title: Guitar

text: Most electric guitar bodies are made of wood and include a plastic pickguard. Boards wide enough to use as a solid body are very expensive due to the worldwide depletion of hardwood stock since the 1970s, so the wood is rarely one solid piece. Most bodies are made from two pieces of wood with some of them including a seam running down the center line of the body. The most common woods used for electric guitar body construction include maple, basswood, ash, poplar, alder, and mahogany. Many bodies consist of good-sounding, but inexpensive woods, like ash, with a "top", or thin layer of another, more attractive wood (such as maple with a natural "flame" pattern) glued to the top of the basic wood. Guitars constructed like this are often called "flame tops". The body is usually carved or routed to accept the other elements, such as the bridge, pickup, neck, and other electronic components. Most electrics have a polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer finish. Other alternative materials to wood are used in guitar body construction. Some of these include carbon composites, plastic material, such as polycarbonate, and aluminum alloys.


title: Guitar

text: The main purpose of the bridge on an acoustic guitar is to transfer the vibration from the strings to the soundboard, which vibrates the air inside of the guitar, thereby amplifying the sound produced by the strings. On all electric, acoustic and original guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place on the body. There are many varied bridge designs. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge saddles to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are spring-loaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm that lets the player modulate the pitch by changing the tension on the strings. The whammy bar is sometimes also called a "tremolo bar". (The effect of rapidly changing pitch is properly called "vibrato". See Tremolo for further discussion of this term.) Some bridges also allow for alternate tunings at the touch of a button.


title: Guitar

text: On almost all modern electric guitars, the bridge has saddles that are adjustable for each string so that intonation stays correct up and down the neck. If the open string is in tune, but sharp or flat when frets are pressed, the bridge saddle position can be adjusted with a screwdriver or hex key to remedy the problem. In general, flat notes are corrected by moving the saddle forward and sharp notes by moving it backward. On an instrument correctly adjusted for intonation, the actual length of each string from the nut to the bridge saddle is slightly, but measurably longer than the scale length of the instrument. This additional length is called compensation, which flattens all notes a bit to compensate for the sharping of all fretted notes caused by stretching the string during fretting.


title: Guitar

text: The saddle of a guitar is the part of the bridge that physically supports the strings. It may be one piece (typically on acoustic guitars) or separate pieces, one for each string (electric guitars and basses). The saddle's basic purpose is to provide the endpoint for the string's vibration at the correct location for proper intonation, and on acoustic guitars to transfer the vibrations through the bridge into the top wood of the guitar. Saddles are typically made of plastic or bone for acoustic guitars, though synthetics and some exotic animal tooth variations (e.g. fossilized tooth, ivory, etc. ) have become popular with some players. Electric guitar saddles are typically metal, though some synthetic saddles are available.


title: Guitar

text: The pickguard, also known as the scratch plate, is usually a piece of laminated plastic or other material that protects the finish of the top of the guitar from damage due to the use of a plectrum ("pick") or fingernails. Electric guitars sometimes mount pickups and electronics on the pickguard. It is a common feature on steel-string acoustic guitars. Some performance styles that use the guitar as a percussion instrument (tapping the top or sides between notes, etc.), such as flamenco, require that a scratchplate or pickguard be fitted to nylon-string instruments.


title: Guitar

text: The standard guitar has six strings, but four-, seven-, eight-, nine-, ten-, eleven-, twelve-, thirteen- and eighteen-string guitars are also available. Classical and flamenco guitars historically used gut strings, but these have been superseded by polymer materials, such as nylon and fluorocarbon. Modern guitar strings are constructed from metal, polymers, or animal or plant product materials. Instruments utilizing "steel" strings may have strings made from alloys incorporating steel, nickel or phosphor bronze. Bass strings for both instruments are wound rather than monofilament.


title: Guitar

text: Pickups are transducers attached to a guitar that detect (or "pick up") string vibrations and convert the mechanical energy of the string into electrical energy. The resultant electrical signal can then be electronically amplified. The most common type of pickup is electromagnetic in design. These contain magnets that are within a coil, or coils, of copper wire. Such pickups are usually placed directly underneath the guitar strings. Electromagnetic pickups work on the same principles and in a similar manner to an electric generator. The vibration of the strings creates a small electric current in the coils surrounding the magnets. This signal current is carried to a guitar amplifier that drives a loudspeaker.


title: Guitar

text: Traditional electromagnetic pickups are either single-coil or double-coil. Single-coil pickups are susceptible to noise induced by stray electromagnetic fields, usually mains-frequency (60 or 50 hertz) hum. The introduction of the double-coil humbucker in the mid-1950s solved this problem through the use of two coils, one of which is wired in opposite polarity to cancel or "buck" stray fields.


title: Guitar

text: The types and models of pickups used can greatly affect the tone of the guitar. Typically, humbuckers, which are two magnet-coil assemblies attached to each other, are traditionally associated with a heavier sound. Single-coil pickups, one magnet wrapped in copper wire, are used by guitarists seeking a brighter, twangier sound with greater dynamic range.


title: Guitar

text: Modern pickups are tailored to the sound desired. A commonly applied approximation used in the selection of a pickup is that less wire (lower electrical impedance) gives a brighter sound, more wire gives a "fat" tone. Other options include specialized switching that produces coil-splitting, in/out of phase and other effects. Guitar circuits are either active, needing a battery to power their circuit, or, as in most cases, equipped with a passive circuit.


title: Guitar

text: Fender Stratocaster-type guitars generally utilize three single-coil pickups, while most Gibson Les Paul types use humbucker pickups.


title: Guitar

text: Piezoelectric, or piezo, pickups represent another class of pickup. These employ piezoelectricity to generate the musical signal and are popular in hybrid electro-acoustic guitars. A crystal is located under each string, usually in the saddle. When the string vibrates, the shape of the crystal is distorted, and the stresses associated with this change produce tiny voltages across the crystal that can be amplified and manipulated. Piezo pickups usually require a powered pre-amplifier to lift their output to match that of electromagnetic pickups. Power is typically delivered by an on-board battery.


title: Guitar

text: Most pickup-equipped guitars feature onboard controls, such as volume or tone, or pickup selection. At their simplest, these consist of passive components, such as potentiometers and capacitors, but may also include specialized integrated circuits or other active components requiring batteries for power, for preamplification and signal processing, or even for electronic tuning. In many cases, the electronics have some sort of shielding to prevent pickup of external interference and noise.


title: Guitar

text: Guitars may be shipped or retrofitted with a hexaphonic pickup, which produces a separate output for each string, usually from a discrete piezoelectric or magnetic pickup. This arrangement lets on-board or external electronics process the strings individually for modeling or Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) conversion. Roland makes "GK" hexaphonic pickups for guitar and bass, and a line of guitar modeling and synthesis products. Line 6's hexaphonic-equipped Variax guitars use on-board electronics to model the sound after various vintage instruments, and vary pitch on individual strings.


title: Guitar

text: MIDI converters use a hexaphonic guitar signal to determine pitch, duration, attack, and decay characteristics. The MIDI sends the note information to an internal or external sound bank device. The resulting sound closely mimics numerous instruments. The MIDI setup can also let the guitar be used as a game controller (i.e., Rock Band Squier) or as an instructional tool, as with the Fretlight Guitar.


title: Guitar

text: By the 16th century, the guitar tuning of ADGBE had already been adopted in Western culture; a lower E was later added on the bottom as a sixth string. The result, known as "standard tuning", has the strings tuned from a low E, to a high E, traversing a two-octave range—EADGBE. This tuning is a series of ascending fourths (and a single major third) from low to high. The reason for ascending fourths is to accommodate four fingers on four frets up a scale before moving to the next string. This is musically convenient and physically comfortable and it eased the transition between fingering chords and playing scales. If the tuning contained all perfect fourths, the range would end up being two octaves plus one semitone; the high string would be an F, a dissonant half-step from the low E and much out of place.


