were the only NFL team that didn't have them prior to that point. That same year, the team changed their helmet face mask color from gray to black. The team did not discard their Cleveland-like uniforms until 1981. During that year, a then-unique uniform design was introduced: Although the team kept black jerseys, white jerseys, and white pants, they were now trimmed with orange and black tiger stripes. The team also introduced the orange helmets with black tiger stripes that are still in use today. Sports Illustrated likened the Bengals' new helmets to "varicose pumpkins."
In 1997, the Bengals designed a logo consisting of a leaping tiger, and it was added to the uniform sleeves (with this, the TV numbers moved to the shoulder). Another alternate logo consisted of a Bengal's head facing to the left. However, the orange helmet with black tiger stripes continued to be the trademark. In 2004, a new tiger stripe pattern and more accents were added to the uniforms. The black jerseys now featured orange tiger-striped sleeves and white side panels, while the white jerseys began to use black tiger-striped sleeves and orange shoulders. A new logo consisting of an orange "B" covered with black tiger stripes was introduced. The team also started rotating black pants and debuted an alternate orange jersey, with white side panels and black tiger-striped sleeves. The Bengals have worn their black uniforms at home throughout their history, with some exceptions, such as the 1970 season, when the Bengals wore white at home for the entire season as well as most of the 1971 season. Since 2005, the Bengals have worn white for September home games where the heat could become a factor.
In 2016, the Bengals unveiled their all-white Color Rush alternate uniform, featuring black tiger stripes along the sleeves and pants. Orange was only used on the Nike mark, on the team logo, and as an outline color on the player's name.
The club announced a new uniform design on January 21, 2021. The new uniform design would be worn beginning with the 2021 NFL season. The set retains the signature striped helmet, while simplifying the look by removing the side and shoulder panels, creating a new stripe pattern for the sleeves, getting rid of the number block shadow, and removing the stroke on the player's name. This set also puts the team's wordmark on the chest and lacks TV numbers on the sleeves. The shade of orange was changed, as well. The Bengals wore three different pants with this set: black pants with orange stripes, white pants with black stripes, and white pants with orange stripes. The white pants with black stripes were worn with the white jersey in 2021 playoff games at Tennessee and Kansas City. The white pants with orange stripes were worn with the black jersey in Super Bowl LVI against the Rams.
In 2022, after the NFL rescinded the "one-helmet rule," the Bengals unveiled an alternate black-striped white helmet. In addition, the team brought back the all-white Color Rush uniform to be paired with the white helmets. This would last one season, however, as the team decided to pair the white helmet with the primary white uniform for two games in 2023, effectively retiring the Color Rush uniform for the time being.
The team's official mascot is a Bengal tiger named Who Dey. Its jersey number is 1. Aside from Who Dey, the team also has the Ben-Gals, the team's cheerleading squad, which included Laura Vikmanis, the oldest cheerleader in league history.
Carol Motsinger in 2015 said, "In 2012, Cincinnati welcomed another tiger named Who Dey. This time, one that walks on four legs. More than 1,000 Bengals season ticket holders named a Malayan tiger Who Dey at Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. He was recently traded to a zoo in Kansas."
The Ohio History Central notes: "In 1940, a third American Football League formed, and the Cincinnati Bengals joined it. Unfortunately, World War II began the following year, causing manpower shortages as men joined the armed forces. This prompted this newer AFL to cease playing after the 1941 season. Paul Brown, former coach of the Cleveland Browns, received authorization from a modern American Football League to create a team in Cincinnati. Brown chose the name Bengals to memorialize the teams of the same name that had represented Cincinnati in the past."
A no-huddle offense was commonly used by all teams when time in the game was running low. However, Sam Wyche, the head coach of the Bengals in 1988, along with offensive coordinator Bruce Coslet, made the high-paced offense the standard modality for the ball club regardless of time remaining. By quickly substituting and setting up for the next play—often within 5–10 seconds after the last play despite being afforded 45 seconds—the Bengals hindered the other team's defense from substituting situational players, regrouping for tactics, and resting. In response, the NFL instituted rules allowing the defense ample time for substitutions when offensive substitutions were made. The hurry-up tactic was used by the franchise during the late 1980s while Sam Wyche was the coach. A rival for AFC supremacy during this time was the Buffalo Bills, coached by Marv Levy, who also used a version of the no-huddle offense starting with the 1989 season. The Bengals had beaten the Bills three times in 1988 (pre-season, regular season, and the AFC Championship Game). Marv Levy threatened to fake injuries if the Bengals used the "no-huddle" in the AFC Championship. Wyche was notified that the commissioner had ordered the "no-huddle" illegal for the game. The official notified Wyche and the Bengals' team just two hours before the game kickoff. Wyche asked to talk directly to the commissioner and word immediately came back that the "no-huddle" would not be penalized. Levy did not have his players' fake injuries in the game but installed his version the next year, 1989. The Bengals first used the "no-huddle" in 1984. Most of the high-profile games (the various games for AFC titles and regular-season games) between the two led to these changes in NFL rules. Wyche also first used the timeout periods as an opportunity to bring his entire team to the sideline to talk to all eleven players, plus substitutes, at one time. This allowed trainers time to treat a cut or bruise and equipment managers time to repair an equipment defect.
The West Coast offense is the popular name for the high-percentage passing scheme designed by former Bengals assistant Bill Walsh. Walsh formulated what has become popularly known as the West Coast offense during his tenure as assistant coach for the Cincinnati Bengals from 1968 to 1975, while working under the tutelage of Brown (and before embarking on his legendary coaching tenure with the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s). Bengals quarterback Virgil Carter was the first player to successfully implement Walsh's system, leading the NFL in pass completion percentage in 1971. Ken Anderson replaced Carter as Cincinnati's starting quarterback in 1972 and was even more successful. In 1975 he would bring widespread recognition to the West Coast offense as well as to the Cincinnati team and its quarterback in a nationally televised Monday night contest between the Bengals and a Buffalo Bills team built around the running game of star player O. J. Simpson. Anderson's 447 passing yards were enough to overcome Simpson's 197 yards on the ground in a game that proved a milestone, providing a striking contrast between the "old" game of defense-minded football and the new game of higher scores and more action through a sophisticated aerial attack. The game, in effect, offered its viewers a glimpse of the future of professional football. Anderson, who was drafted by Paul Brown in 1971 and installed as starting quarterback in 1972, made four trips to the Pro Bowl, won four passing titles, was named NFL MVP in 1981, and set the record for completion percentage in a single season in 1982 with 70.66%. Defeated frequently during the 1970s by the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that won four Super Bowls with 9 future Hall of Fame players, the Bengals under Anderson and head coach Forrest Gregg would finally break through the Steel Curtain, defeating the Steelers during both of their meetings in 1980 and again in 1981. Anderson, who had been named the "team franchise" by Bengal tight end Bob Trumpy, would ultimately prove his worth with a career record of 91 wins and 81 losses.
The defense created to combat the West Coast offense also came from Cincinnati. Then-Bengals defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau (who later served as the team's head coach from 2000 to 2002) created the zone blitz in the 1980s in response to the West Coast offense.
Also, despite not being formally retired, the Bengals have not reissued 78 of Anthony Muñoz since he retired.
There are four members of the Hall of Fame that have spent some portion of their career with the Bengals, but only Anthony Muñoz and Ken Riley spent their entire playing careers with the Bengals. Listed below are only Hall of Famers whose induction includes their tenure with the Bengals. Bengals founder and first coach Paul Brown is in the Hall of Fame, but was inducted before founding the team and is not credited as a Bengals Hall of Famer. Additionally, the Bengals have had two head coaches, Forrest Gregg and Dick LeBeau inducted for their playing career.
In 2007, in celebration of their 40th anniversary the Bengals named an all-time team voted on by the fans.
The Bengals announced they would begin a Ring of Honor in 2021. The inaugural class included Pro Football Hall of Fame tackle Anthony Muñoz and Paul Brown, who was the franchise's founder and first coach, with Ken Anderson and Ken Riley added after a season ticket holder vote.
*Posthumous induction
The Bengals contract with iHeartMedia as their radio partner, with their flagship radio stations being WCKY (1530) and WEBN (102.7 FM), along with WLW (700) if not in conflict with the Reds. Most preseason and regular season games, are telecast on WKRC-TV, channel 12, the CBS affiliate. Mike Watts and Anthony Muñoz are the TV announcers for preseason games, with Mike Valpredo as the sideline reporter. Games that feature an NFC opponent playing at Paycor Stadium will be televised on WXIX, channel 19, the local Fox affiliate. WLWT-TV airs games when the Bengals are featured on Sunday Night Football.
The radio broadcasting crew consists of Dan Hoard (play-by-play), and Dave Lapham (analyst).
"The Bengal Growl" is the Bengals fight song. It was written by Bengals entertainment director George "Red" Bird upon the team's founding in 1968. Bird had been friends with Paul Brown for over 30 years. The two had met at Massillon Washington High School when Brown was head football coach and Bird was director of the famed Massillon Tiger Swing Band. Bird had served as the Browns' music and entertainment director in 1946, and kept that role until Brown convinced him to come to Cincinnati in 1968. His first task was to pen a fight song along the lines of the Browns' fight song, "Hi! O-Hi-O for Cleveland!" The song remains very popular among Bengals fans, who are known to belt out the song at "Bengals backer" bars all over the country. In 2021, Elizabeth Blackburn, now the team's head of strategy and fan engagement, told The Athletic recalled stopping at one such bar in San Francisco during the 2015 playoffs, and was surprised to hear the viewers break out into the song. As a measure of how popular the song remains among the Bengals fan base, when Blackburn wrote an editorial on her efforts to overhaul the team's image for the Bengals Web site, Blackburn specifically mentioned that the song was not going anywhere.
"Who Dey?!" is the name of a chant of support by fans of the Cincinnati Bengals, in use since the 1980s. The entire chant is: "Who dey, who dey, who dey think gonna beat dem Bengals?" The answer screamed in unison, "Nobody." Sometimes fans will instead shout "Who Dey?" to represent the entire cheer. "Who Dey" is also the name of the team's mascot, a Bengal tiger.
Saying "Who Dey" at Bengals games is steeped in local beer lore. Hudy, a leading product of Hudepohl Brewing Company 1978 through the late 1980s, bears a phonetic similarity to the "Who Dey" chant. Beer vendors who carried full cases of bottled local beer up and down the steep upper stairs of what was then Riverfront Stadium would call out "If Hudy", "Burger" and other local beer names. Raucous fans would often chant back and forth with them as the vendors called out. During the 1980 season, the banter with the Hudepohl vendors grew organically into the now famous (Hu-Dey) -Who They?- chant.
The full Who Dey chant was first known to be used by fans of the 1980 Cincinnati Bengals. While the origin of the chant is disputed, one possible source for the chant is a 1980 commercial for (the now-defunct) Red Frazier Ford of Cincinnati, which used this tagline: "Who's going to give you a better deal than Red Frazier?...Nobody!" Cincinnati fans who had seen the commercial many times may have just copied it when cheering.
The chant bears some similarities to the phrase "Who Dat?", which was officially adopted by the New Orleans Saints in 1983 but had been used by Louisiana's high school team fans for some time. The saying "Who Dat?" originated in minstrel shows and vaudeville acts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, then it was taken up by New Orleans Jazz and various Big band folks in the 1920s and 1930s. In the late 1960s, local Louisiana High Schools, St. Augustine High School and Patterson High School reportedly have been using the cheer and Gulf Coast fans of Alcorn State University and Louisiana State University picked up the cheer in the 1970s. Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana claims to have originated the cheer in the late 1960s in their version: "Who dat talking 'bout beating dem Jags?" | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The club's home games are held in downtown Cincinnati at Paycor Stadium.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Former Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown began planning for the creation of the Bengals franchise in 1965, and Cincinnati's city council approved the construction of Riverfront Stadium in 1966. Finally, in 1967, the Bengals were founded when a group headed by Brown received franchise approval by the American Football League (AFL) on May 23, 1967, and they began play in the 1968 season. Brown was the Bengals' head coach from their inception to 1975. After being dismissed as the Browns' head coach by Art Modell (who had purchased a majority interest in the team in 1961) in January 1963, Brown had shown interest in establishing another NFL franchise in Ohio and looked at both Cincinnati and Columbus. He ultimately chose the former when a deal between the city, Hamilton County, and Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds (who were seeking a replacement for the obsolete Crosley Field) was struck that resulted in an agreement to build a multipurpose stadium which could host both baseball and football games. Due to the impending merger of the AFL and the NFL, which was scheduled to take full effect in the 1970 season, Brown agreed to join the AFL as its 10th and final franchise. The Bengals, like the other former AFL teams, were assigned to the AFC following the merger. Cincinnati was also selected because, like their neighbors the Reds, they could draw from several large neighboring cities (Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky; Columbus, Dayton, and Springfield, Ohio) that are all no more than 110 miles (180 km) away from downtown Cincinnati, along with Indianapolis, until the Baltimore Colts relocated there prior to the 1984 NFL season. After Paul Brown's death in 1991, controlling interest in the team was inherited by his son, Mike Brown. In 2011, Brown purchased shares of the team owned by the estate of co-founder Austin Knowlton and is now the majority owner of the Bengals franchise.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Bengals won the AFC championship in 1981, 1988, and in 2021. After the first two conference championships, they lost to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowls XVI and XXIII. The 1990s and the early 2000s were a period of great struggle. During that era they were occasionally referred to as \"The Bungles,\" a term coined by Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope, due to their struggles and poor performance. Following the 1990 season, the team went 14 years without posting a winning record, during which time the team did not qualify to play in the NFL playoffs. The Bengals had several head coaches, and several of their top draft picks did not pan out. The team does not have an official general manager. However, Duke Tobin is often, though incorrectly, referred to as the Bengals' general manager because he handles most personnel decisions. In a 2011 survey, Brown was rated as among the worst team owners in American professional sports. The team's fortunes improved in the mid-2000s and they continued up until the mid-2010s, which saw them become more consistent postseason contenders, but they continued to struggle past the regular season. The turning point for the Bengals was during the 2021 season, when they won their first playoff game in 31 years and made back-to-back AFC Championship games. In 2021, they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 27–24 in overtime and advanced to Super Bowl LVI, their first appearance in the Super Bowl in 33 years, but this time, they lost to the Los Angeles Rams 23–20. The following season in 2022, they also made the AFC Championship game but lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Chiefs, at the same exact score as in Super Bowl LVI.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "In a Forbes article on the value of NFL teams as of August 2022, the Cincinnati Bengals were ranked last with a value of $3 billion.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In 1967, an ownership group led by Paul Brown was granted a franchise in the American Football League. Brown named the team the Bengals in order \"to give it a link with past professional football in Cincinnati\". Another Cincinnati Bengals team had existed in the city and played in three previous American Football Leagues from 1937 to 1942. The city's world-renowned zoo was also home to a rare white Bengal tiger.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In a possible insult to Art Modell – or possibly as a homage to the Massillon Tigers – Brown chose the exact shade of orange used by his former team. He added black as the secondary color. Brown chose a very simple logo: the word \"BENGALS\" in black lettering. One of the potential helmet designs Brown rejected was a striped motif that was similar to the helmets adopted by the team in 1981 still in use today; however, that design featured yellow stripes on a turquoise helmet which were more uniform in width. The Bengals began play in the 1968 season.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In 1966, the American Football League agreed to a merger with its older and more established rival, the National Football League. Among the terms of the merger was that the AFL was permitted to add one additional franchise; the NFL wanted an even number of clubs in the merged league, so a team needed to be added to bring the number of clubs in the merged league to 26 teams.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "For the AFL, a key motive behind their agreement to accept a new team was that the guarantee of an eventual place in the NFL meant the league could charge a steep expansion fee of $10 million – 400 times the $25,000 the original eight owners paid when they founded the league in 1960. The cash from the new team provided the American Football League with the funds needed to pay the indemnities required to be paid by the AFL to the NFL, as stipulated by the merger agreement.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Prior to the merger's announcement, Brown had not seriously considered joining the American Football League and was not a supporter of what he openly regarded to be an inferior competition, once famously stating that \"I didn't pay ten million dollars to be in the AFL.\" However, with the announcement of the merger, Brown realized that the AFL expansion franchise would likely be his only realistic path back into the NFL in the short to medium term, and ultimately acquiesced to joining the AFL after learning that the team was guaranteed to become an NFL franchise after the merger was completed in 1970.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "There was also a major problem: Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds were in need of a facility to replace Crosley Field, which they had used since 1912. By this time, the small park was antiquated and rundown, and parking issues had plagued the city since the early 1950s, while the park also lacked modern amenities – issues that were exacerbated by the Mill Creek Expressway (I-75) project that ran alongside the park.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "While New York City – which had lost both its National League teams in 1957 after the Dodgers relocated to Los Angeles, and the Giants relocated to San Francisco – had actively courted Reds owner Powel Crosley to relocate his team there, Crosley was adamant that the Reds remain in Cincinnati and tolerated the worsening problems with the Crosley Field location.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "With assistance from Ohio governor Jim Rhodes, Hamilton County and the Cincinnati city council agreed to build a single multi-purpose facility on the dilapidated riverfront section of the city: the new facility had to be ready by the opening of the 1970 NFL season, and was officially named Riverfront Stadium.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "With the completion of the merger in 1970, the Cleveland Browns were one of three NFL teams that agreed to move to the AFL-based American Football Conference to give both conferences an equal number of teams and were placed in the AFC Central, the same division as the Bengals. An instant rivalry was born, fueled initially by Paul Brown's rivalry with Art Modell.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "For their first two seasons, the Bengals played at Nippert Stadium, the current home of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. The team held training camp at Wilmington College in Wilmington, through the 1968 preseason. The team finished its first season with a 3–11 record and running back Paul Robinson, who rushed for 1,023 yards, and was named the AFL Rookie of the Year.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Founder Paul Brown coached the team for its first eight seasons. One of Brown's college draft strategies was to draft players from non-traditional football schools. Punter/wide receiver Pat McInally attended Harvard University, and linebacker Reggie Williams attended Dartmouth College and served on Cincinnati city council while on the Bengals' roster. Because of this policy, many former players went on to have successful careers in commentary and broadcasting as well as the arts. In addition, Brown had a knack for locating and recognizing pro football talent in unusual places.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In 1970, the Bengals moved to play at Riverfront Stadium, a home they shared with the Cincinnati Reds until the team moved to Paul Brown Stadium in 2000. Notable players of the 1970 team included Virgil Carter, Chip Meyers, Jack Meckstroth, Bob Trumpy, and Lemar Parrish. Virgil Carter threw for 1,647 yards. Chip Myers paced all receivers, catching 32 passes for 542 yards. Bob Trumpy contributed to the receiving game, too. The team reached the playoffs three times during that decade, but could not win any of those postseason games. In 1975, the team posted an 11–3 record, giving them what remains the highest winning percentage (.786) in franchise history. But it only earned them a wild card spot in the playoffs, behind the 12–2 Pittsburgh Steelers, who went on to win the Super Bowl; the Bengals lost to the Oakland Raiders 31–28 in the divisional playoffs.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The Bengals reached the Super Bowl twice during the 1980s – in Super Bowl XVI and Super Bowl XXIII – and lost against the San Francisco 49ers both times. The team appeared in the playoffs in 1990, making it to the second round before losing to the Los Angeles Raiders.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Before the following season got underway, Paul Brown died at age 82. Due to declining health, he had already transferred control to his son, Mike Brown, but was reported to still influence the daily operations of the team. The Bengals' fortunes changed for the worse as the team posted 14 consecutive non-winning seasons and were saddled with numerous draft busts.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The Bengals began to emerge from that dismal period into a new era of increased consistency, however, after the team finished with its worst record in history, 2–14, which led to the hiring of Marvin Lewis as head coach in 2003. Carson Palmer, the future star quarterback, was drafted in 2003, but did not play a snap that whole season, as Jon Kitna had a comeback year (voted NFL Comeback Player of the Year). Despite Kitna's success, Palmer was promoted to starting quarterback the following season. Under Palmer, the team advanced to the playoffs for the first time since 1990 in the 2005 season, which also was the first time the team had a winning percentage above .500 since 1990.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The Bengals returned to the playoffs again in 2009 in a season that included the franchise's first-ever division sweep. This was especially impressive since two of the teams swept by the Bengals – the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens – had made it to the AFC Championship Game the previous season. Marvin Lewis was rewarded for the accomplishment with the NFL Coach of the Year Award. In the 2010 season, the Bengals posted a 4–12 record.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Following the disappointing 2010 season, quarterback Carson Palmer demanded to be traded. When the Bengals refused to do so, Palmer announced his retirement from the NFL. He later was moved at the NFL trade deadline to the Oakland Raiders. In the 2011 NFL draft, the Bengals selected wide receiver A. J. Green in the first round and quarterback Andy Dalton in the second round.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Bengals improved to 9–7 in the 2011 season, and clinched a playoff spot. Dalton and Green became the most prolific rookie WR-QB duo in history, connecting 65 times for 1,057 yards. However, they lost to the Houston Texans, 31–10, in the Wild Card round. In the 2012 season, the Bengals clinched a playoff spot once more with a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers, going to the playoffs in back-to-back years for the first time since 1982. However, the Bengals faced the Texans in the first round yet again and took another early exit, losing 19–13.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the 2013 season, for the third straight year, the Bengals clinched a playoff berth and also won the AFC North, finishing with an 11–5 record. But once again, the Bengals were defeated in the wild card round, this time by the San Diego Chargers, 27–10. Most of the blame was put on Andy Dalton, who threw two interceptions and fumbled on a forward dive. This made the Bengals 0–5 in playoff games since Mike Brown took over as owner. The 2014 season started well, with the Bengals winning their first three contests against the Baltimore Ravens, Atlanta Falcons, and Tennessee Titans. However, they lost their Week 5 road matchup with the New England Patriots, 43–17. An overtime tie with the Carolina Panthers and a shutout loss to the Indianapolis Colts followed the primetime loss to the Patriots. Finishing the season 10–5–1 as the fifth seed, they lost to the Colts, 26–10, in the first round of the playoffs. This was the first time the franchise made the playoffs four straight seasons.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "In 2015, the Bengals got out to a franchise-best 8–0 start with a 31–10 win over the Cleveland Browns. Unfortunately, in Week 14 they would lose starting quarterback Andy Dalton to injury. He would not return that season leaving A. J. McCarron to start under center. Additionally, they lost to the division rival Pittsburgh Steelers, 18–16, in the Wild Card round in the final minute, making them the first franchise in NFL history to lose five straight opening-round playoff games. This frustration continued in 2016 for the Bengals: they finished the 2016 campaign with a 6–9–1 record, losing several key players to injury, including A. J. Green, Giovani Bernard, and Jeremy Hill. They missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010, marking the first time Andy Dalton missed the playoffs as the Bengals' starting quarterback. One notable game was a 27–27 tie against the Washington Redskins which was played in London in 2016.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Following a rough 2016 season, the Bengals looked forward into 2017. However, after starting 0–3, the Bengals never found their footing. At one point in the season, the Bengals were 5–9. There were rumors that Marvin Lewis would not return for the next season as the Bengals' head coach. However, after two come-from-behind victories over the Lions and Ravens that eliminated both teams from the playoffs, the Bengals finished 7–9. The final two games were convincing enough for owner Mike Brown to give Lewis a new two-year contract.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The 2018 campaign began with promise for the Bengals under Lewis. Cincinnati began the season with a 4–1 record with impressive wins over the Colts, Ravens, Falcons, and Dolphins. However, the Bengals suffered many setbacks after the hot start: defensive coordinator Teryl Austin was fired mid-season because of defensive woes, A. J. Green was injured and officially out for the last four games, and Andy Dalton injured his thumb in the Bengals' first game against the Browns and replaced by Jeff Driskel for the rest of the season. The Bengals ended 2018 with a final record of 6–10 and finished last place in the AFC North. On December 31, 2018, with one year to go on his contract, Lewis and the Bengals mutually parted ways after three straight losing seasons under his watch.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "In 2019, they hired head coach Zac Taylor. The 2019 campaign started off with reasonable success, with the Bengals barely losing to Seattle 21–20 at CenturyLink Field; but what started with promise ended in disaster. The Bengals then lost 10 more games and were 0–11 heading into December 2019. To open the month of December, they got their first win of the season against the Jets, 22–6, in Cincinnati. They eventually lost to the Patriots and then to the Dolphins, 38–35, in overtime after Dalton led the team back from 23 points down in the fourth quarter. With the loss to the Dolphins, the Bengals officially clinched the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. They capped off the season with a win against the Cleveland Browns, finishing 2–14, equaling the 2002 season as the team's worst record in history.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "In 2020, the Bengals improved under rookie Joe Burrow, but lost him to a season-ending injury in Week 11 to the Washington Football Team that all but ended their season. They finished 4–11–1.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "In 2021, the Bengals won the AFC North with a 10–7 record, which included dominant sweeps of the rival Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens. Led by Joe Burrow, who was playing in his first full season after recovering from his devastating knee injury in Week 11 of his rookie season and rookie receiver, and Burrow's college teammate at LSU, Ja'Marr Chase, Cincinnati would win the AFC North for the first time since 2015. They beat the Kansas City Chiefs, 34–31, in a Week 17 thriller to clinch the division. They then won their first playoff game since the 1990 season, beating the Las Vegas Raiders, 26–19, in the Wild Card round. After that, they upset the top-seeded Tennessee Titans, 19–16, when Evan McPherson kicked a game-winning 52-yard field goal. A week later, they advanced to their first Super Bowl since 1989 when McPherson kicked a 33-yard field goal in overtime to cap off a comeback from being down 21–3 and shock the No. 2 seed Chiefs, 27–24. They lost a close Super Bowl to the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LVI, 23–20.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "In Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season, the Bengals lost, 23–20, to the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime, breaking a three-game winning streak the Bengals had against Pittsburgh. After falling to a 4–4 record in Week 8, the Bengals proceeded to win 8 straight games to close the season and earn a 3 seed in the AFC playoffs. They defeated divisional rival Baltimore in the first round 24–17, behind a 98-yard fumble recovery returned for a touchdown by Sam Hubbard. Despite missing three starting offensive linemen, the Bengals followed that up with a decisive 27–10 road win over the favored Buffalo Bills to reach a second straight AFC Championship appearance for the first time in franchise history. Once again, they faced the Kansas City Chiefs in the Championship Game, but this time they lost 23–20, in another thriller game.",
"title": "Franchise history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "When the team debuted in 1968, the Bengals' uniforms were modeled after the Cleveland Browns. When Paul Brown was fired by Art Modell, Brown still owned the equipment used by Cleveland, so after the firing, Paul Brown packed up all his equipment, which he then used for his new team in Cincinnati. The Cleveland Browns' team colors were brown, orange, and white, and their helmets were solid orange with a white dorsal stripe over the crest.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The Bengals' team colors were orange, black, and white, and their helmets were a similar shade of orange, with the only variations being the word \"Bengals\" in black block letters (with a white outline) on either side of the helmet and no stripe on the helmet. The Cincinnati Bengals were unique in the NFL, as they did not have secondary uniform numbers on the jerseys (called \"TV numbers\") until they appeared on the sleeves in the 1980 season; they were the only NFL team that didn't have them prior to that point. That same year, the team changed their helmet face mask color from gray to black. The team did not discard their Cleveland-like uniforms until 1981. During that year, a then-unique uniform design was introduced: Although the team kept black jerseys, white jerseys, and white pants, they were now trimmed with orange and black tiger stripes. The team also introduced the orange helmets with black tiger stripes that are still in use today. Sports Illustrated likened the Bengals' new helmets to \"varicose pumpkins.\"",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In 1997, the Bengals designed a logo consisting of a leaping tiger, and it was added to the uniform sleeves (with this, the TV numbers moved to the shoulder). Another alternate logo consisted of a Bengal's head facing to the left. However, the orange helmet with black tiger stripes continued to be the trademark. In 2004, a new tiger stripe pattern and more accents were added to the uniforms. The black jerseys now featured orange tiger-striped sleeves and white side panels, while the white jerseys began to use black tiger-striped sleeves and orange shoulders. A new logo consisting of an orange \"B\" covered with black tiger stripes was introduced. The team also started rotating black pants and debuted an alternate orange jersey, with white side panels and black tiger-striped sleeves. The Bengals have worn their black uniforms at home throughout their history, with some exceptions, such as the 1970 season, when the Bengals wore white at home for the entire season as well as most of the 1971 season. Since 2005, the Bengals have worn white for September home games where the heat could become a factor.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "In 2016, the Bengals unveiled their all-white Color Rush alternate uniform, featuring black tiger stripes along the sleeves and pants. Orange was only used on the Nike mark, on the team logo, and as an outline color on the player's name.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The club announced a new uniform design on January 21, 2021. The new uniform design would be worn beginning with the 2021 NFL season. The set retains the signature striped helmet, while simplifying the look by removing the side and shoulder panels, creating a new stripe pattern for the sleeves, getting rid of the number block shadow, and removing the stroke on the player's name. This set also puts the team's wordmark on the chest and lacks TV numbers on the sleeves. The shade of orange was changed, as well. The Bengals wore three different pants with this set: black pants with orange stripes, white pants with black stripes, and white pants with orange stripes. The white pants with black stripes were worn with the white jersey in 2021 playoff games at Tennessee and Kansas City. The white pants with orange stripes were worn with the black jersey in Super Bowl LVI against the Rams.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In 2022, after the NFL rescinded the \"one-helmet rule,\" the Bengals unveiled an alternate black-striped white helmet. In addition, the team brought back the all-white Color Rush uniform to be paired with the white helmets. This would last one season, however, as the team decided to pair the white helmet with the primary white uniform for two games in 2023, effectively retiring the Color Rush uniform for the time being.",
"title": "Logos and uniforms"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The team's official mascot is a Bengal tiger named Who Dey. Its jersey number is 1. Aside from Who Dey, the team also has the Ben-Gals, the team's cheerleading squad, which included Laura Vikmanis, the oldest cheerleader in league history.",
"title": "Mascots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Carol Motsinger in 2015 said, \"In 2012, Cincinnati welcomed another tiger named Who Dey. This time, one that walks on four legs. More than 1,000 Bengals season ticket holders named a Malayan tiger Who Dey at Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. He was recently traded to a zoo in Kansas.\"",
"title": "Mascots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The Ohio History Central notes: \"In 1940, a third American Football League formed, and the Cincinnati Bengals joined it. Unfortunately, World War II began the following year, causing manpower shortages as men joined the armed forces. This prompted this newer AFL to cease playing after the 1941 season. Paul Brown, former coach of the Cleveland Browns, received authorization from a modern American Football League to create a team in Cincinnati. Brown chose the name Bengals to memorialize the teams of the same name that had represented Cincinnati in the past.\"",
"title": "Mascots"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "A no-huddle offense was commonly used by all teams when time in the game was running low. However, Sam Wyche, the head coach of the Bengals in 1988, along with offensive coordinator Bruce Coslet, made the high-paced offense the standard modality for the ball club regardless of time remaining. By quickly substituting and setting up for the next play—often within 5–10 seconds after the last play despite being afforded 45 seconds—the Bengals hindered the other team's defense from substituting situational players, regrouping for tactics, and resting. In response, the NFL instituted rules allowing the defense ample time for substitutions when offensive substitutions were made. The hurry-up tactic was used by the franchise during the late 1980s while Sam Wyche was the coach. A rival for AFC supremacy during this time was the Buffalo Bills, coached by Marv Levy, who also used a version of the no-huddle offense starting with the 1989 season. The Bengals had beaten the Bills three times in 1988 (pre-season, regular season, and the AFC Championship Game). Marv Levy threatened to fake injuries if the Bengals used the \"no-huddle\" in the AFC Championship. Wyche was notified that the commissioner had ordered the \"no-huddle\" illegal for the game. The official notified Wyche and the Bengals' team just two hours before the game kickoff. Wyche asked to talk directly to the commissioner and word immediately came back that the \"no-huddle\" would not be penalized. Levy did not have his players' fake injuries in the game but installed his version the next year, 1989. The Bengals first used the \"no-huddle\" in 1984. Most of the high-profile games (the various games for AFC titles and regular-season games) between the two led to these changes in NFL rules. Wyche also first used the timeout periods as an opportunity to bring his entire team to the sideline to talk to all eleven players, plus substitutes, at one time. This allowed trainers time to treat a cut or bruise and equipment managers time to repair an equipment defect.",
"title": "Contributions to NFL culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The West Coast offense is the popular name for the high-percentage passing scheme designed by former Bengals assistant Bill Walsh. Walsh formulated what has become popularly known as the West Coast offense during his tenure as assistant coach for the Cincinnati Bengals from 1968 to 1975, while working under the tutelage of Brown (and before embarking on his legendary coaching tenure with the San Francisco 49ers in the 1980s). Bengals quarterback Virgil Carter was the first player to successfully implement Walsh's system, leading the NFL in pass completion percentage in 1971. Ken Anderson replaced Carter as Cincinnati's starting quarterback in 1972 and was even more successful. In 1975 he would bring widespread recognition to the West Coast offense as well as to the Cincinnati team and its quarterback in a nationally televised Monday night contest between the Bengals and a Buffalo Bills team built around the running game of star player O. J. Simpson. Anderson's 447 passing yards were enough to overcome Simpson's 197 yards on the ground in a game that proved a milestone, providing a striking contrast between the \"old\" game of defense-minded football and the new game of higher scores and more action through a sophisticated aerial attack. The game, in effect, offered its viewers a glimpse of the future of professional football. Anderson, who was drafted by Paul Brown in 1971 and installed as starting quarterback in 1972, made four trips to the Pro Bowl, won four passing titles, was named NFL MVP in 1981, and set the record for completion percentage in a single season in 1982 with 70.66%. Defeated frequently during the 1970s by the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that won four Super Bowls with 9 future Hall of Fame players, the Bengals under Anderson and head coach Forrest Gregg would finally break through the Steel Curtain, defeating the Steelers during both of their meetings in 1980 and again in 1981. Anderson, who had been named the \"team franchise\" by Bengal tight end Bob Trumpy, would ultimately prove his worth with a career record of 91 wins and 81 losses.",
"title": "Contributions to NFL culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The defense created to combat the West Coast offense also came from Cincinnati. Then-Bengals defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau (who later served as the team's head coach from 2000 to 2002) created the zone blitz in the 1980s in response to the West Coast offense.",
"title": "Contributions to NFL culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Also, despite not being formally retired, the Bengals have not reissued 78 of Anthony Muñoz since he retired.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "There are four members of the Hall of Fame that have spent some portion of their career with the Bengals, but only Anthony Muñoz and Ken Riley spent their entire playing careers with the Bengals. Listed below are only Hall of Famers whose induction includes their tenure with the Bengals. Bengals founder and first coach Paul Brown is in the Hall of Fame, but was inducted before founding the team and is not credited as a Bengals Hall of Famer. Additionally, the Bengals have had two head coaches, Forrest Gregg and Dick LeBeau inducted for their playing career.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "In 2007, in celebration of their 40th anniversary the Bengals named an all-time team voted on by the fans.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "The Bengals announced they would begin a Ring of Honor in 2021. The inaugural class included Pro Football Hall of Fame tackle Anthony Muñoz and Paul Brown, who was the franchise's founder and first coach, with Ken Anderson and Ken Riley added after a season ticket holder vote.",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "*Posthumous induction",
"title": "Players"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The Bengals contract with iHeartMedia as their radio partner, with their flagship radio stations being WCKY (1530) and WEBN (102.7 FM), along with WLW (700) if not in conflict with the Reds. Most preseason and regular season games, are telecast on WKRC-TV, channel 12, the CBS affiliate. Mike Watts and Anthony Muñoz are the TV announcers for preseason games, with Mike Valpredo as the sideline reporter. Games that feature an NFC opponent playing at Paycor Stadium will be televised on WXIX, channel 19, the local Fox affiliate. WLWT-TV airs games when the Bengals are featured on Sunday Night Football.",
"title": "Radio and television"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The radio broadcasting crew consists of Dan Hoard (play-by-play), and Dave Lapham (analyst).",
"title": "Radio and television"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "\"The Bengal Growl\" is the Bengals fight song. It was written by Bengals entertainment director George \"Red\" Bird upon the team's founding in 1968. Bird had been friends with Paul Brown for over 30 years. The two had met at Massillon Washington High School when Brown was head football coach and Bird was director of the famed Massillon Tiger Swing Band. Bird had served as the Browns' music and entertainment director in 1946, and kept that role until Brown convinced him to come to Cincinnati in 1968. His first task was to pen a fight song along the lines of the Browns' fight song, \"Hi! O-Hi-O for Cleveland!\" The song remains very popular among Bengals fans, who are known to belt out the song at \"Bengals backer\" bars all over the country. In 2021, Elizabeth Blackburn, now the team's head of strategy and fan engagement, told The Athletic recalled stopping at one such bar in San Francisco during the 2015 playoffs, and was surprised to hear the viewers break out into the song. As a measure of how popular the song remains among the Bengals fan base, when Blackburn wrote an editorial on her efforts to overhaul the team's image for the Bengals Web site, Blackburn specifically mentioned that the song was not going anywhere.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "\"Who Dey?!\" is the name of a chant of support by fans of the Cincinnati Bengals, in use since the 1980s. The entire chant is: \"Who dey, who dey, who dey think gonna beat dem Bengals?\" The answer screamed in unison, \"Nobody.\" Sometimes fans will instead shout \"Who Dey?\" to represent the entire cheer. \"Who Dey\" is also the name of the team's mascot, a Bengal tiger.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Saying \"Who Dey\" at Bengals games is steeped in local beer lore. Hudy, a leading product of Hudepohl Brewing Company 1978 through the late 1980s, bears a phonetic similarity to the \"Who Dey\" chant. Beer vendors who carried full cases of bottled local beer up and down the steep upper stairs of what was then Riverfront Stadium would call out \"If Hudy\", \"Burger\" and other local beer names. Raucous fans would often chant back and forth with them as the vendors called out. During the 1980 season, the banter with the Hudepohl vendors grew organically into the now famous (Hu-Dey) -Who They?- chant.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The full Who Dey chant was first known to be used by fans of the 1980 Cincinnati Bengals. While the origin of the chant is disputed, one possible source for the chant is a 1980 commercial for (the now-defunct) Red Frazier Ford of Cincinnati, which used this tagline: \"Who's going to give you a better deal than Red Frazier?...Nobody!\" Cincinnati fans who had seen the commercial many times may have just copied it when cheering.",
"title": "Culture"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The chant bears some similarities to the phrase \"Who Dat?\", which was officially adopted by the New Orleans Saints in 1983 but had been used by Louisiana's high school team fans for some time. The saying \"Who Dat?\" originated in minstrel shows and vaudeville acts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, then it was taken up by New Orleans Jazz and various Big band folks in the 1920s and 1930s. In the late 1960s, local Louisiana High Schools, St. Augustine High School and Patterson High School reportedly have been using the cheer and Gulf Coast fans of Alcorn State University and Louisiana State University picked up the cheer in the 1970s. Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana claims to have originated the cheer in the late 1960s in their version: \"Who dat talking 'bout beating dem Jags?\"",
"title": "Culture"
}
] | The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The club's home games are held in downtown Cincinnati at Paycor Stadium. Former Cleveland Browns head coach Paul Brown began planning for the creation of the Bengals franchise in 1965, and Cincinnati's city council approved the construction of Riverfront Stadium in 1966. Finally, in 1967, the Bengals were founded when a group headed by Brown received franchise approval by the American Football League (AFL) on May 23, 1967, and they began play in the 1968 season. Brown was the Bengals' head coach from their inception to 1975. After being dismissed as the Browns' head coach by Art Modell in January 1963, Brown had shown interest in establishing another NFL franchise in Ohio and looked at both Cincinnati and Columbus. He ultimately chose the former when a deal between the city, Hamilton County, and Major League Baseball's Cincinnati Reds was struck that resulted in an agreement to build a multipurpose stadium which could host both baseball and football games. Due to the impending merger of the AFL and the NFL, which was scheduled to take full effect in the 1970 season, Brown agreed to join the AFL as its 10th and final franchise. The Bengals, like the other former AFL teams, were assigned to the AFC following the merger. Cincinnati was also selected because, like their neighbors the Reds, they could draw from several large neighboring cities that are all no more than 110 miles (180 km) away from downtown Cincinnati, along with Indianapolis, until the Baltimore Colts relocated there prior to the 1984 NFL season. After Paul Brown's death in 1991, controlling interest in the team was inherited by his son, Mike Brown. In 2011, Brown purchased shares of the team owned by the estate of co-founder Austin Knowlton and is now the majority owner of the Bengals franchise. The Bengals won the AFC championship in 1981, 1988, and in 2021. After the first two conference championships, they lost to the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowls XVI and XXIII. The 1990s and the early 2000s were a period of great struggle. During that era they were occasionally referred to as "The Bungles," a term coined by Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope, due to their struggles and poor performance. Following the 1990 season, the team went 14 years without posting a winning record, during which time the team did not qualify to play in the NFL playoffs. The Bengals had several head coaches, and several of their top draft picks did not pan out. The team does not have an official general manager. However, Duke Tobin is often, though incorrectly, referred to as the Bengals' general manager because he handles most personnel decisions. In a 2011 survey, Brown was rated as among the worst team owners in American professional sports. The team's fortunes improved in the mid-2000s and they continued up until the mid-2010s, which saw them become more consistent postseason contenders, but they continued to struggle past the regular season. The turning point for the Bengals was during the 2021 season, when they won their first playoff game in 31 years and made back-to-back AFC Championship games. In 2021, they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 27–24 in overtime and advanced to Super Bowl LVI, their first appearance in the Super Bowl in 33 years, but this time, they lost to the Los Angeles Rams 23–20. The following season in 2022, they also made the AFC Championship game but lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Chiefs, at the same exact score as in Super Bowl LVI. In a Forbes article on the value of NFL teams as of August 2022, the Cincinnati Bengals were ranked last with a value of $3 billion. | 2001-09-29T21:13:17Z | 2023-12-15T22:19:19Z | [
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6,613 | Yangtze | The Yangtze, Yangzi or Changjiang (English: /ˈjæŋtsi/ or /ˈjɑːŋtsi/; simplified Chinese: 长江; traditional Chinese: 長江; pinyin: Cháng Jiāng; lit. 'long river') is the longest river in Eurasia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows 6,300 km (3,915 mi) in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population.
The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The prosperous Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world that is in use. In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports, to create a new economic belt alongside the river.
The Yangtze flows through a wide array of ecosystems and is habitat to several endemic and threatened species including the Chinese alligator, the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, and also was the home of the now extinct Yangtze river dolphin (or baiji) and Chinese paddlefish, as well as the Yangtze sturgeon, which is extinct in the wild. In recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, plastic pollution, agricultural runoff, siltation, and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves. A stretch of the upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Cháng Jiāng (长江; 長江) or "Long River" is the official name for the Yangtze in Mandarin Chinese. However, the Chinese have given different names to the upstream sections of the river up to its confluence with the Min River at Yibin, Sichuan. Jinsha River ("Gold Sands River") refers to the 2,308 km (1,434 mi) of the Yangtze from Yibin upstream to the confluence with the Batang River near Yushu in Qinghai, while the Tongtian River ("River that leads to Heaven") describes the 813 km (505 mi) section from Yushu up to the confluence of the Tuotuo River and the Dangqu River.
In Old Chinese, the Yangtze was simply called Jiang/Kiang 江, a character of phono-semantic compound origin, combining the water radical 氵 with the homophone 工 (now pronounced gōng, but *kˤoŋ in Old Chinese). Kong was probably a word in the Austroasiatic language of local peoples such as the Yue. Similar to *krong in Proto-Vietnamese and krung in Mon, all meaning "river", it is related to modern Vietnamese sông (river) and Khmer krung (city on riverside), whence Thai krung (กรุง capital city), not kôngkea (water) which is from the Sanskrit root gáṅgā.
By the Han dynasty, Jiāng had come to mean any river in Chinese, and this river was distinguished as the "Great River" 大江 (Dàjiāng). The epithet 長 (simplified version 长), meaning "long", was first formally applied to the river during the Six Dynasties period.
Various sections of the Yangtze have local names. From Yibin to Yichang, the river through Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality is also known as the Chuān Jiāng (川江) or "Sichuan River." In Hubei, the river is also called the Jīng Jiāng (荆江; 荊江) or the "Jing River" after Jingzhou, one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China. In Anhui, the river takes on the local name Wǎn Jiāng after the shorthand name for Anhui, wǎn (皖). And Yángzǐ Jiāng (揚子江; 扬子江) or the "Yangzi River", from which the English name Yangtze is derived, is the local name for the Lower Yangtze in the region of Yangzhou. The name likely comes from an ancient ferry crossing called Yángzǐ or Yángzǐjīn (揚子 / 揚子津). Europeans who arrived in the Yangtze River Delta region applied this local name to the whole river. The dividing site between upstream and midstream is considered to be at Yichang and that between midstream and downstream at Hukou (Jiujiang).
The river was called Quian (江) and Quianshui (江水) by Marco Polo and appeared on the earliest English maps as Kian or Kiam, which derives from Cantonese, all recording dialects which preserved forms of the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 江 as Kæwng. By the mid-19th century, these romanizations had standardized as Kiang; Dajiang, e.g., was rendered as "Ta-Kiang." "Keeang-Koo," "Kyang Kew," "Kian-ku," and related names derived from mistaking the Chinese term for the mouth of the Yangtze (江口, p Jiāngkǒu) as the name of the river itself.
The name Blue River began to be applied in the 18th century, apparently owing to a former name of the Dam Chu or Min and to analogy with the Yellow River, but it was frequently explained in early English references as a 'translation' of Jiang, Jiangkou, or Yangzijiang. Very common in 18th- and 19th-century sources, the name fell out of favor due to growing awareness of its lack of any connection to the river's Chinese names and to the irony of its application to such a muddy waterway.
Matteo Ricci's 1615 Latin account included descriptions of the "Ianſu" and "Ianſuchian." The posthumous account's translation of the name as Fils de la Mer ("Son of the Ocean") shows that Ricci, who by the end of his life was fluent in literary Chinese, was introduced to it as the homophonic 洋子江 rather than the usual 揚子江. Further, although railroads and the Shanghai concessions subsequently turned it into a backwater, Yangzhou was the lower river's principal port for much of the Qing dynasty, directing Liangjiang's important salt monopoly and connecting the Yangtze with the Grand Canal to Beijing. (That connection also made it one of the Yellow River's principal ports between the floods of 1344 and the 1850s, during which time the Yellow River ran well south of Shandong and discharged into the ocean a mere few hundred kilometers from the mouth of the Yangtze.)
By 1800, English cartographers such as Aaron Arrowsmith had adopted the French style of the name as Yang-tse or Yang-tse Kiang. The British diplomat Thomas Wade emended this to Yang-tzu Chiang as part of his formerly popular romanization of Chinese, based on the Beijing dialect instead of Nanjing's and first published in 1867. The spellings Yangtze and Yangtze Kiang was a compromise between the two methods adopted at the 1906 Imperial Postal Conference in Shanghai, which established postal romanization. Hanyu Pinyin was adopted by the PRC's First Congress in 1958, but it was not widely employed in English outside mainland China prior to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the PRC in 1979; since that time, the spelling Yangzi has also been used.
The source and upper reaches of the Yangtze are located in ethnic Tibetan areas of Qinghai. In Tibetan, the Tuotuo headwaters are the Machu (Tibetan: རྨ་ཆུ་, Wylie: rma-chu, lit. "Red Water"). The Tongtian is the Drichu (འབྲི་ཆུ་ , ‘Bri Chu’), literally "Water of the Female Yak"; transliterated into Chinese: 直曲; pinyin: Zhíqū).
The river originates from several tributaries in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, two of which are commonly referred to as the "source." Traditionally, the Chinese government has recognized the source as the Tuotuo tributary at the base of a glacier lying on the west of Geladandong Mountain in the Tanggula Mountains. This source is found at 33°25′44″N 91°10′57″E / 33.42889°N 91.18250°E / 33.42889; 91.18250 and while not the furthest source of the Yangtze, it is the highest source at 5,342 m (17,526 ft) above sea level. The true source of the Yangtze, hydrologically the longest river distance from the sea, is at Jari Hill at the head of the Dam Qu tributary, approximately 325 km (202 mi) southeast of Geladandong. This source was only discovered in the late 20th century and lies in wetlands at 32°36′14″N 94°30′44″E / 32.60389°N 94.51222°E / 32.60389; 94.51222 and 5,170 m (16,960 ft) above sea level just southeast of Chadan Township in Zadoi County, Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai. As the historical spiritual source of the Yangtze, the Geladandong source is still commonly referred to as the source of the Yangtze since the discovery of the Jari Hill source.
These tributaries join and the river then runs eastward through Qinghai (Tsinghai), turning southward down a deep valley at the border of Sichuan (Szechwan) and Tibet to reach Yunnan. In the course of this valley, the river's elevation drops from above 5,000 m (16,000 ft) to less than 1,000 m (3,300 ft). Thus, over the first 2,600 km (1,600 mi) of its length, the river has fallen more than 5,200 m (17,000 ft).
It enters the basin of Sichuan at Yibin. While in the Sichuan basin, it receives several mighty tributaries, increasing its water volume significantly. It then cuts through Mount Wushan bordering Chongqing and Hubei to create the famous Three Gorges. Eastward of the Three Gorges, Yichang is the first city on the Yangtze Plain.
After entering Hubei province, the Yangtze receives water from a number of lakes. The largest of these lakes is Dongting Lake, which is located on the border of Hunan and Hubei provinces, and is the outlet for most of the rivers in Hunan. At Wuhan, it receives its biggest tributary, the Han River, bringing water from its northern basin as far as Shaanxi.
At the northern tip of Jiangxi province, Lake Poyang, the biggest freshwater lake in China, merges into the river. The river then runs through Anhui and Jiangsu, receiving more water from innumerable smaller lakes and rivers, and finally reaches the East China Sea at Shanghai.
Four of China's five main freshwater lakes contribute their waters to the Yangtze River. Traditionally, the upstream part of the Yangtze River refers to the section from Yibin to Yichang; the middle part refers to the section from Yichang to Hukou County, where Lake Poyang meets the river; the downstream part is from Hukou to Shanghai.
The origin of the Yangtze River has been dated by some geologists to about 45 million years ago in the Eocene, but this dating has been disputed.
Although the mouth of the Yellow River has fluctuated widely north and south of the Shandong peninsula within the historical record, the Yangtze has remained largely static. Based on studies of sedimentation rates, however, it is unlikely that the present discharge site predates the late Miocene (c. 11 Ma). Prior to this, its headwaters drained south into the Gulf of Tonkin along or near the course of the present Red River.
The Yangtze River is important to the cultural origins of southern China and Japan. Human activity has been verified in the Three Gorges area as far back as 27,000 years ago, and by the 5th millennium BC, the lower Yangtze was a major population center occupied by the Hemudu and Majiabang cultures, both among the earliest cultivators of rice. By the 3rd millennium BC, the successor Liangzhu culture showed evidence of influence from the Longshan peoples of the North China Plain. What is now thought of as Chinese culture developed along the more fertile Yellow River basin; the "Yue" people of the lower Yangtze possessed very different traditions – blackening their teeth, cutting their hair short, tattooing their bodies, and living in small settlements among bamboo groves – and were considered barbarous by the northerners.
The Central Yangtze valley was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures. Later it became the earliest part of the Yangtze valley to be integrated into the North Chinese cultural sphere. (Northern Chinese were active there since the Bronze Age).
In the lower Yangtze, two Yue tribes, the Gouwu in southern Jiangsu and the Yuyue in northern Zhejiang, display increasing Zhou (i.e., North Chinese) influence starting in the 9th century BC. Traditional accounts credit these changes to northern refugees (Taibo and Zhongyong in Wu and Wuyi in Yue) who assumed power over the local tribes, though these are generally assumed to be myths invented to legitimate them to other Zhou rulers. As the kingdoms of Wu and Yue, they were famed as fishers, shipwrights, and sword-smiths. Adopting Chinese characters, political institutions, and military technology, they were among the most powerful states during the later Zhou. In the middle Yangtze, the state of Jing seems to have begun in the upper Han River valley a minor Zhou polity, but it adapted to native culture as it expanded south and east into the Yangtze valley. In the process, it changed its name to Chu.
Whether native or nativizing, the Yangtze states held their own against the northern Chinese homeland: some lists credit them with three of the Spring and Autumn period's Five Hegemons and one of the Warring States' Four Lords. They fell in against themselves, however. Chu's growing power led its rival Jin to support Wu as a counter. Wu successfully sacked Chu's capital Ying in 506 BC, but Chu subsequently supported Yue in its attacks against Wu's southern flank. In 473 BC, King Goujian of Yue fully annexed Wu and moved his court to its eponymous capital at modern Suzhou. In 333 BC, Chu finally united the lower Yangtze by annexing Yue, whose royal family was said to have fled south and established the Minyue kingdom in Fujian. Qin was able to unite China by first subduing Ba and Shu on the upper Yangtze in modern Sichuan, giving them a strong base to attack Chu's settlements along the river.
The state of Qin conquered the central Yangtze region, previous heartland of Chu, in 278 BC, and incorporated the region into its expanding empire. Qin then used its connections along the Yangtze River the Xiang River to expand China into Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangdong, setting up military commanderies along the main lines of communication. At the collapse of the Qin Dynasty, these southern commanderies became the independent Nanyue Empire under Zhao Tuo while Chu and Han vied with each other for control of the north.
Since the Han dynasty, the region of the Yangtze River grew ever more important to China's economy. The establishment of irrigation systems (the most famous one is Dujiangyan, northwest of Chengdu, built during the Warring States period) made agriculture very stable and productive, eventually exceeding even the Yellow River region. The Qin and Han empires were actively engaged in the agricultural colonization of the Yangtze lowlands, maintaining a system of dikes to protect farmland from seasonal floods. By the Song dynasty, the area along the Yangtze had become among the wealthiest and most developed parts of the country, especially in the lower reaches of the river. Early in the Qing dynasty, the region called Jiangnan (that includes the southern part of Jiangsu, the northern part of Zhejiang, and the southeastern part of Anhui) provided 1⁄3–1⁄2 of the nation's revenues.
The Yangtze has long been the backbone of China's inland water transportation system, which remained particularly important for almost two thousand years, until the construction of the national railway network during the 20th century. The Grand Canal connects the lower Yangtze with the major cities of the Jiangnan region south of the river (Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou) and with northern China (all the way from Yangzhou to Beijing). The less well known ancient Lingqu Canal, connecting the upper Xiang River with the headwaters of the Guijiang, allowed a direct water connection from the Yangtze Basin to the Pearl River Delta.
Historically, the Yangtze became the political boundary between north China and south China several times (see History of China) because of the difficulty of crossing the river. This occurred notably during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Southern Song. Many battles took place along the river, the most famous being the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD during the Three Kingdoms period.
The Yangtze was the site of naval battles between the Song dynasty and Jurchen Jin during the Jin–Song wars. In the Battle of Caishi of 1161, the ships of the Jin emperor Wanyan Liang clashed with the Song fleet on the Yangtze. Song soldiers fired bombs of lime and sulfur using trebuchets at the Jurchen warships. The battle was a Song victory that halted the invasion by the Jin. The Battle of Tangdao was another Yangtze naval battle in the same year.
Politically, Nanjing was the capital of China several times, although most of the time its territory only covered the southeastern part of China, such as the Wu kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and during the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods. Only the Ming occupied most parts of China from their capital at Nanjing, though it later moved the capital to Beijing. The ROC capital was located in Nanjing in the periods 1911–12, 1927–37, and 1945–49.
The Jardine, the first steamship to sail the river, was built for Jardine, Matheson & Co. in 1835. This small vessel was to carry passengers and mail between Lintin Island, Macao, and Huangpu. However, the Chinese, draconian in their application of the rules relating to foreign vessels, were unhappy about a "fire-ship" steaming up the Canton River. The acting Viceroy of Liangguang issued an edict warning that she would be fired on if she attempted the trip. On the Jardine's first trial run from Lintin Island the forts on both sides of the Bogue opened fire and she was forced to turn back. The Chinese authorities issued a further warning insisting that the ship leave Chinese waters. The Jardine in any case needed repairs and was sent to Singapore.Subsequently, Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary decided mainly on the "suggestions" of William Jardine to declare war on China. In mid-1840, a large fleet of warships appeared on the China coast, and with the first cannonball fired at a British ship, the Royal Saxon, the British started the first of the Opium Wars. Royal Navy warships destroyed numerous shore batteries and Chinese warships, laying waste to several coastal forts along the way. Eventually, they pushed their way up north close enough to threaten the Imperial Palace in Beijing itself.
The China Navigation Company was an early shipping company founded in 1876 in London, initially to trade up the Yangtze River from their Shanghai base with passengers and cargo. Chinese coastal trade started shortly after, and in 1883 a regular service to Australia was initiated.
Steamers came late to the upper river, the section stretching from Yichang to Chongqing. Freshets from Himalayan snowmelt created treacherous seasonal currents. But summer was better navigationally and the three gorges, described as a "150-mile passage which is like the narrow throat of an hourglass," posed hazardous threats of crosscurrents, whirlpools and eddies, creating significant challenges to steamship efforts. Furthermore, Chongqing is 700 – 800 feet above sea level, requiring powerful engines to make the upriver climb. Junk travel accomplished the upriver feat by employing 70–80 trackers, men hitched to hawsers who physically pulled ships upriver through some of the most risky and deadly sections of the three gorges. Achibald John Little took an interest in Upper Yangtze navigation when in 1876, the Chefoo Convention opened Chongqing to consular residence but stipulated that foreign trade might only commence once steamships had succeeded in ascending the river to that point. Little formed the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. and built Kuling but his attempts to take the vessel further upriver than Yichang were thwarted by the Chinese authorities who were concerned about the potential loss of transit duties, competition to their native junk trade and physical damage to their crafts caused by steamship wakes. Kuling was sold to China Merchants Steam Navigation Company for lower river service. In 1890, the Chinese government agreed to open Chongqing to foreign trade as long as it was restricted to native crafts. In 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki provided a provision which opened Chongqing fully to foreign trade. Little took up residence in Chongqing and built Leechuan, to tackle the gorges in 1898. In March Leechuan completed the upriver journey to Chongqing but not without the assistance of trackers. Leechuan was not designed for cargo or passengers and if Little wanted to take his vision one step further, he required an expert pilot. In 1898, Little persuaded Captain Samuel Cornell Plant to come out to China to lend his expertise. Captain Plant had just completed navigation of Persia's Upper Karun River and took up Little's offer to assess the Upper Yangtze on Leechuan at the end of 1898. With Plant's design input, Little had SS Pioneer built with Plant in command. In June 1900, Plant was the first to successfully pilot a merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze from Yichang to Chongqing. Pioneer was sold to Royal Navy after its first run due to threat from the Boxer Rebellion and renamed HMS Kinsha. Germany's steamship effort that same year on SS Suixing ended in catastrophe. On Suixing's maiden voyage, the vessel hit a rock and sunk, killing its captain and ending realistic hopes of regular commercial steam service on the Upper Yangtze. In 1908, local Sichuan merchants and their government partnered with Captain Plant to form Sichuan Steam Navigation Company becoming the first successful service between Yichang and Chongqing. Captain Plant designed and commanded its two ships, SS Shutung and SS Shuhun. Other Chinese vessels came onto the run and by 1915, foreign ships expressed their interest too. Plant was appointed by Chinese Maritime Customs Service as First Senior River Inspector in 1915. In this role, Plant installed navigational marks and established signaling systems. He also wrote Handbook for the Guidance of Shipmasters on the Ichang-Chungking Section of the Yangtze River, a detailed and illustrated account of the Upper Yangtze's currents, rocks, and other hazards with navigational instruction. Plant trained hundreds of Chinese and foreign pilots and issued licenses and worked with the Chinese government to make the river safer in 1917 by removing some of the most difficult obstacles and threats with explosives. In August 1917, British Asiatic Petroleum became the first foreign merchant steamship on the Upper Yangtze. Commercial firms, Robert Dollar Company, Jardine Matheson, Butterfield and Swire and Standard Oil added their own steamers on the river between 1917 and 1919. Between 1918 and 1919, Sichuan warlord violence and escalating civil war put Sichuan Steam Navigational Company out of business. Shutung was commandeered by warlords and Shuhun was brought down river to Shanghai for safekeeping. In 1921, when Captain Plant died at sea while returning home to England, a Plant Memorial Fund was established to perpetuate Plant's name and contributions to Upper Yangtze navigation. The largest shipping companies in service, Butterfield & Swire, Jardine Matheson, Standard Oil, Mackenzie & Co., Asiatic Petroleum, Robert Dollar, China Merchants S.N. Co. and British-American Tobacco Co., contributed alongside international friends and Chinese pilots. In 1924, a 50-foot granite pyramidal obelisk was erected in Xintan, on the site of Captain Plant's home, in a Chinese community of pilots and junk owners. One face of the monument is inscribed in Chinese and another in English. Though recently relocated to higher ground ahead of the Three Gorges Dam, the monument still stands overlooking the Upper Yangtze River near Yichang, a rare collective tribute to a westerner in China.
Standard Oil ran the tankers Mei Ping, Mei An and Mei Hsia, which were collectively destroyed on December 12, 1937, when Japanese warplanes bombed and sank the U.S.S. Panay. One of the Standard Oil captains who survived this attack had served on the Upper River for 14 years.
Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong took staged swims in the river in 1956 and 1966 at Wuhan in publicity stunts to demonstrate his health, also starting a swimming craze through party propaganda.
In August 2019, Welsh adventurer Ash Dykes became the first person to complete the 4,000-mile (6,437 km) trek along the course of the river, walking for 352 days from its source to its mouth.
Tens of millions of people live in the floodplain of the Yangtze valley, an area that naturally floods every summer and is habitable only because it is protected by river dikes. The floods large enough to overflow the dikes have caused great distress to those who live and farm there. Floods of note include those of 1931, 1954, and 1998.
The 1931 Central China floods or the Central China floods of 1931 were a series of floods that occurred in the Republic of China. The floods are generally considered among the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded, and almost certainly the deadliest of the 20th century (when pandemics and famines are discounted). Estimates of the total death toll range from 145,000 to between 3.7 million and 4 million. The Yangtze again flooded in 1935, causing great loss of life.
From June to September 1954, the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in Hubei Province. Due to unusually high volume of precipitation as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in the middle stretch of the Yangtze River late in the spring of 1954, the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June. Despite efforts to open three important flood gates to alleviate the rising water by diverting it, the flood level continued to rise until it hit the historic high of 44.67 m in Jingzhou, Hubei and 29.73 m in Wuhan. The number of dead from this flood was estimated at 33,000, including those who died of plague in the aftermath of the disaster.
The 1998 Yangtze River floods were a series of major floods that lasted from middle of June to the beginning of September 1998 along the Yangtze. In the summer of 1998, China experienced massive flooding of parts of the Yangtze River, resulting in 3,704 dead, 15 million homeless and $26 billion in economic loss. Other sources report a total loss of 4150 people, and 180 million people were affected. A staggering 25 million acres (100,000 km) were evacuated, 13.3 million houses were damaged or destroyed. The floods caused $26 billion in damages.
The 2016 China floods caused US$22 billion in damages.
In 2020, the Yangtze river saw the heaviest rainfall since 1961, with a 79% increase in June and July compared to the average for the period over the previous 41 years. A new theory suggested that abrupt reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, caused by shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, was a key cause of the intense downpours. Over the past decades rainfall had decreased due to increase of aerosols in the atmosphere, and lower greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 caused the opposite effect – a major increase in rain. Such a dramatic reduction of aerosols caused a dramatic change in the various components of the climate system, but such sudden change of the climate system would be very different from changes in response to continuous but gradual policy-driven emissions reductions.
Beginning in the 1950s, dams and dikes were built for flood control, land reclamation, irrigation, and control of diseases vectors such as blood flukes that caused Schistosomiasis. More than a hundred lakes were thusly cut off from the main river. There were gates between the lakes that could be opened during floods. However, farmers and settlements encroached on the land next to the lakes although it was forbidden to settle there. When floods came, it proved impossible to open the gates since it would have caused substantial destruction. Thus the lakes partially or completely dried up. For example, Baidang Lake shrunk from 100 square kilometers (39 sq mi) in the 1950s to 40 square kilometers (15 sq mi) in 2005. Zhangdu Lake dwindled to one quarter of its original size. Natural fisheries output in the two lakes declined sharply. Only a few large lakes, such as Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake, remained connected to the Yangtze. Cutting off the other lakes that had served as natural buffers for floods increased the damage done by floods further downstream. Furthermore, the natural flow of migratory fish was obstructed and biodiversity across the whole basin decreased dramatically. Intensive farming of fish in ponds spread using one type of carp who thrived in eutrophic water conditions and who feeds on algae, causing widespread pollution. The pollution was exacerbated by the discharge of waste from pig farms as well as of untreated industrial and municipal sewage. In September 2012, the Yangtze river near Chongqing turned red from pollution. The erection of the Three Gorges Dam has created an impassable "iron barrier" that has led to a great reduction in the biodiversity of the river. Yangtze sturgeon use seasonal changes in the flow of the river to signal when is it time to migrate. However, these seasonal changes will be greatly reduced by dams and diversions. Other animals facing immediate threat of extinction are the baiji dolphin, narrow-ridged finless porpoise and the Yangtze alligator. These animals numbers went into freefall from the combined effects of accidental catches during fishing, river traffic, habitat loss and pollution. In 2006 the baiji dolphin became extinct; the world lost an entire genus.
In 2020, a sweeping law was passed by the Chinese government to protect the ecology of the river. The new laws include strengthening ecological protection rules for hydropower projects along the river, banning chemical plants within 1 kilometer of the river, relocating polluting industries, severely restricting sand mining as well as a complete fishing ban on all the natural waterways of the river, including all its major tributaries and lakes.
The Yangtze River produces more ocean plastic pollution than any other, according to The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch environmental research foundation that focuses on ocean pollution. 10 Rivers transport 90% of all the plastic that reaches the oceans, the Yangtze river being the biggest polluter by far.
In 2002 a pilot program was initiated to reconnect lakes to the Yangtze with the objective to increase biodiversity and to alleviate flooding. The first lakes to be reconnected in 2004 were Zhangdu Lake, Honghu Lake, and Tian'e-Zhou in Hubei on the middle Yangtze. In 2005 Baidang Lake in Anhui was also reconnected.
Reconnecting the lakes improved water quality and fish were able to migrate from the river into the lake, replenishing their numbers and genetic stock. The trial also showed that reconnecting the lake reduced flooding. The new approach also benefitted the farmers economically. Pond farmers switched to natural fish feed, which helped them breed better-quality fish that can be sold for more, increasing their income by 30%. Based on the successful pilot project, other provincial governments emulated the experience and also reestablished connections to lakes that had previously been cut off from the river. In 2005 a Yangtze Forum has been established bringing together 13 riparian provincial governments to manage the river from source to sea. In 2006 China's Ministry of Agriculture made it a national policy to reconnect the Yangtze River with its lakes. As of 2010, provincial governments in five provinces and Shanghai set up a network of 40 effective protected areas, covering 16,500 km (6,400 sq mi). As a result, populations of 47 threatened species increased, including the critically endangered Yangtze alligator. In the Shanghai area, reestablished wetlands now protect drinking water sources for the city. It is envisaged to extend the network throughout the entire Yangtze to eventually cover 102 areas and 185,000 km (71,000 sq mi). The mayor of Wuhan announced that six huge, stagnating urban lakes including the East Lake (Wuhan) would be reconnected at the cost of US$2.3 billion creating China's largest urban wetland landscape.
Until 1957, there were no bridges across the Yangtze River from Yibin to Shanghai. For millennia, travelers crossed the river by ferry. On occasions, the crossing may have been dangerous, as evidenced by the Zhong'anlun disaster (October 15, 1945).
The river stood as a major geographic barrier dividing northern and southern China. In the first half of the 20th century, rail passengers from Beijing to Guangzhou and Shanghai had to disembark, respectively, at Hanyang and Pukou, and cross the river by steam ferry before resuming journeys by train from Wuchang or Nanjing West.
After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Soviet engineers assisted in the design and construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, a dual-use road-rail bridge, built from 1955 to 1957. It was the first bridge across the Yangtze River. The second bridge across the river that was built was a single-track railway bridge built upstream in Chongqing in 1959. The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, also a road-rail bridge, was the first bridge to cross the lower reaches of the Yangtze, in Nanjing. It was built after the Sino-Soviet Split and did not receive foreign assistance. Road-rail bridges were then built in Zhicheng (1971) and Chongqing (1980).
