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1980_NFL_draft | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_NFL_draft | [
357
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_NFL_draft"
] | The 1980 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 29–30, 1980, at the New York Sheraton Hotel in New York City, New York. The league also held a supplemental draft after the regular draft and before the regular season. With the first overall pick of the draft, the Detroit Lions selected running back Billy Sims.
This draft is notable as the first that the nascent ESPN network (which had first gone on the air seven months earlier) aired in its entirety, and the first to be televised.
Player selections
Hall of Famers
Anthony Muñoz, offensive tackle from Southern California, taken 1st round 3rd overall by Cincinnati Bengals
Inducted: Professional Football Hall of Fame class of 1998.
Dwight Stephenson, center from Alabama, taken 2nd round 48th overall by Miami Dolphins
Inducted: Professional Football Hall of Fame class of 1998.
Art Monk, wide receiver from Syracuse, taken 1st round 18th overall by Washington Redskins
Inducted: Professional Football Hall of Fame class of 2008.
Steve McMichael, defensive tackle from Texas, taken 3rd round 73rd overall by the New England Patriots.
Inducted: Professional Football Hall of Fame Class of 2024.
Notable undrafted players
References
External links
NFL.com – 1980 Draft
databaseFootball.com – 1980 Draft
Pro Football Hall of Fame |
Preston_Brown_(wide_receiver) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Brown_(wide_receiver) | [
357
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Brown_(wide_receiver)"
] | Preston Neville Brown (born March 2, 1958) is a former professional American football player who played wide receiver for the New England Patriots, New York Jets, and Cleveland Browns.
== References == |
Nashville,_Tennessee | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee | [
357
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee"
] | Nashville, often known as Music City, is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. Located in Middle Tennessee, it had a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census. Nashville is the 21st most populous city in the United States, and the fourth most populous city in the southeastern U.S. Located on the Cumberland River, the city is the center of the Nashville metropolitan area, and is one of the fastest growing in the nation.
Named for Francis Nash, a general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, the city was founded in 1779 when this territory was still considered part of North Carolina. The city grew quickly due to its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River and, in the 19th century, a railroad center. Nashville as part of Tennessee seceded during the American Civil War; in 1862 it was the first state capital in the Confederacy to be taken by Union forces. It was occupied through the war. After the war, the city gradually reclaimed its stature. It became a center of trade and developed a manufacturing base.
Since 1963, Nashville has had a consolidated city-county government, which includes six smaller municipalities in a two-tier system. The city is governed by a mayor, a vice-mayor, and a 40-member metropolitan council. Some 35 of the members are elected from single-member districts, while five are elected at-large. Reflecting the city's position in state government, Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee, one of the state's three divisions.
As of 2020 Nashville is considered a global city, type "Gamma" by the GaWC. The city is a major center for the music industry, especially country music. It is home to three major professional sports teams: the Predators, Titans, and Nashville SC. The city is also the home of many colleges and universities including Tennessee State University, Vanderbilt University, Belmont University, Fisk University, Trevecca Nazarene University, and Lipscomb University. Nashville is sometimes referred to as the "Athens of the South" due to the large number of educational institutions. The city is also a major center for the healthcare, publishing, banking, automotive, and technology industries. Entities with headquarters in the city include AllianceBernstein, Asurion, Bridgestone Americas, Captain D's, Concord, Gideons International, Hospital Corporation of America, LifeWay Christian Resources, Logan's Roadhouse, and Ryman Hospitality Properties.
History
18th and 19th centuries
In 1689, French-Canadian trader Martin Chartier established a trading post on the Cumberland River, near the present-day site of the city. In 1714, a group of French traders under the command of Charles Charleville established a settlement and trading post at the present location of downtown Nashville, which became known as French Lick. These settlers quickly established an extensive fur trading network with the local Native Americans, but by the 1740s the settlement had largely been abandoned.
In 1779, explorers James Robertson and John Donelson led a party of Overmountain Men to the site of French Lick, and constructed Fort Nashborough. It was named for Francis Nash, the American Revolutionary War hero. Nashville quickly grew because of its strategic location as a port on the Cumberland River, a tributary of the Ohio River; and its later status as a major railroad center. By 1800, the city had 345 residents, including 136 enslaved African Americans and 14 free African Americans. In 1806, Nashville was incorporated as a city and became the county seat of Davidson County, Tennessee. In 1843, the city was named as the permanent capital of the state of Tennessee. Knoxville, Kingston & Murfreesboro were prior locations of the state capital.
The city government of Nashville owned 24 slaves by 1831, and 60 prior to the Civil War. They were "put to work to build the first successful water system and maintain the streets." Auction blocks and brokers' offices were part of the slave market at the heart of the city. It was the center of plantations cultivating tobacco and hemp as commodity crops, in addition to the breeding and training of thoroughbred horses, and other livestock. For years Nashville was considered one of the wealthiest southern capitals and a large portion of its prominence was from the iron business. Nashville led the south for iron production.
The cholera epidemic that struck Nashville in 1849–1850 took the life of former U.S. President James K. Polk and resulted in high fatalities. There were 311 deaths from cholera in 1849 and an estimated 316 to about 500 in 1850.
Before the Civil War, about 700 free Blacks lived in small enclaves in northern Nashville. More than 3,200 enslaved African Americans lived in the city. By 1860, when the first rumblings of secession began to be heard across the South, antebellum Nashville was a prosperous city.
The city's significance as a shipping port and rail center made it a desirable prize for competing military forces that wanted to control the region's important river and railroad transportation routes. In February 1862, Nashville became the first Confederate state capital to fall to U.S. troops, and the state was occupied by the U.S. Army for the duration of the war. Many enslaved African Americans from Middle Tennessee fled as refugees to Union lines; they were housed in contraband camps around military installations in Nashville's eastern, western, and southern borders. The Battle of Nashville (December 15–16, 1864) was a significant Union victory and perhaps the most decisive tactical victory gained by either side in the war; it was also the war's final major military action in which Tennessee regiments played a large part on both sides of the battle. Afterward, the Confederates conducted a war of attrition, making guerrilla raids and engaging in small skirmishes. Confederate forces in the Deep South were almost constantly in retreat.
In 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, the Nashville chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was founded by Confederate veteran John W. Morton. He was reported to have initiated General Nathan Bedford Forrest into the white-sepremacist organization. The latter became Grand Wizard of the organization, which had chapters of this secret, insurgent group forming throughout the state and across the South. They opposed voting and political organizing by freedmen, tried to control their behavior by threats, violence and murder, and sometimes also attacked their White allies, including schoolteachers from the North and Freedman's Bureau officials.
Whites directed violence against freedmen and their descendants both during and after the Reconstruction era. Two freedmen, David Jones and Jo Reed, were lynched in Nashville by White mobs in 1872 and 1875, respectively. Reed was hanged from a bridge over the river, but survived after the rope broke and he fell into the water. He successfully escaped the city soon thereafter.
In the aftermath of the Civil War, the Fisk Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville emerged as a beacon of hope and cultural pride. By 1871, this ensemble began touring the U.S. and Europe, earning international acclaim for their performances of Negro spirituals. Their success not only provided vital funding for their university but also marked Nashville as a significant center for African American music and culture, laying the groundwork for the city's enduring musical legacy.
In 1873, Nashville suffered another cholera epidemic, along with towns throughout Sumner County along railroad routes and the Cumberland River. This was part of a larger epidemic that struck the Mississippi Valley system and other areas of the United States, such as New York and towns along its major lakes and rivers. The epidemic is estimated to have killed around 1,000 people in Nashville, and 50,000 total.
Meanwhile, the city had reclaimed its important shipping and trading position and developed a solid manufacturing base. The post–Civil War years of the late 19th century brought new prosperity to Nashville and Davidson County. Wealthy planters and businessmen built grand, classical-style buildings. A replica of the Parthenon was constructed in Centennial Park, near downtown.
On April 30, 1892, Ephraim Grizzard, an African-American man, was lynched in a spectacle murder in front of a European-American mob of 10,000 in Nashville. He was a suspect in the assault of two white sisters. His lynching was described by journalist Ida B. Wells as: "A naked, bloody example of the blood-thirstiness of the nineteenth century civilization of the Athens of the South." His brother, Henry Grizzard, had been lynched and hanged on April 24, 1892, in nearby Goodlettsville as a suspect in the same assault incident. From 1877 to 1950, a total of six lynchings of Blacks were conducted in Davidson County, four before the turn of the century.
Earlier 20th century
By the turn of the century Nashville was home to numerous organizations and individuals associated with revisionist Lost Cause of the Confederacy pseudohistory, and it has been referred to as the "cradle of the Lost Cause." In 1893, the magazine Confederate Veteran began publication in the city. In 1894, the first chapter of United Daughters of the Confederacy was founded in the city, and it hosted the first two conventions of the organization. Prominent proponents of the mythology, the so-called "guardians of the Lost Cause," were concentrated Downtown and in the West End, near Centennial Park.
At the same time, Jefferson Street became the historic center of the African American community, with similar districts developing in the Black neighborhoods in East and North Nashville. In 1912, the Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial and Normal School was moved to Jefferson Street. The first Prince's Hot Chicken Shack originated at the corner of Jefferson Street and 28th Avenue in 1945. Jefferson Street became a destination for jazz and blues musicians, and remained so until the federal government split the area by construction of Interstate 40 in the late 1960s.
In 1925, the establishment of the Grand Ole Opry marked the beginning of Nashville's journey as the 'Country Music Capital of the World', drawing musicians and fans alike to the city and setting the stage for its future as a country music powerhouse.
In 1950, the state legislature approved a new city charter that provided for the election of city council members from single-member districts, rather than at-large voting. This change was supported because at-large voting required candidates to gain a majority of votes from across the city. The previous system prevented the minority population, which then tended to support Republican candidates, from being represented by candidates of their choice; apportionment under single-member districts meant that some districts in Nashville had Black majorities. In 1951, after passage of the new charter, African American attorneys Z. Alexander Looby and Robert E. Lillard were elected to the city council.
During the mid-1950s, Nashville underwent a musical transformation with the emergence of the 'Nashville Sound,' which was characterized by "smooth strings and choruses", "sophisticated background vocals" and "smooth tempos" associated with traditional pop. The new sound broadened country music's appeal and solidified Nashville's status as a music recording and production center.
With the United States Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that public schools had to desegregate with "all deliberate speed", the family of student Robert Kelley filed a lawsuit in 1956, arguing that Nashville administrators should open all-White East High School to him. A similar case was filed by Reverend Henry Maxwell due to his children having to take a 45-minute bus ride from South Nashville to the north end of the city. These suits caused the courts to announce what became known as the "Nashville Plan", where the city's public schools would desegregate one grade per year beginning in the fall of 1957.
Urban redevelopment accelerated over the next several decades, and the city grew increasingly segregated. An interstate was placed on the edge of East Nashville while another highway was built through Edgehill, a lower-income, predominantly minority community.
Postwar development to present
Rapid suburbanization occurred during the years immediately after World War II, as new housing was being built outside city limits. This resulted in a demand for many new schools and other support facilities, which the county found difficult to provide. At the same time, suburbanization led to a declining tax base in the city, although many suburban residents used unique city amenities and services that were supported financially only by city taxpayers. After years of discussion, a referendum was held in 1958 on the issue of consolidating city and county government. It failed to gain approval although it was supported by the then-elected leaders of both jurisdictions, County Judge Beverly Briley and Mayor Ben West.
Following the referendum's failure, Nashville annexed some 42 square miles of suburban jurisdictions to expand its tax base. This increased uncertainty among residents, and created resentment among many suburban communities. Under the second charter for metropolitan government, which was approved in 1962, two levels of service provision were proposed: the General Services District and the Urban Services District, to provide for a differential in tax levels. Residents of the Urban Services District had a full range of city services. The areas that made up the General Services District, however, had a lower tax rate until full services were provided. This helped reconcile aspects of services and taxation among the differing jurisdictions within the large metro region.
In the early 1960s, Tennessee still had racial segregation of public facilities, including lunch counters and department store fitting rooms. Hotels and restaurants were also segregated. Between February 13 and May 10, 1960, a series of sit-ins were organized at lunch counters in downtown Nashville by the Nashville Student Movement and Nashville Christian Leadership Council, and were part of a broader sit-in movement in the southeastern United States as part of an effort to end racial segregation of public facilities. On April 19, 1960, the house of Z. Alexander Looby, an African American attorney and council member, was bombed by segregationists. Protesters marched to the city hall the next day. Mayor Ben West said he supported the desegregation of lunch counters, which civil rights activists had called for.
In 1963, Nashville consolidated its government with Davidson County, forming a metropolitan government. The membership on the Metro Council, the legislative body, was increased from 21 to 40 seats. Of these, five members are elected at-large and 35 are elected from single-member districts, each to serve a term of four years.
As Nashville evolved in the 1960s, its music scene diversified, welcoming rock, pop, and other genres and the 'Nashville Sound' transformed into 'Countrypolitan'. Artists like Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash came to Nashville to record, reflecting the city's expanding influence in the music industry. In 1960, Time reported that Nashville had "nosed out Hollywood as the nation's second biggest (after New York) record-producing center."
In 1957 Nashville desegregated its school system using an innovative grade a year plan, in response to a class action suit Kelly vs. Board of Education of Nashville. By 1966 the Metro Council abandoned the grade a year plan and completely desegregated the entire school system at one time.
Congress passed civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, but tensions continued as society was slow to change. On April 8, 1967, a riot broke out on the college campuses of Fisk University and Tennessee State University, historically Black colleges, after Stokely Carmichael spoke about Black Power at Vanderbilt University. Although it was viewed as a "race riot", it had classist characteristics.
In 1979, the Ku Klux Klan burnt crosses outside two African American sites in Nashville, including the city headquarters of the NAACP.
Historically, Nashville zoning permitted the construction of duplex housing. In the 1980s and 1990s, Nashville lawmakers downzoned sections of Nashville to exclusively permit single-family housing. Proponents of these downzonings said they would raise home values.
Since the 1970s, the city and county have undergone tremendous growth, particularly during the economic boom of the 1990s under the leadership of then-Mayor and later-Tennessee Governor, Phil Bredesen. Making urban renewal a priority, Bredesen fostered the construction or renovation of several city landmarks, including the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, the downtown Nashville Public Library, the Bridgestone Arena, and Nissan Stadium.
Nissan Stadium (formerly Adelphia Coliseum and LP Field) was built after the National Football League's (NFL) Houston Oilers agreed to move to the city in 1995. The NFL team debuted in Nashville in 1998 at Vanderbilt Stadium, and Nissan Stadium opened in the summer of 1999. The Oilers changed their name to the Tennessee Titans and finished the season with the Music City Miracle and a close Super Bowl game. The St. Louis Rams won in the last play of the game.
In 1997, Nashville was awarded a National Hockey League expansion team; this was named the Nashville Predators. Since the 2003–04 season, the Predators have made the playoffs in all but four seasons. In 2017, they made the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in franchise history, but ultimately fell to the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4 games to 2, in the best-of-seven series.
21st century
On January 22, 2009, residents rejected Nashville Charter Amendment 1, which sought to make English the official language of the city.
Between May 1 and 7, 2010, much of Nashville was extensively flooded as part of a series of 1,000 year floods throughout Middle and West Tennessee. Much of the flooding took place in areas along the Cumberland and Harpeth Rivers and Mill Creek, and caused extensive damage to the many buildings and structures in the city, including the Grand Ole Opry House, Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, Opry Mills Mall, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Bridgestone Arena, and Nissan Stadium. Sections of Interstate 24 and Briley Parkway were also flooded. Eleven people died in the Nashville area as a result of the flooding, and damages were estimated to be over $2 billion.
The city recovered after the Great Recession. In March 2012, a Gallup poll ranked Nashville in the top five regions for job growth. In 2013, Nashville was described as "Nowville" and "It City" by GQ, Forbes, and The New York Times.
Nashville elected its first female mayor, Megan Barry, on September 25, 2015. As a council member, Barry had officiated at the city's first same-sex wedding on June 26, 2015.
In 2017, Nashville's economy was deemed the third fastest-growing in the nation, and the city was named the "hottest housing market in the US" by Freddie Mac realtors. In May 2017, census estimates showed Nashville had passed Memphis to become most populated city in Tennessee. Nashville has also made national headlines for its "homelessness crisis". Rising housing prices and the opioid crisis have resulted in more people being out on the streets: as of 2018, between 2,300 and 20,000 Nashvillians are homeless.
On March 6, 2018, due to felony charges filed against Mayor Barry relating to the misuse of public funds, she resigned before the end of her term. A special election was called. Following a ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Davidson County Election Commission set the special election for May 24, 2018, to meet the requirement of 75 to 80 days from the date of resignation. David Briley, who was Vice Mayor during the Barry administration and Acting Mayor after her resignation, won the special election with just over 54% of the vote, becoming the 70th mayor of Nashville.
On May 1, 2018, voters rejected Let's Move Nashville, a referendum which would have funded construction of an $8.9 billion mass transit system under the Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (now WeGo Public Transit) by a 2 to 1 margin.
On September 28, 2019, John Cooper became the ninth mayor of Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County.
On March 3, 2020, a tornado tracked west to east, just north of the downtown Nashville area, killing at least 25 people and leaving tens of thousands without electricity. Neighborhoods impacted included North Nashville, Germantown, East Nashville, Donelson, and Hermitage.
On December 25, 2020, a vehicle exploded on Second Avenue, killing the perpetrator and injuring eight others.
On March 27, 2023, a gunman killed three children and three staff at the Covenant School, before getting killed by police.
On December 9, 2023, tornadoes caused considerable destruction and left three people dead.
Geography
Topography
Nashville lies on the Cumberland River in the northwestern portion of the Nashville Basin. Nashville's elevation ranges from its lowest point, 385 feet (117 m) above sea level at the Cumberland River, to its highest point, 1,163 feet (354 m) above sea level in the Radnor Lake State Natural Area. Nashville also sits at the start of the Highland Rim, a geophysical region of very hilly land. Because of this, Nashville is very hilly. Nashville also has some stand alone hills around the city such as the hill on which the Tennessee State Capitol building sits. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 527.9 square miles (1,367 km2), of which 504.0 square miles (1,305 km2) of it is land and 23.9 square miles (62 km2) of it (4.53%) is water.
Cityscape
Nashville's downtown area features a diverse assortment of entertainment, dining, cultural and architectural attractions. The Broadway and 2nd Avenue areas feature entertainment venues, night clubs and an assortment of restaurants. North of Broadway lie Nashville's central business district, Legislative Plaza, Capitol Hill and the Tennessee Bicentennial Mall. Cultural and architectural attractions can be found throughout the city.
Three major interstate highways (I-40, I-65 and I-24) converge near the core area of downtown, and many regional cities are within a day's driving distance.
Nashville's first skyscraper, the Life & Casualty Tower, was completed in 1957 and launched the construction of other high rises in downtown Nashville. After the construction of the AT&T Building (commonly referred to by locals as the "Batman Building") in 1994, the downtown area saw little construction until the mid-2000s. The Pinnacle, a high rise office building which opened in 2010, was the first skyscraper in Nashville to be built in the preceding 15 years.
Since 2000, Nashville has seen two urban construction booms (one prior to the Great Recession and the other after) that have yielded multiple high-rises (defined by Emporis as buildings of a minimum of 115 feet tall). Of the city's 33 towers of 300 feet tall or taller (as of April 2023), 24 have been completed since 2000. Of note, Nashville has a disproportionate number of buildings 300 feet and taller in relation to its overall metropolitan statistical area (MSA) population of about 2 million (2021 U.S. Census Bureau estimate). This is due, in part, to the tourism-centric city's multiple hotel towers and to many condominium towers having multiple unit owners who also own other residential properties in both Nashville and in other markets. In contrast, and for comparison, Phoenix, with an MSA population of about 4.95 million (2021 estimate) offers only 21 buildings of 300 feet and taller.
Many civic and infrastructure projects are being planned, in progress, or recently completed. A new MTA bus hub was recently completed in downtown Nashville, as was the Music City Star (now known as the WeGo Star) pilot project. Several public parks have been constructed, such as the Public Square. Riverfront Park is scheduled to be extensively updated. The Music City Center opened in May 2013. It is a 1,200,000-square-foot (110,000 m2) convention center with 350,000 square feet (33,000 m2) of exhibit space.
Neighborhoods
Flora
The nearby city of Lebanon is notable and even named for its so-called "cedar glades", which occur on soils too poor to support most trees and are instead dominated by Virginian juniper. Blackberry bushes, Virginia pine, loblolly pine, sassafras, red maple, river birch, American beech, river cane, mountain laurel and sycamore are all common native trees, along with many others.
In addition to the native forests, the combination of hot summers, abundant rainfall and mild winters permit a wide variety of both temperate and subtropical plants to be cultivated easily. Southern magnolia and cherry blossom trees are commonly cultivated here, with the city having an annual cherry blossom festival. Crepe myrtles and yew bushes are also commonly grown throughout Metro Nashville, and the winters are mild enough that sweetbay magnolia is evergreen whenever it is cultivated. The pansy flower is popular to plant during the autumn, and some varieties will flower overwinter in Nashville's subtropical climate. However, many hot-weather plants like petunia and even papyrus thrive as annuals, and Japanese banana will die aboveground during winter but re-sprout after the danger of frost is over. Unbeknownst to most Tennesseans, even cold-hardy palms, particularly needle palm and dwarf palmetto, are grown uncommonly but often successfully, while the taller windmill palm is more marginal, perishing below about 5 °F (−15 °C) without protection. High desert plants like Colorado spruce and prickly pear cactus are also grown somewhat commonly, as are Yucca filamentosa and the trunking Yucca rostrata.
Climate
Nashville International Airport in Donelson has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cfa, Trewartha Cf), with hot, humid summers and generally cool winters typical of the Upper South.
Snowfall occurs during the winter months, but it is usually not heavy. Average annual snowfall is about 4.7 inches (12 cm), falling mostly in January and February and occasionally in March, November and December. The largest snow event since 2003 was on January 22, 2016, when Nashville received 8 inches (20 cm) of snow in a single storm; the largest overall was 17 inches (43 cm), received on March 17, 1892, during the St. Patrick's Day Snowstorm.
Rainfall is typically greater in solar spring (Feb-Apr) and summer (May-Jul), while the solar autumn months (Aug-Oct) are the driest on average. Spring and fall are prone to severe thunderstorms, which may bring tornadoes, large hail, flash floods and damaging wind, with recent major events on April 16, 1998; April 7, 2006; February 5, 2008; April 10, 2009; May 1–2, 2010; and March 3, 2020. Relative humidity in Nashville averages 83% in the mornings and 60% in the afternoons, which is considered moderate for the Southeastern United States. In recent decades, due to urban development, Nashville has developed an urban heat island; especially on cool, clear nights, temperatures are up to 10 °F (5.6 °C) warmer in the heart of the city than in rural outlying areas. The Nashville region lies within USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7a. From 1970 to 2020 the average summer temperature has risen 2.8 degrees F (1.5 C).
Nashville's long springs and autumns combined with a diverse array of trees and grasses can often make it uncomfortable for allergy sufferers. In 2008, Nashville was ranked as the 26th-worst spring allergy city in the U.S. by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
The coldest temperature ever officially recorded in Nashville was −17 °F (−27 °C) on January 21, 1985, and the hottest was 109 °F (43 °C) on June 29, 2012. Nashville allegedly had a low of −18 °F (−28 °C) on January 26, 1832, but this was decades before record-keeping began and isn't counted as the official record low.
Donelson
The mean annual temperature at Nashville International Airport is 60.8 °F (16.0 °C). Monthly averages range from 39.6 °F (4.2 °C) in January to 80.7 °F (27.1 °C) in July, with a diurnal temperature variation of 18.9 to 23.7 °F (10.5 to 13.2 °C). Diurnal temperature variation is highest in April and lowest in December, but it is also relatively high in October and relatively low in January. Donelson's climate classifications are Köppen Cfa and Trewartha Cfak thanks to its hot summers (average over 71.6 °F (22.0 °C)), cool winters (average over 32.0 °F (0.0 °C)) and long (8+ months) growing seasons (average over 50.0 °F (10.0 °C)). Precipitation is abundant year-round without any major difference, but there is still slight variation. The wet season runs from February through July, reaching its zenith in May with 128 mm of rain. The dry season runs from August through January with an October nadir of 85 mm and secondary December peak of 113 mm.
Old Hickory
The mean annual temperature at Old Hickory Dam is 58.5 °F (14.7 °C). Monthly averages range from 37.1 °F (2.8 °C) in January to 78.6 °F (25.9 °C) in August, with a diurnal temperature variation of 19.8 to 26.3 °F (11.0 to 14.6 °C). Diurnal temperature variation is highest in April and lowest in January. Old Hickory's climate classifications are Köppen Cfa and Trewartha DOak thanks to its hot summers (average over 71.6 °F (22.0 °C)), cool winters (average over 32.0 °F (0.0 °C)) and mediocre (4–7 months) growing seasons (average over 50.0 °F (10.0 °C)). Precipitation is abundant year-round without any major difference, but there is still slight variation. The wet season runs from February through July, reaching its zenith in April with 120 mm of rain. The dry season runs from August through January with an October/November nadir of 85 mm and secondary December peak of 113 mm. Data for record temperatures is spotty before June 2007, but temperatures in Old Hickory have been known to range from −10 °F (−23.3 °C) in January 1966 to 106 °F (41.1 °C) in June and July 2012.
Demographics
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 689,447 people, 279,545 households, and 146,241 families residing in the city. The population increase of 88,225, or 14.67% over the 2010 figure of 601,222 residents, represented the largest net population increase in the city's history. The population density was 1,367.87 inhabitants per square mile (528.14/km2).
In 2010, there were 254,651 households and 141,469 families (55.6% of households). Of households with families, 37.2% had married couples living together, 14.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 4.2% had a male householder with no wife present. 27.9% of all households had children under the age of 18, and 18.8% had at least one member 65 years of age or older. Of the 44.4% of households that are non-families, 36.2% were individuals, and 8.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.38 and the average family size was 3.16.
The age distribution was 22.2% under 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 32.8% from 25 to 44, 23.9% from 45 to 64, and 10.7% who were 65 or older. The median age was 34.2 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.7 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $46,141, and the median income for a family was $56,377. Males with a year-round, full-time job had a median income of $41,017 versus $36,292 for females. The per capita income for the city was $27,372. About 13.9% of families and 18.2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.5% of those under age 18 and 9.9% of those age 65 or over. Of residents 25 or older, 33.4% have a bachelor's degree or higher.
Because of its relatively low cost of living and large job market, Nashville has become a popular city for immigrants. Nashville's foreign-born population more than tripled in size between 1990 and 2000, increasing from 12,662 to 39,596. The city's largest immigrant groups include Mexicans, Kurds, Vietnamese, Laotians, Arabs, and Somalis. There are also smaller communities of Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan concentrated primarily in Antioch. Nashville has the largest Kurdish community in the United States, numbering approximately 15,000. In 2009, about 60,000 Bhutanese refugees were being admitted to the U.S., and some were expected to resettle in Nashville. During the Iraqi election of 2005, Nashville was one of the few international locations where Iraqi expatriates could vote. The American Jewish community in Nashville dates back over 150 years, and numbered about 8,000 in 2015, plus 2,000 Jewish college students.
In 1779, approximately 20 percent of the settlers in Fort Nashborough were enslaved and free individuals of African descent. From this period until the Civil War, a burgeoning African American community in Nashville, under the guidance of a select few black leaders, diligently laid the groundwork for a prosperous society. They established educational institutions, places of worship, and enterprises, all contributing to the development and progress of the city.
Metropolitan area
As of 2020, Nashville has the largest metropolitan area in the state of Tennessee, with a population of 2,014,444. The Nashville metropolitan area encompasses 13 of 41 Middle Tennessee counties: Cannon, Cheatham, Davidson, Dickson, Macon, Maury, Robertson, Rutherford, Smith, Sumner, Trousdale, Williamson, and Wilson. The 2020 population of the Nashville-Davidson–Murfreesboro–Columbia combined statistical area was 2,118,233.
Religion
59.6% of people in Nashville claim religious affiliation according to information compiled by Sperling's BestPlaces. The dominant religion in Nashville is Christianity, accounting for 57.7% of the population. The Christian population is broken down into 20.6% Baptists, 6.2% Catholics, 5.6% Methodists, 3.4% Pentecostals, 3.4% Presbyterians, 0.8% Mormons, and 0.5% Lutherans. 15.7% identify with other forms of Christianity, including the Orthodox Church and Disciples of Christ. Islam is the second largest religion, with 0.8% of the population. 0.6% of the population adhere to eastern religions such as Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism and Hinduism, and 0.3% follow Judaism.
Economy
In the 21st century's second decade, Nashville was described as a "southern boomtown" by numerous publications. In 2017, it had the third-fastest-growing metropolitan economy in the United States and "adds an average of 100 people a day to its net population increase". The Nashville region was also said to be the "Number One" Metro Area for Professional and Business Service Jobs in America; Zillow said it had the "hottest Housing market in America". In 2013, the city ranked No. 5 on Forbes' list of the Best Places for Business and Careers. In 2015, Forbes put Nashville as the fourth Best City for White Collar Jobs. In 2015, Business Facilities' 11th Annual Rankings report named Nashville the number one city for Economic Growth Potential.
Fortune 500 companies with offices within Nashville include BNY Mellon, Bridgestone Americas, Ernst & Young, Community Health Systems, Dell, Deloitte, Dollar General, Hospital Corporation of America, Nissan North America, Philips, Tractor Supply Company, and UBS. Of these, Community Health Systems, Dollar General, SmileDirectClub, Hospital Corporation of America, and Tractor Supply Company are headquartered in the city. Many popular food companies are based in Nashville including Captain D's, Hunt Brothers Pizza, O'Charley's, Logan's Roadhouse, J. Alexander's, and Stoney River Legendary Steaks.
As the "home of country music", Nashville has become a major music recording and production center. The Big Three record labels, as well as numerous independent labels, have offices in Nashville, mostly in the Music Row area. Nashville has been the headquarters of guitar company Gibson since 1984. Since the 1960s, Nashville has been the second-largest music production center (after New York City) in the United States. Nashville's music industry is estimated to have a total economic impact of about $10 billion per year and to contribute about 56,000 jobs to the Nashville area.
The area's largest industry is health care. Nashville is home to more than 300 health care companies, including Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the world's largest private operator of hospitals. As of 2012, it was estimated the health care industry contributes US$30 billion per year and 200,000 jobs to the Nashville-area economy.
CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America and one of the largest private corrections company in the United States, was founded in Nashville in 1983, but moved out of the city in 2019. Vanderbilt University was one of its investors before the company's initial public offering. The City of Nashville's pension fund included "a $921,000 stake" in the company in 2017. The Nashville Scene notes that, "A drop in CoreCivic stock value, however minor, would have a direct impact on the pension fund that represents nearly 25,000 current and former Metro employees."
The automotive industry is also becoming important for the Middle Tennessee region. Nissan North America moved its corporate headquarters in 2006 from Gardena, California (Los Angeles County) to Franklin, a suburb south of Nashville. Nissan's largest North American manufacturing plant is in Smyrna, another suburb of Nashville. Largely as a result of the increased development of Nissan and other Japanese economic interests in the region, Japan moved its former New Orleans consulate-general to Nashville's Palmer Plaza. General Motors operates an assembly plant in Spring Hill, about 35 miles (56 km) south of Nashville. Automotive parts manufacturer Bridgestone has its their North American headquarters in Nashville and manufacturing plants and a distribution center in nearby counties.
Other major industries in Nashville include insurance, finance, and publishing (especially religious publishing). The city hosts headquarters operations for several Protestant denominations, including the United Methodist Church, Southern Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention USA, and the National Association of Free Will Baptists.
Nashville is known for Southern confections, including Goo Goo Clusters, which have been made in Nashville since 1912.
In May 2018, AllianceBernstein pledged to build a private client office in the city by mid-2019 and to move its headquarters from New York City to Nashville by 2024.
The technology sector is an important and growing aspect of Nashville's economy. In November 2018, Amazon announced its plans to build an operations center in the Nashville Yards development to serve as the hub for their Retail Operations division. In April 2021, Oracle Corporation announced that it would construct a $1.2 billion campus in Nashville, which is expected to employ 8,500 by 2031.
In December 2019, iHeartMedia selected Nashville as the site of its second digital headquarters.
Real estate is becoming a driver for the city's economy. Based on a survey of nearly 1,500 real estate industry professionals conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute, Nashville ranked seventh nationally in terms of attractiveness to real estate investors for 2016. As of October 2015, according to city figures, there is more than $2 billion in real estate projects underway or projected to start in 2016. Due to high yields available to investors, Nashville has been attracting a lot of capital from out-of-state. A key factor that has been attributed to the increase in investment is the adjustment to the city's zoning code. Developers can easily include a combination of residential, office, retail and entertainment space into their projects. Additionally, the city has invested heavily into public parks. Centennial Park is undergoing extensive renovations. The change in the zoning code and the investment in public space is consistent with the millennial generation's preference for walkable urban neighborhoods.
Top employers
According to the Nashville Business Journal, the top employers in the city are:
Culture
Much of the city's cultural life has revolved around its large university community. Particularly significant in this respect were two groups of critics and writers who were associated with Vanderbilt University in the early 20th century: the Fugitives and the Agrarians.
Popular destinations include Fort Nashborough and Fort Negley, the former being a reconstruction of the original settlement, the latter being a semi-restored Civil War battle fort; the Tennessee State Museum; and The Parthenon, a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. The Tennessee State Capitol is one of the oldest working state capitol buildings in the nation. The Hermitage, the former home of President Andrew Jackson, is one of the largest presidential homes open to the public, and is also one of the most visited.
Dining
Some of the more popular types of local cuisine include hot chicken, hot fish, barbecue, and meat and three.
Entertainment and performing arts
Nashville has a vibrant music and entertainment scene spanning a variety of genres. With a long history in the music scene it is no surprise that city was nicknamed 'Music City.' The Tennessee Performing Arts Center is the major performing arts center of the city. It is the home of the Nashville Repertory Theatre and the Nashville Ballet. In September 2006, the Schermerhorn Symphony Center opened as the home of the Nashville Symphony.
As the city's name itself is a metonym for the country music industry, many popular attractions involve country music, including the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Belcourt Theatre, and Ryman Auditorium. Hence, the city became known as America's 'Country Music Capital.' The Ryman was home to the Grand Ole Opry until 1974 when the show moved to the Grand Ole Opry House, 9 miles (14 km) east of downtown. The Opry plays there several times a week, except for an annual winter run at the Ryman.
Many music clubs and honky-tonk bars are in downtown Nashville, particularly the area encompassing Lower Broadway, Second Avenue, and Printer's Alley, which is often referred to as "the District".
Each June, the CMA Music Festival (formerly known as Fan Fair) brings thousands of country fans to the city. The Tennessee State Fair is also held annually in September.
Nashville was once home of television shows such as Hee Haw and Pop! Goes the Country, as well as The Nashville Network and later, RFD-TV. Country Music Television and Great American Country currently operate from Nashville. The city was also home to the Opryland USA theme park, which operated from 1972 to 1997 before being closed by its owners (Gaylord Entertainment Company) and soon after demolished to make room for the Opry Mills mega-shopping mall.
The Contemporary Christian music industry is based along Nashville's Music Row, with a great influence in neighboring Williamson County. The Christian record companies include EMI Christian Music Group, Provident Label Group and Word Records.
Music Row houses many gospel music and Contemporary Christian music companies centered around 16th and 17th Avenues South. On River Road, off Charlotte Pike in West Nashville, the CabaRay opened its doors on January 18, 2018. The performing venue of Ray Stevens, it offers a Vegas-style dinner and a show atmosphere. There is also a piano bar and a gift shop.
Although Nashville was never known as a major jazz town, it did have many great jazz bands, including The Nashville Jazz Machine led by Dave Converse and its current version, the Nashville Jazz Orchestra, led by Jim Williamson, as well as The Establishment, led by Billy Adair. The Francis Craig Orchestra entertained Nashvillians from 1929 to 1945 from the Oak Bar and Grille Room in the Hermitage Hotel. Craig's orchestra was also the first to broadcast over local radio station WSM-AM and enjoyed phenomenal success with a 12-year show on the NBC Radio Network. In the late 1930s, he introduced a newcomer, Dinah Shore, a local graduate of Hume Fogg High School and Vanderbilt University.
Radio station WMOT-FM in nearby Murfreesboro, which formerly programmed jazz, aided significantly in the recent revival of the city's jazz scene, as has the non-profit Nashville Jazz Workshop, which holds concerts and classes in a renovated building in the north Nashville neighborhood of Germantown. Fisk University also maintains a jazz station, WFSK.
Nashville has an active theatre scene and is home to several professional and community theatre companies. Nashville Children's Theatre, Nashville Repertory Theatre, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, the Dance Theatre of Tennessee and the Tennessee Women's Theater Project are among the most prominent professional companies. One community theatre, Circle Players, has been in operation for over 60 years.
The Barbershop Harmony Society has its headquarters in Nashville.
Tourism
Perhaps the biggest factor in drawing visitors to Nashville is its association with country music, in which the Nashville sound played a role. Many visitors to Nashville attend live performances of the Grand Ole Opry, the world's longest-running live radio show. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is another major attraction relating to the popularity of country music. The Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, the Opry Mills regional shopping mall and the General Jackson showboat, are all located in what is known as Music Valley.
Civil War history is important to the city's tourism industry. Sites pertaining to the Battle of Nashville and the nearby Battle of Franklin and Battle of Stones River can be seen, along with several well-preserved antebellum plantation houses such as Belle Meade Plantation, Carnton plantation in Franklin, and Belmont Mansion.
Nashville has many arts centers and museums, including the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art, the Tennessee State Museum, the Johnny Cash Museum, Fisk University's Van Vechten and Aaron Douglas Galleries, Vanderbilt University's Fine Art Gallery and Sarratt Gallery, the National Museum of African American Music, and the full-scale replica of the Parthenon. A sculpture of Athena Parthenos inside the Parthenon is the tallest indoor sculpture in the Western World – standing 42 feet high.
Nashville has become an increasingly popular destination for bachelor and bachelorette parties. In 2017, Nashville Scene counted 33 bachelorette parties on Lower Broadway ("from Fifth Avenue down to the Cumberland River, it's their town") in less than two hours on a Friday night, and stated that the actual number was likely higher. Downtown, the newspaper wrote, "offers five blocks of bars with live music and no cover". In 2018, The New York Times called Nashville "the hottest destination for bachelorette parties in the country" because of the honky-tonk bars' live music. City boosters welcome the bachelorette parties because temporary visitors may become permanent; BuzzFeed wrote, "These women are at precisely the point in their lives when a move to Nashville is possible". The city in 2022 began regulating party buses that provide transportainment in downtown, issuing dozens of permits and rejecting applications for dozens more. The CMT reality television series Bachelorette Weekend follows the employees at Bach Weekend, a Nashville company that designs and throws bachelor and bachelorette parties.
Major annual events
Nicknames
Nashville is a colorful, well-known city in several different arenas. As such, it has earned various sobriquets, including:
Music City, U.S.A.: WSM-AM announcer David Cobb first used this name during a 1950 broadcast and it stuck. It is now the official nickname used by the Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau. Nashville is the home of the Grand Ole Opry, the Country Music Hall of Fame, and many major record labels. This name also dates back to 1873, where after receiving and hearing a performance by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom is reported as saying that "These young people must surely come from a musical city."
Smashville: This moniker is most closely associated with the Nashville Predators hockey team. According to Yahoo News, the name was conjured by local fan Frank Glinski, "Glinski actually came up with the term "Smashville" during a conversation with the Predators' then-vice president of marketing, who like Glinski had a child playing youth hockey locally." [1] Archived April 10, 2023, at the Wayback Machine A "Smashville" sign is located outside the home of the Predators, Bridgestone Arena.
Athens of the South: Home to 24 post-secondary educational institutions, Nashville has long been compared to Athens, the ancient city of learning and site of Plato's Academy. Since 1897, a full-scale replica of the Athenian Parthenon has stood in Nashville, and many examples of classical and neoclassical architecture can be found in the city. The term was popularized by Philip Lindsley (1786–1855), President of the University of Nashville, though it is unclear whether he was the first person to use the phrase.
The Protestant Vatican or The Buckle of the Bible Belt: Nashville has over 700 churches, several seminaries, a number of Christian music companies, and is the headquarters for the publishing arms of the Southern Baptist Convention (LifeWay Christian Resources), the United Methodist Church (United Methodist Publishing House) and the National Baptist Convention (Sunday School Publishing Board). It is also the seat of the National Baptist Convention, the National Association of Free Will Baptists, the Gideons International, the Gospel Music Association, and Thomas Nelson, the world's largest producer of Bibles.
Cashville: Nashville native Young Buck released a successful rap album called Straight Outta Cashville that has popularized the nickname among a new generation.
Little Kurdistan: Nashville has the United States' largest population of Kurdish people, estimated to be around 11,000.
Nash Vegas or Nashvegas
Nashville has additionally earned the moniker "The Hot Chicken Capital", becoming known for the local specialty cuisine hot chicken. The Music City Hot Chicken Festival is hosted annually in Nashville and several restaurants make this spicy version of southern fried chicken. Due to a short-lived smokeless gunpowder plant in 1918, Nashville also had the nickname "Powder City of the World."
Sports
Professional
Nashville is home to five professional sports franchises. Three play at the highest professional level of their respective sports: the Tennessee Titans of the National Football League (NFL), the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League (NHL), and Nashville SC of Major League Soccer (MLS). The city is also home to two minor league teams: the Nashville Sounds of Minor League Baseball's International League and the Music City Fire arena football team of the American Arena League. An investment group, Music City Baseball, seeks to secure a Major League Baseball expansion franchise or lure an existing team to the city. The Women's National Basketball Association is considering a franchise expansion to Nashville.
The Tennessee Titans moved to Nashville in 1998. Previously known as the Houston Oilers, which began play in 1960 in Houston, Texas, the team relocated to Tennessee in 1997. They played at the Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium in Memphis for one season, then moved to Nashville in 1998 and played in Vanderbilt Stadium for one season. During those two years, the team was known as the Tennessee Oilers, but changed its name to Titans in 1999. The team now plays at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, which opened in 1999. Since moving to Nashville, the Titans have won five division championships (2000, 2002, 2008, 2020, and 2021) and one conference championship (1999). They competed in 1999's Super Bowl XXXIV, losing to the St. Louis Rams, 23–16. The city previously hosted the 1939 Nashville Rebels of the American Football League and two Arena Football League teams named the Nashville Kats (1997–2001 and 2005–2007).
From April 25–27, 2019, Nashville hosted the 2019 NFL draft, which saw an estimated 200,000 fans attend each day.
The Nashville Predators joined the National Hockey League as an expansion team in the 1998–99 season. The team plays its home games at Bridgestone Arena. The Predators have won two division championships (2017–18 and 2018–19) and one conference championship (2016–17).
Nashville SC, a Major League Soccer franchise, began play in 2020 at Nissan Stadium. It moved into the newly completed soccer-specific stadium Geodis Park at the Nashville Fairgrounds in 2022.
The Nashville Sounds baseball team was established in 1978 as an expansion franchise of the Double-A Southern League. The Sounds won the league championship in 1979 and 1982. In 1985, the Double-A Sounds were replaced by a Triple-A team of the American Association. After the circuit dissolved in 1997, they joined the Triple-A Pacific Coast League in 1998 and won the league championship in 2005. The Sounds left their original ballpark, Herschel Greer Stadium, in 2015 for First Horizon Park, a new ballpark built on the site of the former Sulphur Dell ballpark. In 2021, they were placed in the Triple-A East, which became the International League in 2022. In total, the Sounds have won eleven division titles and three league championships.
The Music City Fire, an arena football team of the American Arena League began play at the Williamson County AgExpo Park in 2020.
Nashville is the home of the second-oldest continually operating racetrack in the United States, the Fairgrounds Speedway. It hosted NASCAR Winston Cup races from 1958 to 1984, NASCAR Busch Series and NASCAR Truck Series in the 1980s and 1990s, and later the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and ARCA Racing Series.
Nashville Superspeedway is located 30 mi (48 km) southeast of Nashville in Gladeville, part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area. The track held NASCAR sanctioned events from 2001 to 2011 as well as IndyCar races from 2001 to 2008. Nashville Superspeedway reopened in 2021 and hosts the premier NASCAR Cup Series race Ally 400 annually.
The Nashville Invitational was a golf tournament on the PGA Tour from 1944 to 1946. The Sara Lee Classic was part of the LPGA Tour from 1988 to 2002. The BellSouth Senior Classic of the Champions Tour was held from 1994 to 2003. The Nashville Golf Open is part of the Web.com Tour since 2016. The 1961 Women's Western Open and 1980 U.S. Women's Open were also held in Nashville.
College and amateur
Nashville is also home to four Division I athletic programs. Nashville is also home to the NCAA college football Music City Bowl.
Nashville Roller Derby is Nashville's only women's flat track roller derby team. Established in 2006, Nashville Roller Derby competes on a regional and national level. They play their home games at the Nashville Fairgrounds Sports Arena. In 2014, they hosted the WFTDA Championships at Municipal Auditorium.
The Nashville Kangaroos are an Australian Rules Football team that compete in the United States Australian Football League. The Kangaroos play their home games at Elmington Park. The team is the reigning USAFL Central Region Champions.
Three Little League Baseball teams from Nashville (one in 1970; one in 2013; and, one in 2014) have qualified for the Little League World Series. Teams from neighboring Goodlettsville qualified for the 2012 and 2016 series, giving the metropolitan area teams in three consecutive years to so qualify; and four teams in five years.
Parks and gardens
Metro Board of Parks and Recreation owns and manages 10,200 acres (4,100 ha) of land and 99 parks and greenways (accounting for more than 3% of the total area of the county).
Warner Parks, situated on 2,684 acres (1,086 ha) of land, consists of a 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) learning center, 20 miles (32 km) of scenic roads, 12 miles (19 km) of hiking trails, and 10 miles (16 km) of horse trails. It is also the home of the annual Iroquois Steeplechase.
The United States Army Corps of Engineers maintains parks on Old Hickory Lake and Percy Priest Lake. These parks are used for activities such as fishing, water skiing, sailing and boating. The Harbor Island Yacht Club makes its headquarters on Old Hickory Lake, and Percy Priest Lake is home to the Vanderbilt Sailing Club and Nashville Shores.
Other parks in Nashville include Centennial Park, Shelby Park, Cumberland Park, and Radnor Lake State Natural Area.
On August 27, 2013, Nashville mayor Karl Dean revealed plans for two new riverfront parks on the east and west banks of the Cumberland River downtown. Construction on the east bank park began in the fall of 2013, and the projected completion date for the west bank park is 2015. Among many exciting benefits of this Cumberland River re-development project is the construction of a highly anticipated outdoor amphitheater. Located on the west bank, this music venue will be surrounded by a new 12-acre (4.9 ha) park and will replace the previous thermal plant site. It will include room for 6,500 spectators with 2,500 removable seats and additional seating on an overlooking grassy knoll. In addition, the 4.5-acre (1.8 ha) east bank park will include a river landing, providing people access to the river. In regard to the parks' benefits for Nashvillian civilians, Mayor Dean remarked that "if done right, the thermal site can be an iconic park that generations of Nashvillians will be proud of and which they can enjoy".
Law and government
The city of Nashville and Davidson County merged in 1963 as a way for Nashville to combat the problems of urban sprawl. The combined entity is officially known as "the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County", and is popularly known as "Metro Nashville" or simply "Metro". It offers services such as police, fire, electricity, water and sewage treatment. When the Metro government was formed in 1963, the government was split into two service districts—the "urban services district" and the "general services district." The urban services district encompasses the 1963 boundaries of the former City of Nashville, approximately 72 square miles (190 km2), and the general services district includes the remainder of Davidson County. There are six smaller municipalities within the consolidated city-county: Belle Meade, Berry Hill, Forest Hills, Oak Hill, Goodlettsville (partially), and Ridgetop (partially). These municipalities use a two-tier system of government, with the smaller municipality typically providing police services and the Metro Nashville government providing most other services. Previously, the city of Lakewood also had a separate charter. However, Lakewood residents voted in 2010 and 2011 to dissolve its city charter and join the metropolitan government, with both votes passing.
Nashville is governed by a mayor, vice-mayor, and 40-member Metropolitan Council. It uses the strong-mayor form of the mayor–council system. The current mayor of Nashville is Freddie O’Connell. The Metropolitan Council is the legislative body of government for Nashville and Davidson County. There are five council members who are elected at large and 35 council members that represent individual districts. The Metro Council has regular meetings that are presided over by the vice-mayor, who is currently Jim Shulman. The Metro Council meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 6:00 pm, according to the Metropolitan Charter.
Nashville is home to the Tennessee Supreme Court's courthouse for Middle Tennessee and the Estes Kefauver Federal Building and United States Courthouse, home of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Politics
Nashville has been a Democratic stronghold since at least the end of Reconstruction, and has remained staunchly Democratic even as the state as a whole has trended strongly Republican. Pockets of Republican influence exist in the wealthier portions of the city, but they are usually no match for the overwhelming Democratic trend in the rest of the city. The issue of school busing roiled politics for years but subsided after the 1990s. While local elections are officially nonpartisan, nearly all the city's elected officials are publicly known as Democrats. The city is split among 10 state house districts, all of which are held by Democrats. Three state senate districts and part of a fourth are within the county; three are held by Democrats and one by a Republican.
In the state legislature, Nashville politicians serve as leaders of both the Senate and House Democratic Caucuses. Representative Mike Stewart serves as Chairman of the House Caucus. Senator Jeff Yarbro serves as Chairman of the Senate Caucus.
Democrats are no less dominant at the federal level. Democratic presidential candidates have failed to carry Davidson County only five times since Reconstruction; in 1928, 1968, 1972, 1984 and 1988. In most years, Democrats have carried Nashville at the presidential level with relatively little difficulty, even in years when they lose Tennessee as a whole. This has been especially true in recent elections, as the state capitol has continued to trend more Democratic even as most of the rest of the state has become staunchly Republican. In the 2000 presidential election, Tennessean Democrat Al Gore carried Nashville with over 59% of the vote even as he narrowly lost his home state and thus the presidency. In the 2004 election, Democrat John Kerry carried Nashville with 55% of the vote while George W. Bush won the state by 14 points. In 2008, Barack Obama carried Nashville with 60% of the vote while Republican John McCain won Tennessee by 15 points.
Nashville was in a single congressional district, the 5th, for most of its history. A Republican had not represented a significant portion of Nashville since 1874, until 2023 when the GOP-controlled state legislature controversially split Nashville into parts of the 5th, 6th, and 7th districts in a partisan gerrymander an additional Republican to Tennessee's congressional delegation as part of the 2022 redistricting cycle. This Republican gerrymander ‘cracked’ the Democratic stronghold of Nashville across three otherwise Republican districts, ensuring three Republican representatives. This gerrymander ‘diminished the influence of Black voters and other voters of color concentrated in Nashville’, by splitting them up and adding portions of the Nashville community into districts that are overwhelmingly white and Republican, thus diluting the voting power of Black voters in the state.
Prior to this gerrymander, Republicans made a few spirited challenges to the 5th district in the mid-1960s and early 1970s, almost winning the district in 1968. The last serious bid for the district while still a Democratic stronghold was in 1972, when the Republican candidate gained 38% of the vote even as Nixon carried the district in the presidential election by a large margin. The district's best-known congressman was probably Jo Byrns, who represented the district from 1909 to 1936 and was Speaker of the House for much of Franklin Roosevelt's first term as president. Another nationally prominent congressman from Nashville was Percy Priest, who represented the district from 1941 to 1956 and was House Majority Whip from 1949 to 1953. Former mayors Richard Fulton and Bill Boner also sat in the U.S. House before assuming the Metro mayoral office.
From 2003 to 2013, a sliver of southwestern Nashville was located in the 7th District, represented by Republican Marsha Blackburn. This area was roughly coextensive with the portion of Nashville she had represented in the state senate from 1998 to 2002. However, the 5th regained all of Nashville after the 2010 census.
Crime
According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting database, Metropolitan Nashville has a violent crime rate approximately three times the national average, and a property crime rate approximately 1.6 times the average. The following table shows Nashville's crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants for seven UCR categories.
Education
The city is served by Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, also referred to as Metro Schools. This district is the second largest school district in Tennessee, and enrolls approximately 85,000 students at 169 schools. In addition, Nashville is home to numerous private schools, including Montgomery Bell Academy, Harpeth Hall School, University School of Nashville, Lipscomb Academy, The Ensworth School, Christ Presbyterian Academy, Father Ryan High School, Pope John Paul II High School, Franklin Road Academy, Davidson Academy, Nashville Christian School, Donelson Christian Academy, and St. Cecilia Academy. Combined, all of the private schools in Nashville enroll more than 15,000 students.
Colleges and universities
Nashville has been labeled the "Athens of the South" due to the many colleges and universities in the metropolitan area. Total enrollment in post-secondary education in Nashville is around 43,000.
The largest is Vanderbilt University, with about 13,000 students. Vanderbilt is considered one of the nation's leading research universities and is particularly known for its medical, law, and education programs.
Nashville is home to more historically Black institutions of higher education than any other city save for Atlanta, Georgia: Fisk University, Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College, and American Baptist College.
Other schools based in Nashville include Belmont University, Lipscomb University, Trevecca Nazarene University, John A. Gupton College. The Tennessee Board of Regents operates Nashville State Community College and the Nashville branch of the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology.
Other nearby institutes of higher education include Murfreesboro's Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and Clarksville's Austin Peay University, both full-sized public university with Tennessee's second- and eighth-largest undergraduate populations, respectively; Daymar College in Franklin; and Cumberland University in Lebanon.
Media
The daily newspaper in Nashville is The Tennessean, which until 1998 competed with the Nashville Banner, another daily paper that was housed in the same building under a joint-operating agreement. The Tennessean is the city's most widely circulated newspaper. Online news service NashvillePost.com competes with the printed dailies to break local and state news. Several weekly papers are also published in Nashville, including The Nashville Pride, Nashville Business Journal, Nashville Scene and The Tennessee Tribune. Historically, The Tennessean was associated with a broadly liberal editorial policy, while The Banner carried staunchly conservative views in its editorial pages; The Banner's heritage had been carried on, to an extent, by The City Paper which folded in August 2013 after having been founded in October 2000. The Nashville Scene is the area's alternative weekly broadsheet. The Nashville Pride is aimed towards community development and serves Nashville's entrepreneurial population. Nashville Post is an online news source covering business, politics and sports.
Nashville is home to eleven broadcast television stations, although most households are served by direct cable network connections. Comcast Cable has a monopoly on terrestrial cable service in Davidson County (but not throughout the entire media market). Nashville is ranked as the 26th largest television market in the United States. Major stations include WKRN-TV 2 (ABC), WSMV-TV 4 (NBC), WTVF 5 (CBS), WNPT 8 (PBS), WTNX-LD 15 (Telemundo), WZTV 17 (Fox, with The CW on DT2), WNPX-TV 28 (ion), WPGD-TV 50 (TBN), WLLC-LD 42 (Univision), WUXP-TV 30 (MyNetworkTV), (WJFB) 44 (MeTV), and WNAB 58 (Dabl).
Nashville is also home to cable networks Country Music Television (CMT) and RFD-TV, among others. CMT's master control facilities are located in New York City with other Viacom properties. The Top 20 Countdown and CMT Insider are taped in their Nashville studios. Shop at Home Network was once based in Nashville, but the channel signed off in 2008.
Several FM and AM radio stations broadcast in the Nashville area, including five college stations and one LPFM community radio station. Nashville is ranked as the 39th largest radio market in the United States. WSM-FM is owned by Cumulus Media and is 95.5 FM. WSM-AM, owned by Gaylord Entertainment Company, is based on the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. WSM is famous for carrying live broadcasts of the Grand Ole Opry, through which it helped spread the popularity of country music in America, and continues to broadcast country music throughout its broadcast day. WLAC, whose over-the-air signal is heard at 1510 AM, is an iHeartMedia-owned talk station which was originally sponsored by the Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee, and its competitor WWTN is owned by Cumulus.
Several major motion pictures have been filmed in Nashville, including The Green Mile, “The Matrix”, The Last Castle, Gummo, “Starman”, The Thing Called Love, Two Weeks, Coal Miner's Daughter, Nashville, and Country Strong, as well as the ABC television series Nashville.
Infrastructure
Transportation
According to the 2016 American Community Survey, 78.1% of working Nashville residents commuted by driving alone, 9.8% carpooled, 2% used public transportation, and 2.2% walked. About 1.1% used all other forms of transportation, including taxicab, motorcycle, and bicycle. About 6.7% of working Nashville residents worked at home. In 2015, 7.9% of city of Nashville households were without a car; this figure decreased to 5.9% in 2016. The national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Nashville averaged 1.72 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8 per household.
Highways
Nashville is centrally located at the crossroads of three Interstate Highways, I-40 (east-west), I-24 (northwest-southeast) and I-65 (north-south). I-40 connects the city between Memphis to the west and Knoxville to the east, I-24 connects between Clarksville to the northwest and Chattanooga to the southeast, and I-65 connects between Louisville to the north and Huntsville to the south. All three of these interstate highways, which also serve the suburbs, form brief concurrencies with each other in the city, and completely encircle downtown. I-440 is a bypass route connecting I-40, I-65, and I-24 south of Downtown Nashville. Briley Parkway, the majority of which is a freeway, forms a bypass around the north side of the city and its interstates. Ellington Parkway, a freeway made up of a section of US 31E, runs between east of downtown and Briley Parkway, serving as an alternative route to I-65. I-840 provides an outer southern bypass for the city and its suburbs. U.S. Routes 31, 31E, 31W, 31 Alternate, 41, 41 Alternate, 70, 70S, and 431 also serve Nashville, intersecting in the city's center as arterial surface roads and radiating outward. Most of these routes are called "pikes" and many carry the names of nearby towns to which they lead. Among these are Clarksville Pike, Gallatin Pike, Lebanon Pike, Murfreesboro Pike, Nolensville Pike, and Franklin Pike.
Public transit
WeGo Public Transit provides bus transit within the city. Routes utilize a hub and spoke method, centered around the Music City Central transit station in downtown. A rejected expansion plan included use of bus rapid transit and light rail service at some point in the future.
Nashville is considered a gateway city for rail and air traffic for the Piedmont Atlantic Megaregion.
Air
The city is served by Nashville International Airport (BNA), which is operated by the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority (MNAA). Nearly 23 million passengers visited the airport in 2023, making it the 29th busiest airport in the US. BNA is ranked the fastest growing airport among the top 50 airports in the United States. Nashville International Airport serves 600 daily flights to more than 100 nonstop markets.
In late 2014, BNA became the first major U.S. airport to establish dedicated pick-up and drop-off areas for vehicle for hire companies.
The airport authority also operates the John C. Tune Airport, a Class E airspace general aviation airport.
Intercity rail
Although a major freight hub for CSX Transportation, Nashville is not currently served by Amtrak, the third-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. to have this distinction. Nashville's Union Station had once been a major intercity passenger rail center for the Louisville and Nashville Railroad; Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway; and the Tennessee Central Railway, reaching Midwestern cities and cities on the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. However, by the time of Amtrak's founding, service had been cut back to a single train, the Floridian, which ran from Chicago to Miami and St. Petersburg, Florida. It served Union Station until its cancellation on October 9, 1979, due to poor track conditions resulting in late trains and low ridership, ending over 120 years of intercity rail service in Nashville.
While there have been few proposals to restore Amtrak service to Nashville, there have been repeated calls from residents. In addition to scarce federal funding, Tennessee state officials do not believe that Nashville is large enough to support intercity rail. "It would be wonderful to say I can be in Memphis and jump on a train to Nashville, but the volume of people who would do that isn't anywhere close to what the cost would be to provide the service," said Ed Cole, chief of environment and planning with the Tennessee Department of Transportation. Ross Capon, executive director of the National Association of Railroad Passengers, said rail trips would catch on if routes were expanded, but conceded that it would be nearly impossible to resume Amtrak service to Nashville without a substantial investment from the state. However, in 2020, Amtrak indicated it was considering a service that would run from Atlanta to Nashville by way of Chattanooga.
Nashville launched a passenger commuter rail system called the Music City Star (now the WeGo Star) on September 18, 2006. The only currently operational leg of the system connects the city of Lebanon to downtown Nashville at the Nashville Riverfront station. Legs to Clarksville, Murfreesboro and Gallatin are currently in the feasibility study stage. The system plan includes seven legs connecting Nashville to surrounding suburbs.
Bridges
Bridges within the city include:
Utilities
The city of Nashville owns the Nashville Electric Service (NES), Metro Water Services (MWS) and Nashville District Energy System (NDES). The Nashville Electric Service provides electricity to the entirety of Davidson County and small portions of the six adjacent counties, and purchases its power from the Tennessee Valley Authority. Metro Water Services provides water, wastewater, and stormwater to Nashville and the majority of Davidson County, as well as water services to small portions of Rutherford and Williamson counties, and wastewater services to small portions of all of the surrounding counties except for Cheatham County. MWS sources its water from the Cumberland River and operates two water treatment plants and three wastewater treatment plants. Ten additional utility companies provide water and sewer service to Nashville and Davidson County. The Nashville District Energy System provides heating and cooling services to certain buildings in downtown, including multiple government buildings. Natural gas is provided by Piedmont Natural Gas, a subsidiary of Duke Energy.
Healthcare
As a major center for the healthcare industry, Nashville is home to several hospitals and other primary care facilities. Most hospitals in Nashville are operated by Vanderbilt University Medical Center, the TriStar Division of Hospital Corporation of America, and Ascension Saint Thomas. The Metropolitan Nashville Hospital Authority operates Nashville General Hospital, which is affiliated with Meharry Medical College.
International relations
Sister cities
Nashville's sister cities are:
Candidates
Gwangjin (Seoul), South Korea
International Friendship City
Crouy, France
Municipality United in Friendship
El Port de la Selva, Spain
Consulates
Nashville is also home to consulates for the following countries:
Denmark
El Salvador
France (honorary)
Germany (honorary)
Guatemala
Ireland (honorary)
Japan
See also
List of people from Nashville, Tennessee
Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency
The Children, 1999 book about the Nashville Student Movement
National Register of Historic Places listings in Davidson County, Tennessee
USS Nashville, 3 ships
Notes
References
Bibliography
Barnes, Melville Marshall (1974) [1st pub. Foster & Webb, 1902]. Biographical Sketches and Pictures of Company B, Confederate Veterans of Nashville, Tenn. Illustrated by Giers' Art Gallery. Brentwood, Tennessee: Beverly Pearson Barnes.
Carey, Bill (2000). Fortunes, Fiddles, & Fried Chicken: A Nashville Business History. Franklin, Tennessee: Hillsboro Press. ISBN 1-57736-178-4.
Duke, Jan (2005). Historic Photos of Nashville. Nashville, Tennessee: Turner. ISBN 978-1-59652-184-1.
Durham, Walter T (2008). Nashville: The Occupied City, 1862–1863. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-57233-633-9.
Durham, Walter T (2008). Reluctant Partners: Nashville and the Union, 1863–1865. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-57233-634-6.
Egerton, John; et al., eds. (1979). Nashville: The Faces of Two Centuries, 1780–1980. Nashville, Tennessee: PlusMedia. LCCN 79089173. OCLC 5875892.
Egerton, John; et al., eds. (2001). Nashville: An American Self-Portrait. Nashville, Tennessee: Beaten Biscuit. ISBN 0-9706702-1-4.
Haugen, Ashley D (2009). Historic Photos of Nashville in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Nashville, Tennessee: Turner. ISBN 978-1-59652-539-9.
Houston, Benjamin (2012). The Nashville Way: Racial Etiquette and the Struggle for Social Justice in a Southern City. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-4327-3.
Lovett, Bobby L (1999). African-American History of Nashville, Tennessee, 1780–1930: Elites and Dilemmas. University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 1-55728-555-1.
McGuire, Jim (2007). Historic Photos of the Opry: Ryman Auditorium, 1974. Nashville, Tennessee: Turner. ISBN 978-1-59652-373-9.
Potter, Susanna H (2008). Nashville & Memphis. Moon Handbooks. Berkeley, California: Avalon Travel. ISBN 978-1-59880-102-6.
Romine, Linda (2006). Nashville & Memphis. Frommer Guides (7th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: Frommer's. ISBN 0-471-77614-9.
Spinney, Robert Guy (May 1, 1998). World War II in Nashville: Transformation of the Homefront. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 978-1-57233-004-7.
Winders, Jamie (2013). Nashville in the New Millennium: Immigrant Settlement, Urban Transformation, and Social Belonging. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ISBN 978-1-61044-802-4.
Wooldridge, John; et al., eds. (1890). History of Nashville, Tennessee. Nashville, Tennessee: Methodist Episcopal Church, South. LCCN 76027605. OCLC 316211313.
Zepp, George R (2009). Hidden History of Nashville. Charleston, South Carolina: History Press. ISBN 978-1-59629-792-0.
External links
Government
Official website Archived February 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
Other
Nashville Convention & Visitors Bureau Archived October 3, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce Archived January 6, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
Metropolitan Archives of Nashville and Davidson County
Nashville/Davidson County timeline from the Nashville Public Library |
Life_%26_Casualty_Tower | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_%26_Casualty_Tower | [
357
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_%26_Casualty_Tower"
] | The Life & Casualty Tower (also known as the L & C Tower) is a skyscraper in Nashville, Tennessee located at 401 Church Street. It stands 152.5 meters (409 ft) and has 30 floors. It was designed by Edwin A. Keeble, with structural engineering done by Ross Bryan Associates, and was finished in 1957. It was Nashville's first true skyscraper and the tallest in Tennessee until 1965, when 100 North Main Street in Memphis surpassed it.
Exterior materials are limestone, granite, and bright green glass windows. Intersecting curves and angles at the building's base focus attention on the entrance, which angles out to the corner of Church Street and 4th Avenue.
In the building's early days, the L&C sign at its apex functioned as a weather beacon, changing color to indicate the weather forecast.
See also
Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee
List of tallest buildings in Nashville
References
External links
Emporis Listing[usurped] |
Maurice_Koechlin | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Koechlin | [
358
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Koechlin"
] | Maurice Koechlin (3 June 1856 – 14 January 1946) was a Franco-Swiss structural engineer from the Koechlin family.
Life
A member of the renowned Alsatian Koechlin family, he was born in Buhl, Haut-Rhin, the son of Jean Koechlin and his wife Anne Marie (Anaïs), née Beuck. He was the first cousin once removed of André Koechlin, and the great-grandfather of actress Kalki Koechlin.
When France lost the Franco-Prussian war to Prussia in 1871 the entire Koechlin family decided to become citizens of Switzerland and thus dropped French citizenship. After the defeat of the German Empire in 1918, however, the Koechlin family again applied for French citizenship.
Maurice attended the lycée in Mulhouse, then between 1873 and 1877 studied civil engineering at the Polytechnikum Zürich under Carl Culmann. In 1876 he became a citizen of Zurich ("Zürcher Bürger") Between 1877 and 1879 he worked for the French railway company "Chemin de Fer de l'Est".
Much of his work was done for Gustave Eiffel's "Compagnie des établissements Eiffel", which Koechlin joined in 1879. In 1886 Maurice married Emma Rossier (1867-1965). They had six children: three sons and three daughters. Maurice and Emma were lifelong members of the Plymouth Brethren.
In 1887 he started work on his plans for the "Tour de 300 mètres" in Paris, along with his younger brother Henri Koechlin and civil engineer Émile Nouguier. Maurice Koechlin became the Managing Director of Eiffel's company when Eiffel retired from the engineering profession in 1893. The company was renamed Société de construction de Levallois-Perret.
Maurice Koechlin died in 1946 in Veytaux, Switzerland in a house built by himself in 1900.
Major designs
Major structural designs include:
Garabit viaduct, (1880–1884);
Armature for the Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World) - in collaboration with Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, (1884); and
Eiffel Tower, (1887–1889).
Honours and legacy
Officer of the Légion d'honneur.
Though named after a project of Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower – symbol of Paris – has its structural concept and form from the responsible chief engineer Maurice Koechlin.
Koechlin was an engineer of outstanding ingenuity and well versed in the structural techniques of his time. He possessed therefore the best qualifications for evolving such technically innovative conceptions for which Eiffel and his firm were renowned.
Descendants
Kalki Koechlin, a French actress based in India, is a descendant of Maurice Koechlin
Pedro Koechlin von Stein, a businessman in Peru (owner of Wayra PeruMaria Violeta Koechlin Venturo Lima Peru
Bibliography
Koechlin, S. (2007a). "Maurice Koechlin". Site de la famile Koechlin (in French). Retrieved 2007-08-13.
Koechlin, S. (2007b). "Maurice Koechlin et la Tour Eiffel". Site de la famile Koechlin (in French). Retrieved 2007-08-13.
Picon, A. (1997). L'art de l'ingénieur. Paris: Éditions du Centre Georges Pompidou. p. 253. ISBN 2-85850-911-5.
Trautz, M. (2002). "Maurice Koechlin Der eigentliche Erfinder des Eiffelturms" (PDF). Deutsche Bauzeitung. 136{4}: 105–111. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-05-08. (in German)
Walbrach, K. F. (2006). "Ohne ihn gäbe es keinen Eiffelturm: Maurice Koechlin (1856-1946)". Bautechnik. 83 (4): 271–284. doi:10.1002/bate.200610025. S2CID 109267234. (in German)
Bergier, J.-F.; Fabre-Koechlin, M.; Dubas, P. (1990). "Dipl.Ing. Maurice Koechlin und der Eiffelturm" (PDF). Schriftenreihe der ETH-Bibliothek. 27. (in German and French)
Notes
External links
"Maurice Koechlin". Nicolas Janberg's Structurae. Retrieved 2007-08-13. |
Legion_of_Honour | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Honour | [
358
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Honour#Legal_status_and_leadership"
] | The National Order of the Legion of Honour (French: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur [ɔʁdʁ nɑsjɔnal də la leʒjɔ̃ dɔnœʁ] ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (Ordre impérial de la Légion d'honneur), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil, and currently comprises five classes. Established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, it has been retained (with occasional slight alterations) by all later French governments and regimes.
The order's motto is Honneur et Patrie ("Honour and Fatherland"); its seat is the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur next to the Musée d'Orsay, on the left bank of the Seine in Paris. Since 1 February 2023, the Order's grand chancellor has been retired General François Lecointre, who succeeded fellow retired General Benoît Puga in office.
The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction: Chevalier (Knight), Officier (Officer), Commandeur (Commander), Grand officier (Grand Officer) and Grand-croix (Grand Cross).
History
Consulate
During the French Revolution, all of the French orders of chivalry were abolished and replaced with Weapons of Honour. It was the wish of Napoleon Bonaparte, the First Consul, to create a reward to commend civilians and soldiers. From this wish was instituted a Légion d'honneur, a body of men that was not an order of chivalry, for Napoleon believed that France wanted a recognition of merit rather than a new system of nobility. However, the Légion d'honneur did use the organization of the old French orders of chivalry, for example, the Ordre de Saint-Louis. The insignia of the Légion d'honneur bear a resemblance to those of the Ordre de Saint-Louis, which also used a red ribbon.
Napoleon originally created this award to ensure political loyalty. The organization would be used as a façade to give political favours, gifts, and concessions. The Légion d'honneur was loosely patterned after a Roman legion, with legionaries, officers, commanders, regional "cohorts" and a grand council. The highest rank was not a Grand Cross but a Grand aigle (Grand Eagle), a rank that wore the insignia common to a Grand Cross. The members were paid, the highest of them extremely generously:
5,000 francs to a grand officier,
2,000 francs to a commandeur,
1,000 francs to an officier,
250 francs to a légionnaire.
Napoleon famously declared, "You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led... Do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning? Never. That is good only for the scholar in his study. The soldier needs glory, distinctions, rewards." This has been often quoted as "It is with such baubles that men are led." Napoleon was also occasionally noted after a battle to ask who the bravest man in a regiment was, and upon the regiment declaring the individual, the Emperor would take the Legion d'Honneur of his own coat and pin it on the chest of the man.
The order was the first modern order of merit. Under the monarchy, such orders were often limited to Roman Catholics, all knights had to be noblemen, and military decorations were restricted to officers. The Légion d'honneur, however, was open to men of all ranks and professions; only merit or bravery counted. The new legionnaire had to be sworn into the Légion d'honneur.
All previous orders were Christian, or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Légion d'honneur is a secular institution. The badge of the Légion d'honneur has five arms.
First Empire
In a decree issued on the 10 Pluviôse XIII (30 January 1805), a grand decoration was instituted. This decoration, a cross on a large sash and a silver star with an eagle, symbol of the Napoleonic Empire, became known as the Grand aigle (Grand Eagle), and later in 1814 as the Grand cordon (big sash, literally "big ribbon"). After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and established the Napoleonic nobility in 1808, award of the Légion d'honneur gave right to the title of "Knight of the Empire" (Chevalier de l'Empire). The title was made hereditary after three generations of grantees.
Napoleon had dispensed 15 golden collars of the Légion d'honneur among his family and his senior ministers. This collar was abolished in 1815.
Although research is made difficult by the loss of the archives, it is rumoured that three women who fought with the army were decorated with the order: Virginie Ghesquière, Marie-Jeanne Schelling and a nun, Sister Anne Biget.
The Légion d'honneur was prominent and visible in the French Empire. The Emperor always wore it, and the fashion of the time allowed for decorations to be worn most of the time. The king of Sweden therefore declined the order; it was too common in his eyes. Napoleon's own decorations were captured by the Prussians and were displayed in the Zeughaus (armoury) in Berlin until 1945. Today, they are in Moscow.
Restoration of the Bourbon King of France in 1814
Louis XVIII changed the appearance of the order, but it was not abolished. To have done so would have angered the 35,000 to 38,000 members. The images of Napoleon and his eagle were removed and replaced by the image of King Henry IV, the popular first king of the Bourbon line. Three Bourbon fleurs-de-lys replaced the eagle on the reverse of the order. A king's crown replaced the imperial crown. In 1816, the grand cordons were renamed grand crosses and the legionnaires became knights. The king decreed that the commandants were now commanders. The Légion d'honneur became the second-ranking order of knighthood of the French monarchy, after the Order of the Holy Spirit.
July Monarchy
Following the overthrow of the Bourbons in favour of King Louis Philippe I of the House of Orléans, the Bourbon monarchy's orders were once again abolished and the Légion d'honneur was restored in 1830 as the paramount decoration of the French nation. The insignia were drastically altered; the cross now displayed tricolour flags. In 1847, there were 47,000 members.
Second Republic
Yet another revolution in Paris (in 1848) brought a new republic (the second) and a new design to the Légion d'honneur. A nephew of the founder, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, was elected president and he restored the image of his uncle on the crosses of the order. In 1852, the first recorded woman, Angélique Duchemin, an old revolutionary of the 1789 uprising against the absolute monarchy, was admitted into the order. On 2 December 1851, President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte staged a coup d'état with the help of the armed forces. He made himself Emperor of the French exactly one year later on 2 December 1852, after a successful plebiscite.
Second Empire
An Imperial crown was added. During Napoleon III's reign, the first American was admitted: Thomas Wiltberger Evans, dentist of Napoleon III.
Third Republic
In 1870, the defeat of the French Imperial Army in the Franco-Prussian War brought the end of the Empire and the creation of the Third Republic (1871–1940). As France changed, the Légion d'honneur changed as well. The crown was replaced by a laurel and oak wreath. In 1871, during the Paris Commune uprising, the Hôtel de Salm, headquarters of the Légion d'honneur, was burned to the ground in fierce street combats; the archives of the order were lost.
In the second term of President Jules Grévy, which started in 1885, newspaper journalists brought to light the trafficking of Grévy's son-in-law, Daniel Wilson, in the awarding of decorations of the Légion d'honneur. Grévy was not accused of personal participation in this scandal, but he was slow to accept his indirect political responsibility, which caused his eventual resignation on 2 December 1887.
During World War I, some 55,000 decorations were conferred, 20,000 of which went to foreigners. The large number of decorations resulted from the new posthumous awards authorised in 1918. Traditionally, membership in the Légion d'honneur could not be awarded posthumously.
Fourth and Fifth Republics
The establishment of the Fourth Republic in 1946 brought about the latest change in the design of the Legion of Honour. The date "1870" on the obverse was replaced by a single star. No changes were made after the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958.
Organisation
Legal status and leadership
The Legion of Honour is a national order of France, meaning a public incorporated body. The Legion is regulated by a civil law code, the "Code of the Legion of Honour and of the Military Medal". While the President of the French Republic is the Grand Master of the order, day-to-day running is entrusted to the Grand Chancery (Grande Chancellerie de la Légion d'honneur).
Grand Master
Since the establishment of the Legion, the Grand Master of the order has always been the Emperor, King or President of France. President Emmanuel Macron therefore became the Grand Master of the Legion on 14 May 2017.
The Grand Master appoints all other members of the order, on the advice of the French government. The Grand Master's insignia is the Grand Collar of the Legion. The President of the Republic, as Grand Master of the order, receives the Collar as part of his investiture, but the Grand Masters have not worn the Collar since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
The Grand Chancery
The Grand Chancery is headed by the Grand Chancellor (grand chancelier), usually a retired general, as well as the Secretary-General (secrétaire général), a civilian administrator.
Grand Chancellor: General François Lecointre (since 2023)
Secretary-General: Julien Le Gars (since 2023)
The Grand Chancery also regulates the National Order of Merit and the médaille militaire (Military Medal). There are several structures funded by and operated under the authority of the Grand Chancery, like the Legion of Honour Schools (Maisons d'éducation de la Légion d'honneur) and the Legion of Honour Museum (Musée de la Légion d'honneur). The Legion of Honour Schools are élite boarding schools in Saint-Denis and Camp des Loges in the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Study there is restricted to daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of members of the order, the médaille militaire or the ordre national du Mérite.
Membership
There are five classes in the Legion of Honour:
Chevalier (Knight): minimum 20 years of public service or 25 years of professional activity with "eminent merits"
Officier (Officer): minimum 8 years in the rank of Chevalier
Commandeur (Commander): minimum 5 years in the rank of Officier
Grand officier (Grand Officer): minimum 3 years in the rank of Commandeur
Grand-croix (Grand Cross): minimum 3 years in the rank of Grand-officier
The "eminent merits" required to be awarded the order require the flawless performance of one's trade as well as doing more than ordinarily expected, such as being creative, zealous and contributing to the growth and well-being of others.
The order has a maximum quota of 75 Grand Cross, 250 Grand Officers, 1,250 Commanders, 10,000 Officers, and 113,425 (ordinary) Knights. As of 2010, the actual membership was 67 Grand Cross, 314 Grand Officers, 3,009 Commanders, 17,032 Officers and 74,384 Knights. Appointments of veterans of World War II, French military personnel involved in the North African Campaign and other foreign French military operations, as well as wounded soldiers, are made independently of the quota.
Members convicted of a felony (crime in French) are automatically dismissed from the order. Members convicted of a misdemeanour (délit in French) can be dismissed as well, although this is not automatic.
Wearing the decoration of the Légion d'honneur without having the right to do so is a serious offence. Wearing the ribbon or rosette of a foreign order is prohibited if that ribbon is mainly red, like the ribbon of the Legion of Honour. French military personnel in uniform must salute other military members in uniform wearing the medal, whatever the Légion d'honneur rank and the military rank of the bearer. This is not mandatory with the ribbon. In practice, however, this is rarely done.
There is not a single, complete list of all the members of the Legion in chronological order. The number is estimated at one million, including about 2,900 Knights Grand Cross.
French nationals
French nationals, men and women, can be received into the Légion, for "eminent merit" (mérites éminents) in military or civil life. In practice, in current usage, the order is conferred on entrepreneurs, high-level civil servants, scientists, artists, including famous actors and actresses, sport champions, and others with connections in the executive. Members of the French Parliament cannot receive the order, except for valour in war, and ministers are not allowed to nominate their accountants.
Until 2008, French nationals could only enter the Legion of Honour at the class of Chevalier (Knight). To be promoted to a higher class, one had to perform new eminent services in the interest of France and a set number of years had to pass between appointment and promotion. This was however amended in 2008 when entry became possible at Officer, Commander and Grand Officer levels, as a recognition of "extraordinary careers" (carrières hors du commun). In 2009, Simone Veil became the first person to enter the Order at Grand Officer level. Veil was a member of the Académie française, a former Health Minister and President of the European Parliament, as well as an Auschwitz survivor. She was promoted to Grand Cross in 2012.
Every year at least five recipients decline the award. Even if they refuse to accept it, they are still included in the order's official membership. The composers Maurice Ravel and Charles Koechlin, for example, declined the award when it was offered to them.
Non-French recipients
While membership in the Légion is technically restricted to French nationals, foreign nationals who have served France or the ideals it upholds may receive the honour. Foreign nationals who live in France are subject to the same requirements as the French. Foreign nationals who live abroad may be awarded a distinction of any rank or dignity in the Légion. Foreign heads of state and their spouses or consorts of monarchs are made Grand Cross as a courtesy. American and British veterans who served in either World War on French soil, or during the 1944 campaigns to liberate France, may be eligible for appointment as Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, provided they were still living when the honour was approved.
Collective awards
Collective appointments can be made to cities, institutions or companies. A total of 64 settlements in France have been decorated, as well as six foreign cities: Liège in 1914, Belgrade in 1920, Luxembourg City in 1957, Volgograd (the World War II 'Stalingrad') in 1984, Algiers in 2004, and London in 2020. French towns display the decoration in their municipal coat of arms.
Organisations to receive the honour include the French Red Cross (Croix-Rouge Française), the Abbaye de Nôtre-Dame des Dombes (Abbey of Notre-Dame des Dombes), the French National Railway Company (SNCF, Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français), the Préfecture de Police de la Ville de Paris (Prefecture of Police of Paris), and various Grandes Écoles (National (Elite) Colleges) and other educational establishments.
Military awards
The military distinctions (Légion d'honneur à titre militaire) are awarded for bravery (actions de guerre) or for service.
award for extreme bravery: the Légion d'Honneur is awarded jointly with a mention in dispatches. This is the top valour award in France. It is rarely awarded, mainly to soldiers who have died in battle.
award for service: the Légion is awarded without any citation.
French service-members
For active-duty commissioned officers, the Legion of Honour award for service is achieved after 20 years of meritorious service, having been awarded the rank of Chevalier of the Ordre National du Mérite. Bravery awards lessen the time needed for the award—in fact decorated servicemen become directly chevaliers of the Légion d'Honneur, skipping the Ordre du Mérite. NCOs almost never achieve that award, except for the most heavily decorated service members.
Collective military awards
Collective appointments can be made to military units. In the case of a military unit, its flag is decorated with the insignia of a knight, which is a different award from the fourragère. Twenty-one schools, mainly schools providing reserve officers during the World Wars, were awarded the Légion d'Honneur. Foreign military units can be decorated with the order, such as the U.S. Military Academy.
The Flag or Standard of the following units was decorated with the Cross of a Knight of the Legion of Honour:
1st Foreign Regiment
1st Marine Artillery Regiment
1st Marine Infantry Regiment
1st Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment
1st Photographic Technical Unit (USAAF Forward-deployed Reconnaissance Unit)
1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment
1st Regiment of African Chasseurs
1st Regiment of Algerian Tirailleurs
1st Regiment of Riflemen
1st Regiment of Senegalese Tirailleurs
1st Train Regiment
2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment
2nd Marine Infantry Regiment
2nd Regiment of Algerian Tirailleurs
2nd Regiment of Zouaves
3rd Algerian Infantry Regiment
3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment
3rd Regiment of Zouaves
4th Tunisian Tirailleurs Regiment
4th Regiment of Zouaves
Joint 4th Regiment of Zouaves and Tirailleurs
7th Algerian Infantry Regiment
8th Infantry Regiment
8th Zouaves Regiment
9th Regiment of Zouaves
11th Marine Artillery Regiment
23rd Infantry Regiment
23rd Marine Infantry Regiment
24th Marine Infantry Regiment
26th Infantry Regiment
30th Battalion of Chasseurs
43rd Marine Infantry Regiment
51st Infantry Regiment
57th Infantry Regiment
112th Line Infantry Regiment (French infantry regiment consisting of mostly Belgians, known as "The Victors of Raab")
137th Infantry Regiment
152nd Infantry Regiment
153rd Infantry Regiment
298th Infantry Regiment
Fighter Squadron 1/30 Normandie-Niemen
Fusiliers Marins (Naval Infantry)
Moroccan Goumier
Paris Fire Brigade
Régiment d'infanterie-chars de marine (Colonial Infantry Regiment of Morocco). Book of the regiment will be fighting its most decorated emblem of the French army.
Classes and insignia
The order has had five levels since the reign of King Louis XVIII, who restored the order in 1815. Since the reform, the following distinctions have existed:
Three ranks:
Chevalier (Knight): badge worn on left breast suspended from ribbon
Officier (Officer): badge worn on left breast suspended from a ribbon with a rosette
Commandeur (Commander): badge around neck suspended from ribbon necklet
Two dignities:
Grand officier (Grand Officer): badge worn on left breast suspended from a ribbon (Officer), with star displayed on right breast
Grand-croix (Grand Cross), formerly Grande décoration, Grand aigle, or Grand cordon: the highest level; badge affixed to sash worn over the right shoulder, with star displayed on left breast
Due to the order's long history, and the remarkable fact that it has been retained by all subsequent governments and regimes since the First Empire, the order's design has undergone many changes. Although the basic shape and structure of the insignia has remained generally the same, the hanging device changed back and forth and France itself swung back and forth between republic and monarchy. The central disc in the centre has also changed to reflect the political system and leadership of France at the time. As each new regime came along the design was altered to become politically correct for the time, sometimes even changed multiple times during one historical era.
The badge of the Légion is shaped as a five-armed "Maltese Asterisk", using five distinctive "arrowhead" shaped arms inspired by the Maltese Cross. The badge is rendered in gilt (in silver for chevalier) enameled white, with an enameled laurel and oak wreath between the arms. The obverse central disc is in gilt, featuring the head of Marianne, surrounded by the legend République Française on a blue enamel ring. The reverse central disc is also in gilt, with a set of crossed tricolores, surrounded by the Légion's motto Honneur et Patrie ('Honour and Fatherland') and its foundation date on a blue enamel ring. The badge is suspended by an enameled laurel and oak wreath.
The star (or plaque) is worn by the Grand Cross (in gilt on the left chest) and the Grand Officer (in silver on the right chest) respectively; it is similar to the badge, but without enamel, and with the wreath replaced by a cluster of rays in between each arm. The central disc features the head of Marianne, surrounded by the legend République Française ('French Republic') and the motto Honneur et Patrie.
The ribbon for the medal is plain red.
The badge or star is not usually worn, except at the time of the decoration ceremony or on a dress uniform or formal wear. Instead, one normally wears the ribbon or rosette on their suit.
For less formal occasions, recipients wear a simple stripe of thread sewn onto the lapel (red for chevaliers and officiers, silver for commandeurs). Except when wearing a dark suit with a lapel, women instead typically wear a small lapel pin called a barrette. Recipients purchase the special thread and barrettes at a store in Paris near the Palais-Royal.
Gallery
See also: Category:Legion of Honour in heraldry
See also
List of Légion d'honneur recipients by name
List of British recipients of the Légion d'Honneur for the Crimean War
List of foreign recipients of the Légion d'Honneur
Musée national de la Légion d'honneur et des ordres de chevalerie
Ribbons of the French military and civil awards
References and notes
Notes
Citations
External links
Official website
Code de la légion d'honneur et de la médaille militaire, legifrance.gouv.fr (in French)
Base Léonore, recensement des récipiendaires de la Légion d'honneur (décédés avant 1977), on the website of the French Ministry of Culture (in French)
"Legion of Honor" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905. |
Alastair_Galbraith | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Galbraith | [
359
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Galbraith"
] | Alastair Galbraith (born 1965) is a New Zealand musician and sound artist from Dunedin.
Career
Galbraith's first band was The Rip, which he formed with Robbie Muir, and Mathew Ransome and later Jeff Harford (of Bored Games). They released two EPs on the Flying Nun label. Later he formed Plagal Grind, with Robbie Muir, Jono Lonie, David Mitchell (of Goblin Mix and The 3Ds) and Peter Jefferies (of This Kind Of Punishment and Nocturnal Projections).
Galbraith's solo career has included numerous early cassettes and 7"s on Bruce Russell's (The Dead C) Xpressway label, as well as albums on labels such as Siltbreeze, Emperor Jones, Time Lag, Feel Good All Over and Table of the Elements. He has also recorded ten albums with Bruce Russell under the name A Handful of Dust.
In 1999, he began a collaboration with Matt De Gennaro when the two toured New Zealand Public Art Galleries converting them into giant soundboxes by stroking tensioned wires fixed to the buildings' structural supports.
In 2002, he designed and built a glass-tube fire organ, during an arts residency in Whanganui.
In 2006, he released Waves and Particles a collaboration with Maxine Funke (The Snares) and Mike Dooley (The Enemy, Toy Love, Snapper) as The Hundred Dollar Band. There was also the release of Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 2 and the reissue of his early albums Morse/Gaudylight and Talisman by U.S. label Table of the Elements.
Later that year he was awarded an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award and released Belsayer Time, a collaboration with Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson.
In 2007, Galbraith built a treadle-powered glass harmonium and released orb a solo album on his own Nextbestway label.
Discography
The Rip:
1984 – A Timeless Peace EP (NZ Flying Nun Records)
1987 – Stormed Port EP (NZ Flying Nun Records)
Plagal Grind:
1990 – Plagal Grind EP (NZ Xpressway)
Solo:
Long Playng & Cassette
1987 – Hurry on Down cassette (Xpressway)
1992 – Morse (Siltbreeze)
1995 – Talisman (NZ, Next Best Way)
1998 – Mirrorwork (Emperor Jones)
2000 – Cry (Emperor Jones)
2007 – Orb (Next Best Way)
2010 – Mass (Siltbreeze) (with Amiel Balester, Michael Kohler and David Kilgour)
Singles & EPs
1989 – Timebomb – 7" with Graeme Jefferies – Xpressway – X/WAY 10
1991 – Gaudylight – EP 7" – Siltbreeze – SB07
1994 – Cluster – EP 7" – Ger. Raffmond – RAFF 006-7
1994 – Intro Version – EP 7" – Roof Bolt – RB001
1995 – Orange Raja, Blood Royal – 7" – Walt Records – Walt 005
1995 – Tae Keening – EP 77" with Demarnia Lloyd – Roof Bolt – RB003
1996 – Split EP with Minimum Chips – 7" – Varispeed – VS02
1997 – Rivulets – EP 7" – Camera Obscura – CAM 004S
1998 – Wire Music – EP with Matt de Gennaro – Corpus Hermeticum – Hermes031
1998 – Black Forest – EP – with Robert Scott
1998 – Me & Gus – 7" – with Pip Proud – Emperor Jones – ej18
1999 – Orbital – 7" – Crawlspace Records – SPACE 007
1999 – Two Wires Violin Loop – EP – with Matt De Gennaro
2000 – Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 1 – EP with Matt De Gennaro – Emperor Jones – ej39cd
2003 – Radiant (with Constantine Karlis) (Emperor Jones)
2006 – Long Wires in Dark Museums, Vol. 2 – EP with Matt De Gennaro – Xeric – XER-CD-103
2006 – Belsayer Time EP with Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson – Time-Lag – Time-Lag 034
2010 – Endless Black – EP – self-released
2010 – Dances for the Blind Owl – EP – La Station Radar – fake tape serie #15
2011 – Untitled 1–3 – 7" – Split EP with William Tyler
Compilations
1993 – Seely Girn – Feel Good All Over – fgao #14
A Handful of Dust
(with Bruce Russell and Peter Stapleton):
1993 – Concord LP (Twisted Village)
1994 – The Philosophick Mercury CD (Corpus Hermeticum) 1994 (reissued on CD by No Fun Productions, 2008)
1994 – The Eightness of Adam Qadmon TC (Corpus Hermeticum)
1994 – Musica Humana CD (Corpus Hermeticum)
1995 – From a Soundtrack to the Anabase of St.John Perse TC (Corpus Hermeticum) 1995 (reissued on LP by Bluesilver, 2000)
1996 – Now Gods, Stand Up For Bastards CD (Corpus Hermeticum) 1996 (reissued on CD by No Fun Productions, 2008)
1997 – Topology of a Phantom City TC (Corpus Hermeticum)
1997 – Spiritual Libertines CD (Crank Automotive)
1998 – Jerusalem, Street of Graves CD (Corpus Hermeticum)
2002 – For Patti Smith CD (FreewaySound)
2009 – Panegyric (Next Best Way)
The Hundred Dollar Band
(with Maxine Funke and Mike Dooley):
2006 – Waves and Particles (Emperor Jones)
== References == |
Dunedin | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin | [
359
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunedin"
] | Dunedin ( duh-NEE-din; Māori: Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from Dùn Èideann ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The city has a rich Māori, Scottish, and Chinese heritage.
With an estimated population of 134,600 as of June 2023, Dunedin is New Zealand's seventh-most populous metropolitan and urban area. For cultural, geographical, and historical reasons, the city has long been considered one of New Zealand's four main centres. The urban area of Dunedin lies on the central-eastern coast of Otago, surrounding the head of Otago Harbour. The harbour and hills around Dunedin are the remnants of an extinct volcano. The city suburbs extend out into the surrounding valleys and hills, onto the isthmus of the Otago Peninsula, and along the shores of the Otago Harbour and the Pacific Ocean.
Archaeological evidence points to lengthy occupation of the area by Māori prior to the arrival of Europeans. The province and region of Otago takes its name from the Ngāi Tahu village of Otakou at the mouth of the harbour, which became a whaling station in the 1830s.
In 1848 a Scottish settlement was established by the Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland and between 1855 and 1900 many thousands of Scots emigrated to the incorporated city. Dunedin's population and wealth boomed during the 1860s' Otago gold rush, and for a brief period of time it became New Zealand's largest urban area. The city saw substantial migration from mainland China at the same time, predominately from Guangdong and Guangxi. Dunedin is home to New Zealand's oldest Chinese community.
Today Dunedin has a diverse economy which includes manufacturing, publishing, arts, tourism and technology-based industries. The mainstay of the city's economy remains centred around tertiary education, with students from the University of Otago, New Zealand's oldest university, and the Otago Polytechnic, accounting for a large proportion of the population; 21.6 per cent of the city's population was aged between 15 and 24 at the 2006 census, compared to the New Zealand average of 14.2 per cent. Dunedin is also noted for its vibrant music scene, as the 1980s birthplace of the Dunedin sound (which heavily influenced grunge, indie and modern alternative rock). In 2014, the city was designated as a UNESCO City of Literature.
History
Māori settlements
Archaeological evidence shows the first human (Māori) occupation of New Zealand occurred between 1250 and 1300 AD, with the population concentrated along the southeast coast. A camp site at Kaikai Beach, near Long Beach to the north of the present-day city of Dunedin, has been dated from about that time. There are numerous archaic (moa-hunter) sites in what is now Dunedin, several of them large and permanently occupied, particularly in the 14th century. The population contracted but expanded again with the evolution of the Classic Māori culture which saw the building of several pā, fortified settlements, notably Pukekura at (Taiaroa Head), about 1650. There was a settlement in what is now central Dunedin (Ōtepoti), occupied as late as about 1785 but abandoned by 1826. There were also Māori settlements at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach), Pūrākaunui, Mapoutahi (Goat Island Peninsula) and Huriawa (Karitane Peninsula) to the north, and at Taieri Mouth and Otokia (Henley) to the south, all inside the present boundaries of Dunedin.
Māori tradition tells first of a people called Kahui Tipua living in the area, then Te Rapuwai, semi-legendary but considered to be historical. The next arrivals were Waitaha, followed by Kāti Māmoe late in the 16th century and then Kāi Tahu (Ngāi Tahu in modern standard Māori) who arrived in the mid-17th century. European accounts have often represented these successive influxes as "invasions", but modern scholarship has cast doubt on that view. They were probably migrations – like those of the Europeans – which incidentally resulted in bloodshed.
The sealer John Boultbee recorded in the late 1820s that the 'Kaika Otargo' (settlements around and near Otago Harbour) were the oldest and largest in the south.
Early arrivals from Europe
Lieutenant James Cook stood off what is now the coast of Dunedin between 25 February 1770 and 5 March 1770, naming Cape Saunders (on the Otago Peninsula) and Saddle Hill. He reported penguins and seals in the vicinity, which led Australian, American and British sealers to visit from the beginning of the 19th century. The early years of sealing saw a feud between sealers and local Māori from 1810 to 1823, the "Sealers' War" sparked by an incident on Otago Harbour. William Tucker became the first European to settle in the area – in 1815.
Permanent European occupation dates from 1831, when the Weller brothers of New South Wales founded their whaling station at Otago (present-day Otakou) on the Otago Harbour. Epidemics severely reduced the Māori population. By the late 1830s, the Harbour had become an international whaling port. Wright & Richards started a whaling station at Karitane in 1837 and Sydney-born Johnny Jones established a farming settlement and a mission station (the South Island's first) at Waikouaiti in 1840. The settlements at Karitane and Waikouaiti have endured, making modern Dunedin one of the longest-standing European-settled territories in New Zealand.
Early in 1844, the Deborah, captained by Thomas Wing and carrying (among others) his wife Lucy and a representative of the New Zealand Company, Frederick Tuckett, sailed south from Nelson to determine the location of a planned Free Church settlement. After inspecting several areas around the eastern coast of the South Island, Tuckett selected the site which would become known as Dunedin. (Tuckett rejected the site of what would become Christchurch, as he felt the ground around the Avon River / Ōtākaro was swampy.)
The Lay Association of the Free Church of Scotland, through a company called the Otago Association, founded Dunedin at the head of Otago Harbour in 1848 as the principal town
of its special settlement.
The name "Dunedin" comes from Dùn Èideann, the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Charles Kettle the city's surveyor, instructed to emulate the characteristics of Edinburgh, produced a striking, "Romantic" town-planning design. There resulted both grand and quirky streets, as the builders struggled and sometimes failed to construct his bold vision across the challenging landscape. Captain William Cargill (1784–1860), a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars, served as the secular leader of the new colony. The Reverend Thomas Burns (1796–1871), a nephew of the poet Robert Burns, provided spiritual guidance. By the end of the 1850s, around 12,000 Scots had emigrated to Dunedin, many from the industrial lowlands.
Gold rush era
In 1852, Dunedin became the capital of the Otago Province, the whole of New Zealand from the Waitaki south. In 1861, the discovery of gold at Gabriel's Gully, to the south-west, led to a rapid influx of people and saw Dunedin become New Zealand's first city by growth of population in 1865. The new arrivals included many Irish, but also Italians, Lebanese, French, Germans, Jews and Chinese. The Dunedin Southern Cemetery was established in 1858, the Dunedin Northern Cemetery in 1872. In the 1860s, Ross Creek Reservoir was created so as to serve Dunedin's need for water.
The London-owned Bank of Otago opened its doors in Dunedin in 1863, opened 12 branches throughout its region, then in 1873 merged with the new National Bank of New Zealand also based in London and also operated from Dunedin but, true to its name, it rapidly expanded throughout New Zealand. Dunedin remained the principal local source of the nation's development capital until the Second World War.
Dunedin and the region industrialised and consolidated, and the Main South Line connected the city with Christchurch in 1878 and Invercargill in 1879. Otago Boys' High School was founded in 1863. The Otago Museum opened in 1868. The University of Otago, the oldest university in New Zealand, in 1869. Otago Girls' High School was established in 1871.
By 1874, Dunedin and its suburbs had become New Zealand's largest city with a population of 29,832 displacing Auckland's 27,840 residents to second place.
Between 1881 and 1957, Dunedin was home to cable trams, being both one of the first and last such systems in the world. Early in the 1880s the inauguration of the frozen meat industry, with the first shipment leaving from Port Chalmers in 1882, saw the beginning of a later great national industry. The first successful commercial shipment of frozen meat from New Zealand to the United Kingdom was on the Dunedin in 1881.
After ten years of gold rushes the economy slowed but Julius Vogel's immigration and development scheme brought thousands more, especially to Dunedin and Otago, before recession set in again in the 1880s. In these first and second times of prosperity, many institutions and businesses were established, New Zealand's first daily newspaper, art school, medical school and public art gallery. The Dunedin Public Art Gallery was among these new foundations. It had been actively promulgated by artist William Mathew Hodgkins. There was also a remarkable architectural flowering producing many substantial and ornamental buildings. R. A. Lawson's First Church of Otago and Knox Church are notable examples, as are buildings by Maxwell Bury and F. W. Petre. The other visual arts also flourished under the leadership of W. M. Hodgkins. The city's landscape and burgeoning townscape were vividly portrayed by George O'Brien (1821–1888). From the mid-1890s, the economy revived. Institutions such as the Otago Settlers Museum (now renamed as Toitū Otago Settlers Museum) and the Hocken Collections—the first of their kind in New Zealand—were founded. More notable buildings such as the Railway Station and Olveston were erected. New energy in the visual arts represented by G. P. Nerli culminated in the career of Frances Hodgkins.
Early modern era
By 1900, Dunedin was no longer the country's biggest city. Influence and activity moved north to the other centres ("the drift north"), a trend which continued for much of the following century. Despite this, the university continued to expand, and a student quarter became established. At the same time, people started to notice Dunedin's mellowing, the ageing of its grand old buildings, with writers like E. H. McCormick pointing out its atmospheric charm. In 1901 the British royals, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York toured Dunedin.
In the 1930s and early 1940s a new generation of artists such as M. T. (Toss) Woollaston, Doris Lusk, Anne Hamblett, Colin McCahon and Patrick Hayman once again represented the best of the country's talent. The Second World War saw the dispersal of these painters, but not before McCahon had met a very youthful poet, James K. Baxter, in a central city studio.
Numerous large companies had been established in Dunedin, many of which became national leaders. Late among them was Fletcher Construction, founded by Sir James Fletcher in the early 20th century. Kempthorne Prosser, established in 1879 in Stafford Street, was the largest fertiliser and drug manufacturer in the country for over 100 years. G. Methven, a metalworking and tap manufacturer based in South Dunedin, was also a leading firm, as was H. E. Shacklock, an iron founder and appliance manufacturer later taken over by the Auckland concern Fisher and Paykel. The Mosgiel Woollens was another Victorian Dunedin foundation. Hallensteins was the colloquial name of a menswear manufacturer and national retail chain, while the DIC and Arthur Barnett were department stores, the former a nationwide concern. Coulls, Somerville Wilkie—later part of the Whitcoulls group—had its origins in Dunedin in the 19th century. There were also the National Mortgage and Agency Company of New Zealand, Wright Stephensons Limited, the Union Steamship Company and the National Insurance Company and the Standard Insurance Company among many others, which survived into the 20th century.
Post-war developments
After the Second World War prosperity and population growth revived, although Dunedin trailed as the fourth 'main centre'. A generation reacting against Victorianism started demolishing its buildings and many were lost, notably William Mason's Stock exchange in 1969. (Dunedin Stock Exchange building) Although the university continued to expand, the city's population contracted, notably from 1976 to 1981. This was a culturally vibrant time with the university's new privately endowed arts fellowships bringing writers including James K Baxter, Ralph Hotere, Janet Frame and Hone Tuwhare to the city.
During the 1980s Dunedin's popular music scene blossomed, with many acts, such as The Chills, The Clean, The Verlaines and Straitjacket Fits, gaining national and international recognition. The term "The Dunedin sound" was coined to describe the 1960s-influenced, guitar-led music which flourished at the time. Bands and musicians are still playing and recording in many styles.
By 1990, population decline had steadied and slow growth has occurred since and Dunedin re-invented itself as a 'heritage city' with its main streets refurbished in the Victorian style. R. A. Lawson's Municipal Chambers (Dunedin Town Hall) in the Octagon were handsomely restored. The city was also recognised as a centre of excellence in tertiary education and research. The university's and polytechnic's growth accelerated. Dunedin has continued to refurbish itself, embarking on redevelopments of the art gallery, railway station and the Toitū Otago Settlers Museum. Meanwhile, the continued blossoming of local creative writing saw the city gain UNESCO City of Literature status in 2014.
Dunedin has flourishing niche industries including engineering, software engineering, biotechnology and fashion. Port Chalmers on the Otago Harbour provides Dunedin with deep-water facilities. It is served by the Port Chalmers Branch, a branch line railway which diverges from the Main South Line and runs from Christchurch by way of Dunedin to Invercargill. Dunedin is also home to MTF, the nationwide vehicle finance company.
The cityscape glitters with gems of Victorian and Edwardian architecture—the legacy of the city's gold-rush affluence. Many, including First Church, Otago Boys' High School and Larnach Castle were designed by one of New Zealand's most eminent architects R. A. Lawson. Other prominent buildings include Olveston and the Dunedin Railway Station. Other unusual or memorable buildings or constructions are Baldwin Street, claimed to be the world's steepest residential street; the Captain Cook tavern; Cadbury Chocolate Factory (Cadbury World) (In 2018, both the factory and Cadbury World closed to make way for a new NZ$1.4 billion hospital to replace the existing Dunedin Public Hospital); and the Speight's brewery.
The thriving tertiary student population has led to a vibrant youth culture (students are referred to as 'Scarfies' by people who are not students), consisting of the previously mentioned music scene, and more recently a burgeoning boutique fashion industry. A strong visual arts community also exists in Dunedin, notably in Port Chalmers and the other settlements which dot the coast of the Otago Harbour, and also in communities such as Waitati.
Sport is catered for in Dunedin by the floodlit rugby and cricket venues of Forsyth Barr Stadium and University Oval, Dunedin, respectively, the new Caledonian Ground football and athletics stadium near the university at Logan Park, the large Edgar Centre indoor sports centre, the Dunedin Ice Stadium, and numerous golf courses and parks. There is also the Wingatui horseracing course to the south of the city. St Clair Beach is a well-known surfing venue, and the harbour basin is popular with windsurfers and kitesurfers. Dunedin has four public swimming pools: Moana Pool, Port Chalmers Pool, Mosgiel and St Clair Salt Water Pool.
In February 2021, the East Otago towns of Waikouaiti and Karitane in New Zealand reported high lead levels in their water supplies. Local and national authorities responded by dispatching water tanks to assist local residents and providing free blood tests, fruits and vegetables. The lead poisoning scare also attracted coverage by national media. By early March 2021, the Southern District Health Board confirmed that test results indicated that long-term exposure to lead in the water supply posed little risk to the local population.
In late January 2024, the Dunedin City Council and Otago Regional Council released a joint draft strategy to expand housing development and industrial land over the next thirty years to accommodate a projected 10% population growth.
Geography
The Dunedin City territorial authority has a land area of 3,314.8 km2 (1,279.9 sq mi), slightly larger than the American state of Rhode Island or the English county of Cambridgeshire, and a little smaller than Cornwall. It was the largest city in land area in New Zealand until the formation of the 5,600 km2 (2,200 sq mi) Auckland Council on 1 November 2010. The Dunedin City Council boundaries since 1989 have extended to Middlemarch in the west, Waikouaiti in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the east and south-east, and the Waipori/Taieri River and the township of Henley in the south-west.
Dunedin is situated at the head of Otago Harbour, a narrow inlet extending south-westward for some 15 miles. The harbour is a recent creation formed by the flooding of two river valleys. From the time of its foundation in 1848, the city has spread slowly over the low-lying flats and nearby hills and across the isthmus to the slopes of the Otago Peninsula.
Geology
Eastern Otago is tectonically stable, meaning that it does not experience many earthquakes. One of the only known faults near Dunedin is the Akatore Fault. The first earthquake to cause widespread damage in Dunedin since its founding was the 1974 Dunedin earthquake, which had a magnitude of 4.9 and caused about $3.5 million in damages (2024 terms).
Inner city
The central region of Dunedin is known as the Octagon. It was once a gully, filled in the mid-nineteenth century to create the present plaza. The initial settlement of the city took place to the south on the other side of Bell Hill, a large outcrop which had to be reduced to provide easy access between the two parts of the settlement. The central city stretches away from this point in a largely northeast–southwest direction, with the main streets of George Street and Princes Street meeting at The Octagon. Here they are joined by Stuart Street, which runs orthogonally to them, from the Dunedin Railway Station in the southeast, and steeply up to the suburb of Roslyn in the northwest. Many of the city's notable old buildings are located in the southern part of this area and on the inner ring of lower hills which surround the central city (most of these hills, such as Maori Hill, Pine Hill, and Maryhill, rise to some 200 metres [660 ft] above the plain). The head of the harbour includes a large area of reclaimed land ("The Southern Endowment"), much of which is used for light industry and warehousing. A large area of flat land, simply known colloquially as "The Flat" lies to the south and southwest of the city centre, and includes several larger and older suburbs, notably South Dunedin and St Kilda. These are protected from the Pacific Ocean by a long line of dunes which run east–west along the city's southern coastline and separate residential areas from Ocean Beach, which is traditionally divided into St. Clair Beach at the western end and St Kilda Beach to the east.
Dunedin is home to Baldwin Street, which, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the steepest street in the world. Its gradient is 1 in 2.9. The long-since-abandoned Maryhill Cablecar route had a similar gradient close to its Mornington depot.
Beyond the inner range of hills lie Dunedin's outer suburbs, notably to the northwest, beyond Roslyn. This direction contains Taieri Road and Three Mile Hill, which between them formed the original road route to the Taieri Plains. The modern State Highway 1 follows a different route, passing through Caversham in the west and out past Saddle Hill. Lying between Saddle Hill and Caversham are the outer suburbs of Green Island and Abbotsford. Between Green Island and Roslyn lies the steep-sided valley of the Kaikorai Stream, which is today a residential and light industrial area. Suburban settlements—mostly regarded as separate townships—also lie along both edges of the Otago Harbour. Notable among these are Portobello and Macandrew Bay, on the Otago Peninsula coast, and Port Chalmers on the opposite side of the harbour. Port Chalmers provides Dunedin's main deep-water port, including the city's container port.
The Dunedin skyline is dominated by a ring of (traditionally seven) hills which form the remnants of a volcanic crater. Notable among them are Mount Cargill (700 m [2,300 ft]), Flagstaff (680 m [2,230 ft]), Saddle Hill (480 m [1,570 ft]), Signal Hill (390 m [1,280 ft]), and Harbour Cone (320 m [1,050 ft]).
Hinterland
Dunedin's hinterland encompasses a variety of different landforms. To the southwest lie the Taieri Plains, the broad, fertile lowland floodplains of the Taieri River and its major tributary, the Waipori. These are moderately heavily settled, and contain the towns of Mosgiel, and Allanton. They are separated from the coast by a range of low hills rising to some 300 metres (980 ft). Inland from the Taieri Plain is rough hill country. Close to the plain, much of this is forested, notably around Berwick and Lake Mahinerangi, and also around the Silverpeaks Range which lies northwest of the Dunedin urban area. Beyond this, the land becomes drier and opens out into grass and tussock-covered land. A high, broad valley, the Strath-Taieri lies in Dunedin's far northwest, containing the town of Middlemarch, one of the area's few concentrations of population.
To the north of the city's urban area is undulating hill country containing several small, mainly coastal, settlements, including Waitati, Warrington, Seacliff, and Waikouaiti. State Highway 1 winds steeply through a series of hills here, notably The Kilmog. These hills can be considered a coastal extension of the Silverpeaks Range.
Environment and Ecotourism
To the east of Dunedin lies the entirety of the Otago Peninsula, a long finger of land that formed the southeastern rim of the Dunedin Volcano. The peninsula is lightly settled, almost entirely along the harbour coast, and much of it is maintained as a natural habitat by the Otago Peninsula Trust. The peninsula contains several fine beaches, and is home to a considerable number of rare species including Yellow-eyed and Little penguins, seals, and shags. Taiaroa Head on the peninsula's northeastern point is a site of global ecological significance, as it is home to the world's only mainland breeding colony of royal albatross.
List of suburbs
Inner suburbs
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)
Woodhaugh; Glenleith; Leith Valley; Dalmore; Liberton; Pine Hill; Normanby; Mt Mera; North East Valley; Opoho; Dunedin North; Ravensbourne; Highcliff; Shiel Hill; Challis; Waverley; Vauxhall; Ocean Grove (Tomahawk); Tainui; Andersons Bay; Musselburgh; South Dunedin; St Kilda; St Clair; Corstorphine; Kew; Forbury; Caversham; Concord; Maryhill; Kenmure; Mornington; Kaikorai Valley; City Rise; Belleknowes; Roslyn; Kaikorai; Wakari; Maori Hill.
Outer suburbs
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)
Burkes; Saint Leonards; Deborah Bay; Careys Bay; Port Chalmers; Sawyers Bay; Roseneath; Broad Bay; Company Bay; Macandrew Bay; Portobello; Burnside; Green Island; Waldronville; Westwood; Saddle Hill; Sunnyvale; Fairfield; Abbotsford; Bradford; Brockville; Halfway Bush; Helensburgh.
Towns within city limits
(clockwise from the city centre, starting at due north)
Waitati; Waikouaiti; Karitane; Seacliff; Warrington; Pūrākaunui; Long Beach; Aramoana; Otakou; Mosgiel; Brighton;Taieri Mouth; Henley; Allanton; East Taieri; Momona; Outram; West Taieri; Waipori; Middlemarch; Hyde.
Since local council reorganisation in the late 1980s, these are suburbs, but are not commonly regarded as such.
Climate
The climate of Dunedin in general is temperate. Under the Köppen climate classification, Dunedin features an oceanic climate. This leads to mild summers and coolish winters. Winter is not particularly frosty with around 49 frosts per year, lower than most other South Island locations, but sunny. Snowfall is not particularly common and significant snowfall is uncommon (perhaps every two or three years), except in the inland hill suburbs such as Halfway Bush and Wakari, which tend to receive a few days of snowfall each year. Spring can feature "four seasons in a day" weather, but from November to April it is generally settled and mild. Temperatures during summer can reach 30 °C (86 °F). Due to its maritime influence, Dunedin's mild summers and mild winters both stand out considering its latitude.
Dunedin has relatively low rainfall in comparison to many of New Zealand's cities, with usually only between 600 and 750 millimetres (30 in) recorded per year. However, wet weather is frequent, since much of this rainfall occurs in drizzle or light rain and heavy rain is relatively rare. Dunedin is one of the cloudiest major centres in the country, recording approximately 1,850 hours of bright sunshine per annum. Prevailing wind in the city is mainly a sometimes cool southwesterly and during late spring will alternate with northeasterlies. Warmer, dry northwest winds are also characteristic Foehn winds from the northwest. The circle of hills surrounding the inner city shelters the inner city from much of the prevailing weather, while hills just to the west of the city can often push inclement weather around to the west of the city.
Inland, beyond the heart of the city and into inland Otago, the climate is sub-continental: winters are quite cold and dry, summers warm and dry. Thick freezing ground fogs are common in winter in the upper reaches of the Taieri River's course around Middlemarch, and in summer, the temperature occasionally reaches 30 °C (86 °F).
Demographics
The Dunedin City territorial authority has a population of 134,600 as of June 2023. This comprises 106,200 people in the Dunedin urban area, 14,800 people in the Mosgiel urban area, 1,540 people in Brighton, 1,260 people in Waikouaiti, and 10,800 people in the surrounding settlements and rural area.
Dunedin City had a population of 128,901 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 2,646 people (2.1%) since the 2018 census, and an increase of 8,652 people (7.2%) since the 2013 census. There were 54,627 dwellings. The median age was 37.0 years (compared with 38.1 years nationally). There were 19,056 people (14.8%) aged under 15 years, 34,458 (26.7%) aged 15 to 29, 53,058 (41.2%) aged 30 to 64, and 22,329 (17.3%) aged 65 or older.
Ethnicities were 85.1% European/Pākehā, 10.8% Māori, 3.9% Pasifika, 9.3% Asian, 1.7% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders, and 1.3% other. People may identify with more than one ethnicity.
Dunedin City had a population of 126,255 at the 2018 New Zealand census. There were 48,336 households, comprising 60,762 males and 65,490 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.93 males per female.
The proportion of people in Dunedin born overseas was 19.7%, compared with 27.1% nationally. The most common birthplaces of overseas-born residents were England (4.4%), Australia (2.0%), mainland China (1.4%), and the United States (1.0%).
Although some people chose not to answer the census's question about religious affiliation, 56.0% had no religion, 32.5% were Christian, 0.2% had Māori religious beliefs, 0.9% were Hindu, 1.0% were Muslim, 0.8% were Buddhist and 2.3% had other religions.
Of those at least 15 years old, 26,910 (25.3%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, and 16,749 (15.8%) people had no formal qualifications. The median income was $25,500, compared with $31,800 nationally. 14,367 people (13.5%) earned over $70,000 compared to 17.2% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 45,888 (43.2%) people were employed full-time, 17,940 (16.9%) were part-time, and 4,596 (4.3%) were unemployed.
Culture
Literature
In December 2014, Dunedin was designated as a UNESCO Creative City of Literature. Mayor of Dunedin Dave Cull said at the time, "This announcement puts our city on the world map as a first-class literary city. We keep honourable company; other cities bestowed with City of Literature status include Edinburgh, Dublin, Iowa City, Melbourne, Reykjavík, Norwich and Kraków."
Dunedin's application was driven by a steering committee and an advisory board of writers, librarians and academics from a range of Dunedin institutions. The bid highlighted the quality of the city's considerable literary heritage, its diverse combination of literary events, businesses, institutions and organisations, plus its thriving community of writers, playwrights and lyricists.
UNESCO established the Creative Cities Network to develop international co-operation among cities and encourage them to drive joint development partnerships in line with UNESCO's global priorities of 'culture and development' and 'sustainable development'. Each city in the network reflects one of UNESCO's seven Creative City themes: folk art, gastronomy, literature, design, film or music. Dunedin is New Zealand's first city to be appointed to the Creative City network.
Paul Theroux described Dunedin as "cold and frugal with its shabby streets and mock-gothic university". The university students he described as "ignorant, assertive and dirty". Billy Connolly described Dunedin as "a dreary town. It's got that Scottish Presbyterian feel about it". Michael Palin in Full Circle says of Dunedin "at first glance it is a dour, damp, chilly place, its buildings heavy with ponderous Presbyterian pride...but beneath a grey and sober heart there lurks a wild heart." In 1895, Mark Twain said of the Scottish who settled in Dunedin, "They stopped here on their way from home to heaven - thinking they had arrived".
Music
Choirs
Dunedin is home to many choirs. These include the following:
The 140-member City of Dunedin Choir is Dunedin's leading performer of large-scale choral works.
The Southern Consort of Voices is a smaller choir regularly performing Choral Works.
The Royal Dunedin Male Choir, conducted by Richard Madden, performs two concerts a year
The Dunedin RSA Choir regularly performs concerts and has played an important and valued role in Dunedin City's commemorative celebrations of significant historical events. ANZAC, of course, is one such occasion, and the ANZAC Revue held on the evening of every ANZAC Day, occupies a special place of honour in the choir's calendar.
The all-female Dunedin Harmony Chorus are an important part of the Dunedin culture.
The Southern Children's Choir, based at Marama Hall in the university, is Dunedin's main children's choir. Most schools in Dunedin have choirs, many having more than one.
The Southern Youth Choir is a concert-based youth choir.
The University of Otago is home to three official choirs: the two chapel choirs (Knox and Selwyn), and the travelling Cantores choir.
Several Dunedin Churches and Cathedrals hold choirs. Among these are St. Joseph's Catholic Cathedral, home to two choirs: the Cathedral Choir and the Gabrieli Singers; Knox Church's large mixed gender choir for adults and children, the Knox Church Choir; All Saints' Church, Dunedin, has choral scholars from Selwyn College, Otago, St. John's Church, Roslyn's small mixed-gender parish choir; and St. Paul's Anglican Cathedral's mixed-gender adult choir.
The Dunedin Red Cross Choir (of New Zealand Red Cross), conducted by Eleanor Moyle, is one of only three Red Cross choirs globally. Established in 1942, this choir performs regularly in Dunedin at various Rest Homes and holds an annual concert at the Kings and Queens Performing Arts Centre.
Instrumental classical and jazz ensembles
The Dunedin Symphony Orchestra is a semi-professional orchestra based in Dunedin. Other instrumental ensembles include the Rare Byrds early music ensemble, the Collegiate Orchestra, and the Dunedin Youth Orchestra. Many schools also hold school orchestras and bands. There are also three brass bands in Dunedin: St. Kilda Brass, Kaikorai Brass, and Mosgiel Brass. The Otago Symphonic Band and City of Dunedin Pipe Band are also important Dunedin musical ensembles.
Popular music
Dunedin lends its name to the Dunedin sound, a form of indie rock music which was created in the city in the 1980s. Some Dunedin bands recorded on the Flying Nun Records label, based in Christchurch. Among the bands with Dunedin connections were The Chills, The Clean, The Verlaines, The Bats, Sneaky Feelings, The Dead C and Straitjacket Fits, all of which had significant followings throughout New Zealand and on the college radio circuit in the United States and Europe.
Dunedin has been home to bands since the end of the Dunedin sound era. Six60, Nadia Reid and Julian Temple Band are Dunedin artists.
Sport
Major teams
Highlanders – Super Rugby rugby union team who are the Super Rugby champions of 2015 (represents Otago, Southland and North Otago Rugby Unions)
Otago Rugby Football Union – Mitre 10 Cup rugby union team
Otago Volts and Otago Sparks – men's and women's cricket teams
Southern Steel – ANZ Championship netball team (represents Otago & Southland Netball – Based in Invercargill)
Southern United – association football team in the New Zealand Football Championship
Otago Nuggets and Southern Hoiho – Men's and Women's basketball teams competing in the National Basketball League and Tauihi Basketball Aotearoa
Dunedin Thunder – New Zealand Ice Hockey League team
Otago Whalers – National Competition Rugby League Team
Grounds and stadiums
Caledonian Ground
Carisbrook (now defunct)
Dunedin Ice Stadium
The Edgar Centre
Forsyth Barr Stadium at University Plaza
Logan Park
Moana Pool
Tonga Park
University Oval – Notable for being the southernmost venue on the planet that hosts Test Cricket.
Theatre
The city hosts a large theatre venue, the Regent Theatre in the Octagon. Dunedin hosted the world's southernmost professional theatre company, the Fortune Theatre, based in the former Trinity Methodist Church, until it closed in 2018. Smaller theatres in Dunedin include the Globe Theatre, the Mayfair Theatre, the New Athenaeum Theatre, and the Playhouse Theatre.
Visual arts
Dunedin has a substantial public art gallery, the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, in the Octagon. The city contains numerous other galleries, including over a dozen dealer galleries, many of which are found south of the Octagon along Princes Street, Moray Place and Dowling Street. There are also several more experimental art spaces, notably the Blue Oyster in Dowling Street.
Many notable artists have strong links with Dunedin, among them Ralph Hotere, Frances Hodgkins, Grahame Sydney, and Jeffrey Harris.
Marae
Dunedin has three marae (meeting grounds) for Ngāi Tahu, each with its own wharenui (meeting house). Ārai-te-uru marae in Wakari includes the Ārai-te-uru wharenui. Ōtākou Marae in Otakou includes the Tamatea wharenui. Huirapa / Puketeraki marae in Karitāne includes the Huirapa wharenui.
Honours
Asteroid 101461 Dunedin discovered by British astronomer Ian P. Griffin in 1998, was named in honour of the city. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 November 2019 (M.P.C. 118220).
Government
Local
The Dunedin City Council (DCC) governs the Dunedin City territorial authority. It is made up of an elected mayor (currently Jules Radich) and fourteen additional councillors elected across three wards, one of whom gets chosen as deputy mayor.
Coat of arms and flag
The flag of the city of Dunedin is a banner of arms in white and green and featuring the castle, lymphad, ram's head and wheat sheafs as on the coat of arms.
National
Dunedin is covered by two general electorates, Dunedin and Taieri, and one Māori electorate, Te Tai Tonga.
The city in general is a stronghold of the New Zealand Labour Party, having won the Dunedin-based electorate seats continuously since the 1978 election. As of the 2023 general election, both general electorates are held by the party, with Rachel Brooking representing Dunedin and Ingrid Leary representing Taieri. Te Tai Tonga (which covers the entire South Island and part of Wellington in the North Island) is held by Te Pāti Māori and represented by Tākuta Ferris. Scott Willis and Mark Patterson are both List MPs from the Taieri electorate.
Media
The major daily newspaper is the Otago Daily Times, which is also the country's oldest daily newspaper and part of the Allied Press group. Weekly and bi-weekly community newspapers include The Star, Taieri Herald, the fortnightly street press POINT, and the university student magazine Critic Te Ārohi.
The city is served by all major national radio and television stations. The city's main terrestrial television and FM radio transmitter sits atop Mount Cargill, north of the city, while the city's main AM transmitter is located at Highcliff, east of the city centre on the Otago Peninsula. Local radio stations include Radio Dunedin, community station Otago Access Radio (formerly Hills AM, then Toroa Radio), and the university radio station, Radio One.
Television broadcasts began in Dunedin on 31 July 1962 with the launch of channel DNTV2, the last of the four main centres to receive television. In November 1969, DNTV2 was networked with its counterpart stations in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to form NZBC TV. In 1975, the NZBC was broken up, with the Wellington and Dunedin studios taking over NZBC TV as Television One (now TVNZ 1) while Auckland and Christchurch studios launched Television Two (now TVNZ 2).
The city has one local television station called Channel 39, which is owned by Allied Press. The two major television news broadcasters 1 News and Newshub along with Radio New Zealand and NZME also have bureaus in Dunedin. In May 2021, Newshub's owner Discovery New Zealand announced that it would be closing down its Dunedin bureau as part of a restructuring process.
The city is home to several prominent media-related production companies, notably Natural History New Zealand and Taylormade Media.
The city was once home to the head offices of Radio Otago—now called RadioWorks (part of Mediaworks) and based in Auckland. It was also formerly the home to several now-defunct newspapers, prominent among which were the Otago Witness and the Evening Star.
Education
Secondary
Dunedin is home to 12 secondary schools: eight state and four state-integrated. The oldest secondary school is state-run Otago Boys' High School, founded in 1863. Its sister school, Otago Girls' High School (1871) is the oldest state girls' secondary school in New Zealand, even though it preceded the state education system by six years.
Other state schools include Bayfield High School, Kaikorai Valley College and Logan Park High School. King's High School and Queen's High School are single-sex schools based in St Clair, and Taieri College in Mosgiel. The four state-integrated schools are Columba College, a Presbyterian girls' school; St. Hilda's Collegiate School, an Anglican girls' school; John McGlashan College, a Presbyterian boys' school; and Trinity Catholic College, a Catholic coeducational school.
Tertiary
University of Otago
Dunedin College of Education
Otago Polytechnic
Infrastructure and services
Public health and hospitals
Dunedin Hospital is the main public hospital in Dunedin. Other hospitals include:
Mercy Hospital – a private non-profit hospital opened in 1936 and relocated to Maori Hill in 1969
Wakari Hospital
The Dunedin Hospital and the Wakari Hospital, which are closely related, are operated by Te Whatu Ora. Ambulance services are provided by St John New Zealand.
Utilities
Aurora Energy owns and operates the electricity distribution network servicing the city and the Taieri plains, while OtagoNet Joint Venture owns and operates the electricity distribution network in the rural areas north and west of the city. Electricity is primarily supplied from Transpower's national grid at two substations: Halfway Bush and South Dunedin, with part to the OtagoNet network also supplied from Transpower's Naseby substation in central Otago.
Transport
Road
The Dunedin urban area is served by two state highways, with an additional two state highways and one tourist route serving other parts of the district. The main state highway in Dunedin is State Highway 1, which runs in a north to south-west direction through the middle of the city, connecting Dunedin with Invercargill to the south and Timaru and Christchurch to the north. Between The Oval and Mosgiel, State Highway 1 follows the eleven-kilometre Dunedin Southern Motorway. State Highway 88 connects central Dunedin to the city's port facilities at Port Chalmers.
Other State Highways in the city are: State Highway 86 connecting SH 1 at Allanton with Dunedin International Airport, State Highway 87 connecting SH 1 at Kinmont with SH 85 at Kyeburn via Middlemarch, serving the Dunedin city hinterland.
Dunedin is the northeastern terminus of the Southern Scenic Route, a tourist highway connecting Dunedin to Te Anau via The Catlins, Invercargill and Fiordland.
Bus
Buses in Dunedin are organised by the Otago Regional Council. A total of 64 buses operate on 17 weekday routes and 13 weeknight/weekend/holiday routes across the city. Buses are run by two operators, Ritchies Transport with three routes and Go Bus Transport with the remainder. Dunedin City Council-owned operator Citibus was a major player until 2011 when Passenger Transport (New Zealand) purchased Citibus from Dunedin City Holdings, and both companies were subsequently bought by Go Bus.
Rail
Dunedin Railway Station, located east of the Octagon, is the city's main railway station. Once the nation's busiest, the decline in rail over the years saw the withdrawal of most services. Suburban services ceased in 1982, and the last regular commercial passenger train to serve Dunedin, The Southerner, was cancelled in February 2002. The Taieri Gorge Railway now operates tourist-oriented services from the station, the most prominent of which is the Taieri Gorge Limited, which operates daily along the former Otago Central Railway through the scenic Taieri Gorge. Taieri Gorge Railway also operates to Palmerston once weekly. The station is also sometimes visited by excursions organised by other heritage railway societies, and by trains chartered by cruise ships docking at Port Chalmers.
Air
Dunedin International Airport is located 22 km (13.67 mi) southwest of the city, on the Taieri Plains at Momona. The airport operates a single terminal and 1,900-metre (6,200 ft) runway, and is the third-busiest airport in the South Island, after Christchurch and Queenstown. It is primarily used for domestic flights, with regular flights to and from Auckland, Christchurch, Wellington and charter flights to and from Queenstown, Wānaka, and Invercargill, but it also has international flights arriving from and departing to Brisbane year round. In recent years, a decline in international passengers can be attributed to fewer international flights operating direct to the airport.
Sea
As of 2018, a ferry operates between Port Chalmers and Portobello it started in 2018 and is the first since the early 20th century. Occasional calls have been made to revive them, and a non-profit organisation, Otago Ferries Inc., has been set up to examine the logistics of restoring one of the original ferries and again using it for this route.
In 1866, plans were made for a bridge across the Otago Harbour between Port Chalmers and Portobello, but this grand scheme for an 1140-metre structure never eventuated. Plans were also mooted during the 1870s for a canal between the Pacific coast at Tomahawk and Andersons Bay, close to the head of the harbour. This scheme also never came to fruition.
Panoramas
Events
Annual events
January – Whare Flat Folk Festival ends
February – New Zealand Masters Games (Biennial event)
February – Otago University Students' Association & Otago Polytechnic Orientation Weeks
February – Dunedin Summer Festival
March – Dunedin Fringe Festival
March/April – iD Dunedin Fashion Week
May – Capping week (University of Otago) including the Capping Show run by the Otago University Students' Association
May – International Rally of Otago
May – Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival
May – Regent Theatre 24-hour book sale (reputedly the southern hemisphere's largest regularly held second-hand book sale)
June – Dunedin Midwinter Carnival
June – St. Clair Polar Plunge
July – University Reorientation
July – New Zealand International Science Festival (every second year)
July – Taste Otago Dunedin Food and Wine Festival
July – Dunedin International Film Festival
September – Dunedin City Marathon
September – Dunedin Beer Festival
October – Dunedin Arts Festival – every second year (even numbered years)
October – Rhododendron Week
December – Samstock Music Festival
December – Santa Parade
December – Whare Flat Folk Festival begins
December – New Year's Eve Party Octagon
Past events
1865 – New Zealand Exhibition
1889 – New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition (1889)
1898 – Otago Jubilee Industrial Exhibition (1898)
1925 – New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition (1925)
Main sights
Dunedin Railway Station
Dunedin Town Hall
Larnach Castle
Cargill's Castle
List of historic places in Dunedin
Olveston
Speight's Brewery
University of Otago Registry Building
University of Otago Clocktower complex
Regent Theatre
Fortune Theatre
Dunedin Hospital
The Octagon
Orokonui Ecosanctuary
Royal Albatross Centre
St. Clair Beach
Forsyth Barr Stadium
Museums, art galleries, and libraries
Otago Museum
Toitū Otago Settlers Museum
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Dunedin Public Libraries
Hocken Collections
Churches
All Saints' Church
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
First Church
Hanover Street Baptist Church
Kaikorai Presbyterian Church
Knox Church
St. Joseph's Cathedral
St Michael's Antiochian Orthodox Church
St. Matthew's Church
St. Paul's Cathedral
Trinity Wesleyan Church – now the Fortune Theatre
Parks and gardens
Botanic Garden
Dunedin Chinese Garden
Woodhaugh Gardens
International relations
Sister cities
Dunedin is twinned with several cities throughout the world. These include:
Edinburgh, Scotland (1974)
Otaru, Shiribeshi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan (1980)
Portsmouth, Virginia, United States of America (1962)
Shanghai, China (1994)
See also
Dunedin Study
List of people from Dunedin
Footnotes
References
Citations
General sources
Further reading
Fox-Davies, A. C. (1909). A Complete Guide to Heraldry.
Herd, J. & Griffiths, G. J. (1980). Discovering Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. ISBN 0-86868-030-3.
McCarthy, M. P. (1977). A city in transition: Diversification in the social life of Dunedin, 1860–1864 (BA(Hons)). Dunedin: University of Otago. hdl:10523/2683.
McCoy, E. & Blackman, J. (1968). Victorian City of New Zealand: Photographs of the Earlier Buildings of Dunedin. Dunedin: John McIndoe. OCLC 16481. (E. McCoy was New Zealand architect.)
McFarlane, S. (1970). Dunedin, Portrait of a City. Whitcombe & Tombs. ISBN 0-7233-0171-9.
Peat, Neville; Patrick, Brian (2014). Wild Dunedin: The Natural History of New Zealand's Wildlife Capital (Paperback). Dunedin, NZ: Otago University Press. ISBN 978-18-7757-862-5.
Smallfield, J. & Heenan, B. (2006). Above the belt: A history of the suburb of Maori Hill. Dunedin: Maori Hill History Charitable Trust. ISBN 1-877139-98-X.
External links
Dunedin City Council official website
Tourism Dunedin |
Otago | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago | [
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] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otago"
] | Otago ( , ; Māori: Ōtākou [ɔːˈtaːkou]) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately 32,000 square kilometres (12,000 sq mi), making it the country's second largest local government region. Its population was 254,600 in June 2023.
The name "Otago" is the local southern Māori dialect pronunciation of "Ōtākou", the name of the Māori village near the entrance to Otago Harbour. The exact meaning of the term is disputed, with common translations being "isolated village" and "place of red earth", the latter referring to the reddish-ochre clay which is common in the area around Dunedin. "Otago" is also the old name of the European settlement on the harbour, established by the Weller Brothers in 1831, which lies close to Otakou. The upper harbour later became the focus of the Otago Association, an offshoot of the Free Church of Scotland, notable for its adoption of the principle that ordinary people, not the landowner, should choose the ministers.
Major centres include Dunedin (the principal city), Oamaru, Balclutha, Alexandra, and the major tourist centres Queenstown and Wānaka. Kaitangata in South Otago is a prominent source of coal. The Waitaki and Clutha rivers provide much of the country's hydroelectric power. Vineyards and wineries have been developed in the Central Otago wine region. Some parts of the area originally covered by Otago Province are now administered by either Canterbury Regional Council or Southland Regional Council.
History
The Otago settlement, an outgrowth of the Free Church of Scotland, was founded in March 1848 with the arrival of the first two immigrant ships from Greenock on the Firth of Clyde — the John Wickliffe and the Philip Laing. Captain William Cargill, a veteran of the Peninsular War, was the secular leader. Otago citizens subsequently elected him to the office of provincial Superintendent after the New Zealand provinces were created in 1853.
The Otago Province was the whole of New Zealand from the Waitaki River south, including Stewart Island and the sub-Antarctic islands. It included the territory of the later Southland Province and also the much more extensive lands of the modern Southland Region.
Initial settlement was concentrated on the port and city, then expanded, notably to the south-west, where the fertile Taieri Plains offered good farmland. The 1860s saw rapid commercial expansion after Gabriel Read discovered gold at Gabriel's Gully near Lawrence, and the Otago gold rush ensued.
Veterans of goldfields in California and Australia, plus many other fortune-seekers from Europe, North America and China, poured into the then Province of Otago, eroding its Scottish Presbyterian character. Further gold discoveries at Clyde and on the Arrow River around Arrowtown led to a boom, and Otago became for a period the cultural and economic centre of New Zealand. New Zealand's first daily newspaper, the Otago Daily Times, originally edited by Julius Vogel, dates from this period.
New Zealand's first university, the University of Otago, was founded in 1869 as the provincial university in Dunedin.
The Province of Southland separated from Otago Province and set up its own Provincial Council at Invercargill in 1861. After difficulties ensued, Otago re-absorbed it in 1870. Its territory is included in the southern region of the old Otago Province which is named after it and is now the territory of the Southland region. The provincial governments were abolished in 1876 when the Abolition of the Provinces Act came into force on 1 November 1876, and were replaced by other forms of local authority, including counties. Two in Otago were named after the Scottish independence heroes Wallace and Bruce. From this time the national limelight gradually shifted northwards.
Otago's flag was chosen from a 2004 competition. It was designed by Gregor Macauly.
Geography
Beginning in the west, the geography of Otago consists of high alpine mountains. The highest peak in Otago (and highest outside the Aoraki / Mount Cook area) is Mount Aspiring / Tititea, which is on the Main Divide. From the high mountains the rivers discharge into large glacial lakes. In this part of Otago glacial activity – both recent and very old – dominates the landscape, with large U-shaped valleys and rivers which have high sediment loads. River flows also vary dramatically, with large flood flows occurring after heavy rain. Lakes Wakatipu, Wānaka, and Hāwea form the sources of the Clutha / Matau-au, the largest river (by discharge) in New Zealand. The Clutha flows generally to the southeast through Otago and discharges near Balclutha. The river has been used for hydroelectric power generation, with large dams at Clyde and Roxburgh. The traditional northern boundary of the region, the Waitaki River, is also heavily utilised for hydroelectricity, though the region's current official boundaries put much of that river's catchment in Canterbury.
The country's fourth-longest river, the Taieri, also has both its source and outflow in Otago, rising from rough hill country and following a broad horseshoe-shaped path, north, then east, and finally southeast, before reaching the Pacific Ocean. Along its course it forms two notable geographic features – the broad high valley of the Strath-Taieri in its upper reaches, and the fertile Taieri Plains as it approaches the ocean.
Travelling east from the mountains, the Central Otago drylands predominate. These are Canterbury-Otago tussock grasslands dominated by the block mountains, upthrust schist mountains. In contrast to Canterbury, where the Northwest winds blow across the plains without interruption, in Otago the block mountains impede and dilute the effects of the Nor'wester.
The main Central Otago centres, such as Alexandra and Cromwell, are found in the intermontane basins between the block mountains. The schist bedrock influence extends to the eastern part of Otago, where remnant volcanics mark its edge. The remains of the most spectacular of these are the Miocene volcanics centred on Otago Harbour. Elsewhere, basalt outcrops can be found along the coast and at other sites.
Comparatively similar terrain exists in the high plateau land of the Maniototo Plain, which lies to the east of Central Otago, close to the upper reaches of the Taieri River. This area is sparsely populated, but of historical note for its importance during the Otago gold rush of the 1860s. The townships of Ranfurly and Naseby lie in this area.
In the southeastern corner of Otago lies The Catlins, an area of rough hill country which geologically forms part of the Murihiku terrane, an accretion which extends inland through the Hokonui Hills in the Southland region. This itself forms part of a larger system known as the Southland Syncline, which links to similar formations in Nelson (offset by the Alpine Fault) and even in New Caledonia, 3,500 km (2,200 mi) away.
The Catlins ranges are strike ridges composed of Triassic and Jurassic sandstones, mudstones and other related sedimentary rocks, often with a high incidence of feldspar. Fossils of the late and middle Triassic Warepan and Kaihikuan stages are found in the area.
Climate
Weather conditions vary enormously across Otago, but can be broken into two broad types: the coastal climate of the coastal regions and the more continental climate of the interior.
Coastal regions of Otago are subject to the alternating warm and dry/cool and wet weather patterns common to the interannual Southern oscillation. The Southern Hemisphere storm track produces an irregular short cycle of weather which repeats roughly every week, with three or four days of fine weather followed by three or four days of cooler, damp conditions. Drier conditions are often the result of the northwesterly föhn wind, which dries as it crosses the Southern Alps. Wetter air is the result of approaching low-pressure systems which sweep fronts over the country from the southwest. A common variant in this pattern is the centring of a stationary low-pressure zone to the southeast of the country, resulting in long-lasting cool, wet conditions. These have been responsible for several notable historical floods, such as the "hundred year floods" of October 1878 and October 1978.
Typically, winters are cool and wet in the extreme south areas and snow can fall and settle to sea level in winter, especially in the hills and plains of South Otago. More Central and Northern Coastal areas winter is sunnier and drier. Summers, by contrast, tend to be warm and dry, with temperatures often reaching the high 20s and low 30s Celsius.
In Central Otago cold frosty winters are succeeded by hot dry summers. Central Otago's climate is the closest approximation to a continental climate anywhere in New Zealand. This climate is part of the reason why Central Otago vineyards are successful in this region. This inland region is one of the driest regions in the country, sheltered from prevailing rain-bearing weather conditions by the high mountains to the west and hills of the south. Summers can be hot, with temperatures often approaching or exceeding 30 degrees Celsius; winters, by contrast, are often bitterly cold – the township of Ranfurly in Central Otago holds the New Zealand record for lowest temperature with a reading of −25.6 °C on 18 July 1903.
Population
Otago Region covers 31,186.16 km2 (12,041.04 sq mi). The population is 254,600 as of June 2023, which is approximately 4.9 percent of New Zealand's total population of 5.2 million. The population density is 8.2 people per km2. About 41.7 percent of the population resides in the Dunedin urban area—the region's main city and the country's sixth largest urban area. For historical and geographical reasons, Dunedin is usually regarded as one of New Zealand's four main centres. Unlike other southern centres, Dunedin's population has not declined since the 1970s, largely due to the presence of the University of Otago – and especially its medical school – which attracts students from all over New Zealand and overseas.
Other significant urban centres in Otago with populations over 1,000 include: Queenstown, Oamaru, Wānaka, Port Chalmers, Cromwell, Alexandra, Balclutha, Milton and Mosgiel. Between 1996 and 2006, the population of the Queenstown Lakes District grew by 60% due to the region's booming tourism industry.
Otago had a population of 240,900 in the 2023 New Zealand census, an increase of 15,714 people (7.0%) since the 2018 census, and an increase of 38,430 people (19.0%) since the 2013 census. There were 118,524 males, 121,185 females and 1,188 people of other genders in 94,425 dwellings. 4.3% of people identified as LGBTIQ+. The median age was 38.4 years (compared with 38.1 years nationally). There were 37,749 people (15.7%) aged under 15 years, 53,532 (22.2%) aged 15 to 29, 106,926 (44.4%) aged 30 to 64, and 42,690 (17.7%) aged 65 or older.
People could identify as more than one ethnicity. The results were 85.2% European (Pākehā); 9.9% Māori; 3.4% Pasifika; 8.5% Asian; 2.2% Middle Eastern, Latin American and African New Zealanders (MELAA); and 2.7% other, which includes people giving their ethnicity as "New Zealander". English was spoken by 97.5%, Māori language by 1.9%, Samoan by 0.6% and other languages by 11.9%. No language could be spoken by 1.7% (e.g. too young to talk). New Zealand Sign Language was known by 0.5%. The percentage of people born overseas was 23.8, compared with 28.8% nationally.
Religious affiliations were 28.4% Christian, 1.0% Hindu, 0.8% Islam, 0.2% Māori religious beliefs, 0.7% Buddhist, 0.5% New Age, 0.1% Jewish, and 1.4% other religions. People who answered that they had no religion were 60.3%, and 6.6% of people did not answer the census question.
Of those at least 15 years old, 40,458 (19.9%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, 106,080 (52.2%) had a post-high school certificate or diploma, and 43,974 (21.6%) people exclusively held high school qualifications. The median income was $39,100, compared with $41,500 nationally. 19,692 people (9.7%) earned over $100,000 compared to 12.1% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 101,514 (50.0%) people were employed full-time, 31,086 (15.3%) were part-time, and 4,848 (2.4%) were unemployed.
The majority of the population of European lineage is of Scottish stock—the descendants of early Scottish settlers from the early 19th century. Other well-represented European groups include those of English, Irish, and Dutch descent. A large proportion of the Māori population are from the Ngāi Tahu iwi or tribe. Other significant ethnic minorities include Asians, Pacific Islanders, Africans, Latin Americans and Middle Easterners. Otago's early waves of settlement, especially during and immediately after the gold rush of the 1860s, included a substantial minority of southern (Guangdong) Chinese settlers, and a smaller but also prominent number of people from Lebanon. The region's Jewish population also experienced a small influx at this time. The early and middle years of the twentieth century saw smaller influxes of immigrants from several mainland European countries, most notably the Netherlands.
In line with the region's Scottish heritage, Presbyterianism is the largest Christian denomination with 17.1 percent affiliating, while Catholicism is the second-largest denomination with 11.5 percent affiliating.
Politics
Local government
The seat of the Otago Regional Council is in Dunedin. The council is chaired by Andrew Noone as of July 2021.
There are five territorial authorities in Otago:
Queenstown-Lakes District
Central Otago District
Dunedin City
Clutha District
Waitaki District
Parliamentary representation
Otago is represented by four parliamentary electorates. Dunedin and nearby towns are represented by the Dunedin electorate, held by Rachel Brooking, and the Taieri electorate, occupied by Ingrid Leary. Both MPs are members of the Labour Party, and Dunedin has traditionally been a Labour stronghold. Since 2008 the rest of Otago has been divided between the large rural electorates of Waitaki, which also includes some of the neighbouring Canterbury Region, and Clutha-Southland, which also includes most of the rural part of the neighbouring Southland Region. The Waitaki electorate has traditionally been a National Party stronghold and is currently held by Miles Anderson. The Southland electorate, also a National Party stronghold, is currently represented by Joseph Mooney. The earlier Otago electorate existed from 1978 to 2008, when it was split and merged into Waitaki and Clutha-Southland.
Two list MPs are based in Dunedin – Michael Woodhouse of the National Party and Rachel Brooking of the Labour Party. One-time Labour Party Deputy Leader David Parker is a former MP for the Otago electorate and currently a list MP.
Under the Māori electorates system, Otago is also part of the large Te Tai Tonga electorate, which covers the entire South Island and surrounding islands, and is currently held by Te Pāti Māori Party MP Tākuta Ferris.
Ngāi Tahu governance
Three of the 18 Ngāi Tahu Rūnanga (councils) are based in the Otago Region. Each one is centred on a coastal marae, namely Ōtākou, Moeraki and Puketeraki at Karitane. There is also the Arai Te Uru Marae in Dunedin.
Economy
The subnational gross domestic product (GDP) of Otago was estimated at NZ$14.18 billion in the year to March 2020, 4.38% of New Zealand's national GDP. The regional GDP per capita was estimated at $58,353 in the same period. In the year to March 2018, primary industries contributed $1.25 billion (9.8%) to the regional GDP, goods-producing industries contributed $2.38 billion (18.6%), service industries contributed $8.05 billion (63.0%), and taxes and duties contributed $1.10 billion (8.6%).
Otago has a mixed economy. Dunedin is home to manufacturing, publishing and technology-based industries. Rural economies have been reinvigorated in the 1990s and 2000s: in Clutha district, farms have been converted from sheep to more lucrative dairying. Vineyard planting and production remained modest until the middle of the 1990s when the New Zealand wine industry began to expand rapidly. The Central Otago wine region produces wine made from varieties such as the Pinot noir, Chardonnay, Sauvignon blanc, Merlot and Riesling grapes. It has an increasing reputation as New Zealand's leading Pinot noir region.
Education
Otago has numerous rural primary schools, several small town primary and secondary schools, and some larger schools in Dunedin. Most are state schools which do not charge tuition, except for international students. Some are state integrated schools, former private schools with a special character based on a religious or philosophical belief that has been integrated into the state system, but still charge "attendance dues" to cover the building and maintenance of school buildings. These schools are not owned by the government, but otherwise they like state schools cannot charge fees for tuition of domestic students but may request a donation. As Dunedin was founded by Presbyterian Scottish settlers there are a Presbyterian girls' and boys' school in the city. Unlike other major cities in New Zealand, Dunedin does not have any private intermediate or high schools, as all remaining private intermediate and high schools have been integrated into the state system.
See also
North Otago, the northern area of the region
Otago Central Rail Trail
Otago Rugby Football Union
North Otago Rugby Football Union
References
External links
Otago travel guide from Wikivoyage
Media related to Otago Region at Wikimedia Commons |
Super_Bowl_XXIX | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXIX | [
360
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XXIX#:~:text=The%2049ers%20defeated%20the%20Chargers,ravaged%20the%20city%20in%201992."
] | Super Bowl XXIX was an American football game between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion San Diego Chargers and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion San Francisco 49ers to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for the 1994 season. The 49ers defeated the Chargers by the score of 49–26, becoming the first team to win five Super Bowl championships. The game was played on January 29, 1995, at Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami, Florida.
This game is regarded as 49ers quarterback Steve Young's final leap out of the shadow of his predecessor, Joe Montana, who had won four Super Bowls with the 49ers (in 1981, 1984, 1988, and 1989), two with Young as the backup quarterback. With Young at the helm, and a defense consisting of several veteran free agents who joined the team during the previous offseason, San Francisco finished the regular season with a league-best 13–3 record, and led the league in total points scored (505). The Chargers, on the other hand, were regarded as a "Cinderella" team, and advanced to their first Super Bowl after posting an 11–5 regular-season record and overcoming halftime deficits in both of their playoff wins.
This was the first Super Bowl in which both teams scored in all four quarters. The combined aggregate score of 75 points and the ten total touchdowns both remain Super Bowl records. Still, the 49ers controlled most of the game, with Young completing touchdown passes in each of the 49ers' first two drives. The Chargers were able to cut the deficit late in the first quarter, 14–7, on a 13-play, 78-yard drive, but could not slow down San Francisco afterwards. Young was named the Super Bowl MVP, throwing a Super Bowl-record six touchdown passes, and completing 24 out of 36 passes for 325 yards.
Despite the predicted blowout (18 1⁄2- points is the second largest margin a team has been favored by in a Super Bowl), the fact that San Diego did not have as much national appeal nor a relatively large core fan base, and two teams from California playing, which could have significantly diminished interest along the East Coast, the telecast of the game on ABC still had a Nielsen rating of 41.3.
Background
Host selection process
NFL owners voted to award Super Bowl XXIX to Miami during their May 23, 1991 meeting in Minneapolis. Three cities presented bids: Miami (Joe Robbie Stadium), Tampa (Tampa Stadium), and Houston (Astrodome). New Orleans pulled out of the running early on due to conflicts with other conventions. Houston was considered an early favorite, since they had not hosted the game since 1974. However, the Astrodome would need to add approximately 10,000 temporary seats in order to meet the NFL's capacity requirement of 70,000.
Rules required a candidate to receive a 3⁄4 vote (21 of 28 owners) in order to win the bidding. Tampa was eliminated on the first ballot, having just hosted XXV, along with their lack of premium seating. Then neither Miami nor Houston managed to get 21 votes on the second ballot or on the third ballot. For the fourth ballot, the threshold was reduced to a simple majority. In what was said to be a close vote, Miami was selected as the host. It marked the seventh time overall the Miami-area hosted the Super Bowl, and the second time it was played in Joe Robbie Stadium.
San Diego Chargers
The Chargers were the biggest surprise of the 1994 season, with very few expecting them to even reach the playoffs, let alone the Super Bowl.
San Diego suffered losing seasons in the 1980s until former Washington Redskins general manager Bobby Beathard joined the team in 1990. Beathard decided to rebuild the Chargers using the same model that he used to build the Redskins into Super Bowl contenders during the 1980s: a powerful running game built around big linemen, a passing game that helped sustain extremely long drives, and a bending but steady defense. After former Georgia Tech head coach Bobby Ross was hired by the Chargers in 1992, the team won the AFC West with an 11–5 regular season record and won an opening round playoff game against Kansas City. But in 1993, they slumped back to 8–8 and did not reach the postseason.
Before the start of the 1994 season, San Diego was not expected to do well because they had so many newcomers via the draft and free agency; the Chargers ended up with 22 new players on their roster, and 10 of them became starters. However, they ended up winning their first six regular season games en route to an 11–5 record, the AFC West championship, and the #2 AFC playoff seed. The Chargers went into the final game of the season against the Pittsburgh Steelers needing a win to get the #2 seed (a loss would have given that spot to the Miami Dolphins), which came with a first-round bye and a home game in the divisional round of the playoffs. Backup quarterback Gale Gilbert, subbing for injured starter Stan Humphries, led the Chargers to a come-from-behind 37–34 win, with John Carney kicking a game-winning field goal in the game's final seconds.
The Chargers' offense was led by quarterback Stan Humphries, who was the Redskins' backup to Mark Rypien during the 1991 season, when they won Super Bowl XXVI. During the 1994 season for San Diego, Humphries completed 264 out of 453 attempts for 3,209 yards and 17 touchdowns, with 12 interceptions. Wide receiver Mark Seay was the team's leading receiver with 58 receptions for 645 yards and 6 touchdowns. Wide receiver Tony Martin had 50 catches for 885 yards and 7 touchdowns, wide receiver Shawn Jefferson recorded 43 catches for 627 yards and 3 touchdowns, and tight end Alfred Pupunu had 21 receptions for 214 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Running back Natrone Means led the team in rushing with 1,350 yards and 12 touchdowns. He also recorded 39 receptions for 235 yards, and was named to the Pro Bowl. Third-down back Ronnie Harmon was also a big contributor, catching 58 passes for 615 yards and a touchdown. Meanwhile, the Chargers' special teams was also a major threat with Andre Coleman, who returned 49 kickoffs for 1,293 yards (26.4 average yards per return) and 2 touchdowns.
The Chargers had an excellent defensive line, anchored by Pro Bowl defensive end Leslie O'Neal, who led the team with 12.5 sacks and forced four fumbles, defensive tackle Chris Mims, who recorded 11 sacks, and Shawn Lee, who added 6.5 sacks and a fumble recovery. Their linebacking corps was led by Junior Seau, who was a Pro Bowl selection for the fourth consecutive year, recording 123 tackles, 5.5 sacks, and 3 fumble recoveries. Defensive back Stanley Richard was a major weapon in the secondary, recording 4 interceptions, 224 return yards, and 2 touchdowns. Defensive back Darrien Gordon was also a major asset to the team, recording 4 interceptions and 32 return yards, while also adding another 475 yards and 2 touchdowns returning punts. Safety Rodney Harrison was a rookie on the team.
Chargers backup quarterback Gale Gilbert became the first player to be a member of five consecutive Super Bowl teams. He had been a third-string quarterback for the Buffalo Bills, who had won AFC Championships in the four previous seasons (1990–1993).
San Francisco 49ers
From the 1988 to the 1993 seasons, the 49ers played in five out of six NFC Championship Games, winning Super Bowls XXIII and XXIV. But after head coach George Seifert's team lost two consecutive NFC Championship games to the Dallas Cowboys in 1992 and 1993, San Francisco brought in several veteran free agents to strengthen their defense. Among the players signed were defensive linemen Richard Dent (the MVP of Super Bowl XX), Charles Mann, Rhett Hall, and Rickey Jackson; linebackers Ken Norton Jr. and Gary Plummer; and cornerback Deion Sanders.
The free agents enabled the 49ers to jump from the 18th-ranked defense in the league to the 8th, and to jump from the league's 16th-best defense against the run to the 2nd. Pro Bowl defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield led the team with 8.5 sacks. Rookie defensive tackle Bryant Young was also a big threat to opposing quarterbacks and rushers, recording 42 tackles, 6 sacks, and a fumble recovery. Behind them, Norton played very effectively at the middle linebacker position, leading the team with 77 tackles and recording an interception. Pro Bowl safety Merton Hanks led the team with 7 interceptions for 93 return yards, while Sanders had 6 interceptions for 303 return yards and 3 touchdowns, earning him the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award. His 303 return yards was the third-highest total in NFL history, while his touchdown returns of 74, 93, and 90 yards made him the first player ever to have two 90-yard interception returns in one season. Pro Bowl safety Tim McDonald was also a big contributor, recording 2 interceptions for 79 yards and a touchdown.
The 49ers' offense was led by quarterback Steve Young, who replaced future Hall of Famer Joe Montana as the starter in 1991 and 1992 due to injuries. After Young led the league in passing in both seasons, Montana was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs, leaving Young as the undisputed starter in 1993. But even with his impressive passing statistics, Young was criticized as "not being able to win the big games" as Montana had done in leading the 49ers to Super Bowl victories in XVI, XIX, XXIII, and XXIV. It also didn't help that the team had lost to Montana's Chiefs 24–17 during the regular season.
Still, Young again led the league in passing during the 1994 regular season with a passer rating of 112.8, breaking Montana's record for the highest regular season rating in NFL history. Young recorded 324 out of 461 completions for 3,969 yards, 35 touchdowns, and just 10 interceptions. He also had 58 rushes for 293 yards and 7 touchdowns, and earned the NFL Most Valuable Player Award.
With Young at the helm, the 49ers led the league in total points scored (505) and helped them earn a league best 13–3 regular season record. Pro Bowl running back Ricky Watters was the team's leading rusher with 877 yards and 6 touchdowns, while also recording 66 receptions for 719 yards and 5 touchdowns. Rookie fullback William Floyd was the team's second-leading rusher with 305 yards and 6 touchdowns, while also having 19 receptions for 145 yards. The team's leading receiver was Pro Bowl wide receiver Jerry Rice, who had 112 catches for 1,499 yards and 13 touchdowns, while also gaining 93 yards and two more touchdowns rushing the ball. Receiver John Taylor was also a reliable target, catching 41 passes for 531 yards and 5 touchdowns. Pro Bowl tight end Brent Jones added 49 receptions for 670 yards and 9 touchdowns. The offensive line was led by Pro Bowl center Bart Oates, another offseason free agent pickup, and Pro Bowl guard Jesse Sapolu.
Running back Dexter Carter had a standout season as a returner on special teams, gaining a combined total of 1,426 yards and a touchdown returning both punts and kickoffs.
Playoffs
Chargers
In the AFC Divisional Playoffs, the Chargers managed to overcome a 21–6 halftime deficit to defeat the Miami Dolphins, 22–21. In the first half, San Diego was limited to only two John Carney field goals, while Miami quarterback Dan Marino threw for over 180 yards and 3 touchdowns. However, the Chargers dominated the Dolphins in the second half, limiting their offense to just 16 plays. In the third quarter, after the Chargers were stopped on fourth and goal at the 1-yard line, Chargers defensive lineman Reuben Davis tackled Dolphins running back Bernie Parmalee in the end zone for a safety. San Diego then took the ensuing free kick and marched 54 yards to score on Means's 24-yard touchdown run. Then with time running out, Humphries threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Mark Seay, giving his team a one-point lead. The Dolphins, aided by a pass interference call, responded with a drive to the Chargers' 31-yard line, but kicker Pete Stoyanovich's potential game-winning 48-yard field goal attempt sailed far to the right of the goal posts and sealed San Diego's stirring win.
San Diego then faced the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game. Once again, the Chargers fell behind early as the Steelers built up a 13–3 halftime lead, but Humphries fooled the Steelers secondary with a 43-yard play-action touchdown pass to a wide open tight end Alfred Pupunu. The Chargers then took a 17–13 lead when Martin beat the Steelers secondary (particularly a badly overmatched Tim McKyer) down the right sideline for a 43-yard touchdown reception. On their final drive, the Steelers advanced to the San Diego 3-yard line, but Chargers linebacker Dennis Gibson sealed the victory on fourth down by deflecting quarterback Neil O'Donnell's pass intended for running back Barry Foster to turn the ball back over to San Diego. Just like the 49ers in the NFC title game, the Chargers advanced to the Super Bowl despite the fact that their opponent had outgained them in many key statistical categories such as total plays (80–47), total offensive yards (415–226), and time of possession (37:13–22:47).
49ers
The 49ers first defeated the Chicago Bears, 44–15, in the NFC Divisional Playoffs. Although Chicago scored first with a field goal, San Francisco scored 37 unanswered points to put the game out of reach by the end of the third quarter. Floyd scored three rushing touchdowns, while Young rushed for a touchdown and threw for another.
San Francisco then defeated their nemesis, the Dallas Cowboys, 38–28, in the NFC Championship Game. Expected to be a close game, the 49ers converted 3 Dallas turnovers into 21 points in the first quarter. On the third play of the game, cornerback Eric Davis returned an interception from Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman for a touchdown. Wide receiver Michael Irvin lost a fumble on Dallas' next drive, setting up Young's 29-yard touchdown pass to Watters. Then Cowboys returner Kevin Williams lost a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, and it was recovered by kicker Doug Brien at Dallas' 35-yard line. Several plays later, Floyd scored on a 1-yard touchdown run to give San Francisco a 21–0 lead less than 8 minutes into the game. With the score 24–14 in the closing minutes of the first half, Aikman threw 3 straight incompletions, and a short punt by the Cowboys set up Young's 28-yard touchdown completion to Rice with 8 seconds remaining in the first half. The Cowboys eventually cut their deficit to 38–28 with a touchdown run by Emmitt Smith and Aikman's 10-yard touchdown pass to Irvin in the final period, but they were unable to score again. Although the Cowboys outgained the 49ers in total offensive yards (451–294), Aikman broke an NFC Championship Game record with 380 yards passing, and Irvin also broke an NFC Championship Game record with 192 receiving yards, Dallas was ultimately unable to overcome their first-quarter turnovers.
Super Bowl pregame news
Entering Super Bowl XXIX, most sports writers and fans thought the Chargers had absolutely no chance of defeating the 49ers. San Francisco was on track, winning 12 of its last 13 games (with their only loss in that span coming against the Minnesota Vikings in a meaningless regular season finale at Minnesota), including their playoff victories. Many people also thought that the NFC Championship Game between the 49ers and the Cowboys was "the real Super Bowl", because those two teams were commonly viewed as vastly superior to any AFC team. Furthermore, San Francisco had defeated San Diego, 38–15, during the regular season. As a result, the 49ers entered the game favored to win by 18 1⁄2- points, surpassed only by the 19 1⁄2- points, by the Baltimore Colts who were favored over the New York Jets in Super Bowl III more than two decades prior.
Many also speculated that Super Bowl XXIX would be the least watched game in Super Bowl history because the Chargers did not have as large of a core fan base as other AFC teams like the Chiefs, the Dolphins, or the Steelers. (This prediction ultimately turned out to be false. Although Super Bowl XXIX was viewed by 125.2 million people and had a Nielsen rating of 41.3, Super Bowl XXVI three years earlier was seen by 119.7 million viewers and recorded a 40.3 rating.)
This was the seventh Super Bowl to be played in Miami, at the time tying both New Orleans, Louisiana and the Greater Los Angeles area for hosting the Super Bowl the most times. It remains the only Super Bowl played between teams that play their home games in the same state (although Super Bowl XXV was played between the New York Giants and the Buffalo Bills, two teams representing areas of New York, the Giants play their home games in New Jersey).
Broadcasting
The game was broadcast in the United States by ABC, with play-by-play announcer Al Michaels and color commentators Frank Gifford and Dan Dierdorf. Lynn Swann reported from the Chargers sideline and Lesley Visser reported from the 49ers sideline). Visser became the first woman assigned to a Super Bowl sideline; she had previously become the first woman sportscaster to cover the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation ceremony, when she covered Super Bowl XXVI for CBS. Brent Musburger hosted all the Super Bowl XXIX pregame (2 hours), halftime, and postgame events with the help of then-ABC Sports analyst Dick Vermeil, Musburger's regular color commentator on ABC's college football telecasts, and then-New York Jets quarterback Boomer Esiason.
This was the last Super Bowl broadcast by the broadcast team of Michaels, Gifford and Dierdorf. The three called Monday Night Football from the 1987 to 1997, and also worked ABC's coverage of Super Bowls XXII and XXV. This would also be the last Super Bowl aired on ABC until the 1999 season (when Al Michaels called the game with Boomer Esiason). This would also be the final Super Bowl hosted by Musburger, as all subsequent Super Bowls on ABC were hosted by ESPN's Chris Berman following the Disney purchase of ABC (which included ESPN), and the subsequent integration of ESPN and ABC Sports (now ESPN on ABC). Also, the trophy presentation for this game was the last to be held in the winning team's locker room, as all subsequent Vince Lombardi Trophy presentations would be held on the field.
For the Super Bowl lead-out program, ABC premiered the television drama Extreme starring James Brolin; this was the last series to premiere following the Super Bowl until Family Guy premiered following Super Bowl XXXIII and is one of only four in the last 14 years to premiere following a Super Bowl (joining Family Guy, its spinoff American Dad!, and Undercover Boss which premiered following Super Bowl XLIV), since the networks have preferred to have new episodes of established shows to catch as much of the post-game audience as possible.
Thirty-second television advertisements for Super Bowl XXIX averaged $1.15 million in costs, the first time that Super Bowl ads exceeded the $1 million mark.
Super Bowl XXIX aired in over 150 countries worldwide. It was simulcast in Canada on CTV and TVA (in French), in Mexico on Televisa's Canal 5, whose commentators were able to call the game live from San Diego on the last minute, in Germany on Tele 5, in Australia on ABC, in the Philippines on the GMA Network and later aired in the United Kingdom on Channel 4.
This Super Bowl would later be featured on NFL's Greatest Games under the title Exercise in Excellence. The Super Bowl highlight film on which the episode was based was the only Super Bowl highlight film to be narrated by Harry Kalas.
In popular culture
In the Tuesday prior to the Super Bowl, the ABC sitcom Full House aired an episode called "Super Bowl Fun Day" involving main characters Danny Tanner and Rebecca Donaldson reporting at the game for their show Wake Up, San Francisco. (Full House was set in San Francisco, and this was the only time during the show's run that the 49ers advanced to a Super Bowl aired on ABC.) A week earlier, the Seinfeld episode "The Label Maker" involved Jerry trying to give away his tickets to the game. He eventually decided to go, but unfortunately was stuck sitting next to Newman. Two days after the Super Bowl, the game was the main plot feature of an episode of the ABC sitcom Home Improvement, "Super Bowl Fever", in which Jill was sick with the flu while Tim and his buddies tried to watch the game.
Entertainment
Pregame ceremonies
The pregame show held before the game featured country music singer Hank Williams Jr., who performed his theme song for Monday Night Football, which was based on his single "All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight".
Actress and singer Kathie Lee Gifford (Frank Gifford's wife) later sang the national anthem. She was accompanied by then-Miss America Heather Whitestone who signed the anthem for the hearing impaired.
To honor the NFL's 75th season, four former players all Hall of Fame members, who were named to the league's 75th Anniversary All-Time Team joined the coin toss ceremony: Otto Graham, Joe Greene, Ray Nitschke, and Gale Sayers.
A special 75th anniversary logo was painted at midfield. Each player also wore a patch on his jersey with the same logo; the 75th anniversary patch was worn by all players league-wide during the 1994 season. During the regular season, teams also wore "throwback" jerseys for selected games. The 49ers wore their throwbacks (which paid tribute to the 1957 Niners) for most of the season, this game included.
Halftime show
The halftime show was titled "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye" and was produced by Disney to promote their Indiana Jones Adventure attraction at Disneyland that opened later that year. The show featured actors playing Indiana Jones and his girlfriend Marion Ravenwood who were raiding the Vince Lombardi Trophy from the Temple of the Forbidden Eye. The show also had performances by singers Tony Bennett and Patti LaBelle, jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, and the Miami Sound Machine. The show ended with everybody singing "Can You Feel The Love Tonight", the song featured in Disney's (which later acquired ABC) 1994 film The Lion King. The dancers on the field were members of the Coral Gables Senior High marching band.
This halftime show also had a connection with past ABC programming: the first two Indiana Jones films had their broadcast premieres on ABC, and the network aired a TV series, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, from 1992 to 1993 (actually serving as the lead-in to Monday Night Football at one point).
Radio
The game was broadcast on nationwide radio by CBS with play-by-play announcer Jack Buck and color commentator Hank Stram. Jim Hunter hosted all of the events. Locally, Super Bowl XXIX was broadcast by XTRA-AM in San Diego with Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton and Jim Laslavic and by KGO-AM in San Francisco with Joe Starkey and Wayne Walker.
Game summary
First quarter
After 49ers running back Dexter Carter returned the opening kickoff 9 yards to the San Francisco 26-yard line, a face mask penalty on Chargers linebacker Doug Miller allowed San Francisco to start at their own 41. On the third play of the drive, quarterback Steve Young threw a 44-yard touchdown pass to wide Jerry Rice to take an early 7–0 lead. The 49ers became the second team to take the opening kickoff and score a touchdown on that first drive (the first being the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VIII), and also set a new Super Bowl record for the fastest touchdown (later broken by the Chicago Bears' Devin Hester in Super Bowl XLI). After forcing the Chargers to punt after a three-and-out on their opening possession, the 49ers advanced 79 yards in four plays, with Young rushing for 21 yards and then throwing a 51-yard touchdown pass to running back Ricky Watters to give San Francisco a 14–0 lead less than 5 minutes into the first quarter and set a Super Bowl record for the fastest second touchdown scored by a team.
San Diego responded on their ensuing possession, marching 78 yards in 13 plays and taking more than 7 minutes off the clock. The drive featured two receptions and a run by running back Ronnie Harmon for 33 yards and six runs by running back Natrone Means for 22 yards, the last one being a 1-yard touchdown run, cutting the Chargers' deficit to 14–7. However, the 49ers quickly countered after the ensuing kickoff, driving 70 yards in 10 plays. Rice started off the drive with a 19-yard reception and 10-yard run on a reverse play, while Young added a 12-yard completion to wide receiver John Taylor and a 15-yard scramble.
Second quarter
Four plays into the second quarter, Young threw a 5-yard touchdown pass to fullback William Floyd, increasing the San Francisco lead to 21–7 and making the 49ers the second team to score on its first three possessions (after Green Bay) of a Super Bowl and the first (and only as of 2024) to score touchdowns on its first three possessions.
After the next three possessions ended in punts, Chargers punter Bryan Wagner's 40-yard punt from his own 9-yard line gave the 49ers the ball at the San Diego 49. San Francisco then marched on a 9-play drive, which included two receptions by Rice for 19 yards and ended with Young's fourth touchdown pass, an 8-yard toss to Watters, with 4:44 left in the half, making the score 28–7. San Diego then took the ensuing kickoff and drove 62 yards from their own 25-yard line to the San Francisco 13, featuring a 17-yard reception by wide receiver Mark Seay, a 10-yard reverse run by wide receiver Shawn Jefferson, and a 33-yard gain on a screen pass from quarterback Stan Humphries to running back Eric Bieniemy, the Chargers' longest play of the game. But after Humphries threw three incomplete passes, one of which was a perfectly thrown pass that Seay dropped in the end zone, they were forced to settle for kicker John Carney's 31-yard field goal, cutting their deficit to 28–10.
A 33-yard completion from Young to tight end Brent Jones helped the 49ers reach the San Diego 29-yard line on their next possession, but Young's third-down pass to Jones was overthrown, and kicker Doug Brien missed a 47-yard field goal attempt wide right. The Chargers then drove to their own 46-yard line, but 49ers cornerback Eric Davis intercepted Humphries' third-down pass intended for wide receiver Tony Martin in the end zone for a touchback with 10 seconds left in the half, and the score remained 28–10 at halftime. The Chargers' 18-point halftime deficit ended up being the closest scoring margin they would reach for the rest of the game.
Third quarter
The 49ers picked up right where they left off going into the second half. The Chargers were forced to punt after three plays on the opening drive of the half, and Carter returned the ball 11 yards to his own 38-yard line. Young subsequently completed two passes to Rice for 37 yards (including a 21-yard pass on 3rd-and-17) and a 16-yard pass to Taylor on a 7-play, 62-yard drive that ended with Watters' third touchdown of the game on a 9-yard run, increasing the 49ers' lead to 35–10. After a 33-yard kickoff return by wide receiver Andre Coleman, the Chargers advanced to the San Francisco 33-yard line, aided by a 23-yard reception by tight end Alfred Pupunu, but they turned the ball over on downs when Humphries' 4th-and-7 pass intended for Martin was broken up by Davis. Young then led San Francisco on a 10-play, 67-yard drive, aided by a 22-yard pass interference penalty against cornerback Darrien Gordon on 3rd-and-14, to score on his fifth touchdown pass, a 15-yard completion to Rice. But San Diego immediately responded when Coleman returned the ensuing kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown. Then Humphries completed a pass to Seay for a two-point conversion (the first in Super Bowl history; the rule had been adopted by the NFL at the start of the season), but it only cut the deficit to 42–18.
The 49ers were forced to punt on their next drive, but the Chargers ended up turning the ball over on downs again when Means was tackled for a 4-yard loss by safety Merton Hanks on 4th-and-1 from the San Diego 37.
Fourth quarter
Six plays later, after three runs by Watters for 25 yards, Young threw his record-setting sixth touchdown pass to Rice on a 7-yard completion with 13:49 remaining in the game, increasing the San Francisco lead to 49–18 and essentially ending any hopes of a San Diego comeback. The Chargers, now playing for pride, responded with a 13-play, 59-yard drive to reach the San Francisco 7-yard line. Humphries led his team down the field 12 yards for the first four plays, but hurt his ankle while being tackled by defensive tackle Bryant Young, and was temporarily replaced by Gale Gilbert, who completed two passes to Harmon for 24 yards, but threw an interception on 4th-and-6 to cornerback Deion Sanders, who returned the ball to the San Francisco 14-yard line. After two punts by the 49ers and an interception by San Francisco defensive back Toi Cook (during which Humphries returned to the game), the Chargers scored the final points of the game on a 67-yard, 8-play drive, which consisted of two receptions by Seay for 30 yards and two receptions by Martin for 42 yards, the second of which was caught for a 30-yard touchdown. TV viewers didn't see most of the play as ABC had cut to the 49ers celebrating on the sideline. Humphries then completed another pass for a two-point conversion, this time to Pupunu, to make the final score 49–26. The 49ers recovered the ensuing onside kick and ran time off the clock before punting to the San Diego 7. San Diego drove to the San Francisco 35 before the game ended. Once the 49ers victory was assured, Young said "somebody take the monkey off my back!" Years later, he regretted saying that saying this was a team effort not an individual performance.
At the end of the game, Young showed his jubilation at finally being able to win "the big one" while accepting the MVP trophy. "There were times when this was hard! But this is the greatest feeling in the world! No one — no one! — can ever take this away from us! No one, ever! It's ours!" Young and his teammates were equally enthusiastic in the locker room afterwards. "We're part of history," said guard Jesse Sapolu. "This is probably the best offense people will see in their lifetimes." "Is this great or what?" Young added. "I mean, I haven't thrown six touchdown passes in a game in my life. Then I throw six in the Super Bowl! Unbelievable."
Rice caught 10 passes for 149 yards and 3 touchdowns, tying his own record for most touchdown receptions in a Super Bowl, and becoming the first player ever to do it twice. He also recorded 10 rushing yards. Watters rushed for 47 yards and a touchdown, while also catching 3 passes for 61 yards and two touchdowns. Means, who rushed for 1,350 yards in the regular season, was held to just 33 yards in the game. Humphries finished 24 out of 49 for 275 yards and one touchdown, with two interceptions. Seay was the Chargers' top receiver with 7 receptions for 75 yards, while Ronnie Harmon added 8 catches for 68 yards. Defensive end Raylee Johnson had two sacks. Coleman's 8 kickoff returns for 244 yards and a touchdown set the following Super Bowl records: most kickoff returns in a Super Bowl, most kickoff return yards in a Super Bowl, and most combined net yards gained in a Super Bowl.
This was the first Super Bowl to have two players each score three touchdowns. Rice matched his Super Bowl XXIV performance with his three touchdown catches. Watters also had three touchdowns, matching Roger Craig's three touchdowns (two receiving and one rushing) in Super Bowl XIX. Watters also became the second running back to catch two touchdown passes in a game, matching Craig.
Ken Norton Jr. became the first player to win three straight Super Bowls, although as a member of two teams. Norton was a member of the Cowboys teams who won Super Bowls XXVII and XXVIII. Deion Sanders became the first player to play in both a Super Bowl and a World Series, playing in the 1992 World Series with the Atlanta Braves.
Chargers quarterback Gale Gilbert became the first player to be a member of five straight Super Bowl teams. Gilbert was a member of the Bills who played in four straight Super Bowls (XXV–XXVIII). Gilbert was on the losing team in all five Super Bowl games.
The 49ers' spectacular performance led to their offensive coordinator, Mike Shanahan, and defensive coordinator, Ray Rhodes, earning head coaching positions in 1995 for the Denver Broncos and the Philadelphia Eagles, respectively. Bobby Ross became the second coach, after Jimmy Johnson in Super Bowl XXVII, to lead a team to a college football national championship (Georgia Tech in 1990) and a Super Bowl. One year later, Barry Switzer would join Johnson as the only head coaches to win championships in both NCAA Division I-A (now FBS) college football and the NFL.
Box score
Final statistics
Sources: NFL.com Super Bowl XXIX, Super Bowl XXIX Play Finder SF, Super Bowl XXIX Play Finder SD, USA Today Super Bowl XXIX Play by Play
Statistical comparison
Individual statistics
1Completions/attempts
2Carries
3Longest gain
4Receptions
5Times targeted
Records set
The following records were set in Super Bowl XXIX, according to the official NFL.com boxscore and the Pro-Football-Reference.com game summary. Some records have to meet NFL minimum number of attempts to be recognized. The minimums are shown (in parentheses).
† This category includes rushing, receiving, interception returns, punt returns, kickoff returns, and fumble returns.
Starting lineups
Source:
Pro Football Hall of Fame‡
Officials
Referee: Jerry Markbreit #9 fourth Super Bowl (XVII, XXI, XXVI)
Umpire: Ron Botchan #110 third Super Bowl (XX, XXVII)
Head Linesman: Ron Phares #10 second Super Bowl (XVII)
Line Judge: Ron Baynes #56 first Super Bowl
Back Judge: Tim Millis #80 first Super Bowl
Side Judge: Tom Fincken #47 first Super Bowl
Field Judge: Jack Vaughan #93 third Super Bowl (XX, XXV)
Alternate Referee: Gerald Austin #34 (side judge for XXIV; later referee for XXXI and XXXV)
Alternate Umpire: Rex Stuart #103
Jerry Markbreit became the first official to serve as referee in four Super Bowls, a record that still stands.
Officials wore a black armband with number 42 to honor umpire Dave Hamilton, who died on January 9 at age 61 due to liver failure. Hamilton had completed his 20th season as an NFL official in 1994.
The day after the Super Bowl, Donnie Hampton, who had been a field judge since 1988, died of a heart attack at age 47.
Aftermath
As of the 2022 season, this is the only Super Bowl played between teams based in the same state.
It is also the most recent Super Bowl title to date for the 49ers. They would play in three more in the 21st Century (Super Bowl XLVII, Super Bowl LIV and Super Bowl LVIII), but lost all of them.
As for the Chargers, the implications of their defeat were far worse in hindsight. This remains the only Super Bowl the Chargers have ever played in. Including the era before the AFL–NFL merger, it is the third championship game that the Chargers have lost. The AFL Championship in 1963 remains to this day as the only major sports championship the city of San Diego has won (and also the longest championship drought for any city that has at least two major sports franchises), so even though they were heavy underdogs, the loss still had great significance. The Chargers did not win another playoff game until the 2007 season, when they reached the AFC Championship Game but lost to the then-undefeated New England Patriots, 21–12. Super Bowl XXIX would be their only appearance while playing in San Diego before they moved to Los Angeles following the 2016 season.
Notable deaths from 1994 Chargers team
In addition, eight players from the 1994 Chargers Super Bowl team have died prior to reaching age 45. They include:
David Griggs: died in a traffic collision in 1995 at age 28
Rodney Culver: died in the crash of ValuJet Flight 592 in 1996 at age 26
Doug Miller: killed by lightning strikes in 1998 at age 28
Chris Mims: died of heart attack in 2008 at age 38
Curtis Whitley: died from a drug overdose in 2008 at age 39
Lewis Bush: died from cardiac arrest in 2011 at age 42
Shawn Lee: died from cardiac arrest in 2011 at age 44
Junior Seau: suicide with a firearm in 2012 at age 43
Notes
References
External links
Super Bowl XXIX Box Score at Pro Football Reference |
List_of_1995_box_office_number-one_films_in_the_United_States | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1995_box_office_number-one_films_in_the_United_States | [
360
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1995_box_office_number-one_films_in_the_United_States"
] | This is a list of films which have placed number one at the weekend box office in the United States during 1995.
Number-one films
Highest-grossing films
Calendar Gross
Highest-grossing films of 1995 by Calendar Gross
In-Year Release
See also
List of American films — American films by year
Lists of box office number-one films
References
== Chronology == |
Tom_Thomson | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thomson | [
361
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thomson"
] | Thomas John Thomson (August 5, 1877 – July 8, 1917) was a Canadian artist active in the early 20th century. During his short career, he produced roughly 400 oil sketches on small wood panels and approximately 50 larger works on canvas. His works consist almost entirely of landscapes, depicting trees, skies, lakes, and rivers. He used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the beauty and colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's accidental death by drowning at 39 shortly before the founding of the Group of Seven is seen as a tragedy for Canadian art.
Raised in rural Ontario, Thomson was born into a large family of farmers and displayed no immediate artistic talent. He worked several jobs before attending a business college, eventually developing skills in penmanship and copperplate writing. At the turn of the 20th century, he was employed in Seattle and Toronto as a pen artist at several different photoengraving firms, including Grip Ltd. There he met those who eventually formed the Group of Seven, including J. E. H. MacDonald, Lawren Harris, Frederick Varley, Franklin Carmichael and Arthur Lismer. In May 1912, he visited Algonquin Park—a major public park and forest reservation in Central Ontario—for the first time. It was there that he acquired his first sketching equipment and, following MacDonald's advice, began to capture nature scenes. He became enraptured with the area and repeatedly returned, typically spending his winters in Toronto and the rest of the year in the Park. His earliest paintings were not outstanding technically, but showed a good grasp of composition and colour handling. His later paintings vary in composition and contain vivid colours and thickly applied paint. His later work has had a great influence on Canadian art—paintings such as The Jack Pine and The West Wind have taken a prominent place in the culture of Canada and are some of the country's most iconic works.
Thomson developed a reputation during his lifetime as a veritable outdoorsman, talented in both fishing and canoeing, although his skills in the latter have been contested. The circumstances of his drowning on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park, linked with his image as a master canoeist, led to unsubstantiated but persistent rumours that he had been murdered or committed suicide.
Although he died before the formal establishment of the Group of Seven, Thomson is often considered an unofficial member. His art is typically exhibited with the rest of the Group's, nearly all of which remains in Canada—mainly at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound.
Life
Early years
Thomas John "Tom" Thomson was born on August 5, 1877, in Claremont, Ontario, the sixth of John and Margaret Thomson's ten children. He was raised in Leith, Ontario, near Owen Sound, in the municipality of Meaford. Thomson and his siblings enjoyed both drawing and painting, although he did not immediately display any major talents. He was eventually taken out of school for a year because of ill health, including a respiratory problem variously described as "weak lungs" or "inflammatory rheumatism". This gave him free time to explore the woods near his home and develop an appreciation of nature.
The family were unsuccessful as farmers; both Thomson and his father often abandoned their chores to go hiking, hunting and fishing. Thomson regularly went on walks in Toronto with Dr. William Brodie (1831–1909), his grandmother's first cousin. Brodie was a well-known entomologist, ornithologist and botanist, and Thomson's sister Margaret later recounted that they collected specimens on long walks together.
Thomson was also enthusiastic about sports, once breaking his toe while playing football. He was an excellent swimmer and fisherman, inheriting his passion for the latter from his grandfather and father. Like most of those in his community, he regularly attended church. Some stories say that he sketched in the hymn books during services and entertained his sisters with caricatures of their neighbours. His sisters later said that they had fun "guessing who they were", indicating that he was not necessarily adept at capturing people's likeness.
Each of Thomson's nine siblings received an inheritance from their paternal grandfather. Thomson received $2000 in 1898 but seems to have spent it quickly. A year later, he entered a machine shop apprenticeship at an iron foundry owned by William Kennedy, a close friend of his father, but left only eight months later. Also in 1899, he volunteered to fight in the Second Boer War, but was turned down because of a medical condition. He tried to enlist for the Boer War three times in all, but was denied each time.
In 1901, Thomson enrolled at Canada Business College in Chatham, Ontario. The school advertised instruction in stenography, bookkeeping, business correspondence and "plain and ornamental penmanship". There, he developed abilities in penmanship and copperplate—necessary skills for a clerk. After graduating at the end of 1901, he travelled briefly to Winnipeg before leaving for Seattle in January 1902, joining his older brother, George Thomson. George and cousin F. R. McLaren had established the Acme Business School in Seattle, listed as the 11th largest business school in the United States. Thomson worked briefly as an elevator operator at The Diller Hotel. By 1902, two more of his brothers, Ralph and Henry, had moved west to join the family's new school.
Graphic design work
Seattle (1901–1904)
After studying at the business school for six months, Thomson was hired at Maring & Ladd as a pen artist, draftsman and etcher. He mainly produced business cards, brochures and posters, as well as three-colour printing. Having previously learned calligraphy, he specialized in lettering, drawing and painting. While working at Maring & Ladd, he was known to be stubbornly independent; his brother Fraser wrote that, instead of completing his work according to the direction provided, he would use his own design ideas, which angered his boss. Thomson may have also worked as a freelance commercial designer, but there are no extant examples of such work.
He eventually moved on to a local engraving company. Despite a good salary he left by the end of 1904. He quickly returned to Leith, possibly prompted by a rejected marriage proposal after his brief summer romance with Alice Elinor Lambert. Lambert, who never married, later became a writer; in one of her stories, she describes a young girl who refuses an artist's proposal and later regrets her decision.
Toronto (1905–1912)
Thomson moved to Toronto in the summer of 1905. His first job upon his return to Canada was at the photo-engraving firm Legg Brothers, earning $11 a week. He spent his free time reading poetry and going to concerts, the theatre and sporting events. In a letter to an aunt, he wrote, "I love poetry best." Friends described him during this time as "periodically erratic and sensitive, with fits of unreasonable despondency". Apart from buying art supplies, he spent his money on expensive clothes, fine dining and tobacco. Around this time, he may have studied briefly with William Cruikshank, a British artist who taught at the Ontario College of Art. Cruikshank was likely Thomson's only formal art instructor.
In 1908 or 1909, Thomson joined Grip Ltd., a firm in Toronto that specialized in design and lettering work. Grip was the leading graphic-design company in the country and introduced Art Nouveau, metal engraving and the four-colour process to Canada. Albert Robson, then the art director at Grip, recalled that Thomson's early work at the firm was mostly in lettering and decorative designs for booklets and labels. He wrote that Thomson made friends slowly but eventually found similar interests to his coworkers. Several of the employees at Grip had been members of the Toronto Art Students' League, a group of newspaper artists, illustrators and commercial artists active between 1886 and 1904. The members sketched in parts of eastern Canada and published an annual calendar with illustrations depicting Canadian history and rural life.
The senior artist at Grip, J. E. H. MacDonald, encouraged his staff to paint outside in their spare time to better hone their skills. It was at Grip that many of the eventual members of the Group of Seven would meet. In December 1910, artist William Smithson Broadhead was hired, joined by Arthur Lismer in February 1911. Robson eventually hired Frederick Varley, followed by Franklin Carmichael in April 1911. Although Thomson was not himself a member, it was at the Arts and Letters Club that MacDonald introduced Thomson to Lawren Harris. The club was considered the "centre of living culture in Toronto", providing an informal environment for the artistic community. Every member of what would become the original Group of Seven had now met. MacDonald left Grip in November 1911 to do freelance work and spend more time painting, after the Ontario government purchased his canvas By the River (Early Spring) (1911).
Painting career
Exploring Algonquin Park (1912–13)
Algonquin Park was established in 1893 by Oliver Mowat and the Ontario Legislature. Covering eighteen rectangular townships in Central Ontario, the Park was created to provide a space dedicated to recreation, wildlife and watershed protection, though logging operations continued to be permitted. Thomson learned of the Park from fellow artist Tom McLean. In May 1912, aged 34, he first visited the Park, venturing through the area on a canoe trip with his Grip colleague H. B. (Ben) Jackson. Together, they took the Grand Trunk Railway from Toronto to Scotia Junction, then transferred to the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway, arriving at Canoe Lake Station. McLean introduced Thomson to the Park superintendent, G. W. Barlett. Thomson and Jackson later met ranger Harry (Bud) Callighen while they camped nearby on Smoke Lake.
It was also at this time that Thomson acquired his first sketching equipment. He did not yet take painting seriously. According to Jackson, Thomson did not think "his work would ever be taken seriously; in fact, he used to chuckle over the idea". Instead, they spent most of their time fishing, except for "a few notes, skylines and colour effects".
During the same trip, Thomson read Izaak Walton's 1653 fishing guide The Compleat Angler. Primarily a fisherman's bible, the book also provided a philosophy of how to live, similar to the one described in Henry David Thoreau's 1854 book Walden, or Life in the Woods, a reflection on simple living in natural surroundings. His time in Algonquin Park gave him an ideal setting to imitate Walton's "contemplative" life. Ben Jackson wrote:
Tom was never understood by lots of people, was very quiet, modest and, as a friend of mine spoke of him, a gentle soul. He cared nothing for social life, but with one or two companions on a sketching and fishing trip with his pipe and Hudson Bay tobacco going, he was a delightful companion. If a party or the boys got a little loud or rough Tom would get his sketching kit and wander off alone. At times he liked to be that way, wanted to be by himself commune [sic] with nature.
Upon returning to Toronto, Jackson published an article about his and Thomson's experience in the Park in the Toronto Sunday World, included in which were several illustrations. After this initial experience, Thomson and another colleague, William Broadhead, went on a two-month expedition, going up the Spanish River and into Mississagi Forest Reserve (today Mississagi Provincial Park). Thomson's transition from commercial art towards his own original style of painting became apparent around this time. Much of his artwork from this trip, mainly oil sketches and photographs, was lost during two canoe spills; the first was on Green Lake in a rain squall and the second in a series of rapids.
In fall 1912, Albert Robson, Grip's art director, moved to the design firm Rous & Mann. A month after returning to Toronto, Thomson followed Robson and left Grip to join Rous & Mann too. They were soon joined by Varley, Carmichael and Lismer. Robson later spoke favourably of Thomson's loyalty, calling him "a most diligent, reliable and capable craftsman". Robson's success in attracting great talent was well understood. Employee Leonard Rossell believed that the key to Robson's success "was that the artists felt that he was interested in them personally and did all he could to further their progress. Those who worked there were all allowed time off to pursue their studies ... Tom Thomson, so far as I know, never took definite lessons from anyone, yet he progressed quicker than any of us. But what he did was probably of more advantage to him. He took several months off in the summer and spent them in Algonquin Park."
In October, MacDonald introduced Thomson to James MacCallum. A frequent visitor to the Ontario Society of Artists' (OSA) exhibitions, MacCallum was admitted to the Arts and Letters Club in January 1912. There, he met artists such as John William Beatty, Arthur Heming, MacDonald and Harris. MacCallum eventually persuaded Thomson to leave Rous and Mann and start a painting career. In October 1913, MacCallum introduced Thomson to A. Y. Jackson, later a founder of the Group of Seven. MacCallum recognized Thomson's and Jackson's talents and offered to cover their expenses for one year if they committed themselves to painting full time. MacCallum and Jackson both encouraged Thomson to "take up painting seriously, [but] he showed no enthusiasm. The chances of earning a livelihood by it did not appear to him promising. He was sensitive and independent, and feared he might become an object of patronage." MacCallum wrote that when he first saw Thomson's sketches, he recognized their "truthfulness, their feeling and their sympathy with the grim fascinating northland ... they made me feel that the North had gripped Thomson as it had gripped me since I was eleven when I first sailed and paddled through its silent places." He described Thomson's paintings as "dark, muddy in colour, tight and not wanting in technical defects". After Thomson's death, MacCallum helped preserve and advocated for his work.
Thomson accepted MacCallum's offer under the same terms offered to Jackson. He travelled around Ontario with his colleagues, especially to the wilderness of Ontario, which was to become a major source of inspiration. Regarding Algonquin Park, he wrote in a letter to MacCallum: "The best I can do does not do the place much justice in the way of beauty." He ventured to rural areas near Toronto and tried to capture the surrounding nature. He may have worked as a fire ranger on the Mattagami reserve. Addison and Little suggest that he guided fishing tours, although Hill finds this unlikely since Thomson had only spent a few weeks in the Park the previous year. Thomson became as familiar with logging scenes as with nature in the Park and painted them both.
While returning to Toronto in November 1912, Thomson stopped in Huntsville. The visit was possibly to meet with Winifred Trainor, a woman whose family owned a cottage on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park. Trainor was later rumoured to have been engaged to Thomson with a wedding planned for the late 1917, although little is known about their relationship.
Thomson first exhibited with the OSA in March 1913, selling his painting Northern Lake (1912–13) to the Ontario Government for $250 (equivalent to CAD$6,500 in 2023). The sale afforded him time to paint and sketch through the summer and fall of 1913.
Early recognition (1914–15)
Thomson often experienced self-doubt. A. Y. Jackson recalled that in the fall of 1914, Thomson threw his sketch box into the woods out of frustration, and was "so shy he could hardly be induced to show his sketches". Harris expressed similar sentiments, writing that Thomson "had no opinion of his own work", and would even throw burnt matches at his paintings. Several of the canvases he sent to exhibitions remained unsigned. If someone praised one of his sketches, he immediately gave it to them as a gift. A turning point in his career came in 1914, when the National Gallery of Canada, under the directorship of Eric Brown, began to acquire his paintings. Although the money was not enough to live on, the recognition was unheard of for an unknown artist.
For several years he shared a studio and living quarters with fellow artists, initially living in the Studio Building with Jackson in January 1914. Jackson described the Studio Building as "a lively centre for new ideas, experiments, discussions, plans for the future and visions of an art inspired by the Canadian countryside". It was there that Thomson, "after much self-deprecation, finally submitted to becoming a full-time artist". They split the rent—$22 a month—on the ground floor while construction on the rest of the building was finished. After Jackson moved out in December to go to Montreal, Carmichael took his place. Thomson and Carmichael shared a studio space through the winter. On March 3, 1914, Thomson was nominated as a member of the OSA by Lismer and T. G. Greene. He was elected on the 17th. He did not participate in any of their activities beyond sending paintings for annual exhibitions. Harris described Thomson's strange working hours years later:
When he was in Toronto, Tom rarely left the shack in the daytime and then only when it was absolutely necessary. He took his exercise at night. He would put on his snowshoes and tramp the length of the Rosedale ravine and out into the country, and return before dawn.
In late April 1914, Thomson arrived in Algonquin Park, where he was joined by Lismer on May 9. They camped on Molly's Island in Smoke Lake, travelling to Canoe, Smoke, Ragged, Crown and Wolf Lakes. He spent his spring and summer divided between Georgian Bay and Algonquin Park, visiting James MacCallum by canoe. His travels during this time have proved difficult to discern, with such a large amount of ground covered in such a short time, painting the French River, Byng Inlet, Parry Sound and Go-Home Bay from May 24 through August 10. H. A. Callighen, a park ranger, wrote in his journal that Thomson and Lismer left Algonquin Park on May 24. By May 30, Thomson was at Parry Sound and on June 1 was camped at the French River with MacCallum.
Art historian Joan Murray noted that Thomson was at Go-Home Bay for the next two months, or at least until August 10 when he was seen again in Algonquin Park by Callighan. According to Wadland, if this timeline is correct, it would require "an extraordinary canoeist ... The difficulty is augmented by the fact of stopping to sketch at intervals along the way." Wadland suggested that Thomson may have travelled by train at some point and by steamship thereafter. Addison and Harwood instead said that Thomson had found much of the inland "monotonously flat" and the rapids "ordinary". Wadland found this characterization unhelpful, pointing out that the rapids Thomson had faced were hardly "ordinary".
MacCallum provided specific dates for two of Thomson's paintings—May 30 and June 1 for Parry Sound Harbour and Spring, French River, respectively. These are some of the only instances of precise dating for his work. Cottage on a Rocky Shore is a depiction of MacCallum's cottage contrasted with the vast expanse of sky and water. Evening, Pine Island is of a nearby island MacCallum took Thomson to visit. He continued to paint around the islands until he departed, probably because he found MacCallum's cottage too demanding socially, writing to Varley that it was "too much like north Rosedale".
Thomson continued canoeing alone until he met with A. Y. Jackson at Canoe Lake in mid-September. Though World War I had erupted that year, he and Jackson went on a canoe trip, in October meeting up with Varley and his wife Maud, as well as Lismer and his wife Esther, and daughter Marjorie. This marked the first time three Group of Seven members painted together, and the only time they worked with Thomson. In his 1958 autobiography, A Painter's Country, A. Y. Jackson wrote that, "Had it not been for the war, the Group [of Seven] would have formed several years earlier and it would have included Thomson."
Why Thomson did not serve in the war has been debated. Mark Robinson and Thomson's family said that he was turned down after multiple attempts to enlist, likely due to his poor health and age but also possibly because he had flat feet. Blodwen Davies wrote that Thomson's artist friends tried to convince him to not risk his life, but he decided to secretly volunteer anyway. Andrew Hunter has found this scenario to be improbable, especially given that other artist friends did volunteer for the war, such as A. Y. Jackson. Thomson's sister suggested that he was a pacifist and that "he hated war and said simply in 1914 that he never would kill anyone but would like to help in a hospital, if accepted". William Colgate wrote that Thomson "brooded much upon" the war and that "he himself did not enlist. Rumour has it that he tried, and failed to pass the doctor. This is doubtful." Edward Godin, a companion, said "We had many discussions on the war. As I remember it he did not think that Canada should be involved. He was very outspoken in his opposition to Government patronage. Especially in the Militia. I do not think that he would offer himself for service. I know up until that time he had not tried to enlist." There is only one verifiable example of Thomson's opinion on the war, taken from a letter he wrote to J. E. H. MacDonald in 1915:
As with yourself, I can't get used to the idea of [A. Y.] Jackson being in the machine and it is rotten that in this so-called civilized age that such things can exist, but since this war has started it will have to go on until one side wins out, and of course there is no doubt which side it will be, and we will see Jackson back on the job once more.
With MacCallum's year of financial support over, Thomson's financial future became uncertain. He briefly looked into applying for a position as a park ranger, but balked after seeing that it could take months for the application to go through. Instead, he considered working in an engraving shop over the winter. He made little effort to sell his paintings, preferring to give them away, though he brought in some money from the paintings he sold. In mid-November, he donated In Algonquin Park to an exhibition organized to raise money for the Canadian Patriotic Fund. It was sold to Marion Long for $50 (equivalent to CAD$1,300 in 2023).
In the spring of 1915, Thomson returned to Algonquin Park earlier than he had in any previous year and had already painted twenty-eight sketches by April 22. From April through July, he spent much of his time fishing, assisting groups on several different lakes, and sketching when he had time. In July, he was invited to send paintings to the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition in September. Because he was in Algonquin Park, his friends selected three works to send—two unidentified works from 1914 and the sketch Canadian Wildflowers. From the end of September to mid-October, he spent his time at Mowat, a village on the north end of Canoe Lake. By November, he was at Round Lake with Tom Wattie and Robert McComb. In late November, he returned to Toronto and moved into a shack behind the Studio Building that Harris and MacCallum fixed up for him, renting it for $1 a month.
In 1915, MacCallum commissioned MacDonald, Lismer and Thomson to paint decorative panels for his cottage on Go-Home Bay. In October of that year, MacDonald went up to take dimensions. Thomson produced four panels which were probably meant to go over the windows. In April 1916, when MacDonald and Lismer went to install them, they found that MacDonald's measurements were incorrect and the panels did not fit.
Artistic peak (1916–17)
In March 1916, Thomson exhibited four canvases with the OSA: In the Northland (at that time titled The Birches), Spring Ice, Moonlight and October (then titled The Hardwoods), all of which were painted over the winter of 1915–16. Sir Edmund Walker and Eric Brown of the National Gallery of Canada wanted to purchase In the Northland, but Montreal trustee Francis Shepherd convinced them to purchase Spring Ice instead. The reception of Thomson's paintings at this time was mixed. Margaret Fairbairn of the Toronto Daily Star wrote, "Mr. Tom Thomson's 'The Birches' and 'The Hardwoods' show a fondness for intense yellows and orange and strong blue, altogether a fearless use of violent colour which can scarcely be called pleasing, and yet which seems an exaggeration of a truthful feeling that time will temper." A more favourable take came from artist Wyly Grier in The Christian Science Monitor:
Tom Thomson again reveals his capacity to be modern and remain individual. His early pictures—in which the quality of naivete had all the genuineness of the effort of the tyro and was not the counterfeit of it which is so much in evidence in the intensely rejuvenated works of the highly sophisticated—showed the faculty for affectionate and truthful record by a receptive eye and faithful hand; but his work today has reached higher levels of technical accomplishment. His Moonlight, Spring Ice and The Birches are among his best. In The Canadian Courier, painter Estelle Kerr also spoke positively, describing Thomson as "one of the most promising of Canadian painters who follows the impressionist movement and his work reveals himself to be a fine colourist, a clever technician, and a truthful interpreter of the north land in its various aspects".
In 1916, Thomson left for Algonquin Park earlier than any previous year, evidenced by the many snow studies he produced at this time. In April or early May, MacCallum, Harris and his cousin Chester Harris joined Thomson at Cauchon Lake for a canoe trip. After MacCallum and Chester left, Harris and Thomson paddled together to Aura Lee Lake. Thomson produced many sketches which varied in composition, although they all had vivid colour and thickly-applied paint. MacCallum was present when he painted his Sketch for "The Jack Pine", writing that the tree fell over onto Thomson before the sketch was completed. He added that Harris thought the tree killed Thomson, "but he sprang up and continued painting".
At the end of May, Thomson took a job as a fire ranger stationed at Achray on Grand Lake with Ed Godin. He followed the Booth Lumber Company's log drive down the Petawawa River to the north end of the park. He found that fire ranging and painting did not mix well together, writing, "[I] have done very little sketching this summer as the two jobs don't fit in ... When we are travelling two go together, one for canoe and the other the pack. And there's no place for a sketch outfit when your [sic] fire ranging. We are not fired yet but I am hoping to get put off right away." He likely returned to Toronto in late October or early November.
Over the following winter, encouragement from Harris, MacDonald and MacCallum saw Thomson move into the most productive portion of his career, with Thomson writing in a letter that he "got quite a lot done". Despite this, he did not submit any paintings to the OSA exhibition in the spring of 1917. It was during this time that he produced many of his most famous works, including The Jack Pine and The West Wind. MacCallum suggested that several canvas works were unfinished, including Woodland Waterfall, The Pointers and The Drive. Barker Fairley similarly described The West Wind as unfinished. Charles Hill has written that there are no reasons to believe Woodland Waterfall was unfinished. Similarly, while it has sometimes been suggested that The Drive was modified after Thomson's death, a reproduction from 1918 displays no discernible differences.
Thomson returned to Canoe Lake at the beginning of April, arriving early enough to paint the remaining snow and the ice breaking up on the surrounding lakes. He had little money but wrote that he could manage for about a year. On April 28, 1917, he received a guide's licence. Unlike previous years, he remained at Mowat with Lieutenant Crombine and his wife, Daphne. Thomson invited Daphne Crombie to select something from his spring sketches as a gift, and she selected Path Behind Mowat Lodge.
Besides the deep love he had come to develop for Algonquin Park, Thomson was beginning to show an eagerness to depict areas beyond the park and explore other northern subjects. In an April 1917 letter to his brother-in-law, he wrote that he was considering taking the Canadian Northern Railway west so he could paint the Canadian Rockies in July and August. A. Y. Jackson suggested Thomson would have travelled even further north, just as the other members of the Group of Seven eventually did.
Death
On July 8, 1917, Thomson disappeared during a canoeing trip on Canoe Lake. His upturned canoe was spotted later in the afternoon, and his body was discovered in the lake eight days later. It was noted that he had a four-inch cut on his right temple and had bled from his right ear. The cause of death was officially determined to be "accidental drowning". The day after the body was discovered, it was interred in Mowat Cemetery near Canoe Lake. Under the direction of Thomson's older brother George, the body was exhumed two days later, and re-interred on July 21 in the family plot beside the Leith Presbyterian Church in what is now the Municipality of Meaford, Ontario.
In September 1917, J. E. H. MacDonald and John William Beatty erected a memorial cairn at Hayhurst Point on Canoe Lake, to honour Thomson where he died.
There has been much speculation about the circumstances of Thomson's death, including that he was murdered or committed suicide. Though these ideas lack substance, they have continued to persist in the popular culture. Andrew Hunter has pointed to Park ranger Mark Robinson as being largely responsible for the suggestion that there was more to his death than accidental drowning. Hunter expands on this thought, writing, "I am convinced that people's desire to believe the Thomson murder mystery/soap opera is rooted in the firmly fixed idea that he was an expert woodsman, intimate with nature. Such figures aren't supposed to die by 'accident.' If they do, it is like Grey Owl's being exposed as an Englishman."
Art and technique
Artistic development
Thomson was largely self-taught. His experiences as a graphic designer with Toronto's Grip Ltd. honed his draughtsmanship. Although he began painting and drawing at an early age, it was only in 1912, when he was well into his thirties, that he began to paint seriously. His first trips to Algonquin Park inspired him to follow the lead of fellow artists in producing oil sketches of natural scenes on small, rectangular panels for easy portability while travelling. Between 1912 and his death in 1917, Thomson produced hundreds of these small sketches, many of which are now considered works in their own right, and are mostly found in the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg and the Tom Thomson Art Gallery in Owen Sound.
Thomson produced nearly all of his works between 1912 and 1917. Most of his large canvases were completed in his most productive period, from late 1916 to early 1917. The patronage of James MacCallum enabled Thomson's transition from graphic designer to professional painter. Although the Group of Seven was not founded until after his death, his work was sympathetic to that of group members A. Y. Jackson, Frederick Varley, and Arthur Lismer. These artists shared an appreciation for rugged, unkempt natural scenery, and all used broad brush strokes and a liberal application of paint to capture the beauty and colour of the Ontario landscape. Thomson's art also bears some stylistic resemblance to the work of European Post-Impressionists such as Vincent van Gogh. Other key influences were the Art Nouveau and Arts and Crafts movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, styles with which he became familiar while working in the graphic arts.
Thomson's artwork is typically divided into two bodies: the first are the small oil sketches on wood panels, of which there are around 400, and the second is of around 50 larger works on canvas. The smaller sketches were typically done en plein air in "the North", primarily Algonquin Park, in the spring, summer and fall. Mark Robinson later recounted that Thomson usually had a particular motif he wanted to depict before going into nature to find a comparison. The larger canvases were instead completed over the winter in Thomson's studio—an old utility shack with a wood-burning stove on the grounds of the Studio Building, an artist's enclave in Rosedale, Toronto. About a dozen of the major canvases were derived directly from smaller sketches. Paintings like Northern River, Spring Ice, The Jack Pine and The West Wind were only later expanded into larger oil paintings.
Sketches from 1913 and earlier use a variety of supports, including canvas laid down on paperboard, canvas laid down on wood and commercial canvas-board. In 1914, he began to favour the larger birch wood panels used by A. Y. Jackson, typically measuring around 21.6 × 26.7 cm (8½ × 10½ in.). From late 1914 on, Thomson alternated between painting on these inexpensive pieces of wood—some from crates, bookbinder's board, and other assorted sources—and composite wood-pulp boards.
Although the sketches were produced quickly, the canvases were developed over weeks or even months. Compared to the panels, they display an "inherent formality", and lack much of the "energy, spontaneity, and immediacy" of the original sketches. The transition from small to large required a reinvention or elaboration of the original details; by comparing sketches with their respective canvases, one can see the changes Thomson made in colour, detail and background textural patterns. Although few of the larger paintings were sold during his lifetime, they formed the basis of posthumous exhibitions, including one at Wembley in London in 1924, that eventually brought his work to international attention.
Described as having an "idiosyncratic palette", Thomson had exceptional control of colour. He often mixed available pigments to create new, unusual colours that, along with his brushwork, made his art instantly recognizable regardless of its subject. His painting style and the atmosphere, colours and forms of his work influenced the work of his colleagues and friends, especially Jackson, Lismer, MacDonald, Harris and Carmichael.
Series and themes
Trees
Thomson's most famous paintings are his depictions of pine trees, particularly The Jack Pine and The West Wind. David Silcox has described these paintings as "the visual equivalent of a national anthem, for they have come to represent the spirit of the whole country, notwithstanding the fact that vast tracts of Canada have no pine trees", and as "so majestic and memorable that nearly everyone knows them". Arthur Lismer described them similarly, saying that the tree in The West Wind was a symbol of the Canadian character, unyielding to the wind and emblematic of steadfastness and resolution.
Thomson had a great enthusiasm for trees and worked to capture their forms, their surrounding locations, and the effect of the seasons on them. He normally depicted trees as amalgamated masses, giving "form structure and colour by dragging paint in bold strokes over an underlying tone". His favourite motif was of a slight hill next to a body of water. His enthusiasm is especially apparent in an anecdote from Ernest Freure, who invited Thomson to camp on an island on Georgian Bay:
One day while we were together on my island, I was talking to Tom about my plans for cleaning up the dead wood and trees and I said I was going to cut down all the trees but he said, "No, don't do that, they are beautiful."
The theme of the single tree is common in Art Nouveau, while the motif of the lone, heroic tree goes back even further to at least Caspar David Friedrich and early German Romanticism. Thomson may also have been influenced by the work of MacDonald while working at Grip Limited. MacDonald in turn was influenced by the landscape art of John Constable, whose work he likely saw while in England from 1903 to 1906. Constable's art influenced Thomson's as well, something apparent when Constable's Stoke-by-Nayland (c. 1810–11) is compared with Thomson's Poplars by a Lake.
Thomson's earlier paintings were closer to literal renderings of the trees in front of him, and as he progressed the trees became more expressive as Thomson amplified their individual qualities. Byng Inlet, Georgian Bay shows the broken, high-keyed colour that Thomson and his colleagues experimented with later in his career, and is similar to Lismer's Sunglow. While Lismer only applied the technique to the water, Thomson applied it throughout the composition. According to MacCallum, Thomson worked on Pine Island, Georgian Bay over an extended period. He wrote that this painting had "more emotion and feeling than any other of [Thomson's] canvases". In contrast, MacDonald found it "rather commonplace in color & composition & not representative of Thomson at his best".
Skies
Thomson was preoccupied with capturing the sky, especially near the end of his career from 1915 onward. Paintings like Sunset—which was painted at water level in a canoe—illustrate his excited brushstrokes in capturing the lake's reflection. The painting was done over a grey-green ground, adding depth to both the light of the sky and the reflecting water. Paintings from 1913 and on consistently utilize the perspective of the canoe, with a narrow foreground of water, a distant shoreline and a dominating sky.
The 1915 volcanic eruption of Lassen Peak in California provided dramatic sunrises and sunsets in the northern hemisphere for the year. These skies provided artistic inspiration for Thomson and other artists in the same way that the eruption of Krakatoa in the previous century had inspired Edvard Munch. Sky effects were one of Thomson's main interests for the entire year, indicated by his heightened use of colour.
Harold Town has compared Sky (The Light That Never Was) to the works of J. M. W. Turner. In particular, he notes the way that the sky "[creeps] into the landscape, big rhythms supplanting small movement". The horizon disappears and pure movement is left behind.
Nocturnes
Thomson produced more nocturnes than the rest of the Group of Seven combined—roughly two dozen. MacCallum recalled that Thomson often spent his nights lying in his canoe in the middle of the lake, stargazing and avoiding mosquitoes. Besides capturing the nighttime sky, he also captured silhouettes of spruce and birch trees, lumber camps, two moose emerging from water and the northern lights, painting five different sketches of the aurora.
Mark Robinson recounted that Thomson stood and contemplated the aurora for an extended period of time before going back into his cabin to paint by lamplight. He sometimes completed nocturnes this way, going back and forth between painting indoors and looking at the subject outside until he completed the sketch. Other times, given the difficulty of painting by moonlight, many of the nocturnes were painted entirely from memory. MacCallum confirmed that the sketch Moose at Night was completed in this way, writing on the back "Winter 1916—at studio", implying it was probably painted in Toronto. His moonlight paintings use a "dreamy, pale-toned style", applying the techniques of Impressionism in his observations of light, reflection and atmosphere.
Flowers
As was typical for painters of the early twentieth century, Thomson produced still lifes of flowers, all of which appear in the form of sketches. His love of flowers may have developed from his father who, as a neighbour noted, had "a permanent half acre of a really good garden which was always worth going to see". Thomson's time spent as a child collecting samples with his naturalist relative William Brodie may have similarly influenced him, though his interest in painting flowers seems to have been more focused on patterning and decoration than on the horticultural specifics of the subject.
These paintings, especially Marguerites, Wood Lilies and Vetch and Wildflowers, are particularly powerful examples of the genre. J. E. H. MacDonald—himself deeply invested in floral imagery—was so captured by Marguerites, Wood Lilies and Vetch that he kept it for himself, writing "Not For Sale" on the back. Thomson's work is contrasted from MacDonald's by what Joan Murray calls, "its elegant, slightly funky form and throwaway spontaneity." Lawren Harris instead noted Wildflowers as a favourite, writing "1st class" on the verso. The colour of the sketch is less brilliant, but has superb brushwork and is well coordinated, setting blues against yellows and reds against whites.
Responding to his subject with improvisation, every painting is different in its colour scheme and arrangement. In all the sketches, he redirected emphasis from the delicacy of the flowers towards simple broad strokes of colour, something Harold Town thought "[imparted] a toughness of design sometimes missing in his harder themes of rock and bracken". In Water Flowers particularly, the shapes are handled so summarily that the focus moves entirely to the colour of the flowers. This, combined with the black background, produces a more abstract effect. The black backdrop also causes the colours of the flowers to appear more vivid.
Industry in nature
During Thomson's time in Algonquin Park, logging and the lumber industry were a constant presence. He often painted the machinery left behind by lumber companies; Lismer, MacDonald and he were especially drawn to the subject. A. Y. Jackson wrote, It was a ragged country; a lumber company had slashed it up, and fire had run through it ... Thomson was much indebted to the lumber companies. They had built dams and log chutes, and had made clearings for camps. But for them, the landscape would have been just bush, difficult to travel in and with nothing to paint.
Around 1916, Thomson followed the drive of logs down the Madawaska River, painting the subject in The Drive. MacDonald similarly expressed the drive in his 1915 painting Logs on the Gatineau. Besides the dams, pointer and alligator boats and log drives that appear in Thomson's work, other less obvious depictions of the lumber industry are evident. For example, areas cleared out due to logging appear in early sketches, such as Canoe Lake (1913) and Red Forest. The painting Drowned Land similarly displays the damage caused by logging operations and flooding due to damming. As well, the white birches present in many paintings only thrive in "sunny, open areas whose previous tree cover had been removed", meaning that logging was in some way necessary for them to flourish.
Thomson's and the Group of Seven's work reflects the typical Canadian attitudes of the time, namely that the available natural resources were meant to be exploited. Harold Town has argued that, while Thomson was not directly critical of industry, mining and logging, he "did not glorify industry in the bush." Paul Walton of McMaster University noted that Thomson occasionally referenced both the lumbering and tourism practices of Algonquin Park and "did not entirely ignore the damaging effects of logging on the environment ... but for the most part he concentrated on newly opened vista of sky and water or on finding decorative patterns of colour, form, and texture in the tangle of underbrush, smaller trees, and bared rock, the 'bush' that was often the remnant of the original forest." Jackson first noted these distinctions in Thomson's works, from those "showing a low shore line and a big sky" and those "finding happy color motives amid [the] tangle and confusion" of "his waste of rock and swamp."
People
Thomson, like most of the members of the Group of Seven, rarely painted people. When he did, the human subject was usually someone close to him personally, such as the depiction of Shannon Fraser In the Sugar Bush. Harold Town observed that both Thomson and Canadian artist David Milne "shared in common a similar inability to draw the human figure", something professor John Wadland thought was "embarrassingly evident" in several of Thomson's portraits. Thomson's most successful attempts at capturing people typically feature figures far off in the distance, allowing them to blend in to the scene. This is apparent in paintings like Little Cauchon Lake, Bateaux, The Drive, The Pointers and Tea Lake Dam.
Town described paintings like Man with Axe (Lowery Dixon) Splitting Wood as stiff, yet still held together in a cohesive crudity. He described Figure of a Lady, Laura differently, interpreting it as a tender work, "well-designed and plainly expressed, this loving picture is so secure in intention that it survives, indeed triumphs, over the severe cracking of the paint". The figure in The Poacher is recorded deliberately, including his hat, hunting vest and blue shirt. The hot coal grill in front of him is drying his poach—likely venison.
Legacy and influence
Since his death, Thomson's work has grown in value and popularity. Group of Seven member Arthur Lismer wrote that he "is the manifestation of the Canadian character". Another contemporaneous Canadian painter, David Milne, wrote to National Gallery of Canada Director H. O. McCurry in 1930, "Your Canadian art apparently, for now at least, went down in Canoe Lake. Tom Thomson still stands as the Canadian painter, harsh, brilliant, brittle, uncouth, not only most Canadian but most creative. How the few things of his stick in one's mind." Murray notes that Thomson's influence can be seen in the work of later Canadian artists, including Rae Johnson, Joyce Wieland, Gordon Rayner and Michael Snow. Sherrill Grace wrote that for Roy Kiyooka and Dennis Lee, he "is a haunting presence" and "embodies the Canadian artistic identity".
As of 2015, the highest price achieved by a Thomson sketch was Early Spring, Canoe Lake, which sold in 2009 for CAD$2,749,500. Few major canvases remain in private collections, making the record unlikely to be broken. One example of the demand his work has achieved is the previously lost Sketch for Lake in Algonquin Park; discovered in an Edmonton basement in 2018, it sold for nearly half a million dollars at a Toronto auction. The increased value of his work has led to the discovery of numerous forgeries on the market, such as those produced by convicted forger William Firth MacGregor. Art historian Joan Murray assembled a catalogue raisonné of Thomson works until her retirement in 2016.
In 1967, the Tom Thomson Art Gallery opened in Owen Sound. In 1968, Thomson's shack from behind the Studio Building was moved to the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg. Many of his works are also on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ontario. In 2004, another historical marker honouring Thomson was moved from its previous location near the centre of Leith to the graveyard in which he is now buried. The gravesite has become a popular spot for visitors to the area with many fans of his work leaving pennies or art supplies behind as tribute.
Though best known for his painting, Thomson is often mythologized as a veritable outdoorsman. James MacCallum contributed stories to this image. He has often been remembered as an expert canoeist, though David Silcox has argued that this image is romanticized. In the case of fishing, he was no doubt proficient. He had a deep love of fishing for his entire life, so much so that his reputation through Algonquin Park was equally divided between art and angling. Most who visited the Park were led by hired guides, but he travelled through the park on his own. Many of his fishing locations appear in his work.
See also
List of unsolved deaths
References
Footnotes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
External links
Tom Thomson Catalogue Raisonné, the complete works of Thomson
Tom Thomson entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia
Tom Thomson: Life and Work at Art Canada Institute
Tom Thomson collection at the Art Gallery of Ontario
Tom Thomson collection at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Tom Thomson collection at the National Gallery of Canada
Tom Thomson Art Gallery
Blodwen Davies fonds, archived by Library and Archives Canada |
Northern_River_(painting) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_River_(painting) | [
361
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_River_(painting)"
] | Northern River is a 1914–15 oil painting by Canadian painter Tom Thomson. The work was inspired by a sketch completed over the same winter, possibly in Algonquin Park. The completed canvas is large, measuring 115.1 × 102.0 cm (455⁄16 × 403⁄16 in). Painted over the winter of 1914–15, it was completed in Thomson's shack behind the Studio Building in Toronto. The painting was produced as he was entering the peak of his short art career and is considered one of his most notable works. In 1915 it was purchased by the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and has remained in the collection ever since.
Background
Thomson first visited Algonquin Park in May 1912, venturing through the area on a canoe trip with his Grip colleague Ben Jackson. Thomson's transition from commercial art towards his original style of painting began to be apparent around this time. His early works, such as Northern Lake (1912–13) and Evening (1913), were not outstanding technically, yet they did illustrate an above average ability regarding composition and colour handling.
Northern River and the winter of 1914–15 stand as a point of transition in Thomson's art. In 1914 he made himself a sketch box to hold 8½ × 10½ inch (21.6 × 26.7 cm) panels, allowing him greater opportunity for sketching. A. Y. Jackson in particular taught him about the subtleties of composition, colour and technique in general, allowing the sketches that followed show a beginning desire to experiment with colour and texture rather than continue with the precision and subdued nature of his earlier works.
Description
In a letter to James MacCallum, Thomson referred to Northern River as his "swamp picture." Though Thomson was typically critical of his own work, he described the painting as being "not half bad" to a nephew. David Milne, a Canadian artist and critic, praised the painting, writing in a letter,
Just plain impossible, but he has done it, it stirs you. Any painter who has ever worked on this overlying pattern motive will realize at once that this is tackling a complication beyond reason. A great point in Thomson's favour this, and his lack of perfection. I am wary of craftsmanship. It is nothing in itself, neither emotion nor creation. [...] I rather think it would have been wiser to have taken your ten most prominent Canadians and sunk them in Canoe Lake—and saved Tom Thomson.
In an article for Canadian Magazine, MacCallumm would write about the uniqueness of the painting amongst Thomson's entire catalogue. In particular, while Thomson would normally depict trees as amalgamated masses, in this painting he gives them each an individual form: Drawing was to [Thomson] the expression of form, and form might be expressed by any method, so long as the form is true. One would have expected that with his intimate knowledge of trees he would have loved to paint all their traceries. In the “Northern River” alone did he lavish detail on his trees and here only because it helped the pattern. In one in whom the sense of design, of decoration was so developed that is the more striking, for in his sketches and in his larger pictures he always treated trees as masses. In his painting of them he gives form structure and colour by dragging paint in bold strokes over an underlying tone. Like many other painters he felt the limitations of paint, the impossibility of expressing on a flat surface the solidity and thickness of a tree, and in some canvasses almost modeled them in paint, while in others he got the same effect by expressing them by deep grooves in the paint.
The painting recalls elements of A. Y. Jackson's 1914 canvas, A Frozen Lake, which Thomson likely saw in November 1914 before Jackson took it in December to be exhibited. Both paintings share a motif of trees and thin, sinuous branches obscuring the view to a body of water. The directional emphasis of the image is placed in the vertical direction, especially apparent when contrasted with the later canvas, The Pool.
Given Thomson's love of poetry, the title of the work may be a reference to the William Wilfred Campbell poem, A Northern River. Campbell was a Canadian poet who lived in Owen Sound, nearby to Thomson's hometown of Leith.
Sketch to studio painting
It is not known where the original study was made. Though it is typically assumed to have been completed in Algonquin Park, Thomson's friend Winifred Trainor claimed that it was set outside the Park. Curator Charles Hill has instead suggested that the sketch was "[p]robably painted in his Toronto studio, it is most likely a memory—an amalgam of experiences rather than a specific site."
The initial sketch of the scene illustrates Thomson's adept ability to transform his small sketches into powerful studio paintings. This is apparent with other sketch-painting pairings, such as Opulent October, Spring Ice, The Jack Pine and The West Wind, amongst many other examples. Thomson's first gouache study of the work was brightly coloured partly because gouache reflects more light than oil on canvas does. To make the eventual studio painting livelier, he included reds, oranges and yellows within the foreground, though still maintaining the original gouache blends in the sky. The dominant colour of the painting is black, an oddity within Thomson's corpus. Curator and scholar Joan Murray has written that the final canvas closely follows the original study, but with key differences. For one, the canvas is devoid of the accidental brushstrokes present in the sketch. Foreground space was also added to better convey depth and the trees are simpler and more defined, with less foliage present.
Art Nouveau
In Thomson's time as a commercial artist, he became familiar with the then contemporary decorative style of Art Nouveau. Art historian David P. Silcox has described Northern River as utilizing the same sinuous forms that are to be found in the art style. Of particular note are the "S-curves" of the trees which have their origins in Thomson's work as a draughtsman. He would continue to utilize this motif in other later works, such as Decorative Landscape, Birches (1915–16) and The West Wind (1916–17). Fellow artist A. Y. Jackson would affirm the Group of Seven's tendency towards using Art Nouveau styles within their work, writing that, "We (the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson) treated our subjects with the freedom of designers. We tried to emphasize colour, line and pattern."
Provenance and exhibition
The National Gallery of Canada purchased the painting from Thomson in 1915 for $500 (equivalent to CAD$13,000 in 2023), essentially a years wage for a painter like himself. Since then, it has appeared in over 30 exhibitions, including shows at Musée & du Jeu de Paume in Paris; Los Angeles; London; and Mexico.
References
Footnotes
Citations
Sources
Further reading
External links
Northern River at the National Gallery of Canada
Study for Northern River at the Art Gallery of Ontario
"Northern River 1914–15" at Art Canada Institute
Northern River on the Tom Thomson Catalogue Raisonné
Sketch for "Northern River" on the Tom Thomson Catalogue Raisonné
"A Northern River", a poem by William Wilfred Campbell |
National_Basketball_Association | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association | [
362
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Basketball_Association"
] | The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). It is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and is considered the premier professional basketball league in the world.
The NBA was created on August 3, 1949, with the merger of the Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL). The league later adopted the BAA's history and considers its founding on June 6, 1946, as its own. In 1976, the NBA and the American Basketball Association (ABA) merged, adding four franchises to the NBA. The NBA's regular season runs from October to April, with each team playing 82 games. The league's playoff tournament extends into June, culminating with the NBA Finals championship series. As of 2020, NBA players are the world's best paid athletes by average annual salary per player.
The NBA is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB), which is recognized by the FIBA (International Basketball Federation) as the national governing body for basketball in the United States. The league's several international as well as individual team offices are directed out of its head offices in Midtown Manhattan, while its NBA Entertainment and NBA TV studios are directed out of offices located in Secaucus, New Jersey. The NBA is the third-wealthiest professional sports league in the world by revenue after the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB).
The Boston Celtics have the most NBA championships with 18 and are the reigning league champions, having defeated the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals.
History
Creation and BAA–NBL merger (1946–1956)
The NBA traces its roots to the Basketball Association of America which was founded in 1946 by owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Canada. On November 1, 1946, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the Toronto Huskies hosted the New York Knickerbockers at Maple Leaf Gardens, in a game the NBA now refers to as the first game played in NBA history. The first basket was made by Ossie Schectman of the Knickerbockers.
Although there had been earlier attempts at professional basketball leagues, including the American Basketball League (ABL) and the NBL, the BAA was the first league to attempt to play primarily in large arenas in major cities. During its early years, the quality of play in the BAA was not significantly better than in competing leagues or among leading independent clubs such as the Harlem Globetrotters. For instance, the 1947 ABL finalist Baltimore Bullets moved to the BAA and won that league's 1948 title, and the 1948 NBL champion Minneapolis Lakers won the 1949 BAA title.
Prior to the 1948–49 season, the BAA lured away the Fort Wayne Pistons, Indianapolis Kautskys, Minneapolis Lakers, and Rochester Royals from the NBL with the prospect of playing in major venues such as Boston Garden and Madison Square Garden. The NBL hit back by outbidding the BAA for the services of several players, including Al Cervi, rookie Dolph Schayes and five stars from the University of Kentucky while also gaining the upper hand in Indianapolis with the creation of the Indianapolis Olympians while the Kautskys folded. With several teams facing financial difficulties, the BAA and the NBL agreed on a merger on August 3, 1949, to create the National Basketball Association. Maurice Podoloff, the president of BAA, became the president of the NBA while Ike Duffey, president of the NBL, became the chairman. The NBA later adopted the BAA's history and statistics as its own but did not do the same for NBL records and statistics.
The new league had seventeen franchises located in a mix of large and small cities, as well as large arenas and smaller gymnasiums and armories. In 1950, the NBA consolidated to eleven franchises, a process that continued until 1954–55, when the league reached its smallest size of eight franchises: the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics, Philadelphia Warriors, Minneapolis Lakers, Rochester Royals, Fort Wayne Pistons, Milwaukee Hawks, and Syracuse Nationals, all of which remain in the league today, although the latter six all did eventually relocate. The process of contraction saw the league's smaller-city franchises move to larger cities. The Hawks had shifted from the Tri-Cities to Milwaukee in 1951, and later shifted to St. Louis in 1955. In 1957, the Rochester Royals moved from Rochester, New York, to Cincinnati and the Pistons moved from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Detroit.
Japanese-American Wataru Misaka is considered to have broken the NBA color barrier in the 1947–48 season when he played for the New York Knicks in the BAA. He remained the only non-white player in league history prior to the first African-American, Harold Hunter, signing with the Washington Capitols in 1950. Hunter was cut from the team during training camp, but several African-American players did play in the league later that year, including Chuck Cooper with the Celtics, Nathaniel "Sweetwater" Clifton with the Knicks, and Earl Lloyd with the Washington Capitols. During this period, the Minneapolis Lakers won five NBA championships and established themselves as the league's first dynasty; their squad was led by center George Mikan who was the NBA's first superstar. To encourage shooting and discourage stalling, the league introduced the 24-second shot clock in 1954.
Celtics' dominance, league expansion and competition (1956–1979)
In 1957, rookie center Bill Russell joined the Boston Celtics, which already featured guard Bob Cousy and coach Red Auerbach, and went on to lead the franchise to eleven NBA titles in thirteen seasons. Center Wilt Chamberlain entered the league with the Warriors in 1959 and became a dominant individual star of the 1960s, setting new single-game records in scoring (100) and rebounding (55). Russell's rivalry with Chamberlain became one of the greatest rivalries in the history of American team sports.
The 1960s were dominated by the Celtics. Led by Russell, Cousy, and Auerbach, Boston won eight straight championships in the NBA from 1959 to 1966. This championship streak is the longest in the history of American professional sports. They did not win the title in 1966–67, but regained it in the 1967–68 season and repeated in 1969. The domination totaled nine of the ten championship banners of the 1960s.
Through this period, the NBA continued to evolve with the shift of the Minneapolis Lakers to Los Angeles, the Philadelphia Warriors to San Francisco, the Syracuse Nationals to Philadelphia to become the Philadelphia 76ers, and the St. Louis Hawks moving to Atlanta, as well as the addition of its first expansion franchises. The Chicago Packers (now Washington Wizards) became the ninth NBA team in 1961. From 1966 to 1968, the league expanded from 9 to 14 teams, introducing the Chicago Bulls, Seattle SuperSonics (now Oklahoma City Thunder), San Diego Rockets (who moved to Houston four years later), Milwaukee Bucks, and Phoenix Suns.
In 1967, the league faced a new external threat with the formation of the American Basketball Association (ABA). The leagues engaged in a bidding war. The NBA landed the most important college star of the era, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor), who went on to become the league's best player of the 1970s. However, the NBA's leading scorer, Rick Barry, jumped to the ABA, as did four veteran referees—Norm Drucker, Earl Strom, John Vanak, and Joe Gushue.
In 1969, Alan Siegel, who oversaw the design of Jerry Dior's Major League Baseball logo a year prior, created the modern NBA logo inspired by the MLB's. It incorporates the silhouette of Jerry West, based on a photo by Wen Roberts. The NBA would not confirm that a particular player was used because, according to Siegel, "They want to institutionalize it rather than individualize it. It's become such a ubiquitous, classic symbol and focal point of their identity and their licensing program that they don't necessarily want to identify it with one player." The logo debuted in 1971 (with a small change to the typeface on the NBA wordmark in 2017) and would remain a fixture of the NBA brand.
The ABA succeeded in signing a number of major stars in the 1970s, including Julius Erving of the Virginia Squires, in part because it allowed teams to sign college undergraduates. The NBA expanded rapidly during this period. From 1966 to 1974, the NBA grew from nine franchises to 18. In 1970, the Portland Trail Blazers, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Buffalo Braves (now the Los Angeles Clippers) all made their debuts expanding the league to 17. The New Orleans Jazz (now in Utah) came aboard in 1974 bringing the total to 18. Following the 1976 season, the leagues reached a settlement that provided for the addition of four ABA franchises to the NBA, raising the number of franchises in the league at that time to 22. The franchises added were the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and New York Nets (now the Brooklyn Nets). Some of the biggest stars of this era were Abdul-Jabbar, Barry, Dave Cowens, Erving, Elvin Hayes, Walt Frazier, Moses Malone, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin, Dan Issel, and Pete Maravich. The end of the decade, however, saw declining TV ratings, low attendance and drug-related player issues – both perceived and real – that threatened to derail the league.
Surging popularity and Bulls' dynasty (1979–1998)
The league added the ABA's three-point field goal beginning in 1979. That same year, rookies Larry Bird and Magic Johnson joined the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers respectively, initiating a period of significant growth of fan interest in the NBA. The two had faced each other in the 1979 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship Game, and they later played against each other in three NBA Finals (1984, 1985, and 1987). In the 10 seasons of the 1980s, Johnson led the Lakers to five titles while Bird led the Celtics to three titles. Also in the early 1980s, the NBA added one more expansion franchise, the Dallas Mavericks, bringing the total to 23 teams. Later on, Larry Bird won the first three three-point shooting contests. On February 1, 1984 David Stern became commissioner of the NBA. Stern has been recognized as playing a major role in the growth of the league during his career.
Michael Jordan entered the league in 1984 with the Chicago Bulls, spurring more interest in the league. In 1988 and 1989, four cities got their wishes as the Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, and Minnesota Timberwolves made their NBA debuts, bringing the total to 27 teams. The Detroit Pistons won back-to-back NBA championships in 1989 and 1990, led by coach Chuck Daly and guard Isiah Thomas. Jordan and Scottie Pippen led the Bulls to two three-peats in eight years during the 1991–1998 seasons. Hakeem Olajuwon won back-to-back titles with the Houston Rockets in 1994 and 1995.
The 1992 Olympic basketball Dream Team, the first to use current NBA stars, featured Michael Jordan as the anchor, along with Bird, Johnson, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler, Karl Malone, John Stockton, Chris Mullin, Charles Barkley, and star NCAA amateur Christian Laettner. The team was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, while 11 of the 12 players (along with three out of four coaches) have been inducted as individuals in their own right.
In 1995, the NBA expanded to Canada with the addition of the Vancouver Grizzlies and the Toronto Raptors. In 1996, the NBA created a women's league, the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA).
Lakers' and Spurs' dynasties (1998–2014)
In 1998, the NBA owners began a lockout that suspended all league business until a new labor agreement could be reached, which led to the season being shortened in half.
After the breakup of the Chicago Bulls championship roster in the summer of 1998, the Western Conference dominated much of the next two decades. The Los Angeles Lakers, coached by Phil Jackson, and the San Antonio Spurs, coached by Gregg Popovich, combined to make 13 Finals in 16 seasons, with 10 titles. "Twin Towers" Tim Duncan and David Robinson won the 1999 championship with the Spurs, becoming the first former ABA team to win the NBA championship. Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant started the 2000s with three consecutive championships for the Lakers. The Spurs reclaimed the title in 2003 against the Nets. In 2004, the Lakers returned to the Finals, only to lose in five games to the Detroit Pistons.
The league's image was marred by a violent incident between players and fans in a November 2004 game between the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons. In response, players were suspended for a total of 146 games with $11 million total lost in salary, and the league tightened security and limited the sale of alcohol.
On May 19, 2005, Commissioner Stern testified before the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Government Reform about the NBA's actions to combat the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. The NBA started its drug-testing program in 1983 and substantially improved it in 1999. In the 1999–2000 season, all players were randomly tested during training camp, and all rookies were additionally tested three more times during the regular season. Of the nearly 4,200 tests for steroids and performance-enhancing drugs conducted over six seasons, only three players were confirmed positive for NBA's drug program, all were immediately suspended, and as of the time of the testimony, none were playing in the NBA.
After the Spurs won the championship again in 2005, the 2006 Finals featured two franchises making their inaugural Finals appearances. The Miami Heat, led by their star shooting guard, Dwyane Wade, and Shaquille O'Neal, who had been traded from the Lakers during the summer of 2004, won the series over the Dallas Mavericks. The Lakers/Spurs dominance continued in 2007 with a four-game sweep by the Spurs over the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers. The 2008 Finals saw a rematch of the league's highest profile rivalry, the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, with the Celtics winning their 17th championship. The Lakers won back-to-back championships in 2009 and 2010, against the Orlando Magic and the Celtics. The 2010 NBA All-Star Game was held at Cowboys Stadium in front of the largest crowd ever, 108,713.
A referee lockout began on September 1, 2009, when the contract between the NBA and its referees expired. The first preseason games were played on October 1, 2009, and replacement referees from the WNBA and NBA Development League were used, the first time replacement referees had been used since the beginning of the 1995–96 season. The NBA and the regular referees reached a deal on October 23, 2009.
At the start of the 2010–11 season, free agents LeBron James and Chris Bosh signed with the Miami Heat, joining Dwyane Wade to form the "Big Three". The Heat dominated the league, reaching the Finals for four straight years. In 2011, they faced a re-match with the Dallas Mavericks but lost to the Dirk Nowitzki-led team. They won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013 against the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Spurs, and lost in a re-match with the Spurs in the 2014 Finals.
The 2011–12 season began with another lockout, the league's fourth. After the first few weeks of the season were canceled, the players and owners ratified a new collective bargaining agreement on December 8, 2011, setting up a shortened 66-game season. On February 1, 2014, commissioner David Stern retired after 30 years in the position, and was succeeded by his deputy, Adam Silver.
Warriors' dynasty and recent years (2014–present)
After four seasons with the Miami Heat, LeBron James returned to the Cleveland Cavaliers for the 2014–15 season. He led the team to their second Finals appearance with the help of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cavaliers in six games, led by the "Splash Brothers" Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. The Cavaliers and the Warriors faced each other in the Finals a record four consecutive times. In the 2015–16 season, the Warriors finished the season 73–9, the best season record in NBA history. However, the Cavaliers overcame a 3–1 deficit in the Finals to win their first championship that season, and end a 52-year professional sports championship drought for the city of Cleveland. In the 2016–17 season, the Warriors recruited free agent Kevin Durant and went on to win the 2017 and 2018 Finals against the Cavaliers.
After the departure of James in free agency in 2018, the Cavaliers' streak of playoff and Finals appearances ended. The Warriors returned for a fifth consecutive Finals appearance in 2019 but lost to the Toronto Raptors, who won their first championship after acquiring Kawhi Leonard in a trade.
The 2019–20 season was suspended indefinitely on March 11, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus. On June 4, 2020, the NBA Board of Governors voted to resume the season in a 22-team format with 8 seeding games per team and a regular playoffs format, with all games played in a "bubble" in Walt Disney World without any fans present.
This era also saw the continuous near year-over-year decline in NBA viewership. Between 2012 and 2019, the league lost 40 to 45 percent of its viewership. While some of it can be attributed to "cable-cutting", other professional leagues, like the NFL and MLB have retained stable viewership demographics. The opening game of the 2020 Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat brought in only 7.41 million viewers to ABC, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That is reportedly the lowest viewership seen for the Finals since at least 1994, when total viewers began to be regularly recorded and is a 45 percent decline from game one between the Golden State Warriors and Toronto Raptors, which had 13.51 million viewers a year earlier. Some attribute this decline to the political stances the league and its players are taking, while others consider load management, the uneven talent distribution between the conferences and the cord-cutting of younger viewers as the main reason for the decline.
During the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons, the Milwaukee Bucks would defeat the Phoenix Suns in the 2021 NBA Finals, securing their second NBA championship since 1971, and the Golden State Warriors made their sixth appearance in the finals defeating the Boston Celtics in the 2022 NBA Finals, their fourth championship in eight years.
The 2022–23 season saw the Denver Nuggets, led by center Nikola Jokić, make the franchise's first NBA Finals appearance and defeat the Miami Heat in five games to win their first NBA championship.
The 2023–24 NBA season saw the star-studded Boston Celtics, winning a championship over the Dallas Mavericks, after five conference finals appearances, and a finals appearance marking their 18th championship, their first since 2008.
International influence
Following pioneers like Vlade Divac (Serbia) and Dražen Petrović (Croatia) who joined the NBA in the late 1980s, an increasing number of international players have moved directly from playing elsewhere in the world to starring in the NBA. Since 2006, the NBA has faced EuroLeague teams in exhibition matches in the NBA Europe Live Tour, and since 2009, in the EuroLeague American Tour. On November 9, 2007, when the Houston Rockets with Yao Ming faced off against the Milwaukee Bucks with Yi Jianlian, over 200 million people in China watched on 19 different networks, making it the most-viewed game in NBA history.
The 2013–14 season opened with a record 92 international players on the opening night rosters, representing 39 countries and comprising over 20 percent of the league. The NBA defines "international" players as those born outside the 50 United States and Washington, D.C. This means that:
Players born in U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, most notably USVI native Tim Duncan, are counted as "international" even though they are U.S. citizens by birth, and may even have represented the U.S. in international competition (like Duncan).
U.S.-born players are not counted as "international" even if they were born with citizenship in another country and represent that country internationally, such as Joakim Noah, and Kosta Koufos.
The beginning of the 2017–18 season saw a record 108 international players representing 42 countries marking 4 consecutive years of at least 100 international players and each team having at least one international player. In 2018, the Phoenix Suns hired Serbian coach Igor Kokoškov as their new head coach, replacing Canadian interim coach Jay Triano, making Kokoškov the first European coach to become a head coach for a team in the NBA.
In the 2023–24 season, the Mavericks and the Thunder each had eight international players on their roster. For six consecutive seasons from 2018–19 to 2023–24, the league's MVP award has been given to an international player.
Other developments
In 2001, an affiliated minor league, the National Basketball Development League, now called the NBA G League, was created.
Two years after the Hornets' move to New Orleans, the NBA returned to North Carolina, as the Charlotte Bobcats were formed as an expansion team in 2004.
The Hornets temporarily moved to Oklahoma City in 2005 for two seasons because of damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The team returned to New Orleans in 2007.
A new official game ball was introduced on June 28, 2006, for the 2006–07 season, marking the first change to the ball in over 35 years and only the second ball in 60 seasons. Manufactured by Spalding, the new ball featured a new design and new synthetic material that Spalding claimed offered a better grip, feel, and consistency than the original ball. However, many players were vocal in their disdain for the new ball, saying that it was too sticky when dry, and too slippery when wet.
Commissioner Stern announced on December 11, 2006, that beginning January 1, 2007, the NBA would return to the traditional leather basketball in use prior to the 2006–07 season. The change was influenced by frequent player complaints and confirmed hand injuries (cuts) caused by the microfiber ball. The Players' Association had filed a suit on behalf of the players against the NBA over the new ball. As of the 2017–18 season, the NBA team jerseys are manufactured by Nike, replacing the previous supplier, Adidas. All teams will wear jerseys with the Nike logo except the Charlotte Hornets, whose jerseys will instead have the Jumpman logo associated with longtime Nike endorser Michael Jordan, who owns the Hornets.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began an investigation on July 19, 2007, over allegations that veteran NBA referee Tim Donaghy bet on basketball games he officiated over the past two seasons and that he made calls affecting the point spread in those games. On August 15, 2007, Donaghy pleaded guilty to two federal charges related to the investigation. Donaghy claimed in 2008 that certain referees were friendly with players and "company men" for the NBA, and he alleged that referees influenced the outcome of certain playoff and finals games in 2002 and 2005. NBA commissioner David Stern denied the allegations and said Donaghy was a convicted felon and a "singing, cooperating witness". Donaghy served 15 months in prison and was released in November 2009. According to an independent study by Ronald Beech of Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings, although the refs increased the Lakers' chances of winning through foul calls during the game, there was no collusion to fix the game. On alleged "star treatment" during Game 6 by the referees toward certain players, Beech claimed, "there does seem to be issues with different standards and allowances for different players."
The NBA Board of Governors approved the request of the Seattle SuperSonics to move to Oklahoma City on April 18, 2008. The team, however, could not move until it had settled a lawsuit filed by the city of Seattle, which was intended to keep the SuperSonics in Seattle for the remaining two seasons of the team's lease at KeyArena. Following a court case, the city of Seattle settled with the ownership group of the SuperSonics on July 2, 2008, allowing the team to move to Oklahoma City immediately in exchange for terminating the final two seasons of the team's lease at KeyArena. The Oklahoma City Thunder began playing in the 2008–09 season.
The first outdoor game in the modern era of the league was played at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on October 11, 2008, between the Phoenix Suns and the Denver Nuggets.
The first official NBA league games on European ground took place in 2011. In two matchups, the New Jersey Nets faced the Toronto Raptors at the O2 Arena in London in front of over 20,000 fans.
After the 2012–13 season, the New Orleans Hornets were renamed the Pelicans. During the 2013–14 season, Stern retired as commissioner after 30 years, and deputy commissioner Adam Silver ascended to the position of commissioner. During that season's playoffs, the Bobcats officially reclaimed the Hornets name, and by agreement with the league and the Pelicans, also received sole ownership of all history, records, and statistics from the Pelicans' time in Charlotte. As a result, the Hornets are now officially considered to have been founded in 1988, suspended operations in 2002, and resumed in 2004 as the Bobcats, while the Pelicans are officially treated as a 2002 expansion team. (This is somewhat similar to the relationship between the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens in the NFL.)
Donald Sterling, who was then-owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, received a lifetime ban from the NBA on April 29, 2014, after racist remarks he made became public. Sterling was also fined US$2.5 million, the maximum allowed under the NBA Constitution.
Becky Hammon was hired by the San Antonio Spurs on August 5, 2014, as an assistant coach, becoming the second female coach in NBA history but the first full-time coach. This also makes her the first full-time female coach in any of the four major professional sports in North America.
The NBA announced on April 15, 2016, that it would allow all 30 of its teams to sell corporate sponsor advertisement patches on official game uniforms, beginning with the 2017–18 season. The sponsorship advertisement patches would appear on the left front of jerseys, opposite Nike's logo, marking the first time a manufacturer's logo would appear on NBA jerseys, and would measure approximately 2.5 by 2.5 inches. The NBA would become the first major North American professional sports league to allow corporate sponsorship logos on official team uniforms, and the last to have a uniform manufacturer logo appear on its team uniforms. The first team to announce a jersey sponsorship was the Philadelphia 76ers, who agreed to a deal with StubHub.
On July 6, 2017, the NBA unveiled an updated rendition of its logo; it was largely identical to the previous design, except with revised typography and a "richer" color scheme. The league began to phase in the updated logo across its properties during the 2017 NBA Summer League.
The NBA also officially released new Nike uniforms for all 30 teams beginning with the 2017–18 season. The league eliminated "home" and "away" uniform designations. Instead, each team would have four or six uniforms: the "Association" edition, which is the team's white uniform, the "Icon" edition, which is the team's color uniform, and the "Statement" and "City" uniforms, which most teams use as an alternate uniform. In 2018, the NBA also released the "Earned" uniform.
In 2018, Adam Silver showed support in the Supreme Court's decision to overturn a federal ban on sports betting. Silver thought it would bring greater transparency and integrity as well as business opportunities. Before naming DraftKings and FanDuel co-official sports betting partners of the NBA in 2021, the NBA first named MGM as the exclusive official gaming partner of the NBA and WNBA—the first major American sports league to do so. With a deal between the 76ers and then-sportsbook FOX Bet as the first agreement between an NBA team and a sportsbook app, more teams partnered with operators thereafter. This early acceptance of sports betting translated to basketball being the most bet-on sport in the United States over football in 2023.
Teams
The NBA originated in 1946 with 11 teams, and through a sequence of team expansions, reductions and relocations consists of 30 teams – 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada.
The current league organization divides 30 teams into two 15-team conferences of three divisions with five teams each. The current divisional alignment was introduced in the 2004–05 season. Reflecting the population distribution of the United States and Canada as a whole, most teams are in the eastern half of the country: 13 teams are in the Eastern Time Zone, nine in the Central, three in the Mountain, and five in the Pacific.
Notes:
An asterisk (*) denotes a franchise move. See the respective team articles for more information.
The Fort Wayne Pistons, Minneapolis Lakers and Rochester Royals all joined the NBA (BAA) in 1948 from the NBL.
The Syracuse Nationals and Tri-Cities Blackhawks joined the NBA in 1949 as part of the BAA-NBL merger.
The Indiana Pacers, New York Nets, San Antonio Spurs, and Denver Nuggets all joined the NBA in 1976 as part of the ABA–NBA merger.
The Charlotte Hornets are regarded as a continuation of the original Charlotte franchise, which suspended operations in 2002 and rejoined the league in 2004. They were known as the Bobcats from 2004 to 2014. The New Orleans Pelicans are regarded as being established as an expansion team in 2002, originally known as the New Orleans Hornets until 2013.
Regular season
Following the summer break, teams begin training camps in late September. Training camps allow the coaching staff to evaluate players (especially rookies), scout the team's strengths and weaknesses, prepare the players for the rigorous regular season and determine the 12-man active roster (and a 3-man inactive list) with which they will begin the regular season. Teams have the ability to assign players with less than two years of experience to the NBA G League. After training camp, a series of preseason exhibition games are held. Preseason matches are sometimes held in non-NBA cities, both in the United States and overseas. The NBA regular season begins in mid-October.
During the regular season, each team plays 82 games, 41 each home and away. A team faces opponents in its own division four times a year (16 games). Each team plays six of the teams from the other two divisions in its conference four times (24 games), and the remaining four teams three times (12 games). Finally, each team plays all the teams in the other conference twice apiece (30 games). This asymmetrical structure means the strength of schedule will vary between teams (but not as significantly as the NFL or MLB). Over five seasons, each team will have played 80 games against their division (20 games against each opponent, 10 at home, 10 on the road), 180 games against the rest of their conference (18 games against each opponent, 9 at home, 9 on the road), and 150 games against the other conference (10 games against each team, 5 at home, 5 on the road).
Starting with the 2023–24 season, the regular season includes an in-season tournament, in which all games in the tournament (except for the final) count towards the regular season.
The NBA is also the only league that regularly schedules games on Christmas Day. The league has been playing games regularly on the holiday since 1947, though the first Christmas Day games were not televised until 1983–84. Games played on this day have featured some of the best teams and players. Christmas is also notable for NBA on television, as the holiday is when the first NBA games air on network television each season. Games played on this day have been some of the highest-rated games during a particular season.
The NBA has also played games on MLK Day every year since the holiday was first observed in 1986.
In February, the regular season pauses to celebrate the annual NBA All-Star Game. Fans vote throughout the United States, Canada, and on the Internet, and the top vote-getters in each conference are named captains. Fan votes determine the rest of the allstar starters. Coaches vote to choose the remaining 14 All-Stars. The player with the best performance during the game is rewarded with a Game MVP award. Other attractions of the All-Star break include the Rising Stars Challenge (originally Rookie Challenge), where the top rookies and second-year players in the NBA play in a 5-on-5 basketball game, with the current format pitting U.S. players against those from the rest of the world; the Skills Challenge, where players compete to finish an obstacle course consisting of shooting, passing, and dribbling in the fastest time; the Three Point Contest, where players compete to score the highest number of three-point field goals in a given time; and the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, where players compete to dunk the ball in the most entertaining way according to the judges. These other attractions have varying names which include the names of the various sponsors who have paid for naming rights.
Shortly after the All-Star break is the trade deadline, which is set to fall on the 16th Thursday of the season (usually in February) at 3 pm Eastern Time. After this date, teams are not allowed to exchange players with each other for the remainder of the season, although they may still sign and release players. Major trades are often completed right before the trading deadline, making that day a hectic time for general managers.
Around the middle of April, the regular season ends. It is during this time that voting begins for individual awards, as well as the selection of the honorary, league-wide, postseason teams. The Sixth Man of the Year Award is given to the best player coming off the bench (must have more games coming off the bench than actual games started). The Rookie of the Year Award is awarded to the most outstanding first-year player. The Most Improved Player Award is awarded to the player who is deemed to have shown the most improvement from the previous season. The Defensive Player of the Year Award is awarded to the league's best defender. The Coach of the Year Award is awarded to the coach that has made the most positive difference to a team. The Most Valuable Player Award is given to the player deemed the most valuable for (his team) that season. Additionally, Sporting News awards an unofficial (but widely recognized) Executive of the Year Award to the general manager who is adjudged to have performed the best job for the benefit of his franchise.
The postseason teams are the All-NBA Team, the All-Defensive Team, and the All-Rookie Team; each consists of five players. There are three All-NBA teams, consisting of the top players at each position, with first-team status being the most desirable. There are two All-Defensive teams, consisting of the top defenders at each position. There are also two All-Rookie teams, consisting of the top first-year players regardless of position.
Playoffs
The NBA playoffs begin in April after the conclusion of the regular season and play-in tournament with the top eight teams in each conference, regardless of divisional alignment, competing for the league's championship title, the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy. Seeds are awarded in strict order of regular season record (with a tiebreaker system used as needed).
Having a higher seed offers several advantages. Since the first seed begins the playoffs playing against the eighth seed, the second seed plays the seventh seed, the third seed plays the sixth seed, and the fourth seed plays the fifth seed, having a higher seed typically means a team faces a weaker opponent in the first round. The team in each series with the better record has home-court advantage, including the First Round.
The league began using its current format, with the top eight teams in each conference advancing regardless of divisional alignment, in the 2015–16 season. Previously, the top three seeds went to the division winners.
The playoffs follow a tournament format. Each team plays an opponent in a best-of-seven series, with the first team to win four games advancing into the next round, while the other team is eliminated from the playoffs. In the next round, the successful team plays against another advancing team of the same conference. All but one team in each conference are eliminated from the playoffs. Since the NBA does not re-seed teams, the playoff bracket in each conference uses a traditional design, with the winner of the series matching the first- and eighth-seeded teams playing the winner of the series matching the fourth- and fifth-seeded teams, and the winner of the series matching the second- and seventh-seeded teams playing the winner of the series matching the third- and sixth-seeded teams. In every round, the best-of-7 series follows a 2–2–1–1–1 home-court pattern, meaning that one team will have home court in games 1, 2, 5, and 7, while the other plays at home in games 3, 4, and 6. From 1985 to 2013, the NBA Finals followed a 2–3–2 pattern, meaning that one team had home court in games 1, 2, 6, and 7, while the other played at home in games 3, 4, and 5.
The final playoff round, a best-of-seven series between the victors of both conferences, is known as the NBA Finals and is held annually in June (sometimes, the series will start in late May). The winner of the NBA Finals receives the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy. Each player and major contributor—including coaches and the general manager—on the winning team receive a championship ring. In addition, the league awards the Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award to the best performing player of the series.
Championships
The Boston Celtics have the most championships, with 18 NBA Finals wins. The Los Angeles Lakers have the second-most with 17; the Golden State Warriors and Chicago Bulls have the third- and fourth-most, respectively, with seven and six titles.
Current teams that have no NBA Finals appearances:
Charlotte Hornets (formerly Charlotte Bobcats)
Los Angeles Clippers (formerly Buffalo Braves, San Diego Clippers)
Memphis Grizzlies (formerly Vancouver Grizzlies)
Minnesota Timberwolves
New Orleans Pelicans (formerly New Orleans Hornets, New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets)
Media coverage
As one of the major sports leagues in North America, the NBA has a long history of partnerships with television networks in the United States. The NBA signed a contract with DuMont Television Network in its eighth season, the 1953–54 season, marking the first year the NBA had a national television broadcaster. Similar to the National Football League, the lack of television stations led to NBC taking over the rights from the 1954–55 season until April 1962–NBC's first tenure with the NBA. As of 2024 in the United States, the NBA has a contract with ESPN (and ABC) and TNT through the 2024–25 season. Games that are not broadcast nationally are usually aired over regional sports networks specific to the area where the teams are located.
International competitions
The National Basketball Association has sporadically participated in international club competitions. The first international competition involving the NBA was a 1978 exhibition game in Tel Aviv, Israel between the Washington Bullets and Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv. From 1987 to 1999 an NBA team played against championship club teams from Asia, Europe and South America in the McDonald's Championship. This tournament was won by the NBA invitee every year it was held.
Ticket prices and viewership demographics
In 2022, an average ticket cost $77.75. Depending on the market and stage of the season—preseason, regular season, postseason—a ticket can range from $10 to $100,000.
In 2020, ticket prices for the NBA All Star Game became more expensive than ever before, averaging around $2,600, and even more on the secondary market.
Viewership demographics
According to Nielsen's survey, in 2013 the NBA had the youngest audience, with 45 percent of its viewers under 35. As of 2022, the league remains the least likely to be watched by women, who make up only 30% of the viewership. As of 2014, 45 percent of its viewers were black, while 40 percent of viewers were white, making it the only top North American sport that does not have a white majority audience.
As of 2017, the NBA's popularity further declined among White Americans, who during the 2016–17 season, made up only 34% of the viewership. At the same time, the black viewership increased to 47 percent, while Hispanic (of any race) stood at 11% and Asian viewership stood at 8%. According to the same poll, the NBA was favored more strongly by Democrats than Republicans.
Outside the U.S., the NBA's biggest international market is in China, where an estimated 800 million viewers watched the 2017–18 season. NBA China is worth approximately $4 billion.
Notable people
Presidents and commissioners
Maurice Podoloff, President from 1946 to 1963
Walter Kennedy, President from 1963 to 1967 and Commissioner from 1967 to 1975
Larry O'Brien, Commissioner from 1975 to 1984
David Stern, Commissioner from 1984 to 2014
Adam Silver, Commissioner from 2014 to present
Players
NBA 75th Anniversary Team
Lists of National Basketball Association players
List of foreign NBA players, a list that is exclusively for players who are not from the United States
Foreign players
International influence
Following pioneers like Vlade Divac (Serbia) and Dražen Petrović (Croatia) who joined the NBA in the late 1980s, an increasing number of international players have moved directly from playing elsewhere in the world to starring in the NBA. Below is a short list of foreign players who have won NBA awards or have been otherwise recognized for their contributions to basketball, either currently or formerly active in the league:
Dražen Petrović, Croatia – 2002 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, four-time Euroscar winner, two-time Mr. Europa winner, MVP of the 1986 FIBA World Championship and EuroBasket 1989, two-time Olympic silver medalist, World champion, European champion, 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.
Vlade Divac, Serbia – 2019 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, two-time Olympic silver medalist, 2001 NBA All-Star, two-time World champion, three-time European champion, 1989 Mr. Europa winner, 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.
Šarūnas Marčiulionis, Lithuania – 2014 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. First player from the Soviet Union and one of the first Europeans to sign a contract with an NBA club and to play solidly in the league, helping to lead the way for the internationalization of the league in the late 1990s.
Toni Kukoč, Croatia – 2021 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, three-time NBA champion with Chicago Bulls (1996, 1997, 1998), 1996 Sixth Man Award winner, named in 2008 as one of the 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.
Arvydas Sabonis, Lithuania – 2011 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, five-time Euroscar winner, two-time Mr. Europa winner, Olympic gold medalist in 1988 with the Soviet Union and bronze medalist in 1992 and 1996 with Lithuania, 1996 NBA All-Rookie First Team, 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors.
Peja Stojaković, Serbia – NBA champion with Dallas Mavericks (2011), MVP of the EuroBasket 2001, member of the all-tournament team in the 2002 FIBA World Championship, 2001 Euroscar winner, two-time Mr. Europa winner, two-time NBA Three-Point Shootout champion, three-time NBA All-Star.
Dirk Nowitzki, Germany – NBA champion with Dallas Mavericks (2011), MVP of the 2002 FIBA World Championship and EuroBasket 2005, member of the all-tournament team in the 2002 FIBA World Championship, six-time Euroscar winner, 2005 Mr. Europa, two-time FIBA Europe Player of the Year, 2007 NBA MVP, 2011 Bill Russell NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award, 2006 NBA Three-Point Shootout champion and 14-time NBA All-Star.
Hedo Türkoğlu, Turkey – 2008 Most Improved Player Award winner, member of the all-tournament team in the 2010 FIBA World Championship.
Pau Gasol, Spain – two-time NBA champion with Los Angeles Lakers (2009 and 2010), six-time NBA All-Star, 2002 NBA Rookie of the Year, two-time Mr. Europa, 2006 FIBA World Championship MVP, four-time Euroscar, two-time FIBA Europe Player of the Year, MVP of the EuroBasket 2009 and EuroBasket 2015, winner of the NBA Citizenship Award in 2012.
Andrei Kirilenko, Russia – 2004 NBA All-Star, MVP of the EuroBasket 2007, 2007 FIBA Europe Player of the Year.
Tony Parker, France – four-time NBA champion with the San Antonio Spurs, 2007 NBA Finals MVP, six-time NBA All-Star and 2007 Euroscar winner.
Manu Ginóbili, Argentina – four-time NBA champion with San Antonio Spurs, 2008 Sixth Man Award winner, two-time NBA All-Star, 50 Greatest EuroLeague Contributors, Olympic gold medalist in 2004 with Argentina.
Yao Ming, China – 2016 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, first overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft and eight-time NBA All-Star.
Leandro Barbosa, Brazil – NBA champion with Golden State Warriors (2015), 2007 Sixth Man Award winner.
Andrea Bargnani, Italy – first overall pick in the 2006 NBA draft by the Toronto Raptors.
Giannis Antetokounmpo, Greece – NBA champion with the Milwaukee Bucks (2021), 2021 NBA Finals MVP, two-time NBA MVP, 2017 Most Improved Player, eight-time NBA All-Star.
Nikola Jokić, Serbia – NBA champion with the Denver Nuggets (2023), 2023 NBA Finals MVP, three-time NBA MVP, six-time NBA All-Star, 2016 NBA All-Rookie First Team, Olympic silver medalist.
Luka Dončić, Slovenia – 2019 NBA Rookie of the Year, five-time NBA All-Star, European champion
On some occasions, young players, most but not all from the English-speaking world, have attended U.S. colleges before playing in the NBA. Notable examples are:
Nigerian Hakeem Olajuwon – first overall pick in the 1984 NBA draft, two-time champion, 12-time NBA All-Star, 1994 NBA MVP, two-time NBA Finals MVP, two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year (only player to receive the MVP Award, Defensive Player of the Year Award, and Finals MVP award in the same season,) and Hall of Famer.
Congolese Dikembe Mutombo – fourth overall pick in the 1991 NBA draft, four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year, eight-time NBA All-Star and Hall of Famer.
Dutchman Rik Smits – second overall pick in the 1988 NBA draft, 1998 NBA All-Star, played 12 years for the Indiana Pacers.
German Detlef Schrempf – two-time NBA Sixth Man Award winner, three-time NBA All-Star.
Canadians Steve Nash (two-time NBA MVP, eight-time NBA All-Star, Hall of Famer) and Andrew Wiggins (first overall pick in the 2014 NBA draft, 2015 NBA Rookie of the Year)
Australians Luc Longley (three-time champion with the Chicago Bulls), Andrew Bogut (first overall pick in the 2005 NBA draft, 2015 NBA champion with Golden State Warriors) and Ben Simmons (first overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft, 2018 NBA Rookie of the Year, three-time NBA All-Star).
Sudanese-born Englishman Luol Deng – 2007 NBA Sportsmanship Award winner, two-time NBA All-Star.
