title: Judy Greer

text: In 2015, Greer appeared in two major film franchises—"Jurassic World", and the Marvel Cinematic Universe entry, "Ant-Man". In "Jurassic World", Greer played the mother of two of the film's protagonists, Gray and Zach. The film was a massive success at the box-office, grossing $1.670 billion worldwide, and earned positive reviews. In "Ant-Man", Greer played Maggie, the ex-wife of the film's titular hero, played by Paul Rudd. The film was another critical and commercial success, grossing $519.3 million worldwide. Greer subsequently reprised her role in the sequel "Ant-Man and the Wasp" (2018). Following a supporting role as Lily Tomlin's love interest in Paul Weitz's critically acclaimed comedy-drama "Grandma", Greer took on a leading role in Jamie Babbit's dark comedy "Addicted to Fresno", in which Natasha Lyonne and she play sisters who work as housekeepers in a hotel who find themselves in trouble when Greer's character accidentally kills a guest. While the film itself received largely negative reviews, Greer's performance drew praise from critics. Jason Bailey of "FlavorWire" asserted that Greer and Lyonne "anchor [the film] with a priceless good sister/bad sister dynamic [...] Greer, as a bitter burnout, puts a sharp little spin on every line, turning each into a little dagger [...]"


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer also made appearances in the Walt Disney Studios science-fiction film "Tomorrowland" and the comedy "Entourage" (both 2015), based on the HBO television series of the same name. Greer's only releases of 2016 were the little-seen dramas "All We Had" and "Ordinary World", neither of which left an impression on critics. That same year, she also provided the voice of Beep in the Netflix children's animated programs "Ask the StoryBots" and "StoryBots Super Songs". Greer's first two films of 2017—the comedy-dramas "Lemon" and "Wilson"—held their world premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. Greer then reprised her motion-capture role as Cornelia in the sequel "War for the Planet of the Apes". Like its predecessor, the film was a critical and commercial success, grossing $490.7 million worldwide. After playing the daughter of Robert Redford's character in the Netflix drama "Our Souls at Night", Greer starred in the comedy "Adventures in Public School", in which she played a mother whose son enters public after years of her homeschooling. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Greer received praise for her performance. Sherri Linden of "The Hollywood Reporter" highlighted Greer's "long-proven down-to-earth magic," while Dennis Harvey of "Variety" remarked that "Greer proves a resourceful comedienne, as usual [...]"


title: Judy Greer

text: That same year, Greer made her feature-film directorial debut in the comedy-drama "A Happening of Monumental Proportions", which depicts one day in the lives of students and staff at a Los Angeles private school. In an interview with "Variety", Greer discussed her motivations towards making the film: "I wanted to tell a story where adults act like kids and kids act like adults [...] As I age I'm noticing that more and more, as we see our kids pointing things out to us that we really should know ourselves, you start to realize that you and your adult friends are king of acting like idiots sometimes. We’re regressing, clawing at the walls as if to say, I don't want to grow up." The film featured actors Allison Janney, Katie Holmes, Bradley Whitford, Jennifer Garner (Greer's co-star from "13 Going on 30"), and rapper Common, and received largely negative reviews from critics.


title: Judy Greer

text: In 2018, Greer first played a supporting role in Clint Eastwood's biographical drama "", as the mother of U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Spencer Stone. As part of an overall negative response, Tim Grierson of "ScreenDaily" lamented that Greer and co-star Jenna Fischer were "trapped playing supportive-parent clichés." Greer followed with Jim Loach's comedy-drama "Measure of a Man". Mick LaSalle of the "San Francisco Chronicle" felt she was "wasted" in the role of a mother whose teenage son is experiencing bullying. Greer co-starred in the biographical comedy "Driven", in which she played the wife of Jason Sudeikis' character, a man who gets busted by the FBI for trying to smuggle cocaine and subsequently becomes an informant. The film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. Guy Lodge of "Variety" remarked that Greer was "reliably game in a princess-to-patsy part," while Boyd Van Hoeij of "The Hollywood Reporter" felt that Greer was "especially good" in a scene where she finds a wire on her husband.


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer then co-starred opposite Jamie Lee Curtis in "Halloween" (2018), a direct sequel to John Carpenter's original 1978 horror film, in which she played Karen Nelson, the daughter of Laurie Strode. The film grossed $255.6 million worldwide, breaking numerous box-office records, most notably for having the second-highest opening weekend in the month of October and for being the highest-grossing film of the franchise. "Halloween" was also well received by critics; Eric Kohn of "IndieWire" felt that while Greer was "underutilized" in the film, she "nevertheless provides a warm antidote to Curtis’ stern resolve", while Jonathan Barkan of "Dread Central" considered Greer's role to be "vital" to the story, and that she played it "wonderfully." Several media outlets considered a scene where Greer's character feigns weakness only to lure Michael Myers and shoot him to be one of the film's highlights. Greer starred in the Showtime comedy-drama series "Kidding" (2018–2020), opposite Jim Carrey, playing his estranged ex-wife. Karen Han of "Vox" credited the show's success partly due to its "uniformly terrific performances, particularly Greer's [...]" Greer has also provided the voice of the titular character, Luna, in the PBS children's animated television series "Let's Go Luna!".


title: Judy Greer

text: In 2019, Greer starred opposite Zoey Deutch in the comedy-drama "Buffaloed", playing a hairdresser whose daughter (Deutch) becomes a debt collector. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival to positive reviews. Kristy Strouse of "Film Inquiry" remarked, "Greer, who has proven to always be counted on in any role, is wonderful", and considered her character's relationship with Deutch's character to be "compelling", while Carla Renata of "The Curvy Film Critic" felt that Greer "flips her comedy prowess upside down while tackling a more serious role with verve and power." Greer then appeared in Richard Linklater's comedy-drama "Where'd You Go, Bernadette", starring Cate Blanchett, and the family comedy film "Playing with Fire", in which she played the love interest of John Cena's character. Neither film was particularly successful with critics nor audiences. For the latter, Steve Davis of the "Austin Chronicle" bemoaned that "As for Greer's turn [...] she's given the dubious honor of reciting its most memorable – and not in a good way – line, one dispensing advice about child-rearing..."


title: Judy Greer

text: In 2020, Greer first featured in comedy-drama "Uncle Frank", about a gay man living in the 1970s who confronts his past. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews. Greer then appeared in the musical romantic comedy "Valley Girl", a remake of the 1983 film of the same name, in which she played Julie Richman's mother, in a role originated by Colleen Camp. Greer next guest starred in an episode of the Hulu horror anthology series "Into the Dark". In the episode "Good Boy", Greer took on the lead role of Maggie, a woman who adopts an emotional support dog that murders people who escalate Maggie's anxiety. Matt Donato of "Slashfilm" considered it to be one of the "stronger" episodes in the series, praising it for not "shov[ing] [Greer] into an ancillary role", and stated that Greer "sells her character's midlife crisis and eventual lovestruck relationship with Reuben [...] Greer evokes the blackest comedy notes as she tiptoes around police investigations and scolds Reuben for devouring her problems."


title: Judy Greer

text: In 2021, Greer first starred in the comedy "Lady of the Manor", alongside Melanie Lynskey, Ryan Phillippe, and Justin Long, who made his directorial debut in the film. Greer played Lady Wadsworth, a ghost who resides in a historic mansion, where Lynskey's character is employed. The film premiered at the Gasparilla International Film Festival. Despite critics largely dismissing the comedy, Greer's performance earned praise. Angie Han of "The Hollywood Reporter" found Greer's chemistry with Lynskey to be "warm and genuine", while Sarah Bea Milner of "Screen Rant" remarked that "Greer plays against type, mainly being the straight character to Lynskey's over-the-top antics [...] Greer imparts a lot of personality on a role that easily could have felt stilted or wooden in less capable hands." Greer next provided the voice of Martha Washington in Netflix's adult animated comedy "", which received negative reviews from critics.


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer then reprised her role as Karen Nelson in "Halloween Kills", which takes place the same night as its predecessor. The film premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, grossing $131.6 million worldwide. Brian Truitt of "USA Today" considered the film to be a step back in the franchise, but was nonetheless impressed by Greer's performance, "with Karen proving herself worthy of the Strode name." Greer's films of 2022—"Three Months", "Family Squares", and "Hollywood Stargirl"—were released directly to streaming services and were positively received by critics. In the lattermost, Greer played Ana Carraway, the mother of young singer Susan "Stargirl" Carraway, having replaced actress Sara Arrington. Courtney Howard of "Variety" commended Greer for bringing "depth and dimension to Ana, providing a nuanced sense of parental guilt in balancing dreams with pragmatic reality." Greer also lent her voice to the Netflix animated film "My Father's Dragon", which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival.


title: Judy Greer

text: That same year Greer played supporting roles in two miniseries—"The Thing About Pam" and "The First Lady"—having received praise for her respective performances. In "The Thing About Pam", Greer portrayed the real-life Leah Askey, the Lincoln County prosecutor who tried Russ Faria twice for the murder of his wife, Betsy, which was actually committed by neighbor Pam Hupp, portrayed by Renée Zellweger. Liam Matthews of "TVGuide" felt that Greer "perfectly played [Askey] with spiteful ineptitude," whereas Gwen Ihnat of "The A.V. Club" described Greer's performance as "uncharacteristically wily [...] refusing to admit that she may have fingered the wrong guy and crafting any number of implausible theories to make that accusation stick. The series garnered strong ratings for NBC, and Greer received a Hollywood Critics Association award nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Broadcast Network or Cable Limited Series. In Showtime's "The First Lady", Greer replaced Pamela Adlon as Nancy Howe, the personal confident of First Lady Betty Ford, portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer. While the series received mixed reviews, Meghan O'Keefe published an article on "Decider" asserting that Greer "[almost] single-handedly" saved the series, further stating that "Greer might be the only actor in the whole cast who is able to make the didactic, obvious dialogue sound natural and fun."