Bridge-building slowed in the 1980s before resuming in the 1990s and accelerating in the first decade of the 21st century. The Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge was built in 1992 as part of the Beijing-Jiujiang Railway. A second bridge in Wuhan was completed in 1995. By 2005, there were a total of 56 bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River between Yibin and Shanghai. These include some of the longest suspension and cable-stayed bridges in the world on the Yangtze Delta: Jiangyin Suspension Bridge (1,385 m, opened in 1999), Runyang Bridge (1,490 m, opened 2005), Sutong Bridge (1,088 m, opened 2008). The rapid pace of bridge construction has continued. The city of Wuhan now has six bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze.
A number of power line crossings have also been built across the river.
As of 2007, there are two dams built on the Yangtze river: Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba Dam. The Three Gorges Dam is the largest power station in the world by installed capacity, at 22.5 GW. Several dams are operating or are being constructed on the upper portion of the river, the Jinsha River. Among them, the Xiluodu Dam is the third largest power station in the world, and the Baihetan Dam, planned to be commissioned in 2021, will be the second largest after the Three Gorges Dam.
The Yangtze River has over 700 tributaries. The major tributaries (listed from upstream to downstream) with the locations of where they join the Yangtze are:
The Huai River flowed into the Yellow Sea until the 20th century, but now primarily discharges into the Yangtze.
The Yangtze River has a high species richness, including many endemics. A high percentage of these are seriously threatened by human activities.
As of 2011, 416 fish species are known from the Yangtze basin, including 362 that strictly are freshwater species. The remaining are also known from salt or brackish waters, such as the river's estuary or the East China Sea. This makes it one of the most species-rich rivers in Asia and by far the most species-rich in China (in comparison, the Pearl River has almost 300 fish species and the Yellow River 160). 178 fish species are endemic to the Yangtze River Basin. Many are only found in some section of the river basin and especially the upper reach (above Yichang, but below the headwaters in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau) is rich with 279 species, including 147 Yangtze endemics and 97 strict endemics (found only in this part of the basin). In contrast, the headwaters, where the average altitude is above 4,500 m (14,800 ft), are only home to 14 highly specialized species, but 8 of these are endemic to the river. The largest orders in the Yangtze are Cypriniformes (280 species, including 150 endemics), Siluriformes (40 species, including 20 endemics), Perciformes (50 species, including 4 endemics), Tetraodontiformes (12 species, including 1 endemic) and Osmeriformes (8 species, including 1 endemic). No other order has more than four species in the river and one endemic.
Many Yangtze fish species have declined drastically and 65 were recognized as threatened in the 2009 Chinese red list. Among these are three that are considered entirely extinct (Chinese paddlefish, Anabarilius liui liui and Atrilinea macrolepis), two that are extinct in the wild (Anabarilius polylepis, Schizothorax parvus), four that are critically endangered Euchiloglanis kishinouyei, Megalobrama elongata, Schizothorax longibarbus and Leiocassis longibarbus). Additionally, both the Yangtze sturgeon and Chinese sturgeon are considered critically endangered by the IUCN. The survival of these two sturgeon may rely on the continued release of captive bred specimens. Although still listed as critically endangered rather than extinct by both the Chinese red list and IUCN, recent reviews have found that the Chinese paddlefish is extinct. Surveys conducted between 2006 and 2008 by ichthyologists failed to catch any, but two probable specimens were recorded with hydroacoustic signals. The last definite record was an individual that was accidentally captured near Yibin in 2003 and released after having been radio tagged. The Chinese sturgeon is the largest fish in the river and among the largest freshwater fish in the world, reaching a length of 5 m (16 ft); the extinct Chinese paddlefish reputedly reached as much as 7 m (23 ft), but its maximum size is labeled with considerable uncertainty.
The largest threats to the Yangtze native fish are overfishing and habitat loss (such as building of dams and land reclamation), but pollution, destructive fishing practices (such as fishing with dynamite or poison) and introduced species also cause problems. About 2⁄3 of the total freshwater fisheries in China are in the Yangtze Basin, but a drastic decline in size of several important species has been recorded, as highlighted by data from lakes in the river basin. In 2015, some experts recommend a 10-year fishing moratorium to allow the remaining populations to recover, and in January 2020 China imposed a 10-year fishing moratorium on 332 sites along the Yangtze. Dams present another serious problem, as several species in the river perform breeding migrations and most of these are non-jumpers, meaning that normal fish ladders designed for salmon are ineffective. For example, the Gezhouba Dam blocked the migration of the paddlerfish and two sturgeon, while also effectively splitting the Chinese high fin banded shark population into two and causing the extirpation of the Yangtze population of the Japanese eel. In an attempt of minimizing the effect of the dams, the Three Gorges Dam has released water to mimic the (pre-dam) natural flooding and trigger the breeding of carp species downstream. In addition to dams already built in the Yangtze basin, several large dams are planned and these may present further problems for the native fauna.
While many fish species native to the Yangtze are seriously threatened, others have become important in fish farming and introduced widely outside their native range. A total of 26 native fish species of the Yangtze basin are farmed. Among the most important are four Asian carp: grass carp, black carp, silver carp and bighead carp. Other species that support important fisheries include northern snakehead, Chinese perch, Takifugu pufferfish (mainly in the lowermost sections) and predatory carp.
Due to commercial use of the river, tourism, and pollution, the Yangtze is home to several seriously threatened species of large animals (in addition to fish): the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, baiji (Yangtze river dolphin), Chinese alligator, Yangtze giant softshell turtle and Chinese giant salamander. This is the only other place besides the United States that is native to an alligator and paddlefish species. In 2010, the Yangtze population of finless porpoise was 1000 individuals. In December 2006, the Yangtze river dolphin was declared functionally extinct after an extensive search of the river revealed no signs of the dolphin's inhabitance. In 2007, a large, white animal was sighted and photographed in the lower Yangtze and was tentatively presumed to be a baiji. However, as there have been no confirmed sightings since 2004, the baiji is presumed to be functionally extinct at this time. "Baijis were the last surviving species of a large lineage dating back seventy million years and one of only six species of freshwater dolphins." It has been argued that the extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin was a result of the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, a project that has affected many species of animals and plant life found only in the gorges area.
Numerous species of land mammals are found in the Yangtze valley, but most of these are not directly associated with the river. Three exceptions are the semi-aquatic Eurasian otter, water deer and Père David's deer.
In addition to the very large and exceptionally rare Yangtze giant softshell turtle, several smaller turtle species are found in the Yangtze basin, its delta and valleys. These include the Chinese box turtle, yellow-headed box turtle, Pan's box turtle, Yunnan box turtle, yellow pond turtle, Chinese pond turtle, Chinese stripe-necked turtle and Chinese softshell turtle, which all are considered threatened.
More than 160 amphibian species are known from the Yangtze basin, including the world's largest, the critically endangered Chinese giant salamander. It has declined drastically due to hunting (it is considered a delicacy), habitat loss and pollution. The polluted Dian Lake, which is part of the upper Yangtze watershed (via Pudu River), is home to several highly threatened fish, but was also home to the Yunnan lake newt. This newt has not been seen since 1979 and is considered extinct. In contrast, the Chinese fire belly newt from the lower Yangtze basin is one of the few Chinese salamander species to remain common and it is considered least concern by the IUCN.
The Yangtze basin contains a large number of freshwater crab species, including several endemics. A particularly rich genus in the river basin is the potamid Sinopotamon. The Chinese mitten crab is catadromous (migrates between fresh and saltwater) and it has been recorded up to 1,400 km (870 mi) up the Yangtze, which is the largest river in its native range. It is a commercially important species in its native range where it is farmed, but the Chinese mitten crab has also been spread to Europe and North America where considered invasive.
The freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii, now an invasive species in large parts of the world, originates from the Yangtze.
The Yangtze River cruise, also called the "Three Gorges cruise", is a popular tourist attraction. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Yangtze, Yangzi or Changjiang (English: /ˈjæŋtsi/ or /ˈjɑːŋtsi/; simplified Chinese: 长江; traditional Chinese: 長江; pinyin: Cháng Jiāng; lit. 'long river') is the longest river in Eurasia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows 6,300 km (3,915 mi) in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The prosperous Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world that is in use. In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports, to create a new economic belt alongside the river.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The Yangtze flows through a wide array of ecosystems and is habitat to several endemic and threatened species including the Chinese alligator, the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, and also was the home of the now extinct Yangtze river dolphin (or baiji) and Chinese paddlefish, as well as the Yangtze sturgeon, which is extinct in the wild. In recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, plastic pollution, agricultural runoff, siltation, and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves. A stretch of the upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Cháng Jiāng (长江; 長江) or \"Long River\" is the official name for the Yangtze in Mandarin Chinese. However, the Chinese have given different names to the upstream sections of the river up to its confluence with the Min River at Yibin, Sichuan. Jinsha River (\"Gold Sands River\") refers to the 2,308 km (1,434 mi) of the Yangtze from Yibin upstream to the confluence with the Batang River near Yushu in Qinghai, while the Tongtian River (\"River that leads to Heaven\") describes the 813 km (505 mi) section from Yushu up to the confluence of the Tuotuo River and the Dangqu River.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In Old Chinese, the Yangtze was simply called Jiang/Kiang 江, a character of phono-semantic compound origin, combining the water radical 氵 with the homophone 工 (now pronounced gōng, but *kˤoŋ in Old Chinese). Kong was probably a word in the Austroasiatic language of local peoples such as the Yue. Similar to *krong in Proto-Vietnamese and krung in Mon, all meaning \"river\", it is related to modern Vietnamese sông (river) and Khmer krung (city on riverside), whence Thai krung (กรุง capital city), not kôngkea (water) which is from the Sanskrit root gáṅgā.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "By the Han dynasty, Jiāng had come to mean any river in Chinese, and this river was distinguished as the \"Great River\" 大江 (Dàjiāng). The epithet 長 (simplified version 长), meaning \"long\", was first formally applied to the river during the Six Dynasties period.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Various sections of the Yangtze have local names. From Yibin to Yichang, the river through Sichuan and Chongqing Municipality is also known as the Chuān Jiāng (川江) or \"Sichuan River.\" In Hubei, the river is also called the Jīng Jiāng (荆江; 荊江) or the \"Jing River\" after Jingzhou, one of the Nine Provinces of ancient China. In Anhui, the river takes on the local name Wǎn Jiāng after the shorthand name for Anhui, wǎn (皖). And Yángzǐ Jiāng (揚子江; 扬子江) or the \"Yangzi River\", from which the English name Yangtze is derived, is the local name for the Lower Yangtze in the region of Yangzhou. The name likely comes from an ancient ferry crossing called Yángzǐ or Yángzǐjīn (揚子 / 揚子津). Europeans who arrived in the Yangtze River Delta region applied this local name to the whole river. The dividing site between upstream and midstream is considered to be at Yichang and that between midstream and downstream at Hukou (Jiujiang).",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The river was called Quian (江) and Quianshui (江水) by Marco Polo and appeared on the earliest English maps as Kian or Kiam, which derives from Cantonese, all recording dialects which preserved forms of the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 江 as Kæwng. By the mid-19th century, these romanizations had standardized as Kiang; Dajiang, e.g., was rendered as \"Ta-Kiang.\" \"Keeang-Koo,\" \"Kyang Kew,\" \"Kian-ku,\" and related names derived from mistaking the Chinese term for the mouth of the Yangtze (江口, p Jiāngkǒu) as the name of the river itself.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "The name Blue River began to be applied in the 18th century, apparently owing to a former name of the Dam Chu or Min and to analogy with the Yellow River, but it was frequently explained in early English references as a 'translation' of Jiang, Jiangkou, or Yangzijiang. Very common in 18th- and 19th-century sources, the name fell out of favor due to growing awareness of its lack of any connection to the river's Chinese names and to the irony of its application to such a muddy waterway.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Matteo Ricci's 1615 Latin account included descriptions of the \"Ianſu\" and \"Ianſuchian.\" The posthumous account's translation of the name as Fils de la Mer (\"Son of the Ocean\") shows that Ricci, who by the end of his life was fluent in literary Chinese, was introduced to it as the homophonic 洋子江 rather than the usual 揚子江. Further, although railroads and the Shanghai concessions subsequently turned it into a backwater, Yangzhou was the lower river's principal port for much of the Qing dynasty, directing Liangjiang's important salt monopoly and connecting the Yangtze with the Grand Canal to Beijing. (That connection also made it one of the Yellow River's principal ports between the floods of 1344 and the 1850s, during which time the Yellow River ran well south of Shandong and discharged into the ocean a mere few hundred kilometers from the mouth of the Yangtze.)",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "By 1800, English cartographers such as Aaron Arrowsmith had adopted the French style of the name as Yang-tse or Yang-tse Kiang. The British diplomat Thomas Wade emended this to Yang-tzu Chiang as part of his formerly popular romanization of Chinese, based on the Beijing dialect instead of Nanjing's and first published in 1867. The spellings Yangtze and Yangtze Kiang was a compromise between the two methods adopted at the 1906 Imperial Postal Conference in Shanghai, which established postal romanization. Hanyu Pinyin was adopted by the PRC's First Congress in 1958, but it was not widely employed in English outside mainland China prior to the normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and the PRC in 1979; since that time, the spelling Yangzi has also been used.",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The source and upper reaches of the Yangtze are located in ethnic Tibetan areas of Qinghai. In Tibetan, the Tuotuo headwaters are the Machu (Tibetan: རྨ་ཆུ་, Wylie: rma-chu, lit. \"Red Water\"). The Tongtian is the Drichu (འབྲི་ཆུ་ , ‘Bri Chu’), literally \"Water of the Female Yak\"; transliterated into Chinese: 直曲; pinyin: Zhíqū).",
"title": "Etymology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The river originates from several tributaries in the eastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, two of which are commonly referred to as the \"source.\" Traditionally, the Chinese government has recognized the source as the Tuotuo tributary at the base of a glacier lying on the west of Geladandong Mountain in the Tanggula Mountains. This source is found at 33°25′44″N 91°10′57″E / 33.42889°N 91.18250°E / 33.42889; 91.18250 and while not the furthest source of the Yangtze, it is the highest source at 5,342 m (17,526 ft) above sea level. The true source of the Yangtze, hydrologically the longest river distance from the sea, is at Jari Hill at the head of the Dam Qu tributary, approximately 325 km (202 mi) southeast of Geladandong. This source was only discovered in the late 20th century and lies in wetlands at 32°36′14″N 94°30′44″E / 32.60389°N 94.51222°E / 32.60389; 94.51222 and 5,170 m (16,960 ft) above sea level just southeast of Chadan Township in Zadoi County, Yushu Prefecture, Qinghai. As the historical spiritual source of the Yangtze, the Geladandong source is still commonly referred to as the source of the Yangtze since the discovery of the Jari Hill source.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "These tributaries join and the river then runs eastward through Qinghai (Tsinghai), turning southward down a deep valley at the border of Sichuan (Szechwan) and Tibet to reach Yunnan. In the course of this valley, the river's elevation drops from above 5,000 m (16,000 ft) to less than 1,000 m (3,300 ft). Thus, over the first 2,600 km (1,600 mi) of its length, the river has fallen more than 5,200 m (17,000 ft).",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "It enters the basin of Sichuan at Yibin. While in the Sichuan basin, it receives several mighty tributaries, increasing its water volume significantly. It then cuts through Mount Wushan bordering Chongqing and Hubei to create the famous Three Gorges. Eastward of the Three Gorges, Yichang is the first city on the Yangtze Plain.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "After entering Hubei province, the Yangtze receives water from a number of lakes. The largest of these lakes is Dongting Lake, which is located on the border of Hunan and Hubei provinces, and is the outlet for most of the rivers in Hunan. At Wuhan, it receives its biggest tributary, the Han River, bringing water from its northern basin as far as Shaanxi.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "At the northern tip of Jiangxi province, Lake Poyang, the biggest freshwater lake in China, merges into the river. The river then runs through Anhui and Jiangsu, receiving more water from innumerable smaller lakes and rivers, and finally reaches the East China Sea at Shanghai.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Four of China's five main freshwater lakes contribute their waters to the Yangtze River. Traditionally, the upstream part of the Yangtze River refers to the section from Yibin to Yichang; the middle part refers to the section from Yichang to Hukou County, where Lake Poyang meets the river; the downstream part is from Hukou to Shanghai.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "The origin of the Yangtze River has been dated by some geologists to about 45 million years ago in the Eocene, but this dating has been disputed.",
"title": "Geography"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Although the mouth of the Yellow River has fluctuated widely north and south of the Shandong peninsula within the historical record, the Yangtze has remained largely static. Based on studies of sedimentation rates, however, it is unlikely that the present discharge site predates the late Miocene (c. 11 Ma). Prior to this, its headwaters drained south into the Gulf of Tonkin along or near the course of the present Red River.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The Yangtze River is important to the cultural origins of southern China and Japan. Human activity has been verified in the Three Gorges area as far back as 27,000 years ago, and by the 5th millennium BC, the lower Yangtze was a major population center occupied by the Hemudu and Majiabang cultures, both among the earliest cultivators of rice. By the 3rd millennium BC, the successor Liangzhu culture showed evidence of influence from the Longshan peoples of the North China Plain. What is now thought of as Chinese culture developed along the more fertile Yellow River basin; the \"Yue\" people of the lower Yangtze possessed very different traditions – blackening their teeth, cutting their hair short, tattooing their bodies, and living in small settlements among bamboo groves – and were considered barbarous by the northerners.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The Central Yangtze valley was home to sophisticated Neolithic cultures. Later it became the earliest part of the Yangtze valley to be integrated into the North Chinese cultural sphere. (Northern Chinese were active there since the Bronze Age).",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "In the lower Yangtze, two Yue tribes, the Gouwu in southern Jiangsu and the Yuyue in northern Zhejiang, display increasing Zhou (i.e., North Chinese) influence starting in the 9th century BC. Traditional accounts credit these changes to northern refugees (Taibo and Zhongyong in Wu and Wuyi in Yue) who assumed power over the local tribes, though these are generally assumed to be myths invented to legitimate them to other Zhou rulers. As the kingdoms of Wu and Yue, they were famed as fishers, shipwrights, and sword-smiths. Adopting Chinese characters, political institutions, and military technology, they were among the most powerful states during the later Zhou. In the middle Yangtze, the state of Jing seems to have begun in the upper Han River valley a minor Zhou polity, but it adapted to native culture as it expanded south and east into the Yangtze valley. In the process, it changed its name to Chu.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Whether native or nativizing, the Yangtze states held their own against the northern Chinese homeland: some lists credit them with three of the Spring and Autumn period's Five Hegemons and one of the Warring States' Four Lords. They fell in against themselves, however. Chu's growing power led its rival Jin to support Wu as a counter. Wu successfully sacked Chu's capital Ying in 506 BC, but Chu subsequently supported Yue in its attacks against Wu's southern flank. In 473 BC, King Goujian of Yue fully annexed Wu and moved his court to its eponymous capital at modern Suzhou. In 333 BC, Chu finally united the lower Yangtze by annexing Yue, whose royal family was said to have fled south and established the Minyue kingdom in Fujian. Qin was able to unite China by first subduing Ba and Shu on the upper Yangtze in modern Sichuan, giving them a strong base to attack Chu's settlements along the river.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "The state of Qin conquered the central Yangtze region, previous heartland of Chu, in 278 BC, and incorporated the region into its expanding empire. Qin then used its connections along the Yangtze River the Xiang River to expand China into Hunan, Jiangxi and Guangdong, setting up military commanderies along the main lines of communication. At the collapse of the Qin Dynasty, these southern commanderies became the independent Nanyue Empire under Zhao Tuo while Chu and Han vied with each other for control of the north.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Since the Han dynasty, the region of the Yangtze River grew ever more important to China's economy. The establishment of irrigation systems (the most famous one is Dujiangyan, northwest of Chengdu, built during the Warring States period) made agriculture very stable and productive, eventually exceeding even the Yellow River region. The Qin and Han empires were actively engaged in the agricultural colonization of the Yangtze lowlands, maintaining a system of dikes to protect farmland from seasonal floods. By the Song dynasty, the area along the Yangtze had become among the wealthiest and most developed parts of the country, especially in the lower reaches of the river. Early in the Qing dynasty, the region called Jiangnan (that includes the southern part of Jiangsu, the northern part of Zhejiang, and the southeastern part of Anhui) provided 1⁄3–1⁄2 of the nation's revenues.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "The Yangtze has long been the backbone of China's inland water transportation system, which remained particularly important for almost two thousand years, until the construction of the national railway network during the 20th century. The Grand Canal connects the lower Yangtze with the major cities of the Jiangnan region south of the river (Wuxi, Suzhou, Hangzhou) and with northern China (all the way from Yangzhou to Beijing). The less well known ancient Lingqu Canal, connecting the upper Xiang River with the headwaters of the Guijiang, allowed a direct water connection from the Yangtze Basin to the Pearl River Delta.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Historically, the Yangtze became the political boundary between north China and south China several times (see History of China) because of the difficulty of crossing the river. This occurred notably during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the Southern Song. Many battles took place along the river, the most famous being the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD during the Three Kingdoms period.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The Yangtze was the site of naval battles between the Song dynasty and Jurchen Jin during the Jin–Song wars. In the Battle of Caishi of 1161, the ships of the Jin emperor Wanyan Liang clashed with the Song fleet on the Yangtze. Song soldiers fired bombs of lime and sulfur using trebuchets at the Jurchen warships. The battle was a Song victory that halted the invasion by the Jin. The Battle of Tangdao was another Yangtze naval battle in the same year.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Politically, Nanjing was the capital of China several times, although most of the time its territory only covered the southeastern part of China, such as the Wu kingdom in the Three Kingdoms period, the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and during the Southern and Northern Dynasties and Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms periods. Only the Ming occupied most parts of China from their capital at Nanjing, though it later moved the capital to Beijing. The ROC capital was located in Nanjing in the periods 1911–12, 1927–37, and 1945–49.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "The Jardine, the first steamship to sail the river, was built for Jardine, Matheson & Co. in 1835. This small vessel was to carry passengers and mail between Lintin Island, Macao, and Huangpu. However, the Chinese, draconian in their application of the rules relating to foreign vessels, were unhappy about a \"fire-ship\" steaming up the Canton River. The acting Viceroy of Liangguang issued an edict warning that she would be fired on if she attempted the trip. On the Jardine's first trial run from Lintin Island the forts on both sides of the Bogue opened fire and she was forced to turn back. The Chinese authorities issued a further warning insisting that the ship leave Chinese waters. The Jardine in any case needed repairs and was sent to Singapore.Subsequently, Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary decided mainly on the \"suggestions\" of William Jardine to declare war on China. In mid-1840, a large fleet of warships appeared on the China coast, and with the first cannonball fired at a British ship, the Royal Saxon, the British started the first of the Opium Wars. Royal Navy warships destroyed numerous shore batteries and Chinese warships, laying waste to several coastal forts along the way. Eventually, they pushed their way up north close enough to threaten the Imperial Palace in Beijing itself.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The China Navigation Company was an early shipping company founded in 1876 in London, initially to trade up the Yangtze River from their Shanghai base with passengers and cargo. Chinese coastal trade started shortly after, and in 1883 a regular service to Australia was initiated.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Steamers came late to the upper river, the section stretching from Yichang to Chongqing. Freshets from Himalayan snowmelt created treacherous seasonal currents. But summer was better navigationally and the three gorges, described as a \"150-mile passage which is like the narrow throat of an hourglass,\" posed hazardous threats of crosscurrents, whirlpools and eddies, creating significant challenges to steamship efforts. Furthermore, Chongqing is 700 – 800 feet above sea level, requiring powerful engines to make the upriver climb. Junk travel accomplished the upriver feat by employing 70–80 trackers, men hitched to hawsers who physically pulled ships upriver through some of the most risky and deadly sections of the three gorges. Achibald John Little took an interest in Upper Yangtze navigation when in 1876, the Chefoo Convention opened Chongqing to consular residence but stipulated that foreign trade might only commence once steamships had succeeded in ascending the river to that point. Little formed the Upper Yangtze Steam Navigation Co., Ltd. and built Kuling but his attempts to take the vessel further upriver than Yichang were thwarted by the Chinese authorities who were concerned about the potential loss of transit duties, competition to their native junk trade and physical damage to their crafts caused by steamship wakes. Kuling was sold to China Merchants Steam Navigation Company for lower river service. In 1890, the Chinese government agreed to open Chongqing to foreign trade as long as it was restricted to native crafts. In 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki provided a provision which opened Chongqing fully to foreign trade. Little took up residence in Chongqing and built Leechuan, to tackle the gorges in 1898. In March Leechuan completed the upriver journey to Chongqing but not without the assistance of trackers. Leechuan was not designed for cargo or passengers and if Little wanted to take his vision one step further, he required an expert pilot. In 1898, Little persuaded Captain Samuel Cornell Plant to come out to China to lend his expertise. Captain Plant had just completed navigation of Persia's Upper Karun River and took up Little's offer to assess the Upper Yangtze on Leechuan at the end of 1898. With Plant's design input, Little had SS Pioneer built with Plant in command. In June 1900, Plant was the first to successfully pilot a merchant steamer on the Upper Yangtze from Yichang to Chongqing. Pioneer was sold to Royal Navy after its first run due to threat from the Boxer Rebellion and renamed HMS Kinsha. Germany's steamship effort that same year on SS Suixing ended in catastrophe. On Suixing's maiden voyage, the vessel hit a rock and sunk, killing its captain and ending realistic hopes of regular commercial steam service on the Upper Yangtze. In 1908, local Sichuan merchants and their government partnered with Captain Plant to form Sichuan Steam Navigation Company becoming the first successful service between Yichang and Chongqing. Captain Plant designed and commanded its two ships, SS Shutung and SS Shuhun. Other Chinese vessels came onto the run and by 1915, foreign ships expressed their interest too. Plant was appointed by Chinese Maritime Customs Service as First Senior River Inspector in 1915. In this role, Plant installed navigational marks and established signaling systems. He also wrote Handbook for the Guidance of Shipmasters on the Ichang-Chungking Section of the Yangtze River, a detailed and illustrated account of the Upper Yangtze's currents, rocks, and other hazards with navigational instruction. Plant trained hundreds of Chinese and foreign pilots and issued licenses and worked with the Chinese government to make the river safer in 1917 by removing some of the most difficult obstacles and threats with explosives. In August 1917, British Asiatic Petroleum became the first foreign merchant steamship on the Upper Yangtze. Commercial firms, Robert Dollar Company, Jardine Matheson, Butterfield and Swire and Standard Oil added their own steamers on the river between 1917 and 1919. Between 1918 and 1919, Sichuan warlord violence and escalating civil war put Sichuan Steam Navigational Company out of business. Shutung was commandeered by warlords and Shuhun was brought down river to Shanghai for safekeeping. In 1921, when Captain Plant died at sea while returning home to England, a Plant Memorial Fund was established to perpetuate Plant's name and contributions to Upper Yangtze navigation. The largest shipping companies in service, Butterfield & Swire, Jardine Matheson, Standard Oil, Mackenzie & Co., Asiatic Petroleum, Robert Dollar, China Merchants S.N. Co. and British-American Tobacco Co., contributed alongside international friends and Chinese pilots. In 1924, a 50-foot granite pyramidal obelisk was erected in Xintan, on the site of Captain Plant's home, in a Chinese community of pilots and junk owners. One face of the monument is inscribed in Chinese and another in English. Though recently relocated to higher ground ahead of the Three Gorges Dam, the monument still stands overlooking the Upper Yangtze River near Yichang, a rare collective tribute to a westerner in China.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Standard Oil ran the tankers Mei Ping, Mei An and Mei Hsia, which were collectively destroyed on December 12, 1937, when Japanese warplanes bombed and sank the U.S.S. Panay. One of the Standard Oil captains who survived this attack had served on the Upper River for 14 years.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong took staged swims in the river in 1956 and 1966 at Wuhan in publicity stunts to demonstrate his health, also starting a swimming craze through party propaganda.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In August 2019, Welsh adventurer Ash Dykes became the first person to complete the 4,000-mile (6,437 km) trek along the course of the river, walking for 352 days from its source to its mouth.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Tens of millions of people live in the floodplain of the Yangtze valley, an area that naturally floods every summer and is habitable only because it is protected by river dikes. The floods large enough to overflow the dikes have caused great distress to those who live and farm there. Floods of note include those of 1931, 1954, and 1998.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "The 1931 Central China floods or the Central China floods of 1931 were a series of floods that occurred in the Republic of China. The floods are generally considered among the deadliest natural disasters ever recorded, and almost certainly the deadliest of the 20th century (when pandemics and famines are discounted). Estimates of the total death toll range from 145,000 to between 3.7 million and 4 million. The Yangtze again flooded in 1935, causing great loss of life.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "From June to September 1954, the Yangtze River Floods were a series of catastrophic floodings that occurred mostly in Hubei Province. Due to unusually high volume of precipitation as well as an extraordinarily long rainy season in the middle stretch of the Yangtze River late in the spring of 1954, the river started to rise above its usual level in around late June. Despite efforts to open three important flood gates to alleviate the rising water by diverting it, the flood level continued to rise until it hit the historic high of 44.67 m in Jingzhou, Hubei and 29.73 m in Wuhan. The number of dead from this flood was estimated at 33,000, including those who died of plague in the aftermath of the disaster.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "The 1998 Yangtze River floods were a series of major floods that lasted from middle of June to the beginning of September 1998 along the Yangtze. In the summer of 1998, China experienced massive flooding of parts of the Yangtze River, resulting in 3,704 dead, 15 million homeless and $26 billion in economic loss. Other sources report a total loss of 4150 people, and 180 million people were affected. A staggering 25 million acres (100,000 km) were evacuated, 13.3 million houses were damaged or destroyed. The floods caused $26 billion in damages.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The 2016 China floods caused US$22 billion in damages.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In 2020, the Yangtze river saw the heaviest rainfall since 1961, with a 79% increase in June and July compared to the average for the period over the previous 41 years. A new theory suggested that abrupt reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, caused by shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, was a key cause of the intense downpours. Over the past decades rainfall had decreased due to increase of aerosols in the atmosphere, and lower greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 caused the opposite effect – a major increase in rain. Such a dramatic reduction of aerosols caused a dramatic change in the various components of the climate system, but such sudden change of the climate system would be very different from changes in response to continuous but gradual policy-driven emissions reductions.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Beginning in the 1950s, dams and dikes were built for flood control, land reclamation, irrigation, and control of diseases vectors such as blood flukes that caused Schistosomiasis. More than a hundred lakes were thusly cut off from the main river. There were gates between the lakes that could be opened during floods. However, farmers and settlements encroached on the land next to the lakes although it was forbidden to settle there. When floods came, it proved impossible to open the gates since it would have caused substantial destruction. Thus the lakes partially or completely dried up. For example, Baidang Lake shrunk from 100 square kilometers (39 sq mi) in the 1950s to 40 square kilometers (15 sq mi) in 2005. Zhangdu Lake dwindled to one quarter of its original size. Natural fisheries output in the two lakes declined sharply. Only a few large lakes, such as Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake, remained connected to the Yangtze. Cutting off the other lakes that had served as natural buffers for floods increased the damage done by floods further downstream. Furthermore, the natural flow of migratory fish was obstructed and biodiversity across the whole basin decreased dramatically. Intensive farming of fish in ponds spread using one type of carp who thrived in eutrophic water conditions and who feeds on algae, causing widespread pollution. The pollution was exacerbated by the discharge of waste from pig farms as well as of untreated industrial and municipal sewage. In September 2012, the Yangtze river near Chongqing turned red from pollution. The erection of the Three Gorges Dam has created an impassable \"iron barrier\" that has led to a great reduction in the biodiversity of the river. Yangtze sturgeon use seasonal changes in the flow of the river to signal when is it time to migrate. However, these seasonal changes will be greatly reduced by dams and diversions. Other animals facing immediate threat of extinction are the baiji dolphin, narrow-ridged finless porpoise and the Yangtze alligator. These animals numbers went into freefall from the combined effects of accidental catches during fishing, river traffic, habitat loss and pollution. In 2006 the baiji dolphin became extinct; the world lost an entire genus.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "In 2020, a sweeping law was passed by the Chinese government to protect the ecology of the river. The new laws include strengthening ecological protection rules for hydropower projects along the river, banning chemical plants within 1 kilometer of the river, relocating polluting industries, severely restricting sand mining as well as a complete fishing ban on all the natural waterways of the river, including all its major tributaries and lakes.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "The Yangtze River produces more ocean plastic pollution than any other, according to The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch environmental research foundation that focuses on ocean pollution. 10 Rivers transport 90% of all the plastic that reaches the oceans, the Yangtze river being the biggest polluter by far.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "In 2002 a pilot program was initiated to reconnect lakes to the Yangtze with the objective to increase biodiversity and to alleviate flooding. The first lakes to be reconnected in 2004 were Zhangdu Lake, Honghu Lake, and Tian'e-Zhou in Hubei on the middle Yangtze. In 2005 Baidang Lake in Anhui was also reconnected.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Reconnecting the lakes improved water quality and fish were able to migrate from the river into the lake, replenishing their numbers and genetic stock. The trial also showed that reconnecting the lake reduced flooding. The new approach also benefitted the farmers economically. Pond farmers switched to natural fish feed, which helped them breed better-quality fish that can be sold for more, increasing their income by 30%. Based on the successful pilot project, other provincial governments emulated the experience and also reestablished connections to lakes that had previously been cut off from the river. In 2005 a Yangtze Forum has been established bringing together 13 riparian provincial governments to manage the river from source to sea. In 2006 China's Ministry of Agriculture made it a national policy to reconnect the Yangtze River with its lakes. As of 2010, provincial governments in five provinces and Shanghai set up a network of 40 effective protected areas, covering 16,500 km (6,400 sq mi). As a result, populations of 47 threatened species increased, including the critically endangered Yangtze alligator. In the Shanghai area, reestablished wetlands now protect drinking water sources for the city. It is envisaged to extend the network throughout the entire Yangtze to eventually cover 102 areas and 185,000 km (71,000 sq mi). The mayor of Wuhan announced that six huge, stagnating urban lakes including the East Lake (Wuhan) would be reconnected at the cost of US$2.3 billion creating China's largest urban wetland landscape.",
"title": "Hydrology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Until 1957, there were no bridges across the Yangtze River from Yibin to Shanghai. For millennia, travelers crossed the river by ferry. On occasions, the crossing may have been dangerous, as evidenced by the Zhong'anlun disaster (October 15, 1945).",
"title": "Crossings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The river stood as a major geographic barrier dividing northern and southern China. In the first half of the 20th century, rail passengers from Beijing to Guangzhou and Shanghai had to disembark, respectively, at Hanyang and Pukou, and cross the river by steam ferry before resuming journeys by train from Wuchang or Nanjing West.",
"title": "Crossings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "After the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Soviet engineers assisted in the design and construction of the Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, a dual-use road-rail bridge, built from 1955 to 1957. It was the first bridge across the Yangtze River. The second bridge across the river that was built was a single-track railway bridge built upstream in Chongqing in 1959. The Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, also a road-rail bridge, was the first bridge to cross the lower reaches of the Yangtze, in Nanjing. It was built after the Sino-Soviet Split and did not receive foreign assistance. Road-rail bridges were then built in Zhicheng (1971) and Chongqing (1980).",
"title": "Crossings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Bridge-building slowed in the 1980s before resuming in the 1990s and accelerating in the first decade of the 21st century. The Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge was built in 1992 as part of the Beijing-Jiujiang Railway. A second bridge in Wuhan was completed in 1995. By 2005, there were a total of 56 bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze River between Yibin and Shanghai. These include some of the longest suspension and cable-stayed bridges in the world on the Yangtze Delta: Jiangyin Suspension Bridge (1,385 m, opened in 1999), Runyang Bridge (1,490 m, opened 2005), Sutong Bridge (1,088 m, opened 2008). The rapid pace of bridge construction has continued. The city of Wuhan now has six bridges and one tunnel across the Yangtze.",
"title": "Crossings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "A number of power line crossings have also been built across the river.",
"title": "Crossings"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "As of 2007, there are two dams built on the Yangtze river: Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba Dam. The Three Gorges Dam is the largest power station in the world by installed capacity, at 22.5 GW. Several dams are operating or are being constructed on the upper portion of the river, the Jinsha River. Among them, the Xiluodu Dam is the third largest power station in the world, and the Baihetan Dam, planned to be commissioned in 2021, will be the second largest after the Three Gorges Dam.",
"title": "Dams"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "The Yangtze River has over 700 tributaries. The major tributaries (listed from upstream to downstream) with the locations of where they join the Yangtze are:",
"title": "Tributaries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The Huai River flowed into the Yellow Sea until the 20th century, but now primarily discharges into the Yangtze.",
"title": "Tributaries"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The Yangtze River has a high species richness, including many endemics. A high percentage of these are seriously threatened by human activities.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "As of 2011, 416 fish species are known from the Yangtze basin, including 362 that strictly are freshwater species. The remaining are also known from salt or brackish waters, such as the river's estuary or the East China Sea. This makes it one of the most species-rich rivers in Asia and by far the most species-rich in China (in comparison, the Pearl River has almost 300 fish species and the Yellow River 160). 178 fish species are endemic to the Yangtze River Basin. Many are only found in some section of the river basin and especially the upper reach (above Yichang, but below the headwaters in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau) is rich with 279 species, including 147 Yangtze endemics and 97 strict endemics (found only in this part of the basin). In contrast, the headwaters, where the average altitude is above 4,500 m (14,800 ft), are only home to 14 highly specialized species, but 8 of these are endemic to the river. The largest orders in the Yangtze are Cypriniformes (280 species, including 150 endemics), Siluriformes (40 species, including 20 endemics), Perciformes (50 species, including 4 endemics), Tetraodontiformes (12 species, including 1 endemic) and Osmeriformes (8 species, including 1 endemic). No other order has more than four species in the river and one endemic.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Many Yangtze fish species have declined drastically and 65 were recognized as threatened in the 2009 Chinese red list. Among these are three that are considered entirely extinct (Chinese paddlefish, Anabarilius liui liui and Atrilinea macrolepis), two that are extinct in the wild (Anabarilius polylepis, Schizothorax parvus), four that are critically endangered Euchiloglanis kishinouyei, Megalobrama elongata, Schizothorax longibarbus and Leiocassis longibarbus). Additionally, both the Yangtze sturgeon and Chinese sturgeon are considered critically endangered by the IUCN. The survival of these two sturgeon may rely on the continued release of captive bred specimens. Although still listed as critically endangered rather than extinct by both the Chinese red list and IUCN, recent reviews have found that the Chinese paddlefish is extinct. Surveys conducted between 2006 and 2008 by ichthyologists failed to catch any, but two probable specimens were recorded with hydroacoustic signals. The last definite record was an individual that was accidentally captured near Yibin in 2003 and released after having been radio tagged. The Chinese sturgeon is the largest fish in the river and among the largest freshwater fish in the world, reaching a length of 5 m (16 ft); the extinct Chinese paddlefish reputedly reached as much as 7 m (23 ft), but its maximum size is labeled with considerable uncertainty.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The largest threats to the Yangtze native fish are overfishing and habitat loss (such as building of dams and land reclamation), but pollution, destructive fishing practices (such as fishing with dynamite or poison) and introduced species also cause problems. About 2⁄3 of the total freshwater fisheries in China are in the Yangtze Basin, but a drastic decline in size of several important species has been recorded, as highlighted by data from lakes in the river basin. In 2015, some experts recommend a 10-year fishing moratorium to allow the remaining populations to recover, and in January 2020 China imposed a 10-year fishing moratorium on 332 sites along the Yangtze. Dams present another serious problem, as several species in the river perform breeding migrations and most of these are non-jumpers, meaning that normal fish ladders designed for salmon are ineffective. For example, the Gezhouba Dam blocked the migration of the paddlerfish and two sturgeon, while also effectively splitting the Chinese high fin banded shark population into two and causing the extirpation of the Yangtze population of the Japanese eel. In an attempt of minimizing the effect of the dams, the Three Gorges Dam has released water to mimic the (pre-dam) natural flooding and trigger the breeding of carp species downstream. In addition to dams already built in the Yangtze basin, several large dams are planned and these may present further problems for the native fauna.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "While many fish species native to the Yangtze are seriously threatened, others have become important in fish farming and introduced widely outside their native range. A total of 26 native fish species of the Yangtze basin are farmed. Among the most important are four Asian carp: grass carp, black carp, silver carp and bighead carp. Other species that support important fisheries include northern snakehead, Chinese perch, Takifugu pufferfish (mainly in the lowermost sections) and predatory carp.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Due to commercial use of the river, tourism, and pollution, the Yangtze is home to several seriously threatened species of large animals (in addition to fish): the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, baiji (Yangtze river dolphin), Chinese alligator, Yangtze giant softshell turtle and Chinese giant salamander. This is the only other place besides the United States that is native to an alligator and paddlefish species. In 2010, the Yangtze population of finless porpoise was 1000 individuals. In December 2006, the Yangtze river dolphin was declared functionally extinct after an extensive search of the river revealed no signs of the dolphin's inhabitance. In 2007, a large, white animal was sighted and photographed in the lower Yangtze and was tentatively presumed to be a baiji. However, as there have been no confirmed sightings since 2004, the baiji is presumed to be functionally extinct at this time. \"Baijis were the last surviving species of a large lineage dating back seventy million years and one of only six species of freshwater dolphins.\" It has been argued that the extinction of the Yangtze river dolphin was a result of the completion of the Three Gorges Dam, a project that has affected many species of animals and plant life found only in the gorges area.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Numerous species of land mammals are found in the Yangtze valley, but most of these are not directly associated with the river. Three exceptions are the semi-aquatic Eurasian otter, water deer and Père David's deer.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "In addition to the very large and exceptionally rare Yangtze giant softshell turtle, several smaller turtle species are found in the Yangtze basin, its delta and valleys. These include the Chinese box turtle, yellow-headed box turtle, Pan's box turtle, Yunnan box turtle, yellow pond turtle, Chinese pond turtle, Chinese stripe-necked turtle and Chinese softshell turtle, which all are considered threatened.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "More than 160 amphibian species are known from the Yangtze basin, including the world's largest, the critically endangered Chinese giant salamander. It has declined drastically due to hunting (it is considered a delicacy), habitat loss and pollution. The polluted Dian Lake, which is part of the upper Yangtze watershed (via Pudu River), is home to several highly threatened fish, but was also home to the Yunnan lake newt. This newt has not been seen since 1979 and is considered extinct. In contrast, the Chinese fire belly newt from the lower Yangtze basin is one of the few Chinese salamander species to remain common and it is considered least concern by the IUCN.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "The Yangtze basin contains a large number of freshwater crab species, including several endemics. A particularly rich genus in the river basin is the potamid Sinopotamon. The Chinese mitten crab is catadromous (migrates between fresh and saltwater) and it has been recorded up to 1,400 km (870 mi) up the Yangtze, which is the largest river in its native range. It is a commercially important species in its native range where it is farmed, but the Chinese mitten crab has also been spread to Europe and North America where considered invasive.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii, now an invasive species in large parts of the world, originates from the Yangtze.",
"title": "Wildlife"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "The Yangtze River cruise, also called the \"Three Gorges cruise\", is a popular tourist attraction.",
"title": "Tourism"
}
] | The Yangtze, Yangzi or Changjiang is the longest river in Eurasia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows 6,300 km (3,915 mi) in a generally easterly direction to the East China Sea. It is the fifth-largest primary river by discharge volume in the world. Its drainage basin comprises one-fifth of the land area of China, and is home to nearly one-third of the country's population. The Yangtze has played a major role in the history, culture, and economy of China. For thousands of years, the river has been used for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry, boundary-marking, and war. The prosperous Yangtze Delta generates as much as 20% of China's GDP. The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world that is in use. In mid-2014, the Chinese government announced it was building a multi-tier transport network, comprising railways, roads and airports, to create a new economic belt alongside the river. The Yangtze flows through a wide array of ecosystems and is habitat to several endemic and threatened species including the Chinese alligator, the narrow-ridged finless porpoise, and also was the home of the now extinct Yangtze river dolphin and Chinese paddlefish, as well as the Yangtze sturgeon, which is extinct in the wild. In recent years, the river has suffered from industrial pollution, plastic pollution, agricultural runoff, siltation, and loss of wetland and lakes, which exacerbates seasonal flooding. Some sections of the river are now protected as nature reserves. A stretch of the upstream Yangtze flowing through deep gorges in western Yunnan is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. | 2001-09-30T06:02:04Z | 2023-12-28T01:12:08Z | [
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6,614 | Chrono Trigger | Chrono Trigger is a 1995 role-playing video game developed and published by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first game in the Chrono series. The game's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, creator of Enix's Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, character designer of Dragon Quest and author of the Dragon Ball manga series. In addition, Takashi Tokita co-directed the game and co-wrote the scenario, Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, Masato Kato wrote most of the story, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda wrote most of the soundtrack before falling ill and deferring the remaining tracks to Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The game's story follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.
Chrono Trigger was a critical and commercial success upon release and is frequently cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Nintendo Power magazine described aspects of the game as revolutionary, including its multiple endings, plot-related side-quests focusing on character development, unique battle system, and detailed graphics. Chrono Trigger was the second best-selling game of 1995 in Japan, and shipped 2.65 million copies worldwide by March 2003. Excluding the PC version, the game had shipped over 3.5 million copies worldwide by February 2018.
Square released a ported version by Tose in Japan for the PlayStation in 1999, which was later repackaged with a Final Fantasy IV port as Final Fantasy Chronicles (2001) for the North American market. A slightly enhanced Chrono Trigger, again ported by Tose, was released for the Nintendo DS in North America and Japan in 2008, and PAL regions in 2009. The game has also been ported to i-mode, the Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network, iOS, Android, and Windows.
Chrono Trigger features standard role-playing video game gameplay. The player controls the protagonist and his companions in the game's two-dimensional world, consisting of various forests, cities, and dungeons. Navigation occurs via an overworld map, depicting the landscape from a scaled-down overhead view. Areas such as forests, cities, and similar places are depicted as more realistic scaled-down maps, in which players can converse with locals to procure items and services, solve puzzles and challenges, or encounter enemies. Chrono Trigger's gameplay deviates from that of traditional Japanese RPGs in that, rather than appearing in random encounters, many enemies are openly visible on field maps or lie in wait to ambush the party. Contact with enemies on a field map initiates a battle that occurs directly on the map rather than on a separate battle screen.
Players and enemies may use physical or magical attacks to wound targets during battle, and players may use items to heal or protect themselves. Each character and enemy has a certain number of hit points; successful attacks reduce that character's hit points, which can be restored with potions and spells. When a playable character loses all hit points, they faint; if all the player's characters fall in battle, the game ends and must be restored from a previously saved chapter, except in specific storyline-related battles that allow or force the player to lose. Between battles, a player can equip their characters with weapons, armor, helmets, and accessories that provide special effects (such as increased attack power or defense against magic), and various consumable items can be used both in and out of battles. Items and equipment can be purchased in shops or found on field maps, often in treasure chests. By exploring new areas and fighting enemies, players progress through Chrono Trigger's story.
Chrono Trigger uses an "Active Time Battle" system—a recurring element of Square's Final Fantasy game series designed by Hiroyuki Ito for Final Fantasy IV—named "Active Time Battle 2.0". Each character can take action in battle once a personal timer dependent on the character's speed statistic counts to zero. Magic and special physical techniques are handled through a system called "Techs". Techs deplete a character's magic points (a numerical meter similar to hit points), and often have special areas of effect; some spells damage huddled monsters, while others can harm enemies spread in a line. Enemies often change positions during battle, creating opportunities for tactical Tech use. A unique feature of Chrono Trigger's Tech system is that numerous cooperative techniques exist. Each character receives eight personal Techs which can be used in conjunction with others' to create Double and Triple Techs for greater effect. For instance, Crono's sword-spinning Cyclone Tech can be combined with Lucca's Flame Toss to create Flame Whirl. When characters with compatible Techs have enough magic points available to perform their techniques, the game automatically displays the combo as an option.
Chrono Trigger features several other distinct gameplay traits, including time travel. Players have access to seven eras of the game world's history, and past actions affect future events. Throughout history, players find new allies, complete side quests, and search for keynote villains. Time travel is accomplished via portals and pillars of light called "time gates", as well as a time machine named Epoch. The game contains twelve unique endings (thirteen in DS, iOS and Android versions); the ending the player receives depends on when and how they reach and complete the game's final battle. Chrono Trigger DS features a new ending that can be accessed from the End of Time upon completion of the final extra dungeon and optional final boss. Chrono Trigger also introduces a New Game Plus option; after completing the game, the player may begin a new game with the same character levels, techniques, and equipment, excluding money, with which they ended the previous playthrough. However, certain items central to the storyline are removed and must be found again, such as the sword Masamune. Square has employed the New Game Plus concept in later games including Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy XV among others.
Chrono Trigger takes place in an Earth-like world, with eras such as the prehistoric age, in which primitive humans and dinosaurs share the earth; the Middle Ages, replete with knights, monsters, and magic; and the post-apocalyptic future, where destitute humans and sentient robots struggle to survive. The characters frequently travel through time to obtain allies, gather equipment, and learn information to help them in their quest. The party also gains access to the End of Time (represented as year ∞), which serves as a hub to travel back to other time periods. The party eventually acquires a time-machine vehicle known as the Wings of Time, nicknamed the Epoch (this default name can be changed by the player when the vehicle is acquired). The vehicle is capable of time travel between any time period without first having to travel to the End of Time.
Chrono Trigger's six playable characters (plus one optional character) come from different eras of history. Chrono Trigger begins in 1000 AD with Crono, Marle, and Lucca. Crono is the silent protagonist, characterized as a fearless young man who wields a katana in battle. Marle, revealed to be Princess Nadia, lives in Guardia Castle; though sheltered, she is at heart a princess who seeks independence from her royal identity. Lucca is a childhood friend of Crono's and a mechanical genius; her home is filled with laboratory equipment and machinery. From the era of 2300 AD comes Robo, or Prometheus (designation R-66Y), a robot with a near-human personality created to assist humans. Lying dormant in the future, Robo is found and repaired by Lucca, and joins the group out of gratitude. The fiercely confident Ayla dwells in 65,000,000 BC. Unmatched in raw strength, Ayla is the chief of Ioka Village and leads her people in war against a species of humanoid reptiles known as Reptites.
The last two playable characters are Frog and Magus. Frog originated in 600 AD. He is a former squire once known as Glenn, who was turned into an anthropomorphic frog by Magus, who also killed his friend Cyrus. Chivalrous but mired in regret, Frog dedicates his life to protecting Leene, the queen of Guardia, and avenging Cyrus. Meanwhile, Guardia in 600 AD is in a state of conflict against the Mystics (known as Fiends in the US/DS port), a race of demons and intelligent animals who wage war against humanity under the leadership of Magus, a powerful sorcerer. Magus's seclusion conceals a long-lost past; he was formerly known as Janus, the young prince of the Kingdom of Zeal, which was destroyed by Lavos in 12,000 BC. The incident sent him forward through time, and as he ages, he plots revenge against Lavos and broods over the fate of his sister, Schala. Lavos, the game's main antagonist who awakens and ravages the world in 1999 AD, is an extraterrestrial, parasitic creature that harvests DNA and the Earth's energy for its own growth.
In 1000 AD, Crono and Marle watch Lucca and her father demonstrate her new teleporter at the Millennial Fair in the Kingdom of Guardia. When Marle volunteers to be teleported, her pendant interferes with the device and creates a time portal into which she is drawn. After Crono and Lucca separately recreate the portal and find themselves in 600 AD, they locate Marle, only to see her vanish before their eyes. Lucca realizes that this time period's kingdom has mistaken Marle (who is actually Princess Nadia of Guardia) for Queen Leene, an ancestor of hers who had been kidnapped, thus putting off the recovery effort for her ancestor and creating a grandfather paradox. Crono and Lucca, with the help of Frog, restore history to normal by rescuing Leene. After the three part ways with Frog and return to the present, Crono is tried and arrested on charges of kidnapping Marle and sentenced to death by the current chancellor of Guardia. Lucca and Marle help Crono escape prison, haphazardly using another time portal to evade their pursuers. This portal lands them in 2300 AD, where they learn that an advanced civilization has been wiped out by a giant creature known as Lavos that appeared in 1999 AD, and find the last remnants of humanity living in undergrowth domes subsisting off of machine energy in place of food. The three vow to find a way to prevent the future destruction of their world. After meeting and repairing Robo, Crono and his friends find Gaspar, an old sage residing in an atemporal space known as the End of Time, who offers them the ability to travel through time by way of several pillars of light. (The party is able to challenge Lavos at any point after this scene, with completion of the game prior to its final chapter unlocking one of twelve different endings.)
The party discover that a powerful mage named Magus summoned Lavos into the world in 600 AD. To stop Magus, Frog requires the legendary sword, Masamune, to open the way to the mage's castle. In search of ore to re-forge the sword, the party travel to prehistoric times and meet Ayla, the chief of an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe. The subsequent battle with Magus disrupts his spell to summon Lavos, opening a temporal distortion that throws Crono and his friends to prehistory. The party assist Ayla in battling the Reptites, enemies of prehistoric humans. The battle is cut short as the party witness the true origin of Lavos, who descends from deep space and crashes into the planet before burrowing to its core. Entering a time gate created by Lavos's impact, the party arrive in the ice age of 12,000 BC. There, the utopic Kingdom of Zeal resides on islands raised above the icy surface using energy harnessed from Lavos's body beneath the earth's crust via a machine housed on the ocean floor. The party are imprisoned by the Queen of Zeal on the orders of its mysterious Prophet, and are ultimately banished, with the time gate leading to 12,000 BC sealed by the Prophet. Seeking a way to return, the party discover a time machine in 2300 AD called the Wings of Time (or Epoch), which can access any time period at will. The party return to 12,000 BC, where Zeal inadvertently awakens Lavos, leading the Prophet to reveal himself as Magus, who tries and fails to kill the creature. Lavos defeats Magus and kills Crono, before the remaining party are transported to the safety of the surface by Schala, Zeal’s princess. Lavos annihilates the Kingdom of Zeal, whose fallen continent causes devastating floods that submerge most of the world's landmass.
Magus confesses to the party that he used to be Prince Janus of Zeal, Schala’s brother, and that in the original timeline, he and the Gurus of Zeal were scattered across time by Lavos's awakening in 12,000 BC. Stranded as a child in 600 AD, Janus took the title of Magus and gained a cult of followers while plotting to summon and kill Lavos in revenge for the death of his sister. Magus tried once more after the party's battle in his castle returned him to Zeal, where he disguised himself as the Prophet. At this point, Magus is either killed by the party, killed in a duel with Frog, or spared and convinced to join the party. The ruined Ocean Palace then rises into the air as the Black Omen, Queen Zeal's floating fortress. The group turns to Gaspar for help, and he gives them a "Chrono Trigger", a device that allows the group to replace Crono just before the moment of death with an identical doppelgänger (doing so is optional, and the game's ending will change depending on the player's decision). The party then gather power by helping people across time with Gaspar's instructions. Their journeys involve defeating the remnants of the Mystics, stopping Robo's maniacal AI creator, giving Frog closure for Cyrus's death, locating and charging up the mythical Sun Stone, retrieving the legendary Rainbow Shell, unmasking Guardia's Chancellor as a saboteur, restoring a forest destroyed by a desert monster, and preventing an accident that disabled Lucca's mother. The party then enter the Black Omen and defeat Queen Zeal, after which they battle Lavos. They discover that Lavos is self-directing his evolution via absorbing DNA and energy from every living creature before razing the planet's surface in 1999 AD, so that it could spawn a new generation to destroy other worlds and continue the evolutionary cycle. The party slay Lavos, and celebrate at the final night of the Millennial Fair before returning to their own times.
If Magus joined the party, he departs to search for Schala. If Crono was resurrected before defeating Lavos, his sentence for kidnapping Marle is revoked by her father, King Guardia XXXIII, thanks to testimonies from Marle's ancestors and descendants, whom Crono had helped during his journey. Crono's mother accidentally enters the time gate at the Millennial Fair before it closes, prompting Crono, Marle, and Lucca to set out in the Epoch to find her while fireworks light up the night sky. If Crono was not resurrected, Frog, Robo, and Ayla (along with Magus if he was recruited) chase Gaspar to the Millennial Fair and back again, revealing that Gaspar knows how to resurrect Crono; Marle and Lucca then use the Epoch to travel through time to accomplish this. Alternatively, if the party used the Epoch to break Lavos's outer shell, Marle will help her father hang Nadia's bell at the festival and accidentally get carried away by several balloons. If resurrected, Crono jumps on to help her, but cannot bring them down to earth. Hanging on in each other's arms, the pair travel through the cloudy, moonlit sky.
Chrono Trigger DS added two new scenarios to the game. In the first, Crono and his friends can help a "lost sanctum" of Reptites, who reward powerful items and armor. The second scenario adds ties to Trigger's sequel, Chrono Cross. In a New Game Plus, the group can explore several temporal distortions to combat shadow versions of Crono, Marle, and Lucca, and to fight Dalton, who promises in defeat to raise an army in the town of Porre to destroy the Kingdom of Guardia. The group can then fight the Dream Devourer, a prototypical form of the Time Devourer—a fusion of Schala and Lavos seen in Chrono Cross. A version of Magus pleads with Schala to resist; though she recognizes him as her brother, she refuses to be helped and sends him away. Schala subsequently erases his memories and Magus awakens in a forest, determined to find what he had lost.
Chrono Trigger was conceived in October 1992 by Hironobu Sakaguchi, producer and creator of the Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, writer, game designer and creator of the Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, character designer of Dragon Quest and creator of the Dragon Ball manga series. Traveling to the United States to research computer graphics, the three decided to create something that "no one had done before". Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, later credited the concept to a fusion of "Dragon Quest plus Final Fantasy", and arranged for Enix to lend Yuji Horii to Squaresoft for development. After spending over a year considering the difficulties of developing a new game, the three received a call from Kazuhiko Aoki, who offered to produce. The four met and spent four days brainstorming ideas for the game. Square convened 50–60 developers, including scenario writer Masato Kato, whom Square designated story planner; development started in early 1993. An uncredited Square employee suggested that the team develop a time travel-themed game, which Kato initially opposed, fearing repetitive, dull gameplay. Kato and Horii then met several hours per day during the first year of development to write the game's plot; Horii desired a silent protagonist from the outset. Square intended to license the work under the Seiken Densetsu franchise and gave it the working title Maru Island; Hiromichi Tanaka (the future producer of Chrono Cross) monitored Toriyama's early designs. The team hoped to release it on Nintendo's planned Super Famicom Disk Drive; when Nintendo canceled the project, Square reoriented the game for release on a Super Famicom cartridge and rebranded it as Chrono Trigger. Tanaka credited the ROM cartridge platform for enabling seamless transition to battles on the field map. While Chrono Trigger had been planned for a 24-megabit cartridge, Square ultimately chose a 32-megabit platform, enabling additional graphics and music. Torishima later reflected that at least one early revision of the game had been scrapped.
Aoki ultimately produced Chrono Trigger, while director credits were attributed to Akihiko Matsui, Yoshinori Kitase and Takashi Tokita. Toriyama designed the game's aesthetic, including characters, monsters, vehicles, and the look of each era. Masato Kato also contributed character ideas and designs. Kato planned to feature Gaspar as a playable character and Toriyama sketched him, but he was cut early in development. The development staff studied the drawings of Toriyama to approximate his style. Sakaguchi and Horii supervised; Sakaguchi was responsible for the game's overall system and contributed several monster ideas. Other notable designers include Tetsuya Takahashi, the graphic director, and Yasuyuki Honne, Tetsuya Nomura, and Yusuke Naora, who worked as field graphic artists. Yasuhiko Kamata programmed graphics, and cited Ridley Scott's visual work in the film Alien as an inspiration for the game's lighting. Kamata made the game's luminosity and color choice lay between that of Secret of Mana and the Final Fantasy series. Features originally intended to be used in Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy IV, also under development at the same time, were appropriated by the Chrono Trigger team. According to Tanaka, Secret of Mana (which itself was originally intended to be Final Fantasy IV) was codenamed "Chrono Trigger" during development before being called Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana), and then the name Chrono Trigger was adopted for a new project. After its release, the development team of Final Fantasy VI was folded into the Chrono Trigger team.
Yuji Horii, a fan of time travel fiction (such as the TV series The Time Tunnel), fostered a theme of time travel in his general story outline of Chrono Trigger with input from Akira Toriyama. Horii liked the scenario of the grandfather paradox surrounding Marle. Concerning story planning, Horii commented, "If there's a fairground, I just write that there's a fairground; I don't write down any of the details. Then the staff brainstorm and come up with a variety of attractions to put in." Horii also devised Lavos as the final boss, having wanted the final boss to be an ancient evil. Sakaguchi contributed some minor elements, including the character Gato; he liked Marle's drama and reconciliation with her father. Masato Kato subsequently edited and completed the outline by writing the majority of the game's story, including all the events of the 12,000 BC era. He took pains to avoid what he described as "a long string of errands ... [such as] 'do this', 'take this', 'defeat these monsters', or 'plant this flag'." Kato and other developers held a series of meetings to ensure continuity, usually attended by around 30 personnel. Kato and Horii initially proposed Crono's death, though they intended he stay dead; the party would have retrieved an earlier, living version of him to complete the quest. Square deemed the scenario too depressing and asked that Crono be brought back to life later in the story. Kato also devised the system of multiple endings because he could not branch the story out to different paths. Yoshinori Kitase and Takashi Tokita then wrote various subplots. They also devised an "Active Time Event Logic" system, "where you can move your character around during scenes, even when an NPC is talking to you", and with players "talking to different people and steering the conversation in different directions", allowing each scene to "have many permutations." Kato became friends with composer Yasunori Mitsuda during development, and they would collaborate on several future projects. Katsuhisa Higuchi programmed the battle system, which hosted combat on the map without transition to a special battleground as most previous Square games had done. Higuchi noted extreme difficulty in loading battles properly without slow-downs or a brief, black loading screen. The game's use of animated monster sprites consumed much more memory than previous Final Fantasy games, which used static enemy graphics.
Hironobu Sakaguchi likened the development of Chrono Trigger to "play[ing] around with Toriyama's universe," citing the inclusion of humorous sequences in the game that would have been "impossible with something like Final Fantasy." When Square Co. suggested a non-human player character, developers created Frog by adapting one of Toriyama's sketches. The team created the End of Time to help players with hints, worrying that they might become stuck and need to consult a walkthrough. The game's testers had previously complained that Chrono Trigger was too difficult; as Horii explained, "It's because we know too much. The developers think the game's just right; that they're being too soft. They're thinking from their own experience. The puzzles were the same. Lots of players didn't figure out things we thought they'd get easily." Sakaguchi later cited the unusual desire of beta testers to play the game a second time or "travel through time again" as an affirmation of the New Game Plus feature: "Wherever we could, we tried to make it so that a slight change in your behavior caused subtle differences in people's reactions, even down to the smallest details ... I think the second playthrough will hold a whole new interest." The game's reuse of locations due to time traveling made bug-fixing difficult, as corrections would cause unintended consequences in other eras.
Chrono Trigger was scored primarily by Yasunori Mitsuda, with contributions from veteran Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu and one track by Noriko Matsueda. A sound programmer at the time, Mitsuda was unhappy with his pay and threatened to leave Square if he could not compose music. Hironobu Sakaguchi suggested he score Chrono Trigger, remarking, "maybe your salary will go up." Mitsuda composed new music and drew on a personal collection of pieces composed over the previous two years. He reflected, "I wanted to create music that wouldn't fit into any established genre ... music of an imaginary world. The game's director, Masato Kato, was my close friend, and so I'd always talk with him about the setting and the scene before going into writing." Mitsuda slept in his studio several nights, and attributed certain pieces—such as the game's ending theme, To Far Away Times—to inspiring dreams. He later attributed this song to an idea he was developing before Chrono Trigger, reflecting that the tune was made in dedication to "a certain person with whom [he] wanted to share a generation". He also tried to use leitmotifs of the Chrono Trigger main theme to create a sense of consistency in the soundtrack. Mitsuda wrote each tune to be around two minutes long before repeating, unusual for Square's games at the time. Mitsuda suffered a hard drive crash that lost around forty in-progress tracks. After Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers, Uematsu joined the project to compose ten pieces and finish the score. Mitsuda returned to watch the ending with the staff before the game's release, crying upon seeing the finished scene.
At the time of the game's release, the number of tracks and sound effects was unprecedented—the soundtrack spanned three discs in its 1995 commercial pressing. Square also released a one-disc acid jazz arrangement called The Brink of Time by Guido that year. The Brink of Time came about because Mitsuda wanted to do something that no one else was doing, and he noted that acid jazz and its related genres were uncommon in the Japanese market. Mitsuda considers Chrono Trigger a landmark game which helped mature his talent. While Mitsuda later held that the title piece was "rough around the edges", he maintains that it had "significant influence on [his] life as a composer". In 1999, Square produced another one-disc soundtrack to complement the PlayStation release of Trigger, featuring orchestral tracks used in cut scenes. Tsuyoshi Sekito composed four new pieces for the game's bonus features which weren't included on the soundtrack. Some fans were displeased by Mitsuda's absence in creating the port, whose instruments sometimes aurally differed from the original game's. Mitsuda arranged versions of music from the Chrono series for Play! video game music concerts, presenting the main theme, Frog's Theme, and To Far Away Times. He worked with Square Enix to ensure that the music for the Nintendo DS would sound closer to the Super NES version. Mitsuda encouraged feedback about the game's soundtrack from contemporary children (who he thought would expect "full symphonic scores blaring out of the speakers"). Fans who preordered Chrono Trigger DS received a special music disc containing two orchestral arrangements of Chrono Trigger music directed by Natsumi Kameoka; Square Enix also held a random prize drawing for two signed copies of Chrono Trigger sheet music. Mitsuda expressed difficulty in selecting the tune for the orchestral medley, eventually picking a tune from each era and certain character themes. Mitsuda later wrote:
I feel that the way we interact with music has changed greatly in the last 13 years, even for me. For better or for worse, I think it would be extremely difficult to create something as "powerful" as I did 13 years ago today. But instead, all that I have learned in these 13 years allows me to compose something much more intricate. To be perfectly honest, I find it so hard to believe that songs from 13 years ago are loved this much. Keeping these feelings in mind, I hope to continue composing songs which are powerful, and yet intricate...I hope that the extras like this bonus CD will help expand the world of Chrono Trigger, especially since we did a live recording. I hope there's another opportunity to release an album of this sort one day.
Music from the game was performed live by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in 1996 at the Orchestral Game Concert in Tokyo, Japan. A suite of music including Chrono Trigger is a part of the symphonic world-tour with video game music Play! A Video Game Symphony, where Mitsuda was in attendance for the concert's world-premiere in Chicago on May 27, 2006. His suite of Chrono music, comprising "Reminiscence", "Chrono Trigger", "Chrono Cross~Time's Scar", "Frog's Theme", and "To Far Away Times" was performed. Mitsuda has also appeared with the Eminence Symphony Orchestra as a special guest. Video Games Live has also featured medleys from Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. A medley of Music from Chrono Trigger made of one of the four suites of the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in September 2009 which was produced by the creators of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series, conducted by Arnie Roth. Square Enix re-released the game's soundtrack, along with a video interview with Mitsuda in July 2009. In 2022, the main theme continued to feature in the setlist of The 8-Bit Big Band, led by Charlie Rosen.
The team planned to release Chrono Trigger in late 1994, but release was pushed back to the following year. Early alpha versions of Chrono Trigger were demonstrated at the 1994 and 1995 V Jump festivals in Japan. A few months prior to the game's release, Square shipped a beta version to magazine reviewers and game stores for review. An unfinished build of the game dated November 17, 1994, it contains unused music tracks, locations, and other features changed or removed from the final release—such as a dungeon named "Singing Mountain" and its eponymous tune. Some names also differed; the character Soysaw (Slash in the US version) was known as Wiener, while Mayonnay (Flea in the US version) was named Ketchappa. The ROM image for this early version was eventually uploaded to the internet, prompting fans to explore and document the game's differences, including two unused world map NPC character sprites and presumed additional sprites for certain non-player characters. Around the game's release, Yuji Horii commented that Chrono Trigger "went beyond [the development team's] expectations", and Hironobu Sakaguchi congratulated the game's graphic artists and field designers. Sakaguchi intended to perfect the "sense of dancing you get from exploring Toriyama's worlds" in the event that they would make a sequel.