title: Guitar

text: The table below shows a pitch's name found over the six strings of a guitar in standard tuning, from the nut (zero), to the twelfth fret.


title: Guitar

text: For four strings, the 5th fret on one string is the same open-note as the next string; for example, a 5th-fret note on the sixth string is the same note as the open fifth string. However, between the second and third strings, an irregularity occurs: The "4th"-fret note on the third string is equivalent to the open second string.


title: Guitar

text: Standard tuning has evolved to provide a good compromise between simple fingering for many chords and the ability to play common scales with reasonable left-hand movement. There are also a variety of commonly used alternative tunings, for example, the classes of "open", "regular", and "dropped" tunings.


title: Guitar

text: "Open tuning" refers to a guitar tuned so that strumming the open strings produces a chord, typically a major chord. The base chord consists of at least 3 notes and may include all the strings or a subset. The tuning is named for the open chord, Open D, open G, and open A are popular tunings. All similar chords in the chromatic scale can then be played by barring a single fret. Open tunings are common in blues music and folk music, and they are used in the playing of slide and bottleneck guitars. Many musicians use open tunings when playing slide guitar.


title: Guitar

text: For the standard tuning, there is exactly one interval of a major third between the second and third strings, and all the other intervals are fourths. The irregularity has a price – chords cannot be shifted around the fretboard in the standard tuning E-A-D-G-B-E, which requires four chord-shapes for the major chords. There are separate chord-forms for chords having their root note on the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth strings.


title: Guitar

text: In contrast, "regular" tunings have equal intervals between the strings, and so they have symmetrical scales all along the fretboard. This makes it simpler to translate chords. For the regular tunings, chords may be moved diagonally around the fretboard. The diagonal movement of chords is especially simple for the regular tunings that are repetitive, in which case chords can be moved vertically: Chords can be moved three strings up (or down) in major-thirds tuning and chords can be moved two strings up (or down) in augmented-fourths tuning. Regular tunings thus appeal to new guitarists and also to jazz-guitarists, whose improvisation is simplified by regular intervals.


title: Guitar

text: On the other hand, some chords are more difficult to play in a regular tuning than in standard tuning. It can be difficult to play conventional chords, especially in augmented-fourths tuning and all-fifths tuning, in which the large spacings require hand stretching. Some chords, which are conventional in folk music, are difficult to play even in all-fourths and major-thirds tunings, which do not require more hand-stretching than standard tuning.


title: Guitar

text: Another class of alternative tunings is called drop tunings, because the tuning "drops down" the lowest string. Dropping down the lowest string a whole tone results in the "drop-D" (or "dropped D") tuning. Its open-string notes DADGBE (from low to high) allow for a deep bass D note, which can be used in keys such as D major, d minor and G major. It simplifies the playing of simple fifths (powerchords). Many contemporary rock bands re-tune all strings down, making, for example, Drop-C or Drop-B tunings.


title: Guitar

text: Many scordatura (alternate tunings) modify the standard tuning of the lute, especially when playing Renaissance music repertoire originally written for that instrument. Some scordatura drop the pitch of one or more strings, giving access to new lower notes. Some scordatura makes it easier to play in unusual keys.


title: Guitar

text: Though a guitar may be played on its own, there are a variety of common accessories used for holding and playing the guitar.


title: Guitar

text: A capo (short for "capotasto") is used to change the pitch of open strings. Capos are clipped onto the fretboard with the aid of spring tension or, in some models, elastic tension. To raise the guitar's pitch by one semitone, the player would clip the capo onto the fretboard just below the first fret. Its use allows players to play in different keys without having to change the chord formations they use. For example, if a folk guitar player wanted to play a song in the key of B Major, they could put a capo on the second fret of the instrument, and then play the song as if it were in the key of A Major, but with the capo the instrument would make the sounds of B Major. This is because, with the capo barring the entire second fret, open chords would all sound two semitones (in other words, one tone) higher in pitch. For example, if a guitarist played an open A Major chord (a very common open chord), it would sound like a B Major chord. All of the other open chords would be similarly modified in pitch. Because of the ease with which they allow guitar players to change keys, they are sometimes referred to with pejorative names, such as "cheaters" or the "hillbilly crutch". Despite this negative viewpoint, another benefit of the capo is that it enables guitarists to obtain the ringing, resonant sound of the common keys (C, G, A, etc.) in "harder" and less-commonly used keys. Classical performers are known to use them to enable modern instruments to match the pitch of historical instruments such as the Renaissance music lute.


title: Guitar

text: A slide (neck of a bottle, knife blade or round metal or glass bar or cylinder) is used in blues and rock to create a glissando or "Hawaiian" effect. The slide is used to fret notes on the neck, instead of using the fretting hand's fingers. The characteristic use of the slide is to move up to the intended pitch by, as the name implies, sliding up the neck to the desired note. The necks of bottles were often used in blues and country music as improvised slides. Modern slides are constructed of glass, plastic, ceramic, chrome, brass or steel bars or cylinders, depending on the weight and tone desired (and the amount of money a guitarist can spend). An instrument that is played exclusively in this manner (using a metal bar) is called a steel guitar or pedal steel. Slide playing to this day is very popular in blues music and country music. Some slide players use a so-called Dobro guitar. Some performers who have become famous for playing slide are Robert Johnson, Elmore James, Ry Cooder, George Harrison, Bonnie Raitt, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Duane Allman, Muddy Waters, Rory Gallagher, and George Thorogood.


title: Guitar

text: A "guitar pick" or "plectrum" is a small piece of hard material generally held between the thumb and first finger of the picking hand and is used to "pick" the strings. Though most classical players pick with a combination of fingernails and fleshy fingertips, the pick is most often used for electric and steel-string acoustic guitars. Though today they are mainly plastic, variations do exist, such as bone, wood, steel or tortoise shell. Tortoise shell was the most commonly used material in the early days of pick-making, but as tortoises and turtles became endangered, the practice of using their shells for picks or anything else was banned. Tortoise-shell picks made before the ban are often coveted for a supposedly superior tone and ease of use, and their scarcity has made them valuable.


title: Guitar

text: Picks come in many shapes and sizes. Picks vary from the small jazz pick to the large bass pick. The thickness of the pick often determines its use. A thinner pick (between 0.2 and 0.5 mm) is usually used for strumming or rhythm playing, whereas thicker picks (between 0.7 and 1.5+ mm) are usually used for single-note lines or lead playing. The distinctive guitar sound of Billy Gibbons is attributed to using a quarter or peso as a pick. Similarly, Brian May is known to use a sixpence coin as a pick, while noted 1970s and early 1980s session musician David Persons is known for using old credit cards, cut to the correct size, as plectrums.


title: Guitar

text: Thumb picks and finger picks that attach to the fingertips are sometimes employed in finger-picking styles on steel strings. These allow the fingers and thumb to operate independently, whereas a flat pick requires the thumb and one or two fingers to manipulate.


title: Guitar

text: A guitar strap is a strip of material with an attachment mechanism on each end, made to hold a guitar via the shoulders at an adjustable length. Guitars have varying accommodations for attaching a strap. The most common are strap buttons, also called strap pins, which are flanged steel posts anchored to the guitar with screws. Two strap buttons come pre-attached to virtually all electric guitars, and many steel-string acoustic guitars. Strap buttons are sometimes replaced with "strap locks", which connect the guitar to the strap more securely.


