title: CBS

text: On September 1, 2016, when ABC converted to a widescreen presentation, CBS and The CW were the only remaining networks that framed their promotions and on-screen graphical elements for a presentation, though with CBS Sports' "de facto" 16:9 conversion with Super Bowl 50 and their new graphical presentation designed for 16:9 framing, in practice, most CBS affiliates ask pay-TV providers to pass down a 16:9 widescreen presentation by default over their standard definition channels. This continued for CBS until September 24, 2018, when the network converted its on-screen graphical elements to a 16:9 widescreen presentation for all non-news and sports programs. Litton Entertainment continues to frame the graphical elements in their programs for "Dream Team" within a 4:3 frame due to them being positioned for future syndicated sales, though all of its programming has been in high definition.


title: CBS

text: The CBS television network's initial logo, used from the 1940s to 1951, consisted of an oval spotlight which shone on the block letters "CBS". The present-day Eye device was conceived by William Golden, based on a Pennsylvania Dutch hex sign and a Shaker drawing. While the logo is commonly attributed to Golden, some design work may have been done by CBS staff designer Georg Olden, one of the first African-Americans to attract some attention in the postwar graphic design field. The Eye device made its broadcast debut on October 20, 1951. The following season, as Golden prepared a new "ident", CBS President Frank Stanton insisted on keeping the Eye device and using it as much as possible. Golden died unexpectedly in 1959, and was replaced by Lou Dorfsman, one of his top assistants, who would go on to oversee all print and on-air graphics for CBS for the next 30 years.


title: CBS

text: The CBS eye has since become a widely recognized symbol. While the logo has been used in different ways, the Eye device itself has not been redesigned in its history. As part of a new graphical identity created by Trollbäck + Company that was introduced by the network in 2006, the eye was placed in a "trademark" position on show titles, days of the week and descriptive words, an approach highly respecting the value of the design. The logo is alternately known as the "Eyemark", a branding used for CBS's domestic television syndication division, under the Eyemark Entertainment name, in the mid-to-late 1990s after Westinghouse Electric bought CBS, but before the King World acquisition (which Eyemark was folded into), and subsequent merger with Viacom; Eyemark Entertainment was the result of the merger of MaXaM Entertainment (an independent television syndication firm which Westinghouse acquired shortly after its merger with CBS in 1996), Group W Productions (Westinghouse Broadcasting's own syndication division), & CBS Enterprises (CBS's syndication arm from the late 1960s to the early 1970s).


title: CBS

text: The eye logo has served as inspiration for the logos of Associated Television (ATV) in the United Kingdom, Canal 4 in El Salvador, Televisa in Mexico, France 3, Frecuencia Latina in Peru, Fuji Television in Japan, Rede Bandeirantes and Rede Globo in Brazil, and Canal 10 in Uruguay.


title: CBS

text: In October 2011, the network celebrated the 60th anniversary of the introduction of the Eye logo, featuring special IDs of logo versions from previous CBS image campaigns being shown during the network's primetime lineup.


title: CBS

text: CBS historically used a specially-commissioned variant of Didot, a close relative to Bodoni, as its corporate font until 2021.


title: CBS

text: CBS has developed several notable image campaigns, and several of the network's most well-known slogans were introduced in the 1980s. The "Reach for the Stars" campaign used during the 1981–82 season features a space theme to capitalize on both CBS's stellar improvement in the ratings and the historic launch of the space shuttle Columbia. 1982's "Great Moments" juxtaposed scenes from classic CBS programs such as "I Love Lucy" with scenes from the network's then-current classics such as "Dallas" and "M*A*S*H". From 1983 to 1986, CBS (by now firmly atop the ratings) featured a campaign based on the slogan "We've Got the Touch". Vocals for the campaign's jingle were contributed by Richie Havens (1983–84; one occasion in 1984–85) and Kenny Rogers (1985–86).


title: CBS

text: The 1986–87 season ushered in the "Share the Spirit of CBS" campaign, the network's first to completely use computer graphics and digital video effects. Unlike most network campaign promos, the full-length version of "Share the Spirit" not only showed a brief clip preview of each new fall series, but also utilized CGI effects to map out the entire fall schedule by night. The success of that campaign led to the 1987–88 "CBS Spirit" (or "CBSPIRIT") campaign. Like its predecessor, most "CBSpirit" promos utilized a procession of clips from the network's programs. However, the new graphic motif was a swirling (or "swishing") blue line that was used to represent "the spirit". The full-length promo, like the previous year, had a special portion that identified new fall shows, but the mapped-out fall schedule shot was abandoned.


title: CBS

text: For the 1988–89 season, CBS unveiled a new image campaign officially known as "Television You Can Feel", but more commonly identified as "You Can Feel It On CBS". The goal was to convey a more sensual, new-age image through distinguished, advanced-looking computer graphics and soothing music, backgrounding images and clips of emotionally powerful scenes and characters. However, it was this season in which CBS saw its ratings freefall, the deepest in the network's history. CBS ended the decade with "Get Ready for CBS", introduced with the 1989–90 season. The initial version was an ambitious campaign that attempted to elevate CBS out of last place (among the major networks); the motif centered around network stars interacting with each other in a remote studio set, getting ready for photo and television shoots, as well as for the new season on CBS. The high-energy promo song and the campaign's practices saw many customized variations by all of CBS's owned-and-operated stations and affiliates, which participated in the campaign per a network mandate. In addition, for the first time in history, CBS became the first broadcast network to partner with a national retailer (in this case, Kmart) to encourage viewership, with the "CBS/Kmart Get Ready Giveaway".


title: CBS

text: For the 1990–91 season, the campaign featured a new jingle performed by the Temptations, which featured an altered version of their hit "Get Ready". The early 1990s featured less-than-memorable campaigns, with simplified taglines such as "This is CBS" (1992) and "You're on CBS" (1995). Eventually, the promotions department gained momentum again late in the decade with "Welcome Home to a CBS Night" (1996–1997), simplified to "Welcome Home" (1997–1999) and succeeded by the spin-off campaign "The Address is CBS" (1999–2000), whose history can be traced back to a CBS slogan from the radio era of the 1940s, "The Stars' Address is CBS". During the 1992 season for the end-of-show network identification sequence, a four-note sound mark was introduced, which was eventually adapted into the network's IDs and production company vanity cards following the closing credits of most of its programs during the "Welcome Home" era.


title: CBS

text: Throughout the 2000s, CBS's ratings resurgence was backed by the network's "It's All Here" campaign (which introduced updated versions of the 1992 sound mark used during certain promotions and production company vanity cards during the closing credits of programs); in 2005 campaign introduced the slogan "Everybody's Watching", the network's strategy led to the proclamation that it was "America's Most Watched Network". The network's 2006 campaign introduced the slogan "We Are CBS", with Don LaFontaine providing the voiceover for the IDs (as well as certain network promos) during this period. In 2009, the network introduced a campaign entitled "Only CBS", in which network promotions proclaim several unique qualities it has (the slogan was also used in program promotions following the announcement of the timeslot of a particular program). The "America's Most Watched Network" was re-introduced by CBS in 2011, used alongside the "Only CBS" slogan.


title: CBS

text: In October 2020, CBS announced that it will begin to employ a more unified branding between the network and its divisions to strengthen brand awareness across platforms. This includes a new frontcap (featuring an animation of the eyemark as shapes and a new typeface) and five-note sonic branding that will be aired before all CBS-produced programming and event telecasts (with CBS entertainment programming using a dark blue version, CBS News using black and white, and CBS Sports using electric blue), as well as CBS Television Studios being renamed CBS Studios. and CBS Television Distribution being renamed CBS Media Ventures. The network also dropped the "America's Most Watched Network" and "Only CBS" taglines, with chief marketing officer Michael Benson explaining that they aimed to "be something where people feel like they are part of the family. It's tough to unify if you're bragging about yourself."


title: CBS

text: These new elements were rolled out in stages, with CBS News beginning to use them ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and CBS Sports launching the elements at Super Bowl LV; the "deconstructed eye" is used as a frequent motif across the properties, as well as the new corporate typeface TT Norms Pro.


title: CBS

text: CBS programs are shown outside the United States: through various Paramount Global international networks and/or content agreements, and in two North American countries, through U.S.-based CBS stations.Sky News broadcasts the "CBS Evening News" on its channels serving the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Italy.


title: CBS

text: In Canada, CBS network programming is carried on cable, satellite and IPTV providers through affiliates and owned-and-operated stations of the network that are located within proximity to the Canada–United States border (such as KIRO-TV in Seattle; KBJR-DT2 in Duluth, Minnesota: WWJ-TV in Detroit; WIVB-TV in Buffalo, New York; and WCAX-TV in Burlington, Vermont), some of which may also be receivable over-the-air in parts of southern Canada depending on the signal coverage of the station. Most programming is generally the same as it airs in the United States; however, some CBS programming on U.S.-based affiliates permitted for carriage by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission by Canadian cable and satellite providers are subject to simultaneous substitutions, a practice in which a pay television provider supplants an American station's signal with a feed from a Canadian station/network airing a particular program in the same time slot to protect domestic advertising revenue.


title: CBS

text: In Bermuda, CBS maintains an affiliation with Hamilton-based ZBM-TV, locally owned by Bermuda Broadcasting Company.


title: CBS

text: CBS programming is available in Mexico through affiliates in markets located within proximity to the Mexico–United States border (such as KYMA-DT/Yuma, Arizona; KVTV/Laredo, Texas; KDBC-TV/El Paso, Texas; KVEO-DT2/Brownsville/Harlingen/McAllen, Texas; and KFMB-TV/San Diego), whose signals are readily receivable over-the-air in border areas of northern Mexico.