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer starred in the Hulu comedy series "Reboot" (2022–present), replacing Leslie Bibb as Bree Marie Jensen, a former sitcom actress who subsequently reprises her role when the series gets rebooted. The series premiered to positive reviews, with Greer receiving considerable praise for her performance. Tom Long of "The Detroit News" remarked that "All the actors are in fine form but Greer still manages to stand out, building a Bree that’s self-involved and silly but still a bit sexy and warm." Carrie Wittmer of "Uproxx" commented on how Greer was given the opportunity to play a substantial leading role as opposed to an insignificant supporting role, writing "While Greer’s all-consuming warmth and vitality give even the dullest [...] movie a lifeline, Greer is consistently underused, with roles that barely scratch the surface of what she’s capable of or roles that almost do but not quite [...] As Bree Marie Jensen, Greer is doing what she does best: being both confident and anxious, fast-talking in her signature high, comforting voice, and bouncing off her co-stars."


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer will star in the sports drama film "Flint Strong". Greer also joined the cast of the HBO miniseries "The White House Plumbers", which depicts the Watergate scandal. Greer was cast as Fran Liddy, the wife of G. Gordon Liddy (Justin Theroux).


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer is married to Dean E. Johnsen, an executive producer of "Real Time with Bill Maher". She is stepmother to Johnsen's two children from his previous marriage. The couple resides in Los Angeles.


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer grew up Catholic, although at the age of 10, she convinced her parents to let her go to a Presbyterian church, claiming that she thought she would be closer to God there. The real reason was that she thought the boys were cuter at that church. During a 2014 interview, Greer stated that she is no longer a practicing Catholic.


title: Judy Greer

text: In 2014, she told "Glamour", "I had been wanting to try to learn how to meditate, and I did research on the different types of meditation. TM seemed the easiest, and I liked that it wasn't religious in any way."


title: Judy Greer

text: Greer is a member of the board of directors of Project Chimps, a sanctuary for former research chimpanzees.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Oceania in the west and the Americas in the east.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: At in area (as defined with a southern Antarctic border), this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of Earth's water surface and about 32% of its total surface area, larger than Earth's entire land area combined . The centers of both the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere, as well as the oceanic pole of inaccessibility are in the Pacific Ocean. Ocean circulation (caused by the Coriolis effect) subdivides it into two largely independent volumes of water, which meet at the equator: the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean. The Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Its mean depth is . Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, located in the western north Pacific, is the deepest known point in the world, reaching a depth of . The Pacific also contains the deepest point in the Southern Hemisphere, the Horizon Deep in the Tonga Trench, at . The third deepest point on Earth, the Sirena Deep, is also located in the Mariana Trench.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The western Pacific has many major marginal seas, including but not limited to the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Philippine Sea, the Coral Sea, Java Sea and the Tasman Sea.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In the early 16th century, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and sighted the great "Southern Sea" which he named (in Spanish). Afterwards, the ocean's current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favorable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it , which in both Portuguese and Spanish means 'peaceful sea'.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Across the continents of Asia, Australia and the Americas, more than 25,000 islands, large and small, rise above the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Multiple islands were the shells of erstwhile active volcanoes, that have lain dormant for thousands of years. Close to the equator through vast areas of blue ocean are a dot of atolls that have over intervals of time been formed by seamounts as a result of tiny coral islands strung in a ring within surroundings of a central lagoon.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Modern humans first reached the western Pacific in the Paleolithic, at around 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. Originating from a southern coastal human migration out of Africa, they reached East Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, the Philippines, New Guinea, and then Australia by making the sea crossing of at least between Sundaland and Sahul. It is not known with any certainty what level of maritime technology was used by these groupsthe presumption is that they used large bamboo rafts which may have been equipped with some sort of sail. The reduction in favourable winds for a crossing to Sahull after 58,000 B.P. fits with the dating of the settlement of Australia, with no later migrations in the prehistoric period. The seafaring abilities of pre-Austronesian residents of Island South-east Asia are confirmed by the settlement of Buka by 32,000 B.P. and Manus by 25,000 B.P. Journeys of and are involved, respectively.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The descendants of these migrations today are the East Asian peoples, the Negritos, Melanesians, and Indigenous Australians). Their populations in maritime Southeast Asia, coastal New Guinea, and Island Melanesia later intermarried with the incoming Austronesian settlers from Taiwan and the northern Philippines, but also earlier groups associated with Austroasiatic-speakers, resulting in the modern peoples of Island Southeast Asia and Oceania.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: A later seaborne migration is the Neolithic Austronesian expansion of the Austronesian peoples. Austronesians originated from the island of Taiwan c. 3000-1500 BCE. They are associated with distinctive maritime sailing technologies (notably outrigger boats, catamarans, lashed-lug boats, and the crab claw sail)it is likely that the progressive development of these technologies were related to the later steps of settlement into Near and Remote Oceania. Starting at around 2200 BCE, Austronesians sailed southwards to settle the Philippines. From, probably, the Bismarck Archipelago they crossed the western Pacific to reach the Marianas Islands by 1500 BCE, as well as Palau and Yap by 1000 BCE. They were the first humans to reach Remote Oceania, and the first to cross vast distances of open water. They also continued spreading southwards and settling the rest of Maritime Southeast Asia, reaching Indonesia and Malaysia by 1500 BCE, and further west to Madagascar and the Comoros in the Indian Ocean by around 500 CE. More recently, it is suggested that Austronesians expanded already earlier, arriving in the Philippines already in 7000 BCE. Additional earlier migrations into Insular Southeast Asia, associated with Austroasiatic-speakers from Mainland Southeast Asia, are estimated to have taken place already in 15000 BCE.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: At around 1300 to 1200 BCE, a branch of the Austronesian migrations known as the Lapita culture reached the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and New Caledonia. From there, they settled Tonga and Samoa by 900 to 800 BCE. Some also back-migrated northwards in 200 BCE to settle the islands of eastern Micronesia (including the Carolines, the Marshall Islands, and Kiribati), mixing with earlier Austronesian migrations in the region. This remained the furthest extent of the Austronesian expansion into Polynesia until around 700 CE when there was another surge of island exploration. They reached the Cook Islands, Tahiti, and the Marquesas by 700 CE; Hawaii by 900 CE; Rapa Nui by 1000 CE; and finally New Zealand by 1200 CE. Austronesians may have also reached as far as the Americas, although evidence for this remains inconclusive.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The first contact of European navigators with the western edge of the Pacific Ocean was made by the Portuguese expeditions of António de Abreu and Francisco Serrão, via the Lesser Sunda Islands, to the Maluku Islands, in 1512, and with Jorge Álvares's expedition to southern China in 1513, both ordered by Afonso de Albuquerque from Malacca.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The eastern side of the ocean was encountered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and reached a new ocean. He named it "Mar del Sur" (literally, "Sea of the South" or "South Sea") because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In 1520, navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew were the first to cross the Pacific in recorded history. They were part of a Spanish expedition to the Spice Islands that would eventually result in the first world circumnavigation. Magellan called the ocean "Pacífico" (or "Pacific" meaning, "peaceful") because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the "Sea of Magellan" in his honor until the eighteenth century. Magellan stopped at one uninhabited Pacific island before stopping at Guam in March 1521. Although Magellan himself died in the Philippines in 1521, Spanish navigator Juan Sebastián Elcano led the remains of the expedition back to Spain across the Indian Ocean and round the Cape of Good Hope, completing the first world circumnavigation in 1522. Sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions encountered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In 1564, five Spanish ships carrying 379 soldiers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi, and colonized the Philippines and Mariana Islands. For the remainder of the 16th century, Spain maintained military and mercantile control, with ships sailing from Mexico and Peru across the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines via Guam, and establishing the Spanish East Indies. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries, linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history. Spanish expeditions also arrived at Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Later, in the quest for Terra Australis ("the [great] Southern Land"), Spanish explorations in the 17th century, such as the expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, arrived at the Pitcairn and Vanuatu archipelagos, and sailed the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, named after navigator Luís Vaz de Torres. Dutch explorers, sailing around southern Africa, also engaged in exploration and trade; Willem Janszoon, made the first completely documented European landing in Australia (1606), in Cape York Peninsula, and Abel Janszoon Tasman circumnavigated and landed on parts of the Australian continental coast and arrived at Tasmania and New Zealand in 1642.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In the 16th and 17th centuries, Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a "mare clausum"—a sea closed to other naval powers. As the only known entrance from the Atlantic, the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent the entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western side of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The 18th century marked the beginning of major exploration by the Russians in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, such as the First Kamchatka expedition and the Great Northern Expedition, led by the Danish Russian navy officer Vitus Bering. Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest, reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and colonized Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest. In 1768, Pierre-Antoine Véron, a young astronomer accompanying Louis Antoine de Bougainville on his voyage of exploration, established the width of the Pacific with precision for the first time in history. One of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by European powers, and later Japan and the United States. Significant contributions to oceanographic knowledge were made by the voyages of HMS "Beagle" in the 1830s, with Charles Darwin aboard; HMS "Challenger" during the 1870s; the USS "Tuscarora" (1873–76); and the German "Gazelle" (1874–76).