title: Guitar

text: The lower strap button is usually located at the bottom (bridge end) of the body. The upper strap button is usually located near or at the top (neck end) of the body: on the upper body curve, at the tip of the upper "horn" (on a double cutaway), or at the neck joint (heel). Some electrics, especially those with odd-shaped bodies, have one or both strap buttons on the back of the body. Some Steinberger electric guitars, owing to their minimalist and lightweight design, have both strap buttons at the bottom of the body. Rarely, on some acoustics, the upper strap button is located on the headstock. Some acoustic and classical guitars only have a single strap button at the bottom of the body—the other end must be tied onto the headstock, above the nut and below the machine heads.


title: Guitar

text: Electric guitars and bass guitars have to be used with a guitar amplifier and loudspeaker or a bass amplifier and speaker, respectively, in order to make enough sound to be heard by the performer and audience. Electric guitars and bass guitars almost always use magnetic pickups, which generate an electric signal when the musician plucks, strums or otherwise plays the instrument. The amplifier and speaker strengthen this signal using a power amplifier and a loudspeaker. Acoustic guitars that are equipped with a piezoelectric pickup or microphone can also be plugged into an instrument amplifier, acoustic guitar amp or PA system to make them louder. With electric guitar and bass, the amplifier and speaker are not just used to make the instrument louder; by adjusting the equalizer controls, the preamplifier, and any onboard effects units (reverb, distortion/overdrive, etc.) the player can also modify the tone (also called the timbre or "colour") and sound of the instrument. Acoustic guitar players can also use the amp to change the sound of their instrument, but in general, acoustic guitar amps are used to make the natural acoustic sound of the instrument louder without significantly changing its sound.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi (; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianity. He was inspired to lead a life of poverty and itinerant preaching. Pope Gregory IX canonized him on 16 July 1228. He is usually depicted in a robe with a rope as belt.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: In 1219, he went to Egypt in an attempt to convert the sultan al-Kamil and put an end to the conflict of the Fifth Crusade. In 1223, he arranged for the first Christmas live nativity scene. According to Christian tradition, in 1224 he received the stigmata during the apparition of a Seraphic angel in a religious ecstasy.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: He founded the men's Order of Friars Minor, the women's Order of St. Clare, the Third Order of St. Francis and the Custody of the Holy Land. Once his community was authorized by the Pope, he withdrew increasingly from external affairs.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis is associated with patronage of animals and the environment. It became customary for churches to hold ceremonies blessing animals on his feast day of 4 October. He is known for devotion to the Eucharist. Along with Catherine of Siena, he was designated patron saint of Italy.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis of Assisi () was born in late 1181, one of several children of an Italian father, Pietro di Bernardone dei Moriconi, a prosperous silk merchant, and a French mother, Pica de Bourlemont, about whom little is known except that she was a noblewoman originally from Provence. Pietro was in France on business when Francis was born in Assisi, and Pica had him baptized as Giovanni. Upon his return to Assisi, Pietro took to calling his son Francesco ("Free man", "Frenchman"), possibly in honor of his commercial success and enthusiasm for all things French.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Indulged by his parents, Francis lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man. As a youth, Francesco became a devotee of troubadours and was fascinated with all things Transalpine. He was handsome, witty, gallant, and delighted in fine clothes. He spent money lavishly. Although many hagiographers remark about his bright clothing, rich friends, and love of pleasures, his displays of disillusionment toward the world that surrounded him came fairly early in his life, as is shown in the "story of the beggar". In this account, he was selling cloth and velvet in the marketplace on behalf of his father when a beggar came to him and asked for alms. At the conclusion of his business deal, Francis abandoned his wares and ran after the beggar. When he found him, Francis gave the man everything he had in his pockets. His friends mocked him for his charity; his father scolded him in rage.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Around 1202, he joined a military expedition against Perugia and was taken as a prisoner at Collestrada, spending a year as a captive. An illness caused him to re-evaluate his life. Upon his return to Assisi in 1203, Francis returned to his carefree life. In 1205, Francis left for Apulia to enlist in the army of Walter III, Count of Brienne. A strange vision made him return to Assisi and lose interest in the worldly life. According to hagiographic accounts, thereafter he began to avoid the sports and feasts of his former companions. A friend asked him whether he was thinking of marrying, to which he answered: "Yes, a fairer bride than any of you have ever seen", meaning his "Lady Poverty".


