title: Swastika

text: Beginning in the early 2000s, partially as a reaction to the publication of a book titled "The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?" by Steven Heller, there has been a movement led in part by Hindu, Buddhist, indigenous peoples, Jain historians, anthropologists, linguists, and other scholars to "reclaim" what was seen as 'their' swastika symbol "...until Hitler stole it." These groups argue that the swastika is distinct from the Nazi symbol. A key part of this argument rests on the fact that Adolf Hitler referred to the symbol as a hooked cross (), which is the literal German language term for the symbol.


title: Swastika

text: The main barrier to the effort to "reclaim", "restore", or "reassess" the swastika comes from the decades of extremely negative association in the Western world following the Nazi Party's adoption of it in the 1930s. As well, white supremacist groups still cling to the symbol as an icon of power and identity. In defense of the swastika, Nama Winston writing for the Huffington Post has written that the swastika is "...less racist than racists think" and was "traditionally a symbol of peace and good fortune."


title: Swastika

text: Many media organizations in the West also continue to describe neo-Nazi usage of the symbol as a swastika, or sometimes with the "Nazi" adjective written as "Nazi Swastika"; groups that oppose this media terminology do not wish to censor such usage, but rather to shift coverage of antisemitic and hateful events to describe the symbol in this context as a "" or "hooked cross".


title: Swastika

text: In 2005, authorities in Tajikistan called for the widespread adoption of the swastika as a national symbol. President Emomali Rahmonov declared the swastika an Aryan symbol, and 2006 "the year of Aryan culture", which would be a time to "study and popularise Aryan contributions to the history of the world civilisation, raise a new generation (of Tajiks) with the spirit of national self-determination, and develop deeper ties with other ethnicities and cultures".


title: Swastika

text: In East Asia, the swastika is prevalent in Buddhist monasteries and communities. It is commonly found in Buddhist temples, religious artifacts, texts related to Buddhism and schools founded by Buddhist religious groups. It also appears as a design or motif (singularly or woven into a pattern) on textiles, architecture and various decorative objects as a symbol of luck and good fortune. The icon is also found as a sacred symbol in the Bon tradition, but in the left-facing orientation.


title: Swastika

text: Many Chinese religions make use of the swastika symbol, including Guiyidao and Shanrendao. The Red Swastika Society, formed in China in 1922 as the philanthropic branch of Guiyidao, became the largest supplier of emergency relief in China during World War II, in the same manner as the Red Cross in the rest of the world. The Red Swastika Society abandoned mainland China in 1954, settling first in Hong Kong then in Taiwan. They continue to use the red swastika as their symbol.


title: Swastika

text: In Japan, the swastika is also used as a map symbol and is designated by the Survey Act and related Japanese governmental rules to denote a Buddhist temple. Japan has considered changing this symbols due to occasional controversy and misunderstanding by foreigners. The symbol is sometimes censored in international versions of Japanese works, such as anime. Censorship of this symbol in Japan and in Japanese media abroad has been subject to occasional controversy related to freedom-of-speech, with critics of the censorship arguing it does not respect history nor freedom of speech.


title: Swastika

text: The city of Hirosaki in Aomori Prefecture designates this symbol as its official flag, which stemmed from its use in the emblem of the Tsugaru clan, the lords of Hirosaki Domain during the Edo period.


title: Swastika

text: Among the predominantly Hindu population of Bali, in Indonesia, the swastika is common in temples, homes and public spaces. Similarly, the swastika is a common icon associated with Buddha's footprints in Theravada Buddhist communities of Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia.


title: Swastika

text: In Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka, the swastika is common. Temples, businesses and other organisations, such as the Buddhist libraries, Ahmedabad Stock Exchange and the Nepal Chamber of Commerce, use the swastika in reliefs or logos. Swastikas are ubiquitous in Indian and Nepalese communities, located on shops, buildings, transport vehicles, and clothing. The swastika remains prominent in Hindu ceremonies such as weddings. The left facing "sauwastika" symbol is found in tantric rituals.


title: Swastika

text: Musaeus College in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a Buddhist girls' school, has a left facing swastika in their school logo.


title: Swastika

text: In India, "Swastik" and "Swastika", with their spelling variants, are first names for males and females respectively, for instance with Swastika Mukherjee. The Emblem of Bihar contains two swastikas.


title: Swastika

text: As with many neo-Nazi groups across the world, the American Nazi Party used the swastika as part of its flag before its first dissolution in 1967. The symbol was chosen by the organisation's founder, George Lincoln Rockwell. It was "re-used" by successor organisations in 1983, without the publicity Rockwell's organisation enjoyed.


title: Swastika

text: The swastika, in various iconographic forms, is one of the hate symbols identified in use as graffiti in US schools, and is described as such in a 1999 US Department of Education document, "Responding to Hate at School: A Guide for Teachers, Counselors and Administrators", edited by Jim Carnes, which provides advice to educators on how to support students targeted by such hate symbols and address hate graffiti. Examples given show that it is often used alongside other white supremacist symbols, such as those of the Ku Klux Klan, and note a "three-bladed" variation used by skinheads, white supremacists, and "some South African extremist groups".


title: Swastika

text: The neo-Nazi Russian National Unity group's branch in Estonia is officially registered under the name "Kolovrat" and published an extremist newspaper in 2001 under the same name. A criminal investigation found the paper included an array of racial epithets. One Narva resident was sentenced to one year in jail for distribution of "Kolovrat". The Kolovrat has since been used by the Rusich Battalion, a Russian militant group known for its operation during the war in Donbas.


title: Swastika

text: Since the end of the 20th century, and through the early 21st century, confusion and controversy has occurred when personal-use goods bearing the traditional Jain, Buddhist, or Hindu symbols have been exported to the West, notably to North America and Europe, and have been interpreted by purchasers as bearing a Nazi symbol. This has resulted in several such products having been boycotted or pulled from shelves.


title: Swastika

text: When a ten-year-old boy in Lynbrook, New York, bought a set of Pokémon cards imported from Japan in 1999, two of the cards contained the left-facing Buddhist swastika. The boy's parents misinterpreted the symbol as the right-facing Nazi swastika and filed a complaint to the manufacturer. Nintendo of America announced that the cards would be discontinued, explaining that what was acceptable in one culture was not necessarily so in another; their action was welcomed by the Anti-Defamation League who recognised that there was no intention to offend, but said that international commerce meant that, "Isolating [the Swastika] in Asia would just create more problems."


title: Swastika

text: In 2002, Christmas crackers containing plastic toy red pandas sporting swastikas were pulled from shelves after complaints from customers in Canada. The manufacturer, based in China, said the symbol was presented in a traditional sense and not as a reference to the Nazis, and apologised to the customers for the cross-cultural mixup.


title: Swastika

text: In 2020, the retailer Shein pulled a necklace featuring a left-facing swastika pendant from its website after receiving backlash on social media. The retailer apologized for the lack of sensitivity but noted that the swastika was a Buddhist symbol.


title: Swastika

text: Besides its use as a religious symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, which can be traced back to pre-modern traditions, the swastika is also used by adherents of a large number of new religious movements which were established in the modern period.


title: Swastika

text: In the 1880s the U.S.origined Theosophical Society adopted a swastika as part of its seal, along with an Om, a hexagram or star of David, an Ankh and an Ouroboros. Unlike the much more recent Raëlian movement, the Theosophical Society symbol has been free from controversy, and the seal is still used. The current seal also includes the text "There is no religion higher than truth."


title: Swastika

text: The Raëlian Movement, whose adherents believe extraterrestrials created all life on earth, use a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy: an interlaced star of David and a swastika. The Raelians say the Star of David represents infinity in space whereas the swastika represents infinity in timeno beginning and no end in time, and everything being cyclic. In 1991, the symbol was changed in order to remove the swastika, out of respect to the victims of the Holocaust, but as of 2007 it has been restored to its original form.


title: Swastika

text: The Tantra-based new religious movement Ananda Marga (Devanagari: आनन्द मार्ग, meaning Path of Bliss) uses a motif similar to the Raëlians, but in their case the apparent star of David is defined as intersecting triangles with no specific reference to Jewish culture.


title: Swastika

text: The Falun Gong qigong movement uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller (and rounded) ones, interspersed with yin-and-yang symbols.


title: Swastika

text: The swastika is a holy symbol in neopagan Germanic Heathenry, along with the hammer of Thor and runes. This traditionwhich is found in Scandinavia, Germany, and elsewhereconsiders the swastika to be derived from a Norse symbol for the sun. Their use of the symbol has led people to accuse them of being a neo-Nazi group.


title: Swastika

text: A "fire cross" ("ugunskrusts") is used by the Baltic neopaganism movements Dievturība in Latvia and Romuva in Lithuania.


title: Swastika

text: A variant of the swastika, the non-traditional eight-armed "kolovrat" ("spinning wheel"), is the most commonly used religious symbol within neopagan Slavic Native Faith (a.k.a. Rodnovery).