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In Oceania, France obtained a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853, respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro negotiated the incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888. By occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations. By 1900 nearly all Pacific islands were in control of Britain, France, United States, Germany, Japan, and Chile.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Although the United States gained control of Guam and the Philippines from Spain in 1898, Japan controlled most of the western Pacific by 1914 and occupied many other islands during the Pacific War; however, by the end of that war, Japan was defeated and the U.S. Pacific Fleet was the virtual master of the ocean. The Japanese-ruled Northern Mariana Islands came under the control of the United States. Since the end of World War II, many former colonies in the Pacific have become independent states.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Pacific separates Asia and Australia from the Americas. It may be further subdivided by the equator into northern (North Pacific) and southern (South Pacific) portions. It extends from the Antarctic region in the South to the Arctic in the north. The Pacific Ocean encompasses approximately one-third of the Earth's surface, having an area of — larger than Earth's entire landmass combined, .


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Extending approximately from the Bering Sea in the Arctic to the northern extent of the circumpolar Southern Ocean at 60°S (older definitions extend it to Antarctica's Ross Sea), the Pacific reaches its greatest east–west width at about 5°N latitude, where it stretches approximately from Indonesia to the coast of Colombia—halfway around the world, and more than five times the diameter of the Moon. Its geographic center is in eastern Kiribati south of Kiritimati, just west from Starbuck Island at . The lowest known point on Earth—the Mariana Trench—lies below sea level. Its average depth is , putting the total water volume at roughly .


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Due to the effects of plate tectonics, the Pacific Ocean is currently shrinking by roughly per year on three sides, roughly averaging a year. By contrast, the Atlantic Ocean is increasing in size.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Along the Pacific Ocean's irregular western margins lie many seas, the largest of which are the Celebes Sea, Coral Sea, East China Sea (East Sea), Philippine Sea, Sea of Japan, South China Sea (South Sea), Sulu Sea, Tasman Sea, and Yellow Sea (West Sea of Korea). The Indonesian Seaway (including the Strait of Malacca and Torres Strait) joins the Pacific and the Indian Ocean to the west, and Drake Passage and the Strait of Magellan link the Pacific with the Atlantic Ocean on the east. To the north, the Bering Strait connects the Pacific with the Arctic Ocean.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: As the Pacific straddles the 180th meridian, the "West Pacific" (or "western Pacific", near Asia) is in the Eastern Hemisphere, while the "East Pacific" (or "eastern Pacific", near the Americas) is in the Western Hemisphere.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Southern Pacific Ocean harbors the Southeast Indian Ridge crossing from south of Australia turning into the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge (north of the South Pole) and merges with another ridge (south of South America) to form the East Pacific Rise which also connects with another ridge (south of North America) which overlooks the Juan de Fuca Ridge.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: For most of Magellan's voyage from the Strait of Magellan to the Philippines, the explorer indeed found the ocean peaceful; however, the Pacific is not always peaceful. Many tropical storms batter the islands of the Pacific. The lands around the Pacific Rim are full of volcanoes and often affected by earthquakes. Tsunamis, caused by underwater earthquakes, have devastated many islands and in some cases destroyed entire towns.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Martin Waldseemüller map of 1507 was the first to show the Americas separating two distinct oceans. Later, the Diogo Ribeiro map of 1529 was the first to show the Pacific at about its proper size.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Pacific Ocean has most of the islands in the world. There are about 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The islands entirely within the Pacific Ocean can be divided into three main groups known as Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia. Micronesia, which lies north of the equator and west of the International Date Line, includes the Mariana Islands in the northwest, the Caroline Islands in the center, the Marshall Islands to the east and the islands of Kiribati in the southeast.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Melanesia, to the southwest, includes New Guinea, the world's second largest island after Greenland and by far the largest of the Pacific islands. The other main Melanesian groups from north to south are the Bismarck Archipelago, the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The largest area, Polynesia, stretching from Hawaii in the north to New Zealand in the south, also encompasses Tuvalu, Tokelau, Samoa, Tonga and the Kermadec Islands to the west, the Cook Islands, Society Islands and Austral Islands in the center, and the Marquesas Islands, Tuamotu, Mangareva Islands, and Easter Island to the east.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Islands in the Pacific Ocean are of four basic types: continental islands, high islands, coral reefs and uplifted coral platforms. Continental islands lie outside the andesite line and include New Guinea, the islands of New Zealand, and the Philippines. Some of these islands are structurally associated with nearby continents. High islands are of volcanic origin, and many contain active volcanoes. Among these are Bougainville, Hawaii, and the Solomon Islands.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The coral reefs of the South Pacific are low-lying structures that have built up on basaltic lava flows under the ocean's surface. One of the most dramatic is the Great Barrier Reef off northeastern Australia with chains of reef patches. A second island type formed of coral is the uplifted coral platform, which is usually slightly larger than the low coral islands. Examples include Banaba (formerly Ocean Island) and Makatea in the Tuamotu group of French Polynesia.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The volume of the Pacific Ocean, representing about 50.1 percent of the world's oceanic water, has been estimated at some . Surface water temperatures in the Pacific can vary from , the freezing point of seawater, in the poleward areas to about near the equator. Salinity also varies latitudinally, reaching a maximum of 37 parts per thousand in the southeastern area. The water near the equator, which can have a salinity as low as 34 parts per thousand, is less salty than that found in the mid-latitudes because of abundant equatorial precipitation throughout the year. The lowest counts of less than 32 parts per thousand are found in the far north as less evaporation of seawater takes place in these frigid areas. The motion of Pacific waters is generally clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere (the North Pacific gyre) and counter-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The North Equatorial Current, driven westward along latitude 15°N by the trade winds, turns north near the Philippines to become the warm Japan or Kuroshio Current.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Turning eastward at about 45°N, the Kuroshio forks and some water moves northward as the Aleutian Current, while the rest turns southward to rejoin the North Equatorial Current. The Aleutian Current branches as it approaches North America and forms the base of a counter-clockwise circulation in the Bering Sea. Its southern arm becomes the chilled slow, south-flowing California Current. The South Equatorial Current, flowing west along the equator, swings southward east of New Guinea, turns east at about 50°S, and joins the main westerly circulation of the South Pacific, which includes the Earth-circling Antarctic Circumpolar Current. As it approaches the Chilean coast, the South Equatorial Current divides; one branch flows around Cape Horn and the other turns north to form the Peru or Humboldt Current.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The climate patterns of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres generally mirror each other. The trade winds in the southern and eastern Pacific are remarkably steady while conditions in the North Pacific are far more varied with, for example, cold winter temperatures on the east coast of Russia contrasting with the milder weather off British Columbia during the winter months due to the preferred flow of ocean currents.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In the tropical and subtropical Pacific, the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects weather conditions. To determine the phase of ENSO, the most recent three-month sea surface temperature average for the area approximately to the southeast of Hawaii is computed, and if the region is more than above or below normal for that period, then an El Niño or La Niña is considered in progress.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In the tropical western Pacific, the monsoon and the related wet season during the summer months contrast with dry winds in the winter which blow over the ocean from the Asian landmass. Worldwide, tropical cyclone activity peaks in late summer, when the difference between temperatures aloft and sea surface temperatures is the greatest; however, each particular basin has its own seasonal patterns. On a worldwide scale, May is the least active month, while September is the most active month. November is the only month in which all the tropical cyclone basins are active. The Pacific hosts the two most active tropical cyclone basins, which are the northwestern Pacific and the eastern Pacific. Pacific hurricanes form south of Mexico, sometimes striking the western Mexican coast and occasionally the southwestern United States between June and October, while typhoons forming in the northwestern Pacific moving into southeast and east Asia from May to December. Tropical cyclones also form in the South Pacific basin, where they occasionally impact island nations.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In the arctic, icing from October to May can present a hazard for shipping while persistent fog occurs from June to December. A climatological low in the Gulf of Alaska keeps the southern coast wet and mild during the winter months. The Westerlies and associated jet stream within the Mid-Latitudes can be particularly strong, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, due to the temperature difference between the tropics and Antarctica, which records the coldest temperature readings on the planet. In the Southern hemisphere, because of the stormy and cloudy conditions associated with extratropical cyclones riding the jet stream, it is usual to refer to the Westerlies as the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Shrieking Sixties according to the varying degrees of latitude.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The ocean was first mapped by Abraham Ortelius; he called it Maris Pacifici following Ferdinand Magellan's description of it as "a pacific sea" during his circumnavigation from 1519 to 1522. To Magellan, it seemed much more calm (pacific) than the Atlantic.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The andesite line is the most significant regional distinction in the Pacific. A petrologic boundary, it separates the deeper, mafic igneous rock of the Central Pacific Basin from the partially submerged continental areas of felsic igneous rock on its margins. The andesite line follows the western edge of the islands off California and passes south of the Aleutian arc, along the eastern edge of the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Japan, the Mariana Islands, the Solomon Islands, and New Zealand's North Island.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The dissimilarity continues northeastward along the western edge of the Andes Cordillera along South America to Mexico, returning then to the islands off California. Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, New Guinea, and New Zealand lie outside the andesite line.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Within the closed loop of the andesite line are most of the deep troughs, submerged volcanic mountains, and oceanic volcanic islands that characterize the Pacific basin. Here basaltic lavas gently flow out of rifts to build huge dome-shaped volcanic mountains whose eroded summits form island arcs, chains, and clusters. Outside the andesite line, volcanism is of the explosive type, and the Pacific Ring of Fire is the world's foremost belt of explosive volcanism. The Ring of Fire is named after the several hundred active volcanoes that sit above the various subduction zones.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Pacific Ocean is the only ocean which is mostly bounded by subduction zones. Only the Antarctic and Australian coasts have no nearby subduction zones.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Pacific Ocean was born 750 million years ago at the breakup of Rodinia, although it is generally called the Panthalassa until the breakup of Pangea, about 200 million years ago. The oldest Pacific Ocean floor is only around 180 Ma old, with older crust subducted by now.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The Pacific Ocean contains several long seamount chains, formed by hotspot volcanism. These include the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain and the Louisville Ridge.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The exploitation of the Pacific's mineral wealth is hampered by the ocean's great depths. In shallow waters of the continental shelves off the coasts of Australia and New Zealand, petroleum and natural gas are extracted, and pearls are harvested along the coasts of Australia, Japan, Papua New Guinea, Nicaragua, Panama, and the Philippines, although in sharply declining volume in some cases.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Fish are an important economic asset in the Pacific. The shallower shoreline waters of the continents and the more temperate islands yield herring, salmon, sardines, snapper, swordfish, and tuna, as well as shellfish. Overfishing has become a serious problem in some areas. For example, catches in the rich fishing grounds of the Okhotsk Sea off the Russian coast have been reduced by at least half since the 1990s as a result of overfishing.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: The quantity of small plastic fragments floating in the north-east Pacific Ocean increased a hundredfold between 1972 and 2012. The ever-growing Great Pacific garbage patch between California and Japan is three times the size of France. An estimated 80,000 metric tons of plastic inhabit the patch, totaling 1.8 trillion pieces.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Marine pollution is a generic term for the harmful entry into the ocean of chemicals or particles. The main culprits are those using the rivers for disposing of their waste. The rivers then empty into the ocean, often also bringing chemicals used as fertilizers in agriculture. The excess of oxygen-depleting chemicals in the water leads to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: Marine debris, also known as marine litter, is human-created waste that has ended up floating in a lake, sea, ocean, or waterway. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and coastlines, frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In addition, the Pacific Ocean has served as the crash site of satellites, including Mars 96, Fobos-Grunt, and Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: From 1946 to 1958, Marshall Islands served as the Pacific Proving Grounds for the United States and was the site of 67 nuclear tests on various atolls. Several nuclear weapons were lost in the Pacific Ocean, including one-megaton bomb lost during the 1965 Philippine Sea A-4 incident.