title: Francis of Assisi

text: On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter's Basilica. He spent some time in lonely places, asking God for spiritual enlightenment. He said he had a mystical vision of Jesus Christ in the forsaken country chapel of San Damiano, just outside Assisi, in which the Icon of Christ Crucified said to him, "Francis, Francis, go and repair My church which, as you can see, is falling into ruins." He took this to mean the ruined church in which he was presently praying, and so he sold some cloth from his father's store to assist the priest there. When the priest refused to accept the ill-gotten gains, an indignant Francis threw the coins on the floor.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: In order to avoid his father's wrath, Francis hid in a cave near San Damiano for about a month. When he returned to town, hungry and dirty, he was dragged home by his father, beaten, bound, and locked in a small storeroom. Freed by his mother during Bernardone's absence, Francis returned at once to San Damiano, where he found shelter with the officiating priest, but he was soon cited before the city consuls by his father. The latter, not content with having recovered the scattered gold from San Damiano, sought also to force his son to forego his inheritance by way of restitution. In the midst of legal proceedings before the Bishop of Assisi, Francis renounced his father and his patrimony. Some accounts report that he stripped himself naked in token of this renunciation, and the bishop covered him with his own cloak.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: For the next couple of months, Francis wandered as a beggar in the hills behind Assisi. He spent some time at a neighbouring monastery working as a scullion. He then went to Gubbio, where a friend gave him, as an alms, the cloak, girdle, and staff of a pilgrim. Returning to Assisi, he traversed the city begging stones for the restoration of St. Damiano's. These he carried to the old chapel, set in place himself, and so at length rebuilt it. Over the course of two years, he embraced the life of a penitent, during which he restored several ruined chapels in the countryside around Assisi, among them San Pietro in Spina (in the area of San Petrignano in the valley about a kilometer from Rivotorto, today on private property and once again in ruin); and the Porziuncola, the little chapel of St. Mary of the Angels in the plain just below the town. This later became his favorite abode. By degrees he took to nursing lepers, in the lazar houses near Assisi.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: One morning in February 1208, Francis was taking part in a Mass in the chapel of St. Mary of the Angels, near which he had by then built himself a hut. The Gospel of the day was the "Commissioning of the Twelve" from the Book of Matthew. The disciples were to go and proclaim that the Kingdom of God is at hand. Francis was inspired to devote himself to a life of poverty. Having obtained a coarse woolen tunic, the dress then worn by the poorest Umbrian peasants, he tied it around himself with a knotted rope and went about exhorting the people of the countryside to penance, brotherly love, and peace. Francis's preaching to ordinary people was unusual as he had no license to do so.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: His example attracted others. Within a year Francis had eleven followers. The brothers lived a simple life in the deserted lazar house of Rivo Torto near Assisi; but they spent much of their time wandering through the mountainous districts of Umbria, making a deep impression upon their hearers by their earnest exhortations.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: In 1209 he composed a simple rule for his followers ("friars"), the "Regula primitiva" or "Primitive Rule", which came from verses in the Bible. The rule was "to follow the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and to walk in his footsteps." He then led eleven followers to Rome to seek permission from Pope Innocent III to found a new religious order. Upon entry to Rome, the brothers encountered Bishop Guido of Assisi, who had in his company Giovanni di San Paolo, the Cardinal Bishop of Sabina. The Cardinal, who was the confessor of Pope Innocent III, was immediately sympathetic to Francis and agreed to represent Francis to the pope. After several days, the pope agreed to admit the group informally, adding that when God increased the group in grace and number, they could return for an official audience. The group was tonsured. This was important in part because it recognized Church authority and prevented his following from accusations of heresy, as had happened to the Waldensians decades earlier. Though a number of the pope's counselors considered the mode of life proposed by Francis to be unsafe and impractical, following a dream in which he saw Francis holding up the Lateran Basilica, he decided to endorse Francis's order. This occurred, according to tradition, on 16 April 1210, and constituted the official founding of the Franciscan Order. The group, then the "Lesser Brothers" ("Order of Friars Minor" also known as the "Franciscan Order" or the "Seraphic Order"), were centered in the Porziuncola and preached first in Umbria, before expanding throughout Italy. Francis was later ordained a deacon, but not a priest.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: From then on, the new order grew quickly. Hearing Francis preaching in the church of San Rufino in Assisi in 1211, the young noblewoman Clare of Assisi sought to live like them. Her cousin Rufino also sought to join. On the night of Palm Sunday, 28 March 1212, Clare clandestinely left her family's palace. Francis received her at the Porziuncola and thereby established the Order of Poor Clares. He gave Clare a religious habit, a garment similar to his own, before lodging her, her younger sister Caterina, and other young women in a nearby monastery of Benedictine nuns until he could provide a suitable monastery. Later he transferred them to San Damiano, to a few small huts or cells. This became the first monastery of the Second Franciscan Order, now known as Poor Clares.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: For those who could not leave their affairs, Francis later formed the Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance, a fraternity composed of either laity or clergy whose members neither withdrew from the world nor took religious vows. Instead, they observed the principles of Franciscan life in their daily lives. Before long, the Third Order – now titled the Secular Franciscan Order – grew beyond Italy.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Determined to bring the Gospel to all peoples and let God convert them, Francis sought on several occasions to take his message out of Italy. In the late spring of 1212, he set out for Jerusalem, but was shipwrecked by a storm on the Dalmatian coast, forcing him to return to Italy. On 8 May 1213, he was given the use of the mountain of La Verna (Alverna) as a gift from Count Orlando di Chiusi, who described it as “eminently suitable for whoever wishes to do penance in a place remote from mankind”. The mountain would become one of his favourite retreats for prayer.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: In the same year, Francis sailed for Morocco, but an illness forced him to break off his journey while in Spain.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: In 1219, accompanied by Friar Illuminatus of Arce and hoping to convert the Sultan of Egypt or be martyred in the attempt, Francis went to Egypt during the Fifth Crusade where a Crusader army had been encamped for over a year besieging the walled city of Damietta. The Sultan, al-Kamil, a nephew of Saladin, had succeeded his father as Sultan of Egypt in 1218 and was encamped upstream of Damietta. A bloody and futile attack on the city was launched by the Christians on 29 August 1219, following which both sides agreed to a ceasefire which lasted four weeks. Probably during this interlude Francis and his companion crossed the Muslims' lines and were brought before the Sultan, remaining in his camp for a few days. Reports give no information about what transpired during the encounter beyond noting that the Sultan received Francis graciously and that Francis preached to the Muslims. He returned unharmed. No known Arab sources mention the visit.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Such an incident is alluded to in a scene in the late 13th-century fresco cycle, attributed to Giotto, in the upper basilica at Assisi.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: According to some late sources, the Sultan gave Francis permission to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land and even to preach there. All that can safely be asserted is that Francis and his companion left the Crusader camp for Acre, from where they embarked for Italy in the latter half of 1220. Drawing on a 1267 sermon by Bonaventure, later sources report that the Sultan secretly converted or accepted a death-bed baptism as a result of meeting Francis.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Due to these events in Jerusalem, Franciscans have been present in the Holy Land almost uninterruptedly since 1217. They received concessions from the Mameluke Sultan in 1333 with regard to certain Holy Places in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and (so far as concerns the Catholic Church) jurisdictional privileges from Pope Clement VI in 1342.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: The growing order of friars was divided into provinces; groups were sent to France, Germany, Hungary, and Spain and to the East. Upon receiving a report of the martyrdom of five brothers in Morocco, Francis returned to Italy via Venice. Cardinal Ugolino di Conti was then nominated by the pope as the protector of the order. Another reason for Francis' return to Italy was that the Franciscan Order had grown at an unprecedented rate compared to previous religious orders, but its organizational sophistication had not kept up with this growth and had little more to govern it than Francis' example and simple rule. To address this problem, Francis prepared a new and more detailed Rule, the "First Rule" or "Rule Without a Papal Bull" ("Regula prima", "Regula non bullata"), which again asserted devotion to poverty and the apostolic life. However, it also introduced greater institutional structure, though this was never officially endorsed by the pope.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: On 29 September 1220, Francis handed over the governance of the order to Brother Peter Catani at the Porziuncola, but Peter died only five months later.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Brother Peter was succeeded by Brother Elias as Vicar of Francis. Two years later, Francis modified the "First Rule", creating the "Second Rule" or "Rule With a Bull", which was approved by Pope Honorius III on 29 November 1223. As the order's official rule, it called on the friars "to observe the Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience without anything of our own and in chastity". In addition, it set regulations for discipline, preaching, and entering the order. Once the rule was endorsed by the pope, Francis withdrew increasingly from external affairs. During 1221 and 1222, he crossed Italy, first as far south as Catania in Sicily and afterward as far north as Bologna.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: While he was praying on the mountain of Verna, during a forty-day fast in preparation for Michaelmas (29 September), Francis is said to have had a vision on or about 13 September 1224, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, as a result of which he received the stigmata. Brother Leo, who had been with Francis at the time, left a clear and simple account of the event, the first definite account of the phenomenon of stigmata. "Suddenly he saw a vision of a seraph, a six-winged angel on a cross. This angel gave him the gift of the five wounds of Christ." Suffering from these stigmata and from trachoma, Francis received care in several cities (Siena, Cortona, Nocera) to no avail. In the end, he was brought back to a hut next to the Porziuncola. Here he spent his last days dictating his spiritual testament. He died on the evening of Saturday, 3 October 1226, singing Psalm 141, ""Voce mea ad Dominum"".


title: Francis of Assisi

text: On 16 July 1228, he was declared a saint by Pope Gregory IX (the former cardinal Ugolino di Conti, a friend of Francis and Cardinal Protector of the Order). The next day, the pope laid the foundation stone for the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi. Francis was buried on 25 May 1230, under the Lower Basilica, but his tomb was soon hidden on orders of Brother Elias, in order to protect it from Saracen invaders. His burial place remained unknown until it was rediscovered in 1818. Pasquale Belli then constructed for the remains a crypt in the Lower Basilica. It was refashioned between 1927 and 1930 into its present form by Ugo Tarchi. In 1978, the remains of Francis were examined and confirmed by a commission of scholars appointed by Pope Paul VI, and put into a glass urn in the ancient stone tomb.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis set out to imitate Christ and literally carry out his work. This is important in understanding Francis' character, his affinity for the Eucharist and respect for the priests who carried out the sacrament. He preached: "Your God is of your flesh, He lives in your nearest neighbor, in every man."


title: Francis of Assisi

text: He and his followers celebrated and even venerated poverty, which was so central to his character that in his last written work, the Testament, he said that absolute personal and corporate poverty was the essential lifestyle for the members of his order.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: He believed that nature itself was the mirror of God. He called all creatures his "brothers" and "sisters", and even preached to the birds and supposedly persuaded a wolf in Gubbio to stop attacking some locals if they agreed to feed the wolf. His deep sense of brotherhood under God embraced others, and he declared that "he considered himself no friend of Christ if he did not cherish those for whom Christ died".