title: CBS

text: In the U.S. territory of Guam, the network is affiliated with low-power station KUAM-LP in Hagåtña. Entertainment and non-breaking news programming is shown day and date on a one-day broadcast delay, as Guam is located on the west side of the International Date Line (for example, "NCIS", which airs on Tuesday nights, is carried Wednesdays on KUAM-LP, and is advertised by the station as airing on the latter night in on-air promotions), with live programming and breaking news coverage airing as scheduled, meaning live sports coverage often airs early in the morning.


title: CBS

text: On September 14, 2009, the international arm of CBS, CBS Studios International, reached a joint venture deal with Chellomedia to launch six CBS-branded channels in the United Kingdom – which would respectively replace Zone Romantica, Zone Thriller, Zone Horror and Zone Reality, as well as timeshift services Zone Horror +1 and Zone Reality +1 – during the fourth quarter of that year. On October 1, 2009, it was announced that the first four channels, CBS Reality, CBS Reality +1, CBS Drama and CBS Action (later CBS Justice), would launch on November 16 – respectively replacing Zone Reality, Zone Reality +1, Zone Romantica and Zone Thriller. On April 5, 2010, Zone Horror and Zone Horror +1 were rebranded as Horror Channel and Horror Channel +1.


title: CBS

text: CBS News and BBC News have maintained a news sharing agreement since 2017, replacing the BBC's longtime agreement with ABC News and CBS's with Sky News (which would have ended in any event in 2018 due to that entity's purchase by NBCUniversal).


title: CBS

text: As of the close of the Viacom merger on December 4, 2019, Channel 5 is now a sister operation to CBS, though no major changes to CBS's relationship with the BBC are expected in the near future, as Channel 5 sub-contracts its news programming obligations to ITN.


title: CBS

text: Australian free-to-air broadcaster Ten Network Holdings has been owned by CBS Corporation since 2017 (and subsequently, Paramount Global). Network Ten's channels, 10, 10 Peach, 10 Bold and 10 Shake, all carry CBS programming, with 10 Shake drawing extensively from the wider Paramount Global library including MTV and Nickelodeon. Prior to the acquisition, CBS had long been a major supplier of international programs to the network. The cost of maintaining program supply agreements with CBS and 21st Century Fox was a major factor in the network's unprofitability during the mid-2010s. Network Ten entered voluntary administration in June 2017. CBS Corporation was the network's largest creditor. CBS Corporation chose to acquire the network, completing the transaction in November 2017.


title: CBS

text: In Hong Kong, the "CBS Evening News" was broadcast live during the early morning hours on ATV; networks in that country maintains agreement to rebroadcast portions of the program 12 hours after the initial broadcast to provide additional content in case their affiliates have insufficient news content to fill time during their local news programs.


title: CBS

text: In the Philippines, "CBS Evening News" is broadcast on satellite network Q (a sister channel of GMA Network which is now GMA News TV), while "CBS This Morning" is shown in that country on Lifestyle Network (now Metro Channel). Several CBS entertainment programs such as "CSI", "Late Show with David Letterman" and "Survivor" series are broadcast by Studio 23 (now S+A) and Maxxx, which are both owned by ABS-CBN. 60 Minutes is currently broadcast on CNN Philippines as a part of their Stories block, which includes documentaries and is broadcast on Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. before CNN Philippines Nightly News with replays in a capacity as a stand-alone program on Saturdays at 8:00 a.m. & 5:00 pm and Sundays at 6:00 a.m, all in local time (UTC + 8).


title: CBS

text: In India, CBS maintained a brand licensing agreement with Reliance Broadcast Network Ltd. for three CBS-branded channels: Big CBS Prime, Big CBS Spark and Big CBS Love. These channels were shut down in late November 2013. Following the CBS and Viacom merger, Hindi-language general entertainment channel Colors TV became a sister network to CBS through the Viacom18 joint venture with TV18.


title: CBS

text: In Israel, in 2012 the channels Zone Reality and Zone Romanatica have been rebranded as CBS Reality and CBS Drama, respectively. The channels were carried by Israeli television providers yes and HOT, although they both only carry CBS Reality.


title: CBS

text: In 1995, CBS refused to air a "60 Minutes" segment that featured an interview with a former president of research and development for Brown & Williamson, the U.S.'s third largest tobacco company. The controversy raised questions about the legal roles in decision-making and whether journalistic standards should be compromised despite legal pressures and threats. The decision nevertheless sent shockwaves throughout the television industry, the journalism community, and the country. This incident was the basis for the 1999 Michael Mann-directed drama film, "The Insider".


title: CBS

text: In 2004, the Federal Communications Commission imposed a record $550,000 fine, the largest fine ever for a violation of federal decency laws, against CBS for an incident during its broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVIII in which singer Janet Jackson's right breast (which was partially covered by a piece of nipple jewelry) was briefly and accidentally exposed by guest performer Justin Timberlake at the end of a duet performance of Timberlake's 2003 single "Rock Your Body" during the halftime show (produced by then sister cable network MTV). Following the incident, CBS apologized to its viewers and denied foreknowledge of the incident, which was televised live. The incident resulted in a period of increased regulation of broadcast television and radio outlets (including self-imposed content regulation by networks and syndicators), which raised concerns surrounding censorship and freedom of speech, and resulted in the FCC voting to increase its maximum fine for indecency violations from US$27,500 to US$325,000. In 2008, a Philadelphia federal court annulled the fine imposed on CBS, labelling it "arbitrary and capricious".


title: CBS

text: On September 8, 2004, less than two months before the Presidential election in which he defeated Democratic candidate John Kerry, CBS aired a controversial episode of "60 Minutes Wednesday", which questioned then-President George W. Bush's service in the Air National Guard in 1972 and 1973. Following allegations of forgery, CBS News admitted that four of the documents used in the story had not been properly authenticated and admitted that their source, Bill Burkett, had admitted to having "deliberately misled" a CBS News producer who worked on the report, about the documents' origins out of a confidentiality promise to the actual source. The following January, CBS fired four people connected to the preparation of the segment. Former CBS news anchor Dan Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and former corporate parent Viacom in September 2007, contending the story, and his termination (he resigned as CBS News chief anchor in 2005), were mishandled. Parts of the suit were dismissed in 2008; subsequently in 2010, the entire suit was dismissed and Rather's motion to appeal was denied.


title: CBS

text: In January 2013, CNET named Dish Network's "Hopper with Sling" digital video recorder as a nominee for the CES "Best in Show" award (which is decided by CNET on behalf of its organizers, the Consumer Electronics Association), and named it the winner in a vote by the site's staff. However, CBS division CBS Interactive disqualified the Hopper, and vetoed the results as CBS was in active litigation with Dish Network over its AutoHop technology (which allows users to skip commercial advertisements during recorded programs). CNET announced that it would no longer review any product or service provided by companies that CBS Corporation was in litigation with. The "Best in Show" award was instead given to the Razer Edge tablet. On January 14, 2013, CNET editor-in-chief Lindsey Turrentine said in a statement that its staff was in an "impossible" situation due to the conflict of interest posed by the lawsuit, and promised to prevent a similar incident from occurring again. The conflict also prompted the resignation of CNET senior writer Greg Sandoval. As a result of the controversy, the CEA announced on January 31, 2013, that CNET will no longer decide the CES Best in Show award winner due to the interference of CBS (with the position being offered to other technology publications), and the "Best in Show" award was jointly awarded to both the Hopper with Sling and Razer Edge.


title: CBS

text: In July 2018, an article by Ronan Farrow in "The New Yorker" claimed that thirty "current and former CBS employees described harassment, gender discrimination, or retaliation" at CBS and six women accused Les Moonves of harassment and intimidation. Following these allegations, it was reported on September 6, 2018, that CBS board members were negotiating Les Moonves's departure from the company.


title: CBS

text: On September 9, 2018, "The New Yorker" reported that six additional women (in addition to the six original women reported in July) had raised accusations against Moonves, going back to the 1980s. Following this, Moonves resigned the same day as chief executive of CBS.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Suez Canal (, "") is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular trade route between Europe and Asia.


title: Suez Canal

text: In 1858, Ferdinand de Lesseps formed the Suez Canal Company for the express purpose of building the canal. Construction of the canal lasted from 1859 to 1869. The canal officially opened on 17 November 1869. It offers vessels a direct route between the North Atlantic and northern Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian oceans and reducing the journey distance from the Arabian Sea to London by approximately , or 10 days at to 8 days at . The canal extends from the northern terminus of Port Said to the southern terminus of Port Tewfik at the city of Suez. In 2021, more than 20,600 vessels traversed the canal (an average of 56 per day).


title: Suez Canal

text: The original canal featured a single-lane waterway with passing locations in the Ballah Bypass and the Great Bitter Lake. It contained, according to Alois Negrelli's plans, no lock systems, with seawater flowing freely through it. In general, the water in the canal north of the Bitter Lakes flows north in winter and south in summer. South of the lakes, the current changes with the tide at Suez.


title: Suez Canal

text: The canal was the property of the Egyptian government, but European shareholders, mostly British and French, owned the concessionary company which operated it until July 1956, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised it—an event which led to the Suez Crisis of October–November 1956. The canal is operated and maintained by the state-owned Suez Canal Authority (SCA) of Egypt. Under the Convention of Constantinople, it may be used "in time of war as in time of peace, by every vessel of commerce or of war, without distinction of flag." Nevertheless, the canal has played an important military strategic role as a naval short-cut and choke point. Navies with coastlines and bases on both the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea (Egypt and Israel) have a particular interest in the Suez Canal. After Egypt closed the Suez Canal at the beginning of the Six-Day War on 5 June 1967, the canal remained closed for precisely eight years, reopening on 5 June 1975.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Egyptian government launched construction in 2014 to expand and widen the Ballah Bypass for to speed up the canal's transit time. The expansion intended to nearly double the capacity of the Suez Canal, from 49 to 97 ships per day. At a cost of LE 59.4 billion(US$9 billion), this project was funded with interest bearing investment certificates issued exclusively to Egyptian entities and individuals.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Suez Canal Authority officially opened the new side channel in 2016. This side channel, at the northern side of the east extension of the Suez Canal, serves the East Terminal for berthing and unberthing vessels from the terminal. As the East Container Terminal is located on the Canal itself, before the construction of the new side channel it was not possible to berth or unberth vessels at the terminal while a convoy was running.