Chrono Trigger used a 32-megabit ROM cartridge with battery-backed RAM for saved games, lacking special on-cartridge coprocessors. The Japanese release of Chrono Trigger included art for the game's ending and running counts of items in the player's status menu. Developers created the North American version before adding these features to the original build, inadvertently leaving in vestiges of Chrono Trigger's early development (such as the piece "Singing Mountain"). Hironobu Sakaguchi asked translator Ted Woolsey to localize Chrono Trigger for English audiences and gave him roughly thirty days to work. Lacking the help of a modern translation team, he memorized scenarios and looked at drafts of commercial player's guides to put dialogue in context. Woolsey later reflected that he would have preferred 2+1⁄2 months, and blames his rushed schedule on the prevailing attitude in Japan that games were children's toys rather than serious works. Some of his work was cut due to space constraints, though he still considered Trigger "one of the most satisfying games [he] ever worked on or played". Nintendo of America censored certain dialogue, including references to breastfeeding, consumption of alcohol, and religion.
The original SNES edition of Chrono Trigger was released on the Wii download service Virtual Console in Japan on April 26, 2011, in the US on May 16, 2011, and in Europe on May 20, 2011. Previously in April 2008, a Nintendo Power reader poll had identified Chrono Trigger as the third-most wanted game for the Virtual Console. The game has also been ported to i-mode, the Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network, iOS, Android, and Windows.
Square released an enhanced port of Chrono Trigger developed by Tose in Japan for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Square timed its release before that of Chrono Cross, the 1999 sequel to Chrono Trigger, to familiarize new players with the story leading up to it. This version included anime cutscenes created by original character designer Akira Toriyama's Bird Studio and animated at Toei Animation, as well as several bonus features, accessible after achieving various endings in the game. Scenarist Masato Kato attended planning meetings at Bird Studio to discuss how the ending cutscenes would illustrate subtle ties to Chrono Cross. The port was released in North America in 2001—along with a newly translated version of Final Fantasy IV—as Final Fantasy Chronicles. Reviewers criticized Chronicles for its lengthy load times and an absence of new in-game features. This same iteration was also re-released as a downloadable game on the PlayStation Network on October 4, 2011, for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable.
On July 2, 2008, Square Enix announced that they were planning to bring Chrono Trigger to the Nintendo DS handheld platform. Composer Yasunori Mitsuda was pleased with the project, exclaiming "finally!" after receiving the news from Square Enix and maintaining, "it's still a very deep, very high-quality game even when you play it today. I'm very interested in seeing what kids today think about it when they play it." Square retained Masato Kato to oversee the port, and Tose to program it. Kato explained, "I wanted it to be based on the original Super NES release rather than the PlayStation version. I thought we should look at the additional elements from the PlayStation version, re-examine and re-work them to make it a complete edition. That's how it struck me and I told the staff so later on." Square Enix touted the game by displaying Akira Toriyama's original art at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.
The DS re-release contains all of the bonus material from the PlayStation port, as well as other enhancements. The added features include a more accurate and revised translation by Tom Slattery, a dual-screen mode which clears the top screen of all menus, a self-completing map screen, and a default "run" option. It also features the option to choose between two control schemes: one mirroring the original SNES controls, and the other making use of the DS's touch screen. Masato Kato participated in development, overseeing the addition of the monster-battling Arena, two new areas, the Lost Sanctum and the Dimensional Vortex, and a new ending that further foreshadows the events of Chrono Cross. One of the areas within the Vortex uses the "Singing Mountain" song that was featured on the original Chrono Trigger soundtrack. Additionally, one of the dungeons absent from the original game was remade within the Vortex. These new dungeons met with mixed reviews; GameSpot called them "frustrating" and "repetitive", while IGN noted that "the extra quests in the game connect extremely well." It was a nominee for "Best RPG for the Nintendo DS" in IGN's 2008 video game awards. The Nintendo DS version of Chrono Trigger was the 22nd best-selling game of 2008 in Japan.
A cellphone version was released in Japan on i-mode distribution service on August 25, 2011. An iOS version was released on December 8, 2011. This version is based on the Nintendo DS version, with graphics optimized for iOS. The game was later released for Android on October 29, 2012. An update incorporating most of the features of the Windows version—including the reintroduction of the animated cutscenes, which had been absent from the initial mobile release—was released on February 27, 2018, for both iOS and Android.
Square Enix released Chrono Trigger without an announcement for Windows via Steam on February 27, 2018. This version includes most content from the Nintendo DS port besides the arena mode, as well as the higher resolution graphics from the mobile device releases, support for mouse and keyboard controls, and autosave features, along with additional content such as wallpapers and music. The PC port initially received negative reception due to its inferior graphical quality, additional glitches, UI adapted for touchscreens, and failure to properly adapt the control scheme for keyboards and controllers. In response, Square Enix provided various UI updates and several other improvements including adding an original graphics option based on the original version's graphics and font, fixing glitches introduced, and the addition of true 16:9 widescreen presentation for the first time, to address the aforementioned complaints. In total, six major updates were released—the first on April 10, 2018, and the last on March 10, 2022—all of which have substantially improved its overall reception.
The game was a best-seller in Japan, where two million copies were sold in only two months. It ended the year as the second best-selling game of 1995 in Japan, below Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation. Chrono Trigger was also met with substantial success upon release in North America, and its re-release on the PlayStation as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles package topped the NPD TRSTS PlayStation sales charts for over six weeks. By March 2003, the game's SNES and PS1 iterations had shipped 2.65 million copies worldwide, including 2.36 million in Japan and 290,000 abroad. The PS1 version was re-released in 2003 as part of Sony's Greatest Hits line. The original SNES version had sold 2.5 million copies by 2006. Chrono Trigger DS sold 790,000 copies worldwide, as of March 2009, including 490,000 in Japan, 240,000 in North America and 60,000 in Europe. The SNES, PS1 and DS versions shipped a combined 3.44 million copies worldwide by March 2009. Excluding the PC version, the game had shipped over 3.5 million copies worldwide by February 2018.
Chrono Trigger garnered much critical praise in addition to its brisk sales. Famicom Tsūshin gave Chrono Trigger first an 8 out of 10 and later a 9 out of 10 in their Reader Cross Review. Nintendo Power compared it favorably with Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, citing improved graphics, sound, story and gameplay. GamePro praised the varied gameplay, the humor, the ability to replay the game with previously built-up characters, and the graphics, which they said far exceed even those of Final Fantasy VI. They commented that combat is easier and more simplistic than in most RPGs, but argued that "Most players would choose an easier RPG of this caliber over a hundred more complicated, but less developed, fantasy role-playing adventures." They gave the game a perfect 5 out of 5 in all four categories: graphics, sound, control, and fun factor. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it their "Game of the Month" award, with their four reviewers praising the graphics, story, and music. Chrono Trigger won multiple awards from Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1995 video game awards, including Best Role-Playing Game, Best Music in a Cartridge-Based Game, and Best Super NES Game. Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine described Trigger as "original and extremely captivating", singling out its graphics, sound and story as particularly impressive. IGN commented that "it may be filled with every imaginable console RPG cliché, but Chrono Trigger manages to stand out among the pack" with "a [captivating] story that doesn't take itself too serious [sic]" and "one of the best videogame soundtracks ever produced". Other reviewers (such as the staff of RPGFan and RPGamer) have criticized the game's short length and relative ease compared to its peers. Peter Tieryas of Kotaku praised the character interactions, explaining how the dialogue lets the characters express the emotions they would rather hide, and the game's emphasis on character interaction leads to great emotional investment in Crono and Marle's relationship, Frog's struggles for redemption, and even Magus's eons-long fight for revenge against Lavos. Victoria Earl of Gamasutra praised the game design for balancing "developer control with player freedom using carefully-designed mechanics and a modular approach to narrative."
Overall, critics lauded Chrono Trigger for its "fantastic yet not overly complex" story, simple but innovative gameplay, and high replay value afforded by multiple endings. Online score aggregator GameRankings lists the original Super NES version as the 2nd highest scoring RPG and 24th highest scoring game ever reviewed. Next Generation reviewed the Super NES version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that "it [...] easily qualifies as one of the best RPGs ever made". In 2009, Guinness World Records listed it as the 32nd most influential video game in history. Nintendo Power listed the ending to Chrono Trigger as one of the greatest endings in Nintendo history, due to over a dozen endings that players can experience. The Virtual Console release received a perfect score of 10 out 10 on IGN.
Chrono Trigger is frequently listed among the greatest video games of all time. In 1997 Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked it the 29th best console video game of all time; while noting that it was not as good as Final Fantasy VI (which ranked 9th), they gave superlative praise to its handling of time travel and its combat engine. It has placed highly on all six of multimedia website IGN's "top 100 games of all time" lists—4th in 2002, 6th in early 2005, 13th in late 2005, 2nd in 2006, 18th in 2007, and 2nd in 2008. Game Informer called it its 15th favourite game in 2001. Its staff thought that it was the best non-Final Fantasy game Square had produced at the time. GameSpot included Chrono Trigger in "The Greatest Games of All Time" list released in April 2006, and it also appeared as 28th on an "All Time Top 100" list in a poll conducted by Japanese magazine Famitsu the same year. In 2004, Chrono Trigger finished runner up to Final Fantasy VII in the inaugural GameFAQs video game battle. In 2008, readers of Dengeki Online voted it the eighth best game ever made. Nintendo Power's twentieth anniversary issue named it the fifth best Super NES game. In 2009, Official Nintendo Magazine ranked the DS version of the game 31st on a list of greatest Nintendo games. In 2012, it came 32nd place on GamesRadar's "100 best games of all time" list, and 1st place on its "Best JRPGs" list. GamesRadar named Chrono Trigger the 2nd best Super NES game of all time, behind Super Metroid. In 2023, Time Extension included the game on their "Best JRPGs of All Time" list.
In contrast to the critical acclaim of Chrono Trigger's original SNES release, the 2018 Windows port of Chrono Trigger was critically panned. Grievances noted by reviewers included tiling errors on textures, the addition of aesthetically intrusive sprite filters, an unattractive GUI carried over from the 2011 mobile release, a lack of graphic customization options, and the inability to remap controls. In describing the port, Forbes commented: "From pretty awful graphical issues, such as tiling textures and quite a painful menu system, this port really doesn't do this classic game justice." USGamer characterized the Windows release as carrying "all the markings of a project farmed out to the lowest bidder. It's a shrug in Square-Enix's mind, seemingly not worth the money or effort necessary for a half-decent port." In a Twitter post detailing his experiences with the Windows version, indie developer Fred Wood derisively compared the port to "someone's first attempt at an RPG Maker game", a comment which was republished across numerous articles addressing the poor quality of the rerelease. Square Enix released five major updates to address the complaints, thus improving its overall reception; Alex Donaldson of VG247, commenting on the improvements, wrote that "Square Enix took the criticism to heart and over the course of a string of hefty patches have slowly turned this into something that actually could be argued as the best version of Chrono Trigger."
Chrono Trigger inspired several related releases; the first were three games released for the Satellaview on July 31, 1995. They included Chrono Trigger: Jet Bike Special, a racing video game based on a minigame from the original; Chrono Trigger: Character Library, featuring profiles on characters and monsters from the game; and Chrono Trigger: Music Library, a collection of music from the game's soundtrack. The contents of Character Library and Music Library were later included as extras in the PlayStation rerelease of Chrono Trigger. Production I.G created a 16-minute OVA, "Nuumamonja: Time and Space Adventures", which was shown at the Japanese V Jump festival of July 31, 1996.
There have been two notable attempts by Chrono Trigger fans to unofficially remake parts of the game for PC with a 3D graphics engine. Chrono Resurrection, an attempt at remaking ten small interactive cut scenes from Chrono Trigger, and Chrono Trigger Remake Project, which sought to remake the entire game, were forcibly terminated by Square Enix by way of a cease and desist order. Another group of fans created a sequel via a ROM hack of Chrono Trigger called Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes; developed from 2004 to 2009; although feature-length and virtually finished, it also was terminated through a cease & desist letter days before its May 2009 release. The letter also banned the dissemination of existing Chrono Trigger ROM hacks and documentation. After the cease and desist was issued, an incomplete version of the game was leaked in May 2009, though due to the early state of the game, playability was limited. This was followed by a more complete ROM leak in January 2011, which allowed the game to be played from beginning to end.
Square released a related Satellaview game in 1996, named Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki. Having thought that Trigger ended with "unfinished business", scenarist Masato Kato wrote and directed the game. Dreamers functioned as a side story to Chrono Trigger, resolving a loose subplot from its predecessor. A short, text-based game relying on minimal graphics and atmospheric music, the game never received an official release outside Japan—though it was translated by fans to English in April 2003. Square planned to release Radical Dreamers as an easter egg in the PlayStation edition of Chrono Trigger, but Kato was unhappy with his work and halted its inclusion.
Square released Chrono Cross for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Cross is a sequel to Chrono Trigger featuring a new setting and cast of characters. Presenting a theme of parallel worlds, the story followed the protagonist Serge—a teenage boy thrust into an alternate reality in which he died years earlier. With the help of a thief named Kid, Serge endeavors to discover the truth behind his apparent death and obtain the Frozen Flame, a mythical artifact. Regarded by writer and director Masato Kato as an effort to "redo Radical Dreamers properly", Chrono Cross borrowed certain themes, scenarios, characters, and settings from Dreamers. Yasunori Mitsuda also adapted certain songs from Radical Dreamers while scoring Cross. Radical Dreamers was consequently removed from the series' main continuity, considered an alternate dimension. Chrono Cross shipped 1.5 million copies and was widely praised by critics.
There are no plans as of 2023 for a new title, despite a statement from Hironobu Sakaguchi in 2001 that the developers of Chrono Cross wanted to make a new Chrono game. The same year, Square applied for a trademark for the names Chrono Break in the United States and Chrono Brake in Japan. However, the United States trademark was dropped in 2003. Director Takashi Tokita mentioned "Chrono Trigger 2" in a 2003 interview which has not been translated to English. Yuji Horii expressed no interest in returning to the Chrono franchise in 2005, while Hironobu Sakaguchi remarked in April 2007 that his creation Blue Dragon was an "extension of [Chrono Trigger]." During a Cubed³ interview on February 1, 2007, Square Enix's Senior Vice President Hiromichi Tanaka said that although no sequel is currently planned, some sort of sequel is still possible if the Chrono Cross developers can be reunited. Yasunori Mitsuda has expressed interest in scoring a new game, but warned that "there are a lot of politics involved" with the series. He stressed that Masato Kato should participate in development. The February 2008 issue of Game Informer ranked the Chrono series eighth among the "Top Ten Sequels in Demand", naming the games "steadfast legacies in the Square Enix catalogue" and asking, "what's the damn holdup?!" In Electronic Gaming Monthly's June 2008 "Retro Issue", writer Jeremy Parish cited Chrono as the franchise video game fans would be most thrilled to see a sequel to. In the first May Famitsu of 2009, Chrono Trigger placed 14th out of 50 in a vote of most-wanted sequels by the magazine's readers. At E3 2009, SE Senior Vice President Shinji Hashimoto remarked, "If people want a sequel, they should buy more!"
In July 2010, Obsidian Entertainment designer Feargus Urquhart, replying to an interview question about what franchises he would like to work on, said that "if [he] could come across everything that [he] played", he would choose a Chrono Trigger game. At the time, Obsidian was making Dungeon Siege III for Square Enix. Urquhart said: "You make RPGs, we make RPGs, it would be great to see what we could do together. And they really wanted to start getting into Western RPGs. And, so it kind of all ended up fitting together." Yoshinori Kitase stated that he used the time travel mechanics of Chrono Trigger as a starting point for that of Final Fantasy XIII-2.
A free mobile game called Another Eden was released in 2008 as a collaboration between writer Masato Kato and music composer Yasunori Mitsuda. The game was heavily inspired by the Chrono series with several characters inspired by Chrono Trigger present in the game, and contains a cross-over story arc with Chrono Cross. | [
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"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Chrono Trigger is a 1995 role-playing video game developed and published by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first game in the Chrono series. The game's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the \"Dream Team\": Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, creator of Enix's Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, character designer of Dragon Quest and author of the Dragon Ball manga series. In addition, Takashi Tokita co-directed the game and co-wrote the scenario, Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, Masato Kato wrote most of the story, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda wrote most of the soundtrack before falling ill and deferring the remaining tracks to Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The game's story follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.",
"title": ""
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"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Chrono Trigger was a critical and commercial success upon release and is frequently cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Nintendo Power magazine described aspects of the game as revolutionary, including its multiple endings, plot-related side-quests focusing on character development, unique battle system, and detailed graphics. Chrono Trigger was the second best-selling game of 1995 in Japan, and shipped 2.65 million copies worldwide by March 2003. Excluding the PC version, the game had shipped over 3.5 million copies worldwide by February 2018.",
"title": ""
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"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Square released a ported version by Tose in Japan for the PlayStation in 1999, which was later repackaged with a Final Fantasy IV port as Final Fantasy Chronicles (2001) for the North American market. A slightly enhanced Chrono Trigger, again ported by Tose, was released for the Nintendo DS in North America and Japan in 2008, and PAL regions in 2009. The game has also been ported to i-mode, the Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network, iOS, Android, and Windows.",
"title": ""
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"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Chrono Trigger features standard role-playing video game gameplay. The player controls the protagonist and his companions in the game's two-dimensional world, consisting of various forests, cities, and dungeons. Navigation occurs via an overworld map, depicting the landscape from a scaled-down overhead view. Areas such as forests, cities, and similar places are depicted as more realistic scaled-down maps, in which players can converse with locals to procure items and services, solve puzzles and challenges, or encounter enemies. Chrono Trigger's gameplay deviates from that of traditional Japanese RPGs in that, rather than appearing in random encounters, many enemies are openly visible on field maps or lie in wait to ambush the party. Contact with enemies on a field map initiates a battle that occurs directly on the map rather than on a separate battle screen.",
"title": "Gameplay"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Players and enemies may use physical or magical attacks to wound targets during battle, and players may use items to heal or protect themselves. Each character and enemy has a certain number of hit points; successful attacks reduce that character's hit points, which can be restored with potions and spells. When a playable character loses all hit points, they faint; if all the player's characters fall in battle, the game ends and must be restored from a previously saved chapter, except in specific storyline-related battles that allow or force the player to lose. Between battles, a player can equip their characters with weapons, armor, helmets, and accessories that provide special effects (such as increased attack power or defense against magic), and various consumable items can be used both in and out of battles. Items and equipment can be purchased in shops or found on field maps, often in treasure chests. By exploring new areas and fighting enemies, players progress through Chrono Trigger's story.",
"title": "Gameplay"
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{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Chrono Trigger uses an \"Active Time Battle\" system—a recurring element of Square's Final Fantasy game series designed by Hiroyuki Ito for Final Fantasy IV—named \"Active Time Battle 2.0\". Each character can take action in battle once a personal timer dependent on the character's speed statistic counts to zero. Magic and special physical techniques are handled through a system called \"Techs\". Techs deplete a character's magic points (a numerical meter similar to hit points), and often have special areas of effect; some spells damage huddled monsters, while others can harm enemies spread in a line. Enemies often change positions during battle, creating opportunities for tactical Tech use. A unique feature of Chrono Trigger's Tech system is that numerous cooperative techniques exist. Each character receives eight personal Techs which can be used in conjunction with others' to create Double and Triple Techs for greater effect. For instance, Crono's sword-spinning Cyclone Tech can be combined with Lucca's Flame Toss to create Flame Whirl. When characters with compatible Techs have enough magic points available to perform their techniques, the game automatically displays the combo as an option.",
"title": "Gameplay"
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"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Chrono Trigger features several other distinct gameplay traits, including time travel. Players have access to seven eras of the game world's history, and past actions affect future events. Throughout history, players find new allies, complete side quests, and search for keynote villains. Time travel is accomplished via portals and pillars of light called \"time gates\", as well as a time machine named Epoch. The game contains twelve unique endings (thirteen in DS, iOS and Android versions); the ending the player receives depends on when and how they reach and complete the game's final battle. Chrono Trigger DS features a new ending that can be accessed from the End of Time upon completion of the final extra dungeon and optional final boss. Chrono Trigger also introduces a New Game Plus option; after completing the game, the player may begin a new game with the same character levels, techniques, and equipment, excluding money, with which they ended the previous playthrough. However, certain items central to the storyline are removed and must be found again, such as the sword Masamune. Square has employed the New Game Plus concept in later games including Chrono Cross and Final Fantasy XV among others.",
"title": "Gameplay"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Chrono Trigger takes place in an Earth-like world, with eras such as the prehistoric age, in which primitive humans and dinosaurs share the earth; the Middle Ages, replete with knights, monsters, and magic; and the post-apocalyptic future, where destitute humans and sentient robots struggle to survive. The characters frequently travel through time to obtain allies, gather equipment, and learn information to help them in their quest. The party also gains access to the End of Time (represented as year ∞), which serves as a hub to travel back to other time periods. The party eventually acquires a time-machine vehicle known as the Wings of Time, nicknamed the Epoch (this default name can be changed by the player when the vehicle is acquired). The vehicle is capable of time travel between any time period without first having to travel to the End of Time.",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Chrono Trigger's six playable characters (plus one optional character) come from different eras of history. Chrono Trigger begins in 1000 AD with Crono, Marle, and Lucca. Crono is the silent protagonist, characterized as a fearless young man who wields a katana in battle. Marle, revealed to be Princess Nadia, lives in Guardia Castle; though sheltered, she is at heart a princess who seeks independence from her royal identity. Lucca is a childhood friend of Crono's and a mechanical genius; her home is filled with laboratory equipment and machinery. From the era of 2300 AD comes Robo, or Prometheus (designation R-66Y), a robot with a near-human personality created to assist humans. Lying dormant in the future, Robo is found and repaired by Lucca, and joins the group out of gratitude. The fiercely confident Ayla dwells in 65,000,000 BC. Unmatched in raw strength, Ayla is the chief of Ioka Village and leads her people in war against a species of humanoid reptiles known as Reptites.",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The last two playable characters are Frog and Magus. Frog originated in 600 AD. He is a former squire once known as Glenn, who was turned into an anthropomorphic frog by Magus, who also killed his friend Cyrus. Chivalrous but mired in regret, Frog dedicates his life to protecting Leene, the queen of Guardia, and avenging Cyrus. Meanwhile, Guardia in 600 AD is in a state of conflict against the Mystics (known as Fiends in the US/DS port), a race of demons and intelligent animals who wage war against humanity under the leadership of Magus, a powerful sorcerer. Magus's seclusion conceals a long-lost past; he was formerly known as Janus, the young prince of the Kingdom of Zeal, which was destroyed by Lavos in 12,000 BC. The incident sent him forward through time, and as he ages, he plots revenge against Lavos and broods over the fate of his sister, Schala. Lavos, the game's main antagonist who awakens and ravages the world in 1999 AD, is an extraterrestrial, parasitic creature that harvests DNA and the Earth's energy for its own growth.",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In 1000 AD, Crono and Marle watch Lucca and her father demonstrate her new teleporter at the Millennial Fair in the Kingdom of Guardia. When Marle volunteers to be teleported, her pendant interferes with the device and creates a time portal into which she is drawn. After Crono and Lucca separately recreate the portal and find themselves in 600 AD, they locate Marle, only to see her vanish before their eyes. Lucca realizes that this time period's kingdom has mistaken Marle (who is actually Princess Nadia of Guardia) for Queen Leene, an ancestor of hers who had been kidnapped, thus putting off the recovery effort for her ancestor and creating a grandfather paradox. Crono and Lucca, with the help of Frog, restore history to normal by rescuing Leene. After the three part ways with Frog and return to the present, Crono is tried and arrested on charges of kidnapping Marle and sentenced to death by the current chancellor of Guardia. Lucca and Marle help Crono escape prison, haphazardly using another time portal to evade their pursuers. This portal lands them in 2300 AD, where they learn that an advanced civilization has been wiped out by a giant creature known as Lavos that appeared in 1999 AD, and find the last remnants of humanity living in undergrowth domes subsisting off of machine energy in place of food. The three vow to find a way to prevent the future destruction of their world. After meeting and repairing Robo, Crono and his friends find Gaspar, an old sage residing in an atemporal space known as the End of Time, who offers them the ability to travel through time by way of several pillars of light. (The party is able to challenge Lavos at any point after this scene, with completion of the game prior to its final chapter unlocking one of twelve different endings.)",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The party discover that a powerful mage named Magus summoned Lavos into the world in 600 AD. To stop Magus, Frog requires the legendary sword, Masamune, to open the way to the mage's castle. In search of ore to re-forge the sword, the party travel to prehistoric times and meet Ayla, the chief of an ancient hunter-gatherer tribe. The subsequent battle with Magus disrupts his spell to summon Lavos, opening a temporal distortion that throws Crono and his friends to prehistory. The party assist Ayla in battling the Reptites, enemies of prehistoric humans. The battle is cut short as the party witness the true origin of Lavos, who descends from deep space and crashes into the planet before burrowing to its core. Entering a time gate created by Lavos's impact, the party arrive in the ice age of 12,000 BC. There, the utopic Kingdom of Zeal resides on islands raised above the icy surface using energy harnessed from Lavos's body beneath the earth's crust via a machine housed on the ocean floor. The party are imprisoned by the Queen of Zeal on the orders of its mysterious Prophet, and are ultimately banished, with the time gate leading to 12,000 BC sealed by the Prophet. Seeking a way to return, the party discover a time machine in 2300 AD called the Wings of Time (or Epoch), which can access any time period at will. The party return to 12,000 BC, where Zeal inadvertently awakens Lavos, leading the Prophet to reveal himself as Magus, who tries and fails to kill the creature. Lavos defeats Magus and kills Crono, before the remaining party are transported to the safety of the surface by Schala, Zeal’s princess. Lavos annihilates the Kingdom of Zeal, whose fallen continent causes devastating floods that submerge most of the world's landmass.",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Magus confesses to the party that he used to be Prince Janus of Zeal, Schala’s brother, and that in the original timeline, he and the Gurus of Zeal were scattered across time by Lavos's awakening in 12,000 BC. Stranded as a child in 600 AD, Janus took the title of Magus and gained a cult of followers while plotting to summon and kill Lavos in revenge for the death of his sister. Magus tried once more after the party's battle in his castle returned him to Zeal, where he disguised himself as the Prophet. At this point, Magus is either killed by the party, killed in a duel with Frog, or spared and convinced to join the party. The ruined Ocean Palace then rises into the air as the Black Omen, Queen Zeal's floating fortress. The group turns to Gaspar for help, and he gives them a \"Chrono Trigger\", a device that allows the group to replace Crono just before the moment of death with an identical doppelgänger (doing so is optional, and the game's ending will change depending on the player's decision). The party then gather power by helping people across time with Gaspar's instructions. Their journeys involve defeating the remnants of the Mystics, stopping Robo's maniacal AI creator, giving Frog closure for Cyrus's death, locating and charging up the mythical Sun Stone, retrieving the legendary Rainbow Shell, unmasking Guardia's Chancellor as a saboteur, restoring a forest destroyed by a desert monster, and preventing an accident that disabled Lucca's mother. The party then enter the Black Omen and defeat Queen Zeal, after which they battle Lavos. They discover that Lavos is self-directing his evolution via absorbing DNA and energy from every living creature before razing the planet's surface in 1999 AD, so that it could spawn a new generation to destroy other worlds and continue the evolutionary cycle. The party slay Lavos, and celebrate at the final night of the Millennial Fair before returning to their own times.",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "If Magus joined the party, he departs to search for Schala. If Crono was resurrected before defeating Lavos, his sentence for kidnapping Marle is revoked by her father, King Guardia XXXIII, thanks to testimonies from Marle's ancestors and descendants, whom Crono had helped during his journey. Crono's mother accidentally enters the time gate at the Millennial Fair before it closes, prompting Crono, Marle, and Lucca to set out in the Epoch to find her while fireworks light up the night sky. If Crono was not resurrected, Frog, Robo, and Ayla (along with Magus if he was recruited) chase Gaspar to the Millennial Fair and back again, revealing that Gaspar knows how to resurrect Crono; Marle and Lucca then use the Epoch to travel through time to accomplish this. Alternatively, if the party used the Epoch to break Lavos's outer shell, Marle will help her father hang Nadia's bell at the festival and accidentally get carried away by several balloons. If resurrected, Crono jumps on to help her, but cannot bring them down to earth. Hanging on in each other's arms, the pair travel through the cloudy, moonlit sky.",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Chrono Trigger DS added two new scenarios to the game. In the first, Crono and his friends can help a \"lost sanctum\" of Reptites, who reward powerful items and armor. The second scenario adds ties to Trigger's sequel, Chrono Cross. In a New Game Plus, the group can explore several temporal distortions to combat shadow versions of Crono, Marle, and Lucca, and to fight Dalton, who promises in defeat to raise an army in the town of Porre to destroy the Kingdom of Guardia. The group can then fight the Dream Devourer, a prototypical form of the Time Devourer—a fusion of Schala and Lavos seen in Chrono Cross. A version of Magus pleads with Schala to resist; though she recognizes him as her brother, she refuses to be helped and sends him away. Schala subsequently erases his memories and Magus awakens in a forest, determined to find what he had lost.",
"title": "Story"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Chrono Trigger was conceived in October 1992 by Hironobu Sakaguchi, producer and creator of the Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, writer, game designer and creator of the Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, character designer of Dragon Quest and creator of the Dragon Ball manga series. Traveling to the United States to research computer graphics, the three decided to create something that \"no one had done before\". Toriyama's editor, Kazuhiko Torishima, later credited the concept to a fusion of \"Dragon Quest plus Final Fantasy\", and arranged for Enix to lend Yuji Horii to Squaresoft for development. After spending over a year considering the difficulties of developing a new game, the three received a call from Kazuhiko Aoki, who offered to produce. The four met and spent four days brainstorming ideas for the game. Square convened 50–60 developers, including scenario writer Masato Kato, whom Square designated story planner; development started in early 1993. An uncredited Square employee suggested that the team develop a time travel-themed game, which Kato initially opposed, fearing repetitive, dull gameplay. Kato and Horii then met several hours per day during the first year of development to write the game's plot; Horii desired a silent protagonist from the outset. Square intended to license the work under the Seiken Densetsu franchise and gave it the working title Maru Island; Hiromichi Tanaka (the future producer of Chrono Cross) monitored Toriyama's early designs. The team hoped to release it on Nintendo's planned Super Famicom Disk Drive; when Nintendo canceled the project, Square reoriented the game for release on a Super Famicom cartridge and rebranded it as Chrono Trigger. Tanaka credited the ROM cartridge platform for enabling seamless transition to battles on the field map. While Chrono Trigger had been planned for a 24-megabit cartridge, Square ultimately chose a 32-megabit platform, enabling additional graphics and music. Torishima later reflected that at least one early revision of the game had been scrapped.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Aoki ultimately produced Chrono Trigger, while director credits were attributed to Akihiko Matsui, Yoshinori Kitase and Takashi Tokita. Toriyama designed the game's aesthetic, including characters, monsters, vehicles, and the look of each era. Masato Kato also contributed character ideas and designs. Kato planned to feature Gaspar as a playable character and Toriyama sketched him, but he was cut early in development. The development staff studied the drawings of Toriyama to approximate his style. Sakaguchi and Horii supervised; Sakaguchi was responsible for the game's overall system and contributed several monster ideas. Other notable designers include Tetsuya Takahashi, the graphic director, and Yasuyuki Honne, Tetsuya Nomura, and Yusuke Naora, who worked as field graphic artists. Yasuhiko Kamata programmed graphics, and cited Ridley Scott's visual work in the film Alien as an inspiration for the game's lighting. Kamata made the game's luminosity and color choice lay between that of Secret of Mana and the Final Fantasy series. Features originally intended to be used in Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy IV, also under development at the same time, were appropriated by the Chrono Trigger team. According to Tanaka, Secret of Mana (which itself was originally intended to be Final Fantasy IV) was codenamed \"Chrono Trigger\" during development before being called Seiken Densetsu 2 (Secret of Mana), and then the name Chrono Trigger was adopted for a new project. After its release, the development team of Final Fantasy VI was folded into the Chrono Trigger team.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Yuji Horii, a fan of time travel fiction (such as the TV series The Time Tunnel), fostered a theme of time travel in his general story outline of Chrono Trigger with input from Akira Toriyama. Horii liked the scenario of the grandfather paradox surrounding Marle. Concerning story planning, Horii commented, \"If there's a fairground, I just write that there's a fairground; I don't write down any of the details. Then the staff brainstorm and come up with a variety of attractions to put in.\" Horii also devised Lavos as the final boss, having wanted the final boss to be an ancient evil. Sakaguchi contributed some minor elements, including the character Gato; he liked Marle's drama and reconciliation with her father. Masato Kato subsequently edited and completed the outline by writing the majority of the game's story, including all the events of the 12,000 BC era. He took pains to avoid what he described as \"a long string of errands ... [such as] 'do this', 'take this', 'defeat these monsters', or 'plant this flag'.\" Kato and other developers held a series of meetings to ensure continuity, usually attended by around 30 personnel. Kato and Horii initially proposed Crono's death, though they intended he stay dead; the party would have retrieved an earlier, living version of him to complete the quest. Square deemed the scenario too depressing and asked that Crono be brought back to life later in the story. Kato also devised the system of multiple endings because he could not branch the story out to different paths. Yoshinori Kitase and Takashi Tokita then wrote various subplots. They also devised an \"Active Time Event Logic\" system, \"where you can move your character around during scenes, even when an NPC is talking to you\", and with players \"talking to different people and steering the conversation in different directions\", allowing each scene to \"have many permutations.\" Kato became friends with composer Yasunori Mitsuda during development, and they would collaborate on several future projects. Katsuhisa Higuchi programmed the battle system, which hosted combat on the map without transition to a special battleground as most previous Square games had done. Higuchi noted extreme difficulty in loading battles properly without slow-downs or a brief, black loading screen. The game's use of animated monster sprites consumed much more memory than previous Final Fantasy games, which used static enemy graphics.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Hironobu Sakaguchi likened the development of Chrono Trigger to \"play[ing] around with Toriyama's universe,\" citing the inclusion of humorous sequences in the game that would have been \"impossible with something like Final Fantasy.\" When Square Co. suggested a non-human player character, developers created Frog by adapting one of Toriyama's sketches. The team created the End of Time to help players with hints, worrying that they might become stuck and need to consult a walkthrough. The game's testers had previously complained that Chrono Trigger was too difficult; as Horii explained, \"It's because we know too much. The developers think the game's just right; that they're being too soft. They're thinking from their own experience. The puzzles were the same. Lots of players didn't figure out things we thought they'd get easily.\" Sakaguchi later cited the unusual desire of beta testers to play the game a second time or \"travel through time again\" as an affirmation of the New Game Plus feature: \"Wherever we could, we tried to make it so that a slight change in your behavior caused subtle differences in people's reactions, even down to the smallest details ... I think the second playthrough will hold a whole new interest.\" The game's reuse of locations due to time traveling made bug-fixing difficult, as corrections would cause unintended consequences in other eras.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Chrono Trigger was scored primarily by Yasunori Mitsuda, with contributions from veteran Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu and one track by Noriko Matsueda. A sound programmer at the time, Mitsuda was unhappy with his pay and threatened to leave Square if he could not compose music. Hironobu Sakaguchi suggested he score Chrono Trigger, remarking, \"maybe your salary will go up.\" Mitsuda composed new music and drew on a personal collection of pieces composed over the previous two years. He reflected, \"I wanted to create music that wouldn't fit into any established genre ... music of an imaginary world. The game's director, Masato Kato, was my close friend, and so I'd always talk with him about the setting and the scene before going into writing.\" Mitsuda slept in his studio several nights, and attributed certain pieces—such as the game's ending theme, To Far Away Times—to inspiring dreams. He later attributed this song to an idea he was developing before Chrono Trigger, reflecting that the tune was made in dedication to \"a certain person with whom [he] wanted to share a generation\". He also tried to use leitmotifs of the Chrono Trigger main theme to create a sense of consistency in the soundtrack. Mitsuda wrote each tune to be around two minutes long before repeating, unusual for Square's games at the time. Mitsuda suffered a hard drive crash that lost around forty in-progress tracks. After Mitsuda contracted stomach ulcers, Uematsu joined the project to compose ten pieces and finish the score. Mitsuda returned to watch the ending with the staff before the game's release, crying upon seeing the finished scene.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "At the time of the game's release, the number of tracks and sound effects was unprecedented—the soundtrack spanned three discs in its 1995 commercial pressing. Square also released a one-disc acid jazz arrangement called The Brink of Time by Guido that year. The Brink of Time came about because Mitsuda wanted to do something that no one else was doing, and he noted that acid jazz and its related genres were uncommon in the Japanese market. Mitsuda considers Chrono Trigger a landmark game which helped mature his talent. While Mitsuda later held that the title piece was \"rough around the edges\", he maintains that it had \"significant influence on [his] life as a composer\". In 1999, Square produced another one-disc soundtrack to complement the PlayStation release of Trigger, featuring orchestral tracks used in cut scenes. Tsuyoshi Sekito composed four new pieces for the game's bonus features which weren't included on the soundtrack. Some fans were displeased by Mitsuda's absence in creating the port, whose instruments sometimes aurally differed from the original game's. Mitsuda arranged versions of music from the Chrono series for Play! video game music concerts, presenting the main theme, Frog's Theme, and To Far Away Times. He worked with Square Enix to ensure that the music for the Nintendo DS would sound closer to the Super NES version. Mitsuda encouraged feedback about the game's soundtrack from contemporary children (who he thought would expect \"full symphonic scores blaring out of the speakers\"). Fans who preordered Chrono Trigger DS received a special music disc containing two orchestral arrangements of Chrono Trigger music directed by Natsumi Kameoka; Square Enix also held a random prize drawing for two signed copies of Chrono Trigger sheet music. Mitsuda expressed difficulty in selecting the tune for the orchestral medley, eventually picking a tune from each era and certain character themes. Mitsuda later wrote:",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "I feel that the way we interact with music has changed greatly in the last 13 years, even for me. For better or for worse, I think it would be extremely difficult to create something as \"powerful\" as I did 13 years ago today. But instead, all that I have learned in these 13 years allows me to compose something much more intricate. To be perfectly honest, I find it so hard to believe that songs from 13 years ago are loved this much. Keeping these feelings in mind, I hope to continue composing songs which are powerful, and yet intricate...I hope that the extras like this bonus CD will help expand the world of Chrono Trigger, especially since we did a live recording. I hope there's another opportunity to release an album of this sort one day.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Music from the game was performed live by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra in 1996 at the Orchestral Game Concert in Tokyo, Japan. A suite of music including Chrono Trigger is a part of the symphonic world-tour with video game music Play! A Video Game Symphony, where Mitsuda was in attendance for the concert's world-premiere in Chicago on May 27, 2006. His suite of Chrono music, comprising \"Reminiscence\", \"Chrono Trigger\", \"Chrono Cross~Time's Scar\", \"Frog's Theme\", and \"To Far Away Times\" was performed. Mitsuda has also appeared with the Eminence Symphony Orchestra as a special guest. Video Games Live has also featured medleys from Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross. A medley of Music from Chrono Trigger made of one of the four suites of the Symphonic Fantasies concerts in September 2009 which was produced by the creators of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series, conducted by Arnie Roth. Square Enix re-released the game's soundtrack, along with a video interview with Mitsuda in July 2009. In 2022, the main theme continued to feature in the setlist of The 8-Bit Big Band, led by Charlie Rosen.",
"title": "Development"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The team planned to release Chrono Trigger in late 1994, but release was pushed back to the following year. Early alpha versions of Chrono Trigger were demonstrated at the 1994 and 1995 V Jump festivals in Japan. A few months prior to the game's release, Square shipped a beta version to magazine reviewers and game stores for review. An unfinished build of the game dated November 17, 1994, it contains unused music tracks, locations, and other features changed or removed from the final release—such as a dungeon named \"Singing Mountain\" and its eponymous tune. Some names also differed; the character Soysaw (Slash in the US version) was known as Wiener, while Mayonnay (Flea in the US version) was named Ketchappa. The ROM image for this early version was eventually uploaded to the internet, prompting fans to explore and document the game's differences, including two unused world map NPC character sprites and presumed additional sprites for certain non-player characters. Around the game's release, Yuji Horii commented that Chrono Trigger \"went beyond [the development team's] expectations\", and Hironobu Sakaguchi congratulated the game's graphic artists and field designers. Sakaguchi intended to perfect the \"sense of dancing you get from exploring Toriyama's worlds\" in the event that they would make a sequel.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Chrono Trigger used a 32-megabit ROM cartridge with battery-backed RAM for saved games, lacking special on-cartridge coprocessors. The Japanese release of Chrono Trigger included art for the game's ending and running counts of items in the player's status menu. Developers created the North American version before adding these features to the original build, inadvertently leaving in vestiges of Chrono Trigger's early development (such as the piece \"Singing Mountain\"). Hironobu Sakaguchi asked translator Ted Woolsey to localize Chrono Trigger for English audiences and gave him roughly thirty days to work. Lacking the help of a modern translation team, he memorized scenarios and looked at drafts of commercial player's guides to put dialogue in context. Woolsey later reflected that he would have preferred 2+1⁄2 months, and blames his rushed schedule on the prevailing attitude in Japan that games were children's toys rather than serious works. Some of his work was cut due to space constraints, though he still considered Trigger \"one of the most satisfying games [he] ever worked on or played\". Nintendo of America censored certain dialogue, including references to breastfeeding, consumption of alcohol, and religion.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The original SNES edition of Chrono Trigger was released on the Wii download service Virtual Console in Japan on April 26, 2011, in the US on May 16, 2011, and in Europe on May 20, 2011. Previously in April 2008, a Nintendo Power reader poll had identified Chrono Trigger as the third-most wanted game for the Virtual Console. The game has also been ported to i-mode, the Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network, iOS, Android, and Windows.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Square released an enhanced port of Chrono Trigger developed by Tose in Japan for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Square timed its release before that of Chrono Cross, the 1999 sequel to Chrono Trigger, to familiarize new players with the story leading up to it. This version included anime cutscenes created by original character designer Akira Toriyama's Bird Studio and animated at Toei Animation, as well as several bonus features, accessible after achieving various endings in the game. Scenarist Masato Kato attended planning meetings at Bird Studio to discuss how the ending cutscenes would illustrate subtle ties to Chrono Cross. The port was released in North America in 2001—along with a newly translated version of Final Fantasy IV—as Final Fantasy Chronicles. Reviewers criticized Chronicles for its lengthy load times and an absence of new in-game features. This same iteration was also re-released as a downloadable game on the PlayStation Network on October 4, 2011, for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation Portable.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "On July 2, 2008, Square Enix announced that they were planning to bring Chrono Trigger to the Nintendo DS handheld platform. Composer Yasunori Mitsuda was pleased with the project, exclaiming \"finally!\" after receiving the news from Square Enix and maintaining, \"it's still a very deep, very high-quality game even when you play it today. I'm very interested in seeing what kids today think about it when they play it.\" Square retained Masato Kato to oversee the port, and Tose to program it. Kato explained, \"I wanted it to be based on the original Super NES release rather than the PlayStation version. I thought we should look at the additional elements from the PlayStation version, re-examine and re-work them to make it a complete edition. That's how it struck me and I told the staff so later on.\" Square Enix touted the game by displaying Akira Toriyama's original art at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The DS re-release contains all of the bonus material from the PlayStation port, as well as other enhancements. The added features include a more accurate and revised translation by Tom Slattery, a dual-screen mode which clears the top screen of all menus, a self-completing map screen, and a default \"run\" option. It also features the option to choose between two control schemes: one mirroring the original SNES controls, and the other making use of the DS's touch screen. Masato Kato participated in development, overseeing the addition of the monster-battling Arena, two new areas, the Lost Sanctum and the Dimensional Vortex, and a new ending that further foreshadows the events of Chrono Cross. One of the areas within the Vortex uses the \"Singing Mountain\" song that was featured on the original Chrono Trigger soundtrack. Additionally, one of the dungeons absent from the original game was remade within the Vortex. These new dungeons met with mixed reviews; GameSpot called them \"frustrating\" and \"repetitive\", while IGN noted that \"the extra quests in the game connect extremely well.\" It was a nominee for \"Best RPG for the Nintendo DS\" in IGN's 2008 video game awards. The Nintendo DS version of Chrono Trigger was the 22nd best-selling game of 2008 in Japan.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "A cellphone version was released in Japan on i-mode distribution service on August 25, 2011. An iOS version was released on December 8, 2011. This version is based on the Nintendo DS version, with graphics optimized for iOS. The game was later released for Android on October 29, 2012. An update incorporating most of the features of the Windows version—including the reintroduction of the animated cutscenes, which had been absent from the initial mobile release—was released on February 27, 2018, for both iOS and Android.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Square Enix released Chrono Trigger without an announcement for Windows via Steam on February 27, 2018. This version includes most content from the Nintendo DS port besides the arena mode, as well as the higher resolution graphics from the mobile device releases, support for mouse and keyboard controls, and autosave features, along with additional content such as wallpapers and music. The PC port initially received negative reception due to its inferior graphical quality, additional glitches, UI adapted for touchscreens, and failure to properly adapt the control scheme for keyboards and controllers. In response, Square Enix provided various UI updates and several other improvements including adding an original graphics option based on the original version's graphics and font, fixing glitches introduced, and the addition of true 16:9 widescreen presentation for the first time, to address the aforementioned complaints. In total, six major updates were released—the first on April 10, 2018, and the last on March 10, 2022—all of which have substantially improved its overall reception.",
"title": "Release"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "The game was a best-seller in Japan, where two million copies were sold in only two months. It ended the year as the second best-selling game of 1995 in Japan, below Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation. Chrono Trigger was also met with substantial success upon release in North America, and its re-release on the PlayStation as part of the Final Fantasy Chronicles package topped the NPD TRSTS PlayStation sales charts for over six weeks. By March 2003, the game's SNES and PS1 iterations had shipped 2.65 million copies worldwide, including 2.36 million in Japan and 290,000 abroad. The PS1 version was re-released in 2003 as part of Sony's Greatest Hits line. The original SNES version had sold 2.5 million copies by 2006. Chrono Trigger DS sold 790,000 copies worldwide, as of March 2009, including 490,000 in Japan, 240,000 in North America and 60,000 in Europe. The SNES, PS1 and DS versions shipped a combined 3.44 million copies worldwide by March 2009. Excluding the PC version, the game had shipped over 3.5 million copies worldwide by February 2018.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Chrono Trigger garnered much critical praise in addition to its brisk sales. Famicom Tsūshin gave Chrono Trigger first an 8 out of 10 and later a 9 out of 10 in their Reader Cross Review. Nintendo Power compared it favorably with Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, citing improved graphics, sound, story and gameplay. GamePro praised the varied gameplay, the humor, the ability to replay the game with previously built-up characters, and the graphics, which they said far exceed even those of Final Fantasy VI. They commented that combat is easier and more simplistic than in most RPGs, but argued that \"Most players would choose an easier RPG of this caliber over a hundred more complicated, but less developed, fantasy role-playing adventures.\" They gave the game a perfect 5 out of 5 in all four categories: graphics, sound, control, and fun factor. Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it their \"Game of the Month\" award, with their four reviewers praising the graphics, story, and music. Chrono Trigger won multiple awards from Electronic Gaming Monthly's 1995 video game awards, including Best Role-Playing Game, Best Music in a Cartridge-Based Game, and Best Super NES Game. Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine described Trigger as \"original and extremely captivating\", singling out its graphics, sound and story as particularly impressive. IGN commented that \"it may be filled with every imaginable console RPG cliché, but Chrono Trigger manages to stand out among the pack\" with \"a [captivating] story that doesn't take itself too serious [sic]\" and \"one of the best videogame soundtracks ever produced\". Other reviewers (such as the staff of RPGFan and RPGamer) have criticized the game's short length and relative ease compared to its peers. Peter Tieryas of Kotaku praised the character interactions, explaining how the dialogue lets the characters express the emotions they would rather hide, and the game's emphasis on character interaction leads to great emotional investment in Crono and Marle's relationship, Frog's struggles for redemption, and even Magus's eons-long fight for revenge against Lavos. Victoria Earl of Gamasutra praised the game design for balancing \"developer control with player freedom using carefully-designed mechanics and a modular approach to narrative.\"",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "Overall, critics lauded Chrono Trigger for its \"fantastic yet not overly complex\" story, simple but innovative gameplay, and high replay value afforded by multiple endings. Online score aggregator GameRankings lists the original Super NES version as the 2nd highest scoring RPG and 24th highest scoring game ever reviewed. Next Generation reviewed the Super NES version of the game, rating it four stars out of five, and stated that \"it [...] easily qualifies as one of the best RPGs ever made\". In 2009, Guinness World Records listed it as the 32nd most influential video game in history. Nintendo Power listed the ending to Chrono Trigger as one of the greatest endings in Nintendo history, due to over a dozen endings that players can experience. The Virtual Console release received a perfect score of 10 out 10 on IGN.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Chrono Trigger is frequently listed among the greatest video games of all time. In 1997 Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked it the 29th best console video game of all time; while noting that it was not as good as Final Fantasy VI (which ranked 9th), they gave superlative praise to its handling of time travel and its combat engine. It has placed highly on all six of multimedia website IGN's \"top 100 games of all time\" lists—4th in 2002, 6th in early 2005, 13th in late 2005, 2nd in 2006, 18th in 2007, and 2nd in 2008. Game Informer called it its 15th favourite game in 2001. Its staff thought that it was the best non-Final Fantasy game Square had produced at the time. GameSpot included Chrono Trigger in \"The Greatest Games of All Time\" list released in April 2006, and it also appeared as 28th on an \"All Time Top 100\" list in a poll conducted by Japanese magazine Famitsu the same year. In 2004, Chrono Trigger finished runner up to Final Fantasy VII in the inaugural GameFAQs video game battle. In 2008, readers of Dengeki Online voted it the eighth best game ever made. Nintendo Power's twentieth anniversary issue named it the fifth best Super NES game. In 2009, Official Nintendo Magazine ranked the DS version of the game 31st on a list of greatest Nintendo games. In 2012, it came 32nd place on GamesRadar's \"100 best games of all time\" list, and 1st place on its \"Best JRPGs\" list. GamesRadar named Chrono Trigger the 2nd best Super NES game of all time, behind Super Metroid. In 2023, Time Extension included the game on their \"Best JRPGs of All Time\" list.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "In contrast to the critical acclaim of Chrono Trigger's original SNES release, the 2018 Windows port of Chrono Trigger was critically panned. Grievances noted by reviewers included tiling errors on textures, the addition of aesthetically intrusive sprite filters, an unattractive GUI carried over from the 2011 mobile release, a lack of graphic customization options, and the inability to remap controls. In describing the port, Forbes commented: \"From pretty awful graphical issues, such as tiling textures and quite a painful menu system, this port really doesn't do this classic game justice.\" USGamer characterized the Windows release as carrying \"all the markings of a project farmed out to the lowest bidder. It's a shrug in Square-Enix's mind, seemingly not worth the money or effort necessary for a half-decent port.\" In a Twitter post detailing his experiences with the Windows version, indie developer Fred Wood derisively compared the port to \"someone's first attempt at an RPG Maker game\", a comment which was republished across numerous articles addressing the poor quality of the rerelease. Square Enix released five major updates to address the complaints, thus improving its overall reception; Alex Donaldson of VG247, commenting on the improvements, wrote that \"Square Enix took the criticism to heart and over the course of a string of hefty patches have slowly turned this into something that actually could be argued as the best version of Chrono Trigger.\"",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Chrono Trigger inspired several related releases; the first were three games released for the Satellaview on July 31, 1995. They included Chrono Trigger: Jet Bike Special, a racing video game based on a minigame from the original; Chrono Trigger: Character Library, featuring profiles on characters and monsters from the game; and Chrono Trigger: Music Library, a collection of music from the game's soundtrack. The contents of Character Library and Music Library were later included as extras in the PlayStation rerelease of Chrono Trigger. Production I.G created a 16-minute OVA, \"Nuumamonja: Time and Space Adventures\", which was shown at the Japanese V Jump festival of July 31, 1996.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "There have been two notable attempts by Chrono Trigger fans to unofficially remake parts of the game for PC with a 3D graphics engine. Chrono Resurrection, an attempt at remaking ten small interactive cut scenes from Chrono Trigger, and Chrono Trigger Remake Project, which sought to remake the entire game, were forcibly terminated by Square Enix by way of a cease and desist order. Another group of fans created a sequel via a ROM hack of Chrono Trigger called Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes; developed from 2004 to 2009; although feature-length and virtually finished, it also was terminated through a cease & desist letter days before its May 2009 release. The letter also banned the dissemination of existing Chrono Trigger ROM hacks and documentation. After the cease and desist was issued, an incomplete version of the game was leaked in May 2009, though due to the early state of the game, playability was limited. This was followed by a more complete ROM leak in January 2011, which allowed the game to be played from beginning to end.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "Square released a related Satellaview game in 1996, named Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki. Having thought that Trigger ended with \"unfinished business\", scenarist Masato Kato wrote and directed the game. Dreamers functioned as a side story to Chrono Trigger, resolving a loose subplot from its predecessor. A short, text-based game relying on minimal graphics and atmospheric music, the game never received an official release outside Japan—though it was translated by fans to English in April 2003. Square planned to release Radical Dreamers as an easter egg in the PlayStation edition of Chrono Trigger, but Kato was unhappy with his work and halted its inclusion.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Square released Chrono Cross for the Sony PlayStation in 1999. Cross is a sequel to Chrono Trigger featuring a new setting and cast of characters. Presenting a theme of parallel worlds, the story followed the protagonist Serge—a teenage boy thrust into an alternate reality in which he died years earlier. With the help of a thief named Kid, Serge endeavors to discover the truth behind his apparent death and obtain the Frozen Flame, a mythical artifact. Regarded by writer and director Masato Kato as an effort to \"redo Radical Dreamers properly\", Chrono Cross borrowed certain themes, scenarios, characters, and settings from Dreamers. Yasunori Mitsuda also adapted certain songs from Radical Dreamers while scoring Cross. Radical Dreamers was consequently removed from the series' main continuity, considered an alternate dimension. Chrono Cross shipped 1.5 million copies and was widely praised by critics.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "There are no plans as of 2023 for a new title, despite a statement from Hironobu Sakaguchi in 2001 that the developers of Chrono Cross wanted to make a new Chrono game. The same year, Square applied for a trademark for the names Chrono Break in the United States and Chrono Brake in Japan. However, the United States trademark was dropped in 2003. Director Takashi Tokita mentioned \"Chrono Trigger 2\" in a 2003 interview which has not been translated to English. Yuji Horii expressed no interest in returning to the Chrono franchise in 2005, while Hironobu Sakaguchi remarked in April 2007 that his creation Blue Dragon was an \"extension of [Chrono Trigger].\" During a Cubed³ interview on February 1, 2007, Square Enix's Senior Vice President Hiromichi Tanaka said that although no sequel is currently planned, some sort of sequel is still possible if the Chrono Cross developers can be reunited. Yasunori Mitsuda has expressed interest in scoring a new game, but warned that \"there are a lot of politics involved\" with the series. He stressed that Masato Kato should participate in development. The February 2008 issue of Game Informer ranked the Chrono series eighth among the \"Top Ten Sequels in Demand\", naming the games \"steadfast legacies in the Square Enix catalogue\" and asking, \"what's the damn holdup?!\" In Electronic Gaming Monthly's June 2008 \"Retro Issue\", writer Jeremy Parish cited Chrono as the franchise video game fans would be most thrilled to see a sequel to. In the first May Famitsu of 2009, Chrono Trigger placed 14th out of 50 in a vote of most-wanted sequels by the magazine's readers. At E3 2009, SE Senior Vice President Shinji Hashimoto remarked, \"If people want a sequel, they should buy more!\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "In July 2010, Obsidian Entertainment designer Feargus Urquhart, replying to an interview question about what franchises he would like to work on, said that \"if [he] could come across everything that [he] played\", he would choose a Chrono Trigger game. At the time, Obsidian was making Dungeon Siege III for Square Enix. Urquhart said: \"You make RPGs, we make RPGs, it would be great to see what we could do together. And they really wanted to start getting into Western RPGs. And, so it kind of all ended up fitting together.\" Yoshinori Kitase stated that he used the time travel mechanics of Chrono Trigger as a starting point for that of Final Fantasy XIII-2.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "A free mobile game called Another Eden was released in 2008 as a collaboration between writer Masato Kato and music composer Yasunori Mitsuda. The game was heavily inspired by the Chrono series with several characters inspired by Chrono Trigger present in the game, and contains a cross-over story arc with Chrono Cross.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] | Chrono Trigger is a 1995 role-playing video game developed and published by Square. It was originally released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the first game in the Chrono series. The game's development team included three designers that Square dubbed the "Dream Team": Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Square's Final Fantasy series; Yuji Horii, creator of Enix's Dragon Quest series; and Akira Toriyama, character designer of Dragon Quest and author of the Dragon Ball manga series. In addition, Takashi Tokita co-directed the game and co-wrote the scenario, Kazuhiko Aoki produced the game, Masato Kato wrote most of the story, while composer Yasunori Mitsuda wrote most of the soundtrack before falling ill and deferring the remaining tracks to Final Fantasy series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The game's story follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe. Chrono Trigger was a critical and commercial success upon release and is frequently cited as one of the greatest video games of all time. Nintendo Power magazine described aspects of the game as revolutionary, including its multiple endings, plot-related side-quests focusing on character development, unique battle system, and detailed graphics. Chrono Trigger was the second best-selling game of 1995 in Japan, and shipped 2.65 million copies worldwide by March 2003. Excluding the PC version, the game had shipped over 3.5 million copies worldwide by February 2018. Square released a ported version by Tose in Japan for the PlayStation in 1999, which was later repackaged with a Final Fantasy IV port as Final Fantasy Chronicles (2001) for the North American market. A slightly enhanced Chrono Trigger, again ported by Tose, was released for the Nintendo DS in North America and Japan in 2008, and PAL regions in 2009. The game has also been ported to i-mode, the Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network, iOS, Android, and Windows. | 2001-09-30T06:52:23Z | 2023-12-24T21:16:20Z | [
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6,615 | Cornwall Wildlife Trust | The Cornwall Wildlife Trust is a charitable organisation founded in 1962 that is concerned solely with Cornwall, England, United Kingdom.
It deals with the conservation and preservation of Cornwall's wildlife, geology and habitats managing over 50 nature reserves covering approximately 4,300 acres (17 km), amongst them Looe Island.
Cornwall Wildlife Trust is part of The Wildlife Trusts partnership of 46 wildlife trusts in the United Kingdom. It works in conjunction with the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust on some matters. Cornwall Wildlife Trust produces a thrice-yearly magazine called Wild Cornwall.
The direction and work that the Trust currently does is guided by the Cornwall Biodiversity action plan. Living Seas and Living Landscapes are two such projects. The Trust runs ERCCIS (Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly), a county wide database of sightings of animals and plants, and records of geology. It also gives planning advice (CEC - Cornwall Environmental Consultants) to land developers.
The Trust is based at Allet near Truro in Cornwall. The headquarters and offices are adjacent to the Trust's Five Acres nature reserve. This reserve includes two ponds, as well as mixed broadleaved and conifer woodland. | [
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"text": "The direction and work that the Trust currently does is guided by the Cornwall Biodiversity action plan. Living Seas and Living Landscapes are two such projects. The Trust runs ERCCIS (Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly), a county wide database of sightings of animals and plants, and records of geology. It also gives planning advice (CEC - Cornwall Environmental Consultants) to land developers.",
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"text": "The Trust is based at Allet near Truro in Cornwall. The headquarters and offices are adjacent to the Trust's Five Acres nature reserve. This reserve includes two ponds, as well as mixed broadleaved and conifer woodland.",
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] | The Cornwall Wildlife Trust is a charitable organisation founded in 1962 that is concerned solely with Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It deals with the conservation and preservation of Cornwall's wildlife, geology and habitats managing over 50 nature reserves covering approximately 4,300 acres (17 km2), amongst them Looe Island. Cornwall Wildlife Trust is part of The Wildlife Trusts partnership of 46 wildlife trusts in the United Kingdom. It works in conjunction with the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust on some matters. Cornwall Wildlife Trust produces a thrice-yearly magazine called Wild Cornwall. The direction and work that the Trust currently does is guided by the Cornwall Biodiversity action plan. Living Seas and Living Landscapes are two such projects. The Trust runs ERCCIS, a county wide database of sightings of animals and plants, and records of geology. It also gives planning advice to land developers. The Trust is based at Allet near Truro in Cornwall. The headquarters and offices are adjacent to the Trust's Five Acres nature reserve. This reserve includes two ponds, as well as mixed broadleaved and conifer woodland. | 2001-09-30T08:08:40Z | 2023-08-14T19:55:54Z | [
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6,616 | Conservatory | Conservatory may refer to: | [
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"text": "Conservatory may refer to:",
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] | Conservatory may refer to: Conservatory (greenhouse), a substantial building or room where plants are cultivated, including medicinal ones and including attached residential solariums
Music school, or a school devoted to other arts such as dance
Sunroom, a smaller glass enclosure or garden shed attached to a house, also called a conservatory | 2020-01-13T12:14:51Z | [
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|
6,617 | Compactification (mathematics) | In mathematics, in general topology, compactification is the process or result of making a topological space into a compact space. A compact space is a space in which every open cover of the space contains a finite subcover. The methods of compactification are various, but each is a way of controlling points from "going off to infinity" by in some way adding "points at infinity" or preventing such an "escape".
Consider the real line with its ordinary topology. This space is not compact; in a sense, points can go off to infinity to the left or to the right. It is possible to turn the real line into a compact space by adding a single "point at infinity" which we will denote by ∞. The resulting compactification is homeomorphic to a circle in the plane (which, as a closed and bounded subset of the Euclidean plane, is compact). Every sequence that ran off to infinity in the real line will then converge to ∞ in this compactification. The direction in which a number approaches infinity on the number line (either in the - direction or + direction) is still preserved on the circle; for if a number approaches towards infinity from the - direction on the number line, then the corresponding point on the circle can approach ∞ from the left for example. Then if a number approaches infinity from the + direction on the number line, then the corresponding point on the circle can approach ∞ from the right.
Intuitively, the process can be pictured as follows: first shrink the real line to the open interval (−π, π) on the x-axis; then bend the ends of this interval upwards (in positive y-direction) and move them towards each other, until you get a circle with one point (the topmost one) missing. This point is our new point ∞ "at infinity"; adding it in completes the compact circle.
A bit more formally: we represent a point on the unit circle by its angle, in radians, going from −π to π for simplicity. Identify each such point θ on the circle with the corresponding point on the real line tan(θ/2). This function is undefined at the point π, since tan(π/2) is undefined; we will identify this point with our point ∞.
Since tangents and inverse tangents are both continuous, our identification function is a homeomorphism between the real line and the unit circle without ∞. What we have constructed is called the Alexandroff one-point compactification of the real line, discussed in more generality below. It is also possible to compactify the real line by adding two points, +∞ and −∞; this results in the extended real line.
An embedding of a topological space X as a dense subset of a compact space is called a compactification of X. It is often useful to embed topological spaces in compact spaces, because of the special properties compact spaces have.
Embeddings into compact Hausdorff spaces may be of particular interest. Since every compact Hausdorff space is a Tychonoff space, and every subspace of a Tychonoff space is Tychonoff, we conclude that any space possessing a Hausdorff compactification must be a Tychonoff space. In fact, the converse is also true; being a Tychonoff space is both necessary and sufficient for possessing a Hausdorff compactification.
The fact that large and interesting classes of non-compact spaces do in fact have compactifications of particular sorts makes compactification a common technique in topology.
For any noncompact topological space X the (Alexandroff) one-point compactification αX of X is obtained by adding one extra point ∞ (often called a point at infinity) and defining the open sets of the new space to be the open sets of X together with the sets of the form G ∪ {∞}, where G is an open subset of X such that X ∖ G {\displaystyle X\setminus G} is closed and compact. The one-point compactification of X is Hausdorff if and only if X is Hausdorff and locally compact.
Of particular interest are Hausdorff compactifications, i.e., compactifications in which the compact space is Hausdorff. A topological space has a Hausdorff compactification if and only if it is Tychonoff. In this case, there is a unique (up to homeomorphism) "most general" Hausdorff compactification, the Stone–Čech compactification of X, denoted by βX; formally, this exhibits the category of Compact Hausdorff spaces and continuous maps as a reflective subcategory of the category of Tychonoff spaces and continuous maps.
"Most general" or formally "reflective" means that the space βX is characterized by the universal property that any continuous function from X to a compact Hausdorff space K can be extended to a continuous function from βX to K in a unique way. More explicitly, βX is a compact Hausdorff space containing X such that the induced topology on X by βX is the same as the given topology on X, and for any continuous map f : X → K, where K is a compact Hausdorff space, there is a unique continuous map g : βX → K for which g restricted to X is identically f.
The Stone–Čech compactification can be constructed explicitly as follows: let C be the set of continuous functions from X to the closed interval [0, 1]. Then each point in X can be identified with an evaluation function on C. Thus X can be identified with a subset of [0, 1], the space of all functions from C to [0, 1]. Since the latter is compact by Tychonoff's theorem, the closure of X as a subset of that space will also be compact. This is the Stone–Čech compactification.
Walter Benz and Isaak Yaglom have shown how stereographic projection onto a single-sheet hyperboloid can be used to provide a compactification for split complex numbers. In fact, the hyperboloid is part of a quadric in real projective four-space. The method is similar to that used to provide a base manifold for group action of the conformal group of spacetime.
Real projective space RP is a compactification of Euclidean space R. For each possible "direction" in which points in R can "escape", one new point at infinity is added (but each direction is identified with its opposite). The Alexandroff one-point compactification of R we constructed in the example above is in fact homeomorphic to RP. Note however that the projective plane RP is not the one-point compactification of the plane R since more than one point is added.
Complex projective space CP is also a compactification of C; the Alexandroff one-point compactification of the plane C is (homeomorphic to) the complex projective line CP, which in turn can be identified with a sphere, the Riemann sphere.
Passing to projective space is a common tool in algebraic geometry because the added points at infinity lead to simpler formulations of many theorems. For example, any two different lines in RP intersect in precisely one point, a statement that is not true in R. More generally, Bézout's theorem, which is fundamental in intersection theory, holds in projective space but not affine space. This distinct behavior of intersections in affine space and projective space is reflected in algebraic topology in the cohomology rings – the cohomology of affine space is trivial, while the cohomology of projective space is non-trivial and reflects the key features of intersection theory (dimension and degree of a subvariety, with intersection being Poincaré dual to the cup product).
Compactification of moduli spaces generally require allowing certain degeneracies – for example, allowing certain singularities or reducible varieties. This is notably used in the Deligne–Mumford compactification of the moduli space of algebraic curves.
In the study of discrete subgroups of Lie groups, the quotient space of cosets is often a candidate for more subtle compactification to preserve structure at a richer level than just topological.
For example, modular curves are compactified by the addition of single points for each cusp, making them Riemann surfaces (and so, since they are compact, algebraic curves). Here the cusps are there for a good reason: the curves parametrize a space of lattices, and those lattices can degenerate ('go off to infinity'), often in a number of ways (taking into account some auxiliary structure of level). The cusps stand in for those different 'directions to infinity'.