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis' visit to Egypt and attempted rapprochement with the Muslim world had far-reaching consequences, long past his own death, since after the fall of the Crusader Kingdom, it would be the Franciscans, of all Catholics, who would be allowed to stay on in the Holy Land and be recognized as "Custodians of the Holy Land" on behalf of the Catholic Church.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: At Greccio near Assisi, around 1220, Francis celebrated Christmas by setting up the first known "presepio" or "crèche" (Nativity scene). His nativity imagery reflected the scene in traditional paintings. He used real animals to create a living scene so that the worshipers could contemplate the birth of the child Jesus in a direct way, making use of the senses, especially sight. Both Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure, biographers of Francis, tell how he used only a straw-filled manger (feeding trough) set between a real ox and donkey. According to Thomas, it was beautiful in its simplicity, with the manger acting as the altar for the Christmas Mass.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis preached the Christian doctrine that the world was created good and beautiful by God but suffers a need for redemption because of human sin. As someone who saw God reflected in nature, "St. Francis was a great lover of God's creation ..." In the Canticle of the Sun he gives God thanks for Brother Sun, Sister Moon, Brother Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth, all of which he sees as rendering praise to God.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Many of the stories that surround the life of Francis say that he had a great love for animals and the environment. The "Fioretti" ("Little Flowers"), is a collection of legends and folklore that sprang up after his death. One account describes how one day, while Francis was travelling with some companions, they happened upon a place in the road where birds filled the trees on either side. Francis told his companions to "wait for me while I go to preach to my sisters the birds." The birds surrounded him, intrigued by the power of his voice, and not one of them flew away. He is often portrayed with a bird, typically in his hand.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Another legend from the "Fioretti" tells that in the city of Gubbio, where Francis lived for some time, was a wolf "terrifying and ferocious, who devoured men as well as animals". Francis went up into the hills and when he found the wolf, he made the sign of the cross and commanded the wolf to come to him and hurt no one. Then Francis led the wolf into the town, and surrounded by startled citizens made a pact between them and the wolf. Because the wolf had "done evil out of hunger", the townsfolk were to feed the wolf regularly. In return, the wolf would no longer prey upon them or their flocks. In this manner Gubbio was freed from the menace of the predator.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: On 29 November 1979, Pope John Paul II declared Francis the patron saint of ecology. On 28 March 1982, John Paul II said that Francis' love and care for creation was a challenge for contemporary Catholics and a reminder "not to behave like dissident predators where nature is concerned, but to assume responsibility for it, taking all care so that everything stays healthy and integrated, so as to offer a welcoming and friendly environment even to those who succeed us." The same Pope wrote on the occasion of the World Day of Peace, 1 January 1990, that Francis "invited all of creation – animals, plants, natural forces, even Brother Sun and Sister Moon – to give honour and praise to the Lord. The poor man of Assisi gives us striking witness that when we are at peace with God we are better able to devote ourselves to building up that peace with all creation which is inseparable from peace among all peoples."


title: Francis of Assisi

text: It is a popular practice on his feastday, 4 October, for people to bring their pets and other animals to church for a blessing.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis' feast day is observed on 4 October. A secondary feast in honor of the stigmata received by Francis, celebrated on 17 September, was inserted in the General Roman Calendar in 1585 (later than the Tridentine Calendar) and suppressed in 1604, but was restored in 1615. In the New Roman Missal of 1969, it was removed again from the General Calendar, as something of a duplication of the main feast on 4 October, and left to the calendars of certain localities and of the Franciscan Order. Wherever the Trindentine Missal is used, however, the feast of the Stigmata remains in the General Calendar.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis is honored with a Lesser Festival in the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church USA, the Old Catholic Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and other churches and religious communities on 4 October.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: On 13 March 2013, upon his election as Pope, Archbishop and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina chose Francis as his papal name in honor of Francis of Assisi, becoming Pope Francis.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: At his first audience on 16 March 2013, Pope Francis told journalists that he had chosen the name in honor of Francis of Assisi, and had done so because he was especially concerned for the well-being of the poor. The pontiff recounted that Cardinal Cláudio Hummes had told him, "Don't forget the poor", right after the election; that made Bergoglio think of Francis. It is the first time a pope has taken the name.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: On 18 June 1939, Pope Pius XII named Francis a joint patron saint of Italy along with Catherine of Siena with the apostolic letter "Licet Commissa". Pope Pius also mentioned the two saints in the laudative discourse he pronounced on 5 May 1949, in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis is the patron of animals, merchants, and ecology. He is also considered the patron against dying alone; against fire; patron of the Franciscan Order and Catholic Action; of families, peace, and needleworkers. and a number of religious congregations.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: He is the patron of many churches and other locations around the world, including: Italy; San Pawl il-Baħar, Malta; Freising, Germany; Lancaster, England; Kottapuram, India; San Francisco de Malabon, Philippines (General Trias City); San Francisco, California; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Colorado; Salina, Kansas; Metuchen, New Jersey; and Quibdó, Colombia.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Several Protestant groups have emerged since the 19th century that strive to adhere to the teachings of St. Francis.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: One of the results of the Oxford Movement in the Anglican Church during the 19th century was the re-establishment of religious orders, including some of Franciscan inspiration. The principal Anglican communities in the Franciscan tradition are the Community of St. Francis (women, founded 1905), the Poor Clares of Reparation (P.C.R.), the Society of St. Francis (men, founded 1934), and the Community of St. Clare (women, enclosed).


title: Francis of Assisi

text: A U.S.-founded order within the Anglican world communion is the Seattle-founded order of Clares in Seattle (Diocese of Olympia), The Little Sisters of St. Clare.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: There are also some small Franciscan communities within European Protestantism and the Old Catholic Church. There are some Franciscan orders in Lutheran Churches, including the Order of Lutheran Franciscans, the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, and the Evangelische Kanaan Franziskus-Bruderschaft (Kanaan Franciscan Brothers).


title: Francis of Assisi

text: The Anglican church retained the Catholic tradition of blessing animals on or near Francis' feast day of 4 October, and more recently Lutheran and other Protestant churches have adopted the practice.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis' feast is celebrated at New Skete, an Orthodox Christian monastic community in Cambridge, New York.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Outside of Christianity, other individuals and movements are influenced by the example and teachings of Francis. These include the popular philosopher Eckhart Tolle, who has made videos on the spirituality of Francis.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: The interreligious spiritual community of Skanda Vale in Wales also takes inspiration from the example of Francis, and models itself as an interfaith Franciscan order.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Francis is considered the first Italian poet by some literary critics. He believed commoners should be able to pray to God in their own language, and he wrote often in the dialect of Umbria instead of Latin.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: The anonymous 20th-century prayer "Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace" is widely attributed to Francis, but there is no evidence for it.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: The Franciscan Order promoted devotion to the life of Francis from his canonization onwards. The order commissioned many works for Franciscan churches, either showing him with sacred figures, or episodes from his life. There are large early fresco cycles in the Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi, parts of which are shown above.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: There are countless seventeenth- and eighteenth-century depictions of Saint Francis of Assisi and a musical angel in churches and museums throughout western Europe. The titles of these depictions vary widely, at times describing Francis as "consoled", "comforted", in "ecstasy" or in "rapture"; the presence of the musical angel may or may not be mentioned.