title: Suez Canal

text: Ancient west–east canals were built to facilitate travel from the Nile to the Red Sea. One smaller canal is believed to have been constructed under the auspices of Senusret II or Ramesses II. Another canal, probably incorporating a portion of the first, was constructed under the reign of Necho II, but the only fully functional canal was engineered and completed by Darius I.


title: Suez Canal

text: James Henry Breasted attributes the earliest known attempt to construct a canal to the first cataract, near Aswan, to the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt and its completion to Senusret III of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt.


title: Suez Canal

text: The legendary Sesostris (likely either Pharaoh Senusret II or Senusret III of the Twelfth Dynasty of Egypt) may have constructed the ancient canal, the Canal of the Pharaohs, joining the Nile with the Red Sea (BC 1897–1839), when an irrigation channel was constructed around BC 1848 that was navigable during the flood season, leading into a dry river valley east of the Nile River Delta named Wadi Tumilat. (It is said that in ancient times the Red Sea reached northward to the Bitter Lakes and Lake Timsah.)


title: Suez Canal

text: One of their kings tried to make a canal to it (for it would have been of no little advantage to them for the whole region to have become navigable; Sesostris is said to have been the first of the ancient kings to try), but he found that the sea was higher than the land. So he first, and Darius afterwards, stopped making the canal, lest the sea should mix with the river water and spoil it.


title: Suez Canal

text: 165. Next comes the Tyro tribe and, the harbour of the Daneoi, from which Sesostris, king of Egypt, intended to carry a ship-canal to where the Nile flows into what is known as the Delta; this is a distance of over . Later the Persian king Darius had the same idea, and yet again Ptolemy II, who made a trench wide, deep and about long, as far as the Bitter Lakes.


title: Suez Canal

text: In the 20th century, the northward extension of the later Darius I canal was discovered, extending from Lake Timsah to the Ballah Lakes. This was dated to the Middle Kingdom of Egypt by extrapolating the dates of ancient sites along its course.


title: Suez Canal

text: The reliefs of the Punt expedition under Hatshepsut, BC 1470, depict seagoing vessels carrying the expeditionary force returning from Punt. This suggests that a navigable link existed between the Red Sea and the Nile. Recent excavations in Wadi Gawasis may indicate that Egypt's maritime trade started from the Red Sea and did not require a canal. Evidence seems to indicate its existence by the 13th century BC during the time of Ramesses II.


title: Suez Canal

text: Remnants of an ancient west–east canal through the ancient Egyptian cities of Bubastis, Pi-Ramesses, and Pithom were discovered by Napoleon Bonaparte and his engineers and cartographers in 1799.


title: Suez Canal

text: According to the "Histories" of the Greek historian Herodotus, about BC 600, Necho II undertook to dig a west–east canal through the Wadi Tumilat between Bubastis and Heroopolis, and perhaps continued it to the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea. Regardless, Necho is reported as having never completed his project.


title: Suez Canal

text: Herodotus was told that 120,000 men perished in this undertaking, but this figure is doubtless exaggerated. According to Pliny the Elder, Necho's extension to the canal was about , equal to the total distance between Bubastis and the Great Bitter Lake, allowing for winding through valleys. The length that Herodotus tells, of over 1000 stadia (i.e., over ), must be understood to include the entire distance between the Nile and the Red Sea at that time.


title: Suez Canal

text: With Necho's death, work was discontinued. Herodotus tells that the reason the project was abandoned was because of a warning received from an oracle that others would benefit from its successful completion. Necho's war with Nebuchadnezzar II most probably prevented the canal's continuation.


title: Suez Canal

text: Necho's project was completed by Darius I of Persia, who ruled over Ancient Egypt after it had been conquered by his predecessor Cambyses II. It may be that by Darius's time a natural waterway passage which had existed between the Heroopolite Gulf and the Red Sea in the vicinity of the Egyptian town of Shaluf (alt. "Chalouf" or "Shaloof"), located just south of the Great Bitter Lake, had become so blocked with silt that Darius needed to clear it out so as to allow navigation once again. According to Herodotus, Darius's canal was wide enough that two triremes could pass each other with oars extended, and required four days to traverse. Darius commemorated his achievement with a number of granite stelae that he set up on the Nile bank, including one near Kabret, and a further one a few kilometres north of Suez. Darius the Great's Suez Inscriptions read:


title: Suez Canal

text: The canal left the Nile at Bubastis. An inscription on a pillar at Pithom records that in 270 or 269 BCE, it was again reopened, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus. In Arsinoe, Ptolemy constructed a navigable lock, with sluices, at the Heroopolite Gulf of the Red Sea, which allowed the passage of vessels but prevented salt water from the Red Sea from mingling with the fresh water in the canal.


title: Suez Canal

text: In the second half of the 19th century, French cartographers discovered the remnants of an ancient north–south canal past the east side of Lake Timsah and ending near the north end of the Great Bitter Lake. This proved to be the canal made by Darius I, as his stele commemorating its construction was found at the site. (This ancient, second canal may have followed a course along the shoreline of the Red Sea when it once extended north to Lake Timsah.)


title: Suez Canal

text: The Red Sea is believed by some historians to have gradually receded over the centuries, its coastline slowly moving southward away from Lake Timsah and the Great Bitter Lake. Coupled with persistent accumulations of Nile silt, maintenance and repair of Ptolemy's canal became increasingly cumbersome over each passing century.


title: Suez Canal

text: Two hundred years after the construction of Ptolemy's canal, Cleopatra seems to have had no west–east waterway passage, because the Pelusiac branch of the Nile, which fed Ptolemy's west–east canal, had by that time dwindled, being choked with silt. In support of this contention one can note that in 31 BCE, during a reversal of fortune in Mark Antony's and Cleopatra's war against Octavian, she attempted to escape Egypt with her fleet by raising the ships out of the Mediterranean and dragging them across the isthmus of Suez to the Red Sea. Then, according to Plutarch, the Arabs of Petra attacked and burned the first wave of these ships and Cleopatra abandoned the effort. (Modern historians, however, maintain that her ships were burned by the enemy forces of Malichus I.)


title: Suez Canal

text: By the 8th century, a navigable canal existed between Old Cairo and the Red Sea, but accounts vary as to who ordered its construction – either Trajan or 'Amr ibn al-'As, or Umar. This canal was reportedly linked to the River Nile at Old Cairo and ended near modern Suez. A geography treatise "De Mensura Orbis Terrae" written by the Irish monk Dicuil (born late 8th century) reports a conversation with another monk, Fidelis, who had sailed on the canal from the Nile to the Red Sea during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the first half of the 8th century


title: Suez Canal

text: The Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur is said to have ordered this canal closed in 767 to prevent supplies from reaching Arabian detractors.


title: Suez Canal

text: Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah is claimed to have repaired the Cairo to Red Sea passageway, but only briefly, circa 1000 CE, as it soon "became choked with sand". However, parts of this canal still continued to fill in during the Nile's annual inundations.


title: Suez Canal

text: The successful 1488 navigation of southern Africa by Bartolomeu Dias opened a direct maritime trading route to India and the Spice Islands, and forever changed the balance of Mediterranean trade. One of the most prominent losers in the new order, as former middlemen, was the former spice trading center of Venice.


title: Suez Canal

text: Despite entering negotiations with Egypt's ruling Mamelukes, the Venetian plan to build the canal was quickly put to rest by the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, led by Sultan Selim I.


title: Suez Canal

text: During the 16th century, the Ottoman Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha attempted to construct a canal connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. This was motivated by a desire to connect Constantinople to the pilgrimage and trade routes of the Indian Ocean, as well as by strategic concerns—as the European presence in the Indian Ocean was growing, Ottoman mercantile and strategic interests were increasingly challenged, and the Sublime Porte was increasingly pressed to assert its position. A navigable canal would allow the Ottoman Navy to connect its Red Sea, Black Sea, and Mediterranean fleets. However, this project was deemed too expensive, and was never completed.


title: Suez Canal

text: During the French campaign in Egypt and Syria in late 1798, Napoleon expressed interest in finding the remnants of an ancient waterway passage. This culminated in a cadre of archaeologists, scientists, cartographers and engineers scouring northern Egypt. Their findings, recorded in the "Description de l'Égypte", include detailed maps that depict the discovery of an ancient canal extending northward from the Red Sea and then westward toward the Nile.


title: Suez Canal

text: Later, Napoleon, who became the French Emperor in 1804, contemplated the construction of a north–south canal to connect the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. But the plan was abandoned because it incorrectly concluded that the waterway would require locks to operate, the construction of which would be costly and time-consuming. The belief in the need for locks was based on the erroneous belief that the Red Sea was higher than the Mediterranean. This was the result of using fragmentary survey measurements taken in wartime during Napoleon's Egyptian Expedition.


title: Suez Canal

text: As late as 1861, the unnavigable ancient route discovered by Napoleon from Bubastis to the Red Sea still channelled water as far east as Kassassin.


title: Suez Canal

text: Despite the construction challenges that could have been the result of the alleged difference in sea levels, the idea of finding a shorter route to the east remained alive. In 1830, General Francis Chesney submitted a report to the British government that stated that there was no difference in elevation and that the Suez Canal was feasible, but his report received no further attention. Lieutenant Waghorn established his "Overland Route", which transported post and passengers to India via Egypt.