Cameroonians Joel Embiid (2023 NBA MVP, four-time NBA All-Star, 2017 NBA All-Rookie First Team) and Pascal Siakam (2019 NBA champion with Toronto Raptors, 2019 Most Improved Player, two-time NBA All-Star)
Coaches
List of current NBA head coaches
List of NBA player-coaches
List of NBA championship head coaches
List of foreign NBA coaches
Top 10 Coaches in NBA History
List of female NBA coaches
Other
List of NBA team owners
List of NBA referees
NBA Cares
The league has a global social responsibility program, NBA Cares, that is responsible for the league's stated mission of addressing important social issues worldwide.
See also
List of NBA regular season records
List of NBA awards
List of NBA seasons
NBA cheerleading
List of NBA rivalries
NBA salary cap
List of NBA playoff series
NBA Summer League
List of NBA franchise post-season droughts
List of NBA franchise post-season streaks
NBA Store
Notes
References
Further reading
Rosen, Charley (2009). The First Tip-Off: The Incredible Story of the Birth of the NBA. McGraw-Hill Professional. ISBN 978-0-07-148785-6.
Editors of Sports Illustrated (2007). Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book. Sports Illustrated. ISBN 978-1-933821-19-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
Havlicek, John (2003). NBA's Greatest 1st edition. DK. ISBN 0-7894-9977-0.
Peterson, Robert W. (2002). Cages to Jump Shots: Pro Basketball's Early Years. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-8772-0.
External links
Official website |
List_of_Major_League_Baseball_titles_leaders | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_titles_leaders | [
363
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_titles_leaders"
] | At the end of each Major League Baseball season, the league leaders of various statistical categories are announced. Leading either the American League or the National League in a particular category is referred to as a title.
The following lists describe which players hold the most titles in a career for a particular category. Listed are players with four or more titles in a category. Active players are highlighted.
Batting titles
12 Ty Cobb (1907–1915, 1917–1919)*
8 Honus Wagner (1900, 1903–1904, 1906–1909, 1911)
8 Tony Gwynn (1984, 1987–1989, 1994–1997)
7 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1925, 1928)
7 Stan Musial (1943, 1946, 1948, 1950–1952, 1957)
7 Rod Carew (1969, 1972–1975, 1977–1978)
6 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1947–1948, 1957–1958)
5 Dan Brouthers (1882–1883, 1889, 1891–1892)
5 Wade Boggs (1983, 1985–1988)
4 Nap Lajoie (1901, 1903–1904, 1910)*
4 Harry Heilmann (1921, 1923, 1925, 1927)
4 Roberto Clemente (1961, 1964–1965, 1967)
4 Bill Madlock (1975–1976, 1981, 1983)
* The 1910 American League batting title is disputed, with different sources giving the title to Ty Cobb or to Nap Lajoie or to both. See 1910 Chalmers Award.
On-base percentage
12 Ted Williams (1940–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954, 1956–1958)
10 Babe Ruth (1919–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1927, 1930–1932)
9 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1925, 1927–1928, 1931)
7 Barry Bonds (1992, 2001–2004, 2006–2007)
7 Ty Cobb (1909–1910, 1913–1915, 1917–1918)
7 Joey Votto (2010−2013, 2016–2018)
6 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1948–1949, 1953, 1957)
6 Wade Boggs (1983, 1985–1989)
5 Dan Brouthers (1882–1883, 1887, 1890–1891)
5 Billy Hamilton (1891, 1893–1894, 1896, 1898)
5 Lou Gehrig (1928, 1934–1937)
5 Carl Yastrzemski (1963, 1965, 1967–1968, 1970)
4 Honus Wagner (1904, 1907–1909)
4 Richie Ashburn (1954–1955, 1958, 1960)
4 Joe Morgan (1972, 1974–1976)
4 Rod Carew (1974–1975, 1977–1978)
4 Frank Thomas (1991–1992, 1994, 1997)
4 Mike Trout (2016−2019)
Slugging percentage
13 Babe Ruth (1919–1924, 1926–1932)
9 Rogers Hornsby (1917, 1920–1925, 1928–1929)
9 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954, 1957)
8 Ty Cobb (1907–1912, 1914, 1917)
7 Dan Brouthers (1881–1886, 1891)
6 Honus Wagner (1900, 1902, 1904, 1907–1909)
6 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952)
6 Barry Bonds (1992-1993, 2001-2004)
5 Ed Delahanty (1892–1893, 1896, 1899, 1902)
5 Jimmie Foxx (1932–1933, 1935, 1938–1939)
5 Willie Mays (1954, 1955, 1957, 1964, 1965)
5 Mike Schmidt (1974, 1980–1982, 1986)
4 Nap Lajoie (1897, 1901, 1903–1904)
4 Johnny Mize (1938–1940, 1942)
4 Mickey Mantle (1955–1956, 1961–1962)
4 Hank Aaron (1959, 1963, 1967, 1971)
4 Frank Robinson (1960–1962, 1966)
4 Alex Rodriguez (2003, 2005, 2007–2008)
On-base plus slugging
13 Babe Ruth (1918–1924, 1926–1931)
11 Rogers Hornsby (1917, 1920–1925, 1927–1929, 1931)
10 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954, 1957–1958)
9 Ty Cobb (1907–1912, 1914–1915, 1917)
8 Dan Brouthers (1882–1887, 1891, 1892)
7 Honus Wagner (1902, 1904, 1906–1909, 1911)
7 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948, 1950, 1952, 1957)
6 Barry Bonds (1992-1993, 2001-2004)
5 Ed Delahanty (1895–1896, 1899, 1901–1902)
5 Jimmie Foxx (1932–1933, 1935, 1938–1939)
5 Willie Mays (1954–1955, 1958, 1964–1965)
5 Mickey Mantle (1955–1956, 1960, 1962, 1964)
5 Mike Schmidt (1980–1982, 1984, 1986)
4 Frank Robinson (1960–1962, 1966)
4 Carl Yastrzemski (1965, 1967–1968, 1970)
4 Frank Thomas (1991–1992, 1994, 1997)
At bats
8 Ichiro Suzuki (2001, 2004–2008, 2010–2011)
7 Doc Cramer (1933–1935, 1938, 1940–1942)
5 Nellie Fox (1952, 1955–1956, 1959–1960)
4 Abner Dalrymple (1880, 1882, 1884–1885)
4 Eddie Foster (1912, 1914–1915, 1918)
4 Pete Rose (1965, 1972–1973, 1977)
4 Jimmy Rollins, (2001–2002, 2007, 2009)
Plate appearances
7 Pete Rose (1965, 1972–1974, 1976–1978)
5 Donie Bush (1909, 1913–1915, 1918)
5 Nellie Fox (1956–1960)
5 Craig Biggio (1992, 1995, 1997–1999)
5 Derek Jeter (1997, 1999, 2005, 2010, 2012)
4 George Burns (1915–1916, 1920, 1923)
4 Richie Ashburn (1952, 1956–1958)
4 Ichiro Suzuki (2001, 2004, 2006, 2008)
Runs titles
8 Babe Ruth (1919–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1928)
6 Ted Williams (1940–1942, 1946–1947, 1949)
6 Mickey Mantle (1954, 1956–1958, 1960–1961)
5 George J. Burns (1914, 1916–1917, 1919–1920)
5 Ty Cobb (1909–1911, 1915–1916)
5 Rickey Henderson (1981, 1985–1986, 1989–1990)
5 Rogers Hornsby (1921–1922, 1924, 1927, 1929)
5 Stan Musial (1946, 1948, 1951–1952, 1954)
5 Alex Rodriguez (1996, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007)
5 Albert Pujols (2003–2005, 2009–2010)
4 Billy Hamilton (1891, 1894–1895, 1897)
4 Lou Gehrig (1931, 1933, 1935–1936)
4 Pete Rose (1969, 1974–1976)
4 Mike Trout (2012−2014, 2016)
Hits titles
8 Ty Cobb (1907–1909, 1911–1912, 1915, 1917, 1919)
7 Tony Gwynn (1984, 1986–1987, 1989, 1994–1995, 1997)
7 Pete Rose (1965, 1968, 1970, 1972–1973, 1976, 1981)
7 Ichiro Suzuki (2001, 2004, 2006–2010)
6 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948–1949, 1952)
5 Tony Oliva (1964–1966, 1969–1970)
4 Ginger Beaumont (1902–1904, 1906)
4 Nap Lajoie (1901, 1904, 1906, 1910)
4 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1922, 1924)
4 Nellie Fox (1952, 1954, 1957–1958)
4 Harvey Kuenn (1953–1954, 1956, 1959)
4 Kirby Puckett (1987–1989, 1992)
4 Jose Altuve (2014–2017)
Total bases titles
8 Hank Aaron (1956–1957, 1959–1961, 1963, 1967, 1969)
7 Rogers Hornsby (1917, 1920–1922, 1924–1925, 1929)
6 Honus Wagner (1900, 1904, 1906–1909)
6 Ty Cobb (1907–1909, 1911, 1915, 1917)
6 Babe Ruth (1919, 1921, 1923–1924, 1926, 1928)
6 Ted Williams (1939, 1942, 1946–1947, 1949, 1951)
6 Stan Musial (1943, 1946, 1948–1949, 1951–1952)
4 Dan Brouthers (1882–1883, 1886, 1892)
4 Nap Lajoie (1897, 1901, 1904, 1910)
4 Chuck Klein (1930–1933)
4 Lou Gehrig (1927, 1930–1931, 1934)
4 Jim Rice (1977–1979, 1983)
4 Alex Rodriguez (1996, 2001–2002, 2007)
4 Albert Pujols, (2003–2004, 2008–2009)
Doubles
8 Tris Speaker (1912, 1914, 1916, 1918, 1920–1923)
8 Stan Musial (1943–1944, 1946, 1948–1949, 1952–1954)
7 Honus Wagner (1900, 1902, 1904, 1906–1909)
5 Ed Delahanty (1895–1896, 1899, 1901–1902)
5 Nap Lajoie (1898, 1901, 1904, 1906, 1910)
5 Pete Rose (1974–1976, 1978, 1980)
4 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1922, 1924)
4 Hank Aaron (1955–1956, 1961, 1965)
4 Tony Oliva (1964, 1967, 1969–1970)
Triples
5 Stan Musial (1943, 1946, 1948–1949, 1951)
5 Lance Johnson (1991–1994, 1996)
5 Willie Wilson (1980, 1982, 1985, 1987–1988)
4 Ty Cobb (1908, 1911, 1917–1918)
4 Brett Butler (1983, 1986, 1994–1995)
4 Jimmy Rollins (2001–2002, 2004, 2007)
4 Carl Crawford (2004–2006, 2010)
4 José Reyes (2005–2006, 2008, 2011)
Home run titles
12 Babe Ruth (1918–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1931)
8 Mike Schmidt (1974–1976, 1980–1981, 1983–1984, 1986)
7 Ralph Kiner (1946–1952)
6 Gavvy Cravath (1913–1915, 1917–1919)
6 Mel Ott (1932, 1934, 1936–1938, 1942)
6 Harmon Killebrew (1959, 1962–1964, 1967, 1969)
5 Mark McGwire (1987, 1996-1999)
5 Harry Stovey (1880, 1883, 1885, 1889, 1891)
5 Alex Rodriguez (2001–2003, 2005, 2007)
4 Harry Davis (1904–1907)
4 Frank Baker (1911–1914)
4 Cy Williams (1916, 1920, 1923, 1927)
4 Hack Wilson (1926–1928, 1930)
4 Chuck Klein (1929, 1931–1933)
4 Jimmie Foxx (1932–1933, 1935, 1939)
4 Hank Greenberg (1935, 1938, 1940, 1946)
4 Johnny Mize (1939–1940, 1947–1948)
4 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1947, 1949)
4 Mickey Mantle (1955–1956, 1958, 1960)
4 Willie Mays (1955, 1962, 1964–1965)
4 Hank Aaron (1957, 1963, 1966–1967)
4 Ken Griffey Jr. (1994,1997–1999)
4 Reggie Jackson (1973, 1975, 1980, 1982)
RBI titles
8 Cap Anson (1880–1882, 1884–1886, 1888, 1891)
6 Babe Ruth (1919–1921, 1923, 1926, 1928)
5 Honus Wagner (1901–1902, 1908–1909, 1912)
5 Lou Gehrig (1927–1928, 1930–1931, 1934)
4 Ty Cobb (1907–1909, 1911)
4 Sherry Magee (1907, 1910, 1914, 1918)
4 Rogers Hornsby (1920–1922, 1925)
4 Hank Greenberg (1935, 1937, 1940, 1946)
4 Ted Williams (1939, 1942, 1947, 1949)
4 Hank Aaron (1957, 1960, 1963, 1966)
4 Mike Schmidt (1980–1981, 1984, 1986)
Base on Balls
11 Babe Ruth (1920–1921, 1923–1924, 1926–1928, 1930–1933)
8 Ted Williams (1941–1942, 1946–1949, 1951, 1954)
8 Barry Bonds (1992, 1996-1997, 2001-2004, 2007)
7 Roy Thomas (1900–1904, 1906–1907)
6 Mel Ott (1929, 1931–1933, 1937, 1942)
6 Eddie Yost (1950, 1952–1953, 1956, 1959–1960)
5 Billy Hamilton (1891, 1894–1897)
5 Topsy Hartsel (1902, 1905–1908)
5 Donie Bush (1909–1912, 1914)
5 George Burns (1917, 1919–1921, 1923)
5 Mickey Mantle (1955, 1957–1958, 1961–1962)
4 Miller Huggins (1905, 1907, 1910, 1914)
4 Eddie Mathews (1955, 1961–1963)
4 Ron Santo (1964, 1966–1968)
4 Harmon Killebrew (1966–1967, 1969, 1971)
4 Mike Schmidt (1979, 1981–1983)
4 Rickey Henderson (1982–1983, 1989, 1998)
4 Frank Thomas (1991–1992, 1994–1995)
4 Joey Votto (2011−2013, 2016)
Strikeouts (batters)
7 Jimmie Foxx (1929–1931, 1933, 1935–1936, 1941)
6 Vince DiMaggio (1937–1938, 1942–1945)
5 Babe Ruth (1918, 1923–1924, 1927–1928)
5 Hack Wilson (1927–1930, 1932)
5 Mickey Mantle (1952, 1954, 1958–1960)
5 Reggie Jackson (1968–1971, 1982)
4 Pud Galvin (1879–1881, 1883)
4 Tom Brown (1891–1892, 1894–1895)
4 Dolph Camilli (1934–1935, 1939, 1941)
4 Pat Seerey (1944–1946, 1948)
4 Mike Schmidt (1974–1976, 1983)
4 Rob Deer (1987–1988, 1991, 1993)
4 Juan Samuel (1984–1987)
4 Andrés Galarraga (1988–1990, 1995)
4 Mark Reynolds (2008–2011)
Stolen base titles
12 Rickey Henderson (1980–1986, 1988–1991, 1998)
10 Max Carey (1913, 1915–1918, 1920, 1922–1925)
9 Luis Aparicio (1956–1964)
8 Lou Brock (1966–1969, 1971–1974)
6 Ty Cobb (1907, 1909, 1911, 1915–1917)
6 George Case (1939–1943, 1946)
6 Bert Campaneris (1965–1968, 1970, 1972)
6 Maury Wills (1960–1965)
6 Vince Coleman (1985–1990)
5 Honus Wagner (1901–1902, 1904, 1907–1908)
5 Kenny Lofton (1992–1996)
4 Billy Hamilton (1890–1891, 1894–1895)
4 Bob Bescher (1909–1912)
4 Eddie Collins (1910, 1919, 1923–1924)
4 George Sisler (1918, 1921–1922, 1927)
4 Kiki Cuyler (1926, 1928–1930)
4 Ben Chapman (1931–1933, 1937)
4 Willie Mays (1956–1959)
4 Tim Raines (1981–1984)
4 Carl Crawford (2003–2004, 2006–2007)
Sacrifice bunts
5 Mule Haas (1930–1934)
4 Otto Knabe (1907–1908, 1910, 1913)
4 Phil Rizzuto (1949–1952)
ERA titles
9 Lefty Grove (1926, 1929–1932, 1935–1936, 1938–1939)
7 Roger Clemens (1986, 1990–1992, 1997–1998, 2005)
5 Christy Mathewson (1905, 1908–1909, 1911, 1913)
5 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1915–1917, 1919–1920)
5 Walter Johnson (1912–1913, 1918–1919, 1924)
5 Sandy Koufax (1962–1966)
5 Pedro Martínez (1997, 1999–2000, 2002–2003)
5 Clayton Kershaw (2011–2014, 2017)
4 Greg Maddux (1993–1995, 1998)
4 Randy Johnson (1995, 1999, 2001–2002)
Wins titles
8 Warren Spahn (1949–1950, 1953, 1957–1961)
6 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1911, 1914–1917, 1920)
6 Walter Johnson (1913–1916, 1918, 1924)
6 Bob Feller (1939–1941, 1946–1947, 1951)
5 Cy Young (1892, 1895, 1901–1903)
5 Joe McGinnity (1899–1900, 1903–1904, 1906)
5 Tom Glavine (1991–1993, 1998, 2000)
4 Christy Mathewson (1905, 1907–1908, 1910)
4 Lefty Grove (1928, 1930–1931, 1933)
4 Hal Newhouser (1944–1946, 1948)
4 Robin Roberts (1952–1955)
4 Steve Carlton (1972, 1977, 1980, 1982)
4 Roger Clemens (1986–1987, 1997–1998)
4 Justin Verlander (2009, 2011, 2019, 2022)
WHIP
7 Cy Young (1892, 1895, 1899, 1901, 1904–1905, 1907)
6 Walter Johnson (1912–1913, 1915, 1918–1919, 1924)
6 Carl Hubbell (1931–1934, 1936, 1938)
6 Pedro Martínez (1997, 1999–2000, 2002–2003, 2005)
5 Babe Adams (1911, 1914, 1919–1921)
5 Pete Alexander (1915–1916, 1923, 1926–1927)
5 Lefty Grove (1930–1932, 1935–1936)
5 Justin Verlander (2011, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2022)
4 Tim Keefe (1880, 1883, 1887–1888)
4 Christy Mathewson (1905, 1908–1909, 1913)
4 Warren Spahn (1947, 1953, 1958, 1961)
4 Sandy Koufax (1962–1965)
4 Don Sutton (1972, 1975, 1980–1981)
4 Greg Maddux (1993–1995, 1998)
4 Johan Santana (2004–2007)
4 Clayton Kershaw (2011–2014)
Games pitched
6 Firpo Marberry (1924–1926, 1928–1929, 1932)
6 Joe McGinnity (1901, 1903–1907)
5 Ed Walsh (1907–1908, 1910–1912)
4 Mike Marshall (1972–1974, 1979)
4 Kent Tekulve (1978–1979, 1982, 1987)
4 Paul Quantrill (2001–2004)
Saves titles
5 Ed Walsh (1907–1908, 1910–1912)
5 Firpo Marberry (1924–1926, 1929, 1932)
5 Dan Quisenberry (1980, 1982–1985)
5 Bruce Sutter (1979–1982, 1984)
4 Kid Nichols (1891, 1895, 1897–1898)
4 Mordecai Brown (1908–1911)
4 Johnny Murphy (1938–1939, 1941–1942)
4 Lee Smith (1983, 1991–1992, 1994)
4 Craig Kimbrel (2011–2014)
Innings pitched titles
7 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1911–1912, 1914–1917, 1920)
5 Walter Johnson (1910, 1913–1916)
5 Bob Feller (1939–1941, 1946–1947)
5 Robin Roberts (1951–1955)
5 Steve Carlton (1972–1973, 1980, 1982–1983)
5 Greg Maddux (1991–1995)
4 John Clarkson (1885, 1887–1889)
4 Joe McGinnity (1900–1901, 1903–1904)
4 Bob Lemon (1948, 1950, 1952–1953)
4 Warren Spahn (1947, 1949, 1958–1959)
4 Wilbur Wood (1972–1975)
4 Jim Palmer (1970, 1976–1978)
4 Phil Niekro (1974, 1977–1979)
4 Roy Halladay (2002-2003, 2008, 2010)
4 Justin Verlander (2009, 2011, 2012, 2019)
Strikeout titles (pitchers)
12 Walter Johnson (1910, 1912–1919, 1921, 1923–1924)
11 Nolan Ryan (1972–1974, 1976–1979, 1987–1990)
9 Randy Johnson (1992–1995, 1999–2002, 2004)§
7 Dazzy Vance (1922–1928)
7 Lefty Grove (1925–1931)
7 Bob Feller (1938–1941, 1946–1948)
6 Rube Waddell (1902–1907)
6 Grover Cleveland Alexander (1912, 1914–1917, 1920)
5 Amos Rusie (1890–1891, 1893–1895)
5 Christy Mathewson (1903–1905, 1907–1908)
5 Sam McDowell (1965–1966, 1968–1970)
5 Tom Seaver (1970–1971, 1973, 1975–1976)
5 Steve Carlton (1972, 1974, 1980, 1982–1983)
5 Roger Clemens (1988, 1991, 1996–1998)
5 Justin Verlander (2009, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2018)
4 Dizzy Dean (1932–1935)
4 Warren Spahn (1949–1952)
4 Sandy Koufax (1961, 1963, 1965–1966)
§ In 1998, because of a mid-season trade, Randy Johnson led Major League Baseball in strikeouts, but neither the AL nor the NL.
Games started titles
7 Greg Maddux (1990–1993, 2000, 2003, 2005)
6 Robin Roberts (1950–1955)
6 Tom Glavine (1993, 1996, 1999–2002)
5 Bob Feller (1940–1941, 1946–1948)
5 Early Wynn (1943, 1951, 1954, 1957, 1959)
4 Walter Johnson (1910, 1914–1915, 1924)
4 Bobo Newsom (1936–1939)
4 Don Drysdale (1962–1965)
4 Phil Niekro (1977–1980)
4 Tom Browning (1986, 1988–1990)
4 Dave Stewart (1988–1991)
4 Barry Zito (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006)
Complete games
9 Warren Spahn (1949, 1951, 1957–1963)
7 Roy Halladay (2003, 2005, 2007–2011)
6 Walter Johnson (1910–1911, 1913–1916)
6 Pete Alexander (1911, 1914–1917, 1920)
5 Bob Lemon (1948, 1950, 1952, 1954, 1956)
5 Robin Roberts (1952–1956)
4 Burleigh Grimes (1921, 1923–1924, 1928)
4 Wes Ferrell (1931, 1935–1937)
4 Ferguson Jenkins (1967, 1970–1971, 1974)
4 Phil Niekro (1974, 1977–1979)
4 Randy Johnson (1994, 1999–2000, 2002)
4 Curt Schilling (1996, 1998, 2000–2001)
Shutouts
7 Cy Young (1892, 1895–1896, 1900–1901, 1903–1904)
7 Walter Johnson (1911, 1913–1915, 1918–1919, 1924)
7 Pete Alexander (1911, 1913, 1915–1917, 1919, 1921)
6 Roger Clemens (1987–1988, 1990–1992, 1997)
5 Greg Maddux (1994–1995, 1998, 2000–2001)
4 Amos Rusie (1891, 1893–1895)
4 Christy Mathewson (1902, 1905, 1907–1908)
4 Dazzy Vance (1922, 1925, 1928, 1930)
4 Bob Feller (1940–1941, 1946–1947)
4 Warren Spahn (1947, 1951, 1959, 1961)
4 Bob Gibson (1962, 1966, 1968, 1971)
4 Roy Halladay (2003, 2008–2010)
Losses
4 Bobo Newsom (1934–1935, 1941, 1945)
4 Pedro Ramos (1958–1961)
4 Phil Niekro (1977–1980)
Wild pitches
6 Nolan Ryan (1972, 1977–1978, 1981, 1986, 1989)
6 Larry Cheney (1912–1914, 1916–1918)
6 Jack Morris (1983–1985, 1987, 1991, 1994)
5 Jimmy Ring (1921–1923, 1925–1926)
4 Will White (1878–1880, 1882)
4 Joe Niekro (1979, 1982–1983, 1985)
Hit batsmen
6 Howard Ehmke (1920–1923, 1925, 1927)
5 Tommy Byrne (1948–1952)
5 Don Drysdale (1958–1961, 1965)
5 Dave Stieb (1981, 1983–1984, 1986, 1989)
4 Roy Parmelee (1933, 1935–1937)
4 Frank Lary (1956–1958, 1960)
4 Jim Bunning (1964–1967)
== References == |
Willie_Mays | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays | [
363,
436,
707
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays#",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Mays"
] | Willie Howard Mays Jr. (May 6, 1931 – June 18, 2024), nicknamed "the Say Hey Kid", was an American professional baseball center fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Mays was a five-tool player who began his career in the Negro leagues, playing for the Birmingham Black Barons, and spent the rest of his career in the National League (NL), playing for the New York / San Francisco Giants and New York Mets.
Born in Westfield, Alabama, Mays was an all-around athlete. He joined the Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1948, playing with them until the Giants signed him upon his graduation from high school in 1950. He debuted in MLB with the Giants and won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1951 after hitting 20 home runs to help the Giants win their first pennant in 14 years. In 1954, he won the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award, leading the Giants to their last World Series title before their move to the West Coast. His over-the-shoulder catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series is one of the most famous baseball plays of all time. After the Giants moved to San Francisco, Mays went on to win another MVP Award in 1965 and also led the Giants to the 1962 World Series, this time losing to the New York Yankees. He ended his career with a return to New York after an early season trade to the New York Mets in 1972, retiring after the team's trip to the 1973 World Series. He served as a coach for the Mets for the rest of the decade before rejoining the Giants as a special assistant to the president and general manager.
Mays was an All-Star 24 times, tying for the second-most appearances in history. He led the NL in home runs four times and in slugging percentage five times while batting over .300 and posting 100 runs batted in (RBIs) ten times each. Mays was also at the forefront of a resurgence of speed as an offensive weapon in the 1950s, leading the league in stolen bases four times, triples three times, and runs twice; his 179 steals during the decade topped the major leagues. He was the first NL player to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season, the first player in history to reach both 300 home runs and 300 stolen bases, and the second player and the first right-handed hitter to hit 600 home runs. Mays also set standards for defensive brilliance, winning 12 consecutive Gold Glove Awards after their creation in 1957, still a record for outfielders; he led NL center fielders in double plays five times and assists three times.
A classic example of a five-tool player, Mays finished his career with a .302 batting average. At the time of his retirement, he held the NL record for career runs scored (2,062), and ranked second in league history behind Stan Musial in games played (2,992), third in home runs (660), at bats (10,881), runs batted in (1,903), total bases (6,066), extra-base hits (1,323) and walks (1,464), fourth in hits (3,293), fifth in slugging percentage (.557), and eighth in doubles (523); his 140 triples ranked fourth among players active after 1945. He holds major league records for games as a center fielder (2,829), putouts as an outfielder (7,095), and ended his career behind only Ty Cobb in total games as an outfielder (2,842), ranking seventh in assists (188) and third in double plays (59) in center field. Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979 in his first year of eligibility, and was named to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999. Mays was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015.
Early life
Willie Howard Mays Jr. was born on May 6, 1931, in Westfield, Alabama, a primarily black company town near Fairfield. His father, Cat Mays, was a talented baseball player with the black team at the local iron plant. Annie Satterwhite, his mother, was a gifted high school basketball and track star. To his family and close friends, and later to his teammates, Mays was affectionately referred to as "Buck."
His parents never married and separated when Mays was three. His father and two aunts, Sarah and Ernestine raised him. Sarah took young Willie to an African Methodist Episcopal Church every Sunday. Cat Mays worked as a railway porter and later at the steel mills in Westfield.
Cat exposed Willie to baseball at an early age, playing catch with him at five and allowing him to sit on the bench with his Birmingham Industrial League team at ten. His favorite baseball player growing up was Joe DiMaggio; other favorites were Ted Williams and Stan Musial. Mays played several sports at Fairfield Industrial High School. On the basketball team, he led players at all-black high schools in Jefferson County in scoring. Mays played quarterback, fullback and punter for the football team. Though he turned 18 in 1949, Mays did not graduate from Fairfield until 1950, which journalist Allen Barra calls "a minor mystery in Willie's life".
Professional career
Negro and minor leagues
Mays's professional baseball career began in 1948 when he played briefly during the summer with the Chattanooga Choo-Choos, a Negro minor league team. Later that year, Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League, where he was known as "Buck". The Black Barons were managed by Piper Davis, a teammate of Mays's father on the industrial team. When Fairfield Industrial principal E. T. Oliver threatened to suspend Mays for playing professional ball, Davis and Mays's father worked out an agreement. Mays would only play home games for the Black Barons. In return, he could still play high school football. Mays helped Birmingham advance to the 1948 Negro World Series, which they lost 4–1 to the Homestead Grays. He hit .262 for the season and stood out because of his excellent fielding and base running. On May 28, 2024, Major League Baseball announced that it had integrated Negro league statistics into its records.
Several major league teams were interested in signing Mays, but they had to wait until he graduated from high school to offer him a contract. The Boston Braves and the Brooklyn Dodgers both scouted him, but New York Giants scout Eddie Montague signed him to a $4,000 contract. Mays spent the rest of 1950 with the Class B Trenton Giants of the Interstate League, batting .353. Promoted to the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers of the American Association in 1951, he batted .477 in 35 games.
New York / San Francisco Giants
NL Rookie of the Year
Playing excellent defense, Mays was called up by the Giants on May 24, 1951. Initially, Mays was reluctant to accept the promotion because he did not believe he was ready to face major league pitchers. Stunned, Giants manager Leo Durocher called Mays directly and said, "Quit costing the ball club money with long-distance phone calls and join the team." It was also around this time that Mays was given his famous moniker: "The Say Hey Kid".
The Giants hoped Mays would help them defensively in center field, as well as offensively. The Polo Grounds featured an unusual horseshoe shape, with relatively short left field (280 feet; 85 m) and right field (258 feet; 79 m) lines but the deepest center field in baseball (483 feet; 147 m). Mays appeared in his first major league game on May 25 against the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park, batting third. He had no hits in his first 12 at bats in the major leagues, but in his 13th on May 28, he hit a home run off Warren Spahn over the left-field roof of the Polo Grounds. Mays went hitless in his next 12 at bats, and Durocher dropped him to eighth in the batting order on June 2, suggesting that Mays stop trying to pull the ball and just make contact. Mays responded with four hits over his next two games on June 2 and 3. By the end of the month, he had pushed his batting average to over .300. He would bat close to .290 for the rest of the season. Although his .274 average, 68 RBIs, and 20 home runs (in 121 games) would rank among the lowest totals of his career, he still won the National League (NL) Rookie of the Year Award.
On August 11, the Giants found themselves 13+1⁄2 games back of the Dodgers in the NL pennant race; Brooklyn manager Charlie Dressen triumphantly predicted, "The Giants is dead." However, the Giants went 40–18 in the season's final 58 games, winning their last seven of the year to finish the regular season tied with the Dodgers. During the pennant race, Mays's fielding and strong throwing arm were instrumental in several important Giants' victories. Mays was in the on-deck circle on October 3 when Bobby Thomson hit a three-run homer to win the three-game NL tie-breaker series 2–1.
The Giants met the New York Yankees in the 1951 World Series. In Game 1, Mays, Hank Thompson, and Monte Irvin composed the first all-black outfield in major league history. For the series, Mays hit poorly as the Giants lost the series in six games. In Game 5, he hit a consequential fly ball, which DiMaggio and Yankee rookie Mickey Mantle pursued. DiMaggio called Mantle off at the last second; as he stopped, Mantle got his cleat stuck in an open drainpipe, suffering a knee injury that would affect him the rest of his career.
U.S. Army
Soon after the 1951 season ended, Mays learned the United States Army had drafted him to serve in the Korean War. Before he left to join the Army, Mays played the first few weeks of the 1952 season with the Giants. He batted .236 with four home runs in 34 games. He surprised sportswriters like Red Smith when he drew cheers from fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Giants' archrivals, in his last game before reporting.
After his induction into the Army on May 29, Mays reported to Fort Eustis in Virginia, where he spent much of his time playing for the Fort Eustis Wheels military baseball team with (and against) other major and minor leaguers, as well as serving as an athletic instructor in the Physical Training Department. It was at Fort Eustis that Mays learned the basket catch from fellow Fort Eustis outfielder Al Fortunato. Mays, by his own estimation, played 180 games for the Wheels, and missed about 275 games for the Giants because of his military service. Mays' time playing for the Wheels ended on July 28, 1953, after he chipped a bone in his left foot while sliding into third base, necessitating a 6-week stint in a cast. Discharged on March 1, 1954, he reported to Giants' spring training camp the following day.
World Series champion and NL MVP
Mays began the 1954 season on Opening Day with a home run of over 414 feet (126 m) against Carl Erskine. After he batted .250 in his first 20 games, Durocher moved him from third to fifth in the batting order and again encouraged him to stop attempting to pull the ball and try to get hits to right field. Mays changed his batting stance and stood straighter at the plate, keeping his feet closer together. He credited these adjustments with improving his batting average, as he batted .450 with 25 RBIs in his next 20 games. On June 25, he hit an inside-the-park home run in a 6–2 victory over the Chicago Cubs. Mays was selected for the NL All-Star team; he would be part of 24 straight NL All-Star teams over 20 seasons. Mays became the first player in history to hit 30 home runs before the All-Star Game. He had 36 home runs through July 28. Around that time, Durocher asked him to stop trying to hit them, explaining the team wanted him to reach base more often. Mays hit only five home runs after July 28 but upped his batting average from .326 to .345 to win the team's first batting title since Bill Terry's in 1930. Hitting 41 home runs, Mays won the NL Most Valuable Player Award and the Hickok Belt.
The Giants won the NL pennant and the 1954 World Series, sweeping the Cleveland Indians in four games. The 1954 series is perhaps best remembered for "The Catch", an over-the-shoulder running grab by Mays of a long drive off the bat of Vic Wertz about 425 feet (130 m) from home plate at the Polo Grounds during the eighth inning of Game 1. The catch prevented two Indians' runners from scoring, preserving a tie game. "The Catch transcended baseball" Barra wrote, and Larry Schwartz of ESPN said of all the catches that Mays made, "it is regarded as his greatest". Mays did not even look at the ball for the last twenty feet as he ran, saying later he realized he had to keep running if he was going to get the ball. The Giants won the game in the 10th inning on a three-run home run by Dusty Rhodes, with Mays scoring the winning run.
Mays added base stealing to his talents, upping his total from eight in 1954 to 24 in 1955. In the middle of May, Durocher asked him to try for more home runs. Mays led the league with 51 but finished fourth in NL MVP voting. Leading the league with a .659 slugging percentage, Mays batted .319 as the Giants finished in third. During the last game of the season, Durocher, who had supported Mays since his career had begun, told him he would not be returning as the Giants manager. When Mays responded, "But Mr. Leo, it's going to be different with you gone. You won't be here to help me," Durocher told his star, "Willie Mays doesn't need help from anyone."
New manager
In 1956, Mays struggled at first to get along with new manager Bill Rigney, who publicly criticized him. The center fielder grew particularly annoyed after Rigney fined him $100 for not running to first base on a pop fly that was caught by the catcher. He hit 36 homers and stole a career-high 40 bases, becoming only the second player to join the 30–30 club. Though his RBIs (84) and batting average (.296) were his lowest for nearly a decade, Barra observed that "Willie Mays was still the best all-around player in the National League."
The relationship between Mays and Rigney improved in 1957. Rigney stopped giving Mays as much direction, trusting his star player's ability and instinct. In his 2010 authorized biography of Mays, James S. Hirsch wrote Mays had "one of his most exhilarating excursions" on April 21. In the game against the Phillies, Mays reached second base on an error, stole third, and scored the winning run on a Hank Sauer single, all on plays close enough that he had to slide to make each one. He stole home in a 4–3 loss to the Cubs on May 21. The 1957 season was the first in which the Gold Glove Awards were presented. Mays won the first of 12 consecutive Gold Gloves for his play in center field. He finished in the NL's top-five in a variety of offensive categories: runs scored (112, third) batting average (.333, second), and home runs (35, fourth). In 1957, Mays became the fourth player in major league history to join the 20–20–20 club (doubles, triples, homers). He stole 38 bases that year, making him the second 20–20–20 club member (after Frank Schulte in 1911) to steal at least 20 bases. This gave him his second straight 30–30 club season.
Dwindling attendance and the desire for a new ballpark prompted the Giants to move to San Francisco following the 1957 season. In the final Giants' home game at the Polo Grounds on September 29, 1957, fans gave Mays a standing ovation in the middle of his final at bat, after Pirates' pitcher Bob Friend had already thrown a pitch to him.
Move to San Francisco
In 1958, Rigney wanted Mays to challenge Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs in a season. Consequently, Rigney did not play Mays much in spring training hoping to use his best hitter every day of the regular season. As he had in 1954, Mays vied for the NL batting title until the final game of the season. Moved to the leadoff slot the last day to increase his at bats, Mays collected three hits in the game to finish with a career-high .347, but Philadelphia's Richie Ashburn batted .350. Mays shared the inaugural NL Player of the Month award with Stan Musial in May, batting .405 with 12 home runs and 29 runs batted in; he won a second award in September (.434, 4 home runs, 18 RBIs). He played in all but two games, hitting only 29 home runs.
Horace Stoneham, the Giants' owner, made Mays the highest-paid player in baseball with a $75,000 contract for 1959. Mays had his first serious injury in 1959, a collision with Sammy White in spring training that resulted in 35 stitches in his leg, but he was ready by the start of the season. Against the Reds in August, Mays broke a finger but kept it a secret to prevent opposing pitchers from targeting it. In September 1959, the Giants led the NL pennant race by two games with only eight games to play, but a sweep by the Dodgers began a stretch of six losses in those final games, dooming them to a third-place finish. Mays had hits in three out of 10 at bats in the Dodger series but some San Francisco fans still booed him. In 1959, Mays batted .313 with 34 home runs and 113 RBIs, leading the league in stolen bases for the fourth year in a row.
After spending their first two years in San Francisco at Seals Stadium, the Giants moved into the new Candlestick Park in 1960. Initially, the stadium was expected to be conducive to home runs, but unpredictable winds affected Mays's power, and he hit only 12 at home in 1960. He found the stadium tricky to field but figured out how to play it as the season progressed. When a fly ball was hit, he would count to five before giving pursuit, enabling him to judge the wind's effect. He hit two home runs on June 24 and stole home in a 5–3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds. On September 15, he tied an NL record with three triples in an 11-inning, 8–6 win over the Phillies. "I don't like to talk about 1960," Mays said after the final game of a season in which the Giants, pre-season favorites for the pennant, finished fifth out of eight NL teams. For the second time in three years, he only hit 29 home runs, but he led the NL with 190 hits and drove in 103 runs, batting .319 and stealing 25 bases.
Alvin Dark was hired to manage the Giants before the start of the 1961 season, and the improving Giants finished in third place. Mays had one of his best games on April 30, 1961, hitting four home runs and driving in eight runs against the Milwaukee Braves at County Stadium. According to Mays, he had been unsure if he would even play because of food poisoning. Each of his home runs traveled over 400 feet (120 m). While Mantle and Roger Maris pursued Babe Ruth's single-season home run record in the AL, Mays and Orlando Cepeda battled for the home run lead in the NL. Mays trailed Cepeda by two home runs at the end of August (34 as opposed to 36), but Cepeda outhit him 10–6 in September to finish with 46, while Mays finished with 40. Mays led the league with 129 runs scored and batted .308 with 123 RBIs.
1962 pennant race
Though he had continued to play at a high level since coming to San Francisco, Mays endured booing from the San Francisco fans during his first four seasons in California. Barra speculates this may have been because San Francisco fans were comparing Mays unfavorably with Joe DiMaggio, the most famous center fielder ever to come from San Francisco. Hal Wood mentioned the DiMaggio theory, as well as two other explanations: 1) the fans had heard so many wonderful things about Mays's play in New York that they expected him to be a better player than he actually was, and 2) Mays tended to keep to himself. Mays said in 1959 that he did not mind the booing, but he admitted in a 1961 article that the catcalls were bothering him. Whatever the reason, the boos, which had begun to subside after Mays's four–home-run game in 1961, grew even quieter in 1962, as the Giants enjoyed their best season since moving to San Francisco.
Mays led the team in eight offensive categories in 1962: runs (130), doubles (36), home runs (49), RBIs (141), stolen bases (18), walks (78), on-base percentage (.384), and slugging percentage (.613). He finished second in NL MVP voting to Maury Wills, who had broken Ty Cobb's record for stolen bases in a season. On September 30, Mays hit a game-winning home run in the Giants' final regularly scheduled game of the year, forcing the team into a tie for first place with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Giants faced the Dodgers in a three-game playoff series. With the Giants trailing 4–2 in the top of the ninth inning of Game 3, Mays hit an RBI single, eventually scoring as the Giants took a 6–4 lead. With two outs in the bottom of the inning, Lee Walls hit a fly ball to center field, which Mays caught for the final out as the Giants advanced to the World Series against the Yankees.
In Game 1 of the World Series, a 6–2 loss to New York, Mays recorded three hits. He would bat merely .250 in the series overall. The Series went all the way to a Game 7, which the Yankees led 1–0 in the bottom of the ninth. Matty Alou led off the inning with a bunt single but was still at first two outs later when Mays came up with the Giants one out from elimination. Batting against Ralph Terry, he hit a ball into the right-field corner that might have been deep enough to score Alou, but Giants third base coach Whitey Lockman opted to hold Alou at third. The next batter, McCovey, hit a line drive that was caught by Bobby Richardson, and the Yankees won the deciding game 1–0. It was Mays's last World Series appearance as a Giant. Mays reveled in the fact that he had finally won the support of San Francisco fans; "It only took them five years," he later said.
Record-setting contract
Before the 1963 season, Mays signed a contract worth a record-setting $105,000 per season (equivalent to $1,040,000 in 2023). On July 2, when Spahn and Juan Marichal each threw 15 scoreless innings, Mays hit a 16th-inning home run off Spahn, giving the Giants a 1–0 victory. He considered the home run one of his most important, along with his first and the four-home-run game. In August, he won his third NL Player of the Month Award after batting .387 with eight home runs and 27 RBIs. He hit his 400th home run on August 27 against the St. Louis Cardinals, the tenth player to reach that mark. Mays finished the 1963 season batting .314 with 38 home runs and 103 RBIs, stealing only eight bases, his fewest since 1954.
Normally the third batter in the lineup, Mays was moved to fourth in 1964 before returning to third in subsequent years. On May 21, Dark named Mays the Giants' captain, making Mays the first African-American captain of an MLB team. "You deserve it," Dark told Mays. "You should have had it long before this." Against the Phillies on September 4, Mays made what Hirsch called "one of the most acrobatic catches of his career". Rubén Amaro Sr. hit a ball to the scoreboard at Philadelphia's Connie Mack Stadium. Mays, who had been playing closer to home plate than normal, ran at top speed after the ball. He caught it in midair and had to kick his legs forward to keep his head from hitting the ballpark's fence, but he held on to the ball. While he batted under .300 (.296) for the first time since 1956, he led the NL with 47 home runs and ranked second with 121 runs scored and 111 RBIs.
Second NL MVP
A torn shoulder muscle sustained in a 1965 game against the Atlanta Braves impaired Mays's ability to throw. He kept the injury a secret from opposing players, making two or three practice throws before games to discourage them from running on him. On August 22, Mays acted as a peacemaker during a 14-minute brawl between the Giants and Dodgers after Marichal had bloodied Dodgers catcher John Roseboro with a bat. Mays grabbed Roseboro by the waist and helped him off the field, then tackled Lou Johnson to keep him from attacking an umpire. Johnson kicked him in the head and nearly knocked him out. After the brawl, Mays hit a game-winning three-run home run against Sandy Koufax, but he did not finish the game, feeling dizzy after the home run.
Mays won his fourth and final NL Player of the Month award in August 1965 (.363, 17 home runs, 29 RBIs). On September 13, he hit his 500th career home run off Don Nottebart, becoming the fifth player to reach the mark. Warren Spahn, off whom Mays hit his first career home run, was now his teammate. After the home run, Spahn asked him, "Was it anything like the same feeling?" Mays replied, "It was exactly the same feeling. Same pitch, too." The next night, Mays hit one that he considered his most dramatic. With the Giants trailing the Houston Astros by two runs with two outs in the ninth, Mays swung and missed at Claude Raymond's first two pitches, took three balls to load the count, and fouled off three pitches before homering on the ninth pitch. The Giants won 6–5 in 10 innings. Mays won his second MVP award in 1965 behind a career-high 52 home runs, in what Barra said "may very well have [been] his best year". He batted .317, leading the NL in on-base percentage (.400) and slugging percentage (.645). The span of 11 years between his MVP awards was the longest gap of any major leaguer who attained the distinction more than once, as were the 10 years between his 50 home run seasons. He scored 118 runs, the 12th year in a row he had scored at least 100 runs in a season.
Mays tied Mel Ott's NL record of 511 home runs on April 24, 1966, against the Astros. After that, he went for nine days without a home run. "I started thinking home run every time I got up," Mays explained the slump. He finally set the record May 4. Despite nursing an injured thigh muscle on September 7, Mays reached base in the 11th inning of a game against the Dodgers with two outs, then attempted to score from first base on a Frank Johnson single. On a close play, umpire Tony Venzon initially ruled him out, then changed the call when he saw Roseboro had dropped the ball after Mays collided with him. San Francisco won 3–2. Mays finished third in the NL MVP voting, the ninth and final time he finished in the top five in the voting for the award. He batted .288 with 99 runs scored, 37 home runs, and 103 runs batted in; by season's end, only Babe Ruth had hit more home runs (714 to 542).
Player of the Decade
Mays had 13 home runs and 44 RBIs through his first 75 games of 1967 but then went into a slump. On June 7, Gary Nolan of the Cincinnati Reds struck him out four times; this was the first time in his career this had happened, though the Giants still won the game 4–3. Afflicted by a fever on July 14, Mays left that day's game after the sixth inning because of fatigue and spent five days in a hospital. "After I got back into the lineup, I never felt strong again for the rest of the season," he recalled. In 141 games, Mays hit .263 with 83 runs scored, 128 hits, and 22 home runs. He had only 70 RBIs for the year, the first time since 1958 he had failed to reach 100.
Before a game in Houston on May 6, 1968, Astros owner Roy Hofheinz presented Mays with a 569-pound birthday cake for his 37th birthday—the pounds represented every home run Mays had hit in his career. After sharing some of it with his teammates, Mays sent the rest to the Texas Children's Hospital. He played 148 games and upped his batting average to .289, accumulating 84 runs scored, 144 hits, 23 home runs, and 79 runs batted in. In 1969, new Giants' manager Clyde King moved Mays to the leadoff position in the batting lineup because Mays was hitting fewer home runs. Mays privately chafed at the move, later comparing it to "O. J. Simpson blocking for the fullback". He injured his knee in a collision with catcher Randy Hundley on July 29, forcing him to miss several games. On September 22, he hit his 600th home run, saying later, "Winning the game was more important to me than any individual achievements." In 117 games, he batted .283 with 13 home runs and 58 runs batted in.
The Sporting News named Mays the 1960s "Player of the Decade" in January 1970. In an April game, Mays collided with Bobby Bonds while reaching his glove over the wall but made a catch to rob Bobby Tolan of a home run. Mays picked up his 3,000th hit against the Montreal Expos on July 18. "I don't feel excitement about this now," he told reporters afterwards. "The main thing I wanted to do was help Gaylord Perry win a game." In 139 games, Mays batted .291 with 94 runs scored, 28 home runs, and 83 RBIs. He scheduled his off days that season to avoid facing strikeout pitchers such as Bob Gibson or Tom Seaver.
Later years with the Giants
Though center field remained his primary position in 1971, Mays played 48 games at first base. He got off to a fast start in 1971, the year he turned 40. Against the Mets on May 31, he hit a game-tying eighth-inning home run, saved multiple runs with his defense at first base, and performed a strategic base-running maneuver with one out in the 11th inning, running slowly from second to third base to draw a throw from Tim Foli and allow Al Gallagher to reach first safely. Evading Foli's tag on the return throw to third, Mays scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly. He had 15 home runs and a .290 average at the All-Star break but faded down the stretch, only hitting three home runs and batting .241 for the rest of the year. One reason he hit so few home runs was that Mays walked 112 times, 30 more times than he had at any point in his career. This was partly because Willie McCovey, who often batted behind Mays in the lineup, missed several games with injuries, causing pitchers to pitch carefully to Mays so they could concentrate on getting less-skilled hitters out. Subsequently, Mays led the league in on-base percentage (.425) for only the second time, though his 123 strikeouts were a career-high. He batted .271 and stole 23 bases.
The Giants won the NL West in 1971, returning Mays to the playoffs for the first time since 1962. In the NL Championship Series (NLCS) against the Pirates, Mays had a home run and three RBIs in the first two games. In Game 3, Mays attempted an unsuccessful sacrifice bunt in a 1–1 tie in the sixth with no outs and Tito Fuentes on second base, a move that surprised reporters covering the game. The Giants lost 2–1. "I was thinking of the best way to get the run in," Mays explained the bunt, pointing out that McCovey and Bonds were due up next. The Giants lost the series in four games. After the season, Mays was honored as the winner of the inaugural Roberto Clemente Award, known at that time as the Commissioner's Award.
Mays got off to a tortuous start to the 1972 season, batting .184 through his first 19 games. Before the season began, he had asked Stoneham for a 10-year contract with the Giants organization, intending to serve in an off-the-field capacity with them once his playing career was over. The Giants organization was having financial troubles, and Mays had to settle for a two-year, $330,000 contract. Mays quibbled with manager Charlie Fox, leaving the stadium before the start of a doubleheader on April 30 without telling him.
New York Mets
On May 11, 1972, Mays was traded to the New York Mets for pitcher Charlie Williams and an undisclosed amount rumored to be $100,000. The Mets agreed to keep his salary at $165,000 a year for 1972 and 1973, promising to pay Mays $50,000 a year for 10 years after he retired.
Mays had remained popular in New York, and owner Joan Payson had long wanted to bring him back to his major league roots. In his Mets debut against the Giants on May 14, Mays put New York ahead to stay with a fifth-inning home run, receiving ecstatic applause from the fans at Shea Stadium. Mays appeared in 88 games for the Mets in 1972, batting .250 in 244 at bats with eight home runs.
In 1973, Mays showed up a day late to spring training, then left in the middle of it without notifying manager Yogi Berra beforehand. He was fined $1,000 upon returning; a sportswriter joked half the fine was for leaving, half was for returning. Things did not improve as the season began; Mays spent time on the disabled list early in the year and left the park before a game when he found out Berra had not put his name in the starting lineup. His speed and powerful arm in the outfield, assets throughout his career, were diminished in 1973, and he only made the All-Star team because of a special intervention by NL President Chub Feeney. However, the Mets won the NL East.
On August 17, 1973, Mays hit his final (660th) home run against the Reds' Don Gullett. Having considered retirement all year, Mays finally told the Mets officially on September 9 that 1973 would be his last season. He made the announcement to the public on September 20. "I thought I'd be crying by now," he told reporters and Mets' executives at a press conference that day, "but I see so many people here who are my friends, I can't...Baseball and me, we had what you might call a love affair." Five days later, the Mets honored him on Willie Mays Night, proclaimed by New York City mayor John Lindsay, where he thanked the New York fans and said goodbye to baseball. In 66 games, Mays batted a career-low .211 with six home runs.
Against the Reds in the NLCS, Mays helped restore order in Game 3 after Mets fans began throwing trash at Pete Rose following a brawl Rose had started with Bud Harrelson. Game 5 was the only one Mays played; he had a pinch-hit RBI single as the Mets won 7–2, clinching a trip to the 1973 World Series against the Oakland Athletics, October 13–21. A shoulder injury to Rusty Staub prompted the Mets to shift Don Hahn to right field and start Mays in center at the start of the Series. He stumbled four times in the first two games, including a fielding error in Game 2 that allowed the Athletics to tie the game and force extra innings. Mays's last hit came later in the same game, an RBI single against Rollie Fingers that snapped a 7–7 tie in the 12th inning of a 10–7 victory. His final at bat came in Game 3, on October 16, 1973, where he pinch-hit for Tug McGraw and grounded into a force play. The Mets lost the series in seven games.
All-Star Games
Mays's 24 appearances on an All-Star Game roster are tied with Musial for second all-time, behind only Hank Aaron's 25. He "strove for All-Star glory" according to Hirsch, taking the game seriously in his desire to support his NL teammates. In the first All-Star Game of 1959, Mays hit a game-winning triple against Whitey Ford; Bob Stevens of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that "Harvey Kuenn gave it honest pursuit, but the only center fielder in baseball who could have caught it hit it."
Mays scored the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning of the first All-Star Game of 1961 on a Clemente single in a 5–4 win for the NL. At Cleveland Stadium in the 1963 All-Star Game, he made the finest catch, snagging his foot under a wire fence in center field as he grasped a long fly ball hit by Joe Pepitone that might have given the AL the lead. The NL won 5–3, and Mays was named the All-Star Game MVP.
With a leadoff home run against Milt Pappas in the 1965 All-Star Game, Mays set a record for most hits in his All-Star Games (21). Mays led off the 1968 All-Star Game with a single, moved to second on an error, advanced to third base on a wild pitch, and scored the only run of the game when McCovey hit into a double play; for his contributions, Mays won the All-Star Game MVP Award for the second time.
Mays individually holds the records for most at bats (75), hits (23), runs scored (20), and stolen bases (six) by an All-Star; additionally, he is tied with Musial for the most extra-base hits (eight) and total bases (40), and he is tied with Brooks Robinson for the most triples (three) in All-Star Game history. In appreciation of his All-Star records, Ted Williams said, "They invented the All-Star Game for Willie Mays."
Barnstorming
During the first part of his career, Mays often participated in barnstorming tours after his regular season with the Giants ended. Teams of star players would travel from city to city playing exhibition games for local fans. Following his rookie year, Mays went on a barnstorming tour with an All-Star team assembled by Campanella, playing in Negro League stadiums around the southern United States. From 1955 through 1958, Mays led Willie Mays' All-Stars, a team composed of such stars as Irvin, Thompson, Aaron, Frank Robinson, Junior Gilliam, Brooks Lawrence, Sam Jones, and Joe Black. The team traveled around the southern United States the first two years, attaining crowds of about 5,000 in 1955 but drawing less than 1,000 in 1956, partly because of the advent of television. In 1957, the team went to Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, drawing 117,766 fans in 15 games, 14 of which were won by Mays's team. They played 20 games in Mexico in 1958.
Mays did not lead a team in 1959; Stoneham wanted him to rest because he was suffering from a broken finger. In 1960, Mays also did not barnstorm, but he and the Giants did go to Tokyo, playing an exhibition series of 16 games against the Yomiuri Giants. Though teams of black All-Stars assembled those two seasons, they drew fewer fans and opted not to assemble in 1961, when Mays again decided not to barnstorm. The tradition soon died out, as the expansion of the major leagues, the increased televising of major league games, and the emergence of professional football had siphoned interest away from the offseason exhibition games.
Player profile
The batting stance Mays employed showed the influence of one of his childhood favorites, Joe DiMaggio. Like his hero, Mays would stand with his legs spread apart, placing the same amount of weight on both while holding the bat high. His right thumb would stick out in the air as he waited for pitches, but he wrapped it around the bat as he swung. Mays believed this late motion added power when he swung. Mays channeled his energies into the swing by abstaining from extra motion and opening his hips. "If there was a machine to measure each swing of a bat," Branch Rickey suggested, "it would be proven that Mays swings with more power and bat speed, pitch for pitch, than any other player." His focus extended to his antics, or lack thereof, at the plate; Mays did not rub dirt on his hands or stroll around the batter's box like some hitters did. Naturally more of a pull hitter, Mays adjusted his style in 1954 to hit more to right and center field in a quest for a higher batting average at his manager's request, but the change was not permanent. When the Giants moved to Candlestick Park, Mays found that pulling the ball worked better at home but hitting to right and center worked better on the road; he tried to adjust his style depending on where he was playing.
Defensively, Mays was one of the best outfielders of all time, as evidenced by his record 12 Gold Gloves as an outfielder. His signature play was his "basket catch," the technique that displayed Mays's stylistic flash as opposed to the pure raw skill that was on display when he made "The Catch" in the 1954 World Series. Holding his glove around his belly, he would keep his palm turned up, enabling the ball to fall right into his glove. Sportswriters have argued about whether the technique made him a better fielder or just made him more exciting to watch, but the basket catch did not prevent Mays from setting a record with 7,095 outfield putouts. Koppett observes, "His range was limitless, and his arm so strong that he could make effective throws from the most unlikely locations and from the most unlikely body positions." That range allowed him to play a shallow center and prevent shallow singles, while still being able to get back and not let extra-base hits get over his head.
Mays's flashy style of play stemmed partly from his days in the Negro leagues. "We were all entertainers," he said, "and my job was to give the fans something to talk about each game." Sometimes he would deliberately slip to the ground for catches to make them look tougher than they really were. He wore his cap one size larger than necessary so that it would fly off when he was running the bases or making fielding plays. Though he was a powerful hitter, he had a knack for stealing bases. He ran the bases daringly, becoming the only modern player to score from first base on a single to left field, and another time scoring from first base on a McCovey bunt (without an error).
Assessment and legacy
On January 23, 1979, Mays was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He garnered 409 of the 432 ballots cast (94.68%). Referring to the other 23 voters, New York Daily News columnist Dick Young wrote, "If Jesus Christ were to show up with his old baseball glove, some guys wouldn't vote for him. He dropped the cross three times, didn't he?" In his induction speech, Mays said:
What can I say? This country is made up of a great many things. You can grow up to be what you want. I chose baseball, and I loved every minute of it. I give you one word—love. It means dedication. You have to sacrifice many things to play baseball. I sacrificed a bad marriage and I sacrificed a good marriage. But I'm here today because baseball is my number one love.
In 1999, Mays placed second on The Sporting News's "List of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players", trailing only Babe Ruth. Later that year, fans elected him to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. In 2020, The Athletic ranked Mays at number 1 on its "Baseball 100" list, compiled by sportswriter Joe Posnanski. In 2022, MLB.com writers voted Mays as being the greatest player in Giants franchise history.
Fellow players and coaches recognized his talent. Roberto Clemente said of Mays: "To me, Willie Mays is the greatest who ever played." Willie Stargell learned the hard way how good Mays's arm was when the center fielder threw him out in a game in 1965. "I couldn't believe Mays could throw that far. I figured there had to be a relay. Then I found out there wasn't. He's too good for this world." "If somebody came up and hit .450, stole 100 bases and performed a miracle in the field every day, I'd still look you in the eye and say Willie was better," Durocher said. "All I can say is that he is the greatest player I ever saw, bar none," was Rigney's assessment. When Mays was the only player elected to the Hall of Fame in 1979, Duke Snider, who finished second in voting that year, said, "Willie really more or less deserves to be in by himself." Don Zimmer remarked, "In the National League in the 1950s, there were two opposing players who stood out over all the others — Stan Musial and Willie Mays. ... I've always said that Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw. ... [H]e could have been an All-Star at any position." Teammate Felipe Alou said, "[Mays] is number one, without a doubt. ... [A]nyone who played with him or against him would agree that he is the best." Al Rosen remembered "...you had the feeling you were playing against someone who was going to be the greatest of all time."
Throughout his career, Mays maintained he did not specifically try to set records, but he ranks among baseball's leaders in many categories. Third in home runs with 660 when he retired, he still ranks sixth as of February 2024. His 2,062 runs scored rank seventh, and his 1,903 runs batted in rank 12th as of June 2021.
Mays batted .301 in his career and his 3,293 hits are the 12th-most of any player as of June 2021. His 2,992 games played are the ninth-highest total of any major leaguer as of June 2021. He stole 338 bases in his career. By the end of his career, Mays had won a Gold Glove Award 12 times, a record for outfielders today (shared by Roberto Clemente). He is baseball's all-time leader in outfield putouts (7,095), and he played 2,842 games as an outfielder, a total exceeded only by Cobb (2,934) and Barry Bonds (2,874). Mays's 24 appearances on an All-Star Game roster are tied with Musial for second all-time, behind only Aaron's 25. He holds individually the All-Star Game records for most at bats (75), hits (23), runs scored (20), and stolen bases (six); additionally, he is tied with Musial for the most extra-base hits (eight) and total bases (40), and he is tied with Brooks Robinson for the most triples (three) in All-Star Game history.
Mays's 156.2 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) ranks fifth all-time, and third among position players (trailing Barry Bonds' 162.8 and Ruth's 162.1). He led NL position players in WAR for 10 seasons, and led the league in on-base plus slugging (OPS) five times, ranking 26th all time with a .941 mark. Sabermetrician Bill James thinks Mays was the best centerfielder of all time, naming him the best in the major leagues in the 1950s and the 1960s. David Schoenfield of ESPN, James and Barra all think he should have won the NL MVP Award at least seven times. "He was one of the best fielders of all time," David Schoenfield wrote, noting Mays has the eighth-most fielding runs saved (a sabermetric stat) of all time. Barra claimed in 2004, "Most modern fans would pick Willie Mays as the best all-around player in the second half of the twentieth century." Sportscaster Curt Gowdy said of Mays, "Willie Mays was the best player I ever saw. He did everything well."
Sudden collapses plagued Mays sporadically throughout his career, which occasionally led to hospital stays. He attributed them to his style of play. "My style was always to go all out, whether I played four innings or nine. That's how I played all my life, and I think that's the reason I would suddenly collapse from exhaustion or nervous energy or whatever it was called."
At the Pittsburgh drug trials in 1985, former Mets teammate John Milner testified Mays kept a bottle of liquid amphetamine in his locker at Shea Stadium. Milner had never seen Mays use amphetamines, and Mays denied having taken drugs during his career. "I really didn't need anything," Mays said. "My problem was if I could stay on the field. I would go to the doctor and would say to the doctor, 'Hey, I need something to keep me going. Could you give me some sort of vitamin?' I don't know what they put in there, and I never asked him a question about anything." Hirsch wrote "It would be naïve to think Mays never took amphetamines" but admits that Mays's amphetamine use has never been proven, calling Mays "the most famous player who supposedly took amphetamines".
Cultural effect
Along with Mantle (of the Yankees) and Snider (of the Dodgers), Mays was part of a triumvirate of center fielders from the New York teams of the 1950s who would be elected to the Hall of Fame. The three were often the subject of debates among the New York fans as to who was the best center fielder in the city.
Mays was a popular figure in Harlem, New York's predominantly black neighborhood and the home of the Polo Grounds. Magazine photographers were fond of chronicling his participation in local stickball games with kids, which he played two to three nights a week during homestands until his first marriage in 1956. In the urban game of hitting a rubber ball with an adapted broomstick handle, Mays could hit a shot that measured "five sewers" (the distance of six consecutive New York City manhole covers), nearly 450 feet (140 m).
Unlike other black athletes such as Jackie Robinson, Mays tended to remain silent on racial issues, refraining from public complaints about discriminatory practices that affected him. Robinson once accused him and some of his teammates of not doing enough for the civil rights movement. Hank Aaron wished Mays had spoken out more on racial issues. Mays believed his job was to play baseball, not talk about social issues. "I'm a ballplayer. I am not a politician or a writer or a historian. I can do best for my people by doing what I do best."
Post-playing career
After Mays retired as a player, he remained in the New York Mets organization as their hitting instructor until the end of the 1979 season. Mays missed several appointments during these years and was often absent from Mets games. When Joe McDonald became the Mets' general manager in 1975, he threatened to fire Mays for this. Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and Mays's lawyer intervened, and the Mets agreed to keep him, as long as he stayed at home games for at least four innings. During his time with the Mets, Lee Mazzilli learned the basket catch from him.
In October 1979, Mays took a job at the Bally's Park Place casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. While there, he served as a special assistant to the casino's president and as a greeter. After being told by Kuhn that he could not be part of both baseball and a casino, Mays terminated his contract with the Mets, and he was banned from baseball. Kuhn was concerned about gambling infiltrating baseball, but Hirsch points out that Mays's role was merely as a greeter, he was not allowed to place bets at the casino as part of his contract, and the casino did not engage in sports betting. In 1985, less than a year after replacing Kuhn as commissioner, Peter Ueberroth decided to allow Mays to return to baseball. At a press conference with Mays and Mantle (reinstated from a similar suspension), Ueberroth said, "I am bringing back two players who are more a part of baseball than perhaps anyone else."
Mays was named special assistant to the president and general manager of the Giants in 1986. He signed a lifetime contract with the team in 1993 and helped to muster public enthusiasm for building Pac Bell Park, which opened in 2000. Mays founded a charity, the Say Hey Foundation, which promotes youth baseball. The Giants retired Mays's number 24 in May 1972. Oracle Park, their stadium, is at 24 Willie Mays Plaza. In front of the main entrance is a nine-foot-tall (2.74 m) statue of Mays, who had a private box at the stadium. When the Giants dedicated a Wall of Fame to their greatest players in 2008, Mays became part of its inaugural class.
At a special ceremony during the Mets' 60th anniversary Old-Timer's Game on August 27, 2022, the team announced that, pursuant to a promise Mets' owner Joan Payson had made to Mays when she traded for him in 1972, they were following the Giants in retiring Mays's number 24. Mays became the 14th person (player or manager) to have their number retired by two teams.
Special honors, media appearances
Mays met with several United States presidents. During Gerald Ford's administration in 1976, he was invited to the White House state dinner honoring Queen Elizabeth II. He was the Tee Ball Commissioner at the 2006 White House Tee Ball Initiative on July 30, 2006, during George W. Bush's presidency. On July 14, 2009, he accompanied Barack Obama to St. Louis aboard Air Force One for that year's All-Star Game. Six years later, Obama honored Mays with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In September 2017, Major League Baseball renamed the World Series MVP Award the Willie Mays World Series MVP Award. Though Mays never went to college, he was awarded honorary degrees by Yale University, Dartmouth College, and San Francisco State University.
Mays made many appearances on film and television. He made multiple appearances as the mystery guest on the long-running game show What's My Line? Through a friendship with Tony Owen and Donna Reed, he was able to appear in three episodes of The Donna Reed Show. During the 1960s, he appeared on shows including The Dating Game and Bewitched. NBC-TV aired an hour-long documentary titled A Man Named Mays in 1963, telling the story of the ballplayer's life. In 1972, Mays voiced himself in the animated fictional special Willie Mays and the Say-Hey Kid, produced by Rankin/Bass Productions. Charles M. Schulz's comic strip Peanuts mentioned Mays numerous times. The plot of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "In the Cards" (aired 1997, story set in 2373) centers on the son of Captain Sisko (a noted baseball aficionado) attempting to obtain as a gift for his father a vintage 1951 Willie Mays rookie card.
Many popular songs reference Mays. The Treniers recorded a famous song called "Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song)" in 1954, in which Mays himself participated in the recording. "Centerfield" by John Fogerty, which is often played at major and minor league stadiums, mentions Mays, Cobb, and DiMaggio. Another well-known song which mentions Mays is "Talkin' Baseball (Willie, Mickey & The Duke)" by Terry Cashman (1981), which refers to the three great New York City center fielders of the 1950s.
Personal life
Mays became the third husband of Marghuerite Wendell Chapman (1926–2010) in 1956. The couple adopted a five-day-old baby named Michael in 1959. They separated in 1962 and divorced in 1963, with Marghuerite taking Michael for the majority of the time.
Eight years later, Mays married Mae Louise Allen, a child-welfare worker in San Francisco. Wilt Chamberlain had given Mays her phone number in 1961, and they dated off and on the next several years. In 1997, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease; Mays cared for her until her death on April 19, 2013.
Mays was the godfather of Barry Bonds, whose father, Bobby Bonds, was a friend of his when they were Giants teammates.
Glaucoma forced Mays to stop driving a car and playing golf after 2005. In 2018, blind sportswriter Ed Lucas wrote that Mays had told him a "few years ago" that he had actually gone blind. However, James S. Hirsch wrote in The New York Times in 2021, on the occasion of his 90th birthday, that his vision was merely "compromised" by glaucoma and that he was still able to watch games on television, albeit with difficulty.
In 1957, when the New York Giants moved to San Francisco, Mays placed an offer on a home in the exclusive Sherwood Forest neighborhood. The seller refused his offer after neighbors complained about a Black family moving to the area.
Near the end of his life, Mays resided in Atherton, California, with his personal assistant and a caretaker.
Death
Mays died of heart failure at a care home in Palo Alto, California, on June 18, 2024, at the age of 93. The day before, he had released his final public statement when he said he chose to stay in California and not attend the MLB at Rickwood Field game between the Giants and Cardinals later that week on June 20.
Several politicians and professional athletes paid tribute to Mays, including President Joe Biden and former president Barack Obama, as well as San Francisco mayor London Breed, and California governor Gavin Newsom. Fans also left tributes and paid their respects at Mays' statue outside Oracle Park.
On June 20, 2024, during the game at Rickwood Field, the San Francisco Giants wore a patch with "24" on it in Mays' honor and his Hall of Fame plaque was brought over to the place where Mays began his career. Michael Mays, his son, spoke before the game and tribute video was played on the video board before the first pitch by Bill Greason, Mays' former teammate in the Negro leagues.
A public memorial ceremony, led by Giants broadcaster Jon Miller, was held on July 8 at Oracle Park. A number of Mays' former teammates attended the ceremony, and among the speakers were baseball commissioner Rob Manfred, former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, and former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. In addition to the tributes, Mays was given final military honors for his service during the Korean War, with two service members playing "Taps" before presenting his son, Michael, with an American flag.
See also
Notes
References
Book sources
Further reading
Articles
Rushin, Steve (July 9, 2021). "The Last Giant: The Cultural Clout of Willie Mays". Sports Illustrated.
Sheinin, Dave (August 17, 2021). "Willie Mays broke barries his own way". The Washington Post.
Gopnik, Adam (June 21, 2024). "What Willie Mays Meant". The New Yorker.
Books
Klima, John (2009). Willie's Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend. Trade Paper Press. ISBN 978-0470400135.
Madden, Bill (2014). 1954: The Year Willie Mays and the First Generation of Black Superstars Changed Major League Baseball Forever. Hachette Books. ISBN 978-0306-8236-95.
Mays, Willie; Shea, John (2020). 24: Life Stories and Lessons from the Say Hey Kid. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1250230423.
External links
Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet, or Seamheads
Willie Mays at the Baseball Hall of Fame
Willie Mays at the SABR Baseball Biography Project
Willie Mays at IMDb |
Great_Orme | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Orme | [
364
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Orme"
] | The Great Orme (Welsh: Y Gogarth) is a limestone headland on the north coast of Wales, north-west of the town of Llandudno. Referred to as Cyngreawdr Fynydd by the 12th-century poet Gwalchmai ap Meilyr, its English name derives from the Old Norse word for sea serpent. The Little Orme, a smaller but very similar limestone headland, is on the eastern side of Llandudno Bay. The headland is a tourist attraction, with a Victorian tramway, a cableway, walking routes and a mining museum.
Toponym
Both the Great and Little Ormes have been etymologically linked to the Old Norse words urm or orm that mean sea serpent (English worm is a cognate). One explanation is that the Great Orme is the head, with its body being the land between the Great and Little Ormes, whilst another, possibly more likely, is that the shape of the Great Orme viewed as one enters the isthmus of Llandudno from the southeast landward end resembles a giant sleeping creature. The Vikings left no written texts of their time in North Wales although they certainly raided the area. They did not found any permanent settlements, unlike on the Wirral Peninsula, but some Norse names remain in use in the former Kingdom of Gwynedd (such as Point of Ayr near Talacre).
Despite there being a theory for the origin of the name "Orme", the word was not commonly used until after the creation of the Victorian resort of Llandudno in the mid-19th century. Before this, Welsh names were predominantly used locally and in cartography to name the headland's landward features and the surrounding area. The entire peninsula on which Llandudno was built was known as the Creuddyn (the medieval name of the cwmwd – a historical division of land in Wales); the headland itself was called Y Gogarth or Pen y Gogarth; its promontories were Pen trwyn, Llech, and Trwyn y Gogarth.
Orme only appears to have been applied to the headland as seen from the sea. In 1748, the Plan of the Bay & Harbour of Conway in Caernarvon Shire by Lewis Morris names the body of the peninsula "CREUDDYN" but applies the name "Orme's Head" to the headland's north-westerly seaward point. The first series Ordnance Survey map (published in 1841 and before the establishment of Llandudno) follows this convention. The headland is called the "Great Orme's Head" but its landward features all have Welsh names. It is likely that Orme became established as its common name due to Llandudno's burgeoning tourist trade because a majority of visitors and holidaymakers arrived by sea. The headland was the first sight of their destination in the three-hour journey from Liverpool by paddle steamer.
Natural history
Parts of the Great Orme are managed as a nature reserve by the Conwy County Borough Countryside Service. The area, which is two miles (three kilometres) long by 1 mile (1.5 kilometres) wide, has a number of protective designations including Special Area of Conservation, Heritage Coast, Country Park, and Site of Special Scientific Interest. The local authority provides a warden service on the Great Orme that regularly patrols the special scientific and conservation areas. There are numerous maintained paths for walking to the summit; a section of the long-distance North Wales Path also crosses the headland. About half the Great Orme is in use as farmland, mostly for sheep grazing. In 2015, the National Trust purchased the summit's 140-acre (57-hectare) Parc Farm for £1million.
Geology
The Great Orme is a peninsula made mostly of limestone and dolomite, formed during the Early Carboniferous part of the Earth's geological history. Most of the Great Orme's rocks are between 339 and 326 million years old. The upper surface of the Great Orme is particularly noted for its limestone pavements covering several headland areas. There are also rich seams of dolomite-hosted copper ore. The Great Orme copper mine was estimated to have produced enough copper to make about 2,000 tons of bronze during the Bronze Age.
The slopes of the Great Orme are subject to occasional subsidence.
Wells
Natural wells were greatly prized in limestone districts and the Great Orme was no exception. Water was required for copper mining purposes as well as for domestic and agricultural use. The following Great Orme wells are known and most still supply running water:
Ffynnon Llygaid. Possibly one of the wells supplying the needs of the once populous Gogarth community before much of it was lost to coastal erosion.
Ffynnon Gogarth. The main water source for Gogarth and in the later 18th and early 19th centuries the power source to operate the famous Tom and Gerry engine that through a long series of Brammock rods powered the mine water pumps at the Higher shaft near the summit above Pyllau.
Ffynnon Powel. One of the water supplies together with ffynnon Tudno and ffynnon Rufeining serving the medieval farming community of Cyngreawdr.
Ffynnon Galchog. This well, near Mynydd Isaf, to the north of Pen Dinas, is a source of lime-rich water known for its petrifying qualities, it is one of two wells known to have been used in the washing of copper ores.
Ffynnon Tudno. Situated beyond the road, near the northeast corner of St Tudno's Church, ffynnon Tudno was, together with ffynnon Rufeining, a principal source of water for the community settled around the church.
Ffynnon Rufeining. Translated as "Roman Well", it takes its name from the tradition that Roman copper miners used its waters to wash the copper ores mined nearby.
Ffynnon Llech. A spring of water in Ogof Llech, a cave on the headland which is very difficult to access. It is claimed to have been used as a hermitage by Saint Tudno, a sixth-century monk of Bangor-is-y-Coed who established the first church here.
Ffynnon Gaseg. Literally "Mare's well", this spring was revealed at the side of the road, about halfway round and near the highest point, during the construction of the Marine Drive in the 19th century. It was ideally situated to refresh the horses on the five-mile carriage drive round the base of the Great Orme.
Flora
The Great Orme has a very rich flora, including most notably the only known site of the critically endangered wild cotoneaster (Cotoneaster cambricus), of which only six wild plants are known. Many of the flowers growing in shallow lime-rich earth on the headland have developed from the alpine sub-Arctic species that developed following the last ice-age. Spring and early summer flowers include bloody cranesbill, thrift and sea campion, clinging to the sheer rock face, while pyramidal orchid, common rockrose and wild thyme carpet the grassland. The old mines and quarries also provide suitable habitat for species of plants including spring squill growing on the old copper workings. The white horehound (Marrubium vulgare), which is found growing on the westernmost slopes of the Orme is said to have been used, and perhaps cultivated, by 14th-century monks, no doubt to make herbal remedies including cough mixtures. The rare horehound plume moth (Wheeleria spilodactylus) lays her eggs amongst the silky leaves and its caterpillars rely for food solely upon this one plant.
Fauna
The headland is the habitat of several endangered species of butterflies and moths, including the silky wave, the silver-studded blue (Plebejus argus subsp. caernesis) and the grayling (Hipparchia semele thyone) These last two have adapted to the Great Orme by appearing earlier in the year to take advantage of the limestone flowers and grasses. Also they are smaller than in other parts of the country and are recognised as a definite subspecies. The Great Orme is reported as the northernmost known habitat within Britain for several 'southern' species of spider notably: Segestria bavarica, Episinus truncatus, Micrargus laudatus, Drassyllus praeficus, Liocranum rupicola and Ozyptila scabricula.
The headland is also home to about 200 Kashmir goats. The herd, which has roamed the Orme since the middle of the 19th century, is descended from a pair of goats that were presented by the Shah of Persia to Queen Victoria shortly after her coronation in 1837. Numbers are controlled by compulsory sterilization; the action was taken because competition for resources was forcing goats off the Orme into gardens and property. The Royal Welsh, a large regiment in the British Army, is permitted by the British monarch to choose an animal from the herd to be a regimental goat (if it passes selection, it is given the honorary rank of lance corporal). During the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions in Wales, goats began entering the town because of the lack of people; at the same time, the goat population on the Orme grew rapidly because park wardens were unable to administer sterilisation injections. With the end of the pandemic, the town council has created a special task force to manage goat numbers.
The caves and abandoned mine workings are home to large colonies of the rare horseshoe bat. This small flying mammal navigates the caves and tunnels by using echolocation to obtain a mental picture of its surroundings. During the daytime, horseshoe bats are found suspended from the roof of tunnels and caves, with their wings tightly wrapped around their bodies. Only at dusk do the bats leave the caves and mine shafts, to feed on beetles and moths.
The cliffs are host to colonies of seabirds (such as guillemots, kittiwakes, razorbills and even fulmars as well as gulls). The Great Orme is also home to many resident and migrant land birds including ravens, little owls and peregrine falcons. The Red-billed Chough is occasionally spotted.
Below the cliffs, the rock-pools around the headland are a rich and varied habitat for aquatic plants and animals including barnacles, red beadlet anemones and hermit crab
History
Copper mines
Large-scale human activity on the Great Orme began around 4,000 years ago during the Bronze Age with the opening of several copper mines. The copper ore malachite was mined using stones and bone tools. It is estimated that up to 1,760 tonnes of copper was mined during the period. The mine was most productive in the period between 1700BC and 1400BC, after which most of the readily accessible copper had been extracted. The site was so productive that by 1600BC, there were no other copper mines left open in Britain because they could not compete with the Great Orme.
The mine was abandoned and evidence suggests it was not worked again until the late 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Mining began in the late 17th century due to the demand for copper and improved ability to pump water out of the mine. A steam engine was introduced in 1832 and ten years later an 822-metre long tunnel was mined at sea level to drain the deeper mine workings. Commercial-scale mining on the Great Orme ended in the 1850s, although small-scale mining continued until the mines were finally abandoned in 1881.
In 1987, the improvement of the derelict mine site was commissioned by the local council and Welsh Development Agency. The area was to be landscaped and turned into a car park. Since excavation began in 1987, over five miles (eight kilometres) of prehistoric tunnels have been discovered. It is estimated that less than half of the prehistoric tunnels have been discovered so far.
In April 1991 the Great Orme Mines site was opened to the public. Pathways and viewing platforms were constructed to give access to the surface excavations. In 1996 a bridge was erected over the top of Vivian's Shaft. The visitor centre's extension, built-in 2014, contains a selection of mining tools and bronze axes along with displays about life and death in the Bronze Age, mining and ancient metallurgy. Also accessible is the 3,500-year-old Great Cavern.
Medieval period
The medieval parish of Llandudno comprised three townships all established on the lower slopes of the Great Orme. The township of Y Gogarth at the south-western 'corner' of the Great Orme was latterly the smallest but it contained the palace of the Bishop of Bangor. The Manor of Gogarth (which included all three townships) had been bestowed on Anian, Bishop of Bangor by King Edward I in 1284 in recognition of services rendered to the crown, notably the baptism of the first English Prince of Wales, newly born at Caernarfon. The palace was burnt down by Owain Glyndŵr in 1400 and the ruins have mostly been washed away together with much of the township by coastal erosion in the Conwy Estuary.
The significant agricultural yet north-facing township of Cyngreawdr includes the original parish church and rectory of St Tudno, a sixth- or seventh-century foundation. Following the Glyndŵr uprising, the villagers of the Creuddyn peninsula were harshly taxed and by 1507 they had nearly all fled their homes. Henceforth the cultivated land lay fallow and is now grazed by sheep and goats. Llandudno's Victorian cemetery, which is still in regular use, was laid out in 1859 adjacent to the 12th-century church of Saint Tudno where open-air services are held every Sunday morning in summer. Nearby are several large ancient stones that have become shrouded in folklore and also an unexplained stone-lined avenue called Hwylfa'r Ceirw leading towards Cilfin Ceirw (Precipice of Deer).
The third township was Yn Wyddfid clustered below the Iron Age hill fort of Pen y Dinas at the northeastern "corner" of the Great Orme. With the reopening of the copper mines from the 18th century onwards, this township grew considerably in size with the streets and cottages of the mining village laid out on the largely abandoned agricultural holdings.
Victorian expansion
In 1825 the Board of the Port of Liverpool obtained a Private Act of Parliament to help improve safety and communications for the merchant marine operating in the Irish Sea and Liverpool Bay. The Act allowed them to erect and maintain telegraph stations between Liverpool and the Isle of Anglesey. This would help ship-owners, merchants and port authorities in Liverpool know the location of all mercantile shipping along the North Wales coast.
In 1826 the summit of the Great Orme was chosen as the location for one of the 11 optical semaphore stations that would form an unbroken 80 mi (130 km) chain from Liverpool to Holyhead. The original semaphore station on the Orme, which consisted of small building with living accommodation, used a 15 m (49 ft) ship's mast with three pairs of moveable arms to send messages to either Puffin Island 7 mi (11 km) to the west or 8+1⁄2 mi (14 km) to Llysfaen in the east. Skilled telegraphers could send semaphore messages between Liverpool and Holyhead in under a minute.
In March 1855 the Great Orme telegraph station was converted to electric telegraph. Landlines and submarine cables connected the Orme to Liverpool and Holyhead. At first the new equipment was installed in the original Semaphore Station on the summit until it was moved down to the Great Orme lighthouse in 1859. Two years later the Great Orme semaphore station closed with the completion of a direct electric telegraph connection from Liverpool to Holyhead.
By the late 1860s, Llandudno's blossoming tourist trade saw many Victorians visit the old semaphore station at the summit to enjoy the panorama. This led to the development of the summit complex.
Twentieth century
By the early 20th century, a nine-bed hotel was built on the site. It served as the clubhouse for the Great Orme Golf Club that was founded in the early 1900s. The course closed in 1939 and is now a sheep farm.
On 11 July 1914, Beatrice Blore drove a Singer Ten car up the cable track of the Great Orme, with a gradient of 1 in 3 in places, becoming the first woman to drive up the steep and challenging headland. She was six months pregnant at the time and the drive was a publicity stunt developed by her partner George Wilkin Browne to help sell the cars at his Llandudno garage, North Wales Silver Motors. Her feat is commemorated by her unusual gravestone in St Tudno's graveyard.
During the Second World War, the RAF built a Chain Home Low radar station at the summit. In 1952 the site was taken into private ownership until it was acquired by Llandudno Urban Town Council in 1961.
Second World War
The Royal Artillery coast artillery school was transferred from Shoeburyness to the Great Orme in 1940 (and additionally a Practice Camp was established on the Little Orme in 1941) during the Second World War. Target practice was undertaken from the headland to both towed and anchored boats. Experimental work and training was also provided for radio direction finding. The foundations of some of the buildings and installations remain and can be seen from the western end of Marine Drive. The site of the school was scheduled as an Ancient Monument in 2011 by CADW, the Welsh Government's Historic Monuments body. This was done in recognition of the site's significance in a UK and Welsh context.
Also of note was the Aerial Defence Research and Development Establishment (ADRDE) known as "X3" which was a 3-storey building erected in 1942. This seems to have been a secret radar experimental station above the artillery school. The road put in to serve it now serves a car park on the approximate site of the station, which was demolished in 1956.
Tourism
With the creation of Llandudno, the first route round the perimeter of the Great Orme was a footpath constructed in 1858 by Reginald Cust, a trustee of the Mostyn Estate. In 1872 the Great Ormes Head Marine Drive Co. Ltd. was formed to turn the path into a Victorian carriage road. But it went bankrupt before work was finished. A second company completed the road in 1878. The contractors for the scheme were Messrs Hughes, Morris, Davies, a consortium led by Richard Hughes of Madoc Street, Llandudno. The road was bought by Llandudno Urban District Council in 1897. The four-mile (six-kilometre) one-way toll road starts at the foot of the Happy Valley. After about 1+1⁄2 miles (2.5 km) a side road leads to St. Tudno's Church, the Bronze Age Copper Mines and to the Great Orme Summit complex with car park. The toll road ticket also pays for the parking at the Summit Complex. Marine Drive has been used as a stage on the Wales Rally GB in 1981, 2011, 2013, 2015 and 2018.
In 1902, the Great Orme Tramway was built to convey visitors to the top of the Great Orme. In 1969, the Llandudno Cable Car was also constructed to take visitors up to the summit attractions. These include a tourist shop, cafeteria, visitors' centre, play areas, a licensed hotel, and the vintage tram/cable-car stations.
On clear days Winter Hill, the Isle of Man and the Lake District can be seen from the summit of the Orme.
The Orme has one of only two artificial ski slopes in North Wales, complete with one of the longest toboggan runs in the United Kingdom.
Landscaped gardens in the Happy Valley and terraces in the Haulfre Garden cover the lower landward facing steeply sloping southern side. Walkways link the Haulfre Gardens with the western end of the Marine Drive.
On the northernmost point of the Orme is the former Llandudno lighthouse. It was constructed in 1862 by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company. The navigation aid remained in continuous use until 22 March 1985 when it was decommissioned. The building has now been converted into a small bed & breakfast guest house. The lantern and its optics are now on permanent display at the Summit Complex visitors' centre. The old established "Rest and be thankful" café is also nearby.
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Aris, Mary (1996). Historic Landscapes of the Great Orme. Carreg Gwalch, Llanrwst Wales. ISBN 0-86381-357-7.
Evans, Philip C. (2011). Llandudno Coast Artillery School. Llandudno Town Council.
Roberts, Jim (1992). Llandudno Past & Present. Sutton Publishing Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire. ISBN 0-7509-2903-0.
Saxon (1578). Map of Anglesey and Caernarvonshire. Great Orme peninsula labelled as "Ormeshead Point".
Wynne Jones, Ivor (2002). Llandudno Queen of Welsh Resorts. Landmark, Ashbourne Derbyshire. ISBN 1-84306-048-5.
Jowett, Nick (2016). Great Orme Bronze Age Mines. Great Orme Mines Ltd, Great Orme, Llandudno, Wales.
External links
The Great Orme Exploration Society
The Great Orme Tramway
The Great Orme Summit Experience
The Marine Drive
Great Orme Mines
Photos of Great Orme and surrounding area
BBC Radio 4 programme on Bronze Age mining
BBC One The Story of Wales – Great Orme Copper Mine |
Llandudno | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llandudno | [
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llandudno"
] | Llandudno (, Welsh: [ɬanˈdɨdnɔ] ) is a seaside resort, town and community in Conwy County Borough, Wales, located on the Creuddyn peninsula, which protrudes into the Irish Sea. In the 2021 UK census, the community – which includes Gogarth, Penrhyn Bay, Craigside, Glanwydden, Penrhynside, and Bryn Pydew – had a population of 19,700 (rounded to the nearest 100). The town's name means "Church of Saint Tudno".
Llandudno is the largest seaside resort in Wales, and as early as 1861 was being called 'the Queen of the Welsh Watering Places' (a phrase later also used in connection with Tenby and Aberystwyth; the word 'resort' came a little later). Historically a part of Caernarfonshire, Llandudno was formerly in the district of Aberconwy within Gwynedd until 1996.
History
The town of Llandudno developed from Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age settlements over many hundreds of years on the slopes of the limestone headland, known to seafarers as the Great Orme and to landsmen as the Creuddyn Peninsula. The origins in recorded history are with the Manor of Gogarth conveyed by King Edward I to Annan, Bishop of Bangor in 1284. The manor comprised three townships, Y Gogarth in the south-west, Y Cyngreawdr in the north (with the parish church of St Tudno) and Yr Wyddfid in the south-east.
Modern Llandudno takes its name from the ancient parish of Saint Tudno but also encompasses several neighbouring townships and districts including Craig-y-Don, Llanrhos and Penrhyn Bay. Also nearby is the small town and marina of Deganwy and these last four are in the traditional parish of Llanrhos. The ancient geographical boundaries of the Llandudno area are complex: although they are on the eastern side of the River Conwy (the natural boundary between north-west and north-east Wales), the ancient parishes of Llandudno, Llanrhos and Llangystennin (which includes Llandudno Junction) were in the medieval commote of Creuddyn in the Kingdom of Gwynedd, and afterwards part of Caernarfonshire. Today, Deganwy and Llandudno Junction are part of the town community of Conwy even though they are across the river and only linked to Conwy by a causeway and bridge.
Great Orme
Mostly owned by Mostyn Estates, the Great Orme is home to several large herds of wild Kashmiri goats originally descended from a pair presented by the Shah of Persia to Queen Victoria and subsequently given to Lord Mostyn. These goats are also known to frequently roam the main streets of Llandudno. The summit of the Great Orme stands at 679 feet (207 m). The Summit Hotel, now a tourist attraction, was once the home of world middleweight champion boxer Randolph Turpin.
The limestone headland is a haven for flora and fauna, with some rare species such as peregrine falcons and a species of wild cotoneaster (cambricus) which can only be found on the Great Orme. The sheer limestone cliffs provide ideal nesting conditions for a wide variety of sea birds, including cormorants, shags, guillemots, razorbills, puffins, kittiwakes, fulmars and numerous gulls.
There are several attractions including the Great Orme Tramway and the Llandudno Cable Car that takes tourists to the summit. The Great Orme also has the longest toboggan run in Britain at 750m long.
Development
By 1847 the town had grown to a thousand people, served by the new church of St George, built in 1840. The great majority of the men worked in the copper mines, with others employed in fishing and subsistence agriculture.
In 1848, Owen Williams, an architect and surveyor from Liverpool, presented Lord Mostyn with plans to develop the marshlands behind Llandudno Bay as a holiday resort. These were enthusiastically pursued by Lord Mostyn. The influence of the Mostyn Estate and its agents over the years was paramount in the development of Llandudno, especially after the appointment of George Felton as surveyor and architect in 1857. Between 1857 and 1877 much of central Llandudno was developed under Felton's supervision. Felton also undertook architectural design work, including the design and execution of Holy Trinity Church in Mostyn Street.
Transport
Railway
The town is served by Llandudno railway station, which is the northern terminus of a 3 miles (4.8 km) long branch line from Llandudno Junction. There are generally half-hourly services between the two stations; some trains continue to Blaenau Ffestiniog or to Manchester Airport.
Llandudno Junction station is sited on the North Wales Coast railway line, which was opened as the Chester and Holyhead Railway in 1848. It became part of the London and North Western Railway in 1859 and part of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway in 1923. Llandudno was specifically built as a mid-Victorian era holiday destination and the branch line opened in 1858, with an intermediate station at Deganwy.
Buses
The town is served by Arriva Buses Wales, with services to Rhyl, Bangor, Caernarfon and the Great Orme summit. In addition, Llew Jones provides services to Betws-y-coed and Llanrwst.
Trams
The Great Orme Tramway runs from the centre of the town to the summit of the Great Orme and is Great Britain's only remaining cable-operated street tramway.
The former Llandudno and Colwyn Bay Electric Railway operated an electric tramway service between Llandudno and Rhos-on-Sea from 1907; this was extended to Colwyn Bay in 1908. The service closed in 1956. In Llandudno, the original tramway went up the middle of Gloddaeth Street, down Mostyn Street, through Penrhyn Bay and across to Colwyn Bay.
Attractions
Llandudno Bay and the North Shore
For most of the length of Llandudno's North Shore there is a wide curving Victorian promenade. The road, collectively known as The Parade, has a different name for each block and it is on these parades and crescents that many of Llandudno's hotels are built. The North Wales Theatre, Arena and Conference Centre, built in 1994, and extended in 2006 and renamed "Venue Cymru" is located near the centre of the bay.
Llandudno Pier
The Llandudno Pier is on the North Shore. Built in 1877, it is a Grade II listed building. The pier was extended in 1884 in a landward direction along the side of what was the Baths Hotel (where the Grand Hotel now stands).
Happy Valley and Haulfre Gardens
The Happy Valley, a former quarry, was the gift of Lord Mostyn to the town in celebration of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. The area was landscaped and developed as gardens, two miniature golf courses, a putting green, a popular open-air theatre and extensive lawns. The ceremonies connected with the Welsh National Eisteddfod were held there in 1896 and again in 1963. The gardens are listed at Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.
Haulfre Gardens were developed as the private gardens to a house, Sunny Hill, in the north-west of the town. Later acquired by the council, they were opened as a public park in 1929, the opening ceremony being conducted by David Lloyd George. The gardens are listed Grade II on the Cadw/ICOMOS register.
Marine Drive
The first route round the perimeter of the Great Orme was a footpath constructed in 1858 by Reginald Cust, a trustee of the Mostyn Estate. In 1872 the Great Ormes Head Marine Drive Co. Ltd. was formed to turn the path into a carriage road. Following bankruptcy, a second company completed the road in 1878. The contractors for the scheme were Messrs Hughes, Morris, Davies, a consortium led by Richard Hughes of Madoc Street, Llandudno. The road was bought by Llandudno Urban District Council in 1897. The 4 miles (6.4 km) one-way drive starts at the foot of the Happy Valley. After about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) a side road leads to St. Tudno's Church, the Great Orme Bronze Age Copper Mine and the summit of the Great Orme. Continuing on the Marine Drive the Great Orme Lighthouse (now a small hotel) is passed, and, shortly afterwards on the right, the Rest and Be Thankful Cafe and information centre. Below the Marine Drive at its western end is the site of the wartime Coast Artillery School (1940–1945), now a scheduled ancient monument.
West Shore
The West Shore is a quiet beach on the estuary of the River Conwy. It was here at Pen Morfa that Alice Liddell (of Alice in Wonderland fame) spent the long summer holidays of her childhood.
Mostyn Street
Running behind the promenade is Mostyn Street leading to Mostyn Broadway and then Mostyn Avenue. These are the main shopping streets of Llandudno and Craig-y-Don. Mostyn Street accommodates the high street shops, the major high street banks and building societies, two churches, amusement arcades and the town's public library. The last is the starting point for the Llandudno Town Trail.
Victorian Extravaganza
Every year in May bank holiday weekend, Llandudno has a three-day Victorian Carnival and Mostyn Street becomes a funfair. Madoc Street and Gloddaeth Street and the Promenade become part of the route each day of a mid-day carnival parade. The Bodafon Farm fields become the location of a Festival of Transport.
Llandudno Lifeboat
Until 2017, Llandudno was unique within the United Kingdom in that its lifeboat station was located inland, allowing it to launch with equal facility from either the West Shore or the North Shore as needed. In 2017, a new lifeboat station was completed, and new, high-speed, offshore and inshore lifeboats, and a modern launching system, were acquired. This station is close to the paddling pool on North Shore.
Llandudno's active volunteer crews are called out more than ever with the rapidly increasing numbers of small pleasure craft sailing in coastal waters. The Llandudno Lifeboat is normally on display on the promenade every Sunday and bank holiday Monday from May until October.
Places of worship
The ancient parish church dedicated to Saint Tudno stands in a hollow near the northern point of the Great Orme and two miles (3 km) from the present town. It was established as an oratory by Tudno, a 6th-century monk, but the present church dates from the 12th century and it is still used on summer Sunday mornings. It was the Anglican parish church of Llandudno until that status was transferred first to St George's (now closed) and later to Holy Trinity Church in Mostyn Street.
The principal Christian Churches of Llandudno are members of Cytûn (churches together) and include the Church in Wales (Holy Trinity and also Saint Paul's at Craig-y-Don), the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady Star of the Sea, Saint John's Methodist Church, Gloddaeth United Church (Presbyterian), Assemblies of God (Pentecostal), Llandudno Baptist Church, St. David's Methodist Church at Craig-y-Don, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Saint Mary and Saint Abasikhiron, and Eglwys Unedig Gymraeg Llandudno (the United Welsh Church of Llandudno). There is also a Christadelphian meeting hall in the town.
A member of the local Methodist community is Roger Roberts, now Lord Roberts of Llandudno, Liberal Democrat Spokesman for International Development in the House of Lords.
Llandudno is home to a Jewish centre in Church Walks, which serves local and visiting Jews – one of few in North Wales. There is also a Buddhist centre, Kalpa Bhadra, on Mostyn Avenue in Craig-y-Don.
Sport
The town is host to Llandudno F.C., who currently compete in Cymru North, the second tier of Welsh football; the team have competed previously in the top level Cymru Premier division. The club plays its home matches at Maesdu Park and competed in the Europa League in 2016. Llandudno Albion currently play in the third tier of Welsh football and Llandudno Amateurs play in the fourth tier.
A football club is mentioned in Llandudno as far back as 1865. Gloddaeth Rovers dated back to 1878 and played for a decade; they were then replaced by Llandudno Swifts as the town's main club. Following the demise of Swifts in 1901, a new club called Llandudno Amateurs were formed; a different team to that which exists now.
Llandudno Rugby Club plays in the town and was established in 1952. It is a member of the Welsh Rugby Union.
There are also local pool, snooker and dominoes tournaments.
Demographics
The 2011 census counted 20,701 usual residents of which 50.8% were born in Wales and 40.7% in England.
The population in 2021, according to the census, decreased to 19,700. 30% of the population are aged 65+, higher than the national average of 21.3%. The largest ethnic group is White with 95.9% of the population, higher than the national average of 93.8%, with the second largest being Asian/Asian British at 1.8%, lower than the national average of 2.9%. The largest religious group is Christianity who make up 52.6% of the population, higher than the national average of 43.6%, with the second largest being No religion who make up 38.4% of the population, lower than the national average of 46.5%.
Governance
There are two tiers of local government covering Llandudno, at community (town) level and principal area (county borough) level: Llandudno Town Council and Conwy County Borough Council. Llandudno is now divided into five electoral wards: Craig-y-Don, Gogarth, Mostyn, Penrhyn and Tudno. The wards elect county councillors to Conwy County Borough Council and four community councillors each to Llandudno Town Council.
Administrative history
In 1854 Llandudno was made an Improvement Commissioners District. The district covered part of the ancient parish of Llandudno and part of the neighbouring parish of Eglwysrhos. In 1894 the improvement commissioners were replaced by Llandudno Urban District Council. This was a lower-tier council, with Caernarfonshire County Council providing county-level services. The urban district council built Llandudno Town Hall to serve as its headquarters in 1902. In 1974 the urban district was abolished, with the area becoming a community within the Aberconwy district in the new county of Gwynedd. Further local government reform in 1996 saw the area become part of the principal area of Conwy County Borough.
Llandudno falls under the UK parliamentary constituency of Bangor Aberconwy, whose is represented by the Labour MP Claire Hughes, and the Senedd constituency of Aberconwy, whose MS is the Conservative Janet Finch-Saunders. It falls under the North Wales electoral region.
Links with Wormhout and Mametz
Llandudno is twinned with the Flemish town of Wormhout 10 miles (16 km) from Dunkirk. It was there that many members of the Llandudno-based 69th Territorial Regiment were ambushed and taken prisoner. Later, at nearby Esquelbecq on 28 May 1940, the prisoners were shot.
The 1st (North Wales) Brigade was headquartered in Llandudno in December 1914 and included a battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, which had been raised and trained in Llandudno. During the 1914–18 war this Brigade, a major part of the 38th Welsh Division, took part in the Battle of the Somme and the Brigade was ordered to take Mametz Wood. Two days of fighting brought about the total destruction of Mametz village by shelling. After the war, the people of Llandudno (including returning survivors from the 38th Welsh Division) contributed generously to the fund for the reconstruction of the village of Mametz.
Llandudno is also twinned with Champery, Switzerland since August 2022.
Cultural connections
Llandudno hosted the Welsh National Eisteddfod in 1864, 1896 and 1963, and in 2008 welcomed the Urdd National Eisteddfod to Gloddaeth Isaf Farm, Penrhyn Bay. The town also hosted the Liverpool Olympic Festival in 1865 and 1866.
Matthew Arnold gives a vivid and lengthy description of 1860s Llandudno – and of the ancient tales of Taliesin and Maelgwn Gwynedd that are associated with the local landscape – in the first sections of the preface to On the Study of Celtic Literature (1867). It is also used as a location for dramatic scenes in the stage play and film Hindle Wakes by Stanley Houghton, and the 1911 novel, The Card, by Arnold Bennett, and its subsequent film version.
Elisabeth of Wied, the Queen Consort of Romania and also known as writer Carmen Sylva, stayed in Llandudno for five weeks in 1890. On leaving, she described Wales as "a beautiful haven of peace". Translated into Welsh as "hardd, hafan, hedd", it became the town's official motto.
Other famous people with links to Llandudno include the Victorian statesman John Bright and multi-capped Welsh international footballers Neville Southall, Neil Eardley, Chris Maxwell and Joey Jones. Australia's 7th Prime Minister Billy Hughes attended school in Llandudno. Gordon Borrie QC (Baron Borrie), Director General of the Office of Fair Trading from 1976 to 1992, was educated at the town's John Bright Grammar School when he lived there as a wartime evacuee.
The international art gallery Oriel Mostyn is in Vaughan Street next to the post office. It was built in 1901 to house the art collection of Lady Augusta Mostyn. It was requisitioned in 1914 for use as an army drill hall and later became a warehouse, before being returned to use as an art gallery in 1979. Following a major revamp the gallery was renamed simply 'Mostyn' in 2010.
Llandudno has its own mini arts festival 'LLAWN' (Llandudno Arts Weekend) which has been running for the past three years (LLAWN01 −2013, LLAWN02 – 2014, LLAWN03 – 2015). LLAWN is a mini festival that rediscovers and celebrates Llandudno's past in rather a unique way; via art, architecture, artefact, sound, performance, and participation. The festival takes place over three days of the weekend in late September, originally conceived as a way to promote what those in the hospitality sector refer to as the ‘shoulder season’, which means a lull in the tourist calendar. The festival is supported by Arts Council Wales, Mostyn Estates, Conwy County Borough Council, MOSTYN and Llandudno Town Council.
Notable people
See Category:People from Llandudno
Augusta Mostyn (1830–1912) philanthropist and photographer, lived in Gloddaeth Hall
Martha Hughes Cannon (1857–1932) a Utah State Senator, physician, women's rights advocate and suffragist
Dion Fortune (1890–1946) occultist, ceremonial magician, novelist and author.
Margaret Lacey (1911–1988) character actress and ballet teacher.
Sylvia Sleigh (1916–2010) naturalised American realist painter, worked in New York City
Peter Brinson (1920–1995) writer and lecturer on dance.
Jeremy Brooks (1926–1994) novelist, poet and dramatist, evacuated to Llandudno.
Roger Roberts, Baron Roberts of Llandudno (born 1935) politician & Methodist minister.
Ben Johnson (born 1946) painter of detailed cityscapes
Billy Bibby & The Wry Smiles, rock band formed in 2015 around Llandudno.
Sport
Joey Jones (born 1955) football full-back with 594 club caps and 72 for Wales
Neville Southall (born 1958) footballer with 710 club caps and 92 for Wales
Neal Eardley (born 1988) footballer with over 400 club caps and 16 for Wales
Freedom of the Town
The following people and military units have received the Freedom of the Town of Llandudno.
Individuals
Neville Southall: September 1993.
Philip Evans: January 2002
Terence Davies: 16 April 2018.
Military Units
RAF Valley: September 1995.
Llandudno Lifeboat Station, RNLI: January 2002.
203 (Welsh) Field Hospital (Volunteers) RAMC: 19 September 2009.
References
Bibliography
Ivor Wynne Jones. Llandudno Queen of Welsh Resorts Landmark, Ashbourne Derbyshire 2002 ISBN 1-84306-048-5
Philip C. Evans. "Llandudno Coast Artillery School" Llandudno Town Council 2011
External links
"Llandudno" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 829.
A Vision of Britain Through Time
British Listed Buildings
Genuki
Geograph
Office for National Statistics |
Llandudno,_Western_Cape | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llandudno,_Western_Cape | [
364
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llandudno,_Western_Cape"
] | Llandudno is a seaside suburb of Cape Town on the Atlantic seaboard of the Cape Peninsula in the Western Cape, South Africa. There are no street lights, shops or commercial activities, and the town has some of the most expensive residential property in South Africa.
Llandudno Beach is one of the Cape's most naturally diverse beaches, surrounded by large granite boulders and overlooked by mountains. It is a popular surfing spot, but the swimming can be treacherous, with rough seas and extremely cold water. Llandudno has lifeguards on duty during the summer season, operated by the Llandudno Surf Lifesaving club. It is also the access point for the walk to Sandy Bay, an isolated beach still popular with nudists.
On 26 September 1903 the valley was declared a township and named Llandudno after the North Wales seaside resort of Llandudno, which means "Parish of Saint Tudno" in the Welsh language. The striking similarities between Kleinkommetjie Bay in which the valley resides and Llandudno in Wales were noted as reasons for choosing this name.
References
External links
Media related to Llandudno, Cape Town at Wikimedia Commons
Llandudno, South Africa
Llandudno Map A street map of Llandudno |
American_Pie_(song) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pie_(song) | [
365
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pie_(song)"
] | "American Pie" is a song by American singer and songwriter Don McLean. Recorded and released in 1971 on the album of the same name, the single was the number-one US hit for four weeks in 1972 starting January 15 after just eight weeks on the US Billboard charts (where it entered at number 69). The song also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. In the UK, the single reached number 2, where it stayed for three weeks on its original 1971 release, and a reissue in 1991 reached No. 12. The song was listed as the No. 5 song on the RIAA project Songs of the Century. A truncated version of the song was covered by Madonna in 2000 and reached No. 1 in at least 15 countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. At 8 minutes and 42 seconds, McLean's combined version is the sixth longest song to enter the Billboard Hot 100 (at the time of release it was the longest). The song also held the record for almost 50 years for being the longest song to reach number one before Taylor Swift's "All Too Well (10 Minute Version)" broke the record in 2021. Due to its exceptional length, it was initially released as a two-sided 7-inch single. "American Pie" has been described as "one of the most successful and debated songs of the 20th century".
The repeated phrase "the day the music died" refers to a plane crash in 1959 that killed early rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens, ending the era of early rock and roll; this became the popular nickname for that crash. The theme of the song goes beyond mourning McLean's childhood music heroes, reflecting the deep cultural changes and profound disillusion and loss of innocence of his generation – the early rock and roll generation – that took place between the 1959 plane crash and either late 1969 or late 1970. The meaning of the other lyrics, which cryptically allude to many of the jarring events and social changes experienced during that period, has been debated for decades. McLean repeatedly declined to explain the symbolism behind the many characters and events mentioned; he eventually released his songwriting notes to accompany the original manuscript when it was sold in 2015, explaining many of these, and further elaborated on the lyrical meaning in a 2022 interview/documentary celebrating the song's 50th anniversary, in which he stated the song was driven by impressionism and debunked some of the more widely speculated symbols.
In 2017, McLean's original recording was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". To mark the 50th anniversary of the song, McLean performed a 35-date tour through Europe, starting in Wales and ending in Austria, in 2022.
Background
Don McLean drew inspiration for the song from his childhood experience delivering newspapers during the time of the plane crash that killed early rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper:
I first found out about the plane crash because I was a 13-year-old newspaper delivery boy in New Rochelle, New York, and I was carrying the bundle of the local Standard-Star papers that were bound in twine, and when I cut it open with a knife, there it was on the front page.
McLean reportedly wrote "American Pie" in Saratoga Springs, New York, at Caffè Lena, but a 2011 New York Times article quotes McLean as disputing this claim. Some employees at Caffè Lena claim that he started writing the song there, and then continued to write the song in both Cold Spring, New York, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. McLean claims that the song was only written in Cold Spring and Philadelphia. Tin & Lint, a bar on Caroline Street in Saratoga Springs, claims the song was written there, and a plaque marks the table. While some have claimed other places, such as Saint Joseph's University, as where the song was first performed, McLean insists that the song made its debut in Philadelphia at Temple University when he opened for Laura Nyro on March 14, 1971. However a 2022 documentary on the history of the song notes that particular concert actually occurred at the nearby Saint Joseph's University.
The song was produced by Ed Freeman and recorded with a few session musicians. Freeman did not want McLean to play rhythm guitar on the song but eventually relented. McLean and the session musicians rehearsed for two weeks but failed to get the song right. At the last minute, the pianist Paul Griffin was added, which is when the tune came together. McLean used a 1969 or 1970 Martin D-28 guitar to provide the basic chords throughout "American Pie".
The song debuted in the album American Pie in October 1971 and was released as a single in December. The song's eight-and-a-half-minute length meant that it could not fit entirely on one side of the 45 RPM record, so United Artists had the first 4:11 taking up the A-side of the record and the final 4:31 the B-side. Radio stations initially played the A-side of the song only, but soon switched to the full album version to satisfy their audiences.
Upon the single release, Cash Box called it "folk-rock's most ambitious and successful epic endeavor since 'Alice's Restaurant.'" Record World called it a "monumental accomplishment of lyric writing".
Interpretations
The song has nostalgic themes, stretching from the late 1950s until late 1969 or 1970. Except to acknowledge that he first learned about Buddy Holly's death on February 3, 1959 – McLean was age 13 – when he was folding newspapers for his paper route on the morning of February 4, 1959 (hence the line "February made me shiver/with every paper I'd deliver"), McLean has generally avoided responding to direct questions about the song's lyrics; he has said: "They're beyond analysis. They're poetry." He also stated in an editorial published in 2009, on the 50th anniversary of the crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson (all of whom are alluded to in the final verse in a comparison with the Christian Holy Trinity), that writing the first verse of the song exorcised his long-running grief over Holly's death and that he considers the song to be "a big song... that summed up the world known as America". McLean dedicated the American Pie album to Holly.
Some commentators have identified the song as outlining the darkening of cultural mood, as over time the cultural vanguard passed from Pete Seeger and Joan Baez (the "King and Queen" of folk music), then from Elvis Presley (known as "the King" of Rock and Roll), to Bob Dylan ("the Jester") – who wore a jacket similar to that worn by cultural icon James Dean, was known as "the voice of his generation" ("a voice that came from you and me"), and whose motorcycle accident ("in a cast") left him in reclusion for many years, recording in studios rather than touring ("on the sidelines"), to The Beatles (John Lennon, punned with Lenin, and "the Quartet" – although McLean has stated the Quartet is a reference to other people), to The Byrds (who wrote one of the first psychedelic rock songs, "Eight Miles High", and then "fell fast" – the song was banned and one of the group entered rehabilitation, known colloquially as a "fallout shelter"), and shortly after, the group declined as it lost members, changed genres, and alienated fans), to The Rolling Stones (who released Jumpin' Jack Flash, Their Satanic Majesties Request and the single "Sympathy for the Devil" ("Jack Flash", "Satan", "The Devil"), and used Hells Angels – "Angels born in Hell" – as event security, with fatal consequences, bringing the 1960s to a violent end), and to Janis Joplin (the "girl who sang the blues" but just "turned away" – she died of a heroin overdose the following year).
It has also been speculated that the song contains numerous references to post-World War II American political events, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy (known casually as "Jack"), First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy ("his widowed bride"), and subsequent killing of his assassin (whose courtroom trial obviously ended as a result ["adjourned"]), the Cuban Missile Crisis ("Jack be nimble, Jack be quick"), the murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, and elements of culture such as sock hops ("kicking off shoes" to dance, preventing damage to the varnished floor), cruising with a pickup truck, the rise of the political protest song ("a voice that came from you and me"), drugs and the counterculture, the Manson Family and the Tate–LaBianca murders in the "summer swelter" of 1969 (the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter") and much more.
Apparent allusions to notable 50s songs include Don Cornell's The Bible Tells Me So ("If the Bible tells you so?"), Marty Robbins' A White Sport Coat, the lonely teenager ("With a pink carnation") mirroring Robbins' narrator who is rejected in favor of another man for the prom, and The Monotones' The Book of Love ("Did you write the book of love").
Many additional and alternative interpretations have also been proposed.
For example, Bob Dylan's first performance in Great Britain was also at a pub called "The King and Queen", and he also appeared more literally "on the sidelines in a (the) cast" – as one of many stars at the back far right of the cover art of the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ("the Sergeants played a marching tune").
The song title itself is a reference to apple pie, an unofficial symbol of the United States and one of its signature comfort foods, as seen in the popular expression "As American as apple pie". By the twentieth century, this had become a symbol of American prosperity and national pride.
The original United Artists Records inner sleeve featured a free verse poem written by McLean about William Boyd, also known as Hopalong Cassidy, along with a picture of Boyd in full Hopalong regalia. Its inclusion in the album was interpreted to represent a sense of loss of a simplistic type of American culture as symbolized by Hopalong Cassidy and by extension black and white television as a whole.
Mike Mills of R.E.M. reflected: "'American Pie' just made perfect sense to me as a song and that's what impressed me the most. I could say to people this is how to write songs. When you've written at least three songs that can be considered classic that is a very high batting average and if one of those songs happens to be something that a great many people think is one of the greatest songs ever written you've not only hit the top of the mountain but you've stayed high on the mountain for a long time."
McLean's responses
When asked what "American Pie" meant, McLean jokingly replied, "It means I don't ever have to work again if I don't want to." Later, he stated, "You will find many interpretations of my lyrics but none of them by me... Sorry to leave you all on your own like this but long ago I realized that songwriters should make their statements and move on, maintaining a dignified silence." He also commented on the popularity of his music, "I didn't write songs that were just catchy, but with a point of view, or songs about the environment."
In February 2015, however, McLean announced he would reveal the meaning of the lyrics to the song when the original manuscript went for auction in New York City, in April 2015. The lyrics and notes were auctioned on April 7, 2015, and sold for $1.2 million. In the sale catalogue notes, McLean revealed the meaning in the song's lyrics: "Basically in 'American Pie' things are heading in the wrong direction. It [life] is becoming less idyllic. I don't know whether you consider that wrong or right but it is a morality song in a sense." The catalogue confirmed that the song climaxes with a description of the killing of Meredith Hunter at the Altamont Free Concert, ten years after the plane crash that killed Holly, Valens, and Richardson, and did acknowledge that some of the more well-known symbols in the song were inspired by figures such as Elvis Presley ("the king") and Bob Dylan ("the jester"). In 2017, Bob Dylan was asked about how he was referenced in the song. "A jester? Sure, the jester writes songs like 'Masters of War', 'A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall', 'It's Alright, Ma' – some jester. I have to think he's talking about somebody else. Ask him." Dylan's predictions were later confirmed to be true, when McLean denied that Dylan was the jester and Presley the king in the song.
In 2022, the documentary The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean's American Pie, produced by Spencer Proffer, was released on the Paramount+ video on-demand service. Proffer said that he told McLean: "It's time for you to reveal what 50 years of journalists have wanted to know." McLean stated that he "needed a big song about America", and the first verse and melody seemed to just come to mind: "A long, long, time ago...".
McLean then answers some of the long-standing questions on the song's lyrics, although not all. He reveals that Elvis was not the king referenced in the song, the "girl who sang the blues" was not Janis Joplin, and Bob Dylan was not the jester, although he is open to other interpretations. He says that "marching band" means the military–industrial complex, "sweet perfume" refers to tear gas, and Los Angeles is the "coast" that the Trinity head to ("caught the last train for the coast") – "even God has been corrupted", he comments. He says that "This'll be the day that I die" originated from the John Wayne film The Searchers (which inspired Buddy Holly's song "That'll Be the Day"), and "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" is a reference to a song by Pete Seeger, "Bye Bye, My Roseanna". McLean had originally intended to use "Miss American apple pie" but "apple" was dropped.
On the whole, McLean stated that the lyrics were meant to be impressionist, and that many of the lyrics, only a portion of which were included in the finished recording, were completely fictional with no basis in real-life events.
Personnel
Credits from Richard Buskin, except where noted.
Musicians
Don McLean – vocals, acoustic guitar
Paul Griffin – piano, clavinet
David Spinozza – electric guitar
Bob Rothstein – bass, backing vocals
Roy Markowitz – drums
West Forty Fourth Street Rhythm and Noise Choir – chorus
Technical
Ed Freeman - producer
Tom Flye - engineer, tambourine
Photography/ artwork – George Whiteman
Charts
Certifications
Parodies, revisions, and uses
In 1999, "Weird Al" Yankovic wrote and recorded a parody of "American Pie". Titled "The Saga Begins", the song recounts the plot of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace from Obi-Wan Kenobi's point of view. While McLean gave permission for the parody, he did not make a cameo appearance in its video, despite popular rumor. McLean himself praised the parody, even admitting to almost singing Yankovic's lyrics during his own live performances because his children played the song so often. An unrelated comedy film franchise by Universal Pictures, who secured the rights to McLean's title, also debuted in 1999.
"American Pie" was the last song to be played on Virgin Radio before it was rebranded as Absolute Radio in 2008. It was also the last song played on BFBS Malta in 1979.
Jeremy Renner sings an a cappella version in the 2006 movie Love Comes to the Executioner, as his character walks to the execution chamber.
In 2012, the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, created a lip dub video to "American Pie" in response to a Newsweek article that stated the city was "dying". (Due to licensing issues, the version used in the video was not the original, but rather a later-recorded live version.) The video was hailed as a fantastic performance by many, including film critic Roger Ebert, who said it was "the greatest music video ever made".
On March 21, 2013, Harmonix announced that "American Pie" would be the final downloadable track made available for the Rock Band series of music video games. This was the case until Rock Band 4 was released on October 6, 2015, reviving the series' weekly releases of DLC.
On March 14, 2015, the National Museum of Mathematics announced that one of two winners of its songwriting contest was "American Pi" by mathematics education professor Dr. Lawrence M. Lesser. The contest was in honor of "Pi Day of the Century" because "3/14/15" would be the only day in the 21st-century showing the first five digits of π (pi).
On April 20, 2015, John Mayer covered "American Pie" live on the Late Show with David Letterman, at the request of the show's eponymous host.
On January 29, 2021, McLean released a re-recording of "American Pie" featuring lead vocals by country a cappella group Home Free.
The song was featured in Marvel's Black Widow movie in 2021. It is the favorite song of the character Yelena Belova, and sung by Red Guardian later in the film to comfort her.
"American Pie" is also featured in the 2021 Tom Hanks movie Finch.
During his visit to the United States in 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol sang this song at a state dinner. This has attracted worldwide attention, as well as the attention of Don McLean.
Madonna version
Background
American singer Madonna released a cover version of the song in February 2000 to promote the soundtrack of her film The Next Best Thing (2000), with the song being serviced to radio between February 2 and 8, 2000 and being sold in stores on February 22, 2000. Her cover is much shorter than the original (it contains only the beginning of the first verse and all of the second and sixth verses) and was recorded as a dance-pop song. It was co-produced by Madonna and William Orbit and released on the singer's Maverick label, after Rupert Everett (Madonna's co-star in The Next Best Thing) had convinced her to cover the song for the film's soundtrack. Madonna said of her choice to cover the song: "To me, it's a real millennium song. We're going through a big change in terms of the way we view pop culture, because of the Internet. In a way, it's like saying goodbye to music as we knew it—and to pop culture as we knew it." It is included as an international bonus track on her eighth studio album, Music.
"American Pie" was not included in the 2001 greatest hits compilation GHV2 (2001) because Madonna had regretted putting it on Music. "It was something a certain record company executive twisted my arm into doing, but it didn't belong on the album so now it's being punished... My gut told me not to [put the song on Music], but I did it and then I regretted it so just for that reason it didn't deserve a place on GHV2," she said. However, the song's remix was featured on her remix compilation album Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones (2022).
Release and reception
Released on February 28, 2000, the song was a worldwide hit, reaching No. 1 in many countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Finland. The song was the 19th-best-selling single of 2000 in the UK and the ninth best-selling single of 2000 in Sweden. The single was not released commercially in the United States, but it reached No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100 due to strong radio airplay.
Chuck Taylor of Billboard was impressed by the recording and commented, "Applause to Madonna for not pandering to today's temporary trends and for challenging programmers to broaden their playlists. ... In all, a fine preview of the forthcoming soundtrack to The Next Best Thing." Peter Robinson of The Guardian called the cover as "brilliant". Don McLean himself praised the cover, saying it was "a gift from a goddess", and that her version is "mystical and sensual". NME, on the other hand, gave it a negative review, saying that "Killdozer did it first and did it better", that it was "sub-karaoke fluff" and that "it's a blessing she didn't bother recording the whole thing."
In 2017, the Official Charts Company stated the song had sold 400,000 copies in the United Kingdom and was her 16th best selling single to date in the nation.
Music video
The music video, filmed in the southern United States and in London and directed by Philipp Stölzl, depicts a diverse array of ordinary Americans, including scenes showing same-sex couples kissing. Throughout the music video Madonna, who is wearing a tiara on her head, dances and sings in front of a large American flag.
Two official versions of the video were produced, the first of which now appears on Madonna's greatest-hits DVD compilation, Celebration, and was released as the official video worldwide. The second version was issued along with the "Humpty Remix", a more upbeat and dance-friendly version of the song. This video was aired on MTV's dance channel in the United States to promote the film The Next Best Thing, starring Madonna and Rupert Everett; it contains totally different footage and new outtakes of the original and omits the lesbian kiss. Everett, who provides backing vocals in the song, is also featured in the video.
Formats and track listings
Digital single / (2022)
"American Pie" – 4:34
"American Pie" (Richard Humpty Vission Radio Mix) – 4:29
"American Pie" (Victor Calderone Vocal Club Mix) – 9:07
"American Pie" (Richard Humpty Vission Visits Madonna) – 5:43
"American Pie" (Victor Calderone Extended Vocal Club Mix) – 10:36
"American Pie" (Victor Calderone Vocal Dub Mix) – 6:15
"American Pie" (Victor Calderone Filter Dub Mix) – 6:06
Credits and personnel
Credits and personnel are adapted from the American Pie single liner notes.
Madonna – vocals, producer
William Orbit – producer, guitar, drums and keyboard
Don McLean – writer
Mark "Spike" Stent – mixing
Rupert Everett – backup vocals
Mark Endert – engineering
Sean Spuehler – engineering, programming
Jake Davies – engineering
Rico Conning – sequencer programming
Dah Len – photography
Charts
Certifications and sales
See also
Vincent (Don McLean song)
List of Australian chart achievements and milestones
List of Romanian Top 100 number ones of the 2000s
List of best-selling singles by year (Germany)
References
Further reading
Adams, Cecil (May 15, 1993). "What is Don McLean's song 'American Pie' all about?". The Straight Dope. Chicago Reader, Inc. Retrieved June 8, 2009. An interpretation of the lyrics based on a supposed interview of McLean by DJ Casey Kasem. McLean later confirmed the Buddy Holly reference in a letter to Adams but denied ever speaking to Kasem.
Roteman, Jeff (August 10, 2002). "Bob Dearborn's Original Analysis of Don McLean's 1971 Classic 'American Pie'". This article correlates McLean's biography with the historic events in the song. McLean pointed to WCFL (Chicago, Illinois) radio disc jockey Bob Dearborn as the partial basis for most mainstream interpretations of "American Pie". Dearborn's analysis, mailed to listeners on request, bears the date January 7, 1972. Roteman's reprinting added photos but replaced the date January 7, 1972, by an audio link bearing the date February 28, 1972, the date Dearborn aired his interpretation on WCFL (http://user.pa.net/~ejjeff/bobpie.ram (Bob Dearborn's American Pie Analysis original broadcast February 28, 1972)).
"The WCFL Radio Tribute Page". Archived from the original on October 26, 2018. Retrieved October 25, 2018. Among the potpourri is a copy of the January 7, 1972, Bob Dearborn letter, plus an audio recording, in which he delineates his interpretation of "American Pie".
Fann, Jim. "Understanding American Pie". Archived from the original on September 6, 2003. Historically oriented interpretation of "American Pie". The interpretation was specifically noted on in an archived version of McLean's website page on "American Pie".archived version of McLean's website page on "American Pie". The material, dated November 2002, includes a recording of Dinah Shore singing "See The USA In Your Chevrolet" and a photograph of Mick Jagger in costume at the Altamont Free Concert with a Hells Angel member in the background.
Full "See the USA in Your Chevrolet" lyrics for Dinah Shore on "The Dinah Shore Chevy Show" (1956–1961)
Kulawiec, Rich (August 26, 2001). "FAQ: The Annotated 'American Pie'". Archived from the original on April 19, 2003. Retrieved September 19, 2007. FAQ maintained by Rich Kulawiec, started in 1992 and essentially completed in 1997.
"American Pie—A Rock Epic" A multi-media presentation of Rich Kulawiec's The Annotated "American Pie".
Levitt, Saul (May 26, 1971). "Interpretation of American Pie – analysis, news, Don McLean, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Rock & Roll". Missamericanpie.co.uk. Archived from the original on April 5, 2011. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
Schuck, Raymond I.; Schuck, Ray (2012). Do You Believe in Rock and Roll?: Essays on Don McLean's "American Pie". McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-7864-7105-8. Retrieved September 3, 2021.
External links
The Official Website of Don McLean and American Pie provides the songwriter's own biography, lyrics and clues to the song's meaning.
Don McLean - American Pie (Part 1) on YouTube |
The_Saga_Begins | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_Begins | [
365
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saga_Begins"
] | "The Saga Begins" is a parody song by "Weird Al" Yankovic. It parodies "American Pie" by Don McLean, with lyrics that humorously summarize the plot of the film Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace through the point of view of Obi-Wan Kenobi, one of the film's protagonists.
The song's title, not mentioned in the lyrics, derives from a tagline that appeared in teaser trailers and the film poster for The Phantom Menace: "Every saga has a beginning". "The Saga Begins" was released as a single from the 1999 album Running with Scissors, and later appearing on the compilation album The Saga Begins.
History
Set to the tune of Don McLean's "American Pie", "The Saga Begins" recounts the plot of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, from Obi-Wan Kenobi's point of view. Yankovic gathered most of the information he needed to write the song from Internet spoilers. Lucasfilm declined a request for an advance screening, and Yankovic paid to attend a charity fundraiser pre-screening. He had done such an accurate job with the storyline that he made only minor alterations after the pre-screening.
McLean approved of the song and, according to Yankovic, also has said that his children played it so much that "he'd start thinking about Jedis [sic] and Star Wars, and it would mess him up" in concert. According to Yankovic's website, Lucasfilm's official response to the song was, "You should've seen the smile on [George Lucas's] face." This is the second Star Wars song Weird Al has created, with the first being 1985's "Yoda", a parody of "Lola" by The Kinks.
Music video
The video begins in the desert on the planet Tatooine. Yankovic, dressed like Obi-Wan Kenobi, the protagonist of Episode I, walks until he comes across Darth Sidious playing the piano. Yankovic uses the Force to get a resonator guitar, and in the second verse he reappears performing in a Mos Eisley cantina leading a band also dressed as Jedi. In the last verse, he returns to the desert; and in the last chorus, numerous "Obi-Wan" clones sing as a group.
Some Star Wars characters can be seen, such as Queen Padmé Amidala, Qui-Gon Jinn, Mace Windu, and Yoda.
The upper half of the pianist's face is always covered by the hood of the robe that he is wearing much like the Sith Lord Darth Sidious. When asked why, Yankovic stated that, "They didn't want to scare small children," a reference to the playful teasing of Yankovic's pianist, Rubén Valtierra, commonly used in his live shows.
In 1999, the music video was included as a bonus feature on Yankovic's first concert DVD, "Weird Al" Yankovic Live! An Easter Egg on the DVD is Yankovic's running commentary on the music video, accessible by pressing the "audio" button twice on your remote control.
In 2011, the entire video was released as a bonus feature in a Star Wars spoofs compilation for the 2011 Blu-ray box set release of the saga.
Production
The music video was filmed over two days in 1999. Yankovic described the shoot as one of the most difficult of his career. Yankovic wanted to keep it simple, as they could not use scenes from the film, the song was more than five minutes long, and they had a small budget. The concept Yankovic settled on was "MTV Unplugged in the Star Wars Cantina."
Day one was when they filmed the desert scenes. The desert scenes were filmed in the Mojave Desert outside Baker, California. Temperatures reached 120 °F (49 °C) and several crew members passed out from heat exhaustion. Several scenes could only be filmed in one take, as there would be footprints in the sand for a second take. To film the final scene, they did not have time to use a camera dolly, so they got the shot by strapping Yankovic to a crane and spinning him around 50 feet in the air.
The second day was when they filmed the cantina scenes. It was a much more comfortable shoot, as it was in an air conditioned studio. It did have its perils, however, as several cast members playing aliens had an allergic reaction to the special effects make-up and developed a rash. Yankovic kept the budget down by getting several friends and family members to play various roles, such as his second cousin Tammy as Queen Amidala, and a Tower Records clerk he knew as Mace Windu. Yankvoic purposely avoided using recognizable Star Wars aliens so as to avoid any copyright troubles with Lucasfilm, but he made an exception for a silhouette of Yoda. He also obtained Lucasfilm's permission to use a promotional photo of Jake Lloyd.
Live version
Al and his band usually perform "The Saga Begins" and Al's earlier Star Wars parody, "Yoda" as an encore. It is usually preceded by a cover of Johann Sebastian Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" by Al's keyboardist, Rubén Valtierra. During the 2007-2008 Straight Outta Lynwood Tour, the two were moved to the middle, and Al and his band performed "Albuquerque" as the encore.
When performing the song live in concert, Al is frequently joined by an honor guard of Stormtroopers that he recruits from the local chapter of the 501st Legion. Of working with the 501st Legion, Al says, "Every single one of those Stormtroopers acted like I was doing them the biggest favor in the world by letting them perform on stage with me, when in fact the exact opposite was true."
Response from Don McLean
McLean gave Yankovic permission to release the parody, although he did not make a cameo appearance in its music video, despite popular rumor. McLean himself praised the parody, even admitting to almost singing Yankovic's lyrics during his own live performances because his children played the song so often.
Radio edit
The song was played frequently on Radio Disney and later released on Radio Disney Jams Volume 2. Radio Disney took issue with his line "Did you see him hitting on the queen?" and removed it (so that the song skipped slightly). Yankovic, who usually does not like to change lyrics to suit the needs of others, provided Radio Disney with an updated version, having changed the words to "Did you see him talking to the queen?" He said that the alternate lyrics were preferable to the bad edit.
Charts
References
External links
"Weird Al" Yankovic - The Saga Begins - Official music video on YouTube |
My_Beautiful_Dark_Twisted_Fantasy | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Beautiful_Dark_Twisted_Fantasy | [
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Beautiful_Dark_Twisted_Fantasy"
] | My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the fifth studio album by the American rapper Kanye West. It was released by Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records on November 22, 2010. Retreating to a self-imposed exile in Hawaii after a period of controversy in 2009, following his interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, West recorded the album at Honolulu's Avex Recording Studio in a communal environment involving numerous musicians. Additional recording sessions took place at Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, California, along with the New York City studios Electric Lady and Platinum Sound.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was mainly produced by West, alongside a variety of high-profile producers such as Mike Dean, No I.D., Jeff Bhasker, RZA, Bink, and DJ Frank E. Critics noted the music's maximalist aesthetic and opulent production style that utilizes various elements from his previous work, including soul, pop, baroque, electro, and symphonic sounds, as well as progressive rock influences. The album's lyrics explore themes such as West's celebrity status, consumer culture, self-aggrandizement, and the idealism of the American Dream. Guest vocalists include Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Rick Ross, Kid Cudi, John Legend, Bon Iver, and Elton John.
Alongside several free songs released through West's weekly GOOD Fridays series, he supported My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with four US Billboard Hot 100 top-40 singles, "Power", "Runaway", "Monster", and "All of the Lights". West also released an accompanying musical short film, Runaway (2010). The album was an immediate and widespread critical success, and reviewers lauded the maximalist approach. It was listed as the best album of 2010 in many publications' year-end lists. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was awarded Best Rap Album at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards and CD of the Year at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 and the Canadian Albums Chart, while reaching the top 10 in six other countries. The album eventually achieved a triple platinum certification in the United States from the Recording Industry Association of America, alongside sales certifications in a few other territories. It was ranked in lists as the best album of the 2010s and among the greatest of all time by several publications, including Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
Background
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was conceived at Avex Recording Studio during Kanye West's self-imposed exile in Oahu, Hawaii in 2009, following a period of public-image controversy. West said that fatigue from overworking led to his controversial outburst at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) when the singer Taylor Swift was awarded Best Female Video at the ceremony. He was disgusted with the ensuing media response, which led to a brief hiatus from recording. He also observed at the time of the album's release that Swift never defended him in any interviews, saying she continuously "rode the waves" from the controversy. West had held recording sessions at the same studio for his previous album 808s & Heartbreak (2008).
In response to the backlash to West's behaviour, his scheduled tour Fame Kills: Starring Kanye West and Lady Gaga with the singer Lady Gaga to promote 808s & Heartbreak was cancelled on October 1, 2009, without an official explanation. A year later, he explained to Ellen DeGeneres the incident served as motivation for his works because he felt like "a soldier of culture", realizing no one wants this to be his role and admitted he will continuously "feel convicted about things that really meant stuff to culture that constantly get denied for years". In 2013, West clarified that the album served as a backhanded apology after his MTV VMAs outburst, detailing that he used the music to become accepted again. He elaborated that a minimum of 80 percent was genuine, with the remainder "fulfilling a perception" for the public. West also insisted that he was not criticizing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and instead failed to reach satisfaction, then openly revealed his idea of the truth.
Recording and production
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was recorded at Avex in Honolulu, Hawaii. Additional recording took place at Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, California, and at Electric Lady Studios and Platinum Sound Recording Studios in New York City. It was reported that West spent around $3 million provided by his record label Def Jam to record the album, making it one of the most expensive albums ever made. He explained the initial recording process to Noah Callahan-Bever, the editor-in-chief of Complex and West's then-confidant, telling him he had resided in Hawaii accompanied by his favorite producers and artists to work on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and provide inspiration. Various contributors engaged in sessions with West for the album, including Kid Cudi, Elton John, Rick Ross, Pusha T, and Justin Vernon. Vocals were also recorded by M.I.A., Mos Def, Santigold, and Seal. Producers who contributed in the sessions included Q-Tip, RZA, Pete Rock, Madlib, Statik Selektah, and DJ Premier. Madlib said he made five beats for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, while DJ Premier revealed his work did not make the final cut.
West block-booked the three session rooms of Avex simultaneously for 24 hours a day to work on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, until he felt it was complete. According to Callahan-Bever, when West "hits a creative wall", he changes to another studio room to work on a different song. Sheets of paper were posted on one side of the studio with what were known as "Kanye Commandments", such as "No Tweeting" and "No Pictures". West never slept a full night there, opting instead to take power naps on a studio chair or couch in 90-minute intervals when working during the night. Engineers worked a similar schedule, remaining active 24 hours a day. The heavy work ethic led to West and his crew having multi-course breakfasts each morning at his Diamond Head residence, cooked by in-house chefs. Later in the mornings after breakfast, West and most of the crew played games of 21 against locals at the Honolulu YMCA for leisure. Kid Cudi smoked marijuana in preparation and worked out on a treadmill, while RZA exercised in the weight room.
Throughout the album's development, West enlisted other producers and musicians for opinions of its music. At the studio, they went through various conversations and contributions. Observing these discussions during a visit, Callahan-Bever noted that despite the presence of prominent musicians, "the egos rarely clash; talks are sprawling, enlightening, and productive" around the future, present, and past. Q-Tip described the process as "music by committee" and elaborated on its significance to the sessions and West's work ethic:
He'll go, 'Check this out, tell me what you think.' Which speaks volumes about who he is and how he sees and views people. Every person has a voice and an idea, so he's sincerely looking to hear what you have to say—good, bad, or whatever ... When he has his beats or his rhymes, he offers them to the committee and we're all invited to dissect, strip, or add on to what he's already started. By the end of the sessions, you see how he integrates and transforms everyone's contributions, so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He's a real wizard at it. What he does is alchemy, really.
The rapper Pusha T characterized My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as "a collage of sounds" and found West's recording methods unorthodox. He explained that when the team thought they were focused on a song, West would hear the work of a record producer such as Jeff Bhasker and his attention would be captured as he went through "his mental Rolodex" to the most suitable point for it on the album. Expressing a similar sentiment, the rapper Malik Yusef said that he was mocked for his vision of incorporating collaborators from genres outside hip hop like John. DJ Premier recalled that West insisted to him during the production for no electro, describing him as "that crazy dude he's always been" and pointing out his focus on the album's rawness.
West ensured that the album's recording sessions were secretive, placing paper sheets in the studio reading "no tweeting, no talking, no e-mailing", and also prohibiting speaking with people outside of the location. Pusha T recalled West's attitude in an interview for Rolling Stone, saying that following a leak he remembered his strictness, "Fuck this! We're not going to ever work there again!" In October 2010, West tweeted that the recording of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been finished.
Musical style
The music was described as maximalist hip hop by numerous publications, incorporating East Coast rap, boom bap, R&B ballads, electronic music, and progressive rock samples. Various writers also noticed elements from West's previous four albums. The Village Voice's Sean Fennessey thought that West had adopted the skills of his collaborators from the five years before My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which he sometimes uses to an increased level. West incorporates lush soul from 2004's The College Dropout, orchestration from 2005's Late Registration, a rich atmosphere from 2007's Graduation, and emotionally tired electro from 808s & Heartbreak. Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal and AllMusic's Andy Kellman wrote My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy seamlessly combines elements from West's earlier albums; the latter felt that "All of the Lights" denotes its varied elements and "maniacal extravagance". David Amidon of PopMatters observed the pop sound of Graduation and 808s & Heartbreak.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was described as a progressive rap record by Carl Williott of Idolator and Rolling Stone's Christopher R. Weingarten, with the latter noting that it came at the time of lower album budgets. The album draws elements from varied genres like progressive rock, soul, and old-school rap, moving towards a new sound. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy follows a dense, wide scope of styles; Al Horner from NME called it a rap opera. The author Kirk Walker Graves thinks West became a collagist, who makes a bold and vulnerable work of art from "scattered pop shards and indelible beats".
Lyrics and themes
Throughout the album, West's lyrics explore themes of excess, celebrity, grandiosity, self-aggrandizement, self-doubt, romance, escapism, decadence, and sex. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy also openly acknowledges alcohol and drug usage more than West's previous albums. West places an introspective focus on fame, detailing the perks of power that he links to neoliberalism. The rapper addresses deep personal insecurities, although philosopher Julius Bailey writes that he embraced his narcissism in contrast to the chipmunk soul on The College Dropout. West displays varied emotions, which range from lows to highs of the rapper's mental state. He conveys feelings of despair with his public image since 808s & Heartbreak, depicting his out-of-control world. According to author Bernadette Marie Calafell, West used My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to celebrate monstrosity after his troubled year.
West ventures into the id of his own ego on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, showing his perspective as a celebrity. He poses a risk of self-destruction with the id, while perusing any goal or girl he can and driven by the buzz of consumer culture, despite ultimately being unsatisfied. Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times depicted the songs as "pornographic boasts, romantic disaster stories, devil-haunted dark nights of the soul" and perceived West as not welcome nor sure about the purpose of his presence due to the discussion of race. Powers felt that rather than an issue for West, it is the inherent curse of author Michael Eric Dyson's theory of "the exceptional black man" whose talents are welcomed, but he is excluded for his skin color. According to Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield, the album serves as "a rock-star manifesto" in a world where expectations have generally lowered.
Songs
Tracks 1–7
The album begins with "Dark Fantasy", opened by rapper Nicki Minaj narrating a rework of Roald Dahl's 1982 poem Cinderella, followed by a chorus including Auto-Tuned "oohs" and "ah-ah-ah-aahs", as well as backing accents. The song introduces the themes of decadence and hedonism, with West musing how it had been planned to drink to release pain, "But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?" The track's lyrics contain musical and popular culture references, including fellow rapper Nas, the 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", British singer Leona Lewis, and the song "Sex on Fire" by Tennessee rock band Kings of Leon. "Gorgeous" is an uplifting blues-styled track, relying on a guitar riff juxtaposed with melodic piano. The track is seen by Graves as West's "scattershot mission statement" and it sees him tackling racial injustices, including comparing himself to black rights activist Malcolm X with the title "Malcolm West". "Power" features a dark production that relies on a sample of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" (1969), which Fennessey found to be "apocalyptic" and it is accompanied by chants loosely resembling a choir. West delves into escapism on the song, mentioning his struggles with the public and narrating his vision of a career suicide.
"All of the Lights" incorporates drum 'n' bass breaks, energetic percussion, and horn instruments. The opening lines mention the death of Michael Jackson and present the narrative of a man who goes through multiple issues including abusing his lover and serving prison time. West enlisted 11 guest vocalists for the song, including Alicia Keys, John Legend, Tony Williams, and Elly Jackson; Rihanna sings the hook. In an interview with MTV, Jackson said that West designated her to layer up the vocal arrangement with other people as he simply used his favorite vocalists worldwide "to create this really unique vocal texture on his record, but it's not the kind of thing where you can pick it out". "Monster" is a posse cut, which features staccato strings that invoke paranoia and it was described by Calafell as addressing critics through exploration of their "monstrous construction" of West. West rap about using inappropriate methods to drown his pain and Nicki Minaj asserts her queen status on the song. The fellow posse cut "So Appalled" is built around piano and strings, with the performers delivering their odes to success and affirming that "this shit is/fucking ridiculous".
Tracks 8–13
"Devil in a New Dress" is built on a sample of Smokey Robinson's "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" (1960). The lyrics range from self-criticism to warning and lust to heartache, with its sexual and religious imagery described by one critic as "part bedroom allure, part angelic prayer". The song is the only track without production by West, yet features his characteristic style of manipulating the pitch and tempo of classic soul samples. "Runaway" contains a piano-based motif comprising a series of uninterrupted descending half and whole notes, with a coda that incorporates cello at first, before a violin section and West's vocoder-singing, which is distortion that covers the final three minutes. West uses the song's lyrics to address public opinion and his character issues, proclaiming a toast to all with those flaws. Fennessey cited "Runaway" as the point in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy where "self-laceration overtakes chest-beating", while Graves is taken aback by how the song contains all of its contradictions; "self-mythologizing, rife with hubris, [and] assertively 'artistic' to the point of unintentional parody".
Inspired by West's two-year relationship with model Amber Rose, "Hell of a Life" samples the Mojo Men's "She's My Baby" (1966) and follows a narrative of marrying a porn star that Graves calls "pornographic anxiety". According to Dombal, the song "attempts to bend its central credo—'no more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need'—into a noble pursuit". He wrote that it crosses the lines of "fantasy and reality, sex and romance, love and religion, until no lines exist at all". "Blame Game" is a low-key track that is built around a sample of Richard D. James's piano composition "Avril 14th" (2001), and features additional vocals from Legend. The song focuses on a painful domestic dispute where West and a woman go back and forth aggressively, and contains a profane skit by comedian Chris Rock.
"Lost in the World" features tribal drums and prominent samples from the indie folk band Bon Iver's "Woods" (2009), with West applying the sample "as the centerpiece of a catchy, communal reverie". West enthusiastically told Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon when listening to the song, "Fuck, this is going to be the festival closer." It features several musical changes, beginning with Vernon's faint vocals, followed by 4/4 drums, a gospel chorus, and increased tempo, and a final measured tempo. "Lost in the World" transitions into the closing track "Who Will Survive in America". It serves as the album's coda and samples jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron's "Comment No. 1" (1970), a surrealist piece delivered by him in spoken word about the African American experience and the fated idealism of the American dream. Scott-Heron's original speech is edited to an excerpt that, according to Kot, "retains its essence, that of an African-American male" feeling isolated from the US and his culture. By contrast, Fennessey wrote that the seriousness of the denouement does not suit "an album that is more about the self's little nightmares than some aching societal rejection".
Title and packaging
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was once titled Good Ass Job and then as Dark Twisted Fantasy. On July 28, 2010, West announced on his newly registered Twitter account that the former title was scrapped and he had been considering "a couple of titles". He expressed uncertainty about the title in September, tweeting: "I can't decide on my album title [...] uuuugh!!!!" The official title, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was announced by West on October 5, 2010; Good Ass Job was eventually planned as the title of a collaborative album with Chance the Rapper, which never materialized.
The album's artwork, designed by George Condo, shows West being straddled on a couch by an armless winged female, who has fearsome features and a long, spotted tail. Both are nude, with West shown holding a beer. Bailey sees Condo's style for the cover as pop surrealist and Cubist and portraying "various aspects of West's album themes". He also asserts that its royal red colour is "symbolic of passion, love, anger, and, of course, blood", marked by the starkness. According to Vulture writer Dan Kois, the mythological figure straddling West is "a kind of fragment, between a sphinx, a phoenix, a haunting ghost, a harpy". The artwork was done at Condo's studio, after West visited for several hours and they listened to tapes of his music. Over the next few days, the painter designed eight or nine paintings for the album. Two of them were portraits of West: an extreme closeup, with mismatched eyes and four sets of teeth; a portrait showing his head, crowned and decapitated, placed sideways on a white slab, pierced by a sword. Condo also did a painting of a dyspeptic ballerina in a black tutu and one of the crown alongside the sword in a grassy landscape. He made five covers in total, which were all included with the purchase of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. A second cover containing painting of a ballerina was posted on the Amazon.com pre-order page. The image was originally intended to be the cover art for "Runaway", but West used a photograph of a ballerina instead. Another painting, The Priest, was completed for the album by Condo, who described it as an attempt to bring depictions of religious figures into the modern world.
West told Condo that he wanted a phoenix painting and after he came up with the artwork, the rapper expressed his admiration for how they both "express ourselves with our truest vision". According to Condo, West requested the original cover image to be provocative enough to be banned by retailers, as a publicity stunt. In October 2010, a month before the album's release, West tweeted: "Yoooo they banned my album cover!!!!! Banned in the USA!!! They don't want me chilling on the couch with my Phoenix!" He also suggested Walmart had rejected the cover and cited the case of rock band Nirvana's 1991 album Nevermind, which featured a photo of a naked baby. West questioned why the band are allowed to have someone nude on their cover, but he "can't have a PAINTING of a monster with no arms and a polka dot tail and wings". In response, Walmart denied the suggestion in a statement declaring the company's excitement about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and its arrival in stores. Certain retailers did not carry the original cover, with West substituting it with Condo's ballerina artwork, while some shipped copies used a pixelated version of the original.
In 2015, Billboard named the album's artwork as the 30th best of all time. The magazine wrote that West "matched the widescreen brilliance of the album's music with boundary-cracking art", including a demonic image of him "being straddled by a nude angel". In 2017, NME listed the cover as the seventh best album artwork of the 21st century so far.
Marketing
Before the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, West initiated the music program GOOD Fridays through his website beginning August 20, 2010, offering a free download of a new song for each Friday. West tweeted that he was aware his fans needed new music, "so I'm dropping 1 new song every weekend until Xmas" and he explained a release could be a song by him, Jay-Z, or another artist. Titled after his imprint label GOOD Music, the program generated considerable publicity ahead of the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Young Money Entertainment online marketing coordinator Karen Civil retrospectively called the program genius, detailing that West undertook a program not previously attempted and "at a point when he was the most hated person in music, he brought excitement back with his Friday releases". GOOD Fridays was originally intended to run until December 2010, but West extended it through to January 2011.
On September 12, 2010, West premiered "Runaway" with a live performance at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Three weeks later, on October 2, he performed the song a second time on Saturday Night Live, along with "Power". On October 4, 2010, West announced the album's release date of November 22, after he had previously tweeted that he was "contemplating my album date". The rapper also announced that certain songs from GOOD Fridays would be included on it. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was released by Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella on November 22, 2010, being made available for digital download on Amazon at a list price of $3.99. The deal was only offered by Amazon, while the album was simultaneously made available on iTunes and West's website linked to this release. Four singles were released from it and all reached the top 40 of the US Billboard Hot 100, with the lead single "Power" released on July 1, 2010, charting at number 22. "Runaway" was released on October 4, and reached number 12, while "Monster" and "All of the Lights" were released on October 23, 2010, and January 18, 2011, respectively; they both charted at number 18.
A 35-minute film entitled Runaway, featuring the titular song's official music video, was directed by West and released on October 23, 2010. Filmed in Prague over a period of four days in the summer of 2010, the film stars West and model Selita Ebanks, with the script penned by Hype Williams and the story written by West. West described the video as an overall representation of his dreams and a reflection of feelings throughout his life, including a parallel of the situation from 2009 to 2010. He explained that it is "the story of a phoenix fallen to Earth", whom he makes his girlfriend, though she faces discrimination and eventually "has to burn herself alive and go back to her world". West elaborated how he had been deeply considering the idea of a phoenix for a while, regarding the possibility of it being parallel to his career that he "threw a Molotov cocktail" at, then felt the need "to come back as a better person". At one of his screenings for Runaway in Paris, he broke down into tears. Later after another screening in Los Angeles, West said how his music and art affects people is his inspiration to continue in his career. The film was included on a bonus DVD for the deluxe edition of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
For initial promotion of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, West performed at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in late November 2010. Following the release of the album, West performed headlining sets at several large festivals in 2011, including SXSW, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, and Coachella; the latter was viewed by The Hollywood Reporter as "one of the great hip-hop sets of all time".
Commercial performance
In its first week of release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 496,000 copies. The entry blocked Nicki Minaj's debut album Pink Friday from the top spot with 375,000 sales; the week marked the first time in two years that the chart had two albums bow with over 300,000 units. It also gave West his fourth consecutive US number-one album and surpassed the 450,000 first-week sales of 808s & Heartbreak, with the debut becoming the fourth-best sales week of 2010. The album's first-week digital sales of 224,000 units accounted for 45% of the total and stood as the fourth-highest digital copies for an album in a week.
In its second week on the Billboard 200, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy descended six places to number seven with 108,000 copies sold, marking a 78% sales decline, while remaining above Pink Friday by one place. As of July 2013, it had sold 1,300,000 copies in the United States, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan. By June 2011, the album had sold 483,000 digital copies, ranking as the second best-selling digital rap album ever. On November 23, 2020, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for pushing 3,000,000 certified units in the US. According to Billboard, as of 2022, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the 15 best-performing 21st-century albums without any of its singles being chart-toppers on the Hot 100.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy became West's fourth number one album on the Canadian Albums Chart. It reached number four on the Danish Albums chart, and in March 2021, was certified double platinum by IFPI Danmark for shipments of 40,000. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy opened at number six on the ARIA Albums chart and on September 10, 2021, it was awarded a double platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association for over 140,000 copies shipped in Australia. The album charted within the top 10 in Norway, South Korea, New Zealand, and Switzerland. On January 22, 2021, it received a platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry for selling 300,000 units in the United Kingdom. In 2018, it was reported that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been streamed a billion times on Spotify.
Critical reception
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 94, based on 45 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.8 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.
Numerous reviewers highlighted West's move towards maximalism. Andy Gill of The Independent praised the album as "one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of recent years, a no holds-barred musical extravaganza" that forgoes the concept of good taste from the beginning. Powers, writing for the Los Angeles Times, found West's artistry comparable to Pablo Picasso, reaching "the Cubist mandate of rearranging form, texture, color and space" for suggesting newer viewpoints. The album was called a work of art and West's most lavish record in a review by Time magazine's David Browne, who said it proved again that few other artists shared his ability to adeptly mix diverse elements. Steve Jones of USA Today was impressed by West's display "of sonic flavors — old school hip-hop, progressive rock, R&B, classical music" for how he combines and matches these genres, concluding his only predictability is a consistent drive to make every project his best.
Critics often looked at the album as being among West's best work. Rolling Stone's Sheffield said My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy marked West's best and most wildly inspired album, asserting that no other act was recording music as dark or maximalist; he added the rapper transgresses the conventions he had established himself for rap and pop music in the past five years. James Reed of The Boston Globe said that the album is "seamlessly his personal best" as West becomes self-involved in the varied styles and universal themes, standing as the most original hip hop record of 2010, through his efforts to push the genre's boundaries. Christgau, in MSN Music, hailed it as a "world-beating return to form" for the rapper. Michael Denslow of Consequence wrote that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy features "nine-minute rap epics" which break the traditional verse–chorus form and West manages to convey an attempt at the greatest album of all time, executing this well using "all the swagger and hype with an album that may actually be that good". The Village Voice's Sean Fennessey observed that while the album cannot be perfect as listeners "will reach to call [it]", West's point from the album is imperfection. He also noted the skillful engineering and sequencing, through the way each song transitions over like "some long night out into the hazy morning after". Pitchfork awarded the album a 10/10, the first perfect score the publication had given to a new release since Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2002. Dombal from the publication highlighted West's "blast of surreal pop excess" that the majority of artists would not even try to create.
A few reviewers were more qualified in their praise, mostly focusing on West's rapping. For The Guardian, Kitty Empire was critical of his lyrics calling women "ruthless money-grabbers" on an otherwise "herculean [...] flawed near-masterpiece". AllMusic writer Andy Kellman found West's rapping inconsistent on "a deeply fascinating accomplishment" in his catalogue and one of complicated merit that is "as fatiguing as it is invigorating, as cold-blooded as it is heart-rending, as haphazardly splattered as it is meticulously sculpted", and maintains complexity across 70 minutes. David Amidon from PopMatters desired for West to utilize his rap skills from The College Dropout and that the songs may be good yet he misses "the opportunity to provide us with answers", in spite of the lush production on one of hip hop's "most bloated, egotistical, fantastical, flat-out amazing release[s]" for a while.
Rankings
Numerous critics and publications included My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy on their year-end top albums lists. Many named it the best album of 2010, including Billboard, Time, Slant Magazine, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Spin. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was voted best album in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 2010, winning by the largest margin in the poll's history with 3,250 points. "Power", "Runaway", and "Monster" were voted in the top-10 of the Pazz & Jop singles list. Metacritic, which collates reviews of music albums, identified it as the best-reviewed album of 2010. The album stood as the first rap release to achieve this since Outkast's 2000 album Stankonia and the sixth-highest ranking of albums released in the 2010s to have at least 15 professional reviews.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy later appeared on decade-end best albums lists. In 2012, Complex included it on their list of "25 Rap Albums From the Past Decade That Deserve Classic Status". In October 2013, the magazine ranked the album as the best hip hop album of the last five years. In 2014, Pitchfork named it the best album of the 2010s so far, with Ian Cohen writing, "West broke the ground upon which the new decade's most brilliant architects built their masterworks; Bon Iver, Take Care, Channel Orange, and Good Kid, M.A.A.D City don't exist without the blueprint of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy." It was later ranked as the top album of the 2010s by The A.V. Club, Billboard, and Rolling Stone. Christgau named My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as the decade's eighth-best album, saying it remains "perversely superb".
In 2014, Spin named My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as the eighth best album of the past 30 years, with Dan Weiss noting it is a world combining samples, interpolations, and vocalists; he expressed that West does not believe "one man should have all that power" of God, yet he "lives one hell of a life". Six years later, Marc Hogan from Pitchfork considered it among the great art pop albums of the last 20 years to "have filled the void of full-length statements with both artistic seriousness and mass appeal that was formerly largely occupied by [rock] guitar bands". In 2017, the staff of HipHopDX wrote the album is "widely considered [West's] magnum opus" and the release that made the public's perception of him positive again. EW picked My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as the eighth greatest album of all time in 2016, while it was ranked 21st and 17th on the lists by NME and Rolling Stone in 2013 and 2020, respectively. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Industry awards
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy won awards for both Album of the Year and Reader's Choice: Best Album at the 2010 HipHopDX Awards, receiving over 50 percent of the vote for the latter. The album was awarded CD of the Year at the next year's BET Hip Hop Awards, while it was nominated for Outstanding Album at the 2011 NAACP Image Awards. The album received a nomination for Top Rap Album at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, though ultimately lost to fellow rapper Eminem's Recovery.
For the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was awarded Best Rap Album, while "All of the Lights" was nominated for Song of the Year, Best Rap Song, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, winning in the latter two categories. However, The Recording Academy's decision not to nominate My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for Album of the Year was viewed by many media outlets as a snub, along with the rejection of West and Jay-Z's 2011 effort Watch the Throne in the category. For the Los Angeles Times, Randall Roberts pinpointed the exclusion of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – "the most critically acclaimed album of the year, a career-defining record" – as a snub in favor of nominating less substantial albums. Time journalist Touré deemed West's nominations in minor Grammy categories as booby prizes and stated that the album was easily "the best reviewed album in many years", being lauded by critics "like nothing since Radiohead's zenith", while achieving success with over 1,200,000 sales. The journalist questioned what happened, "How is it Grammy overlooked Kanye's magnum opus and gave noms to four sonic widgets and Adele's 21?" Touré explored possible reasons for the academy to snub West, including split votes between My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne, concerns over his past controversies, and more commercially appealing nominees, but ultimately perceived "a lack of respect for hip hop and its complexity" from those who are into music, yet lack knowledge of the genre. He concluded that despite West releasing "his most mature work, he's being ignored".
Having been vocal about snubs for major categories of award shows in the past, West responded to the Grammy nominees onstage during a concert on the Watch the Throne Tour in December 2011. West believed the snub was due to releasing Watch the Throne and My Beautiful Dark Fantasy within a year of each other, feeling he "should've just spaced it out, just a little bit more". On the 10th anniversary of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Will Lavin of NME recalled that despite winning Best Rap Album, "it was snubbed for Best Album without so much as a nomination". Two years later, Vibe listed the record as one of 10 rap albums snubbed of Album of the Year, with Preezy Brown mentioning this was "a Grammy snub that's one of the more egregious in recent memory".
Track listing
Track notes
^[a] signifies a co-producer
^[b] signifies an additional producer
"Dark Fantasy" features background vocals by Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver member Justin Vernon, and additional vocals by Teyana Taylor and Amber Rose
"Gorgeous" features background vocals by Tony Williams
"Power" features additional vocals by Dwele
"All of the Lights" features additional vocals by Rihanna, Kid Cudi, Tony Williams, The-Dream, Charlie Wilson, John Legend, Elly Jackson of La Roux, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Fergie, Ryan Leslie, Drake, Alvin Fields and Ken Lewis
"Runaway" features background vocals by Tony Williams and additional vocals by The-Dream
"Hell of a Life" features additional vocals by Teyana Taylor and The-Dream
"Blame Game" features additional vocals by Chris Rock and Salma Kenas
"Lost in the World" and "Who Will Survive in America" feature additional vocals by Charlie Wilson, Kaye Fox, Tony Williams, Alicia Keys and Elly Jackson of La Roux
Sample credits
"Dark Fantasy" contains samples of "In High Places", written by Mike Oldfield and Jon Anderson, and performed by Anderson.
"Gorgeous" contains portions and elements of the composition "You Showed Me", written by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn, and performed by The Turtles.
"Power" contains elements from "It's Your Thing", performed by Cold Grits; elements of "Afromerica", written by Francois Bernheim, Jean-Pierre Lang, and Boris Bergman, and performed by Continent Number 6; and material sampled from "21st Century Schizoid Man", composed by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, and Peter Sinfield, and performed by King Crimson.
"So Appalled" contains samples of "You Are – I Am", written by Manfred Mann, and performed by Manfred Mann's Earth Band.
"Devil in a New Dress" contains samples of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and performed by Smokey Robinson.
"Runaway" contains a sample of "Expo 83", written by J. Branch, and performed by Backyard Heavies; and excerpts from Rick James Live at Long Beach, CA, 1981.
"Hell of a Life" contains samples of "She's My Baby", written by Sylvester Stewart, and performed by The Mojo Men; samples of "Stud-Spider" by Tony Joe White; and portions of "Iron Man", written by Terence Butler, Anthony Iommi, John Osbourne, and William Ward, and performed by Black Sabbath.
"Blame Game" contains elements of "Avril 14th", written and performed by Richard James.
"Lost in the World" contains portions of "Soul Makossa", written by Manu Dibango; a sample of "Think (About It)", written by James Brown, and performed by Lyn Collins; samples of "Woods", written by Justin Vernon, and performed by Bon Iver; and "Comment No. 1", written and performed by Gil Scott-Heron.
"Who Will Survive in America" contains samples of "Comment No. 1" performed by Gil Scott-Heron.
Personnel
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.
Charts
Certifications
Release history
Notes
References
External links
Official website
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at Discogs (list of releases) |
King_Crimson | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Crimson | [
366
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Crimson"
] | King Crimson were an English-based progressive rock band formed in London in 1968. Led by guitarist Robert Fripp, they drew inspiration from a wide variety of music, incorporating elements of classical, jazz, folk, heavy metal, gamelan, blues, industrial, electronic, experimental music and new wave. They exerted a strong influence on the early 1970s progressive rock movement, including on contemporaries such as Yes and Genesis, and continue to inspire subsequent generations of artists across multiple genres. The band has earned a large cult following, especially in the 21st century.
Founded by Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald and Peter Sinfield, the band initially focused on a dramatic sound layered with Mellotron, McDonald's saxophone and flute, Giles' complex and polyrhythmic drumming, Fripp's atmospheric guitar sound, and Lake's bass and powerful lead vocals, with gothic lyricism by Sinfield and creative directions by all members of the band. Their debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King (1969), remains their most commercially successful and influential release, with a potent mixture of jazz, classical and experimental music. Following the sudden simultaneous departures of McDonald and Giles (with Lake leaving very shortly afterwards), the next two albums, In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard (both 1970), were recorded during a period of instability in the band's line-up. A settled band of Fripp, Sinfield, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell and Ian Wallace recorded Islands in 1971, though in mid-1972, Fripp let go of this line-up and changed the group's instrumentation and approach, drawing from European free improvisation and developing ever more complex compositions. With Bill Bruford (formerly of Yes), John Wetton, David Cross, and briefly Jamie Muir, they reached what some saw as a creative peak on Larks' Tongues in Aspic (1973), Starless and Bible Black (1974), and Red (1974). King Crimson disbanded at the end of 1974.
After seven years of inactivity, King Crimson was recreated in 1981 with another change in musical direction. The new band comprised Fripp, Bruford and two new American members: Adrian Belew, who previously worked with David Bowie, Frank Zappa and Talking Heads, and Tony Levin, a prolific session musician who was noted for his studio and live work with Peter Gabriel. They drew influence from African music, gamelan, post-punk and New York minimalism. This band lasted three years, resulting in the trio of albums Discipline (1981), Beat (1982) and Three of a Perfect Pair (1984). Following a decade-long hiatus, they reformed in 1994, adding Pat Mastelotto, formerly of Mr. Mister, and Trey Gunn for a sextet line-up Fripp called "The Double Trio". The double trio participated in another three-year cycle of activity that included the release of Thrak (1995), and multiple concert recordings. There was a hiatus between 1997 and 2000. Fripp, Belew, Mastelotto and Gunn reunited in 2000 as a more industrial-oriented King Crimson, called "The Double Duo", releasing The Construkction of Light (2000) and The Power to Believe (2003). After a five-year hiatus, the band added Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree as a second drummer, with Levin returning in place of Gunn, for a 2008 tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of their 1968 formation.
Following another hiatus (2009–2012), during which Fripp was thought to be retired, King Crimson came together again in 2013; this time as a septet (and, later, octet) with an unusual three-drumkit frontline, and new second guitarist and singer Jakko Jakszyk. This version of King Crimson continued to tour from 2014 to 2021, and released multiple live albums. After the band's final show in 2021, Fripp commented that King Crimson had "moved from sound to silence."
History
1967–1968: Giles, Giles and Fripp
In August 1967, brothers Michael and Peter Giles, drummer and singer/bassist respectively and pro musicians in working bands since their mid-teens in Dorset, England, advertised for a "singing organist" to join a group they were forming. Fellow Dorset musician Robert Fripp – a guitarist who neither played organ nor sang – responded, and Giles, Giles and Fripp was born. The trio recorded several quirky singles and one eclectic album, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp. They hovered on the edge of success, and even made a television appearance, but were never able to make a commercial breakthrough.
Attempting to expand their sound, the three recruited Ian McDonald on keyboards, reeds and woodwinds. McDonald brought along two new participants: his then-girlfriend, former Fairport Convention singer Judy Dyble, whose brief tenure with the group ended when the two split, and lyricist, roadie, and art strategist Peter Sinfield, with whom he had been writing songs – a partnership initiated when McDonald had said to Sinfield (regarding his band Creation), "Peter, I have to tell you that your band is hopeless, but you write some great words. Would you like to get together on a couple of songs?" Fripp, meanwhile, saw Clouds at the Marquee Club in London which spurred him to incorporate classically inspired melodies into his writing, and utilise improvisation to find new ideas. No longer interested in Peter Giles' more whimsical pop songs, Fripp recommended that his old friend, fellow guitarist and singer Greg Lake could join to replace either Peter or Fripp himself. Peter Giles later called it one of Fripp's "cute political moves". According to Michael Giles, his brother had become disillusioned with the band's lack of success and departed before Fripp suggested Lake to fill Peter Giles' position as bassist and singer.
1968–1970: Original lineup and In the Court of the Crimson King
The first incarnation of King Crimson—Fripp, Michael Giles, Lake, McDonald and Sinfield—was formed on 30 November 1968 with rehearsals beginning on 13 January 1969. Sinfield coined the band's name in "a moment of pressured panic". Sinfield had already used the term "crimson king" in a set of lyrics before his involvement with Giles, Giles and Fripp. Sinfield insisted that the name wasn't Beelzebub, prince of demons, and that a "crimson king" was any ruler during whose reign there were "societal rumblings" and "sort of the dark forces of the world". According to Fripp, King Crimson is a synonym for Beelzebub, which is an anglicised form of the Arabic phrase "B'il Sabab", meaning "the man with an aim", to which he related. At this early point, McDonald was the primary composer, with vital contributions from Fripp and Lake, while Sinfield wrote all the lyrics on his own, and also designed and operated the band's unique stage lighting, being credited with "words and illumination" on the album sleeve. Inspired by the Moody Blues, McDonald suggested the group purchase a Mellotron keyboard, and this became a key component of the early Crimson sound. Sinfield described the original Crimson thus: "If it sounded at all popular, it was out. So it had to be complicated, it had to be more expansive chords, it had to have strange influences. If it sounded, like, too simple, we'd make it more complicated, we'd play it in 7/8 or 5/8, just to show off".
King Crimson's first live performance was at the Speakeasy Club in London on 9 April 1969 (with Yes guitarist Peter Banks among the audience). Their big breakthrough came on 5 July 1969 by playing as a support act at the Rolling Stones' free concert in Hyde Park, London before an estimated 500,000 people. The debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in October 1969 on Island Records. Fripp would later describe it as having been "an instant smash" and "New York's acid album of 1970" (notwithstanding Fripp and Giles' assertion that the band never used psychedelic drugs). Who guitarist and composer Pete Townshend called the album "an uncanny masterpiece." The album contains Sinfield's gothic lyrics and its sound was described as having "dark and doom-laden visions". Its opening track "21st Century Schizoid Man" was described as "proto-metal" and the song's lyrics criticise the military involvement of the United States in Southeast Asia. In contrast to the blues-based hard rock of the contemporary British and American scenes, King Crimson presented a more Europeanised approach that blended antiquity and modernity. The band's music drew on a wide range of influences provided by all five group members. These elements included classical music, the psychedelic rock spearheaded by Jimi Hendrix, folk, jazz, military music (partially inspired by McDonald's stint as an army musician) and free improvisation.
After playing shows across England, the band toured the US with various pop and rock acts. Their first show was at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. While the band found success and critical acclaim, creative tensions were already developing. Giles and McDonald, still striving to cope with King Crimson's rapid success and the realities of touring life, became uneasy with their musical direction. Although he was neither the dominant composer nor the frontman, Fripp was very much the group's driving force and spokesman, leading them into progressively darker and more intense musical areas. McDonald and Giles, now favouring a lighter and more nuanced romantic style, became increasingly uncomfortable with their position and resigned after the conclusion of the US tour in January 1970. To keep the band together, Fripp offered to resign himself, but McDonald declared that King Crimson was "more (him) than them" and that he and Giles should therefore be the ones to leave. McDonald later said he "was probably not emotionally mature enough to handle it" and made a "rash decision to leave without consulting anyone". The original lineup played their last show at the Fillmore West in San Francisco on 14 December 1969, a little over one year after forming. Live recordings of the band from 1969 were released in 1997 on Epitaph and in 2010 on the In the Court of the Crimson King (1969) box set.
1970–1971: In the Wake of Poseidon and Lizard
King Crimson spent 1970 in a state of flux with various lineup changes, thwarted tour plans, and difficulties in finding a satisfactory musical direction while Fripp was learning and developing as a songwriter during the writing process of the next three albums. As well as guitar, Fripp took on keyboard duties, while Sinfield expanded his creative role to operating synthesizers.
Following McDonald and Giles' departure, Lake, unsure of the band's future without them, began discussions with Keith Emerson of the Nice about possibly forming a new band together. With Fripp and Sinfield planning for recording the second King Crimson album, and Lake's position uncertain, the band's management booked Elton John to sing the material as a session musician, but Fripp decided against this idea after listening to his Empty Sky album. Lake agreed to stay with the band until Emerson had completed remaining commitments with the Nice, at which point he left to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer. On the resulting In the Wake of Poseidon album, Lake provided all the lead vocals except on "Cadence and Cascade", as he left before he was able to complete this track. Fripp's old school friend Gordon Haskell was brought in to provide the vocal on the song. The sessions also included Michael and Peter Giles on drums and bass respectively, saxophonist Mel Collins (formerly of the band Circus) and jazz pianist Keith Tippett. Upon its release in May 1970, In the Wake of Poseidon reached No. 4 in the UK and No. 31 in the US. It received some criticism from those who thought it sounded too similar to their first album. With no set band to perform the new material, Fripp and Sinfield kept Mel Collins and Gordon Haskell on board, with Haskell doubling as lead vocalist and bassist, and Andy McCulloch joined as drummer. In addition to saxophone, Collins would also act as occasional keyboard player and backing vocalist.
Fripp and Sinfield wrote the third album, Lizard, themselves – with Haskell, Collins and McCulloch having no say in the direction of the material. In addition to the core band, several session musicians contributed to the Lizard recording, including the returning Keith Tippett, who was offered to be a member of the new lineup, but due to other commitments preferred to continue working with the band as an occasional guest musician, and two members of Tippett's band, Mark Charig on cornet, and Nick Evans on trombone. Robin Miller (on oboe and cor anglais) also appeared, while Jon Anderson of Yes was brought in to sing a section of the album's title track, "Prince Rupert Awakes", which Fripp and Sinfield considered to be outside Haskell's natural range and style. Lizard featured stronger jazz and chamber-classical influences than previous albums. The album contains Sinfield's "phantasmagorical" lyrics, including "Happy Family" (an allegory of the break-up of the Beatles), and the title track, a suite which took up the entire second side, describing a medieval/mythological battle and its outcome.
Released in December 1970, Lizard reached No. 29 in the UK and No. 113 in the US. Described retrospectively as an "outlier", the album had been made by a group in disagreement over method and taste. The more rhythm-and-blues-oriented Haskell and McCulloch both found the music difficult to relate to, and tedious and confusing to record. Collins disliked how his parts were composed, while both Fripp and Haskell detested Sinfield's lyrics. This lineup of the band did not survive much longer than the Lizard recording sessions. Haskell quit the band acrimoniously during initial tour rehearsals after refusing to sing live with distortion and electronic effects on his voice, and McCulloch departed soon after. With Sinfield not being a musician and Fripp having seemingly given up on the band, Collins was left to search for new members.
1971–1972: Islands
After a search for a drummer to replace McCulloch, Ian Wallace was secured. Fripp was re-energised by the addition of a new member, and he joined Collins and Wallace to audition singers and bassists. Vocalists who tried out included Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music and even one of the band's managers, John Gaydon. The position eventually went to Raymond "Boz" Burrell. John Wetton was invited to join on bass, but declined in order to join Family instead. Rick Kemp (later of Steeleye Span) rehearsed with the band, but declined the final offer to formally join. Fripp decided to teach Boz to play bass rather than continue the labored auditions. Though he had not played bass before, Burrell had played enough acoustic guitar to assist him in learning the instrument quickly. Wallace was able to further instruct Burrell in functioning on the instrument in a rhythm section. With a lineup now complete, King Crimson began touring in May 1971, the first time they had played live since the original lineup's last show on 14 December 1969. The concerts were well received, but the musical differences between Fripp and the rest of the group, and the somewhat wilder lifestyles of Collins, Wallace and Burrell, alienated the drug-free Fripp, who began to withdraw socially from his bandmates, creating further tension.
In 1971, the new King Crimson formation recorded Islands. Sinfield, who favoured a softer approach, took lyrical inspiration from Homer's Odyssey, musical inspiration from jazz players like Miles Davis and Ahmad Jamal, and a sun-drenched trip to Ibiza and Formentera. Islands featured the instrumental "Sailor's Tale", with a droning Mellotron and Fripp's banjo-inspired guitar solo; the raunchy blues-rocker "Ladies of the Road", a tribute to groupies which featured Wallace and Collins singing Beatles-esque backing vocals; and "Song of the Gulls", which was developed from an earlier Fripp instrumental ("Suite No. 1" from Giles, Giles & Fripp's 1968 album), and would be the only time the band would utilize an orchestra. Burrell disliked Sinfield's lyrics and one of the band members allegedly called Islands as "an airy-fairy piece of shit".
Released in December 1971, Islands charted at No. 30 in the UK and No. 76 in the US. Following a tour of the United States in December 1971, Fripp informed Sinfield that he could no longer work with him, and asked him to leave the band. In January 1972, the remaining band broke up acrimoniously in rehearsals, owing partially to Fripp's refusal to play a composition by Collins. He later cited this as "quality control", with the idea that King Crimson would perform the "right" kind of music.
In order to fulfil touring contracts in the United States in 1972, King Crimson reformed with the intention of disbanding immediately after the tour. Recordings from various North American dates between January and February 1972 were released as Earthbound in June of that year. The album was noted for its playing style that occasionally veered towards funk, and Burrell's scat singing on the improvised pieces, but was criticised for its sub-par sound quality. Further, better-quality, live recordings from this era would be released in 2002 as Ladies of the Road and in 2017 on the Sailors' Tales (1970–1972) box set. By this time, the musical rift between Fripp and the rest of the band had grown very wide. Wallace, Burrell and Collins favoured improvised blues and funk. Fripp would later describe the 1971–1972 lineup as more of a jam band than an "improvising" band, an opinion with which Wallace disagreed. Personal relations actually improved during the tour to the point where most of the band decided to continue on, however Fripp opted to part company with the other three, restructuring King Crimson with new musicians, as he felt the other members wouldn't be fully engaged in the musical direction he had in mind.
1972–1975: Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Starless and Bible Black, Red and hiatus
The next incarnation of King Crimson was radically different from the previous configurations. Fripp's four new recruits were free-improvising percussionist Jamie Muir, drummer Bill Bruford, who left Yes at a commercial peak in their career in favour of the "darker" Crimson, bassist and vocalist John Wetton (who left Family), and violinist, keyboardist and flautist David Cross, whom Fripp had met when he was invited to a rehearsal of Waves, a band Cross was working in. Most of the musical compositions were collaborations between Fripp and Wetton, who each composed segments independently and fitted together those which they found compatible. With Sinfield gone, the band recruited Wetton's friend Richard Palmer-James (from the original Supertramp) as their new lyricist. Unlike Sinfield, Palmer-James was not an official member of King Crimson, playing no part in artistic decisions, visual ideas, or sonic directions; his sole contributions to the group were his lyrics, sent via mail from his home in Germany. Following a period of rehearsals, King Crimson resumed touring on 13 October 1972 at the Zoom Club in Frankfurt, with the band's penchant for improvisation (and Muir's startling stage presence) gaining them renewed press attention.
In January and February 1973, King Crimson recorded Larks' Tongues in Aspic in London which was released that March. The band's new sound was exemplified by the album's two-part title track – a significant change from what King Crimson had done before, the piece emphasised the sharp instrumental interplay of the band, and drew influence from modern classical music, noisy free improv, and even heavy metal riffing. The record displayed Muir's unusual approach to percussion, which included a self-modified drum kit, assorted toys, a bullroarer, mbira, gongs, balloons, thunder sheet and chains. On stage, Muir also employed unpredictable, manic movements, bizarre clothing, and fake blood capsules (occasionally spit or applied to the head), becoming the sole example of such theatrical stage activity in the band's long history. The album reached No. 20 in the UK and No. 61 in the US. After a period of further touring, Muir departed in 1973, quitting the music industry altogether. Muir told King Crimson's management that he had decided a musician's life was not for him, and he had chosen to join a Scottish Buddhist monastery. He offered to serve a period of notice which the management declined. Instead of reiterating Muir's decision, the management informed the band and the public that Muir had sustained an onstage injury caused by a gong landing on his foot.
With Muir gone, the remaining members reconvened in January 1974 to produce Starless and Bible Black, released in March 1974, which earned them a positive Rolling Stone review. Though most of the album was recorded live during the band's late 1973 tour, the recordings were carefully edited and overdubbed to sound like a studio record, with "The Great Deceiver", "Lament" and the second half of "The Night Watch" the only tracks recorded entirely in the studio. The album reached No. 28 in the UK and No. 64 in the US. Following the album's release, the band began to divide once more, this time over performance. Musically, Fripp found himself positioned between Bruford and Wetton, who played with such force and increasing volume that Fripp once compared them to "a flying brick wall", and Cross, whose amplified acoustic violin was consistently being drowned out by the rhythm section, leading him to concentrate more on Mellotron and an overdriven electric piano. An increasingly frustrated Cross began to withdraw both musically and personally, with the result being that he was voted out of the group following the band's 1974 tour of Europe and America.
In July 1974, Fripp, Bruford, and Wetton began recording Red. Before recording began, Fripp, now increasingly disillusioned with the music industry, turned his attention to the works of English mystic J.G. Bennett and had a spiritual experience in which "the top of my head blew off". Most of the album had been developed during live improvisations before Fripp retreated into himself and "withdrew his opinion", leaving Bruford and Wetton to direct the recording sessions. The album contains one live track, "Providence", recorded on 30 June 1974 with Cross playing violin. Several guest musicians (including former members Ian McDonald and Mel Collins) contributed to the album. Released on 6 October 1974, Red went to No. 45 in the UK and No. 66 in the US. AllMusic called it "an impressive achievement" for a group about to disband, with "intensely dynamic" musical chemistry between the band members.
Two months before the release of Red, King Crimson's future looked bright (with talks regarding founder member Ian McDonald rejoining the group). However, Fripp wished not to tour as he felt increasingly disenchanted by the group and the music industry. He also felt the world was going to drastically change by 1981 and that he had to prepare for it. Despite a band meeting while touring the US in which Fripp expressed a desire to end the band, the group did not formally disband until 25 September 1974 and later Fripp announced that King Crimson had "ceased to exist" and was "completely over for ever and ever". It was later revealed that Fripp had attempted to replace himself with McDonald and Steve Hackett of Genesis, but this idea was rejected by the managers. Following the band's disbanding, the live album USA was released in May 1975, formed of recordings from their 1974 North American tour. It received some positive reviews, including "a must" for fans of the band and "insanity you're better off having". Issues with the tapes rendered some of Cross' playing inaudible, so Eddie Jobson of Roxy Music was hired to perform violin and keyboard overdubs in a studio; further edits were also made to allow the music to fit on a single LP. More live recordings from the 1972–1974 era would be issued as The Night Watch in 1997, and as part of the box sets The Great Deceiver (1992), Larks' Tongues in Aspic (1972–1973) (2012), The Road to Red (1974), and Starless (1973–1974) (both 2014). Between 1975 and 1981, King Crimson were completely inactive.
1981–1984: Discipline, Beat, Three of a Perfect Pair and second hiatus
In the late autumn of 1980, having spent several years on spiritual pursuits and then gradually returning to music (playing guitar for David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Daryl Hall, pursuing an experimental solo career, leading instrumental new wave band The League of Gentlemen), Fripp decided to form a new "first division" rock group, but had no intentions of it being King Crimson. Having recruited Bill Bruford as drummer, Fripp asked singer and guitarist Adrian Belew to join, the first time Fripp would actively seek collaboration with another guitarist in a band and therefore indicative of Fripp's desire to create something unlike any of his previous work. After touring with Talking Heads, Belew agreed to join and also become the band's lyricist. Bruford's suggestion of his bassist Jeff Berlin was rejected as Fripp thought his playing was "too busy", so auditions were held in New York: on the third day, Fripp left after roughly three auditions, only to return several hours later with Tony Levin (who got the job after playing a single chorus of "Red"). Fripp later confessed that, had he known that Levin (whom Fripp had played with in Peter Gabriel's group) was available and interested, he would have selected him without holding auditions. Fripp named the new quartet Discipline, and they went to England to rehearse and write new material. They made their live debut at Moles Club in Bath, Somerset on 30 April 1981, and completed a short tour supported by the Lounge Lizards. By October 1981, the band had opted to change their name to King Crimson.
In 1981, King Crimson recorded Discipline with producer Rhett Davies. The album displayed a very different version of the band, with newer influences including post-punk, new wave, funk, minimalism, pointillism, world music and African percussion. With a sound described in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide as having a "jaw-dropping technique" of "knottily rhythmic, harmonically demanding workouts". The title track "Discipline" was described as a postminimalist rock song. Fripp intended to create the sound of a "rock gamelan", with an interlocking rhythmic quality to the paired guitars that he found similar to Indonesian gamelan ensembles. Fripp concentrated on playing complex picked arpeggios, while Belew provided an arsenal of guitar sounds that "often mimic animal noises". In addition to bass guitar, Levin used the Chapman Stick, a ten-string two-handed tapping, hybrid guitar and bass instrument which he played in an "utterly original style". Bruford experimented with cymbal-less acoustic kits and a Simmons SDS-V electronic drum kit. The band's songs were shorter in comparison to previous King Crimson albums, and very much shaped by Belew's pop sensibilities and quirky approach to writing lyrics. Though the band's previous taste for improvisation was now tightly reined in, one instrumental ("The Sheltering Sky") emerged from group rehearsals; while the noisy, half-spoken/half-shouted "Indiscipline" was a partially written, part-improvised piece created in order to give Bruford a chance to escape from the strict rhythmic demands of the rest of the album. Released in September 1981, Discipline reached No. 41 in the UK and No. 45 in the US.
In June 1982, King Crimson followed Discipline with Beat, the first King Crimson album recorded with the same band lineup as the album preceding it. Beat is the only album where Fripp had no involvement in the original mixing; Davies and Belew undertook production duties. The album had a linked theme of the Beat Generation and its writings, reflected in song titles such as "Neal and Jack and Me" (inspired by Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac), "Heartbeat" (inspired by Carolyn Cassady's "Heart Beat: My Life with Jack and Neal"), "The Howler" (inspired by Allen Ginsberg's "Howl") and "Waiting Man" (inspired by William Burroughs). The album contained themes of life on the road, existential angst and romanticism. While Beat was more accessible, it had the improvised "Requiem", which featured Frippertronics, a guitar technique invented by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp using a tape loop system.
Recording Beat was faced with tension with Belew suffering high stress levels over his duties as front man, lead singer, and principal songwriter. On one occasion, he clashed with Fripp and ordered him out of the studio. As Beat reached No. 39 in the UK and No. 52 in the US, King Crimson resumed touring. "Heartbeat" was released as a single which peaked at No. 57 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. Around this time the band released the VHS The Noise: Live in Frejus, a document of a show played at the Arena, Frejus, France on 27 August 1982, co-headlining with Roxy Music (whose set from the same show was also released on VHS as The High Road). The VHS was later re-released as part of the Neal and Jack and Me DVD in 2004.
King Crimson's next album, Three of a Perfect Pair, was recorded in 1983 and released in March 1984. Having encountered difficulty in both writing and determining a direction for the album, the band chose to record and call the album's first half a "left side" – four of the band's poppier songs plus an instrumental – and the second half a "right side" – experimental work, improvisations that drew influence from industrial music, plus the third part of the "Larks' Tongues in Aspic" series of compositions. The stress during the writing process and the tension between the band members manifested in both lyrical content and music, and the result is a "nerve-racking" album. The 2001 remaster of the album included the "other side", a collection of remixes and improvisational out-takes plus Levin's humorous song, "The King Crimson Barbershop". Three of a Perfect Pair peaked at No. 30 in the UK and No. 58 in the US, with "Three of a Perfect Pair" and "Sleepless" being released as singles. A VHS document of the Three of a Perfect Pair tour, Three of a Perfect Pair: Live in Japan, was released later in 1984 (and later also included on the Neal and Jack and Me DVD). The last concert of the Three of a Perfect Pair tour, at the Spectrum in Montreal, Canada on 11 July 1984, was recorded and released in 1998 as Absent Lovers: Live in Montreal. Further live recordings of the 1980s band would be released in 2016 as part of the On (and off) The Road (1981–1984) box set. Despite their conflict, the musicians remained professional on stage.
Following the 1984 tour, Fripp dissolved King Crimson for the second time, exactly ten years after dissolving the previous group. Bruford and Belew expressed some frustration over this; Belew recalled the first he had heard of the split was when he read about it in a report in Musician magazine.
1994–1999: The Double Trio, Vrooom, THRAK and the ProjeKcts
In the summer of 1991, Belew met with Fripp in England to express an interest in reviving King Crimson. One year later, Fripp established his Discipline Global Mobile (DGM) record label with producer David Singleton. Subsequently, DGM would be the primary home for Fripp's work, with larger album releases distributed to bigger record companies (initially Virgin records), and smaller releases handled by DGM. This afforded Fripp and his associates greater creative freedom and more control over all aspects of their work.
In late 1991, Fripp asked former Japan singer David Sylvian to join the new King Crimson band, but Sylvian declined the offer, though the two collaborated as Sylvian/Fripp. In June 1993, Fripp began to assemble a larger version of the band, joined by Belew and Levin from the 1980s quartet, Chapman Stick player Trey Gunn (a veteran of Fripp's Guitar Craft courses) and drummer Jerry Marotta, with whom Fripp had played with Peter Gabriel. After Sylvian/Fripp's closing concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in December 1993, a tour that Marotta didn't participate in, Fripp decided to ask the tour's drummer Pat Mastelotto, formerly of Mr. Mister, to join instead of Marotta. Bruford wound up being the last of the 1980s group to return to the band. Fripp explained that he had a vision of a "Double Trio" with two drummers while driving along the Chalke Valley one afternoon in 1992. Bruford later said he lobbied Fripp last minute because he believed that Crimson was very much "his gig", and that Fripp had come up with a philosophical explanation for utilizing both Mastelotto and himself later. One of the conditions Fripp imposed upon Bruford if he were to return was to give up all creative control to Fripp.
Following rehearsals in Woodstock, New York, the group released the EP Vrooom in October 1994. This revealed the new King Crimson sound, which featured the interlocking guitars of the 1980s mixed with the layered, heavier feel of the 1970s period. There was also a vague influence from the industrial music of that time. Many of the songs were written or finalised by Belew, and displayed stronger elements of 1960s pop than before; in particular, a Beatles influence. Bruford would refer to the band as sounding like "a dissonant Shadows on steroids". As with previous lineups, new technology was utilised, including MIDI (extensively used as an effects filter by Belew and Gunn, and which Fripp used to replace Frippertronics with an upgraded digital version of itself called "Soundscapes") and the versatile Warr tap guitar with which Gunn replaced his Stick in 1995. King Crimson toured the album from 28 September 1994 in Buenos Aires, Argentina; portions of these concerts were released on the double live CD set B'Boom: Live in Argentina in 1995.
In October and December 1994, King Crimson recorded their eleventh studio album, THRAK. Formed mostly of revised versions of the tracks from Vrooom, plus new tracks, the album was described by Q magazine as having "jazz-scented rock structures, characterised by noisy, angular, exquisite guitar interplay" and an "athletic, ever-inventive rhythm section," while being in tune with the sound of alternative rock of the mid-1990s. Examples of the band's efforts to integrate their multiple elements could be heard on the accessible (but complex) songs "Dinosaur" and "Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream", the more straightforward ballad "One Time", as well as "Radio I" and "Radio II"- a pair of Fripp's Soundscapes instrumentals.
King Crimson resumed touring in 1995 and into 1996; dates from October and November 1995 were recorded and released on the live album THRaKaTTaK in May 1996, which is an hour of improvised music integrating sections from performances from the "THRAK" tour in the United States and Japan, mixed and arranged by Fripp's DGM partner, engineer David Singleton. A more conventional live recording from the period was later made available as the double CD release Vrooom Vrooom (2001), while a full 1995 concert was released on VHS in 1996 as Live in Japan and re-released on DVD in 1999 as Déjà Vrooom. The double trio would be further honored by the THRAK (1994–1997) box set in 2015.
Writing rehearsals began in May 1997 in Nashville, Tennessee. Fripp was dissatisfied with the quality of the new music being developed by the band; Longstanding friction and disagreements between himself and Bruford led to the latter deciding to leave King Crimson for good. The resulting bad atmosphere and the lack of workable material almost broke the band up altogether. Instead, the six members opted to work in four smaller groups (or "fraKctalisations", as Fripp called them) known as ProjeKcts. This enabled the group to continue developing ideas and searching for a new direction without the practical difficulty (and expense) of convening all six musicians at once. From 1997 to 1999, the first four ProjeKcts played live in the United States and the United Kingdom, and released recordings that showed a high degree of free improvisation, with influences ranging from jazz, industrial, techno and drum'n'bass. These have been collectively described by music critic J. D. Considine as "frequently astonishing" but lacking in melody. After Bruford had played four dates with Projekct One in December 1997, he left King Crimson to resume working with his own jazz group Earthworks.
1999–2003: The Double Duo, The Construkction of Light and The Power to Believe
In October 1999, King Crimson reconvened. Tony Levin was busy working as a session musician and decided to take a hiatus from the group, so the remaining members (Fripp, Belew, Gunn and Mastelotto) formed the "Double Duo" to write and record The Construkction of Light in Belew's basement studio and garage near Nashville. Fripp was inspired by Tool's album Undertow during the writing process of The Construkction of Light. Released in May 2000, the album reached No. 129 in the UK. Most of the pieces were metallic, harsh and industrial in sound. They featured a distinct electronic texture, a heavily processed electric drum sound from Mastelotto, Gunn taking over the bass role on Warr Guitar, and a different take on the interlocking guitar sound that the band had pioneered in the 1980s. With the exception of an industrial blues (sung by Belew through a voice changer under the pseudonym of "Hooter J. Johnson"), the songs were dense and complex. The album contains the fourth installment of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic". It received a negative reception for lacking new ideas. The band recorded an album of improvised instrumentals at the same time, and released them under the name ProjeKct X, on the CD Heaven and Earth.
King Crimson toured to support both albums, including double bill shows with Tool. The tour was documented on the live album Heavy ConstruKction in 2000 and the Heaven & Earth (1997–2008) box set in 2019. Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones and his band supported Crimson on some live shows.
On 9 November 2001, King Crimson released a limited edition live EP called Level Five, featuring three new pieces: "Dangerous Curves", "Level Five" and "Virtuous Circle", plus versions of "The Construkction of Light" and ProjeKct's "The Deception of the Thrush", followed by an unlisted track called "ProjeKct 12th and X" after one minute of silence. A second EP followed in October 2002, Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With. This featured eleven tracks (including a live version of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part IV"). Half of the tracks were processed vocal snippets by Belew, and the songs themselves varied between Soundscapes, gamelan, heavy metal and blues.
The double duo lineup released King Crimson's thirteenth album, The Power to Believe, in March 2003. Fripp described it as "the culmination of three years of Crimsonising". The album incorporated, reworked and retitled versions of "Deception of the Thrush" ("The Power to Believe III"); tracks from their previous two EPs; and an extract from a Fripp Soundscape with added instrumentation and vocals. The Power to Believe reached No. 162 in the UK and No. 150 in the US. King Crimson toured in 2003 to support the album; recordings from it were used for the live album EleKtrik: Live in Japan. 2003 also saw the release of the DVD Eyes Wide Open, a compilation of the band's shows Live at the Shepherds Bush Empire (London, 3 July 2000) and Live in Japan (Tokyo, 16 April 2003).
In November 2003, Gunn left the group to pursue solo projects and was replaced by the returning Tony Levin. The band reconvened in early 2004 for rehearsals, but nothing developed from these sessions. They went on another hiatus. At this point, Fripp was publicly reassessing his desire to work within the music industry, often citing the unsympathetic aspects of the life of a touring musician, such as "the illusion of intimacy with celebrities".
On 21 September 2006, former King Crimson member Boz Burrell died of a heart attack, followed by another former member, Ian Wallace, who died of esophageal cancer on 22 February 2007.
2008: 40th Anniversary tour and third hiatus
A new King Crimson formation was announced in 2007: Fripp, Belew, Levin, Mastelotto, and a new second drummer, Gavin Harrison. In August 2008, after a period of rehearsals, the five completed the band's 40th Anniversary Tour. The setlists featured no new material, drawing instead from the existing mid '70s era/Discipline-era/Double Trio/Double Duo repertoire. Additional shows were planned for 2009, but were cancelled due to scheduling clashes with Belew.
King Crimson began another hiatus after the 40th Anniversary Tour. Belew continued to lobby for reviving the band, and discussed it with Fripp several times in 2009 and 2010. Among Belew's suggestions was a temporary reunion of the 1980s line-up for a thirtieth anniversary tour: an idea declined by both Fripp and Bruford, the latter commenting "I would be highly unlikely to try to recreate the same thing, a mission I fear destined to failure." In December 2010, Fripp wrote that the King Crimson "switch" had been set to "off" since October 2008, citing several reasons for this decision.
In August 2012, Fripp announced his retirement from the music industry, leaving the future of King Crimson uncertain.
2014–2021: The Seven-Headed Beast and Three Over Five lineups
Prior to Fripp's retirement announcement, a band called Jakszyk, Fripp and Collins (and subtitled "A King Crimson ProjeKct") had released an album called A Scarcity of Miracles in 2011. The band featured guitarist and singer Jakko Jakszyk (who'd previously performed King Crimson material with 21st Century Schizoid Band), Fripp and former Crimson saxophonist Mel Collins as the main players/composers, with Tony Levin playing bass and Gavin Harrison playing drums. At one point, Fripp referred to the band as "P7" (ProjeKct Seven). Unusually for a ProjeKct, it was based around "finely crafted" and "mid-paced" original songs derived from improvised sessions.
In September 2013, Fripp announced King Crimson's return to activity with a "very different reformation to what has gone before: seven players, four English and three American, with three drummers". He cited several reasons to make a comeback, varying from the practical to the whimsical: "I was becoming too happy. Time for a pointed stick." The new line-up drew from both the previous lineup (retaining Fripp, Levin, Harrison and Mastelotto) and the Scarcity of Miracles project (Jakszyk and Collins), with Guitar Craft alumnus and former R.E.M./Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin as the seventh member. Adrian Belew was not asked to take part, thus ending his 32-year tenure in King Crimson: Jakszyk took his place as singer and second guitarist. This version of the group took on the nickname of "the Seven-Headed Beast".
This drastically revamped King Crimson had no plans to record in the studio, focussing instead on playing "reconfigured" versions of past material in live concerts. Looking back later at this King Crimson phase, Tony Levin would comment "we were instructed/advised by Robert Fripp to look at the older classic King Crimson material as if we had written it. And so we did that with a lot of older material that the band had done before the '80s. We didn’t actually cover that much of the '80s material outside of a few songs."
For the most part, this approach would remain consistent for the remainder of the band's lifetime. In early 2014, and for the first time since 1974, the band's repertoire included songs from the run of albums between In The Court of the Crimson King and Larks' Tongues in Aspic as well as reviving song material from Red. No Adrian Belew-era songs were included in the setlist, although some instrumentals from the period were played (including items from THRAK and The Power to Believe). At the same time, two brand new songs mainly written by Fripp and Jakszyk ("Meltdown" and "Suitable Grounds for the Blues") were debuted at live concerts.
After rehearsing in England, King Crimson toured North America from 9 September to 6 October. Recordings from the Los Angeles dates were released as Live at the Orpheum: this included new King Crimson instrumental music in the shape of "Banshee Legs Bell Hassle" and "Walk On: Monk Morph Chamber Music".
Tours across Europe, Canada, and Japan followed in the later half of 2015. A live recording from the Canadian leg of the tour was released at the end of February 2016 as Live In Toronto, which included three more new Crimson instrumental pieces ("Threshold Soundscape", "Radical Action (To Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind)" and "The Hell Hounds of Krim"). A European tour was planned for 2016. Following Rieflin's decision to take a break from music, drummer Jeremy Stacey of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds was called in place for dates from September.
A further live album, Radical Action to Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind, was released in September 2016, drawing from 2015 concert dates of Japan, Canada and France preceding Rieflin's departure and Stacey's arrival. Further documenting the band's shuffling and evolving live set, it included one new instrumental ("Devil Dogs of Tessellation Row") and demonstrated that King Crimson were now incorporating material from A Scarcity of Miracles (the title track, plus "The Light of Day") into the band's repertoire.
On 7 December 2016, founding King Crimson member Greg Lake died of cancer. Another former King Crimson member, John Wetton, died of colon cancer on 31 January 2017.
On 3 January 2017, Bill Rieflin returned to King Crimson. Since the band wished to retain Jeremy Stacey, Fripp called the new lineup the "Double Quartet Formation", referencing four drummers. Consequently, King Crimson became an octet, with Fripp rechristening the lineup the "Three Over Five" (or "Five Over Three") Formation. Later on, Rieflin shifted his group role and became King Crimson's first full-time keyboard player.
On 2 June 2017, King Crimson released a new live EP named Heroes, featuring a cover of the David Bowie song of the same name. The EP was intended as a tribute to Bowie, for whom Fripp had provided distinctive guitar work on the albums "Heroes" (1977) and Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980). The video to King Crimson's version of "Heroes" won "Video of the Year" at the 2017 Progressive Music Awards. Shortly afterwards, King Crimson embarked on a United States tour beginning on 11 June and ending on 26 November. On 3 September, Robert Fripp said that his differences with Adrian Belew had been resolved and that there were "no current plans for (him) to come out with the current formation" but "the doors to the future are open." Belew confirmed this, adding "it means I may be back in the band in the future at some point."
On 14 October 2017, King Crimson released another contemporary live album, Live in Chicago, recorded on tour in June of the same year. As had been the case with its two predecessors, it included new music in the absence of a new studio album (in this case "Bellscape & Orchestral Werning", "The Errors" and "Interlude"). It also documented the return to the live set of material from the long-neglected 1970 album Lizard (in the form of the full "Lizard Suite" from the second side), as well as another live version of "'Heroes'" and a radically different version of the Belew-era song "Indiscipline".
On 13 October 2017, it was announced that Bill Rieflin would be unable to join the Three Over Five Formation on the 2017 Autumn tour in the U.S. He was temporarily replaced by Seattle-based Crafty Guitarist Chris Gibson. During 2018, King Crimson performed the extensive 33-date Uncertain Times tour through the UK and Europe between 13 June and 16 November.
Although the band continued their "no new studio album" policy, April 2018 saw the full release of another live album, Live in Vienna, compiling concert recordings from Vienna in 2016 and from Tokyo in 2015. Although the only new band piece on this occasion was the brief drum trio "Fairy Dust of the Drumsons", the set also included three pieces drawn from improvised Fripp/Collins/Levin introduction music and merged with Fripp soundscape music: these pieces were arranged and realised by David Singleton, reflecting similar work he'd performed for THRaKaTTaK twenty years earlier. On 20 October 2018, a further live album was released, Meltdown: Live in Mexico City, recorded during dates in July 2017: additions to the setlist on this album included another new drum piece ("CatalytiKc No. 9"), the readmission of another Belew-era song ("Neurotica), "Breathless" (from Fripp's 1979 solo album Exposure), a group jam and assorted solo member "cadenzas".
On 6 April 2019, it was announced at a press conference that Rieflin would take another break from King Crimson to attend to family matters, his place on keyboards for the 2019 50th anniversary tour taken by Theo Travis, better known as a saxophonist, Soft Machine member and occasional duo collaborator with Robert Fripp. Although Travis joined the band for rehearsals, Fripp said on 2 May that the band had decided that it was no longer possible to have other musicians deputising for Rieflin and for this reason were "proceed(ing) as a Seven-Headed Beast" without Travis. Rieflin's parts were divided among other band members, with Fripp, Stacey, Jakszyk and Collins adding keyboards to their on-stage rigs, and Levin once again using the synthesizer he used during the '80s tours. Soon after on 11 June, King Crimson's entire discography was made available to stream online on all the major streaming platforms, as part of the band's 50th anniversary celebration.
On 24 March 2020, Bill Rieflin died of cancer. In the same year, two other former members also passed away, Keith Tippett after several years of illness on 14 June, and Gordon Haskell from lung cancer on 15 October.
King Crimson toured North America and then Japan in 2021. Recordings from dates on the American leg of the tour were released as the "official bootleg" live album Music Is Our Friend: Live in Washington and Albany, featuring music from across the band's lifetime plus two new Tony Levin cadenzas.
2022: In the Court of the Crimson King documentary and end of band activity
Following the 2021 tour dates, King Crimson ceased activity, although without expressly announcing a breakup. Reasons cited were practical ones involving the old age of several of the members plus the rising cost of services during the pandemic, with no band intentions for any more tours.
In August 2021, Jakszyk referred to the existence of "about forty to fifty minutes' worth of new (King Crimson) stuff, a number of songs I've co-written with Robert and some instrumental things he's written. During the lockdown Gavin suggested, 'Why don't we record these things so we've at least got studio recordings of this material?' That doesn't mean we're going to make a new album or it's ever gonna come out, but we have started this process." Versions of two Fripp/Jakszyk songs originally intended for King Crimson ("Uncertain Times" and "Separation") had already emerged on Jakszyk's 2020 solo album Secrets and Lies, with participation from Fripp, Harrison, Levin and Collins.
On 9 February 2022, founding King Crimson member Ian McDonald died of cancer.
In March 2022, the documentary film In the Court of the Crimson King was premiered at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival. Directed by Toby Amies and filmed between 2019 and 2021, it covered live and backstage activity by the then-current band but also featured a historical overview plus contributions from Crimson alumni Ian McDonald, Michael Giles, Bill Bruford, Adrian Belew and Trey Gunn (as well as prolonged interview footage with the late Bill Rieflin). Amies described the film's development as follows: “What began as a traditional documentary about the legendary band King Crimson as it turned fifty, mutated into an exploration of time, death, family, and the transcendent power of music to change lives; but with jokes.”
As of 2022, with the exception of archive/curatorial matters, King Crimson have ceased activity altogether, with no plans for the future. Levin said in a late 2022 interview that, "the sense I got from Robert [Fripp] was that it's over. Maybe King Crimson will speak to him in the future in some way, and will revive its head with who-knows-what line up?"
At a post-screening Q&A session for In the Court of the Crimson King, Fripp referred to the seven-member 2021 lineup of King Crimson as "the final incarnation" of the band. Asked if there could ever be a lineup that did not include him, he disagreed, stating "I see the whole. I see the music. I see the musicians. I see the audience and I see the music industry [...] and you have to engage with all of that to have the overview. So that's the quick answer."
Musical style
King Crimson have been described musically as progressive rock, art rock, and post-progressive, with their earlier works being described as proto-prog. Their music was initially grounded in the rock of the 1960s, especially the acid rock and psychedelic rock movements. The band played Donovan's "Get Thy Bearings" in concert, and were known to play the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" in their rehearsals. However, for their own compositions, King Crimson (unlike the rock bands that had come before them) largely stripped away the blues-based foundations of rock music and replaced them with influences derived from classical composers. The first incarnation of King Crimson played the Mars section of Gustav Holst's suite The Planets live and later the band used Mars as a foundation for the song "Devil's Triangle". As a result of this influence, In the Court of the Crimson King is frequently viewed as the nominal starting point of the progressive rock movements. King Crimson also initially displayed strong jazz influences, most obviously on its signature track "21st Century Schizoid Man". The band also drew on English folk music for compositions such as "Moonchild" and "I Talk to the Wind." In the 1972 lineup, Fripp's intention was to combine the music of Jimi Hendrix, Igor Stravinsky and Béla Bartók.
The 1981 reunion of the band brought in even more elements, displaying the influence of funk, post-punk, new wave, gamelan music and late 20th century classical composers such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and Terry Riley. For its 1994 reunion, King Crimson reassessed both the mid-1970s and 1980s approaches in the light of new technology, intervening music forms such as electronica, drum'n'bass and techno; and further developments in industrial music, as well as expanding the band's ambient textural content via Fripp's Soundscapes looping approach.
The 2013 version of the band returned, for the most part, to the band's 1960s and 1970s influences and repertoire but addressed them via current technology and rearrangements suited to a larger ensemble of more experienced musicians, while also incorporating the New Standard Tuning used by Fripp since 1984.
Compositional approaches
Several King Crimson compositional approaches remained constant throughout the band's lifetime. These included:
The use of a gradually building rhythmic motif. These include "The Devil's Triangle" (an adaptation and variation on the Gustav Holst piece Mars played by the original King Crimson, based on a complex pulse in 54 time over which a skirling melody is played on a Mellotron), 1973's "The Talking Drum" (from Larks' Tongues in Aspic), 1984's "Industry" (from Three of a Perfect Pair) and 2003's "Dangerous Curves" (from The Power to Believe).
An instrumental piece (often embedded as a break in a song) in which the band played an ensemble passage of considerable rhythmic and polyrhythmic complexity. An early example is the band's initial signature tune "21st Century Schizoid Man", but the "Larks' Tongues in Aspic" series of compositions (as well as pieces of similar intent such as "THRAK" and "Level Five") went deeper into polyrhythmic complexity, delving into rhythms that wander into and out of general synchronisation with each other, but with all 'finishing' together through polyrhythmic synchronisation. These polyrhythms were particularly abundant in the band's 1980s work, which contained gamelan-like rhythmic layers and continual overlaid staccato patterns in counterpoint.
The composition of difficult solo passages for individual instruments, such as the guitar break on "Fracture" on Starless and Bible Black.
The juxtaposition of ornate tunes and ballads with unusual, often dissonant noises (such as "Cirkus" from Lizard, "Ladies of the Road" from Islands and "Eyes Wide Open" from The Power to Believe).
The use of improvisation.
Ascending note structure (e.g. "Facts of Life" and "THRAK").
Improvisation
King Crimson incorporated improvisation into their performances and studio recordings from the beginning, some of which was embedded into pieces such as "Moonchild", "Providence", "Requiem" and "No Warning", including passages of restrained silence, as with Bill Bruford's contribution to the improvised "Trio". Rather than using the standard jazz or rock "jamming" format for improvisation (in which one soloist at a time takes centre stage while the rest of the band lies back and plays along with established rhythm and chord changes), King Crimson improvisation consisted of musicians collectively making creative decisions and contributions as the music is being played. Individual soloing was largely eschewed; each musician was to listen to each other and to the group sound, to be able to react creatively within the group dynamic. Fripp has used the metaphor of "magic" to describe this process, in particular when the method works particularly well.
Similarly, King Crimson's improvised music was varied in sound and the band has been able to release several box sets and albums consisting mostly or entirely of improvised music, such as the THRaKaTTaK album, and the band's series of ProjeKcts. Occasionally, particular improvised pieces were recalled and reworked in different forms at different shows, becoming more and more refined and eventually appearing on official studio releases.
Influence and legacy
King Crimson have been influential both on the early 1970s progressive rock movement and numerous contemporary artists. Genesis and Yes were directly influenced by the band's usage of the mellotron, and many King Crimson band members were involved in other notable bands: Bruford in Yes; Lake in Emerson, Lake & Palmer; McDonald in Foreigner; Burrell in Bad Company, and Wetton in U.K. and Asia. Canadian rock band Rush's drummer Neil Peart credited the adventurous and innovative style of Michael Giles as an influence on his own approach to percussion.
King Crimson's influence extends to many bands from diverse genres, especially of the 1990s and 2000s. Kurt Cobain, the frontman of the grunge band Nirvana, had stated that the album Red had a major influence on the sound of their final studio album In Utero. Tool are known to be heavily influenced by King Crimson, with vocalist Maynard James Keenan joking on a tour with them: "Now you know who we ripped off. Just don't tell anyone, especially the members of King Crimson." Modern progressive, experimental, psychedelic and indie rock bands have cited them as an influence as well, including MGMT, the Mars Volta, Primus, Mystery Jets, Fanfarlo, Phish, and Anekdoten, who first practiced together playing King Crimson songs. Steven Wilson, the leader of Porcupine Tree, was responsible for remixing King Crimson's back catalogue in surround sound and said that the process had an enormous influence on his solo albums, and his band was influenced by King Crimson. In November 2012 the Flaming Lips in collaboration with Stardeath and White Dwarfs released a track-by-track reinterpretation of In the Court of the Crimson King entitled Playing Hide and Seek with the Ghosts of Dawn. Colin Newman, of Wire, said he saw King Crimson perform many times, and that they influenced him deeply. The seminal hardcore punk group Black Flag acknowledge Wetton-era King Crimson as an influence on their experimental period in the mid-1980s. Melvin Gibbs said that the Rollins Band was influenced most by King Crimson, using similar chords. Bad Religion cites the lyrics of "21st Century Schizoid Man" on their single "21st Century (Digital Boy)" and the name of their record label, Epitaph (founded by their guitarist Brett Gurewitz), comes from the song of the same name on Crimson's debut album. Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid considered Robert Fripp as one of his guitar influences.
King Crimson have frequently been cited as pioneers of progressive metal and as an influence on bands of this genre, including Dream Theater, Opeth, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me, Leprous, Haken, the Ocean, Caligula's Horse, Last Chance to Reason, and Indukti. Members of metal bands Mudvayne, Voivod, Enslaved, Yob, Pyrrhon, and Pallbearer have cited King Crimson as an influence. Heavy experimental and avant-garde acts like the Dillinger Escape Plan, Neurosis, Zeni Geva, Ancestors, and Oranssi Pazuzu all cite King Crimson's influence.
Other artists affected by King Crimson include video game composer Nobuo Uematsu, noise music artist Masami Akita of Merzbow, jazz guitarist Dennis Rea of Land, folktronica exponent Juana Molina, hip hop producer RJD2, hip hop and soul composer Adrian Younge, film director Hal Hartley, and folk-pop singer Ian Kelly.
Golden Wind, the fifth part of the Japanese manga and anime franchise JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, has its main antagonist, Diavolo, possess a Stand known as King Crimson.
Related legacy/cover bands featuring former King Crimson members
Since the early 2000s, several bands containing former, recent or current King Crimson members have toured and recorded, performing King Crimson music.
Active between 2002 and 2005, the 21st Century Schizoid Band reunited several former King Crimson members who had played on the band's first four albums. The band featured Ian McDonald, Mel Collins, Peter Giles and Michael Giles (the latter subsequently replaced by Ian Wallace), and was fronted by Jakko Jakszyk, a decade prior to his own recruitment into King Crimson. The band engaged in several tours, played material from King Crimson's '60s and '70s catalogue, and recorded several live albums. The band disbanded upon Wallace's death in 2007.
Since 2007, Tony Levin has led the trio Stick Men, which also features Pat Mastelotto. The band was initially completed by Chapman Stick player Michael Bernier, replaced in 2010 by touch guitarist and former Fripp student Markus Reuter. This band includes (and reinterprets) King Crimson compositions in their live sets. Reuter and Mastelotto also play together as a duo (previously called "Tuner"), within which they have been known to rework the mid-1980s King Crimson instrumental "Industry" live. Starting in 2023, Reuter, Mastelotto and Trey Gunn revived the moniker "Tuner" (re-styled as "Tu-ner") to perform music from the Double Duo era of King Crimson, plus material from each of their respective solo and combined careers.
Between 2011 and 2014, Stick Men and Adrian Belew's Power Trio band (Belew plus drummer Tobias Ralph and bass player Julie Slick) joined forces to play and tour as The Crimson ProjeKCt, covering the music made during the '80s and '90s. Following the return of King Crimson in 2014, the Crimson ProjeKct name has been formally abandoned, but the Stick Men and the Power Trio have still performed together from time to time, usually under names like "Belew, Levin, Mastelotto and friends".
During his solo career, including performances with the Power Trio, Adrian Belew has performed various versions of King Crimson songs.
In March 2024, a new group performing the 1980s King Crimson repertoire was announced featuring former members Adrian Belew and Tony Levin along with guitarist Steve Vai and drummer Danny Carey. Fripp and Bruford both declined offers to join but gave their well wishes to the group. Fripp also aided them in naming the project. The band is named "Beat" after the 1982 album of the same name.
Members
Final lineup
Robert Fripp – guitar, keyboards, Mellotron, electronics (1968–1974, 1981–1984, 1994–2008, 2013–2021)
Mel Collins – saxophones, flute, bass flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, Mellotron, backing vocals (1970–1972, 2013–2021) (studio guest in 1974)
Tony Levin – bass guitar, Chapman Stick, upright bass, synthesisers, backing vocals (1981–1984, 1994–1999, 2003–2008, 2013–2021)
Pat Mastelotto – drums, percussion, programming (1994–2008, 2013–2021)
Gavin Harrison – drums, percussion (2007–2008, 2013–2021)
Jakko Jakszyk – lead vocals, guitar, flute, keyboards (2013–2021)
Jeremy Stacey – drums, keyboards, backing vocals (2016–2021)
Former members
Peter Sinfield – lyrics, lighting, synthesizer (1968–1972)
Michael Giles – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1968–1970)
Greg Lake – bass guitar, lead vocals (1968–1970) (died 2016)
Ian McDonald – saxophone, flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, keyboards, Mellotron, vibraphone, backing vocals (1968–1970) (studio guest in 1974) (died 2022)
Gordon Haskell – lead vocals, bass guitar (1970) (died 2020)
Peter Giles – bass guitar (1970)
Keith Tippett – piano (1970) (studio guest later in 1970 and in 1971) (died 2020)
Andy McCulloch – drums (1970)
Ian Wallace – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1970–1972) (died 2007)
Boz Burrell – bass guitar, lead vocals (1971–1972) (died 2006)
Bill Bruford – drums, percussion (1972–1974, 1981–1984, 1994–1999)
John Wetton – bass guitar, lead vocals (1972–1974) (died 2017)
David Cross – violin, viola, keyboards (1972–1974)
Jamie Muir – percussion (1972–1973)
Adrian Belew – guitar, guitar synthesizer, lead vocals, drums and percussion (1981–1984, 1994–2008)
Trey Gunn – Warr guitar, Chapman Stick, backing vocals, bass guitar (1994–2003)
Bill Rieflin – keyboards, synthesizer, Mellotron, drums, percussion (2013–2016, 2017–2019) (died 2020)
Discography
In the Court of the Crimson King (1969)
In the Wake of Poseidon (1970)
Lizard (1970)
Islands (1971)
Larks' Tongues in Aspic (1973)
Starless and Bible Black (1974)
Red (1974)
Discipline (1981)
Beat (1982)
Three of a Perfect Pair (1984)
THRAK (1995)
The Construkction of Light (2000)
The Power to Believe (2003)
Citations
General references
Buckley, Peter (2003). The Rough Guide to Rock. London: Rough Guides. ISBN 1-85828-201-2.
Tamm, Eric (1990). Robert Fripp: From Crimson King to Crafty Master. Faber and Faber. ISBN 978-0571129126.
External links
Discipline Global Mobile Live
Crimson Jazz Trio Archived 22 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine
Elephant Talk
ProjeKction
King Crimson discography at Discogs
King Crimson at IMDb |
Robert_Fripp | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fripp | [
366
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fripp"
] | Robert Fripp (born 16 May 1946) is an English musician, songwriter, record producer, and author, best known as the guitarist, founder and longest-lasting member of the progressive rock band King Crimson. He has worked extensively as a session musician and collaborator, notably with David Bowie, Blondie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Daryl Hall, the Roches, Talking Heads, and David Sylvian. He also composed the startup sound of Windows Vista, in collaboration with Tucker Martine and Steve Ball. His discography includes contributions to more than 700 official releases.
His compositions often feature unusual asymmetric rhythms, influenced by classical and folk traditions. His innovations include a tape delay system known as "Frippertronics" (superseded in the 1990s by a more sophisticated digitally-based system called "Soundscapes") and a New Standard Tuning system for guitar.
Fripp is married to English singer Toyah Willcox.
Early life
Robert Fripp was born in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England, the second child of a working-class family. His mother Edith (née Greene; 1914–1993) was from a Welsh mining family; Fripp considers himself to be half Welsh. Her earnings from working at the Bournemouth Records Office allowed his father, Arthur Henry Fripp (1910-1985) to start a business as an estate agent. In 1957, at age eleven, Fripp received a guitar for Christmas from his parents and recalled, "Almost immediately I knew that this guitar was going to be my life". He then took guitar lessons from Kathleen Gartell and Don Strike; Elvis Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore inspired Fripp to play rock and roll, moving on to traditional jazz at thirteen and modern jazz at fifteen. Fripp has cited jazz musicians Charlie Parker and Charles Mingus as musical influences during this time.
In 1961, the fifteen-year-old Fripp joined his first band, the Ravens, which also included Gordon Haskell on bass. After they split in the following year, Fripp concentrated on his O-level studies and joined his father's firm as a junior negotiator. At this point, he intended to study estate management and, eventually, take over his father's business. However, at seventeen, Fripp decided to become a professional musician. He became the guitarist in the jazz outfit The Douglas Ward Trio, playing in the Chewton Glen hotel in New Milton, followed by a stint in the rock and roll band The League of Gentlemen, which included two former Ravens members.
In 1965, Fripp left the group to attend Bournemouth College, where he studied economics, economic history, and political history for his A-levels. In February 1965, Fripp went to see the Duke Ellington Orchestra, an experience which moved him deeply. He subsequently spent three further years playing light jazz in the Majestic Dance Orchestra at Bournemouth's Majestic Hotel (replacing Andy Summers, who had left for London with Zoot Money). During this time, Fripp met musicians that he would collaborate with in his career, including John Wetton, Richard Palmer-James, and Greg Lake. At age 21, going back home from college late at night, Fripp tuned on to Radio Luxembourg, where he heard the last moments of the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". "Galvanized" by the experience, he went on to listen to the Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Béla Bartók's string quartets, Antonín Dvořák's New World Symphony, Jimi Hendrix's Are You Experienced and John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Many years later, Fripp would recall that "although all the dialects are different, the voice was the same... I knew I couldn't say no". As a band leader, Fripp pointed out that Miles Davis and Duke Ellington inspired him to seek "constant change".
Career
1967–1974: Giles, Giles and Fripp and King Crimson
In 1967, Fripp responded to an advertisement placed by Bournemouth-born brothers Peter and Michael Giles, who wanted to work with a singing organist. Though Fripp was not what they sought, his audition with them was a success and the trio relocated to London and became Giles, Giles and Fripp. Their only studio album, The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp, was released in 1968. Despite the recruitment of two further members – singer Judy Dyble (formerly with Fairport Convention and later of Trader Horne) and multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald – Fripp felt that he was outgrowing the eccentric pop approach favoured by Peter Giles, preferring the more ambitious compositions being written by McDonald, and the band broke up in 1968.
Almost immediately, Fripp, McDonald and Michael Giles formed the first lineup of King Crimson in mid-1968, recruiting Fripp's old Bournemouth College friend Greg Lake as lead singer and bassist and McDonald's writing partner Peter Sinfield as lyricist, light show designer and general creative consultant. King Crimson's debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King, was released in late 1969 to great success: drawing on rock, jazz and European folk/classical music ideas, it is now regarded as one of the most influential albums in the history of progressive rock. The band was tipped for stardom, but, due to growing musical differences between Fripp on one side and Giles and McDonald on the other, broke up after its first American tour in 1970. A despondent Fripp offered to leave if it would allow King Crimson to survive; however, Giles and McDonald had independently decided that the band's music was "more Fripp's than theirs" and that it would be better if they were the ones to leave.
During the recording of the band's second album In the Wake of Poseidon, Greg Lake departed to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer with Keith Emerson of the Nice and Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster. King Crimson issued two more albums, Lizard and Islands, with Fripp and Sinfield the only constants in a regularly changing lineup variously including Gordon Haskell, woodwind player Mel Collins, drummers Andy McCulloch and Ian Wallace and future Bad Company bassist Boz Burrell, in addition to a palette of guest players. Fripp was listed as the sole composer of the band's music during this time, which built on the first album's blueprint but progressed further into jazz-rock and free jazz while also taking form from Sinfield's esoteric lyrical and mythological concepts.
In 1971, Fripp ousted Sinfield and took over de facto leadership of King Crimson (although he has always formally rejected the label, preferring to describe his role as "quality control" or "a kind of glue"). From this point onwards, Fripp would be the only constant member of the band, which in turn would be defined primarily by his compositional and conceptual ideas. With avant-garde percussionist Jamie Muir, violinist David Cross, former Family bassist and singer John Wetton and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford now in the ranks, King Crimson produced three more albums of innovative and increasingly experimental rock, shedding members as they progressed: beginning with Larks' Tongues in Aspic, progressing with Starless and Bible Black after Muir's departure and culminating in Red after Cross was fired. Fripp formally disbanded the group in 1974, in what eventually turned out to be merely the first in a regular series of long hiatuses and further transformations.
1974–1981: Collaborations, side projects, and solo career
Fripp pursued side projects during King Crimson's less active periods. He worked with Keith Tippett (and others who appeared on King Crimson records) on projects far from rock music, playing with and producing Centipede's Septober Energy in 1971 and Ovary Lodge in 1973. During this period he also worked with Van der Graaf Generator, playing on their albums H to He, Who Am the Only One and Pawn Hearts. He produced Matching Mole's Matching Mole's Little Red Record in 1972. Prior to forming the Larks-era KC, he collaborated on a spoken-word album with a woman he described as "a witch", but the resulting Robert Fripp & Walli Elmlark: The Cosmic Children of Rock was never officially released.
With Brian Eno, Fripp recorded (No Pussyfooting) in 1972, and Evening Star in 1974. These experimented with several avant-garde musical techniques that were new to rock. On "The Heavenly Music Corporation" from No Pussyfooting, Fripp used a delay system using two modified Revox A77 reel-to-reel tape machines. The technique went on to play a central role in Fripp's later work, and became known as "Frippertronics".
In 1973, Fripp performed the guitar solo on "Baby's on Fire" from Eno's solo album Here Come the Warm Jets. In 1975, Fripp and Eno played live shows in Europe, and Fripp also contributed guitar solos to Eno's 1975 album Another Green World.
Fripp started what was intended as a permanent sabbatical from his musical career in 1975, during which he studied at J. G. Bennett's International Academy for Continuous Education, becoming interested in the mystical and philosophical ideas of Bennett's teacher George Gurdjieff. He returned to musical work the following year as a session guitarist on Peter Gabriel's debut solo album, released in 1977. Fripp toured with Gabriel to support the album, but used the pseudonym "Dusty Rhodes" and concealed himself on stage.
Fripp also produced and played on Gabriel's second album in 1978. "Robert is particularly skilful at keeping things fresh, and I like that a lot," Gabriel enthused. "I was very interested in Robert's experimental side; that corresponded exactly to what I wanted to do on this second record… There are two (Fripp) solos: one on 'On the Air' and the other on 'White Shadow'. And then he plays on 'Exposure'. He gives the colour to this piece, being fifty per cent responsible for its construction. And he also plays classical guitar here and there. He's a musician I admire a lot, because he's one of the only ones to mix discipline and madness with so much talent."
In 1977, Fripp played on David Bowie's album "Heroes" at Eno's invitation. Fripp soon collaborated with Daryl Hall on Sacred Songs.
During this period, Fripp began working on solo material, with contributions from poet/lyricist Joanna Walton and several other musicians, including Eno, Gabriel, and Hall (including the latter's partner, John Oates), as well as Peter Hammill, Jerry Marotta, Phil Collins, Tony Levin and Terre Roche. This material eventually became his first solo album, Exposure, released in 1979, followed by the Frippertronics tour in the same year.
While living in New York, Fripp contributed to albums and live performances by Blondie (Parallel Lines) and Talking Heads (Fear of Music), and produced The Roches' first and third albums, which featured several of Fripp's characteristic guitar solos. A second set of sessions with Bowie produced Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and he collaborated with Gabriel again on his third solo album. With Blondie, Fripp appeared live on stage at the Hammersmith Odeon on 12 January 1980, participating in a cover version of Bowie's "'Heroes'".
In 1980, Fripp would release God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners, a project that saw two different musical approaches to Frippertronics on one LP. The "A" side of the record, titled "God Save the Queen" attempted what Fripp referred to as "pure Frippertronics" which is "where Frippertronics is used alone." The "B" side of the record, titled "Under Heavy Manners" featured a collaboration with bassist Busta Jones, drummer Paul Duskin, and David Byrne of Talking Heads (as Absalm el Habib). The sounds of this side of the record featured what Fripp called "Discotronics" which was defined as "that musical experience resulting at the interstice of Frippertronics and disco."
Concurrent to this, Fripp would assemble what he called a "second-division touring new wave instrumental dance band" under the name League of Gentlemen, with bassist Sara Lee, keyboardist Barry Andrews and drummer Johnny Elichaoff (credited as "Johnny Toobad"). Elichaoff was later replaced by Kevin Wilkinson. The LOG toured for the duration of 1980.
In 1985 he produced the album Journey to Inaccessible Places by classical pianist Elan Sicroff, released on the Editions E.G. label.
1981–1984: Reforming King Crimson
1981 saw the formation of a new King Crimson lineup, reuniting Fripp with Bruford and opening a new partnership with two American musicians: bassist/Chapman Stick player Tony Levin (who had played with Fripp on Exposure and in the first Peter Gabriel touring band) and Adrian Belew, a singer and guitarist who had previously played with Bowie, Talking Heads and Frank Zappa. Although the band had been conceptualised under the name Discipline, it came to Fripp's attention that the other members thought the name King Crimson was more appropriate: for Fripp, King Crimson had always been "a way of doing things" rather than a particular group of musicians. With the more pop-inspired Belew as main songwriter (complementing Fripp as main instrumental composer) the band took on a new style incorporating influences from Indonesian gamelan, new wave, and classical minimalism, with both guitarists experimenting extensively with guitar synthesizers. After releasing three albums (Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair), Fripp dissolved the band in 1984.
During this period Fripp made two albums with Andy Summers of The Police. On I Advance Masked, Fripp and Summers played all the instruments. Bewitched was dominated more by Summers, who produced the record and collaborated with other musicians in addition to Fripp.
In 1982 Fripp produced and played guitar on Keep On Doing by the Roches. Village Voice rock critic Robert Christgau wrote that the album "sounds so good I'm beginning to believe Robert Fripp was put on earth to produce the Roches."
Guitar Craft
Fripp was offered a teaching position at the American Society for Continuous Education (ASCE) at Claymont Court in Charles Town, West Virginia in 1984. He had been involved with the ASCE since 1978, eventually serving on its board of directors, and had long been considering the idea of teaching guitar through ideas derived from Bennett and Gurdjieff. His course, Guitar Craft, was begun in 1985, an offshoot of which was a performance group, "the League of Crafty Guitarists", which has released several albums. In 1986, he released the first of two collaborations with his wife, Toyah Willcox. The members of the California Guitar Trio are former members of The League of Crafty Guitarists and have also toured with King Crimson. Fripp is the patron of the Guitar Circle of Europe, which was founded in 2007, and of the Seattle Circle Guitar School, which was founded in 2010.
In February 2009, Fripp recommended that Guitar Craft cease to exist on its 25th anniversary in 2010.
On 1 September 2022 Fripp published The Guitar Circle, a book of writings concerning Guitar Craft.
Soundscapes
Fripp returned to recording solo in 1994, using an updated version of the Frippertronics technique that creates loops employing digital technology instead of analogue tapes. Fripp has released a number of records that he called "soundscapes", including 1999, Radiophonics, A Blessing of Tears, That Which Passes, November Suite, The Gates of Paradise, Love Cannot Bear and At the End of Time, as well as numerous download-only live recordings. (The sampler Pie Jesu consists of material compiled from A Blessing of Tears and The Gates of Paradise.)
1990s collaborations with David Sylvian and others
Fripp's collaborations with David Sylvian feature some of his most exuberant guitar playing. Fripp contributed to Sylvian's twenty-minute track "Steel Cathedrals" from his Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities album of 1985. Then Fripp performed on several tracks from Sylvian's 1986 release, Gone to Earth.
In late 1991, Fripp had asked Sylvian to join a re-forming King Crimson as a vocalist. Sylvian declined the invitation, but proposed a possible collaboration between the two that would eventually become a tour of Japan and Italy in the spring of 1992.
Also in 1991, Fripp released an album with the project Sunday All Over The World, also featuring his wife Toyah Willcox, former League of Crafty Guitarists member Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick, and drummer Paul Beavis. The prior name of this band was Fripp Fripp, and they toured as such in 1988. They renamed to SAOTW, and toured again as SAOTW, in 1989.
In July 1993, Sylvian and Fripp released the collaborative effort The First Day. Other contributors were soon-to-be King Crimson member Trey Gunn on Chapman Stick and Jerry Marotta (who, like Sylvian, almost became a member of King Crimson) on drums. When the group toured to promote the CD, future King Crimson member Pat Mastelotto took over the drumming spot. The live document Damage was released in 1994, as was the joint venture, Redemption – Approaching Silence, which featured Sylvian's ambient sound sculptures (Approaching Silence) accompanying Fripp reading his own text (Redemption).
During the early and mid-1990s Fripp contributed guitar/soundscapes to Lifeforms (1994) by the Future Sound of London and Cydonia (released 2001) by the Orb, as well as FFWD, a collaborative effort with the latter's members. In addition, Fripp worked with Brian Eno co-writing and supplying guitar to two tracks for a CD-ROM project released in 1994 entitled Headcandy created by Chris Juul and Doug Jipson. Eno thought the visual aspects of the disc (video feedback effects) were very disappointing upon completion, and regretted participation. During this period, Fripp also contributed to albums by No-Man and the Beloved (1994's Flowermouth and 1996's X, respectively). He also contributed soundscapes and guitar to two albums by the UK band Iona: 1993's Beyond These Shores and 1996's Journey into the Morn.
1994–2010: King Crimson redux
In late 1994, Fripp re-formed the 1981 line-up of King Crimson for its fifth incarnation, adding Trey Gunn and drummer Pat Mastelotto in a configuration known as a "double trio". This line-up released the VROOOM EP in 1994 and the THRAK album the following year.
Though musically (and relatively commercially) successful, the double-trio King Crimson proved difficult to sustain in the long-term. From 1997 to 1999, the band "fraKctalised" into five experimental instrumental sub-groups known as ProjeKcts. By 1998 Bruford had quit the band altogether: in 2000, Fripp, Belew, Gunn and Mastelotto reunited as a four-piece King Crimson. This lineup produced two industrial metal-influenced studio albums, the construKction of light in 2000 and The Power to Believe. Gunn departed at the end of 2003.
Although Levin immediately returned to the band, another hiatus followed until King Crimson reappeared in 2007 with the addition of Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison. This version of the band toured the eastern United States in 2008, reassessing the 1981-2003 back catalogue and introducing lengthy duets between the two drummers. No new original material was recorded, and in 2010, Fripp announced that King Crimson were on another indefinite hiatus.
Recent work: G3, Porcupine Tree, Slow Music, Theo Travis, the Humans, Jakko Jakszyk, Others
In 2004, Fripp toured with Joe Satriani and Steve Vai as part of their G3 series. He also worked at Microsoft's studios to record the startup sound for Windows Vista. Fripp designed the soundscape and composed the melody, while Tucker Martine created the rhythm and Microsoft's Steve Ball added the harmonies and created the final arrangement.
In late 2005 and early 2006, Fripp joined R.E.M./Nine Inch Nails drummer Bill Rieflin's improvisational Slow Music project, along with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Fred Chalenor, session drummer Matt Chamberlain and Hector Zazou on electronics. This collective of musicians toured the west coast of America in May 2006.
In 2006 Fripp contributed his composition "At The End Of Time" to the Artists for Charity album Guitarists 4 the Kids, produced by Slang Productions, to assist World Vision Canada in helping underprivileged children. Throughout 2006, Fripp performed many solo concerts of soundscapes in intimate settings in churches around England and Estonia. In October 2006, ProjeKct Six (Fripp and Adrian Belew) played at select venues on the east coast of the U.S., opening for Porcupine Tree. In the same year, Fripp contributed to two songs from Porcupine Tree's Fear of a Blank Planet ("Way Out of Here" and "Nil Recurring"). Fripp also sporadically performed as an opening act for Porcupine Tree on various tours from 2006 through 2009.
In 2008, Fripp collaborated with Theo Travis on an album of guitar and flute-or-saxophone duets called 'Thread', and the duo played a brief English tour in 2009 (repeating the collaboration with the Follow album in 2012). Also in 2009, Fripp played a concert with the band the Humans (which consists of his wife Toyah Willcox, Bill Rieflin and Chris Wong), appeared on Judy Dyble's Talking With Strangers (along with Pat Mastelotto and others) and played on two tracks on Jakko Jakszyk's album The Bruised Romantic Glee Club. In 2010, Fripp contributed a guitar solo to an extended version of the song 'Heathen Child' by Grinderman, released as a B-side on the 'Super Heathen Child' single.
In 2021, the ambient/electronica album Leviathan was released. Fripp produced it and played guitar, in collaboration with British EDM Duo The Grid.
A Scarcity of Miracles, musical 'retirement' and new lineup of King Crimson
In May 2011, Jakko Jakszyk, Robert Fripp and Mel Collins released A Scarcity of Miracles: A King Crimson ProjeKct on the Panegyric label. The album also featured contributions by Tony Levin and Gavin Harrison, leading to speculation that the project was a dry run for a new King Crimson lineup.
In an interview published 3 August 2012, Fripp stated that he had retired from working as a professional musician, citing long-standing differences with Universal Music Group and stating that working within the music industry had become "a joyless exercise in futility". This retirement proved to be short-lived, only lasting as long as it took to come to a settlement with UMG.
In his online diary entry for 6 September 2013, Fripp announced the return of King Crimson as a seven-piece unit with "four Englishmen and three Americans". The new lineup was Fripp, Levin, both Mastelotto and Harrison on drums, returning 1970s band member Mel Collins and two new members: Jakko Jakszyk as singer and second guitarist, and Bill Rieflin as a third drummer. This version of the band went on tour in 2014 and 2015 with a setlist reworking and reconfiguring the band's 1960s and 1970s material (plus songs from A Scarcity of Miracles and new compositions). In early 2016, it was announced that former Lemon Trees/Noel Gallagher drummer Jeremy Stacey would substitute for Rieflin on that year's tour while the latter was on sabbatical. King Crimson continued touring as a seven- or eight-piece unit with Stacey as a permanent member on drums and keyboards, plus Rieflin (when available) on keyboards and "fairy dusting" until 2021. Rieflin last played with Crimson in 2018; he died 24 March 2020.
Equipment
During the early years of King Crimson (1968–74), Fripp used two Gibson Les Paul guitars from 1957 and 1959. The '57 guitar featured three humbucker pick-ups (with one volume control on the pickguard controlling the middle pick-up). In the band's 1980s era, he favoured Roland GR-303 & GR-808 guitars for both straight guitar and synth control. In subsequent years, Fripp has used customized Les Paul-style guitars by Tokai, 48th St Custom, and Fernandes.
A signature model named for the guitarist (Crimson Guitars Robert Fripp Signature) features Fernandes Sustainer and MIDI pickups with a Les Paul-style body. A significant difference from the Gibson Les Paul is that the signature model is built using a deep set neck tenon rather than a traditional set neck.
Fripp recommended that Guitar Craft students adopt the Ovation 1867 Legend steel-string acoustic guitar. "Fripp liked the way the Ovation 1867 fitted against his body, which made it possible for him to assume the right-arm picking position he had developed using electric guitars over the years; on deeper-bodied guitars, the Frippian arm position is impossible without uncomfortable contortions", according to Tamm. While the 1867 Legend is no longer manufactured, it influenced the design of the Guitar Craft Pro Model of Guitar Craft Guitars, which has been endorsed by Fripp.
Guitar technique
Fripp began playing guitar at the age of eleven. When he started, he was tone deaf and had no rhythmic sense, weaknesses which led him later to comment that "Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice." He was also naturally left-handed but opted to play the guitar right-handed.
While being taught guitar basics by his teacher Don Strike, Fripp began to develop the technique of crosspicking, which became one of his specialities. Fripp teaches crosspicking to his students in Guitar Craft.
In 1985, Fripp began using a tuning he called "New Standard Tuning" (C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4), which would also become popularised in Guitar Craft.
Fripp's guitar technique, unlike most rock guitarists of his era, is not blues-based but rather influenced by avant-garde jazz and European classical music. He combines rapid alternate picking and crosspicking with motifs employing whole-tone or diminished pitch structures and extended sixteenth-note patterns in moto perpetuo.
Rather than stand when performing, he seats himself on a stool (unusual for a performer in rock music), and by doing so was called in a May 1974 issue of Guitar Player "the guitarist who sits on stage".
Personal life
Fripp married singer and actress Toyah Willcox on 16 May 1986 in Poole. From December 1987 until July 1999 they lived at and renovated Reddish House, the former home of Cecil Beaton, in the village of Broad Chalke in Wiltshire.
Fripp previously lived at Thornhill Cottage, Holt, Dorset (1971-1980) and Fernhill House, Witchampton (1980-1987). After Reddish House, the couple lived at Evershot Old Mansion (1999-2001). They then moved to their present home in Pershore, Worcestershire. The couple have no children and have arranged their will so as to leave their assets to the establishment of a musical educational trust for children.
Fripp is the patron of the Seattle Circle Guitar School in the United States and the Shallal Dance Theatre in Penzance. He also has had engagements as a motivational speaker, often at events with his sister Patricia, who is a keynote speaker and speech coach.
Alfie Fripp, the last of the "39ers", shot down by the Luftwaffe and then held in 12 different POW camps during World War II, was his uncle.
Fripp is a pescetarian. Nevill Drury details in Music for Inner Space: Techniques for Meditation & Visualisation that Fripp was interested in the Hermetic Qabalah, Wicca, German Renaissance philosopher Paracelus, and George Gurdjieff via J. G. Bennett.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Fripp and Willcox uploaded many short, humorous videos to YouTube, usually covers of well-known songs, and mostly titled Toyah and Robert's Sunday Lunch. According to rock and metal news website MetalSucks, their stories about these covers were extremely popular; their cover of Metallica's "Enter Sandman" was the site's sixth-most popular story that year. The duo toured the UK in 2023, performing the Sunday Lunch songs in concert.
Awards and honours
Asteroid 81947 Fripp, discovered by Marc Buie at Cerro Tololo in 2000, was named in his honour. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 18 May 2019 (M.P.C. 114955).
Fripp is ranked 62nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2011 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, having been ranked 42nd by David Fricke on its 2003 list. Tied with Andrés Segovia, he is ranked 47th on Gibson's Top 50 guitarists of all time.
Discipline Global Mobile
In 1992, Fripp and producer/online content developer David Singleton co-founded Discipline Global Mobile (DGM) as an independent music label. DGM releases music by Fripp, KC, related acts, and other artists in CDs and in downloadable files. A 1998 Billboard profile stated that DGM had ten staff-members in Salisbury (England) and Los Angeles (USA). DGM has an aim "to be a model of ethical business in an industry founded on exploitation, oiled by deceit, riven with theft and fueled by greed." DGM insists that its artists retain all copyrights; consequently, even DGM's "knotwork" corporate-logo (pictured above) is owned by its designer, Steve Ball; the "knotwork" logo appeared earlier on the cover of later versions of the Discipline album. DGM's aims were called "exemplary" by Bill Martin (1997), who wrote that "Fripp has done something very important for the possibilities of experimental music" in creating DGM, which "has played a major role in creating favorable conditions for" King Crimson.
DGM publishes an on-line diary by Fripp, who often comments on performances and on relations with fans. A moderated forum allows fans to ask questions or to leave comments. Together, Fripp's diary and the fan forum display delayed dialogs in which Fripp and fans discuss diary-entries and forum-postings.
Copyright infringement complaints
In 2009, Fripp released a statement claiming that EMI & Sanctuary Universal had uploaded music to various music stores without his consent, stating "NONE of these downloads were licensed, authorised or legitimised. that is, every single download of any KC track represents copyright violation. or, to use one syllable instead of seven, theft."
In 2011, Fripp complained that the streaming service Grooveshark continued to stream his music despite his having delivered repeated takedown notices. Fripp and Grooveshark's correspondence was published by Digital Music News and in his diaries, which appear on the website of Discipline Global Mobile.
Fripp's published exchange was included in a suit against Grooveshark by Universal Music Group, which was filed in November 2011. UMG cited internal documents revealing that Grooveshark employees uploaded thousands of illegal copies of UMG-owned recordings. Fripp had previous experience protecting his music in litigation with music companies.
Fripp has stated that he believes "Unauthorised streaming or MP3 giveaways - it amounts to the same thing - copyright theft."
Discography
Fripp has been extremely active as a recording musician and a producer. He has contributed to more than 700 official releases. The Robert Fripp Discography Summary, compiled by John Relph, also lists 120 compilations and 315 unauthorised releases (such as bootlegs). This means that more than 1100 releases (including both official and unofficial ones, as well as both studio and live recordings) can be found with Fripp participating. Studio releases are listed here.
Giles, Giles & Fripp
1968 : The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp
2001 : The Brondesbury Tapes
2001 : Metaphormosis
Solo
Studio albums
1979 : Exposure
1980 : God Save the Queen/Under Heavy Manners
1981 : Let the Power Fall: An Album of Frippertronics
1997 : Pie Jesu
1998 : The Gates of Paradise
Live albums
1994 : 1999: Soundscapes Live in Argentina
1995 : Radiophonics: 1995 Soundscapes volume 1
1995 : A Blessing of Tears: 1995 Soundscapes volume 2
1996 : That Which Passes: 1995 Soundscapes volume 3
1998 : November Suite: Soundscapes - Live at Green Park Station 1996
2005 : Love Cannot Bear
2007 : At the End of Time: Churchscapes Live in England & Estonia
Brian Eno
1973 : (No Pussyfooting)
1975 : Evening Star
1994 : The Essential Fripp And Eno
2004 : The Equatorial Stars
2006 : The Cotswold Gnomes aka Beyond Even (1992–2006)
2021 : Live in Paris 28.05.1975
David Sylvian
1993 : The First Day
1993 : Darshan (The Road To Graceland)
1994 : Damage: Live
Andy Summers
1982 : I Advance Masked
1984 : Bewitched
1984 : Andy Summers & Robert Fripp Speak Out - Promo album
The League of Gentlemen
1981 : The League of Gentlemen
1996 : Thrang Thrang Gozinbulx
The League of Crafty Guitarists
1986 : Live !
1991 : Live II
1991 : Show Of Hands
1995 : Intergalactic Boogie Express - Live In Europe 1991
Theo Travis
2008 : Thread
2012 : Follow
2012 : Discretion
Other recordings
1981 : The Warner Brothers Music Show - The Return Of King Crimson (interviews with music inserts)
1985 : Network (EP, compilation)
1986 : The Lady or the Tiger (With Toyah Willcox)
1991 : Kneeling at the Shrine (With Sunday All Over the World)
1993 : The Bridge Between (With The Robert Fripp String Quintet)
1994 : FFWD (With The Orb)
1999 : The Repercussions of Angelic Behavior (With Bill Rieflin & Trey Gunn)
2000 : A Temple in the Clouds (With Jeffrey Fayman)
2007 : Robert Fripp : Unplugged - 3 CD Box-set
2011 : A Scarcity of Miracles (With Mel Collins & Jakko Jakszyk)
2012 : The Wine of Silence (With Andrew Keeling, David Singleton & Metropole Orkest)
2015 : Starless Starlight : David Cross & Robert Fripp
Collaborations
1970 : H to He, Who Am the Only One : Van der Graaf Generator
1971 : Pawn Hearts : Van der Graaf Generator
1971 : Fools Mate : Peter Hammill
1971 : Septober Energy : Centipede
1972 : Blueprint : Keith Tippett
1972 : Matching Mole's Little Red Record : Matching Mole
1973 : Ovary Lodge : Keith Tippett
1974 : Here Come the Warm Jets : Brian Eno
1975 : Another Green World : Brian Eno
1977 : "Heroes" : David Bowie
1977 : Before and After Science : Brian Eno
1977 : Peter Gabriel I : Peter Gabriel
1978 : Parallel Lines : Blondie
1978 : Music for Films : Brian Eno
1978 : Peter Gabriel II : Peter Gabriel
1979 : Fear of Music : Talking Heads
1979 : The Roches : The Roches
1980 : Sacred Songs : Daryl Hall
1980 : Peter Gabriel III : Peter Gabriel
1980 : Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps): David Bowie
1982 : Keep On Doing : The Roches
1985 : Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities : David Sylvian
1986 : Gone to Earth : David Sylvian
1987 : Couple in Spirit : Keith Tippett and Julie Tippetts
1992 : 456 : The Grid
1992 : Nerve Net : Brian Eno
1993 : Beyond These Shores : Iona
1994 : Sidi Mansour : Cheikha Rimitti
1994 : Flowermouth : No Man
1994 : Battle Lines : John Wetton
1995 : Cheikha Rimitti Featuring Robert Fripp and Flea : Cheikha [Unreleased Tracks From The Sidi Mansour Album]
1996 : The Woman's Boat : Toni Childs
1998 : Lightness: For The Marble Palace
1998 : Arkangel : John Wetton
1999 : Birth of a Giant : Bill Rieflin
1999 : Approaching Silence : David Sylvian
2000 : Everything and Nothing : David Sylvian
2001 : Sinister : John Wetton
2001 : The Thunderthief : John Paul Jones
2002 : Trance Spirits : Steve Roach & Jeffrey Fayman With Robert Fripp & Momodou Kah
2002 : Camphor : David Sylvian
2006 : Side Three : Adrian Belew
2011 : Raised in Captivity : John Wetton
Production
1971 : Septober Energy : Centipede
1972 : Matching Mole's Little Red Record : Matching Mole
1972 : Blueprint : Keith Tippett
1973 : Ovary Lodge : Ovary Lodge - With Keith Tippett, Roy Babbington, etc.
1978 : Peter Gabriel : Peter Gabriel
1979 : The Roches : The Roches
1980 : Sacred Songs : Daryl Hall
1991 : The California Guitar Trio : The California Guitar Trio - Executive producer
1995 : Intergalactic Boogie Express : Coproducer.
1998 : Pathways : California Guitar Trio - Executive producer
See also
List of ambient music artists
Notes
References
Hegarty, Paul; Halliwell, Martin (25 August 2011). Beyond and before: Progressive rock since the 1960s. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-4075-4.
Martin, Bill (1997). Listening to the future: The time of progressive rock, 1968–1978. Open Court. p. 376. ISBN 0-8126-9368-X.
Tamm, Eric (2003) [1990]. Robert Fripp: From crimson king to crafty master (Progressive Ears ed.). Faber and Faber (1990). ISBN 0-571-16289-4. Zipped Microsoft Word Document. Archived from the original on 26 October 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
Further reading
Fripp, Robert (2011). Pozzo, Horacio (ed.). Seven Guitar Craft themes: Definitive scores for guitar ensemble. "Original transcriptions by Curt Golden", "Layout scores and tablatures: Ariel Rzezak and Theo Morresi" (First limited ed.). Partitas Music. ISMN 979-0-9016791-7-7. DGM Sku partitas001.
Smith, Sid (2001). In the court of King Crimson. Helter Skelter Publishing. ISBN 1-900924-26-9.
External links
Robert Fripp's official website - robertfripp.com (2024)
Discipline Global Mobile (DGM) - DGM Live is a small, mobile, independent music company that aspires to Intelligence. Founded by Robert Fripp and David Singleton in 1992, its website is the home of all RF music, tour dates, diaries, news, as well as King Crimson’s, among other related artists, groups, and initiatives.
Guitar Craft & The Guitar Circle - Home Robert Fripp describes his work as Founder of Guitar Craft, and director of the associated seminars on four continents since 1985, as his ‘proper work in life’. The GC website is the online home of the living history of GC, news, GC Aphorisms, and RF writings, including new yet unpublished ones. |
Hatfield_College,_Durham | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_College,_Durham | [
367
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_College,_Durham"
] | Hatfield College is one of the constituent colleges of Durham University in England. It occupies a city centre site above the River Wear on the World Heritage Site peninsula, lying adjacent to North Bailey and only a short distance from Durham Cathedral. Taking its name from a medieval Prince-Bishop of Durham, the college was founded in 1846 as Bishop Hatfield's Hall by David Melville, a former Oxford don.
Melville disliked the 'rich living' of patrician undergraduates at University College, and hoped to nurture a collegiate experience that would be affordable to those of limited means; and in which the students and staff were to be regarded as part of a single community. In line with his ambitions, the college pioneered the concept of catered residences for students, where all meals were taken in the hall, and occupants charged fixed prices for board and lodgings — this system became the norm for Durham colleges, and later on at Oxford and Cambridge, before spreading worldwide.
As the 20th century progressed, Hatfield was increasingly characterised by its irreverent atmosphere among undergraduates, reputation for academic indifference, sporting achievement — especially in rugby — and possessing a high intake of students from English public schools. College administration, on the other hand, preferred to highlight the willingness of students to get involved in a wide variety of university activities; and argued that 'Hatfield man', contrary to his reactionary image, had often been at the forefront of significant reform on campus.
College architecture is an eclectic blend of buildings from a variety of styles and periods. The sloping main courtyard contains an eighteenth-century dining hall, the restrained Jacobethan Melville Building (designed by Anthony Salvin), a Victorian Gothic chapel, and the 'inoffensive neo-Georgian' C Stairs. The trend for revivalist and traditional buildings was disposed of with the modern Jevons Building, located in the college's second courtyard, which interprets older forms in a more 'contemporary' manner.
After many decades as a single-sex institution, the first female undergraduates were formally admitted in Michaelmas term 1988.
History
Early years
The establishment of the college in 1846 as a furnished and catered residence with set fees was a revolutionary idea, but later became the general standard for university accommodation in the modern sense: an "arrangement where students would be provided with furnished rooms and meals for a flat fee". Previously, university students were expected to furnish their rooms themselves. This concept came from the young founding master, David Melville, who believed his model would make a university education more affordable. Essentially, the three principles were that rooms would be furnished and let out to students with shared servants, meals would be provided and eaten in the college hall, and college battels (bills) were set in advance. This system made Hatfield a more economical choice when compared to University College, whose students were generally wealthier, and ensured that student numbers at Hatfield built up steadily. Melville's model was introduced to the wider university after an endorsement from the Royal Commission of 1862.
Although not intended as a theological college, for the first 50 years the majority of students tended towards theology, while senior staff members and the principal were in holy orders. Under William Sanday (1876–1883) student numbers rose considerably, prompting a desperate search for extra rooms. It was forced to rent 3 South Bailey (now part of St John's College) in 1879 to accommodate them. Though Hatfield was run on the most economical lines, student poverty was a frequent problem. Dr Joseph Fowler, who, apart from his roles as Chaplain and Senior Tutor in the college, acted as Bursar, allowed undergraduates to take on some debt and even loaned them money, often employing rather creative accounting practises in the process. In 1880, a tennis court was installed for the first time, occupying roughly the same space as the current one. In the 1890s, the college purchased Bailey House and the Rectory (despite its name, most previous occupants were laymen) to accommodate more students. As the end of the century drew closer, the balance of undergraduate students rapidly shifted away from theology. In 1900, there were 49 arts students who had matriculated within the previous 3 years, and 20 in theology. By 1904, just 9 theology undergraduates are recorded, compared to 57 in arts.
Inter-war
The inter-war period saw a decline in college fortunes. In the first two decades of the 20th century, Hatfield had experienced a sharp fall in numbers. This was caused initially by the decision to isolate science courses at the campus in Newcastle, an increased tendency to train priests at specialised colleges, poor finances, and finally the outbreak of the First World War. For 15 years after 1897, total students in residence numbered above 100. This had fallen to 69 in 1916, 2 in 1917, and to 3 in 1918. After the war finished there was a temporary leap to more than 60 undergraduates, but by 1923 there were just 14 men on the college books. In 1924, a new science department was established in Durham, and this, along with the active recruiting efforts of new Master Arthur Robinson (1923–1940), achieved gains in student numbers. Within five years of Robinson's appointment they had quintupled from the low of 1923.
However, the economic crisis of the 1920s created uncertainty. Hatfield had more students than University College yet lacked the facilities, especially kitchens, to accommodate them. University College, on the other hand, was comparatively undersubscribed. To address this, the two colleges effectively amalgamated under the guidance of Angus Macfarlane-Grieve, and all meals were taken together in the Great Hall of University College, while each college retained its own set of officers and clubs. Unhappy with this arrangement, some Hatfielders expressed their separate identity in trivial ways: for example, using a different door to enter the Castle dining hall than the University College students, and, in contrast to the University College contingent – turning to face the High Table during grace.
The political situation in Europe impacted college activities: during one memorable rag week in 1936, Hatfield students staged a mock Nazi procession to the nearby Market Square, with participants dressing in jackboots, brown shirts, and fascist armbands. One of them, Joe Crouch, a fluent German speaker, comically impersonated Adolf Hitler and delivered an impromptu speech to the assembled crowd. In 1938, fears of an impending war resulted in the construction of an air raid shelter, with dons and servants digging trenches in the Master's garden (now Dunham Court). Gas masks were issued to college residents. Meanwhile, a recent decline in the number of freshers, and the death that year of John Hall How, the Master of University College, gave rise to rumours that Hatfield would be annexed to its older neighbour.
World War II
In October 1939, Hatfielders were barred from their own college when the university decided to use Hatfield as a temporary site for the new Neville's Cross College, an institution for training women teachers. Having spent over a decade taking meals in Castle, they would now be prevented from using Hatfield buildings altogether. Without its own buildings and Master, and the issue of the ongoing war, Hatfield was in a poor position to recruit new students, an era later described as the "wilderness years" by college archivist Arthur Moyes.
However, the college received an unexpected new lease of life when the Royal Air Force established short courses at the university for some of its cadets, and soon these cadets made up half of the Hatfield student body. This led the university to postpone plans to merge Hatfield with University College. Plans were revived again in 1943, but met the strong opposition of Hatfield dons, especially Hedley Sparks. In 1946, the centenary year of the college, members formed the Hatfield Association to both represent alumni and demonstrate to the university council that Hatfield was supported.
Post-war
The university finally decided that from October 1949, Hatfield would be reestablished as an independent college – with Vindolanda archaeologist Eric Birley (1949–1956) appointed to serve as the new Master. The post-war period saw Hatfield once again faced with the familiar problem of squeezing in a larger student population, as the war had created a growing backlog. More buildings were constructed and refurbished. Moreover, accommodation was acquired away from the main site and the Senior Common Room was established. In 1962, it was decided that a brass plaque should be fixed to the college gates identifying the establishment as Hatfield College. Just 24 hours after installation, a group of students from a rival Bailey college were caught trying to remove the plaque as a sporting trophy. In 1963, the college received its first taste of student protest, when a "militant minority group of young gentlemen united under the banner of International Socialism". Around the same time students voted to boycott formal dinners after a row with Master Thomas Whitworth (1957–1979) over whether or not jeans counted as formal wear.
Reforms were subsequently introduced. Joint standing committees, composed equally of staff and students, were set up to "deliberate almost every conceivable topic" and the undergraduate Senior Man was allowed to take part in meetings of the college's governing body. By 1971, a "liberal and balanced" Governing Body had been achieved: consisting of 4 college tutors, 4 elected tutors, 4 delegates from the Junior Common Room, and a representative from the Hatfield Association alumni group. Writing in the same year, a satisfied Whitworth was able to boast of warding off the "mischievous opportunism" of student "exhibitionists".
Modern
The leadership of James Barber (1980–1996) was a period of significant change. Student numbers rose, increasing to over 650 by the time Barber finished his tenure in office. Living out became compulsory for students for at least part of their career, and many existing buildings were either rebuilt or refurbished to make room for students: The Rectory was remodeled, C & D Stairs were refurbished, the Main Hall was repaired, and Jevons' was redecorated. A Middle Common Room for the postgraduate community was added in Kitchen Stairs. In 1981, the Formal Ball was renamed 'The Lion in Winter', which it has been called ever since. More comically, 'C Scales', a goldfish, was elected as a member of the JCR in 1982 and put forward as a potential Durham Student Union President. In 1984, the JCR was sued by representatives of the band Mud after a student ruined four speakers by pouring beer into an amplifier during a performance at a college ball.
Hatfield also became co-educational, which at the time was only 'grudgingly accepted' by the college. In 1985, talk of going mixed was stimulated by the low numbers of applicants selecting Hatfield as their preference, and a recent decline in academic standards – with the college finishing bottom of the results table the previous year. Ignoring threats of hooliganism, the Senior Common Room decided in May of that year to push forward with plans to go mixed. In March 1987, a student referendum was held, with 79.2% voting for the college to remain men only. The Senate decided that, despite the referendum result, the college would in fact go mixed – and the first female undergraduates arrived the following year. The first female Senior Man held the post in 1992. Her election win, by a single vote, prompted some students to declare a mock 'week of mourning' and walk around the college wearing black arm bands.
Buildings
Main Court
The oldest part of the college site is likely what is now the dining room, believed to date back to the 17th century. It originally formed part of a town house owned by a wealthy member of local society, and was converted in 1760 into a coaching inn, The Red Lion – a stopping point for coaches travelling between London and Edinburgh. During this time it also hosted concerts, probably featuring the work of composers like Charles Avison and John Garth. In 1799 the old coaching inn reverted to being a private residence. In 1845, it was sold to the university, and emerged as the first component of the newly founded Hatfield College the following year. Much more extensive when first occupied by Hatfield, since then "substantial parts of the building" have been replaced by newer structures. Apart from the dining room, what remains are spaces adjoining it that were once used by travellers, but are now filled by the Senior Common Room (SCR) – formerly a card room – the SCR dining room; and finally, on the higher floors, the 'D Stairs' student accommodation block, which comprises 13 twin rooms. D Staircase has had a reputation for being haunted by a female spirit, recognisable by the aroma of a distinctive perfume.
At the west end of the dining room is Kitchen Block, which features the main kitchens as well as a small number of student rooms and offices on the higher floors. 'C Stairs', holding the C accommodation block, was officially opened in 1932 by Lord Halifax. It replaced an earlier section of the coaching inn used since the founding of the college. Designed by Anthony Salvin, A & B Stairs – also used for undergraduate housing – was completed in 1849 at a cost of £4,000, and was the first purpose-built part of the college. Containing A and B accommodation blocks, it was renamed and rededicated as the Melville Building in 2005 after a £1million refurbishment. Author Josceline Dimbleby, the great-great-granddaughter of David Melville, was invited to perform the ceremony.
The Rectory was acquired in 1897, and is the administrative hub of the college, encompassing as it does the offices of the Master, the Vice-Master & Senior Tutor, the Assistant Senior Tutor, the Chaplain, the Senior Administrative Secretary, the Senior Tutor's Secretary, the Finance Officer and the Hatfield Trust/Association. The Birley Room, used for social functions, can be found at the ground floor of the Rectory. Added to the college at the same time as the Rectory, Hatfield Cottage is in between the redundant church of St Mary-le-Bow (now the Durham Museum and Heritage Centre) and Gatehouse Block. It is where the Middle Common Room (MCR) is now located, having moved from its former space in Kitchen Block.
Gatehouse Block is to the right of the entrance and houses the porters' lodge. It also has single and twin use student rooms. In 1961 the college had begun a project to replace the remnants of a much older gatehouse that was in poor condition. The new pseudo-Georgian replacement was completed by Easter 1962 for a total cost of £55,000. To provide an unbroken front to the North Bailey, decorative gates and railings were installed in the aftermath.
Dunham Court
Named after alumnus Kingsley Dunham, Dunham Court is the second quadrangle of the college. Accessed through an underpass by the chapel, it comprises two buildings, Jevons (Frank Jevons) and Pace (Edward Pace). An influx of extra students after the war stimulated demand for more accommodation and the garden of the old Jevon's House provided the available space. The new building, described by Pevsner as "friendly", with a "nice rhythm of windows towards the river", was finished in 1950 and named after former Vice-Master Edward Pace.
The college commenced the largest building project in its history when it demolished old Jevon's House, a "property of advanced decrepitude" once occupied by the bare-knuckle boxer and politician John Gully before its purchase by the university. As parts of the building had become dangerous by this point, the entire structure had to be removed. Construction of the new modernist style Jevons Building, which would complete the new Dunham Court, began in June 1966. It was officially unveiled in a ceremony in June 1968, attended by both Kingsley Dunham and Lord Lieutenant of Durham James Duff. It won a Civic Trust Award the following year. In 1972 a fishpond, since removed, was constructed in the centre of the court at the encouragement of senior college officers.
Both buildings contain rooms and social spaces: the college bar and café is located in Jevons, while Pace has a TV lounge, a music room, a kitchen, two gyms, and the JCR Common Room.
Chapel
The college chapel was conceived in 1851 and built by 1854, funded by donations by alumni and topped up with a loan of £150 from the university. Designed by Bishop Cosin's Hall chaplain, James Turner (also a trained architect), it contains head sculptures of William Van Mildert, the founder of the university, and Warden Thorp, the first Vice-Chancellor.
Commemorative oak panels mark the fallen of the First World War, with a book of remembrance naming those lost in the Second World War. The chapel houses a Harrison & Harrison organ, which is used to accompany services and for recitals. In 2001, it was refurbished at the cost of £65,000.
When Hatfield was founded, attendance at cathedral services was compulsory; and once the chapel was constructed attendance at these services was obligatory for the next 80 years. Since then, the chapel has been described as making up an "important but minority interest" within the college.
Hatfield offers eight choral scholarships annually, after an audition and interview process with the chaplain during first term. The choir is led by a student choral director, supported by an organ scholar and deputy organ scholar. It is mainly made up of students who support regular worship in the chapel, but also sing at other churches and cathedrals, with annual tours undertaken both at home and abroad. A further scholarship, the Matthew Fantom Organ Scholarship, is available to those students in the early stages of learning to play the organ and who would not be ready to apply for the regular organ scholarships.
Other buildings
Opposite the gatehouse on North Bailey is Bailey House, an accommodation block which provides 50 single rooms, plus a communal and kitchen area on the ground floor. Palmers Garth is located across the Kingsgate Bridge over the River Wear. It offers 8 twin and 41 single rooms for 57 students. The building was formerly used for administration by the university, and once hosted the careers service until it was handed over to Hatfield College in 1991.
The postgraduate accommodation site is James Barber House, or JBH for short, a self-catered residence on nearby Church Street. Named after former Master James Barber, it was completed by Durham County Council as Palatine House in 1968, and originally a care home for the elderly before its purchase by the college in 2006.
College traditions
Arms
From its foundation, the college used as its arms the personal shield of Thomas Hatfield (Azure, a chevron or, between three lions rampant argent). The crest was made circular in design and was accompanied with the Latin motto "Vel Primus Vel Cum Primis", which literally means "Either First or With the First", though is now loosely interpreted by the college as "Be the Best you can Be".
In 1954, the college learned that its crest was unregistered with the College of Arms, and its display, including the use of Bishop Hatfield's shield, was both inappropriate and illegal. Consequently, it sought a grant of its own from the College of Arms, which was approved. The new arms were based on Hatfield's shield, but to difference the college's arms from the bishop's, a crown and plumes above the shield was added, with an ermine border and the college motto scrolled underneath.