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes ( ; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has received various accolades including a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and an Emmy Award.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: He made his film debut playing Heathcliff in "Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights" (1992). His portrayal of Nazi war criminal Amon Göth in the Steven Spielberg drama "Schindler's List" (1993) earned him nominations for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, and he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His performance as Count Almásy in "The English Patient" (1996) garnered him a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actor, as well as BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes has appeared in a number of other notable films, including "Quiz Show" (1994), "The End of the Affair" (1999), "Maid in Manhattan" (2002), "The Constant Gardener" (2005), "In Bruges" (2008), "The Duchess" (2008), "The Reader" (2008), "The Hurt Locker" (2009), "Clash of the Titans" (2010), "Great Expectations" (2012), "The Grand Budapest Hotel" (2014), "A Bigger Splash" (2015), "Hail, Caesar!" (2016), "The King's Man" (2021), and "The Menu" (2022). He lent his voice to the films "The Prince of Egypt" (1998), "" (2005) and "The Lego Batman Movie" (2017). Fiennes starred in the "Harry Potter" film series (2005–2011) as the main antagonist Lord Voldemort. In the "James Bond" series he has played , the head of MI6, in "Skyfall" (2012), "Spectre" (2015) and "No Time to Die" (2021).


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2011, Fiennes made his directorial debut with his film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy "Coriolanus", in which he also played the titular character. He followed this with "The Invisible Woman" (2013) where he portrayed Charles Dickens. In 1995, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for playing Prince Hamlet on Broadway. Since 1999, Fiennes has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK. Fiennes is also an Honorary Associate of London Film School. In 2018, he received the Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the Tokyo International Film Festival for directing the film "The White Crow". For his work behind the camera, in 2019 he received the Stanislavsky Award.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes was born in Ipswich, England on 22 December 1962. Fiennes is the eldest child of Mark Fiennes (1933–2004), a farmer and photographer, and Jennifer Lash (1938–1993), a writer. He has English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. His surname is of Norman origin.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: He is the eldest of six children. His siblings are actor Joseph Fiennes; Martha Fiennes, a director (in her film "Onegin", he played the title role); Magnus Fiennes, a composer; Sophie Fiennes, a filmmaker; and Jacob Fiennes, a conservationist. His foster brother, Michael Emery, is an archaeologist. His nephew, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, played Tom Riddle, young Lord Voldemort, in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince".


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: The Fiennes family moved to Ireland in 1973, living in County Cork and County Kilkenny for some years. Fiennes was educated at St Kieran's College for one year, followed by Newtown School, a Quaker independent school in County Waterford. They moved to Salisbury in England, where Fiennes finished his schooling at Bishop Wordsworth's School. He went on to pursue painting at Chelsea College of Arts before deciding that acting was his true passion.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art between 1983 and 1985. He began his career at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, and also at the National Theatre before achieving prominence at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in "Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights" opposite Juliette Binoche.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: 1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in Peter Greenaway's film "The Baby of Mâcon" with Julia Ormond, which provoked controversy and was poorly received. Later that year, he became known internationally for portraying the brutal Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Göth in Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." For this, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win the Oscar, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role. His portrayal of Göth also saw him listed at number 15 on the AFI's list of the top 50 film villains. Fiennes gained weight to represent Göth, but shed it afterwards. Fiennes later stated that playing the role had a profoundly disturbing effect on him. In a subsequent interview, Fiennes recalled:


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Evil is cumulative. It happens. People believe that they've got to do a job, they've got to take on an ideology, that they've got a life to lead; they've got to survive, a job to do, it's every day inch by inch, little compromises, little ways of telling yourself this is how you should lead your life and suddenly then these things can happen. I mean, I could make a judgment myself privately, this is a terrible, evil, horrific man. But the job was to portray the man, the human being. There's a sort of banality, that everydayness, that I think was important. And it was in the screenplay. In fact, one of the first scenes with Oskar Schindler, with Liam Neeson, was a scene where I'm saying, "You don't understand how hard it is, I have to order so many-so many meters of barbed wire and so many fencing posts and I have to get so many people from A to B." And, you know, he's sort of letting off steam about the difficulties of the job.In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in "Quiz Show." In 1996, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the epic World War II romance "The English Patient," in which he starred with Kristin Scott-Thomas. Fiennes's film work has encompassed a variety of genres, including thrillers ("Spider"), an animated Biblical epic ("The Prince of Egypt"), camp nostalgia ("The Avengers"), romantic comedy ("Maid in Manhattan"), and historical drama ("Sunshine").


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 1999, Fiennes had the title role in "Onegin," a film which he also helped produce. His sister Martha Fiennes directed, and brother Magnus composed the score. Fiennes portrayed Francis Dolarhyde in the 2002 film, "Red Dragon", a prequel to "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal". Fiennes's performance as a sympathetic serial killer with a romantic relationship with a blind girl, played by Emily Watson, was praised, with film critic David Sterritt writing, "Ralph Fiennes is scarily good as [Hannibal Lecter's] fellow lunatic."


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2005, Fiennes starred in Fernando Meirelles's "The Constant Gardener" acting alongside Rachel Weisz. The film is set in Kenya. It was filmed in part with the actual residents of the slums of Kibera and Loiyangalani. The film received critical acclaim in particular for Fiennes and Weisz's performances. He received a British Academy Film Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The situation affected the cast and crew to such an extent that they set up the Constant Gardener Trust to provide basic education for children of these villages. Fiennes is a patron of the charity. Fiennes is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: That same year, Fiennes voiced Lord Victor Quartermaine in the 2005 stop-motion animated comedy "". The role saw him play a cruel upper class bounder who courts Lady Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter) and despises Wallace and Gromit.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes gained worldwide prominence for his portrayal as Lord Voldemort, the antagonist in the Harry Potter franchise. His first appearance was in the 2005 fantasy film "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". He returned to the role for three other films in the series: "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007) and both "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" (2010) and "Part 2" (2011). In an interview with "Empire" magazine, Fiennes said his portrayal of Voldemort was an "instinctive, visceral, physical thing".


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2006, Fiennes returned to the stage in "Faith Healer" alongside Ian McDiarmid. The revival premiered at the Gate Theatre in Dublin before transferring to the Broadway stage at the Booth Theatre. For his performances Fiennes received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play. In 2008, he worked with frequent collaborator director Jonathan Kent, playing the title role in "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles, at the National Theatre in London.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2008, he played the Duke of Devonshire in the film "The Duchess" opposite Keira Knightley; he also played the protagonist in "The Reader," adapted from the novel of the same name alongside Kate Winslet. That same year he also appeared in Martin McDonagh's black comedy crime thriller "In Bruges" starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. In February 2009, Fiennes was the special guest of the Belgrade's Film Festival FEST. He filmed his version of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" (in his directorial debut) in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Fiennes reunited with Kathryn Bigelow for her Iraq War film "The Hurt Locker," released in 2009, appearing as an English Private Military Contractor. They had previously worked together on "Strange Days" (1995).


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In April 2010, he played Hades in "Clash of the Titans", a remake of the 1981 film of the same name. In 2012, he starred in the twenty-third James Bond film, "Skyfall," directed by Sam Mendes. He replaced Dame Judi Dench as M in subsequent Bond films. In 2013, Fiennes was both the director and the leading actor (in the role of Charles Dickens) in the well-received film "The Invisible Woman".


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Though he is not commonly noted as a comic actor, in 2014, Fiennes made an impression for his farcical turn as concierge Monsieur Gustave in Wes Anderson's comedy-drama "The Grand Budapest Hotel." Fiennes used his time as a young porter at London's Brown's Hotel to help construct the character. A film critic stated, "In the end it's Fiennes who makes the biggest impression. His stylised, rapid-fire delivery, dry wit and cheerful profanity keep the film bubbling along." For his performance, Fiennes was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Film magazine "Empire" ranked Fiennes's portrayal of Gustave the 17th Greatest Movie Character of All Time.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2015, Fiennes starred in Luca Guadagnino's thriller "A Bigger Splash" alongside Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton. In 2016, Fiennes appeared in the Coen brothers ensemble comedy film "Hail, Caesar!" which is set in 1950s Hollywood. Fiennes plays the fictional Laurence Laurentz, an acclaimed European film director in the movie. That same year, he lent his voice in the stop-motion animated film "Kubo and the Two Strings" where he played Raiden the Moon King, Kubo's grandfather. In 2017, he voiced the British butler Alfred Pennyworth in "The Lego Batman Movie" and reprised the role in "" (2019). In 2018, he directed and starred in "The White Crow", a biographical drama film about the Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev. In 2019, Fiennes played the MI6 agent Norman Darbyshire in Taghi Amirani's feature documentary "Coup 53". Darbyshire, who died in 1993, was the co-author of 1953's Operation Ajax, a joint MI6-CIA military coup that overthrew democracy in Iran.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2020, Fiennes voiced a tiger in the family fantasy adventure film "Dolittle" starring Robert Downey Jr. In the same year, he appeared in the monologue play "Beat the Devil" by David Hare at the Bridge Theatre in London, and then in the 2021 film version of the play. Also in 2021, he starred in the British drama film "The Dig" playing the Suffolk archaeologist Basil Brown alongside Carey Mulligan and Lily James. The film received positive reviews with critics praising his performance. "The Guardian" critic Mark Kermode described Fiennes portrayal as having an "admirable eloquence". Later in 2021, Fiennes starred in Matthew Vaughn's period spy film "The King's Man" and Cary Joji Fukunaga's James Bond film "No Time to Die".