title: Suez Canal

text: Linant de Bellefonds, a French explorer of Egypt, became chief engineer of Egypt's Public Works. In addition to his normal duties, he surveyed the Isthmus of Suez and made plans for the Suez Canal. French Saint-Simonianists showed an interest in the canal and in 1833, Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin tried to draw Muhammad Ali's attention to the canal but was unsuccessful. Alois Negrelli, the Italian-Austrian railroad pioneer, became interested in the idea in 1836.


title: Suez Canal

text: In 1846, Prosper Enfantin's Société d'Études du Canal de Suez invited a number of experts, among them Robert Stephenson, Negrelli and Paul-Adrien Bourdaloue to study the feasibility of the Suez Canal (with the assistance of Linant de Bellefonds). Bourdaloue's survey of the isthmus was the first generally accepted evidence that there was no practical difference in altitude between the two seas. Britain, however, feared that a canal open to everyone might interfere with its India trade and therefore preferred a connection by train from Alexandria via Cairo to Suez, which Stephenson eventually built.


title: Suez Canal

text: In 1854 and 1856, Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained a concession from Sa'id Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, to create a company to construct a canal open to ships of all nations. The company was to operate the canal for 99 years from its opening. De Lesseps had used his friendly relationship with Sa'id, which he had developed while he was a French diplomat in the 1830s. As stipulated in the concessions, de Lesseps convened the International Commission for the piercing of the isthmus of Suez ("Commission Internationale pour le percement de l'isthme de Suez") consisting of 13 experts from seven countries, among them John Robinson McClean, later President of the Institution of Civil Engineers in London, and again Negrelli, to examine the plans developed by Linant de Bellefonds, and to advise on the feasibility of and the best route for the canal. After surveys and analyses in Egypt and discussions in Paris on various aspects of the canal, where many of Negrelli's ideas prevailed, the commission produced a unanimous report in December 1856 containing a detailed description of the canal complete with plans and profiles. The Suez Canal Company ("Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez") came into being on 15 December 1858.


title: Suez Canal

text: The British government had opposed the project from the outset to its completion. The British, who controlled both the Cape route and the Overland route to India and the Far East, favored the "status quo", given that a canal might disrupt their commercial and maritime supremacy. Lord Palmerston, the project's most unwavering foe, confessed in the mid-1850s the real motive behind his opposition: that Britain's commercial and maritime relations would be overthrown by the opening of a new route, open to all nations, and thus deprive his country of its present exclusive advantages. As one of the diplomatic moves against the project when it nevertheless went ahead, it disapproved of the use of "forced labour" for construction of the canal. Involuntary labour on the project ceased, and the viceroy condemned the corvée, halting the project.


title: Suez Canal

text: Initially international opinion was sceptical and Suez Canal Company shares did not sell well overseas. Britain, Austria, and Russia did not buy a significant number of shares. With assistance from the Cattaui banking family, and their relationship with James de Rothschild of the French House of Rothschild bonds and shares were successfully promoted in France and other parts of Europe. All French shares were quickly sold in France. A contemporary British skeptic claimed "One thing is sure... our local merchant community doesn't pay practical attention at all to this grand work, and it is legitimate to doubt that the canal's receipts... could ever be sufficient to recover its maintenance fee. It will never become a large ship's accessible way in any case."


title: Suez Canal

text: The excavation took some 10 years, with forced labour (corvée) being employed until 1864 to dig out the canal. Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period, that more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed, and that tens of thousands of labourers died, many of them from cholera and similar epidemics.


title: Suez Canal

text: Estimates of the number of deaths vary widely with Gamal Abdel Nasser citing 120,000 deaths upon nationalisation of the canal in a 26 July 1956 speech and the company's chief medical officer reporting no higher than 2.49 deaths per thousand in 1866. Doubling these estimates with a generous assumption of 50,000 working staff per year over 11 years would put a conservative estimate at fewer than 3,000 deaths. More closely relying on the limited reported data of the time, the number would be fewer than 1,000.


title: Suez Canal

text: The canal opened under French control in November 1869. The opening ceremonies began at Port Said on the evening of 15 November, with illuminations, fireworks, and a banquet on the yacht of the Khedive Isma'il Pasha of Egypt and Sudan. The royal guests arrived the following morning: the Emperor Franz Joseph I, the French Empress Eugenie in the Imperial yacht "L'Aigle", the Crown Prince of Prussia, and Prince Louis of Hesse. Other international guests included the American natural historian H. W. Harkness. In the afternoon there were blessings of the canal with both Muslim and Christian ceremonies, a temporary mosque and church having been built side by side on the beach. In the evening there were more illuminations and fireworks.


title: Suez Canal

text: On the morning of 17 November, a procession of ships entered the canal, headed by the "L'Aigle". Among the ships following was HMS "Newport", captained by George Nares, which surveyed the canal on behalf of the Admiralty a few months later. The "Newport" was involved in an incident that demonstrated some of the problems with the canal. There were suggestions that the depth of parts of the canal at the time of the inauguration were not as great as promised, and that the deepest part of the channel was not always clear, leading to a risk of grounding. The first day of the passage ended at Lake Timsah, south of Port Said. The French ship "Péluse" anchored close to the entrance, then swung around and grounded, the ship and its hawser blocking the way into the lake. The following ships had to anchor in the canal itself until the "Péluse" was hauled clear the next morning, making it difficult for them to join that night's celebration in Ismailia. Except for the "Newport": Nares sent out a boat to carry out soundings, and was able to manoeuver around the "Péluse" to enter the lake and anchor there for the night.


title: Suez Canal

text: Ismailia was the scene of more celebrations the following day, including a military "march past", illuminations and fireworks, and a ball at the Governor's Palace. The convoy set off again on the morning of 19 November, for the remainder of the trip to Suez. After Suez, many of the participants headed for Cairo, and then to the Pyramids, where a new road had been built for the occasion.


title: Suez Canal

text: An Anchor Line ship, the S.S. "Dido", became the first to pass through the Canal from South to North.


title: Suez Canal

text: Although numerous technical, political, and financial problems had been overcome, the final cost was more than double the original estimate.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Khedive, in particular, was able to overcome initial reservations held by both British and French creditors by enlisting the help of the Sursock family, whose deep connections proved invaluable in securing much international support for the project.


title: Suez Canal

text: After the opening, the Suez Canal Company was in financial difficulties. The remaining works were completed only in 1871, and traffic was below expectations in the first two years. De Lesseps therefore tried to increase revenues by interpreting the kind of net ton referred to in the second concession ("tonneau de capacité") as meaning a ship's cargo capacity and not only the theoretical net tonnage of the "Moorsom System" introduced in Britain by the Merchant Shipping Act in 1854. The ensuing commercial and diplomatic activities resulted in the International Commission of Constantinople establishing a specific kind of net tonnage and settling the question of tariffs in its protocol of 18 December 1873. This was the origin of the Suez Canal Net Tonnage and the Suez Canal Special Tonnage Certificate, both of which are still in use today.


title: Suez Canal

text: The canal had an immediate and dramatic effect on world trade. Combined with the American transcontinental railroad completed six months earlier, it allowed the world to be circled in record time. It played an important role in increasing European colonization of Africa. The construction of the canal was one of the reasons for the Panic of 1873 in Great Britain, because goods from the Far East had, until then, been carried in sailing vessels around the Cape of Good Hope and stored in British warehouses. An inability to pay his bank debts led Said Pasha's successor, Isma'il Pasha, in 1875 to sell his 44% share in the canal for £4,000,000 ($19.2 million), equivalent to £432 million to £456 million ($540 million to $570 million) in 2019, to the government of the United Kingdom. French shareholders still held the majority. Local unrest caused the British to invade in 1882 and take full control, although nominally Egypt remained part of the Ottoman Empire. The British representative from 1883 to 1907 was Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, who reorganized and modernized the government and suppressed rebellions and corruption, thereby facilitating increased traffic on the canal.


title: Suez Canal

text: The European Mediterranean countries in particular benefited economically from the Suez Canal, as they now had much faster connections to Asia and East Africa than the North and West European maritime trading nations such as Great Britain, the Netherlands or Germany. The biggest beneficiary in the Mediterranean was Austria-Hungary, which had participated in the planning and construction of the canal. The largest Austrian maritime trading company, Österreichischer Lloyd, experienced rapid expansion after the canal was completed, as did the port city of Trieste, then an Austrian possession. The company was a partner in the Compagnie Universelle du Canal de Suez, whose vice-president was the Lloyd co-founder Pasquale Revoltella.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Convention of Constantinople in 1888 declared the canal a neutral zone under the protection of the British, who had occupied Egypt and Sudan at the request of Khedive Tewfiq to suppress the Urabi Revolt against his rule. The revolt went on from 1879 to 1882. The British defended the strategically important passage against a major Ottoman attack in 1915, during the First World War. Under the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, the UK retained control over the canal. With outbreak of World War II the canal was again strategically important; Italo-German attempts to capture it were repulsed during the North Africa Campaign, which ensured the canal remained closed to Axis shipping.


title: Suez Canal

text: In 1951 Egypt repudiated the 1936 treaty with Great Britain. In October 1954 the UK tentatively agreed to remove its troops from the Canal Zone. Because of Egyptian overtures towards the Soviet Union, both the United Kingdom and the United States withdrew their pledge to financially support construction of the Aswan Dam. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser responded by nationalising the canal on 26 July 1956 and transferring it to the Suez Canal Authority, intending to finance the dam project using revenue from the canal. On the same day that the canal was nationalised Nasser also closed the Straits of Tiran to all Israeli ships. This led to the Suez Crisis in which the UK, France, and Israel invaded Egypt. According to the pre-agreed war plans under the Protocol of Sèvres, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula on 29 October, forcing Egypt to engage them militarily, and allowing the Anglo-French partnership to declare the resultant fighting a threat to stability in the Middle East and enter the war – officially to separate the two forces but in reality to regain the Canal and bring down the Nasser government.