That is all for lattices in the plane. In n-dimensional Euclidean space the same questions can be posed, for example about SO ( n ) ∖ SL n ( R ) / SL n ( Z ) . {\displaystyle {\text{SO}}(n)\setminus {\text{SL}}_{n}({\textbf {R}})/{\text{SL}}_{n}({\textbf {Z}}).} This is harder to compactify. There are a variety of compactifications, such as the Borel–Serre compactification, the reductive Borel–Serre compactification, and the Satake compactifications, that can be formed. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In mathematics, in general topology, compactification is the process or result of making a topological space into a compact space. A compact space is a space in which every open cover of the space contains a finite subcover. The methods of compactification are various, but each is a way of controlling points from \"going off to infinity\" by in some way adding \"points at infinity\" or preventing such an \"escape\".",
"title": ""
},
{
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"text": "Consider the real line with its ordinary topology. This space is not compact; in a sense, points can go off to infinity to the left or to the right. It is possible to turn the real line into a compact space by adding a single \"point at infinity\" which we will denote by ∞. The resulting compactification is homeomorphic to a circle in the plane (which, as a closed and bounded subset of the Euclidean plane, is compact). Every sequence that ran off to infinity in the real line will then converge to ∞ in this compactification. The direction in which a number approaches infinity on the number line (either in the - direction or + direction) is still preserved on the circle; for if a number approaches towards infinity from the - direction on the number line, then the corresponding point on the circle can approach ∞ from the left for example. Then if a number approaches infinity from the + direction on the number line, then the corresponding point on the circle can approach ∞ from the right.",
"title": "An example"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Intuitively, the process can be pictured as follows: first shrink the real line to the open interval (−π, π) on the x-axis; then bend the ends of this interval upwards (in positive y-direction) and move them towards each other, until you get a circle with one point (the topmost one) missing. This point is our new point ∞ \"at infinity\"; adding it in completes the compact circle.",
"title": "An example"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A bit more formally: we represent a point on the unit circle by its angle, in radians, going from −π to π for simplicity. Identify each such point θ on the circle with the corresponding point on the real line tan(θ/2). This function is undefined at the point π, since tan(π/2) is undefined; we will identify this point with our point ∞.",
"title": "An example"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Since tangents and inverse tangents are both continuous, our identification function is a homeomorphism between the real line and the unit circle without ∞. What we have constructed is called the Alexandroff one-point compactification of the real line, discussed in more generality below. It is also possible to compactify the real line by adding two points, +∞ and −∞; this results in the extended real line.",
"title": "An example"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "An embedding of a topological space X as a dense subset of a compact space is called a compactification of X. It is often useful to embed topological spaces in compact spaces, because of the special properties compact spaces have.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Embeddings into compact Hausdorff spaces may be of particular interest. Since every compact Hausdorff space is a Tychonoff space, and every subspace of a Tychonoff space is Tychonoff, we conclude that any space possessing a Hausdorff compactification must be a Tychonoff space. In fact, the converse is also true; being a Tychonoff space is both necessary and sufficient for possessing a Hausdorff compactification.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The fact that large and interesting classes of non-compact spaces do in fact have compactifications of particular sorts makes compactification a common technique in topology.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "For any noncompact topological space X the (Alexandroff) one-point compactification αX of X is obtained by adding one extra point ∞ (often called a point at infinity) and defining the open sets of the new space to be the open sets of X together with the sets of the form G ∪ {∞}, where G is an open subset of X such that X ∖ G {\\displaystyle X\\setminus G} is closed and compact. The one-point compactification of X is Hausdorff if and only if X is Hausdorff and locally compact.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Of particular interest are Hausdorff compactifications, i.e., compactifications in which the compact space is Hausdorff. A topological space has a Hausdorff compactification if and only if it is Tychonoff. In this case, there is a unique (up to homeomorphism) \"most general\" Hausdorff compactification, the Stone–Čech compactification of X, denoted by βX; formally, this exhibits the category of Compact Hausdorff spaces and continuous maps as a reflective subcategory of the category of Tychonoff spaces and continuous maps.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "\"Most general\" or formally \"reflective\" means that the space βX is characterized by the universal property that any continuous function from X to a compact Hausdorff space K can be extended to a continuous function from βX to K in a unique way. More explicitly, βX is a compact Hausdorff space containing X such that the induced topology on X by βX is the same as the given topology on X, and for any continuous map f : X → K, where K is a compact Hausdorff space, there is a unique continuous map g : βX → K for which g restricted to X is identically f.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "The Stone–Čech compactification can be constructed explicitly as follows: let C be the set of continuous functions from X to the closed interval [0, 1]. Then each point in X can be identified with an evaluation function on C. Thus X can be identified with a subset of [0, 1], the space of all functions from C to [0, 1]. Since the latter is compact by Tychonoff's theorem, the closure of X as a subset of that space will also be compact. This is the Stone–Čech compactification.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Walter Benz and Isaak Yaglom have shown how stereographic projection onto a single-sheet hyperboloid can be used to provide a compactification for split complex numbers. In fact, the hyperboloid is part of a quadric in real projective four-space. The method is similar to that used to provide a base manifold for group action of the conformal group of spacetime.",
"title": "Definition"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Real projective space RP is a compactification of Euclidean space R. For each possible \"direction\" in which points in R can \"escape\", one new point at infinity is added (but each direction is identified with its opposite). The Alexandroff one-point compactification of R we constructed in the example above is in fact homeomorphic to RP. Note however that the projective plane RP is not the one-point compactification of the plane R since more than one point is added.",
"title": "Projective space"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Complex projective space CP is also a compactification of C; the Alexandroff one-point compactification of the plane C is (homeomorphic to) the complex projective line CP, which in turn can be identified with a sphere, the Riemann sphere.",
"title": "Projective space"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Passing to projective space is a common tool in algebraic geometry because the added points at infinity lead to simpler formulations of many theorems. For example, any two different lines in RP intersect in precisely one point, a statement that is not true in R. More generally, Bézout's theorem, which is fundamental in intersection theory, holds in projective space but not affine space. This distinct behavior of intersections in affine space and projective space is reflected in algebraic topology in the cohomology rings – the cohomology of affine space is trivial, while the cohomology of projective space is non-trivial and reflects the key features of intersection theory (dimension and degree of a subvariety, with intersection being Poincaré dual to the cup product).",
"title": "Projective space"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Compactification of moduli spaces generally require allowing certain degeneracies – for example, allowing certain singularities or reducible varieties. This is notably used in the Deligne–Mumford compactification of the moduli space of algebraic curves.",
"title": "Projective space"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "In the study of discrete subgroups of Lie groups, the quotient space of cosets is often a candidate for more subtle compactification to preserve structure at a richer level than just topological.",
"title": "Compactification and discrete subgroups of Lie groups"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "For example, modular curves are compactified by the addition of single points for each cusp, making them Riemann surfaces (and so, since they are compact, algebraic curves). Here the cusps are there for a good reason: the curves parametrize a space of lattices, and those lattices can degenerate ('go off to infinity'), often in a number of ways (taking into account some auxiliary structure of level). The cusps stand in for those different 'directions to infinity'.",
"title": "Compactification and discrete subgroups of Lie groups"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "That is all for lattices in the plane. In n-dimensional Euclidean space the same questions can be posed, for example about SO ( n ) ∖ SL n ( R ) / SL n ( Z ) . {\\displaystyle {\\text{SO}}(n)\\setminus {\\text{SL}}_{n}({\\textbf {R}})/{\\text{SL}}_{n}({\\textbf {Z}}).} This is harder to compactify. There are a variety of compactifications, such as the Borel–Serre compactification, the reductive Borel–Serre compactification, and the Satake compactifications, that can be formed.",
"title": "Compactification and discrete subgroups of Lie groups"
}
] | In mathematics, in general topology, compactification is the process or result of making a topological space into a compact space. A compact space is a space in which every open cover of the space contains a finite subcover. The methods of compactification are various, but each is a way of controlling points from "going off to infinity" by in some way adding "points at infinity" or preventing such an "escape". | 2001-09-30T12:22:21Z | 2023-12-10T05:49:34Z | [
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6,620 | Cotangent space | In differential geometry, the cotangent space is a vector space associated with a point x {\displaystyle x} on a smooth (or differentiable) manifold M {\displaystyle {\mathcal {M}}} ; one can define a cotangent space for every point on a smooth manifold. Typically, the cotangent space, T x ∗ M {\displaystyle T_{x}^{*}\!{\mathcal {M}}} is defined as the dual space of the tangent space at x {\displaystyle x} , T x M {\displaystyle T_{x}{\mathcal {M}}} , although there are more direct definitions (see below). The elements of the cotangent space are called cotangent vectors or tangent covectors.
All cotangent spaces at points on a connected manifold have the same dimension, equal to the dimension of the manifold. All the cotangent spaces of a manifold can be "glued together" (i.e. unioned and endowed with a topology) to form a new differentiable manifold of twice the dimension, the cotangent bundle of the manifold.
The tangent space and the cotangent space at a point are both real vector spaces of the same dimension and therefore isomorphic to each other via many possible isomorphisms. The introduction of a Riemannian metric or a symplectic form gives rise to a natural isomorphism between the tangent space and the cotangent space at a point, associating to any tangent covector a canonical tangent vector.
Let M {\displaystyle {\mathcal {M}}} be a smooth manifold and let x {\displaystyle x} be a point in M {\displaystyle {\mathcal {M}}} . Let T x M {\displaystyle T_{x}{\mathcal {M}}} be the tangent space at x {\displaystyle x} . Then the cotangent space at x is defined as the dual space of T x M {\displaystyle T_{x}{\mathcal {M}}} :
Concretely, elements of the cotangent space are linear functionals on T x M {\displaystyle T_{x}{\mathcal {M}}} . That is, every element α ∈ T x ∗ M {\displaystyle \alpha \in T_{x}^{*}{\mathcal {M}}} is a linear map
where F {\displaystyle F} is the underlying field of the vector space being considered, for example, the field of real numbers. The elements of T x ∗ M {\displaystyle T_{x}^{*}\!{\mathcal {M}}} are called cotangent vectors.
In some cases, one might like to have a direct definition of the cotangent space without reference to the tangent space. Such a definition can be formulated in terms of equivalence classes of smooth functions on M {\displaystyle {\mathcal {M}}} . Informally, we will say that two smooth functions f and g are equivalent at a point x {\displaystyle x} if they have the same first-order behavior near x {\displaystyle x} , analogous to their linear Taylor polynomials; two functions f and g have the same first order behavior near x {\displaystyle x} if and only if the derivative of the function f − g vanishes at x {\displaystyle x} . The cotangent space will then consist of all the possible first-order behaviors of a function near x {\displaystyle x} .
Let M {\displaystyle {\mathcal {M}}} be a smooth manifold and let x be a point in M {\displaystyle {\mathcal {M}}} . Let I x {\displaystyle I_{x}} be the ideal of all functions in C ∞ ( M ) {\displaystyle C^{\infty }\!({\mathcal {M}})} vanishing at x {\displaystyle x} , and let I x 2 {\displaystyle I_{x}^{2}} be the set of functions of the form ∑ i f i g i {\textstyle \sum _{i}f_{i}g_{i}} , where f i , g i ∈ I x {\displaystyle f_{i},g_{i}\in I_{x}} . Then I x {\displaystyle I_{x}} and I x 2 {\displaystyle I_{x}^{2}} are both real vector spaces and the cotangent space can be defined as the quotient space T x ∗ M = I x / I x 2 {\displaystyle T_{x}^{*}\!{\mathcal {M}}=I_{x}/I_{x}^{2}} by showing that the two spaces are isomorphic to each other.
This formulation is analogous to the construction of the cotangent space to define the Zariski tangent space in algebraic geometry. The construction also generalizes to locally ringed spaces.
Let M {\displaystyle M} be a smooth manifold and let f ∈ C ∞ ( M ) {\displaystyle f\in C^{\infty }(M)} be a smooth function. The differential of f {\displaystyle f} at a point x {\displaystyle x} is the map
where X x {\displaystyle X_{x}} is a tangent vector at x {\displaystyle x} , thought of as a derivation. That is X ( f ) = L X f {\displaystyle X(f)={\mathcal {L}}_{X}f} is the Lie derivative of f {\displaystyle f} in the direction X {\displaystyle X} , and one has d f ( X ) = X ( f ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} f(X)=X(f)} . Equivalently, we can think of tangent vectors as tangents to curves, and write
In either case, d f x {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} f_{x}} is a linear map on T x M {\displaystyle T_{x}M} and hence it is a tangent covector at x {\displaystyle x} .
We can then define the differential map d : C ∞ ( M ) → T x ∗ ( M ) {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} :C^{\infty }(M)\to T_{x}^{*}(M)} at a point x {\displaystyle x} as the map which sends f {\displaystyle f} to d f x {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} f_{x}} . Properties of the differential map include:
The differential map provides the link between the two alternate definitions of the cotangent space given above. Given a function f ∈ I x {\displaystyle f\in I_{x}} (a smooth function vanishing at x {\displaystyle x} ) we can form the linear functional d f x {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} f_{x}} as above. Since the map d {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} } restricts to 0 on I x 2 {\displaystyle I_{x}^{2}} (the reader should verify this), d {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} } descends to a map from I x / I x 2 {\displaystyle I_{x}/I_{x}^{2}} to the dual of the tangent space, ( T x M ) ∗ {\displaystyle (T_{x}M)^{*}} . One can show that this map is an isomorphism, establishing the equivalence of the two definitions.
Just as every differentiable map f : M → N {\displaystyle f:M\to N} between manifolds induces a linear map (called the pushforward or derivative) between the tangent spaces
every such map induces a linear map (called the pullback) between the cotangent spaces, only this time in the reverse direction:
The pullback is naturally defined as the dual (or transpose) of the pushforward. Unraveling the definition, this means the following:
where θ ∈ T f ( x ) ∗ N {\displaystyle \theta \in T_{f(x)}^{*}N} and X x ∈ T x M {\displaystyle X_{x}\in T_{x}M} . Note carefully where everything lives.
If we define tangent covectors in terms of equivalence classes of smooth maps vanishing at a point then the definition of the pullback is even more straightforward. Let g {\displaystyle g} be a smooth function on N {\displaystyle N} vanishing at f ( x ) {\displaystyle f(x)} . Then the pullback of the covector determined by g {\displaystyle g} (denoted d g {\displaystyle \mathrm {d} g} ) is given by
That is, it is the equivalence class of functions on M {\displaystyle M} vanishing at x {\displaystyle x} determined by g ∘ f {\displaystyle g\circ f} .
The k {\displaystyle k} -th exterior power of the cotangent space, denoted Λ k ( T x ∗ M ) {\displaystyle \Lambda ^{k}(T_{x}^{*}{\mathcal {M}})} , is another important object in differential geometry. Vectors in the k {\displaystyle k} -th exterior power, or more precisely sections of the k {\displaystyle k} -th exterior power of the cotangent bundle, are called differential k {\displaystyle k} -forms. They can be thought of as alternating, multilinear maps on k {\displaystyle k} tangent vectors. For this reason, tangent covectors are frequently called one-forms. | [
{
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"text": "In differential geometry, the cotangent space is a vector space associated with a point x {\\displaystyle x} on a smooth (or differentiable) manifold M {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {M}}} ; one can define a cotangent space for every point on a smooth manifold. Typically, the cotangent space, T x ∗ M {\\displaystyle T_{x}^{*}\\!{\\mathcal {M}}} is defined as the dual space of the tangent space at x {\\displaystyle x} , T x M {\\displaystyle T_{x}{\\mathcal {M}}} , although there are more direct definitions (see below). The elements of the cotangent space are called cotangent vectors or tangent covectors.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "All cotangent spaces at points on a connected manifold have the same dimension, equal to the dimension of the manifold. All the cotangent spaces of a manifold can be \"glued together\" (i.e. unioned and endowed with a topology) to form a new differentiable manifold of twice the dimension, the cotangent bundle of the manifold.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The tangent space and the cotangent space at a point are both real vector spaces of the same dimension and therefore isomorphic to each other via many possible isomorphisms. The introduction of a Riemannian metric or a symplectic form gives rise to a natural isomorphism between the tangent space and the cotangent space at a point, associating to any tangent covector a canonical tangent vector.",
"title": "Properties"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Let M {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {M}}} be a smooth manifold and let x {\\displaystyle x} be a point in M {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {M}}} . Let T x M {\\displaystyle T_{x}{\\mathcal {M}}} be the tangent space at x {\\displaystyle x} . Then the cotangent space at x is defined as the dual space of T x M {\\displaystyle T_{x}{\\mathcal {M}}} :",
"title": "Formal definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Concretely, elements of the cotangent space are linear functionals on T x M {\\displaystyle T_{x}{\\mathcal {M}}} . That is, every element α ∈ T x ∗ M {\\displaystyle \\alpha \\in T_{x}^{*}{\\mathcal {M}}} is a linear map",
"title": "Formal definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "where F {\\displaystyle F} is the underlying field of the vector space being considered, for example, the field of real numbers. The elements of T x ∗ M {\\displaystyle T_{x}^{*}\\!{\\mathcal {M}}} are called cotangent vectors.",
"title": "Formal definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In some cases, one might like to have a direct definition of the cotangent space without reference to the tangent space. Such a definition can be formulated in terms of equivalence classes of smooth functions on M {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {M}}} . Informally, we will say that two smooth functions f and g are equivalent at a point x {\\displaystyle x} if they have the same first-order behavior near x {\\displaystyle x} , analogous to their linear Taylor polynomials; two functions f and g have the same first order behavior near x {\\displaystyle x} if and only if the derivative of the function f − g vanishes at x {\\displaystyle x} . The cotangent space will then consist of all the possible first-order behaviors of a function near x {\\displaystyle x} .",
"title": "Formal definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Let M {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {M}}} be a smooth manifold and let x be a point in M {\\displaystyle {\\mathcal {M}}} . Let I x {\\displaystyle I_{x}} be the ideal of all functions in C ∞ ( M ) {\\displaystyle C^{\\infty }\\!({\\mathcal {M}})} vanishing at x {\\displaystyle x} , and let I x 2 {\\displaystyle I_{x}^{2}} be the set of functions of the form ∑ i f i g i {\\textstyle \\sum _{i}f_{i}g_{i}} , where f i , g i ∈ I x {\\displaystyle f_{i},g_{i}\\in I_{x}} . Then I x {\\displaystyle I_{x}} and I x 2 {\\displaystyle I_{x}^{2}} are both real vector spaces and the cotangent space can be defined as the quotient space T x ∗ M = I x / I x 2 {\\displaystyle T_{x}^{*}\\!{\\mathcal {M}}=I_{x}/I_{x}^{2}} by showing that the two spaces are isomorphic to each other.",
"title": "Formal definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "This formulation is analogous to the construction of the cotangent space to define the Zariski tangent space in algebraic geometry. The construction also generalizes to locally ringed spaces.",
"title": "Formal definitions"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Let M {\\displaystyle M} be a smooth manifold and let f ∈ C ∞ ( M ) {\\displaystyle f\\in C^{\\infty }(M)} be a smooth function. The differential of f {\\displaystyle f} at a point x {\\displaystyle x} is the map",
"title": "The differential of a function"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "where X x {\\displaystyle X_{x}} is a tangent vector at x {\\displaystyle x} , thought of as a derivation. That is X ( f ) = L X f {\\displaystyle X(f)={\\mathcal {L}}_{X}f} is the Lie derivative of f {\\displaystyle f} in the direction X {\\displaystyle X} , and one has d f ( X ) = X ( f ) {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} f(X)=X(f)} . Equivalently, we can think of tangent vectors as tangents to curves, and write",
"title": "The differential of a function"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In either case, d f x {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} f_{x}} is a linear map on T x M {\\displaystyle T_{x}M} and hence it is a tangent covector at x {\\displaystyle x} .",
"title": "The differential of a function"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "We can then define the differential map d : C ∞ ( M ) → T x ∗ ( M ) {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} :C^{\\infty }(M)\\to T_{x}^{*}(M)} at a point x {\\displaystyle x} as the map which sends f {\\displaystyle f} to d f x {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} f_{x}} . Properties of the differential map include:",
"title": "The differential of a function"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The differential map provides the link between the two alternate definitions of the cotangent space given above. Given a function f ∈ I x {\\displaystyle f\\in I_{x}} (a smooth function vanishing at x {\\displaystyle x} ) we can form the linear functional d f x {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} f_{x}} as above. Since the map d {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} } restricts to 0 on I x 2 {\\displaystyle I_{x}^{2}} (the reader should verify this), d {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} } descends to a map from I x / I x 2 {\\displaystyle I_{x}/I_{x}^{2}} to the dual of the tangent space, ( T x M ) ∗ {\\displaystyle (T_{x}M)^{*}} . One can show that this map is an isomorphism, establishing the equivalence of the two definitions.",
"title": "The differential of a function"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Just as every differentiable map f : M → N {\\displaystyle f:M\\to N} between manifolds induces a linear map (called the pushforward or derivative) between the tangent spaces",
"title": "The pullback of a smooth map"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "every such map induces a linear map (called the pullback) between the cotangent spaces, only this time in the reverse direction:",
"title": "The pullback of a smooth map"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The pullback is naturally defined as the dual (or transpose) of the pushforward. Unraveling the definition, this means the following:",
"title": "The pullback of a smooth map"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "where θ ∈ T f ( x ) ∗ N {\\displaystyle \\theta \\in T_{f(x)}^{*}N} and X x ∈ T x M {\\displaystyle X_{x}\\in T_{x}M} . Note carefully where everything lives.",
"title": "The pullback of a smooth map"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "If we define tangent covectors in terms of equivalence classes of smooth maps vanishing at a point then the definition of the pullback is even more straightforward. Let g {\\displaystyle g} be a smooth function on N {\\displaystyle N} vanishing at f ( x ) {\\displaystyle f(x)} . Then the pullback of the covector determined by g {\\displaystyle g} (denoted d g {\\displaystyle \\mathrm {d} g} ) is given by",
"title": "The pullback of a smooth map"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "That is, it is the equivalence class of functions on M {\\displaystyle M} vanishing at x {\\displaystyle x} determined by g ∘ f {\\displaystyle g\\circ f} .",
"title": "The pullback of a smooth map"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The k {\\displaystyle k} -th exterior power of the cotangent space, denoted Λ k ( T x ∗ M ) {\\displaystyle \\Lambda ^{k}(T_{x}^{*}{\\mathcal {M}})} , is another important object in differential geometry. Vectors in the k {\\displaystyle k} -th exterior power, or more precisely sections of the k {\\displaystyle k} -th exterior power of the cotangent bundle, are called differential k {\\displaystyle k} -forms. They can be thought of as alternating, multilinear maps on k {\\displaystyle k} tangent vectors. For this reason, tangent covectors are frequently called one-forms.",
"title": "Exterior powers"
}
] | In differential geometry, the cotangent space is a vector space associated with a point x on a smooth manifold M ; one can define a cotangent space for every point on a smooth manifold. Typically, the cotangent space, T x ∗ M is defined as the dual space of the tangent space at x , T x M , although there are more direct definitions. The elements of the cotangent space are called cotangent vectors or tangent covectors. | 2001-09-30T13:08:35Z | 2023-10-25T18:02:03Z | [
"Template:Use American English",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Nowrap",
"Template:Citation",
"Template:Manifolds"
] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotangent_space |
6,621 | Cnidaria | Cnidaria (/nɪˈdɛəriə, naɪ-/) is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments (predominantly the latter), including jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemone, corals and some of the smallest marine parasites. Their distinguishing features are a decentralized nervous system distributed throughout a gelatinous body and the presence of cnidocytes or cnidoblasts, specialized cells with ejectable flagella used mainly for envenomation and capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell thick.
Cnidarians mostly have two basic body forms: swimming medusae and sessile polyps, both of which are radially symmetrical with mouths surrounded by tentacles that bear cnidocytes. Both forms have a single orifice and body cavity that are used for digestion and respiration. Many cnidarian species produce colonies that are single organisms composed of medusa-like or polyp-like zooids, or both (hence they are trimorphic). Cnidarians' activities are coordinated by a decentralized nerve net and simple receptors. Several free-swimming species of Cubozoa and Scyphozoa possess balance-sensing statocysts, and some have simple eyes. Not all cnidarians reproduce sexually, but many species have complex life cycles of asexual polyp stages and sexual medusae stages. Some, however, omit either the polyp or the medusa stage, and the parasitic classes evolved to have neither form.
Cnidarians were formerly grouped with ctenophores in the phylum Coelenterata, but increasing awareness of their differences caused them to be placed in separate phyla. Cnidarians are classified into four main groups: the almost wholly sessile Anthozoa (sea anemones, corals, sea pens); swimming Scyphozoa (jellyfish); Cubozoa (box jellies); and Hydrozoa (a diverse group that includes all the freshwater cnidarians as well as many marine forms, and has both sessile members, such as Hydra, and colonial swimmers, such as the Portuguese man o' war). Staurozoa have recently been recognised as a class in their own right rather than a sub-group of Scyphozoa, and the highly derived parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa were firmly recognized as cnidarians in 2007.
Most cnidarians prey on organisms ranging in size from plankton to animals several times larger than themselves, but many obtain much of their nutrition from dinoflagellates, and a few are parasites. Many are preyed on by other animals including starfish, sea slugs, fish, turtles, and even other cnidarians. Many scleractinian corals—which form the structural foundation for coral reefs—possess polyps that are filled with symbiotic photo-synthetic zooxanthellae. While reef-forming corals are almost entirely restricted to warm and shallow marine waters, other cnidarians can be found at great depths, in polar regions, and in freshwater.
Cnidarians are a very ancient phylum, with fossils having been found in rocks formed about 580 million years ago during the Ediacaran period, preceding the Cambrian Explosion, and other fossils show that corals may have been present shortly before 490 million years ago and diversified a few million years later. However, molecular clock analysis of mitochondrial genes suggests a much older age for the crown group of cnidarians, estimated around 741 million years ago, almost 200 million years before the Cambrian period, as well as any fossils. Recent phylogenetic analyses support monophyly of cnidarians, as well as the position of cnidarians as the sister group of bilaterians.
Cnidarians form a phylum of animals that are more complex than sponges, about as complex as ctenophores (comb jellies), and less complex than bilaterians, which include almost all other animals. Both cnidarians and ctenophores are more complex than sponges as they have: cells bound by inter-cell connections and carpet-like basement membranes; muscles; nervous systems; and some have sensory organs. Cnidarians are distinguished from all other animals by having cnidocytes that fire harpoon-like structures and are usually used mainly to capture prey. In some species, cnidocytes can also be used as anchors. Cnidarians are also distinguished by the fact that they have only one opening in their body for ingestion and excretion i.e. they do not have a separate mouth and anus.
Like sponges and ctenophores, cnidarians have two main layers of cells that sandwich a middle layer of jelly-like material, which is called the mesoglea in cnidarians; more complex animals have three main cell layers and no intermediate jelly-like layer. Hence, cnidarians and ctenophores have traditionally been labelled diploblastic, along with sponges. However, both cnidarians and ctenophores have a type of muscle that, in more complex animals, arises from the middle cell layer. As a result, some recent text books classify ctenophores as triploblastic, and it has been suggested that cnidarians evolved from triploblastic ancestors.
Most adult cnidarians appear as either free-swimming medusae or sessile polyps, and many hydrozoans species are known to alternate between the two forms.
Both are radially symmetrical, like a wheel and a tube respectively. Since these animals have no heads, their ends are described as "oral" (nearest the mouth) and "aboral" (furthest from the mouth).
Most have fringes of tentacles equipped with cnidocytes around their edges, and medusae generally have an inner ring of tentacles around the mouth. Some hydroids may consist of colonies of zooids that serve different purposes, such as defense, reproduction and catching prey. The mesoglea of polyps is usually thin and often soft, but that of medusae is usually thick and springy, so that it returns to its original shape after muscles around the edge have contracted to squeeze water out, enabling medusae to swim by a sort of jet propulsion.
In medusae the only supporting structure is the mesoglea. Hydra and most sea anemones close their mouths when they are not feeding, and the water in the digestive cavity then acts as a hydrostatic skeleton, rather like a water-filled balloon. Other polyps such as Tubularia use columns of water-filled cells for support. Sea pens stiffen the mesoglea with calcium carbonate spicules and tough fibrous proteins, rather like sponges.
In some colonial polyps, a chitinous epidermis gives support and some protection to the connecting sections and to the lower parts of individual polyps. Stony corals secrete massive calcium carbonate exoskeletons. A few polyps collect materials such as sand grains and shell fragments, which they attach to their outsides. Some colonial sea anemones stiffen the mesoglea with sediment particles.
Cnidaria are diploblastic animals; in other words, they have two main cell layers, while more complex animals are triploblasts having three main layers. The two main cell layers of cnidarians form epithelia that are mostly one cell thick, and are attached to a fibrous basement membrane, which they secrete. They also secrete the jelly-like mesoglea that separates the layers. The layer that faces outwards, known as the ectoderm ("outside skin"), generally contains the following types of cells:
In addition to epitheliomuscular, nerve and interstitial cells, the inward-facing gastroderm ("stomach skin") contains gland cells that secrete digestive enzymes. In some species it also contains low concentrations of cnidocytes, which are used to subdue prey that is still struggling.
The mesoglea contains small numbers of amoeba-like cells, and muscle cells in some species. However, the number of middle-layer cells and types are much lower than in sponges.
Polymorphism refers to the occurrence of structurally and functionally more than two different types of individuals within the same organism. It is a characteristic feature of Cnidarians, particularly the polyp and medusa forms, or of zooids within colonial organisms like those in Hydrozoa. In Hydrozoans, colonial individuals arising from individuals zooids will take on separate tasks. For example, in Obelia there are feeding individuals, the gastrozooids; the individuals capable of asexual reproduction only, the gonozooids, blastostyles and free-living or sexually reproducing individuals, the medusae.
These "nettle cells" function as harpoons, since their payloads remain connected to the bodies of the cells by threads. Three types of cnidocytes are known:
The main components of a cnidocyte are:
It is difficult to study the firing mechanisms of cnidocytes as these structures are small but very complex. At least four hypotheses have been proposed:
Cnidocytes can only fire once, and about 25% of a hydra's nematocysts are lost from its tentacles when capturing a brine shrimp. Used cnidocytes have to be replaced, which takes about 48 hours. To minimise wasteful firing, two types of stimulus are generally required to trigger cnidocytes: nearby sensory cells detect chemicals in the water, and their cilia respond to contact. This combination prevents them from firing at distant or non-living objects. Groups of cnidocytes are usually connected by nerves and, if one fires, the rest of the group requires a weaker minimum stimulus than the cells that fire first.
Medusae swim by a form of jet propulsion: muscles, especially inside the rim of the bell, squeeze water out of the cavity inside the bell, and the springiness of the mesoglea powers the recovery stroke. Since the tissue layers are very thin, they provide too little power to swim against currents and just enough to control movement within currents.
Hydras and some sea anemones can move slowly over rocks and sea or stream beds by various means: creeping like snails, crawling like inchworms, or by somersaulting. A few can swim clumsily by waggling their bases.
Cnidarians are generally thought to have no brains or even central nervous systems. However, they do have integrative areas of neural tissue that could be considered some form of centralization. Most of their bodies are innervated by decentralized nerve nets that control their swimming musculature and connect with sensory structures, though each clade has slightly different structures. These sensory structures, usually called rhopalia, can generate signals in response to various types of stimuli such as light, pressure, and much more. Medusa usually have several of them around the margin of the bell that work together to control the motor nerve net, that directly innervates the swimming muscles. Most Cnidarians also have a parallel system. In scyphozoans, this takes the form of a diffuse nerve net, which has modulatory effects on the nervous system. As well as forming the "signal cables" between sensory neurons and motoneurons, intermediate neurons in the nerve net can also form ganglia that act as local coordination centers. Communication between nerve cells can occur by chemical synapses or gap junctions in hydrozoans, though gap junctions are not present in all groups. Cnidarians have many of the same neurotransmitters as many animals, including chemicals such as glutamate, GABA, and acetylcholine.
This structure ensures that the musculature is excited rapidly and simultaneously, and can be directly stimulated from any point on the body, and it also is better able to recover after injury.
Medusae and complex swimming colonies such as siphonophores and chondrophores sense tilt and acceleration by means of statocysts, chambers lined with hairs which detect the movements of internal mineral grains called statoliths. If the body tilts in the wrong direction, the animal rights itself by increasing the strength of the swimming movements on the side that is too low. Most species have ocelli ("simple eyes"), which can detect sources of light. However, the agile box jellyfish are unique among Medusae because they possess four kinds of true eyes that have retinas, corneas and lenses. Although the eyes probably do not form images, Cubozoa can clearly distinguish the direction from which light is coming as well as negotiate around solid-colored objects.
Cnidarians feed in several ways: predation, absorbing dissolved organic chemicals, filtering food particles out of the water, obtaining nutrients from symbiotic algae within their cells, and parasitism. Most obtain the majority of their food from predation but some, including the corals Hetroxenia and Leptogorgia, depend almost completely on their endosymbionts and on absorbing dissolved nutrients. Cnidaria give their symbiotic algae carbon dioxide, some nutrients, and protection against predators.
Predatory species use their cnidocytes to poison or entangle prey, and those with venomous nematocysts may start digestion by injecting digestive enzymes. The "smell" of fluids from wounded prey makes the tentacles fold inwards and wipe the prey off into the mouth. In medusae the tentacles round the edge of the bell are often short and most of the prey capture is done by "oral arms", which are extensions of the edge of the mouth and are often frilled and sometimes branched to increase their surface area. Medusae often trap prey or suspended food particles by swimming upwards, spreading their tentacles and oral arms and then sinking. In species for which suspended food particles are important, the tentacles and oral arms often have rows of cilia whose beating creates currents that flow towards the mouth, and some produce nets of mucus to trap particles. Their digestion is both intra and extracellular.
Once the food is in the digestive cavity, gland cells in the gastroderm release enzymes that reduce the prey to slurry, usually within a few hours. This circulates through the digestive cavity and, in colonial cnidarians, through the connecting tunnels, so that gastroderm cells can absorb the nutrients. Absorption may take a few hours, and digestion within the cells may take a few days. The circulation of nutrients is driven by water currents produced by cilia in the gastroderm or by muscular movements or both, so that nutrients reach all parts of the digestive cavity. Nutrients reach the outer cell layer by diffusion or, for animals or zooids such as medusae which have thick mesogleas, are transported by mobile cells in the mesoglea.
Indigestible remains of prey are expelled through the mouth. The main waste product of cells' internal processes is ammonia, which is removed by the external and internal water currents.
There are no respiratory organs, and both cell layers absorb oxygen from and expel carbon dioxide into the surrounding water. When the water in the digestive cavity becomes stale it must be replaced, and nutrients that have not been absorbed will be expelled with it. Some Anthozoa have ciliated grooves on their tentacles, allowing them to pump water out of and into the digestive cavity without opening the mouth. This improves respiration after feeding and allows these animals, which use the cavity as a hydrostatic skeleton, to control the water pressure in the cavity without expelling undigested food.
Cnidaria that carry photosynthetic symbionts may have the opposite problem, an excess of oxygen, which may prove toxic. The animals produce large quantities of antioxidants to neutralize the excess oxygen.
All cnidarians can regenerate, allowing them to recover from injury and to reproduce asexually. Medusae have limited ability to regenerate, but polyps can do so from small pieces or even collections of separated cells. This enables corals to recover even after apparently being destroyed by predators.
Cnidarian sexual reproduction often involves a complex life cycle with both polyp and medusa stages. For example, in Scyphozoa (jellyfish) and Cubozoa (box jellies) a larva swims until it finds a good site, and then becomes a polyp. This grows normally but then absorbs its tentacles and splits horizontally into a series of disks that become juvenile medusae, a process called strobilation. The juveniles swim off and slowly grow to maturity, while the polyp re-grows and may continue strobilating periodically. The adults have gonads in the gastroderm, and these release ova and sperm into the water in the breeding season.
This phenomenon of succession of differently organized generations (one asexually reproducing, sessile polyp, followed by a free-swimming medusa or a sessile polyp that reproduces sexually) is sometimes called "alternation of asexual and sexual phases" or "metagenesis", but should not be confused with the alternation of generations as found in plants.
Shortened forms of this life cycle are common, for example some oceanic scyphozoans omit the polyp stage completely, and cubozoan polyps produce only one medusa. Hydrozoa have a variety of life cycles. Some have no polyp stages and some (e.g. hydra) have no medusae. In some species, the medusae remain attached to the polyp and are responsible for sexual reproduction; in extreme cases these reproductive zooids may not look much like medusae. Meanwhile, life cycle reversal, in which polyps are formed directly from medusae without the involvement of sexual reproduction process, was observed in both Hydrozoa (Turritopsis dohrnii and Laodicea undulata) and Scyphozoa (Aurelia sp.1). Anthozoa have no medusa stage at all and the polyps are responsible for sexual reproduction.
Spawning is generally driven by environmental factors such as changes in the water temperature, and their release is triggered by lighting conditions such as sunrise, sunset or the phase of the moon. Many species of Cnidaria may spawn simultaneously in the same location, so that there are too many ova and sperm for predators to eat more than a tiny percentage — one famous example is the Great Barrier Reef, where at least 110 corals and a few non-cnidarian invertebrates produce enough gametes to turn the water cloudy. These mass spawnings may produce hybrids, some of which can settle and form polyps, but it is not known how long these can survive. In some species the ova release chemicals that attract sperm of the same species.
The fertilized eggs develop into larvae by dividing until there are enough cells to form a hollow sphere (blastula) and then a depression forms at one end (gastrulation) and eventually becomes the digestive cavity. However, in cnidarians the depression forms at the end further from the yolk (at the animal pole), while in bilaterians it forms at the other end (vegetal pole). The larvae, called planulae, swim or crawl by means of cilia. They are cigar-shaped but slightly broader at the "front" end, which is the aboral, vegetal-pole end and eventually attaches to a substrate if the species has a polyp stage.
Anthozoan larvae either have large yolks or are capable of feeding on plankton, and some already have endosymbiotic algae that help to feed them. Since the parents are immobile, these feeding capabilities extend the larvae's range and avoid overcrowding of sites. Scyphozoan and hydrozoan larvae have little yolk and most lack endosymbiotic algae, and therefore have to settle quickly and metamorphose into polyps. Instead, these species rely on their medusae to extend their ranges.
All known cnidaria can reproduce asexually by various means, in addition to regenerating after being fragmented. Hydrozoan polyps only bud, while the medusae of some hydrozoans can divide down the middle. Scyphozoan polyps can both bud and split down the middle. In addition to both of these methods, Anthozoa can split horizontally just above the base. Asexual reproduction makes the daughter cnidarian a clone of the adult.
Two classical DNA repair pathways, nucleotide excision repair and base excision repair, are present in hydra, and these repair pathways facilitate unhindered reproduction. The identification of these pathways in hydra is based, in part, on the presence in the hydra genome of genes homologous to genes in other genetically well studied species that have been demonstrated to play key roles in these DNA repair pathways.
Cnidarians were for a long time grouped with Ctenophores in the phylum Coelenterata, but increasing awareness of their differences caused them to be placed in separate phyla. Modern cnidarians are generally classified into four main classes: sessile Anthozoa (sea anemones, corals, sea pens); swimming Scyphozoa (jellyfish) and Cubozoa (box jellies); and Hydrozoa, a diverse group that includes all the freshwater cnidarians as well as many marine forms, and has both sessile members such as Hydra and colonial swimmers such as the Portuguese Man o' War. Staurozoa have recently been recognised as a class in their own right rather than a sub-group of Scyphozoa, and the parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa are now recognized as highly derived cnidarians rather than more closely related to the bilaterians.
Stauromedusae, small sessile cnidarians with stalks and no medusa stage, have traditionally been classified as members of the Scyphozoa, but recent research suggests they should be regarded as a separate class, Staurozoa.
The Myxozoa, microscopic parasites, were first classified as protozoans. Research then found that Polypodium hydriforme, a non-Myxozoan parasite within the egg cells of sturgeon, is closely related to the Myxozoa and suggested that both Polypodium and the Myxozoa were intermediate between cnidarians and bilaterian animals. More recent research demonstrates that the previous identification of bilaterian genes reflected contamination of the Myxozoan samples by material from their host organism, and they are now firmly identified as heavily derived cnidarians, and more closely related to Hydrozoa and Scyphozoa than to Anthozoa.
Some researchers classify the extinct conulariids as cnidarians, while others propose that they form a completely separate phylum.
Current classification according to the World Register of Marine Species:
Many cnidarians are limited to shallow waters because they depend on endosymbiotic algae for much of their nutrients. The life cycles of most have polyp stages, which are limited to locations that offer stable substrates. Nevertheless, major cnidarian groups contain species that have escaped these limitations. Hydrozoans have a worldwide range: some, such as Hydra, live in freshwater; Obelia appears in the coastal waters of all the oceans; and Liriope can form large shoals near the surface in mid-ocean. Among anthozoans, a few scleractinian corals, sea pens and sea fans live in deep, cold waters, and some sea anemones inhabit polar seabeds while others live near hydrothermal vents over 10 km (33,000 ft) below sea-level. Reef-building corals are limited to tropical seas between 30°N and 30°S with a maximum depth of 46 m (151 ft), temperatures between 20 and 28 °C (68 and 82 °F), high salinity, and low carbon dioxide levels. Stauromedusae, although usually classified as jellyfish, are stalked, sessile animals that live in cool to Arctic waters. Cnidarians range in size from a mere handful of cells for the parasitic myxozoans through Hydra's length of 5–20 mm (1⁄4–3⁄4 in), to the Lion's mane jellyfish, which may exceed 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in diameter and 75 m (246 ft) in length.
Prey of cnidarians ranges from plankton to animals several times larger than themselves. Some cnidarians are parasites, mainly on jellyfish but a few are major pests of fish. Others obtain most of their nourishment from endosymbiotic algae or dissolved nutrients. Predators of cnidarians include: sea slugs, flatworms and comb jellies, which can incorporate nematocysts into their own bodies for self-defense (nematocysts used by cnidarian predators are referred to as kleptocnidae); starfish, notably the crown of thorns starfish, which can devastate corals; butterfly fish and parrot fish, which eat corals; and marine turtles, which eat jellyfish. Some sea anemones and jellyfish have a symbiotic relationship with some fish; for example clownfish live among the tentacles of sea anemones, and each partner protects the other against predators.
Coral reefs form some of the world's most productive ecosystems. Common coral reef cnidarians include both Anthozoans (hard corals, octocorals, anemones) and Hydrozoans (fire corals, lace corals). The endosymbiotic algae of many cnidarian species are very effective primary producers, in other words converters of inorganic chemicals into organic ones that other organisms can use, and their coral hosts use these organic chemicals very efficiently. In addition, reefs provide complex and varied habitats that support a wide range of other organisms. Fringing reefs just below low-tide level also have a mutually beneficial relationship with mangrove forests at high-tide level and seagrass meadows in between: the reefs protect the mangroves and seagrass from strong currents and waves that would damage them or erode the sediments in which they are rooted, while the mangroves and seagrass protect the coral from large influxes of silt, fresh water and pollutants. This additional level of variety in the environment is beneficial to many types of coral reef animals, which for example may feed in the sea grass and use the reefs for protection or breeding.
The earliest widely accepted animal fossils are rather modern-looking cnidarians, possibly from around 580 million years ago, although fossils from the Doushantuo Formation can only be dated approximately. The identification of some of these as embryos of animals has been contested, but other fossils from these rocks strongly resemble tubes and other mineralized structures made by corals. Their presence implies that the cnidarian and bilaterian lineages had already diverged. Although the Ediacaran fossil Charnia used to be classified as a jellyfish or sea pen, more recent study of growth patterns in Charnia and modern cnidarians has cast doubt on this hypothesis, leaving the Canadian polyp Haootia and the British Auroralumina as the only recognized cnidarian body fossils from the Ediacaran. Auroralumina is the earliest known animal predator. Few fossils of cnidarians without mineralized skeletons are known from more recent rocks, except in lagerstätten that preserved soft-bodied animals.
A few mineralized fossils that resemble corals have been found in rocks from the Cambrian period, and corals diversified in the Early Ordovician. These corals, which were wiped out in the Permian–Triassic extinction event about 252 million years ago, did not dominate reef construction since sponges and algae also played a major part. During the Mesozoic era rudist bivalves were the main reef-builders, but they were wiped out in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, and since then the main reef-builders have been scleractinian corals.
It is difficult to reconstruct the early stages in the evolutionary "family tree" of animals using only morphology (their shapes and structures), because the large differences between Porifera (sponges), Cnidaria plus Ctenophora (comb jellies), Placozoa and Bilateria (all the more complex animals) make comparisons difficult. Hence reconstructions now rely largely or entirely on molecular phylogenetics, which groups organisms according to similarities and differences in their biochemistry, usually in their DNA or RNA.
It is now generally thought that the Calcarea (sponges with calcium carbonate spicules) are more closely related to Cnidaria, Ctenophora (comb jellies) and Bilateria (all the more complex animals) than they are to the other groups of sponges. In 1866 it was proposed that Cnidaria and Ctenophora were more closely related to each other than to Bilateria and formed a group called Coelenterata ("hollow guts"), because Cnidaria and Ctenophora both rely on the flow of water in and out of a single cavity for feeding, excretion and respiration. In 1881, it was proposed that Ctenophora and Bilateria were more closely related to each other, since they shared features that Cnidaria lack, for example muscles in the middle layer (mesoglea in Ctenophora, mesoderm in Bilateria). However more recent analyses indicate that these similarities are rather vague, and the current view, based on molecular phylogenetics, is that Cnidaria and Bilateria are more closely related to each other than either is to Ctenophora. This grouping of Cnidaria and Bilateria has been labelled "Planulozoa" because it suggests that the earliest Bilateria were similar to the planula larvae of Cnidaria.
Within the Cnidaria, the Anthozoa (sea anemones and corals) are regarded as the sister-group of the rest, which suggests that the earliest cnidarians were sessile polyps with no medusa stage. However, it is unclear how the other groups acquired the medusa stage, since Hydrozoa form medusae by budding from the side of the polyp while the other Medusozoa do so by splitting them off from the tip of the polyp. The traditional grouping of Scyphozoa included the Staurozoa, but morphology and molecular phylogenetics indicate that Staurozoa are more closely related to Cubozoa (box jellies) than to other "Scyphozoa". Similarities in the double body walls of Staurozoa and the extinct Conulariida suggest that they are closely related.
However, in 2005 Katja Seipel and Volker Schmid suggested that cnidarians and ctenophores are simplified descendants of triploblastic animals, since ctenophores and the medusa stage of some cnidarians have striated muscle, which in bilaterians arises from the mesoderm. They did not commit themselves on whether bilaterians evolved from early cnidarians or from the hypothesized triploblastic ancestors of cnidarians.
In molecular phylogenetics analyses from 2005 onwards, important groups of developmental genes show the same variety in cnidarians as in chordates. In fact cnidarians, and especially anthozoans (sea anemones and corals), retain some genes that are present in bacteria, protists, plants and fungi but not in bilaterians.
The mitochondrial genome in the medusozoan cnidarians, unlike those in other animals, is linear with fragmented genes. The reason for this difference is unknown.
Jellyfish stings killed about 1,500 people in the 20th century, and cubozoans are particularly dangerous. On the other hand, some large jellyfish are considered a delicacy in East and Southeast Asia. Coral reefs have long been economically important as providers of fishing grounds, protectors of shore buildings against currents and tides, and more recently as centers of tourism. However, they are vulnerable to over-fishing, mining for construction materials, pollution, and damage caused by tourism.
Beaches protected from tides and storms by coral reefs are often the best places for housing in tropical countries. Reefs are an important food source for low-technology fishing, both on the reefs themselves and in the adjacent seas. However, despite their great productivity, reefs are vulnerable to over-fishing, because much of the organic carbon they produce is exhaled as carbon dioxide by organisms at the middle levels of the food chain and never reaches the larger species that are of interest to fishermen. Tourism centered on reefs provides much of the income of some tropical islands, attracting photographers, divers and sports fishermen. However, human activities damage reefs in several ways: mining for construction materials; pollution, including large influxes of fresh water from storm drains; commercial fishing, including the use of dynamite to stun fish and the capture of young fish for aquariums; and tourist damage caused by boat anchors and the cumulative effect of walking on the reefs. Coral, mainly from the Pacific Ocean has long been used in jewellery, and demand rose sharply in the 1980s.
Some large jellyfish species of the Rhizostomeae order are commonly consumed in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. In parts of the range, fishing industry is restricted to daylight hours and calm conditions in two short seasons, from March to May and August to November. The commercial value of jellyfish food products depends on the skill with which they are prepared, and "Jellyfish Masters" guard their trade secrets carefully. Jellyfish is very low in cholesterol and sugars, but cheap preparation can introduce undesirable amounts of heavy metals.
The "sea wasp" Chironex fleckeri has been described as the world's most venomous jellyfish and is held responsible for 67 deaths, although it is difficult to identify the animal as it is almost transparent. Most stingings by C. fleckeri cause only mild symptoms. Seven other box jellies can cause a set of symptoms called Irukandji syndrome, which takes about 30 minutes to develop, and from a few hours to two weeks to disappear. Hospital treatment is usually required, and there have been a few deaths.
A number of the parasitic Myxozoans are commercially important pathogens in salmonid aquaculture. A Scyphozoa species – Pelagia noctiluca – and a Hydrozoa – Muggiaea atlantica – have caused repeated mass mortality in salmon farms over the years around Ireland. A loss valued at £1 million struck in November 2007, 20,000 died off Clare Island in 2013 and four fish farms collectively lost tens of thousands of salmon in September 2017. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cnidaria (/nɪˈdɛəriə, naɪ-/) is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments (predominantly the latter), including jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemone, corals and some of the smallest marine parasites. Their distinguishing features are a decentralized nervous system distributed throughout a gelatinous body and the presence of cnidocytes or cnidoblasts, specialized cells with ejectable flagella used mainly for envenomation and capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell thick.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cnidarians mostly have two basic body forms: swimming medusae and sessile polyps, both of which are radially symmetrical with mouths surrounded by tentacles that bear cnidocytes. Both forms have a single orifice and body cavity that are used for digestion and respiration. Many cnidarian species produce colonies that are single organisms composed of medusa-like or polyp-like zooids, or both (hence they are trimorphic). Cnidarians' activities are coordinated by a decentralized nerve net and simple receptors. Several free-swimming species of Cubozoa and Scyphozoa possess balance-sensing statocysts, and some have simple eyes. Not all cnidarians reproduce sexually, but many species have complex life cycles of asexual polyp stages and sexual medusae stages. Some, however, omit either the polyp or the medusa stage, and the parasitic classes evolved to have neither form.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Cnidarians were formerly grouped with ctenophores in the phylum Coelenterata, but increasing awareness of their differences caused them to be placed in separate phyla. Cnidarians are classified into four main groups: the almost wholly sessile Anthozoa (sea anemones, corals, sea pens); swimming Scyphozoa (jellyfish); Cubozoa (box jellies); and Hydrozoa (a diverse group that includes all the freshwater cnidarians as well as many marine forms, and has both sessile members, such as Hydra, and colonial swimmers, such as the Portuguese man o' war). Staurozoa have recently been recognised as a class in their own right rather than a sub-group of Scyphozoa, and the highly derived parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa were firmly recognized as cnidarians in 2007.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Most cnidarians prey on organisms ranging in size from plankton to animals several times larger than themselves, but many obtain much of their nutrition from dinoflagellates, and a few are parasites. Many are preyed on by other animals including starfish, sea slugs, fish, turtles, and even other cnidarians. Many scleractinian corals—which form the structural foundation for coral reefs—possess polyps that are filled with symbiotic photo-synthetic zooxanthellae. While reef-forming corals are almost entirely restricted to warm and shallow marine waters, other cnidarians can be found at great depths, in polar regions, and in freshwater.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Cnidarians are a very ancient phylum, with fossils having been found in rocks formed about 580 million years ago during the Ediacaran period, preceding the Cambrian Explosion, and other fossils show that corals may have been present shortly before 490 million years ago and diversified a few million years later. However, molecular clock analysis of mitochondrial genes suggests a much older age for the crown group of cnidarians, estimated around 741 million years ago, almost 200 million years before the Cambrian period, as well as any fossils. Recent phylogenetic analyses support monophyly of cnidarians, as well as the position of cnidarians as the sister group of bilaterians.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Cnidarians form a phylum of animals that are more complex than sponges, about as complex as ctenophores (comb jellies), and less complex than bilaterians, which include almost all other animals. Both cnidarians and ctenophores are more complex than sponges as they have: cells bound by inter-cell connections and carpet-like basement membranes; muscles; nervous systems; and some have sensory organs. Cnidarians are distinguished from all other animals by having cnidocytes that fire harpoon-like structures and are usually used mainly to capture prey. In some species, cnidocytes can also be used as anchors. Cnidarians are also distinguished by the fact that they have only one opening in their body for ingestion and excretion i.e. they do not have a separate mouth and anus.",
"title": "Distinguishing features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Like sponges and ctenophores, cnidarians have two main layers of cells that sandwich a middle layer of jelly-like material, which is called the mesoglea in cnidarians; more complex animals have three main cell layers and no intermediate jelly-like layer. Hence, cnidarians and ctenophores have traditionally been labelled diploblastic, along with sponges. However, both cnidarians and ctenophores have a type of muscle that, in more complex animals, arises from the middle cell layer. As a result, some recent text books classify ctenophores as triploblastic, and it has been suggested that cnidarians evolved from triploblastic ancestors.",
"title": "Distinguishing features"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Most adult cnidarians appear as either free-swimming medusae or sessile polyps, and many hydrozoans species are known to alternate between the two forms.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Both are radially symmetrical, like a wheel and a tube respectively. Since these animals have no heads, their ends are described as \"oral\" (nearest the mouth) and \"aboral\" (furthest from the mouth).",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Most have fringes of tentacles equipped with cnidocytes around their edges, and medusae generally have an inner ring of tentacles around the mouth. Some hydroids may consist of colonies of zooids that serve different purposes, such as defense, reproduction and catching prey. The mesoglea of polyps is usually thin and often soft, but that of medusae is usually thick and springy, so that it returns to its original shape after muscles around the edge have contracted to squeeze water out, enabling medusae to swim by a sort of jet propulsion.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In medusae the only supporting structure is the mesoglea. Hydra and most sea anemones close their mouths when they are not feeding, and the water in the digestive cavity then acts as a hydrostatic skeleton, rather like a water-filled balloon. Other polyps such as Tubularia use columns of water-filled cells for support. Sea pens stiffen the mesoglea with calcium carbonate spicules and tough fibrous proteins, rather like sponges.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In some colonial polyps, a chitinous epidermis gives support and some protection to the connecting sections and to the lower parts of individual polyps. Stony corals secrete massive calcium carbonate exoskeletons. A few polyps collect materials such as sand grains and shell fragments, which they attach to their outsides. Some colonial sea anemones stiffen the mesoglea with sediment particles.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Cnidaria are diploblastic animals; in other words, they have two main cell layers, while more complex animals are triploblasts having three main layers. The two main cell layers of cnidarians form epithelia that are mostly one cell thick, and are attached to a fibrous basement membrane, which they secrete. They also secrete the jelly-like mesoglea that separates the layers. The layer that faces outwards, known as the ectoderm (\"outside skin\"), generally contains the following types of cells:",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "In addition to epitheliomuscular, nerve and interstitial cells, the inward-facing gastroderm (\"stomach skin\") contains gland cells that secrete digestive enzymes. In some species it also contains low concentrations of cnidocytes, which are used to subdue prey that is still struggling.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "The mesoglea contains small numbers of amoeba-like cells, and muscle cells in some species. However, the number of middle-layer cells and types are much lower than in sponges.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Polymorphism refers to the occurrence of structurally and functionally more than two different types of individuals within the same organism. It is a characteristic feature of Cnidarians, particularly the polyp and medusa forms, or of zooids within colonial organisms like those in Hydrozoa. In Hydrozoans, colonial individuals arising from individuals zooids will take on separate tasks. For example, in Obelia there are feeding individuals, the gastrozooids; the individuals capable of asexual reproduction only, the gonozooids, blastostyles and free-living or sexually reproducing individuals, the medusae.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "These \"nettle cells\" function as harpoons, since their payloads remain connected to the bodies of the cells by threads. Three types of cnidocytes are known:",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The main components of a cnidocyte are:",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "It is difficult to study the firing mechanisms of cnidocytes as these structures are small but very complex. At least four hypotheses have been proposed:",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Cnidocytes can only fire once, and about 25% of a hydra's nematocysts are lost from its tentacles when capturing a brine shrimp. Used cnidocytes have to be replaced, which takes about 48 hours. To minimise wasteful firing, two types of stimulus are generally required to trigger cnidocytes: nearby sensory cells detect chemicals in the water, and their cilia respond to contact. This combination prevents them from firing at distant or non-living objects. Groups of cnidocytes are usually connected by nerves and, if one fires, the rest of the group requires a weaker minimum stimulus than the cells that fire first.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Medusae swim by a form of jet propulsion: muscles, especially inside the rim of the bell, squeeze water out of the cavity inside the bell, and the springiness of the mesoglea powers the recovery stroke. Since the tissue layers are very thin, they provide too little power to swim against currents and just enough to control movement within currents.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Hydras and some sea anemones can move slowly over rocks and sea or stream beds by various means: creeping like snails, crawling like inchworms, or by somersaulting. A few can swim clumsily by waggling their bases.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Cnidarians are generally thought to have no brains or even central nervous systems. However, they do have integrative areas of neural tissue that could be considered some form of centralization. Most of their bodies are innervated by decentralized nerve nets that control their swimming musculature and connect with sensory structures, though each clade has slightly different structures. These sensory structures, usually called rhopalia, can generate signals in response to various types of stimuli such as light, pressure, and much more. Medusa usually have several of them around the margin of the bell that work together to control the motor nerve net, that directly innervates the swimming muscles. Most Cnidarians also have a parallel system. In scyphozoans, this takes the form of a diffuse nerve net, which has modulatory effects on the nervous system. As well as forming the \"signal cables\" between sensory neurons and motoneurons, intermediate neurons in the nerve net can also form ganglia that act as local coordination centers. Communication between nerve cells can occur by chemical synapses or gap junctions in hydrozoans, though gap junctions are not present in all groups. Cnidarians have many of the same neurotransmitters as many animals, including chemicals such as glutamate, GABA, and acetylcholine.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "This structure ensures that the musculature is excited rapidly and simultaneously, and can be directly stimulated from any point on the body, and it also is better able to recover after injury.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Medusae and complex swimming colonies such as siphonophores and chondrophores sense tilt and acceleration by means of statocysts, chambers lined with hairs which detect the movements of internal mineral grains called statoliths. If the body tilts in the wrong direction, the animal rights itself by increasing the strength of the swimming movements on the side that is too low. Most species have ocelli (\"simple eyes\"), which can detect sources of light. However, the agile box jellyfish are unique among Medusae because they possess four kinds of true eyes that have retinas, corneas and lenses. Although the eyes probably do not form images, Cubozoa can clearly distinguish the direction from which light is coming as well as negotiate around solid-colored objects.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Cnidarians feed in several ways: predation, absorbing dissolved organic chemicals, filtering food particles out of the water, obtaining nutrients from symbiotic algae within their cells, and parasitism. Most obtain the majority of their food from predation but some, including the corals Hetroxenia and Leptogorgia, depend almost completely on their endosymbionts and on absorbing dissolved nutrients. Cnidaria give their symbiotic algae carbon dioxide, some nutrients, and protection against predators.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Predatory species use their cnidocytes to poison or entangle prey, and those with venomous nematocysts may start digestion by injecting digestive enzymes. The \"smell\" of fluids from wounded prey makes the tentacles fold inwards and wipe the prey off into the mouth. In medusae the tentacles round the edge of the bell are often short and most of the prey capture is done by \"oral arms\", which are extensions of the edge of the mouth and are often frilled and sometimes branched to increase their surface area. Medusae often trap prey or suspended food particles by swimming upwards, spreading their tentacles and oral arms and then sinking. In species for which suspended food particles are important, the tentacles and oral arms often have rows of cilia whose beating creates currents that flow towards the mouth, and some produce nets of mucus to trap particles. Their digestion is both intra and extracellular.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Once the food is in the digestive cavity, gland cells in the gastroderm release enzymes that reduce the prey to slurry, usually within a few hours. This circulates through the digestive cavity and, in colonial cnidarians, through the connecting tunnels, so that gastroderm cells can absorb the nutrients. Absorption may take a few hours, and digestion within the cells may take a few days. The circulation of nutrients is driven by water currents produced by cilia in the gastroderm or by muscular movements or both, so that nutrients reach all parts of the digestive cavity. Nutrients reach the outer cell layer by diffusion or, for animals or zooids such as medusae which have thick mesogleas, are transported by mobile cells in the mesoglea.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Indigestible remains of prey are expelled through the mouth. The main waste product of cells' internal processes is ammonia, which is removed by the external and internal water currents.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "There are no respiratory organs, and both cell layers absorb oxygen from and expel carbon dioxide into the surrounding water. When the water in the digestive cavity becomes stale it must be replaced, and nutrients that have not been absorbed will be expelled with it. Some Anthozoa have ciliated grooves on their tentacles, allowing them to pump water out of and into the digestive cavity without opening the mouth. This improves respiration after feeding and allows these animals, which use the cavity as a hydrostatic skeleton, to control the water pressure in the cavity without expelling undigested food.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Cnidaria that carry photosynthetic symbionts may have the opposite problem, an excess of oxygen, which may prove toxic. The animals produce large quantities of antioxidants to neutralize the excess oxygen.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "All cnidarians can regenerate, allowing them to recover from injury and to reproduce asexually. Medusae have limited ability to regenerate, but polyps can do so from small pieces or even collections of separated cells. This enables corals to recover even after apparently being destroyed by predators.",
"title": "Description"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Cnidarian sexual reproduction often involves a complex life cycle with both polyp and medusa stages. For example, in Scyphozoa (jellyfish) and Cubozoa (box jellies) a larva swims until it finds a good site, and then becomes a polyp. This grows normally but then absorbs its tentacles and splits horizontally into a series of disks that become juvenile medusae, a process called strobilation. The juveniles swim off and slowly grow to maturity, while the polyp re-grows and may continue strobilating periodically. The adults have gonads in the gastroderm, and these release ova and sperm into the water in the breeding season.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "This phenomenon of succession of differently organized generations (one asexually reproducing, sessile polyp, followed by a free-swimming medusa or a sessile polyp that reproduces sexually) is sometimes called \"alternation of asexual and sexual phases\" or \"metagenesis\", but should not be confused with the alternation of generations as found in plants.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Shortened forms of this life cycle are common, for example some oceanic scyphozoans omit the polyp stage completely, and cubozoan polyps produce only one medusa. Hydrozoa have a variety of life cycles. Some have no polyp stages and some (e.g. hydra) have no medusae. In some species, the medusae remain attached to the polyp and are responsible for sexual reproduction; in extreme cases these reproductive zooids may not look much like medusae. Meanwhile, life cycle reversal, in which polyps are formed directly from medusae without the involvement of sexual reproduction process, was observed in both Hydrozoa (Turritopsis dohrnii and Laodicea undulata) and Scyphozoa (Aurelia sp.1). Anthozoa have no medusa stage at all and the polyps are responsible for sexual reproduction.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Spawning is generally driven by environmental factors such as changes in the water temperature, and their release is triggered by lighting conditions such as sunrise, sunset or the phase of the moon. Many species of Cnidaria may spawn simultaneously in the same location, so that there are too many ova and sperm for predators to eat more than a tiny percentage — one famous example is the Great Barrier Reef, where at least 110 corals and a few non-cnidarian invertebrates produce enough gametes to turn the water cloudy. These mass spawnings may produce hybrids, some of which can settle and form polyps, but it is not known how long these can survive. In some species the ova release chemicals that attract sperm of the same species.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The fertilized eggs develop into larvae by dividing until there are enough cells to form a hollow sphere (blastula) and then a depression forms at one end (gastrulation) and eventually becomes the digestive cavity. However, in cnidarians the depression forms at the end further from the yolk (at the animal pole), while in bilaterians it forms at the other end (vegetal pole). The larvae, called planulae, swim or crawl by means of cilia. They are cigar-shaped but slightly broader at the \"front\" end, which is the aboral, vegetal-pole end and eventually attaches to a substrate if the species has a polyp stage.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Anthozoan larvae either have large yolks or are capable of feeding on plankton, and some already have endosymbiotic algae that help to feed them. Since the parents are immobile, these feeding capabilities extend the larvae's range and avoid overcrowding of sites. Scyphozoan and hydrozoan larvae have little yolk and most lack endosymbiotic algae, and therefore have to settle quickly and metamorphose into polyps. Instead, these species rely on their medusae to extend their ranges.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "All known cnidaria can reproduce asexually by various means, in addition to regenerating after being fragmented. Hydrozoan polyps only bud, while the medusae of some hydrozoans can divide down the middle. Scyphozoan polyps can both bud and split down the middle. In addition to both of these methods, Anthozoa can split horizontally just above the base. Asexual reproduction makes the daughter cnidarian a clone of the adult.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Two classical DNA repair pathways, nucleotide excision repair and base excision repair, are present in hydra, and these repair pathways facilitate unhindered reproduction. The identification of these pathways in hydra is based, in part, on the presence in the hydra genome of genes homologous to genes in other genetically well studied species that have been demonstrated to play key roles in these DNA repair pathways.",
"title": "Reproduction"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Cnidarians were for a long time grouped with Ctenophores in the phylum Coelenterata, but increasing awareness of their differences caused them to be placed in separate phyla. Modern cnidarians are generally classified into four main classes: sessile Anthozoa (sea anemones, corals, sea pens); swimming Scyphozoa (jellyfish) and Cubozoa (box jellies); and Hydrozoa, a diverse group that includes all the freshwater cnidarians as well as many marine forms, and has both sessile members such as Hydra and colonial swimmers such as the Portuguese Man o' War. Staurozoa have recently been recognised as a class in their own right rather than a sub-group of Scyphozoa, and the parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa are now recognized as highly derived cnidarians rather than more closely related to the bilaterians.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Stauromedusae, small sessile cnidarians with stalks and no medusa stage, have traditionally been classified as members of the Scyphozoa, but recent research suggests they should be regarded as a separate class, Staurozoa.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The Myxozoa, microscopic parasites, were first classified as protozoans. Research then found that Polypodium hydriforme, a non-Myxozoan parasite within the egg cells of sturgeon, is closely related to the Myxozoa and suggested that both Polypodium and the Myxozoa were intermediate between cnidarians and bilaterian animals. More recent research demonstrates that the previous identification of bilaterian genes reflected contamination of the Myxozoan samples by material from their host organism, and they are now firmly identified as heavily derived cnidarians, and more closely related to Hydrozoa and Scyphozoa than to Anthozoa.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Some researchers classify the extinct conulariids as cnidarians, while others propose that they form a completely separate phylum.",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Current classification according to the World Register of Marine Species:",
"title": "Classification"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "Many cnidarians are limited to shallow waters because they depend on endosymbiotic algae for much of their nutrients. The life cycles of most have polyp stages, which are limited to locations that offer stable substrates. Nevertheless, major cnidarian groups contain species that have escaped these limitations. Hydrozoans have a worldwide range: some, such as Hydra, live in freshwater; Obelia appears in the coastal waters of all the oceans; and Liriope can form large shoals near the surface in mid-ocean. Among anthozoans, a few scleractinian corals, sea pens and sea fans live in deep, cold waters, and some sea anemones inhabit polar seabeds while others live near hydrothermal vents over 10 km (33,000 ft) below sea-level. Reef-building corals are limited to tropical seas between 30°N and 30°S with a maximum depth of 46 m (151 ft), temperatures between 20 and 28 °C (68 and 82 °F), high salinity, and low carbon dioxide levels. Stauromedusae, although usually classified as jellyfish, are stalked, sessile animals that live in cool to Arctic waters. Cnidarians range in size from a mere handful of cells for the parasitic myxozoans through Hydra's length of 5–20 mm (1⁄4–3⁄4 in), to the Lion's mane jellyfish, which may exceed 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in diameter and 75 m (246 ft) in length.",
"title": "Ecology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Prey of cnidarians ranges from plankton to animals several times larger than themselves. Some cnidarians are parasites, mainly on jellyfish but a few are major pests of fish. Others obtain most of their nourishment from endosymbiotic algae or dissolved nutrients. Predators of cnidarians include: sea slugs, flatworms and comb jellies, which can incorporate nematocysts into their own bodies for self-defense (nematocysts used by cnidarian predators are referred to as kleptocnidae); starfish, notably the crown of thorns starfish, which can devastate corals; butterfly fish and parrot fish, which eat corals; and marine turtles, which eat jellyfish. Some sea anemones and jellyfish have a symbiotic relationship with some fish; for example clownfish live among the tentacles of sea anemones, and each partner protects the other against predators.",
"title": "Ecology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "Coral reefs form some of the world's most productive ecosystems. Common coral reef cnidarians include both Anthozoans (hard corals, octocorals, anemones) and Hydrozoans (fire corals, lace corals). The endosymbiotic algae of many cnidarian species are very effective primary producers, in other words converters of inorganic chemicals into organic ones that other organisms can use, and their coral hosts use these organic chemicals very efficiently. In addition, reefs provide complex and varied habitats that support a wide range of other organisms. Fringing reefs just below low-tide level also have a mutually beneficial relationship with mangrove forests at high-tide level and seagrass meadows in between: the reefs protect the mangroves and seagrass from strong currents and waves that would damage them or erode the sediments in which they are rooted, while the mangroves and seagrass protect the coral from large influxes of silt, fresh water and pollutants. This additional level of variety in the environment is beneficial to many types of coral reef animals, which for example may feed in the sea grass and use the reefs for protection or breeding.",
"title": "Ecology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The earliest widely accepted animal fossils are rather modern-looking cnidarians, possibly from around 580 million years ago, although fossils from the Doushantuo Formation can only be dated approximately. The identification of some of these as embryos of animals has been contested, but other fossils from these rocks strongly resemble tubes and other mineralized structures made by corals. Their presence implies that the cnidarian and bilaterian lineages had already diverged. Although the Ediacaran fossil Charnia used to be classified as a jellyfish or sea pen, more recent study of growth patterns in Charnia and modern cnidarians has cast doubt on this hypothesis, leaving the Canadian polyp Haootia and the British Auroralumina as the only recognized cnidarian body fossils from the Ediacaran. Auroralumina is the earliest known animal predator. Few fossils of cnidarians without mineralized skeletons are known from more recent rocks, except in lagerstätten that preserved soft-bodied animals.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "A few mineralized fossils that resemble corals have been found in rocks from the Cambrian period, and corals diversified in the Early Ordovician. These corals, which were wiped out in the Permian–Triassic extinction event about 252 million years ago, did not dominate reef construction since sponges and algae also played a major part. During the Mesozoic era rudist bivalves were the main reef-builders, but they were wiped out in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, and since then the main reef-builders have been scleractinian corals.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "It is difficult to reconstruct the early stages in the evolutionary \"family tree\" of animals using only morphology (their shapes and structures), because the large differences between Porifera (sponges), Cnidaria plus Ctenophora (comb jellies), Placozoa and Bilateria (all the more complex animals) make comparisons difficult. Hence reconstructions now rely largely or entirely on molecular phylogenetics, which groups organisms according to similarities and differences in their biochemistry, usually in their DNA or RNA.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "It is now generally thought that the Calcarea (sponges with calcium carbonate spicules) are more closely related to Cnidaria, Ctenophora (comb jellies) and Bilateria (all the more complex animals) than they are to the other groups of sponges. In 1866 it was proposed that Cnidaria and Ctenophora were more closely related to each other than to Bilateria and formed a group called Coelenterata (\"hollow guts\"), because Cnidaria and Ctenophora both rely on the flow of water in and out of a single cavity for feeding, excretion and respiration. In 1881, it was proposed that Ctenophora and Bilateria were more closely related to each other, since they shared features that Cnidaria lack, for example muscles in the middle layer (mesoglea in Ctenophora, mesoderm in Bilateria). However more recent analyses indicate that these similarities are rather vague, and the current view, based on molecular phylogenetics, is that Cnidaria and Bilateria are more closely related to each other than either is to Ctenophora. This grouping of Cnidaria and Bilateria has been labelled \"Planulozoa\" because it suggests that the earliest Bilateria were similar to the planula larvae of Cnidaria.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Within the Cnidaria, the Anthozoa (sea anemones and corals) are regarded as the sister-group of the rest, which suggests that the earliest cnidarians were sessile polyps with no medusa stage. However, it is unclear how the other groups acquired the medusa stage, since Hydrozoa form medusae by budding from the side of the polyp while the other Medusozoa do so by splitting them off from the tip of the polyp. The traditional grouping of Scyphozoa included the Staurozoa, but morphology and molecular phylogenetics indicate that Staurozoa are more closely related to Cubozoa (box jellies) than to other \"Scyphozoa\". Similarities in the double body walls of Staurozoa and the extinct Conulariida suggest that they are closely related.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "However, in 2005 Katja Seipel and Volker Schmid suggested that cnidarians and ctenophores are simplified descendants of triploblastic animals, since ctenophores and the medusa stage of some cnidarians have striated muscle, which in bilaterians arises from the mesoderm. They did not commit themselves on whether bilaterians evolved from early cnidarians or from the hypothesized triploblastic ancestors of cnidarians.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "In molecular phylogenetics analyses from 2005 onwards, important groups of developmental genes show the same variety in cnidarians as in chordates. In fact cnidarians, and especially anthozoans (sea anemones and corals), retain some genes that are present in bacteria, protists, plants and fungi but not in bilaterians.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "The mitochondrial genome in the medusozoan cnidarians, unlike those in other animals, is linear with fragmented genes. The reason for this difference is unknown.",
"title": "Evolutionary history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "Jellyfish stings killed about 1,500 people in the 20th century, and cubozoans are particularly dangerous. On the other hand, some large jellyfish are considered a delicacy in East and Southeast Asia. Coral reefs have long been economically important as providers of fishing grounds, protectors of shore buildings against currents and tides, and more recently as centers of tourism. However, they are vulnerable to over-fishing, mining for construction materials, pollution, and damage caused by tourism.",
"title": "Interaction with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Beaches protected from tides and storms by coral reefs are often the best places for housing in tropical countries. Reefs are an important food source for low-technology fishing, both on the reefs themselves and in the adjacent seas. However, despite their great productivity, reefs are vulnerable to over-fishing, because much of the organic carbon they produce is exhaled as carbon dioxide by organisms at the middle levels of the food chain and never reaches the larger species that are of interest to fishermen. Tourism centered on reefs provides much of the income of some tropical islands, attracting photographers, divers and sports fishermen. However, human activities damage reefs in several ways: mining for construction materials; pollution, including large influxes of fresh water from storm drains; commercial fishing, including the use of dynamite to stun fish and the capture of young fish for aquariums; and tourist damage caused by boat anchors and the cumulative effect of walking on the reefs. Coral, mainly from the Pacific Ocean has long been used in jewellery, and demand rose sharply in the 1980s.",
"title": "Interaction with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Some large jellyfish species of the Rhizostomeae order are commonly consumed in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. In parts of the range, fishing industry is restricted to daylight hours and calm conditions in two short seasons, from March to May and August to November. The commercial value of jellyfish food products depends on the skill with which they are prepared, and \"Jellyfish Masters\" guard their trade secrets carefully. Jellyfish is very low in cholesterol and sugars, but cheap preparation can introduce undesirable amounts of heavy metals.",
"title": "Interaction with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "The \"sea wasp\" Chironex fleckeri has been described as the world's most venomous jellyfish and is held responsible for 67 deaths, although it is difficult to identify the animal as it is almost transparent. Most stingings by C. fleckeri cause only mild symptoms. Seven other box jellies can cause a set of symptoms called Irukandji syndrome, which takes about 30 minutes to develop, and from a few hours to two weeks to disappear. Hospital treatment is usually required, and there have been a few deaths.",
"title": "Interaction with humans"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "A number of the parasitic Myxozoans are commercially important pathogens in salmonid aquaculture. A Scyphozoa species – Pelagia noctiluca – and a Hydrozoa – Muggiaea atlantica – have caused repeated mass mortality in salmon farms over the years around Ireland. A loss valued at £1 million struck in November 2007, 20,000 died off Clare Island in 2013 and four fish farms collectively lost tens of thousands of salmon in September 2017.",
"title": "Interaction with humans"
}
] | Cnidaria is a phylum under kingdom Animalia containing over 11,000 species of aquatic animals found both in freshwater and marine environments, including jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemone, corals and some of the smallest marine parasites. Their distinguishing features are a decentralized nervous system distributed throughout a gelatinous body and the presence of cnidocytes or cnidoblasts, specialized cells with ejectable flagella used mainly for envenomation and capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell thick. Cnidarians mostly have two basic body forms: swimming medusae and sessile polyps, both of which are radially symmetrical with mouths surrounded by tentacles that bear cnidocytes. Both forms have a single orifice and body cavity that are used for digestion and respiration. Many cnidarian species produce colonies that are single organisms composed of medusa-like or polyp-like zooids, or both. Cnidarians' activities are coordinated by a decentralized nerve net and simple receptors. Several free-swimming species of Cubozoa and Scyphozoa possess balance-sensing statocysts, and some have simple eyes. Not all cnidarians reproduce sexually, but many species have complex life cycles of asexual polyp stages and sexual medusae stages. Some, however, omit either the polyp or the medusa stage, and the parasitic classes evolved to have neither form. Cnidarians were formerly grouped with ctenophores in the phylum Coelenterata, but increasing awareness of their differences caused them to be placed in separate phyla. Cnidarians are classified into four main groups: the almost wholly sessile Anthozoa; swimming Scyphozoa (jellyfish); Cubozoa; and Hydrozoa. Staurozoa have recently been recognised as a class in their own right rather than a sub-group of Scyphozoa, and the highly derived parasitic Myxozoa and Polypodiozoa were firmly recognized as cnidarians in 2007. Most cnidarians prey on organisms ranging in size from plankton to animals several times larger than themselves, but many obtain much of their nutrition from dinoflagellates, and a few are parasites. Many are preyed on by other animals including starfish, sea slugs, fish, turtles, and even other cnidarians. Many scleractinian corals—which form the structural foundation for coral reefs—possess polyps that are filled with symbiotic photo-synthetic zooxanthellae. While reef-forming corals are almost entirely restricted to warm and shallow marine waters, other cnidarians can be found at great depths, in polar regions, and in freshwater. Cnidarians are a very ancient phylum, with fossils having been found in rocks formed about 580 million years ago during the Ediacaran period, preceding the Cambrian Explosion, and other fossils show that corals may have been present shortly before 490 million years ago and diversified a few million years later. However, molecular clock analysis of mitochondrial genes suggests a much older age for the crown group of cnidarians, estimated around 741 million years ago, almost 200 million years before the Cambrian period, as well as any fossils. Recent phylogenetic analyses support monophyly of cnidarians, as well as the position of cnidarians as the sister group of bilaterians. | 2001-09-30T15:37:23Z | 2023-12-19T19:00:09Z | [
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6,623 | Conservative Judaism | Conservative Judaism (known as Masorti Judaism outside North America) is a Jewish religious movement that regards the authority of Jewish law and tradition as emanating primarily from the assent of the people through the generations, more than from divine revelation. It therefore views Jewish law, or Halakha, as both binding and subject to historical development. The conservative rabbinate employs modern historical-critical research, rather than only traditional methods and sources, and lends great weight to its constituency, when determining its stance on matters of practice. The movement considers its approach as the authentic and most appropriate continuation of Halakhic discourse, maintaining both fealty to received forms and flexibility in their interpretation. It also eschews strict theological definitions, lacking a consensus in matters of faith and allowing great pluralism.