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2021, Fiennes returned to the stage in David Hare's latest play "Straight Line Crazy" at the Bridge Theatre in London. In the play, Fiennes portrays New York's legendary urban planner Robert Moses. His performance has received rave reviews with "Variety" declaring, "Fiennes is all boldly convincing, controlled threat, his monomania teetering on the edge of malevolence". In "The Guardian"s five star rave review, critic Mark Lawson described Fiennes' performance as "enthralling" and an "acting triumph". It was announced that the production would make its New York stage debut, Off-Broadway at The Shed running from October to December in 2022.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2022, Fiennes starred as chef Julian Slowik in the Mark Mylod-directed comedy horror "The Menu". For his performance he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes is set to reunite with the director Wes Anderson in the film "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar" (2023), an adaptation of a short story by Roald Dahl, and will star opposite Benedict Cumberbatch, Dev Patel and Ben Kingsley.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes is a UNICEF UK ambassador and has undertaken work in India, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, and Romania. Fiennes is also a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes met English actress Alex Kingston while they were both students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After dating for ten years, they married in 1993 and divorced in 1997 following his affair with Francesca Annis. Annis and Fiennes announced their separation on 7 February 2006, after 11 years together, in a parting described as "acrimonious", following rumours that he had an affair with the Romanian singer Cornelia Crisan.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: On 7 September 2017, Fiennes was granted Serbian citizenship, which was awarded to him because of his work in the country. The decision was signed by Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić.


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes has stated in an interview with the "Evening Standard", 'I don't collect anything as such. I buy a lot of books and that's the closest I come to collecting anything.'


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In 2007, Fiennes was embroiled in scandal after having sex with a Qantas flight attendant on a flight from Darwin to Mumbai. After initial denials, it was established that they had sex in the plane's lavatory, and the flight attendant's employment was terminated by Qantas. The incident was referenced in the Australian sketch TV show "Comedy Inc".


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: Fiennes opposed the UK leaving the European Union (Brexit). Following the EU membership referendum in 2016, Fiennes stated, "I'm strongly a remainer. I think that our connection with Europe, faulty as it may be in its current state...it seems to me that the point of the EU was to take down barriers of interactive trade, culture, talk dynamic between cultures, nations."


title: Ralph Fiennes

text: In a March 2021 interview with "The Daily Telegraph," Fiennes expressed defense of J. K. Rowling following a backlash against her comments on transgender people, arguing "I can't understand the vitriol directed at her. I can understand the heat of an argument, but I find this age of accusation and the need to condemn irrational. I find the level of hatred that people express about views that differ from theirs, and the violence of language towards others, disturbing."


title: Argentina national football team

text: The Argentina national football team represents Argentina in men's international football and is administered by the Argentine Football Association, the governing body for football in Argentina.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Nicknamed "La Selección" () or "La Albiceleste" ('The White and Sky Blue'), they are the reigning world champions, having won the most recent World Cup in 2022. Overall, Argentina has appeared in a World Cup final six times; a record surpassed only by Brazil and Germany; Argentina played in the first ever final in 1930, which they lost 4–2 to their South American rival Uruguay. Argentina's next final appearance came 48 years later, in 1978, when the team captained by Daniel Passarella defeated the Netherlands 3–1 in extra time, being crowned world champions for the first time. Captained by Diego Maradona, Argentina won their second World Cup eight years later, in 1986, with a 3–2 final victory over West Germany. They reached the final once more under the guidance of Maradona, in 1990, but were ultimately beaten 1–0 by West Germany. Led by Lionel Messi, Argentina made their fifth final appearance in 2014, losing to Germany 1–0 after extra time. In 2022, again captained by Messi, they were crowned champions for the third time, the fourth-most of any country, beating France 4–2 on penalties, following a 3–3 draw after extra time. The team's World Cupwinning managers are César Luis Menotti in 1978, Carlos Bilardo in 1986 and Lionel Scaloni in 2022. Since the Golden Ball for tournament's best player has been officially awarded by FIFA from 1982, Argentina players have won it thrice; Maradona in 1986 and Messi in 2014 and 2022. Argentines Guillermo Stábile and Mario Kempes both won the Golden Boot as the tournament's top scorer, in 1930 and 1978, respectively.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina has also been very successful in the Copa América, winning it 15 times, a record it shares with Uruguay, most recently winning the 2021 edition. The team also won the inaugural FIFA Confederations Cup in 1992. Argentina is the most successful team in the CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions, having won it twice, in 1993 and 2022. Furthermore, Argentina is known for having rivalries with Brazil, Uruguay, England, Germany and the Netherlands. As of 2022, Argentina holds the record for most official titles won by a men's national team with 22. Individually for Argentina, Lionel Messi is the all-time most-capped player with 172 games and the highest goalscorer with 98 goals.


title: Argentina national football team

text: The first match ever recorded for Argentina was against Uruguay, on 20 June 1902. The game (which was the first international for both sides) was held in Montevideo and Argentina won 6–0. During the first years of its existence, the Argentina national team only played friendly matches against other South American teams. The reasons for this varied, including long travel times between countries and the interruption of World War I.


title: Argentina national football team

text: "La Selección" (national team), also known as the "Albicelestes" (sky blue and whites), has appeared in six World Cup finals, including the first final in 1930, which they lost, 4–2, to Uruguay. Argentina won in their next final in 1978, beating the Netherlands, 3–1. Argentina, led by Diego Maradona won again in 1986, a 3–2 victory over West Germany.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Previous to this their last World Cup final was in 1990, which is also lost, 1–0, to West Germany by a much-disputed penalty. In 2022, Argentina won the World Cup for the third time, beating France 4–2 on penalties following a 3–3 draw after extra time. The team's World Cup-winning managers are César Luis Menotti in 1978, Carlos Bilardo in 1986, and Lionel Scaloni in 2022.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina has been very successful in the Copa América, winning it 15 times. The team also won the FIFA Confederations Cup and the Kirin Cup, both in 1992, the CONMEBOL–UEFA Cup of Champions in 1993 and 2022, and the Nations' Cup in 1964. Argentina 'Olympic' team (with only three players of over 23 years of age included in the squad) won the Olympics football tournaments in Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina also won seven of the 18 football competitions at the Pan American Games, winning in 1951, 1955, 1959, 1971, 1995, 2003 and 2019.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina play most of their home matches at River Plate stadium, Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires, although the team has also played in other venues such as Rosario Central, (during the 2010 World Cup qualification) Estadio Único Madre de Ciudades in Santiago del Estero, Boca Juniors' stadium (La Bombonera) Those venues were used in some matches of the 2022 World Cup qualification, along with Estadio Mario Alberto Kempes in Córdoba and Estadio San Juan del Bicentenario in the homonymous province.


title: Argentina national football team

text: GEBA Stadium was the venue where Argentina played their first international matches as local team. The match held on 13 September 1908, for the Copa Newton v. Uruguay has a historic relevance for being the first time Argentine wore the light blue and white striped jersey, which would be the definitive uniform up to present days. GEBA was also venue for the Copa Centenario Revolución de Mayo, the first international South American competition organised in 1910. The Argentina national team played its last game at GEBA on 19 October 1919, when the squad won the Copa Premier Honor Argentino after thrashing Uruguay by 6–1,


title: Argentina national football team

text: Other memorable venue for Argentina was Estadio Sportivo Barracas, which holds an important anecdotal fact in its history on 2 October 1924, when Argentina beat Uruguay 2–1 with a goal converted directly from a corner kick by forward Cesáreo Onzari. Since then, a goal like Onzari's is referred as a "Gol olímpico" or "Olympic goal". Sportivo Barracas was the usual venue for Argentina from 1920 to 1932. The stadium would be later demolished in 1937.


title: Argentina national football team

text: The kit first worn by Argentina in their official debut v Uruguay in 1902 was a light blue shirt. On 2 July 1908, Argentina debuted the light blue vertical stripe on white jersey, when the squad played vs a team formed by Liga Paulista players at Velódromo Paulistano. That striped jersey has remained as the official kit since then. The away kits usually have been in dark blue shades, varying the colours of shorts and socks.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina has sported other kits until the blue strip on white kit was made official. On 3 June 1919 in Rio de Janeiro playing the "Roberto Chery Cup" against Brazil, Argentina wore a light blue kit, similar to Uruguay. The trophy was established by Brazilian Football Confederation, for the benefit of Roberto Chery's relatives. Chery was Uruguay's substitute goalkeeper and died during the 1919 South American Championship after collapsing in a game against Chile.


title: Argentina national football team

text: At the 1958 World Cup, Argentina wore the yellow jersey of Swedish club IFK Malmö in the match against West Germany, as the team arrived in Sweden without an away kit.


title: Argentina national football team

text: A last moment jersey changed at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico is memorable. Then manager, Carlos Bilardo, asked the team kit supplier Le Coq Sportif for a lighter blue shirt for the quarter-final in three days against England, that could not be provided. A member of coaching staff scoured the shops of Mexico City for 38 shirt plain shirts. They were transformed with an improvised version of the AFA emblem embroidered on to the shirts, and silvery American football numbers ironed to the backs. Argentina beat England with Diego Maradona's "Hand of God goal". The shirt style became an emblem of the occasion and a collector's item.


title: Argentina national football team

text: At the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Argentina debuted a black away kit, a first in their history, while for the 2022 FIFA World Cup they used a purple away one.


title: Argentina national football team

text: The Argentine Football Association ("AFA") logo has been always used as the team emblem. It debuted in the 1958 World Cup held in Sweden, when Argentina added the AFA logo to their jackets, but not to the shirts.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Nevertheless, the AFA emblem was not used on jerseys until 16 November 1976, when Argentina played the Soviet Union at Estadio Monumental. The first emblem was a simplified version of the crest (without the laurel wreath, that was added for the 1982 World Cup).