title: Pacific Ocean

text: In 2021, the discharge of radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean over a course of 30 years was approved by the Japanese Cabinet. The Cabinet concluded the radioactive water would have been diluted to drinkable standard. Apart from dumping, leakage of tritium into the Pacific was estimated to be between 20 and 40 trillion Bqs from 2011 to 2013, according to the Fukushima plant.


title: Gordon Brown

text: James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony Blair's government from 1997 to 2007, and was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1983 to 2015, first for Dunfermline East and later for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. He is the most recent Labour politician as well as the most recent Scottish politician to hold the office of prime minister.


title: Gordon Brown

text: A doctoral graduate, Brown studied history at the University of Edinburgh, where he was elected Rector in 1972. He spent his early career working as both a lecturer at a further education college and a television journalist. Brown was elected to the House of Commons in 1983 as the MP for Dunfermline East, later becoming the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in 2005. He joined the Shadow Cabinet in 1989 as Shadow Secretary of State for Trade, and was later promoted to become Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1992. After Labour's victory in the 1997 general election, its largest landslide general election victory in history, Brown was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer, becoming the longest-serving holder of that office in modern history.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown's time as chancellor was marked by major reform of Britain's monetary and fiscal policy architecture, transferring interest rate setting powers to the Bank of England, by a wide extension of the powers of the Treasury to cover much domestic policy and by transferring responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority. Brown presided over the longest period of sustained economic growth in British history. He outlined five economic tests, which resisted the UK adopting the euro currency. Controversial moves included the abolition of advance corporation tax (ACT) relief in his first budget, the sale of UK gold reserves from 1999 to 2002, and the removal in his final budget of the 10% starting rate of personal income tax which he had introduced in 1999.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In 2007, Blair resigned as prime minister and Labour leader, and Brown was elected unopposed to replace him. Under Brown, the party continued to use the campaign label New Labour. Brown's government introduced rescue packages in 2008 and 2009 to help keep the banks afloat during the global financial crisis, and as a result the United Kingdom's national debt increased dramatically. The government took majority shareholdings in Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland, both of which experienced severe financial difficulties, and injected large amounts of public money into several other banks, including Lloyds Banking Group, which formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. In 2008, Brown's government passed the world's first Climate Change Act, and introduced the Equality Act 2010. Despite initial rises in opinion polls after Brown became Prime Minister, Labour's popularity declined with the onset of the Great Recession, leading to poor results in the local and European elections in 2009.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In the 2010 general election, Labour lost 91 seats, the party's biggest loss of seats in a single general election since 1931, resulting in a hung parliament in which the Conservative Party was the largest party. After the Conservatives formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats, Brown resigned as prime minister and Labour leader. He was succeeded as prime minister by David Cameron and as Labour Party leader by Ed Miliband, who abandoned the New Labour branding. After leaving office, Brown returned to the backbenches, continuing to serve as the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath until he gave up his seat in 2015, and has since made occasional political interventions. Brown played a prominent role in the campaign to maintain the union between Scotland and the United Kingdom during the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, and has published several political themed books.


title: Gordon Brown

text: During the first four months of his premiership, Brown enjoyed a substantial lead in the polls, but his popularity fell significantly throughout the remainder of his tenure. Brown is generally ranked among the least successful British prime ministers in historical rankings and public opinion.


title: Gordon Brown

text: James Gordon Brown was born at the Orchard Maternity Nursing Home in Giffnock, Renfrewshire, Scotland. His father was John Ebenezer Brown (1914–1998), a minister of the Church of Scotland and a strong influence on Brown. His mother was Jessie Elizabeth "Bunty" Brown ("née" Souter; 1918–2004); she was the daughter of John Souter, a timber merchant. The family moved to Kirkcaldy – then the largest town in Fife, across the Firth of Forth from Edinburgh – when Gordon was three. Brown was brought up there with his elder brother John and younger brother Andrew in a manse; he is therefore often referred to as a "son of the manse", an idiomatic Scottish phrase, similar to the American phrase "preacher's kid".


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown was educated first at Kirkcaldy West Primary School where he was selected for an experimental fast stream education programme, which took him two years early to Kirkcaldy High School for an academic hothouse education taught in separate classes. Aged 16, he wrote that he loathed and resented this "ludicrous" experiment on young lives.


title: Gordon Brown

text: He was accepted by the University of Edinburgh to study history at the same early age of 16. During an end-of-term rugby union match at his old school, he received a kick to the head and experienced a retinal detachment. This left him blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and weeks spent lying in a darkened room. Later at Edinburgh, while playing tennis, he noticed the same symptoms in his right eye. Brown underwent experimental surgery at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and his right eye was saved by a young eye surgeon, Hector Chawla. Brown graduated from Edinburgh with an undergraduate MA degree with First-Class Honours in history in 1972. He stayed on to obtain his PhD degree in history, which he gained ten years later in 1982, defending a thesis titled "The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918–1929".


title: Gordon Brown

text: In his youth at the University of Edinburgh, Brown was involved in a romantic relationship with Margarita, Crown Princess of Romania. Margarita said about it: "It was a very solid and romantic story. I never stopped loving him but one day it didn't seem right anymore, it was politics, politics, politics, and I needed nurturing." An unnamed friend of those years is quoted by Paul Routledge in his biography of Brown as recalling: "She was sweet and gentle and obviously cut out to make somebody a very good wife. She was bright, too, though not like him, but they seemed made for each other."


title: Gordon Brown

text: In 1972, while still a student, Brown was elected Rector of the University of Edinburgh, the convener of the University Court. He served as Rector until 1975, and also edited the document "The Red Paper on Scotland".


title: Gordon Brown

text: From 1976 to 1980 Brown was employed as a lecturer in politics at Glasgow College of Technology. He also worked as a tutor for the Open University. In the 1979 general election, Brown stood for the Edinburgh South constituency, losing to the Conservative candidate, Michael Ancram.