This new crest was more "official" looking but tricky to reproduce. Rodney Lucas, a student in the 1950s, was asked to produce freehand drawings of the college arms (one with the crest and one without) for use in the annual Hatfield Record. The design without the crest was ultimately chosen and appeared for years on college stationary. In June 1994, Lucas contacted the college with a new rendering of the college arms made on a computer, which was subsequently adopted. The commercial design for the arms was changed once again in 2005.
Academic dress
Similar to most Bailey Colleges, the wearing of the undergraduate academic gown is required for formal events, including to the matriculation ceremony and all formal dinners held in college.
Formals
In Michaelmas term (first term), formal dinners are held twice each week, on Tuesday and Friday. Epiphany term (second term) sees this reduced to mainly Fridays, while few formals are held during Easter term (third term) as students' attention is increasingly focused on exams and assignments. A High table, consisting of senior staff, is also present during formal meals.
Unique to Hatfield is the tradition of 'spooning', in which students bang spoons on the edge of the table or on silverware for several minutes before the formal starts. The act immediately ceases when the High Table walks in.
Grace
Benedicte Deus, qui pascis nos a iuventute nostra et praebes cibum omni carni, reple gaudio et laetitia corda nostra, ut nos, quod satis est habentes, abundemus in omne opus bonum. Per Jesum Christum, Dominum Nostrum, cui tecum et Spiritu Sancto, sit omnis honor, laus et imperium in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
This can be translated as:
Blessed God, who feedest us from our youth, and providest food for all flesh, fill our hearts with joy and gladness, that we, having enough to satisfy us, may abound in every good work, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and praise and power for all ages. Amen.
Since 1846 the grace has been read at all formal meals in college. It is popular at alumni dinners, where an attempt to read the grace in English was badly received by guests.
Widely used in the fourth century and based on earlier Hebrew prayers, it was translated from the Greek and adopted by Oriel College, Oxford. Hatfield copied it practically verbatim; the college believes this was likely influenced by the Rev. Henry Jenkyns, a Fellow of Oriel before becoming Professor of Greek and Classical Literature at Durham.
Hatfield Day
Hatfield Day is a day of festivities held every June to celebrate the end of exams. Traditions include 'Storming the Castle', in which Hatfield students wake up early to rush the courtyard of University College and sing college songs.
By the 1980s Hatfield Day was 'not an occasion to which children or maiden aunts could be invited'. Problems included offensive student pranks, vandalism, and an inability to contain events within the confines of the college. Arrests were not unknown. The Hatfield Day of 1984 required County Durham Fire Brigade to extinguish a fire set by a student.
With the admission of female undergraduates, Hatfield Day became notably 'less coarse' as women members of JCR now 'exerted an influence' on behaviour.
Songs
The college song was formerly Green Grow the Rushes, O. It was replaced in 1952 with a surprising selection: 'If I Should Plant a Tiny Seed of Love' by Ballard Macdonald. This 'mournful Edwardian ballad' came to be the 'rallying song of an increasingly macho Hatfield'.
As of 2012, other long-established college songs included Two Little Boys, Jerusalem, and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.
Student body
As of the 2017/18 academic year, Hatfield College has a population of 1,339 students. There are 1,007 full-time undergraduates and 3 part-time undergraduates. Postgraduate figures include 55 students on full-time postgraduate research programs and 111 studying for full-time postgraduate taught programs, plus a further 94 part-time postgraduate students (research and taught) as well as 69 distance learning students.
Common rooms
The Junior Common Room (JCR) is for undergraduates in the college. It annually elects an executive committee consisting of 10 members, including an impartial chair, who run the JCR in conjunction with college officers. Unlike other colleges, Hatfield exclusively retains Senior Man as its title for the head of the JCR, having rejected a motion to move to "JCR President" in May 2014. A motion to allow the incumbent to choose between "Senior Man", "Senior Woman" or "Senior Student" was also defeated in January 2016.
The Middle Common Room (MCR) is the organisation for postgraduate students. Postgraduate accommodation is located at James Barber House. College officers, fellows and tutors are members of the Senior Common Room (SCR).
Image
Having shed its theological image by the Second World War, Hatfield developed a strong sporting reputation over the following decades. Johnathan Young, a 1963 matriculant, later recalled that his contemporaries 'were expected to excel in most sports and particularly rugby'.
A stereotype of Hatfield undergraduates as indifferent students who were largely from privileged backgrounds also emerged. This was a perception that college leadership were acutely aware of and keen to downplay. Master Thomas Whitworth, in his 1971 college history, Yellow Sandstone and Mellow Brick; instead defined Hatfielders by ambition, and stressed their tendency to seek leadership positions on campus. It was a viewpoint echoed years later by his successor, James Barber:
"Go to a University concert, a play or a debate, watch a University sporting event, and Hatfield students will be prominent."
Alumni have also praised a "work hard, play hard ethos" conducive to future success and highlighted a strong sense of identity and community. Nevertheless, student articles have criticised Hatfield for being 'rah', and suggested it is responsible for perpetuating negative views about the wider university. Writing in 1996, college archivist Arthur Moyes admitted that modesty "is not a Hatfield characteristic".
Past data has shown it to be popular with applicants from private schools. For the 2015/2016 cycle, 65.8% of applicants were privately educated – against a university total of only 36.1%. These figures also represent a significant reversal over time; during the 1960s the state school intake averaged 63%.
For 2016 entry, under 2% of freshers were from low participation neighbourhoods. To attract a wider range of candidates it has launched an outreach programme working with pupils in local state schools in Gateshead, Hartlepool, and Washington.
Admissions
For the 2015/2016 entry cycle 1,375 applicants selected the college as their preference. This made it the 5th most popular overall, behind University College, Josephine Butler College, Collingwood College, and St Mary's College. 336 accepted applicants ultimately enrolled. Compared to most other colleges, Hatfield received a somewhat higher percentage of gap year applicants, with 7.8% of applicants in the 2015/2016 cycle choosing to defer, against a university average of 3.8%.
In the application cycles from 2017 through 2020, Hatfield was ranked in the top 5 of colleges by number of first choice preferences, but dropped to 8th place for 2021 entry. That year it was the 'most polarizing college', having seen the largest increase in last-place rankings.
College officers and fellows
Master
The current Master is Ann MacLarnon, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Durham University, who assumed the role in September 2017.
List of past masters
David Melville (1846–1851)
William Henderson (1851–1852)
Edward Bradby (Michaelmas Term 1852)
James Lonsdale (1853–1854)
John Pedder (1854–1859)
James Barmby (1859–1876)
William Sanday (1876–1883)
Archibald Robertson (1883–1897)
Frank Jevons (1896–1923)
Arthur Robinson (1923–1940)
Angus Macfarlane-Grieve (1940–1949)
Eric Birley (1949–1956)
Thomas Whitworth (1957–1979)
James Barber (1980–1996)
Tim Burt (1996–2017)
Fellows
Hatfield College Council awards honorary fellowships to alumni and people who have a close association with Hatfield. On receipt of the fellowship, the fellow automatically becomes an honorary member of the SCR and receives the same benefits. By 2012, honorary fellows numbered 24 in total, notably including former university chancellor Bill Bryson.
As of 2018, other staff affiliated to the college include eight junior research fellows and 10 Senior Research Fellows. Current senior fellows include, amongst others, the theologian Douglas Davies. The college also occasionally hosts visiting academics, normally for one term, as part of the fellowship scheme offered by the university's Institute of Advanced Study.
Sports and societies
Hatfield College Boat Club
Hatfield College Boat Club (HCBC) is the boat club of Hatfield College at Durham University. The club was started in 1846, shortly after the founding of the college, making it one of the oldest student clubs in Durham. There is a Novice Development programme for absolute beginners. It also trains coxes and has a dedicated Coxes Captain.
The current college boathouse was completed in Epiphany term of 1881, with the previous structure having to be rebuilt and re-sited at the cost of £250 – club members believing it to be 'inconveniently small' and very exposed to flood damage. Up until 2001 Hatfield shared its boat club with rowers from Trevelyan College. Tension over space, resulting from Hatfield's desire to purchase additional boats, saw the termination of this arrangement, with Trevelyan later electing to store its boats with the local owner of a private boathouse.
In 2016, the boathouse was one of several to fall victim to racist graffiti and had a swastika and SS symbol splashed on the doors. Major maintenance was carried out in 2019: the roof was reinforced and the doors sanded and repainted.
Notable former members of the club include Alice Freeman, Louisa Reeve, Angus Groom, and Simon Barr.
Rugby
Hatfield College has become known for prowess in rugby in particular – so much so that Thomas Whitworth (Master, 1957–79), a known rugby enthusiast, was often accused of bias in the selection and treatment of rugby-playing students. In intercollegiate rugby, Hatfield became the dominant club in the decades following the war, conceding the colleges cup just once in a 14-year period up to 1971. The Durham University team that triumphed in the 1969 University Athletic Union final against Newcastle University was made up mostly of Hatfield players.
Intercollegiate dominance continued into the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with Hatfield eventually establishing a record of 30 cup wins in 32 years. The 1995 cup final was noteworthy for being an all-Hatfield event, contested by the college's A and B teams. Today, double protein portions for university rugby players are still offered in the college dining hall each meal-time.
Will Carling, Will Greenwood, and Marcus Rose are the most notable former undergraduates, all of whom made multiple appearances for England and participated in various editions of the Rugby World Cup. Richard Breakey and Jeremy Campbell-Lamerton were capped by Scotland, while Mark Griffin won several caps for the United States. Josh Basham, Stuart Legg and Ben Woods have all played club rugby for Newcastle Falcons. Another recent graduate, Fitz Harding, is signed to Bristol Bears.
Other sports and societies
Hatfield has its own theatre group, the Lion Theatre Company. It has SHAPED, which is a personal development program.
Alumni
Hatfield Trust
Established in 1987 to get around the financial limitations of being a maintained college, the Hatfield Trust is essentially the college endowment fund. It relies on contributions from alumni and supporters to fund student activities, bursaries, and one-off projects. The value of the trust stood at £500,000 by 1998. As a way to encourage more frequent donations from former students, the 1846 Club enables donors to make pledges of £18.46 annually, quarterly, or monthly.
Societies
Hatfield alumni are active through organisations and events, such as the Hatfield Association, which now has a membership of more than 4,000 graduates.
Notable people
There are examples of notable alumni of Hatfield College in various fields, including government, academia, arts, and sport to name just a few.
The sporting alumni of Hatfield College may be the most famous, among them former England rugby union captain Will Carling, 2003 Rugby World Cup winner Will Greenwood, and former England cricket team captain Andrew Strauss. More recently, rower Angus Groom was a silver medallist at the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Government figures to have attended Hatfield include Robert Buckland, a former Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor; Edward Timpson, former MP for Eddisbury and Minister of State for Children and Families; and Labour Party life peer Baron Carter of Coles. At least 5 alumni have held ambassadorial level posts in the Foreign Office, most notably Kim Darroch, previously British Ambassador to the United States
Hatfielders in the military include Lord Dannatt, a former Chief of the General Staff, and one of his successors in the same role – General Mark Carleton-Smith. The late Air Marshall Peter Walker, Rear Admiral Andrew Burns, the current Fleet Commander, and retired Rear Admiral Matt Parr were also Hatfield undergraduates, in addition to Major-General Peter Grant Peterkin, later appointed Serjeant at Arms in the House of Commons.
In the media, presenters Jeremy Vine, Mark Durden-Smith, Jonathan Gould, and Mark Pougatch; and David Shukman, Science Editor of BBC News (2012–2021), were all students at the college.
In the arts world, travel writer Alexander Frater was a Hatfield student, as was the poet and memoirist Thomas Blackburn, fashion journalist Colin McDowell, singer-songwriter Jake Thackray, comedian Ed Gamble, and conductor Jonathan Darlington.
Ecclesiastical alumni are numerous: with former Bishop of Derby Peter Dawes, former Bishop of Cyprus and the Gulf Clive Handford, and Morris Gelsthorpe, the first Bishop in the Sudan, making up just a small sample.
In academia, names include computer scientist Keith Clark, Professor of Computational Logic at Imperial College London (1987–2009); particle physicist Nigel Glover, a current professor at Durham; Rebecca Goss, Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of St Andrews; and Gordon Cameron, Professor of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge (1980–1990) and Master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (1988–1990).
Eden Project founder Tim Smit, BP executive Richard Paniguian, Oliver Bonas founder Oliver Tress, and David Arkless, Chairman of End Human Trafficking Now, are all examples of alumni with a background in business.
Gallery
See also
List of Hatfield College alumni with articles on Wikipedia
History of Durham University
Notes
References
Bibliography
Citations
External links
Hatfield College
Junior Common Room
Middle Common Room
Senior Common Room |
Frank_Jevons | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Jevons | [
367
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Jevons"
] | Frank Byron Jevons (1858–29 February 1936) was a polymath, academic and administrator of Durham University.
Early life
He was educated at Nottingham High School and Wadham College, Oxford and appointed a lecturer in Classics at Durham in 1882.
Career
He was the first Censor of St Cuthbert's Society from 1892 until 1897, a role he performed with "skill and humanity". In 1897 he was appointed as Principal of Bishop Hatfield's Hall (retitled master in 1919 when it became Hatfield College), where he remained until 1922. He was the first principal not to be seen ordained clergyman. He also served as treasurer of the university from 1898 to 1902, as sub-warden from 1902 to 1909, as vice-chancellor of the university between 1910 and 1912 and pro vice-chancellor between 1912 and 1914 and 1916 to 1921.
He received an honorary DLitt from Durham University in 1895. He was Professor of Philosophy between 1910 and 1930 and presided at the inaugural meeting of the World Congress of Philosophy in 1923. One of the last Victorian polymaths, in the twenty years before and after 1900, he gave himself successively to the study of classics, philosophy, sociology, history, anthropology, and comparative religion.
A portrait hangs in the refectory of Hatfield College.
Social and national issues
He was concerned with social and national issues, especially the education of the working classes and of women.
Major writings
He was author of eighteen scholarly texts some of which, for example A History of Greek Literature: From the Earliest Period to the Death of Demosthenes (1886), An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion (1908), and Comparative Religion (Cambridge Manual of Science and Literature) (1913) remain in print.
He also wrote on other fields in which subsequent technical advances have been radical and rapid, such as evolution. Such works understandably are no longer commonly in print, but they remain of interest for their clarity, logic, and sound representation of the perspective of his day.
Other writings available online include:
A Manual of Greek Antiquities (as co-author of Percy Gardner)
An Introduction to the History of Religion
Philosophy: What is It?
The idea of God in early religions
List of works
Jevons wrote, co-authored, or translated the following books (some titles may be duplicates):
Jevons, Frank Byron (2011). Comparative Religion. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107401754.
Jevons, Frank Byron. Graeco-Italian Magic.
Jevons, Frank Byron. Magic.
Jevons, Frank Byron (1900). Evolution. Methuen.
Jevons, Frank Byron (1886). A History of Greek Literature: From the Earliest Period to the Death of Demosthenes. New York, C. Scribner's sons.
Jevons, Frank Byron. Masks and Acting. ISBN 978-1-113-28297-2.
Jevons, Frank Byron. Personality. ISBN 978-1-112-31066-9.
Plutarch (1892) [c.100]. Jevons, Frank Byron (ed.). Plutarch's Romane Questions. based on 1603 translation by Philemon Holland. David Nutt in The Strand. ISBN 978-1-117-10776-9.
Jevons, Frank Byron (1908). An Introduction to the Study of Comparative Religion. The Macmillan Company. ISBN 9781178627886.
Jevons, Frank Byron. Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples: A Manual Of Comparative Philology And The Earliest Culture Being The Sprachvergleichung Und Urgeschichte Of Dr. O. Schrader. ISBN 978-0-548-09482-2.
Jevons, Frank Byron. Religion in Evolution. ISBN 978-1-172-27073-6.
Jevons, Frank Byron. The Development of the Athenian Democracy. ISBN 978-1-241-40147-4.
Jevons, Frank Byron. The Evolution of the Religious Consciousness.
Jevons, Frank Byron. The Makers of Hellas: A Critical Inquiry Into the Philosophy and Religion of Ancient Greece. ISBN 978-1-148-28157-5.
References
External links
Media related to Frank Byron Jevons at Wikimedia Commons
Works related to Frank Jevons at Wikisource
Works by Frank Byron Jevons at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Frank Jevons at the Internet Archive |
Archibald_Robertson_(bishop) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Robertson_(bishop) | [
367
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archibald_Robertson_(bishop)"
] | Archibald Robertson (29 June 1853 – 29 January 1931) was the seventh Principal of King's College London who later served as Bishop of Exeter.
Early life and education
He was born at Sywell rectory, Northamptonshire, the eldest son of George Samuel Robertson, curate of Sywell, (1825–1874) and his wife, Helen née Kerr, and grandson of Archibald Robertson and William Charles Kerr junior, both physicians of Northampton. He was educated at Bradfield College and Trinity College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1876 with a first class degree in Classics (Lit. Hum.). He became a Fellow of Trinity in 1876 (until 1886), Dean of the same (1879–1883), and a Doctor of Divinity (DD). He was ordained (both times by John Mackarness, Bishop of Oxford): a deacon on Trinity Sunday (16 June) 1878 in Cuddesdon Parish Church; and a priest on St Thomas's day (21 December) 1882 in Christ Church.
Career
From 1883 to 1897 he was Master of Hatfield Hall in Durham. He went on to serve as Principal of King's College London from 1897 to 1903, during which he was elected to serve as Vice-Chancellor of the University of London for the year 1902–1903. He also served as an examining chaplain for Forrest Browne, Bishop of Bristol, in 1897, and became a Fellow of King's College in 1899. He received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Divinity, DD) from Durham University in 1893 and a further one (Legum Doctor, LLD) from the University of Glasgow in June 1901. He was Boyle Lecturer in 1900 and Bampton Lecturer in 1901, became an honorary fellow of Trinity in 1903 and was a Vice-President of the Clan-Donnachaid Society.
In his academic career, Robertson was a specialist in patristics and church history, in which field he was widely published and respected. He was elected Bishop of Exeter on Easter Monday (13 April) 1903, consecrated (ordained) as a bishop on 1 May (by Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, at St Paul's Cathedral) and enthroned and installed at Exeter Cathedral on 5 May; he legally took up the See upon the confirmation of his election, which took place between his election and consecration (i.e. during April 1903). In 1912 Lollards Tower on the Exeter City Wall was rebuilt and several sculpted stone tablets displaying the arms of Bishop Robertson were set into the walls, including one over the arched entrance known as Bishop Carey's Postern. He served as diocesan bishop until 1916, when he resigned due to ill health, retiring to Oxford, where he died at home in 1931.
Robertson was strongly in favour of Great Britain's declaration of War against Germany in August, 1914. He believed that Germany's ultimate aim was to destroy Great Britain. "Whether it pleases God to give us victory or not, we believe we are fighting for the fraternity and equal right of nations, against the claim that might is right! We are, furthermore, fighting in self-defence." Although frequently absent from his post because of ill-health, Robertson prepared a Briefing Note for clergy to teach parishioners about the reasons justifying the War, encouraged prayers for animals such as horses used by cavalry and artillery and praised clergy whose families were active participants. An especial mention was made of the Rector of Dartington, 5 of whose 7 sons were in the army, the sixth had been in the Royal Navy and the youngest was still at school but in the Officers Training Corps.
Family
Robertson married in 1885, shortly after his arrival in Durham. His wife was Julia Mann, daughter of Charles, Rector of Mawgan-in-Meneage and St Issey, Cornwall. They had three sons. The eldest of these, of the same name, was the communist and atheist Archibald Robertson (atheist) (1886–1961).
Works
Robertson, Archibald, ed. (1882). St Athanasius on the Incarnation: Edited for the Use of Students with a Brief Introduction And Notes (first ed.). London: David Nutt.
Robertson, Archibald, ed. (1891). St Athanasius on the Incarnation (second ed.). London: David Nutt.
Robertson, Archibald, ed. (1892). A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume IV: St. Athanasius Select Work and Letters.
Robertson, Archibald (1896). Roman Claims to Supremacy. London: S.P.C.K.
Robertson, Archibald (1901). Regnum Dei: Eight Lectures on the Kingdom of God in the History of Christian Thought. Bampton Lectures. London: Methuen.
Robertson, Archibald; Plummer, Alfred (1911). A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (first ed.). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark\.
Robertson, Archibald; Plummer, Alfred (1914). A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (second ed.). Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark\.
References
External links
Works by or about Archibald Robertson at the Internet Archive
Works by Archibald Robertson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) |
Clyfford_Still | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyfford_Still | [
368
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyfford_Still"
] | Clyfford Still (November 30, 1904 – June 23, 1980) was an American painter, and one of the leading figures in the first generation of Abstract Expressionists, who developed a new, powerful approach to painting in the years immediately following World War II. Still has been credited with laying the groundwork for the movement, as his shift from representational to abstract painting occurred between 1938 and 1942, earlier than his colleagues like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, who continued to paint in figurative-surrealist styles well into the 1940s.
Biography
Still was born in 1904 in Grandin, North Dakota and spent his childhood in Spokane, Washington and Bow Island in southern Alberta, Canada. In 1925 he visited New York, briefly studying at the Art Students League. He attended Spokane University from 1926 to 1927 and returned in 1931 with a fellowship, graduating in 1933. That fall, he became a teaching fellow, then faculty member at Washington State College (now Washington State University), where he obtained his Master of Fine Arts degree in 1935 and taught until 1941. He spent the summers of 1934 and 1935 at the Trask Foundation (now Yaddo) in Saratoga Springs, New York.
In 1937, along with Washington State colleague Worth Griffin, Still co-founded the Nespelem Art Colony that produced hundreds of portraits and landscapes depicting Colville Indian Reservation Native American life over the course of four summers.
In 1941 Still relocated to the San Francisco Bay area where he worked in various war industries while pursuing painting. He had his first solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) in 1943. He taught at the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), now Virginia Commonwealth University, from 1943 to 1945, then went to New York City.
Mark Rothko, whom Still had met in California in 1943, introduced him to Peggy Guggenheim, who gave him a solo exhibition at her gallery, The Art of This Century Gallery, in early 1946. The following year Guggenheim closed her gallery and Still, along with Rothko and other Abstract Expressionists, joined the Betty Parsons gallery.
Still returned to San Francisco, where he became a highly influential professor at the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute), teaching there from 1946 to 1950. In 1950, he moved to New York City, where he lived most of the decade, the height of Abstract Expressionism, but also a time when he became increasingly critical of the art world. In the early 1950s, Still severed ties with commercial galleries. In 1961 he moved to a 22-acre farm near Westminster, Maryland, removing himself further from the art world. Still used a barn on the property as a studio during the warm weather months. In 1966, Still and his second wife purchased a 4,300-square-foot house at 312 Church Street in New Windsor, Maryland, about eight miles from their farm, where he lived until his death.
Family life
Still married Lillian August Battan circa 1930. They had two daughters, born in 1939 and 1942. The couple separated in the late 1940s and divorced in 1954. In 1957, Still married Patricia Alice Garske, who had been one of his students at Washington State and was sixteen years his junior.
Paintings
Having developed his signature style in San Francisco between 1946 and 1950 while teaching at the California School of Fine Arts, Still is considered one of the foremost Color Field painters – his non-figurative paintings are non-objective, and largely concerned with juxtaposing different colors and surfaces in a variety of formations. Unlike Mark Rothko or Barnett Newman, who organized their colors in a relatively simple way (Rothko in the form of nebulous rectangles, Newman in thin lines on vast fields of color), Still's arrangements are less regular. In fact, he was one of the few painters who combined practices of Color Field paintings with that of Gestural, Action Paintings. His jagged flashes of color give the impression that one layer of color has been "torn" off the painting, revealing the colors underneath. Another point of departure with Newman and Rothko is the way the paint is laid on the canvas; while Rothko and Newman used fairly flat colors and relatively thin paint, Still uses a thick impasto, causing subtle variety and shades that shimmer across the painting surfaces. His large mature works recall natural forms and natural phenomena at their most intense and mysterious; ancient stalagmites, caverns, foliage, seen both in darkness and in light lend poetic richness and depth to his work. By 1947, he had begun working in the format that he would intensify and refine throughout the rest of his career – a large-scale color field applied with palette knives. Among Still's well known paintings is 1957-D No. 1, 1957 (right), which is mainly black and yellow with patches of white and a small amount of red. These four colors, and variations on them (purples, dark blues) are predominant in his work, although there is a tendency for his paintings to use darker shades.
Exhibitions
In 1943, Still's first solo show took place at the San Francisco Museum of Art. In 1947, Jermayne MacAgy, assistant director of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, gave him a solo show there. The artist then declined all public exhibitions from 1952 to 1959. A first comprehensive Still retrospective took place at the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, in 1959. Later solo exhibitions of Still's paintings were presented by the Institute of Contemporary Art of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1963 and at the Marlborough-Gerson gallery, New York, in 1969 to 1970. In 1975, a permanent installation of a group of his works opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 1979, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art organized the largest survey of Still's art to date and the largest presentation afforded by this institution to the work of a living artist.
Awards
Still received the Award of Merit for Painting in 1972 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, of which he became a member in 1978, and the Skowhegan Medal for Painting in 1975.
Estate and museum
Still wrote a will in 1978 that left a portion of his work, along with his archives, to his wife Patricia and stated: "I give and bequeath all the remaining works of art executed by me in my collection to an American city that will agree to build or assign and maintain permanent quarters exclusively for these works of art and assure their physical survival with the explicit requirement that none of these works of art will be sold, given, or exchanged but are to be retained in the place described above exclusively assigned to them in perpetuity for exhibition and study." After Still's death in 1980, the Still collection of approximately 2,400 works was sealed off completely from public and scholarly access for more than twenty years.
In August 2004, the City of Denver, Colorado announced it had been chosen by Patricia Still to receive the artworks contained within the Clyfford Still Estate (roughly 825 paintings on canvas and 1575 works on paper – drawings and limited-edition fine-art prints). The Clyfford Still Museum, an independent nonprofit organization, opened under the directorship of Dean Sobel in November 2011. The museum also houses the complete Still archives of sketchbooks, journals, notebooks, the artist's library, and other archival materials, inherited upon Patricia Still's death in 2005.
The building was designed by Allied Works Architecture, led by Brad Cloepfil. The museum is recognized as a successful implementation of contemporary architecture and an icon for the city of Denver. From January 24 to April 17, 2016, the Denver Art Museum hosted a temporary exhibit called "Case Work", which showcased the design process used for this museum and other major works by Allied and Cloepfil. After Denver, the exhibit was planned to show at the Portland Art Museum and then embark on a two-year international tour.
In March 2011, a Maryland court with jurisdiction over Patricia Still's estate ruled that four of Still's works could be sold before they officially became part of the museum's collection. In November 2011, Sotheby's in New York sold the four works; PH-351 (1940) for US$1.2 million, 1947-Y-No. 2 (1947) for US$31.4 million, 1949-A-No. 1 (1949) for US$61.7 million and PH-1033 (1976) for US$19.6 million. The proceeds from the sales, US$114 million, went to the Clyfford Still Museum "to support its endowment and collection-related expenses." In the decade prior to the sale, only 11 of Still's works came up at auction. The Clyfford Still Museum opened on November 18, 2011.
In December 2011, a visitor to the museum was accused of causing $10,000 worth of damage to Still's 1957-J no.2 oil painting.
In 2013, the Clyfford Still Museum Research Center was launched. Its aim is to explore the period of art and history in which the abstract painter worked. Plans include a fellowship program, cross-disciplinary scholarly publications, and research symposia.
Other collections
Albright–Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (33 paintings, 1937–1963
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (30 paintings, ca. 1936–1974)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (12 paintings, 1943–1977)
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (8 paintings, ca. 1935–1962)
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Tate collection, London (on loan to Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art)
Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza Art Collection, Albany, New York
The Kreeger Museum, Washington, D.C.
Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut
Quotes
From Still
"I never wanted color to be color. I never wanted texture to be texture, or images to become shapes. I wanted them all to fuse together into a living spirit."
"It's intolerable to be stopped by a frame's edge."
"I am not interested in illustrating my time. A man's 'time' limits him, it does not truly liberate him. Our age – it is one of science, of mechanism, of power and death. I see no point in adding to its mechanism of power and death. I see no point in adding to its mammoth arrogance the compliment of a graphic homage."
"How can we live and die and never know the difference?"
From others
"Still makes the rest of us look academic." --Jackson Pollock
"His show (at Peggy Guggenheim's The Art of This Century Gallery in 1946), of all those early shows [Pollock, Rothko, Motherwell], was the most original. A bolt out of the blue. Most of us were still working through images ... Still had none."--Robert Motherwell
"When I first saw a 1948 painting of Still's ... I was impressed as never before by how estranging and upsetting genuine originality in art can be."--Clement Greenberg, art critic; "American-Type Painting", Partisan Review, 1955, p. 58.
"It was in the mid-1940s that Still asserted himself as one of the most formally inventive artists of his generation."
--John Golding, art historian; Paths to the Absolute, 2000, Princeton University Press
"With their crude palette-knifed and troweled surfaces, their immense space, their strong color, their relentless vertical and horizontal expansiveness, Still's abstract works project a forcefulness perhaps unequaled in Abstract Expressionist painting."
--Stephen Polcari, art historian; Abstract Expressionism and the Modern Experience, 1991, Cambridge University Press
"A singular talent whose dimension will not be fully known in his own lifetime."--Robert Hughes, former Time art critic; Time, Prairie Coriolanus, February 9, 1976
See also
List of single-artist museums
Notes
Further reading
Repeat/Recreate: Clyfford Still's 'Replicas', David Anfam and Neal Benezra and Dean Sobel. Publisher: Clyfford Still Museum Research Center (2015), ISBN 978-0-9856357-3-2
Clyfford Still: The Artist's Museum, David Anfam and Dean Sobel. Publisher: Skira Rizzoli (2012), ISBN 978-0-9856357-0-1, ISBN 978-0-8478-3807-3
Nancy Marmer, "Clyfford Still: The Extremist Factor," Art in America, April 1980, pp. 102–113.
Clyfford Still: Paintings, 1944–1960, James T. Demetrion (Editor). David Anfam, Neal Benezra, Brooks Adams. Publisher: Yale University Press (June 1, 2001), ISBN 0-300-08969-4, ISBN 978-0-300-08969-1
Clyfford Still: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, John P. O'Neill (Editor). Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (1979), ISBN 0-87099-213-9
Sheets, Hilarie M. (6 November 2011). "Clyfford Still, Unpacked". Art in America.
Clyfford Still: The Late Works, David Anfam. Publisher: Skira Rizzoli (2020), ISBN 978-0-847868605 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Clyfford-Still-Works-David-Anfam/dp/0847868605/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&__mk_en_GB=%C3%85M%C3%85Z%C3%95%C3%91&dchild=1&qid=1619444430&refinements=p_27%3AAnfam&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1
External links
Clyfford Still Museum
Albright Knox
Albright Knox images
Clyfford Still artist page |
Spokane_University | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane_University | [
368
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane_University#Notable_alumni"
] | Spokane University was a four-year liberal arts college that operated from 1913 to 1933. It was founded in 1912 by Mr. B. E. Utz and Mr. W. D. Willoughby as Spokane Bible College. Mr. Utz worked at Eugene Bible University in Eugene, Oregon from 1909 to 1911 before moving back to Spokane. Spokane University was created to train ministers for the Christian Churches in Washington State. Because of financial difficulties during the Great Depression, in 1934 it merged with Eugene Bible College to become Northwest Christian College in Eugene, Oregon, now known as Bushnell University.
During its existence, Spokane University conferred degrees on 112 men and 100 women. Forty-six of the men were ordained. It was organized as three colleges: Bible, Liberal Arts, and Fine Arts.
The facilities were sold to Spokane Junior College which moved into the city of Spokane from its original location in the Spokane Valley to the former site of Spokane College on Spokane's South Hill. The former site of the university, twenty-three acres at Ninth and Herald Streets, was the home of University High School from 1963–2002. The former site of Spokane University is now owned and occupied by Valley Christian School, as University High School has moved to a new location on 32nd Avenue.
Presidents
B. E. Utz, 1912–1914
Isaac N. McCash, 1914–1916
Andrew M. Meldrum, 1916–1922
Chester V. Dunn, 1922–1924
Roy K. Roadruck, 1924–1932
A. G. Sater, 1932–1933
Notable alumni
Clyfford Still, class of 1933, an American painter, one of the leading figures in abstract expressionism.
Donald H. Magnuson, attended 1926 to 1928, a 5-term Representative in the United States congressional delegations from Washington.
George B. Thomas, professor of mathematics at MIT and author of a classic calculus textbook.
== References == |
Don_Magnuson | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Magnuson | [
368
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Magnuson"
] | Donald Hammer Magnuson (March 7, 1911 – October 5, 1979) was an American journalist and five-term congressman from the state of Washington and an investigative journalist for the Daily Olympian and Seattle Times newspapers. He was not related to Washington's long-serving U.S. Senator Warren G. Magnuson.
Early years
Magnuson was born on a farm near Freeman, in Spokane County, Washington, the son of Ellis William Magnuson and Ida (Hammer) Magnuson. He attended the public schools and Spokane University from 1926 to 1928, then transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle, and earned a bachelor's degree in 1931. After graduation, he worked as a harvester and then as a riveter in an aircraft factory.
Journalism career
Magnuson was a newspaper reporter for the Daily Olympian and Seattle Times from 1934 to 1952. In 1942, he wrote a series of reports about loafing in the Seattle-Tacoma Shipyards. He was instrumental in obtaining the pardon of Clarence Boggie, who was wrongly convicted of murder. He earned a Heywood Broun Award for his coverage and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Local Reporting in 1949 by the managing editor of the Seattle Times. His work was made into a radio episode on a national radio show: The Big Story in February, 1949. At another time, his reporting engendered so much response that 21 year-old Joe Maish's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment two minutes before he was to hang.
In 1950, Magnuson wrote a series on alcoholism. He interviewed 6,000 men who had been treated over 15 years. He described the "conditioned-reflect treatment" which was intended to create an aversion to alcohol. This treatment was based on Pavlov's work on conditioned reflex. The treatment for alcoholism was for the staff at the sanitarium to give a patient alcohol and at the same time induce nausea with an additive.
Political career
Magnuson was elected in 1952 as a Democrat to the Eighty-third Congress and was re-elected four times, serving from January 1953 until January 1963. Magnuson was named to the Committee on Merchant Marines and Fisheries in 1955. During his time in Congress he served on the Appropriations Committee subcommittee on Department of State, Justice and Judiciary, and the Department of the Interior. He also served on the Public Works Committee with oversight over the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Magnuson was shot through the sleeve when Puerto Rican nationalists shot up the floor of the 83rd Congress in 1954. The nationalists, identified as Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Andres Figueroa Cordero, and Irving Flores Rodríguez, unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and began shooting at the 240 Representatives, who were debating an immigration bill. He was on the phone quickly after with the Seattle Times during the ruckus to give them the scoop, which later Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill recorded in a book of memoirs.
In 1958, Rep. Magnuson escaped serious injury in a plane crash. He appeared in a newspaper photo, a hospital identification tag pinned to his blood spotted shirt, sitting in Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, where he was taken following the Northwest Airlines plane crash. Magnuson was one of 60 passengers who escaped death when the plane crashed into a corn field and burst into flames. His opponent for Congress that year complained about all of the sympathetic free publicity Magnuson received as a result of the incident. At least 11 U.S. Army service members were on board, and Rep. Magnuson recommended that Private First Class Raymond C. Maruschak receive the Soldier's Medal, and credited him with saving many lives that day. Maruschak and another soldier ripped a hole in the fuselage large enough to get all of the passengers out.
On January 30, 1959, Magnuson introduced a bill to establish a shield law to keep reporters from having to reveal their sources. On February 2, 1959, he introduced a bill to grant a second income tax exemption to college students who held down a job. On February 7, 1959, he was named to the board of oversight of the U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs for 4 consecutive years. On May 22, 1959, Magnuson voted for an addition to the public works bill in an Appropriations subcommittee for $724,000 to start the Greater Wenatchee reclamation project. On August 4, 1959, Magnuson said about the upcoming Khrushchev visit, "What Khrushchev sees here may help guard against a fatal miscalculation on his part."On January 21, 1960, the Bellingham Labor News said that as a member of the Public Works Committee, Magnuson sponsored a resolution to authorize the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to review flood control studies in western Washington. On that same day, he was appointed to become a charter member of the Democratic Study Group. In 1960, as a member of the Appropriations Committee, he voted against an additional $73 million for the development of nuclear airplanes, according to The Labor Journal.
Following an extremely close victory in 1960, Magnuson lost his bid for a sixth term in 1962. He was employed by the Department of the Interior from 1963 to 1969, and by the Department of Labor from 1969 to 1973.
Death and legacy
After he retired in 1973, he resided in Seattle, where he died on October 5, 1979, and was interred in Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park in north Seattle. His papers are housed at the University of Washington Libraries; the collection contains 18 cubic feet (0.5 m3) of legislative papers and 8 film strip reels relating to his various political campaigns.
References
External links
United States Congress. "Don Magnuson (id: M000052)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
Washington Secretary of State – History Makers – Donald Magnuson
Don Magnuson at Find a Grave
This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress |
Battle_of_the_Somme | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme | [
369
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme"
] | The Battle of the Somme (French: Bataille de la Somme; German: Schlacht an der Somme), also known as the Somme offensive, was a major battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. The battle was intended to hasten a victory for the Allies. More than three million men fought in the battle, of whom more than one million were either wounded or killed, making it one of the deadliest battles in all of human history.
The French and British had committed themselves to an offensive on the Somme during the Chantilly Conference in December 1915. The Allies agreed upon a strategy of combined offensives against the Central Powers in 1916 by the French, Russian, British and Italian armies, with the Somme offensive as the Franco-British contribution. Initial plans called for the French army to undertake the main part of the Somme offensive, supported on the northern flank by the Fourth Army of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). When the Imperial German Army began the Battle of Verdun on the Meuse on 21 February 1916, French commanders diverted many of the divisions intended for the Somme and the "supporting" attack by the British became the principal effort. The British troops on the Somme comprised a mixture of the remains of the pre-war army, the Territorial Force, and Kitchener's Army, a force of wartime volunteers.
On the first day on the Somme (1 July) the German 2nd Army suffered a serious defeat opposite the French Sixth Army, from Foucaucourt-en-Santerre south of the Somme to Maricourt on the north bank and by the Fourth Army from Maricourt to the vicinity of the Albert–Bapaume road. The 57,470 casualties suffered by the British, including 19,240 killed, were the worst in the history of the British Army. Most of the British casualties were suffered on the front between the Albert–Bapaume road and Gommecourt to the north, which was the area where the principal German defensive effort (Schwerpunkt) was made. The battle became notable for the importance of air power and the first use of the tank in September but these were a product of new technology and proved unreliable.
At the end of the battle, British and French forces had penetrated 6 mi (10 km) into German-occupied territory along the majority of the front, their largest territorial gain since the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. The operational objectives of the Anglo-French armies were unfulfilled, as they failed to capture Péronne and Bapaume, where the German armies maintained their positions over the winter. British attacks in the Ancre valley resumed in January 1917 and forced the Germans into local withdrawals to reserve lines in February before the strategic retreat by about 25 mi (40 km) in Operation Alberich to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) in March 1917. Debate continues over the necessity, significance, and effect of the battle.
Strategic developments
Allied war strategy for 1916 was decided at the Chantilly Conference from 6th to 8th December 1915. Simultaneous offensives on the Eastern Front by the Russian army, on the Italian Front by the Italian army and on the Western Front by the Franco-British armies were to be carried out to deny time for the Central Powers to move troops between fronts during lulls. In December 1915, General Sir Douglas Haig replaced Field Marshal Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF. Haig favoured a British offensive in Flanders, close to BEF supply routes, to drive the Germans from the Belgian coast and end the U-boat threat from Belgian waters. Haig was not formally subordinate to Marshal Joseph Joffre but the British played a lesser role on the Western Front and complied with French strategy.
In January 1916, Joffre had agreed to the BEF making its main effort in Flanders but in February 1916 it was decided to mount a combined offensive where the French and British armies met, astride the Somme River in Picardy before the British offensive in Flanders. A week later the Germans began the Battle of Verdun against the French army. The costly defence of Verdun forced the army to divert divisions intended for the Somme offensive, eventually reducing the French contribution to 13 divisions in the Sixth Army, against 20 British divisions. By 31 May, the ambitious Franco-British plan for a decisive victory had been reduced to a limited offensive to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun and inflict attrition on the German armies in the west.
The Chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, intended to end the war by splitting the Anglo-French Entente in 1916, before its material superiority became unbeatable. Falkenhayn planned to defeat the large number of reserves which the Entente could move into the path of a breakthrough, by threatening a sensitive point close to the existing front line and provoking the French into counter-attacking German positions. Falkenhayn chose to attack towards Verdun to take the Meuse heights and make Verdun untenable. The French would have to conduct a counter-offensive on ground dominated by the German army and ringed with masses of heavy artillery, leading to huge losses and bringing the French army close to collapse. The British would mount a hasty relief offensive and suffer similar losses. Falkenhayn expected the relief offensive to fall south of Arras against the 6th Army and be destroyed. (Despite the certainty by mid-June of an Anglo-French attack on the Somme against the 2nd Army, Falkenhayn sent only four divisions, keeping eight in the western strategic reserve. No divisions were taken from the Sixth Army, despite it holding a shorter line with 17+1⁄2 divisions and three of the divisions in OHL reserve behind the 6th Army. The maintenance of the strength of the 6th Army, at the expense of the 2nd Army on the Somme, indicated that Falkenhayn intended the counter-offensive against the British to be made north of the Somme front, once the British offensive had been shattered.) If such Franco-British defeats were not enough, Germany would attack the remnants of both armies and end the western alliance for good. The unexpected length of the Verdun offensive, and the need to replace many drained units at Verdun, depleted the German strategic reserve placed behind the 6th Army, which held the Western Front from Hannescamps, 18 km (11 mi) south-west of Arras to St Eloi, south of Ypres and reduced the German counter-offensive strategy north of the Somme to one of passive and unyielding defence.
Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun (21 February – 16
December 1916) began a week after Joffre and Haig agreed to mount an offensive on the Somme. The German offensive at Verdun was intended to threaten the capture of the city and induce the French to fight an attrition battle, in which German advantages of terrain and firepower would cause the French disproportionate casualties. The battle changed the nature of the offensive on the Somme, as French divisions were diverted to Verdun, and the main effort by the French diminished to a supporting attack for the British. German overestimation of the cost of Verdun to the French contributed to the concentration of German infantry and guns on the north bank of the Somme. By May, Joffre and Haig had changed their expectations of an offensive on the Somme, from a decisive battle to a hope that it would relieve Verdun and keep German divisions in France, which would assist the Russian armies conducting the Brusilov Offensive. The German offensive at Verdun was suspended in July, and troops, guns, and ammunition were transferred to Picardy, leading to a similar transfer of the French Tenth Army to the Somme front. Later in the year, the Franco-British were able to attack on the Somme and at Verdun sequentially and the French recovered much of the ground lost on the east bank of the Meuse in October and December.
Brusilov offensive
The Brusilov offensive (4 June – 20 September) on the Eastern Front absorbed the extra forces that had been requested on 2 June by Fritz von Below, commanding the German Second Army, for a spoiling attack on the Somme. On 4 June, Russian armies attacked on a 200 mi (320 km) front, from the Romanian frontier to Pinsk and eventually advanced 93 mi (150 km), reaching the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, against German and Austro-Hungarian troops of Armeegruppe von Linsingen and Armeegruppe Archduke Joseph. During the offensive the Russians inflicted c. 1,500,000 losses including c. 407,000 prisoners. Three divisions were ordered from France to the Eastern Front on 9 June and the spoiling attack on the Somme was abandoned. Only four more divisions were sent to the Somme front before the Anglo-French offensive began, bringing the total to 10+1⁄2 divisions. Falkenhayn, and then Hindenburg and Ludendorff, were forced to send divisions to Russia throughout the summer to prevent a collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army and then to conduct a counter-offensive against Romania, which declared war against the Central Powers on 27 August. In July there were 112 German divisions on the Western Front and 52 divisions in Russia and in November there were 121 divisions in the west and 76 divisions in the east.
Tactical developments
The original British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of 6 divisions and the Cavalry Division, had lost most of the British pre-war regulars in the battles of 1914 and 1915. The bulk of the army was made up of volunteers of the Territorial Force and Kitchener's Army, which had begun forming in August 1914. Rapid expansion created many vacancies for senior commands and specialist functions, which led to many appointments of retired officers and inexperienced newcomers. In 1914, Douglas Haig had been a lieutenant-general in command of I Corps and was promoted to command the First Army in early 1915 and then the BEF in December, which eventually comprised five armies with sixty divisions. The swift increase in the size of the army reduced the average level of experience within it and created an acute equipment shortage. Many officers resorted to directive command to avoid delegating to novice subordinates, although divisional commanders were given great latitude in training and planning for the attack of 1 July, since the heterogeneous nature of the 1916 army made it impossible for corps and army commanders to know the capacity of each division.
Despite considerable debate among German staff officers, Erich von Falkenhayn continued the policy of unyielding defence in 1916. Falkenhayn implied after the war that the psychology of German soldiers, shortage of manpower and lack of reserves made the policy inescapable, as the troops necessary to seal off breakthroughs did not exist. High losses incurred in holding ground by a policy of no retreat were preferable to higher losses, voluntary withdrawals and the effect of a belief that soldiers had discretion to avoid battle. When a more flexible policy was substituted later, decisions about withdrawal were still reserved to army commanders. On the Somme front, Falkenhayn's construction plan of January 1915 had been completed. Barbed wire obstacles had been enlarged from one belt 5–10 yards (4.6–9.1 m) wide to two, 30 yards (27 m) wide and about 15 yards (14 m) apart. Double and triple thickness wire was used and laid 3–5 feet (0.91–1.52 m) high. The front line had been increased from one trench line to a position of three lines 150–200 yards (140–180 m) apart, the first trench (Kampfgraben) occupied by sentry groups, the second (Wohngraben) for the bulk of the front-trench garrison and the third trench for local reserves. The trenches were traversed and had sentry-posts in concrete recesses built into the parapet. Dugouts had been deepened from 6–9 feet (1.8–2.7 m) to 20–30 feet (6.1–9.1 m), 50 yards (46 m) apart and large enough for 25 men. An intermediate line of strongpoints (the Stützpunktlinie) about 1,000 yards (910 m) behind the front line was also built. Communication trenches ran back to the reserve line, renamed the second position, which was as well-built and wired as the first position. The second position was beyond the range of Allied field artillery, to force an attacker to stop and move field artillery forward before assaulting the position.
Prelude
Anglo-French plan of attack
French losses at Verdun reduced the contribution available for the offensive on the Somme and increased the urgency for the commencement of operations on the Somme. The principal role in the offensive devolved to the British and on 16 June, Haig defined the objectives of the offensive as the relief of pressure on the French at Verdun and the infliction of losses on the Germans. After a five-day artillery bombardment, the British Fourth Army was to capture 27,000 yards (25,000 m) of the German first line, from Montauban to Serre and the Third Army was to mount a diversion at Gommecourt. In a second phase, the Fourth Army was to take the German second position, from Pozières to the Ancre and then the second position south of the Albert–Bapaume Road, ready for an attack on the German third position south of the road towards Flers, when the Reserve Army which included three cavalry divisions, would exploit the success to advance east and then north towards Arras. The French Sixth Army, with one corps on the north bank from Maricourt to the Somme and two corps on the south bank southwards to Foucaucourt, would make a subsidiary attack to guard the right flank of the main attack being made by the British.
Betrayal of British plans
Research in German archives revealed in 2016 that the date and location of the British offensive had been betrayed to German interrogators by two politically disgruntled soldiers several weeks in advance. The German military accordingly undertook significant defensive preparatory work on the British section of the Somme offensive.
German defences on the Somme
After the Autumn Battles (Herbstschlacht) of 1915, a third defensive position another 3,000 yards (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) back from the Stützpunktlinie (Support line) begun in February 1916 and was almost complete on the Somme front when the battle began. German artillery was organised in a series of Sperrfeuerstreifen (barrage sectors); each officer was expected to know the batteries covering his section of the front line and the batteries ready to engage fleeting targets. A telephone system was built, with lines buried 6 feet (1.8 m) deep for 5 mi (8.0 km) behind the front line, to connect the front line to the artillery. The Somme defences had two inherent weaknesses that the rebuilding had not remedied. The front trenches were on a forward slope, lined by white chalk from the subsoil and easily seen by ground observers. The defences were crowded towards the front trench with a regiment having two battalions near the front-trench system and the reserve battalion divided between the Stützpunktlinie and the second position, all within 2,000 yards (1,800 m) of no man's land and most troops within 1,000 yards (910 m) of the front line, accommodated in the new deep dugouts. The concentration of troops at the front line on a forward slope guaranteed that it would face the bulk of an artillery bombardment, directed by ground observers on clearly marked lines.
Battles of the Somme, 1916
First phase: 1–17 July 1916
Battle of Albert, 1–13 July
The Battle of Albert was the first two weeks of Anglo-French offensive operations in the Battle of the Somme. The Allied preparatory artillery bombardment began on 24 June and the Anglo-French infantry attacked on 1 July, on the south bank from Foucaucourt to the Somme and from the Somme north to Gommecourt, 2 mi (3.2 km) beyond Serre. The French Sixth Army and the right wing of the British Fourth Army inflicted a considerable defeat on the German Second Army, but from the Albert–Bapaume road to Gommecourt the British attack was a disaster where most of the c. 60,000 British casualties were incurred. Against Joffre's wishes, Haig abandoned the offensive north of the road, to reinforce the success in the south, where the Anglo-French forces pressed forward towards the German second line, preparatory to a general attack on 14 July.
First day
The Battle of the Somme lasted 141 days beginning with the opening day of the Battle of Albert. The attack was made by five divisions of the French Sixth Army on the east side of the Somme, eleven British divisions of the Fourth Army north of the Somme to Serre and two divisions of the Third Army opposite Gommecourt, against the German Second Army of General Fritz von Below. The German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road mostly collapsed and the French had "complete success" on both banks of the Somme, as did the British from the army boundary at Maricourt to the Albert–Bapaume road. On the south bank the German defence was made incapable of resisting another attack and a substantial retreat began; on the north bank the abandonment of Fricourt was ordered. The defenders on the commanding ground north of the road inflicted a huge defeat on the British infantry, who took an unprecedented number of casualties. Several truces were negotiated to recover wounded from no man's land north of the road. The Fourth Army took 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 men were killed. The French Sixth Army had 1,590 casualties, and the 2nd German Army had 10,000–12,000 losses.
Battle of Bazentin Ridge, 14–17 July
The Fourth Army attacked the German second defensive position from the Somme past Guillemont and Ginchy, north-west along the crest of the ridge to Pozières on the Albert–Bapaume road. The objectives of the attack were the villages of Bazentin le Petit, Bazentin le Grand and Longueval which was adjacent to Delville Wood, with High Wood on the ridge beyond. The attack was made by four divisions on a front of 6,000 yd (5.5 km) at 3:25 a.m. after a five-minute hurricane artillery bombardment. Field artillery fired a creeping barrage and the attacking waves pushed up close behind it in no man's land, leaving them only a short distance to cross when the barrage lifted from the German front trench. Most of the objective was captured and the German defence south of the Albert–Bapaume road put under great strain but the attack was not followed up due to British communication failures, casualties and disorganisation.
Battle of Fromelles, 19–20 July
The Battle of Fromelles was a subsidiary attack to support the Fourth Army on the Somme 80 km (50 mi) to the south, to exploit any weakening of the German defences opposite. Preparations for the attack were rushed, the troops involved lacked experience in trench warfare and the power of the German defence was "gravely" underestimated, the attackers being outnumbered 2:1. On 19 July, von Falkenhayn had judged the British attack to be the anticipated offensive against the 6th Army. Next day, Falkenhayn ordered the Guard Reserve Corps to be withdrawn to reinforce the Somme front. The Battle of Fromelles had inflicted some losses on the German defenders but gained no ground and deflected few German troops bound for the Somme. The attack was the debut of the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front and, according to McMullin, "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history". Of 7,080 BEF casualties, 5,533 losses were incurred by the 5th Australian Division; German losses were 1,600–2,000, with 150 taken prisoner.
Second phase: July–September 1916
Battle of Delville Wood, 14 July – 15 September
The Battle of Delville Wood was an operation to secure the British right flank, while the centre advanced to capture the higher-lying areas of High Wood and Pozières. After the Battle of Albert the offensive had evolved to the capture of fortified villages, woods, and other terrain that offered observation for artillery fire, jumping-off points for more attacks, and other tactical advantages. The mutually costly fighting at Delville Wood eventually secured the British right flank and marked the Western Front debut of the South African 1st Infantry Brigade (incorporating a Southern Rhodesian contingent), which held the wood from 15 to 20 July. When relieved, the brigade had lost 2,536 men, similar to the casualties of many brigades on 1 July.
Battle of Pozières, 23 July – 7 August
The Battle of Pozières began with the capture of the village by the 1st Australian Division (Australian Imperial Force) of the Reserve Army, the only British success in the Allied fiasco of 22/23 July, when a general attack combined with the French further south, degenerated into a series of separate attacks due to communication failures, supply failures and poor weather. German bombardments and counter-attacks began on 23 July and continued until 7 August. The fighting ended with the Reserve Army taking the plateau north and east of the village, overlooking the fortified village of Thiepval from the rear.
Battle of Guillemont, 3–6 September
The Battle of Guillemont was an attack on the village which was captured by the Fourth Army on the first day. Guillemont was on the right flank of the British sector, near the boundary with the French Sixth Army. German defences ringed the British salient at Delville Wood to the north and had observation over the French Sixth Army area to the south towards the Somme river. The German defence in the area was based on the second line and numerous fortified villages and farms north from Maurepas at Combles, Guillemont, Falfemont Farm, Delville Wood and High Wood, which were mutually supporting. The battle for Guillemont was considered by some observers to be the supreme effort of the German army during the battle. Numerous meetings were held by Joffre, Haig, Foch, General Sir Henry Rawlinson (commander of the British Fourth Army) and Fayolle to co-ordinate joint attacks by the four armies, all of which broke down. A pause in Anglo-French attacks at the end of August, coincided with the largest counter-attack by the German army in the Battle of the Somme.
Battle of Ginchy, 9 September
In the Battle of Ginchy the 16th Division captured the German-held village. Ginchy was 1.5 km (0.93 mi) north-east of Guillemont, at the junction of six roads on a rise overlooking Combles, 4 km (2.5 mi) to the south-east. After the end of the Battle of Guillemont, British troops were required to advance to positions which would give observation over the German third position, ready for a general attack in mid-September. British attacks from Leuze Wood northwards to Ginchy had begun on 3 September, when the 7th Division captured the village and was then forced out by a German counter-attack. The capture of Ginchy and the success of the French Sixth Army on 12 September, in its biggest attack of the battle of the Somme, enabled both armies to make much bigger attacks, sequenced with the Tenth and Reserve armies, which captured much more ground and inflicted c. 130,000 casualties on the German defenders during the month.
Third phase: September–November 1916
Battle of Flers–Courcelette, 15–22 September
The Battle of Flers–Courcelette was the third and final general offensive mounted by the British Army, which attacked an intermediate line and the German third line to take Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt, which was combined with a French attack on Frégicourt and Rancourt to encircle Combles and a supporting attack on the south bank of the Somme. The strategic objective of a breakthrough was not achieved but the tactical gains were considerable, the front line being advanced by 2,500–3,500 yards (2,300–3,200 m) and many casualties were inflicted on the German defenders. The battle was the debut of the Canadian Corps, the New Zealand Division and tanks of the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps on the Somme.
Battle of Morval, 25–28 September
The Battle of Morval was an attack by the Fourth Army on Morval, Gueudecourt and Lesboeufs held by the German 1st Army, which had been the final objectives of the Battle of Flers–Courcelette (15–22 September). The attack was postponed to combine with attacks by the French Sixth Army on Combles, south of Morval and because of rain. The combined attack was also intended to deprive the German defenders further west, near Thiepval of reinforcements, before an attack by the Reserve Army, due on 26 September. Combles, Morval, Lesboeufs and Gueudecourt were captured and a small number of tanks joined in the battle later in the afternoon. Many casualties were inflicted on the Germans but the French made slower progress. The Fourth Army advance on 25 September was its deepest since 14 July and left the Germans in severe difficulties, particularly in a Salients, re-entrants and pockets salient near Combles. The Reserve Army attack began on 26 September in the Battle of Thiepval Ridge.
Battle of Thiepval Ridge, 26–28 September
The Battle of Thiepval Ridge was the first large offensive mounted by the Reserve Army of Lieutenant General Hubert Gough and was intended to benefit from the Fourth Army attack at Morval by starting 24 hours afterwards. Thiepval Ridge was well fortified and the German defenders fought with great determination, while the British co-ordination of infantry and artillery declined after the first day, due to confused fighting in the maze of trenches, dug-outs and shell-craters. The final British objectives were not reached until the Battle of the Ancre Heights (1 October – 11 November). Organisational difficulties and deteriorating weather frustrated Joffre's intention to proceed by vigorous co-ordinated attacks by the Anglo-French armies, which became disjointed and declined in effectiveness during late September, at the same time as a revival occurred in the German defence. The British experimented with new techniques in gas warfare, machine-gun bombardment and tank–infantry co-operation, as the Germans struggled to withstand the preponderance of men and material fielded by the Anglo-French, despite reorganisation and substantial reinforcements of troops, artillery and aircraft from Verdun. September became the worst month for casualties for the Germans.
Battle of Le Transloy, 1 October – 11 November
The Battle of Le Transloy began in good weather and Le Sars was captured on 7 October. Pauses were made from 8–11 October due to rain and 13–18 October to allow time for a methodical bombardment, when it became clear that the German defence had recovered from earlier defeats. Haig consulted with the army commanders and on 17 October reduced the scope of operations by cancelling the Third Army plans and reducing the Reserve Army and Fourth Army attacks to limited operations, in co-operation with the French Sixth Army. Another pause followed before operations resumed on 23 October on the northern flank of the Fourth Army, with a delay during more bad weather on the right flank of the Fourth Army and on the French Sixth Army front, until 5 November. Next day, the Fourth Army ceased offensive operations, except for small attacks intended to improve positions and divert German attention from attacks being made by the Reserve/Fifth Army. Larger operations resumed in January 1917.
Battle of the Ancre Heights, 1 October – 11 November
The Battle of the Ancre Heights was fought after Haig made plans for the Third Army to take the area east of Gommecourt, the Reserve Army to attack north from Thiepval Ridge and east from Beaumont Hamel–Hébuterne and for the Fourth Army to reach the Péronne–Bapaume road around Le Transloy and Beaulencourt–Thilloy–Loupart Wood, north of the Albert–Bapaume road. The Reserve Army attacked to complete the capture of Regina Trench/Stuff Trench, north of Courcelette to the west end of Bazentin Ridge around Schwaben and Stuff Redoubts, during which bad weather caused great hardship and delay. The Marine Brigade from Flanders and fresh German divisions brought from quiet fronts counter-attacked frequently and the British objectives were not secured until 11 November.
Battle of the Ancre, 13–18 November
The Battle of the Ancre was the last big British operation of the year. The Fifth (formerly Reserve) Army attacked into the Ancre valley to exploit German exhaustion after the Battle of the Ancre Heights and gain ground ready for a resumption of the offensive in 1917. Political calculation, concern for Allied morale and Joffre's pressure for a continuation of attacks in France, to prevent German troop transfers to Russia and Italy also influenced Haig. The battle began with another mine being detonated beneath Hawthorn Ridge Redoubt. The attack on Serre failed, although a brigade of the 31st Division, which had attacked in the disaster of 1 July, took its objectives before being withdrawn later. South of Serre, Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre were captured. South of the Ancre, St. Pierre Division was captured, the outskirts of Grandcourt reached and the Canadian 4th Division captured Regina Trench north of Courcelette, then took Desire Support Trench on 18 November. Until January 1917 a lull set in, as both sides concentrated on enduring the weather.
Subsequent operations
Ancre, January–March 1917
After the Battle of the Ancre (13–18 November 1916), British attacks on the Somme front were stopped by the weather and military operations by both sides were mostly restricted to survival in the rain, snow, fog, mud fields, waterlogged trenches and shell-holes. As preparations for the offensive at Arras continued, the British attempted to keep German attention on the Somme front. British operations on the Ancre from 10 January – 22 February 1917, forced the Germans back 5 mi (8.0 km) on a 4 mi (6.4 km) front, ahead of the schedule of the Alberich Bewegung (Alberich Manoeuvre/Operation Alberich) and eventually took 5,284 prisoners. On 22/23 February, the Germans fell back another 3 mi (4.8 km) on a 15 mi (24 km) front. The Germans then withdrew from much of the R. I Stellung to the R. II Stellung on 11 March, forestalling a British attack, which was not noticed by the British until dark on 12 March; the main German withdrawal from the Noyon salient to the Hindenburg Line (Operation Alberich) commenced on schedule on 16 March.
Hindenburg Line
Von Falkenhayn was sacked and replaced by Hindenburg and Ludendorff at the end of August 1916. At a conference at Cambrai on 5 September, a decision was taken to build a new defensive line well behind the Somme front. The Siegfriedstellung was to be built from Arras to St. Quentin, La Fère and Condé, with another new line between Verdun and Pont-à-Mousson. These lines were intended to limit any Allied breakthrough and to allow the German army to withdraw if attacked; work began on the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) at the end of September. Withdrawing to the new line was not an easy decision and the German high command struggled over it during the winter of 1916–1917. Some members wanted to take a shorter step back to a line between Arras and Sailly, while the 1st and 2nd army commanders wanted to stay on the Somme. Generalleutnant von Fuchs on 20 January 1917 said that,
Enemy superiority is so great that we are not in a position either to fix their forces in position or to prevent them from launching an offensive elsewhere. We just do not have the troops.... We cannot prevail in a second battle of the Somme with our men; they cannot achieve that any more. (20 January 1917)
and that half measures were futile, retreating to the Siegfriedstellung was unavoidable. After the loss of a considerable amount of ground around the Ancre valley to the British Fifth Army in February 1917, the German armies on the Somme were ordered on 14 February, to withdraw to reserve lines closer to Bapaume. A further retirement to the Hindenburg Line (Siegfriedstellung) in Operation Alberich began on 16 March 1917, despite the new line being unfinished and poorly sited in some places.
Defensive positions held by the German army on the Somme after November 1916 were in poor condition; the garrisons were exhausted and censors of correspondence reported tiredness and low morale in front-line soldiers. The situation left the German command doubtful that the army could withstand a resumption of the battle. The German defence of the Ancre began to collapse under British attacks, which on 28 January 1917 caused Rupprecht to urge that the retirement to the Siegfriedstellung (Hindenburg Line) begin. Ludendorff rejected the proposal the next day, but British attacks on the First Army – particularly the action of Miraumont (also known as the Battle of Boom Ravine, 17–18 February) – caused Rupprecht on the night of 22 February to order a preliminary withdrawal of c. 4 mi (6.4 km) to the R. I Stellung (R. I Position). On 24 February the Germans withdrew, protected by rear guards, over roads in relatively good condition, which were then destroyed. The German withdrawal was helped by a thaw, which turned roads behind the British front into bogs and by disruption, to the railways, which supplied the Somme front. On the night of 12 March, the Germans withdrew from the R. I Stellung between Bapaume and Achiet le Petit and the British reached the R. II Stellung (R. II Position) on 13 March. The withdrawal took place from 16–20 March, with a retirement of about 25 mi (40 km), giving up more French territory than that gained by the Allies from September 1914 until the beginning of the operation.
Analysis
At the start of 1916, most of the British Army was an inexperienced and patchily trained mass of volunteers. The Somme was a great test for Kitchener's Army, created by Kitchener's call for recruits at the start of the war. The British volunteers were often the fittest, most enthusiastic and best-educated citizens but were inexperienced and it has been claimed that their loss was of lesser military significance than the losses of the remaining peacetime-trained officers and men of the Imperial German Army. British casualties on the first day were the worst in the history of the British Army, with 57,470 casualties, 19,240 of whom were killed.
British survivors of the battle had gained experience and the BEF learned how to conduct the mass industrial warfare which the continental armies had been fighting since 1914. The European powers had begun the war with trained armies of regulars and reservists, which were wasting assets. Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria wrote, "What remained of the old first-class peace-trained German infantry had been expended on the battlefield". A war of attrition was a logical strategy for Britain against Germany, which was also at war with France and Russia. A school of thought holds that the Battle of the Somme placed unprecedented strain on the German army and that after the battle it was unable to replace casualties like-for-like, which reduced it to a militia. Philpott argues that the German army was exhausted by the end of 1916, with loss of morale and the cumulative effects of attrition and frequent defeats causing it to collapse in 1918, a process which began on the Somme, echoing Churchill's argument that the German soldiery was never the same again.
The destruction of German units in battle was made worse by lack of rest. British and French aircraft and long-range guns reached well behind the front line, where trench-digging and other work meant that troops returned to the line exhausted. Despite the strategic predicament of the German army, it survived the battle, withstood the pressure of the Brusilov Offensive and conquered almost all of Romania. In 1917, the German army in the west survived the large British and French offensives of the Nivelle Offensive and the Third Battle of Ypres, though at great cost.
The British and French had advanced about 6 mi (9.7 km) on the Somme, on a front of 16 mi (26 km) at a cost of 419,654 to 432,000 British and about 200,000 French casualties, against 465,181 to 500,000 or perhaps 600,000 German casualties. Until the 1930s the dominant view of the battle in English-language writing was that the battle was a hard-fought victory against a brave, experienced and well-led opponent. Winston Churchill had objected to the way the battle was being fought in August 1916, and Prime Minister David Lloyd George criticised attrition warfare frequently and condemned the battle in his post-war memoirs. In the 1930s a new orthodoxy of "mud, blood and futility" emerged and gained more emphasis in the 1960s when the 50th anniversaries of the Great War battles were commemorated.
Transport
Until 1916, transport arrangements for the BEF were based on an assumption that the war of movement would soon resume and make it pointless to build infrastructure, since it would be left behind. The British relied on motor transport from railheads which was insufficient where large masses of men and guns were concentrated. When the Fourth Army advance resumed in August, the wisdom of not building light railways which would be left behind was argued by some, in favour of building standard gauge lines. Experience of crossing the beaten zone showed that such lines or metalled roads could not be built quickly enough to sustain an advance, and that pausing while communications caught up allowed the defenders to recover. On the Somme the daily carry during attacks on a 12 mi (19 km) front was 20,000 long tons (20,000 t) and a few wood roads and rail lines were inadequate for the number of lorries and roads. A comprehensive system of transport was needed, which required a much greater diversion of personnel and equipment than had been expected.
Casualties
The Battle of the Somme was one of the costliest battles of World War I. The original Allied estimate of casualties on the Somme, made at the Chantilly Conference on 15 November 1916, was that the Germans suffered 630,000 casualties, exceeding the 485,000 suffered by the British and French. As one German officer wrote,
Somme. The whole history of the world cannot contain a
more ghastly word.
However, Churchill wrote that Allied casualties had exceeded German losses. In The World Crisis (first published in the early 1920s, reprinted in 1938), he quoted the German Reichsarchiv data, showing that on the Western Front between February and June 1916, the Germans had suffered 270,000 casualties against the French and 390,000 between July and the end of the year (Appendix J); he wrote that the Germans suffered 278,000 casualties at Verdun and that around one eighth of their casualties were suffered on "quiet" sectors. According to the tables, between July and October 1916, German forces on the Western Front suffered 537,919 casualties, 288,011 inflicted by the French and 249,908 by the British; German forces inflicted 794,238 casualties on the Entente.
In 1931, Hermann Wendt published a comparison of German and British–French casualties which showed an average of 30 per cent more Allied casualties than German losses on the Somme. In the first 1916 volume of the British Official History (1932), J. E. Edmonds wrote that comparisons of casualties were inexact, because of different methods of calculation by the belligerents but that British casualties were 419,654, from total British casualties in France in the period of 498,054. French Somme casualties were 194,451 and German casualties were c. 445,322, to which should be added 27 per cent for woundings, which would have been counted as casualties using British criteria; Anglo-French casualties on the Somme were over 600,000 and German casualties were under 600,000. In the second 1916 volume of the British Official History (1938), Wilfrid Miles wrote that German casualties were 660,000–680,000 and Anglo-French casualties were just under 630,000, using "fresh data" from the French and German official accounts.
The addition by Edmonds of c. 30 per cent to German figures, supposedly to make them comparable to British criteria, was criticised as "spurious" by M. J. Williams in 1964. McRandle and Quirk in 2006 cast doubt on the Edmonds calculations but counted 729,000 German casualties on the Western Front from July to December against 631,000 by Churchill, concluding that there had been fewer German losses than Anglo-French casualties but that the ability of the German army to inflict disproportionate losses had been eroded by attrition. In 2003 British historian Gary Sheffield wrote that the calculation by Edmonds of Anglo-French casualties was correct but the one for German casualties was discredited, quoting the official German figure of 500,000 casualties.
Doughty wrote that French losses on the Somme were "surprisingly high" at 202,567 men, 54 per cent of the 377,231 casualties at Verdun. Prior and Wilson used Churchill's research and wrote that the British suffered 420,000 casualties from 1 July to mid-November (c. 3,600 per day) in inflicting c. 280,000 German casualties and offer no figures for French casualties or the losses they inflicted on the Germans. Sheldon wrote that the British lost "over 400,000" casualties. Harris wrote that British losses were c. 420,000, French casualties were over 200,000 men and German losses were c. 500,000, according to the "best" German sources. Sheffield wrote that the losses were "appalling", with 419,000 British casualties, c. 204,000 French and perhaps 600,000 German casualties.
In a commentary on the debate about Somme casualties, Philpott used Miles's figures of 419,654 British casualties and the French official figures of 154,446 Sixth Army losses and 48,131 Tenth Army casualties. Philpott described German losses as "disputed", with estimates ranging from 400,000 to 680,000. The high Allied casualties of July 1916 are not representative of the way attrition turned in the Allies' favour in September, although this was not sustained as the weather deteriorated. Philpott quoted Robin Prior (in Churchill's World Crisis As History [1983]) that the "blood test" is a crude measure compared to manpower reserves, industrial capacity, farm productivity and financial resources and that intangible factors were more influential on the course of the war, which the Allies won despite "losing" the purely quantitative test.
Commemoration
In the United Kingdom and Newfoundland, the Battle of the Somme became the central memory of World War I. The Royal British Legion with the British Embassy in Paris and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorate the battle on 1 July each year, at the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. For their efforts on the first day of the battle, the 1st Newfoundland Regiment was given the name "The Royal Newfoundland Regiment" by George V on 28 November 1917. The first day of the Battle of the Somme is commemorated in Newfoundland, remembering the "Best of the Best" at 11 am on the Sunday nearest to 1 July. The Somme is remembered in Northern Ireland due to the participation of the 36th (Ulster) Division and commemorated by veterans' groups and by unionist/Protestant groups such as the Orange Order. The British Legion and others commemorate the battle on 1 July.
On 1 July 2016, at 7:28 a.m. British Summer Time, the UK observed a two minute silence to mark the start of the battle which began 100 years earlier. A special ceremony was broadcast on BBC1 and all BBC radio stations participated in the silence. At the start of the silence, the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery fired a gun every four seconds for one hundred seconds and a whistle was blown to end it. Just like a Remembrance Sunday silence, a bugler played The Last Post after the silence. The silence was announced during a speech by the prime minister David Cameron who said, "There will be a national two-minute silence on Friday morning. I will be attending a service at the Thiepval Memorial near the battlefield and it's right that the whole country pauses to remember the sacrifices of all those who fought and lost their lives in that conflict." On 1 July 2016, a ceremony was held in Heaton Park in north Manchester in England, which was the site of a large army training camp during the war.
In Britain on 1 July 2016, 1,400 actors dressed in replica Great War British Army uniforms, walked about in streets and public open areas, from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Each took on temporarily the identity of a British soldier who died on the first day of the Somme and handed out information cards about that soldier. They did not talk, except for occasionally singing "We're here because we're here" to the tune of Auld Lang Syne. This event was called "Ghost Soldiers".
Histories of the battle
The Battle of the Somme has been called the beginning of modern all-arms warfare, during which Kitchener's Army learned to fight the mass-industrial war in which the continental armies had been engaged for two years. This view sees the British contribution to the battle as part of a coalition war and part of a process, which took the strategic initiative from the German Army and caused it irreparable damage, leading to its collapse in late 1918.
Haig and General Rawlinson have been criticised ever since 1916 for the human cost of the battle and for failing to achieve their territorial objectives. On 1 August 1916, Churchill, then out of office, criticised the British Army's conduct of the offensive to the British Cabinet, claiming that though the battle had forced the Germans to end their offensive at Verdun, attrition was damaging the British armies more than the German armies. Though Churchill was unable to suggest an alternative, a critical view of the British on the Somme has been influential in English-language writing ever since. In 2016, historian Peter Barton argued in a series of three television programmes that the Battle of the Somme should be regarded as a German defensive victory.
John Terraine, Gary Sheffield, Christopher Duffy, Roger Chickering, Holger Herwig, William Philpott et al. wrote that there was no strategic alternative for the British in 1916 and that an understandable horror at British losses is insular, given the millions of casualties borne by the French and Russian armies since 1914. This school of thought sets the battle in a context of a general Allied offensive in 1916 and notes that German and French writing on the battle puts it in a continental perspective. Little German and French writing on this topic has been translated, leaving much of their historical perspective and detail of German and French military operations inaccessible to the English-speaking world.
See also
List of Canadian battles during the First World War
List of World War I memorials and cemeteries in the Somme
Order of battle for the Battle of the Somme
Notes
Footnotes
References
Books
Journals
Websites
Further reading
Ball, S. (2004). The Guardsmen: Harold Macmillan, Three Friends, and The World They Made. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-653163-0.
Buchan, J. (1917). The Battle of the Somme. New York: George H. Doran. OCLC 699175025. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
Dugmore, A. R. (2014). Blood in the Trenches: A Memoir of the Battle of the Somme. Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-78346-311-4.
Gilbert, M. (2006) [1994]. The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War (repr. ed.). Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-8127-5.
Green, A. (2003). Writing the Great War: Sir James Edmonds and the Official Histories 1915–1948. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-8430-9.
Greenhalgh, Elizabeth (2013) [2011]. "Chapter 7: The Scientific Method: planning the Somme, 1916 and Chapter 8: Fighting on the Somme, July–November 1916". Foch in Command: The Making of a First World War General. Cambridge Military Histories (pbk. repr. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 140–191. ISBN 978-1-107-63385-8.
Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army which Participated in the War (1914–1918). Washington: United States Army, American Expeditionary Forces, Intelligence Section. 1920. ISBN 5-87296-917-1. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
James, E. A. (1990) [1924]. A Record of the Battles and Engagements of the British Armies in France and Flanders 1914–1918 (London Stamp Exchange ed.). Aldershot: Gale & Polden. ISBN 978-0-948130-18-2.
Jones, H. A. (2002) [1928]. The War in the Air, Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force. Vol. II (N & M Press ed.). London: Clarendon Press. ISBN 1-84342-413-4. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
Keegan, J. (1998). The First World War. London: Random House. ISBN 0-09-180178-8.
Liddell Hart, B. H. (1932). Foch: The Man of Orleans. Boston, Little, Brown. OCLC 16161900.
Liddell Hart, B. H. (1973) [1970]. History of the First World War (3rd ed.). London: Book Club Associates. OCLC 819218074.
Masefield, J. (1917). The Old Front Line. New York: Macmillan. OCLC 1183536. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
MacDonald, L. (1983). Somme. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-017867-8.
McLaughlin, P. (1980). Ragtime Soldiers: the Rhodesian Experience in the First World War. Bulawayo: Books of Zimbabwe. ISBN 0-86920-232-4.
Middlebrook, M. (1971). The First Day on the Somme. London: Penguin. ISBN 0-14-139071-9.
Neillands, R. (2004). The Great War Generals on the Western Front 1914–1918. Magpie Books. ISBN 1-84119-863-3.
Mitchell, S. B. T. (2013). An Inter-Disciplinary Study of Learning in the 32nd Division on the Western Front, 1916–1918 (pdf) (PhD). University of Birmingham. OCLC 894593861. Retrieved 1 December 2014.
Nicholson, G. W. L. (1962). Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919 (PDF). Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War. Ottawa: Queen's Printer and Controller of Stationery. OCLC 557523890. Archived from the original (PDF) on 26 August 2011. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
O'Mara, David (2018). The Somme 1916 Touring the French Sector. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-47-389770-0.
O'Mara, David (2018). The French on the Somme – From Serre to the River Somme. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-52-672240-9.
Report of the Battles of the Somme (Cmnd 1138) (N & M Press ed.). London: HMSO. 1994 [1922]. ISBN 1-84342-196-8.
Prior, R. (1999). The First World War (1st ed.). London: Cassel. ISBN 0-304-35984-X.
Recouly, R. (1920). Foch, The Winner of The War. Translated by Jones, Mary Cadwalader. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. OCLC 2036520.
Regan, G. (1993). The Guinness Book of More Military Blunders. London: Guinness Publishing. ISBN 0-85112-728-2.
Robertshaw, A. (2006). Somme 1 July 1916: Tragedy and Triumph. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 1-84603-038-2.
Sacco, J. (2013). The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme. W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-08880-9.
Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914–1920 (1st ed.). London: HMSO. 1922. OCLC 1318955. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
Watson, A. (2008). Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914–1918. Cambridge Military Histories. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-52188-101-2.
Wilkinson, R. (2006). Pals on the Somme 1916. Barnsley: Pen & Sword. ISBN 1-84415-393-2. OCLC 64746633.
van Hartsveldt, Fred R. (1996). The Battles of the Somme: Historiography and Annotated Bibliography. London and Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-29386-4.
External links
Battle of the Somme Personnel Records Archived 13 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine
Records and images from the UK Parliament Collections
Battle of the Somme, maps and photo essay
The British Army in the Great War: The Battles of the Somme, 1916
New Zealand and the Battle of the Somme
Peronne Great War Historial
The Somme – Northern Ireland Remembers
Official website of Delville Wood
Experience of the German First Army in the Somme Battle, 24 June – 26 November 1916, Below F., pp. 77–143 (1917)
CWGC: 1916: The Somme Archived 30 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine
Nicholas Hiley: The Battle of the Somme (film), in: 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War
William Philpott: Somme, Battles of, in: 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War
Battle of the Somme (WW1 Documentary) | History Documentary | Reel Truth History |
1916 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916 | [
369
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916"
] | 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1916th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 916th year of the 2nd millennium, the 16th year of the 20th century, and the 7th year of the 1910s decade. As of the start of 1916, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
Events
Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix.
January
January 1 – The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that has been stored and cooled.
January 9 – WWI: Gallipoli Campaign – The last British troops are evacuated from Gallipoli, as the Ottoman Empire prevails over a joint British and French operation to capture Constantinople.
January 10 – WWI: Erzurum Offensive – Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire.
January 12 – The Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony, part of the British Empire, is established in modern-day Tuvalu and Kiribati.
January 13 – WWI: Battle of Wadi – Ottoman Empire forces defeat the British, during the Mesopotamian campaign in modern-day Iraq.
January 29 – WWI: Paris is bombed by German zeppelins.
January 31 – WWI: An attack is planned on Verdun, France.
February
February 9 (6.00 p.m.) – Tristan Tzara "founds" the art movement Dadaism (according to Hans Arp).
February 11
Emma Goldman is arrested for lecturing on birth control in the United States.
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents its first concert in the United States.
The Romanian Association football club Sportul Studențesc is founded in Bucharest.
February 12 – WWI: Battle of Salaita Hill (East African Campaign) – South African and other British Empire troops fail to take a German East African defensive position.
February 21 – WWI: The Battle of Verdun begins in France.
March
March 8–9 – Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa leads about 500 Mexican raiders in an attack against Columbus, New Mexico, killing 12 U.S. soldiers. A garrison of the U.S. 13th Cavalry Regiment fights back and drives them away.
March 10 – The McMahon–Hussein Correspondence concludes with an understanding that the United Kingdom would recognise Arab independence in return for Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, launching the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.
March 15 – United States President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.–Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa; the 13th Cavalry regiment enters Mexican territory.
March 16 – Mexican Revolution: The U.S. 7th and 10th Cavalry regiments under John J. Pershing cross the border, to join the hunt for Villa.
March 22 – The temporary Emperor of China, Yuan Shikai, abdicates the throne, and the Republic of China is restored once again.
March 24 – French ferry SS Sussex is torpedoed by SM UB-29 in the English Channel, with at least 50 killed (including the composer Enrique Granados), resulting on May 4 in the Sussex Pledge by Germany to the United States.
April
April
The toggle light switch is invented, by William J. Newton and Morris Goldberg.
Korea Tungsten is founded in Daegu, predecessor of leading steel producer in Asia, POSCO (Pohang Steel Company).
April 11 – WWI: The Egyptian Expeditionary Force begins the occupation of the Sinai Peninsula.
April 22 – The Chinese troop transport SS Hsin-Yu capsizes off the Chinese coast; at least 1,000 are killed.
April 24–30 – The Easter Rising occurs in Ireland. Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclaim an Irish Republic, and the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army occupy the General Post Office and other buildings in Dublin, before surrendering to the British Army.
April 24–May 10 – Voyage of the James Caird: An open boat journey from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands to South Georgia in the southern Atlantic Ocean (800 nautical miles (1,500 km; 920 mi)) is undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions, to obtain rescue for the main body of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, following the loss of its ship Endurance.
April 27 – WWI: Gas attack at Hulluch in France: The 47th Brigade, 16th (Irish) Division is decimated, in one of the most heavily concentrated German gas attacks of the war.
April 29 – WWI: Mesopotamian campaign – The Siege of Kut ends with the surrender of British Indian Army forces to the Ottoman Empire at Kut-al-Amara on the Tigris in Basra Vilayet.
May
May 16
United States Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
Britain and France conclude the secret Sykes–Picot Agreement, which is to divide Arab areas of the Ottoman Empire, following the conclusion of WWI and the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, into French and British spheres of influence.
May 31–June 1 – WWI: Battle of Jutland, between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, the war's only large-scale clash of battleships. The result is tactically inconclusive, but British dominance of the North Sea is maintained.
June
June 4 – WWI: The Brusilov Offensive, the height of Russian operations in the war, begins with their breaking through Austro-Hungarian lines.
June 5 – WWI: HMS Hampshire sinks, having hit a mine off the Orkney Islands, Scotland, with Lord Kitchener aboard.
June 10 – The Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, to create a single unified Arab state spanning from Aleppo to Aden, is formally declared by Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca.
June 15 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.
June 24 – Mary Pickford becomes the first movie star to sign a million-dollar contract, making her one of the highest-paid people in the world.
July
July 1–November 18 – WWI: Battle of the Somme, opening with explosion of the British Y Sap and Lochnagar mines and the Battle of Albert: More than one million soldiers die, with 57,470 British Empire casualties on the first day, 19,240 of them killed, the British Army's bloodiest day. The immediate result is tactically inconclusive.
July 1–12 – Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916: At least one shark attacks 5 swimmers along 80 miles (130 km) of New Jersey coastline, resulting in 4 deaths and the survival of one youth, who requires limb amputation. This event is the inspiration for author Peter Benchley, over half a century later, to write Jaws.
July 2 – WWI: Battle of Erzincan – Russian forces defeat troops of the Ottoman Empire in Armenia.
July 6 – WWI: The Battle of Kostiuchnówka concludes in Galicia (modern-day Ukraine) with Russian Imperial troops breaking through the line, forcing the Polish Legions and supporting Hungarian troops to retreat, with the Poles enduring 2,000 casualties.
July 15 – In Seattle, William Boeing incorporates Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing).
July 15–19 – WWI: Battle of Delville Wood – 766 men from the South African Brigade are killed, in South Africa's biggest loss during the First World War.
July 19–20 – WWI: Battle of Fromelles – An attack by Australian and British troops is repulsed by the German army, with heavy casualties.
July 22 – Preparedness Day Bombing: In San Francisco, a bomb explodes on Market Street during a Preparedness Day parade, killing 10 and injuring 40; Warren Billings and Tom Mooney are later wrongly convicted of it.
July 26 – WWI: East African Campaign – The German armed ship SMS Graf von Goetzen scuttles herself on Lake Tanganyika.
July 29 – Matheson Fire: In Ontario, Canada, a lightning strike ignites a forest fire that destroys the towns of Cochrane and Matheson, killing 233.
July 30 – German agents cause the Black Tom explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey, an act of sabotage destroying an ammunition depot and killing at least 7 people.
August
August – Robert Baden-Powell publishes The Wolf Cub's Handbook in the U.K., establishing the basis of the junior section of the Scouting movement, the Wolf Cubs (modern-day Cub Scouts).
August 3–5 – WWI: Sinai and Palestine Campaign – Battle of Romani: British Imperial troops secure victory over a joint Ottoman-German force.
August 7 – WWI:
Portugal joins the Allies.
French and British forces make an unopposed entry into German-controlled Togoland; on December 27 the country is partitioned between the two allies.
August 9 – Lassen Volcanic National Park is established in California.
August 15 – Club Atlas is founded as an association football club in Guadalajara, Mexico, by English-educated players.
August 16 – The Migratory Bird Treaty between Canada and the United States is signed.
August 17 (August 4 O.S.) – WWI: The Treaty of Bucharest is signed secretly between Romania and the Entente Powers, stipulating the conditions under which Romania agrees to join the war on their side, particularly territorial promises in Austria-Hungary.
August 21 – WWI: Peru declares neutrality.
August 25 – U.S. President Woodrow Wilson signs legislation, creating the National Park Service.
August 27 – WWI: The Kingdom of Romania declares war on the Central Powers, entering the war on the side of the Allies.
August 28 – WWI:
Germany declares war on Romania.
Italy declares war on Germany.
August 29 – The United States passes the Philippine Autonomy Act.
August 30 – The crew of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition's Endurance is rescued from Elephant Island.
September
September 1 – Bulgaria declares war on Romania, going on to take Dobruja.
September 2 – WWI: British pilot Leefe Robinson becomes the first to shoot down a German airship over Britain.
September 4 – WWI: East African Campaign – Dar es Salaam surrenders to British Empire forces, securing them control of the Central Line of railway through German East Africa.
September 5 – D. W. Griffith's film Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages is released in the United States.
September 6 – The first true self-service grocery store, Piggly Wiggly, is founded in Memphis, Tennessee, by Clarence Saunders, opening 5 days later.
September 11 – A mechanical failure causes the central span of the Quebec Bridge, a cantilever-type structure, to crash into the Saint Lawrence River for the second time, killing 13 workers.
September 13 – Mary, a circus elephant, is hanged in the town of Erwin, Tennessee for killing her handler, Walter "Red" Eldridge.
September 15–22 – WWI: Battle of Flers–Courcelette, France – The battle is significant for the first use of the tank in warfare; also for the debut of the Canadian and New Zealand Divisions in the Battle of the Somme.
September 19 – WWI: East African Campaign – Belgian troops occupy Tabora in German East Africa.
September 27 – Iyasu V of Ethiopia is deposed in a palace coup, in favour of his aunt Zewditu.
September 29 – John D. Rockefeller becomes the first person ever to reach a nominal personal fortune of US$1 billion
October
October 7 – The Georgia Tech vs. Cumberland College American football game ends in a score of 222-0.
October 12 – Hipólito Yrigoyen is elected President of Argentina.
October 14 – Perm State University is founded in Russia.
October 16 – Margaret Sanger opens the first U.S. birth control clinic, a forerunner of Planned Parenthood.
October 20 – Black Friday (1916): A violent and deadly storm hits Lake Erie in the United States.
October 21 – Friedrich Adler shoots Count Karl von Stürgkh, Minister-President of Austria.
October 27 – Battle of Segale: Negus Mikael of Wollo, marching on the Ethiopian capital in support of his son Emperor Iyasu V, is defeated by Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis, securing the throne for Empress Zewditu.
October 28 – 1916 Pioneer Exhibition Game: game of Australian rules football contested at Queen's Club, West Kensington, London, by two teams of elite footballers selected from men serving in the First AIF at the time.
November
November 1
Pavel Milyukov delivers his "stupidity or treason" speech in the Russian State Duma, precipitating the downfall of the Boris Stürmer government.
The first 40-hour work week officially begins, in the Endicott-Johnson factories of Western New York.
November 5
The Kingdom of Poland (1916–18) is proclaimed by a joint act of the emperors of Germany and Austria.
Everett massacre: An armed confrontation in Everett, Washington, between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World results in seven deaths.
Honan Chapel, Cork, Ireland, a product of the Irish Arts and Crafts movement (1894–1925), is dedicated.
November 7
1916 United States presidential election: Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeats Republican Charles Evans Hughes, when California is called a week after Election Day.
Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana becomes the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives.
Radio station 2XG, located in the Highbridge section of New York City, makes the first audio broadcast of presidential election returns.
November 13 – Prime Minister of Australia Billy Hughes is expelled from the Labor Party over his support for conscription.
November 18 – WWI – Battle of the Somme: In France, British Expeditionary Force commander Douglas Haig calls off the battle, which started on July 1.
November 21
Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria dies of pneumonia at the Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, aged 86, after a reign of 68 years and is succeeded by his grandnephew Charles I.
WWI: Hospital ship HMHS Britannic, designed as the third Olympic-class ocean liner for White Star Line, sinks in the Kea Channel of the Aegean Sea after hitting a mine; 30 lives are lost. At 48,158 gross register tons, she is the largest ship lost during the war.
November 23 – WWI: Eastern Front – Bucharest, the capital of Romania, is occupied by troops of the Central Powers.
December
December 12 – "White Friday": In the Dolomites, 100 avalanches bury 18,000 Austrian and Italian soldiers.
December 16 – Robert Baden-Powell gives the first public display of the new Wolf Cub section of Scouting at Caxton Hall, Westminster.
December 18 – WWI: The Battle of Verdun ends in France with German troops defeated.
December 21 – WWI: El Arish occupied by the British Empire Desert Column during advance across the Sinai Peninsula.
December 22 – The British Sopwith Camel aircraft makes its maiden flight. It is designed to counter the German Fokker aircraft.
December 23 – WWI: The Desert Column captures the Ottoman garrison during the Battle of Magdhaba.
December 30
Emperor Charles IV of Hungary and his wife Zita of Bourbon-Parma are crowned emperor and empress of Austria-Hungary.
Humberto Gómez and his mercenaries seize Arauca in Colombia and declare the Republic of Arauca. He proceeds to pillage the region before fleeing to Venezuela.
(December 17 Old Style) – The mystic Grigori Rasputin is murdered in Saint Petersburg.
December 31 – The Hampton Terrace Hotel in North Augusta, South Carolina, one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in the United States at the time, burns to the ground.
Date unknown
The 1916 Summer Olympics are cancelled in Berlin, Germany.
Food is rationed in Germany.
Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale is collected posthumously and published.
Oxycodone, a narcotic painkiller closely related to codeine, is first synthesized in Germany.
Ernst Rüdin publishes his initial results on the genetics of schizophrenia.
Louis Enricht claims he has a substitute for gasoline.
Rodeo's first side-delivery bucking chute is designed and made by the Bascom brothers (Raymond, Mel, and Earl) and their father, John W. Bascom, at Welling, Alberta, Canada.
Gustav Holst composes The Planets, Opus 32.
Bray Studios begins the Farmer Al Falfa series, the first of the Terrytoons.
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers is founded in the United States as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers.
Ishikawajima Automobile Manufacturing, predecessor of Isuzu, a truck brand in Japan, is founded.
Sport
March 30 – National Hockey Association's Montreal Canadiens win their First Stanley Cup by defeating the Pacific Coast Hockey Association's Portland Rosebuds 3 games to 2. All Games were played at Montreal's Montreal Arena.
Due to the outbreak of World War I, the 1916 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, is cancelled.
In fiction
In the 1941 film Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane runs for New York governor and loses. Also in 1916, Emily Monroe Norton divorces him and, in either this year or in 1917, he marries Susan Alexander.
Births
January
January 1
Giuseppe Aquari, Italian film cinematographer (d. 1982)
Italo Viglianesi, Italian trade unionist politician and syndicalist (d. 1995)
January 2 – Joseph W. Schmitt, American aircraft mechanic and spacesuit technician (d. 2017)
January 3
Maxene Andrews, American singer (The Andrews Sisters) (d. 1995)
Betty Furness, American actress and consumer activist (d. 1994)
Bernard Greenhouse, American cellist (d. 2011)
Erik Ågren, Swedish boxer (d. 1985)
Warren King, American cartoonist (d. 1978)
January 4
Princess Niloufer (d. 1989)
Sidney Siegel, American psychologist (d. 1961)
January 5
Alfred Ryder, American film, radio and television actor (d. 1995)
Wilhelm Szewczyk, Polish writer, poet, literary critic and translator (d. 1991)
January 7
Elena Ceaușescu, Romanian politician, First Lady of Romania and Deputy Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1989)
Paul Keres, Estonian chess player (d. 1975)
January 9 – Peter Twinn, English mathematician and WWII code-breaker (d. 2004)
January 10
Sune Bergström, Swedish biochemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
Bernard Binlin Dadié, Ivorian novelist, playwright, poet, and Minister of Culture (d. 2019)
Richard Münch, German actor (d. 1987)
January 12
Ruth R. Benerito, American chemist (d. 2013)
P. W. Botha, 9th President of South Africa (d. 2006)
Mary Wilson, Lady Wilson of Rievaulx, English poet (d. 2018)
January 15 – Hugh Gibb, English drummer and bandleader (d. 1992)
January 17
Peter Frelinghuysen Jr., American politician (d. 2011)
Tatyana Karpova, Soviet and Russian actress (d. 2018)
January 18 – Silviu Brucan, Romanian author and politician (d. 2006)
January 19 – Harry Huskey, American computer designer (d. 2017)
January 22 – Henri Dutilleux, French composer (d. 2013)
January 23 – David Douglas Duncan, American photojournalist (d. 2018)
January 24
Rafael Caldera, 39th President of Venezuela (d. 2009)
Marvin Creamer, American sailor (d. 2020)
Arnoldo Foà, Italian actor (d. 2014)
Daphne Lorraine Gum, Australian educator (d. 2017)
January 27 – Stjepan Filipović, a People's Hero of Yugoslavia (d. 1942)
January 28 – Dottie Hunter, Canadian baseball player (d. 2005)
January 31 – Sangoulé Lamizana, 2nd President and Prime Minister of Burkina Faso (d. 2005)
February
February 10 – Louis Guttman, American-born Israeli university professor (d. 1987)
February 11 – Ivan Hristov Bashev, Bulgarian Foreign Minister (d. 1971)
February 12 – Damián Iguacén Borau, Spanish Roman Catholic prelate (d. 2020)
February 13 – John Reed, British actor and opera singer (d. 2010)
February 14
Marcel Bigeard, French military officer (d. 2010)
Sally Gray, English actress (d. 2006)
Denham Harman, American gerontologist (d. 2014)
Edward Platt, American actor (d. 1974)
Charles Wycliffe Joiner, American judge (d. 2017)
Masaki Kobayashi, Japanese film director (d. 1996)
February 15
Ernest Millington, English politician (d. 2009)
Mary Jane Croft, American actress (d. 1999)
Dingiri Banda Wijetunga, 4th President and 9th Prime Minister of Sri Lanka (d. 2008)
February 16 – Karel Dufek, Czechoslovak diplomat (d. 2009)
February 18 – Maria Altmann, Austrian Holocaust survivor and heiress (d. 2011)
February 20 – Jean Erdman, American dancer (d. 2020)
February 23 – Retta Scott, first woman to receive screen credit as an animator at the Walt Disney Animation Studios (d. 1990)
February 26
Jackie Gleason, American comedian, actor and musician (d. 1987)
Preacher Roe, American baseball player (d. 2008)
February 28
Svend Asmussen, Danish jazz violinist (d. 2017)
Cesar Climaco, Filipino politician, Mayor of Zamboanga (d. 1984)
Frank Crean, Australian politician (d. 2008)
March
March 1 – Emelyn Whiton, American Olympic sailor (d. 1962)
March 2 – George E. Bria, Italian-American journalist (d. 2017)
March 3 – Paul Halmos, Hungarian-born mathematician (d. 2006)
March 4
William Alland, American actor, producer, writer and director (d. 1997)
Giorgio Bassani, Italian writer (d. 2000)
Hans Eysenck, German-born psychologist (d. 1997)
March 5 – Jack Hamm, American cartoonist (d. 1996)
March 6 – Rochelle Hudson, American actress (d. 1972)
March 7 – Marie-Thérèse Bourquin, Belgian lawyer (d. 2018)
March 10 – Ethel Bush, British police officer (d. 2016)
March 11 – Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1995)
March 13
Lindy Boggs, American politician (d. 2013)
Jacque Fresco, American futurist and designer (d. 2017)
John Aspinwall Roosevelt, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1981)
Robert O. Peterson, American businessman and philanthropist (d. 1994)
March 14 – Horton Foote, American writer (d. 2009)
March 15
Frank Coghlan Jr., American actor (d. 2009)
Harry James, American musician and band leader (d. 1983)
March 16
Mercedes McCambridge, American actress (d. 2004)
Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Japanese survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings (d. 2010)
March 17
Lyle Smith, American football coach (d. 2017)
Volodia Teitelboim, Chilean author and politician (d. 2008)
March 19 – Irving Wallace, American novelist (d. 1990)
March 20 – Pierre Messmer, French politician (d. 2007)
March 24
Donald Hamilton, Swedish writer (d. 2006)
Anna Maria Bottini, Italian actress (d. 2020)
March 26
Christian B. Anfinsen, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1995)
Dai Zijin, Chinese aviator (d. 2017)
Harry Rabinowitz, British film composer and conductor (d. 2016)
March 29
Sam Beazley, British actor (d. 2017)
Peter Geach, British philosopher (d. 2013)
Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, 6th President of Bangladesh (d. 1997)
Eugene McCarthy, U.S. Senator from Minnesota and Presidential candidate (d. 2005)
March 31 – Lucille Bliss, American voice actor (d. 2012)
April
April 1
John Holter, American toolmaker and inventor (d. 2003)
Balilla Lombardi, Italian football player (d. 1987)
April 2 – Menachem Porush, member of Israeli Knesset for Agudat Yisrael (d. 2010)
April 3
Herb Caen, American journalist (d. 1997)
Peter Gowland, American photographer (d. 2010)
Louiguy, Spanish-French musician of Italian extraction (d. 1991)
April 4
David White, American actor (d. 1990)
Nikola Ljubičić, 10th President of Serbia (d. 2005)
Mubarak Zarouk, Sudanese politician and minister (d. 1965)
April 5
Albert Henry Ottenweller, American bishop (d. 2012)
Gregory Peck, American actor (d. 2003)
Carmen Silva, Brazilian actress (d. 2008)
Jean Trescases, French soldier (d. 1951)
April 10 – Lee Jung-seob, Korean oil painter (d. 1956)
April 11
Alberto Ginastera, Argentine composer (d. 1983)
Armando León Bejarano, Mexican politician (d. 2016)
April 12
Beverly Cleary, American children's book author (d. 2021)
Benjamin Libet, American pioneering scientist in the field of human consciousness (d. 2007)
Movita Castaneda, American actress (d. 2015)
April 14 – Pehr Victor Edman, Swedish chemist (d.1977)
April 15
Alfred S. Bloomingdale, American department store heir (d. 1982)
Helene Hanff, American writer and critic (d. 1997)
Mikiel Fsadni, Maltese friar and historian (d. 2013)
April 16 – Hon Sui Sen, Malaysian-Singaporean politician (d. 1983)
April 17
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Sri Lankan politician (d. 2000)
A. Thiagarajah, Sri Lankan Tamil teacher and politician (d. 1981)
Win Maung, 3rd President of Myanmar (d. 1989)
April 18
Carl Burgos, American comic book artist (d. 1984)
José Joaquín Trejos Fernández, President of Costa Rica (d. 2010)
April 19
Bruno Chizzo, Italian association footballer (d. 1969)
Delio Rodríguez, Spanish road racing cyclist and sprinter (d. 1994)
April 21
Walter Berg, German footballer (d. 1949)
April 22
Yehudi Menuhin, American-born violinist (d. 1999)
Yvette Lundy, French resistance fighter (d. 2019)
April 24
Stanley Kauffmann, American film critic (d. 2013)
Lou Thesz, American professional wrestler (d. 2002)
April 25 – R. J. Rushdoony, American founder of Christian Reconstructionism (d. 2001)
April 26
Dorothy Salisbury Davis, American writer (d. 2014)
Vic Perrin, American voice actor (d. 1989)
Paulette Coquatrix, French costume designer (d. 2018)
Ken Wallis, British aviator, engineer, and inventor (d. 2013)
Werner Bischof, Swiss photographer and photojournalist (d. 1954)
George Tuska, American comic strip artist (d. 2009)
April 27 – Enos Slaughter, American baseball player (d. 2002)
April 28 – Ferruccio Lamborghini, Italian automobile manufacturer (d. 1993)
April 29 – Ramón Amaya Amador, Honduran author (d. 1966)
April 30
Claude Elwood Shannon, American information theorist (d. 2001)
Robert Shaw, American conductor (d. 1999)
May
May 1 – Glenn Ford, Canadian actor (d. 2006)
May 4 – Jane Jacobs, née Butzner, American-born urban activist (d. 2006)
May 5 – Zail Singh, Indian politician and 7th President of India (d. 1994)
May 6
Adriana Caselotti, American actress (d. 1997)
Robert H. Dicke, American experimental physicist (d. 1997)
Sif Ruud, Swedish actress (d. 2011)
May 8
Chinmayananda, Indian spiritual leader (d. 1993)
Jens Risom, Danish American furniture designer (d. 2016)
João Havelange, Brazilian industrialist and football league president (d. 2016)
May 10 – Milton Babbitt, American composer (d. 2011)
May 11 – Camilo José Cela, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2002)
May 14 – Sammy Luftspring, Canadian boxer (d. 2000)
Del Moore, American actor, comedian and radio announcer (d. 1970)
May 15
Vera Gebuhr, Danish actress (d. 2014)
Abbott Pattison, American sculptor and abstract artist (d. 1999)
May 16
Adriana Caselotti, American Actress, Voice Actress and Singer (d. 1997)
Ephraim Katzir, 4th President of Israel (d. 2009)
Carlos Aldunate Lyon, Colombian lawyer, educator and activist (d. 2018)
May 17
Jenő Fock, 49th Prime Minister of Hungary (d. 2001)
Lenka Reinerová, Czech writer (d. 2008)
May 18 – Miriam Goldberg, American newspaper publisher (d. 2017)
May 20
Owen Chadwick, British author and historian (d. 2015)
Trebisonda Valla, Italian athlete (d. 2006)
May 21
Louis Crump, American politician (d. 2019)
Dennis Day, American singer and actor (d. 1988)
Leonard Manasseh, British architect (d. 2017)
Lydia Mendoza, American musician (d. 2007)
Tinus Osendarp, Dutch runner (d. 2002)
Harold Robbins, American novelist (d. 1997)
Tan Siew Sin, Malaysian minister of Commerce and Industry (d. 1988)
May 26
Halil İnalcık, Turkish historian (d. 2016)
Henriette Roosenburg, Dutch journalist (d. 1972)
May 31
Bert Haanstra, Dutch filmmaker (d. 1997)
Bernard Lewis, British-American historian (d. 2018)
June
June 3 – Jack Manning, American film, stage and television actor (d. 2009)
June 4 – Robert F. Furchgott, American chemist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2009)
June 5 – Eddie Joost, baseball player and manager (d. 2011)
June 6 – Hamani Diori, 1st President of Niger (d. 1989)
June 8 – Francis Crick, English molecular biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
June 9
Jurij Brězan, Sorbian writer (d. 2006)
Robert McNamara, 8th United States Secretary of Defense (d. 2009)
June 11 – Bob Berry, New Zealand dendrologist (d. 2018)
June 12 – Raúl Héctor Castro, American politician (d. 2015)
June 13 – Ronald Atkins, Welsh politician (d. 2020)
June 14 – Dorothy McGuire, American actress (d. 2001)
June 15
Olga Erteszek, American undergarment designer and lingerie company owner (d. 1989)
Horacio Salgán, Argentine tango musician (d. 2016)
Herbert A. Simon, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2001)
June 16 – Phil Chambers, American actor (d. 1993)
June 17 – Einar Englund, Finnish composer (d. 1999)
June 18
Julio César Turbay Ayala, 25th President of Colombia (d. 2005)
Roman Toi, Estonian composer, choir conductor, and organist (d. 2018)
June 21
Tchan Fou-li, Chinese photographer (d. 2018)
Herbert Friedman, American physicist (d. 2000)
June 22
Anne Olivier Bell, English literary editor and art scholar (d. 2018)
Richard Eastham, American actor (d. 2005)
Emil Fackenheim, noted Jewish philosopher and Reform rabbi (d. 2003)
June 23
Len Hutton, English cricketer (d. 1990)
Irene Worth, American actress (d. 2002)
Al G. Wright, American bandleader and conductor (d. 2020)
June 24
Saloua Raouda Choucair, Lebanese painter and sculptor (d. 2017)
Lidia Wysocka, American actress (d. 2006)
William B. Saxbe, American politician (d. 2010)
June 25 – Thomas Reddin, American police (d. 2004)
June 26
Dennis Filmer, Malaysian sports shooter (d. 1981)
Alvin Wistert, American football player (d. 2005)
June 27
Max Müller, Swiss cross-country skier (d. 2019)
Ivy Cooke, Jamaican educator (d. 2017)
June 28
Richard Best, British film editor (d. 2004)
John Evelyn Anderson, British Army officer (d. 2007)
June 29 – Ruth Warrick, American actress (d. 2005)
July
July 1
Olivia de Havilland, Japanese-born British-American film actress (d. 2020)
Lawrence Halprin, American architect (d. 2009)
Thomas Hamilton-Brown, South African boxer (d. 1981)
July 2
Reino Kangasmäki, Finnish wrestler (d. 2010)
Alec Hill, Australian military historian (d. 2008)
Zélia Gattai, Brazilian author and photographer (d. 2008)
Hans-Ulrich Rudel, German pilot (d. 1982)
Ken Curtis, American screen actor and singer (d. 1991)
July 3 – John Kundla, American basketball coach (d. 2017)
July 4
Iva Toguri D'Aquino ("Tokyo Rose"), American propaganda broadcaster (d. 2006)
Adam Curle, British academic and peace activist (d. 2006)
Naseem Banu, Indian actress (d. 2002)
Fernand Leduc, Canadian painter (d. 2014)
July 5
Lívia Rév, Hungarian classical pianist (d. 2018)
Ivor Powell, Welsh footballer (d. 2012)
July 6
Harold Norse, American writer (d. 2009)
Hugh Gibbons, Irish Fianna Fáil politician (d. 2007)
Don R. Christensen, American animator, cartoonist, illustrator, writer and inventor (d. 2006)
July 7 – Werner G. Scharff, American arts patron and fashion designer (d. 2006)
July 8
Marion Hartzog Smoak, American lawyer and politician (d. 2020)
Ronald R. Van Stockum, American writer (d. 2022)
Jean Rouverol, American actress, screenwriter and author (d. 2017)
Otto Luedeke, American cyclist (d. 2005)
July 9
Edward Heath, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 2005)
Teun Roosenburg, Dutch sculptor (d. 2004)
July 10 – Nicholas D'Antonio Salza, American bishop (d. 2009)
July 11
Mortimer Caplin, American lawyer and educator (d. 2019)
Hans Maier, Dutch water polo player (d. 2018)
Aleksandr Mikhailovich Prokhorov, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 2002)
Reg Varney, British actor (d. 2008)
Gough Whitlam, 21st Prime Minister of Australia (d. 2014)
July 14
Franco Montoro, Brazilian politician and lawyer (d. 1999)
Natalia Ginzburg, Italian author (d. 1991)
July 15
Sumner Gerard, American politician and diplomat (d. 2005)
Les Dye, American football player (d. 2000)
July 16
Victor Fontana, Brazilian engineer, businessman and politician (d. 2017)
Sudono Salim, Indonesian-Chinese businessman (d. 2012)
July 17
Eleanor Hadley, American economist and policymaker (d. 2007)
Henning Brandis, German physician and microbiologist (d. 2004)
July 18
Charles Kittel, American physicist (d. 2019)
L. Patrick Gray III, American Federal Bureau of Investigation director (d. 2005)
Ed Cifers, American football end (d. 2005)
Sid Kiel, South African doctor and cricketer (d. 2007)
July 19 – Phil Cavarretta, baseball player (d. 2010)
July 20
Ersilio Tonini, Italian Cardinal of the Catholic Church (d. 2013)
Hans von Blixen-Finecke Jr., Swedish officer and horse rider (d. 2005)
July 21
Douglas Freeman, English cricketer (d. 2013)
Sergeant Stubby, World War I American hero war dog (d. 1926)
July 22
Irene Galitzine, Russian-Georgian fashion designer (d. 2006)
William A. Culpepper, American judge (d. 2015)
William Harper, Rhodesian politician (d. 2006)
Marcel Cerdan, French boxer (d. 1949)
July 23 – Sandra Gould, American actress (d. 1999)
July 25 – Fred Lasswell, American cartoonist (d. 2001)
July 27
Elizabeth Hardwick, American literary critic and novelist (d. 2007)
Keenan Wynn, American actor (d. 1986)
July 28 – David Brown, American producer (d. 2010)
July 29 – Rupert Hamer, Australian politician and Premier of Victoria (d. 2004)
July 30 – Dick Wilson, American actor (d. 2007)
July 31
Bill Todman, American game show producer (d. 1979)
Ignacio Trelles, Mexican football player and coach (d. 2020)
August
August 1
Fiorenzo Angelini, Italian Cardinal (d. 2014)
Olimpio Bizzi, Italian racing cyclist (d. 1976)
Edna Hughes, English competition swimmer (d. 1990)
August 2 – Zein Al-Sharaf Talal, Queen of Jordan (d. 1994)
August 3 – Hertha Feiler, Austrian actress (d. 1970)
August 5 – Kermit Love, American puppeteer (d. 2008)
August 6 – Dom Mintoff, 8th Prime Minister of Malta (d. 2012)
August 7
Lawrence Picachy, Indian Jesuit priest (d. 1992)
Rose Wolfe, Canadian social worker and philanthropist (d. 2016)
August 8 – Shigeo Arai, Japanese freestyle swimmer (d. 1944)
August 9 – Manea Mănescu, 50th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 2009)
August 10 – Lorna McDonald, Australian historian and author (d. 2017)
August 11
Johnny Claes, English racing driver (d. 1956)
William Coors, American executive (d. 2018)
August 12 – Ralph Nelson, American film and television director, producer, writer, and actor (d. 1987)
August 13 – Sybren Valkema, Dutch glass artist and teacher, and founder of the European Studio Glass Movement, also known as VRIJ GLAS. (d. 1996)
August 14
Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, German night fighter pilot and flying ace (d. 1944)
Ralph de Toledano, American conservationist and author (d. 2007)
August 16
Edythe Wright, American singer (d. 1965)
Iggy Katona, American race car driver (d. 2003)
August 18 – Neagu Djuvara, Romanian historian, essayist, and diplomat (d. 2018)
August 19 – Dennis Poore, British entrepreneur, financier and racing driver (d. 1987)
August 20
George Rosenkranz, Mexican co-inventor of oral contraceptive pill (d. 2019)
Paul Felix Schmidt, Estonian chess player (d. 1984)
August 21
Frank O. Braynard, American maritime writer and historian (d. 2007)
Geoffrey Keen, English actor (d. 2005)
Bill Lee, American playback singer (d. 1980)
Consuelo Velázquez, Mexican songwriter (d. 2005)
August 22
Robert H. Krieble, American chemist (d. 1997)
Joe Martinelli, American soccer forward (d. 1991)
August 24
Hal Smith, American actor (d. 1994)
Léo Ferré, French-born Monégasque poet and composer (d. 1993)
August 25
Van Johnson, American actor (d. 2008)
Frederick Chapman Robbins, American pediatrician and virologist (d. 2003)
Saburō Sakai, Japanese fighter ace (d. 2000)
August 27
Martha Raye, American actress (d. 1994)
Larry Thor, Canadian actor (d. 1976)
Robert Van Eenaeme, Belgian cyclist (d. 1959)
August 28
C. Wright Mills, American sociologist (d. 1962)
Jack Vance, American writer (d. 2013)
August 29 – Luther Davis, American screenwriter (d. 2008)
August 30
Shag Crawford, American baseball umpire (d. 2007)
Kenneth Keith, Baron Keith of Castleacre, British life peer (d. 2004)
August 31
Daniel Schorr, American journalist (d. 2010)
John S. Wold, American politician (d. 2017)
September
September 1
Dorothy Cheney, American tennis player (d. 2014)
Joseph Minish, American politician (d. 2007)
September 3 – Tommy J. Smith, Australian trainer (d. 1998)
September 5
Allan Louisy, 2nd Prime Minister of Saint Lucia (d. 2011)
Frank Yerby, American writer (d. 1991)
September 7 – Shen Panwen, Chinese chemist (d. 2017)
September 12
Leoncio Afonso, Spanish scientist (d. 2017)
Edward Binns, American stage, film, and television actor (d. 1990)
September 13 – Roald Dahl, Welsh-born author (d. 1990)
September 14
Eric Bentley, English-born American critic and playwright (d. 2020)
John Heyer, Australian documentary filmmaker (d. 2001)
September 15
Margaret Lockwood, Indian-born English actress (d. 1990)
Frederick C. Weyand, U.S. Army General (d. 2010)
September 16 – Frank Leslie Walcott, Barbadian labour leader (d. 1999)
September 17 – Mary Stewart, born Mary Rainbow, English-born fantasy and mystery writer (d. 2014)
September 18 – John Jacob Rhodes, American politician and lawyer (d. 2003)
September 21 – Zinovy Gerdt, Russian actor (d. 1996)
September 23 – Aldo Moro, 38th Prime Minister of Italy (d. 1978)
September 24 – Ruth Leach Amonette, American businesswoman (d. 2004)
September 26 – Frank Handlen, American artist (d. 2023)
September 27
Trento Longaretti, Italian painter (d. 2017)
S. Yizhar (aka Yizhar Smilansky), Israeli author (d. 2006)
September 28 – Peter Finch, English-born Australian actor (d. 1977)
October
October 2 – Jim L. Gillis Jr., American politician (d. 2018)
October 3
Frank Pantridge, Irish physician and inventor (d. 2004)
James Herriot, English veterinarian and author (d. 1995)
Shelby Storck, American television producer (d. 1969)
October 4 – Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 2009)
October 7 – Sir Hereward Wake, 14th Baronet, British army officer (d. 2017)
October 9 – Robert Brubaker, American actor (d. 2010)
October 10
Bernard Heuvelmans, Belgian-French cryptozoologist (d. 2001)
Sumiko Mizukubo, Japanese actress (d. 1994)
October 11 – Maurice Gaffney, Irish barrister (d. 2016)
October 12 – Alice Childress, American actress, playwright, and novelist (d. 1994)
October 14 – C. Everett Koop, United States Surgeon General (d. 2013)
October 15 – Hassan Gouled Aptidon, President of Djibouti (d. 2006)
October 19
Jean Dausset, French immunologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2009)
Emil Gilels, Ukrainian pianist (d. 1985)
October 21 – Eddie Carnett, American baseball player (d. 2016)
October 25 – Thérèse Kleindienst, French librarian (d. 2018)
October 26 – François Mitterrand, President of France (d. 1996)
October 30 – Leon Day, American baseball player (d. 1995)
October 31
Phil Monroe, American animator and director (d. 1988)
Carl Johan Bernadotte, Prince of Sweden (d. 2012)
November
November 4 – Walter Cronkite, American television journalist (d. 2009)
November 5 – Jim Tabor, American baseball player (d. 1953)
November 6 – Harry Blamires, British Anglican theologian, literary critic and novelist (d. 2017)
November 8 – Lady Ursula d'Abo, English socialite (d. 2017)
November 10 – Louis le Brocquy, Irish painter (d. 2012)
November 11 – Robert Carr, English politician (d. 2012)
November 12 – Rogelio de la Rosa, Filipino actor and politician (d. 1986)
November 14 – Sherwood Schwartz, American television writer and producer (d. 2011)
November 15 – Bill Melendez, American animator (d. 2008)
November 16 – Daws Butler, American voice actor (d. 1988)
November 17 – Shelby Foote, American historian and novelist, author of The Civil War: A Narrative (d. 2005)
November 20
Hamida Habibullah, Indian politician (d. 2018)
Evelyn Keyes, American actress (d. 2008)
November 23
Michael Gough, Malayan-born English actor (d. 2011)
P. K. Page, Canadian poet (d. 2010)
November 24
Forrest J Ackerman, American writer (d. 2008)
Frankie Muse Freeman, American civil rights attorney (d. 2018)
November 25 – Cosmo Haskard, Irish-born British colonial administrator and British Army officer (d. 2017)
November 26 – Gerhard Unger, German tenor (d. 2011)
November 27 – Chick Hearn, American basketball announcer (d. 2002)
November 28
Lilian, Princess of Réthy, born Mary Lilian Baels, English-born Belgian queen consort of Leopold III (d. 2002)
Ramón José Velásquez, 44th President of Venezuela (d. 2014)
November 29
Evelyn Bonaci, Maltese politician (d. 2008)
Helen Clare, British singer (d. 2018)
Fran Ryan, American actress (d. 2000)
November 30
Andrée de Jongh, Belgian Resistance worker (d. 2007)
John C. Harkness, American architect (d. 2016)
December
December 1 – Wan Li, Chinese government official (d. 2015)
December 2 – Nancye Wynne Bolton, Australian tennis player (d. 2001)
December 5 – Hilary Koprowski, Polish virologist and immunologist (d. 2013)
December 6
Kristján Eldjárn, 3rd President of Iceland (d. 1982)
Pratap Chandra Lal, Indian military advisor (d. 1982)
Hugo Peretti, American songwriter and record producer (d. 1986)
December 7
George Russell Weller, American salesman known for the Santa Monica Farmer's Market incident (d. 2010)
John G. Morris, American picture editor (d. 2017)
December 8
Richard Fleischer, American film director (d. 2006)
T. K. Whitaker, Irish economist and public servant (d. 2017)
December 9
Jerome Beatty, Jr., American author of children's literature (d. 2002)
Kirk Douglas, American film actor (Spartacus) (d. 2020)
Esther Wilkins, American dentist (d. 2016)
December 11 – Dámaso Pérez Prado, Cuban musician (d. 1989)
December 12 – Maharaj Charan Singh, Fourth Satguru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (d. 1990)
December 12 – Anne Vermeer, Dutch politician (d. 2018)
December 14 – Shirley Jackson, American writer (d. 1965)
December 15 – Maurice Wilkins, New Zealand-born physicist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 2004)
December 16 – Birgitta Valberg, Swedish actress (d. 2014)
December 18
Douglas Fraser, Scottish-born union leader (d. 2008)
Betty Grable, American actress (d. 1973)
Franciszek Kornicki, Polish fighter pilot (d. 2017)
December 19
Roy Baker, English film director (d. 2010)
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, German political scientist (d. 2010)
John Crutcher, American politician (d. 2017)
December 20 – Morrie Schwartz, American professor (d. 1995)
December 21 – Arsène Tchakarian, Armenian-French resistance fighter (d. 2018)
December 22 – Dietrich Grunewald, Swedish-born, American Artist (d. 2003)
December 24
Ron G. Mason, English oceanographer (d. 2009)
Cecília Schelingová, Czechoslovakian Roman Catholic religious professed, martyr and blessed (d. 1955)
December 25
Ahmed Ben Bella, Algerian politician, 1st President of Algeria (d. 2012)
Graciela Naranjo, Venezuelan singer and actress (d. 2001)
December 27 – Cathy Lewis, American actress (d. 1968)
Date unknown
Saad Jumaa, 17th Prime Minister of Jordan (d. 1979)
Deaths
January
January 1
Max Bastelberger, German doctor and entomologist (b. 1851)
Adán Cárdenas, Nicaraguan doctor and politician, 16th President of Nicaragua (b. 1836)
January 2
Joseph Rucker Lamar, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (b. 1857)
Félix Sardà y Salvany, Spanish Roman Catholic priest and writer (b. 1844)
January 5 – Ulpiano Checa, Spanish painter, sculptor and illustrator (b. 1860)
January 7 – Andrés Baquero, Spanish teacher and writer (b. 1853)
January 8
Rembrandt Bugatti, Italian sculptor (b. 1884)
Eugene W. Hilgard, German-born American soil scientist (b. 1833)
January 9 – Ada Rehan, Irish-born American Shakespearean actress (b. 1859)
January 10 – Guido Baccelli, Italian physician (b. 1830)
January 11
Cyril VIII Geha, Greek Catholic patriarch (b. 1840)
Takashima Tomonosuke, Japanese general (b. 1844)
January 12
Léon Autonne, French engineer and mathematician (b. 1859)
Georgios Theotokis, Greek politician, Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1844)
January 13
George Bengescu-Dabija, Wallachian-born Romanian poet, playwright, and general (b. 1844)
Vasile Hossu, Romanian Orthodox priest and bishop (b. 1866)
Victoriano Huerta, Mexican general and statesman, 35th President of Mexico (b. 1850)
January 14 – Otto Ammon, German anthropologist (b. 1842)
January 15 – Vojtech Alexander, Slovakian radiologist (b. 1857)
January 16
Arnold Aletrino, Dutch physician (b. 1858)
William Montrose Graham Jr., American general (b. 1834)
Juana María Condesa Lluch, Spanish Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed (b. 1862)
January 17 – Arthur V. Johnson, American actor and director (b. 1876)
January 18 – Lorenzo Latorre, Uruguayan officer and politician, 11th President of Uruguay (b. 1844)
January 19
Dora Knowlton Ranous, American actress, author and translator (b. 1859)
Antoine Simon, French composer (b. 1850)
January 20 – Ephraim Francis Baldwin, American architect (b. 1837)
January 30 – Sir Clements Markham, British explorer and geographer (b. 1830)
February
February 3 – Metropolitan Ioan Mețianu, Romanian cleric (b. 1828)
February 6
Rubén Darío, Nicaraguan writer (b. 1867)
Isala Van Diest, Belgian physician (b. 1842)
February 7
Franklin E. Brooks, U.S. House of Representatives from Colorado (b. 1847)
Ludwika Szczęsna, Polish Roman Catholic nun and blessed (b. 1863)
February 9 – Anton Yegorovich von Saltza, Russian general (b. 1843)
February 12 – Richard Dedekind, German mathematician (b. 1831)
February 13
Vilhelm Hammershøi, Danish painter (b. 1864)
Carlos Antonio Mendoza, Panamanian politician, acting President of Panama (b. 1856)
February 18 – Hans Schmidt, German Roman Catholic priest (executed) (b. 1881)
February 19 – Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher (b. 1838)
February 20 – Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Swedish writer and pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1844)
February 21 – Karl Begas, German sculptor (b. 1845)
February 23
Jabez Balfour, English businessman (b. 1843)
Domenico Lovisato, Italian geologist (b. 1842)
Hugo von Pohl, German admiral (b. 1855)
February 25 – David Bowman, Australian politician (b. 1860)
February 26 – Tomasa Ortiz Real, Spanish Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed (b. 1842)
February 27 – Ugo Balzani, Italian historian (b. 1847)
February 28 – Henry James, American writer (b. 1843)
March
March 2 – Elisabeth of Wied, Queen consort of Romania (b. 1843)
March 4
Franz Marc, German Expressionist painter (killed in action) (b. 1880)
William Sooy Smith, American Union general and engineer (b. 1830)
March 7 – Fred Donovan, American baseball player (b. 1844)
March 9 – Arnold Spencer-Smith, British explorer, clergyman, and amateur photographer (b. 1883)
March 11
Florence Baker, Hungarian-born British explorer (b. 1841)
Henry G. Davis, American politician (b. 1823)
March 12 – William M. O. Dawson, 12th Governor of West Virginia (b. 1853)
March 15 – John Beveridge, Australian businessman, Mayor of Redfern (b. 1848)
March 16 – Thomas King, New Zealand astronomer (b. 1858)
March 19
John J. Davis, American politician, U.S. Representatives from West Virginia (b. 1835)
Girolamo Maria Gotti, Italian Discalced Carmelite friar and Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1834)
Vasily Surikov, Russian painter (b. 1848)
March 20 – Ota Benga, Congolese pygmy brought to America as part of an exhibition at the Bronx zoo (b. 1883)
March 24
Herman Gesellius, French architect (b. 1874)
Enrique Granados, Spanish composer (ship sinking) (b. 1867)
March 25 – Ishi, last known member of the Yana people (b. 1860)
March 28 – Paul von Plehwe, Russian general (b. 1850)
March 30 – Nakamuta Kuranosuke, Japanese admiral (b. 1837)
April
April 4
Alfred Cogniaux, Belgian botanist (b. 1841)
Max Lewandowsky, German neurologist (b. 1876)
April 7 – Shigeyoshi Matsuo, Japanese businessman (b. 1843)
April 11 – Richard Harding Davis, American journalist and author (b. 1864)
April 14 – Gina Krog, Norwegian suffragist, activist and editor (b. 1847)
April 16 – Alexander Meyrick Broadley, British barrister (b. 1846)
April 19 – Ephraim Shay, American inventor (b. 1839)
April 21
Ubaldo Pacchierotti, Italian composer (b. 1876)
John Surratt, suspected of involvement in the Abraham Lincoln assassination, son of Mary Surratt (b. 1844)
April 27 – Prince Leopold Clement of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (b. 1878)
April 28 – Edward Felix Baxter, English recipient of the Victorian Cross (b. 1885)
May
May 2 – Jules Blanchard, French sculptor (b. 1832)
May 3
Patrick Pearse, Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, political activist, and nationalist (executed) (b. 1879)
Thomas MacDonagh, Irish poet, playwright, educationalist and revolutionary leader (executed) (b. 1878)
Tom Clarke, Irish republican, leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (executed) (b. 1858)
May 4
Lord John Hay, British admiral and politician (b. 1827)
Joseph Plunkett, Irish nationalist, republican, poet, journalist, revolutionary (executed) (b. 1887)
Hector Sévin, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1852)
May 6 – Hans Chiari, Austrian pathologist (b. 1851)
May 8
Mabel Beardsley, English actress (b. 1871)
William Burnyeat, British politician (b. 1837)
Éamonn Ceannt, Irish republican (executed) (b. 1881)
Seán Heuston, Irish republican (executed) (b. 1891)
Aeneas Mackintosh, British Merchant Navy officer and Antarctic explorer (b. 1879)
Victor Hayward, British explorer (b. 1887)
May 11
Max Reger, German modernist composer (b. 1873)
Karl Schwarzschild, German physicist (b. 1873)
Tirésias Simon Sam, 16th President of Haiti (b. 1835)
May 12
James Connolly, Irish socialist and political activist (executed) (b. 1868)
Seán Mac Diarmada, Irish republican (executed) (b. 1883)
May 13
Sholem Aleichem, Ukrainian Yiddish writer (b. 1859)
Ján Bahýľ, Slovak engineer and inventor (b. 1856)
Margaret Benson, English author (b. 1865)
Émile Petitot, French Roman Catholic missionary (b. 1838)
May 18 – Chen Qiemi, Chinese politician (b. 1878)
May 19 – Georges Boillot, French Grand Prix driver (killed in action) (b. 1884)
May 21 – Artúr Görgei, Hungarian military general and politician (b. 1818)
May 23 – Vladimír Jindřich Bufka, Czechoslovak photographer (b. 1887)
May 27 – Joseph Gallieni, French general (b. 1849)
May 28 – Ivan Franko, Ukrainian writer and political activist (b. 1856)
May 31
Robert Arbuthnot, British admiral (killed in action) (b. 1864)
Sir Horace Hood, British admiral (killed in action) (b. 1870)
June
June 2 – Paul von Bruns, German surgeon (b. 1846)
June 5 – Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener, British field marshal and statesman (drowned) (b. 1850)
June 6 – Yuan Shikai, Chinese military official and politician, Emperor of China and 1st President of the Republic of China (b. 1859)
June 7
Alberto Elmore Fernández de Córdoba, Peruvian diplomat and politician, 52nd Prime Minister of Peru (b. 1844)
Émile Faguet, French writer and critic (b. 1847)
June 12 – Silvanus P. Thompson, English professor of physics, electrical engineer, member of the Royal Society and author (b. 1851)
June 17 – Edwin Munroe Bacon, English writer (b. 1844)
June 18
Max Immelmann, German fighter ace (killed in action) (b. 1890)
Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, German general (b. 1848)
June 22 – Tanaka Yoshio, Japanese naturalist (b. 1838)
June 24 – Victor Chapman, French-born American fighter pilot (killed in action) (b. 1890)
June 25 – Thomas Eakins, American realist painter (b. 1844)
June 30
Russell Barton, British-born Australian politician (b. 1830)
Eunice Eloisae Gibbs Allyn, American correspondent, author, and songwriter (b. 1847)
July
July 1 – First Day on the Somme (killed in action)
Eugene Bourdon, French architect (b. 1870)
Gilbert Waterhouse, English architect and war poet (b. 1883)
July 2 – Mikhail Pomortsev, Russian meteorologist (b. 1851)
July 3
Hetty Green, American businesswoman (b. 1834)
Alfred Kleiner, Swiss physicist (b. 1849)
Jeremiah Lomnytskyj, Ukrainian Basilian priest, missionary and servant of God (b. 1860)
July 6 – Odilon Redon, French painter (b. 1840)
July 7 – Margarethe Hormuth-Kallmorgen, German painter (b. 1835)
July 12 – Cesare Battisti, Italian patriot, geographer and politician (b. 1875)
July 15 – Élie Metchnikoff, Russian microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (b. 1845)
July 16
Regino Garcia, Filipino artist (b. 1840)
Sir Victor Horsley, English physician and surgeon (b. 1857)
July 20 – Reinhard Sorge, German dramatist and poet (killed in action) (b. 1892)
July 22 – James Whitcomb Riley, American poet (b. 1849)
July 23 – Sir William Ramsay, British chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1852)
July 26
Gustave Maria Blanche, French Roman Catholic priest and bishop (b. 1849)
Johannes Ranke, German physiologist (b. 1836)
July 27
Arthur Winton Brown, New Zealand politician, Mayor of Wellington (b. 1856)
Charles Fryatt, British mariner (executed) (b. 1872)
July 29 – Claude Castleton, Australian VC recipient (killed in action) (b. 1893)
August
August 3 – Roger Casement, Irish nationalist (executed) (b. 1864)
August 5 – George Butterworth, English composer (b. 1885)
August 7 – Kittredge Haskins, American lawyer and politician, U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont (b. 1836)
August 8
Lily Braun, German writer (b. 1865)
Kamimura Hikonojō, Japanese admiral (b. 1849)
Oscar Linkson, English football player (b. 1888)
August 9 – Guido Gozzano, Italian poet and writer (b. 1883)
August 10 – S. Isadore Miner, American columnist writing as "Pauline Periwinkle" (b. 1863)
August 13 – Pierre de Ségur, French historian (b. 1853)
August 17 – Umberto Boccioni, Italian painter and sculptor (b. 1882)
August 18 – Marcel Brindejonc des Moulinais, French aviator (b. 1892)
August 30 – Alexander Boarman, American judge, U.S. House of Representatives of Louisiana (b. 1839)
August 31
Martha McClellan Brown, American activist (b. 1838)
John St. John, American temperance leader and Governor of Kansas (b. 1833)
September
September 2
Gennady Ladyzhensky, Russian painter (b. 1852)
Felipe Trigo, Spanish writer (b. 1864)
September 7 – Annie Le Porte Diggs, Canadian-born American activist and librarian (b. 1853)
September 8
Friedrich Baumfelder, German composer, conductor, and pianist (b. 1836)
James Gray, American journalist, 19th Mayor of Minneapolis (b. 1862)
September 12 – Zygmunt Balicki, Polish sociologist (b. 1858)
September 14
Pierre Duhem, French physicist (b. 1861)
José Echegaray, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1832)
September 15
Raymond Asquith, English barrister (b. 1878)
Josiah Royce, American philosopher (b. 1855)
September 17 – Seth Low, American politician and educator, Mayor of New York City (b. 1850)
September 25
Gerald Arbuthnot, British soldier and politician (b. 1872)
Kurt Wintgens, German fighter pilot, air ace in World War I (b. 1894)
September 29 – Albert John Cook, American entomologist and zoologist (b. 1842)
October
October 3
James Burgess, British archaeologist (b. 1832)
Dmytro Yaremko, Ukrainian Eastern Catholic hierarch and bishop (b. 1879)
October 6 – Isidore De Loor, Belgian Roman Catholic religious professed and blessed (b. 1881)
October 10 – Antonio Sant'Elia, Italian architect (killed in action) (b. 1888)
October 11 – King Otto of Bavaria (b. 1848)
October 12 – Tony Jannus, American aviator and aircraft designer (b. 1889)
October 18 – Ignacio Pinazo Camarlench, Spanish painter (b. 1849)
October 21
Olindo Guerrini, Italian poet (b. 1845)
Karl von Stürgkh, Prime Minister of Austria (b. 1859)
October 25 – Gérard Encausse, Papus, French occultist (b. 1865)
October 28
Oswald Boelcke, German World War I fighter ace, (b. 1891)
Cleveland Abbe, American meteorologist (b. 1838)
October 29 – John Sebastian Little, American politician and congressman (b. 1851)
October 31
Tina Blau, Austrian painter (b. 1845)
Charles Taze Russell, Protestant evangelist, forerunner of Jehovah's Witnesses (b. 1852)
Huang Xing, Chinese revolutionary leader and politician, and the first commander-in-chief of the Republic of China (b. 1874)
November
November 1 – Franz, Prince of Thun and Hohenstein, Austrian noble and statesman, Prime Minister (b. 1847)
November 2 – Prince Mircea of Romania (b. 1913)
November 3 – August Lindberg, Swedish actor, director and manager (b. 1846)
November 4
John Bingham, 5th Baron Clanmorris, Irish peer (b. 1838)
Ella Loraine Dorsey, American author, journalist, and translator (b. 1853)
November 5 – Francesco Salesio Della Volpe, Italian Roman Catholic cardinal (b. 1844)
November 6 – Sultan Ali Dinar (b. 1856)
November 8 – Prince Heinrich of Bavaria (b. 1884)
November 9
Ludwig Bruns, German neurologist (b. 1856)
Ion Dragalina, Romanian general (died of wounds) (b. 1860)
November 10 – Walter Sutton, American geneticist and physician (b. 1877)
November 11
Frank Chesterton, British architect (b. 1877)
Francisco da Veiga Beirão, Portuguese politician, 53rd Prime Minister of Portugal (b. 1841)
November 12 – Percival Lowell, American astronomer (b. 1855)
November 14
Franklin Ware Mann, American inventor (b. 1856)
Saki, British writer (b. 1870)
November 15 – Henryk Sienkiewicz, Polish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1846)
November 18 – August Lindberg, Swedish actor, director and manager (b. 1846)
November 21 –
Chester Adgate Congdon, American mining magnate (b. 1853)
Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria (b. 1830)
November 22 – Jack London, American author (b. 1876)
November 23 – Lanoe Hawker VC, British World War I fighter ace, killed in action by Manfred von Richthofen (b. 1890)
November 24
Princess Adelheid-Marie of Anhalt-Dessau (b. 1833)
John Francis Barnett, English teacher (b. 1851)
Sir Hiram Maxim, American firearms inventor (b. 1840)
November 25 – Inez Milholland, American suffragist, labor lawyer, World War I correspondent and public speaker (b. 1886)
November 27 – Émile Verhaeren, Belgian poet (b. 1855)
November 28 – Martinus Theunis Steyn, Boer lawyer, politician, and statesman, sixth and last President of the Orange Free State (1896-1902) (b. 1857)
November 30 – Demetrio Alonso Castrillo, Spanish politician (b. 1841)
December
December 1 – Charles de Foucauld, French Roman Catholic religious professed, priest and blessed (b. 1858)
December 2
William Brownell, Australian politician (b. 1862)
Hughie Hughes, British racecar driver (b. 1885)
José Veríssimo, Brazilian writer (b. 1857)
December 4 – Paul Allard, French archaeologist and historian (b. 1841)
December 5
Princess Augusta of Cambridge (b. 1822)
Hans Richter, Austrian–Hungarian conductor (b. 1843)
December 6 – Signe Hornborg, Finnish architect (b. 1856)
December 8 – John Porter Merrell, American admiral (b. 1846)
December 9
Pierre Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, French economist (b. 1843)
Natsume Sōseki, Japanese writer (b. 1867)
Clara Ward, Princesse de Caraman-Chimay (b. 1873)
December 10 – Ōyama Iwao, Japanese field marshal and a founder of the Imperial Japanese Army (b. 1842)
December 11
Valentín Díaz, Filipino patriot, during the Philippine Revolution (b. 1845)
Zoilo H. Garcia, Dominican engineer and aviator (b. 1881)
December 12 – Edwin Atlee Barber, American archaeologist (b. 1851)
December 14 – Nicolai Soloviev, Russian composer (b. 1846)
December 15 – José Maria de Alpoim, Portuguese journalist (b. 1857)
December 16
Friedrich Ernst Dorn, German physicist (b. 1848)
Honorat da Biała, Polish Roman Catholic priest and blessed (b. 1829)
Hugo Münsterberg, German-born American psychologist (b. 1856)
Ognjeslav Stepanović, Serbian inventor (b. 1851)
December 18
George W. Cook, U.S. Representative from Colorado (b. 1851)
Giulia Valle, Italian Roman Catholic nun and blessed (b. 1847)
December 19
Doug Allison, American baseball player (b. 1846)
Thibaw Min, King of Burma (b. 1859)
December 22 – George A. Woodward, American general (b. 1835)
December 25
Albert Chmielowski, Polish Roman Catholic religious professed and saint (b. 1845)
John Dunne, Australian Roman Catholic bishop and reverend (b. 1846)
December 28 – Eduard Strauss, Austrian composer (b. 1835)
December 30
Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (assassinated) (b. 1869)
Leopold Sulerzhitsky, Russian painter (b. 1872)
Nobel Prizes
Physics – not awarded
Chemistry – not awarded
Medicine – not awarded
Literature – Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam
Peace – not awarded
References
Further reading
Williams, John. The Other Battleground The Home Fronts: Britain, France and Germany 1914-1918 (1972) pp 109–74.
Primary sources and year books
New International Year Book 1916 (1917), Comprehensive coverage of world and national affairs, 938pp
Who's who in New England. A.N. Marquis. 1915. p. 1.
Early Advertising, "Fishing for Suckers" at Duke University |
James_Connolly | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Connolly | [
369
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Connolly"
] | James Connolly (Irish: Séamas Ó Conghaile; 5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916) was a Scottish born Irish republican, socialist, and trade union leader, executed for his part in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland. He remains an important figure both for the Irish labour movement and for Irish republicanism.
He became an active socialist in Scotland, where he had been born in 1868 to Irish parents. On moving to Ireland in 1896, he established the country's first socialist party, the Irish Socialist Republican Party. It called for an Ireland independent not only of Britain's Crown and Parliament, but also of British "capitalists, landlords and financiers".
From 1905 to 1910, he was a full-time organiser in the United States for the Industrial Workers of the World, choosing its syndicalism over the doctrinaire Marxism of Daniel DeLeon's Socialist Labor Party of America, to which he had been initially drawn. Returning to Ireland, he deputised for James Larkin in organising for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, first in Belfast and then in Dublin.
In Belfast, he was frustrated in his efforts to draw Protestant workers into an all-Ireland labour and socialist movement but, in the wake of the industrial unrest of 1913, acquired in Dublin what he saw as a new means of striking toward the goal of a Workers' Republic. At the beginning of 1916, he committed the union's militia, the Irish Citizen Army (ICA), to the plans of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and the Irish Volunteers, for war-time insurrection.
Alongside Patrick Pearse, Connolly commanded the insurrection in Easter of that year from rebel garrison holding Dublin's General Post Office. He was wounded in the fighting and, following the rebel surrender at the end of Easter week, was executed along with the six other signatories to the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
Early life
Connolly was born in the Cowgate or "Little Ireland" district of Edinburgh in 1868, the third son of Mary McGinn and John Connolly, a labourer,: 28 both Irish immigrants his mother from Ballymena, County Antrim and his father from County Monaghan. Throughout his life he was to speak with a Scottish accent.: 636
He left the local Catholic primary school at age 10 to seek work.: 14 At age 14, following his eldest brother John, he enlisted in the army, falsifying both his name and age. Little is known about his military service. Desmond Greaves learnt that Connolly had reminisced about being on guard duty in Cork harbour on the night in December 1882 when Maolra Seoighe was hanged for the Maamtrasna massacre (the killing a landlord and his family).: 26 This is consistent with Connolly having joined the 1st Battalion, King’s Liverpool Regiment (which counted as an Irish regiment).: 15 If this was the case, in the years that followed, the teenage recruit may have helped enforce Land War evictions in Meath, patrolled the streets of Belfast during deadly sectarian riots, and war-gamed the army's defensive plans for Dublin.
In 1889, months before the end of his enlistment, and in advance of rumoured deployment overseas, Connolly "discharged himself". In Dublin, he had met Lillie Reynolds, and in the New Year she followed him to Scotland where, with special dispensation (Reynolds was Protestant) they married in a Catholic church.: 15
Socialist republican
Scottish Socialist Federation
Again following in the example of his brother John, in 1890 Connolly joined the Scottish Socialist Federation, succeeding his brother as its secretary in 1893. Largely a propaganda organisation, the Federation supported Keir Hardie and his Independent Labour Party in the campaign for labour representation in Parliament.
Within the SSF, Connolly was greatly influenced by John Leslie, 12 years his senior, but like him born to poor Irish immigrants. While Leslie did not envisage Ireland breaking the English connection before the advent of a socialist Britain, he was to encourage Connolly in the creation of a separate socialist party in Ireland.
In 1896, after the birth of his third daughter, and having lost, while standing for election to the city-council, his municipal carter's job, and then failed as a cobbler, Connolly considered a future for his family in Chile. But thanks to an appeal by John Leslie, he had the offer of employment in Dublin as a full-time secretary for the Dublin Socialist Club, at £1 per week.
Irish Socialist Republican Party
In Dublin, where he first became a navvy and then a proof reader, Connolly soon split the Socialist Club, forming in its stead the Irish Socialist Republican Party (ISRP). In what was then, if briefly, the "literary centre of advanced nationalism",: 44 Alice Milligan's Belfast monthly, The Shan Van Vocht, he published a first statement of the party credo, "Socialism and Nationalism"", This suggested that, even if a step toward formal independence, the legislature that the Irish Parliamentary Party wished to see restored in Dublin would be a mockery of Irish national aspirations.If you remove the English army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organisation of the Socialist Republic your efforts would be in vain. England would still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs.By the same token, Connolly implied that there was little to be expected from the "Irish Language movements, Literary Societies or [1798] Commemoration Committees" of Milligan and of their mutual friends in Dublin (Arthur Griffith, Maud Gonne, and Constance Markievicz whom Connolly was to join in "to-hell-with-the-British-empire" protests against Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and the Boer War).: 51, 66–69 There could be no lasting progress toward an Irish Ireland without acknowledging that, as a force that "irresistibly destroys all national or racial characteristics", capitalism was the Celtic Revival's "chief enemy".: 17
Milligan, who deferred to the Irish Republican Brotherhood (in 1899 they had her pass her subscription list to Griffith and his new weekly, the United Irishman, the forerunner of Sinn Féin), confined her response to Connolly's ambition to contest Westminster elections. Were the ISRP successful, she predicted "an alliance with the English Labour" no less debilitating than the courtship of English Liberals had proved for the Irish Parliamentary Party. In the event, Ireland's first socialist party, garnering only a few hundred votes,: 186 failed to elect Connolly to Dublin City Council and never exceeded more than 80 active members.
Connolly was dispirited and at odds with the ISRP's other leading light, E. W. Stewart, manager of the party's paper, The Worker's Republic and also sometime candidate for the city council. He accused Stewart of "reformism",: 209–212 of failing to appreciate that "the election of a socialist to any public body is only valuable insofar as it is the return of a disturber of the public peace”.: 63 In 1900, Connolly had supported the American Marxist Daniel De Leon in condemning the decision by the French socialist Alexander Millerand, at the height of the Dreyfus Affair, to accept a post in Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau’s government of “Republican Defence”.: 131–133
Union and party organiser
America: Industrial Workers of the World
In September 1902, at the invitation of De Leon's Socialist Labor Party, Connolly departed for a four-month lecture tour of the United States. Addressing largely Irish-American audiences, he emphasised that he spoke for class, not country:I represent only the class to which I belong…I could not represent the entire Irish people on account of the antagonistic interests of these classes, no more than the wolf could represent the lambs or the fisherman the fish.: 149 On his return, Connolly had his resignation from the IRSP accepted without demur.: 99 He returned to Scotland for the Social Democratic Federation, where, after witnessing the organisation's expulsion of "De Leonists", he decided on a future in America.: 166–167
On arrival in the United States, and before he could call on his family to join him, Connolly lived with cousins in Troy, New York, and found work as a salesman for insurance companies. But by 1905, and after being elected to the national executive of the Socialist Labor Party, he had returned to political work. With De Leon's endorsement, he was an organiser for the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the "One Big Union".
Finding employment with the Singer Sewing Machine in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and living in The Bronx, he befriended the young Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (daughter of a neighbouring couple from Galway), who was to become the "Wobblies" chief agitator among the largely immigrant women of the east-coast textile industry. Together they were supported by Mother Jones, "America’s Most Dangerous Woman”, the Wobblies' co-founder and a veteran organiser for the United Mine Workers whom Connolly had learnt to admire from Ireland.
With Flynn, and with ex-ILP member Patrick L. Quinlan, in 1907 Connolly formed the Irish Socialist Federation (ISF) to promote the SLP's message among Irish immigrants. It had branches in New York City and Chicago, and Connolly edited its weekly the Harp.: 67–70
Under the influence of the IWW, a "mass movement, whose militancy was unequalled", Connolly began to turn away from what was an "unashamedly vanguard party.: 28 In April 1908, and after a bitter dispute in which De Leon accused of being a police spy,: 63 Connolly left the SLP, and at its Chicago conference, the IWW expelled the party.: 67 In the new year, together with Mother Jones, Connolly and the ISF affiliated with the Socialist Party of America, a broader coalition more tolerant of their revolutionary syndicalism.
ITGWU leader in Belfast
Through the ISF Connolly re-established links with socialists in Ireland, and in 1909 he transferred the production of the Harp to Dublin. The following year, James Larkin persuaded the Socialist Party of Ireland (SPI) to raise the funds that would enable Connolly and his family to return. In January 1909, Larkin had established the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, his own model of the One Big Union.: 112 The same year, 1911, in which Connolly's occupation was listed on the census return as "National Organiser Socialist Party, Larkin sent him north to Belfast to organise for the ITGWU in Ulster.
In a city in which the Protestant-dominated apprenticed trades were organised in British-aligned craft unions, troops had been deployed in 1907 to break strikes Larkin had called among dock labourers, carters and other casual and general workers. Four years later, Connolly succeeded in bringing dockers out in sympathy with striking cross-channel seamen, and in the process to secure a pay increase. ITGWU membership grew, and Connolly was approached by women toiling in Belfast's largest industry, linen.: 109–113
The sweated trade engaged thousands of women and girls both in mills and, unprotected by the Factory Acts, as outworkers. A Belfast Trades Council sponsored Textile Operatives Society, led by Mary Galway, concentrated only on the better-paid Protestant women in the making-up sections. In response to the speeding up of production in the mills and, relatedly, the fining of workers for such new offences as laughing, whispering and bringing in sweets (the creation, in Connolly words, of "an atmosphere of slavery"),: 152 thousands of spinners went out on strike.
As they did not yet have the union organisation and the strike funds to sustain the action, Connolly persuaded the women to return to work and apply tactics he had learned as an organizer for the IWW.They should collectively the rules, so that "if a girl is checked for singing, let the whole room start singing at once; if you are checked for laughing, let the whole room laugh at once".: 152 : 112 He then sought to capitalise on the relative success of the tactic by building up, first with Marie Johnson and then Winifred Carney as its secretary, a new – effectively women's – section of the ITGWU, the Irish Textile Workers' Union (ITWU).
In June 1913, while claiming that "the ranks of the Irish Textile Workers’ Union are being recruited by hundreds", with Carney, Connolly produced a Manifesto to the Linen Slaves of Belfast (1913) that revealed their frustration as organisers: if the world deplored their conditions, the women were told that it also deplored their "slavish and servile nature in submitting to them".: 29 The Textile Workers' membership may not have greatly exceeded the 300 subscribed under Johnson in Catholic west Belfast.: 99 To Carney, Connolly conceded that the union's survival was largely a matter of "keeping the Falls Road crowd together".
Sectarian division within the labour movement in Belfast had been heightened by the return of Home Rule to the political agenda (from 1910, a Liberal government was again dependent on Irish votes). When, in the summer of 1912, a Home Rule Bill was introduced, loyalists forced some 3,000 workers out of the shipyards and engineering plants: in addition to Catholics, 600 Protestants targeted for their non-sectarian labour politics. In this environment, Connolly found himself increasingly confined to organising, and to addressing meetings, in the Catholic districts of the city.: 103–104 Even here he was pursued by what he described as "social and religious terrorism".
Connolly had to find some "corner of the Catholic ghetto outside the political preserve of Joseph Devlin MP".: 103 Although a sometime ally (Devlin initiated Home Office inquiry into conditions in the linen mills),: 99 the Belfast West MP was leader both of those Connolly viewed as "the conservatives of a belated Irish capitalism", the United Irish League, and those who he dismissed as "Green" Orangemen, the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Together, Connolly found them capable of bringing "every species of intimidation and bribery . . . to bear upon Catholics who refused to bow to the dictates of the official Home Rule gang".
Dublin lock-out
On 29 August 1913, Larkin recalled Connolly to Dublin. The success of the ITGWU in signing up thousands of unskilled men and women had elicited a particularly aggressive reaction from employers. Beginning with, and led by, the owner of the tramway company, William Murphy, they dismissed those who refused to renounce the union and replaced them with scab labour brought in from elsewhere in the country or from Britain. By the end of September, the combination of the "lock out", the sympathetic strikes Larkin called for in response, and their knock-on effects, had placed upwards of 100,000 people (workers and their families, a third of the city's residents) in need of assistance.
Early in the conflict Connolly freed himself from police detention through a week-long hunger strike, a tactic borrowed from the British suffragettes. However, from October Larkin was held on charges of sedition. This left Connolly to respond to an intercession by the Catholic Church.: 65
In the hope of replicating a tactic that for Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had turned the tide in the recent, and celebrated, textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Dora Montefiore had devised a children's "holiday scheme". The poorly nourished children of the locked-out and striking workers were to be billeted with sympathetic families in England. On the grounds that their hosts were not guaranteed to be Catholic, the Church objected and Hibernian crowds gathered at the docks to prevent the children's "deportation". Connolly, who had been wary from the first, cancelled the scheme, but nonetheless sought to score a point the against the clericalist opposition by telling his people to ask the archbishop and priests for food and clothing.: 333
Connolly and Larkin had shown a willingness to negotiate on the basis of an inquiry into the dispute by the Board of Trade. While critical of the ITGWU's employment of the "sympathetic" strike, it concluded that employers were insisting on an anti-union pledge that was "contrary to individual liberty", and that "no workman or body of workmen could reasonably be expected to accept”. The employers were unmoved.: 142–143
After the ITGWU-controlled Dublin Socialist Party failed in the January 1914 municipal elections to register support for the strike,: 163 and the Trade Union Congress in England had declined Larkin and Connolly's plea for additional support and funding, the workers began to drift back, submitting to their employers. Exhausted, and falling into bouts of depression, Larkin took a declining interest in the beleaguered union, and eventually in October accepted the invitation of "Big Bill" Haywood of the IWW to speak in the United States. He did not return to Ireland until 1923. His departure left Connolly, in charge not only of the ITGWU with its headquarters at Liberty Hall, but also of a workers' militia.: 333
Easter Rising
Irish Citizen Army
First floated as an idea by George Bernard Shaw, the training of union men as force to protect picket lines and rallies was taken up in Dublin by "Citizens Committee" chair, Jack White, himself the victim of a police baton charge.: 552–553 In accepting White's services, Connolly made reference to the national question: "why", he asked "should we not train our men in Dublin as they are doing in Ulster".: 240 In the north, the Unionists, labour men among them, were forming the ranks of the Ulster Volunteers. The Irish Citizen Army (ICA) began drilling in November 1913, but then, after it had dwindled like the strike to almost nothing, in March 1914 the militia was reborn, its ranks supplemented by Constance Markievicz's Fianna Éireann nationalist youth.: 198
After the return to work, the command of the ICA divided on the militia's future, and in particular on policy toward the Irish Volunteers, the much larger nationalist response to the arming of Ulster Unionism (and of which Markievicz was also a member). Secretary to the ICA Council, Seán O'Casey, described the formation of the Irish Volunteers as "one of the most effective blows" that the ICA had received. Men who might have joined the ICA were now drilling – with the blessing of the IRB – under a command that included employers who had locked out men trying to exercise "the first principles of Trade Unionism". When it became apparent that Connolly was gravitating towards an IRB strategy of cooperation with the Volunteers, O'Casey and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, the Vice President, resigned, leaving Connolly in undisputed command.
On 4 August 1914, Britain's declared of war on Germany. The Home Rule Bill received royal assent, but with a suspensory act delaying implementation for duration (and with the reservation that the question of Ulster's inclusion had still to be resolved). Leader of the IPP, John Redmond, then split the Irish Volunteers by urging them (in the hope of securing Britain's good faith) to rally to the British Army's colours. The vast majority heeding his call – some 175,000 men – reformed themselves as the National Volunteers. This left 13,500 to reorganise under the nominal command of Eoin MacNeill of Gaelic League but, in key staff positions, directed by undercover members of the IRB's Military Council: Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett.
Urges "revolutionary action"
In October 1914, Connolly assumed the presidency of the Irish Neutrality League (chairing a committee that included Arthur Griffith, Constance Markievicz and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington), but not as a pacifist. He was urging active opposition to the war, and acknowledged that this amounted to "more than a transport strike". Stopping the export of foodstuffs from Ireland, for example, might involve "armed battling in the streets".: 181 In the Irish Worker he had already declared that if, in the course of Britain's "pirate war upon the German nation", the Kaiser landed an army in Ireland "we should be perfectly justified in joining it". A further editorial in the ITGWU paper betrayed his exasperation with the "jingoism" of the British labour movement.: 180–181 It suggested that insurrection in Ireland and throughout the British dominions might be required “to teach the English working class they cannot hope to prosper permanently by arresting the industrial development of others”.
In December, the Irish Worker was suppressed and in May 1915 Connolly revived his old ISRP title, Workers' Republic. Accompanied by the martial-patriotic poetry of Maeve Cavanagh, Connolly's editorials continued to urge Irish resistance, and on the express understanding that this could not "be conducted on the lines of dodging the police, or any such high jinks of constitutional agitation". He cautioned that those who oppose conscription (the prospect that was drawing crowds to the meetings, the marches and parades of the Irish Citizen Army and of the Volunteers) "take their lives in their hands" (and, by implication, that they should organise accordingly). In December 1915, Connolly wrote:“We believe in constitutional action in normal times, we believe in revolutionary action in exceptional times. These are exceptional times".: 187
In February 1916, Connolly proposed, that with "thousands of Irish workers" volunteering to fight for British Crown and Empire, only the "red tide of war on Irish soil" would enable the nation to "recover its self-respect".: 172
Relations with the IRB
Connolly was aware of, but not privy to, discussions within the IRB on prospects for a national rising. Patrick Pearse cautioned his colleagues on treating with Connolly: "Connolly is most dishonest in his methods. He will never be satisfied until he goads us into action, and then he will think most of us too moderate and want to guillotine half of us".
By the New Year, believing the Irish Volunteers were dithering, Connolly was threatening to rush Dublin Castle, around which he had already deployed his ICA on nightly manoeuvres. Determined to safeguard their plans for an insurrection at Easter, Seán Ó Faoláin claims that the IRB had Connolly "kidnapped".: 205 A unit of Volunteers had been mobilised to arrest Connolly had he refused to meet with the IRB Council, but Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke and the other IRB leaders resolved matters by finally taking Connolly into their confidence.
Connolly was conscious that his new allies had, for the most part, been silent during the lock-out in 1913. Labour was not their cause, so that when he himself had proposed a programme for the Irish Volunteers in October 1914, he had confined it to political demands: "repeal of all clauses of the Home Rule Act denying Ireland powers of self-government now enjoyed by South Africa, Australia or Canada".: 167–168 According to Desmond Greaves,: 142 a week before the Rising Connolly advised his 200 ICA volunteers that, as they were "out for economic as well as political liberty", in the event of victory they should "hold on to" their rifles.: 403
Easter week 1916
On 14 April 1916, Connolly summoned Winifred Carney to Dublin where she prepared his mobilisation orders for the Irish Citizen Army (ICA). Ten days later, on Easter Monday, with Connolly commissioned by the IRB Military Council as Commandant of the Dublin Districts, they set out for the General Post Office (GPO) with an initial garrison party from Liberty Hall. Carney (armed with a typewriter and a Webley revolver) served as Connolly's aide de camp with the rank of adjutant She was seconded in that role, for the first two days, by Connolly's 15 year-old son Roddy.
From the steps of the GPO, Patrick Pearse (President and Commander-in-Chief) read the "Proclamation of the Irish Republic". Connolly had contributed to the final draft, which declared "the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland" and, in a phrase that he had often been used, a "resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts".: 87 In a further symbolic gesture of labour's stake in the rebellion, Connolly sent the Starry Plough flag, the symbol of Irish labour, to be hoisted by his men over the Imperial Hotel, owned by the man who had organised their defeat in 1913, William Murphy.: 332
By some accounts the rebel strategy of occupying the GPO and other public buildings in the city centre, had been informed by Connolly's belief that British were unlikely to rely on artillery,: 679 that a regular bombardment of the city would have been possible only if, abandoning their businesses and property, the section of the population loyal to the government was outside insurgent lines.: 193 Connolly's biographer, Samuel Levenson records an exchange between Volunteers after a British gunboat began shelling their positions from the Liffey: "General Connolly told us the British would never use artillery against us". "He did,did he? Wouldn't it be great now if General Connolly was making the decisions for the British".: 308
Leading men on the street and supervising the construction of barricades, he was twice wounded on the Thursday. Carney refused to leave his side, and was with him the following day, Friday 29 April, when, carried on a stretcher, he was among the last to evacuate the GPO to Moore Street. There Pearse issued the order for the ICA and Irish Volunteer fighters, now under constant British bombardment, to "lay down arms".: 408–412, 657
As he was being returned to a stretcher to be carried toward the British lines, Connolly told those around him not to worry: "Those of us that signed the proclamation will be shot. But the rest of you will be set free.": 333
Court martial and execution
Connolly was among 16 republican prisoners executed for their role in the Rising. Executions in Kilmainham Gaol began on 3 May 1916 with Connolly's co-signatories to the Proclamation, Patrick Pearse, Tom Clarke and Thomas McDonagh, and ended with his death and that of Seán Mac Diarmada on 12 May. Roger Casement, who had run German guns for the Rising, was hanged at Pentonville Prison, in London, on August 3. Unable to stand because of his combat injury, Connolly had been placed before a firing squad tied to a chair. His body was placed, without rite or coffin, with those of his comrades in a common grave at the Arbour Hill military cemetery.
In a statement to the court martial held in Dublin Castle on 9 May, he proposed offering no defence, save against "charges of wanton cruelty to prisoners”, and he declared:We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire, and to establish an Irish Republic. We believed that the call we then issued to the people of Ireland, was a nobler call, in a holier cause, than any call issued to them during this war, having any connection with the war. We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland those national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe.The night before his execution, he was permitted a visit by his wife Lillie and their 8 year old daughter, Fiona (whose abiding memory of her father was to be his laughter). He is said to have returned to the Catholic Church in the few days before his execution. A Capuchin, Father Aloysius Travers administered absolution and last rites. Asked to pray for the soldiers about to shoot him, Connolly said: "I will say a prayer for all men who do their duty according to their lights."
There was disquiet at Connolly's execution: in Parliament the government was pressed as to whether there was "precedent for the summary execution of a military prisoner dying of his wounds". But at the time, the greater outrage was over the executions of William Pearse, put to death, it was thought, simply because he was the brother of the rebel leader, and Major John MacBride who played no part in planning the Rising but had fought against Britain in the Boer War.
Despite the initial public hostility toward the rebels and the destruction they had brought upon Dublin, after the first executions of Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh, John Redmond warned the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, that any further executions would make his position, and that of any other constitutional party or leader in Ireland, "impossible”.
Political thought
Socialism and nationalism
The nature of Connolly's socialism, and its role in his decision to join the IRB in the Easter Rising, was disputed by his Socialist contemporaries in both Europe and the United States. It is the central point of contention in the extensive literature that has developed since on his political life and thought.: 151 : 85
Writing in 1934, Seán Ó Faoláin described Connolly's political ideas as:an amalgamation of everything he had read that could, according to his viewpoint, be applied to Irish ills, a synthesis of Marx, Davitt, Lalor, Robert Owen, Tone, Mitchel and the rest, all welded together in his Socialist-Separatist ideal. He favoured Industrial unionism as the method of approach to what he called variously, the Workers' Republic, the Irish Socialist Republic, the Co-operative State, the Democratic Co-operative Commonwealth... [The unions] would be he means of popular representation in the Workers' Parliament; and they would be the power controlling the national wealth ... In a word he believed in vocational representation combined with "all power to the Unions".: 189 While he never had the opportunity to apply and test his principles even on a small scale, Connolly "at least [had] a point of view" and a "definite idea of what he meant by such terms as 'a Republic', 'Freedom', 'Emancipation' [and] 'Autonomy'".: 190 But Ó Faoláin argues that in the end Connolly's social-emancipatory ideas proved to be secondary to his nationalism. The night before he was shot, Connolly said to his daughter Nora: "The Socialists will not understand why I am here; they forget I am an Irishman". For Ó Faoláin this was an admission that "he had, in point of fact, gone over to nationalism and away from socialism".: 193
Some of Connolly's contemporaries suggested that there was no inconsistency: Connolly's socialism was itself merely a form of militant nationalism. Invoking Connolly at the inaugural meeting of Fianna Fáil in 1926, in support of his protectionist programme for national development, Éamon de Valera implied that Connolly's principal purpose in calling for a worker's republic was to complete the break with England.: 46 Constance Markievicz was also to interpret Connolly's socialism in purely national, purely Irish, terms. Seizing on Connolly's portrait of Gaelic society in The Reconquest of Ireland, she summarised his doctrine as the "application of the social principle which underlay the Brehon laws of our ancestors".
At the same time, there were writers who, convinced that "Connolly's Irish Catholicism had not been irrevocably blemished by atheistic Marxism",: 46 found parallels between his commitment to industrial unionism and the corporatist doctrines Pope Leo XIII enunciated in his encyclical Rerum novarum (1891).
Beginning in 1961, with the publication a major new biography by Desmond Greaves, there was a concerted effort to rehabilitate Connolly as a revolutionary socialist,: 49–51 : 36–37 Greaves proposed that with the onset of the European war, Connolly's thought had run "parallel with Lenin's"; and reached the same conclusion:: 353 "Whoever wishes a durable and democratic peace must be for civil war against the governments and the bourgeoisie" (Lenin, "Turn Imperialist War into Civil War", 1915). Greaves is the source for Connolly's oft-quoted "hold on to your rifles" admonition to his ICA volunteers, which might suggest that Connolly did see the Easter Rising as the prelude to this larger revolutionary struggle.: 142
While The Life and Times of James Connolly remains a standard reference,: 204 : 140 there have been objections to pressing Connolly into a Leninist mold.: 66–67 Connolly revolutionary outlook remained that of the syndicalism he had acquired in America, although in 1916 he entertained no suggestion of Irish workers being organised to seize control of their workplaces. He was concerned, rather, with their quiescence in the war against Germany. This was viewed by Connolly, not as a contest of rival imperialisms with no democratic principle at stake, but as a war in which, as the primary aggressor, Britain had presented an Ireland willing to strike for its freedom with a legitimate continental ally.: 181–184 : 66–67 Connolly's understanding of the agrarian nature of nationalist Ireland, and of unionism, which deprived it of Belfast and its industrial hinterland, has also been subject to comment and revision.
Revolutionary syndicalism
Greaves concedes that there are formulations in Connolly's thinking that "smack of syndicalism": 245 —that is, of faith in the ability of the working class to secure a socialist future on the strength, not of a revolutionary party, but of their own labour-union democracy. Lenin had praise for De Leon's contribution to socialist thought,: 42 but Connolly broke with De Leon precisely on the issue of industrial unionism.: 25–29
In 1908, Connolly accused De Leon of knocking "the feet from under" his party's alliance with the IWW by arguing that, as prices rise with wages, the gains the union secures for labour are only nominal. The implication was that the One Big Union was merely a "ward-heeling club" for the SLP, a place from which militants could be recruited to the real task: building a party to take state power.
Since it suggests that within capitalism there is no prospect of the working class improving its position, Connolly allowed that the "theory that a rise in prices always destroys the value of a rise in wages" sounds "revolutionary". But it was not Marxist and not true.: 231 The value of labour is not fixed, but is the subject of a continuous struggle. It is in this struggle that workers acquire the organisational strength and the confidence to bring capital to heel, and to extend their own control of production and distribution.
In a last statement of his credo, The Re-conquest of Ireland (1915), Connolly affirmed that the outcome of this struggle, the worker's republic, it not an overweening state but an industrial commonwealth in which "the workshops, factories, docks, railways, shipyards, &c., shall be owned by the nation, but administered by the Industrial Unions of the respective industries". An early compiler of his ideas, notes that Connolly "nowhere attempts to explain how the general interests of the State, as distinguished from specific interests of the Industrial Unions, are to be provided for". It was only certain that Connolly was not "state socialist".: 536 Connolly was, himself, confident that his:: 31 :... conception of Socialism destroys at one blow all the fears of a bureaucratic state, ruling and ordering the lives of every individual from above, and thus gives assurance that the social order of the future will be an extension of the freedom of the individual,and not a suppression of it.In his last six years, Connolly had devoted his energies almost entirely to the ITGWU and to the Irish Citizen Army. A "pairing of union and militia" is central to syndicalist scenarios for social revolution.: 9, 17, 28–29 But Connolly knew that "his union, the ITGWU . . ., weakened by the industrial struggles of 1913-14, was not up to the effort of seizing docks, railways, shipping etc.".: 121–122 He made no attempt, prior to or during the Rising, to appeal to workers to join the insurgency. In address published just one week before the Rising on forthcoming congress of the Irish TUC scheduled for later that year in Sligo, there is no intimation of the impending action. In reference to the war, Connolly's only advice was that the congress should proceed in August as planned.
A two-stage struggle
At the beginning of 1916, Connolly drew "a crucial distinction between the struggle for socialism and for national liberation".: 169 In the Irish Worker (23 January) he wrote:Our programme in time of peace was to gather in the hands in Irish trade unions the control of all the forces of production and distribution in Ireland . . . [but] in times of war we should act as in war. . . . While the war lasts and Ireland still is a subject nation we shall continue to urge her to fight for her freedom. . . . The time for Ireland's battle is NOW.: 169 His calculation was not based alone on the strategic opportunity presented by Britain's engagement in France. Connolly had described John Redmond's pact with the government as "the most gigantic, deep-laid and loathsome attempt in history to betray the soul of a people".: 167 At the beginning of February 1916, he acknowledged that the pact was delivering the working class, and not least by means of simple bribery:: 172 We have said that the Working Class was the only class to whom the word "Empire" and the things for which it was the symbol did not appeal . . . [and] therefore, from the intelligent working class could alone come the revolutionary impulse. . . . But if the Militant Labour Leaders of Ireland have not apostatised the same cannot be said of the working class as a whole . . . . For the sake of a few paltry shillings per week thousands of Irish workers have sold their country in the hour of their country's greatest need and hope. For the sake of a few paltry shillings Separation Allowance thousands of Irish women have made life miserable for their husbands with entreaties to join the British Army.In Erin's Hope (1897), Connolly had claimed that socialists would succeed where the Fenians, and the Young Irelanders before them, had failed, in preparing "the public mind for revolution".: 156 For this, they would rely on the militant organisation of labour, neither seeking nor accepting the cooperation of men whose ideals were not their own, and with whom they might therefore "be compelled to fight at some future critical stage of the journey to freedom". To this category, Connolly assigned "every section of the propertied class".: 156 John Newsinger argues that such talk was now put aside. Connolly embraced "the conception of revolution that prevailed in the inner circles of the IRB: that a small minority must be prepared to sacrifice itself in order to save the soul of the nation". It was, he suggests, the "politics of despair".: 170 Austen Morgan similarly concludes Connolly "collapsed politically as a socialist.: 199 Unable to sustain his faith in proletarian action, that he died "unapologetic Fenian".: 45–46
Noting that, two weeks before the Rising, Connolly, was still affirming that "the cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour" and that the two "cannot be dissevered", Greaves continued to insist that little had changed in Connolly's fundamental thinking.: 121–122 R.M. Fox considers the view that Connolly "allowed himself to be dragged away from his labour convictions" to be "foolish" and "superficial", writing that under the unique conditions of World War 1 he was compelled to "force the independence issue to the point of armed struggle". But, for Richard English, while this may have been so, it is Connolly's failure "to persuade any but a tiny number of the Irish people" of his argument that accounts for his "gesture" in 1916. Acceding to the IRB's "inclusive, cross-class approach to the nation", his hope was only of an "eventual" vindication of his belief that, once national rebellion had secured "the national powers needed by our class", social revolution would follow.
Farm-labour cooperation
Apart from what he may have witnessed as a soldier, Connolly's only sustained experience of rural Ireland was three weeks spent in County Kerry in 1898 reporting on famine conditions for De Leon's Weekly People.: 30 Connolly concluded that "the root cause" of the distress was not landlordism per se or an "alien government", but rather a "system of small farming and small industry" in which the Irish peasant "reaps none of the benefits of the progress . . . [and] organisation of industry".: 39
This was the seemingly orthodox Marxist view to which Connolly was already committed. In Erin's Hope (1897) he had proposed that "the day of the small farmers, as of small capitalists, is gone" and that salvation lay in "the nationalisation of land in the hands of the Irish state". From Kerry, he wrote more loosely of the Socialist Republic organising greater "co-operative effort",: 39 : 13 but in either case it was an analysis that suggested that "the most important struggles for the Irish peasantry would occur not in the countryside, but between labour and capital in the cities". There is no discussion of the role the rural population itself might play in the creation of the new republic.: 40
By the time of his return from America in 1910, the combined effects of continued emigration and land reform was effecting a profound social transformation.: 40 : 198 In Labour in Irish History (1910), Connolly recalls the words of Wolfe Tone: “Our freedom must be had at all hazards. If the men of property will not help us they must fall; we will free ourselves by the aid of that large and respectable class of the community – the men of no property.” But after the Wyndham Act (1903), the peasant "was, or else was well on the way to becoming, a freehold farmer--a man of property". Unmoved by what Connolly supposed was their "memory of the common ownership and common control of land by their ancestors",: 318 it was a status they would defend it with tenacity.: 250
A "large self-confident class of farmer owners" was shifting the balance of class forces in Catholic Ireland against Connolly's identification of the national cause with labour. Their emancipation from taxation imposed in working-class interest would be "the main economic achievement of independence". This was not a prospect admitted by Connolly. He suggested rather a farm-labour alliance. A feature of the transition the tenancy to ownership in countryside was the establishment of creameries and other agricultural co-operatives. Participation was often reluctant, and generally failed to support broader networks, but the image was created abroad of Irish farmers as "co-operative trailblazers". In The Reconquest of Ireland (1915), Connolly celebrates the development and, recalling the co-operative stores his union had opened in Dublin after the Lock-out, "confidently" predicts that, "in the very near future", the labour movement will create its own "crop of co-operative enterprises". The stage would then be set for town and country to heal their "latent antagonism" and converge on a common ideal — the "Co-operative Commonwealth".: 320–321 : 52–55
Ulster unionism
In 1898 Connolly had cited "the Protestant workmen of Belfast so often out on strike against their Protestant employers and their Protestant ancestors of 100 years ago [1798] in active rebellion against the English Protestant Government" as a demonstration of what "precious little bearing" the question of religious faith has in the struggle for freedom. Later, when in Belfast for the Socialist Party and the ITGWU. he identified "religious bigotry" as the one obstacle remaining to the acceptance of Irish self-government and thus to the achievement of socialist unity on a separate all-Ireland basis. But he understood this as a political force arising, not from confessional differences, but from the deliberate recall and accentuation of ancient native-planter divisions.: 144–146
As the new Home Rule bill safely progressed through Westminster, Connolly appeared to concede the objection of William Walker, the Protestant leader of the Independent Labour Party in Belfast, who argued for British Labour and British social legislation.: 21 Having "voted against the Right to Work Bill, the Minimum Wage for Miners, and the Minimum Wage for Railwaymen, [and] intrigued against the application to Ireland of the Feeding of Necessitous School Children and the Medical Benefits of the Insurance Act,: Home Rulers, in a parliament of their own, would likely set a bad example to "reactionists everywhere". He also allowed religious bigotry was not alone the mark of Empire loyalists: Connolly had applauded the even-handedness of the Grand-Master of the Independent Orange Order, Lindsay Crawford, in castigating sectarian influences — both "Orange and Green". But in an "ill-tempered and discursive" exchange with Walker, Connolly admitted no case for labour sticking with the Imperial Parliament.: 104
Labour unionism was still unionism and, no matter how reactionary nationalism might appear under its current leadership, unionism was more reactionary still. It represented an Orange-inflected Protestantism that had become "synonymous" with what Catholicism represented in much of the rest of Europe; that is, with "Toryism, lickspittle loyalty, servile worship of aristocracy and hatred of all that savours of genuine political independence on the part of the lower classes". Thus it was that he had encountered in Ireland's industrial capital, not what socialist theory would have predicted, its most politically-advanced working class, but rather those he despairingly characterised as "least rebellious slaves in the industrial world".
Walker maintained that it was as an internationalist that he supported the union with Great Britain. Connolly replied that "the only true socialist internationalism lay in a free federation of free peoples". That the Protestant working people of Ulster could regard themselves as a free people within the United Kingdom, he dismissed, effectively, as "false consciousness".: 21 But as it served only the interest of their landlords and employers, it could not be long sustained.: 113 Already, in 1913, in series strikes in Belfast and Larne, Connolly saw evidence of Protestant workers returning to the class struggle.: 16 He confidently predicted that suspicion of their Catholic fellow workers would "melt and dissolve",: 164–165 and that their children would come to laugh at the Ulster Covenant.: 485
In April 1912, four of the five Belfast branches of the ILP attended a unity conference called by the SPI in Dublin and agreed to form an Independent Labour Party of Ireland.: 135 But sensitive to the unpopularity of Home Rule they did not carry their commitment over, when in May, Connolly secured a resolution at the Irish Trades Union Congress in favour of an Irish Labour Party without ties to the ILP or other British groups.: 120–121 Instead (joined in time by Winifred Carney) they adhered to what in Belfast became, after partition, the Northern Ireland Labour Party.
Socialism and religion
In 1907, Connolly confessed that while he "usually posed as a Catholic", he had not done his "duty" for fifteen years, and had "not the slightest tincture of faith left".: 679 Yet he could not accept De Leon's insistence that a socialist party be as "intolerant as science" of deviations from strict materialism. Connolly opposed clericalism. He argued that Irish Catholics could in all conscience reject their bishops' dealings with the British authorities,: 59 and proposed that Irish schools be free of church control. But claiming "conformity with the practice of the chief Socialist parties of the World", he declared religion a private matter outside the scope of socialist action.: 112–113 Socialism, is a bread and butter question. It is a question of the stomach; it is going to be settled in the factories, mines and ballot boxes of this country and is not going to be settled at the altar or in the church.In 1910, he published Labour, Nationality and Religion in which he defended socialists against the clerical charge that they are "beasts of immorality". He noted, for example, that the "enormous increase of divorces [in the United States] was almost entirely among the classes least affected by Socialist teaching". But, at the same time, he argued that there was an egalitarian and humanitarian impulse in Christianity that provided a moral bridge to socialism, and could positively contribute to its advance.
In either case, Connolly believed it was an unnecessary and strategic mistake for socialists to risk popular support by deliberately outraging religious opinion.: 112 He had refused to join De Leon in entertaining August Bebel's ideas on polyamorous marriage.: 52 Doing so, he argued, was simply putting "a weapon" into the hands of their enemies "without obtaining any corresponding advantage".
Emancipation of women
In a campaign to raise funds for the Dublin strikers in 1913, Connolly shared a platform at London's Royal Albert Hall with Sylvia Pankhurst. He took the occasion to declare that he stood for "opposition to the domination of nation over nation, of class over class, or of sex over sex".: 145 He had supported the Suffragette movement, and worked alongside women in the labour movement. His Irish Citizen Army had the distinction of giving women officer rank and duty: 213 Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was convinced that, of "all the Irish labour men", Connolly was "the soundest and most thorough-going feminist".
In The Reconquest of Ireland (1915), Connolly traced oppression of women, like the oppression of the worker, to “a social and political order based upon the private ownership of property”. If the "worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave".: 292 He would have little use for any form of Irish state that did not not "embody the emancipation of womanhood?". However, socialism would solve only "the economic side of the Woman Question": "the question of marriage, of divorce, of paternity, of the equality of woman with man are physical and sexual questions, or questions of temperamental affiliation as in marriage," would "still be hotly contested".: 46 There was still a private sphere in which women themselves would complete the struggle for their own emancipation. "None", he remarked, is "so fit to break the chains as they who wear them, none so well equipped to decide what a fetter is”.
Antisemitism
During his 1902 election campaign in the Wood Quay ward in Dublin, in which many streets were occupied by Jewish immigrants from Russia, Connolly's campaign became the first in Irish history to distribute leaflets in Yiddish. The leaflet condemned antisemitism as a tool of the capitalist class.: 129–130 : 171
Connolly sharply criticised the overtly anti-semitic tone of the British Social Democratic Federation's publications during the Boer War, arguing that they had attempted to "divert the wrath of the advanced workers from the capitalists to the Jews". His own editorship, however, did not exclude the possibility of anti-Jewish tropes. In the Workers Republic readers were asked to place themselves in the position of the Boers: "Supposing your country was invaded by a mob of Jews and foreign exploiters ... What would you do?".: 121–122 During the Cork lock-out of 1909, Connolly's Harp (the journal of the Irish Socialist Federation) featured an article denouncing "patriotic Irish capitalists" for importing "wholesale scab Jews to break the strike of Irish workers".
In 1898, Workers Republic published an article "The Ideal Government of the Jew", advocating "the establishment of an Isrealitish [sic] nation in Palestine".: 120–121 But two years later, Connolly himself was to write positively about the "remarkable" development in the Russian Empire of the Jewish Labour Bund.: 124–125 Part of Russian Social Democracy, the Bund was anti-Zionist.
Family
James Connolly and his wife Lillie had seven children. The eldest, Mona, died on the eve of the family's departure to join Connolly in America in 1904 at the age of 13, the result of an accident with scalding laundry water.
In Belfast, Nora and Ina (1896–1980) were active, with Winifred Carney, in Cumann na mBan and carried reports from the north to Pearse and their father the week before the rising in Dublin. Later, Nora was involved with her younger brother Roddy in efforts to promote a republican-socialist movement, but after the splintering of the Republican Congress in 1934 they went their separate ways. Roddy ended his political life as chairman of the Irish Labour Party and, the year before her death, Nora made an appearance at the Ardfheis of (Provisional) Sinn Féin.
In Belfast, Aideen (1895–1966) was also in Cumann na mBan. She married a Hugh Ward in Naas and had five children. Moira (1899–1958) became a doctor and married Richard Beech (an English syndicalist who, like Roddy, in 1920 attended World Congress of the Comintern). Connolly's youngest daughter, Fiona Connolly Edwards (1907–1976) also married in England, was active in the trade-union, and anti-partition, movements and assisted Desmond Greaves in his biographies both of her father and of the executed anti-Treaty republican, Liam Mellowes.
Brian Samuel Connolly Heron (Brian o h-Eachtuigheirn), the son of Ina Connolly Heron and Archie Heron, Connolly's grandson, was an organiser for the United Farm Workers in California. He was also a founding member in the United States of the National Association for Irish Justice which, in 1969, gained recognition as the U.S. support group for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.: 115–116
In their last interview, Connolly urged his wife to return with the younger children to the United States, but she failed to secure the necessary passport. This was despite the assurance of General Sir John Maxwell that she was "a decent humble woman who would be incapable of platform oratory in America".
Remaining in Dublin, in August 1916 Lillie Connolly was received into the Catholic Church, Fiona her sole witness. She did not make public appearances but when she died in 1938 she was accorded a state funeral.
Memorials
Ireland
In 1966, to mark 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising, Connolly Station, one of the two main railway stations in Dublin, and Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, were named in his honour.
In 1996, a bronze statue of Connolly, backed by the symbol of the Starry Plough, was erected outside the Liberty Hall offices of the SIPTU trade union, in Dublin.
In March 2016, a statue of Connolly was unveiled by Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure minister Carál Ní Chuilín, and Connolly's great-grandson, James Connolly Heron, on Falls Road in Belfast.
In July 2023, a plaque was unveiled by the Dublin City Council at Connolly's former residence on South Lotts Road in Ringsend.
Scotland
In the Cowgate area of Edinburgh where Connolly grew up there is a likeness of Connolly and a gold-coloured plaque dedicated to him under the George IV bridge.
United States
In 1986, a bust of Connolly was erected in Riverfront Park in Troy, New York, where he had lived on first emigrating to the United States in 1904.
In 2008, a full-figure bronze of Connolly was installed in Union Park, Chicago near the offices of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers.
Writings
Connolly, James. 1897. "Socialism and Nationalism". The Shan van Vocht. 1 (1).
Connolly, James. 1897. Erin's Hope: The Ends and the Means (republished as The Irish Revolution, c. 1924)
Connolly, James. 1898. "The Fighting Race". Workers' Republic, 13 August.
Connolly, James. 1901. The New Evangel, Preached to Irish Toilers, (first appeared in Workers’ Republic, June–August 1899).
Connolly, James. 1909. Socialism Made Easy, Chicago.
Connolly, James. 1910. Labour in Irish history (republished 1914)
Connolly, James. 1910. Labour, Nationality, and Religion (republished 1920)
Connolly, James. 1911. "Plea For Socialist Unity in Ireland". Forward, 27 May
Connolly, James. 1913. "British Labour and Irish Politicians". Forward, 3 May.
Connolly, James. 1913. "The Awakening of Ulster's Democracy". Forward, 7 June
Connolly, James. 1913. "North East Ulster". Forward, 2 August.
Connolly, James. 1914. "Labour in the new Irish Parliament". Forward , 14 July
Connolly, James . 1914. "The hope of Ireland". Irish Worker, 31 October.
Connolly, James. 1914. The Axe to the Root, and, Old Wine in New Bottles (republished 1921)
Connolly, James. 1915. The Re-Conquest of Ireland (republished 1917)
Ryan, Desmond (ed.). 1949. Labour and Easter Week: A Selection from the Writings of James Connolly. Dublin: Sign of the Three Candles
Edwards, Owen Dudley & Ransom, Bernard (eds.). 1973. Selected Political Writings: James Connolly, London: Jonathan Cape
Anon. (ed.). 1987. James Connolly: Collected Works (Two volumes). Dublin: New Books
Ó Cathasaigh, Aindrias (ed.). 1997. The Lost Writings: James Connolly, London: Pluto Press ISBN 0-7453-1296-9
See also
James Connolly bibliography
Biographies
Allen, Kieran. 1990. The Politics of James Connolly, London: Pluto Press ISBN 0-7453-0473-7
Anderson, W.K. 1994. James Connolly and the Irish Left. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. ISBN 0-7165-2522-4.
Collins, Lorcan. 2012. James Connolly. Dublin: O'Brien Press. ISBN 1-8471-7160-5.
Cronin, Seán. 2020. James Connolly: Irish Revolutionary. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-3997-0
Edwards, Ruth Dudley. 1981. James Connolly. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-7171-1112-1
Fox, R.M. 1946. James Connolly: the Forerunner. Tralee: The Kerryman.
Greaves, C. Desmond. 1972. The Life and Times of James Connolly (2nd ed.). London: Lawrence and Wishart. ISBN 978-0-85315-234-7
Levenson, Samuel. 1973. James Connolly, a Biography. London: Martin Brian and O'Keefe. ISBN 978-0-85616-130-8
Metscher, Priscilla. 2002. James Connolly and the Reconquest of Ireland. Minneapolis: MEP Publications, Univ. of Minnesota. ISBN 0-930656-74-1
Morgan, Austen. 1990. James Connolly. a Political Biography. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. ISBN 0-7171-3911-5
McNulty, Liam. 2022. James Connolly: Socialist, Nationalist and Internationalist. London: Merlin Press. ISBN 0-8503-6783-2.
Nevin, Donal. 2005. James Connolly: A Full Life. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan. ISBN 0-7171-3911-5.
O'Callaghan, Sean. 2015. James Connolly: My search for the Man, the Myth and his Legacy. ISBN 9781780894348
Ransom, Bernard. 1980. Connolly's Marxism, London: Pluto Press. ISBN 0-86104-308-1.
== References == |
Se%C3%A1n_Mac_Diarmada | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_Mac_Diarmada | [
369
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_Mac_Diarmada"
] | Seán Mac Diarmada (27 January 1883 – 12 May 1916), also known as Seán MacDermott, was an Irish republican political activist and revolutionary leader. He was one of the seven leaders of the Easter Rising of 1916, which he helped to organise as a member of the Military Committee of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and was the second signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. He was executed for his part in the Rising at age 33.
Brought up in rural County Leitrim, he was a member of many associations which promoted the cause of the Irish language, Gaelic revival and Irish nationalism in general, including the Gaelic League and (early in his career) the Irish Catholic fraternity the Ancient Order of Hibernians. He was the national organiser for Sinn Féin, and later manager of the newspaper Irish Freedom, started in 1910 by Bulmer Hobson and others.
Early life
Mac Diarmada was born John MacDermott in Corranmore, close to Kiltyclogher in County Leitrim, an area where the landscape was marked by reminders of poverty and oppression. His father Donald McDermott was a member of the IRB and a friend of John Daly.
Surrounding Mac Diarmada in rural Leitrim, there were signs of Irish history throughout the area. There was an ancient sweat-house, Mass rocks from the penal times and the persecutions of the 17th and 18th centuries, and deserted abodes as an aftermath of the hunger of the 1840s.
He was educated at Corradoona national school. In 1908 he moved to Dublin, by which time he already had a long involvement in several Irish nationalist and cultural organisations, including Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Gaelic League. He was soon promoted to the Supreme Council of the IRB and eventually elected secretary. He originally refused to join the IRB as it was condemned by the Catholic church but Bulmer Hobson convinced him otherwise.
In 1910 he became manager of the radical newspaper Irish Freedom, which he founded along with Bulmer Hobson and Denis McCullough. He also became a national organiser for the IRB and was taken under the wing of veteran Fenian Tom Clarke. Indeed, over the year the two became nearly inseparable. Shortly thereafter Mac Diarmada contracted polio and needed a cane to walk.
MacDiarmada along with Clarke supported the workers during the 1913 Dublin Lockout.
In November 1913 Mac Diarmada was one of the original members of the Irish Volunteers, and continued to work to bring that organisation under IRB control. In May 1915 Mac Diarmada was arrested in Tuam, County Galway, under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 for giving a speech against enlisting into the British Army during the First World War.
Easter Rising
Following his release in September 1915, he joined the secret Military Committee of the IRB, which was responsible for planning the rising. Indeed, Mac Diarmada and Clarke were the people most responsible for it. In 1914 he said "the Irish patriotic spirit will die forever unless a blood sacrifice is made in the next few years".
Due to his disability, Mac Diarmada took little part in the fighting of Easter week, but was stationed at the headquarters in the General Post Office (GPO), as one of the Provisional Republican Government. Following the surrender, he nearly escaped execution by blending in with the large body of prisoners. He was eventually recognised by Daniel Hoey of G Division. Following a court-martial on 9 May, Mac Diarmada was executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Gaol on 12 May at the age of 33.
In September 1919 Hoey was shot dead by Michael Collins's Squad. Likewise, the British Officer Lee-Wilson, who ordered Mac Diarmada be shot, rather than imprisoned, was also killed in Cork on Collins's order during the Irish War of Independence.
Mac Diarmada had been in regular correspondence with Nell Ryan. In his final letter he wrote: "Miss Ryan, she who in all probability, had I lived, would have been my wife". "Min" Josephine Ryan and her sister, Phyllis, had been couriers to the GPO. They also visited Kilmainham Gaol, before his execution, and managed to evade arrest. Min, a founder of Cumann na mBan, managed to escape from Ireland to America; she later married Richard Mulcahy.
Before his execution, Mac Diarmada wrote, "I feel happiness the like of which I have never experienced. I die that the Irish nation might live!”
Commemoration
Seán McDermott Street (formerly Gloucester Street) in Dublin is named in his honour. So too is Sligo Mac Diarmada railway station in Sligo, and Páirc Seán Mac Diarmada, the Gaelic Athletic Association stadium in Carrick-on-Shannon, County Leitrim. Sean MacDermott tower in Ballymun, demolished in 2005, was also named after him. In his hometown of Kiltyclogher a statue inscribed with his final written words – see above – was erected in the village centre, and his childhood home has become a National Monument.
The building which holds the national bus station (Busáras) and the Department of Social Protection is known as Áras Mhic Dhiarmada.
Cultural legacy
Leitrim native Seán Fox portrayed Mac Diarmada in RTÉ's 2016 series Rebellion.
Mick Blake, a Leitrim singer/songwriter, wrote "Sean MacDiarmada (the Pride of Corranmore)" to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Rising. The song was commissioned by New York businessman Joseph Mc Manus.
See also
List of people on the postage stamps of Ireland
List of members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood
References
External links
Seaghán Mac Diarmada, Census of Ireland, 1911 |
Square_Enix | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Enix | [
370
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Enix"
] | Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational holding company, video game publisher and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing game franchises, such as Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, among numerous others. Outside of video game publishing and development, it is also in the business of merchandise, arcade facilities, and manga publication under its Gangan Comics brand.
The original Square Enix Co., Ltd. was formed in April 2003 from a merger between Square and Enix, with the latter as the surviving company. Each share of Square's common stock was exchanged for 0.85 shares of Enix's common stock. At the time, 80% of Square Enix staff were made up of former Square employees. As part of the merger, former Square president Yoichi Wada was appointed the president of the new corporation, while former Enix president Keiji Honda was named vice president. Yasuhiro Fukushima, the largest shareholder of the combined corporation and founder of Enix, became chairman. In October 2008, Square Enix conducted a company split between its corporate business and video game operations, reorganizing itself as the holding company Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd., while its internally domestic video game operations were formed under the subsidiary Square Enix Co., Ltd. The group operates American, Chinese and European branches, based in Los Angeles, Beijing, Paris, Hamburg and London respectively.
Several of Square Enix's franchises have sold over 10 million copies worldwide after 2020, with Final Fantasy selling 173 million, Dragon Quest selling 85 million, and Kingdom Hearts shipping 36 million. In 2005, Square Enix acquired arcade corporation Taito. In 2009, Square Enix acquired Eidos plc, the parent company of British game publisher Eidos Interactive, which was then absorbed into its European branch. Square Enix is headquartered at the Shinjuku Eastside Square Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, along with a second office at Osaka. It has over 5,000 employees worldwide through its base operations and subsidiaries.
Corporate history
Origins and pre-merger (1975–2003)
Enix (1975–2003)
Enix was founded on September 22, 1975, as Eidansha Boshu Service Center by Japanese architect-turned-entrepreneur Yasuhiro Fukushima. Enix focused on publishing games, often by companies who exclusively partnered with the company. In the 1980s, in a partnership with developers Chunsoft, the company began publishing the Dragon Quest series of console games.
Key members of the developer's staff consisted of director Koichi Nakamura, writer Yuji Horii, artist Akira Toriyama, and composer Koichi Sugiyama, among others. The first game, Dragon Warrior, in the Famicom-based RPG series, was released in 1986 and would eventually sell 1.5 million copies in Japan, establishing Dragon Quest as the company's most profitable franchise. Despite the announcement that Enix's long-time competitor Square would develop exclusively for PlayStation, Enix announced in January 1997 that it would release games for both Nintendo and Sony consoles. This caused a significant rise in stock for both Enix and Sony. By November 1999, Enix was listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section, indicating it as a "large company".
Square (1983–2003)
Square was started in October 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto as a computer game software division of Den-Yu-Sha, a power line construction company owned by his father. While at the time, game development was usually conducted —by only one programmer, Miyamoto believed that it would be more efficient to have graphic designers, programmers and professional story writers working together.
In September 1986, the division was spun off into an independent company led by Miyamoto, officially named Square Co., Ltd. After releasing several unsuccessful games for the Famicom, Square relocated to Ueno, Tokyo in 1987 and developed a role-playing video game titled Final Fantasy, which was inspired by Enix's success in the genre with the 1986 Dragon Quest. Final Fantasy was a success with over 400,000 copies sold, and it became Square's leading franchise, spawning dozens of games in a series that continues to the present.
Buoyed by the success of their Final Fantasy franchise, Square developed notable games and franchises such as Chrono, Mana, Kingdom Hearts (in collaboration with The Walt Disney Company), and Super Mario RPG (under the guidance of Super Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto). By late 1994 they had developed a reputation as a producer of high-quality role-playing video games. Square was one of the many companies that had planned to develop and publish their games for the Nintendo 64, but with the cheaper costs associated with developing games on CD-based consoles such as the Sega Saturn and the Sony PlayStation, Square decided to develop titles for the latter system. Final Fantasy VII was one of these games, and it sold 9.8 million copies, making it the second-best-selling game for the PlayStation.
Merger (2003)
A merger between Square and Enix was considered since at least 2000; the financial failure in 2001 of Square's first movie, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, made Enix reluctant to proceed while Square was losing money. With the company facing its second year of financial losses, Square approached Sony for a capital injection, and on October 8, 2001, Sony purchased an 18.6% stake in Square. Following the success of both Final Fantasy X and Kingdom Hearts, the company's finances stabilized, and it recorded the highest operating margin in its history in the fiscal year 2002. It was announced on November 25, 2002, that Square and Enix's previous plans to merge were to officially proceed, intending to decrease development costs and to compete with foreign developers. As described by Square's president and CEO Yoichi Wada: "Square has also fully recovered, meaning this merger is occurring at a time when both companies are at their height."
Some shareholders expressed concerns about the merger, notably Miyamoto (the founder and largest shareholder of Square), who would find himself holding a significantly smaller percentage of the combined companies. Other criticism came from Takashi Oya of Deutsche Securities, who expressed doubts about the benefits of such a merger: "Enix outsources game development and has few in-house creators, while Square does everything by itself. The combination of the two provides no negative factors but would bring little in the way of operational synergies." Miyamoto's concerns were eventually resolved by altering the exchange ratio of the merger so that each Square share would be exchanged for 0.85 Enix shares rather than 0.81 shares, and the merger was greenlit. The merger was set for April 1, 2003, on which date the newly merged entity Square Enix came into being. At the time of the merger, 80% of Square Enix staff were made up of former Square employees. As part of the merger, former Square president Yoichi Wada was appointed the president of the new corporation, while former Enix president Keiji Honda became its vice president. The founder of Enix and the largest shareholder of the newly combined corporation, Yasuhiro Fukushima, was made its honorary chairman.
As a result of the merger, Enix was the surviving company and Square Co., Ltd. was dissolved. In July of that year, the Square Enix headquarters were moved to Yoyogi, Shibuya, Tokyo, to help combine the two companies.
Post-merger and acquisitions (2003–2013)
To strengthen its wireless market, Square Enix acquired mobile application developer UIEvolution in March 2004, which was sold in December 2007, and the company instead founded its own Square Enix MobileStudio in January 2008 to focus on mobile products. In January 2005, Square Enix founded Square Enix China, expanding their interests in the People's Republic of China.
In September 2005, Square Enix bought the gaming developer and publisher Taito, renowned for their arcade hits such as Space Invaders and the Bubble Bobble series; Taito's home and portable console games divisions were merged into Square Enix itself by March 2010. In August 2008, Square Enix made plans for a similar expansion by way of a friendly takeover of video game developer Tecmo by purchasing shares at a 30 percent premium, but Tecmo rejected the proposed takeover. Tecmo would later merge with Koei in April 2009 to form Koei Tecmo. In April 2007, Square Enix Ltd. CEO John Yamamoto also became CEO of Square Enix, Inc. In 2008–2009, Square Enix was reportedly working with Grin on a Final Fantasy spin-off codenamed Fortress. The project was allegedly canceled by Square Enix after introducing seemingly impossible milestones and without payments made, resulting in Grin declaring bankruptcy and its co-founders blaming Square Enix for being "betrayed".
In February 2009, Square Enix announced a takeover deal for Eidos (formerly SCi Entertainment), the holding company for Eidos Interactive. The UK-based publisher's assets include Tomb Raider, Hitman, Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain franchises, along with subsidiary development studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and IO Interactive that developed the games. The acquisition of Eidos was completed in April 2009, and in November it was merged with Square Enix's European publishing organization, business unit Square Enix Europe. Eidos' US operations were merged with Square Enix Incorporated. In April 2010, a new Japanese label for Western games bearing CERO restrictions called Square Enix Extreme Edges was announced. In July 2010, Mike Fischer was appointed CEO of Square Enix, Inc. Square Enix founded the mobile development studio Hippos Lab in March 2011 and Square Enix Montréal in 2012. In June 2011, Stainless Games had purchased the rights to Carmageddon from Square Enix. In July 2011, it was reported that Square Enix closed their Los Angeles Studio. In January 2012, Square Enix North American office could pursue smaller niche, mobile and social media games due to its existing revenue streams. In October 2012, Square Enix was perceived as a "force in mobile" games by Kotaku. The price of Final Fantasy Dimensions and Demons' Score, $30 and $44 respectively, was criticized.
Restructuring (2013)
On March 26, 2013, citing sluggish sales of major Western games, Square Enix announced major restructuring, expected loss of ¥10 billion and resignation of President Yoichi Wada, whom Yosuke Matsuda replaced. Phil Rogers was elected as a new Director, among others. With the restructuring, Square Enix of America CEO Mike Fischer left the company in May, with former Square Enix Europe CEO Phil Rogers becoming CEO of Americas and Europe. Further executive changes at Square Enix Western studios were mentioned in a statement. Square Enix Europe was hit with layoffs and Life President Ian Livingstone departed from the company in September 2013.
It said with the fiscal year report in March 2013, sales of Tomb Raider (2013) and Hitman: Absolution were weak, despite critical acclaim. The North American sales force was said to be ineffective and price pressure was intense. Matsuda noted the long development time of their important games and said they need to shift to a business model with frequent customer interactions, noting Kickstarter as an example.
Post-restructuring and RPG development (2013–2021)
In March 2013, Square Enix India opened in Mumbai; however the office was closed in April 2014 and reopened five years later. As well as Square Enix Latin America in Mexico, which was closed in 2015. A mobile studio called Smileworks was founded in Indonesia in June 2013; however it was closed in January 2015. In 2014, Square Enix Collective launched, an indie developer service provider headed by Phil Elliot. Also in 2014, Square Enix signed a strategic alliance and cooperation with Japanese and French video game companies, Bandai Namco Entertainment and Ubisoft; it has served as the Japanese publisher of video games and crossover productions since 2009.
In March 2014, following the success of Bravely Default, Square Enix said it will "go back to their roots" and focus on creating content that will appeal to their core audience. Karl Stewart, vice president of strategic marketing at Square Enix for North America and Europe, left the company that month. In 2015, Square created a new studio known as Tokyo RPG Factory to develop what was then dubbed Project Setsuna. Around 2015, Square Enix's Western divisions began "officially working across LA and London".
In January 2017, Norwegian studio Artplant purchased former Eidos franchise Project I.G.I. On February 21, 2017, the formation of a new studio Studio Istolia was announced. The studio, headed by Hideo Baba, would be working on the new RPG Project Prelude Rune. In November 2017, IO Interactive conducted a management buyout from Square Enix and the Hitman IP was transferred to the studio. In September 2018, COO Mike Sherlock died, with Square Enix's executive team assuming his immediate responsibilities. In 2018, Square Enix branded their third party publishing division Square Enix External Studios, which is headed by Jon Brooke and Lee Singleton. John Heinecke was appointed as CMO for Americas and Europe in October 2018.
Baba departed the studio in early 2019, and shortly after this, Studio Istolia was closed, and Project Prelude Rune cancelled following an assessment of the project, with its staff being reassigned to different projects within the company. In 2019, Square Enix opened an Indian office again, now in Bangalore, which expanded into publishing mobile games for the Indian market in 2021. In June 2020, Square Enix donated $2.4 million to charities around their Western studios and offices, which were partially raised from sales of its discounted Square Enix Eidos Anthology bundle. In March 2021, Forever Entertainment, a Polish studio, was reported to be working to bring several of Square Enix's properties to modern systems. A new mobile studio called Square Enix London Mobile, working on Tomb Raider Reloaded and an unannounced title based on Avatar: The Last Airbender with Navigator Games, was announced on 20 October 2021.
Divestment of Western studios and business changes (2022–present)
On May 1, 2022, Square Enix announced that it would sell several assets of subsidiary Square Enix Limited to Swedish games holding company Embracer Group for $300 million. This included studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montreal, IPs Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Thief, and Tomb Raider and rights to "over 50 games". Square Enix stated that the sale will further help it in investment into blockchain and other technologies, and to "assist the company in adapting to the changes underway in the global business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources". Square Enix also stated that it would retain the Life Is Strange, Outriders, and Just Cause franchises. However, during the Japanese publisher's full-year financial results briefing on May 13, president Yosuke Matsuda clarified the past statement and said the money from the sale will be used to strengthen the company's core games business. On July 25, 2022, Square Enix launched the English version of Manga Up!. The acquisition was closed by August 26, 2022, with the assets being held under CDE Entertainment which is headed from London by Phil Rogers, former CEO of Square Enix Americas and Europe.
In the company's financial statement for the following quarter, released in September 2022, Matsuda said they were moving away from outright owning studios due to rising costs of development, but were looking at means to invest in studios such as joint ventures or investment opportunities. In 2022, Square Enix invested in seven business strategic cooperations in the blockchain and cloud services such as Zebedee (United States), Blocklords (Estonia), Cross The Ages (France), Blacknut (France), Animoca Brands-owned The Sandbox (Australia and Hong Kong), and Ubitus (Japan).
On February 28, 2023, Square Enix Holdings announced that on May 1, Luminous Productions would reorganize and merge with Square Enix internally, citing the merging of the two would “enhanced the group’s abilities to develop HD games” for the 20th anniversary. On March 3, Square Enix issued a statement announcing a proposed change to the position of its president and representative director that, if implemented, would result in Yosuke Matsuda stepping down and being succeeded by Takashi Kiryu, who is presently the company's director. The change will become effective upon approval at the company's 43rd annual shareholders' meeting, which is planned for June 2023, and the board meeting which will follow ahead on the 20th anniversary of the merger. Kiryu succeeded on May 18 and was seen as part of the Final Fantasy XVI launch event as one of his first appearances in public.
In March 2024, Square Enix announced it would be more selective with the games it develops, resulting in numerous unannounced titles being cancelled. The company lost ¥22.1 billion (approximately $140 million) due to "content abandonment."
Corporate structure
On October 1, 2008, Square Enix transformed into a holding company and was renamed Square Enix Holdings. At the same time, the development and publishing businesses were transferred to a spin-off company named Square Enix, sharing the same corporate leadership and offices with the holding company. The primary offices for Square Enix and Square Enix Holdings are in the Shinjuku Eastside Square Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
Currently, focusing in different industries, the company is divided as the following: Five Creative Business Units for game development and production in Square Enix Co., Ltd; a dedicated publishing business unit for manga and books publishing; a digital storefront business division for their e-Store and merchandise production; their media and arts business unit for music production, concert and live performance coordination, and visual contents production (live action, animation, and CG for TV, movies, and games); and a blockchain business division.
Development organization
After the merger in 2003, Square Enix's development department was organized into eight Square and two Enix Product Development Divisions (開発事業部, kaihatsu jigyōbu), each focused on different groupings of games. The divisions were spread around different offices; for example, Product Development Division 5 had offices both in Osaka and Tokyo.
According to Yoichi Wada, the development department was reorganized away from the Product Development Division System by March 2007 into a project-based system. Until 2013, the teams in charge of the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series were still collectively referred to as the 1st Production Department (第1制作部, dai-ichi seisakubu). The 1st Production Department was formed from the fall 2010 combination of Square Enix's Tokyo and Osaka development studios, with Shinji Hashimoto as its corporate executive.
In December 2013, Square Enix's development was restructured into 12 Business Divisions. In 2017, Business Division 9 was merged into Business Division 8, while Business Divisions 11 and 12 merged to become the new Business Division 9, while a new Business Division 11 was created with some staff from Business Division 6.
In 2019, Square Enix announced that their eleven Business Divisions would be consolidated into four units by 2020 with a new title, Creative Business Unit. Naoki Yoshida, who was previously the head of Business Division 5, became the head of Creative Business Unit III. Creative Business Unit III was renamed Creative Studio III in May 2024. The current structure for the development and production division called Creative Business Unit is as follows:
Creative Business Unit I is led by Yoshinori Kitase, who was the head of Business Division 1 and focuses on Final Fantasy single-player titles and some of its spin-offs, SaGa and Kingdom Hearts series. The department comprises the former Business Division 1 (Mainline single-player Final Fantasy such as Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy VII Remake), Business Division 3 (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy spin-offs, The World Ends with You, SaGa series), and Business Division 4 (Final Fantasy spin-offs produced with external companies, e.g., Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy Record Keeper). Currently, the titles developed internally by the group are SaGa: Emerald Beyond and Kingdom Hearts IV, outside of titles overseen and produced by the division and developed by contracted studios.
Creative Business Unit II is led by Yuu Miyake, who was the head of Business Division 6 and focuses on the Dragon Quest, Nier, Octopath Traveler and Bravely series, as well as arcade games. The department comprises the former Business Division 6 (Dragon Quest series, Nier series), Business Division 7 (Lord of Vermilion, Gunslinger Stratos) and Business Division 11 aka "Team Asano" (Bravely series, Octopath Traveler series); since 2023, it also comprises employees from the defunct Luminous Productions (Forspoken), a Square Enix subsidiary made of employees from the former Business Division 2 (Final Fantasy XV). Currently, the known title developed internally by the group is Dragon Quest XII, outside of titles overseen and produced by the division and developed by contracted studios.
Creative Studio III is led by Naoki Yoshida, who was the head of Business Division 5 and focused primarily on MMORPGs. It expanded into single-player titles in 2023 with Final Fantasy XVI. It mainly comprises the former Business Division 5 (Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XIV, Dragon Quest Builders series).
Creative Business Unit IV is led by Kei Hirono and focuses primarily in the Mana series along with co-development and production of remasters, ports and mobile titles such as Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. It comprises the former Business Division 8 (Mana series, along with remasters and ports of different franchises).
Creative Business Unit V is led by Kei Hirono and focuses on Million Arthur, Schoolgirl Strikers and Grimms Notes series, alongside mobile titles. It comprises the former Business Division 9 (Schoolgirl Strikers, Grimms Notes), and Business Division 10 (Million Arthur series, Chaos Rings series).
In those five divisions, most of the development is done outside of Square Enix under contracted development companies, while Creative Business Unit produces and oversee the title done by those developers. All of the internal development done by Creative Business Units are for titles such as mainline Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, while their mid-size and smaller titles have the development outsourced to other companies for most of the cases such as "Team Asano" led by Tomoya Asano, a team of producers from Creative Business II who had Artdink and Netchubiyori developing Triangle Strategy or Historia developing the remake of Live A Live, while the team was mainly present to oversee, produce, concept, while the studios do the bulk of the project under their direction.
As of February 2024 Square Enix has stated that they will cease using outsourced studios for assistance with their titles. Their mid tier games like 2D HD games, mana series and SaGa series will now be made entirely in house.
Business model
The business model of post-merger Square Enix is centered on the idea of "polymorphic content", which consists of developing franchises on multiple potential media rather than being restricted by a single gaming platform. An early example of this strategy is Enix's Fullmetal Alchemist manga series, which has been adapted into two anime television series, five movies (two animated, three live-action), and several novels and video games. Other polymorphic projects include the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Code Age, World of Mana, Ivalice Alliance, and Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy subseries. According to Yoichi Wada, "It's very difficult to hit the jackpot, as it were. Once we've hit it, we have to get all the juice possible out of it". Similar to Sony's Greatest Hits program, Square Enix also re-releases their best-selling games at a reduced price under a label designated "Ultimate Hits".
The standard game design model Square Enix employs is to establish the plot, characters, and art of the game first. Battle systems, field maps, and cutscenes are created next. According to Taku Murata, this process became the company's model for development after the success of Square's Final Fantasy VII in 1997. The team size for Final Fantasy XIII peaked at 180 artists, 30 programmers, and 36 game designers, but analysis and restructuring were done to outsource large-scale development in the future.
Business
Video games and franchises
Square Enix's primary concentration is on video gaming, and it is primarily known for its role-playing video game franchises. Of its properties, the Final Fantasy franchise, begun in 1987, is the best-selling, with a total worldwide sales of over 173 million units as of March 2022. The Dragon Quest franchise, begun in 1986, is also the best-selling; it is considered one of the most popular game series in Japan and new installments regularly outsell other games at the times of their release, with a total worldwide sale of over 85 million units. More recently, the Kingdom Hearts series (developed in collaboration with Disney beginning in 2002) has become popular, with 36 million units shipped as of March 2022. Other popular series developed by Square Enix include the SaGa series with nearly 10 million copies sold since 1989, the Mana series with over 6 million sales since 1991, and the Chrono series with over 5 million sold since 1995. In addition to their sales numbers, many Square Enix games have been highly reviewed; 27 Square Enix games were included in Famitsu magazine's 2006 "Top 100 Games Ever", with 7 in the top 10 and Final Fantasy X claiming the number 1 position. The company also won IGN's award for Best Developer of 2006 for the PlayStation 2.
Square and Enix initially targeted Nintendo home consoles with their games, but Square Enix currently develops games for a wide variety of systems. In the seventh generation of video game consoles, Square Enix released new installments from its major series across all three major systems, including Final Fantasy XIII on both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and Dragon Quest X on the Wii. Square Enix has also developed titles for handheld game consoles, including the Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo 3DS, and PlayStation Vita. Also, they have published games for Microsoft Windows-based personal computers and various models of mobile phones and modern smartphones. Square Enix mobile phone games became available in 2004 on the Vodafone network in some European countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Italy.
Before its launch, Michihiro Sasaki, senior vice president of Square Enix, spoke about the PlayStation 3, saying, "We don't want the PlayStation 3 to be the overwhelming loser, so we want to support them, but we don't want them to be the overwhelming winner either, so we can't support them too much." Square Enix continued to reiterate their devotion to multi-platform publishing in 2007, promising more support for the North American and European gaming markets where console pluralism is generally more prevalent than in Japan. Their interest in multi-platform development was made evident in 2008 when the previously PlayStation 3-exclusive game Final Fantasy XIII was announced for release on the Xbox 360.
In 2008, Square Enix released their first game for the iPod, Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes. Square Enix made a new brand for younger children gaming that same year, known as Pure Dreams. Pure Dreams' first two games, Snoopy DS: Let's Go Meet Snoopy and His Friends! and Pingu's Wonderful Carnival, were released that year. After acquiring Eidos in 2009, Square Enix combined it with its European publishing wing to create Square Enix Europe, which continues to publish Eidos franchises such as Tomb Raider (88 million sales), Deus Ex (4 million), Thief and Legacy of Kain (3.5 million). Square Enix has also served as the Japanese publisher for Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft games since 2009. In May 2022, Square Enix sold several assets of Square Enix Europe $300 million to Embracer Group, including former Eidos Interactive franchises such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and more than 50 others.
Square Enix owned franchises and games include:
former Square franchises, such as Mana;
former Enix franchises, such as Star Ocean;
Square Enix created franchises, such as Drakengard;
Taito franchises, such as Space Invaders;
Quest franchises, such as Ogre;
Retained former Eidos Interactive franchise Just Cause;
Square Enix America created games, such as Quantum Conundrum, Motley Blocks;
Square Enix Europe created franchises, such as Life Is Strange.
Game engines
In 2004, Square Enix began to work on a "common 3D format" that would allow the entire company to develop titles without being restricted to a specific platform: this led to the creation of a game engine named Crystal Tools, which is compatible with the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, Windows-based PCs, and to some extent the Wii. It was first shown off at a tech demo shown off at E3 2005 and was later used for Final Fantasy XIII based on the demo's reception. Crystal Tools was also used for Final Fantasy Versus XIII before its re-branding as Final Fantasy XV and its shift onto next-gen platforms. Refinement of the engine continued through the development of Final Fantasy XIII-2, and it underwent a major overhaul for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. Since that release, no new titles have been announced using Crystal Tools, and it is believed that the development of the engine has halted permanently.
Luminous Engine was originally intended for eighth-generation consoles and unveiled at E3 2012 through a tech demo titled Agni's Philosophy. The first major console title to be developed with Luminous Engine was Final Fantasy XV; the engine's development was done in tandem with the game, and the game's development helped the programming team optimize the engine.
In addition to Luminous Engine and custom engines made for individual games and platforms before and since Square Enix often uses other companies' engines and programming languages for their video game properties. Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3 was used for games such as The Last Remnant, and more recently, Unreal Engine 4 has been used for projects including Dragon Quest XI, Kingdom Hearts III, and the most recent Final Fantasy VII Remake. Unity has also been used internally for titles including I Am Setsuna, Lost Sphear, and SaGa: Scarlet Grace. The Squirrel language had also been used for the WiiWare title Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King.
Online gaming
Before the merger, Enix published its first online game Cross Gate in Japan, mainland China, and Taiwan in 2001, and Square released Final Fantasy XI in Japan in 2002 for the PlayStation 2 and later the personal computer. With the huge success of Final Fantasy XI, the game was ported to the Xbox 360 two years later and was the first MMORPG on the console. All versions of the game used PlayOnline, a cross-platform internet gaming platform and internet service developed by Square Enix. The platform was used as the online service for many games Square Enix developed and published throughout the decade. Due to the success of their MMORPG, Square Enix began a new project called Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion. GamePot, a Japanese game portal, received the license to publish Fantasy Earth in Japan, and it was released in Japan as "Fantasy Earth ZERO." In 2006, however, Square Enix dropped the Fantasy Earth Zero project and sold it to GamePot. Square Enix released Concerto Gate, the sequel to Cross Gate, in 2007.
A next-gen MMORPG code named Rapture was developed by the Final Fantasy XI team using the company's Crystal Tools engine. It was unveiled at E3 2009 as Final Fantasy XIV for PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows and would be released on September 30, 2010. Dragon Quest X was announced in September 2011 as an MMORPG being developed for Nintendo's Wii and Wii U consoles, which released on August 2, 2012, and March 30, 2013, respectively. Like XIV, it used Crystal Tools.
Square Enix also made browser games and Facebook games, like Legend World, Chocobo's Crystal Tower and Knights of the Crystals, and online games for Yahoo! Japan, such as Monster x Dragon, Sengoku Ixa, Bravely Default: Praying Brage, Star Galaxy, and Crystal Conquest.
Cloud gaming
In 2013, Dragon Quest X was brought to iOS and Android in Japan using NTT DoCoMo as the release platform and Ubitus for the streaming technology. In 2014, it was also brought to 3DS in Japan using Ubitus.
On May 8, 2012, Square Enix announced a collaboration with Bigpoint Games to create a free-to-play Cloud gaming platform that "throws players into 'limitless game worlds' directly through their web browser". The service was launched under the name CoreOnline in August 2012. Stating "limited commercial take-up", the service was cancelled on November 29, 2013.
In September 2014, a cloud gaming company called Shinra Technologies (previously Project Flare) was created; however, it was closed in January 2016. On October 9, 2014, Square Enix launched another online game service in Japan called Dive In, which allowed players to stream console games to their iOS or Android devices. The service was monetized by the amount of time the players spent playing, with each game offered for free for thirty minutes. The service was cancelled on September 13, 2015. Some Square Enix games are available in Japan on the G-cluster streaming service.
Arcade facilities
With the merger of Taito businesses into Square Enix, the company gained possession of Taito's arcade infrastructure and facilities and entered the arcade market in 2005. In 2010 Taito revealed NESiCAxLive, a cloud-based system of storing games and changing them through the internet instead of acquiring physical copies. This system was added to its many arcade gaming locations. The company continues to cater to the arcade audience in Japan with arcade-only titles, with game producers in 2015 stating that Square Enix has a loyal fan base that values the arcade gaming experience. In November 2019, Square Enix announced a "Ninja Tower Tokyo" theme park by its newly established Live Interactive Works division.
Film
The company has made three forays into the film industry. The first, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), was produced by Square subsidiary Square Pictures before the Enix merger; Square Pictures is now a consolidated subsidiary of Square Enix. Its box-office failure caused Enix to delay the merger, which was already under consideration before the creation of the film until Square became profitable once again. In 2005, Square Enix released Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, a CGI-animation film based on the PlayStation game Final Fantasy VII, set two years after the events of the game. A Deus Ex film was in pre-production in 2012 and, as of 2014, was undergoing rewrites. In 2016 Square Enix revealed a film called Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV based in the world of Final Fantasy XV and a new web series released on YouTube and Crunchyroll entitled Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV.
Publishing
The company has a manga publishing division in Japan (originally from Enix) called Gangan Comics, which publishes content for the Japanese market only. In 2010, however, Square Enix launched a digital manga store for North American audiences via its Members services, which contains several notable series published in Gangan anthologies. Titles published by Gangan Comics include Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater, and many others. Other titles include manga adaptations of various Square Enix games, like Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts and Star Ocean. Some of these titles have also been adapted into anime series. Fullmetal Alchemist is the most successful title of Square Enix's manga branch, with more than 64 million volumes sold worldwide. It is licensed in North America by Viz Media, while its two anime adaptations were licensed by Funimation (now known as Crunchyroll) in North America. Starting in Q4 2019, Square Enix began publishing some of its manga series in English.
Merchandise
Square Enix has created merchandise for virtually all of their video game franchises, many items are available only in Japan. Starting in 2000, Square Enix's former online gaming portal PlayOnline sold merchandise from game franchises including Parasite Eve, Vagrant Story, Chocobo Racing, Front Mission, Chrono Cross, and Final Fantasy. Mascots from game franchises are a popular focus for merchandise, such as the Chocobo from Final Fantasy, which has been seen as a rubber duck, a plush baby Chocobo, and on coffee mugs. Square Enix also designed a Chocobo character costume for the release of Chocobo Tales. The Slime character from Dragon Quest has also been frequently used in Square Enix merchandise, especially in Japan. On the Japanese Square Enix shopping website, there is also a Slime-focused section called "Smile Slime". Slime merchandise includes plush toys, game controllers, figurines, and several board games, including one titled Dragon Quest Slime Racing. In Japan, pork-filled steam buns shaped like slimes have been sold in 2010. For Dragon Quest's 25th anniversary, special items were sold, including business cards, tote bags, and crystal figurines. Rabites from the Mana series have appeared in several pieces of Square Enix merchandise, including plush dolls, cushions, lighters, mousepads, straps, telephone cards, and T-shirts. Square Enix has also made merchandise for third party series, including figures Mass Effect and Halo in 2012. Beginning in 2012, it operates shops called "Square Enix Cafe" in Tokyo, Osaka and Shanghai, which display and sell merchandise, as well as serve café food.
Subsidiaries
Former subsidiaries
Notes
References
External links
Official website |
Enix | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enix | [
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] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enix"
] | Enix Corporation was a Japanese multimedia publisher who handled and oversaw video games, manga, guidebooks, and merchandise. It was founded in 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima as Eidansha Boshu Service Center, initially as a tabloid publisher and later attempting to branch into real estate management. Beginning in 1982, Enix began publishing video games. Three notable early collaborators were designers Yuji Horii and Koichi Nakamura, and composer Koichi Sugiyama. Horii, Nakamura and Sugiyama would all work on the 1986 role playing video game (RPG) Dragon Quest for the Family Computer; one of the earliest successful RPGs for consoles, it spawned a franchise of the same name which remains Enix's best-known product.
They would gain notoriety as a publisher for several studios and their properties including tri-Ace, Tose, Chunsoft and Quintet. It also founded the Gangan Comics imprint family, and created international subsidiaries or partnerships related to technology development, publishing and education. In the early 2000s, due to rising game development costs, Enix entered discussions about merging with Square, a rival company known for the Final Fantasy franchise. The merger eventually went ahead in 2003 forming Square Enix, with Enix as the surviving corporate entity.
History
1975-1989: Origins, Dragon Quest
Enix was founded under the name Eidansha Boshu Service Center on September 22, 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima. An architect-turned-business entrepreneur, Fukushima initially founded Eidansha as a publishing company focused on advertising tabloids for real estate.: 77–81 On February 5, 1980, Eidansha Boshu created a wholly owned subsidiary Eidansya Fudousan for the purpose of specializing in real estate trading and brokerage, being renamed Eidansha Systems the following year. It was based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. During 1982 Eidansha Boshu made an unsuccessful attempt to become a nationwide chain. Fukushima decided to invest his capital into the emerging video game market; during this period on August 30, Eidansya Fudousan was renamed Enix Corporation.: 77–81 The name Enix was a play on both the mythological Phoenix, and the early computer ENIAC.: 77–81
Seeking game proposals, Fukushima organized a competition dubbed the "Enix Game Hobby Program Contest" in both computer and manga magazines, offering a prize of ¥1 million (US$10,000) for a game prototype which could be published by Enix.: 77–81 Among the winners were Yuji Horii, then a writer for Weekly Shōnen Jump, with the sports game Love Match Tennis; designer Koichi Nakamura with the puzzle game Door Door; and self-trained programmer Kazuro Morita with the simulation video game Morita's Battlefield. During the next few years, Enix would publish titles for both the PC market and the fledgling Japanese console market.: 77–81 Using his royalties, Morita established the developer Random House and developed several PC and console titles including the Morita's Shogi series. In collaboration with Nakamura's new company Chunsoft, Horii notably created the adventure game The Portopia Serial Murder Case (1983), then during discussions around a port of the game to the Famicom (Nintendo Entertainment System) Horii and Nakamura decided to develop a role-playing video game (RPG) for the platform.: 84–89
The RPG, titled Dragon Quest, began development in 1985.: 84–89 Horii and Nakamura acted as designers, composer Koichi Sugiyama created the score for the game, and Dragon Ball artist Akira Toriyama was brought on board for art design.: 84–89 While meeting with initially slow sales, Dragon Quest became a critical and commercial success, selling over one million copies in Japan.: 84–89 The success of Dragon Quest spawned a franchise of the same name, which would become Enix's highest-grossing property. Horii, Sugiyama and Toriyama remained mainstays with the series. Chunsoft developed the next five Dragon Quest titles. While the Dragon Quest series proved successful, Enix continued publishing PC titles to maintain financial stability.: 77–81 The company also began selling merchandise themed after Dragon Quest in 1988 with character statues and toys, expanding to board and card games the following year.
In October 1983, Enix co-founded Konishiroku Enix with Konishiroku Photo Company, later purchasing all shares in January 1989. A second subsidiary, Enix Products, was established in March 1988 for the sale of publications and character merchandise. Both subsidiaries along with the original Enix were merged into their parent company Eidansha Boshu in April 1989, which renamed itself Enix Corporation.
1990-1999: Publishing and collaborations
In 1990, Enix published their first third-party console title ActRaiser for the Super Famicom. The game was developed by Quintet, a Japanese independent developer made up of former Nihon Falcom staff. Enix acted as publisher for all of Quintet's subsequent Super Famicom games in Japan. Enix had begun publishing guidebooks for the Dragon Quest series, between 1988 and 1991 the company decided to make print publication their second major business section alongside video game publishing. This was to ensure their income did not entirely depend on Dragon Quest. This eventually led to Enix launching the Gangan Comics imprint family, beginning with Monthly Shonen Gangan March 1991. Following its first publication with Monthly Shonen Gangan in March 1991, several other manga imprints with magazine and tankōbon editions were created for different genres including Monthly G-Fantasy and Monthly Shonen Gag-OU. The company also expanded their merchandise range to include other notable series including Mario and Pokémon. In February 1991, Enix registered with the Japan Securities Dealers Association to offer shares for public purchase.
Following Dragon Quest V (1992), Chunsoft left as main series developer, wanting to create their own titles. In the years following, Chunsoft continued collaborating with Enix on spin-off Dragon Quest titles including early entries in their Mystery Dungeon franchise. The next two entries were developed by Heartbeat, a company founded by former Chunsoft staff dedicated to developing Dragon Quest titles. Heartbeat would handle main series production until going on sabbatical in 2002. From 1994, Enix acted as publisher for Horii's Itadaki Street series, taking over the series from ASCII. They also frequently acted as publisher for titles from Tamtam, and created the Dragon Quest Monsters spin-off series with developer Tose.
Enix were initially pitched unsuccessfully by Wolf Team with Tales of Phantasia, which was ultimately published by Namco in 1995. Enix later acted as publisher for Star Ocean (1996), developed by former Tales of Phantasia staff members who split from Wolf Team to form tri-Ace. In partnership with Enix, tri-Ace developed three further Star Ocean titles, and the Norse mythology-inspired RPG Valkyrie Profile (1999). Enix also notably helped publish two Western console titles; Riven (1998) and Tomb Raider III (1999). In August 1996, Enix moved from Shinjuku to offices in Shibuya. In contrast to other companies at the time, which were leaving behind cartridge-based Nintendo 64 for the disc-based PlayStation, Enix announced in 1997 that they would publish titles for both platforms. They later stated their intention to develop for the GameCube. In August 1999, Enix was listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section, which includes the largest companies on the exchange.
2000-2003: Internal troubles, merger
Beginning in the early 2000s, Enix's manga publishing division went through a period of turbulence as several editors expressed dissatisfaction with Enix's focus on Dragon Quest media and the shōnen demographic, a growing lack of creative freedom, and rising tensions between authors and editors. Editor Yoshihiro Hosaka and a number of other Gangan associates founded Mag Garden in 2001, which became a market rival through the Monthly Comic Blade magazine. Mag Garden's foundation triggered a mass departure of creatives and legal battles with Enix over manga copyright ownership. The issues were resolved in 2003 when Enix agreed to partially invest in Mag Garden. The manga division's troubles were lessened with the beginning of Fullmetal Alchemist, which proved highly popular. Enix also suffered from financial losses due to the delayed releases of Dragon Quest VII (2000) and Dragon Quest Monsters 2 (2001). Some notable titles begun or announced during the 2000s were PlayStation 2 titles in the Grandia series, the MMORPG Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion from Puraguru, and the action role-playing game Drakengard from Cavia.
In 2001, citing the rising cost of game development, Enix expressed interest in merging with either Square or Namco. They ultimately began talks with Square, a market rival and developer of the Final Fantasy franchise. Talks were temporarily halted when Square suffered financially due to the failure of the 2001 feature film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Following the commercial success of Final Fantasy X (2001) and Kingdom Hearts (2002), talks went ahead on the merger with Enix as Square's finances stabilized; Square's then-CEO Yoichi Wada described it as a merger of two companies "at their height". Despite this, some shareholders had doubts about the merger, notably Square's founder Masafumi Miyamoto, who would find himself holding significantly less shares and having a smaller controlling stake if the deal went ahead as initially planned. Miyamoto's issue was resolved by altering the exchange ratio to one Square share for 0.85 Enix shares, and the merger was greenlit. The merger resulted in Square Enix being formed on April 1, 2003, with Enix as the surviving corporate entity and Square dissolving its departments and subsidiaries into the new company. Enix's last two published titles were Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, both in 2003. Fantasy Earth and Drakengard were published after the merger.
Company structure and affiliates
During reports on the merger with Square, Takashi Oya of Deutsche Securities described Enix as "[outsourcing] game development and [having] few in-house creators" compared to Square's focus on internal development. At the time of the merger, Enix had two development divisions; one managing the Dragon Quest series led by Yuu Miyake, and a supervisory division made up of producers. Speaking in 1997, Quintet staff described their company as a "subcontractor" for Enix, being involved in its projects even when not acting as a publisher. Horii notably created Armor Project as a company to oversee Dragon Quest for Enix, with him comparing the relationship to that between an editor and an artist. Armor Project survived as an associate of Square Enix, growing into a larger entity over the years.
Enix Webstar Network Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. was a company formed between Enix and Mauritius Webstar Inc. in 2001 to develop online and mobile phone games in China and, later, other parts of Asia. The subsidiary was carried over after the merger between Square and Enix, but was dissolved in 2005 after the establishment of Square Enix China. Digital Entertainment Academy Co., Ltd. was established as a partially owned subsidiary in 1991. Originally called Toshima Ku Hokkaido University, the school was founded to teach game development.
Enix America Corporation was the corporation's first American localization subsidiary based in Redmond, Washington. It was organized after the release of Dragon Warrior by Nintendo of America in 1989. The subsidiary came into existence in 1990, but closed in November 1995 when the parent company decided to no longer release products in North America due to poor sales. One of the games they published, King Arthur & the Knights of Justice, was Enix's first and only North America exclusive game. Enix America, Inc., Enix's last American localization subsidiary, was organized in 1999, and was based in Seattle, Washington. Paul Handelman, who was part of Enix America Corporation's staff, returned to lead Enix America, Inc. as president. The corporation was in existence until 2003, ceasing to exist after the merger with Square Co., Ltd. Several of Enix's localized games were published by other companies including Nintendo and Sony Computer Entertainment; the last was Dragon Warrior Monsters, which was through a publishing deal with Eidos.
Legacy
The Dragon Quest series became one of the most popular video game series in Japan, spinning off into a multimedia franchise, and entering mainstream popular culture in the country. Several publications have cited the original game as a pioneer for the genre on home consoles, influencing the development of other popular series. Enix's Gangan Comics imprint, in addition to publishing a number of successful series, was credited by critic Tsuyoshi Ito with helping manga appeal to a wider cross-demographic audience that blending the shōnen and shōjo manga styles. Hosaka also credited Enix with introducing fantasy into the wider mainstream market, and as a pioneer of publishers directly investing in and having creative input into anime adaptations of their work.
References
Notes
External links
Official website (in English) (archives)
Official website (in Japanese) (archives) |
Chrono_Trigger | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger | [
370
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Trigger"
] | Chrono Trigger (Japanese: クロノ・トリガー, Hepburn: Kurono Torigā) 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 entry 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, while Masato Kato wrote most of the story. The game's plot follows a group of adventurers who travel through time to prevent a global catastrophe.
Chrono Trigger was a critical and commercial success upon release, receiving multiple accolades from gaming publications, and is considered one of fourth-generation console gaming's most significant titles and among the greatest video games ever made. 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. The game's soundtrack, scored by Yasunori Mitsuda with assistance from veteran Final Fantasy composer Nobuo Uematsu, has been hailed as one of the best video game soundtracks of all time. Chrono Trigger was the second best-selling game of 1995 in Japan, and the various incarnations of the game have shipped more than 3.5 million copies worldwide.
Distributed in the Japanese and North American markets in 1995, the game has been re-released on several other platforms with varying differences. Square published 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) exclusively in North America. A slightly enhanced Chrono Trigger, again ported by Tose, was released for the Nintendo DS in Japan and North America in 2008, and PAL regions in 2009. The game has also been ported to i-mode, the Virtual Console, the PlayStation Network, iOS, and Android. In 2018, a higher resolution version was released for Windows via Steam.
Gameplay
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, Android and Steam versions); the ending the player receives depends on when and how they reach and complete the game's final battle. The DS version of Chrono Trigger 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.
Story
Setting
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.
Characters
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.
Plot
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 framed for 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.
Development
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, that Square dubbed the "Dream Team", 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 Mana 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 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.
Music
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 the game, featuring orchestral tracks used in cutscenes. 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 the DS version received a special music disc containing two orchestral arrangements of the game's 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. "Frog's Theme" and "Robo's Theme" were among the video game music performed during the 2020 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. In 2022, the main theme continued to feature in the setlist of The 8-Bit Big Band, led by Charlie Rosen.
Release
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.
PlayStation
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.
Nintendo DS
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.
Mobile
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.
Windows
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 game's original version, fixing glitches introduced, and adding a true 16:9 widescreen presentation for the first time, to address the aforementioned complaints. In total, five major updates were released—the first on April 10, 2018, and the last on August 3, 2018—all of which have substantially improved its overall reception. On March 11, 2022, a sixth major patch was released; it added ultrawide 21:9 support and other quality of life features and improvements.
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 favorite 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 six 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."
Legacy
Add-ons
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, Dimensional Adventure Numa Monjar, which was shown at the Japanese V Jump festival of July 31, 1996.
Fangames
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 cutscenes 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 forbade 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.
Sequels
Square released a related Satellaview game in 1996, named Radical Dreamers. 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 2024 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.
Notes
References
External links
Quotations related to Chrono Trigger at Wikiquote
Media related to Chrono Trigger at Wikimedia Commons
Official website |
French_Revolution | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution | [
371
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution"
] | The French Revolution was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789, and ended with the coup of 18 Brumaire in November 1799 and the formation of the French Consulate. Many of its ideas are considered fundamental principles of liberal democracy, while its values and institutions remain central to modern French political discourse.
Its causes are generally agreed to be a combination of social, political, and economic factors, which the Ancien Régime proved unable to manage. A financial crisis and widespread social distress led in May 1789 to the convocation of the Estates General, which was converted into a National Assembly in June. The Storming of the Bastille on 14 July led to a series of radical measures by the Assembly, among them the abolition of feudalism, state control over the Catholic Church in France, and a declaration of rights.
The next three years were dominated by the struggle for political control, exacerbated by economic depression. Military defeats following the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792 resulted in the insurrection of 10 August 1792. The monarchy was replaced by the French First Republic in September, while Louis XVI was executed in January 1793.
After another revolt in June 1793, the constitution was suspended, and adequate political power passed from the National Convention to the Committee of Public Safety. About 16,000 people were executed in a Reign of Terror, which ended in July 1794. Weakened by external threats and internal opposition, the Republic was replaced in 1795 by the Directory. Four years later, in 1799, the Consulate seized power in a military coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte. This is generally seen as marking the end of the Revolutionary period.
Causes
The Revolution resulted from multiple long-term and short-term factors, culminating in a social, economic, financial and political crisis in the late 1780s. Combined with resistance to reform by the ruling elite, and indecisive policy by Louis XVI and his ministers, the result was a crisis the state was unable to manage.
Between 1715 and 1789, the French population grew from 21 to 28 million, 20% of whom lived in towns or cities, Paris alone having over 600,000 inhabitants. This was accompanied by a tripling in the size of the middle class, which comprised almost 10% of the population by 1789. Despite increases in overall prosperity, its benefits were largely restricted to the rentier and mercantile classes, while the living standards fell for wage labourers and peasant farmers who rented their land. Economic recession from 1785, combined with bad harvests in 1787 and 1788, led to high unemployment and food prices, causing a financial and political crisis.
While the state also experienced a debt crisis, the level of debt itself was not high compared with Britain's. A significant problem was that tax rates varied widely from one region to another, were often different from the official amounts, and collected inconsistently. Its complexity meant uncertainty over the amount contributed by any authorised tax caused resentment among all taxpayers. Attempts to simplify the system were blocked by the regional Parlements which approved financial policy. The resulting impasse led to the calling of the Estates General of 1789, which became radicalised by the struggle for control of public finances.
Louis XVI was willing to consider reforms, but often backed down when faced with opposition from conservative elements within the nobility. Enlightenment critiques of social institutions were widely discussed among the educated French elite. At the same time, the American Revolution and the European revolts of the 1780s inspired public debate on issues such as patriotism, liberty, equality, and democracy. These shaped the response of the educated public to the crisis, while scandals such as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace fuelled widespread anger at the court, nobility, and church officials.
Crisis of the Ancien Régime
Financial and political crisis
France faced a series of budgetary crises during the 18th century, as revenues failed to keep pace with expenditure. Although the economy grew solidly, the increase was not reflected in a proportional growth in taxes, their collection being contracted to tax farmers who kept much of it as personal profit. As the nobility and Church benefited from many exemptions, the tax burden fell mainly on peasants. Reform was difficult because new tax laws had to be registered with regional judicial bodies or parlements that were able to block them. The king could impose laws by decree, but this risked open conflict with the parlements, the nobility, and those subject to new taxes.
France primarily funded the Anglo-French War of 1778–1783 through loans. Following the peace, the monarchy borrowed heavily, culminating in a debt crisis. By 1788, half of state revenue was required to service its debt. In 1786, the French finance minister, Calonne, proposed a package of reforms including a universal land tax, the abolition of grain controls and internal tariffs, and new provincial assemblies appointed by the king. The new taxes, however, were rejected, first by a hand-picked Assembly of Notables dominated by the nobility, then by the parlements when submitted by Calonne's successor Brienne. The notables and parlements argued that the proposed taxes could only be approved by an Estates-General, a representative body that had last met in 1614.
The conflict between the Crown and the parlements became a national political crisis. Both sides issued a series of public statements, the government arguing that it was combating privilege and the parlement defending the ancient rights of the nation. Public opinion was firmly on the side of the parlements, and riots broke out in several towns. Brienne's attempts to raise new loans failed, and on 8 August 1788, he announced that the king would summon an Estates-General to convene the following May. Brienne resigned and was replaced by Necker.
In September 1788, the Parlement of Paris ruled that the Estates-General should convene in the same form as in 1614, meaning that the three estates (the clergy, nobility, and Third Estate or "commons") would meet and vote separately, with votes counted by estate rather than by head. As a result, the clergy and nobility could combine to outvote the Third Estate despite representing less than 5% of the population.
Following the relaxation of censorship and laws against political clubs, a group of liberal nobles and middle class activists, known as the Society of Thirty, launched a campaign for the doubling of Third Estate representation and individual voting. The public debate saw an average of 25 new political pamphlets published a week from 25 September 1788. The Abbé Sieyès issued influential pamphlets denouncing the privilege of the clergy and nobility, and arguing the Third Estate represented the nation and should sit alone as a National Assembly. Activists such as Mounier, Barnave and Robespierre organised regional meetings, petitions and literature in support of these demands. In December, the king agreed to double the representation of the Third Estate, but left the question of counting votes for the Estates-General to decide.
Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General contained three separate bodies, the First Estate representing 100,000 clergy, the Second the nobility, and the Third the "commons". Since each met separately, and any proposals had to be approved by at least two, the First and Second Estates could outvote the Third despite representing less than 5% of the population.
Although the Catholic Church in France owned nearly 10% of all land, as well as receiving annual tithes paid by peasants, three-quarters of the 303 clergy elected were parish priests, many of whom earned less than unskilled labourers and had more in common with their poor parishioners than with the bishops of the first estate.
The Second Estate elected 322 deputies, representing about 400,000 men and women, who owned about 25% of the land and collected seigneurial dues and rents from their tenants. Most delegates were town-dwelling members of the noblesse d'épée, or traditional aristocracy. Courtiers and representatives of the noblesse de robe (those who derived rank from judicial or administrative posts) were underrepresented.
Of the 610 deputies of the Third Estate, about two-thirds held legal qualifications and almost half were venal office holders. Less than 100 were in trade or industry and none were peasants or artisans. To assist delegates, each region completed a list of grievances, known as Cahiers de doléances. Tax inequality and seigneurial dues (feudal payments owed to landowners) headed the grievances in the cahiers de doleances for the estate.
On 5 May 1789, the Estates-General convened at Versailles. Necker outlined the state budget and reiterated the king's decision that each estate should decide on which matters it would agree to meet and vote in common with the other estates. On the following day, each estate was to separately verify the credentials of their representatives. The Third Estate, however, voted to invite the other estates to join them in verifying all the representatives of the Estates-General in common and to agree that votes should be counted by head. Fruitless negotiations lasted to 12 June when the Third Estate began verifying its own members. On 17 June, the Third Estate declared itself to be the National Assembly of France and that all existing taxes were illegal. Within two days, more than 100 members of the clergy had joined them.
Shaken by this challenge to his authority, the king agreed to a reform package that he would announce at a Royal Session of the Estates-General. The Salle des États was closed to prepare for the joint session, but the members of the Estates-General were not informed in advance. On 20 June, when the members of the Third Estate found their meeting place closed, they moved to a nearby tennis court and swore not to disperse until a new constitution had been agreed.
At the Royal Session the king announced a series of tax and other reforms and stated that no new taxes or loans would be implemented without the consent of the Estates-General. However, he stated that the three estates were sacrosanct and it was up to each estate to agree to end their privileges and decide on which matters they would vote in common with the other estates. At the end of the session the Third Estate refused to leave the hall and reiterated their oath not to disperse until a constitution had been agreed. Over the next days more members of the clergy joined the National Assembly. On 27 June, faced with popular demonstrations and mutinies in his French Guards, Louis XVI capitulated. He commanded the members of the first and second estates to join the third in the National Assembly.
Constitutional monarchy (July 1789 – September 1792)
Abolition of the Ancien Régime
Even the limited reforms the king had announced went too far for Marie Antoinette and Louis' younger brother the Comte d'Artois. On their advice, Louis dismissed Necker again as chief minister on 11 July. On 12 July, the Assembly went into a non-stop session after rumours circulated he was planning to use the Swiss Guards to force it to close. The news brought crowds of protestors into the streets, and soldiers of the elite Gardes Françaises regiment refused to disperse them.
On the 14th, many of these soldiers joined the mob in attacking the Bastille, a royal fortress with large stores of arms and ammunition. Its governor, Bernard-René de Launay, surrendered after several hours of fighting that cost the lives of 83 attackers. Taken to the Hôtel de Ville, he was executed, his head placed on a pike and paraded around the city; the fortress was then torn down in a remarkably short time. Although rumoured to hold many prisoners, the Bastille held only seven: four forgers, a lunatic, a failed assassin, and a deviant nobleman. Nevertheless, as a potent symbol of the Ancien Régime, its destruction was viewed as a triumph and Bastille Day is still celebrated every year. In French culture, some see its fall as the start of the Revolution.
Alarmed by the prospect of losing control of the capital, Louis appointed the Marquis de Lafayette commander of the National Guard, with Jean-Sylvain Bailly as head of a new administrative structure known as the Commune. On 17 July, Louis visited Paris accompanied by 100 deputies, where he was greeted by Bailly and accepted a tricolore cockade to loud cheers. However, it was clear power had shifted from his court; he was welcomed as 'Louis XVI, father of the French and king of a free people.'
The short-lived unity enforced on the Assembly by a common threat quickly dissipated. Deputies argued over constitutional forms, while civil authority rapidly deteriorated. On 22 July, former Finance Minister Joseph Foullon and his son were lynched by a Parisian mob, and neither Bailly nor Lafayette could prevent it. In rural areas, wild rumours and paranoia resulted in the formation of militia and an agrarian insurrection known as la Grande Peur. The breakdown of law and order and frequent attacks on aristocratic property led much of the nobility to flee abroad. These émigrés funded reactionary forces within France and urged foreign monarchs to back a counter-revolution.
In response, the Assembly published the August Decrees which abolished feudalism. Over 25% of French farmland was subject to feudal dues, providing the nobility with most of their income; these were now cancelled, along with church tithes. While their former tenants were supposed to pay them compensation, collecting it proved impossible, and the obligation was annulled in 1793. Other decrees included equality before the law, opening public office to all, freedom of worship, and cancellation of special privileges held by provinces and towns.
With the suspension of the 13 regional parlements in November, the key institutional pillars of the old regime had all been abolished in less than four months. From its early stages, the Revolution therefore displayed signs of its radical nature; what remained unclear was the constitutional mechanism for turning intentions into practical applications.
Creating a new constitution
On 9 July, the National Assembly appointed a committee to draft a constitution and statement of rights. Twenty drafts were submitted, which were used by a sub-committee to create a Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, with Mirabeau being the most prominent member. The Declaration was approved by the Assembly and published on 26 August as a statement of principle.
The Assembly now concentrated on the constitution itself. Mounier and his monarchist supporters advocated a bicameral system, with an upper house appointed by the king, who would also have the right to appoint ministers and veto legislation. On 10 September, the majority of the Assembly, led by Sieyès and Talleyrand, voted in favour of a single body, and the following day approved a "suspensive veto" for the king, meaning Louis could delay implementation of a law, but not block it indefinitely. In October, the Assembly voted to restrict political rights, including voting rights, to "active citizens", defined as French males over the age of 25 who paid direct taxes equal to three days' labour. The remainder were designated "passive citizens", restricted to "civil rights", a distinction opposed by a significant minority, including the Jacobin clubs. By mid-1790, the main elements of a constitutional monarchy were in place, although the constitution was not accepted by Louis until 1791.
Food shortages and the worsening economy caused frustration at the lack of progress, and led to popular unrest in Paris. This came to a head in late September 1789, when the Flanders Regiment arrived in Versailles to reinforce the royal bodyguard, and were welcomed with a formal banquet as was common practice. The radical press described this as a 'gluttonous orgy', and claimed the tricolour cockade had been abused, while the Assembly viewed their arrival as an attempt to intimidate them.
On 5 October, crowds of women assembled outside the Hôtel de Ville, agitating against high food prices and shortages. These protests quickly turned political, and after seizing weapons stored at the Hôtel de Ville, some 7,000 of them marched on Versailles, where they entered the Assembly to present their demands. They were followed to Versailles by 15,000 members of the National Guard under Lafayette, who was virtually "a prisoner of his own troops".
When the National Guard arrived later that evening, Lafayette persuaded Louis the safety of his family required their relocation to Paris. Next morning, some of the protestors broke into the royal apartments, searching for Marie Antoinette, who escaped. They ransacked the palace, killing several guards. Order was eventually restored, and the royal family and Assembly left for Paris, escorted by the National Guard. Louis had announced his acceptance of the August Decrees and the Declaration, and his official title changed from 'King of France' to 'King of the French'.
The Revolution and the Church
Historian John McManners argues "in eighteenth-century France, throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence." One suggestion is that after a century of persecution, some French Protestants actively supported an anti-Catholic regime, a resentment fuelled by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, considered a philosophical founder of the revolution, wrote it was "manifestly contrary to the law of nature... that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities, while the hungry multitude goes in want of necessities."
The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Catholic Church to the state; although the extent of religious belief has been questioned, elimination of tolerance for religious minorities meant by 1789 being French also meant being Catholic. The church was the largest individual landowner in France, controlling nearly 10% of all estates and levied tithes, effectively a 10% tax on income, collected from peasant farmers in the form of crops. In return, it provided a minimal level of social support.
The August decrees abolished tithes, and on 2 November the Assembly confiscated all church property, the value of which was used to back a new paper currency known as assignats. In return, the state assumed responsibilities such as paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned. On 13 February 1790, religious orders and monasteries were dissolved, while monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life.
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 12 July 1790 made them employees of the state, as well as establishing rates of pay and a system for electing priests and bishops. Pope Pius VI and many French Catholics objected to this since it denied the authority of the Pope over the French Church. In October, thirty bishops wrote a declaration denouncing the law, further fuelling opposition.
When clergy were required to swear loyalty to the Civil Constitution in November 1790, it split the church between the 24% who complied, and the majority who refused. This stiffened popular resistance against state interference, especially in traditionally Catholic areas such as Normandy, Brittany and the Vendée, where only a few priests took the oath and the civilian population turned against the revolution. The result was state-led persecution of "Refractory clergy", many of whom were forced into exile, deported, or executed.
Political divisions
The period from October 1789 to spring 1791 is usually seen as one of relative tranquility, when some of the most important legislative reforms were enacted. However, conflict over the source of legitimate authority was more apparent in the provinces, where officers of the Ancien Régime had been swept away, but not yet replaced by new structures. This was less obvious in Paris, since the National Guard made it the best policed city in Europe, but disorder in the provinces inevitably affected members of the Assembly.
Centrists led by Sieyès, Lafayette, Mirabeau and Bailly created a majority by forging consensus with monarchiens like Mounier, and independents including Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth. At one end of the political spectrum, reactionaries like Cazalès and Maury denounced the Revolution in all its forms, with radicals like Maximilien Robespierre at the other. He and Jean-Paul Marat opposed the criteria for "active citizens", gaining them substantial support among the Parisian proletariat, many of whom had been disenfranchised by the measure.
On 14 July 1790, celebrations were held throughout France commemorating the fall of the Bastille, with participants swearing an oath of fidelity to "the nation, the law and the king." The Fête de la Fédération in Paris was attended by the royal family, with Talleyrand performing a mass. Despite this show of unity, the Assembly was increasingly divided, while external players like the Paris Commune and National Guard competed for power. One of the most significant was the Jacobin club; originally a forum for general debate, by August 1790 it had over 150 members, split into different factions.
The Assembly continued to develop new institutions; in September 1790, the regional Parlements were abolished and their legal functions replaced by a new independent judiciary, with jury trials for criminal cases. However, moderate deputies were uneasy at popular demands for universal suffrage, labour unions and cheap bread, and over the winter of 1790 and 1791, they passed a series of measures intended to disarm popular radicalism. These included exclusion of poorer citizens from the National Guard, limits on use of petitions and posters, and the June 1791 Le Chapelier Law suppressing trade guilds and any form of worker organisation.
The traditional force for preserving law and order was the army, which was increasingly divided between officers, who largely came from the nobility, and ordinary soldiers. In August 1790, the loyalist General Bouillé suppressed a serious mutiny at Nancy; although congratulated by the Assembly, he was criticised by Jacobin radicals for the severity of his actions. Growing disorder meant many professional officers either left or became émigrés, further destabilising the institution.
Varennes and after
Held in the Tuileries Palace under virtual house arrest, Louis XVI was urged by his brother and wife to re-assert his independence by taking refuge with Bouillé, who was based at Montmédy with 10,000 soldiers considered loyal to the Crown. The royal family left the palace in disguise on the night of 20 June 1791; late the next day, Louis was recognised as he passed through Varennes, arrested and taken back to Paris. The attempted escape had a profound impact on public opinion; since it was clear Louis had been seeking refuge in Austria, the Assembly now demanded oaths of loyalty to the regime, and began preparing for war, while fear of 'spies and traitors' became pervasive.
Despite calls to replace the monarchy with a republic, Louis retained his position but was generally regarded with acute suspicion and forced to swear allegiance to the constitution. A new decree stated retracting this oath, making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would be considered abdication. However, radicals led by Jacques Pierre Brissot prepared a petition demanding his deposition, and on 17 July, an immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign. Led by Lafayette, the National Guard was ordered to "preserve public order" and responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people.
The massacre badly damaged Lafayette's reputation: the authorities responded by closing radical clubs and newspapers, while their leaders went into exile or hiding, including Marat. On 27 August, Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Declaration of Pillnitz declaring their support for Louis and hinting at an invasion of France on his behalf. In reality, the meeting between Leopold and Frederick was primarily to discuss the Partitions of Poland; the Declaration was intended to satisfy Comte d'Artois and other French émigrés but the threat rallied popular support behind the regime.
Based on a motion proposed by Robespierre, existing deputies were barred from elections held in early September for the French Legislative Assembly. Although Robespierre himself was one of those excluded, his support in the clubs gave him a political power base not available to Lafayette and Bailly, who resigned respectively as head of the National Guard and the Paris Commune. The new laws were gathered together in the 1791 Constitution, and submitted to Louis XVI, who pledged to defend it "from enemies at home and abroad". On 30 September, the Constituent Assembly was dissolved, and the Legislative Assembly convened the next day.
Fall of the monarchy
The Legislative Assembly is often dismissed by historians as an ineffective body, compromised by divisions over the role of the monarchy, an issue exacerbated when Louis attempted to prevent or reverse limitations on his powers. At the same time, restricting the vote to those who paid a minimal amount of tax disenfranchised a significant proportion of the 6 million Frenchmen over 25, while only 10% of those able to vote actually did so. Finally, poor harvests and rising food prices led to unrest among the urban class known as Sans-culottes, who saw the new regime as failing to meet their demands for bread and work.
This meant the new constitution was opposed by significant elements inside and outside the Assembly, itself split into three main groups. 264 members were affiliated with Barnave's Feuillants, constitutional monarchists who considered the Revolution had gone far enough, while another 136 were Jacobin leftists who supported a republic, led by Brissot and usually referred to as Brissotins. The remaining 345 belonged to La Plaine, a centrist faction who switched votes depending on the issue, but many of whom shared doubts as to whether Louis was committed to the Revolution. After he officially accepted the new Constitution, one recorded response was "Vive le roi, s'il est de bon foi!", or "Long live the king – if he keeps his word".
Although a minority in the Assembly, control of key committees allowed the Brissotins to provoke Louis into using his veto. They first managed to pass decrees confiscating émigré property and threatening them with the death penalty. This was followed by measures against non-juring priests, whose opposition to the Civil Constitution led to a state of near civil war in southern France, which Barnave tried to defuse by relaxing the more punitive provisions. On 29 November, the Assembly approved a decree giving refractory clergy eight days to comply, or face charges of 'conspiracy against the nation', an act opposed even by Robespierre. When Louis vetoed both, his opponents were able to portray him as opposed to reform in general.
Brissot accompanied this with a campaign for war against Austria and Prussia, often interpreted as a mixture of calculation and idealism. While exploiting popular anti-Austrianism, it reflected a genuine belief in exporting the values of political liberty and popular sovereignty. Simultaneously, conservatives headed by Marie Antoinette also favoured war, seeing it as a way to regain control of the military, and restore royal authority. In December 1791, Louis made a speech in the Assembly giving foreign powers a month to disband the émigrés or face war, an act greeted with enthusiasm by supporters, but suspicion from opponents.
Barnave's inability to build a consensus in the Assembly resulted in the appointment of a new government, chiefly composed of Brissotins. On 20 April 1792, the French Revolutionary Wars began when French armies attacked Austrian and Prussian forces along their borders, before suffering a series of disastrous defeats. In an effort to mobilise popular support, the government ordered non-juring priests to swear the oath or be deported, dissolved the Constitutional Guard and replaced it with 20,000 fédérés; Louis agreed to disband the Guard, but vetoed the other two proposals, while Lafayette called on the Assembly to suppress the clubs.
Popular anger increased when details of the Brunswick Manifesto reached Paris on 1 August, threatening 'unforgettable vengeance' should any oppose the Allies in seeking to restore the power of the monarchy. On the morning of 10 August, a combined force of the Paris National Guard and provincial fédérés attacked the Tuileries Palace, killing many of the Swiss Guards protecting it. Louis and his family took refuge with the Assembly and shortly after 11:00 am, the deputies present voted to 'temporarily relieve the king', effectively suspending the monarchy.
First Republic (1792–1795)
Proclamation of the First Republic
In late August, elections were held for the National Convention. New restrictions on the franchise meant the number of votes cast fell to 3.3 million, versus 4 million in 1791, while intimidation was widespread. The Brissotins now split between moderate Girondins led by Brissot, and radical Montagnards, headed by Robespierre, Georges Danton and Jean-Paul Marat. While loyalties constantly shifted, voting patterns suggest roughly 160 of the 749 deputies can generally be categorised as Girondists, with another 200 Montagnards. The remainder were part of a centrist faction known as La Plaine, headed by Bertrand Barère, Pierre Joseph Cambon and Lazare Carnot.
In the September Massacres, between 1,100 and 1,600 prisoners held in Parisian jails were summarily executed, the vast majority being common criminals. A response to the capture of Longwy and Verdun by Prussia, the perpetrators were largely National Guard members and fédérés on their way to the front. While responsibility is still disputed, even moderates expressed sympathy for the action, which soon spread to the provinces. One suggestion is that the killings stemmed from concern over growing lawlessness, rather than political ideology.
On 20 September, the French defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy, in what was the first major victory by the army of France during the Revolutionary Wars. Emboldened by this, on 22 September the Convention replaced the monarchy with the French First Republic (1792–1804) and introduced a new calendar, with 1792 becoming "Year One". The next few months were taken up with the trial of Citoyen Louis Capet, formerly Louis XVI. While evenly divided on the question of his guilt, members of the convention were increasingly influenced by radicals based within the Jacobin clubs and Paris Commune. The Brunswick Manifesto made it easy to portray Louis as a threat to the Revolution, especially when extracts from his personal correspondence showed him conspiring with Royalist exiles.
On 17 January 1793, Louis was sentenced to death for "conspiracy against public liberty and general safety". 361 deputies were in favour, 288 against, while another 72 voted to execute him, subject to delaying conditions. The sentence was carried out on 21 January on the Place de la Révolution, now the Place de la Concorde. Conservatives across Europe now called for the destruction of revolutionary France, and in February the Convention responded by declaring war on Britain and the Dutch Republic. Together with Austria and Prussia, these two countries were later joined by Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Tuscany in the War of the First Coalition (1792–1797).
Political crisis and fall of the Girondins
The Girondins hoped war would unite the people behind the government and provide an excuse for rising prices and food shortages, but found themselves the target of popular anger. Many left for the provinces. The first conscription measure or levée en masse on 24 February sparked riots in Paris and other regional centres. Already unsettled by changes imposed on the church, in March the traditionally conservative and royalist Vendée rose in revolt. On 18th, Dumouriez was defeated at Neerwinden and defected to the Austrians. Uprisings followed in Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulon, Marseilles and Caen. The Republic seemed on the verge of collapse.
The crisis led to the creation on 6 April 1793 of the Committee of Public Safety, an executive committee accountable to the convention. The Girondins made a fatal political error by indicting Marat before the Revolutionary Tribunal for allegedly directing the September massacres; he was quickly acquitted, further isolating the Girondins from the sans-culottes. When Jacques Hébert called for a popular revolt against the "henchmen of Louis Capet" on 24 May, he was arrested by the Commission of Twelve, a Girondin-dominated tribunal set up to expose 'plots'. In response to protests by the Commune, the Commission warned "if by your incessant rebellions something befalls the representatives of the nation, Paris will be obliterated".
Growing discontent allowed the clubs to mobilise against the Girondins. Backed by the Commune and elements of the National Guard, on 31 May they attempted to seize power in a coup. Although the coup failed, on 2 June the convention was surrounded by a crowd of up to 80,000, demanding cheap bread, unemployment pay and political reforms, including restriction of the vote to the sans-culottes, and the right to remove deputies at will. Ten members of the commission and another twenty-nine members of the Girondin faction were arrested, and on 10 June, the Montagnards took over the Committee of Public Safety.
Meanwhile, a committee led by Robespierre's close ally Saint-Just was tasked with preparing a new Constitution. Completed in only eight days, it was ratified by the convention on 24 June, and contained radical reforms, including universal male suffrage. However, normal legal processes were suspended following the assassination of Marat on 13 July by the Girondist Charlotte Corday, which the Committee of Public Safety used as an excuse to take control. The 1793 Constitution was suspended indefinitely in October.
Key areas of focus for the new government included creating a new state ideology, economic regulation and winning the war. They were helped by divisions among their internal opponents; while areas like the Vendée and Brittany wanted to restore the monarchy, most supported the Republic but opposed the regime in Paris. On 17 August, the Convention voted a second levée en masse; despite initial problems in equipping and supplying such large numbers, by mid-October Republican forces had re-taken Lyon, Marseilles and Bordeaux, while defeating Coalition armies at Hondschoote and Wattignies. The new class of military leaders included a young colonel named Napoleon Bonaparte, who was appointed commander of artillery at the siege of Toulon thanks to his friendship with Augustin Robespierre. His success in that role resulted in promotion to the Army of Italy in April 1794, and the beginning of his rise to military and political power.
Reign of Terror
Although intended to bolster revolutionary fervour, the Reign of Terror rapidly degenerated into the settlement of personal grievances. At the end of July, the Convention set price controls on a wide range of goods, with the death penalty for hoarders. On 9 September, 'revolutionary groups' were established to enforce these controls, while the Law of Suspects on 17th approved the arrest of suspected "enemies of freedom". This initiated what has become known as the "Terror". From September 1793 to July 1794, around 300,000 were arrested, with some 16,600 people executed on charges of counter-revolutionary activity, while another 40,000 may have been summarily executed, or died awaiting trial.
Price controls made farmers reluctant to sell their produce in Parisian markets, and by early September, the city was suffering acute food shortages. At the same time, the war increased public debt, which the Assembly tried to finance by selling confiscated property. However, few would buy assets that might be repossessed by their former owners, a concern that could only be achieved by military victory. This meant the financial position worsened as threats to the Republic increased, while printing assignats to deal with the deficit further increased inflation.
On 10 October, the Convention recognised the Committee of Public Safety as the supreme Revolutionary Government, and suspended the Constitution until peace was achieved. In mid-October, Marie Antoinette was convicted of a long list of crimes, and guillotined; two weeks later, the Girondist leaders arrested in June were also executed, along with Philippe Égalité. The "Terror" was not confined to Paris, with over 2,000 killed in Lyons after its recapture.
At Cholet on 17 October, the Republican army won a decisive victory over the Vendée rebels, and the survivors escaped into Brittany. Another defeat at Le Mans on 23 December ended the rebellion as a major threat, although the insurgency continued until 1796. The extent of the repression that followed has been debated by French historians since the mid-19th century. Between November 1793 to February 1794, over 4,000 were drowned in the Loire at Nantes under the supervision of Jean-Baptiste Carrier. Historian Reynald Secher claims that as many as 117,000 died between 1793 and 1796. Although those numbers have been challenged, François Furet concluded it "not only revealed massacre and destruction on an unprecedented scale, but a zeal so violent that it has bestowed as its legacy much of the region's identity."
At the height of the Terror, not even its supporters were immune from suspicion, leading to divisions within the Montagnard faction between radical Hébertists and moderates led by Danton. Robespierre saw their dispute as de-stabilising the regime, and, as a deist, objected to the anti-religious policies advocated by the atheist Hébert, who was arrested and executed on 24 March with 19 of his colleagues, including Carrier. To retain the loyalty of the remaining Hébertists, Danton was arrested and executed on 5 April with Camille Desmoulins, after a show trial that arguably did more damage to Robespierre than any other act in this period.
The Law of 22 Prairial (10 June) denied "enemies of the people" the right to defend themselves. Those arrested in the provinces were now sent to Paris for judgement; from March to July, executions in Paris increased from five to twenty-six a day. Many Jacobins ridiculed the festival of the Cult of the Supreme Being on 8 June, a lavish and expensive ceremony led by Robespierre, who was also accused of circulating claims he was a second Messiah. Relaxation of price controls and rampant inflation caused increasing unrest among the sans-culottes, but the improved military situation reduced fears the Republic was in danger. Fearing their own survival depended on Robespierre's removal, on 29 June three members of the Committee of Public Safety openly accused him of being a dictator.
Robespierre responded by refusing to attend Committee meetings, allowing his opponents to build a coalition against him. In a speech made to the convention on 26 July, he claimed certain members were conspiring against the Republic, an almost certain death sentence if confirmed. When he refused to provide names, the session broke up in confusion. That evening he repeated these claims at the Jacobins club, where it was greeted with demands for execution of the 'traitors'. Fearing the consequences if they did not act first, his opponents attacked Robespierre and his allies in the Convention next day. When Robespierre attempted to speak, his voice failed, one deputy crying "The blood of Danton chokes him!"
After the Convention authorised his arrest, he and his supporters took refuge in the Hotel de Ville, which was defended by elements of the National Guard. Other units loyal to the Convention stormed the building that evening and detained Robespierre, who severely injured himself attempting suicide. He was executed on 28 July with 19 colleagues, including Saint-Just and Georges Couthon, followed by 83 members of the Commune. The Law of 22 Prairial was repealed, any surviving Girondists reinstated as deputies, and the Jacobin Club was closed and banned.