title: Argentina national football team

text: In 2004, two stars were added above the crest, symbolising the national team's world championships in 1978 and 1986. A third star was added after Argentina won their third world championship in 2022.


title: Argentina national football team

text: The following is a list of match results from the previous 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.


title: Argentina national football team

text: The following 26 players were named in the squad for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. On 17 November, Nicolás González withdrew injured and was replaced by Ángel Correa. On the same day Joaquín Correa withdrew injured and was replaced by Thiago Almada.


title: Argentina national football team

text: With a rivalry stemming from the 1966 World Cup and intensified by the Falklands War of 1982, Argentina and England have had numerous confrontations in World Cup tournaments. Among them was the quarter-final match in 1986, where Diego Maradona scored two goals against England. The first was a handball, but was ruled legal by the referee. The second, scored minutes later, saw Maradona passing five England outfield players before scoring, and is often described as one of the greatest goals in football history.


title: Argentina national football team

text: The nations were paired together in the Round of 16 at the 1998 FIFA World Cup, won by Argentina on penalties, and again at the group stage in 2002, England winning 1–0 through a penalty by David Beckham who had been sent off in the tie four years earlier.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina have played Germany in seven FIFA World Cup matches including three FIFA World Cup finals: In 1986 Argentina won 3–2, but in 1990 it was the Germans who were the victors by a 1–0 scoreline.


title: Argentina national football team

text: In 1958 they met for the first time in the group stage, where Argentina suffered a 1–3 loss to defending champions West Germany. In 1966 both again faced each other in the group stage which ended in a scoreless draw. In 2006, they met in the quarter-finals; Argentina lost on penalties after a 1–1 draw, which was followed by a brawl on the pitch involving several players. They met again at the same stage in 2010, this time ending with a 4–0 victory for Germany. They played each other for the third consecutive World Cup in the Brazil 2014 event's final, where Argentina was defeated in extra time by a score of 1–0.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina have a long-standing rivalry with their neighbours, that came into existence from the early South American Championships, the 1928 Summer Olympics and the first World Cup final, held in 1930.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Argentina and Uruguay hold the record for most international matches played between two countries. The two teams have faced each other 197 times since 1902. The first match between Argentina and Uruguay was also the first official international match to be played outside the United Kingdom.


title: Argentina national football team

text: A minor rivalry developed from the 1990s between Argentina and Nigeria, based not on geographical proximity, long-term battles for honours or factors outside football, but due to the frequency of significant matches between them. This has included five World Cup group games, all won by Argentina by a single goal margin: 2–1 in 1994, 1–0 in 2002, 1–0 in 2010, 3–2 in 2014 and 2–1 in 2018. The fixture is the most common in the competition's history involving an African nation, and has occurred in five of the six tournaments for which Nigeria has qualified. The sides also met in the 1995 King Fahd Cup (the predecessor to the Confederations Cup) as champions of their respective continents, drawing 0–0.


title: Argentina national football team

text: Below full international level, their Olympic teams also faced off in the gold medal match in 1996 (3–2 to Nigeria), and 2008 (1–0 to Argentina). The final of the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship was also played between them; both Argentina goals in their 2–1 win were scored by Lionel Messi, who would go on to find the net for the senior team in the 2014 and 2018 World Cup fixtures.


title: Argentina national football team

text: The sense of rivalry is more keenly felt on the Nigerian side, as Argentina have won almost all of their encounters and have much bigger rivalries with Brazil, England, Germany and Uruguay in contrast to the West Africans who remain keen to finally overcome a more illustrious foe.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. Baltimore is the largest city in the state, and the capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are "Old Line State", the "Free State", and the "Chesapeake Bay State". It is named after Henrietta Maria, the French-born queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, who was known then in England as Mary.


title: Maryland

text: Before its coastline was explored by Europeans in the 16th century, Maryland was inhabited by several groups of Native Americans – mostly by Algonquian peoples and, to a lesser degree, Iroquoian and Siouan. As one of the original Thirteen Colonies of England, Maryland was founded by George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, a Catholic convert who sought to provide a religious haven for Catholics persecuted in England. In 1632, Charles I of England granted Lord Baltimore a colonial charter, naming the colony after his wife, Henrietta Maria. Unlike the Pilgrims and Puritans, who rejected Catholicism in their settlements, Lord Baltimore envisioned a colony where people of different religious sects would coexist under the principle of toleration. Accordingly, in 1649 the Maryland General Assembly passed an Act Concerning Religion, which enshrined this principle by penalizing anyone who "reproached" a fellow Marylander based on religious affiliation. Nevertheless, religious strife was common in the early years, and Catholics remained a minority, albeit in greater numbers than in any other English colony.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's early settlements and population centers clustered around rivers and other waterways that empty into the Chesapeake Bay. Its economy was heavily plantation-based and centered mostly on the cultivation of tobacco. Demand for cheap labor from Maryland colonists led to the importation of numerous indentured servants and enslaved Africans. In 1760, Maryland's current boundaries took form following the settlement of a long-running border dispute with Pennsylvania. Maryland was an active participant in the events leading up to the American Revolution, and by 1776, its delegates signed the Declaration of Independence. Many of its citizens subsequently played key political and military roles in the war. In 1790, the state ceded land for the establishment of the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C.


title: Maryland

text: Although then a slave state, Maryland remained in the Union during the American Civil War, its strategic location giving it a significant role in the conflict. After the Civil War, Maryland took part in the Industrial Revolution, driven by its seaports, railroad networks, and mass immigration from Europe. Since the 1940s, the state's population has grown rapidly, to approximately six million residents, and it is among the most densely populated U.S. states. , Maryland had the highest median household income of any state, owing in large part to its proximity to Washington, D.C., and a highly diversified economy spanning manufacturing, retail services, public administration, real estate, higher education, information technology, defense contracting, health care, and biotechnology. The state's central role in U.S. history is reflected by its hosting of some of the highest numbers of historic landmarks per capita.


title: Maryland

text: Sixteen of Maryland's twenty-three counties, as well as the city of Baltimore, border the tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay estuary and its many tributaries, which combined total more than 4,000 miles of shoreline. Although one of the smallest states in the U.S., it features a variety of climates and topographical features that have earned it the moniker of "America in Miniature". In a similar vein, Maryland's geography, culture, and history combine elements of the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, and Southern regions of the country.


title: Maryland

text: George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore (1579–1632), sought a charter from King Charles I for the territory between Massachusetts to the north and Virginia to the immediate south.


title: Maryland

text: After Baltimore died in April 1632, the charter was granted to his son, Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (1605–1675), on June 20, 1632. Officially, the new "Maryland Colony" was named in honor of Henrietta Maria of France, wife of Charles I of England. Lord Baltimore initially proposed the name "Crescentia", the land of growth or increase, but "the King proposed Terra Mariae [Mary Land], which was concluded on and Inserted in the bill."


title: Maryland

text: The original capital of Maryland was St. Mary's City, on the north shore of the Potomac River, and the county surrounding it, the first erected/created in the province, was first called Augusta Carolina, after the King, and later named St. Mary's County.


title: Maryland

text: Lord Baltimore's first settlers arrived in the new colony in March 1634, with his younger brother the Honorable Leonard Calvert (1606–1647), as first provincial Governor of Maryland. They made their first permanent settlement at St. Mary's City in what is now St. Mary's County. They purchased the site from the paramount chief of the region, who was eager to establish trade. St. Mary's became the first capital of Maryland, and remained so for 60 years until 1695. More settlers soon followed. Their tobacco crops were successful and quickly made the new colony profitable. However, given the incidence of malaria, yellow fever, and typhoid, life expectancy in Maryland was about 10 years less than in New England.


title: Maryland

text: Although Maryland was the most heavily Catholic of the English mainland colonies, the religion was still in the minority, consisting of less than 10% of the total population.


title: Maryland

text: In 1642, a number of Puritans left Virginia for Maryland and founded Providence (now called Annapolis) on the western shore of the upper Chesapeake Bay. A dispute with traders from Virginia over Kent Island in the Chesapeake led to armed conflict. In 1644, William Claiborne, a Puritan, seized Kent Island while his associate, the pro-Parliament Puritan Richard Ingle, took over St. Mary's. Both used religion as a tool to gain popular support. The two years from 1644 to 1646 when Claiborne and his Puritan associates held sway were known as "The Plundering Time". They captured Jesuit priests, imprisoned them, then sent them back to England.


title: Maryland

text: In 1646, Leonard Calvert returned with troops, recaptured St. Mary's City, and restored order. The House of Delegates passed the "Act concerning Religion" in 1649 granting religious liberty to all Trinitarian Christians.


title: Maryland

text: In 1650, the Puritans revolted against the proprietary government. "Protestants swept the Catholics out of the legislature... and religious strife returned." The Puritans set up a new government prohibiting both Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. The Puritan revolutionary government persecuted Maryland Catholics during its reign, known as the "plundering time". Mobs burned down all the original Catholic churches of southern Maryland. The Puritan rule lasted until 1658 when the Calvert family and Lord Baltimore regained proprietary control and re-enacted the Toleration Act.


title: Maryland

text: After England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, Maryland outlawed Catholicism. In 1704, the Maryland General Assembly prohibited Catholics from operating schools, limited the corporate ownership of property to hamper religious orders from expanding or supporting themselves, and encouraged the conversion of Catholic children. The celebration of the Catholic sacraments was also officially restricted. This state of affairs lasted until after the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Wealthy Catholic planters built chapels on their land to practice their religion in relative secrecy.