title: Suez Canal

text: To save the British from what he thought was a disastrous action and to stop the war from a possible escalation, Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson proposed the creation of the first United Nations peacekeeping force to ensure access to the canal for all and an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula. On 4 November 1956, a majority at the United Nations voted for Pearson's peacekeeping resolution, which mandated the UN peacekeepers to stay in Sinai unless both Egypt and Israel agreed to their withdrawal. The United States backed this proposal by putting pressure on the British government through the selling of sterling, which would cause it to depreciate. Britain then called a ceasefire, and later agreed to withdraw its troops by the end of the year. Pearson was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As a result of damage and ships sunk under orders from Nasser the canal was closed until April 1957, when it was cleared with UN assistance. A UN force (UNEF) was established to maintain the free navigability of the canal, and peace in the Sinai Peninsula.


title: Suez Canal

text: Prior to the 1967 war, Egypt had repeatedly closed the canal to Israeli shipping as a defensive measure, refusing to open the canal in 1949 and during the 1956 Suez Crisis. Egypt did so despite UN Security Council resolutions from 1949 and 1951 urging it not to, claiming that hostilities had ended with the 1949 armistice agreement.


title: Suez Canal

text: On 16 May 1967, when Nasser ordered the UNEF peacekeeping forces out of the Sinai Peninsula, including the Suez Canal area, Egyptian troops were sent into Sinai to take their place. Israel protested Nasser's order to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli trade on 21 May, the same year. This halted Israeli shipping between the port of Eilat and the Red Sea.


title: Suez Canal

text: After the 1967 Six-Day War, Israeli forces occupied the Sinai Peninsula, including the entire east bank of the Suez Canal. In the following years the tensions between Egypt and Israeli intensified and from March 1969 until August 1970, a war of attrition took place as the then Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, tried to retake the territories occupied by Israel during the conflict. The fighting ceased after the death of Nasser in 1970. After this conflict there were no changes in the distribution of territory, but the underlying tensions persisted.


title: Suez Canal

text: Unwilling to allow the Israelis to use the canal, Egypt immediately imposed a blockade which closed the canal to all shipping immediately after the beginning of the Six-Day War. The canal remained blocked for eight years. There was no anticipation of this event and consequently fifteen cargo ships, known as the "Yellow Fleet", were trapped in the canal, and remained there until its reopening in 1975.


title: Suez Canal

text: On 6 October 1973, during the Yom Kippur War, the canal was the scene of the Operation Badr, in which the Egyptian military crossed the Suez Canal into Israeli-occupied Sinai Peninsula. Much wreckage from this conflict remains visible along the canal's edges. Arab oil exporters, sympathetic to Egypt, pushed OPEC to raise the price of crude oil by around 17 percent and eventually imposed an embargo against the United States and other Israeli allies.


title: Suez Canal

text: After the Yom Kippur War, the United States initiated Operation Nimbus Moon. The amphibious assault ship USS "Inchon (LPH-12)" was sent to the Canal, carrying 12 RH-53D minesweeping helicopters of Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 12. These partly cleared the canal between May and December 1974. She was relieved by the LST USS "Barnstable County" (LST1197). The British Royal Navy initiated Operation Rheostat and Task Group 65.2 provided for Operation Rheostat One (six months in 1974), the minehunters HMS "Maxton", HMS "Bossington", and HMS "Wilton", the Fleet Clearance Diving Team (FCDT) and HMS "Abdiel", a practice minelayer/MCMV support ship; and for Operation Rheostat Two (six months in 1975) the minehunters HMS "Hubberston" and HMS "Sheraton", and HMS "Abdiel". When the Canal Clearance Operations were completed, the canal and its lakes were considered 99% clear of mines. The canal was then reopened by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat aboard an Egyptian destroyer, which led the first convoy northbound to Port Said in 1975, at his side stood the Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.


title: Suez Canal

text: The UNEF mandate expired in 1979. Despite the efforts of the United States, Israel, Egypt, and others to obtain an extension of the UN role in observing the peace between Israel and Egypt, as called for under the Egypt–Israel peace treaty of 1979, the mandate could not be extended because of the veto by the Soviet Union in the UN Security Council, at the request of Syria. Accordingly, negotiations for a new observer force in the Sinai produced the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), stationed in Sinai in 1981 in coordination with a phased Israeli withdrawal. The MFO remains active under agreements between the United States, Israel, Egypt, and other nations.


title: Suez Canal

text: In 2014, months after taking office as President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi ordered the expansion of the Ballah Bypass from wide to wide for . The project was called the New Suez Canal, as it allows ships to transit the canal in both directions simultaneously. The project cost more than LE 59.4 billion (US$9 billion) and was completed within a year. Sisi declared the expanded channel open to business in a ceremony on 6 August 2015.


title: Suez Canal

text: On 23 March 2021, at around 05:40 UTC (07:40 local time), the Suez Canal was blocked in both directions by the ultra-large Evergreen G-class container ship "Ever Given". The ship, operated by Evergreen Marine, was en route from Malaysia to the Netherlands when it ran aground after strong winds allegedly blew the ship off course. Upon running aground, "Ever Given" turned sideways, completely blocking the canal. Although part of the length of the canal is paralleled by an older narrower channel which can be used to bypass obstructions, this incident occurred south of that area, in a section of the canal where there is only one channel. The site was located at .


title: Suez Canal

text: When the incident began, many economists and trade experts commented on the effects of the obstruction if not resolved quickly, citing how important the Suez was to global trade; the incident was likely to drastically affect the global economy because of the trapped goods scheduled to go through the canal. Among those goods, oil shipments were the most affected in the immediate aftermath, due to a significant number still blocked with no other way to reach their destination. Referring to the European and American market, a few maritime experts have disputed the prediction of a drastic effect on trade, saying this "really isn’t a substantial transit route for crude" according to Marshall Steeves, energy markets analyst at IHS Markit, and "there are existing stocks" according to Camille Egloff of Boston Consulting Group and alternative sources of supply, noting that traffic only slowed down and that it might only have impacted sectors with existing shortages (such as the semiconductor industry). The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) estimates that up to $3 billion worth of cargo passes through the Suez Canal every day.


title: Suez Canal

text: It was said the blockage would have an impact on cargo schedules around the world. Shipping companies were also considering whether to divert their ships along the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope. The first container ship to do so was "Ever Given"s sister ship, "Ever Greet".


title: Suez Canal

text: The ship was re-floated on 29 March. Within a few hours, cargo traffic resumed, slowly resolving the backlog of around 450 ships. The first ship to successfully pass through the canal after the "Ever Given"'s recovery was the "YM Wish", a Hong Kong-based cargo ship.


title: Suez Canal

text: On 2 April 2021, Usama Rabie, chairman of the Suez Canal Authority of Egypt, said that the damage caused by the blockage of the canal could reach about $1 billion. Rabie also revealed that after the Suez Canal resumed navigation, as of noon on 31 March 285 cargo ships had passed through the canal smoothly. He said that the remaining 175 freighters waiting to pass through the canal would all pass by 2 April.


title: Suez Canal

text: After the incident, the Egyptian government announced that they would be widening the narrower parts of the canal. On 9 September 2021, the canal was briefly blocked again by the MV "Coral Crystal". However, this ship was freed within 15 minutes, presenting minimal disruption to other convoys.


title: Suez Canal

text: When built, the canal was long and deep. After several enlargements, it is long, deep and wide. It consists of the northern access channel of , the canal itself of and the southern access channel of .


title: Suez Canal

text: The so-called New Suez Canal, functional since 6 August 2015, currently has a new parallel canal in the middle part, with its length over . The current parameters of the Suez Canal, including both individual canals of the parallel section are: depth and width at least (that width measured at of depth).


title: Suez Canal

text: The canal allows passage of ships up to draft or 240,000 deadweight tons and up to a height of above water level and a maximum beam of under certain conditions. The canal can handle more traffic and larger ships than the Panama Canal, as Suezmax dimensions are greater than both Panamax and New Panamax. Some supertankers are too large to traverse the canal. Others can offload part of their cargo onto a canal-owned ship to reduce their draft, transit, and reload at the other end of the canal. On 15 April 2021 Egyptian authorities announced that they would widen the southern section of the Suez Canal to improve the efficiency of the canal. The plan mainly covers about from Suez to the Great Bitter Lake. It will be widened by and the maximum depth will be increased from about to about .


title: Suez Canal

text: Ships approaching the canal from the sea are expected to radio the harbour when they are within of the Fairway Buoy near Port Said.


title: Suez Canal

text: The canal has no locks because of the flat terrain, and the minor sea level difference between each end is inconsequential for shipping. As the canal has no sea surge gates, the ports at the ends would be subject to the sudden impact of tsunamis from the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea, according to a 2012 article in the "Journal of Coastal Research".


title: Suez Canal

text: There is one shipping lane with passing areas in Ballah-Bypass near El Qantara and in the Great Bitter Lake. On a typical day, three convoys transit the canal, two southbound and one northbound. The passage takes between 11 and 16 hours at a speed of around . The low speed helps prevent erosion of the banks by ships' wakes.


title: Suez Canal

text: By 1955, about two-thirds of Europe's oil passed through the canal. Around 8% of world sea trade is carried via the canal. In 2008, 21,415 vessels passed through the canal and the receipts totalled $5.381 billion, with an average cost per ship of $251,000.


title: Suez Canal

text: New Rules of Navigation came into force on 1 January 2008, passed by the board of directors of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) to organise vessels' transit. The most important amendments include allowing vessels with draught to pass, increasing the allowed breadth from (following improvement operations), and imposing a fine on vessels using pilots from outside the SCA inside the canal boundaries without permission. The amendments allow vessels loaded with dangerous cargo (such as radioactive or flammable materials) to pass if they conform with the latest amendments provided by international conventions.


title: Suez Canal

text: The SCA has the right to determine the number of tugs required to assist warships traversing the canal, to achieve the highest degree of safety during transit.