While regarding itself as the heir of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel's 19th-century positive-historical school in Europe, Conservative Judaism fully institutionalized only in the United States during the mid-20th century. Its largest center today is in North America, where its main congregational arm is the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and the New York–based Jewish Theological Seminary of America operates as its largest rabbinic seminary. Globally, affiliated communities are united within the umbrella organization Masorti Olami. Conservative Judaism is the third-largest Jewish religious movement worldwide, estimated to represent close to 1.1 million people, including over 600,000 registered adult congregants and many non-member identifiers.
Conservative Judaism, from its earliest stages, was marked by ambivalence and ambiguity in all matters theological. Rabbi Zecharias Frankel, considered its intellectual progenitor, believed the very notion of theology was alien to traditional Judaism. He was often accused of obscurity on the subject by his opponents, both Reform and Orthodox. The American movement largely espoused a similar approach, and its leaders mostly avoided the field. Only in 1985 did a course about Conservative theology open in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). The hitherto sole major attempt to define a clear credo was made in 1988, with the Statement of Principles Emet ve-Emunah (Truth and Belief), formulated and issued by the Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism. The introduction stated that "lack of definition was useful" in the past but a need to articulate one now arose. The platform provided many statements citing key concepts such as God, revelation and Election, but also acknowledged that a variety of positions and convictions existed within its ranks, eschewing strict delineation of principles and often expressing conflicting views. In a 1999 special edition of Conservative Judaism dedicated to the matter, leading rabbis Elliot N. Dorff and Gordon Tucker stated that "the great diversity" within the movement "makes the creation of a theological vision shared by all neither possible nor desirable".
Conservative Judaism largely upholds the theistic notion of a personal God. Emet ve-Emunah stated that "we affirm our faith in God as the Creator and Governor of the universe. His power called the world into being; His wisdom and goodness guide its destiny." Concurrently, the platform also noted that His nature was "elusive" and subject to many options of belief. A naturalistic conception of divinity, regarding it as inseparable from the mundane world, once had an important place within the movement, especially represented by Mordecai Kaplan. After Kaplan's Reconstructionism fully coalesced into an independent movement, these views were marginalized.
A similarly inconclusive position is expressed toward other precepts. Most theologians adhere to the Immortality of the Soul, but while references to the Resurrection of the Dead are maintained, English translations of the prayers obscure the issue. In Emet, it was stated that death is not tantamount to the end of one's personality. Relating to the Messianic ideal, the movement rephrased most petitions for the restoration of the Sacrifices into past tense, rejecting a renewal of animal offerings, though not opposing a Return to Zion and even a New Temple. The 1988 platform announced that "some" believe in classic eschatology, but dogmatism in this matter was "philosophically unjustified". The notions of Election of Israel and God's covenant with it were basically retained as well.
Conservative conception of Revelation encompasses an extensive spectrum. Zecharias Frankel himself applied critical-scientific methods to analyze the stages in the development of the Oral Torah, pioneering modern study of the Mishnah. He regarded the Beatified Sages as innovators who added their own, original contribution to the canon, not merely as expounders and interpreters of a legal system given in its entirety to Moses on Mount Sinai. Yet he also vehemently rejected utilizing these disciplines on the Pentateuch, maintaining it was beyond human reach and wholly celestial in origin. Frankel never elucidated his beliefs, and the exact correlation between human and divine in his thought is still subject to scholarly debate. A similar negative approach toward Higher Criticism, while accepting an evolutionary understanding of Oral Law, defined Rabbi Alexander Kohut, Solomon Schechter and the early generation of American Conservative Judaism. When JTS faculty began to embrace Biblical criticism in the 1920s, they adapted a theological view consistent with it: an original, verbal revelation did occur at Sinai, but the text itself was composed by later authors. The latter, classified by Dorff as a relatively moderate metamorphosis of the old one, is still espoused by few traditionalist right-wing Conservative rabbis, though it is marginalized among senior leadership.
A small but influential segment within the JTS and the movement adhered, from the 1930s, to Mordecai Kaplan's philosophy that denied any form of revelation but viewed all scripture as a purely human product. Along with other Reconstructionist tenets, it dwindled as the latter consolidated into a separate group. Kaplan's views and the permeation of Higher Criticism gradually swayed most Conservative thinkers towards a non-verbal understanding of theophany, which has become dominant in the 1970s. This was in sync with the wider trend of lowering rates of Americans who accepted the Bible as the Word of God. Dorff categorized the proponents of this into two schools. One maintains that God projected some form of message which inspired the human authors of the Pentateuch to record what they perceived. The other is often strongly influenced by Franz Rosenzweig and other existentialists, but also attracted many Objectivists who consider human reason paramount. The second school states that God conferred merely his presence on those he influenced, without any communication, and the experience drove them to spiritual creativity. While they differ in the theoretical level surrounding revelation, both practically regard all scripture and religious tradition as a human product with certain divine inspiration—providing an understanding that recognizes Biblical Criticism and also justifies major innovation in religious conduct. The first doctrine, advocated by such leaders as rabbis Ben-Zion Bokser and Robert Gordis, largely imparted that some elements within Judaism are fully divine but determining which would be impractical, and therefore received forms of interpretation should be basically upheld. Exponents of the latter view, among them rabbis Louis Jacobs and Neil Gillman, also emphasized the encounter of God with the Jews as a collective and the role of religious authorities through the generations in determining what it implied. The stress on the supremacy of community and tradition, rather than individual consciousness, defines the entire spectrum of Conservative thought.
The Conservative mainstay was the adoption of the historical-critical method in understanding Judaism and setting its future course. In accepting an evolutionary approach to the religion, as something that developed over time and absorbed considerable external influences, the movement distinguished between the original meaning implied in traditional sources and the manner they were grasped by successive generations, rejecting belief in an unbroken chain of interpretation from God's original Revelation, immune to any major extraneous effects. This evolutionary perception of religion, while relatively moderate in comparison with more radical modernizers—the scholarship of the Positive-Historical school, for example, sought to demonstrate the continuity and cohesiveness of Judaism over the years—still challenged Conservative leaders.
They regarded tradition and received mores with reverence, especially the continued adherence to the mechanism of Religious Law (Halakha), opposing indiscriminate modification, and emphasized they should be changed only with care and caution and remain observed by the people. Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, summarizing his movement's position, wrote:
We may now understand the apparent contradiction between theory and practice... One may conceive of the origin of Sabbath as the professor at university would, yet observe the smallest detail known to strict Orthodoxy... The sanctity of the Sabbath reposes not upon the fact that it was proclaimed on Sinai, but on the fact that it found for thousands of years its expression in Jewish souls. It is the task of the historian to examine the beginnings and developments of customs and observances; practical Judaism, on the other hand, is not concerned with origins but regards the institutions as they have come to be.
This discrepancy between scientific criticism and insistence on heritage had to be compensated by a conviction that would forestall either deviation from accepted norms or laxity and apathy.
A key doctrine which was to fulfil this capacity was the collective will of the Jewish people. Conservatives lent great weight in determining religious practice, both in historical precedent and as a means to shape present conduct. Zecharias Frankel pioneered this approach; as Michael A. Meyer commented, "the extraordinary status which he ascribed to the ingrained beliefs and practices of the community is probably the most original element of his thought." He turned it into a source of legitimacy for both change and preservation, but mostly the latter. The basic moderation and traditionalism of the majority among the people were to guarantee a sense of continuity and unity, restraining the guiding rabbis and scholars who at his age were intent on reform but also allowing them manoeuvrability in adopting or discarding certain elements. Solomon Schechter espoused a similar position. He turned the old rabbinic concept of K'lal Yisrael, which he translated as "Catholic Israel", into a comprehensive worldview. For him, the details of divine Revelation were of secondary significance, as historical change dictated its interpretation through the ages notwithstanding: "The centre of authority is actually removed from the Bible", he surmised, "and placed in some living body... in touch with the ideal aspirations and the religious needs of the age, best able to determine... This living body, however, is not represented by... Priesthood, or Rabbihood, but by the collective conscience of Catholic Israel."
The scope, limits and role of this corpus were a matter for contention in Conservative ranks. Schechter himself used it to oppose any major break with either traditionalist or progressive elements within American Jewry of his day, while some of his successors argued that the idea became obsolete due to the great alienation of many from received forms, that had to be countered by innovative measures to draw them back. The Conservative rabbinate often vacillated on to which degree may the non-practicing, religiously apathetic strata be included as a factor within Catholic Israel, providing impulse for them in determining religious questions; even avant-garde leaders acquiesced that the majority could not serve that function. Right-wing critics often charged that the movement allowed its uncommitted laity an exaggerated role, conceding to its demands and successively stretching halakhic boundaries beyond any limit.
The Conservative leadership had limited success in imparting their worldview to the general public. While the rabbinate perceived itself as bearing a unique, original conception of Judaism, the masses lacked much interest, regarding it mainly as a compromise offering a channel for religious identification that was more traditional than Reform Judaism yet less strict than Orthodoxy. Only a low percentage of Conservative congregants actively pursue an observant lifestyle: in the mid-1980s, Charles Liebman and Daniel J. Elazar calculated that barely 3 to 4 per cent held to one quite thoroughly. This gap between principle and the public, more pronounced than in any other Jewish movement, is often credited at explaining the decline of the Conservative movement. While some 41 per cent of American Jews identified with it in the 1970s, it had shrunk to an estimated 18 per cent (and 11 per cent among those under 30) in 2013.
Fidelity and commitment to Halakha, while subject to criticism as disingenuous both from within and without, were and remain a cornerstone doctrine of Conservative Judaism. The movement views the legalistic system as normative and binding, and believes Jews must practically observe its precepts, like Sabbath, dietary ordinances, ritual purity, daily prayer with phylacteries and the like. Concurrently, examining Jewish history and rabbinic literature through the lens of academic criticism, it maintained that these laws were always subject to considerable evolution, and must continue to do so. Emet ve-Emunah titled its chapter on the subject with "The Indispensability of Halakha", stating that "Halakha in its developing form is an indispensable element of a traditional Judaism which is vital and modern." Conservative Judaism regards itself as the authentic inheritor of a flexible legalistic tradition, charging the Orthodox with petrifying the process and Reform with abandoning it.
The tension between "tradition and change"—which were also the motto adopted by the movement since the 1950s—and the need to balance them were always a topic of intense debate within Conservative Judaism. In its early stages, the leadership opposed pronounced innovation, mostly adopting a relatively rigid position. Mordecai Kaplan's Reconstructionism raised the demand for thoroughgoing modification without much regard for the past or Halakhic considerations, but senior rabbis opposed him vigorously. Even in the 1940s and 1950s, when Kaplan's influence grew, his superiors rabbis Louis Ginzberg, Louis Finkelstein and Saul Lieberman espoused a very conservative line. Since the 1970s, with the strengthening of the liberal wing within the movement, the majority in the Rabbinic Assembly opted for quite radical reformulations in religious conduct, but rejected the Reconstructionist Non-Halakhic approach, insisting that the legalistic method be maintained. The Halakhic commitment of Conservative Judaism has been subject to much criticism, from within and without. Right-wing discontents, including the Union for Traditional Judaism which seceded in protest of the 1983 resolution to ordain women rabbis—adopted at an open vote, where all JTS faculty regardless of qualification were counted—contested the validity of this description, as well as progressives like Rabbi Neil Gillman, who exhorted the movement to cease describing itself as Halakhic in 2005, stating that after repeated concessions, "Our original claim has died a death by a thousand qualifications... It has lost all factual meaning."
The main body entrusted with formulating rulings, responsa and statues is the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), a panel with 25 voting legalistic specialists and further 11 observers. There is also the smaller Va'ad ha-Halakha (Law Committee) of Israel's Masorti Movement. Every responsa must receive a minimum of six voters to be considered an official position of the CJLS. Conservative Judaism explicitly acknowledges the principle of halakhic pluralism, enabling the panel to adopt more than one resolution in any given subject. The final authority in each Conservative community is the local rabbi, the Mara D'Atra (Lord of the Locality, in traditional terms), enfranchised to adopt either minority or majority opinions from the CJLS or maintain local practice. Thus, on the issue of admitting openly homosexual rabbinic candidates, the Committee approved two resolutions, one in favour and one against; the JTS took the lenient position, while the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano still adheres to the latter. Likewise, while most Conservative synagogues approved of egalitarianism for women in religious life, some still maintain traditional gender roles and do not count females for prayer quorums.
The Conservative treatment of Halakha is defined by several features, though the entire range of its Halakhic discourse cannot be sharply distinguished from either the Traditional or Orthodox one. Rabbi David Golinkin, who attempted to classify its parameters, stressed that quite often rulings merely reiterate conclusions reached in older sources or even Orthodox ones. For example, in the details of preparing Sabbath ritual enclosures, it draws directly on the opinions of the Shulchan Aruch and Rabbi Hayim David HaLevi. Another tendency prevalent among the movement's rabbis, yet again not particular to it, is the adoption of the more lenient positions on the matters at question—though this is not universal, and responsa also took stringent ones not infrequently.
A more distinctive characterization is a greater proclivity to base rulings on earlier sources, in the Rishonim or before them, as far back as the Talmud. Conservative decisors frequently resort to less canonical sources, isolated responsa or minority opinions. They demonstrate more fluidity in regards to established precedent and continuum in rabbinic literature, mainly those by the later authorities, and lay little stress on the perceived hierarchy between major and minor legalists of the past. They are far more inclined to contend (machloket) with old rulings, to be flexible towards custom or to wholly disregard it. This is especially expressed in less hesitancy to rule against or notwithstanding the major codifications of Jewish Law, like Mishneh Torah, Arba'ah Turim and especially the Shulchan Aruch with its Isserles Gloss and later commentaries. Conservative authorities, while often relying on the Shulchan Aruch themselves, criticize the Orthodox for relatively rarely venturing beyond it and overly canonizing Rabbi Joseph Karo's work. In several occasions, Conservative rabbis discerned that the Shulchan Aruch ruled without firm precedent, sometimes deriving his conclusions from the Kabbalah. An important example is the ruling of Rabbi Golinkin—contrary to the majority consensus among the Acharonim and the more prominent Rishonim, but based on many opinions of the lesser Rishonim which is derived from a minority view in the Talmud—that the Sabbatical Year is not obligatory in present times at all (neither de'Oraita nor de'Rabanan) but rather an act of piety.
Ethical considerations and the weight due to them in determining halakhic issues, mainly to what degree may modern sensibilities shape the outcome, are subject to much discourse. Right-wing decisors, like Rabbi Joel Roth, maintained that such elements are naturally a factor in formulating conclusions, but may not alone serve as a justification for adopting a position. The majority, however, basically subscribed to the opinion evinced already by Rabbi Seymour Siegel in the 1960s, that the cultural and ethical norms of the community, the contemporary equivalents of Talmudic Aggadah, should supersede the legalistic forms when the two came into conflict and there was a pivotal ethical concern. Rabbi Elliot Dorff concluded that in contrast to the Orthodox, Conservative Judaism maintains that the juridical details and processes mainly serve higher moral purposes and could be modified if they no longer do so: "In other words, the Aggadah should control the Halakha." The liberal Rabbi Gordon Tucker, along with Gillman and other progressives, supported a far-reaching implementation of this approach, making Conservative Judaism much more Aggadic and allowing moral priorities an overriding authority at all occasions. This idea became very popular among the young generation, but it was not fully embraced either. In the 2006 resolution on homosexuals, the CJLS chose a middle path: they agreed that the ethical consideration of human dignity was of supreme importance, but not sufficient to uproot the express Biblical prohibition on not to lie with mankind as with womankind (traditionally understood as banning full anal intercourse). All other limitations, including on other forms of sexual relations, were lifted. A similar approach is manifest in the great weight ascribed to sociological changes in deciding religious policy. The CJLS and the Rabbinical Assembly members frequently state that circumstances were profoundly transformed in modern times, fulfilling the criteria mandating new rulings in various fields (based on general talmudic principles like Shinui ha-I'ttim, "Change of Times"). This, along with the ethical aspect, was a main argument for revolutionizing the role of women in religious life and embracing egalitarianism.
The most distinctive feature of Conservative legalistic discourse, in which it is conspicuously and sharply different from Orthodoxy, is the incorporation of critical-scientific methods into the process. Deliberations almost always delineate the historical development of the specific issue at hand, from the earliest known mentions until modern times. This approach enables a thorough analysis of the manner in which it was practiced, accepted, rejected or modified in various periods, not necessarily in sync with the received rabbinic understanding. Archaeology, philology and Judaic Studies are employed; rabbis use comparative compendiums of religious manuscripts, sometimes discerning that sentences were only added later or include spelling, grammar and transcription errors, changing the entire understanding of certain passages. This critical approach is central to the movement, for its historicist underpinning stresses that all religious literature has an original meaning relevant in the context of its formulation. This meaning may be analyzed and discerned, and is distinct from the later interpretations ascribed by traditional commentators. Decisors are also far more prone to include references to external scientific sources in relevant fields, like veterinarian publications in Halakhic matters concerning livestock.
Conservative authorities, as part of their promulgation of a dynamic Halakha, often cite the manner in which the sages of old used rabbinic statutes (Takkanah) that enabled the bypassing of prohibitions in the Pentateuch, like the Prozbul or Heter I'ska. In 1948, when employing those was first debated, Rabbi Isaac Klein argued that since there was no consensus on leadership within Catholic Israel, formulation of significant takkanot should be avoided. Another proposal, to ratify them only with a two-thirds majority in the RA, was rejected. New statues require a simple majority, 13 supporters among the 25 members of the CJLS. In the 1950s and 1960s, such drastic measures—as Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman cited in a 1996 writ allowing members of the priestly caste to marry divorcees, "Later authorities were reluctant to assume such unilateral authority... fear that invoking this principle would create the proverbial slippery slope, thereby weakening the entire halakhic structure... thus imposed severe limitations on the conditions and situations where it would be appropriate"—were carefully drafted as temporal, emergency ordinances (Horaat Sha'ah), grounded on the need the avoid a total rift of many nonobservant Jews. Later on, these ordinances became accepted and permanent on the practical level. The Conservative movement issued a wide range of new, thoroughgoing statues, from the famous 1950 responsum that allowed driving to the synagogue on the Sabbath and up to the 2000 decision to ban rabbis from inquiring about whether someone was a mamzer, de facto abolishing this legal category.
The RA and CJLS reached many decisions through the years, shaping a distinctive profile for Conservative practice and worship. In the 1940s, when the public demanded mixed seating of both sexes in synagogue, some rabbis argued there was no precedent but obliged on the ground of dire need (Eth la'asot), others noted that archaeological research showed no partitions in ancient synagogues. Mixed seating became commonplace in almost all congregations. In 1950, it was ruled that using electricity (that is, closure of an electrical circuit) did not constitute kindling a fire unto itself, not even in incandescent bulbs, and therefore was not a forbidden labour and could be done on the Sabbath. On that basis, while performing banned labours is of course forbidden—for example, video recording is still constituted as writing—switching lights and other functions are allowed, though the RA strongly urges adherents to keep the sanctity of the Sabbath (refraining from doing anything that may imitate the atmosphere of weekdays, like loud noise reminiscent of work).
The need to encourage arrival at synagogue also motivated the CJLS, during the same year, to issue a temporal statue allowing driving on that day, for that purpose alone; it was supported by decreeing that the combustion of fuel did not serve any of the acts prohibited during the construction of the Tabernacle, and could therefore be classified, according to their interpretation of the Tosafists' opinion, as "redundant labour" (Sh’eina Tzricha L’gufa) and be permitted. The validity of this argument was heavily disputed within the movement. In 1952, members of the priestly caste were allowed to marry divorcees, conditioned on forfeiture of their privileges, as termination of marriage became widespread and women who underwent it could not be suspected of unsavory acts. In 1967, the ban on priests marrying converts was also lifted.
In 1954, the issue of agunot (women refused divorce by their husbands) was largely settled by adding a clause to the prenuptial contract under which men had to pay alimony as long as they did not concede. In 1968, this mechanism was replaced by a retroactive expropriation of the bride price, rendering the marriage void. In 1955, more girls were celebrating Bat Mitzvah and demanded to be allowed ascents to the Torah, the CJLS agreed that the ordinance under which women were banned from this due to respect for the congregation (Kvod ha'Tzibur) was no longer relevant. In 1972 it was decreed that rennet, even if derived from unclean animals, was so transformed that it constituted a wholly new item (Panim Chadashot ba'u l'Khan) and therefore all hard cheese could be considered kosher.
The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of women's rights on the main agenda. Growing pressure led the CJLS to adopt a motion that females may be counted as part of a quorum, based on the argument that only the Shulchan Aruch explicitly stated that it consist of men. While accepted, this was very controversial in the Committee and heavily disputed. A more complete solution was offered in 1983 by Rabbi Joel Roth, and was also enacted to allow women rabbinic ordination. Roth noted that some decisors of old acknowledged that women may bless when performing positive time-bound commandments (from which they are exempted, and therefore unable to fulfill the obligation for others), especially citing the manner in which they assumed upon themselves the Counting of the Omer. He suggested that women voluntarily commit to pray thrice a day et cetera, and his responsa was adopted. Since then, female rabbis were ordained at JTS and other seminaries. In 1994, the movement accepted Judith Hauptman's principally egalitarian argument, according to which equal prayer obligations for women were never banned explicitly and it was only their inferior status that hindered participation. In 2006, openly gay rabbinic candidates were also to be admitted into the JTS. In 2012, a commitment ceremony for same-sex couples was devised, though not defined as kiddushin. In 2016, the rabbis passed a resolution supporting transgender rights.
Conservative Judaism in the United States held a relatively strict policy regarding intermarriage. Propositions for acknowledging Jews by patrilineal descent, as in the Reform movement, were overwhelmingly dismissed. Unconverted spouses were largely barred from community membership and participation in rituals; clergy are banned from any involvement in interfaith marriage on pain of dismissal. However, as the rate of such unions rose dramatically, Conservative congregations began describing gentile family members as K'rov Yisrael (Kin of Israel) and be more open toward them. The Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism stated in 1995: "we want to encourage the Jewish partner to maintain his/her Jewish identity, and raise their children as Jews."
Despite the centralization of legal deliberation on matters of Jewish law in the CJLS individual synagogues and communities must, in the end, depend on their local decision-makers. The rabbi in his or her or their community is regarded as the Mara D'Atra, or the local Halakhic decisor. Rabbis trained in the reading practices of Conservative Jewish approaches, historical evaluation of Jewish law and interpretation of Biblical and Rabbinic texts may align directly with the CJLS decisions or themselves opine on matters based on precedents or readings of text that shine light on congregants' questions. So, for instance, a rabbi may or may not choose to permit video streaming on Shabbat despite a majority ruling that allows for use of electronics. A local Mara D'Atra may rely on the reasoning found in the majority or minority opinions of the CJLS or have other textual and halakhic grounds, i.e., prioritizing Jewish values or legal concepts, to rule one way or another on matters of ritual, family life or sacred pursuits. This balance between a centralization of Halakhic authority and maintaining the authority of local rabbis reflects the commitment to pluralism at the heart of the Movement.
The term Conservative Judaism was used, still generically and not yet as a specific label, already in the 1887 dedication speech of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America by Rabbi Alexander Kohut. By 1901, the JTS alumni formed the Rabbinical Assembly, of which all ordained Conservative clergy in the world are members. As of 2010, there were 1,648 rabbis in the RA. In 1913, the United Synagogue of America, renamed the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 1991, was founded as a congregational arm of the RA. The movement established the World Council of Conservative Synagogues in 1957. Offshoots outside North America mostly adopted the Hebrew name "Masorti", traditional', as did the Israeli Masorti Movement, founded in 1979, and the British Assembly of Masorti Synagogues, formed in 1985. The World Council eventually changed its name to "Masorti Olami", Masorti International. Besides the RA, the international Cantors Assembly supplies prayer leaders for congregations worldwide.
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, covering the United States, Canada and Mexico, is by far the largest constituent of Masorti Olami. While most congregations defining themselves as "Conservative" are affiliated with the USCJ, some are independent. While accurate information of Canada is scant, it is estimated that some third of religiously affiliated Canadian Jews are Conservative. In 2008, the more traditional Canadian Council of Conservative Synagogues seceded from the parent organization. It numbered seven communities as of 2014. According to the Pew Research Center survey in 2013, 18 per cent of Jews in the United States and in 2020 13 per cent identified with the movement, making it the second largest in the country. Steven M. Cohen calculated that as of 2013, 962,000 U.S. Jewish adults considered themselves Conservative: 570,000 were registered congregants and further 392,000 were not members in a synagogue but identified. In addition, Cohen assumed in 2006 that 57,000 unconverted non-Jewish spouses were also registered (12 per cent of member households had one at the time): 40 per cent of members intermarry. Conservatives are also the most aged group: among those aged under 30 only 11 per cent identified as such, and there are three people over 55 for every single one aged between 35 and 44. As of November 2015, the USCJ had 580 member congregations (a sharp decline from 630 two years prior), 19 in Canada and the remainder in the United States. In 2011 the USCJ initiated a plan to reinvigorate the movement.
Beyond North America, the movement has little presence—in 2011, Rela Mintz Geffen appraised there were only 100,000 members outside the U.S. (and the former figure including Canada). "Masorti AmLat", the MO branch in Latin America, is the largest with 35 communities in Argentina, 7 in Brazil, 6 in Chile and further 11 in the other countries. The British Assembly of Masorti Synagogues has 13 communities and estimates its membership at over 4,000. More than 20 communities are spread across Europe, and there are 3 in Australia and 2 in Africa. The Masorti Movement in Israel incorporates some 70 communities and prayer groups with several thousand full members. In addition, while Hungarian Neolog Judaism, with a few thousands of adherents and forty partially active synagogues, is not officially affiliated with Masorti Olami, Conservative Judaism regards it as a fraternal, "non-Orthodox but halakhic" movement.
In New York, the JTS serves as the movement's original seminary and legacy institution, along with the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles; the Marshall T. Meyer Latin American Rabbinical Seminary (Spanish: Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano Marshall T. Meyer), in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. A Conservative institution that does not grant rabbinic ordination but which runs along the lines of a traditional yeshiva is the Conservative Yeshiva, located in Jerusalem. The Neolog Budapest University of Jewish Studies also maintains connections with Conservative Judaism.
The current chancellor of the JTS is Shuly Rubin Schwartz, in office since 2020. She is the first woman elected to this position in the History of JTS. The current dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies is Bradley Shavit Artson. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is chaired by Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, serving since 2007. The Rabbinical Assembly is headed by President Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin, as of 2019, and managed by Chief Executive Officer, Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal. Rabbi Blumenthal holds the joint position as CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The current USCJ President is Ned Gladstein. In South America, Rabbi Ariel Stofenmacher serves as chancellor in the Seminary and Rabbi Marcelo Rittner as president of Masorti AmLat. In Britain, the Masorti Assembly is chaired by Senior Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg. In Israel, the Masorti movement's executive director is Yizhar Hess and chair Sophie Fellman Rafalovitz.
The global youth movement is known as NOAM, an acronym for No'ar Masorti; its North American organization is called United Synagogue Youth. Marom Israel is the Masorti movement's organization for students and young adults, providing activities based on religious pluralism and Jewish content. The Women's League for Conservative Judaism is also active in North America.
The USCJ maintains the Solomon Schechter Day Schools, comprising 76 day schools in 17 American states and 2 Canadian provinces serving Jewish children. Many other "community day schools" that are not affiliated with Schechter take a generally Conservative approach, but unlike these, generally have "no barriers to enrollment based on the faith of the parents or on religious practices in the home". During the first decade of the 21st century, a number of schools that were part of the Schechter network transformed themselves into non-affiliated community day schools. The USCJ also maintains the Camp Ramah system, where children and adolescents spend summers in an observant environment.
The rise of modern, centralized states in Europe by the early 19th century heralded the end of Jewish judicial autonomy and social seclusion. Their communal corporate rights were abolished, and the process of emancipation and acculturation that followed quickly transformed the values and norms of the public. Estrangement and apathy toward Judaism were rampant. The process of communal, educational and civil reform could not be restricted from affecting the core tenets of the faith. The new academic, critical study of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums) soon became a source of controversy. Rabbis and scholars argued to what degree, if at all, its findings could be used to determine present conduct. The modernized Orthodox in Germany, like rabbis Isaac Bernays and Azriel Hildesheimer, were content to cautiously study it while stringently adhering to the sanctity of holy texts and refusing to grant Wissenschaft any say in religious matters. On the other extreme were Rabbi Abraham Geiger, who would emerge as the founding father of Reform Judaism, and his supporters. They opposed any limit on critical research or its practical application, laying more weight on the need for change than on continuity.
The Prague-born Rabbi Zecharias Frankel, appointed chief rabbi of the Kingdom of Saxony in 1836, gradually rose to become the leader of those who stood at the middle. Besides working for the civic betterment of local Jews and educational reform, he displayed keen interest in Wissenschaft. But Frankel was always cautious and deeply reverent towards tradition, privately writing in 1836 that "The means must be applied with such care and discretion... that forward progress will be reached unnoticed, and seem inconsequential to the average spectator." He soon found himself embroiled in the great disputes of the 1840s. In 1842, during the second Hamburg Temple controversy, he opposed the new Reform prayerbook, arguing the elimination of petitions for a future Return to Zion led by the Messiah was a violation of an ancient tenet. But he also opposed the ban placed on the tome by Rabbi Bernays, stating this was a primitive behaviour. In the same year, he and the moderate conservative S.L. Rapoport were the only ones of nineteen respondents who negatively answered the Breslau community's enquiry on whether the deeply unorthodox Geiger could serve there. In 1843, Frankel clashed with the radical Reform rabbi Samuel Holdheim, who argued that the act of marriage in Judaism was a civic (memonot) rather than sanctified (issurim) matter and could be subject to the Law of the Land. In December 1843 Frankel launched the magazine Zeitschrift für die Religiösen Interessen des Judenthums. In the preamble, he attempted to present his approach to the present plight: "The further development of Judaism cannot be done through Reform that would lead to total dissipation... But must be involved in its study... pursued via scientific research, on a positive, historical basis." The term Positive-Historical became associated with him and his middle way. The Zeitschrift was, along the convictions of its publisher, neither dogmatically orthodox nor overly polemic, wholly opposing Biblical criticism and arguing for the antiquity of custom and practice.
In 1844, Geiger and like-minded allies arranged a conference in Braunschweig that was to have enough authority (since 1826, Rabbi Aaron Chorin called for the convocation of a new Sanhedrin) to debate and enact thoroughgoing revisions. Frankel was willing to agree only to a meeting without any practical results, and refused the invitation. When the protocols, which contained many radical statements, were published, he denounced the assembly for "applying the scalpel of criticism" and favouring the spirit of the age over tradition. However, he later agreed to attend the second conference, held in Frankfurt am Main on 15 July 1845—in spite of warnings from Rapoport, who cautioned that compromise with Geiger was impossible and he would only damage his reputation among the traditionalists. On the 16th, the issue of Hebrew in the liturgy arose. Most present were inclined to retain it, but with more German segments. A small majority adopted a resolution stating there were subjective, but no objective, imperatives to keep it as the language of service. Frankel then astounded his peers by vehemently protesting, stating it was a breach with the past and that Hebrew was of dire importance and great sentimental value. The others immediately began quoting all passages in rabbinic literature allowing prayer in the vernacular. Frankel could not contend with the halakhic validity of their decision, but he perceived it as a sign of profound differences between them. On the 17th he formally withdrew, publishing a lambasting critique of the procedures. "Opponents of the conference, who feared he went to the other side," noted historian Michael A. Meyer, "now felt reassured of his loyalty".
The rabbi of Saxony had many sympathizers, who supported a similarly moderate approach and change only on the basis of the authority of the Talmud. When Geiger began preparing a third conference in Breslau, Hirsch Bär Fassel convinced Frankel to organize one of his own in protest. Frankel invited colleagues to an assembly in Dresden, which was to be held on 21 October 1846. He announced that one measure he was willing to countenance was the possible abolition of the second day of festivals, though only if a broad consensus will be reached and not before thorough deliberation. Attendants were to include Rapoport, Fassel, Adolf Jellinek, Leopold Löw, Michael Sachs, Abraham Kohn and others. However, the Dresden assembly soon drew heated Orthodox resistance, especially from Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger, and was postponed indefinitely.
In 1854, Frankel was appointed chancellor in the new Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, the first modern rabbinical seminary in Germany. His opponents on both flanks were incensed. Geiger and the Reform camp long accused him of theological ambiguity, hypocrisy and attachment to stagnant remnants, and now protested the "medieval" atmosphere in the seminary, which was mainly concerned with teaching Jewish Law. The hardline Orthodox Samson Raphael Hirsch, who fiercely opposed Wissenschaft and emphasized the divine origin of the entire halakhic system in the Theophany at Sinai, was deeply suspicious of Frankel's beliefs, use of science and constant assertions that Jewish Law was flexible and evolving.
The final schism between Frankel and the Orthodox occurred after the 1859 publication of his Darke ha-Mishna (Ways of the Mishna). He heaved praise on the Beatified Sages, presenting them as bold innovators, but not once affirmed the divinity of the Oral Torah. On the ordinances classified as Law given to Moses at Sinai, he quoted Asher ben Jehiel that stated several of those were only apocryphally dubbed as such; he applied the latter's conclusion to all, noting they were "so evident as if given at Sinai". Hirsch branded Frankel a heretic, demanding he announce whether he believed that both the Oral and Written Torah were of celestial origin. Rabbis Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach, Solomon Klein and others published more complaisant tracts, but also requested an explanation. Rapoport marshaled to Frankel's aid, assuring that his words were merely reiterating ben Jehiel's and that he would soon release a statement that will belie Hirsch's accusations. But then the Chancellor of Breslau issued an ambiguous defence, writing that his book was not concerned with theology and avoiding giving any clear answer. Now even Rapoport joined his critics.
Hirsch succeeded, severely tarnishing Frankel's reputation among most concerned. Along with fellow Orthodox Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer, Hirsch launched a protracted public campaign through the 1860s. They ceaselessly stressed the chasm between an Orthodox understanding of Halakha as derived and revealed, applied differently to different circumstances and subject to human judgement and possibly error, yet unchanging and divine in principle—as opposed to an evolutionary, historicist and non-dogmatic approach in which past authorities were not just elaborating but consciously innovating, as taught by Frankel. Hildesheimer often repeated that this issue utterly overshadowed any specific technical argument with the Breslau School (the students of which were often more lenient on matters of headcovering for women, Chalav Yisrael and other issues). Hildesheimer was concerned that Jewish public opinion perceived no practical difference between them; though he cared to distinguish the observant acolytes of Frankel from the Reform camp, he noted in his diary: "How meager is the principal difference between the Breslau School, who don silk gloves at their work, and Geiger who wields a sledgehammer." In 1863, when Breslau faculty member Heinrich Graetz published an article where he appeared to doubt the Messianic belief, Hildesheimer immediately seized upon the occasion to prove once more the dogmatic, rather than practical, divide. He denounced Graetz as a heretic.
The Positive-Historical School was influential, but never institutionalized itself as thoroughly as its opponents. Apart from the many graduates of Breslau, Isaac Noah Mannheimer, Adolf Jellinek and Rabbi Moritz Güdemann led the central congregation in Vienna along a similar path. In Jellinek's local seminary, Meir Friedmann and Isaac Hirsch Weiss followed Frankel's moderate approach to critical research. The rabbinate of the liberal Neolog public in Hungary, which formally separated from the Orthodox, was also permeated with the "Breslau spirit". Many of its members studied there, and its Jewish Theological Seminary of Budapest was modeled after it, though the assimilationist congregants cared little for rabbinic opinion. In Germany itself, Breslau alumni founded in 1868 a short-lived society, the Jüdisch-Theologische Verein. It was dissolved within a year, boycotted by both Reform and Orthodox. Michael Sachs led the Berlin congregation in a very conservative style, eventually resigning when an organ was introduced in services. Manuel Joël, another of the Frankelist party, succeeded Geiger in Breslau. He maintained his predecessor's truncated German translation of the liturgy for the sake of compromise, but restored the full Hebrew text.
The Breslau Seminary and the Reform Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums maintained very different approaches; but on the communal level, the former's alumni failure to organize or articulate a coherent agenda, coupled with the declining prestige of Breslau and the conservatism of the Hochschule's alumni—a necessity in heterogeneous communities which remained unified, especially after the Orthodox gained the right to secede in 1876—imposed a rather uniform and mild character on what was known in Germany as "Liberal Judaism". In 1909, 63 rabbis associated with the Breslau approach founded the Freie Jüdische Vereinigung, another brief attempt at institutionalization, but it too failed soon. Only in 1925 did the Religiöse Mittelpartei für Frieden und Einheit succeed in driving the same agenda. It won several seats in communal elections, but was small and of little influence.
Jewish immigration to the United States bred an amalgam of loose communities, lacking strong tradition or stable structures. In this free-spirited environment, a multitude of forces was at work. As early as 1866, Rabbi Jonas Bondi of New York wrote that a Judaism of the "golden middleway, which was termed Orthodox by the left and heterodox or reformer by the right" developed in the new country. The rapid ascendancy of Reform Judaism by the 1880s left few who opposed it, merely a handful of congregations and ministers remained outside the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. These included Sabato Morais and Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes of the elitist Sephardi congregations, along with rabbis Bernard Drachman (ordained at Breslau, though he regarded himself as Orthodox) and Henry Schneeberger.
While spearheaded by radical and principled Reformers like Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, the UAHC was also home to more conservative elements. President Isaac Meyer Wise, a pragmatist intent on compromise, hoped to forge a broad consensus that would turn a moderate version of Reform to dominant in America. He kept the dietary laws at home and attempted to assuage traditionalists. On 11 July 1883, apparently due to negligence by the Jewish caterer, non-kosher dishes were served to UAHC rabbis in Wise's presence. Known to posterity as the "trefa banquet", it purportedly made some guests abandon the hall in disgust, but little is factually known about the incident. In 1885, the traditionalist forces were bolstered upon the arrival of Rabbi Alexander Kohut, an adherent of Frankel. He publicly excoriated Reform for disdaining ritual and received forms, triggering a heated polemic with Kohler. The debate was one of the main factors which motivated the latter to compose the Pittsburgh Platform, which unambiguously declared the principles of Reform Judaism: "to-day we accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives."
The explicit wording alienated a handful of conservative UAHC ministers: Henry Hochheimer, Frederick de Sola Mendes, Aaron Wise, Marcus Jastrow, and Benjamin Szold. They joined Kohut, Morais and the others in seeking to establish a traditional rabbinic seminary that would serve as a counterweight to Hebrew Union College. In 1886, they founded the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. Kohut, professor of Talmud who held to the Positive-Historical ideal, was the main educational influence in the early years, prominent among the founders who encompassed the entire spectrum from progressive Orthodox to the brink of Reform; to describe what the seminary intended to espouse, he used the term "Conservative Judaism", which had no independent meaning at the time and was only in relation to Reform. In 1898, Pereira Mendes, Schneeberger and Drachman also founded the Orthodox Union, which maintained close ties with the seminary.
The JTS was a small, fledgling institution with financial difficulties, and was ordaining merely a rabbi per year. But soon after Chancellor Morais' death in 1897, its fortunes turned. Since 1881, a wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe was inundating the country—by 1920, 2.5 million of them had arrived, increasing American Jewry tenfold. They came from regions where civil equality or emancipation were never granted, while acculturation and modernization made little headway. Whether devout or irreligious, they mostly retained strong traditional sentiments in matters of faith, accustomed to old-style rabbinate; the hardline Agudas HaRabbanim, founded by emigrant clergy, opposed secular education or vernacular sermons, and its members spoke almost only Yiddish. The Eastern Europeans were alienated by the local Jews, who were all assimilated in comparison, and especially aghast by the mores of Reform. The need to find a religious framework that would both accommodate and Americanize them motivated Jacob Schiff and other rich philanthropists, all Reform and of German descent, to donate $500,000 to the JTS. The contribution was solicited by Professor Cyrus Adler. It was conditioned on the appointment of Solomon Schechter as Chancellor. In 1901, the Rabbinical Assembly was established as the fraternity of JTS alumni.
Schechter arrived in 1902, and at once reorganized the faculty, dismissing both Pereira Mendes and Drachman for lack of academic merit. Under his aegis, the institute began to draw famous scholars, becoming a center of learning on par with HUC. Schechter was both traditional in sentiment and quite unorthodox in conviction. He maintained that theology was of little importance and it was practice that must be preserved. He aspired to solicit unity in American Judaism, denouncing sectarianism and not perceiving himself as leading a new denomination: "not to create a new party, but to consolidate an old one". The need to raise funds convinced him that a congregational arm for the Rabbinical Assembly and the JTS was required. On 23 February 1913, he founded the United Synagogue of America (since 1991: United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism), which then consisted of 22 communities. He and Mendes first came to major disagreement; Schechter insisted that any alumnus could be appointed to the USoA's managerial board, and not just to serve as communal rabbi, including several the latter did not consider sufficiently devout, or who tolerated mixed seating in their synagogues (though some of those he still regarded as Orthodox). Mendes, president of the Orthodox Union, therefore refused to join. He began to distinguish between the "Modern Orthodoxy" of himself and his peers in the OU, and "Conservatives" who tolerated what was beyond the pale for him. However, this first sign of institutionalization and separation was far from conclusive. Mendes himself could not clearly differentiate between the two groups, and many he viewed as Orthodox were members of the USoA. The epithets "Conservative" and "Orthodox" remained interchangeable for decades to come. JTS graduates served in OU congregations; many students of the Orthodox Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and members of the OU's Rabbinical Council of America, or RCA, attended it. In 1926, RIETS and the JTS even negotiated a possible merger, though it was never materialized. Upon Schechter's death in 1915, the first generation of his disciples kept his non-sectarian legacy of striving for a united, traditional American Judaism. He was replaced by Cyrus Adler.
The USoA grew rapidly as the Eastern European immigrant population slowly integrated. In 1923 it already had 150 affiliated communities, and 229 before 1930. Synagogues offered a more modernized ritual: English sermons, choir singing, late Friday evening services which tacitly acknowledging that most had to work until after the Sabbath began, and often mixed-gender seating. Men and women sat separately with no partition, and some houses of prayer already introduced family pews. Motivated by popular pressure and frowned upon by both RA and seminary faculty—in its own synagogue, the institute maintained a partition until 1983—this was becoming common among the OU as well. As both social conditions and apathy turned American Jews away from tradition (barely 20 per cent were attending prayers weekly), a young professor named Mordecai Kaplan promoted the idea of transforming the synagogue into a community center, a "Shul with a Pool", a policy which indeed stymied the tide somewhat.
In 1927, the RA also established its own Committee of Jewish Law, entrusted with determining halakhic issues. Consisting of seven members, it was chaired by the traditionalist Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, who already distinguished himself in 1922, drafting a responsa that allowed the use of grape juice rather than fermented wine for Kiddush on the background of Prohibition. Kaplan himself, who rose to become an influential and popular figure within the JTS, concluded that his fellow rabbis' ambiguity in matters of belief and the contradiction between full observance and critical study were untenable and hypocritical. He formulated his own approach of Judaism as a Civilization, rejecting the concept of Revelation and any supernatural belief in favour of a cultural-ethnic perception. While valuing received mores, he eventually suggested giving the past "a vote, not a veto". Though popular among students, Kaplan's nascent Reconstructionism was opposed by the new traditionalist Chancellor Louis Finkelstein, appointed in 1940, and a large majority among the faculty.
Tensions within the JTS and RA grew. The Committee of Jewish Law consisted mainly of scholars who had little field experience, almost solely from the seminary's Talmudic department. They were greatly concerned with halakhic licitness and indifferent to the pressures exerted on the pulpit rabbis, who had to contend with an Americanized public which cared little for such considerations or for tradition in general. In 1935, the RA almost adopted a groundbreaking motion: Rabbi Louis Epstein offered a solution to the agunah predicament, a clause that would have had husbands appoint wives as their proxies to issue divorce. It was repealed under pressure from the Orthodox Union. As late as 1947, CJL Chair Rabbi Boaz Cohen, himself a historicist who argued that the Law evolved much through time, rebuked pulpit clergy who requested lenient or radical rulings, stating he and his peers were content to "progress in inches... Free setting up of new premises and the introduction of novel categories of ritual upon the basis of pure reason and thinking would be perilous, if not fatal, to the principles and continuity of Jewish Law."
The boundaries between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism in America were institutionalized only in the aftermath of World War II. The 1940s saw the younger generation of JTS graduates less patient with the prudence of the CJL and Talmud faculty in face of popular demand. Kaplan's Reconstructionism, while its fully committed partisans were few, had much influence. The majority among recent alumni eschewed the epithet "Orthodox" and tended to employ "Conservative" exclusively. Succeeding Schechter's direct disciples who headed the RA, JTS and United Synagogue in the interwar period, a new strata of activist leaders was rising. Rabbi Robert Gordis, RA president in 1944–1946, represented the junior members in advocating more flexibility; Rabbi Jacob Agus, a RIETS graduate who joined the body only in 1945, clamored that "we need a law making body, not a law interpreting committee." Agus argued that the breach between the Jewish public and tradition was too wide to be bridged conventionally, and that the RA would always remain inferior to the Orthodox as long as it retained its policy of merely adopting lenient precedents in rabbinic literature. He offered to extensively apply the tool of takkanah, rabbinic ordinance.
In 1946, a committee chaired by Gordis issued the Sabbath and Festival Prayerbook, the first clearly Conservative liturgy: references to the sacrificial cult were in the past tense instead of a petition for restoration, and it rephrased blessings such as "who hast made me according to thy will" for women to "who hast made me a woman". During the movement's national conference in Chicago, held 13–17 May 1948, the pulpit rabbis in the RA gained the upper hand. Spurred by Gordis, Agus and fellow leaders, they voted to reorganize the CJL into a Committee of Jewish Law and Standards, enfranchised to issue takkanot by a majority. Membership was conditioned on having experience as a congregational rabbi, and unseasoned JTS faculty were thus denied entrance. While the RA was asserting a Conservative distinctive identity, the seminary remained more cautious. Finkelstein opposed sectarianism and preferred the neutral epithet "traditional", later commenting that "Conservative Judaism is a gimmick to get Jews back to real Judaism". He and the very right-wing Talmud professor Saul Lieberman, who maintained ties with the Orthodox while also viewing them as obstructionist and ossified, dominated the JTS, providing a counterweight to the liberals in the Assembly. Kaplan, meanwhile, spent more time on consolidating his Society for Advancement of Judaism. Abraham Joshua Heschel, who espoused a mysticist understanding of Jewish religion, also became an important figure among the faculty.
The CJLS now proceeded to demonstrate its independence. Sabbath was widely desecrated by a large majority of Jews, and the board believed attendance at synagogues should be encouraged. They therefore enacted an ordinance that allowed driving on the Sabbath (for worship alone) and the use of electricity. The driving responsum was later severely criticized by Conservative rabbis, and was charged with imparting that the movement was overly keen to condone the laxity of congregants. It also signified the final break with the Orthodox, who were themselves being bolstered by more strictly observant immigrants from Europe. In 1954, the RCA reversed its 1948 ruling that allowed the use of microphones on Sabbath and festivals and declared that praying without a partition between sexes was banned. Though enforced slowly—in 1997, there were still seven OU congregations with no physical barrier, and so-called "Conservadox" remain extant—these two attributes became a demarcation line between Orthodox and Conservative synagogues. RA converts were denied ablution in Orthodox ritual baths, and rabbis from one movement would gradually cease serving in the other's communities.
Rather than a force within American Judaism, the JTS-centered movement emerged as a third movement. The historicist and critical approach to halakha, as well as other features, were emphasized by leaders eager to demonstrate their uniqueness. In their efforts to solidify a coherent identity, Conservative thinkers like Mordecai Waxman in his 1957 Tradition and Change, ventured beyond Schechter's conceptions to Rabbi Zecharias Frankel and Breslau, presenting themselves as its direct inheritors via Alexander Kohut and others. The CJLS continued to issue groundbreaking ordinances and rulings.
The postwar decades were a time of immense growth for the Conservative movement. Most of the 500,000 decommissioned Jewish GIs left the densely populated immigrant neighbourhoods of the East Coast, moving to suburbia. They were Americanized but still retained traditional sentiments, and Reform Judaism was too radical for most. The United Synagogue of America offered Jewish education for children and a familiar religious environment which was also comfortable and not strict. It expanded from 350 communities by 1945 to 832 by 1971, becoming the largest denomination, with some 350,000 dues-paying member households (1.5 million people) at synagogues and over 40 per cent of American Jewry identifying with it in polls, adding an estimated million more non-registered supporters.
Already in a 1955 study, Marshall Sklare defined Conservative Judaism as the quintessential American Jewish movement, but stressed the gap between laity and clergy, noting "rabbis now recognize that they are not making decisions or writing responsa, but merely taking a poll of their membership." Most congregants, commented Edward S. Shapiro, were "Conservative Jews because their rabbi kept kosher and the Sabbath... Not because of their religious behavior." The movement established its presence outside the U.S. and Canada: In 1962, the young Rabbi Marshall Meyer founded the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, which would serve as the basis for Conservative expansion in South America. In 1979, four communities formed the Israel Masorti Movement. Rabbi Louis Jacobs, dismissed in 1964 from the British Orthodox rabbinate on the charge of heresy after espousing a non-literal understanding of the Torah, joined with the Conservatives and founded his country's first Masorti community. The new branches were all united within the World Council of Synagogues, later to be named Masorti Olami.
The movement peaked in numbers in the 1970s. During that decade, the tensions between the various elements within it intensified. The right wing, conservative in halakhic matters and often adhering to a verbal understanding of revelation, was dismayed by the failure to bolster observance among the laity and the resurgence of Orthodoxy. The left was influenced by the Reconstructionists, who formed their own seminary in 1968 and were slowly coalescing, as well as the growing appeal of Reform, which turned more traditional and threatened to sway congregants. While the rightists opposed further modifications, their left-wing peers demanded them. The Chavurah movement, consisting of nonaligned prayer quorums of young (and frequently, Conservative-raised) worshipers who sought a more intense religious experience, also weakened congregations. In 1972, the liberal wing gained an influential position with the appointment of Gerson D. Cohen as JTS Chancellor. During the same year, after Reform began to ordain female rabbis, a strong lobby rose to advocate the same. The CJLS rapidly enacted an ordinance which allowed women to be tallied for a minyan, and by 1976 the percentage of synagogues allowing them to bless during the reading of the Torah grew from 7 per cent to 50 per cent. In 1979, ignoring the denominational leadership, Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County accepted the RRC-ordained Rabbi Linda Joy Holtzman. Pressures to allow women to assume rabbinical positions was mounting from the congregational level, though the RA agreed to delay any action until the JTS scholars would concur.
Female ordination was a matter of great friction until 1983, when Rabbi Joel Roth devised a solution that entailed women voluntarily accepting the obligation to pray regularly. The leadership passed it not by scholarly consensus but via a popular vote of all JTS faculty, including non-specialists. Two years later, the first JTS-ordained female rabbi, Amy Eilberg, was admitted into the RA. David Weiss Halivni, professor of the Talmud faculty, claimed that Roth's method must have required waiting until a considerable number of women did prove sufficient commitment. He and his sympathizers regarded the vote as belying any claim to halakhic integrity. They formed the Union for Traditional Conservative Judaism in 1985, a right-wing lobby which numbered some 10,000 supporters from the Conservative observant elite. The UTJC withdrew from the movement and erased the word "Conservative" in 1990, attempting to merge with moderate Orthodox organizations.
In the very same year, the Reconstructionist also seceded fully, joining the World Union for Progressive Judaism under observer status. The double defection narrowed the movement's spectrum of opinions, at a time when large swaths of congregants were abandoning in favour of Reform, which was more tolerant of intermarriage. RA leaders were engaged in introspection through the later 1980s, resulting in the 1988 Emet ve-Emunah platform, while Reform slowly bypassed them and became the largest American Jewish movement.