title: Maryland

text: Into the 18th century, individual priests and lay leaders claimed Maryland farms belonging to the Jesuits as personal property and bequeathed them in order to evade the legal restrictions on religious organizations' owning property.


title: Maryland

text: The royal charter granted Maryland the land north of the Potomac River up to the 40th parallel. A problem arose when Charles II granted a charter for Pennsylvania. The grant defined Pennsylvania's southern border as identical to Maryland's northern border, the 40th parallel. But the grant indicated that Charles II and William Penn assumed the 40th parallel would pass close to New Castle, Delaware when it falls north of Philadelphia, the site of which Penn had already selected for his colony's capital city. Negotiations ensued after the problem was discovered in 1681.


title: Maryland

text: A compromise proposed by Charles II in 1682 was undermined by Penn's receiving the additional grant of what is now Delaware. Penn successfully argued that the Maryland charter entitled Lord Baltimore only to unsettled lands, and Dutch settlement in Delaware predated his charter. The dispute remained unresolved for nearly a century, carried on by the descendants of William Penn and Lord Baltimore—the Calvert family, which controlled Maryland, and the Penn family, which controlled Pennsylvania.


title: Maryland

text: The border dispute with Pennsylvania led to Cresap's War in the 1730s. Hostilities erupted in 1730 and escalated through the first half of the decade, culminating in the deployment of military forces by Maryland in 1736 and by Pennsylvania in 1737. The armed phase of the conflict ended in May 1738 with the intervention of King George II, who compelled the negotiation of a cease-fire. A provisional agreement had been established in 1732.


title: Maryland

text: Negotiations continued until a final agreement was signed in 1760. The agreement defined the border between Maryland and Pennsylvania as the line of latitude now known as the Mason–Dixon line. Maryland's border with Delaware was based on a Transpeninsular Line and the Twelve-Mile Circle around New Castle.


title: Maryland

text: Most of the English colonists arrived in Maryland as indentured servants, and had to serve a several years' term as laborers to pay for their passage. In the early years, the line between indentured servants and African slaves or laborers was fluid, and white and black laborers commonly lived and worked together, and formed unions. Mixed-race children born to white mothers were considered free by the principle of "partus sequitur ventrem", by which children took the social status of their mothers, a principle of slave law that was adopted throughout the colonies, following Virginia in 1662. During the colonial era, families of free people of color were formed most often by unions of white women and African men.


title: Maryland

text: Many of the free black families migrated to Delaware, where land was cheaper. As the flow of indentured laborers to the colony decreased with improving economic conditions in England, planters in Maryland imported thousands more slaves and racial caste lines hardened. The economy's growth and prosperity were based on slave labor, devoted first to the production of tobacco as the commodity crop.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland was one of the thirteen colonies that revolted against British rule in the American Revolution. Near the end of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), on February 2, 1781, Maryland became the last and 13th state to approve the ratification of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, first proposed in 1776 and adopted by the Second Continental Congress in 1778, which brought into being the United States as a united, sovereign and national state. It also became the seventh state admitted to the Union after ratifying the new federal Constitution in 1788. In December 1790, Maryland donated land selected by first President George Washington to the federal government for the creation of the new national capital of Washington, D.C. The land was provided along the north shore of the Potomac River from Montgomery and Prince George's counties, as well as from Fairfax County and Alexandria on the south shore of the Potomac in Virginia; however, the land donated by the Commonwealth of Virginia was later returned to that state by the District of Columbia retrocession in 1846.


title: Maryland

text: Influenced by a changing economy, revolutionary ideals, and preaching by ministers, numerous planters in Maryland freed their slaves in the 20 years after the Revolutionary War. Across the Upper South the free black population increased from less than 1% before the war to 14% by 1810. Abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were born slaves during this time in Dorchester County and Talbot County, respectively.


title: Maryland

text: During the War of 1812, the British military attempted to capture Baltimore, which was protected by Fort McHenry. During this bombardment the song "Star-Spangled Banner" was written by Francis Scott Key; it was later adopted as the national anthem.


title: Maryland

text: The National Road (U.S. Hwy 40 today) was authorized in 1817 and ran from Baltimore to St. Louis—the first federal highway. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was the first chartered railroad in the United States. It opened its first section of track for regular operation in 1830 between Baltimore and Ellicott City, and in 1852 it became the first rail line to reach the Ohio River from the eastern seaboard.


title: Maryland

text: The state remained with the Union during the Civil War, due in significant part to demographics and Federal intervention. The 1860 census, held shortly before the outbreak of the civil war, showed that 49% of Maryland's African Americans were free blacks.


title: Maryland

text: Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks suspended the state legislature, and to help ensure the election of a new pro-union governor and legislature, President Abraham Lincoln had a number of its pro-slavery politicians arrested, including the Mayor of Baltimore, George William Brown; suspended several civil liberties, including "habeas corpus"; and ordered artillery placed on Federal Hill overlooking Baltimore. Historians debate the constitutionality of these wartime actions, and the suspension of civil liberties was later deemed illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court.


title: Maryland

text: In April 1861, Federal units and state regiments were attacked as they marched through Baltimore, sparking the Baltimore riot of 1861, the first bloodshed in the Civil War. Of the 115,000 men from Maryland who joined the military during the Civil War, 85,000, or 77%, joined the Union army, while the remainder joined the Confederate Army. The largest and most significant battle in the state was the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg. Although a tactical draw, the battle was considered a strategic Union victory and a turning point of the war.


title: Maryland

text: A new state constitution in 1864 abolished slavery and Maryland was first recognized as a "Free State" in that context. Following passage of constitutional amendments that granted voting rights to freedmen, in 1867 the state extended suffrage to non-white males.


title: Maryland

text: The Democratic Party rapidly regained power in the state from Republicans. Democrats replaced the Constitution of 1864 with the Constitution of 1867. Following the end of Reconstruction in 1877, Democrats devised means of disenfranchising blacks, initially by physical intimidation and voter fraud, later by constitutional amendments and laws. Blacks and immigrants, however, resisted Democratic Party disfranchisement efforts in the state. Maryland blacks were part of a biracial Republican coalition elected to state government in 1896–1904 and comprised 20% of the electorate.


title: Maryland

text: Compared to some other states, blacks were better established both before and after the civil war. Nearly half the black population was free before the war, and some had accumulated property. Half the population lived in cities. Literacy was high among blacks and, as Democrats crafted means to exclude them, suffrage campaigns helped reach blacks and teach them how to resist. Whites did impose racial segregation in public facilities and Jim Crow laws, which effectively lasted until the passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.


title: Maryland

text: Baltimore grew significantly during the Industrial Revolution, due in large part to its seaport and good railroad connections, attracting European immigrant labor. Many manufacturing businesses were established in the Baltimore area after the Civil War. Baltimore businessmen, including Johns Hopkins, Enoch Pratt, George Peabody, and Henry Walters, founded notable city institutions that bear their names, including respectively a university, library system, music and dance conservatory, and art museum.


title: Maryland

text: Cumberland was Maryland's second-largest city in the 19th century. Nearby supplies of natural resources along with railroads fostered its growth into a major manufacturing center.


title: Maryland

text: The Progressive Era of the late 19th and early 20th centuries brought political reforms. In a series of laws passed between 1892 and 1908, reformers worked for standard state-issued ballots (rather than those distributed and marked by the parties); obtained closed voting booths to prevent party workers from "assisting" voters; initiated primary elections to keep party bosses from selecting candidates; and had candidates listed without party symbols, which discouraged the illiterate from participating. These measures worked against ill-educated whites and blacks. Blacks resisted such efforts, with suffrage groups conducting voter education.


title: Maryland

text: Blacks defeated three efforts to disenfranchise them, making alliances with immigrants to resist various Democratic campaigns. Disenfranchisement bills in 1905, 1907, and 1911 were rebuffed, in large part because of black opposition. Blacks comprised 20% of the electorate and immigrants comprised 15%, and the legislature had difficulty devising requirements against blacks that did not also disadvantage immigrants.


title: Maryland

text: The Progressive Era also brought reforms in working conditions for Maryland's labor force. In 1902, the state regulated conditions in mines; outlawed child laborers under the age of 12; mandated compulsory school attendance; and enacted the nation's first workers' compensation law. The workers' compensation law was overturned in the courts, but was redrafted and finally enacted in 1910.


title: Maryland

text: The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 burned for more than 30 hours, destroying 1,526 buildings and spanning 70 city blocks. More than 1,231 firefighters worked to bring the blaze under control.


title: Maryland

text: With the nation's entry into World War I in 1917, new military bases such as Camp Meade, the Aberdeen Proving Ground, and the Edgewood Arsenal were established. Existing facilities, including Fort McHenry, were greatly expanded.


title: Maryland

text: After Georgia congressman William D. Upshaw criticized Maryland openly in 1923 for not passing Prohibition laws, "Baltimore Sun" editor Hamilton Owens coined the "Free State" nickname for Maryland in that context, which was popularized by H. L. Mencken in a series of newspaper editorials.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's urban and rural communities had different experiences during the Great Depression. The "Bonus Army" marched through the state in 1932 on its way to Washington, D.C. Maryland instituted its first income tax in 1937 to generate revenue for schools and welfare.


title: Maryland

text: Passenger and freight steamboat service, once important throughout Chesapeake Bay and its many tributary rivers, ended in 1962.