title: Suez Canal

text: Before August 2015, the canal was too narrow for free two-way traffic, so ships had to pass in convoys and use bypasses. The bypasses were out of (40%). From north to south, they are Port Said bypass (entrances) , Ballah bypass & anchorage , Timsah bypass , and the Deversoir bypass (northern end of the Great Bitter Lake) . The bypasses were completed in 1980.


title: Suez Canal

text: Typically, it would take a ship 12 to 16 hours to transit the canal. The canal's 24-hour capacity was about 76 standard ships.


title: Suez Canal

text: In August 2014, Egypt chose a consortium that includes the Egyptian army and global engineering firm Dar Al-Handasah to develop an international industrial and logistics hub in the Suez Canal area, and began the construction of a new canal section from combined with expansion and deep digging of the other of the canal. This will allow navigation in both directions simultaneously in the central section of the canal. These extensions were formally opened on 6 August 2015 by President Al-Sisi.


title: Suez Canal

text: Since the canal does not cater to unregulated two-way traffic, all ships transit in convoys on regular times, scheduled on a 24-hour basis. Each day, a single northbound convoy starts at 04:00 from Suez. At dual lane sections, the convoy uses the eastern route. Synchronised with this convoy's passage is the southbound convoy. It starts at 03:30 from Port Said and so passes the Northbound convoy in the two-lane section.


title: Suez Canal

text: The five pontoon bridges were opened between 2016 and 2019. They are designed to be movable, and can be completely rotated against the banks of the canal to allow shipping through, or else individual sections can be moved to create a narrower channel.


title: Suez Canal

text: Six new tunnels for cars and trains are also planned across the canal. Currently the Ahmed Hamdi is the only tunnel connecting Suez to the Sinai.


title: Suez Canal

text: Economically, after its completion, the Suez Canal benefited primarily the sea trading powers of the Mediterranean countries, which now had much faster connections to the Near and Far East than the North and West European sea trading nations such as Great Britain or Germany. The main Habsburg trading port of Trieste with its direct connections to Central Europe experienced a meteoric rise at that time.


title: Suez Canal

text: The time saved in the 19th century for an assumed steamship trip to Bombay from Brindisi and Trieste was 37 days, from Genoa 32, from Marseille 31, from Bordeaux, Liverpool, London, Amsterdam and Hamburg 24 days. At that time, it was also necessary to consider whether the goods to be transported could bear the costly canal tariff. This led to a rapid growth of Mediterranean ports with their land routes to Central and Eastern Europe. According to today's information from the shipping companies, the route from Singapore to Rotterdam through the Suez Canal will be shortened by and thus by nine days compared to the route around Africa. As a result, liner services between Asia and Europe save 44 percent CO (carbon dioxide) thanks to this shorter route. The Suez Canal has a correspondingly important role in the connection between East Africa and the Mediterranean region.


title: Suez Canal

text: In the 20th century, trade through the Suez Canal came to a standstill several times, due to the two world wars and the Suez Canal crisis. Many trade flows were also shifted away from the Mediterranean ports towards Northern European terminals, such as Hamburg and Rotterdam. Only after the end of the Cold War, the growth in European economic integration, the consideration of CO emission and the Chinese Silk Road Initiative, are Mediterranean ports such as Piraeus and Trieste again at the focus of growth and investment.


title: Suez Canal

text: Before the canal's opening in 1869, goods were sometimes offloaded from ships and carried overland between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.


title: Suez Canal

text: The main alternative is around Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa, commonly referred to as the Cape of Good Hope route. This was the only sea route before the canal was constructed, and when the canal was closed. It is still the only route for ships that are too large for the canal. In the early 21st century, the Suez Canal has suffered from diminished traffic due to piracy in Somalia, with many shipping companies choosing to take the long route instead. Between 2008 and 2010, it is estimated that the canal lost 10% of traffic due to the threat of piracy, and another 10% due to the financial crisis. An oil tanker going from Saudi Arabia to the United States has farther to go when taking the route south of Africa rather than the canal.


title: Suez Canal

text: In recent years, the shrinking Arctic sea ice has made the Northern Sea Route feasible for commercial cargo ships between Europe and East Asia during a six-to-eight-week window in the summer months, shortening the voyage by thousands of kilometres compared to that through the Suez Canal. According to polar climate researchers, as the extent of the Arctic summer ice pack recedes the route will become passable without the help of icebreakers for a greater period each summer.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Bremen-based Beluga Group claimed in 2009 to be the first Western company to attempt using the Northern Sea Route without assistance from icebreakers, cutting off the journey between Ulsan, Korea and Rotterdam, the Netherlands.


title: Suez Canal

text: Sailing ships, such as the windjammers in the heyday of the Great Grain Race between Australia and Europe during the 1930s, often preferred the Cape Horn route when going to Europe, due to prevalent wind directions, even though it is slightly longer from Sydney to Europe this way than past Cape Agulhas.


title: Suez Canal

text: In February 2012, Israel announced its intention to construct a railway between the Mediterranean and Eilat through the Negev desert to compete with the canal. By 2019, the project had been indefinitely frozen.


title: Suez Canal

text: The opening of the canal created the first salt-water passage between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Although the Red Sea is about higher than the eastern Mediterranean, the current between the Mediterranean and the middle of the canal at the Bitter Lakes flows north in winter and south in summer. The current south of the Bitter Lakes is tidal, varying with the tide at Suez. The Bitter Lakes, which were hypersaline natural lakes, blocked the migration of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean for many decades, but as the salinity of the lakes gradually equalised with that of the Red Sea the barrier to migration was removed, and plants and animals from the Red Sea have begun to colonise the eastern Mediterranean.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Red Sea is generally saltier and less nutrient-rich than the Mediterranean, so that Erythrean species will often do well in the 'milder' eastern Mediterranean environment. To the contrary very few Mediterranean species have been able to settle in the 'harsher' conditions of the Red Sea. The dominant, south to north, migratory passage across the canal is often called Lessepsian migration (after Ferdinand de Lesseps) or "Erythrean invasion". The recent construction by the Egyptian government of a major canal extension - allowing for two-way traffic in the central section of the canal and finally implemented in 2015 - raised concerns from marine biologists, who fear that it will enhance the arrival of Red Sea species in the Mediterranean.


title: Suez Canal

text: Exotic species from the Indo-Pacific Ocean and introduced into the Mediterranean via the canal since the 1880s have become a significant component of the Mediterranean ecosystem. They already impact its ecology, endangering some local and endemic species. Since the piercing of the canal, over a thousand species from the Red Sea - plankton, seaweeds, invertebrates, fishes - have been recorded in the Mediterranean, and many others will clearly follow. The resulting change in biodiversity is without precedent in human memory and is accelerating: a long-term cross-Basin survey engaged by the Mediterranean Science Commission recently documented that in the first twenty years of this century more exotic fish species from the Indian Ocean had reached the Mediterranean than during the entire 20th century.


title: Suez Canal

text: Historically, the construction of the canal was preceded by cutting a small fresh-water canal called Sweet Water Canal from the Nile delta along Wadi Tumilat to the future canal, with a southern branch to Suez and a northern branch to Port Said. Completed in 1863, these brought fresh water to a previously arid area, initially for canal construction, and subsequently facilitating growth of agriculture and settlements along the canal. However the Aswan High Dam construction across the Nile, which started operating in 1968, much reduced the inflow of freshwater and cut all natural nutrient-rich silt entering the eastern Mediterranean at the Nile Delta.


title: Suez Canal

text: The Suez Canal Economic Zone, sometimes shortened to SCZONE, describes the set of locations neighbouring the canal where customs rates have been reduced to zero in order to attract investment. The zone comprises over within the governorates of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez. Projects in the zone are collectively described as the Suez Canal Area Development Project (SCADP).


title: Suez Canal

text: The plan focuses on development of East Port Said and the port of Ain Sokhna, and hopes to extend to four more ports at West Port Said, El-Adabiya, Arish and El Tor.


title: Suez Canal

text: The zone incorporates the four "Qualifying Industrial Zones" at Port Said, Ismailia and Suez, a 1996 American initiative to encourage economic ties between Israel and its neighbours.


title: Snooker

text: Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sport played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six pockets, one at each corner and one in the middle of each long side. First played by British Army officers stationed in India in the second half of the 19th century, the game is played with twenty-two balls, comprising a , fifteen red balls, and six other balls—a yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black—collectively called the colours. Using a cue stick, the individual players or teams take turns to strike the white to other balls in a predefined sequence, accumulating points for each successful pot and for each time the opposing player or team commits a . An individual of snooker is won by the player who has scored the most points. A snooker ends when a player reaches a predetermined number of frames.


title: Snooker

text: Snooker gained its identity in 1875 when army officer Sir Neville Chamberlain, stationed in Ootacamund, Madras, and Jabalpur, devised a set of rules that combined black pool and pyramids. The word "snooker" was a well-established derogatory term used to describe inexperienced or first-year military personnel. In the early 20th century, snooker was predominantly played in the United Kingdom where it was considered a "gentleman's sport" until the early 1960s, before growing in popularity as a national pastime and eventually spreading overseas. The standard rules of the game were first established in 1919 when the Billiards Association and Control Club was formed. As a professional sport, snooker is now governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association.


title: Snooker

text: The World Snooker Championship first took place in 1927. Joe Davis, a key figure and pioneer in the early growth of the sport, won fifteen successive world championships between 1927 and 1946. The "modern era" of snooker began in 1969 after the broadcaster BBC commissioned the television series "Pot Black", later airing daily coverage of the World Championship, which was first televised in 1978. Key figures in the game were Ray Reardon in the 1970s, Steve Davis in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s, each winning the World Championship at least six times. Since 2000, Ronnie O'Sullivan has won the most world titles.