After the issue of egalitarianism for women subsided, LGBT acceptance replaced it as the main source of contention between the declining right wing and the liberal majority. A first attempt was rebuffed in 1992 by a harsh responsum written by Roth. The retirement of Chancellor Ismar Schorsch, a staunch opponent, allowed the CJLS to endorse a motion which still banned anal intercourse but not any other physical contact, and allowed the ordination of openly LGBT rabbis, in 2006. Roth and three other supporters resigned from the panel in protest, claiming the responsum was not valid; Masorti affiliates in South America, Israel and Hungary objected severely. The Seminario is yet to accept the resolution, while several Canadian congregations seceded from the United Synagogue in 2008 to form an independent union in protest of the slide to the left. Since the 2013 Pew survey, which assessed that only 18 per cent of American Jews identify with it, Conservative leadership is engaged in attempting to solve Conservative Judaism's demographic crisis. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Conservative Judaism (known as Masorti Judaism outside North America) is a Jewish religious movement that regards the authority of Jewish law and tradition as emanating primarily from the assent of the people through the generations, more than from divine revelation. It therefore views Jewish law, or Halakha, as both binding and subject to historical development. The conservative rabbinate employs modern historical-critical research, rather than only traditional methods and sources, and lends great weight to its constituency, when determining its stance on matters of practice. The movement considers its approach as the authentic and most appropriate continuation of Halakhic discourse, maintaining both fealty to received forms and flexibility in their interpretation. It also eschews strict theological definitions, lacking a consensus in matters of faith and allowing great pluralism.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "While regarding itself as the heir of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel's 19th-century positive-historical school in Europe, Conservative Judaism fully institutionalized only in the United States during the mid-20th century. Its largest center today is in North America, where its main congregational arm is the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and the New York–based Jewish Theological Seminary of America operates as its largest rabbinic seminary. Globally, affiliated communities are united within the umbrella organization Masorti Olami. Conservative Judaism is the third-largest Jewish religious movement worldwide, estimated to represent close to 1.1 million people, including over 600,000 registered adult congregants and many non-member identifiers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Conservative Judaism, from its earliest stages, was marked by ambivalence and ambiguity in all matters theological. Rabbi Zecharias Frankel, considered its intellectual progenitor, believed the very notion of theology was alien to traditional Judaism. He was often accused of obscurity on the subject by his opponents, both Reform and Orthodox. The American movement largely espoused a similar approach, and its leaders mostly avoided the field. Only in 1985 did a course about Conservative theology open in the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS). The hitherto sole major attempt to define a clear credo was made in 1988, with the Statement of Principles Emet ve-Emunah (Truth and Belief), formulated and issued by the Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism. The introduction stated that \"lack of definition was useful\" in the past but a need to articulate one now arose. The platform provided many statements citing key concepts such as God, revelation and Election, but also acknowledged that a variety of positions and convictions existed within its ranks, eschewing strict delineation of principles and often expressing conflicting views. In a 1999 special edition of Conservative Judaism dedicated to the matter, leading rabbis Elliot N. Dorff and Gordon Tucker stated that \"the great diversity\" within the movement \"makes the creation of a theological vision shared by all neither possible nor desirable\".",
"title": "Theology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Conservative Judaism largely upholds the theistic notion of a personal God. Emet ve-Emunah stated that \"we affirm our faith in God as the Creator and Governor of the universe. His power called the world into being; His wisdom and goodness guide its destiny.\" Concurrently, the platform also noted that His nature was \"elusive\" and subject to many options of belief. A naturalistic conception of divinity, regarding it as inseparable from the mundane world, once had an important place within the movement, especially represented by Mordecai Kaplan. After Kaplan's Reconstructionism fully coalesced into an independent movement, these views were marginalized.",
"title": "Theology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "A similarly inconclusive position is expressed toward other precepts. Most theologians adhere to the Immortality of the Soul, but while references to the Resurrection of the Dead are maintained, English translations of the prayers obscure the issue. In Emet, it was stated that death is not tantamount to the end of one's personality. Relating to the Messianic ideal, the movement rephrased most petitions for the restoration of the Sacrifices into past tense, rejecting a renewal of animal offerings, though not opposing a Return to Zion and even a New Temple. The 1988 platform announced that \"some\" believe in classic eschatology, but dogmatism in this matter was \"philosophically unjustified\". The notions of Election of Israel and God's covenant with it were basically retained as well.",
"title": "Theology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Conservative conception of Revelation encompasses an extensive spectrum. Zecharias Frankel himself applied critical-scientific methods to analyze the stages in the development of the Oral Torah, pioneering modern study of the Mishnah. He regarded the Beatified Sages as innovators who added their own, original contribution to the canon, not merely as expounders and interpreters of a legal system given in its entirety to Moses on Mount Sinai. Yet he also vehemently rejected utilizing these disciplines on the Pentateuch, maintaining it was beyond human reach and wholly celestial in origin. Frankel never elucidated his beliefs, and the exact correlation between human and divine in his thought is still subject to scholarly debate. A similar negative approach toward Higher Criticism, while accepting an evolutionary understanding of Oral Law, defined Rabbi Alexander Kohut, Solomon Schechter and the early generation of American Conservative Judaism. When JTS faculty began to embrace Biblical criticism in the 1920s, they adapted a theological view consistent with it: an original, verbal revelation did occur at Sinai, but the text itself was composed by later authors. The latter, classified by Dorff as a relatively moderate metamorphosis of the old one, is still espoused by few traditionalist right-wing Conservative rabbis, though it is marginalized among senior leadership.",
"title": "Theology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A small but influential segment within the JTS and the movement adhered, from the 1930s, to Mordecai Kaplan's philosophy that denied any form of revelation but viewed all scripture as a purely human product. Along with other Reconstructionist tenets, it dwindled as the latter consolidated into a separate group. Kaplan's views and the permeation of Higher Criticism gradually swayed most Conservative thinkers towards a non-verbal understanding of theophany, which has become dominant in the 1970s. This was in sync with the wider trend of lowering rates of Americans who accepted the Bible as the Word of God. Dorff categorized the proponents of this into two schools. One maintains that God projected some form of message which inspired the human authors of the Pentateuch to record what they perceived. The other is often strongly influenced by Franz Rosenzweig and other existentialists, but also attracted many Objectivists who consider human reason paramount. The second school states that God conferred merely his presence on those he influenced, without any communication, and the experience drove them to spiritual creativity. While they differ in the theoretical level surrounding revelation, both practically regard all scripture and religious tradition as a human product with certain divine inspiration—providing an understanding that recognizes Biblical Criticism and also justifies major innovation in religious conduct. The first doctrine, advocated by such leaders as rabbis Ben-Zion Bokser and Robert Gordis, largely imparted that some elements within Judaism are fully divine but determining which would be impractical, and therefore received forms of interpretation should be basically upheld. Exponents of the latter view, among them rabbis Louis Jacobs and Neil Gillman, also emphasized the encounter of God with the Jews as a collective and the role of religious authorities through the generations in determining what it implied. The stress on the supremacy of community and tradition, rather than individual consciousness, defines the entire spectrum of Conservative thought.",
"title": "Theology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "The Conservative mainstay was the adoption of the historical-critical method in understanding Judaism and setting its future course. In accepting an evolutionary approach to the religion, as something that developed over time and absorbed considerable external influences, the movement distinguished between the original meaning implied in traditional sources and the manner they were grasped by successive generations, rejecting belief in an unbroken chain of interpretation from God's original Revelation, immune to any major extraneous effects. This evolutionary perception of religion, while relatively moderate in comparison with more radical modernizers—the scholarship of the Positive-Historical school, for example, sought to demonstrate the continuity and cohesiveness of Judaism over the years—still challenged Conservative leaders.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "They regarded tradition and received mores with reverence, especially the continued adherence to the mechanism of Religious Law (Halakha), opposing indiscriminate modification, and emphasized they should be changed only with care and caution and remain observed by the people. Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, summarizing his movement's position, wrote:",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "We may now understand the apparent contradiction between theory and practice... One may conceive of the origin of Sabbath as the professor at university would, yet observe the smallest detail known to strict Orthodoxy... The sanctity of the Sabbath reposes not upon the fact that it was proclaimed on Sinai, but on the fact that it found for thousands of years its expression in Jewish souls. It is the task of the historian to examine the beginnings and developments of customs and observances; practical Judaism, on the other hand, is not concerned with origins but regards the institutions as they have come to be.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "This discrepancy between scientific criticism and insistence on heritage had to be compensated by a conviction that would forestall either deviation from accepted norms or laxity and apathy.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "A key doctrine which was to fulfil this capacity was the collective will of the Jewish people. Conservatives lent great weight in determining religious practice, both in historical precedent and as a means to shape present conduct. Zecharias Frankel pioneered this approach; as Michael A. Meyer commented, \"the extraordinary status which he ascribed to the ingrained beliefs and practices of the community is probably the most original element of his thought.\" He turned it into a source of legitimacy for both change and preservation, but mostly the latter. The basic moderation and traditionalism of the majority among the people were to guarantee a sense of continuity and unity, restraining the guiding rabbis and scholars who at his age were intent on reform but also allowing them manoeuvrability in adopting or discarding certain elements. Solomon Schechter espoused a similar position. He turned the old rabbinic concept of K'lal Yisrael, which he translated as \"Catholic Israel\", into a comprehensive worldview. For him, the details of divine Revelation were of secondary significance, as historical change dictated its interpretation through the ages notwithstanding: \"The centre of authority is actually removed from the Bible\", he surmised, \"and placed in some living body... in touch with the ideal aspirations and the religious needs of the age, best able to determine... This living body, however, is not represented by... Priesthood, or Rabbihood, but by the collective conscience of Catholic Israel.\"",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The scope, limits and role of this corpus were a matter for contention in Conservative ranks. Schechter himself used it to oppose any major break with either traditionalist or progressive elements within American Jewry of his day, while some of his successors argued that the idea became obsolete due to the great alienation of many from received forms, that had to be countered by innovative measures to draw them back. The Conservative rabbinate often vacillated on to which degree may the non-practicing, religiously apathetic strata be included as a factor within Catholic Israel, providing impulse for them in determining religious questions; even avant-garde leaders acquiesced that the majority could not serve that function. Right-wing critics often charged that the movement allowed its uncommitted laity an exaggerated role, conceding to its demands and successively stretching halakhic boundaries beyond any limit.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Conservative leadership had limited success in imparting their worldview to the general public. While the rabbinate perceived itself as bearing a unique, original conception of Judaism, the masses lacked much interest, regarding it mainly as a compromise offering a channel for religious identification that was more traditional than Reform Judaism yet less strict than Orthodoxy. Only a low percentage of Conservative congregants actively pursue an observant lifestyle: in the mid-1980s, Charles Liebman and Daniel J. Elazar calculated that barely 3 to 4 per cent held to one quite thoroughly. This gap between principle and the public, more pronounced than in any other Jewish movement, is often credited at explaining the decline of the Conservative movement. While some 41 per cent of American Jews identified with it in the 1970s, it had shrunk to an estimated 18 per cent (and 11 per cent among those under 30) in 2013.",
"title": "Ideology"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Fidelity and commitment to Halakha, while subject to criticism as disingenuous both from within and without, were and remain a cornerstone doctrine of Conservative Judaism. The movement views the legalistic system as normative and binding, and believes Jews must practically observe its precepts, like Sabbath, dietary ordinances, ritual purity, daily prayer with phylacteries and the like. Concurrently, examining Jewish history and rabbinic literature through the lens of academic criticism, it maintained that these laws were always subject to considerable evolution, and must continue to do so. Emet ve-Emunah titled its chapter on the subject with \"The Indispensability of Halakha\", stating that \"Halakha in its developing form is an indispensable element of a traditional Judaism which is vital and modern.\" Conservative Judaism regards itself as the authentic inheritor of a flexible legalistic tradition, charging the Orthodox with petrifying the process and Reform with abandoning it.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The tension between \"tradition and change\"—which were also the motto adopted by the movement since the 1950s—and the need to balance them were always a topic of intense debate within Conservative Judaism. In its early stages, the leadership opposed pronounced innovation, mostly adopting a relatively rigid position. Mordecai Kaplan's Reconstructionism raised the demand for thoroughgoing modification without much regard for the past or Halakhic considerations, but senior rabbis opposed him vigorously. Even in the 1940s and 1950s, when Kaplan's influence grew, his superiors rabbis Louis Ginzberg, Louis Finkelstein and Saul Lieberman espoused a very conservative line. Since the 1970s, with the strengthening of the liberal wing within the movement, the majority in the Rabbinic Assembly opted for quite radical reformulations in religious conduct, but rejected the Reconstructionist Non-Halakhic approach, insisting that the legalistic method be maintained. The Halakhic commitment of Conservative Judaism has been subject to much criticism, from within and without. Right-wing discontents, including the Union for Traditional Judaism which seceded in protest of the 1983 resolution to ordain women rabbis—adopted at an open vote, where all JTS faculty regardless of qualification were counted—contested the validity of this description, as well as progressives like Rabbi Neil Gillman, who exhorted the movement to cease describing itself as Halakhic in 2005, stating that after repeated concessions, \"Our original claim has died a death by a thousand qualifications... It has lost all factual meaning.\"",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The main body entrusted with formulating rulings, responsa and statues is the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS), a panel with 25 voting legalistic specialists and further 11 observers. There is also the smaller Va'ad ha-Halakha (Law Committee) of Israel's Masorti Movement. Every responsa must receive a minimum of six voters to be considered an official position of the CJLS. Conservative Judaism explicitly acknowledges the principle of halakhic pluralism, enabling the panel to adopt more than one resolution in any given subject. The final authority in each Conservative community is the local rabbi, the Mara D'Atra (Lord of the Locality, in traditional terms), enfranchised to adopt either minority or majority opinions from the CJLS or maintain local practice. Thus, on the issue of admitting openly homosexual rabbinic candidates, the Committee approved two resolutions, one in favour and one against; the JTS took the lenient position, while the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano still adheres to the latter. Likewise, while most Conservative synagogues approved of egalitarianism for women in religious life, some still maintain traditional gender roles and do not count females for prayer quorums.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "The Conservative treatment of Halakha is defined by several features, though the entire range of its Halakhic discourse cannot be sharply distinguished from either the Traditional or Orthodox one. Rabbi David Golinkin, who attempted to classify its parameters, stressed that quite often rulings merely reiterate conclusions reached in older sources or even Orthodox ones. For example, in the details of preparing Sabbath ritual enclosures, it draws directly on the opinions of the Shulchan Aruch and Rabbi Hayim David HaLevi. Another tendency prevalent among the movement's rabbis, yet again not particular to it, is the adoption of the more lenient positions on the matters at question—though this is not universal, and responsa also took stringent ones not infrequently.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "A more distinctive characterization is a greater proclivity to base rulings on earlier sources, in the Rishonim or before them, as far back as the Talmud. Conservative decisors frequently resort to less canonical sources, isolated responsa or minority opinions. They demonstrate more fluidity in regards to established precedent and continuum in rabbinic literature, mainly those by the later authorities, and lay little stress on the perceived hierarchy between major and minor legalists of the past. They are far more inclined to contend (machloket) with old rulings, to be flexible towards custom or to wholly disregard it. This is especially expressed in less hesitancy to rule against or notwithstanding the major codifications of Jewish Law, like Mishneh Torah, Arba'ah Turim and especially the Shulchan Aruch with its Isserles Gloss and later commentaries. Conservative authorities, while often relying on the Shulchan Aruch themselves, criticize the Orthodox for relatively rarely venturing beyond it and overly canonizing Rabbi Joseph Karo's work. In several occasions, Conservative rabbis discerned that the Shulchan Aruch ruled without firm precedent, sometimes deriving his conclusions from the Kabbalah. An important example is the ruling of Rabbi Golinkin—contrary to the majority consensus among the Acharonim and the more prominent Rishonim, but based on many opinions of the lesser Rishonim which is derived from a minority view in the Talmud—that the Sabbatical Year is not obligatory in present times at all (neither de'Oraita nor de'Rabanan) but rather an act of piety.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Ethical considerations and the weight due to them in determining halakhic issues, mainly to what degree may modern sensibilities shape the outcome, are subject to much discourse. Right-wing decisors, like Rabbi Joel Roth, maintained that such elements are naturally a factor in formulating conclusions, but may not alone serve as a justification for adopting a position. The majority, however, basically subscribed to the opinion evinced already by Rabbi Seymour Siegel in the 1960s, that the cultural and ethical norms of the community, the contemporary equivalents of Talmudic Aggadah, should supersede the legalistic forms when the two came into conflict and there was a pivotal ethical concern. Rabbi Elliot Dorff concluded that in contrast to the Orthodox, Conservative Judaism maintains that the juridical details and processes mainly serve higher moral purposes and could be modified if they no longer do so: \"In other words, the Aggadah should control the Halakha.\" The liberal Rabbi Gordon Tucker, along with Gillman and other progressives, supported a far-reaching implementation of this approach, making Conservative Judaism much more Aggadic and allowing moral priorities an overriding authority at all occasions. This idea became very popular among the young generation, but it was not fully embraced either. In the 2006 resolution on homosexuals, the CJLS chose a middle path: they agreed that the ethical consideration of human dignity was of supreme importance, but not sufficient to uproot the express Biblical prohibition on not to lie with mankind as with womankind (traditionally understood as banning full anal intercourse). All other limitations, including on other forms of sexual relations, were lifted. A similar approach is manifest in the great weight ascribed to sociological changes in deciding religious policy. The CJLS and the Rabbinical Assembly members frequently state that circumstances were profoundly transformed in modern times, fulfilling the criteria mandating new rulings in various fields (based on general talmudic principles like Shinui ha-I'ttim, \"Change of Times\"). This, along with the ethical aspect, was a main argument for revolutionizing the role of women in religious life and embracing egalitarianism.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The most distinctive feature of Conservative legalistic discourse, in which it is conspicuously and sharply different from Orthodoxy, is the incorporation of critical-scientific methods into the process. Deliberations almost always delineate the historical development of the specific issue at hand, from the earliest known mentions until modern times. This approach enables a thorough analysis of the manner in which it was practiced, accepted, rejected or modified in various periods, not necessarily in sync with the received rabbinic understanding. Archaeology, philology and Judaic Studies are employed; rabbis use comparative compendiums of religious manuscripts, sometimes discerning that sentences were only added later or include spelling, grammar and transcription errors, changing the entire understanding of certain passages. This critical approach is central to the movement, for its historicist underpinning stresses that all religious literature has an original meaning relevant in the context of its formulation. This meaning may be analyzed and discerned, and is distinct from the later interpretations ascribed by traditional commentators. Decisors are also far more prone to include references to external scientific sources in relevant fields, like veterinarian publications in Halakhic matters concerning livestock.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Conservative authorities, as part of their promulgation of a dynamic Halakha, often cite the manner in which the sages of old used rabbinic statutes (Takkanah) that enabled the bypassing of prohibitions in the Pentateuch, like the Prozbul or Heter I'ska. In 1948, when employing those was first debated, Rabbi Isaac Klein argued that since there was no consensus on leadership within Catholic Israel, formulation of significant takkanot should be avoided. Another proposal, to ratify them only with a two-thirds majority in the RA, was rejected. New statues require a simple majority, 13 supporters among the 25 members of the CJLS. In the 1950s and 1960s, such drastic measures—as Rabbi Arnold M. Goodman cited in a 1996 writ allowing members of the priestly caste to marry divorcees, \"Later authorities were reluctant to assume such unilateral authority... fear that invoking this principle would create the proverbial slippery slope, thereby weakening the entire halakhic structure... thus imposed severe limitations on the conditions and situations where it would be appropriate\"—were carefully drafted as temporal, emergency ordinances (Horaat Sha'ah), grounded on the need the avoid a total rift of many nonobservant Jews. Later on, these ordinances became accepted and permanent on the practical level. The Conservative movement issued a wide range of new, thoroughgoing statues, from the famous 1950 responsum that allowed driving to the synagogue on the Sabbath and up to the 2000 decision to ban rabbis from inquiring about whether someone was a mamzer, de facto abolishing this legal category.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "The RA and CJLS reached many decisions through the years, shaping a distinctive profile for Conservative practice and worship. In the 1940s, when the public demanded mixed seating of both sexes in synagogue, some rabbis argued there was no precedent but obliged on the ground of dire need (Eth la'asot), others noted that archaeological research showed no partitions in ancient synagogues. Mixed seating became commonplace in almost all congregations. In 1950, it was ruled that using electricity (that is, closure of an electrical circuit) did not constitute kindling a fire unto itself, not even in incandescent bulbs, and therefore was not a forbidden labour and could be done on the Sabbath. On that basis, while performing banned labours is of course forbidden—for example, video recording is still constituted as writing—switching lights and other functions are allowed, though the RA strongly urges adherents to keep the sanctity of the Sabbath (refraining from doing anything that may imitate the atmosphere of weekdays, like loud noise reminiscent of work).",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "The need to encourage arrival at synagogue also motivated the CJLS, during the same year, to issue a temporal statue allowing driving on that day, for that purpose alone; it was supported by decreeing that the combustion of fuel did not serve any of the acts prohibited during the construction of the Tabernacle, and could therefore be classified, according to their interpretation of the Tosafists' opinion, as \"redundant labour\" (Sh’eina Tzricha L’gufa) and be permitted. The validity of this argument was heavily disputed within the movement. In 1952, members of the priestly caste were allowed to marry divorcees, conditioned on forfeiture of their privileges, as termination of marriage became widespread and women who underwent it could not be suspected of unsavory acts. In 1967, the ban on priests marrying converts was also lifted.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In 1954, the issue of agunot (women refused divorce by their husbands) was largely settled by adding a clause to the prenuptial contract under which men had to pay alimony as long as they did not concede. In 1968, this mechanism was replaced by a retroactive expropriation of the bride price, rendering the marriage void. In 1955, more girls were celebrating Bat Mitzvah and demanded to be allowed ascents to the Torah, the CJLS agreed that the ordinance under which women were banned from this due to respect for the congregation (Kvod ha'Tzibur) was no longer relevant. In 1972 it was decreed that rennet, even if derived from unclean animals, was so transformed that it constituted a wholly new item (Panim Chadashot ba'u l'Khan) and therefore all hard cheese could be considered kosher.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "The 1970s and 1980s saw the emergence of women's rights on the main agenda. Growing pressure led the CJLS to adopt a motion that females may be counted as part of a quorum, based on the argument that only the Shulchan Aruch explicitly stated that it consist of men. While accepted, this was very controversial in the Committee and heavily disputed. A more complete solution was offered in 1983 by Rabbi Joel Roth, and was also enacted to allow women rabbinic ordination. Roth noted that some decisors of old acknowledged that women may bless when performing positive time-bound commandments (from which they are exempted, and therefore unable to fulfill the obligation for others), especially citing the manner in which they assumed upon themselves the Counting of the Omer. He suggested that women voluntarily commit to pray thrice a day et cetera, and his responsa was adopted. Since then, female rabbis were ordained at JTS and other seminaries. In 1994, the movement accepted Judith Hauptman's principally egalitarian argument, according to which equal prayer obligations for women were never banned explicitly and it was only their inferior status that hindered participation. In 2006, openly gay rabbinic candidates were also to be admitted into the JTS. In 2012, a commitment ceremony for same-sex couples was devised, though not defined as kiddushin. In 2016, the rabbis passed a resolution supporting transgender rights.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "Conservative Judaism in the United States held a relatively strict policy regarding intermarriage. Propositions for acknowledging Jews by patrilineal descent, as in the Reform movement, were overwhelmingly dismissed. Unconverted spouses were largely barred from community membership and participation in rituals; clergy are banned from any involvement in interfaith marriage on pain of dismissal. However, as the rate of such unions rose dramatically, Conservative congregations began describing gentile family members as K'rov Yisrael (Kin of Israel) and be more open toward them. The Leadership Council of Conservative Judaism stated in 1995: \"we want to encourage the Jewish partner to maintain his/her Jewish identity, and raise their children as Jews.\"",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Despite the centralization of legal deliberation on matters of Jewish law in the CJLS individual synagogues and communities must, in the end, depend on their local decision-makers. The rabbi in his or her or their community is regarded as the Mara D'Atra, or the local Halakhic decisor. Rabbis trained in the reading practices of Conservative Jewish approaches, historical evaluation of Jewish law and interpretation of Biblical and Rabbinic texts may align directly with the CJLS decisions or themselves opine on matters based on precedents or readings of text that shine light on congregants' questions. So, for instance, a rabbi may or may not choose to permit video streaming on Shabbat despite a majority ruling that allows for use of electronics. A local Mara D'Atra may rely on the reasoning found in the majority or minority opinions of the CJLS or have other textual and halakhic grounds, i.e., prioritizing Jewish values or legal concepts, to rule one way or another on matters of ritual, family life or sacred pursuits. This balance between a centralization of Halakhic authority and maintaining the authority of local rabbis reflects the commitment to pluralism at the heart of the Movement.",
"title": "Jewish law"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "The term Conservative Judaism was used, still generically and not yet as a specific label, already in the 1887 dedication speech of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America by Rabbi Alexander Kohut. By 1901, the JTS alumni formed the Rabbinical Assembly, of which all ordained Conservative clergy in the world are members. As of 2010, there were 1,648 rabbis in the RA. In 1913, the United Synagogue of America, renamed the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in 1991, was founded as a congregational arm of the RA. The movement established the World Council of Conservative Synagogues in 1957. Offshoots outside North America mostly adopted the Hebrew name \"Masorti\", traditional', as did the Israeli Masorti Movement, founded in 1979, and the British Assembly of Masorti Synagogues, formed in 1985. The World Council eventually changed its name to \"Masorti Olami\", Masorti International. Besides the RA, the international Cantors Assembly supplies prayer leaders for congregations worldwide.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, covering the United States, Canada and Mexico, is by far the largest constituent of Masorti Olami. While most congregations defining themselves as \"Conservative\" are affiliated with the USCJ, some are independent. While accurate information of Canada is scant, it is estimated that some third of religiously affiliated Canadian Jews are Conservative. In 2008, the more traditional Canadian Council of Conservative Synagogues seceded from the parent organization. It numbered seven communities as of 2014. According to the Pew Research Center survey in 2013, 18 per cent of Jews in the United States and in 2020 13 per cent identified with the movement, making it the second largest in the country. Steven M. Cohen calculated that as of 2013, 962,000 U.S. Jewish adults considered themselves Conservative: 570,000 were registered congregants and further 392,000 were not members in a synagogue but identified. In addition, Cohen assumed in 2006 that 57,000 unconverted non-Jewish spouses were also registered (12 per cent of member households had one at the time): 40 per cent of members intermarry. Conservatives are also the most aged group: among those aged under 30 only 11 per cent identified as such, and there are three people over 55 for every single one aged between 35 and 44. As of November 2015, the USCJ had 580 member congregations (a sharp decline from 630 two years prior), 19 in Canada and the remainder in the United States. In 2011 the USCJ initiated a plan to reinvigorate the movement.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Beyond North America, the movement has little presence—in 2011, Rela Mintz Geffen appraised there were only 100,000 members outside the U.S. (and the former figure including Canada). \"Masorti AmLat\", the MO branch in Latin America, is the largest with 35 communities in Argentina, 7 in Brazil, 6 in Chile and further 11 in the other countries. The British Assembly of Masorti Synagogues has 13 communities and estimates its membership at over 4,000. More than 20 communities are spread across Europe, and there are 3 in Australia and 2 in Africa. The Masorti Movement in Israel incorporates some 70 communities and prayer groups with several thousand full members. In addition, while Hungarian Neolog Judaism, with a few thousands of adherents and forty partially active synagogues, is not officially affiliated with Masorti Olami, Conservative Judaism regards it as a fraternal, \"non-Orthodox but halakhic\" movement.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "In New York, the JTS serves as the movement's original seminary and legacy institution, along with the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles; the Marshall T. Meyer Latin American Rabbinical Seminary (Spanish: Seminario Rabínico Latinoamericano Marshall T. Meyer), in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. A Conservative institution that does not grant rabbinic ordination but which runs along the lines of a traditional yeshiva is the Conservative Yeshiva, located in Jerusalem. The Neolog Budapest University of Jewish Studies also maintains connections with Conservative Judaism.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "The current chancellor of the JTS is Shuly Rubin Schwartz, in office since 2020. She is the first woman elected to this position in the History of JTS. The current dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies is Bradley Shavit Artson. The Committee on Jewish Law and Standards is chaired by Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, serving since 2007. The Rabbinical Assembly is headed by President Rabbi Debra Newman Kamin, as of 2019, and managed by Chief Executive Officer, Rabbi Jacob Blumenthal. Rabbi Blumenthal holds the joint position as CEO of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The current USCJ President is Ned Gladstein. In South America, Rabbi Ariel Stofenmacher serves as chancellor in the Seminary and Rabbi Marcelo Rittner as president of Masorti AmLat. In Britain, the Masorti Assembly is chaired by Senior Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg. In Israel, the Masorti movement's executive director is Yizhar Hess and chair Sophie Fellman Rafalovitz.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The global youth movement is known as NOAM, an acronym for No'ar Masorti; its North American organization is called United Synagogue Youth. Marom Israel is the Masorti movement's organization for students and young adults, providing activities based on religious pluralism and Jewish content. The Women's League for Conservative Judaism is also active in North America.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "The USCJ maintains the Solomon Schechter Day Schools, comprising 76 day schools in 17 American states and 2 Canadian provinces serving Jewish children. Many other \"community day schools\" that are not affiliated with Schechter take a generally Conservative approach, but unlike these, generally have \"no barriers to enrollment based on the faith of the parents or on religious practices in the home\". During the first decade of the 21st century, a number of schools that were part of the Schechter network transformed themselves into non-affiliated community day schools. The USCJ also maintains the Camp Ramah system, where children and adolescents spend summers in an observant environment.",
"title": "Organization and demographics"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "The rise of modern, centralized states in Europe by the early 19th century heralded the end of Jewish judicial autonomy and social seclusion. Their communal corporate rights were abolished, and the process of emancipation and acculturation that followed quickly transformed the values and norms of the public. Estrangement and apathy toward Judaism were rampant. The process of communal, educational and civil reform could not be restricted from affecting the core tenets of the faith. The new academic, critical study of Judaism (Wissenschaft des Judentums) soon became a source of controversy. Rabbis and scholars argued to what degree, if at all, its findings could be used to determine present conduct. The modernized Orthodox in Germany, like rabbis Isaac Bernays and Azriel Hildesheimer, were content to cautiously study it while stringently adhering to the sanctity of holy texts and refusing to grant Wissenschaft any say in religious matters. On the other extreme were Rabbi Abraham Geiger, who would emerge as the founding father of Reform Judaism, and his supporters. They opposed any limit on critical research or its practical application, laying more weight on the need for change than on continuity.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "The Prague-born Rabbi Zecharias Frankel, appointed chief rabbi of the Kingdom of Saxony in 1836, gradually rose to become the leader of those who stood at the middle. Besides working for the civic betterment of local Jews and educational reform, he displayed keen interest in Wissenschaft. But Frankel was always cautious and deeply reverent towards tradition, privately writing in 1836 that \"The means must be applied with such care and discretion... that forward progress will be reached unnoticed, and seem inconsequential to the average spectator.\" He soon found himself embroiled in the great disputes of the 1840s. In 1842, during the second Hamburg Temple controversy, he opposed the new Reform prayerbook, arguing the elimination of petitions for a future Return to Zion led by the Messiah was a violation of an ancient tenet. But he also opposed the ban placed on the tome by Rabbi Bernays, stating this was a primitive behaviour. In the same year, he and the moderate conservative S.L. Rapoport were the only ones of nineteen respondents who negatively answered the Breslau community's enquiry on whether the deeply unorthodox Geiger could serve there. In 1843, Frankel clashed with the radical Reform rabbi Samuel Holdheim, who argued that the act of marriage in Judaism was a civic (memonot) rather than sanctified (issurim) matter and could be subject to the Law of the Land. In December 1843 Frankel launched the magazine Zeitschrift für die Religiösen Interessen des Judenthums. In the preamble, he attempted to present his approach to the present plight: \"The further development of Judaism cannot be done through Reform that would lead to total dissipation... But must be involved in its study... pursued via scientific research, on a positive, historical basis.\" The term Positive-Historical became associated with him and his middle way. The Zeitschrift was, along the convictions of its publisher, neither dogmatically orthodox nor overly polemic, wholly opposing Biblical criticism and arguing for the antiquity of custom and practice.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "In 1844, Geiger and like-minded allies arranged a conference in Braunschweig that was to have enough authority (since 1826, Rabbi Aaron Chorin called for the convocation of a new Sanhedrin) to debate and enact thoroughgoing revisions. Frankel was willing to agree only to a meeting without any practical results, and refused the invitation. When the protocols, which contained many radical statements, were published, he denounced the assembly for \"applying the scalpel of criticism\" and favouring the spirit of the age over tradition. However, he later agreed to attend the second conference, held in Frankfurt am Main on 15 July 1845—in spite of warnings from Rapoport, who cautioned that compromise with Geiger was impossible and he would only damage his reputation among the traditionalists. On the 16th, the issue of Hebrew in the liturgy arose. Most present were inclined to retain it, but with more German segments. A small majority adopted a resolution stating there were subjective, but no objective, imperatives to keep it as the language of service. Frankel then astounded his peers by vehemently protesting, stating it was a breach with the past and that Hebrew was of dire importance and great sentimental value. The others immediately began quoting all passages in rabbinic literature allowing prayer in the vernacular. Frankel could not contend with the halakhic validity of their decision, but he perceived it as a sign of profound differences between them. On the 17th he formally withdrew, publishing a lambasting critique of the procedures. \"Opponents of the conference, who feared he went to the other side,\" noted historian Michael A. Meyer, \"now felt reassured of his loyalty\".",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "The rabbi of Saxony had many sympathizers, who supported a similarly moderate approach and change only on the basis of the authority of the Talmud. When Geiger began preparing a third conference in Breslau, Hirsch Bär Fassel convinced Frankel to organize one of his own in protest. Frankel invited colleagues to an assembly in Dresden, which was to be held on 21 October 1846. He announced that one measure he was willing to countenance was the possible abolition of the second day of festivals, though only if a broad consensus will be reached and not before thorough deliberation. Attendants were to include Rapoport, Fassel, Adolf Jellinek, Leopold Löw, Michael Sachs, Abraham Kohn and others. However, the Dresden assembly soon drew heated Orthodox resistance, especially from Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger, and was postponed indefinitely.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "In 1854, Frankel was appointed chancellor in the new Jewish Theological Seminary of Breslau, the first modern rabbinical seminary in Germany. His opponents on both flanks were incensed. Geiger and the Reform camp long accused him of theological ambiguity, hypocrisy and attachment to stagnant remnants, and now protested the \"medieval\" atmosphere in the seminary, which was mainly concerned with teaching Jewish Law. The hardline Orthodox Samson Raphael Hirsch, who fiercely opposed Wissenschaft and emphasized the divine origin of the entire halakhic system in the Theophany at Sinai, was deeply suspicious of Frankel's beliefs, use of science and constant assertions that Jewish Law was flexible and evolving.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "The final schism between Frankel and the Orthodox occurred after the 1859 publication of his Darke ha-Mishna (Ways of the Mishna). He heaved praise on the Beatified Sages, presenting them as bold innovators, but not once affirmed the divinity of the Oral Torah. On the ordinances classified as Law given to Moses at Sinai, he quoted Asher ben Jehiel that stated several of those were only apocryphally dubbed as such; he applied the latter's conclusion to all, noting they were \"so evident as if given at Sinai\". Hirsch branded Frankel a heretic, demanding he announce whether he believed that both the Oral and Written Torah were of celestial origin. Rabbis Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach, Solomon Klein and others published more complaisant tracts, but also requested an explanation. Rapoport marshaled to Frankel's aid, assuring that his words were merely reiterating ben Jehiel's and that he would soon release a statement that will belie Hirsch's accusations. But then the Chancellor of Breslau issued an ambiguous defence, writing that his book was not concerned with theology and avoiding giving any clear answer. Now even Rapoport joined his critics.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Hirsch succeeded, severely tarnishing Frankel's reputation among most concerned. Along with fellow Orthodox Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer, Hirsch launched a protracted public campaign through the 1860s. They ceaselessly stressed the chasm between an Orthodox understanding of Halakha as derived and revealed, applied differently to different circumstances and subject to human judgement and possibly error, yet unchanging and divine in principle—as opposed to an evolutionary, historicist and non-dogmatic approach in which past authorities were not just elaborating but consciously innovating, as taught by Frankel. Hildesheimer often repeated that this issue utterly overshadowed any specific technical argument with the Breslau School (the students of which were often more lenient on matters of headcovering for women, Chalav Yisrael and other issues). Hildesheimer was concerned that Jewish public opinion perceived no practical difference between them; though he cared to distinguish the observant acolytes of Frankel from the Reform camp, he noted in his diary: \"How meager is the principal difference between the Breslau School, who don silk gloves at their work, and Geiger who wields a sledgehammer.\" In 1863, when Breslau faculty member Heinrich Graetz published an article where he appeared to doubt the Messianic belief, Hildesheimer immediately seized upon the occasion to prove once more the dogmatic, rather than practical, divide. He denounced Graetz as a heretic.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "The Positive-Historical School was influential, but never institutionalized itself as thoroughly as its opponents. Apart from the many graduates of Breslau, Isaac Noah Mannheimer, Adolf Jellinek and Rabbi Moritz Güdemann led the central congregation in Vienna along a similar path. In Jellinek's local seminary, Meir Friedmann and Isaac Hirsch Weiss followed Frankel's moderate approach to critical research. The rabbinate of the liberal Neolog public in Hungary, which formally separated from the Orthodox, was also permeated with the \"Breslau spirit\". Many of its members studied there, and its Jewish Theological Seminary of Budapest was modeled after it, though the assimilationist congregants cared little for rabbinic opinion. In Germany itself, Breslau alumni founded in 1868 a short-lived society, the Jüdisch-Theologische Verein. It was dissolved within a year, boycotted by both Reform and Orthodox. Michael Sachs led the Berlin congregation in a very conservative style, eventually resigning when an organ was introduced in services. Manuel Joël, another of the Frankelist party, succeeded Geiger in Breslau. He maintained his predecessor's truncated German translation of the liturgy for the sake of compromise, but restored the full Hebrew text.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "The Breslau Seminary and the Reform Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums maintained very different approaches; but on the communal level, the former's alumni failure to organize or articulate a coherent agenda, coupled with the declining prestige of Breslau and the conservatism of the Hochschule's alumni—a necessity in heterogeneous communities which remained unified, especially after the Orthodox gained the right to secede in 1876—imposed a rather uniform and mild character on what was known in Germany as \"Liberal Judaism\". In 1909, 63 rabbis associated with the Breslau approach founded the Freie Jüdische Vereinigung, another brief attempt at institutionalization, but it too failed soon. Only in 1925 did the Religiöse Mittelpartei für Frieden und Einheit succeed in driving the same agenda. It won several seats in communal elections, but was small and of little influence.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "Jewish immigration to the United States bred an amalgam of loose communities, lacking strong tradition or stable structures. In this free-spirited environment, a multitude of forces was at work. As early as 1866, Rabbi Jonas Bondi of New York wrote that a Judaism of the \"golden middleway, which was termed Orthodox by the left and heterodox or reformer by the right\" developed in the new country. The rapid ascendancy of Reform Judaism by the 1880s left few who opposed it, merely a handful of congregations and ministers remained outside the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. These included Sabato Morais and Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes of the elitist Sephardi congregations, along with rabbis Bernard Drachman (ordained at Breslau, though he regarded himself as Orthodox) and Henry Schneeberger.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "While spearheaded by radical and principled Reformers like Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, the UAHC was also home to more conservative elements. President Isaac Meyer Wise, a pragmatist intent on compromise, hoped to forge a broad consensus that would turn a moderate version of Reform to dominant in America. He kept the dietary laws at home and attempted to assuage traditionalists. On 11 July 1883, apparently due to negligence by the Jewish caterer, non-kosher dishes were served to UAHC rabbis in Wise's presence. Known to posterity as the \"trefa banquet\", it purportedly made some guests abandon the hall in disgust, but little is factually known about the incident. In 1885, the traditionalist forces were bolstered upon the arrival of Rabbi Alexander Kohut, an adherent of Frankel. He publicly excoriated Reform for disdaining ritual and received forms, triggering a heated polemic with Kohler. The debate was one of the main factors which motivated the latter to compose the Pittsburgh Platform, which unambiguously declared the principles of Reform Judaism: \"to-day we accept as binding only the moral laws, and maintain only such ceremonies as elevate and sanctify our lives.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "The explicit wording alienated a handful of conservative UAHC ministers: Henry Hochheimer, Frederick de Sola Mendes, Aaron Wise, Marcus Jastrow, and Benjamin Szold. They joined Kohut, Morais and the others in seeking to establish a traditional rabbinic seminary that would serve as a counterweight to Hebrew Union College. In 1886, they founded the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City. Kohut, professor of Talmud who held to the Positive-Historical ideal, was the main educational influence in the early years, prominent among the founders who encompassed the entire spectrum from progressive Orthodox to the brink of Reform; to describe what the seminary intended to espouse, he used the term \"Conservative Judaism\", which had no independent meaning at the time and was only in relation to Reform. In 1898, Pereira Mendes, Schneeberger and Drachman also founded the Orthodox Union, which maintained close ties with the seminary.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "The JTS was a small, fledgling institution with financial difficulties, and was ordaining merely a rabbi per year. But soon after Chancellor Morais' death in 1897, its fortunes turned. Since 1881, a wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe was inundating the country—by 1920, 2.5 million of them had arrived, increasing American Jewry tenfold. They came from regions where civil equality or emancipation were never granted, while acculturation and modernization made little headway. Whether devout or irreligious, they mostly retained strong traditional sentiments in matters of faith, accustomed to old-style rabbinate; the hardline Agudas HaRabbanim, founded by emigrant clergy, opposed secular education or vernacular sermons, and its members spoke almost only Yiddish. The Eastern Europeans were alienated by the local Jews, who were all assimilated in comparison, and especially aghast by the mores of Reform. The need to find a religious framework that would both accommodate and Americanize them motivated Jacob Schiff and other rich philanthropists, all Reform and of German descent, to donate $500,000 to the JTS. The contribution was solicited by Professor Cyrus Adler. It was conditioned on the appointment of Solomon Schechter as Chancellor. In 1901, the Rabbinical Assembly was established as the fraternity of JTS alumni.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "Schechter arrived in 1902, and at once reorganized the faculty, dismissing both Pereira Mendes and Drachman for lack of academic merit. Under his aegis, the institute began to draw famous scholars, becoming a center of learning on par with HUC. Schechter was both traditional in sentiment and quite unorthodox in conviction. He maintained that theology was of little importance and it was practice that must be preserved. He aspired to solicit unity in American Judaism, denouncing sectarianism and not perceiving himself as leading a new denomination: \"not to create a new party, but to consolidate an old one\". The need to raise funds convinced him that a congregational arm for the Rabbinical Assembly and the JTS was required. On 23 February 1913, he founded the United Synagogue of America (since 1991: United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism), which then consisted of 22 communities. He and Mendes first came to major disagreement; Schechter insisted that any alumnus could be appointed to the USoA's managerial board, and not just to serve as communal rabbi, including several the latter did not consider sufficiently devout, or who tolerated mixed seating in their synagogues (though some of those he still regarded as Orthodox). Mendes, president of the Orthodox Union, therefore refused to join. He began to distinguish between the \"Modern Orthodoxy\" of himself and his peers in the OU, and \"Conservatives\" who tolerated what was beyond the pale for him. However, this first sign of institutionalization and separation was far from conclusive. Mendes himself could not clearly differentiate between the two groups, and many he viewed as Orthodox were members of the USoA. The epithets \"Conservative\" and \"Orthodox\" remained interchangeable for decades to come. JTS graduates served in OU congregations; many students of the Orthodox Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and members of the OU's Rabbinical Council of America, or RCA, attended it. In 1926, RIETS and the JTS even negotiated a possible merger, though it was never materialized. Upon Schechter's death in 1915, the first generation of his disciples kept his non-sectarian legacy of striving for a united, traditional American Judaism. He was replaced by Cyrus Adler.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "The USoA grew rapidly as the Eastern European immigrant population slowly integrated. In 1923 it already had 150 affiliated communities, and 229 before 1930. Synagogues offered a more modernized ritual: English sermons, choir singing, late Friday evening services which tacitly acknowledging that most had to work until after the Sabbath began, and often mixed-gender seating. Men and women sat separately with no partition, and some houses of prayer already introduced family pews. Motivated by popular pressure and frowned upon by both RA and seminary faculty—in its own synagogue, the institute maintained a partition until 1983—this was becoming common among the OU as well. As both social conditions and apathy turned American Jews away from tradition (barely 20 per cent were attending prayers weekly), a young professor named Mordecai Kaplan promoted the idea of transforming the synagogue into a community center, a \"Shul with a Pool\", a policy which indeed stymied the tide somewhat.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "In 1927, the RA also established its own Committee of Jewish Law, entrusted with determining halakhic issues. Consisting of seven members, it was chaired by the traditionalist Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, who already distinguished himself in 1922, drafting a responsa that allowed the use of grape juice rather than fermented wine for Kiddush on the background of Prohibition. Kaplan himself, who rose to become an influential and popular figure within the JTS, concluded that his fellow rabbis' ambiguity in matters of belief and the contradiction between full observance and critical study were untenable and hypocritical. He formulated his own approach of Judaism as a Civilization, rejecting the concept of Revelation and any supernatural belief in favour of a cultural-ethnic perception. While valuing received mores, he eventually suggested giving the past \"a vote, not a veto\". Though popular among students, Kaplan's nascent Reconstructionism was opposed by the new traditionalist Chancellor Louis Finkelstein, appointed in 1940, and a large majority among the faculty.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Tensions within the JTS and RA grew. The Committee of Jewish Law consisted mainly of scholars who had little field experience, almost solely from the seminary's Talmudic department. They were greatly concerned with halakhic licitness and indifferent to the pressures exerted on the pulpit rabbis, who had to contend with an Americanized public which cared little for such considerations or for tradition in general. In 1935, the RA almost adopted a groundbreaking motion: Rabbi Louis Epstein offered a solution to the agunah predicament, a clause that would have had husbands appoint wives as their proxies to issue divorce. It was repealed under pressure from the Orthodox Union. As late as 1947, CJL Chair Rabbi Boaz Cohen, himself a historicist who argued that the Law evolved much through time, rebuked pulpit clergy who requested lenient or radical rulings, stating he and his peers were content to \"progress in inches... Free setting up of new premises and the introduction of novel categories of ritual upon the basis of pure reason and thinking would be perilous, if not fatal, to the principles and continuity of Jewish Law.\"",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "The boundaries between Orthodox and Conservative Judaism in America were institutionalized only in the aftermath of World War II. The 1940s saw the younger generation of JTS graduates less patient with the prudence of the CJL and Talmud faculty in face of popular demand. Kaplan's Reconstructionism, while its fully committed partisans were few, had much influence. The majority among recent alumni eschewed the epithet \"Orthodox\" and tended to employ \"Conservative\" exclusively. Succeeding Schechter's direct disciples who headed the RA, JTS and United Synagogue in the interwar period, a new strata of activist leaders was rising. Rabbi Robert Gordis, RA president in 1944–1946, represented the junior members in advocating more flexibility; Rabbi Jacob Agus, a RIETS graduate who joined the body only in 1945, clamored that \"we need a law making body, not a law interpreting committee.\" Agus argued that the breach between the Jewish public and tradition was too wide to be bridged conventionally, and that the RA would always remain inferior to the Orthodox as long as it retained its policy of merely adopting lenient precedents in rabbinic literature. He offered to extensively apply the tool of takkanah, rabbinic ordinance.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "In 1946, a committee chaired by Gordis issued the Sabbath and Festival Prayerbook, the first clearly Conservative liturgy: references to the sacrificial cult were in the past tense instead of a petition for restoration, and it rephrased blessings such as \"who hast made me according to thy will\" for women to \"who hast made me a woman\". During the movement's national conference in Chicago, held 13–17 May 1948, the pulpit rabbis in the RA gained the upper hand. Spurred by Gordis, Agus and fellow leaders, they voted to reorganize the CJL into a Committee of Jewish Law and Standards, enfranchised to issue takkanot by a majority. Membership was conditioned on having experience as a congregational rabbi, and unseasoned JTS faculty were thus denied entrance. While the RA was asserting a Conservative distinctive identity, the seminary remained more cautious. Finkelstein opposed sectarianism and preferred the neutral epithet \"traditional\", later commenting that \"Conservative Judaism is a gimmick to get Jews back to real Judaism\". He and the very right-wing Talmud professor Saul Lieberman, who maintained ties with the Orthodox while also viewing them as obstructionist and ossified, dominated the JTS, providing a counterweight to the liberals in the Assembly. Kaplan, meanwhile, spent more time on consolidating his Society for Advancement of Judaism. Abraham Joshua Heschel, who espoused a mysticist understanding of Jewish religion, also became an important figure among the faculty.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "The CJLS now proceeded to demonstrate its independence. Sabbath was widely desecrated by a large majority of Jews, and the board believed attendance at synagogues should be encouraged. They therefore enacted an ordinance that allowed driving on the Sabbath (for worship alone) and the use of electricity. The driving responsum was later severely criticized by Conservative rabbis, and was charged with imparting that the movement was overly keen to condone the laxity of congregants. It also signified the final break with the Orthodox, who were themselves being bolstered by more strictly observant immigrants from Europe. In 1954, the RCA reversed its 1948 ruling that allowed the use of microphones on Sabbath and festivals and declared that praying without a partition between sexes was banned. Though enforced slowly—in 1997, there were still seven OU congregations with no physical barrier, and so-called \"Conservadox\" remain extant—these two attributes became a demarcation line between Orthodox and Conservative synagogues. RA converts were denied ablution in Orthodox ritual baths, and rabbis from one movement would gradually cease serving in the other's communities.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Rather than a force within American Judaism, the JTS-centered movement emerged as a third movement. The historicist and critical approach to halakha, as well as other features, were emphasized by leaders eager to demonstrate their uniqueness. In their efforts to solidify a coherent identity, Conservative thinkers like Mordecai Waxman in his 1957 Tradition and Change, ventured beyond Schechter's conceptions to Rabbi Zecharias Frankel and Breslau, presenting themselves as its direct inheritors via Alexander Kohut and others. The CJLS continued to issue groundbreaking ordinances and rulings.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "The postwar decades were a time of immense growth for the Conservative movement. Most of the 500,000 decommissioned Jewish GIs left the densely populated immigrant neighbourhoods of the East Coast, moving to suburbia. They were Americanized but still retained traditional sentiments, and Reform Judaism was too radical for most. The United Synagogue of America offered Jewish education for children and a familiar religious environment which was also comfortable and not strict. It expanded from 350 communities by 1945 to 832 by 1971, becoming the largest denomination, with some 350,000 dues-paying member households (1.5 million people) at synagogues and over 40 per cent of American Jewry identifying with it in polls, adding an estimated million more non-registered supporters.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Already in a 1955 study, Marshall Sklare defined Conservative Judaism as the quintessential American Jewish movement, but stressed the gap between laity and clergy, noting \"rabbis now recognize that they are not making decisions or writing responsa, but merely taking a poll of their membership.\" Most congregants, commented Edward S. Shapiro, were \"Conservative Jews because their rabbi kept kosher and the Sabbath... Not because of their religious behavior.\" The movement established its presence outside the U.S. and Canada: In 1962, the young Rabbi Marshall Meyer founded the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, which would serve as the basis for Conservative expansion in South America. In 1979, four communities formed the Israel Masorti Movement. Rabbi Louis Jacobs, dismissed in 1964 from the British Orthodox rabbinate on the charge of heresy after espousing a non-literal understanding of the Torah, joined with the Conservatives and founded his country's first Masorti community. The new branches were all united within the World Council of Synagogues, later to be named Masorti Olami.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "The movement peaked in numbers in the 1970s. During that decade, the tensions between the various elements within it intensified. The right wing, conservative in halakhic matters and often adhering to a verbal understanding of revelation, was dismayed by the failure to bolster observance among the laity and the resurgence of Orthodoxy. The left was influenced by the Reconstructionists, who formed their own seminary in 1968 and were slowly coalescing, as well as the growing appeal of Reform, which turned more traditional and threatened to sway congregants. While the rightists opposed further modifications, their left-wing peers demanded them. The Chavurah movement, consisting of nonaligned prayer quorums of young (and frequently, Conservative-raised) worshipers who sought a more intense religious experience, also weakened congregations. In 1972, the liberal wing gained an influential position with the appointment of Gerson D. Cohen as JTS Chancellor. During the same year, after Reform began to ordain female rabbis, a strong lobby rose to advocate the same. The CJLS rapidly enacted an ordinance which allowed women to be tallied for a minyan, and by 1976 the percentage of synagogues allowing them to bless during the reading of the Torah grew from 7 per cent to 50 per cent. In 1979, ignoring the denominational leadership, Beth Israel Congregation of Chester County accepted the RRC-ordained Rabbi Linda Joy Holtzman. Pressures to allow women to assume rabbinical positions was mounting from the congregational level, though the RA agreed to delay any action until the JTS scholars would concur.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Female ordination was a matter of great friction until 1983, when Rabbi Joel Roth devised a solution that entailed women voluntarily accepting the obligation to pray regularly. The leadership passed it not by scholarly consensus but via a popular vote of all JTS faculty, including non-specialists. Two years later, the first JTS-ordained female rabbi, Amy Eilberg, was admitted into the RA. David Weiss Halivni, professor of the Talmud faculty, claimed that Roth's method must have required waiting until a considerable number of women did prove sufficient commitment. He and his sympathizers regarded the vote as belying any claim to halakhic integrity. They formed the Union for Traditional Conservative Judaism in 1985, a right-wing lobby which numbered some 10,000 supporters from the Conservative observant elite. The UTJC withdrew from the movement and erased the word \"Conservative\" in 1990, attempting to merge with moderate Orthodox organizations.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "In the very same year, the Reconstructionist also seceded fully, joining the World Union for Progressive Judaism under observer status. The double defection narrowed the movement's spectrum of opinions, at a time when large swaths of congregants were abandoning in favour of Reform, which was more tolerant of intermarriage. RA leaders were engaged in introspection through the later 1980s, resulting in the 1988 Emet ve-Emunah platform, while Reform slowly bypassed them and became the largest American Jewish movement.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "After the issue of egalitarianism for women subsided, LGBT acceptance replaced it as the main source of contention between the declining right wing and the liberal majority. A first attempt was rebuffed in 1992 by a harsh responsum written by Roth. The retirement of Chancellor Ismar Schorsch, a staunch opponent, allowed the CJLS to endorse a motion which still banned anal intercourse but not any other physical contact, and allowed the ordination of openly LGBT rabbis, in 2006. Roth and three other supporters resigned from the panel in protest, claiming the responsum was not valid; Masorti affiliates in South America, Israel and Hungary objected severely. The Seminario is yet to accept the resolution, while several Canadian congregations seceded from the United Synagogue in 2008 to form an independent union in protest of the slide to the left. Since the 2013 Pew survey, which assessed that only 18 per cent of American Jews identify with it, Conservative leadership is engaged in attempting to solve Conservative Judaism's demographic crisis.",
"title": "History"
}
] | Conservative Judaism is a Jewish religious movement that regards the authority of Jewish law and tradition as emanating primarily from the assent of the people through the generations, more than from divine revelation. It therefore views Jewish law, or Halakha, as both binding and subject to historical development. The conservative rabbinate employs modern historical-critical research, rather than only traditional methods and sources, and lends great weight to its constituency, when determining its stance on matters of practice. The movement considers its approach as the authentic and most appropriate continuation of Halakhic discourse, maintaining both fealty to received forms and flexibility in their interpretation. It also eschews strict theological definitions, lacking a consensus in matters of faith and allowing great pluralism. While regarding itself as the heir of Rabbi Zecharias Frankel's 19th-century positive-historical school in Europe, Conservative Judaism fully institutionalized only in the United States during the mid-20th century. Its largest center today is in North America, where its main congregational arm is the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and the New York–based Jewish Theological Seminary of America operates as its largest rabbinic seminary. Globally, affiliated communities are united within the umbrella organization Masorti Olami. Conservative Judaism is the third-largest Jewish religious movement worldwide, estimated to represent close to 1.1 million people, including over 600,000 registered adult congregants and many non-member identifiers. | 2001-10-25T03:58:04Z | 2023-12-21T14:11:04Z | [
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6,626 | CDE | CDE may refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "CDE may refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] | CDE may refer to: | 2001-09-30T18:20:23Z | 2023-09-07T16:13:06Z | [
"Template:Disambiguation"
] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDE |
6,627 | Common Desktop Environment | The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif widget toolkit. It was part of the UNIX 98 Workstation Product Standard, and was for a long time the Unix desktop associated with commercial Unix workstations. It helped to influence early implementations of successor projects such as KDE and GNOME desktop environment, which largely replaced CDE following the turn of the century.
After a long history as proprietary software, CDE was released as free software on August 6, 2012, under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.0 or later. Since its release as free software, CDE has been ported to Linux and BSD derivatives.
Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SunSoft, and USL announced CDE in June 1993 as a joint development within the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative. Each development group contributed its own technology to CDE:
After its release, HP endorsed CDE as the new standard desktop for Unix, and provided documentation and software for migrating HP VUE customizations to CDE.
In March 1994 CDE became the responsibility of the "new OSF", a merger of the Open Software Foundation and Unix International; in September 1995, the merger of Motif and CDE into a single project, CDE/Motif, was announced. OSF became part of the newly formed Open Group in 1996.
In February 1997, the Open Group released their last major version of CDE, version 2.1.
Red Hat Linux was the only Linux distribution that proprietary CDE was ported to. In 1997, Red Hat began offering a version of CDE licensed from TriTeal Corporation. In 1998, Xi Graphics, a company specializing in the X Windowing System, offered a version of CDE bundled with Red Hat Linux, called Xi Graphics maXimum cde/OS. These were phased out, and Red Hat moved to the GNOME desktop.
Until about 2000, users of Unix desktops regarded CDE as the de facto standard, but at that time, other desktop environments such as GNOME and K Desktop Environment 2 were quickly becoming mature, and became widespread on Linux systems.
In 2001, Sun Microsystems announced that they would phase out CDE as the standard desktop environment in Solaris in favor of GNOME. Solaris 10, released in early 2005, includes both CDE and the GNOME-based Java Desktop System. The OpenSolaris project, begun around the same time, did not include CDE, and had no intent to make Solaris CDE available as open-source. The original release of Solaris 11 in November 2011 only contained GNOME as standard desktop, though some CDE libraries, such as Motif and ToolTalk, remained for binary compatibility but Oracle Solaris 11.4, released in August 2018, removed support for the CDE runtime environment and background services.
From its launch until 2012, CDE was proprietary software.
Motif, the toolkit on which CDE is built, was released by The Open Group in 2000 as "Open Motif," under a "revenue sharing" license. That license did not meet either the open source or free software definitions. The Open Group had wished to make Motif open source, but did not succeed doing so at that time.
In 2006, a petition was created asking The Open Group to release the source code for CDE and Motif under a free license. On August 6, 2012, CDE was released under the LGPL-2.0-or-later license. The CDE source code was then released to SourceForge.
The free software project OpenCDE had been started in 2010 to reproduce the look and feel, organization, and feature set of CDE. In August 2012, when CDE was released as free software, OpenCDE was officially deprecated in favor of CDE.
On October 23, 2012, the Motif widget toolkit was also released under the LGPL-2.1-or-later license. This allowed CDE to become a completely free and open source desktop environment.
Shortly after CDE was released as free software, a Linux live CD was created based on Debian 6 with CDE 2.2.0c pre-installed, called CDEbian. The live CD has since been discontinued.
The Debian-based Linux distribution SparkyLinux offers binary packages of CDE that can be installed with APT. As of March 2023, CDE is also included in the NuTyX GNU/Linux distribution which offers an ISO download image with it, in FreeBSD and in source form in pkgsrc which is the default package manager of NetBSD.
In March 2014, the first stable release of CDE, version 2.2.1, was made since its release as free software.
Beginning with version 2.2.2, released in July 2014, CDE is able to compile under FreeBSD 10 with the default Clang compiler.
Since version 2.3.0, released in July 2018, CDE uses TIRPC on Linux, so that the portmapper rpcbind does not need to be run in insecure mode. It does not use Xprint anymore, and can be compiled on the BSDs without installing first a custom version of Motif. Multihead display support with Xinerama has been improved.
Since its release as free software, CDE has been ported to:
Future project goals of the CDE project include: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif widget toolkit. It was part of the UNIX 98 Workstation Product Standard, and was for a long time the Unix desktop associated with commercial Unix workstations. It helped to influence early implementations of successor projects such as KDE and GNOME desktop environment, which largely replaced CDE following the turn of the century.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "After a long history as proprietary software, CDE was released as free software on August 6, 2012, under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.0 or later. Since its release as free software, CDE has been ported to Linux and BSD derivatives.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Hewlett-Packard, IBM, SunSoft, and USL announced CDE in June 1993 as a joint development within the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative. Each development group contributed its own technology to CDE:",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "After its release, HP endorsed CDE as the new standard desktop for Unix, and provided documentation and software for migrating HP VUE customizations to CDE.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In March 1994 CDE became the responsibility of the \"new OSF\", a merger of the Open Software Foundation and Unix International; in September 1995, the merger of Motif and CDE into a single project, CDE/Motif, was announced. OSF became part of the newly formed Open Group in 1996.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "In February 1997, the Open Group released their last major version of CDE, version 2.1.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Red Hat Linux was the only Linux distribution that proprietary CDE was ported to. In 1997, Red Hat began offering a version of CDE licensed from TriTeal Corporation. In 1998, Xi Graphics, a company specializing in the X Windowing System, offered a version of CDE bundled with Red Hat Linux, called Xi Graphics maXimum cde/OS. These were phased out, and Red Hat moved to the GNOME desktop.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Until about 2000, users of Unix desktops regarded CDE as the de facto standard, but at that time, other desktop environments such as GNOME and K Desktop Environment 2 were quickly becoming mature, and became widespread on Linux systems.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "In 2001, Sun Microsystems announced that they would phase out CDE as the standard desktop environment in Solaris in favor of GNOME. Solaris 10, released in early 2005, includes both CDE and the GNOME-based Java Desktop System. The OpenSolaris project, begun around the same time, did not include CDE, and had no intent to make Solaris CDE available as open-source. The original release of Solaris 11 in November 2011 only contained GNOME as standard desktop, though some CDE libraries, such as Motif and ToolTalk, remained for binary compatibility but Oracle Solaris 11.4, released in August 2018, removed support for the CDE runtime environment and background services.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "From its launch until 2012, CDE was proprietary software.",
"title": "License history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Motif, the toolkit on which CDE is built, was released by The Open Group in 2000 as \"Open Motif,\" under a \"revenue sharing\" license. That license did not meet either the open source or free software definitions. The Open Group had wished to make Motif open source, but did not succeed doing so at that time.",
"title": "License history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In 2006, a petition was created asking The Open Group to release the source code for CDE and Motif under a free license. On August 6, 2012, CDE was released under the LGPL-2.0-or-later license. The CDE source code was then released to SourceForge.",
"title": "License history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "The free software project OpenCDE had been started in 2010 to reproduce the look and feel, organization, and feature set of CDE. In August 2012, when CDE was released as free software, OpenCDE was officially deprecated in favor of CDE.",
"title": "License history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "On October 23, 2012, the Motif widget toolkit was also released under the LGPL-2.1-or-later license. This allowed CDE to become a completely free and open source desktop environment.",
"title": "License history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Shortly after CDE was released as free software, a Linux live CD was created based on Debian 6 with CDE 2.2.0c pre-installed, called CDEbian. The live CD has since been discontinued.",
"title": "License history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "The Debian-based Linux distribution SparkyLinux offers binary packages of CDE that can be installed with APT. As of March 2023, CDE is also included in the NuTyX GNU/Linux distribution which offers an ISO download image with it, in FreeBSD and in source form in pkgsrc which is the default package manager of NetBSD.",
"title": "License history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "In March 2014, the first stable release of CDE, version 2.2.1, was made since its release as free software.",
"title": "Development under CDE project"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Beginning with version 2.2.2, released in July 2014, CDE is able to compile under FreeBSD 10 with the default Clang compiler.",
"title": "Development under CDE project"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Since version 2.3.0, released in July 2018, CDE uses TIRPC on Linux, so that the portmapper rpcbind does not need to be run in insecure mode. It does not use Xprint anymore, and can be compiled on the BSDs without installing first a custom version of Motif. Multihead display support with Xinerama has been improved.",
"title": "Development under CDE project"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "Since its release as free software, CDE has been ported to:",
"title": "Development under CDE project"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Future project goals of the CDE project include:",
"title": "Development under CDE project"
}
] | The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) is a desktop environment for Unix and OpenVMS, based on the Motif widget toolkit. It was part of the UNIX 98 Workstation Product Standard, and was for a long time the Unix desktop associated with commercial Unix workstations. It helped to influence early implementations of successor projects such as KDE and GNOME desktop environment, which largely replaced CDE following the turn of the century. After a long history as proprietary software, CDE was released as free software on August 6, 2012, under the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.0 or later. Since its release as free software, CDE has been ported to Linux and BSD derivatives. | 2023-03-09T04:37:54Z | [
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|
6,628 | Children of Dune | Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the third in his Dune series of six novels. It was originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1976, and was the last Dune novel to be serialized before book publication.
At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides walks into the desert, a blind man, leaving his twin children Leto and Ghanima in the care of the Fremen, while his sister Alia rules the universe as regent. Awakened in the womb by the spice, the children are the heirs to Paul's prescient vision of the fate of the universe, a role that Alia desperately craves. House Corrino schemes to return to the throne, while the Bene Gesserit make common cause with the Tleilaxu and Spacing Guild to gain control of the spice and the children of Paul Atreides.
Initially selling over 75,000 copies, it became the first hardcover best-seller ever in the science fiction field. The novel was critically well-received for its plot, action, and atmosphere, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977. Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune were collectively adapted by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 into a miniseries titled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.
Nine years after Emperor Paul Muad'Dib walked into the desert, blind, the ecological transformation of Dune has reached the point where some Fremen are living without stillsuits in the less arid climate and have started to move out of the sietches and into the villages and cities. As the old ways erode, more and more pilgrims arrive to experience the planet of Muad'Dib. The Imperial high council has lost its political might and is powerless to control the Jihad.
Paul's young twin children, Leto II and Ghanima, have concluded that their guardian Alia has succumbed to Abomination—possession by her grandfather Baron Vladimir Harkonnen—and fear that a similar fate awaits them. They (and Alia) also realize that the terraforming of Dune will kill all the sandworms, thus destroying the source of the spice, but Baron Harkonnen desires this outcome. Leto also fears that, like his father, he will become trapped by his prescience.
Meanwhile, a new religious figure called "The Preacher" has risen in the desert, rallying against the religious government's injustices and the changes among the Fremen. Some Fremen believe he is Paul Atreides. Princess Wensicia of the fallen House Corrino on Salusa Secundus plots to assassinate the twins and regain power for her House.
Lady Jessica returns to Arrakis and recognizes that her daughter is possessed, but finds no signs of Abomination in the twins. Leto arranges for Fremen leader Stilgar to protect his sister if there is an attempt on their lives. The Preacher journeys to Salusa Secundus to meet Wensicia's son Farad'n, and in return pledges the Duncan Idaho ghola as an agent of House Corrino. Alia attempts to assassinate Jessica, who escapes into the desert with Duncan's help, precipitating a rebellion among the Fremen. The twins anticipate and survive the Corrino assassination plot. Leto leaves to seek out Jacurutu, a mythical Fremen sietch and possible holdout of the Preacher, while Ghanima, changing her memory with self-hypnosis, reports (and believes) that her brother has been murdered. Duncan and Jessica flee to Salusa Secundus, where Jessica begins to mentor Farad'n. He sidelines and publicly denounces his regent mother Wensicia over the assassination attempt on the twins, and allies with the Bene Gesserit, who promise to marry him to Ghanima and support his bid to become Emperor.
A band of Fremen outlaws capture Leto and force him to undergo the spice trance at the suggestion of Gurney Halleck, who has infiltrated the group on Jessica's orders. Leto's spice-induced visions show him myriad possible futures where humanity becomes extinct and only one where it survives. He names this future "The Golden Path" and resolves to bring it to fruition—something that his father, who had already glimpsed this future, refused to do. He escapes his captors and sacrifices his humanity in pursuit of the Golden Path by physically fusing with a school of sandtrout, the larval form of sandworms, in the process gaining superhuman strength and near-invulnerability. He travels across the desert destroying qanats to slow down the ecological transformation of Dune, and eventually confronts the Preacher, who is indeed Paul.
Duncan returns to Arrakis and provokes Stilgar into killing him so that Stilgar is forced to take Ghanima and go into hiding. Eventually though, Alia recaptures Ghanima and arranges her marriage to Farad'n, planning to exploit the expected chaos when Ghanima kills him to avenge her brother's murder. The Preacher and Leto return to the capital, where Lady Jessica and Farad'n have arrived for his betrothal to Ghanima, to confront Alia. Upon arriving, Paul is publicly murdered by agents of her government, to Alia's horror. Leto reveals himself in a display of superhuman strength and triggers the return of Ghanima's genuine memories. He confronts Alia and offers to help her overcome her possession, but Harkonnen resists. Alia manages to take her own life by throwing herself off a high balcony.
Leto declares himself Emperor and asserts control over the Fremen. Farad'n enlists in his service and delivers control of the Corrino armies and his Sardaukar. In describing the Golden Path to Farad'n, Leto reveals that he will live for thousands of years due to the sandworm skin and genetics he is encased in. Leto marries Ghanima to consolidate power, but Farad'n is her true consort so the Atreides line can continue.
Parts of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were written before Dune was completed. Children of Dune was originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1976, and was the last Dune novel to be serialized before book publication. Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were published in one volume by the Science Fiction Book Club in 2002.
Herbert likened the initial trilogy of novels (Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune) to a fugue, and while Dune was a heroic melody, Dune Messiah was its inversion. Paul rises to power in Dune by seizing control of the single critical resource in the universe, melange. His enemies are dead or overthrown, and he is set to take the reins of power and bring a hard but enlightened peace to the universe. Herbert chose in the books that followed to undermine Paul's triumph with a string of failures and philosophical paradoxes.
Initially selling over 75,000 copies, Children of Dune became the first hardcover best-seller in the science fiction field. The novel was critically well-received for its gripping plot, action, and atmosphere, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977.
The Los Angeles Times called Children of Dune "a major event", and Challenging Destiny noted that "Herbert adds enough new twists and turns to the ongoing saga that familiarity with the recurring elements brings pleasure." Publishers Weekly wrote, "Ranging from palace intrigue and desert chases to religious speculation and confrontations with the supreme intelligence of the universe, there is something here for all science fiction fans." In a 1976 review, Spider Robinson found Children of Dune unsatisfying, faulting the ending as unconvincing and thematically overfamiliar. The novel is referred to in A Thousand Plateaus (1980) by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. David Pringle gave the novel a rating of two stars out of four and described the novel as "dark and convoluted stuff."
Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune were collectively adapted by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 into a miniseries titled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. The three-part, six-hour miniseries covers the bulk of the plot of Dune Messiah in the first installment, and adapts Children of Dune in the second and third parts. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the third in his Dune series of six novels. It was originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1976, and was the last Dune novel to be serialized before book publication.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides walks into the desert, a blind man, leaving his twin children Leto and Ghanima in the care of the Fremen, while his sister Alia rules the universe as regent. Awakened in the womb by the spice, the children are the heirs to Paul's prescient vision of the fate of the universe, a role that Alia desperately craves. House Corrino schemes to return to the throne, while the Bene Gesserit make common cause with the Tleilaxu and Spacing Guild to gain control of the spice and the children of Paul Atreides.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Initially selling over 75,000 copies, it became the first hardcover best-seller ever in the science fiction field. The novel was critically well-received for its plot, action, and atmosphere, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977. Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune were collectively adapted by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 into a miniseries titled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "Nine years after Emperor Paul Muad'Dib walked into the desert, blind, the ecological transformation of Dune has reached the point where some Fremen are living without stillsuits in the less arid climate and have started to move out of the sietches and into the villages and cities. As the old ways erode, more and more pilgrims arrive to experience the planet of Muad'Dib. The Imperial high council has lost its political might and is powerless to control the Jihad.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Paul's young twin children, Leto II and Ghanima, have concluded that their guardian Alia has succumbed to Abomination—possession by her grandfather Baron Vladimir Harkonnen—and fear that a similar fate awaits them. They (and Alia) also realize that the terraforming of Dune will kill all the sandworms, thus destroying the source of the spice, but Baron Harkonnen desires this outcome. Leto also fears that, like his father, he will become trapped by his prescience.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Meanwhile, a new religious figure called \"The Preacher\" has risen in the desert, rallying against the religious government's injustices and the changes among the Fremen. Some Fremen believe he is Paul Atreides. Princess Wensicia of the fallen House Corrino on Salusa Secundus plots to assassinate the twins and regain power for her House.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Lady Jessica returns to Arrakis and recognizes that her daughter is possessed, but finds no signs of Abomination in the twins. Leto arranges for Fremen leader Stilgar to protect his sister if there is an attempt on their lives. The Preacher journeys to Salusa Secundus to meet Wensicia's son Farad'n, and in return pledges the Duncan Idaho ghola as an agent of House Corrino. Alia attempts to assassinate Jessica, who escapes into the desert with Duncan's help, precipitating a rebellion among the Fremen. The twins anticipate and survive the Corrino assassination plot. Leto leaves to seek out Jacurutu, a mythical Fremen sietch and possible holdout of the Preacher, while Ghanima, changing her memory with self-hypnosis, reports (and believes) that her brother has been murdered. Duncan and Jessica flee to Salusa Secundus, where Jessica begins to mentor Farad'n. He sidelines and publicly denounces his regent mother Wensicia over the assassination attempt on the twins, and allies with the Bene Gesserit, who promise to marry him to Ghanima and support his bid to become Emperor.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "A band of Fremen outlaws capture Leto and force him to undergo the spice trance at the suggestion of Gurney Halleck, who has infiltrated the group on Jessica's orders. Leto's spice-induced visions show him myriad possible futures where humanity becomes extinct and only one where it survives. He names this future \"The Golden Path\" and resolves to bring it to fruition—something that his father, who had already glimpsed this future, refused to do. He escapes his captors and sacrifices his humanity in pursuit of the Golden Path by physically fusing with a school of sandtrout, the larval form of sandworms, in the process gaining superhuman strength and near-invulnerability. He travels across the desert destroying qanats to slow down the ecological transformation of Dune, and eventually confronts the Preacher, who is indeed Paul.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Duncan returns to Arrakis and provokes Stilgar into killing him so that Stilgar is forced to take Ghanima and go into hiding. Eventually though, Alia recaptures Ghanima and arranges her marriage to Farad'n, planning to exploit the expected chaos when Ghanima kills him to avenge her brother's murder. The Preacher and Leto return to the capital, where Lady Jessica and Farad'n have arrived for his betrothal to Ghanima, to confront Alia. Upon arriving, Paul is publicly murdered by agents of her government, to Alia's horror. Leto reveals himself in a display of superhuman strength and triggers the return of Ghanima's genuine memories. He confronts Alia and offers to help her overcome her possession, but Harkonnen resists. Alia manages to take her own life by throwing herself off a high balcony.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Leto declares himself Emperor and asserts control over the Fremen. Farad'n enlists in his service and delivers control of the Corrino armies and his Sardaukar. In describing the Golden Path to Farad'n, Leto reveals that he will live for thousands of years due to the sandworm skin and genetics he is encased in. Leto marries Ghanima to consolidate power, but Farad'n is her true consort so the Atreides line can continue.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Parts of Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were written before Dune was completed. Children of Dune was originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1976, and was the last Dune novel to be serialized before book publication. Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were published in one volume by the Science Fiction Book Club in 2002.",
"title": "Publication history"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Herbert likened the initial trilogy of novels (Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune) to a fugue, and while Dune was a heroic melody, Dune Messiah was its inversion. Paul rises to power in Dune by seizing control of the single critical resource in the universe, melange. His enemies are dead or overthrown, and he is set to take the reins of power and bring a hard but enlightened peace to the universe. Herbert chose in the books that followed to undermine Paul's triumph with a string of failures and philosophical paradoxes.",
"title": "Analysis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Initially selling over 75,000 copies, Children of Dune became the first hardcover best-seller in the science fiction field. The novel was critically well-received for its gripping plot, action, and atmosphere, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977.",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "The Los Angeles Times called Children of Dune \"a major event\", and Challenging Destiny noted that \"Herbert adds enough new twists and turns to the ongoing saga that familiarity with the recurring elements brings pleasure.\" Publishers Weekly wrote, \"Ranging from palace intrigue and desert chases to religious speculation and confrontations with the supreme intelligence of the universe, there is something here for all science fiction fans.\" In a 1976 review, Spider Robinson found Children of Dune unsatisfying, faulting the ending as unconvincing and thematically overfamiliar. The novel is referred to in A Thousand Plateaus (1980) by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. David Pringle gave the novel a rating of two stars out of four and described the novel as \"dark and convoluted stuff.\"",
"title": "Critical reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune were collectively adapted by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 into a miniseries titled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. The three-part, six-hour miniseries covers the bulk of the plot of Dune Messiah in the first installment, and adapts Children of Dune in the second and third parts.",
"title": "Adaptation"
}
] | Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the third in his Dune series of six novels. It was originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1976, and was the last Dune novel to be serialized before book publication. At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides walks into the desert, a blind man, leaving his twin children Leto and Ghanima in the care of the Fremen, while his sister Alia rules the universe as regent. Awakened in the womb by the spice, the children are the heirs to Paul's prescient vision of the fate of the universe, a role that Alia desperately craves. House Corrino schemes to return to the throne, while the Bene Gesserit make common cause with the Tleilaxu and Spacing Guild to gain control of the spice and the children of Paul Atreides. Initially selling over 75,000 copies, it became the first hardcover best-seller ever in the science fiction field. The novel was critically well-received for its plot, action, and atmosphere, and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977. Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune were collectively adapted by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003 into a miniseries titled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. | 2001-09-30T18:26:21Z | 2023-08-21T14:26:47Z | [
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6,629 | Candide | Candide, ou l'Optimisme (/kɒnˈdiːd/ kon-DEED, French: [kɑ̃did] ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Optimism (1947). It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes Candide with, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds".