title: Gordon Brown

text: From 1980, he worked as a journalist at Scottish Television, later serving as current affairs editor until his election to Parliament in 1983.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown was elected to Parliament as a Labour MP at his second attempt, for Dunfermline East in the 1983 general election. His first Westminster office mate was a newly elected MP from the Sedgefield constituency, Tony Blair. Brown became an opposition spokesman on Trade and Industry in 1985. In 1986, he published a biography of the Independent Labour Party politician James Maxton, the subject of his doctoral thesis. Brown was Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1987 to 1989 and then Shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, before becoming Shadow Chancellor in 1992 after Labour's fourth consecutive defeat in the general election that year. Having led the "Labour Movement Yes" campaign, refusing to join the cross-party "Yes for Scotland" campaign, during the 1979 Scottish devolution referendum, while other senior Labour politicians – including Robin Cook, Tam Dalyell and Brian Wilson – campaigned for a "No" vote, Brown was subsequently a key participant in the Scottish Constitutional Convention, signing the Claim of Right for Scotland in 1989.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Labour leader John Smith died suddenly in May 1994. Brown did not contest the leadership after Tony Blair became the favourite, deciding to make way for Blair to avoid splitting the pro-modernising vote in the leadership ballot.


title: Gordon Brown

text: It has long been rumoured a deal was struck between Blair and Brown at the former Granita restaurant in Islington, in which Blair promised to give Brown control of economic policy in return for Brown not standing against him in the leadership election. Whether this is true or not, the relationship between Blair and Brown was central to the fortunes of New Labour, and they mostly remained united in public, despite reported serious private rifts.


title: Gordon Brown

text: As Shadow Chancellor, Brown as Chancellor-in-waiting was seen as a good choice by business and the middle class. During his tenure as Chancellor, the rate of inflation sometimes exceeded the 2% target; the Governor of the Bank of England, under the rules governing the Bank's role, wrote an explanatory letter to the Chancellor on each occasion inflation exceeded three per cent. Following a reorganisation of Westminster constituencies in Scotland in 2005, Brown became MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath at the general election.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In the 1997 general election, Labour defeated the Conservatives by a landslide to end their 18-year exile from government, and when Tony Blair, the new Prime Minister, announced his ministerial team on 2 May 1997, he appointed Brown as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown would remain in this role for 10 years and two months, making him the longest-serving Chancellor in modern history. The Prime Minister's website highlights some achievements from Brown's decade as Chancellor: making the Bank of England independent and delivering an agreement on poverty and climate change at the G8 summit in 2005.


title: Gordon Brown

text: On taking office as Chancellor of the Exchequer Brown gave the Bank of England operational independence in monetary policy, and thus responsibility for setting interest rates through the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee. At the same time, he also changed the inflation measure from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Price Index and transferred responsibility for banking supervision to the Financial Services Authority. Some commentators have argued that this division of responsibilities exacerbated the severity in Britain of the 2007 global banking crisis.


title: Gordon Brown

text: During the 1997 election campaign and subsequently, Brown pledged not to increase the basic or higher rates of income tax. Over his Chancellorship he reduced the basic rate from 23% to 20%; however, in all budgets but his final one, he increased the tax thresholds in line with inflation rather than with earnings, resulting in fiscal drag. Under Brown, corporation tax fell from a main rate of 33% to 28%, and from 24% to 19% for small businesses. In 1999, he introduced a lower tax band of 10%. He abolished this 10% tax band in his last budget in 2007 to reduce the basic rate from 22% to 20%, increasing tax for 5 million people and, according to the calculations of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, leaving those earning between £5,000 and £18,000 as the biggest losers. To backbench cheers, Brown had described the measure in his last Budget thus: "Having put in place more focused ways of incentivising work and directly supporting children and pensioners at a cost of £3bn a year, I can now return income tax to just two rates by removing the 10p band on non-savings income". Brown also implemented the Windfall Tax in 1997 on the privatised utilities. The tax produced an estimated one off income to the government of £5 billion which was used to fund the New Deal, a welfare-to-work program that sought to tackle long-term unemployment.


title: Gordon Brown

text: According to the OECD UK taxation increased from a 39.3% share of gross domestic product in 1997 to 42.4% in 2006, going to a higher level than that of Germany. This increase has mainly been attributed to active government policy, and not simply to the growing economy. Conservatives have accused Brown of imposing "stealth taxes". A commonly reported example resulted in 1997 from a technical change in the way corporation tax is collected, the indirect effect of which was for the dividends on stock investments held within pensions to be taxed, thus lowering pension returns and contributing to the demise of most of the final salary pension funds in the UK. The Treasury contends that this tax change was crucial to long-term economic growth.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown's 2000 Spending Review outlined a major expansion of government spending, particularly on health and education. In his April 2002 budget, Brown increased National Insurance to pay for health spending. He also introduced working tax credits, and in his last budget as Chancellor, Brown gave an extra £3 billion in pension allowances, an increase in the child tax credit, and an increase in the working tax credit. These increases were followed by another £1 billion of support for increases in the child tax credit.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In October 1997, Brown announced that the Treasury would set five economic tests to determine whether the economic case had been made for the United Kingdom to adopt the European single currency. The Treasury indicated that the tests had not been passed in June 2003.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In 2000, Brown was accused of starting a political row about higher education (referred to as the Laura Spence affair) when he accused the University of Oxford of elitism in its admissions procedures, describing its decision not to offer a place to state school pupil Laura Spence as "absolutely outrageous". Lord Jenkins, then Oxford Chancellor and himself a former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, said "nearly every fact he used was false."


title: Gordon Brown

text: Between 1999 and 2002 Brown sold 60% of the UK's gold reserves shortly before gold entered a protracted bull market, since nicknamed by dealers as the Brown Bottom or Brown's Bottom. The official reason for selling the gold reserves was to reduce the portfolio risk of the UK's reserves by diversifying away from gold. The UK eventually sold about 395 tons of gold over 17 auctions from July 1999 to March 2002, at an average price of about US$275 per ounce, raising approximately US$3.5 billion. By 2011, that quantity of gold would be worth over $19 billion, leading to Brown's decision to sell the gold being widely criticised.


title: Gordon Brown

text: As Chancellor, Brown argued against renationalising the railways, saying at the Labour conference in 2004 that it would cost £22 billion.


title: Gordon Brown

text: During his time as Chancellor, Brown reportedly believed that it was appropriate to remove most, but not all, of the unpayable Third World debt. On 20 April 2006, in a speech to the United Nations Ambassadors, Brown outlined a "Green" view of global development.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In October 2004, Tony Blair announced he would not lead the party into a fourth general election, but would serve a full third term. Political comment over the relationship between Brown and Blair continued up to and beyond the 2005 election, which Labour won with a reduced majority and reduced vote share. Blair announced on 7 September 2006 that he would step down within a year. Brown was the clear favourite to succeed Blair; he was the only candidate spoken of seriously in Westminster. Appearances and news coverage leading up to the handover were interpreted as preparing the ground for Brown to become Prime Minister, in part by creating the impression of a statesman with a vision for leadership and global change. This enabled Brown to signal the most significant priorities for his agenda as Prime Minister; speaking at a Fabian Society conference on 'The Next Decade' in January 2007, he stressed education, international development, narrowing inequalities (to pursue 'equality of opportunity and fairness of outcome'), renewing Britishness, restoring trust in politics, and winning hearts and minds in the war on terror as key priorities.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 27 June 2007. He was succeeded by Alistair Darling as Chancellor the following day. Like all modern Prime Ministers, Brown concurrently served as the First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service, and was a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Until his resignation from the post in May 2010, he was Leader of the Labour Party. He was Member of Parliament for the constituency of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath until he stepped down in 2015. He was the sixth post-war Prime Minister, of a total of 13, to assume the role without having won a general election. Brown was the first Prime Minister from a Scottish constituency since the Conservative Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1964. Not all British prime ministers have been university graduates, but, of those that were, Brown was one of only five that had not attended either Oxford or Cambridge. He proposed moving some traditional prime ministerial powers conferred by royal prerogative to the realm of Parliament, such as the power to declare war and approve appointments to senior positions. Brown wanted Parliament to gain the right to ratify treaties and have more oversight into the intelligence services. He also proposed moving some powers from Parliament to citizens, including the right to form "citizens' juries", easily petition Parliament for new laws, and rally outside Westminster. He asserted that the attorney general should not have the right to decide whether to prosecute in individual cases, such as in the loans for peerages scandal.


title: Gordon Brown

text: There was speculation during September and early October 2007 about whether Brown would call a snap general election. Indeed, the party launched the Not Flash, Just Gordon advertising campaign, which was seen largely as pre-election promotion of Brown as Prime Minister; however, Brown announced on 6 October that there would be no election any time soon – despite opinion polls showing that he was capable of winning an election should he call one. This proved to be a costly mistake, as during 2008 his party slid behind the Conservatives (led by David Cameron) in the polls. Disputes over political donations, a string of losses in local elections, and by-election losses in Crewe and Glasgow did himself and the government no favours either.


title: Gordon Brown

text: His political opponents accused him of being indecisive, which Brown denied. In July 2008, he supported a new bill extending the pre-charge detention period to 42 days. The bill was met with opposition on both sides of the House and backbench rebellion. In the end, the bill passed by just nine votes. The House of Lords defeated the bill, with Lords characterising it as "fatally flawed, ill thought through and unnecessary", stating that "it seeks to further erode fundamental legal and civil rights".