There are various interpretations of the Terror and the violence with which it was conducted. François Furet argues that the intense ideological commitment of the revolutionaries and their utopian goals required the extermination of any opposition. A middle position suggests violence was not inevitable but the product of a series of complex internal events, exacerbated by war.
Thermidorian reaction
The bloodshed did not end with the death of Robespierre; Southern France saw a wave of revenge killings, directed against alleged Jacobins, Republican officials and Protestants. Although the victors of Thermidor asserted control over the Commune by executing their leaders, some of those closely involved in the "Terror" retained their positions. They included Paul Barras, later chief executive of the French Directory, and Joseph Fouché, director of the killings in Lyon who served as Minister of Police under the Directory, the Consulate and Empire. Despite his links to Augustin Robespierre, military success in Italy meant Napoleon Bonaparte escaped censure.
The December 1794 Treaty of La Jaunaye ended the Chouannerie in western France by allowing freedom of worship and the return of non-juring priests. This was accompanied by military success; in January 1795, French forces helped the Dutch Patriots set up the Batavian Republic, securing their northern border. The war with Prussia was concluded in favour of France by the Peace of Basel in April 1795, while Spain made peace shortly thereafter.
However, the Republic still faced a crisis at home. Food shortages arising from a poor 1794 harvest were exacerbated in Northern France by the need to supply the army in Flanders, while the winter was the worst since 1709. By April 1795, people were starving and the assignat was worth only 8% of its face value; in desperation, the Parisian poor rose again. They were quickly dispersed and the main impact was another round of arrests, while Jacobin prisoners in Lyon were summarily executed.
A committee drafted a new constitution, approved by plebiscite on 23 September 1795 and put into place on 27th. Largely designed by Pierre Daunou and Boissy d'Anglas, it established a bicameral legislature, intended to slow down the legislative process, ending the wild swings of policy under the previous unicameral systems. The Council of 500 was responsible for drafting legislation, which was reviewed and approved by the Council of Ancients, an upper house containing 250 men over the age of 40. Executive power was in the hands of five Directors, selected by the Council of Ancients from a list provided by the lower house, with a five-year mandate.
Deputies were chosen by indirect election, a total franchise of around 5 million voting in primaries for 30,000 electors, or 0.6% of the population. Since they were also subject to stringent property qualification, it guaranteed the return of conservative or moderate deputies. In addition, rather than dissolving the previous legislature as in 1791 and 1792, the so-called 'law of two-thirds' ruled only 150 new deputies would be elected each year. The remaining 600 Conventionnels kept their seats, a move intended to ensure stability.
The Directory (1795–1799)
Jacobin sympathisers viewed the Directory as a betrayal of the Revolution, while Bonapartists later justified Napoleon's coup by emphasising its corruption. The regime also faced internal unrest, a weak economy, and an expensive war, while the Council of 500 could block legislation at will. Since the Directors had no power to call new elections, the only way to break a deadlock was rule by decree or use force. As a result, the Directory was characterised by "chronic violence, ambivalent forms of justice, and repeated recourse to heavy-handed repression."
Retention of the Conventionnels ensured the Thermidorians held a majority in the legislature and three of the five Directors, but they were increasingly challenged by the right. On 5 October, Convention troops led by Napoleon put down a royalist rising in Paris; when the first elections were held two weeks later, over 100 of the 150 new deputies were royalists of some sort. The power of the Parisian sans-culottes had been broken by the suppression of the May 1795 revolt; relieved of pressure from below, the Jacobin clubs became supporters of the Directory, largely to prevent restoration of the monarchy.
Removal of price controls and a collapse in the value of the assignat led to inflation and soaring food prices. By April 1796, over 500,000 Parisians were unemployed, resulting in the May insurrection known as the Conspiracy of the Equals. Led by the revolutionary François-Noël Babeuf, their demands included immediate implementation of the 1793 Constitution, and a more equitable distribution of wealth. Despite support from sections of the military, the revolt was easily crushed, while Babeuf and other leaders were executed. Nevertheless, by 1799 the economy had been stabilised, and important reforms made allowing steady expansion of French industry. Many of these remained in place for much of the 19th century.
Prior to 1797, three of the five Directors were firmly Republican; Barras, Révellière-Lépeaux and Jean-François Rewbell, as were around 40% of the legislature. The same percentage were broadly centrist or unaffiliated, along with two Directors, Étienne-François Letourneur and Lazare Carnot. Although only 20% were committed Royalists, many centrists supported the restoration of the exiled Louis XVIII of France in the belief this would bring peace. The elections of May 1797 resulted in significant gains for the right, with Royalists Jean-Charles Pichegru elected President of the Council of 500, and Barthélemy appointed a Director.
With Royalists apparently on the verge of power, Republicans attempted a pre-emptive coup on 4 September. Using troops from Napoleon's Army of Italy under Pierre Augereau, the Council of 500 was forced to approve the arrest of Barthélemy, Pichegru and Carnot. The elections were annulled, sixty-three leading Royalists deported to French Guiana, and new laws passed against émigrés, Royalists and ultra-Jacobins. The removal of his conservative opponents opened the way for direct conflict between Barras, and those on the left.
Fighting continued despite general war weariness, and the 1798 elections saw a resurgence in Jacobin strength. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in July 1798 confirmed European fears of French expansionism, and the War of the Second Coalition began in November. Without a majority in the legislature, the Directors relied on the army to enforce decrees, and extract revenue from conquered territories. Generals like Napoleon and Joubert were now central to the political process, while both the army and Directory became notorious for their corruption.
It has been suggested the Directory collapsed because by 1799, many 'preferred the uncertainties of authoritarian rule to the continuing ambiguities of parliamentary politics'. The architect of its end was Sieyès, who when asked what he had done during the Terror allegedly answered "I survived". Nominated to the Directory, his first action was to remove Barras, with the help of allies including Talleyrand, and Napoleon's brother Lucien, President of the Council of 500. On 9 November 1799, the Coup of 18 Brumaire replaced the five Directors with the French Consulate, which consisted of three members, Napoleon, Sieyès, and Roger Ducos. Most historians consider this the end point of the French Revolution.
Role of ideology
The role of ideology in the Revolution is controversial with Jonathan Israel stating that the "radical Enlightenment" was the primary driving force of the Revolution. Cobban, however, argues "[t]he actions of the revolutionaries were most often prescribed by the need to find practical solutions to immediate problems, using the resources at hand, not by pre-conceived theories."
The identification of ideologies is complicated by the profusion of revolutionary clubs, factions and publications, absence of formal political parties, and individual flexibility in the face of changing circumstances. In addition, although the Declaration of the Rights of Man was a fundamental document for all revolutionary factions, its interpretation varied widely.
While all revolutionaries professed their devotion to liberty in principle, "it appeared to mean whatever those in power wanted." For example, the liberties specified in the Rights of Man were limited by law when they might "cause harm to others, or be abused". Prior to 1792, Jacobins and others frequently opposed press restrictions on the grounds these violated a basic right. However, the radical National Convention passed laws in September 1793 and July 1794 imposing the death penalty for offences such as "disparaging the National Convention", and "misleading public opinion."
While revolutionaries also endorsed the principle of equality, few advocated equality of wealth since property was also viewed as a right. The National Assembly opposed equal political rights for women, while the abolition of slavery in the colonies was delayed until February 1794 because it conflicted with the property rights of slave owners, and many feared it would disrupt trade. Political equality for male citizens was another divisive issue, with the 1791 constitution limiting the right to vote and stand for office to males over 25 who met a property qualification, so-called "active citizens". This restriction was opposed by many activists, including Robespierre, the Jacobins, and Cordeliers.
The principle that sovereignty resided in the nation was a key concept of the Revolution. However, Israel argues this obscures ideological differences over whether the will of the nation was best expressed through representative assemblies and constitutions, or direct action by revolutionary crowds, and popular assemblies such as the sections of the Paris commune. Many considered constitutional monarchy as incompatible with the principle of popular sovereignty, but prior to 1792, there was a strong bloc with an ideological commitment to such a system, based on the writings of Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu and Voltaire.
Israel argues the nationalisation of church property and the establishment of the Constitutional Church reflected an ideological commitment to secularism, and a determination to undermine a bastion of old regime privilege. While Cobban agrees the Constitutional Church was motivated by ideology, he sees its origins in the anti-clericalism of Voltaire and other Enlightenment figures.
Jacobins were hostile to formal political parties and factions which they saw as a threat to national unity and the general will, with "political virtue" and "love of country" key elements of their ideology. They viewed the ideal revolutionary as selfless, sincere, free of political ambition, and devoted to the nation. The disputes leading to the departure first of the Feuillants, then later the Girondists, were conducted in terms of the relative political virtue and patriotism of the disputants. In December 1793, all members of the Jacobin clubs were subject to a "purifying scrutiny", to determine whether they were "men of virtue".
French Revolutionary Wars
The Revolution initiated a series of conflicts that began in 1792 and ended only with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815. In its early stages, this seemed unlikely; the 1791 Constitution specifically disavowed "war for the purpose of conquest", and although traditional tensions between France and Austria re-emerged in the 1780s, Emperor Joseph II cautiously welcomed the reforms. Austria was at war with the Ottomans, as were the Russians, while both were negotiating with Prussia over partitioning Poland. Most importantly, Britain preferred peace, and as Emperor Leopold II stated after the Declaration of Pillnitz, "without England, there is no case".
In late 1791, factions within the Assembly came to see war as a way to unite the country and secure the Revolution by eliminating hostile forces on its borders and establishing its "natural frontiers". France declared war on Austria in April 1792 and issued the first conscription orders, with recruits serving for twelve months. By the time peace finally came in 1815, the conflict had involved every major European power as well as the United States, redrawn the map of Europe and expanded into the Americas, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean.
From 1701 to 1801, the population of Europe grew from 118 to 187 million; combined with new mass production techniques, this allowed belligerents to support large armies, requiring the mobilisation of national resources. It was a different kind of war, fought by nations rather than kings, intended to destroy their opponents' ability to resist, but also to implement deep-ranging social change. While all wars are political to some degree, this period was remarkable for the emphasis placed on reshaping boundaries and the creation of entirely new European states.
In April 1792, French armies invaded the Austrian Netherlands but suffered a series of setbacks before victory over an Austrian-Prussian army at Valmy in September. After defeating a second Austrian army at Jemappes on 6 November, they occupied the Netherlands, areas of the Rhineland, Nice and Savoy. Emboldened by this success, in February 1793 France declared war on the Dutch Republic, Spain and Britain, beginning the War of the First Coalition. However, the expiration of the 12-month term for the 1792 recruits forced the French to relinquish their conquests. In August, new conscription measures were passed and by May 1794 the French army had between 750,000 and 800,000 men. Despite high rates of desertion, this was large enough to manage multiple internal and external threats; for comparison, the combined Prussian-Austrian army was less than 90,000.
By February 1795, France had annexed the Austrian Netherlands, established their frontier on the left bank of the Rhine and replaced the Dutch Republic with the Batavian Republic, a satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the anti-French coalition; Prussia made peace in April 1795, followed soon after by Spain, leaving Britain and Austria as the only major powers still in the war. In October 1797, a series of defeats by Bonaparte in Italy led Austria to agree to the Treaty of Campo Formio, in which they formally ceded the Netherlands and recognised the Cisalpine Republic.
Fighting continued for two reasons; first, French state finances had come to rely on indemnities levied on their defeated opponents. Second, armies were primarily loyal to their generals, for whom the wealth achieved by victory and the status it conferred became objectives in themselves. Leading soldiers like Hoche, Pichegru and Carnot wielded significant political influence and often set policy; Campo Formio was approved by Bonaparte, not the Directory, which strongly objected to terms it considered too lenient.
Despite these concerns, the Directory never developed a realistic peace programme, fearing the destabilising effects of peace and the consequent demobilisation of hundreds of thousands of young men. As long as the generals and their armies stayed away from Paris, they were happy to allow them to continue fighting, a key factor behind sanctioning Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt. This resulted in aggressive and opportunistic policies, leading to the War of the Second Coalition in November 1798.
Slavery and the colonies
In 1789, the most populous French colonies were Saint-Domingue (today Haiti), Martinique, Guadeloupe, the Île Bourbon (Réunion) and the Île de la France. These colonies produced commodities such as sugar, coffee and cotton for exclusive export to France. There were about 700,000 slaves in the colonies, of which about 500,000 were in Saint-Domingue. Colonial products accounted for about a third of France's exports.
In February 1788, the Société des Amis des Noirs (Society of the Friends of Blacks) was formed in France with the aim of abolishing slavery in the empire. In August 1789, colonial slave owners and merchants formed the rival Club de Massiac to represent their interests. When the Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August 1789, delegates representing the colonial landowners successfully argued that the principles should not apply in the colonies as they would bring economic ruin and disrupt trade. Colonial landowners also gained control of the Colonial Committee of the Assembly from where they exerted a powerful influence against abolition.
People of colour also faced social and legal discrimination in mainland France and its colonies, including a bar on their access to professions such as law, medicine and pharmacy. In 1789–90, a delegation of free coloureds, led by Vincent Ogé and Julien Raimond, unsuccessfully lobbied the Assembly to end discrimination against free coloureds. Ogé left for Saint-Domingue where an uprising against white landowners broke out in October 1790. The revolt failed and Ogé was killed.
In May 1791, the National Assembly granted full political rights to coloureds born of two free parents, but left the rights of freed slaves to be determined by the colonial assemblies. The assemblies refused to implement the decree and fighting broke out between the coloured population of Saint-Domingue and white colonists, each side recruiting slaves to their forces. A major slave revolt followed in August.
In March 1792, the Legislative Assembly responded to the revolt by granting citizenship to all free coloureds and sending two commissioners, Sonthonax and Polvérel, and 6,000 troops to Saint-Domingue to enforce the decree. On arrival in September, the commissioners announced that slavery would remain in force. Over 72,000 slaves were still in revolt, mostly in the north.
Brissot and his supporters envisaged an eventual abolition of slavery but their immediate concern was securing trade and the support of merchants for the revolutionary wars. After Brissot's fall, the new constitution of June 1793 included a new Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen but excluded the colonies from its provisions. In any event, the new constitution was suspended until France was at peace.
In early 1793, royalist planters from Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue formed an alliance with Britain. The Spanish supported insurgent slaves, led by Jean-François Papillon and Georges Biassou, in the north of Saint-Domingue. White planters loyal to the republic sent representatives to Paris to convince the Jacobin controlled Convention that those calling for the abolition of slavery were British agents and supporters of Brissot, hoping to disrupt trade.
In June, the commissioners in Saint-Domingue freed 10,000 slaves fighting for the republic. As the royalists and their British and Spanish supporters were also offering freedom for slaves willing to fight for their cause, the commissioners outbid them by abolishing slavery in the north in August, and throughout the colony in October. Representatives were sent to Paris to gain the approval of the convention for the decision.
The Convention voted for the abolition of slavery in the colonies on 4 February 1794 and decreed that all residents of the colonies had the full rights of French citizens irrespective of colour. An army of 1,000 sans-culottes led by Victor Hugues was sent to Guadeloupe to expel the British and enforce the decree. The army recruited former slaves and eventually numbered 11,000, capturing Guadeloupe and other smaller islands. Abolition was also proclaimed on Guyane. Martinique remained under British occupation, while colonial landowners in Réunion and the Îles Mascareignes repulsed the republicans. Black armies drove the Spanish out of Saint-Domingue in 1795, and the last of the British withdrew in 1798.
In republican controlled areas from 1793 to 1799, freed slaves were required to work on their former plantations or for their former masters if they were in domestic service. They were paid a wage and gained property rights. Black and coloured generals were effectively in control of large areas of Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue, including Toussaint Louverture in the north of Saint-Domingue, and André Rigaud in the south. Historian Fréderic Régent states that the restrictions on the freedom of employment and movement of former slaves meant that, "only whites, persons of color already freed before the decree, and former slaves in the army or on warships really benefited from general emancipation."
Media and symbolism
Newspapers
Newspapers and pamphlets played a central role in stimulating and defining the Revolution. Prior to 1789, there have been a small number of heavily censored newspapers that needed a royal licence to operate, but the Estates-General created an enormous demand for news, and over 130 newspapers appeared by the end of the year. Among the most significant were Marat's L'Ami du peuple and Elysée Loustallot's Revolutions de Paris. Over the next decade, more than 2,000 newspapers were founded, 500 in Paris alone. Most lasted only a matter of weeks but they became the main communication medium, combined with the very large pamphlet literature.
Newspapers were read aloud in taverns and clubs, and circulated hand to hand. There was a widespread assumption that writing was a vocation, not a business, and the role of the press was the advancement of civic republicanism. By 1793 the radicals were most active but initially the royalists flooded the country with their publication the "L'Ami du Roi" (Friends of the King) until they were suppressed.
Revolutionary symbols
To illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbols. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instil in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.
La Marseillaise
"La Marseillaise" (French pronunciation: [la maʁsɛjɛːz]) became the national anthem of France. The song was written and composed in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, and was originally titled "Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin". The French National Convention adopted it as the First Republic's anthem in 1795. It acquired its nickname after being sung in Paris by volunteers from Marseille marching on the capital.
The song is the first example of the "European march" anthemic style, while the evocative melody and lyrics led to its widespread use as a song of revolution and incorporation into many pieces of classical and popular music. De Lisle was instructed to 'produce a hymn which conveys to the soul of the people the enthusiasm which it (the music) suggests.'
Guillotine
The guillotine remains "the principal symbol of the Terror in the French Revolution." Invented by a physician during the Revolution as a quicker, more efficient and more distinctive form of execution, the guillotine became a part of popular culture and historic memory. It was celebrated on the left as the people's avenger, for example in the revolutionary song La guillotine permanente, and cursed as the symbol of the Terror by the right.
Its operation became a popular entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators. Vendors sold programmes listing the names of those scheduled to die. Many people came day after day and vied for the best locations from which to observe the proceedings; knitting women (tricoteuses) formed a cadre of hardcore regulars, inciting the crowd. Parents often brought their children. By the end of the Terror, the crowds had thinned drastically. Repetition had staled even this most grisly of entertainments, and audiences grew bored.
Cockade, tricolore, and liberty cap
Cockades were widely worn by revolutionaries beginning in 1789. They now pinned the blue-and-red cockade of Paris onto the white cockade of the Ancien Régime. Camille Desmoulins asked his followers to wear green cockades on 12 July 1789. The Paris militia, formed on 13 July, adopted a blue and red cockade. Blue and red are the traditional colours of Paris, and they are used on the city's coat of arms. Cockades with various colour schemes were used during the storming of the Bastille on 14 July.
The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. It reflects Roman republicanism and liberty, alluding to the Roman ritual of manumission, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty.
Role of women
Deprived of political rights by the Ancien Régime, the Revolution initially allowed women to participate, although only to a limited degree. Activists included Girondists like Olympe de Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, and Charlotte Corday, killer of Marat. Others like Théroigne de Méricourt, Pauline Léon and the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women supported the Jacobins, staged demonstrations in the National Assembly and took part in the October 1789 March to Versailles. Despite this, the 1791 and 1793 constitutions denied them political rights and democratic citizenship.
In 1793, the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women campaigned for strict price controls on bread, and a law that would compel all women to wear the tricolour cockade. Although both demands were successful, in October the male-dominated Jacobins who then controlled the government denounced the Society as dangerous rabble-rousers and made all women's clubs and associations illegal. Organised women were permanently shut out of the French Revolution after 30 October 1793.
At the same time, especially in the provinces, women played a prominent role in resisting social changes introduced by the Revolution. This was particularly so in terms of the reduced role of the Catholic Church; for those living in rural areas, closing of the churches meant a loss of normality. This sparked a counter-revolutionary movement led by women; while supporting other political and social changes, they opposed the dissolution of the Catholic Church and revolutionary cults like the Cult of the Supreme Being. Olwen Hufton argues some wanted to protect the Church from heretical changes enforced by revolutionaries, viewing themselves as "defenders of faith".
Prominent women
Olympe de Gouges was an author whose publications emphasised that while women and men were different, this should not prevent equality under the law. In her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen she insisted women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. Along with other Girondists, she was executed in November 1793 during the Terror.
Madame Roland, also known as Manon or Marie Roland, was another important female activist whose political focus was not specifically women but other aspects of the government. A Girondist, her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. She too was executed in November 1793.
Economic policies
The Revolution abolished many economic constraints imposed by the Ancien Régime, including church tithes and feudal dues although tenants often paid higher rents and taxes. All church lands were nationalised, along with those owned by Royalist exiles, which were used to back paper currency known as assignats, and the feudal guild system eliminated. It also abolished the highly inefficient system of tax farming, whereby private individuals would collect taxes for a hefty fee. The government seized the foundations that had been set up (starting in the 13th century) to provide an annual stream of revenue for hospitals, poor relief, and education. The state sold the lands but typically local authorities did not replace the funding and so most of the nation's charitable and school systems were massively disrupted.
Between 1790 and 1796, industrial and agricultural output dropped, foreign trade plunged, and prices soared, forcing the government to finance expenditure by issuing ever increasing quantities assignats. When this resulted in escalating inflation, the response was to impose price controls and persecute private speculators and traders, creating a black market. Between 1789 and 1793, the annual deficit increased from 10% to 64% of gross national product, while annual inflation reached 3,500% after a poor harvest in 1794 and the removal of price controls. The assignats were withdrawn in 1796 but inflation continued until the introduction of the gold-based Franc germinal in 1803.
Impact
The French Revolution had a major impact on western history, by ending feudalism in France and creating a path for advances in individual freedoms throughout Europe. The revolution represented the most significant challenge to political absolutism up to that point in history and spread democratic ideals throughout Europe and ultimately the world. Its impact on French nationalism was profound, while also stimulating nationalist movements throughout Europe. Some modern historians argue the concept of the nation state was a direct consequence of the revolution. As such, the revolution is often seen as marking the start of modernity and the modern period.
France
The long-term impact on France was profound, shaping politics, society, religion and ideas, and polarising politics for more than a century. Historian François Aulard wrote:"From the social point of view, the Revolution consisted in the suppression of what was called the feudal system, in the emancipation of the individual, in greater division of landed property, the abolition of the privileges of noble birth, the establishment of equality, the simplification of life.... The French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity."The revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived. Hanson suggests the French underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by intrinsic human rights. After the collapse of the First French Empire in 1815, the French public lost many of the rights and privileges earned since the revolution, but remembered the participatory politics that characterised the period. According to Paul Hanson, "Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option."
The Revolution meant an end to arbitrary royal rule and held out the promise of rule by law under a constitutional order. Napoleon as emperor set up a constitutional system and the restored Bourbons were forced to retain one. After the abdication of Napoleon III in 1871, the French Third Republic was launched with a deep commitment to upholding the ideals of the Revolution. The Vichy regime (1940–1944), tried to undo the revolutionary heritage, but retained the republic. However, there were no efforts by the Bourbons, Vichy or any other government to restore the privileges that had been stripped away from the nobility in 1789. France permanently became a society of equals under the law.
Agriculture was transformed by the Revolution. With the breakup of large estates controlled by the Church and the nobility and worked by hired hands, rural France became more a land of small independent farms. Harvest taxes were ended, such as the tithe and seigneurial dues. Primogeniture was ended both for nobles and peasants, thereby weakening the family patriarch, and led to a fall in the birth rate since all children had a share in the family property. Cobban argues the Revolution bequeathed to the nation "a ruling class of landowners."
Economic historians are divided on the economic impact of the Revolution. One suggestion is the resulting fragmentation of agricultural holdings had a significant negative impact in the early years of 19th century, then became positive in the second half of the century because it facilitated the rise in human capital investments. Others argue the redistribution of land had an immediate positive impact on agricultural productivity, before the scale of these gains gradually declined over the course of the 19th century.
In the cities, entrepreneurship on a small scale flourished, as restrictive monopolies, privileges, barriers, rules, taxes and guilds gave way. However, the British blockade virtually ended overseas and colonial trade, hurting the cities and their supply chains. Overall, the Revolution did not greatly change the French business system, and probably helped freeze in place the horizons of the small business owner. The typical businessman owned a small store, mill or shop, with family help and a few paid employees; large-scale industry was less common than in other industrialising nations.
Europe outside France
Historians often see the impact of the Revolution as through the institutions and ideas exported by Napoleon. Economic historians Dan Bogart, Mauricio Drelichman, Oscar Gelderblom, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal describe Napoleon's codified law as the French Revolution's "most significant export." According to Daron Acemoglu, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson the French Revolution had long-term effects in Europe. They suggest that "areas that were occupied by the French and that underwent radical institutional reform experienced more rapid urbanization and economic growth, especially after 1850. There is no evidence of a negative effect of French invasion."
The Revolution sparked intense debate in Britain. The Revolution Controversy was a "pamphlet war" set off by the publication of A Discourse on the Love of Our Country, a speech given by Richard Price to the Revolution Society on 4 November 1789, supporting the French Revolution. Edmund Burke responded in November 1790 with his own pamphlet, Reflections on the Revolution in France, attacking the French Revolution as a threat to the aristocracy of all countries. William Coxe opposed Price's premise that one's country is principles and people, not the State itself.
Conversely, two seminal political pieces of political history were written in Price's favour, supporting the general right of the French people to replace their State. One of the first of these "pamphlets" into print was A Vindication of the Rights of Men by Mary Wollstonecraft . Wollstonecraft's title was echoed by Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, published a few months later. In 1792 Christopher Wyvill published Defence of Dr. Price and the Reformers of England, a plea for reform and moderation. This exchange of ideas has been described as "one of the great political debates in British history".
In Ireland, the effect was to transform what had been an attempt by Protestant settlers to gain some autonomy into a mass movement led by the Society of United Irishmen involving Catholics and Protestants. It stimulated the demand for further reform throughout Ireland, especially in Ulster. The upshot was a revolt in 1798, led by Wolfe Tone, that was crushed by Britain.
German reaction to the Revolution swung from favourable to antagonistic. At first it brought liberal and democratic ideas, the end of guilds, serfdom and the Jewish ghetto. It brought economic freedoms and agrarian and legal reform. Above all the antagonism helped stimulate and shape German nationalism.
France invaded Switzerland and turned it into the "Helvetic Republic" (1798–1803), a French puppet state. French interference with localism and traditions was deeply resented in Switzerland, although some reforms took hold and survived in the later period of restoration.
During the Revolutionary Wars, the French invaded and occupied the region now known as Belgium between 1794 and 1814. The new government enforced reforms, incorporating the region into France. Resistance was strong in every sector, as Belgian nationalism emerged to oppose French rule. The French legal system, however, was adopted, with its equal legal rights, and abolition of class distinctions.
The Kingdom of Denmark adopted liberalising reforms in line with those of the French Revolution. Reform was gradual and the regime itself carried out agrarian reforms that had the effect of weakening absolutism by creating a class of independent peasant freeholders. Much of the initiative came from well-organised liberals who directed political change in the first half of the 19th century.
The Constitution of Norway of 1814 was inspired by the French Revolution, and was considered to be one of the most liberal and democratic constitutions at the time.
North America
Initially, most people in the Province of Quebec were favourable toward the revolutionaries' aims. The Revolution took place against the background of an ongoing campaign for constitutional reform in the colony by Loyalist emigrants from the United States. Public opinion began to shift against the Revolution after the Flight to Varennes and further soured after the September Massacres and the subsequent execution of Louis XVI. French migration to the Canadas experienced a substantial decline during and after the Revolution. Only a limited number of artisans, professionals, and religious emigres were allowed to settle in the region during this period. Most emigres settled in Montreal or Quebec City. The influx of religious emigres also revitalised the local Catholic Church, with exiled priests establishing a number of parishes across the Canadas.
In the United States, the French Revolution deeply polarised American politics, and this polarisation led to the creation of the First Party System. In 1793, as war broke out in Europe, the Democratic-Republican Party led by former American minister to France Thomas Jefferson favored revolutionary France and pointed to the 1778 treaty that was still in effect. George Washington and his unanimous cabinet, including Jefferson, decided that the treaty did not bind the United States to enter the war. Washington proclaimed neutrality instead.
Historiography
The first writings on the French revolution were near contemporaneous with events and mainly divided along ideological lines. These included Edmund Burke's conservative critique Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and Thomas Paine's response Rights of Man (1791). From 1815, narrative histories dominated, often based on first-hand experience of the revolutionary years. By the mid-nineteenth century, more scholarly histories appeared, written by specialists and based on original documents and a more critical assessment of contemporary accounts.
Dupuy identifies three main strands in nineteenth century historiography of the Revolution. The first is represented by reactionary writers who rejected the revolutionary ideals of popular sovereignty, civil equality, and the promotion of rationality, progress and personal happiness over religious faith. The second stream is those writers who celebrated its democratic, and republican values. The third were liberals like Germaine de Staël and Guizot, who accepted the necessity of reforms establishing a constitution and the rights of man, but rejected state interference with private property and individual rights, even when supported by a democratic majority.
Jules Michelet was a leading 19th-century historian of the democratic republican strand, and Thiers, Mignet and Tocqueville were prominent in the liberal strand. Hippolyte Taine's Origins of Contemporary France (1875–1894) was modern in its use of departmental archives, but Dupuy sees him as reactionary, given his contempt for the crowd, and Revolutionary values.
The broad distinction between conservative, democratic-republican and liberal interpretations of the Revolution persisted in the 20th-century, although historiography became more nuanced, with greater attention to critical analysis of documentary evidence. Alphonse Aulard (1849–1928) was the first professional historian of the Revolution; he promoted graduate studies, scholarly editions, and learned journals. His major work, The French Revolution, a Political History, 1789–1804 (1905), was a democratic and republican interpretation of the Revolution.
Socio-economic analysis and a focus on the experiences of ordinary people dominated French studies of the Revolution from the 1930s. Georges Lefebvre elaborated a Marxist socio-economic analysis of the revolution with detailed studies of peasants, the rural panic of 1789, and the behaviour of revolutionary crowds. Albert Soboul, also writing in the Marxist-Republican tradition, published a major study of the sans-culottes in 1958.
Alfred Cobban challenged Jacobin-Marxist social and economic explanations of the revolution in two important works, The Myth of the French Revolution (1955) and Social Interpretation of the French Revolution (1964). He argued the Revolution was primarily a political conflict, which ended in a victory for conservative property owners, a result which retarded economic development.
In their 1965 work, La Revolution française, François Furet and Denis Richet also argued for the primacy of political decisions, contrasting the reformist period of 1789 to 1790 with the following interventions of the urban masses which led to radicalisation and an ungovernable situation.
From the 1990s, Western scholars largely abandoned Marxist interpretations of the revolution in terms of bourgeoisie-proletarian class struggle as anachronistic. However, no new explanatory model has gained widespread support. The historiography of the Revolution has expanded into areas such as cultural and regional histories, visual representations, transnational interpretations, and decolonisation.
See also
Age of Revolution
Bourgeois revolution
Cordeliers
Democracy in Europe
Glossary of the French Revolution
History of France
List of people associated with the French Revolution
List of political groups in the French Revolution
List of films set during the French Revolution and French Revolutionary Wars
Musée de la Révolution française
Paris in the 18th century
Timeline of the French Revolution
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
Museum of the French Revolution (French)
Primary source documents from The Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History Project (City University of New York).
Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History Journal, 2008.
French Revolution Digital Archive a collaboration of the Stanford University Libraries and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, containing 12000 digitised images
The guillotined of the French Revolution factsheets of all the sentenced to death of the French Revolution
Jean-Baptiste Lingaud papers, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania. Includes a vast number of name lists and secret surveillance records as well as arrest warrants for aristocrats and their sympathisers. Most notable in this part of the collection are letters and documents from the Revolutionary Committee and the Surveillance Committee.
French Revolution Pamphlets, Division of Special Collections, University of Alabama Libraries. Over 300 digitised pamphlets, from writers including Robespierre, St. Juste, Desmoulins, and Danton.
"The French Revolution's Legacy" BBC Radio 4 discussion with Stefan Collini, Anne Janowitz and Andrew Roberts (In Our Time, 14 June 2001) |
Haitian_Revolution | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution | [
371
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution"
] | The Haitian Revolution (French: révolution haïtienne or French: La guerre de l'indépendance French pronunciation: [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ a.i.sjɛn]; Haitian Creole: Lagè d Lendependans) was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was the only known slave uprising in human history that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery (though not from forced labour) and ruled by non-whites and former captives.
The revolt began on 22 August 1791, and ended in 1804 with the former colony's independence. It involved black, biracial, French, Spanish, British, and Polish participants—with the ex-slave Toussaint Louverture emerging as Haiti's most prominent general. The successful revolution was a defining moment in the history of the Atlantic World and the revolution's effects on the institution of slavery were felt throughout the Americas. The end of French rule and the abolition of slavery in the former colony was followed by a successful defense of the freedoms the former slaves had won, and with the collaboration of already free people of color, of their independence from white Europeans.
The revolution was the largest slave uprising since Spartacus' unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Republic nearly 1,900 years earlier, and challenged long-held European beliefs about alleged black inferiority and about slaves' ability to achieve and maintain their own freedom. The rebels' organizational capacity and tenacity under pressure inspired stories that shocked and frightened slave owners in the hemisphere.
Compared to other Atlantic revolutions, the events in Haiti have received comparatively little public attention in retrospect: historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot characterizes the historiography of the Haitian Revolution as being "silenced" by that of the French Revolution.
Background
Slave economy in Saint-Domingue
Much of Caribbean economic development in the 18th century was contingent on Europeans' demand for sugar. Plantation owners produced sugar as a commodity crop from cultivation of sugarcane, which required extensive labor. The colony of Saint-Domingue also had extensive coffee, cocoa, and indigo plantations, but these were smaller and less profitable than the sugar plantations. The commodity crops were traded for European goods.
Starting in the 1730s, French engineers constructed complex irrigation systems to increase sugarcane production. By the 1740s, Saint-Domingue, together with the British colony of Jamaica, had become the main suppliers of the world's sugar. Production of sugar depended on extensive manual labor provided by enslaved Africans. An average of 600 ships engaged every year in shipping products from Saint-Domingue to Bordeaux, and the value of the colony's crops and goods was almost equal in value to all of the products shipped from the Thirteen Colonies to Great Britain. The livelihood of 1 million of the approximately 25 million people who lived in France in 1789 depended directly upon the agricultural imports from Saint-Domingue, and several million indirectly depended upon trade from the colony to maintain their standard of living. Saint-Domingue was the most profitable French colony in the world, indeed one of the most profitable of all the European colonies in the 18th century.
Slavery sustained sugar production under harsh conditions; diseases such as malaria (brought from Africa) and yellow fever caused high mortality, thriving in the tropical Caribbean climate. In 1787 alone, the French imported about 20,000 slaves from Africa into Saint-Domingue, while the British imported about 38,000 slaves total to all of their Caribbean colonies. The death rate from yellow fever was such that at least 50% of the slaves from Africa died within a year of arriving, so while the white planters preferred to work their slaves as hard as possible, providing them only the bare minimum of food and shelter, they calculated that it was better to get the most work out of their slaves with the lowest expense possible, since they were probably going to die of yellow fever anyway. The death rate was so high that polyandry—one woman being married to several men at the same time—developed as a common form of marriage among the slaves. As slaves had no legal rights, rape by planters, their unmarried sons, or overseers was a common occurrence on the plantations.
Demographics
The largest sugar plantations and concentrations of slaves were in the north of the island, and whites lived in fear of slave rebellion. Even by the standards of the Caribbean, French slave masters were extremely cruel in their treatment of slaves. They used the threat and acts of physical violence to maintain control and suppress efforts at rebellion. When slaves left the plantations or disobeyed their masters, they were subject to whipping or to more extreme torture such as castration or burning, the punishment being both a personal lesson and a warning for other slaves. King Louis XIV of France passed the Code Noir in 1685 in an attempt to regulate such violence and the treatment of slaves in general in the colony, but masters openly and consistently broke the code. During the 18th century, local legislation reversed parts of it.
In 1758, the planters began passing legislation restricting the rights of other groups of people until a rigid caste system was defined. Most historians classify the people of the era into three groups:
The first group were white colonists, or les blancs. This group was generally subdivided into the plantation owners and a lower class of whites who often served as overseers or day laborers, as well as artisans and shopkeepers.
The second group were free people of color, or gens de couleur libres, who were usually mixed-race (sometimes referred to as mulattoes), being of both African and French descent. These gens de couleur tended to be educated and literate, and the men often served in the army or as administrators on plantations. Many were children of white planters and enslaved mothers, or free women of color. Others had purchased their freedom from their owners through the sale of their own produce or artistic works. They often received education or artisan training, and sometimes inherited freedom or property from their fathers. Some gens de couleur owned and operated their own plantations and became slave owners.
The third group, outnumbering the others by a ratio of ten to one, was made up of mostly African-born slaves. A high rate of mortality among them meant that planters continually had to import new slaves. This kept their culture more African and separate from other people on the island. Many plantations had large concentrations of slaves from a particular region of Africa, and it was therefore somewhat easier for these groups to maintain elements of their culture, religion, and language. This also separated new slaves from Africa from creoles (slaves born in the colony), who already had kin networks and often had more prestigious roles on plantations and more opportunities for emancipation. Most slaves spoke a patois of the French language known as Haitian Creole, which was also used by island-born mulattoes and whites for communication with the workers.
The majority of the slaves were Yoruba from what is now modern Nigeria, Fon from what is now Benin, and Kongo from the Kingdom of Kongo in what is now modern northern Angola and the western Congo. The Kongolese at 40% were the largest of the African ethnic groups represented amongst the slaves. The slaves developed their own religion, a syncretic mixture of Catholicism and West African religions known as Vodou, usually called "voodoo" in English. This belief system implicitly rejected the Africans' status as slaves.
Social conflict
Saint-Domingue was a society seething with hatred, with white colonists and black slaves frequently coming into violent conflict. The French historian Paul Fregosi wrote:
"Whites, mulattos and blacks loathed each other. The poor whites couldn't stand the rich whites, the rich whites despised the poor whites, the middle-class whites were jealous of the aristocratic whites, the whites born in France looked down upon the locally born whites, mulattoes envied the whites, despised the blacks and were despised by the whites; free Negroes brutalized those who were still slaves, Haitian born blacks regarded those from Africa as savages. Everyone—quite rightly—lived in terror of everyone else. Haiti was hell, but Haiti was rich."Many of these conflicts involved slaves who had escaped the plantations. Many runaway slaves—called maroons—hid on the margins of large plantations, living off the land and what they could steal from their former masters. Others fled to towns, to blend in with urban slaves and freed blacks who often migrated to those areas for work. If caught, these runaway slaves would be severely and violently punished. However, some masters tolerated petit marronages, or short-term absences from plantations, knowing these allowed release of tensions.
The larger groups of runaway slaves who lived in the hillside woods away from white control often conducted violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Although the numbers in these bands grew large (sometimes into the thousands), they generally lacked the leadership and strategy to accomplish large-scale objectives. The first effective maroon leader to emerge was the charismatic Haitian Vodou priest François Mackandal, who inspired his people by drawing on African traditions and religions. He united the maroon bands and established a network of secret organizations among plantation slaves, leading a rebellion from 1751 through 1757. Although Mackandal was captured by the French and burned at the stake in 1758, large armed maroon bands persisted in raids and harassment after his death.
Slavery in Enlightenment thought
French writer Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in his history of European colonization. He warned, "the Africans only want a chief, sufficiently courageous, to lead them on to vengeance and slaughter." Raynal's Enlightenment philosophy went deeper than a prediction and reflected many similar philosophies, including those of Rousseau and Diderot. Raynal's admonition was written thirteen years before the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which highlighted freedom and liberty but did not abolish slavery.
In addition to Raynal's influence, Toussaint Louverture, a free black who was familiar with Enlightenment ideas within the context of European colonialism, would become a key "enlightened actor" in the Haitian Revolution. Enlightened thought divided the world into "enlightened leaders" and "ignorant masses." Louverture sought to bridge this divide between the popular masses and the enlightened few by striking a balance between Western Enlightened thought as a necessary means of winning liberation, and not propagating the notion that it was morally superior to the experiences and knowledge of people of color on Saint-Domingue. Louverture wrote a constitution for a new society in Saint-Domingue that abolished slavery. The existence of slavery in Enlightened society was an incongruity that had been left unaddressed by European scholars prior to the French Revolution. Louverture took on this inconsistency directly in his constitution. In addition, he exhibited a connection to Enlightenment scholars through the style, language,and accent of this text.
Like Louverture, Jean-Baptiste Belley was an active participant in the insurrection. The portrait of Belley by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson depicts a man who encompasses the French view of its colonies, creating a stark dichotomy between the refinement of Enlightenment thought and the reality of the situation in Saint-Domingue, through the bust of Raynal and the figure of Belley, respectively. While distinguished, the portrait still portrays a man trapped by the confines of race. Girodet's portrayal of the former National Convention deputy is telling of the French opinion of colonial citizens by emphasizing the subject's sexuality and including an earring. Both of these racially charged symbols reveal the desire to undermine the colony's attempts at independent legitimacy, as citizens of the colonies were not able to access the elite class of French Revolutionaries because of their race.
Situation in 1789
Social stratification
In 1789, Saint-Domingue produced 60% of the world's coffee and 40% of the sugar imported by France and Britain. The colony was not only the most profitable possession of the French colonial empire, but it was the wealthiest and most prosperous colony in the Caribbean.
The colony's white population numbered 40,000; mulattoes and free blacks, 28,000; and black slaves, an estimated 452,000. This was almost half the total slave population in the Caribbean, estimated at one million that year. Enslaved blacks, regarded as the lowest class of colonial society, outnumbered whites and free people of color by a margin of almost eight to one.
Two-thirds of the slaves were African born, and they tended to be less submissive than those born in the Americas and raised in slave societies. The death rate in the Caribbean exceeded the birth rate, so imports of enslaved Africans were necessary to maintain the numbers required to work the plantations. The slave population declined at an annual rate of two to five percent, due to overwork, inadequate food and shelter, insufficient clothing and medical care, and an imbalance between the sexes, with more men than women. Some slaves were of a creole elite class of urban slaves and domestics, who worked as cooks, personal servants and artisans around the plantation house. This relatively privileged class was chiefly born in the Americas, while the under-class born in Africa labored hard, and often under abusive and brutal conditions.
Among Saint-Domingue's 40,000 white colonists, European-born Frenchmen monopolized administrative posts. The sugar planters, or grands blancs (literally, "big whites"), were chiefly minor aristocrats. Most returned to France as soon as possible, hoping to avoid the dreaded yellow fever, which regularly swept the colony. The lower-class whites, petits blancs (literally "small whites"), included artisans, shopkeepers, slave dealers, overseers, and day laborers.
Saint-Domingue's free people of color, or gens de couleur libres, numbered more than 28,000. Around that time, colonial legislations, concerned with this growing and strengthening population, passed discriminatory laws that required these freedmen to wear distinctive clothing and limited where they could live. These laws also barred them from occupying many public offices. Many freedmen were also artisans and overseers, or domestic servants in the plantation houses. Le Cap Français (Le Cap), a northern port, had a large population of free people of color, including freed slaves. These men would become important leaders in the slave rebellion and later revolution.
Regional conflicts
Saint-Domingue's Northern province was the center of shipping and trading, and had the largest population of grands blancs. The Plaine-du-Nord on the northern shore of Saint-Domingue was the most fertile area, having the largest sugar plantations and therefore the most slaves. It was the area of greatest economic importance, especially as most of the colony's trade went through these ports. The largest and busiest port was Le Cap, the former capital of Saint-Domingue. Enslaved Africans in this region lived in large groups of workers in relative isolation, separated from the rest of the colony by the high mountain range known as the Massif du Nord.
The Western province, however, grew significantly after the colonial capital was moved to Port-au-Prince in 1751, becoming increasingly wealthy in the second half of the 18th century. The Southern province lagged in population and wealth because it was geographically separated from the rest of the colony. However, this isolation allowed freed slaves to find profit in trade with Jamaica, and they gained power and wealth here. In addition to these interregional tensions, there were conflicts between proponents of independence, those loyal to France, and allies of Britain and Spain—who coveted control of the valuable colony.
Effects of the French Revolution
After the establishment of the French First Republic, the National Assembly made radical changes to French laws and, on 26 August 1789, published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, declaring all men free and equal. The Declaration was ambiguous as to whether this equality applied to women, slaves, or citizens of the colonies, and thus influenced the desire for freedom and equality in Saint-Domingue. White planters saw it as an opportunity to gain independence from France, which would allow them to take control of the island and create trade regulations that would further their own wealth and power. However, the Haitian Revolution quickly became a test of the new French republic, as it radicalized the slavery question and forced French leaders to recognize the full meaning of their stated ideology.
The African population on the island began to hear of the agitation for independence by the planters, who had resented France's limitations on the island's foreign trade. The Africans mostly allied with the royalists and the British, as they understood that if Saint-Domingue's independence were to be led by white slave masters, it would probably mean even harsher treatment and increased injustice for the African population. The planters would be free to operate slavery as they pleased without the existing minimal accountability to their French peers.
Saint-Domingue's free people of color, most notably Julien Raimond, had been actively appealing to France for full civil equality with whites since the 1780s. Raimond used the French Revolution to make this the major colonial issue before the National Assembly. In October 1790, another wealthy free man of color, Vincent Ogé, demanded the right to vote under the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. When the colonial governor refused, Ogé led a brief 300-man insurgency in the area around Le Cap, fighting to end racial discrimination in the area. He was captured in early 1791, and brutally executed by being "broken on the wheel" before being beheaded. While Ogé was not fighting against slavery, his treatment was cited by later slave rebels as one of the factors in their decision to rise up in August 1791 and resist treaties with the colonists. The conflict up to this point was between factions of whites, and between whites and free blacks. Enslaved blacks watched from the sidelines.
Leading 18th-century French writer Count Mirabeau had once said the Saint-Domingue whites "slept at the foot of Vesuvius", suggesting the grave threat they faced should the majority of slaves launch a sustained major uprising.
1791 slave rebellion
Onset of the revolution
Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in the 1780 edition of his history of European colonization. He also predicted a general slave revolt in the colonies, saying that there were signs of "the impending storm". One such sign was the action of the French revolutionary government to grant citizenship to wealthy free people of color in May 1791. Since white planters refused to comply with this decision, within two months isolated fighting broke out between the former slaves and the whites. This added to the tense climate between slaves and grands blancs.
Raynal's prediction came true on the night of 21 August 1791, when the slaves of Saint-Domingue rose in revolt; thousands of slaves attended a secret vodou ceremony as a tropical storm came in — the lightning and the thunder were taken as auspicious omens — and later that night, the slaves began to kill their masters and plunged the colony into civil war. The signal to begin the revolt had been given by Dutty Boukman, a high priest of vodou and leader of the Maroon slaves, and Cecile Fatiman during a religious ceremony at Bois Caïman on the night of 14 August. Within the next ten days, slaves had taken control of the entire Northern Province in an unprecedented slave revolt. Whites kept control of only a few isolated, fortified camps. The slaves sought revenge on their masters through "pillage, rape, torture, mutilation, and death". The long years of oppression by the planters had left many blacks with a hatred of all whites, and the revolt was marked by extreme violence from the very start. The masters and mistresses were dragged from their beds to be killed, and the heads of French children were placed on pikes that were carried at the front of the rebel columns. In the south, beginning in September, thirteen thousand slaves and rebels led by Romaine-la-Prophétesse, based in Trou Coffy, took supplies from and burned plantations, freed slaves, and occupied (and burned) the area's two major cities, Léogâne and Jacmel.
The planters had long feared such a revolt, and were well armed with some defensive preparations. But within weeks, the number of slaves who joined the revolt in the north reached 100,000. Within the next two months, as the violence escalated, the slaves killed 4,000 whites and burned or destroyed 180 sugar plantations and hundreds of coffee and indigo plantations. At least 900 coffee plantations were destroyed, and the total damage inflicted over the next two weeks amounted to 2 million francs. In September 1791, the surviving whites organized into militias and struck back, killing about 15,000 blacks.
Though demanding freedom from slavery, the rebels did not demand independence from France at this point. Most of the rebel leaders professed to be fighting for the king of France, who they believed had issued a decree freeing the slaves, which had been suppressed by the colonial governor. As such, they were demanding their rights as Frenchmen which had been granted by the king.
By 1792, slave rebels controlled a third of Saint-Domingue. The success of the rebellion caused the National Assembly to realize it was facing an ominous situation. The Assembly granted civil and political rights to free men of color in the colonies in March 1792. Countries throughout Europe, as well as the United States, were shocked by the decision, but the Assembly was determined to stop the revolt. Apart from granting rights to free People of Color, the Assembly dispatched 6,000 French soldiers to the island. A new governor sent by Paris, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, abolished slavery in the Northern Province and had hostile relations with the planters, whom he saw as royalists. The same month, a coalition of whites and conservative free blacks and forces under French commissaire nationale Edmond de Saint-Léger put down the Trou Coffy uprising in the south, after André Rigaud, then based near Port-au-Prince, declined to ally with them.
Britain and Spain enter the conflict
Meanwhile, in 1793, France declared war on Great Britain. The grands blancs in Saint-Domingue, unhappy with Sonthonax, arranged with Britain to declare British sovereignty over the colony, believing that the British would maintain slavery. The British prime minister, William Pitt the Younger, believed that the success of the slave revolt in Saint-Domingue would inspire insurrections in the British Caribbean colonies. He further thought that taking Saint-Domingue, the richest of the French colonies, would be a useful bargaining chip in eventual peace negotiations with France, and in the interim, occupying Saint-Domingue would mean diverting its great wealth into the British treasury. Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, who was Pitt's Secretary of State for War, instructed Sir Adam Williamson, the lieutenant-governor of the Colony of Jamaica, to sign an agreement with representatives of the French colonists that promised to restore the Ancien Régime, slavery and discrimination against mixed-race colonists, a move that drew criticism from abolitionists William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson. The troops who came to Saint-Domingue from Britain had an extremely low survival rate, often dying to diseases such as yellow fever. The British government would send less trained adolescents to maintain strong regiments. The incompetence of the new soldiers, combined with the ravaging of disease upon the army, led to a very unsuccessful campaign in Saint-Domingue. The American journalist James Perry notes that the great irony of the British campaign in Saint-Domingue was that it ended as a complete debacle, costing the British treasury millions of pounds and the British military thousands upon thousands of dead, all for nothing.
Spain, which controlled the rest of the island of Hispaniola (Santo Domingo), also joined the conflict and fought with Britain against France. The proportion of slaves was not as high in the Spanish portion of the island. Spanish forces invaded Saint-Domingue and were joined by the rebels. For most of the conflict, the British and Spanish supplied the rebels with food, ammunition, arms, medicine, naval support, and military advisors. By August 1793, there were only 3,500 French soldiers on the island. On 20 September 1793, about 600 British soldiers from Jamaica landed at Jérémie to be greeted with shouts of, "Vivent les Anglais!" from the French population. On 22 September 1793, Mole St. Nicolas, the main French naval base in Saint-Domingue, surrendered to the Royal Navy peacefully. However, everywhere the British went, they restored slavery, which made them hated by the mass of common people.
French declare slavery abolished
To prevent military disaster, and secure the colony for republican France as opposed to Britain, Spain, and French royalists, separately or in combination, the French commissioners Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel offered freedom to the slaves who would agree to fight alongside them. Then, under pressure, they gradually emancipated all the slaves of the colony. On 29 August 1793, Sonthonax proclaimed the abolition of slavery in the northern province. On 31 October, Étienne Polverel did the same in the other two western and southern provinces.
Sonthonax sent three of his deputies, namely the colonist Louis Duffay, the free black army officer Jean-Baptiste Belley and a free man of color, Jean-Baptiste Mills, to seek the National Convention's endorsement for the emancipation of slaves near the end of January 1794. On 4 February, Dufay gave a speech to the convention arguing that abolishing slavery was the only way to keep the colony in control of the French, and that former slaves would willingly work to restore the colony. The convention deputies agreed and made the dramatic decree that "slavery of the blacks is abolished in all the colonies; consequently, it decrees that all men living in the colonies, without distinction of color, are French citizens and enjoy all the rights guaranteed by the constitution".
The National Convention abolished slavery by law in France and all its colonies, and granted civil and political rights to all black men in the colonies. The French constitutions of 1793 and 1795 both included the abolition of slavery. The constitution of 1793 never went into effect, but that of 1795 did; it lasted until it was replaced by the consular and imperial constitutions under Napoleon Bonaparte. Despite racial tensions in Saint-Domingue, the French revolutionary government at the time welcomed abolition with a show of idealism and optimism. The emancipation of slaves was viewed as an example of liberty for other countries, much as the American Revolution was meant to serve as the first of many liberation movements. Georges Danton, one of the Frenchmen present at the meeting of the National Convention, expressed this sentiment:
Representatives of the French people, until now our decrees of liberty have been selfish, and only for ourselves. But today we proclaim it to the universe, and generations to come will glory in this decree; we are proclaiming universal liberty ... We are working for future generations; let us launch liberty into the colonies; the English are dead, today.
In nationalistic terms, the abolition of slavery also served as a moral triumph of France over England, as seen in the latter half of the above quote. Yet Toussaint Louverture did not stop working with the Spanish Army until sometime later, as he was suspicious of the French.
The British force that landed in Saint-Domingue in 1793 was too small to conquer the colony, being capable only of holding only few coastal enclaves. The French planters were disappointed as they had hoped to regain power; Sonthonax was relieved, as he had twice refused ultimatums from Commodore John Ford to surrender Port-au-Prince. In the meantime, a Spanish force under Captain-General Joaquín García y Moreno had marched into the Northern Province. Louverture, the ablest of the Haitian generals, had joined the Spanish, accepting an officer's commission in the Spanish Army and being made a knight in the Order of St. Isabella.
The main British force for the conquest of Saint-Domingue under General Charles Grey, nicknamed "No-flint Grey", and Admiral Sir John Jervis set sail from Portsmouth on 26 November 1793, which was in defiance of the well-known rule that the only time that one could campaign in the West Indies was from September to November, when the mosquitoes that carried malaria and yellow fever were scarce. After arriving in the West Indies in February 1794, Grey chose to conquer Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Guadeloupe. Troops under the command of John Whyte did not arrive in Saint-Domingue until 19 May 1794. Rather than attacking the main French bases at Le Cap and Port-de-Paix, Whyte chose to march towards Port-au-Prince, whose harbour was reported to have forty-five ships loaded with sugar. Whyte took Port-au-Prince, but Sonthonax and the French forces were allowed to leave in exchange for not burning the sugar-loaded ships. By May 1794, the French forces were severed in two by Toussaint, with Sonthonax commanding in the north and André Rigaud leading in the south.
Spanish depart Saint Domingue
In May 1794, Toussaint suddenly joined the French and turned against the Spanish, ambushing his allies as they emerged from attending mass in a church at San Raphael on 6 May 1794. The Haitians soon expelled the Spanish from Saint-Domingue. Toussaint proved to be forgiving of the whites, insisting that he was fighting to assert the rights of the slaves as black French people to be free. He said he did not seek independence from France, and urged the surviving whites, including the former slave masters, to stay and work with him in rebuilding Saint-Domingue.
Rigaud had checked the British in the south, taking the town of Léogâne by storm and driving the British back to Port-au-Prince. During the course of 1794, most of the British forces were killed by yellow fever, the dreaded "black vomit" as the British called it. Within two months of arriving in Saint-Domingue, the British lost 40 officers and 600 men to yellow fever. Of Grey's 7,000 men, about 5,000 died of yellow fever while the Royal Navy reported losing "forty-six masters and eleven hundred men dead, chiefly of yellow fever". The British historian Sir John Fortescue wrote, "It is probably beneath the mark to say that twelve thousand Englishmen were buried in the West Indies in 1794". Rigaud failed in attempt to retake Port-au-Prince, but on Christmas Day 1794, he stormed and retook Tiburon in a surprise attack. The British lost about 300 soldiers, and Rigaud's forces took no prisoners, executing any British soldier or sailor who surrendered.
British "great push"
At this point, Pitt decided to launch what he called "the great push" to conquer Saint-Domingue and the rest of the French West Indies, sending out the largest expedition Britain had yet mounted in its history, a force of about 30,000 men to be carried in 200 ships. Fortescue wrote that the aim of the British in the first expedition had been to destroy "the power of France in these pestilent islands ... only to discover when it was too late, that they practically destroyed the British army". By this point, it was well known that service in the West Indies was virtually a death sentence. In Dublin and Cork, soldiers from the 104th, 105th, 111th, and 112th regiments rioted when they learned that they were being sent to Saint-Domingue. The fleet for the "great push" left Portsmouth on 16 November 1795 and was wrecked by a storm, before sending out again on 9 December. The overall forces in St Domingue was at that time under the command of the lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, Sir Adam Williamson. He was optimistically given the title "Governor of St Domingue", and among his British forces were Jamaican "Black Shot" militias.
General Ralph Abercromby, the commander of the forces committed to the "great push", hesitated over which island to attack when he arrived in Barbados on 17 March 1796. He dispatched a force under Major General Gordon Forbes to Port-au-Prince. Forbes's attempt to take the French-held city of Léogâne ended in disaster. The French had built a deep defensive ditch with palisades and Forbes had neglected to bring along heavy artillery. The French commander, the mulatto General Alexandre Pétion, proved to be an excellent artilleryman, who used the guns of his fort to sink two of the three ships-of-the-line under Admiral Hyde Parker in the harbour, before turning his guns to the British forces; a French sortie led to a rout of the British, and Forbes retreated back to Port-au-Prince. As more ships arrived with British troops, more soldiers died of yellow fever. By 1 June 1796, of the 1,000 from the 66th Regiment, only 198 had not been infected with yellow fever; and of the 1,000 men of the 69th Regiment, only 515 were not infected with yellow fever. Abercromby predicted that at the current rate of yellow fever infection, all of the men from the two regiments were dead by November. Ultimately, 10,000 British soldiers arrived in Saint Domingue by June, but aside from some skirmishing near Bombarde, the British remained in Port-au-Prince and other coastal enclaves, while yellow fever continued to kill them all off. The government attracted criticism in the House of Commons about the mounting costs of the expedition to Saint-Domingue. In February 1797, General John Graves Simcoe arrived to replace Forbes with orders to pull back the British forces to Port-au-Prince. As the human and financial costs of the expedition mounted, people in Britain demanded a withdrawal from Saint-Domingue, which was devouring money and soldiers, while failing to produce the expected profits.
On 11 April 1797, Colonel Thomas Maitland of the 62nd Regiment of Foot landed in Port-au-Prince, and wrote in a letter to his brother that British forces in Saint-Domingue had been "annihilated" by the yellow fever. Service in Saint-Domingue was extremely unpopular in the British Army owing to the terrible death toll caused by yellow fever. One British officer wrote of his horror of seeing his friends "drowned in their own blood" while "some died raving Mad". Simcoe used the new British troops to push back the Haitians under Toussaint, but in a counter-offensive, Toussaint and Rigaud stopped the offensive. Toussaint retook the fortress at Mirebalais. On 7 June 1797, Toussaint attacked Fort Churchill in an assault that was as noted for its professionalism as for its ferocity. Under a storm of artillery, the Haitians placed ladders on the walls and were driven back four times, with heavy losses. Even though Toussaint had been repulsed, the British were astonished that he had turned a group of former slaves with no military experience into troops whose skills were the equal of a European army.
British withdrawal
In July 1797, Simcoe and Maitland sailed to London to advise a total withdrawal from Saint-Domingue. In March 1798 Maitland returned with a mandate to withdraw, at least from Port-au-Prince. On 10 May 1798, Maitland met with Toussaint to agree to an armistice, and on 18 May the British left Port-au-Prince. The British forces were reduced to only holding the western peninsular towns of Mole St Nicholas in the north and Jeremie in the south. The new governor of Jamaica, Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres, urged Maitland not to withdraw from Mole St Nicholas. However, Toussaint sent a message to Balcarres, warning him that if he persisted, to remember that Jamaica was not far from St Domingue, and could be invaded.
Maitland knew that his forces could not defeat Toussaint, and that he had to take action to protect Jamaica from invasion. British morale had collapsed with the news that Toussaint had taken Port-au-Prince, and Maitland decided to abandon all of Saint-Domingue, writing that the expedition had become such a complete disaster that withdrawal was the only sensible thing to do, even though he did not have the authority to do so. On 31 August, Maitland and Toussaint signed an agreement whereby in exchange for the British pulling out of all of Saint-Domingue, Toussaint promised to not support any slave revolts in Jamaica. Rigaud took control of Jeremie without any cost to his forces, as Maitland withdrew his southern forces to Jamaica. In the end of 1798, Maitland withdrew the last of his forces from Mole St Nicholas, as Toussaint took command of the fortress. Maitland disbanded his "Black Shot" troops, and left them in St Domingue, fearing they might return to Jamaica and start a revolution to overthrow slavery in the British colony. Many of them joined Toussaint's army.
Toussaint consolidates control
After the departure of the British, Toussaint turned his attention to Rigaud, who was conspiring against him in the south of Saint Domingue. In June 1799, Rigaud initiated the War of Knives against Toussaint's rule, sending a brutal offensive at Petit-Goâve and Grand-Goâve. Taking no prisoners, Rigaud's predominantly mulatto forces put blacks and whites to the sword. Though the United States was hostile towards Toussaint, the U.S. Navy agreed to support Toussaint's forces with the frigate USS General Greene, commanded by Captain Christopher Perry, providing fire support to the blacks as Toussaint laid siege to the city of Jacmel, held by mulatto forces under the command of Rigaud. To the United States, Rigaud's ties to France represented a threat to American commerce. On 11 March 1800, Toussaint took Jacmel and Rigaud fled on the French schooner La Diana. Though Toussaint maintained he was still loyal to France, to all intents and purposes, he ruled Saint Domingue as its dictator.
Leadership of Louverture
Toussaint Louverture
Toussaint Louverture, although a self-educated former domestic slave, was one of the most successful black commanders. Like Jean François and Biassou, he initially fought for the Spanish crown. After the British had invaded Saint-Domingue, Louverture decided to fight for the French if they would agree to free all the slaves. Sonthonax had proclaimed an end to slavery on 29 August 1792. Louverture worked with a French general, Étienne Laveaux, to ensure that all slaves would be freed. Louverture abandoned the Spanish Army in the east and brought his forces over to the French side on 6 May 1794 after the Spanish refused to take steps to end slavery.
Under the military leadership of Toussaint, the former slaves succeeded in winning concessions from the British and expelled the Spanish forces. In the end, Toussaint essentially restored control of Saint-Domingue to France. Having made himself master of the island, however, Toussaint did not wish to surrender too much power to France. He began to rule the country as an effectively autonomous entity. Louverture overcame a succession of local rivals, including: the Commissioner Sonthonax, a French white man who gained support from many Haitians, angering Louverture; André Rigaud, a free man of color who fought to keep control of the South in the War of Knives; and Comte d'Hédouville, who forced a fatal wedge between Rigaud and Louverture before escaping to France. Toussaint defeated a British expeditionary force in 1798. In addition, he led an invasion of neighboring Santo Domingo (December 1800), and freed the slaves there on 3 January 1801.
In 1801, Louverture issued a constitution for Saint-Domingue that decreed he would be governor-for-life and called for black autonomy and a sovereign black state. In response, Napoleon Bonaparte dispatched a large expeditionary force of French soldiers and warships to the island, led by Bonaparte's brother-in-law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule. They were under secret instructions to restore slavery, at least in the formerly Spanish-held part of the island. Bonaparte ordered that Toussaint was to be treated with respect until the French forces were established; once that was done, Toussaint was to be summoned to Le Cap and arrested; if he failed to show, Leclerc was to wage "a war to the death" with no mercy and all of Toussaint's followers to be shot when captured. Once that was completed, slavery would be ultimately restored. The numerous French soldiers were accompanied by mulatto troops led by Alexandre Pétion and André Rigaud, mulatto leaders who had been defeated by Toussaint three years earlier.
Napoleon invades Haiti
The French arrived on 2 February 1802 at Le Cap with the Haitian commander Henri Christophe being ordered by Leclerc to turn over the city to the French. When Christophe refused, the French assaulted Le Cap and the Haitians set the city afire rather than surrender it. Leclerc sent Toussaint letters promising him: "Have no worries about your personal fortune. It will be safeguarded for you, since it has been only too well earned by your own efforts. Do not worry about the liberty of your fellow citizens". When Toussaint still failed to appear at Le Cap, Leclerc issued a proclamation on 17 February 1802: "General Toussaint and General Christophe are outlawed; all citizens are ordered to hunt them down, and treat them as rebels against the French Republic". Captain Marcus Rainsford, a British Army officer who visited Saint-Domingue observed the training of the Haitian Army, writing: "At a whistle, a whole brigade ran three or four hundred yards, and then, separating, threw themselves flat on the ground, changing to their backs and sides, and all the time keeping up a strong fire until recalled...This movement is executed with such facility and precision as totally to prevent cavalry from charging them in bushy and hilly country".
Haitian resistance and scorched-earth tactics
In a letter to Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Toussaint outlined his plans for defeating the French using scorched-earth: "Do not forget, while waiting for the rainy reason which will rid us of our foes, that we have no other resource than destruction and fire. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest sustenance. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the foundations, burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of the hell which they deserve". Dessalines never received the letter as he had already taken to the field, evaded a French column sent to capture him and stormed Léogâne. The Haitians burned down Léogâne and killed all of the French with the Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James writing of Dessalines's actions at Léogâne: "Men, women and children, indeed all the whites who came into his hands, he massacred. And forbidding burial, he left stacks of corpses rotting in the sun to strike terror into the French detachments as they toiled behind his flying columns". The French had been expecting the Haitians to happily go back to being their slaves, as they believed it was natural for blacks to be the slaves of whites, and were stunned to learn how much the Haitians hated them for wanting to reduce them back to a life in chains. A visibly shocked General Pamphile de Lacroix after seeing the ruins of Léogâne wrote: "They heaped up bodies" which "still had their attitudes; they were bent over, their hands outstretched and beseeching; the ice of death had not effaced the look on their faces".
Leclerc ordered four French columns to march on Gonaives, which was the main Haitian base. One of the French columns was commanded by General Donatien de Rochambeau, a proud white supremacist and a supporter of slavery who detested the Haitians for wanting to be free. Toussaint tried to stop Rochambeau at Ravine-à-Couleuvre, a very narrow gully up in the mountains that the Haitians had filled with chopped down trees. In the ensuring Battle of Ravine-à-Couleuvres, after six hours of fierce hand-to-hand fighting with no quarter given on either side, the French finally broke through, albeit with heavy losses. During the battle, Toussaint personally took part in the fighting to lead his men in charges against the French. After losing 800 men, Toussaint ordered a retreat.
Crête-à-Pierrot fortress
The Haitians next tried to stop the French at a British-built fort up in the mountains called Crête-à-Pierrot, a battle that is remembered as a national epic in Haiti. While Toussaint took to the field, he left Dessalines in command of Crête-à-Pierrot, who from his fastness could see three French columns converging on the fort. Dessalines appeared before his men standing atop of a barrel of gunpowder, holding a lit torch, saying: "We are going to be attacked, and if the French put their feet in here, I shall blow everything up", leading his men to reply "We shall die for liberty!". The first of the French columns to appear before the fort was commanded by General Jean Boudet, whose men were harassed by skirmishers until they reached a deep ditch the Haitians had dug. As the French tried to cross the ditch, Dessalines ordered his men who were hiding to come out and open fire, hitting the French with a tremendous volley of artillery and musket fire, inflicting heavy losses on the attackers. General Boudet himself was wounded and as the French dead and wounded started to pile up in the ditch, the French retreated. The next French commander who tried to assault the ditch was General Charles Dugua, joined shortly afterwards by the column commanded by Leclerc. All of the French assaults ended in total failure, and after the failure of their last attack, the Haitians charged the French, cutting down any Frenchmen. General Dugua was killed, Leclerc was wounded and the French lost about 800 dead. The final French column to arrive was the one commanded by Rochambeau, who brought along heavy artillery that knocked out the Haitian artillery, though his attempt to storm the ditch also ended in failure with about 300 of his men killed. Over the following days, the French kept on bombarding and assaulting the fort, only to be repulsed every time while the Haitians defiantly sang songs of the French Revolution, celebrating the right of all men to be equal and free. The Haitian psychological warfare was successful with many French soldiers asking why they were fighting to enslave the Haitians, who were only asserting the rights promised by the Revolution to make all men free. Despite Bonaparte's attempt to keep his intention to restore slavery a secret, it was widely believed by both sides that was why the French had returned to Haiti, as a sugar plantation could only be profitable with slave labour. Finally after twenty days of siege with food and ammunition running out, Dessalines ordered his men to abandon the fort on the night of 24 March 1802 and the Haitians slipped out of the fort to fight another day. Even Rochambeau, who hated all blacks was forced to admit in a report: "Their retreat—this miraculous retreat from our trap—was an incredible feat of arms". The French had won, but they had lost 2,000 dead against an opponent whom they held in contempt on racial grounds, believing all blacks to be stupid and cowardly, and furthermore, that it was shortages of food and ammunition that forced the Haitians to retreat, not because of any feats of arms by the French army.
After the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, the Haitians abandoned conventional warfare and reverted to guerrilla tactics, making the French hold over much of the countryside from Le Cap down to the Artibonite valley very tenuous. With March, the rainy season came to Saint-Domingue, and as stagnant water collected, the mosquitoes began to breed, leading to yet another outbreak of yellow fever. By the end of March, 5,000 French soldiers had died of yellow fever and another 5,000 were hospitalized with yellow fever, leading to a worried Leclerc to write in his diary: "The rainy season has arrived. My troops are exhausted with fatigue and sickness".
Capture of Toussaint
On 25 April 1802, the situation suddenly changed when Christophe defected, along with much of the Haitian Army, to the French. Louverture was promised his freedom if he agreed to integrate his remaining troops into the French army. Louverture agreed to this on 6 May 1802. Just what motivated Toussaint to give up the fight has been the subject of much debate with most probable explanation being that he was just tired after 11 years of war. Under the terms of surrender, Leclerc gave his solemn word that slavery would not be restored in Saint-Domingue, that blacks could be officers in the French Army, and that the Haitian Army would be allowed to integrate into the French Army. Leclerc also gave Toussaint a plantation at Ennery. Toussaint was later deceived, seized by the French and shipped to France. He died months later in prison at Fort-de-Joux in the Jura Mountains. Shortly afterwards, the ferocious Dessalines rode into Le Cap to submit to France and was rewarded by being made the governor of Saint-Marc, a place that Dessalines ruled with his customary cruelty. However, the surrender of Christophe, Toussaint, and Dessalines did not mean the end of Haitian resistance. Throughout the countryside, guerrilla warfare continued and the French staged mass executions via firing squads, hanging, and drowning Haitians in bags. Rochambeau invented a new means of mass execution, which he called "fumigational-sulphurous baths": killing hundreds of Haitians in the holds of ships by burning sulphur to make sulphur dioxide to gas them.
War of independence
Rebellion against reimposition of slavery
For a few months, the island was quiet under Napoleonic rule. But when it became apparent that the French intended to re-establish slavery (because they had nearly done so on Guadeloupe), black cultivators revolted in the summer of 1802. Yellow fever had decimated the French; by the middle of July 1802, the French lost about 10,000 dead to yellow fever. By September, Leclerc wrote in his diary that he had only 8,000 fit men left as yellow fever had killed the others.
In 1802, Napoleon added a Polish legion of around 5,200 to the forces sent to Saint-Domingue to fight off the slave rebellion. However, the Poles were told that there was a revolt of prisoners in Saint-Domingue. Upon arrival and the first fights, the Polish soldiers soon discovered that what was actually taking place in the colony was a rebellion of slaves fighting off their French masters for their freedom.
During this time, there was a familiar situation going on back in their homeland as these Polish soldiers were fighting for their liberty from the occupying forces of Russia, Prussia, and Austria that began in 1772. Many Poles believed that if they fought for France, Bonaparte would reward them by restoring Polish independence, which had been ended with the Third Partition of Poland in 1795. As hopeful as the Haitians, many Poles were seeking union amongst themselves to win back their freedom and independence by organizing an uprising. As a result, many Polish soldiers admired their opponents, to eventually turn on the French army and join the Haitian slaves. Polish soldiers participated in the Haitian revolution of 1804, contributing to the establishment of the world's first free black republic and the first independent Caribbean state.
Haiti's first head of state Jean-Jacques Dessalines called Polish people "the White Negroes of Europe", which was then regarded a great honor, as it meant brotherhood between Poles and Haitians. Many years later François Duvalier, the president of Haiti who was known for his black nationalist and Pan-African views, used the same concept of "European white negroes" while referring to Polish people and glorifying their patriotism.
After Haiti gained its independence, the Poles acquired Haitian citizenship for their loyalty and support in overthrowing the French colonialists, and were called "black" by the Haitian constitution.
Dessalines and Pétion join Haitian forces
Dessalines and Pétion remained allied with France until they switched sides again, in October 1802, and fought against the French. As Leclerc lay dying of yellow fever and heard that Christophe and Dessalines had joined the rebels, he reacted by ordering all of the blacks living in Le Cap to be killed by drowning in the harbour. In November, Leclerc died of yellow fever, like much of his army.
His successor, the Vicomte de Rochambeau, fought an even more brutal campaign. Rochambeau waged a near-genocidal campaign against the Haitians, killing everyone who was black. Rochambeau imported about 15,000 attack dogs from Jamaica, who had been trained to savage blacks and mulattoes. (Other sources suggest the dogs may have been dogo cubanos sourced in their hundreds from Cuba rather than Jamaica.) At the Bay of Le Cap, Rochambeau had blacks drowned. No one would eat fish from the bay for months afterward, as no one wished to eat the fish that had eaten human flesh. Bonaparte, hearing that most of his army in Saint-Domingue had died of yellow fever and the French held only Port-au-Prince, Le Cap, and Les Cayes, sent about 20,000 reinforcements to Rochambeau.
Dessalines matched Rochambeau in his vicious cruelty. At Le Cap, when Rochambeau hanged 500 blacks, Dessalines replied by killing 500 whites and sticking their heads on spikes all around Le Cap, so that the French could see what he was planning on doing to them. Rochambeau's atrocities helped rally many former French loyalists to the rebel cause. Many on both sides had come to see the war as a race war where no mercy was to be given. The Haitians burned French prisoners alive, cut them up with axes, or tied them to a board and sawed them into two.
War between France and Britain
With Napoleon's inability to send the requested massive reinforcements after the outbreak of war on 18 May 1803 with the British, the Royal Navy immediately despatched a squadron under Sir John Duckworth from Jamaica to cruise in the region, seeking to eliminate communication between the French outposts and to capture or destroy the French warships based in the colony. The Blockade of Saint-Domingue not only cut the French forces out from reinforcements and supplies from France, but also meant that the British began to supply arms to the Haitians. Trapped, engaged in a vicious race war, and with much of his army dying of yellow fever, Rochambeau fell to pieces. He lost interest in commanding his army and as James wrote, he "amused himself with sexual pleasures, military balls, banquets and the amassing of a personal fortune".
The Royal Navy squadrons soon blockaded the French-held ports of Cap Français and Môle-Saint-Nicolas on the Northern coast of the French colony. In the summer of 1803, when war broke out between the United Kingdom and the French Consulate, Saint-Domingue had been almost completely overrun by Haitian forces under the command of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. In the north of the country, the French forces were isolated in the two large ports of Cap Français and Môle-Saint-Nicolas and a few smaller settlements, all supplied by a French naval force based primarily at Cap Français.
On 28 June, the squadron encountered a French convoy from Les Cayes off Môle-Saint-Nicolas, capturing one ship although the other escaped. Two days later an independently sailing French frigate was chased down and captured in the same waters. On 24 July, another British squadron intercepted the main French squadron from Cap Français, which was attempting to break past the blockade and reach France. The British, led by Commodore John Loring gave chase, but one French ship of the line and a frigate escaped. Another ship of the line was trapped against the coast and captured after coming under fire from Haitian shore batteries. The remainder of the squadron was forced to fight two more actions on their return to Europe, but did eventually reach the Spanish port of Corunna.
On 8 October 1803, the French abandoned Port-au-Prince as Rochambeau decided to concentrate what was left of his army at Le Cap. Dessalines marched into Port-au-Prince, where he was welcomed as a hero by the 100 whites who had chosen to stay behind. Dessalines thanked them all for their kindness and belief in racial equality, but then he said that the French had treated him as less than human when he was a slave, and so to avenge his mistreatment, he promptly had the 100 whites all hanged. On 3 November, the frigate HMS Blanche captured a supply schooner near Cap Français, the last hope in supplying the French forces. On 16 November 1803, Dessalines began attacking the French blockhouses outside of Le Cap. The last battle on land of the Haitian Revolution, the Battle of Vertières, occurred on 18 November 1803, near Cap-Haïtien fought between Dessalines' army and the remaining French colonial army under the Vicomte de Rochambeau; the slave rebels and freed revolutionary soldiers won the battle. By this point, Perry observed that both sides were "a little mad" as the pressures of the war and yellow fever had taken their toll, and both the French and the Haitians fought with a reckless courage, seeing death in battle as preferable to a slow death by yellow fever or being tortured to death by the enemy.
Haitian victory
Rochambeau, seeing defeat inevitable, procrastinated until the last possible moment, but eventually was forced to surrender to the British commander—by the end of the month the garrison was starving, having reached the conclusion at a council of war that surrender was the only way to escape from this "place of death". Commodore Loring, however, refused the French permission to sail and agreed terms with Dessalines that permitted them to safely evacuate provided they had left the port by 1 December. On the night of 30 November 1803, 8,000 French soldiers and hundreds of white civilians boarded the British ships to take them away. One of Rochambeau's ships was almost wrecked while leaving the harbour, but was saved by a British lieutenant acting alone, who not only rescued the 900 people on board, but also refloated the ship. At Môle-Saint-Nicolas, General Louis de Noailles refused to surrender and instead sailed to Havana, Cuba in a fleet of small vessels on 3 December, but was intercepted and mortally wounded by a Royal Navy frigate. Soon after, the few remaining French-held towns in Saint-Domingue surrendered to the Royal Navy to prevent massacres by the Haitian army. Meanwhile, Dessalines led the rebellion until its completion, when the French forces were finally defeated by the end of 1803.
On 1 January 1804, from the city of Gonaïves, Dessalines officially declared the former colony's independence, renaming it "Haiti" after the indigenous Arawak name. Although he lasted from 1804 to 1806, several changes began taking place in Haiti. The independence of Haiti was a major blow to France and its colonial empire, but the French state would take several decades to recognize the loss of the colony. As the French retreated, Haiti, which had once been called the "Pearl of the Antilles", the richest French colony in the world, was impoverished, as its economy was in ruins after the revolution. Haiti struggled to recover economically from the war. The Haitians had paid a high price for their freedom, losing about 200,000 dead between 1791 and 1803, and unlike the majority of the European dead, who were killed by yellow fever, the majority of the Haitian dead were the victims of violence.
Casualties
In the early 21st century, historian Robert L. Scheina estimated that the slave rebellion resulted in the death of 350,000 Haitians and 50,000 European troops. According to the Encyclopedia of African American Politics, "Between 1791 and independence in 1804 nearly 200,000 blacks died, as did thousands of mulattoes and as many as 100,000 French and British soldiers." Yellow fever caused the most deaths. Geggus points out that at least 3 of every 5 British troops sent there in 1791–1797 died of disease. There has been considerable debate over whether the number of deaths caused by disease was exaggerated.
An estimated 37,000 French soldiers were killed in action during the Haitian Revolution, exceeding the total French soldiers killed in action across various 19th-century colonial campaigns in Algeria, Mexico, Indochina, Tunisia, and West Africa, which resulted in approximately 10,000 French soldiers killed in action combined. Between 1793 and 1798, the expedition to Saint-Domingue had cost the British treasury four million pounds (in 1798 money) and 100,000 men either dead, wounded, or permanently disabled from the effects of yellow fever.
Free republic
On 1 January 1804, Dessalines, the new leader under the dictatorial 1805 constitution, declared Haiti a free republic in the name of the Haitian people, which was followed by the massacre of the remaining whites. His secretary Boisrond-Tonnerre stated, "For our declaration of independence, we should have the skin of a white man for parchment, his skull for an inkwell, his blood for ink, and a bayonet for a pen!" Haiti was the first independent nation in Latin America, the first post-colonial independent black-led nation in the world, and the only nation whose independence was gained as part of a successful slave rebellion.
The country was damaged from years of war, its agriculture devastated, its formal commerce nonexistent. The country, therefore, had to be rebuilt. To realise this goal, Dessalines adopted the economic organisation of serfdom. He proclaimed that every citizen would belong to one of two categories, laborer or soldier. Furthermore, he proclaimed the mastery of the state over the individual and consequently ordered that all laborers would be bound to a plantation. Those that possessed skills outside of plantation work, like craftsmanship and artisans, were exempt from this ordinance. To avoid the appearance of slavery, however, Dessalines abolished the ultimate symbol of slavery, the whip. Likewise, the working day was shortened by a third. His chief motivator nonetheless was production, and to this aim he granted much freedom to the plantations' overseers. Barred from using the whip, many instead turned to lianes, which were thick vines abundant throughout the island, to persuade the laborers to keep working. Many of the workers likened the new labor system to slavery, much like Toussaint L'Ouverture's system, which caused resentment between Dessalines and his people. Workers were given a fourth of all wealth produced from their labor. Nevertheless, he succeeded in rebuilding much of the country and in raising production levels, thus slowly rebuilding the economy.
Dessalines paid large sums of money to liberate slaves on slave ships near the Haitian coast. He paid for the expenses of the returns of the thousands of Haitian refugees that left during the revolution.
Fearing a return of French forces, Dessalines first expanded and maintained a significant military force. During his reign, nearly 10% of able-bodied men were in active service resulting in a military force of up to 37,000 men. Furthermore, Dessalines ordered the construction of massive fortifications throughout the island, like the Citadelle Laferrière, the largest fortress in the Western Hemisphere. Cities and commercial centers were moved to the interior of the country, while less important ones were kept to the coast, so they could be burnt down completely to discourage the French; many commentators believe that this over militarization contributed to many of Haiti's future problems. In fact, because young fit men were the most likely to be drafted into the army, the plantations were thus deprived of the workforce needed to function properly.
There was growing frustration between the workers, the elites, and Dessalines. A conspiracy led by the mulatto elites ultimately led to Dessalines assassination and two separate sovereign states of Haiti.
1804 massacre of the French
The 1804 massacre was carried out against the remaining white population of French colonists and loyalists, both enemies and traitors of the revolution, by the black population of Haiti on the order of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who declared the French as barbarians, demanding their expulsion and vengeance for their crimes. The massacre—which took place in the entire territory of Haiti—was carried out from early February 1804 until 22 April 1804. During February and March, Dessalines traveled among the cities of Haiti to assure himself that his orders were carried out. Despite his orders, the massacres were often not carried out until he personally visited the cities.
The course of the massacre showed an almost identical pattern in every city he visited. Before his arrival, there were only a few killings, despite his orders. When Dessalines arrived, he first spoke about the atrocities committed by former French authorities, such as Rochambeau and Leclerc, after which he demanded that his orders about mass killings of the area's French population be carried out. Reportedly, he also ordered the unwilling to take part in the killings, especially men of mixed-race, so that blame would not rest solely on the black population. Mass killings then took place on the streets and on places outside the cities. In parallel to the killings, plundering and rape also occurred. Women and children were generally killed last. White women were "often raped or pushed into forced marriages under threat of death".
By the end of April 1804, some 3,000 to 5,000 people had been killed practically eradicating the country's white population. Dessalines had specifically stated that France is "the real enemy of the new nation." This allowed certain categories of whites to be excluded from massacre who had to pledge their rejection to France: the Polish soldiers who deserted from the French army; the group of German colonists of Nord-Ouest who were inhabitants before the revolution; French widows who were allowed to keep their property; select male Frenchmen; and a group of medical doctors and professionals. Reportedly, also people with connections to Haitian notables were spared, as well as the women who agreed to marry non-white men. In the 1805 constitution that declared all its citizens as black, it specifically mentions the naturalizations of German and Polish peoples enacted by the government, as being exempt from Article XII that prohibited whites ("non-Haitians;" foreigners) from owning land.
Post-Revolution era
An independent government was created in Haiti, but the country's society remained deeply affected by patterns established under French colonial rule. As in other French colonial societies, a class of free people of color had developed after centuries of French rule here. Many planters or young unmarried men had relations with African or Afro-Caribbean women, sometimes providing for their freedom and that of their children, as well as providing for education of the mixed-race children, especially the boys. Some were sent to France for education and training, and some joined the French military. The mulattoes who returned to Saint-Domingue became the elite of the people of color. As an educated class used to the French political system, they became the elite of Haitian society after the war's end. Many of them had used their social capital to acquire wealth, and some already owned land. Some had identified more with the French colonists than the slaves. Many of the free people of color, by contrast, were raised in French culture, had certain rights within colonial society, and generally spoke French and practiced Catholicism (with syncretic absorption of African religions.)
Following Dessaline's assassination, another of Toussaint's black generals, Henri Christophe, succeeded his in control of the north, while Alexandre Pétion presided over mulatto rule in the south. There were large differences in governance between Petion's republic, and what would eventually become Christophe's kingdom. While the southern republic did not have as much focus on economic development, and put more attention on liberal land distribution and education, the northern kingdom went on to become relatively wealthy, though wealth distribution was disputed. As a result of temporary trade agreements between Christophe, the United States, and British colonies, Christophe was able to rebuild the northern region. There were large investments in education and public works, military infrastructure, and many chateaux, the most notable being the Sans Souci palace in Milot. However, much like his predecessors, this was achieved through forced labor which ultimately led to his downfall. Contrarily, Petion was beloved by his people, but despised by his northern counterpart. A major effort by Christophe to take Port-au-Prince in mid–1812 failed. The mulattoes were harassed by a pocket of black rebellion in their rear from February 1807 to May 1819. A black leader named Goman kept alive the angry spirit of Dessalines in the southern mountains of the Grand-Anse, resisting several mulatto punitive expeditions. Finally, in 1819, the new mulatto leader, Jean-Pierre Boyer, sent six regiments into the Grand-Anse to ferret out Goman. The black rebel was trapped and shot off a 1,000-foot-high cliff. In 1820, the island nation was finally reunified when Christophe, ill and surrounded by new rebellions, killed himself. Boyer with 20,000 troops marched into Cap-Haïtien, the northern capital, shortly afterward to establish his power over all of Haiti. Not too long after, Boyer was able to secure cooperation with the general of the neighboring Spanish Haiti, and in February 1822 began a 22 year long unification with the eastern state.
Independence debt
The nascent state's future was hobbled in 1825 when France under Charles X forced it (with French warships anchored off the coast during the negotiations) to pay 150 million gold francs in reparations to French ex-slaveholders—as a condition of French political recognition and to end the newly formed state's political and economic isolation. By an order of 17 April 1825, the King of France renounced his rights of sovereignty over Santo Domingo, and recognized the independence of Haiti. President Jean-Pierre Boyer believed that the constant threat of a French invasion was stymieing the Haitian economy and thus felt the need to settle the matter once and for all.
Though the amount of the reparations was reduced to 90 million francs in 1838, Haiti was unable to finish paying off its debt until 1947. The indemnity bankrupted the Haitian treasury and left the country's government deeply impoverished, causing long-term instability. Haiti was therefore forced to take out a loan from French banks, who provided the funds for the large first installment, severely affecting Haiti's ability to prosper.
Influence on other abolitionist and post-colonial movements
While Haiti suffered major economic setbacks during the early years of the post revolutionary era, the ideals of freedom and anti-colonialism never ceased to be part of the Haitian consciousness. Citizenship was offered to any slave or oppressed person that made it to Haiti's shores as mandated by Dessaline's constitution. All four of Haiti's earlier rulers, Dessalines, Christophe, Petion, and Boyer all had programs that involved swaying African Americans to resettle there and assure their freedom. Slave boats that were captured and brought to Haiti's shores resulted in the liberation and integration of all captives on board into Haitian society. On one occasion, President Alexandre Petion protected Jamaican slaves from re-enslavement after they escaped their plantation and landed in the southern city of Jérémie. On multiple occasions, Haiti's leaders offered asylum to liberal revolutionaries globally. One of the more notable examples of this included Haiti's involvement with Gran Colombia, where Dessalines and Petion both offered aid, ammunitions, and asylum to Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar, who even went as far as to credit Haiti for the liberation of his country. Dessalines offered citizenship and assistance to slaves in Martinique and Guadeloupe so that they could start their own uprisings. Mexican nationalists, Francisco Javier Mina and José Joaquín de Herrera took asylum in Les Cayes and were welcomed by Petion during Mexico's War of Independence. The Greeks later received support from President Boyer during their fight against the Ottomans.
The end of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 marked the end of French colonialism on the island. However, the social conflict cultivated under slavery continued to affect the population for years to come. Mulatto domination of politics and economics, and urban life after the revolution, created a different kind of two-caste society, as most Haitians were rural subsistence farmers. The affranchi élite, who continued to rule Haiti while the formidable Haitian army kept them in power. France continued the slavery system in French Guiana, Martinique, and Guadeloupe.
Influence on slavery in the Americas
Historians continue to debate the importance of the Haitian Revolution. David Geggus asks: "How much of a difference did it make?" A limited amount, he concludes, for slavery flourished in the western hemisphere for many more decades. In the opposing camp, African American historian W. E. B. Du Bois said that the Haitian Revolution was an economic pressure without which the British parliament would not have accepted abolitionism as readily.
Other historians say the Haitian Revolution influenced slave rebellions in the U.S. as well as in British colonies. The biggest slave revolt in U.S. history was the 1811 German Coast uprising in Louisiana. This slave rebellion was put down and the punishment the slaves received was so severe that no contemporary news reports about it exist. The neighboring revolution brought the slavery question to the forefront of U.S. politics, and though inspiring to the enslaved themselves the resulting intensification of racial divides and sectional politics ended the idealism of the Revolutionary period. The American President Thomas Jefferson—who was a slaveholder himself—refused to establish diplomatic relations with Haiti (the United States did not recognize Haiti until 1862) and imposed an economic embargo on trade with Haiti that also lasted until 1862 in an attempt to ensure the economic failure of the new republic as Jefferson wanted Haiti to fail, regarding a successful slave revolt in the West Indies as a dangerous example for American slaves.
Beginning during the slave insurrections of 1791, white refugees from Saint-Domingue fled to the United States, particularly to Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Charleston. The immigration intensified after the journée (crisis) of 20 June 1793, and soon American families began to raise money and open up their homes to help exiles in what became the United States' first refugee crisis. While some white refugees blamed the French Revolutionary government for sparking the violence in Haiti, many supported the Republican regime and openly expressed their support of the Jacobins. There is also some historical evidence suggesting that displaying solidarity with the French Revolution was the easiest way for the refugees to earn the support and sympathy of the Americans, who had just recently lived through their own revolution. American slaveholders, in particular, commiserated with the French planters who had been forcibly removed from their plantations in Saint-Domingue. While the exiles found themselves in a peaceful situation in the United States—safe from the violence raging in both France and Haiti—their presence complicated the already precarious diplomatic relations among Britain, France, and the U.S.
Many of the whites and free people of color who left Saint-Domingue for the United States settled in southern Louisiana, adding many new members to its French-speaking, mixed-race, and black populations. The exiles causing the most alarm were the African slaves who came with their refugee owners. Some southern planters grew concerned that the presence of these slaves who had witnessed the revolution in Haiti would ignite similar revolts in the United States. Other planters, however, were confident they had the situation under control.
In 1807, Haiti was divided into two parts, the Republic of Haiti in the south, and the Kingdom of Haiti in the north. Land could not be privately owned; it reverted to the State through Biens Nationaux (national bonds), and no French whites could own land. The remaining French settlers were forced to leave the island. Those who refused were slaughtered. The Haitian State owned up to 90% of the land and the other 10% was leased in 5-year intervals.
Since the resistance and the murderous disease environment made it impossible for Napoleon to regain control over Haiti, he gave up hope of rebuilding a French New World empire. He decided to sell Louisiana to the U.S. The Haitian Revolution brought about two unintended consequences: the creation of a continental America and the virtual end of Napoleonic rule in the Americas.
There never again was such a large-scale slave rebellion. Napoleon reversed the French abolition of slavery in law, constitution, and practice, which had occurred between 1793 and 1801, and reinstated slavery in the French colonies in 1801–1803—which lasted until 1848.
Relationship between the French and Haitian Revolutions
Reason for revolution
The Haitian Revolution was a revolution ignited from below, by the underrepresented majority of the population. A huge majority of the supporters of the Haitian revolution were slaves and freed Africans who were severely discriminated against by colonial society and the law.
Brutality
Despite the idealist, rational and utopian thinking surrounding both uprisings, extreme brutality was a fundamental aspect of both uprisings. Besides initial cruelty that created the precarious conditions that bred the revolution, there was violence from both sides throughout the revolution. The period of violence during the French Revolution is known as the Reign of Terror. Waves of suspicion meant that the government rounded up and killed thousands of suspects, ranging from known aristocrats to people thought to oppose the leaders. They were killed by guillotine, "breaking at the wheel", mobs and other death machines: death toll estimates range from 18,000 to 40,000. Total casualties for the French Revolution are estimated at 2 million. In the Caribbean, total casualties totaled approximately 162,000. Violence in Haiti was largely characterized by military confrontations, riots, killing of slave owners and their families, and guerrilla warfare.
Lasting change
The Revolution in Haiti did not wait on the Revolution in France. The call for modification of society was influenced by the revolution in France, but once the hope for change found a place in the hearts of the Haitian people, there was no stopping the radical reformation that was occurring. The Enlightenment ideals and the initiation of the French Revolution were enough to inspire the Haitian Revolution, which evolved into the most successful and comprehensive slave rebellion in history. Just as the French were successful in transforming their society, so were the Haitians. On 4 April 1792, the French Legislative Assembly granted freedom to slaves in Saint-Domingue. The revolution culminated in 1804; Haiti was an independent state solely of freed peoples. The activities of the revolutions sparked change across the world. France's transformation was most influential in Europe, and Haiti's influence spanned every location that continued to practice slavery. John E. Baur honors Haiti as home of the most influential revolution in history.
Historiographical debates
While acknowledging the cross-influences, most contemporary historians distinguish the Haitian Revolution from the French Revolution. Some also separate it from the earlier armed conflicts by free men of color who were seeking expansion of political rights for themselves, but not the abolition of slavery. These scholars show that if the agency of the enslaved blacks becomes the focus of studies, the Revolution's opening and closing dates are certain. From this premise, the narrative began with the enslaved blacks' bid for freedom through armed struggle and concluded with their victory over slavery powers and the creation of an independent state. In April 1791, a massive black insurgency in the north of the island rose violently against the plantation system, setting a precedent of resistance to racial slavery. In cooperation with their former mulatto rivals, blacks ended the Revolution in November 1803 when they decidedly defeated the French Army at the Battle of Vertières. The French had already lost a high proportion of their troops to yellow fever and other diseases. After acknowledging defeat in Saint-Domingue, Napoleon withdrew from North America, agreeing to the Louisiana Purchase by the United States.
Although the series of events during these years is known under the name of "Haitian Revolution", alternative views suggest that the entire affair was an assorted number of coincidental conflicts that ended with a fragile truce between free men of color and blacks. Historians debate whether the victorious Haitians were "intrinsically [a] revolutionary force". One thing is certain: Haiti became an independent country on 1 January 1804, when the council of generals chose Jean-Jacques Dessalines to assume the office of governor-general. One of the state's first significant documents was Dessaliness' "Liberty or Death" speech, which circulated broadly in the foreign press. In it, the new head of state made the case for the new nation's objective: the permanent abolition of slavery in Haiti.
The role of women in the Haitian Revolution was for a long time given little attention by historians, but has in recent years garnered significant attention.
Contemporary press response
The revolution of African slaves brought many fears to colonies surrounding Haiti and the Caribbean. Prominent wealthy American slave owners, reading about the revolution, also read speculation about what might come in their own states. Anti-abolitionist critics of the revolution dubbed it "the horrors of Santo Domingo". However, newspapers like the Columbian Centinel took extra steps to support the revolution, comparing it to the American Revolution. The French media also played an important role in the Haitian Revolution, with contributions that made many French upstarts quite interested in the young, passionate Toussaint's writings of freedom.
There were many written discussions about the events in Haiti during the revolution in both France and England, however, they were generally written by anonymous authors. These texts also generally fell into two camps—one being proslavery authors who warned of a repetition of the violence of St. Domingue wherever abolition occurred; and the other being abolitionist authors who countered that white owners had sown the seeds of revolution.
However, all was not simple in the press. A top critic who significantly drove Toussaint into fear of backlash from France was Sonthonax, who was responsible for many outlooks of Haiti in the French newspapers. Yet Sonthonax was one of the few contenders who truly pushed for the independence of the African slaves and became a major factor in Toussaint's decision of declaring independence from France.
In popular culture
Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier's second novel, The Kingdom of This World (1949), (translated into English 1957), explores the Haitian Revolution in depth. It is one of the novels that inaugurated the Latin American renaissance in fiction beginning in the mid-20th century.
Madison Smartt Bell wrote a trilogy called All Souls' Rising (1995) about the life of Toussaint Louverture and the slave uprising.
C. Richard Gillespie, former Towson University professor, wrote a novelization of Louverture's life in the Revolution titled Papa Toussaint (1998).
Though not referred to by name, Haiti is the backdrop for the 1990 Broadway musical Once on This Island by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. The musical, based on the novel My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy, describes the social stratification of the island, and contains a song that briefly outlines the history of the Haitian Revolution.
In 2004, an exhibition of paintings entitled Caribbean Passion: Haiti 1804 by artist Kimathi Donkor, was held in London to celebrate the bicentenary of Haiti's revolution.
In 2010, author Isabel Allende wrote a historical novel entitled Island Beneath the Sea, which documents the Haitian Revolution through the eyes of a slave woman living on the island.
William Dietrich set his 2012 novel, The Emerald Storm during the Haitian Revolution.
The television mini-series The Feast of All Saints features the Haitian Revolution in its opening scene.
Philippe Niang directed the 2012 French two-part television film Toussaint Louverture, with Jimmy Jean-Louis playing the title role.
The film Top Five refers to a fictional film within the film called "Uprize", ostensibly about this revolution.
The role of Bois Caiman, Boukman, and Vodou generally, would become the subject of a controversial, discredited neo-evangelical theology in the 1990s that insisted that Haiti was pledged to the devil during the Revolution.
Jacobin, an American socialist periodical, uses an image of Toussaint Louverture for its logo.
Literature about the Haitian Revolution
An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President
Bug-Jargal
The Crime of Napoleon
The Black Jacobins
See also
References
*Please note that the URL in a footnote whose link is followed by an asterisk may occasionally require special attention.
Works cited
Bryan, Patrick E. (1984). The Haitian Revolution and Its Effects. Heinemann. ISBN 978-0-435-98301-7.
Dubois, Laurent (2005). Avengers of the New World. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-01826-6.
Girard, Philippe R. (2011). The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian War of Independence, 1801–1804. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0817317324.
James, Cyril Lionel Robert (1989). The Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution (2nd ed.). Vintage. ISBN 978-0-679-72467-4.
Leyburn, James (1961). The Haitian People. Yale University Press.
Perry, James (2005). Arrogant Armies: Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them. Edison: CastleBooks.
Censer, Jack Richard; Lynn Avery Hunt (2001). Liberty, Equality, Fraternity Exploring the French Revolution. Penn State University Press. ISBN 978-0-271-02088-4.
Further reading
Gamio, Lazaro; Méheut, Constant; Porter, Catherine; Gebrekidan, Selam; McCann, Allison; Apuzzo, Matt (20 May 2022). "Haiti's Lost Billions". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
Gebrekidan, Selam; Apuzzo, Matt; Porter, Catherine; Méheut, Constant (20 May 2022). "Invade Haiti, Wall Street Urged. The U.S. Obliged". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
Bilefsky, Dan; Porter, Catherine (10 July 2021). "Who Paid for That Mansion? A Senator or the Haitian People?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
External links
The Louverture Project – a wiki about the history of Haiti (archived 3 November 2005)
Archive on the History of the Haitian Independence Struggle 1791–1804 at marxists.org
Haiti: History of Shaken Country – Video interview with historian Laurent Dubois
Haiti Archives
"Égalité for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution". Archived 30 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Noland Walker. PBS documentary. 2009.
France Urged to Pay $40 Billion to Haiti in Reparations for "Independence Debt" – video report by Democracy Now!
The Other Revolution: Haiti, 1789–1804, digital exhibition from Brown University
15 Minutes History, UT at Austin
Two Revolutions in the Atlantic World: Connections between the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution Gilder Lehrman Center, Laurent Dubois.
"Upheavals in France and Saint-Domingue" Archived 14 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine Brown University |
Louis_XVI | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI | [
371,
599
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI#",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI"
] | Louis XVI (Louis Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz]; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution.
The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765) (son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV), and Maria Josepha of Saxony, Louis became the new Dauphin when his father died in 1765. In 1770, he married Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (Marie Antoinette). He became King of France and Navarre on his grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, and reigned until the abolition of the monarchy on 21 September 1792. From 1791 onwards, he used the style of King of the French.
The first part of Louis XVI's reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters. The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the Treaty of Paris (1783). The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime. This led to the convening of the Estates General of 1789. Discontent among the members of France's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were representatives. Increasing tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille, during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly.
Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively. His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention. His credibility was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France.
In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the Insurrection of 10 August 1792. One month later, the monarchy was abolished and the French First Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792. The former king became a desacralized French citizen, addressed as Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet) in reference to his ancestor Hugh Capet. Louis was tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. Louis XVI's death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse, was given over to her Austrian relatives in exchange for French prisoners of war, eventually dying childless in 1851.
Childhood
Louis-Auguste de France, who was given the title Duke of Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles on 23 August 1754. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin of France and the grandson of Louis XV and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska. His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of Augustus III, Prince-elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria.
Louis-Auguste was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, who was regarded as bright and handsome but died at the age of nine in 1761. Louis-Auguste, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. His tutors in mathematics and physics had high praises for his work. Le Blonde, his mathematics instructor, wrote that the prince's studies were "proofs of [his] intelligence and the excellence of [his] judgement," though flattery was to be expected when addressing a prince. Louis-Auguste's apparent mathematical skills are corroborated by his enjoyment of cartography, which would have required an understanding of scale and projections. He also enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, Count of Provence, and Charles-Philipe, Count of Artois. From an early age, Louis-Auguste was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child.
When his father died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband and died on 13 March 1767, also from tuberculosis. The strict and conservative education he received from Paul François de Quelen de la Vauguyon, "gouverneur des Enfants de France" (governor of the Children of France), from 1760 until his marriage in 1770, did not prepare him for the throne that he was to inherit in 1774 after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV. Throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities. His instructors may have also had a good hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became. Abbé Berthier, his instructor, taught him that timidity was a value in strong monarchs, and Abbé Soldini, his confessor, instructed him not to let people read his mind.
Marriage and family life
On 19 April 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis XVI married the fourteen-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria, his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa.
This marriage was met with hostility from the French public. France's alliance with its traditional enemy Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years' War, in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians, both in Europe and in North America. By the time that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner. For the young couple, the marriage was initially amiable but distant. Louis XVI's shyness and, among other factors, the young age and inexperience of the newlyweds (who were near total strangers to each other: they had met only two days before their wedding) meant that the fifteen-year-old bridegroom failed to consummate the union with his fourteen-year-old bride. His fear of being manipulated by her for Austrian purposes caused him to behave coldly towards her in public. Correspondence between Marie Antoinette's mother and Austria's French ambassador Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau suggest that the Austrian court did hope for the princess to exert influence over her husband. Letters sent between the Empress and the Ambassador express a desire for Marie Antoinette to exercise authority in the French court and to encourage Louis XVI to dedicate more attention to his role as prince. To their disappointment, however, the princess did not seem overly interested in "serious affairs". Over time, the couple became closer, though while their marriage was reportedly consummated in July 1773, it did not actually happen until 1777.
The couple's failure to produce any children for several years placed a strain upon their marriage, exacerbated by the publication of obscene pamphlets (libelles) mocking their infertility. One such pamphlet questioned, "Can the King do it? Can't the King do it?".
The reasons for the couple's initial failure to have children were debated at that time, and they have continued to be debated since. One suggestion is that Louis XVI suffered from a physiological dysfunction, most often thought to be phimosis, a suggestion first made in late 1772 by the royal doctors. Historians adhering to this view suggest that he was circumcised (a common treatment for phimosis) to relieve the condition seven years after their marriage. Louis XVI's doctors were not in favour of the surgery – the operation was delicate and traumatic, and capable of doing "as much harm as good" to an adult male. The argument for phimosis and a resulting operation is mostly seen to originate from Stefan Zweig's 1932 biography of Marie Antoinette.
Most modern historians agree that Louis XVI had no surgery – for instance, as late as 1777, the Prussian envoy, Baron Goltz, reported that Louis XVI had definitely declined the operation. Louis XVI was frequently declared to be perfectly capable of sexual intercourse, as confirmed by Joseph II, and during the time he was supposed to have had the operation, he went out hunting almost every day, according to his journal. This would not have been possible if he had undergone a circumcision; at the very least, he would have been unable to ride to the hunt for a few weeks afterwards. The couple's sexual problems are now attributed to other factors. Antonia Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette discusses Joseph II's letter on the matter to one of his brothers after he visited Versailles in 1777. In the letter, Joseph describes in astonishingly frank detail Louis XVI's inadequate performance in the marriage bed and Marie Antoinette's lack of interest in conjugal activity. Joseph described the couple as "complete fumblers"; however, with his advice, Louis XVI began to apply himself more effectively to his marital duties, and in the third week of March 1778 Marie Antoinette became pregnant.
Eventually, the royal couple became the parents of four children. According to Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan, Marie Antoinette's lady-in-waiting, the queen also suffered two miscarriages. The first one, in 1779, a few months after the birth of her first child, is mentioned in a letter to her daughter, written in July by Empress Maria Theresa. Madame Campan states that Louis XVI spent an entire morning consoling his wife at her bedside, and swore to secrecy everyone who knew of the occurrence. Marie Antoinette suffered a second miscarriage on the night of 2–3 November 1783.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the parents of four live-born children:
Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (19 December 1778 – 19 October 1851)
Louis-Joseph, Dauphin of France (22 October 1781 – 4 June 1789)
Louis-Charles, Dauphin after the death of his elder brother, future titular King Louis XVII of France (27 March 1785 – 8 June 1795)
Sophie-Hélène-Béatrix, died in infancy (9 July 1786 – 19 June 1787)
In addition to his biological children, Louis XVI also adopted six children: "Armand" Francois-Michel Gagné (c. 1771–1792), a poor orphan adopted in 1776; Jean Amilcar (c. 1781–1796), a Senegalese slave boy given to the queen as a present by Stanislas de Boufflers in 1787, but whom she instead had freed, baptized, adopted and placed in a pension; Ernestine Lambriquet (1778–1813), daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of his daughter and whom he adopted after the death of her mother in 1788; and finally "Zoe" Jeanne Louise Victoire (born in 1787), who was adopted in 1790 along with her two older sisters when her parents, an usher and his wife in service of the king, had died.
Of these, only Armand, Ernestine and Zoe actually lived with the royal family: Jean Amilcar, along with the elder siblings of Zoe and Armand who were also formally foster children of the royal couple, simply lived on the queen's expense until her imprisonment, which proved fatal for at least Amilcar, as he was evicted from the boarding school when the fee was no longer paid, and reportedly starved to death on the street. Armand and Zoe had a position which was more similar to that of Ernestine: Armand lived at court with the king and queen until he left them at the outbreak of the revolution because of his republican sympathies, and Zoe was chosen to be the playmate of the Dauphin, just as Ernestine had once been selected as the playmate of Marie Thérèse, and sent away to her sisters in a convent boarding school before the Flight to Varennes in 1791.
Absolute monarch of France (1774–1789)
When Louis XVI acceded to the throne in 1774, he was nineteen years old. He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment of despotic monarchy was on the rise. His predecessor, his grandfather Louis XV, had been widely hated by the time of his death. The public remembered him as an irresponsible man who spent his time womanizing rather than administrating. Furthermore, the monarchy had poured money into a series of unsuccessful foreign military campaigns, leaving France in a state of financial difficulty. The young Louis XVI felt woefully unqualified to resolve the situation.
As king, Louis XVI focused primarily on religious freedom and foreign policy. Although raised as the Dauphin since 1765, he lacked firmness and decisiveness. His desire to be loved by his people is evident in the prefaces of many of his edicts that would often explain the nature and good intention of his actions as benefiting the people, such as reinstating the parlements. When questioned about his decision, he said, "It may be considered politically unwise, but it seems to me to be the general wish and I want to be loved." In spite of his indecisiveness, Louis XVI was determined to be a good king, stating that he "must always consult public opinion; it is never wrong." He, therefore, appointed an experienced advisor, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas who, until his death in 1781, would take charge of many important ministerial functions.
Among the major events of Louis XVI's reign was his signing of the Edict of Versailles, also known as the Edict of Tolerance, on 7 November 1787, which was registered in the Parlement of Paris on 29 January 1788. Granting non-Roman Catholics – Huguenots and Lutherans, as well as Jews – civil and legal status in France and the legal right to practice their faiths, this edict effectively nullified the Edict of Fontainebleau that had been law for 102 years. The Edict of Versailles did not legally proclaim freedom of religion in France – this took two more years, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 – however, it was an important step in eliminating religious tensions and it officially ended religious persecution within his realm.
Economic policies
Radical financial reforms by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes angered the nobles and were blocked by the parlements who insisted that the King did not have the legal right to levy new taxes. So, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed and Malesherbes resigned, to be replaced by Jacques Necker. Necker supported the American Revolution, and he carried out a policy of taking out large international loans instead of raising taxes. He attempted to gain public favor in 1781 by publishing the first ever accounting of the French Crown's expenses and accounts, the Compte-rendu au Roi. This misleading publication led the people of France to believe the kingdom ran a modest surplus. When this policy of hiding and ignoring the kingdom's financial woes failed miserably, Louis dismissed and replaced him in 1783 with Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who increased public spending to "buy" the country's way out of debt. Again this failed, so Louis convoked the Assembly of Notables in 1787 to discuss a revolutionary new fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were informed of the true extent of the debt, they were shocked and rejected the plan.
After this, Louis XVI and his new Controller-General of Finances, Étienne-Charles de Loménie de Brienne, tried to simply force the Parlement of Paris to register the new laws and fiscal reforms. Upon the refusal of the members of the Parlement, Louis XVI tried to use his absolute power to subjugate them by every means: enforcing in many occasions the registration of his reforms via Lit de justice (6 August 1787, 19 November 1787, and 8 May 1788), exiling all Parlement magistrates to Troyes as a punishment on 15 August 1787, prohibiting six members from attending parliamentary sessions on 19 November, arresting two very important members of the Parlement, who opposed his reforms, on 6 May 1788, and even dissolving and depriving of all power the "Parlement", replacing it with a plenary court, on 8 May 1788. The failure of these measures and displays of royal power is attributable to three decisive factors. First, the majority of the population stood in favor of the Parlement against the King, and thus continuously rebelled against him. Second, the royal treasury was financially destitute to a crippling degree, leaving it incapable of sustaining its own imposed reforms. Third, although the King enjoyed as much absolute power as his predecessors, he lacked the personal authority crucial for absolutism to function properly. Now unpopular with both the commoners and the aristocracy, Louis XVI was therefore only very briefly able to impose his decisions and reforms, for periods ranging from 2 to 4 months, before having to revoke them.
As authority dissipated from him and reforms were clearly becoming unavoidable, there were increasingly loud calls for him to convoke the Estates General, which had not met since 1614 (at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII). As a last-ditch attempt to get new monetary reforms approved, Louis XVI convoked the Estates General on 8 August 1788, setting the date of their opening on 1 May 1789. With the convocation of the Estates General, as in many other instances during his reign, Louis XVI placed his reputation and public image in the hands of those who were perhaps not as sensitive to the desires of the French population as he was. Because it had been so long since the Estates General had been convened, there was some debate as to which procedures should be followed. Ultimately, the Parlement of Paris agreed that "all traditional observances should be carefully maintained to avoid the impression that the Estates General could make things up as it went along." Under this decision, the King agreed to retain many of the traditions which had been the norm in 1614 and prior convocations of the Estates General, but which were intolerable to a Third Estate (the bourgeoisie) buoyed by recent proclamations of equality. For example, the First and Second Estates (the clergy and nobility respectively) proceeded into the assembly wearing their finest garments, while the Third Estate was required to wear plain, oppressively somber black, an act of alienation that Louis XVI would likely have not condoned. He seemed to regard the deputies of the Estates General with respect: in a wave of self-important patriotism, members of the Estates refused to remove their hats in the King's presence, so Louis removed his to them.
This convocation was one of the events that transformed the general economic and political malaise of the country into the French Revolution. In June 1789, the Third Estate unilaterally declared itself the National Assembly. Louis XVI's attempts to control it resulted in the Tennis Court Oath (serment du jeu de paume), on 20 June, the declaration of the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July, and eventually to the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which started the French Revolution. Within three short months, the majority of the King's executive authority had been transferred to the elected representatives of the Nation.
Royal spending
The Menus-Plaisirs du Roi was under the direction of Papillon de la Ferté and he gave details in his journal about the costs of the performances over the years 1756–1780 in three different palaces. The wedding in 1771 was especially costly. The performance of Castor et Pollux in 1779 when he was visited by his brother-in-law, Joseph II, involved more than 500 people.
Royal household spending in 1788 was 13% of total state expenses (excluding interest on debts).
Foreign policy
French involvement in the Seven Years' War had left Louis XVI a disastrous inheritance. Britain's victories had seen them capture most of France's colonial territories. While some were returned to France at the Treaty of Paris (1763), almost all of New France was ceded to the British, or to France's Spanish allies to compensate them for losses to the British.
This had led to a strategy amongst the French leadership of seeking to rebuild the French military in order to fight a war of revenge against Britain, in which it was hoped the lost colonies could be recovered. France still maintained a strong influence in the West Indies, and in India maintained five trading posts, leaving opportunities for disputes and power-play with Great Britain.
Concerning the American Revolution and Europe
In the spring of 1776, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, saw an opportunity to humiliate France's long-standing enemy, Great Britain, and to recover territory lost during the Seven Years' War, by supporting the American Revolution. In the same year Louis was persuaded by Pierre Beaumarchais to send supplies, ammunition, and guns to the rebels secretly. Early in 1778 he signed a formal Treaty of Alliance, and later that year France went to war with Britain. In deciding in favor of war, despite France's large financial problems, the King was materially influenced by alarmist reports after the Battle of Saratoga, which suggested that Britain was preparing to make huge concessions to the Thirteen Colonies and then, allied with them, to strike at French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies. Spain and the Netherlands soon joined the French in an anti-British coalition. After 1778, Great Britain switched its focus to the West Indies, as defending the sugar islands was considered more important than trying to recover the Thirteen Colonies. France and Spain planned to invade the British Isles themselves with the Armada of 1779, but the operation never went ahead.
France's initial military assistance to the American rebels was a disappointment, with defeats at Rhode Island and Savannah. In 1780, France sent Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau and François Joseph Paul de Grasse to help the Americans, along with large land and naval forces. The French expeditionary force arrived in North America in July 1780. The appearance of French fleets in the Caribbean was followed by the capture of a number of the sugar islands, including Tobago and Grenada. In October 1781, the French naval blockade was instrumental in forcing a British army under Cornwallis to surrender at the Siege of Yorktown. When news of this reached London in March 1782, the North ministry fell and Great Britain immediately sued for peace terms; however, France delayed the end of the war until September 1783 in the hope of overrunning more British colonies in India and the West Indies.Great Britain recognized the independence of the Thirteen Colonies as the United States of America, and the French war ministry rebuilt its army. However, the British defeated the main French fleet in 1782 at the Battle of the Saintes and successfully defended Jamaica and Gibraltar. France gained little from the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the war, except the colonies of Tobago and Senegal. Louis XVI was wholly disappointed in his aims of recovering Canada, India, and other islands in the West Indies from Britain, as they were too well defended and the Royal Navy made any attempted invasion of mainland Britain impossible. The war cost 1,066 million livres, financed by new loans at high interest (with no new taxes). Necker concealed the crisis from the public by explaining only that ordinary revenues exceeded ordinary expenses, and not mentioning the loans. After he was forced from office in 1781, new taxes were levied.
This intervention in America was not possible without France adopting a neutral position in European affairs to avoid being drawn into a continental war which would be simply a repetition of the French policy mistakes in the Seven Years' War. Vergennes, supported by King Louis, refused to go to war to support Austria in the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778, when the Queen's brother Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor tried to partition Bavaria over a disputed inheritance. Vergennes and Maurepas refused to support the Austrian position, but the intervention of Marie Antoinette in favor of Austria obliged France to adopt a position more favorable to Austria, which in the Treaty of Teschen was able to get in compensation the Innviertel, a territory whose population numbered around 100,000 persons. However, this intervention was a disaster for the image of the Queen, who was named "l'Autrichienne" (a pun in French meaning "Austrian", but the "chienne" suffix can mean "bitch") on account of it.
Concerning Asia
Louis XVI hoped to use the American Revolutionary War as an opportunity to expel the British from India. In 1782, he sealed an alliance with the Peshwa Madhavrao II. As a consequence, the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau moved his troops to the Isle de France (now Mauritius) and later contributed to the French effort in India in 1783. Pierre André de Suffren became the ally of Hyder Ali in the Second Anglo-Mysore War against the British East India Company from 1782 to 1783, engaging the Royal Navy along the coasts of India and Ceylon.
France also intervened in Cochinchina following Pierre Pigneau de Behaine's intervention to obtain military aid. A France-Cochinchina alliance was signed through the Treaty of Versailles of 1787, between Louis XVI and Prince Nguyễn Ánh.
Louis XVI also encouraged major voyages of exploration. In 1785, he appointed Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse to lead a sailing expedition around the world (La Pérouse and his fleet disappeared after leaving Botany Bay in March 1788. Louis is recorded as having asked, on the morning of his execution, "Any news of La Pérouse?".).
Revolutionary constitutional reign (1789–1792)
There is a lack of scholarship on the subject of Louis XVI's time as a constitutional monarch, though it was a significant length of time. The reason as to why many biographers have not elaborated extensively on this time in the king's life is due to the uncertainty surrounding his actions during this period, as Louis XVI's declaration that was left behind in the Tuileries stated that he regarded his actions during his constitutional reign as provisional; he reflected that his "palace was a prison". This time period was exemplary in its demonstration of an institution's deliberation while in their last standing moments.
Louis XVI's time in his previous palace came to an end on 5 October 1789, when an angry mob of Parisian working men and women was incited by revolutionaries and marched on the Palace of Versailles, where the royal family lived. At dawn, they infiltrated the palace and attempted to kill the queen, who was associated with a frivolous lifestyle that symbolized much that was despised about the Ancien régime. After the situation had been defused by Lafayette, head of the National Guard, the king and his family were brought by the crowd to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the reasoning being that the King would be more accountable to the people if he lived among them in Paris.
The Revolution's principles of popular sovereignty, though central to democratic principles of later eras, marked a decisive break from the centuries-old principle of divine right that was at the heart of the French monarchy. As a result, the Revolution was opposed by many of the rural people of France and by all the governments of France's neighbors. Still, within the city of Paris and amongst the philosophers of the time, many of which were members of the National Assembly, the monarchy had next to no support. As the Revolution became more radical and the masses more uncontrollable, several of the Revolution's leading figures began to doubt its benefits. Some, like Honoré Mirabeau, secretly plotted with the Crown to restore its power in a new constitutional form.
Beginning in 1791, Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, started to organize covert resistance to the revolutionary forces. Thus, the funds of the Liste Civile, voted annually by the National Assembly, were partially assigned to secret expenses in order to preserve the monarchy. Arnault Laporte, who was in charge of the civil list, collaborated with both Montmorin and Mirabeau. After the sudden death of Mirabeau, Maximilien Radix de Sainte-Foix, a noted financier, took his place. In effect, he headed a secret council of advisers to Louis XVI, which tried to preserve the monarchy; these schemes proved unsuccessful, and were exposed later when the armoire de fer was discovered. Regarding the financial difficulties facing France, the Assembly created the Comité des Finances, and while Louis XVI attempted to declare his concern and interest in remedying the economic situations, inclusively offering to melt crown silver as a dramatic measure, it appeared to the public that the King did not understand that such statements no longer held the same meaning as they did before and that doing such a thing could not restore the economy of a country.
Mirabeau's death on 7 April, and Louis XVI's indecision, fatally weakened negotiations between the Crown and moderate politicians. The Third Estate leaders also had no desire in turning back or remaining moderate after their hard efforts to change the politics of the time, and so the plans for a constitutional monarchy did not last long. On one hand, Louis was nowhere near as reactionary as his brothers, the Count of Provence and the Count of Artois, and he repeatedly sent messages to them requesting a halt to their attempts to launch counter-coups. This was often done through his secretly nominated regent, Cardinal Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne. On the other hand, Louis was alienated from the new democratic government both by its negative reaction to the traditional role of the monarch and in its treatment of him and his family. He was particularly irked by being kept essentially as a prisoner in the Tuileries, and by the refusal of the new regime to allow him to have confessors and priests of his choice rather than 'constitutional priests' pledged to the state and not the Roman Catholic Church.
Flight to Varennes (1791)
On 21 June 1791, Louis XVI attempted to flee secretly with his family from Paris to the royalist fortress town of Montmédy on the northeastern border of France, where he would join the émigrés and be protected by Austria. The voyage was planned by the Swedish nobleman, and often assumed secret lover of Queen Marie Antoinette, Axel von Fersen.
While the National Assembly worked painstakingly towards a constitution, Louis and Marie-Antoinette were involved in plans of their own. Louis had appointed Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil to act as plenipotentiary, dealing with other foreign heads of state in an attempt to bring about a counter-revolution. Louis himself held reservations against depending on foreign assistance. Like his mother and father, he thought that the Austrians were treacherous and the Prussians were overly ambitious. As tensions in Paris rose and he was pressured to accept measures from the Assembly against his will, Louis XVI and the Queen plotted to secretly escape from France. Beyond escape, they hoped to raise an "armed congress" with the help of the émigrés, as well as assistance from other nations with which they could return and, in essence, recapture France. This degree of planning reveals Louis's political determination, but it was for this determined plot that he was eventually convicted of high treason. He left behind (on his bed) a 16-page written manifesto, Déclaration du roi, adressée à tous les François, à sa sortie de Paris, traditionally known as the Testament politique de Louis XVI ("Political Testament of Louis XVI"), explaining his rejection of the constitutional system as illegitimate.
The National Assembly was quick to decide to publish the theory that the King had been kidnapped, thus avoiding any challenge to the Constitution, which was then nearing completion, while at the same time ordering that the carriage be placed under arrest. It was a deliberately deceptive choice, since Louis XVI had left a manifesto in plain view, assuming and justifying the escape. La Fayette decided to censor the text. Letters were sent throughout the country to stop the royal carriage.
Louis's indecision, many delays, and misunderstanding of France were responsible for the failure of the escape. Within 24 hours, the royal family was arrested at Varennes-en-Argonne shortly after Jean-Baptiste Drouet, who recognised the king from his profile on a 50 livres assignat (paper money), had given the alert. Louis XVI and his family were taken back to Paris where they arrived on 25 June. Viewed suspiciously as traitors, they were placed under tight house arrest upon their return to the Tuileries.
At the individual level, the failure of the escape plans was due to a series of misadventures, delays, misinterpretations, and poor judgments. In a wider perspective, the failure was attributable to the king's indecision—he repeatedly postponed the schedule, allowing for smaller problems to become severe. Furthermore, he totally misunderstood the political situation. He thought only a small number of radicals in Paris were promoting a revolution that the people as a whole rejected. He thought, mistakenly, that he was beloved by his subjects. The King's flight in the short term was traumatic for France, inciting a wave of emotions that ranged from anxiety to violence to panic. The realization that the King had repudiated the Revolution was a shock for people who until then had seen him as a good king who governed as a manifestation of God's will. Many suspected the King of collaborating with the Austrians, due to Marie Antoinette's family ties and the fact that the monarchs had clearly been heading for the Austrian border. War now seemed imminent, and the King seemed to have been politically involved with France's traditional enemies, who were still widely hated despite recent cooperation. Many citizens felt betrayed, and as a result, Republicanism now burst out of the coffee houses and became a dominating philosophy of the rapidly radicalized French Revolution.
Intervention by foreign powers
The other monarchies of Europe looked with concern upon the developments in France, and considered whether they should intervene, either in support of Louis or to take advantage of the chaos in France. The key figure was Marie Antoinette's brother, Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor. Initially, he had looked on the Revolution with equanimity. However, he became more and more disturbed as it became more and more radical. Despite this, he still hoped to avoid war.
On 27 August, Leopold and Frederick William II of Prussia, in consultation with émigrés French nobles, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe in the well-being of Louis and his family, and threatened vague but severe consequences if anything should befall them. Although Leopold saw the Pillnitz Declaration as an easy way to appear concerned about the developments in France without committing any soldiers or finances to change them, the revolutionary leaders in Paris viewed it fearfully as a dangerous foreign attempt to undermine France's sovereignty.
In addition to the ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers of Europe, there were continuing disputes over the status of Austrian estates in Alsace, and the concern of members of the National Constituent Assembly about the agitation of émigrés nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and the minor states of the Holy Roman Empire.
In the end, the Legislative Assembly, supported by Louis XVI, declared war on Austria ("the King of Bohemia and Hungary") first, voting for war on 20 April 1792, after a long list of grievances was presented to it by the foreign minister, Charles François Dumouriez. Dumouriez prepared an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected the local population to rise against Austrian rule. However, the Revolution had thoroughly disorganised the army, and the forces raised were insufficient for the invasion. The soldiers fled at the first sign of battle and, in one case, on 28 April 1792, murdered their general, Irish-born Théobald Dillon, whom they accused of treason.
While the revolutionary government frantically raised fresh troops and reorganised its armies, a Prussian-Austrian army under Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick assembled at Koblenz on the Rhine. In July, the invasion began, with Brunswick's army easily taking the fortresses of Longwy and Verdun. The duke then issued on 25 July a proclamation called the Brunswick Manifesto, written by Louis's émigré cousin, Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé, declaring the intent of the Austrians and Prussians to restore the King to his full powers and to treat any person or town who opposed them as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law.
Contrary to its intended purpose of strengthening Louis XVI's position against the revolutionaries, the Brunswick Manifesto greatly undermined his already highly tenuous position. It was taken by many to be the final proof of collusion between the King and foreign powers in a conspiracy against his own country. The anger of the populace boiled over on 10 August when an armed mob – with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the Insurrectional Paris Commune – marched upon and invaded the Tuileries Palace. The royal family took shelter with the Legislative Assembly.
Imprisonment, execution and burial (1792–1793)
Louis was officially arrested on 13 August 1792 and sent to the Temple, an ancient fortress in Paris that was used as a prison. On 21 September, the National Assembly declared France to be a republic, and abolished the monarchy. Louis was stripped of all of his titles and honors, and from this date was known as Citoyen Louis Capet.
The Girondins were partial to keeping the deposed king under arrest, both as a hostage and a guarantee for the future. Members of the Commune and the most radical deputies, who would soon form the group known as the Mountain, argued for Louis's immediate execution. The legal background of many of the deputies made it difficult for a great number of them to accept an execution without the due process of law, and it was voted that the deposed monarch be tried before the National Convention, the organ that housed the representatives of the sovereign people. In many ways, the former king's trial represented the trial of the monarchy by the Revolution. It was seen as if with the death of one came the life of the other. The historian Jules Michelet later argued that the death of the former king led to the acceptance of violence as a tool for happiness. He said, "If we accept the proposition that one person can be sacrificed for the happiness of the many, it will soon be demonstrated that two or three or more could also be sacrificed for the happiness of the many. Little by little, we will find reasons for sacrificing the many for the happiness of the many, and we will think it was a bargain."
Two events led up to the trial for Louis XVI. First, after the Battle of Valmy on 22 September 1792, General Dumouriez negotiated with the Prussians who evacuated France. Louis could no longer be considered a hostage or as leverage in negotiations with the invading forces. Second, in November 1792, the armoire de fer (iron chest) incident took place at the Tuileries Palace, when the existence of the hidden safe in the king's bedroom containing compromising documents and correspondence, was revealed by François Gamain, the Versailles locksmith who had installed it. Gamain went to Paris on 20 November and told Jean-Marie Roland, Girondin Minister of the Interior, who ordered it opened. The resulting scandal served to discredit the King. Following these two events the Girondins could no longer keep the King from trial.
On 11 December, among crowded and silent streets, the deposed king was brought from the Temple to stand before the National Convention and hear his indictment, an accusation of high treason and crimes against the State. On 26 December, his counsel, Raymond Desèze, delivered Louis's response to the charges, with the assistance of François Tronchet and Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes. Before the trial started and Louis mounted his defense to the convention, he told his lawyers that he knew he would be found guilty and be killed, but to prepare and act as though they could win. He was resigned to and accepted his fate before the verdict was determined, but he was willing to fight to be remembered as a good king for his people.
The convention would be voting on three questions: first, is Louis guilty; second, whatever the decision, should there be an appeal to the people; and third, if found guilty, what punishment should Louis suffer? The order of the voting on each question was a compromise within the Jacobin movement between the Girondins and the Mountain; neither were satisfied but both accepted.
On 15 January 1793, the convention, composed of 721 deputies, voted on the verdict. Given the overwhelming evidence of Louis's collusion with the invaders, the verdict was a foregone conclusion – with 693 deputies voting guilty, none for acquittal, with 23 abstaining. The next day, a roll-call vote was carried out to decide upon the fate of the former king, and the result was uncomfortably close for such a dramatic decision. 288 of the deputies voted against death and for some other alternative, mainly some means of imprisonment or exile. 72 of the deputies voted for the death penalty, but subject to several delaying conditions and reservations. The voting took a total of 36 hours. 361 of the deputies voted for Louis's immediate execution. Louis was condemned to death by a majority of one vote. Philippe Égalité, formerly the Duke of Orléans and Louis' cousin, voted for Louis's execution, a cause of much future bitterness among French monarchists; he would himself be guillotined on the same scaffold, Place de la Révolution, before the end of the same year, on 6 November 1793.
The next day, a motion to grant Louis XVI reprieve from the death sentence was voted down: 310 of the deputies requested mercy, but 380 voted for the immediate execution of the death penalty. This decision would be final. Malesherbes wanted to break the news to Louis and bitterly lamented the verdict, but Louis told him he would see him again in a happier life and he would regret leaving a friend like Malesherbes behind. The last thing Louis said to him was that he needed to control his tears because all eyes would be upon him.
On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI, at age 38, was beheaded by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution. As Louis XVI mounted the scaffold, he appeared dignified and resigned. He delivered a short speech in which he pardoned "...those who are the cause of my death.... ". He then declared himself innocent of the crimes of which he was accused, praying that his blood would not fall back on France. Many accounts suggest Louis XVI's desire to say more, but Antoine Joseph Santerre, a general in the National Guard, halted the speech by ordering a drum roll. The former king was then quickly beheaded. Some accounts of Louis's beheading indicate that the blade did not sever his neck entirely the first time. There are also accounts of a blood-curdling scream issuing from Louis after the blade fell but this is unlikely, since the blade severed Louis' spine. The executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson, testified that the former king had bravely met his fate.
Immediately after his execution, Louis XVI's corpse was transported in a cart to the nearby Madeleine cemetery, located rue d'Anjou, where those guillotined at the Place de la Révolution were buried in mass graves. Before his burial, a short religious service was held in the Madeleine church (destroyed in 1799) by two priests who had sworn allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Afterward, Louis XVI, his severed head placed between his feet, was buried in an unmarked grave, with quicklime spread over his body. The Madeleine cemetery was closed in 1794. In 1815 Louis XVIII had the remains of his brother Louis XVI and of his sister-in-law Marie Antoinette transferred and buried in the Basilica of St Denis, the Royal necropolis of the Kings and Queens of France. Between 1816 and 1826, a commemorative monument, the Chapelle expiatoire, was erected at the location of the former cemetery and church.
While Louis's blood dripped to the ground, several onlookers ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in it. This account was proven true in 2012 after a DNA comparison linked blood thought to be from Louis XVI's beheading to DNA taken from tissue samples originating from what was long thought to be the mummified head of his ancestor, Henry IV of France. The blood sample was taken from a squash gourd carved to commemorate the heroes of the French Revolution that had, according to legend, been used to house one of the handkerchiefs dipped in Louis's blood.
Legacy
Reputation
The 19th-century historian Jules Michelet attributed the restoration of the French monarchy to the sympathy that had been engendered by the execution of Louis XVI. Michelet's Histoire de la Révolution Française and Alphonse de Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins, in particular, showed the marks of the feelings aroused by the revolution's regicide. The two writers did not share the same sociopolitical vision, but they agreed that, even though the monarchy was rightly ended in 1792, the lives of the royal family should have been spared. Lack of compassion at that moment contributed to a radicalization of revolutionary violence and to greater divisiveness among Frenchmen. For the 20th century novelist Albert Camus the execution signaled the end of the role of God in history, for which he mourned. For the 20th century philosopher Jean-François Lyotard the regicide was the starting point of all French thought, the memory of which acts as a reminder that French modernity began under the sign of a crime.
Louis's daughter, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, the future Duchess of Angoulême, survived the French Revolution, and she lobbied in Rome energetically for the canonization of her father as a saint of the Catholic Church. Despite his signing of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, Louis had been described as a martyr by Pope Pius VI in 1793. In 1820, however, a memorandum of the Sacred Congregation of Rites in Rome, declaring the impossibility of proving that Louis had been executed for religious rather than political reasons, put an end to hopes of canonization.
Other commemorations of Louis XVI include:
The Requiem in C minor for mixed chorus by Luigi Cherubini was written in 1816, in memory of Louis XVI.
The Requiem for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini was written for, and performed at the burial ceremony in St. Denis in 1815.
Talleyrand commissioned a Requiem for the memory of Louis XVI from Sigismund von Neukomm, a pupil and protégé of Joseph Haydn, which was performed in 1815 in Vienna.
Paul Wranitzky's Symphony Op. 31 (1797), which is themed on the events of the French Revolution, includes a section titled "The Funeral March for the Death of the King Louis XVI".
The city of Louisville, Kentucky, is named for Louis XVI. In 1780, the Virginia General Assembly bestowed this name in honor of the French king, whose soldiers were aiding the American side in the Revolutionary War. At that time, Kentucky was a part of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Kentucky became the 15th State of the United States in 1792.
In film
King Louis XVI has been portrayed in numerous films. In Captain of the Guard (1930), he is played by Stuart Holmes. In Marie Antoinette (1938), he was played by Robert Morley. Jean-François Balmer portrayed him in the 1989 two-part miniseries La Révolution française. More recently, he was depicted in the 2006 film Marie Antoinette by Jason Schwartzman. In Sacha Guitry's Si Versailles m'était conté, Louis was portrayed by one of the film's producers, Gilbert Bokanowski, using the alias Gilbert Boka. Several portrayals have upheld the image of a bumbling, almost foolish king, such as that by Jacques Morel in the 1956 French film Marie-Antoinette reine de France and that by Terence Budd in the Lady Oscar live action film. In Start the Revolution Without Me, Louis XVI is portrayed by Hugh Griffith as a laughable cuckold. Mel Brooks played a comic version of Louis XVI in The History of the World Part 1, portraying him as a libertine who has such distaste for the peasantry he uses them as targets in skeet shooting. In the 1996 film Ridicule, Urbain Cancelier plays Louis.
In literature
Louis XVI has been the subject of novels as well, including two of the alternate histories anthologized in If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931): "If Drouet's Cart Had Stuck" by Hilaire Belloc and "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness" by André Maurois, which tell very different stories but both imagine Louis surviving and still reigning in the early 19th century. Louis appears in the children's book Ben and Me by Robert Lawson but does not appear in the 1953 animated short film based on the same book.
Ancestry
Larmuseau et al. (2013) tested the Y-DNA of three living members of the House of Bourbon, one descending from Louis XIII of France via King Louis Philippe I, and two from Louis XIV via Philip V of Spain, and concluded that all three men share the same STR haplotype and belonged to haplogroup R1b (R-M343). The three individuals were further assigned to sub-haplogroup R1b1b2a1a1b* (R-Z381*). These results contradicted an earlier DNA analysis of a handkerchief dipped in the presumptive blood of Louis XVI after his execution performed by Laluez-Fo et al. (2010).
Arms
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Full text of writings of Louis XVI in Ball State University's Digital Media Repository |
Morus_(plant) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_(plant) | [
372
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morus_(plant)"
] | Morus, a genus of flowering plants in the family Moraceae, consists of 19 species of deciduous trees commonly known as mulberries, growing wild and under cultivation in many temperate world regions. Generally, the genus has 64 subordinate taxa, three of which are well-known and are ostensibly named for the fruit color of the best-known cultivar: white, red, and black mulberry (Morus alba, M. rubra, and M. nigra, respectively), with numerous cultivars and some taxa currently unchecked and awaiting taxonomic scrutiny. M. alba is native to South Asia, but is widely distributed across Europe, Southern Africa, South America, and North America. M. alba is also the species most preferred by the silkworm, and is regarded as an invasive species in Brazil and the United States.
The closely related genus Broussonetia is also commonly known as mulberry, notably the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera).
Despite their similar appearance, mulberries are not closely related to raspberries or blackberries. All three species belong to the Rosales order. But while the mulberry is a tree belonging to the Moraceae family (also including the fig, jackfruit, and other fruits), raspberries and blackberries are brambles and belong to the Rosaceae family.
Description
Mulberries are fast-growing when young, and can grow to 24 metres (79 feet) tall. The leaves are alternately arranged, simple, and often lobed and serrated on the margin. Lobes are more common on juvenile shoots than on mature trees. The trees can be monoecious or dioecious.
The mulberry fruit is a multiple, about 2–3 centimetres (3⁄4–1+1⁄4 inches) long. Immature fruits are white, green, or pale yellow. The fruit turns from pink to red while ripening, then dark purple or black, and has a sweet flavor when fully ripe.
Taxonomy
The taxonomy of Morus is complex and disputed. Fossils of Morus appear in the Pliocene record of the Netherlands. Over 150 species names have been published, and although differing sources may cite different selections of accepted names, less than 20 are accepted by the vast majority of botanical authorities. Morus classification is even further complicated by widespread hybridisation, wherein the hybrids are fertile.
The following species are accepted:
Distribution
Black, red, and white mulberries are widespread in Southern Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, where the tree and the fruit have names under regional dialects. Black mulberry was imported to Britain in the 17th century in the hopes that it would be useful in the cultivation of silkworms. It was much used in folk medicine, especially in the treatment of ringworms. Mulberries are also widespread in Greece, particularly in the Peloponnese, which in the Middle Ages was known as Morea, deriving from the Greek word for the tree (μουριά, mouria).
Cultivation
Mulberries can be grown from seed, and this is often advised, as seedling-grown trees are generally of better shape and health. Mulberry trees grown from seed can take up to ten years to bear fruit. Mulberries are most often planted from large cuttings, which root readily. The mulberry plants allowed to grow tall have a crown height of 1.5 to 1.8 m (5 to 6 ft) from ground level and a stem girth of 10–13 cm (4–5 in). They are specially raised with the help of well-grown saplings 8–10 months old of any of the varieties recommended for rainfed areas like S-13 (for red loamy soil) or S-34 (black cotton soil), which are tolerant to drought or soil-moisture stress conditions. Usually, the plantation is raised and in block formation with a spacing of 1.8 by 1.8 m (6 by 6 ft), or 2.4 by 2.4 m (8 by 8 ft), as plant-to-plant and row-to-row distances. The plants are usually pruned once a year during the monsoon season to a height of 1.5–1.8 m (5–6 ft) and allowed to grow with a maximum of 8–10 shoots at the crown. The leaves are harvested three or four times a year by a leaf-picking method under rain-fed or semi-arid conditions, depending on the monsoon. The tree branches pruned during the fall season (after the leaves have fallen) are cut and are used to make durable baskets supporting agriculture and animal husbandry.
Some North American cities have banned the planting of mulberries because of the large amounts of pollen they produce, posing a potential health hazard for some pollen allergy sufferers. Actually, only the male mulberry trees produce pollen; this lightweight pollen can be inhaled deeply into the lungs, sometimes triggering asthma. Conversely, female mulberry trees produce all-female flowers, which draw pollen and dust from the air. Because of this pollen-absorbing feature, all-female mulberry trees have an OPALS allergy scale rating of just 1 (lowest level of allergy potential), and some consider it "allergy-free".
Mulberry tree scion wood can easily be grafted onto other mulberry trees during the winter, when the tree is dormant. One common scenario is converting a problematic male mulberry tree to an allergy-free female tree, by grafting all-female mulberry tree scions to a male mulberry that has been pruned back to the trunk. However, any new growth from below the graft(s) must be removed, as they would be from the original male mulberry tree.
Toxicity
All parts of the plant besides the ripe fruit contain a toxic milky sap. Eating too many berries may have a laxative effect. Additionally, unripe green fruit may cause nausea, cramps, and a hallucinogenic effect.
Uses
Nutrition
Raw mulberries are 88% water, 10% carbohydrates, 1% protein, and less than 1% fat. In a 100-gram (3.5-ounce) reference amount, raw mulberries provide 43 calories, 44% of the Daily Value (DV) for vitamin C, and 14% of the DV for iron; other micronutrients are insignificant in quantity.
Culinary
As the fruit matures, mulberries change in texture and color, becoming succulent, plump, and juicy, resembling a blackberry. The color of the fruit does not distinguish the mulberry species, as mulberries may be white, lavender or black in color. White mulberry fruits are typically sweet, but not tart, while red mulberries are usually deep red, sweet, and juicy. Black mulberries are large and juicy, with balanced sweetness and tartness.
The fruit of the East Asian white mulberry – a species extensively naturalized in urban regions of eastern North America – has a different flavor, sometimes characterized as refreshing and a little tart, with a bit of gumminess to it and a hint of vanilla. In North America, the white mulberry is considered an invasive exotic and has taken over extensive tracts from native plant species, including the red mulberry.
Mulberries are used in pies, tarts, wines, cordials, and herbal teas. The fruit of the black mulberry (native to southwest Asia) and the red mulberry (native to eastern North America) have distinct flavors likened to 'fireworks in the mouth'. Jams and sherbets are often made from the fruit in the Old World.
The tender twigs are semisweet and can be eaten raw or cooked.
Supplement
The fruit and leaves are sold in various forms as dietary supplements.
Silk industry
Mulberry leaves, particularly those of the white mulberry, are ecologically important as the sole food source of the silkworm (Bombyx mori, named after the mulberry genus Morus), the cocoon of which is used to make silk. The wild silk moth also eats mulberry. Other Lepidoptera larvae—which include the common emerald, lime hawk-moth, sycamore moth, and fall webworm—also eat the plant.
The Ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated the mulberry for silkworms; at least as early as 220 AD, Emperor Elagabalus wore a silk robe. English clergy wore silk vestments from about 1500 onwards. Mulberry and the silk industry played a role in colonial Virginia.
Pigment
Mulberry fruit color derives from anthocyanins, which have unknown effects in humans. Anthocyanins are responsible for the attractive colors of fresh plant foods, including orange, red, purple, black, and blue. These colors are water-soluble and easily extractable, yielding natural food colorants. Due to a growing demand for natural food colorants, they have numerous applications in the food industry.
A cheap and industrially feasible method has been developed to extract anthocyanins from mulberry fruit that could be used as a fabric dye or food colorant of high color value (above 100). Scientists found that, of 31 Chinese mulberry cultivars tested, the total anthocyanin yield varied from 148 to 2725mg/L of fruit juice. Sugars, acids, and vitamins of the fruit remained intact in the residual juice after removal of the anthocyanins, indicating that the juice may be used for other food products.
Mulberry germplasm resources may be used for:
exploration and collection of fruit yielding mulberry species
their characterization, cataloging, and evaluation for anthocyanin content by using traditional, as well as modern, means and biotechnology tools
developing an information system about these cultivars and varieties
training and global coordination of genetic stocks
evolving suitable breeding strategies to improve the anthocyanin content in potential breeds by collaboration with various research stations in the field of sericulture, plant genetics, and breeding, biotechnology and pharmacology
Paper
During the Angkorian age of the Khmer Empire of Southeast Asia, monks at Buddhist temples made paper from the bark of mulberry trees. The paper was used to make books, known as kraing.
Tengujo is the thinnest paper in the world. It is produced in Japan and made with kozo (stems of mulberry trees). Traditional Japanese washi paper is often created from parts of the mulberry tree.
Wood
The wood of mulberry trees is used for barrel aging of Țuică, a traditional Romanian plum brandy.
Other
According to 1 Maccabees, the Seleucids used the "blood of grapes and mulberries" to provoke their war elephants in preparation for battle against Jewish rebels.
Culture
A Babylonian etiological myth, which Ovid incorporated in his Metamorphoses, attributes the reddish-purple color of the mulberry fruits to the tragic deaths of the lovers Pyramus and Thisbe. Meeting under a mulberry tree (probably the native Morus nigra), Thisbe commits suicide by sword after Pyramus does the same, he having believed, on finding her bloodstained cloak, that she was killed by a lion. Their splashed blood stained the previously white fruit, and the gods forever changed the mulberry's colour to honour their forbidden love.
The nursery rhyme "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" uses the tree in the refrain, as do some contemporary American versions of the nursery rhyme "Pop Goes the Weasel".
Vincent van Gogh featured the mulberry tree in some of his paintings, notably Mulberry Tree (Mûrier, 1889, now in Pasadena's Norton Simon Museum). He painted it after a stay at an asylum, and he considered it a technical success.
References
External links
Flora of China: Morus
Flora of North America: Morus
Sorting Morus names (University of Melbourne)
Propagation (growing) by vegetative method
Propagation (growing) by seed method
photo of 300-year-old Japanese mulberry
Central Sericultural Germplasm Resources Centre, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India
Replant a mulberry tree: article from The Times of India
The Morus Londinium project - Mulberry tree heritage in London, UK |
Rosales | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosales | [
372
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosales"
] | Rosales () is an order of flowering plants. It is sister to a clade consisting of Fagales and Cucurbitales. It contains about 7,700 species, distributed into about 260 genera. Rosales comprise nine families, the type family being the rose family, Rosaceae. The largest of these families are Rosaceae (91/4828) and Urticaceae (53/2625). The order Rosales is divided into three clades that have never been assigned a taxonomic rank. The basal clade consists of the family Rosaceae; another clade consists of four families, including Rhamnaceae; and the third clade consists of the four urticalean families.
The order Rosales is strongly supported as monophyletic in phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences, such as those carried out by members of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group. In their APG III system of plant classification, they defined Rosales as consisting of the nine families listed in the box on the right. The relationships of these families were uncertain until 2011, when they were resolved in a molecular phylogenetic study based on two nuclear genes and ten chloroplast genes.
Well-known members of Rosales include: roses, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries, apples and pears, plums, peaches and apricots, almonds, rowan and hawthorn, jujube, elms, banyans, figs, mulberries, breadfruit, nettles, hops, and cannabis.
Taxonomy
In the classification system of Dahlgren the Rosales were in the superorder Rosiflorae (also called Rosanae). In the obsolete Cronquist system, the order Rosales was many times polyphyletic. It consisted of the family Rosaceae and 23 other families that are now placed in various other orders. These families and their placement in the APG III system are:
Alseuosmiaceae (Asterales)
Anisophylleaceae (Cucurbitales)
Brunelliaceae (Oxalidales)
Bruniaceae (Bruniales)
Byblidaceae (Lamiales)
Cephalotaceae (Oxalidales)
Chrysobalanaceae (Malpighiales)
Columelliaceae (Bruniales)
Connaraceae (Oxalidales)
Crassulaceae (Saxifragales)
Crossosomataceae (Crossosomatales)
Cunoniaceae (Oxalidales)
Davidsoniaceae (Cunoniaceae, Oxalidales)
Dialypetalanthaceae (Rubiaceae, Gentianales)
Eucryphiaceae (Cunoniaceae, Oxalidales)
Greyiaceae (Melianthaceae, Geraniales)
Grossulariaceae (Saxifragales)
Hydrangeaceae (Cornales)
Neuradaceae (Malvales)
Pittosporaceae (Apiales)
Rhabdodendraceae (Caryophyllales)
Rosaceae
Saxifragaceae (Saxifragales)
Surianaceae (Fabales)
Phylogeny
The following phylogenetic tree is from a cladistic analysis of DNA that was published in 2011.
Distribution
Different plants that fall under the order Rosales grow in many different parts of the world. They can be found in the mountains, the tropics and the arctic. Even though you can find a member of the order Rosales nearly anywhere, the specific families grow in different specific geographical locations. Wind-pollination is the way that the majority of the families that fall under the order Rosales (including Moraceae, Ulmaceae, and Urticaceae etc.) pollinate.
Importance
Within the order Rosales is the family Rosaceae, which includes numerous species that are cultivated for their fruit, making this one of the most economically important families of plants. Fruit produced by members of this family include apples, pears, plums, peaches, cherries, almonds, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries. Many ornamental species of plant are also in the family Rosaceae, including the rose after which the family and order were named. The rose, considered a symbol of love in many cultures, is featured prominently in poetry and literature. Modern garden varieties of roses such as hybrid teas, floribunda, and grandifora, originated from complex hybrids of several separate wild species native to different regions of Eurasia.
The Moraceae also produce important fruits, such as mulberries, figs, jackfruits, and breadfruits, and the leaves of the mulberry provide food for the silkworms used in commercial silk production.
The wood from the black cherry (Prunus serotina) and sweet cherry (P. avium) is used to make high quality furniture due to its color and ability to be bent. The Cannabis plant has been highly prized for millennia for its hemp, which has numerous uses. Other varieties of Cannabis are grown as a drug.
Plants in the order Rosales were used in the traditional medicines of many cultures. Medical cannabis has been recognized for its pharmaceutical use. The latex of some species of fig trees contains the enzyme ficin, which is effective in killing roundworms that infect the intestinal tracts of animals.
References
External links
Media related to Rosales at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Rosales at Wikispecies
Rosales At: Trees At: Angiosperm Phylogeny Website At: Missouri Botanical Garden Website
Rosales – Plant Life Forms
"Rosales". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 24 April 2008. |
Cannabaceae | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabaceae | [
372
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabaceae"
] | Cannabaceae is a small family of flowering plants, known as the hemp family. As now circumscribed, the family includes about 170 species grouped in about 11 genera, including Cannabis (hemp), Humulus (hops) and Celtis (hackberries). Celtis is by far the largest genus, containing about 100 species.
Cannabaceae is a member of the Rosales. Members of the family are erect or climbing plants with petalless flowers and dry, one-seeded fruits. Hemp (Cannabis) and hop (Humulus) are the most economically important species.
Other than a shared evolutionary origin, members of the family have few common characteristics; some are trees (e.g. Celtis), others are herbaceous plants (e.g. Cannabis).
Description
Members of this family can be trees (e.g. Celtis), erect herbs (e.g. Cannabis), or twining herbs (e.g. Humulus).
Leaves are often more or less palmately lobed or palmately compound and always bear stipules. Cystoliths are always present and some members of this family possess laticifers.
Cannabaceae are often dioecious (distinct male and female plants). The flowers are actinomorphic (radially symmetrical) and not showy, as these plants are pollinated by the wind. As an adaptation to this kind of pollination, the calyx and corolla are radically reduced to only vestigial remnants found as an adherent perianth coating the seed. A reduced and monophyllous cuplike perigonal bract, properly known as the bracteole, immediately surrounds and protects the seed and is often misnamed as a "calyx". Flowers are grouped to form cymes. In the dioecious plants the male inflorescences are long and look like panicles, while the female ones are shorter and bear fewer flowers. The pistil is made of two connate carpels, the usually superior ovary is unilocular; there is no fixed number of stamens.
The fruit can be an achene or a drupe.
Taxonomy
Classification
Classification systems developed prior to the 1990s, such as those of Cronquist (1981) and Dahlgren (1989), typically recognized the order Urticales, which included the families Cannabaceae, Cecropiaceae, Celtidaceae, Moraceae, Ulmaceae and Urticaceae, as then circumscribed. Molecular data from 1990s onwards showed that these families were actually embedded within the order Rosales, so that from the first classification by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group in 1998, they were placed in an expanded Rosales, forming a group which has been called 'urticalean rosids'.
Cannabaceae comprises the following genera:
Aphananthe Planch. (5 spp.)
Cannabis —Hemp (3 spp.)
Celtis L. (73–109 spp.)
Chaetachme Planch. (1 sp.)
Gironniera Gaudich. (6 spp.)
Humulus L.—Hop (3 spp.)
Lozanella Greenm. (2 spp.)
Parasponia Miq. (5–10 spp.)
Pteroceltis Maxim. (1 sp.)
Trema Lour. (12–42 spp.)
Phylogeny
Cannabaceae likely originated in East Asia during the Late Cretaceous. The oldest known pollen typical of members of Cannabaceae is from the Late Cretaceous (Turonian ~94–90 million years ago) of Sarawak, Borneo. Fossils show Cannabaceae were widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere during the early Cenozoic, though their distribution shifted towards tropical regions in the later Cenozoic due to changing climates.
Modern molecular phylogenetics suggest the following relationships:
Uses
Carbon dating has revealed that these plants may have been used for ritual/medicinal purposes in Xinjiang, China as early as 494 B.C.
Humulus lupulus, the common hop, has been the predominant bittering agent of beer for hundreds of years. The flowers' resins are responsible for beer's bitterness and their ability to extend shelf life due to some antimicrobial qualities. The young shoots can be used as a vegetable.
Some plants in the genus Cannabis are cultivated as hemp for the production of fiber, as a source of cheap oil, for their nutritious seeds, or their edible leaves. Others are cultivated for medical or recreational use as dried flowers, extracts, or infused food products. Induced parthenocarpy in pistilate flowers, and selective breeding are used to produce either higher or lower yields of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), other cannabinoids, as well as terpenes with desired flavors or aromas, such as blueberry, strawberry, or even citrus.
Many trees in the genus Celtis are grown for landscaping and ornamental purposes, and the bark of Pteroceltis is used to produce high-end Chinese rice paper.
References
External links
Cannabaceae of Mongolia in FloraGREIF Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine |
Rosaceae | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosaceae | [
372
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosaceae"
] | Rosaceae (), the rose family, is a medium-sized family of flowering plants that includes 4,828 known species in 91 genera.
The name is derived from the type genus Rosa. The family includes herbs, shrubs, and trees. Most species are deciduous, but some are evergreen. They have a worldwide range but are most diverse in the Northern Hemisphere.
Many economically important products come from the Rosaceae, including various edible fruits, such as apples, pears, quinces, apricots, plums, cherries, peaches, raspberries, blackberries, loquats, strawberries, rose hips, hawthorns, and almonds. The family also includes popular ornamental trees and shrubs, such as roses, meadowsweets, rowans, firethorns, and photinias.
Among the most species-rich genera in the family are Alchemilla (270), Sorbus (260), Crataegus (260), Cotoneaster (260), Rubus (250), and Prunus (200), which contains the plums, cherries, peaches, apricots, and almonds. However, all of these numbers should be seen as estimates—much taxonomic work remains.
Description
Rosaceae can be woody trees, shrubs, climbers or herbaceous plants. The herbs are mostly perennials, but some annuals also exist, such as Aphanes arvensis.: 200
Leaves
The leaves are generally arranged spirally, but have an opposite arrangement in some species. They can be simple or pinnately compound (either odd- or even-pinnate). Compound leaves appear in around 30 genera. The leaf margin is most often serrate. Paired stipules are generally present, and are a primitive feature within the family, independently lost in many groups of Amygdaloideae (previously called Spiraeoideae). The stipules are sometimes adnate (attached surface to surface) to the petiole. Glands or extrafloral nectaries may be present on leaf margins or petioles. Spines may be present on the midrib of leaflets and the rachis of compound leaves.
Flowers
Flowers of plants in the rose family are generally described as "showy". They are radially symmetrical, and almost always hermaphroditic. Rosaceae generally have five sepals, five petals, and many spirally arranged stamens. The bases of the sepals, petals, and stamens are fused together to form a characteristic cup-like structure called a hypanthium. They can be arranged in spikes, or heads. Solitary flowers are rare. Rosaceae have a variety of color petals, but blue is almost completely absent.
Fruits and seeds
The fruits occur in many varieties and were once considered the main characters for the definition of subfamilies amongst Rosaceae, giving rise to a fundamentally artificial subdivision. They can be follicles, capsules, nuts, achenes, drupes (Prunus), and accessory fruits, like the pome of an apple, the hip of a rose, or the receptacle-derived aggregate accessory fruit of a strawberry. Many fruits of the family are edible, but their seeds often contain amygdalin, which can release cyanide during digestion if the seed is damaged.
Taxonomy
Taxonomic history
The family was traditionally divided into six subfamilies: Rosoideae, Spiraeoideae, Maloideae (Pomoideae), Amygdaloideae (Prunoideae), Neuradoideae, and Chrysobalanoideae, and most of these were treated as families by various authors. More recently (1971), Chrysobalanoideae was placed in Malpighiales in molecular analyses and Neuradoideae has been assigned to Malvales. Schulze-Menz, in Engler's Syllabus edited by Melchior (1964) recognized Rosoideae, Dryadoideae, Lyonothamnoideae, Spireoideae, Amygdaloideae, and Maloideae. They were primarily diagnosed by the structure of the fruits. More recent work has identified that not all of these groups were monophyletic. Hutchinson (1964) and Kalkman (2004) recognized only tribes (17 and 21, respectively). Takhtajan (1997) delimited 21 tribes in 10 subfamilies: Filipenduloideae, Rosoideae, Ruboideae, Potentilloideae, Coleogynoideae, Kerroideae, Amygdaloideae (Prunoideae), Spireoideae, Maloideae (Pyroideae), Dichotomanthoideae. A more modern model comprises three subfamilies, one of which (Rosoideae) has largely remained the same.
While the boundaries of the Rosaceae are not disputed, there is no general agreement as to how many genera it contains. Areas of divergent opinion include the treatment of Potentilla s.l. and Sorbus s.l.. Compounding the problem is that apomixis is common in several genera. This results in an uncertainty in the number of species contained in each of these genera, due to the difficulty of dividing apomictic complexes into species. For example, Cotoneaster contains between 70 and 300 species, Rosa around 100 (including the taxonomically complex dog roses), Sorbus 100 to 200 species, Crataegus between 200 and 1,000, Alchemilla around 300 species, Potentilla roughly 500, and Rubus hundreds, or possibly even thousands of species.
Genera
Identified clades include:
Subfamily Rosoideae: Traditionally composed of those genera bearing aggregate fruits that are made up of small achenes or drupelets, and often the fleshy part of the fruit (e.g. strawberry) is the receptacle or the stalk bearing the carpels. The circumscription is now narrowed (excluding, for example, the Dryadoideae), but it still remains a diverse group containing five or six tribes and 20 or more genera, including rose, Rubus (blackberry, raspberry), Fragaria (strawberry), Potentilla, and Geum.
Subfamily Amygdaloideae: Within this group remains an identified clade with a pome fruit, traditionally known as subfamily Maloideae (or Pyroideae) which included genera such as apple, Cotoneaster, and Crataegus (hawthorn). To separate it at the subfamily level would leave the remaining genera as a paraphyletic group, so it has been expanded to include the former Spiraeoideae and Amygdaloideae. The subfamily has sometimes been referred to by the name "Spiraeoideae", but this is not permitted by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants.
Subfamily Dryadoideae: Fruits are achenes with hairy styles, and includes five genera (Dryas, Cercocarpus, Chamaebatia, Cowania, and Purshia), most species of which form root nodules which host nitrogen-fixing bacteria from the genus Frankia.
Phylogeny
The phylogenetic relationships between the three subfamilies within Rosaceae are unresolved. There are three competing hypotheses:
Amygdaloideae basal
Amygdaloideae has been identified as the earliest branching subfamily by Chin et al. (2014), Li et al. (2015), Li et al. (2016), and Sun et al. (2016). Most recently Zhang et al. (2017) recovered these relationships using whole plastid genomes:
The sister relationship between Dryadoideae and Rosoideae is supported by the following shared morphological characters not found in Amygdaloideae: presence of stipules, separation of the hypanthium from the ovary, and the fruits are usually achenes.
Dryadoideae basal
Dryadoideae has been identified as the earliest branching subfamily by Evans et al. (2002) and Potter (2003). Most recently Xiang et al. (2017) recovered these relationships using nuclear transcriptomes:
Rosoideae basal
Rosoideae has been identified as the earliest branching subfamily by Morgan et al. (1994), Evans (1999), Potter et al. (2002), Potter et al. (2007), Töpel et al. (2012), and Chen et al. (2016). The following is taken from Potter et al. (2007):
The sister relationship between Amygdaloideae and Dryadoideae is supported by the following shared biochemical characters not found in Rosoideae: production of cyanogenic glycosides and production of sorbitol.
Distribution and habitat
The Rosaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, being found nearly everywhere except for Antarctica. They are primarily concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere in regions that are not desert or tropical rainforest.
Uses
The rose family is considered one of the six most economically important crop plant families, and includes apples, pears, quinces, medlars, loquats, almonds, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, sloes, and roses.
Many genera are also highly valued ornamental plants. These include trees and shrubs (Cotoneaster, Chaenomeles, Crataegus, Dasiphora, Exochorda, Kerria, Photinia, Physocarpus, Prunus, Pyracantha, Rhodotypos, Rosa, Sorbus, Spiraea), herbaceous perennials (Alchemilla, Aruncus, Filipendula, Geum, Potentilla, Sanguisorba), alpine plants (Dryas, Geum, Potentilla) and climbers (Rosa).
However, several genera are also introduced noxious weeds in some parts of the world, costing money to be controlled. These invasive plants can have negative impacts on the diversity of local ecosystems once established. Such naturalised pests include Acaena, Cotoneaster, Crataegus, and Pyracantha.
In Bulgaria and parts of western Asia, the production of rose oil from fresh flowers such as Rosa damascena, Rosa gallica, and other species is an important economic industry.
Gallery
The family Rosaceae covers a wide range of trees, bushes and plants.
References
External links
Rosaceae at the DELTA Online Families of Flowering Plants Archived 14 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine |
Speech_disorder | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_disorder | [
373
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_disorder"
] | Speech disorders, impairments, or impediments, are a type of communication disorder in which normal speech is disrupted. This can mean fluency disorders like stuttering, cluttering or lisps. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute. Speech skills are vital to social relationships and learning, and delays or disorders that relate to developing these skills can impact individuals function. For many children and adolescents, this can present as issues with academics. Speech disorders affect roughly 11.5% of the US population, and 5% of the primary school population. Speech is a complex process that requires precise timing, nerve and muscle control, and as a result is susceptible to impairments. A person who has a stroke, an accident or birth defect may have speech and language problems.
Classification
There are three different levels of classification when determining the magnitude and type of a speech disorder and the proper treatment or therapy:
Sounds the patient can produce
Phonemic – can be produced easily; used meaningfully and constructively
Phonetic – produced only upon request; not used consistently, meaningfully, or constructively; not used in connected speech
Stimulate sounds
Easily stimulated
Stimulate after demonstration and probing (i.e. with a tongue depressor)
Cannot produce the sound
Cannot be produced voluntarily
No production ever observed
Types of disorder
Apraxia of speech may result from stroke or progressive illness, and involves inconsistent production of speech sounds and rearranging of sounds in a word ("potato" may become "topato" and next "totapo"). Production of words becomes more difficult with effort, but common phrases may sometimes be spoken spontaneously without effort.
Cluttering, a speech and fluency disorder characterized primarily by a rapid rate of speech, which makes speech difficult to understand.
Developmental verbal dyspraxia also known as childhood apraxia of speech.
Dysarthria is a weakness or paralysis of speech muscles caused by damage to the nerves or brain. Dysarthria is often caused by strokes, Parkinson's disease, ALS, head or neck injuries, surgical accident, or cerebral palsy.
Aphasia
Dysprosody is an extremely rare neurological speech disorder. It is characterized by alterations in intensity, in the timing of utterance segments, and in rhythm, cadence, and intonation of words. The changes to the duration, the fundamental frequency, and the intensity of tonic and atonic syllables of the sentences spoken, deprive an individual's particular speech of its characteristics. The cause of dysprosody is usually associated with neurological pathologies such as brain vascular accidents, cranioencephalic traumatisms, and brain tumors.
Muteness is the complete inability to speak.
Speech sound disorders involve difficulty in producing specific speech sounds (most often certain consonants, such as /s/ or /r/), and are subdivided into articulation disorders (also called phonetic disorders) and phonemic disorders. Articulation disorders are characterized by difficulty learning to produce sounds physically. Phonemic disorders are characterized by difficulty in learning the sound distinctions of a language, so that one sound may be used in place of many. However, it is not uncommon for a single person to have a mixed speech sound disorder with both phonemic and phonetic components.
Stuttering (AKA “Dysphemia”) affects approximately 1% of the adult population.
Voice disorders are impairments, often physical, that involve the function of the larynx or vocal resonance.
Causes
In some cases the cause is unknown. However, there are various known causes of speech impairments, such as hearing loss, neurological disorders, brain injury, an increase in mental strain, constant bullying, intellectual disability, substance use disorder, physical impairments such as cleft lip and palate, and vocal abuse or misuse. After strokes, there is known to be a higher incidence of apraxia of speech, which is a disorder affecting neurological pathways involved with speech. Poor motor function is also suggested to be highly associated with speech disorders, especially in children. Hereditary causes have also been suggested, as many times children of individuals with speech disorders will develop them as well. 20-40% individuals with a family history of a specific language impairment are likely to be diagnosed, whereas only 4% of the population overall is likely to be diagnosed. There are also language disorders that are known to be genetic, such as hereditary ataxia, which can cause slow and unclear speech.
Treatment
Many of these types of disorders can be treated by speech therapy, but others require medical attention by a doctor in phoniatrics. Other treatments include correction of organic conditions and psychotherapy.
In the United States, school-age children with a speech disorder are often placed in special education programs. Children who struggle to learn to talk often experience persistent communication difficulties in addition to academic struggles. More than 700,000 of the students served in the public schools' special education programs in the 2000–2001 school year were categorized as having a speech or language impairment. This estimate does not include children who have speech and language impairments secondary to other conditions such as deafness". Many school districts provide the students with speech therapy during school hours, although extended day and summer services may be appropriate under certain circumstances.
Patients will be treated in teams, depending on the type of disorder they have. A team can include speech–language pathologists, specialists, family doctors, teachers, and family members.
Social effects
Having a speech disorder can have negative social effects, especially among young children. Those with a speech disorder can be targets of bullying because of their disorder. This bullying can result in decreased self-esteem. Religion and culture also play a large role in the social effects of speech disorders. For example, in many African countries like Kenya cleft palates are largely considered to be caused by a curse from God. This can cause people with cleft palates to not receive care in early childhood, and end in rejection from society. For those with speech disorders, listeners reactions are often negative, which may correlate negative effects to self-esteem. It has also been shown that adults tend to view individuals with stutters in more negative ways than those without them.
Language disorders
Language disorders are usually considered distinct from speech disorders, although they are often used synonymously.
Speech disorders refer to problems in producing the sounds of speech or with the quality of voice, where language disorders are usually an impairment of either understanding words or being able to use words and do not have to do with speech production.
See also
== References == |
Apraxia_of_speech | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apraxia_of_speech | [
373
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apraxia_of_speech"
] | Apraxia of speech (AOS), also called verbal apraxia, is a speech sound disorder affecting an individual's ability to translate conscious speech plans into motor plans, which results in limited and difficult speech ability. By the definition of apraxia, AOS affects volitional (willful or purposeful) movement pattern. However, AOS usually also affects automatic speech.
Individuals with AOS have difficulty connecting speech messages from the brain to the mouth. AOS is a loss of prior speech ability resulting from a brain injury such as a stroke or progressive illness.
Developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD), also known as childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), is an inability to utilize motor planning to perform movements necessary for speech during a child's language learning process. Although the causes differ between AOS and DVD, the main characteristics and treatments are similar.
Presentation
Apraxia of speech (AOS) is a neurogenic communication disorder affecting the motor programming system for speech production. Individuals with AOS demonstrate difficulty in speech production, specifically with sequencing and forming sounds. The Levelt model describes the speech production process in the following three consecutive stages: conceptualization, formulation, and articulation. According to the Levelt model, apraxia of speech would fall into the articulation region. The individual does not have a language deficiency, but has difficulty in the production of language in an audible manner. Notably, this difficulty is limited to vocal speech, and does not affect sign-language production. The individual knows exactly what they want to say, but there is a disruption in the part of the brain that sends the signal to the muscle for the specific movement. Individuals with acquired AOS demonstrate hallmark characteristics of articulation and prosody (rhythm, stress or intonation) errors. Coexisting characteristics may include groping and effortful speech production with self-correction, difficulty initiating speech, abnormal stress, intonation and rhythm errors, and inconsistency with articulation.
Wertz et al., (1984) describe the following five speech characteristics that an individual with apraxia of speech may exhibit:
Effortful trial and error with groping
Groping is when the mouth searches for the position needed to create a sound. When this trial and error process occurs, sounds may be held out longer, repeated or silently voiced. In some cases, someone with AOS may be able to produce certain sounds on their own, easily and unconsciously, but when prompted by another to produce the same sound the patient may grope with their lips, using volitional control (conscious awareness of the attempted speech movements), while struggling to produce the sound.
Self correction of errors
Patients are aware of their speech errors and can attempt to correct themselves. This can involve distorted consonants, vowels, and sound substitutions. People with AOS often have a much greater understanding of speech than they are able to express. This receptive ability allows them to attempt self correction.
Abnormal rhythm, stress and intonation
People with AOS present with prosodic errors which include irregular pitch, rate, and rhythm. This impaired prosody causes their speech to be: too slow or too fast and highly segmented (many pauses). An AOS speaker also stresses syllables incorrectly and in a monotone. As a result, the speech is often described as 'robotic'. When words are produced in a monotone with equal syllabic stress, a word such as 'tectonic' may sound like 'tec-ton-ic' as opposed to 'tec-TON-ic'. These patterns occur even though the speakers are aware of the prosodic patterns that should be used.
Inconsistent articulation errors on repeated speech productions of the same utterance
When producing the same utterance in different instances, a person with AOS may have difficulty using and maintaining the same articulation that was previously used for that utterance. On some days, people with AOS may have more errors, or seem to "lose" the ability to produce certain sounds for an amount of time. Articulation also becomes more difficult when a word or phrase requires an articulation adjustment, in which the lips and tongue must move in order to shift between sounds. For example, the word "baby" needs less mouth adjustment than the word "dog" requires, since producing "dog" requires two tongue/lips movements to articulate.
Difficulty initiating utterances
Producing utterances becomes a difficult task in patients with AOS, which results in various speech errors. The errors in completing a speech movement gesture may increase as the length of the utterance increases. Since multisyllabic words are difficult, those with AOS use simple syllables and a limited range of consonants and vowels.
Causes
Apraxia of speech can be caused by impairment to parts of the brain that control muscle movement and speech. However, identifying a particular region of the brain in which AOS always occurs has been controversial. Various patients with damage to left subcortical structures, regions of the insula, and Broca's area have been diagnosed with AOS. Most commonly it is triggered by vascular lesions, but AOS can also arise due to tumors and trauma.
Acute apraxia of speech
Stroke-associated AOS is the most common form of acquired AOS, making up about 60% of all reported acquired AOS cases. This is one of the several possible disorders that can result from a stroke, but only about 11% of stroke cases involve this disorder. Brain damage to the neural connections, and especially the neural synapses, during the stroke can lead to acquired AOS. Most cases of stroke-associated AOS are minor, but in the most severe cases, all linguistic motor function can be lost and must be relearned. Since most with this form of AOS are at least fifty years old, few fully recover to their previous level of ability to produce speech.
Other disorders and injuries of the brain that can lead to AOS include (traumatic) dementia, progressive neurological disorders, and traumatic brain injury.
Progressive apraxia of speech
Recent research has established the existence of primary progressive apraxia of speech caused by neuroanatomic motor atrophy. For a long time, this disorder was not distinguished from other motor speech disorders such as dysarthria and in particular primary progressive aphasia. Many studies have been done trying to identify areas in the brain in which this particular disorder occurs or at least to show that it occurs in different areas of the brain than other disorders. One study observed 37 patients with neurodegenerative speech disorders to determine whether or not it is distinguishable from other disorders, and if so where in the brain it can be found. Using speech and language, neurological, neuropsychological and neuroimaging testing, the researchers came to the conclusion that PAS does exist and that it correlates to superior lateral premotor and supplementary motor atrophy. However, because PAS is such a rare and recently discovered disorder, many studies do not have enough subjects to observe to make data entirely conclusive.
Diagnosis
Apraxia of speech can be diagnosed by a speech language pathologist (SLP) through specific exams that measure oral mechanisms of speech. The oral mechanisms exam involves tasks such as pursing lips, blowing, licking lips, elevating the tongue, and also involves an examination of the mouth. A complete exam also involves observation of the patient eating and talking. SLPs do not agree on a specific set of characteristics that make up the apraxia of speech diagnosis, so any of the characteristics from the section above could be used to form a diagnosis. Patients may be asked to perform other daily tasks such as reading, writing, and conversing with others. In situations involving brain damage, an MRI brain scan also helps identify damaged areas of the brain.
A differential diagnosis must be used in order to rule out other similar or alternative disorders. Although disorders such as expressive aphasia, conduction aphasia, and dysarthria involve similar symptoms as apraxia of speech, the disorders must be distinguished in order to correctly treat the patients. While AOS involves the motor planning or processing stage of speech, aphasic disorders can involve other language processes.
According to Ziegler et al., this difficulty in diagnosis derives from the unknown causes and function of the disorder, making it hard to set definite parameters for AOS identification. Specifically, he explains that oral-facial apraxia, dysarthria, and aphasic phonological impairment are the three distinctly different disorders that cause individuals to display symptoms that are often similar to those of someone with AOS, and that these close relatives must be correctly ruled out by a Speech Language Pathologist before AOS can be given as a diagnosis. In this way, AOS is a diagnosis of exclusion, and is generally recognized when all other similar speech sound production disorders are eliminated.
Possible co-morbid aphasias
AOS and expressive aphasia (also known as Broca's aphasia) are commonly mistaken as the same disorder mainly because they often occur together in patients. Although both disorders present with symptoms such as a difficulty producing sounds due to damage in the language parts of the brain, they are not the same. The main difference between these disorders lies in the ability to comprehend spoken language; patients with apraxia are able to fully comprehend speech, while patients with aphasia are not always fully able to comprehend others' speech.
Conduction aphasia is another speech disorder that is similar to, but not the same as, apraxia of speech. Although patients with conduction aphasia have full comprehension of speech, as do those with AOS, there are differences between the two disorders. Patients with conduction aphasia are typically able to speak fluently, but they do not have the ability to repeat what they hear.
Similarly, dysarthria, another motor speech disorder, is characterized by difficulty articulating sounds. The difficulty in articulation does not occur due in planning the motor movement, as happens with AOS. Instead, dysarthria is caused by inability in or weakness of the muscles in the mouth, face, and respiratory system.
Management
In cases of acute AOS (stroke), spontaneous recovery may occur, in which previous speech abilities reappear on their own. All other cases of acquired AOS require a form of therapy; however the therapy varies with the individual needs of the patient. Typically, treatment involves one-on-one therapy with a speech language pathologist (SLP). For severe forms of AOS, therapy may involve multiple sessions per week, which is reduced with speech improvement. Another main theme in AOS treatment is the use of repetition in order to achieve a large number of target utterances, or desired speech usages.
There are various treatment techniques for AOS. One technique, called the Linguistic Approach, utilizes the rules for sounds and sequences. This approach focuses on the placement of the mouth in forming speech sounds. Another type of treatment is the Motor-Programming Approach, in which the motor movements necessary for speech are practiced. This technique utilizes a great amount of repetition in order to practice the sequences and transitions that are necessary in between production of sounds.
Research about the treatment of apraxia has revealed four main categories: articulatory-kinematic, rate/rhythm control, intersystemic facilitation/reorganization treatments, and alternative/augmentative communication.
Articulatory-kinematic treatments almost always require verbal production in order to bring about improvement of speech. One common technique for this is modeling or repetition in order to establish the desired speech behavior. Articulatory-kinematic treatments are based on the importance of patients to improve spatial and temporal aspects of speech production.
Rate and rhythm control treatments exist to improve errors in patients' timing of speech, a common characteristic of Apraxia. These techniques often include an external source of control like metronomic pacing, for example, in repeated speech productions.
Intersystemic reorganization/facilitation techniques often involve physical body or limb gestural approaches to improve speech. Gestures are usually combined with verbalization. It is thought that limb gestures may improve the organization of speech production.
Finally, alternative and augmentative communication approaches to treatment of apraxia are highly individualized for each patient. However, they often involve a "comprehensive communication system" that may include "speech, a communication book aid, a spelling system, a drawing system, a gestural system, technologies, and informed speech partners".
One specific treatment method is referred to as PROMPT. This acronym stands for Prompts for Restructuring Oral Muscular Phonetic Targets, and takes a hands on multidimensional approach at treating speech production disorders. PROMPT therapists integrate physical-sensory, cognitive-linguistic, and social-emotional aspects of motor performance. The main focus is developing language interaction through this tactile-kinetic approach by using touch cues to facilitate the articulatory movements associated with individual phonemes, and eventually words.
One study describes the use of electropalatography (EPG) to treat a patient with severe acquired apraxia of speech. EPG is a computer-based tool for assessment and treatment of speech motor issues. The program allows patients to see the placement of articulators during speech production thus aiding them in attempting to correct errors. Originally after two years of speech therapy, the patient exhibited speech motor and production problems including problems with phonation, articulation, and resonance. This study showed that EPG therapy gave the patient valuable visual feedback to clarify speech movements that had been difficult for the patient to complete when given only auditory feedback.
While many studies are still exploring the various treatment methods, a few suggestions from ASHA for treating apraxia patients include the integration of objective treatment evidence, theoretical rationale, clinical knowledge and experience, and the needs and goals of the patient.
History and terminology
The term apraxia was first defined by Hugo Karl Liepmann in 1908 as the "inability to perform voluntary acts despite preserved muscle strength." In 1969, Frederic L. Darley coined the term "apraxia of speech", replacing Liepmann's original term "apraxia of the glosso-labio-pharyngeal structures." Paul Broca had also identified this speech disorder in 1861, which he referred to as "aphemia": a disorder involving difficulty of articulation despite having intact language skills and muscular function.
The disorder is currently referred to as "apraxia of speech", but was also formerly termed "verbal dyspraxia". The term apraxia comes from the Greek root "praxis," meaning the performance of action or skilled movement. Adding the prefix "a", meaning absence, or "dys", meaning abnormal or difficult, to the root "praxis", both function to imply speech difficulties related to movement.
See also
References
External links
Dysarthria vs. Apraxia: A Comparison |
Hugo_Liepmann | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Liepmann | [
373
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Liepmann"
] | Hugo Karl Liepmann (April 9, 1863 – May 6, 1925) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist born in Berlin, into a Jewish family.
Initially, he studied both chemistry and philosophy at the Universities of Freiburg and Leipzig, obtaining his doctorate in 1885. His interests later turned to medicine, and after completion of studies, worked as an assistant to Carl Wernicke in the psychiatric clinic at Breslau. In 1906 he became head physician at Dalldorf (Berlin-Wittenau), followed by an assignment as director of the Städtische Irrenanstalt zu Lichtenberg (Herzberge) in 1914.
Liepmann is remembered for his pioneer work involving cerebral localization of function. From anatomical studies, he postulated that planned or commanded actions were controlled in the parietal lobe of the brain's dominant hemisphere, and not in the frontal lobe. He conducted extensive research of a disorder he called apraxia, a term that he introduced in 1900. Apraxia is described as the inability to coordinate voluntary muscular movements that is symptomatic of some central nervous system disorders and injuries and not due to muscle weakness. Liepmann believed that damage in the parietal lobe prevented activation of learned sequences of actions that are necessary to produce desired results on command. As a result of his studies, he divided apraxia into three types:
ideational: object blindness, where the patient is incapable of making appropriate use of familiar objects upon command.
ideomotor: the inability to follow verbal commands or mimic an action, such as saluting or waving goodbye.
kinetic: clumsiness in performing a precision act that is not due to paralysis, muscle weakness, or sensory loss.
Published works
Das Krankheitsbild der Apraxie ("motorischen Asymbolie") : auf Grund eines Falles von einseitiger Apraxie, 1900 – The pathology of apraxia ("motor asymbolia") pursuant to a case of unilateral apraxia.
Über Ideenflucht. Begriffsbestimmung und psychologische Analyse, 1904 – On flight of ideas : Definition and psychological analysis.
Ueber Störungen des Handelns bei Gehirnkranken, 1905 – On disorders of action involving brain health.
Drei Aufsätze aus dem Apraxiegebiet : neu Durchgesehen und mit Zusätzen versehen, 1908 – Three essays on the apraxia region.
"Translations from Liepmann's essays on apraxia", 1980.
== References == |
List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates | [
373,
707
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Peace_Prize_laureates"
] | The Norwegian Nobel Committee awards the Nobel Peace Prize annually "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." As dictated by Alfred Nobel's will, the award is administered by the Norwegian Nobel Committee and awarded by a committee of five people elected by the Parliament of Norway.
Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma, and a monetary award prize (that has varied throughout the years). It is one of the five prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel (who died in 1896), awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature, physiology or medicine.
Overview
The Peace Prize is presented annually in Oslo, in the presence of the King of Norway, on 10 December, the anniversary of Nobel's death, and is the only Nobel Prize not presented in Stockholm. Unlike the other prizes, the Peace Prize is occasionally awarded to an organisation (such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, a three-time recipient) rather than an individual.
The Nobel Peace Prize was first awarded in 1901 to Frédéric Passy and Henry Dunant, who shared a prize of 150,782 Swedish kronor (equal to 7,731,004 kronor in 2008), and most recently in 2023 to Narges Mohammadi.
Linus Pauling, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1962, is the only person to have been awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes; he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954.
At 17 years of age, Malala Yousafzai, the 2014 recipient, is the youngest to be awarded the Peace Prize.
The first woman to receive a Nobel Peace Prize was Bertha von Suttner in 1905. Of the 111 individual Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, 19 have been women.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has received the most Nobel Peace Prizes, having been awarded the Prize three times for its humanitarian work.
Five Nobel Peace Prize Laureates were under arrest at the time of their awards: Carl von Ossietzky, Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo, Ales Bialiatski, and Narges Mohammadi.
Laureates
As of 2023, the Peace Prize has been awarded to 111 individuals and 27 organizations. Nineteen women have won the Nobel Peace Prize, more than any other Nobel Prize. Only two recipients have won multiple Peace Prizes: the International Committee of the Red Cross has won three times (1917, 1944 and 1963) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has won twice (1954 and 1981). There have been 19 years in which the Peace Prize was not awarded.
Awardees by category
See also
List of Nobel laureates
List of peace activists
List of organizations nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
List of individuals nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize
PRIO Director's Shortlist
Notes
A The following laureates were all awarded their respective Prizes one year late because the Committee decided that none of the nominations in the year in which they are listed as being awarded the Prize met the criteria in Nobel's will; per its rules the Committee delayed the awarding of the Prizes until the next year, although they were awarded as the previous year's Prize:
Elihu Root (1912), Woodrow Wilson (1919), Austen Chamberlain (1925), Charles G. Dawes (1925), Frank B. Kellogg (1929), Norman Angell (1933), Carl von Ossietzky (1935), International Committee of the Red Cross (1944), Albert Schweitzer (1952), Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (1954), Albert Lutuli (1960), Linus Pauling (1962)
B Carl von Ossietzky's Prize was awarded in absentia because he was imprisoned and was refused a passport by the government of Germany.
C Dag Hammarskjöld's Prize was awarded posthumously.
D Lê Đức Thọ declined to accept the Prize.
E Andrei Sakharov's Prize was awarded in absentia because he was refused a passport by the government of the Soviet Union.
F Aung San Suu Kyi's Prize was awarded in absentia because she was being held prisoner by the government of Burma. Following her release from house arrest and election to the Pyithu Hluttaw, Suu Kyi accepted her award in person on 16 June 2012.
G Liu Xiaobo's Prize was awarded in absentia because he was imprisoned in China.
References
Sources
External links
The Nobel Peace Prize: Official website Archived 2 December 2023 at the Wayback Machine |
Serene_(yacht) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serene_(yacht) | [
374
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serene_(yacht)"
] | Serene is one of the world's largest private superyachts.
Built by Italian shipyard Fincantieri with interior design by Reymond Langton Design, Serene was delivered to her owner in August 2011. At delivery, she was one of the 10 largest yachts in the world with an overall length of 133.9 m (439 ft 4 in) and a beam of 18.5 m (60 ft 8 in).
Ownership
The ship was built for Russian vodka tycoon Yuri Shefler for $330m. In the summer of 2014, Bill Gates leased the yacht for US$5 million per week.
In 2014, while vacationing in the south of France, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia bought the vessel from Yuri Shefler for approximately €500 million.
Incident at sea
In August 2017, Serene ran aground on a shallow rock reef in the Red Sea, 37 km (20 nautical miles) off the coast of Sharm El Sheikh. She sustained significant damage to her hull at the bow. The cause was reported to be a combination of navigational error and propulsion failure.
Trivia
The Leonardo da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi was reported to be on board the yacht from some time in 2019 to late 2020.
== References == |
Yuri_Shefler | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Shefler | [
374
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Shefler"
] | Yuri Shefler (Russian: Юрий Викторович Шефлер; born 10 September 1967) is a Russian-born businessman. He is the owner of SPI Group, an international consortium that sells alcohol in 160 countries, most notably the Stolichnaya vodka brand. As of March 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$1.5 billion.
Business career
Shefler left the Soviet Army in September 1987 and embarked on a career in business, which saw him running one of Moscow`s leading shopping malls and Vnukovo Airlines.
He used to own one of the largest yachts in the world, Serene, with a length of 133.9 m (439 ft 4 in). In 2015 he sold Serene to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a reported $550 million. In March 2017 he bought Tulchan Estate on Speyside, Scotland's most expensive sporting estate.
On 17 February 2022, Brad Pitt said that Angelina Jolie sold to Shefler's wine group Tenute del Mondo, which is a subsidiary of Shefler's Stoli Group, her interest in the Château Miraval at Correns in Provence, France, which Pitt and Jolie purchased in 2008 for $28.4 million.
SPI Group
SPI Group produces and sells alcohol under 380 brands in 160 countries, most notably Stolichnaya vodka. SPI Group also owns Louisiana Spirits Company, Fabrica de Tequilas Finos in Mexico and Achaval Ferrer in Argentina.
Shefler's SPI Group has been involved in a decades-long dispute with Russian state-owned company FKP Sojuzplodoimport (FKP) over who owns the Stolichnaya and Moskovskaya trademarks. In 2020 the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that the rights belonged to Russia and ordered SPI Group to stop selling its products in Benelux.
In 2022 Shefler was ordered to pay a former UK executive over £1.6 million after sacking him when he complained about pay cuts.
Personal life
Shefler was born to a Russian Jewish family in Oryol. He has citizenship in the United Kingdom and Israel.
He was formerly married to Tatiana Kovylina, a Russian model who once worked for Victoria's Secret, until their split in 2021. They have four children together, and lived together in Geneva, Switzerland.
He has since been linked to Ksenia Sukhinova, who was Miss Russia 2007, and Miss World 2008.
As reported by Forbes in March 2022, Shefler had an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion.
== References == |
Andy_Roddick_career_statistics | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Roddick_career_statistics | [
375
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Roddick_career_statistics#Singles:_5_finals_(1–4)"
] | This is a list of the main career statistics of retired professional American tennis player, Andy Roddick. Throughout his career, Roddick won thirty-two ATP singles titles including one grand slam singles title and five ATP Masters 1000 singles titles. He was also the runner-up at the Wimbledon Championships in 2004, 2005 and 2009 and the US Open in 2006, losing on all four occasions to Roger Federer. Roddick was also a four-time semifinalist at the Australian Open and a three-time semifinalist at the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals. On November 3, 2003, Roddick became the World No. 1 for the first time in his career.
Career achievements
Roddick reached his first career Grand Slam singles quarterfinal at the 2001 US Open, where he lost to fourth-seeded Australian and eventual champion Lleyton Hewitt in a five-set thriller 7–6, 3–6, 4–6, 6–3, 4–6. A year later, he reached his first masters series singles final at the 2002 Rogers Cup, losing in straight sets to Argentine Guillermo Cañas. The following year, Roddick reached his first grand slam semifinal at the 2003 Australian Open, where he lost to thirty-first seed Rainer Schüttler in four sets, 5–7, 6–2, 3–6, 3–6. In August, Roddick won his first major singles title at the 2003 Rogers Cup, defeating David Nalbandian in the final in straight sets. Three weeks later, Roddick rallied from two sets and a match point down to defeat Nalbandian in five sets to reach his first Grand Slam singles final at the US Open, where he defeated fourth-seeded Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero in the final in straight sets, 6–3, 7–6, 6–3, to win his first and only Grand Slam singles title to date. Roddick's strong results throughout the year allowed him to qualify for the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals for the first time in his career. He advanced to the semifinals of the event after victories over Guillermo Coria and Carlos Moyá in the round robin stage but lost in straights to then World No. 2 Roger Federer in the semifinals. Despite the loss, Roddick finished the year as the World No. 1 for the first (and only) time in his career, becoming the first American player to finish a season as World No. 1 since Andre Agassi and the youngest American player to have held the top ranking since computer rankings began in 1973.
In July 2004, Roddick reached his first Wimbledon final but lost in four sets to then World No. 1, Roger Federer. He reached the final of the event again the following year but once again lost to Federer, this time in straight sets. The following year, Roddick reached his fourth grand slam singles final but once again lost to Federer, this time in the final of the US Open. In 2007, Roddick reached the semifinals of the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals for the third and final time in his career, losing in straight sets to Spaniard, David Ferrer.
Roddick enjoyed a resurgent year in 2009, during which he reached the semifinals of the Australian Open for the fourth and final time in his career and the fourth round of the French Open for the first and only time in his career. The highlight of Roddick's year came at the 2009 Wimbledon Championships where he reached his third final at the event and fifth and final grand slam singles final. There, he lost to Federer in a five set thriller. On July 22, 2012, Roddick won his thirty-second and final career singles title at the Atlanta Tennis Championships, defeating Gilles Müller of Luxembourg in the final in three sets; Roddick won his first career singles title at the same event eleven years prior.
Singles performance timeline
*Qualified for Year-end championships in 2005 and 2009, but pulled out both times due to injury.
1 Held as Hamburg Masters (outdoor clay) until 2008, Madrid Masters (outdoor clay) 2009 – onward.
2 Held as Stuttgart Masters (indoor hard) until 2001, Madrid Masters (indoor hard) from 2002 to 2008, and Shanghai Masters (outdoor hard) 2009 – onward.
Significant finals
Grand Slam finals
Singles: 5 finals (1–4)
Masters Series finals
Singles: 9 finals (5–4)
Doubles: 2 finals (1–1)
ATP career finals
Singles: 52 (32 titles, 20 runner-ups)
Doubles: 8 (4–4)
ATP Challenger Tour career finals
Singles: 4 (3 titles, 1 runner-up)
Doubles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up)
Record against top 10 players
Roddick's match record against players who were ranked in the top 10, with those who reached No. 1 in boldface
Top 10 wins
Roddick has a 37–73 record against players who were, at the time the match was played, ranked in the top 10.
National participation
Team competition: 2 (1–1)
Davis Cup (33–12)
Grand Slam titles details
ATP Tour career earnings
* Statistics correct as of 3 January 2021.
Career Grand Slam seedings
The tournaments won by Roddick are in boldface, while those where he was runner-up are italicized.
Notable exhibitions
Team competitions
References
External links
Andy Roddick at the Association of Tennis Professionals
Andy Roddick at the International Tennis Federation
Andy Roddick at the Davis Cup |
2003_World_Series | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_World_Series | [
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] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_World_Series"
] | The 2003 World Series (also known as the Centennial World Series) was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2003 season. The 99th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the National League (NL) champion Florida Marlins and the American League (AL) champion New York Yankees; the Marlins upset the heavily-favored Yankees, four games to two. The series was played from October 18 to 25, 2003. This is the most recent Series in which the losing team outscored the winning team; the Yankees lost, despite outscoring the Marlins 21–17 in the Series. This was the Marlins' second World Series championship win, having won their first in 1997. The Marlins would not return to the postseason until 2020.
Background
The 2003 World Series featured the New York Yankees in their sixth Series appearance in eight years. Opposing them were the wild card Florida Marlins, appearing in their second World Series in their 11-year franchise history. The Marlins became the second straight wild card team to win the World Series; the Anaheim Angels won in 2002. The series was, however, somewhat overshadowed by the League Championship Series that year, when the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox, both teams that had gone decades without winning a World Series (95 years for Chicago, 85 for Boston), went down in dramatic defeats only five outs away from the pennant, and each in seven games. By losing the series, the Yankees became the first team to lose two World Series to post 1960 expansion teams; losing to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who entered the National League in 1998, in the 2001 World Series and now the Marlins who entered the National League in 1993.
It was the 100th anniversary of the World Series, and advertised as such. However, it was only the 99th event due to a strike cancelling the 1994 World Series and the boycott of the 1904 World Series by the National League.
The Marlins started the season 16–22 when they fired manager Jeff Torborg and hired McKeon, who had been retired from baseball for over two years. They went 75–49 under McKeon to win the wild card. At 72, McKeon would become the oldest manager to win a World Series. They lost the first game of the National League Division Series to the San Francisco Giants, but came back to win the final three. After going down three games to one to the Cubs in the National League Championship Series, they rallied to win the final three games. In the World Series, the Marlins put up their young roster with a $54 million payroll up against the storied Yankees and their $164 million payroll. By facing the Marlins, the Yankees faced every team in the National League that had won a National League pennant. Since then, the 2005 Houston Astros, 2007 Colorado Rockies and the 2019 Washington Nationals have reached the World Series without facing the Yankees (although the Astros would face the Yankees in the postseason after their switch to the American League in 2013).
The 2003 Marlins were largely led by players picked up in the Marlins' post-1997 championship fire sale, such as Derrek Lee, A. J. Burnett, Braden Looper, Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett, and Juan Pierre.
Broadcasting
Fox again provided coverage of the World Series on American television. Joe Buck and Tim McCarver broadcast the series for Fox. National radio coverage was provided by ESPN Radio, with Jon Miller and Joe Morgan calling the action.
The Marlins' local broadcast aired on WQAM in Miami and on the Marlins Radio Network. Jon Sciambi and Dave Van Horne were in the booth. The Yankees' local broadcast was carried by WCBS-AM and the New York Yankees Radio Network, with John Sterling and Charley Steiner broadcasting.
Summary
The Yankees had been awarded home-field advantage for this World Series, because the AL won the 2003 All-Star game. MLB had alternated home-field advantage for the World Series between the two leagues prior to this, and the NL would have been due for home-field in 2003 before the change.
Florida won the series, 4–2.
Matchups
Game 1
A trio of Marlins pitchers managed to keep the Yankees in check. Brad Penny, Dontrelle Willis, and Ugueth Urbina held New York to two runs. Juan Pierre scored Florida's first run in the first on Iván Rodríguez's sacrifice fly and drove in the other two with a two-run single in the fifth after Jeff Conine and Juan Encarnación reached base and advanced on a sacrifice bunt. The Yankees scored on a single by Derek Jeter in the third and a home run by Bernie Williams in the sixth, the 18th postseason home run of his career, tying a mark shared by Reggie Jackson and Mickey Mantle.
Urbina ran into immediate trouble in the ninth, walking Jason Giambi to lead off the inning and, one out later, walking pinch-hitter Rubén Sierra to put pinch-runner David Dellucci in scoring position. However, Alfonso Soriano was called out looking on a 3–2 pitch and Nick Johnson flied out to center to end the game.
David Wells pitched seven solid innings for New York in a losing effort. The defeat marked the first Yankees loss of a home World Series contest since Game 2 of the 1996 World Series.
Game 2
The Yankees bounced back behind the arm of Andy Pettitte who allowed only six hits and one walk in 8+2⁄3 innings. He allowed only one unearned run on a single by Derrek Lee in the ninth. The Yankees' Hideki Matsui hit a three-run home run in the first inning on a 3–0 pitch, becoming the first Japanese player to hit a home run in a World Series, and also became the second Japanese player to play a World Series game. Nick Johnson hit a bunt single in the second with one out and scored on Juan Rivera's double with Rivera being tagged out at third. Alfonso Soriano hit a two-run shot off reliever Rick Helling in the fourth. Florida's starter Mark Redman lasted only 2+1⁄3 innings while allowing four runs. It would be the last World Series game won by the Yankees at the old Yankee Stadium.
Game 3
Game 3 was a pitcher's duel for the first seven innings. Florida starter Josh Beckett held the Yankees to one run through seven innings, the lone run coming on a bases-loaded walk after two consecutive borderline pitches that were called balls. The Marlins struck early off New York starter Mike Mussina with Miguel Cabrera singling in Juan Pierre in the bottom of the first. Mussina settled down and did not allow another run to the Marlins in seven strong innings. Beckett pitched strong into the eighth until he started to tire. He left with one out in the eighth having recorded ten strikeouts for the night.
Reliever Dontrelle Willis entered the 1–1 game and got one out, but gave up an opposite-field single to Hideki Matsui to give the Yankees their first lead of the night. Chad Fox relieved Willis and struck out Rubén Sierra to end the inning. The Yankees offense would return in the ninth. Aaron Boone led off the inning with a home run to left, and after a walk by Alfonso Soriano, Derek Jeter was hit by a pitch before Bernie Williams hit a three-run shot to center to give the Yankees a 6–1 lead. Williams' home run was his 19th in the postseason, a new Major League record. His 65 RBIs were also the most in postseason history. Yankees closer Mariano Rivera pitched the final two innings for his record 30th career postseason save. Mussina received his fifth postseason win. The game was interrupted in the fifth by a 39-minute rain delay, the first weather-related delay of a World Series game since Game 1 of the 1996 World Series, also at Yankee Stadium.
Game 4
The Marlins jumped out to an early lead against Yankees starter Roger Clemens. Miguel Cabrera hit a two-run homer in the first and Derrek Lee hit an RBI single. Clemens settled down and held the Marlins scoreless in the next six innings. When Clemens struck out Luis Castillo to end the seventh, it was then thought to have marked the end of his Major League career. With flashbulbs lighting up the stadium, the crowd gave him a standing ovation; the Marlins even paused to applaud in recognition of Clemens' what then appeared to be a Hall-of-Fame career (as it turned out, Clemens would put off his retirement to sign with the Houston Astros for 2004). Meanwhile, the Yankees scored their first run on a sacrifice fly by Aaron Boone in the second inning. Marlins starter Carl Pavano held the Yankees to that lone run through eight strong innings.
Clemens was set to get the loss until the Yankees rallied in the ninth inning against Ugueth Urbina. Bernie Williams singled with one out, Hideki Matsui walked and Jorge Posada grounded into a force play. Pinch-hitter Rubén Sierra fouled off two full-count pitches before tripling into the right-field corner to tie the ball game. The game headed to extra innings. The Yankees threatened to score in the top of the 11th inning when they loaded the bases with one out off Chad Fox. Braden Looper relieved Fox and struck out Boone, and replacement catcher John Flaherty popped out to third. The Marlins won the game in dramatic fashion in the bottom of the 12th inning when Álex González led off with a home run off Jeff Weaver that just cleared the fence in left to help the Marlins win 4–3. Prior to the home run, Gonzalez had been 5-for-53 in the 2003 postseason.
Game 5
Game 5 featured a rematch of Game 1's starters, Florida's Brad Penny versus New York's David Wells. Before a sellout crowd of 65,975, the Yankees did not appear very sharp, botching a rundown play in the fifth inning that led to two Marlin runs. Slumping Alfonso Soriano was benched and first baseman Jason Giambi nursed a leg injury. Wells left the game after pitching just one inning due to back spasms. His replacement, José Contreras, pitched three shaky innings, allowing three walks and four runs. The Yankees drew first blood with a sacrifice fly from Bernie Williams in the first. In the second, the Marlins scored on an RBI double by Álex González and Brad Penny helped his own cause by singling in two more runs. They scored again on a Juan Pierre double in the fourth and a two-run single by Mike Lowell in the fifth, to give the Marlins a 6–1 lead.
The Yankees began clawing away at that lead with a Derek Jeter RBI-single in the seventh. Dontrelle Willis relieved Penny by pitching a scoreless eighth. In the ninth, Jason Giambi hit a pinch-hit home run to right field off reliever Braden Looper. That made it 6–3 Marlins. After a Jeter single, Enrique Wilson doubled him home to cut the Marlins' lead to 6–4. Ugueth Urbina relieved Looper and retired Bernie Williams on a fly ball near the outfield wall which was caught by Juan Encarnación just inches away from a home run and Hideki Matsui on a ground ball to first base to preserve the Marlins win.
This would be the seventh and final World Series game at what was then Pro Player Stadium; the Marlins would continue to play at the stadium until the end of the 2011 Major League Baseball season. This was the first of two consecutive games in this World Series to mark the final World Series game in its respective park. This game also marked the first time in MLB history that 1st inning runs had been scored in the first 5 games played in a World Series.
Game 6
The series headed back to New York for Game 6, marking the 100th World Series game played at Yankee Stadium. Marlins manager Jack McKeon decided to start 23-year-old Josh Beckett on three days' rest instead of Mark Redman, who had struggled in his Game 2 start. Beckett made the move seem brilliant—his complete-game shutout in the final game of the World Series made him the first to accomplish the feat since Jack Morris of the Minnesota Twins in 1991. The Marlins scored the game's only runs on three consecutive two-out singles by Álex González, Juan Pierre and Luis Castillo in the fifth and Juan Encarnación's sacrifice fly that scored Jeff Conine, who had reached on an error the next inning.
Andy Pettitte pitched seven strong innings in a losing cause, with only one run being earned. Mariano Rivera pitched the last two innings for New York.
With the victory, the Marlins became the first National League team since the 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers, the last opposing team to win a Series championship at Yankee Stadium, to win the World Series without having home field advantage. They are just the fourth team overall to do it since the 1984 Detroit Tigers, 1992 Toronto Blue Jays and 1999 New York Yankees. They also became the second expansion team in the National League to win two World Series titles, following the New York Mets who achieved this feat in 1986; the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League, who pulled this off in 1992 and 1993, are the third major-league expansion franchise to do so. The Marlins also became the fastest expansion team to win two World Series titles, as the Mets won their second title in their 25th season, and the Blue Jays did it in their 17th (the Royals, joining the group 12 years later, got their second title in their 47th season).
The championship was the Marlins' second despite never having won a division title. The Atlanta Braves had won the NL East every year since 1995 going into this World Series, a strike ended the 1994 season without division winners, and the Philadelphia Phillies won the Marlins' division in 1993 (that streak would end in 2006, when the New York Mets claimed the NL East title). The Marlins also became the first team since the creation of the Division Series to win the World Series without having home-field advantage during their entire post-season. As of 2020, the Marlins have a 6-1 record in postseason series play; until the Tampa Bay Rays lost the 2008 World Series, they had extended their home state's perfect streak to 8-0. The now-Miami Marlins recorded their first postseason series loss against the Atlanta Braves in 2020. This was the last World Series game held in the original Yankee Stadium before its closure after the 2008 season. The last World Series in which two stadiums hosted their final World Series games until this year was the 1959 World Series.
Composite box
2003 World Series (4–2): Florida Marlins (N.L.) over New York Yankees (A.L.)
This World Series is notable for being one of the few six-game series in which the winning team was outscored. It happened previously in 1918, 1959, 1977, 1992, and 1996. Seven-game series winners were outscored in 1957, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1991, 1997, and 2002; (equaled in 2016 and 2017).
Aftermath
The Marlins second post-World Series fire sale
There were slight tweaks to the Marlins over the next two years as they traded away Derrek Lee, Mark Redman and Brad Penny and lost Carl Pavano and Ivan Rodriguez to free agency.
But the team began a full blown fire sale after the 2005 season. They let Burnett, Todd Jones, Antonio Alfonseca, Jeff Conine and Juan Encarnación leave as free agents. They then traded Carlos Delgado and Paul Lo Duca to the New York Mets in two separate deals that brought in prospects Mike Jacobs and Yusmeiro Petit. On the same day as the Delgado deal, they also sent Lowell, Beckett and Guillermo Mota to the Boston Red Sox for future Rookie of the Year Hanley Ramirez, Anibal Sanchez (who threw a no-hitter in 2006), Harvey Garcia and Jesus Delgado. Just days after that deal, second baseman Luis Castillo was sent to the Minnesota Twins for Travis Bowyer and Scott Tyler. For his part, outfielder Juan Pierre was then sent to the Chicago Cubs for Sergio Mitre, Ricky Nolasco and Renyel Pinto.
Despite these deals, or maybe because of them, the Marlins actually contended for most of the 2006 season before a late slump dropped them below .500. They are the only team in MLB history to have been 20 games under .500 and have a winning record at different points in the same season. This was in stark contrast to their terrible performance in 1998, in which they lost 108 games one year after their original post-World Series fire sale that followed their first championship.
In one of the more controversial deals in Major League Baseball history, the Marlins sent Miguel Cabrera to Detroit along with Dontrelle Willis for Burke Badenhop, Frankie De La Cruz, Cameron Maybin, Andrew Miller and Mike Rabelo (plus a minor leaguer) in the 2007-2008 off-season. Cabrera went on to Detroit, going to eight more All-Star games, winning back-to-back MVP awards and a triple crown in 2013. Meanwhile, for the Marlins, Maybin never developed into the star he was projected to be, Andrew Miller failed as a starter and became a star reliever after leaving the club, De La Cruz pitched a total of 18 innings in a Marlins uniform, Rabelo hit .202 in 34 games in Miami, while Badenhop had a decent career for the Marlins as a middle reliever.
Over the years, the Marlins became known as the team that will engage in the fire-sale. The Marlins changed their name (to Miami Marlins) and got a new ballpark for the 2012 season, but were unable to change their ways, as they sold off players at the trade deadline and after the season after a disappointing first half of the 2012 season. Following the sale of the Marlins by Jeffrey Loria to Bruce Sherman and the installation of Derek Jeter as team president, after the 2017 season, there was some hope that the Miami franchise was about to turn a new leaf and make a serious effort at putting a competitive product on the field in order to rebuild its fan base's shattered confidence. Alas, this hope was very short-lived, as the new management team quickly sent out the word that they were looking to cut payroll as the team was supposedly losing money badly. During the 2017-2018 off-season, the team traded its star outfield consisting of Marcel Ozuna, Christian Yelich, and Giancarlo Stanton.
The Marlins would not return to the playoffs until the shortened regular season in 2020. That season saw the Marlins lose their first playoff series in franchise history, losing the 2020 NLDS to the Atlanta Braves after winning their first seven postseason series.
Exit Boone, Enter Rodriguez
In January 2004, Aaron Boone tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during a pick-up basketball game in his hometown in Newport Beach, California. In the game, Boone caught a pass from his teammate on the court and an opponent wiped him out on his side in a violent manner. Boone, who disobeyed the terms of his contract with the Yankees by playing basketball, was released fourteen days after the incident and ended up missing the entirety of the 2004 season.
With spring training a month away, the Yankees found themselves in the market for a third baseman. On February 15, 2004, the Rangers traded Alex Rodriguez to the New York Yankees for second baseman Alfonso Soriano and a player to be named later (Joaquín Árias was sent to the Rangers on March 24). The Rangers also agreed to pay $67 million of the $179 million left on Rodriguez's contract. Rodriguez agreed to switch positions from shortstop to third base, paving the way for the trade, because the popular Derek Jeter was already entrenched at shortstop. This was only the second time in MLB history that a reigning MVP was traded, with the first coming in 1914 when Eddie Collins was traded to the Chicago White Sox from the Philadelphia Athletics for cash considerations.
Rodriguez ended up having a successful, yet controversial career with New York. He put up huge numbers throughout his tenure in pinstripes, which included two MVP seasons in 2005 and 2007. Despite this, he was often the most criticized on the team when the Yankees flamed out in post-season, such as blowing a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series. Rodriguez was also popped for steroids twice in pinstripes. Nevertheless, Rodriguez and the Yankees would win a World Series in 2009. In that postseason, he batted .365, hit six homeruns, and drove in 18 runs. Rodriguez also hit home run number 600 with the Yankees, becoming only the eighth player in baseball history to reach 600 home runs.
Aaron Boone would become the Yankees manager in 2018, replacing Joe Girardi. Boone’s job prior to becoming manager was a color analyst for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball, in which he was ironically replaced again by Alex Rodriguez.
Torre's last hurrah
For the Yankees, it would prove to be their final appearance in the World Series with Joe Torre as their manager. They would not get back to the World Series until 2009 when they beat the defending Champion Philadelphia Phillies in six games, this time with second-year manager Joe Girardi (Torre had stepped down after the 2007 season). After parting ways with the Yankees, Torre managed the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2008-2010. For his success with the Yankees, Torre was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2014. Since retiring in 2010, he has worked various jobs in the commissioner’s office, serving as a special assistant to the Commissioner since 2020.
Other notes
Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell later won a second World Series together with the 2007 Boston Red Sox, with Beckett winning ALCS MVP and Lowell earning World Series MVP that year. Braden Looper and Juan Encarnación also won a second World Series title as members of the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals. On the Yankees' side, Jeff Weaver played alongside Looper and Encarnación on the Cardinals' 2006 title team, and José Contreras won a World Series ring with the 2005 Chicago White Sox.
See also
2003 Japan Series
References
External links
2003 World Series at Baseball Almanac
2003 World Series at Baseball-Reference.com
The 2003 Post-Season Games (box scores and play-by-play) at Retrosheet
History of the World Series - 2003 at The Sporting News. Archived from the original in May 2006.
2003 World Series Article |
Great_blue_turaco | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_blue_turaco | [
376
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_blue_turaco"
] | The great blue turaco (Corythaeola cristata) is a bird species of the family Musophagidae. At 70–76 cm (28–30 in) in length, it is the largest species of turaco. It has predominantly grey-blue plumage with an upright blue-black crest around 10 cm (3.9 in) high. The male and female have similar plumage. It is widespread throughout the African tropical rainforest.
Taxonomy
French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot described the great blue turaco as Musophaga cristata in 1816, before German ornithologist Ferdinand Heine placed it in its own genus in 1860.
The great blue turaco is the sole member of the subfamily Corythaeolinae within the turaco family. Its closest relatives are the go-away birds and plantain eaters of the genus Crinifer. The common ancestor of both diverged from the ancestor of all other turaco species.
"Great blue turaco" has been designated the official common name by the International Ornithologists' Union (IOC). It is also called blue plantain eater.
Description
Generally, the great blue turaco is 70–76 cm (28–30 in) in length with a mass of 800–1,231 g (1.764–2.714 lb). The adult great blue turaco has predominantly grey-blue upperparts with an upright blue-black crest, white chin, yellow-green lower breast and yellow belly darkening to chestnut brown posteriorly. The undertail coverts are chestnut, and the undertail is black and yellowish. The yellow bill has an orange-red tip, the eyes are brown, and surrounded by a ring of black bare skin. The legs and feet are black with yellow soles. The sexes have similar plumage.
Distribution and habitat
The species ranges from Guinea in the west, and east across the sub-Saharan nations to the Imatong Mountains in South Sudan; it also occurs in Uganda, Tanzania and western Kenya, south to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola. It inhabits rainforests and gallery forests. It has also adapted to areas cleared by humans and can thrive in these areas.
Behaviour
The great blue turaco is gregarious, with birds forming small troops of some six or seven individuals.
Feeding
The great blue turaco eats leaves, flowers, as well as fruit of many plant species, including those of the genera Musanga, Cissus, Ficus (such as Ficus capensis) Polyalthia, Heisteria, Dacryodes, Pachypodanthium, Uapaca, Strombosia, Trichilia, Drypetes, Viscum, Beilschmiedia, Coelocaryon, Croton, and Pycnanthus. In Kenya, it has been recorded eating mitzeeri (Bridelia micrantha) in April, loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) in July, guava (Psidium guajava) in September and Cordia africana over November and December. Fieldwork in Rwanda revealed leaves constituted around 25% of its diet, being eaten more often when fruit is less abundant. The species also play a role in seed dispersal as it generally passes seed in its faeces some distance from parent trees.
Breeding
The species nests in trees between 8 and 25 metres (26 and 82 ft) above the ground, and the nest is a platform of sticks. Both sexes incubate the clutch of two (rarely one or three) eggs over 29–31 days. The eggs are white or greenish-white and almost round, measuring 46–50 mm by 41–43 mm (1.8–2.0 in by 1.6–1.7 in).
Interactions with humans
Highly regarded as food in West Africa, it is often hunted and eaten by local people. The BaMbala and related tribes around the town of Kikwit in the DRC, call the great blue turaco kolonvo. The meat is popular in smaller villages, and the long tail feathers are prized for decorations. The Mbuti people of the Ituri Rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo consider the great blue turaco (which they call kulkoko) to be associated with okapis, which they would warn of danger by calling loudly. They also believe that eating the species while pregnant may result in a difficult delivery or birth deformity. It is also a clan totem animal and as such, cannot be eaten by members of that clan; if they do eat it their teeth are said to fall out.
References
External links
Media related to Corythaeola cristata at Wikimedia Commons |
Louis_Pierre_Vieillot | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pierre_Vieillot | [
376
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pierre_Vieillot"
] | Louis Pierre Vieillot (10 May 1748, Yvetot – 24 August 1830, Sotteville-lès-Rouen) was a French ornithologist.
Vieillot is the author of the first scientific descriptions and Linnaean names of a number of birds, including species he collected himself in the West Indies and North America and South American species discovered but not formally named by Félix de Azara and his translator Sonnini de Manoncourt. He was among the first ornithologists to study changes in plumage and one of the first to study live birds. At least 77 of the genera erected by Vieillot are still in use.
Biography
Vieillot was born in Yvetot. He represented his family's business interests in Saint-Domingue (Haiti) on Hispaniola, but fled to the United States during the Haitian rebellions that followed the French Revolution. On Buffon's advice, he collected material for the Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique Septentrionale, the first two volumes of which were published in France beginning in 1807.
Vieillot returned to France for the last time in 1798, where the position created for him at the Bulletin des Lois left him sufficient leisure to continue his natural history studies. Following the death of Jean Baptiste Audebert, Vieillot saw the two parts of the "Oiseaux dorés" through to completion in 1802; his own Histoire naturelle des plus beaux oiseaux chanteurs de la zone torride appeared in 1806.
Vieillot's Analyse d'une nouvelle Ornithologie Elémentaire (1816) set out a new system of ornithological classification, which he applied with slight modifications in his contributions to the Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle (1816–1819). There was bitter rivalry between the leading ornithologists and the classification introduced by Vieillot was strongly criticized by Coenraad Temminck in a pamphlet published in 1817. In 1820, Vieillot undertook the continuation of the Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique, commenced by Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre in 1790. He also published an Ornithologie française (1823–1830).
Towards the end of his life Vieillot became blind. He was granted a government pension in his final year but died in relative poverty.
Vieillot is now considered to be the authority for the scientific names of 88 genera and 402 species. Only Carl Linnaeus, Philip Sclater, and John Gould are considered to be the authority for more species. Viellot is commemorated in the scientific names of three birds: Lybius vieilloti (Vieillot's barbet), Coccyzus vieilloti (Puerto Rican lizard cuckoo) and Sphecotheres vieilloti (Australasian figbird).
Some believe that Leach's Storm-petrel should be named Vieillot's Storm-petrel since he was the first to obtain a specimen of the species and to describe it. He did this in the New Dictionary of Natural History, published in 1817. He described the type location as the shores of Picardy, "se tient sur l"Ocean."
Works
Histoire naturelle des plus beaux oiseaux chanteurs de la zone torride. Dufour, Paris 1805.
Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amérique septentrionale. Desray, Paris 1807–1808.
Analyse d'une nouvelle ornithologie élémentaire. d'Éterville, Paris 1816.
Mémoire pour servir à l'histoire des oiseaux d'Europe. Turin 1816.
Ornithologie. Lanoe, Paris 1818.
Faune française ou Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des animaux qui se trouvent en France. Le Vrault & Rapet, Paris, Strasbourg, Bruxelles, 1820–1830.
La galerie des oiseaux du cabinet d'histoire naturelle du jardin du roi. Aillard & Constant-Chantpie, Paris 1822–1825.
Ornithologie française ou Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière des oiseaux de France. Pelicier, Paris 1830.
Notes
References
Further reading
"Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot," in Tom Taylor and Michael Taylor, Aves: A Survey of the Literature of Neotropical Ornithology, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Libraries, 2011.
External links
Gallica.fr: All image plates for La galerie des oiseaux — the French word for 'Search' is Recherche. |
Operation_Torch | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch | [
377
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch"
] | Operation Torch (8–16 November 1942) was an Allied invasion of French North Africa during the Second World War. Torch was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing American armed forces the opportunity to begin their fight against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy on a limited scale. It was the first mass involvement of US troops in the European–North African Theatre and saw the first large-scale airborne assault carried out by the United States.
The French colonies were aligned with Germany via Vichy France but the loyalties of the population were mixed. Reports indicated that they might support the Allies. The American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Mediterranean theater of the war, approved plans for a three-pronged attack on Casablanca (Western), Oran (Center) and Algiers (Eastern), then a rapid move on Tunis to catch Axis forces in North Africa from the west in conjunction with the British advance from Egypt.
The Western Task Force encountered unexpected resistance and bad weather but Casablanca, the principal French Atlantic naval base, was captured after a short siege. The Center Task Force suffered some damage to its ships when trying to land in shallow water but the French ships were sunk or driven off; Oran surrendered after bombardment by British battleships. The French Resistance had begun a coup in Algiers and despite the late alert raised in the Vichy forces, the Eastern Task Force met less opposition and were able to push inland and compel surrender on the first day.
The success of Torch caused Admiral François Darlan, commander of the Vichy French forces, who was in Algiers, to order co-operation with the Allies, in return for being installed as High Commissioner, with many other Vichy officials keeping their jobs. Darlan was assassinated by a monarchist six weeks later and the Free French gradually came to dominate the government.
Background
The Allies planned an Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa, the territories of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, nominally in the hands of the Vichy French government. With British forces advancing from Egypt, this would eventually allow the Allies to carry out a pincer operation against Axis forces in North Africa. The Vichy French had around 125,000 soldiers in the territories as well as coastal artillery, 210 operational but out-of-date tanks and about 500 aircraft, half of which were Dewoitine D.520 fighters—equal to many British and U.S. fighters. These forces included 60,000 troops in Morocco, 15,000 in Tunisia, and 50,000 in Algeria. In addition, there were 10 or so warships and 11 submarines at Casablanca.
Political situation
The Allies believed that the Vichy French Armistice Army would not fight, partly because of information supplied by the American Consul Robert Daniel Murphy in Algiers. The French were former members of the Allies and the American troops were instructed not to fire unless they were fired upon. Suspicions were harbored that the Vichy French Navy would bear a grudge over the British Attack on Mers-el-Kébir near Oran in June 1940, to prevent French ships being taken by the Germans, which killed almost 1,300 French sailors. An assessment of the sympathies of the French forces in North Africa was essential, and plans were made to secure their cooperation, rather than resistance. German support for the Vichy French came in the shape of air support. Several Luftwaffe bomber wings undertook anti-shipping strikes against Allied ports in Algiers and along the North African coast.
Command
The operation was originally scheduled to be led by General Joseph Stilwell, but he was reassigned after the Arcadia Conference revealed his vitriolic Anglophobia and skepticism over the operation. Lt. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was given command of the operation, and he set up his headquarters in Gibraltar.
Allied strategy
Senior U.S. commanders remained strongly opposed to the landings and after the western Allied Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) met in London on 30 July 1942, General George Marshall and Admiral Ernest King declined to approve the plan. Marshall and other U.S. generals advocated the invasion of northern Europe later that year, which the British rejected. After Prime Minister Winston Churchill pressed for a landing in French North Africa in 1942, Marshall suggested instead to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the U.S. abandon the Germany first strategy and take the offensive in the Pacific. Roosevelt said it would do nothing to help the Soviets.
In conducting their planning, Allied military strategists needed to consider the political situation on the ground in North Africa, which was complex, as well as external diplomatic political aspects. The Americans had recognized Pétain and the Vichy government in 1940, whereas the British did not and had recognized General Charles de Gaulle's French National Committee as a government-in-exile instead, and agreed to fund them. North Africa was part of France's colonial empire and nominally in support of Vichy, but that support was far from universal among the population.
Political events on the ground contributed to, and in some cases were even primary over, military aspects. The French population in North Africa were divided into three groups:
Gaullists – De Gaulle was the rallying point for the French National Committee This comprised French refugees who escaped metropolitan France rather than succumb to the German occupation, or those who stayed and joined the French Resistance. One acolyte, General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, organized a fighting force and conducted raids in 1943 along a 1,600 miles (2,600 km) path from Lake Chad to Tripoli and joined with General Bernard Montgomery's British Eighth Army on 25 January 1943.
French Liberation Movement – some Frenchmen living in North Africa and operating in secret under German surveillance organized an underground "French Liberation Movement", whose aim was to liberate France. General Henri Giraud, recently escaped from Germany, later became its leader. The personal clash between de Gaulle and Giraud prevented the Free French Forces and the French Liberation Movement groups from unifying during the North African campaign (Torch).
Loyal pro-Vichy French – there were those who remained loyal to Marshal Philippe Pétain and believed collaboration with the Axis powers was the best method of ensuring the future of France. François Darlan was Pétain's designated successor.
American strategy in planning the attack had to take into account these complexities on the ground. The planners assumed that if the leaders were given Allied military support they would take steps to liberate themselves, and the U.S. embarked on detailed negotiations under American Consul General Robert Murphy in Rabat with the French Liberation Movement. Since Britain was already diplomatically and financially committed to de Gaulle, it was clear that negotiations with the French Liberation Movement would have to be conducted by the Americans, and the invasion as well. Because of divided loyalties among the groups on the ground their support was uncertain, and due to the need to maintain secrecy, detailed plans could not be shared with the French.
Allied plans
Planners identified Oran, Algiers and Casablanca as key targets. Ideally there would also be a landing at Tunis to secure Tunisia and facilitate the rapid interdiction of supplies traveling via Tripoli to Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps forces in Italian Libya. However, Tunis was much too close to the Axis airfields in Sicily and Sardinia for any hope of success. A compromise would be to land at Bône in eastern Algeria, some 300 miles (480 km) closer to Tunis than Algiers. Limited resources dictated that the Allies could only make three landings and Eisenhower—who believed that any plan must include landings at Oran and Algiers—had two main options: either the western option, to land at Casablanca, Oran and Algiers and then make as rapid a move as possible to Tunis some 500 miles (800 km) east of Algiers once the Vichy opposition was suppressed; or the eastern option, to land at Oran, Algiers and Bône and then advance overland to Casablanca some 500 miles (800 km) west of Oran. He favored the eastern option because of the advantages it gave to an early capture of Tunis and also because the Atlantic swells off Casablanca presented considerably greater risks to an amphibious landing there than would be encountered in the Mediterranean.
The Combined Chiefs of Staff, however, were concerned that should Operation Torch precipitate Spain to abandon neutrality and join the Axis, the Straits of Gibraltar could be closed cutting the entire Allied force's lines of communication. They therefore chose the Casablanca option as the less risky since the forces in Algeria and Tunisia could be supplied overland from Casablanca (albeit with considerable difficulty) in the event of closure of the straits.
The Morocco landings ruled out the early occupation of Tunisia. Marshall did convince the Allies to abandon the planned invasions of Madeira and Tangier in preparation for the landings, which he maintained would lose the element of surprise and draw large Spanish military contingents in Spanish Morocco and the Canary Islands into the war. However, Harry Hopkins convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt to agree to the general plan. Eisenhower told Patton that the past six weeks were the most trying of his life. In Eisenhower's acceptance of landings in Algeria and Morocco, he pointed out that the decision removed the early capture of Tunis from the probable to only the remotely possible because of the extra time it would afford the Axis to move forces into Tunisia.
Intelligence
In July 1941, Mieczysław Słowikowski (using the codename "Rygor"—Polish for "Rigor") set up "Agency Africa", one of the Second World War's most successful intelligence organizations. His Polish allies in these endeavors included Lt. Col. Gwido Langer and Major Maksymilian Ciężki. The information gathered by the Agency was used by the Americans and British in planning the amphibious November 1942 Operation Torch landings in North Africa.
Information gathering continued during the operation, the British and Americans sent teams who competed to collect intelligence information, an Abwehr coding machine, a different version of Enigma machines was captured in Algiers, it was found to have no plug board however the three rotors had been changed to rotate 11, 15 and 19 times rather than once every 26 letters, plus a plate on the left acted as a fourth rotor. It was sent to the UK with 2 tons of paperwork for analysis.
Intrigues with Vichy commanders
To gauge the feeling of the Vichy French forces, Murphy was appointed to the American consulate in Algeria. His covert mission was to determine the mood of the French forces and to make contact with elements that might support an Allied invasion. He succeeded in contacting several French officers, including General Charles Mast, the French commander-in-chief in Algiers.
These officers were willing to support the Allies but asked for a clandestine conference with a senior Allied General in Algeria. Major General Mark W. Clark—one of Eisenhower's senior commanders—was dispatched to Cherchell in Algeria aboard the British submarine HMS Seraph and met with these Vichy French officers on 21 October 1942.
With help from the Resistance, the Allies also succeeded in slipping French General Henri Giraud out of Vichy France on HMS Seraph—passing itself off as an American submarine—to Gibraltar, where Eisenhower had his headquarters, intending to offer him the post of commander in chief of French forces in North Africa after the invasion. However, Giraud would take no position lower than commander in chief of all the invading forces, a job already given to Eisenhower. When he was refused, he decided to remain "a spectator in this affair".
Battle
The Allies organised three amphibious task forces to simultaneously seize the key ports and airports in Morocco and Algeria, targeting Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. Successful completion of these operations was to be followed by an eastwards advance into Tunisia.
A Western Task Force (aimed at Casablanca) was composed of American units, with Major General George S. Patton in command and Rear Admiral Henry Kent Hewitt heading the naval operations. This Western Task Force consisted of the U.S. 3rd and 9th Infantry Divisions, and two battalions from the U.S. 2nd Armored Division—35,000 troops in a convoy of over 100 ships. They were transported directly from the United States in the first of a new series of UG convoys providing logistic support for the North African campaign.
The Center Task Force, aimed at Oran, included the U.S. 2nd Battalion 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the U.S. 1st Infantry Division, and the U.S. 1st Armored Division—a total of 18,500 troops. They sailed from the United Kingdom and were commanded by Major General Lloyd Fredendall, the naval forces being commanded by Commodore Thomas Troubridge.
Torch was, for propaganda purposes, a landing by U.S. forces, supported by British warships and aircraft, under the belief that this would be more palatable to French public opinion, than an Anglo-American invasion. For the same reason, Churchill suggested that British soldiers might wear U.S. Army uniforms, and No.6 Commando did so. (Fleet Air Arm aircraft did carry US "star" roundels during the operation, and two British destroyers flew the Stars and Stripes.) In reality, the Eastern Task Force—aimed at Algiers—was commanded by Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson and consisted of a brigade from the British 78th and the U.S. 34th Infantry Divisions, along with two British commando units (No. 1 and No. 6 Commandos), together with the RAF Regiment providing 5 squadrons of infantry and 5 Light anti-aircraft flights, totalling 20,000 troops. During the landing phase, ground forces were to be commanded by U.S. Major General Charles W. Ryder, Commanding General (CG) of the 34th Division and naval forces were commanded by Royal Navy Vice-Admiral Sir Harold Burrough.
U-boats, operating in the eastern Atlantic area crossed by the invasion convoys, had been drawn away to attack trade convoy SL 125.
Aerial operations were split into two commands, with Royal Air Force aircraft under Air Marshal Sir William Welsh operating east of Cape Tenez in Algeria, and all United States Army Air Forces aircraft under Major General Jimmy Doolittle, who was under the direct command of Major General Patton, operating west of Cape Tenez. P-40s of the 33rd Fighter Group were launched from U.S. Navy escort carriers and landed at Port Lyautey on 10 November. Additional air support was provided by the carrier USS Ranger, whose squadrons intercepted Vichy aircraft and bombed hostile ships.
Casablanca
The Western Task Force landed before daybreak on 8 November 1942, at three points in Morocco: Safi (Operation Blackstone), Fedala (Operation Brushwood, the largest landing with 19,000 men), and Mehdiya-Port Lyautey (Operation Goalpost). Because it was hoped that the French would not resist, there were no preliminary bombardments. This proved to be a costly error as French defenses took a toll on American landing forces. On the night of 7 November, pro-Allied General Antoine Béthouart attempted a coup d'etat against the French command in Morocco, so that he could surrender to the Allies the next day. His forces surrounded the villa of General Charles Noguès, the Vichy-loyal high commissioner. However, Noguès telephoned loyal forces, who stopped the coup. In addition, the coup attempt alerted Noguès to the impending Allied invasion, and he immediately bolstered French coastal defenses.
At Fedala, a small port with a large beach close to Casablanca, weather disrupted the landings. The landing beaches again came under French fire after daybreak. Patton landed at 08:00, and the beachheads were secured later in the day. The Americans surrounded the port of Casablanca by 10 November, and the city surrendered an hour before the final assault was due to take place. Casablanca was the principal French Atlantic naval base after German occupation of the European coast. The Naval Battle of Casablanca resulted from a sortie of French cruisers, destroyers, and submarines opposing the landings. A cruiser, six destroyers, and six submarines were destroyed by American gunfire and aircraft. The incomplete French battleship Jean Bart—which was docked and immobile—fired on the landing force with her one working gun turret until disabled by the 16-inch calibre American naval gunfire of USS Massachusetts, the first such heavy-calibre shells fired by the U.S. Navy anywhere in World War II. Many of her one-ton shells didn't explode, linked to poor detonators, and aircraft bombers sank the Jean Bart. Two U.S. destroyers were damaged.
At Safi, the objective being capturing the port facilities to land the Western Task Force's medium tanks, the landings were mostly successful. The landings were begun without covering fire, in the hope that the French would not resist at all. However, once French coastal batteries opened fire, Allied warships returned fire. By the time the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment arrived, French snipers had pinned the assault troops (most of whom were in combat for the first time) on Safi's beaches. Most of the landings occurred behind schedule. Carrier aircraft destroyed a French truck convoy bringing reinforcements to the beach defenses. Safi surrendered on the afternoon of 8 November. By 10 November, the remaining defenders were pinned down, and the bulk of Harmon's forces raced to join the siege of Casablanca.
At Port-Lyautey, the landing troops were uncertain of their position, and the second wave was delayed. This gave the French defenders time to organize resistance, and the remaining landings were conducted under artillery bombardment. A former French pilot of the port on board a US destroyer led her up the shallow river to take over the artillery battery, clearing the way to the air-base. With the assistance of carrier air support, the troops pushed ahead, and the objectives were captured.
Oran
The Center Task Force was split between three beaches, two west of Oran and one east. Landings at the westernmost beach were delayed because of a French convoy which appeared while the minesweepers were clearing a path. Some delay and confusion, and damage to landing ships, was caused by the unexpected shallowness of water and sandbars; although periscope observations had been carried out, no reconnaissance parties had landed on the beaches to determine the local maritime conditions. This helped inform subsequent amphibious assaults—such as Operation Overlord—in which considerable weight was given to pre-invasion reconnaissance.
The U.S. 1st Ranger Battalion landed east of Oran and quickly captured the shore battery at Arzew. An attempt was made to land U.S. infantry at the harbour directly, in order to quickly prevent destruction of the port facilities and scuttling of ships. Operation Reservist failed, as the two Banff-class sloops were destroyed by crossfire from the French vessels there. The Vichy French naval fleet broke from the harbor and attacked the Allied invasion fleet but its ships were all sunk or driven ashore. The commander of Reservist, Captain Frederick Thornton Peters, was awarded the Victoria Cross for valour in pushing the attack through Oran harbour in the face of point blank fire. French batteries and the invasion fleet exchanged fire throughout 8–9 November, with French troops defending Oran and the surrounding area stubbornly; bombardment by the British battleships brought about Oran's surrender on 10 November.
Airborne landings
Torch was the first major airborne assault carried out by the United States. The 2nd Battalion, 509th Parachute Infantry Regiment, aboard 39 C-47 Dakotas, flew all the way from Cornwall in England, over Spain, to drop near Oran and capture airfields at Tafraoui and La Sénia, respectively 15 miles (24 km) and 5 miles (8 km) south of Oran. The operation was marked by communicational and navigational problems owing to the anti-aircraft and beacon ship HMS Alynbank broadcasting on the wrong frequency. Poor weather over Spain and the extreme range caused the formation to scatter and forced 30 of the 37 air transports to land in the dry salt lake to the west of the objective. Of the other aircraft, one pilot became disoriented and landed his plane in Gibraltar. Two others landed in French Morocco and three in Spanish Morocco, where another Dakota dropped its paratroopers by mistake. A total of 67 American troops were interned by Franco's forces until February 1943. Tafraoui and La Sénia were eventually captured but the role played by the airborne forces in Operation Torch was minimal.
Algiers
Resistance and coup
As agreed at Cherchell, in the early hours of 8 November, the 400 mainly Jewish French Resistance fighters of the Géo Gras Group staged a coup in the city of Algiers. Starting at midnight, the force under the command of Henri d'Astier de la Vigerie and José Aboulker seized key targets, including the telephone exchange, radio station, governor's house and the headquarters of the 19th Corps.
Robert Murphy took some men and then drove to the residence of General Alphonse Juin, the senior French Army officer in North Africa. While they surrounded his house (making Juin a hostage) Murphy attempted to persuade him to side with the Allies. Juin was treated to a surprise: Admiral François Darlan—the commander of all French forces—was also in Algiers on a private visit. Juin insisted on contacting Darlan and Murphy was unable to persuade either to side with the Allies. In the early morning, the local Gendarmerie arrived and released Juin and Darlan.
Invasion
On 8 November 1942, the invasion commenced with landings on three beaches—two west of Algiers and one east. The landing forces were under the overall command of Major-General Charles W. Ryder, commanding general of the U.S. 34th Infantry Division. The 11th Brigade Group from the British 78th Infantry Division landed on the right hand beach; the US 168th Regimental Combat Team, from the 34th Infantry Division, supported by 6 Commando and most of 1 Commando, landed on the middle beach; and the US 39th Regimental Combat Team, from the US 9th Infantry Division, supported by the remaining 5 troops from 1 Commando, landed on the left hand beach. The 36th Brigade Group from the British 78th Infantry Division stood by in floating reserve. Though some landings went to the wrong beaches, this was immaterial because of the lack of French opposition. All the coastal batteries had been neutralized by the French Resistance and one French commander defected to the Allies. The only fighting took place in the port of Algiers, where in Operation Terminal, two British destroyers attempted to land a party of US Army Rangers directly onto the dock, to prevent the French destroying the port facilities and scuttling their ships. Heavy artillery fire prevented one destroyer from landing but the other was able to disembark 250 Rangers before it too was driven back to sea. The US troops pushed quickly inland and General Juin surrendered the city to the Allies at 18:00.
Aftermath
Political results
It quickly became clear that Giraud lacked the authority to take command of the French forces. He preferred to wait in Gibraltar for the results of the landing. However, Darlan in Algiers had such authority. Eisenhower, with the support of Roosevelt and Churchill, made an agreement with Darlan, recognizing him as French "High Commissioner" in North Africa. In return, Darlan ordered all French forces in North Africa to cease resistance to the Allies and to cooperate instead. The deal was made on 10 November, and French resistance ceased almost at once. The French troops in North Africa who were not already captured submitted to and eventually joined the Allied forces. Men from French North Africa would see much combat under the Allied banner as part of the French Expeditionary Corps (consisting of 112,000 troops in April 1944) in the Italian campaign, where Maghrebis (mostly Moroccans) made up over 60% of the unit's soldiers.
When Adolf Hitler learned of Darlan's deal with the Allies, he immediately ordered the occupation of Vichy France and sent Wehrmacht troops to Tunisia.
The American press protested, immediately dubbing it the "Darlan Deal", pointing out that Roosevelt had made a brazen bargain with Hitler's puppets in France. If a main goal of Torch had originally been the liberation of North Africa, hours later that had been jettisoned in favor of safe passage through North Africa. Giraud ended up taking over the post when Darlan was assassinated six weeks later.
The Eisenhower/Darlan agreement meant that the officials appointed by the Vichy regime would remain in power in North Africa. No role was provided for Free France, which was supposed to be France's government-in-exile and had taken charge in other French colonies. That deeply offended Charles de Gaulle, the head of Free France. It also offended much of the British and American public, who regarded all Vichy French as Nazi collaborators and Darlan as one of the worst. Eisenhower insisted, however, that he had no real choice if his forces were to move on against the Axis in Tunisia, rather than fight the French in Algeria and Morocco.
Though de Gaulle had no official power in Vichy North Africa, much of its population now publicly declared Free French allegiance, putting pressure on Darlan. On 24 December, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle, a French resistance fighter and anti-fascist monarchist, assassinated Darlan. (Bonnier de La Chapelle was arrested on the spot and executed two days later.)
Giraud succeeded Darlan but, like him, replaced few of the Vichy officials. He even ordered the arrest of the leaders of the Algiers coup of 8 November, with no opposition from Murphy.
The French North African government gradually became active in the Allied war effort. The limited French troops in Tunisia did not resist German troops arriving by air; Admiral Esteva, the commander, obeyed orders to that effect from Vichy. The Germans took the airfields there and brought in more troops. The French troops withdrew to the west and, within a few days, began to skirmish against the Germans, encouraged by small American and British detachments who had reached the area. While that was of minimal military effect, it committed the French to the Allied side. Later, all French forces were withdrawn from action and properly reequipped by the Allies.
Giraud supported that but also preferred to maintain the old Vichy administration in North Africa. Under pressure from the Allies and de Gaulle's supporters, the French régime shifted, with Vichy officials gradually replaced and its more offensive decrees rescinded. In June 1943, Giraud and de Gaulle agreed to form the French Committee of National Liberation (CFLN), with members from both the North African government and from de Gaulle's French National Committee. In November 1943, de Gaulle became head of the CFLN and de jure head of government of France and was recognized by the U.S. and Britain.
In another political outcome of Torch (and at Darlan's orders), the previously-Vichyite government of French West Africa joined the Allies.
Military consequences
Toulon
One of the terms of the Second Armistice at Compiègne agreed to by the Germans was that the "zone libre" of southern France would remain free of German occupation and governed by Vichy. The lack of determined resistance by the Vichy French to the Allied invasions of North Africa and the new policies of de Gaulle in North Africa convinced the Germans that France could not be trusted. Moreover, the Anglo-American presence in French North Africa invalidated the only real rationale for not occupying the whole of France since it was the only practical means to deny the Allies use of the French colonies. The Germans and the Italians immediately occupied southern France, and the German Army moved to seize the French fleet in the port of Toulon from 10 November. The naval strength of the Axis in the Mediterranean would have been greatly increased if the Germans had succeeded in seizing the French ships, but every important ship was scuttled at dock by the French Navy before the Germans could capture them.
Tunisia
After the German and Italian occupation of Vichy France and their failed attempt to capture the French fleet at Toulon (Operation Lila), the French Armée d'Afrique sided with the Allies, providing a third corps (XIX Corps) for Anderson. Elsewhere, French warships, such as the battleship Richelieu, rejoined the Allies.
On 9 November, Axis forces started to build up in French Tunisia, unopposed by the local French forces under General Barré. Wracked with indecision, Barré moved his troops into the hills and formed a defensive line from Teboursouk through Medjez el Bab and ordered that anyone trying to pass through the line would be shot. On 19 November, the German commander, Walter Nehring, demanded passage for his troops across the bridge at Medjez and was refused. The Germans attacked the poorly-equipped French units twice and were driven back. The French had suffered many casualties and lacking artillery and armour, Barré was forced to withdraw.
After consolidating in Algeria, the Allies began the Tunisia Campaign. Elements of the First Army (Lieutenant-General Kenneth Anderson), came to within 40 mi (64 km) of Tunis before a counterattack at Djedeida thrust them back. In January 1943, German and Italian troops under Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel, retreating westward from Libya, reached Tunisia.
The Eighth Army (Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery) advancing from the east, stopped around Tripoli while the port was repaired to disembark reinforcements and build up the Allied advantage. In the west, the forces of the First Army came under attack at the end of January, were forced back from the Faïd Pass and suffered a reversal at the Battle of Sidi Bou Zid on 14–15 February. Axis forces pushed on to Sbeitla and then fought the Battle of Kasserine Pass on 19 February, where the US II Corps retreated in disarray until Allied reinforcements halted the Axis advance on 22 February. Fredendall was sacked and replaced by George Patton.
General Sir Harold Alexander arrived in Tunisia in late February to take charge of the new 18th Army Group headquarters, which had been created to command the Eighth Army and the Allied forces already fighting in Tunisia. The Axis forces attacked eastward at the Battle of Medenine on 6 March but were easily repulsed by the Eighth Army. Rommel advised Hitler to allow a full retreat to a defensible line but was denied and on 9 March, Rommel left Tunisia to be replaced by Jürgen von Arnim, who had to spread his forces over 100 mi (160 km) of northern Tunisia.
The setbacks at Kasserine forced the Allies to consolidate their forces, develop their lines of communication and administration before another offensive. The First and Eighth Armies attacked again in April. Hard fighting followed but the Allies cut off the Germans and Italians from support by naval and air forces between Tunisia and Sicily. On 6 May, as the culmination of Operation Vulcan, the British took Tunis and American forces reached Bizerte. By 13 May, the Axis forces in Tunisia had surrendered, opening the way for the Allied invasion of Sicily in July.
Later influence
Despite Operation Torch's role in the war and logistical success, it has been largely overlooked in many popular histories of the war and in general cultural influence. The Economist speculated that this was because French forces were the initial enemies of the landing, making for a difficult fit into the war's overall narrative in general histories.
The operation was America's first armed deployment in the Arab world since the Barbary Wars and, according to The Economist, laid the foundations for America's postwar Middle East policy.
Orders of battle
Western Task Force – Morocco
Vice Admiral H. Kent Hewitt, USN
US I Armored Corps
Major General George S. Patton, USA
Northern Attack Group (Mehedia)
Brig. Gen. Lucian K. Truscott (9,099 officers and enlisted)
60th Infantry Regiment (Reinforced) of 9th Infantry Division
1st Battalion of 66th Armored Regiment of 2nd Armored Division
1st Battalion of 540th Engineers
Center Attack Group (Fedhala)
Maj. Gen. J. W. Anderson (18,783 officers and enlisted)
3rd Infantry Division
7th Infantry Regiment (Reinforced)
15th Infantry Regiment (Reinforced)
30th Infantry Regiment (Reinforced)
Southern Attack Group (Safi)
Maj. Gen. Ernest N. Harmon (6,423 officers and enlisted)
47th Regimental Combat Team of 9th Infantry Division
3rd and elements of 2nd Battalion of 67th Armored Regiment of 2nd Armored Division
French forces in Morocco
Général de division Georges Lascroux
Central Task Force – Oran
Commodore Thomas Hope Troubridge, RN
US II Corps
Major General Lloyd R. Fredendall, USA
Approx. 39,000 officers and enlisted
1st Infantry "Big Red One" Division (Maj. Gen. Terry Allen)
16th Infantry Regiment
18th Infantry Regiment
26th Infantry Regiment
1st Armored Division (Maj. Gen. Orlando Ward)
Combat Command B
6th Armored Infantry Regiment
1st Ranger Battalion
Eastern Task Force – Algiers
Rear Admiral Sir Harold Burrough, RN
Allied Landing Forces
Major General Charles W. Ryder, USA
Approx. 33,000 officers and enlisted
British (approx. 23,000)
78th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Vyvyan Evelegh)
11th Infantry Brigade
36th Infantry Brigade
No. 1 Commando
No. 6 Commando
5 squadrons of RAF Regiment
United States (approx. 10,000)
9th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy)
39th Infantry Regiment
34th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Charles W. Ryder)
135th Infantry Regiment
168th Infantry Regiment
19th Army Corps (French Army in Algeria)
See also
List of equipment of the United States Army during World War II
List of British military equipment of World War II
List of French military equipment of World War II
List of World War II Battles
Mieczysław Zygfryd Słowikowski
RMS Mooltan Troopship
North African campaign timeline
Operation Flagpole (World War II)
Operation Husky
Operation Kingpin (World War II)
17th Armored Engineer Battalion
Marching Regiment of the Foreign Legion
Atlantic Theater aircraft carrier operations during World War II#Allied Invasion of North Africa (1942)
US Naval Bases North Africa
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
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Atkinson, Rick (2002). An Army at Dawn. Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-6288-2 – via Archive Foundation.
Breuer, William B. (1985). Operation Torch: The Allied Gamble to Invade North Africa. New York: St.Martins Press.
Brown, J. D. (1968). Carrier Operations in World War II: The Royal Navy. London: Ian Allan.
Churchill, Winston (1951a). The Second World War, Vol 3: The Hinge of Fate.
Churchill, Winston Spencer (1951b). The Second World War, Vol 5: Closing the Ring. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
Danan, Professeur Yves Maxime (2019). République Française Capitale Alger, 1940–1944 Souvenirs. Paris: L'Harmattan.
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Funk, Arthur L. (1974). The Politics of Torch. University Press of Kansas.
Groom, Winston (3 April 2006). 1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls. New York: Grove Press. p. 354. ISBN 978-0-8021-4250-4.
Hague, Arnold (2000). The Allied Convoy System 1939–1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-019-3.
Howe, George F. (1993) [1957]. North West Africa: Seizing the Initiative in the West. The United States Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. LCCN 57060021. CMH Pub 6-1. Archived from the original on 28 May 2015. Retrieved 19 November 2014.
Meyer, Leo J. (2000) [1960]. "Chapter 7: The Decision to Invade North Africa (Torch)". In Roberts Greenfield, Kent (ed.). Command Decisions. United States Army Center of Military History. CMH Pub 70-7. Archived from the original on 30 December 2007. Retrieved 18 June 2010.
Morison, Samuel Eliot (1947). Operations in North African Waters. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Vol. II. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. ISBN 0-7858-1303-9.
Moses, Sam (November 2006). At All Costs; How a Crippled Ship and Two American Merchant Mariners Turned the Tide of World War II. Random House.
O'Hara, Vincent P. (2015). Torch: North African and the Allied Path to Victory. Annapolis: Naval Institute.
Playfair, Major-General I. S. O.; Molony, Brigadier C. J. C.; Flynn R.N., Captain F. C. & Gleave, Group Captain T. P. (2004) [1st HMSO 1966]. Butler, J. R. M. (ed.). The Mediterranean and Middle East: The Destruction of the Axis Forces in Africa. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. IV. Uckfield, UK: Naval & Military Press. ISBN 1-84574-068-8.
Rohwer, J.; Hummelchen, G. (1992). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-105-X.
Watson, Bruce Allen (2007) [1999]. Exit Rommel: The Tunisian Campaign, 1942–43. Stackpole Military History Series. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-3381-6. OCLC 40595324.
Willmott, H.P. (1984). June, 1944. Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press. ISBN 0-7137-1446-8 – via Archive Foundation.
External links
The Decision to Invade North Africa (TORCH) Archived 15 May 2010 at the Wayback Machine part of Command Decisions Archived 30 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine a publication of the United States Army Center of Military History
Algeria-French Morocco Archived 5 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine a book in the U.S. Army Campaigns of World War II series of the United States Army Center of Military History
A detailed history of 8 November 1942
Combined Ops
History and photos of the operations of the USS Ranger and its Air Group during Operation Torch
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Joseph_Stilwell | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stilwell | [
377
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stilwell"
] | Joseph Warren "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell (March 19, 1883 – October 12, 1946) was a United States Army general who served in the China Burma India Theater during World War II. Stilwell was made the Chief of Staff of the Chinese Nationalist Leader, Chiang Kai-shek. He spent the majority of his tenure striving for a 90-division army trained by American troops and equipped with American lend-lease and fighting to reclaim Burma from the Japanese. His efforts led to friction with Chiang who viewed troops not under his immediate control as a threat and who saw the Chinese communists as a greater rival than Japan. An early American popular hero of the war for leading a column walking out of Burma pursued by the victorious Imperial Japanese Armed Forces, his implacable demands for units debilitated by disease to be sent into heavy combat resulted in Merrill's Marauders becoming disenchanted with him. The U.S. government was infuriated by the 1944 fall of Changsha to a Japanese offensive. Stilwell delivered a message to the Chinese Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek from President Roosevelt that threatened that lend-lease aid to China would be cut off. The resulting friction atop an already tense relationship made Ambassador Patrick J. Hurley advocate that Stilwell had to be replaced. Chiang had been intent on keeping Lend-Lease supplies to fight the Chinese Communist Party, but Stilwell had been obeying his instructions to get the Communists and the Nationalists to co-operate against Japan.
Influential voices such as the journalist Brooks Atkinson viewed the Communists as benign and Stilwell as a victim of a corrupt regime. The ousting of Stilwell fermented the disillusionment of US policymakers with Chiang that culminated in the 1947 end of American assistance to the Republic of China during the Chinese Civil War.
Stilwell's admirers saw him as having been given inadequate resources and incompatible objectives. Critics viewed him as a hard-charging officer whose temperament and conduct towards Chiang contributed to the loss of China. Barbara Tuchman, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her work on Stillwell, concluded he failed to accomplish an impossible task notwithstanding his indomitable will, and the failure lay with the Chinese's innate rejection of Western means.
Early life and education
Stilwell was born on March 19, 1883, in Palatka, Florida. His parents were Doctor Benjamin Stilwell and Mary A. Peene. Stilwell was an eighth-generation descendant of an English colonist who had arrived in America in 1638 and whose descendants remained in New York until the birth of Stilwell's father.
Named for a family friend and the doctor who delivered him, Stilwell, known as Warren by his family, grew up in Yonkers, New York, under a strict regimen from his father that included an emphasis on religion. Stilwell later admitted to his daughter that he picked up criminal instincts by "being forced to go to Church and Sunday School, and seeing how little real good religion does anybody, I advise passing them all up and using common sense instead."
Stilwell's rebellious attitude led him to a record of unruly behavior once he reached a postgraduate level at Yonkers High School. Prior to his last year, Stilwell had performed meticulously in his classes and had participated in football (as quarterback) and track. Under the discretion of his father, Stilwell was then placed into a postgraduate course and immediately formed a group of friends whose activities ranged from card playing to stealing the desserts from the senior dance in 1900. The last event in which an administrator was punched led to the expulsions and suspensions for Stilwell's friends. Meanwhile, since he had already graduated, Stilwell was once again by his father's guidance sent to attend the US Military Academy at West Point, rather than Yale University, as had been originally planned.
Despite missing the deadline to apply for congressional appointment to the military academy, Stilwell gained entry through the use of family connections, via which US President William McKinley was approached. In his first year, Stilwell underwent hazing as a plebe which he referred to as "hell." At West Point, Stilwell showed an aptitude for languages such as French in which he ranked first in his class during his second year. In sports, Stilwell is credited with introducing basketball to the academy, participating in cross-country running as captain, and playing on the varsity football team. At West Point, he had two demerits for laughing during drill. Ultimately, Stilwell graduated with the class of 1904 and ranked 32nd out 124 cadets.
In 1910, he married Winifred Alison Smith (1889–1972). They were the parents of five children, including Brigadier General Joseph Stilwell Jr. (West Point 1933), who served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.
Early military career
Stilwell later taught at West Point and attended the Infantry Advanced Course and the Command and General Staff College. During World War I, he was the Fourth Corps intelligence officer and helped plan the St. Mihiel Offensive. He was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal for his service in France, the medal's citation reading as follows:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Army Distinguished Service Medal to Lieutenant Colonel (Infantry) Joseph Warren Stilwell (ASN: 0-1912), United States Army, for exceptionally meritorious and distinguished services to the Government of the United States, in a duty of great responsibility during World War I. As Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2, 4th Army Corps, during the St. Mihiel offensive, and later during the operations in the Woevre, Lieutenant Colonel Stilwell displayed military attainments of a high order. With great energy and zeal he pursued the developments of the enemy activities on the corps front, securing invaluable information which assisted in a marked degree to the planning of the operations. He contributed by the excellent performance of his task to the success of the operations.
Stilwell is often remembered by his sobriquet, "Vinegar Joe," which he acquired as a commander at Fort Benning, Georgia. Stilwell often gave harsh critiques of performance in field exercises, and a subordinate, stung by the caustic remarks, drew a caricature of Stilwell rising out of a vinegar bottle. After discovering the caricature, Stilwell pinned it to a board and had the drawing photographed and distributed to friends. Yet another indication of his view of life was the motto he kept on his desk: Illegitimi non carborundum, a form of fractured Latin that translates as "Don't let the bastards grind you down."
World War II
Between the wars, Stilwell served three tours in China, where he mastered spoken and written Chinese and was the military attaché at the US legation in Beijing from 1935 to 1939. In 1939 and 1940 he was assistant commander of the 2nd Infantry Division and from 1940 to 1941 organized and trained the 7th Infantry Division at Fort Ord, California. It was there that his leadership style which emphasized concern for the average soldier and minimized ceremonies and officious discipline, earned him the nickname of "Uncle Joe."
Just prior to the United States entering World War II, following the Imperial Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Stilwell had been recognized as the Army's top corps commander, and he was initially selected to plan and command the Allied invasion of North Africa. However, he and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff were skeptical about the operation and believed military planners underestimated the risk of submarine attacks interfering with the amphibious landings. He also believed that Allied military planners were too lenient towards Francoist Spain and underestimated the risk of it joining the Axis powers, writing "The Boches own the country. Franco must pay the bill for his war." After Stilwell prepared a scathingly anti-British final report on the Arcadia Conference, his superiors decided to reassign him. When it became necessary to send a senior officer to China to keep it in the war, Stilwell was selected, over his own personal objections, by US President Franklin Roosevelt and his old friend, Army Chief of Staff George Marshall.
Stilwell became the chief of staff to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, served as US commander in the China Burma India Theater, was responsible for all Lend-Lease supplies going to China, and later became deputy commander of South East Asia Command. Despite his status and position in China, he became involved in conflicts with other senior Allied officers over the distribution of lend-lease materiel, Chinese political sectarianism and proposals to incorporate Chinese and US forces in the 11th Army Group under British command.
Burma retreat and offensive
In February 1942 Stilwell was promoted to lieutenant general and was assigned to the China-Burma-India Theater (CBI). In that position, Stilwell had three major roles: commander of all US forces in China, Burma, and India; deputy commander of the Burma-India Theater under Admiral Louis Mountbatten; and military advisor to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, the commander of all Nationalist Chinese forces as well as commander of the Chinese Theater.
The CBI was a geographical administrative command on the same level as the commands of Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, but unlike other combat theaters like the European Theater of Operations, the CBI was never formally designated a "theater of operations" and did not report to an overall American commander. The China Theater came under the operational command of Chiang, the commander of the National Revolutionary Army, and the Burma India Theater came under the operational command of the British (first GHQ India and later the Allied South East Asia Command whose supreme commander was Mountbatten). During his tenure, there were hardly any American combat forces in the theater, and Stilwell commanded Chinese troops almost exclusively.
The British and the Chinese were ill-equipped and more often than not on the receiving end of Japanese offensives. Chiang was interested in conserving his troops and Allied lend-lease supplies to be used against any sudden Japanese offensive and against Communist forces in a later civil war. His wariness increased after he had observed the disastrous Allied performance during the Japanese invasion of Burma. After fighting and resisting the Japanese for five years, many in the Nationalist government felt that it was time for the Allies to assume a greater burden in fighting the war.
The Allied forces were beset by a difference in strategies. Chiang, having fought against Japan since 1937, favored "defense in depth", an approach partially adopted by the British later in 1944. During the early stages of the conflict both the British and the Americans underestimated the Japanese. Captain Evans Carlson, after observing the Battle of Shanghai in 1937, called the Imperial Japanese Army "third rate", while Stilwell wanted to go on the offensive to save Burma. The Japanese divisions there were proficient in both jungle and offroad warfare. They successfully outmaneuvred the road-bound British, coordinated with air support, and exploited local anticolonial sentiments.
The situation was not helped by multiple incidents of miscommunication and insubordination. In February 1942, while retreating across the Sittaung River, the main British force left two brigades on the wrong side after prematurely blowing up the bridge. During an ambush against incoming Japanese at Pyinmana, only the Chinese 5th Army stayed in position. The British pulled back, fearing encirclement, while the Chinese 200th Division refused to rush in.
The first step to fighting the war for Stilwell was the reformation of the Chinese Army. The reforms clashed with the delicate balance of political and military alliances in China, which kept Chiang in power. Reforming the army meant removing men who maintained Chiang's position as commander-in-chief. Chiang gave Stilwell technical overall command of some Chinese troops but worried that the new US-led forces would become yet another independent force outside of his control. Since 1942, members of his staff had continually objected to Chinese troops being used in Burma for what they viewed as returning the country to British colonial control.
Chiang therefore sided with Major General Claire Lee Chennault's proposals for the war against the Japanese to be continued largely using existing Chinese forces supported by air forces, which Chennault assured Chiang to be feasible. The dilemma forced Chennault and Stilwell into competition for the valuable lend-lease supplies arriving over the Himalayas from British-controlled India, an obstacle referred to as "The Hump."
George Marshall's biennial report covering July 1, 1943, to June 30, 1945, acknowledged that he had given Stilwell "one of the most difficult" assignments of any theater commander.
After the collapse of the Allied defenses in Burma, which cut China off from all land and sea supply routes, Stilwell declined an airlift offer from General Chennault and led his staff of 117 out of Burma into Assam, India, on foot. They marched at what his men called the "Stilwell stride" of 105 paces per minute. Two of the men accompanying him, his aide Frank Dorn and the war correspondent Jack Belden, wrote about their experiences in Walkout with Stilwell in Burma (1971) and Retreat with Stilwell (1943) respectively. The Assam route was used by other retreating Allied and Chinese forces.
Stilwell's walkout separated him from the approximately 100,000 Chinese troops still there. 25 thousand of them would later perish during their retreat due to the harsh jungle conditions, poor logistics, and Japanese military operations.
In India, Stilwell soon became well-known for his no-nonsense demeanor and his disregard for military pomp and ceremony. His trademarks were a battered Army campaign hat, GI shoes, and a plain service uniform with no insignia of rank. He frequently carried a Model 1903, .30–06 Caliber, Springfield rifle in preference to a sidearm. His hazardous march out of Burma and his bluntly honest assessment of the disaster captured the imagination of the American public: "I claim we got a hell of a beating. We got run out of Burma and it is humiliating as hell. I think we ought to find out what caused it, go back and retake it."
Stilwell's derogatory remarks castigating the ineffectiveness of what he termed Limey forces, which was often repeated by Stilwell's staff, did not sit well with British and Commonwealth commanders.
After the Japanese occupied Burma, China was almost completely cut off from Allied aid and materiel except through the hazardous route of flying cargo aircraft over the Hump. Early on, Roosevelt and the US War Department had given priority to other theaters for US combat forces, equipment, and logistical support. The closure of the Burma Road and the fall of Burma made it extremely difficult even to replace Chinese war losses. This jeopardized the Allies' initial strategy, which was to maintain the Chinese resistance to the Japanese by providing logistical and air support.
In August 1942, Stilwell opened a training center in Ramgarh, India, 200 miles (320 km) west of Calcutta, to train Chinese troops which had retreated to Assam from Burma. Stilwell's decision to establish the center at Ramgarh met with opposition from several senior British commanders, including Wavell, primarily due to logistical reasons. Chinese soldiers at the center received medical care along with new weapons and uniforms and were trained how to operate artillery, Universal Carriers, and M3 Stuart tanks. By the end of December 1942, 32,000 Chinese troops were being trained at the center to create the 22nd and 38th Divisions along with three artillery regiments and a tank battalion.
From the outset, Stilwell's primary goals were the opening of a land route to China from northern Burma and India by means of a ground offensive in northern Burma to allow more supplies to be transported to China and to organize, equip, and train a reorganized and competent Chinese army that would fight the Japanese in the China-Burma-India theater (CBI). Stilwell argued that the CBI was the only area with the possibility for the Allies to engage large numbers of troops against their common enemy, Japan. Unfortunately, the huge airborne logistical train of support from the US to British India was still being organized, and supplies being flown over the Hump were barely sufficient to maintain Chennault's air operations and replace some of the Chinese war losses, let alone equip and supply an entire army.
Additionally, critical supplies intended for the CBI were being diverted to various crises in other combat theaters. Of the supplies that made it over the Hump, some were diverted by Chinese and American personnel to the black market for their personal enrichment. As a result, most Allied commanders in India, with the exception of General Orde Wingate and his Chindit operations, were focused on defensive measures.
Disagreements with Chiang and British
Stilwell left the defeated Chinese troops, and escaped Burma in 1942. Chiang had given him nominal command of these troops, though Chinese generals later admitted that they had considered Stilwell as an "adviser" and sometimes took orders directly from Chiang. Chiang was outraged by what he saw as Stilwell's blatant abandonment of the 200th Division, his best army, without orders and began to question Stilwell's capability and judgment as a military commander.
Chiang was also infuriated at Stilwell's strict control of US lend lease supplies to China. Instead of confronting Stilwell or communicating his concerns to Marshall and Roosevelt when they asked Chiang to assess Stilwell's leadership after the Allied disaster in Burma, Chiang reiterated his "full confidence and trust" in Stilwell but countermanded some of the orders to Chinese units issued by Stilwell in his capacity as Chief of Staff.
An outraged Stilwell began to call Chiang "the little dummy" or "Peanut" in his reports to Washington, D.C., "Peanut" being originally intended as a code word for Chiang in official radio messages. On the contrary, the term "Peanut" was first mentioned during Stilwell's flight to the CBI Theater in March 1942. Col. Willard Wyman, a member of Stilwell's staff on that flight mentioned Chiang "...is like a peanut perched on top of a dung heap...". Chiang repeatedly expressed his pent-up grievances against Stilwell for his "recklessness, insubordination, contempt, and arrogance" to U.S. envoys to China and was angry at his obsession with going on the offensive in Burma when East China was falling into Japan's hands.
Stilwell was infuriated by the rampant corruption of Chiang's regime. Stilwell faithfully kept a diary in which he began to note the corruption and the amount of money ($380,584,000 in 1944 dollars) being wasted on the procrastinating Chiang and his government. The Cambridge History of China, for instance, estimates that 60%–70% of Chiang's Nationalist conscripts did not make it through their basic training, with 40% deserting and the remaining 20% dying of starvation before their full induction into the military. Eventually, Stilwell's belief that Chiang's and his generals were incompetent and corrupt reached such proportions that Stilwell sought to cut off lend-lease aid to China. Stilwell, while attending the Cairo Conference, received a perceived and verbal order to plan an assassination of Chiang. Stilwell discussed this with his Aide, Col. Frank Dorn. Both were baffled, nevertheless, Stilwell delegated that task to Dorn. It was planned but was never carried out.
Stilwell pressed Chiang and the British to take immediate actions to retake Burma, but Chiang demanded impossibly large amounts of supplies before he would agree to take offensive action, and the British refused to meet their previous pledges to provide naval and ground troops because of Churchill's "Europe first" strategy.