title: Snooker

text: Top professional players compete in regular tournaments around the world, earning millions of pounds on the World Snooker Tour, a circuit of international events featuring competitors of many different nationalities. The World Championship, the UK Championship, and the Masters together make up the Triple Crown Series, considered by many players to be the most highly valued titles. Although the main professional tour is open to women, female players also compete on a separate amateur women's tour organised by World Women's Snooker. Competitive snooker is also available to non-professional players, including seniors and people with disabilities. The popularity of snooker has led to the creation of many variations based on the standard game, but using different rules or equipment, including six-red snooker, the short-lived "snooker plus", and the more recent Snooker Shoot Out version.


title: Snooker

text: Snooker originated in the second half of the 19th century. In the 1870s, billiards was popular among British Army officers stationed in Jubbulpore, India, and several variations of the game were devised during this time. A similar game, which originated at the Officers' Mess of the 11th Devonshire Regiment in 1875, combined the rules of two pool games: pyramid pool, played with fifteen red balls positioned in a triangle; and black pool, which involved the potting of designated balls. Snooker was further developed in 1882 when its first set of rules was finalised by British Army officer Sir Neville Chamberlain, who helped devise and popularise the game at Stone House in Ootacamund on a table built by Burroughes & Watts that had been brought to India by boat. The word "snooker" was, at the time, a slang term used in the British Army to describe new recruits and inexperienced military personnel; Chamberlain used it to deride the inferior performance of a young fellow officer at the table.


title: Snooker

text: Snooker featured in an 1887 issue of the "Sporting Life" newspaper in England, which led to a growth in popularity. Chamberlain was revealed as the game's inventor, 63 years after the fact, in a letter to "The Field" magazine published on 19 March 1938. Snooker became increasingly popular across the Indian colonies of the British Raj, and in the United Kingdom, but it remained a game mainly for military officers and the gentry; many gentlemen's clubs that had a snooker table would not allow non-members inside to play. (Reflecting the game's aristocratic origins, the majority of tournaments on the professional circuit still require players to wear waistcoats and bow ties, although the necessity for this attire has been questioned.) To cater for the growing interest, smaller and more open snooker clubs were formed. The Billiards Association (formed 1885) and the Billiards Control Club (formed 1908) merged to form the Billiards Association and Control Club (BA&CC) and a new, standardised set of rules for snooker was first established in 1919. The possibility of a drawn game was abolished by the use of a as a tiebreaker. These rules are similar to the ones used today, although rules for a minimal point penalty was imposed later.


title: Snooker

text: Played in 1926 and 1927, the first World Snooker Championship—then known as the Professional Championship of Snooker—was won by Joe Davis. A Women's Professional Snooker Championship (now the World Women's Snooker Championship) was created in 1934 for top female players. As a professional English billiards and snooker player himself, Davis raised the game from a recreational pastime to a professional sporting activity. Davis won all fifteen tournaments held until 1946, when he retired from the championships. However, snooker declined in popularity in the post-war era; the 1952 World Snooker Championship was contested by only two players and was replaced by the World Professional Match-play Championship, which was also discontinued in 1957. In an effort to boost popularity of snooker, Davis introduced a variation known as "snooker plus" in 1959, which added two extra colours, but this version of the game was short-lived. A world championship for top amateur players, now known as the IBSF World Snooker Championship, was founded in 1963, and the official world championship was revived on a challenge basis in 1964.


title: Snooker

text: The BBC first launched its colour television service in July 1967. In 1969, David Attenborough, then the controller of BBC2, commissioned the snooker tournament television series "Pot Black", primarily to showcase the potential of the BBC's new colour television service, as the green table and multi-coloured balls provided an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the advantages of the new broadcasting technology. The series became a ratings success and was, for a time, the second-most popular show on BBC2 behind Morecambe and Wise. In the same year, the 1969 World Snooker Championship reverted to a knockout tournament format, with eight players competing. Due to these developments, the year 1969 is taken to mark the beginning of snooker's modern era. The World Snooker Championship moved in 1977 to the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has been staged ever since, and the 1978 World Snooker Championship was the first to receive daily television coverage. Snooker quickly became a mainstream sport in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and much of the Commonwealth, and has remained consistently popular since the late 1970s, with most of the major tournaments being televised. In 1985, an estimated 18.5 million viewers stayed up until the early hours of the morning to watch the conclusion of the World Championship final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis, a record viewership in the UK for any broadcast on BBC Two or any broadcast after midnight.


title: Snooker

text: As professional snooker grew as a mainstream sport, it became heavily dependent on tobacco advertising. Cigarette brand Embassy sponsored the World Snooker Championship for 30 consecutive years from 1976 to 2005, one of the longest-running deals in British sports sponsorship. In the early 2000s, a ban on tobacco advertising led to a reduction in the number of professional tournaments, which decreased from twenty-two events in 1999 to fifteen in 2003. The sport had become more popular in Asia with the emergence of players such as Ding Junhui and Marco Fu, and still received significant television coverage in the UK—the BBC dedicated 400 hours to snooker in 2007, compared to just 14 minutes 40 years earlier. However, the British public's interest in snooker had waned significantly by the late 2000s. Warning that the sport was "lurching into terminal crisis", "The Guardian" newspaper predicted in 2010 that snooker would cease to exist as a professional sport within ten years. In the same year, promoter Barry Hearn gained a controlling interest in the World Snooker Tour, pledging to revitalise the "moribund" professional game. Since then, the number of professional tournaments has increased, with 44 events held in the 2019–20 season. Snooker tournaments have been adapted to make them more suitable for television audiences, with some tournaments being played over a shortened duration, or the Snooker Shoot Out, which is a timed, one- competition. The prize money for professional events has increased as the sport continues to grow, with the top players earning several million pounds over the course of their careers. Mark Selby, the winner of the 2021 World Snooker Championship, received £500,000 out of a total prize fund of £2,395,000. However, lower-ranked professional players struggle to make a living from the sport, especially after paying tournament entry fees, travel, and other expenses. Players including 2005 world champion Shaun Murphy have claimed that a 128-player professional tour is financially unsustainable.


title: Snooker

text: Snooker referees are an integral part of the sport, and some have become well-known personalities in their own right. Len Ganley, John Street, and John Williams together refereed 17 of the first 20 World Snooker finals held at the Crucible Theatre. Since 2000, non-British and female referees have become more prominent in the sport. Dutch referee Jan Verhaas became the first non-Briton to referee a World Championship final in 2003, while Michaela Tabb became the first woman to do so in 2009. Tabb was the only woman refereeing on the professional tour when she joined it in 2002, but tournaments now routinely feature female referees such as Desislava Bozhilova, Maike Kesseler, and Tatiana Woollaston.


title: Snooker

text: A standard full-size snooker table measures , with a rectangular measuring . The playing surface is surrounded by small along each side of the table. The height of the table from the floor to the top of the cushions is . The table has six , one at each corner and one at the centre of each of the two longer side cushions. One drawback of using a full-size table is the amount of space required to accommodate it, which limits the locations where the game can easily be played. The minimum room size that allows space on all sides for comfortable cueing is . While pool tables are common to many pubs, snooker tends to be played either in private settings or in public snooker halls. The game can also be played on smaller tables, with variant table sizes include , , , and . Smaller tables can come in a variety of styles, such as fold-away or dining-table convertible.


title: Snooker

text: The cloth on a snooker table is usually a form of tightly woven woollen green baize, with a directional nap that runs lengthwise from the end of the table to the far end near the . The nap affects the speed and trajectory of the balls, depending on the direction of the shot and whether any is placed on the ball. Even if the is struck in precisely the same manner, the effect of the nap will differ according to whether the ball is directed towards the baulk line or towards the opposite end of the table. A snooker ball set consists of twenty-two unmarked balls: fifteen , six , and one white cue ball. The six colours are one each of yellow, green, brown, blue, pink, and black, although the brown and blue balls were not a part of the original rules. Each ball has a diameter of . At the start of the game, the red balls are racked into a tightly packed equilateral triangle and the six colours are positioned at designated on the table. The cue ball is placed inside the "D" ready for the shot. Each player has a cue stick (or simply a "cue"), not less than in length, which is used to strike the cue ball. The of the cue must only make contact with the cue ball and is never used for striking any of the reds or colours directly.


title: Snooker

text: Snooker accessories include: for the tip of the cue, used to help apply on the cue ball; various sorts of , such as the or for playing shots that are difficult to play by hand; for lengthening the cue stick; a for the reds; and a which is typically attached to a wall near the snooker table. A traditional snooker scoreboard resembles an abacus and records the scored by each player for the current frame in units and twenties, as well as the frame scores. A simple scoring bead is sometimes used, called a "scoring string" or "scoring wire". Each segment of the string (bead) represents one point as the players can move one or several beads along the string.


title: Snooker

text: A player wins a frame by scoring more points than their opponent. At the start of a frame, the are positioned on the table as shown in illustration A. Starting with the cue ball in the "D", the first player executes a break-off shot by striking the cue ball with the tip of their cue, aiming to hit any of the red balls in the triangular . The players then take alternating at playing shots, with the aim of a red ball into a pocket and thereby scoring one point. Failure to make contact with a red ball constitutes a , which results in penalty points being awarded to the opponent. At the end of each shot, the cue ball remains in the position where it has come to rest (unless it has entered a pocket, where it is returned to the "D") ready for the next shot. If the cue ball finishes in contact with an object ball, or a ball that could be a object ball, a is called. The player must then play away from that ball without moving it, or else the player will concede penalty points. When playing away from a touching ball, the player is not required to strike another object ball.