title: Maryland

text: Baltimore was a major war production center during World War II. The biggest operations were Bethlehem Steel's Fairfield Yard, which built Liberty ships; and Glenn Martin, an aircraft manufacturer.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland experienced population growth following World War II. Beginning in the 1960s, as suburban growth took hold around Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, the state began to take on a more mid-Atlantic culture as opposed to the traditionally Southern and Tidewater culture that previously dominated most of the state. Agricultural tracts gave way to residential communities, some of them carefully planned such as Columbia, St. Charles, and Montgomery Village. Concurrently the Interstate Highway System was built throughout the state, most notably I-95, I-695, and the Capital Beltway, altering travel patterns. In 1952, the eastern and western halves of Maryland were linked for the first time by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which replaced a nearby ferry service.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's regions experienced economic changes following WWII. Heavy manufacturing declined in Baltimore. In Maryland's four westernmost counties, industrial, railroad, and coal mining jobs declined. On the lower Eastern Shore, family farms were bought up by major concerns and large-scale poultry farms and vegetable farming became prevalent. In Southern Maryland, tobacco farming nearly vanished due to suburban development and a state tobacco buy-out program in the 1990s.


title: Maryland

text: In an effort to reverse depopulation due to the loss of working-class industries, Baltimore initiated urban renewal projects in the 1960s with Charles Center and the Baltimore World Trade Center. Some resulted in the break-up of intact residential neighborhoods, producing social volatility, and some older residential areas around the harbor have had units renovated and have become popular with new populations.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland has an area of and is comparable in overall area with Belgium []. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii [], the next smallest state. The next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland [].


title: Maryland

text: Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname "America in Miniature". It ranges from sandy dunes dotted with seagrass in the east, to low marshlands teeming with wildlife and large bald cypress near the Chesapeake Bay, to gently rolling hills of oak forests in the Piedmont Region, and pine groves in the Maryland mountains to the west.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland is bounded on its north by Pennsylvania, on its north and east by Delaware, on its east by the Atlantic Ocean, and on its south and west, across the Potomac River, by West Virginia and Virginia. The mid-portion of this latter border is interrupted by the District of Columbia, which sits on land that was originally part of Montgomery and Prince George's counties and including the town of Georgetown, Maryland. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia. (The Commonwealth of Virginia gave land south of the Potomac, including the town of Alexandria, Virginia; however, Virginia retroceded its portion in 1846). The Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore.


title: Maryland

text: Most of the state's waterways are part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, with the exceptions of a tiny portion of extreme western Garrett County (drained by the Youghiogheny River as part of the watershed of the Mississippi River), the eastern half of Worcester County (which drains into Maryland's Atlantic coastal bays), and a small portion of the state's northeast corner (which drains into the Delaware River watershed). So prominent is the Chesapeake in Maryland's geography and economic life that there has been periodic agitation to change the state's official nickname to the "Bay State", a nickname that has been used by Massachusetts for decades.


title: Maryland

text: The highest point in Maryland, with an elevation of , is Hoye Crest on Backbone Mountain, in the southwest corner of Garrett County, near the border with West Virginia, and near the headwaters of the North Branch of the Potomac River. Close to the small town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state, less than separates its borders, the Mason–Dixon line to the north, and the northwards-arching Potomac River to the south.


title: Maryland

text: Portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. For example, the Delmarva Peninsula is composed of the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the entire state of Delaware, and the two counties that make up the Eastern Shore of Virginia, whereas the westernmost counties of Maryland are considered part of Appalachia. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, though it straddles the border between the two regions.


title: Maryland

text: Earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the state's distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland. Buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland has no natural lakes, mostly due to the lack of glacial history in the area. All lakes in the state today were constructed, mostly via dams. Buckel's Bog is believed by geologists to have been a remnant of a former natural lake.


title: Maryland

text: As is typical of states on the East Coast, Maryland's plant life is abundant and healthy. A modest volume of annual precipitation helps to support many types of plants, including seagrass and various reeds at the smaller end of the spectrum to the gigantic Wye Oak, a huge example of white oak, the state tree, which can grow over tall.


title: Maryland

text: Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay and on the Delmarva Peninsula. Moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state. The Appalachian Mountains of western Maryland are home to Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests. These give way to Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests near the West Virginia border.


title: Maryland

text: Many foreign species are cultivated in the state, some as ornamentals, others as novelty species. Included among these are the crape myrtle, Italian cypress, southern magnolia, live oak in the warmer parts of the state, and even hardy palm trees in the warmer central and eastern parts of the state. USDA plant hardiness zones in the state range from Zones 5and6 in the extreme western part of the state to Zone7 in the central part, and Zone8 around the southern part of the coast, the bay area, and parts of metropolitan Baltimore. Invasive plant species, such as kudzu, tree of heaven, multiflora rose, and Japanese stiltgrass, stifle growth of endemic plant life. Maryland's state flower, the black-eyed susan, grows in abundance in wild flower groups throughout the state.


title: Maryland

text: The state harbors a considerable number of white-tailed deer, especially in the woody and mountainous west of the state, and overpopulation can become a problem. Mammals can be found ranging from the mountains in the west to the central areas and include black bears, bobcats, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, and otters.


title: Maryland

text: There is a population of rare wild (feral) horses found on Assateague Island. They are believed to be descended from horses who escaped from Spanish galleon shipwrecks. Every year during the last week of July, they are captured and swim across a shallow bay for sale at Chincoteague, Virginia, a conservation technique which ensures the tiny island is not overrun by the horses. The ponies and their sale were popularized by the children's book, "Misty of Chincoteague."


title: Maryland

text: The purebred Chesapeake Bay Retriever dog was bred specifically for water sports, hunting and search and rescue in the Chesapeake area. In 1878, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever was the first individual retriever breed recognized by the American Kennel Club. and was later adopted by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County as their mascot.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's reptile and amphibian population includes the diamondback terrapin turtle, which was adopted as the mascot of University of Maryland, College Park, as well as the threatened Eastern box turtle. The state is part of the territory of the Baltimore oriole, which is the official state bird and mascot of the MLB team the Baltimore Orioles. Aside from the oriole, 435 other species of birds have been reported from Maryland.


title: Maryland

text: The state insect is the Baltimore checkerspot butterfly, although it is not as common in Maryland as it is in the southern edge of its range.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland joined with neighboring states during the end of the 20th century to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. The bay's aquatic life and seafood industry have been threatened by development and by fertilizer and livestock waste entering the bay.


title: Maryland

text: In 2007, Forbes.com rated Maryland as the fifth "Greenest" state in the country, behind three of the Pacific States and Vermont. Maryland ranks 40th in total energy consumption nationwide, and it managed less toxic waste per capita than all but six states in 2005. In April 2007, Maryland joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) — a regional initiative, formed by all the Northeastern states, Washington, D.C., and three Canadian provinces, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In March 2017, Maryland became the first state with proven gas reserves to ban fracking by passing a law against it. Vermont has such a law, but no shale gas, and New York has such a ban, though it was made by executive order.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland has a wide array of climates, due to local variances in elevation, proximity to water, and protection from colder weather due to downslope winds.


title: Maryland

text: The eastern half of Maryland — which includes the cities of Ocean City, Salisbury, Annapolis, and the southern and eastern suburbs of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore — lies on the Atlantic Coastal Plain, with flat topography and sandy or muddy soil. This region has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cfa"), with hot, humid summers and a cool to cold winter; it falls under USDA Hardiness zone 8a.


title: Maryland

text: The Piedmont region, which includes northern and western greater Baltimore, Westminster, Gaithersburg, Frederick, and Hagerstown, has average seasonal snowfall totals generally exceeding , and, as part of USDA Hardiness zones 7b and 7a, temperatures below are less rare. From the Cumberland Valley on westward, the climate begins to transition to a humid continental climate (Köppen "Dfa").


title: Maryland

text: In western Maryland, the higher elevations of Allegany and Garrett counties, including the cities of Cumberland, Frostburg, and Oakland, display more characteristics of the humid continental zone, due in part to elevation. They fall under USDA Hardiness zones 6b and below.


title: Maryland

text: Precipitation in the state is characteristic of the East Coast. Annual rainfall ranges from with more in higher elevations. Nearly every part of Maryland receives per month of rain. Average annual snowfall varies from in the coastal areas to over in the western mountains of the state.


title: Maryland

text: Because of its location near the Atlantic Coast, Maryland is somewhat vulnerable to tropical cyclones, although the Delmarva Peninsula and the outer banks of North Carolina provide a large buffer, such that strikes from major hurricanes (category3 or above) occur infrequently. More often, Maryland gets the remnants of a tropical system that has already come ashore and released most of its energy. Maryland averages around 30–40 days of thunderstorms a year, and averages around six tornado strikes annually.


title: Maryland

text: Most of the population of Maryland lives in the central region of the state, in the Baltimore metropolitan area and Washington metropolitan area, both of which are part of the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The majority of Maryland's population is concentrated in the cities and suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C., as well as in and around Maryland's most populous city, Baltimore. Historically, these and many other Maryland cities developed along the Fall Line, the line along which rivers, brooks, and streams are interrupted by rapids and waterfalls. Maryland's capital city, Annapolis, is one exception to this pattern since it lies along the banks of the Severn River, close to where it empties into the Chesapeake Bay.