Eventually, Stilwell began to complain openly to Roosevelt that Chiang was hoarding U.S. Lend-Lease supplies because he wanted to keep the Nationalist forces ready to fight Mao Zedong's Communists after the end of the war against the Japanese. From 1942 to 1944, however, 98% of US military aid over the Hump had gone directly to the 14th Air Force and US military personnel in China.
Stilwell also continually clashed with Field Marshal Archibald Wavell and apparently came to believe that the British in India were more concerned with protecting their colonial possessions than helping the Chinese fight the Japanese. In August 1943, as a result of constant feuding and conflicting objectives of British, American, and Chinese commands, along with the lack of a coherent strategic vision for the China Burma India (CBI) theater, the Combined Chiefs of Staff split the CBI command into separate Chinese and Southeast Asia Theaters.
Stilwell countered Mountbatten's January 1944 attempt to once again change the plans to favor an amphibious assault in the Bay of Bengal and Sumatra. "The limeys are welshing," he wrote in his diary and of the plan that seemed to him as nothing more than "fancy charts, false figures and dirty intentions". He sent Brigadier General Boatner to brief the Joint Staffs and Roosevelt.
Command of Chindits
During his time in India, Stilwell became increasingly disenchanted with British forces and did not hesitate to voice criticisms of what he viewed as hesitant or cowardly behavior. Of the Chindit casualties, 90% were incurred in the last phase of the campaign from 17 May, while they were under Stilwell's direct command. The British viewed the situation quite differently and pointed out that from 6 June to 27 June, Michael Calvert's 77th Brigade, which lacked heavy weapons, had taken Mogaung and suffered 800 casualties (50%) among those of the brigade involved in the operation.
Stilwell infuriated Calvert and the British by announcing via the BBC that Chinese troops had captured Mogaung but not referring to the British. The Chindits were outraged, and Calvert famously signaled to Stilwell's headquarters, "Chinese reported taking Mogaung. My Brigade now taking umbrage." Stilwell's son was an intelligence officer and said that Umbrage was so small that he could not find it on the map.
Stilwell expected the 77th Brigade to join the siege of Myitkyina, but Calvert was so sickened by demands on his troops that he considered abusive that switched off his radios and withdrew to Stilwell's base. A court-martial was likely until Stilwell and Calvert met in person, the latter being ready to trade punches. Stilwell finally appreciated the conditions under which the Chindits had been operating, apologized by blaming his staff officers for not receiving correct information, and allowed him and his men to withdraw. He finally said to Calvert, "You and your boys have done a great job. I congratulate you". Stilwell also awarded number of medals including a Silver Star.
The 111th Brigade, after it rested, had orders to capture a hill known as Point 2171. That occurred, but the men were now utterly exhausted. Most of them were suffering from malaria, dysentery, and malnutrition. On 8 July, at the insistence of Mountbatten, doctors examined the brigade. Of the 2200 men present from four-and-a-half battalions, only 119 were declared fit. The brigade was evacuated. John Masters kept the fit men, sarcastically named "111 Company," in the field until 1 August.
The portion of 111 Brigade east of the Irrawaddy River was known as Morris Force, after its commander, Lieutenant-Colonel "Jumbo" Morris. It had spent several months harassing Japanese traffic from Bhamo to Myitkyina. It had then attempted to complete the encirclement of Myitkyina. Stilwell was angered that it was unable to do so, but Slim pointed out that Stilwell's Chinese 5,500 troops had also failed in that task. By 14 July, Morris Force was down to three platoons. A week later, it had only 25 men fit for duty. Morris Force was evacuated about the same time as 77th Brigade.
Captain Charlton Ogburn, Jr., a US Army Marauder officer, and Chindit Brigade Commanders John Masters and Michael Calvert, later recalled Stilwell's appointment of a staff officer specially detailed by him to visit subordinate commands to chastise their officers and men as being "yellow." In October 1943, after the Joint Planning Staff at GHQ India had rejected a plan by Stilwell to fly his Chinese troops to northern Burma, Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, asked whether Stilwell was satisfied on purely military grounds that the plan could not work. Stilwell replied that he was. Wavell then asked what Stilwell would say to Chiang, and Stilwell replied, "I shall tell him the bloody British wouldn't fight."
Myitkyina Offensive and aftermath
With the establishment of the new South East Asia Command in August 1943, Stilwell was appointed deputy supreme allied commander under Vice Admiral Mountbatten. Taking command of various Chinese and Allied forces, including a new US Army special operations formation, the 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), later known as Merrill's Marauders, Stilwell built up his Chinese forces for an eventual offensive in northern Burma. On December 21, 1943, Stilwell assumed direct control of planning for the invasion of northern Burma that culminated with the capture of the Japanese-held town of Myitkyina. In the meantime, Stilwell ordered General Frank Merrill and the Marauders to start long-range jungle penetration missions behind Japanese lines after the pattern of the British Chindits. In February 1944, three Marauder battalions marched into Burma. Stilwell was at the Ledo Road front when the Marauders arrived at their jump-off point, but the general did not walk out to the road to bid them farewell.
In April 1944, Stilwell launched his final offensive to capture the Burmese city of Myitkyina. In support of that objective, the Marauders were ordered to undertake a long flanking maneuver towards the town that involved a grueling 65-mile jungle march. Having been deployed since February in combat operations in the jungles of Burma, the Marauders were seriously depleted, suffered from both combat losses and disease, and lost additional men en route to the objective. A particularly devastating scourge was a severe outbreak of amoebic dysentery, which erupted shortly after the Marauders linked up with the Chinese Army in India, called X Force.
By then, the men of the Marauders had openly begun to suspect Stilwell's commitment to their welfare and made no effort to hide their displeasure with their hard-driving commander. Despite their sacrifices, Stilwell appeared unconcerned about their losses and had rejected repeated requests for medals for individual acts of heroism. Initial promises of a rest and rotation were ignored, and the Marauders were not even air-dropped replacement uniforms or mail until late April.
On May 17, the 1,310 remaining Marauders attacked Myitkyina airfield in concert with elements of two Chinese infantry regiments and a small artillery contingent. The airfield was quickly taken, but the town, which Stilwell's intelligence staff had believed to be lightly defended, was garrisoned by significant numbers of well-equipped Japanese troops, who were steadily being reinforced. A preliminary attack on the town by two Chinese regiments was thrown back with heavy losses. The Marauders did not have the manpower to overwhelm Myitkyina and its defenses immediately. When additional Chinese forces had arrived in a position to attack, the Japanese forces totaled some 4,600 fanatical Japanese defenders.
During the siege, which took place during the height of the monsoon season, the Marauders' second-in-command, Colonel Hunter, and the unit's regimental and battalion level surgeons, had urgently recommended for the entire 5307th to be relieved of duty and returned to rear areas for rest and recovery. By then, most of the men had fevers and continual dysentery, forcing the men to cut the seats out of their uniform trousers to fire their weapons and relieve themselves simultaneously. Stilwell rejected the evacuation recommendation but made a front line inspection of the Myitkyina lines. He then ordered all medical staff to stop returning combat troops suffering from disease or illness but to return them to combat status by using medications to keep down fevers. The feelings of many Marauders towards Stilwell were summed up by one soldier, who stated, "I had him [Stilwell] in my sights. I coulda' squeezed one off and no one woulda' known it wasn't a Jap who got that son of a bitch."
Stilwell also ordered that all Marauders evacuated from combat from wounds or fever first submit to a special medical "examination" by doctors appointed by his headquarters staff. These examinations passed many ailing soldiers as fit for duty; Stilwell's staff roamed hospital hallways in search of any Marauder with a temperature lower than 103 degrees Fahrenheit. Some of the men who were passed and sent back into combat were immediately re-evacuated as unfit at the insistence of forward medical personnel. Later, Stilwell's staff placed blame on Army medical personnel for over-zealously interpreting his return-to-duty order.
During the siege, Japanese soldiers resisted fiercely and generally fought to the last man. As a result, Myitkyina did not fall until August 4, 1944, after Stilwell was forced to send in thousands of Chinese reinforcements, but Stilwell was pleased that the objective had at last been taken (his notes from his personal diary contained "Boy, will this burn up the Limeys!"). Later, Stilwell blamed the length of the siege partly on British and Gurkha Chindit forces for not promptly responding to his demands to move north in an attempt to pressure Japanese troops, but the Chindits themselves had suffered grievous casualties in several fierce pitched battles against Japanese troops in the Burmese jungles, along with losses from illness and combat exhaustion. Stilwell also had not kept his British allies clearly informed of his force movements or coordinated his offensive plans with those of General Slim.
Bereft of further combat replacements for his hard-pressed Marauder battalions, Stilwell felt that he had no choice but to continue offensive operations with his existing forces by using the Marauders as "the point of the spear" until they had achieved all their objectives or been wiped out. He was also concerned that pulling out the Marauders, the only US ground unit in the campaign, would result in charges of favoritism and force him to evacuate the exhausted Chinese and British Chindit forces as well. When General William Slim, the commander of the British Commonwealth Fourteenth Army in Burma, informed Stilwell that his men were exhausted and should be withdrawn, Stilwell rejected the idea by insisting that his subordinate commanders simply did not understand enlisted men and their tendency to magnify physical challenges. Having made his own "long march" out of Burma under his own power by using jungle trails, Stilwell found it difficult to sympathize with those who had been in combat in the jungle for months on end without relief. In retrospect, his statements then revealed a lack of understanding of the limitations of lightly equipped unconventional forces that were used in conventional roles.
Myitkyina and the dispute over evacuation policy precipitated a hurried Army Inspector General investigation, followed by US congressional committee hearings, but no disciplinary measure was taken against Stilwell for his decisions as overall commander.
Only a week after the fall of Myitkyina in Burma, the 5307th Marauder force, down to only 130 combat-effective men of the original 2,997, was disbanded.
Conflict with Chennault
One of the most significant conflicts to emerge during the war was between General Stilwell and General Claire Chennault, the commander of the famed "Flying Tigers" and later air force commander. As adviser to the Republic of China Air Force, Chennault proposed a limited air offensive against the Japanese in China in 1943 by using a series of forward air bases. Stilwell insisted that the idea was untenable and that any air campaign should not begin until fully fortified air bases, supported by large ground forces, had been established. Stilwell then argued for all air resources to be diverted to his forces in India for an early conquest of northern Burma.
In following Chennault's advice, Chiang rejected the proposal, and British commanders sided with Chennault since they were aware that they could not launch a co-ordinated Allied offensive into Burma in 1943 with the resources that were available. During the summer of 1943, Stilwell's headquarters concentrated on plans to rebuild the Chinese Army for an offensive in northern Burma despite Chiang's insistence on support to Chennault's air operations.
Stilwell believed that after forcing a supply route through northern Burma by a ground offensive against the Japanese, he could train and equip 30 Chinese divisions with modern combat equipment. A smaller number of Chinese forces would transfer to India, where two or three new Chinese divisions would also be raised. That plan then remained only theoretical since the limited available airlift capacity for deliveries of supplies to China over the Hump was being used to sustain Chennault's air operations, instead of equipping Chinese ground units.
In 1944, the Japanese launched the counteroffensive, Operation Ichi-Go, designed to knock China out of the war once and for all. It saw half a million men and 800 tanks, supplied by 70,000 to 100,000 horses dragging wagons and 12,000 to 15,000 vehicles. The operation quickly overran Chennault's forward air bases and proved Stilwell to be correct. By then, Allied supply efforts via the Hump airlift were steadily improving in tonnage supplied per month. With the replacement of Chinese war losses, Chennault now saw little need for a ground offensive in northern Burma to reopen a ground supply route to China. Augmented with increased military equipment and additional troops and concerned about defense of the approaches to India, British authorities now sided with Stilwell.
In co-ordination with a southern offensive by Nationalist Chinese forces under General Wei Lihuang, Allied troops under Stilwell's command launched the long-awaited invasion of northern Burma. After heavy fighting and casualties, both forces linked up in January 1945. Stilwell's strategy remained unchanged: opening a new ground supply route from India to China would allow the Allies to equip and train new Chinese army divisions to be used against the Japanese. The new road network, later called the Ledo Road, would link the northern end of the Burma Road as the primary supply route to China. Stilwell's staff planners had estimated the route would supply 65,000 tons of supplies per month.
Using those figures, Stilwell argued that the Ledo Road network would greatly surpass the tonnage being airlifted over the Hump. Chennault doubted that such an extended network of trails through difficult jungle could ever match the tonnage that could be delivered with modern cargo transport aircraft that were then being deployed in the theater. Progress on the Ledo Road was slow and could not be completed until the linkup of forces in January 1945.
In the end, Stilwell's plans to train and to modernize 30 Chinese divisions in China and two or three divisions from forces that were already in India was never fully realized. As Chennault predicted, the supplies carried over the Ledo Road never approached in tonnage the levels of supplies airlifted monthly into China by the Hump. In July 1945, 71,000 tons of supplies were flown over the Hump, compared to 6,000 tons using the Ledo Road, and the airlift operation continued in operation until the end of the war.
When supplies were flowing over the Ledo Road in large quantities, operations in other theaters had shaped the course of the war against Japan. Stilwell's drive into northern Burma, however, allowed Air Transport Command to fly supplies into China more quickly and safely by allowing American planes to fly a more southerly route without fear of Japanese fighters. American airplanes no longer had to make the dangerous venture over the Hump, which raised the delivery of supplies from 18,000 tons in June 1944 to 39,000 tons in November 1944. On August 1, 1945, planes crossed the Hump a minute and twelve seconds apart from one another.
In acknowledgment of Stilwell's efforts, the Ledo Road was later renamed the Stilwell Road by Chiang.
Recall from China
Efforts to counter Operation Ichi-Go were hampered in part by disagreements between Chennault and Stilwell. Stilwell also clashed with Chiang over the question of Guilin, a city that was besieged by the Japanese. Chiang wanted Guilin defended to the last man, but Stilwell claimed that Guilin was a lost cause.
In his diary, Stilwell wrote: "What they ought to do is to shoot the G-mo [Chiang] and Ho [General He Yingqin] and the rest of the gang." He ordered the American troops to pull out of Guilin and managed to persuade a reluctant Chiang to accept the loss of the city. The clash over Guilin was only a prelude to another clash in which Chiang demanded the return of the Y Force from Burma to defend Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, which was also being threatened by the Japanese advance. After meeting with Chiang, Stilwell wrote in his diary that Chiang was a "crazy little bastard with that hickory nut he uses for a head.... Usual cockeyed reasons and idiotic tactical and strategic conceptions. He is impossible!"
Stilwell appealed directly to Roosevelt for help with his dispute with Chiang and so Roosevelt sent Chiang a message: "I have urged time and again in recent months that you take drastic action to resist the disaster which has been moving closer to China and to you. Now, when you have not yet placed General Stilwell in command of all forces in China, we are faced with the loss of a critical area... with possible catastrophic consequences." Roosevelt ended his ultimatum to Chiang by the threat to end all American aid unless Chiang "at once" placed Stilwell "in unrestricted command of all your forces."
Chennault later claimed that Stilwell had deliberately ordered Sino-American forces out of Guilin as a way of creating a crisis that would force Chiang to give up command of his armies to Stilwell. Stilwell's diary supported Chennault's claim, as Stilwell wrote that if a crisis emerged that was "just sufficient to get rid of the Peanut without entirely wrecking the ship, it would be worth it." Stilwell went on to write that the entire Nationalist system had to be "torn to bits" and that Chiang would have to go.
An exultant Stilwell immediately delivered the letter to Chiang despite pleas from Patrick J. Hurley, Roosevelt's special envoy in China, to delay in delivering the message and to work on a deal that would achieve Stilwell's aim in a way that was more acceptable to Chiang. Stilwell wrote in his diary about handing over Roosevelt's message: "I handed this bundle of paprika to the Peanut and than [sic] sank back with a sigh. The harpoon hit the little bugger right in the solar plexus and went right through him. It was a clean hit, but beyond turning green and losing his powers of speech, he did not bat an eye." The British journalist Jonathan Fenby wrote about Roosevelt's letter, "Unless the President was ready for America to take over effective control of China, or halt Lend-Lease supplies and abandon the KMT to its fate, his stern words merely amounted to bluff."
Seeing that act as a move toward the complete subjugation of China, Chiang gave a formal reply in which he said that Stilwell must be replaced immediately and that Chiang would welcome any other qualified US general to fill Stilwell's position.
Chiang called Roosevelt's letter the "greatest humiliation I have been subjected to in my life" and stated that it was "all too obvious that the United States intends to intervene in China's internal affairs." Chiang told Hurley that the Chinese people were "tired of the insults which Stilwell has seen fit to heap upon them." Chiang delivered a speech before the Central Executive Committee of the Nationalist Party that was leaked to the press and called Roosevelt's letter a form of imperialism and stated that accepting Roosevelt's demands would make him no different from the Japanese collaborator Wang Jingwei in Nanjing.
On 12 October 1944, Hurley reported to Washington that Stilwell was a "fine man, but was incapable of understanding or co-operating with Chiang Kai-shek" and went on to say that if Stilwell remained in command, all of China might be lost to the Japanese. Before sending his cable, Hurley showed it to Stilwell, who accused Hurley to his face of "cutting my throat with a dull knife."
On October 19, 1944, Stilwell, who had been promoted to four-star general on August 1, 1944, was recalled from his command by Roosevelt. Partly as a result of controversy concerning the casualties suffered by US forces in Burma and partly because of the continuing difficulties with the British and Chinese commanders, Stilwell's return to the US was not accompanied by the usual ceremony. Upon arrival, he was met by two army generals at the airport, who told him not to answer any of the media questions about China.
Stilwell was replaced by General Albert C. Wedemeyer, who received a telegram from Marshall on October 27, 1944, that directed him to proceed to China to assume command of the China Theatre and replace Stilwell. Wedemeyer later recalled his initial dread over the assignment, as service in the China Theater was considered to be a graveyard for American officials, both military and diplomatic.
When Wedemeyer actually arrived at Stilwell's headquarters after the latter's dismissal, Wedemeyer was dismayed to discover that Stilwell had intentionally departed without seeing him and had not left a single briefing paper for his guidance. Most other departing US military commanders greeted their replacement to have them thoroughly briefed on the strengths and the weaknesses of headquarters staff, the issues confronting the command, and the planned operations.
Searching the offices, Wedemeyer could find no documentary record of Stilwell's plans or records of his former or future operations. General Wedemeyer then spoke with Stilwell's staff officers but learned little from them because Stilwell, according to the staff, kept everything in his "hip pocket".
Despite prompting by the news media, Stilwell never complained about his treatment by either Washington or Chiang.
Reassignment
After a three-month furlough, Stilwell, on 24 January 1945, assumed command of the Army Ground Forces with its headquarters at the Pentagon and oversaw all mobilization and training of army ground units in the United States.
On 23 June 1945, after the death of Lieutenant General Simon B. Buckner, Jr. on 18 June, Stilwell was appointed as commander of the Tenth United States Army shortly after the end of Japanese resistance in the Battle of Okinawa. The Tenth Army was slated to participate in Operation Olympic, the planned invasion of the island of Honshu, the largest Japanese home island. The Tenth Army was disbanded on 15 October 1945, after the surrender of Japan.
Postwar career
In November, Stilwell was appointed to lead a "War Department Equipment Board" in an investigation of the Army's modernization in light of its recent experience. Among his recommendations was the establishment of a combined arms force to conduct extended service tests of new weapons and equipment and then formulate doctrine for its use, and the abolition of specialized anti-tank units. His most notable recommendation was for a vast improvement of the army's defenses against all airborne threats, including ballistic missiles. In particular, he called for "guided interceptor missiles, dispatched in accordance with electronically computed data obtained from radar detection stations."
On 1 March 1946, Stilwell assumed command of the Sixth US Army, with its headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco. It had been reorganized as an administrative command in charge of army units in the Western United States. In May 1946, Stilwell and his former subordinate Frank Merrill led two US Marine platoons in suppressing a prison uprising, the Battle of Alcatraz.
Death
Stilwell died after surgery for stomach cancer on October 12, 1946, at the Presidio of San Francisco. He was still on active duty and five months short of reaching the army's mandatory retirement age of 64. He was cremated, his ashes were scattered on the Pacific Ocean, and a cenotaph was placed at the West Point Cemetery. Among his military decorations are the Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, the Legion of Merit degree of Commander, the Bronze Star, and the Combat Infantryman Badge; the last award was given to him as he was dying.
Political and personal views
Barbara W. Tuchman recorded that Stilwell was a lifelong Republican: "he retained the family Republicanism and joined naturally in the exhilarating exercise of Roosevelt-hating." Later, on the occasion that Stilwell met the president, she noted: "At home, Stilwell was a conventional Republican who shared the sentiments and adopted the tone of the Roosevelt-haters, in which he was influenced by his brother John, an extremist of the species." Elsewhere she notes that in the view of an unnamed, close friend, "Stilwell was liberal and sympathetic by instinct. But he was conservative in thought and politics."
Tuchman also noted Stilwell's use in letters and diaries of a catalogue of now-insulting words: "he used [them] easily and seemingly without pejorative content." These terms included "limeys for the English, frogs for the French ('met a frog and his wife on shipboard'), huns and squareheads for Germans, wops for Italians, chinks or chinos for Chinese, googs for Filipinos, niggers or coons for Negroes." At the end of the war, Tuchman stated that he took "a harsh pleasure in touring the gutted and burned-out districts of Yokohama and staring at the once arrogant [Japanese] now living in shanties of scrap lumber and tin and scratching in the dirt to plant onions."
His diary entry for 1 September 1945 (in Yokohama) stated in part, "What a kick to stare at the arrogant, ugly, moon-faced, buck-toothed, bowlegged bastards, and realize where this puts them. Many newly demobilized soldiers around. Most police salute. People generally just apathetic. We gloated over the destruction & came in at 3:00 am feeling fine."
During World War II, he praised the Soviet military and said that "the Russian troops appeared to advantage, and those who believe the Red Army is rotten would do well to reconsider their views."
The content in Stilwell’s diaries is contradicted by his speaking out for Japanese-American servicemen threatened with racist incidents postwar. Because of his statements, Stilwell was recruited by the War Department to support Japanese-American servicemen. He attended rallies against racism and personally presented the family of 442nd Regimental Combat Team staff sergeant Kazuo Masuda, killed in action in Italy in 1944, with the Distinguished Service Cross. In an event at Santa Ana, CA also attended by actors Ronald Reagan and Robert Young, Stilwell praised Nisei soldiers. He remarked: "Who after all is the real American? The real American is the man who calls it a fair exchange to lay down his life in order that American ideals may go on living. And judging by such a test, Sgt. Masuda was a better American than any of us today."
Legacy
Stilwell was initiated to the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
In her book Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45, Tuchman wrote that Stilwell was sacrificed as a political expedient because of his inability to get along with his allies in the theater. Some historians, such as David Halberstam in his final book, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, have theorized that Roosevelt was concerned that Chiang would sign a separate peace with Japan, which would free many Japanese divisions to fight elsewhere, and that Roosevelt wanted to placate Chiang. The power struggle over the China Theater that emerged among Stilwell, Chennault, and Chiang reflected US political divisions of the time.
A very different interpretation of events suggests that Stilwell, pressing for his full command of all Chinese forces, had made diplomatic inroads with the People's Liberation Army commanded by Mao Zedong. Stilwell bypassed Chiang, his theater commander, and had gotten Mao to agree to follow an American commander. Stilwell's confrontational approach in the power struggle with Chiang ultimately led to Chiang's determination to have Stilwell recalled to the US.
According to Guan Zhong, the president of the Examination Yuan, Stilwell had once expressed his regret of never having the opportunity to fight alongside the Chinese Communists, especially with General Zhu De, before his death.
Stilwell did not appreciate the developments in warfare brought about by World War II, including strategic air power and the use of highly trained infantrymen as jungle guerrilla fighters. One of the disagreements was with the equally acerbic General Chennault, who Stilwell felt to overvalue the effectiveness of air power against massed ground troops, as was demonstrated by the fall of the 14th Air Force bases in eastern China (Hengyang, Guilin, etc.) during the Japanese offensive in eastern China in 1944.
Stilwell also clashed with other officers, including Orde Wingate, who led the Chindits, and Colonel Charles Hunter, who was in charge of Merrill's Marauders. Stilwell could not appreciate the toll that constant jungle warfare took on even the most highly trained troops or the incapacity of lightly armed fast-moving jungle guerrilla forces to dislodge heavily armed regular infantry that was supported by artillery. Accordingly, Stilwell abused both Chindits and Marauders and earned the contempt of both units and their commanders.
In other respects, however, Stilwell was a skilled tactician in the US Army's land warfare tradition, with a deep appreciation of the logistics required of campaigning in rough terrain, which caused his dedication to (perhaps even obsession with) the Ledo Road project for which he received several awards, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the US Army Distinguished Service Medal. The trust that Stilwell placed in men of real insight and character in understanding China, particularly the China Hands, John Stewart Service and John Paton Davies, Jr., confirms that assessment.
Arguably, if Stilwell had been given the number of American regular infantry divisions that he had continually requested, the US experience in China and Burma could have been very different. Certainly, his Army peers, General Douglas MacArthur and General George Marshall had the highest respect for his abilities, and both ensured that he replaced General Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. as commander of Tenth US Army at Okinawa after the latter's death. During the last year of the war, however, the US was strained to meet all its military obligations. The cargo aircraft diverted to supply Stilwell, the 14th Air Force for the Chinese in the East made airdrop-dependent campaigns in the West, such as Operation Market Garden, woefully short of aircraft, although bad weather during the Arnhem Campaign may have been a more important factor.
Although Chiang succeeded in removing Stilwell, the public relations damage suffered by the Nationalist regime was irreparable. Right before Stilwell's departure, The New York Times drama critic-turned-war correspondent Brooks Atkinson interviewed him in Chongqing and wrote:
The decision to relieve General Stilwell represents the political triumph of a moribund, anti-democratic regime that is more concerned with maintaining its political supremacy than in driving the Japanese out of China. The Chinese Communists... have good armies that are now fighting guerrilla warfare against the Japanese in North China... The Generalissimo regards these armies as the chief threat to his supremacy... has made no sincere attempt to arrange at least a truce with them for the duration of the war... No diplomatic genius could have overcome the Generalissimo's basic unwillingness to risk his armies in battle with the Japanese.
Atkinson, who had visited Mao in Yan'an, saw the Communist forces as a democratic movement. After Atkinson visited Mao, his article on his visit was Yenan: A Chinese Wonderland City. The Nationalists were in turn viewed as hopelessly reactionary and corrupt, a view that was then shared by many of the US press corps in China. The negative image of the Nationalists in the US played a significant factor in President Harry Truman's decision to end all aid to Chiang at the height of the Chinese Civil War.
The British historian Andrew Roberts quoted Stilwell's disparaging remarks about the British war effort in Asia to illustrate his strong Anglophobia, which became a stumbling block to smooth co-operation between American and British forces in Asia. The British historian Rana Mitter argued that Stilwell never appreciated that his position as Chiang's chief of staff to Chiang did not give him as much authority as Marshall had in his position as army chief of staff. Chiang, not Stilwell, was the Chinese forces' commander-in chief, and Chiang resisted Stilwell's initiatives if they involved committing Chinese forces to do-or-die engagements or if Chinese troops were removed from his immediate control to bases in India. Mitter viewed Chiang as correct in attempting to husband China's resources after the serious losses in 1937 to 1941. Mitter also supported the view that Chennault could have accomplished much more if Stilwell had not diverted a large proportion of lend-lease equipment to the Chinese troops in India. Mitter factored in the impact of the collaborationist Wang Jingwei as yet another major force in China. Stilwell's mastery of written and spoken Chinese made him the default American choice for the China command. Mitter projected that his talents could have been far better employed in North Africa, as Marshall had originally planned.
The General Joseph Stilwell House was built between 1933 and 1934, located at 26218 Inspiration Avenue, in Carmel Point, at the southern city limits of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The large, two-story Spanish Eclectic-style house remains a private residence. A commemorative stone plaque has been placed on the left-hand side of the house.
A number of streets, buildings, and areas across the country have been named for Stilwell over the years, including Joseph Stilwell Middle School in Jacksonville, Florida. The Soldiers' Club that he envisioned in 1940, when there was no such thing as a soldiers' club in the army, was completed in 1943 at Fort Ord on the bluffs overlooking Monterey Bay. Many years later, the building was renamed to Stilwell Hall in his honor, but because of the erosion of the bluffs over the decades, the building was taken down in 2003. Stilwell's former residence in Chongqing, a city along the Yangtze River to which Chiang's government retreated after it had been forced from Nanjing by Japanese troops, has been converted to the General Joseph W. Stilwell Museum in his honor.
In popular culture
Stilwell is portrayed on film by Erville Alderson in Objective, Burma! (1945), by John Hoyt in Samuel Fuller's Merrill's Marauders (1962), by Robert Stack in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979), and by Yachun Dong in Chinese Expeditionary Force (TV series) (2011).
On August 24, 2000, the US Postal Service issued the first 10¢ Distinguished Americans series postage stamp honoring Stilwell.
The award for the Outstanding Overall Cadet, Senior Division, in the California Cadet Corps is the General Joseph W. Stilwell Award.
Streets in Marina, California, Kendall Park, New Jersey Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the Presidio of San Francisco are named for him.
Awards and decorations
His awards include:
General Stilwell is one of five general officers who have been awarded the honorary Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB) for service while a general officer, along with General Matthew Ridgway, Major General William F. Dean, General of the Army Omar Bradley, and General of the Army Douglas MacArthur. Generals are not allowed to be awarded the CIB. The CIB is only available to colonels and below.
Distinguished Service Cross citation
Stillwell's official Distinguished Service Cross citation reads:
The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Lieutenant General Joseph Warren Stilwell, United States Army, for extraordinary heroism and conspicuous bravery in action while in command of the Chinese Forces in Burma during the Spring of 1942. General Stilwell's presence and personal example in an exposed position in the front lines of a Chinese division on 23 April 1942, inspired the unit to a renewed effort which resulted in the capture of Taunggyi. While at this position, General Stilwell was exposed to concentrated rifle, machine gun and mortar fire which inflicted heavy casualties on the Chinese troops in the immediate vicinity. On 28 April, while visiting the entire front of two Chinese divisions, he spent considerable time with one of them and, while on the ground, directed the readjustment of the forces. During the entire campaign he personally directed operations in positions which were subjected to continuous enemy aerial strafing and frequent air bombardment, with utter disregard for his own personal safety. General Stilwell's outstanding example of courage and leadership in direct contact with the enemy prolonged, at a critical time and place, the resistance of the forces of the United Nations against a better armed and determined enemy, who still maintained the powerful impetus of initial assault against the Allied forces.
Dates of rank
See also
Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)
Whampoa Military Academy
History of the Republic of China
Military of the Republic of China
Y Force
Charles N. Hunter
References
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the United States Army Center of Military History.
Sources
Jack Belden, Retreat With Stilwell, New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1943. Sympathetic eyewitness account.
Frank Dorn, Walkout: With Stilwell in Burma, Pyramid Books 1973. By his principal aide.
Fred Eldridge, 'Wrath in Burma The Uncensored Story of Gen. Stilwell Doubleday & Co., 1946.
Evans, M. Stanton; Romerstein, Herbert (2013). Stalin's Secret Agents: The Subversion of Roosevelt's Government. Threshold Editions. ISBN 978-1439147702.
Eric Larrabee, Commander In Chief, New York: Harper & Row, 1987. ISBN 0-06-039050-6
Jon Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War, London: John Murray, 2004. ISBN 978-0-7195-6576-2
Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45, Macmillan 1970. Grove Press 2001. British edition: Sand Against the Wind: Stilwell and the American Experience in China 1911–45, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001. ISBN 978-1-84212-281-5. Sympathetic full scale biography.
John Masters, The Road Past Mandalay, London: Michael Joseph, 1961. First-hand account of the fighting in Burma by a Chindit officer.
Pfefer, Nathan Vinegar Joe's War Presidio Press, 2000, ISBN 0-89141-715-X.
Romanus, Charles F.; Sunderland, Riley (1987) [1953]. China-Burma-India Theater: Stilwell's Mission to China. United States Army in World War II. Washington, D.C.: United States Army Center of Military History. LCCN 53-60349. Index:CMH_Pub_9-1_Stilwell_in_China.pdf – via Wikisource.
Charles F. Romanus Riley Sunderland, Stilwell's Command Problems (Washington: Department of the Army, Historical Division, 1956). Official Army history with extensive documentation.
Rooney, D.D. Stilwell Pan Macmillan, 1973, ISBN 0-345-09789-0.
Stilwell, Joseph; White, Theodore, Ed. The Stilwell Papers Da Capo Press, 1991, ISBN 0-306-80428-X. Stilwell's wartime diaries.
Hans Van de Ven, "Stilwell in the Stocks: The Chinese Nationalists and the Allied Powers in the Second World War," Asian Affairs 34.3 (November 2003): 243–259. Revisionist study argues that Stilwell misunderstood Chiang's military strategy, which was actually flexible and well founded in Chinese realities.
Hans J. Van de Ven, War and Nationalism in China, 1925–1945 (London; New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). Expands revisionist view including longer period of time.
Andrew Roberts, "Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941–1945" (New York: Harper Perennial. 2010). Presents a harsher picture of Stilwell in course of examining Churchill, Roosevelt, Brook, and Marshall.
Rana Mitter, "Forgotten Ally: China's World War II. 1937–1945" (Boston; New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2013). Complete re-examination of the Chinese wars with Japan which argues that the memory of 'betrayals' by Britain, America, and Russia continues to influence China's worldview today.
External links
The Stilwell Pages
The Carmel I Knew by Easterbrook, Nancy Stilwell
Annals of the Flying Tigers
The short film Big Picture: The Joseph Warren Stilwell Story is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
Stilwell's basketball biography on Hoopedia
Transcribed copies of Stilwell's diaries, 1900–1946, and other documents online, with the originals among the Joseph Warren Stilwell papers at the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University.
Transcribed copies of the World War II diaries of Ernest F. Easterbrook, Stilwell's executive assistant in Burma (as of 1944) and son-in-law, are online, with the originals among the Ernest Fred Easterbrook papers at the Hoover Institution Archives.
Newspaper clippings about Joseph Stilwell in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
United States Army Officers 1939–1945
Generals of World War II
Stilwell Board Report, 1946 |
Bill_Clinton | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton | [
378,
756
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton"
] | William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe; born August 19, 1946) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a New Democrat.
Clinton was born and raised in Arkansas. He graduated from Georgetown University in 1968, and later from Yale Law School, where he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham. After graduating from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and won election as state attorney general, followed by two non-consecutive tenures as Arkansas governor. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the National Governors Association. Clinton was elected president in the 1992 election, defeating the incumbent Republican Party president George H. W. Bush and the independent businessman Ross Perot. He became the first president to be born in the Baby Boomer generation.
Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act but failed to pass his plan for national health care reform. Starting in the mid-1990s, he began an ideological evolution as he became much more conservative in his domestic policy, advocating for and signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and financial deregulation measures. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, eventually signing the Dayton Peace agreement. He also called for the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe and many former Warsaw Pact members joined NATO during his presidency. Clinton's foreign policy in the Middle East saw him sign the Iraq Liberation Act which gave aid to groups against Saddam Hussein. He also participated in the Oslo I Accord and Camp David Summit to advance the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, and assisted the Northern Ireland peace process.
Clinton won re-election in the 1996 election, defeating Republican nominee Bob Dole and Reform Party nominee Perot. His second term was dominated by the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, which began in 1995, when he had a sexual relationship with the then 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. In January 1998, news of the affair made tabloid headlines. This scandal escalated throughout the year, culminating in December when Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson. The two impeachment articles that the House passed were centered around perjury and Clinton using the powers of the presidency to commit obstruction of justice. In 1999, Clinton's impeachment trial began in the Senate, where he was acquitted on both charges. During the last three years of Clinton's presidency, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus—the first such surplus since 1969.
Clinton left office in 2001 with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president. His presidency ranks among the middle to upper tier in historical rankings of U.S. presidents. However, his personal conduct and misconduct allegations have made him the subject of substantial scrutiny. Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the Clinton Foundation to address international causes such as the prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming. In 2009, he was named the United Nations special envoy to Haiti. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton founded the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has remained active in Democratic Party politics, campaigning for his wife's 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns.
Early life and career
Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas. He is the son of William Jefferson Blythe Jr., a traveling salesman who died in an automobile accident three months before his birth, and Virginia Dell Cassidy (later Virginia Kelley). Blythe had initially survived the crash, but drowned in a drainage ditch. His parents had married on September 4, 1943, but this union later proved to be bigamous, as Blythe was still married to his fourth wife. Virginia traveled to New Orleans to study nursing soon after Bill was born, leaving him in Hope with her parents Eldridge and Edith Cassidy, who owned and ran a small grocery store. At a time when the southern United States was racially segregated, Clinton's grandparents sold goods on credit to people of all races. In 1950, Bill's mother returned from nursing school and married Roger Clinton Sr., who co-owned an automobile dealership in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his brother and Earl T. Ricks. The family moved to Hot Springs in 1950.Although he immediately assumed use of his stepfather's surname, it was not until Clinton turned 15 that he formally adopted the surname Clinton as a gesture toward him. Clinton has described his stepfather as a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused his mother and half-brother, Roger Clinton Jr. The physical abuse only ceased after a then-14-year-old Bill challenged his stepfather to "stand and face" him, though the verbal/emotional abuse continued. Bill would eventually forgive Roger Sr. for his abusive actions near the latter's death.
In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John's Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and the segregated Hot Springs High School, where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician. Clinton was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band's saxophone section. While in high school, Clinton performed for two years in a jazz trio, The 3 Kings, with Randy Goodrum, who became a successful professional pianist.
In 1961, Clinton became a member of the Hot Springs Chapter of the Order of DeMolay, a youth group affiliated with Freemasonry, but he never became a Freemason. He briefly considered dedicating his life to music, but as he noted in his autobiography My Life:
Clinton began an interest in law at Hot Springs High, when he took up the challenge to argue the defense of the ancient Roman senator Catiline in a mock trial in his Latin class. After a vigorous defense that made use of his "budding rhetorical and political skills", he told the Latin teacher Elizabeth Buck it "made him realize that someday he would study law".
Clinton has identified two influential moments in his life, both occurring in 1963, that contributed to his decision to become a public figure. One was his visit as a Boys Nation senator to the White House to meet President John F. Kennedy. The other was watching Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on TV, which impressed him so much that he later memorized it.
College and law school years
Georgetown University
With the aid of scholarships, Clinton attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., receiving a Bachelor of Science in foreign service degree in 1968. Georgetown was the only university where Clinton applied.
In 1964 and 1965, Clinton won elections for class president. From 1964 to 1967, he was an intern and then a clerk in the office of Arkansas Senator J. William Fulbright. While in college, he became a brother of service fraternity Alpha Phi Omega and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He is a member of Kappa Kappa Psi honorary band fraternity.
Oxford
Upon graduating from Georgetown in 1968, Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, where he initially read for a B.Phil. in philosophy, politics, and economics but transferred to a B.Litt. in politics and, ultimately, a B.Phil. in politics. Clinton did not expect to return for the second year because of the draft and so he switched programs; this type of activity was common among other Rhodes Scholars from his cohort. He had received an offer to study at Yale Law School, and so he left early to return to the United States and did not receive a degree from Oxford.
During his time at Oxford, Clinton befriended fellow American Rhodes Scholar Frank Aller. In 1969, Aller received a draft letter that mandated deployment to the Vietnam War. Aller's 1971 suicide had an influential impact on Clinton. British writer and feminist Sara Maitland said of Clinton, "I remember Bill and Frank Aller taking me to a pub in Walton Street in the summer term of 1969 and talking to me about the Vietnam War. I knew nothing about it, and when Frank began to describe the napalming of civilians I began to cry. Bill said that feeling bad wasn't good enough. That was the first time I encountered the idea that liberal sensitivities weren't enough and you had to do something about such things". Clinton was a member of the Oxford University Basketball Club and also played for Oxford University's rugby union team.
While Clinton was president in 1994, he received an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree and a fellowship from the University of Oxford, specifically for being "a doughty and tireless champion of the cause of world peace", having "a powerful collaborator in his wife", and for winning "general applause for his achievement of resolving the gridlock that prevented an agreed budget".
Vietnam War opposition and draft controversy
During the Vietnam War, Clinton received educational draft deferments while he was in England in 1968 and 1969. While at Oxford, he participated in Vietnam War protests and organized a Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event in October 1969. He was planning to attend law school in the U.S. and knew he might lose his deferment. Clinton tried unsuccessfully to obtain positions in the National Guard and the Air Force officer candidate school, and he then made arrangements to join the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Arkansas.
He subsequently decided not to join the ROTC, saying in a letter to the officer in charge of the program that he opposed the war, but did not think it was honorable to use ROTC, National Guard, or Reserve service to avoid serving in Vietnam. He further stated that because he opposed the war, he would not volunteer to serve in uniform, but would subject himself to the draft, and would serve if selected only as a way "to maintain my political viability within the system". Clinton registered for the draft and received a high number (311), meaning that those whose birthdays had been drawn as numbers 1 to 310 would be drafted before him, making it unlikely he would be called up. (In fact, the highest number drafted was 195.)
Colonel Eugene Holmes, the Army officer who had been involved with Clinton's ROTC application, suspected that Clinton attempted to manipulate the situation to avoid the draft and avoid serving in uniform. He issued a notarized statement during the 1992 presidential campaign:
During the 1992 campaign, it was revealed that Clinton's uncle had attempted to secure him a position in the Navy Reserve, which would have prevented him from being deployed to Vietnam. This effort was unsuccessful and Clinton said in 1992 that he had been unaware of it until then. Although legal, Clinton's actions with respect to the draft and deciding whether to serve in the military were criticized during his first presidential campaign by conservatives and some Vietnam veterans, some of whom charged that he had used Fulbright's influence to avoid military service. Clinton's 1992 campaign manager, James Carville, successfully argued that Clinton's letter in which he declined to join the ROTC should be made public, insisting that voters, many of whom had also opposed the Vietnam War, would understand and appreciate his position.
Law school
After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973. In 1971, he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham, in the Yale Law Library; she was a class year ahead of him. They began dating and were soon inseparable. After only about a month, Clinton postponed his summer plans to be a coordinator for the George McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California. The couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school.
Clinton eventually moved to Texas with Rodham in 1972 to take a job leading McGovern's effort there. He spent considerable time in Dallas, at the campaign's local headquarters on Lemmon Avenue, where he had an office. Clinton worked with future two-term mayor of Dallas Ron Kirk, future governor of Texas Ann Richards, and then unknown television director and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.
Failed congressional campaign and tenure as Attorney General of Arkansas
After graduating from Yale Law School, Clinton returned to Arkansas and became a law professor at the University of Arkansas. In 1974, he ran for the House of Representatives. Running in the conservative 3rd district against incumbent Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt, Clinton's campaign was bolstered by the anti-Republican and anti-incumbent mood resulting from the Watergate scandal. Hammerschmidt, who had received 77 percent of the vote in 1972, defeated Clinton by only a 52 percent to 48 percent margin. In 1976, Clinton ran for Arkansas attorney general. Defeating the secretary of state and the deputy attorney general in the Democratic primary, Clinton was elected with no opposition at all in the general election, as no Republican had run for the office.
Governor of Arkansas (1979–1981, 1983–1992)
In 1978, Clinton entered the Arkansas gubernatorial primary. At just 31 years old, he was one of the youngest gubernatorial candidates in the state's history. Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas in 1978, having defeated the Republican candidate Lynn Lowe, a farmer from Texarkana. Clinton was only 32 years old when he took office, the youngest governor in the country at the time and the second youngest governor in the history of Arkansas. Due to his youthful appearance, Clinton was often called the "Boy Governor". He worked on educational reform and directed the maintenance of Arkansas's roads, with wife Hillary leading a successful committee on urban health care reform. However, his term included an unpopular motor vehicle tax and citizens' anger over the escape of Cuban refugees (from the Mariel boatlift) detained in Fort Chaffee in 1980. Monroe Schwarzlose, of Kingsland in Cleveland County, polled 31 percent of the vote against Clinton in the Democratic gubernatorial primary of 1980. Some suggested Schwarzlose's unexpected voter turnout foreshadowed Clinton's defeat by Republican challenger Frank D. White in the general election that year. As Clinton once joked, he was the youngest ex-governor in the nation's history.
After leaving office in January 1981, Clinton joined friend Bruce Lindsey's Little Rock law firm of Wright, Lindsey and Jennings. In 1982, he was elected governor a second time and kept the office for ten years. Effective with the 1986 election, Arkansas had changed its gubernatorial term of office from two to four years. During his term, he helped transform Arkansas's economy and improved the state's educational system. For senior citizens, he removed the sales tax from medications and increased the home property-tax exemption. He became a leading figure among the New Democrats, a group of Democrats who advocated welfare reform, smaller government, and other policies not supported by liberals. Formally organized as the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), the New Democrats argued that in light of President Ronald Reagan's landslide victory in 1984, the Democratic Party needed to adopt a more centrist political stance in order to succeed at the national level. Clinton delivered the Democratic response to Reagan's 1985 State of the Union Address and served as chair of the National Governors Association from 1986 to 1987, bringing him to an audience beyond Arkansas.
In the early 1980s, Clinton made reform of the Arkansas education system a top priority of his gubernatorial administration. The Arkansas Education Standards Committee was chaired by Clinton's wife Hillary, who was also an attorney as well as the chair of the Legal Services Corporation. The committee transformed Arkansas's education system. Proposed reforms included more spending for schools (supported by a sales-tax increase), better opportunities for gifted children, vocational education, higher teachers' salaries, more course variety, and compulsory teacher competency exams. The reforms passed in September 1983 after Clinton called a special legislative session—the longest in Arkansas history. Many have considered this the greatest achievement of the Clinton governorship. He defeated four Republican candidates for governor: Lowe (1978), White (1982 and 1986), Jonesboro businessmen Woody Freeman (1984), and Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock (1990).
Also in the 1980s, the Clintons' personal and business affairs included transactions that became the basis of the Whitewater controversy investigation, which later dogged his presidential administration. After extensive investigation over several years, no indictments were made against the Clintons related to the years in Arkansas.
According to some sources, Clinton was a death penalty opponent in his early years, but he eventually switched positions. However he might have felt previously, by 1992, Clinton was insisting that Democrats "should no longer feel guilty about protecting the innocent". During Clinton's final term as governor, Arkansas performed its first executions since 1964 (the death penalty had been reinstated in 1976). As Governor, he oversaw the first four executions carried out by the state of Arkansas since the death penalty was reinstated there in 1976: one by electric chair and three by lethal injection. To draw attention to his stance on capital punishment, Clinton flew home to Arkansas mid-campaign in 1992, in order to affirm in person that the controversial execution of Ricky Ray Rector, would go forward as scheduled.
Scandals and allegations
During his time as governor in the 1980s, Arkansas was the center of a drug smuggling operation through Mena Airport. CIA agent Barry Seal allegedly imported three to five billion dollars worth of cocaine through the airport, and the operation was linked to the Iran–Contra affair. Clinton was accused of knowing about this operation, although nothing could be proven against him. Journalist Sam Smith tied him to various questionable business dealings. Clinton was also accused by Gennifer Flowers to have used cocaine as governor and his half-brother Roger was sentenced to prison in 1985 for possession and smuggling of cocaine, but was later pardoned by his brother after serving his sentence. During his time in Arkansas, there were also other scandals such as the Whitewater controversy involving the Clintons' real estate dealings, and Bill Clinton was accused of serious sexual misconduct in Arkansas, including allegations of using the Arkansas State Police to gain access to women (Troopergate affair). The killing of Don Henry and Kevin Ives in 1987 started various conspiracy theories that accused Clinton and the Arkansas state authorities of covering up the crime.
1988 Democratic presidential primaries
In 1987, the media speculated that Clinton would enter the presidential race. Clinton decided to remain as Arkansas governor (following consideration for the potential candidacy of Hillary for governor, initially favored—but ultimately vetoed—by the First Lady). For the nomination, Clinton endorsed Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis. He gave the nationally televised opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, but his speech, which was 33 minutes long and twice the length it was expected to be, was criticized for being too long. Clinton presented himself both as a moderate and as a member of the New Democrat wing of the Democratic Party, and he headed the moderate Democratic Leadership Council in 1990 and 1991.
1992 United States presidential election
In the first primary contest, the Iowa Caucus, Clinton finished a distant third to Iowa senator Tom Harkin. During the campaign for the New Hampshire primary, reports surfaced that Clinton had engaged in an extramarital affair with Gennifer Flowers. Clinton fell far behind former Massachusetts senator Paul Tsongas in the New Hampshire polls. Following Super Bowl XXVI, Clinton and his wife Hillary went on 60 Minutes to rebuff the charges. Their television appearance was a calculated risk, but Clinton regained several delegates. He finished second to Tsongas in the New Hampshire primary, but after trailing badly in the polls and coming within single digits of winning, the media viewed it as a victory. News outlets labeled him "The Comeback Kid" for earning a firm second-place finish.
Winning the big prizes of Florida and Texas and many of the Southern primaries on Super Tuesday gave Clinton a sizable delegate lead. However, former California governor Jerry Brown was scoring victories and Clinton had yet to win a significant contest outside his native South. With no major Southern state remaining, Clinton targeted New York, which had many delegates. He scored a resounding victory in New York City, shedding his image as a regional candidate. Having been transformed into the consensus candidate, he secured the Democratic Party nomination, finishing with a victory in Jerry Brown's home state of California.
During the campaign, questions of conflict of interest regarding state business and the politically powerful Rose Law Firm, at which Hillary Rodham Clinton was a partner, arose. Clinton argued the questions were moot because all transactions with the state had been deducted before determining Hillary's firm pay. Further concern arose when Bill Clinton announced that, with Hillary, voters would be getting two presidents "for the price of one".
Clinton was still the governor of Arkansas while campaigning for U.S. president, and he returned to his home state to see that Ricky Ray Rector would be executed. After killing a police officer and a civilian, Rector shot himself in the head, leading to what his lawyers said was a state where he could still talk but did not understand the idea of death. According to both Arkansas state law and federal law, a seriously mentally impaired inmate cannot be executed. The courts disagreed with the allegation of grave mental impairment and allowed the execution. Clinton's return to Arkansas for the execution was framed in an article for The New York Times as a possible political move to counter "soft on crime" accusations.
Bush's approval ratings were around 80 percent during the Gulf War, and he was described as unbeatable. When Bush compromised with Democrats to try to lower federal deficits, he reneged on his promise not to raise taxes, which hurt his approval rating. Clinton repeatedly condemned Bush for making a promise he failed to keep. By election time, the economy was souring and Bush saw his approval rating plummet to just slightly over 40 percent. Finally, conservatives were previously united by anti-communism, but with the end of the Cold War, the party lacked a uniting issue. When Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson addressed Christian themes at the Republican National Convention—with Bush criticizing Democrats for omitting God from their platform—many moderates were alienated. Clinton then pointed to his moderate, "New Democrat" record as governor of Arkansas, though some on the more liberal side of the party remained suspicious. Many Democrats who had supported Ronald Reagan and Bush in previous elections switched their support to Clinton. Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore, toured the country during the final weeks of the campaign, shoring up support and pledging a "new beginning".
On March 26, 1992, during a Democratic fund raiser of the presidential campaign, Robert Rafsky confronted then Gov. Bill Clinton of Arkansas and asked what he was going to do about AIDS, to which Clinton replied, "I feel your pain". The televised exchange led to AIDS becoming an issue in the 1992 presidential election. On April 4, then candidate Clinton met with members of ACT UP and other leading AIDS advocates to discuss his AIDS agenda and agreed to make a major AIDS policy speech, to have people with HIV speak to the Democratic Convention, and to sign onto the AIDS United Action five point plan.
Clinton won the 1992 presidential election (370 electoral votes) against Republican incumbent George H. W. Bush (168 electoral votes) and billionaire populist Ross Perot (zero electoral votes), who ran as an independent on a platform that focused on domestic issues. Bush's steep decline in public approval was a significant part of Clinton's success. Clinton's victory in the election ended twelve years of Republican rule of the White House and twenty of the previous twenty-four years. The election gave Democrats full control of the United States Congress, the first time one party controlled both the executive and legislative branches since Democrats held the 96th United States Congress during the presidency of Jimmy Carter.
According to Seymour Martin Lipset, the 1992 election had several unique characteristics. Voters felt that economic conditions were worse than they actually were, which harmed Bush. A rare event was the presence of a strong third-party candidate. Liberals launched a backlash against 12 years of a conservative White House. The chief factor was Clinton's uniting his party, and winning over a number of heterogeneous groups.
Presidency (1993–2001)
Clinton's "third way" of moderate liberalism built up the nation's fiscal health and put the nation on a firm footing abroad amid globalization and the development of anti-American terrorist organizations.
During his presidency, Clinton advocated for a wide variety of legislation and programs, most of which were enacted into law or implemented by the executive branch. His policies, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, have been attributed to a centrist Third Way philosophy of governance. His policy of fiscal conservatism helped to reduce deficits on budgetary matters. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history.
The Congressional Budget Office reported budget surpluses of $69 billion in 1998, $126 billion in 1999, and $236 billion in 2000, during the last three years of Clinton's presidency. Over the years of the recorded surplus, the gross national debt rose each year. At the end of the fiscal year (September 30) for each of the years a surplus was recorded, the U.S. Treasury reported a gross debt of $5.413 trillion in 1997, $5.526 trillion in 1998, $5.656 trillion in 1999, and $5.674 trillion in 2000. Over the same period, the Office of Management and Budget reported an end of year (December 31) gross debt of $5.369 trillion in 1997, $5.478 trillion in 1998, $5.606 in 1999, and $5.629 trillion in 2000. At the end of his presidency, the Clintons moved to 15 Old House Lane in Chappaqua, New York, in order to quell political worries about his wife's residency for election as a U.S. Senator from New York.
First term (1993–1997)
After his presidential transition, Clinton was inaugurated as the 42nd president of the United States on January 20, 1993. Clinton was physically exhausted at the time, and had an inexperienced staff. His high levels of public support dropped in the first few weeks, as he made a series of mistakes. His first choice for attorney general had not paid her taxes on babysitters and was forced to withdraw. The second appointee also withdrew for the same reason. Clinton had repeatedly promised to encourage gays in the military service, despite what he knew to be the strong opposition of the military leadership. He tried anyway, and was publicly opposed by the top generals, and forced by Congress to a compromise position of "Don't ask, don't tell" whereby gays could serve if and only if they kept it secret. He devised a $16-billion stimulus package primarily to aid inner-city programs desired by liberals, but it was defeated by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. His popularity at the 100 day mark of his term was the lowest of any president at that point.
Public opinion did support one liberal program, and Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which required large employers to allow employees to take unpaid leave for pregnancy or a serious medical condition. This action had bipartisan support, and was popular with the public.
Two days after taking office, on January 22, 1993—the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade—Clinton reversed restrictions on domestic and international family planning programs that had been imposed by Reagan and Bush. Clinton said abortion should be kept "safe, legal, and rare"—a slogan that had been suggested by political scientist Samuel L. Popkin and first used by Clinton in December 1991, while campaigning. During the eight years of the Clinton administration, the abortion rate declined by 18 percent.
On February 15, 1993, Clinton made his first address to the nation, announcing his plan to raise taxes to close a budget deficit. Two days later, in a nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, Clinton unveiled his economic plan. The plan focused on reducing the deficit rather than on cutting taxes for the middle class, which had been high on his campaign agenda. Clinton's advisers pressured him to raise taxes, based on the theory that a smaller federal budget deficit would reduce bond interest rates.
President Clinton's attorney general Janet Reno authorized the FBI's use of armored vehicles to deploy tear gas into the buildings of the Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas, in hopes of ending a 51 day siege. During the operation on April 19, 1993, the buildings caught fire and 75 of the residents died, including 24 children. The raid had originally been planned by the Bush administration; Clinton had played no role.
In August, Clinton signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for 15 million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90 percent of small businesses, and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers. Additionally, it mandated that the budget be balanced over many years through the implementation of spending restraints.
On September 22, 1993, Clinton made a major speech to Congress regarding a health care reform plan; the program aimed at achieving universal coverage through a national health care plan. This was one of the most prominent items on Clinton's legislative agenda and resulted from a task force headed by Hillary Clinton. The plan was well received in political circles, but it was eventually doomed by well-organized lobby opposition from conservatives, the American Medical Association, and the health insurance industry. However, Clinton biographer John F. Harris said the program failed because of a lack of coordination within the White House. Despite the Democratic majority in Congress, the effort to create a national health care system ultimately died when compromise legislation by George J. Mitchell failed to gain a majority of support in August 1994. The failure of the bill was the first major legislative defeat of the Clinton administration.
On November 30, 1993, Clinton signed into law the Brady Bill, which mandated federal background checks on people who purchase firearms in the United States. The law also imposed a five-day waiting period on purchases, until the NICS system was implemented in 1998. He also expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low-income workers.
In December of the same year, allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry were first reported by David Brock in The American Spectator. In the affair later known as "Troopergate", the officers alleged that they had arranged sexual liaisons for Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The story mentioned a woman named Paula, a reference to Paula Jones. Brock later apologized to Clinton, saying the article was politically motivated "bad journalism", and that "the troopers were greedy and had slimy motives".
That month, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexual orientation a secret. The Act forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met staunch opposition from prominent Congressional Republicans and Democrats, including senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President Al Gore, who felt that "the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress". Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President Harry S. Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argued that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack". The policy remained controversial, and was finally repealed in 2011, removing open sexual orientation as a reason for dismissal from the armed forces.
On January 1, 1994, Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement into law. Throughout his first year in office, Clinton consistently supported ratification of the treaty by the U.S. Senate. Clinton and most of his allies in the Democratic Leadership Committee strongly supported free trade measures; there remained, however, strong disagreement within the party. Opposition came chiefly from anti-trade Republicans, protectionist Democrats and supporters of Ross Perot. The bill passed the house with 234 votes in favor and 200 votes opposed (132 Republicans and 102 Democrats in favor; 156 Democrats, 43 Republicans, and one independent opposed). The treaty was then ratified by the Senate and signed into law by the president.
On July 29, 1994, the Clinton administration launched the first official White House website, whitehouse.gov. The site was followed with three more versions, with the final version being launched on July 21, 2000. The White House website was part of a wider movement of the Clinton administration toward web-based communication. According to Robert Longley, "Clinton and Gore were responsible for pressing almost all federal agencies, the U.S. court system and the U.S. military onto the Internet, thus opening up America's government to more of America's citizens than ever before. On July 17, 1996, Clinton issued Executive Order 13011—Federal Information Technology, ordering the heads of all federal agencies to utilize information technology fully to make the information of the agency easily accessible to the public."
The Omnibus Crime Bill, which Clinton signed into law in September 1994, made many changes to U.S. crime and law enforcement legislation including the expansion of the death penalty to include crimes not resulting in death, such as running a large-scale drug enterprise. During Clinton's re-election campaign he said, "My 1994 crime bill expanded the death penalty for drug kingpins, murderers of federal law enforcement officers, and nearly 60 additional categories of violent felons." It also included a subsection of assault weapons ban for a ten-year period.
After two years of Democratic Party control, the Democrats lost control of Congress to the Republicans in the mid-term elections in 1994, for the first time in forty years.
A speech delivered by President Bill Clinton at the December 6, 1995 White House Conference on HIV/AIDS projected that a cure for AIDS and a vaccine to prevent further infection would be developed. The President focused on his administration's accomplishments and efforts related to the epidemic, including an accelerated drug-approval process. He also condemned homophobia and discrimination against people with HIV. Clinton announced three new initiatives: creating a special working group to coordinate AIDS research throughout the federal government; convening public health experts to develop an action plan that integrates HIV prevention with substance abuse prevention; and launching a new effort by the Department of Justice to ensure that health care facilities provide equal access to people with HIV and AIDS. 1996 would mark the first year since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that the number of new HIV/AIDS diagnoses would decline, with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) even later reporting a significant 47% decline in the number of AIDS-related deaths in 1997 compared to the previous year. Credit for this decline would be given to the growing effectiveness of new drug therapy which was promoted by the Clinton Administration's Department of Health and Human Services, such as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).
On September 21, 1996, Clinton signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defined marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman; the legislation allowed individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages that were performed in other states. Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said Clinton's signing DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election". In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was intended to "head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a "very reactionary Congress". Administration spokesman Richard Socarides said, "the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected." Clinton himself said DOMA was something "which the Republicans put on the ballot to try to get the base vote for Bush up, I think it's obvious that something had to be done to try to keep the Republican Congress from presenting that"; others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist Evan Wolfson has called these claims "historic revisionism". Despite this, it has been noted that other than a brief written response to a Reader's Digest that questioned whether he agreed with it, Clinton had made no documented reference to the issue of gay marriage until May 1996. In a July 2, 2011, editorial The New York Times opined, "The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 as an election-year wedge issue, signed by President Bill Clinton in one of his worst policy moments." Ultimately, in United States v. Windsor, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA in June 2013.
Despite DOMA, Clinton was the first president to select openly gay persons for administrative positions, and he is generally credited as being the first president to publicly champion gay rights. During his presidency, Clinton issued two substantially controversial executive orders on behalf of gay rights, the first lifting the ban on security clearances for LGBT federal employees and the second outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. Under Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's election and reelection by the Human Rights Campaign. Clinton came out for gay marriage in July 2009 and urged the Supreme Court to overturn DOMA in 2013. He was later honored by GLAAD for his prior pro-gay stances and his reversal on DOMA.
The 1996 United States campaign finance controversy was an alleged effort by China to influence the domestic policies of the United States, before and during the Clinton administration, and involved the fundraising practices of the administration itself. Despite the evidence, the Chinese government denied all accusations.
As part of a 1996 initiative to curb illegal immigration, Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) on September 30, 1996. Appointed by Clinton, the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform recommended reducing legal immigration from about 800,000 people a year to about 550,000.
In November 1996, Clinton narrowly escaped possible assassination in the Philippines, which was a bridge bomb planted by al-Qaeda and was masterminded by Osama bin Laden. During Clinton's presidency, the attempt remained top secret, and it remains classified as of March 2024, when Reuters reported having spoken with eight retired secret service agents about the incident.
1996 presidential campaign
In the 1996 presidential election, Clinton was re-elected, receiving 49.2 percent of the popular vote over Republican Bob Dole (40.7 percent of the popular vote) and Reform candidate Ross Perot (8.4 percent of the popular vote). Clinton received 379 of the Electoral College votes, with Dole receiving 159 electoral votes. With his victory, he became the first Democrat to win two consecutive presidential elections since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Second term (1997–2001)
In the January 1997, State of the Union address, Clinton proposed a new initiative to provide health coverage to up to five million children. Senators Ted Kennedy—a Democrat—and Orrin Hatch—a Republican—teamed up with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her staff in 1997, and succeeded in passing legislation forming the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the largest (successful) health care reform in the years of the Clinton Presidency. That year, Hillary Clinton shepherded through Congress the Adoption and Safe Families Act and two years later she succeeded in helping pass the Foster Care Independence Act. Bill Clinton negotiated the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by the Republican Congress. In October 1997, he announced he was getting hearing aids, due to hearing loss attributed to his age, and his time spent as a musician in his youth. In 1999, he signed into law the Financial Services Modernization Act also known as the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, which repealed the part of the Glass–Steagall Act that had prohibited a bank from offering a full range of investment, commercial banking, and insurance services since its enactment in 1933.
Investigations
In November 1993, David Hale—the source of criminal allegations against Bill Clinton in the Whitewater controversy—alleged that while governor of Arkansas, Clinton pressured Hale to provide an illegal $300,000 loan to Susan McDougal, the Clintons' partner in the Whitewater land deal. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation resulted in convictions against the McDougals for their role in the Whitewater project, but the Clintons themselves were never charged, and Clinton maintains his and his wife's innocence in the affair. Investigations by Robert B. Fiske and Ken Starr found insufficient to evidence to prosecute the Clintons.
The White House FBI files controversy of June 1996 arose concerning improper access by the White House to FBI security-clearance documents. Craig Livingstone, head of the White House Office of Personnel Security, improperly requested, and received from the FBI, background report files without asking permission of the subject individuals; many of these were employees of former Republican administrations. In March 2000, Independent Counsel Robert Ray determined there was no credible evidence of any crime. Ray's report further stated, "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official was involved" in seeking the files.
On May 19, 1993, Clinton fired seven employees of the White House Travel Office. This caused the White House travel office controversy even though the travel office staff served at the pleasure of the president and could be dismissed without cause. The White House responded to the controversy by claiming that the firings were done in response to financial improprieties that had been revealed by a brief FBI investigation. Critics contended that the firings had been done to allow friends of the Clintons to take over the travel business and the involvement of the FBI was unwarranted. The House Government Reform and Oversight Committee issued a report which accused the Clinton administration of having obstructed their efforts to investigate the affair. Special counsel Robert Fiske said that Hillary Clinton was involved in the firing and gave "factually false" testimony to the GAO, congress, and the independent counsel. However Fiske said there was not enough evidence to prosecute.
Impeachment and acquittal
After a House inquiry, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the House of Representatives. The House voted 228–206 to impeach him for perjury to a grand jury and voted 221–212 to impeach him for obstruction of justice. Clinton was only the second U.S. president (the first being Andrew Johnson) to be impeached. Impeachment proceedings were based on allegations that Clinton had illegally lied about and covered up his relationship with 22-year-old White House (and later Department of Defense) employee Monica Lewinsky. After the Starr Report was submitted to the House providing what it termed "substantial and credible information that President Clinton Committed Acts that May Constitute Grounds for an Impeachment", the House began impeachment hearings against Clinton before the mid-term elections. To hold impeachment proceedings, Republican leadership called a lame-duck session in December 1998.
While the House Judiciary Committee hearings ended in a straight party-line vote, there was lively debate on the House floor. The two charges passed in the House (largely with Republican support, but with a handful of Democratic votes as well) were for perjury and obstruction of justice. The perjury charge arose from Clinton's testimony before a grand jury that had been convened to investigate perjury he may have committed in his sworn deposition during Jones v. Clinton, Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit. The obstruction charge was based on his actions to conceal his relationship with Lewinsky before and after that deposition.
The Senate later acquitted Clinton of both charges. The Senate refused to meet to hold an impeachment trial before the end of the old term, so the trial was held over until the next Congress. Clinton was represented by Washington law firm Williams & Connolly. The Senate finished a twenty-one-day trial on February 12, 1999, with the vote of 55 not guilty/45 guilty on the perjury charge and 50 not guilty/50 guilty on the obstruction of justice charge. Both votes fell short of the constitutional two-thirds majority requirement to convict and remove an officeholder. The final vote was generally along party lines, with no Democrats voting guilty, and only a handful of Republicans voting not guilty.
On January 19, 2001, Clinton's law license was suspended for five years after he acknowledged to an Arkansas circuit court he had engaged in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice in the Jones case.
Pardons and commutations
Clinton issued 141 pardons and 36 commutations on his last day in office on January 20, 2001. Controversy surrounded Marc Rich and allegations that Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, accepted payments in return for influencing the president's decision-making regarding the pardons. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White was appointed to investigate the pardon of Rich. She was later replaced by then-Republican James Comey. The investigation found no wrongdoing on Clinton's part. Clinton also pardoned four defendants in the Whitewater Scandal, Chris Wade, Susan McDougal, Stephen Smith, and Robert W. Palmer, all of whom had ties to Clinton when he was governor of Arkansas. Former Clinton HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, was also among Clinton's pardons.
Campaign finance controversies
In February 1997 it was discovered upon documents being released by the Clinton Administration that 938 people had stayed at the White House and that 821 of them had made donations to the Democratic Party and got the opportunity to stay in the Lincoln bedroom as a result of the donations. Some donors included Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, and Judy Collins. Top donors also got golf games and morning jogs with Clinton as a result of the contributions. Janet Reno was called on to investigate the matter by Trent Lott, but she refused.
In 1996, it was found that several Chinese foreigners made contributions to Clinton's reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee with the backing of the People's Republic of China. Some of them also attempted to donate to Clinton's defense fund. This violated United States law forbidding non-American citizens from making campaign contributions. Clinton and Al Gore also allegedly met with the foreign donors. A Republican investigation led by Fred Thompson found that Clinton was targeted by the Chinese government. However, Democratic senators Joe Lieberman and John Glenn said that the evidence showed that China only targeted congressional elections and not presidential elections.
Military and foreign affairs
Somalia
American troops had first entered Somalia during the Bush administration in response to a humanitarian crisis and civil war. Though initially involved to assist humanitarian efforts, the Clinton administration shifted the objectives set out in the mission and began pursuing a policy of attempting to neutralize Somali warlords. In 1993, during the Battle of Mogadishu, two U.S. helicopters were shot down by rocket-propelled grenade attacks to their tail rotors, trapping soldiers behind enemy lines. This resulted in an urban battle that killed 18 American soldiers, wounded 73 others, and resulted in one being taken prisoner. Television news programs depicted the supporters of warlord Mohammed Aidid desecrating the corpses of troops. The backlash resulting from the incident prompted in a drop in support for American intervention in the country and coincided with a more cautious use of troops throughout the rest of the Clinton administration. Following a subsequent national security policy review, U.S. forces were withdrawn from Somalia and later conflicts were approached with fewer soldiers on the ground.
Rwanda
In April 1994, genocide broke out in Rwanda. Intelligence reports indicate that Clinton was aware a "final solution to eliminate all Tutsis" was underway, long before the administration publicly used the word "genocide". Fearing a reprisal of the events in Somalia the previous year, Clinton chose not to intervene. Clinton has called his failure to intervene one of his main foreign policy failings, saying "I don't think we could have ended the violence, but I think we could have cut it down. And I regret it."
Bosnia and Herzegovina
In 1993 and 1994, Clinton pressured Western European leaders to adopt a strong military policy against Bosnian Serbs during the Bosnian War. This strategy faced staunch opposition from the United Nations, NATO allies, and Congressional Republicans, leading Clinton to adopt a more diplomatic approach. In 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft bombed Bosnian Serb targets to halt attacks on UN safe zones and pressure them into a peace accord that would end the Bosnian war. Clinton deployed U.S. peacekeepers to Bosnia in late 1995, to uphold the subsequent Dayton Agreement.
Irish peace talks
In 1992, before his presidency, Clinton proposed sending a peace envoy to Northern Ireland, but this was dropped to avoid tensions with the British government. In November 1995, in a ceasefire during the Troubles, Clinton became the first president to visit Northern Ireland, examining both of the two divided communities of Belfast. Despite unionist criticism, Clinton used his visit as a way to negotiate an end to the violent conflict, playing a key role in the peace talks that produced the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Iran
Clinton sought to continue the Bush administration's policy of limiting Iranian influence in the Middle East, which he laid out in the dual containment strategy. In 1994, Clinton declared that Iran was a "state sponsor of terrorism" and a "rogue state", marking the first time that an American President used that term. Subsequent executive orders heavily sanctioned Iran's oil industry and banned almost all trade between U.S. companies and the Iranian government. In February 1996, the Clinton administration agreed to pay Iran US$131.8 million (equivalent to $256.05 million in 2023) in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice after the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the U.S. Navy guided missile cruiser.
Iraq
In Clinton's 1998 State of the Union Address, he warned Congress that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building an arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 on October 31, 1998, which instituted a policy of "regime change" against Iraq, though it explicitly stated it did not provide for direct intervention on the part of American military forces. The administration then launched a four-day bombing campaign named Operation Desert Fox, lasting from December 16 to 19, 1998. At the end of this operation Clinton announced that "So long as Saddam remains in power, he will remain a threat to his people, his region, and the world. With our allies, we must pursue a strategy to contain him and to constrain his weapons of mass destruction program, while working toward the day Iraq has a government willing to live at peace with its people and with its neighbors." American and British aircraft in the Iraq no-fly zones attacked hostile Iraqi air defenses 166 times in 1999 and 78 times in 2000.
Osama bin Laden
Capturing Osama bin Laden was an objective of the U.S. government during the Clinton presidency (and continued to be until bin Laden's death in 2011). Despite claims by Mansoor Ijaz and Sudanese officials that the Sudanese government had offered to arrest and extradite bin Laden, and that U.S. authorities rejected each offer, the 9/11 Commission Report stated that "we have not found any reliable evidence to support the Sudanese claim".
In response to a 1996 State Department warning about bin Laden and the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa by al-Qaeda (which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans), Clinton ordered several military missions to capture or kill bin Laden, all of which were unsuccessful. In August 1998, Clinton ordered cruise missile strikes on terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan, targeting the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, which was suspected of assisting bin Laden in making chemical weapons, and bin Laden's terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. The factory was destroyed by the attack, resulting in the death of one employee and the wounding of 11 other people. After the destruction of the factory, there was a medicine shortage in Sudan due to the plant providing 50 percent of Sudan's medicine, and the destruction of the plant led to a shortage of chloroquine, a drug which is used to treat malaria. U.S. officials later acknowledged that there was no evidence the plant was acknowledging manufacturing or storing nerve gas. The attack provoked criticism of Clinton from journalists and academics including Christopher Hitchens, Seymour Hersh, Max Taylor, and others.
Kosovo
In the midst of a brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the province of Kosovo by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Clinton authorized the use of U.S. Armed Forces in a NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, named Operation Allied Force. The stated reasoning behind the intervention was to stop the ethnic cleansing (and what the Clinton administration labeled genocide) of Albanians by Yugoslav anti-guerilla military units. General Wesley Clark was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and oversaw the mission. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, the bombing campaign ended on June 10, 1999. The resolution placed Kosovo under UN administration and authorized a peacekeeping force to be deployed to the region. NATO announced its soldiers all survived combat, though two died in an Apache helicopter crash. Journalists in the popular press criticized genocide statements by the Clinton administration as false and greatly exaggerated. Prior to the bombing campaign on March 24, 1999, estimates showed that the number of civilians killed in the over year long conflict in Kosovo had been approximately 1,800, with critics asserting that little or no evidence existed of genocide. In a post-war inquiry, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted "the patterns of the expulsions and the vast increase in lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage once the NATO air war began on March 24." In 2001, the UN-supervised Supreme Court of Kosovo ruled that genocide (the intent to destroy a people) did not take place, but recognized "a systematic campaign of terror, including murders, rapes, arsons and severe maltreatments" with the intention being the forceful departure of the Albanian population. The term "ethnic cleansing" was used as an alternative to "genocide" to denote not just ethnically motivated murder but also displacement, though critics charge there is little difference. Slobodan Milošević, the president of Yugoslavia at the time of the atrocities, was eventually brought to trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague on charges including crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the war. He died in 2006, before the completion of the trial.
China
Clinton aimed to increase trade with China, minimizing import tariffs and offering the country most favoured nation status in 1993, his administration minimized tariff levels in Chinese imports. Clinton initially conditioned extension of this status on human rights reforms, but ultimately decided to extend the status despite a lack of reform in the specified areas, including free emigration, treatment of prisoners in terms of international human rights, and observation of human rights specified by UN resolutions, among others.
Relations were damaged briefly by the American bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. Clinton apologized for the bombing, stating it was accidental.
On October 10, 2000, Clinton signed into law the United States–China Relations Act of 2000, which granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) trade status to China. The president asserted that free trade would gradually open China to democratic reform.
In encouraging Congress to approve the agreement and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), Clinton stated that more trade with China would advance America's economic interests, saying that "economically, this agreement is the equivalent of a one-way street. It requires China to open its markets—with a fifth of the world's population, potentially the biggest markets in the world—to both our products and services in unprecedented new ways."
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Clinton attempted to end the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Secret negotiations mediated by Clinton between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat led to a historic declaration of peace in September 1993, called the Oslo Accords, which were signed at the White House on September 13. The agreement led to the Israel–Jordan peace treaty in 1994 and the Wye River Memorandum in October 1998, however, this did not end the conflict. He brought Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat together at Camp David for the 2000 Camp David Summit, which lasted 14 days in July. Following another attempt in December 2000 at Bolling Air Force Base, in which the president offered the Clinton Parameters, the situation broke down completely after the end of the Taba Summit and with the start of the Second Intifada.
Judicial appointments
Clinton appointed two justices to the Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993 and Stephen Breyer in 1994. Both justices went on to serve until the 2020s, leaving a lasting judicial legacy for President Clinton.
Clinton was the first president in history to appoint more women and minority judges than white male judges to the federal courts. In his eight years in office, 11.6% of Clinton's court of appeals nominees and 17.4% of his district court nominees were black; 32.8% of his court of appeals nominees and 28.5% of his district court nominees were women.
Public opinion
Throughout Clinton's first term, his job approval rating fluctuated in the 40s and 50s. In his second term, his rating consistently ranged from the high-50s to the high-60s. After his impeachment proceedings in 1998 and 1999, Clinton's rating reached its highest point. According to a CBS News/New York Times poll, Clinton left office with an approval rating of 68 percent, which matched those of Ronald Reagan and Franklin D. Roosevelt as the highest ratings for departing presidents in the modern era. Clinton's average Gallup poll approval rating for his last quarter in office was 61 percent, the highest final quarter rating any president has received for fifty years. Forty-seven percent of the respondents identified themselves as being Clinton supporters.
As he was leaving office, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that 45 percent of Americans said they would miss him; 55 percent thought he "would have something worthwhile to contribute and should remain active in public life"; 68 percent thought he would be remembered more for his "involvement in personal scandal" than for "his accomplishments"; and 58 percent answered "No" to the question "Do you generally think Bill Clinton is honest and trustworthy?" The same percentage said he would be remembered as either "outstanding" or "above average" as a president, while 22 percent said he would be remembered as "below average" or "poor". ABC News characterized public consensus on Clinton as, "You can't trust him, he's got weak morals and ethics—and he's done a heck of a good job."
In May 2006, a CNN poll comparing Clinton's job performance with that of his successor, George W. Bush, found that a strong majority of respondents said Clinton outperformed Bush in six different areas questioned. Gallup polls in 2007 and 2011 showed that Clinton was regarded by 13 percent of Americans as the greatest president in U.S. history.
In 2014, 18 percent of respondents in a Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll of American voters regarded Clinton as the best president since World War II, making him the third most popular among postwar presidents, behind John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. The same poll showed that just 3 percent of American voters regarded Clinton as the worst president since World War II.
A 2015 poll by The Washington Post asked 162 scholars of the American Political Science Association to rank all the U.S. presidents in order of greatness. According to their findings, Clinton ranked eighth overall, with a rating of 70 percent.
Public image
Clinton was the first baby boomer president. Authors Martin Walker and Bob Woodward stated that Clinton's innovative use of sound bite-ready dialogue, personal charisma, and public perception-oriented campaigning were a major factor in his high public approval ratings. When Clinton played the saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show, he was described by some religious conservatives as "the MTV president". Opponents sometimes referred to him as "Slick Willie", a nickname which was first applied to him in 1980 by Pine Bluff Commercial journalist Paul Greenberg; Greenberg believed that Clinton was abandoning the progressive policies of previous Arkansas Governors such as Winthrop Rockefeller, Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. The claim "Slick Willie" would last throughout his presidency. His folksy manner led him to be nicknamed Bubba starting from the 1992 presidential election. Since 2000, he has frequently been referred to as "The Big Dog" or "Big Dog". His prominent role in campaigning for Obama during the 2012 presidential election and his widely publicized speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, where he officially nominated Obama and criticized Republican nominee Mitt Romney and Republican policies in detail, earned him the nickname "Explainer-in-Chief".
Clinton drew strong support from the African American community and insisted that the improvement of race relations would be a major theme of his presidency. In 1998, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called Clinton "the first black president", saying, "Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald's-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas". Morrison noted that Clinton's sex life was scrutinized more than his career accomplishments, and she compared this to the stereotyping and double standards that, she said, black people typically endure. Many viewed this comparison as unfair and disparaging both to Clinton and to the African-American community.
Sexual assault and misconduct allegations
Several women have publicly accused Clinton of sexual misconduct, including rape, harassment, and sexual assault. Additionally, some commentators have characterized Clinton's sexual relationship with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky as predatory or non-consensual, despite the fact that Lewinsky called the relationship consensual at the time. These allegations have been revisited and lent more credence in 2018, in light of the #MeToo movement, with many commentators and Democratic leaders now saying Clinton should have been compelled to resign after the Lewinsky affair.
In 1994, Paula Jones initiated a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton, claiming he had made unwanted advances towards her in 1991; Clinton denied the allegations. In April 1998, the case was initially dismissed by Judge Susan Webber Wright on the grounds that it lacked legal merit. Jones appealed Webber Wright's ruling, and her suit gained traction following Clinton's admission to having an affair with Monica Lewinsky in August 1998. In 1998, lawyers for Paula Jones released court documents that alleged a pattern of sexual harassment by Clinton when he was Governor of Arkansas. Robert S. Bennett, Clinton's main lawyer for the case, called the filing "a pack of lies" and "an organized campaign to smear the President of the United States" funded by Clinton's political enemies. In October 1998, Clinton's attorneys tentatively offered $700,000 to settle the case, which was then the $800,000 which Jones' lawyers sought. Clinton later agreed to an out-of-court settlement and paid Jones $850,000. Bennett said the president made the settlement only so he could end the lawsuit for good and move on with his life. During the deposition for the Jones lawsuit, which was held at the White House, Clinton denied having sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky—a denial that became the basis for an impeachment charge of perjury.
In 1998, Kathleen Willey alleged that Clinton had groped her in a hallway in 1993. An independent counsel determined Willey gave "false information" to the FBI, inconsistent with sworn testimony related to the Jones allegation. On March 19, 1998, Julie Hiatt Steele, a friend of Willey, released an affidavit, accusing the former White House aide of asking her to lie to corroborate Ms. Willey's account of being sexually groped by Clinton in the Oval Office. An attempt by Kenneth Starr to prosecute Steele for making false statements and obstructing justice ended in a mistrial and Starr declined to seek a retrial after Steele sought an investigation against the former independent counsel for prosecutorial misconduct.
Also in 1998, Juanita Broaddrick alleged that Clinton had raped her in the spring of 1978, although she said she did not remember the exact date. To support her charge, Broaddrick notes that she told multiple witnesses in 1978 she had been raped by Clinton, something these witnesses also state in interviews to the press. Broaddrick had earlier filed an affidavit denying any "unwelcome sexual advances" and later repeated the denial in a sworn deposition. In a 1998 NBC interview wherein she detailed the alleged rape, Broaddrick said she had denied (under oath) being raped only to avoid testifying about the ordeal publicly.
The Lewinsky scandal has had an enduring impact on Clinton's legacy, beyond his impeachment in 1998. In the wake of the #MeToo movement (which shed light on the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace), various commentators and Democratic political leaders, as well as Lewinsky herself, have revisited their view that the Lewinsky affair was consensual, and instead characterized it as an abuse of power or harassment, in light of the power differential between a president and a 22-year-old intern. In 2018, Clinton was asked in several interviews about whether he should have resigned, and he said he had made the right decision in not resigning. During the 2018 Congressional elections, The New York Times alleged that having no Democratic candidate for office asking Clinton to campaign with them was a change that attributed to the revised understanding of the Lewinsky scandal. However, former DNC interim chair Donna Brazile previously urged Clinton in November 2017 to campaign during the 2018 midterm elections, in spite of New York U.S. senator Kirsten Gillibrand's recent criticism of the Lewinsky scandal.
Alleged affairs
Clinton admitted to having extramarital affairs with singer Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky. Actress Elizabeth Gracen, Miss Arkansas winner Sally Perdue, and Dolly Kyle Browning all claimed that they had affairs with Clinton during his time as governor of Arkansas. Browning later sued Clinton, Bruce Lindsey, Robert S. Bennett, and Jane Mayer, alleging they engaged in a conspiracy to attempt to block her from publishing a book loosely based on her relationship with Clinton and tried to defame him. However, Browning's lawsuit was dismissed.
Post-presidency (2001–present)
Activities until 2008 campaign
In 2002, Clinton warned that pre-emptive military action against Iraq would have unwelcome consequences, and later claimed to have opposed the Iraq War from the start (though some dispute this). In 2005, Clinton criticized the Bush administration for its handling of emissions control, while speaking at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal.
The William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas, was dedicated in 2004. Clinton released a best-selling autobiography, My Life, in 2004. In 2007, he released Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, which also became a New York Times Best Seller and garnered positive reviews.
In the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami, U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Clinton to head a relief effort. After Hurricane Katrina, Clinton joined with fellow former president George H. W. Bush to establish the Bush-Clinton Tsunami Fund in January 2005, and the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund in October of that year. As part of the tsunami effort, these two ex-presidents appeared in a Super Bowl XXXIX pre-game show, and traveled to the affected areas. They also spoke together at the funeral of Boris Yeltsin in April 2007.
Based on his philanthropic worldview, Clinton created the William J. Clinton Foundation to address issues of global importance. This foundation includes the Clinton Foundation HIV and AIDS Initiative (CHAI), which strives to combat that disease, and has worked with the Australian government toward that end. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), begun by the Clinton Foundation in 2005, attempts to address world problems such as global public health, poverty alleviation and religious and ethnic conflict. In 2005, Clinton announced through his foundation an agreement with manufacturers to stop selling sugary drinks in schools. Clinton's foundation joined with the Large Cities Climate Leadership Group in 2006 to improve cooperation among those cities, and he met with foreign leaders to promote this initiative. The foundation has received donations from many governments all over the world, including Asia and the Middle East. In 2008, Foundation director Inder Singh announced deals to reduce the price of anti-malaria drugs by 30 percent in developing nations. Clinton also spoke in favor of California Proposition 87 on alternative energy, which was voted down.
2008 presidential election
During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign, Clinton vigorously advocated on behalf of his wife, Hillary. Through speaking engagements and fundraisers, he was able to raise $10 million toward her campaign. Some worried that as an ex-president, he was too active on the trail, too negative to Clinton rival Barack Obama, and alienating his supporters at home and abroad. Many were especially critical of him following his remarks in the South Carolina primary, which Obama won. Later in the 2008 primaries, there was some infighting between Bill and Hillary's staffs, especially in Pennsylvania. Considering Bill's remarks, many thought he could not rally Hillary supporters behind Obama after Obama won the primary. Such remarks led to apprehension that the party would be split to the detriment of Obama's election. Fears were allayed August 27, 2008, when Clinton enthusiastically endorsed Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, saying all his experience as president assures him that Obama is "ready to lead". After Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign was over, Bill Clinton continued to raise funds to help pay off her campaign debt.
After the 2008 election
In 2009, Clinton travelled to North Korea on behalf of two American journalists imprisoned there. Euna Lee and Laura Ling had been imprisoned for illegally entering the country from China. Jimmy Carter had made a similar visit in 1994. After Clinton met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, Kim issued a pardon.
Since then, Clinton has been assigned many other diplomatic missions. He was named United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti in 2009 following a series of hurricanes which caused $1 billion in damages. Clinton organized a conference with the Inter-American Development Bank, where a new industrial park was discussed in an effort to "build back better". In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, U.S. president Barack Obama announced that Clinton and George W. Bush would coordinate efforts to raise funds for Haiti's recovery. Funds began pouring into Haiti, which led to funding becoming available for Caracol Industrial Park in a part of the country unaffected by the earthquake. While Hillary Clinton was in South Korea, she and Cheryl Mills worked to convince SAE-A, a large apparel subcontractor, to invest in Haiti despite the company's deep concerns about plans to raise the minimum wage. In the summer of 2010, the South Korean company signed a contract at the U.S. State Department, ensuring that the new industrial park would have a key tenant. In 2010, Clinton announced support of, and delivered the keynote address for, the inauguration of NTR, Ireland's first environmental foundation. At the 2012 Democratic National Convention, Clinton gave a widely praised speech nominating Barack Obama.
2016 presidential election and after
During the 2016 presidential election, Clinton again encouraged voters to support Hillary, and made appearances speaking on the campaign trail. In a series of tweets, then-President-elect Donald Trump criticized his ability to get people out to vote. Clinton served as a member of the electoral college for the state of New York. He voted for the Democratic ticket consisting of his wife Hillary and her running-mate Tim Kaine.
On September 7, 2017, Clinton partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast and Texas communities.
In 2020, Clinton again served as a member of the United States Electoral College from New York, casting his vote for the successful Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Citizen: My Life After the White House, his autobiography about his life after his presidency, will be released in November 19, 2024.
Post-presidential health concerns
In September 2004, Clinton underwent quadruple bypass surgery. In March 2005, he again underwent surgery, this time for a partially collapsed lung. On February 11, 2010, he was rushed to New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital in Manhattan after complaining of chest pains, and he had two coronary stents implanted in his heart. After this procedure, Clinton adopted a plant-based whole foods (vegan) diet, which had been recommended by doctors Dean Ornish and Caldwell Esselstyn. He has since incorporated fish and lean proteins at the suggestion of Mark Hyman, a proponent of the pseudoscientific ethos of functional medicine. As a result, he is no longer a strict vegan.
In October 2021, Clinton was treated for sepsis at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center. In December 2022, Clinton tested positive for COVID-19.
Wealth
The Clintons incurred several million dollars in legal bills during his presidency, which were paid off four years after he left office. Bill and Hillary Clinton have each earned millions of dollars from book publishing. In 2016, Forbes reported Bill and Hillary Clinton made about $240 million in the 15 years from January 2001, to December 2015, (mostly from paid speeches, business consulting and book-writing). Also in 2016, CNN reported the Clintons combined to receive more than $153 million in paid speeches from 2001 until spring 2015. In May 2015, The Hill reported that Bill and Hillary Clinton have made more than $25 million in speaking fees since the start of 2014, and that Hillary Clinton also made $5 million or more from her book, Hard Choices, during the same time period. In July 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported that at the end of 2012, the Clintons were worth between $5 million and $25.5 million, and that in 2012 (the last year they were required to disclose the information) the Clintons made between $16 and $17 million, mostly from speaking fees earned by the former president. Clinton earned more than $104 million from paid speeches between 2001 and 2012. In June 2014, ABC News and The Washington Post reported that Bill Clinton has made more than $100 million giving paid speeches since leaving public office, and in 2008, The New York Times reported that the Clintons' income tax returns show they made $109 million in the eight years from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2007, including almost $92 million from his speaking and book-writing.
Bill Clinton has given dozens of paid speeches each year since leaving office in 2001, mostly to corporations and philanthropic groups in North America and Europe; he often earned $100,000 to $300,000 per speech. Russian investment bank with ties to the Kremlin paid Clinton $500,000 for a speech in Moscow. Hillary Clinton said she and Bill came out of the White House financially "broke" and in debt, especially due to large legal fees incurred during their years in the White House. "We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea's education". She added, "Bill has worked really hard ... we had to pay off all our debts ... he had to make double the money because of, obviously, taxes; and then pay off the debts, and get us houses, and take care of family members".
Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein
In the early 2000s, Clinton took flights on Jeffrey Epstein's private jet in connection with Clinton Foundation work. According to Epstein's attorney Gerald B. Lefcourt, Epstein was "part of the original group that conceived of the Clinton Global Initiative". In 2002, a spokesperson for Clinton praised Epstein as "a committed philanthropist" with "insights and generosity". While Clinton was president, Epstein visited the White House at least 17 times between 1993 and 1995. Years later, Epstein was convicted on sex trafficking charges. Clinton's office released a statement in 2019 saying, "President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York. In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took four trips on Jeffrey Epstein's airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation. Staff, supporters of the Foundation, and his Secret Service detail traveled on every leg of every trip. [...] He's not spoken to Epstein in well over a decade."
However, later reports showed that Clinton had flown on Epstein's plane 26 times. In another statement Clinton said "one meeting with Epstein in his Harlem office in 2002, and around the same time made one brief visit to Epstein's New York apartment with a staff member and his security detail". In July 2019 it was reported that Clinton attended a dinner with Epstein in 1995, a meeting with Epstein that Clinton had not previously disclosed.
Clinton reportedly used Epstein's private jet to visit Little St. James Island, where Epstein resided, on multiple occasions between 2002 and 2005. Virginia Roberts, later known as Virginia Giuffre, says in a lawsuit that while working at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort she was lured into a sex-trafficking ring run by Epstein and while traveling with Epstein she saw Clinton on the island. In a 2011 conversation with her lawyers, Roberts stated that Clinton traveled to Epstein's retreat on Little St. James in 2002. According to Roberts, Epstein told her that Clinton "owes me favors" when she asked what he was doing there. She also reportedly claimed that Epstein and Clinton had dined in the presence of two girls aged approximately seventeen whom she believed Epstein had invited to have sex with Clinton, but that Clinton showed no interest in them. A Freedom of Information Act request for United States Secret Service records of visits Clinton may have made to Little St. James produced no such evidence. According to Epstein's flight logs, Clinton never flew near the U.S. Virgin Islands. In July 2019, a Clinton spokesperson issued a statement saying Clinton never visited the island. When he was personally asked by a journalist about his ties with Epstein in a rally in Laredo, Texas in November 2022, Clinton said "I think the evidence is clear". According to former Clinton aide, Doug Band, Clinton visited Epstein's island in January 2003.
In 2024, unsealed court documents revealed allegations that Clinton had visited the offices of Vanity Fair and 'threatened' the paper not to print stories about Epstein's sexual trafficking. Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter denied the incident ever took place.
Personal life
At the age of 10, he was baptized at Park Place Baptist Church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When he became president in 1993, he became a member of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. with his wife, a Methodist.
On October 11, 1975, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he married Hillary Rodham, whom he met while studying at Yale University. They had Chelsea Clinton, their only child, on February 27, 1980. He is the maternal grandfather to Chelsea's three children.
Accolades
Various colleges and universities have awarded Clinton honorary degrees, including Doctorate of Law degrees and Doctor of Humane Letters degrees. He received an honorary degree from Georgetown University, his alma mater, and was the commencement speaker in 1980. He is an honorary fellow of University College, Oxford, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, although he did not complete his studies there. Schools have been named for Clinton, and statues have been built to pay him homage. U.S. states where he has been honored include Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, and New York. He was presented with the Medal for Distinguished Public Service by Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 2001. The Clinton Presidential Center was opened in Little Rock, Arkansas, in his honor on December 5, 2001.
Clinton has been honored in various other ways, in countries that include the Czech Republic, Papua New Guinea, Germany, and Kosovo. The Republic of Kosovo, in gratitude for his help during the Kosovo War, renamed a major street in the capital city of Pristina as Bill Clinton Boulevard and added a monumental Clinton statue.
Clinton was selected as Time's "Man of the Year" in 1992, and again in 1998, along with Ken Starr. From a poll conducted of the American people in December 1999, Clinton was among eighteen included in Gallup's List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. In 2001, Clinton received the NAACP's President's Award. He has also been honored with a J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding, a TED Prize (named for the confluence of technology, entertainment and design), and was named as an Honorary GLAAD Media Award recipient for his work as an advocate for the LGBT community.
Clinton, along with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren, received the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children for Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf. The audiobook edition of his autobiography, My Life, read by Clinton himself, won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album, as well as the Audie Award as the Audiobook of the Year. Clinton has two more Grammy nominations for his audiobooks: Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World in 2007 and Back to Work in 2012.
In 2011, Haitian president Michel Martelly awarded Clinton with the National Order of Honour and Merit to the rank of Grand Cross "for his various initiatives in Haiti and especially his high contribution to the reconstruction of the country after the earthquake of January 12, 2010". Clinton declared at the ceremony that "in the United States of America, I really don't believe former American presidents need awards anymore, but I am very honored by this one, I love Haiti, and I believe in its promise".
President Obama awarded Clinton the Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 20, 2013.
See also
Clinton family
Clinton School of Public Service
Efforts to impeach Bill Clinton
Electoral history of Bill Clinton
Gun control policy of the Clinton Administration
List of presidents of the United States
References
Citations
Further reading
Primary sources
Popular books
Scholarly studies
External links
Official
Presidential Library & Museum
Clinton Foundation
White House biography
Archived White House website
Interviews, speeches, and statements
Appearances on C-SPAN
Bill Clinton at TED
Full audio of a number of Clinton speeches Miller Center of Public Affairs
Oral History Interview with Bill Clinton from Oral Histories of the American South, June 1974
"The Wanderer", a profile from The New Yorker, September 2006
Media coverage
Bill Clinton collected news and commentary at The Guardian
Bill Clinton collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Other
Extensive essays on Bill Clinton and shorter essays on each member of his cabinet and First Lady from the Miller Center of Public Affairs
"Life Portrait of Bill Clinton", from C-SPAN's American Presidents: Life Portraits, December 20, 1999
Clinton Archived March 13, 2017, at the Wayback Machine an American Experience documentary
Bill Clinton on Twitter
Bill Clinton at IMDb
Works by Bill Clinton at Project Gutenberg
1992 election episode in CNN's Race for the White House |
George_W._Bush | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush | [
378
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush"
] | George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000.
The eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, and a member of the Bush family, he flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard in his twenties. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers, of Major League Baseball, before being elected governor of Texas in 1994. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. He also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind-generated electricity in the United States. In the 2000 presidential election, he won over Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore, while losing the popular vote after a narrow and contested Electoral College win, which involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida.
In office, Bush signed a major tax-cut program and an education-reform bill, the No Child Left Behind Act. He pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based initiatives. He also initiated the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2003, to address the AIDS epidemic. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 decisively reshaped his administration, resulting in the start of the war on terror and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Bush ordered the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to overthrow the Taliban, destroy al-Qaeda, and capture Osama bin Laden. He signed the Patriot Act to authorize surveillance of suspected terrorists. He also ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq, on the inaccurate belief that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties with al-Qaeda. Bush later signed the Medicare Modernization Act, which created Medicare Part D. In 2004, Bush was re-elected president in a close race, beating Democratic opponent John Kerry and winning the popular vote.
During his second term, Bush made free trade agreements. He appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. He sought major changes to Social Security and immigration laws, but both efforts failed in Congress. Bush was widely criticized for his handling of Hurricane Katrina and the midterm dismissal of U.S. attorneys. Amid his unpopularity, the Democrats regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars continued; in January 2007, Bush launched a surge of troops in Iraq. By December, the U.S. entered the Great Recession, prompting the Bush administration to get congressional approval for economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
After his second term, Bush returned to Texas, where he has maintained a low public profile. At various points in his presidency, he was among both the most popular and the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history. He received the highest recorded approval ratings in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and one of the lowest ratings during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Although Bush's presidency has generally been rated as below average by scholars, public opinion of him has improved since he left office.
Early life and career
George Walker Bush was born on July 6, 1946, at Grace-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. He was the first child of George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Pierce. He was raised in Midland and Houston, Texas with four siblings: Jeb, Neil, Marvin and Dorothy. Another younger sister, Robin, died from leukemia at the age of three in 1953. His paternal grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a U.S. senator from Connecticut. His father was Ronald Reagan's vice president from 1981 to 1989 and the 41st U.S. president from 1989 to 1993. Bush has English and German ancestry, along with more distant Dutch, Welsh, Irish, French, and Scottish roots.
Education
Bush attended public schools in Midland, Texas, until the family moved to Houston after he had completed seventh grade. He then spent two years at The Kinkaid School, a college-preparatory school in Piney Point Village, Texas.
Bush later attended Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, where he played baseball and was the head cheerleader during his senior year. He attended Yale University from 1964 to 1968, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. During this time, he was a cheerleader and a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon, serving as the president of the fraternity during his senior year. Bush became a member of the Skull and Bones society as a senior. Bush was a rugby union player and was on Yale's 1st XV. He characterized himself as an average student. His grade point average during his first three years at Yale was 77, and he had a similar average under a nonnumerical rating system in his final year.
In the fall of 1973, Bush entered Harvard Business School. He graduated in 1975 with an MBA degree, and is the only U.S. president to have earned an MBA.
Family and personal life
Bush was engaged to Cathryn Lee Wolfman in 1967, but the engagement did not last. Bush and Wolfman remained on good terms after the end of the relationship. While Bush was at a backyard barbecue in 1977, friends introduced him to Laura Welch, a schoolteacher and librarian. After a three-month courtship, she accepted his marriage proposal and they wed on November 5 of that year. The couple settled in Midland, Texas. Bush left his family's Episcopal Church to join his wife's United Methodist Church. On November 25, 1981, Laura Bush gave birth to fraternal twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. Bush describes being challenged by Billy Graham to consider faith in Jesus "Christ as the risen Lord", how he began to read the Bible daily, "surrendering" to the "Almighty", that "faith is a walk" and that he was "moved by God's love".
Alcohol abuse
Before his marriage, Bush repeatedly abused alcohol. On September 4, 1976, he was pulled over near his family's summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine, for driving under the influence of alcohol. He was arrested for DUI, was fined $150, and received a brief suspension of his Maine driver's license. Bush has said his wife has had a stabilizing effect on his life, and he attributes his decision to give up alcohol, in 1986, to her influence. While governor of Texas, Bush said of his wife, "I saw an elegant, beautiful woman who turned out not only to be elegant and beautiful, but very smart and willing to put up with my rough edges, and I must confess has smoothed them off over time." Bush also says that his faith in God was critical in abstaining. "I believe that God helped open my eyes, which were closing because of booze".
Hobbies
Bush has been an avid reader throughout his adult life, preferring biographies and histories. During his presidency, Bush read the Bible daily, though at the end of his second term he said on television that he is "not a literalist" about Bible interpretation. Walt Harrington, a journalist, recalled seeing "books by John Fowles, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Gore Vidal lying about, as well as biographies of Willa Cather and Queen Victoria" in his home when Bush was a Texas oilman. Other activities include cigar smoking and golf. Bush has also painted many paintings. One of his best-known projects is a collection of 43 paintings of immigrants, titled Out of Many, One. Another painting project was Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warrior.
Military career
In May 1968, Bush was commissioned into the Texas Air National Guard. After two years of training in active-duty service, he was assigned to Houston, flying Convair F-102s with the 147th Reconnaissance Wing out of the Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base. Critics, including former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, have alleged that Bush was favorably treated due to his father's political standing as a member of the House of Representatives, citing his selection as a pilot despite his low pilot aptitude test scores and his irregular attendance. In June 2005, the Department of Defense released all the records of Bush's Texas Air National Guard service, which remain in its official archives.
In late 1972 and early 1973, he drilled with the 187th Fighter Wing of the Alabama Air National Guard. He had moved to Montgomery, Alabama, to work on the unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Winton M. Blount. In 1972, Bush was suspended from flying for failure to take a scheduled physical exam. He was honorably discharged from the Air Force Reserve on November 21, 1974.
Bush remains the most recent president to have served in the military.
Business career
In 1977, Bush established Arbusto Energy, a small oil exploration company, which began operations in 1978. He later changed the name to Bush Exploration. In 1984, his company merged with the larger Spectrum 7, and Bush became chairman. The company was hurt by decreased oil prices, and it folded into Harken Energy Corporation, with Bush becoming a member of Harken's board of directors. Questions of possible insider trading involving Harken arose, but a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation concluded that the information Bush had at the time of his stock sale was not sufficient to constitute insider trading.
In April 1989, Bush arranged for a group of investors to purchase a controlling interest of Major League Baseball's Texas Rangers for $89 million and invested $500,000 himself to start. He then was managing general partner for five years. He actively led the team's projects and regularly attended its games, often choosing to sit in the open stands with fans. Bush's sale of his shares in the Rangers in 1998 brought him over $15 million from his initial $800,000 investment.
In the early or mid 1990s, before his gubernatorial campaign, Bush briefly considered a candidacy to become the Commissioner of Baseball.
Early political involvement
In 1978, Bush ran for the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 19th congressional district. The retiring member, George H. Mahon, had held the district for the Democratic Party since 1935. Bush's opponent, Kent Hance, portrayed him as out of touch with rural Texans, and Bush lost the election, receiving 46.8 percent of the vote to Hance's 53.2 percent.
Bush and his family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1988 to work on his father's campaign for the U.S. presidency. He was a campaign advisor and liaison to the media, and assisted his father by campaigning across the country. In December 1991, Bush was one of seven people named by his father to run his father's 1992 presidential re-election campaign as a campaign advisor. The previous month, his father had asked him to tell White House chief of staff John H. Sununu to resign.
Texas governorship (1995–2000)
Bush declared his candidacy for the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election at the same time his brother Jeb sought the governorship in Florida. His campaign focused on four themes: welfare reform, tort reform, crime reduction, and education improvement. Bush's campaign advisers were Karen Hughes, Joe Allbaugh, and Karl Rove.
After easily winning the Republican primary, Bush faced popular Democratic incumbent Governor Ann Richards. In the course of the campaign, Bush pledged to sign a bill allowing Texans to obtain permits to carry concealed weapons. Richards had vetoed the bill, but Bush signed it into law after he became governor. According to The Atlantic, the race "featured a rumor that she was a lesbian, along with a rare instance of such a tactic's making it into the public record – when a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed himself, perhaps inadvertently, to be quoted criticizing Richards for 'appointing avowed homosexual activists' to state jobs". The Atlantic, and others, connected the lesbian rumor to Karl Rove, but Rove denied being involved. Bush won the general election with 53.5 percent of the vote against Richards' 45.9 percent.
Bush used a budget surplus to push through Texas's largest tax cut, $2 billion. He extended government funding for organizations providing education on the dangers of alcohol and drug use and abuse, and helping to reduce domestic violence. His administration lowered the age at which juveniles can be sent to adult court for serious crimes to 14. Bush presided over 152 executions, more than any previous governor in modern American history; critics such as Helen Prejean argue that he failed to give serious consideration to clemency requests. Critics also contended that during his tenure, Texas ranked near the bottom in environmental evaluations. Supporters pointed to his efforts to raise the salaries of teachers and improve educational test scores.
In 1999, Bush signed a law that required electric retailers to buy a certain amount of energy from renewable sources (RPS), which helped Texas eventually become the leading producer of wind powered electricity in the U.S.
In 1998, Bush won re-election with a record 69 percent of the vote. He became the first governor in Texas history to be elected to two consecutive four-year terms. In his second term, Bush promoted faith-based organizations and enjoyed high approval ratings, which peaked at 81 percent in 1999. He proclaimed June 10, 2000, to be Jesus Day in Texas, a day on which he urged all Texans to "answer the call to serve those in need".
Throughout Bush's first term, he was the focus of national attention as a potential future presidential candidate. Following his re-election, speculation soared, and within a year he decided to seek the 2000 Republican presidential nomination.
Presidential campaigns
2000 presidential candidacy
Primary
Bush portrayed himself as a compassionate conservative, implying he was more centrist than other Republicans. He campaigned on a platform that included bringing integrity and honor back to the White House, increasing the size of the military, cutting taxes, improving education, and aiding minorities. By early 2000, the race had centered on Bush and Arizona Senator John McCain.
Bush won the Iowa caucuses and, although heavily favored to win the New Hampshire primary, trailed McCain by 19 percent and lost. Despite this, he regained momentum and effectively became the front runner after the South Carolina primary, which according to The Boston Globe made history for his campaign's negativity. The New York Times described it as a smear campaign.
General election
On July 25, 2000, Bush surprised some observers when he selected Dick Cheney – a former White House chief of staff, U.S. representative, and secretary of defense – to be his running mate. At the time, Cheney was serving as head of Bush's vice presidential search committee. Soon after at the 2000 Republican National Convention, Bush and Cheney were officially nominated by the Republican Party.
Bush continued to campaign across the country and touted his record as Governor of Texas. During his campaign, Bush criticized his Democratic opponent, incumbent Vice President Al Gore, over gun control and taxation.
When the election returns were tallied on November 7, Bush had won 29 states, including Florida. The closeness of the Florida outcome led to a recount. The initial recount also went to Bush, but the outcome was tied up in lower courts for a month until eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court. On December 9, in the controversial Bush v. Gore ruling, the Court reversed a Florida Supreme Court decision that had ordered a third count, and stopped an ordered statewide hand recount based on the argument that the use of different standards among Florida's counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The machine recount showed that Bush had won the Florida vote by a margin of 537 votes out of six million casts. Although he had received 543,895 fewer individual nationwide votes than Gore, Bush won the election, receiving 271 electoral votes to Gore's 266 (Gore had actually been awarded 267 votes by the states pledged to him plus the District of Columbia, but one D.C. elector abstained). Bush was the first person to win a U.S. presidential election with fewer popular votes than another candidate since Benjamin Harrison in 1888.
2004 presidential candidacy
In his 2004 bid for re-election, Bush commanded broad support in the Republican Party and did not encounter a primary challenge. He appointed Ken Mehlman as campaign manager, and Karl Rove devised a political strategy. Bush and the Republican platform emphasized a strong commitment to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, support for the USA PATRIOT Act, a renewed shift in policy for constitutional amendments banning abortion and same-sex marriage, reforming Social Security to create private investment accounts, creation of an ownership society, and opposing mandatory carbon emissions controls. Bush also called for the implementation of a guest worker program for immigrants, which was criticized by conservatives.
The Bush campaign advertised across the U.S. against Democratic candidates, including Bush's emerging opponent, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. Kerry and other Democrats attacked Bush on the Iraq War, and accused him of failing to stimulate the economy and job growth. The Bush campaign portrayed Kerry as a staunch liberal who would raise taxes and increase the size of government. The Bush campaign continuously criticized Kerry's seemingly contradictory statements on the war in Iraq, and argued that Kerry lacked the decisiveness and vision necessary for success in the War on Terror.
Following the resignation of CIA director George Tenet in 2004, Bush nominated Porter Goss to head the agency. The White House ordered Goss to purge agency officers who were disloyal to the administration. After Goss' appointment, many of the CIA's senior agents were fired or quit. The CIA has been accused of deliberately leaking classified information to undermine the 2004 election.
In the election, Bush carried 31 of 50 states, receiving 286 electoral votes. He won an absolute majority of the popular vote (50.7 percent to Kerry's 48.3 percent).
Presidency (2001–2009)
Bush had originally outlined an ambitious domestic agenda, but his priorities were significantly altered following the September 11 attacks. Wars were begun in Afghanistan and Iraq, and there were significant domestic debates regarding immigration, healthcare, Social Security, economic policy, and treatment of terrorist detainees. Over an eight-year period, Bush's once-high approval ratings steadily declined, while his disapproval numbers increased significantly. In 2007, the United States entered the longest post-World War II recession.
Domestic policy
Economic policy
Bush took office during a period of economic recession in the wake of the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The September 11 terrorist attacks also impacted the economy.
His administration increased federal government spending from $1.789 trillion to $2.983 trillion (66 percent), while revenues increased from $2.025 trillion to $2.524 trillion (from 2000 to 2008). Individual income tax revenues increased by 14 percent, corporate tax revenues by 50 percent, and customs and duties by 40 percent. Discretionary defense spending was increased by 107 percent, discretionary domestic spending by 62 percent, Medicare spending by 131 percent, social security by 51 percent, and income security spending by 130 percent. Cyclically adjusted, revenues rose by 35 percent and spending by 65 percent. The increase in spending was more than under any predecessor since Lyndon B. Johnson. The number of economic regulation governmental workers increased by 91,196.
The surplus in fiscal year 2000 was $237 billion – the third consecutive surplus and the largest surplus ever. In 2001, Bush's budget estimated that there would be a $5.6 trillion surplus over the next ten years. Facing congressional opposition, Bush held town hall-style meetings across the U.S. to increase public support for his plan for a $1.35 trillion tax cut program, one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history. Bush argued that unspent government funds should be returned to taxpayers, saying "the surplus is not the government's money. The surplus is the people's money." Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned of a recession and Bush stated that a tax cut would stimulate the economy and create jobs. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, opposed some of the tax cuts on the basis that they would contribute to budget deficits and undermine Social Security. O'Neill disputes the claim, made in Bush's book Decision Points, that he never openly disagreed with him on planned tax cuts. By 2003, the economy showed signs of improvement, though job growth remained stagnant. Another tax cut was passed that year.
Between 2001 and 2008, GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.125 percent, less than for past business cycles. Bush entered office with the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 10,587, and the average peaked in October 2007 at over 14,000. When Bush left office, the average was at 7,949, one of the lowest levels of his presidency. Only four other U.S. presidents have left office with the stock market lower than when they began.
Unemployment originally rose from 4.2 percent in January 2001 to 6.3 percent in June 2003, but subsequently dropped to 4.5 percent in July 2007. Adjusted for inflation, median household income dropped by $1,175 between 2000 and 2007, while Professor Ken Homa of Georgetown University has noted that "Median real after-tax household income went up two percent". The poverty rate increased from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.3 percent in 2006 after peaking at 12.7 percent in 2004. By October 2008, due to increases in spending,: 273 the national debt had risen to $11.3 trillion, more than doubling it since 2000. Most debt was accumulated as a result of what became known as the "Bush tax cuts" and increased national security spending. In March 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama said when he voted against raising the debt ceiling: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure." By the end of Bush's presidency, unemployment climbed to 7.2 percent.
2008 financial crisis
In December 2007, the United States entered the longest post–World War II recession, caused by a housing market correction, a subprime mortgage crisis, soaring oil prices, and other factors. In February 2008, 63,000 jobs were lost, a five-year record, and in November, over 500,000 jobs were lost, which marked the largest loss of jobs in the United States in 34 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the last four months of 2008, 1.9 million jobs were lost. By the end of 2008, the U.S. had lost 2.6 million jobs.
To aid with the situation, Bush signed a $170 billion economic stimulus package which was intended to improve the economic situation by sending tax rebate checks to many Americans and providing tax breaks for struggling businesses. The Bush administration pushed for significantly increased regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2003, and after two years, the regulations passed the House but died in the Senate. Many Republican senators, as well as influential members of the Bush Administration, feared that the agency created by these regulations would merely be mimicking the private sector's risky practices. In September 2008, the crisis became much more serious beginning with the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac followed by the collapse of Lehman Brothers and a federal bailout of American International Group for $85 billion.
Many economists and world governments determined that the situation had become the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Additional regulation over the housing market would have been beneficial, according to former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Bush, meanwhile, proposed a financial rescue plan to buy back a large portion of the U.S. mortgage market. Vince Reinhardt, a former Federal Reserve economist now at the American Enterprise Institute, said "it would have helped for the Bush administration to empower the folks at Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the comptroller of the currency and the FDIC to look at these issues more closely", and additionally, that it would have helped "for Congress to have held hearings".
Education and public health
Bush undertook many educational agendas, such as increasing the funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health in his first years of office and creating education programs to strengthen the grounding in science and mathematics for American high school students. Funding for the NIH was cut in 2006, the first such cut in 36 years, due to rising inflation.
One of the administration's early major initiatives was the No Child Left Behind Act, which aimed to measure and close the gap between rich and poor student performance, provide options to parents with students in low-performing schools, and target more federal funding to low-income schools. This landmark education initiative passed with broad bipartisan support, including that of Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. It was signed into law by Bush in early 2002. Many contend that the initiative has been successful, as cited by the fact that students in the U.S. have performed significantly better on state reading and math tests since Bush signed "No Child Left Behind" into law. Critics argue that it is underfunded and that NCLBA's focus on "high-stakes testing" and quantitative outcomes is counterproductive.
On November 1, 2005, Bush launched a National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, which culminated in an implementation plan published by the Homeland Security Council in May 2006.
After being re-elected, Bush signed into law a Medicare drug benefit program that, according to Jan Crawford, resulted in "the greatest expansion in America's welfare state in forty years" – the bill's costs approached $7 trillion.: 274 In 2007, Bush opposed and vetoed State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) legislation, which was added by the Democrats onto a war funding bill and passed by Congress. The SCHIP legislation would have significantly expanded federally funded healthcare benefits and plans to children of some low-income families. It was to be funded by an increase in the cigarette tax. Bush viewed the legislation as a move toward socialized health care, and asserted that the program could benefit families making as much as $83,000 per year who did not need the help.
On May 21, 2008, Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, aimed to protect Americans against health insurance and employment discrimination based on a person's genetic information. The issue had been debated for 13 years before it finally became law. The measure is designed to protect citizens without hindering genetic research.
Social services and Social Security
Following Republican efforts to pass the Medicare Act of 2003, Bush signed the bill, which included major changes to the Medicare program by providing beneficiaries with some assistance in paying for prescription drugs, while relying on private insurance for the delivery of benefits. The retired persons lobby group AARP worked with the Bush Administration on the program and gave their endorsement. Bush said the law, estimated to cost $400 billion over the first ten years, would give the elderly "better choices and more control over their health care".
Bush began his second term by outlining a major initiative to reform Social Security, which was facing record deficit projections beginning in 2005. Bush made it the centerpiece of his domestic agenda despite opposition from some in the U.S. Congress. In his 2005 State of the Union Address, Bush discussed the potential impending bankruptcy of the program and outlined his new program, which included partial privatization of the system, personal Social Security accounts, and options to permit Americans to divert a portion of their Social Security tax (FICA) into secured investments. Democrats opposed the proposal to partially privatize the system.
Bush embarked on a 60-day national tour, campaigning for his initiative in media events known as "Conversations on Social Security" in an attempt to gain public support. Nevertheless, public support for the proposal declined, and the House Republican leadership decided not to put Social Security reform on the priority list for the remainder of their 2005 legislative agenda. The proposal's legislative prospects were further diminished by autumn 2005 due to political fallout from the response to Hurricane Katrina.
Environmental policies
Upon taking office in 2001, Bush stated his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which seeks to impose mandatory targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, citing that the treaty exempted 80 percent of the world's population and would have cost tens of billions of dollars per year. He also cited that the Senate had voted 95–0 in 1997 on a resolution expressing its disapproval of the protocol.
In May 2001, Bush signed an executive order to create an interagency task force to streamline energy projects, and later signed two other executive orders to tackle environmental issues.
In 2002, Bush proposed the Clear Skies Act of 2003, which aimed at amending the Clean Air Act to reduce air pollution through the use of emissions trading programs. Many experts argued that this legislation would have weakened the original legislation by allowing higher emission rates of pollutants than were previously legal. The initiative was introduced to Congress, but failed to make it out of committee.
Later in 2006, Bush declared the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national monument, creating the largest marine reserve to date. The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument comprises 84 million acres (340,000 km2) and is home to 7,000 species of fish, birds, and other marine animals, many of which are specific to only those islands. The move was hailed by conservationists for "its foresight and leadership in protecting this incredible area".
Bush has said he believes that global warming is real and has noted that it is a serious problem, but he asserted there is a "debate over whether it's man-made or naturally caused". The Bush Administration's stance on global warming remained controversial in the scientific and environmental communities. Critics have alleged that the administration misinformed the public and did not do enough to reduce carbon emissions and deter global warming.
Energy policies
In his 2006 State of the Union Address, Bush declared, "America is addicted to oil" and launched his Advanced Energy Initiative to increase energy development research.
In his 2007 State of the Union Address, Bush renewed his pledge to work toward diminished reliance on foreign oil by reducing fossil fuel consumption and increasing alternative fuel production. Amid high gasoline prices in 2008, Bush lifted a ban on offshore drilling. However, the move was largely symbolic because there was still a federal law banning offshore drilling. Bush said, "This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil reserves is action from the U.S. Congress." Bush had said in June 2008, "In the long run, the solution is to reduce demand for oil by promoting alternative energy technologies. My administration has worked with Congress to invest in gas-saving technologies like advanced batteries and hydrogen fuel cells ... In the short run, the American economy will continue to rely largely on oil. And that means we need to increase supply, especially here at home. So my administration has repeatedly called on Congress to expand domestic oil production."
In his 2008 State of the Union Address, Bush committed $2 billion over the next three years to a new international fund to promote clean energy technologies and fight climate change, saying, "Along with contributions from other countries, this fund will increase and accelerate the deployment of all forms of cleaner, more efficient technologies in developing nations like India and China, and help leverage substantial private-sector capital by making clean energy projects more financially attractive." He also presented plans to reaffirm the United States' commitment to work with major economies, and, through the UN, to complete an international agreement that will slow, stop, and eventually reverse the growth of greenhouse gases; he stated, "This agreement will be effective only if it includes commitments by every major economy and gives none a free ride."
Stem cell research and first veto
Federal funding for medical research involving the creation or destruction of human embryos through the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health has been forbidden by law since the passage of the Dickey–Wicker Amendment in 1995. Bush has said he supports adult stem cell research and has supported federal legislation that finances adult stem cell research. However, Bush did not support embryonic stem cell research. On August 9, 2001, Bush signed an executive order lifting the ban on federal funding for the 71 existing "lines" of stem cells, but the ability of these existing lines to provide an adequate medium for testing has been questioned. Testing can be done on only 12 of the original lines, and all approved lines have been cultured in contact with mouse cells, which creates safety issues that complicate development and approval of therapies from these lines. On July 19, 2006, Bush used his veto power for the first time in his presidency to veto the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act. The bill would have repealed the Dickey–Wicker Amendment, thereby permitting federal money to be used for research where stem cells are derived from the destruction of an embryo.
Immigration
Nearly eight million immigrants came to the U.S. from 2000 to 2005, more than in any other five-year period in the nation's history. Almost half entered illegally. In 2006, Bush urged Congress to allow more than twelve million illegal immigrants to work in the United States with the creation of a "temporary guest-worker program". Bush also urged Congress to provide additional funds for border security and committed to deploying 6,000 National Guard troops to the Mexico–United States border. From May to June 2007, Bush strongly supported the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which was written by a bipartisan group of Senators with the active participation of the Bush administration. The bill envisioned a legalization program for illegal immigrants, with an eventual path to citizenship; establishing a guest worker program; a series of border and worksite enforcement measures; a reform of the green card application process and the introduction of a point-based "merit" system for green cards; elimination of "chain migration" and of the Diversity Immigrant Visa; and other measures. Bush argued that the lack of legal status denies the protections of U.S. laws to millions of people who face dangers of poverty and exploitation, and penalizes employers despite a demand for immigrant labor. Bush contended that the proposed bill did not amount to amnesty.
A heated public debate followed, which resulted in a substantial rift within the Republican Party, most conservatives opposed it because of its legalization or amnesty provisions. The bill was eventually defeated in the Senate on June 28, 2007, when a cloture motion failed on a 46–53 vote. Bush expressed disappointment upon the defeat of one of his signature domestic initiatives. The Bush administration later proposed a series of immigration enforcement measures that do not require a change in law.
On September 19, 2010, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Bush offered to accept 100,000 Palestinian refugees as American citizens if a permanent settlement had been reached between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina struck early in Bush's second term and was one of the most damaging natural disasters in U.S. history. Katrina formed in late August during the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and devastated much of the north-central Gulf Coast of the United States, particularly New Orleans.
Bush declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on August 27 and in Mississippi and Alabama the following day. The eye of the hurricane made landfall on August 29, and New Orleans began to flood due to levee breaches; later that day, Bush declared a major disaster in Louisiana, officially authorizing FEMA to start using federal funds to assist in the recovery effort.
On August 30, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declared it "an incident of national significance", triggering the first use of the newly created National Response Plan. Three days later, on September 2, National Guard troops first entered the city of New Orleans. The same day, Bush toured parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and declared that the success of the recovery effort up to that point was "not enough".
As the disaster in New Orleans intensified, Bush received widespread criticism for downplaying his administration's role in the inadequate response. Leaders attacked Bush for having appointed incompetent leaders to positions of power at FEMA, notably Michael D. Brown; federal resources to respond were also limited as a result of being allocated to the Iraq War, and Bush himself did not act upon warnings of floods. Bush responded to mounting criticism by claiming to accept full responsibility for the federal government's failures in its handling of the emergency. It has been argued that with Katrina, Bush passed a political tipping point from which he would not recover.
Midterm dismissal of U.S. attorneys
During Bush's second term, a controversy arose over the Justice Department's midterm dismissal of seven United States Attorneys. The White House maintained that they were fired for poor performance. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales later resigned over the issue, along with other senior members of the Justice Department. The House Judiciary Committee issued subpoenas for advisers Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten to testify regarding this matter, but Bush directed Miers and Bolten not to comply with those subpoenas, invoking his right of executive privilege. Bush maintained that all his advisers were covered under a broad executive privilege protection to receive candid advice. The Justice Department determined that the President's order was legal.
Although Congressional investigations focused on whether the Justice Department and the White House were using the U.S. Attorney positions for political advantage, no official findings have been released. On March 10, 2008, the Congress filed a federal lawsuit to enforce their issued subpoenas. On July 31, 2008, a United States district court judge ruled that Bush's top advisers were not immune from Congressional subpoenas.
In all, twelve Justice Department officials resigned rather than testify under oath before Congress. They included Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his chief of staff Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' liaison to the White House Monica Goodling, aide to the president Karl Rove and his senior aide Sara Taylor. In addition, legal counsel to the president Harriet Miers and deputy chief of staff to the president Joshua Bolten were both found in contempt of Congress.
In 2010, the Justice Department investigator concluded that though political considerations did play a part in as many as four of the attorney firings, the firings were "inappropriately political" but not criminal. According to the prosecutors, there was insufficient evidence to pursue prosecution for any criminal offense.
Foreign policy
During his presidential campaign, Bush's foreign policy platform included support for stronger economic and political relationships with Latin America, especially Mexico, and a reduction of involvement in "nation-building" and other small-scale military engagements. The administration pursued a national missile defense. Bush was an advocate of China's entry into the World Trade Organization.
Bush began his second term with an emphasis on improving strained relations with European nations. He appointed long-time adviser Karen Hughes to oversee a global public relations campaign. Bush lauded the pro-democracy struggles in Georgia and Ukraine.
In March 2006, Bush visited India in a trip focused particularly on areas of nuclear energy, counter-terrorism co-operation, and discussions that would eventually lead to the India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement. This was in stark contrast to decades of U.S. policy, such as the stance taken by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, whose approach and response to India after the 1998 nuclear tests has been characterized as "sanctions and hectoring".
Midway through Bush's second term, questions arose whether Bush was retreating from his freedom and democracy agenda, which was highlighted in policy changes toward some oil-rich former Soviet republics in central Asia.
Bush signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty with Russia. He withdrew U.S. support for several international agreements, including, in 2002, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) with Russia. This marked the first time in post-World War II history that the United States had withdrawn from a major international arms treaty. Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that American withdrawal from the ABM Treaty was a mistake.
Bush emphasized a careful approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians; he denounced Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat for his support of violence, but sponsored dialogues between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Bush supported Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, and lauded the democratic elections held in Palestine after Arafat's death.
Bush also expressed U.S. support for the defense of Taiwan following the stand-off in April 2001 with China over the Hainan Island incident, when an EP-3E Aries II surveillance aircraft collided with a People's Liberation Army Air Force jet, leading to the detention of U.S. personnel. From 2003 to 2004, Bush authorized U.S. military intervention in Haiti and Liberia to protect U.S. interests. Bush condemned the militia attacks Darfur and denounced the killings in Sudan as genocide. Bush said an international peacekeeping presence was critical in Darfur, but he opposed referring the situation to the International Criminal Court.
On June 10, 2007, Bush met with Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and became the first president to visit Albania. He later voiced his support for the independence of Kosovo.
In early 2008, Bush vowed full support for admitting Ukraine and Georgia into NATO despite Russia's opposition to the further enlargement of NATO. During the 2008 Russo-Georgian diplomatic crisis, Bush condemned Russia for recognizing the separatist government of South Ossetia. When Russian troops invaded Georgia later that summer, Bush said: "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."
September 11, 2001, attacks
The September 11 terrorist attacks were a major turning point in Bush's presidency. That evening, he addressed the nation from the Oval Office, promising a strong response to the attacks. He also emphasized the need for the nation to come together and comfort the families of the victims. Three days after the attacks, Bush visited Ground Zero and met with then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, firefighters, police officers, and volunteers. Bush addressed the gathering via a megaphone while standing on rubble: "I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."
In a September 20 speech, Bush condemned Osama bin Laden and his organization al-Qaeda, and issued an ultimatum to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where bin Laden was operating, to "hand over the terrorists, or ... share in their fate". The Taliban's leader, Mullah Omar, refused to hand over bin Laden.
The continued presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War was one of the stated motivations behind the September 11 attacks. In 2003, the U.S. withdrew most of its troops from Saudi Arabia.
War on terror
In Bush's September 20 speech, he declared that "our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there." In his January 29, 2002 State of the Union Address, he asserted that an "axis of evil" consisting of North Korea, Iran, and Ba'athist Iraq was "arming to threaten the peace of the world" and "pose[d] a grave and growing danger". The Bush Administration asserted both a right and the intention to wage preemptive war, or preventive war. This became the basis for the Bush Doctrine which weakened the unprecedented levels of international and domestic support for the United States which had followed the September 11 attacks.
Dissent and criticism of Bush's leadership in the War on Terror increased as the war in Iraq continued. The Iraq war sparked many protests and riots in different parts of the world. In 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate concluded that the Iraq War had become the "cause célèbre for jihadists".
Afghanistan invasion
On October 7, 2001, U.S. and British forces initiated bombing campaigns that led to the arrival of Northern Alliance troops in Kabul on November 13. The main goals of the war were to defeat the Taliban, drive al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan, and capture key al-Qaeda leaders. In December 2001, the Pentagon reported that the Taliban had been defeated, but cautioned that the war would go on to continue weakening Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Later that month the UN had installed the Afghan Transitional Administration chaired by Hamid Karzai.
Efforts to kill or capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden failed as he escaped a battle in December 2001 in the mountainous region of Tora Bora, which the Bush Administration later acknowledged to have resulted from a failure to commit enough U.S. ground troops. It was not until May 2011, two years after Bush left office, that bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces under the Obama administration.
Despite the initial success in driving the Taliban from power in Kabul, by early 2003 the Taliban was regrouping, amassing new funds and recruits. The 2005 failure of Operation Red Wings showed that the Taliban had returned. In 2006, the Taliban insurgency appeared larger, fiercer and better organized than expected, with large-scale allied offensives such as Operation Mountain Thrust attaining limited success. As a result, Bush commissioned 3,500 additional troops to the country in March 2007.
Iraq invasion
Beginning with his January 29, 2002 State of the Union address, Bush began publicly focusing attention on Iraq, which he labeled as part of an "axis of evil" allied with terrorists and posing "a grave and growing danger" to U.S. interests through possession of weapons of mass destruction.
In the latter half of 2002, CIA reports contained assertions of Saddam Hussein's intent of reconstituting nuclear weapons programs, not properly accounting for Iraqi biological and chemical weapons, and that some Iraqi missiles had a range greater than allowed by the UN sanctions. Contentions that the Bush Administration manipulated or exaggerated the threat and evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities would eventually become a major point of criticism for the president.
In late 2002 and early 2003, Bush urged the United Nations to enforce Iraqi disarmament mandates, precipitating a diplomatic crisis. In November 2002, Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei led UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, but were advised by the U.S. to depart the country four days prior to the U.S. invasion, despite their requests for more time to complete their tasks. The U.S. initially sought a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of military force but dropped the bid for UN approval due to vigorous opposition from several countries. The Bush administration's claim that the Iraq War was part of the War on Terror had been questioned and contested by political analysts.
More than 20 nations (most notably the United Kingdom) designated the "coalition of the willing" joined the United States in invading Iraq. They launched the invasion on March 20, 2003. The Iraqi military was quickly defeated. The capital, Baghdad, fell on April 9, 2003. On May 1, Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. The initial success of U.S. operations increased his popularity, but the U.S. and allied forces faced a growing insurgency led by sectarian groups; Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech was later criticized as premature. From 2004 until 2007, the situation in Iraq deteriorated further, with some observers arguing that there was a full-scale civil war in Iraq. Bush's policies met with criticism, including demands domestically to set a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq. The 2006 report of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker, concluded that the situation in Iraq was "grave and deteriorating". While Bush admitted there were strategic mistakes made in regard to the stability of Iraq, he maintained he would not change the overall Iraq strategy. According to Iraq Body Count, some 251,000 Iraqis have been killed in the civil war following the U.S.-led invasion, including at least 163,841 civilians.
In January 2005, elections recognized by the West as free and fair were held in Iraq for the first time in 50 years. This led to the election of Jalal Talabani as president and Nouri al-Maliki as Prime Minister of Iraq. A referendum to approve a constitution in Iraq was held in October 2005, supported by most Shiites and many Kurds.
On January 10, 2007, Bush launched a surge of 21,500 more troops for Iraq, as well as a job program for Iraqis, more reconstruction proposals, and $1.2 billion (equivalent to $1.8 billion in 2023) for these programs. On May 1, 2007, Bush used his second-ever veto to reject a bill setting a deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops, saying the debate over the conflict was "understandable" but insisting that a continued U.S. presence there was crucial.
In March 2008, Bush praised the Iraqi government's "bold decision" to launch the Battle of Basra against the Mahdi Army, calling it "a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq". He said he would carefully weigh recommendations from his commanding General David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker about how to proceed after the end of the military buildup in the summer of 2008. He also praised the Iraqis' legislative achievements, including a pension law, a revised de-Baathification law, a new budget, an amnesty law, and a provincial powers measure that, he said, set the stage for the Iraqi elections. By July 2008, American troop deaths had reached their lowest number since the war began, and due to increased stability in Iraq, Bush withdrew of additional American forces. During Bush's last visit to Iraq in December 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw both of his shoes at him during an official press conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Al-Zaidi yelled that the shoes were a "farewell kiss" and "for the widows and orphans and all those killed in Iraq".
In March 2010, Center for Public Integrity released a report that President Bush's administration had made more than 900 false pretenses in a two-year period about the alleged threat of Iraq against the United States, as his rationale to engage in war in Iraq.
Surveillance
Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, Bush issued an executive order that authorized the President's Surveillance Program. The new directive allowed the National Security Agency to monitor communications between suspected terrorists outside the U.S. and parties within the U.S. without obtaining a warrant, which previously had been required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. As of 2009, the other provisions of the program remained highly classified. Once the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel questioned its original legal opinion that FISA did not apply in a time of war, the program was subsequently re-authorized by the President on the basis that the warrant requirements of FISA were implicitly superseded by the subsequent passage of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists. The program proved to be controversial; critics of the administration and organizations such as the American Bar Association argued that it was illegal. In August 2006, a U.S. district court judge ruled that the NSA electronic surveillance program was unconstitutional, but on July 6, 2007, that ruling was vacated by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing. On January 17, 2007, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales informed U.S. Senate leaders that the program would not be reauthorized by the President, but would be subjected to judicial oversight. Later in 2007, the NSA launched a replacement for the program, referred to as PRISM, which was subject to the oversight of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. This program was not publicly revealed until reports by The Washington Post and The Guardian emerged in June 2013.
Interrogation policies
Bush authorized the CIA to use waterboarding and several other "enhanced interrogation techniques" that several critics, including Barack Obama, would label as torture. Between 2002 and 2003, the CIA considered certain enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, to be legal based on secret Justice Department legal opinions arguing that terror detainees were not protected by the Geneva Conventions' ban on torture, which was described as "an unconstitutional infringement of the President's authority to conduct war". The CIA had exercised the technique on certain key terrorist suspects under authority given to it in the Bybee Memo from the Attorney General, though that memo was later withdrawn. While not permitted by the U.S. Army Field Manuals which assert "that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information", the Bush administration believed these enhanced interrogations "provided critical information" to preserve American lives. Critics, such as former CIA officer Bob Baer, have stated that information was suspect, "you can get anyone to confess to anything if the torture's bad enough."
On October 17, 2006, Bush signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 into law. The new rule was enacted in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), which allowed the U.S. government to prosecute unlawful enemy combatants by military commission rather than a standard trial. The law also denied the detainees access to habeas corpus and barred the torture of prisoners. The provision of the law allowed the president to determine what constitutes "torture".
On March 8, 2008, Bush vetoed H.R. 2082, a bill that would have expanded congressional oversight over the intelligence community and banned the use of waterboarding as well as other forms of interrogation not permitted under the United States Army Field Manual on Human Intelligence Collector Operations, saying that "the bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the War on Terror". In April 2009, the ACLU sued and won release of the secret memos that had authorized the Bush administration's interrogation tactics. One memo detailed specific interrogation tactics including a footnote that described waterboarding as torture as well as that the form of waterboarding used by the CIA was far more intense than authorized by the Justice Department.
North Korea condemnation
Bush publicly condemned Kim Jong-il of North Korea and identified North Korea as one of three states in an "axis of evil". He said that "the United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons." Within months, "both countries had walked away from their respective commitments under the U.S.–DPRK Agreed Framework of October 1994." North Korea's October 9, 2006, detonation of a nuclear device further complicated Bush's foreign policy, which centered for both terms of his presidency on "[preventing] the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world". Bush condemned North Korea's position, reaffirmed his commitment to "a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula", and said that "transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or non-state entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States", for which North Korea would be held accountable. On May 7, 2007, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear reactors immediately pending the release of frozen funds held in a foreign bank account. This was a result of a series of three-way talks initiated by the United States and including China. On September 2, 2007, North Korea agreed to disclose and dismantle all its nuclear programs by the end of 2007. By May 2009, North Korea had restarted its nuclear program and threatened to attack South Korea.
On June 22, 2010, Bush said, "While South Korea prospers, the people of North Korea have suffered profoundly," adding that communism had resulted in dire poverty, mass starvation, and brutal suppression. "In recent years," he went on to say, "the suffering has been compounded by the leader who wasted North Korea's precious few resources on personal luxuries and nuclear weapons programs."
Syria sanctions
Bush expanded economic sanctions on Syria. In 2003, Bush signed the Syria Accountability Act, which expanded sanctions on Syria. In early 2007, the Treasury Department, acting on a June 2005 executive order, froze American bank accounts of Syria's Higher Institute of Applied Science and Technology, Electronics Institute, and National Standards and Calibration Laboratory. Bush's order prohibits Americans from doing business with these institutions suspected of helping spread weapons of mass destruction and being supportive of terrorism. Under separate executive orders signed by Bush in 2004 and later 2007, the Treasury Department froze the assets of two Lebanese and two Syrians, accusing them of activities to "undermine the legitimate political process in Lebanon" in November 2007. Those designated included: Assaad Halim Hardan, a member of Lebanon's parliament and former leader of the Syrian Socialist National Party; Wi'am Wahhab, a former member of Lebanon's government (Minister of the Environment) under Prime Minister Omar Karami (2004–2005); Hafiz Makhluf, a colonel and senior official in the Syrian General Intelligence Directorate and a cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; and Muhammad Nasif Khayrbik, identified as a close adviser to Assad.
AIDS Relief
In the State of the Union address in January 2003, Bush outlined a five-year strategy for global emergency AIDS relief, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Bush announced $15 billion for this effort, which directly supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for more than 3.2 million men, women and children worldwide. The U.S. government had spent some $44 billion on the project since 2003 (a figure that includes $7 billion contributed to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, a multilateral organization), which saved an estimated five million lives by 2013. The New York Times correspondent Peter Baker wrote in 2013 that "Bush did more to stop AIDS and more to help Africa than any president before or since." By 2023, PEPFAR was estimated to have saved over 25 million lives, alleviating the severity of the HIV/AIDS epidemic especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, and was called "George W. Bush's greatest accomplishment" by Vox.
Security incidents
2001 White House shooting
On February 7, 2001, while Bush was in the residence area of the White House, Robert W. Pickett, standing outside the perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a Taurus .38 Special revolver "in the general direction" of the White House. Pickett was shot in the knee by a U.S. Secret Service agent and arrested. Furthermore, he was initially charged with discharging a firearm during a crime, carrying a 10-year mandatory sentence, but following a plea agreement, Pickett instead entered a guilty plea to a firearms violation and an Alford plea to assaulting a federal officer. He was sentenced to three years at the Federal Medical Center, Rochester followed by three years of probation.
2005 Tbilisi grenade attack
On May 10, 2005, while President Bush was giving a speech in Freedom Square, Vladimir Arutyunian, a native Georgian who was born to a family of ethnic Armenians, threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade toward the podium. It landed in the crowd about 61 feet (19 m) from the podium after hitting a girl, but it did not detonate because a red tartan handkerchief was wrapped tightly around it, preventing the safety lever from detaching. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was seated nearby. After escaping that day, Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005. During his arrest, he killed an Interior Ministry agent. He was convicted in January 2006 and given a life sentence.
2008 Baghdad shoeing
On December 14, 2008, Muntadhar al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist, threw both of his shoes at Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. Bush was not injured, having ducked the pair of shoes. However, White House press secretary Dana Perino received a bruise on her face after being hit by a microphone boom knocked over by security. Al-Zaidi received a three-year prison sentence, which was reduced to one year. On September 15, 2009, he was released early for good behavior.
Judicial appointments
Supreme Court
On July 19, 2005, following the retirement of Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 1, Bush nominated federal appellate judge John Roberts as her replacement; however, following the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist on September 3, that still-pending nomination was withdrawn on September 5, with Bush instead nominating Roberts to be the next Chief Justice of the United States. He was confirmed by the Senate on September 29, 2005.
On October 3, 2005, Bush nominated White House Counsel Harriet Miers to succeed O'Connor; however, Miers withdrew her nomination on October 27 after encountering significant opposition from both parties, who found her to be ill-prepared and uninformed on the law.: 278 Finally, on October 31, Bush nominated federal appellate judge Samuel Alito, who was confirmed by the Senate to replace O'Connor on January 31, 2006.
Other courts
In addition to his two Supreme Court appointments, Bush appointed 61 judges to the United States courts of appeals and 261 judges to the United States district courts.
Cultural and political image
Image
Bush's upbringing in West Texas, his accent, his vacations on his Texas ranch, and his penchant for country metaphors contribute to his folksy, American cowboy image. "I think people look at him and think John Wayne", said Piers Morgan, editor of the British Daily Mirror.
Bush has been parodied by the media, comedians, and other politicians. Detractors tended to cite linguistic errors made by Bush during his public speeches, which are colloquially referred to as Bushisms.
In contrast to his father, who was perceived as having troubles with an overarching unifying theme, Bush embraced larger visions and was seen as a man of larger ideas and associated huge risks.
Tony Blair wrote in 2010 that the caricature of Bush as being dumb is "ludicrous" and that Bush is "very smart". In an interview with Playboy, The New York Times columnist David Brooks said Bush "was 60 IQ points smarter in private than he was in public. He doesn't want anybody to think he's smarter than they are, so puts on a Texas act."
Job approval
Bush began his presidency with approval ratings near 60 percent. After the September 11 attacks, Bush gained an approval rating of 90 percent, maintaining 80–90 percent approval for four months after the attacks. It remained over 50 percent during most of his first term and then fell to as low as 19 percent in his second term.
In 2000 and again in 2004, Time magazine named George W. Bush as its Person of the Year, a title awarded to someone who the editors believe "has done the most to influence the events of the year". In May 2004, Gallup reported that 89 percent of the Republican electorate approved of Bush. However, the support waned due mostly to a minority of Republicans' frustration with him on issues of spending, illegal immigration, and Middle Eastern affairs.
Within the United States armed forces, according to an unscientific survey, the president was strongly supported in the 2004 presidential elections. While 73 percent of military personnel said they would vote for Bush, 18 percent preferred his Democratic rival, John Kerry. According to Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who has studied the political leanings of the U.S. military, members of the armed services supported Bush because they found him more likely than Kerry to complete the War in Iraq.
Bush's approval rating surged to 74 percent at the beginning of the Iraq War, up 19 points from his pre-war rating of 55 percent. Bush's approval rating went below the 50 percent mark in AP-Ipsos polling in December 2004. Thereafter, his approval ratings and approval of his handling of domestic and foreign policy issues steadily dropped. After his re-election in 2004, Bush received increasingly heated criticism from across the political spectrum for his handling of the Iraq War, his response to Hurricane Katrina, and to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse, NSA warrantless surveillance, the Plame affair, and Guantanamo Bay detention camp controversies.
Amid this criticism, the Democratic Party regained control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections. Polls conducted in 2006 showed an average of 37 percent approval ratings for Bush, the lowest for any second-term president at that point in his term since Harry S. Truman in March 1951 (when Truman's approval rating was 28 percent), which contributed to what Bush called the "thumping" of the Republican Party in the 2006 elections. Throughout most of 2007, Bush's approval rating hovered in the mid-thirties; the average for his entire second term was 37 percent, according to Gallup.
By the beginning of 2008, his final year in office, Bush's approval rating had dropped to a low of just 19 percent, largely from the loss of support among Republicans. Commenting on his low poll numbers and accusations of being "the worst president", Bush would say, "I make decisions on what I think is right for the United States based upon principles. I frankly don't give a damn about the polls."
There were calls for Bush's impeachment, though most polls showed a plurality of Americans would not support such an action. The arguments offered for impeachment usually centered on the NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, the Bush administration's justification for the war in Iraq, and alleged violations of the Geneva Conventions. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who had run against Bush during the 2004 presidential campaign, introduced 35 articles of impeachment on the floor of the House of Representatives against Bush on June 9, 2008, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) declared that impeachment was "off the table".
In April 2008, Bush's disapproval ratings reached the highest ever recorded for any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll, with 69 percent of those polled disapproving of the job Bush was doing as president and 28 percent approving – although the majority (66 percent) of Republicans still approved of his job performance.
In polls conducted in the fall, just before the 2008 election, his approval ratings remained at record lows of 19 to 20 percent, while his disapproval ratings ranged from 67 percent to as high as 75 percent. In polling conducted January 9–11, 2009, his final job approval rating by Gallup was 34 percent, which placed him on par with Jimmy Carter and Harry S. Truman, the other presidents whose final Gallup ratings measured in the low 30s (Richard Nixon's final Gallup approval rating was even lower, at 24 percent). According to a CBS News/New York Times poll conducted January 11–15, 2009, Bush's final approval rating in office was 22 percent, the lowest in American history.
Foreign perceptions
Bush was criticized internationally and targeted by the global anti-war and anti-globalization movements for his administration's foreign policy. Views of him within the international community – even in France, a close ally of the United States – were more negative than those of most previous American presidents.
Bush was described as having especially close personal relationships with Tony Blair of the United Kingdom and Vicente Fox of Mexico, although formal relations were sometimes strained. Other leaders, such as Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain, and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, openly criticized the president. Later in Bush's presidency, tensions arose between him and Vladimir Putin, which led to a cooling of their relationship.
In 2006, most respondents in 18 of 21 countries surveyed around the world were found to hold an unfavorable opinion of Bush. Respondents indicated that they judged his administration as negative for world security. In 2007, the Pew Global Attitudes Project reported that during the Bush presidency, attitudes towards the United States, and towards Americans, became less favorable around the world. The Pew Research Center's 2007 Global Attitudes poll found that in only nine countries of 47 did most respondents express "a lot of confidence" or "some confidence" in Bush: Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Israel, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda. A March 2007 survey of public opinion in six Arab nations conducted by Zogby International and the University of Maryland found that Bush was the most disliked world leader.
During a June 2007 visit to the predominantly Muslim Albania, Bush was greeted enthusiastically. Albania has a population of 2.8 million, has troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and the country's government is highly supportive of American foreign policy. A huge image of the President was hung in the middle of the capital city of Tirana flanked by Albanian and American flags while a local street was named after him. A shirt-sleeved statue of Bush was unveiled in Fushë-Krujë, a few kilometers northwest of Tirana. The Bush administration's support for the unilateral declaration of independence of Albanian-majority Kosovo, while endearing him to the Albanians, troubled U.S. relations with Serbia, leading to the February 2008 torching of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade.
Post-presidency (2009–present)
Residence
Following the inauguration of Barack Obama, Bush and his family flew from Andrews Air Force Base to a homecoming celebration in Midland, Texas, following which they returned to their ranch in Crawford, Texas. They bought a home in the Preston Hollow neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, where they settled down.
Bush made regular appearances at various events throughout the Dallas–Fort Worth area, including the opening coin toss at the Dallas Cowboys' first game in the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington and an April 2009 Texas Rangers game, where he thanked the people of Dallas for helping him settle in, which was met with a standing ovation. He also attended every home playoff game during the Rangers' 2010 season and, accompanied by his father, threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Rangers Ballpark in Arlington for Game 4 of the 2010 World Series on October 31. He also threw the first pitch in Game 1 of the 2023 World Series.
On August 6, 2013, Bush was successfully treated for a coronary artery blockage with a stent. The blockage had been found during an annual medical examination.
In reaction to the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers, Bush said, "Laura and I are heartbroken by the heinous acts of violence in our city last night. Murdering the innocent is always evil, never more so than when the lives taken belong to those who protect our families and communities."
Publications and appearances
Since leaving office, Bush has kept a relatively low profile. Bush has spoken in favor of increased global participation of women in politics and societal matters in foreign countries.
In March 2009, he delivered his first post-presidency speech in Calgary, Alberta, appeared via video on The Colbert Report during which he praised U.S. troops for earning a "special place in American history", and attended the funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy. Bush made his debut as a motivational speaker on October 26 at the "Get Motivated" seminar in Dallas. In the aftermath of the Fort Hood shooting on November 5, 2009, the Bushes paid an undisclosed visit to the survivors and the victims' families the day following the shooting, having contacted the base commander requesting that the visit be private and not involve press coverage.
Bush released his memoirs, Decision Points, on November 9, 2010. During a pre-release appearance promoting the book, Bush said he considered his biggest accomplishment to be keeping "the country safe amid a real danger", and his greatest failure to be his inability to secure the passage of Social Security reform. He also made news defending his administration's enhanced interrogation techniques, specifically the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, saying, "I'd do it again to save lives."
In 2012, he wrote the foreword of The 4% Solution: Unleashing the Economic Growth America Needs, an economics book published by the George W. Bush Presidential Center. He also presented the book at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas. Bush did not physically appear in that year's Republican National Convention (where Mitt Romney obtained the party's nomination for president), instead appearing in a videotape, in which he –alongside his father and immediate family– explains his motives to support Romney.
Bush appeared on NBC's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on November 19, 2013, along with his wife Laura. When asked by Leno why he does not comment publicly about the Obama administration, Bush said, "I don't think it's good for the country to have a former president criticize his successor." Despite this statement, Bush vocally disagreed with Obama's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2011, calling it a "strategic blunder". In December, Bush travelled with President Obama to the memorial service of South African president and civil rights leader Nelson Mandela. There, they joined former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.
Alongside the 2014 United States–Africa Leaders Summit, Bush, Michelle Obama, the State Department, and the George W. Bush Institute hosted a daylong forum on education and health with the spouses of the African leaders attending the summit. Bush urged African leaders to avoid discriminatory laws that make the treatment of HIV/AIDS more difficult. On November 2, Bush spoke at an event to 200 business and civic leaders at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum to raise awareness for the upcoming Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. On November 11, Bush published a biography of his father titled 41: A Portrait of My Father.
In an interview published by Israel Hayom magazine on June 12, 2015, Bush said "boots on the ground" would be needed to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). He added that people had said during his presidency that he should withdraw American troops from Iraq, but he chose the opposite, sending 30,000 more troops to defeat Al Qaeda in Iraq, and that they indeed were defeated. Bush was also asked about Iran but declined to answer, stating that any answer he gives would be interpreted as undermining Obama.
During the early stages of the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, Bush spoke and campaigned for his brother Jeb Bush at a South Carolina rally. However, the party's nomination eventually went to Donald Trump, whom Bush refused to endorse. Furthermore, he did not attend the party's convention. On the eve of Trump's nomination, it was reported that Bush had privately expressed concern about the current direction of the Republican Party, telling a group of his former aides and advisors that "I'm worried that I will be the last Republican president." According to a spokesperson for the Bush family, he did not vote for Trump in the general election, instead choosing to leave his presidential ballot blank.
After the 2016 elections, Bush, his father, and his brother Jeb called Trump on the phone to congratulate him on his victory. Both he and Laura attended Trump's inauguration. Images of Bush struggling to put on a rain poncho during the ceremony became an internet meme. While leaving the event, Bush allegedly described the ceremony, and Trump's inaugural address in particular, as "some weird shit".
In February 2017, Bush released a book of his own portraits of veterans called Portraits of Courage. In August, following the white nationalist Unite the Right rally, Bush and his father released a joint statement condemning the violence and ideologies present there. Subsequently, Bush gave a speech in New York where he noted of the current political climate, "Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication." He continued, "Bigotry in any form is blasphemy against the American creed and it means the very identity of our nation depends on the passing of civic ideals to the next generation", while urging citizens to oppose threats to American democracy and be positive role models for young people. The speech was widely interpreted as a denouncement of Donald Trump and his ideologies, despite Bush not mentioning Trump by name.
On September 1, 2018, Bush and Laura Bush attended the funeral of John McCain at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where Bush spoke. On November 30, his father died at his home. Shortly before his death, Bush was able to talk with his father on the phone; his father responded with what would be his last words, "I love you too". Bush attended his father's funeral on December 5, delivering a eulogy.
In May 2019, the tenth anniversary of former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun's death, Bush visited South Korea to pay respects to Roh, delivering a short eulogy.
On June 1, 2020, Bush released a statement addressing the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide reaction and protests. In the statement, Bush wrote that he and former first lady Laura Bush "are anguished by the brutal suffocation of George Floyd and disturbed by the injustice and fear that suffocate our country". He also elaborated on the racial injustices perpetrated by the police saying, that "it is time for America to examine our tragic failures", adding "Many doubt the justice of our country, and with good reason. Black people see the repeated violation of their rights without an urgent and adequate response from American institutions". On July 30, Bush and his wife, along with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, attended and spoke at the funeral for civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Bush did not give any endorsements during the 2020 presidential election, but held a virtual fundraiser for U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Martha McSally (R-AZ), and Thom Tillis (R-NC). All four were up for reelection and were struggling in the polls. He also did not attend the 2020 Republican National Convention where President Trump was re-nominated. In April 2021, Bush told People magazine that he did not vote for either Trump or Joe Biden in the election. Instead, he wrote in Condoleezza Rice, who served as his national security advisor from 2001 to 2005 and as his secretary of state from 2005 to 2009. When the election was called for Biden, Bush congratulated him and his running mate Kamala Harris. He also congratulated Trump and his supporters "on a hard-fought campaign". Bush's outreach to Biden was notable since Republican candidate Donald Trump had not yet conceded. Bush then issued a statement saying that while Trump was within his rights to call for recounts, he believed the election was "fundamentally fair" and that "its outcome is clear", and said he would offer Biden "my prayers for his success, and my pledge to help in any way I can", as he had for Trump and Obama.
On January 6, 2021, following the U.S. Capitol attack, Bush denounced the violence and attack alongside the three other living former presidents, Obama, Clinton, and Carter, releasing a statement saying that "this is how election results are disputed in a banana republic, not our democratic republic", and that "it is a sickening and heartbreaking sight". He also echoed President-elect Biden's message stating that what occurred at the capitol was an "insurrection". On January 20, Bush and his wife attended Biden's inauguration.
Bush opposed President Biden's withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, saying that the withdrawal made him "concerned" and that it had the potential to "create a vacuum, and into that vacuum is likely to come people who treat women as second class citizens". During an interview with Deutsche Welle on July 14, 2021, Bush reaffirmed his opposition to the troop withdrawal, calling the plan "a mistake".
On September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Bush gave a speech at the Flight 93 National Memorial, praising the heroism of the people on Flight 93 and the spirit of America. He also said that he "saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another. That is the America I know."
Bush condemned the assassination attempt on former President Trump on July 13, 2024, calling it "cowardly" and applauded the Secret Service's response. Furthermore, Bush did not participate in that year's Republican National Convention, which took place two days after the attempt, and where Trump was renominated for a third time. He also chose not to endorse any candidate in the presidential election.
Collaborations
In January 2010, at President Obama's request, Bush and Bill Clinton established the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund to raise contributions for relief and recovery efforts following the 2010 Haiti earthquake earlier that month.
On May 2, 2011, President Obama called Bush, who was at a restaurant with his wife, to inform him that Osama bin Laden had been killed. The Bushes joined the Obamas in New York City to mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. At the Ground Zero memorial, Bush read a letter that President Abraham Lincoln wrote to a widow who had lost five sons during the Civil War.
On September 7, 2017, Bush partnered with former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama to work with One America Appeal to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma in the Gulf Coast and Texas communities.
Over the years, President Bush has had a good-natured friendship with Michelle Obama. "President Bush and I, we are forever seatmates because of protocol, and that's how we sit at all the official functions," Obama told the Today Show. "He's my partner in crime at every major thing where all the 'formers' gather. So we're together all the time." Bush famously passed mints to Obama during the McCain funeral in September 2018 and gave them to her again during the funeral of his father in December 2018.
Art
After serving as president, Bush began painting as a hobby after reading Winston Churchill's essay "Painting as a Pastime". Subjects have included people, dogs, and still life. He has also painted self-portraits and portraits of world leaders, including Vladimir Putin and Tony Blair. In February 2017, Bush released a book of portraits of veterans, Portraits of Courage. The net proceeds from his book are donated to the George W. Bush Presidential Center. In May 2019, on the tenth anniversary of former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun's death, George Bush drew a portrait of Roh to give to his family.
Legacy
Bush's legacy continues to develop today, as time passing allows the development of a more nuanced historical perspective. Supporters credit his counterterrorism policies with preventing another major terrorist attack from occurring in the U.S. after the September 11 attacks and also praise individual policies such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit and the AIDS relief program known as PEPFAR. Critics often point to his handling of the Iraq War, specifically the failure to find weapons of mass destruction after claiming they were in Iraq, as well as Bush's handling of tax policy, Hurricane Katrina, climate change and the 2008 financial crisis, as proof that he was unfit to be president. Ben Ferencz, former chief prosecutor for the United States Army at the Nuremberg Trials, has stated that Bush likely committed war crimes in relation to the Iraq War.
Several historians and commentators hold that Bush was one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Princeton University scholar Julian Zelizer described Bush's presidency as a "transformative" one, and said that "some people hate him, some people love him, but I do think he'll have a much more substantive perception as time goes on". Bryon Williams of The Huffington Post referred to Bush as "the most noteworthy president since FDR" and said the Patriot Act "increased authority of the executive branch at the expense of judicial opinions about when searches and seizures are reasonable" as evidence. Bush's administration presided over the largest tax cuts since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and his homeland security reforms proved to be the most significant expansion of the federal government since the Great Society.
Bush has been widely portrayed in film and television, both during and since his presidency. He has had various nicknames, including "Dubya", "GWB" and "Shrub".
Reception
The George W. Bush presidency has been ranked as below-average in surveys of presidential scholars published in the late 2000s and 2010s.
A 2010 Siena Research Institute survey of the opinions of historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars ranked him 39th out of 43 presidents. The survey respondents gave President Bush low ratings on his handling of the U.S. economy, communication, ability to compromise, foreign policy accomplishments, and intelligence. Bush said in 2013, "Ultimately history will judge the decisions I made, and I won't be around because it will take time for the objective historians to show up. So I am pretty comfortable with it. I did what I did." C-SPAN's 2021 survey of historians ranked Bush as the 29th-best president; Bush had initially been ranked the 36th in 2009.
Among the public, his reputation has improved since his presidency ended in 2009. In February 2012, Gallup reported that "Americans still rate George W. Bush among the worst presidents, though their views have become more positive in the three years since he left office." Gallup had earlier noted that Bush's favorability ratings in public opinion surveys had begun to rise a year after he had left office, from 40 percent in January 2009 and 35 percent in March 2009, to 45 percent in July 2010, a period during which he had remained largely out of the news. A poll conducted in June 2013 marked the first time recorded by Gallup where his ratings have been more positive than negative, with 49 percent viewing him favorably compared to 46 percent unfavorably. Other pollsters have noted similar trends of slight improvement in Bush's personal favorability since the end of his presidency. In April 2013, Bush's approval rating stood at 47 percent approval and 50 percent disapproval in a poll jointly conducted for The Washington Post and ABC, his highest approval rating since December 2005. Bush had achieved notable gains among seniors, non-college whites, and moderate and conservative Democrats since leaving office, although majorities disapproved of his handling of the economy (53 percent) and the Iraq War (57 percent). His 47 percent approval rating was equal to that of President Obama's in the same polling period. A CNN poll conducted that same month found that 55 percent of Americans said Bush's presidency had been a failure, with opinions divided along party lines, and 43 percent of independents calling it a success. Bush's public image saw greater improvement in 2017, with a YouGov survey showing 51 percent of favorability from Democrats. A 2018 CNN poll subsequently found that 61 percent of respondents held of a favorable view of Bush, an increase of nine points from 2015. The improvement has been interpreted as Democrats viewing him more favorably in response to Donald Trump's presidency, an assessment that has also been expressed by Bush himself.
Honors and awards
A street in Tirana, formerly known as Rruga Punëtorët e Rilindjes, situated directly outside the Albanian Parliament, was renamed after Bush a few days before he made the first-ever visit by an American president to Albania in June 2007. In 2012, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves awarded Bush the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana for his work in expanding NATO. Two elementary schools are named after him: one in Stockton Unified School District in Stockton, California, and one in Wylie Independent School District in St. Paul, Texas, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum
White House biography
Full audio of a number of Bush speeches
Appearances on C-SPAN
George W. Bush collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Archived White House website
Collection of George W. Bush's works on the Troubled Asset Relief Program
George W. Bush at Curlie
George W. Bush at IMDb
Works by George W. Bush at Project Gutenberg |
Donald_Trump | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump | [
378,
552
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump"
] | Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump received a Bachelor of Science degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. His father made him president of the family real estate business in 1971. Trump renamed it the Trump Organization and reoriented the company toward building and renovating skyscrapers, hotels, casinos, and golf courses. After a series of business failures in the late 1990s, he launched side ventures, mostly licensing the Trump name. From 2004 to 2015, he co-produced and hosted the reality television series The Apprentice. He and his businesses have been plaintiffs or defendants in more than 4,000 legal actions, including six business bankruptcies.
Trump won the 2016 presidential election as the Republican Party nominee against Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton while losing the popular vote. The Mueller special counsel investigation determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to favor Trump. During the campaign, his political positions were described as populist, protectionist, and nationalist. His election and policies sparked numerous protests. He was the only U.S. president without prior military or government experience. Trump promoted conspiracy theories and made many false and misleading statements during his campaigns and presidency, to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged, racist, and misogynistic.
As president, Trump ordered a travel ban on citizens from several Muslim-majority countries, diverted military funding toward building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border, and implemented a family separation policy. He rolled back more than 100 environmental policies and regulations. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which cut taxes and eliminated the individual health insurance mandate penalty of the Affordable Care Act. He appointed Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. He reacted slowly to the COVID-19 pandemic, ignored or contradicted many recommendations from health officials, used political pressure to interfere with testing efforts, and spread misinformation about unproven treatments. Trump initiated a trade war with China and withdrew the U.S. from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, the Paris Agreement on climate change, and the Iran nuclear deal. He met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un three times but made no progress on denuclearization.
Trump is the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice, in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after he pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection. The Senate acquitted him in both cases. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election to Biden but refused to concede. He falsely claimed widespread electoral fraud and attempted to overturn the results. On January 6, 2021, he urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol, which many of them attacked. Trump supported and took credit for the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.
Since leaving office, Trump has continued to dominate the Republican Party and is their nominee again in the 2024 presidential election. In May 2024, a jury in New York found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in an attempt to influence the 2016 election, making him the first former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime. He has been indicted in three other jurisdictions on 54 other felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents and for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In civil proceedings, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, defamation in 2024, and financial fraud in 2024.
Personal life
Early life
Trump was born on June 14, 1946, at Jamaica Hospital in Queens, New York City, the fourth child of Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. He grew up with older siblings Maryanne, Fred Jr., and Elizabeth and younger brother Robert in the Jamaica Estates neighborhood of Queens, and attended the private Kew-Forest School from kindergarten through seventh grade. At age 13, he entered the New York Military Academy, a private boarding school. In 1964, he enrolled at Fordham University. Two years later, he transferred to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in economics. In 2015, Trump's lawyer threatened Trump's colleges, his high school, and the College Board with legal action if they released his academic records.
While in college, Trump obtained four student draft deferments during the Vietnam War. In 1966, he was deemed fit for military service based on a medical examination, and in July 1968, a local draft board classified him as eligible to serve. In October 1968, he was classified 1-Y, a conditional medical deferment for bone spurs, and in 1972, he was reclassified 4-F, unfit for military service, permanently disqualifying him.
Family
In 1977, Trump married Czech model Ivana Zelníčková. They had three children: Donald Jr. (born 1977), Ivanka (1981), and Eric (1984). The couple divorced in 1990, following Trump's affair with actress Marla Maples. Trump and Maples married in 1993 and divorced in 1999. They have one daughter, Tiffany (born 1993), who was raised by Maples in California. In 2005, Trump married Slovenian model Melania Knauss. They have one son, Barron (born 2006).
Religion
In the 1970s, Trump's parents joined the Marble Collegiate Church, part of the Reformed Church in America. He went to Sunday school and was confirmed in 1959 at the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens. In 2015, he said he was a Presbyterian and attended Marble Collegiate Church; the church said he was not an active member. In 2019, he appointed his personal pastor, televangelist Paula White, to the White House Office of Public Liaison. In 2020, he said he identified as a non-denominational Christian.
Health habits
Trump says he has never drunk alcohol, smoked cigarettes, or used drugs. He sleeps about four or five hours a night. He has called golfing his "primary form of exercise" but usually does not walk the course. He considers exercise a waste of energy because he believes the body is "like a battery, with a finite amount of energy", which is depleted by exercise. In 2015, Trump's campaign released a letter from his longtime personal physician, Harold Bornstein, stating that Trump would "be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency". In 2018, Bornstein said Trump had dictated the contents of the letter and that three of Trump's agents had seized his medical records in a February 2017 raid on the doctor's office.
Wealth
In 1982, Trump made the initial Forbes list of wealthy people for holding a share of his family's estimated $200 million net worth (equivalent to $631 million in 2023). His losses in the 1980s dropped him from the list between 1990 and 1995. After filing the mandatory financial disclosure report with the FEC in July 2015, he announced a net worth of about $10 billion. Records released by the FEC showed at least $1.4 billion in assets and $265 million in liabilities. Forbes estimated his net worth dropped by $1.4 billion between 2015 and 2018. In their 2024 billionaires ranking, Trump's net worth was estimated to be $2.3 billion (1,438th in the world).
Journalist Jonathan Greenberg reported that Trump called him in 1984, pretending to be a fictional Trump Organization official named "John Barron". Greenberg said that Trump, just to get a higher ranking on the Forbes 400 list of wealthy Americans, identified himself as "Barron", and then falsely asserted that Donald Trump owned more than 90 percent of his father's business. Greenberg also wrote that Forbes had vastly overestimated Trump's wealth and wrongly included him on the 1982, 1983, and 1984 rankings.
Trump has often said he began his career with "a small loan of a million dollars" from his father and that he had to pay it back with interest. He was a millionaire by age eight, borrowed at least $60 million from his father, largely failed to repay those loans, and received another $413 million (2018 dollars adjusted for inflation) from his father's company. In 2018, he and his family were reported to have committed tax fraud, and the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance started an investigation. His investments underperformed the stock and New York property markets. Forbes estimated in October 2018 that his net worth declined from $4.5 billion in 2015 to $3.1 billion in 2017 and his product-licensing income from $23 million to $3 million.
Contrary to his claims of financial health and business acumen, Trump's tax returns from 1985 to 1994 show net losses totaling $1.17 billion. The losses were higher than those of almost every other American taxpayer. The losses in 1990 and 1991, more than $250 million each year, were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers. In 1995, his reported losses were $915.7 million (equivalent to $1.83 billion in 2023).
In 2020, The New York Times obtained Trump's tax information extending over two decades. Its reporters found that Trump reported losses of hundreds of millions of dollars and had, since 2010, deferred declaring $287 million in forgiven debt as taxable income. His income mainly came from his share in The Apprentice and businesses in which he was a minority partner, and his losses mainly from majority-owned businesses. Much income was in tax credits for his losses, which let him avoid annual income tax payments or lower them to $750. During the 2010s, Trump balanced his businesses' losses by selling and borrowing against assets, including a $100 million mortgage on Trump Tower (due in 2022) and the liquidation of over $200 million in stocks and bonds. He personally guaranteed $421 million in debt, most of which is due by 2024.
As of October 2021, Trump had over $1.3 billion in debts, much of which is secured by his assets. In 2020, he owed $640 million to banks and trust organizations, including Bank of China, Deutsche Bank, and UBS, and approximately $450 million to unknown creditors. The value of his assets exceeds his debt.
Business career
Real estate
Starting in 1968, Trump was employed at his father's real estate company, Trump Management, which owned racially segregated middle-class rental housing in New York City's outer boroughs. In 1971, his father made him president of the company and he began using the Trump Organization as an umbrella brand. Between 1991 and 2009, he filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for six of his businesses: the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, the casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts company.
Manhattan and Chicago developments
Trump attracted public attention in 1978 with the launch of his family's first Manhattan venture, the renovation of the derelict Commodore Hotel, adjacent to Grand Central Terminal. The financing was facilitated by a $400 million city property tax abatement arranged for Trump by his father who also, jointly with Hyatt, guaranteed a $70 million bank construction loan. The hotel reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt Hotel, and that same year, Trump obtained rights to develop Trump Tower, a mixed-use skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. The building houses the headquarters of the Trump Corporation and Trump's PAC and was Trump's primary residence until 2019.
In 1988, Trump acquired the Plaza Hotel with a loan from a consortium of sixteen banks. The hotel filed for bankruptcy protection in 1992, and a reorganization plan was approved a month later, with the banks taking control of the property. In 1995, Trump defaulted on over $3 billion of bank loans, and the lenders seized the Plaza Hotel along with most of his other properties in a "vast and humiliating restructuring" that allowed Trump to avoid personal bankruptcy. The lead bank's attorney said of the banks' decision that they "all agreed that he'd be better alive than dead."
In 1996, Trump acquired and renovated the mostly vacant 71-story skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, later rebranded as the Trump Building. In the early 1990s, Trump won the right to develop a 70-acre (28 ha) tract in the Lincoln Square neighborhood near the Hudson River. Struggling with debt from other ventures in 1994, Trump sold most of his interest in the project to Asian investors, who financed the project's completion, Riverside South.
Trump's last major construction project was the 92-story mixed-use Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) which opened in 2008. In 2024, the New York Times and ProPublica reported that the Internal Revenue Service was investigating whether Trump had twice written off losses incurred through construction cost overruns and lagging sales of residential units in the building Trump had declared to be worthless on his 2008 tax return.
Atlantic City casinos
In 1984, Trump opened Harrah's at Trump Plaza, a hotel and casino, with financing and management help from the Holiday Corporation. It was unprofitable, and Trump paid Holiday $70 million in May 1986 to take sole control. In 1985, Trump bought the unopened Atlantic City Hilton Hotel and renamed it Trump Castle. Both casinos filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1992.
Trump bought a third Atlantic City venue in 1988, the Trump Taj Mahal. It was financed with $675 million in junk bonds and completed for $1.1 billion, opening in April 1990. Trump filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1991. Under the provisions of the restructuring agreement, Trump gave up half his initial stake and personally guaranteed future performance. To reduce his $900 million of personal debt, he sold the Trump Shuttle airline; his megayacht, the Trump Princess, which had been leased to his casinos and kept docked; and other businesses.
In 1995, Trump founded Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts (THCR), which assumed ownership of the Trump Plaza. THCR purchased the Taj Mahal and the Trump Castle in 1996 and went bankrupt in 2004 and 2009, leaving Trump with 10 percent ownership. He remained chairman until 2009.
Clubs
In 1985, Trump acquired the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. In 1995, he converted the estate into a private club with an initiation fee and annual dues. He continued to use a wing of the house as a private residence. Trump declared the club his primary residence in 2019. The Trump Organization began building and buying golf courses in 1999. It owns fourteen and manages another three Trump-branded courses worldwide.
Licensing of the Trump brand
The Trump name has been licensed for consumer products and services, including foodstuffs, apparel, learning courses, and home furnishings. According to The Washington Post, there are more than 50 licensing or management deals involving Trump's name, and they have generated at least $59 million in revenue for his companies. By 2018, only two consumer goods companies continued to license his name.
Side ventures
In September 1983, Trump purchased the New Jersey Generals, a team in the United States Football League. After the 1985 season, the league folded, largely due to Trump's attempt to move to a fall schedule (when it would have competed with the NFL for audience) and trying to force a merger with the NFL by bringing an antitrust suit.
Trump and his Plaza Hotel hosted several boxing matches at the Atlantic City Convention Hall. In 1989 and 1990, Trump lent his name to the Tour de Trump cycling stage race, an attempt to create an American equivalent of European races such as the Tour de France or the Giro d'Italia.
From 1986 to 1988, Trump purchased significant blocks of shares in various public companies while suggesting that he intended to take over the company and then sold his shares for a profit, leading some observers to think he was engaged in greenmail. The New York Times found that Trump initially made millions of dollars in such stock transactions, but "lost most, if not all, of those gains after investors stopped taking his takeover talk seriously".
In 1988, Trump purchased the Eastern Air Lines Shuttle, financing the purchase with $380 million (equivalent to $979 million in 2023) in loans from a syndicate of 22 banks. He renamed the airline Trump Shuttle and operated it until 1992. Trump defaulted on his loans in 1991, and ownership passed to the banks.
In 1992, Trump, his siblings Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert, and his cousin John W. Walter, each with a 20 percent share, formed All County Building Supply & Maintenance Corp. The company had no offices and is alleged to have been a shell company for paying the vendors providing services and supplies for Trump's rental units, then billing those services and supplies to Trump Management with markups of 20–50 percent and more. The owners shared the proceeds generated by the markups. The increased costs were used to get state approval for increasing the rents of Trump's rent-stabilized units.
From 1996 to 2015, Trump owned all or part of the Miss Universe pageants, including Miss USA and Miss Teen USA. Due to disagreements with CBS about scheduling, he took both pageants to NBC in 2002. In 2007, Trump received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work as producer of Miss Universe. NBC and Univision dropped the pageants in June 2015.
Trump University
In 2004, Trump co-founded Trump University, a company that sold real estate seminars for up to $35,000. After New York State authorities notified the company that its use of "university" violated state law (as it was not an academic institution), its name was changed to the Trump Entrepreneur Initiative in 2010.
In 2013, the State of New York filed a $40 million civil suit against Trump University, alleging that the company made false statements and defrauded consumers. Additionally, two class actions were filed in federal court against Trump and his companies. Internal documents revealed that employees were instructed to use a hard-sell approach, and former employees testified that Trump University had defrauded or lied to its students. Shortly after he won the 2016 presidential election, Trump agreed to pay a total of $25 million to settle the three cases.
Foundation
The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a private foundation established in 1988. From 1987 to 2006, Trump gave his foundation $5.4 million which had been spent by the end of 2006. After donating a total of $65,000 in 2007–2008, he stopped donating any personal funds to the charity, which received millions from other donors, including $5 million from Vince McMahon. The foundation gave to health- and sports-related charities, conservative groups, and charities that held events at Trump properties.
In 2016, The Washington Post reported that the charity committed several potential legal and ethical violations, including alleged self-dealing and possible tax evasion. Also in 2016, the New York attorney general determined the foundation to be in violation of state law, for soliciting donations without submitting to required annual external audits, and ordered it to cease its fundraising activities in New York immediately. Trump's team announced in December 2016 that the foundation would be dissolved.
In June 2018, the New York attorney general's office filed a civil suit against the foundation, Trump, and his adult children, seeking $2.8 million in restitution and additional penalties. In December 2018, the foundation ceased operation and disbursed its assets to other charities. In November 2019, a New York state judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million to a group of charities for misusing the foundation's funds, in part to finance his presidential campaign.
Legal affairs and bankruptcies
Roy Cohn was Trump's fixer, lawyer, and mentor for 13 years in the 1970s and 1980s. According to Trump, Cohn sometimes waived fees due to their friendship. In 1973, Cohn helped Trump countersue the U.S. government for $100 million (equivalent to $686 million in 2023) over its charges that Trump's properties had racial discriminatory practices. Trump's counterclaims were dismissed, and the government's case went forward, ultimately resulting in a settlement. In 1975, an agreement was struck requiring Trump's properties to furnish the New York Urban League with a list of all apartment vacancies, every week for two years, among other things. Cohn introduced political consultant Roger Stone to Trump, who enlisted Stone's services to deal with the federal government.
According to a review of state and federal court files conducted by USA Today in 2018, Trump and his businesses had been involved in more than 4,000 state and federal legal actions. While Trump has not filed for personal bankruptcy, his over-leveraged hotel and casino businesses in Atlantic City and New York filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection six times between 1991 and 2009. They continued to operate while the banks restructured debt and reduced Trump's shares in the properties.
During the 1980s, more than 70 banks had lent Trump $4 billion. After his corporate bankruptcies of the early 1990s, most major banks, with the exception of Deutsche Bank, declined to lend to him. After the January 6 Capitol attack, the bank decided not to do business with Trump or his company in the future.
Media career
Books
Using ghostwriters, Trump has produced 19 books under his name. His first book, The Art of the Deal (1987), was a New York Times Best Seller. While Trump was credited as co-author, the entire book was written by Tony Schwartz. According to The New Yorker, the book made Trump famous as an "emblem of the successful tycoon".
Film and television
Trump made cameo appearances in many films and television shows from 1985 to 2001.
Starting in the 1990s, Trump was a guest about 24 times on the nationally syndicated Howard Stern Show. He also had his own short-form talk radio program called Trumped! (one to two minutes on weekdays) from 2004 to 2008. From 2011 until 2015, he was a weekly unpaid guest commentator on Fox & Friends.
From 2004 to 2015, Trump was co-producer and host of reality shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice. Trump played a flattering, highly fictionalized version of himself as a superrich and successful chief executive who eliminated contestants with the catchphrase "You're fired." The shows remade his image for millions of viewers nationwide. With the related licensing agreements, they earned him more than $400 million which he invested in largely unprofitable businesses.
In February 2021, Trump, who had been a member of SAG-AFTRA since 1989, resigned to avoid a disciplinary hearing regarding the January 6 attack. Two days later, the union permanently barred him from readmission.
Political career
Trump registered as a Republican in 1987; a member of the Independence Party, the New York state affiliate of the Reform Party, in 1999; a Democrat in 2001; a Republican in 2009; unaffiliated in 2011; and a Republican in 2012.
In 1987, Trump placed full-page advertisements in three major newspapers, expressing his views on foreign policy and how to eliminate the federal budget deficit. In 1988, he approached Lee Atwater, asking to be put into consideration to be Republican nominee George H. W. Bush's running mate. Bush found the request "strange and unbelievable".
Presidential campaigns (2000–2016)
Trump was a candidate in the 2000 Reform Party presidential primaries for three months but withdrew from the race in February 2000.
In 2011, Trump speculated about running against President Barack Obama in the 2012 election, making his first speaking appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February 2011 and giving speeches in early primary states. In May 2011, he announced he would not run. Trump's presidential ambitions were generally not taken seriously at the time.
2016 presidential campaign
Trump's fame and provocative statements earned him an unprecedented amount of free media coverage, elevating his standing in the Republican primaries. He adopted the phrase "truthful hyperbole", coined by his ghostwriter Tony Schwartz, to describe his public speaking style. His campaign statements were often opaque and suggestive, and a record number were false. Trump said he disdained political correctness and frequently made claims of media bias.
Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. His campaign was initially not taken seriously by political analysts, but he quickly rose to the top of opinion polls. He became the front-runner in March 2016 and was declared the presumptive Republican nominee in May.
Hillary Clinton led Trump in national polling averages throughout the campaign, but, in early July, her lead narrowed. In mid-July Trump selected Indiana governor Mike Pence as his running mate, and the two were officially nominated at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Trump and Clinton faced off in three presidential debates in September and October 2016. Trump twice refused to say whether he would accept the result of the election.
Campaign rhetoric and political positions
Trump's political positions and rhetoric were right-wing populist. Politico described them as "eclectic, improvisational and often contradictory", quoting a health-care policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute as saying that his political positions were a "random assortment of whatever plays publicly". NBC News counted "141 distinct shifts on 23 major issues" during his campaign.
Trump described NATO as "obsolete" and espoused views that were described as non-interventionist and protectionist. His campaign platform emphasized renegotiating U.S.–China relations and free trade agreements such as NAFTA, strongly enforcing immigration laws, and building a new wall along the U.S.–Mexico border. Other campaign positions included pursuing energy independence while opposing climate change regulations, modernizing services for veterans, repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, abolishing Common Core education standards, investing in infrastructure, simplifying the tax code while reducing taxes, and imposing tariffs on imports by companies that offshore jobs. He advocated increasing military spending and extreme vetting or banning immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.
Trump helped bring far-right fringe ideas and organizations into the mainstream. In August 2016, Trump hired Steve Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News—described by Bannon as "the platform for the alt-right"—as his campaign CEO. The alt-right movement coalesced around and supported Trump's candidacy, due in part to its opposition to multiculturalism and immigration.
Financial disclosures
Trump's FEC-required reports listed assets above $1.4 billion and outstanding debts of at least $315 million.
Trump did not release his tax returns, contrary to the practice of every major candidate since 1976 and his promises in 2014 and 2015 to do so if he ran for office. He said his tax returns were being audited, and that his lawyers had advised him against releasing them. After a lengthy court battle to block release of his tax returns and other records to the Manhattan district attorney for a criminal investigation, including two appeals by Trump to the U.S. Supreme Court, in February 2021 the high court allowed the records to be released to the prosecutor for review by a grand jury.
In October 2016, portions of Trump's state filings for 1995 were leaked to a reporter from The New York Times. They show that Trump had declared a loss of $916 million that year, which could have let him avoid taxes for up to 18 years.
Election to the presidency
On November 8, 2016, Trump received 306 pledged electoral votes versus 232 for Clinton, though, after elector defections on both sides, the official count was ultimately 304 to 227. Trump, the fifth person to be elected president while losing the popular vote, received nearly 2.9 million fewer votes than Clinton. He also was the only president who neither served in the military nor held any government office prior to becoming president.
Trump's victory was a political upset. Polls had consistently shown Clinton with a nationwide—though diminishing—lead, as well as an advantage in most of the competitive states.
Trump won 30 states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, states which had been considered a blue wall of Democratic strongholds since the 1990s. Clinton won 20 states and the District of Columbia. Trump's victory marked the return of an undivided Republican government—a Republican White House combined with Republican control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump's election victory sparked protests in major U.S. cities. On the day after Trump's inauguration, an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide, including an estimated half million in Washington, D.C., protested against Trump in the Women's Marches.
Presidency (2017–2021)
Early actions
Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2017. During his first week in office, he signed six executive orders, which authorized: interim procedures in anticipation of repealing the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"), withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, reinstatement of the Mexico City policy, advancement of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipeline construction projects, reinforcement of border security, and a planning and design process to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner became his assistant and senior advisor, respectively.
Conflicts of interest
Before being inaugurated, Trump moved his businesses into a revocable trust, rather than a blind trust or equivalent arrangement "to cleanly sever himself from his business interests". Trump continued to profit from his businesses and to know how his administration's policies affected his businesses. Though he said he would eschew "new foreign deals", the Trump Organization pursued expansions of its operations in Dubai, Scotland, and the Dominican Republic.
Trump was sued for violating the Domestic and Foreign Emoluments Clauses of the U.S. Constitution, marking the first time that the clauses had been substantively litigated. One case was dismissed in lower court. Two were dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court as moot after the end of Trump's term.
During Trump's term in office, he visited a Trump Organization property on 428 days, one visit for every 3.4 days of his presidency.
Domestic policy
Economy
Trump took office at the height of the longest economic expansion in American history, which began in 2009 and continued until February 2020, when the COVID-19 recession began.
In December 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 passed by Congress without Democratic votes. It reduced tax rates for businesses and individuals, with business tax cuts to be permanent and individual tax cuts set to expire after 2025, and set the penalty associated with the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate to $0. The Trump administration claimed that the act would not decrease government revenue, but 2018 revenues were 7.6 percent lower than projected.
Despite a campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years, Trump approved large increases in government spending and the 2017 tax cut. As a result, the federal budget deficit increased by almost 50 percent, to nearly $1 trillion in 2019. Under Trump, the U.S. national debt increased by 39 percent, reaching $27.75 trillion by the end of his term, and the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio hit a post-World War II high. Trump also failed to deliver the $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan on which he had campaigned.
Trump is the only modern U.S. president to leave office with a smaller workforce than when he took office, by 3 million people.
Climate change, environment, and energy
Trump rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. He reduced the budget for renewable energy research by 40 percent and reversed Obama-era policies directed at curbing climate change. He withdrew from the Paris Agreement, making the U.S. the only nation to not ratify it.
Trump aimed to boost the production and exports of fossil fuels. Natural gas expanded under Trump, but coal continued to decline. Trump rolled back more than 100 federal environmental regulations, including those that curbed greenhouse gas emissions, air and water pollution, and the use of toxic substances. He weakened protections for animals and environmental standards for federal infrastructure projects, and expanded permitted areas for drilling and resource extraction, such as allowing drilling in the Arctic Refuge.
Deregulation
In 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13771, which directed that, for every new regulation, federal agencies "identify" two existing regulations for elimination, though it did not require elimination. He dismantled many federal regulations on health, labor, and the environment, among others, including a bill that made it easier for severely mentally ill persons to buy guns. During his first six weeks in office, he delayed, suspended, or reversed ninety federal regulations, often "after requests by the regulated industries". The Institute for Policy Integrity found that 78 percent of Trump's proposals were blocked by courts or did not prevail over litigation.
Health care
During his campaign, Trump vowed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. In office, he scaled back the Act's implementation through executive orders. Trump expressed a desire to "let Obamacare fail"; his administration halved the enrollment period and drastically reduced funding for enrollment promotion. In June 2018, the Trump administration joined 18 Republican-led states in arguing before the Supreme Court that the elimination of the financial penalties associated with the individual mandate had rendered the Act unconstitutional. Their pleading would have eliminated health insurance coverage for up to 23 million Americans, but was unsuccessful. During the 2016 campaign, Trump promised to protect funding for Medicare and other social safety-net programs, but in January 2020, he expressed willingness to consider cuts to them.
In response to the opioid epidemic, Trump signed legislation in 2018 to increase funding for drug treatments but was widely criticized for failing to make a concrete strategy. U.S. opioid overdose deaths declined slightly in 2018 but surged to a record 50,052 in 2019.
Social issues
Trump barred organizations that provide abortions or abortion referrals from receiving federal funds. He said he supported "traditional marriage" but considered the nationwide legality of same-sex marriage "settled". His administration rolled back key components of the Obama administration's workplace protections against discrimination of LGBT people. Trump's attempted rollback of anti-discrimination protections for transgender patients in August 2020 was halted by a federal judge after a Supreme Court ruling extended employees' civil rights protections to gender identity and sexual orientation.
Trump has said he is opposed to gun control, although his views have shifted over time. After several mass shootings during his term, he said he would propose legislation related to guns, but he abandoned that effort in November 2019. His administration took an anti-marijuana position, revoking Obama-era policies that provided protections for states that legalized marijuana.
Trump is a long-time advocate of capital punishment. Under his administration, the federal government executed 13 prisoners, more than in the previous 56 years combined and after a 17-year moratorium. In 2016, Trump said he supported the use of interrogation torture methods such as waterboarding.
In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests, federal law-enforcement officials controversially used less lethal weapons to remove a largely peaceful crowd of lawful protesters from Lafayette Square, outside the White House. Trump then posed with a Bible for a photo-op at the nearby St. John's Episcopal Church, with religious leaders condemning both the treatment of protesters and the photo opportunity itself. Many retired military leaders and defense officials condemned Trump's proposal to use the U.S. military against anti-police-brutality protesters.
Pardons and commutations
Trump granted 237 requests for clemency, fewer than all presidents since 1900 with the exception of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Only 25 of them had been vetted by the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney; the others were granted to people with personal or political connections to him, his family, and his allies, or recommended by celebrities. In his last full day in office, Trump granted 73 pardons and commuted 70 sentences. Several Trump allies were not eligible for pardons under Justice Department rules, and in other cases the department had opposed clemency. The pardons of three military service members convicted of or charged with violent crimes were opposed by military leaders.
Immigration
Trump's proposed immigration policies were a topic of bitter debate during the campaign. He promised to build a wall on the Mexico–U.S. border to restrict illegal movement and vowed that Mexico would pay for it. He pledged to deport millions of illegal immigrants residing in the U.S., and criticized birthright citizenship for incentivizing "anchor babies". As president, he frequently described illegal immigration as an "invasion" and conflated immigrants with the criminal gang MS-13.
Trump attempted to drastically escalate immigration enforcement, including implementing harsher immigration enforcement policies against asylum seekers from Central America than any modern U.S. president.
From 2018 onward, Trump deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the U.S.–Mexico border to stop most Central American migrants from seeking asylum. In 2020, his administration widened the public charge rule to further restrict immigrants who might use government benefits from getting permanent residency. Trump reduced the number of refugees admitted to record lows. When Trump took office, the annual limit was 110,000; Trump set a limit of 18,000 in the 2020 fiscal year and 15,000 in the 2021 fiscal year. Additional restrictions implemented by the Trump administration caused significant bottlenecks in processing refugee applications, resulting in fewer refugees accepted than the allowed limits.
Travel ban
Following the 2015 San Bernardino attack, Trump proposed to ban Muslim foreigners from entering the U.S. until stronger vetting systems could be implemented. He later reframed the proposed ban to apply to countries with a "proven history of terrorism".
On January 27, 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13769, which suspended admission of refugees for 120 days and denied entry to citizens of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for 90 days, citing security concerns. The order took effect immediately and without warning, causing chaos at airports. Protests began at airports the next day, and legal challenges resulted in nationwide preliminary injunctions. A March 6 revised order, which excluded Iraq and gave other exemptions, again was blocked by federal judges in three states. In a decision in June 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that the ban could be enforced on visitors who lack a "credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States".
The temporary order was replaced by Presidential Proclamation 9645 on September 24, 2017, which restricted travel from the originally targeted countries except Iraq and Sudan, and further banned travelers from North Korea and Chad, along with certain Venezuelan officials. After lower courts partially blocked the new restrictions, the Supreme Court allowed the September version to go into full effect on December 4, 2017, and ultimately upheld the travel ban in a ruling in June 2019.
Family separation at the border
The Trump administration separated more than 5,400 children of migrant families from their parents at the U.S.–Mexico border, a sharp increase in the number of family separations at the border starting from the summer of 2017. In April 2018, the Trump administration announced a "zero tolerance" policy whereby adults suspected of illegal entry were to be detained and criminally prosecuted while their children were taken away as unaccompanied alien minors. The policy was unprecedented in previous administrations and sparked public outrage. Trump falsely asserted that his administration was merely following the law, blaming Democrats, despite the separations being his administration's policy.
Although Trump originally argued that the separations could not be stopped by an executive order, he acceded to intense public objection and signed an executive order in June 2018, mandating that migrant families be detained together unless "there is a concern" of a risk to the child. On June 26, 2018, Judge Dana Sabraw concluded that the Trump administration had "no system in place to keep track of" the separated children, nor any effective measures for family communication and reunification; Sabraw ordered for the families to be reunited and family separations stopped except in limited circumstances. After the order, the Trump administration separated more than a thousand migrant children from their families; the ACLU contended that the Trump administration had abused its discretion and asked Sabraw to more narrowly define the circumstances warranting separation.
Trump wall and government shutdown
One of Trump's central campaign promises was to build a 1,000-mile (1,600 km) border wall to Mexico and have Mexico pay for it. By the end of his term, the U.S. had built "40 miles [64 km] of new primary wall and 33 miles [53 km] of secondary wall" in locations where there had been no barriers and 365 miles (587 km) of primary or secondary border fencing replacing dilapidated or outdated barriers.
In 2018, Trump refused to sign any appropriations bill from Congress unless it allocated $5.6 billion for the border wall, resulting in the federal government partially shutting down for 35 days from December 2018 to January 2019, the longest U.S. government shutdown in history. Around 800,000 government employees were furloughed or worked without pay. Trump and Congress ended the shutdown by approving temporary funding that provided delayed payments to government workers but no funds for the wall. The shutdown resulted in an estimated permanent loss of $3 billion to the economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office. About half of those polled blamed Trump for the shutdown, and Trump's approval ratings dropped.
To prevent another imminent shutdown in February 2019, Congress passed and Trump signed a funding bill that included $1.375 billion for 55 miles (89 km) of bollard border fencing. Trump also declared a national emergency on the southern border, intending to divert $6.1 billion of funds Congress had allocated to other purposes. Trump vetoed a joint resolution to overturn the declaration, and the Senate voted against a veto override. Legal challenges to the diversion of $2.5 billion originally meant for the Department of Defense's drug interdiction efforts and $3.6 billion originally meant for military construction were unsuccessful.
Foreign policy
Trump described himself as a "nationalist" and his foreign policy as "America First". He praised and supported populist, neo-nationalist, and authoritarian governments. Hallmarks of foreign relations during Trump's tenure included unpredictability, uncertainty, and inconsistency. Tensions between the U.S. and its European allies were strained under Trump. He criticized NATO allies and privately suggested on multiple occasions that the U.S. should withdraw from NATO.
Trade
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations, imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and launched a trade war with China by sharply increasing tariffs on 818 categories (worth $50 billion) of Chinese goods imported into the U.S. While Trump said that import tariffs are paid by China into the U.S. Treasury, they are paid by American companies that import goods from China. Although he pledged during the campaign to significantly reduce the U.S.'s large trade deficits, the trade deficit skyrocketed under Trump. Following a 2017–2018 renegotiation, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) became effective in July 2020 as the successor to NAFTA.
Russia
The Trump administration weakened the toughest sanctions imposed by the U.S. against Russian entities after Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, citing alleged Russian non-compliance, and supported a potential return of Russia to the G7.
Trump repeatedly praised and rarely criticized Russian president Vladimir Putin but opposed some actions of the Russian government. After he met Putin at the Helsinki Summit in 2018, Trump drew bipartisan criticism for accepting Putin's denial of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, rather than accepting the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies. Trump did not discuss alleged Russian bounties offered to Taliban fighters for attacking American soldiers in Afghanistan with Putin, saying both that he doubted the intelligence and that he was not briefed on it.
China
Trump repeatedly accused China of taking unfair advantage of the U.S. He launched a trade war against China that was widely characterized as a failure, sanctioned Huawei for alleged ties to Iran, significantly increased visa restrictions on Chinese students and scholars, and classified China as a currency manipulator. Trump also juxtaposed verbal attacks on China with praise of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, which was attributed to trade war negotiations. After initially praising China for its handling of COVID-19, he began a campaign of criticism starting in March 2020.
Trump said he resisted punishing China for its human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang region for fear of jeopardizing trade negotiations. In July 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions and visa restrictions against senior Chinese officials, in response to expanded mass detention camps holding more than a million of the country's Uyghur minority.
North Korea
In 2017, when North Korea's nuclear weapons were increasingly seen as a serious threat, Trump escalated his rhetoric, warning that North Korean aggression would be met with "fire and fury like the world has never seen". In 2017, Trump declared that he wanted North Korea's "complete denuclearization", and engaged in name-calling with leader Kim Jong Un. After this period of tension, Trump and Kim exchanged at least 27 letters in which the two men described a warm personal friendship. In March 2019, Trump lifted some U.S. sanctions against North Korea against the advice of his Treasury Department.
Trump, the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean leader, met Kim three times: in Singapore in 2018, in Hanoi in 2019, and in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in 2019. However, no denuclearization agreement was reached, and talks in October 2019 broke down after one day. While conducting no nuclear tests since 2017, North Korea continued to build up its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
Afghanistan
U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan increased from 8,500 in January 2017 to 14,000 a year later, reversing Trump's pre-election position critical of further involvement in Afghanistan. In February 2020, the Trump administration signed a peace agreement with the Taliban, which called for the withdrawal of foreign troops in 14 months "contingent on a guarantee from the Taliban that Afghan soil will not be used by terrorists with aims to attack the United States or its allies" and for the U.S. to seek the release of 5,000 Taliban imprisoned by the Afghan government. By the end of Trump's term, 5,000 Taliban had been released, and, despite the Taliban continuing attacks on Afghan forces and integrating Al-Qaeda members into its leadership, U.S. troops had been reduced to 2,500.
Israel
Trump supported many of the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Under Trump, the U.S. recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, leading to international condemnation including from the UN General Assembly, European Union, and Arab League. In 2020, the White House hosted the signing of agreements, named Abraham Accords, between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize their foreign relations.
Saudi Arabia
Trump actively supported the Saudi Arabian–led intervention in Yemen against the Houthis and in 2017 signed a $110 billion agreement to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. In 2018, the U.S. provided limited intelligence and logistical support for the intervention. Following the 2019 attack on Saudi oil facilities, which the U.S. and Saudi Arabia blamed on Iran, Trump approved the deployment of 3,000 additional U.S. troops, including fighter squadrons, two Patriot batteries, and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Syria
Trump ordered missile strikes in April 2017 and April 2018 against the Assad regime in Syria, in retaliation for the Khan Shaykhun and Douma chemical attacks, respectively. In December 2018, Trump declared "we have won against ISIS", contradicting Department of Defense assessments, and ordered the withdrawal of all troops from Syria. The next day, Mattis resigned in protest, calling Trump's decision an abandonment of the U.S.'s Kurdish allies who played a key role in fighting ISIS. In October 2019, after Trump spoke to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, U.S. troops in northern Syria were withdrawn from the area and Turkey invaded northern Syria, attacking and displacing American-allied Kurds. Later that month, the U.S. House of Representatives, in a rare bipartisan vote of 354–60, condemned Trump's withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, for "abandoning U.S. allies, undermining the struggle against ISIS, and spurring a humanitarian catastrophe".
Iran
In May 2018, Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 agreement that lifted most economic sanctions against Iran in return for restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. In August 2020, the Trump administration unsuccessfully attempted to use a section of the nuclear deal to have the UN reimpose sanctions against Iran. Analysts determined that, after the U.S. withdrawal, Iran moved closer to developing a nuclear weapon.
On January 1, 2020, Trump ordered a U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, who had planned nearly every significant Iranian and Iranian-backed operation over the preceding two decades. One week later, Iran retaliated with ballistic missile strikes against two U.S. airbases in Iraq. Dozens of soldiers sustained traumatic brain injuries. Trump downplayed their injuries, and they were initially denied Purple Hearts and the benefits accorded to its recipients.
Personnel
The Trump administration had a high turnover of personnel, particularly among White House staff. By the end of Trump's first year in office, 34 percent of his original staff had resigned, been fired, or been reassigned. As of early July 2018, 61 percent of Trump's senior aides had left and 141 staffers had left in the previous year. Both figures set a record for recent presidents—more change in the first 13 months than his four immediate predecessors saw in their first two years. Notable early departures included National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (after just 25 days), and Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Close personal aides to Trump including Bannon, Hope Hicks, John McEntee, and Keith Schiller quit or were forced out. Some later returned in different posts. Trump publicly disparaged several of his former top officials, calling them incompetent, stupid, or crazy.
Trump had four White House chiefs of staff, marginalizing or pushing out several. Reince Priebus was replaced after seven months by retired Marine general John F. Kelly. Kelly resigned in December 2018 after a tumultuous tenure in which his influence waned, and Trump subsequently disparaged him. Kelly was succeeded by Mick Mulvaney as acting chief of staff; he was replaced in March 2020 by Mark Meadows.
On May 9, 2017, Trump dismissed FBI director James Comey. While initially attributing this action to Comey's conduct in the investigation about Hillary Clinton's emails, Trump said a few days later that he was concerned with Comey's role in the ongoing Trump-Russia investigations, and that he had intended to fire Comey earlier. At a private conversation in February, Trump said he hoped Comey would drop the investigation into Flynn. In March and April, Trump asked Comey to "lift the cloud impairing his ability to act" by saying publicly that the FBI was not investigating him.
Trump lost three of his 15 original cabinet members within his first year. Health and Human Services secretary Tom Price was forced to resign in September 2017 due to excessive use of private charter jets and military aircraft. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt resigned in 2018 and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke in January 2019 amid multiple investigations into their conduct.
Trump was slow to appoint second-tier officials in the executive branch, saying many of the positions are unnecessary. In October 2017, there were still hundreds of sub-cabinet positions without a nominee. By January 8, 2019, of 706 key positions, 433 had been filled (61 percent) and Trump had no nominee for 264 (37 percent).
Judiciary
Trump appointed 226 Article III judges, including 54 to the courts of appeals and three to the Supreme Court: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. His Supreme Court nominees were noted as having politically shifted the Court to the right. In the 2016 campaign, he pledged that Roe v. Wade would be overturned "automatically" if he were elected and provided the opportunity to appoint two or three anti-abortion justices. He later took credit when Roe was overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization; all three of his Supreme Court nominees voted with the majority.
Trump disparaged courts and judges he disagreed with, often in personal terms, and questioned the judiciary's constitutional authority. His attacks on the courts drew rebukes from observers, including sitting federal judges, concerned about the effect of his statements on the judicial independence and public confidence in the judiciary.
COVID-19 pandemic
Initial response
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was reported on January 20, 2020. The outbreak was officially declared a public health emergency by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar on January 31, 2020.
Trump initially ignored persistent public health warnings and calls for action from health officials within his administration and Secretary Azar. Throughout January and February he focused on economic and political considerations of the outbreak. In February 2020 Trump publicly asserted that the outbreak in the U.S. was less deadly than influenza, was "very much under control", and would soon be over. On March 19, 2020, Trump privately told Bob Woodward that he was deliberately "playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic".
By mid-March, most global financial markets had severely contracted in response to the pandemic. On March 6, Trump signed the Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, which provided $8.3 billion in emergency funding for federal agencies. On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized COVID-19 as a pandemic, and Trump announced partial travel restrictions for most of Europe, effective March 13. That same day, he gave his first serious assessment of the virus in a nationwide Oval Office address, calling the outbreak "horrible" but "a temporary moment" and saying there was no financial crisis. On March 13, he declared a national emergency, freeing up federal resources. Trump claimed that "anybody that wants a test can get a test", despite test availability being severely limited.
On April 22, Trump signed an executive order restricting some forms of immigration. In late spring and early summer, with infections and deaths continuing to rise, he adopted a strategy of blaming the states rather than accepting that his initial assessments of the pandemic were overly optimistic or his failure to provide presidential leadership.
White House Coronavirus Task Force
Trump established the White House Coronavirus Task Force on January 29, 2020. Beginning in mid-March, Trump held a daily task force press conference, joined by medical experts and other administration officials, sometimes disagreeing with them by promoting unproven treatments. Trump was the main speaker at the briefings, where he praised his own response to the pandemic, frequently criticized rival presidential candidate Joe Biden, and denounced the press. On March 16, he acknowledged for the first time that the pandemic was not under control and that months of disruption to daily lives and a recession might occur. His repeated use of "Chinese virus" and "China virus" to describe COVID-19 drew criticism from health experts.
By early April, as the pandemic worsened and amid criticism of his administration's response, Trump refused to admit any mistakes in his handling of the outbreak, instead blaming the media, Democratic state governors, the previous administration, China, and the WHO. The daily coronavirus task force briefings ended in late April, after a briefing at which Trump suggested the dangerous idea of injecting a disinfectant to treat COVID-19; the comment was widely condemned by medical professionals.
In early May, Trump proposed the phase-out of the coronavirus task force and its replacement with another group centered on reopening the economy. Amid a backlash, Trump said the task force would "indefinitely" continue. By the end of May, the coronavirus task force's meetings were sharply reduced.
World Health Organization
Prior to the pandemic, Trump criticized the WHO and other international bodies, which he asserted were taking advantage of U.S. aid. His administration's proposed 2021 federal budget, released in February, proposed reducing WHO funding by more than half. In May and April, Trump accused the WHO of "severely mismanaging" COVID-19, alleged without evidence that the organization was under Chinese control and had enabled the Chinese government's concealment of the pandemic's origins, and announced that he was withdrawing funding for the organization. These were seen as attempts to distract from his own mishandling of the pandemic. In July 2020, Trump announced the formal withdrawal of the U.S. from the WHO, effective July 2021. The decision was widely condemned by health and government officials as "short-sighted", "senseless", and "dangerous".
Pressure to abandon pandemic mitigation measures
In April 2020, Republican-connected groups organized anti-lockdown protests against the measures state governments were taking to combat the pandemic; Trump encouraged the protests on Twitter, even though the targeted states did not meet the Trump administration's guidelines for reopening. In April 2020, he first supported, then later criticized, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's plan to reopen some nonessential businesses. Throughout the spring he increasingly pushed for ending the restrictions to reverse the damage to the country's economy.
Trump often refused to mask at public events, contrary to his administration's April 2020 guidance to wear masks in public and despite nearly unanimous medical consensus that masks are important to preventing spread of the virus. By June, Trump had said masks were a "double-edged sword"; ridiculed Biden for wearing masks; continually emphasized that mask-wearing was optional; and suggested that wearing a mask was a political statement against him personally. Trump's contradiction of medical recommendations weakened national efforts to mitigate the pandemic.
In June and July, Trump said several times that the U.S. would have fewer cases of coronavirus if it did less testing, that having a large number of reported cases "makes us look bad". The CDC guideline at the time was that any person exposed to the virus should be "quickly identified and tested" even if they are not showing symptoms, because asymptomatic people can still spread the virus. In August 2020 the CDC quietly lowered its recommendation for testing, advising that people who have been exposed to the virus, but are not showing symptoms, "do not necessarily need a test". The change in guidelines was made by HHS political appointees under Trump administration pressure, against the wishes of CDC scientists. The day after this political interference was reported, the testing guideline was changed back to its original recommendation.
Despite record numbers of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. from mid-June onward and an increasing percentage of positive test results, Trump largely continued to downplay the pandemic, including his false claim in early July 2020 that 99 percent of COVID-19 cases are "totally harmless". He began insisting that all states should resume in-person education in the fall despite a July spike in reported cases.
Political pressure on health agencies
Trump repeatedly pressured federal health agencies to take actions he favored, such as approving unproven treatments or speeding up vaccine approvals. Trump administration political appointees at HHS sought to control CDC communications to the public that undermined Trump's claims that the pandemic was under control. CDC resisted many of the changes, but increasingly allowed HHS personnel to review articles and suggest changes before publication. Trump alleged without evidence that FDA scientists were part of a "deep state" opposing him and delaying approval of vaccines and treatments to hurt him politically.
Outbreak at the White House
On October 2, 2020, Trump tweeted that he had tested positive for COVID-19, part of a White House outbreak. Later that day Trump was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, reportedly due to fever and labored breathing. He was treated with antiviral and experimental antibody drugs and a steroid. He returned to the White House on October 5, still infectious and unwell. During and after his treatment he continued to downplay the virus. In 2021, it was revealed that his condition had been far more serious; he had dangerously low blood oxygen levels, a high fever, and lung infiltrates, indicating a severe case.
Effects on the 2020 presidential campaign
By July 2020, Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic had become a major issue in the presidential election. Biden sought to make the pandemic the central issue. Polls suggested voters blamed Trump for his pandemic response and disbelieved his rhetoric concerning the virus, with an Ipsos/ABC News poll indicating 65 percent of respondents disapproved of his pandemic response. In the final months of the campaign, Trump repeatedly said that the U.S. was "rounding the turn" in managing the pandemic, despite increasing cases and deaths. A few days before the November 3 election, the U.S. reported more than 100,000 cases in a single day for the first time.
Investigations
After he assumed office, Trump was the subject of increasing Justice Department and congressional scrutiny, with investigations covering his election campaign, transition, and inauguration, actions taken during his presidency, his private businesses, personal taxes, and charitable foundation. There were ten federal criminal investigations, eight state and local investigations, and twelve congressional investigations.
In April 2019, the House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas seeking financial details from Trump's banks, Deutsche Bank and Capital One, and his accounting firm, Mazars USA. Trump sued the banks, Mazars, and committee chair Elijah Cummings to prevent the disclosures. In May, DC District Court judge Amit Mehta ruled that Mazars must comply with the subpoena, and judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District Court of New York ruled that the banks must also comply. Trump's attorneys appealed. In September 2022, the committee and Trump agreed to a settlement about Mazars, and the accounting firm began turning over documents.
Russian election interference
In January 2017, American intelligence agencies—the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA, represented by the Director of National Intelligence—jointly stated with "high confidence" that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election to favor the election of Trump. In March 2017, FBI Director James Comey told Congress, "[T]he FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. That includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts."
Many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies were discovered and the relationships between Russians and "team Trump", including Manafort, Flynn, and Stone, were widely reported by the press. Members of Trump's campaign and his White House staff, particularly Flynn, were in contact with Russian officials both before and after the election. On December 29, 2016, Flynn talked with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions that were imposed that same day; Flynn later resigned in the midst of controversy over whether he misled Pence. Trump told Kislyak and Sergei Lavrov in May 2017 he was unconcerned about Russian interference in U.S. elections.
Trump and his allies promoted a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, interfered in the 2016 election—which was also promoted by Russia to frame Ukraine.
FBI Crossfire Hurricane and 2017 counterintelligence investigations
In July 2016, the FBI launched an investigation, codenamed Crossfire Hurricane, into possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. After Trump fired FBI director James Comey in May 2017, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Trump's personal and business dealings with Russia. Crossfire Hurricane was transferred to the Mueller investigation, but Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ended the investigation into Trump's direct ties to Russia while giving the bureau the false impression that the Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation would pursue the matter.
Mueller investigation
In May 2017, Rosenstein appointed former FBI director Mueller special counsel for the Department of Justice (DOJ), ordering him to "examine 'any links and/or coordination between the Russian government' and the Trump campaign". He privately told Mueller to restrict the investigation to criminal matters "in connection with Russia's 2016 election interference". The special counsel also investigated whether Trump's dismissal of James Comey as FBI director constituted obstruction of justice and the Trump campaign's possible ties to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Qatar, Israel, and China. Trump sought to fire Mueller and shut down the investigation multiple times but backed down after his staff objected or after changing his mind.
In March 2019, Mueller gave his final report to Attorney General William Barr, which Barr purported to summarize in a letter to Congress. A federal court, and Mueller himself, said Barr mischaracterized the investigation's conclusions and, in so doing, confused the public. Trump repeatedly claimed that the investigation exonerated him; the Mueller report expressly stated that it did not.
A redacted version of the report, publicly released in April 2019, found that Russia interfered in 2016 to favor Trump. Despite "numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign", the report found that the prevailing evidence "did not establish" that Trump campaign members conspired or coordinated with Russian interference. The report revealed sweeping Russian interference and detailed how Trump and his campaign welcomed and encouraged it, believing it would benefit them electorally.
The report also detailed multiple acts of potential obstruction of justice by Trump but "did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct". Investigators decided they could not "apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes" as an Office of Legal Counsel opinion stated that a sitting president could not be indicted, and investigators would not accuse him of a crime when he cannot clear his name in court. The report concluded that Congress, having the authority to take action against a president for wrongdoing, "may apply the obstruction laws". The House of Representatives subsequently launched an impeachment inquiry following the Trump–Ukraine scandal, but did not pursue an article of impeachment related to the Mueller investigation.
Several Trump associates pleaded guilty or were convicted in connection with Mueller's investigation and related cases, including Manafort and Flynn. Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about Trump's 2016 attempts to reach a deal with Russia to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen said he had made the false statements on behalf of Trump. In February 2020, Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison for lying to Congress and witness tampering. The sentencing judge said Stone "was prosecuted for covering up for the president".
First impeachment
In August 2019, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community about a July 25 phone call between Trump and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during which Trump had pressured Zelenskyy to investigate CrowdStrike and Democratic presidential candidate Biden and his son Hunter. The whistleblower said that the White House had attempted to cover up the incident and that the call was part of a wider campaign by the Trump administration and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani that may have included withholding financial aid from Ukraine in July 2019 and canceling Pence's May 2019 Ukraine trip.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initiated a formal impeachment inquiry on September 24. Trump then confirmed that he withheld military aid from Ukraine, offering contradictory reasons for the decision. On September 25, the Trump administration released a memorandum of the phone call which confirmed that, after Zelenskyy mentioned purchasing American anti-tank missiles, Trump asked him to discuss investigating Biden and his son with Giuliani and Barr. The testimony of multiple administration officials and former officials confirmed that this was part of a broader effort to further Trump's personal interests by giving him an advantage in the upcoming presidential election. In October, William B. Taylor Jr., the chargé d'affaires for Ukraine, testified before congressional committees that soon after arriving in Ukraine in June 2019, he found that Zelenskyy was being subjected to pressure directed by Trump and led by Giuliani. According to Taylor and others, the goal was to coerce Zelenskyy into making a public commitment to investigate the company that employed Hunter Biden, as well as rumors about Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He said it was made clear that until Zelenskyy made such an announcement, the administration would not release scheduled military aid for Ukraine and not invite Zelenskyy to the White House.
On December 13, the House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to pass two articles of impeachment: one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress. After debate, the House of Representatives impeached Trump on both articles on December 18.
Impeachment trial in the Senate
During the trial in January 2020, the House impeachment managers cited evidence to support charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress and asserted that Trump's actions were exactly what the founding fathers had in mind when they created the impeachment process.
Trump's lawyers did not deny the facts as presented in the charges but said Trump had not broken any laws or obstructed Congress. They argued that the impeachment was "constitutionally and legally invalid" because Trump was not charged with a crime and that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense.
On January 31, the Senate voted against allowing subpoenas for witnesses or documents. The impeachment trial was the first in U.S. history without witness testimony.
Trump was acquitted of both charges by the Republican majority. Senator Mitt Romney was the only Republican who voted to convict Trump on one charge, the abuse of power. Following his acquittal, Trump fired impeachment witnesses and other political appointees and career officials he deemed insufficiently loyal.
2020 presidential campaign
Breaking with precedent, Trump filed to run for a second term within a few hours of assuming the presidency. He held his first reelection rally less than a month after taking office and officially became the Republican nominee in August 2020.
In his first two years in office, Trump's reelection committee reported raising $67.5 million and began 2019 with $19.3 million in cash. By July 2020, the Trump campaign and the Republican Party had raised $1.1 billion and spent $800 million, losing their cash advantage over Biden. The cash shortage forced the campaign to scale back advertising spending.
Trump campaign advertisements focused on crime, claiming that cities would descend into lawlessness if Biden won. Trump repeatedly misrepresented Biden's positions and shifted to appeals to racism.
2020 presidential election
Starting in the spring of 2020, Trump began to sow doubts about the election, claiming without evidence that the election would be rigged and that the expected widespread use of mail balloting would produce massive election fraud. When, in August, the House of Representatives voted for a $25 billion grant to the U.S. Postal Service for the expected surge in mail voting, Trump blocked funding, saying he wanted to prevent any increase in voting by mail. He repeatedly refused to say whether he would accept the results if he lost and commit to a peaceful transition of power.
Biden won the election on November 3, receiving 81.3 million votes (51.3 percent) to Trump's 74.2 million (46.8 percent) and 306 Electoral College votes to Trump's 232.
False claims of voting fraud, attempt to prevent presidential transition
At 2 a.m. the morning after the election, with the results still unclear, Trump declared victory. After Biden was projected the winner days later, Trump stated that "this election is far from over" and baselessly alleged election fraud. Trump and his allies filed many legal challenges to the results, which were rejected by at least 86 judges in both the state and federal courts, including by federal judges appointed by Trump himself, finding no factual or legal basis. Trump's allegations were also refuted by state election officials. After Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency director Chris Krebs contradicted Trump's fraud allegations, Trump dismissed him on November 17. On December 11, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case from the Texas attorney general that asked the court to overturn the election results in four states won by Biden.
Trump withdrew from public activities in the weeks following the election. He initially blocked government officials from cooperating in Biden's presidential transition. After three weeks, the administrator of the General Services Administration declared Biden the "apparent winner" of the election, allowing the disbursement of transition resources to his team. Trump still did not formally concede while claiming he recommended the GSA begin transition protocols.
The Electoral College formalized Biden's victory on December 14. From November to January, Trump repeatedly sought help to overturn the results, personally pressuring Republican local and state office-holders, Republican state and federal legislators, the Justice Department, and Vice President Pence, urging various actions such as replacing presidential electors, or a request for Georgia officials to "find" votes and announce a "recalculated" result. On February 10, 2021, Georgia prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into Trump's efforts to subvert the election in Georgia.
Trump did not attend Biden's inauguration.
Concern about a possible coup attempt or military action
In December 2020, Newsweek reported the Pentagon was on red alert, and ranking officers had discussed what to do if Trump declared martial law. The Pentagon responded with quotes from defense leaders that the military has no role in the outcome of elections.
When Trump moved supporters into positions of power at the Pentagon after the November 2020 election, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and CIA director Gina Haspel became concerned about the threat of a possible coup attempt or military action against China or Iran. Milley insisted that he should be consulted about any military orders from Trump, including the use of nuclear weapons, and he instructed Haspel and NSA director Paul Nakasone to monitor developments closely.
January 6 Capitol attack
On January 6, 2021, while congressional certification of the presidential election results was taking place in the U.S. Capitol, Trump held a noon rally at the Ellipse, Washington, D.C.. He called for the election result to be overturned and urged his supporters to "take back our country" by marching to the Capitol to "fight like hell". Many supporters did, joining a crowd already there. The mob broke into the building, disrupting certification and causing the evacuation of Congress. During the violence, Trump posted messages on Twitter without asking the rioters to disperse. At 6 p.m., Trump tweeted that the rioters should "go home with love & in peace", calling them "great patriots" and repeating that the election was stolen. After the mob was removed, Congress reconvened and confirmed Biden's win in the early hours of the following morning. According to the Department of Justice, more than 140 police officers were injured, and five people died.
In March 2023, Trump collaborated with incarcerated rioters on a song to benefit the prisoners, and, in June, he said that, if elected, he would pardon many of them.
Second impeachment
On January 11, 2021, an article of impeachment charging Trump with incitement of insurrection against the U.S. government was introduced to the House. The House voted 232–197 to impeach Trump on January 13, making him the first U.S. president to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for the impeachment—the most members of a party ever to vote to impeach a president of their own party.
On February 13, following a five-day Senate trial, Trump was acquitted when the Senate vote fell ten votes short of the two-thirds majority required to convict; seven Republicans joined every Democrat in voting to convict, the most bipartisan support in any Senate impeachment trial of a president or former president. Most Republicans voted to acquit Trump, although some held him responsible but felt the Senate did not have jurisdiction over former presidents (Trump had left office on January 20; the Senate voted 56–44 that the trial was constitutional).
Post-presidency (2021–present)
At the end of his term, Trump went to live at his Mar-a-Lago club and established an office as provided for by the Former Presidents Act. Trump is entitled to live there legally as a club employee.
Trump's false claims concerning the 2020 election were commonly referred to as the "big lie" in the press and by his critics. In May 2021, Trump and his supporters attempted to co-opt the term, using it to refer to the election itself. The Republican Party used Trump's false election narrative to justify the imposition of new voting restrictions in its favor. As late as July 2022, Trump was still pressuring state legislators to overturn the 2020 election.
Unlike other former presidents, Trump continued to dominate his party; he has been described as a modern party boss. He continued fundraising, raising more than twice as much as the Republican Party itself, and profited from fundraisers many Republican candidates held at Mar-a-Lago. Much of his focus was on how elections are run and on ousting election officials who had resisted his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. In the 2022 midterm elections he endorsed over 200 candidates for various offices, most of whom supported his false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
Business activities
In February 2021, Trump registered a new company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), for providing "social networking services" to U.S. customers. In March 2024, TMTG merged with special-purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition and became a public company. In February 2022, TMTG launched Truth Social, a social media platform. As of March 2023, Trump Media, which had taken $8 million from Russia-connected entities, was being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible money laundering.
Investigations, criminal indictments and convictions, civil lawsuits
Trump is the only U.S. president or former president to be convicted of a crime and the first major-party candidate to run for president after a felony conviction. He faces numerous criminal charges and civil cases.
FBI investigations
When Trump left the White House in January 2021, he took government materials with him to Mar-a-Lago. By May 2021, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) realized that important documents had not been turned over to them and asked his office to locate them. In January 2022, they retrieved 15 boxes of White House records from Mar-a-Lago. NARA later informed the Department of Justice that some of the retrieved documents were classified material. The Justice Department began an investigation and sent Trump a subpoena for additional material. Justice Department officials visited Mar-a-Lago and received some classified documents from Trump's lawyers, one of whom signed a statement affirming that all material marked as classified had been returned.
On August 8, 2022, FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago to recover government documents and material Trump had taken with him when he left office in violation of the Presidential Records Act, reportedly including some related to nuclear weapons. The search warrant indicates an investigation of potential violations of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice laws. The items taken in the search included 11 sets of classified documents, four of them tagged as "top secret" and one as "top secret/SCI", the highest level of classification.
On November 18, 2022, U.S. attorney general Merrick Garland appointed federal prosecutor Jack Smith as a special counsel to oversee the federal criminal investigations into Trump retaining government property at Mar-a-Lago and examining Trump's role in the events leading up to the Capitol attack.
Criminal referral by the House January 6 Committee
On December 19, 2022, the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack recommended criminal charges against Trump for obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and inciting or assisting an insurrection.
Federal and state criminal indictments
In December 2022, following a jury trial, the Trump Organization was convicted on 17 counts of criminal tax fraud, conspiracy, and falsifying business records in connection with a tax-fraud scheme stretching over 15 years. In January 2023, the organization was fined the maximum $1.6 million, and its chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg was sentenced to jail and probation after a plea deal. Trump was not personally charged in the case.
In June 2023, following a special counsel investigation, a federal grand jury in Miami indicted Trump on 31 counts of "willfully retaining national defense information" under the Espionage Act, one count of making false statements, and one count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding government documents, corruptly concealing records, concealing a document in a federal investigation and scheming to conceal their efforts. He pleaded not guilty. A superseding indictment the following month added three charges. The judge assigned to the case, Aileen Cannon, was appointed to the bench by Trump and had previously issued rulings favorable to him in a past civil case, some of which were overturned by an appellate court. She moved slowly on the case, indefinitely postponed the trial in May 2024, and dismissed it on July 15, ruling that the special counsel's appointment was unconstitutional. On August 26, Special Counsel Smith appealed the dismissal.
On August 1, 2023, a Washington, D.C., federal grand jury indicted Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. He was charged with conspiring to defraud the U.S., obstruct the certification of the Electoral College vote, and deprive voters of the civil right to have their votes counted, and obstructing an official proceeding. Trump pleaded not guilty.
Later in August, a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury indicted Trump on 13 charges, including racketeering, for his efforts to subvert the election outcome in Georgia; multiple Trump campaign officials were also indicted. Trump surrendered, was processed at Fulton County Jail, and was released on bail pending trial. He pleaded not guilty. On March 13, 2024, the judge dismissed three of the 13 charges against Trump.
Criminal conviction in the 2016 campaign fraud case
During the 2016 presidential election campaign, American Media, Inc. (AMI), publisher of the National Enquirer, and a company set up by Cohen paid Playboy model Karen McDougal and adult film actress Stormy Daniels for keeping silent about their alleged affairs with Trump between 2006 and 2007. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to breaking campaign finance laws, saying he had arranged both payments at Trump's direction to influence the presidential election. Trump denied the affairs and said he was not aware of Cohen's payment to Daniels, but he reimbursed him in 2017. Federal prosecutors asserted that Trump had been involved in discussions regarding non-disclosure payments as early as 2014. Court documents showed that the FBI believed Trump was directly involved in the payment to Daniels, based on calls he had with Cohen in October 2016. Federal prosecutors closed the investigation in 2019, but in 2021, the New York State Attorney General's Office and Manhattan District Attorney's Office opened a criminal investigations into Trump's business activities. The Manhattan DA's Office subpoenaed the Trump Organization and AMI for records related to the payments and Trump and the Trump Organization for eight years of tax returns.
In March 2023, a New York grand jury indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to book the hush money payments to Daniels as business expenses, in an attempt to influence the 2016 election. The trial began in April 2024, and in May a jury convicted Trump on all 34 counts. Sentencing is set for November 26, 2024.
Civil judgments against Trump
In September 2022, the attorney general of New York filed a civil fraud case against Trump, his three oldest children, and the Trump Organization. During the investigation leading up to the lawsuit, Trump was fined $110,000 for failing to turn over records subpoenaed by the attorney general. In an August 2022 deposition, Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 400 times. The presiding judge ruled in September 2023 that Trump, his adult sons and the Trump Organization repeatedly committed fraud and ordered their New York business certificates canceled and their business entities sent into receivership for dissolution. In February 2024, the court found Trump liable, ordered him to pay a penalty of more than $350 million plus interest, for a total exceeding $450 million, and barred him from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or legal entity for three years. Trump said he would appeal the verdict. The judge also ordered the company to be overseen by the monitor appointed by the court in 2023 and an independent director of compliance, and that any "restructuring and potential dissolution" would be the decision of the monitor.
In May 2023, a New York jury in a federal lawsuit brought by journalist E. Jean Carroll in 2022 ("Carroll II") found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and ordered him to pay her $5 million. Trump asked for a new trial or a reduction of the award, arguing that the jury had not found him liable for rape. He also separately countersued Carroll for defamation. The judge for the two lawsuits ruled against Trump, writing that Carroll's accusation of "rape" is "substantially true". Trump appealed both decisions. In January 2024, the jury in the defamation case brought by Carroll in 2019 ("Carroll I") ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages. In March, Trump posted a $91.6 million bond and appealed.
2024 presidential campaign
On November 15, 2022, Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election and set up a fundraising account. In March 2023, the campaign began diverting 10 percent of the donations to Trump's leadership PAC. Trump's campaign had paid $100 million towards his legal bills by March 2024.
In December 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump disqualified for the Colorado Republican primary for his role in inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. In March 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court restored his name to the ballot in a unanimous decision, ruling that Colorado lacks the authority to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding federal office.
During the campaign, Trump made increasingly violent and authoritarian statements. He also said that he would weaponize the FBI and the Justice Department against his political opponents, and used harsher, more dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric than during his presidency. He mentioned "rigged election" and "election interference" earlier and more frequently than in the 2016 and 2020 campaigns and refused to commit to accepting the 2024 election results; analysts for The New York Times described this as an intensification of Trump's "heads I win; tails you cheated" rhetorical strategy.
On July 13, 2024, Trump's ear was grazed by a bullet in an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler Township, Pennsylvania. The campaign declined to disclose medical records. Two days later, the 2024 Republican National Convention nominated Trump as their presidential candidate, with Senator JD Vance as his running mate.
Public image
Scholarly assessment and public approval surveys
In the C-SPAN "Presidential Historians Survey 2021", historians ranked Trump as the fourth-worst president. He rated lowest in the leadership characteristics categories for moral authority and administrative skills. The Siena College Research Institute's 2022 survey ranked Trump 43rd out of 45 presidents. He was ranked near the bottom in all categories except for luck, willingness to take risks, and party leadership, and he ranked last in several categories. In 2018 and 2024, surveys of members of the American Political Science Association ranked Trump the worst president in American history.
Trump was the only president never to reach a 50 percent approval rating in the Gallup poll, which dates to 1938. His approval ratings showed a record-high partisan gap: 88 percent among Republicans and 7 percent among Democrats. Until September 2020, the ratings were unusually stable, reaching a high of 49 percent and a low of 35 percent. Trump finished his term with an approval rating between 29 and 34 percent—the lowest of any president since modern polling began—and a record-low average of 41 percent throughout his presidency.
In Gallup's annual poll asking Americans to name the man they admire the most, Trump placed second to Obama in 2017 and 2018, tied with Obama for first in 2019, and placed first in 2020. Since Gallup started conducting the poll in 1948, Trump is the first elected president not to be named most admired in his first year in office.
A Gallup poll in 134 countries comparing the approval ratings of U.S. leadership between 2016 and 2017 found that Trump led Obama in job approval in only 29 countries, most of them non-democracies; approval of U.S. leadership plummeted among allies and G7 countries. Overall ratings were similar to those in the last two years of the George W. Bush presidency. By mid-2020, only 16 percent of international respondents to a 13-nation Pew Research poll expressed confidence in Trump, lower than China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
False or misleading statements
As a candidate and as president, Trump frequently made false statements in public remarks to an extent unprecedented in American politics. His falsehoods became a distinctive part of his political identity.
Trump's false and misleading statements were documented by fact-checkers, including at The Washington Post, which tallied 30,573 false or misleading statements made by Trump over his four-year term. Trump's falsehoods increased in frequency over time, rising from about six false or misleading claims per day in his first year as president to 39 per day in his final year.
Some of Trump's falsehoods were inconsequential, such as his repeated claim of the "biggest inaugural crowd ever". Others had more far-reaching effects, such as his promotion of antimalarial drugs as an unproven treatment for COVID-19, causing a U.S. shortage of these drugs and panic-buying in Africa and South Asia. Other misinformation, such as misattributing a rise in crime in England and Wales to the "spread of radical Islamic terror", served Trump's domestic political purposes. Trump habitually does not apologize for his falsehoods.
Until 2018, the media rarely referred to Trump's falsehoods as lies, including when he repeated demonstrably false statements.
In 2020, Trump was a significant source of disinformation on mail-in voting and the COVID-19 pandemic. His attacks on mail-in ballots and other election practices weakened public faith in the integrity of the 2020 presidential election, while his disinformation about the pandemic delayed and weakened the national response to it.
Promotion of conspiracy theories
Before and throughout his presidency, Trump promoted numerous conspiracy theories, including Obama birtherism, the Clinton body count conspiracy theory, the conspiracy theory movement QAnon, the Global warming hoax theory, Trump Tower wiretapping allegations, a John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory involving Rafael Cruz, alleged foul-play in the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, alleged Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections, that Osama bin Laden was alive and Obama and Biden had members of Navy SEAL Team 6 killed, and linking talk show host Joe Scarborough to the death of a staffer. In at least two instances, Trump clarified to press that he believed the conspiracy theory in question.
During and since the 2020 presidential election, Trump promoted various conspiracy theories for his defeat including dead people voting, voting machines changing or deleting Trump votes, fraudulent mail-in voting, throwing out Trump votes, and "finding" suitcases full of Biden votes.
Incitement of violence
Research suggests Trump's rhetoric caused an increased incidence of hate crimes. During his 2016 campaign, he urged or praised physical attacks against protesters or reporters. Numerous defendants investigated or prosecuted for violent acts and hate crimes, including participants of the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol, cited Trump's rhetoric in arguing that they were not culpable or should receive leniency. A nationwide review by ABC News in May 2020 identified at least 54 criminal cases from August 2015 to April 2020 in which Trump was invoked in direct connection with violence or threats of violence mostly by white men and primarily against minorities.
Social media
Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after he joined Twitter in 2009. He tweeted frequently during his 2016 campaign and as president until Twitter banned him after the January 6 attack, in the final days of his term. Trump often used Twitter to communicate directly with the public and sideline the press. In June 2017, the White House press secretary said that Trump's tweets were official presidential statements.
After years of criticism for allowing Trump to post misinformation and falsehoods, Twitter began to tag some of his tweets with fact-checks in May 2020. In response, Trump tweeted that social media platforms "totally silence" conservatives and that he would "strongly regulate, or close them down". In the days after the storming of the Capitol, Trump was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms. The loss of his social media presence diminished his ability to shape events and prompted a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation shared on Twitter. Trump's early attempts to re-establish a social media presence were unsuccessful. In February 2022, he launched social media platform Truth Social where he only attracted a fraction of his Twitter following. Elon Musk, after acquiring Twitter, reinstated Trump's Twitter account in November 2022. Meta Platforms' two-year ban lapsed in January 2023, allowing Trump to return to Facebook and Instagram, although in 2024 Trump continued to call the company an "enemy of the people."
Relationship with the press
Trump sought media attention throughout his career, sustaining a "love-hate" relationship with the press. In the 2016 campaign, Trump benefited from a record amount of free media coverage, elevating his standing in the Republican primaries. The New York Times writer Amy Chozick wrote in 2018 that Trump's media dominance enthralled the public and created "must-see TV."
As a candidate and as president, Trump frequently accused the press of bias, calling it the "fake news media" and "the enemy of the people". In 2018, journalist Lesley Stahl recounted Trump's saying he intentionally discredited the media "so when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you".
As president, Trump mused about revoking the press credentials of journalists he viewed as critical. His administration moved to revoke the press passes of two White House reporters, which were restored by the courts. The Trump White House held about a hundred formal press briefings in 2017, declining by half during 2018 and to two in 2019.
Trump also deployed the legal system to intimidate the press. In early 2020, the Trump campaign sued The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN for defamation in opinion pieces about Russian election interference. All the suits were dismissed.
Racial views
Many of Trump's comments and actions have been considered racist. In national polling, about half of respondents said that Trump is racist; a greater proportion believed that he emboldened racists. Several studies and surveys found that racist attitudes fueled Trump's political ascent and were more important than economic factors in determining the allegiance of Trump voters. Racist and Islamophobic attitudes are a powerful indicator of support for Trump.
In 1975, he settled a 1973 Department of Justice lawsuit that alleged housing discrimination against black renters. He has also been accused of racism for insisting a group of black and Latino teenagers were guilty of raping a white woman in the 1989 Central Park jogger case, even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence in 2002. As of 2019, he maintained this position.
In 2011, when he was reportedly considering a presidential run, he became the leading proponent of the racist "birther" conspiracy theory, alleging that Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, was not born in the U.S. In April, he claimed credit for pressuring the White House to publish the "long-form" birth certificate, which he considered fraudulent, and later said this made him "very popular". In September 2016, amid pressure, he acknowledged that Obama was born in the U.S. In 2017, he reportedly expressed birther views privately.
According to an analysis in Political Science Quarterly, Trump made "explicitly racist appeals to whites" during his 2016 presidential campaign. In particular, his campaign launch speech drew widespread criticism for claiming Mexican immigrants were "bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists". His later comments about a Mexican-American judge presiding over a civil suit regarding Trump University were also criticized as racist.
Trump's comments on the 2017 Unite the Right rally, condemning "this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides" and stating that there were "very fine people on both sides", were widely criticized as implying a moral equivalence between the white supremacist demonstrators and the counter-protesters.
In a January 2018 discussion of immigration legislation, Trump reportedly referred to El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, and African nations as "shithole countries". His remarks were condemned as racist.
In July 2019, Trump tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen—all from minorities, three of whom are native-born Americans—should "go back" to the countries they "came from". Two days later the House of Representatives voted 240–187, mostly along party lines, to condemn his "racist comments". White nationalist publications and social media praised his remarks, which continued over the following days. Trump continued to make similar remarks during his 2020 campaign.
Misogyny and allegations of sexual misconduct
Trump has a history of insulting and belittling women when speaking to the media and on social media. He made lewd comments, disparaged women's physical appearances, and referred to them using derogatory epithets. At least 26 women publicly accused Trump of rape, kissing, and groping without consent; looking under women's skirts; and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants. Trump has denied the allegations.
In October 2016, two days before the second presidential debate, a 2005 "hot mic" recording surfaced in which Trump was heard bragging about kissing and groping women without their consent, saying that "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab 'em by the pussy." The incident's widespread media exposure led to Trump's first public apology during the campaign and caused outrage across the political spectrum.
Popular culture
Trump has been the subject of comedy and caricature on television, in films, and in comics. He was named in hundreds of hip hop songs from 1989 until 2015; most of these cast Trump in a positive light, but they turned largely negative after he began running for office.
Notes
References
Works cited
External links
Archive of Donald Trump's tweets
Appearances on C-SPAN
Donald Trump at IMDb
Donald Trump on the Internet Archive
Donald Trump's page on whitehouse.gov |
Treaty_of_Resht | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Resht | [
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Resht"
] | The Treaty of Resht was signed between the Russian Empire and Safavid Empire in Rasht on 21 January 1732. According to this treaty Russia waived its claim to any territory south of the Kura River. This included return of the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Astarabad, conquered by Peter I in the early 1720s. The Iranian cities of Derbent, Tarki, Ganja, etc. north of the Kura river would be returned three years later. In return, the Persians, now de facto ruled by the militarily successful Nader Shah granted trade privileges to the Russian merchants and promised to restore the Georgian king Vakhtang VI, then residing in exile in Russia, on the throne of Kartli as soon as the Ottoman troops could be expelled from that country. The provisions were confirmed by the 1735 Treaty of Ganja, according which treaty all the regions north of the Kura river were returned as well.
See also
Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1723)
== References == |
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan"
] | On March 30, 1981, then President of the United States Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John Hinckley Jr. in Washington, D.C., as he was returning to his limousine after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton. Hinckley believed the attack would impress actress Jodie Foster, with whom he had developed an erotomanic obsession after viewing her in the 1976 film Taxi Driver.
Reagan was seriously wounded by a revolver bullet that ricocheted off the side of the presidential limousine and hit him in the left underarm, breaking a rib, puncturing a lung, and causing serious internal bleeding. He was close to death upon arrival at George Washington University Hospital but was stabilized in the emergency room; he then underwent emergency exploratory surgery. He recovered and was released from the hospital on April 11. No formal invocation of sections 3 or 4 of the Constitution's 25th amendment (concerning the vice president assuming the president's powers and duties) took place, though Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated that he was "in control here" at the White House until Vice President George H. W. Bush returned to Washington from Fort Worth, Texas. Haig was fourth in the line of succession after Bush, Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, and president pro tempore of the Senate Strom Thurmond.
White House press secretary James Brady, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy, and D.C. police officer Thomas Delahanty were also wounded. All three survived, but Brady had brain damage and was permanently disabled. His death in 2014 was considered a homicide because it was ultimately caused by his injury.
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on charges of attempting to assassinate the president. He remained confined to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a D.C. psychiatric facility. In January 2015, federal prosecutors announced that they would not charge Hinckley with Brady's death, despite the medical examiner's classification of his death as a homicide. Hinckley was released from institutional psychiatric care on September 10, 2016.
Hinckley's motivation
John Hinckley Jr. had erotomania and his motivation for the attack was born of his obsession with then-child actress Jodie Foster. While living in Hollywood in the late 1970s, he saw the film Taxi Driver at least 15 times, apparently identifying strongly with protagonist Travis Bickle, portrayed by actor Robert De Niro. The story involves Bickle's attempts to save a child prostitute played by Foster. Toward the end of the film, Bickle attempts to assassinate a United States senator who is running for president. Over the following years, Hinckley trailed Foster around the country, going so far as to enroll in a writing course at Yale University in 1980 after reading in People magazine that she was a student there. He wrote numerous letters and notes to her in late 1980. He called her twice and refused to give up when she indicated that she was not interested in him.
Hinckley was convinced that he would be Foster's equal if he became a national figure. He decided to emulate Bickle and began stalking President Jimmy Carter. He was surprised at how easy it was to get close to the president—he was only a foot away at one event—but was arrested in October 1980 at Nashville International Airport and fined for illegal possession of a firearm.: 70, 251 Carter had made a campaign stop there, but the FBI did not connect this arrest to the president and did not notify the Secret Service. His parents briefly placed him under the care of a psychiatrist. Hinckley turned his attention to Ronald Reagan, whose election, he told his parents, would be good for the country. He wrote three or four more notes to Foster in early March 1981. Foster gave these notes to a Yale dean, who gave them to the Yale police department, who sought but failed to track Hinckley down.
Attempted assassination
On March 21, 1981, new president Ronald Reagan, who took office on January 20, 1981, and his wife Nancy visited Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., for a fundraising event. In his autobiography An American Life, Reagan recalled,
I looked up at the presidential box above the stage where Abe Lincoln had been sitting the night he was shot and felt a curious sensation ... I thought that even with all the Secret Service protection we now had, it was probably still possible for someone who had enough determination to get close enough to the president to shoot him.
Speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel
On March 28, Hinckley arrived in Washington, D.C., by bus and checked into the Park Central Hotel. He originally intended to continue on to New Haven in another attempt to infatuate Foster.: 23 He noticed Reagan's schedule that was published in The Washington Star and decided it was time to act. Hinckley knew that he might be killed during the assassination attempt, and he wrote but did not mail a letter to Foster about two hours prior to his attempt on the president's life. In the letter, he said that he hoped to impress her with the magnitude of his action and that he would "abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart and live out the rest of my life with you.": 58
On March 30, Reagan delivered a luncheon address to AFL–CIO representatives at the Washington Hilton. The Secret Service was very familiar with the hotel, having inspected it more than 100 times for presidential visits since the early 1970s. The Hilton was considered the safest venue in Washington because of its secure, enclosed passageway called "President's Walk", built after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. Reagan entered the building through the passageway at about 1:45 p.m., waving to a crowd of news media and citizens. The Secret Service had required him to wear a bulletproof vest for some events, but Reagan was not wearing one for the speech, because his only public exposure would be the 30 feet (9 m) between the hotel and his limousine, and the agency did not require vests for agents that day. No one saw Hinckley behaving in an unusual way. Witnesses who reported him as "fidgety" and "agitated" apparently confused Hinckley with another person that the Secret Service had been monitoring.
Shooting
At 2:27 p.m.,: 82 Reagan exited the hotel through "President's Walk" on Florida Avenue, where reporters waited. He left the T Street NW exit toward his waiting limousine as Hinckley waited within the crowd of admirers. The Secret Service had extensively screened those attending the president's speech, but greatly erred by allowing an unscreened group to stand within 15 ft (4.5 m) of him, behind a rope line.: 80–81, 225 The agency uses multiple layers of protection. Local police in the outer layer briefly check people, Secret Service agents in the middle layer check for weapons and more agents form the inner layer immediately around the president. Hinckley had penetrated the first two layers.
As several hundred people applauded Reagan, the president unexpectedly passed right in front of Hinckley. Reporters standing behind a rope barricade 20 feet (6 m) away asked questions. As Mike Putzel of the Associated Press shouted "Mr. President—", Hinckley assumed a crouch position: 81 and rapidly fired a Röhm RG-14 .22 LR blue steel revolver six times in 1.7 seconds,: 82 missing the president with all six shots.
The first round hit White House press secretary James Brady in the head above his left eye, passing through underneath his brain and shattering his brain cavity. The small explosive charge in the round exploded on impact. District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty recognized the sound as a gunshot and turned his head sharply to the left to identify the shooter.: 82 As he did so, he was struck in the back of his neck by the second shot, the bullet ricocheting off his spine. Delahanty fell on top of Brady, screaming "I am hit!".
Hinckley now had a clear shot at the president,: 81 but Alfred Antenucci, a Cleveland, Ohio labor official who was standing nearby, saw Hinckley fire the first two shots, hit him in the head and began to wrestle him to the ground. Upon hearing the shots, Special Agent in Charge Jerry Parr almost instantly grabbed Reagan by the shoulders and dived with him toward the open rear door of the limousine. Agent Ray Shaddick trailed just behind Parr to assist in throwing both men into the car. The third round overshot the president, instead hitting the window of a building across the street. Parr's actions likely saved Reagan from being hit in the head.: 224
As Parr pushed Reagan into the limousine, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy snapped his attention toward the sound of the gunfire, pivoted to his right, and placed himself in the line of fire. McCarthy spread his arms and legs, taking a wide stance directly in front of Reagan and Parr to make himself a target. McCarthy was struck in the lower abdomen by the fourth round, the bullet traversing his right lung, diaphragm and right lobe of the liver. The fifth round hit the bullet-resistant glass of the window on the open rear door of the limousine as Reagan and Parr were passing behind it. The sixth and final bullet ricocheted off the armored side of the limousine, passed between the space of the open rear door and vehicle frame and hit the president in the left underarm. The round grazed a rib and lodged in his lung, causing it to partially collapse before stopping less than an inch (25 mm) from his heart.
Within moments of the first shots, Secret Service agent Dennis McCarthy (not a familial relation of agent Tim McCarthy) dove across the sidewalk and landed directly on Hinckley, as others pushed Hinckley to the ground.: 84 Another Cleveland-area labor official, Frank J. McNamara, joined Antenucci and started punching Hinckley in the head, striking him so hard that he drew blood. Dennis McCarthy later reported that he had to "strike two citizens" to force them to release Hinckley. Secret Service agent Robert Wanko deployed an Uzi submachine gun concealed in a briefcase to cover the president's evacuation, and to deter a potential group attack.
The day after the shooting, Hinckley's gun was given to the ATF, which traced its origin. In just 16 minutes, agents found that the gun had been purchased at Rocky's Pawn Shop in Dallas, Texas on October 13, 1980. It had been loaded with six Devastator brand cartridges, which contained small aluminum and lead azide explosive charges designed to explode on contact, but the bullet that hit Brady was the only one that exploded. On April 2, after learning that the others could explode at any time, volunteer doctors wearing bulletproof vests removed the bullet from Delahanty's neck.: 223
George Washington University Hospital
After the Secret Service first announced "shots fired" over its radio network at 2:27 p.m., Reagan—codename "Rawhide"—was removed from the scene by the agents in the limousine ("Stagecoach").: 66 No one knew that Reagan had been shot. After Parr searched Reagan's body and found no blood, he stated that "Rawhide is OK...we're going to Crown" (the White House), as he preferred its medical facilities to those of an unsecured hospital.
Reagan was in great pain from the bullet that struck his rib, and believed that his rib had cracked when Parr pushed him into the limousine. When the agent checked him for gunshot wounds, Reagan coughed up bright, frothy blood. Although the president believed that he had cut his lip, Parr assessed that the cracked rib had punctured Reagan's lung and ordered the motorcade to divert to nearby George Washington University Hospital, which the Secret Service periodically inspected for use. The limousine arrived there less than four minutes after leaving the hotel, while other agents took Hinckley to a D.C. jail, and Nancy Reagan ("Rainbow") left the White House for the hospital.
Although Parr had requested a stretcher, none were ready at the hospital, which did not normally station a stretcher at the emergency department's entrance. Reagan exited the limousine and insisted on walking. He acted casually and smiled at onlookers as he entered the hospital. While he entered the hospital unassisted, once inside, Reagan complained of difficulty breathing, his knees buckled and he fell to one knee. Parr and others assisted him into the emergency department. The physician to the president Daniel Ruge had been near Reagan during the shooting and arrived in a separate car. Believing that the president might have experienced a heart attack, Ruge insisted that the hospital's trauma team operate on Reagan as they would any other patient.: 106–107 When a hospital employee asked Reagan aide Michael Deaver for the patient's name and address, only when Deaver stated "1600 Pennsylvania" did the worker realize that the president was in the emergency department.: 107–108
The medical team, led by Joseph Giordano, cut Reagan's "thousand-dollar" custom-made suit in order to examine him. Reagan complained about the cost of the ruined suit, which was cited by an assistant in a press briefing to reassure the public that the president was in stable health. Military officers, including the one who carried the nuclear football, unsuccessfully tried to prevent FBI agents from confiscating the suit, Reagan's wallet and other possessions as evidence. The Gold Codes card was in the wallet, and the FBI did not return it until two days later.
The medical personnel found that Reagan's systolic blood pressure was 60 compared to the normal 140, indicating that he was in shock, and knew that most 70-year-olds in the president's condition would not survive.: 108 However, Reagan was in excellent physical health, and had been shot by a .22 (5.6 mm)-caliber bullet instead of a larger .38 (9.7 mm) as was first feared. They treated him with intravenous fluids, oxygen, tetanus toxoid and chest tubes and surprised Parr—who still believed that he had cracked the president's rib—by finding the entrance of the gunshot wound. Doctors operated on Brady and the wounded agent Tim McCarthy near the president.
When Nancy Reagan arrived in the emergency department, Reagan remarked to her, "Honey, I forgot to duck", borrowing boxer Jack Dempsey's line to his wife from the night on which he was beaten by Gene Tunney. While intubated, he scribbled to a nurse, "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia", borrowing a line from W. C. Fields. Although Reagan came close to death, the team's quick action—and Parr's decision to drive to the hospital instead of the White House—likely saved the president's life. Within 30 minutes, Reagan left the emergency department for surgery, with normal blood pressure. He then underwent emergency exploratory surgery to check for organ damage and remove the bullet. The chief of thoracic surgery, Benjamin L. Aaron, performed a thoracotomy lasting 105 minutes because the bleeding persisted. Ultimately, Reagan lost over half of his blood volume in the emergency department and during surgery, but the bullet was successfully removed.
In the operating room, Reagan removed his oxygen mask to joke, "I hope you are all Republicans." The doctors and nurses laughed, and Giordano, a Democrat, replied, "Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.": 147 Reagan's post-operative course was complicated by fever, which was treated with antibiotics. Because Reagan had entered the operating room conscious and not in shock, and the surgery was routine, his doctors and others predicted that he could leave the hospital in two weeks, return to work at the Oval Office in a month and completely heal in six to eight weeks with no long-term effects.
Immediate response
National Security Advisor Richard Allen would traditionally be responsible for crisis management for the executive branch, but Secretary of State Alexander Haig wanted the role. Six days before the shooting, Vice President George H. W. Bush received the assignment instead. Allen and the National Security Council would assist him. Reagan persuaded an upset Haig not to resign. The secretary reportedly "pound[ed] the table in frustration and anger." When news of the assassination attempt reached the White House, Haig was there. He urged the vice president—visiting Texas for the first time since the inauguration—to return, but the voice connection to Bush aboard Air Force Two was weak, and it is unknown whether they heard each other.
By 2:35 p.m., Bush was notified of the shooting. He was leaving Fort Worth, Texas and, relying on the initial reports that Reagan was unharmed, he flew to Austin for a speech. At 3:14 p.m., 47 minutes after the shooting, Haig sent a coded teletype message to Bush:
MR. VICE PRESIDENT: IN THE INCIDENT YOU WILL HAVE HEARD ABOUT BY NOW, THE PRESIDENT WAS STRUCK IN THE BACK AND IS IN SERIOUS CONDITION. MEDICAL AUTHORITIES ARE DECIDING NOW WHETHER OR NOT TO OPERATE. RECOMMEND YOU RETURN TO DC AT EARLIEST POSSIBLE MOMENT. SECRETARY ALEXANDER HAIG, JR.
Air Force Two refueled in Austin before returning to Washington, at what its pilot described as the fastest speed in the plane's history. The aircraft did not have secure voice communications, and Bush's discussions with the White House were intercepted and given to the press.
White House counsel Fred Fielding immediately prepared for a transfer of presidential powers under the 25th Amendment, and chief of staff James A. Baker and counselor to the President Edwin Meese went to Reagan's hospital still believing that the president was unharmed. Within five minutes of the shooting, members of the Cabinet began gathering in the White House Situation Room. The Cabinet and the Secret Service were initially unsure whether the shooting was part of a larger attack by terrorists, or that of a foreign intelligence service such as the KGB. Tensions with the Soviet Union were high because of the Solidarity movement in communist Poland.
The Cabinet was also concerned that the Soviets would take advantage of the unstable situation to launch a nuclear attack. After the shooting, the American military detected two Soviet ballistic missile submarines patrolling unusually close to the East Coast of the United States, which could allow their missiles to reach Washington, D.C. two minutes faster than usual.: 175–177 Defense secretary Caspar Weinberger responded by placing the Strategic Air Command on high alert. Haig, Weinberger and Allen discussed various issues, including the location of the nuclear football, the submarine presence, a possible Soviet invasion against the 1981 warning strike in Poland and the presidential line of succession. Although tape recorders are not normally allowed in the Situation Room, these meetings were recorded with the participants' knowledge by Allen, and the five hours of tapes have since been made public.
The group obtained a duplicate nuclear football and Gold Codes card and kept it in the Situation Room. Reagan's football was still with the officer at the hospital, and Bush also had a card and football.: 155 The participants discussed whether to raise the military's alert status and the importance of doing so without changing the DEFCON level. They eventually determined that the number of Soviet submarines was normal. A pair of Soviet submarines was assuming the patrol area from another pair, a relief operation that routinely occurred at the end of a month. However, one of the four submarines was patrolling unusually close to the coast. In consideration of the ongoing tensions over Poland, Weinberger ordered the Strategic Air Command be placed on alert, but he did not reveal the alert status to the public.
Upon learning that Reagan was in surgery, Haig declared, the "helm is right here. And that means right in this chair for now, constitutionally, until the vice president gets here". However, Haig was incorrect. As the sitting Secretary of State, he was fourth behind Vice President Bush, Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, and President pro tempore of the Senate Strom Thurmond in the line of succession. Under 3 U.S.C. § 19, O'Neill and Thurmond would have to resign their positions to become acting president. Although others in the room knew that Haig's statement was constitutionally incorrect, they did not object at the time, to avoid a confrontation. Allen later said that although Haig "constantly, incessantly drummed on some variant of 'I am in charge, I am senior'", he and Fielding "didn't give a rat's ass" as Bush would be in charge when he arrived.
At the same time, a press conference was under way in the White House Briefing Room. CBS reporter Lesley Stahl asked deputy press secretary Larry Speakes who was running the government, to which Speakes responded, "I cannot answer that question at this time". Upon hearing Speakes's remark, Haig wrote and passed a note to Speakes, ordering him to leave the dais immediately.: 171–173 Moments later, Haig entered the Briefing Room, where he made the following controversial statement:
Constitutionally, gentlemen, you have the president, the vice president and the secretary of state, in that order, and should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending the return of the vice president and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course.
Despite his familiarity with the Briefing Room from serving as Richard Nixon's chief of staff, Stahl described Haig as "visibly shaken", and the Associated Press wrote that "his voice continually choked up and quavered with emotion, and his arms trembled". Those in the Situation Room reportedly laughed when they heard him say "I am in control here", and Allen later said "I was astounded that he would say something so eminently stupid". Haig later said,
I wasn't talking about transition. I was talking about the executive branch, who is running the government. That was the question asked. It was not "Who is in line should the President die?"
Although Haig stated in the Briefing Room that "There are absolutely no alert measures that are necessary at this time or contemplated", while he was speaking, Weinberger raised the military's alert level. After Haig returned to the Situation Room, he objected to Weinberger doing so, as it made him appear a liar, although as deputy commander-in-chief, only Reagan outranked Weinberger in the National Command Authority. Weinberger and others accused Haig of exceeding his authority with his "I am in control" statement, while Haig defended himself by advising the others to "read the Constitution", saying that his comments did not involve "succession" and that he knew the "pecking order".
Aboard Air Force Two, Bush watched Haig's press briefing. Meese told him that Reagan was stable after surgery to remove the bullet. The vice president arrived at Andrews Air Force Base at 6:30 p.m. and decided to not fly by helicopter to the White House. He said to a military aide "only the president lands on the South Lawn". Bush later said in an interview that landing on the South Lawn would have "made for great TV", but would have sent the wrong message to the country, and pointed out that the South Lawn was situated under the president's bedroom window, where the First Lady was waiting for news of Reagan's surgery. Marine Two instead flew to Number One Observatory Circle.
"Despite brief flare-ups and distractions", Allen recalled, "the crisis management team in the Situation Room worked well together. The congressional leadership was kept informed, and governments around the world were notified and reassured." Reagan's surgery ended at 6:20 p.m., although he did not regain consciousness until 7:30 p.m., so could not invoke Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to make Bush acting president. The vice president arrived at the White House at 7:00 p.m., and did not invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.
Bush took charge of the Situation Room meeting, which received an update that the planned Polish national strike was cancelled. They evaluated new satellite images from Eastern Europe that showed no Soviet troop movements near Poland. They further assessed that Hinckley Jr. was likely acting alone after being informed of his October 1980 arrest record in Nashville, which suggested that he had been trailing then-President Carter. Bush stated on national television at 8:20 p.m.:
I can reassure this nation and a watching world that the American government is functioning fully and effectively. We've had full and complete communications throughout the day.
Investigation
The FBI took over the investigation on Saturday. Agents obtained a warrant and searched the shooter's hotel room. Before touching anything, the entire room was filmed and photographed. Fingerprints were then sought in case there was an accomplice.
According to Agent Thomas J. Baker: "What we found in Mr Hinckley's room was bizarre. On the desk, so that we could find him, was his entire plan. He had left a map of where he was going. He had the morning paper open with the president's diary. He publicised the fact that Reagan would be speaking to a union group in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton. Strangest of all was a statement - a letter to actress Jodie Foster proclaiming that he was committing a historic act, a presidential assassination, to impress her.".
The serial number of Hinckley's revolver was provided to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. It quickly determined where Hinckley bought the gun. The police gathered the witnesses in the auditorium where the president had given a speech. Secret Service agents who were witnesses or had other first-hand information were identified.
According to Agent Thomas J. Baker: "Our follow-up investigation, which lasted weeks, traced Mr Hinckley's history over the previous months. We determined that he had travelled the country, gone to firing ranges and, in fact, was obsessed with Ms Foster. He had planned and committed an assassination attempt on the president. He was a mentally disturbed man.".
Public reaction
The assassination attempt was captured on electronic news-gathering videotape by several cameras, including those belonging to the Big Three television networks. ABC began airing footage at 2:42 p.m. All three networks erroneously reported that Brady had died. When ABC News anchorman Frank Reynolds, a friend of Brady, was later forced to retract the report, he angrily said on-air to his staff, "C'mon, let's get it nailed down!", as a result of the miscommunication. ABC News also initially reported that President Reagan had not been injured. A network erroneously reported that he was undergoing open-heart surgery.: 133, 185
While CNN did not have a camera of its own at the shooting, it was able to use NBC's pool feed, and by staying on the story for 48 hours, the network, less than a year old, built a reputation for thoroughness. Shocked Americans gathered around television sets in homes and shopping centers. Some cited the alleged Curse of Tippecanoe, and others recalled the assassinations of Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Newspapers printed extra editions and used gigantic headlines; the United States Senate adjourned, interrupting debate of Reagan's economic proposals; and churches held prayer services.
Hinckley asked the arresting officers whether that night's Academy Awards ceremony would be postponed because of the shooting, and it was. The ceremony—for which former actor Reagan had taped a message—occurred the next evening. The president survived surgery with a good prognosis. The NCAA championship basketball game that evening between Indiana and North Carolina was not postponed, although the audience of 18,000 in Philadelphia held a moment of silence before the game, which Indiana won. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined before the New York Stock Exchange closed early, but the index rose the next day as Reagan recovered. Beyond having to postpone its Academy Awards broadcast, ABC temporarily renamed the lead character of The Greatest American Hero, which had debuted in March, from "Ralph Hinkley" to "Hanley", and NBC postponed a forthcoming episode of Walking Tall titled "Hit Man".
Aftermath
Jodie Foster
The incident was a traumatic experience for the 18-year-old Foster, who was hounded by the media and paparazzi in its aftermath. She took a semester off at Yale and had to be escorted by a bodyguard everywhere she went. This event produced other stalkers for her, including a 22-year-old man named Edward Michael Richardson, who according to the Secret Service shared a similar obsession with Foster, and carried a loaded handgun planning to kill her, but changed his mind after watching her perform in a college play.
Hinckley demanded that Foster testify at his trial. Agreement was reached between Foster's and Hinckley lawyers that she would do so in a closed session, with only herself, the judge (Barrington D. Parker), lawyers and Hinckley present. A videotape of this session could be introduced as evidence into Hinckley's trial. This session took place in March 1982. During her testimony, Foster did not look at or acknowledge Hinckley. This caused him to throw a pen at her and shout threats, before he was surrounded and removed from the room by marshals.
Since the attempted assassination, Foster has only commented on Hinckley on four occasions: a press conference a few days after the attack, an article she wrote for Esquire magazine in 1982 after his sentencing, during an interview with Charlie Rose on 60 Minutes II in 1999, and while speaking to comedian and actor Marc Maron on his podcast WTF with Marc Maron in 2021. She has ended or canceled several interviews if the event was mentioned, or if she felt that an interviewer was going to bring Hinckley up. To Maron, Foster said that she voluntarily chose not to speak about the incident in interviews to avoid being labelled as an actress primarily remembered for that incident, and reflected on how her mother, a former publicist, helped her in overcoming the media frenzy, and the public's obsession with her involvement.
Ronald Reagan
Reagan's staff members were anxious for the president to appear to be recovering quickly, and the morning after his operation he saw visitors and signed a piece of legislation. Reagan left the hospital on the morning of April 11. Entering the limousine was difficult, and he joked that the first thing he would do at home was "sit down".
Reagan's recovery speed impressed his doctors, but they advised the president not to work in the Oval Office for a week and avoid travel for several weeks. No visitors were scheduled for his first weekend. Initially, Reagan worked two hours a day in the White House's residential quarters. Reagan did not lead a Cabinet meeting until day 26, did not leave Washington until day 49, and did not hold a press conference until day 79. Ruge, the physician to the president, thought recovery was not complete until October. Reagan's plans for the month after the shooting were canceled, including a visit to the Mission Control Center at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, in April 1981 during STS-1, the first flight of the Space Shuttle. Vice President Bush instead called the orbiting astronauts during their mission. Reagan visited Mission Control during STS-2 that November.
The events contributed to Reagan's initial popularity. Though he had enjoyed approval ratings of up to 60% until March, his ratings surged to nearly 70% in the following months. Privately, Reagan believed that God had spared his life so that he might go on to fulfill a greater purpose and, although not a Catholic, meetings with Mother Teresa, Cardinal Terence Cooke, and fellow shooting survivor Pope John Paul II reinforced his belief.
Reagan returned to the Oval Office on April 25 and received a standing ovation from staff and Cabinet members. He referred to their teamwork in his absence and insisted, "I should be applauding you." He made his first public appearance in an April 28 speech before the joint houses of Congress. In the speech, he introduced his planned spending cuts, which had been a campaign promise. He received "two thunderous standing ovations", which The New York Times deemed "a salute to his good health" as well as his programs, which the president introduced using a medical recovery theme. Reagan installed a gym in the White House and began regularly exercising there, gaining so much muscle that he had to buy new suits. The shooting caused Nancy Reagan to fear for her husband's safety, however. She asked him to not run for reelection in 1984, and, because of her concerns, began consulting astrologer Joan Quigley. Reagan never again walked across an airport tarmac or got out of his limousine on a public sidewalk as president.
Delahanty, Tim McCarthy, and Brady
Thomas Delahanty recovered but developed permanent nerve damage to his left arm, and was ultimately forced to retire from the Metropolitan Police Department due to his disability. Tim McCarthy recovered fully and was the first of the wounded men to be discharged from the hospital. James Brady survived, but his wound left him with slurred speech and partial paralysis that required the full-time use of a wheelchair.
Brady remained press secretary for the remainder of Reagan's administration, but this was primarily a titular role. Later, Brady and his wife Sarah became leading advocates of gun control and other actions to reduce the amount of gun violence in the United States. They became active in the lobbying organization Handgun Control, Inc.—which was eventually renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence—and founded the non-profit Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was passed in 1993 as a result of their work. Brady died on August 4, 2014, in Alexandria, Virginia, at the age of 73.
Following Brady's death in 2014, the District of Columbia Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide stemming from wounds caused by the Hinckley assassination attempt. This ruling raised the possibility that Hinckley could face additional future murder charges. However, prosecutors declined to do so for two reasons. First, a jury had already declared Hinckley insane at the time of the shooting, and the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy would preclude overturning this ruling on account of Brady's death. Second, in 1981 Washington, D.C., still had the common law "year and a day" rule in place. Although the year and a day rule had been abolished in the district prior to 2014, the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto law would preclude the upgrading of charges for deaths resulting today from acts committed while the rule was in effect, and would prohibit the government from challenging Hinckley's successful insanity defense based on the current federal law.
The shooting of Reagan exacerbated the debate on gun control in the U.S., that began with the December 1980 handgun murder of John Lennon. Reagan expressed opposition to increased handgun control following Lennon's death and reiterated his opposition after his own shooting. However, in a speech at an event marking the assassination attempt's 10th anniversary, Reagan endorsed the Brady Act:
"Anniversary" is a word we usually associate with happy events that we like to remember: birthdays, weddings, the first job. March 30, however, marks an anniversary I would just as soon forget, but cannot... four lives were changed forever, and all by a Saturday-night special – a cheaply made .22 caliber pistol – purchased in a Dallas pawnshop by a young man with a history of mental disturbance. This nightmare might never have happened if legislation that is before Congress now – the Brady bill – had been law back in 1981... If the passage of the Brady bill were to result in a reduction of only 10 or 15 percent of those numbers (and it could be a good deal greater), it would be well worth making it the law of the land. And there would be a lot fewer families facing anniversaries such as the Bradys, Delahantys, [Tim] McCarthys and Reagans face every March 30.
In 1994, Reagan made numerous appeals to support the Federal Assault Weapons Ban in the House of Representatives. At least two representatives, Republican Scott L. Klug and Democrat Richard Swett, credit Reagan's efforts for their decision to vote for the bill, which eventually passed by a 216–214 margin.