title: Snooker

text: When a red ball enters a pocket, the striker must then pot a coloured ball (or "colour") of their choice. If successful, the value of the potted colour is added to the player's score, and the ball is returned to its designated spot on the table. (If a designated spot is unavailable, the colour is respotted on the spot of the next-highest valued colour; if no spots are available, the colour is respotted as close as possible to its own spot towards the top of the table.) The player must then pot another red ball followed by another colour. The process of alternately potting reds and colours continues until the striker fails to pot the desired object ball or commits a foul -- at which point the opponent comes to the table to start the next turn -- or when there are no red balls remaining. Points accumulated by potting successive object balls are called a "" (see Scoring below). At the start of each player's turn, the objective is to first pot a red ball, unless all reds are off the table, or the player has been awarded a , which allows them to nominate another object ball instead of a red. The cue ball may contact an object ball directly or it can be made to bounce off one or more cushions before hitting the required object ball.


title: Snooker

text: The game continues until every red ball has been potted and only the six colours and the cue ball are left on the table. The colours must next be potted in the ascending order of their values, from lowest to highest, i.e. first (worth two points), then (three points), (four points), (five points), (six points), and finally (seven points); each colour remains in the pocket after being potted. When the final ball is potted, the player with the most points wins the frame. If there are not enough points remaining on the table for a player to win the frame, that player may offer to concede the frame while at the table (but not while their opponent is still at the table); a frame concession is a common occurrence in professional snooker. Players will often play on even when there are not enough points available for them to win, hoping to force their opponent into playing foul shots by laying . These are shots that are designed to make playing a legal shot harder, such as leaving another ball between the cue ball and the object ball.


title: Snooker

text: If the scores are equal when all of the object balls have been potted, the black is used as a tiebreaker. In this situation, called a "", the black ball is returned to its designated spot and the cue ball is played , meaning that it may be placed anywhere on or within the lines of the "D" to start the tiebreak. The referee then tosses a coin and the winner of the toss decides who takes the first strike. The game continues until one of the players either pots the black ball to win the frame, or commits a foul (losing the frame).


title: Snooker

text: Professional and competitive amateur matches are officiated by a referee, who is charged with ensuring the proper conduct of players and making decisions "in the interests of fair play". The responsibilities of the referee include announcing the points scored during a break, determining when a foul has been committed and awarding penalty points and free balls accordingly, replacing colours onto their designated spots after they are potted, restoring the balls to their previous positions after the "miss" rule has been invoked (see Scoring), and cleaning the cue ball or any object ball upon request by the striker. Another duty of the referee is to recognise and declare a stalemate when neither player is able to make any progress in the frame. If both players agree, the balls are returned to their starting positions and the frame is restarted (known as a ""), with the same player taking the break-off shot as before. Professional players usually play the game in a sporting manner, declaring fouls they have committed which the referee has not noticed, acknowledging good shots from their opponent, and holding up a hand to apologise for a fortunate shot, known as a "fluke".


title: Snooker

text: Points in snooker are gained from potting the object balls in the correct sequence. The total number of consecutive points (excluding fouls) that a player amasses during one to the table is known as a "break". A player could achieve a break of 15, for example, by first potting a red followed by a black, then another red followed by a pink, before failing to pot the next red. Breaks of 100 points or more are referred to as a century break, and are recorded over the career of a professional player. A maximum break in snooker is achieved by potting all reds with blacks, then potting all six colours, yielding 147 points; this is often known as a "147" or a "maximum". , there have been 178 officially confirmed maximum breaks achieved in professional competition.


title: Snooker

text: Penalty points are awarded to a player when a foul is committed by the opponent. A foul can occur for various reasons, such as sending the cue ball into a pocket, or failing to hit the object ball. The latter is a common foul committed when a player fails to escape from a "", where the previous player has left the cue ball positioned such that no legal ball can be struck directly in a straight line without being wholly or partially obstructed by an illegal ball. Fouls incur a minimum of four penalty points unless a higher-value object ball is involved in the foul, up to a maximum of seven penalty points where the black ball is concerned. When a foul is committed, the offender's turn ends and the referee announces the penalty. All points scored in the break before the foul was committed are awarded to the striker, but no points are scored for any ball pocketed during the foul shot.


title: Snooker

text: If dissatisfied with the position left after a foul, the next player may nominate the opponent who committed the foul to play again from where the balls have come to rest. If the referee has also called a "miss"—meaning that the referee has deemed the opponent not to have made their best possible attempt to hit the object ball—the player has the option of having the balls replaced to their original positions and forcing the opponent to play the shot again. If, after a foul, the next player cannot cleanly strike both sides of the object ball, the referee may call a free ball, allowing the player to nominate any other ball in place of the object ball they might normally have played. If a player is awarded a free ball with all 15 red balls still in play, they can potentially make a break exceeding 147, with the highest possible being a 155 break, achieved by nominating the free ball as an extra red, then potting the black as the additional colour after potting the free-ball red, followed by the 15 reds with blacks, and finally the colours. Jamie Cope was the first player to achieve a verified 155 break during a practice frame in 2005, with other players such as Alex Higgins claiming to have made a similar break.


title: Snooker

text: One of snooker is called a "frame". A snooker generally consists of a predetermined number of frames. Most matches in current professional tournaments are played as the best of 7, 9, or 11 frames, with finals usually the best of 17 or 19 frames. The World Championship uses a longer format, with matches ranging from the best of 19 frames in the first round to best of 35 for the final, which is played over four of play held over two days. Some early world finals had much longer matches, such as the 1947 World Snooker Championship, which was played over the best of 145 frames.


title: Snooker

text: Professional snooker players compete on the World Snooker Tour, which is a circuit of world ranking tournaments and invitational events held throughout the snooker season. All competitions are open to professional players who have qualified for the tour, and selected amateur players, but most events include a separate qualification stage. Players can qualify for the tour by virtue of their position in the world rankings from prior seasons, by winning continental championships, or through the Challenge Tour or Q School events. Players on the World Snooker Tour generally gain a two-year "tour card" for participation in the events. Beginning in the 2014–15 season, some players have also received invitational tour cards in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the sport; these cards are issued at the discretion of the World Snooker Board, and have been awarded to players including Steve Davis, James Wattana, Jimmy White, and Stephen Hendry. Some additional secondary tours have been contested over the years. A two-tier structure was adopted for the 1997–98 snooker season; comprising six tournaments known as the WPBSA Minor Tour was open to all professionals, but only ran for one season. A similar secondary UK Tour was first played from the 1997–98 season, which was renamed the Challenge Tour in 2000, Players Tour Championship in 2010 and returned as the Challenge Tour in 2018.


title: Snooker

text: The global governing body for professional snooker is the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), founded as the Professional Billiard Players' Association. The WPBSA owns and publishes the official rules of snooker, and has overall responsibility for policy-making in the professional sport of snooker. World Snooker Ltd responsible for the professional tour which is owned by both the WPBSA and Matchroom Sport.


title: Snooker

text: Every player on the World Snooker Tour is assigned a position on the WPBSA's official world ranking list, which is used to determine the seedings and the level of qualification each player requires for the tournaments on the professional circuit. The current world rankings are determined using a two-year rolling points system, where points are allocated to the players according to the prize money earned at designated tournaments. This "rolling" list is maintained and updated throughout the season, with points from tournaments played in the current season replacing points earned from the corresponding tournaments of two seasons ago. Additionally, "one-year" and "two-year" ranking lists are compiled at the end of every season, after the World Championship; these year-end lists are used for pre-qualification at certain tournaments and for tour-card guarantees.


title: Snooker

text: The top 16 players in the world ranking list, generally regarded as the "elite" of the professional snooker circuit, are not required to pre-qualify for some of the tournaments, such as the Shanghai Masters, the Masters and the World Snooker Championship. Certain other events, such as those in the Players Series, use the one-year ranking list to qualify; these use the results of the current season to denote participants. As of the 2020–21 season, there are 128 places available on the World Snooker Tour, with players either in the top 64 on the official ranking list, or finishing as one of the top eight prize money earners during the most recent season, guaranteed a tour place for the next season, this being assessed after the World Championship.


title: Snooker

text: The oldest current professional snooker tournament is the World Snooker Championship, which has taken place as an annual event most years since 1927. Hosted since 1977 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, the championship was sponsored by tobacco company Embassy from 1976 to 2005, and has since been sponsored by various betting companies after the introduction of an EU-wide ban on advertising tobacco products. The Triple Crown tournaments are televised in the UK by the BBC, while most other tournaments are broadcast on the Eurosport network, or ITV Sport, as well as numerous other broadcasters internationally.


title: Snooker

text: The World Championship is the most highly valued title in professional snooker, both in terms of financial reward (the tournament has carried a £500,000 winner's prize since 2019), ranking points, and prestige. The UK Championship, held annually since 1977, is considered to be the second most important ranking tournament, after the World Championship. These two events, and the annual non-ranking Masters tournament, make up the Triple Crown Series; being some of the oldest competitions on the professional circuit, the Triple Crown events are valued by many players as the most prestigious. Only eleven players have won all three Triple Crown events, as of 2022.


title: Snooker

text: Snooker has faced criticism for matches taking too long. In response, Matchroom Sport chairman Barry Hearn introduced a series of timed tournaments. The shot-timed Premier League Snooker was held between 1987 and 2012, with seven players invited to compete at regular United Kingdom venues, is televised on Sky Sports. Players had twenty-five seconds to take each shot, with five time-outs per player per match. Although some success was achieved with this format, it did not receive the same amount of press attention or status as the regular ranking tournaments. This event has been taken out of the tour since 2013, when the Champion of Champions was established. The event saw players qualify by virtue of winning other events in the season, with 16 champions competing.


title: Snooker

text: In 2015, the WPBSA submitted an unsuccessful bid for snooker to be played at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Another bid has been put forward for the 2024 Summer Olympics through the World Snooker Federation, founded in 2017. A trial for the format for cue sports to be played at the 2024 games was put forward at the 2019 World Team Trophy, also featuring nine-ball and carom billiards. Snooker has been contested at the World Games since 2001, and was included as an event at the 2019 African Games.