Candide is characterized by its tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious coming-of-age narrative (bildungsroman), it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is bitter and matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so does Candide in this short theological novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers. Through Candide, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism.
Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition, and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naivety. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is considered Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon. It is among the most frequently taught works of French literature. The British poet and literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith listed Candide as one of the 100 most influential books ever written.
A number of historical events inspired Voltaire to write Candide, most notably the publication of Leibniz's "Monadology" (a short metaphysical treatise), the Seven Years' War, and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Both of the latter catastrophes are frequently referred to in Candide and are cited by scholars as reasons for its composition. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, tsunami, and resulting fires of All Saints' Day had a strong influence on theologians of the day and on Voltaire, who was himself disillusioned by them. The earthquake had an especially large effect on the contemporary doctrine of optimism, a philosophical system founded on the theodicy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, which insisted on God's benevolence in spite of such events. This concept is often put in the form, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds" (French: Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles). Philosophers had trouble fitting the horrors of this earthquake into their optimistic world view.
Voltaire actively rejected Leibnizian optimism after the natural disaster, convinced that if this were the best possible world, it should surely be better than it is. In both Candide and Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne ("Poem on the Lisbon Disaster"), Voltaire attacks this optimist belief. He makes use of the Lisbon earthquake in both Candide and his Poème to argue this point, sarcastically describing the catastrophe as one of the most horrible disasters "in the best of all possible worlds". Immediately after the earthquake, unreliable rumours circulated around Europe, sometimes overestimating the severity of the event. Ira Wade, a noted expert on Voltaire and Candide, has analyzed which sources Voltaire might have referenced in learning of the event. Wade speculates that Voltaire's primary source for information on the Lisbon earthquake was the 1755 work Relation historique du Tremblement de Terre survenu à Lisbonne by Ange Goudar.
Apart from such events, contemporaneous stereotypes of the German personality may have been a source of inspiration for the text, as they were for Simplicius Simplicissimus, a 1669 satirical picaresque novel written by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and inspired by the Thirty Years' War. The protagonist of this novel, who was supposed to embody stereotypically German characteristics, is quite similar to the protagonist of Candide. These stereotypes, according to Voltaire biographer Alfred Owen Aldridge, include "extreme credulousness or sentimental simplicity", two of Candide's and Simplicius's defining qualities. Aldridge writes, "Since Voltaire admitted familiarity with fifteenth-century German authors who used a bold and buffoonish style, it is quite possible that he knew Simplicissimus as well."
A satirical and parodic precursor of Candide, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) is one of Candide's closest literary relatives. This satire tells the story of "a gullible ingenue", Gulliver, who (like Candide) travels to several "remote nations" and is hardened by the many misfortunes which befall him. As evidenced by similarities between the two books, Voltaire probably drew upon Gulliver's Travels for inspiration while writing Candide. Other probable sources of inspiration for Candide are Télémaque (1699) by François Fénelon and Cosmopolite (1753) by Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron. Candide's parody of the bildungsroman is probably based on Télémaque, which includes the prototypical parody of the tutor on whom Pangloss may have been partly based. Likewise, Monbron's protagonist undergoes a disillusioning series of travels similar to those of Candide.
Born François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694–1778), by the time of the Lisbon earthquake, was already a well-established author, known for his satirical wit. He had been made a member of the Académie Française in 1746. He was a deist, a strong proponent of religious freedom, and a critic of tyrannical governments. Candide became part of his large, diverse body of philosophical, political, and artistic works expressing these views. More specifically, it was a model for the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels called the contes philosophiques. This genre, of which Voltaire was one of the founders, included previous works of his such as Zadig and Micromegas.
It is unknown exactly when Voltaire wrote Candide, but scholars estimate that it was primarily composed in late 1758 and begun as early as 1757. Voltaire is believed to have written a portion of it while living at Les Délices near Geneva and also while visiting Charles Théodore, the Elector-Palatinate, at Schwetzingen for three weeks in the summer of 1758. Despite solid evidence for these claims, a popular legend persists that Voltaire wrote Candide in three days. This idea is probably based on a misreading of the 1885 work La Vie intime de Voltaire aux Délices et à Ferney by Lucien Perey (real name: Clara Adèle Luce Herpin) and Gaston Maugras. The evidence indicates strongly that Voltaire did not rush or improvise Candide, but worked on it over a significant period of time, possibly even a whole year. Candide is mature and carefully developed, not impromptu, as the intentionally choppy plot and the aforementioned myth might suggest.
There is only one extant manuscript of Candide that was written before the work's 1759 publication; it was discovered in 1956 by Wade and since named the La Vallière Manuscript. It is believed to have been sent, chapter by chapter, by Voltaire to the Duke and Duchess La Vallière in the autumn of 1758. The manuscript was sold to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in the late eighteenth century, where it remained undiscovered for almost two hundred years. The La Vallière Manuscript, the most original and authentic of all surviving copies of Candide, was probably dictated by Voltaire to his secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière, then edited directly. In addition to this manuscript, there is believed to have been another, one copied by Wagnière for the Elector Charles-Théodore, who hosted Voltaire during the summer of 1758. The existence of this copy was first postulated by Norman L. Torrey in 1929. If it exists, it remains undiscovered.
Voltaire published Candide simultaneously in five countries no later than 15 January 1759, although the exact date is uncertain. Seventeen versions of Candide from 1759, in the original French, are known today, and there has been great controversy over which is the earliest. More versions were published in other languages: Candide was translated once into Italian and thrice into English that same year. The complicated science of calculating the relative publication dates of all of the versions of Candide is described at length in Wade's article "The First Edition of Candide: A Problem of Identification". The publication process was extremely secretive, probably the "most clandestine work of the century", because of the book's obviously illicit and irreverent content. The greatest number of copies of Candide were published concurrently in Geneva by Cramer, in Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey, in London by Jean Nourse, and in Paris by Lambert.
Candide underwent one major revision after its initial publication, in addition to some minor ones. In 1761, a version of Candide was published that included, along with several minor changes, a major addition by Voltaire to the twenty-second chapter, a section that had been thought weak by the Duke of Vallière. The English title of this edition was Candide, or Optimism, Translated from the German of Dr. Ralph. With the additions found in the Doctor's pocket when he died at Minden, in the Year of Grace 1759. The last edition of Candide authorised by Voltaire was the one included in Cramer's 1775 edition of his complete works, known as l'édition encadrée, in reference to the border or frame around each page.
Voltaire strongly opposed the inclusion of illustrations in his works, as he stated in a 1778 letter to the writer and publisher Charles Joseph Panckoucke:
Je crois que des Estampes seraient fort inutiles. Ces colifichets n'ont jamais été admis dans les éditions de Cicéron, de Virgile et d'Horace. (I believe that these illustrations would be quite useless. These baubles have never been allowed in the works of Cicero, Virgil and Horace.)
Despite this protest, two sets of illustrations for Candide were produced by the French artist Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune. The first version was done, at Moreau's own expense, in 1787 and included in Kehl's publication of that year, Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire. Four images were drawn by Moreau for this edition and were engraved by Pierre-Charles Baquoy. The second version, in 1803, consisted of seven drawings by Moreau which were transposed by multiple engravers. The twentieth-century modern artist Paul Klee stated that it was while reading Candide that he discovered his own artistic style. Klee illustrated the work, and his drawings were published in a 1920 version edited by Kurt Wolff.
Candide contains thirty episodic chapters, which may be grouped into two main schemes: one consists of two divisions, separated by the protagonist's hiatus in El Dorado; the other consists of three parts, each defined by its geographical setting. By the former scheme, the first half of Candide constitutes the rising action and the last part the resolution. This view is supported by the strong theme of travel and quest, reminiscent of adventure and picaresque novels, which tend to employ such a dramatic structure. By the latter scheme, the thirty chapters may be grouped into three parts each comprising ten chapters and defined by locale: I–X are set in Europe, XI–XX are set in the Americas, and XXI–XXX are set in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The plot summary that follows uses this second format and includes Voltaire's additions of 1761.
The tale of Candide begins in the castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westphalia, home to the Baron's daughter, Lady Cunégonde; his bastard nephew, Candide; a tutor, Pangloss; a chambermaid, Paquette; and the rest of the Baron's family. The protagonist, Candide, is romantically attracted to Cunégonde. He is a young man of "the most unaffected simplicity" (l'esprit le plus simple), whose face is "the true index of his mind" (sa physionomie annonçait son âme). Dr. Pangloss, professor of "métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie" (English: "metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology") and self-proclaimed optimist, teaches his pupils that they live in the "best of all possible worlds" and that "all is for the best".
All is well in the castle until Cunégonde sees Pangloss sexually engaged with Paquette in some bushes. Encouraged by this show of affection, Cunégonde drops her handkerchief next to Candide, enticing him to kiss her. For this infraction, Candide is evicted from the castle, at which point he is captured by Bulgar (Prussian) recruiters and coerced into military service, where he is flogged, nearly executed, and forced to participate in a major battle between the Bulgars and the Avars (an allegory representing the Prussians and the French). Candide eventually escapes the army and makes his way to Holland where he is given aid by Jacques, an Anabaptist, who strengthens Candide's optimism. Soon after, Candide finds his master Pangloss, now a beggar with syphilis. Pangloss reveals he was infected with this disease by Paquette and shocks Candide by relating how Castle Thunder-ten-Tronckh was destroyed by Bulgars, that Cunégonde and her whole family were killed, and that Cunégonde was raped before her death. Pangloss is cured of his illness by Jacques, losing one eye and one ear in the process, and the three set sail to Lisbon.
In Lisbon's harbor, they are overtaken by a vicious storm which destroys the boat. Jacques attempts to save a sailor, and in the process is thrown overboard. The sailor makes no move to help the drowning Jacques, and Candide is in a state of despair until Pangloss explains to him that Lisbon harbor was created in order for Jacques to drown. Only Pangloss, Candide, and the "brutish sailor" who let Jacques drown survive the wreck and reach Lisbon, which is promptly hit by an earthquake, tsunami, and fire that kill tens of thousands. The sailor leaves in order to loot the rubble while Candide, injured and begging for help, is lectured on the optimistic view of the situation by Pangloss.
The next day, Pangloss discusses his optimistic philosophy with a member of the Portuguese Inquisition, and he and Candide are arrested for heresy, set to be tortured and killed in an "auto-da-fé" set up to appease God and prevent another disaster. Candide is flogged and sees Pangloss hanged, but another earthquake intervenes and he escapes. He is approached by an old woman, who leads him to a house where Lady Cunégonde waits, alive. Candide is surprised: Pangloss had told him that Cunégonde had been raped and disemboweled. She had been, but Cunégonde points out that people survive such things. However, her rescuer sold her to a Jewish merchant, Don Issachar, who was then threatened by a corrupt Grand Inquisitor into sharing her (Don Issachar gets Cunégonde on Mondays, Wednesdays, and the sabbath day). Her owners arrive, find her with another man, and Candide kills them both. Candide and the two women flee the city, heading to the Americas. Along the way, Cunégonde falls into self-pity, complaining of all the misfortunes that have befallen her.
The old woman reciprocates by revealing her own tragic life: born the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina, she was kidnapped and enslaved by Barbary pirates, witnessed violent civil wars in Morocco under the bloodthirsty king Moulay Ismaïl (during which her mother was drawn and quartered), suffered constant hunger, nearly died from a plague in Algiers, and had a buttock cut off to feed starving Janissaries during the Russian capture of Azov. After traversing all the Russian Empire, she eventually became a servant of Don Issachar and met Cunégonde.
The trio arrives in Buenos Aires, where Governor Don Fernando d'Ibarra y Figueroa y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza asks to marry Cunégonde. Just then, an alcalde (a Spanish magistrate) arrives, pursuing Candide for killing the Grand Inquisitor. Leaving the women behind, Candide flees to Paraguay with his practical and heretofore unmentioned manservant, Cacambo.
At a border post on the way to Paraguay, Cacambo and Candide speak to the commandant, who turns out to be Cunégonde's unnamed brother. He explains that after his family was slaughtered, the Jesuits' preparation for his burial revived him, and he has since joined the order. When Candide proclaims he intends to marry Cunégonde, her brother attacks him, and Candide runs him through with his rapier. After lamenting all the people (mainly priests) he has killed, he and Cacambo flee. In their flight, Candide and Cacambo come across two naked women being chased and bitten by a pair of monkeys. Candide, seeking to protect the women, shoots and kills the monkeys, but is informed by Cacambo that the monkeys and women were probably lovers.
Cacambo and Candide are captured by Oreillons, or Orejones; members of the Inca nobility who widened the lobes of their ears, and are depicted here as the fictional inhabitants of the area. Mistaking Candide for a Jesuit by his robes, the Oreillons prepare to cook Candide and Cacambo; however, Cacambo convinces the Oreillons that Candide killed a Jesuit to procure the robe. Cacambo and Candide are released and travel for a month on foot and then down a river by canoe, living on fruits and berries.
After a few more adventures, Candide and Cacambo wander into El Dorado, a geographically isolated utopia where the streets are covered with precious stones, there exist no priests, and all of the king's jokes are funny. Candide and Cacambo stay a month in El Dorado, but Candide is still in pain without Cunégonde, and expresses to the king his wish to leave. The king points out that this is a foolish idea, but generously helps them do so. The pair continue their journey, now accompanied by one hundred red pack sheep carrying provisions and incredible sums of money, which they slowly lose or have stolen over the next few adventures.
Candide and Cacambo eventually reach Suriname where they split up: Cacambo travels to Buenos Aires to retrieve Lady Cunégonde, while Candide prepares to travel to Europe to await the two. Candide's remaining sheep are stolen, and Candide is fined heavily by a Dutch magistrate for petulance over the theft. Before leaving Suriname, Candide feels in need of companionship, so he interviews a number of local men who have been through various ill-fortunes and settles on a man named Martin.
This companion, Martin, is a Manichaean scholar based on the real-life pessimist Pierre Bayle, who was a chief opponent of Leibniz. For the remainder of the voyage, Martin and Candide argue about philosophy, Martin painting the entire world as occupied by fools. Candide, however, remains an optimist at heart, since it is all he knows. After a detour to Bordeaux and Paris, they arrive in England and see an admiral (based on Admiral Byng) being shot for not killing enough of the enemy. Martin explains that Britain finds it necessary to shoot an admiral from time to time "pour encourager les autres" (to encourage the others). Candide, horrified, arranges for them to leave Britain immediately. Upon their arrival in Venice, Candide and Martin meet Paquette, the chambermaid who infected Pangloss with his syphilis. She is now a prostitute, and is spending her time with a Theatine monk, Brother Giroflée. Although both appear happy on the surface, they reveal their despair: Paquette has led a miserable existence as a sexual object since she was forced to become a prostitute, and the monk detests the religious order in which he was indoctrinated. Candide gives two thousand piastres to Paquette and one thousand to Brother Giroflée.
Candide and Martin visit the Lord Pococurante, a noble Venetian. That evening, Cacambo—now a slave—arrives and informs Candide that Cunégonde is in Constantinople. Prior to their departure, Candide and Martin dine with six strangers who had come for the Carnival of Venice. These strangers are revealed to be dethroned kings: the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III, Emperor Ivan VI of Russia, Charles Edward Stuart (an unsuccessful pretender to the English throne), Augustus III of Poland (deprived, at the time of writing, of his reign in the Electorate of Saxony due to the Seven Years' War), Stanisław Leszczyński, and Theodore of Corsica.
On the way to Constantinople, Cacambo reveals that Cunégonde—now horribly ugly—currently washes dishes on the banks of the Propontis as a slave for a fugitive Transylvanian prince by the name of Rákóczi. After arriving at the Bosphorus, they board a galley where, to Candide's surprise, he finds Pangloss and Cunégonde's brother among the rowers. Candide buys their freedom and further passage at steep prices. They both relate how they survived, but despite the horrors he has been through, Pangloss's optimism remains unshaken: "I still hold to my original opinions, because, after all, I'm a philosopher, and it wouldn't be proper for me to recant, since Leibniz cannot be wrong, and since pre-established harmony is the most beautiful thing in the world, along with the plenum and subtle matter."
Candide, the baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo arrive at the banks of the Propontis, where they rejoin Cunégonde and the old woman. Cunégonde has indeed become hideously ugly, but Candide nevertheless buys their freedom and marries Cunégonde to spite her brother, who forbids Cunégonde from marrying anyone but a baron of the Empire (he is secretly sold back into slavery). Paquette and Brother Giroflée—having squandered their three thousand piastres—are reconciled with Candide on a small farm (une petite métairie) which he just bought with the last of his finances.
One day, the protagonists seek out a dervish known as a great philosopher of the land. Candide asks him why Man is made to suffer so, and what they all ought to do. The dervish responds by asking rhetorically why Candide is concerned about the existence of evil and good. The dervish describes human beings as mice on a ship sent by a king to Egypt; their comfort does not matter to the king. The dervish then slams his door on the group. Returning to their farm, Candide, Pangloss, and Martin meet a Turk whose philosophy is to devote his life only to simple work and not concern himself with external affairs. He and his four children cultivate a small area of land, and the work keeps them "free of three great evils: boredom, vice, and poverty." Candide, Pangloss, Martin, Cunégonde, Paquette, Cacambo, the old woman, and Brother Giroflée all set to work on this "commendable plan" (louable dessein) on their farm, each exercising his or her own talents. Candide ignores Pangloss's insistence that all turned out for the best by necessity, instead telling him "we must cultivate our garden" (il faut cultiver notre jardin).
As Voltaire himself described it, the purpose of Candide was to "bring amusement to a small number of men of wit". The author achieves this goal by combining wit with a parody of the classic adventure-romance plot. Candide is confronted with horrible events described in painstaking detail so often that it becomes humorous. Literary theorist Frances K. Barasch described Voltaire's matter-of-fact narrative as treating topics such as mass death "as coolly as a weather report". The fast-paced and improbable plot—in which characters narrowly escape death repeatedly, for instance—allows for compounding tragedies to befall the same characters over and over again. In the end, Candide is primarily, as described by Voltaire's biographer Ian Davidson, "short, light, rapid and humorous".
Behind the playful façade of Candide which has amused so many, there lies very harsh criticism of contemporary European civilization which angered many others. European governments such as France, Prussia, Portugal and England are each attacked ruthlessly by the author: the French and Prussians for the Seven Years' War, the Portuguese for their Inquisition, and the British for the execution of John Byng. Organised religion, too, is harshly treated in Candide. For example, Voltaire mocks the Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church. Aldridge provides a characteristic example of such anti-clerical passages for which the work was banned: while in Paraguay, Cacambo remarks, "[The Jesuits] are masters of everything, and the people have no money at all …". Here, Voltaire suggests the Christian mission in Paraguay is taking advantage of the local population. Voltaire depicts the Jesuits holding the indigenous peoples as slaves while they claim to be helping them.
The main method of Candide's satire is to contrast ironically great tragedy and comedy. The story does not invent or exaggerate evils of the world—it displays real ones starkly, allowing Voltaire to simplify subtle philosophies and cultural traditions, highlighting their flaws. Thus Candide derides optimism, for instance, with a deluge of horrible, historical (or at least plausible) events with no apparent redeeming qualities.
A simple example of the satire of Candide is seen in the treatment of the historic event witnessed by Candide and Martin in Portsmouth harbour. There, the duo spy an anonymous admiral, supposed to represent John Byng, being executed for failing to properly engage a French fleet. The admiral is blindfolded and shot on the deck of his own ship, merely "to encourage the others" (French: pour encourager les autres, an expression Voltaire is credited with originating). This depiction of military punishment trivializes Byng's death. The dry, pithy explanation "to encourage the others" thus satirises a serious historical event in characteristically Voltairian fashion. For its classic wit, this phrase has become one of the more often quoted from Candide.
Voltaire depicts the worst of the world and his pathetic hero's desperate effort to fit it into an optimistic outlook. Almost all of Candide is a discussion of various forms of evil: its characters rarely find even temporary respite. There is at least one notable exception: the episode of El Dorado, a fantastic village in which the inhabitants are simply rational, and their society is just and reasonable. The positivity of El Dorado may be contrasted with the pessimistic attitude of most of the book. Even in this case, the bliss of El Dorado is fleeting: Candide soon leaves the village to seek Cunégonde, whom he eventually marries only out of a sense of obligation.
Another element of the satire focuses on what William F. Bottiglia, author of many published works on Candide, calls the "sentimental foibles of the age" and Voltaire's attack on them. Flaws in European culture are highlighted as Candide parodies adventure and romance clichés, mimicking the style of a picaresque novel. A number of archetypal characters thus have recognisable manifestations in Voltaire's work: Candide is supposed to be the drifting rogue of low social class, Cunégonde the sex interest, Pangloss the knowledgeable mentor, and Cacambo the skillful valet. As the plot unfolds, readers find that Candide is no rogue, Cunégonde becomes ugly and Pangloss is a stubborn fool. The characters of Candide are unrealistic, two-dimensional, mechanical, and even marionette-like; they are simplistic and stereotypical. As the initially naïve protagonist eventually comes to a mature conclusion—however noncommittal—the novella is a bildungsroman, if not a very serious one.
Gardens are thought by many critics to play a critical symbolic role in Candide. The first location commonly identified as a garden is the castle of the Baron, from which Candide and Cunégonde are evicted much in the same fashion as Adam and Eve are evicted from the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis. Cyclically, the main characters of Candide conclude the novel in a garden of their own making, one which might represent celestial paradise. The third most prominent "garden" is El Dorado, which may be a false Eden. Other possibly symbolic gardens include the Jesuit pavilion, the garden of Pococurante, Cacambo's garden, and the Turk's garden.
These gardens are probably references to the Garden of Eden, but it has also been proposed, by Bottiglia, for example, that the gardens refer also to the Encyclopédie, and that Candide's conclusion to cultivate "his garden" symbolises Voltaire's great support for this endeavour. Candide and his companions, as they find themselves at the end of the novella, are in a very similar position to Voltaire's tightly knit philosophical circle which supported the Encyclopédie: the main characters of Candide live in seclusion to "cultivate [their] garden", just as Voltaire suggested his colleagues leave society to write. In addition, there is evidence in the epistolary correspondence of Voltaire that he had elsewhere used the metaphor of gardening to describe writing the Encyclopédie. Another interpretative possibility is that Candide cultivating "his garden" suggests his engaging in only necessary occupations, such as feeding oneself and fighting boredom. This is analogous to Voltaire's own view on gardening: he was himself a gardener at his estates in Les Délices and Ferney, and he often wrote in his correspondence that gardening was an important pastime of his own, it being an extraordinarily effective way to keep busy.
Candide satirises various philosophical and religious theories that Voltaire had previously criticised. Primary among these is Leibnizian optimism (sometimes called Panglossianism after its fictional proponent), which Voltaire ridicules with descriptions of seemingly endless calamity. Voltaire demonstrates a variety of irredeemable evils in the world, leading many critics to contend that Voltaire's treatment of evil—specifically the theological problem of its existence—is the focus of the work. Heavily referenced in the text are the Lisbon earthquake, disease, and the sinking of ships in storms. Also, war, thievery, and murder—evils of human design—are explored as extensively in Candide as are environmental ills. Bottiglia notes Voltaire is "comprehensive" in his enumeration of the world's evils. He is unrelenting in attacking Leibnizian optimism.
Fundamental to Voltaire's attack is Candide's tutor Pangloss, a self-proclaimed follower of Leibniz and a teacher of his doctrine. Ridicule of Pangloss's theories thus ridicules Leibniz himself, and Pangloss's reasoning is silly at best. For example, Pangloss's first teachings of the narrative absurdly mix up cause and effect:
Il est démontré, disait-il, que les choses ne peuvent être autrement; car tout étant fait pour une fin, tout est nécessairement pour la meilleure fin. Remarquez bien que les nez ont été faits pour porter des lunettes; aussi avons-nous des lunettes.
It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles.
Following such flawed reasoning even more doggedly than Candide, Pangloss defends optimism. Whatever their horrendous fortune, Pangloss reiterates "all is for the best" ("Tout est pour le mieux") and proceeds to "justify" the evil event's occurrence. A characteristic example of such theodicy is found in Pangloss's explanation of why it is good that syphilis exists:
c'était une chose indispensable dans le meilleur des mondes, un ingrédient nécessaire; car si Colomb n'avait pas attrapé dans une île de l'Amérique cette maladie qui empoisonne la source de la génération, qui souvent même empêche la génération, et qui est évidemment l'opposé du grand but de la nature, nous n'aurions ni le chocolat ni la cochenille;
it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal.
Candide, the impressionable and incompetent student of Pangloss, often tries to justify evil, fails, invokes his mentor and eventually despairs. It is by these failures that Candide is painfully cured (as Voltaire would see it) of his optimism.
This critique of Voltaire's seems to be directed almost exclusively at Leibnizian optimism. Candide does not ridicule Voltaire's contemporary Alexander Pope, a later optimist of slightly different convictions. Candide does not discuss Pope's optimistic principle that "all is right", but Leibniz's that states, "this is the best of all possible worlds". However subtle the difference between the two, Candide is unambiguous as to which is its subject. Some critics conjecture that Voltaire meant to spare Pope this ridicule out of respect, although Voltaire's Poème may have been written as a more direct response to Pope's theories. This work is similar to Candide in subject matter, but very different from it in style: the Poème embodies a more serious philosophical argument than Candide.
The conclusion of the novel, in which Candide finally dismisses his tutor's optimism, leaves unresolved what philosophy the protagonist is to accept in its stead. This element of Candide has been written about voluminously, perhaps above all others. The conclusion is enigmatic and its analysis is contentious.
Voltaire develops no formal, systematic philosophy for the characters to adopt. The conclusion of the novel may be thought of not as a philosophical alternative to optimism, but as a prescribed practical outlook (though what it prescribes is in dispute). Many critics have concluded that one minor character or another is portrayed as having the right philosophy. For instance, a number believe that Martin is treated sympathetically, and that his character holds Voltaire's ideal philosophy—pessimism. Others disagree, citing Voltaire's negative descriptions of Martin's principles and the conclusion of the work in which Martin plays little part.
Within debates attempting to decipher the conclusion of Candide lies another primary Candide debate. This one concerns the degree to which Voltaire was advocating a pessimistic philosophy, by which Candide and his companions give up hope for a better world. Critics argue that the group's reclusion on the farm signifies Candide and his companions' loss of hope for the rest of the human race. This view is to be compared to a reading that presents Voltaire as advocating a melioristic philosophy and a precept committing the travellers to improving the world through metaphorical gardening. This debate, and others, focuses on the question of whether or not Voltaire was prescribing passive retreat from society, or active industrious contribution to it.
Separate from the debate about the text's conclusion is the "inside/outside" controversy. This argument centers on the matter of whether or not Voltaire was actually prescribing anything. Roy Wolper, professor emeritus of English, argues in a revolutionary 1969 paper that Candide does not necessarily speak for its author; that the work should be viewed as a narrative independent of Voltaire's history; and that its message is entirely (or mostly) inside it. This point of view, the "inside", specifically rejects attempts to find Voltaire's "voice" in the many characters of Candide and his other works. Indeed, writers have seen Voltaire as speaking through at least Candide, Martin, and the Turk. Wolper argues that Candide should be read with a minimum of speculation as to its meaning in Voltaire's personal life. His article ushered in a new era of Voltaire studies, causing many scholars to look at the novel differently.
Critics such as Lester Crocker, Henry Stavan, and Vivienne Mylne find too many similarities between Candide's point of view and that of Voltaire to accept the "inside" view; they support the "outside" interpretation. They believe that Candide's final decision is the same as Voltaire's, and see a strong connection between the development of the protagonist and his author. Some scholars who support the "outside" view also believe that the isolationist philosophy of the Old Turk closely mirrors that of Voltaire. Others see a strong parallel between Candide's gardening at the conclusion and the gardening of the author. Martine Darmon Meyer argues that the "inside" view fails to see the satirical work in context, and that denying that Candide is primarily a mockery of optimism (a matter of historical context) is a "very basic betrayal of the text".
De roman, Voltaire en a fait un, lequel est le résumé de toutes ses œuvres ... Toute son intelligence était une machine de guerre. Et ce qui me le fait chérir, c'est le dégoût que m'inspirent les voltairiens, des gens qui rient sur les grandes choses! Est-ce qu'il riait, lui? Il grinçait ...
— Flaubert, Correspondance, éd. Conard, II, 348; III, 219
Voltaire made, with this novel, a résumé of all his works ... His whole intelligence was a war machine. And what makes me cherish it is the disgust which has been inspired in me by the Voltairians, people who laugh about the important things! Was he laughing? Voltaire? He was screeching ...
— Flaubert, Correspondance, éd. Conard, II, 348; III, 219
Though Voltaire did not openly admit to having written the controversial Candide until 1768 (until then he signed with a pseudonym: "Monsieur le docteur Ralph", or "Doctor Ralph"), his authorship of the work was hardly disputed.
Immediately after publication, the work and its author were denounced by both secular and religious authorities, because the book openly derides government and church alike. It was because of such polemics that Omer-Louis-François Joly de Fleury, who was Advocate General to the Parisian parliament when Candide was published, found parts of Candide to be "contrary to religion and morals".
Despite much official indictment, soon after its publication, Candide's irreverent prose was being quoted. "Let us eat a Jesuit", for instance, became a popular phrase for its reference to a humorous passage in Candide. By the end of February 1759, the Grand Council of Geneva and the administrators of Paris had banned Candide. Candide nevertheless succeeded in selling twenty thousand to thirty thousand copies by the end of the year in more than twenty editions, making it a best seller. The Duke de La Vallière speculated near the end of January 1759 that Candide might have been the fastest-selling book ever. In 1762, Candide was listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books.
Bannings of Candide lasted into the twentieth century in the United States, where it has long been considered a seminal work of Western literature. At least once, Candide was temporarily barred from entering America: in February 1929, a US customs official in Boston prevented a number of copies of the book, deemed "obscene", from reaching a Harvard University French class. Candide was admitted in August of the same year; however by that time the class was over. In an interview soon after Candide's detention, the official who confiscated the book explained the office's decision to ban it, "But about 'Candide,' I'll tell you. For years we've been letting that book get by. There were so many different editions, all sizes and kinds, some illustrated and some plain, that we figured the book must be all right. Then one of us happened to read it. It's a filthy book".
Candide is the most widely read of Voltaire's many works, and it is considered one of the great achievements of Western literature. William F. Bottiglia opines, "The physical size of Candide, as well as Voltaire's attitude toward his fiction, precludes the achievement of artistic dimension through plenitude, autonomous '3D' vitality, emotional resonance, or poetic exaltation. Candide, then, cannot in quantity or quality, measure up to the supreme classics" such as the works of Homer or Shakespeare, Sophocles, Chaucer, Dante, Cervantes, Fielding, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Racine, or Molière. Bottiglia instead calls it a miniature classic; but others have been more forgiving of its size. As the only work of Voltaire which has remained popular up to the present day, Candide is listed in Harold Bloom's The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. It is included in the Encyclopædia Britannica collection Great Books of the Western World. Candide has influenced modern writers of black humour such as Céline, Joseph Heller, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Terry Southern. Its parody and picaresque methods have become favourites of black humorists.
Charles Brockden Brown, an early American novelist, may have been directly affected by Voltaire, whose work he knew well. Mark Kamrath, professor of English, describes the strength of the connection between Candide and Brown's Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker (1799): "An unusually large number of parallels...crop up in the two novels, particularly in terms of characters and plot." For instance, the protagonists of both novels are romantically involved with a recently orphaned young woman. Furthermore, in both works the brothers of the female lovers are Jesuits, and each is murdered (although under different circumstances).
Some twentieth-century novels that may have been influenced by Candide are some dystopian science-fiction works. Armand Mattelart, a French critic, sees Candide in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, three canonical works of the genre. Specifically, Mattelart writes that in each of these works, there exist references to Candide's popularisation of the phrase "the best of all possible worlds". He cites as evidence, for example, that the French version of Brave New World was entitled Le Meilleur des mondes (lit. '"The best of worlds"').
Readers of Candide often compare it with certain works of the modern genre the Theatre of the Absurd. Haydn Mason, a Voltaire scholar, sees in Candide a few similarities to this brand of literature. For instance, he notes commonalities of Candide and Waiting for Godot (1952). In both of these works, and in a similar manner, friendship provides emotional support for characters when they are confronted with harshness of their existences. However, Mason qualifies, "the conte must not be seen as a forerunner of the 'absurd' in modern fiction. Candide's world has many ridiculous and meaningless elements, but human beings are not totally deprived of the ability to make sense out of it." John Pilling, biographer of Beckett, does state that Candide was an early and powerful influence on Beckett's thinking. Rosa Luxemburg, in the aftermath of the First World War, remarked upon re-reading Candide: "Before the war, I would have thought this wicked compilation of all human misery a caricature. Now it strikes me as altogether realistic."
The American alternative rock band Bloodhound Gang refer to Candide in their song "Take the Long Way Home", from the American edition of their 1999 album Hooray for Boobies.
In 1760, one year after Voltaire published Candide, a sequel was published with the name Candide, ou l'optimisme, seconde partie. This work is attributed both to Thorel de Campigneulles, a writer unknown today, and Henri Joseph Du Laurens, who is suspected of having habitually plagiarised Voltaire. The story continues in this sequel with Candide having new adventures in the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Denmark. Part II has potential use in studies of the popular and literary receptions of Candide, but is almost certainly apocryphal. In total, by the year 1803, at least ten imitations of Candide or continuations of its story were published by authors other than Voltaire.
Candide was adapted for the radio anthology program On Stage in 1953. Richard Chandlee wrote the script; Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, Edgar Barrier, Byron Kane, Jack Kruschen, Howard McNear, Larry Thor, Martha Wentworth, and Ben Wright performed.
The operetta Candide was originally conceived by playwright Lillian Hellman, as a play with incidental music. Leonard Bernstein, the American composer and conductor who wrote the music, was so excited about the project that he convinced Hellman to do it as a "comic operetta". Many lyricists worked on the show, including James Agee, Dorothy Parker, John Latouche, Richard Wilbur, Leonard and Felicia Bernstein, and Hellman. Hershy Kay orchestrated all the pieces except for the overture, which Bernstein did himself. Candide first opened on Broadway as a musical on 1 December 1956. The premier production was directed by Tyrone Guthrie and conducted by Samuel Krachmalnick. While this production was a box office flop, the music was highly praised, and an original cast album was made. The album gradually became a cult hit, but Hellman's libretto was criticised as being too serious an adaptation of Voltaire's novel. Candide has been revised and reworked several times. The first New York revival, directed by Hal Prince, featured an entirely new libretto by Hugh Wheeler and additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Bernstein revised the work again in 1987 with the collaboration of John Mauceri and John Wells. After Bernstein's death, further revised productions of the musical were performed in versions prepared by Trevor Nunn and John Caird in 1999, and Mary Zimmerman in 2010.
Candido, ovvero un sogno fatto in Sicilia [it] (1977) or simply Candido is a book by Leonardo Sciascia. It was at least partly based on Voltaire's Candide, although the actual influence of Candide on Candido is a hotly debated topic. A number of theories on the matter have been proposed. Proponents of one say that Candido is very similar to Candide, only with a happy ending; supporters of another claim that Voltaire provided Sciascia with only a starting point from which to work, that the two books are quite distinct.
The BBC produced a television adaptation in 1973, with Ian Ogilvy as Candide, Emrys James as Dr. Pangloss, and Frank Finlay as Voltaire himself, acting as the narrator.
Nedim Gürsel wrote his 2001 novel Le voyage de Candide à Istanbul about a minor passage in Candide during which its protagonist meets Ahmed III, the deposed Turkish sultan. This chance meeting on a ship from Venice to Istanbul is the setting of Gürsel's book. Terry Southern, in writing his popular novel Candy with Mason Hoffenberg adapted Candide for a modern audience and changed the protagonist from male to female. Candy deals with the rejection of a sort of optimism which the author sees in women's magazines of the modern era; Candy also parodies pornography and popular psychology. This adaptation of Candide was adapted for the cinema by director Christian Marquand in 1968.
In addition to the above, Candide was made into a number of minor films and theatrical adaptations throughout the twentieth century. For a list of these, see Voltaire: Candide ou L'Optimisme et autres contes (1989) with preface and commentaries by Pierre Malandain.
In May 2009, a play titled Optimism, based on Candide, opened at the CUB Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. It followed the basic story of Candide, incorporating anachronisms, music, and stand up comedy from comedian Frank Woodley. It toured Australia and played at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2010, the Icelandic writer Óttar M. Norðfjörð published a rewriting and modernisation of Candide, titled Örvitinn; eða hugsjónamaðurinn. | [
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"text": "Candide, ou l'Optimisme (/kɒnˈdiːd/ kon-DEED, French: [kɑ̃did] ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Optimism (1947). It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes Candide with, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, \"we must cultivate our garden\", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, \"all is for the best\" in the \"best of all possible worlds\".",
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"text": "Candide is characterized by its tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious coming-of-age narrative (bildungsroman), it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is bitter and matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so does Candide in this short theological novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers. Through Candide, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism.",
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"text": "Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition, and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naivety. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is considered Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon. It is among the most frequently taught works of French literature. The British poet and literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith listed Candide as one of the 100 most influential books ever written.",
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{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "A number of historical events inspired Voltaire to write Candide, most notably the publication of Leibniz's \"Monadology\" (a short metaphysical treatise), the Seven Years' War, and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Both of the latter catastrophes are frequently referred to in Candide and are cited by scholars as reasons for its composition. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake, tsunami, and resulting fires of All Saints' Day had a strong influence on theologians of the day and on Voltaire, who was himself disillusioned by them. The earthquake had an especially large effect on the contemporary doctrine of optimism, a philosophical system founded on the theodicy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, which insisted on God's benevolence in spite of such events. This concept is often put in the form, \"all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds\" (French: Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles). Philosophers had trouble fitting the horrors of this earthquake into their optimistic world view.",
"title": "Historical and literary background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Voltaire actively rejected Leibnizian optimism after the natural disaster, convinced that if this were the best possible world, it should surely be better than it is. In both Candide and Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (\"Poem on the Lisbon Disaster\"), Voltaire attacks this optimist belief. He makes use of the Lisbon earthquake in both Candide and his Poème to argue this point, sarcastically describing the catastrophe as one of the most horrible disasters \"in the best of all possible worlds\". Immediately after the earthquake, unreliable rumours circulated around Europe, sometimes overestimating the severity of the event. Ira Wade, a noted expert on Voltaire and Candide, has analyzed which sources Voltaire might have referenced in learning of the event. Wade speculates that Voltaire's primary source for information on the Lisbon earthquake was the 1755 work Relation historique du Tremblement de Terre survenu à Lisbonne by Ange Goudar.",
"title": "Historical and literary background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Apart from such events, contemporaneous stereotypes of the German personality may have been a source of inspiration for the text, as they were for Simplicius Simplicissimus, a 1669 satirical picaresque novel written by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen and inspired by the Thirty Years' War. The protagonist of this novel, who was supposed to embody stereotypically German characteristics, is quite similar to the protagonist of Candide. These stereotypes, according to Voltaire biographer Alfred Owen Aldridge, include \"extreme credulousness or sentimental simplicity\", two of Candide's and Simplicius's defining qualities. Aldridge writes, \"Since Voltaire admitted familiarity with fifteenth-century German authors who used a bold and buffoonish style, it is quite possible that he knew Simplicissimus as well.\"",
"title": "Historical and literary background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "A satirical and parodic precursor of Candide, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) is one of Candide's closest literary relatives. This satire tells the story of \"a gullible ingenue\", Gulliver, who (like Candide) travels to several \"remote nations\" and is hardened by the many misfortunes which befall him. As evidenced by similarities between the two books, Voltaire probably drew upon Gulliver's Travels for inspiration while writing Candide. Other probable sources of inspiration for Candide are Télémaque (1699) by François Fénelon and Cosmopolite (1753) by Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron. Candide's parody of the bildungsroman is probably based on Télémaque, which includes the prototypical parody of the tutor on whom Pangloss may have been partly based. Likewise, Monbron's protagonist undergoes a disillusioning series of travels similar to those of Candide.",
"title": "Historical and literary background"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Born François-Marie Arouet, Voltaire (1694–1778), by the time of the Lisbon earthquake, was already a well-established author, known for his satirical wit. He had been made a member of the Académie Française in 1746. He was a deist, a strong proponent of religious freedom, and a critic of tyrannical governments. Candide became part of his large, diverse body of philosophical, political, and artistic works expressing these views. More specifically, it was a model for the eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century novels called the contes philosophiques. This genre, of which Voltaire was one of the founders, included previous works of his such as Zadig and Micromegas.",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "It is unknown exactly when Voltaire wrote Candide, but scholars estimate that it was primarily composed in late 1758 and begun as early as 1757. Voltaire is believed to have written a portion of it while living at Les Délices near Geneva and also while visiting Charles Théodore, the Elector-Palatinate, at Schwetzingen for three weeks in the summer of 1758. Despite solid evidence for these claims, a popular legend persists that Voltaire wrote Candide in three days. This idea is probably based on a misreading of the 1885 work La Vie intime de Voltaire aux Délices et à Ferney by Lucien Perey (real name: Clara Adèle Luce Herpin) and Gaston Maugras. The evidence indicates strongly that Voltaire did not rush or improvise Candide, but worked on it over a significant period of time, possibly even a whole year. Candide is mature and carefully developed, not impromptu, as the intentionally choppy plot and the aforementioned myth might suggest.",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "There is only one extant manuscript of Candide that was written before the work's 1759 publication; it was discovered in 1956 by Wade and since named the La Vallière Manuscript. It is believed to have been sent, chapter by chapter, by Voltaire to the Duke and Duchess La Vallière in the autumn of 1758. The manuscript was sold to the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal in the late eighteenth century, where it remained undiscovered for almost two hundred years. The La Vallière Manuscript, the most original and authentic of all surviving copies of Candide, was probably dictated by Voltaire to his secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière, then edited directly. In addition to this manuscript, there is believed to have been another, one copied by Wagnière for the Elector Charles-Théodore, who hosted Voltaire during the summer of 1758. The existence of this copy was first postulated by Norman L. Torrey in 1929. If it exists, it remains undiscovered.",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Voltaire published Candide simultaneously in five countries no later than 15 January 1759, although the exact date is uncertain. Seventeen versions of Candide from 1759, in the original French, are known today, and there has been great controversy over which is the earliest. More versions were published in other languages: Candide was translated once into Italian and thrice into English that same year. The complicated science of calculating the relative publication dates of all of the versions of Candide is described at length in Wade's article \"The First Edition of Candide: A Problem of Identification\". The publication process was extremely secretive, probably the \"most clandestine work of the century\", because of the book's obviously illicit and irreverent content. The greatest number of copies of Candide were published concurrently in Geneva by Cramer, in Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey, in London by Jean Nourse, and in Paris by Lambert.",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Candide underwent one major revision after its initial publication, in addition to some minor ones. In 1761, a version of Candide was published that included, along with several minor changes, a major addition by Voltaire to the twenty-second chapter, a section that had been thought weak by the Duke of Vallière. The English title of this edition was Candide, or Optimism, Translated from the German of Dr. Ralph. With the additions found in the Doctor's pocket when he died at Minden, in the Year of Grace 1759. The last edition of Candide authorised by Voltaire was the one included in Cramer's 1775 edition of his complete works, known as l'édition encadrée, in reference to the border or frame around each page.",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Voltaire strongly opposed the inclusion of illustrations in his works, as he stated in a 1778 letter to the writer and publisher Charles Joseph Panckoucke:",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Je crois que des Estampes seraient fort inutiles. Ces colifichets n'ont jamais été admis dans les éditions de Cicéron, de Virgile et d'Horace. (I believe that these illustrations would be quite useless. These baubles have never been allowed in the works of Cicero, Virgil and Horace.)",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Despite this protest, two sets of illustrations for Candide were produced by the French artist Jean-Michel Moreau le Jeune. The first version was done, at Moreau's own expense, in 1787 and included in Kehl's publication of that year, Oeuvres Complètes de Voltaire. Four images were drawn by Moreau for this edition and were engraved by Pierre-Charles Baquoy. The second version, in 1803, consisted of seven drawings by Moreau which were transposed by multiple engravers. The twentieth-century modern artist Paul Klee stated that it was while reading Candide that he discovered his own artistic style. Klee illustrated the work, and his drawings were published in a 1920 version edited by Kurt Wolff.",
"title": "Creation"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Candide contains thirty episodic chapters, which may be grouped into two main schemes: one consists of two divisions, separated by the protagonist's hiatus in El Dorado; the other consists of three parts, each defined by its geographical setting. By the former scheme, the first half of Candide constitutes the rising action and the last part the resolution. This view is supported by the strong theme of travel and quest, reminiscent of adventure and picaresque novels, which tend to employ such a dramatic structure. By the latter scheme, the thirty chapters may be grouped into three parts each comprising ten chapters and defined by locale: I–X are set in Europe, XI–XX are set in the Americas, and XXI–XXX are set in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The plot summary that follows uses this second format and includes Voltaire's additions of 1761.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The tale of Candide begins in the castle of the Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh in Westphalia, home to the Baron's daughter, Lady Cunégonde; his bastard nephew, Candide; a tutor, Pangloss; a chambermaid, Paquette; and the rest of the Baron's family. The protagonist, Candide, is romantically attracted to Cunégonde. He is a young man of \"the most unaffected simplicity\" (l'esprit le plus simple), whose face is \"the true index of his mind\" (sa physionomie annonçait son âme). Dr. Pangloss, professor of \"métaphysico-théologo-cosmolonigologie\" (English: \"metaphysico-theologo-cosmolonigology\") and self-proclaimed optimist, teaches his pupils that they live in the \"best of all possible worlds\" and that \"all is for the best\".",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "All is well in the castle until Cunégonde sees Pangloss sexually engaged with Paquette in some bushes. Encouraged by this show of affection, Cunégonde drops her handkerchief next to Candide, enticing him to kiss her. For this infraction, Candide is evicted from the castle, at which point he is captured by Bulgar (Prussian) recruiters and coerced into military service, where he is flogged, nearly executed, and forced to participate in a major battle between the Bulgars and the Avars (an allegory representing the Prussians and the French). Candide eventually escapes the army and makes his way to Holland where he is given aid by Jacques, an Anabaptist, who strengthens Candide's optimism. Soon after, Candide finds his master Pangloss, now a beggar with syphilis. Pangloss reveals he was infected with this disease by Paquette and shocks Candide by relating how Castle Thunder-ten-Tronckh was destroyed by Bulgars, that Cunégonde and her whole family were killed, and that Cunégonde was raped before her death. Pangloss is cured of his illness by Jacques, losing one eye and one ear in the process, and the three set sail to Lisbon.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In Lisbon's harbor, they are overtaken by a vicious storm which destroys the boat. Jacques attempts to save a sailor, and in the process is thrown overboard. The sailor makes no move to help the drowning Jacques, and Candide is in a state of despair until Pangloss explains to him that Lisbon harbor was created in order for Jacques to drown. Only Pangloss, Candide, and the \"brutish sailor\" who let Jacques drown survive the wreck and reach Lisbon, which is promptly hit by an earthquake, tsunami, and fire that kill tens of thousands. The sailor leaves in order to loot the rubble while Candide, injured and begging for help, is lectured on the optimistic view of the situation by Pangloss.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The next day, Pangloss discusses his optimistic philosophy with a member of the Portuguese Inquisition, and he and Candide are arrested for heresy, set to be tortured and killed in an \"auto-da-fé\" set up to appease God and prevent another disaster. Candide is flogged and sees Pangloss hanged, but another earthquake intervenes and he escapes. He is approached by an old woman, who leads him to a house where Lady Cunégonde waits, alive. Candide is surprised: Pangloss had told him that Cunégonde had been raped and disemboweled. She had been, but Cunégonde points out that people survive such things. However, her rescuer sold her to a Jewish merchant, Don Issachar, who was then threatened by a corrupt Grand Inquisitor into sharing her (Don Issachar gets Cunégonde on Mondays, Wednesdays, and the sabbath day). Her owners arrive, find her with another man, and Candide kills them both. Candide and the two women flee the city, heading to the Americas. Along the way, Cunégonde falls into self-pity, complaining of all the misfortunes that have befallen her.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The old woman reciprocates by revealing her own tragic life: born the daughter of Pope Urban X and the Princess of Palestrina, she was kidnapped and enslaved by Barbary pirates, witnessed violent civil wars in Morocco under the bloodthirsty king Moulay Ismaïl (during which her mother was drawn and quartered), suffered constant hunger, nearly died from a plague in Algiers, and had a buttock cut off to feed starving Janissaries during the Russian capture of Azov. After traversing all the Russian Empire, she eventually became a servant of Don Issachar and met Cunégonde.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "The trio arrives in Buenos Aires, where Governor Don Fernando d'Ibarra y Figueroa y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza asks to marry Cunégonde. Just then, an alcalde (a Spanish magistrate) arrives, pursuing Candide for killing the Grand Inquisitor. Leaving the women behind, Candide flees to Paraguay with his practical and heretofore unmentioned manservant, Cacambo.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "At a border post on the way to Paraguay, Cacambo and Candide speak to the commandant, who turns out to be Cunégonde's unnamed brother. He explains that after his family was slaughtered, the Jesuits' preparation for his burial revived him, and he has since joined the order. When Candide proclaims he intends to marry Cunégonde, her brother attacks him, and Candide runs him through with his rapier. After lamenting all the people (mainly priests) he has killed, he and Cacambo flee. In their flight, Candide and Cacambo come across two naked women being chased and bitten by a pair of monkeys. Candide, seeking to protect the women, shoots and kills the monkeys, but is informed by Cacambo that the monkeys and women were probably lovers.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Cacambo and Candide are captured by Oreillons, or Orejones; members of the Inca nobility who widened the lobes of their ears, and are depicted here as the fictional inhabitants of the area. Mistaking Candide for a Jesuit by his robes, the Oreillons prepare to cook Candide and Cacambo; however, Cacambo convinces the Oreillons that Candide killed a Jesuit to procure the robe. Cacambo and Candide are released and travel for a month on foot and then down a river by canoe, living on fruits and berries.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "After a few more adventures, Candide and Cacambo wander into El Dorado, a geographically isolated utopia where the streets are covered with precious stones, there exist no priests, and all of the king's jokes are funny. Candide and Cacambo stay a month in El Dorado, but Candide is still in pain without Cunégonde, and expresses to the king his wish to leave. The king points out that this is a foolish idea, but generously helps them do so. The pair continue their journey, now accompanied by one hundred red pack sheep carrying provisions and incredible sums of money, which they slowly lose or have stolen over the next few adventures.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Candide and Cacambo eventually reach Suriname where they split up: Cacambo travels to Buenos Aires to retrieve Lady Cunégonde, while Candide prepares to travel to Europe to await the two. Candide's remaining sheep are stolen, and Candide is fined heavily by a Dutch magistrate for petulance over the theft. Before leaving Suriname, Candide feels in need of companionship, so he interviews a number of local men who have been through various ill-fortunes and settles on a man named Martin.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "This companion, Martin, is a Manichaean scholar based on the real-life pessimist Pierre Bayle, who was a chief opponent of Leibniz. For the remainder of the voyage, Martin and Candide argue about philosophy, Martin painting the entire world as occupied by fools. Candide, however, remains an optimist at heart, since it is all he knows. After a detour to Bordeaux and Paris, they arrive in England and see an admiral (based on Admiral Byng) being shot for not killing enough of the enemy. Martin explains that Britain finds it necessary to shoot an admiral from time to time \"pour encourager les autres\" (to encourage the others). Candide, horrified, arranges for them to leave Britain immediately. Upon their arrival in Venice, Candide and Martin meet Paquette, the chambermaid who infected Pangloss with his syphilis. She is now a prostitute, and is spending her time with a Theatine monk, Brother Giroflée. Although both appear happy on the surface, they reveal their despair: Paquette has led a miserable existence as a sexual object since she was forced to become a prostitute, and the monk detests the religious order in which he was indoctrinated. Candide gives two thousand piastres to Paquette and one thousand to Brother Giroflée.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "Candide and Martin visit the Lord Pococurante, a noble Venetian. That evening, Cacambo—now a slave—arrives and informs Candide that Cunégonde is in Constantinople. Prior to their departure, Candide and Martin dine with six strangers who had come for the Carnival of Venice. These strangers are revealed to be dethroned kings: the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III, Emperor Ivan VI of Russia, Charles Edward Stuart (an unsuccessful pretender to the English throne), Augustus III of Poland (deprived, at the time of writing, of his reign in the Electorate of Saxony due to the Seven Years' War), Stanisław Leszczyński, and Theodore of Corsica.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "On the way to Constantinople, Cacambo reveals that Cunégonde—now horribly ugly—currently washes dishes on the banks of the Propontis as a slave for a fugitive Transylvanian prince by the name of Rákóczi. After arriving at the Bosphorus, they board a galley where, to Candide's surprise, he finds Pangloss and Cunégonde's brother among the rowers. Candide buys their freedom and further passage at steep prices. They both relate how they survived, but despite the horrors he has been through, Pangloss's optimism remains unshaken: \"I still hold to my original opinions, because, after all, I'm a philosopher, and it wouldn't be proper for me to recant, since Leibniz cannot be wrong, and since pre-established harmony is the most beautiful thing in the world, along with the plenum and subtle matter.\"",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Candide, the baron, Pangloss, Martin, and Cacambo arrive at the banks of the Propontis, where they rejoin Cunégonde and the old woman. Cunégonde has indeed become hideously ugly, but Candide nevertheless buys their freedom and marries Cunégonde to spite her brother, who forbids Cunégonde from marrying anyone but a baron of the Empire (he is secretly sold back into slavery). Paquette and Brother Giroflée—having squandered their three thousand piastres—are reconciled with Candide on a small farm (une petite métairie) which he just bought with the last of his finances.",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "One day, the protagonists seek out a dervish known as a great philosopher of the land. Candide asks him why Man is made to suffer so, and what they all ought to do. The dervish responds by asking rhetorically why Candide is concerned about the existence of evil and good. The dervish describes human beings as mice on a ship sent by a king to Egypt; their comfort does not matter to the king. The dervish then slams his door on the group. Returning to their farm, Candide, Pangloss, and Martin meet a Turk whose philosophy is to devote his life only to simple work and not concern himself with external affairs. He and his four children cultivate a small area of land, and the work keeps them \"free of three great evils: boredom, vice, and poverty.\" Candide, Pangloss, Martin, Cunégonde, Paquette, Cacambo, the old woman, and Brother Giroflée all set to work on this \"commendable plan\" (louable dessein) on their farm, each exercising his or her own talents. Candide ignores Pangloss's insistence that all turned out for the best by necessity, instead telling him \"we must cultivate our garden\" (il faut cultiver notre jardin).",
"title": "Synopsis"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "As Voltaire himself described it, the purpose of Candide was to \"bring amusement to a small number of men of wit\". The author achieves this goal by combining wit with a parody of the classic adventure-romance plot. Candide is confronted with horrible events described in painstaking detail so often that it becomes humorous. Literary theorist Frances K. Barasch described Voltaire's matter-of-fact narrative as treating topics such as mass death \"as coolly as a weather report\". The fast-paced and improbable plot—in which characters narrowly escape death repeatedly, for instance—allows for compounding tragedies to befall the same characters over and over again. In the end, Candide is primarily, as described by Voltaire's biographer Ian Davidson, \"short, light, rapid and humorous\".",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "Behind the playful façade of Candide which has amused so many, there lies very harsh criticism of contemporary European civilization which angered many others. European governments such as France, Prussia, Portugal and England are each attacked ruthlessly by the author: the French and Prussians for the Seven Years' War, the Portuguese for their Inquisition, and the British for the execution of John Byng. Organised religion, too, is harshly treated in Candide. For example, Voltaire mocks the Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic Church. Aldridge provides a characteristic example of such anti-clerical passages for which the work was banned: while in Paraguay, Cacambo remarks, \"[The Jesuits] are masters of everything, and the people have no money at all …\". Here, Voltaire suggests the Christian mission in Paraguay is taking advantage of the local population. Voltaire depicts the Jesuits holding the indigenous peoples as slaves while they claim to be helping them.",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "The main method of Candide's satire is to contrast ironically great tragedy and comedy. The story does not invent or exaggerate evils of the world—it displays real ones starkly, allowing Voltaire to simplify subtle philosophies and cultural traditions, highlighting their flaws. Thus Candide derides optimism, for instance, with a deluge of horrible, historical (or at least plausible) events with no apparent redeeming qualities.",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "A simple example of the satire of Candide is seen in the treatment of the historic event witnessed by Candide and Martin in Portsmouth harbour. There, the duo spy an anonymous admiral, supposed to represent John Byng, being executed for failing to properly engage a French fleet. The admiral is blindfolded and shot on the deck of his own ship, merely \"to encourage the others\" (French: pour encourager les autres, an expression Voltaire is credited with originating). This depiction of military punishment trivializes Byng's death. The dry, pithy explanation \"to encourage the others\" thus satirises a serious historical event in characteristically Voltairian fashion. For its classic wit, this phrase has become one of the more often quoted from Candide.",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Voltaire depicts the worst of the world and his pathetic hero's desperate effort to fit it into an optimistic outlook. Almost all of Candide is a discussion of various forms of evil: its characters rarely find even temporary respite. There is at least one notable exception: the episode of El Dorado, a fantastic village in which the inhabitants are simply rational, and their society is just and reasonable. The positivity of El Dorado may be contrasted with the pessimistic attitude of most of the book. Even in this case, the bliss of El Dorado is fleeting: Candide soon leaves the village to seek Cunégonde, whom he eventually marries only out of a sense of obligation.",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "Another element of the satire focuses on what William F. Bottiglia, author of many published works on Candide, calls the \"sentimental foibles of the age\" and Voltaire's attack on them. Flaws in European culture are highlighted as Candide parodies adventure and romance clichés, mimicking the style of a picaresque novel. A number of archetypal characters thus have recognisable manifestations in Voltaire's work: Candide is supposed to be the drifting rogue of low social class, Cunégonde the sex interest, Pangloss the knowledgeable mentor, and Cacambo the skillful valet. As the plot unfolds, readers find that Candide is no rogue, Cunégonde becomes ugly and Pangloss is a stubborn fool. The characters of Candide are unrealistic, two-dimensional, mechanical, and even marionette-like; they are simplistic and stereotypical. As the initially naïve protagonist eventually comes to a mature conclusion—however noncommittal—the novella is a bildungsroman, if not a very serious one.",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "Gardens are thought by many critics to play a critical symbolic role in Candide. The first location commonly identified as a garden is the castle of the Baron, from which Candide and Cunégonde are evicted much in the same fashion as Adam and Eve are evicted from the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis. Cyclically, the main characters of Candide conclude the novel in a garden of their own making, one which might represent celestial paradise. The third most prominent \"garden\" is El Dorado, which may be a false Eden. Other possibly symbolic gardens include the Jesuit pavilion, the garden of Pococurante, Cacambo's garden, and the Turk's garden.",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "These gardens are probably references to the Garden of Eden, but it has also been proposed, by Bottiglia, for example, that the gardens refer also to the Encyclopédie, and that Candide's conclusion to cultivate \"his garden\" symbolises Voltaire's great support for this endeavour. Candide and his companions, as they find themselves at the end of the novella, are in a very similar position to Voltaire's tightly knit philosophical circle which supported the Encyclopédie: the main characters of Candide live in seclusion to \"cultivate [their] garden\", just as Voltaire suggested his colleagues leave society to write. In addition, there is evidence in the epistolary correspondence of Voltaire that he had elsewhere used the metaphor of gardening to describe writing the Encyclopédie. Another interpretative possibility is that Candide cultivating \"his garden\" suggests his engaging in only necessary occupations, such as feeding oneself and fighting boredom. This is analogous to Voltaire's own view on gardening: he was himself a gardener at his estates in Les Délices and Ferney, and he often wrote in his correspondence that gardening was an important pastime of his own, it being an extraordinarily effective way to keep busy.",
"title": "Style"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "Candide satirises various philosophical and religious theories that Voltaire had previously criticised. Primary among these is Leibnizian optimism (sometimes called Panglossianism after its fictional proponent), which Voltaire ridicules with descriptions of seemingly endless calamity. Voltaire demonstrates a variety of irredeemable evils in the world, leading many critics to contend that Voltaire's treatment of evil—specifically the theological problem of its existence—is the focus of the work. Heavily referenced in the text are the Lisbon earthquake, disease, and the sinking of ships in storms. Also, war, thievery, and murder—evils of human design—are explored as extensively in Candide as are environmental ills. Bottiglia notes Voltaire is \"comprehensive\" in his enumeration of the world's evils. He is unrelenting in attacking Leibnizian optimism.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Fundamental to Voltaire's attack is Candide's tutor Pangloss, a self-proclaimed follower of Leibniz and a teacher of his doctrine. Ridicule of Pangloss's theories thus ridicules Leibniz himself, and Pangloss's reasoning is silly at best. For example, Pangloss's first teachings of the narrative absurdly mix up cause and effect:",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "Il est démontré, disait-il, que les choses ne peuvent être autrement; car tout étant fait pour une fin, tout est nécessairement pour la meilleure fin. Remarquez bien que les nez ont été faits pour porter des lunettes; aussi avons-nous des lunettes.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Following such flawed reasoning even more doggedly than Candide, Pangloss defends optimism. Whatever their horrendous fortune, Pangloss reiterates \"all is for the best\" (\"Tout est pour le mieux\") and proceeds to \"justify\" the evil event's occurrence. A characteristic example of such theodicy is found in Pangloss's explanation of why it is good that syphilis exists:",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 44,
"text": "c'était une chose indispensable dans le meilleur des mondes, un ingrédient nécessaire; car si Colomb n'avait pas attrapé dans une île de l'Amérique cette maladie qui empoisonne la source de la génération, qui souvent même empêche la génération, et qui est évidemment l'opposé du grand but de la nature, nous n'aurions ni le chocolat ni la cochenille;",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 45,
"text": "it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 46,
"text": "Candide, the impressionable and incompetent student of Pangloss, often tries to justify evil, fails, invokes his mentor and eventually despairs. It is by these failures that Candide is painfully cured (as Voltaire would see it) of his optimism.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 47,
"text": "This critique of Voltaire's seems to be directed almost exclusively at Leibnizian optimism. Candide does not ridicule Voltaire's contemporary Alexander Pope, a later optimist of slightly different convictions. Candide does not discuss Pope's optimistic principle that \"all is right\", but Leibniz's that states, \"this is the best of all possible worlds\". However subtle the difference between the two, Candide is unambiguous as to which is its subject. Some critics conjecture that Voltaire meant to spare Pope this ridicule out of respect, although Voltaire's Poème may have been written as a more direct response to Pope's theories. This work is similar to Candide in subject matter, but very different from it in style: the Poème embodies a more serious philosophical argument than Candide.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 48,
"text": "The conclusion of the novel, in which Candide finally dismisses his tutor's optimism, leaves unresolved what philosophy the protagonist is to accept in its stead. This element of Candide has been written about voluminously, perhaps above all others. The conclusion is enigmatic and its analysis is contentious.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 49,
"text": "Voltaire develops no formal, systematic philosophy for the characters to adopt. The conclusion of the novel may be thought of not as a philosophical alternative to optimism, but as a prescribed practical outlook (though what it prescribes is in dispute). Many critics have concluded that one minor character or another is portrayed as having the right philosophy. For instance, a number believe that Martin is treated sympathetically, and that his character holds Voltaire's ideal philosophy—pessimism. Others disagree, citing Voltaire's negative descriptions of Martin's principles and the conclusion of the work in which Martin plays little part.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 50,
"text": "Within debates attempting to decipher the conclusion of Candide lies another primary Candide debate. This one concerns the degree to which Voltaire was advocating a pessimistic philosophy, by which Candide and his companions give up hope for a better world. Critics argue that the group's reclusion on the farm signifies Candide and his companions' loss of hope for the rest of the human race. This view is to be compared to a reading that presents Voltaire as advocating a melioristic philosophy and a precept committing the travellers to improving the world through metaphorical gardening. This debate, and others, focuses on the question of whether or not Voltaire was prescribing passive retreat from society, or active industrious contribution to it.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 51,
"text": "Separate from the debate about the text's conclusion is the \"inside/outside\" controversy. This argument centers on the matter of whether or not Voltaire was actually prescribing anything. Roy Wolper, professor emeritus of English, argues in a revolutionary 1969 paper that Candide does not necessarily speak for its author; that the work should be viewed as a narrative independent of Voltaire's history; and that its message is entirely (or mostly) inside it. This point of view, the \"inside\", specifically rejects attempts to find Voltaire's \"voice\" in the many characters of Candide and his other works. Indeed, writers have seen Voltaire as speaking through at least Candide, Martin, and the Turk. Wolper argues that Candide should be read with a minimum of speculation as to its meaning in Voltaire's personal life. His article ushered in a new era of Voltaire studies, causing many scholars to look at the novel differently.",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 52,
"text": "Critics such as Lester Crocker, Henry Stavan, and Vivienne Mylne find too many similarities between Candide's point of view and that of Voltaire to accept the \"inside\" view; they support the \"outside\" interpretation. They believe that Candide's final decision is the same as Voltaire's, and see a strong connection between the development of the protagonist and his author. Some scholars who support the \"outside\" view also believe that the isolationist philosophy of the Old Turk closely mirrors that of Voltaire. Others see a strong parallel between Candide's gardening at the conclusion and the gardening of the author. Martine Darmon Meyer argues that the \"inside\" view fails to see the satirical work in context, and that denying that Candide is primarily a mockery of optimism (a matter of historical context) is a \"very basic betrayal of the text\".",
"title": "Philosophy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 53,
"text": "De roman, Voltaire en a fait un, lequel est le résumé de toutes ses œuvres ... Toute son intelligence était une machine de guerre. Et ce qui me le fait chérir, c'est le dégoût que m'inspirent les voltairiens, des gens qui rient sur les grandes choses! Est-ce qu'il riait, lui? Il grinçait ...",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 54,
"text": "— Flaubert, Correspondance, éd. Conard, II, 348; III, 219",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 55,
"text": "Voltaire made, with this novel, a résumé of all his works ... His whole intelligence was a war machine. And what makes me cherish it is the disgust which has been inspired in me by the Voltairians, people who laugh about the important things! Was he laughing? Voltaire? He was screeching ...",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 56,
"text": "— Flaubert, Correspondance, éd. Conard, II, 348; III, 219",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 57,
"text": "Though Voltaire did not openly admit to having written the controversial Candide until 1768 (until then he signed with a pseudonym: \"Monsieur le docteur Ralph\", or \"Doctor Ralph\"), his authorship of the work was hardly disputed.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 58,
"text": "Immediately after publication, the work and its author were denounced by both secular and religious authorities, because the book openly derides government and church alike. It was because of such polemics that Omer-Louis-François Joly de Fleury, who was Advocate General to the Parisian parliament when Candide was published, found parts of Candide to be \"contrary to religion and morals\".",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 59,
"text": "Despite much official indictment, soon after its publication, Candide's irreverent prose was being quoted. \"Let us eat a Jesuit\", for instance, became a popular phrase for its reference to a humorous passage in Candide. By the end of February 1759, the Grand Council of Geneva and the administrators of Paris had banned Candide. Candide nevertheless succeeded in selling twenty thousand to thirty thousand copies by the end of the year in more than twenty editions, making it a best seller. The Duke de La Vallière speculated near the end of January 1759 that Candide might have been the fastest-selling book ever. In 1762, Candide was listed in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books.",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 60,
"text": "Bannings of Candide lasted into the twentieth century in the United States, where it has long been considered a seminal work of Western literature. At least once, Candide was temporarily barred from entering America: in February 1929, a US customs official in Boston prevented a number of copies of the book, deemed \"obscene\", from reaching a Harvard University French class. Candide was admitted in August of the same year; however by that time the class was over. In an interview soon after Candide's detention, the official who confiscated the book explained the office's decision to ban it, \"But about 'Candide,' I'll tell you. For years we've been letting that book get by. There were so many different editions, all sizes and kinds, some illustrated and some plain, that we figured the book must be all right. Then one of us happened to read it. It's a filthy book\".",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 61,
"text": "Candide is the most widely read of Voltaire's many works, and it is considered one of the great achievements of Western literature. William F. Bottiglia opines, \"The physical size of Candide, as well as Voltaire's attitude toward his fiction, precludes the achievement of artistic dimension through plenitude, autonomous '3D' vitality, emotional resonance, or poetic exaltation. Candide, then, cannot in quantity or quality, measure up to the supreme classics\" such as the works of Homer or Shakespeare, Sophocles, Chaucer, Dante, Cervantes, Fielding, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Racine, or Molière. Bottiglia instead calls it a miniature classic; but others have been more forgiving of its size. As the only work of Voltaire which has remained popular up to the present day, Candide is listed in Harold Bloom's The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages. It is included in the Encyclopædia Britannica collection Great Books of the Western World. Candide has influenced modern writers of black humour such as Céline, Joseph Heller, John Barth, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Terry Southern. Its parody and picaresque methods have become favourites of black humorists.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 62,
"text": "Charles Brockden Brown, an early American novelist, may have been directly affected by Voltaire, whose work he knew well. Mark Kamrath, professor of English, describes the strength of the connection between Candide and Brown's Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker (1799): \"An unusually large number of parallels...crop up in the two novels, particularly in terms of characters and plot.\" For instance, the protagonists of both novels are romantically involved with a recently orphaned young woman. Furthermore, in both works the brothers of the female lovers are Jesuits, and each is murdered (although under different circumstances).",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 63,
"text": "Some twentieth-century novels that may have been influenced by Candide are some dystopian science-fiction works. Armand Mattelart, a French critic, sees Candide in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, and Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, three canonical works of the genre. Specifically, Mattelart writes that in each of these works, there exist references to Candide's popularisation of the phrase \"the best of all possible worlds\". He cites as evidence, for example, that the French version of Brave New World was entitled Le Meilleur des mondes (lit. '\"The best of worlds\"').",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 64,
"text": "Readers of Candide often compare it with certain works of the modern genre the Theatre of the Absurd. Haydn Mason, a Voltaire scholar, sees in Candide a few similarities to this brand of literature. For instance, he notes commonalities of Candide and Waiting for Godot (1952). In both of these works, and in a similar manner, friendship provides emotional support for characters when they are confronted with harshness of their existences. However, Mason qualifies, \"the conte must not be seen as a forerunner of the 'absurd' in modern fiction. Candide's world has many ridiculous and meaningless elements, but human beings are not totally deprived of the ability to make sense out of it.\" John Pilling, biographer of Beckett, does state that Candide was an early and powerful influence on Beckett's thinking. Rosa Luxemburg, in the aftermath of the First World War, remarked upon re-reading Candide: \"Before the war, I would have thought this wicked compilation of all human misery a caricature. Now it strikes me as altogether realistic.\"",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 65,
"text": "The American alternative rock band Bloodhound Gang refer to Candide in their song \"Take the Long Way Home\", from the American edition of their 1999 album Hooray for Boobies.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 66,
"text": "In 1760, one year after Voltaire published Candide, a sequel was published with the name Candide, ou l'optimisme, seconde partie. This work is attributed both to Thorel de Campigneulles, a writer unknown today, and Henri Joseph Du Laurens, who is suspected of having habitually plagiarised Voltaire. The story continues in this sequel with Candide having new adventures in the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and Denmark. Part II has potential use in studies of the popular and literary receptions of Candide, but is almost certainly apocryphal. In total, by the year 1803, at least ten imitations of Candide or continuations of its story were published by authors other than Voltaire.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 67,
"text": "Candide was adapted for the radio anthology program On Stage in 1953. Richard Chandlee wrote the script; Elliott Lewis, Cathy Lewis, Edgar Barrier, Byron Kane, Jack Kruschen, Howard McNear, Larry Thor, Martha Wentworth, and Ben Wright performed.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 68,
"text": "The operetta Candide was originally conceived by playwright Lillian Hellman, as a play with incidental music. Leonard Bernstein, the American composer and conductor who wrote the music, was so excited about the project that he convinced Hellman to do it as a \"comic operetta\". Many lyricists worked on the show, including James Agee, Dorothy Parker, John Latouche, Richard Wilbur, Leonard and Felicia Bernstein, and Hellman. Hershy Kay orchestrated all the pieces except for the overture, which Bernstein did himself. Candide first opened on Broadway as a musical on 1 December 1956. The premier production was directed by Tyrone Guthrie and conducted by Samuel Krachmalnick. While this production was a box office flop, the music was highly praised, and an original cast album was made. The album gradually became a cult hit, but Hellman's libretto was criticised as being too serious an adaptation of Voltaire's novel. Candide has been revised and reworked several times. The first New York revival, directed by Hal Prince, featured an entirely new libretto by Hugh Wheeler and additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Bernstein revised the work again in 1987 with the collaboration of John Mauceri and John Wells. After Bernstein's death, further revised productions of the musical were performed in versions prepared by Trevor Nunn and John Caird in 1999, and Mary Zimmerman in 2010.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 69,
"text": "Candido, ovvero un sogno fatto in Sicilia [it] (1977) or simply Candido is a book by Leonardo Sciascia. It was at least partly based on Voltaire's Candide, although the actual influence of Candide on Candido is a hotly debated topic. A number of theories on the matter have been proposed. Proponents of one say that Candido is very similar to Candide, only with a happy ending; supporters of another claim that Voltaire provided Sciascia with only a starting point from which to work, that the two books are quite distinct.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 70,
"text": "The BBC produced a television adaptation in 1973, with Ian Ogilvy as Candide, Emrys James as Dr. Pangloss, and Frank Finlay as Voltaire himself, acting as the narrator.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 71,
"text": "Nedim Gürsel wrote his 2001 novel Le voyage de Candide à Istanbul about a minor passage in Candide during which its protagonist meets Ahmed III, the deposed Turkish sultan. This chance meeting on a ship from Venice to Istanbul is the setting of Gürsel's book. Terry Southern, in writing his popular novel Candy with Mason Hoffenberg adapted Candide for a modern audience and changed the protagonist from male to female. Candy deals with the rejection of a sort of optimism which the author sees in women's magazines of the modern era; Candy also parodies pornography and popular psychology. This adaptation of Candide was adapted for the cinema by director Christian Marquand in 1968.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 72,
"text": "In addition to the above, Candide was made into a number of minor films and theatrical adaptations throughout the twentieth century. For a list of these, see Voltaire: Candide ou L'Optimisme et autres contes (1989) with preface and commentaries by Pierre Malandain.",
"title": "Legacy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 73,
"text": "In May 2009, a play titled Optimism, based on Candide, opened at the CUB Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne. It followed the basic story of Candide, incorporating anachronisms, music, and stand up comedy from comedian Frank Woodley. It toured Australia and played at the Edinburgh International Festival. In 2010, the Icelandic writer Óttar M. Norðfjörð published a rewriting and modernisation of Candide, titled Örvitinn; eða hugsjónamaðurinn.",
"title": "Legacy"
}
] | Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled Candide: or, All for the Best (1759); Candide: or, The Optimist (1762); and Candide: Optimism (1947). It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow and painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world. Voltaire concludes Candide with, if not rejecting Leibnizian optimism outright, advocating a deeply practical precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best" in the "best of all possible worlds". Candide is characterized by its tone as well as by its erratic, fantastical, and fast-moving plot. A picaresque novel with a story similar to that of a more serious coming-of-age narrative (bildungsroman), it parodies many adventure and romance clichés, the struggles of which are caricatured in a tone that is bitter and matter-of-fact. Still, the events discussed are often based on historical happenings, such as the Seven Years' War and the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. As philosophers of Voltaire's day contended with the problem of evil, so does Candide in this short theological novel, albeit more directly and humorously. Voltaire ridicules religion, theologians, governments, armies, philosophies, and philosophers. Through Candide, he assaults Leibniz and his optimism. Candide has enjoyed both great success and great scandal. Immediately after its secretive publication, the book was widely banned because it contained religious blasphemy, political sedition, and intellectual hostility hidden under a thin veil of naivety. However, with its sharp wit and insightful portrayal of the human condition, the novel has since inspired many later authors and artists to mimic and adapt it. Today, Candide is considered Voltaire's magnum opus and is often listed as part of the Western canon. It is among the most frequently taught works of French literature. The British poet and literary critic Martin Seymour-Smith listed Candide as one of the 100 most influential books ever written. | 2001-09-30T18:29:24Z | 2023-12-30T15:54:16Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide |
6,630 | Chapterhouse: Dune | Chapterhouse: Dune is a 1985 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the last in his Dune series of six novels. It rose to No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.