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown was mentioned by the press in the expenses crisis for claiming for the payment of his cleaner; however, no wrongdoing was found and the Commons Authority did not pursue Brown over the claim. Meanwhile, the Commons Fees Office stated that a double payment for a £153 plumbing repair bill was a mistake on their part and that Brown had repaid it in full.


title: Gordon Brown

text: During his Labour leadership campaign Brown proposed some policy initiatives, which he called the "manifesto for change".


title: Gordon Brown

text: The manifesto included a clampdown on corruption and a new Ministerial Code, which set out clear standards of behaviour for ministers. He also stated in a speech when announcing his bid that he wants a "better constitution" that is "clear about the rights and responsibilities of being a citizen in Britain today". He planned to set up an all-party convention to look at new powers for Parliament and to look at rebalancing powers between Whitehall and local government. Brown said he would give Parliament the final say on whether British troops were sent into action in future.


title: Gordon Brown

text: He said he wanted to release more land and ease access to ownership with shared equity schemes. He backed a proposal to build new eco-towns, each housing between 10,000 and 20,000 homeowners – up to 100,000 new homes in total.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown also said he wanted to have doctors' surgeries open at the weekends, and GPs on call in the evenings. Doctors were given the right of opting out of out-of-hours care in 2007, under a controversial pay deal, signed by then-Health Secretary John Reid, which awarded them a 22 per cent pay rise in 2006. Brown also stated in the manifesto that the National Health Service (NHS) was his top priority.


title: Gordon Brown

text: On 5 June 2007, just three weeks before he was due to take the post of Prime Minister, Brown made a speech promising "British Jobs for British workers". Brown reiterated that promise at the Labour Party's annual conference in September, which caused controversy as he coupled this with a commitment to crack down on migrant workers. The Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, promptly pointed out that such a commitment was illegal under EU law. Other controversial statements made by Brown about migration included him stating that English lessons and taking mandatory community service should be prerequisites for being granted UK citizenship.


title: Gordon Brown

text: During the Queen's Speech to Parliament on 3 December 2008, the Brown government unveiled plans to introduce lie detector tests, based on voice recognition technology, in order to determine whether to accept benefit claims. Despite having spent £2.4 million on these tests, trials performed by the Department of Work and Pensions showed that they were inaccurate approximately four of every seven times they were used.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown had been committed to the Iraq War, but said in a speech in June 2007 that he would "learn the lessons" from the mistakes made in Iraq. Brown said in a letter published on 17 March 2008 that the United Kingdom would hold an inquiry into the war.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown went to great lengths to empathise with those who lost family members in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. He has often said "War is tragic", echoing Blair's quote, "War is horrible". Nonetheless, in November 2007 Brown was accused by some senior military figures of not adhering to the Military Covenant, a convention within British politics ensuring adequate safeguards, rewards and compensation for military personnel who risk their lives in obedience to orders derived from the policy of the elected government.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown did not attend the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics on 8 August 2008 in Beijing; instead, he attended the closing ceremony on 24 August 2008. Brown had been under intense pressure from human rights campaigners to send a message to China, concerning the 2008 Tibetan unrest. His decision not to attend the opening ceremony was not an act of protest, but rather was made several weeks in advance and not intended as a stand on principle.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In a speech in July 2007, Brown clarified his position regarding Britain's relationship with the United States: "We will not allow people to separate us from the United States of America in dealing with the common challenges that we face around the world. I think people have got to remember that the special relationship between a British prime minister and an American president is built on the things that we share, the same enduring values about the importance of liberty, opportunity, the dignity of the individual. I will continue to work, as Tony Blair did, very closely with the American administration."


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown and the Labour party had pledged to allow a referendum on the EU Treaty of Lisbon. On 13 December 2007, Foreign Secretary David Miliband attended for the Prime Minister at the official signing ceremony in Lisbon of the EU Reform Treaty. Brown's opponents on both sides of the House, and in the press, suggested that ratification by Parliament was not enough and that a referendum should also be held. Labour's 2005 manifesto had pledged to give the British public a referendum on the original EU Constitution. Brown argued that the Treaty significantly differed from the Constitution, and as such did not require a referendum. He also responded with plans for a lengthy debate on the topic, and stated that he believed the document to be too complex to be decided by referendum.


title: Gordon Brown

text: During Brown's premiership, in October 2008, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommended to the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith that cannabis remain classified as a Class C drug. Acting against the advice of the council, she chose to reclassify it as Class B. After Professor David Nutt, the chair of the ACMD, criticised this move in a lecture in 2009, he was asked to step down by then Home Secretary Alan Johnson. Following his resignation, Professor Nutt said Brown had "made up his mind" to reclassify cannabis despite evidence to the contrary. Brown had argued, "I don't think that the previous studies took into account that so much of the cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality and we really have got to send out a message to young people—this is not acceptable". Professor Nutt's predecessor at the ACMD, Sir Michael Rawlins, later said, "Governments may well have good reasons for taking an alternative view ... When that happens, then the government should explain why it's ignoring the particular advice".


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown's premiership coincided with the global recession, during which Brown called for fiscal action in an attempt to stimulate aggregate demand. Domestically, Brown's administration introduced measures including a bank rescue package worth around £500 billion (approximately $850 billion), a temporary 2.5 percentage point cut in value-added tax and a "car scrappage" scheme.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In mid-2008, Brown's leadership was presented with a challenge as some MPs openly called for him to resign. This event was dubbed the 'Lancashire Plot', as two backbenchers from (pre-1974) Lancashire urged him to step down and a third questioned his chances of holding on to the Labour Party leadership. Several MPs argued that if Brown did not recover in the polls by early 2009, he should call for a leadership contest; however, certain prominent MPs, such as Jacqui Smith and Bill Rammell, suggested that Brown was the right person to lead Britain through its economic crisis. In the autumn, Siobhain McDonagh, an MP and junior government whip, who during her time in office had never voted against the government, spoke of the need for discussion over Brown's position. While she did not state that she wanted Brown deposed, she implored the Labour Party to hold a leadership election. McDonagh was sacked from her role shortly afterward, on 12 September. She was supported in making clear her desire for a contest by Joan Ryan (who applied, as McDonagh had, for leadership nomination papers, and became the second rebel to be fired from her job), Jim Dowd, Greg Pope, and a string of others who had previously held positions in government. In the face of this speculation over Brown's future, his ministers backed him to lead the party, and Harriet Harman and David Miliband denied that they were preparing leadership bids. After Labour lost the Glasgow East by-election in July, Harman, the deputy leader of the party, said that Brown was the "solution", not the "problem"; Home Secretary Smith, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, Schools Secretary Ed Balls and Cabinet Office Minister Ed Miliband all re-affirmed their support for Brown. The Deputy Prime Minister under Blair, John Prescott, also pledged his support. Foreign Secretary David Miliband then denied that he was plotting a leadership bid, when on 30 July, an article written by him in "The Guardian" was interpreted by a large number in the media as an attempt to undermine Brown. In the article, Miliband outlined the party's future, but neglected to mention the Prime Minister. Miliband, responded to this by saying that he was confident Brown could lead Labour to victory in the next general election, and that his article was an attack against the fatalism in the party since the loss of Glasgow-East. Miliband continued to show his support for Brown in the face of the challenge that emerged in September, as did Business Secretary John Hutton, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, and Chief Whip Geoff Hoon.


title: Gordon Brown

text: On 4 June 2009 James Purnell resigned from the Cabinet, and called for Brown's resignation as Prime Minister.


title: Gordon Brown

text: On 6 January 2010, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon jointly called for a secret ballot on the future of Brown's leadership. The call received little support, and the following day Hoon said that it appeared to have failed and was "over". Brown later referred to the call for a secret ballot as a "form of silliness".


title: Gordon Brown

text: In the local elections on 1 May 2008, Labour suffered its worst results in 40 years, finishing in third place with a projected 24% share of the national vote. Subsequently, the party saw the loss of by-elections in Crewe and Nantwich and Henley as well as slumps in the polls. A by-election in Glasgow East triggered by the resignation of David Marshall saw Labour struggle to appoint a candidate, eventually settling for Margaret Curran, a sitting MSP in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats all derided Labour for their disorganised nature, with Alex Salmond commenting "This is their 'lost weekend'—they don't have a leader in Scotland, they don't have a candidate in Glasgow East, and they have a prime minister who refuses to come to the constituency". Labour lost the constituency to the Scottish National Party's John Mason who took 11,277 votes, with Labour just 365 behind. The seat experienced a swing of 22.54%.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In the European elections, Labour polled 16% of the vote, finishing in third place behind the Conservatives and UK Independence Party (UKIP). Voter apathy was reflected in the historically low turnout of around thirty-three per cent. In Scotland, voter turnout was only twenty-eight per cent. In the local elections, Labour polled 23% of the vote, finishing in third place behind Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, with Labour losing control of the four councils it had held prior to the election. In a vote widely considered to be a reaction to the expenses scandal, the share of the votes was down for all the major parties; Labour was down one percent, the Conservative share was down five percent. The beneficiary of the public backlash was generally seen to be the minor parties, including the Green Party and UKIP. These results were Labour's worst since World War II. Brown was quoted in the press as having said that the results were "a painful defeat for Labour", and that "too many good people doing so much good for their communities and their constituencies have lost through no fault of their own."