title: Maryland

text: The Eastern Shore is less populous and more rural, as are the counties of western Maryland. The two westernmost counties of Maryland, Allegany and Garrett, are mountainous and sparsely populated, resembling West Virginia and Appalachia more than they do the rest of the state. Both eastern and western Maryland are, however, dotted with cities of regional importance, such as Ocean City, Princess Anne, and Salisbury on the Eastern Shore and Cumberland, Frostburg, and Hancock in Western Maryland. Southern Maryland is still somewhat rural, but suburbanization from Washington, D.C., has encroached significantly since the 1960s; important local population centers include Lexington Park, Prince Frederick, California, and Waldorf.


title: Maryland

text: In the 2020 United States census, the United States Census Bureau found that population of Maryland was 6,185,278 people, a 7.1% increase from the 2010 United States census. The United States Census Bureau estimated that the population of Maryland was 6,045,680 on July 1, 2019, a 4.71% increase from the 2010 United States census and an increase of 2,962, from the prior year. This includes a natural increase since the last census of 269,166 (464,251 births minus 275,093 deaths) and an increase due to net migration of 116,713 people into the state. Immigration from outside the United States resulted in a net increase of 129,730 people, and migration within the country produced a net loss of 13,017 people. The center of population of Maryland is located on the county line between Anne Arundel County and Howard County, in the unincorporated community of Jessup.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's history as a border state has led it to exhibit characteristics of both the Northern and the Southern regions of the United States. Generally, rural Western Maryland between the West Virginian Panhandle and Pennsylvania has an Appalachian culture; the Southern and Eastern Shore regions of Maryland embody a Southern culture,


title: Maryland

text: while densely populated Central Maryland – radiating outward from Baltimore and Washington, D.C. – has more in common with that of the Northeast. The U.S. Census Bureau designates Maryland as one of the South Atlantic States, but it is commonly associated with the Mid-Atlantic States and Northeastern United States by other federal agencies, the media, and some residents.


title: Maryland

text: "Note: Births in the table do not add up because Hispanics are counted both by their ethnicity and by their race, giving a higher overall number."


title: Maryland

text: Since 2016, data for births of White Hispanic origin are not collected, but included in one "Hispanic" group; persons of Hispanic origin may be of any race.


title: Maryland

text: Spanish (including Spanish Creole) is the second most spoken language in Maryland, after English. The third and fourth most spoken languages are French (including Patois and Cajun) and Chinese. Other commonly spoken languages include various African languages, Korean, German, Tagalog, Russian, Vietnamese, Italian, various Asian languages, Persian, Hindi, and other Indic languages, Greek, and Arabic.


title: Maryland

text: In 1970, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Maryland's population as 17.8 percent African-American and 80.4 percent non-Hispanic White.


title: Maryland

text: African Americans form a sizable portion of the state's population, 31.1% as of 2020. Most are descendants of people transported to the area as slaves from West Africa, and many are of mixed race, including European and Native American ancestry. Concentrations of African Americans live in Baltimore City, Prince George's County, a suburb of Washington, D.C., where many work; Charles County, western parts of Baltimore County, and the southern Eastern Shore. New residents of African descent include 20th-century and later immigrants from Nigeria, particularly of the Igbo and Yoruba tribes. Maryland also hosts populations from other African and Caribbean nations. Many immigrants from the Horn of Africa have settled in Maryland, with large communities existing in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. (particularly Montgomery County and Prince George's County), and the city of Baltimore. The Greater Washington area has the largest population of Ethiopians outside of Africa. The Ethiopian community of Greater D.C. was historically based in Washington, D.C.'s Adams Morgan and Shaw neighborhoods, but as the community has grown, many Ethiopians have settled in Silver Spring. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area is also home to large Eritrean and Somali communities.


title: Maryland

text: The top reported ancestries by Maryland residents are: German (15%), Irish (11%), English (8%), American (7%), Italian (6%), and Polish (3%).


title: Maryland

text: Irish American populations can be found throughout the Baltimore area, and the Northern and Eastern suburbs of Washington, D.C., in Maryland (descendants of those who moved out to the suburbs of Washington's once predominantly Irish neighborhoods), as well as Western Maryland, where Irish immigrant laborers helped to build the B&O Railroad. Smaller but much older Irish populations can be found in Southern Maryland, with some roots dating as far back as the early Maryland colony. This population, however, still remains culturally very active and yearly festivals are held.


title: Maryland

text: A large percentage of the population of the Eastern Shore and Southern Maryland are descendants of British American ancestry. The Eastern Shore was settled by Protestants, chiefly Methodist and the southern counties were initially settled by English Catholics. Western and northern Maryland have large German-American populations. More recent European immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th century settled first in Baltimore, attracted to its industrial jobs. Many of their ethnic Italian, Polish, Czech, Lithuanian, and Greek descendants still live in the area.


title: Maryland

text: Large ethnic minorities include Eastern Europeans such as Croatians, Belarusians, Russians and Ukrainians. The shares of European immigrants born in Eastern Europe increased significantly between 1990 and 2010. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia, many immigrants from Eastern Europe came to the United States—12 percent of whom currently reside in Maryland.


title: Maryland

text: Hispanic immigrants of the later 20th century have settled in Aspen Hill, Hyattsville/Langley Park, Glenmont/Wheaton, Bladensburg, Riverdale Park, Gaithersburg, as well as Highlandtown and Greektown in East Baltimore. Salvadorans are the largest Hispanic group in Maryland. Other Hispanic groups with significant populations in the state include Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and Hondurans. Though the Salvadoran population is more concentrated in the area around Washington, D.C., and the Puerto Rican population is more concentrated in the Baltimore area, all other major Hispanic groups in the state are evenly dispersed between these two areas. Maryland has one of the most diverse Hispanic populations in the country, with significant populations from various Caribbean and Central American nations.


title: Maryland

text: Asian Americans are concentrated in the suburban counties surrounding Washington, D.C., and in Howard County, with Korean American and Taiwanese American communities in Rockville, Gaithersburg, and Germantown, and a Filipino American community in Fort Washington. Numerous Indian Americans live across the state, especially in central Maryland.


title: Maryland

text: Attracting educated Asians and Africans to the professional jobs in the region, Maryland has the fifth-largest proportions of racial minorities in the country.


title: Maryland

text: In 2006, 645,744 were counted as foreign born, which represents mainly people from Latin America and Asia. About four percent are undocumented immigrants. Maryland also has a large Korean American population. In fact, 1.7 percent are Korean, while as a whole, 6.7 percent are Asian.


title: Maryland

text: According to The Williams Institute's analysis of the 2010 U.S. census, 12,538 same-sex couples are living in Maryland, representing 5.8 same-sex couples per 1,000 households.


title: Maryland

text: In 2019, non-Hispanic white Americans were 49.8% of Maryland's population (White Americans, including White Hispanics, were 57.3%), which made Maryland a majority minority state. 50.2% of Maryland's population is non-white, or is Hispanic or Latino, the highest percentage of any state on the East Coast, and the highest percentage after the majority-minority states of Hawaii, New Mexico, Texas, California, and Nevada. By 2031, minorities are projected to become the majority of voting eligible residents of Maryland.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland has been historically prominent to American Catholic tradition because the English colony of Maryland was intended by George Calvert as a haven for English Catholics. Baltimore was the seat of the first Catholic bishop in the U.S. (1789), and Emmitsburg was the home and burial place of the first American-born citizen to be canonized, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. Georgetown University, the first Catholic University, was founded in 1789 in what was then part of Maryland (it became a part of the District of Columbia when it was created in the 1790s). The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Baltimore was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in the United States, and the Archbishop of Baltimore is, albeit without formal primacy, the United States' quasi-primate, and often a cardinal. Among the immigrants of the 19th and 20th centuries from eastern and southern Europe were many Catholics.


title: Maryland

text: Despite its historic relevance to the Catholic Church in the United States, the percentage of Catholics in the state of Maryland is below the national average of 20%. Demographically, both Protestants and those identifying with no religion are more numerous than Catholics.


title: Maryland

text: According to the Pew Research Center in 2014, 69 percent of Maryland's population identifies themselves as Christian. Nearly 52% of the adult population are Protestants. Following Protestantism, Catholicism is the second largest religious affiliation, comprising 15% percent of the population. Amish/Mennonite communities are found in St. Mary's, Garrett, and Cecil counties. Judaism is the largest non-Christian religion in Maryland, with 241,000 adherents, or four percent of the total population. Jews are numerous throughout Montgomery County and in Pikesville and Owings Mills northwest of Baltimore. An estimated 81,500 Jewish Americans live in Montgomery County, constituting approximately 10% of the total population. The Seventh-day Adventist Church's world headquarters and Ahmadiyya Muslims' national headquarters are located in Silver Spring, just outside the District of Columbia.


title: Maryland

text: Per the Public Religion Research Institute in 2020, 61 percent of Maryland's population identified with Christianity. Protestantism and Roman Catholicism continued to dominate the Christian landscape, and the Jewish community remained at 3% of the total religious population. Of the unaffiliated, the PRRI study determined their increase to 28% of the population.