title: Francis of Assisi

text: Hundreds of books have been written about him. The following suggestions are from Franciscan friar Conrad Harkins (1935–2020), director of the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University.


title: .50 BMG

text: The .50 Browning Machine Gun (.50 BMG, 12.7×99mm NATO and designated as the 50 Browning by the C.I.P.) is a caliber cartridge developed for the M2 Browning heavy machine gun in the late 1910s, entering official service in 1921. Under STANAG 4383, it is a standard service cartridge for NATO forces as well as many non-NATO countries. The cartridge itself has been made in many variants: multiple generations of regular ball, tracer, armor-piercing (AP), incendiary, and saboted sub-caliber rounds. The rounds intended for machine guns are made into a continuous belt using metallic links.


title: .50 BMG

text: The .50 BMG cartridge is also used in anti-materiel rifles. A wide variety of ammunition is available, and the availability of match grade ammunition has increased the usefulness of .50 caliber rifles by allowing more accurate fire than lower quality rounds.


title: .50 BMG

text: In response to the need for new anti-aircraft weaponry during World War I, John Browning developed the .50 BMG. He wanted the round to be used in a machine gun, and wanted the machine gun to be based on a scaled-up version of the M1917 Browning.


title: .50 BMG

text: The development of the .50 BMG round is sometimes confused with the German 13.2 mm TuF, which was developed by Germany for an anti-tank rifle to combat British tanks during WWI and against aircraft. According to the "American Rifleman": "Actually, the Browning .50 originated in the Great War. American interest in an armor-piercing cartridge was influenced by the marginal French 11 mm design, prompting U.S. Army Ordnance officers to consult Browning. They wanted a heavy projectile at 2700 feet per second (f.p.s.), but the ammunition did not exist. Browning pondered the situation and, according to his son John, replied, 'Well, the cartridge sounds pretty good to start. You make up some cartridges and we'll do some shooting.'"


title: .50 BMG

text: The "American Rifleman" further explains that development was "[r]eputedly influenced by Germany's 13.2x92 mm SR (.53-cal.) anti-tank rifle" and that then "Ordnance contracted with Winchester to design a .50-cal. cartridge. Subsequently, Frankford Arsenal took over from Winchester, producing the historic .50 BMG or 12.7x99 mm cartridge. The Army then returned to John Browning for the actual gun. Teamed with Colt, he produced prototypes ready for testing and, ironically, completed them by Nov. 11, 1918—the Great War's end."


title: .50 BMG

text: The round was put into use in the M1921 Browning machine gun. This gun was later developed into the M2HB Browning which with its .50 caliber armor-piercing cartridges went on to function as an anti-aircraft and anti-vehicular machine gun, capable of penetrating of face-hardened armor steel plate at , of rolled homogeneous armor at the same range, and at .


title: .50 BMG

text: During World War II the .50 BMG was primarily used in the M2 Browning machine gun, in both its "light barrel" aircraft mount version and the "heavy barrel" (HB) version on ground vehicles, for anti-aircraft purposes. An upgraded variant of the M2 Browning HB machine gun used during World War II is still in use today. Since the mid-1950s, some armored personnel carriers and utility vehicles have been made to withstand 12.7 mm machine gun fire, restricting the destructive capability of the M2. It still has more penetrating power than lighter weapons such as general-purpose machine guns, though it is significantly heavier and more cumbersome to transport. Its range and accuracy, however, are superior to light machine guns when fixed on tripods, and it has not been replaced as the standard caliber for Western vehicle-mounted machine guns (Soviet and CIS armored vehicles mount 12.7×108mm NSVs, which have similar dimensions to .50 BMGs).


title: .50 BMG

text: Decades later, the .50 BMG was chambered in high-powered rifles as well. The Barrett M82 rifle was developed during the 1980s and, along with later variants, has upgraded the anti-materiel power of the military sniper. A skilled sniper can effectively neutralize an infantry unit by eliminating several targets (soldiers or equipment) without revealing his precise location. The long range (over one mile) between firing position and target allows time for the sniper to avoid enemy retaliation by either changing positions repeatedly, or by safely retreating.


title: .50 BMG

text: The primary military use of this round is in the M2 Browning machine gun and anti-materiel rifles such as the Barrett M82.


title: .50 BMG

text: The U.S. Coast Guard uses .50 BMG rifles to disable outboard engines from armed helicopters during interdictions. Similarly, .50 BMG weapons have attracted attention from law enforcement agencies; they have been adopted by the New York City Police Department as well as the Pittsburgh Police. A .50 BMG round can effectively disable a vehicle when fired into the engine block. A .50 BMG round will penetrate most commercial brick walls and concrete cinder blocks.


title: .50 BMG

text: The .50 BMG round was used as a sniper round as early as the Korean War. The former record for a confirmed long-distance kill was set by U.S. Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock in 1967 during the Vietnam War, at a distance of ; Hathcock used the .50 BMG in an M2 Machine Gun equipped with a telescopic sight. This weapon was used by other snipers, and eventually purpose-built sniper rifles were developed specifically for this round.


title: .50 BMG

text: In June 2017, a McMillan Tac-50 was used by a sniper with Canada's Joint Task Force 2 to kill an Islamic State insurgent in Iraq, setting the new world record for the longest confirmed kill shot in military history at . Before that, a British sniper in Afghanistan held the record at using a .338 Lapua Magnum (8.58×70 mm) rifle.


title: .50 BMG

text: In addition to long-range and anti-materiel, the U.S. military uses .50 BMG weapons to detonate unexploded ordnance from a safe distance. It can disable most unarmored and lightly armored vehicles.


title: .50 BMG

text: Some civilians use .50 caliber rifles for long-range target shooting: the US-based Fifty Caliber Shooters Association holds .50 BMG shooting matches.


title: .50 BMG

text: A common method for understanding the actual power of a cartridge is comparison of muzzle energies. The .30-06 Springfield, the standard caliber for American soldiers in both World Wars and a popular caliber amongst American hunters, can produce muzzle energies between . The .50 BMG round can produce between , depending on its powder and bullet type, as well as the weapon it is fired from. Due to the high ballistic coefficient of the bullet, the .50 BMG's trajectory also suffers less "drift" from cross-winds than smaller and lighter calibers, making the .50 BMG a good choice for high-powered sniper rifles.


title: .50 BMG

text: The .50 BMG (12.7×99mm NATO) cartridge has a capacity of . The round is a scaled-up version of the .30-06 Springfield but uses a case wall with a long taper to facilitate feeding and extraction in various weapons.


title: .50 BMG

text: The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 1 in , with eight lands and grooves. The primer type specified for this ammunition is a boxer primer that has a single centralized ignition point (US and NATO countries). However, some other countries produce the ammunition with Berdan primers that have two flash holes.


title: .50 BMG

text: The average chamber pressure in this round as listed in TM43-0001-27, the U.S. Army Ammunition Data Sheets — Small Caliber Ammunition, not including plastic practice, short cased spotter, or proof/test loads, is . The proof/test pressure is listed as .


title: .50 BMG

text: The .50 BMG cartridge is also produced commercially in a wide range of specifications, including armor piercing, tracing, and incendiary.


title: .50 BMG

text: DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) contracted with Teledyne Scientific Company to develop the EXACTO program, including a .50-caliber guided bullet. Videos published by DARPA show the guided bullet diverting to strike a moving target.


title: .50 BMG

text: Three distinct and non-compatible metallic links have been used for .50 BMG cartridge belts. The M2 and M9 links, "pull-out" designs, are used in the Browning M2 and M3 machine guns. The M15-series metal "push-through" links were used in the M85 machine gun. Pull-out cloth belts were also used at one time, but have been obsolete since 1945.