Parr
After the assassination attempt, Jerry Parr was hailed as a hero. He received Congressional commendations for his actions, and was named one of four "Top Cops" in the U.S. by Parade magazine. He later wrote about the assassination attempt in his autobiography, calling it both the best and the worst day of his life. Parr came to believe that God had directed his life so that he could one day save the president's life, and became a pastor after retiring from the Secret Service in 1985.[13]:224 He died of congestive heart failure at a hospice in Washington, D.C., on October 9, 2015, aged 85.
Antenucci and McNamara
Antenucci and McNamara both became ill following the assassination attempt. McNamara died on September 18, 1981, six months after the attempted assassination at the age of 62. Antenucci died on May 9, 1984, aged 71.
John Hinckley
Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21, 1982. The defense psychiatric reports had found him to be insane while the prosecution reports declared him legally sane. Following his lawyers' advice, he declined to take the stand in his own defense. Hinckley was confined at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., full-time until 2006, at which point he began a program of spending gradually more time at his mother's home.
On September 10, 2016, Hinckley was permitted to permanently leave the hospital to live with his mother full-time, under court supervision and with mandatory psychiatric treatment. After his trial, he wrote that the shooting was "the greatest love offering in the history of the world", and did not indicate any regrets at the time.
The not-guilty verdict led to widespread dismay, and, as a result, the U.S. Congress and a number of states rewrote laws regarding the insanity defense. The old Model Penal Code test was replaced by a test that shifts the burden of proof regarding a defendant's sanity from the prosecution to the defendant. Three states have abolished the defense altogether.
Portrayals in literature and popular culture
Books
The book Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan (2011) by Del Quentin Wilber
The novella John Loves Jodie (2015) by Joe Kelly
On screen
The following is the list of the movies dealing with the assassination attempt or portraying a portion of it:
The 1991 made-for-television film Without Warning: The James Brady Story, dramatizes James Brady's recovery.
The 2001 Showtime TV movie The Day Reagan Was Shot, loosely-based on events surrounding the assassination attempt, depicts a crazed media frenzy, a divided White House cabinet and staff with little control, and a fictional threat of international crisis.
The 2003 television film The Reagans, which focuses on Reagan and his family, depicts the assassination attempt.
The 2006 American Dad! episode "The Best Christmas Story Never Told", Stan Smith, after being taken back in time by the Ghost of Christmas Past, is forced to take Hinckley's place and injure Reagan to restore the timeline.
The 2018 television drama Timeless, which follows two groups of time travelers through American history, depicts his attempted assassination in season 2 episode 8 (Overall episode 24) "The Day Reagan was Shot".
The 2024 American biographical historical drama film Reagan, which follows Reagan's life told by a former KGB agent, portrays the assassination attempt.
On stage
The musical play Assassins with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by John Weidman features John Hinckley Jr. as a character. The musical first opened Off-Broadway in 1990 with Greg Germann playing Hinckley and the Tony Award winning 2004 Broadway production, featured Alexander Gemignani in the role.
See also
List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots
Notes
References
External links
Assassination Attempt of President Ronald Reagan (full length video)
Treaster, Joseph B. (April 1, 1981). "A Life that Started Out With Much Promise Took Reclusive and Hostile Path". The New York Times. p. A19. The eldest Hinckley child, Scott, 30, is the vice president of his father's company and a friend of Neil Bush, the son of Vice President Bush. Scott Hinckley and a date had been invited to dinner at the young Bushes' home last night, but the dinner was canceled after the shooting. |
Kentucky_Derby | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Derby | [
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_Derby"
] | The Kentucky Derby () is an American Grade I stakes race run at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. The race is run by three-year-old Thoroughbreds at a distance of 1+1⁄4 miles (10 furlongs; 2,012 metres). Colts and geldings carry 126 pounds (57 kilograms) and fillies 121 pounds (55 kilograms).
Held annually on the first Saturday in May, the Derby is the first leg of the Triple Crown. It is preceded by the two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival. The race is known as "The Run for the Roses", as the winning horse is draped in a blanket of roses. Lasting approximately two minutes, the Derby has been alternately called "The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports", "The Fastest Two Minutes in Sports", or "The Greatest Two Minutes in Sports", coined by Churchill Downs president Matt Winn. At least two of these descriptions are thought to be derived from the words of sportswriter Grantland Rice, when in 1935 he said "Those two minutes and a second or so of derby running carry more emotional thrills, per second, than anything sport can show."
The race was first run in 1875. Unlike the other, older races of the Triple Crown—the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes—along with the Travers Stakes (the oldest comparable stakes race in the US), the Kentucky Derby and its sibling race, the Kentucky Oaks, have been run every year since inception. They were twice rescheduled within the same year, the first time due to World War II in 1945, and the second time due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The Derby and the Oaks are the oldest major sporting events in the US held annually since their beginning. Among thoroughbred stakes races, they are the oldest that have been held annually on the same track every year.
The Derby is the most-watched and most-attended horse race in the United States. The 2024 Kentucky Derby marked the 150th running of the race.
History
In 1872, Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition, traveled to England, visiting Epsom in Surrey where The Derby had been running annually since 1780. From there, Clark went on to Paris, France, where a group of racing enthusiasts had formed the French Jockey Club in 1863. They had organized the Grand Prix de Paris at Longchamp, which at the time was the greatest race in France. Returning home to Kentucky, Clark organized the Louisville Jockey Club to raise money for building quality racing facilities just outside the city. The track would soon become known as Churchill Downs, named for John and Henry Churchill, who provided the land for the racetrack. The naming went official in 1937.
The Kentucky Derby was first run at 1+1⁄2 miles (12 furlongs; 2.4 km) the same distance as the Epsom Derby, before changing lengths in 1896 to its current 1+1⁄4 miles (10 furlongs; 2 km). On May 17, 1875, in front of an estimated crowd of 10,000 people, a field of 15 three-year-old horses contested the first Derby. Under jockey Oliver Lewis, a colt named Aristides, who was trained by future Hall of Famer Ansel Williamson, won the inaugural Derby. Later that year, Lewis rode Aristides to a second-place finish in the Belmont Stakes.
Initially a successful venue, the track ran into financial difficulties due to a protracted, gambling-related horseman boycott removing it from the upper echelons of racing that would last until just after the turn of the 20th century. In 1894 the New Louisville Jockey Club was incorporated with the new capitalization and improved facilities. Despite this, the business floundered until 1902, when a syndicate led by Col. Matt Winn of Louisville acquired the facility. Under Winn, Churchill Downs prospered, and the Kentucky Derby then became the preeminent stakes race for three-year-old thoroughbred horses in North America.
Thoroughbred owners began sending their successful Derby horses to compete in two other races. These two are the Preakness Stakes at the Pimlico Race Course, in Baltimore, and the Belmont Stakes in Elmont, New York. The three races offered large purses, and in 1919, Sir Barton became the first horse to win all three races. However, the term "Triple Crown" did not come into use for another eleven years. In 1930, when Gallant Fox became the second horse to win all three races, sportswriter Charles Hatton brought the phrase into American usage. Fueled by the media, public interest in the possibility of a "superhorse" that could win the Triple Crown began in the weeks leading up to the Derby. Two years after the term went in use, the race (until that time ran in mid-May since inception) changed the date to the first Saturday in May. This change allows for a specific schedule for the Triple Crown races. Since 1931, the order of Triple Crown races has been the Kentucky Derby first, followed by the Preakness Stakes and then the Belmont Stakes. Before 1931, eleven times the Preakness was run before the Derby. On May 12, 1917, and again on May 13, 1922, the Preakness and the Derby took place on the same day. On eleven occasions the Belmont Stakes was run before the Preakness Stakes, and in 2020, the Belmont was run first, then the Kentucky Derby, and the Preakness Stakes last.
On May 16, 1925, the first live radio broadcast of the Kentucky Derby aired on WHAS as well as on WGN in Chicago. On May 7, 1949, the first television coverage of the Kentucky Derby took place, produced by WAVE-TV, the NBC affiliate in Louisville. This coverage was aired live in the Louisville market and sent to NBC as a kinescope newsreel recording for national broadcast. On May 3, 1952, the first national television coverage of the Kentucky Derby took place, aired from then-CBS affiliate WHAS-TV. In 1954, the purse exceeded US$100,000 for the first time. In 1968, Dancer's Image became the first horse to win the race and then face disqualification. A urine test revealed traces of phenylbutazone (an anti-inflammatory painkiller drug) inside Dancer's Image. Forward Pass won after a protracted legal battle by the owners of Dancer's Image (which they lost). Forward Pass thus became the eighth winner for Calumet Farm. Unexpectedly, the regulations at Kentucky thoroughbred race tracks were changed some years later, allowing horses to run on phenylbutazone. In 1970, Diane Crump became the first female jockey to ride in the Derby, finishing 15th aboard Fathom.
The fastest time ever run in the Derby was in 1973 at 1:59.4 minutes, when Secretariat broke the record set by Northern Dancer in 1964. Also during that race, Secretariat did something unique in Triple Crown races: for each successive quarter run, his times were faster. Although the races do not record times for non-winners, in 1973 Sham finished second, two and a half lengths behind Secretariat in the same race. Using the thoroughbred racing convention of one length equaling one-fifth of a second to calculate Sham's time, he also finished in under two minutes. Another sub-two-minute finish, only the third, was set in 2001 by Monarchos at 1:59.97, the first year the race used hundredths of seconds instead of fifths in timing.
In 2005, the purse distribution for the Derby changed, so that horses finishing fifth would henceforth receive a share of the purse; previously only the first four finishers did so.
The Kentucky Derby began offering $3 million in purse money in 2019. Churchill Downs officials have cited the success of historical race wagering terminals at their Derby City Gaming facility in Louisville as a factor behind the purse increase. The Derby first offered a $1 million purse in 1996; it was doubled to $2 million in 2005.
In 2020, the Derby was postponed from May 2 to September 5 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This was the second time in history the race had been postponed, the other being in 1945. Churchill Downs used a new singular 20-stall starting gate for the 2020 Kentucky Derby, replacing the previous arrangement that used a standard 14-stall gate and an auxiliary six-stall gate. The old setup contributed to congestion at the start of the race, especially in the gap between the two gates.
Rich Strike, a reserve who only made it into the final field after a late scratching, won the race in 2022 at final odds of 80:1 and parimutuel betting payouts were even larger.
In January 2024, the purse for the Kentucky Derby was increased to $5 million.
Attendance
Millions of people from around the world bet at various live tracks and online sportsbooks. In 2017, a crowd of 158,070 watched Always Dreaming win the Derby, making it the seventh biggest attendance in the history of the racetrack. The track reported a wagering total of $209.2 million from all the sources on all the races on the Kentucky Derby Day program. It was a 9 percent increase compared to the total of $192.6 million in 2016 and an increase of 8 percent over the previous record set in 2015 of $194.3 million. TwinSpires, a platform for betting online and a partner of the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders' Cup, recorded $32.8 million in handle on the Churchill Down races for the Kentucky Derby Day program. This record was a 22 percent increase over the preceding year. On the Kentucky Derby race alone, the handle of TwinSpires was $20.1 million, which is a 22 percent rise compared to the prior year.
The race often draws celebrities. HM Queen Elizabeth II, on a visit to the United States, joined the racegoers at Churchill Downs in 2007.
Sponsorship
The 2004 Kentucky Derby marked the first time that jockeys—as a result of a court order—were allowed to wear corporate advertising logos on their clothing.
Norman Adams has been the designer of the Kentucky Derby Logo since 2002. On February 1, 2006, the Louisville-based fast-food company Yum! Brands, Inc. announced a corporate sponsorship deal to call the race "The Kentucky Derby presented by Yum! Brands." In 2018, Woodford Reserve replaced Yum! Brands as the presenting sponsor.
Traditions
In addition to the race itself, several traditions play a significant role in the Derby atmosphere. The mint julep—an iced drink consisting of bourbon, mint, and sugar syrup—is the traditional beverage of the race. The historic beverage comes served in an ice-frosted silver julep cup. However, most Churchill Downs patrons sip theirs from souvenir glasses (first offered in 1939 and available in revised form each year since) printed with all previous Derby winners. Also, burgoo, a thick stew of beef, chicken, pork, and vegetables, is a popular Kentucky dish served at the Derby.
The infield—a spectator area inside the track—offers general admission prices but little chance of seeing much of the race, particularly before the jumbotron installation in 2014. Instead, revelers show up in the infield to party with abandon. By contrast, "Millionaire's Row" refers to the expensive box seats that attract the rich, the famous and the well-connected. Women appear in elegant outfits lavishly accessorized with large, elaborate hats. Following the Call to the Post played on bugle by Steve Buttleman, as the horses start to parade before the grandstands, the University of Louisville Cardinal Marching Band plays Stephen Foster's "My Old Kentucky Home". This song is a tradition which began in 1921. The event attracts spectators from a large area, flying in hundreds of private aircraft to Louisville International Airport.
The Derby is frequently referred to as "The Run for the Roses", because a lush blanket of 554 red roses is awarded to the Kentucky Derby winner each year. New York sports columnist and future Churchill Downs president Bill Corum in 1925 began describing the race thusly, but the tradition originated in 1883 when New York City socialite E. Berry Wall presented roses to ladies at a post-Derby party. The Churchill Downs founder and president, Col. Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., attended that event. This gesture is believed to have led Clark to the idea of making the rose the race's official flower. However, it was not until 1896 that any recorded account referred to draping roses on the Derby winner. The Governor of Kentucky and the Chairman of Churchill Downs Incorporated present the garland and the Kentucky Derby Trophy to the winner. Pop vocalist Dan Fogelberg composed the song "Run for the Roses", released in time for the 1980 running of the race.
Riders Up!
"Riders Up!" is the traditional command from the Paddock Judge for jockeys to mount their horses in advance of the upcoming race. Since 2012, the grand marshal recites this phrase.
Grand marshals
National Anthem performers
Festival
In the weeks preceding the race, numerous activities took place for the Kentucky Derby Festival. Thunder Over Louisville—an airshow and fireworks display—generally begins the festivities in earnest two weeks before the Derby.
Records
Horse records
Secretariat set the record for speed in 1973 with a time of 1:59.4. During its first two decades when the Derby was run at 1+1⁄2 miles, the record was 2:34.5, set by Spokane in 1889.
The largest margin of victory is 8 lengths, a feat tied by four different horses: Old Rosebud in 1914, Johnstown in 1939, Whirlaway in 1941, and Assault in 1946.
The highest odds of a winning horse were 91 to 1 for Donerail in 1913. The second-highest odds occurred in 2022, when Rich Strike went off at 80 to 1 and won the race.
Three horses have won the Kentucky Derby without competing as a two-year-old: Apollo (1882), Justify (2018), and Mage (2023).
Jockey records
107 jockeys have won the Kentucky Derby, with 27 doing so multiple times. Isaac Murphy (1890–91), Jimmy Winkfield (1901–02), Ron Turcotte (1972–73), Eddie Delahoussaye (1982–83), Calvin Borel (2009–10), and Victor Espinoza (2014–15) are the only jockeys to win the Derby in back-to-back years. Borel is the only jockey with three wins in a four-year span (2007, '09, '10).
Trainer records
116 trainers have won the Kentucky Derby, with 19 doing so multiple times. Six trainers have won the Derby in back-to-back years: Herbert J. Thompson (1932–33), Ben Jones (1948–49), Jimmy Jones (1957–58), Lucien Laurin (1972–73), D. Wayne Lukas (1995–96), and Bob Baffert (1997–98).
Owner records
Seventeen owners have won the Kentucky Derby multiple times with horses they fully or partially owned.
* Partnered with other entities in an ownership group for one or more winning horses.
"Oaks/Derby Double"
Jockeys, trainers, and owners competing in the Kentucky Derby often will compete in the Kentucky Oaks, a race for fillies held the day before the Derby. Winning both these races in the same year is referred to as an "Oaks/Derby Double;" 7 jockeys, 3 trainers, and 4 owners have accomplished this feat:
*Until the 1950s, the Oaks was held several days or weeks after the Derby.
Winners
Triple Crown winners are in bold and highlighted with gold.
Notes
# Designates a filly.
† Designates a horse that won American Horse of the Year in the same year they won the Derby.
‡ Designates a horse that was inducted in subsequent years into the National Racing Hall of Fame.
Sire lines
Winners of the Kentucky Derby can be connected to each other due to the practice of arranging horse breeding based on their previous success. All of the horses can be traced back to the three foundational sires, with Godolphin Arabian the ancestor of 7 winners, Byerley Turk the ancestor of 11 winners, and Darley Arabian the ancestor of 132 winners, including all winners since 1938.
Darley Arabian line
The Darley Arabian (1700c) sire line (all branched through the Eclipse (1764) line) produced 132 Derby winners (124 colts, 5 geldings, 3 fillies), including all winners from 1938 to present. The main branches of this sire line are:
the King Fergus (1775) branch (all branched through the Voltigeur (1847) line), produced 14 winners. His sire line continued primarily through his son Vedette (1854) with 12 winners, due to his sons Speculum (1865) with 6 winners (nearly exclusively through Sundridge (1898) with 5 winners, most recently Count Turf in 1951) and Galopin (1872) with 6 winners (exclusively through St. Simon (1881), most recently Go For Gin in 1994).
the Potoooooooo (1773) branch produced 118 winners (all branched through the Waxy (1790) line), including all winners from 1995 to present. The primary branch of this sire line is through Whalebone (1807), which has produced 113 winners. In turn, the primary branch continues through Sir Hercules (1826), which has produced 91 winners (including all winners since 2006), and then the Birdcatcher (1833) branch which produced 79 winners. From Birdcatcher, the branch of The Baron (1842) has produced 69 winners, of which 67 winners trace to Stockwell (1849). Stockwell's son Doncaster (1870) sired Bend Or (1877), whose sire line accounts for 65 winners. The main branch of the Bend Or sire line continued through his son Bona Vista (1889) with 56 winners, exclusively through the Phalaris (1913) line, which has dominated in the last several decades (including all winners from 2006 to present) through the following sons:
the Pharamond (1925) branch (4 winners all through the Tom Fool (1949) line, most recently Silver Charm in 1997).
the Sickle (1924) branch, (24 winners all branched through the Native Dancer (1950) line, nearly exclusively through Raise a Native (1961) with 23 winners, continued primarily through Mr Prospector (1970) with 16 winners through 8 different sons: Fusaichi Pegasus, winner of the 2000 Kentucky Derby, and 7 other sons through their progeny (most recently Mage in 2023, with his son Fappiano (1977) accounting for 6 winners, nearly exclusively through his son Unbridled with 5 winners, including his win in the 1990 Kentucky Derby and 4 other winners (most recently Always Dreaming in 2017)).
the Pharos (1920) branch (28 winners all branched through the Nearco (1935) line, through his sons Royal Charger (1942), Nearctic (1954), and Nasrullah (1940)). The Royal Charger branch (exclusively through his son Turn-To (1951)) produced 5 winners (most recently Barbaro in 2006), the Nearctic branch produced 9 winners, exclusively through his son Northern Dancer (1961) with his win in the 1964 Kentucky Derby, and direct male progeny of 8 winners, including 5 winners through his son Storm Bird (most recently Mystik Dan in 2024), while the Nasrullah branch produced 14 winners (most recently Nyquist in 2016) primarily through his son Bold Ruler (1954) with 10 winners (most recently California Chrome in 2014).
special notes:
the Waxy (1790) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of Whalebone (1807), and the secondary branch of Whisker (1812) which produced 5 winners (exclusively through the King Tom (1851) line), most recently 1909 Kentucky Derby winner Wintergreen.
an offshoot of the Whalebone (1807) branch, the Camel (1822) branch (18 winners exclusively through the Touchstone (1831) line), produced 2005 Kentucky Derby winner Giacomo through his grandson Orlando's (1841) branch. Since then, each winner of the Kentucky Derby has gone through Whalebone's more frequent sire line branch of Sir Herecules (1826). The Orlando branch (6 winners exclusively through the Himyar (1875) line) is the less common of the two branches derived through Camel. Orlando's brother Newminster (1848) produced 12 winners (primarily through the Hyperion (1930) line with 8 winners), most recently Chateaugay in 1963.
the Sir Hercules (1826) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of Birdcatcher (1833), and the secondary branch of Faugh-a-Ballagh (1841) which produced 12 winners (exclusively through the Leamington (1853) line), most recently 1908 Kentucky Derby winner Stone Street.
the Birdcatcher (1833) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of The Baron (1842), and the secondary branch of Oxford (1857) which produced 10 winners (primarily through the Swynford (1907) line with 8 winners, with his son St. Germans producing 5 winners), most recently 1965 Kentucky Derby winner Lucky Debonair.
the Bend Or (1877) branch produced two main lines: the primary branch of Bona Vista (1889), and the secondary branch of Ormonde (1883) which produced 8 winners (exclusively through the Teddy (1913) line, with his son Sir Gallahad producing 5 winners, most recently Hoop Jr. in 1945), most recently 1957 Kentucky Derby winner Iron Liege.
Byerley Turk line
The Byerley Turk (1680c) sire line produced 11 winners (8 colts, 3 geldings). The main branches of this sire (all branched through the Herod (1758) line) are:
the Highflyer (1774) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Macbeth II in 1888.
the Florizel (1768) branch produced 3 winners (all branched through the Lexington (1850) line), most recently Manuel in 1899.
the Woodpecker (1773) branch produced 7 winners (all branched through the Buzzard (1787) line). The main branches of this sire line are:
the Castrel (1801) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Kingman in 1891.
the Selim (1802) branch produced 6 winners (all branched through the Glencoe (1831) line). The main branches of this sire line are:
the Star Davis (1849) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Day Star in 1878.
the Vandal (1850) branch produced 5 winners (all branched through the Virgil (1864) line), most recently Alan-a-Dale in 1902.
Godolphin Arabian line
The Godolphin Arabian (1724c) sire line produced 7 winners (6 colts, 1 gelding). The main branches of this sire (all branched through the West Australian (1850) line) are:
the Solon (1861) branch produced 3 winners, including:
the Barcaldine (1878) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Omar Khayyam in 1917
the Arbitrator (1874) branch produced 2 winners (all branched through The Finn (1912) line), most recently Flying Ebony in 1925
the Australian (1858) branch produced 4 winners, including:
Baden-Baden (1874), winner of the 1877 Kentucky Derby
the Waverly (1870) branch produced 1 winner, most recently Montrose in 1887
the Spendthrift (1876) branch produced 2 winners (all branched through the Man o' War (1917) line), most recently War Admiral in 1937
Kentucky Derby winners with male-line descendants including other Kentucky Derby winners
Northern Dancer (1964 winner) – 8 colts; most recently Mystik Dan (2024)
Ben Brush (1896 winner) – 3 winners (2 colts, 1 filly); most recently Whiskery (1927)
Seattle Slew (1977 winner) – 3 colts; most recently California Chrome (2014)
Unbridled (1990 winner) – 3 winners (2 colts, 1 gelding); most recently American Pharoah (2015)
Hindoo (1881 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Alan-a-Dale (1902)
Bold Venture (1936 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Middleground (1950)
Reigh Count (1928 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Count Turf (1951)
Pensive (1944 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Needles (1956)
Majestic Prince (1969 winner) – 2 colts; most recently Super Saver (2010)
Halma (1895 winner) – 1 colt; Alan-a-Dale (1902)
Leonatus (1883 winner) – 1 colt; Pink Star (1907)
Bubbling Over (1926 winner) – 1 colt; Burgoo King (1932)
Gallant Fox (1930 winner) – 1 colt; Omaha (1935)
Count Fleet (1943 winner) – 1 colt; Count Turf (1951)
Ponder (1949 winner) – 1 colt; Needles (1956)
Determine (1954 winner) – 1 colt; Decidedly (1962)
Swaps (1955 winner) – 1 colt; Chateaugay (1963)
Grindstone (1996 winner) – 1 gelding; Mine That Bird (2009)
See also
Kentucky Oaks
Kentucky Derby Festival
American thoroughbred racing top attended events
Kentucky Derby top four finishers
List of graded stakes at Churchill Downs
"The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved", a seminal example of New Journalism by Hunter S. Thompson
Triple Crown Productions
Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing
Grand Slam of Thoroughbred racing
List of attractions and events in the Louisville metropolitan area
Derby pie
List of Kentucky Derby broadcasters
References
Further reading
Nicholson, James C. (2012). The Kentucky Derby: How the Run for the Roses Became America's Premier Sporting Event. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky.
External links
Official website
Kentucky Derby Museum
The Courier-Journal's Derby Site
History of the Kentucky Derby
Kentucky Derby News from DRF |
Milton_Friedman | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman | [
381
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman"
] | Milton Friedman ( ; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the complexity of stabilization policy. With George Stigler, Friedman was among the intellectual leaders of the Chicago school of economics, a neoclassical school of economic thought associated with the work of the faculty at the University of Chicago that rejected Keynesianism in favor of monetarism until the mid-1970s, when it turned to new classical macroeconomics heavily based on the concept of rational expectations. Several students, young professors and academics who were recruited or mentored by Friedman at Chicago went on to become leading economists, including Gary Becker, Robert Fogel, and Robert Lucas Jr.
Friedman's challenges to what he called "naive Keynesian theory" began with his interpretation of consumption, which tracks how consumers spend. He introduced a theory which would later become part of mainstream economics and he was among the first to propagate the theory of consumption smoothing. During the 1960s, he became the main advocate opposing Keynesian government policies, and described his approach (along with mainstream economics) as using "Keynesian language and apparatus" yet rejecting its initial conclusions. He theorized that there existed a natural rate of unemployment and argued that unemployment below this rate would cause inflation to accelerate. He argued that the Phillips curve was in the long run vertical at the "natural rate" and predicted what would come to be known as stagflation. Friedman promoted a macroeconomic viewpoint known as monetarism and argued that a steady, small expansion of the money supply was the preferred policy, as compared to rapid, and unexpected changes. His ideas concerning monetary policy, taxation, privatization, and deregulation influenced government policies, especially during the 1980s. His monetary theory influenced the Federal Reserve's monetary policy in response to the 2007–2008 financial crisis.
After retiring from the University of Chicago in 1977, and becoming Emeritus professor in economics in 1983, Friedman served as an advisor to Republican U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Conservative British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. His political philosophy extolled the virtues of a free market economic system with minimal government intervention in social matters. In his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman advocated policies such as a volunteer military, freely floating exchange rates, abolition of medical licenses, a negative income tax, school vouchers, and opposition to the war on drugs and support for drug liberalization policies. His support for school choice led him to found the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, later renamed EdChoice.
Friedman's works cover a broad range of economic topics and public policy issues. His books and essays have had global influence, including in former communist states. A 2011 survey of economists commissioned by the EJW ranked Friedman as the second-most popular economist of the 20th century, following only John Maynard Keynes. Upon his death, The Economist described him as "the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century ... possibly of all of it".
Early life
Friedman was born in Brooklyn, New York City, on July 31, 1912. His parents, Sára Ethel (née Landau) and Jenő Saul Friedman, were Jewish working-class immigrants from Beregszász in Carpathian Ruthenia, Kingdom of Hungary (now Berehove in Ukraine). They emigrated to America in their early teens. They both worked as dry goods merchants. Friedman was their fourth child and only son, as well as the youngest of the children. Shortly after his birth, the family relocated to Rahway, New Jersey. Friedman's father, Jenő Saul Friedman, died during Friedman's senior year of high school, leaving Friedman and two older sisters to care for their mother.
In his early teens, Friedman was injured in a car accident, which scarred his upper lip. A talented student and an avid reader, Friedman graduated from Rahway High School in 1928, just before his 16th birthday. He was the first in his family to attend a university. Friedman was awarded a competitive scholarship to Rutgers University and graduated in 1932.
Friedman initially intended to become an actuary or mathematician, however, the state of the economy, which was at this point in a depression, convinced him to become an economist. He was offered two scholarships to do graduate work, one in mathematics at Brown University and the other in economics at the University of Chicago. Friedman chose the latter, earning a Master of Arts degree in 1933. He was strongly influenced by Jacob Viner, Frank Knight, and Henry Simons. Friedman met his future wife, economist Rose Director, while at the University of Chicago. Friedman was also the student of Friedrich Hayek.
During the 1933–1934 academic year, he had a fellowship at Columbia University, where he studied statistics with statistician and economist Harold Hotelling. He was back in Chicago for the 1934–1935 academic year, working as a research assistant for Henry Schultz, who was then working on Theory and Measurement of Demand.
During the 1934–1935 academic year, Friedman formed what would later prove to be lifetime friendships with George Stigler and W. Allen Wallis, both of whom later taught with Friedman at the University of Chicago. Friedman was also influenced by two lifelong friends, Arthur Burns and Homer Johnson. They helped Friedman better understand the depth of economic thinking.
Public service
Friedman was unable to find academic employment, so in 1935 he followed his friend W. Allen Wallis to Washington, D.C., where Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal was "a lifesaver" for many young economists. At this stage, Friedman said he and his wife "regarded the job-creation programs such as the WPA, CCC, and PWA appropriate responses to the critical situation", but not "the price- and wage-fixing measures of the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration". Foreshadowing his later ideas, he believed price controls interfered with an essential signaling mechanism to help resources be used where they were most valued. Indeed, Friedman later concluded that all government intervention associated with the New Deal was "the wrong cure for the wrong disease", arguing the Federal Reserve was to blame, and that they should have expanded the money supply in reaction to what he later described in A Monetary History of the United States as "The Great Contraction". Later, Friedman and his colleague Anna Schwartz wrote A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960, which argued that the Great Depression was caused by a severe monetary contraction due to banking crises and poor policy on the part of the Federal Reserve. Robert J. Shiller describes the book as the "most influential account" of the Great Depression.
During 1935, he began working for the National Resources Planning Board, which was then working on a large consumer budget survey. Ideas from this project later became a part of his Theory of the Consumption Function, a book which first described consumption smoothing and the permanent income hypothesis. Friedman began employment with the National Bureau of Economic Research during the autumn of 1937 to assist Simon Kuznets in his work on professional income. This work resulted in their jointly authored publication Incomes from Independent Professional Practice, which introduced the concepts of permanent and transitory income, a major component of the permanent income hypothesis that Friedman worked out in greater detail in the 1950s. The book hypothesizes that professional licensing artificially restricts the supply of services and raises prices.
Incomes from Independent Professional Practice remained quite controversial within the economics community because of Friedman's hypothesis that barriers to entry, which were exercised and enforced by the American Medical Association, led to higher than average wages for physicians, compared to other professional groups. Barriers to entry are a fixed cost which must be incurred regardless of any outside factors such as work experience, or other factors of human capital.
During 1940, Friedman was appointed as an assistant professor teaching economics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but encountered anti semitism in the Economics department and returned to government service. From 1941 to 1943 Friedman worked on wartime tax policy for the federal government, as an advisor to senior officials of the United States Department of the Treasury. As a Treasury spokesman during 1942, he advocated a Keynesian policy of taxation. He helped to invent the payroll withholding tax system, since the federal government needed money to fund the war. He later said, "I have no apologies for it, but I really wish we hadn't found it necessary and I wish there were some way of abolishing withholding now." In Milton and Rose Friedman's jointly written memoir, he wrote, "Rose has repeatedly chided me over the years about the role that I played in making possible the current overgrown government we both criticize so strongly."
Academic career
Early years
In 1940, Friedman accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, but left because of differences with faculty regarding United States involvement in World War II. Friedman believed the United States should enter the war. In 1943, Friedman joined the Division of War Research at Columbia University (headed by W. Allen Wallis and Harold Hotelling), where he spent the rest of World War II working as a mathematical statistician, focusing on problems of weapons design, military tactics, and metallurgical experiments.
In 1945, Friedman submitted Incomes from Independent Professional Practice (co-authored with Kuznets and completed during 1940) to Columbia as his doctoral dissertation. The university awarded him a PhD in 1946. Friedman spent the 1945–1946 academic year teaching at the University of Minnesota (where his friend George Stigler was employed). On February 12, 1945, his only son, David D. Friedman, who would later follow in his father's footsteps as an economist, was born.
University of Chicago
In 1946, Friedman accepted an offer to teach economic theory at the University of Chicago (a position opened by departure of his former professor Jacob Viner to Princeton University). Friedman would work for the University of Chicago for the next 30 years. There he contributed to the establishment of an intellectual community that produced a number of Nobel Memorial Prize winners, known collectively as the Chicago school of economics.
At the time, Arthur F. Burns, who was then the head of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and later chairman of the Federal Reserve, asked Friedman to rejoin the Bureau's staff. He accepted the invitation, and assumed responsibility for the Bureau's inquiry into the role of money in the business cycle. As a result, he initiated the "Workshop in Money and Banking" (the "Chicago Workshop"), which promoted a revival of monetary studies. During the latter half of the 1940s, Friedman began a collaboration with Anna Schwartz, an economic historian at the Bureau, that would ultimately result in the 1963 publication of a book co-authored by Friedman and Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960.
In 1951, Friedman was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, which at the time was awarded every other year to the best economist under the age of 40, by the American Economic Association. Remarkably, his most influential work was still ahead of him.
University of Cambridge
Friedman spent the 1954–1955 academic year as a Fulbright Visiting Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At the time, the Cambridge economics faculty was divided into a Keynesian majority (including Joan Robinson and Richard Kahn) and an anti-Keynesian minority (headed by Dennis Robertson). Friedman speculated he was invited to the fellowship because his views were unacceptable to both of the Cambridge factions. Later his weekly columns for Newsweek magazine (1966–84) were well read and increasingly influential among political and business people, and helped earn the magazine a Gerald Loeb Special Award in 1968. From 1968 to 1978, he and Paul Samuelson participated in the Economics Cassette Series, a biweekly subscription series where the economist would discuss the days' issues for about a half-hour at a time.
A Theory of the Consumption Function
One of Milton Friedman's most popular works, A Theory of the Consumption Function, challenged traditional Keynesian viewpoints about the household. This work was originally published in 1957 by Princeton University Press, and it reanalyzed the relationship displayed "between aggregate consumption or aggregate savings and aggregate income".
Friedman's counterpart Keynes believed people would modify their household consumption expenditures to relate to their existing income levels. Friedman's research introduced the term "permanent income" to the world, which was the average of a household's expected income over several years, and he also developed the permanent income hypothesis. Friedman thought income consisted of several components, namely transitory and permanent. He established the formula
y
=
y
p
+
y
t
{\displaystyle y=y_{p}+y_{t}}
to calculate income, with p representing the permanent component, and t representing the transitory component. Milton Friedman's research changed how economists interpreted the consumption function, and his work pushed the idea that current income was not the only factor affecting people's adjustment household consumption expenditures. Instead, expected income levels also affected how households would change their consumption expenditures. Friedman's contributions strongly influenced research on consumer behavior, and he further defined how to predict consumption smoothing, which contradicts Keynes' marginal propensity to consume. Although this work presented many controversial points of view which differed from existing viewpoints established by Keynes, A Theory of the Consumption Function helped Friedman gain respect in the field of economics. His work on the permanent income hypothesis is among the many contributions which were listed as reasons for his Sveriges-Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences. His work was later expanded on by Christopher D. Carroll, especially in regards to the absence of liquidity constraints.
The permanent income hypothesis faces some criticism, mainly from Keynesian economists. The primary criticism of the hypothesis is based on a lack of liquidity constraints.
Capitalism and Freedom
His book Capitalism and Freedom, inspired by a series of lectures he gave at Wabash College, brought him national and international attention outside academia. It was published in 1962 by the University of Chicago Press and consists of essays that used non-mathematical economic models to explore issues of public policy. It sold over 400,000 copies in the first eighteen years and more than half a million since 1962. Capitalism and Freedom was translated into eighteen languages. Friedman talks about the need to move to a classically liberal society, that free markets would help nations and individuals in the long-run and fix the efficiency problems currently faced by the United States and other major countries of the 1950s and 1960s. He goes through the chapters specifying an issue in each respective chapter from the role of government and money supply to social welfare programs to a special chapter on occupational licensure. Friedman concludes Capitalism and Freedom with his "classical liberal" stance that government should stay out of matters that do not need it and should only involve itself when absolutely necessary for the survival of its people and the country. He recounts how the best of a country's abilities come from its free markets while its failures come from government intervention.
Post-retirement
In 1977, at the age of 65, Friedman retired from the University of Chicago after teaching there for 30 years. He and his wife moved to San Francisco, where he became a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. From 1977 on, he was affiliated with the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
During 1977, Friedman was approached by Bob Chitester and the Free to Choose Network. They asked him to create a television program presenting his economic and social philosophy.
Friedman and his wife Rose worked on this project for the next three years, and during 1980, the ten-part series, titled Free to Choose, was broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The companion book to the series (co-authored by Milton and his wife, Rose Friedman), also titled Free To Choose, was the bestselling nonfiction book of 1980.
Friedman served as an unofficial adviser to Ronald Reagan during his 1980 presidential campaign, and then served on the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board for the rest of the Reagan Administration. Ebenstein says Friedman was "the 'guru' of the Reagan administration". In 1988, he received the National Medal of Science and Reagan honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Friedman is known now as one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Friedman continued to write editorials and appear on television. He made several visits to Eastern Europe and to China, where he also advised governments. He was also for many years a Trustee of the Philadelphia Society.
Personal life
Friedman had two children, David and Jan. He met his wife, Rose Friedman (née Director), at the University of Chicago in 1932, and wed six years later, in 1938.
Friedman was noticeably shorter than some of his colleagues; he measured 5 feet 0 inches (1.52 m), and has been described as an "Elfin Libertarian" by Binyamin Appelbaum.
Rose Friedman, when asked about Friedman's successes, said that "I have never had the desire to compete with Milton professionally (perhaps because I was smart enough to recognize I couldn't). On the other hand, he has always made me feel that his achievement is my achievement."
During the 1960s, Friedman built and subsequently maintained a cottage in Fairlee, Vermont. Friedman also had an apartment in Russian Hill, San Francisco, where he lived from 1977 until his death.
Religious views
According to a 2007 article in Commentary magazine, his "parents were moderately observant Jews, but Friedman, after an intense burst of childhood piety, rejected religion altogether". He described himself as an agnostic. Friedman wrote extensively of his life and experiences, especially in 1998 in his memoirs with his wife, Rose, titled Two Lucky People. In this book, Rose Friedman describes how she and Milton Friedman raised their two children, Janet and David, with a Christmas tree in the home. "Orthodox Jews of course, do not celebrate Christmas. However, just as, when I was a child, my mother had permitted me to have a Christmas tree one year when my friend had one, she not only tolerated our having a Christmas tree, she even strung popcorn to hang on it."
Death
Friedman died of heart failure at the age of 94 years in San Francisco on November 16, 2006. He was still a working economist performing original economic research; his last column was published in The Wall Street Journal the day after his death. He was survived by his wife, Rose Friedman (who would die on August 18, 2009), and their two children, David D. Friedman, known for The Machinery of Freedom, as well as his unique anarcho-capitalism from a Chicago School perspective, and attorney and bridge player Jan Martel.
Scholarly contributions
Economics
Friedman was best known for reviving interest in the money supply as a determinant of the nominal value of output, that is, the quantity theory of money. Monetarism is the set of views associated with modern quantity theory. Its origins can be traced back to the 16th-century School of Salamanca or even further; however, Friedman's contribution is largely responsible for its modern popularization. He co-authored, with Anna Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (1963), which was an examination of the role of the money supply and economic activity in the U.S. history.
Friedman was the main proponent of the monetarist school of economics. He maintained that there is a close and stable association between inflation and the money supply, mainly that inflation could be avoided with proper regulation of the monetary base's growth rate. He famously used the analogy of "dropping money out of a helicopter", to avoid dealing with money injection mechanisms and other factors that would overcomplicate his models.
Friedman's arguments were designed to counter the popular concept of cost-push inflation, that the increased general price level at the time was the result of increases in the price of oil, or increases in wages; as he wrote:
Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.
Friedman rejected the use of fiscal policy as a tool of demand management; he also held the belief that the government's role in the guidance of the economy should be restricted severely. Friedman wrote extensively on the Great Depression, and he termed the 1929–1933 period the Great Contraction. He argued that the Depression had been caused by an ordinary financial shock and the duration and seriousness of which were greatly increased by the subsequent contraction of the money supply caused by the misguided policies of the directors of the Federal Reserve.
The Fed was largely responsible for converting what might have been a garden-variety recession, although perhaps a fairly severe one, into a major catastrophe. Instead of using its powers to offset the depression, it presided over a decline in the quantity of money by one-third from 1929 to 1933 ... Far from the depression being a failure of the free-enterprise system, it was a tragic failure of government.
This theory was put forth in A Monetary History of the United States, and the chapter on the Great Depression was then published as a stand-alone book entitled The Great Contraction, 1929–1933. Both books are still in print from the Princeton University Press, and some editions include as an appendix a speech at a University of Chicago event honoring Friedman in which Ben Bernanke made this statement:
Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again.
Friedman also argued for the removal of government intervention in currency markets, thereby spawning an enormous literature on the subject, as well as promoting the practice of freely floating exchange rates. His close friend George Stigler explained, "As is customary in science, he did not win a full victory, in part because research was directed along different lines by the theory of rational expectations, a newer approach developed by Robert Lucas, also at the University of Chicago." The relationship between Friedman and Lucas, or new classical macroeconomics as a whole, was highly complex. The Friedmanian Phillips curve was an interesting starting point for Lucas, but he soon realized that the solution provided by Friedman was not quite satisfactory. Lucas elaborated a new approach in which rational expectations were presumed instead of the Friedmanian adaptive expectations. Due to this reformulation, the story in which the theory of the new classical Phillips curve was embedded radically changed. This modification, however, had a significant effect on Friedman's own approach, so, as a result, the theory of the Friedmanian Phillips curve also changed. Moreover, new classical adherent Neil Wallace, who was a graduate student at the University of Chicago between 1960 and 1963, regarded Friedman's theoretical courses as a mess, highlighting the strained relationship between monetarism and new classical schools.
Friedman was also known for his work on the consumption function, the permanent income hypothesis (1957), which Friedman himself referred to as his best scientific work. This work contended that utility-maximizing consumers would spend a proportional amount of what they perceived to be their permanent income. Permanent Income refers to such factors like human capital. Windfall gains would mostly be saved because of the law of diminishing marginal utility.
Friedman's essay "The Methodology of Positive Economics" (1953) provided the epistemological pattern for his own subsequent research and to a degree that of the Chicago School. There he argued that economics as science should be free of value judgments for it to be objective. Moreover, a useful economic theory should be judged not by its descriptive realism but by its simplicity and fruitfulness as an engine of prediction. That is, students should measure the accuracy of its predictions, rather than the 'soundness of its assumptions'. His argument was part of an ongoing debate among such statisticians as Jerzy Neyman, Leonard Savage, and Ronald Fisher.
While being an advocate of the free market, Friedman believed that the government had two crucial roles. In an interview with Phil Donahue, Friedman argued that "the two basic functions of a government are to protect the nation against foreign enemy, and to protect citizens against its fellows". He also admitted that although privatization of national defense could reduce the overall cost, he has not yet thought of a way to make this privatization possible.
Rejection and subsequent evolution of the Philips curve
Other important contributions include his critique of the Phillips curve and the concept of the natural rate of unemployment (1968). This critique associated his name, together with that of Edmund Phelps, with the insight that a government that brings about greater inflation cannot permanently reduce unemployment by doing so. Unemployment may be temporarily lower, if the inflation is a surprise, but in the long run unemployment will be determined by the frictions and imperfections of the labor market. If the conditions are not met and inflation is expected, the "long run" effects will replace the "short term" effects.
Through his critique, the Philips curve evolved from a strict model emphasizing the connection between inflation and unemployment as being absolute, to a model which emphasized short term unemployment reductions and long term employment stagnations.
Friedman's revised and updated Phillips Curve also changed as a result of Robert Lucas's idea of Rational expectations, replacing the adaptive expectations Friedman used.
Statistics
One of his most famous contributions to statistics is sequential sampling. Friedman did statistical work at the Division of War Research at Columbia, where he and his colleagues came up with the technique. It became, in the words of The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, "the standard analysis of quality control inspection". The dictionary adds, "Like many of Friedman's contributions, in retrospect it seems remarkably simple and obvious to apply basic economic ideas to quality control; that, however, is a measure of his genius."
Corporate social responsibility
Friedman criticised corporate social responsibility, most famously in an op-ed in the New York Times Magazine in 1970. Friedman argued that businesses often used claims about social responsibility to increase returns and described them as "hypocritical window dressing". Managers were also poorly prepared to make decisions about social causes and these outlays diverted funds that belonged instead to shareholders. Friedman believed that only monopolistic corporations could routinely make altruistic expenditures on social responsibility, because in a competitive market such costs would undermine the business.
Public policy positions
Federal Reserve and monetary policy
Although Friedman concluded the government does have a role in the monetary system he was critical of the Federal Reserve due to its poor performance and felt it should be abolished. He was opposed to Federal Reserve policies, even during the so-called "Volcker shock" that was labeled "monetarist". Friedman believed the Federal Reserve System should ultimately be replaced with a computer program. He favored a system that would automatically buy and sell securities in response to changes in the money supply.
The proposal to constantly grow the money supply at a certain predetermined amount every year has become known as Friedman's k-percent rule. There is debate about the effectiveness of a theoretical money supply targeting regime. The Fed's inability to meet its money supply targets from 1978 to 1982 led some to conclude it is not a feasible alternative to more conventional inflation and interest rate targeting. Towards the end of his life, Friedman expressed doubt about the validity of targeting the quantity of money. To date, most countries have adopted inflation targeting instead of the k-percent rule.
Idealistically, Friedman actually favored the principles of the 1930s Chicago plan, which would have ended fractional reserve banking and, thus, private money creation. It would force banks to have 100% reserves backing deposits, and instead place money creation powers solely in the hands of the US Government. This would make targeting money growth more possible, as endogenous money created by fractional reserve lending would no longer be a major issue.
Friedman was a strong advocate for floating exchange rates throughout the entire Bretton-Woods period (1944–1971). He argued that a flexible exchange rate would make external adjustment possible and allow countries to avoid balance of payments crises. He saw fixed exchange rates as an undesirable form of government intervention. The case was articulated in an influential 1953 paper, "The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates", at a time when most commentators regarded the possibility of floating exchange rates as an unrealistic policy proposal.
Foreign policy
While Walter Oi is credited with establishing the economic basis for a volunteer military, Friedman was a proponent, and was credited with ending the draft, stating that the draft was "inconsistent with a free society".
In Capitalism and Freedom he argued conscription is inequitable and arbitrary, preventing young men from shaping their lives as they see fit. During the Nixon administration he headed the committee to research a conversion to paid/volunteer armed force. Friedman did, however, believe the introduction of a system of universal military training as a reserve in cases of war-time could be justified. He still opposed its implementation in the United States, describing it as a "monstrosity".
Biographer Lanny Ebenstein noted a drift over time in Friedman's views from an interventionist to a more cautious foreign policy. He supported US involvement in the Second World War and initially supported a hard-line against Communism, but moderated over time. However, Friedman did state in a 1995 interview that he was an anti-interventionist. He opposed the Gulf War and the Iraq War. In a spring 2006 interview, Friedman said the US's stature in the world had been eroded by the Iraq War, but that it might be improved if Iraq were to become a peaceful and independent country.
Libertarianism and the Republican Party
Friedman was an economic advisor and speech writer in Barry Goldwater's failed presidential campaign in 1964. He was an advisor to California governor Ronald Reagan and was active in Reagan's presidential campaigns. He served as a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board starting in 1981. In 1988, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science.
In a 1995 interview with Reason magazine, Friedman criticized Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand as "cult builders" and "dogmatists", citing this as justification for not joining the U.S. Libertarian Party. Friedman stated that he was a member of the Republican Party, "not because they have any principles, but because that's the way I am the most useful and have most influence." He described his philosophy as "clearly libertarian", though distanced himself from "zero-government" libertarianism, which he called "infeasible", citing the lack of historical examples of that philosophy succeeding. Friedman attended The Future of Freedom Conference, which was a meeting for libertarians, in 1990.
His citation for the Presidential Medal of Freedom reads: "He has used a brilliant mind to advance a moral vision: the vision of a society where men and women are free, free to choose, but where government is not as free to override their decisions. That vision has changed America, and it is changing the world. All of us owe a tremendous debt to this man's towering intellect and his devotion to liberty."
Governmental involvement in the economy
In a 1962 essay that builds on arguments made by A. V. Dicey, Friedman argued that a "free society" would constitute a desirable but unstable equilibrium, due to an asymmetry between the visible benefits and the hidden harms of government intervention; he uses tariffs as an example of a policy that brings noticeable financial benefits to a visible group, but causes worse harms to a diffuse group of workers and consumers.
Friedman was supportive of the state provision of some public goods that private businesses are not considered as being able to provide. However, he argued that many of the services performed by government could be performed better by the private sector. Above all, if some public goods are provided by the state, he believed that they should not be a legal monopoly where private competition is prohibited; for example, he wrote:
There is no way to justify our present public monopoly of the post office. It may be argued that the carrying of mail is a technical monopoly and that a government monopoly is the least of evils. Along these lines, one could perhaps justify a government post office, but not the present law, which makes it illegal for anybody else to carry the mail. If the delivery of mail is a technical monopoly, no one else will be able to succeed in competition with the government. If it is not, there is no reason why the government should be engaged in it. The only way to find out is to leave other people free to enter. In 1962, Friedman criticized Social Security in his book Capitalism and Freedom, arguing that it had created welfare dependency. However, in the penultimate chapter of the same book, Friedman argued that while capitalism had greatly reduced the extent of poverty in absolute terms, "poverty is in part a relative matter, [and] even in [wealthy Western] countries, there are clearly many people living under conditions that the rest of us label as poverty." Friedman also noted that while private charity could be one recourse for alleviating poverty and cited late 19th century Britain and the United States as exemplary periods of extensive private charity and eleemosynary activity, he made the following point:
It can be argued that private charity is insufficient because the benefits from it accrue to people other than those who make the gifts – ... a neighborhood effect. I am distressed by the sight of poverty; I am benefited by its alleviation; but I am benefited equally whether I or someone else pays for its alleviation; the benefits of other people's charity therefore partly accrue to me. To put it differently, we might all of us be willing to contribute to the relief of poverty, provided everyone else did. We might not be willing to contribute the same amount without such assurance. In small communities, public pressure can suffice to realize the proviso even with private charity. In the large impersonal communities that are increasingly coming to dominate our society, it is much more difficult for it to do so.
Suppose one accepts, as I do, this line of reasoning as justifying governmental action to alleviate poverty; to set, as it were, a floor under the standard of life of every person in the community. [While there are questions of how much should be spent and how, the] arrangement that recommends itself on purely mechanical grounds is a negative income tax. ... The advantages of this arrangement are clear. It is directed specifically at the problem of poverty. It gives help in the form most useful to the individual, namely, cash. It is general and could be substituted for the host of special measures now in effect. It makes explicit the cost borne by society. It operates outside the market. Like any other measures to alleviate poverty, it reduces the incentives of those helped to help themselves, but it does not eliminate that incentive entirely, as a system of supplementing incomes up to some fixed minimum would. An extra dollar earned always means more money available for expenditure.
Friedman argued further that other advantages of the negative income tax were that it could fit directly into the tax system, would be less costly, and would reduce the administrative burden of implementing a social safety net. Friedman reiterated these arguments 18 years later in Free to Choose, with the additional proviso that such a reform would only be satisfactory if it replaced the current system of welfare programs rather than augment it. According to economist Robert H. Frank, writing in The New York Times, Friedman's views in this regard were grounded in a belief that while "market forces ... accomplish wonderful things", they "cannot ensure a distribution of income that enables all citizens to meet basic economic needs". Friedman also criticized urban renewal programs in the United States due to their racially discriminatory and economically regressive effects.
In 1979 Friedman expressed support for environmental taxes in general in an interview on The Phil Donahue Show, saying "the best way to [deal with pollution] is to impose a tax on the cost of the pollutants emitted by a car and make an incentive for car manufacturers and for consumers to keep down the amount of pollution." In Free to Choose, Friedman reiterated his support for environmental taxes as compared with increased environmental regulation, stating "The preservation of the environment and the avoidance of undue pollution are real problems and they are problems concerning which the government has an important role to play. … Most economists agree that a far better way to control pollution than the present method of specific regulation and supervision is to introduce market discipline by imposing effluent charges."
In his 1955 article "The Role of Government in Education", Friedman proposed supplementing publicly operated schools with privately run but publicly funded schools through a system of school vouchers. Reforms similar to those proposed in the article were implemented in, for example, Chile in 1981 and Sweden in 1992. In 1996, Friedman, together with his wife, founded the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice to advocate school choice and vouchers. In 2016, the Friedman Foundation changed its name to EdChoice to honor the Friedmans' desire to have the educational choice movement live on without their names attached to it after their deaths.
Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute and Friedman hosted a series of conferences from 1986 to 1994. The goal was to create a clear definition of economic freedom and a method for measuring it. Eventually this resulted in the first report on worldwide economic freedom, Economic Freedom in the World. This annual report has since provided data for numerous peer-reviewed studies and has influenced policy in several nations.
With sixteen other distinguished economists he opposed the Copyright Term Extension Act, and signed on to an amicus brief filed in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Friedman jokingly described it as a "no-brainer".
Friedman argued for stronger basic legal (constitutional) protection of economic rights and freedoms to further promote industrial-commercial growth and prosperity and buttress democracy and freedom and the rule of law generally in society.
Friedman suggested medical savings accounts, repealing tax exemptions of employer-provided medical care and income-based deductibles as ways to lower health care costs in America. Friedman also argued that federal involvement in health care should be restricted, with state and local governments financing health care for the poor.
Social issues
Friedman also supported libertarian policies such as legalization of drugs and prostitution. During 2005, Friedman and more than 500 other economists advocated discussions regarding the economic benefits of the legalization of marijuana.
Friedman was also a supporter of gay rights. He never specifically supported same-sex marriage, instead saying "I do not believe there should be any discrimination against gays."
Friedman favored immigration, saying "legal and illegal immigration has a very positive impact on the U.S. economy". However, he suggested that immigrants ought not to have access to the welfare system. Friedman stated that immigration from Mexico had been a "good thing", in particular illegal immigration. Friedman argued that illegal immigration was a boon because they "take jobs that most residents of this country are unwilling to take, they provide employers with workers of a kind they cannot get" and they do not use welfare. In Free to Choose, Friedman wrote:
No arbitrary obstacles should prevent people from achieving those positions for which their talents fit them and which their values lead them to seek. Not birth, nationality, color, religion, sex, nor any other irrelevant characteristic should determine the opportunities that are open to a person – only his abilities.Friedman also famously argued that the welfare state must end before immigration, or more specifically, before open borders, because immigrants might have an incentive to come directly because of welfare payments. Economist Bryan Caplan has disputed this assertion, arguing that welfare is generally distributed not among immigrants, but instead retirees, through Social Security.
Friedman was against public housing as he believed it was also a form of welfare. He believed that one of the main arguments politicians have for public housing is that regular low-income housing was too expensive due to the imposed higher cost of a fire and police department. He believed that it would only increase taxes and not benefit low-income people in the long run. Friedman was an advocate for direct cash instead of public housing believing that the people would be better off that way. He argued that liberals would never agree with this idea due to them not trusting their own citizens. He also stated that regression has already happened with more land being left vacant due to slow construction. Friedman argued that public housing instead encourages juvenile delinquency.
Friedman was also against minimum wage laws; he saw them as a clear case as one can find that the precise opposite is happening when this was attempted. Minimum wage laws would increase unemployment in his eyes and that employers would not hire back workers that were already there for less pay. In his view, this would leave low-income people worse off because the voters for minimum wage laws would then become the victims of unemployment. He believed that these ideas of new minimum wage laws came from Northern factories and Unions, in an attempt to reduce competition from the South.
Honors, recognition and legacy
George H. Nash, a leading historian of American conservatism, says that by "the end of the 1960s he was probably the most highly regarded and influential conservative scholar in the country, and one of the few with an international reputation". In 1971, Friedman received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. Friedman allowed the libertarian Cato Institute to use his name for its biennial Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty beginning in 2001. A Friedman Prize was given to the late British economist Peter Bauer in 2002, Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto in 2004, Mart Laar, former Estonian Prime Minister in 2006 and a young Venezuelan student Yon Goicoechea in 2008. His wife Rose, sister of Aaron Director, with whom he initiated the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, served on the international selection committee.
Friedman was a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
Upon Friedman's death, Harvard President Lawrence Summers called him "The Great Liberator", saying "any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites." He said Friedman's great popular contribution was "in convincing people of the importance of allowing free markets to operate".
Stephen Moore, a member of the editorial forward of The Wall Street Journal, said in 2013: "Quoting the most-revered champion of free-market economics since Adam Smith has become a little like quoting the Bible." He adds, "There are sometimes multiple and conflicting interpretations."
Although post-Keynesian economist J. K. Galbraith was a prominent critic of Friedman and his ideology, he observed that "The age of John Maynard Keynes gave way to the age of Milton Friedman."
1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences
Friedman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, the sole recipient for 1976, "for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy". His appointment was controversial, mainly for his association with military dictator Augusto Pinochet. Some economists, such as Institutional economist and 1974 Nobel Prize winner Gunnar Myrdal, criticized Friedman, and Myrdal's own 1974 Nobel Prize partner Friedrich Hayek, for being reactionaries. Myrdal's criticism caused some economists to oppose the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel itself.
Hong Kong
Friedman said, "If you want to see capitalism in action, go to Hong Kong." He wrote in 1990 that the Hong Kong economy was perhaps the best example of a free market economy.
One month before his death, he wrote "Hong Kong Wrong – What would Cowperthwaite say?" in The Wall Street Journal, criticizing Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong, for abandoning "positive non interventionism". Tsang later said he was merely changing the slogan to "big market, small government", where small government is defined as less than 20% of GDP. In a debate between Tsang and his rival Alan Leong before the 2007 Hong Kong Chief Executive election, Leong introduced the topic and jokingly accused Tsang of angering Friedman to death (Friedman had died only a year prior).
Chile
During 1975, two years after the military coup that brought military dictator Augusto Pinochet to power and ended the government of Salvador Allende, the economy of Chile experienced a severe crisis. Friedman and Arnold Harberger accepted an invitation of a private Chilean foundation to visit Chile and speak on principles of economic freedom. He spent seven days in Chile giving a series of lectures at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chile. One of the lectures was entitled "The Fragility of Freedom" and according to Friedman, "dealt with precisely the threat to freedom from a centralized military government."
In a letter to Pinochet of April 21, 1975, Friedman considered the "key economic problems of Chile are clearly ... inflation and the promotion of a healthy social market economy". He stated that "There is only one way to end inflation: by drastically reducing the rate of increase of the quantity of money" and that "cutting government spending is by far and away the most desirable way to reduce the fiscal deficit, because it ... strengthens the private sector thereby laying the foundations for healthy economic growth". As to how rapidly inflation should be ended, Friedman felt that "for Chile where inflation is raging at 10–20% a month ... gradualism is not feasible. It would involve so painful an operation over so long a period that the patient would not survive." Choosing "a brief period of higher unemployment" was the lesser evil.. and that "the experience of Germany, ... of Brazil ..., of the post-war adjustment in the U.S. ... all argue for shock treatment". In the letter Friedman recommended to deliver the shock approach with "a package to eliminate the surprise and to relieve acute distress" and "for definiteness let me sketch the contents of a package proposal ... to be taken as illustrative" although his knowledge of Chile was "too limited to enable [him] to be precise or comprehensive". He listed a "sample proposal" of 8 monetary and fiscal measures including "the removal of as many as obstacles as possible that now hinder the private market. For example, suspend ... the present law against discharging employees". He closed, stating "Such a shock program could end inflation in months". His letter suggested that cutting spending to reduce the fiscal deficit would result in less transitional unemployment than raising taxes.
Sergio de Castro, a Chilean Chicago School graduate, became the nation's Minister of Finance in 1975. During his six-year tenure, foreign investment increased, restrictions were placed on striking and labor unions, and GDP rose yearly. A foreign exchange program was created between the Catholic University of Chile and the University of Chicago. Many other Chicago School alumni were appointed government posts during and after Pinochet's dictatorship; others taught its economic doctrine at Chilean universities. They became known as the Chicago Boys.
Friedman defended his activity in Chile on the grounds that, in his opinion, the adoption of free market policies not only improved the economic situation of Chile but also contributed to the amelioration of Pinochet's rule and to the eventual transition to a democratic government during 1990. That idea is included in Capitalism and Freedom, in which he declared that economic freedom is not only desirable in itself but is also a necessary condition for political freedom. In his 1980 documentary Free to Choose, he said the following: "Chile is not a politically free system, and I do not condone the system. But the people there are freer than the people in Communist societies because government plays a smaller role. ... The conditions of the people in the past few years has been getting better and not worse. They would be still better to get rid of the junta and to be able to have a free democratic system." In 1984, Friedman stated that he has "never refrained from criticizing the political system in Chile". In 1991 he said: "I have nothing good to say about the political regime that Pinochet imposed. It was a terrible political regime. The real miracle of Chile is not how well it has done economically; the real miracle of Chile is that a military junta was willing to go against its principles and support a free market regime designed by principled believers in a free market. ... In Chile, the drive for political freedom, that was generated by economic freedom and the resulting economic success, ultimately resulted in a referendum that introduced political democracy. Now, at long last, Chile has all three things: political freedom, human freedom and economic freedom. Chile will continue to be an interesting experiment to watch to see whether it can keep all three or whether, now that it has political freedom, that political freedom will tend to be used to destroy or reduce economic freedom." He stressed that the lectures he gave in Chile were the same lectures he later gave in China and other socialist states. He further stated "I do not consider it as evil for an economist to render technical economic advice to the Chilean Government, any more than I would regard it as evil for a physician to give technical medical advice to the Chilean Government to help end a medical plague."
During the 2000 PBS documentary The Commanding Heights (based on the book), Friedman continued to argue that "free markets would undermine [Pinochet's] political centralization and political control", and that criticism over his role in Chile missed his main contention that freer markets resulted in freer people, and that Chile's unfree economy had caused Pinochet's rise. Friedman advocated for free markets which undermined "political centralization and political control".
Because of his involvement with the government of Chile, which was a dictatorship at the time of his visit, there were international protests, spanning from Sweden to America when Friedman was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in 1976. Friedman was accused of supporting the military dictatorship in Chile because of the relation of economists of the University of Chicago to Pinochet, and a seven-day trip he took to Chile during March 1975 (less than two years after the coup that ended with the death of President Salvador Allende). Friedman answered that he was never an advisor to the dictatorship, but only gave some lectures and seminars on inflation, and met with officials, including Augusto Pinochet the head of the military dictatorship, while in Chile.
After a 1991 speech on drug legalization, Friedman answered a question on his involvement with the Pinochet regime, saying that he was never an advisor to Pinochet (also mentioned in his 1984 Iceland interview), but that a group University of Chicago students were involved in Chile's economic reforms. Friedman credited these reforms with high levels of economic growth and with the establishment of democracy that has subsequently occurred in Chile. In October 1988, after returning from a lecture tour of China during which he had met with Zhao Ziyang, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Friedman wrote to The Stanford Daily asking if he should anticipate a similar "avalanche of protests for having been willing to give advice to so evil a government? And if not, why not?"
Iceland
Friedman visited Iceland during the autumn of 1984, met with important Icelanders and gave a lecture at the University of Iceland on the "tyranny of the status quo". He participated in a lively television debate on August 31, 1984, with socialist intellectuals, including Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who later became President of Iceland. When they complained that a fee was charged for attending his lecture at the university and that, hitherto, lectures by visiting scholars had been free-of-charge, Friedman replied that previous lectures had not been free-of-charge in a meaningful sense: lectures always have related costs. What mattered was whether attendees or non-attendees covered those costs. Friedman thought that it was fairer that only those who attended paid. In this discussion Friedman also stated that he did not receive any money for delivering that lecture.
Estonia
Although Friedman never visited Estonia, his book Free to Choose influenced Estonia's then 32-year-old prime minister, Mart Laar, who has claimed that it was the only book on economics he had read before taking office. Laar's reforms are often credited with responsibility for transforming Estonia from an impoverished Soviet republic to the "Baltic Tiger". A prime element of Laar's program was introduction of the flat tax. Laar won the 2006 Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, awarded by the Cato Institute.
United Kingdom
After 1950 Friedman was frequently invited to lecture in Britain, and by the 1970s his ideas had gained widespread attention in conservative circles. For example, he was a regular speaker at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a libertarian think tank. Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher closely followed IEA programs and ideas and met Friedman there in 1978. He also strongly influenced Keith Joseph, who became Thatcher's senior advisor on economic affairs, as well as Alan Walters and Patrick Minford, two other key advisers. Major newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph, The Times, and The Financial Times all promulgated Friedman's monetarist ideas to British decision-makers. Friedman's ideas strongly influenced Thatcher and her allies when she became Prime Minister in 1979. Galbraith strongly criticised the "workability of the Friedmanite formula" for which, he said, "Britain has volunteered to be the guinea pig".
United States
After his death a number of obituaries and articles were written in Friedman's honor, citing him as one of the most important and influential economists of the post-war era. Milton Friedman's somewhat controversial legacy in America remains strong within the conservative movement. However, some journalists and economists like Noah Smith and Scott Sumner have argued Friedman's academic legacy has been buried under his political philosophy and misinterpreted by modern conservatives.
Criticism of published works
Friedman exogenous money supply theory has been deeply criticized by British Post-Keynesian economist Nicholas Kaldor in the 1970s. While Friedman and monetarist economists claimed that the money supply was exogenously created by a powerful central bank, Kaldor claimed that the money was created by second-tier banks through the distribution of credits to households and companies. In the Post-Keynesian framework, central banks simply refinance second-tier banks on demand but are not in the core of monetary creation. Milton Friedman and Nicholas Kaldor were involved in a fierce debate in 1969–70, in which the monetarist economist had the upper hand. In 1982, Kaldor published a book entitled The Scourge of Monetarism, deeply criticizing monetarist-inspired policies.
Econometrician David Hendry criticized part of Friedman's and Anna Schwartz's 1982 Monetary Trends. When asked about it during an interview with Icelandic TV in 1984, Friedman said that the criticism referred to a different problem from that which he and Schwartz had tackled, and hence was irrelevant, and pointed out the lack of consequential peer review amongst econometricians on Hendry's work. In 2006, Hendry said that Friedman was guilty of "serious errors" of misunderstanding that meant "the t-ratios he reported for UK money demand were overstated by nearly 100 per cent", and said that, in a paper published in 1991 with Neil Ericsson, he had refuted "almost every empirical claim ... made about UK money demand" by Friedman and Schwartz. A 2004 paper updated and confirmed the validity of the Hendry–Ericsson findings through 2000. Some commentators believe that Friedman was not open enough, in their view, to the possibility of market inefficiencies. Economist Noah Smith argues that while Friedman made many important contributions to economic theory not all of his ideas relating to macroeconomics have entirely held up over the years and that too few people are willing to challenge them.
Political scientist C. B. Macpherson disagreed with Friedman's historical assessment of economic freedom leading to political freedom, suggesting that political freedom actually gave way to economic freedom for property-owning elites. He also challenged the notion that markets efficiently allocated resources and rejected Friedman's definition of liberty. Friedman's positivist methodological approach to economics has also been critiqued and debated. Finnish economist Uskali Mäki argued some of his assumptions were unrealistic and vague.
Friedman has been criticized by some prominent Austrian economists, including Murray Rothbard and Walter Block. Block called Friedman a "socialist" and was critical of his support for a central banking system, saying "First and foremost, this economist supported the Federal Reserve System all throughout his professional life. That organization of course does not own the money stock, but controls it. Friedman was an inveterate hater of the gold standard, denigrating its advocates as 'gold bugs'." Rothbard criticized Friedman's conclusion that the Great Depression happened as a result of a deflationary spiral, arguing that this is inconsistent with the data, even though during the period described by Friedman as "The Great Contraction", the money supply did in fact decrease year-over-year by over 10 percentage points.
Although the book was described by the Cato Institute as among the greatest economics books in the 20th century, and A Monetary History of the United States is widely considered to be among the most influential economics books ever made, it has endured criticisms for its conclusion that the Federal Reserve was to blame for the Great Depression. Some economists, including noted Friedman critic Peter Temin, have raised questions about the legitimacy of Friedman's claims about whether or not monetary quantity levels were endogenous rather than exogenously determined, as A Monetary History of the United States posits. Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman argued that the 2008 recession proved that, during a recession, a central bank cannot control broad money (M3 money, as defined by the OECD), and even if it can, the money supply does not bear a direct or proven relationship with GDP. According to Krugman, this was true in the 1930s, and the claim that the Federal Reserve could have avoided the Great Depression by reacting to what Friedman called The Great Contraction is "highly dubious".
James Tobin questioned the importance of velocity of money, and how informative this measure of the frequency of transactions is to the understanding of the various fluctuations observed in A Monetary History of the United States.
Economic historian Barry Eichengreen argued that because of the gold standard, which was at this point in time the chief monetary system of the world, the Federal Reserve's hands were tied. This was because, to retain the credibility of the gold standard, the Federal Reserve could not undertake actions like dramatically expanding the money supply as proposed by Friedman and Schwartz.
Lawrence Mishel, distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Institute, argues that wages have been kept low in the United States because of the Friedman doctrine, namely the adoption of corporate practices and economic policies (or the blocking of reforms) at the behest of business and the wealthy elite, which resulted in the systematic disempowerment of workers. He argues that the lack of worker power caused wage suppression, increased wage inequality, and exacerbated racial disparities. Notably, mechanisms such as excessive unemployment, globalization, eroded labor standards (and their lack of enforcement), weakened collective bargaining, and corporate structure changes that disadvantage workers, all collectively functioned to keep wages low. From 1980 to 2020, while economy-wide productivity rose almost 70 percent, hourly compensation for typical workers increased less than 12 percent, while the earnings of the top 1 percent and 0.1 percent increased 158 percent and 341 percent, respectively.
Selected bibliography
A Theory of the Consumption Function (1957) ISBN 1614278121.
A Program for Monetary Stability (Fordham University Press, 1960) 110 pp. online version Archived November 1, 2011, at the Wayback Machine ISBN 0823203719
Capitalism and Freedom (1962), highly influential series of essays that established Friedman's position on major issues of public policy (excerpts)
A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960, with Anna J. Schwartz, 1963; part 3 reprinted as The Great Contraction
"The Role of Monetary Policy", American Economic Review, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Mar. 1968), pp. 1–17 JSTOR presidential address to American Economics Association
"Inflation and Unemployment: Nobel Lecture", 1977, Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 85, pp. 451–472. JSTOR
Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, with Rose Friedman, (1980), highly influential restatement of policy views
The Essence of Friedman, essays edited by Kurt R. Leube, (1987) (ISBN 0817986626)
Two Lucky People: Memoirs (with Rose Friedman) ISBN 0226264149 (1998) excerpt and text search
Milton Friedman on Economics: Selected Papers by Milton Friedman, edited by Gary S. Becker (2008)
See also
Causes of the Great Depression
David D. Friedman
History of economic thought
List of economists
List of Jewish Nobel laureates
List of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
Ludwig von Mises
Monetary/fiscal debate
Patri Friedman
"We are all Keynesians now"
Explanatory notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Burns, Jennifer (2023). Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374601140. OCLC 1355021202.
"Symposium: Why Is There No Milton Friedman Today?". Econ Journal Watch. 10 (2). May 2013.
Jones, Daniel Stedman. Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics (2nd ed. 2014)
McCloskey, Deirdre (Winter 2003). "Other Things Equal: Milton". Eastern Economic Journal. 29 (1): 143–146. JSTOR 40326463.
Steelman, Aaron (2008). "Friedman, Milton (1912–2006)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 195–197. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n118. ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
Wood, John Cunningham; Ronald N. Wood, eds. (1990). Milton Friedman: Critical Assessments. Critical Assessments of Contemporary Economists Vol. IV. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415020053. OCLC 20296405.
External links
Collected Works of Milton Friedman (Multiple Text, audio, video)
The Milton Friedman papers at the Hoover Institution Archives
Selected Bibliography for Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago Library
Profile and Papers at Research Papers in Economics/RePEc
Milton Friedman collected news and commentary at The New York Times
Becker Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago
The Foundation for Educational Choice
Milton Fridman at Scarlett
Inflation and Unemployment 1976 lecture at NobelPrize.org
Nobel Memorial Prize acceptance speech
"Milton Friedman (1912–2006)". The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty (2nd ed.). Liberty Fund. 2008.
Milton Friedman vs. The Fed Bailout by Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, July 17, 2009
Four Deformations of the Apocalypse, David Stockman, The New York Times, July 31, 2010
Roberts, Russ. "Milton Friedman Podcasts". EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty.
Milton Friedman publications indexed by Google Scholar
A collection of Milton Friedman's works
Videos
Appearances on C-SPAN
Booknotes interview with Friedman on the 50th Anniversary Edition of F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom, November 20, 1994.
In Depth interview with Friedman, September 3, 2000
A film clip "The Open Mind – Living Within Our Means (1975)" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive
A film clip "The Open Mind – A Nobel Laureate on the American Economy (1977)" is available for viewing at the Internet Archive
Milton Friedman on Charlie Rose
"'Free to Choose' (1980) a [PBS] TV series by Milton Friedman"
Free to Choose on YouTube
Milton Friedman, Commanding Heights, PBS, October 1, 2000, interview, profile and video
Milton Friedman at the Cato Institute
Free to Choose Network |
List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_laureates_in_Economic_Sciences | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_laureates_in_Economic_Sciences | [
381
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_Memorial_Prize_laureates_in_Economic_Sciences"
] | The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially known as The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (Swedish: Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an award funded by Sveriges Riksbank and is annually awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to researchers in the field of economic sciences. The first prize was awarded in 1969 to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen. Each recipient receives a medal, a diploma and a monetary award that has varied throughout the years. In 1969, Frisch and Tinbergen were given a combined 375,000 SEK, which is equivalent to 2,871,041 SEK in December 2007. The award is presented in Stockholm at an annual ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
As of the awarding of the 2023 prize, 55 Prizes in Economic Sciences have been given to 93 individuals. As of October 2023, the department of economics with the most affiliated laureates in economic sciences is the University of Chicago, with 16 affiliated laureates. As of 2023, the institutions with the most PhD (or equivalent) graduates who went on to receive the prize are Harvard University and MIT (13 each), followed by the University of Chicago (10).
As of 2023, the institutions with the most affiliated faculty at the time of the award are the University of Chicago (15), followed by MIT, Princeton University, and Harvard University (8 each).
Laureates
List of Economic Nobel laureates by PhD (or equivalent) alma mater
List of Economic Nobel laureates by country
See also
List of Nobel laureates
References
Citations
Sources
External links
Official website of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (archived 17 October 2009)
Official website of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Archived 2017-07-13 at the Wayback Machine
Official website of the Nobel Foundation Archived 2006-04-05 at the Wayback Machine |
Gunnar_Myrdal | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Myrdal | [
381
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Myrdal"
] | Karl Gunnar Myrdal ( MUR-dahl, MEER-; Swedish: [ˈɡɵ̌nːar ˈmy̌ːɖɑːl]; 6 December 1898 – 17 May 1987) was a Swedish economist and sociologist.
In 1974, he received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences along with Friedrich Hayek for "their pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and for their penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." When his wife, Alva Myrdal, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982, they became the fourth ever married couple to have won Nobel Prizes, and the first and only to win independent of each other (versus a shared Nobel Prize by scientist spouses).
He is best known in the United States for his study of race relations, which culminated in his book An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. The study was influential in the 1954 landmark U.S. Supreme Court Decision Brown v. Board of Education.
In Sweden, his work and political influence were important to the establishment of the Folkhemmet and the welfare state.
Early life and education
Myrdal was born on 6 December 1898, in Skattungbyn, Sweden, to Karl Adolf Pettersson (1876–1934), a building contractor, and his wife Anna Sofia Karlsson (1878–1965). He took the name Myrdal in 1914 after his ancestors' farm Myr in the province of Dalarna.
There is a possibly apocryphal story about an interaction between him and Gustav Cassel, where Cassel was reported to say, "Gunnar, you should be more respectful to your elders, because it is we who will determine your promotion," and he replied, "Yes, but it is we who will write your obituaries."
Gunnar Myrdal graduated with a law degree from Stockholm University in 1923 and a doctorate in economics in 1927. In June 1919, he met Alva Reimer, whom he married in October 1924 and had the first of their three children in 1927.
Myrdal's PhD thesis, The Problem of Price Formation under Economic Change, had three parts: The Basics of the Dynamic Problem of Price Formation, The Problem of the Profit of the Enterprise, and The Optimal Mode of Construction and Change, the most mathematical of the three, where he studied equilibrium of price formation under dynamic conditions.
In Gunnar Myrdal's doctoral dissertation, published in 1927, he examined the role of expectations in price formation. His analysis strongly influenced the Stockholm school. He built on Knut Wicksell's theories of cumulative process of endogenous money, stressing the importance of Knightian uncertainty and ex ante and ex post expectations role in the economic process.
Early career
Between 1925 and 1929, Myrdal studied in Britain and Germany. He was a Rockefeller Fellow and visited the United States in 1929–1930. During this period, he published his first books, including The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory in 1930. Returning to Europe, he served for one year as associate professor in the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.
The Political Element is a compilation of Myrdal's lectures presented at the University of Stockholm. It gives us the historical account of the influence of politics in the development of economic theory and the relation between them. Gunnar believed that economics would be considered a true science only when the political aspect was dissociated. It was initially written to criticize the older generation of Swedish economists such as Eli Heckscher, Gustav Cassel, and Brisman, for combining and confusing facts and values in their theories of ‘maximum welfare’, ‘price level’, and ‘national income’. But later it turned out be a general critique of the economic theory where he emphasized that economics should be objective and independent from values. He wrote that although economists claim to be scientific and objective, their conclusion from their analyses was always politically inclined. The Political Element was translated to German in 1932 and to English in 1953.
Gunnar Myrdal was at first fascinated by the abstract mathematical models coming into fashion in the 1920s, and helped found the Econometric Society in London. Later, however, he accused the movement of ignoring the problem of distribution of wealth in its obsession with economic growth, of using faulty statistics and substituting Greek letters for missing data in its formulas and of flouting logic. He wrote, "Correlations are not explanations and besides, they can be as spurious as the high correlation in Finland between foxes killed and divorces." Professor Myrdal was an early supporter of the theses of John Maynard Keynes, although he maintained that the basic idea of adjusting national budgets to slow or speed an economy was first developed by him and articulated in his book Monetary Economics, published in 1932, four years prior to Keynes' General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
William Barber's comment upon Myrdal's work on monetary theory goes like this:
If his contribution had been available to readers of English before 1936, it is interesting to speculate whether the ‘revolution’ in macroeconomic theory of the depression decade would be referred to as 'Myrdalian' as much as 'Keynesian'.
Economist G. L. S. Shackle claimed the importance of Gunnar Myrdal's analysis by which saving and investment are allowed to adjust ex ante to each other. However, the reference to ex ante and ex post analysis has become so usual in modern macroeconomics that the position of Keynes to not include it in his work was currently considered as an oddity, if not a mistake. As Shackle put it:
Myrdalian ex ante language would have saved the General Theory from describing the flow of investment and the flow of saving as identically, tautologically equal, and within the same discourse, treating their equality as a condition which may, or not, be fulfilled.
Gunnar Myrdal also developed the key concept circular cumulative causation, a multi-causal approach where the core variables and their linkages are delineated.
Academic career
Gunnar Myrdal became professor at Stockholms Högskola 1933. Myrdal was professor of economics at Stockholms Högskola for 15 years, until 1947.
He became a Social Democratic Member of Parliament from 1933, and again from 1945 to 1947 he served as Minister of Commerce and Industry in Tage Erlander's government. During this period, he was heavily criticized for his financial agreement with the Soviet Union. At the same time he was accused of being responsible for the Swedish monetary crisis in 1947.
He coauthored with his wife, Alva Myrdal, the Crisis in the Population Question (Swedish: Kris i befolkningsfrågan, 1934). The work of Gunnar and Alva inspired policies adopted by the Minister of Social Affairs, Gustav Möller, to provide social support to families.
Gunnar Myrdal headed a comprehensive study of sociological, economic, anthropological and legal data on race relations in the United States funded by the Carnegie Corporation, starting in 1938. The result of the effort was Gunnar Myrdal's best-known work, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, published in 1944, written with the collaboration of R. M. E. Sterner and Arnold Rose. He characterized the problem of race relations as a dilemma because of a perceived conflict between high ideals, embodied in what he called the "American Creed," on the one hand and poor performance on the other. In the generations since the Civil War, the U.S. had been unable to put its human rights ideals into practice for the African American tenth of its population. This book was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools. Myrdal planned on doing a similar study on gender inequality, but he could not find funding for this project and never completed it.
World War II and after
During World War II, Gunnar Myrdal was staunchly and publicly anti-Nazi. Together with his wife, Alva, he wrote Contact with America in 1941, which praised the United States' democratic institutions.
Gunnar Myrdal became the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in 1947. During his tenure, he founded one of the leading centers of economic research and policy development. After ten years in the position, Dr. Myrdal resigned as Executive Secretary in 1957. In 1956 and 1957, he was able to publish An International Economy, Problems and Prospects, Rich Lands and Poor and Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions. Myrdal was also a signatory of the 1950 UNESCO statement The Race Question, which rebuts the theories of racial supremacy and purity, and also influenced the Brown v. Board of Education decision. “What he knew about [United States] constitutional law we are not told nor have we been able to learn.” In 1956, Myrdal wrote the foreword for African American author Richard Wright's The Color Curtain: A Report on the Bandung Conference.
Between 1960 and 1967, he was a professor of international economics at Stockholm University. In 1961, he founded the Institute for International Economic Studies at the University. Throughout the 1960s, he worked on a comprehensive study of trends and policies in South Asia for the Twentieth Century Fund. The study culminated in his three-volume Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, published in 1968. In 1970, he published a companion book called The Challenge of World Poverty, where he laid out what he believed to be the chief policy solutions to the problems he outlined in Asian Drama.
Gunnar Myrdal strongly opposed the Vietnam War. In Asian Drama, Myrdal predicted that land reform and pacification would fail in Vietnam and urged the United States to begin negotiations with North Vietnam. After returning to Sweden, he headed the Swedish Vietnam Committee and became co-chair of International Commission of Inquiry Into U.S. War Crimes in Indochina. He also presided over the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an international watchdog for the arms trade. He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.
In 1967 Myrdal received an honorary doctorate from Sir George Williams University, which later became Concordia University.
In 1971 both he and his wife received honorary doctorates from Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, Minnesota.
He shared the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (otherwise known as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics) with Friedrich Hayek in 1974, but argued for its abolition because he believed that economics is a “soft” science.
During 1974–1975, he served as visiting professor at NYU.
Myrdal received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1979.
Personal life
Myrdal married politician and diplomat Alva Myrdal in 1924, and together had son Jan Myrdal (born 1927), daughter Sissela Bok (born 1934) and daughter Kaj Fölster (born 1936). Through Fölster, he is the grandfather of Swedish economist Stefan Fölster.
Alva Myrdal was a prominent leader of the disarmament movement. She, along with Alfonso García Robles, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982.
Myrdal suffered from Parkinson's disease and was hospitalized for two months before he died in a hospital in Trångsund, south of Stockholm, on 17 May 1987. His daughter Kaj Fölster and his grandson, Janken Myrdal, were present.
Contributions to the philosophy of knowledge
Gunnar Myrdal's scientific influence was not limited to economics. Through the introduction to Asian Drama with the title "The Beam in our Eyes" (a biblical reference; cf. Matthew 7:1–2) he introduced the approach mentioned as scientific relativism of values. This behavioral approach is narrowly connected to behavioralism and is built on the idea that the logical gulf between "is" and "ought" is more sophisticated than just dividing premises into categories. The articles edited in "Value in Social Theory" underlines Myrdal's importance to political science. As political science normally is considered more descriptive than economics, one might get the idea that Myrdal should not have dealt systematically with the values applied to economics. On the contrary, Myrdal connected social science, political science and economics as a practitioner.
Myrdal published many notable works, both before and after American Dilemma and, among many other contributions to social and public policy, founded and chaired the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Internationally revered as a father-figure of social policy, he contributed to social democratic thinking throughout the world, in collaboration with friends and colleagues in the political and academic arenas. Sweden and Britain were among the pioneers of a welfare state and books by Myrdal (Beyond the Welfare State – New Haven, 1958) and Richard Titmuss (Essays on “The Welfare State” – London, 1958) unsurprisingly explore similar themes. Myrdal's theoretical key concept "circular cumulative causation" contributed to the development of modern Non-equilibrium economics.
Welfare world
Myrdal suggested that we need to evolve from the welfare state to the welfare world, which would enable the redistribution of income and wealth not only within a country but also on a global scale. During the Cold War era, In Beyond the Welfare State, he proposed the idea of the welfare world to overcome the limitations of the welfare state in the West. Myrdal's recommendations were not accepted by international technocrats or by developing countries. However, he also thought it a more difficult task to establish the welfare world than a welfare state.
He pointed out the following limitations of the welfare state:
Nationalism of already existing Western welfare states preventing development in underdeveloped countries.
Other difficulties of development in the developing countries.
Existence of the communist countries acting as a provocateur for more revolutionary transformations.
Awards and honours
Awards
West German Peace Prize (1970; jointly with his wife Alva Myrdal)
Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (1974)
Bronislaw Malinowski Award (1975)
Veblen-Commons Award (1975)
Honorary degrees
Harvard University (1938)
Fisk University (1947)
Nancy-Université (1950)
Columbia University, Doctor of Humane Letters (1 June 1954)
The New School for Social Research (1956)
University of Leeds, Legume Doctor (1957)
Yale University, Doctor of Laws (1959)
University of Birmingham (1961)
Brandeis University, Doctor of Laws (8 October 1961)
Howard University, Legume Doctor (1962)
Detroit (1963)
University of Edinburgh (1964)
Lincoln University (1964)
Swarthmore College, Doctor of Laws (1964)
Stockholm University, Doctor of Philosophy (31 May 1966)
Sir George Williams University, Doctor of Laws (May 1967)
University of Michigan, Doctor of Laws (1967)
Lehigh University (1967)
Temple University, Doctor of Civil Laws (1968)
University of Louisville, Doctor of Social Science (November 1968)
University of Oslo (1968)
Uppsala University (1968)
University of Jyväskylä (1969)
Atlanta University (1970)
University of Helsinki (1970)
University of the Philippines (1970)
Dartmouth College, Doctor of Science (1971)
Gustavus Adolphus College, Doctor of Humane Letters (1971)
Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies (1970)
University of Bucharest (1971)
Heriot-Watt University, Doctor of Letters (July 1979)
Visva-Bharati University (1982)
Honours
Fellow of the Econometric Society (1943)
Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1945)
Honorary member of the American Economic Association (1947)
Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1958)
Member of the British Academy (1973)
Member of the American Philosophical Society (1982)
Publications
The Political Element in the Development of Economic Theory. (1930)
Monetary Equilibrium (1931), translated to English in 1939
The Cost of Living in Sweden, 1830–1930 (1933)
Crisis in the Population Question (1934)
Fiscal Policy in the Business Cycle. The American Economic Review, vol 21, no 1, Mar 1939.
Population, a Problem for Democracy. Harvard University Press, 1940.
Contact With America (1941)
An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. Harper & Bros, 1944.
Social Trends in America and Strategic Approaches to the Negro Problem. Phylon, Vol. 9, No. 3, 3rd Quarter, 1948.
Conference of the British Sociological Association, 1953. II Opening Address: The Relation between Social Theory and Social Policy The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 4, No. 3, Sept. 1953.
An International Economy, Problems and Prospects. Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1956.
Rich Lands and Poor. 1957.
Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions, Gerald Duckworth, 1957.
Value in Social Theory: A Selection of Essays on Methodology. Ed. Paul Streeten, published by Harper, 1958.
Myrdal (1960). Beyond the Welfare State. Yale University Press.
Challenge to Affluence. Random House, 1963.
America and Vietnam – Transition, No. 3, Oct, 1967.
Twenty Years of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. International Organization, Vol 22, No. 3, Summer, 1968.
Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, 1968.
Objectivity in Social Research, 1969.
The Challenge of World Poverty: A World Anti-Poverty Program in Outline. 1970.
Against the Stream.
Hur Styrs Landet?, 1982.
Gunnar Myrdal on Population Policy in the Underdeveloped World – Population and Development Review, Vol 13, No. 3, Sept. 1987.
The Equality Issue in World Development – The American Economic Review, vol 79, no 6, Dec 1989.
References
External links
Video Gunnar Myrdal lecturing at UCLA 5/4/1966
The Selected Works by Gunnar Myrdal are available for research use at the Gustavus Adolphus College and Lutheran Church Archives.
A Methodolological Issue: Ex-Ante and Ex-Post, Claude Gnos
Gunnar Myrdal, growth processes and equilibrium theory
On Prices in Myrdal’s Monetary Theory-Alexander Tobon
Gunnar Myrdal on Nobelprize.org including the Prize Lecture on March 17, 1975 The Equality Issue in World Development
IDEAS/RePEc
"Gunnar Myrdal (1898–1987)". The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Library of Economics and Liberty (2nd ed.). Liberty Fund. 2008.
Gunnar Myrdal’s Prescient Criticisms of Keynes’ General Theory-by Philip Pilkington
Rules from Myrdal’s Monetary Equilibrium Adrián de León-Arias
Monetary Equilibrium -Claes Henrik Siver Stockholm University Archived 13 August 2022 at the Wayback Machine
Myrdal's Analysis of Monetary Equilibrium G.L.S. Shackle
Newspaper clippings about Gunnar Myrdal in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
Gunnar Myrdal at Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (in Swedish) |
Justin_Trudeau | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Trudeau | [
382,
618
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Trudeau",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Trudeau"
] | Justin Pierre James Trudeau (born December 25, 1971) is a Canadian politician who has been serving as the 23rd prime minister of Canada since 2015 and the leader of the Liberal Party since 2013.
Trudeau was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and attended Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. He graduated from McGill University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature, then in 1998 acquired a Bachelor of Education degree from the University of British Columbia. After graduating, he taught at the secondary school level in Vancouver, before relocating back to Montreal in 2002 to further his studies. He was chair for the youth charity Katimavik and director of the not-for-profit Canadian Avalanche Association. In 2006, he was appointed as chair of the Liberal Party's Task Force on Youth Renewal. In the 2008 federal election, he was elected to represent the riding of Papineau in the House of Commons. He was the Liberal Party's Official Opposition critic for youth and multiculturalism in 2009; the following year, he became critic for citizenship and immigration. In 2011, he was appointed as a critic for secondary education and sport.
Trudeau prevailed in the Liberal Party leadership election in April 2013 and led his party to a majority victory in the 2015 federal election. Trudeau was the second-youngest prime minister in Canadian history when he took office and the first to be the child of a previous holder of the post, as the eldest son of Pierre Trudeau. Major government initiatives he undertook after his election included establishing the Canada Child Benefit, legalizing medical assistance in dying, legalizing recreational marijuana through the Cannabis Act; attempting Senate appointment reform by establishing the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments and establishing the federal carbon tax. In foreign policy, Trudeau's government negotiated trade deals such as the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and signed the Paris Agreement on climate change. He was sanctioned by Canada's ethics commissioner for violating conflict of interest rules regarding the Aga Khan affair, and later again with the SNC-Lavalin affair.
Trudeau guided the Liberals to a minority government victory in the 2019 federal election. In 2020, his government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, announced an "assault-style" weapons ban in response to the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks, and launched a national $10-a-day child care program. He was investigated for a third time by the ethics commissioner for his part in the WE Charity scandal, but was cleared of wrongdoing. In the 2021 federal election, he led the Liberals to another minority government.
In 2022, following his third election, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy protests (the first time the act was brought into force since it was enacted in 1988) and responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorizing military aid to Ukraine. Trudeau launched a national school food program and entered into a confidence and supply agreement with the New Democratic Party (NDP), which resulted in the Canadian Dental Care Plan for residents that meet a certain income threshold and a framework for national pharmacare. However, after two and a half years, the NDP opted to terminate the agreement.
Early life
Ancestry and birth
On June 23, 1971, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) announced that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's wife of four months, Margaret Trudeau (née Sinclair), was pregnant and due in December. Justin Trudeau was born on December 25, 1971, at 9:27 pm EST at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He is the second child in Canadian history to be born to a prime minister in office; the first was John A. Macdonald's daughter Margaret Mary Theodora Macdonald (February 8, 1869 – January 28, 1933). Trudeau's younger brothers Alexandre (Sacha) (born December 25, 1973) and Michel (October 2, 1975 – November 13, 1998) were the third and fourth.
Trudeau is predominantly of Scottish and French Canadian descent. His grandfathers were businessman Charles-Émile Trudeau and Scottish-born James Sinclair, who was minister of fisheries in the cabinet of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent. Trudeau's maternal great-grandfather Thomas Bernard was born in Makassar, Indonesia and immigrated to Penticton, British Columbia, in 1906 at age 15 with his family. Through the Bernard family, kinsmen of the Earls of Bandon, Trudeau is the fifth great-grandson of Major-General William Farquhar, a leader in the founding of modern Singapore; Trudeau also has remote ethnic Malaccan and Nias ancestry.
Trudeau was baptized with his father's niece Anne Rouleau-Danis as godmother and his mother's brother-in-law Thomas Walker as godfather, at Ottawa's Notre Dame Basilica on the afternoon of January 16, 1972, which marked his first public appearance. and given the names "Justin Pierre James". On April 14, 1972, Trudeau's father and mother hosted a gala at the National Arts Centre, at which visiting U.S. president Richard Nixon said, "I'd like to toast the future prime minister of Canada, to Justin Pierre Trudeau" to which Pierre Trudeau responded that should his son ever assume the role, he hoped he would have "the grace and skill of the president". Earlier that day, first lady Pat Nixon had visited him in his nursery and gifted him a stuffed toy Snoopy.
Childhood
Trudeau's parents announced their separation in 1977, when he was five years old; his father was given primary custody. There were repeated rumours of a reconciliation for many years afterwards. However his mother eventually filed for a no-fault divorce which the Supreme Court of Ontario granted in 1984; his father had announced his intention to retire as prime minister a month earlier. Eventually his parents came to an amicable joint-custody arrangement and learned to get along quite well. Interviewed in October 1979, his nanny Dianne Lavergne was quoted, "Justin is a mommy's boy, so it's not easy, but children's hurts mend very quickly. And they're lucky kids, anyway." Of his mother and father's marriage, Trudeau said in 2009, "They loved each other incredibly, passionately, completely. But there was 30 years between them, and my mom never was an equal partner in what encompassed my father's life, his duty, his country." Trudeau has three half-siblings, Kyle and Alicia, from his mother's remarriage to Fried Kemper, and Sarah, from his father's relationship with Deborah Coyne.
Trudeau lived at 24 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, the official residence of Canada's prime minister, from his birth until his father's government was defeated in the 1979 federal election. The Trudeaus were expected to move into Stornoway, the residence of the leader of the Official Opposition, but because of flooding in the basement, Prime Minister Joe Clark offered them Harrington Lake, the prime minister's official country retreat in Gatineau Park, with the expectation they would move into Stornoway at the start of July. However, the repairs were not complete, so Pierre Trudeau took a prolonged vacation with his sons to the Nova Scotia summer home of his friend, Member of Parliament Don Johnston, and later sent his sons to stay with their maternal grandparents in North Vancouver for the rest of the summer while he slept at his friend's Ottawa apartment. Trudeau and his brothers returned to Ottawa for the start of the school year but lived only on the top floor of Stornoway while repairs continued on the bottom floor. His mother purchased and moved into a new home nearby at 95 Victoria Street in Ottawa's New Edinburgh neighbourhood in September 1979. Pierre Trudeau and his sons returned to the prime minister's official residence after the February 1980 election that returned him to the Prime Minister's Office.
His father had intended Trudeau to begin his formal education at a French-language lycée, but Trudeau's mother convinced his father of the importance of sending their sons to a public school. In the end, Trudeau was enrolled in 1976 in the French immersion program at Rockcliffe Park Public School. It was the same school his mother had attended for two years while her father was a member of Parliament. He could have been dropped off by limousine, but his parents elected he take the school bus albeit with a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) car following. This was followed by one year at the private Lycée Claudel d'Ottawa.
After his father's retirement in June 1984, his mother remained at her New Edinburgh home while the rest of the family moved into his father's home at 1418 Pine Avenue, Montreal known as Cormier House; the following autumn, he began attending the private Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, his father's alma mater. The school had begun as a Jesuit school but was non-denominational by the time Justin matriculated. In 2008, Trudeau said that of all his early family outings he enjoyed camping with his father the most, because "that was where our father got to be just our father – a dad in the woods". During the summers his father would send him and his brothers to Camp Ahmek, on Canoe Lake in Algonquin Provincial Park, where he would later work in his first paid job as a camp counsellor.
Trudeau and his brothers were given shares in two numbered companies by their father: the first containing a portfolio of securities, from which they receive regular dividends, up to $20,000 per year; and the second which receives royalties from their father's autobiography and other sources, about $10,000 a year. As of August 2011, the first numbered company had assets of $1.2 million. The Trudeau brothers were also given a country estate of about 50 hectares in the Laurentians with a home designed by the esteemed Canadian architect Arthur Erickson, and the Cormier House in Montreal. The country estate land was estimated to be worth $2.7 million in 2016.
University and early career
Trudeau has a bachelor of arts degree in literature from McGill University and a bachelor of education degree from the University of British Columbia. In his first year at McGill, Trudeau became acquainted with his future principal secretary, Gerald Butts, through their mutual friend, Jonathan Ablett. Butts invited Trudeau to join the McGill Debating Union. They bonded while driving back to Montreal after a debate tournament at Princeton University. After graduation, Trudeau stayed in Vancouver where he became a substitute teacher at local schools such as Killarney Secondary and worked permanently as a French and math teacher at the private West Point Grey Academy. He became a roommate at the Douglas Lodge with fellow West Point Grey Academy faculty member and friend Christopher Ingvaldson. From 2002 to 2004, he studied engineering at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, affiliated with Université de Montréal, but did not graduate. He started a master's degree in environmental geography at McGill but withdrew from the program to seek public office.
In August 2000, Trudeau attended the Kokanee Summit in Creston, British Columbia, to raise funds in honour of his brother Michel Trudeau and other avalanche victims. After the event, an unsigned editorial in the Creston Valley Advance (a local newspaper) accused Trudeau of having groped an unnamed female reporter while at the music festival. The editorial stated Trudeau provided a "day-late" apology to the reporter, saying, "If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward". In 2018, Trudeau was questioned about the groping incident but said he did not remember any negative incidents from that time. His apology and later statement about the event have been described as hypocritical, while responses to the story have been described as a witch hunt or non-story.
In October 2000, Trudeau, then 28, emerged as a prominent figure after delivering a eulogy at his father's state funeral. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) received numerous calls to rebroadcast the speech after its initial transmission, and leading Quebec politician Claude Ryan described it as "perhaps ... the first manifestation of a dynasty". A book issued by the CBC in 2003 included the speech in its list of significant Canadian events from the past fifty years.
In 2007, Trudeau starred in the two-part CBC Television miniseries The Great War, which gave an account of Canada's participation in the First World War. He portrayed his fifth cousin, twice removed, Major Talbot Mercer Papineau, who was killed on October 30, 1917, during the Battle of Passchendaele. Trudeau is one of several children of former prime ministers who have become Canadian media personalities. The others are Ben Mulroney (son of Brian Mulroney), Catherine Clark (daughter of Joe Clark), and Trudeau's younger brother, Alexandre. Ben Mulroney was a guest at Trudeau's wedding.
Advocacy
Trudeau and his family started the Kokanee Glacier Alpine Campaign for winter sports safety in 2000, two years after his brother Michel died in an avalanche during a ski trip. In 2002, Trudeau criticized the Government of British Columbia's decision to stop its funding for a public avalanche warning system.
From 2002 to 2006, Trudeau chaired the Katimavik youth program, a project started by longtime family friend Jacques Hébert.
In 2002–03, Trudeau was a panelist on CBC Radio's Canada Reads series, where he championed The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston. Trudeau and his brother Alexandre inaugurated the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto in April 2004; the centre later became a part of the Munk School of Global Affairs. In 2006, he hosted the presentation ceremony for the Giller Prize for literature.
In 2005, Trudeau fought against a proposed $100-million zinc mine that he argued would poison the Nahanni River, a United Nations World Heritage Site located in the Northwest Territories. He was quoted as saying, "The river is an absolutely magnificent, magical place. I'm not saying mining is wrong ... but that is not the place for it. It's just the wrong thing to be doing."
On September 17, 2006, Trudeau was the master of ceremonies at a Toronto rally organized by Roméo Dallaire that called for Canadian participation in resolving the Darfur crisis.
Political beginnings
Trudeau supported the Liberal Party from a young age, offering his support to party leader John Turner in the 1988 federal election. Two years later, he defended Canadian federalism at a student event at the Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, which he attended.
Following his father's death, Trudeau became more involved with the Liberal Party throughout the 2000s. Along with Olympian Charmaine Crooks, he co-hosted a tribute to outgoing prime minister Jean Chrétien at the party's 2003 leadership convention, and was appointed to chair a task force on youth renewal after the party's defeat in the 2006 federal election.
In October 2006, Trudeau criticized Quebec nationalism by describing political nationalism generally as an "old idea from the 19th century", "based on a smallness of thought" and not relevant to modern Quebec. This comment was seen as a criticism of Michael Ignatieff, then a candidate in the 2006 Liberal Party leadership election, who was promoting recognition of Quebec as a nation. Trudeau later wrote a public letter on the subject, describing the idea of Quebec nationhood as "against everything my father ever believed".
Trudeau announced his support for leadership candidate Gerard Kennedy shortly before the 2006 convention and introduced Kennedy during the candidates' final speeches. When Kennedy dropped off after the second ballot, Trudeau joined him in supporting the ultimate winner, Stéphane Dion.
Rumours circulated in early 2007 that Trudeau would run in an upcoming by-election in the Montreal riding of Outremont. The Montreal newspaper La Presse reported despite Trudeau's keenness, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion wanted Outremont for a star candidate who could help rebuild the Liberal Party. Instead, Trudeau announced that he would seek the Liberal nomination in the nearby riding of Papineau for the next general election. The riding, which had been held for 26 years by André Ouellet, a senior minister under his father, had been in Liberal hands for 53 years before falling to the Bloc Québécois in 2006.
On April 29, 2007, Trudeau won the Liberal party's nomination, picking up 690 votes to 350 for Deros and 220 for Giordano against Mary Deros, a Montreal city councillor and Basilio Giordano, the publisher of a local Italian-language newspaper.
Opposition, 2008–2015
Prime Minister Stephen Harper called an election for October 14, 2008, by which time Trudeau had been campaigning for a year in Papineau. On election day, Trudeau narrowly defeated Bloc Québécois incumbent Vivian Barbot. Following his election win, Edward Greenspon, editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail, noted that Trudeau would "be viewed as few other rookie MPs are—as a potential future Prime Minister—and scrutinized through that lens".
The Conservative Party won a minority government in the 2008 election, and Trudeau entered parliament as a member of the Official Opposition. Trudeau's first legislative act was a motion that called for the creation of a "national voluntary service policy for young people". He later co-chaired the Liberal Party's April 2009 national convention in Vancouver, and in October of the same year he was appointed as the party's critic for multiculturalism and youth.
In September 2010, he was reassigned as critic for youth, citizenship, and immigration. During that time, he criticized the government's legislation targeting human smuggling, which he argued would penalize the victims of smuggling.
Trudeau sparked controversy when it was revealed that he earned $1.3 million in public speaking fees from charities and school boards across Canada, $277,000 of which Trudeau received after becoming an MP.
He encouraged an increase of Canada's relief efforts after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and sought more accessible immigration procedures for Haitians moving to Canada in the time of crisis. His own riding includes a significant Haitian community.
Trudeau was re-elected in Papineau in the 2011 federal election, as the Liberal Party fell to third-party standing in the House of Commons with only thirty-four seats. Ignatieff resigned as party leader immediately after the election, and rumours again circulated that Trudeau could run to become his successor. On this occasion, Trudeau said, "I don't feel I should be closing off any options ... because of the history packaged into my name, a lot of people are turning to me in a way that ... to be blunt, concerns me." Weeks after the election, Toronto MP Bob Rae was selected as the interim leader until the party's leadership convention, which was later decided to be held in April 2013. Rae appointed Trudeau as the party's critic for post-secondary education, youth and amateur sport. After his re-election, he travelled the country hosting fundraisers for charities and the Liberal Party.
Trudeau wanted to take part in a charity boxing match on behalf of the cancer research fundraising event Fight for the Cure, but was having difficulty finding a Conservative opponent until Conservative senator Patrick Brazeau agreed when asked on Trudeau's behalf by their mutual hairdresser Stefania Capovilla. The fight on March 31, 2012, in Ottawa at the Hampton Inn was broadcast live on Sun News with commentary by Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley and Trudeau won in the third round, the result considered an upset.
Leader of the Liberal Party
Earlier speculation
After Dion's resignation as Liberal leader in 2008, Trudeau's name was mentioned as a potential candidate with polls showing him as a favourite among Canadians for the position.
However, Trudeau did not enter the race and Michael Ignatieff was named leader in December 2008. After the party's poor showing in the 2011 election, Ignatieff resigned from the leadership and Trudeau was again seen as a potential candidate to lead the party.
Following the election, Trudeau said he was undecided about seeking the leadership; months later on October 12 at Wilfrid Laurier University, he announced he would not seek the post because he had a young family. When interim leader Bob Rae, who was also seen as a frontrunner, announced he would not be entering the race in June 2012, Trudeau was hit with a "tsunami" of calls from supporters to reconsider his earlier decision to not seek the leadership.
Opinion polling conducted by several pollsters showed that if Trudeau were to become leader the Liberal Party would surge in support, from a distant third place to either being competitive with the Conservative Party or leading them. In July 2012, Trudeau stated that he would reconsider his earlier decision to not seek the leadership and would announce his final decision at the end of the summer.
2013 leadership election
On September 26, 2012, multiple media outlets started reporting that Trudeau would launch his leadership bid the following week. While Trudeau was seen as a frontrunner for the leadership of the Liberal Party, he was criticized for his perceived lack of substance. During his time as a member of Parliament, he spoke little on policy matters and it was not known where he stood on many issues such as the economy and foreign affairs. Some strategists and pundits believed the leadership would be the time for Trudeau to be tested on these issues; however, there was also fear within the party that his celebrity status and large lead might deter other strong candidates from entering the leadership race.
On October 2, 2012, Trudeau held a rally in Montreal to launch his bid for the leadership of the Liberal Party. The core people on his campaign team were considered longtime friends, and all in their 30s and 40s. His senior advisor was Gerald Butts, the former president of WWF-Canada who had previously been principal secretary to former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty. Other senior aides included campaign manager Katie Telford, and policy advisors Mike McNeir and Robert Asselin, who had all worked for recent Liberal Party leaders. His brother Alexandre also took a break from his documentary work to be a senior advisor on Trudeau's campaign.
During the leadership campaign, three by-elections were held on November 26, 2012. The riding Calgary Centre was expected to be a three-way race between the Conservatives, Liberals and Green Party. A week before by-election day Sun Media reported on comments Trudeau had made in a 2010 interview with Télé-Québec, in which he said, "Canada isn't doing well right now because it's Albertans who control our community and socio-democratic agenda." Trudeau's campaign advisor said that the comments were being brought up now because of the close race in Calgary Centre. The following day, Trudeau apologized, saying he was wrong to use "Alberta" as "shorthand" in referring to Stephen Harper's government. The Conservatives held onto Calgary Centre in the by-election by less than 1,200 votes. Liberal candidate Harvey Locke said he lost the by-election on his own and that comments made by Trudeau did not influence the outcome.
Fellow leadership candidate Marc Garneau, seen as Trudeau's main challenger in the race, criticized Trudeau for not releasing enough substantial policy positions. Garneau called on him to release more detailed policies before members and supporters begin to vote. Garneau later challenged Trudeau to a one-on-one debate, and said that if Trudeau could not defend his ideas in a debate against him, he wouldn't be able to do so against Prime Minister Harper. Trudeau clashed in debates with challenger Joyce Murray, who was the only Liberal leadership candidate to speak out strongly in favour of electing the House of Commons with a system of proportional representation. She challenged Trudeau over his support for a preferential ballot voting system.
On March 13, 2013, Garneau dropped out of the leadership race, saying that polling conducted by his campaign showed he would be unable to defeat Trudeau.
With Joyce Murray, the last challenger, receiving significant press time, more Liberal politicians and public figures declared themselves for Trudeau. Trudeau was declared the winner of the leadership election on April 14, 2013, garnering 80.1% of 30,800 votes. Joyce Murray finished in second place with 10.2% , ahead of Martha Hall Findlay's 5.7%. Trudeau had lost only five ridings, all to Murray and all in BC.
Leadership, 2013–2015
In the days following his victory in the leadership race, snapshot polls recorded a surge in support for the Liberal party.
In 2013, Trudeau chose to give up his seat at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, in deference to Irwin Cotler as representative of the Liberal Party of Canada, because of Cotler's work for and with Nelson Mandela in fighting apartheid.
During the leadership campaign, Trudeau pledged to park all his assets, exclusive of real estate holdings, into a blind trust which is atypical for opposition MPs, including leaders. According to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, he fulfilled the pledge in July 2013 when the blind trust was set up by BMO Private Banking.
On January 27, 2014, Trudeau and MP Carolyn Bennett escorted Chrystia Freeland into the House of Commons, as is traditional for by-election victors. Trudeau launched an internet video the week before the 2014 Liberal party convention titled "An economy that benefits us all" in which he narrates his economic platform. He said that Canada's debt to GDP ratios have come down in recent years and now it's time for Ottawa to "step up".
2015 federal election
On October 19, 2015, after the longest official campaign in over a century, Trudeau led the Liberals to a decisive victory in the federal election. The Liberals won 184 of the 338 seats, with 39.5% of the popular vote, for a strong majority government; a gain of 150 seats compared to the 2011 federal election.
This was the second-best performance in the party's history. The Liberals won mostly on the strength of a solid performance in the eastern half of the country. In addition to taking all of Atlantic Canada and Toronto, they won 40 seats in Quebec—the most that the Liberals had won in that province since Trudeau's father led them to a near-sweep of the province in 1980, and also the first time since then that the Liberals won a majority of Quebec's seats in an election. The 150-seat gain was the biggest numerical increase for a single party since Confederation and marked the first time that a party had rebounded from third place in the Commons to a majority government.
In addition to the appeal of his party's platform, Trudeau's success has been credited to his performance both on the campaign trail and televised leaders' debates exceeding the lowered expectations created by Conservative advertisements and conservative media outlets.
Trudeau declared victory shortly after CBC News projected that he had won a majority government. He began his speech with a reference to former Liberal prime minister Wilfrid Laurier's "sunny ways" (French: voies ensoleillées) approach to bringing Canadians together despite their differences. According to Trudeau, Laurier "knew that politics can be a positive force, and that's the message Canadians have sent today". Harper announced his resignation as the leader of the Conservative Party that night.
Prime Minister of Canada (2015–present)
Trudeau and the rest of the Cabinet were sworn in by Governor General David Johnston on November 4, 2015. He said that his first legislative priority was to lower taxes for middle-income Canadians and raise taxes for the top 1% of income earners after parliament was reconvened on December 3, 2015. Trudeau also issued a statement promising to rebuild relations with Indigenous peoples in Canada and run an open, ethical and transparent government. On November 5, 2015, during the first Liberal caucus meeting since forming a majority government, the party announced that it would reinstate the mandatory long-form census that had been scrapped in 2010, effective with the 2016 census.
As prime minister, Trudeau launched three major independent investigations: the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIWG), the Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks (in partnership with the Government of Nova Scotia), and the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions. The latter was called in response to allegations of Chinese government interference in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections, but also deals with interference from other states deemed hostile to Canada. The MMIWG investigation found that Canada's response to this issue amounts to genocide, a finding Trudeau said he accepted.
Ethics
Trudeau was criticized by opposition members in November 2016 for his fundraising tactics, which they saw as "cash for access" schemes. Trudeau attended fundraisers where attendees paid upwards of $1500 for access to him and other cabinet members. In some instances, the events were attended by foreign businessmen who needed government approval for their businesses. Trudeau defended his fundraising tactics, saying that they were not in breach of any ethics rules. He also stated that he was lobbied at the fundraisers but not influenced. In 2017, Trudeau introduced legislation that would eliminate such exclusive events by requiring increased transparency for political fundraisers.
In January 2017, the ethics commissioner, Mary Dawson, began an investigation into Trudeau for a vacation he and his family took to Aga Khan IV's private island in the Bahamas. The ethics commissioner's report, released in December 2017, found that Trudeau had violated four provisions of the Conflict of Interest Act. He became the first sitting prime minister to break federal conflict of interest rules. In 2022, it was reported that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had considered bringing criminal charges against Trudeau over the affair.
In February 2018, Trudeau was criticized when his government invited Khalistani nationalist Jaspal Atwal to the Canadian High Commission's dinner party in Delhi. Atwal had previously been convicted for the shooting and attempted murder of Indian Cabinet minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu in 1986, as well as the assault on former BC premier Ujjal Dosanjh in 1985. Following the dinner, the PMO rescinded the invitation, and apologized for the incident.
SNC-Lavalin affair
On February 8, 2019, The Globe and Mail reported that sources close to the government said that the Prime Minister's Office had allegedly attempted to influence Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould concerning an ongoing prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. When asked about the allegations, Trudeau said that the story in the Globe was false and that he had never "directed" Wilson-Raybould concerning the case. Wilson-Raybould did not comment on the matter, citing solicitor-client privilege. Soon after, Trudeau voluntarily waived privilege and cabinet confidences, permitting her to speak. On February 11, the ethics commissioner announced the opening of an investigation into the allegations. Trudeau said he "welcomed the investigation". The Justice Committee of the House of Commons has conducted a series of hearings on the alleged interference. The investigation heard from several witnesses, including Jody Wilson-Raybould, who submitted as evidence a telephone call she secretly recorded between herself and Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick, which was subsequently released to the public. On the recording, Wernick is heard asking to understand why the "DPA route" is not being used, stating that people were "talking past each other", and suggesting Trudeau obtain independent legal advice from former Supreme Court chief justice Beverly McLachlin. Wilson-Raybould is heard suggesting that Trudeau would be "breaching a constitutional principle of prosecutorial independence". On March 19, 2019, the Liberal committee members voted as a bloc to shut down the Justice Committee's investigation.
Trudeau was the subject of an investigation by the ethics commissioner, pursuant to the Conflict of Interest Act, in regards to criminal charges against SNC-Lavalin in the SNC-Lavalin affair. The commission's final report, issued August 14, 2019, concluded "Mr. Trudeau contravened section 9 of the Act".
2019 federal election
On September 11, 2019, Trudeau visited Governor General Julie Payette, to request the dissolution of Parliament, and formally triggering an election. Prior to the formal start of the campaign, Trudeau announced his intention to only participate in the three leaders' debates, two organized by the Leaders' Debates Commission, and one organized by TVA. Other leader's debates were either cancelled or took place with an empty podium left on stage for Trudeau.In September 2019, controversial pictures and video were published showing Trudeau in brownface and blackface. On September 18, 2019, Time magazine published a photograph of Trudeau wearing brownface makeup in the spring of 2001, at an Arabian Nights-themed gala, while Trudeau was a teacher at West Point Grey Academy. Trudeau publicly apologized, agreeing the photo was racist and saying: "I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better and I didn't. I'm really sorry." He further went on to say "It was something that I didn't think was racist at the time, but now I recognize it was something racist to do". Trudeau also admitted to wearing blackface makeup in high school while singing "Day-O" at a talent show that was subsequently published by Global News. A third instance, a video, of Trudeau in racist dress was also published. After this video was published, Trudeau admitted he could not remember how often he had worn blackface makeup. In the days following the scandal, pollsters pointed out that many Canadians either were not bothered by the scandal or had accepted Trudeau's apology. Additionally, some minority community groups, racialized commentators and some of Trudeau's opponents came to his defence. Others were more critical, including members of his own party.
2019 election results
While Trudeau's Liberal Party lost 20 seats in the House of Commons (lowering its total from 177 to 157) from the time of dissolution, they still won the most seats of any party—enough seats to allow Trudeau to form a minority government. For the first time since 1979, the party that garnered the largest share of the national popular vote did not win the most seats; the Liberals under Trudeau had 33.1% of the popular vote, while the Conservatives under Andrew Scheer had 34.4%. It was also the first time a government took power with less than 35% of the national popular vote since the Conservatives of John A. Macdonald, in 1867, who had 34.8% of the votes. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Liberal party won 14% and 10% of the popular vote, respectively. In Ontario, Liberals won all 25 Toronto seats and 24 of 29 seats in the surrounding suburbs of the Greater Toronto Area—reportedly due in part to the unpopularity of the Progressive Conservative party government of Premier Doug Ford.
COVID-19 pandemic
Trudeau was prime minister during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. His government's response to the pandemic included funds for provinces and territories to adapt to the new situation, funds for coronavirus research, travel restrictions, screening of international flights, self-isolation orders under the Quarantine Act, an industrial strategy, and a public health awareness campaign. Initially, Canada faced a shortage of personal protective equipment, as the Trudeau government had cut PPE stockpile funding in the previous years.
To deal with the economic impact of the pandemic in 2020, Trudeau waived student loan payments, increased the Canada Child Benefit, doubled the annual Goods and Services Tax payment, and introduced the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) as part of a first package in March. In April 2020, Trudeau introduced the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the Canada Emergency Business Account, and the Canada Emergency Student Benefit. Trudeau also deployed the Canadian Forces in long-term care homes in Quebec and Ontario as part of Operation LASER.
Throughout the pandemic, the federal government was also responsible for the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. On May 12, 2020, the Trudeau government announced it had reached an exclusive deal with CanSino Biologics. However, due to deteriorating Canadian-Chinese relations, the Cansino deal fell through. On August 5, 2020, the Trudeau government created a plan to secure doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Starting in December 2020, Trudeau oversaw the implementation of Canada's mass-vaccination program.
The spread of COVID-19 in Canada continued beyond the initial outbreak, with a strong second wave in the fall of 2020 and an even more serious third wave in the spring of 2021. Throughout the crisis, Trudeau periodically extended the scope and duration of the federal aid programs. The 2021 Canadian federal budget planned to phase them out by the end of September 2021, and projected a $354.2-billion deficit in the 2020–21 fiscal year. While CERB was indeed phased out on September 26, the Canada Recovery Benefit (CBR) continued to provide support until October 23. The Canada Worker Lockdown Benefit was introduced that month to replace the CBR, and expanded during the spread of the Omicron variant in December 2021.
WE Charity ethics investigation
Following complaints by opposition parties that the Trudeau family had ties to WE Charity, the ethics commissioner on July 3, 2020, announced an investigation into Trudeau's and the government's decision to have the charity administer a summer, student-grant program which could assist students financially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trudeau responded by saying WE was the charity that had the capability to administer such a program. WE and the federal government decided to "part ways" leaving administration of the grant program to the federal government.
WE Charity was criticized for its close ties to the Trudeau family; the investigation came after revelations that Trudeau's mother, brother, and wife were paid nearly $300,000 in total to speak at WE Charity events.
On July 16, 2020, the ethics commissioner also announced the investigation was being expanded to include Finance Minister Bill Morneau. Trudeau was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing by the ethics commissioner though Morneau was found to have broken the conflict of interest law.
2021 federal election
On August 15, 2021, Trudeau advised Governor General Mary Simon to dissolve parliament, scheduling an election for September 20. The election was called on the same day as the Fall of Kabul. In the first two weeks of the campaign, Trudeau received criticism for not acting fast enough in the face of the 2021 Taliban offensive to evacuate Canadian citizens and Afghans who supported Canada's military and diplomatic efforts during the War in Afghanistan.
In the 2021 federal election, Trudeau secured a third mandate and his second minority government after winning 160 seats. However, the Liberals came in second in the national popular vote, behind the Conservatives. They received 32.6 percent of the popular vote, the lowest percentage of the national popular vote for a governing party in Canadian history.
2022 convoy protest
The Canada convoy protest, called the Freedom Convoy, was a protest in Canada against COVID-19 vaccine requirements for truckers to re-enter the country by land introduced by the Government of Canada on January 15, 2022. Originally composed of several routes traversing all of the Canadian provinces, the truck convoys converged on Ottawa.
On January 29, the first day of protest at Parliament Hill, Trudeau moved to an undisclosed location. According to The Guardian, the demonstration developed to express a number of "antigovernment grievances", particularly against Trudeau. On January 31, Trudeau called the protests an "insult to truth". On February 3, he said that a military response was "not in the cards right now". On February 11, Reuters reported that Trudeau promised the US "quick action" regarding protesters who have forcefully blocked the Ambassador Bridge on the US-Canada border, the continent's busiest land border crossing." Trudeau subsequently indicated that there would be "robust police intervention" and called for all protesters to "go home."
Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on February 14, 2022, for the first time since it was enacted in 1988, as a result of the public order emergency caused by the demonstrations in Ottawa. On February 23, 2022, Trudeau announced that the federal government would revoke the emergency declaration. Later that day, the governor general signed a proclamation revoking it. A year later, on February 17, 2023, a judicial inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act concluded that the Trudeau government met the legal threshold required to invoke the act. In early 2024, Federal Court judge Richard Mosley ruled that the federal government's invocation of the Emergencies Act to end the 2022 convoy protest was "not justified" and infringed on Charter rights. The federal government plans to appeal the ruling.
Confidence and supply agreement
On March 22, 2022, the Liberals and the NDP entered a confidence and supply agreement. The agreement, in which the NDP committed to supporting the Liberals in all votes of confidence for the duration of the 44th Parliament, included action towards key NDP priorities. The effect of the agreement was to avert any prospective early election, to allow the minority Trudeau government to stay in power for the full four-year term of the Parliament, ahead of the 2025 election.
Among the policies included in the deal were the establishment of a national dental care program for low-income Canadians, progress towards a national pharmacare program, labour reforms for federally regulated workers, and new taxes on financial institutions.
In early 2024, the two parties reached an impasse over pharmacare, putting the deal in jeopardy. The agreement called for the development of the Canada Pharmacare Act by the end of 2023, setting out a framework for the system; however, the NDP had agreed to extend the deadline to March 1 of the following year as negotiations became fraught. Major points of contention included the NDP's demand that the system be single-payer, as well as preliminary coverage for certain drugs prior to the implementation of the full system. On February 23, the parties reached an agreement, salvaging the deal. The agreement provided coverage for diabetes and contraceptive drugs ahead of the full program's launch.
In September 2024, the NDP pulled their support and ended the confidence and supply agreement. NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said the Liberals had "let people down" and were "too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests" to fight for people, while Trudeau stated he would continue to work for Canadians and not focus on politics. On September 25, 2024, Trudeau survived a no-confidence vote brought by the Conservative Party.
Policies
Domestic policy
The Trudeau government's economic policy initially relied on increased tax revenues to pay for increased government spending. While the government has not balanced the budget, it reduced Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio every year until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Trudeau's self-described progressive and feminist social policy has included strong advocacy for abortion rights. His government introduced the bill that made conversion therapies illegal in Canada.
After the 2015 election, Canada set targets to welcome an increased number of immigrants and refugees. Despite warnings about the impact of increased immigration on housing and services, Trudeau's government allowed almost 1 million newcomers (permanent and temporary residents) in both 2022 and 2023. Trudeau initiated measures to combat housing inflation: Foreign buyers were banned and the Housing Accelerator Fund was created. In Sept 2023, Trudeau stated housing prices were "far too high", but, in May 2024, during an interview with The Globe and Mail, Trudeau said, "housing needs to retain its value." In 2021, Trudeau touted his Child Benefit Program, claiming it had lifted 400,000 children out of poverty. In 2024, food bank usage was at an all time high and more working people than ever were using food banks.
Canada introduced the right to medically-assisted dying in 2016. and legalized cannabis for recreational use in 2018. In 2021, Trudeau announced the creation of a national child care plan with the intention of reducing day care fees for parents down to $10 a day per child within five years. In November 2022, the Trudeau government announced that Canada would admit 500,000 immigrants per year by 2025.
His environmental policy included introducing new commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30% before 2030, and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. His main tool for reaching this target is a federal carbon pricing policy. Trudeau's parliament also adopted legislation for marine conservation, banning six common single-use plastic products, and strengthening environmental impact assessments. Trudeau pledged to ban single use plastic in 2019. In the year 2022 his government announced a ban on producing and importing single use plastic from December 2022. The sale of those items will be banned from December 2023 and the export from 2025. However, Trudeau is in favour of oil and gas pipelines to bring Canadian fossil fuel resources to foreign markets.
Foreign policy
In 2015, Trudeau told the New York Times Magazine that Canada could be the "first postnational state".
In 2016, Trudeau lifted visa requirements for Mexican citizens. Asylum claims by Mexicans grew from 110 in 2015 to 24,000 in 2023. Visas and some restrictions were reinstated in 2024.
In January 2017, Trudeau wrote, "To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada," on Twitter. As a result, irregular border crossing increased, mainly at Roxham Road. Increased strain on services in Quebec and Ontario, and criticism over the unsustainable influx of claimants, appeared to influence the decision to close Roxham Road in March 2023; however, the new terms of the Canada–United States Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) had been arranged the previous year. After irregular border crossings were shut down, asylum claims surged at airports.
Trudeau enjoyed good relations with the "like-minded" United States president Barack Obama, despite Trudeau's support for the Keystone Pipeline, which was rejected by the Democratic president. Trudeau's first foreign policy challenges included follow-through on his campaign promise to withdraw Canadian air support from the Syrian civil war and to welcome 25,000 Syrian war refugees.
When Donald Trump became president, Canada-US relations deteriorated. The Trump administration forced the renegotiation of NAFTA to create the CUSMA, in which Canada made significant concessions in allowing increased imports of American milk, weakening Canada's dairy supply management system. Donald Trump also implemented tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, to which Trudeau retaliated by imposing tariffs on American steel, aluminum and a variety of other American products.
Canada's relationship with China also deteriorated during Trudeau's time as prime minister. The turmoil led to the arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the Vancouver International Airport in December 2018 at the behest of the United States, and the arrest of Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig in China 12 days later. Trudeau appointed Liberal advisor, Dominic Barton (McKinsey & Company, Century Initiative) ambassador to China in 2019. While Barton negotiated the release of Spavor and Kovrig, Canada-China trade reached historic highs. Barton resigned in December 2021, "amidst growing pressure from...President Joe Biden for Ottawa to take a tougher stance with Beijing." As Wanzhou, Spavor and Kovrig were released at the exact same time in September 2021, many observers speculated they were exchanged as part of a deal between the United States and China. Trudeau greeted Spavor and Kovrig at the airport upon their repatriation. In 2024, Spavor was awarded $7 million in compensation for his arrest and detainment. Although Trudeau repeatedly claimed the two were arbitrarily targeted, it was later reported Spavor had unwittingly participated in espionage by sharing information on North Korea with Kovrig who then passed it onto the Canadian government.
In a similar fashion, Canada's relationship with Saudi Arabia was also put under strain, as human rights groups called on Trudeau to stop selling military equipment to that country under a deal struck by the Harper government. In 2018, Saudi Arabia recalled its Canadian ambassador and froze trade with the country in response to Canada's call for the Saudis to release opposition blogger Raif Badawi. However, in 2019, Canada doubled its weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, despite a "moratorium on export permits following the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and mounting civilian deaths from the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen."
In September 2023, Trudeau said that the government of Canada had "credible intelligence" that the government of India was involved in the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, outside a Sikh temple in Surrey. This episode caused a rapid deterioration of Canada–India relations.
In 2020, Canada lost its bid to join the United Nations Security Council. This was the second time Canada had failed an attempt to join the Security Council, the first time being in 2009 under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
In October 7, 2023, Trudeau condemned Hamas' actions during the Israel–Hamas war and expressed his support to Israel and its right to self-defence. On October 24, he rejected calls for a ceasefire but said he supported "humanitarian pauses" to deliver aid to the people of the Gaza Strip. On December 12, in a joint statement with the Prime Minister of Australia and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Trudeau called for a "sustainable ceasefire" in the war.
Personal life
Family
Trudeau first met Sophie Grégoire when they were both children growing up in Montreal; Grégoire was a classmate and childhood friend of Trudeau's youngest brother, Michel. They reconnected as adults in June 2003, when Grégoire, by then a Quebec television personality, was assigned as Trudeau's co-host for a charity ball; they began dating several months later. Trudeau and Grégoire became engaged in October 2004 and married on May 28, 2005, in a ceremony at Montreal's Sainte-Madeleine d'Outremont Church. They have three children: a boy, Xavier, born in 2007, a girl, Ella-Grace, born in 2009, and a boy, Hadrien, born in 2014.
In June 2013, two months after Trudeau became the leader of the Liberal Party, the couple sold their home in the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood of Montreal. They began living in a rented home in Ottawa's Rockcliffe Park, the neighbourhood near where Trudeau resided as a child during his father's time as prime minister.
On August 18, 2014, an intruder broke into the house while Grégoire and the couple's three children were sleeping and left a threatening note; however, nothing was stolen and there was no damage to the property. Following the incident, Trudeau, who was in Winnipeg at the time of the break-in, stated his intention to inquire with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police about his home security. After his 2015 electoral victory, Trudeau opted to live at Rideau Cottage, on the grounds of Rideau Hall.
On August 2, 2023, Trudeau announced he and Grégoire had separated. On August 21, Trudeau said he was focusing on his children and the future.
Religion
Trudeau's father was a devout Catholic and his mother converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism just before their wedding. Trudeau himself became a lapsed Catholic at age 18, as he felt that much of his day-to-day life was not addressed by the formality and structure of the church. Trudeau described his faith during this period as "like so many Catholics across this country, I said, 'OK, I'm Catholic, I'm of faith, but I'm just not really going to go to church. Maybe on Easter, maybe midnight Mass at Christmas.'" After the death of his brother Michel in 1998, Trudeau was persuaded by a friend to participate in an Alpha course, during which he regained his faith. In 2011, Trudeau stated, "My own personal faith is an extremely important part of who I am and the values that I try to lead with."
Honours
Honorary degrees
Electoral record
Published works
Footnotes
References
Further reading
External links
Official website
Justin Trudeau – Parliament of Canada biography |
List_of_prime_ministers_of_France | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_France | [
382
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_France"
] | The head of the government of France has been called the prime minister of France (French: Premier ministre) since 1959, when Michel Debré became the first officeholder appointed under the Fifth Republic. During earlier periods of history, the head of government of France was known by different titles. As was common in European democracies of the 1815–1958 period (the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy, the Second, Third, and Fourth Republic, as well as the Vichy regime), the head of government was called President of the Council of Ministers (Président du Conseil des ministres), generally shortened to President of the council (Président du Conseil). This should not be confused with the elected office of president of the French Republic, who appoints the prime minister as head of state.
9th century – 18th century
Kingdom of France (843–1792)
Under the Kingdom of France, there was no official title for the leader of the government. The chief ministers (principal ministres) of certain kings of France nonetheless led the government de facto.
18th century – 19th century
French First Republic (1792–1804)
During the First Republic, the arrangements for governance changed frequently:
National Convention (20 September 1792 – 2 November 1795)
with Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve as President of the National Convention (22 September 1792 – 2 June 1793)
with Maximilien Robespierre as President of the National Convention (4 June 1793 – 27 July 1794)
with Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès as President of the National Convention (7 October 1794 – 20 April 1795)
with Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès as President of the National Convention (20 April 1795 – 26 October 1795)
Directory (2 November 1795 – 10 November 1799), with Paul Barras as President of the Directory
Consulate (10 November 1799 – 18 May 1804), with Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul of France
There was no individual head of government.
French First Empire (1804–1815)
As Emperor, Napoleon was both head of state and head of government.
First Restoration (1814–1815)
Hundred Days (1815)
As Emperor, Napoleon was both head of state and head of government. Upon Napoleon's abdication, his son Napoleon II was named Emperor. This rule was nominal, and Napoleon II remained in Austria throughout his nominal reign.
Bourbon Restoration (1815–1830)
Presidents of the Council of Ministers
July Monarchy (1830–1848)
Presidents of the Council of Ministers
Political parties
Independent
Orléanist
Doctrinaires/Movement Party
Resistance Party
Second French Republic (1848–1852)
Presidents of the Council of Ministers
Second French Empire (1852–1870)
Cabinet Chiefs
19th century – 20th century
French Third Republic (1870–1940)
President of the Government of National Defense
Presidents of the Council of Ministers
French State (1940–1944)
Until 1942, Marshal Philippe Pétain served as Chief of State and nominal President of the Council of Ministers. From 1942, Pétain remained Chief of State, but Pierre Laval was named Chief of the Government.
Vice-Presidents of the Council of Ministers
Provisional Government of the French Republic (1944–1946)
Chairmen of the Provisional Government
Fourth French Republic (1946–1958)
Presidents of the Council of Ministers
20th century – 21st century
Fifth French Republic (since 1958)
Prime Ministers
Timeline
Executive Prime Ministers (1814 ― 1959)
Non-executive Prime Ministers (since 1959)
See also
Chief Minister of France
History of France
List of presidents of France
Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs
Politics of France
President of France
Notes
External links
List on the website of the French Prime Minister (in French) |
Rockefeller_Center_Christmas_Tree | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Center_Christmas_Tree | [
383
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Center_Christmas_Tree"
] | The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree is a large Christmas tree placed annually in Rockefeller Center, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. The tree is put in place in mid November and lit in a public ceremony on the Wednesday evening following Thanksgiving. Since 1997, the lighting has been broadcast live, to hundreds of millions, on NBC's Christmas in Rockefeller Center telecast. The tree lighting ceremony is aired at the end of every broadcast, following live entertainment and the tree is lit by the current Mayor of New York City, the CEO and president of Tishman Speyer and special guests. An estimated 125 million people visit the attraction each year.
The tree, usually a Norway spruce 69 to 100 feet (21–30 m) tall, has been a national tradition each year since 1933. The official 2023 Christmas Tree Lighting occurred during a live broadcast on November 29, 2023. The tree remained on display until 10:00 PM EST on January 13, 2024.
Selection and decoration
Trees are traditionally donated to Rockefeller Center, which in turn donates the lumber after display. Until his death in 2009, the late David Murbach, Manager of the Gardens Division of Rockefeller Center, scouted for the desired tree in upstate New York and surrounding states, and even Ottawa in Ontario, Canada.
Erik Pauzé, Head Gardener at Rockefeller Center, looks for each year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. He visits nurseries throughout the tri-state area and looks for unique backyard trees. Trees are also submitted for consideration through Rockefeller Center's website. Pauzé and his team choose each year's tree based on its heartiness and "Christmas tree shape," as well as its ability to support the heavy ornaments.
Once a tree is selected, a crane supports the tree while it is cut, then moved to a custom telescoping trailer able to transport trees up to 125 feet (38 m) tall, although the narrowness of the streets around Rockefeller Center limits the height of the tree to 100 feet (30 m). The tree is then delivered to the city by a local company, Christmas Tree Brooklyn. On its way to Manhattan, the tree is often dressed in giant red bows or banners extending holiday greetings to witnesses. Trucks, barges, and a transport plane have all been used to help the tree make the trip.
Once at Rockefeller Center, the tree is supported by four guy-wires attached at its midpoint and by a steel spike at its base. Scaffolding is erected around the tree to assist workers in hanging about 50,000 multi-colored LED lights and the star top. A new crystal star of Swarovski crystal which tops the tree was created in 2018 and designed by the renowned architect Daniel Liebeskind. The new star features 70 spikes and three million crystals with LED lighting spots by the company Oznium, who worked with the engineers. In total it weighs 900 pounds (408.23 kg).
History
The first Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center was erected in 1931, during the Depression-era construction of Rockefeller Center, when Italian-American workers decorated a smaller 20 foot (6.1 m) balsam fir with "strings of cranberries, garlands of paper, and even a few tin cans" on Christmas Eve. With the lighting of the 50-foot-tall (15 m) first official tree two years later, the tree became what Rockefeller Center dubbed "a holiday beacon for New Yorkers and visitors alike". A skating rink was opened below the tree in the plaza in 1936.
Since then, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree has been a yearly tradition. Workers pooled their money for that unlit tree, with the garlands made by workers' families. According to Rockefeller Center's website, the tree was "from the beginning ... a gathering place and reflection of what was happening in the world around it".
World War II ushered in simple, patriotic decorations, including red, white and blue unlit globes and painted wooden stars. In 1942, instead of one large tree, three more modest trees were raised, each decorated in one of the flag's colors. From 1944 until the war's end in 1945, the tree went unlit due to blackout regulations. After the war, the year of darkness was left behind, as six ultraviolet light projectors were employed to make it appear as though the tree's 700 fluorescent globes were glowing in the dark. By the 1950s, workers began using scaffolding to decorate the tree, as larger trees were accommodated. Before the decade was over, the decorating process called for 20 workers and nine days. 1951 marked the first time that NBC televised the tree lighting with a special on The Kate Smith Hour. In 1969, artist Valerie Clarebout's towering wire herald angels were added to the Channel Gardens in front of the tree near Fifth Avenue. Clarebout created the 12 sculptures using 75 points of metal wire each.
The 1971 65-foot-tall (20 m) tree from East Montpelier, Vermont, was the first to be mulched and recycled. It was turned into 30 three-bushel bags of mulch for the nature trails of upper Manhattan. Though the tree typically makes its journey on a truck bed, in 1998 it was flown in from Richfield, Ohio, on the world's largest transport plane. 1999 saw Rockefeller Center's tallest tree, a 100 foot (30 m) spruce from Killingworth, Connecticut.
In 2001, following the September 11 attacks, the tree was again decorated in hues of red, white and blue. In 2007, the tree went "green", converting to energy-efficient lighting with LEDs. The LEDs use 1,200 fewer kilowatt hours of electricity per day, enough to power a 2,000-square-foot home for a month. Also since 2007, each year after display, the tree has been milled into lumber and donated to Habitat for Humanity for use in house construction. In 2014, mayor Bill de Blasio did not participate in the tree lighting ceremony. Since 2009, the tree is lit following a 5-second countdown and since 2011, the tree lighting ceremony has been followed by the singing of Joy to the World performed by a choir.
Until 2018, the lighting was the last moment of the program, and has since been moved to the last ten minutes.
On November 16, 2020, an adult female northern saw-whet owl was found dehydrated and hungry within the wrapped branches of the newly delivered tree during its installation. The bird was discovered by workers who transported the spruce 170 miles (270 km) from Oneonta, New York to New York City. The feathered stowaway, named Rockefeller (Rocky), endured the three-day road trip and generated much public interest and media coverage. She was taken to a wildlife center for a check-up and nursed to full strength before being released on the grounds of the wildlife center in Saugerties, New York.
Display
The decorated tree remains on display at the plaza entrance of 30 Rockefeller Plaza at least through January 6 of the new year. As of 2019, more than a half million people passed by the tree each day while it is on display, according to Rockefeller Center.
Broadcasting
Since 1997, the lighting ceremony has been broadcast live on NBC in the first hour of primetime, live in the Eastern and Central time zones, and on tape elsewhere. The ceremony is hosted by Today's Al Roker (1997–present), Savannah Guthrie (2012–present), and Hoda Kotb (2017–present). In 2007, Ashley Tisdale and Nick Lachey hosted the broadcast with Roker. In 2018, MSNBC and Today anchor Craig Melvin began co-hosting the broadcast. In 2022, Mario Lopez filled in for Guthrie and Roker due to her illness and his health complications involving blood clots. Kelly Clarkson hosted in 2023. Until 1997, it had been broadcast before primetime exclusively in New York on WNBC. In 2019, a second hour was added, meaning the tree is now lit just before 10 p.m. ET.
Performers
In recent years, celebrity appearances and live performances preceded the tree lighting ceremony and featured some of the biggest names in music. Performers for the broadcast ceremonies have included, over the years, John Legend, Diana Ross, Gwen Stefani, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Pentatonix, Dolly Parton, Carrie Underwood, Brad Paisley, Harry Connick Jr., Rosemary Clooney, Annie Lennox, Norah Jones, Aretha Franklin, Cyndi Lauper, Mariah Carey, Josh Groban, Mickey Guyton, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett. The ceremony traditionally includes a performance by The Rockettes.
Yearly tree details
See also
National Christmas Tree
Capitol Christmas Tree
White House Christmas tree
Vatican Christmas Tree
Rich's Great Tree
Grove Christmas Tree
Boston Christmas Tree
References
"Oznium LEDs Light Up New Star at Rockefeller Center". Oznium. December 11, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2019.
Bibliography
d'Agostino, Carla Torsilieri; Byrd, Byron Keith (1997). The Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center. ISBN 0-9650308-7-3.
"Christmas Tech". Modern Marvels. December 20, 2006. The History Channel. Archived from the original on May 16, 2007.
Further reading
Moseman, Andrew (November 14, 2008). "How Riggers Raise the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree: Live on Scene". Popular Mechanics. Archived from the original on December 22, 2008. Retrieved December 21, 2008.
External links
Christmas in Rockefeller Center, NBC.com
NYC Insider Guide to Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting
Tree Lighting Times at Rockefeller Center, NYSGO.com
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Official Page |
Killingworth,_Connecticut | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killingworth,_Connecticut | [
383
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killingworth,_Connecticut"
] | Killingworth is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region. The population was 6,174 at the 2020 United States Census.
History
Killingworth was established from the area called Hammonasset, taken from the local Native American tribe of the same name. The area originally incorporated the area of the present town of Clinton, which was separated from Killingworth along ecclesiastical borders in 1838. Part of New London County prior to May 1785, Killingworth was then included in the newly formed Middlesex County, where it remains today.
The New England town received its name from Kenilworth, England, the previous home of one of the first settlers in New England, Edward Griswold. Kenilworth's name resembled "Killingworth" during the colonial American period, though over time the pronunciations and spellings of the names drifted toward the two distinct modern ones. A town and village in England called Killingworth and Killingworth Village, in the county of Tyne and Wear, do not appear to have any connection with Killingworth, Connecticut.
In the late 17th century, Killingworth became the birthplace of what would eventually become Yale University. The Rev. Abraham Pierson, the college's first president, taught some of the first classes in his Killingworth home—which is actually in present-day Clinton, Connecticut. However, in 1701, the college's first official home was constructed in Old Saybrook on the peninsula known as Saybrook Point donated by Yale's first Treasurer Nathanial Lynde. Eventually the school was moved to its present-day home in New Haven.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 35.8 square miles (93 km2). Of this total, 35.3 square miles (91 km2) is dry land and 0.5 square miles (1.3 km2) – or 1.34% – is water-covered.
Killingworth also contains Chatfield Hollow State Park.
Government
Killingworth is governed by a Board of Selectmen, currently headed by First Selectman, Eric Couture, with Joel A. D’Angelo and Eric J. Nunes also on the board.
Demographics
As of the census of July 1, 2015, there were 6,455 people, 2,513 households, and 1,765 families residing in the town. The population density was 184.7 inhabitants per square mile (71.3/km2). There were 2,598 housing units at an average density of 70.6 per square mile (24.9/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 96.4% White, 0.7% African American, 0.2% Native American, 1.1% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 2.2% Hispanic or Latino, and 1.3% Two or More Races.
There were 2,513 households, with a 95.3% occupancy rate, out of which 23.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 73.8% were married couples living together, 4.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 19.6% were non-families. 16.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 8.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.74 and the average family size was 3.08.
In the town, the population was spread out, with 4% under the age of 5, 23.9% under the age of 18, 3.6% from 18 to 24, 29.4% from 25 to 44, 28.0% from 45 to 64, and 16% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 98.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.8 males.
The median income for a household in the town was $112,137. The per capita income for the town was $48,537. None of the families and 1.7% of the population were living below the poverty line, including no under eighteens and 1.4% of those over 64.
Politics
Education
Students attending school in Killingworth are a part of Connecticut's Regional School District #17, which consists of Haddam and its villages of Haddam Neck (located on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River) and Higganum. The high school, Haddam-Killingworth High School (often abbreviated as simply "HK"), is located in Higganum. The middle-school, Haddam Killingworth Intermediate-Middle School, was built in Killingworth in 2006 and houses grades 4 through 8. The elementary schools, Burr Elementary School and Killingworth Elementary School are located in Higganum and Killingworth respectively. The school's sports teams are called the 'Cougars'.
Transportation
The Estuary Transit District provides public transportation throughout Killingworth and the surrounding towns through its 9 Town Transit Service. Services include connections to the Old Saybrook Train Station, served by Amtrak and Shoreline East railroads.
Popular culture
The town was the subject of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Birds of Killingworth" published in Tales of a Wayside Inn.
1999: The largest tree in Rockefeller Center history, 100 feet (30 m) high, was chosen from Killingworth, CT.
Notable people
Jeff Bagwell, Hall of Fame Major League Baseball player for the Houston Astros
Carleton Beals, journalist, author, historian, and a crusader with special interests in Latin America
Abel Buell, publisher of the first map of the new United States created by an American
Jonathan Bush, American banker, brother of President George H. W. Bush
Titus Coan, missionary to Hawaii
Silas Halsey, former US Congressman
Haynes Johnson, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, author and political analyst
Camille Kostek, model who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
Ricki Lake, television personality
Hugh Lofting, author of the Doctor Dolittle series
Washington F. Willcox, U.S. Congressman (March 4, 1889 – March 3, 1893), born on North Chestnut Hill on August 22, 1834
Fredric Jameson, professor and literary critic
Listings on the National Register of Historic places
Emmanuel Church, added August 5, 1999
Oak Lodge, added September 4, 1986
Parmelee House (Killingworth, Connecticut).
See also
Connecticut portal
References
External links
Town government web site
Regional School District #17
Chamber of Commerce site |
Hugh_Lofting | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Lofting | [
383
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Lofting"
] | Hugh John Lofting (14 January 1886 – 26 September 1947) was an English American writer, trained as a civil engineer, who created the classic children's literature character Doctor Dolittle. The fictional physician to talking animals, based in an English village, first appeared in illustrated letters to his children which Lofting sent from British Army trenches in the First World War. Lofting settled in the United States soon after the war and before his first book was published.
Personal life
Lofting was born on 14 January 1886 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, to Elizabeth Agnes (Gannon) and John Brien Lofting, was of English and Irish ancestry. His eldest brother, Hilary Lofting, later became a novelist in Australia, having emigrated there in 1915.
Lofting was educated at Mount St Mary's College in Spinkhill, Derbyshire. From 1905 to 1906, he studied civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Lofting travelled widely as a civil engineer before enlisting in the Irish Guards regiment of the British Army in the First World War. Not wishing to write to his children about the brutal war, he wrote imaginative letters, which later became the foundation of the successful Doctor Dolittle novels for children. Seriously wounded in the war, he emigrated with his family to Killingworth, Connecticut, in 1919. He was married three times and had three children, one of whom, his son Christopher, became the executor of his literary estate.
Lofting died on 26 September 1947, at his home in Topanga, California from cirrhosis of the liver. He is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Killingworth, Middlesex County, Connecticut.
Doctor Dolittle
Hugh Lofting's character, Doctor John Dolittle, an English physician from "Puddleby-on-the-Marsh" in the West Country, who could speak to animals, first saw light in illustrated letters written to his children from the trenches, when actual news, he later said, was too horrible or too dull. The stories are set in early Victorian England in the 1820s–1840s – The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle gives a date of 1839.
The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed (1920) began the series and won a posthumous Lewis Carroll Shelf Award in 1958. Its first sequel, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922) won a Newbery Medal. Eight novels completed by Lofting followed and two more books were edited after his death.
Other works for children
The Story of Mrs Tubbs (1923) and Tommy, Tilly, and Mrs. Tubbs (1936) are picture books aimed at a younger audience than the Doctor Dolittle books. They tell of the old woman and her pets, with whom she can speak, and the animals who help her out of trouble.
Porridge Poetry (1924) is the only non-Dolittle work by Lofting still in print. It is a lighthearted, colourfully illustrated book of poems for children. Noisy Nora (1929) is a cautionary tale about a girl who is a noisy eater. The book is printed as if hand-written, and the many illustrations often merge with the text.
The Twilight of Magic (1930) is aimed at older readers. It is set in an age when magic is dying and science beginning. This work is the only one of Lofting's books to be illustrated by another person: Lois Lenski.
Victory for the Slain
Victory for the Slain (1942), Lofting's only work for adults, consists of a single long poem in seven parts about the futility of war, permeated by the refrain "In war the only victors are the slain". It appeared only in the United Kingdom.
Published books
Lofting commented: "For years it was a constant source of shock to me to find my writings amongst 'juveniles'. It does not bother me any more now, but I still feel there should be a category of 'seniles' to offset the epithet".
Doctor Dolittle
Other
See also
Children's literature portal
Fantasy portal
References
External links
Works by Hugh Lofting in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
Works by Hugh Lofting at Project Gutenberg
Works by Hugh Lofting at Faded Page (Canada)
Works by or about Hugh Lofting at the Internet Archive
Works by Hugh Lofting at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
A Hugh Lofting website
First Editions UK – with images |
Doctor_Dolittle | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Dolittle | [
383
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Dolittle"
] | Doctor John Dolittle is the central character of a series of children's books by Hugh Lofting starting with the 1920 The Story of Doctor Dolittle. He is a physician who shuns human patients in favour of animals, with whom he can speak in their own languages. He later becomes a naturalist, using his abilities to speak with animals to better understand nature and the history of the world.
Doctor Dolittle first appeared in the author's illustrated letters to his children, written from the trenches during World War I when actual news, he later said, was either too horrible or too dull. The stories are set in early Victorian England, where Doctor John Dolittle lives in the fictional English village of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh in the West Country.
Doctor Dolittle has a few close human friends, including his young assistant Tommy Stubbins, and Matthew Mugg, the Cats'-Meat Man. The animal team includes Polynesia (a parrot), Gub-Gub (a pig), Jip (a dog), Dab-Dab (a duck), Chee-Chee (a monkey), Too-Too (an owl), the Pushmi-pullyu, and a white mouse later named simply "Whitey". Later on, in the 1925 novel Doctor Dolittle's Zoo, Whitey founds (with the doctor's help) the Rat and Mouse Club, whose membership eventually reaches some 5,000 rats and mice.
Inspiration
One inspiration for his character appears to be the Scottish surgeon John Hunter.
Stories
The Story of Doctor Dolittle: Being the History of His Peculiar Life at Home and Astonishing Adventures in Foreign Parts Never Before Printed (1920) begins the series. The sequel The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922) won the prestigious Newbery Medal. The next three, Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (1923), Doctor Dolittle's Circus (1924), and Doctor Dolittle's Caravan (1926) take place during and/or after the events of The Story of Doctor Dolittle. Five more novels followed, and after Lofting's death in 1947, two more volumes of short, previously unpublished pieces appeared.
The stories, in order of publication, are:
The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920)
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922)
Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (1923)
Doctor Dolittle's Circus (1924)
"Doctor Dolittle Meets a Londoner in Paris" (1925)
Doctor Dolittle's Zoo (1925)
Doctor Dolittle's Caravan (1926)
Doctor Dolittle's Garden (1927)
Doctor Dolittle in the Moon (1928)
Gub Gub's Book: An Encyclopaedia of Food (1932)
Doctor Dolittle's Return (1933)
Doctor Dolittle's Birthday Book (1936)
Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake (copyrighted 1923, but not published until 1948)
Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary (1950)
Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952)
"The Sea Dog"
"Dapple"
"The Dog Ambulance"
"The Stunned Man"
"The Crested Screamers"
"The Green Breasted Martins"
"The Story of the Maggot"
"The Lost Boy"
Gub Gub's Book: An Encyclopaedia of Food (1932) is purportedly written by the pig Gub-Gub. It is a series of food-themed animal vignettes. In the text, the pretence of Gub-Gub's authorship is dropped; Tommy Stubbins, Dr. Dolittle's assistant, explains that he is reporting a series of Gub-Gub's discourses to the other animals of the Dolittle household around the evening fire. Stubbins also says that the full version of Gub-Gub's encyclopaedia, which was an immense and poorly-organized collection of scribblings written by the pig in a language for pigs invented by Dr. Dolittle, was too long to translate into English.
Doctor Dolittle's Birthday Book (1936) is a little day-book illustrated with pictures and quotations from the earlier stories. It appeared between Doctor Dolittle's Return and Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake.
"Doctor Dolittle Meets a Londoner in Paris" is a short story included in The Flying Carpet, pp. 110–19 (1925), an anthology of children's short stories and poems with illustrations by Cynthia Asquith.
The character entered public domain in the 1990s, which allowed for the legal creation of derivative works based on it without the need to acquire permission from the Lofting estate, which was required previously. For example, in April 2021, the Japanese biologist Shinichi Fukuoka created a new story Dr. Dolittle Saves Galápagos Islands which appeared in The Asahi Shimbun.
Chronology
The main events of The Story of Doctor Dolittle take place in 1819 or 1820, although the events of the early chapters seem to be spread over several years. The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle begins in 1839.
Dolittle returned from his journey to the moon in Doctor Dolittle's return during a full lunar eclipse that was visible low in the sky one late evening in spring. This was the first full lunar eclipse for a couple of years, and it took place in May 1844 in real life.
Backstory references indicate that Dr. Dolittle travelled to the North Pole in April 1809, and already knew how to speak to some species of animals at that date, suggesting that the early chapters of The Story of Doctor Dolittle take place before that date. However, it is possible that the internal chronology is not consistent.
The internal chronology of the books is somewhat different from the publishing order. The first book is followed by Doctor Dolittle's Circus (1924), Doctor Dolittle's Caravan (1926), and Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary (1950). Only then follows the second book, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922), continued by Doctor Dolittle's Zoo (1925). After that, the publishing order is restored; Doctor Dolittle's Garden (1927) is followed by Doctor Dolittle in the Moon (1928) and Doctor Dolittle's Return (1933), ending with Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake (1948).
Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (1923) can't be placed anywhere in the internal chronology without creating contradictions. Doctor Dolittle's Circus contains references to events that occurred in Post Office, indicating that Post Office must precede Circus. But the Prologue of Post Office indicates just as definitely that it must happen sometime after Circus. Furthermore, in the narrative sequence that stretches from the end of the first book, through Circus and Caravan, to Green Canary, there's no gap into which Post Office could be inserted. For the sake of a reading order, the most logical options are to place Post Office immediately before Circus, or immediately after Green Canary.
The stories, in order of internal chronology, are:
The Story of Doctor Dolittle (1920)
"The Green Breasted Martins" (follows Chapter XII in The Story of Doctor Dolittle; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
Doctor Dolittle's Circus (1924)
Doctor Dolittle's Caravan (1926)
"The Crested Screamers" (takes place within Part One, Chapter 12 of Doctor Dolittle's Caravan; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
"The Lost Boy" (takes place within Part One, Chapter 12 of Doctor Dolittle's Caravan; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
Doctor Dolittle and the Green Canary (1950)
"Doctor Dolittle Meets a Londoner in Paris" (1925 – uncollected)
Doctor Dolittle's Post Office (1923)
The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1922)
Doctor Dolittle's Zoo (1925)
Doctor Dolittle's Garden (1927)
"The Sea Dog" (takes place at the beginning of Doctor Dolittle's Garden; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
"Dapple" (takes place at the beginning of Doctor Dolittle's Garden; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
"The Dog Ambulance" (takes place at the beginning of Doctor Dolittle's Garden; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
"The Stunned Man" (takes place at the beginning of Doctor Dolittle's Garden; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
"The Story of the Maggot" (given a greatly reduced summary at the conclusion to early printings of Part Two, Chapter 4 of Doctor Dolittle's Garden; collected in Doctor Dolittle's Puddleby Adventures (1952))
Gub Gub's Book: An Encyclopaedia of Food (1932)
Doctor Dolittle in the Moon (1928)
Doctor Dolittle's Return (1933)
Doctor Dolittle's Birthday Book (1936)
Doctor Dolittle and the Secret Lake (copyrighted 1923, but not published until 1948)
Adaptations
There have been a number of adaptations of the Doctor Dolittle stories in other media:
Animation:
1928: Doktor Dolittle und seine Tiere (Doctor Dolittle and his Animals), a silent animated short in German by Lotte Reiniger
1970–1972: Doctor Dolittle animated TV series, produced at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises for 20th Century Fox Television
1984: The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (ドリトルせんせいものがたり) (U.S.-Japan coproduction, not aired in Japan until 1997)
2011: The Voyages of Young Doctor Dolittle direct-to-video animated film, starring Jane Seymour, Jason Alexander, and Tim Curry
Audio:
1933–1934: NBC radio series
1995–2001: BBC audio books read by Alan Bennett
Stages
1973: stage adaptation by the Philadelphia Boys Choir & Chorale, which was used during their concert tour to Belgium and Kenya
1998: Doctor Dolittle stage musical by Leslie Bricusse, based on the 1967 film musical
2007: stage musical adaptation by TheatreWorksUSA, written by Randy Courts and Mark St. Germain
Film:
1967: Doctor Dolittle, starring Rex Harrison
1998: Dr. Dolittle and its sequels: Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), Dr. Dolittle 3 (2006), Dr. Dolittle: Tail to the Chief (2008), and Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts (2009). The first two star Eddie Murphy in the title role, whereas all five star Kyla Pratt as his daughter, Maya. Norm Macdonald appears in each film as the voice of their dog, Lucky.
2020: Dolittle, a live action adaptation starring Robert Downey Jr., Michael Sheen, and Antonio Banderas.
Video games:
2006: Dr. Dolittle PS2 video game produced by Aqua Pacific and distributed by Blast! Entertainment Ltd.
Appearances in other languages
A Russian children's novel Doctor Aybolit (Doctor Oh-it-hurts) by Korney Chukovsky (first published in 1924) was loosely based on the stories of Doctor Dolittle. The original novel credited Lofting's work, as did Chukovsky in his memoirs.
Norwegian playwright, songwriter, and illustrator Thorbjørn Egner made an album called Doktor Dyregod (Doctor good-toward-animals) with songs and story based on Doctor Dolittle.
All the books in the series have been translated into Japanese by Masuji Ibuse and into Lithuanian by Pranas Mašiotas.
See also
List of Doctor Dolittle characters
References
External links
A collection of Doctor Dolittle eBooks at Standard Ebooks
The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle, full text
Dr. Dolittle und seine Tiere at IMDb (1928 cartoon)
Doctor Dolittle at IMDb (1970–1972 cartoon)
The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle at IMDb (1984 cartoon)
Doctor Dolittle first editions listed with images – https://sites.google.com/site/hughloftingfirsteditionsuk/ |
List_of_airports_in_the_Greater_Houston_Area | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_Greater_Houston_Area | [
384
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_the_Greater_Houston_Area"
] | Houston, Texas has many airports due to it being the 4th largest city in the United States. Here are some of the airports:
== List == |
Lists_of_airports | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_airports | [
384
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_airports#By_code"
] | An airport is an aerodrome with facilities for flights to take off and land. Airports often have facilities to store and maintain aircraft, and a control tower. An airport consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface such as a runway for a plane to take off or a helipad, and often includes adjacent utility buildings such as control towers, hangars and terminals.
An airport with a helipad for rotorcraft but no runway is called a heliport. An airport for use by seaplanes and amphibious aircraft is called a seaplane base. Such a base typically includes a stretch of open water for takeoffs and landings, and seaplane docks for tying-up. An international airport has additional facilities for customs and immigration.
By continent
Lists of airports in Africa
List of airports in Antarctica
Lists of airports in Asia
Lists of airports in Europe
Lists of airports in North America
Lists of airports in Oceania
Lists of airports in South America
Busiest airports
By traffic type
List of busiest airports by aircraft movements
List of busiest airports by cargo traffic
List of busiest airports by passenger traffic
List of busiest airports by international passenger traffic
By continent
List of the busiest airports in Africa
List of the busiest airports in Asia
List of the busiest airports in Europe
List of the busiest airports in North America
List of the busiest airports in Oceania
List of the busiest airports in South America
By code
IATA
ICAO
By elevation
List of highest airports
List of lowest airports
Other
List of international airports by country
List of eponyms of airports - airports named after people
List of airports with triple takeoff/landing capability
List of airports by metropolitan area, see: Category:Airports by city
List of airports with scheduled commercial service, see: Airline destinations
Lists of military installations
See also
List of cities with more than one commercial airport
List of IATA-indexed railway stations
Lists of ports
Seaport
External links
KML (Google Earth geolocations) file of Airports |
List_of_airports_by_IATA_airport_code:_L | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_IATA_airport_code:_L | [
384
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_by_IATA_airport_code:_L"
] | List of airports by IATA airport code: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z
L
The DST column shows the months in which Daylight Saving Time, a.k.a. Summer Time, begins and ends. A blank DST box usually indicates that the location stays on Standard Time all year, although in some cases the location stays on Summer Time all year. If a location is currently on DST, add one hour to the time in the Time column.
Notes
^1 Clocks on Lord Howe Island are advanced only 30 minutes for Daylight Saving Time.
^2 Airport is located in Saxony.
^3 LON is common IATA code for Heathrow Airport (IATA: LHR), Gatwick Airport (IATA: LGW), Luton Airport (IATA: LTN), London Stansted Airport (IATA: STN), London City Airport (IATA: LCY), London Southend Airport (IATA: SEN) and London Biggin Hill Airport (IATA: BQH).
References
"United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations". UN/LOCODE 2011-2. UNECE. 28 February 2012. - includes IATA codes
"ICAO Location Indicators by State" (PDF). International Civil Aviation Organization. 17 September 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 March 2019. Retrieved 27 August 2012.
Aviation Safety Network - IATA and ICAO airport codes
Great Circle Mapper - IATA, ICAO and FAA airport codes |
Wimbledon_Championships | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimbledon_Championships | [
385
] | [
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimbledon_Championships"
] | The Wimbledon Championships, commonly called Wimbledon, is a tennis tournament organized by the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in collaboration with the Lawn Tennis Association annually in Wimbledon, London. It is chronologically the third of the four Grand Slam tennis events every year, held after the Australian Open and the French Open and before the US Open. It is the oldest tennis tournament in the world and is widely regarded as the most prestigious.
Wimbledon has been held since 1877 and is played on outdoor grass courts with retractable roofs over the two main courts since 2019. It is the only major still played on grass, the traditional tennis playing surface. It is also the only major that retains a night-time curfew, though matches can now continue until 23:00 under the lights.
The tournament traditionally takes place over two weeks in late June and early July, starting either on the last Monday in June or the first Monday in July and culminating with the Ladies' and Gentlemen's Singles Finals, scheduled for the Saturday and Sunday at the end of the second week. Five major events are held each year, with additional junior and invitational competitions also taking place. In 2009, Wimbledon's Centre Court was fitted with a retractable roof to lessen the loss of playing time due to rain. A roof was operational over No. 1 Court from 2019, when a number of other improvements were made, including adding cushioned seating, a table and 10 independently operable cameras per court to capture the games.
Wimbledon traditions include a strict all-white dress code for competitors, and royal patronage. Strawberries and cream are traditionally consumed at the tournament, in latter years accompanied by Champagne. Unlike other tournaments, advertising is minimal and low-key from official suppliers such as Slazenger and Rolex. The relationship with Slazenger is the world's longest-running sporting sponsorship, providing balls for the tournament since 1902.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wimbledon 2020 was cancelled, the first cancellation of the tournament since World War II. The rescheduled 134th edition was staged from 28 June 2021 to 11 July 2021. The 135th edition was played between 27 June 2022 and 10 July 2022, and regularly scheduled play occurred in the middle of Sunday for the first time. It marked the centenary of the inaugural championships staged at the Centre Court. The ATP, ITF, and WTA did not award ranking points for the 2022 tournament, due to controversy over the tournament excluding players representing Russia and Belarus.
History
Beginning
The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club is a private club founded on 23 July 1868, originally as "The All England Croquet Club". Its first ground was at Nursery Road off Worple Road, Wimbledon.
In 1876, lawn tennis, a game devised by Major Walter Clopton Wingfield a year or so earlier as an outdoor version of real tennis and originally given the name Sphairistikè, was added to the activities of the club. In spring 1877, the club was renamed "The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club" and signalled its change of name by instituting the first Lawn Tennis Championship. A new code of laws, replacing the code administered by the Marylebone Cricket Club, was drawn up for the event. Today's rules are similar except for details such as the height of the net and posts and the distance of the service line from the net.
The inaugural 1877 Wimbledon Championship started on 9 July 1877 and the Gentlemen's Singles was the only event held. 22 men paid a guinea to enter the tournament, which was to be held over five days. The rain delayed it four more days and thus, on 19 July 1877, the final was played. Spencer Gore, an Old Harrovian rackets player, defeated William Marshall 6–1, 6–2 and 6–4 in 48 minutes. Gore was presented with the silver challenge cup, valued at 25 guineas and donated by the sports magazine The Field, as well as a prize money of 12 guineas. About 200 spectators paid one shilling each to watch the final.
The lawns at the ground were arranged so that the principal court was in the middle with the others arranged around it, hence the title "Centre Court". The name was retained when the Club moved in 1922 to the present site in Church Road, although no longer a true description of its location. However, in 1980 four new courts were brought into commission on the north side of the ground, which meant the Centre Court was once more correctly described. The opening of the new No. 1 Court in 1997 emphasised the description.
By 1882, activity at the club was almost exclusively confined to lawn tennis and that year the word "croquet" was dropped from the title. However, for sentimental reasons it was restored in 1899.
In 1884, the club added the Ladies' Singles competition and the Gentlemen's Doubles was transferred from the Oxford University Lawn Tennis Club. Ladies' doubles and mixed doubles events were added in 1913. The first black player to compete at Wimbledon was Bertrand Milbourne Clark, an amateur from Jamaica, in 1924.
Until 1922, the reigning champion had to play only in the final, against whoever had won through to challenge them. As with the other three Major or Grand Slam events, Wimbledon was contested by top-ranked amateur players; professional players were prohibited from participating. This changed with the advent of the open era in 1968. No British man won the singles event at Wimbledon between Fred Perry in 1936 and Andy Murray in 2013, while no British woman has won since Virginia Wade in 1977, although Annabel Croft and Laura Robson won the Girls' Championship in 1984 and 2008 respectively. The Championship was first televised in 1937.
Though formally called "The Championships, Wimbledon", depending on sources the event is also known as "The All England Lawn Tennis Championships", the "Wimbledon Championships" or simply "Wimbledon". From 1912 to 1924, the tournament was recognized by the International Lawn Tennis Federation as the "World Grass Court Championships".
In the period of 1915–1918, no tournament was organized due to World War I. During World War II, the tournament was not held in the period 1940–1945. On 11 October 1940 one bomb hit a corner of the competitors’ stand of the Centre Court. The championships did go ahead in 1946 even though the damage meant that 1,200 seats were lost. The organisers were unable to repair the damaged section until 1947 and the Centre Court was fully restored and renovated for the 1949 edition.
In 1946 and 1947 Wimbledon was held before the French Championships. It was thus the second Grand Slam tennis event of the year.
21st century
Wimbledon is widely considered the world's premier tennis tournament and the priority of the club is to maintain its leadership. To that end a long-term plan was unveiled in 1993, intended to improve the quality of the event for spectators, players, officials and neighbours. Stage one (1994–1997) of the plan was completed for the 1997 championships and involved building the new No. 1 Court in Aorangi Park, a broadcast centre, two extra grass courts and a tunnel under the hill linking Church Road and Somerset Road. Stage two (1997–2009) involved the removal of the old No. 1 Court complex to make way for the new Millennium Building, providing extensive facilities for players, press, officials and members, and the extension of the West Stand of the Centre Court with 728 extra seats. Stage three (2000–2011) was completed with the construction of an entrance building, club staff housing, museum, bank and ticket office.
A new retractable roof was built in time for the 2009 championships, marking the first time that rain did not stop play for a lengthy time on Centre Court. The Club tested the new roof at an event called A Centre Court Celebration on Sunday, 17 May 2009, which featured exhibition matches involving Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters, and Tim Henman. The first Championship match to take place under the roof was the completion of the fourth round women's singles match between Dinara Safina and Amélie Mauresmo. The first match to be played in its entirety under the new roof took place between Andy Murray and Stanislas Wawrinka on 29 June 2009. Murray was also involved in the match completed latest in the day at Wimbledon, which ended at 11:02 pm in a victory over Marcos Baghdatis at Centre Court in the third round of the 2012 Championships. The 2012 Gentlemen's Singles Final on 8 July 2012, between Roger Federer and Murray, was the first singles final to be partially played under the roof, which was activated during the third set.
A new 4,000-seat No. 2 Court was built on the site of the old No. 13 Court in time for the 2009 Championships. A new 2,000-seat No. 3 Court was built on the site of the old No. 2 and No. 3 Courts.
On 1 August 2011, the All England Club transferred all of its assets relating to The Championships to a separate though wholly owned subsidiary, The All England Lawn Tennis Club (Championships) Limited, also known as AELTC. Since that time, the club's activities have been formally conducted separately from those of The Championships.
In 2012, the All England Club hosted the Summer Olympic Games and became the first Olympic grass court tournament since tennis was reintroduced as an Olympic sport and the first to be held at a Grand Slam venue in the Open era.
In April 2013, Wimbledon unveiled its 'Master Plan' a vision in which to improve the championships over the next 10–15 years. This was in large part due to other Grand Slam tournaments such as the French Open and Australian Open also announcing expansion and re-development plans. Aspects of the master plan included new player and media facilities, expansion of the No.1 court including a new retractable roof, new catering and hospitality areas, additional floor to the museum building, construction of an underground car park and new indoor courts and also a total reconfiguration of the site including the relocation of a number of practice, clay and championship courts.
Part of the plan also includes acquiring the land of the adjacent Wimbledon Park Golf club for £65 million, so that the tournament qualifying matches can be played on site.
On 19 October 2018, it was announced that a tie-break will be played if the score reaches 12–12 in the final set of any match; this will apply to all competitions including in qualifying, singles, and doubles. In a related statement, it was announced that starting at the 2019 Championships, quad wheelchair competitions would become a permanent event.
As a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the All England Club announced on 1 April 2020 that the entire grass-court season was to be cancelled as a public safety precaution until June 2021, marking the first time a Wimbledon tournament would not be played since World War II. Club officials considered playing the tournament behind closed doors, but this was ruled out in part because at least 5,000 people–including ballboys, officials, coaches, maintenance, and security–would have still needed to be on site to hold a functioning tournament. Former player and current All England Club board member Tim Henman told the Tennis Channel of the US that the board had carefully considered holding a closed-door Wimbledon. However, the sheer number of people who still would have needed to be on site led the board to realise "that wasn't going to be a workable option". Prior to the start of the 2003 tournament, the club began paying an annual insurance premium of £1.61m ($2 million) to cover losses from cancellation of Wimbledon in the event of a worldwide pandemic as a result of the SARS outbreak; it would receive an insurance payment of £114 million ($141 million) for the 2020 cancellation on expected losses of around £250 million ($312 million).
In April 2022, due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the All England Club announced that Russian and Belarusian players would be prohibited from competing in the tournament. Unlike the ATP and WTA, participation as neutral athletes is also prohibited. On 20 May 2022, the ATP, ITF, and WTA announced that they will not award ranking points for the tournament, as they considered the prohibition unilateral, and constituted discrimination against players based on nationality. On 31 March 2023, the ban on Russian and Belarusian players was lifted by the All England Club.
On 9 October 2024, it was announced that line judges would be replaced by electronic line calling technology on all courts starting at the 2025 Championship.
Events
Wimbledon consists of five main events, four junior events and seven invitation events.
Main events
The five main events, and the number of players (or teams, in the case of doubles) are:
Gentlemen's Singles (128)
Ladies' Singles (128)
Gentlemen's Doubles (64)
Ladies' Doubles (64)
Mixed Doubles (32)
Junior events
The four junior events and the number of players or teams are:
Boys' Singles (64)
Girls' Singles (64)
Boys' Doubles (32)
Girls' Doubles (32)
No mixed doubles event is held at this level
Invitation events
The seven invitational events and the number of pairs are:
Gentlemen's Invitation Doubles (8 pairs Round Robin)
Ladies' Invitation Doubles (8 pairs Round Robin)
Senior Gentlemen's Invitation Doubles (8 pairs Round Robin)
Gentlemen's Wheelchair Singles
Ladies' Wheelchair Singles
Gentlemen's Wheelchair Doubles (4 pairs)
Ladies' Wheelchair Doubles (4 pairs)
Match formats
Matches in the Gentlemen's Singles are best-of-five sets. In 2023 it was decided that Gentlemen's Doubles match formats will be changed from best-of-five sets to best-of-three sets due to complaints from partaking players; all other events are best-of-three sets. Up to and including the 2018 tournament, a tiebreak game is played if the score reaches 6–all in any set except the fifth (in a five-set match) or the third (in a three-set match), in which case a two-game lead must be reached. Since 2019, a final set tiebreak game is played if the score in the final set reaches 12–all. In 2022 it was decided all matches would have a final set tiebreak once the match reached 6–6, with a champions tiebreak taking place meaning the winner needs to get to 10 points and win by two points. If the score is 9–9 play continues until one player wins by two points.
All events are single-elimination tournaments, except for the Gentlemen's, Senior Gentlemen's and the Ladies' Invitation Doubles, which are round-robin tournaments.
Up to 1921, the winners of the previous year's competition (except in the Ladies' Doubles and Mixed Doubles) were automatically granted byes into the final round (then known as the challenge round). This led to many winners retaining their titles in successive years, as they were able to rest while their opponent competed from the start of the competition. Since 1922, the prior year's champions were required to play all the rounds, like other tournament competitors.
Schedule
Each year the tournament begins on the last Monday in June or first Monday in July, two weeks after the Queen's Club Championships, which is one of the men's major warm-up tournaments, together with the Gerry Weber Open, which is held in Halle, Germany, during the same week. Other grass-court tournaments before Wimbledon are Eastbourne, Great Britain, and Rosmalen in the Netherlands, both combining mixed events. The other women's warm-up tournament for Wimbledon is Birmingham, also in Great Britain. The men's event which is outside Europe before Wimbledon is the Antalya open in Turkey. The only grass-court tournament scheduled after the Championships is the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships at Newport, Rhode Island, USA, which takes place the week after Wimbledon.
Since 2015, the championships have begun one week later than in previous years, extending the gap between the tournament and the French Open from two to three weeks. Additionally the Stuttgart Open men's tournament converted to a grass surface and was rescheduled from July to June, extending the grass court season.
Wimbledon is scheduled for 14 days, beginning on a Monday and ending on a Sunday. Before 1982 it ended a day earlier, with the women's singles final on the Friday and the men's singles final on the Saturday. The five main events span both weeks, but the junior and invitational events are held mainly during the second week.
Traditionally, unlike the other three tennis Grand Slams, there was no play on the "Middle Sunday", which was considered a rest day. However, rain had forced play on the Middle Sunday four times, in 1991, 1997, 2004 and 2016. On the first of these four occasions, Wimbledon staged a "People's Sunday", with unreserved seating and readily available, inexpensive tickets, allowing those with more limited means to sit on the show courts.
In 2022, on the centenary of the tournament's move to its current site, routine scheduled play began on the "Middle Sunday". This was attributed to advances in grass technology and maintenance meaning the courts no longer required a day of recovery mid-tournament.
Before 2022, the second Monday at Wimbledon was often called "Manic Monday", because it was the busiest day with the last-16 matches for both men's and women's singles. Fans had a pick of watching on a single day any of the best 32 players left, which was also unique in a Grand Slam singles competition.
Curfew
Since 2009 all matches have to finish before 11:00pm. Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam that retains a night-time curfew. The curfew is in place to protect local residents from late-night disturbances. When the roof was built on Centre Court—something that allowed matches to continue at night under the lights—the local Merton Council put the time limit into place when granting planning permission for the roof.
A statement from Wimbledon in 2018 read: “The 11pm curfew is a Planning Condition applied to balance the consideration of the local residents with the scale of an international tennis event that takes place in a residential area. The challenge of transport connectivity and getting visitors home safely is also a key consideration.”
Players and seeding
Both the men's and ladies' singles consist of 128 players. Players and doubles pairs are admitted to the main events on the basis of their international rankings, with 104 direct entries into the men's and 108 into the ladies' competitions. Both tournaments have 8 wild card entrants, with the remainder in each made up of qualifiers. Since the 2001 tournament, 32 players have been given seedings in the Gentlemen's and Ladies' singles, 16 teams in the doubles events. The system of seeding was introduced during the 1924 Wimbledon Championships. This was a simplified version allowing countries to nominate four players who were placed in different quarters of the draw. This system was replaced for the 1927 Wimbledon Championships and from then on players were seeded on merit. The first players to be seeded as no. 1 were René Lacoste and Helen Wills.
The Committee of Management decide which players receive wildcards. Usually, wild cards are players who have performed well during previous tournaments or would stimulate public interest in Wimbledon by participating. The only wild card to win the Gentlemen's Singles Championship was Goran Ivanišević in 2001. Players and pairs who neither have high enough rankings nor receive wild cards may participate in a qualifying tournament held one week before Wimbledon at the Bank of England Sports Ground in Roehampton. The singles qualifying competitions are three-round events. From 2019 singles qualification will increase to 128 players and no doubles qualification will occur. Previously the same-sex doubles competitions lasted for only two rounds. There is no qualifying tournament for Mixed Doubles. The furthest that any qualifier has progressed in a Singles tournament is the semi-final round: John McEnroe in 1977 (Gentlemen's Singles), Vladimir Voltchkov in 2000 (Gentlemen's Singles), and Alexandra Stevenson in 1999 (Ladies' Singles).
Players are admitted to the junior tournaments upon the recommendations of their national tennis associations, on their International Tennis Federation world rankings and, in the case of the singles events, on the basis of a qualifying competition. The Committee of Management determines which players may enter the four invitational events.
The Committee seeds the top players and pairs on the basis of their rankings, but it could change the seedings based on a player's previous grass court performance. Since 2002 a seeding committee has not been required for the Gentlemen's Singles following an agreement with the ATP, and since the 2021 tournament, the seeding has followed the same process as the ATP rankings. From 2002 to 2019, the top 32 players (according to the ATP rankings) were seeded according to a formula that more heavily weighted previous grass-court tournaments: ATP Entry System Position points + 100% points earned for all grass court tournaments in the past 12 months + 75% points earned for the best grass court tournament in the 12 months before that.
A majority of the entrants are unseeded. Only two unseeded players have won the Gentlemen's Singles: Boris Becker in 1985 and Goran Ivanišević in 2001. In 1985 there were only 16 seeds and Becker was ranked 20th; Ivanišević was ranked 125th when he won as a Wild Card entrant, although he had previously been a finalist three times, and been ranked no. 2 in the world; his low ranking was due to having been hampered by a persistent shoulder injury for three years, which had only just cleared up. In 1996, the title was won by Richard Krajicek, who was originally unseeded (ranked 17th, and only 16 players were seeded) but was promoted to a seeded position (still with the number 17) when Thomas Muster withdrew before the tournament. In 2023, the Ladies' Singles title was captured for the first time by an unseeded player, Marketa Vondrousova, who ranked 42 in the world. Previously, the lowest seeded female champion was Venus Williams, who won in 2007 as the 23rd seed; Williams was returning from an injury that had prevented her playing in previous tournaments, giving her a lower ranking than she would normally have had. Unseeded pairs have won the doubles titles on numerous occasions; the 2005 Gentlemen's Doubles champions were not only unseeded, but also (for the first time ever) qualifiers.
Grounds
Since 2001, the courts used for Wimbledon have been sown with 100% perennial ryegrass. Prior to 2001 a combination of 70% ryegrass and 30% Creeping Red Fescue was used. The change was made to improve durability and strengthen the sward to better withstand the increasing wear of the modern game.
The main show courts, Centre Court and No. 1 Court, are normally used for only two weeks a year, during the Championships, but play can extend into a third week in exceptional circumstances. The remaining 17 courts are regularly used for other events hosted by the club. The show courts were in action for the second time in three months in 2012 as Wimbledon hosted the tennis events of the 2012 Olympic Games. One of the show courts is also used for home ties for the Great Britain teams in the Davis Cup on occasions.
Wimbledon is the only remaining Grand Slam event played on natural grass courts. At one time, all the Majors, except the French Open, were played on grass. The US Open abandoned grass in 1975 for green clay and the Australian Open did so in 1988 for hard courts; the US Open eventually adopted hard courts as well.
From 1877 until 1921, the club's grounds were situated on four acres of meadowland in central Wimbledon between Worple Road and the railway line. In 1908, this venue hosted the tennis events for the 1908 Summer Olympic Games. As the attendance at the Championships grew, it became obvious before the First World War that the 8,000 ground capacity at Worple Road was inadequate, and so the Club started looking for a new site. It eventually settled on an area of land off Church Road, to the north of Wimbledon town centre, and moved to its new home in 1922. At the time the relocation was regarded as something of a financial gamble, costing as it did approximately £140,000. After the Club moved to the current site in Church Road, the old Worple Road ground then became the Wimbledon High School playing field, which it remains today.
The principal court at Church Road, Centre Court, was inaugurated in 1922. The new venue was substantially larger and was needed to meet the ever-growing public demand.
Due to the possibility of rain during Wimbledon, a retractable roof was installed prior to the 2009 Championship. It is designed to close/open fully in 20 minutes and will be closed primarily to protect play from inclement (and, if necessary, extremely hot) weather during The Championships. Whilst the roof is being opened or closed, play is suspended. The first time the roof was closed during a Wimbledon Championship match was on Monday 29 June 2009, involving Amélie Mauresmo and Dinara Safina. The first full match played and completed under the roof featured Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka, played on the same date.
The court has a capacity of 14,979. At its south end is the Royal Box, from which members of the Royal Family and other dignitaries watch matches. Centre Court usually hosts the finals and semifinals of the main events, as well as many matches in the earlier rounds involving top-seeded players or local favourites.
The second most important court is No. 1 Court. The court was constructed in 1997 to replace the old No.1 Court, which was adjacent to Centre Court. The old No.1 Court was demolished because its capacity for spectators was too low. The court was said to have had a unique, more intimate atmosphere and was a favourite of many players. Construction of a new retractable roof on the No.1 Court began after the 2017 Championships and was completed in time for the 2019 championships. The capacity of the stadium also rose by 900 to 12,345.
Since 2009, a new No. 2 Court has been used at Wimbledon with a capacity for 4,000 people. To obtain planning permission, the playing surface is around 3.5m below ground level, ensuring that the single-storey structure is only about 3.5m above ground level, and thus not affecting local views. Plans to build on the current site of Court 13 were dismissed due to the high capacity of games played at the 2012 Olympic Games. The old No.2 Court has been renamed as No.3 Court. The old No.2 Court was known as the "Graveyard of Champions" because many highly seeded players were eliminated there during early rounds over the years, including Ilie Năstase, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Martina Hingis, Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. The court has a capacity of 2,192 + 770 standing. In 2011 a new No.3 Court and a new Court 4 were unveiled on the sites of the old No.2 and 3 courts.
Because of the summer climate in southern England, Wimbledon employs 'Court Attendants' each year, who work to maintain court conditions. Their principal responsibility is to ensure that the courts are quickly covered when it begins to rain, so that play can resume as quickly as possible once the referees decide to uncover the courts. The outer court attendants are mainly university students working to make summer money. Centre Court is covered by full-time groundstaff, however.
At the northern end of the grounds is a giant television screen on which important matches are broadcast to fans inside the grounds without tickets to the relevant court. Fans watch from a gently inclined area of grass officially known as the Aorangi Terrace. When British players do well at Wimbledon, this area attracts fans for them, and is often renamed after them by the press: Greg Rusedski's followers convened at "Rusedski Ridge", and Tim Henman has had the hill nicknamed Henman Hill. As both of them have now retired and Andy Murray is the most successful current British player, the hill is occasionally referred to as "Murray Mound" or "Murrayfield", as a reference to his Scottish heritage and the Scottish rugby ground of the same name, but this has largely failed to catch on – the area is still often referred to as Henman Hill. None of these nicknames are the official name.
1913 suffragette terror attack
An attempt was made to destroy the grounds in 1913, during the suffragette bombing and arson campaign. The suffragettes, as part of their campaign for women's votes before the First World War, had begun carrying out politically motivated arson and bombings across the country. On the night of 27 February 1913, a suffragette woman "between the ages of 30–35" was arrested within the grounds, after being spotted by a groundsman climbing over a hedge at around midnight. She was found to have with her some paraffin and wood shavings, for the purpose of setting fires in the grounds. The woman refused to give her name or any information to the police and was later sentenced to two months' imprisonment.
Bank of England Sports Centre
The qualifying matches, prior to the main draw, take place at the Bank of England Sports Ground, in Roehampton, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) from the All England Club.
Traditions
Social commentator Ellis Cashmore describes Wimbledon as having "a David Niven-ish propriety", in trying to conform to the standards of behaviour regarded as common in the 1950s. Writer Peter York sees the event as representing a particular white, upper middle class, affluent type of Britishness, describing the area of Wimbledon as "a southern, well off, late-Victorian suburb with a particular social character". Cashmore has criticised the event for being "remote and insulated" from the changing multicultural character of modern Britain, describing it as "nobody's idea of all-things-British".
Ball boys and ball girls
In the championship games, ball boys and girls, known as BBGs, have a brief that a good BBG "should not be seen. They should blend into the background and get on with their jobs quietly."
From 1947 ball boys were recruited from Goldings, the only Barnardos school to provide them. Prior to this, from the 1920s onwards, the ball boys came from The Shaftesbury Children's Home.
Since 1969, BBGs have been drawn from local schools. Traditionally, Wandsworth Boys School in Sutherland Grove, Southfields and Mayfield Girls School on West Hill in Wandsworth (only Southfields remains extant), were the schools of choice for selection of BBGs. This was possibly owing to their proximity to the club. Since 2008 they have been drawn from schools in the London boroughs of Merton, Sutton, Kingston, and Wandsworth, as well as from Surrey. BBGs have an average age of 15, being drawn from the school years nine and ten. They serve for one, or if re-selected, for up to five tournaments, up to year thirteen.
Starting in 2005, BBGs work in teams of six, two at the net, four at the corners, and teams rotate one hour on court, one hour off, (two hours depending on the court) for the day's play. Teams are not told which court they will be working on the day, to ensure the same standards across all courts. With the expansion of the number of courts, and lengthening the tennis day, as of 2008, the number of BBGs required is around 250. Starting on the second Wednesday, the number of BBGs is reduced due to the decrease in the number of matches per day, leaving around 80 on the final Sunday. Each BBG receives a certificate, a can of used balls, a group photograph and a programme when leaving. BBG service is paid, with a total of £160-£250 being paid to each ball boy or girl after the 13-day period, depending on the number of days served, around £17 per day. Every BBG keeps their kit. BBG places are split 50:50 between boys and girls, with girls having been included since 1977, appearing on centre court since 1985.
Prospective BBGs are first nominated by their school headteacher, to be considered for selection. To be selected, a candidate must pass written tests on the rules of tennis, and pass fitness, mobility and other suitability tests, against initial preliminary instruction material. Successful candidates then commence a training phase, starting in February, in which the final BBGs are chosen through continual assessment. As of 2008, this training intake was 600. The training includes weekly sessions of physical, procedural and theoretical instruction, to ensure that the BBGs are fast, alert, self-confident and adaptable to situations. As of 2011, early training occurs at the Wimbledon All England Lawn Tennis Club Covered Courts, to the side of the Grounds, and then moves to outside courts (8, 9, 10) the week before the Championships to ensure that BBGs gain a feel of the grass court.
Umpires
At The Championships at Wimbledon, forty-two chair umpires are assigned each day and usually work two matches a day. They use tablet computers to score each match and these scores are displayed on the scoreboards and on wimbledon.com. Line umpires work in teams of nine or seven. Teams of nine umpires work the Centre Court and Court numbers 1, 2, 3, 12, and 18 with the remaining teams of seven working the other courts. These teams rotate, working sixty minutes on the court and then sixty minutes off.
In 2007 a new technology called Hawk-Eye was introduced. This technology showed whether the ball bounced in bounds or out. Wimbledon started using this technology but continued to use line umpires as well. However the players were only allowed to ask to see this 3 times during one set.
Line umpires and the ability to challenge calls made during a match were axed, starting from the 2025 Championships, due to the professional tennis tours adopting the HawkEye Live technology from the 2025 season for any tournament capable of supporting the technology, bringing an end to the traditional scenes of line umpires walking to and from the courts during matches. The only umpire on the court will now be the chair umpire, although the new role of match assistants will be created to escort players to the bathroom or take their racquets to the stringer.
Colours and uniforms
Dark green and purple are the traditional Wimbledon colours. However, all tennis players participating in the tournament are required to wear all-white or at least almost all-white clothing, a long-time tradition at Wimbledon. This rule was put in place in 1963, when the tournament's first dress code was enforced. Wearing white clothing with some colour accents is also acceptable, provided the colour scheme is not that of an identifiable commercial brand logo (the outfitter's brand logo being the sole exception). Controversy followed Martina Navratilova's wearing branding for "Kim" cigarettes in 1982. In 2023 rules first allowed all female players, included but not limited to in the girls’ singles junior event, to wear non-white underwear; the new rule allows "solid, mid/dark-coloured undershorts, provided they are no longer than their shorts or skirt". Green clothing was worn by the chair umpire, linesmen, ball boys and ball girls until the 2005 Championships; however, beginning with the 2006 Championships, officials, ball boys and ball girls were dressed in new navy blue- and cream-coloured uniforms from American designer Ralph Lauren.
Referring to players
By tradition, the "Men's" and "Women's" competitions are referred to as "Gentlemen's" and "Ladies'" competitions at Wimbledon. The junior competitions are referred to as the "Boys'" and "Girls'" competitions.
Prior to 2009, female players were referred to by the title "Miss" or "Mrs" on scoreboards. On the Wimbledon's Champions Board, married female players were referred to by their husband's name up until 2019. For the first time during the 2009 tournament, players were referred to on scoreboards by both their first and last names.
The title "Mr" is not used for male players who are professionals on scoreboards but is retained for amateurs, although chair umpires refer to players as "Mr" when they use the replay challenge. The chair umpire will say "Mr <surname> is challenging the call..." and "Mr. <surname> has X challenges remaining." Up until 2018, the chair umpire said "Miss"/"Mrs" <surname> when announcing the score of the Ladies' matches. However, the chair umpire no longer calls "Miss"/"Mrs" <surname> when announcing the score, since 2019. As of the 2022 edition of the tournament, the use of Mr, Miss and Mrs was eliminated: players are now referred to by their names, as written on the scoreboard by the umpire at all points in a match.
If a match is being played with two competitors of the same surname (e.g. Venus and Serena Williams, Bob and Mike Bryan), the chair umpire will specify to whom they are referring by stating the player's first name and surname during announcements (e.g. "Game, Venus Williams", "Advantage, Mike Bryan").
Royal family
Previously, players bowed or curtsied to members of the royal family seated in the Royal Box upon entering or leaving Centre Court. However, in 2003, All England Club president Prince Edward, Duke of Kent decided to discontinue the tradition. Now, players are required to bow or curtsy only if the Prince of Wales or the King is present, as was in practice during the 2010 Championships when Elizabeth II was in attendance at Wimbledon on 24 June.
On 27 June 2012, Roger Federer said in his post-match interview that he and his opponent had been asked to bow towards the Royal Box as Prince Charles and his wife were present, saying that it was not a problem for him.
Services stewards
Prior to the Second World War, members of the Brigade of Guards and retired members of the Royal Artillery performed the role of stewards. In 1946 the AELTC offered employment to wartime servicemen returning to civilian life during their demobilisation leave. Initially, this scheme extended only to the Royal Navy, followed by the British Army in 1947 and the Royal Air Force in 1949. In 1965 London Fire Brigade members joined the ranks of stewards. The service stewards, wearing uniform, are present in Centre Court and No.'s 1, 2, 3, 12 and 18 courts. In 2015, 595 Service and London Fire Brigade stewards attended. Only enlisted members of the Armed Forces may apply for the role, which must be taken as leave, and half of each year's recruits must have stewarded at Wimbledon before. The AELTC pays a subsistence allowance to servicemen and women working as stewards to defray their accommodation costs for the period of the Championships. The Service Stewards are not to be confused with the 185 Honorary Stewards.
Tickets
The majority of centre and show court tickets sold to the general public have since 1924 been made available by a public ballot that the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club holds at the start of the year. The ballot has always been substantially oversubscribed. Successful applicants are selected at random by a computer. The most recent figures from 2011 suggested there were four applicants to every ballot ticket. Applications must be posted to arrive at the AELTC by the last day of December in the year prior to the tournament. Seats and days are allocated randomly and ballot tickets are not transferable.
The All England Club, through its subsidiary The All England Lawn Tennis Ground plc, issues debentures to tennis fans every five years to raise funds for capital expenditure. Fans who invest thus in the club receive a pair of tickets for every day of the Wimbledon Championships for the five years the investment lasts. Only debenture holders are permitted to sell on their tickets to third parties and demand for debentures has increased in recent years, to such an extent that they are even traded on the London Stock Exchange.
Wimbledon and the French Open are the only Grand Slam tournaments where fans without tickets for play can queue up and still get seats on the three show courts on the day of the match. Sequentially numbered queue cards were introduced in 2003. From 2008, there is a single queue, allotted about 500 seats for each court. When they join the queue, fans are handed queue cards. Anyone who then wishes to leave the queue temporarily, even if in possession of a queue card, must agree their position with the others nearby in the queue or a steward.
To get access to the show courts, fans normally have to queue overnight. This is done by fans from all over the world and, although considered vagrancy, is part of the Wimbledon experience in itself. The All-England Club allows overnight queuing and provides toilet and water facilities for campers. Early in the morning when the line moves towards the Grounds, stewards walk along the line and hand out wristbands that are colour-coded to the specific court. The wrist band (and payment) is exchanged at the ticket office for the ticket when the grounds open. General admission to the grounds gives access to the outer courts and is possible without queuing overnight. Tickets returned by people leaving early go on sale at 2:30 pm and the money goes to charity. Queuing for the show courts ends after the quarter finals have been completed.
At 2.40pm on Day Seven (Monday 28 June) of the 2010 Championships, the one-millionth numbered Wimbledon queue card was handed out to Rose Stanley from South Africa.
Sponsorship
Unlike other tournaments, advertising from major brands is minimal and low key, from suppliers such as IBM, Rolex and Slazenger. Wimbledon is notable for the longest running sponsorship in sports history due to its association with Slazenger who have supplied all tennis balls for the tournament since 1902. Between 1935 and 2021, Wimbledon had a sponsorship deal with Robinsons fruit squash – one of the longest sponsorships in sport.
In February 2024, alongside the Australian, French and US Open Tennis Championships, it is announced that Emirates (airline) would sponsor Wimbledon for the first time in the tennis tournament's 147-year history.
Strawberries and cream
Strawberries and cream are traditionally eaten by spectators at Wimbledon and have become culturally synonymous with the tournament. The origin of this tradition has been said to derive from a visit King Henry VIII paid to his Lord Chancellor, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, whose home was at Hampton Court, about six miles from Wimbledon, when the chancellor's cook is rumoured to have served wild strawberries and cream as a dessert. Since the King ate it, the dessert gained popularity. In 2017, fans consumed 34,000 kg (33 imperial tons) of British strawberries and 10,000 litres (2,200 imperial gallons) of cream. In 2019, 191,930 portions of strawberries and cream were served at The Championships at Wimbledon.
Media coverage and attendance
Radio Wimbledon
Until 2011 when its contract ended, Radio Wimbledon could be heard within a five-mile radius on 87.7 FM, and also online. It operated under a Restricted Service Licence. Presenters included Sam Lloyd and Ali Barton. Typically they worked alternate four-hour shifts until the end of the last match of the day. Reporters and commentators included Gigi Salmon, Nick Lestor, Rupert Bell, Nigel Bidmead, Guy Swindells, Lucie Ahl, Nadine Towell and Helen Whitaker. Often they reported from the "Crow's Nest", an elevated building housing the Court 3 and 4 scoreboards which affords views of most of the outside courts. Regular guests included Sue Mappin. In later years Radio Wimbledon acquired a second low-power FM frequency (within the grounds only) of 96.3 FM for uninterrupted Centre Court commentary, and, from 2006, a third for coverage from No. 1 Court on 97.8 FM. Hourly news bulletins and travel (using RDS) were also broadcast.
Radio Wimbledon's theme tune is called "Purple and Green" and has been used since 1996 when it was composed by British composer Tony Cox.
Television coverage
Beginning with the 2018 tournament, an in-house operation known as Wimbledon Broadcasting Services (WBS) has served as the official host broadcaster of the tournament, replacing BBC Sport.
United Kingdom
Since 1937 the BBC has broadcast the tournament on television in the United Kingdom. Between 1956 and 1968 The Championships were also covered by the ITV Network, but since 1969 the BBC has had a monopoly. The matches covered are primarily split between its two main terrestrial channels, BBC One and BBC Two, and their Red Button service. This can result in live matches being moved across all 3 channels. The BBC holds the broadcast rights for Wimbledon until 2027. During the days of British Satellite Broadcasting, its sports channel carried extra coverage of Wimbledon for subscribers. One of the most notable British commentators was Dan Maskell, who was known as the BBC's "voice of tennis" until his retirement in 1991. John Barrett succeeded him in that role until he retired in 2006. Current commentators working for the BBC at Wimbledon include British ex-players Andrew Castle, John Lloyd, Tim Henman, Greg Rusedski, Samantha Smith and Mark Petchey; tennis legends such as John McEnroe, Tracy Austin, Boris Becker and Lindsay Davenport; and general sports commentators including David Mercer, Barry Davies, Andrew Cotter and Nick Mullins. The coverage is presented by Sue Barker (live) and Claire Balding (highlights). Previous BBC presenters include Des Lynam, David Vine, John Inverdale and Harry Carpenter.
The Wimbledon Finals are obliged to be shown live and in full on terrestrial television (BBC Television Service, ITV, Channel 4, or Channel 5) by government mandate. Highlights of the rest of the tournament must be provided by terrestrial stations; live coverage (excepting the finals) may be sought by satellite or cable TV.
The BBC was forced to apologise after many viewers complained about "over-talking" by its commentary team during the TV coverage of the event in 2011. It said in a statement that views on commentary were subjective but that they "do appreciate that over-talking can irritate our audience". The BBC added that it hoped it had achieved "the right balance" across its coverage and was "of course sorry if on occasion you have not been satisfied". Tim Henman and John McEnroe were among the ex-players commentating.
Wimbledon was also involved in a piece of television history, when on 1 July 1967 the first official colour television broadcast took place in the UK. Four hours live coverage of the 1967 Championships was shown on BBC Two, which was the first television channel in Europe to regularly broadcast in colour. Footage of that historic match no longer survives, however, the Gentlemen's Final of that year is still held in the BBC archives because it was the first Gentlemen's Final transmitted in colour. The tennis balls used were traditionally white, but were switched to yellow in 1986 to make them stand out for colour television. Since 2007, Wimbledon matches have been transmitted in high-definition, originally on the BBC's free-to-air channel BBC HD, with continual live coverage during the tournament of Centre Court and Court No. 1 as well as an evening highlights show Today at Wimbledon. Coverage is now shown on BBC One and Two's HD feeds. Beginning 2018, all centre court matches are televised in 4K ultra-high-definition.
The BBC's opening theme music for Wimbledon was composed by Keith Mansfield and is titled "Light and Tuneful". A piece titled "A Sporting Occasion" is the traditional closing theme. The finally notes of this theme are regularly used to end BBC One and BBC Two Wimbledon transmissions. For the end of broadcast at the conclusion of the tournament a montage set to popular music is traditionally used instead. Mansfield also composed the piece "World Champion", used by NBC during intervals (change-overs, set breaks, etc.) and at the close of broadcasts throughout the tournament.
Ireland
In Ireland, RTÉ broadcast the tournament during the 1980s and 1990s on their second channel RTÉ Two, they also provided highlights of the games in the evening. The commentary provided was given by Matt Doyle a former Irish-American professional tennis player and Jim Sherwin a former RTÉ newsreader. Caroline Murphy was the presenter of the programme. RTÉ made the decision in 1998 to discontinue broadcasting the tournament due to falling viewing figures and the large number of viewers watching on the BBC. From 2005 until 2014 TG4 Ireland's Irish-language broadcaster provided coverage of the tournament. Live coverage was provided in the Irish language while they broadcast highlights in English at night.
In 2015 Wimbledon moved to pay TV broadcaster Setanta Sports under a 3-year agreement. Its successor, Eir Sport, took over broadcasting rights in Ireland until its demise in 2021.
Americas
In the United States, ABC began showing taped highlights of the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles Final in the 1960s on its Wide World of Sports series. NBC began a 43-year run of covering Wimbledon in 1969, with same-day taped (and often edited) coverage of the Gentlemen's Singles Final. In 1979, the network began carrying the Gentlemen's Singles Finals live, and in 1982, the Ladies' Singles Finals. For the next few decades, Americans made a tradition of NBC's "Breakfast at Wimbledon" specials at weekends. Live coverage started early in the morning (the US being a minimum of 5 hours behind the UK) and continued well into the afternoon, interspersed with commentary and interviews from Bud Collins, whose tennis acumen and famous patterned trousers were well known to tennis fans in the US. Collins was sacked by NBC in 2007, but was promptly hired by ESPN, the cable home for The Championships in the States. For many years NBC's primary Wimbledon host was veteran broadcaster Dick Enberg.
From 1975 to 1999, premium channel HBO carried weekday coverage of Wimbledon. Hosts included Jim Lampley, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, John Lloyd and Barry MacKay among others. ESPN took over as the cable-television partner in 2003.
The AELTC grew frustrated with NBC's policy of waiting to begin its quarterfinal and semifinal coverage until after the conclusion of Today at 10 a.m. local, as well as broadcasting live only to the Eastern Time Zone and using tape-delay in all others. NBC also held over high-profile matches for delayed broadcast in its window, regardless of any ongoing matches. In one notorious incident in 2009, ESPN2's coverage of the Tommy Haas–Novak Djokovic quarterfinal was forced off the air nationwide when it ran past 10 a.m. Eastern, after which NBC showed the conclusion of the match on tape only after presenting the previous Ivo Karlović–Roger Federer quarterfinal in full. Beginning with the 2012 tournament, coverage moved to ESPN and ESPN2, marking the second major tennis championship (after the Australian Open) where live coverage is exclusively on pay television, while ESPN Deportes provide the coverage in Spanish. The finals are also broadcast tape-delayed on ABC. On 9 July 2021, ESPN and AELTC reached an agreement to extend the coverage for 12 years, beginning from 2024 until 2035. This agreement is including live coverage on ABC of play on the middle weekend which begins in 2022, after AELTC announces will no longer schedule a rest day on its middle Sunday.
Taped coverage using the world feed is aired in primetime and overnights on Tennis Channel and is branded Wimbledon Primetime.
In Canada, coverage of Wimbledon is exclusively carried by TSN and RDS, which are co-owned by Bell Media and ESPN. Prior to 2012, CBC Television and SRC were the primary broadcaster of Wimbledon for Canada, and its live coverage of the tournament predated "Breakfast at Wimbledon" by over a decade, Canada being at least four hours from its fellow Commonwealth realm.
In Mexico, the Televisa family of networks has aired Wimbledon since the early 1960s. Presently, most weekend matches are broadcast through Canal 5 with the weekday matches broadcast on the Televisa Deportes Network. As Mexico is six hours behind the U.K., some Canal 5 affiliates air the weekend matches as the first program of the day after sign-on. Although Mexico had begun broadcasting in colour in 1962, Wimbledon continued to air in black and white in Mexico until colour television came to the United Kingdom in 1967.
In most of the remainder of Latin America, Wimbledon airs on ESPN, as do the other Grand Slam tournaments. In Brazil, SporTV has exclusive rights to the broadcast.
Other countries
In several European countries, Wimbledon is shown live on Eurosport 1, Eurosport 2 and the Eurosport Player. Although there are some exceptions, as in Denmark, where the Danish TV2 holds the right to show matches until 2022 and in Italy where Sky Sport and SuperTennis holds the rights to show live matches until 2022. In the Netherlands Center Court is shown live on Eurosport 1 and all other courts are shown live on the Eurosport Player. But Court One is covered live on Ziggo Sport/Ziggo Sport Select. Wimbledon has been exclusively broadcast on Sky Sport in Germany since 2007. In December 2018, Sky extended its contract for Austria, Germany and Switzerland until 2022.
In Australia, the free-to-air Nine Network covered Wimbledon for almost 40 years but decided to drop their broadcast following the 2010 tournament, citing declining ratings and desire to use money saved to bid on other sports coverage. In April 2011, it was announced that the Seven Network, the then-host broadcaster of the Australian Open, along with its sister channel 7Two would broadcast the event from 2011. Pay television network Fox Sports Australia also covered the event. Free-to-air coverage returned to Nine Network in 2021. In India and its Subcontinental region, it is broadcast on Star Sports. In Pakistan it is broadcast on PTV Sports.
Coverage is free-to-air in New Zealand through TVNZ One, beginning each night at 11 pm (midday in London). In 2017 their new channel, TVNZ Duke (also free-to-air), carried an alternative to the main feed, including (for example) matches on outside courts involving New Zealand players.
Fox Sports Asia held broadcasting rights across Southeast Asia from 1992 until network's shutdown in 2021. SPOTV currently holds broadcasting rights across Southeast Asia.
Most matches are also available for viewing through internet betting websites and other live streaming services, as television cameras are set up to provide continuous coverage on nearly all the courts.
Trophies, prize money and ranking points
Trophies
The Gentlemen's Singles champion is presented with a silver gilt cup 18.5 inches (about 47 cm) in height and 7.5 inches (about 19 cm) in diameter. The trophy is decorated with a variety of symbols, including a miniature gold pineapple. The trophy has been awarded since 1887 and bears the inscription: "All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Championship of the World". The actual trophy remains the property of the All England Club in their museum, so the champion receives a three-quarter size replica of the Cup bearing the names of all past Champions (height 13.5 inches, 34 cm).
The Ladies' Singles champion is presented with a sterling silver salver commonly known as the "Venus Rosewater Dish", or simply the "Rosewater Dish". The salver, which is 18.75 inches (about 48 cm) in diameter, is decorated with figures from mythology. The actual dish remains the property of the All England Club in their museum, so the champion receives a miniature replica bearing the names of all past Champions. From 1949 to 2006 the replica was 8 inches in diameter, and since 2007 it has been a three-quarter size replica with a diameter of 13.5 inches.
The winner of the Gentlemen's Doubles, Ladies' Doubles, and Mixed Doubles events receive silver cups. A trophy is awarded to each player in the Doubles pair, unlike the other Grand Slam tournaments where the winning Doubles duo shares a single trophy. The Gentlemen's Doubles silver challenge cup was originally from the Oxford University Lawn Tennis Club and donated to the All England Club in 1884. The Ladies' Doubles Trophy, a silver cup and cover known as The Duchess of Kent Challenge Cup, was presented to the All England Club in 1949 by The Duchess of Kent. The Mixed Doubles Trophy is a silver challenge cup and cover presented to the All England Club by the family of two-time Wimbledon doubles winner Sydney Smith.
The runner-up in each event receives an inscribed silver plate. The trophies are usually presented by the Patron of the All England Club, The Princess of Wales.
Prize money
Prize money was first awarded in 1968, the year that professional players were allowed to compete in the Championships for the first time. Total prize money was £26,150; the winner of the men's title earned £2,000 (equivalent to £43,800 in 2023) while the women's singles champion received £750 (equivalent to £16,400 in 2023). In 2007, Wimbledon and the French Open became the last grand slam tournaments to award unequal prize money to women and men.
The bulk of the increases in 2012 were given to players losing in earlier rounds. This move was in response to the growing angst among lower-ranked players concerning the inadequacy of their pay. Sergiy Stakhovsky, a member of the ATP Player Council and who was at the time ranked 68th, was among the most vocal in the push for higher pay for players who bow out in the earlier rounds. In an interview Stakhovsky intimated that it is not uncommon for lower-ranked players to be in financial debt after playing certain tour events, if they had a poor result.
Doubles prize money is per team.
Ranking points
Ranking points for the ATP and WTA have varied at Wimbledon through the years but at present,
individual players receive the following points:
Champions
Past champions
Gentlemen's singles
Ladies' singles
Gentlemen's doubles
Ladies' doubles
Mixed doubles
All champions
Current champions
Most recent finals
Records
Gentlemen since 1877
Ladies since 1884
Miscellaneous
See also
2012 Summer Olympics venues
List of British finalists at Grand Slam tennis tournaments
Wimbledon (film)
Wimbledon Effect
Lists of champions
List of Wimbledon champions (all events)
List of Wimbledon gentlemen's singles champions
List of Wimbledon ladies' singles champions
List of Wimbledon gentlemen's doubles champions
List of Wimbledon ladies' doubles champions
List of Wimbledon mixed doubles champions
List of Wimbledon singles finalists during the Open Era, records and statistics
Other Grand Slam tournaments
Australian Open
French Open
US Open
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
Official website |
List_of_Wimbledon_gentlemen%27s_singles_champions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wimbledon_gentlemen%27s_singles_champions | [
385
] | [
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wimbledon_gentlemen%27s_singles_champions"
] | Wimbledon Championships is an annual British tennis tournament created in 1877 and played on outdoor grass courts at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) in the Wimbledon suburb of London, United Kingdom. The Gentlemen's Singles was the first event contested in 1877.
History
The Wimbledon Championships are played in the first two weeks of July (as of July 2017; prior to this, they were played in the last week of June and first week of July) and have chronologically been the third of the four Grand Slam tournaments of the tennis season since 1987. The event was not held from 1915 to 1918 because of World War I and again from 1940 to 1945 because of World War II. It was also cancelled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Gentlemen's Singles' rules have undergone several changes since the first edition. From 1878 until 1921, the event started with a knockout phase, the All Comers' Singles, whose winner then faced the defending champion in a challenge round. The All Comers' winner was automatically awarded the title six times (1879, 1887, 1891, 1895, 1907, 1908) in the absence of the previous year's champion. The challenge round system was abolished with the 1922 edition. Since the first championships, all matches have been played at the best-of-five sets. Between 1877 and 1883, the winner of the next game at five games all took the set in every match except the All Comers' final, and the challenge round, which were won with six games and a two games advantage. All sets were decided in this advantage format from 1884 to 1970. The best-of-12-points lingering death tie-break was introduced in 1971 for the first four sets, played at eight games all until 1978 and at six games all since 1979.
Since 1949, the Gentlemen's Singles champion has received a miniature replica of the event's trophy, a silver-gilt cup created in 1887 with the engraved inscription: "The All England Lawn Tennis Club Single Handed Champion of the World". New singles champions are traditionally elected honorary members of the AELTC by the club's committee. In 2017, the Gentlemen's Singles winner received prize money of £2,220,000.
In the Amateur Era, William Renshaw (1881–1886, 1889) holds the record for the most titles in the Gentlemen's Singles, winning Wimbledon seven times. Renshaw's wins, however, came within the challenge round format, and he won the event only twice after going through a complete draw. Renshaw also holds the record for most consecutive titles with six (from 1881 to 1886). The record for most consecutive and most wins post challenge round during the Amateur Era is Fred Perry with three (1934–1936).
In the Open Era, since the inclusion of professional tennis players in 1968, Roger Federer (2003–2007, 2009, 2012, 2017) holds the record for the most Gentlemen's Singles titles with eight. Björn Borg (1976–1980) and Roger Federer (2003–2007) share the record for most consecutive victories with five.
Federer reached 7 consecutive Wimbledon Finals (2003 – 09), an all-time record, surpassing the old record of 6 consecutive finals by Borg (1976–81) and in the process the Swede won 41 consecutive matches at Wimbledon.
This event was won without losing a single set in the entire tournament during the Open Era twice, in 1976 by Björn Borg and in 2017 by Roger Federer.
Roger Federer is the only player in history, in both the Amateur and Open Eras, to reach the Wimbledon Gentlemen's Singles Final twelve times.
For 9 consecutive years from 1992 to 2000, an American player reached Wimbledon final winning 8 titles out of 9, only exception being 1996 Runner Up MaliVai Washington, a new open era record.
Champions
Amateur era
Open era
Statistics
Multiple champions
Years in italic type denote titles defended in the challenge round.
Championships by country
See also
Wimbledon Open other competitions
List of Wimbledon ladies' singles champions
List of Wimbledon gentlemen's doubles champions
List of Wimbledon ladies' doubles champions
List of Wimbledon mixed doubles champions
Grand Slam men's singles
List of Australian Open men's singles champions
List of French Open men's singles champions
List of US Open men's singles champions
List of Grand Slam men's singles champions
Other events
Wembley Championships
Notes
References
General
Specific
External links
The Championships, Wimbledon official website |
Novak_Djokovic | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novak_Djokovic | [
385
] | [
"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novak_Djokovic"
] | Novak Djokovic (Serbian: Новак Ђоковић, Novak Đoković, pronounced [nôvaːk dʑôːkovitɕ] ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked No. 1 for a record total of 428 weeks in a record 13 different years by the ATP, and finished as the year-end No. 1 a record eight times. Djokovic has won a record 24 Grand Slam men's singles titles, including a record ten Australian Open titles. Overall, he has won 99 singles titles, including a record 72 Big Titles: 24 majors, a record 40 Masters, a record seven year-end championships, and an Olympic gold medal. Djokovic is the only man in tennis history to be the reigning champion of all four majors at once across three different surfaces. In singles, he is the only man to achieve a triple Career Grand Slam, and the only player to complete a Career Golden Masters, a feat he has accomplished twice. Djokovic is the only player in singles to have won all of the Big Titles over the course of his career, having completed the Career Super Slam as part of that accomplishment.
Djokovic began his professional career in 2003. In 2008, at age 20, he disrupted Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal's streak of 11 consecutive majors by winning his first major title at the Australian Open. By 2010, Djokovic had begun to separate himself from the rest of the field and, as a result, the trio of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic was referred to as the "Big Three" among fans and commentators. In 2011, Djokovic ascended to No. 1 for the first time, winning three majors and a then-record five Masters titles while going 10–1 against Nadal and Federer. He remained the most successful player in men's tennis for the rest of the decade. In 2015, Djokovic had his most successful season, reaching a single-season record 15 consecutive finals, winning a season-record 10 Big Titles while having a record 31 victories over the top-10 players. His dominant run extended through to the 2016 French Open, where he completed his first Career Grand Slam and a non-calendar year Grand Slam, becoming the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four majors simultaneously and setting a rankings points record of 16,950. In 2017, Djokovic suffered from an elbow injury that weakened his results until the 2018 Wimbledon Championships, where he won the title while ranked No. 21 in the world. Djokovic has continued to be a dominant force on the tour since then, winning 12 major titles and completing his second and third Career Grand Slams. Due to his opposition to COVID-19 vaccine, Djokovic was forced to skip many tournaments in 2022, notably the Australian Open and the US Open; two major events he was the favorite to win. One year after the Australian visa controversy, Djokovic made a successful comeback to reclaim the 2023 Australian Open trophy, and shortly after he claimed the French Open to take the outright record for most men's singles majors won in history. In 2024, he became the oldest gold medalist in men's tennis singles history at the Paris Olympics.
Representing Serbia, Djokovic led the national tennis team to its first Davis Cup title in 2010, and the inaugural ATP Cup title in 2020. In singles, he won the gold medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and the bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He is a recipient of the Order of Karađorđe Star, Order of St. Sava, and the Order of the Republika Srpska.
Beyond competition, Djokovic was elected as the president of the ATP Player Council in 2016. He stepped down in 2020 to front a new player-only tennis association; the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) founded by him and Vasek Pospisil, citing the need for players to have more influence on the tour and advocating better prize money structure for lower ranked players. Djokovic is an active philanthropist. He is the founder of Novak Djokovic Foundation, which is committed to supporting children from disadvantaged communities. Djokovic was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2015.
Early and personal life
Novak Djokovic was born on 22 May 1987 in Belgrade, SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia, to Dijana (née Žagar) and Srdjan Djokovic. He is of paternal Serbian and maternal Croatian descent. His two younger brothers, Marko and Djordje, have also played professional tennis.
Djokovic began playing tennis at the age of four, after his parents gave him a mini-racket and a soft foam ball, which his father said became "the most beloved toy in his life". His parents then sent him to a tennis camp in Novi Sad. In the summer of 1993, as a six-year-old, he was sent to a tennis camp organized by the Teniski Klub Partizan and overseen by Yugoslav tennis player Jelena Genčić at Mount Kopaonik, where Djokovic's parents ran a fast-food parlour. Genčić worked with Djokovic over the following six years, convincing him to hit his backhand with two hands instead of the single hand used by his idol, Pete Sampras. Djokovic has credited Genčić for "shaping my mind as a human being, but also as a professional".
During the Yugoslav Wars in the late 1990s, Serbia had to endure embargoes and NATO bombings because of the Kosovo War. At one point Djokovic had to train inside a disused swimming pool converted into a tennis court. Due to his rapid development, Genčić contacted Nikola Pilić and in September 1999 Djokovic moved to the Pilić tennis academy in Oberschleißheim, Germany, spending four years there. Pilić made him serve against a wall for several months to improve his technique, and he had him working with a rubber exercise band for a year to improve flexibility in his wrist. One of the players he trained with at the Niki Pilić academy was future world No. 10 Ernests Gulbis, with whom he allegedly had a fiery rivalry.
His father also took him to train at academies in the United States, Italy, and Germany. Because of the high cost of traveling and training his father took out high-interest loans to help pay for his son's tennis education, putting Djokovic under immense pressure to deliver. He believes the impact this had on him could be the reason behind his prowess under pressure.
He met his future wife, Jelena Ristić, in high school, and began dating her in 2005. The two became engaged in September 2013, and on 10 July 2014 the couple were married on Sveti Stefan in Montenegro. He and Ristić had their first child, a boy, in October 2014. Their daughter was born in 2017.
Djokovic is a self-described fan of languages, speaking Serbian, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish to varying levels of proficiency. Djokovic moved to Monte Carlo in late 2008 after his popularity increased due to his grand slam triumph. Monte Carlo is the go-to destination for many tennis players and Formula One drivers due to tax exemptions.
Tennis career
2000s
2001–2003: Juniors
In 2001, Djokovic dominated the U14 circuit in the ETA Junior Tour, currently known as the Tennis Europe Junior Tour, winning his first ETA title in a second category tournament in Messina, defeating his compatriot Bojan Božović in the final, and his second in Livorno after beating the top seed and future rival Andy Murray in the semifinals, and the second seed Aljoscha Thron in the final, 5–7, 7–5, 6–4. In July, Djokovic was the top seed at the U14 European championship, held in Sanremo, where he won the singles tournament over Lukáš Lacko, and the doubles with Božović over the Russian pair of Alexandre Krasnoroutskiy and Mikhail Bekker. Djokovic also led the Serbian team to victory in the European Summer Cup, thus ending the year as a European champion in singles, doubles and in team competition, while also winning the silver medal at the ITF World Junior Championship for players under 14 in a team competition for Yugoslavia. Djokovic ended 2001 at the top of the ETA rankings for U14s, one place ahead of Murray at No. 2.
In 2002, Djokovic continued his dominance, now in the U16 circuit. In June, Djokovic won two prestigious tournaments in France, the Derby Cadets in La Boule, where he beat future world No. 6 Gaël Monfils in the final, and Le Pontet in Avignon. In September, Djokovic won his first ITF tournament in Pančevo after winning all of his matches in straight sets, some of which against rivals three years older than he, including the No. 1 seed David Savić in the final. In November, Djokovic participated in the prestigious Prince Cup and Junior Orange Bowl in Miami, defeating home favorite Stephen Bass to win the former despite having to play the final just a few hours after winning a qualifier round for the Orange Bowl, where he beat two Americans in the main draw before losing in the third round to Marcos Baghdatis.
In juniors, he compiled a singles win-loss record of 40–11 (and 23–6 in doubles), reaching a combined junior world ranking of No. 24 in February 2004. At the junior Grand Slam events, his best showing was at the Australian Open where he reached the semifinals in 2004. He also played at the French Open and US Open junior events in 2003.
2003–2005: Start of professional career
In January 2003, at age 15, Djokovic played his first match in a professional tournament after receiving a wildcard from Pilić to enter a Futures event in Oberschleißheim, the suburb of Munich where Pilić had his academy, but despite knowing the court where he played very well, Djokovic still lost to Alex Rădulescu in two tight sets, 7–5, 7–6. Pilić also had influence outside of Germany and requested a wildcard for Djokovic to play in a Futures in Belgrade in June, where he beat the No. 4 seed in the first round and then Cesar Ferrer-Victoria in the final, gaining him his first world ranking of No. 767. At age 16, he finished 2003 ranked world No. 687.
On 11 April 2004, the 16-year-old Djokovic earned his first official ATP victory when he defeated No. 1340 Janis Skroderis 6–2, 6–2 in a dead rubber held in Belgrade during a Davis Cup tie between Serbia & Montenegro and Latvia. He won his first ATP Challenger tournament in Budapest, where he started as a qualifier. In the final, played on the day of his 17th birthday, Djokovic dominated No. 232 Daniele Bracciali 6–1, 6–2. Djokovic then qualified for his first ATP Tour event, the Croatia Open Umag in July 2004, where he lost to Filippo Volandri in the first round. His success in Futures and Challenger events saw him rise into the world's Top 200 and finish 2004 as the world No. 186.
In January 2005, Djokovic made his Grand Slam debut at the Australian Open, where he defeated future rival Stan Wawrinka in the second round of the qualifying competition. In the first round of the main draw, he was defeated by eventual champion Marat Safin in straight sets. Later that year, Djokovic won his first Grand Slam match at the French Open, and went on to reach the third round of both Wimbledon and the US Open, coming back from two sets down and saving multiple match points to defeat Guillermo García López in the former, and beating Gaël Monfils and Mario Ančić in the latter. Djokovic participated in four Masters events and qualified for two of them, his best performance coming in Paris, where he reached the third round and defeated fourth seed Mariano Puerta along the way. He finished the year ranked No. 78, the youngest player in the top 100.
2006: Maiden ATP titles, first Grand Slam quarterfinal
On 9 April 2006, Djokovic clinched a decisive Davis Cup win against Great Britain by defeating Greg Rusedski in four sets in the fourth match of the tie, giving Serbia and Montenegro an insurmountable 3–1 lead in their best-of-five series, thus keeping the country in the Group One Euro/African Zone of Davis Cup. Afterwards, Djokovic briefly considered moving from Serbia to play for Great Britain. The British media spoke of Djokovic's family negotiating with the Lawn Tennis Association about changing his international loyalty by joining British tennis ranks. The 18-year-old Djokovic, who was ranked 64th in the world, initially dismissed the story by saying that the talks were not serious, describing them as "the British being very kind to us after the Davis Cup." However, more than three years later, in October 2009, Djokovic confirmed that the talks between his family and the LTA throughout April and May 2006 were indeed serious:
Britain was offering me a lot of opportunities and they needed someone because Andy [Murray] was the only one, and still is. That had to be a disappointment for all the money they invest. But I didn't need the money as much as I had done. I had begun to make some for myself, enough to afford to travel with a coach, and I said, "Why the heck?" I am Serbian, I am proud of being a Serbian, I didn't want to spoil that just because another country had better conditions. If I had played for Great Britain, of course I would have played exactly as I do for my country but deep inside, I would never have felt that I belonged. I was the one who took the decision.Djokovic reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal at the French Open as the world No. 63, after upsetting ninth-ranked Fernando González in the second round. In the quarterfinals, he faced Rafael Nadal, the first-ever meeting of their historic rivalry, which Nadal won via a retirement from Djokovic after Nadal took the first two sets. This deep run at the French Open saw him reach the top 40 in the world singles rankings. At Wimbledon, he reached the fourth round, losing to seventh seed Mario Ančić in five sets.
Three weeks after Wimbledon, Djokovic won his maiden ATP title at the Dutch Open in Amersfoort without losing a set, defeating Nicolás Massú in the final. He won his second career title at the Moselle Open in Metz, France, defeating Jürgen Melzer in the final, and moved into the top 20. He also reached his first career Masters quarterfinal at Madrid during the indoor hardcourt season. Djokovic finished the year ranked No. 16, the youngest player in the top 20.
2007: First Masters titles, first Major final & breaking top 3
Djokovic began 2007 by defeating Australian Chris Guccione in the Adelaide final, before losing in the fourth round of the Australian Open to eventual champion Roger Federer in straight sets. His performances at the Masters Series events in Indian Wells, and Miami, where he was the runner-up and champion respectively, pushed him into the world's top 10. Djokovic lost the Indian Wells final to Rafael Nadal, but defeated Nadal in Key Biscayne in the quarterfinals before going on to defeat Guillermo Cañas in the final to win his maiden Masters Series title. In doing so, he became the youngest player to ever win the tournament and the first teenager to win the event since Andre Agassi in 1990.
Djokovic then returned to Serbia to help his country enter the Davis Cup World Group in a match against Georgia. He won a point by defeating Georgia's George Chanturia. Later, he played in the Monte-Carlo Masters, where he was defeated by David Ferrer in the third round, and at the Estoril Open, where he defeated Richard Gasquet in the final. Djokovic then reached the quarterfinals of both the Italian Open in Rome, where he lost to Nadal, and the Hamburg Masters, where he was defeated by Carlos Moyá. At the French Open, Djokovic reached his first major semifinal, losing to eventual champion Nadal.
At Wimbledon, Djokovic won a five-hour quarterfinal against Marcos Baghdatis to reach his first Wimbledon semi-final. At the time, the match had lasted just 5 minutes shy of the longest Wimbledon match played in a single day. After the match, Baghdatis stated that playing against Djokovic was “a bit like facing Andre Agassi. He is just making you move from one place to another”. Djokovic started his semifinal match against Nadal with nearly 17 hours on court, and ended up retiring with elbow problems in the third set, after winning the first and losing the second set.
Djokovic's next tournament was the Canadian Open in Montreal, and he defeated No. 3 Andy Roddick in the quarterfinals, No. 2 Nadal in the semifinals, and No. 1 Federer in the final. This was the first time a player had defeated the top three ranked players in one tournament since Boris Becker in 1994. Djokovic was also only the second player, after Tomáš Berdych, to have defeated both Federer and Nadal since they became the top two players in the world. After this tournament, Björn Borg stated that Djokovic "is definitely a contender to win a Grand Slam (tournament)." The following week at the Cincinnati Masters, Djokovic lost in the second round to Moyà in straight sets. Nevertheless, he went on to reach the final of the US Open, where he had five set points in the first set and two in the second set, but lost them all before losing the match in straight sets to the top-seeded Federer.
Djokovic won his fifth title of the year at the BA-CA TennisTrophy in Vienna, defeating Stanislas Wawrinka in the final. His next tournament was the Madrid Masters, where he lost to David Nalbandian in the semifinals. Djokovic, assured of finishing the year ranked No. 3, qualified for the year-ending championships, but did not advance beyond the round robin matches. He received the Golden Badge award for the best athlete in Serbia, and the Olympic Committee of Serbia declared him the best athlete in the country.
Djokovic played a key role in the 2007 play-off win over Australia by winning all his matches and helping promote the Serbia Davis Cup team to the 2008 World Group. In Serbia's tie against Russia in Moscow in early 2008, Djokovic was sidelined due to influenza and missed his first singles match. He returned to win his doubles match, teaming with Nenad Zimonjić, before retiring during his singles match with Nikolay Davydenko.
2008: First Major title, two Masters & maiden Year-end Championship
Djokovic started his preparations for the season by playing the Hopman Cup with fellow Serbian world No. 3 Jelena Janković where he won all of his four singles matches, including in the final against the United States, where he beat Mardy Fish in a deciding set tiebreak to level the tie, but then losing the decisive mixed doubles rubber, in which he faced former WTA No. 1 Serena Williams in a competitive event for the first time. At the Australian Open, Djokovic reached his second consecutive Grand Slam final, this time without dropping a set, including a victory over two-time defending champion Federer in the semifinals. By reaching the semifinals, Djokovic became the youngest player in the Open Era to have reached the semifinals in all four Grand Slam events. In the final, Djokovic defeated unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in four sets to earn his first Grand Slam singles title. This marked the first time since the 2005 Australian Open that a Grand Slam singles title was not won by Federer or Nadal.
Djokovic's next tournament was the Dubai Championships, where he lost in the semifinals to Roddick. At the Indian Wells Masters, Djokovic won his ninth career singles title, defeating Mardy Fish in the final. Djokovic won his tenth career singles title and fourth Master Series singles crown at the Italian Open in Rome after defeating Wawrinka in the final. The following week he lost to Nadal in the semifinals at the Hamburg Masters. At the French Open, Djokovic was the third-seeded player behind Federer and Nadal. He lost to Nadal in the semifinals in straight sets.
On grass, Djokovic once again played Nadal, this time in the Artois Championships final in Queen's Club, where he lost in two sets. Djokovic entered Wimbledon seeded third but lost in the second round to Marat Safin, ending a streak of five consecutive majors where he had reached at least the semifinals.
Djokovic then failed to defend his 2007 singles title at the Rogers Cup in Toronto, where he was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Andy Murray. The following week at the Cincinnati Masters, Djokovic advanced to the final, beating Nadal in the semifinals, which not only ended the Spaniard's 32-match winning streak, but also delayed Nadal's first ascension to world No. 1 by a week. In the final, he again lost to Murray in straight sets. His next tournament was the 2008 Summer Olympics, his first Olympics. He and Nenad Zimonjić, seeded second in men's doubles, were eliminated in the first round by the Czech pairing of Martin Damm and Pavel Vízner. Seeded third in singles, Djokovic lost in the semifinals to Nadal. Djokovic then defeated James Blake, the loser of the other semifinal, in the bronze medal match.
After the Olympics, Djokovic entered the US Open seeded third, where he defeated Roddick in the quarterfinals. To a smattering of boos in a post-match interview, Djokovic criticized Roddick for accusing him of making excessive use of the trainer during matches and for suggesting that he was faking his injuries. His run at the US Open ended in the semifinals when he lost to Federer in four sets, in a rematch of the previous year's final. In November, Djokovic was the second seed at the year-ending Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, beating Juan Martín del Potro and Nikolay Davydenko in the round-robin stage, and Gilles Simon in the semifinals. In the final, Djokovic defeated Davydenko to win his first title at the year-end championship.
2009: Ten finals, five titles
Djokovic started the year at the Brisbane International, where he was upset by fellow Pilić academy trainee Ernests Gulbis in the first round. As defending champion at the Australian Open, Djokovic retired from his quarterfinal match with former world No. 1 Andy Roddick, primarily due to heat illness that generated muscle aches and cramps. After losing in the semifinals of the Open 13 tournament in Marseille to Tsonga, Djokovic won the singles title at the Dubai Championships, defeating Ferrer to claim his twelfth career title. The following week, Djokovic was the defending champion at the Indian Wells Masters but lost to Roddick in the quarterfinals. At the Miami Open in Key Biscayne, Djokovic beat Federer in the semifinals, before losing to Murray in the final.
Djokovic reached the final of the next Masters event, the Monte-Carlo Masters on clay, losing to Nadal in the final. At the Italian Open in Rome, Djokovic failed to defend the title he had won the previous year, losing to Nadal in the final again. Djokovic was the top seed at his hometown tournament, the Serbia Open in Belgrade, beating Łukasz Kubot in the final to win his second title of the year. Djokovic then reached the semifinals of the Madrid Open without dropping a set, where he lost to Nadal despite holding three match points. The match, at 4 hours and 3 minutes, was at the time the longest three-set singles match on the ATP Tour in the Open Era. At the French Open, he lost in the third round to German Philipp Kohlschreiber.
Djokovic began his grass court season at the Gerry Weber Open where after the withdrawal of Federer, he competed as the top seed. He advanced to the final, where he lost to Tommy Haas. Djokovic then lost to Haas again, this time in the quarterfinals of Wimbledon. During the US Open Series, Djokovic made the quarterfinals of the Canadian Open in Montreal before losing to Roddick. At the Cincinnati Masters, Djokovic defeated Nadal in the semifinals before losing in the final to Federer. At the US Open, Djokovic reached the semifinals, where he was defeated by Federer.
Djokovic then won his third title of the year at the China Open in Beijing, beating Marin Čilić in the final. Djokovic then lost in the semifinals of the inaugural Shanghai Masters to Davydenko. At the Swiss Indoors in Basel, Djokovic recorded his first 6–0, 6–0 win at an elite event when he defeated Jan Hernych in the second round. He then defeat home player Wawrinka in the quarterfinals before saving three match to win his semifinal against Radek Štěpánek. In the final, he defeated home favorite and three-time defending champion Federer to win his fourth title of the year. Djokovic won his first Masters title of the year at the Paris Masters after defeating Nadal in the semifinals, and outlasting Gaël Monfils in a decisive set tiebreak in the final.
Even though he came into the year-ending ATP Finals in London on a 10-match winning streak and as the defending champion, Djokovic failed to make it out from the round-robin stage despite beating both Davydenko and Nadal due to having fewer sets. Djokovic ended the year as the No. 3 for the third consecutive year, having played 97 matches, the most of any player on the ATP Tour, which earned him the Ironman nickname, with a 78–19 win–loss record. In addition to leading the ATP Tour in match wins, he reached a career-best ten finals, winning five titles.
2010s
2010: US Open final & Davis Cup crown
After playing nearly a hundred matches in 2009, Djokovic stated that he was "fed up with matches", so he decided not to play any ranking tournaments before the Australian Open, thus starting his year by playing in the AAMI Classic, an exhibition event, where he beat Tommy Haas, but lost to Fernando Verdasco and teenager Bernard Tomic. At the Australian Open, Djokovic lost a five-setter to Tsonga in the quarterfinals. Despite the loss, he attained a career-high ranking of No. 2 and went on to reach the semifinals in Rotterdam, where he lost to Mikhail Youzhny. At the Dubai Championships, Djokovic reached the final, this time defeating Youzhny to win his first title of the year and to successfully defend a title for the first time in his career.
On 6–8 March 2010, Djokovic then took part in Serbia's Davis Cup tie against the United States on clay in Belgrade, where he played a key role in helping his country reach the quarterfinal in the Davis Cup for the first time in its independent history, winning both singles matches against Sam Querrey and John Isner in a 3–2 victory. After early exits at the Indian Wells and Miami Masters, Djokovic announced that he had ceased working with Todd Martin as his coach.
In his first clay-court tournament of the year at the Monte-Carlo Masters, top-seeded Djokovic reached the semifinals with wins over Wawrinka and David Nalbandian before losing to Verdasco. Djokovic again lost to Verdasco at the Italian Open in Rome, this time in the quarterfinals. As the defending champion at his hometown event, the Serbia Open in Belgrade, he withdrew in the quarterfinals while trailing No. 319 Filip Krajinović, the lowest-ranked player to ever beat Djokovic as well as the only time that Djokovic lost to a player outside the Top 200. Djokovic entered the French Open seeded third, where he lost to Jürgen Melzer in five sets, marking the only time he lost a match at a major after leading two sets to love. Djokovic then won the first ATP doubles titles of his career at the Aegon Championships, pairing with Jonathan Erlich to beat Karol Beck and David Škoch in the final. In Wimbledon, he lost in the semifinals to Tomáš Berdych in straight sets.
Djokovic then competed at the Canadian Open in Toronto, where he lost to Federer in the semifinals. Djokovic also competed in doubles with Nadal in a one-time, high-profile partnership. This had not happened since 1976, when Jimmy Connors and Arthur Ashe as No. 1 and No. 2 paired together as a doubles team. They lost in the first round to Canadians Milos Raonic and Vasek Pospisil. Djokovic then lost to Roddick in the quarterfinals of the Cincinnati Masters. As the third seed at the US Open, Djokovic came very close to losing in his opening round against Viktor Troicki in extreme heat. He then defeated Philipp Petzschner, James Blake, Mardy Fish, and Gaël Monfils, all in straight sets, to reach the US Open semifinals for the fourth consecutive year. There, he defeated Federer in five sets after saving two match points with forehand winners while serving to stay in the match at 4–5 in the fifth set. It was Djokovic's first victory over Federer at the US Open in four attempts, and his first victory over Federer in a Major since the 2008 Australian Open. Djokovic went on to lose to Nadal in the final, a match that saw Nadal complete his career Grand Slam.
After helping Serbia defeat the Czech Republic 3–2 to make it to the Davis Cup final, Djokovic competed at the China Open as the top seed and defending champion. He won the title for the second successive year after defeating David Ferrer in the final. At the Shanghai Masters, Djokovic made a semifinal appearance, losing to Federer. Djokovic played his final tournament of the year at the ATP Finals in London, where he lost to Federer in the semifinals.
Serbia progressed to the Davis Cup final, following the victories over Croatia (4–1) and the Czech Republic (3–2). Serbia came from 1–2 down to defeat France in the final tie 3–2 in Belgrade to win the nation's first Davis Cup Championship. In the final, Djokovic scored two singles points for Serbia, defeating Gilles Simon and Gaël Monfils. He was the backbone of the Serbian squad, going 7–0 in singles rubbers to lead the nation to the title, although the honour of winning the deciding rubber in the final went to compatriot Viktor Troicki. This two singles rubbers wins started a long unbeaten run that went on into 2011. Djokovic finished the year ranked No. 3, his fourth successive finish at this position. He was awarded the title "Serbian Sportsman of the year" by the Olympic Committee of Serbia and "Serbian Athlete of the year" by DSL Sport.
2011: Rise to the top in one of the greatest seasons in history
Djokovic began his season by winning the Australian Open. He only dropped one set en route to the title, beating Federer in the semifinals and Murray in the final to capture his second Australian Open title and his first grand slam in three years.
He next competed at the Dubai Championships and beat Federer in the final in straight sets. Two weeks later, Djokovic won his second Indian Wells title after beating Federer in the semifinals and Nadal in the final, both in three sets, thus becoming only the third player to beat Nadal and Federer in the same tournament twice, joining Nikolay Davydenko and David Nalbandian. In Miami, Djokovic once again beat Nadal in the finals in three sets, with the final set being decided in a tiebreak. After winning the Serbia Open, Djokovic won the Madrid and Italian Opens, beating Nadal in straight sets in both finals. Beating Nadal in back-to-back matches on clay was a notable reversal due to the fact that he had previously lost all nine matches played against Nadal on clay.
He continued his good form on clay at the French Open by dropping only one set en route to the semifinal, which he lost to Federer. This loss marked Djokovic's first defeat of the season (with Federer also being the last man to defeat Djokovic in 2010), ending a 43-match win streak, which included a 41–0 start to 2011. Five weeks later at Wimbledon, Djokovic replaced Nadal as the world No. 1 and then defeated him in a four set final to take his first Wimbledon title.
In Canada, Djokovic won his single-season record-breaking fifth Masters title with a three-set win over Mardy Fish in the final. At the US Open, Djokovic beat Federer and Nadal on the way to the title, thus becoming only the second player to defeat both of them in the same Major event after Juan Martín del Potro in the 2009 US Open. Djokovic saved match points en route to the title, saving two against Federer in the semifinals to complete a comeback from two sets down, thus becoming just the second player to beat Federer from two sets down after Tsonga a few months earlier in Wimbledon. Djokovic's crosscourt forehand return winner to save the first match point is widely regarded as one of the greatest shots in US Open history as well as one of the greatest returns in tennis history. This was the second consecutive US Open where Djokovic saved two match points against Federer to reach the final, and the fifth consecutive US Open where Djokovic and Federer played each other. Djokovic played Nadal in their second successive major final, winning the match in four sets and taking his first US Open title.
With the victory, Djokovic extended his season record to an impressive 64–2. However, his level dropped toward the season's end, beginning with a back injury sustained during the US Open which caused him to retire from the Davis Cup, and ending with a poor showing at the ATP Finals, in which he lost to David Ferrer and Janko Tipsarević, but saved match point against Tomáš Berdych to seal his 70th and final win of the year. Djokovic concluded the season with a 70–6 record and a year-end ranking of No. 1. He was named the 2011 ITF World Champion.
In total, Djokovic won ten tournaments in 2011, including three Grand Slam tournament victories at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. He also captured a then-record-breaking five ATP Masters titles, and won $12.6 million on the ATP Tour. Djokovic lost only two matches from the start of the season until the final match of the US Open in September, going 10–1 against Nadal and Federer, the other two best players of the year, including 6–0 against Nadal, all in Big Title finals. Djokovic also had the most dominant record versus a world No. 1 for a single season, going 5–0 against Nadal before overtaking him as the world No. 1.
Pete Sampras declared Djokovic's 2011 season as the best he had seen in his lifetime, calling it "one of the best achievements in all of the sports." Boris Becker called Djokovic's season "one of the very best years in tennis of all time", noting that it "may not be the best statistically, but he's beaten Federer, he's beaten Nadal, he's beaten everybody that came around to challenge him in the biggest tournaments in the world." Rafael Nadal, who lost to Djokovic in six finals on hard, clay and grass courts, described Djokovic's performances as "probably the highest level of tennis that I ever saw."
2012: Australian Open title, three Masters & Year-end Championship
Djokovic began his season by winning the Australian Open. In the quarterfinals, he defeated David Ferrer in three sets. In the semifinal, Djokovic beat Andy Murray in five sets after 4 hours and 50 minutes, recovering from a two-sets-to-one deficit and fending off break points at 5-all in the fifth set, in a rematch of the previous year's final. In the final, Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal in five sets, recovering from losing the first set and then a break down in the final set to win 7–5. At 5 hours and 53 minutes, the match was the longest Grand Slam final in Open Era history, as well as the longest match in Australian Open history, surpassing the 5-hour and 14-minute 2009 semifinal between Nadal and Fernando Verdasco.
Djokovic was beaten by John Isner in the semifinals at Indian Wells. He successfully defended his title in Miami after beating Murray in the final. In the Monte Carlo final, he lost in straight sets to Nadal. Djokovic also lost in straight sets to Nadal at the 2012 Rome Masters final.
Djokovic reached his maiden French Open final by defeating Roger Federer, reaching the final of all four majors consecutively. Djokovic had the chance to become the first man since Rod Laver in 1969 to hold all four major titles at once, having won last year's Wimbledon and US Open titles as well as this year's Australian Open, but was beaten by Nadal in the final in four sets. Following the French Open, Djokovic failed to defend his title in Wimbledon, losing to Roger Federer in four sets in the semifinals.
At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Djokovic was chosen as the flag bearer for Serbia. On 2 August 2012, Djokovic defeated French fifth seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and advanced to the semifinals, where he was beaten by Murray in straight sets. In the bronze medal match he lost to Juan Martín del Potro, finishing fourth.
He successively defended his Rogers Cup title, dropping just a single set to Tommy Haas. Following the Rogers Cup, Djokovic made the final of the Cincinnati Masters but lost to Federer in straight sets.
At the US Open, Djokovic reached his third consecutive final by beating fourth-seeded David Ferrer in a match suspended a day due to rain. He then lost to Murray in a five set final that lasted 4 hours and 54 minutes, the joint-longest US Open in history. This final also set the records for both the longest tiebreak (24 minutes) and the longest rally (54 shots) in a major final, won by Murray and Djokovic respectively. Djokovic went on to defend his China Open title, defeating Tsonga in straight sets. The following week he won the Shanghai Masters by defeating Murray in the final. With Federer's withdrawal from the Paris Masters, Djokovic regained the No. 1 ranking. On 12 November 2012, Djokovic won the 2012 ATP Finals by defeating Federer in the final. Because of his achievements in the 2012 season, Djokovic was named the 2012 ITF World Champion in men's singles by the International Tennis Federation.
2013: Australian Open title, three Masters & Year-end Championship
Djokovic started his preparations for the 2013 season by playing the Hopman Cup with Ana Ivanovic, winning three of his four singles matches, including in the final against Fernando Verdasco of Spain in an eventual 1–2 loss. In his first competitive tournament of the year, Djokovic beat Stan Wawrinka in a five-set epic in the fourth round of the Australian Open, lasting over five hours, and being deemed to be one of the best matches ever played, with Wawrinka deeming it to have been the best match that he ever played. He later defeated Andy Murray in the final to win a record third consecutive Australian Open trophy and the sixth major of his career. A week later, he participated in a Davis Cup match against Belgium, where he defeated Olivier Rochus to give the Serbian team a 2–0 lead.
On 2 March 2013, Djokovic defeated Tomáš Berdych in the final of the Dubai Championships. Another solid week of tennis saw Djokovic reach the semifinals at the Indian Wells Masters, before losing to Juan Martín del Potro, ending his 22-match winning streak. The following week, Djokovic entered the Miami Masters as the defending champion, but lost in the fourth round to Tommy Haas in straight sets.
In April, Djokovic played for Serbia against the United States in the Davis Cup quarterfinals. Djokovic clinched a tie for his team by defeating John Isner and Sam Querrey. Later that month, he defeated eight-time champion Rafael Nadal in straight sets in the final of the Monte-Carlo Masters to clinch his first title in Monte Carlo. In May, he was defeated by Grigor Dimitrov in three sets in the second round of the Madrid Open in Madrid. The following week, he lost to Berdych at the quarterfinal stage of the Rome Masters.
Djokovic began his French Open campaign with wins over David Goffin, Guido Pella, and Dimitrov in straight sets. In the fourth round he recovered from a set down and defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany in four sets. In the process, he reached a 16th consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinal, which he won over Tommy Haas. Djokovic then lost to Nadal in the semifinal in a five-set epic.
At Wimbledon, Djokovic defeated Juan Martín del Potro in a five-set epic that lasted 4 hours and 44 minutes, which at the time was the longest Wimbledon semifinal in history. Djokovic then lost the final to Murray in straight sets. At the Canadian Open, he lost to Nadal in the semifinal in three sets. Later, Djokovic lost to Isner in the quarterfinals in Cincinnati. Djokovic went on to reach the US Open final, where he met Nadal for the 37th time in his career (a new Open Era record). He went on to lose in four sets. In early October, Djokovic collected his fourth Beijing title by defeating Nadal in the final in straight sets. He also collected his second Shanghai Masters title, extending his winning streak to 20–0 over the last two seasons at the hard-court Asian swing of the tour. Djokovic won his 16th Masters title in Paris at the end of the season, beating David Ferrer in the final. At the 2013 ATP Finals Djokovic retained his trophy, beating Nadal in straight sets.
At the end of the season, Boris Becker joined his staff as head coach.
2014: Wimbledon title, four Masters & Year-end Championship
Djokovic began the year with a warmup tournament win, the 2013 Mubadala Championship. At the Australian Open, he won his first four matches in straight sets against Lukáš Lacko, Leonardo Mayer, Denis Istomin, and No. 15 seed Fabio Fognini respectively. He met Wawrinka in the quarterfinals of the tournament, the second consecutive year the two had met at the event. Despite coming back from two sets to one down, Djokovic fell 9–7 in the fifth set, ending his 25–match winning streak in Melbourne, as well as his streak of 14 consecutive Grand Slam tournament semifinals.
Djokovic won his third Indian Wells Masters title, defeating Federer in the final. Continuing his good run, he beat No. 1 Nadal in the final of the Miami Masters in straight sets. Suffering from a wrist injury which hampered him throughout the Monte-Carlo Masters, Djokovic lost the semifinals to Federer in straight sets. After returning from injury, Djokovic won his third Rome title by beating Nadal in the final of the Italian Open. He subsequently donated the $500,000 in prize money that he had received to the victims of the 2014 Southeast Europe floods.
Djokovic reached the final of the French Open losing only two sets in six matches but lost in the final to Nadal in four sets. It was Djokovic's first defeat in the last 5 matches between both. At the Wimbledon Championships Djokovic defeated Roger Federer in the final in five sets, winning with a scoreline of 6–7, 6–4, 7–6, 5–7, 6–4. With this victory he replaced Rafael Nadal again as the world No. 1. Djokovic played at the Canadian Open, losing to eventual first-time champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in straight sets. He followed that with a loss to Tommy Robredo at the Cincinnati Masters. At the US Open, Djokovic reached the semifinals, where he lost in four sets to Kei Nishikori.
Djokovic returned to Beijing with a fifth trophy in six years, defeating Murray in the semifinal and Berdych in the final. The following week he was beaten by Federer in the semifinal of Shanghai Masters. He then won the Paris Masters title, without losing a single set, beating Raonic in the final.
In the ATP Finals, Djokovic created a record by winning three round-robin matches with a loss of just nine games. By reaching the semifinal, he also secured the year-end No. 1 ranking for the third time, tying him with Nadal in the fifth position. He was awarded the ATP Finals trophy after Federer withdrew before the final. This marked the seventh title of the season for him and the fourth title at the year-end event.
2015: One of the greatest tennis seasons of all time
Djokovic began the season at the Qatar Open in Doha, where he won his first two rounds for the loss of just 6 games, however, lost in the quarterfinals against Ivo Karlović in three tight sets. He rebounded from this defeat well at the Australian Open, where he made it through the first five rounds without dropping a set. In the semifinals, he faced defending champion Stan Wawrinka, the man who beat him the previous year. He twice lost a set lead, however, came roaring back in the fifth to take it to love, and set up a third final against Andy Murray. After splitting the first two sets in tiebreakers, Djokovic found his form after dropping his serve at the start of the third set, going on to win 12 of the last 13 games to record a four-set victory over the Scot, and win an Open Era record-breaking fifth title in Melbourne, overtaking Roger Federer and Andre Agassi. He moved into equal eighth on the all-time list of men with the most Major titles, tying Agassi, Ivan Lendl, Jimmy Connors, Ken Rosewall and Fred Perry.
He next competed at the Dubai Championships and lost to Federer in the final. After 2 weeks, Djokovic defeated John Isner and Andy Murray en route to his 21st Masters title, beating Federer in three sets in Indian Wells. In Miami, he defeated David Ferrer and John Isner en route to winning his fifth title defeating Andy Murray in three sets. With his 22nd Masters title, Djokovic became the first player to complete the Indian Wells – Miami title double three times. In April, Djokovic clinched his second Monte-Carlo Masters by beating Tomáš Berdych in the final. Therefore, Djokovic became the first man to win the first three ATP Masters 1000 titles of the season. Djokovic withdrew from the 2015 Madrid Masters. He won the title for the fourth time at the Rome Masters, making it 4 out of 4 titles in Masters events entered by Djokovic in the season.
He continued his good form on clay at the French Open by reaching the final without dropping a set in the first five rounds, including a quarterfinal clash with Nadal and a five-set semifinal victory over No. 3 seed Andy Murray which took two days to complete. This meant he became only the second man to have won against Nadal at the French Open. However, he lost the next match and the tournament to No. 8 seed Stan Wawrinka in four sets. Five weeks later, he rebounded again from the tough loss in Paris, just like 2014, coming from two sets down to beat Kevin Anderson in the fourth round, and then going on to claim his third Wimbledon title, with a four-set win over Roger Federer.
Prior to the final Grand Slam event of the year, Djokovic had the chance to become the first man in history to complete the full set of Masters titles in Cincinnati, achieving the Career Golden Masters, but he lost the final to Federer (Djokovic would accomplish the feat at the 2018 and 2020 events). At the US Open, Djokovic reached the final for the sixth time in his career, achieving the feat of reaching all four Grand Slam finals in a single calendar year. In the final, he faced Federer once again, defeating him in four sets to win his third Grand Slam title of the year, his second title at Flushing Meadows, and his tenth Grand Slam singles title overall, becoming the fifth man in the Open Era to win double-digit Grand Slam singles titles, as well as only the third man to reach all four Major finals in a calendar year.
He returned to China Open in October, winning the title for the sixth time, defeating Nadal in straight sets in the final to bring his overall record at the tournament to 29–0. Djokovic then reached the final of the Paris Masters, where he defeated Murray in straight sets, taking his fourth title there and a record sixth ATP Masters tournament in one year. After losing to Federer in the round-robin stage of the ATP Finals he took on the third seed again in the final. He beat Federer in straight sets winning his fifth ATP Finals title and becoming the first player to win the Year-end Championships four consecutive times.
By the end of the season, Djokovic made a season-record 15 consecutive finals, reaching the championship match of every top-level tournament he played (four in Majors, eight in Masters, and the final at the Year-end Championships). He won 11 titles including a season-record 10 Big Titles (three Majors, six Masters, and the Year-end Championships) on all court surfaces and conditions (hard, clay, grass and indoors). Djokovic set a season-record of 16,585 for most ranking points accumulated as world No. 1. and had a season-record 31 victories over top-10 players, including a remarkable 15–4 winning record against the other members of the Big Four, Federer, Nadal, and Murray. The 2015 season is Djokovic's most successful season as of 2022, and it is considered one of the greatest seasons in tennis history.
2016: Historic 'Nole Slam', four Masters & ranking points record
Djokovic collected his 60th career title in Doha, defeating Rafael Nadal in two sets in a final that lasted 73 minutes. He broke his own ATP ranking points record, bringing it up to 16,790. Djokovic then proceeded to win his sixth Australian Open. On his road to his Open Era record sixth title in Melbourne, he defeated Roger Federer in four sets in the semifinals, and in a rematch of the 2015 final, he defeated Andy Murray, in three straight sets. He quickly rebounded from an eye infection at the Dubai Championships to collect a fifth Indian Wells Masters title, defeating Rafael Nadal in the semifinals, and Milos Raonic in the final. Djokovic's run was so dominant that the world no. 2 and 3 (Andy Murray and Roger Federer) could have combined their points and still not have had enough to pass him in the rankings.
On 3 April 2016, Djokovic won the Miami Open for the third consecutive year, and did so without dropping a set en route to his sixth career Miami Open title, tying him with Andre Agassi for most ever Miami Open men's singles titles. In addition, the victory marked the fourth year Djokovic completed the Sunshine Double in his career, the most Sunshine Doubles out of any player in history, and 2016 being the third consecutive year that Djokovic completed it. His win in Miami also saw Djokovic surpass Roger Federer to become the all-time leading prize money winner on the ATP tour with career earnings of $98.2 million. After an early round exit at the Monte-Carlo Masters, Djokovic quickly bounced back by winning the Madrid title for the second time in his career, with a three-set victory over Murray. They met again in the Rome Masters final one week later with Murray as the victor; despite a sluggish performance, Djokovic defeated Nadal and Kei Nishikori in two long quarterfinals and semifinals.
Djokovic defeated Andy Murray in the final of the French Open in four sets, making him the reigning champion of all four major tournaments, a historic feat the media dubbed the Nole Slam. With his French Open triumph, Djokovic became the eighth player in history to achieve a Career Grand Slam, the third player in history after Don Budge and Rod Laver to hold all four Grand Slam titles at the same time, and the first player to win $100 million in prize money. The victory at the French Open brought his ATP ranking points up to a new record of 16,950. At Wimbledon, his major win streak came to an end in the third-round when he lost to American Sam Querrey in four sets. It was his earliest exit in a Grand Slam since the 2009 French Open.
In late July, Djokovic returned to form by winning his fourth Canadian Open title, and 30th Masters title overall, without dropping a set. In August, Djokovic was beaten in the first round of the Olympic men's singles in Rio de Janeiro by Juan Martín del Potro. It was Djokovic's first opening round defeat since January 2009, when Ernest Gulbis defeated him at the 2009 Brisbane International. In the final slam of the year, the US Open, Djokovic advanced to the final but was defeated by Stan Wawrinka in four sets. Djokovic was defeated by Roberto Bautista Agut and Marin Čilić in the semifinals and quarterfinals of Shanghai and Paris. Due to this result, he lost the No. 1 ranking to Andy Murray. However, a runner-up finish at the ATP Finals indicated his best performances in nearly three months. After the season, he parted ways with his coach of three years, Boris Becker.
2017: Split with team and long injury hiatus
In January, Djokovic defended his title in Doha after defeating the new world No. 1 Andy Murray. At the Australian Open, he was upset in the second round by world No. 117 Denis Istomin. This was the first time since 2007 that Djokovic failed to reach the quarterfinals at the Australian Open, and the first time in his career that he lost to a player ranked outside of the top 100 at a major. In February and March, Djokovic played at the Mexican Open and Indian Wells Masters, but was eliminated by Nick Kyrgios in both events before the semifinals. In April, Djokovic reached the quarterfinals of the Monte-Carlo Masters, losing to David Goffin. After the tournament, he chose to split with his long-time coach Marián Vajda, fitness specialist Gebhard Phil-Gritsch, and physiotherapist Miljan Amanović, citing the need to find a winning spark. A better showing at the Madrid Masters saw Djokovic reach the semifinals, losing to Nadal in straight sets. A runner-up result at the Rome Masters indicated improvement in his form.
On 21 May 2017, Djokovic announced that Andre Agassi would become his new coach, starting at the French Open. However, as the defending champion, he lost in the quarterfinals to Dominic Thiem. He began the grass court season at the Eastbourne International, playing his first non-Wimbledon tournament on grass since 2010. He won the title by beating Gaël Monfils in the final. This was also the only tournament that Djokovic won without his coach being Marián Vajda until the duo split in 2022. He made it to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon before retiring against Tomáš Berdych due to an elbow injury.
On 26 July, Djokovic announced he would miss the US Open and the rest of the 2017 season to recover from his elbow injury. This was the first time that he missed a major tournament since he entered his first, the 2005 Australian Open, thus ending his streak of participating in 51 consecutive Grand Slam tournaments, the seventh-longest run in history.
2018: Surgery and resurgence; two Majors, return to No. 1 & historic Golden Masters
In January, Djokovic defeated Dominic Thiem at the Kooyong Classic exhibition tournament. At the 2018 Australian Open, he reached the fourth round, where he was upset by Chung Hyeon. In late January, he underwent surgery on his elbow. On 3 March, Djokovic returned to the practice courts, and surprisingly played at Indian Wells only a week later, losing in the second round to Taro Daniel. He then lost to Benoît Paire in the second round of the Miami Open.
Reuniting with longtime coach Marián Vajda at the Monte-Carlo Masters, Djokovic collected victories over Dušan Lajović and Borna Ćorić, followed by a loss to Dominic Thiem. In a press conference, he stated, "After two years finally I can play without pain." After another early exit in Barcelona to Martin Kližan, Djokovic's gradual return to form would appear at the Madrid Masters. With a first round win over Kei Nishikori, Djokovic achieved his first victory over a top 20 player in 10 months; however, he lost in the second round to Kyle Edmund. Going into the Rome Masters with a 6–6 season record, he reached the semifinals before losing to long-time rival Rafael Nadal. He then reached the quarterfinals of the French Open before losing to Marco Cecchinato.
Djokovic began the grass court season at Queen's Club, securing his first win over a top 5 player in almost 18 months by defeating Grigor Dimitrov in the second round. He reached the final where, despite holding a championship point, he lost to Marin Čilić. He also played doubles partnering with longtime friend and rival Stan Wawrinka. Djokovic then entered Wimbledon as the 12th seed, where he reached the semifinals to face Rafael Nadal. Djokovic defeated Nadal in a 5-hour and 17-minute, five-set epic spread over two days, becoming the second-longest Wimbledon semifinal in history, second only to the match between Kevin Anderson and John Isner held earlier on the same day. In the final, he claimed his fourth Wimbledon title and 13th major title overall by defeating Kevin Anderson in straight sets. With the win, he rose 11 ranking spots and re-entered the top 10 for the first time since October 2017. At No. 21, he was the lowest-ranked Wimbledon titlist since Goran Ivanišević in 2001.
After a triumphant grass season, Djokovic started his North American hardcourt swing with a third-round showing at the Canadian Open, losing to Stefanos Tsitsipas. Afterwards, he returned to play the Cincinnati Masters for the first time in three years. In an event plagued by suspended play due to rain, Djokovic defeated the defending champion Grigor Dimitrov, Milos Raonic, and Marin Čilić to reach his sixth final at the tournament and fourth final against Roger Federer. Although Federer was riding a streak of 100 consecutive holds of serve at the tournament, dating back to the 2014 final, Djokovic broke his serve three times to win his first Cincinnati Masters title. With this victory, Djokovic became the first (and, as of 2024, only) player in tennis history to complete the Career Golden Masters — winning all nine ATP Masters events at least once in one's career.
Djokovic was the sixth seed at the US Open. He advanced to his eleventh US Open semifinal in as many appearances, where he overcame Kei Nishikori. Djokovic then defeated Juan Martín del Potro to win his third US Open title and 14th major title overall, tying with Pete Sampras's tally. With the win, Djokovic returned to the top 3 in the world rankings for the first time since the 2017 French Open.
At the Shanghai Masters, Djokovic defeated Kevin Anderson and Alexander Zverev en route to the title, not dropping a set nor having his serve broken throughout. The win marked his fourth Shanghai title, and his ranking rose to No. 2. On 31 October, Rafael Nadal announced his withdrawal from the Paris Masters due to an abdominal injury, and Djokovic reclaimed the world No. 1 ranking. There, Djokovic defeated Roger Federer in a tight three-set semifinal, but was upset by the unseeded Karen Khachanov in the final. At the ATP Finals, Djokovic was guaranteed a fifth year-end No. 1 ranking following the withdrawal of Rafael Nadal from the event. In the round-robin stage, he defeated Alexander Zverev, Marin Čilić, and John Isner without dropping a set. In the semifinals, he defeated Kevin Anderson to reach his seventh final at the tournament but was upset by Zverev. At the 2018 Mubadala Championship, he scored victories over Karen Khachanov & Kevin Anderson to win the title.
2019: Historic 7th Australian Open title & Wimbledon title
Djokovic's first tournament of the year was at the Qatar Open, where he lost to Roberto Bautista Agut in the semifinals. He then entered the Australian Open as the top seed, and defeated Rafael Nadal in the final to win his record seventh Australian Open and 15th major title overall. Djokovic then played at the Indian Wells Masters, where he was upset by Philipp Kohlschreiber in the third round, and lost in the fourth round of the Miami Open to Bautista Agut.
Djokovic then began his clay court season at the Monte-Carlo Masters, losing in the quarterfinals to Daniil Medvedev. During the Madrid Open, Novak Djokovic celebrated his 250th week at world number 1 in ATP rankings. By beating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final, Djokovic claimed his third Madrid Open title and record-equaling 33rd ATP Masters title overall.
At the Italian Open, he reached the final after a brutal victory over long time rival Juan Martín del Potro, where he lost to Rafael Nadal. Djokovic competed in the French Open, reaching the semifinals without dropping a set. His fourth-round win made him the first man to reach 10 consecutive quarterfinals at the French Open. In the semifinals, he lost to Dominic Thiem in a four-hour, five-set match stretched across two days, in one of the matches of the year, ending his 26-match winning streak in majors and his search for a second 'Nole Slam".
At Wimbledon, Djokovic defended his title to win his fifth Wimbledon title and 16th major title overall, defeating Roger Federer in an epic five-set final that lasted a record four hours and fifty-seven minutes. Djokovic, who won fewer points overall than Federer, saved two championship points in the fifth set to win the title. Djokovic next played at the Cincinnati Open as the defending champion, but lost to eventual champion Daniil Medvedev in the semifinals. As the defending champion at the 2019 US Open, Djokovic lost to Stan Wawrinka in the fourth round, retiring due to injury whilst trailing by 2 sets and a break. In October, Djokovic defeated John Millman in straight sets to win the Japan Open. At the Shanghai Masters, Djokovic reached the quarterfinal stage, but lost to Stefanos Tsitsipas. In November, Djokovic won his fifth Paris Masters title over Denis Shapovalov. Djokovic then played at the 2019 ATP Finals but was eliminated in the round robin stage after losses to Dominic Thiem and Federer (his first loss to Federer since 2015).
2020s
2020: ATP Cup crown, Australian Open title & double Golden Masters
At the inaugural 2020 ATP Cup, Djokovic led Serbia to the title by scoring six victories, including wins over Daniil Medvedev in the semifinals and Rafael Nadal in the final. At the Australian Open, he defeated longtime rival Roger Federer in straight sets en route to the final where he overcame Dominic Thiem in five sets. This marked Djokovic's eighth win at the Australian Open and 17th Grand Slam title. With the win, Djokovic regained the world No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings, and became the first player since Ken Rosewall to win major titles in three different decades, and the first to do so in the Open Era. The match also marked the first time Djokovic came back to win a major final after trailing two sets to one, having lost each of the last seven times this happened. Djokovic then won the title at Dubai Championships for the fifth time, defeating Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final.