title: Gordon Brown

text: In April 2010, Brown asked the Queen to dissolve Parliament. The general election campaign included the first televised leadership debates in Britain. The result of the election on 6 May was a hung parliament. Brown was re-elected as MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath with 29,559 votes.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown announced on 10 May 2010 that he would stand down as Labour Leader, with a view to a successor being chosen before the next Labour Party Conference in September 2010. The following day, negotiations between the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats to form a coalition government failed. During the evening, Brown visited Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation as Prime Minister to Queen Elizabeth II and to recommend that she invite the Leader of the Opposition, David Cameron, to form a government. He resigned as leader of the Labour Party with immediate effect.


title: Gordon Brown

text: On 13 May 2010, in his first public appearance since leaving 10 Downing Street, two days after resigning as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, Brown confirmed he intended to stay on in Parliament, serving as a Labour backbencher, to serve the people of his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath constituency. He continued to serve as the MP of Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath until 2015.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Towards the end of May 2010, Brown began writing "Beyond the Crash", completing it after 14 weeks. The book discusses the 2007–08 financial crisis and Brown's recommendations for future co-ordinated global action.


title: Gordon Brown

text: He played a prominent role in the lead-up to, and the aftermath of, the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, campaigning for Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom. "Our vision for the future of Scotland – yes a Scottish parliament for fairness, battling for equality across the UK", he told voters in an impassioned speech on the eve of polling. "But our vision is bigger than that – at every point, particularly through our membership of the UK, to fight for what is our dream, what is our demand. A world not of a separate state, but a world of social justice people can believe in. What kind of message does Scotland send to the world if, tomorrow, we said we are going to give up on sharing, we are going to smash our partnership, we are going to abandon co-operation and we are going to throw the idea of solidarity into the dust. This is not the Scotland I know and recognise."


title: Gordon Brown

text: On 1 December 2014, Brown announced that he would not be seeking re-election to parliament. He stood down at the general election in May 2015.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In April 2011, media reports linked Brown with the role of managing director of the International Monetary Fund following the scheduled retirement of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Brown's successor and Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, supported Brown for the role, while the Prime Minister, David Cameron, voiced opposition to this. Following the arrest of Strauss-Kahn for alleged sexual assault in May 2011, and his subsequent resignation, these reports re-surfaced. Support for Brown among economists was mixed but British Government backing for his candidature was not forthcoming and instead supported Christine Lagarde – the eventual successful candidate – for the post.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who had worked with the government during Brown's premiership to publish government data on the internet in the data.gov.uk project, subsequently invited Brown to become a board director of the World Wide Web Foundation to "advise the Web Foundation on ways to involve disadvantaged communities and global leaders in the development of sustainable programs that connect humanity and affect positive change". On 22 April 2011 it was announced that Brown would be taking on an unpaid advisory role at the World Economic Forum. Brown was also appointed as the inaugural 'Distinguished Leader in Residence' by New York University and took part in discussions and lectures relating to the global financial crisis and globalisation.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In July 2012 Brown was named by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a United Nations Special Envoy on Global Education. He chaired the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity. The position is unpaid.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In December 2015, Brown took his first large-scale role in the private sector since standing down as prime minister in 2010, becoming an advisor to PIMCO. Any money earned from the role is to go to the Gordon and Sarah Brown Foundation to support charitable work.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In September 2020, Brown was a co-author of a letter to the journal "Nature" highlighting the importance of EU funding in the fight against COVID-19. The letter was organised by Scientists for Labour, an organisation of which he is a patron.


title: Gordon Brown

text: On 10 June 2022 Brown released the book "Seven Ways to Change the World: How To Fix The Most Pressing Problems We Face."


title: Gordon Brown

text: As a former Prime Minister, Brown, with Sarah, had a place of honour at the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II on 19 September 2022.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown's early girlfriends included journalist Sheena McDonald and Princess Margarita, the eldest daughter of exiled King Michael of Romania. At the age of 49, Brown married Sarah Macaulay in a private ceremony at his home in North Queensferry, Fife, on 3 August 2000. A daughter, Jennifer Jane, was born prematurely on 28 December 2001; she died on 7 January 2002, one day after experiencing a brain haemorrhage. The couple have two sons, John Macaulay (born 17 October 2003) and (James) Fraser (born on 18 July 2006). In November 2006, Fraser was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. "The Sun" had learned of the situation in 2006 and published the story. In 2011, Brown stated he had wanted the details of his son's condition kept private and that the publication had left him "in tears". The "Sun" said they approached Brown and that discussion occurred with his colleagues who provided quotes to use in the article.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Sarah Brown rarely made official appearances, whether with or without her husband. She is patron of several charities and has written articles for national newspapers related to this. At the 2008 Labour Party Conference, Sarah caused surprise by taking to the stage to introduce her husband for his keynote address. Since then her public profile has increased.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown has two brothers, John Brown and Andrew Brown. Andrew has been Head of Media Relations in the UK for the French-owned utility company EDF Energy since 2004. Brown is also the brother-in-law of environmental journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown; he wrote a piece for "The Independent" supporting Clare's current environmental efforts on behalf of Sarawak.


title: Gordon Brown

text: While Prime Minister, Brown spent some of his spare time at Chequers, the house often being filled with friends. The Browns have entertained local dignitaries like Sir Leonard Figg. Brown is also a friend of Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling, who says of Brown: "I know him as affable, funny and gregarious, a great listener, a kind and loyal friend."


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown is a strong supporter of the NHS, owing partly to both the experimental surgery that saved the sight in his right eye after his retina became detached, and the care he and Sarah Brown received when their premature firstborn baby died. It has been suggested that visual difficulties have contributed to Brown's supposed antisocial nature and awkward public manner. For example, both on a podium and before a camera, while reading "he needs to look slightly to one side of the paper to focus; when speaking to an audience or into a camera lens, he must remember to correct what would normally be an automatic tendency to look slightly askew to see clearly with his good eye". Brown's papers were prepared in capital letters and in extremely large type, resulting in his stack of papers at the dispatch box being noticeably bulky. Former staffers often attributed Brown's outbursts of temper in Downing Street to his frustration with his visual limitations. Nevertheless, it is noted that he has never allowed these limitations to hold him back and in fact attributed them to the shaping of his political character.


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown is a supporter of Kirkcaldy-based football club Raith Rovers and has written articles about his relationship with the club.


title: Gordon Brown

text: A son of a Church of Scotland minister, Brown has talked about what he calls his "moral compass" and of his parents being his "inspiration". He has, at least ostensibly, been keen to keep his religion a private matter. According to "The Guardian", he is a member of the Church of Scotland.


title: Gordon Brown

text: "The Deal", a 2003 television film, followed Tony Blair's rise to power, and his friendship and rivalry with Brown, played by David Morrissey. In "The Trial of Tony Blair" (2007) Brown was played by Peter Mullan, and in the Channel 4 television film "Coalition" (2015) he was portrayed by Ian Grieve.


title: Gordon Brown

text: In March 2009, Brown was named World Statesman of the Year by the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an American organisation 'dedicated to promoting peace, human rights and understanding between religious faiths'. The award was presented by Rabbi Arthur Schneier who praised Brown's "compassionate leadership in dealing with the challenging issues facing humanity, his commitment to freedom, human dignity and the environment, and for the major role he has played in helping to stabilise the world's financial system".