title: .50 BMG

text: Within the United Kingdom, it is legal to own a bolt action .50 BMG rifle with a section 1 Firearms Certificate. Applications requesting firearms in this caliber are assessed by the same criteria as smaller calibers; with the applicant having to prove they have a valid reason for owning such a weapon.


title: .50 BMG

text: The specified maximum diameter of an unfired .50 BMG bullet is ; while this appears to be over the .50 inch (12.7 mm) maximum allowed for non-sporting Title I firearms under the U.S. National Firearms Act, the barrel of a .50 BMG rifle is only .50 inch (12.7 mm) across the rifling lands and slightly larger in the grooves. The oversized bullet is formed to the bore size upon firing, forming a tight seal and engaging the rifling. Subject to political controversy due to the great power of the cartridge (it is the most powerful commonly available cartridge not considered a destructive device under the National Firearms Act), it remains popular among long-range shooters for its accuracy and external ballistics. While the .50 BMG round is able to deliver accurate shot placement (if match grade ammunition is used) at ranges over , smaller caliber rifles produce better scores and tighter groups in competitions.


title: .50 BMG

text: A 1999 Justice Department Office of Special Investigations briefing on .50 caliber rifle crime identified several instances of the .50 BMG being involved in criminal activities.


title: .50 BMG

text: In the United States, Washington, D.C. disallows registration of .50 BMG rifles, thus rendering civilian possession unlawful. California prohibits the private purchase of a rifle capable of firing the .50 BMG through the .50 Caliber BMG Regulation Act of 2004. Connecticut specifically bans the Barrett 82A1 .50 BMG rifle. However, .50 BMG rifles registered prior to the enacted bans remain lawful to possess in California and Connecticut. Maryland imposes additional regulations on the sale and transfer of .50 BMG rifles and other "regulated firearms", and limits purchases of any firearm within this class to one per month, but does not impose registration requirements or any form of categorical ban.


title: .50 BMG

text: Contrary to a persistent misconception within the United States Armed Forces, using .50 BMG directly against enemy personnel is not prohibited by the laws of war. Writing for the "Marine Corps Gazette", Maj Hays Parks states that "No treaty language exists (either generally or specifically) to support a limitation on [the use of .50 BMG] against personnel, and its widespread, longstanding use in this role suggests that such antipersonnel employment is the customary practice of nations." Parks theorizes that the misconception originated in historical doctrine discouraging the use of the M8C spotting rifle—an integral .50-caliber aiming aid for the M40 recoilless rifle—in the antipersonnel role. This limitation was entirely tactical in nature and was intended to hide the vulnerable M40 and its crew from the enemy until the main anti-tank gun was ready for firing; however, Parks concludes that some U.S. troops assumed the existence of a legal limitation on the use of .50-caliber projectiles more generally.


title: Call the Midwife

text: Call the Midwife is a BBC period drama series about a group of nurse midwives working in the East End of London in the late 1950s and 1960s. The principal cast of the show has included Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart, Helen George, Bryony Hannah, Laura Main, Jenny Agutter, Pam Ferris, Judy Parfitt, Cliff Parisi, Stephen McGann, Ben Caplan, Daniel Laurie, Emerald Fennell, Victoria Yeates, Jack Ashton, Linda Bassett, Charlotte Ritchie, Kate Lamb, Jennifer Kirby, Annabelle Apsion and Leonie Elliott.


title: Call the Midwife

text: The series is produced by Neal Street Productions, a production company founded and owned by the film director and producer Sam Mendes, "Call the Midwife" executive producer Pippa Harris, and Caro Newling. The first series, set in 1957, premiered in the United Kingdom on 15 January 2012. The series was created by Heidi Thomas, originally based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth who worked with the Community of St. John the Divine, an Anglican religious order, at their convent in the East End in London. The order was founded as a nursing order in 1849. The show's storylines has extended beyond the memoirs to include new, historically sourced material. For the most part it depicts the day-to-day lives of the midwives and those in their local neighbourhood of Poplar, with certain historical events of the era having a direct or indirect effect on the characters and storylines.


title: Call the Midwife

text: "Call the Midwife" achieved high ratings in its first series, making it the most successful new drama series on BBC One since 2001. Nine more series of eight episodes each have aired subsequently year-on-year, along with an annual Christmas special broadcast every Christmas Day since 2012. It is also broadcast in the United States on the PBS network, with the first series starting on 30 September 2012.


title: Call the Midwife

text: Critical reception has been mostly positive, and the series has won numerous awards and nominations. It has been praised for tackling topical subjects and contemporary social, cultural and economic issues, including nationalised healthcare, infertility, teen pregnancy, adoption, the importance of local community, miscarriage and stillbirths, abortion and unwanted pregnancies, birth defects, poverty, common illnesses, epidemic disease, prostitution, incest, religion and faith, racism and prejudice, same-sex attraction and female genital mutilation. Some aspects of love—maternal, paternal, filial, fraternal, sisterly, romantic, or the love of friends—are explored in every episode.


title: Call the Midwife

text: The plot follows newly qualified midwife Jenny Lee, as well as the work of midwives and the nuns of Nonnatus House, a nursing convent and part of an Anglican religious order, coping with the medical problems in the deprived Poplar district of London's desperately poor East End in the 1950s. The Sisters and midwives carry out many nursing duties across the community. However, with between 80 and 100 babies being born each month in Poplar alone, the primary work is to help bring safe childbirth to women in the area and to look after their countless newborns.


title: Call the Midwife

text: The first series, set in early 1957, tackles the "Baby Boom", issues of poverty in the East End and post-war immigration. The second series set in 1958 depicts the introduction of gas and air as a form of pain relief, unexploded ordnance, an outbreak of tuberculosis, a baby born with spina bifida, and ends with the condemning of the Nonnatus House building. The third series, set in 1959, depicts cystic fibrosis, polio, caring for the terminally ill, and midwifery in a prison context. The Child Migrants Programme, the threat of nuclear warfare (including emergency response guidelines issued by local Civil Defence Corps), LGBT rights, and syphilis among sex workers are addressed in 1960-set fourth series, with a patient with typhoid, the effects of thalidomide, the introduction of the contraceptive pill and impact of stroke in the fifth set in 1961. The sixth series, set in 1962, touches on domestic violence, an explosion at the local docks, interracial marriage, female genital mutilation, mental health, and introduces Reggie, a recurring character who has Down syndrome. The seventh series, set in 1963, introduces the first major character of colour, Nurse Lucille Anderson, as well as dementia, racial abuse, leprosy, and meningitis featuring in storylines. The eighth series, set in 1964, covers the topic of abortion (which was not legalised until 1967), sickle cell disease, babies born with cleft lip and cleft palate, and intersex people. Set in 1965, the ninth series addresses diphtheria, a blind expectant mother, and the continued role and relevance of Nonnatus House in the community. The tenth series, set in 1966, compares the practice at Nonnatus House with the private Lady Emily Clinic in Mayfair, PKU, diabetes, and the controversy of abortion on the eve of legalisation. Christmas special episodes also explore the conditions in a mission in South Africa, the Outer Hebrides, and the order orphanage.


title: Call the Midwife

text: "Call the Midwife" is based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, featuring narration – and an on-screen appearance in the 2014 Christmas Special – by Vanessa Redgrave as an older Jenny.


title: Call the Midwife

text: A number of historic sites in the south of England have been used as filming locations for scenes in "Call the Midwife". The ship in the opening titles is the Shaw, Savill & Albion Line liner in dry dock at the King George V Dock and the road is Saville Road, Silvertown, east London.