A direct follow-up to Heretics of Dune, the novel chronicles the continued struggles of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood against the violent Honored Matres, who are succeeding in their bid to seize control of the universe and destroy the factions and planets that oppose them.
Chapterhouse: Dune ends with a cliffhanger, and Herbert's subsequent death in 1986 left some overarching plotlines of the series unresolved. Two decades later, Herbert's son Brian Herbert, along with Kevin J. Anderson, published two sequels – Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007) – based in part on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for what he referred to as Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series.
The Bene Gesserit find themselves the target of the Honored Matres, whose conquest of the Old Empire is almost complete. The Matres are seeking to assimilate the technology and superhuman skills of the Bene Gesserit, and exterminate the Sisterhood itself. Now in command of the Bene Gesserit, Mother Superior Darwi Odrade continues to develop her drastic, secret plan to overcome the Honored Matres. The Bene Gesserit are also terraforming the planet Chapterhouse to accommodate the all-important sandworms, whose native planet Dune had been destroyed by the Matres.
Sheeana, in charge of the project, expects sandworms to appear soon. The Honored Matres have also destroyed the entire Bene Tleilax civilization, with Tleilaxu Master Scytale the only one of his kind left alive. In Bene Gesserit captivity, Scytale possesses the Tleilaxu secret of ghola production, which he has reluctantly traded for the Sisterhood's protection. The first ghola produced is that of their recently deceased military genius, Miles Teg. The Bene Gesserit have two other prisoners on Chapterhouse: the latest Duncan Idaho ghola, and former Honored Matre Murbella, whom they have accepted as a novice despite their suspicion that she intends to escape back to the Honored Matres.
Lampadas, a center for Bene Gesserit education, has been destroyed by the Honored Matres. The planet's Chancellor, Reverend Mother Lucilla, manages to escape carrying the shared-minds of millions of Reverend Mothers. Lucilla is forced to land on Gammu where she seeks refuge with an underground group of Jews. The Rabbi gives Lucilla sanctuary, but to save his people from the Matres he must deliver her to them. Before doing so, he reveals Rebecca, a "wild" Reverend Mother who has gained her Other Memory without Bene Gesserit training.
Lucilla shares minds with Rebecca, who promises to take the memories of Lampadas safely back to the Sisterhood. Lucilla is then "betrayed", and taken before the Great Honored Matre Dama, who tries to persuade her to join the Honored Matres, preserving her life in exchange for Bene Gesserit secrets. The Honored Matres are particularly interested in learning to voluntarily modify their body chemistry, a skill that atrophied among the Bene Gesserit who went out into the Scattering and evolved into the Honored Matres. From this, Lucilla deduces that the greater enemy that the Matres are fleeing from is making extensive use of biological warfare. Lucilla refuses to share this knowledge with the Matres, and Dama ultimately kills her.
Back on Chapterhouse, Odrade confronts Duncan and forces him to admit that he is a Mentat, proving that he retains the memories of his many ghola lives. Meanwhile, Murbella collapses under the pressure of Bene Gesserit training, and realizes that she wants to be Bene Gesserit. Odrade believes that the Sisterhood made a mistake in fearing emotion, and that in order to evolve, they must learn to accept emotions. Murbella survives the spice agony and becomes a Reverend Mother. Odrade confronts Sheeana, discovering that Duncan and Sheeana have been allies for some time. Sheeana does not reveal that they have been considering the option of reawakening Teg's memory through imprinting, nor does Odrade discover that Sheeana has the keys to Duncan's no-ship prison.
Teg is awakened by Sheeana using imprinting techniques. Odrade appoints him again as Bashar of the military forces of the Sisterhood for the assault on the Honored Matres. Odrade announces to the Bene Gesserit that Teg will lead an attack against the Honored Matres. She also makes clear her intention to share her memories with Murbella and Sheeana, making them candidates to succeed her as Mother Superior if she dies. Odrade meets with the Great Honored Matre while the Bene Gesserit forces under Teg attack Gammu with tremendous force. Teg uses his secret ability to see no-ships to secure control of the system, and victory for the Bene Gesserit seems inevitable. In the midst of this battle, Rebecca and the Jews take refuge with the Bene Gesserit fleet.
Dama's chief advisor Logno assassinates Dama with poison and assumes control of the Honored Matres. Too late, Odrade and Teg realize they have fallen into a trap, and the Honored Matres use a mysterious weapon to turn defeat into victory, and capture Odrade. Murbella saves as much of the Bene Gesserit force as she can and they withdraw to Chapterhouse. Odrade, however, had planned for the possible failure of the Bene Gesserit attack and left Murbella instructions for a last desperate gamble. Murbella pilots a small craft down to the surface, announcing herself as an Honored Matre who, in the confusion, has managed to escape the Bene Gesserit with all their secrets. She arrives on the planet and is taken to the Great Honored Matre. Unable to control her anger, Logno attacks but is killed by Murbella.
Awed by her physical prowess, the remaining Honored Matres are forced to accept her as their new leader. Odrade is also killed in the melee and Murbella shares with Odrade to absorb her newest memories, as they had already shared prior to the battle. Murbella's ascension to leadership is not accepted as victory by all the Bene Gesserit. Some flee Chapterhouse, notably Sheeana, who has a vision of her own, and arranges to have some of the new worms that have emerged in the Chapterhouse desert brought aboard the no-ship. Sheeana is joined by Duncan. The two escape in the giant no-ship, with Scytale, Teg and the Jews. Murbella recognizes their plan at the last minute, but is powerless to stop them.
Chapterhouse: Dune debuted at No. 5 and rose to No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list. Gerald Jonas of The New York Times noted that "Against all odds, the universe of Dune keeps getting richer in texture, more challenging in its moral dilemmas."
Dave Langford reviewed the novel for White Dwarf #65, and stated that "The hyper-acute characters are impressive, the resolution thoughtful and humane. Though initially I gave up after Children, Heretics and Chapter House have partially Restored My Faith."
Two decades after Frank Herbert's death, his son Brian Herbert, along with Kevin J. Anderson, published two sequels – Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007) – based on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for what he referred to as Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Chapterhouse: Dune is a 1985 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the last in his Dune series of six novels. It rose to No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "A direct follow-up to Heretics of Dune, the novel chronicles the continued struggles of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood against the violent Honored Matres, who are succeeding in their bid to seize control of the universe and destroy the factions and planets that oppose them.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Chapterhouse: Dune ends with a cliffhanger, and Herbert's subsequent death in 1986 left some overarching plotlines of the series unresolved. Two decades later, Herbert's son Brian Herbert, along with Kevin J. Anderson, published two sequels – Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007) – based in part on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for what he referred to as Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The Bene Gesserit find themselves the target of the Honored Matres, whose conquest of the Old Empire is almost complete. The Matres are seeking to assimilate the technology and superhuman skills of the Bene Gesserit, and exterminate the Sisterhood itself. Now in command of the Bene Gesserit, Mother Superior Darwi Odrade continues to develop her drastic, secret plan to overcome the Honored Matres. The Bene Gesserit are also terraforming the planet Chapterhouse to accommodate the all-important sandworms, whose native planet Dune had been destroyed by the Matres.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "Sheeana, in charge of the project, expects sandworms to appear soon. The Honored Matres have also destroyed the entire Bene Tleilax civilization, with Tleilaxu Master Scytale the only one of his kind left alive. In Bene Gesserit captivity, Scytale possesses the Tleilaxu secret of ghola production, which he has reluctantly traded for the Sisterhood's protection. The first ghola produced is that of their recently deceased military genius, Miles Teg. The Bene Gesserit have two other prisoners on Chapterhouse: the latest Duncan Idaho ghola, and former Honored Matre Murbella, whom they have accepted as a novice despite their suspicion that she intends to escape back to the Honored Matres.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "Lampadas, a center for Bene Gesserit education, has been destroyed by the Honored Matres. The planet's Chancellor, Reverend Mother Lucilla, manages to escape carrying the shared-minds of millions of Reverend Mothers. Lucilla is forced to land on Gammu where she seeks refuge with an underground group of Jews. The Rabbi gives Lucilla sanctuary, but to save his people from the Matres he must deliver her to them. Before doing so, he reveals Rebecca, a \"wild\" Reverend Mother who has gained her Other Memory without Bene Gesserit training.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "Lucilla shares minds with Rebecca, who promises to take the memories of Lampadas safely back to the Sisterhood. Lucilla is then \"betrayed\", and taken before the Great Honored Matre Dama, who tries to persuade her to join the Honored Matres, preserving her life in exchange for Bene Gesserit secrets. The Honored Matres are particularly interested in learning to voluntarily modify their body chemistry, a skill that atrophied among the Bene Gesserit who went out into the Scattering and evolved into the Honored Matres. From this, Lucilla deduces that the greater enemy that the Matres are fleeing from is making extensive use of biological warfare. Lucilla refuses to share this knowledge with the Matres, and Dama ultimately kills her.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "Back on Chapterhouse, Odrade confronts Duncan and forces him to admit that he is a Mentat, proving that he retains the memories of his many ghola lives. Meanwhile, Murbella collapses under the pressure of Bene Gesserit training, and realizes that she wants to be Bene Gesserit. Odrade believes that the Sisterhood made a mistake in fearing emotion, and that in order to evolve, they must learn to accept emotions. Murbella survives the spice agony and becomes a Reverend Mother. Odrade confronts Sheeana, discovering that Duncan and Sheeana have been allies for some time. Sheeana does not reveal that they have been considering the option of reawakening Teg's memory through imprinting, nor does Odrade discover that Sheeana has the keys to Duncan's no-ship prison.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Teg is awakened by Sheeana using imprinting techniques. Odrade appoints him again as Bashar of the military forces of the Sisterhood for the assault on the Honored Matres. Odrade announces to the Bene Gesserit that Teg will lead an attack against the Honored Matres. She also makes clear her intention to share her memories with Murbella and Sheeana, making them candidates to succeed her as Mother Superior if she dies. Odrade meets with the Great Honored Matre while the Bene Gesserit forces under Teg attack Gammu with tremendous force. Teg uses his secret ability to see no-ships to secure control of the system, and victory for the Bene Gesserit seems inevitable. In the midst of this battle, Rebecca and the Jews take refuge with the Bene Gesserit fleet.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "Dama's chief advisor Logno assassinates Dama with poison and assumes control of the Honored Matres. Too late, Odrade and Teg realize they have fallen into a trap, and the Honored Matres use a mysterious weapon to turn defeat into victory, and capture Odrade. Murbella saves as much of the Bene Gesserit force as she can and they withdraw to Chapterhouse. Odrade, however, had planned for the possible failure of the Bene Gesserit attack and left Murbella instructions for a last desperate gamble. Murbella pilots a small craft down to the surface, announcing herself as an Honored Matre who, in the confusion, has managed to escape the Bene Gesserit with all their secrets. She arrives on the planet and is taken to the Great Honored Matre. Unable to control her anger, Logno attacks but is killed by Murbella.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "Awed by her physical prowess, the remaining Honored Matres are forced to accept her as their new leader. Odrade is also killed in the melee and Murbella shares with Odrade to absorb her newest memories, as they had already shared prior to the battle. Murbella's ascension to leadership is not accepted as victory by all the Bene Gesserit. Some flee Chapterhouse, notably Sheeana, who has a vision of her own, and arranges to have some of the new worms that have emerged in the Chapterhouse desert brought aboard the no-ship. Sheeana is joined by Duncan. The two escape in the giant no-ship, with Scytale, Teg and the Jews. Murbella recognizes their plan at the last minute, but is powerless to stop them.",
"title": "Plot"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "Chapterhouse: Dune debuted at No. 5 and rose to No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list. Gerald Jonas of The New York Times noted that \"Against all odds, the universe of Dune keeps getting richer in texture, more challenging in its moral dilemmas.\"",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Dave Langford reviewed the novel for White Dwarf #65, and stated that \"The hyper-acute characters are impressive, the resolution thoughtful and humane. Though initially I gave up after Children, Heretics and Chapter House have partially Restored My Faith.\"",
"title": "Reception"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Two decades after Frank Herbert's death, his son Brian Herbert, along with Kevin J. Anderson, published two sequels – Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007) – based on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for what he referred to as Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series.",
"title": "Sequels"
}
] | Chapterhouse: Dune is a 1985 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the last in his Dune series of six novels. It rose to No. 2 on The New York Times Best Seller list. A direct follow-up to Heretics of Dune, the novel chronicles the continued struggles of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood against the violent Honored Matres, who are succeeding in their bid to seize control of the universe and destroy the factions and planets that oppose them. Chapterhouse: Dune ends with a cliffhanger, and Herbert's subsequent death in 1986 left some overarching plotlines of the series unresolved. Two decades later, Herbert's son Brian Herbert, along with Kevin J. Anderson, published two sequels – Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007) – based in part on notes left behind by Frank Herbert for what he referred to as Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series. | 2001-09-30T18:46:08Z | 2023-12-09T15:32:37Z | [
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"Template:Cite journal",
"Template:Dune franchise",
"Template:Frank Herbert",
"Template:Short description",
"Template:Cite web",
"Template:Authority control",
"Template:Reflist"
] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapterhouse:_Dune |
6,631 | Bus (computing) | In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin omnibus, and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components (wire, optical fiber, etc.) and software, including communication protocols.
Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel electrical busbar. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus (USB).
Computer systems generally consist of three main parts:
An early computer might contain a hand-wired CPU of vacuum tubes, a magnetic drum for main memory, and a punch tape and printer for reading and writing data respectively. A modern system might have a multi-core CPU, DDR4 SDRAM for memory, a solid-state drive for secondary storage, a graphics card and LCD as a display system, a mouse and keyboard for interaction, and a Wi-Fi connection for networking. In both examples, computer buses of one form or another move data between all of these devices.
In most traditional computer architectures, the CPU and main memory tend to be tightly coupled. A microprocessor conventionally is a single chip which has a number of electrical connections on its pins that can be used to select an "address" in the main memory and another set of pins to read and write the data stored at that location. In most cases, the CPU and memory share signalling characteristics and operate in synchrony. The bus connecting the CPU and memory is one of the defining characteristics of the system, and often referred to simply as the system bus.
It is possible to allow peripherals to communicate with memory in the same fashion, attaching adapters, either on the motherboard or in the form of expansion cards, directly to the system bus. This is commonly accomplished through some sort of standardized electrical connector, several of these forming the expansion bus or local bus. However, as the performance differences between the CPU and peripherals varies widely, some solution is generally needed to ensure that peripherals do not slow overall system performance. Many CPUs feature a second set of pins similar to those for communicating with memory, but able to operate at very different speeds and using different protocols (e.g. UART, SPI, and Ethernet). Others use smart controllers to place the data directly in memory, a concept known as direct memory access. Most modern systems combine both solutions, where appropriate.
As the number of potential peripherals grew, using an expansion card for every peripheral became increasingly untenable. This has led to the introduction of bus systems designed specifically to support multiple peripherals. Common examples are the SATA ports in modern computers, which allow a number of hard drives to be connected without the need for a card. However, these high-performance systems are generally too expensive to implement in low-end devices, like a mouse. This has led to the parallel development of a number of low-performance bus systems for these solutions, the most common example being the standardized Universal Serial Bus (USB). All such examples may be referred to as peripheral buses, although this terminology is not universal.
In modern systems the performance difference between the CPU and main memory has grown so great that increasing amounts of high-speed memory is built directly into the CPU, known as a cache. In such systems, CPUs communicate using high-performance buses that operate at speeds much greater than memory, and communicate with memory using protocols similar to those used solely for peripherals in the past. These system buses are also used to communicate with most (or all) other peripherals, through adaptors, which in turn talk to other peripherals and controllers. Such systems are architecturally more similar to multicomputers, communicating over a bus rather than a network. In these cases, expansion buses are entirely separate and no longer share any architecture with their host CPU (and may in fact support many different CPUs, as is the case with PCI). What would have formerly been a system bus is now often known as a front-side bus.
Given these changes, the classical terms "system", "expansion" and "peripheral" no longer have the same connotations. Other common categorization systems are based on the bus's primary role, connecting devices internally or externally, PCI vs. SCSI for instance. However, many common modern bus systems can be used for both; SATA and the associated eSATA are one example of a system that would formerly be described as internal, while certain automotive applications use the primarily external IEEE 1394 in a fashion more similar to a system bus. Other examples, like InfiniBand and I²C were designed from the start to be used both internally and externally.
The internal bus, also known as internal data bus, memory bus, system bus or front-side bus, connects all the internal components of a computer, such as CPU and memory, to the motherboard. Internal data buses are also referred to as local buses, because they are intended to connect to local devices. This bus is typically rather quick and is independent of the rest of the computer operations.
The external bus, or expansion bus, is made up of the electronic pathways that connect the different external devices, such as printer etc., to the computer.
An address bus is a bus that is used to specify a physical address. When a processor or DMA-enabled device needs to read or write to a memory location, it specifies that memory location on the address bus (the value to be read or written is sent on the data bus). The width of the address bus determines the amount of memory a system can address. For example, a system with a 32-bit address bus can address 2 (4,294,967,296) memory locations. If each memory location holds one byte, the addressable memory space is 4 GiB.
Early processors used a wire for each bit of the address width. For example, a 16-bit address bus had 16 physical wires making up the bus. As the buses became wider and lengthier, this approach became expensive in terms of the number of chip pins and board traces. Beginning with the Mostek 4096 DRAM, address multiplexing implemented with multiplexers became common. In a multiplexed address scheme, the address is sent in two equal parts on alternate bus cycles. This halves the number of address bus signals required to connect to the memory. For example, a 32-bit address bus can be implemented by using 16 lines and sending the first half of the memory address, immediately followed by the second half memory address.
Typically two additional pins in the control bus -- a row-address strobe (RAS) and the column-address strobe (CAS) -- are used to tell the DRAM whether the address bus is currently sending the first half of the memory address or the second half.
Accessing an individual byte frequently requires reading or writing the full bus width (a word) at once. In these instances the least significant bits of the address bus may not even be implemented - it is instead the responsibility of the controlling device to isolate the individual byte required from the complete word transmitted. This is the case, for instance, with the VESA Local Bus which lacks the two least significant bits, limiting this bus to aligned 32-bit transfers.
Historically, there were also some examples of computers which were only able to address words -- word machines.
The memory bus is the bus which connects the main memory to the memory controller in computer systems. Originally, general-purpose buses like VMEbus and the S-100 bus were used, but to reduce latency, modern memory buses are designed to connect directly to DRAM chips, and thus are designed by chip standards bodies such as JEDEC. Examples are the various generations of SDRAM, and serial point-to-point buses like SLDRAM and RDRAM. An exception is the Fully Buffered DIMM which, despite being carefully designed to minimize the effect, has been criticized for its higher latency.
Buses can be parallel buses, which carry data words in parallel on multiple wires, or serial buses, which carry data in bit-serial form. The addition of extra power and control connections, differential drivers, and data connections in each direction usually means that most serial buses have more conductors than the minimum of one used in 1-Wire and UNI/O. As data rates increase, the problems of timing skew, power consumption, electromagnetic interference and crosstalk across parallel buses become more and more difficult to circumvent. One partial solution to this problem has been to double pump the bus. Often, a serial bus can be operated at higher overall data rates than a parallel bus, despite having fewer electrical connections, because a serial bus inherently has no timing skew or crosstalk. USB, FireWire, and Serial ATA are examples of this. Multidrop connections do not work well for fast serial buses, so most modern serial buses use daisy-chain or hub designs.
Network connections such as Ethernet are not generally regarded as buses, although the difference is largely conceptual rather than practical. An attribute generally used to characterize a bus is that power is provided by the bus for the connected hardware. This emphasizes the busbar origins of bus architecture as supplying switched or distributed power. This excludes, as buses, schemes such as serial RS-232, parallel Centronics, IEEE 1284 interfaces and Ethernet, since these devices also needed separate power supplies. Universal Serial Bus devices may use the bus supplied power, but often use a separate power source. This distinction is exemplified by a telephone system with a connected modem, where the RJ11 connection and associated modulated signalling scheme is not considered a bus, and is analogous to an Ethernet connection. A phone line connection scheme is not considered to be a bus with respect to signals, but the Central Office uses buses with cross-bar switches for connections between phones.
However, this distinction—that power is provided by the bus—is not the case in many avionic systems, where data connections such as ARINC 429, ARINC 629, MIL-STD-1553B (STANAG 3838), and EFABus (STANAG 3910) are commonly referred to as “data buses” or, sometimes, "databuses". Such avionic data buses are usually characterized by having several equipments or Line Replaceable Items/Units (LRI/LRUs) connected to a common, shared media. They may, as with ARINC 429, be simplex, i.e. have a single source LRI/LRU or, as with ARINC 629, MIL-STD-1553B, and STANAG 3910, be duplex, allow all the connected LRI/LRUs to act, at different times (half duplex), as transmitters and receivers of data.
The simplest system bus has completely separate input data lines, output data lines, and address lines. To reduce cost, most microcomputers have a bidirectional data bus, re-using the same wires for input and output at different times.
Some processors use a dedicated wire for each bit of the address bus, data bus, and the control bus. For example, the 64-pin STEbus is composed of 8 physical wires dedicated to the 8-bit data bus, 20 physical wires dedicated to the 20-bit address bus, 21 physical wires dedicated to the control bus, and 15 physical wires dedicated to various power buses.
Bus multiplexing requires fewer wires, which reduces costs in many early microprocessors and DRAM chips. One common multiplexing scheme, address multiplexing, has already been mentioned. Another multiplexing scheme re-uses the address bus pins as the data bus pins, an approach used by conventional PCI and the 8086. The various "serial buses" can be seen as the ultimate limit of multiplexing, sending each of the address bits and each of the data bits, one at a time, through a single pin (or a single differential pair).
Over time, several groups of people worked on various computer bus standards, including the IEEE Bus Architecture Standards Committee (BASC), the IEEE "Superbus" study group, the open microprocessor initiative (OMI), the open microsystems initiative (OMI), the "Gang of Nine" that developed EISA, etc.
Early computer buses were bundles of wire that attached computer memory and peripherals. Anecdotally termed the "digit trunk" in the early Australian CSIRAC computer, they were named after electrical power buses, or busbars. Almost always, there was one bus for memory, and one or more separate buses for peripherals. These were accessed by separate instructions, with completely different timings and protocols.
One of the first complications was the use of interrupts. Early computer programs performed I/O by waiting in a loop for the peripheral to become ready. This was a waste of time for programs that had other tasks to do. Also, if the program attempted to perform those other tasks, it might take too long for the program to check again, resulting in loss of data. Engineers thus arranged for the peripherals to interrupt the CPU. The interrupts had to be prioritized, because the CPU can only execute code for one peripheral at a time, and some devices are more time-critical than others.
High-end systems introduced the idea of channel controllers, which were essentially small computers dedicated to handling the input and output of a given bus. IBM introduced these on the IBM 709 in 1958, and they became a common feature of their platforms. Other high-performance vendors like Control Data Corporation implemented similar designs. Generally, the channel controllers would do their best to run all of the bus operations internally, moving data when the CPU was known to be busy elsewhere if possible, and only using interrupts when necessary. This greatly reduced CPU load, and provided better overall system performance.
To provide modularity, memory and I/O buses can be combined into a unified system bus. In this case, a single mechanical and electrical system can be used to connect together many of the system components, or in some cases, all of them.
Later computer programs began to share memory common to several CPUs. Access to this memory bus had to be prioritized, as well. The simple way to prioritize interrupts or bus access was with a daisy chain. In this case signals will naturally flow through the bus in physical or logical order, eliminating the need for complex scheduling.
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) further reduced cost for mass-produced minicomputers, and mapped peripherals into the memory bus, so that the input and output devices appeared to be memory locations. This was implemented in the Unibus of the PDP-11 around 1969.
Early microcomputer bus systems were essentially a passive backplane connected directly or through buffer amplifiers to the pins of the CPU. Memory and other devices would be added to the bus using the same address and data pins as the CPU itself used, connected in parallel. Communication was controlled by the CPU, which read and wrote data from the devices as if they are blocks of memory, using the same instructions, all timed by a central clock controlling the speed of the CPU. Still, devices interrupted the CPU by signaling on separate CPU pins.
For instance, a disk drive controller would signal the CPU that new data was ready to be read, at which point the CPU would move the data by reading the "memory location" that corresponded to the disk drive. Almost all early microcomputers were built in this fashion, starting with the S-100 bus in the Altair 8800 computer system.
In some instances, most notably in the IBM PC, although similar physical architecture can be employed, instructions to access peripherals (in and out) and memory (mov and others) have not been made uniform at all, and still generate distinct CPU signals, that could be used to implement a separate I/O bus.
These simple bus systems had a serious drawback when used for general-purpose computers. All the equipment on the bus had to talk at the same speed, as it shared a single clock.
Increasing the speed of the CPU becomes harder, because the speed of all the devices must increase as well. When it is not practical or economical to have all devices as fast as the CPU, the CPU must either enter a wait state, or work at a slower clock frequency temporarily, to talk to other devices in the computer. While acceptable in embedded systems, this problem was not tolerated for long in general-purpose, user-expandable computers.
Such bus systems are also difficult to configure when constructed from common off-the-shelf equipment. Typically each added expansion card requires many jumpers in order to set memory addresses, I/O addresses, interrupt priorities, and interrupt numbers.
"Second generation" bus systems like NuBus addressed some of these problems. They typically separated the computer into two "worlds", the CPU and memory on one side, and the various devices on the other. A bus controller accepted data from the CPU side to be moved to the peripherals side, thus shifting the communications protocol burden from the CPU itself. This allowed the CPU and memory side to evolve separately from the device bus, or just "bus". Devices on the bus could talk to each other with no CPU intervention. This led to much better "real world" performance, but also required the cards to be much more complex. These buses also often addressed speed issues by being "bigger" in terms of the size of the data path, moving from 8-bit parallel buses in the first generation, to 16 or 32-bit in the second, as well as adding software setup (now standardised as Plug-n-play) to supplant or replace the jumpers.
However, these newer systems shared one quality with their earlier cousins, in that everyone on the bus had to talk at the same speed. While the CPU was now isolated and could increase speed, CPUs and memory continued to increase in speed much faster than the buses they talked to. The result was that the bus speeds were now very much slower than what a modern system needed, and the machines were left starved for data. A particularly common example of this problem was that video cards quickly outran even the newer bus systems like PCI, and computers began to include AGP just to drive the video card. By 2004 AGP was outgrown again by high-end video cards and other peripherals and has been replaced by the new PCI Express bus.
An increasing number of external devices started employing their own bus systems as well. When disk drives were first introduced, they would be added to the machine with a card plugged into the bus, which is why computers have so many slots on the bus. But through the 1980s and 1990s, new systems like SCSI and IDE were introduced to serve this need, leaving most slots in modern systems empty. Today there are likely to be about five different buses in the typical machine, supporting various devices.
"Third generation" buses have been emerging into the market since about 2001, including HyperTransport and InfiniBand. They also tend to be very flexible in terms of their physical connections, allowing them to be used both as internal buses, as well as connecting different machines together. This can lead to complex problems when trying to service different requests, so much of the work on these systems concerns software design, as opposed to the hardware itself. In general, these third generation buses tend to look more like a network than the original concept of a bus, with a higher protocol overhead needed than early systems, while also allowing multiple devices to use the bus at once.
Buses such as Wishbone have been developed by the open source hardware movement in an attempt to further remove legal and patent constraints from computer design.
The Compute Express Link (CXL) is an open standard interconnect for high-speed CPU-to-device and CPU-to-memory, designed to accelerate next-generation data center performance.
Many field buses are serial data buses (not to be confused with the parallel "data bus" section of a system bus or expansion card), several of which use the RS-485 electrical characteristics and then specify their own protocol and connector:
Other serial buses include: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin omnibus, and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components (wire, optical fiber, etc.) and software, including communication protocols.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel electrical busbar. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus (USB).",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "Computer systems generally consist of three main parts:",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "An early computer might contain a hand-wired CPU of vacuum tubes, a magnetic drum for main memory, and a punch tape and printer for reading and writing data respectively. A modern system might have a multi-core CPU, DDR4 SDRAM for memory, a solid-state drive for secondary storage, a graphics card and LCD as a display system, a mouse and keyboard for interaction, and a Wi-Fi connection for networking. In both examples, computer buses of one form or another move data between all of these devices.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "In most traditional computer architectures, the CPU and main memory tend to be tightly coupled. A microprocessor conventionally is a single chip which has a number of electrical connections on its pins that can be used to select an \"address\" in the main memory and another set of pins to read and write the data stored at that location. In most cases, the CPU and memory share signalling characteristics and operate in synchrony. The bus connecting the CPU and memory is one of the defining characteristics of the system, and often referred to simply as the system bus.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "It is possible to allow peripherals to communicate with memory in the same fashion, attaching adapters, either on the motherboard or in the form of expansion cards, directly to the system bus. This is commonly accomplished through some sort of standardized electrical connector, several of these forming the expansion bus or local bus. However, as the performance differences between the CPU and peripherals varies widely, some solution is generally needed to ensure that peripherals do not slow overall system performance. Many CPUs feature a second set of pins similar to those for communicating with memory, but able to operate at very different speeds and using different protocols (e.g. UART, SPI, and Ethernet). Others use smart controllers to place the data directly in memory, a concept known as direct memory access. Most modern systems combine both solutions, where appropriate.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "As the number of potential peripherals grew, using an expansion card for every peripheral became increasingly untenable. This has led to the introduction of bus systems designed specifically to support multiple peripherals. Common examples are the SATA ports in modern computers, which allow a number of hard drives to be connected without the need for a card. However, these high-performance systems are generally too expensive to implement in low-end devices, like a mouse. This has led to the parallel development of a number of low-performance bus systems for these solutions, the most common example being the standardized Universal Serial Bus (USB). All such examples may be referred to as peripheral buses, although this terminology is not universal.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In modern systems the performance difference between the CPU and main memory has grown so great that increasing amounts of high-speed memory is built directly into the CPU, known as a cache. In such systems, CPUs communicate using high-performance buses that operate at speeds much greater than memory, and communicate with memory using protocols similar to those used solely for peripherals in the past. These system buses are also used to communicate with most (or all) other peripherals, through adaptors, which in turn talk to other peripherals and controllers. Such systems are architecturally more similar to multicomputers, communicating over a bus rather than a network. In these cases, expansion buses are entirely separate and no longer share any architecture with their host CPU (and may in fact support many different CPUs, as is the case with PCI). What would have formerly been a system bus is now often known as a front-side bus.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Given these changes, the classical terms \"system\", \"expansion\" and \"peripheral\" no longer have the same connotations. Other common categorization systems are based on the bus's primary role, connecting devices internally or externally, PCI vs. SCSI for instance. However, many common modern bus systems can be used for both; SATA and the associated eSATA are one example of a system that would formerly be described as internal, while certain automotive applications use the primarily external IEEE 1394 in a fashion more similar to a system bus. Other examples, like InfiniBand and I²C were designed from the start to be used both internally and externally.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The internal bus, also known as internal data bus, memory bus, system bus or front-side bus, connects all the internal components of a computer, such as CPU and memory, to the motherboard. Internal data buses are also referred to as local buses, because they are intended to connect to local devices. This bus is typically rather quick and is independent of the rest of the computer operations.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "The external bus, or expansion bus, is made up of the electronic pathways that connect the different external devices, such as printer etc., to the computer.",
"title": "Background and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "An address bus is a bus that is used to specify a physical address. When a processor or DMA-enabled device needs to read or write to a memory location, it specifies that memory location on the address bus (the value to be read or written is sent on the data bus). The width of the address bus determines the amount of memory a system can address. For example, a system with a 32-bit address bus can address 2 (4,294,967,296) memory locations. If each memory location holds one byte, the addressable memory space is 4 GiB.",
"title": "Address bus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "Early processors used a wire for each bit of the address width. For example, a 16-bit address bus had 16 physical wires making up the bus. As the buses became wider and lengthier, this approach became expensive in terms of the number of chip pins and board traces. Beginning with the Mostek 4096 DRAM, address multiplexing implemented with multiplexers became common. In a multiplexed address scheme, the address is sent in two equal parts on alternate bus cycles. This halves the number of address bus signals required to connect to the memory. For example, a 32-bit address bus can be implemented by using 16 lines and sending the first half of the memory address, immediately followed by the second half memory address.",
"title": "Address bus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Typically two additional pins in the control bus -- a row-address strobe (RAS) and the column-address strobe (CAS) -- are used to tell the DRAM whether the address bus is currently sending the first half of the memory address or the second half.",
"title": "Address bus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "Accessing an individual byte frequently requires reading or writing the full bus width (a word) at once. In these instances the least significant bits of the address bus may not even be implemented - it is instead the responsibility of the controlling device to isolate the individual byte required from the complete word transmitted. This is the case, for instance, with the VESA Local Bus which lacks the two least significant bits, limiting this bus to aligned 32-bit transfers.",
"title": "Address bus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "Historically, there were also some examples of computers which were only able to address words -- word machines.",
"title": "Address bus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "The memory bus is the bus which connects the main memory to the memory controller in computer systems. Originally, general-purpose buses like VMEbus and the S-100 bus were used, but to reduce latency, modern memory buses are designed to connect directly to DRAM chips, and thus are designed by chip standards bodies such as JEDEC. Examples are the various generations of SDRAM, and serial point-to-point buses like SLDRAM and RDRAM. An exception is the Fully Buffered DIMM which, despite being carefully designed to minimize the effect, has been criticized for its higher latency.",
"title": "Memory bus"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "Buses can be parallel buses, which carry data words in parallel on multiple wires, or serial buses, which carry data in bit-serial form. The addition of extra power and control connections, differential drivers, and data connections in each direction usually means that most serial buses have more conductors than the minimum of one used in 1-Wire and UNI/O. As data rates increase, the problems of timing skew, power consumption, electromagnetic interference and crosstalk across parallel buses become more and more difficult to circumvent. One partial solution to this problem has been to double pump the bus. Often, a serial bus can be operated at higher overall data rates than a parallel bus, despite having fewer electrical connections, because a serial bus inherently has no timing skew or crosstalk. USB, FireWire, and Serial ATA are examples of this. Multidrop connections do not work well for fast serial buses, so most modern serial buses use daisy-chain or hub designs.",
"title": "Implementation details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "Network connections such as Ethernet are not generally regarded as buses, although the difference is largely conceptual rather than practical. An attribute generally used to characterize a bus is that power is provided by the bus for the connected hardware. This emphasizes the busbar origins of bus architecture as supplying switched or distributed power. This excludes, as buses, schemes such as serial RS-232, parallel Centronics, IEEE 1284 interfaces and Ethernet, since these devices also needed separate power supplies. Universal Serial Bus devices may use the bus supplied power, but often use a separate power source. This distinction is exemplified by a telephone system with a connected modem, where the RJ11 connection and associated modulated signalling scheme is not considered a bus, and is analogous to an Ethernet connection. A phone line connection scheme is not considered to be a bus with respect to signals, but the Central Office uses buses with cross-bar switches for connections between phones.",
"title": "Implementation details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "However, this distinction—that power is provided by the bus—is not the case in many avionic systems, where data connections such as ARINC 429, ARINC 629, MIL-STD-1553B (STANAG 3838), and EFABus (STANAG 3910) are commonly referred to as “data buses” or, sometimes, \"databuses\". Such avionic data buses are usually characterized by having several equipments or Line Replaceable Items/Units (LRI/LRUs) connected to a common, shared media. They may, as with ARINC 429, be simplex, i.e. have a single source LRI/LRU or, as with ARINC 629, MIL-STD-1553B, and STANAG 3910, be duplex, allow all the connected LRI/LRUs to act, at different times (half duplex), as transmitters and receivers of data.",
"title": "Implementation details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "The simplest system bus has completely separate input data lines, output data lines, and address lines. To reduce cost, most microcomputers have a bidirectional data bus, re-using the same wires for input and output at different times.",
"title": "Implementation details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "Some processors use a dedicated wire for each bit of the address bus, data bus, and the control bus. For example, the 64-pin STEbus is composed of 8 physical wires dedicated to the 8-bit data bus, 20 physical wires dedicated to the 20-bit address bus, 21 physical wires dedicated to the control bus, and 15 physical wires dedicated to various power buses.",
"title": "Implementation details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Bus multiplexing requires fewer wires, which reduces costs in many early microprocessors and DRAM chips. One common multiplexing scheme, address multiplexing, has already been mentioned. Another multiplexing scheme re-uses the address bus pins as the data bus pins, an approach used by conventional PCI and the 8086. The various \"serial buses\" can be seen as the ultimate limit of multiplexing, sending each of the address bits and each of the data bits, one at a time, through a single pin (or a single differential pair).",
"title": "Implementation details"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Over time, several groups of people worked on various computer bus standards, including the IEEE Bus Architecture Standards Committee (BASC), the IEEE \"Superbus\" study group, the open microprocessor initiative (OMI), the open microsystems initiative (OMI), the \"Gang of Nine\" that developed EISA, etc.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "Early computer buses were bundles of wire that attached computer memory and peripherals. Anecdotally termed the \"digit trunk\" in the early Australian CSIRAC computer, they were named after electrical power buses, or busbars. Almost always, there was one bus for memory, and one or more separate buses for peripherals. These were accessed by separate instructions, with completely different timings and protocols.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "One of the first complications was the use of interrupts. Early computer programs performed I/O by waiting in a loop for the peripheral to become ready. This was a waste of time for programs that had other tasks to do. Also, if the program attempted to perform those other tasks, it might take too long for the program to check again, resulting in loss of data. Engineers thus arranged for the peripherals to interrupt the CPU. The interrupts had to be prioritized, because the CPU can only execute code for one peripheral at a time, and some devices are more time-critical than others.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 26,
"text": "High-end systems introduced the idea of channel controllers, which were essentially small computers dedicated to handling the input and output of a given bus. IBM introduced these on the IBM 709 in 1958, and they became a common feature of their platforms. Other high-performance vendors like Control Data Corporation implemented similar designs. Generally, the channel controllers would do their best to run all of the bus operations internally, moving data when the CPU was known to be busy elsewhere if possible, and only using interrupts when necessary. This greatly reduced CPU load, and provided better overall system performance.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 27,
"text": "To provide modularity, memory and I/O buses can be combined into a unified system bus. In this case, a single mechanical and electrical system can be used to connect together many of the system components, or in some cases, all of them.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 28,
"text": "Later computer programs began to share memory common to several CPUs. Access to this memory bus had to be prioritized, as well. The simple way to prioritize interrupts or bus access was with a daisy chain. In this case signals will naturally flow through the bus in physical or logical order, eliminating the need for complex scheduling.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 29,
"text": "Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) further reduced cost for mass-produced minicomputers, and mapped peripherals into the memory bus, so that the input and output devices appeared to be memory locations. This was implemented in the Unibus of the PDP-11 around 1969.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 30,
"text": "Early microcomputer bus systems were essentially a passive backplane connected directly or through buffer amplifiers to the pins of the CPU. Memory and other devices would be added to the bus using the same address and data pins as the CPU itself used, connected in parallel. Communication was controlled by the CPU, which read and wrote data from the devices as if they are blocks of memory, using the same instructions, all timed by a central clock controlling the speed of the CPU. Still, devices interrupted the CPU by signaling on separate CPU pins.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 31,
"text": "For instance, a disk drive controller would signal the CPU that new data was ready to be read, at which point the CPU would move the data by reading the \"memory location\" that corresponded to the disk drive. Almost all early microcomputers were built in this fashion, starting with the S-100 bus in the Altair 8800 computer system.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 32,
"text": "In some instances, most notably in the IBM PC, although similar physical architecture can be employed, instructions to access peripherals (in and out) and memory (mov and others) have not been made uniform at all, and still generate distinct CPU signals, that could be used to implement a separate I/O bus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 33,
"text": "These simple bus systems had a serious drawback when used for general-purpose computers. All the equipment on the bus had to talk at the same speed, as it shared a single clock.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 34,
"text": "Increasing the speed of the CPU becomes harder, because the speed of all the devices must increase as well. When it is not practical or economical to have all devices as fast as the CPU, the CPU must either enter a wait state, or work at a slower clock frequency temporarily, to talk to other devices in the computer. While acceptable in embedded systems, this problem was not tolerated for long in general-purpose, user-expandable computers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 35,
"text": "Such bus systems are also difficult to configure when constructed from common off-the-shelf equipment. Typically each added expansion card requires many jumpers in order to set memory addresses, I/O addresses, interrupt priorities, and interrupt numbers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 36,
"text": "\"Second generation\" bus systems like NuBus addressed some of these problems. They typically separated the computer into two \"worlds\", the CPU and memory on one side, and the various devices on the other. A bus controller accepted data from the CPU side to be moved to the peripherals side, thus shifting the communications protocol burden from the CPU itself. This allowed the CPU and memory side to evolve separately from the device bus, or just \"bus\". Devices on the bus could talk to each other with no CPU intervention. This led to much better \"real world\" performance, but also required the cards to be much more complex. These buses also often addressed speed issues by being \"bigger\" in terms of the size of the data path, moving from 8-bit parallel buses in the first generation, to 16 or 32-bit in the second, as well as adding software setup (now standardised as Plug-n-play) to supplant or replace the jumpers.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 37,
"text": "However, these newer systems shared one quality with their earlier cousins, in that everyone on the bus had to talk at the same speed. While the CPU was now isolated and could increase speed, CPUs and memory continued to increase in speed much faster than the buses they talked to. The result was that the bus speeds were now very much slower than what a modern system needed, and the machines were left starved for data. A particularly common example of this problem was that video cards quickly outran even the newer bus systems like PCI, and computers began to include AGP just to drive the video card. By 2004 AGP was outgrown again by high-end video cards and other peripherals and has been replaced by the new PCI Express bus.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 38,
"text": "An increasing number of external devices started employing their own bus systems as well. When disk drives were first introduced, they would be added to the machine with a card plugged into the bus, which is why computers have so many slots on the bus. But through the 1980s and 1990s, new systems like SCSI and IDE were introduced to serve this need, leaving most slots in modern systems empty. Today there are likely to be about five different buses in the typical machine, supporting various devices.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 39,
"text": "\"Third generation\" buses have been emerging into the market since about 2001, including HyperTransport and InfiniBand. They also tend to be very flexible in terms of their physical connections, allowing them to be used both as internal buses, as well as connecting different machines together. This can lead to complex problems when trying to service different requests, so much of the work on these systems concerns software design, as opposed to the hardware itself. In general, these third generation buses tend to look more like a network than the original concept of a bus, with a higher protocol overhead needed than early systems, while also allowing multiple devices to use the bus at once.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 40,
"text": "Buses such as Wishbone have been developed by the open source hardware movement in an attempt to further remove legal and patent constraints from computer design.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 41,
"text": "The Compute Express Link (CXL) is an open standard interconnect for high-speed CPU-to-device and CPU-to-memory, designed to accelerate next-generation data center performance.",
"title": "History"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 42,
"text": "Many field buses are serial data buses (not to be confused with the parallel \"data bus\" section of a system bus or expansion card), several of which use the RS-485 electrical characteristics and then specify their own protocol and connector:",
"title": "Examples of external computer buses"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 43,
"text": "Other serial buses include:",
"title": "Examples of external computer buses"
}
] | In computer architecture, a bus is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components and software, including communication protocols. Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel electrical busbar. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus (USB). | 2001-09-30T19:07:57Z | 2023-10-30T03:51:42Z | [
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6,634 | Cadillac (disambiguation) | Cadillac is a General Motors luxury car brand.
Cadillac may also refer to: | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Cadillac is a General Motors luxury car brand.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "Cadillac may also refer to:",
"title": ""
}
] | Cadillac is a General Motors luxury car brand. Cadillac may also refer to: | 2023-04-13T14:47:44Z | [
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|
6,635 | Chinese checkers | Sternhalma, commonly known as Chinese checkers (U.S. and Canadian spelling) or Chinese chequers (UK spelling), is a strategy board game of German origin that can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners. The game is a modern and simplified variation of the game Halma. "Complexity: requires no counting or spelling; even young children can play."
The objective is to be first to race all of one's pieces across the hexagram-shaped board into "home"—the corner of the star opposite one's starting corner—using single-step moves or moves that jump over other pieces. The remaining players continue the game to establish second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and last-place finishers.
The game was invented in Germany in 1892 under the name "Stern-Halma" as a variation of the older American game Halma. The Stern (German for star) refers to the board's star shape (in contrast to the square board used in Halma).
The name "Chinese checkers" originated in the United States as a marketing scheme by Bill and Jack Pressman in 1928. The Pressman company's game was originally called "Hop Ching checkers". The game is neither a variation of checkers, nor did it originate in China or any part of Asia.
The game is known as tiaoqi (Chinese: 跳棋; lit. 'jump game') in Chinese. In Japan, the game has a variation called "diamond game" (ダイヤモンドゲーム) with slightly different rules.
The aim is to race all one's pieces into the star corner on the opposite side of the board before the opponents do the same. The destination corner is called home. Each player has 10 pieces, except in games between two players, when 15 pieces are used. (On bigger star boards, 15 or 21 pieces are used.)
In "hop across", the most popular variation, each player starts with their colored pieces on one of the six points or corners of the star and attempts to race them all home into the opposite corner. Players take turns moving a single piece, either by moving one step in any direction to an adjacent empty space, or by jumping in one or any number of available consecutive hops over other single pieces. A player may not combine hopping with a single-step move – a move consists of one or the other. There is no capturing in Sternhalma, so pieces that are hopped over remain active and in play. Turns proceed clockwise around the board.
In the diagram, Blue might move the topmost piece one space diagonally forward as shown. A hop consists of jumping over a single adjacent piece, either one's own or an opponent's, to the empty space directly beyond it in the same line of direction. Red might advance the indicated piece by a chain of three hops in a single move. It is not mandatory to make the most hops possible. (In some instances a player may choose to stop the jumping sequence part way in order to impede the opponent's progress, or to align pieces for planned future moves.)
Can be played "all versus all", or three teams of two. When playing teams, teammates usually sit at opposite corners of the star, with each team member controlling their own colored set of pieces. The first team to advance both sets to their home destination corners is the winner. The remaining players usually continue play to determine second- and third-place finishers, etc.
The four-player game is the same as the game for six players, except that two opposite corners will be unused.
In a three-player game, all players control either one or two sets of pieces each. If one set is used, pieces race across the board into empty, opposite corners. If two sets are used, each player controls two differently colored sets of pieces at opposite corners of the star.
In a two-player game, each player plays one, two, or three sets of pieces. If one set is played, the pieces usually go into the opponent's starting corner, and the number of pieces per side is increased to 15 (instead of the usual 10). If two sets are played, the pieces can either go into the opponent's starting corners, or one of the players' two sets can go into an opposite empty corner. If three sets are played, the pieces usually go into the opponent's starting corners.
A basic strategy is to create or find the longest hopping path that leads closest to home, or immediately into it. (Multiple-jump moves are obviously faster to advance pieces than step-by-step moves.) Since either player can make use of any hopping 'ladder' or 'chain' created, a more advanced strategy involves hindering an opposing player, in addition to helping oneself make jumps across the board. Of equal importance are the players' strategies for emptying and filling their starting and home corners. Games between top players are rarely decided by more than a couple of moves.
Differing numbers of players result in different starting layouts, in turn imposing different best-game strategies. For example, if a player's home destination corner starts empty (i.e. is not an opponent's starting corner), the player can freely build a 'ladder' or 'bridge' with their pieces between the two opposite ends. But if a player's opponent occupies the home corner, the player may need to wait for opponent pieces to clear before filling the home vacancies.
While the standard rules allow hopping over only a single adjacent occupied position at a time (as in checkers), this version of the game allows pieces to catapult over multiple adjacent occupied positions in a line when hopping.
In the fast-paced or Super Chinese Checkers variant, popular in France, a piece may hop over a non-adjacent piece. A hop consists of jumping over a distant piece (friend or enemy) to a symmetrical position on the opposite side, in the same line of direction. (For example, if there are two empty positions between the jumping piece and the piece being jumped, the jumping piece lands, leaving exactly two empty positions immediately beyond the jumped piece.) As in the standard rules, a jumping move may consist of any number of a chain of hops. (When making a chain of hops, a piece is usually allowed to enter an empty corner, as long as it hops out again before the move is completed.)
Jumping over two or more pieces in a hop is not allowed. Therefore, in this variant, even more than in the standard version, it is sometimes strategically important to keep one's pieces bunched in order to prevent a long opposing hop.
An alternative variant allows hops over any symmetrical arrangement, including pairs of pieces, pieces separated by empty positions, and so on.
In the capture variant, all sixty game pieces start out in the hexagonal field in the center of the gameboard. The center position is left unoccupied, so pieces form a symmetric hexagonal pattern. Color is irrelevant in this variant, so players take turns hopping any game piece over any other eligible game piece(s) on the board. The hopped-over pieces are captured (retired from the game, as in English draughts) and collected in the capturing player's bin. Only jumping moves are allowed; the game ends when no further jumps are possible. The player with the most captured pieces is the winner.
The board is tightly packed at the start of the game. As more pieces are captured, the board frees up, often allowing multiple captures to take place in a single move.
Two or more players can compete in this variant, but if there are more than six players, not everyone will get a fair turn.
This variant resembles the game Leap Frog. The main difference being that in Leap Frog, the board is a square board.
Diamond game (Japanese: ダイヤモンドゲーム) is a variant of Sternhalma played in South Korea and Japan. It uses the same jump rule as in Sternhalma. The aim of the game is to enter all one's pieces into the star corner on the opposite side of the board, before opponents do the same. Each player has ten or fifteen pieces. Ten-piece diamond uses a smaller gameboard than Sternhalma, with 73 spaces. Fifteen-piece diamond uses the same board as in Sternhalma, with 121 spaces. To play diamond, each player selects one color and places their 10 or 15 pieces on a triangle. Two or three players can compete.
Usually, there are one "king piece" (王駒) and 14 common pieces (子駒) on each side. The king piece is the piece at the apex of each area and can jump over the common pieces, but the common pieces cannot jump over the king piece.
In Yin and Yang, only two players compete and as in chess, Go, and Othello, only the black and the white marbles are used. For more interesting play, at the start of the game, the triangle placement of the opponents' marbles does not have to be 180 degrees in opposition.
Two or more players select their coloured marbles and then those marbles are randomly placed in the centre of the board. The object of the game is then for the players to move their marbles out of the chaos to their home corners, creating order; the reverse of half a traditional game. | [
{
"paragraph_id": 0,
"text": "Sternhalma, commonly known as Chinese checkers (U.S. and Canadian spelling) or Chinese chequers (UK spelling), is a strategy board game of German origin that can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners. The game is a modern and simplified variation of the game Halma. \"Complexity: requires no counting or spelling; even young children can play.\"",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 1,
"text": "The objective is to be first to race all of one's pieces across the hexagram-shaped board into \"home\"—the corner of the star opposite one's starting corner—using single-step moves or moves that jump over other pieces. The remaining players continue the game to establish second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and last-place finishers.",
"title": ""
},
{
"paragraph_id": 2,
"text": "The game was invented in Germany in 1892 under the name \"Stern-Halma\" as a variation of the older American game Halma. The Stern (German for star) refers to the board's star shape (in contrast to the square board used in Halma).",
"title": "History and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 3,
"text": "The name \"Chinese checkers\" originated in the United States as a marketing scheme by Bill and Jack Pressman in 1928. The Pressman company's game was originally called \"Hop Ching checkers\". The game is neither a variation of checkers, nor did it originate in China or any part of Asia.",
"title": "History and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 4,
"text": "The game is known as tiaoqi (Chinese: 跳棋; lit. 'jump game') in Chinese. In Japan, the game has a variation called \"diamond game\" (ダイヤモンドゲーム) with slightly different rules.",
"title": "History and nomenclature"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 5,
"text": "The aim is to race all one's pieces into the star corner on the opposite side of the board before the opponents do the same. The destination corner is called home. Each player has 10 pieces, except in games between two players, when 15 pieces are used. (On bigger star boards, 15 or 21 pieces are used.)",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 6,
"text": "In \"hop across\", the most popular variation, each player starts with their colored pieces on one of the six points or corners of the star and attempts to race them all home into the opposite corner. Players take turns moving a single piece, either by moving one step in any direction to an adjacent empty space, or by jumping in one or any number of available consecutive hops over other single pieces. A player may not combine hopping with a single-step move – a move consists of one or the other. There is no capturing in Sternhalma, so pieces that are hopped over remain active and in play. Turns proceed clockwise around the board.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 7,
"text": "In the diagram, Blue might move the topmost piece one space diagonally forward as shown. A hop consists of jumping over a single adjacent piece, either one's own or an opponent's, to the empty space directly beyond it in the same line of direction. Red might advance the indicated piece by a chain of three hops in a single move. It is not mandatory to make the most hops possible. (In some instances a player may choose to stop the jumping sequence part way in order to impede the opponent's progress, or to align pieces for planned future moves.)",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 8,
"text": "Can be played \"all versus all\", or three teams of two. When playing teams, teammates usually sit at opposite corners of the star, with each team member controlling their own colored set of pieces. The first team to advance both sets to their home destination corners is the winner. The remaining players usually continue play to determine second- and third-place finishers, etc.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 9,
"text": "The four-player game is the same as the game for six players, except that two opposite corners will be unused.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 10,
"text": "In a three-player game, all players control either one or two sets of pieces each. If one set is used, pieces race across the board into empty, opposite corners. If two sets are used, each player controls two differently colored sets of pieces at opposite corners of the star.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 11,
"text": "In a two-player game, each player plays one, two, or three sets of pieces. If one set is played, the pieces usually go into the opponent's starting corner, and the number of pieces per side is increased to 15 (instead of the usual 10). If two sets are played, the pieces can either go into the opponent's starting corners, or one of the players' two sets can go into an opposite empty corner. If three sets are played, the pieces usually go into the opponent's starting corners.",
"title": "Rules"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 12,
"text": "A basic strategy is to create or find the longest hopping path that leads closest to home, or immediately into it. (Multiple-jump moves are obviously faster to advance pieces than step-by-step moves.) Since either player can make use of any hopping 'ladder' or 'chain' created, a more advanced strategy involves hindering an opposing player, in addition to helping oneself make jumps across the board. Of equal importance are the players' strategies for emptying and filling their starting and home corners. Games between top players are rarely decided by more than a couple of moves.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 13,
"text": "Differing numbers of players result in different starting layouts, in turn imposing different best-game strategies. For example, if a player's home destination corner starts empty (i.e. is not an opponent's starting corner), the player can freely build a 'ladder' or 'bridge' with their pieces between the two opposite ends. But if a player's opponent occupies the home corner, the player may need to wait for opponent pieces to clear before filling the home vacancies.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 14,
"text": "While the standard rules allow hopping over only a single adjacent occupied position at a time (as in checkers), this version of the game allows pieces to catapult over multiple adjacent occupied positions in a line when hopping.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 15,
"text": "In the fast-paced or Super Chinese Checkers variant, popular in France, a piece may hop over a non-adjacent piece. A hop consists of jumping over a distant piece (friend or enemy) to a symmetrical position on the opposite side, in the same line of direction. (For example, if there are two empty positions between the jumping piece and the piece being jumped, the jumping piece lands, leaving exactly two empty positions immediately beyond the jumped piece.) As in the standard rules, a jumping move may consist of any number of a chain of hops. (When making a chain of hops, a piece is usually allowed to enter an empty corner, as long as it hops out again before the move is completed.)",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 16,
"text": "Jumping over two or more pieces in a hop is not allowed. Therefore, in this variant, even more than in the standard version, it is sometimes strategically important to keep one's pieces bunched in order to prevent a long opposing hop.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 17,
"text": "An alternative variant allows hops over any symmetrical arrangement, including pairs of pieces, pieces separated by empty positions, and so on.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 18,
"text": "In the capture variant, all sixty game pieces start out in the hexagonal field in the center of the gameboard. The center position is left unoccupied, so pieces form a symmetric hexagonal pattern. Color is irrelevant in this variant, so players take turns hopping any game piece over any other eligible game piece(s) on the board. The hopped-over pieces are captured (retired from the game, as in English draughts) and collected in the capturing player's bin. Only jumping moves are allowed; the game ends when no further jumps are possible. The player with the most captured pieces is the winner.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 19,
"text": "The board is tightly packed at the start of the game. As more pieces are captured, the board frees up, often allowing multiple captures to take place in a single move.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 20,
"text": "Two or more players can compete in this variant, but if there are more than six players, not everyone will get a fair turn.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 21,
"text": "This variant resembles the game Leap Frog. The main difference being that in Leap Frog, the board is a square board.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 22,
"text": "Diamond game (Japanese: ダイヤモンドゲーム) is a variant of Sternhalma played in South Korea and Japan. It uses the same jump rule as in Sternhalma. The aim of the game is to enter all one's pieces into the star corner on the opposite side of the board, before opponents do the same. Each player has ten or fifteen pieces. Ten-piece diamond uses a smaller gameboard than Sternhalma, with 73 spaces. Fifteen-piece diamond uses the same board as in Sternhalma, with 121 spaces. To play diamond, each player selects one color and places their 10 or 15 pieces on a triangle. Two or three players can compete.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 23,
"text": "Usually, there are one \"king piece\" (王駒) and 14 common pieces (子駒) on each side. The king piece is the piece at the apex of each area and can jump over the common pieces, but the common pieces cannot jump over the king piece.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 24,
"text": "In Yin and Yang, only two players compete and as in chess, Go, and Othello, only the black and the white marbles are used. For more interesting play, at the start of the game, the triangle placement of the opponents' marbles does not have to be 180 degrees in opposition.",
"title": "Strategy"
},
{
"paragraph_id": 25,
"text": "Two or more players select their coloured marbles and then those marbles are randomly placed in the centre of the board. The object of the game is then for the players to move their marbles out of the chaos to their home corners, creating order; the reverse of half a traditional game.",
"title": "Strategy"
}
] | Sternhalma, commonly known as Chinese checkers or Chinese chequers, is a strategy board game of German origin that can be played by two, three, four, or six people, playing individually or with partners. The game is a modern and simplified variation of the game Halma. "Complexity: requires no counting or spelling; even young children can play." The objective is to be first to race all of one's pieces across the hexagram-shaped board into "home"—the corner of the star opposite one's starting corner—using single-step moves or moves that jump over other pieces. The remaining players continue the game to establish second-, third-, fourth-, fifth-, and last-place finishers. | 2001-10-04T18:44:17Z | 2023-11-13T01:35:23Z | [
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] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_checkers |
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