In June, Djokovic tested positive for COVID-19 during the Adria Tour, a series of charity exhibition games in Balkans that he helped organize. Djokovic was criticized for holding the event with a lack of social distancing and other precautions taken against COVID-19. The last match of the tour was cancelled after several players, their partners, and coaches tested positive for the virus. Djokovic stated he was "deeply sorry", admitting he and organizers "were wrong" to go ahead with the event and that they believed the tournament met all health protocols. He also said that many of the criticisms were malicious, adding: "It's obviously more than just criticism, it's like an agenda and a witch hunt".
With the resumption of the ATP Tour, Djokovic defeated Milos Raonic to win his second Cincinnati Masters title. By doing so, he won his 35th Masters title, completing his second career Golden Masters. In the fourth round of the US Open, Djokovic was defaulted after accidentally hitting a line official in the throat with a tennis ball during his fourth round match against Pablo Carreño Busta. The United States Tennis Association docked Djokovic all ranking points he would have earned at the tournament and fined him the prize money that he would have won had the incident not occurred. On 21 September, Djokovic moved past Pete Sampras for the second most weeks spent as the world number 1 player.
Djokovic next won a record 36th Masters title and his fifth in Rome, defeating Diego Schwartzman in the final. At the rescheduled French Open, Djokovic lost in straight sets to Rafael Nadal in the final. Djokovic then played at the Vienna Open, where he was upset in the quarterfinals by Lorenzo Sonego in straight sets. In the ATP Finals, Djokovic lost to Daniil Medvedev in the round robin, but defeated Alexander Zverev and Diego Schwartzman. He then lost his semifinal match to Dominic Thiem. On 21 December, Djokovic reached his 300th career week as the number 1 singles tennis player.
2021: Major titles on all three surfaces, historic double Career Slam & No. 1 records
Djokovic began his 2021 season by playing for Serbia as the defending champions in the ATP Cup, but the nation was eliminated in the group stage despite Djokovic winning both his singles matches. He then went on to win his 18th major title and record-extending ninth title at the Australian Open, over Daniil Medvedev in the final. On 1 March, Djokovic equaled Federer's Open Era record of 310 weeks at world No. 1, and subsequently surpassed it. Djokovic next played at the Monte-Carlo Masters, where he lost his third round match to Dan Evans. Djokovic then played at the Serbia Open, losing a lengthy three-set semifinal to Aslan Karatsev. At the Italian Open, Djokovic defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in a three-set epic played over two days in the quarterfinals, and Lorenzo Sonego in the semifinals, but lost in a three-set final to Rafael Nadal.
At the French Open, Djokovic advanced to the final after defeating Rafael Nadal in a four-set semifinal epic. It marked only Nadal's second loss to Djokovic (and third loss overall) at the event. In the final, Djokovic came back from two sets down to defeat Stefanos Tsitsipas in five sets. He became the first player in the Open Era to win a Major after coming back from a two-set deficit in two separate matches; Djokovic also became only the third man to win all four singles majors at least twice, and the first to do so in the Open Era.
At the 2021 Wimbledon Championships, Djokovic recorded the 100th grass-court win by reaching the semifinals, and defeated Matteo Berrettini in the final to claim his sixth Wimbledon title and equal Federer and Nadal's all-time record of 20 men's singles major titles. Djokovic became the second player to win Majors on three different surfaces in the same year achieving a "Surface Slam" and the fifth man in the Open Era to achieve the "Channel Slam", winning the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year. Djokovic opened his summer hard court season at the Tokyo Olympics, where he sought to improve on his bronze medal result from Beijing 2008. However, he lost in the semifinals to Alexander Zverev, and then to Pablo Carreño Busta in the bronze medal match. Djokovic also competed in mixed doubles partnering Nina Stojanović; the pair lost in the semifinals to Aslan Karatsev and Elena Vesnina, then withdrew from their bronze medal match against WTA singles No. 1 Ashleigh Barty and John Peers, with Djokovic citing a shoulder injury.
Djokovic then entered the US Open vying to be the third man in history to achieve the Grand Slam in men's singles. In the third round, Djokovic faced Kei Nishikori and lost the first set, but won the next three sets to advance; he repeated this pattern against Jenson Brooksby and Matteo Berrettini. In the semifinals, he defeated Alexander Zverev in five sets, to advance to his record-equaling 31st major final. There, he faced Daniil Medvedev but lost in straight sets, ending his chances of achieving the Grand Slam.
At the Paris Masters, Djokovic defeated Hubert Hurkacz to reach the final, which secured the year-end No. 1 ranking for the seventh time, breaking Pete Sampras' all-time record. In the final, he avenged his US Open loss to Daniil Medvedev to win his sixth Paris Masters title and record 37th ATP Masters title overall. At the 2021 ATP Finals, Djokovic was defeated in the semifinals by Zverev. Djokovic finished the season by leading Serbia to the semifinals of 2021 Davis Cup Finals, where they lost to Croatia.
2022: Travel restrictions, Wimbledon title, Masters titles record & Year-end Championship
Australian Open controversy
Djokovic was set to begin his 2022 season by participating in the ATP Cup in Sydney but pulled out. In order to play at the Australian Open, where he was a three-time defending champion, the Victorian Government required all players to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or have a medical exemption. Djokovic was one of "a handful" of players and staff to be granted a medical exemption by Tennis Australia and the Department of Health in Victoria. It was later revealed that Djokovic tested positive for COVID-19 on 16 December 2021 which was used as the basis for his exemption.
Djokovic had been granted a visa to enter Australia on 18 November 2021. He travelled to Melbourne on 5 January but was detained by the Australian Border Force after they determined that he did not meet the entry requirements for an unvaccinated traveller. Djokovic disclosed that a member of his support team ticked a box on his application form stating he had not travelled abroad two weeks before he left for Australia; however, he had been to Spain at that time. His visa was cancelled and he was held in an immigration detention hotel for several days awaiting a court hearing.
On 10 January, the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia ordered his release and awarded costs, ruling that the visa cancelation process undertaken by Australian border officials was flawed on the basis that they did not give Djokovic sufficient time to contact his lawyers and tennis authorities before his official interview. The Australian Government conceded that the cancelation was "unreasonable in [the] circumstances".
On 14 January 2022, Alex Hawke, Australia's Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs, exercised his ministerial powers under sections 133C(3) and 116(1)(e)(i) of the Migration Act 1958 to cancel Djokovic's visa, citing "health and good order grounds, on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so". Djokovic applied for a judicial review, but three Federal Court of Australia judges unanimously dismissed his application on 16 January, preventing his participation in the 2022 Australian Open. Djokovic said he was "extremely disappointed" with the decision but accepted the ruling, and flew out of Australia to Dubai that night. Because he was removed using ministerial powers under the Migration Act, he is now barred from returning to Australia for three years, although each visa application is reviewed on its merits. As of November 2022, this visa ban has been overturned by the recently elected Immigration Minister Andrew Giles.
In February, Djokovic gave an interview to the BBC regarding his deportation from Australia, stating he is willing to forego career records by sticking to his principles of free choice and not having the COVID-19 vaccine. In May, he admitted that the court battle and his deportation from Australia "took a major toll" on him. He said: "The amount of pressure and everything that I was feeling in the first few months of the year, as much as I've felt pressure in my life and my career, that was something really on a whole different level".
After Australia
Djokovic entered the Dubai Championships in February, where vaccination was not required for entry. He was upset in the quarterfinals by eventual finalist Jiří Veselý, resulting in him conceding his world No. 1 ranking to Daniil Medvedev. This marked the first time a man outside of the Big Four was ranked singles world No. 1 since Andy Roddick in February 2004. Djokovic withdrew from both the Indian Wells Masters and the Miami Open, due to the United States forbidding unvaccinated foreign travellers. Despite being unable to play, Djokovic regained the world No. 1 ranking after Medvedev's third-round defeat at Indian Wells.
After being unable to play in March, Djokovic began his clay court season at the Monte-Carlo Masters in April. Seeded first, he received a bye in the first round and lost to eventual finalist Davidovich Fokina in the second, his first opening match loss since the 2018 Barcelona Open. Later that month, he reached the final of the Serbia Open and lost to Andrey Rublev in three sets. At the Madrid Open in May, Djokovic made it to the semifinals where he was beaten in three sets by 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz, the eventual champion.
At the Italian Open a week later, he reached the twelfth final of his career at this Masters. In the semifinals, he defeated Casper Ruud for his 1,000th career win, becoming only the fifth man in the Open Era to reach this milestone. In the final, he defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets to win his sixth Italian Open and record-extending 38th Masters title.
Djokovic entered the French Open in May as the defending champion. After defeating Yoshihito Nishioka, Alex Molčan, Aljaž Bedene and Diego Schwartzman in straight sets, he faced Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals for their record-extending 59th meeting. He lost in four sets, ending his French Open title defense. As a result of his quarterfinals defeat, he conceded the No. 1 ranking to Daniil Medvedev for the second time in 2022.
With his first-round win at the Wimbledon Championships against Kwon Soon-woo, Djokovic became the first player in history (male or female) to win 80 matches at all four majors. With his semifinal win over Cameron Norrie, Djokovic reached a record 32nd Grand Slam final, one ahead of Roger Federer. Djokovic went on to defeat Nick Kyrgios in the final in four sets for his fourth consecutive and seventh overall Wimbledon trophy.
With this victory, he reached a total of 21 major titles, which broke his tie of 20 majors with Federer and put him one Grand Slam title behind Nadal.
Due to Djokovic's unvaccinated status against COVID-19, he was unable to compete in the US Open as the US government did not allow unvaccinated non-US citizens to enter the country. As a result, he withdrew from the tournament on 25 August. At the Astana Open in October, he defeated Medvedev in the semifinals and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final to win his 90th singles title. Djokovic then competed at the Paris Masters, where he defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in the semifinals to reach his third straight final of the season. It was also the 650th hard-court win of his career, making him just the third male player in the Open Era to record 650 or more career wins on any single surface. He then lost in the final to 19-year-old Holger Rune, which marked the first time Djokovic lost a Masters finals after winning the first set.
Seeded seventh at the ATP Finals, Djokovic won his first round robin match over second seed Stefanos Tsitsipas to record his 60th career victory over a Top 3 player, making him the first player to accomplish this milestone since the ATP rankings began in 1973. Djokovic then defeated sixth seed Andrey Rublev and fourth seed Daniil Medvedev to reach the semifinals, where he defeated Taylor Fritz to reach his eighth final at this event and secured his 15th year-end top-5 finish in the rankings. He defeated Casper Ruud to win a record-equaling sixth ATP Finals title. He is also the first player ever to win the ATP Finals in three different decades—the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s. Djokovic, at the age of 35, also became the oldest champion in the ATP Finals' 53-year history.
2023: Historic 23rd, 24th majors and triple Career Slam, record 7th Year-end championship
Djokovic started his season by winning his 92nd career title at the 2023 Adelaide International, where he defeated Sebastian Korda in three sets in the final after saving a championship point. At the Australian Open, Djokovic overcame hamstring injury concerns to reach the final, where he defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets to claim his record-extending 10th Australian Open title while tying Nadal for the record of 22 men's singles major titles and reclaiming the world No. 1 ranking from Carlos Alcaraz. On 27 February 2023, Djokovic broke Steffi Graf's record of 377 weeks that she set back 25 years ago for most weeks as world No. 1 in women's tennis, thus he became the player with most weeks at No. 1 on both the men's and women's tours.
In March, Djokovic withdrew from the Indian Wells Masters and Miami Open after being denied a visa into the United States due to being unvaccinated. Afterwards, Djokovic struggled in the clay court season, suffering early defeats at the Monte-Carlo Masters and the Banja Luka Open. At the Italian Open, Djokovic was defeated in the quarterfinals by Holger Rune.
At the French Open, he returned to form, reaching the semifinals to face world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, whom he defeated in four sets to reach a record-extending 34th major final. Moreover, he became the only player to contest at least seven finals at each Grand Slam tournament. Djokovic would go on to beat Casper Ruud in the final, securing a record-breaking 23rd major title and becoming the first man in tennis history to achieve a triple Career Grand Slam. By winning the title, Djokovic reclaimed the world No. 1 position from Alcaraz.
Djokovic then played at the 2023 Wimbledon Championships where he was bidding to win a fifth consecutive title and a record-equalling eighth title. He reached the semifinals with straight set victories over Pedro Cachin, Jordan Thompson and Stan Wawrinka, and four set victories over Hubert Hurkacz and Andrey Rublev. In the semifinals, he faced Jannik Sinner in a rematch of their quarterfinal match the previous year, and Djokovic won in straight sets to reach his 5th consecutive and 9th overall Wimbledon final, as well as his record-extending 35th major final, where he faced Carlos Alcaraz. He subsequently lost an epic final to Alcaraz in five sets, ending his 34-match winning streak at Wimbledon since 2018 and his unbeaten run in both Wimbledon finals and Centre Court since his 2013 defeat to Andy Murray.
He proceeded to win his third Cincinnati Masters title and a record-extending 39th Masters title. He beat Alcaraz in a rematch of their Wimbledon final, in what was the longest best-of-three-sets ATP final and the longest match in the tournament's history, at 3 hours and 49 minutes, and was immediately praised as one of the best matches of all time. He won the match from a set down and down a break in the second set, along with saving a championship point in the second-set tiebreaker. Djokovic called it one of his toughest matches, and said "It did feel like a Grand Slam final, even more than that to be honest". Djokovic compared the intensity and toughness of the match to his 2012 Australian Open final match against Rafael Nadal.
Djokovic then played at the US Open where he dropped only two sets en route to the title, both to his fellow countryman Laslo Djere in a win from two sets down in the third round. By reaching a 47th men's singles major semifinal, Djokovic surpassed Roger Federer's Open Era record. By reaching the final, Djokovic matched Federer's record of reaching all major finals in a season three times. In the final, he faced Daniil Medvedev in a rematch of their 2021 US Open final. Djokovic defeated Medvedev in straight sets to win his fourth US Open title and a record-extending 24th men's singles major title overall, also equaling Margaret Court's all-time record of major singles titles by either sex. Djokovic became the oldest US Open men's singles champion in the Open Era, at 36 years and 111 days, and became the first man to win three majors in a season four times. By winning his first-round match, Djokovic guaranteed that he would reclaim the world No. 1 position from Alcaraz at the end of the tournament. With Djokovic reaching the final and winning, at the time, he had won one-third of all majors he played in and reached the final in half of the majors he played in.
After a six-week break, he returned to the tour at the Paris Masters, where he won his second round match over Tomás Martín Etcheverry in his 1289th career match, surpassing Rafael Nadal for the fourth most in the Open Era. He beat defending champion Holger Rune in a rematch of the previous year's final in the quarterfinals, going on to defeat Grigor Dimitrov in the final to win his record-extending seventh Paris Masters title and 40th Masters overall.
With his first round robin match win over Rune at the 2023 ATP Finals, Djokovic secured the Year-end world No. 1 for a record-extending eighth time. He later defeated second seed Alcaraz in the semifinals to reach his ninth final at this event, where he beat home favorite Jannik Sinner to win a record-breaking seventh ATP Finals title. This victory saw him become the first World No. 1 to win this event since Andy Murray in 2016. Despite playing in only 12 tournaments, Djokovic led the tour in titles won with seven, the most he has claimed in a season since 2016. On 20 November, Djokovic became the first player in singles to reach 400 weeks at No. 1.
2024: Oldest ATP No. 1, knee surgery, Olympic gold medal & Career Super Slam
In a bid to win his 25th major title at the Australian Open, Djokovic reached the semifinals against world No. 4, Jannik Sinner. There, he lost in four sets, suffering his first loss at the Australian Open since 2018, his first-ever Australian Open semifinal loss, and his third loss to Sinner in a three-month span, ending his consecutive win streak of 33 wins. He called his loss "one of the worst Grand Slam matches I've ever played". By reaching a 58th major singles quarterfinal, Djokovic equaled Roger Federer's all-time record. Despite the loss, he retained the world No. 1 ranking.
In March, Djokovic returned to the Indian Wells Masters, for the first time since 2019, but was upset in the third round by lucky loser and world No. 123 Luca Nardi, in three sets. Nardi became the lowest ranked player to defeat Djokovic in any Masters 1000 tournament or Grand Slam event in his career. At the 2024 Monte-Carlo Masters, Djokovic advanced to the semifinals, but was defeated by Casper Ruud in three sets. After his win against Corentin Moutet at the Italian Open, Djokovic got hit by an aluminum water bottle while signing autographs which struck him on the head. He then lost to Alejandro Tabilo in straight sets in the third round. At the 2024 Geneva Open where he was a late wildcard entry, he reached his 1100th career win on his 37th birthday after defeating Yannick Hanfmann in the second round. He became only the third player in the Open Era to reach the milestone after Jimmy Connors and Roger Federer. With a 1,100–218 win-loss record, at 83.5% he recorded the best winning percentage for a man in the Open Era.
In the third-round at the French Open, he beat Lorenzo Musetti in five-sets in the latest finish ever at the French Open, finishing at 3:07 a.m. after 4 hours and 29 minutes. By winning his fourth-round match against Francisco Cerúndolo, Djokovic surpassed Federer for the most Grand Slam wins (370 to Federer's 369) & most Grand Slam quarterfinals (59 to Federer's 58). At 4 hours and 39 minutes, it was Djokovic's longest French Open match of his career, beating his previous time in the 2013 French Open semifinal by two minutes. Djokovic, however, suffered a right knee injury during the second set of the match, which the next day forced him to withdraw before the quarterfinals due to him tearing his medial meniscus in his right knee. Due to this, he lost the No. 1 ranking to Sinner.
Djokovic played at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships and once again made it to the final which was Djokovic's 37th Grand Slam final. He was attempting to win a record-equalling eighth title. However, he lost to Alcaraz once again in a rematch of the previous year's final, this time losing in straight sets.
Djokovic entered the 2024 Paris Olympics, defeating Matthew Ebden, Rafael Nadal, Dominik Koepfer, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Lorenzo Musetti to reach his first Olympic gold medal match. Djokovic then defeated Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets to win the Olympic gold medal, in a two hour fifty minute match characterized by no breaks of serve. With the win, he became the oldest Olympic champion in men's singles as well as the only player to complete a career sweep of the Big Titles, having achieved both the Career Super Slam and Career Golden Slam as part of this accomplishment.
At the US Open, after his second-round victory, Novak Djokovic reached his 90th win at this tournament over the course of his career, becoming the only tennis player to have 90 or more career wins at each of the four Grand Slam events. In the next round, he lost to Alexei Popyrin in four sets to end the season without a major title for only the second time since 2011 and the first since 2017.
Rivalries
Djokovic has a winning record against all of his top contemporaries, including his fellow Big Three counterparts, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
Rafael Nadal
Djokovic and Rafael Nadal rivalry is the most prolific in men's tennis in the Open Era. The two have faced each other 60 times, with Djokovic leading 31–29 overall. Djokovic leads on hard courts 20–7 while Nadal leads on clay 20–9, and they are tied on grass 2–2.
Djokovic is the only player to have beaten Nadal in all four majors. He is also the player with the most victories over Nadal on clay, beating him twice at the French Open and all three claycourt Masters events, notably in 2013 Monte-Carlo Masters where he ended Nadal's run of 8 consecutive titles. Djokovic has two streaks of seven victories against Nadal, in 2011–2012 and 2015–2016. The two contested in the longest major finals match ever played at the 2012 Australian Open where Djokovic won in five sets lasting 5 hours and 53 minutes. Other classics they played include the 2009 Madrid Masters semifinal, 2011 Miami Masters final, the 2013 French Open semifinal, 2018 Wimbledon semifinal, and the 2021 French Open semifinal.
Roger Federer
Djokovic and Roger Federer's rivalry is considered to be one of the greatest rivalries in tennis history. They faced each other 50 times, with Djokovic leading 27–23, including 13–6 in finals (not including a 2014 walkover in favor of Djokovic). Djokovic leads on hard courts 20–18 as well as on grass 3–1 and they are split 4–4 on clay.
Djokovic is the player with the most victories over Federer and the only player to beat Federer multiple times at his most successful major tournaments, four times at the Australian Open, three times at the US Open, three times at the Year-end Championship and most notably, three times at the final of Wimbledon Championships. Their most recent final was at the 2019 Wimbledon where Djokovic won in five sets in what became the longest final in Wimbledon history. Other notable matches they contested are the 2014 Wimbledon and 2015 Wimbledon finals, along with semifinals at the 2010 US Open, 2011 US Open, 2011 French Open, and 2018 Paris Masters.
Andy Murray
Djokovic and Andy Murray have met 36 times, with Djokovic leading 25–11. Djokovic leads on hard courts 20–8 and 5–1 on clay, while Murray has won the two matches played on grass. Djokovic and Murray are one of two pairs to have met in each of the four major finals (the other pair being Djokovic and Nadal). The two are almost exactly the same age, with Murray being a week older than Djokovic, so they progressed through the ranks of the junior circuit together, and Murray was the winner of the first match they ever played as teenagers at Les Petits As in 2001. They were the 2015 and 2016 year-end top two players in the world, with the battle for the 2016 year-end No. 1 only being decided in the final of the World Tour Finals, which was won by Murray in straight sets.
One of their most notable matches was a three-set thriller at the final of the 2012 Shanghai Masters, in which Djokovic saved five championship points to win his first Shanghai Masters title and end Murray's 12–0 winning streak at the event. Tennis pundits have classified many more of their matches as instant classics, such as the 2011 Italian Open semifinals, the 2012 Australian Open semifinal, 2012 US Open final, the 2015 semifinal and 2016 final at the French Open, and the 2017 Qatar Open final.
Stan Wawrinka
Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka have met 27 times with Djokovic leading 21–6. Although this rivalry is lopsided in favor of Djokovic, the two have contested numerous close matches, including four five-setters at the majors. Wawrinka and Djokovic have met in three consecutive Australian Opens – with each match going to five sets – and a five-setter in the US Open. In the 2013 Australian Open fourth round, Djokovic won 12–10 in a fifth set, with the match being considered one of the best ever played; at the 2013 US Open semifinals Djokovic won 6–4 in the fifth set; at the 2014 Australian Open quarterfinals, Wawrinka won 9–7 in the fifth. Wawrinka's win broke Djokovic's run of 14 consecutive major semifinals, and ended a 28-match winning streak; and Wawrinka went on to win his first major title at the tournament. Djokovic got revenge the next year at the 2015 Australian Open, winning 6–0 in the fifth set.
At the 2015 French Open final, Wawrinka defeated Djokovic in four sets to claim his second major title. Later that year, Djokovic beat Wawrinka at the Cincinnati Masters and Paris Masters. At the 2016 US Open, Wawrinka beat Djokovic in a major final for a second time.
Despite Djokovic's 21–6 overall record against Wawrinka, Wawrinka leads Djokovic 3–2 in ATP finals, two of which in major finals. During Djokovic's run of 13 major finals from the 2014 Wimbledon Championships through the 2020 Australian Open, his only two losses were to Wawrinka. Contrary to most high-profile rivalries, the pair have also played doubles together.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga
Djokovic and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga met 23 times, with Djokovic leading 17–6. Their first meeting was in the final of the 2008 Australian Open, which Djokovic won in four sets to win his first major singles title. Tsonga got revenge in their next meeting at the majors, the 2010 Australian Open quarterfinals, winning in five sets after Djokovic fell ill during the match. Djokovic then won their next match at the 2011 Wimbledon semifinals to advance to his first final there, claiming the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in the process. They met again in the quarterfinals of the 2012 French Open, which Djokovic won in five sets after over four hours. They then played a further three matches in 2012, in the quarterfinals of the Olympics, the final of the China Open, and in the round robin stage of the ATP Finals, with Djokovic winning all of them in straight sets. Their final major meeting was in the second round of the 2019 Australian Open, which Djokovic won in straight sets.
Juan Martín del Potro
Djokovic and Juan Martín del Potro met 20 times, with Djokovic leading 16–4. Djokovic won their first four meetings, before back-to-back victories for del Potro at the 2011 Davis Cup and their Bronze medal match at the 2012 Summer Olympics in straight sets. Djokovic won the next four matches before he lost to del Potro at the 2013 Indian Wells Masters, where the Argentine made his second career Masters final. Djokovic got the upper hand on the rivalry once again by winning two of the most important matches between them to date; an epic five-setter at the 2013 Wimbledon Championships semifinals (which was the longest Wimbledon semifinal at the time), and a thrilling three-setter at the 2013 Shanghai Masters final. Del Potro upset Djokovic in the first round at the 2016 Rio Olympics in Rio en route to the final. In 2018, Djokovic defeated del Potro in three close sets in the final of the US Open, which was the first Grand Slam final for del Potro since his 2009 US Open victory. They played their last match at the 2019 Italian Open quarterfinal which Djokovic won in a dramatic three-setter after saving two match points.
Daniil Medvedev
Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev have met 15 times, with Djokovic leading 10–5. They have contested 4 Grand Slam matches, with Djokovic leading 3–1. Their first Grand Slam match came at the 2019 Australian Open 4th round, which Djokovic won in 4 sets. Their next 3 encounters at the Majors came in finals, with Djokovic winning the 2021 Australian Open and the 2023 US Open finals, and Medvedev winning his first major title at the 2021 US Open against Djokovic in the final, also ending Djokovic's quest for a calendar-year Grand Slam. Medvedev replaced Djokovic as the world No. 1 player when he rose to the top ranking for the first time in February 2022. All 3 Grand Slam finals between Djokovic and Medvedev were straight set wins. The second set of the 2023 US Open, which Djokovic eventually won in a tiebreaker after a grueling 104-minute battle, was one of the longest sets in US Open history.
Stefanos Tsitsipas
Djokovic and Stefanos Tsitsipas have met 14 times, with Djokovic leading 12–2. Their first meeting took place in the third round of the 2018 Rogers Cup, with the then 19-year-old Tsitsipas, ranked No. 27, pulling an upset over Djokovic in three sets. Djokovic avenged this loss by beating Tsitsipas in the 2019 Madrid Open, but Tsitsipas then won their next match in the quarterfinals of the 2019 Shanghai Masters to bring their head-to-head to 2–1 in his favor. Djokovic then won all of their next eleven matches, among them are the 2020 French Open semifinal; the 2021 Italian Open quarterfinal spread over two days; the 2021 French Open final which saw Djokovic coming back from 2 sets to 0 down to win his second French Open title; the 2022 Italian Open final; and the 2023 Australian Open final, where the two were competing for the world No. 1 ranking.
Dominic Thiem
Djokovic and Dominic Thiem have met 12 times, with Djokovic leading 7–5. They have met four times at the majors, splitting them evenly 2–2, and three times at the ATP finals, with Thiem leading 2–1. The two have contested numerous close matches, with each of their last four meetings ending with a deciding set, including two five-setters at the majors. This streak started with a grueling four-hour, five-set epic stretched across two days in the semifinals of the 2019 French Open, which Thiem won to end Djokovic's quest for a second "Nole Slam". They then played in the round robin stage of the 2019 ATP Finals, which Thiem won in a deciding set tiebreaker. This was followed by the 2020 Australian Open final, which Djokovic won in five sets, while their last match, the semifinals of the 2020 ATP Finals, was won by Thiem in three sets.
Carlos Alcaraz
Djokovic and 16 years younger Carlos Alcaraz have met 7 times, with Djokovic leading 4–3. All of their matches have either occurred in either the semifinal or final matches.
Their first meeting was at the 2022 Madrid Masters semifinals, in which Alcaraz prevailed in a deciding set tiebreaker. Their next meeting would not be until the semifinals of the 2023 French Open, which was highly anticipated and received immense hype from media and the ATP itself. Djokovic won in four sets, with the match competitive until Alcaraz faltered due to cramps from mental pressure and physical intensity. They would meet again soon after in the 2023 Wimbledon final, in which Alcaraz would defeat Djokovic in a five-setter that lasted 4 hours and 42 minutes, ending his hopes for a calendar Grand Slam and his record 45-match Centre Court win streak. They would meet soon again in another epic at the 2023 Cincinnati Masters final, with Djokovic prevailing in three tightly contested sets after saving a match point. The match was the longest best-of-three-sets ATP Tour final and the longest match in the tournament's history, at 3 hours and 49 minutes, and was immediately praised as one of the best matches ever. Djokovic won despite being a set down and down a break in the second set, along with saving a championship point in the second-set tiebreaker. In the 2024 Wimbledon final, Alcaraz defeated Djokovic in a rematch of the previous year's final, this time in straight sets to once again deny Djokovic his eighth and record-tying Wimbledon title. Shortly after, the pair took their rivalry to the Olympics and contested in the gold medal match, where Djokovic prevailed in straight sets to complete a career sweep of the Big Titles, having achieved both the Career Super Slam and Career Golden Slam as part of this accomplishment.
Legacy
Djokovic is regarded by many observers, tennis players and coaches as the greatest tennis player of all time, primarily for his achievements across all top-level tournaments of the men's professional tour in addition to his time spent with the world No. 1 ranking. Many media outlets, including Reuters, Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Marca, Forbes, Tennis World USA, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Sporting News have named Djokovic the greatest male tennis player in history.
Djokovic has won a record 72 Big Titles, including an all-time record of 24 Grand Slam titles, and holds the most weeks at No. 1, the most wins over top 5 and top 10-ranked players, has won all major and Masters events and the year-end championships at least twice (which has not been done by another player once) and has a winning head-to-head record over his greatest rivals in one of the strongest eras of tennis. Former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev labelled Djokovic the "greatest tennis player in history" after winning his first major title at the 2021 US Open over Djokovic. Pat Cash emphasized that Djokovic is one of two players who beat Rafael Nadal at the French Open, which he considers to be "the biggest challenge in tennis". Richard Krajicek and The Roar, sports opinion website, said that Djokovic should be considered for the greatest player of all time because he is the only one among his rivals who has won all four majors consecutively. Patrick Mouratoglou stated, "Novak is the most complete player of all times. That enables him to find the solution to most of the problems on court and this, on every surface. It explains why he is now in the best position to become the GOAT". Rafael Nadal has praised Djokovic's peak level of performance, stating in 2011 (when he went 0–6 against Djokovic for the season) that "[Djokovic's level is] probably the highest level of tennis that I ever saw." Nadal reiterated this after a one-sided loss in the 2016 Qatar Open final, stating that "I played against a player who did everything perfectly. I don't know anybody who's ever played tennis like this. Since I know this sport I've never seen somebody playing at this level." In 2017, Nadal stated that "at a technical level, when Djokovic has been at the top of his game, I have to say that I've been up against an invincible player." In 2023, former world No. 7 Mardy Fish also declared that Djokovic in 2011 was the "best player of all time". In 2023, Boris Becker compared Djokovic to Lionel Messi, Tom Brady and LeBron James in their respective sports, saying that "For me, he is the lion king".
Tennis coach Nick Bollettieri praised Djokovic as the "most complete player ever", and the "most perfect player of all time":
When you look at match players in the history of tennis, I don't believe that anybody can equal everything on the court that Djokovic does. I don't think you can find a weakness in his game. His movement, personality, his return of serve, his serve, excellent touch, not hesitant in coming to the net, great serve. Overall, almost every player has a downfall; to me, he doesn't have one. He's perhaps the best put-together player that I've seen over 60 years.
Andre Agassi, stated in an interview in 2019 with the Times of India that:
The highest standard of tennis that I've ever seen is when Novak is playing his best tennis. The single level, for whatever my tennis IQ is worth, is an unmistakable standard to which everybody will strive to be.
Pete Sampras, who at the time of his retirement in 2003 was considered by some to be the greatest male tennis player of all time, stated after Djokovic earned a record-breaking seventh year-end No. 1 finish in 2021:
Seven years for him, I'm sure he sees it as a bonus to all the majors that he's won, but I think he'll appreciate it more as he gets older. He did it at a time where he dominated two of the greats, in Roger and Rafa, and he handled the next generation of players very well – all at the same time. I do think what Novak's done over the past 10 years, winning the majors, being consistent, finishing number one for seven years, to me it's a clear sign that he is the greatest of all time.
Some press reports have also called Djokovic one of the greatest athletes of all time.
Tennis pundits have classified many of Djokovic's matches as some of the greatest contests ever, such as the 2012 Australian Open final, in which he beat Nadal in five long and gruelling sets. Other matches include the five-set 2013 Australian Open fourth round against Stan Wawrinka, the 2018 Wimbledon semifinal against Nadal, which lasted five brutal sets played over two days, the five-set 2019 Wimbledon final against Roger Federer, the longest Wimbledon final in history, and the 2023 Cincinnati Masters final against Carlos Alcaraz, the longest best-of-three-sets final in ATP Tour history.
Some analysts claim that the Djokovic–Nadal rivalry ranks as the best rivalry in tennis history because of the quality of matches they produce.
Player profile
Playing style
Djokovic is an aggressive baseline player. His groundstrokes from both wings are consistent, deep, and penetrating. His backhand is widely regarded as the greatest two-handed backhand of all time, due to its effectiveness on both sides of the court and its accuracy. His best shot is his backhand down the line, with great pace and precision. He excels at returning serve in particular, and regularly ranks among the tour leaders in return points, return games, and break points won. His forehand is deemed to be underrated, yet one of the best, due to its versatility. After great technical difficulties during the 2009 season (coinciding with his switch to the Head racket series), his serve is one of his major weapons again, winning him many free points; his first serve is typically hit flat, while he prefers to slice and kick his second serves wide. He has also led the ATP Tour in their career "Under Pressure Rating" statistic, in part because of his prowess at winning deciding sets.
Djokovic has been described as one of the fittest and most complete athletes in sports history, with high agility, court coverage and mobility, which allows him to hit winners from seemingly indefensible positions. Because of this, coupled with flexibility and length, he rarely gets aced. Todd Martin, who coached Djokovic between 2009 and 2010, noted that:
His athleticism is from another world. His return of serve is way better than any other return of serve ever and I mean way better. Nobody has gotten so many balls back and neutralized so many good serves.
Djokovic's return of serve is a big weapon for him, with which he can be both offensive and defensive. He is highly efficient off both the forehand and backhand return, often getting the return in play deep with pace, neutralizing the advantage the server usually has in a point. Andre Agassi described Djokovic's return of serve as "the precedent-setting standard for the return". Occasionally, Djokovic employs a well-disguised backhand underspin drop shot and sliced backhand.
Djokovic commented on the modern style of play, including his own, in an interview with Jim Courier after his semifinal win against Andy Murray in the 2012 Australian Open tournament:
I had a big privilege and honour to meet personally today Mr. Laver, and he is one of the biggest, and greatest players ever to play the game, thank you for staying this late, sir, thank you ... even though it would actually be better if we played a couple times serve and volley, but we don't know to play ... we are mostly around here [points to the area near the baseline], we are running, you know, around the baseline ...
In assessing Djokovic's 2011 season, Jimmy Connors said that Djokovic gives his opponents problems by playing "a little bit old-school, taking the ball earlier, catching the ball on the rise, (and) driving the ball flat". Connors adds that a lot of the topspin that Djokovic's opponents drive at him comes right into his zone, thus his ability to turn defense into offense well.
Equipment
Entering the pro circuit, Djokovic used the Head Liquidmetal Radical, but changed sponsors to Wilson in 2005. He could not find a Wilson racquet he liked, so Wilson agreed to make him a custom racquet to match his previous one with Head. After the 2008 season, Djokovic re-signed with Head, and debuted a new paint job of the Head YouTek Speed Pro at the 2009 Australian Open. He then switched to the Head YouTek IG Speed (18x20) paint job in 2011, and in 2013, he again updated his paint job to the Head Graphene Speed Pro, which included an extensive promotional campaign. Djokovic uses a hybrid of Head Natural Gut (gauge 16) in the mains and Luxilon Big Banger ALU Power Rough (gauge 16L) in the crosses. He also uses Head Synthetic Leather Grip as a replacement grip. In 2012, Djokovic appeared in a television commercial with Maria Sharapova promoting the use of Head rackets for many techniques such as golf and ten-pin bowling.
Coaching and personal team
Djokovic had several coaches, trainers, and advisors throughout his life, and each of them has helped Djokovic become and stay a champion. He has learned from all them and picked up at least something good from each. Djokovic's most important coaches when he was growing up were Jelena Genčić, who he has called his “tennis mother”, and Nikola Pilić, the “tennis father”, both of whom were major influences on his young life. Genčić worked with Djokovic for six years between 1993 and 1999, from ages six to 12, mainly at Belgrade's Teniski Klub Partizan, while Pilić worked with him between 1999 and 2003, coaching him in his academy in Munich.
In the period 2004 and 2005, Djokovic was coached by Dejan Petrović. Under the mentoring of Petrović, Djokovic went from being ranked outside the top 300 to breaking into the top 100 in less than a year. From fall 2005 until June 2006, he was coached by Riccardo Piatti, who divided his time between the 18-year-old and Ivan Ljubičić. Player and coach reportedly parted ways over the latter's refusal to work full-time with Djokovic.
From June 2006 until May 2017, Djokovic was coached by former professional Slovakian tennis player Marián Vajda. They met for the first time during that year's French Open, after which Vajda was hired to be the 19-year-old's coach. On occasion Djokovic employed additional coaches on a part-time basis: in 2007, during the spring hardcourt season, he worked with Australian doubles ace Mark Woodforde with specific emphasis on volleys and net play while from August 2009 until April 2010 American Todd Martin joined the coaching team, a period marked by his ill-fated attempt to change Djokovic's serve motion. From early 2007 until 2017, Djokovic worked with physiotherapist Miljan Amanović, who had previously worked with football team Red Star Belgrade, and NBA players, such as Vladimir Radmanović.
From the fall of 2006, Djokovic had an Israeli fitness coach, Ronen Bega, but the two parted ways during the spring of 2009. Djokovic decided to make a change after identifying his conditioning as a weakness in his game following continual losses to Nadal. In April 2009, ahead of the Rome Masters, Djokovic hired Austrian Gebhard Phil-Gritsch (formerly worked with Thomas Muster) to join the team in fitness coach capacity.
In 2008, Djokovic hired Italian agent Edoardo Artaldi and his management team, which includes his wife, Elena Capellaro, to oversee the huge operation that runs around him. They met when Djokovic signed a contract with the Italian clothing brand Sergio Tacchini, where Artaldi was working at the time. Despite taking a lead role as an agent and business manager, Artaldi has acted like a father figure in Djokovic's camp. During an interview with Italian outlet SBS in 2019, Artaldi explained that, together with his wife, they have tried to “create the atmosphere” that Djokovic needed while on tour because he missed his family while traveling. Djokovic's relationship with Artaldi has had its challenging moments, as he screamed at Artaldi and brother Marko to leave his box during the final of the 2023 Adelaide Open.
In July 2010, before the Davis Cup clash away at Croatia, Djokovic made another addition to his team – Igor Četojević, a Serbian nutritionist and proponent of traditional medicine living in Cyprus, who influenced Djokovic's diet. A gluten-free diet appeared to have worked as Djokovic began feeling stronger, quicker, and much more fit. After Djokovic's Wimbledon win in July 2011, Četojević left the team.
After retiring from professional tennis in August 2011, Serbian player Dušan Vemić joined Djokovic's team as the assistant coach and hitting partner for Novak. The collaboration ended before the 2013 US Open. Likewise, Djokovic's childhood friend and former junior doubles partner Bojan Božović also briefly served as a hitting partner for Novak in late 2014, shortly after Božović had opened his academy. Due to Božović's height and strong serve, Djokovic specifically practiced his returns with him, most notably for the 2014 Paris Masters final against Milos Raonic, a player with a powerful serve.
Six-time major champion and former world No. 1 Boris Becker, who had mostly worked as a television pundit for BBC Sport and Sky Sports since retiring from playing in 1999, was announced as Djokovic's new head coach in December 2013. According to Djokovic, the Becker appointment was done with input from the player's existing head coach Marián Vajda who reportedly wanted to spend more time with his family and was looking to have his coaching workload somewhat reduced. For Becker, in addition to working alongside Vajda, the job entailed special emphasis on Grand Slam tournaments as Djokovic felt he missed out on winning a couple of majors over the previous two seasons due to a lack of mental edge in the final stages of those tournaments. Becker's first tournament coaching Djokovic was the 2014 Australian Open.
On 5 May 2017, Djokovic confirmed that he had come to a mutual agreement to terminate his coaching relationship with Vajda, as well as Phil-Gritsch and Amanović. In a statement on his website, Djokovic cited the reasons for the personnel shakeup: "Novak and the team members decided to part ways after a detailed analysis of the game, achieved results in the previous period, and also after discussing private plans of each team member. Despite the fantastic cooperation so far, Djokovic felt he needed to make a change, and to introduce new energy in order to raise his level of play."
Djokovic reunited with Marián Vajda in April 2018 for the Monte-Carlo Masters. On 30 June 2019, Djokovic confirmed that he also added former world No. 2 and Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanišević to his coaching team.
In late 2021, Djokovic decided to play fewer tournaments due to both his age and his desire to mainly focus his energy on the Grand Slam championships, and as such, he decided to be with a smaller team that had only one coach, and he chose Ivanišević due to Vajda's reluctance to coach just one player only at the majors. Djokovic and Vajda thus parted ways for a second time in December 2021, but it was only made public in March 2022, when both announced that Vajda would no longer coach Djokovic and that it was an amicable and mutual decision. Vajda promised to remain his 'biggest support' on and off the court. Djokovic said on Twitter "What a journey Marian. 15 years!" In addition to Ivanišević as his new coach, Djokovic also added fitness trainer Marco Panichi and hitting partner Carlos Gómez-Herrera, a retired tennis player with whom he had been friends for around 15 years, while also keeping physiotherapist Miljan Amanović.
In late 2023, Djokovic decided to end his professional long-term association with Edoardo Artaldi's management team, who had been with him since 2008, stating that “I'm now at a stage where I'm entering a new chapter about the off-court approach”. In a heartfelt message of gratitude for them, Djokovic stated: "My appreciation and love for you two personally goes beyond any professional relationship. What you did for me and my family privately and the amount of care and empathy you had all these years, especially towards my wife and kids is something very special for me and I will never forget that".
Off the court
Philanthropy
In 2007, Djokovic founded the Novak Djokovic Foundation. The organization's mission is to help children from disadvantaged communities grow up and develop in stimulating and safe environments. The foundation partnered with the World Bank in August 2015 to promote early childhood education in Serbia. His foundation has built 50 schools as of April 2022 and are building their 51st, and supported more than 20,800 children and over a thousand families.
Djokovic participated in charity matches to raise funds for the reconstruction of the Avala Tower, as well as to aid victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2010–11 Queensland floods. Starting in 2007, he has established a tradition of hosting and socializing with hundreds of Kosovo Serb children during Davis Cup matches organized in Serbia. Djokovic was selected as the 2012 Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year, for his contributions through the foundation, his role as a UNICEF national ambassador and other charitable projects. In August 2015, he was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador.
During the 2014 Balkans floods, Djokovic sparked worldwide financial and media support for victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia. After winning the 2014 Rome Masters, Djokovic donated his prize money to the flood victims in Serbia, while his foundation collected another $600,000. Following his 2016 Australian Open victory, Djokovic donated $20,000 to Melbourne City Mission's early childhood education program to help disadvantaged children. After the COVID-19 pandemic spread to Serbia in March 2020, he and his wife announced that they will donate €1 million for the purchase of ventilators and medical equipment to support hospitals and other medical institutions. He also made a donation to Bergamo, Italy‚ one of the worst-affected Italian provinces, as well as to Novi Pazar, Serbia and North Mitrovica, Kosovo.
Sponsorships and business ventures
Djokovic endorses Serbian telecommunications company Telekom Srbija and German nutritional supplement brand FitLine.
On turning professional in 2003, Djokovic began wearing Adidas clothing. At the end of 2009, Djokovic signed a 10-year deal with the Italian clothing company Sergio Tacchini after Adidas refused to extend his clothing contract (choosing instead to sign Andy Murray). Tacchini doesn't make shoes so Djokovic continued with Adidas as his choice of footwear. His sponsorship contract with Tacchini was incentive-heavy, and Djokovic's disproportionate success and dominance in 2011 caused the company to fall behind on bonus payments, leading to the termination of the sponsorship contract.
From 2011, Djokovic began to wear custom Red and Blue Adidas Barricade 6.0's shoes, referring to the colors of the Serbian national flag. By April 2012, the Tacchini deal had fallen first short and then apart. At that point, he was set to join forces with Nike, Inc., but instead, on 23 May 2012, Uniqlo appointed Djokovic as its global brand ambassador. The five-year sponsorship, reportedly worth €8 million per year, began on 27 May 2012 in Paris' French Open tennis tournament. A year later, Djokovic's long-term footwear deal with Adidas was announced ahead of 2013 French Open.
In August 2011, Djokovic became the brand ambassador of Swiss watch manufacturer Audemars Piguet. Less than a month later, Djokovic signed a sponsorship deal with German car company Mercedes-Benz. In March 2012, Djokovic was announced by Bombardier Aerospace as its latest Learjet brand ambassador, thus joining the likes of actor and pilot John Travolta, architect Frank Gehry, maestro Valery Gergiev, and classical pianist Lang Lang. From January 2014 Djokovic has been endorsing French car manufacturer Peugeot. At the same time he entered into an endorsement deal with Japanese watch manufacturer Seiko, having just ended his affiliation with their rivals Audemars Piguet. In early 2015, ahead of the Australian Open, Djokovic teamed up with Australian banking corporation ANZ for a social media campaign to raise money for local communities across the Asia Pacific region. At the same time his partnership with Jacob's Creek, an Australian wine brand owned by Orlando Wines, was announced in regards to the production and distribution of 'Made By' film series, a documentary style content meant to "show a side of Novak not seen before as he recounts never before told life stories from Belgrade, Serbia, celebrating what has made him the champion he is today".
Since 2004, the business end of Djokovic's career has been handled by Israeli managers Amit Naor (former pro tennis player turned sports agent) and Allon Khakshouri, a duo which also had Marat Safin and Dinara Safina as its clients. In June 2008, after the duo entered into a partnership with CAA Sports, the sports division of Hollywood talent firm Creative Artists Agency, meaning that the famous company started representing tennis players for the first time, Djokovic formally signed with CAA Sports. After Djokovic's contract with CAA Sports expired during summer 2012, he decided to switch representation, announcing IMG Worldwide as his new representatives in December 2012.
On 22 May 2017, Djokovic was unveiled as a brand ambassador of Lacoste after a five-year partnership with Uniqlo.
During the 2021 US Open, some people in Djokovic's player box wore hats and shirts bearing the logo of Raiffeisen Bank International, the central back of one of the two largest banking cooperatives in Austria. In April 2021, Djokovic became a brand ambassador for RBI and its subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe. The bank will help to support Djokovic's tennis academy in Belgrade. Djokovic did not wear the RBI logo, but he did wear on his shirt the logo of UKG, an American workforce management and human resource management company. People in his box wore the logo on hats as well. UKG lists Djokovic as one of their sponsored athletes.
Investments
In 2005, as Djokovic moved up the tennis rankings, he began venturing into the business world. Most of his activities in the business arena have been channeled through Family Sport, a legal entity in Serbia established and run by members of his immediate family. Registered as a limited liability company, Family Sport initially focused on hospitality, specifically the restaurant business, by launching Novak Café & Restaurant, a franchise developed on the theme of Djokovic's tennis success. Over time, the company, whose day-to-day operations are mostly handled by Novak's father Srdjan and uncle Goran, expanded its activities into real estate, sports/entertainment event organization, and sports apparel distribution.
The company launched Novak Café & Restaurant in 2008 in the Belgrade municipality of Novi Beograd, the flagship location in a franchised chain of theme café-restaurants. During 2009, two more locations were added—one in Kragujevac and the other in Belgrade, the city's second, in September at the neighbourhood of Dorćol overlooking the playing courts of Serbia Open whose inaugural edition took place several months earlier. On 16 December 2011 a location in Novi Sad was opened, however, it operated just over three years before closing in late March 2015. Banja Luka in neighbouring Bosnia got its Novak Café & Restaurant location on 16 October 2015 within Hotel Trešnja on Banj hill.
In 2009, the company bought a 250-series ATP tournament known as the Dutch Open and moved it to Serbia where it was renamed the Serbia Open. With the help of Belgrade city authorities, the tournament's inaugural edition was held in May 2009 at the city-owned "Milan Gale Muškatirović" courts, located at an attractive spot in Dorćol neighbourhood. The tournament folded in 2012 after four editions and its place in the ATP calendar got taken over by the Düsseldorf Open.
In May 2015, right after winning his fourth Rome Masters title, Djokovic launched a line of nutritional food products, called Djokolife. On 10 April 2016, while in town for the Monte-Carlo Masters, Djokovic opened a vegan restaurant called Eqvita in Monte Carlo. The restaurant reportedly closed in March 2019.
Djokovic has 80% stake in biotech firm QuantBioRes which claims to be developing a drug to treat patients who have contracted COVID-19. Their research is based on electromagnetic frequency; one biomedical scientist likened it to homeopathy and argued that it "does not reflect a contemporary understanding of how biochemistry works", while Peter Collignon commented that their website "describes a way of finding a new molecule without providing any evidence of success".
Professional Tennis Players Association
In August 2020, Djokovic resigned from the Players Council of the Association of Tennis Professionals and formed the Professional Tennis Players Association (PTPA) with Vasek Pospisil. The pair will serve as co-presidents of the new organization to promote the interests of male and female tennis players above a ranking of 500 in singles and 200 in doubles.
In popular culture
Throughout the latter part of the 2007 season, including before Wimbledon and during US Open, his comedic impressions of fellow contemporary tennis players received much media play. It began when a BBC camera crew recorded some footage of the twenty-year-old impersonating Maria Sharapova, Rafael Nadal, Goran Ivanišević, and Lleyton Hewitt on a practice court at London's Queen's Club Championships just before Wimbledon. The material — consisting of Djokovic imitating the said players by exaggerating their trademark physical gestures or nervous tics for the entertainment of his coaching team Marián Vajda and Mark Woodforde — aired during BBC's coverage of the tournament and subsequently became popular online. Two months later at the US Open, a phone video shot by Argentine players of Djokovic doing locker room impressions of players such as Andy Roddick, Roger Federer, Filippo Volandri and Nadal made its way online, becoming viral. A few days later, after beating Carlos Moyá in the quarterfinals, USA Network's on-court interviewer Michael Barkann asked Djokovic to perform some impressions and the player obliged by doing Sharapova and Nadal to the delight of the crowd.
In addition to Djokovic, the national surge in the popularity of tennis was also inspired by three other up-and-coming young players: twenty-year-old Ana Ivanovic, twenty-two-year-old Jelena Janković, and twenty-three-year-old Janko Tipsarević as evidenced in early December 2007 when a sports-entertainment show named NAJJ Srbije (The Best of Serbia), put together in honour of the four players' respective successes in the 2007 season, drew a capacity crowd to Belgrade's Kombank Arena. In May 2008, he was a special guest during the first semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Belgrade that year. He threw a big tennis ball into the crowd, announcing the start of the voting and together with one of the show's co-presenters, Željko Joksimović, Djokovic sang Đorđe Marjanović's song "Beograde".
Throughout late April and early May 2009, during ATP Master Series tournaments in Rome and Madrid, respectively, the Serb was a guest on the Fiorello Show on Sky Uno hosted by Italian comedian Rosario Fiorello followed by an appearance on Pablo Motos' show El Hormiguero.
Djokovic is also featured in the music video for the song "Hello" by Martin Solveig and Dragonette. The video, filmed at Stade Roland Garros, shows Solveig facing off against Bob Sinclar, another DJ, in a tennis match. When the referee calls a crucial ball "Out", Djokovic enters the arena and convinces the referee otherwise. In 2010, the Serbian blues-rock band Zona B recorded the song "The Joker", dedicating it to Djokovic.
On 25 June 2011, at the Serbian National Defense Council's seventieth congress in Chicago, Djokovic was unanimously awarded the Order of Serbian National Defense in America I class – the highest decoration of the SND. The order was given to the twenty-four-year-old for his merits on the international sports scene and his contributions to the reputation of Serbs and Serbia around the world. The day after winning his first Wimbledon title and reaching the No. 1 ranking for the first time in his career, Djokovic went home to Belgrade for a homecoming celebration in front of the Serbian National Assembly, an event attended by close to 100,000 people.
On 28 November 2011, after returning from London where he finished early due to failing to progress out of his round-robin group, Djokovic visited his childhood tennis coach Jelena Genčić at her Belgrade home, bringing the Wimbledon trophy along. The meeting, reportedly their first in more than four years, was recorded by two television crews – a Serbian one shooting for Aleksandar Gajšek's show Agape on Studio B television and an American one from CBS television network filming material for Djokovic's upcoming piece on 60 Minutes. The next day, 29 November 2011, on invitation from film producer Avi Lerner, Djokovic was part of the high-budget Hollywood movie production The Expendables 2 in a cameo playing himself that was shot in a warehouse in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia. However, his bit part was later cut out of the final version of the movie.
In March 2012, he was profiled on the CBS show 60 Minutes by their correspondent Bob Simon. He was named amongst the 100 most influential people of 2012 by TIME magazine.
Djokovic has been a guest on late-night talk shows, such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Veče sa Ivanom Ivanovićem, Conan, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Jonathan Ross Show and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
In April 2021, a team of Balkan biospeleologists named a recently discovered freshwater snail species Travunijana djokovici after Djokovic.
In 2022, a book titled Facing Novak Djokovic, a compilation of interviews with ATP players who described in detail what it's like to compete against Djokovic, was published.
In 2022, Nikola Vesović, a research associate at the University of Belgrade, announced that a new species of beetle in the genus Duvalius recently discovered near the town of Ljubovija, Serbia, had been named Duvalius djokovici after Djokovic.
Djokovic appears in the 2024 documentary Federer: Twelve Final Days about Roger Federer's final tournament before his retirement, the 2022 Laver Cup.
Views on diet, medicine and science
Since 2010, he has been connected with the nutritionist Igor Četojević who additionally focuses on Chinese medicine and performs acupuncture. He allegedly discovered that Djokovic suffers from gluten intolerance, using applied kinesiology, and that he should not eat gluten, removing it from his diet. He eventually settled on a vegan diet, while later sometimes eating fish. He also claims this vegan, plant-based diet cured his persistent allergies and mild asthma. The gluten-free diet has been credited for improving his endurance on the court and playing a role in his subsequent success.
Following his elbow surgery in 2018, he stated that he "cried for three days" after it, feeling guilty, because he was "not a fan of surgeries or medications" and wanted "to be as natural as possible". He further stated his belief that human "bodies are self-healing mechanisms".
In his 2013 autobiography, Serve to Win, he wrote of a "researcher" who directed "anger, fear, hostility" at a glass of water, which turned "slightly green" after a few days, while also directing "love, joy" at another glass of water, which remained "bright and crystal clear" in the same period. In 2020, Djokovic spoke of his belief that "some people" used "prayer" and "gratitude" to "turn the most toxic food, or maybe most polluted water into the most healing water." He also stated that "scientists [have] proven" that "molecules in the water react to our emotions" and speech. Such claims are scientifically dubious, and generally regarded as superstitious beliefs.
Opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandate
During the ATP Tour's shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a Facebook live stream with other Serbian athletes hosted in April 2020, Djokovic indicated he opposes vaccination and would not be forced to take a COVID vaccine just to be able to return to the Тour. He later clarified his remarks by stating that he is not against all kinds of vaccines, but that he is against forced vaccination. He added that he was extremely careful about what he puts into his body.
Djokovic's views came under increased scrutiny in late 2021, in the run-up to the 2022 Australian Open, after comments made by Australian government officials indicated that tennis players would need to be vaccinated to enter the tournament. Prior to the tournament, Djokovic had refused to state publicly whether he was vaccinated or not, but had made comments stating his concern over the possibility of a hotel quarantine in Australia. However, while being interviewed by the Australian Border Force in January 2022, Djokovic confirmed to the officer interviewing him that he was unvaccinated.
Several commentators feel that Djokovic's stance against the COVID-19 vaccine could damage his placement among the all-time great tennis players as he would not be able to participate in the major tournaments where vaccination is required for entry while others have applauded his view of having a choice. He was unable to play the 2022 Australian Open, where he was the defending champion and the favorite to win. Shortly thereafter, he lost the No. 1 ranking he had held for a record 373 weeks. Due to the federal government's vaccination policy for non-US citizens, Djokovic was unable to enter the United States to play the 2022 US Open, another major tournament he was the favorite to win.
In an interview with the BBC on 15 February 2022, a few weeks after the tournament, Djokovic stated he does not associate with the wider anti-vax movement. However, he believes in personal freedom of choice and supports an individual's right to choose whether or not they receive a vaccine. He re-affirmed sticking to his principles and refusal to receive a vaccine, saying that he would be willing to forgo entry into tournaments which are held in countries mandating the vaccine even if it cost him his career records and placement among the all-time great players.
Faith and religious beliefs
Djokovic is a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church. On 28 April 2011, Patriarch Irinej of Serbia awarded Djokovic the Order of St. Sava I class, the highest decoration of the Serbian Orthodox Church, for his contributions to monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and charitable work in Serbia. He has said that he admired and held in high regard Bishop Amfilohije, who played a key part in helping him through a tough time during the Yugoslav Wars.
Djokovic has been reported to meditate for up to an hour a day at the Buddhist Buddhapadipa Temple in Wimbledon as he appreciates the natural setting and serenity, and is close to monks in the complex. He has spoken of the positive power of meditation. He is a frequent visitor of the Bosnian town of Visoko and its park that is host to several meditation platforms.
Support of sport and sportspeople
Djokovic is a fan of Serbian football club Red Star, Italian club Milan, and Portuguese club Benfica, as well as Serbian basketball club Red Star. He has also shown public support for Croatia at the 2018 FIFA World Cup and when faced with criticism from some within his native country of Serbia, Djokovic replied that "sports have their 'universal language,' they erase boundaries between people, [and] overcome differences in religion, race and nationality." Djokovic has expressed admiration for Croatian football player Luka Modrić, who plays for Real Madrid. He is a friend of former Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic, whom he has known since the two were children growing up in Serbia.
Djokovic is a member of the "Champions for Peace" club, a group of elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport. It was created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organization.
Political statements
Following his victory in the first round of the 2023 French Open, Djokovic wrote "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia. Stop the violence" on the lens of a camera, in response to the recent clashes in Kosovo. The statement was criticized as inappropriate by France's minister of sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, with the Kosovo Olympic Committee asking the IOC to open disciplinary proceedings against the athlete. Djokovic later said he was against any kind of conflict but defended his statement by opining: "Especially as a son of a man born in Kosovo, I feel the need to give my support to our people and to the entirety of Serbia. Kosovo is our cradle, our stronghold, centre of the most important things for our country. There are many reasons why I wrote that on the camera."
Career statistics
Grand Slam tournament performance timeline
Current through the 2024 US Open.
Grand Slam tournament finals: 37 (24 titles, 13 runner-ups)
Year–End Championships performance timeline
Year–End Championship finals: 9 (7 titles, 2 runner-ups)
Olympic gold medal matches: 1 (singles Gold medal)
Records and achievements
All-time records
Open Era records
These records were attained in the Open Era of tennis and in ATP Masters series since 1990.
Records in bold indicate peerless achievements.
Professional awards
ITF World Champion (8): 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2021, 2023.
ATP Player of the Year (8): 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023.
Laureus World Sports Sportsman of the Year (5): 2012, 2015, 2016, 2019, 2024.
See also
Sport in Serbia
List of career achievements by Novak Djokovic
List of UNICEF Goodwill Ambassadors
2012 Summer Olympics Parade of Nations
List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players (since 1973)
List of Grand Slam men's singles champions
Tennis Masters Series records and statistics
Notes
References
Sources
Bowers, Chris (2014). Novak Djokovic and the Rise of Serbia: The Sporting Statesman. John Blake. ISBN 978-1-78219-770-6.
External links
Official website
Novak Djokovic at the Association of Tennis Professionals
Novak Djokovic at the International Tennis Federation
Novak Djokovic at the Davis Cup
Novak Djokovic at Olympedia
Novak Djokovic at Olympics.com
Novak Djokovic at the Olympic games winners profile
Novak Đoković at the Olimpijski Komitet Srbije (in Serbian)
Novak Djokovic Foundation
seasonswww.fcfcoa.gov.au/migration-law/online-file/djokovic Novak Djokovic v Minister for Home Affairs Archived 19 January 2022 at the Wayback Machine docket MLG35/2022 at the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia
Djokovic v Minister for Immigration at the Federal Court of Australia |
USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701) | [
386
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(NCC-1701)"
] | USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) is a starship in the Star Trek media franchise. It is the main setting of the original Star Trek television series (1966–69), and it is depicted in films, other television series, spin-off fiction, products, and fan-created media. Under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, the Enterprise carries its crew on a mission "to explore strange, new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before." Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022–present) depicts the Enterprise under the command of Kirk's predecessor, Captain Christopher Pike.
Matt Jefferies designed the Enterprise for television, and its core components – a flying saucer-shaped primary hull, two offset engine nacelles, and a cylindrical secondary hull – persisted across several television and film redesigns. The vessel influenced the design of subsequent franchise spacecraft, and the model filmed for the original Star Trek TV series has been on display for decades at the National Air and Space Museum.
Initially a vision of the potential for human spaceflight, the Enterprise became a popular culture icon. The Enterprise has repeatedly been identified as one of the best-designed and most influential science fiction spacecraft.
Development and production
Concept and initial design
Series creator Gene Roddenberry reviewed hundreds of science fiction magazines, dating back to 1931, to gather ideas about what he wanted Star Trek's main vessel to look like. Despite the research, he was more confident in what he did not want than what he did want. He set several parameters:
We're [...] out in deep space, on the equivalent of a cruiser-size spaceship. We don't know what the mode of power is, but I don't want to see any trails of fire. No streaks of smoke, no jet intakes, rocket exhaust, or anything like that [...]. It will be like a deep space exploration vehicle, operating throughout our galaxy.
Roddenberry further specified that the ship would have a crew of 100–150 and be incredibly fast. Art director Pato Guzman's assistant, Matt Jefferies, was responsible for designing the ship and several of its sets. Jefferies and Roddenberry did not want the vessel to look like any of the rocket ships already used by the aerospace industry or in popular culture; many designs were rejected for being "too conventional". To meet Roddenberry's requirement that the ship look believable, Jefferies tried "to visualize what the fourth, fifth or tenth generation of present-day equipment would be like". Jefferies' experience with aviation let him imbue his designs with what he called "aircraft logic". He imagined the ship's engines would be too powerful to be near the crew, requiring them to be set apart from the hull. Jefferies initially rejected a disk-shaped component, worried about the similarities to flying saucers; however, a spherical module eventually flattened into a disk. Because the ship would be expected to flash by quickly on television screens, Jefferies wanted the design to be "very simple, but immediately identifiable - a shape that you could instantly pick out."
During a visit with Jefferies, Roddenberry and NBC staff were drawn to a sketch of the ship resembling its final configuration. Jefferies had created a small model of this design that, when held from a string, hung upside-down – an appearance he had to "unsell". He kept the hull smooth, with a sense that the ship's components were serviced from inside. He designed the Klingon starship seen in the third season by rearranging and changing the shape of Enterprise's basic modules: a main body, two engine pods, and a neck with a head on it. Some of Jefferies' rejected design concepts – such as spherical hull sections and warp engines that encircle a ship – inspired future Star Trek vessel designs. Jefferies designed the hull to be smooth, concluding that the ship's important machinery would be inside the hull.
The Enterprise was originally named Yorktown, but Roddenberry was fascinated by the aircraft carrier Enterprise and had "always been proud of that ship and wanted to use the name." The NCC-1701 registry stems from NC being one of the international aircraft registration codes assigned to the United States. The second C was added because Soviet aircraft used Cs, and Jefferies believed a venture into space would be a joint operation by the United States and Russia. Jefferies rejected 3, 6, 8, and 9 as "too easily confused" on screen; he eventually reasoned the Enterprise was the first vessel of Starfleet's 17th starship design, hence 1701. The Making of Star Trek explains that USS means "United Space Ship" and that "Enterprise is a member of the Starship Class". Licensed texts, on-screen graphics, and dialogue later describe the ship as a Constitution-class vessel.
Filming models
The first miniature built from Jefferies' drawings was a 4-inch (100 mm) scale model. Desilu Studios, which produced Star Trek, hired Richard C. Datin to make a pre-production model. Datin used a subcontractor with a large lathe for major subcomponents and otherwise worked on the model for approximately 110 hours during November 1964. The 33-inch (0.84 m) model was made mostly of pine, with Plexiglass and brass details. Datin made minor changes after Roddenberry's review, and he submitted the completed model – which cost about $600 (equivalent to $5,894 in 2023) – to Desilu in December 1964.
Desilu then ordered a larger filming model, which Datin contracted to Volmer Jensen and Production Model Shop in Burbank. Datin supervised the work and did detailing on the model, which was constructed from plaster, sheet metal, and wood. When completed, it was 135 inches (3.43 m) long, weighed 125 kilograms (276 lb), and cost $6,000 (equivalent to $58,011 in 2023). The model was delivered too late to be used much for the initial pilot, "The Cage". When Roddenberry was approved to film the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1966), various details of this 11-foot model were altered, and the starboard windows and running lights were internally illuminated. When the series went into production, the model was altered again, and it was regularly modified throughout its active filming. Most of the fine details on the large model were not visible to television viewers. Wiring for the interior lighting ran into the model on its left side, so it could only be filmed from the right; for shots requiring the other side of the Enterprise, the footage was either flipped or filmed using the 33-inch model. Because of this, some of the fine details added to the model were added only to its right side.
The 11-foot model was initially filmed by Howard Anderson. Anderson's team struggled to film the model in a way that suggested it was moving at tremendous speeds, as the producers wanted to avoid the cliched look of a spacecraft drifting through space. Additionally, the model was so large there was little room in the filming space for the camera to move around it. Anderson could not keep up with the filming and special effects needs for regular production, so producers hired several other studios to contribute effects and additional footage. Motion control equipment was too expensive, so the ship was filmed with stop motion. Filming was often delayed by the heat generated by the studio and model's lights. Most third-season footage of the Enterprise was reused first- or second-season footage. Special effects were produced as cheaply as possible. Animators for Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973–75) rotoscoped Enterprise footage to recreate the ship's movements, contributing to the impression of the animated series being a fourth season of the original. The animated show's limited color palette could not accommodate all of the ship's various colors, so the Enterprise was depicted as a consistent gray.
Sets, sounds, and fixtures
The Enterprise was meant to serve as a familiar, recurring setting, similar to Dodge City in Gunsmoke and Blair General Hospital in Dr. Kildare. The bridge was monochromatic for "The Cage", but it was redecorated for "Where No Man Has Gone Before" because of the increasing popularity of color televisions. The first pilot episode's bridge set was rigid, making it difficult for cameras to move in. For series production, the bridge set was rebuilt modularly, allowing large sections to be removed to make camera movement easier. The complicated electronics that provided bridge set readouts and lights required expensive air conditioning to avoid overheating. The chairs used on the bridge and other sets were manufactured by Burke of Dallas and were similar to the tulip chair designed by Eero Saarinen. When production ended after the third season, major elements of the bridge set were donated to the UCLA Theater Arts Department.
Reusing sets helped address Desilu's budget concerns. The engine room, whose sense of scale was enhanced by the use of forced perspective, was redressed as the shuttlebay. Other sets that were redressed to save costs included the briefing room, which also served as the recreation room and cargo deck; and Kirk's cabin, which was also Spock's. Going into the show's second season, NBC executives pressed the production to have fewer episodes based on the ship, and more that occur on alien worlds. In April 1968, Roddenberry pushed back, comparing the Enterprise to the home and ranch on Bonanza, the location of some of that show's best episodes. He also said they would create new Enterprise sets to "help counteract any 'sameness' about the ship". Roddenberry described the ship's hallways as "Des Moines Holiday Inn Style". To keep the ship from looking too sterile, Mike Minor created paintings that hung in Kirk's quarters, the recreation area, and the upper rim of the bridge.
As production continued, standing sets like the engine room and bridge became increasingly detailed. Jefferies and associate producer Bob Justman walked through the production lots looking for "serendipitous items" that could be modified into set details to enhance the interiors. Jefferies added new details to a portable maintenance tunnel set each time it was used. The production staff called the set the "Jefferies tube" as an inside joke, and the term is used in dialogue to describe similar crawl spaces in spinoffs.
Sound effects designer Doug Grindstaff created sounds for different parts of the vessel: console sound effects were often created with a Hammond electric organ or other musical instrument, and engine sounds were created in part with a noisy air conditioner. Although there is no sound in space, producers thought that dramatic license required the ship to make noise during exterior shots. The sound of the ship "whoosh"ing past in the main title sequence was recorded by composer Alexander Courage.
Although the interior in The Animated Series was largely recreated from the live action series, a second turbolift was added to the bridge in response to Roddenberry being asked, "What do they do if the [one turbolift's] doors get stuck?" Franz Joseph designed full Enterprise interior deck plans in 1974 with approval from Roddenberry.
1970s redesigns for television and film
Soon after the animated Star Trek went off the air, pre-production began on Star Trek: Planet of the Titans. Ken Adam and Ralph McQuarrie designed a new Enterprise with a triangular hull that later inspired the appearance of the eponymous ship in Star Trek: Discovery. Planet of the Titans was dropped in favor of a return to television with Star Trek: Phase II, for which Jefferies designed a new Enterprise. He began with the original design and identified components, such as the engines, that would have been upgraded. Some elements, like the sensor dish, would move inside the ship to be more easily serviced. Abandoning Phase II in favor of producing Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) necessitated additional Enterprise redesigns because the film medium would resolve more detail than television, and one of the most difficult challenges facing the producers was recreating the Enterprise. Roddenberry told Cinefantastique that the changes to the Enterprise would be explained within the story as the outcome of a major refit.
When Jefferies left the project, art director Richard Taylor wanted to start over with designing the Enterprise; however, Roddenberry convinced him to continue working with Jefferies' design. Taylor brought on Andrew Probert to help refine the ship's details. Probert added items such as phaser banks, control thrusters, and hatches for saucer section landing gear; Taylor redesigned the edge of the saucer and elements of the warp nacelles. Art director Joe Jennings and conceptual illustrator Mike Minor added additional details. David Kimble created diagrams and deck plans for the updated Enterprise that were provided to model makers, toy companies, and other licensed product manufacturers.
Jim Dow was in charge of building the model. Paramount Pictures subsidiary Magicam spent 14 months and $150,000 building the 8-foot (2.4 m), 39-kilogram (86 lb) model. An arc-welded aluminum skeleton ensured parts of the ship would not sag, bend, or shake. While the original Enterprise model was seen in only 17 poses, the new model had five articulation points and could be shot from any angle. Paul Olsen painted the "Aztec" hull pattern to provide an additional level of detail and to suggest the presence of interlocking panels providing strength. The effect was made possible by small particles of mica in the paint, which altered its apparent color. However, the paint created light flare that made it hard to discern the edge of the ship against a dark background, and bluescreen light reflected by the pearlescent paint also complicated filming. Effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull relit the ship as if it were an ocean liner, "a grand lady of the seas at night", because there would be no external light source in deep space. A 20-inch (51 cm) model was used for long shots.
Production designer Harold Michelson was responsible for the ship's interior design. The Enterprise interiors were designed to be distinct from the film's Klingon ship, and certain support structure designs were used throughout the Enterprise sets to convey a shared motif. A new bridge had been designed and partially built for Phase II, and Michelson largely retained the design and its consoles. The weapons console was rotated 90 degrees to break the monotony of stations facing the wall. Designer Lee Cole brought logic and function to the console designs, though Michelson wanted to remain focused on "drama, spectacle and beauty" over accuracy and logic. Rear projection films for bridge displays came initially from Stowmar Enterprises. When production exhausted the films faster than Stowmar could supply them, production designers manufactured their own from oscilloscopes, medical imagery, and an experimental computer lab.
Set designer Lewis Splittgerber described the engine room set as the most difficult to realize. Through forced perspective and small actors, the 40-foot (12 m) set was depicted as a 100-foot (30 m) engineering space. Corridors were initially a straight-wall design similar to the television series, and Michelson changed them to an angular design with light radiating upward. Director Robert Wise wanted the corridors to be narrower than on the television series, and mirrors gave the impression that they were longer than they actually were. Wise was also responsible for the ship's drab interior color scheme: the muted colors were meant to be comfortable across a five-year journey.
Sequel film adjustments, destruction, and return
The Enterprise model was slightly refurbished for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), with its exterior shine dulled and extra detail added to the frame. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) staff found the Enterprise difficult to work with: it took eight people to mount the model and a forklift to move it. Illustrator Mike Minor described the ship as a "sculpture" with an "aerodynamic shape," requiring careful filming so that its movements did not appear "silly". ILM developed several techniques to depict battle damage to the Enterprise without actually harming the model.
The much smaller budget for The Wrath of Khan required the reuse of existing sets, but they presented challenges in realizing director Nicholas Meyer's desire for a "livelier" tone. The Enterprise was given a ship's bell, boatswain's call, and more blinking lights and signage to match the nautical atmosphere Meyer wanted to convey. Rear-projection systems for bridge displays were replaced with monitors looping taped material created by graphic designer Lee Cole at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The bridge set was "unbuttoned" so segments could be removed to better accommodate filming more dynamic action, though filming on the 360-degree set was still challenging. Further complicating the set was that it served three roles in the film: the Enterprise bridge, the Reliant bridge, and the Starfleet Academy bridge simulator. The production crew made several "plugs" to cover consoles and alcoves, and pyrotechnics could destroy the plugs during combat sequences without damaging the underlying set. The torpedo bay set is a redress of the Klingon bridge from The Motion Picture. Kirk's quarters were redressed with more personal items and a more naval appearance, and the same set depicted Spock's more "monastic" quarters. David Kimble's deck plans from The Motion Picture influenced how previously unseen interior arrangements like the torpedo bay were depicted in The Wrath of Khan.
Recognizing the plot of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) was otherwise predictable, producer and screenwriter Harve Bennett decided to have the Enterprise destroyed. Although Bennett had insisted that the demise of the ship be kept secret, the news leaked. Visual effects supervisor Ken Ralston hated the Enterprise model and reveled in its destruction. Rather than damage the large and expensive model, several less expensive miniatures and modules were created and destroyed. One of the destroyed models had been created by Brick Price Movie Miniatures for Star Trek Phase II.
Ralston had hoped the destruction of the Enterprise in The Search for Spock would lead to a redesigned ship for future sequels, but the producers of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) decided to have the crew return to a new Enterprise that was virtually identical to the previous ship. It took ILM more than six weeks to restore and repaint the original model to appear as the new USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A. After visiting ILM, Majel Barrett described the model as "gorgeous," and she said some of its details – such as the windows into the arboretum – were not done justice by photographs.
Although the model's original pearlescent paint job had been covered and was redressed as the Enterprise NCC-1701-A, the eight-foot film franchise model was used as a referent for the CGI Enterprise created for the 2001 director's cut of The Motion Picture. The director's cut replaced several bridge computer voices with human voices to "warm up" the film. The bridge and several other Enterprise film sets were redressed for use in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994).
Spinoff appearances and remaster CGI model
Except for some components donated to UCLA, the original television Enterprise bridge set was trashed when production ended. Producers working on the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics" (1992), in which Montgomery Scott visits a recreation of the Enterprise, initially planned to use the film-era set. Ultimately, recreations of the original television series' captain's chair, navigation console, and engineering console were rented from fans, and the rest was filled in with archival footage and greenscreen technology. The bridge was again partially recreated, with other parts added digitally, for the Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" (1996), in which the crew visits the Enterprise during the events of "The Trouble With Tribbles" (1967). Mike Okuda used a computer to recreate the graphics seen on the Enterprise sets, and others were drawn by artist Doug Drexler. Set designer Laura Richarz's biggest challenge was finding Burke chairs to populate the ship: she found just one, which the production team used to make molds to create more.
"Trials and Tribble-ations" also required exterior shots of the Enterprise. To film these, Greg Jein created an Enterprise model exactly half the size of the 11-foot original, and it was the first production model of the starship to be built in more than 30 years. A CGI Enterprise makes a cameo appearance at the end of the Star Trek: Enterprise series finale, "These Are the Voyages..." (2005). Artists creating another CGI Enterprise for the remastered original series had to ensure the model was not so detailed that it was incongruous with the overall 1960s production.
2009 film franchise reboot
The Enterprise was redesigned for the 2009 Star Trek film. Previsualization lead David Dozoretz credits the designers for overcoming the challenge of doing "a 2009 version of the '60s". Director J. J. Abrams wanted Enterprise to have a "hot rod" look while retaining the traditional shape, and he otherwise gave designers leeway to create the ship. The designers wanted the Enterprise to appear as carefully crafted as a luxury car. Concept artist Ryan Church retained much of the original Enterprise design and focused on the functionality behind the familiar components. His initial designs were modeled and refined by set designer Joseph Hiura. This design was then given to ILM for further refinement and developed into photo-realistic models by Alex Jaeger's team. ILM's Roger Guyett, recalling the original Enterprise as being "very static", added moving parts. ILM retained subtle geometric forms and patterns to allude to the original Enterprise, and the model's digital paint recreated the "Aztec" hull pattern from the first films. The large engine nacelles had a sleeker finish and shape compared to the original ship's otherwise simple nacelles. Sean Hargreaves' redesign of the successor NCC-1701-A "beef[ed] up" the vessel's support pylons, which are depicted as vulnerabilities in Star Trek Beyond (2016).
According to Abrams, recreating the original bridge would have been ridiculous and too small. Abrams' enthusiasm for a new iPhone influenced Church's redesign for the bridge. Sophisticated technology became a motif on the new set, with multiple displays and computer graphics. The viewscreen from the television series was kept, and giving different characters their own computer displays suggested the idea of a team working together. Because the original series transporter room seemed flat to Abrams, he used swirling light and a moving camera to make the redesigned set and effects more dynamic. The budget prevented the creation of a huge, functional engineering room set, and producers instead filmed at a Budweiser plant. Ben Burtt consulted with original series sound designer Douglas Grindstaff on sound design for the new Enterprise.
Redesign for streaming series
Discovery
The Enterprise appears briefly at the end of Star Trek: Discovery's first-season finale (2018) and occasionally during the show's second season (2019). John Eaves, Scott Schneider, and William Budge redesigned the Enterprise for Discovery, which occurs about a decade before the original Star Trek. The designers had an unusually long time to work on the ship: April to October 2017, whereas they usually had only a few weeks to design a vessel. Other than a few small notes, they were given no explicit direction about the ship's appearance; Schneider called the redesign project the trio's "golden hour".
They considered but quickly rejected a design significantly different from Jefferies' original. Eaves created 10 relatively similar sketches that streamlined the original Enterprise to appear more consistent with Discovery's sleek aesthetic, and the team selected one to refine. They developed the vessel with the assumption that components like the warp nacelles and impulse engines would be replaced over time; the modules for the Enterprise's appearance in Discovery are meant to appear more primitive than what is depicted in Star Trek. The designers tried to incorporate elements from other ships that precede and succeed the Enterprise, such as the 21st-century Phoenix in Star Trek: First Contact (1996), the 22nd-century Enterprise in Star Trek: Enterprise (2001–2005), and the USS Enterprise-B in Star Trek Generations (1994). They also included elements from the Enterprise refit for The Motion Picture. One distinct challenge was the hull: Jefferies' design featured a smooth hull, but the lack of features would appear too simple on modern high-definition displays. The designers added details, such as phaser banks and control thrusters, that "must have been there" on the original Enterprise but were not depicted on the Star Trek models. The ship's scale also fluctuated, which meant the designers had to adjust window sizes and patterns.
Budge kept the designers in check by ensuring details and features added to the Enterprise were consistent with other Discovery ships, such as whether the bridge would have a window: most Discovery ship bridges have a front-facing window, but the Enterprise had never been depicted with one. The solution was to depict the Enterprise bridge as having a large piece of transparent aluminum at its front that can become either transparent or opaque. Eaves sent the design team's model to the visual effects team, which made further design changes. Discovery producer Gretchen J. Berg said she hoped fans see the Enterprise's appearance in Discovery as a blending of old and new Star Trek. Another Discovery producer, Aaron Harberts, wasn't worried whether fans were satisfied with the ship's redesign: while many of the staff who developed the new appearance were Star Trek fans, Harberts said fans rarely agree on anything.
The Enterprise bridge appears in the second season's finale. Production designer Tamara Deverell and her team wanted to honor the original bridge but needed to create the set using modern techniques and to meet modern audience expectations. The production's widescreen format, as opposed to the original series' 4:3 aspect ratio, required the set design to be more "stretched out" horizontally; designers referenced Star Trek film bridges – also recorded in widescreen – to assist with designing for the different ratio. The bridge was a fully constructed set, save for greenscreen for the main viewer. The set maintained the original's layout and included references and details from Star Trek, such as Sulu's and Spock's console scanners, red bridge railings, and turbolift handles. They also created new elements, such as a corridor running behind the bridge. According to Deverell, the hardest part of designing the bridge was choosing the color palette. The bridge chairs were nearly identical to those used in Star Trek, and the captain's chair was heavily influenced by Captain Kirk's original. A fan-created replica of the original bridge – later opened as museum – sent the production team hundreds of buttons for the set's consoles.
Strange New Worlds
Enterprise is the main setting of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022), which depicts the ship led by Captain Christopher Pike. Anson Mount, who plays Pike, said Strange New Worlds has a "big idea of the week" like the original Star Trek, and as such the Enterprise is "the star of the show". Rebecca Romijn, who plays first officer Una Chin-Riley, called the Enterprise "sexy, and groovy, and fun." According to producer Akiva Goldsman, the designers for Strange New Worlds "tried to evoke the experience of watching [The Original Series], but with the grammar available to us today." Goldsman describes the ship as aspirational and meant to pull audiences into an imagined future.
The Enterprise in Strange New Worlds differs slightly from its appearance in Discovery. The bridge set for Strange New Worlds was more compact than the one built for Discovery to bring it closer to the size of the original series set. The sets were designed to function like a practical starship, with moving components and pre-programmed monitor graphics that reacted to the actors. While the viewscreen was a visual effect in Discovery, it was physically built into the Strange New Worlds set. Sickbay was an entirely new design, meant to convey a large scale and capable of accommodating many camera movements. Designers relied on a massive augmented reality LED volume to depict the scale of main engineering. Due to COVID-19, some sets were not complete when filming began; Goldsman said they were "building the Enterprise around shooting on the Enterprise." Production designers also changed the color scheme, "warming" it from its Discovery palette. A specific shade of red is used as a secondary color throughout the ship, complementing warm and cold off-whites.
Depiction
Starfleet commissioned the Enterprise in 2245. Robert April is the Enterprise's first captain, succeeded by Christopher Pike. Pike leads the Enterprise for approximately a decade, and he is the commanding officer in the original pilot, the second season of Star Trek: Discovery, and in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Throughout the first live action and animated Star Trek television series, Captain James T. Kirk commands the ship and its 430-person crew on an exploration mission from 2264 to 2269. Star Trek: The Motion Picture takes place in the 2270's as the Enterprise is completing an 18-month refit overseen by its new captain, Willard Decker. Decker describes the refit vessel as "an almost totally new Enterprise" when Admiral Kirk takes command to address a threat to Earth. Star Trek novels and other media depict a second five-year mission under Kirk's command between the events of the first and second films.
Captain Spock commands the Enterprise, serving as a training ship, at the beginning of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in 2285. Kirk assumes command to investigate problems at space station Regula 1. The USS Reliant, hijacked by Khan Noonien Singh, seriously damages the Enterprise; Spock sacrifices his life to save the ship. Starfleet decides to decommission the damaged Enterprise at the beginning of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, and Kirk and his senior officers steal the ship as part of their plan to restore Spock's life. During their mission, a Klingon attack disables the Enterprise. Kirk then lures most of the Klingons onto the immobilized vessel, which he and his officers set to self-destruct before abandoning ship. When Kirk and his officers return to Earth, Kirk is demoted to captain and given command of a new USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-A.
Reboot film series
The 2009 reboot film Star Trek and its sequels occur in a different timeline than the original Star Trek. The Enterprise first appears while under construction in Riverside, Iowa, in 2255. Captain Christopher Pike commands Enterprise on its 2258 maiden voyage to respond to a Vulcan distress call. At the film's conclusion, James Kirk is promoted to captain and receives command of the Enterprise. The vessel is destroyed in Star Trek Beyond and a new Enterprise, NCC-1701-A, is commissioned under Kirk's command.
Critical reaction
Original appearance
Like other Star Trek ships with the same name, the original Enterprise is "a character in its own right," and the ship "was just as important ... as Kirk, Spock, and McCoy". According to film critic Scott Jordan Harris, the Enterprise was the franchise's most important character, pointing out:Crucially, the famous words that begin each episode of the TV show, and that recur in the films, are not "These are the voyages of Captain Kirk ..." or "These are the voyages of Starfleet ..." They are "These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise ..." Writing in the Journal of Popular Film & Television, National Air and Space Museum curator Margaret Weitekamp identifies two distinct celebrity Enterprises: the fictional starship Enterprise as a character or popular culture icon, and the actual physical objects (for example, the filming models) as an iconic design. According to Weitekamp, "The two Enterprises overlap, and are clearly related, but they do not map completely onto each other," and unpacking distinctions between them contributes to scholarly analysis of popular and material culture and of "this significant television artifact".
The Enterprise's design, which influenced future starships in the franchise, is iconic. The design came at the end of a trend for science-fiction spaceships to resemble rockets, and just as real spacecraft began to influence sci-fi designs. When it first appeared on television, the Enterprise was called an "elegant and weird looking behemoth". Design expert Jonathan Glancey described the "convincing and exciting" Enterprise as having the same aesthetic appeal as the Concorde jet, B-17 bomber, and Queen Elizabeth 2 ocean liner. The interiors are also exemplars of 1960s design. Popular Mechanics said the original Enterprise has the best design of the franchise's various ships named Enterprise. io9 ranked the original design as the best version of the Enterprise, characterizing the original as superior to ten later versions of its namesake.
Film redesign and destruction
Harris included the Enterprise as one of the 50 most significant objects to appear in film, alongside the ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz, the Maschinenmensch in Metropolis, and the Batmobile in Batman Begins. Time called the ship's redesign for The Motion Picture "bold" and "handsome". Conversely, Harlan Ellison called the Enterprise a "jalopy" in The Motion Picture, and The Washington Post said the Enterprise looked "like a toy boat in a lava lamp" in The Wrath of Khan. Entertainment Weekly wrote that, after being depicted as a complicated vessel requiring detailed care in The Wrath of Khan, it seemed "a bit loony" for the Enterprise to be operable by just a handful of officers in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Jill Sherwin suggested that the aging Enterprise in The Search for Spock served as a metaphor for the aging Star Trek franchise. io9 ranked the film appearance as the second-best design of an Enterprise.
The destruction of the Enterprise in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock has been described as "truly iconic" and "a good way to go", though David Gerrold wrote that it "casts a pall" over The Search for Spock that even Spock's resurrection does not displace. In her biography of DeForest Kelley, Terry Lee Rioux calls the Enterprise a "mother goddess" who, consistent with "one of the oldest and highest myths" in humanity, sacrifices herself so her children, the crew, can live on. David C. Fein, who produced the director's cut of The Motion Picture, described the Enterprise as Kirk's lover, and said destroying the ship meant Kirk "killed the woman that he loves more than any existing being in the world." Popular Mechanics ranked the ship's destruction the 32nd greatest scene in science fiction.
Spin-off television appearances
The New York Times called it "a joy" to see the original Enterprise as redesigned for Discovery's second-season premiere. Engadget called the Enterprise in Strange New Worlds "gorgeous inside and out." Writing for Tor.com, Keith DeCandido praised Strange New Worlds' producers for balancing the Enterprise's original 1960s look with what audiences expect from modern productions. TrekCore said Strange New Worlds' set dressing and use show the Enterprise "as both a character unto herself and as a mirror reflecting the people who inhabit her."
Impact
Within the franchise
The original Enterprise and 1979 film designs have affected subsequent Star Trek productions. The USS Excelsior in Star Trek III is meant to make the Enterprise "look old and out of date". Model maker Bill George tried to imagine what the Enterprise would look like if it were designed by the Japanese, and he used that impression as the basis for his refinement of the Excelsior model. Andrew Probert returned to Star Trek to design a new USS Enterprise, NCC-1701-D, for Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), which takes place 100 years after the original Star Trek. The Enterprise-D retains the hallmarks of Matt Jefferies' Enterprise design: a saucer section, engineering section, and a pair of engine nacelles. Probert did this in part to assuage skeptical fans who were concerned about the original Enterprise being "replaced". Much of Probert's design is based on a "what if?" painting he made after finalizing the 1979 film Enterprise design. The USS Titan in Star Trek: Picard's third season draws inspiration from the film redesign, which producer Terry Matalas called "the best starship design ever made.
Broader culture
The starship Enterprise has had considerable cultural impact, and the original ship's model is "a living cultural object". Bjo Trimble said the original Star Trek received more fan letters about the Enterprise than any of the actors. According to film critic Scott Jordan Harris, although the contemporaneous Apollo program prompted intellectual awareness of the possibilities of space travel, it was the Enterprise of the 1960s that sparked space travel fantasies. A 1976 write-in campaign led to the first Space Shuttle being named Enterprise rather than Constitution. In 2009, Virgin Galactic named its first commercial spaceship VSS Enterprise to honor the Star Trek vessel. The United States Navy evaluated the efficiency of the Enterprise bridge's style and layout, and the USS Independence's bridge and USS Zumwalt's Ship's Mission Center have been compared to the Enterprise bridge. An Enterprise bridge replica created for a Star Trek fan series was later opened as a public exhibit. The distinct beeps emitted by R2-D2 in Star Wars are "an offspring" of the melodic sounds created for the Enterprise's bridge console. Vulcan, Alberta, created a 31-foot (9.4 m) model starship inspired by the Enterprise.The Enterprise design has been licensed for use in variety of games, models, and toys. AMT's 1966 Enterprise model is one of the company's highest-selling kits: one million kits sold during the show's first year of production; the previous bestseller, a car from The Munsters, took two years to reach one million sales. Ballantine Books released a set of Enterprise blueprints in April 1975, and by December 1976 they were in their seventh printing. The first run of a cutaway drawing of the Enterprise for The Motion Picture sold over one million prints. In 2010, Simon & Schuster's Gallery Books published a Haynes Manual for "owners" of the USS Enterprise. The United States Postal Service has released several USS Enterprise stamps. Pulitzer Prize–winning editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich has used the Enterprise as the setting for two of his illustrations for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Production models and props
The three-foot model was loaned out during the production of The Motion Picture and lost until 2024. Paramount Pictures donated the 11-foot model to the Smithsonian Institution in 1974, disassembled across three crates and dirty. In shipping the model, Paramount estimated the value of the model at $5,000. Starting in 1976, it hung at an exhibit gallery entrance at the National Air and Space Museum before being moved to the gift shop, where it stayed for 14 years. In the first of its initial restorations, the model was altered to look more like the starship Enterprise and less like a studio filming model. The model underwent restorations in 1974, 1984, 1992, and 2016. For much of its time on display, fans have been surprised at the differences between the model and their expectations about how the "real" spacecraft should appear. A substantial, multi-year restoration culminated in 2016 with the unveiling of a new display in the Milestones of Flight Hall. This restoration highlighted the duality of the Enterprise as both a filming model and inspirational starship.
The original captain's chair prop sold at auction for $304,750. In 2006, Paul Allen bought the Enterprise model created for the original Star Trek films for $240,000; it is on display at the Museum of Pop Culture. Another model of the film version is on display at aerospace company Blue Origin.
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
Jones, Preston Neal (2014). Return to Tomorrow: The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Taylor L. White. ISBN 978-0-9839175-4-0.
"Conserving the Star Trek starship Enterprise Studio Model". Smithsonian Institution. June 27, 2016. Retrieved August 31, 2018.
Enterprise - Hypersonic velocity test of the hull design by University of Queensland's X2 Super-Orbital Expansion Tube using holographic interferometry
Redd, Nola Taylor (July 3, 2012). "Could We Build 'Star Trek's' Starship Enterprise?". Space.com. Retrieved August 31, 2018.
External links
USS Enterprise model page at the National Air and Space Museum
Andrew Probert's page with photos, drawings, and notes on the Phase II and Motion Picture designs and models
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) at Memory Alpha
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) (alternate reality) at Memory Alpha
Constitution class model (original) at Memory Alpha
Constitution class model (refit) at Memory Alpha
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) at Memory Alpha
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) (alternate reality) at Memory Alpha |
Ivy_League | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League | [
386
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League"
] | The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference of eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. It participates in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I, and in football, in the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). The term Ivy League is used more broadly to refer to the eight schools that belong to the league, which are globally-renowned as elite colleges associated with academic excellence, highly selective admissions, and social elitism. The term was used as early as 1933, and it became official in 1954 following the formation of the Ivy League athletic conference.
The eight members of the Ivy League are Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. The conference headquarters is in Princeton, New Jersey. All of the "Ivies" except Cornell were founded during the colonial period and therefore make up seven of the nine colonial colleges. The other two colonial colleges, Queens College (now Rutgers University) and the College of William & Mary, became public institutions.
Overview
Ivy League schools are some of the most prestigious universities in the world. All eight universities place in the top 18 of the 2024 U.S. News & World Report National Universities ranking. U.S. News has named a member of the Ivy League as the best national university every year since 2001: as of 2020, Princeton eleven times, Harvard twice, and the two schools tied for first five times. In the 2022–2023 U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking, five Ivies rank in the top 20: Harvard (#1), Columbia (#7), Yale (#11), Penn (#15), and Princeton (#16)—ranks that U.S. News says are based on "indicators that measure their academic research performance and their global and regional reputations." All eight Ivy League schools are members of the Association of American Universities, the most prestigious alliance of American research universities.
Undergraduate enrollments range from about 4,500 to about 15,000, larger than most liberal arts colleges and smaller than most state university systems. Total enrollment, which includes graduate students, ranges from approximately 6,600 at Dartmouth to over 20,000 at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and Penn. Ivy League financial endowments range from Brown's $6.9 billion to Harvard's $53.2 billion, the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world.
The Ivy League is similar to other groups of universities in other countries, such as Oxbridge in England, the C9 League in China, and the Imperial Universities in Japan.
Members
Ivy League universities have some of the largest university financial endowments in the world, allowing the universities to provide abundant resources for their academic programs, financial aid, and research endeavors. As of 2021, Harvard University had an endowment of $53.2 billion, the largest of any educational institution. Each university attracts millions of dollars in annual research funding from both the federal government and private sources.
Current schools
Former affiliate members
Before the 2000s, many of the Ivy League championships for men's and women's cross country, indoor and outdoor track & field, and swimming & diving were formatted as invitationals that many schools across the eastern United States would attend. In other sports such as fencing, wrestling, men's and women's ice hockey, and men's and women's rowing, all of the Ivy League schools were members of other single-sport conferences and the top performing Ivy League team would be crowned the champion.
The United States Military Academy and the United States Naval Academy were members of the Ivy League in many sports and were crowned as Ivy League champions while competing with Ivy League teams. Both schools ended up departing from the conference in the early 2000s to align with their current conference, the Patriot League.
History
Year founded
Note: Six of the eight Ivy League universities consider their founding dates to be simply the date that they received their charters and thus became legal corporations with the authority to grant academic degrees. Harvard University uses the date that the legislature of the Massachusetts Bay Colony formally allocated funds for the creation of a college. Harvard was chartered in 1650, although classes had been conducted for approximately a decade by then. The University of Pennsylvania initially considered its founding date to be 1750; this is the year which appears on the first iteration of the university seal. Later in Penn's early history, the university changed its officially recognized founding date to 1749, which was used for all of the nineteenth century, including a centennial celebration in 1849. In 1899, Penn's board of trustees formally adopted a third founding date of 1740, in response to a petition from Penn's General Alumni Society. Penn was chartered in 1755, the same year collegiate classes began. "Religious affiliation" refers to financial sponsorship, formal association with, and promotion by, a religious denomination. All of the schools in the Ivy League are private and not currently associated with any religion.
Origin of the name
"Planting the ivy" was a customary class day ceremony at many colleges in the 1800s. In 1893, an alumnus told The Harvard Crimson, "In 1850, class day was placed upon the University Calendar ... the custom of planting the ivy, while the ivy oration was delivered, arose about this time." At Penn, graduating seniors started the custom of planting ivy at a university building each spring in 1873 and that practice was formally designated as "Ivy Day" in 1874. Ivy planting ceremonies are recorded at Yale University, Simmons College, and Bryn Mawr College among other schools. Princeton's "Ivy Club" was founded in 1879.
The first usage of Ivy in reference to a group of colleges is from sportswriter Stanley Woodward (1895–1965).
A proportion of our eastern ivy colleges are meeting little fellows another Saturday before plunging into the strife and the turmoil.
The first known instance of the term Ivy League appeared in The Christian Science Monitor on February 7, 1935. Several sportswriters and other journalists used the term shortly later to refer to the older colleges, those along the northeastern seaboard of the United States, chiefly the nine institutions with origins dating from the colonial era, together with the United States Military Academy (West Point), the United States Naval Academy, and a few others. These schools were known for their long-standing traditions in intercollegiate athletics, often being the first schools to participate in such activities. At this time, however, none of these institutions made efforts to form an athletic league.
A common folk etymology attributes the name to the Roman numeral for four (IV), asserting that there was such a sports league originally with four members. The Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins helped to perpetuate this belief. The supposed "IV League" was formed over a century ago and consisted of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a fourth school that varies depending on who is telling the story. However, it is clear that Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Yale met on November 23, 1876, at the so-called Massasoit Convention to decide on uniform rules for the emerging game of American football, which rapidly spread.
Pre-Ivy League
Seven out of the eight Ivy League schools are Colonial Colleges: institutions of higher education founded prior to the American Revolution. Cornell, the exception to this commonality, was founded immediately after the American Civil War. These seven colleges served as the primary institutions of higher learning in British America's Northern and Middle Colonies. During the colonial era, the schools' faculties and founding boards were largely drawn from other Ivy League institutions. Also represented were British graduates from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, the University of St. Andrews, and the University of Edinburgh.
The influence of these institutions on the founding of other colleges and universities is notable. This included the Southern public college movement which blossomed in the decades surrounding the turn of the 19th century when Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia established what became the flagship universities of their respective states. In 1801, a majority of the first board of trustees for what became the University of South Carolina were Princeton alumni. They appointed Jonathan Maxcy, a Brown graduate, as the university's first president. Thomas Cooper, an Oxford alumnus and University of Pennsylvania faculty member, became the second president of the South Carolina college. The founders of the University of California came from Yale, hence Berkeley's colors are Yale Blue and California Gold. Stanford University has, since its earliest days, been nicknamed the "Cornell of the West": more than half of Stanford's initial faculty, as well as its first two presidents, had connections to Cornell as alumni or faculty.
A plurality of the Ivy League schools have identifiable Protestant roots. Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth all held early associations with the Congregationalists. Princeton was financed by New Light Presbyterians, though originally led by a Congregationalist. Brown was founded by Baptists, though the university's charter stipulated that students should enjoy "full liberty of conscience." Columbia was founded by Anglicans, who composed 10 of the college's first 15 presidents. Penn and Cornell were officially nonsectarian, though Protestants were well represented in their respective founding. In the early nineteenth century, the specific purpose of training Calvinist ministers was handed off to theological seminaries, but a denominational tone and religious traditions including compulsory chapel often lasted well into the twentieth century.
"Ivy League" is sometimes used as a way of referring to an elite class, even though institutions such as Cornell University were among the first in the United States to reject racial and gender discrimination in their admissions policies. This dates back to at least 1935. Novels and memoirs attest this sense, as a social elite; to some degree independent of the actual schools.
History of the athletic league
19th century
In 1870, the nation's first formal athletic league was created in 1870 with the formation of the Rowing Association of American Colleges (RAAC), composed exclusively of Ivy League universities. RAAC hosted a national championship in rowing from 1870 to 1894.
The first Harvard vs Yale rugby football contest was held in 1875, two years after the inaugural Princeton–Yale rugby football contest. Harvard athlete Nathaniel Curtis challenged Yale's captain, William Arnold to a rugby-style game.
Program for the "Foot Ball Match", Harvard v Yale, the first intercollegiate game. It is considered the first rugby game between Ivy League teams. The game was played at Hamilton Park, a venue in New Haven, Connecticut (located at the intersection of Whalley Avenue and West Park Avenue). The two teams played with 15 players (rugby) on a side instead of 11 (soccer) as Yale would have preferred.
In 1881, Penn, Harvard College, Haverford College, Princeton University (then known as College of New Jersey), and Columbia University (then known as Columbia College) formed The Intercollegiate Cricket Association, which Cornell University later joined. Penn won The Intercollegiate Cricket Association championship 23 times, including 18 solo victories and three shared with Haverford and Harvard, one shared with Haverford and Cornell, and one shared with just Haverford, during the 44 years that the Intercollegiate Cricket Association existed from 1881 through 1924.
In 1895, Cornell, Columbia, and Penn founded the Intercollegiate Rowing Association, which remains the oldest collegiate athletic organizing body in the US. To this day, the IRA Championship Regatta determines the national champion in rowing and all of the Ivies are regularly invited to compete.
A basketball league was later created in 1902, when Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton formed the Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League; they were later joined by Penn and Dartmouth.
20th century
In 1906, the organization that eventually became the National Collegiate Athletic Association was formed, primarily to formalize rules for the emerging sport of football. But of the 39 original member colleges in the NCAA, only two of them (Dartmouth and Penn) later became Ivies. In February 1903, intercollegiate wrestling began when Yale accepted a challenge from Columbia, published in the Yale News. The dual meet took place prior to a basketball game hosted by Columbia and resulted in a tie.
Two years later, Penn and Princeton also added wrestling teams, leading to the formation of the student-run Intercollegiate Wrestling Association, now the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA), the first and oldest collegiate wrestling league in the US.
Though schools now in Ivy League (such as Yale and Columbia) played against each other in the 1880s, it was not until 1930 that Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Penn, Princeton and Yale formed the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League; they were later joined by Harvard, Brown, Army and Navy. Before the formal establishment of the Ivy League, there was an "unwritten and unspoken agreement among certain Eastern colleges on athletic relations". The earliest reference to the "Ivy colleges" came in 1933, when Stanley Woodward of the New York Herald Tribune used it to refer to the eight current members plus Army. In 1935, the Associated Press reported on an example of collaboration between the schools:
The athletic authorities of the so-called "Ivy League" are considering drastic measures to curb the increasing tendency toward riotous attacks on goal posts and other encroachments by spectators on playing fields.
Despite such collaboration, the universities did not seem to consider the formation of the league as imminent. Romeyn Berry, Cornell's manager of athletics, reported the situation in January 1936 as follows:
I can say with certainty that in the last five years—and markedly in the last three months—there has been a strong drift among the eight or ten universities of the East which see a good deal of one another in sport toward a closer bond of confidence and cooperation and toward the formation of a common front against the threat of a breakdown in the ideals of amateur sport in the interests of supposed expediency.
Please do not regard that statement as implying the organization of an Eastern conference or even a poetic "Ivy League". That sort of thing does not seem to be in the cards at the moment.
Within a year of this statement and having held month-long discussions about the proposal, on December 3, 1936, the idea of "the formation of an Ivy League" gained enough traction among the undergraduate bodies of the universities that the Columbia Daily Spectator, The Cornell Daily Sun, The Dartmouth, The Harvard Crimson, The Daily Pennsylvanian, The Daily Princetonian and the Yale Daily News would simultaneously run an editorial entitled "Now Is the Time", encouraging the seven universities to form the league in an effort to preserve the ideals of athletics. Part of the editorial read as follows:
The Ivy League exists already in the minds of a good many of those connected with football, and we fail to see why the seven schools concerned should be satisfied to let it exist as a purely nebulous entity where there are so many practical benefits which would be possible under definite organized association. The seven colleges involved fall naturally together by reason of their common interests and similar general standards and by dint of their established national reputation they are in a particularly advantageous position to assume leadership for the preservation of the ideals of intercollegiate athletics.
The Ivies have been competing in sports as long as intercollegiate sports have existed in the United States. Rowing teams from Harvard and Yale met in the first sporting event held between students of two U.S. colleges on Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire, on August 3, 1852. Harvard's team, "The Oneida", won the race and was presented with trophy black walnut oars from then-presidential nominee General Franklin Pierce. The proposal to create an athletic league did not succeed. On January 11, 1937, the athletic authorities at the schools rejected the "possibility of a heptagonal league in football such as these institutions maintain in basketball, baseball and track." However, they noted that the league "has such promising possibilities that it may not be dismissed and must be the subject of further consideration."
Integration of athletic competition in the Ivy League
The integration of athletics followed a similar pattern to the overall integration of the Ivy League's in the 19th and early 20th century. There was no active policy that would discriminate against incorporating Black student athletes into the athletic coalition. Harvard has the earliest record of breaking the color barrier in athletics after recruiting William Henry Lewis to their football team in 1892. Dartmouth followed suit, with Black athletes integrating onto their football teams in 1904. Brown integrated their football team shortly after, in 1916. Cornell would follow suit in 1937.
Penn had black students on their track and field team as early as 1903 (John Baxter Taylor, Jr., the first black athlete in the U.S. to win a gold medal in the Olympics) and a black student was named captain of the track team in 1918. Columbia's track and field team would be integrated in 1934. Basketball would become integrated at Yale in 1926, at Princeton in 1947.
Post-World War II
In 1945 the presidents of the eight schools signed the first Ivy Group Agreement, which set academic, financial, and athletic standards for the football teams. The principles established reiterated those put forward in the Harvard-Yale-Princeton presidents' Agreement of 1916. The Ivy Group Agreement established the core tenet that an applicant's ability to play on a team would not influence admissions decisions:
The members of the Group reaffirm their prohibition of athletic scholarships. Athletes shall be admitted as students and awarded financial aid only on the basis of the same academic standards and economic need as are applied to all other students.
In 1954, the presidents extended the Ivy Group Agreement to all intercollegiate sports, effective with the 1955–56 basketball season. This is generally reckoned as the formal formation of the Ivy League. As part of the transition, Brown, the only Ivy that had not joined the EIBL, did so for the 1954–55 season. A year later, the Ivy League absorbed the EIBL. The Ivy League claims the EIBL's history as its own. Through the EIBL, it is the oldest basketball conference in Division I.
As late as the 1960s many of the Ivy League universities' undergraduate programs remained open only to men, with Cornell the only one to have been coeducational from its founding (1865) and Columbia being the last (1983) to become coeducational. Before they became coeducational, many of the Ivy schools maintained extensive social ties with nearby Seven Sisters women's colleges, including weekend visits, dances and parties inviting Ivy and Seven Sisters students to mingle. This was the case not only at Barnard College and Radcliffe College, which are adjacent to Columbia and Harvard, but at more distant institutions as well. The movie Animal House includes a satiric version of the formerly common visits by Dartmouth men to Massachusetts to meet Smith and Mount Holyoke women, a drive of more than two hours. As noted by Irene Harwarth, Mindi Maline, and Elizabeth DeBra, "The 'Seven Sisters' was the name given to Barnard, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Radcliffe, because of their parallel to the Ivy League men's colleges."
In 1982 the Ivy League considered adding two members, with Army, Navy, and Northwestern as the most likely candidates; if it had done so, the league could probably have avoided being moved into the recently created Division I-AA (now Division I FCS) for football. In 1983, following the admission of women to Columbia College, Columbia University and Barnard College entered into an athletic consortium agreement by which students from both schools compete together on Columbia University women's athletic teams, which replaced the women's teams previously sponsored by Barnard.When Army and Navy departed the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League in 1992, nearly all intercollegiate competition involving the eight schools became united under the Ivy League banner. The major exception is hockey, with the Ivies that sponsor hockey—all except Penn and Columbia—members of ECAC Hockey. Wrestling was a second exception through the 2023-24 academic calendar; up until that point the Ivies that sponsor wrestling—all except Dartmouth and Yale— were members of the Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association.
The Ivy League was the first athletic conference to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by shutting down all athletic competition in March 2020, leaving many Spring schedules unfinished. The Fall 2020 schedule was canceled in July, and winter sports were canceled before Thanksgiving. Of the 357 men's basketball teams in Division I, only ten did not play; the Ivy League made up eight of those ten. By giving up its automatic qualifying bid to March Madness, the Ivy League forfeited at least $280,000 in NCAA basketball funds. As a consequence of the pandemic, an unprecedented number of student athletes in the Ivy League either transferred to other schools, or temporarily unenrolled in hopes of maintaining their eligibility to play post-pandemic. Some Ivy alumni expressed displeasure with the League's position. In February 2021 it was reported that Yale declined a multi-million dollar offer from alum Joseph Tsai to create a sequestered "bubble" for the lacrosse team. The league announced in a May 2021 joint statement that "regular athletic competition" would resume "across all sports" in fall 2021.
Following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the Ivy League Conference committed itself to uphold "diversity, equity, and inclusion," to combat racism and homophobia. At Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton there are Black Student Athlete groups and other affinity groups that are dedicated to ensuring their organizations are committed to anti-racism and anti-homophobia. In 2023, two former Brown University basketball players sued the Ivy League alleging that by denying athletic scholarships, the 1954 "Ivy League Agreement" is anticompetititive and violates antitrust laws. The lawsuit claims that the agreement constitutes price-fixing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, and in effect raises the cost of Ivy League education for student athletes.
Academics
Admissions
The Ivy League schools are highly selective, with all schools reporting acceptance rates at or below approximately 10% at all of the universities. For the class of 2025, six of the eight schools reported acceptance rates below 6%. Admitted students come from around the world, although those from the Northeastern United States make up a significant proportion of students.
In 2021, all eight Ivy League schools recorded record high numbers of applications and record low acceptance rates. Year over year increases in the number of applicants ranged from a 14.5% increase at Princeton to a 51% increase at Columbia.
There have been arguments that Ivy League schools discriminate against Asian-American candidates. For example, in August 2020, the US Justice Department argued that Yale University discriminated against Asian-American candidates on the basis of their race, a charge the university denied. Harvard was subject to a similar challenge in 2019 from an Asian American student group, with regard to which a federal judge found Harvard to be in compliance with constitutional requirements. The student group has since appealed that decision, and the appeal is still pending as of August 2020.
Prestige
Members of the League have been highly ranked by various university rankings. All of the Ivy League schools are consistently ranked within the top 20 national universities by the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges Ranking.
Collaboration
Collaboration between the member schools is illustrated by the student-led Ivy Council that meets in the fall and spring of each year, with representatives from every Ivy League school. The governing body of the Ivy League is the Council of Ivy Group presidents, composed of each university president. During meetings, the presidents discuss common procedures and initiatives for their universities.
The universities collaborate academically through the IvyPlus Exchange Scholar Program, which allows students to cross-register at one of the Ivies or another eligible school such as Berkeley, Chicago, MIT, and Stanford.
History of diversity
Racial segregation and integration
Ivy League institutions have a complex history of racial segregation, and, eventually, integration. All of the universities in the Ivy League besides Cornell University were chartered during the American era of slavery. In 2003, Brown University was the first of the Ivies to take accountability for their historic ties to slavery and the transatlantic slave trade. Following Brown, other Ivy League universities formed committees to examine their ties to slavery, and found various institutional relationships to slavery. Yale University, for example, used profits from slave traders and owners to fund its first scholarships, libraries, and faculty positions. To date, some of Yale's residential colleges are named after slave traders and supporters. The investigations at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania all found that, in the century following their charters, enslaved Black people lived on campus to care for students, professors, or the universities' presidents. Notably, Princeton's first nine presidents were slave owners, and in 1766, a slave auction reportedly took place on Princeton's campus.
A small number of Black people did attend Ivy League institutions as students during their early years. These early students, however, were not always granted degrees. For example, some Black students were recorded studying privately with the Princeton University president as early as 1774, but no Black students received Princeton degrees until the middle of the twentieth century. Jonathan and Philip Gayienquitioga, two brothers of the Mohawk People, were the first people of color to enroll at Penn in 1755 after being recruited by Benjamin Franklin to attend the Academy of Philadelphia (then part of Penn), but there is no evidence that either earned a degree as the first native American to graduate Penn did not occur until 1847, when Robert Daniel Ross (a member of the Cherokee Nation) graduated with a degree from Penn's medical school.
19th and early 20th centuries
In 1900, W. E. B. Du Bois oversaw and edited The College-bred Negro. a study on Black integration in colleges and universities that found a combined total of 52 Black students had graduated from Ivy League schools in their collective histories. Since no official policies prohibited schools in the Ivy League from admitting students of color each university in the League had different policies regarding the admission of Black students. Dartmouth's first Black student graduated in 1828, while Princeton would only admit their first Black student under the V-12 Navy College Training Program in the 1940s.
Early Black student admits to Ivy League universities were controversial and often faced backlash. Dartmouth initially denied its first Black graduate, Edward Mitchell, supposedly to avoid "offend[ing] students". Dartmouth students protested this decision, leading to Mitchell's admission in 1824. Richard Henry Green was awarded an MD degree by Dartmouth College in 1864.
Harvard admitted its first Black student, Beverly Garnett Williams, in 1847. News of his admission incited protests by Harvard students and faculty. Williams died before the academic year began, however, and never matriculated. Richard Theodore Greener was the first African American to receive a Harvard degree in 1870. Between 1890 and 1940, an average of three Black men enrolled at Harvard per year. In 1923, Harvard's Board of Overseers overruled University President Abbot Lawrence's ban on Black students living in dorms, announcing that all freshmen would be permitted to live in dorms regardless of race, but upheld that “men of the white and colored races shall not be compelled to live and eat together." Brown seems to have refused admission to Black students outright prior to the Civil War. Abolitionist Elizabeth Buffum Chase wrote in her book Anti Slavery Reminiscences about "a lad of rare excellence and attainments [who] was refused an examination for admission by the authorities of Brown University on account of the color of his skin." Inman Page was the first Black student to graduate from Brown in 1877, and was class speaker.
William Adger, James Brister, and Nathan Francis Mossell were the first Black students enrolled at Penn in 1879. Brister graduated from the School of Dental Medicine (Penn Dental) in 1881 as the first African American to earn a degree from Penn, while Adger was the first African American to graduate from the college in 1883.
Columbia University has claimed that four Black students earned University degrees between 1875 and 1900, though their names are apparently unknown.
Yale's Edward Bouchet, was the first Black person (a) elected to Phi Beta Kappa in the US in 1874 and (b) to earn a Ph.D. from any American university, completing his dissertation in physics in 1876. Bouchet was thought to have been the first African-American graduate of Yale, but research publicized in 2014 reported that Yale awarded a Black man, Richard Henry Green, a bachelor of arts degree in 1857.
Cornell seemed the most inclusive of the Ivy Leagues at its inception, with admission open to any race and gender. University co-founder Andrew Dickson White wrote in 1874 that the school had "no colored students...at present but shall be very glad to receive any who are prepared to enter...if even one offered himself and passed the examinations, we should receive him even if all our five hundred white students were to ask for dismissal on that account." In 1890, Charles Chauveau Cook and Jane Eleanor Datcher were the first Black students awarded four-year undergraduate Cornell degrees. Despite this, Black students faced legal and social segregation in the town of Ithaca, New York. In 1905, Black students reported being denied housing while attending Cornell.
Princeton University, sometimes referred to as the "Southern-most Ivy", was the last to integrate. In Du Bois' The College-bred Negro (1900), a Princeton representative is quoted: "We have never had any colored students here, though there is nothing in the University statutes to prevent their admission. It is possible, however, in view of our proximity to the South and the large number of southern students here, that Negro students would find Princeton less comfortable than some other institutions." Notably, in 1939, Princeton revoked admittance to Black student Bruce Wright upon his arrival on campus, when Director of Admission Radcliffe Heermance noticed Wright's race. When a disappointed Wright wrote Heermance requesting an explanation, Heermance responded:"I cannot conscientiously advise a colored student to apply for admission to Princeton simply because I do not think that he would be happy in this environment. There are no colored students in the University and a member of your race might feel very much alone...My personal experience would enforce my advice to any colored student that he would be happier in an environment of others of his race, and that he would adjust himself far more easily to the life of a New England college or university, or one of the large state universities than he would to a residential college of this particular type."The few early Black students admitted to Ivy League universities were often from wealthy Caribbean families. Barriers preventing African American students from attending Ivy League universities included the universities' policies, poor recruitment, tuition costs, and the lack of secondary education opportunities in a racially segregated country. More Black students attended Ivy League graduate and professional schools than their undergraduate programs. By the middle of the 20th century, only 54 Black men and women had graduated with a Bachelor degree from Ivy League universities.
Late 20th century
By the middle of the 20th century, some Ivy League students and alumni were advocating for increased racial integration efforts. These efforts were met with mixed reactions from the schools themselves. Without a goal for integration shared by the institutions as a collective, each school increased racial diversity at different rates, with Dartmouth having 120 Black undergraduates in the class of 1945 and Princeton having a cumulative total of fewer than 100 Black undergraduates by 1967.
The V-12 Navy College Training Program in 1942 effectively forced all eight Ivy institutions to increase Black student enrollment. At Princeton University, the Black students in this program were the first ever granted bachelor's degrees by the University.
The 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education did not require private universities like those in the Ivy League to abide by the ruling. It wasn't until the Court's 1976 decision in Runyon v. McCrary that private institutions became legally prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race. By the early 1960s, however, some admissions offices in the Ivy League began to make concerted efforts to increase their number of Black applicants, rolling out initiatives that actively sought Black talent from high schools. Efforts for racial integration at Ivy League institutions relied on the support of student organizations, faculty-led initiatives, and third-party organizations like the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students to seek prospective Black applicants. These efforts also prompted internal University action, such as the creation of Cornell's Committee on Special Educational Projects (COSEP), an organization aimed to recruit and support Black students. By 1965, however, Black students still were only 2% of admitted students across all the Ivies.
Prior to the 1960s, the majority of Ivy League universities explicitly prohibited the admission of women, instead forming partnerships with nearby women's colleges. As such, Black women were not able to attend Ivy League universities until they changed their policies. Lillian Lincoln Lambert was the first Black woman to receive a degree from Harvard University after graduating with a master's degree from Harvard Business School in 1969. Lincoln Lambert was also a founding member of Harvard's African American Student Union, which according to her, actively recruited Black students and created "a space where Black students could find not only support but resources for everything from barber shops that cut Black hair to churches."
As Black student populations grew at Ivy League schools, on-campus activism saw an increase during the civil rights movement. In 1969, students in Cornell's Afro-American Society led an armed occupation of Willard Straight Hall to protest the university's racist policies and “its slow progress in establishing a Black studies program.” In the same year, students associated with Yale's New Left organization, Students for a Democratic Society, worked closely with the New Haven Black Panthers to lead sit-ins and protests that advocated for the admission of more students of color and the establishment of an African American studies department. At Brown University, identity-based student organizations such as the United African People and the African American Society called for an increase to the number of Black faculty and increased attention to the needs of Black students. Demonstrations at Harvard and Columbia took the form of occupations and non-violent sit-ins that were often subject to forceful removal by local police called by University administrators. Activism at Dartmouth took a different shape during this time period, as students would use demonstrations that were happening at other Ivies and colleges around the country, to effectively position their demands for progress within the prospect of taking actions similar to those happening elsewhere.
21st century
Continuing the trajectory of the late 20th century, the number of Black students on Ivy League campuses has continued to increase in the 21st century. From 2006 to 2018, there was an approximated 50% increase in the admission of Black students into entering classes, growing from 1,110 to 1,663. As of 2018, the Ivy League universities unanimously supported Harvard University's “race-conscious admissions” model. Harvard University representatives credited this form of affirmative action as one of the factors increasing campus diversity.
In 2014 case Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, 572 U.S. 291 (2014) — the Supreme Court upheld Michigan's ban on affirmative action for public institutions and in 2016 inFisher v. University of Texas II, No. 14-981, 579 U.S. ___ (2016) the court upheld the university's limited use of race in admissions decisions because the university showed it had a clear goal of limited scope without other workable race-neutral means to achieve it.
However, in 2023 — Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, No. 20-1199, 600 U.S. ___ (2023) the United States Supreme Court overruled the decades old decisionsRegents of University of California v. Bakke and Grutter v. Bollinger and other cases mentioned above in this paragraph but disallowing non-individualized racial preferences in admissions for civilian universities.
In essence, the court interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment as not permitting Harvard's “race-conscious admissions” as the court decision now forbids the consideration of race in higher education admissions.
Institutions in favor of Harvard's model argue that in addition to academic excellence they also aim to form a diverse student body, while individuals that argue against the model state that it is discriminatory against certain applicants.
The growing Black student population in Ivy League universities in the early 2000s was accompanied by an increase in the number of Black faculty at these institutions, though rates of change among faculty have been slower and inconsistent. In 2005, 588– or about 3.9%– of the Ivies' 14,831 full-time faculty members were Black. This proportion decreased to 3.4% in 2015. Notably, in 2001, Ruth J. Simmons became the president of Brown University, making her the first and only Black president of an Ivy League institution.
The 21st century saw the continuation of demonstrations by Ivy League students revolving around race. Many of these demonstrations have sought to continue the work of their 20th century predecessors by advocating for increased admission and support of Black students. In light of the Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College Supreme Court case, students from Yale and Harvard joined other universities in protesting in defense of race-conscious admissions policies.
Likewise, Black students from Ivy League institutions continue to protest for the betterment of Black students' lives on campus and beyond. Following Michael Brown's death in 2014, students across the Ivies formed the Black Ivy Coalition, which included members from all eight institutions and aimed to combat anti-Black racism. Individual Ivy League universities also formed their own advocacy organizations and movements as a direct response to instances of anti-Black violence. After the murder of Michael Brown, Princeton University students formed the Black Justice League, which in 2015, occupied Nassau Hall and presented a list of demands to university administrators. Similarly, in 2017, Cornell students made demands to their administration protesting the assault of a Black student. Led by Black Students United, the demands included banning the Psi Upsilon fraternity for hate crimes, implementing implicit bias training, and introducing policies to increase the number of Black students at the university.
Student demonstrations have also focused on sparking change beyond Ivy League campuses. Following the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Harvard's Black Law Students Association, beyond calling for more Black faculty, critical race theory curriculum, and protection for student protestors, also called on the university to divest from prisons and denounce state-sanctioned violence.
In response to racially charged incidents across the country and prompting from student activists, Ivy League universities have removed and renamed campus landmarks. In response to the 2016 Black Lives Matter protests, Cornell renamed their botanical gardens, previously called the "Cornell Plantations," to the "Cornell Botanical Gardens." In 2018, Brown renamed one of its largest academic and administrative buildings after its first black graduates, Inman E. Page and Ethel Tremaine Robinson. In response to the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Princeton University removed Woodrow Wilson's name from a residential college and the School of Public and International Affairs because of his “racist thinking and policies.”
Fashion and lifestyle
Different fashion trends and styles have emerged from Ivy League campuses over time, and fashion trends such as Ivy League and preppy are styles often associated with the Ivy League and its culture.
Ivy League style is a style of men's dress, popular during the late 1950s, believed to have originated on Ivy League campuses. The clothing stores J. Press and Brooks Brothers represent perhaps the quintessential Ivy League dress manner. The Ivy League style is said to be the predecessor to the preppy style of dress.
Preppy fashion started around 1912 to the late 1940s and 1950s as the Ivy League style of dress. J. Press represents the quintessential preppy clothing brand, stemming from the collegiate traditions that shaped the preppy subculture. In the mid-twentieth century J. Press and Brooks Brothers, both being pioneers in preppy fashion, had stores on Ivy League school campuses, including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
Some typical preppy styles also reflect traditional upper class New England leisure activities, such as equestrian, sailing or yachting, hunting, fencing, rowing, lacrosse, tennis, golf, and rugby. Longtime New England outdoor outfitters, such as L.L. Bean, became part of conventional preppy style. This can be seen in sport stripes and colors, equestrian clothing, plaid shirts, field jackets and nautical-themed accessories. Vacationing in Palm Beach, Florida, long popular with the East Coast upper class, led to the emergence of bright colors combinations in leisure wear seen in some brands such as Lilly Pulitzer. By the 1980s, other brands such as Lacoste, Izod and Dooney & Bourke became associated with preppy style.
Though the Ivy League style is most commonly associated with the white, male elites that historically made up Ivy League campuses, the style was quickly popularized among Black communities during the civil rights era. Reinterpretations of this style by African-American men in the 1950s and 1960s combined the preppy Ivy League style with other popular Black styles of dress. This led to the emergence of a new style of dress, the Black Ivy style.
Today, Ivy League styles continue to be popular on Ivy League campuses, throughout the U.S., and abroad, and are oftentimes labeled as "Classic American style" or "Traditional American style".
Social elitism
The Ivy League is often associated with the upper class White Anglo-Saxon Protestant community of the Northeast, Old money, or more generally, the American upper middle and upper classes. Although most Ivy League students come from upper-middle and upper-class families, the student body has become increasingly more economically and ethnically diverse. The universities provide significant financial aid to help increase the enrollment of lower income and middle class students. Several reports suggest, however, that the proportion of students from less-affluent families remains low.
Phrases such as "Ivy League snobbery" are ubiquitous in nonfiction and fiction writing of the early and mid-twentieth century. A Louis Auchincloss character dreads "the aridity of snobbery which he knew infected the Ivy League colleges". A business writer, warning in 2001 against discriminatory hiring, presented a cautionary example of an attitude to avoid (the bracketed phrase is his):
We Ivy Leaguers [read: mostly white and Anglo] know that an Ivy League degree is a mark of the kind of person who is likely to succeed in this organization.
The phrase Ivy League historically has been perceived as connected not only with academic excellence but also with social elitism. In 1936, sportswriter John Kieran noted that student editors at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn were advocating the formation of an athletic association. In urging them to consider "Army and Navy and Georgetown and Fordham and Syracuse and Brown and Pitt" as candidates for membership, he exhorted:
It would be well for the proponents of the Ivy League to make it clear (to themselves especially) that the proposed group would be inclusive but not "exclusive" as this term is used with a slight up-tilting of the tip of the nose.
Aspects of Ivy stereotyping were illustrated during the 1988 presidential election, when George H. W. Bush (Yale '48) derided Michael Dukakis (graduate of Harvard Law School) for having "foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard's boutique." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked "Wasn't this a case of the pot calling the kettle elite?" Bush explained, however, that, unlike Harvard, Yale's reputation was "so diffuse, there isn't a symbol, I don't think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it. ... Harvard boutique to me has the connotation of liberalism and elitism" and said Harvard in his remark was intended to represent "a philosophical enclave" and not a statement about class. Columnist Russell Baker opined that "Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets." Still, the next five consecutive presidents all attended Ivy League schools for at least part of their education—George H. W. Bush (Yale undergrad), Bill Clinton (Yale Law School), George W. Bush (Yale undergrad, Harvard Business School), Barack Obama (Columbia undergrad, Harvard Law School), and Donald Trump (Penn undergrad).
U.S. presidents in the Ivy League
Of the 45 persons who have served as President of the United States, 16 have graduated from an Ivy League university. Of them, eight have degrees from Harvard, five from Yale, three from Columbia, two from Princeton and one from Penn. Twelve presidents have earned Ivy undergraduate degrees. Four of these were transfer students: Woodrow Wilson transferred from Davidson College, Barack Obama transferred from Occidental College, Donald Trump transferred from Fordham University, and John F. Kennedy transferred from Princeton to Harvard. John Adams was the first president to graduate from college, graduating from Harvard in 1755.
Student demographics
Race and ethnicity
Geographic distribution
Students of the Ivy League largely hail from the Northeast, largely from the New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia areas. As all eight Ivy League universities are within the Northeast, most graduates end up working and residing in the Northeast after graduation. An unscientific survey of Harvard seniors from the Class of 2013 found that 42% hailed from the Northeast and 55% overall were planning on working and residing in the Northeast. Boston and New York City are traditionally where many Ivy League graduates end up living.
Socioeconomics and social class
Students of the Ivy League, both graduate and undergraduate, come primarily from upper middle and upper class families. In recent years, however, the universities have looked towards increasing socioeconomic and class diversity, by providing greater financial aid packages to applicants from lower, working, and lower middle class American families.
In 2013, a Harvard Crimson writer estimated that 46% of Harvard undergraduate students came from families in the top 3.8% of all American households (i.e., over $200,000 annual income). In 2012, the bottom 25% of the American income distribution accounted for only 3–4% of students at Brown, a figure that had remained unchanged since 1992. In 2014, 69% of incoming freshmen students at Yale College came from families with annual incomes of over $120,000, putting most Yale College students in the upper-middle and upper classes. (The median household income in the U.S. in 2013 was $52,700.)
In the 2011–2012 academic year, students qualifying for Pell Grants (federally funded scholarships on the basis of need) constituted 20% at Harvard, 18% at Cornell, 17% at Penn, 16% at Columbia, 15% at Dartmouth and Brown, 14% at Yale, and 12% at Princeton. Nationally, 35% of American university students qualify for a Pell Grant.
Graduation rates
Faculty demographics
Race and ethnicity
Competition and athletics
Ivy champions are recognized in sixteen men's and sixteen women's sports. In some sports, Ivy teams actually compete as members of another league, the Ivy championship being decided by isolating the members' records in play against each other; for example, the six league members who participate in ice hockey do so as members of ECAC Hockey, but an Ivy champion is extrapolated each year. In one sport, rowing, the Ivies recognize team champions for each sex in both heavyweight and lightweight divisions. While the Intercollegiate Rowing Association governs all four sex- and bodyweight-based divisions of rowing, the only one that is sanctioned by the NCAA is women's heavyweight. The Ivy League was the last Division I basketball conference to institute a conference postseason tournament; the first tournaments for men and women were held at the end of the 2016–17 season. The tournaments only award the Ivy League automatic bids for the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments; the official conference championships continue to be awarded based solely on regular-season results. Before the 2016–17 season, the automatic bids were based solely on regular-season record, with a one-game playoff (or series of one-game playoffs if more than two teams were tied) held to determine the automatic bid. The Ivy League is one of only two Division I conferences which award their official basketball championships solely on regular-season results; the other is the Southeastern Conference. Since its inception, an Ivy League school has yet to win either the men's or women's Division I NCAA basketball tournament.
On average, each Ivy school has more than 35 varsity teams. All eight are in the top 20 for number of sports offered for both men and women among Division I schools. Unlike most Division I athletic conferences, the Ivy League prohibits the granting of athletic scholarships; all scholarships awarded are need-based (financial aid). In addition, the Ivies have a rigid policy against redshirting, even for medical reasons; an athlete loses a year of eligibility for every year enrolled at an Ivy institution. Additionally, the Ivies prohibit graduate students from participating in intercollegiate athletics, even if they have remaining athletic eligibility. The only exception to the ban on graduate students was that seniors graduating in 2021 were allowed to play at their current institutions as graduate students in 2021–22. This was a one-time-only response to the Ivies shutting down most intercollegiate athletics in 2020–21 due to COVID-19. Ivy League teams' non-league games are often against the members of the Patriot League, which have similar academic standards and athletic scholarship policies (although unlike the Ivies, the Patriot League allows both redshirting and play by eligible graduate students). To promote diversity and inclusion, student-athletes are required to have their gender pronouns listed on their roster pages on the athletic websites for most Ivy League schools.
In the time before recruiting for college sports became dominated by those offering athletic scholarships and lowered academic standards for athletes, the Ivy League was successful in many sports relative to other universities in the country. In particular, Princeton won 26 recognized national championships in college football (last in 1935), and Yale won 18 (last in 1927). Both of these totals are considerably higher than those of other historically strong programs such as Alabama, which has won 15, Notre Dame, which claims 11 but is credited by many sources with 13, and USC, which has won 11. Yale, whose coach Walter Camp was the "Father of American Football," held on to its place as the all-time wins leader in college football throughout the entire 20th century, but was finally passed by Michigan on November 10, 2001. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn each have over a dozen former scholar-athletes enshrined in the College Football Hall of Fame. Currently Dartmouth holds the record for most Ivy League football titles, with 18, followed closely by Harvard and Penn, each with 17 titles. In addition, the Ivy League has produced Super Bowl winners Kevin Boothe (Cornell), two-time Pro Bowler Zak DeOssie (Brown), Sean Morey (Brown), All-Pro selection Matt Birk (Harvard), Calvin Hill (Yale), Derrick Harmon (Cornell) and Justin Watson (wide receiver), (three-time Super Bowl champion, winning Super Bowl LV with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Super Bowl LVII and LVIII with the Kansas City Chiefs), (Penn).
Beginning with the 1982 football season, the Ivy League has competed in Division I-AA (renamed FCS in 2006). The Ivy League teams are eligible for the FCS tournament held to determine the national champion, and the league champion is eligible for an automatic bid (and any other team may qualify for an at-large selection) from the NCAA. However, since its inception in 1956, the Ivy League has not played any postseason games due to concerns about the extended December schedule's effects on academics. (The last postseason game for a member was 90 years ago, the 1934 Rose Bowl, won by Columbia.) For this reason, any Ivy League team invited to the FCS playoffs turns down the bid. The Ivy League plays a strict 10-game schedule, compared to other FCS members' schedules of 11 (or, in some seasons, 12) regular season games, plus post-season, which expanded in 2013 to five rounds with 24 teams, with a bye week for the top eight teams. Football is the only sport in which the Ivy League declines to compete for a national title.
In addition to varsity football, Penn and Cornell also field teams in the 9-team Collegiate Sprint Football League, in which all players must weigh 178 pounds or less. With Princeton canceling its program in 2016, Penn is the last remaining founding members of the league from its 1934 debut, and Cornell is the next-oldest, joining in 1937. Yale and Columbia previously fielded teams in the league but no longer do so.
Teams
Men's sponsored sports by school
Men's varsity sports not sponsored by the Ivy League
Notes:
1: Though the Ivy League lists ice hockey as a sponsored sport, all six ice hockey playing Ivy League schools participate as members of ECAC Hockey.
Women's sponsored sports by school
Women's varsity sports not sponsored by the Ivy League
Notes:
1: Though the Ivy League lists ice hockey as a sponsored sport, all six ice hockey playing Ivy League schools participate as members of ECAC Hockey.
2. The Ivy League is home to some of the oldest college rugby teams in the United States. Although none of the men's teams and half of the women's teams are not "varsity" sports, they all compete against each other as part of the Ivy Rugby Conference in addition to their own local conferences. Four of the women's teams (Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton) play as part of the NCAA emerging sport category.
Historical results
The table above includes the number of team championships won from the beginning of official Ivy League competition (1956–57 academic year) through 2016–17. Princeton and Harvard have on occasion won ten or more Ivy League titles in a year, an achievement accomplished 10 times by Harvard and 24 times by Princeton, including a conference-record 15 championships in 2010–11. Only once has one of the other six schools earned more than eight titles in a single academic year (Cornell with nine in 2005–06). In the 38 academic years beginning 1979–80, Princeton has averaged 10 championships per year, one-third of the conference total of 33 sponsored sports.
In the 12 academic years beginning 2005–06 Princeton has won championships in 31 different sports, all except wrestling and men's tennis.
Rivalries
Rivalries run deep in the Ivy League. For instance, Princeton and Penn are longstanding men's basketball rivals; "Puck Frinceton" T-shirts are worn by Quaker fans at games. In only 11 instances in the history of Ivy League basketball, and in only seven seasons since Yale's 1962 title, has neither Penn nor Princeton won at least a share of the Ivy League title in basketball, with Princeton champion or co-champion 26 times and Penn 25 times. Penn has won 21 outright, Princeton 19 outright. Princeton has been a co-champion 7 times, sharing 4 of those titles with Penn (these 4 seasons represent the only times Penn has been co-champion).
Harvard won its first title of either variety in 2011, losing a dramatic play-off game to Princeton for the NCAA tournament bid, then rebounded to win outright championships in 2012, 2013, and 2014. Harvard also won the 2013 Great Alaska Shootout, defeating TCU to become the only Ivy League school to win the now-defunct tournament.
Rivalries exist between other Ivy league teams in other sports, including Cornell and Harvard in hockey, Harvard and Princeton in swimming, and Harvard and Penn in football (Penn and Harvard have won 28 Ivy League Football Championships since 1982, Penn-16; Harvard-12). During that time Penn has had 8 undefeated Ivy League Football Championships and Harvard has had 6 undefeated Ivy League Football Championships. In men's lacrosse, Cornell and Princeton are perennial rivals, and they are two of three Ivy League teams to have won the NCAA tournament. In 2009, the Big Red and Tigers met for their 70th game in the NCAA tournament. No team other than Harvard or Princeton has won the men's swimming conference title outright since 1972, although Yale, Columbia, and Cornell have shared the title with Harvard and Princeton during this time. Similarly, no program other than Princeton and Harvard has won the women's swimming championship since Brown's 1999 title. Princeton or Cornell has won every indoor and outdoor track and field championship, both men's and women's, every year since 2002–03, with one exception (Columbia women won the indoor championship in 2012). Harvard and Yale are football and crew rivals although the competition has become unbalanced; Harvard has won all but one of the last 15 football games and all but one of the last 13 crew races.
Intra-conference football rivalries
The Yale–Princeton series is the nation's second-longest by games played, exceeded only by "The Rivalry" between Lehigh and Lafayette, which began later in 1884 but included two or three games in each of 17 early seasons. For the first three decades of the Yale-Princeton rivalry, the two played their season-ending game at a neutral site, usually New York City, and with one exception (1890: Harvard), the winner of the game also won at least a share of the national championship that year, covering the period 1869 through 1903. This phenomenon of a finale contest at a neutral site for the national title created a social occasion for the society elite of the metropolitan area akin to a Super Bowl in the era prior to the establishment of the NFL in 1920. These football games were also financially profitable for the two universities, so much that they began to play baseball games in New York City as well, drawing record crowds for that sport also, largely from the same social demographic. In a period when the only professional team sports were fledgling baseball leagues, these high-profile early contests between Princeton and Yale played a role in popularizing spectator sports, demonstrating their financial potential and raising public awareness of Ivy universities at a time when few people attended college.
Extra-conference football rivalries
Championships
NCAA team championships
This list, which is current through January 8, 2018, includes NCAA championships and women's AIAW championships (one each for Yale and Dartmouth and five for Cornell). Excluded from this list are all other national championships earned outside the scope of NCAA competition, including football titles and retroactive Helms Foundation titles.
Athletic facilities
Other ivies
The term Ivy is sometimes used to connote a positive comparison to or an association with the Ivy League, often along academic lines. The term has been used to describe the Little Ivies, a grouping of small liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States. Other common uses include the Public Ivies, the Hidden Ivies, the Southern Ivies, and the Black Ivies.
Ivy Plus
The term Ivy Plus refers to the original eight institutions mentioned above (referred to as the "Ancient Eight") along with four other institutions consisting of Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University, and the University of Chicago. Beyond rankings and prestige, the four schools are included in the grouping given their formal participation in university consortia, shared academic resources, collaborative alumni associations, or endowment comparisons.
See also
Big Three—an athletic rivalry between Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.
List of Ivy League medical schools—schools of the Ivy League universities that offer medical education.
List of Ivy League law schools—schools of the Ivy League universities that offer various law degrees.
List of Ivy League business schools—schools of the Ivy League universities that offer various business degrees, especially the MBA.
List of Ivy League public policy schools—schools of the Ivy League universities that offer public policy or public administration degrees.
Seven Sisters—seven liberal arts colleges previously open to only women with historical affiliations to the Ivy League.
Public Ivy—public colleges & universities that are perceived to provide an education equal to the Ivy League.
Black Ivy League—informal list of private historically black colleges & universities that have historically been seen as the African American equivalent to the Ivy League
Little Ivies—private liberal arts colleges that historically have had the same social prestige and similar large financial endowments as the Ivy league .
Notes
References
External links
Official website |
Olivia_Benson | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Benson | [
387
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivia_Benson"
] | Olivia "Liv" Margaret Benson is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the NBC police procedural drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, portrayed by Mariska Hargitay. Benson holds the rank and pay-grade of Captain and is the Commanding Officer of the Special Victims Unit of the New York City Police Department, which operates out of the 16th Precinct. She investigates sexual offenses such as rape and child sexual abuse.
When the series began, Benson held the rank of detective. Benson was partnered with Detective Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), serving as the junior member of the pair. Following Stabler's departure at the end of the 12th season after a deadly shootout in the precinct, she is partnered with Detective Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) and becomes the senior member. During the 15th season, Benson is promoted to sergeant and appointed as squad supervisor in the wake of the retirement of Sergeant John Munch (Richard Belzer). Soon afterward, Captain Donald Cragen (Dann Florek) retires, and appoints Benson acting commanding officer of SVU until Lieutenant Declan Murphy (Donal Logue) comes to the squad. In Season 17, she is promoted to Lieutenant and becomes the squad's official commanding officer. She is promoted to captain in the 21st season.
The character first appeared in the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit pilot episode, "Payback", which aired September 20, 1999. Hargitay remains the only original cast member still present on the series. As of season 24, Benson has been credited in 551 episodes of SVU (574 in the franchise/universe). With the premiere of season 21, Hargitay's Benson became the longest running prime-time live-action character of all time, surpassing the 20 season record (but as of yet not its 635 episode count) held by Gunsmoke's Marshall Matt Dillon and Kelsey Grammer's character Frasier Crane from Cheers and Frasier, as well as Belzer's John Munch, who was a regular character for 22 seasons (7 on Homicide: Life on the Street and 15 on SVU).
Character overview
Series creator Dick Wolf named his two lead detectives after his son, Elliot, and his daughter, Olivia. Wolf conceived Benson as a detective in the Manhattan Special Victims Unit, which investigates sex crimes. For the first 12 seasons of the show, she is partnered with Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni); after he resigns (offscreen) at the beginning of season 13, she is partnered with Nick Amaro (Danny Pino) until season 15, where Benson becomes the commanding officer of Manhattan SVU; first as Sergeant, then Lieutenant, and finally Captain.
Personality
Benson is tough but empathetic, getting emotionally involved in cases. Executive producer and head writer Neal Baer has explained that Benson is "the empathetic, passionate voice for these victims," in contrast to Stabler, who embodies "the rage we feel, the 'How can this happen?' feeling." Of their partnership, Baer assessed that: "They both represent the feelings that we feel simultaneously when we hear about these cases. That's why they work so well together."
Family
Born February 7, 1968, Benson was conceived by her mother's rape. Her mother's rapist, Joseph Hollister, later committed suicide. Benson's mother, Serena (Elizabeth Ashley), an English professor, was an alcoholic who abused Olivia emotionally and physically. In the season 2 episode "Taken", Serena dies falling down a flight of subway stairs outside the entrance to a bar. In a later episode, "Intoxicated", Benson mentions being engaged briefly when she was 16 to one of her mother's students; when her mother found out, she broke a bottle of vodka and went after her with it. Benson fought back, kicked her mother twice, hard, and ran out of the house. Years later, Benson reunites with her former fiancé, true crime podcaster Burton Lowe (Aidan Quinn), while they are both investigating a cold case, and they sleep together. When Lowe is accused of taking advantage of several young women, Benson gradually comes to believe that despite its consensual nature, their relationship was actually sexual abuse, due to the power differential and age difference. A woman later reports to Benson that Lowe, who is in a 12-step program for his alcoholism, tried to make amends to her for drunkenly raping her six months earlier. Benson helps Lowe accept responsibility for what he did, and he pleads guilty to sexual misconduct to spare his victim the trauma of a trial.
Benson is a graduate of Siena College. While there, she held a membership in a sorority. In addition to English, Benson speaks some Italian, Russian, some Spanish and French, and is able to recite the Miranda warnings in at least two other languages. She owns a black 1965 Ford Mustang convertible, but rarely drives it.
Benson had a younger half-brother named Simon Marsden (Michael Weston). Simon, whom she found by illegally running her DNA through the system, was a suspect in a rape case. However, his name was cleared after it is revealed that he was framed by Captain Julia Millfield (Kim Delaney), who believed (incorrectly) that he sexually assaulted her sister when they were in high school. In the season 13 episode "Child's Welfare", Simon reveals to Benson that he is planning to marry a woman named Tracy (Nicole Beharie), with whom he has a daughter and a stepson; he named his daughter Olivia after Benson. When the children are taken by the City because of Simon's criminal background, Benson calls defense attorney Bayard Ellis (Andre Braugher), an old friend of hers, to help Simon and Tracy get the children back. When a judge denies the Marsdens custody of their children, Simon panics and kidnaps them. Ellis makes a deal to have Simon serve a 60-day sentence, knocking his charge down from kidnapping to a misdemeanor, custodial interference. One of the conditions of the reduced charges is that he must give up his custody petition and agree to visit his daughter only in a supervised setting for the next three years. Simon is reluctant, but Benson tells him that the deal is better than his daughter visiting him in jail.
In the season 21 episode "Murdered at a Bad Address", Simon reaches out to Benson for the first time in years as his only remaining family, Tracy having left him and taken their children. She hesitantly agrees to meet with him, but when he doesn't show up, she leaves him a voicemail cutting him out of her life for good. Shortly afterward, he is found dead of a heroin overdose; she feels responsible, believing that he overdosed out of despair after she disowned him. A year later, however, she learns that he was in fact murdered by a gang of prostitutes who rob and kill their clients with heroin and fentanyl which happened before Benson left that voicemail.
In season 12, Benson is named the legal guardian of a young boy named Calvin Arliss (Charlie Tahan). Calvin's mother, Vivian (Maria Bello), abandons him and flees when Benson's investigation uncovers that Vivian (also a child of rape) may have killed her mother's rapist, Walter Burlock (R. Lee Ermey). Vivian names Benson as Calvin's legal guardian. Calvin lives with her for a while, until she finds Vivian and her lover Sara Hoyt (Kat Foster) have relapsed into drug use. Sara confesses to murdering Burlock, and is then murdered herself by Calvin's father. Vivian revokes Benson's guardianship, and sends Calvin to live with his grandparents in Vermont. Both Calvin and Benson are devastated by the separation. In season 13, she is seen with Calvin and his grandparents during or right before Halloween.
At the conclusion of the season 15 finale, Benson becomes the court-appointed custodial guardian of Noah Porter, an orphaned baby. The appointment is for a trial period of one year, with the option to apply for legal adoption at the end of that period. Although the year is rocky due to Noah's health issues and the demands of her job, Benson grows to love Noah and begins formal adoption proceedings a year later. After taking custody of Noah, Benson learns that Noah's biological father is a pimp and serial rapist named John "Johnny D" Drake (Charles Halford), who trafficked, raped and murdered Noah's mother, Ellie Porter (Emma Greenwell). Drake sues for custody as a ploy to get out of prison, imperiling Benson's chances of adopting Noah. Benson's problems are solved when Drake is killed during a courtroom shootout, but she still occasionally worries that Noah (played as an older child by Ryan Buggle) has inherited his father's violent tendencies.
At the end of the season 19 premiere "Gone Fishin'", Benson learns that she is being investigated by the DA's office on suspicions of abusing Noah. The investigation is dropped in "Mood". In "Contrapasso", her lawyer Trevor Langan (Peter Hermann, Hargitay's real-life husband) returns to tell her that Noah has a grandmother, Sheila Porter (Brooke Shields), Ellie's mother. In "No Good Reason", Porter brings Benson to family court, accusing her of being an unfit parent; the case is dismissed, but Benson agrees that it's in Noah's best interest that they stop fighting. In "Unintended Consequences", Benson lets Porter visit and spend time with Noah. At the end of "Intent", Benson gets a call from Porter telling her that Noah has been kidnapped in the mall. In "Gone Baby Gone", it is revealed that Sheila was behind the kidnapping, and that she intends to take Noah to live with her in Derry, New Hampshire. Benson goes to Sheila's cabin in Franconia, New Hampshire to rescue Noah. When Sheila attacks her, Benson subdues her, arrests her, and takes Noah home.
In the season 23 episode "Burning With Rage Forever", Noah tells Olivia that he stood up to a bully who was picking on him and a non-binary classmate. Benson tells Noah she is proud of him for standing up for himself and his friend.
Relationships
Elliot Stabler
Benson's partnership with Elliot Stabler is a major focal point of her character. The relationship has gone through many stages that have been major plot points of both Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Organized Crime. Their relationship has had times of normal emotions as partners, to extreme emotions and dealing with loss, and even times of the two being openly hostile to each other.
Hargitay has characterized Benson and Stabler's relationship as "very complicated". Her assessment is that:
Sometimes it's very much like brother and sister, and I think the reason that they're so close is that they share a passion for their jobs and for the people. They have a mutual respect for one another. I think that the average lifespan of an SVU detective is four years because of the difficulty and stress involved. They've been doing it for longer than that, so they feel like they're in their own world almost. There's also sexual chemistry between them, it's so loaded and layered. People ask me if they'll ever get together—and people want that, and sometimes I think even Olivia wants that—but I don't think that will ever happen.
Baer agrees that a romantic relationship between the two is unlikely, though commented: "You never can say never".
Hargitay has stated that her favorite SVU scene occurs in the season 7 episode "Fault", when Benson is faced with the possibility of losing Stabler: "Lou Diamond Phillips [a murderous kidnapper] has a gun to Elliot's head. I'm negotiating [with him to drop the gun]. It was a painful, high-stakes scene. Elliot and I have to admit what we mean to each other... He is everything that [my character] Olivia has. So this was where we really got that to pay off." In an episode in which Stabler goes undercover to catch an animal-smuggling ring, Benson shows up at his house and tries to talk him out of it; when they are interrupted by Stabler's targets, she undresses and pretends to be a prostitute.
Benson takes it hard when Stabler resigns from SVU (offscreen) in the 13th season opener, "Scorched Earth", and takes a while to warm up to her new partner, Nick Amaro. Benson frequently mentions Stabler in both a professional and personal context; she tells the squad's newer detectives what Stabler would do in a given situation, and says more than once that she is "getting over someone". In the Season 22 episode "Return of the Prodigal Son", Benson and Stabler see each other again for the first time in 10 years when Stabler's wife Kathy (Isabel Gillies) is severely injured in a car bombing apparently meant for Stabler. Benson is forced to keep Stabler, who is now working in Rome in an organized crime task force, out of the investigation. They have a brief, quietly emotional conversation in which Benson tells him how hurt she was over the way he left SVU. When Kathy dies of her injuries, however, Benson puts her resentment aside to help her grieving friend get justice for his late wife.
Upon renewing her relationship with Stabler, Benson recognizes that he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from the bombing and Kathy's death. When she tries to talk to him about it, however, he becomes defensive and tells her to "back off". She ultimately joins Stabler's children in staging an intervention for him. He again rejects Benson's attempt to help him, but first blurts out that he loves her in front of his children.
Romantic relationships
In season 1, Benson has a drunken one-night stand with one of her SVU colleagues, Detective Brian Cassidy (Dean Winters). Comments in the episode "Disrobed" imply that the relationship continued. Cassidy leaves the precinct at the end of that episode. In the season 5 episode "Lowdown", it is revealed Benson had a relationship with a murder victim who turned out to be gay and HIV positive. Medical Examiner Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie) immediately tests Benson and the results come back negative. In the season 9 episode "Closet", the SVU squad are surprised to find out that Benson has been in a relationship with journalist Kurt Moss (Bill Pullman) for several months. It comes out only because Internal Affairs is investigating Benson and Stabler in a case in which the department accidentally outed a professional football player. By the end of the episode, she breaks up with Moss.
While Benson has only been portrayed in relationships with men, she has, according to lesbian entertainment website AfterEllen.com, "attracted a large lesbian following". Fan speculation exists over alleged sexual tension between Benson and Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot (Stephanie March), which Baer admits to indulging: "We read the fan sites. We know that people are into the Alex-Olivia thing. All the codes are in there."
In the middle of season 13, Benson enters into a relationship with a new prosecutor to the District Attorney's Office, Executive ADA David Haden (Harry Connick Jr.). Hargitay has said that Connick, who is a friend of hers, improved the show to a more romantic advanced stance. "This is a home run on so many levels," she said. "The show is very fortunate to have Harry's extraordinary talent, and I'm lucky because I get to work with my friend. I think Olivia couldn't have asked for a better companion to take her through a new stage in her life and career." Haden and Benson begin their relationship at the end of the episode, "Official Story". In the episode "Hunting Ground", she decides to take it slow with Haden, claiming she needs time to see if their relationship will last. That night, they end up sleeping together in her apartment. This makes her late for a case, which is frowned upon in the NYPD. In the episode "Justice Denied", Benson and Haden end their relationship due to a conflict of interest.
In the season 14 premiere, Benson shares a kiss with Cassidy after she tells him she is not the same person from 13 years before, when they had a brief sexual relationship. Later that season, in the episode "Undercover Blue", it is revealed that Cassidy and Benson had been seeing each other for quite some time. Their relationship hits a rough patch in the episode when Cassidy is accused of rape, which results in their relationship becoming public. The charges against Cassidy are later dropped when the SVU detectives discover that he was being set up. In season 15, Benson stays with Cassidy as she recovers from her imprisonment by a serial rapist. A few months after she returns to work, they get a new apartment together. They break up in the episode "Downloaded Child", however, upon realizing that they want different things. They nevertheless remain on good terms, especially after Benson gives him the courage to testify against Gary Dolan (William Sadler), the man who sexually abused him as a child.
In "Chicago Crossover" and "They'll Have to Go Through Me", Benson strikes up a friendship with Sergeant Hank Voight (Jason Beghe) of the Chicago Police Department, despite their differing methodologies when it comes to solving crime. Upon the conclusion of their joint operation, the two share drinks before Benson returns to New York.
It is suggested throughout season 17 that Benson is in a relationship with Capt. Ed Tucker (Robert John Burke) of Internal Affairs. In "Manhattan Transfer", they are forced to confirm their relationship when Tucker is accused – by his own cousin, a priest – of being complicit with a sex trafficking ring that has ties to Vice and the Catholic Church. Tucker is eventually cleared, and he continues his relationship with Benson. In season 18, Tucker tries to convince Benson to retire with him, though at the conclusion of the episode "Next Chapter", Benson realizes she is not ready to do so, as being a cop and a mother are parts of who she is. As a result, Benson breaks up with Tucker at the end of the episode "Chasing Theo". Even though their relationship does not work out, however, Benson is still saddened when Tucker commits suicide after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.
Sexual assault storylines
In the season 9 episode "Undercover", Benson poses as an inmate in a women's prison to investigate an alleged rape by a corrections officer. While there, the corrections officer in question, Captain Lowell Harris (Johnny Messner), attacks her and attempts to force her to perform oral sex on him. She is rescued by SVU colleague Fin Tutuola (Ice-T), who gets there just in time to stop Harris from raping her. Later, Benson helps convict Harris by questioning his earlier victim about distinguishing features on his penis, prompting the victim to recall a mole on it, which Benson later explains to medical examiner Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie) that she had also seen. When Warner asks Benson if she had been raped, she replies, "It was the closest I've ever come."
In season 10, Benson is seen struggling with now being a victim of sexual assault herself. She is attending group therapy, something she has not shared with anyone but Tutuola. In the episode "PTSD," while investigating the rape and murder of a female Marine, she is pushed against a wall while trying to break up a fight between suspect Master Sergeant Dominic Pruitt (Ryan Kwanten) and Lieutenant Gary Rosten (Dominic Fumusa), who is eventually revealed to be the killer. She subsequently breaks up the fight by holding her weapon to the back of Pruitt's head. Later, as he is being interrogated, Rosten tells Tutuola that, "That broad [Benson] has PTSD, I would know that glassy-eyed look anywhere." At the end of the episode, after Rosten is imprisoned, Benson apologizes to Pruitt, admitting that she was a victim of sexual assault.
In the season 11 episode "Perverted", Benson becomes the prime suspect in the sexual mutilation and murder of a biker gang member. As more evidence is found linking her to the crime, an Internal Affairs detective insinuates that she may have committed it while suffering from a flashback to the assault. The other detectives eventually discover that Benson has been framed by Brady Harrison (Patrick Heusinger), a rapist she sent to prison years earlier.
William Lewis storyline
At the end of the season 14 finale "Her Negotiation", Benson is kidnapped by serial rapist/murderer William Lewis (Pablo Schreiber). During the season 15 premiere "Surrender Benson", Lewis makes her watch while he rapes and tortures the mother of his own attorney and kills a police officer who attempted to pull him over. He then holds her hostage for four days, burning her with cigarettes and wire hangers. Just as he is about to rape her, she breaks free, handcuffs him, and holds him at gunpoint. When he taunts her that she doesn't "have the balls" to kill him, she loses control and beats him within an inch of his life with an iron rod. She is rescued by her fellow detectives moments later, and Cragen puts her on mandatory leave so she can recover. She returns to work in the following episode, "Imprisoned Lives", which takes place two months later, but is still haunted by the experience. She begins seeing a therapist, Dr. Peter Lindstrom (Bill Irwin), to cope with the trauma. It is later revealed that Lewis survived and is in prison awaiting trial.
In "Psycho/Therapist", a visibly injured and still-recovering Lewis fires his new attorney and chooses to represent himself. He calls Benson as a witness and accuses her of assaulting him because he rejected her sexual advances. She vehemently denies it, and lies under oath that he had broken free of his restraints and lunged at her. Lewis is found guilty of kidnapping and assaulting a police officer, but the jury voices doubts about Benson's story and acquits him of attempted rape. The episode closes with Benson weeping on the courthouse stairs and, four months later, Lewis being wheeled away on a stretcher.
In "Beast's Obsession", Lewis uses the distraction caused by his (self-induced) cardiac incident to escape from prison. He then rapes a teenage girl, kidnaps her younger sister, and threatens to kill her unless Benson tells the truth about her testimony. Benson holds a press conference and admits that she lied on the witness stand. When Lewis does not release the girl, Benson tracks him down and surrenders to him. With his hostage watching, Lewis at first attempts to rape Benson, but changes his mind when she refuses to show him fear; instead, he forces her to play Russian roulette with him. As a police squad closes in, Lewis shoots himself in the head right in front of her, while making it look like she killed him in cold blood. In "Post-Mortem Blues", she is brought before a grand jury to explain her admission and Lewis' death. Her career is threatened until SVU's temporary commanding officer, Lt. Declan Murphy (Donal Logue), tells the grand jury that he instructed Benson to lie in her press conference, thus clearing her of Lewis' death and possible perjury charges. Murphy then makes Benson his second-in-command up until his transfer to an undercover assignment.
In subsequent seasons, Lewis' name becomes a kind of code for an intensely dangerous situation, and Benson admits that her trauma and ordeal with him will always be a part of her. During a heated exchange with Amaro, he pointedly asks her whether she can ever forgive Lewis; she does not answer, and he apologizes.
Character development
Hargitay has deemed the storyline which saw Benson find her paternal family "probably the biggest thing that's ever happened to Olivia". She feels her character is a role model for teenage girls, revealing:
I get letters saying, 'I want to do the right thing like Olivia. I want to be strong like Olivia. My friend did this, but I didn't do it because of Olivia.' For me, when a television show has that kind of positive effect on young people, it is great. I think it is a good thing that we are shedding light on darkness. I think it is a good thing to make teenage girls aware.
Service
Benson joined the NYPD in 1992, and was trained by Sergeant Karen Smythe (Khandi Alexander) at the 55th Precinct in the Bronx. After completing her probationary period, Smythe recommended that Benson be transferred to the Sex Crimes Unit (later renamed the Special Victims Unit) because of her talent for dealing with victims. From 1992 to May 1998, she was partnered with older officer Patrick Griffin (Anthony Edwards), who in 1992 testified on her behalf when she was accused of taking money and drugs during her first bust. However, he lied for her, as he had not actually been with her in the same room at the time.
By May 1998, she had received her detective's shield and was assigned to the 16th Precinct as a Detective 3rd Grade, and was partnered with Det. Elliot Stabler. She is promoted to Detective 2nd Grade in 2001, and Detective 1st Grade in 2011. In 2006, she is temporarily reassigned to the Computer Crimes Unit; later that year, she does a stint undercover for the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Unit at the request of her friend, Special Agent Dana Lewis (Marcia Gay Harden).
Benson and Stabler work together for over 12 years, until Stabler quits SVU in 2011 after he is forced to kill a 16-year-old girl who shot up the SVU squad room. Following Stabler's resignation, she is partnered with Det. Nick Amaro.
Cragen asks Benson to take the Sergeant's exam following the retirement of Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), and she gets the promotion soon afterward; Cragen congratulates her for placing 48th out of 8,000 applicants. Cragen announces that Benson has been approved to remain at SVU (it was feared she would be reassigned); at the end of the episode, Cragen reveals his impending retirement from the NYPD, making Benson SVU's acting commanding officer. Benson remains in command until Lieutenant Declan Murphy (Donal Logue) takes over the squad; he makes her his second-in-command. When Murphy returns to undercover work, he appoints her acting commander.
Lt. Ed Tucker (Robert John Burke), representing 1 Police Plaza, asks Benson to take the Lieutenant's exam in order to officially take command of SVU before the NYPD appoints another officer to the position. She passes the Lieutenant's exam with flying colors, and is officially promoted to Lieutenant after some politicking by her boss, Deputy Chief William Dodds (Peter Gallagher). Benson had wanted Detective Fin Tutuola as her second-in-command, but Dodds arranges for the politically unsavvy Benson to be assigned a Sergeant who does know how to play the game – his own son, Mike (Andy Karl).
Following the events of "Manhattan Transfer", Benson is relieved of her duties as Commanding Officer of SVU, largely due to her (personal) involvement with now-Captain Tucker, who becomes a person of interest in a complex sex trafficking case SVU stumbled upon. Mike Dodds is made Acting Commanding Officer. In spite of this, Benson quietly continues to call the shots at SVU, as Dodds disagrees with her suspension and continues to seek her advice in secret. Benson is reinstated after SVU breaks up the sex trafficking ring and Tucker is cleared.
In "Heartfelt Passages", Benson and Mike Dodds, on the latter's last day at SVU, are involved in a hostage situation involving corrupt Rikers Island corrections officer Gary Munson (Brad Garrett) holding his wife hostage. Benson takes Munson's children out of the house and Dodds tried to resolve the situation, but Munson shoots Dodds while the latter is trying to take his weapon. Dodds suffers a stroke after surgery and dies. Benson blames herself for Dodds' death because she did not initially search Munson for a weapon.
Benson is promoted to captain in the episode "I'm Going to Make You a Star", the final act of Deputy Chief Dodds before his transfer to Staten Island.
As commanding officer, Benson has worked cases frequently with each of the detectives under her command: Tutuola, Amanda Rollins (Kelli Giddish) and Joe Velasco (Octavio Pisano) as of 2021.
Benson is forced to kill a suspect on four separate occasions during her tenure on the show: in season 1's "Disrobed", she shoots and kills domestic abuser Roger Silver (Jack Gwaltney) in self-defense during a hostage situation; in season 3's "Wrath", serial killer Eric Plummer (Justin Kirk) commits suicide by cop by attacking a woman and forcing Benson to shoot him; in season 18's "Next Chapter", she shoots and kills rapist (and retired corrections officer) Tom Cole (Chris Bauer) during a hostage situation when Cole attacks her SVU colleague Detective Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr. (Peter Scanavino); and in season 23's "Silent Night, Hateful Night", she shoots and kills white supremacist Robert Paul Byers (Michael Laurence) to stop him from detonating a bomb in Washington Square Park. Also, in season 6's "Rage", she shoots and wounds serial killer Gordon Rickett (Matthew Modine) to prevent Stabler from killing him in cold blood. She has also been stalked by several of the rapists and child molesters she has investigated over the years, which complicates her role as a mother after she adopts Noah.
List of assignments
Patrol Officer, NYPD 55th Precinct (1992)16th Precinct (1993)
Junior Detective, NYPD 16th Precinct (Special Victims Unit) (May 1998–May 18, 2011)
Senior Detective, NYPD 16th Precinct (Special Victims Unit) (September 21, 2011 – January 15, 2014)
Acting Commanding Officer (Sergeant), NYPD 16th Precinct (Special Victims Unit) (January 22, 2014 – April 9, 2014)
Sergeant—Supervisor Detective Squad, NYPD 16th Precinct (Special Victims Unit) (April 9, 2014 – May 21, 2014)
Acting Commanding Officer (Sergeant), NYPD 16th Precinct (Special Victims Unit) (May 21, 2014 – October 7, 2015)
Lieutenant—Commander Detective Squad, NYPD 16th Precinct (Special Victims Unit) (October 7, 2015 – September 26, 2019)
Captain, Commanding Officer, NYPD 16th Precinct (Special Victims Unit) (September 26, 2019—Present)
Temporary assignments
Detective, NYPD Computer Crimes Unit (May 2, 2006 – May 9, 2006)
Undercover operative, FBI Domestic Terrorism Unit (September 19, 2006 – October 31, 2006)
Special Deputy United States Marshal for the Eastern District of New York (October 6, 2010)
Public Relations Officer, NYPD One Police Plaza (Public Relations) (March 2, 2016 – March 23, 2016)
Ranks
Officer
Detective 3rd Grade
Detective 2nd Grade
Detective 1st Grade (Shield number 40115)
Sergeant (Shield number 01139)
Lieutenant
Captain
Partners
Sergeant Karen Smythe, NYPD (Khandi Alexander) – Training officer (1992–1993)
Detective Patrick Griffin, NYPD (Anthony Edwards) – First partner (1993–98)
Detective Elliot Stabler, NYPD Special Victims Unit (Christopher Meloni) (1998–2011)
Detective Nick Amaro, NYPD Special Victims Unit (Danny Pino) (2011–2014)
None (Squad Supervisor) (2014–15)
None (Commanding Officer) (2015–present)
Awards and decorations
As a sergeant
The following are the medals and service awards worn by then-Sergeant Benson, as seen in "Betrayal's Climax" and "Beast's Obsession".
As a lieutenant
The following are the medals and service awards worn by then-Lieutenant Benson, as seen in "Heartfelt Passages".
Development and casting
Casting for the lead characters on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit occurred in spring 1999. Dick Wolf, along with officials from NBC and Studios USA, were at the final auditions for the two leads at Rockefeller Center. The last round had been narrowed down to six finalists. For the female lead – Benson – Samantha Mathis, Reiko Aylesworth, and Hargitay were being considered. For the male role – Stabler – the finalists were Tim Matheson, John Slattery, and Christopher Meloni. Meloni and Hargitay had auditioned in the final round together and after the actors left, there was a moment of dead silence, after which Wolf blurted out, "Oh well. There's no doubt who we should choose – Hargitay and Meloni." The duo, who Wolf believed had the perfect chemistry from the first time he saw them together, were his first choice. Garth Ancier, then head of NBC Entertainment, agreed, and the rest of the panel assembled voiced their assent. Hargitay trained as a rape crisis advocate to prepare for the role of Benson.
During the last months of her pregnancy in 2006, Hargitay took maternity leave from SVU, and was temporarily replaced by Connie Nielsen.
In May 2009, after the show's tenth season, Hargitay and Meloni's contracts expired when they were reportedly making $375,000–$385,000 per episode. During negotiations in April for a new contract, the duo attempted to receive a percentage of the show's profits as other high-profile Law & Order actors had done in the past. It was rumored that NBC threatened to replace Hargitay and Meloni if they persisted in their demands. However, two months later it was officially reported that both their contracts had been renewed for two more years. When the thirteenth season was about to air, initial reports indicated that Hargitay would appear in only the first 13 episodes. However, NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt later clarified that she would be in every episode of the season.
Since 2012, Hargitay earns approximately $400,000 to $500,000 per episode.
Reception
Hargitay has won a number of awards for her role as Benson: 'Individual Achievement for Best Female Lead' and 'Outstanding Female Lead' Gracie Awards in 2004 and 2009 respectively, an Emmy for 'Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series' in 2006, a Prism Award for 'Performance in a Drama Series Episode' in 2006, and a Golden Globe for 'Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series' in 2005. Of her Emmy win, Hargitay commented: "It makes me only want to be better. Now I'm an Emmy winner. I have to step it up."
The San Francisco Chronicle's John Carman called Hargitay "the show's weakest performer" when the series originally premiered in 1999. In 2006, however, fellow San Francisco Chronicle writer Jean Gonick deemed Benson a suitable role model for teenage girls, calling her "courageous and strong, and unspeakably gorgeous", and writing that "Olivia Benson is our own special hero. She battles evil, avenges her mother, faces her demons but refuses to date them." In 2001, Entertainment Weekly's Ken Tucker criticized Benson and Stabler as "the most naive, bleeding heart molester busters in America."
A poll on the Hallmark Channel voted her second-greatest detective in the Law & Order franchise, only being beaten by Law & Order: Criminal Intent's Robert Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio). Benson appeared in Comcast's list of TV's Most Intriguing Characters and also in the website's list of TV's Top Cops. She was included in TV Guide's list of "TV's Sexiest Crime Fighters". UGO Networks placed "the hard-charging detective" among the "fifty greatest fictional detectives of all time". A 2015 poll released by Trailer Park, Inc. in conjunction with QC Strategy ranked Benson as the No. 1 "favourite female television character".
Appearances on other shows
Benson appears on five episodes of Law & Order, one episode of Law & Order: Trial by Jury, three episodes of Chicago P.D. and one episode of Chicago Fire.
Law & Order: "Entitled: Part 2" (February 18, 2000)
Law & Order: "Fools for Love" (February 23, 2000)
Law & Order: Trial by Jury: "Day" (May 3, 2005)
Law & Order: "Flaw" (September 28, 2005)
Chicago P.D.: "They'll Have to Go Through Me" (November 12, 2014)
Chicago Fire: "We Called Her Jellybean" (April 28, 2015)
Chicago P.D.: "The Number of Rats" (April 29, 2015)
Chicago P.D.: "The Song of Gregory William Yates" (February 10, 2016)
Law & Order: "Black and Blue" (May 19, 2022)
Law & Order: "Gimme Shelter – Part Three" (September 22, 2022)
Law & Order: Organized Crime
To date, Benson further appears recurringly as a special guest in thirteen episodes of the spin-off Law & Order: Organized Crime:
"What Happens in Puglia" (April 1, 2021)
"Not Your Father's Organized Crime" (April 8, 2021)
"The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of" (April 22, 2021)
"An Inferior Product" (May 13, 2021)
"Forget It Jake; It's Chinatown" (June 3, 2021)
"The Outlaw Eddie Wagner" (September 30, 2021)
"The Good, The Bad, and The Lovely" (October 14, 2021)
"The Christmas Episode" (December 9, 2021)
"Takeover" (March 10, 2022)
"Lost One" (May 5, 2022)
"Gimme Shelter – Part One" (September 22, 2022)
"Shadowërk" (May 11, 2023)
"With Many Names" (May 18, 2023)
References
== External links == |
Meredith_Grey | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Grey | [
387
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Grey"
] | Meredith Grey, M.D., F.A.C.S., is a fictional and titular character from the medical drama television series Grey's Anatomy, which airs on the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States. The character was created by series producer Shonda Rhimes and is portrayed by actress Ellen Pompeo. Meredith made her first appearance in the pilot episode, "A Hard Day's Night", broadcast on March 27, 2005. She also appears in the spin-off series Station 19 as a recurring character.
Meredith is the series' protagonist and was introduced as a surgical intern at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital (later Seattle Grace-Mercy West Hospital, and afterward Grey+Sloan Memorial). She eventually obtains the position of a surgical resident, and later, the position of an attending surgeon. In 2016, she attains the Chief of General Surgery position. As the daughter of world-renowned surgeon Ellis Grey (Kate Burton), Meredith struggles with balancing the challenges of being in a competitive profession, maintaining her relationship with her one-night stand and eventual husband, Derek Shepherd (McDreamy), her role as a mother, and her friendships with her colleagues. Her relationships with colleagues Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) and George O'Malley (T. R. Knight) form a central part of the show's early dynamics.
Meredith serves as the narrator of the show and is the focal point of most episodes, though other characters' perspectives are also explored. Pompeo's on-screen chemistry with Dempsey has been celebrated as a high point of the series. Rhimes has described Meredith as someone who doesn't believe in absolute good or bad, but rather does what she feels is right. Meredith Grey has been positively received by critics, with Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times calling her "the heroine of Grey's Anatomy."
Pompeo's performance as Meredith has been well received throughout the series, leading to worldwide popularity for the character. Pompeo has been nominated for multiple awards, including the Satellite Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama and several People's Choice Awards for Best Actress, winning in 2013 and 2015. She also received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 2007.
Storylines and characteristics
Meredith Grey is the daughter of world-renowned attending general surgeon, Ellis Grey, and grew up in her shadow. Ellis is a deeply flawed, emotionally unavailable, verbally abusive, and neglectful mother. Meredith is described as a "dark and twisty," damaged woman who sees the world in varying shades of grey. Because of this, she is an emotionally complex person. She is capable of empathizing with others when they're at their lowest points and is a sensitive observer of the people around her. Meredith is a graduate of Dartmouth College. While in college, conflicts with her mother lead Meredith to question her decision to attend medical school. That indecision leads her to make plans to sleep and party her way through Europe once she graduates. However, after a month abroad, Meredith is called back to care for her mother, who has developed early-onset Alzheimer's disease. This news drives Meredith's decision to obtain her M.D.
The night before Meredith's internship begins, she has a one-night stand with Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), a man she meets at Joe's Bar. She discovers the next day that he is a recently hired attending; the new head of neurosurgery at her new workplace, Seattle Grace Hospital. Meredith is assigned to work under resident Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson), and befriends her fellow interns, Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh), Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl), Alex Karev (Justin Chambers) and George O'Malley (T.R. Knight). She is particularly close with Cristina, who becomes her best friend and "person". Though she initially thinks poorly of him, Alex also evolves into Meredith's "person" and the two assume a sibling-esque familial relationship. Meredith has a conflicted relationship with Richard Webber (James Pickens Jr.), the Chief of Surgery at Seattle Grace. Richard was very close to Ellis and even had an affair with Ellis when Meredith was a child. Due to his relationship with Meredith's mother, he tends to save, mentor and make exceptions for her. Meredith has a habit of "collecting strays", and allows her friends and coworkers to live in the house her mother left her. Those friends become her pseudo-family. Meredith is endlessly loyal to those she deems her family, and will bend the traditional rules of morality or professional protocol to keep them safe.
Having grown up in a hospital, Meredith shows immense natural talent. She possesses a steadfast, calm ease during medical procedures and emergencies, and is a natural observer of people. She exhibits a knack for catching subtle hints and accurately determining difficult-to-catch diagnoses. Her placid, non-judgmental bedside manner often causes people to open up and trust her. Her surgical skills are solidly impressive and she shows a talent and patience for medical research trials and dealing with psychologically damaged patients.
Meredith resists Derek's advances throughout her internship, but is eventually charmed into starting a relationship with him despite misgivings about an intern dating an attending. She is, therefore, shocked by the arrival of Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh), Derek's wife, unaware that he was married. Derek struggles to choose between the two, but ultimately returns to Addison, despite Meredith begging to be chosen instead. Meredith is devastated and turns to multiple, self-destructive means of coping. Initially she falls on old habits of self-medicating with tequila and sex, and adopts a dog, named Doc. She also tries to resolve some issues by searching for her long-absent father, Thatcher. She learns that her father, who left when she was five and she has not seen since, remarried and had two more daughters. The two do not become close, but she becomes fond of her stepmother. Meredith spirals further when Ellis is admitted to the hospital, revealing Ellis' diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer's and her verbally abusive tendencies. Meredith's self-destructive behavior reaches its most dangerous when she saves a patient with a bomb in their chest by impulsively inserting her hand to hold it until the bomb squad can remove it.
Meredith has a series of one-night stands, including one with George, who has long been in love with her. When she cries in the middle of their encounter, their friendship temporarily ends. Meredith swears off her behavior, agrees to be friends only with Derek, and embarks on a relationship with veterinarian Finn Dandridge (Chris O'Donnell). Derek regrets his decision to return to his wife, and Meredith must decide whether to continue a relationship with Finn, or allow Derek a second chance. She eventually realizes that Derek is the one, and the two get back together.
When Ellis experiences a rare, completely lucid day and expresses her immense disappointment at how ordinary Meredith has turned out to be, Meredith becomes depressed and possibly suicidal. During a ferryboat accident, Meredith is knocked into the water and chooses to give up and drown, rather than fight and swim. She flatlines at the hospital, and awakens in an "afterlife", where she interacts with deceased former acquaintances. Ellis dies in the interim, and Meredith meets with her mother, who tells her that she is anything but ordinary. She undergoes another round of resuscitation at the insistence of Cristina. Derek distances himself from Meredith as the result of her self-recklessness, prompting her to seek therapy to address her problems. Meredith sees a therapist, Dr. Wyatt (Amy Madigan), to seek happiness and begins to successfully tackle her issues. Meanwhile, Meredith nearly fails her intern exam after a drunken Thatcher publicly blames Meredith for the death of his wife, Susan, a distraught Grey sits through her entire test without writing a single answer. Webber gives her a second chance to do the exam, saving her from destroying her career.
After Meredith is promoted to a resident, her younger half-sister, Lexie Grey (Chyler Leigh), begins working at Seattle Grace as an intern. Meredith initially rejects Lexie's attempts to form a relationship, but slowly softens towards her. The sisters are very different people with different childhoods. Lexie had a more idealistic family life and often has difficulty understanding her much darker sister, who does not have the same positive associations with family as Lexie.
Meredith later initiates a neurosurgical clinical trial, enlisting Derek as a consulting neurosurgeon. The trial fails repeatedly, but the final patient they treat survives, prompting them to reunite and move in together. Their relationship is healthier than before but still experiences snags as the two attempt to understand each other and navigate through what they now look at as a permanent, long-term relationship. Meredith relies heavily on Cristina for emotional support and guidance. Eventually, Derek and Meredith decide to marry, but on their wedding day, the pair give their "perfect" wedding ceremony to Izzie and Alex, to marry each other during the planned ceremony instead. Meredith and Derek instead marry by writing their wedding vows on a post-it note. Meredith then spends a month out of commission after donating part of her liver to Thatcher.
Meredith experiences another immense trauma after the hospital is put under a lockdown from an active mass-shooter seeking revenge against Derek. Meredith offers her own life in exchange for his and miscarries her baby during the crisis. She goes through this traumatic experience with Cristina, who operates on Derek while threatened at gunpoint. Meredith hides her loss. The trauma psychiatrist refuses to clear both Cristina and Meredith for their return to surgery. Meredith is able to work through her issues and become cleared, but Cristina remains deeply traumatized. Meredith covers for and supports her friend through her dark time but is ultimately unable to fully help her return to surgery.
Meredith decides to actively try to become pregnant but learns that she has a "hostile uterus", which leads her to consider her other possible genetic flaws. Derek, who is constantly worried about the possibility that she will develop Alzheimer's, initiates a clinical trial hoping to cure the disease. Meredith opts to work on the trial and appears to be leaning towards a neuro specialty.
When Webber's wife, Adele, is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she receives a spot on the trial. Meredith tampers with the drugs so that Adele does not receive the placebo. She and Derek decide to adopt Zola, an orphaned baby from Malawi, and make their marriage legal. When the truth about the tampering comes out, however, a furious Derek tells her he cannot raise a child with her because of her moral ambiguity. Meredith is fired and tries to conceal both this and her marital separation from the adoption counselor in order to keep Zola. Although Dr. Webber steps down as chief of surgery and takes the blame for the trial tampering to protect Meredith, Zola is taken away. She and Derek reconcile. Meredith chooses a general surgery specialty over neuro, and they successfully fight to get Zola back.
As her last year of residency is coming to a close, the residents travel around the country, searching for the best jobs in their specialties. In order to finish their residency, the residents must take the medical boards. Meredith takes the exam while sick with the flu. She decides to take a job offer at The Brigham and Women's Hospital as the next step in her career. During a medical flight to undertake a prestigious surgery involving conjoined twins, Meredith, Derek, Cristina, and Lexie, among others, are involved in an aviation accident. The plane crash kills Lexie and her boyfriend Mark Sloan (Eric Dane), and the survivors are trapped in the wooded wilderness for days waiting for help. Following their rescue, Meredith becomes an attending general surgeon at Seattle Grace, now Seattle Grace-Mercy West. While Cristina flees Seattle for her fellowship, Meredith, afraid of flying and change, declines her job offer, and clings to what remains in Seattle. Cristina and Meredith begin calling the hospital "Seattle Grace Mercy Death" in light of the immense amount of trauma, death, and pain they have experienced there.
Meredith's newfound attitude and sarcasm leads to her being dubbed "Medusa" by the hospital's new batch of interns. In the aftermath of the plane accident, the hospital is sued and eventually found guilty of negligence. Each victim including Derek, Cristina, Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw) and herself must receive $15 million of compensation, which leads the hospital to a near bankruptcy as the insurance company refuses to pay due to a loophole. The doctors along with Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) buy the hospital with the help of the Harper Avery Foundation to prevent it from closing and become new members of the directing board. In memory of Mark Sloan and Lexie Grey, Jackson Avery and the board rename the hospital "Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital". Meanwhile, Meredith asks Dr. Bailey to perform gene mapping on her to finally know whether she has Alzheimer's genes like her mother. She tests positive for more than one of the genetic markers for the disease.
Meredith moves to the completed dream home and sells her house to Alex, who purchases it as the only true home he's ever known. He continues Meredith's tradition of keeping the house open to any "strays" needing a home. Meredith discovers also she is pregnant with Derek's child once again; however the pregnancy carries on. When Meredith's water breaks (not long before she suffers a near miscarriage by falling down the stairs), the baby has face presentation and is consequently delivered via emergency C-section. While stitching Meredith up, the obstetrician who operated on her is called away to another patient and intern Shane Ross completes the stitching. When blood begins to appear from everywhere due to her fall, Meredith diagnoses herself in as being in disseminated intravascular coagulation. Dr. Bailey performs a spleen removal, which saves her life. In return, Derek and Meredith name their son Bailey.
As a spouse, surgeon, and mother, Meredith cites a number times that she does not want to be like either of her parents: her father had followed her mother around pathetically before leaving to be happy, while her mother valued her career over her family. Meredith is frequently conflicted trying to balance between the two, and fears her family are hindering her medical aspirations, as much as she fears becoming like her mother whenever she's tempted to choose surgery over family. Meredith and Cristina have a huge rift when Cristina confirms Meredith's fears by stating that Meredith's skills have fallen behind Cristina's due to her familial obligations taking her away from O.R time.
Meredith and Derek come to an agreement that he, already established in his career and reputation, will take a step back to take care of the children and allow her to shine. Meredith attempts to regain some ground by starting a promising research trial 3-D printing portal veins. The conflict between Cristina and Meredith widens when Cristina commandeers Meredith's resources for her own trial, ultimately garnering a Harper Avery nomination for Cristina. Cristina and Meredith repair their relationship when Meredith confesses that Cristina was correct, her skills have surpassed Meredith's. Cristina moves to Switzerland, taking up a job offer from Preston Burke (Isaiah Washington), her former attending, mentor and fiancé, who was looking for a replacement at a research hospital he was running, thus leaving Alex in charge of being Meredith's "person" in her place, an honor he gladly accepts.
As Meredith adjusts to life without Cristina, she finds out she has a maternal half-sister named Maggie Pierce (Kelly McCreary), who was given away for adoption by her mother right after she gave birth and who is now working in Grey Sloan Memorial as the new Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery. Meredith is in denial and rejects Maggie, thinking she would have remembered if her mother was pregnant. Meredith tries to piece together her relationship with her mother and half-sister by going through old videos of her mother. She eventually recovers her repressed memories of the pregnancy when she views her mother's diary. With the support of Webber, who is Maggie's biological father, Meredith has a change of heart, choosing to accept Maggie and begin building a relationship.
Meanwhile, Meredith and Derek's marriage becomes strained as Derek accepts an offer from the U.S. president to participate in the Brain Mapping Initiative. He receives an offer to head the project itself in Washington D.C., meaning that he would have to be based there permanently. Meredith puts her foot down as she does not want to uproot their young family to move across the country for his career at the sacrifice of her own. They begin a series of on-and-off arguments and "cold wars" over their careers. Meredith ultimately encourages Derek to go to Washington, and Derek promptly leaves. Meredith then proceeds to lean on her friends for support as she begins living life as a single parent while simultaneously maintaining a streak of successful surgeries with no patient-losses. During a phone call with Derek, Meredith and Derek agree to work things out after she tells him that she did not want them to become "one of those couples", and he reciprocates, saying that he misses her. She privately admits to Alex that she has realized that she could live independently of Derek but chooses not to.
Just as Meredith and Derek begin to rekindle their relationship, Derek is suddenly killed in a car accident while en route to the airport to catch a flight for one final meeting in D.C. He is taken to an understaffed hospital, which reluctantly takes him in despite not being a trauma center. The doctors fail to recognize his head injury in time. Derek is declared brain dead, and Meredith must go to the medical center to consent to remove him from life support. She tells Penny Blake (Samantha Sloyan), the intern assigned to Derek, that every doctor has "that one" patient who dies on their watch and haunts them forever and "that one will make you work harder, and they make you better."
After Derek's death, Meredith returns to Grey Sloan Memorial to inform the others of his passing. Following the funeral service, Meredith impulsively packs up her belongings and leaves with the children to an undisclosed location. Months pass by while her friends and family are unaware of her whereabouts. Eventually, parallels show similarities in Meredith's and Ellis' lives: both have lost the love of their life, both run away from Seattle following their loss, and both eventually give birth to a daughter. Meredith names her newborn daughter Ellis after her mother. Having listed Alex as her emergency contact, he meets her at the hospital after delivering baby Ellis. With the support of Alex, Meredith returns to Seattle with the children and is later appointed Chief of General Surgery by Bailey. She sells the "dream house" and moves back to her mother's house, having purchased it back from Alex, and lives there with Maggie and Amelia Shepherd (Caterina Scorsone), her sister-in-law. The three are pushed to learn how to more effectively communicate, support one another, and functionally live as sisters.
Having settled back into life in Seattle, Meredith hosts a dinner party and at the party, Callie brings her new girlfriend, who is revealed to be Penny, the intern who worked on Derek at the hospital the night he died. Later at the event, Meredith finds out Penny will be joining her at Grey Sloan Memorial. Meredith is forced to work with Penny, and over time, decides to effectively train her to be a better surgeon. Meredith eventually forgives Penny, who becomes her favorite resident. Alex and Meredith continue their close, sibling-like relationship of being each other's "person", despite Jo's displeasure and inability to understand their closeness. He supports her when she is violently attacked by a disoriented patient, and she supports him through his legal difficulties. Alex initiates a weekly family waffle breakfast on Sundays, where he makes waffles for everyone in the house.
Meredith recovers enough to start seeing Nathan Riggs (Martin Henderson), Owen Hunt's former best friend, although their relationship is complicated by the fact that Maggie confesses to Meredith that she has feelings for Riggs. Additionally, Meredith is not ready to declare their relationship formally or publicly. Eventually, she accepts her relationship with Riggs, but it's complicated again by the unexpected return of Owen's sister, Megan Hunt (Abigail Spencer), Riggs' fiancée. Meredith finds herself in another love triangle when Megan rejects Riggs because he is still in love with Meredith, but Meredith pushes them to be together.
After her relationship with Riggs ends, Meredith is nominated for a Harper Avery Award for her groundbreaking abdominal transplant surgery on Megan. After failing to attend the awards ceremony to stay for a medical trauma, post-surgery, Meredith learns with all her closest friends in the OR and gallery that she has won the Harper Avery Award. After her win, Meredith throws herself into her work and is chosen to continue her project by the hospital's research contest. However, when she has difficulty getting access to a patented polymer from Europe, she is dragged back into her mother's past, as it is Ellis' former best friend, Marie, who is unwilling to help Meredith out. Eventually, Meredith discovers the full truth about Marie and Ellis' falling out and is able to repair some of the damage.
During Jo and Alex's wedding, Meredith is kissed by a drunken Andrew DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti), and the two brush it off. Meredith starts dating again with the help of her matchmaker patient, CeCe, but is pursued by Andrew, who has realized his feelings for her. Meredith also gets interest from Atticus Lincoln (Chris Carmack), a new orthopedic surgeon, and briefly finds herself in another love triangle. During her romantic dilemma, her estranged father, Thatcher, passes away, though they are able to make peace before his death. Eventually, Meredith chooses Andrew, and the two begin a relationship. Meredith breaks the hospital record for the longest single surgery and then begins research on an ingestible diagnostic device.
While treating Gabby Rivera, a young girl with cancer whose family has been split up at the border, Meredith commits insurance fraud to help Gabby's father pay for the surgery. When the hospital starts investigating the case, Andrew takes the fall so that Meredith won't be sent to prison and separated from her kids. Meredith visits Andrew in jail, telling him that she loves him and will get him out. Meredith turns herself in and is sentenced to community service, while her medical license, though not revoked, is put in jeopardy. She misses a court date and neglects to perform some of the hours, leading to a temporary stay in jail. After a hearing is conducted, Meredith is able to keep her license and is rehired at Grey-Sloan.
On Meredith's first day back, she meets Cormac Hayes (Richard Flood), the new Chief of Pediatrics, who she later learns has been sent to her by Cristina. Hayes and Meredith grow closer and bond over their shared loss of a spouse. Andrew begins showing signs of mania, possibly brought on by bipolar disorder, and breaks up with Meredith when she expresses concern. Shortly after her breakup with Andrew, Meredith learns that Alex has moved to Kansas to be with Izzie and will not be returning to Seattle.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Meredith is stressed while coping the high rate of deaths. Meredith ultimately contracts COVID-19, and while she fights for her life, she goes in and out of consciousness. During her fever dreams, which take place on a beach, she encounters several loved ones in the afterlife, including Derek, George, Andrew, Mark, and Lexie. Though she is in and out of consciousness, she can hear people talk to her in the real world. Meredith eventually recovers and gets strong enough to begin operating again. At the same time, she also takes over Richard's position as Residency Program Director.
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Meredith meets Dr. David Hamilton (Peter Gallagher), a neurosurgeon who is also an old friend of her mother's. He offers her the opportunity to help find a cure to Parkinson's disease. Despite some uncertainty, she agrees to his offer on the condition that she can do it both in Seattle and Minnesota, where the trial is located. It is also revealed that she and Hayes briefly dated but decided to hold off on their relationship when his eldest son started having panic attacks because of their relationship. During her time in Minnesota, Meredith runs into her former patient, a transplant surgeon named Dr. Nick Marsh (Scott Speedman). They both bond over being miracles and start dating. Meredith begins splitting her time between Minnesota and Seattle, putting a strain on her relationship with Bailey that worsens when Dr. Hamilton offers Meredith a full-time position at the Mayo Clinic that Meredith seriously considers. At the end of Season 18, Meredith prepares herself and the kids for a move to Minnesota, but her plans are halted when Bailey resigns following the collapse of Grey Sloan's residency program. Bailey appoints Meredith as the new Chief of Surgery, and in the chaos of all the change, Meredith tells Nick to go back to Minnesota without her and breaks up with him.
In Season 19, Meredith receives an offer to work in Boston at the Fox Foundation to research Alzheimer's disease. She and her kids move to Boston while Meredith maintains a long-distance relationship with Nick. In the Season 19 finale, she reappears to present the Catherine Fox award to Bailey.
Development
Casting and creation
Ellen Pompeo discovered Grey's Anatomy during a period of inactivity in her acting career. Her agent suggested she audition, along with other projects she was considering at the time. While casting actresses for the role of Meredith Grey, the series' creator Shonda Rhimes remarked: "I kept saying we need a girl like that girl from Moonlight Mile (2002), and after a while, they were like, 'We think we can get that girl from Moonlight Mile'. I spent time with her and got to know her, and then we started casting for the men". Rhimes admitted that casting Meredith was challenging due to the role's strong verbal requirements. She later learned that the actress in question was Pompeo, who already had a deal in place with ABC, having tested for a pilot on the network. Although there was speculation that Pompeo was the first to be cast for the show, Pompeo herself said she was unsure of this.
When asked about creating Meredith’s character, Rhimes explained:[I was] in my pajamas at home, which is where I spent a lot of time writing. I kept asking myself, 'What kind of woman should the heroine be?' I thought she should be someone who had made some big mistakes. As it turns out, Meredith also has another problem: She is trying to live up to her mother's renowned career in surgery. Meredith is the daughter of a mother who basically never spent any time with her—the daughter of a mother who now has Alzheimer's and doesn't even remember her.
Pompeo was cast as the titular character, with Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times describing Meredith as "a prickly, independent sort whose ambition, and ambivalence, is fueled by the fact that her mother was a gifted surgeon and now suffers from Alzheimer's". Meredith also serves as the show’s narrator, drawing comparisons to Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), the narrator and protagonist of Sex and the City.
When Pompeo’s initial contract expired, she successfully negotiated a new one, securing a salary of $200,000 per episode, making her and Patrick Dempsey the highest-paid cast members at the time. In 2012, Forbes recognized Pompeo as the eighth highest-paid actress on television, earning $275,000 per episode for her role.
Pompeo’s second contract expired after Season 8, sparking rumors that she might leave the series. However, in September 2011, she stated that she was open to the idea of extending her contract if invited. She told TV Guide, "I would never turn up my nose at Grey's Anatomy. As long as the stories are honest and truthful, and Patrick [Dempsey] and I feel there is material for us to be passionate about, it still beats a 9-to-5 job any day. If I hear from the fans that they want us to keep going, then I would continue because we owe them everything." In May 2012, E! Online reported that Pompeo, along with all original cast members, had signed on for two more years. HuffPost confirmed that season nine was officially renewed, securing Pompeo’s return.
Pompeo’s contract expired again after Season 12, but she signed another extension to continue starring in the show for its Season 13. Under this new contract, Pompeo earned $300,000 per episode, according to Deadline Hollywood.
On January 17, 2018, ABC announced that Pompeo's contract had been renewed through season 16. This new deal not only secured her return as Meredith Grey, but also elevated her role to producer of Grey’s Anatomy and co-executive producer of the spin-off series. With this contract, Pompeo became the highest-paid actress on a dramatic TV series, earning $575,000 per episode and over $20 million per year. On May 10, 2019, Pompeo extended her contract through season 17 after ABC renewed the show for seasons 16 and 17.
Characterization
Meredith Grey serves as the protagonist and focal point of Grey's Anatomy. She has been described by Grey's Anatomy executives as "intelligent, compassionate, hard-working, oftentimes outspoken, easily distracted, and indecisive". Ellen Pompeo has reflected on her character’s evolving personality, noting that Meredith's journey has moved from a state of depression to one of relative happiness and being "fixed". When asked about Meredith’s demeanor, Pompeo humorously remarked that she wasn’t sure if Meredith even knew how to have fun, adding, “All of my scenes with [Patrick Dempsey] are the same—we're either breaking up or having sex".
The dynamic between Meredith Grey and Derek Shepherd became one of the show’s core relationships, fueled by the chemistry between Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey. In an interview with Good Morning America, Pompeo acknowledged their strong on-screen connection, stating, “I am so incredibly lucky to have Patrick [Dempsey], to have the chemistry that we do. We have an amazing relationship, and it's like any other relationship—you have your ups and downs. But we work it out, and we’ve found a way to do this for this long, still get along, and make it work.”
Despite their undeniable chemistry, Pompeo admitted to Entertainment Weekly that there were some awkward moments while filming romantic scenes, given the brother-sister dynamic she felt with Dempsey. She recalled, “It’s awkward with Patrick because he’s like my brother. As soon as the camera is off, I’m like, ‘Is your hand on my butt?’ But there are millions of girls who have been waiting for this, so I feel an obligation to the fans.”
Throughout Season 2, Shonda Rhimes used the shared dog, "Doc", between Meredith and Derek as a metaphor for their relationship. The dog represented their complex and evolving dynamic as a couple. According to Rhimes, Meredith is characterized by doing what she believes is right, even when faced with difficult or morally ambiguous decisions. She characterizes Grey as doing what she thinks is right:Meredith is the girl who put her hand on a bomb in a body cavity. Meredith is the girl who tried to help a serial killer kill himself, so that he could donate his organs. Meredith—and this is obvious—has a compass that has always led her to shades of grey. She does not believe in black-and-white, she does not believe in good or bad, she does what she thinks is right.
In Season 2, Meredith has a one-night stand with George O'Malley, an encounter that significantly impacts both characters. Series writer Stacy McKee commented on the consequences of this event, stating: "There's no turning back. There's nothing George and Meredith can do. The damage is done—things will never be the same. They've just changed something important in their lives FOREVER and...they are freaking out." The fallout from this moment created a ripple effect in their friendship, dramatically altering their dynamic and adding to Meredith's complex emotional journey.
Meredith’s character development was also instrumental in shaping the creation of her half-sister, Lexie Grey. McKee drew parallels between the two characters, explaining that they both share similar motivations and desires. "Meredith and Lexie both want to succeed. They want to be strong. They want to feel normal. They want, so much, to be whole. But it's a struggle—a genuine struggle for them. Being hardcore doesn't come naturally. Sometimes, they have to fake it," McKee said. This common struggle between Meredith and Lexie showcases their deep emotional complexity and adds another layer to their sibling relationship, as both characters attempt to navigate their personal and professional lives while dealing with family trauma and the legacy of their mother, Ellis Grey.
Grey's personality has been compared with that of Alex Karev's. Rhimes offered the insight:
I like to create moments for him and Meredith. Because, in my head, they are very similar people. Even though Karev can be such an ass, even though he's arrogant, even though he gave O'Malley the Syph. He and Meredith are both lost, both lonely, both former screw-ups who got their acts together. In another lifetime, they would be really good friends. So throughout the season, we watch them pause from time to time to look at each other and see that they are mirrors of one another.
Pompeo has consistently advocated for a truthful and realistic storyline for her character, Meredith Grey, emphasizing that life’s complexities can’t always be wrapped up neatly. She strives for authenticity in portraying Meredith's emotional journey, and this commitment has shaped many of her character’s defining moments. Reflecting on one of Meredith’s controversial actions—tampering with Derek Shepherd’s clinical trial—Pompeo acknowledged the gravity of the act, saying: "Listen, what Meredith did clearly crossed a line. Derek has a right to be pissed". Despite the consequences, Shonda Rhimes remained confident that Grey and Shepherd were ultimately meant to be together, believing that they would find their way back to each other in the end.
Meredith’s relationship with Cristina Yang has often been referred to as a "sisterhood". Cristina repeatedly calls Meredith "her person", signifying their deep emotional bond. The two were dubbed the "twisted sisters" for their shared emotional complexities and struggles. In the Season 3 finale, the duo even went on a "honeymoon" together, which Rhimes described as her favorite detail of the finale. Their relationship was an important anchor for both characters, representing a non-romantic partnership that was just as significant as any romantic relationship in the series.
However, Meredith has also been criticized by some viewers for being "whiny," a perception that Rhimes addressed. She explained:I've heard a lot of talk about Meredith being whiny but the truth is, she's got a mom [who died of] Alzheimer's, no other family to speak of, and the man she loves is married. She's pretty freaking lonely, people. She's got a right to get her whine on. So, when she falters, it's partly because she's got nothing to hang on to. As she says in the first episode, she needs a reason to go on, she needs some hope.
Rhimes also noted that by the show’s 100th episode, Meredith had undergone significant evolution, transforming from the "dark and twisty girl" she was in the earlier seasons to a "happy woman." She remarked:
"She is the thing her mother wished for her. She is extraordinary. Because, to get past the crap of your past? To move on? To let the past go and change? That is extraordinary. To love? Without fear? Without screwing it up? That is extraordinary. It makes me happy to see her happy."
Following Patrick Dempsey's departure from the show, Rhimes acknowledged that the story was heading into "uncharted territory", stating that Meredith Grey and the rest of Grey’s Anatomy were about to enter a new chapter of their lives, with endless possibilities for what might come. With Pompeo's contract still active, Rhimes hinted that viewers would witness some of the most challenging times of Meredith's life yet, opening up opportunities for the character's continued growth and resilience.
Reception
Reviews
The character has received both overwhelmingly positive reviews and weary response from television critics throughout the course of the show. The initial response to the character was positive, but as the series progressed Meredith Grey became immensely popular and Pompeo established the character as a critic and fan favorite featuring on a number of Top TV Character lists. The development of the character has been deemed as the highlight of the show. Grey has constantly been defined as "the heroine of Grey's Anatomy". At the time of inception, Newsday's Diane Werts praised the character stating: "Like Hugh Laurie's irascible "House" title character, star Ellen Pompeo's newly minted Dr. Grey conveys such substance that you simply can't stop watching." After Pompeo not receiving an Emmy nomination for her work as Grey, McNamara of the Los Angeles Times suggested that Pompeo, "who has worked very hard and against all narrative odds to make Meredith Grey an interesting character at last" should have received a nomination at the 61st Primetime Emmy Awards. Later, during Season 12, Western Gazette gave Ellen Pompeo the credit for carrying the show and re-iterated it's "time for Pompeo to finally win an Emmy Award." Tanner Stransky of Entertainment Weekly referred to Grey as the "trusty voice-over master" of Grey's Anatomy.
Former television columnist for The Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall expressed his boredom on the focus given on Grey's relationships storylines while reviewing the Season 2 finale: "On those occasions when Meredith's not involved in a plot about her love life, I do kind of like her, but those moments are so infrequent compared to her constant angsting over McDreamy – not to mention all those seemingly unrelated storylines that always turn into a metaphor for that relationship – that I really, really can't stand her." During Season 3, the development of the character received negative reviews, with Cristopher Monfette of IGN stating that her storyline has become "some bizarrely under-developed sub-plot about depression and giving Derek a season's worth of reconsidering to do." Also during the third season, Robert Rorke of the New York Post noted the decline in Meredith's role in the show, expressing disappointment: "She used to be the queen of the romantic dilemmas, but lately, she's been a little dopey, what with the endless McDreamy soliloquies." Similarly, Maclean's found their storyline in Season 4 overused, "This whole 'Oh I need more time', but 'Oh, I'm jealous if you look at someone else' angst was tired in the second season, frustrating in the third and now a total channel changer. The will-they-or-won't-they plot doesn't work because they've already been in and out of that relationship too many times. Meredith is a nag and McDreamy is henpecked". On a more positive note, her relationship with Shepherd was included in AOL TV's list of the "Best TV Couples of All Time" and in the same list by TV Guide.
During Season 6, the development of the character was praised, Glenn Diaz of BuddyTV commented that "You gotta love Mer when she's gloomy", in addition to praising Pompeo's performance. In her review of the episode "Tainted Obligation" she wrote "I felt for Meredith, but after Lexie's heartfelt begging and pleading, I was happy that Mere finally grows up and casts her selfishness aside. Three seasons ago, Meredith would never have dreamed of putting Lexie first, and I was proud of her for giving up part of her liver—her offer to get to know her dad was an even bigger milestone." Reviewing the first part of Season 8, TV Fanatic lauded the character and wrote: "this season belongs to Meredith Grey. She is the heart and soul of the show and has been outstanding. This is a character that used to be so dark and twisty and has now grown into a more mature woman. Ellen Pompeo has been at the top of her game this season."
Wit & Fancy praised the transformation of the character and stated, "Of course, Meredith will still make rash decisions like when she took off with Zola or tampered with the trial, but she does things out of love and the kindness of her heart now and not because she is dark and twisty. Considering where Meredith was at the beginning and where she is now, I think she went through a remarkable journey and did more than just growing up, she finally became 'all whole and healed".
Maura O'Malley of Bustle also lauded the development of the character ahead of Season 12 saying, "When the series began, Meredith was just a girl sitting in a bar celebrating the exciting next phase of her life. She had graduated medical school, she was starting her residency at a prestigious hospital, and she was simply looking for a no-strings attached, one night stand. What she got instead was a complicated romantic relationship that rivals Romeo and Juliet — but the key is, she wasn't searching for love. Working and learning were — and continue to be — her priorities, while McDreamy was simply an added perk. Hopefully, the new season of Grey's Anatomy will reflect this change in tone, because Meredith is a strong, independent woman — and she will be just fine."
Later in the series, Pompeo received critical acclaim with numerous critics lauding her portrayal of the character. Reviewing the Season 11 episode "She's Leaving Home", CarterMatt called her the "anchor" for Grey's saying, "Throughout, this was an episode completely anchored by Ellen Pompeo, who has done some of her best work ever on the show the past couple of weeks. Tonight, she cried, she fought, and she learned that she was carrying his child." and added that Pompeo is often "overlooked" saying, "Her subtlety is probably why she is often overlooked." Rick Porter of Zap2it reviewing "How to Save a Life" wrote, "Without Meredith, and without one of Pompeo's strongest performances in her long time on the show, "How to Save a Life" would have run the risk of coming across as a baldly manipulative death episode, the likes of which the show has done several times before. He added. "How to Save a Life" may not be the ideal Emmy submission episode for Pompeo, considering Meredith is off screen for more than half of it. But it's among the best work she's ever done on the show." USA Today also lauded Pompeo saying, "In some ways, the episode 'How to Save a Life' was even more of a showcase for Pompeo. She had some of the more memorable and well-played scenes, from her angry response to the doctor who tries to tell her what her choices are, to her resignation when she realizes she has to comfort and motivate the young doctor whose mistakes cost Derek his life."
The relationship between Meredith and Cristina Yang has been acclaimed and been a highlight of the show. Mark Perigard of the Boston Herald considered the friendship to be "the secret core of Grey's". Aisha Harris of Slate called their relationship The Best Female Friendship on TV adding that "With those two characters, showrunner Shonda Rhimes and her team of writers created one of the most nuanced and realistic portrayals of female friendship on television." Samantha Highfill of Entertainment Weekly called Cristina and Meredith the best female friends on TV because "they don't try to be". There's nothing fake about them, which is a rarity in how female friends are portrayed on television. She further went on to call them 'soulmates', " And even though they'd never dare get sappy enough to say it, they're soul mates. Margaret Lyons of Vulture called the friendship " dream BFF relationship" and the primary focus of the show, "One of the series' calling cards has been its depiction of female friendship and particularly the primacy that friendship enjoyed over romantic relationships."
I wanted to create a world in which you felt as if you were watching very real women. Most of the women I saw on TV didn't seem like people I actually knew. They felt like ideas of what women are. They never got to be nasty or competitive or hungry or angry. They were often just the loving wife or the nice friend. But who gets to be the bitch? Who gets to be the three-dimensional woman?
E! at the time of Sandra Oh's exit wrote, "In Grey's Anatomy's 10-year history, the doctor duo has been through a lot together: weddings, deaths, plane crashes, bomb threats, shooting, you name it, they've lived (and danced) through it. " and added, "And with the three words, 'You're my person', Cristina Yang and Meredith Grey solidified their status as the small screen's best best friends ever." Marama Whyte of Hypable wrote, "Critically, the key relationship in Meredith's life was not her romance with Derek Shepherd, but her passionate, indestructible, absolutely enviable friendship with Cristina. Talk about relationship goals; who wants McDreamy when Cristina Yang could be your person. These two were the real powerhouse, and Shonda Rhimes didn't shy away from making the audience remember this. Derek was the love of her life, but Cristina was her soul mate. More than anyone else, Cristina challenged Meredith, was honest with her and inspired her. For these reasons, it was Cristina who was constantly the source of Meredith's character development, not Derek."
Pompeo's character has also been used to define the image a strong woman, Bustle previewing Season 12 wrote, "Meredith Grey has always been capable of being on her own. Grey's Anatomy is about Meredith's journey. Men and romantic interests are a part of her life, but they are not the priority. She doesn't need McDreamy. Grey's Anatomy doesn't need McDreamy. So even if the writers do decide to create a new love interest for Ms. Grey (Martin Henderson, perhaps?), it wouldn't matter. I have faith that the show's writers will do this storyline justice, because TV needs more strong single women — and Meredith seems like the perfect candidate." The site added, "This past season was almost a trial run for a McDreamy-less Grey's Anatomy. When Derek left for Washington, D.C. to pursue his research, Meredith stayed behind and focused on her own career. She didn't chase him. Her priority were her children and the Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital. Meredith showed that she would never put aside her own dreams and aspirations for a man, and I believe that this won't change after Derek's death."
Awards
Ellen Pompeo has won and been nominated for multiple awards for her portrayal of Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy. She and the Grey's Anatomy cast won Best Cast – Television Series at the 2006 Satellite Awards. The following year, Pompeo was named Best Actress – Television Series Drama at the same ceremony. She was also part of the cast that was awarded the Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series at the 13th Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2007, and received nominations in the same category in 2006 and 2008.
Pompeo's performance in the series earned her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama at the 64th Golden Globe Awards, where Grey's Anatomy won Best Drama Series. In 2007, Pompeo, along with the female cast and crew of Grey's Anatomy, received the Women in Film Lucy Award, which honors individuals whose work in television has positively influenced attitudes toward women.
Pompeo has also garnered significant recognition at the People's Choice Awards, winning Best Drama Actress at both the 39th and the 41st People's Choice Awards. She was consistently nominated for multiple categories at the People's Choice Awards each year, starting in 2012 alongside Patrick Dempsey and Sandra Oh. At the 37th People's Choice Awards, Pompeo was nominated for Favorite TV Doctor alongside Dempsey and Oh, and the following year, she was nominated in the Favorite TV Drama Actress category.
In 2007, Tom O'Neil, a show-business awards reporter, remarked that Pompeo was overdue an Primetime Emmy Award nomination for her role on Grey's Anatomy. Readers of O'Neil's website, The Envelope, included Pompeo in their 2009 nominations for Best Drama Actress in the site's Gold Derby TV Awards. In 2008, Entertainment Weekly launched the EWwy Awards to honor actors who had not received Emmy nominations, and Pompeo was nominated in the Best Actress in a Drama Series category, placing fourth with 19% of the readers' votes.
References
Specific
General
External links
Meredith Grey at ABC.com |
List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cities | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cities | [
387,
800
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cities",
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_Games_host_cities"
] | The following is a list of host cities of the Olympic Games, both summer and winter, since the modern Olympics began in 1896. Since then, summer and winter games have usually celebrated a four-year period known as an Olympiad. From the inaugural Winter Games in 1924 until 1992, winter and summer Games were held in the same year. Since 1994, summer and winter Games have been held in staggered even years. There have been 30 Until 2024,the Summer Olympic Games held in 23 cities, and 24 Winter Olympic Games held in 21 cities. In addition, three summer and two winter editions of the games were scheduled to take place but were later cancelled due to war: Berlin (summer) in 1916; Sapporo–Garmisch-Partenkirchen (winter) and Tokyo–Helsinki (summer) in 1940; and Cortina d'Ampezzo (winter) and London (summer) in 1944. The 1906 Intercalated Olympics were officially sanctioned and held in Athens. However, in 1949, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to unrecognize the 1906 Games. The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were postponed for the first time in the Olympics history to summer 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the 2022 Winter Olympics being held roughly six months later in Beijing which also hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Five cities and regions have been chosen by the IOC to host upcoming Olympic Games:For the first time on history,the 2026 Winter Olympics will be officialy shared between Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Los Angeles for the 2028 Summer Olympics,a region will host the 2030 Winter Olympics,as they were shared by venues in 7 cities in the French Alps for the 2030 Winter Olympics, Brisbane will host the 2032 Summer Olympics, and Salt Lake City will host the 2034 Winter Olympics.
In 2022, Beijing became the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics. By 2034, eleven cities will have hosted the Olympic Games more than once: Athens (1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics), Paris (1900, 1924 and 2024 Summer Olympics), London (1908, 1948 and 2012 Summer Olympics), St. Moritz (1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics), Lake Placid (1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics), Los Angeles (1932, 1984 and 2028 Summer Olympics), Cortina d'Ampezzo (1956 and 2026 Winter Olympics), Innsbruck (1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics), Tokyo (1964 and 2020 Summer Olympics), Beijing (2008 Summer Olympics and 2022 Winter Olympics) and Salt Lake City (2002 and 2034 Winter Olympics).
Stockholm hosted the 1912 Summer Olympics and the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics. London became the first city to have hosted three Games with the 2012 Summer Olympics. Paris is the second city to do so with the 2024 edition and will be followed by Los Angeles as the third in 2028.
As of 2024, a large majority of the Games (41 out of 54) have been hosted in western Europe, the United States, Canada, or Australia. Eight Games have been hosted in Asia (all in East Asia), three have been hosted in eastern Europe, and two have been hosted in Latin America. Africa has yet to host an Olympic Games. Other major geographic regions and subcontinents that have never hosted the Olympics include the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Central America, Antarctica, and the Caribbean. Between the first Winter Olympics in 1924 and the last ones to be held in the same year as the Summer Olympics in 1992, the Summer and Winter Games took place in the same country three times.
Usually,the Games' host cities are selected by the IOC members with six to seven years in advance.
Until the 2022 Winter Olympics,the selection process lasts approximately two years. In the first stage, any city in the world may apply to become a host city. After ten months, the Executive Board of the IOC decides which applicant cities will become official candidates based on the recommendation of a working group that reviews the applications. In the second stage, the candidate cities are investigated thoroughly by an Evaluation Commission, which then submits a final short list of cities for selection. The host city is then chosen by vote of the IOC session, a general meeting of IOC members. There was a change in host selection process in the late 2010s to address several problems – including the costs of hosting and the disappointment felt by unsuccessful applicants. Called Olympic Agenda 2020, this new process is focused on reducing the cost of Games, minimising wasteful single-use construction projects and increasing the benefits felt by host nations. Bids are now easier and less expensive to prepare. The 2032 Summer Games host city, was the first to be fully selected under this process but another elements and rules were introduced later.
Olympic Games host cities
Host cities for Summer and Winter Olympic Games
Key
The 1906 Intercalated Games are no longer officially recognized by the IOC as an official Olympic Games.
The IOC has also entered "privileged dialogue" with Switzerland for the 2038 Winter Games.
Host cities for multiple Summer and Winter Olympic Games
Italics denote future events
Number of Olympic Games by country
Number of Olympic Games by region
Africa has never hosted any Olympics. Egypt, South Africa, and Morocco have been acknowledged as future possibilities, although it is noted that increased dialogue and developments are needed.
In addition, the Middle East, though not a continent (with most of the region situated in Asia), has never hosted an Olympic Games. Several nations have been in talks as potential hosts, but the only city to enter a formal bid was Doha (see also List of bids for the Summer Olympics).
See also
List of bids for the Summer Olympics
List of bids for the Winter Olympics
Notes
References
External links
"The Olympic Games". International Olympic Committee. Retrieved 5 June 2009. |
Call_Me_Maybe | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Maybe | [
388
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Me_Maybe#Year-end_charts"
] | "Call Me Maybe" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Carly Rae Jepsen from her EP Curiosity (2012) and later appeared on her second studio album and international debut album Kiss (2012). The song was written by Jepsen and Tavish Crowe as a folk song, but its genre was modified to pop following the production by Josh Ramsay. It was released as the lead single from the EP on September 20, 2011 in Canada through 604 Records. In 2012, Jepsen was signed to Schoolboy Records and released "Call Me Maybe” worldwide through the label, as her debut international single. Musically, "Call Me Maybe" is a teen pop, dance-pop and bubblegum pop track that alludes to the inconvenience that love at first sight brings to a girl who hopes for a call back from a new crush.
"Call Me Maybe" topped the Canadian Hot 100. Outside of Canada, "Call Me Maybe" topped the charts in Australia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. It peaked inside the top five of the charts in Austria, Belgium (Flanders & Wallonia), Germany, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. After peaking at the top position of the Canadian Hot 100, Jepsen became the fifth Canadian artist to do so in her home country since 2007. In the United States, the track reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, and is the first number one by a Canadian female artist on the Billboard Hot 100 chart since 2007's "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne.
An accompanying music video was directed by Ben Knechtel. In it, Jepsen seeks the attention of an attractive boy next door who is revealed at the end of the story to be attracted to a male band member. As part of the promotion for the song, Jepsen performed the track on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she made her US television debut, and at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards. "Call Me Maybe" has been covered by several artists, including Ben Howard, Big Time Rush, Fun, Cimorelli, Lil Wayne, JPEGMafia, and Cody Simpson, and parodied by Cookie Monster and some of the news staff of NPR. It was also covered on "The New Rachel", the season premiere episode of the fourth season of Glee.
"Call Me Maybe" was nominated for two Grammy Awards, for Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance at the 55th Annual ceremony, but lost to "We Are Young" by Fun and the live performance of "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele, respectively. On December 11, 2012, "Call Me Maybe" was named Song of the Year for 2012 by MTV. In its 2012 Year-End issue, Billboard magazine ranked this song #2 in the Hot 100 Songs, Digital Songs, and Canadian Hot 100 charts. The song was also ranked number one by the Village Voice's annual Pazz and Jop poll, which compiles the votes of music critics from all over the United States. The song was the best-selling single worldwide in 2012, selling over 12 million copies in that year alone, and the best-selling single on the iTunes Store worldwide in 2012. With worldwide sales of 18 million copies and over 1 billion streams on Spotify, it became the best-selling single of the 21st century by a female artist and one of the most successful singles of all time. "Call Me Maybe" was the best-selling digital single of 2012 worldwide, and is the seventh best-selling digital single of all time. The song is ranked at #436 on Rolling Stone's updated list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and eighth on Billboard's list of the 500 Best Pop Songs of All Time.
Background
"Call Me Maybe" was initially written by Jepsen and Tavish Crowe as a folk song, while they were on tour. Jepsen explained that the writing process was easy, and that she wasn't "over-thinking it. We brought in Josh [Ramsay], and he helped us kind of pop-ify it." The following days, she recorded the track at the Umbrella Studios in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Jepsen later explained that it is "basically a pick up. What person hasn't wanted to approach somebody before and stopped because it's scary? I know I have." "Call Me Maybe" had been first released in Canada only through 604 Records on September 20, 2011.
In December 2011, singers Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were in Canada and heard the track on the radio. After they spoke about the song on their Twitter accounts, Jepsen instantly gained international attention, and got signed by Scooter Braun to his Schoolboy Records. Bieber's tweet said the song "is possibly the catchiest song I've ever heard..." Braun revealed that Bieber has "never jumped out and promoted an artist like this before. He sends me different YouTube videos of unsigned artists that he'd like to work with, but never someone who already had a song out and is on the radio." Worldwide distribution of the single was done through Interscope Records.
Composition
"Call Me Maybe" was written by Jepsen and Crowe, with additional writing and song production by Josh Ramsay. Lyrically, the song describes the "infatuation and inconvenience of a love at first sight," as described by Bill Lamb of About.com. During the pre-chorus, Jepsen states how she suddenly becomes attracted to a person, singing, "Your stare was holding, ripped jeans, skin was showing/Hot night, wind was blowing/Where you think you're going, baby?" As the chorus begins, the background incorporates synthesized string chords, and Jepsen explains that her feelings towards the guy are unexpected, "Hey, I just met you/And this is crazy/But here's my number/So call me maybe."
Melody Lau of Rolling Stone wrote that "Call Me Maybe" is a "Taylor Swift meets Robyn" song. Jon O'Brien of AllMusic called it a teen pop song with "a chorus that just about straddles that fine line between sugary sweet and sickly." Tiffany Lee of Yahoo! Music deemed it as an instant summer hit, and added that "Call Me Maybe" has "a good beat, great melody and catchy lyrics; something you and your friends can belt out in the car while driving to the beach, a party, and pretty much anywhere." Jon Caramanica of The New York Times wrote that the song is "breezy and sweet, an eyelash-fluttering flirtation run hard through the Disney-pop model of digitized feelings and brusque, chipper arrangements." Kelsey McKinney and Scott Kellum of Vox described it as "catchy bubblegum pop" that is given depth by "the absolute height of Jepsen's vocal range".
According to Musicnotes.com, "Call Me Maybe" is written in the key of G major with a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute (BPM). Jepsen's vocals span from G3 to C5, and the song follows a key progression of Cmaj7–G/D–Cmaj7–G/D.
Critical reception
The song received critical acclaim. Rolling Stone journalist Melody Lau considered "Call Me Maybe" "a sugary dance-pop tune about hoping for a call back from a crush," while Kat George of VH1 described it as a "guilty pop pleasure."
Emma Carmichael of Gawker did a long review on the track, which she described as the "new perfect pop song." Carmichael further added that the song is "flawless" and that "we will be virtually incapable of escaping the song and its strident disco strings and that horribly catchy hook." Nicole James of MTV revealed that "Call Me Maybe" is probably the catchiest song she has ever heard, and added that "I don't even want to tell you what the play count is in my iTunes for that song, but the moment you press play you're sucked in."
The Village Voice's Maura Johnston deemed it as an "utterly earwormy" song. RedEye's Emily Van Zandt began her review of the track saying, "screw you, Internet. Thanks to a couple of posts on blogs that I refuse to own up to follow, my afternoon has been dedicated to Carly Rae Jepsen's 'Call Me Maybe'." Van Zandt continued to state that "all I know is that I have co-dependency issues when it comes to my music. When it's sad, I'm sad. When it's angry, I'm angry. And when it's ridiculously over-produced, up-tempo bubblegum pop with terrible lyrics on a beautiful day in Chicago when I'm wearing pink pants, I just kind of want to start skipping around handing my number out to random bros, you know?" Jim Farber of the New York Daily News said, "In lyrical construction, melodic flourish and instrumental arrangement, 'Maybe' has the urgency and sweep of the greatest teen pop songs ever recorded."
Pitchfork named "Call Me Maybe" the 29th best song of 2012, while Rolling Stone named it the 50th greatest single of that year. It was voted the best single of 2012 by The Village Voice's 40th annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll. As of April 2017, Billboard ranked at number one on list "The Best Chorus of the 21st Century". In September 2021, Rolling Stone placed it at number 436 on their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. In October 2022, Variety's Rachel Seo ranked it as Jepsen's 11th best song, writing: "The chronically catchy track evokes memories of 2012, which, among many things, was the year when Marvel's The Avengers debuted in theaters and former President Obama was reelected. Call it overplayed and outdated, but if there was a song that could be considered most likely to bring about world peace, 'Call Me Maybe' might rank second (after John Lennon's 'Imagine')."
Chart performance
"Call Me Maybe" achieved commercial success in Canada, and later in the United States and around the world. The song is Jepsen's third single to enter the Canadian Hot 100, debuting at number 97 for the week of October 22, 2011. For the week of February 11, 2012, "Call Me Maybe" reached number one in its 17th week on the Canadian Hot 100. By doing so, Jepsen became the fifth Canadian artist ever to reach the top position on the new chart in her home country, after Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtado, Nikki Yanofsky, and Young Artists for Haiti. Jepsen commented that she feels "ultimately honored to be mentioned among those names. These are all artists I look up to in a big way. I have their music, they've been on my records since I can remember. It's really hard to believe. It's cool because at the same time, it's all that I've all ever been working for." The song has since been certified nine times platinum by Music Canada (MC), for sales of 720,000 units of the track in the country. It spent a total of 74 weeks on the chart.
In the United States, the song debuted at number 38 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of March 10, 2012 with 80,000 downloads. The song entered the top ten on the chart the week April 14, 2012 at number ten The song reached number one on the week ending June 23, 2012 and spent nine consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Jepsen is the first Canadian female artist to have a number one on Billboard Hot 100 since Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend", which reached number one the week of May 5, 2007, making her the first Canadian artist to have a number one in the 2010s. The song is only the fourth song to log seven weeks at number one by an artist from Canada, tied with "Sh-Boom" by the Crew-Cuts, "Informer" by Snow featuring MC Shan, and "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams. Three weeks earlier, it had reached number one on the Digital Songs component chart. The track also reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart. The song is Jepsen's first entry on the Billboard charts in the country, which made her the first lead woman since Kesha with her single "Tik Tok" to have her debut single peak at such position. "Call Me Maybe" holds the record for the longest run at number one on the US Hot 100 among female Canadian artists and tied with Percy Faith's 1960 song, "Theme from a Summer Place", for the longest among all Canadian artists. "Call Me Maybe" was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), becoming third female artist to achieve with her own single and first a Canadian female artist to achieve, and as of August 2015, it has sold 7.6 million copies in the US, making it the country's twelfth all-time best-selling digital single.
"Call Me Maybe" debuted at number 39 in Australia on the chart issue dated March 18, 2012, and four weeks later, rose to number one. It remained at the top for five consecutive weeks, before falling to number two. The song has since been certified nine-times Platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), denoting shipments of 630,000 copies. The song also made its debut on the country's chart for the week of March 5, 2012 at number 22, reaching the top position four weeks later. It remained at the top for five consecutive weeks, before falling to number two. By August 2012, "Call Me Maybe" had been certified three-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ), surpassing digital sales of 45,000 units. "Call Me Maybe" became New Zealand's best selling single in 2012, placed at the top spot by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand.
"Call Me Maybe" performed well in Europe also, topping the charts in France, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom. The song debuted in the Republic of Ireland on March 15, 2012. The song went to number one the following week, March 22, 2012, and stayed consecutively at number one for four weeks. while attaining top three positions in Austria, Belgium (Flanders and Wallonia), Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. In the United Kingdom, the song debuted at number one on the UK Singles Chart on April 8, 2012 – for the week ending date April 14, 2012 – selling nearly 107,000 copies in the first week and remaining at the top for four weeks. The song became the third fastest-selling song of 2012 on the UK Singles Chart, behind DJ Fresh and Rita Ora's track "Hot Right Now" and Cheryl's "Call My Name". "Call Me Maybe" remained at number one for a second week on April 15, 2012 – for the week ending date April 21, 2012 – keeping Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" from reaching such position after outselling it by two to one. In its fourth week on the chart, the song stayed at number one with 99,569 copies sold after three consecutive weeks selling over 100,000 copies. The song became Britain's second best-selling single of 2012, with 1,143,000 copies sold. As of April 2017, "Call Me Maybe" has sold 1.35 million copies in the United Kingdom, making it the 11th biggest-selling song by a woman on the UK Singles Chart.
Music video
The music video for "Call Me Maybe" was written and directed by Ben Knechtel and filmed in British Columbia on October 30, 2011. According to Knechtel, the main idea behind the concept was to have a "twist at the end", trying to get away from the idea of the classic "boy meets a girl" story. The music video was released on December 9, 2011 before being re-uploaded on March 1, 2012.
The video begins with Jepsen spying on her attractive tattooed neighbour (Holden Nowell) as he is working on his lawn. As he takes his shirt off and notices she is staring at him, Jepsen is embarrassed and falls below her window, out of sight. She is reading the books Love at First Sight (Men in Uniform) by B. J. Daniels and Skylar's Outlaw by Linda Warren. The scene then cuts to her garage, where she is rehearsing the track with her band. Following the rehearsals, her bandmates push her to go and wash her car, where she tries to gain her neighbor's attention with various provocative poses only to fall from the hood of the car. She is briefly knocked out from the fall, during which she dreams of a romance novel-type encounter with her crush against the backdrop of Peggy's Cove. As she comes to, the neighbor then helps her get up and watches the band rehearse the track again. After turning and writing down her telephone number, Jepsen sees her neighbor pass one of her male bandmates (Tavish Crowe) his own number, indicating he is gay, where the very end shows that Jepsen is taken aback by this. The video received three nominations on the 2012 MuchMusic Video Awards in the categories of UR Fave Video, Pop Video of the Year, and Video of the Year.
In a 2018 interview with iHeartRadio Canada, Nowell said he had regrets about his participation in the video, claiming that he was paid $500 with a promise of additional residuals, but never received "a single penny in royalties". He also expressed misgivings about his role, saying, "I didn't like being known as the gay guy in the 'Call Me Maybe' video. It was just something I wasn't used to". He added that it was initially planned for the character's sexuality to be revealed when he kissed the guitarist, but he objected to this: "I was like, 'I'm going to be completely honest with you. I'm not going to kiss a guy, especially for $500.' I said, "I really don't think I'm comfortable kissing a guy for a music video". Nowell also claimed that he came up with actual ending for the video stating "You know what? What if instead of me kissing a guy at the end of the video, what if I just give a guy my number or something like that?"
Live performances
On March 26, 2012, Jepsen visited WBBM-FM's Morning Show and performed two tracks of her EP, "Call Me Maybe" and "Curiosity". Days later, the singer made her US television debut during The Ellen DeGeneres Show performing "Call Me Maybe". Emily Exton of Pop Dust summarized the performance, writing, "delivering fairly true-to-radio vocals that seemed to overcome any lingering nerves performing for millions of viewers (and your sorta boss?) might bring on, Carly left the security of the mike stand to move beneath the oversized dandelion lights during the final moments of her euphoric head-bobber." She also performed an acoustic version of the song on Kidd Kraddick in the Morning and KISS 92.5. On May 2, 2012, on a visit to Australia, she performed "Call Me Maybe" on the TV show Sunrise. On May 20, 2012, Jepsen performed the track on the 2012 Billboard Music Awards. On June 9, 2012, Jepsen performed the track with Justin Bieber on the Capital FM Summertime Ball at the Wembley Stadium, London.
On June 17, 2012, Jepsen performed the song at 2012 MuchMusic Video Awards. On July 22, 2012, Jepsen performed the song at 2012 Teen Choice Awards. She also performed the song on CBBC show Friday Download on April 27, 2012, even though the show is pre-recorded. On August 26, 2012, Jepsen performed the song live at the US Open Arthur Ashe Kids' Day, in what began as a pro-am doubles tennis match (Mardy Fish and Jepsen vs. Novak Djokovic and Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin) but quickly became a musical performance initiated by Djokovic and Franklin, with chair umpire Matthew Morrison (of the TV show Glee) handing a microphone to the seemingly surprised Jepsen. During the number, the tennis court was filled with ball kids doing choreographed dance moves, a four-piece back-up band, a juggle, a marching band, Djokovic pushing a lawnmower as in the official video, and many other performers. Carly Rae Jepsen and Harvey Keitel performed "Call Me Maybe" alternating their own version of it during Comedy Central's Night of Too Many Stars autism benefit show on October 21, 2012.
Cover versions and parodies
Lip dubs
A number of parody and lip dub videos have been released throughout the internet since the song's release. Big Time Rush, Ashley Tisdale, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez uploaded a parody video to YouTube on February 18, 2012; it instantly turned viral, having over 75 million views as of August 2019. Pop singer Katy Perry also released a viral video with her friends on April 19, 2012, while hosts and members of the E! TV series Fashion Police also released theirs on May 4, 2012. On May 23, 2012, a compilation from several fan videos was uploaded to Jepsen's Vevo page. The Harvard University baseball team uploaded a lip-sync video to the song on YouTube on May 6, 2012, which it had recorded on the way to a game over spring break. As of August 2019, it had been viewed over 19 million times. The Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders have also made a cover of the song that has garnered over 25 million views as of August 2019. On July 11, 2012, Crystal Palace F.C. released a cover version, in which the Crystal Palace cheerleaders squad, "the Crystals", sang and danced along to "Call Me Maybe". A promotional campaign to encourage the sale of season's tickets at the club, it was dubbed "Call Me Crystals".
In July 2012, members of the United States Armed Forces stationed in Kandahar International Airport, Afghanistan had released another lip dub video with the idea to show troops in a more positive, light-hearted way. The Baracksdubs YouTube channel used Auto-Tune to produce a satire version from clips of Barack Obama. New York Mets infielder Justin Turner has also used the song as his at-bat music at home games. On July 3, 2012, Mabson Enterprises released a digital-only compilation on Bandcamp comprising 43 versions of the track remixed or covered including tracks by Dan Deacon, Ear Pwr, Poingly and Sean Carnage. On July 20, 2012, the cast of Hollywood Heights, Cody Longo, Brittany Underwood, Carlos Ponce, Melissa Ordway, Jama Williamson, Meredith Salenger, among others, made a cover version of them lip singing and dancing along to the song on set of the show. On July 26, 2012, the United States Olympic swimming team posted a video of them lip syncing to the song at practice and on the way to London for the Olympics. On July 30, 2012, a mashup video featuring NASA videos of the Mars Science Laboratory was posted on YouTube, just a week before the Curiosity rover landed on Mars. The video was then updated after the landing and played for the Mars Curiosity Rover team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the wake up video for Sol 18 on August 24, 2012. The cast of The Big Bang Theory made a flashmob of the song on October 23, 2012, during the live taping of an episode.
Cover versions, mashups, and remixes
A number of covers also emerged since the song's release. On March 24, 2012, Cimorelli performed a dance routine version of the song. The group returned in a sequel titled "Don't Call Me Baby", this time featuring MattyBRaps on May 9. On June 7, 2012, producer Chi Duly released "Call Me Calvin (Chi Duly Edit)", a mashup which replaced the original backing of "Call Me Maybe" with Calvin Harris' singles "I'm Not Alone", "Feel So Close", and "We Found Love".
On July 10, 2012, Sesame Street released a parody of the song, called "Share it Maybe", which features "Cookie Monster-ified lyrics". A cover of the song released by Carly Rae Jepsen Tribute Team peaked at number 49 on the UK Singles Chart for one week and another version by Hit Masters spent the same amount of time on the chart but peaked 23 places lower, at number 72. American indie pop band Fun covered "Call Me Maybe" in an acoustic form at an in-studio session for Dutch radio 3FM. On May 8, 2012, folk artist Ben Howard covered the song for BBC Radio. Renditions from other notable people include James Franco and Colin Powell. On July 30, 2012, video game developer HeR Interactive, well known for the Nancy Drew computer games, added a new video parody of the song about Nancy Drew, titled "Call Me Nancy, Second Chance Me", a reference to the "Second Chance" feature in its games.
On the fourth season of Glee premiere episode "The New Rachel", they covered "Call Me Maybe" as a way to decide who the "new Rachel" will be. During the Australian fourth season of The X Factor, the finalists recorded and performed a cover of "Call Me Maybe" as a charity single in aid of Sony Foundation's You Can program. Girls Aloud covered "Call Me Maybe" live during their Ten: The Hits Tour. Los Angeles comedy punk band Radioactive Chicken Heads recorded a punk rock version of the song in November 2012, also releasing a music video concurrently with their punk rock cover of Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". During the first episode of the eighth season of America's Got Talent, aired on June 4, 2013, the 3 Penny Chorus and Orchestra directed by Arianne Abela did a cover of "Call Me Maybe", arranged by Colin Britt and Arianne Abela. "Weird Al" Yankovic briefly covered the song as part of his polka medley "NOW That's What I Call Polka!" for his 2014 album Mandatory Fun. For the thirtieth anniversary of MathWorks in 2014, a group of employees created a flashmob-style parody version called "Call Me Nerdy". Baltimore rapper JPEGMafia released his own cover for the song as well. On September 25, 2020, a short for the Disney Channel show Gravity Falls was released. In that short, one of the main characters, Mabel, sings "Call Me Mabel", a parody of the song.
Track listings
Credits and personnel
Carly Rae Jepsen – vocals, songwriting
Tavish Crowe – songwriting, guitar, bass, drums, synthesizer, strings, backing vocals
Josh Ramsay – production, songwriting, guitars, bass, drums, synthesizer, strings, backing vocals
Dave Ogilvie – mixing
Credits adapted from Curiosity and Kiss album liner notes.
Charts
Certifications
Release history
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of highest-certified singles in Australia
List of best-selling singles in South Korea
List of best-selling singles in the United States
References
External links
Carla Rae Jepsen official music video on YouTube
Cover version on YouTube by Birdy
Call Me Maybe at Discogs (list of releases) |
List_of_Billboard_number-one_country_songs_of_2012 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_number-one_country_songs_of_2012 | [
388
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_number-one_country_songs_of_2012"
] | Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay are charts that rank the top-performing country music songs in the United States, published by Billboard magazine. At the start of 2012, Hot Country Songs ranked songs based on weekly airplay data from country music radio stations compiled by Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems. With effect from the issue dated October 20, 2012, however, the magazine significantly altered the methodology of this chart, incorporating digital downloads, streaming, and airplay not only from country stations but from stations of all formats. These changes were controversial, as some critics felt that they unduly benefited acts with crossover appeal, as opposed to those whose songs were played only on country stations. At the same time, Billboard launched the new Country Airplay listing, which used the methodology of ranking tracks based solely on country radio airplay. Although this chart was published for the first time in 2012, Billboard retrospectively considers the period since Hot Country Songs began using Nielsen data in 1990 to also form part of the history of the Country Airplay listing.
An immediate beneficiary of the change in methodology for the Hot Country Songs chart was Taylor Swift. In the first week of the new system, her song "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", which had been falling down the chart and had been at number 21 the previous week based on country radio airplay alone, rose straight to number one when streaming, downloads, and plays on other radio formats began to be counted. Swift's song would remain in the top spot for nine consecutive weeks, setting a new record for the longest unbroken run at number one by a female singer held since 1965 by Connie Smith's "Once a Day". Based on country radio airplay alone, however, Swift's song dropped even further to number 36 on the first published Country Airplay chart, the same week that it jumped to number one on Hot Country Songs. The song's greater popularity on pop music radio than country stations highlighted Swift's increasing move away from the country genre.
After Swift's nine weeks in the top spot, the second highest total number of weeks at number one on Hot Country Songs was four. This was achieved by Blake Shelton, who was one of six acts to have two number ones during the year. Several acts had their first chart-toppers in 2012. In January, "Let It Rain" by David Nail featuring Sarah Buxton spent a single week in the top spot, becoming the first number one for both singers. The following week Eric Church achieved his first chart-topper with "Drink in My Hand". In April "A Woman Like You" gave Lee Brice his first number one, and in June Kip Moore achieved the same feat with "Somethin' 'Bout a Truck". At the end of August, Love and Theft reached number one for the first time with "Angel Eyes", as did Little Big Town three weeks later with "Pontoon". In the issue of Billboard dated September 29, Hunter Hayes gained his first chart-topper with "Wanted", with which the 21-year old gained the distinction of being the youngest solo male artist to have a number-one country song. The final act to gain a first-time chart-topper in 2012 was Florida Georgia Line, whose debut single, "Cruise", held the peak position on both charts in the last issue of Billboard of the year. The track would go on to become the best-selling country digital single to date and set a new record for the most weeks spent at number one on the Hot Country Songs chart.
Chart history
See also
2012 in country music
List of artists who reached number one on the U.S. country chart
List of Top Country Albums number ones of 2012
== References == |
Reality_(Kenny_Chesney_song) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_(Kenny_Chesney_song) | [
388
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_(Kenny_Chesney_song)"
] | "Reality" is a song co-written and recorded by American country music artist Kenny Chesney. It was released in October 2011 as the fifth and final single from his 2010 album Hemingway's Whiskey. The song became Chesney's twenty-first number one hit on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in early 2012. Chesney wrote this song with Brett James.
Background and Writing
Co-written by Chesney with help from Brett James, he told Billboard magazine's Ray Waddell that he got the idea of writing the song while sitting in a dentist's chair with a gas mask on. "There were a couple of years that I was so busy on the road I was kinda numb," Chesney said. "I wasn't really tired, I wasn't really not tired, I wasn't really happy, I was just kind of numb. So, I'd go to the dentist to have something done and they'd put that gas mask on me and I'd be like, 'Wow, that's as relaxed as I've been in years!' I thought to myself, 'This is why people smoke pot right here! This is it!' I don't smoke pot, but this is why people do it, I guarantee you. Because it gets them away from reality. I even asked my dentist, 'I just want to come over here and sit some time, can you guys do that?' He said, 'We can't do that, we'd get in trouble.' I swear, I started writing that song on the way home. But then, I related it to everybody that comes to see us. That's what live music is. It's an escape from reality. That's why as a kid I loved it. I still love going to shows, I love live music. That's where I got the idea to write the song, it's my message to the fans that it's OK to break free and escape reality, with us."
Critical reception
Billy Dukes of Taste of Country gave the song three stars out of five, saying that it "does and says all the right things" but "[fails] to capture the live energy that Chesney consistently inserted into uptempo hits in the past." Kevin John Coyne of Country Universe gave the song a B grade, saying that while it has a "strong concept", the delivery is "fairly flat." He goes on to say that the production "never takes off" and "keeps things a little too grounded in reality for it to actually sound like the escapism it celebrates.
Music video
The music video was directed by Shaun Silva, and premiered on October 12, 2011.
Chart performance
"Reality" debuted at number 50 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for the week of October 15, 2011. It also debuted at number 97 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of November 19, 2011 and number 96 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart for the week of December 17, 2011.
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
== References == |
Sydney_Peace_Prize | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Peace_Prize | [
389
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Peace_Prize"
] | The Sydney Peace Prize is awarded by the Sydney Peace Foundation,
a non profit organisation associated with the University of Sydney. The prize promotes peace with justice and the practice of nonviolence. It aims to encourage public interest and discussion about issues of peace, social justice, human rights, and non-violent conflict resolution.
Support
The City of Sydney is a major supporter of the Sydney Peace Prize. This involves a significant financial contribution along with other in-kind support in order to foster peace with justice.
The prize
Over three months each year, the Sydney Peace Prize jury – comprising seven individuals who represent corporate, media, academic and community sector interests – assesses the merits of the nominees' efforts to promote peace with justice. It is awarded to an organisation or individual:
who has made significant contributions to global peace including improvements in personal security and steps towards eradicating poverty, and other forms of structural violence
whose role and responsibilities enable the recipient to use the prize to further the cause of peace with justice
whose work illustrates the philosophy and principles of non-violence
Considerations
The jury has been prepared to make some controversial choices. Sydney Peace Foundation Founder, Emeritus Professor Stuart Rees, said, "The initiators of the Sydney Peace Prize aimed to influence public interest in peace with justice, an ideal which is often perceived as controversial. The choice of a non-controversial candidate for a peace prize would be a safe option but unlikely to prompt debate or to increase understanding. Consensus usually encourages compliance, often anaesthetises and seldom informs."
Prize winners
1998 – Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank for the poor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient
1999 – Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
2000 – Xanana Gusmão, the poet-artist and president of East Timor
2001 – Sir William Deane, the former Governor-General of Australia
2002 – Mary Robinson, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
2003 – Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian academic and human rights campaigner
2004 – Arundhati Roy, Indian novelist and peace activist
2005 – Olara Otunnu, United Nations Under Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict from Uganda
2006 – Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International
2007 – Hans Blix, chairman of the UN Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission
2008 – Patrick Dodson, chairman of the Lingiari Foundation
2009 – John Pilger, Australian journalist and documentary maker
2010 – Vandana Shiva, Indian social justice and environmental activist, eco-feminist and author
2011 – Noam Chomsky, American linguist and activist
2012 – Sekai Holland, Zimbabwean Senator
2013 – Cynthia Maung, Burmese doctor
2014 – Julian Burnside, Australian barrister, human rights and refugee advocate
2015 – George Gittoes, Australian artist who chronicles conflicts around the world
2016 – Naomi Klein, Canadian journalist, author and prominent activist for climate justice
2017 – Black Lives Matter, International civil rights activist movement
2018 – Joseph E. Stiglitz, American economist and academic
2019 – Tarana Burke and Tracey Spicer, American founders of the #MeToo Movement
2020 – Midnight Oil, Australian rock band
2021–2022 – The Uluru Statement from the Heart
2023 – Nazanin Boniadi, British actress and activist
Gold medal for Peace with Justice
The foundation also occasionally awards a special gold medal for significant contributions to peace and justice. Winners of the gold medal include South African statesman Nelson Mandela, 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, Costa Rican Christina Figueres and Australian band Midnight Oil.
Notes
External links
Sydney Peace Foundation |
Noam_Chomsky | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky | [
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"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky#In_academia"
] | Avram Noam Chomsky ( nohm CHOM-skee; born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a major figure in analytic philosophy and one of the founders of the field of cognitive science. He is a laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona and an institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Among the most cited living authors, Chomsky has written more than 150 books on topics such as linguistics, war, and politics. In addition to his work in linguistics, since the 1960s Chomsky has been an influential voice on the American left as a consistent critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, and corporate influence on political institutions and the media.
Born to Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia, Chomsky developed an early interest in anarchism from alternative bookstores in New York City. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania. During his postgraduate work in the Harvard Society of Fellows, Chomsky developed the theory of transformational grammar for which he earned his doctorate in 1955. That year he began teaching at MIT, and in 1957 emerged as a significant figure in linguistics with his landmark work Syntactic Structures, which played a major role in remodeling the study of language. From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. He created or co-created the universal grammar theory, the generative grammar theory, the Chomsky hierarchy, and the minimalist program. Chomsky also played a pivotal role in the decline of linguistic behaviorism, and was particularly critical of the work of B. F. Skinner.
An outspoken opponent of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, which he saw as an act of American imperialism, in 1967 Chomsky rose to national attention for his anti-war essay "The Responsibility of Intellectuals". Becoming associated with the New Left, he was arrested multiple times for his activism and placed on President Richard Nixon's list of political opponents. While expanding his work in linguistics over subsequent decades, he also became involved in the linguistics wars. In collaboration with Edward S. Herman, Chomsky later articulated the propaganda model of media criticism in Manufacturing Consent, and worked to expose the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. His defense of unconditional freedom of speech, including that of Holocaust denial, generated significant controversy in the Faurisson affair of the 1980s. Chomsky's commentary on the Cambodian genocide and the Bosnian genocide also generated controversy. Since retiring from active teaching at MIT, he has continued his vocal political activism, including opposing the 2003 invasion of Iraq and supporting the Occupy movement. An anti-Zionist, Chomsky considers Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be worse than South African–style apartheid, and criticizes U.S. support for Israel.
Chomsky is widely recognized as having helped to spark the cognitive revolution in the human sciences, contributing to the development of a new cognitivistic framework for the study of language and the mind. Chomsky remains a leading critic of U.S. foreign policy, contemporary capitalism, U.S. involvement and Israel's role in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and mass media. Chomsky and his ideas are highly influential in the anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. Since 2017, he has been Agnese Helms Haury Chair in the Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice at the University of Arizona.
Life
Childhood: 1928–1945
Chomsky was born on December 7, 1928, in the East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His parents, William Chomsky and Elsie Simonofsky, were Jewish immigrants. William had fled the Russian Empire in 1913 to escape conscription and worked in Baltimore sweatshops and Hebrew elementary schools before attending university. After moving to Philadelphia, William became principal of the Congregation Mikveh Israel religious school and joined the Gratz College faculty. He placed great emphasis on educating people so that they would be "well integrated, free and independent in their thinking, concerned about improving and enhancing the world, and eager to participate in making life more meaningful and worthwhile for all", a mission that shaped and was subsequently adopted by his son. Elsie, who also taught at Mikveh Israel, shared her leftist politics and care for social issues with her sons.
Noam's only sibling, David Eli Chomsky (1934–2021), was born five years later, and worked as a cardiologist in Philadelphia. The brothers were close, though David was more easygoing while Noam could be very competitive. They were raised Jewish, being taught Hebrew and regularly involved with discussing the political theories of Zionism; the family was particularly influenced by the Left Zionist writings of Ahad Ha'am. He faced antisemitism as a child, particularly from Philadelphia's Irish and German communities.
Chomsky attended the independent, Deweyite Oak Lane Country Day School and Philadelphia's Central High School, where he excelled academically and joined various clubs and societies, but was troubled by the school's hierarchical and domineering teaching methods. He also attended Hebrew High School at Gratz College, where his father taught.
Chomsky has described his parents as "normal Roosevelt Democrats" with center-left politics, but relatives involved in the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union exposed him to socialism and far-left politics. He was substantially influenced by his uncle and the Jewish leftists who frequented his New York City newspaper stand to debate current affairs. Chomsky himself often visited left-wing and anarchist bookstores when visiting his uncle in the city, voraciously reading political literature. He became absorbed in the story of the 1939 fall of Barcelona and suppression of the Spanish anarchosyndicalist movement, writing his first article on the topic at the age of 10. That he came to identify with anarchism first rather than another leftist movement, he described as a "lucky accident". Chomsky was firmly anti-Bolshevik by his early teens.
University: 1945–1955
In 1945, at the age of 16, Chomsky began a general program of study at the University of Pennsylvania, where he explored philosophy, logic, and languages and developed a primary interest in learning Arabic. Living at home, he funded his undergraduate degree by teaching Hebrew. Frustrated with his experiences at the university, he considered dropping out and moving to a kibbutz in Mandatory Palestine, but his intellectual curiosity was reawakened through conversations with the linguist Zellig Harris, whom he first met in a political circle in 1947. Harris introduced Chomsky to the field of theoretical linguistics and convinced him to major in the subject. Chomsky's BA honors thesis, "Morphophonemics of Modern Hebrew", applied Harris's methods to the language. Chomsky revised this thesis for his MA, which he received from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951; it was subsequently published as a book. He also developed his interest in philosophy while at university, in particular under the tutelage of Nelson Goodman.
From 1951 to 1955, Chomsky was a member of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, where he undertook research on what became his doctoral dissertation. Having been encouraged by Goodman to apply, Chomsky was attracted to Harvard in part because the philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine was based there. Both Quine and a visiting philosopher, J. L. Austin of the University of Oxford, strongly influenced Chomsky. In 1952, Chomsky published his first academic article in The Journal of Symbolic Logic. Highly critical of the established behaviorist currents in linguistics, in 1954, he presented his ideas at lectures at the University of Chicago and Yale University. He had not been registered as a student at Pennsylvania for four years, but in 1955 he submitted a thesis setting out his ideas on transformational grammar; he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree for it, and it was privately distributed among specialists on microfilm before being published in 1975 as part of The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory. Harvard professor George Armitage Miller was impressed by Chomsky's thesis and collaborated with him on several technical papers in mathematical linguistics. Chomsky's doctorate exempted him from compulsory military service, which was otherwise due to begin in 1955.
In 1947, Chomsky began a romantic relationship with Carol Doris Schatz, whom he had known since early childhood. They married in 1949. After Chomsky was made a Fellow at Harvard, the couple moved to the Allston area of Boston and remained there until 1965, when they relocated to the suburb of Lexington. The couple took a Harvard travel grant to Europe in 1953. He enjoyed living in Hashomer Hatzair's HaZore'a kibbutz while in Israel, but was appalled by his interactions with Jewish nationalism, anti-Arab racism and, within the kibbutz's leftist community, Stalinism. On visits to New York City, Chomsky continued to frequent the office of the Yiddish anarchist journal Fraye Arbeter Shtime and became enamored with the ideas of Rudolf Rocker, a contributor whose work introduced Chomsky to the link between anarchism and classical liberalism. Chomsky also read other political thinkers: the anarchists Mikhail Bakunin and Diego Abad de Santillán, democratic socialists George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, and Dwight Macdonald, and works by Marxists Karl Liebknecht, Karl Korsch, and Rosa Luxemburg. His politics were reaffirmed by Orwell's depiction of Barcelona's functioning anarchist society in Homage to Catalonia (1938). Chomsky read the leftist journal Politics, which furthered his interest in anarchism, and the council communist periodical Living Marxism, though he rejected the Marxist orthodoxy of its editor, Paul Mattick.
Early career: 1955–1966
Chomsky befriended two linguists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)—Morris Halle and Roman Jakobson—the latter of whom secured him an assistant professor position there in 1955. At MIT, Chomsky spent half his time on a mechanical translation project and half teaching a course on linguistics and philosophy. He described MIT as open to experimentation where he was free to pursue his idiosyncratic interests. MIT promoted him to the position of associate professor in 1957, and over the next year he was also a visiting professor at Columbia University. The Chomskys had their first child, Aviva, that same year. He also published his first book on linguistics, Syntactic Structures, a work that radically opposed the dominant Harris–Bloomfield trend in the field. Responses to Chomsky's ideas ranged from indifference to hostility, and his work proved divisive and caused "significant upheaval" in the discipline. The linguist John Lyons later asserted that Syntactic Structures "revolutionized the scientific study of language". From 1958 to 1959 Chomsky was a National Science Foundation fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.
Chomsky's provocative critique of B. F. Skinner, who viewed language as learned behavior, and its challenge to the dominant behaviorist paradigm thrust Chomsky into the limelight. Chomsky argued that behaviorism underplayed the role of human creativity in learning language and overplayed the role of external conditions in influencing verbal behavior. He proceeded to found MIT's graduate program in linguistics with Halle. In 1961, Chomsky received tenure and became a full professor in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. He was appointed plenary speaker at the Ninth International Congress of Linguists, held in 1962 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which established him as the de facto spokesperson of American linguistics. Between 1963 and 1965 he consulted on a military-sponsored project to teach computers to understand natural English commands from military generals.
Chomsky continued to publish his linguistic ideas throughout the decade, including in Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (1965), Topics in the Theory of Generative Grammar (1966), and Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966). Along with Halle, he also edited the Studies in Language series of books for Harper and Row. As he began to accrue significant academic recognition and honors for his work, Chomsky lectured at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966. These lectures were published as Language and Mind in 1968. In the late 1960s, a high-profile intellectual rift later known as the linguistic wars developed between Chomsky and some of his colleagues and doctoral students—including Paul Postal, John Ross, George Lakoff, and James D. McCawley—who contended that Chomsky's syntax-based, interpretivist linguistics did not properly account for semantic context (general semantics). A post hoc assessment of this period concluded that the opposing programs ultimately were complementary, each informing the other.
Anti-war activism and dissent: 1967–1975
Chomsky joined protests against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in 1962, speaking on the subject at small gatherings in churches and homes. His 1967 critique of U.S. involvement, "The Responsibility of Intellectuals", among other contributions to The New York Review of Books, debuted Chomsky as a public dissident. This essay and other political articles were collected and published in 1969 as part of Chomsky's first political book, American Power and the New Mandarins. He followed this with further political books, including At War with Asia (1970), The Backroom Boys (1973), For Reasons of State (1973), and Peace in the Middle East? (1974), published by Pantheon Books. These publications led to Chomsky's association with the American New Left movement, though he thought little of prominent New Left intellectuals Herbert Marcuse and Erich Fromm and preferred the company of activists to that of intellectuals. Chomsky remained largely ignored by the mainstream press throughout this period.
Chomsky also became involved in left-wing activism. Chomsky refused to pay half his taxes, publicly supported students who refused the draft, and was arrested while participating in an anti-war teach-in outside the Pentagon. During this time, Chomsky co-founded the anti-war collective RESIST with Mitchell Goodman, Denise Levertov, William Sloane Coffin, and Dwight Macdonald. Although he questioned the objectives of the 1968 student protests, Chomsky regularly gave lectures to student activist groups and, with his colleague Louis Kampf, ran undergraduate courses on politics at MIT independently of the conservative-dominated political science department. When student activists campaigned to stop weapons and counterinsurgency research at MIT, Chomsky was sympathetic but felt that the research should remain under MIT's oversight and limited to systems of deterrence and defense. Chomsky has acknowledged that his MIT lab's funding at this time came from the military. He later said he considered resigning from MIT during the Vietnam War. There has since been a wide-ranging debate about what effects Chomsky's employment at MIT had on his political and linguistic ideas.
Chomsky's anti-war activism led to his arrest on multiple occasions and he was on President Richard Nixon's master list of political opponents. Chomsky was aware of the potential repercussions of his civil disobedience, and his wife began studying for her own doctorate in linguistics to support the family in the event of Chomsky's imprisonment or joblessness. Chomsky's scientific reputation insulated him from administrative action based on his beliefs. In 1970 he visited southeast Asia to lecture at Vietnam's Hanoi University of Science and Technology and toured war refugee camps in Laos. In 1973 he helped lead a committee commemorating the 50th anniversary of the War Resisters League.
Chomsky's work in linguistics continued to gain international recognition as he received multiple honorary doctorates. He delivered public lectures at the University of Cambridge, Columbia University (Woodbridge Lectures), and Stanford University. His appearance in a 1971 debate with French continental philosopher Michel Foucault positioned Chomsky as a symbolic figurehead of analytic philosophy. He continued to publish extensively on linguistics, producing Studies on Semantics in Generative Grammar (1972), an enlarged edition of Language and Mind (1972), and Reflections on Language (1975). In 1974 Chomsky became a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.
Edward S. Herman and the Faurisson affair: 1976–1980
In the late 1970s and 1980s, Chomsky's linguistic publications expanded and clarified his earlier work, addressing his critics and updating his grammatical theory. His political talks often generated considerable controversy, particularly when he criticized the Israeli government and military. In the early 1970s Chomsky began collaborating with Edward S. Herman, who had also published critiques of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Together they wrote Counter-Revolutionary Violence: Bloodbaths in Fact & Propaganda, a book that criticized U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia and the mainstream media's failure to cover it. Warner Modular published it in 1973, but its parent company disapproved of the book's contents and ordered all copies destroyed.
While mainstream publishing options proved elusive, Chomsky found support from Michael Albert's South End Press, an activist-oriented publishing company. In 1979, South End published Chomsky and Herman's revised Counter-Revolutionary Violence as the two-volume The Political Economy of Human Rights, which compares U.S. media reactions to the Cambodian genocide and the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. It argues that because Indonesia was a U.S. ally, U.S. media ignored the East Timorese situation while focusing on events in Cambodia, a U.S. enemy. Chomsky's response included two testimonials before the United Nations' Special Committee on Decolonization, successful encouragement for American media to cover the occupation, and meetings with refugees in Lisbon. Marxist academic Steven Lukes most prominently publicly accused Chomsky of betraying his anarchist ideals and acting as an apologist for Cambodian leader Pol Pot. Herman said that the controversy "imposed a serious personal cost" on Chomsky, who considered the personal criticism less important than the evidence that "mainstream intelligentsia suppressed or justified the crimes of their own states".
Chomsky had long publicly criticized Nazism, and totalitarianism more generally, but his commitment to freedom of speech led him to defend the right of French historian Robert Faurisson to advocate a position widely characterized as Holocaust denial. Without Chomsky's knowledge, his plea for Faurisson's freedom of speech was published as the preface to the latter's 1980 book Mémoire en défense contre ceux qui m'accusent de falsifier l'histoire. Chomsky was widely condemned for defending Faurisson, and France's mainstream press accused Chomsky of being a Holocaust denier himself, refusing to publish his rebuttals to their accusations. Critiquing Chomsky's position, sociologist Werner Cohn later published an analysis of the affair titled Partners in Hate: Noam Chomsky and the Holocaust Deniers. The Faurisson affair had a lasting, damaging effect on Chomsky's career, especially in France.
Critique of propaganda and international affairs
In 1985, during the Nicaraguan Contra War—in which the U.S. supported the contra militia against the Sandinista government—Chomsky traveled to Managua to meet with workers' organizations and refugees of the conflict, giving public lectures on politics and linguistics. Many of these lectures were published in 1987 as On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures. In 1983 he published The Fateful Triangle, which argued that the U.S. had continually used the Israeli–Palestinian conflict for its own ends. In 1988, Chomsky visited the Palestinian territories to witness the impact of Israeli occupation.
Chomsky and Herman's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988) outlines their propaganda model for understanding mainstream media. Even in countries without official censorship, they argued, the news is censored through five filters that greatly influence both what and how news is presented. The book received a 1992 film adaptation. In 1989, Chomsky published Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies, in which he suggests that a worthwhile democracy requires that its citizens undertake intellectual self-defense against the media and elite intellectual culture that seeks to control them. By the 1980s, Chomsky's students had become prominent linguists who, in turn, expanded and revised his linguistic theories.
In the 1990s, Chomsky embraced political activism to a greater degree than before. Retaining his commitment to the cause of East Timorese independence, in 1995 he visited Australia to talk on the issue at the behest of the East Timorese Relief Association and the National Council for East Timorese Resistance. The lectures he gave on the subject were published as Powers and Prospects in 1996. As a result of the international publicity Chomsky generated, his biographer Wolfgang Sperlich opined that he did more to aid the cause of East Timorese independence than anyone but the investigative journalist John Pilger. After East Timor attained independence from Indonesia in 1999, the Australian-led International Force for East Timor arrived as a peacekeeping force; Chomsky was critical of this, believing it was designed to secure Australian access to East Timor's oil and gas reserves under the Timor Gap Treaty.
Chomsky was widely interviewed after the September 11 attacks in 2001 as the American public attempted to make sense of the attacks. He argued that the ensuing War on Terror was not a new development but a continuation of U.S. foreign policy and concomitant rhetoric since at least the Reagan era. He gave the D.T. Lakdawala Memorial Lecture in New Delhi in 2001, and in 2003 visited Cuba at the invitation of the Latin American Association of Social Scientists. Chomsky's 2003 Hegemony or Survival articulated what he called the United States' "imperial grand strategy" and critiqued the Iraq War and other aspects of the War on Terror. Chomsky toured internationally with greater regularity during this period.
During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Chomsky supported Scottish independence.
Retirement
Chomsky retired from MIT in 2002, but continued to conduct research and seminars on campus as an emeritus. That same year he visited Turkey to attend the trial of a publisher who had been accused of treason for printing one of Chomsky's books; Chomsky insisted on being a co-defendant and amid international media attention, the Security Courts dropped the charge on the first day. During that trip Chomsky visited Kurdish areas of Turkey and spoke out in favor of the Kurds' human rights. A supporter of the World Social Forum, he attended its conferences in Brazil in both 2002 and 2003, also attending the Forum event in India.
Chomsky supported the 2011 Occupy movement, speaking at encampments and publishing on the movement, which he called a reaction to a 30-year class war. The 2015 documentary Requiem for the American Dream summarizes his views on capitalism and economic inequality through a "75-minute teach-in".
In 2015 Chomsky and his wife purchased a residence in São Paulo, Brazil, and began splitting their time between Brazil and the U.S.
Chomsky taught a short-term politics course at the University of Arizona in 2017 and was later hired as a part-time professor in the linguistics department there, his duties including teaching and public seminars. His salary was covered by philanthropic donations.
After a stroke in June 2023, Chomsky moved to Brazil full-time; this was not publicly reported until June 2024.
Linguistic theory
The basis of Chomsky's linguistic theory lies in biolinguistics, the linguistic school that holds that the principles underpinning the structure of language are biologically preset in the human mind and hence genetically inherited. He argues that all humans share the same underlying linguistic structure, irrespective of sociocultural differences. In adopting this position Chomsky rejects the radical behaviorist psychology of B. F. Skinner, who viewed speech, thought, and all behavior as a completely learned product of the interactions between organisms and their environments. Accordingly, Chomsky argues that language is a unique evolutionary development of the human species and distinguished from modes of communication used by any other animal species. Chomsky argues that his nativist, internalist view of language is consistent with the philosophical school of "rationalism" and contrasts with the anti-nativist, externalist view of language consistent with the philosophical school of "empiricism", which contends that all knowledge, including language, comes from external stimuli. Historians have disputed Chomsky's claim about rationalism on the basis that his theory of innate grammar excludes propositional knowledge and instead focuses on innate learning capacities or structures.
Universal grammar
Since the 1960s, Chomsky has maintained that syntactic knowledge is partially inborn, implying that children need only learn certain language-specific features of their native languages. He bases his argument on observations about human language acquisition and describes a "poverty of the stimulus": an enormous gap between the linguistic stimuli to which children are exposed and the rich linguistic competence they attain. For example, although children are exposed to only a very small and finite subset of the allowable syntactic variants within their first language, they somehow acquire the highly organized and systematic ability to understand and produce an infinite number of sentences, including ones that have never before been uttered, in that language. To explain this, Chomsky proposed that the primary linguistic data must be supplemented by an innate linguistic capacity. Furthermore, while a human baby and a kitten are both capable of inductive reasoning, if they are exposed to exactly the same linguistic data, the human will always acquire the ability to understand and produce language, while the kitten will never acquire either ability. Chomsky referred to this difference in capacity as the language acquisition device, and suggested that linguists needed to determine both what that device is and what constraints it imposes on the range of possible human languages. The universal features that result from these constraints would constitute "universal grammar". Multiple researchers have challenged universal grammar on the grounds of the evolutionary infeasibility of its genetic basis for language, the lack of crosslinguistic surface universals, and the unproven link between innate/universal structures and the structures of specific languages. Michael Tomasello has challenged Chomsky's theory of innate syntactic knowledge as based on theory and not behavioral observation. The empirical basis of poverty of the stimulus arguments has been challenged by Geoffrey Pullum and others, leading to back-and-forth debate in the language acquisition literature. Recent work has also suggested that some recurrent neural network architectures can learn hierarchical structure without an explicit constraint.