title: Maryland

text: The Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that Maryland's gross state product in 2016 was $382.4billion. However, Maryland has been using Genuine Progress Indicator, an indicator of well-being, to guide the state's development, rather than relying only on growth indicators like GDP. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Maryland households are currently the wealthiest in the country, with a 2013 median household income of $72,483, which puts it ahead of New Jersey and Connecticut, which are second and third respectively. Two of Maryland's counties, Howard and Montgomery, are the second and eleventh wealthiest counties in the nation respectively. Maryland has the most millionaires per capita in 2013, with a ratio of 7.7 percent. Also, the state's poverty rate of 7.8 percent is the lowest in the country. Per capita personal income in 2006 was $43,500, fifth in the nation. As of March 2022, the state's unemployment rate was 4.6 percent.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's economy benefits from the state's proximity to the federal government in Washington, D.C., with an emphasis on technical and administrative tasks for the defense/aerospace industry and bio-research laboratories, as well as staffing of satellite government headquarters in the suburban or exurban Baltimore/Washington area. Ft. Meade serves as the headquarters of the Defense Information Systems Agency, United States Cyber Command, and the National Security Agency/Central Security Service. In addition, a number of educational and medical research institutions are located in the state. In fact, the various components of The Johns Hopkins University and its medical research facilities are now the largest single employer in the Baltimore area. Altogether, white collar technical and administrative workers comprise 25 percent of Maryland's labor force, attributable in part to nearby Maryland being a part of the Washington Metro Area where the federal government office employment is relatively high.


title: Maryland

text: Manufacturing, while large in dollar value, is highly diversified with no sub-sector contributing over 20 percent of the total. Typical forms of manufacturing include electronics, computer equipment, and chemicals. The once-mighty primary metals sub-sector, which once included what was then the largest steel factory in the world at Sparrows Point, still exists, but is pressed with foreign competition, bankruptcies, and mergers. During World War II the Glenn Martin Company (now part of Lockheed Martin) airplane factory employed some 40,000 people.


title: Maryland

text: Mining other than construction materials is virtually limited to coal, which is located in the mountainous western part of the state. The brownstone quarries in the east, which gave Baltimore and Washington much of their characteristic architecture in the mid-19th century, were once a predominant natural resource. Historically, there used to be small gold-mining operations in Maryland, some near Washington, but these no longer exist.


title: Maryland

text: One major service activity is transportation, centered on the Port of Baltimore and its related rail and trucking access. The port ranked 17th in the U.S. by tonnage in 2008. Although the port handles a wide variety of products, the most typical imports are raw materials and bulk commodities, such as iron ore, petroleum, sugar, and fertilizers, often distributed to the relatively close manufacturing centers of the inland Midwest via good overland transportation. The port also receives several brands of imported motor vehicles and is the number one auto port in the U.S.


title: Maryland

text: Baltimore City is among the top 15 largest ports in the nation, and was one of six major U.S. ports that were part of the February 2006 controversy over the Dubai Ports World deal. The state as a whole is heavily industrialized, with a booming economy and influential technology centers. Its computer industries are some of the most sophisticated in the United States, and the federal government has invested heavily in the area. Maryland is home to several large military bases and scores of high-level government jobs.


title: Maryland

text: The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal is a canal on the Eastern Shore that connects the waters of the Delaware River with those of the Chesapeake Bay, and in particular with the Port of Baltimore, carrying 40 percent of the port's ship traffic.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland has a large food-production sector. A large component of this is commercial fishing, centered in the Chesapeake Bay, but also including activity off the short Atlantic seacoast. The largest catches by species are the blue crab, oysters, striped bass, and menhaden. The Bay also has overwintering waterfowl in its wildlife refuges. The waterfowl support a tourism sector of sportsmen.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland has large areas of fertile agricultural land in its coastal and Piedmont zones, though this land use is being encroached upon by urbanization. Agriculture is oriented to dairy farming (especially in foothill and piedmont areas) for nearby large city milksheads, plus specialty perishable horticulture crops, such as cucumbers, watermelons, sweet corn, tomatoes, muskmelons, squash, and peas (Source:USDA Crop Profiles). The southern counties of the western shoreline of Chesapeake Bay are warm enough to support a tobacco cash crop zone, which has existed since early Colonial times, but declined greatly after a state government buy-out in the 1990s. There is also a large automated chicken-farming sector in the state's southeastern part; Salisbury is home to Perdue Farms. Maryland's food-processing plants are the most significant type of manufacturing by value in the state. Farming suffers from weeds as anywhere else, including an unusual multiply resistant ragweed ("Ambrosia artemisiifolia") found by Rousonelos "et al.", 2012 with both ALS- and PPO-resistances and which by 2016 had developed a third, EPSP resistance. This ragweed population is a drag on soybean cultivation and, , is the worst multiresistant weed problem in the state.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland is a major center for life sciences research and development. With more than 400 biotechnology companies located there, Maryland is the fourth largest nexus in this field in the United States.


title: Maryland

text: Institutions and government agencies with an interest in research and development located in Maryland include the Johns Hopkins University, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, more than one campus of the University System of Maryland, Goddard Space Flight Center, the United States Census Bureau, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Celera Genomics company, the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), and AstraZeneca (formerly MedImmune).


title: Maryland

text: Maryland is home to defense contractor Emergent BioSolutions, which manufactures and provides an anthrax vaccine to U.S. government military personnel.


title: Maryland

text: Tourism is popular in Maryland. Many tourists visit Baltimore, the beaches of the Eastern Shore, and the nature of western Maryland. Attractions in Baltimore include the Harborplace, the Baltimore Aquarium, Fort McHenry, as well as the Camden Yards baseball stadium. Ocean City on the Atlantic Coast has been a popular beach destination in summer, particularly since the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was built in 1952 connecting the Eastern Shore to the more populated Maryland cities. The state capital of Annapolis offers sites such as the state capitol building, the historic district, and the waterfront. Maryland also has several sites of interest to military history, given Maryland's role in the American Civil War and in the War of 1812. Other attractions include the historic and picturesque towns along the Chesapeake Bay, such as Saint Mary's, Maryland's first colonial settlement and original capital.


title: Maryland

text: As of 2017, the top two health insurers including all types of insurance were CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield with 47% market share followed by UnitedHealth Group at 15%.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland has experimented with healthcare payment reforms, notably beginning in the 1970s with an all-payer rate setting program regulated by the Health Services Cost Review Commission. In 2014, it switched to a global budget revenue system, whereby hospitals receive a capitated payment to care for their population.


title: Maryland

text: The Maryland Department of Transportation oversees most transportation in the state through its various administration-level agencies. The independent Maryland Transportation Authority maintains and operates the state's eight toll facilities.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's Interstate highways include of Interstate95 (I-95), which enters the northeast portion of the state, travels through Baltimore, and becomes part of the eastern section of the Capital Beltway to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. I-68 travels , connecting the western portions of the state to I-70 at the small town of Hancock. I-70 enters from Pennsylvania north of Hancock and continues east for to Baltimore, connecting Hagerstown and Frederick along the way.


title: Maryland

text: I-83 has in Maryland and connects Baltimore to southern central Pennsylvania (Harrisburg and York, Pennsylvania). Maryland also has an portion of I-81 that travels through the state near Hagerstown. I-97, fully contained within Anne Arundel County and the shortest () one- or two-digit interstate highway in the contiguous US, connects the Baltimore area to the Annapolis area.


title: Maryland

text: There are also several auxiliary Interstate highways in Maryland. Among them are two beltways encircling the major cities of the region: I-695, the McKeldin (Baltimore) Beltway, which encircles Baltimore; and a portion of I-495, the Capital Beltway, which encircles Washington, D.C. I-270, which connects the Frederick area with Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia through major suburbs to the northwest of Washington, is a major commuter route and is as wide as fourteen lanes at points. I-895, also known as the Harbor Tunnel Thruway, provides an alternate route to I-95 across the Baltimore Harbor.


title: Maryland

text: Both I-270 and the Capital Beltway were extremely congested; however, the Intercounty Connector (ICC; MD200) has alleviated some congestion over time. Construction of the ICC was a major part of the campaign platform of former Governor Robert Ehrlich, who was in office from 2003 until 2007, and of Governor Martin O'Malley, who succeeded him. I-595, which is an unsigned highway concurrent with US50/US301, is the longest unsigned interstate in the country and connects Prince George's County and Washington, D.C. with Annapolis and the Eastern Shore via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.


title: Maryland

text: Maryland also has a state highway system that contains routes numbered from 2through 999, however most of the higher-numbered routes are either unsigned or are relatively short. Major state highways include Routes 2 (Governor Ritchie Highway/Solomons Island Road/Southern Maryland Blvd.), 4 (Pennsylvania Avenue/Southern Maryland Blvd./Patuxent Beach Road/St. Andrew's Church Road), 5 (Branch Avenue/Leonardtown Road/Point Lookout Road), 32, 45 (York Road), 97 (Georgia Avenue), 100 (Paul T. Pitcher Memorial Highway), 210 (Indian Head Highway), 235 (Three Notch Road), 295 (Baltimore-Washington Parkway), 355 (Wisconsin Avenue/Rockville Pike/Frederick Road), 404 (Queen Anne Highway/ Shore Highway), and 650 (New Hampshire Avenue).


title: Maryland

text: Maryland's largest airport is Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, more commonly referred to as BWI. The airport is named for the Baltimore-born Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American Supreme Court justice. The only other airports with commercial service are at Hagerstown and Salisbury.


title: Maryland

text: The Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. are also served by the other two airports in the region, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and Dulles International Airport, both in Northern Virginia. The College Park Airport is the nation's oldest, founded in 1909, and is still used. Wilbur Wright trained military aviators at this location.


title: Maryland

text: Amtrak trains, including the high-speed Acela Express serve Baltimore's Penn Station, BWI Airport, New Carrollton, and Aberdeen along the Washington, D.C. to Boston Northeast Corridor. In addition, train service is provided to Rockville and Cumberland by Amtrak's Washington, D.C., to Chicago Capitol Limited.