title: Gordon Brown

text: Brown has, on six occasions, been honoured in the Scottish Politician of the Year awards organised by "The Herald" newspaper. In 1999, 2000, 2007 and 2014, he won the award in the Best Scot at Westminster category. He won the Lifetime Achievement Award/Outstanding Political Achievement category in 2011. And in 2020, he was designated "best of the best" in the Best Scot at Westminster category.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: The McDonnell Douglas/Boeing C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft that was developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) from the 1980s to the early 1990s by McDonnell Douglas. The C-17 carries forward the name of two previous piston-engined military cargo aircraft, the Douglas C-74 Globemaster and the Douglas C-124 Globemaster II.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: The C-17 is based upon the YC-15, a smaller prototype airlifter designed during the 1970s. It was designed to replace the Lockheed C-141 Starlifter, and also fulfill some of the duties of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. Compared to the YC-15, the redesigned airlifter differed in having swept wings, increased size, and more powerful engines. Development was protracted by a series of design issues, causing the company to incur a loss of nearly US$1.5 billion on the program's development phase. On 15 September 1991, roughly one year behind schedule, the first C-17 performed its maiden flight. The C-17 formally entered USAF service on 17 January 1995. Boeing, which merged with McDonnell Douglas in 1997, continued to manufacture the C-17 for almost two decades. The final C-17 was completed at the Long Beach, California plant and flown on 29 November 2015.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: The C-17 commonly performs tactical and strategic airlift missions, transporting troops and cargo throughout the world; additional roles include medical evacuation and airdrop duties. The transport is in service with the USAF along with air arms of India, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and the Europe-based multilateral organization Heavy Airlift Wing. The type played a key logistical role during both Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq, as well as in providing humanitarian aid in the aftermath of various natural disasters, including the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the 2011 Sindh floods.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: In the 1970s, the U.S. Air Force began looking for a replacement for its Lockheed C-130 Hercules tactical cargo aircraft. The Advanced Medium STOL Transport (AMST) competition was held, with Boeing proposing the YC-14, and McDonnell Douglas proposing the YC-15. Though both entrants exceeded specified requirements, the AMST competition was canceled before a winner was selected. The USAF started the C-X program in November 1979 to develop a larger AMST with longer range to augment its strategic airlift.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: By 1980, the USAF had a large fleet of aging C-141 Starlifter cargo aircraft. Compounding matters, increased strategic airlift capabilities was needed to fulfill its rapid-deployment airlift requirements. The USAF set mission requirements and released a request for proposals (RFP) for C-X in October 1980. McDonnell Douglas chose to develop a new aircraft based on the YC-15. Boeing bid an enlarged three-engine version of its AMST YC-14. Lockheed submitted both a C-5-based design and an enlarged C-141 design. On 28 August 1981, McDonnell Douglas was chosen to build its proposal, then designated "C-17". Compared to the YC-15, the new aircraft differed in having swept wings, increased size, and more powerful engines. This would allow it to perform the work done by the C-141, and to fulfill some of the duties of the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy, freeing the C-5 fleet for outsize cargo.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: Alternative proposals were pursued to fill airlift needs after the C-X contest. These were lengthening of C-141As into C-141Bs, ordering more C-5s, continued purchases of KC-10s, and expansion of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet. Limited budgets reduced program funding, requiring a delay of four years. During this time contracts were awarded for preliminary design work and for the completion of engine certification. In December 1985, a full-scale development contract was awarded, under Program Manager Bob Clepper. At this time, first flight was planned for 1990. The USAF had formed a requirement for 210 aircraft.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: Development problems and limited funding caused delays in the late 1980s. Criticisms were made of the developing aircraft and questions were raised about more cost-effective alternatives during this time. In April 1990, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney reduced the order from 210 to 120 aircraft. The maiden flight of the C-17 took place on 15 September 1991 from the McDonnell Douglas's plant in Long Beach, California, about a year behind schedule. The first aircraft (T-1) and five more production models (P1-P5) participated in extensive flight testing and evaluation at Edwards Air Force Base. Two complete airframes were built for static and repeated load testing.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: A static test of the C-17 wing in October 1992 resulted in its failure at 128% of design limit load, below the 150% requirement. Both wings buckled rear to the front and failures occurred in stringers, spars, and ribs. Some $100 million were spent to redesign the wing structure; the wing failed at 145% during a second test in September 1993. A review of the test data, however, showed that the wing was not loaded correctly and did indeed meet the requirement. The C-17 received the "Globemaster III" name in early 1993. In late 1993, the Department of Defense (DoD) gave the contractor two years to solve production issues and cost overruns or face the contract's termination after the delivery of the 40th aircraft. By accepting the 1993 terms, McDonnell Douglas incurred a loss of nearly US$1.5 billion on the program's development phase.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: In April 1994, the program remained over budget and did not meet weight, fuel burn, payload, and range specifications. It failed several key criteria during airworthiness evaluation tests. Problems were found with the mission software, landing gear, and other areas. In May 1994, it was proposed to cut production to as few as 32 aircraft; these cuts were later rescinded. A July 1994 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed that USAF and DoD studies from 1986 and 1991 stated the C-17 could use 6,400 more runways outside the U.S. than the C-5, but these studies had only considered runway dimensions, but not runway strength or load classification numbers (LCN). The C-5 has a lower LCN, but the USAF classifies both in the same broad load classification group. When considering runway dimensions and load ratings, the C-17's worldwide runway advantage over the C-5 shrank from 6,400 to 911 airfields. The report also stated "current military doctrine that does not reflect the use of small, austere airfields", thus the C-17's short field capability was not considered.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: A January 1995 GAO report stated that the USAF originally planned to order 210 C-17s at a cost of $41.8 billion, and that the 120 aircraft on order were to cost $39.5 billion based on a 1992 estimate. In March 1994, the U.S. Army decided it did not need the low-altitude parachute-extraction system delivery with the C-17 and that the C-130's capability was sufficient. C-17 testing was limited to this lower weight. Airflow issues prevented the C-17 from meeting airdrop requirements. A February 1997 GAO report revealed that a C-17 with a full payload could not land on wet runways; simulations suggested a distance of was required. The YC-15 was transferred to AMARC to be made flightworthy again for further flight tests for the C-17 program in March 1997.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: By September 1995, most of the prior issues were reportedly resolved and the C-17 was meeting all performance and reliability targets. The first USAF squadron was declared operational in January 1995.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: In 1996, the DoD ordered another 80 aircraft for a total of 120. In 1997, McDonnell Douglas merged with domestic competitor Boeing. In April 1999, Boeing offered to cut the C-17's unit price if the USAF bought 60 more; in August 2002, the order was increased to 180 aircraft. In 2007, 190 C-17s were on order for the USAF. On 6 February 2009, Boeing was awarded a $2.95 billion contract for 15 additional C-17s, increasing the total USAF fleet to 205 and extending production from August 2009 to August 2010. On 6 April 2009, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that there would be no more C-17s ordered beyond the 205 planned. However, on 12 June 2009, the House Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee added a further 17 C-17s.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: In 2010, Boeing reduced the production rate to 10 aircraft per year from a high of 16 per year, due to dwindling orders and to extend the production line's life while additional orders were sought. The workforce was reduced by about 1,100 through 2012, a second shift at the Long Beach plant was also eliminated. By April 2011, 230 production C-17s had been delivered, including 210 to the USAF. The C-17 prototype "T-1" was retired in 2012 after use as a testbed by the USAF. In January 2010, the USAF announced the end of Boeing's performance-based logistics contracts to maintain the type. On 19 June 2012, the USAF ordered its 224th and final C-17 to replace one that crashed in Alaska in July 2010.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: In September 2013, Boeing announced that C-17 production was starting to close down. In October 2014, the main wing spar of the 279th and last aircraft was completed; this C-17 was delivered in 2015, after which Boeing closed the Long Beach plant. Production of spare components was to continue until at least 2017. The C-17 is projected to be in service for several decades. In February 2014, Boeing was engaged in sales talks with "five or six" countries for the remaining 15 C-17s; thus Boeing decided to build ten aircraft without confirmed buyers in anticipation of future purchases.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: In May 2015, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that Boeing expected to book a charge of under $100 million and cut 3,000 positions associated with the C-17 program, and also suggested that Airbus' lower cost A400M Atlas took international sales away from the C-17.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: The C-17 Globemaster III is a strategic transport aircraft, able to airlift cargo close to a battle area. The size and weight of U.S. mechanized firepower and equipment have grown in recent decades from increased air mobility requirements, particularly for large or heavy non-palletized outsize cargo. It has a length of and a wingspan of , and uses about 8% composite materials, mostly in secondary structure and control surfaces.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: The C-17 is powered by four Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofan engines, which are based on the commercial Pratt & Whitney PW2040 used on the Boeing 757. Each engine is rated at of thrust. The engine's thrust reversers direct engine exhaust air upwards and forward, reducing the chances of foreign object damage by ingestion of runway debris, and providing enough reverse thrust to back up the aircraft while taxiing. The thrust reversers can also be used in flight at idle-reverse for added drag in maximum-rate descents. In vortex surfing tests performed by two C-17s, up to 10% fuel savings were reported.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: For cargo operations the C-17 requires a crew of three: pilot, copilot, and loadmaster. The cargo compartment is long by wide by high. The cargo floor has rollers for palletized cargo but it can be flipped to provide a flat floor suitable for vehicles and other rolling stock. Cargo is loaded through a large aft ramp that accommodates rolling stock, such as a 69-ton (63-metric ton) M1 Abrams main battle tank, other armored vehicles, trucks, and trailers, along with palletized cargo.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: Maximum payload of the C-17 is , and its maximum takeoff weight is . With a payload of and an initial cruise altitude of , the C-17 has an unrefueled range of about on the first 71 aircraft, and on all subsequent extended-range models that include a sealed center wing bay as a fuel tank. Boeing informally calls these aircraft the "C-17 ER". The C-17's cruise speed is about (Mach 0.74). It is designed to airdrop 102 paratroopers and their equipment. According to Boeing the maximum unloaded range is 6,230 nautical miles (10,026 Kilometers).


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: The C-17 is designed to operate from runways as short as and as narrow as . The C-17 can also operate from unpaved, unimproved runways (although with a higher probability to damage the aircraft). The thrust reversers can be used to move the aircraft backwards and reverse direction on narrow taxiways using a three- (or more) point turn. The plane is designed for 20 man-hours of maintenance per flight hour, and a 74% mission availability rate.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: The first production C-17 was delivered to Charleston Air Force Base, South Carolina, on 14 July 1993. The first C-17 unit, the 17th Airlift Squadron, became operationally ready on 17 January 1995. It has broken 22 records for oversized payloads. The C-17 was awarded U.S. aviation's most prestigious award, the Collier Trophy, in 1994. A Congressional report on operations in Kosovo and Operation Allied Force noted "One of the great success stories...was the performance of the Air Force's C-17A" It flew half of the strategic airlift missions in the operation, the type could use small airfields, easing operations; rapid turnaround times also led to efficient utilization.


title: Boeing C-17 Globemaster III

text: In 2006, eight C-17s were delivered to March Joint Air Reserve Base, California; controlled by the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), assigned to the 452d Air Mobility Wing and subsequently assigned to AMC's 436th Airlift Wing and its AFRC "associate" unit, the 512th Airlift Wing, at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, supplementing the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy. The Mississippi Air National Guard's 172 Airlift Group received their first of eight C-17s in 2006. In 2011, the New York Air National Guard's 105th Airlift Wing at Stewart Air National Guard Base transitioned from the C-5 to the C-17.