Transformational-generative grammar
Transformational-generative grammar is a broad theory used to model, encode, and deduce a native speaker's linguistic capabilities. These models, or "formal grammars", show the abstract structures of a specific language as they may relate to structures in other languages. Chomsky developed transformational grammar in the mid-1950s, whereupon it became the dominant syntactic theory in linguistics for two decades. "Transformations" refers to syntactic relationships within language, e.g., being able to infer that the subject between two sentences is the same person. Chomsky's theory posits that language consists of both deep structures and surface structures: Outward-facing surface structures relate phonetic rules into sound, while inward-facing deep structures relate words and conceptual meaning. Transformational-generative grammar uses mathematical notation to express the rules that govern the connection between meaning and sound (deep and surface structures, respectively). By this theory, linguistic principles can mathematically generate potential sentence structures in a language.
Chomsky is commonly credited with inventing transformational-generative grammar, but his original contribution was considered modest when he first published his theory. In his 1955 dissertation and his 1957 textbook Syntactic Structures, he presented recent developments in the analysis formulated by Zellig Harris, who was Chomsky's PhD supervisor, and by Charles F. Hockett. Their method is derived from the work of the Danish structural linguist Louis Hjelmslev, who introduced algorithmic grammar to general linguistics. Based on this rule-based notation of grammars, Chomsky grouped logically possible phrase-structure grammar types into a series of four nested subsets and increasingly complex types, together known as the Chomsky hierarchy. This classification remains relevant to formal language theory and theoretical computer science, especially programming language theory, compiler construction, and automata theory. Chomsky's Syntactic Structures became, beyond generative linguistics as such, a catalyst for connecting what in Hjelmslev's and Jesperson's time was the beginnings of structural linguistics, which has become cognitive linguistics.
Transformational grammar was the dominant research paradigm through the mid-1970s. The derivative government and binding theory replaced it and remained influential through the early 1990s, when linguists turned to a "minimalist" approach to grammar. This research focused on the principles and parameters framework, which explained children's ability to learn any language by filling open parameters (a set of universal grammar principles) that adapt as the child encounters linguistic data. The minimalist program, initiated by Chomsky, asks which minimal principles and parameters theory fits most elegantly, naturally, and simply. In an attempt to simplify language into a system that relates meaning and sound using the minimum possible faculties, Chomsky dispenses with concepts such as "deep structure" and "surface structure" and instead emphasizes the plasticity of the brain's neural circuits, with which come an infinite number of concepts, or "logical forms". When exposed to linguistic data, a hearer-speaker's brain proceeds to associate sound and meaning, and the rules of grammar we observe are in fact only the consequences, or side effects, of the way language works. Thus, while much of Chomsky's prior research focused on the rules of language, he now focuses on the mechanisms the brain uses to generate these rules and regulate speech.
Political views
Chomsky is a prominent political dissident. His political views have changed little since his childhood, when he was influenced by the emphasis on political activism that was ingrained in Jewish working-class tradition. He usually identifies as an anarcho-syndicalist or a libertarian socialist. He views these positions not as precise political theories but as ideals that he thinks best meet human needs: liberty, community, and freedom of association. Unlike some other socialists, such as Marxists, Chomsky believes that politics lies outside the remit of science, but he still roots his ideas about an ideal society in empirical data and empirically justified theories.
In Chomsky's view, the truth about political realities is systematically distorted or suppressed by an elite corporatocracy, which uses corporate media, advertising, and think tanks to promote its own propaganda. His work seeks to reveal such manipulations and the truth they obscure. Chomsky believes this web of falsehood can be broken by "common sense", critical thinking, and understanding the roles of self-interest and self-deception, and that intellectuals abdicate their moral responsibility to tell the truth about the world in fear of losing prestige and funding. He argues that, as such an intellectual, it is his duty to use his social privilege, resources, and training to aid popular democracy movements in their struggles.
Although he has participated in direct action demonstrations—joining protests, being arrested, organizing groups—Chomsky's primary political outlet is education, i.e., free public lessons. He is a longtime member of the Industrial Workers of the World international union, as was his father.
United States foreign policy
Chomsky has been a prominent critic of "American imperialism", but is not a pacifist, believing World War II was justified as America's last defensive war. He believes that U.S. foreign policy's basic principle is the establishment of "open societies" that are economically and politically controlled by the U.S. and where U.S.-based businesses can prosper. He argues that the U.S. seeks to suppress any movements within these countries that are not compliant with U.S. interests and to ensure that U.S.-friendly governments are placed in power. When discussing current events, he emphasizes their place within a wider historical perspective. He believes that official, sanctioned historical accounts of U.S. and British extraterritorial operations have consistently whitewashed these nations' actions in order to present them as having benevolent motives in either spreading democracy or, in older instances, spreading Christianity; by criticizing these accounts, he seeks to correct them. Prominent examples he regularly cites are the actions of the British Empire in India and Africa and U.S. actions in Vietnam, the Philippines, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Chomsky's political work has centered heavily on criticizing the actions of the United States. He has said he focuses on the U.S. because the country has militarily and economically dominated the world during his lifetime and because its liberal democratic electoral system allows the citizenry to influence government policy. His hope is that, by spreading awareness of the impact U.S. foreign policies have on the populations affected by them, he can sway the populations of the U.S. and other countries into opposing the policies. He urges people to criticize their governments' motivations, decisions, and actions, to accept responsibility for their own thoughts and actions, and to apply the same standards to others as to themselves.
Chomsky has been critical of U.S. involvement in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, arguing that it has consistently blocked a peaceful settlement. He also criticizes the U.S.'s close ties with Saudi Arabia and involvement in Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, highlighting that Saudi Arabia has "one of the most grotesque human rights records in the world".
Chomsky called the Russian invasion of Ukraine a criminal act of aggression and noted that Russia was committing major war crimes in the country. He considered support for Ukraine's self-defense legitimate and said Ukraine should be given enough military aid to defend itself, but not enough to cause "an escalation". His criticism of the war focused on the United States. He alleged that the U.S. rejected any compromise with Russia and that this might have provoked the invasion. According to Chomsky, the U.S. was arming Ukraine only to weaken Russia, and Ukrainian requests for heavy weaponry were untrue "Western propaganda", despite Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky repeatedly asking for them. More than a year into the invasion, Chomsky argued that Russia was waging the war "more humanely" than the U.S. did the invasion of Iraq.
Capitalism and socialism
In his youth, Chomsky developed a dislike of capitalism and the pursuit of material wealth. At the same time, he developed a disdain for authoritarian socialism, as represented by the Marxist–Leninist policies of the Soviet Union. Rather than accepting the common view among U.S. economists that a spectrum exists between total state ownership of the economy and total private ownership, he instead suggests that a spectrum should be understood between total democratic control of the economy and total autocratic control (whether state or private). He argues that Western capitalist countries are not really democratic, because, in his view, a truly democratic society is one in which all persons have a say in public economic policy. He has stated his opposition to ruling elites, among them institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and GATT (precursor to the WTO).
Chomsky highlights that, since the 1970s, the U.S. has become increasingly economically unequal as a result of the repeal of various financial regulations and the unilateral rescinding of the Bretton Woods financial control agreement by the U.S. He characterizes the U.S. as a de facto one-party state, viewing both the Republican Party and Democratic Party as manifestations of a single "Business Party" controlled by corporate and financial interests. Chomsky highlights that, within Western capitalist liberal democracies, at least 80% of the population has no control over economic decisions, which are instead in the hands of a management class and ultimately controlled by a small, wealthy elite.
Noting the entrenchment of such an economic system, Chomsky believes that change is possible through the organized cooperation of large numbers of people who understand the problem and know how they want to reorganize the economy more equitably. Acknowledging that corporate domination of media and government stifles any significant change to this system, he sees reason for optimism in historical examples such as the social rejection of slavery as immoral, the advances in women's rights, and the forcing of government to justify invasions. He views violent revolution to overthrow a government as a last resort to be avoided if possible, citing the example of historical revolutions where the population's welfare has worsened as a result of upheaval.
Chomsky sees libertarian socialist and anarcho-syndicalist ideas as the descendants of the classical liberal ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, arguing that his ideological position revolves around "nourishing the libertarian and creative character of the human being". He envisions an anarcho-syndicalist future with direct worker control of the means of production and government by workers' councils, who would select temporary and revocable representatives to meet together at general assemblies. The point of this self-governance is to make each citizen, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a direct participator in the government of affairs." He believes that there will be no need for political parties. By controlling their productive life, he believes that individuals can gain job satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment and purpose. He argues that unpleasant and unpopular jobs could be fully automated, specially remunerated, or communally shared.
Israeli–Palestinian conflict
Chomsky has written prolifically about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, aiming to raise public awareness of it. A labor Zionist who later became what is today considered an anti-Zionist, Chomsky has criticized the Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which he likens to a settler colony. He has said that the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a bad decision, but given the realpolitik of the situation, he has also considered a two-state solution on the condition that the nation-states exist on equal terms.
Chomsky has said that characterizing Israel's treatment of the Palestinians as apartheid, similar to the system that existed in South Africa, would be a "gift to Israel", as he has long held that "the Occupied Territories are much worse than South Africa". South Africa depended on its black population for labor, but Chomsky argues the same is not true of Israel, which in his view seeks to make the situation for Palestinians under its occupation unlivable, especially in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where "atrocities" take place every day. He also argues that, unlike South Africa, Israel has not sought the international community's approval, but rather relies solely on U.S. support. Chomsky has said that the Israeli-led blockade of the Gaza Strip has turned it into a "concentration camp" and expressed similar fears to Israeli intellectual Yeshayahu Leibowitz's 1990s warning that the continued occupation of the Palestinian territories could turn Israeli Jews into "Judeo-Nazis". Chomsky has said that Leibowitz's warning "was a direct reflection of the continued occupation, the humiliation of people, the degradation, and the terrorist attacks by the Israeli government". He has also called the U.S. a violent state that exports violence by supporting Israeli "atrocities" against the Palestinians and said that listening to American mainstream media, including CBS, is like listening to "Israeli propaganda agencies".
Chomsky was denied entry to the West Bank in 2010 because of his criticisms of Israel. He had been invited to deliver a lecture at Bir Zeit University and was to meet with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman later said that Chomsky was denied entry by mistake.
In his 1983 book The Fateful Triangle, Chomsky criticized the Palestinian Liberation Organization for its "self-destructiveness" and "suicidal character" and disapproved of its programs of "armed struggle" and "erratic violence". He also criticized the Arab governments as not "decent". Given what he has described as his very Jewish upbringing with deeply Zionist activist parents, Chomsky's views have drawn controversy and criticism. They are rooted in the kibbutzim and socialist binational cooperation. In a 2014 interview on Democracy Now!, Chomsky said that the charter of Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, "means practically nothing", having been created "by a small group of people under siege, under attack in 1988". He compared it to the electoral program of the Likud party, which, he said, "states explicitly that there can never be a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River. And they not only state it in their charter, that's a call for the destruction of Palestine, explicit call for it".
Mass media and propaganda
Chomsky's political writings have largely focused on ideology, social and political power, mass media, and state policy. One of his best-known works, Manufacturing Consent, dissects the media's role in reinforcing and acquiescing to state policies across the political spectrum while marginalizing contrary perspectives. Chomsky asserts that this version of censorship, by government-guided "free market" forces, is subtler and harder to undermine than was the equivalent propaganda system in the Soviet Union. As he argues, the mainstream press is corporate-owned and thus reflects corporate priorities and interests. Acknowledging that many American journalists are dedicated and well-meaning, he argues that the mass media's choices of topics and issues, the unquestioned premises on which that coverage rests, and the range of opinions expressed are all constrained to reinforce the state's ideology: although mass media will criticize individual politicians and political parties, it will not undermine the wider state-corporate nexus of which it is a part. As evidence, he highlights that the U.S. mass media does not employ any socialist journalists or political commentators. He also points to examples of important news stories that the U.S. mainstream media has ignored because reporting on them would reflect badly upon the country, including the murder of Black Panther Fred Hampton with possible FBI involvement, the massacres in Nicaragua perpetrated by U.S.-funded Contras, and the constant reporting on Israeli deaths without equivalent coverage of the far larger number of Palestinian deaths in that conflict. To remedy this situation, Chomsky calls for grassroots democratic control and involvement of the media.
Chomsky considers most conspiracy theories fruitless, distracting substitutes for thinking about policy formation in an institutional framework, where individual manipulation is secondary to broader social imperatives. He separates his Propaganda Model from conspiracy in that he is describing institutions following their natural imperatives rather than collusive forces with secret controls. Instead of supporting the educational system as an antidote, he believes that most education is counterproductive. Chomsky describes mass education as a system solely intended to turn farmers from independent producers into unthinking industrial employees.
Reactions of critics and counter-criticism: 1980s–present
In the 2004 book The Anti-Chomsky Reader, Peter Collier and David Horowitz accuse Chomsky of cherry-picking facts to suit his theories. Horowitz has also criticized Chomsky's anti-Americanism:
For 40 years Noam Chomsky has turned out book after book, pamphlet after pamphlet and speech after speech with one message, and one message alone: America is the Great Satan; it is the fount of evil in the world. In Chomsky's demented universe, America is responsible not only for its own bad deeds, but for the bad deeds of others, including those of the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In this attitude he is the medium for all those who now search the ruins of Manhattan not for the victims and the American dead, but for the "root causes" of the catastrophe that befell them.
For the conservative public policy think tank the Hoover Institution, Peter Schweizer wrote in January 2006, "Chomsky favors the estate tax and massive income redistribution—just not the redistribution of his income." Schweizer criticized Chomsky for setting up an estate plan and protecting his own intellectual property as it relates to his published works, as well as the high speaking fees that Chomsky received on a regular basis, around $9,000–$12,000 per talk at that time.
Chomsky has been accused of treating socialist or communist regimes with credulity and examining capitalist regimes with greater scrutiny or criticism:Chomsky's analysis of U.S. actions plunged deep into dark U.S. machinations, but when traveling among the Communists he rested content with appearances. The countryside outside Hanoi, he reported in The New York Review of Books, displayed "a high degree of democratic participation at the village and regional levels." But how could he tell? Chomsky did not speak Vietnamese, and so he depended on government translators, tour guides, and handlers for information. In [Communist] Vietnamese hands, the clear-eyed skepticism turned into willing credulousness.According to Nikolas Kozloff, writing for Al Jazeera in September 2012, Chomsky "has drawn the world's attention to the various misdeeds of the US and its proxies around the world, and for that he deserves credit. Yet, in seeking to avoid controversy at all costs Chomsky has turned into something of an ideologue. Scour the Chomsky web site and you won't find significant discussion of Belarus or Latin America's flirtation with outside authoritarian leaders, for that matter."
Political activist George Monbiot has argued that "Part of the problem is that a kind of cult has developed around Noam Chomsky and John Pilger, which cannot believe they could ever be wrong, and produces ever more elaborate conspiracy theories to justify their mistakes."
Anarchist and primitivist John Zerzan has accused Chomsky of not being a real anarchist, saying that he is instead "a liberal-leftist politically, and downright reactionary in his academic specialty, linguistic theory. Chomsky is also, by all accounts, a generous, sincere, tireless activist—which does not, unfortunately, ensure his thinking has liberatory value."
Defenders of Chomsky have countered that he has been censored or left out of public debate. Claims of this nature date to the Reagan era. Writing for The Washington Post in February 1988, Saul Landau wrote, "It is unhealthy that Chomsky's insights are excluded from the policy debate. His relentless prosecutorial prose, with a hint of Talmudic whine and the rationalist anarchism of Tom Paine, may reflect a justified frustration."
Philosophy
Chomsky has also been active in a number of philosophical fields, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. In these fields he is credited with ushering in the "cognitive revolution", a significant paradigm shift that rejected logical positivism, the prevailing philosophical methodology of the time, and reframed how philosophers think about language and the mind. Chomsky views the cognitive revolution as rooted in 17th-century rationalist ideals. His position—the idea that the mind contains inherent structures to understand language, perception, and thought—has more in common with rationalism than behaviorism. He named one of his key works Cartesian Linguistics: A Chapter in the History of Rationalist Thought (1966). This sparked criticism from historians and philosophers who disagreed with Chomsky's interpretations of classical sources and use of philosophical terminology. In the philosophy of language, Chomsky is particularly known for his criticisms of the notion of reference and meaning in human language and his perspective on the nature and function of mental representations.
Chomsky's famous 1971 debate on human nature with the French philosopher Michel Foucault was a symbolic clash of the analytic and continental philosophy traditions, represented by Chomsky and Foucault, respectively. It showed what appeared to be irreconcilable differences between two moral and intellectual luminaries of the 20th century. Foucault held that any definition of human nature is connected to our present-day conceptions of ourselves; Chomsky held that human nature contained universals such as a common standard of moral justice as deduced through reason. Chomsky criticized postmodernism and French philosophy generally, arguing that the obscure language of postmodern, leftist philosophers gives little aid to the working classes. He has also debated analytic philosophers, including Tyler Burge, Donald Davidson, Michael Dummett, Saul Kripke, Thomas Nagel, Hilary Putnam, Willard Van Orman Quine, and John Searle.
Chomsky's contributions span intellectual and world history, including the history of philosophy. Irony is a recurring characteristic of his writing, such as rhetorically implying that his readers already know something to be true, which engages the reader more actively in assessing the veracity of his claims.
Personal life
Chomsky endeavors to separate his family life, linguistic scholarship, and political activism from each other. An intensely private person, he is uninterested in appearances and the fame his work has brought him. McGilvray suggests that Chomsky is not motivated by a desire for fame, but impelled to tell what he perceives as the truth and a desire to aid others in doing so. Chomsky acknowledges that his income affords him a privileged life compared to the majority of the world's population; nevertheless, he characterizes himself as a "worker", albeit one who uses his intellect as his employable skill. He reads four or five newspapers daily; in the U.S., he subscribes to The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and The Christian Science Monitor. Chomsky is not religious but has expressed approval of forms of religion such as liberation theology.
Chomsky is known to use charged language ("corrupt", "fascist", "fraudulent") when describing established political and academic figures, which can polarize his audience but is in keeping with his belief that much scholarship is self-serving. His colleague Steven Pinker has said that Chomsky "portrays people who disagree with him as stupid or evil, using withering scorn in his rhetoric", and that this contributes to the extreme reactions he receives. Chomsky avoids academic conferences, including left-oriented ones such as the Socialist Scholars Conference, preferring to speak to activist groups or hold university seminars for mass audiences. His approach to academic freedom has led him to support MIT academics whose actions he deplores; in 1969, when Chomsky heard that Walt Rostow, a major architect of the Vietnam war, wanted to return to work at MIT, Chomsky threatened "to protest publicly" if Rostow were denied a position at MIT. In 1989, when Pentagon adviser John Deutch applied to be president of MIT, Chomsky supported his candidacy. Later, when Deutch became head of the CIA, The New York Times quoted Chomsky as saying, "He has more honesty and integrity than anyone I've ever met. ... If somebody's got to be running the CIA, I'm glad it's him."
Chomsky was married to Carol Doris (née Schatz) from 1949 until her death in 2008. They had three children together: Aviva (b. 1957), Diane (b. 1960), and Harry (b. 1967). In 2014, Chomsky married Valeria Wasserman. They have owned a residence in Wasserman's native country of Brazil since 2015.
In 2023, Chomsky suffered a massive stroke and was flown to a hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, to recuperate. He can no longer walk or communicate, making his return to public life improbable, but he continues to follow current events such as the Israel–Hamas war. He was discharged in June 2024 to continue his recovery at home. The same month, Chomsky trended on social media amid false reports of his death. Periodicals retracted premature obituaries.
Reception and influence
Chomsky has been a defining Western intellectual figure, central to the field of linguistics and definitive in cognitive science, computer science, philosophy, and psychology. In addition to being known as one of the most important intellectuals of his time, Chomsky has a dual legacy as a leader and luminary in both linguistics and the realm of political dissent. Despite his academic success, his political viewpoints and activism have resulted in his being distrusted by mainstream media, and he is regarded as being "on the outer margin of acceptability". Chomsky's public image and social reputation often color his work's public reception.
In academia
McGilvray observes that Chomsky inaugurated the "cognitive revolution" in linguistics, and that he is largely responsible for establishing the field as a formal, natural science, moving it away from the procedural form of structural linguistics dominant during the mid-20th century. As such, some have called Chomsky "the father of modern linguistics". Linguist John Lyons further remarked that within a few decades of publication, Chomskyan linguistics had become "the most dynamic and influential" school of thought in the field. By the 1970s his work had also come to exert a considerable influence on philosophy, and a Minnesota State University Moorhead poll ranked Syntactic Structures as the single most important work in cognitive science. In addition, his work in automata theory and the Chomsky hierarchy have become well known in computer science, and he is much cited in computational linguistics.
Chomsky's criticisms of behaviorism contributed substantially to the decline of behaviorist psychology; in addition, he is generally regarded as one of the primary founders of the field of cognitive science. Some arguments in evolutionary psychology are derived from his research results; Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was the subject of a study in animal language acquisition at Columbia University, was named after Chomsky in reference to his view of language acquisition as a uniquely human ability.
ACM Turing Award winner Donald Knuth credited Chomsky's work with helping him combine his interests in mathematics, linguistics, and computer science. IBM computer scientist John Backus, another Turing Award winner, used some of Chomsky's concepts to help him develop FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level computer programming language. Chomsky's theory of generative grammar has also influenced work in music theory and analysis, such as Fred Lerdahl's and Ray Jackendoff's generative theory of tonal music.
Chomsky is among the most cited authors living or dead. He was cited within the Arts and Humanities Citation Index more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992. Chomsky was also extensively cited in the Social Sciences Citation Index and Science Citation Index during the same period. The librarian who conducted the research said that the statistics show that "he is very widely read across disciplines and that his work is used by researchers across disciplines ... it seems that you can't write a paper without citing Noam Chomsky." As a result of his influence, there are dueling camps of Chomskyan and non-Chomskyan linguistics. Their disputes are often acrimonious. Additionally, according to journalist Maya Jaggi, Chomsky is among the most quoted sources in the humanities, ranking alongside Marx, Shakespeare and the Bible.
In politics
Chomsky's status as the "most-quoted living author" is credited to his political writings, which vastly outnumber his writings on linguistics. Chomsky biographer Wolfgang B. Sperlich characterizes him as "one of the most notable contemporary champions of the people"; journalist John Pilger has described him as a "genuine people's hero; an inspiration for struggles all over the world for that basic decency known as freedom. To a lot of people in the margins—activists and movements—he's unfailingly supportive." Arundhati Roy has called him "one of the greatest, most radical public thinkers of our time", and Edward Said thought him "one of the most significant challengers of unjust power and delusions". Fred Halliday has said that by the start of the 21st century Chomsky had become a "guru" for the world's anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist movements. The propaganda model of media criticism that he and Herman developed has been widely accepted in radical media critiques and adopted to some level in mainstream criticism of the media, also exerting a significant influence on the growth of alternative media, including radio, publishers, and the Internet, which in turn have helped to disseminate his work.
Despite this broad influence, university departments devoted to history and political science rarely include Chomsky's work on their undergraduate syllabi. Critics have argued that despite publishing widely on social and political issues, Chomsky has no formal expertise in these areas; he has responded that such issues are not as complex as many social scientists claim and that almost everyone is able to comprehend them regardless of whether they have been academically trained to do so. Some have responded to these criticisms by questioning the critics' motives and their understanding of Chomsky's ideas. Sperlich, for instance, says that Chomsky has been vilified by corporate interests, particularly in the mainstream press. Likewise, according to McGilvray, many of Chomsky's critics "do not bother quoting his work or quote out of context, distort, and create straw men that cannot be supported by Chomsky's text".
Chomsky drew criticism for not calling the Bosnian War's Srebrenica massacre a "genocide". While he did not deny the fact of the massacre, which he called "a horror story and major crime", he felt the massacre did not meet the definition of genocide. Critics have accused Chomsky of denying the Bosnian genocide.
Chomsky's far-reaching criticisms of U.S. foreign policy and the legitimacy of U.S. power have raised controversy. A document obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the U.S. government revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) monitored his activities and for years denied doing so. The CIA also destroyed its files on Chomsky at some point, possibly in violation of federal law. He has often received undercover police protection at MIT and when speaking on the Middle East but has refused uniformed police protection. German news magazine Der Spiegel described Chomsky as "the Ayatollah of anti-American hatred", while American conservative commentator David Horowitz called him "the most devious, the most dishonest and ... the most treacherous intellect in America", whose work is infused with "anti-American dementia" and evidences his "pathological hatred of his own country". Writing in Commentary magazine, the journalist Jonathan Kay described Chomsky as "a hard-boiled anti-American monomaniac who simply refuses to believe anything that any American leader says".
Chomsky's criticism of Israel has led to his being called a traitor to the Jewish people and an anti-Semite. Criticizing Chomsky's defense of the right of individuals to engage in Holocaust denial on the grounds that freedom of speech must be extended to all viewpoints, Werner Cohn called Chomsky "the most important patron" of the neo-Nazi movement. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called him a Holocaust denier, describing him as a "dupe of intellectual pride so overweening that he is incapable of making distinctions between totalitarian and democratic societies, between oppressors and victims". In turn, Chomsky has claimed that the ADL is dominated by "Stalinist types" who oppose democracy in Israel. The lawyer Alan Dershowitz has called Chomsky a "false prophet of the left"; Chomsky called Dershowitz "a complete liar" who is on "a crazed jihad, dedicating much of his life to trying to destroy my reputation". In early 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey publicly rebuked Chomsky after he signed an open letter condemning Erdoğan for his anti-Kurdish repression and double standards on terrorism. Chomsky accused Erdoğan of hypocrisy, noting that Erdoğan supports al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the al-Nusra Front.
Academic achievements, awards, and honors
In 1970, the London Times named Chomsky one of the "makers of the twentieth century". He was voted the world's leading public intellectual in The 2005 Global Intellectuals Poll jointly conducted by American magazine Foreign Policy and British magazine Prospect. New Statesman readers listed Chomsky among the world's foremost heroes in 2006.
In the United States he is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Linguistic Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Society. Abroad he is a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, an honorary member of the British Psychological Society, a member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina, and a foreign member of the Department of Social Sciences of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. He received a 1971 Guggenheim Fellowship, the 1984 American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology, the 1988 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences, the 1996 Helmholtz Medal, the 1999 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science, the 2010 Erich Fromm Prize, and the British Academy's 2014 Neil and Saras Smith Medal for Linguistics. He is also a two-time winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language (1987 and 1989). He has also received the Rabindranath Tagore Centenary Award from The Asiatic Society.
Chomsky received the 2004 Carl-von-Ossietzky Prize from the city of Oldenburg, Germany, to acknowledge his body of work as a political analyst and media critic. He received an honorary fellowship in 2005 from the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. He received the 2008 President's Medal from the Literary and Debating Society of the National University of Ireland, Galway. Since 2009, he has been an honorary member of International Association of Professional Translators and Interpreters (IAPTI). He received the University of Wisconsin's A.E. Havens Center's Award for Lifetime Contribution to Critical Scholarship and was inducted into IEEE Intelligent Systems' AI's Hall of Fame for "significant contributions to the field of AI and intelligent systems." Chomsky has an Erdős number of four.
In 2011, the US Peace Memorial Foundation awarded Chomsky the US Peace Prize for anti-war activities over five decades. For his work in human rights, peace, and social criticism, he received the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize, the Sretenje Order in 2015, the 2017 Seán MacBride Peace Prize and the Dorothy Eldridge Peacemaker Award.
Chomsky has received honorary doctorates from institutions including the University of London and the University of Chicago (1967), Loyola University Chicago and Swarthmore College (1970), Bard College (1971), Delhi University (1972), the University of Massachusetts (1973), and the International School for Advanced Studies (2012). Public lectures given by Chomsky include the 1969 John Locke Lectures, 1975 Whidden Lectures, 1977 Huizinga Lecture, and 1988 Massey Lectures.
Various tributes to Chomsky have been dedicated over the years. He is the eponym for a bee species, a frog species, an asteroid, and a building complex at the Indian university Jamia Millia Islamia. Actor Viggo Mortensen and avant-garde guitarist Buckethead dedicated their 2003 album Pandemoniumfromamerica to Chomsky.
Selected bibliography
See also
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
External links
Official website
Noam Chomsky personal archives at MIT
Noam Chomsky Audio Conservatory at Internet Archive
Faculty page at MIT
Faculty page at University of Arizona |
Nim_Chimpsky | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky | [
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] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky#Quotations"
] | Neam "Nim" Chimpsky (November 19, 1973 – March 10, 2000) was a chimpanzee used in a study to determine whether chimps could learn a human language, American Sign Language (ASL). The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace of Columbia University with linguistic analysis by psycholinguist Thomas Bever. Chimpsky was named as a pun on linguist Noam Chomsky, who posited that humans are "wired" to develop language.
Over the course of Project Nim, the infant chimp was shuttled between locations and a revolving group of roughly 60 caregivers, including teenagers and grad students, few of whom were proficient in sign language. Four years into the project, Nim became too difficult to manage and was returned to the Institute for Primate Studies in Oklahoma.
After reviewing the results, Terrace concluded that Nim mimicked signs from his teachers in order to get a reward. Terrace argued that Nim did not initiate conversation or create sentences. Terrace said that he had not noticed this throughout the duration of the study but only upon reviewing video tape. Terrace ultimately became a popularly cited critic of ape language studies.
Project Nim
Herbert Terrace, a professory of Psychology at Columbia University, launched Project Nim in 1973, six years after R. Allen and Beatrix Gardner began testing a chimpanzee's ability to acquire American Sign Language with Project Washoe. Terrace named the infant chimpanzee as a pun on Noam Chomsky. With this project, Terrace intended to challenge Chomsky's assertion that only humans can use language. (Terrace's mentor, B.F. Skinner, a key figure in behaviorism, was known as an academic target and rival of Chomsky.)
Nim's early years
Nim's life history is detailed in Elizabeth Hess's seminal biography, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human (2008), which became the basis for a 2011 documentary film directed by James Marsh, Project Nim (see below).
Nim was born at the Institute for Primate Studies in Norman, Oklahoma. A few days after his birth, he was taken from his sedated mother and placed in the New York City home of Stephanie LaFarge. LaFarge was a former grad student of Terrace's with three children and four stepchildren. LaFarge "knew nothing" about chimps and instantly recognized that the arrangement would be a problem. The LaFarge household was unconventional: she breastfed the chimp (though she had no milk) and smoked pot with him. Stephanie LaFarge and her daughter Jennie Lee used signs sporadically, focusing instead on play and establishing trust, which they saw as a developmental need. They did not maintain records of Nim's development and did not support the harsh discipline practices that Terrace and his lead trainer at the time demanded. (This included the use of cattle prods and forcing Nim into a small, dark box when he misbehaved.). By mutual agreement two years later, Nim was moved out of the LaFarge brownstone and into a large house in Riverdale, where a grad student, Laura-Ann Petitto, took over as primary caregiver.
After the move to Riverdale, Nim exhibited symptoms of intense anxiety. For the first few weeks, he refused to be alone for even a minute. When left with a new person, he would rip off his clothes and pee and poop all over the room. His habit of "sinking his teeth into human flesh" -- which started before he was a year old -- became both more frequent and more damaging.
Adding further complication, Terrace became romantically involved with Petitto. (He had also been sexually involved with LaFarge but the relationship ended years before Project Nim.) After he "abruptly" ended the relationship, Petitto quit, cutting off Nim (again) from his closet companion and maternal figure. Terrace's two other full-timers quit around the same time. In the wake of these turnovers, Nim's behavior deteriorated further; he became more aggressive and less compliant with sign-language sessions.
Problems with the study
The turnover in staff, varying punishment methods, and Nim's “emotional turmoil” created a problem for the study. For any such study to be valid, the juvenille subject should be a healthy one, not marked by significant trauma.
Another problem with the study was the quality (and number) of people working with Nim. There were about 60 total, mostly volunteers, and few were proficient in sign language. Mary Wambaugh, a deaf woman fluent in ASL, joined the team three years into the study and raised concerns that the others were improperly signing. She told Terrace that Nim was being taught a pidgin version of the language, not proper ASL, which has a structure and set of rules. As Hess, observed, this made sense given the study's heavy reliance on students and untrained volunteers. The caregivers signed word-by-word, the same way Nim did.
Another significant problem involved Nim's classrooom. Nim performed his signs most fluidly and creatively when playing with his (human) friends at "home" — "home" being initially the LaFarge brownstone and, later, the Riverdale mansion. Yet Terrace needed Nim to work primarily in a space at Columbia, a windowless, noisy, 15' square "dungeon." Terrace described the challenges with the space in Nim:In the classroom, the slightest noise would make Nim jump into the arms of a teacher. At times, he was so scared he tried to hide under his teacher's skirt. The squeals of rats [in a nearby room] caused him to panic. And he would rock back-and-forth on the floor.Joyce Butler, who took over as primary caregiver after Petitto quit, said that Nim was nearly impossible to wrangle in the classroom and would repeatedly ask to leave by signing "dirty" to go to the bathroom. Butler and her fellow caregivers fought Terrace over his requirement that Nim attend the classroom daily. Eventually, they refused to take him there.
As difficulties with staff, funding concerns, and Nim's behavior came to a head, Terrace called an end to the study. Over intense resistance from staff, he sent Nim back to the Institute for Primate Studies in 1977 and then set about analyzing his data.
Terrace's conclusions
While Nim was in New York, Terrace believed he was learning sign language. But in reviewing the data, Terrace came to a conclusion that surprised most everyone involved: Nim, he said, was not using language at all. Terrace said that he changed his mind when watching videotapes of Nim (in his classroom). Language requires the use of sentences, and Nim didn't use sentences. Though Nim recognized and used signs, Terrace said he did not initiate conversation. When Nim combined signs, they tended to be highly repetitive and filled with "wild cards" -- words like ME, HUG, NIM, and MORE. For example, Nim's longest utterance, 16 signs, was: "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." The videotapes, Terrace argued, proved that Nim mimicked his teachers and used signs strictly to get a reward, not unlike a dog or horse.
Terrace's results shocked some of Nim's trainers and contradicted his earlier observations, including those in his book Nim (1979). That said, his findings regarding the Nim data were generally accepted as accurate. Among the many problems with Terrace's project (see above), he did not build in blind controls, making Project Nim vulnerable to the Clever Hans effect.
Controversy erupted over the fact that Terrace did not restrict his analysis to Nim. He claimed that other apes in other sign language research projects—most notably, Washoe and gorilla Koko—were mere mimmicks as well. He made these claims after examining brief video clips of the apes taken from a NOVA documentary and a film by Allen and Beatrix Gardner. Terrace's criticisms of other ape research led to heated debates, with many scholars contesting Terrace's claims. The arguments back-and-forth were summarized at that time by Jean Marx in Science (1980) and Dava Sobel (1979) and Eugene Linden in the New York Times.
Terrace ultimately became a popularly cited critic of ape language studies.
Life after Project Nim
Nim's return to the Institute of Primate Studies (IPS) in Oklahoma was by all accounts traumatic. By contemporary standards, IPS was a dreary facility. The apes spent most of their time in relatively small cages with concrete floors. But IPS founder William Lemmon recognized the critical importance of apes' social interactions and connected the cages so that chimps had access to each other. He also provided a better, healthier diet than the standard monkey chow. Compared to many zoos and other research facilities at the time, the IPS chimps fared relatively well.
Nim's celebrity was unique, but many of the IPS chimps had similarly been raised by humans. Like Nim, they were returned to IPS when they started growing up and exhibiting wild behaviors. Also like Nim, they had never met members of their own species before. The switch from a human environment to concrete cages with alien beasts caused intense stress and, in some cases, self-mutilation.
But Nim's depression turned out to be relatively short-lived compared to other new arrivals at IPS. Though terrified of the other chimps at first, Nim made new friends. Also, several students in Roger Fouts' sign language program enjoyed working with Nim and took him out for walks on the grounds. Nim continued to use signs, including STONE SMOKE TIME NOW to request marijuana. One IPS student, Bob Ingersoll, took a particular interest in Nim and advocated for him in the turmoil that was to follow.
In the early 1980s, University of Oklahoma withdrew its support of the IPS. Faced with the loss of funding, William Lemmon arranged to gradually sell off chimps to a New York University (NYU) biomedical lab, LEMSIP. (Roger Fouts, who had been working with several IPS chimps, had suddenly left for a new position in Washington, taking Washoe and Loulis with him.) Beginning in December 1981, IPS started sending chimps to LEMSIP, including many, like Nim, who had been used in sign language research. Staff at LEMSIP began noticing the chimps using ASL to communicate with them, so vet James Mahoney posted signs around the facility to help the staff understand the chimps' gestures.
When Bob Ingersoll found out about the LEMSIP plan, he called his Nim contacts to launch a protest and press campaign. He also contacted Jane Goodall, who wrote a letter to the University of Oklahoma on the chimps' behalf. Henry Herrman, a lawyer who had caught wind of the story in the Boston Globe reached out to Terrace, who had been quoted, to offer his services. His call to Terrace proved to be fortuitous. Other IPS personnel made a few calls that ultimately led to a CBS news story. When CBS News interviewed Terrace, Terrace said he was shocked to hear about the move and, referring to his contact with Herrman, announced that he would be filing a lawsuit to stop it. (According to James Mahoney of LEMSIP, Terrace had known about the move for several months and only acted outraged when the press attention hit.)
Though NYU initially ignored the press, the mounting legal threats and negative attention made holding on to the celebrity chimp — Nim — no longer worth it for the university. NYU arranged to send Nim and fellow chimp Ally back to IPS. Nim had been at LEMSIP for less than a month. The other sign language-trained chimps remained at LEMSIP. The press by then had moved on.
In 1983, philanthropist Cleveland Amory stepped in to buy Nim, by now a celebrity, and brought him to his equine sanctuary, Black Beauty Ranch, in Texas. As the only chimpanzee at the Ranch, Nim sank into a deep depression. Nim would gesture to staff but they did not sign back. When Ingersoll came to visit, Nim signed BOB, OUT, KEY. Ingersoll urged Amory to get a companion for Nim but was ignored. Meanwhile, Nim studied the locks on his cage and would periodically escape and run into the manager's house, raid the refrigerator, and sometimes turn on the TV. Once, in the process, he threw the pet poodle against a wall, killing it.
A year after Nim's arrival, Amory arranged to adopt another chimp, Sally. In her biography of Nim, Hess writes that the chimps became inseparable. Nim taught Sally how to sign DRINK, BANANA and GUM, three of the words he used most frequently at the ranch. He was frequently seen signing SORRY to Sally after they had a squabble. Nim still escaped, but a new manager handled those escapes differently. When Nim and Sally showed up at his house, he would act happy to see them and let them stay until they got bored. By keeping tensions low, he found, the chimps did not need to be darted.
After almost ten years with Nim, Sally died, sending Nim once again into severe distress. After hearing about Sally's death, Ingersoll arranged to help get three new chimp companions for Nim: Kitty, Midge, and Lulu. The chimps thrived as a small group until March 10, 2000, when Nim died suddenly of a heart attack. He was 26 years old, about half his average life expectancy.
In media
Project Nim, a documentary film by James Marsh about the Nim study, explores the story (and the wealth of archival footage) to consider ethical issues, the emotional experiences of the participants, and the deeper issues the experiment raised. The film is based on Nim Chimpsky, the biography by Elizabeth Hess, and Hess is credited as the writer. This documentary (produced by BBC Films, Red Box Films, and Passion Films) opened the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in theaters on July 8, 2011 by Roadside Attractions and on DVD on February 7, 2012.
Terrace wrote an op-ed in response to what he considered a negative portrayal of his Nim project, stating that the filmmakers inaccurately equated his study's negative results with "failure."
References
Key sources
Hess, Elizabeth (2008). Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human. New York: Bantam. ISBN 9780553803839.
Ingersoll, Robert; Scarnà, Antonina Anna (2023). Primatoloogy, Ethnics and Trauma: The Oklahoma Chimpanzee Studies. London and New York: Routledge.
Linden, Eugene (1986). Silent Partners: The Legacy of the Ape Language Experiments. Times Books. ISBN 0-8129-1239-X.
Marsh, James (2011) Project Nim, documentary film.
Marx, Jean L. (March 21, 1980) "Ape-Language Controversy Flares Up." Science. Vol. 27. No. 4437, pp. 1330–1333.
Sobel, Dava. (October 21, 1970) "Researcher Challenges Conclusion That Apes Can Learn Language." The New York Times. p.1.
Terrace, H. S. (1979). Nim. New York: Knopf.
Terrace, H. S.; Singer, P. (November 24, 2011). "Can Chimps Converse?: An Exchange". New York Review of Books.
Notes
See also
Alex (parrot)
Animal language
Chantek (orangutan)
Great ape language
Jennie, a 1994 novel about a chimpanzee living with a family in the 1970s learning sign language
Kanzi (bonobo)
Koko (gorilla)
List of individual apes
Lucy (chimpanzee)
Panbanisha (bonobo)
Washoe (chimpanzee)
External links
"'Test' results". ling.ohio-state.edu. Archived from the original on June 25, 2003.
"Official website for Project Nim documentary". project-nim.com. Archived from the original on January 20, 2011. |
Cuban_Missile_Crisis | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis | [
390
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis"
] | The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, romanized: Karibskiy krizis), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.
In 1961 the US government put Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. It had trained a paramilitary force of expatriate Cubans, which the CIA led in an attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow its government. Starting in November of that year, the US government engaged in a violent campaign of terrorism and sabotage in Cuba, referred to as the Cuban Project, which continued throughout the first half of the 1960s. The Soviet administration was concerned about a Cuban drift towards China, with which the Soviets had an increasingly fractious relationship. In response to these factors the Soviet and Cuban governments agreed, at a meeting between leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, to place nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter a future US invasion. Construction of launch facilities started shortly thereafter.
A U-2 spy plane captured photographic evidence of medium- and long-range launch facilities in October. US President John F. Kennedy convened a meeting of the National Security Council and other key advisers, forming the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM). Kennedy was advised to carry out an air strike on Cuban soil in order to compromise Soviet missile supplies, followed by an invasion of the Cuban mainland. He chose a less aggressive course in order to avoid a declaration of war. On 22 October Kennedy ordered a naval blockade to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba. He referred to the blockade as a "quarantine", not as a blockade, so the US could avoid the formal implications of a state of war.
An agreement was eventually reached between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba, subject to United Nations verification, in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement not to invade Cuba again. Secretly, the United States agreed to dismantle all of the offensive weapons it had deployed to Turkey. There has been debate on whether Italy was also included in the agreement. While the Soviets dismantled their missiles, some Soviet bombers remained in Cuba, and the United States kept the naval quarantine in place until 20 November 1962. The blockade was formally ended on 20 November after all offensive missiles and bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba. The evident necessity of a quick and direct communication line between the two powers resulted in the Moscow–Washington hotline. A series of agreements later reduced US–Soviet tensions for several years.
The compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey was a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev, and the Soviets were seen as retreating from a situation that they had started. Khrushchev's fall from power two years later was in part because of the Soviet Politburo's embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the US and his ineptitude in precipitating the crisis. According to the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin, the top Soviet leadership took the Cuban outcome as "a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation".
Background
Cuba–Soviet relations
In late 1961, Fidel Castro asked for more SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles from the Soviet Union. The request was not acted upon by the Soviet leadership. In the interval, Castro began criticizing the Soviets for lack of "revolutionary boldness", and began talking to China about agreements for economic assistance. In March 1962, Castro ordered the ousting of Anibal Escalante and his pro-Moscow comrades from Cuba's Integrated Revolutionary Organizations. This affair alarmed the Soviet leadership as well as raised fears of a possible US invasion. As a result, the Soviet Union sent more SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles in April as well as a regiment of regular Soviet troops.
Historian Timothy Naftali has contended that Escalante's dismissal was a motivating factor behind the Soviet decision to place nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. According to Naftali, Soviet foreign policy planners were concerned Castro's break with Escalante foreshadowed a Cuban drift toward China and sought to solidify the Soviet-Cuban relationship through the missile basing program.
Cuba–US relations
The Cuban government regarded US imperialism as the primary explanation for the island's structural weaknesses. The US government provided weapons, money, and its authority to the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista that ruled Cuba until 1958. The majority of the Cuban population had tired of the severe socioeconomic problems associated with the US domination of the country. The Cuban government was thus aware of the necessity of ending the turmoil and incongruities of US-dominated prerevolution Cuban society. It determined that the US government's demands, made as part of the hostile US reaction to Cuban government policy, were unacceptable.
With the end of World War II and the start of the Cold War, the United States government sought to promote private enterprise as an instrument for advancing US strategic interests in the developing world. It had grown concerned about the expansion of communism.
In December 1959, under the Eisenhower administration and less than twelve months after the Cuban Revolution, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) developed a plan for paramilitary action against Cuba. The CIA recruited operatives on the island to carry out terrorism and sabotage, kill civilians, and cause economic damage. At the initiative of the CIA Deputy Director for Plans, Richard Bissell, and approved by the new President John F. Kennedy, the US launched the attempted Bay of Pigs Invasion in April 1961. It used CIA-trained forces of Cuban expatriates. The complete failure of the invasion, and the exposure of the US government role before the operation began, was a source of diplomatic embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. Afterward, former President Eisenhower told Kennedy that "the failure of the Bay of Pigs will embolden the Soviets to do something that they would otherwise not do.": 10
Following the failed invasion, the US massively escalated its sponsorship of terrorism against Cuba. Starting in late 1961, using the military and the CIA, the US government engaged in an extensive campaign of state-sponsored terrorism against civilian and military targets on the island. The terrorist attacks killed significant numbers of civilians. The US armed, trained, funded and directed the terrorists, most of whom were Cuban expatriates. Terrorist attacks were planned at the direction and with the participation of US government employees and launched from US territory. In January 1962, US Air Force General Edward Lansdale described the plans to overthrow the Cuban government in a top-secret report, addressed to Kennedy and officials involved with Operation Mongoose. CIA agents or "pathfinders" from the Special Activities Division were to be infiltrated into Cuba to carry out sabotage and organization, including radio broadcasts. In February 1962, the US launched an embargo against Cuba, and Lansdale presented a 26-page, top-secret timetable for implementation of the overthrow of the Cuban government, mandating guerrilla operations to begin in August and September. "Open revolt and overthrow of the Communist regime" was hoped by the planners to occur in the first two weeks of October.
The terrorism campaign and the threat of invasion were crucial factors in the Soviet decision to position the missiles on Cuba, and in the Cuban government's decision to accept. The US government was aware at the time, as reported to the president in a National Intelligence Estimate, that the invasion threat was a key reason for Cuban acceptance of the missiles.
US–Soviet relations
When Kennedy ran for president in 1960, one of his key election issues was an alleged "missile gap" with the Soviets. In fact, the US at that time led the Soviets by a wide margin, which would only increase over time. In 1961, the Soviets had only four R-7 Semyorka intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). By October 1962, some intelligence estimates indicated a figure of 75.
The US, on the other hand, had 170 ICBMs and was quickly building more. It also had eight George Washington- and Ethan Allen-class ballistic missile submarines, with the capability to launch 16 Polaris missiles, each with a range of 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km). The Soviet First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev, increased the perception of a missile gap when he loudly boasted to the world that the Soviets were building missiles "like sausages" but Soviet missiles' numbers and capabilities were nowhere close to his assertions. The Soviet Union had medium-range ballistic missiles in quantity, about 700 of them, but they were unreliable and inaccurate. The US had a considerable advantage in its total number of nuclear warheads (27,000 against 3,600) and in the technology required for their accurate delivery. The US also led in missile defensive capabilities, naval and air power; however, the Soviets held a two-to-one advantage in conventional ground forces, more pronounced in field guns and tanks, particularly in the European theatre.
Khrushchev also had an impression of Kennedy as weak, which to him was confirmed by the President's response during the Berlin Crisis of 1961, particularly to the building of the Berlin Wall by East Germany to prevent its citizens from emigrating to the West. The half-hearted nature of the Bay of Pigs invasion reinforced Khrushchev's and his advisers' impression that Kennedy was indecisive and, as one Soviet aide wrote, "too young, intellectual, not prepared well for decision making in crisis situations... too intelligent and too weak". Speaking to Soviet officials in the aftermath of the crisis, Khrushchev asserted, "I know for certain that Kennedy doesn't have a strong background, nor, generally speaking, does he have the courage to stand up to a serious challenge." He also told his son Sergei that on Cuba, Kennedy "would make a fuss, make more of a fuss, and then agree".
Prelude
Conception
In May 1962, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev was persuaded by the idea of countering the US's growing lead in developing and deploying strategic missiles by placing Soviet intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Cuba, despite the misgivings of the Soviet Ambassador in Havana, Alexandr Ivanovich Alexeyev, who argued that Castro would not accept the deployment of the missiles. Khrushchev faced a strategic situation in which the US was perceived to have a "splendid first strike" capability that put the Soviet Union at a huge disadvantage. In 1962, the Soviets had only 20 ICBMs capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the US from inside the Soviet Union. The poor accuracy and reliability of the missiles raised serious doubts about their effectiveness. A newer, more reliable generation of ICBMs would become operational only after 1965.
Therefore, Soviet nuclear capability in 1962 placed less emphasis on ICBMs than on medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs and IRBMs). The missiles could hit American allies and most of Alaska from Soviet territory but not the contiguous United States. Graham Allison, the director of Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, points out, "The Soviet Union could not right the nuclear imbalance by deploying new ICBMs on its own soil. In order to meet the threat it faced in 1962, 1963, and 1964, it had very few options. Moving existing nuclear weapons to locations from which they could reach American targets was one."
A second reason that Soviet missiles were deployed to Cuba was that Khrushchev wanted to bring West Berlin, controlled by the American, British and French within Communist East Germany, into the Soviet orbit. The East Germans and Soviets considered western control over a portion of Berlin a grave threat to East Germany. Khrushchev made West Berlin the central battlefield of the Cold War. Khrushchev believed that if the US did nothing over the missile deployments in Cuba, he could muscle the West out of Berlin using said missiles as a deterrent to western countermeasures in Berlin. If the US tried to bargain with the Soviets after it became aware of the missiles, Khrushchev could demand trading the missiles for West Berlin. Since Berlin was strategically more important than Cuba, the trade would be a win for Khrushchev, as Kennedy recognized: "The advantage is, from Khrushchev's point of view, he takes a great chance but there are quite some rewards to it."
Thirdly, from the perspective of the Soviet Union and of Cuba, it seemed that the United States wanted to invade or increase its presence in Cuba. In view of actions including the attempt to expel Cuba from the Organization of American States, the ongoing campaign of violent terrorist attacks on civilians the US was carrying out against the island, economic sanctions against the country, and the earlier attempt to invade it, Cuban officials understood that America was trying to overrun the country. As a result, to try to prevent this, the USSR would place missiles in Cuba and neutralise the threat. This would ultimately serve to secure Cuba against attack and keep the country in the Socialist Bloc.
Another major reason why Khrushchev planned to place missiles on Cuba undetected was to "level the playing field" with the evident American nuclear threat. America had the upper hand as they could launch from Turkey and destroy the USSR before they would have a chance to react. After the emplacement of nuclear missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev had finally established mutual assured destruction, meaning that if the United States decided to launch a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, the latter would react by launching a retaliatory nuclear strike against the US.
Finally, placing nuclear missiles on Cuba was a way for the USSR to show their support for Cuba and support the Cuban people who viewed the United States as a threatening force, as the USSR had become Cuba's ally after the Cuban Revolution of 1959. According to Khrushchev, the Soviet Union's motives were "aimed at allowing Cuba to live peacefully and develop as its people desire".
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a historian and adviser to Kennedy, told National Public Radio in an interview on 16 October 2002, that Castro did not want the missiles, but Khrushchev pressured Castro to accept them. Castro was not completely happy with the idea, but the Cuban National Directorate of the Revolution accepted them, both to protect Cuba against US attack and to aid the Soviet Union.: 272
Soviet military deployments
In early 1962, a group of Soviet military and missile construction specialists accompanied an agricultural delegation to Havana. They obtained a meeting with Cuban prime minister Fidel Castro. According to one report, Cuban leadership had a strong expectation that the US would invade Cuba again and enthusiastically approved the idea of installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. According to another source, Castro objected to the missiles' deployment as making him look like a Soviet puppet, but he was persuaded that missiles in Cuba would be an irritant to the US and help the interests of the entire socialist camp. The deployment would include short-range tactical weapons (with a range of 40 km, usable only against naval vessels) that would provide a "nuclear umbrella" for attacks upon the island.
By May, Khrushchev and Castro agreed to place strategic nuclear missiles secretly in Cuba. Like Castro, Khrushchev felt that a US invasion of Cuba was imminent and that to lose Cuba would do great harm to the communists, especially in Latin America. He said he wanted to confront the Americans "with more than words.... the logical answer was missiles".: 29 The Soviets maintained their tight secrecy, writing their plans longhand, which were approved by Marshal of the Soviet Union Rodion Malinovsky on 4 July and Khrushchev on 7 July.
From the very beginning, the Soviets' operation entailed elaborate denial and deception, known as "maskirovka". All the planning and preparation for transporting and deploying the missiles were carried out in the utmost secrecy, with only a very few told the exact nature of the mission. Even the troops detailed for the mission were given misdirection by being told that they were headed for a cold region and being outfitted with ski boots, fleece-lined parkas, and other winter equipment. The Soviet code-name was Operation Anadyr. The Anadyr River flows into the Bering Sea, and Anadyr is also the capital of Chukotsky District and a bomber base in the far eastern region. All the measures were meant to conceal the program from both internal and external audiences.
Specialists in missile construction, under the guise of machine operators and agricultural specialists, arrived in July. A total of 43,000 foreign troops would ultimately be brought in. Chief Marshal of Artillery Sergei Biryuzov, Head of the Soviet Rocket Forces, led a survey team that visited Cuba. He told Khrushchev that the missiles would be concealed and camouflaged by palm trees. The Soviet troops would arrive in Cuba heavily underprepared. They did not know that the tropical climate would render ineffective many of their weapons and much of their equipment. In the first few days of setting up the missiles, troops complained of fuse failures, excessive corrosion, overconsumption of oil, and generator blackouts.
As early as August 1962, the US suspected the Soviets of building missile facilities in Cuba. During that month, its intelligence services gathered information about sightings by ground observers of Soviet-built MiG-21 fighters and Il-28 light bombers. U-2 spy planes found S-75 Dvina (NATO designation SA-2) surface-to-air missile sites at eight different locations. CIA director John A. McCone was suspicious. Sending antiaircraft missiles into Cuba, he reasoned, "made sense only if Moscow intended to use them to shield a base for ballistic missiles aimed at the United States". On 10 August, he wrote a memo to Kennedy in which he guessed that the Soviets were preparing to introduce ballistic missiles into Cuba. Che Guevara himself traveled to the Soviet Union on 30 August 1962, to sign off on the final agreement regarding the deployment of missiles in Cuba. The visit was heavily monitored by the CIA as Guevara had gained more scrutiny by American intelligence. While in the Soviet Union Guevara argued with Khrushchev that the missile deal should be made public but Khrushchev insisted on total secrecy, and swore the Soviet Union's support if the Americans discovered the missiles. By the time Guevara arrived in Cuba the United States had already discovered the Soviet troops in Cuba via U-2 spy planes.
With important Congressional elections scheduled for November, the crisis became enmeshed in American politics. On 31 August, Senator Kenneth Keating (R-New York) warned on the Senate floor that the Soviet Union was "in all probability" constructing a missile base in Cuba. He charged the Kennedy administration with covering up a major threat to the US, thereby starting the crisis. He may have received this initial "remarkably accurate" information from his friend, former congresswoman and ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, who in turn received it from Cuban exiles. A later confirming source for Keating's information possibly was the West German ambassador to Cuba, who had received information from dissidents inside Cuba that Soviet troops had arrived in Cuba in early August and were seen working "in all probability on or near a missile base" and who passed this information to Keating on a trip to Washington in early October. Air Force General Curtis LeMay presented a pre-invasion bombing plan to Kennedy in September, and spy flights and minor military harassment from US forces at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base were the subject of continual Cuban diplomatic complaints to the US government.
The first consignment of Soviet R-12 missiles arrived on the night of 8 September, followed by a second on 16 September. The R-12 was a medium-range ballistic missile, capable of carrying a thermonuclear warhead. It was a single-stage, road-transportable, surface-launched, storable liquid propellant fuelled missile that could deliver a megaton-class nuclear weapon. The Soviets were building nine sites—six for R-12 medium-range missiles (NATO designation SS-4 Sandal) with an effective range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) and three for R-14 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (NATO designation SS-5 Skean) with a maximum range of 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi).
On 7 October, Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado spoke at the UN General Assembly: "If... we are attacked, we will defend ourselves. I repeat, we have sufficient means with which to defend ourselves; we have indeed our inevitable weapons, the weapons, which we would have preferred not to acquire, and which we do not wish to employ." On 11 October in another Senate speech, Sen Keating reaffirmed his earlier warning of 31 August and stated that, "Construction has begun on at least a half dozen launching sites for intermediate range tactical missiles."
The Cuban leadership was further upset when on 20 September, the US Senate approved Joint Resolution 230, which expressed the US was determined "to prevent in Cuba the creation or use of an externally-supported military capability endangering the security of the United States". On the same day, the US announced a major military exercise in the Caribbean, PHIBRIGLEX-62, which Cuba denounced as a deliberate provocation and proof that the US planned to invade Cuba.
The Soviet leadership believed, based on its perception of Kennedy's lack of confidence during the Bay of Pigs Invasion, that he would avoid confrontation and accept the missiles as a fait accompli.: 1 On 11 September, the Soviet Union publicly warned that a US attack on Cuba or on Soviet ships that were carrying supplies to the island would mean war. The Soviets continued the Maskirovka program to conceal their actions in Cuba. They repeatedly denied that the weapons being brought into Cuba were offensive in nature. On 7 September, Soviet Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Dobrynin assured United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson that the Soviet Union was supplying only defensive weapons to Cuba. On 11 September, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS: Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza) announced that the Soviet Union had no need or intention to introduce offensive nuclear missiles into Cuba. On 13 October, Dobrynin was questioned by former Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles about whether the Soviets planned to put offensive weapons in Cuba. He denied any such plans. On 17 October, Soviet embassy official Georgy Bolshakov brought President Kennedy a personal message from Khrushchev reassuring him that "under no circumstances would surface-to-surface missiles be sent to Cuba.": 494
Missiles reported
The missiles in Cuba allowed the Soviets to effectively target most of the Continental US. The planned arsenal was forty launchers. The Cuban populace readily noticed the arrival and deployment of the missiles and hundreds of reports reached Miami. US intelligence received countless reports, many of dubious quality or even laughable, most of which could be dismissed as describing defensive missiles.
Only five reports bothered the analysts. They described large trucks passing through towns at night that were carrying very long canvas-covered cylindrical objects that could not make turns through towns without backing up and maneuvering. Defensive missile transporters, it was believed, could make such turns without undue difficulty. The reports could not be satisfactorily dismissed.
Aerial confirmation
The United States had been sending U-2 surveillance over Cuba since the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. The first issue that led to a pause in reconnaissance flights took place on 30 August, when a U-2 operated by the US Air Force's Strategic Air Command flew over Sakhalin Island in the Soviet Far East by mistake. The Soviets lodged a protest and the US apologized. Nine days later, a Taiwanese-operated U-2 was lost over western China to an SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM). US officials were worried that one of the Cuban or Soviet SAMs in Cuba might shoot down a CIA U-2, initiating another international incident. In a meeting with members of the Committee on Overhead Reconnaissance (COMOR) on 10 September, Secretary of State Dean Rusk and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy heavily restricted further U-2 flights over Cuban airspace. The resulting lack of coverage over the island for the next five weeks became known to historians as the "Photo Gap". No significant U-2 coverage was achieved over the interior of the island. US officials attempted to use a Corona photo-reconnaissance satellite to obtain coverage over reported Soviet military deployments, but imagery acquired over western Cuba by a Corona KH-4 mission on October 1 was heavily covered by clouds and haze and failed to provide any usable intelligence. At the end of September, Navy reconnaissance aircraft photographed the Soviet ship Kasimov, with large crates on its deck the size and shape of Il-28 jet bomber fuselages.
In September 1962, analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) noticed that Cuban surface-to-air missile sites were arranged in a pattern similar to those used by the Soviet Union to protect its ICBM bases, leading DIA to lobby for the resumption of U-2 flights over the island. Although in the past the flights had been conducted by the CIA, pressure from the Defense Department led to that authority being transferred to the Air Force. Following the loss of a CIA U-2 over the Soviet Union in May 1960, it was thought that if another U-2 were shot down, an Air Force aircraft arguably being used for a legitimate military purpose would be easier to explain than a CIA flight.
When the reconnaissance missions were reauthorized on 9 October, poor weather kept the planes from flying. The US first obtained U-2 photographic evidence of the missiles on 14 October, when a U-2 flight piloted by Major Richard Heyser took 928 pictures on a path selected by DIA analysts, capturing images of what turned out to be an SS-4 construction site at San Cristóbal, Pinar del Río Province (now in Artemisa Province), in western Cuba.
President notified
On 15 October, the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) reviewed the U-2 photographs and identified objects that they interpreted as medium range ballistic missiles. This identification was made, in part, on the strength of reporting provided by Oleg Penkovsky, a double agent in the GRU working for the CIA and MI6. Although he provided no direct reports of the Soviet missile deployments to Cuba, technical and doctrinal details of Soviet missile regiments that had been provided by Penkovsky in the months and years prior to the Crisis helped NPIC analysts correctly identify the missiles on U-2 imagery.
That evening, the CIA notified the Department of State and at 8:30 pm EDT, Bundy chose to wait until the next morning to tell the President. McNamara was briefed at midnight. The next morning, Bundy met with Kennedy and showed him the U-2 photographs and briefed him on the CIA's analysis of the images. At 6:30 pm EDT, Kennedy convened a meeting of the nine members of the National Security Council and five other key advisers, in a group he formally named the Executive Committee of the National Security Council (EXCOMM) after the fact on 22 October by National Security Action Memorandum 196. Without informing the members of EXCOMM, President Kennedy tape-recorded all of their proceedings, and Sheldon M. Stern, head of the Kennedy library transcribed some of them.
On 16 October, President Kennedy notified Attorney General Robert Kennedy that he was convinced the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba and it was a legitimate threat. This made the threat of nuclear destruction by two world superpowers a reality. Robert Kennedy responded by contacting the Soviet Ambassador, Anatoly Dobrynin. Robert Kennedy expressed his "concern about what was happening" and Dobrynin "was instructed by Soviet Chairman Nikita S. Khrushchev to assure President Kennedy that there would be no ground-to-ground missiles or offensive weapons placed in Cuba". Khrushchev further assured Kennedy that the Soviet Union had no intention of "disrupting the relationship of our two countries" despite the photo evidence presented before President Kennedy.
Responses considered
The US had no plan in place because until recently its intelligence had been convinced that the Soviets would never install nuclear missiles in Cuba. EXCOMM discussed several possible courses of action:
Do nothing: American vulnerability to Soviet missiles was not new.
Diplomacy: Use diplomatic pressure to get the Soviet Union to remove the missiles.
Secret approach: Offer Castro the choice of splitting with the Soviets or being invaded.
Invasion: Full-force invasion of Cuba and overthrow of Castro.
Air strike: Use the US Air Force to attack all known missile sites.
Blockade: Use the US Navy to block any missiles from arriving in Cuba.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff unanimously agreed that a full-scale attack and invasion was the only solution. They believed that the Soviets would not attempt to stop the US from conquering Cuba. Kennedy was skeptical:
They, no more than we, can let these things go by without doing something. They can't, after all their statements, permit us to take out their missiles, kill a lot of Russians, and then do nothing. If they don't take action in Cuba, they certainly will in Berlin.
Kennedy concluded that attacking Cuba by air would signal the Soviets to presume "a clear line" to conquer Berlin. Kennedy also believed that US allies would think of the country as "trigger-happy cowboys" who lost Berlin because they could not peacefully resolve the Cuban situation.
The EXCOMM then discussed the effect on the strategic balance of power, both political and military. The Joint Chiefs of Staff believed that the missiles would seriously alter the military balance, but McNamara disagreed. An extra 40, he reasoned, would make little difference to the overall strategic balance. The US already had approximately 5,000 strategic warheads,: 261 but the Soviet Union had only 300. McNamara concluded that the Soviets having 340 would not therefore substantially alter the strategic balance. In 1990, he reiterated that "it made no difference.... The military balance wasn't changed. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now."
The EXCOMM agreed that the missiles would affect the political balance. Kennedy had explicitly promised the American people less than a month before the crisis that "if Cuba should possess a capacity to carry out offensive actions against the United States... the United States would act.": 674–681 Further, US credibility among its allies and people would be damaged if the Soviet Union appeared to redress the strategic imbalance by placing missiles in Cuba. Kennedy explained after the crisis that "it would have politically changed the balance of power. It would have appeared to, and appearances contribute to reality."
On 18 October, Kennedy met with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Gromyko, who claimed the weapons were for defensive purposes only. Not wanting to expose what he already knew and to avoid panicking the American public, Kennedy did not reveal that he was already aware of the missile buildup.
Operational plans
Two Operational Plans (OPLAN) were considered. OPLAN 316 envisioned a full invasion of Cuba by Army and Marine units, supported by the Navy, following Air Force and naval airstrikes. Army units in the US would have had trouble fielding mechanised and logistical assets, and the US Navy could not supply enough amphibious shipping to transport even a modest armoured contingent from the Army.
OPLAN 312, primarily an Air Force and Navy carrier operation, was designed with enough flexibility to do anything from engaging individual missile sites to providing air support for OPLAN 316's ground forces.
Blockade
Kennedy met with members of EXCOMM and other top advisers throughout 21 October, considering two remaining options: an air strike primarily against the Cuban missile bases or a naval blockade of Cuba. A full-scale invasion was not the administration's first option. McNamara supported the naval blockade as a strong but limited military action that left the US in control. The term "blockade" was problematic – according to international law, a blockade is an act of war, but the Kennedy administration did not think that the Soviets would be provoked to attack by a mere blockade. Additionally, legal experts at the State Department and Justice Department concluded that a declaration of war could be avoided if another legal justification, based on the Rio Treaty for defence of the Western Hemisphere, was obtained from a resolution by a two-thirds vote from the members of the Organization of American States (OAS).
Admiral George Anderson, Chief of Naval Operations wrote a position paper that helped Kennedy to differentiate between what they termed a "quarantine" of offensive weapons and a blockade of all materials, claiming that a classic blockade was not the original intention. Since it would take place in international waters, Kennedy obtained the approval of the OAS for military action under the hemispheric defence provisions of the Rio Treaty:
Latin American participation in the quarantine now involved two Argentine destroyers which were to report to the US Commander South Atlantic [COMSOLANT] at Trinidad on November 9. An Argentine submarine and a Marine battalion with lift were available if required. In addition, two Venezuelan destroyers (Destroyers ARV D-11 Nueva Esparta" and "ARV D-21 Zulia") and one submarine (Caribe) had reported to COMSOLANT, ready for sea by November 2. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago offered the use of Chaguaramas Naval Base to warships of any OAS nation for the duration of the "quarantine". The Dominican Republic had made available one escort ship. Colombia was reported ready to furnish units and had sent military officers to the US to discuss this assistance. The Argentine Air Force informally offered three SA-16 aircraft in addition to forces already committed to the "quarantine" operation.
This initially was to involve a naval blockade against offensive weapons within the framework of the Organization of American States and the Rio Treaty. Such a blockade might be expanded to cover all types of goods and air transport. The action was to be backed up by surveillance of Cuba. The CNO's scenario was followed closely in later implementing the "quarantine."
On 19 October, the EXCOMM formed separate working groups to examine the air strike and blockade options, and by the afternoon most support in the EXCOMM had shifted to a blockade. Reservations about the plan continued to be voiced as late as 21 October, the paramount concern being that once the blockade was put into effect the Soviets would rush to complete some of the missiles. Consequently, the US could find itself bombing operational missiles if the blockade did not force Khrushchev to remove the missiles already on the island.: 99–101
Speech to the nation
At 3:00 pm EDT on 22 October, President Kennedy formally established the executive committee (EXCOMM) with National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 196. At 5:00 pm, he met with Congressional leaders, who contentiously opposed a blockade and demanded a stronger response. In Moscow, US Ambassador Foy D. Kohler briefed Khrushchev on the pending blockade and Kennedy's speech to the nation. Ambassadors around the world gave notice to non-Eastern Bloc leaders. Before the speech, US delegations met with Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, French President Charles de Gaulle and Secretary-General of the Organization of American States, José Antonio Mora to brief them on this intelligence and the US's proposed response. All were supportive of the US position. Over the course of the crisis, Kennedy had daily telephone conversations with Macmillan, who was publicly supportive of US actions.
Shortly before his speech, Kennedy telephoned former President Dwight Eisenhower. Kennedy's conversation with the former president also revealed that the two had been consulting during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The two also anticipated that Khrushchev would respond to the Western world in a manner similar to his response during the Suez Crisis, and would possibly wind up trading off Berlin.
At 7:00 pm EDT on 22 October, Kennedy delivered a nationwide televised address on all of the major networks announcing the discovery of the missiles. He noted:
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.
Kennedy described the administration's plan:
To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba, from whatever nation or port, will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948.
During the speech, a directive went out to all US forces worldwide, placing them on DEFCON 3. The heavy cruiser USS Newport News was the designated flagship for the blockade, with USS Leary as Newport News's destroyer escort. Kennedy's speech writer Ted Sorensen stated in 2007 that the address to the nation was "Kennedy's most important speech historically, in terms of its impact on our planet."
Crisis deepens
At 11:24 am EDT on 24 October, a cable from US Secretary of State George Ball to the US Ambassadors in Turkey and NATO notified them that they were considering making an offer to withdraw the missiles from Italy and Turkey, in exchange for the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba. Turkish officials replied that they would "deeply resent" any trade involving the US missile presence in their country. One day later, on the morning of 25 October, American journalist Walter Lippmann proposed the same thing in his syndicated column. Castro reaffirmed Cuba's right to self-defense and said that all of its weapons were defensive and Cuba would not allow an inspection.
International response
Three days after Kennedy's speech, the Chinese People's Daily announced that "650,000,000 Chinese men and women were standing by the Cuban people." In West Germany, newspapers supported the US response by contrasting it with the weak American actions in the region during the preceding months. They also expressed some fear that the Soviets might retaliate in Berlin. In France on 23 October, the crisis made the front page of all the daily newspapers. The next day, an editorial in Le Monde expressed doubt about the authenticity of the CIA's photographic evidence. Two days later, after a visit by a high-ranking CIA agent, the newspaper accepted the validity of the photographs. In the 29 October issue of Le Figaro, Raymond Aron wrote in support of the American response. On 24 October, Pope John XXIII sent a message to the Soviet embassy in Rome, to be transmitted to the Kremlin, in which he voiced his concern for peace. In this message he stated, "We beg all governments not to remain deaf to this cry of humanity. That they do all that is in their power to save peace."
Soviet broadcast and communications
The crisis continued unabated, and on the evening of 24 October, the Soviet TASS news agency broadcast a telegram from Khrushchev to Kennedy, in which Khrushchev warned that the United States' "outright piracy" would lead to war. Khrushchev then sent at 9:24 pm a telegram to Kennedy, which was received at 10:52 pm EDT. Khrushchev stated, "if you weigh the present situation with a cool head without giving way to passion, you will understand that the Soviet Union cannot afford not to decline the despotic demands of the USA" and that the Soviet Union viewed the blockade as "an act of aggression", and their ships would be instructed to ignore it. After 23 October, Soviet communications with the USA increasingly showed indications of having been rushed. Undoubtedly a product of pressure, it was not uncommon for Khrushchev to repeat himself and to send messages lacking basic editing. With President Kennedy making his aggressive intentions of a possible airstrike followed by an invasion on Cuba known, Khrushchev rapidly sought a diplomatic compromise. Communications between the two superpowers had entered into a unique and revolutionary period; with the newly developed threat of mutual destruction through the deployment of nuclear weapons, diplomacy now demonstrated how power and coercion could dominate negotiations.
US alert level raised
The US requested an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on 25 October. US Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin in an emergency meeting of the Security Council, challenging him to admit the existence of the missiles. Ambassador Zorin refused to answer. At 10:00 pm EDT the next day, the US raised the readiness level of Strategic Air Command (SAC) forces to DEFCON 2. For the only confirmed time in US history, B-52 bombers went on continuous airborne alert, and B-47 medium bombers were dispersed to various military and civilian airfields and made ready to take off, fully equipped, on 15 minutes' notice. One-eighth of SAC's 1,436 bombers were on airborne alert, and some 145 intercontinental ballistic missiles stood on ready alert, some of which targeted Cuba. Air Defense Command (ADC) redeployed 161 nuclear-armed interceptors to 16 dispersal fields within nine hours, with one third maintaining 15-minute alert status. Twenty-three nuclear-armed B-52s were sent to orbit points within striking distance of the Soviet Union so it would believe that the US was serious. Jack J. Catton later estimated that about 80 per cent of SAC's planes were ready for launch during the crisis; David A. Burchinal recalled that, by contrast:
the Russians were so thoroughly stood down, and we knew it. They didn't make any move. They did not increase their alert; they did not increase any flights, or their air defense posture. They didn't do a thing, they froze in place. We were never further from nuclear war than at the time of Cuba, never further.
By 22 October, Tactical Air Command (TAC) had 511 fighters, plus supporting tankers and reconnaissance aircraft, deployed to face Cuba on one-hour alert status. TAC and the Military Air Transport Service had problems. The concentration of aircraft in Florida strained command and support echelons, which faced critical undermanning in security, armaments, and communications; the absence of initial authorization for war-reserve stocks of conventional munitions forced TAC to scrounge; and the lack of airlift assets to support a major airborne drop necessitated the call-up of 24 reserve squadrons.
On 25 October at 1:45 am EDT, Kennedy responded to Khrushchev's telegram by stating that the US was forced into action after receiving repeated assurances that no offensive missiles were being placed in Cuba, and when the assurances proved to be false, the deployment "required the responses I have announced.... I hope that your government will take necessary action to permit a restoration of the earlier situation."
Blockade challenged
At 7:15 am EDT on 25 October, USS Essex and USS Gearing attempted to intercept Bucharest but failed to do so. Fairly certain that the tanker did not contain any military material, the US allowed it through the blockade. Later that day, at 5:43 pm, the commander of the blockade effort ordered the destroyer USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. to intercept and board the Lebanese freighter Marucla. That took place the next day, and Marucla was cleared through the blockade after its cargo was checked.
At 5:00 pm EDT on 25 October, William Clements announced that the missiles in Cuba were still actively being worked on. That report was later verified by a CIA report that suggested there had been no slowdown at all. In response, Kennedy issued Security Action Memorandum 199, authorizing the loading of nuclear weapons onto aircraft under the command of SACEUR, which had the duty of carrying out first air strikes on the Soviet Union. Kennedy claimed that the blockade had succeeded when the USSR turned back fourteen ships presumably carrying offensive weapons. The first indication of this came from a report from the British GCHQ sent to the White House Situation Room containing intercepted communications from Soviet ships reporting their positions. On 24 October, Kislovodsk, a Soviet cargo ship, reported a position north-east of where it had been 24 hours earlier indicating it had "discontinued" its voyage and turned back towards the Baltic. The next day, reports showed more ships originally bound for Cuba had altered their course.
Raising the stakes
The next morning, 26 October, Kennedy informed the EXCOMM that he believed only an invasion would remove the missiles from Cuba. He was persuaded to give the matter time and continue with both military and diplomatic pressure. He agreed and ordered the low-level flights over the island to be increased from two per day to once every two hours. He also ordered a crash program to institute a new civil government in Cuba if an invasion went ahead.
At this point, the crisis was ostensibly at a stalemate. The Soviets had shown no indication that they would back down and had made public media and private inter-governmental statements to that effect. The US had no reason to believe otherwise and was in the early stages of preparing for an invasion, along with a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union if it responded militarily, which the US assumed it would. Kennedy had no intention of keeping these plans a secret; with an array of Cuban and Soviet spies forever present, Khrushchev was quickly made aware of this looming danger.
The implicit threat of air strikes on Cuba followed by invasion allowed the United States to exert pressure in future talks. It was the possibility of military action that played an influential role in accelerating Khrushchev's proposal for a compromise. Throughout the closing stages of October, Soviet communications to the United States indicated increasing defensiveness. Khrushchev's increasing tendency to use poorly phrased and ambiguous communications throughout the compromise negotiations conversely increased United States confidence and clarity in messaging. Leading Soviet figures consistently failed to mention that only the Cuban government could agree to inspections of the territory and continually made arrangements relating to Cuba without the knowledge of Fidel Castro himself. According to Dean Rusk, Khrushchev "blinked"; he began to panic from the consequences of his own plan, and this was reflected in the tone of Soviet messages. This allowed the US to largely dominate negotiations in late October.
The escalating situation also led Khrushchev to abandon plans for a potential Warsaw Pact invasion of Albania, which was being discussed in the Eastern Bloc following the Vlora incident the year prior.
Secret negotiations
At 1:00 pm EDT on 26 October, John A. Scali of ABC News had lunch with Aleksandr Fomin, the cover name of Alexander Feklisov, the KGB station chief in Washington, at Fomin's request. Following the instructions of the Politburo of the CPSU, Fomin noted, "War seems about to break out." He asked Scali to use his contacts to talk to his "high-level friends" at the State Department to see if the US would be interested in a diplomatic solution. He suggested that the language of the deal would contain an assurance from the Soviet Union to remove the weapons under UN supervision and that Castro would publicly announce that he would not accept such weapons again in exchange for a public statement by the US that it would not invade Cuba. The US responded by asking the Brazilian government to pass a message to Castro that the US would be "unlikely to invade" if the missiles were removed.
At 6:00 pm EDT on 26 October, the State Department started receiving a message that appeared to be written personally by Khrushchev. It was Saturday 2:00 am in Moscow. The long letter took several minutes to arrive, and it took translators additional time to translate and transcribe it.
Robert F. Kennedy described the letter as "very long and emotional". Khrushchev reiterated the basic outline that had been stated to Scali earlier in the day: "I propose: we, for our part, will declare that our ships bound for Cuba are not carrying any armaments. You will declare that the United States will not invade Cuba with its troops and will not support any other forces which might intend to invade Cuba. Then the necessity of the presence of our military specialists in Cuba will disappear." At 6:45 pm EDT, news of Fomin's offer to Scali was finally heard and was interpreted as a "set up" for the arrival of Khrushchev's letter. The letter was then considered official and accurate, although it was later learned that Fomin was almost certainly operating of his own accord without official backing. Additional study of the letter was ordered and continued into the night.
Crisis continues
Direct aggression against Cuba would mean nuclear war. The Americans speak about such aggression as if they did not know or did not want to accept this fact. I have no doubt they would lose such a war.
Castro, on the other hand, was convinced that an invasion of Cuba was soon at hand, and on 26 October, he sent a telegram to Khrushchev that appeared to call for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US in case of attack. In a 2010 interview, Castro expressed regret about his 1962 stance on first use: "After I've seen what I've seen, and knowing what I know now, it wasn't worth it at all." Castro also ordered all anti-aircraft weapons in Cuba to fire on any US aircraft; previous orders had been to fire only on groups of two or more. At 6:00 am EDT on 27 October, the CIA delivered a memo reporting that three of the four missile sites at San Cristobal and both sites at Sagua la Grande appeared to be fully operational. It also noted that the Cuban military continued to organise for action but was under order not to initiate action unless attacked.
At 9:00 am EDT on 27 October, Radio Moscow began broadcasting a message from Khrushchev. Contrary to the letter of the night before, the message offered a new trade: the missiles on Cuba would be removed in exchange for the removal of the Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey. At 10:00 am EDT, the executive committee met again to discuss the situation and came to the conclusion that the change in the message was because of internal debate between Khrushchev and other party officials in the Kremlin.: 300 Kennedy realised that he would be in an "insupportable position if this becomes Khrushchev's proposal" because the missiles in Turkey were not militarily useful and were being removed anyway and "It's gonna – to any man at the United Nations or any other rational man, it will look like a very fair trade." Bundy explained why Khrushchev's public acquiescence could not be considered: "The current threat to peace is not in Turkey, it is in Cuba."
McNamara noted that another tanker, the Grozny, was about 600 miles (970 km) out and should be intercepted. He also noted that they had not made the Soviets aware of the blockade line and suggested relaying that information to them via U Thant at the United Nations.
While the meeting progressed, at 11:03 am EDT a new message began to arrive from Khrushchev. The message stated, in part:
"You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is ninety-nine miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But... you have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Italy and Turkey, literally next to us.... I therefore make this proposal: We are willing to remove from Cuba the means which you regard as offensive.... Your representatives will make a declaration to the effect that the United States... will remove its analogous means from Turkey... and after that, persons entrusted by the United Nations Security Council could inspect on the spot the fulfillment of the pledges made."
The executive committee continued to meet through the day.
Throughout the crisis, Turkey had repeatedly stated that it would be upset if the Jupiter missiles were removed. Italy's Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani, who was also Foreign Minister ad interim, offered to allow withdrawal of the missiles deployed in Apulia as a bargaining chip. He gave the message to one of his most trusted friends, Ettore Bernabei, general manager of RAI-TV, to convey to Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Bernabei was in New York to attend an international conference on satellite TV broadcasting.
On the morning of 27 October, a U-2F (the third CIA U-2A, modified for air-to-air refuelling) piloted by USAF Major Rudolf Anderson, departed its forward operating location at McCoy AFB, Florida. At approximately 12:00 pm EDT, the aircraft was struck by an SA-2 surface-to-air missile launched from Cuba. The aircraft crashed, and Anderson was killed. Stress in negotiations between the Soviets and the US intensified; only later was it assumed that the decision to fire the missile was made locally by an undetermined Soviet commander, acting on his own authority. Later that day, at about 3:41 pm EDT, several US Navy RF-8A Crusader aircraft, on low-level photo-reconnaissance missions, were fired upon.
At 4:00 pm EDT, Kennedy recalled members of EXCOMM to the White House and ordered that a message should immediately be sent to U Thant asking the Soviets to suspend work on the missiles while negotiations were carried out. During the meeting, General Maxwell Taylor delivered the news that the U-2 had been shot down. Kennedy had earlier claimed he would order an attack on such sites if fired upon, but he decided to not act unless another attack was made.
On 28 October 1962, Khrushchev told his son Sergei that the shooting down of Anderson's U-2 was by the "Cuban military at the direction of Raúl Castro".
Forty years later, McNamara said:
We had to send a U-2 over to gain reconnaissance information on whether the Soviet missiles were becoming operational. We believed that if the U-2 was shot down that—the Cubans didn't have capabilities to shoot it down, the Soviets did—we believed if it was shot down, it would be shot down by a Soviet surface-to-air-missile unit, and that it would represent a decision by the Soviets to escalate the conflict. And therefore, before we sent the U-2 out, we agreed that if it was shot down we wouldn't meet, we'd simply attack. It was shot down on Friday.... Fortunately, we changed our mind, we thought "Well, it might have been an accident, we won't attack." Later we learned that Khrushchev had reasoned just as we did: we send over the U-2, if it was shot down, he reasoned we would believe it was an intentional escalation. And therefore, he issued orders to Pliyev, the Soviet commander in Cuba, to instruct all of his batteries not to shoot down the U-2.
Daniel Ellsberg said that Robert Kennedy (RFK) told him in 1964 that after the U-2 was shot down and the pilot killed, he (RFK) told Soviet ambassador Dobrynin, "You have drawn first blood ... . [T]he president had decided against advice ... not to respond militarily to that attack, but he [Dobrynin] should know that if another plane was shot at, ... we would take out all the SAMs and antiaircraft ... . And that would almost surely be followed by an invasion."
Drafting response
Emissaries sent by both Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to meet at the Yenching Palace Chinese restaurant in the Cleveland Park neighbourhood of Washington, DC, on Saturday evening, 27 October. Kennedy suggested to take Khrushchev's offer to trade away the missiles. Unknown to most members of the EXCOMM, but with the support of his brother the president, Robert Kennedy had been meeting with the Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin in Washington to discover whether the intentions were genuine. The EXCOMM was generally against the proposal because it would undermine NATO's authority, and the Turkish government had repeatedly stated it was against any such trade.
As the meeting progressed, a new plan emerged, and Kennedy was slowly persuaded. The new plan called for him to ignore the latest message and instead to return to Khrushchev's earlier one. Kennedy was initially hesitant, feeling that Khrushchev would no longer accept the deal because a new one had been offered, but Llewellyn Thompson argued that it was still possible.: 135–56 White House Special Counsel and Adviser Ted Sorensen and Robert Kennedy left the meeting and returned 45 minutes later, with a draft letter to that effect. The President made several changes, had it typed, and sent it.
After the EXCOMM meeting, a smaller meeting continued in the Oval Office. The group argued that the letter should be underscored with an oral message to Dobrynin that stated that if the missiles were not withdrawn, military action would be used to remove them. Rusk added one proviso that no part of the language of the deal would mention Turkey, but there would be an understanding that the missiles would be removed "voluntarily" in the immediate aftermath. The president agreed, and the message was sent.
At Rusk's request, Fomin and Scali met again. Scali asked why the two letters from Khrushchev were so different, and Fomin claimed it was because of "poor communications". Scali replied that the claim was not credible and shouted that he thought it was a "stinking double cross". He went on to claim that an invasion was only hours away, and Fomin stated that a response to the US message was expected from Khrushchev shortly and urged Scali to tell the State Department that no treachery was intended. Scali said that he did not think anyone would believe him, but he agreed to deliver the message. The two went their separate ways, and Scali immediately typed out a memo for the EXCOMM.
Within the US establishment, it was well understood that ignoring the second offer and returning to the first put Khrushchev in a terrible position. Military preparations continued, and all active duty Air Force personnel were recalled to their bases for possible action. Robert Kennedy later recalled the mood: "We had not abandoned all hope, but what hope there was now rested with Khrushchev's revising his course within the next few hours. It was a hope, not an expectation. The expectation was military confrontation by Tuesday [30 October], and possibly tomorrow [29 October] ...."
At 8:05 pm EDT, the letter drafted earlier in the day was delivered. The message read, "As I read your letter, the key elements of your proposals—which seem generally acceptable as I understand them—are as follows: 1) You would agree to remove these weapons systems from Cuba under appropriate United Nations observation and supervision; and undertake, with suitable safe-guards, to halt the further introduction of such weapon systems into Cuba. 2) We, on our part, would agree—upon the establishment of adequate arrangements through the United Nations, to ensure the carrying out and continuation of these commitments (a) to remove promptly the quarantine measures now in effect and (b) to give assurances against the invasion of Cuba." The letter was also released directly to the press to ensure it could not be "delayed". With the letter delivered, a deal was on the table. As Robert Kennedy noted, there was little expectation it would be accepted. At 9:00 pm EDT, the EXCOMM met again to review the actions for the following day. Plans were drawn up for air strikes on the missile sites as well as other economic targets, notably petroleum storage. McNamara stated that they had to "have two things ready: a government for Cuba, because we're going to need one; and secondly, plans for how to respond to the Soviet Union in Europe, because sure as hell they're going to do something there".
At 12:12 am EDT, on 27 October, the US informed its NATO allies that "the situation is growing shorter.... the United States may find it necessary within a very short time in its interest and that of its fellow nations in the Western Hemisphere to take whatever military action may be necessary." To add to the concern, at 6:00 am, the CIA reported that all missiles in Cuba were ready for action.
On 27 October, Khrushchev also received a letter from Castro, what is now known as the Armageddon Letter (dated the day before), which was interpreted as urging the use of nuclear force in the event of an attack on Cuba: "I believe the imperialists' aggressiveness is extremely dangerous and if they actually carry out the brutal act of invading Cuba in violation of international law and morality, that would be the moment to eliminate such danger forever through an act of clear legitimate defense, however harsh and terrible the solution would be," Castro wrote.
Averted nuclear launch
Later that same day, what the White House later called "Black Saturday", the US Navy dropped a series of "signalling" depth charges ("practice" depth charges the size of hand grenades) on a Soviet submarine (B-59) at the blockade line, unaware that it was armed with a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed it to be used if the submarine was damaged by depth charges or surface fire. As the submarine was too deep to monitor any radio traffic, the captain of the B-59, Valentin Grigoryevich Savitsky, assumed after live ammunition fire at his submarine, that a war had already started and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo. The decision to launch these normally only required the agreement of the ship's commanding officer and political officer. However, the commander of the submarine flotilla, Vasily Arkhipov, was aboard B-59 and so he also had to agree. Arkhipov objected and so the nuclear launch was narrowly averted. (These events only publicly became known in 2002. See Submarine close call.)
On the same day a U-2 spy plane made an accidental, unauthorised 90-minute overflight of the Soviet Union's far eastern coast. The Soviets responded by scrambling MiG fighters from Wrangel Island; in turn, the Americans launched F-102 fighters armed with nuclear air-to-air missiles over the Bering Sea.
Resolution
On Saturday, 27 October, after much deliberation between the Soviet Union and Kennedy's cabinet, Kennedy secretly agreed to remove all missiles set in Turkey and possibly southern Italy, the former on the border of the Soviet Union, in exchange for Khrushchev removing all missiles in Cuba. There is some dispute as to whether removing the missiles from Italy was part of the secret agreement. Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that it was, and when the crisis had ended McNamara gave the order to dismantle the missiles in both Italy and Turkey.
At this point, Khrushchev knew things the US did not. First, that the shooting down of the U-2 by a Soviet missile violated direct orders from Moscow, and Cuban anti-aircraft fire against other US reconnaissance aircraft also violated direct orders from Khrushchev to Castro. Second, the Soviets already had 162 nuclear warheads on Cuba that the US did not then believe were there. Third, the Soviets and Cubans on the island would almost certainly have responded to an invasion by using those nuclear weapons, even though Castro believed that every human in Cuba would likely die as a result. Khrushchev also knew but may not have considered the fact that he had submarines armed with nuclear weapons that the US Navy may not have known about.
Khrushchev knew he was losing control. President Kennedy had been told in early 1961 that a nuclear war would likely kill a third of humanity, with most or all of those deaths concentrated in the US, the USSR, Europe and China; Khrushchev may well have received similar reports from his military.
With this background, when Khrushchev heard Kennedy's threats relayed by Robert Kennedy to Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin, he immediately drafted his acceptance of Kennedy's latest terms from his dacha without involving the Politburo, as he had previously, and had them immediately broadcast over Radio Moscow, which he believed the US would hear. In that broadcast at 9:00 am EST, on 28 October, Khrushchev stated that "the Soviet government, in addition to previously issued instructions on the cessation of further work at the building sites for the weapons, has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons which you describe as 'offensive' and their crating and return to the Soviet Union." At 10:00 am on 28 October, Kennedy first learned of Khrushchev's solution to the crisis with the US removing the 15 Jupiters in Turkey and the Soviets would remove the rockets from Cuba. Khrushchev had made the offer in a public statement for the world to hear. Despite almost solid opposition from his senior advisers, Kennedy quickly embraced the Soviet offer. "This is a pretty good play of his," Kennedy said, according to a tape recording that he made secretly of the Cabinet Room meeting. Kennedy had deployed the Jupiters in March 1962, causing a stream of angry outbursts from Khrushchev. "Most people will think this is a rather even trade and we ought to take advantage of it," Kennedy said. Vice President Lyndon Johnson was the first to endorse the missile swap but others continued to oppose the offer. Finally, Kennedy ended the debate. "We can't very well invade Cuba with all its toil and blood," Kennedy said, "when we could have gotten them out by making a deal on the same missiles on Turkey. If that's part of the record, then you don't have a very good war."
Kennedy immediately responded to Khrushchev's letter, issuing a statement calling it "an important and constructive contribution to peace". He continued this with a formal letter:
I consider my letter to you of October twenty-seventh and your reply of today as firm undertakings on the part of both our governments which should be promptly carried out.... The US will make a statement in the framework of the Security Council in reference to Cuba as follows: it will declare that the United States of America will respect the inviolability of Cuban borders, its sovereignty, that it take the pledge not to interfere in internal affairs, not to intrude themselves and not to permit our territory to be used as a bridgehead for the invasion of Cuba, and will restrain those who would plan to carry an aggression against Cuba, either from US territory or from the territory of other countries neighboring to Cuba.: 103
Kennedy's planned statement would also contain suggestions he had received from his adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in a "Memorandum for the President" describing the "Post Mortem on Cuba".
On 28 October, Kennedy participated in telephone conversations with Eisenhower and fellow former US President Harry Truman. In these calls, Kennedy revealed that he thought the crisis would result in the two superpowers being "toe to toe" in Berlin by the end of the following month and expressed concern that the Soviet setback in Cuba would "make things tougher" there. He also informed his predecessors that he had rejected the public Soviet offer to withdraw from Cuba in exchange for the withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey.
The US continued the blockade; in the following days, aerial reconnaissance proved that the Soviets were making progress in removing the missile systems. The 42 missiles and their support equipment were loaded onto eight Soviet ships. On 2 November 1962, Kennedy addressed the US via radio and television broadcasts regarding the dismantlement process of the Soviet R-12 missile bases located in the Caribbean region. The ships left Cuba on November 5 to 9. The US made a final visual check as each of the ships passed the blockade line. Further diplomatic efforts were required to remove the Soviet Il-28 bombers, and they were loaded on three Soviet ships on 5 and 6 December. Concurrent with the Soviet commitment on the Il-28s, the US government announced the end of the blockade from 6:45 pm EST on 20 November 1962.
At the time when the Kennedy administration thought that the Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved, nuclear tactical rockets stayed in Cuba since they were not part of the Kennedy-Khrushchev understandings and the Americans did not know about them. The Soviets changed their minds, fearing possible future Cuban militant steps, and on 22 November 1962, Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union Anastas Mikoyan told Castro that the rockets with the nuclear warheads were being removed as well.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was solved in part by a secret agreement between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. The Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact was known to only 9 US officials at the time of its creation in October 1963 and was first officially acknowledged at a conference in Moscow in January 1989 by Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and Kennedy's speechwriter Theodore Sorensen. In his negotiations with Dobrynin, Robert Kennedy informally proposed that the Jupiter missiles in Turkey would be removed "within a short time after this crisis was over".: 222 Under an operation code-named Operation Pot Pie, the removal of the Jupiters from Italy and Turkey began on 1 April, and was completed by 24 April 1963. The initial plans were to recycle the missiles for use in other programs, but NASA and the USAF were not interested in retaining the missile hardware. The missile bodies were destroyed on site, while warheads, guidance packages, and launching equipment worth $14 million were returned to the United States. The dismantling operations were named Pot Pie I for Italy and Pot Pie II for Turkey by the United States Air Force.
The practical effect of the Kennedy-Khrushchev Pact was that the US would remove their rockets from Italy and Turkey and that the Soviets had no intention of resorting to nuclear war if they were out-gunned by the US. Because the withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles from NATO bases in Italy and Turkey was not made public at the time, Khrushchev appeared to have lost the conflict and become weakened. The perception was that Kennedy had won the contest between the superpowers and that Khrushchev had been humiliated. Both Kennedy and Khrushchev took every step to avoid full conflict despite pressures from their respective governments. Khrushchev held power for another two years.: 102–105 As a direct result of the crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union set up a direct line of communication. The hotline between the Soviet Union and the United States was a way for the President and the Premier to have negotiations should a crisis like this ever happen again.
Nuclear forces
By the time of the crisis in October 1962, the total number of nuclear weapons in the stockpiles of each country numbered approximately 26,400 for the United States and 3,300 for the Soviet Union. For the US, around 3,500 (with a combined yield of approximately 6,300 megatons) would have been used in attacking the Soviet Union. The Soviets had considerably less strategic firepower at their disposal: some 300–320 bombs and warheads, without submarine-based weapons in a position to threaten the US mainland and most of their intercontinental delivery systems based on bombers that would have difficulty penetrating North American air defence systems. However, they had already moved 158 warheads to Cuba; between 95 and 100 would have been ready for use if the US had invaded Cuba, most of which were short-ranged. The US had approximately 4,375 nuclear weapons deployed in Europe, most of which were tactical weapons such as nuclear artillery, with around 450 of them for ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and aircraft; the Soviets had more than 550 similar weapons in Europe.
United States
SAC
ICBM: 182 (at peak alert); 121 Atlas D/E/F, 53 Titan 1, 8 Minuteman 1A
Bombers: 1,595; 880 B-47, 639 B-52, 76 B-58 (1,479 bombers and 1,003 refuelling tankers available at peak alert)
Atlantic Command
112 UGM-27 Polaris in seven SSBNs (16 each); five submarines with Polaris A1 and two with A2
Pacific Command
4–8 Regulus cruise missiles
16 Mace cruise missiles
Three aircraft carriers with some 40 bombs each
Land-based aircraft with some 50 bombs
European Command
IRBM: 45 Jupiter (30 Italy, 15 Turkey)
48–90 Mace cruise missiles
Two US Sixth Fleet aircraft carriers with some 40 bombs each
Land-based aircraft with some 50 bombs
Soviet Union
Strategic (for use against North America):
ICBM: 42; four SS-6/R-7A at Plesetsk with two in reserve at Baikonur, 36 SS-7/R-16 with 26 in silos and ten on open launch pads
Bombers: 160 (readiness unknown); 100 Tu-95 Bear, 60 3M Bison B
Regional (mostly targeting Europe, and others targeting US bases in east Asia):
MRBM: 528 SS-4/R-12, 492 at soft launch sites and 36 at hard launch sites (approximately six to eight R-12s were operational in Cuba, capable of striking the US mainland at any moment until the crisis was resolved)
IRBM: 28 SS-5/R-14
Unknown number of Tu-16 Badger, Tu-22 Blinder, and MiG-21 aircraft tasked with nuclear strike missions
United Kingdom
Bomber Command
Bombers: 120; Vulcan B.1/B.1A/B.2, Victor B.1/B.1A/B2, Valiant B.1
IRBM: 59 Thor (missiles operated by the RAF with warheads under US supervision)
Aftermath
Cuban leadership
Cuba perceived the outcome as a betrayal by the Soviets, as decisions on how to resolve the crisis had been made exclusively by Kennedy and Khrushchev. Castro was especially upset that certain issues of interest to Cuba, such as the status of the US Naval Base in Guantánamo, were not addressed. That caused Cuban–Soviet relations to deteriorate for years to come.: 278
Historian Arthur Schlesinger believed that when the missiles were withdrawn, Castro was more angry with Khrushchev than with Kennedy because Khrushchev had not consulted Castro before deciding to remove them. Although Castro was infuriated by Khrushchev, he planned on striking the US with the remaining missiles if an invasion of the island occurred.: 311
A few weeks after the crisis, during an interview with the British communist newspaper the Daily Worker, Guevara was still fuming over the perceived Soviet betrayal and told correspondent Sam Russell that, if the missiles had been under Cuban control, they would have fired them off. While expounding on the incident later, Guevara reiterated that the cause of socialist liberation against global "imperialist aggression" would ultimately have been worth the possibility of "millions of atomic war victims". The missile crisis further convinced Guevara that the world's two superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) used Cuba as a pawn in their own global strategies. Afterward, he denounced the Soviets almost as frequently as he denounced the Americans.
Romanian leadership
During the crisis, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, general secretary of Romania's communist party, sent a letter to President Kennedy dissociating Romania from Soviet actions. This convinced the American administration of Bucharest's intentions of detaching itself from Moscow.
Soviet leadership
The significance of how close the world came to thermonuclear war impelled Khrushchev to propose a far-reaching easing of tensions with the US. In a letter to President Kennedy dated 30 October 1962, Khrushchev outlined a range of bold initiatives to forestall the possibility of a further nuclear crisis, including proposing a non-aggression treaty between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact or even disbanding these military blocs, a treaty to cease all nuclear weapons testing and even the elimination of all nuclear weapons, resolution of the hot-button issue of Germany by both East and West formally accepting the existence of West Germany and East Germany, and US recognition of the government of mainland China. The letter invited counter-proposals and further exploration of these and other issues through peaceful negotiations. Khrushchev invited Norman Cousins, the editor of a major US periodical and an anti-nuclear weapons activist, to serve as liaison with President Kennedy, and Cousins met with Khrushchev for four hours in December 1962.
Kennedy's response to Khrushchev's proposals was lukewarm but Kennedy expressed to Cousins that he felt constrained in exploring these issues due to pressure from hardliners in the US national security apparatus. The United States and the Soviet Union did shortly thereafter agree on a treaty banning atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, known as the "Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty".
Further after the crisis, the US and the USSR created the Moscow–Washington hotline, a direct communications link between Moscow and Washington. The purpose was to have a way that the leaders of the two Cold War countries could communicate directly to solve such a crisis.
The compromise embarrassed Khrushchev and the Soviet Union because the withdrawal of US missiles from Italy and Turkey was a secret deal between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Khrushchev went to Kennedy as he thought that the crisis was getting out of hand, but the Soviets were seen as retreating from circumstances that they had started.
Khrushchev's fall from power two years later was in part because of the Soviet Politburo's embarrassment at both Khrushchev's eventual concessions to the US and this ineptitude in precipitating the crisis in the first place. According to Dobrynin, the top Soviet leadership took the Cuban outcome as "a blow to its prestige bordering on humiliation".
US leadership
The worldwide US Forces DEFCON 3 status was returned to DEFCON 4 on 20 November 1962. General Curtis LeMay told the President that the resolution of the crisis was the "greatest defeat in our history"; his was a minority position. He had pressed for an immediate invasion of Cuba as soon as the crisis began and still favored invading Cuba even after the Soviets had withdrawn their missiles. Twenty-five years later, LeMay still believed that "We could have gotten not only the missiles out of Cuba, we could have gotten the Communists out of Cuba at that time."
By 1962, President Kennedy had faced four crisis situations: the failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, settlement negotiations between the pro-Western government of Laos and the Pathet Lao communist movement ("Kennedy sidestepped Laos, whose rugged terrain was no battleground for American soldiers.": 265 ), the construction of the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy believed that yet another failure to gain control and stop communist expansion would irreparably damage US credibility. He was determined to "draw a line in the sand" and prevent a communist victory in Vietnam. He told James Reston of The New York Times immediately after his Vienna summit meeting with Khrushchev, "Now we have a problem making our power credible and Vietnam looks like the place."
At least four contingency strikes were armed and launched from Florida against Cuban airfields and suspected missile sites in 1963 and 1964, although all were diverted to the Pinecastle Range Complex after the planes passed Andros island. Critics, including Seymour Melman and Seymour Hersh, suggested that the Cuban Missile Crisis encouraged the United States' use of military means, such as the case in the later Vietnam War. Similarly, Lorraine Bayard de Volo has suggested that the masculine brinksmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis has become a "touchstone of toughness by which presidents are measured". Actions in 1962 would go on to have a significant influence on the future policy decisions of those who occupied the White House, leading to foreign policy decisions such as President Lyndon B. Johnson's escalation of the war in Vietnam three years following the crisis.
Human casualties
U-2 pilot Anderson's body was returned to the US and was buried with full military honours in South Carolina. He was the first recipient of the newly created Air Force Cross, which was awarded posthumously. Although Anderson was the only combatant fatality during the crisis, 11 crew members of three reconnaissance Boeing RB-47 Stratojets of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing were also killed in crashes during the period between 27 September and 11 November 1962. Seven crew died when a Military Air Transport Service Boeing C-135B Stratolifter delivering ammunition to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base stalled and crashed on approach on 23 October.
Later revelations
Submarine close call
Arguably, the most dangerous moment in the crisis was not recognized until the Cuban Missile Crisis Havana conference, in October 2002, marking the 40th anniversary of the crisis. A three-day conference sponsored by the private National Security Archive, Brown University, and the Cuban government. Attended by many of the veterans of the crisis, they all learned that on 27 October 1962, a group of eleven United States Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph located the B-59, a diesel-powered nuclear-armed Soviet Project 641 (NATO designation Foxtrot) submarine, near Cuba. Despite being in international waters, the Americans started dropping depth charges. There had been no contact from Moscow for a number of days and the submarine was too deep to monitor any radio traffic, so those on board did not know whether war had broken out. The captain of the submarine, Valentin Savitsky, had no way of knowing that the depth charges were non-lethal "practice" rounds intended as warning shots to force the B-59 to surface. Running out of air, the Soviet submarine was surrounded by American warships and desperately needed to surface. While surfacing, the B-59 “came under machine-gun fire from [U.S. ASW S-2] Tracker aircraft. The fire rounds landed either to the sides of the submarine’s hull or near the bow. All these provocative actions carried out by surface ships in immediate proximity, and ASW aircraft flying some 10 to 15 meters above the boat had a detrimental impact on the commander, prompting him to take extreme measures… the use of special weapons.” As firing live ammunition at a submarine was strictly prohibited captain Savitsky assumed that his submarine was doomed and that World War III already had broken out. The Americans, for their part, did not know, that the B-59 was armed with a 15-kiloton nuclear torpedo, roughly the power of the bomb at Hiroshima. The USS Beale was joined by other US destroyers who piled in to pummel the submerged B-59 with more explosives.
Captain Savitsky ordered the B-59's nuclear torpedo to be prepared for firing, its target was the USS Randolph, the aircraft carrier leading the task force. An argument broke out in the sweltering control room of the B-59 submarine among the three officers, including submarine captain Savitsky, political officer Ivan Semyonovich Maslennikov, and Deputy brigade commander Captain 2nd rank (US Navy Commander rank equivalent) Vasily Arkhipov. Accounts differ about whether Arkhipov convinced Savitsky not to make the attack or whether Savitsky himself finally concluded that the only reasonable choice left open to him was to come to the surface.: 303, 317 The decision to launch the B-59's nuclear torpedo required the consent of all three senior officers aboard. The young officer Vasily Arkhipov was alone in refusing permission. Arkhipov's reputation was a key factor in the control room debate. The previous year he had exposed himself to severe radiation in order to save a submarine with an overheating nuclear reactor.
During the conference October 2002, McNamara stated that nuclear war had come much closer than people had thought. Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, said, "A guy called Vasily Arkhipov saved the world."
Possibility of nuclear launch
In early 1992, it was confirmed that Soviet forces in Cuba had already received tactical nuclear warheads for their artillery rockets and Il-28 bombers when the crisis broke. Castro stated that he would have recommended their use if the US invaded despite Cuba being destroyed.
Fifty years after the crisis, Graham Allison wrote:
Fifty years ago, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear disaster. During the standoff, US President John F. Kennedy thought the chance of escalation to war was "between 1 in 3 and even", and what we have learned in later decades has done nothing to lengthen those odds. We now know, for example, that in addition to nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, the Soviet Union had deployed 100 tactical nuclear weapons to Cuba, and the local Soviet commander there could have launched these weapons without additional codes or commands from Moscow. The US air strike and invasion that were scheduled for the third week of the confrontation would likely have triggered a nuclear response against American ships and troops, and perhaps even Miami. The resulting war might have led to the deaths of over 100 million Americans and over 100 million Russians.
BBC journalist Joe Matthews published the story, on 13 October 2012, behind the 100 tactical nuclear warheads mentioned by Graham Allison in the excerpt above. Khrushchev feared that Castro's hurt pride and widespread Cuban indignation over the concessions he had made to Kennedy might lead to a breakdown of the agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States. To prevent that, Khrushchev decided to offer to give Cuba more than 100 tactical nuclear weapons that had been shipped to Cuba along with the long-range missiles but, crucially, had escaped the notice of US intelligence. Khrushchev determined that because the Americans had not listed the missiles on their list of demands, keeping them in Cuba would be in the Soviet Union's interests.
Anastas Mikoyan was tasked with the negotiations with Castro over the missile transfer deal that was designed to prevent a breakdown in the relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union. While in Havana, Mikoyan witnessed the mood swings and paranoia of Castro, who was convinced that Moscow had made the agreement with the US at the expense of Cuba's defence. Mikoyan, on his own initiative, decided that Castro and his military should not be given control of weapons with an explosive force equal to 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs under any circumstances. He defused the seemingly intractable situation, which risked re-escalating the crisis, on 22 November 1962. During a tense, four-hour meeting, Mikoyan convinced Castro that despite Moscow's desire to help, it would be in breach of an unpublished Soviet law, which did not actually exist, to transfer the missiles permanently into Cuban hands and provide them with an independent nuclear deterrent. Castro was forced to give way and, much to the relief of Khrushchev and the rest of the Soviet government, the tactical nuclear weapons were crated and returned by sea to the Soviet Union during December 1962.
In popular culture
The American popular media, especially television, made frequent use of the events of the missile crisis in both fictional and documentary forms. Jim Willis includes the Crisis as one of the 100 "media moments that changed America". Sheldon Stern finds that a half century later there are still many "misconceptions, half-truths, and outright lies" that have shaped media versions of what happened in the White House during those harrowing two weeks.
Historian William Cohn argued in a 1976 article that television programs are typically the main source used by the American public to know about and interpret the past. According to Cold War historian Andrei Kozovoi, the Soviet media proved somewhat disorganized as it was unable to generate a coherent popular history. Khrushchev lost power and was airbrushed out of the story. Cuba was no longer portrayed as a heroic David against the American Goliath. One contradiction that pervaded the Soviet media campaign was between the pacifistic rhetoric of the peace movement that emphasizes the horrors of nuclear war and the militancy of the need to prepare Soviets for war against American aggression.
Media representations
Non fiction
Thirteen Days, Robert F. Kennedy's memoir of the crisis, posthumously released in 1969; It became the basis for numerous films and documentaries.
The Missiles of October, 1974 TV docudrama about the crisis.
The Fog of War, 2003 American documentary film about the life and times of former US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara directed by Errol Morris, which won that year's Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature."
Fiction
Topaz, 1969 film by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1967 novel by Leon Uris, set during the run-up to the crisis.
Matinee, 1993 film starring John Goodman set during the Cuban Missile Crisis in which an independent-filmmaker decides to seize the opportunity to debut an atomic themed film.
Thirteen Days, 2000 film based on The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis, a docudrama directed by Roger Donaldson about the crisis.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, a 2008 video game, set in an alternate timeline where Einstein did not exist. During the Allied Nations campaign, an alternate version of the Cuban Missile Crisis occurs, dubbed in game as the mission "The Great Bear Trap", where the Soviet Union had secretly planned and constructed an invasion force in Havana, capped by specially designed Kirov Airships that were yielding 50 megaton bombs and intended to fly towards Allied controlled cities.
Mad Men, the 2008 episode "Meditations in an Emergency" is set in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Ur, a 2009 short novel by Stephen King, is about three men who discover through a magic Kindle that in a parallel universe, the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated into a nuclear war and ended that universe.
Call of Duty: Black Ops, 2010 video game, set during and after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Kennedys, 2011 production chronicling the lives of the Kennedy family, including a dramatisation of the crisis.
X-Men: First Class, 2011 superhero film set during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which depicts the crisis as being escalated by a group of mutants with the goal of establishing a mutant ruling class after the subsequent war.
The Courier, a 2020 film that tells the "true story of the British businessman Greville Wynne (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) who helped MI6 penetrate the Soviet nuclear programme during the Cold War. Wynne and his Russian source, Oleg Penkovsky (codenamed Ironbark), provided crucial intelligence that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis."
See also
Bomber gap
Cuban thaw
Leninsky Komsomol class cargo ships
List of nuclear close calls
Norwegian rocket incident
Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear threats during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
Peaceful coexistence
Soviet Navy
Notes
References
Further reading
Allison, Graham; Zelikow, Philip (1999). Essence of Decision, Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. ISBN 978-0-321-01349-1.
Barrett, David M. and Max Holland (2012). Blind Over Cuba: The Photo Gap and the Missile Crisis. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press, 2012.
Beschloss, Michael R. (1991). The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khruschev, 1960–1963. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-060-16454-6.
Campus, Leonardo (2014). I sei giorni che sconvolsero il mondo. La crisi dei missili di Cuba e le sue percezioni internazionali [=Six Days that Shook the World. The Cuban Missile Crisis and Its International Perceptions]. Florence: Le Monnier. ISBN 9788800745321
Chayes, Abram (1974). The Cuban Missile Crisis. International crises and the role of law. London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-825320-4.
Cockburn, Andrew, "Defensive, Not Aggressive" (review of Theodore Voorhees, The Silent Guns of Two Octobers: Kennedy and Khrushchev Play the Double Game, Michigan, September 2021, ISBN 978 0 472 03871 8, 384 pp.; and Serhii Plokhy, Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Allen Lane, April 2021, ISBN 978 0 241 45473 2, 464 pp.), London Review of Books, vol. 43, no. 17 (9 September 2021), pp. 9–10. "[F]or Kennedy, the [Cuban Missile] crisis was entirely about [internal US] politics." [...] Voorhees argues convincingly that there was never any real danger of war, since Kennedy and Khrushchev were equally determined to avoid one..." (p. 10.)
Diez Acosta, Tomás (2002). October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis As Seen from Cuba. New York: Pathfinder. ISBN 978-0-87348-956-0.
Divine, Robert A. (1988). The Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: M. Wiener Pub. ISBN 978-0-910129-15-2.
Dobbs, Michael (2008). One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-1-4000-7891-2.
Feklisov, Aleksandr; Kostin, Sergueï (2001). The Man Behind the Rosenbergs: By the KGB Spymaster Who Was the Case Officer of Julius Rosenberg, Klaus Fuchs, and Helped Resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Enigma Books. ISBN 978-1-929631-08-7.
Frankel, Max (2004). High Noon in the Cold War: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-345-46505-4.
Fursenko, Aleksandr; Naftali, Timothy J. (1998). One Hell of a Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958–1964. New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31790-9.
Fursenko, Aleksandr (Summer 2006). "Night Session of the Presidium of the Central Committee, 22–23 October 1962". Naval War College Review. 59 (3). Archived from the original on 6 October 2011.
George, Alice L. (2003). Awaiting Armageddon: How Americans Faced the Cuban Missile Crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2828-1.
Gibson, David R. (2012). Talk at the Brink: Deliberation and Decision during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-15131-1.
Hornsby, R. (2023). The Soviet Sixties. Yale University Press.
Jones, Milo; Silberzahn, Philppe (2013). Constructing Cassandra, Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947–2001. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-9336-0.
Khrushchev, Sergei (October 2002). "How My Father And President Kennedy Saved The World". American Heritage. 53 (5).
Kolbert, Elizabeth, "This Close: The day the Cuban missile crisis almost went nuclear" (a review of Martin J. Sherwin's Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis, New York, Knopf, 2020), The New Yorker, 12 October 2020, pp. 70–73. Article includes information from recently declassified sources.
Latell, Brian (2012). Castro's Secrets: The CIA and Cuba's Intelligence Machine. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-62123-7.
Plokhy, Serhii. Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (W. W. Norton & Company, 2021).
Polmar, Norman; Gresham, John D. (2006). DEFCON-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War During the Cuban Missile Crisis. Foreword by Tom Clancy. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-67022-3.
Pope, Ronald R. (1982). Soviet Views on the Cuban Missile Crisis: Myth and Reality in Foreign Policy Analysis. Washington, DC: Univ. Press of America. ISBN 978-0-8191-2584-2.
Powers, Thomas, "The Nuclear Worrier" (review of Daniel Ellsberg, The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, New York, Bloomsbury, 2017, ISBN 9781608196708, 420 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXV, no. 1 (January 18, 2018), pp. 13–15.
Pressman, Jeremy (2001). "September Statements, October Missiles, November Elections: Domestic Politics, Foreign-Policy Making, and the Cuban Missile Crisis". Security Studies. 10 (3): 80–114. doi:10.1080/09636410108429438. S2CID 154854331.
Radchenko, Sergey; Zubok, Vladislav (May–June 2023). "Blundering on the Brink: The Secret History and Unlearned Lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis". Foreign Affairs. 102 (3): 44–63.
Russell, Bertrand (1963). Unarmed Victory. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-0-04-327024-0.
Seydi, SÜleyman. "Turkish—American Relations and the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1957-63." Middle Eastern Studies 46#3 (2010), pp. 433–455. online
Stern, Sheldon M. (2003). Averting 'the Final Failure': John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Meetings. Stanford nuclear age series. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-4846-9. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
Stern, Sheldon M. (2005). The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban Missile Crisis. Stanford nuclear age series. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-5077-6. Archived from the original on 14 October 2011. Retrieved 4 November 2011.
Stern, Sheldon M. (2012). The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory: Myths versus Reality. Stanford nuclear age series. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.
Trahair, Richard C. S.; Miller, Robert L. (2009). Encyclopedia of Cold War Espionage, Spies, and Secret Operations. New York: Enigma Books. ISBN 978-1-929631-75-9.
Matthews, Joe (October 2012). "Cuban missile crisis: The other, secret one". BBC.
Weaver, Michael E. The Relationship between Diplomacy and Military Force: An Example from the Cuban Missile Crisis, Diplomatic History, January 2014, Volume 38, Number 1, pp. 137–81. The Relationship between Diplomacy and Military Force: An Example from the Cuban Missile Crisis
White, Mark. "The Other Missiles of October: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957–1963." Diplomatic History (2002) 26#1 pp 147–153.
Historiography
Allison, Graham T. (September 1969). "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis". American Political Science Review. 63 (3): 689–718. doi:10.2307/1954423. JSTOR 1954423. S2CID 251094337.
Dorn, A. Walter; Pauk, Robert (April 2009). "Unsung Mediator: U Thant and the Cuban Missile Crisis". Diplomatic History. 33 (2): 261–292. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.2008.00762.x.
Garthoff, Raymond L. (Spring 2004). "Foreign Intelligence and the Historiography of the Cold War". Journal of Cold War Studies. 6 (2): 21–56. doi:10.1162/152039704773254759. ISSN 1520-3972. S2CID 57563600.
Gibson, David R. (2011). "Avoiding Catastrophe: The Interactional Production of Possibility during the Cuban Missile Crisis". The American Journal of Sociology. 117 (2): 361–419. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.374.2005. doi:10.1086/661761. JSTOR 10.1086/661761. S2CID 143717875.
Jones, John A.; Jones, Virginia H. (Spring 2005). "Through the Eye of the Needle: Five Perspectives on the Cuban Missile Crisis". Rhetoric & Public Affairs. 8 (1): 133–144. doi:10.1353/rap.2005.0044. S2CID 154894890.
Jones, Milo; Silberzahn, Philppe (2013). Constructing Cassandra, Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947–2001. Stanford University Press. pp. 135–191. ISBN 978-0-8047-9336-0.
Lebow, Richard Ned (October 1990). "Domestic Politics and the Cuban Missile Crisis: The Traditional and Revisionist Interpretations Reevaluated". Diplomatic History. 14 (4): 471–492. doi:10.1111/j.1467-7709.1990.tb00103.x.
Bayard de Volo, Lorraine (July 2022) "Masculinity and the Cuban Missile Crisis: gender as pre-emptive deterrent", International Affairs, 98 (4): 1211–1229. doi:10.1093/ia/iiac121.
Primary sources
Getchell, Michelle. Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War: A Short History with Documents(Hackett Publishing, 2018) 200 pp. online review
Chang, Laurence; Kornbluh, Peter, eds. (1998). "Introduction". The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National Security Archive Documents Reader (2nd ed.). New York: New Press. ISBN 978-1-56584-474-2.
"Cuban Missile Crisis". JFK in History. John F. Kennedy Library.
"Cuban Missile Crisis 1962". Presidential Recordings Program. Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia. Archived from the original on 16 August 2011.
"Cuban Missile Crisis". Wilson Center Digital Archive. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Archived from the original on 29 June 2015. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
Karnow, Stanley (1997). Vietnam: A History (2nd ed.). New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-026547-7.
Keefer, Edward C.; Sampson, Charles S.; Smith, Louis J., eds. (1996). Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath. Foreign relations of the United States, 1961–1963. Vol. XI. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. ISBN 978-0-16-045210-9. Archived from the original on 23 December 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
Kennedy, Robert F. (1969). Thirteen Days: A Memoir of the Cuban Missile Crisis. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-31834-0.
May, Ernest R.; Zelikow, Philip D., eds. (2002) [1997]. The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis (2nd ed.). New York: Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-32259-0.
McAuliffe, Mary S., ed. (October 1992). "CIA Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962" (PDF). Historical Review Program. Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 December 2011. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
"The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: The 40th Anniversary". National Security Archive: Special Exhibits. Gelman Library: George Washington University.
"The World On the Brink: John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis". Interactive Exhibits. John F. Kennedy Library. Archived from the original on 18 January 2011. Retrieved 9 April 2011.
Gavrov, Sergei, ed. (November 2013). "America and Russia: The Crisis of 1962. On the 50th anniversary of the missile crisis". Moscow: Vzglyad (Russia). Archived from the original on 17 October 2016. Retrieved 10 September 2016.
Dallek, Robert. "If We Listen to Them, None of Us Will Be Alive." In Camelot's Court, 279–334. New York: HarperCollins, 2013.
Lesson plans
"Cuban Missile Crisis". Slideshows for Educators. Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State. Archived from the original on 5 January 2011.
Moser, John; Hahn, Lori (15 July 2010). "The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: 'The Missiles of October'". EDSITEment: Lesson Plans. National Endowment for the Humanities. Archived from the original on 16 January 2011. Retrieved 26 January 2011.
External links
Cuban Missile Crisis: Операция Анадырь (Operation Anadyr) on Flickr
Cuban Missile Crisis and the Fallout from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
"Cuban Missile Crisis". Topics. History Channel. 2011.
"Cuban Missile Crisis". Nuclear Weapons History: Cold War. Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Archived from the original on 5 October 2018. Retrieved 8 December 2018.
"Cuban Missile Crisis Bibliography". Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues. Archived from the original on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
October 1962: DEFCON 4, DEFCON 3
Spartacus Educational(UK): Cuban Missile Crisis
Document – Britain's Cuban Missile Crisis
No Time to Talk: The Cuban Missile Crisis
Patrick J. Kiger (7 June 2019): Key Moments in the Cuban Missile Crisis. A Timeline of the Cuban Missile Crisis with the links to the correspondence between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev during the crisis. In: History.com. Archived 29 March 2022 at archive.today
The 32nd Guards Air Fighter Regiment in Cuba (1962–1963) S.Isaev.
The short film Symposium on Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 (1992) is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
The Woodrow Wilson Center's Digital Archive has a collection of primary source archival documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
EDSITEment lesson plan Cuban Missile Crisis
EDSITEment Cuban Missile Crisis Interactive
Cuban Missile Crisis: Three Men Go To War Archived 10 February 2017 at the Wayback Machine Documentary produced by PBS
The Armageddon Letters, a transmedia storytelling of the crisis with animated short films and other digital content
The Man Who Saved the World Documentary produced by PBS series Secrets of the Dead
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) collected news and commentary at The New York Times |
List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number_ones_of_1962 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number_ones_of_1962 | [
390
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number_ones_of_1962"
] | These are the Billboard Hot 100 number one hits of 1962.
That year, 14 acts achieved their first number one songs, namely Joey Dee and the Starliters, Gene Chandler, Bruce Channel, Shelley Fabares, Mr. Acker Bilk, David Rose, Bobby Vinton, Neil Sedaka, Little Eva, Tommy Roe, The Four Seasons, Bobby "Boris" Pickett, The Crystals, and The Tornados. The Four Seasons were the only act to have more than one song hit number one that year.
NOTE: Billboard changed its issue dates from a Monday back to a Saturday schedule on January 6, thus fixing the previous one-week inconsistency. The issue dates were originally changed from a Saturday to a Monday schedule on April 29, 1957.
Chart history
Number-one artists
See also
1962 in music
List of Billboard number-one singles
List of Billboard Hot 100 top-ten singles in 1962
List of Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles from 1958 to 1969
References
Sources
Fred Bronson's Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, 5th Edition (ISBN 0-8230-7677-6)
Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-2008, 12 Edition (ISBN 0-89820-180-2)
Joel Whitburn Presents the Billboard Hot 100 Charts: The Sixties (ISBN 0-89820-074-1)
Additional information obtained can be verified within Billboard's online archive services and print editions of the magazine. |
Summer_solstice | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_solstice | [
391
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_solstice"
] | The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere (Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the summer solstice is the day with the longest period of daylight and shortest night of the year, when the Sun is at its highest position in the sky. At either pole there is continuous daylight at the time of its summer solstice. The opposite event is the winter solstice.
The summer solstice occurs during the hemisphere's summer. In the Northern Hemisphere, this is the June solstice (20, 21 or 22 June) and in the Southern Hemisphere, this is the December solstice (20, 21, 22 or 23 of December). Since prehistory, the summer solstice has been a significant time of year in many cultures, and has been marked by festivals and rituals. Traditionally, in temperate regions (especially Europe), the summer solstice is seen as the middle of summer and referred to as midsummer; although today in some countries and calendars it is seen as the beginning of summer.
On the summer solstice, Earth's maximum axial tilt toward the Sun is 23.44°. Likewise, the Sun's declination from the celestial equator is 23.44°.
Although the summer solstice is the longest day of the year for that hemisphere, the dates of earliest sunrise and latest sunset vary by a few days. This is because Earth orbits the Sun in an ellipse, and its orbital speed varies slightly during the year.
Culture
There is evidence that the summer solstice has been culturally important since the Neolithic era. Many ancient monuments in Europe especially, as well as parts of the Middle East, Asia and the Americas, are aligned with the sunrise or sunset on the summer solstice (see archaeoastronomy). The significance of the summer solstice has varied among cultures, but most recognize the event in some way with holidays, festivals, and rituals around that time with themes of fertility. In the Roman Empire, the traditional date of the summer solstice was 24 June. In Germanic-speaking cultures, the time around the summer solstice is called 'midsummer'. Traditionally in northern Europe midsummer was reckoned as the night of 23–24 June, with summer beginning on May Day. The summer solstice continues to be seen as the middle of summer in many European cultures, but in some cultures or calendars it is seen as summer's beginning. In Sweden, midsummer is one of the year's major holidays when the country closes down as much as during Christmas.
Observances
Traditional festivals
Saint John's Eve (Europe), including:
Juhannus (Finland)
Jaanipäev (Estonia)
Jāņi (Latvia)
Joninės (Lithuania)
Jónsmessa (Iceland)
Golowan (Cornwall)
Kupala Night (Slavic peoples)
Yhyakh (Yakuts)
Tiregān (Iran)
Xiazhi (China)
Modern observances
National Indigenous Peoples Day (Canada)
Day of Private Reflection (Northern Ireland)
Fremont Solstice Parade (Fremont, Seattle, Washington, United States)
Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Parade (Santa Barbara, California, United States)
International Yoga Day
Fête de la Musique, also known as World Music Day
In folk music
"Oh at Ivan, oh at Kupala" (Ukr. Ой на Івана, ой на Купала) - Ukrainian folk song.
"Kupalinka" - (Belar. Купалінка) - Belarusian folk song
Už kalnelio ežerėlis (Lith. there is a lake behind the hill) - Lithuanian folk song.
Length of the day on northern summer solstice
The following tables contain information on the length of the day on 20 June 2016, close to the summer solstice of the Northern Hemisphere and winter solstice of the Southern Hemisphere. The data was collected from the website of the Finnish Meteorological Institute as well as from certain other websites.
The data is arranged geographically and within the tables from the longest day to the shortest one. Times that occur the next day (21 June) are marked with +.
The length of day increases from the equator towards the North Pole in the Northern Hemisphere in June (around the summer solstice there), but decreases towards the South Pole in the Southern Hemisphere at the time of the southern winter solstice.
Notes
References
External links
SummerSolstice.uk - Summer Solstice Dates, Information & Community.
NeoProgrammics - Table of Northern/Southern Solstice Dates/Times From 1600–2400 |
List_of_archaeoastronomical_sites_by_country | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archaeoastronomical_sites_by_country | [
391
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archaeoastronomical_sites_by_country"
] | This is a list of sites where claims for the use of archaeoastronomy have been made, sorted by country.
The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU) jointly published a thematic study on heritage sites of astronomy and archaeoastronomy to be used as a guide to UNESCO in its evaluation of the cultural importance of archaeoastronomical sites around the world, which discussed sample sites and provided categories for the classification of archaeoastronomical sites. The editors, Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte, proposed that archaeoastronomical sites be considered in four categories: 1) Generally accepted; 2) Debated among specialists; 3) Unproven; and 4) Completely refuted.
Armenia
Godedzor
Zorats Karer (aka Carahunge), archeological site claimed to have astronomical significance although this is disputed. it is often referred to in international tourist lore as the "Armenian Stonehenge".
Australia
Ngaut Ngaut oral tradition says these engravings represent lunar cycles.
Wurdi Youang, a stone arrangement with possible solar alignments
Stone structures at Lake Tyers traditionally used as an observatory
Brazil
Parque Arqueológico do Solstício (called "Amazon Stonehenge"): An archaeological park located in Amapá state, Brazil, near the city of Calçoene. Archaeologists believe that this site was built by indigenous peoples for astronomical, ceremonial, or burial purposes, and likely a combination.
Bulgaria
Magura Cave, Bronze Age "paintings of staggered black and white squares could have been used to count the days in a calendar month", possibly indicating the number of days in the solar tropical year.
Cambodia
Angkor Wat
Phnom Bakheng, According to Jean Filliozat of the École Française, the center tower represents the axis of the world and the 108 smaller ones represent the 4 lunar phases each with 27 days.
Canada
Petroforms of North America are shapes and patterns made by lining up large rocks on the open ground made by various Native American and First Nation tribes in North America. They are believed to have been made as astronomical calendars.
Medicine Wheel
Colombia
El Infiernito, (Spanish for "Little hell"), is a pre-Columbian Muisca site located in the outskirts of Villa de Leyva, Boyacá Department, Colombia. It is composed of several earthworks surrounding a setting of menhirs (upright standing stones); several burial mounds are also present. The site was a center of religious ceremonies and spiritual purification rites, and also served as a rudimentary astronomical observatory.
China
Puyang tomb, dated from 5000 BP, depicts a mosaic of constellations.
The Taosi Observatory: An astronomical observatory which is the oldest in East Asia, located in Xiangfen County, Shanxi, China.
Egypt
Abu Simbel, The axis of the temple was positioned by the ancient Egyptian architects in such a way that twice a year, on October 20 and February 20, the rays of the sun would penetrate the sanctuary and illuminate the sculpture on the back wall, except for the statue of Ptah, the god connected with the Underworld, who always remained in the dark.
Nabta Playa is an archaeological site in southern Egypt, containing what may be among the world's earliest known archeoastronomical devices from the 5th millennium BC. These include alignments of stones that may have indicated the rising of certain stars and a "calendar circle" that indicates the approximate direction of summer solstice sunrise.
Precinct of Amun-Re
Finland
The so-called Giants' Churches (Finn. jätinkirkko), which are large, from c. 20 metres (66 ft) to over 70 metres (230 ft) long rectangular or oval stone enclosures built in the Neolithic (c. 3000–1800 BC), have axis and doorway orientations towards the sunrises and sunsets of the solstices and other calendrically significant days. For example, the Kastelli of Raahe, which is one of the largest Giants' Churches, had its five "gates", i.e. wall openings, oriented towards the midsummer sunset, the winter solstice sunrise, winter solstice sunset, the sunrises of the mid-quarter days of early May (Walpurgis, Beltaine) and August (Lammas), as well as the sunrise 11 days before the vernal equinox in 2500 BC.
France
Belchen System
Carnac stones
Germany
Belchen System
Goseck circle
Glauberg
Magdalenenberg (disputed)
The Pömmelte Circle Shrine
Guatemala
Tikal
Uaxactun
Honduras
Copán Ruinas [1]
El Puente
Indonesia
Borobudur
Prambanan
India
For a full list see the chapter on India in the ICOMOS book edited by Clive Ruggles and Michel Cotte. These sites include:
Brahmagiri
Hanamsagar
Udayagiri
Sun temples of Varanasi
Vijayanagar
Jantar Mantar
Gyarah Sidi
Burzahom archaeological site
Lonar Lake
Stone circles of Junapani
Kalaiyarkoil Tamilnadu
J.M. Malville and Rana P.B. Singh have done much work on the archaeoastronomy of sacred sites in India.
Iran
Persepolis
Naqsh-e Rustam
Ireland
Newgrange, once a year, at the winter solstice, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage into the chamber for about 17 minutes and illuminates the chamber floor. (Generally accepted). It was built during the Neolithic period, around 3200 BC, making it older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.
Knowth is a Neolithic passage grave and ancient monument estimated to date from c. 3200 BC.
Dowth in Boyne Valley, County Meath is a Neolithic passage tomb date with Astronomical alignments from between approximately 3200 and 2900 BC.
Loughcrew near Oldcastle, County Meath is a group of megalithic tombs dating back to the 4th millennium BC, designed to receive the beams of the rising sun on the spring and autumnal equinox - the light shining down the passage and illuminating the art on the backstone.
Carrowkeel
Mound of the Hostages
Drombeg stone circle, at the winter solstice, the sun sets into a v formed by two distant overlapping hills and makes an alignment with the altar stone and the two main uprights. Due to the nature of the site and the western hills, local sunset is c. 15:50.
Beltany stone circle
Beaghmore Stone Circles, a complex of early Bronze Age megalithic features, stone circles and cairns. Some archaeologists believe that the circles have been constructed in relation to the rising of the sun at the solstice, or to record the movements of the sun and moon acting as observatories for particular lunar, solar or stellar events. Three of the stone rows point to the sunrise at the time of the solstice and another is aligned towards moonrise at the same period.
Boheh Stone, believed to have been aligned to the sun's path along the mountain of Croagh Patrick
Italy
Alatri
Nuraghe
Kenya
Namoratunga
Korea
Cheomseongdae, ancient observatory in Gyeongju, Republic of Korea, from the 7th century.
Malta
Megalithic Temples of Malta
Mnajdra
Tal-Qadi Temple
Mexico
Calakmul
Cantona
Cañada de la Virgen
Casas Grandes
Chichen Itza
The Caracol is theorized to be a proto-observatory with doors and windows aligned to astronomical events, specifically around the path of Venus as it traverses the heavens. (Debated among specialists).
The main pyramid El Castillo (the Temple of Kukulkan) displays the appearance of a snake "crawling" down the pyramid at the spring equinox (Unproven).
Coba
Dzibilchaltun, Spring equinox, the sun rises so that it shines directly through one window of the temple and out the other.
Ikil, Hierophany where the sunrise on the day of the solar zenith transit aligns with the summit of Ikil Structure 1 as viewed from an observation point within Ikil Cave 1.
Izamal
Mitla
Monte Albán, zenith tube
Palenque
La Quemada
El Tajín
Teotihuacan, the pecked-cross circles as survey-markers
Tulum
Uxmal, Venus alignment of the "Governor's Palace"
Xochicalco, zenith tube
Yagul
Netherlands
Funnel Beaker Culture megalith graves ("hunebedden") in the eastern Netherlands might be oriented on moonrises.
North Macedonia
Kokino Situated 1030 m above sea level on the Tatićev Kamen Summit near Kumanovo.(disputed)
Palestine
Tell es-Sultan also known as Tel Jericho, is the site of ancient and biblical Jericho and today a UNESCO-nominated archaeological site in the West Bank.
Pakistan
Lahore Fort
Mohenjo Daro
Taxila
Harrapa
Makli Graveyard
Peru
Buena Vista
Chankillo
Cusco
Machu Picchu
Nazca Lines
Choquequirao
Ollantaytambo
Portugal
Almendres Cromlech
Anta Grande do Zambujeiro
Dolmen of Cunha Baixa
Romania
Sarmizegetusa Regia
Russia
Arkaim
Saudi Arabia
Kaaba, has its corners and walls aligned or oriented towards risings and settings of celestial objects.
Spain
Antequera Dolmens Site
Peña de los Enamorados
Dolmen of Menga
Syria
Rujm el-Hiri is an ancient megalithic monument consisting of concentric circles of stone with a tumulus at center, in the Golan Heights, territory occupied by Israel. It is believed that the site was used as an ancient calendar. At the times of the two equinoxes, the sun's rays would pass between two rocks, at the eastern edge of the compound. The entrance to the center opens on sunrise of the summer solstice. Other notches in the walls indicate the spring and fall equinoxes. It is also believed the site was used for astronomical observations of the constellations, probably for religious calculations. Researchers found the site was built with dimensions and scales common for other period structures, and partly based on the stars' positions.
Sweden
Ale's Stones
Switzerland
Belchen System
Columna Jovis
Turkey
Göbekli Tepe
United Kingdom
Avebury
Ballochroy
Boscawen-Un Winter Solstice sunrise out of the Lamorna Gap
Bryn Celli Ddu – aligned with the summer solstice such that light illuminates a quartz rich stone at the back of the chamber
Callanish Stones
Durrington Walls
Maeshowe, it is aligned so that the rear wall of its central chamber, a rough cube of five yards square held up by a bracketed wall, is illuminated on the winter solstice.
Prehistoric Orkney
St Edward the Confessor's Church, Leek. Traditional site for observing a double sunset.
Stonehenge (Generally accepted).
Woodhenge
United States
America's Stonehenge in New Hampshire
Anderson Mounds, Anderson, Indiana.
Bighorn Medicine Wheel
Cahokia, large Mississippian culture site with numerous solar and other alignments
Cahokia Woodhenge, equinox and summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset aligned timber circle
Mound 72, summer solstice sunrise/winter solstice sunset aligned burial mound
Casa Malpaís Archaeological Site, Springerville, Arizona. Summer solstice at noon and sunset.
Chaco Canyon, cardinal orientations, meridian alignment, inter-pueblo alignments
The 3-Slab Site atop Fajada Butte in Chaco Canyon, which marks the solstices.
Chimney Rock Archaeological Area, near Pagosa Springs, Colorado
Crack Cave at Picture Canyon (Colorado) in Comanche National Grassland
Emerald Mound and Village Site, Lebanon, Illinois
Haleets on Bainbridge Island in Washington state
Hovenweep Castle
Holly Solstice Panel in Hovenweep National Monument
Moorehead Circle, timber circle in Ohio
Octagon Earthworks
Serpent Mound
Skystone near Naches Trail in Washington state
Wally's Dome in Sacramento Mountains (New Mexico)
See also
List of colossal sculpture in situ
List of Egyptian pyramids
List of megalithic sites
List of menhirs
List of Mesoamerican pyramids
List of Roman bridges
List of Roman domes
List of statues
List of tallest statues
List of tallest statues in the United States
List of world's largest domes
New Seven Wonders of the World
== References == |
Bryn_Celli_Ddu | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryn_Celli_Ddu | [
391
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryn_Celli_Ddu"
] | Bryn Celli Ddu (Welsh pronunciation: [ˌbrɪn kɛɬi ˈðɨː]) is a prehistoric site on the Welsh island of Anglesey located near Llanddaniel Fab. Its name means 'the mound in the dark grove'. It was archaeologically excavated between 1928 and 1929. Visitors can get inside the mound through a stone passage to the burial chamber, and it is the centrepiece of a major Neolithic Scheduled Monument in the care of Cadw. The presence of a mysterious pillar within the burial chamber, the reproduction of the 'Pattern Stone', carved with sinuous serpentine designs, and the fact that the site was once a henge with a stone circle, and may have been used to plot the date of the summer solstice have all attracted much interest.
The monument
Bryn Celli Ddu is generally considered to be one of the finest passage tombs in Wales. Its passage and burial chamber are complete, and it is still buried under a mound or cairn, reinstated following its excavation in 1929. (Many stone chambered cairns have lost these features.) As it now stands, the passage is 8.4 m (28 ft) long, the first 3.4 m (11 ft) being unroofed with a pair of portal stones. The main passage has walls of vertical rock slabs, roofed by a series of stone lintels. The mound, being substantially smaller than as originally made, no longer completely encloses the burial chamber, so the back wall is open to the air, allowing some natural light in.
Free-standing inside the burial chamber is a smooth pillar of blueschist, a metamorphic rock, some 2 m (6.6 ft) high, with a very rounded shape.
Beyond the back wall of the chamber, in a location that would once have been within the mound, is a replica of the 'Pattern Stone'. This was found buried under the mound, and has been put standing up in what is thought to have been its original location at a time when the site was a henge rather than a tomb. The patterns take the form of sinuous serpentine shapes that wind around both sides of the stone. Inside the tomb another stone has a small spiral pattern chipped into it, although its authenticity has been questioned.
Outside the tomb, a ring of kerbstones shows the original extent of the mound, and they also follow the line of the ditch of the earlier henge monument. Three of the stones, visible within the cairn mound, are thought to be from the stone circle of that time.
The passage is roughly aligned with the Summer Solstice sunrise, such that for some weeks around the summer solstice, sunlight can find its way through to the back wall of the burial chamber.
The monument is part of a cluster of Neolithic and Bronze Age features. Two further cairns have been identified just to the south of Bryn Celli Ddu, while in the field immediately to the west is a standing stone, and a rock outcrop with cupmarks carved into it.
Original uses
The earliest identified remains at the site are a row of five postholes previously thought to have been contemporary with the tomb. Radiocarbon dating of pine charcoal from two of the pits, carried out in 2006, showed these to date from around 4000 BC, putting them at the end of the Mesolithic, 1,000 years before the next phase of use. Their purpose, however, is unknown.
Henge
In around 3000 BC a henge monument was constructed. An outer circular bank and ditch would have defined the boundary, although only the ditch survives, some 21 m (69 ft) across. Within this, a stone circle would have provided the focus for a site of ritual significance. A ring of 17 stones formed an oval, many being in matched pairs either side of the centre. Cremated human remains were buried at the base of some of them, suggesting a central 'altar' During this period a pit was dug within the henge; a single human ear-bone was buried, and covered with a flat slab. A second stone known as 'The Pattern Stone' lay nearby, with the serpentine patterning on it. It is thought this would have stood upright within the henge, as the patterns cover both sides.
Passage grave
Some 1000 years after the henge was built, the site was radically altered. All but one of the standing stones were intentionally damaged, some were knocked over and six were smashed with heavy stones. In its place a passage grave was built. Much larger than the mound now remaining, it would have had a complete circle of kerbstones following the line of the old henge ditch, creating an impressive retaining wall around the mound, 26 m (85 ft) across. The burial chamber would have been entirely enclosed within the mound, rather than the back wall being open to the air, as in the reconstructed mound now seen. Individual human bones, both burnt and unburnt, were found within the chamber and passage, suggesting a variety of funeral practices, but in all cases re-using the tomb, and clearing aside the old remains.
At the end of its period of use the tomb was 'closed' by means of a large stone set across the entrance, between the two portal stones.
Archaeology
The earliest archaeological descriptions date to around 1800. In 1796 it was included on a list of Anglesey cromlechs in the Cambrian Register. In 1802 Rev John Skinner made a "Ten Days' Tour Through the Isle of Anglesea", an account of which he wrote up, but never published, describing the numerous archaeological sites he visited. It was finally published as a supplement to Archaeologia Cambrensis in 1908. On his visit to Bryn Celli Ddu, he was told how the passage tomb had been discovered a generation before, by a farmer looking for useful stone. The sight of the pillar stone had initially unnerved the discoverer, but the prospect of treasure tempted him back, and he uprooted the pillar.
Having suffered depredation of the more movable stones of the site, the monument was excavated by W J Hemp in 1928–29. He revealed much of the sequence of use on the site, and found the 'Pattern Stone'. It has since been moved to the National Museum of Wales and replaced with a replica standing outside the back wall, but within the area of the original mound, and close to the spot where it was found. The Pillar was set back upright, and the earth and stone mound covering the passage and chamber was reinstated, but clearly there was much less material available than had been used originally. Some additional concrete roof supports have also been added at some point.
Norman Lockyer, who in 1906 published the first systematic study of megalithic astronomy, had argued that Bryn Celli Ddu marked the summer solstice. This was ridiculed at the time, but research by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas in 1997- 98 showed it to be true. Knight and Lomas also claimed that year-round alignments allowed the site to be used as an agricultural calendar. Steve Burrow, curator of Neolithic archaeology at Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum of Wales), has more recently supported the case for summer solstice alignment. This alignment links Bryn Celli Ddu to a handful of other sites, including Maes Howe, Orkney and Newgrange, Ireland, both of which point to the winter solstice. It has also been suggested that a feature similar to the 'lightbox' at Newgrange may be matched at Bryn Celli Ddu.
Multi-period landscape
Between 2015 and 2020 the 'Bryn Celli Ddu Public Archaeology Project' has been engaged in studies of the wider landscape around the site. This is a partnership between Cadw and Manchester Metropolitan University with the aim of involving local communities in archaeological investigation. This has resulted in study of known ancient rock art on a nearby outcrop, and also identified and uncovered a number of other rock outcrops close by that have 'cup mark' decorations chipped into them. A second burial chamber, 50m to the south of the extant one, had been leveled, but as part of the project a 2019 excavation has revealed a large circular burial cairn which radio-carbon dating has placed at 1900 BC, which is over a thousand years after the earlier passage grave was built.
Media
The serpentine pattern and the passage tomb featured strongly in the short animated film, Songs from Stones, about some of Anglesey's evocative archaeological sites and artefacts, produced as part of the Cultural Olympiad in 2012.
The HeritageTogether project has used photogrammetry to create 3D models of the site and the standing stone.
Media company Mint Motion have produced an animated video of the site's development over time, and a flythough of a pointcloud model of the site (see external links below).
The site was featured and explored in an episode of the US reality television series Expedition Unknown.
Gallery
See also
List of Scheduled Monuments in Anglesey
List of Cadw properties
References
External links
Ancient Britain - Bryn Celli Ddu
Pictures and description of Bryn Celli Ddu
Map sources for Bryn Celli Ddu
Steve Burrow... says the mound's stone passage points at the midsummer rising sun... The rays light up a quartz-rich stone at the back of the tomb.
photos of Bryn Celli Ddu and surrounding area on geograph
Animated video of development of Bryn Celli Ddu
flythough of a pointcloud model of the site
3D model of Bryn Celli Ddu
3D model of the standing stone at Bryn Celli Ddu |
IPhone_(1st_generation) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation) | [
392
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation)"
] | The iPhone (retroactively referred to as the iPhone 2G, iPhone 1, or original iPhone) is the first iPhone model and the first smartphone developed and marketed by Apple Inc. After years of rumors and speculation, it was officially announced on January 9, 2007, and was released in the United States on June 29, 2007.
Development of the iPhone as a product began in 2005 and continued in complete secrecy until its public unveiling. The device broke with prevailing mobile phone designs by eliminating most physical hardware buttons and eschewing a stylus for its finger-friendly touch interface. The iPhone instead featured only a few physical buttons and a touch screen. It featured quad-band GSM cellular connectivity with GPRS and EDGE support for data transfer, and it used continuous internet access and onboard processing to support features unrelated to voice communication. Its successor, the iPhone 3G, was announced on June 9, 2008.
The iPhone quickly became Apple's most successful product, with later generations propelling it to become one of the world's most profitable companies. The introduction of the App Store allowed established companies and startup developers to build careers and earn money, via the platform, while providing consumers with new ways to access information and connect with other people. The iPhone largely appealed to the general public, as opposed to the business community BlackBerry and IBM focused on at the time. By integrating existing technology and expanding on usability, the iPhone turned the smartphone industry "on its head".
History
In 2000, Apple CEO Steve Jobs envisioned an Apple touchscreen product that the user could interact with directly with their fingers rather than using a stylus. The stylus was a common tool for many existing touchscreen devices at the time including Apple's own Newton, launched in 1993. He decided that the device would require a triple layered capacitive multi-touch touch screen, a very new and advanced technology at the time. This helped with removing the physical keyboard and mouse. The same as was common at the time for tablet computers, human machine interfaces, and point of sale systems. Jobs recruited a group of Apple engineers to investigate the idea as a side project. When Jobs reviewed the prototype and its user interface, he saw the potential in developing the concept into a mobile phone to compete with already established brands in the then emerging market for touch screen phones. The whole effort was called Project Purple 2 and began in 2005. Apple purchased the "iphone.org" domain in December 1999.
Apple created the device during a secretive and unprecedented collaboration with Cingular Wireless, now part of AT&T. The development cost of the collaboration was estimated to have been $150 million over a thirty-month period. Apple rejected the "design by committee" approach that had yielded the Motorola ROKR E1, a largely unsuccessful collaboration with Motorola. Instead, Cingular Wireless gave Apple the liberty to develop the iPhone's hardware and software in-house. The original iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs on January 9, 2007, in a keynote address at the Macworld Conference & Expo held in Moscone West in San Francisco, California. In his address, Jobs said, "This is a day that I have been looking forward to for two and a half years," and that "today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone". Jobs introduced the iPhone as a combination of three devices: a "widescreen iPod with touch controls"; a "revolutionary mobile phone"; and a "breakthrough Internet communicator."
Six weeks prior to the iPhone's release, the plastic screen was replaced with glass. This was after Jobs was upset when he saw that his keys scratched the prototype in his pocket. The quick switch led to a bidding process for a manufacturing contractor that was won by Foxconn, which had just opened up a new wing of its Shenzhen factory complex specifically for this bid.
Release
Six out of ten Americans surveyed said they knew before its release that the iPhone was coming. The iPhone was released in the United States on June 29, 2007, at the price of $499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB model, both requiring a 2-year contract. Thousands of people were reported to have waited outside Apple and AT&T retail stores days before the device's launch; many stores reported stock shortages within an hour of availability.
Sales to the European market started in November 2007, first in Germany, followed by Britain and then France. Reports suggested that these launches were met with less enthusiasm. In France it was sold by Orange for 649 euros. The iPhone was released in Austria and the Republic of Ireland on March 13, 2008.
In Canada, Rogers Wireless announced in April 2008 that a deal was reached with Apple to bring the iPhone to the Canadian market. The original iPhone was eventually not released in Canada in favor of the second-generation iPhone 3G.
Post-release and reception
The iPhone's main competitors in both consumer and business markets were considered to be the LG Prada, LG Viewty, Samsung Ultra Smart F700, Nokia N95, Nokia E61i, Palm Treo 750, Palm Centro, HTC Touch, Sony Ericsson W960, Sony Ericsson C905 and BlackBerry.
In July 2023, an unopened, first edition model of the 2007 iPhone was sold at auction in the US for $190,372.80, nearly 400 times the original price.
Price drops and revisions
The iPod Touch, a touchscreen device with the media and internet abilities and interface of the iPhone but without the ability to connect to a cellular network for phone functions or internet access, was released on September 5, 2007. At the same time, Apple significantly dropped the price of the iPhone 8 GB model from $599 to $399 (still requiring a 2-year contract with AT&T) while discontinuing the $499 4 GB model. After receiving "hundreds of emails" upset about the price drop, Apple gave a $100 store credit to early adopters.
A 16 GB model was released on February 5, 2008, for $499, the original launch price of the 4 GB model. Apple released an SDK on March 6, 2008, allowing developers to create the apps that would be available starting in iPhone OS version 2.0, a free upgrade for iPhone users. On June 9, Apple announced the iPhone 3G, which began shipping July 11, with the original iPhone discontinued four days later.
Sales
In its first week, Apple had sold 270,000 iPhones domestically. Apple sold the one millionth iPhone 74 days after the release. Apple reported in January 2008 that four million were sold. As of Q4 2007, strong iPhone sales put Apple no. 2 in U.S. smartphone vendors, behind Research In Motion and ahead of all Windows Mobile vendors.
As of October 2007, the iPhone was the fourth best-selling handset in the U.S., trailing the Motorola RAZR V3, the LG Chocolate, and the LG VX8300.
Compared to the United States, European sales were "sluggish". Although Apple partners called its British weekend launch successful, The Register called it a "flop". According to an analyst, iPhone per-capita sales were one quarter that of the United States and it was reportedly outsold by LG Viewty. In France, the device had reportedly sold 30,000 units in its first week, which was three times as many that were sold in Germany numbering 10,000.
The original iPhone was discontinued on July 15, 2008; total sales volume came to 6,124,000 units.
Critical reception
The original iPhone received largely positive reviews. Only four writers were given review models of the original iPhone: David Pogue of The New York Times, Walt Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal, Steven Levy of Newsweek, and Ed Baig of USA Today. The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal published positive, but cautious, reviews of the iPhone, their primary criticisms being the relatively slow speed of the AT&T's 2.5G EDGE network and the phone's inability to connect using 3G services. The Wall Street Journal's technology columnist, Walt Mossberg, concluded that "despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer." Time magazine named it the Invention of the Year in 2007. UK-based Mobile Gazette wrote that "Although it has many good points, the list of bad points is equally impressive." It also added "Although the iPhone sold well in the US, when it finally hit Europe sales were not as high as expected, to an extent because European consumers could understand the drawbacks due to a more competitive marketplace."
Hardware
External hardware (screens, materials, etc)
The iPhone's back cover is made out of aluminum, a soft metal. The iPhone's screen is a 320×480-resolution LCD screen at 163 ppi that measures about 3.5 inches diagonally, much bigger than most other phones at the time, and the iPhone was the first mobile phone with multi-touch technology. The rear camera on the iPhone has a resolution of 2 megapixels and also features geotagging. The iPhone has four total buttons and a single switch: a power and sleep button, a volume up and volume down button, a silent/ringer switch, and a home button positioned in the bottom center of the face of the phone. The home button, when pressed, would send the user back to the home screen from whatever app they were currently using.
Internal hardware (motherboard, system-on-chip, etc.)
The iPhone featured a Samsung 32-bit ARM microprocessor, underclocked from its stock 620 MHz to a slower 412 MHz to increase battery life. The iPhone also included several sets of sensors, including an accelerometer, a proximity sensor, and an ambient light sensor. Similar to the iPod Touch, the iPhone also featured a 3.5 millimeter auxiliary headphone jack. The phone also had a 3.7 V 1400 mAh lithium-ion battery built in it.
Software
At the time of its unveiling in January, Steve Jobs claimed: "iPhone runs OS X" and runs "desktop-class applications", but at the time of the iPhone's release, the operating system was renamed "iPhone OS".
The original iPhone supported three major versions of the operating system before it was discontinued: iPhone OS 1, 2, and 3. The last update the original iPhone received was iPhone OS 3.1.3, as iPhone OS 3.2 was intended for the iPad.
Software history
The original operating system for the original iPhone, iPhone OS 1, featured Visual Voicemail, multi-touch gestures, HTML email, Apple's Safari web browser, threaded text messaging, an "iPod" music and video player app, a dedicated YouTube app and a Maps app powered by Google Maps. It also included basic Phone/contacts, Calendar, Photos, Stocks, Weather, Clock, Calculator, Notes, and Settings apps. However, many features like MMS, apps, and copy and paste were not supported at release, leading hackers to jailbreak their phones to add these features. Software updates from Apple gradually added these functions.
A v1.1 update alongside the introduction of the iPod Touch in September 2007 included an iTunes Store app that was the first new app to be added to the system.
iPhone OS 2 was released on July 11, 2008, at the same time as the release of the iPhone 3G, and introduced Apple's App Store supporting native third-party applications, Microsoft Exchange support, push e-mail, and other enhancements.
iPhone OS 3 was released on June 17, 2009, alongside the iPhone 3GS, and introduced a copy and paste functionality, Spotlight search for the home screen, and new features for the YouTube app. iPhone OS 3 was available for the original iPhone as well as the iPhone 3G and 3GS. However, not all features of iPhone OS 3 (such as MMS in the Messages app) were supported on the original iPhone.
iPhone OS 3.1.3 was the last version of iPhone OS (now iOS) to be released for the phone in February 2010, which never got the full iPhone OS 3 feature set because iPhone OS 3.2 was intended for the iPad.
Almost all apps released after the release of iOS 6 in late September 2012 do not run on the original iPhone, as the software development kit (SDK) was changed to no longer allow the "targeting" (minimum) of iOS versions older than 4.3 (including 3.x), or ARMv6 devices (first two generations).
See also
300-page iPhone bill
Apple Newton
Comparison of smartphones
History of iPhone
List of iOS devices
Timeline of iPhone models
References
External links
Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived June 29, 2007) |
IPhone_X | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_X | [
392
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_X#:~:text=The%20iPhone%20X%20(Roman%20numeral,released%20on%20November%203%2C%202017."
] | The iPhone X (Roman numeral "X" pronounced "ten") is a smartphone that was developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is part of the 11th generation of the iPhone. Available for pre-order from October 27, 2017, it was released on November 3, 2017. The naming of the iPhone X (skipping the iPhone 9 and 9s) marked the 10th anniversary of the iPhone.
The iPhone X used a glass and stainless-steel form factor and "bezel-less" design, shrinking the bezels while not having a "chin". It was the first iPhone to use an OLED screen, branded as a Super Retina HD display. The home button's fingerprint sensor was replaced with a new type of authentication called Face ID, which uses sensors to scan the user's face to unlock the device. This face-recognition capability also enabled emojis to be animated following the user's expression (Animoji). With a bezel-less design, iPhone user interaction changed significantly, using gestures to navigate the operating system rather than the home button used in all previous iPhones. At the time of its November 2017 launch, its price tag of US$999 also made it the most expensive iPhone ever, with even higher prices internationally due to additional local sales and import taxes.
Along with the iPhone 6s, iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone SE (1st generation), the iPhone X was discontinued on September 12, 2018, following the announcement of the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR devices.
History
The technology behind the iPhone X was in development for five years, starting as far back as 2012. Rumors of a drastic iPhone redesign began circulating around the time of iPhone 7 announcement in the third quarter of 2016, and intensified when a HomePod firmware leak in July 2017 suggested that Apple would shortly release a phone with a nearly bezel-less design, lack of a physical home button, facial recognition, and other new features. A near-final development version of the iOS 11 operating system was also leaked in September 2017, confirming the new design and features.
On August 31, 2017, Apple invited journalists to a September 12 press event, the first public event held at the Steve Jobs Theater on the company's new Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The iPhone X was unveiled during that keynote. Its US$999 starting price was the most expensive iPhone launch price ever at the time. The price is even higher in international markets due to currency fluctuations, import fees and sales taxes. An instrumental version of the song Keep On Lovin’ by MagnusTheMagnus was used in the reveal of the device, and the song "Best Friend" by Sofi Tukker was featured in the introductory film and ads.
An unlocked version of the phone was made available for purchase in the United States on December 5, 2017.
In April 2018, the Federal Communications Commission divulged images of an unreleased gold-colored iPhone X model. As opposed to the space gray and silver color options that the iPhone X ships with, it was divulged that there were initial plans to release a gold option for the device. However, it was put on hold due to production issues. The successor of the iPhone X, the iPhone XS and XS Max, included a Gold color option, in addition to the Silver and Space Grey featured on the iPhone X.
Apple released a revised B model for the iPhone X that fixed NFC issues for users in Japan, China, and the United States.
Design
Hardware and display
The iPhone X has a 5.85 inch (marketed as 5.8 inch) OLED color-accurate screen that supports DCI-P3 wide color gamut, sRGB, and high dynamic range, and has a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1.
The Super Retina display has the True Tone technology found on the iPad Pro, which uses ambient light sensors to adapt the display's white balance to the surrounding ambient light.
The iPhone X does not feature the variable 10–120 Hz "ProMotion" technology used in the displays of the second-generation iPad Pro until the launch of the iPhone 13 Pro in 2021.
OLED screen technology has a known negative trend of "burn-in" effects, in which particular elements consistently on the screen for long periods of time leave a faint trace even after new images appear. Apple acknowledged that its OLED screens were not excluded from this issue, writing in a support document that "This is also expected behavior".
Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of product marketing, told Tom's Guide that the OLED panels Apple used in the iPhone X had been engineered to avoid the over-saturation of colors that using OLED panels typically results in, having made color adjustments and subpixel-level refinements for crisp lines and round corners. For out-of-warranty servicing for damages not relating to manufacturing defects, screen repairs of iPhone X cost US$279, while other damage repairs cost US$549.
Color options
The iPhone X has two color options; silver and space gray. The sides of the phone are composed of surgical-grade stainless steel to improve durability, and the front and back are made of glass. The design is intended to be IP67 water and dust resistant.
Chipsets
The iPhone X contains Apple's A11 Bionic SoC, (system-on-chip) also used in the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, which is a six-core processor with two cores optimized for performance (25% faster than the A10 Fusion processor), along with four cores optimized for efficiency (70% faster than the previous generation). It also features the first Apple-designed graphics processing unit and a Neural Engine, which powers an artificial intelligence accelerator.
Biometric authentication
Face ID replaces the Touch ID authentication system. The facial recognition sensor consists of two parts: a dot project module that projects more than 30,000 infrared dots onto the user's face, and an infrared camera module that reads the pattern. The pattern is sent to the Secure Enclave in the A11 Bionic chip to confirm a match with the phone owner's face. By default, the system will not work with eyes closed, in an effort to prevent unauthorized access but this requirement can be disabled in settings.
Cameras
The iPhone X has two cameras on the rear. One is a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera with f/1.8 aperture, with support for face detection, high dynamic range and optical image stabilization. It is capable of capturing 4K video at 24, 30 or 60 frames per second, or 1080p video at 30, 60, 120 or 240 frames per second. A secondary, telephoto lens features 2× optical zoom and 10× digital zoom with an aperture of f/2.4 and optical image stabilization. A Portrait Mode is capable of producing photos with specific depth-of-field and lighting effects. It also has a quad-LED True Tone flash with 2× better light uniformity. Still photos with 6.5 megapixels (3412×1920) can be captured during video recording. iOS 12/13 for the iPhone X did not include Smart HDR or Night Mode, which were kept exclusive to the new iPhone XS/iPhone 11. However, third-party apps brought similar features.
Front camera
On the front of the phone, a 7-megapixel True Depth camera has an f/2.2 aperture, and features face detection and HDR. It can capture 1080p video at 30 frames per second, 720p video at 240 frames per second, and exclusively allows for the use of Animoji; animated emojis placed on top of the user's face that intelligently react to the user's facial expressions.
Mono audio
Criticism has been aimed at video footage being recorded with monaural audio (only one audio channel), and at a low bit rate of 96 kbit/s, while earlier mobile phones by competing vendors have been recording with stereo audio (two audio channels for spatiality) and higher bit rates, such as the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Sony Xperia S, both unveiled in 2012.
Wireless charging
iPhone X also supports Qi-standard wireless charging. In tests conducted by MacRumors, the iPhone X's charging speeds varies significantly depending on what types of cables, powerbanks, adapters, or wireless chargers are used.
Software
Due to its different screen layout, iOS developers are required to update their apps to make full use of the additional screen real estate. Such changes include rounded corners, sensor "notch" at the top of the screen, and an indicator area at the bottom for accessing the home screen. Apple published a "Human Interface Guidelines" document to explain areas of focus, and discouraged developers from attempting to mask or call special attention to any of the new changes. Additionally, text within the app needs to be configured to properly reference Face ID rather than Touch ID where the authentication technology is used on iPhone X. In anticipation of the release of the phone, most major apps were quickly updated to support the new changes brought by iPhone X, though the required changes did cause delayed app updates for some major apps.
The traditional home button, found on all previous devices in the iPhone lineup, has been removed entirely, replaced by touch-based gestures. To wake up the device, users can tap the display or use the side button; to access the home screen, users must swipe up from the bottom of the display; and to access the multitasking window, users must swipe up similarly to the method of accessing the home screen, but stop while the finger is in the middle of the screen, causing an app carousel to appear.
The iPhone X shipped with iOS 11, and supports iOS 12, iOS 13, iOS 14, iOS 15, and iOS 16. The iPhone X, alongside the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, does not support iOS 17 due to hardware limitations.
Reception
General reviews
The iPhone X received positive reviews. Its display and build quality were strongly praised, and the camera also scored positively on tests. However, the sensor housing "notch" at the top of the screen and the introduction of an all-new authentication method were polarizing for critics and consumers. The notch was heavily mocked by users on social media, although app developers responded either neutrally or positively to the changes it brought to the user experience in their apps and games. Face ID facial recognition was praised for its simple setup, but criticized for requiring direct eyes on the screen, though that option can be disabled within the system preferences.
iPhone X's rear camera received an overall rating of 97 from DxOMark, a camera testing company, short of the highest score of 99, awarded to Samsung's Galaxy S9+ smartphone. Google's Pixel 2 received a rating of 98. Consumer Reports, a non-profit, independent organization aiming to write impartial reviews of consumer products, ranked iPhone X below iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, as well as below Samsung's Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8, due to less durability and shorter battery life, although it praised the X's camera as "the highest-rated smartphone camera" it had ever tested.
Chris Velazco of Engadget praised the display, writing that, in his experience, the sensor "notch" goes from being "weird at first" to not being noticeable due to action in videos usually happening in the center. The build quality was given particular acclaim, being called "a beautifully made device" with the construction that "seamlessly" connects the front and back glass with the stainless-steel frame. Velazco noted that the new gesture-based interaction takes time to get used to, particularly the Control Center being moved from the bottom to the top right of the display. The camera, processor performance, and battery life were also given positive thoughts.
Nilay Patel of The Verge also praised the display, calling it "polished and tight" and "bright and colorful". He criticized the repeated lack of a headphone jack, the device's fragility despite Apple's claims of durability, and the sensor notch, calling it "ugly". Patel highlighted the fact that apps required updates to fit the new screen, writing that not all popular apps had received updates by the time of the review, resulting in some apps with "huge black borders" resembling iPhone 8. He especially criticized the positioning of the sensor notch while holding the phone in landscape mode, causing the notch to go "from being a somewhat forgettable element in the top status bar to a giant interruption on the side of the screen". The cameras were given positive feedback for maintaining detail in low-light. Patel particularly praised Animoji, calling it "probably the single best feature on the iPhone X", writing that "they just work, and they work incredibly well". Finally, he wrote that Face ID was the whole foundation of iPhone X, and stated that it "generally works great", though acknowledging the occasional misstep, in which users must "actively move the phone closer to your face to compensate". He specifically criticized the limited range of Face ID, with authentication only working when holding the phone 25–50 centimeters away from the face.
The cost of repairing an iPhone is also very large compared to its predecessors. If the iPhone X is damaged by user damage (not a manufacturing defect), screen repairs cost US$279, and other repairs like replacing iPhone X batteries are more expensive.
In a heavily negative review, Dennis Green of Business Insider significantly criticized the impossible one-handed use of iPhone X, writing that the new gestures to use the phone, such as swiping from the top down to access notifications and the Control Center, did not work when using the phone with only one hand due to not being able to reach the top. His review sparked outrage among Twitter users, many of whom used condescending tones, which Green reasoned as "I don't know whether the anger was directed toward me out of loyalty to Apple or to justify their own choice to spend $1,000 on a phone. It was obvious that much of the criticism came from people who had never used the phone".
Macworld's Roman Loyola praised the Face ID authentication system, writing that the setup process was "easy" and that its system integration was "more seamless" than the Touch ID fingerprint authentication of the past. That said, Loyola did note the "half-second" slower unlocking time than Touch ID as well as needing to look directly at the screen, making it impossible to unlock with the phone next to the user on a desk.
Face ID security and privacy concerns
Face ID has raised concerns regarding the possibility of law enforcement accessing an individual's phone by pointing the device at the user's face. United States Senator Al Franken asked Apple to provide more information on the security and privacy of Face ID a day after the announcement, with Apple responding by highlighting the recent publication of a security white paper and knowledge base detailing answers.
Inconsistent results have been shown when testing Face ID on identical twins, with some tests showing the system managing to separate the two, while other tests have failed.
However, despite Apple's promise of increased security of Face ID compared to the Touch ID fingerprint authentication system, there have been multiple media reports indicating otherwise. The Verge noted that courts in the United States have granted different Fifth Amendment rights in the United States Constitution to biometric unlocking systems as opposed to keycodes. Keycodes are considered "testimonial" evidence based on the contents of users' thoughts, whereas fingerprints are considered physical evidence, with some suspects having been ordered to unlock their phones via fingerprint. Many attempts to break through Face ID with sophisticated masks have been attempted, though all have failed. A week after iPhone X was released, Vietnamese security firm Bkav announced in a blog post that it had successfully created a $150 mask that tricked Face ID, though WIRED noted that Bkav's technique was more of a "proof-of-concept" rather than active exploitation risk, with the technique requiring a detailed measurement or digital scan of the iPhone owner's face, putting the real risk of danger only to targets of espionage and world leaders.
Additionally, Reuters reported in early November 2017 that Apple would share certain facial data on users with third-party app developers for more precise selfie filters and for fictional game characters to mirror real-world user facial expressions. Although developers are required to seek customer permission, are not allowed to sell the data to others nor create profiles on users nor use the data for advertising, and are limited to a more "rough map" rather than full capabilities, they still get access to over 50 kinds of facial expressions. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Democracy and Technology raised privacy questions about Apple's enforcement of the privacy restrictions connected to third-party access, with Apple maintaining that its App Store review processes were effective safeguards. The "rough map" of facial data third-parties can access is also not enough to unlock the device, according to Reuters. However, the overall idea of letting developers access sensitive facial information was still not satisfactorily handled, according to Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU, with Stanley telling Reuters that "the privacy issues around of the use of very sophisticated facial recognition technology for unlocking the phone have been overblown. ... The real privacy issues have to do with the access by third-party developers".
Notch controversy
Much of the debate about the iPhone X has revolved around the design of the Face ID sensor housing, dubbed "notch" by the media, at the top of the display. The Outline described it as "a visually disgusting element", and The Verge posted a report focusing on public criticism and people mocking Apple's "odd design choice", but not every reviewer was equally negative in their opinions. Third-party iOS developers interviewed by Ars Technica said that, despite the work of restructuring design elements in their apps, the notch did not cause any problems, with some even arguing that the notch was a good push to simplify their designs. Two weeks after the iPhone X's release, Apple approved a "notch remover" app through the App Store, that adds a black bar at the top of images, which can then be used as a wallpaper to make the notch visually disappear. The approval was done despite the company's user interface guidelines discouraging developers from specifically masking the design. The iPhone X was not the first device with a notch; both the Essential Phone and Sharp Aquos S2 were announced before it and had a display notch, albeit much smaller, but the iPhone X arguably popularized it.
Issues
Early activation issues
In November 2017, early adopters of the new phone reported that they were experiencing activation issues on certain cellular carriers, most notably AT&T. AT&T announced within hours that the issue had been fixed on their end, and a spokesperson for the Verizon carrier told the media none of its customers were affected despite some reports of problems.
Cold weather issues
In November 2017, iPhone X users reported on Reddit that the device's screen would become unresponsive after experiencing rapid temperature drops. Apple released the iOS 11.1.2 update on November 16, 2017, fixing the issue.
Forbes contributor Gordon Kelly reported in March 2018 that over 1,000 users experienced problems using camera flash in cold weather, with the problem being fixed in a later software update.
Cellular modem differences
Apple has been engaged in a legal battle with Qualcomm over allegedly anti-competitive practices and has been dual-sourcing cellular modem chips to reduce reliance on the semiconductor manufacturer. Starting with iPhone 7 in 2016, Apple has used about half Qualcomm modem chips and half Intel. Professional measurement tests performed by wireless signal testing firm Cellular Insights indicated that, as in the previous-gen iPhone 7, Qualcomm's chips outperform Intel's in LTE download speeds, up to 67% faster in very weak signal conditions, resulting in some sources recommending the purchase of an unlocked iPhone X or one bought through cellular carrier Verizon, in order to get the models featuring the faster Qualcomm modem. Additionally, CNET reported in September 2017 that the new iPhone models, including X, 8 and 8 Plus, do not have the ability to connect to the next-generation of wireless LTE data connection, despite 10 new Android devices, including flagships from main smartphone competitor Samsung, all having the capability to do so. While Apple's new smartphones have support for "LTE Advanced", with a theoretical peak speed of 500 megabits per second, the Android models have the ability to connect to "Gigabit LTE", allowing theoretical speeds up to 1 gigabit per second, doubling Apple's speed.
NFC problems
After releasing the iPhone X in Japan and China, customers experienced issues related to the phone's NFC while trying to access public transit smart card readers. In April 2018, Apple released a revision to the iPhone X, that included a vastly improved NFC chip. This solved the problem of NFC reader errors in most cases. Previously, around 1 out of 3 NFC attempts would fail after initial reports. This issue also affected users in America.
Display Module Replacement Program
Apple has determined an issue with certain iPhone X devices where the display wouldn't respond to the user's touch, due to a component that might fail on the display module. Apple stated that they will repair the affected devices free of charge, so long as the device is under 3 years old.
See also
List of iPhone models
History of iPhone
Comparison of smartphones
Timeline of iPhone models
References
External links
Official website (archived) |
A_Court_of_Thorns_and_Roses | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Court_of_Thorns_and_Roses | [
393
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Court_of_Thorns_and_Roses"
] | A Court of Thorns and Roses is a fantasy romance series by American author Sarah J. Maas, which follows the journey of 19-year-old Feyre Archeron after she is brought into the faerie lands of Prythian. The first book of the series, A Court of Thorns and Roses, was released in May 2015. The series centers on Feyre's adventures across Prythian and the faerie courts, following the epic love story and fierce struggle that ensues after she enters the fae lands. The series has sold over 13 million copies. There are currently 5 novels in the series, and a sixth installment, confirmed by Maas, in the works.
The series is a New York Times Best Seller and has been optioned by Hulu for a television series adaptation by Ronald D. Moore. Although the future of this project is unconfirmed, Variety magazine reported that the project was still in development at Hulu, the development just wasn't currently active.
Books
Main
Companions
A Court of Thorns and Roses Coloring Book (2017)
Development
Maas initially intended the series as a retelling of the fairy tales Beauty and the Beast, East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and Tam Lin. These tales inspired the finished series, though it was not ultimately a dedicated retelling.
She began writing A Court of Thorns and Roses in early 2009, with the first draft taking about five weeks to complete.
A Court of Mist and Fury's first draft was written entirely in a split point of view between Feyre and Rhysand. The second book went through multiple name changes, including A Court of Wind and Stone, A Court of Calm and Fury, A Court of Stars and Smoke, A Court of Wings and Stars, A Court of Venom and Silver and A Court of Stars and Frost. Like the first novel, the second is based upon multiple fairy tales and myths, including Hades and Persephone, with the Greek mythology-inspired characters such as Rhysand and Feyre and their home in the Night Court. Other fairy tale inspirations include Hansel and Gretel, which spawned the character of the Weaver, and the Book of Exodus, which loosely inspired parts of the backstory for Miryam and Drakon.
The final cover of A Court of Wings and Ruin was designed by Adrian Dadich, with the dress pictured on the cover originally designed by Charlie Bowater and later adapted by Dadich.
On July 12, 2016, Entertainment Weekly reported that Maas was writing five new books for the series, that would include two novellas and three further novels which would be set before and after the first trilogy.
In 2020, the series was reprinted and published by Bloomsbury with new illustrated covers. A Court of Thorns and Roses has existed between the Young Adult and New Adult fiction categories since the publication of the first book. At the time A Court of Thorns and Roses was published, the New Adult categorization had not caught on the way publishers hoped it would. Maas agreed to publish the book as YA so long as her editor did not censor any of the sexual content. The A Court of Thorns and Roses series is now classified as New Adult.
Reception
Awards
Accolades
Censorship in the United States
In 2022, according to the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom, A Court of Mist and Fury was tied for the tenth-most banned and challenged book in the United States. In 2023 a school district in Mason City, Iowa, made international news when they banned the book from library shelves after running a list of books through ChatGPT and asking it if the books, "contain a description or depiction of a sex act."
In February 2024, individuals in the Rutherford County Schools (RCS) library system in Tennessee were "...quietly instructed by higher ups to remove 20 books from all RCS library shelves", with the entirety of this five-book series being included among those twenty selections; an internal review by RCS determined that two of those twenty titles did not meet the standard for obscenity as defined by Tennessee state law and were accordingly allowed to remain upon school shelves. The removal of the eighteen remaining books occurred without seeking input from librarians and without due process policy for the school system being applied; as of mid-March 2024, all of those eighteen books (still including this entire series) remain off RCS shelves. The Rutherford County Library Alliance, a nonprofit organization whose mission statement defines them as being "...dedicated to safeguarding the principles of intellectual freedom and unrestricted access to information within the public library system of Rutherford County, Tennessee", is in the process of challenging this censorship.
In 2024, all five books in the series were among 13 banned from all Utah public schools by the state school board for allegedly containing "objective sensitive material." One additional Maas book, Empire of Storms, was also banned.
Adaptations
A Court of Thorns and Roses was optioned by Jo Bamford's and Piers Tempest's Tempo Productions in November 2015. The producers revealed in 2018 they had hired Rachel Hirons to work as the movie's screenwriter.
In March 2021, it was announced that A Court of Thorns and Roses series had been opted for a television adaptation by 20th Television for Hulu. The series is set to be developed by Ronald D. Moore alongside Maas. In an interview with The New York Times, Maas confirmed that she was developing the project with the writers and the showrunner as the executive producer of the adaptation. As of December 2023, no cast had been set, but writing for the script has continued for the adaptation. In February 2024, it was announced by TVLine that the adaptation has been scrapped and will not be shopped to other networks; however, Variety reported that these reports were inaccurate.
== References == |
Sarah_J._Maas | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_J._Maas | [
393
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_J._Maas"
] | Sarah Janet Maas, known as Sarah J. Maas (born March 5, 1986) is an American fantasy author known for her fantasy series Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Crescent City. As of 2024, she has sold nearly 40 million copies of her books and her work has been translated into 38 languages.
Early life and education
Maas was adopted by a Catholic mother and a Jewish father, and grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was raised Jewish.
In 2008, Maas graduated magna cum laude from Hamilton College in New York, where she majored in creative writing and minored in religious studies.
Career
Maas began writing what would become her debut novel, Throne of Glass, at age sixteen. After writing several chapters of the novel, then titled Queen of Glass, Maas posted them on FictionPress.com, where it became one of the most popular stories on the site. It was later removed from the site when Maas decided to publish the novel. The story line of the series is based on the story of Cinderella, with the premise of "What if Cinderella was not a servant, but an assassin? And what if she didn't attend the ball to meet the prince, but to kill him, instead?" In 2008, Maas started sending the story to agents before signing with Tamar Rydzinski of The Laura Dial Literary Agency in 2009. Throne of Glass was purchased in March 2010 by Bloomsbury, who later purchased two additional books in the series. The series is available in 15 countries and 35 languages. While four prequel novellas set two years before the first novel were also published, these were later condensed into one book, The Assassin's Blade plus an original novella. The second book of the series, Crown of Midnight was a New York Times young adult best-seller. The final book in the series, Kingdom of Ash, was released on October 23, 2018; the finished series comprised seven books plus the novella collection.
A Court of Thorns and Roses, Maas' second fantasy series, is a loose retelling of the traditional Beauty and the Beast. The first book of the trilogy was written in 2009, but was not published until 2015. Due to the success and popularity of the original series, it was extended and a spin-off series was announced which would feature stories of other popular characters. The fifth book in the series and the first of the spin-offs, A Court of Silver Flames, was published on February 16, 2021.
On May 16, 2018, Maas announced her first adult fantasy series, Crescent City. The first book, titled House of Earth and Blood, was released by Bloomsbury on March 3, 2020. It was ranked one of the top twenty Science Fiction & Fantasy books of 2020 on Kobo. The sequel, House of Sky and Breath, was released on February 15, 2022 and won the Best Fantasy award for Goodreads Choice Awards in 2022. The third installation of the series, House of Flame and Shadow, was released on January 30th 2024.
The A Court of Thorns and Roses series was announced to be adapted into a television series for Hulu in 2021. In an interview with The New York Times, Maas confirmed that she was developing the project with the writers and the showrunner as executive producer.
In May 2023, The Verge reported that the cover of the UK edition of House of Earth and Blood uses an AI-generated image.
Many of her books now banned in Utah public schools are leading to a surge in popularity.
Writing style and influences
Maas's books are highly acclaimed and she has even been called "the next J. K. Rowling" by The Independent. In an interview with Writers & Artists, Maas told them that movie scores and classical music are her inspiration as a writer. She continued on to say that Sabriel written by Garth Nix and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley began her love for reading fantasy and writing it. She has cited Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sailor Moon as influences. Her character development has been lauded as one of her best qualities for storytelling, with morally grey characters and strong world building.
Maas has mentioned that, "The sense of discovery is why I love writing so much. It's a total thrill for me." Her books are known for heavy romantic themes, and Maas herself has said that her fantasy series A Court of Thorns and Roses "does skew older", sitting somewhere between young adult and adult genres.
Reception
In 2024 the Republican-dominated Utah Legislature passed a law mandating the removal of books deemed objectionable from all Utah public schools. On 2 August 2024 the Utah State School Board released its first list of objectionable books. Six of the thirteen books on this list were penned by Maas (A Court of Frost and Starlight, A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Silver Flames, A Court of Thorns and Roses, A Court of Wings and Ruin, and Empire of Storms).
Personal life
Maas met Josh Wasserman at Hamilton College, and developed a crush on him upon seeing him. At the time, Maas was a freshman and Wasserman was a resident assistant in her dorm building. They married on May 30, 2010.
In 2018, their first child was born. Maas was 11 days overdue when she went into labor and required an emergency Caesarean section. In 2022, Maas gave birth to a second child. Wasserman is supportive of Maas's career, often caring for their children while she writes. The family lives together in New York City.
Bibliography
The Assassin's Blade
Main
The Assassin's Blade (2014)
The Assassin and the Pirate Lord (2012)
The Assassin and the Desert (2012)
The Assassin and the Underworld (2012)
The Assassin and the Empire (2012)
The Assassin and the Healer (2013)
Throne of Glass
Main
Throne of Glass (2012)
Crown of Midnight (2013)
Heir of Fire (2014)
Queen of Shadows (2015)
Empire of Storms (2016)
Tower of Dawn (2017)
Kingdom of Ash (2018)
Companion
Throne of Glass Coloring Book (2016)
The World of Throne of Glass (2019)
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Main
A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015)
A Court of Mist and Fury (2016)
A Court of Wings and Ruin (2017)
A Court of Silver Flames (2021)
Novella
A Court of Frost and Starlight (2018)
Companion
A Court of Thorns and Roses Coloring Book (2017)
Crescent City
Main
House of Earth and Blood (2020)
House of Sky and Breath (2022)
House of Flame and Shadow (2024)
Others
Catwoman: Soulstealer (2018)
Adaptations
In March 2020, it was announced that Maas and Ron Moore will work together on adapting A Court of Thorns and Roses into a Hulu television series. The project will be produced by 20th Television. The release date is yet to be set.
Awards and nominations
Maas has received the following awards and nominations:
Accolades
References
External links
Official website |
Apollo_12 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12 | [
394
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12"
] | Apollo 12 (November 14–24, 1969) was the sixth crewed flight in the United States Apollo program and the second to land on the Moon. It was launched on November 14, 1969, by NASA from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Commander Charles "Pete" Conrad and Lunar Module Pilot Alan L. Bean performed just over one day and seven hours of lunar surface activity while Command Module Pilot Richard F. Gordon remained in lunar orbit.
Apollo 12 would have attempted the first lunar landing had Apollo 11 failed, but after the success of Neil Armstrong's mission, Apollo 12 was postponed by two months, and other Apollo missions also put on a more relaxed schedule. More time was allotted for geologic training in preparation for Apollo 12 than for Apollo 11, Conrad and Bean making several geology field trips in preparation for their mission. Apollo 12's spacecraft and launch vehicle were almost identical to Apollo 11's. One addition was hammocks to allow Conrad and Bean to rest more comfortably on the Moon.
Shortly after being launched on a rainy day at Kennedy Space Center, Apollo 12 was twice struck by lightning, causing instrumentation problems but little damage. Switching to the auxiliary power supply resolved the data relay problem, saving the mission. The outward journey to the Moon otherwise saw few problems. On November 19, Conrad and Bean achieved a precise landing at their expected location within walking distance of the Surveyor 3 robotic probe, which had landed on April 20, 1967. In making a pinpoint landing, they showed that NASA could plan future missions in the expectation that astronauts could land close to sites of scientific interest. Conrad and Bean carried the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, a group of nuclear-powered scientific instruments, as well as the first color television camera taken by an Apollo mission to the lunar surface, but transmission was lost after Bean accidentally pointed the camera at the Sun and its sensor was burned out. On the second of two moonwalks, they visited Surveyor 3 and removed parts for return to Earth.
Lunar Module Intrepid lifted off from the Moon on November 20 and docked with the command module, which subsequently traveled back to Earth. The Apollo 12 mission ended on November 24 with a successful splashdown.
Crew and key Mission Control personnel
The commander of the all-Navy Apollo 12 crew was Charles "Pete" Conrad, who was 39 years old at the time of the mission. After receiving a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from Princeton University in 1953, he became a naval aviator, and completed United States Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. He was selected in the second group of astronauts in 1962, and flew on Gemini 5 in 1965, and as command pilot of Gemini 11 in 1966. Command Module Pilot Richard "Dick" Gordon, 40 years old at the time of Apollo 12, also became a naval aviator in 1953, following graduation from the University of Washington with a degree in chemistry, and completed test pilot school at Patuxent River. Selected as a Group 3 astronaut in 1963, he flew with Conrad on Gemini 11.
The original Lunar Module pilot assigned to work with Conrad was Clifton C. Williams Jr., who was killed in October 1967 when the T-38 he was flying crashed near Tallahassee. When forming his crew, Conrad had wanted Alan L. Bean, a former student of his at the test pilot school, but had been told by Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton that Bean was unavailable due to an assignment to the Apollo Applications Program. After Williams's death, Conrad asked for Bean again, and this time Slayton yielded. Bean, 37 years old when the mission flew, had graduated from the University of Texas in 1955 with a degree in aeronautical engineering. Also a naval aviator, he was selected alongside Gordon in 1963, and first flew in space on Apollo 12. The three Apollo 12 crew members had backed up Apollo 9 earlier in 1969.
The Apollo 12 backup crew was David R. Scott as commander, Alfred M. Worden as Command Module pilot, and James B. Irwin as Lunar Module pilot. They became the crew of Apollo 15. For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts, known as the support crew, was designated in addition to the prime and backup crews used on projects Mercury and Gemini. Slayton created the support crews because James McDivitt, who would command Apollo 9, believed that, with preparation going on in facilities across the US, meetings that needed a member of the flight crew would be missed. Support crew members were to assist as directed by the mission commander. Usually low in seniority, they assembled the mission's rules, flight plan, and checklists, and kept them updated; For Apollo 12, they were Gerald P. Carr, Edward G. Gibson and Paul J. Weitz. Flight directors were Gerry Griffin, first shift, Pete Frank, second shift, Clifford E. Charlesworth, third shift, and Milton Windler, fourth shift. Flight directors during Apollo had a one-sentence job description, "The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success." Capsule communicators (CAPCOMs) were Scott, Worden, Irwin, Carr, Gibson, Weitz and Don Lind.
Preparation
Site selection
The landing site selection process for Apollo 12 was greatly informed by the site selection for Apollo 11. There were rigid standards for the possible Apollo 11 landing sites, in which scientific interest was not a major factor: they had to be close to the lunar equator and not on the periphery of the portion of the lunar surface visible from Earth; they had to be relatively flat and without major obstructions along the path the Lunar Module (LM) would fly to reach them, their suitability confirmed by photographs from Lunar Orbiter probes. Also desirable was the presence of another suitable site further west in case the mission was delayed, and the sun would have risen too high in the sky at the original site for desired lighting conditions. The need for three days to recycle if a launch had to be scrubbed meant that only three of the five suitable sites found were designated as potential landing sites for Apollo 11, of which the Apollo 11 landing site in the Sea of Tranquility was the easternmost. Since Apollo 12 was to attempt the first lunar landing if Apollo 11 failed, both sets of astronauts trained for the same sites.
With the success of Apollo 11, it was initially contemplated that Apollo 12 would land at the site next further west from the Sea of Tranquility, in Sinus Medii. However, NASA planning coordinator Jack Sevier and engineers at the Manned Spaceflight Center at Houston argued for a landing close enough to the crater in which the Surveyor 3 probe had landed in 1967 to allow the astronauts to cut parts from it for return to Earth. The site was otherwise suitable and had scientific interest. Given that Apollo 11 had landed several miles off-target, though, some NASA administrators feared Apollo 12 would land far enough away that the astronauts could not reach the probe, and the agency would be embarrassed. Nevertheless, the ability to perform pinpoint landings was essential if Apollo's exploration program was to be carried out, and on July 25, 1969, Apollo Program Manager Samuel Phillips designated what became known as Surveyor crater as the landing site, despite the unanimous opposition of members of two site selection boards.
Training and preparation
The Apollo 12 astronauts spent five hours in mission-specific training for every hour they expected to spend in flight on the mission, a total exceeding 1,000 hours per crew member. Conrad and Bean received more mission-specific training than Apollo 11's Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had. This was in addition to the 1,500 hours of training they received as backup crew members for Apollo 9. The Apollo 12 training included over 400 hours per crew member in simulators of the Command Module (CM) and of the LM. Some of the simulations were linked in real time to flight controllers in Mission Control. To practice landing on the Moon, Conrad flew the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV), training in which continued to be authorized even though Armstrong had been forced to bail out of a similar vehicle in 1968, just before it crashed.
Soon after being assigned as Apollo 12 crew commander, Conrad met with NASA geologists and told them that the training for lunar surface activities would be conducted much as Apollo 11's, but there was to be no publicity or involvement by the media. Conrad felt he had been abused by the press during Gemini, and the sole Apollo 11 geology field trip had turned into a near-fiasco, with a large media contingent present, some getting in the way—the astronauts had trouble hearing each other due to a hovering press helicopter. After the successful return of Apollo 11 in July 1969, more time was allotted for geology, but the astronauts' focus was on getting time in the simulators without being pre-empted by the Apollo 11 crew. On the six Apollo 12 geology field trips, the astronauts would practice as if on the Moon, collecting samples and documenting them with photographs, while communicating with a CAPCOM and geologists who were out of sight in a nearby tent. Afterwards, the astronauts' performance in choosing samples and taking photographs would be critiqued. To the frustration of the astronauts, the scientists kept changing the photo documentation procedures; after the fourth or fifth such change, Conrad required that there be no more. After the return of Apollo 11, the Apollo 12 crew was able to view the lunar samples, and be briefed on them by scientists.
As Apollo 11 was targeted for an ellipse-shaped landing zone, rather than at a specific point, there was no planning for geology traverses, the designated tasks to be done at sites of the crew's choosing. For Apollo 12, before the mission, some of NASA's geology team met with the crew and Conrad suggested they lay out possible routes for him and Bean. The result was four traverses, based on four potential landing points for the LM. This was the start of geology traverse planning that on later missions became a considerable effort involving several organizations.
The stages of the lunar module, LM–6, were delivered to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on March 24, 1969, and were mated to each other on April 28. Command module CM–108 and service module SM–108 were delivered to KSC on March 28, and were mated to each other on April 21. Following installation of gear and testing, the launch vehicle, with the spacecraft atop it, was rolled out to Launch Complex 39A on September 8, 1969. The training schedule was complete, as planned, by November 1, 1969; activities after that date were intended as refreshers. The crew members felt that the training, for the most part, was adequate preparation for the Moon mission.
Hardware
Launch vehicle
There were no significant changes to the Saturn V launch vehicle used on Apollo 12, SA–507, from that used on Apollo 11. There were another 17 instrumentation measurements in the Apollo 12 launch vehicle, bringing the number to 1,365. The entire vehicle, including the spacecraft, weighed 6,487,742 pounds (2,942,790 kg) at launch, an increase from Apollo 11's 6,477,875 pounds (2,938,315 kg). Of this figure, the spacecraft weighed 110,044 pounds (49,915 kg), up from 109,646 pounds (49,735 kg) on Apollo 11.
Third stage trajectory
After LM separation, the third stage of the Saturn V, the S-IVB, was intended to fly into solar orbit. The S-IVB auxiliary propulsion system was fired, with the intent that the Moon's gravity would slingshot the stage into solar orbit. Due to an error, the S-IVB flew past the Moon at too high an altitude to achieve Earth escape velocity. It remained in a semi-stable Earth orbit until it finally escaped Earth orbit in 1971, but briefly returned to Earth orbit 31 years later. It was discovered by amateur astronomer Bill Yeung who gave it the temporary designation J002E3 before it was determined to be an artificial object. Again in solar orbit as of 2021, it may again be captured by Earth's gravity, but not at least until the 2040s. The S-IVBs used on later lunar missions were deliberately crashed into the Moon to create seismic events that would register on the seismometers left on the Moon and provide data about the Moon's structure.
Spacecraft
The Apollo 12 spacecraft consisted of Command Module 108 and Service Module 108 (together Command and Service Modules 108, or CSM–108), Lunar Module 6 (LM–6), a Launch Escape System (LES), and Spacecraft-Lunar Module Adapter 15 (SLA–15). The LES contained three rocket motors to propel the CM to safety in the event of an abort shortly after launch, while the SLA housed the LM and provided a structural connection between the Saturn V and the LM. The SLA was identical to Apollo 11's, while the LES differed only in the installation of a more reliable motor igniter.
The CSM was given the call sign Yankee Clipper, while the LM had the call sign Intrepid. These sea-related names were selected by the all-Navy crew from several thousand proposed names submitted by employees of the prime contractors of the respective modules. George Glacken, a flight test engineer at North American Aviation, builder of the CSM, proposed Yankee Clipper as such ships had "majestically sailed the high seas with pride and prestige for a new America". Intrepid was from a suggestion by Robert Lambert, a planner at Grumman, builder of the LM, as evocative of "this nation's resolute determination for continued exploration of space, stressing our astronauts' fortitude and endurance of hardship".
The differences between the CSM and LM of Apollo 11, and those of Apollo 12, were few and minor. A hydrogen separator was added to the CSM to stop the gas from entering the potable water tank—Apollo 11 had had one, though mounted on the water dispenser in the CM's cabin. Gaseous hydrogen in the water had given the Apollo 11 crew severe flatulence. Other changes included the strengthening of the recovery loop attached following splashdown, meaning that the swimmers recovering the CM would not have to attach an auxiliary loop. LM changes included a structural modification so that scientific experiment packages could be carried for deployment on the lunar surface. Two hammocks were added for greater comfort of the astronauts while resting on the Moon, and a color television camera substituted for the black and white one used on the lunar surface during Apollo 11.
ALSEP
The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package, or ALSEP, was a suite of scientific instruments designed to be emplaced on the lunar surface by the Apollo astronauts, and thereafter operate autonomously, sending data to Earth. Development of the ALSEP was part of NASA's response to some scientists who opposed the crewed lunar landing program (they felt that robotic craft could explore the Moon more cheaply) by demonstrating that some tasks, such as deployment of the ALSEP, required humans. In 1966, a contract to design and build the ALSEPs was awarded to the Bendix Corporation. Due to the limited time the Apollo 11 crew would have on the lunar surface, a smaller suite of experiments was flown, known as the Early Apollo Surface Experiment Package (EASEP). Apollo 12 was the first mission to carry an ALSEP; one would be flown on each of the subsequent lunar landing missions, though the components that were included would vary. Apollo 12's ALSEP was to be deployed at least 300 feet (91 m) away from the LM to protect the instruments from the debris that would be generated when the ascent stage of the LM took off to return the astronauts to lunar orbit.
Apollo 12's ALSEP included a Lunar Surface Magnetometer (LSM), to measure the magnetic field at the Moon's surface, a Lunar Atmosphere Detector (LAD, also known as the Cold Cathode Gauge Experiment), intended to measure the density and temperature of the thin lunar atmosphere and how it varies, a Lunar Ionosphere Detector (LID, also known as the Suprathermal Ion Detector Experiment, or SIDE), intended to study the charged particles in the lunar atmosphere, and the Solar Wind Spectrometer, to measure the strength and direction of the solar wind at the Moon's surface—the free-standing Solar Wind Composition Experiment, to measure what makes up the solar wind, would be deployed and then brought back to Earth by the astronauts. A Dust Detector was used to measure the accumulation of lunar dust on the equipment. Apollo 12's Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE), a seismometer, would measure moonquakes and other movements in the Moon's crust, and would be calibrated by the nearby planned impact of the ascent stage of Apollo 12's LM, an object of known mass and velocity hitting the Moon at a known location, and projected to be equivalent to the explosive force of one ton of TNT.
The ALSEP experiments left on the Moon by Apollo 12 were connected to a Central Station, which contained a transmitter, receiver, timer, data processor, and equipment for power distribution and control of the experiments. The equipment was powered by SNAP-27, a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) developed by the Atomic Energy Commission. Containing plutonium, the RTG flown on Apollo 12 was the first use of atomic energy on a crewed NASA spacecraft—some NASA and military satellites had previously used similar systems. The plutonium core was brought from Earth in a cask attached to an LM landing leg, a container designed to survive re-entry in the event of an aborted mission, something NASA considered unlikely. The cask would survive re-entry on Apollo 13, sinking in the Tonga Trench of the Pacific Ocean, apparently without radioactive leakage.
The Apollo 12 ALSEP experiments were activated from Earth on November 19, 1969. The LAD returned only a small amount of useful data due to the failure of its power supply soon after activation. The LSM was deactivated on June 14, 1974, as was the other LSM deployed on the Moon, from Apollo 15. All powered ALSEP experiments that remained active were deactivated on September 30, 1977, principally because of budgetary constraints.
Mission highlights
Launch
With President Richard Nixon in attendance, the first time a current U.S. president had witnessed a crewed space launch, as well as Vice President Spiro Agnew, Apollo 12 launched as planned at 11:22:00 on November 14, 1969 (16:22:00 UT) from Kennedy Space Center. This was at the start of a launch window of three hours and four minutes to reach the Moon with optimal lighting conditions at the planned landing point. There were completely overcast rainy skies, and the vehicle encountered winds of 151.7 knots (280.9 km/h; 174.6 mph) during ascent, the strongest of any Apollo mission. There was a NASA rule against launching into a cumulonimbus cloud; this had been waived and it was later determined that the launch vehicle never entered such a cloud. Had the mission been postponed, it could have been launched on November 16 with landing at a backup site where there would be no Surveyor, but since time pressure to achieve a lunar landing had been removed by Apollo 11's success, NASA might have waited until December for the next opportunity to go to the Surveyor crater.
Lightning struck the Saturn V 36.5 seconds after lift-off, triggered by the vehicle itself. The static discharge caused a voltage transient that knocked all three fuel cells offline, meaning the spacecraft was being powered entirely from its batteries, which could not supply enough current to meet demand. A second strike at 52 seconds knocked out the "8-ball" attitude indicator. The telemetry stream at Mission Control was garbled, but the Saturn V continued to fly normally; the strikes had not affected the Saturn V instrument unit guidance system, which functioned independently from the CSM. The astronauts unexpectedly had a board red with caution and warning lights, but could not tell exactly what was wrong.
The Electrical, Environmental and Consumables Manager (EECOM) in Mission Control, John Aaron, remembered the telemetry failure pattern from an earlier test when a power loss caused a malfunction in the CSM signal conditioning electronics (SCE), which converted raw signals from instrumentation to data that could be displayed on Mission Control's consoles, and knew how to fix it. Aaron made a call, "Flight, EECOM. Try SCE to Aux", to switch the SCE to a backup power supply. The switch was fairly obscure, and neither Flight Director Gerald Griffin, CAPCOM Gerald P. Carr, nor Conrad knew what it was; Bean, who as LMP was the spacecraft's engineer, knew where to find it and threw the switch, after which the telemetry came back online, revealing no significant malfunctions. Bean put the fuel cells back online, and the mission continued. Once in Earth parking orbit, the crew carefully checked out their spacecraft before re-igniting the S-IVB third stage for trans-lunar injection. The lightning strikes caused no serious permanent damage.
Initially, it was feared that the lightning strike could have damaged the explosive bolts that opened the Command Module's parachute compartment. The decision was made not to share this with the astronauts and to continue with the flight plan, since they would die if the parachutes failed to deploy, whether following an Earth-orbit abort or upon a return from the Moon, so nothing was to be gained by aborting. The parachutes deployed and functioned normally at the end of the mission.
Outward journey
After systems checks in Earth orbit, performed with great care because of the lightning strikes, the trans-lunar injection burn, made with the S-IVB, took place at 02:47:22.80 into the mission, setting Apollo 12 on course for the Moon. An hour and twenty minutes later, the CSM separated from the S-IVB, after which Gordon performed the transposition, docking, and extraction maneuver to dock with the LM and separate the combined craft from the S-IVB, which was then sent on an attempt to reach solar orbit. The stage fired its engines to leave the vicinity of the spacecraft, a change from Apollo 11, where the SM's Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine was used to distance it from the S-IVB.
As there were concerns the LM might have been damaged by the lightning strikes, Conrad and Bean entered it on the first day of flight to check its status, earlier than planned. They found no issues. At 30:52.44.36, the only necessary midcourse correction during the translunar coast was made, placing the craft on a hybrid, non-free-return trajectory. Previous crewed missions to lunar orbit had taken a free-return trajectory, allowing an easy return to Earth if the craft's engines did not fire to enter lunar orbit. Apollo 12 was the first crewed spacecraft to take a hybrid free-return trajectory, that would require another burn to return to Earth, but one that could be executed by the LM's Descent Propulsion System (DPS) if the SPS failed. The use of a hybrid trajectory allowed more flexibility in mission planning. It for example allowed Apollo 12 to launch in daylight and reach the planned landing spot on schedule. Use of a hybrid trajectory meant that Apollo 12 took 8 hours longer to go from trans-lunar injection to lunar orbit.
Lunar orbit and Moon landing
Apollo 12 entered a lunar orbit of 170.2 by 61.66 nautical miles (315.2 by 114.2 km; 195.9 by 70.96 mi) with an SPS burn of 352.25 seconds at mission time 83:25:26.36. On the first lunar orbit, there was a television transmission that resulted in good-quality video of the lunar surface. On the third lunar orbit, there was another burn to circularize the craft's orbit to 66.1 by 54.59 nautical miles (122.4 by 101.1 km; 76.07 by 62.82 mi), and on the next revolution, preparations began for the lunar landing. The CSM and LM undocked at 107:54:02.3; a half hour later there was a burn by the CSM to separate them. The 14.4 second burn by some of the CSM's thrusters meant that the two craft would be 2.2 nautical miles (4.1 km; 2.5 mi) apart when the LM began the burn to move to a lower orbit in preparation for landing on the Moon.
The LM's Descent Propulsion System began a 29-second burn at 109:23:39.9 to move the craft to the lower orbit, from which the 717-second powered descent to the lunar surface began at 110:20:38.1. Conrad had trained to expect a pattern of craters known as "the Snowman" to be visible when the craft underwent "pitchover", with the Surveyor crater in its center, but had feared he would see nothing recognizable. He was astonished to see the Snowman right where it should be, meaning they were directly on course. He took over manual control, planning to land the LM, as he had in simulations, in an area near the Surveyor crater that had been dubbed "Pete's Parking Lot", but found it rougher than expected. He had to maneuver, and landed the LM
at 110:32:36.2 (06:54:36 UT on November 19, 1969), just 535 feet (163 m) from the Surveyor probe. This achieved one objective of the mission, to perform a precision landing near the Surveyor craft.
The lunar coordinates of the landing site were 3.01239° S latitude, 23.42157° W longitude. The landing caused high velocity sandblasting of the Surveyor probe. It was later determined that the sandblasting removed more dust than it delivered onto the Surveyor, because the probe was covered by a thin layer that gave it a tan hue as observed by the astronauts, and every portion of the surface exposed to the direct sandblasting was lightened back toward the original white color through the removal of lunar dust.
Lunar surface activities
When Conrad, the shortest man of the initial groups of astronauts, stepped onto the lunar surface his first words were "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me." This was not an off-the-cuff remark: Conrad had made a US$500 bet with reporter Oriana Fallaci he would say these words, after she had queried whether NASA had instructed Neil Armstrong what to say as he stepped onto the Moon. Conrad later said he was never able to collect the money.
To improve the quality of television pictures from the Moon, a color camera was carried on Apollo 12 (unlike the monochrome camera on Apollo 11). When Bean carried the camera to the place near the LM where it was to be set up, he inadvertently pointed it directly into the Sun, destroying the Secondary Electron Conduction (SEC) tube. Television coverage of this mission was thus terminated almost immediately.
After raising a U.S. flag on the Moon, Conrad and Bean devoted much of the remainder of the first EVA to deploying the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). There were minor difficulties with the deployment. Bean had trouble extracting the RTG's plutonium fuel element from its protective cask, and the astronauts had to resort to the use of a hammer to hit the cask and dislodge the fuel element. Some of the ALSEP packages proved hard to deploy, though the astronauts were successful in all cases. With the PSE able to detect their footprints as they headed back to the LM, the astronauts secured a core tube full of lunar material, and collected other samples. The first EVA lasted 3 hours, 56 minutes and 3 seconds.
Four possible geologic traverses had been planned, the variable being where the LM might set down. Conrad had landed it between two of these potential landing points, and during the first EVA and the rest break that followed, scientists in Houston combined two of the traverses into one that Conrad and Bean could follow from their landing point. The resultant traverse resembled a rough circle, and when the astronauts emerged from the LM some 13 hours after ending the first EVA, the first stop was Head crater, some 100 yards (91 m) from the LM. There, Bean noticed that Conrad's footprints showed lighter material underneath, indicating the presence of ejecta from Copernicus crater, 230 miles (370 km) to the north, something that scientists examining overhead photographs of the site had hoped to find. After the mission, samples from Head allowed geologists to date the impact that formed Copernicus—according to initial dating, some 810,000,000 years ago.
The astronauts proceeded to Bench crater and Sharp crater and past Halo crater before arriving at Surveyor crater, where the Surveyor 3 probe had landed. Fearing treacherous footing or that the probe might topple on them, they approached Surveyor cautiously, descending into the shallow crater some distance away and then following a contour to reach the craft, but found the footing solid and the probe stable. They collected several pieces of Surveyor, including the television camera, as well as taking rocks that had been studied by television. Conrad and Bean had procured an automatic timer for their Hasselblad cameras, and had brought it with them without telling Mission Control, hoping to take a selfie of the two of them with the probe, but when the time came to use it, could not locate it among the lunar samples they had already placed in their Hand Tool Carrier. Before returning to the LM's vicinity, Conrad and Bean went to Block crater, within Surveyor crater. The second EVA lasted 3 hours, 49 minutes, 15 seconds, during which they traveled 4,300 feet (1,300 m). During the EVAs, Conrad and Bean went as far as 1,350 feet (410 m) from the LM, and collected 73.75 pounds (33.45 kg) of samples.
Lunar orbit solo activities
After the LM's departure, Gordon had little to say as Mission Control focused on the lunar landing. Once that was accomplished, Gordon sent his congratulations and, on the next orbit, was able to spot both the LM and the Surveyor on the ground and convey their locations to Houston. During the first EVA, Gordon prepared for a plane change maneuver, a burn to alter the CSM's orbit to compensate for the rotation of the Moon, though at times he had difficulty communicating with Houston since Conrad and Bean were using the same communications circuit. Once the two moonwalkers had returned to the LM, Gordon executed the burn, which ensured he would be in the proper position to rendezvous with the LM when it launched from the Moon.
While alone in orbit, Gordon performed the Lunar Multispectral Photography Experiment, using four Hasselblad cameras arranged in a ring and aimed through one of the CM's windows. With each camera having a different color filter, simultaneous photos would be taken by each, showing the appearance of lunar features at different points on the spectrum. Analysis of the images might reveal colors not visible to the naked eye or detectable with ordinary color film, and information could be obtained about the composition of sites that would not soon be visited by humans. Among the sites studied were contemplated landing points for future Apollo missions.
Return
LM Intrepid lifted off from the Moon at mission time 143:03:47.78, or 14:25:47 UT on November 20, 1969; after several maneuvers, CSM and LM docked three and a half hours later. At 147:59:31.6, the LM ascent stage was jettisoned, and shortly thereafter the CSM maneuvered away. Under control from Earth, the LM's remaining propellant was depleted in a burn that caused it to impact the Moon 39 nautical miles (72 km; 45 mi) from the Apollo 12 landing point. The seismometer the astronauts had left on the lunar surface registered the resulting vibrations for more than an hour.
The crew stayed another day in lunar orbit taking photographs of the surface, including of candidate sites for future Apollo landings. A second plane change maneuver was made at 159:04:45.47, lasting 19.25 seconds.
The trans-Earth injection burn, to send the CSM Yankee Clipper towards home, was conducted at 172:27:16.81 and lasted 130.32 seconds. Two short midcourse correction burns were made en route. A final television broadcast was made, the astronauts answering questions submitted by the media. There was ample time for rest on the way back to Earth. One event was the photography of a solar eclipse that occurred when the Earth came between the spacecraft and the Sun; Bean described it as the most spectacular sight of the mission.
Splashdown
Yankee Clipper returned to Earth on November 24, 1969, at 20:58 UT (3:58 pm Eastern Time, 10:58 am HST), in the Pacific Ocean. The landing was hard, resulting in a camera becoming dislodged and striking Bean in the forehead. After recovery by USS Hornet, they entered the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), while lunar samples and Surveyor parts were sent ahead by air to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory (LRL) in Houston. Once the Hornet docked in Hawaii, the MQF was offloaded and flown to Ellington Air Force Base near Houston on November 29, from where it was taken to the LRL, where the astronauts remained until released from quarantine on December 10.
Mission insignia
The Apollo 12 mission patch shows the crew's naval background; all three astronauts at the time of the mission were U.S. Navy commanders. It features a clipper ship arriving at the Moon, representing the CM Yankee Clipper. The ship trails fire, and flies the flag of the United States. The mission name APOLLO XII and the crew names are on a wide gold border, with a small blue trim. Blue and gold are traditional U.S. Navy colors. The patch has four stars on it – one each for the three astronauts who flew the mission and one for Clifton Williams, the original LMP on Conrad's crew who was killed in 1967 and would have flown the mission. The star was placed there at the suggestion of his replacement, Bean.
The insignia was designed by the crew with the aid of several employees of NASA contractors. The Apollo 12 landing area on the Moon is within the portion of the lunar surface shown on the insignia, based on a photograph of a globe of the Moon, taken by engineers. The clipper ship was based on photographs of such a ship obtained by Bean.
Aftermath and spacecraft location
After the mission, Conrad urged his crewmates to join him in the Skylab program, seeing in it the best chance of flying in space again. Bean did so—Conrad commanded Skylab 2, the first crewed mission to the space station, while Bean commanded Skylab 3. Gordon, though, still hoped to walk on the Moon and remained with the Apollo program, serving as backup commander of Apollo 15. He was the likely commander of Apollo 18, but that mission was canceled and he did not fly in space again.
The Apollo 12 command module Yankee Clipper, was displayed at the Paris Air Show and was then placed at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia; ownership was transferred to the Smithsonian in July 1971. It is on display at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton.
Mission Control had remotely fired the service module's thrusters after jettison, hoping to have it skip off the atmosphere and enter a high-apogee orbit, but the lack of tracking data confirming this caused it to conclude it most likely burned up in the atmosphere at the time of CM re-entry. The S-IVB is in a solar orbit that is sometimes affected by the Earth.
The ascent stage of LM Intrepid impacted the Moon November 20, 1969, at 22:17:17.7 UT (5:17 pm EST) 3.94°S 21.20°W / -3.94; -21.20 (Apollo 12 Intrepid lunar module impact). In 2009, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) photographed the Apollo 12 landing site, where the descent stage, ALSEP, Surveyor 3 spacecraft, and astronaut footpaths remain. In 2011, the LRO returned to the landing site at a lower altitude to take higher resolution photographs.
See also
List of artificial objects on the Moon
List of missions to the Moon
List of spacewalks and moonwalks 1965–1999
References
Bibliography
External links
"Apollo 12" at Encyclopedia Astronautica
"Apollo 12" at NASA's National Space Science Data Center
Apollo 11, 12, and 14 Traverses, at the Lunar and Planetary Institute
"Apollo 12 Traverse Map" at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center
Lunar Orbiter 3 image 154 H2, used for planning the mission (landing site is left of center).
Lunar Orbiter 1 sequence of images 157, 158, and 159, showing the Apollo 12 landing site and vicinity
NASA reports
"Apollo 12 Preliminary Science Report" (PDF), NASA, NASA SP-235, 1970
"Analysis of Apollo 12 Lightning Incident", (PDF) February 1970
"Analysis of Surveyor 3 material and photographs returned by Apollo 12" (PDF) 1972
"Examination of Surveyor 3 surface sampler scoop"(PDF) 1971
"Table 2-40. Apollo 12 Characteristics" from NASA Historical Data Book: Volume III: Programs and Projects 1969–1978 by Linda Neuman Ezell, NASA History Series (1988)
The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology Archived December 9, 2017, at the Wayback Machine NASA, NASA SP-4009
"Apollo Program Summary Report" (PDF), NASA, JSC-09423, April 1975
Multimedia
The short film Apollo 12: Pinpoint For Science is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive.
"Apollo 12: Pinpoint For Science" on YouTube
"Apollo 12: The Bernie Scrivener Audio Tapes" – Apollo 12 audio recordings at the Apollo 12 Flight Journal
"Apollo 12: There and Back Again" – Image slideshow by Life magazine
"Apollo12: Comic Book" (50th Anniversary – November 20, 1969–2019) Archived October 1, 2021, at the Wayback Machine
"Apollo 12: Patch" Archived August 10, 2012, at the Wayback Machine – Image of Apollo 12 mission patch |
Apollo_13 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13 | [
394
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13"
] | Apollo 13 (April 11–17, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The craft was launched from Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 1970, but the lunar landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (SM) ruptured two days into the mission, disabling its electrical and life-support system. The crew, supported by backup systems on the lunar module (LM), instead looped around the Moon in a circumlunar trajectory and returned safely to Earth on April 17. The mission was commanded by Jim Lovell, with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as lunar module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella.
A routine stir of an oxygen tank ignited damaged wire insulation inside it, causing an explosion that vented the contents of both of the SM's oxygen tanks to space. Without oxygen, needed for breathing and for generating electric power, the SM's propulsion and life support systems could not operate. The CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for reentry, forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. With the lunar landing canceled, mission controllers worked to bring the crew home alive.
Although the LM was designed to support two men on the lunar surface for two days, Mission Control in Houston improvised new procedures so it could support three men for four days. The crew experienced great hardship, caused by limited power, a chilly and wet cabin and a shortage of potable water. There was a critical need to adapt the CM's cartridges for the carbon dioxide scrubber system to work in the LM; the crew and mission controllers were successful in improvising a solution. The astronauts' peril briefly renewed public interest in the Apollo program; tens of millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean on television.
An investigative review board found fault with preflight testing of the oxygen tank and Teflon being placed inside it. The board recommended changes, including minimizing the use of potentially combustible items inside the tank; this was done for Apollo 14. The story of Apollo 13 has been dramatized several times, most notably in the 1995 film Apollo 13 based on Lost Moon, the 1994 memoir co-authored by Lovell – and an episode of the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon.
Background
In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to land an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the decade, with a safe return to Earth. NASA worked towards this goal incrementally, sending astronauts into space during Project Mercury and Project Gemini, leading up to the Apollo program. The goal was achieved with Apollo 11, which landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the lunar surface while Michael Collins orbited the Moon in Command Module Columbia. The mission returned to Earth on July 24, 1969, fulfilling Kennedy's challenge.
NASA had contracted for fifteen Saturn V rockets to achieve the goal; at the time no one knew how many missions this would require. Since success was obtained in 1969 with the sixth Saturn V on Apollo 11, nine rockets remained available for a hoped-for total of ten landings. After the excitement of Apollo 11, the general public grew apathetic towards the space program and Congress continued to cut NASA's budget; Apollo 20 was canceled. Despite the successful lunar landing, the missions were considered so risky that astronauts could not afford life insurance to provide for their families if they died in space.
Even before the first U.S. astronaut entered space in 1961, planning for a centralized facility to communicate with the spacecraft and monitor its performance had begun, for the most part the brainchild of Christopher C. Kraft Jr., who became NASA's first flight director. During John Glenn's Mercury Friendship 7 flight in February 1962 (the first crewed orbital flight by the U.S.), one of Kraft's decisions was overruled by NASA managers. He was vindicated by post-mission analysis and implemented a rule that, during the mission, the flight director's word was absolute – to overrule him, NASA would have to fire him on the spot. Flight directors during Apollo had a one-sentence job description, "The flight director may take any actions necessary for crew safety and mission success."
In 1965, Houston's Mission Control Center opened, in part designed by Kraft and now named for him. In Mission Control, each flight controller, in addition to monitoring telemetry from the spacecraft, was in communication via voice loop to specialists in a Staff Support Room (or "back room"), who focused on specific spacecraft systems.
Apollo 13 was to be the second H mission, meant to demonstrate precision lunar landings and explore specific sites on the Moon. With Kennedy's goal accomplished by Apollo 11, and Apollo 12 demonstrating that the astronauts could perform a precision landing, mission planners were able to focus on more than just landing safely and having astronauts minimally trained in geology gather lunar samples to take home to Earth. There was a greater role for science on Apollo 13, especially for geology, something emphasized by the mission's motto, Ex luna, scientia (From the Moon, knowledge).
Astronauts and key Mission Control personnel
Apollo 13's mission commander, Jim Lovell, was 42 years old at the time of the spaceflight. He was a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and had been a naval aviator and test pilot before being selected for the second group of astronauts in 1962; he flew with Frank Borman in Gemini 7 in 1965 and Buzz Aldrin in Gemini 12 the following year before flying in Apollo 8 in 1968, the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon. At the time of Apollo 13, Lovell was the NASA astronaut with the most time in space, with 572 hours over the three missions.
Jack Swigert, the command module pilot (CMP), was 38 years old and held a B.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. in aerospace science; he had served in the Air Force and in state Air National Guards and was an engineering test pilot before being selected for the fifth group of astronauts in 1966. Fred Haise, the lunar module pilot (LMP), was 35 years old. He held a B.S. in aeronautical engineering, had been a Marine Corps fighter pilot, and was a civilian research pilot for NASA when he was selected as a Group 5 astronaut.
According to the standard Apollo crew rotation, the prime crew for Apollo 13 would have been the backup crew for Apollo 10, with Mercury and Gemini veteran Gordon Cooper in command, Donn F. Eisele as CMP and Edgar Mitchell as LMP. Deke Slayton, NASA's Director of Flight Crew Operations, never intended to rotate Cooper and Eisele to a prime crew assignment, as both were out of favor – Cooper for his lax attitude towards training, and Eisele for incidents aboard Apollo 7 and an extramarital affair. He assigned them to the backup crew because no other veteran astronauts were available. Slayton's original choices for Apollo 13 were Alan Shepard as commander, Stuart Roosa as CMP, and Mitchell as LMP. However, management felt Shepard needed more training time, as he had only recently resumed active status after surgery for an inner ear disorder and had not flown since 1961. Thus, Lovell's crew (himself, Haise and Ken Mattingly), having all backed up Apollo 11 and being slated for Apollo 14, was swapped with Shepard's.
Swigert was originally CMP of Apollo 13's backup crew, with John Young as commander and Charles Duke as lunar module pilot. Seven days before launch, Duke contracted rubella from a friend of his son. This exposed both the prime and backup crews, who trained together. Of the five, only Mattingly was not immune through prior exposure. Normally, if any member of the prime crew had to be grounded, the remaining crew would be replaced as well, and the backup crew substituted, but Duke's illness ruled this out, so two days before launch, Mattingly was replaced by Swigert. Mattingly never developed rubella and later flew on Apollo 16.
For Apollo, a third crew of astronauts, known as the support crew, was designated in addition to the prime and backup crews used on projects Mercury and Gemini. Slayton created the support crews because James McDivitt, who would command Apollo 9, believed that, with preparation going on in facilities across the US, meetings that needed a member of the flight crew would be missed. Support crew members were to assist as directed by the mission commander. Usually low in seniority, they assembled the mission's rules, flight plan, and checklists, and kept them updated; for Apollo 13, they were Vance D. Brand, Jack Lousma and either William Pogue or Joseph Kerwin.
For Apollo 13, flight directors were Gene Kranz, White team (the lead flight director); Glynn Lunney, Black team; Milton Windler, Maroon team and Gerry Griffin, Gold team. The CAPCOMs (the person in Mission Control, during the Apollo program an astronaut, who was responsible for voice communications with the crew) for Apollo 13 were Kerwin, Brand, Lousma, Young and Mattingly.
Mission insignia and call signs
The Apollo 13 mission insignia depicts the Greek god of the Sun, Apollo, with three horses pulling his chariot across the face of the Moon, and the Earth seen in the distance. This is meant to symbolize the Apollo flights bringing the light of knowledge to all people. The mission motto, Ex luna, scientia ("From the Moon, knowledge"), appears. In choosing it, Lovell adapted the motto of his alma mater, the Naval Academy, Ex scientia, tridens ("From knowledge, sea power").
On the patch, the mission number appeared in Roman numerals as Apollo XIII. It did not have to be modified after Swigert replaced Mattingly, as it is one of only two Apollo mission insignia – the other being Apollo 11 – not to include the names of the crew. It was designed by artist Lumen Martin Winter, who based it on a mural he had painted for the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. The mural was later purchased by actor Tom Hanks, who portrayed Lovell in the movie Apollo 13, and it is now in the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Illinois.
The mission's motto was in Lovell's mind when he chose the call sign Aquarius for the lunar module, taken from Aquarius, the bringer of water. Some in the media erroneously reported that the call sign was taken from a song by that name from the musical Hair. The command module's call sign, Odyssey, was chosen not only for its Homeric association but to refer to the recent movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on a short story by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke. In his book, Lovell indicated he chose the name Odyssey because he liked the word and its definition: a long voyage with many changes of fortune.
Due to the accident and the last minute crew change of Jack Swigert replacing Ken Mattingly three days prior to launch, the Apollo 13 Robbins medallions flown aboard the mission were melted down and reminted after the mission to reflect the correct crew, and the absence of a lunar landing date.
Space vehicle
The Saturn V rocket used to carry Apollo 13 to the Moon was numbered SA-508, and was almost identical to those used on Apollo 8 through 12. Including the spacecraft, the rocket weighed in at 2,949,136 kilograms (6,501,733 lb). The S-IC first stage's engines were rated to generate 440,000 newtons (100,000 lbf) less total thrust than Apollo 12's, though they remained within specifications. To keep its liquid hydrogen propellent cold, the S-II second stage's cryogenic tanks were insulated; on earlier Apollo missions this came in the form of panels that were affixed, but beginning with Apollo 13, insulation was sprayed onto the exterior of the tanks. Extra propellant was carried as a test, since future J missions to the Moon would require more propellant for their heavier payloads. This made the vehicle the heaviest yet flown by NASA, and Apollo 13 was visibly slower to clear the launch tower than earlier missions.
The Apollo 13 spacecraft consisted of Command Module 109 and Service Module 109 (together CSM-109), called Odyssey, and Lunar Module 7 (LM-7), called Aquarius. Also considered part of the spacecraft was the launch escape system, which would propel the command module (CM) to safety in the event of a problem during liftoff, and the Spacecraft–LM Adapter, numbered as SLA-16, which housed the lunar module (LM) during the first hours of the mission.
The LM stages, CM and service module (SM) were received at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in June 1969; the portions of the Saturn V were received in June and July. Thereafter, testing and assembly proceeded, culminating with the rollout of the launch vehicle, with the spacecraft atop it, on December 15, 1969. Apollo 13 was originally scheduled for launch on March 12, 1970; in January of that year, NASA announced the mission would be postponed until April 11, both to allow more time for planning and to spread the Apollo missions over a longer period of time. The plan was to have two Apollo flights per year and was in response to budgetary constraints that had recently seen the cancellation of Apollo 20.
Training and preparation
The Apollo 13 prime crew undertook over 1,000 hours of mission-specific training, more than five hours for every hour of the mission's ten-day planned duration. Each member of the prime crew spent over 400 hours in simulators of the CM and (for Lovell and Haise) of the LM at KSC and at Houston, some of which involved the flight controllers at Mission Control. Flight controllers participated in many simulations of problems with the spacecraft in flight, which taught them how to react in an emergency. Specialized simulators at other locations were also used by the crew members.
The astronauts of Apollo 11 had minimal time for geology training, with only six months between crew assignment and launch; higher priorities took much of their time. Apollo 12 saw more such training, including practice in the field, using a CAPCOM and a simulated backroom of scientists, to whom the astronauts had to describe what they saw. Scientist-astronaut Harrison Schmitt saw that there was limited enthusiasm for geology field trips. Believing an inspirational teacher was needed, Schmitt arranged for Lovell and Haise to meet his old professor, Caltech's Lee Silver. The two astronauts, and backups Young and Duke, went on a field trip with Silver at their own time and expense. At the end of their week together, Lovell made Silver their geology mentor, who would be extensively involved in the geology planning for Apollo 13. Farouk El-Baz oversaw the training of Mattingly and his backup, Swigert, which involved describing and photographing simulated lunar landmarks from airplanes. El-Baz had all three prime crew astronauts describe geologic features they saw during their flights between Houston and KSC; Mattingly's enthusiasm caused other astronauts, such as Apollo 14's CMP, Roosa, to seek out El-Baz as a teacher.
Concerned about how close Apollo 11's LM, Eagle, had come to running out of propellant during its lunar descent, mission planners decided that beginning with Apollo 13, the CSM would bring the LM to the low orbit from which the landing attempt would commence. This was a change from Apollo 11 and 12, on which the LM made the burn to bring it to the lower orbit. The change was part of an effort to increase the amount of hover time available to the astronauts as the missions headed into rougher terrain.
The plan was to devote the first of the two four-hour lunar surface extravehicular activities (EVAs) to setting up the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) group of scientific instruments; during the second, Lovell and Haise would investigate Cone crater, near the planned landing site. The two astronauts wore their spacesuits for some 20 walk-throughs of EVA procedures, including sample gathering and use of tools and other equipment. They flew in the "Vomit Comet" in simulated microgravity or lunar gravity, including practice in donning and doffing spacesuits. To prepare for the descent to the Moon's surface, Lovell flew the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle (LLTV) after receiving helicopter training. Despite the crashes of one LLTV and one similar Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) prior to Apollo 13, mission commanders considered flying them invaluable experience and so prevailed on reluctant NASA management to retain them.
Experiments and scientific objectives
Apollo 13's designated landing site was near Fra Mauro crater; the Fra Mauro formation was believed to contain much material spattered by the impact that had filled the Imbrium basin early in the Moon's history. Dating it would provide information not only about the Moon, but about the Earth's early history. Such material was likely to be available at Cone crater, a site where an impact was believed to have drilled deep into the lunar regolith.
Apollo 11 had left a seismometer on the Moon, but the solar-powered unit did not survive its first two-week-long lunar night. The Apollo 12 astronauts also left one as part of its ALSEP, which was nuclear-powered. Apollo 13 also carried a seismometer (known as the Passive Seismic Experiment, or PSE), similar to Apollo 12's, as part of its ALSEP, to be left on the Moon by the astronauts. That seismometer was to be calibrated by the impact, after jettison, of the ascent stage of Apollo 13's LM, an object of known mass and velocity impacting at a known location.
Other ALSEP experiments on Apollo 13 included a Heat Flow Experiment (HFE), which would involve drilling two holes 3.0 metres (10 ft) deep. This was Haise's responsibility; he was also to drill a third hole of that depth for a core sample. A Charged Particle Lunar Environment Experiment (CPLEE) measured the protons and electrons of solar origin reaching the Moon. The package also included a Lunar Atmosphere Detector (LAD) and a Dust Detector, to measure the accumulation of debris. The Heat Flow Experiment and the CPLEE were flown for the first time on Apollo 13; the other experiments had been flown before.
To power the ALSEP, the SNAP-27 radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) was flown. Developed by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, SNAP-27 was first flown on Apollo 12. The fuel capsule contained about 3.79 kilograms (8.36 lb) of plutonium oxide. The cask placed around the capsule for transport to the Moon was built with heat shields of graphite and of beryllium, and with structural parts of titanium and of Inconel materials. Thus, it was built to withstand the heat of reentry into the Earth's atmosphere rather than pollute the air with plutonium in the event of an aborted mission.
A United States flag was also taken, to be erected on the Moon's surface. For Apollo 11 and 12, the flag had been placed in a heat-resistant tube on the front landing leg; it was moved for Apollo 13 to the Modularized Equipment Stowage Assembly (MESA) in the LM descent stage. The structure to fly the flag on the airless Moon was improved from Apollo 12's.
For the first time, red stripes were placed on the helmet, arms and legs of the commander's A7L spacesuit. This was done as, after Apollo 11, those reviewing the images taken had trouble distinguishing Armstrong from Aldrin, but the change was approved too late for Apollo 12. New drink bags that attached inside the helmets and were to be sipped from as the astronauts walked on the Moon were demonstrated by Haise during Apollo 13's final television broadcast before the accident.
Apollo 13's primary mission objectives were to: "Perform selenological inspection, survey, and sampling of materials in a preselected region of the Fra Mauro Formation. Deploy and activate an Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package. Develop man's capability to work in the lunar environment. Obtain photographs of candidate exploration sites." The astronauts were also to accomplish other photographic objectives, including of the Gegenschein from lunar orbit, and of the Moon itself on the journey back to Earth. Some of this photography was to be performed by Swigert as Lovell and Haise walked on the Moon. Swigert was also to take photographs of the Lagrangian points of the Earth-Moon system. Apollo 13 had twelve cameras on board, including those for television and moving pictures. The crew was also to downlink bistatic radar observations of the Moon. None of these was attempted because of the accident.
Flight of Apollo 13
Launch and translunar injection
The mission was launched at the planned time, 2:13:00 pm EST (19:13:00 UTC) on April 11. An anomaly occurred when the second-stage, center (inboard) engine shut down about two minutes early. This was caused by severe pogo oscillations. Starting with Apollo 10, the vehicle's guidance system was designed to shut the engine down in response to chamber pressure excursions. Pogo oscillations had occurred on Titan rockets (used during the Gemini program) and on previous Apollo missions, but on Apollo 13 they were amplified by an interaction with turbopump cavitation. A fix to prevent pogo was ready for the mission, but schedule pressure did not permit the hardware's integration into the Apollo 13 vehicle. A post-flight investigation revealed the engine was one cycle away from catastrophic failure. The four outboard engines and the S-IVB third stage burned longer to compensate, and the vehicle achieved very close to the planned circular 190 kilometers (100 nmi) parking orbit, followed by a translunar injection (TLI) about two hours later, setting the mission on course for the Moon.
After TLI, Swigert performed the separation and transposition maneuvers before docking the CSM Odyssey to the LM Aquarius, and the spacecraft pulled away from the third stage. Ground controllers then sent the third stage on a course to impact the Moon in range of the Apollo 12 seismometer, which it did just over three days into the mission.
The crew settled in for the three-day trip to Fra Mauro. At 30:40:50 into the mission, with the TV camera running, the crew performed a burn to place Apollo 13 on a hybrid trajectory. The departure from a free-return trajectory meant that if no further burns were performed, Apollo 13 would miss Earth on its return trajectory, rather than intercept it, as with a free return. A free return trajectory could only reach sites near the lunar equator; a hybrid trajectory, which could be started at any point after TLI, allowed sites with higher latitudes, such as Fra Mauro, to be reached. Communications were enlivened when Swigert realized that in the last-minute rush, he had omitted to file his federal income tax return (due April 15), and amid laughter from mission controllers, asked how he could get an extension. He was found to be entitled to a 60-day extension for being out of the country at the deadline.
Entry into the LM to test its systems had been scheduled for 58:00:00; when the crew awoke on the third day of the mission, they were informed it had been moved up three hours and was later moved up again by another hour. A television broadcast was scheduled for 55:00:00; Lovell, acting as emcee, showed the audience the interiors of Odyssey and Aquarius. The audience was limited since none of the television networks were carrying the broadcast, forcing Marilyn Lovell (Jim Lovell's wife) to go to the VIP room at Mission Control if she wanted to watch her husband and his crewmates.
Accident
About six and a half minutes after the TV broadcast – approaching 56:00:00 – Apollo 13 was about 180,000 nautical miles (210,000 mi; 330,000 km) from Earth. Haise was completing the shutdown of the LM after testing its systems while Lovell stowed the TV camera. Jack Lousma, the CAPCOM, sent minor instructions to Swigert, including changing the attitude of the craft to facilitate photography of Comet Bennett.
The pressure sensor in one of the SM's oxygen tanks had earlier appeared to be malfunctioning, so Sy Liebergot (the EECOM, in charge of monitoring the CSM's electrical system) requested that the stirring fans in the tanks be activated. Normally this was done once daily; a stir would destratify the contents of the tanks, making the pressure readings more accurate. The Flight Director, Kranz, had Liebergot wait a few minutes for the crew to settle down after the telecast, then Lousma relayed the request to Swigert, who activated the switches controlling the fans, and after a few seconds turned them off again.
Ninety-five seconds after Swigert activated those switches, the astronauts heard a "pretty large bang", accompanied by fluctuations in electrical power and the firing of the attitude control thrusters. Communications and telemetry to Earth were lost for 1.8 seconds, until the system automatically corrected by switching the high-gain S-band antenna, used for translunar communications, from narrow-beam to wide-beam mode. The accident happened at 55:54:53 (03:08 UTC on April 14, 10:08 PM EST, April 13). Swigert reported 26 seconds later, "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here," echoed at 55:55:42 by Lovell, "Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a Main B Bus undervolt." William Fenner was the guidance officer (GUIDO) who was the first to report a problem in the control room to Kranz.
Lovell's initial thought on hearing the noise was that Haise had activated the LM's cabin-repressurization valve, which also produced a bang (Haise enjoyed doing so to startle his crewmates), but Lovell could see that Haise had no idea what had happened. Swigert initially thought that a meteoroid might have struck the LM, but he and Lovell quickly realized there was no leak. The "Main Bus B undervolt" meant that there was insufficient voltage produced by the SM's three fuel cells (fueled by hydrogen and oxygen piped from their respective tanks) to the second of the SM's two electric power distribution systems. Almost everything in the CSM required power. Although the bus momentarily returned to normal status, soon both buses A and B were short on voltage. Haise checked the status of the fuel cells and found that two of them were dead. Mission rules forbade entering lunar orbit unless all fuel cells were operational.
In the minutes after the accident, there were several unusual readings, showing that tank 2 was empty and tank 1's pressure slowly falling, that the computer on the spacecraft had reset and that the high-gain antenna was not working. Liebergot initially missed the worrying signs from tank 2 following the stir, as he was focusing on tank 1, believing that its reading would be a good guide to what was present in tank 2, as did controllers supporting him in the "back room". When Kranz questioned Liebergot on this, he initially responded that there might be false readings due to an instrumentation problem; he was often teased about that in the years to come. Lovell, looking out the window, reported "a gas of some sort" venting into space, making it clear that there was a serious problem.
Since the fuel cells needed oxygen to operate, when Oxygen Tank 1 ran dry, the remaining fuel cell would shut down, meaning the CSM's only significant sources of power and oxygen would be the CM's batteries and its oxygen "surge tank". These would be needed for the final hours of the mission, but the remaining fuel cell, already starved for oxygen, was drawing from the surge tank. Kranz ordered the surge tank isolated, saving its oxygen, but this meant that the remaining fuel cell would die within two hours, as the oxygen in tank 1 was consumed or leaked away. The volume surrounding the spacecraft was filled with myriad small bits of debris from the accident, complicating any efforts to use the stars for navigation. The mission's goal became simply getting the astronauts back to Earth alive.
Looping around the Moon
The lunar module had charged batteries and full oxygen tanks for use on the lunar surface, so Kranz directed that the astronauts power up the LM and use it as a "lifeboat" – a scenario anticipated but considered unlikely. Procedures for using the LM in this way had been developed by LM flight controllers after a training simulation for Apollo 10 in which the LM was needed for survival, but could not be powered up in time. Had Apollo 13's accident occurred on the return voyage, with the LM already jettisoned, the astronauts would have died, as they would have following an explosion in lunar orbit, including one while Lovell and Haise walked on the Moon.
A key decision was the choice of return path. A "direct abort" would use the SM's main engine (the Service Propulsion System or SPS) to return before reaching the Moon. However, the accident could have damaged the SPS, and the fuel cells would have to last at least another hour to meet its power requirements, so Kranz instead decided on a longer route: the spacecraft would swing around the Moon before heading back to Earth. Apollo 13 was on the hybrid trajectory which was to take it to Fra Mauro; it now needed to be brought back to a free return. The LM's Descent Propulsion System (DPS), although not as powerful as the SPS, could do this, but new software for Mission Control's computers needed to be written by technicians as it had never been contemplated that the CSM/LM spacecraft would have to be maneuvered from the LM. As the CM was being shut down, Lovell copied down its guidance system's orientation information and performed hand calculations to transfer it to the LM's guidance system, which had been turned off; at his request Mission Control checked his figures. At 61:29:43.49 the DPS burn of 34.23 seconds took Apollo 13 back to a free return trajectory.
The change would get Apollo 13 back to Earth in about four days' time – though with splashdown in the Indian Ocean, where NASA had few recovery forces. Jerry Bostick and other Flight Dynamics Officers (FIDOs) were anxious both to shorten the travel time and to move splashdown to the Pacific Ocean, where the main recovery forces were located. One option would shave 36 hours off the return time, but required jettisoning the SM; this would expose the CM's heat shield to space during the return journey, something for which it had not been designed. The FIDOs also proposed other solutions. After a meeting involving NASA officials and engineers, the senior individual present, Manned Spaceflight Center director Robert R. Gilruth, decided on a burn using the DPS, that would save 12 hours and land Apollo 13 in the Pacific. This "PC+2" burn would take place two hours after pericynthion, the closest approach to the Moon. At pericynthion, Apollo 13 set the record (per the Guinness Book of World Records), which still stands, for the furthest distance from Earth by a crewed spacecraft: 400,171 kilometers (248,655 mi) from Earth at 7:21 pm EST, April 14 (00:21:00 UTC April 15).
While preparing for the burn, the crew was told that the S-IVB had impacted the Moon as planned, leading Lovell to quip, "Well, at least something worked on this flight." Kranz's White team of mission controllers, who had spent most of their time supporting other teams and developing the procedures urgently needed to get the astronauts home, took their consoles for the PC+2 procedure. Normally, the accuracy of such a burn could be assured by checking the alignment Lovell had transferred to the LM's computer against the position of one of the stars astronauts used for navigation, but the light glinting off the many pieces of debris accompanying the spacecraft made that impractical. The astronauts accordingly used the one star available whose position could not be obscured – the Sun. Houston also informed them that the Moon would be centered in the commander's window of the LM as they made the burn, which was almost perfect – less than 0.3 meters (1 foot) per second off. The burn, at 79:27:38.95, lasted four minutes and 23 seconds. The crew then shut down most LM systems to conserve consumables.
Return to Earth
The LM carried enough oxygen, but that still left the problem of removing carbon dioxide, which was absorbed by canisters of lithium hydroxide pellets.
The LM's stock of canisters, meant to accommodate two astronauts for 45 hours on the Moon, was not enough to support three astronauts for the return journey to Earth. The CM had enough canisters, but they were of a different shape and size to the LM's, hence unable to be used in the LM's equipment. Engineers on the ground devised a way to bridge the gap, using plastic covers ripped from procedure manuals, duct tape, and other items available on the spacecraft. NASA engineers referred to the improvised device as "the mailbox". The procedure for building the device was read to the crew by CAPCOM Joseph Kerwin over the course of an hour, and was built by Swigert and Haise; carbon dioxide levels began dropping immediately. Lovell later described this improvisation as "a fine example of cooperation between ground and space".
The CSM's electricity came from fuel cells that produced water as a byproduct, but the LM was powered by silver-zinc batteries which did not, so both electrical power and water (needed for equipment cooling as well as drinking) would be critical. LM power consumption was reduced to the lowest level possible; Swigert was able to fill some drinking bags with water from the CM's water tap, but even assuming rationing of personal consumption, Haise initially calculated they would run out of water for cooling about five hours before reentry. This seemed acceptable because the systems of Apollo 11's LM, once jettisoned in lunar orbit, had continued to operate for seven to eight hours even with the water cut off. In the end, Apollo 13 returned to Earth with 12.8 kilograms (28.2 lb) of water remaining. The crew's ration was 0.2 liters (6.8 fl oz) of water per person per day; the three astronauts lost a total of 14 kilograms (31 lb) among them, and Haise developed a urinary tract infection. This infection was probably caused by the reduced water intake, but microgravity and effects of cosmic radiation might have impaired his immune system's reaction to the pathogen.
Inside the darkened spacecraft, the temperature dropped as low as 3 °C (38 °F). Lovell considered having the crew don their spacesuits, but decided this would be too hot. Instead, Lovell and Haise wore their lunar EVA boots and Swigert put on an extra coverall. All three astronauts were cold, especially Swigert, who had got his feet wet while filling the water bags and had no lunar overshoes (since he had not been scheduled to walk on the Moon). As they had been told not to discharge their urine to space to avoid disturbing the trajectory, they had to store it in bags. Water condensed on the walls, though any condensation that may have been behind equipment panels caused no problems, partly because of the extensive electrical insulation improvements instituted after the Apollo 1 fire. Despite all this, the crew voiced few complaints.
Flight controller John Aaron, along with Mattingly and several engineers and designers, devised a procedure for powering up the command module from full shutdown – something never intended to be done in flight, much less under Apollo 13's severe power and time constraints. The astronauts implemented the procedure without apparent difficulty: Kranz later credited all three astronauts having been test pilots, accustomed to having to work in critical situations with their lives on the line, for their survival.
Recognizing that the cold conditions combined with insufficient rest would hinder the time critical startup of the command module prior to reentry, at 133 hours into flight Mission Control gave Lovell the okay to fully power up the LM to raise the cabin temperature, which included restarting the LM's guidance computer. Having the LM's computer running enabled Lovell to perform a navigational sighting and calibrate the LM's Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). With the lunar module's computer aware of its location and orientation, the command module's computer was later calibrated in a reverse of the normal procedures used to set up the LM, shaving steps from the restart process and increasing the accuracy of the PGNCS-controlled reentry.
Reentry and splashdown
Despite the accuracy of the transearth injection, the spacecraft slowly drifted off course, necessitating a correction. As the LM's guidance system had been shut down following the PC+2 burn, the crew was told to use the line between night and day on the Earth to guide them, a technique used on NASA's Earth-orbit missions but never on the way back from the Moon. This DPS burn, at 105:18:42 for 14 seconds, brought the projected entry flight path angle back within safe limits. Nevertheless, yet another burn was needed at 137:40:13, using the LM's reaction control system (RCS) thrusters, for 21.5 seconds. The SM was jettisoned less than half an hour later, allowing the crew to see the damage for the first time, and photograph it. They reported that an entire panel was missing from the SM's exterior, the fuel cells above the oxygen tank shelf were tilted, that the high-gain antenna was damaged, and there was a considerable amount of debris elsewhere. Haise could see possible damage to the SM's engine bell, validating Kranz's decision not to use the SPS. The crew then moved out of the LM back into the CM and reactivated its life support systems.
The last problem to be solved was how to separate the lunar module a safe distance away from the command module just before reentry. The normal procedure, in lunar orbit, was to release the LM and then use the service module's RCS to pull the CSM away, but by this point, the SM had already been released. Grumman, manufacturer of the LM, assigned a team of University of Toronto engineers, led by senior scientist Bernard Etkin, to solve the problem of how much air pressure to use to push the modules apart. The astronauts applied the solution, which was successful. The LM reentered Earth's atmosphere and was destroyed, the remaining pieces falling in the deep ocean. Apollo 13's final midcourse correction had addressed the concerns of the Atomic Energy Commission, which wanted the cask containing the plutonium oxide intended for the SNAP-27 RTG to land in a safe place. The impact point was over the Tonga Trench in the Pacific, one of its deepest points, and the cask sank 10 kilometers (6 mi) to the bottom. Later helicopter surveys found no radioactive leakage.
Ionization of the air around the command module during reentry would typically cause a four-minute communications blackout. Apollo 13's shallow reentry path lengthened this to six minutes, longer than had been expected; controllers feared that the CM's heat shield had failed. Odyssey regained radio contact and splashed down safely in the South Pacific Ocean, 21°38′24″S 165°21′42″W, southeast of American Samoa and 6.5 km (3.5 nmi) from the recovery ship, USS Iwo Jima. Although fatigued, the crew was in good condition except for Haise, who had developed a serious urinary tract infection because of insufficient water intake. The crew stayed overnight on the ship and flew to Pago Pago, American Samoa, the next day. They flew to Hawaii, where President Richard Nixon awarded them the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. They stayed overnight, and then were flown back to Houston.
En route to Honolulu, President Nixon stopped at Houston to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the Apollo 13 Mission Operations Team. He originally planned to give the award to NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine, but Paine recommended the mission operations team.
Public and media reaction
Worldwide interest in the Apollo program was reawakened by the incident; television coverage was seen by millions. Four Soviet ships headed toward the landing area to assist if needed, and other nations offered assistance should the craft have to splash down elsewhere. President Nixon canceled appointments, phoned the astronauts' families, and drove to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, where Apollo's tracking and communications were coordinated.
The rescue received more public attention than any spaceflight to that point, other than the first Moon landing on Apollo 11. There were worldwide headlines, and people surrounded television sets to get the latest developments, offered by networks who interrupted their regular programming for bulletins. Pope Paul VI led a congregation of 10,000 people in praying for the astronauts' safe return; ten times that number offered prayers at a religious festival in India. The United States Senate on April 14 passed a resolution urging businesses to pause at 9:00 pm local time that evening to allow for employee prayer.
An estimated 40 million Americans watched Apollo 13's splashdown, carried live on all three networks, with another 30 million watching some portion of the 6½ hour telecast. Even more outside the U.S. watched. Jack Gould of The New York Times stated that Apollo 13, "which came so close to tragic disaster, in all probability united the world in mutual concern more fully than another successful landing on the Moon would have".
Investigation and response
Review board
Immediately upon the crew's return, NASA Administrator Paine and Deputy Administrator George Low appointed a review board to investigate the accident. Chaired by NASA Langley Research Center Director Edgar M. Cortright and including Neil Armstrong and six others, the board sent its final report to Paine on June 15.
It found that the failure began in the service module's number 2 oxygen tank. Damaged Teflon insulation on the wires to the stirring fan inside Oxygen Tank 2 allowed the wires to short circuit and ignite this insulation. The resulting fire increased the pressure inside the tank until the tank dome failed, filling the fuel cell bay (SM Sector 4) with rapidly expanding gaseous oxygen and combustion products. The pressure rise was sufficient to pop the rivets holding the aluminum exterior panel covering Sector 4 and blow it out, exposing the sector to space and snuffing out the fire. The detached panel hit the nearby high-gain antenna, disabling the narrow-beam communication mode and interrupting communication with Earth for 1.8 seconds while the system automatically switched to the backup wide-beam mode. The sectors of the SM were not airtight from each other, and had there been time for the entire SM to become as pressurized as Sector 4, the force on the CM's heat shield would have separated the two modules. The report questioned the use of Teflon and other materials shown to be flammable in supercritical oxygen, such as aluminum, within the tank. The board found no evidence pointing to any other theory of the accident.
Mechanical shock forced the oxygen valves closed on the number 1 and number 3 fuel cells, putting them out of commission. The sudden failure of Oxygen Tank 2 compromised Oxygen Tank 1, causing its contents to leak out, possibly through a damaged line or valve, over the next 130 minutes, entirely depleting the SM's oxygen supply. With both SM oxygen tanks emptying, and with other damage to the SM, the mission had to be aborted. The board praised the response to the emergency: "The imperfection in Apollo 13 constituted a near disaster, averted only by outstanding performance on the part of the crew and the ground control team which supported them."
Oxygen Tank 2 was manufactured by the Beech Aircraft Company of Boulder, Colorado, as subcontractor to North American Rockwell (NAR) of Downey, California, prime contractor for the CSM. It contained two thermostatic switches, originally designed for the command module's 28-volt DC power, but which could fail if subjected to the 65 volts used during ground testing at KSC. Under the original 1962 specifications, the switches would be rated for 28 volts, but revised specifications issued in 1965 called for 65 volts to allow for quicker tank pressurization at KSC. Nonetheless, the switches Beech used were not rated for 65 volts.
At NAR's facility, Oxygen Tank 2 had been originally installed in an oxygen shelf placed in the Apollo 10 service module, SM-106, but which was removed to fix a potential electromagnetic interference problem and another shelf substituted. During removal, the shelf was accidentally dropped at least 5 centimeters (2 in), because a retaining bolt had not been removed. The probability of damage from this was low, but it is possible that the fill line assembly was loose and made worse by the fall. After some retesting (which did not include filling the tank with liquid oxygen), in November 1968 the shelf was re-installed in SM-109, intended for Apollo 13, which was shipped to KSC in June 1969.
The Countdown Demonstration Test took place with SM-109 in its place near the top of the Saturn V and began on March 16, 1970. During the test, the cryogenic tanks were filled, but Oxygen Tank 2 could not be emptied through the normal drain line, and a report was written documenting the problem. After discussion among NASA and the contractors, attempts to empty the tank resumed on March 27. When it would not empty normally, the heaters in the tank were turned on to boil off the oxygen. The thermostatic switches were designed to prevent the heaters from raising the temperature higher than 27 °C (80 °F), but they failed under the 65-volt power supply applied. Temperatures on the heater tube within the tank may have reached 540 °C (1,000 °F), most likely damaging the Teflon insulation. The temperature gauge was not designed to read higher than 29 °C (85 °F), so the technician monitoring the procedure detected nothing unusual. This heating had been approved by Lovell and Mattingly of the prime crew, as well as by NASA managers and engineers. Replacement of the tank would have delayed the mission by at least a month. The tank was filled with liquid oxygen again before launch; once electric power was connected, it was in a hazardous condition. The board found that Swigert's activation of the Oxygen Tank 2 fan at the request of Mission Control caused an electric arc that set the tank on fire.
The board conducted a test of an oxygen tank rigged with hot-wire ignitors that caused a rapid rise in temperature within the tank, after which it failed, producing telemetry similar to that seen with the Apollo 13 Oxygen Tank 2. Tests with panels similar to the one that was seen to be missing on SM Sector 4 caused separation of the panel in the test apparatus.
Changes in response
For Apollo 14 and subsequent missions, the oxygen tank was redesigned, the thermostats being upgraded to handle the proper voltage. The heaters were retained since they were necessary to maintain oxygen pressure. The stirring fans, with their unsealed motors, were removed, which meant the oxygen quantity gauge was no longer accurate. This required adding a third tank so that no tank would go below half full. The third tank was placed in Bay 1 of the SM, on the side opposite the other two, and was given an isolation valve that could isolate it from the fuel cells and from the other two oxygen tanks in an emergency and allow it to feed the CM's environmental system only. The quantity probe was upgraded from aluminum to stainless steel.
All electrical wiring in Bay 4 was sheathed in stainless steel. The fuel cell oxygen supply valves were redesigned to isolate the Teflon-coated wiring from the oxygen. The spacecraft and Mission Control monitoring systems were modified to give more immediate and visible warnings of anomalies. An emergency supply of 19 litres (5 US gal) of water was stored in the CM, and an emergency battery, identical to those that powered the LM's descent stage, was placed in the SM. The LM was modified to make transfer of power from the LM to the CM easier.
Aftermath
On February 5, 1971, Apollo 14's LM, Antares, landed on the Moon with astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell aboard, near Fra Mauro, the site Apollo 13 had been intended to explore. Haise served as CAPCOM during the descent to the Moon, and during the second EVA, during which Shepard and Mitchell explored near Cone crater.
None of the Apollo 13 astronauts flew in space again. Lovell retired from NASA and the Navy in 1973, entering the private sector. Swigert was to have flown on the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz Test Project (the first joint mission with the Soviet Union) but was removed as part of the fallout from the Apollo 15 postal covers incident. He took a leave of absence from NASA in 1973 and left the agency to enter politics, being elected to the House of Representatives in 1982, but died of cancer before he could be sworn in. Haise was slated to have been the commander of the canceled Apollo 19 mission, and flew the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing Tests before retiring from NASA in 1979.
Several experiments were completed during Apollo 13, even though the mission did not land on the Moon. One involved the launch vehicle's S-IVB (the Saturn V's third stage), which on prior missions had been sent into solar orbit once detached. The seismometer left by Apollo 12 had detected frequent impacts of small objects onto the Moon, but larger impacts would yield more information about the Moon's crust, so it was decided that, beginning with Apollo 13, the S-IVB would be crashed into the Moon. The impact occurred at 77:56:40 into the mission and produced enough energy that the gain on the seismometer, 117 kilometers (73 mi) from the impact, had to be reduced. An experiment to measure the amount of atmospheric electrical phenomena during the ascent to orbit – added after Apollo 12 was struck by lightning – returned data indicating a heightened risk during marginal weather. A series of photographs of Earth, taken to test whether cloud height could be determined from synchronous satellites, achieved the desired results.
As a joke, Grumman issued an invoice to North American Rockwell, prime contractor for the CSM, for "towing" the CSM most of the way to the Moon and back. Line items included 400001 miles at $1 each (plus $4 for the first mile); $536.05 for battery charging; oxygen; and four nights at $8 per night for an "additional guest in room" (Swigert). After a 20% "commercial discount", and a 2% discount for timely payment, the final total was $312,421.24. North American declined payment, noting that it had ferried three previous Grumman LMs to the Moon without compensation.
The CM was disassembled for testing and parts remained in storage for years; some were used for a trainer for the Skylab Rescue Mission. That trainer was subsequently displayed at the Kentucky Science Center. Max Ary of the Cosmosphere made it a project to restore Odyssey; it is on display there, in Hutchinson, Kansas.
Apollo 13 was called a "successful failure" by Lovell. Mike Massimino, a Space Shuttle astronaut, stated that Apollo 13 "showed teamwork, camaraderie and what NASA was really made of". The response to the accident has been repeatedly called "NASA's finest hour"; it is still viewed that way. Author Colin Burgess wrote, "the life-or-death flight of Apollo 13 dramatically evinced the colossal risks inherent in manned spaceflight. Then, with the crew safely back on Earth, public apathy set in once again."
William R. Compton, in his book about the Apollo Program, said of Apollo 13, "Only a heroic effort of real-time improvisation by mission operations teams saved the crew." Rick Houston and Milt Heflin, in their history of Mission Control, stated, "Apollo 13 proved mission control could bring those space voyagers back home again when their lives were on the line." Former NASA chief historian Roger D. Launius wrote, "More than any other incident in the history of spaceflight, recovery from this accident solidified the world's belief in NASA's capabilities". Nevertheless, the accident convinced some officials, such as Manned Spaceflight Center director Gilruth, that if NASA kept sending astronauts on Apollo missions, some would inevitably be killed, and they called for as quick an end as possible to the program. Nixon's advisers recommended canceling the remaining lunar missions, saying that a disaster in space would cost him political capital. Budget cuts made such a decision easier, and during the pause after Apollo 13, two missions were canceled, meaning that the program ended with Apollo 17 in December 1972.
Popular culture, media and 50th anniversary
The 1974 movie Houston, We've Got a Problem, while set around the Apollo 13 incident, is a fictional drama about the crises faced by ground personnel when the emergency disrupts their work schedules and places further stress on their lives. Lovell publicly complained about the movie, saying it was "fictitious and in poor taste".
"Houston ... We've Got a Problem" was the title of an episode of the BBC documentary series A Life At Stake, broadcast in March 1978. This was an accurate, if simplified, reconstruction of the events. In 1994, during the 25th anniversary of Apollo 11, PBS released a 90-minute documentary titled Apollo 13: To the Edge and Back.
Following the flight, the crew planned to write a book, but they all left NASA without starting it. After Lovell retired in 1991, he was approached by journalist Jeffrey Kluger about writing a non-fiction account of the mission. Swigert died in 1982 and Haise was no longer interested in such a project. The resultant book, Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13, was published in 1994.
The next year, in 1995, a film adaptation of the book, Apollo 13, was released, directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks as Lovell, Bill Paxton as Haise, Kevin Bacon as Swigert, Gary Sinise as Mattingly, Ed Harris as Kranz, and Kathleen Quinlan as Marilyn Lovell. James Lovell, Kranz, and other principals have stated that this film depicted the events of the mission with reasonable accuracy, given that some dramatic license was taken. For example, the film changes the tense of Lovell's famous follow-up to Swigert's original words from, "Houston, we've had a problem" to "Houston, we have a problem". The film also invented the phrase "Failure is not an option", uttered by Harris as Kranz in the film; the phrase became so closely associated with Kranz that he used it for the title of his 2000 autobiography. The film won two of the nine Academy Awards it was nominated for, Best Film Editing and Best Sound.
In the 1998 miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, co-produced by Hanks and Howard, the mission is dramatized in the episode "We Interrupt This Program". Rather than showing the incident from the crew's perspective as in the Apollo 13 feature film, it is instead presented from an Earth-bound perspective of television reporters competing for coverage of the event.
In 2020, the BBC World Service began airing 13 Minutes to the Moon, radio programs which draw on NASA audio from the mission, as well as archival and recent interviews with participants. Episodes began airing for Season 2 starting on March 8, 2020, with episode 1, "Time bomb: Apollo 13", explaining the launch and the explosion. Episode 2 details Mission Control's denial and disbelief of the accident, with other episodes covering other aspects of the mission. The seventh and final episode was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In "Delay to Episode 7", the BBC explained that the presenter of the series, medical doctor Kevin Fong, had been called into service.
In advance of the 50th anniversary of the mission in 2020, an Apollo in Real Time site for the mission went online, allowing viewers to follow along as the mission unfolds, view photographs and video, and listen to audio of conversations between Houston and the astronauts as well as between mission controllers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NASA did not hold any in-person events during April 2020 for the flight's 50th anniversary, but premiered a new documentary, Apollo 13: Home Safe on April 10, 2020. A number of events were rescheduled for later in 2020.
Gallery
Notes
References
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Houston, Rick; Heflin, J. Milt; Aaron, John (2015). Go, Flight!: the Unsung Heroes of Mission Control, 1965–1992 (eBook ed.). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-8494-4.
Houston, We've Got a Problem (PDF). Washington, D.C.: NASA Office of Public Affairs. 1970. EP-76. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Kranz, Gene (2000). Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-0079-0.
Larsen, Curtis E. (May 22, 2008). NASA Experience with Pogo in Human Spaceflight Vehicles (PDF). NATO RTO Symposium ATV-152 on Limit-Cycle Oscillations and Other Amplitude-Limited, Self-Excited Vibrations. NASA Johnson Space Center. Norway. RTO-MP-AVT-152. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Lattimer, Dick (1988) [1983]. All We Did Was Fly to the Moon. History-alive series. Vol. 1. Foreword by James A. Michener (2nd ed.). Gainesville, Florida: Whispering Eagle Press. ISBN 978-0-9611228-0-5. LCCN 85222271.
Launius, Roger D. (2019). Reaching for the Moon: A Short History of the Space Race (eBook ed.). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-24516-5.
Lovell, James A. (1975). "Chapter 13: "Houston, We've Had a Problem"" (PDF). In Cortright, Edgar M. (ed.). Apollo Expeditions to the Moon. Washington, D.C.: NASA. SP-350. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Lovell, Jim; Kluger, Jeffrey (2000) [1994]. Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-618-05665-1.
Mission Evaluation Team (September 1970). Apollo 13 Mission Report (PDF). Houston, Texas: NASA Manned Spacecraft Center. MSC-02680. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Morgan, Clay (2001). Shuttle–Mir (PDF). Houston, Texas: NASA. SP-4225. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Orloff, Richard W.; Harland, David M. (2006). Apollo: The Definitive Sourcebook. Chichester, UK: Praxis Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-387-30043-6.
Orloff, Richard W. (2000). Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference (PDF). NASA History Series. Washington, D.C.: NASA History Division, Office of Policy and Plans. ISBN 978-0-16-050631-4. LCCN 00061677. OCLC 829406439. NASA SP-2000-4029. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Phinney, William C. (2015). Science Training History of the Apollo Astronauts (PDF). NASA. SP-2015-626. Archived (PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.
Slayton, Donald K. "Deke"; Cassutt, Michael (1994). Deke! U.S. Manned Space: From Mercury to the Shuttle (1st ed.). New York: Forge. ISBN 978-0-312-85503-1.
Turnill, Reginald (2003). The Moonlandings: An Eyewitness Account. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-03535-4.
External links
NASA reports
All NASA mission transcripts
"Apollo 13 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription" (PDF) NASA, April 1970
Multimedia
The short film Apollo 13: "Houston, We've Got A Problem" is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive. |
Crystal_Lee_Sutton | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Lee_Sutton | [
395
] | [
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Lee_Sutton"
] | Crystal Lee Sutton (née Pulley; December 31, 1940 – September 11, 2009) was an American union organizer and advocate who gained fame in 1979 when the film Norma Rae was released, based on events related to her being fired from her job at the J.P. Stevens plant in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, on May 30, 1973, for "insubordination" after she copied an anti-union letter posted on the company bulletin board.
Union activism and recognition
Sutton was one of the union activists during the J.P. Stevens controversy—one of "the ugliest episodes in labor history in the United States which took place from about 1963 to 1980" during which Stevens "repeatedly harassed or fired union activists" and the union "countered with a boycott of Stevens products" and a "campaign to isolate the company by pressuring companies that dealt with Stevens or had Stevens officers on their boards." In 1973 Crystal saw a union poster hanging in one of the seven mills in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina owned by J.P. Stevens & Company mills where three generations of her family had worked—living in a neighborhood where the Company "owned every shotgun house" in Sutton's neighborhood. She had been "thinking about the paltry wages, the bone-tiring work and the stingy benefits that she and her parents had suffered. She wanted something better for her children." In 1978 Sutton was fired after trying to unionize employees. Shortly after, by August 28, 1978, Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) began to represent workers at the plant.
The Textile Workers Union of America sent union organizer Eli Zivkovich to unionize J.P. Stevens & Company's Roanoke Rapids mills employees and worked with Sutton. He said "in his 20 years as an organizer he had never known anyone who matched Sutton's zeal." "Management and others treated me as if I had leprosy," she stated. Sutton earned $2.65 per hour folding towels (equivalent to $18.19 in 2023).
She received threats and was finally fired from her job. But before she left, she took one final stand, portrayed in Norma Rae. "I took a piece of cardboard and wrote the word UNION on it in big letters, got up on my work table, and slowly turned it around. The workers started cutting their machines off and giving me the victory sign. All of a sudden the plant was very quiet…" Sutton was physically removed from the plant by police, but she achieved her goal. On August 28, 1974, the 3,133 workers at the Roanoke Rapids plant voted to allow The Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union (ACTWU) to represent them by a slim 237 vote margin. However, because of the intractability of J.P. Stevens, workers at the plant continued without a contract until 1980. Thanks to a coalition of black and white women employees of the mill, Sutton's national speaking tour, and local organizing on behalf of workers among religious groups, J.P. Stevens and ACTWU agreed to a settlement in 1980. Sutton became a paid organizer for the ACTWU and went on a national speaking tour as "the real Norma Rae." Sutton was the 13th recipient of the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1980. The honor was named after a 1963 encyclical letter, Pacem in terris (Peace on Earth), by Pope John XXIII, that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations.
Sutton was critical of the ACTWU for not supporting her after her arrest, relaying that union leaders "...acted like they were ashamed to have ever had anything to do with Crystal Lee." She reported that, when she was reinstated at J.P. Stevens, she was snubbed by the union organizer. "I mean, I walked into that mill that day and the organizer said he didn't even know who I was. There was nobody from the regional office. No press, nothing." Two days later she took her accumulated sick days to demonstrate her value to the union. Ultimately her relationship with the Union was mended and she began working directly for the ACTWU.
Norma Rae
The 1979 film Norma Rae, starring Sally Field, is based on Sutton's early union work. The movie is based on the 1975 book about her by New York Times reporter Henry "Hank" Leifermann Crystal Lee: A Woman of Inheritance. Her papers and memorabilia are located at Alamance Community College in North Carolina, where she took classes in nursing in 1988.
Personal life
Sutton was born Crystal Lee Pulley in Roanoke Rapids on December 31, 1940. She married at 19, gave birth to her first child at 20, and was widowed at 21. She married Larry Jordan Jr. and had her third child at 25. Following the events that made her famous and before the release of Norma Rae, she and Jordan were divorced. She married Lewis Sutton Jr. about 1977. Obituaries state they were married 32 years.
Death
Crystal Lee Sutton died of inoperable brain cancer at Hospice Home in Burlington, North Carolina on September 11, 2009.
References
External links
Alamance Community College's Crystal Lee Sutton Collection
Textile Workers Union of America postcard highlighting Sutton: (back) |
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