title: Call the Midwife

text: Many of the exterior scenes are shot at The Historic Dockyard Chatham standing in for East London streets and buildings. In the first two series, Nonnatus House was filmed at St. Joseph's Missionary College in Mill Hill, North London until the building was converted to luxury flats at which point a new Nonnatus House set was created at Longcross Studios in Surrey where sets were built for the new Nonnatus and interior sets. is used for scenes on ships during the series and the order's mother house is filmed in West Wittering. A reconstructed prefab house at the Chiltern Open Air Museum in Buckinghamshire has also been used as a filming location.


title: Call the Midwife

text: On 11 February 2013, Ben Stephenson, BBC Controller for Drama, announced that he had commissioned a 2013 Christmas special, and a third series of eight episodes to be broadcast in 2014. The fourth series aired in the US in 2015, finishing its eight-episode run on 17 May. A Christmas special also aired in 2015.


title: Call the Midwife

text: A fifth series was commissioned for 2016, shortly after series four filming was completed. A sixth series was commissioned, which included a 2016 Christmas episode set in South Africa. On 23 November 2016, the BBC announced a three-year deal with Neal Street Productions, commissioning a seventh, eighth, and ninth series, each with a Christmas special. On 4 March 2019, the BBC announced it had commissioned two further series and Christmas specials, through to an eleventh series in 2022, moving the plot into the late-sixties.


title: Call the Midwife

text: On 13 April 2021 – five days before series 10 was due to start broadcasting on BBC One and with the 11th series about to begin filming – the BBC announced that two more series had been commissioned, keeping the show on air until 2024. Series 12 and 13 will each comprise eight one-hour episodes as well as a Christmas special.


title: Call the Midwife

text: For the first three series of the programme the score and the title theme used was composed by Peter Salem and since series four the music has been composed by Maurizio Malagnini. The orchestral score, mainly comprising strings and piano accompanies the emotional moments of the series, with Malagnini calling it a diary of the emotions of the series, while more upbeat moments are often accompanied by music appropriate to the setting year. The score was performed by the London Chamber Orchestra.


title: Call the Midwife

text: There have been two albums released with music from the series: a 2012 released "Call the Midwife: The Album" consisting of period appropriate songs and score tracks from the first series by Salem and a second "Call the Midwife: Original Soundtrack Album" released in 2018 featuring highlights from Malagnini's score from series 4-7.


title: Call the Midwife

text: In May 2012, BBC Worldwide and the American Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) announced that the first series of "Call the Midwife" would premiere in the United States on 30 September 2012. BBC Worldwide also sold the programme to SVT (Sweden); NRK (Norway); RÚV (Iceland); Yle (Finland); AXN White (Spain; Portugal); ERT (Greece); ABC in Australia and TVNZ 1 in New Zealand, where its debut recorded a 35% share of the audience – 20% above average. In July 2012 BBC Worldwide announced it sold the global Video on Demand rights of the programme to Netflix.


title: Call the Midwife

text: The second series of "Call the Midwife" was sold to PBS for transmission from 31 March 2013 and to SVT (Sweden) for transmission from 19 May 2013. In February 2013, BBC Worldwide reported that "Call the Midwife" had been sold in over one hundred global territories, with global sales contributing to the UK's position as the second largest TV exporter behind the United States. In February 2017, it was reported that the BBC had exported "Call the Midwife" to 237 global territories.


title: Call the Midwife

text: A second series of eight episodes aired in the UK in early 2013. The series achieved a consolidated series average of 10.47 million viewers. A third eight-part series aired in the UK from January 2014, with a consolidated average of 10.53 million.


title: Call the Midwife

text: On 28 February 2014, BBC confirmed that "Call the Midwife" had been commissioned for a 2014 Christmas special and fourth series, to air in 2015. On 3 November 2014, BBC announced that an eight-episode fifth series had been commissioned; it began airing on 17 January 2016; the fifth series takes the story into 1961. The sixth series began airing in the UK on 22 January 2017, taking the drama into 1962. Series seven, again consisting of eight episodes, began airing on Sunday, 21 January 2018, with episode one viewed by 9.87 million viewers. It was the No.1 rated programme on UK TV for all weeks of its transmission, ending 11 March 2018. The eighth series premiered on 13 January 2019.


title: Call the Midwife

text: The first series was released in a Region 2, two-disc set on 12 March 2012. Series two was released on 1 April 2013 in the UK (region 2) with a collector's edition, "Call the Midwife Collection", containing series one, two, and the 2012 Christmas Special, released on the same date.


title: Call the Midwife

text: In the United States, the first series was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 6 November 2012. Series two was released on DVD and Blu-ray on 18 June 2013. Series three was released on Blu-ray on 20 May 2014. Series four was released on Blu-ray on 19 May 2015.


title: Call the Midwife

text: A second series was immediately commissioned after the opening episode attracted an audience of nearly 10 million viewers. The second episode increased its audience to 10.47 million, while the third continued the climb to 10.66. Episode four's rating reached 10.89 million.


title: Call the Midwife

text: In the United States, the series one transmission on PBS drew an average household audience rating of 2.1, translating into three million viewers – 50 percent above PBS's primetime average for the 2011–12 series. The autumn 2012 PBS broadcast of the first series received widespread critical acclaim, earning a Metacritic score of 8.0. "The Wall Street Journal" declared that "this immensely absorbing drama is worth any trouble it takes to catch up with its singular pleasures", while "The Washington Post" stated that "the cast is marvelous, the gritty, post-war set pieces are meticulously recreated". "TV Guide" called the series "a delight to watch", while the "San Francisco Chronicle" described it as "sentimental, poignant and often heartbreaking". Maane Khatchatourian of "Entertainment Weekly" wrote, "Just what the doctor ordered."


title: Call the Midwife

text: The second series opened with a record overnight audience of 9.3 million UK viewers, going on to achieve a consolidated series average of 10.47 million viewers. This was almost 2 million above the slot average, and by some distance the most popular UK drama in every week of transmission. When viewing figures from BBC's iPlayer video streaming service and a narrative repeat were included as part of the BBC Live Plus 7 metric, the total number of viewers per week was found to be almost 12 million.


title: Call the Midwife

text: Caitlin Moran in "The Times" called this "an iron hand in a velvet glove", while Allison Pearson in "The Daily Telegraph" lauded its ability to "tickle the middle of the brow while touching the most anguished parts of the human condition". In particular, commentators have noted the attention given to female social issues in the drama's post-war, pre-pill setting. Alison Graham in the "Radio Times" dubbed "Call the Midwife" "a magnificently subversive drama" and "the torchbearer of feminism on television," while Caitlin Moran claimed the series encapsulated "how unbelievably terrifying, dreary and vile it was to be a working-class woman 60 years ago."


title: Call the Midwife

text: After the departure of Jessica Raine as Jenny Lee at the end of the third series, Jennifer Worth's family stated that "Call The Midwife" no longer resembled Worth's stories.


title: Inuit

text: Inuit (; 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and Alaska. Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut.


title: Inuit

text: Inuit live throughout most of Northern Canada in the territory of Nunavut, Nunavik in the northern third of Quebec, Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut in Labrador, and in various parts of the Northwest Territories, particularly around the Arctic Ocean, in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. With the exception of NunatuKavut, these areas are known, primarily by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, as Inuit Nunangat. In Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 classify Inuit as a distinctive group of Aboriginal Canadians who are not included under either the First Nations or the Métis.


title: Inuit

text: Greenlandic Inuit are descendants of Thule migrations from Canada by 1100 CE. Although Greenland withdrew from the European Communities in 1985, Inuit of Greenland are Danish citizens and, as such, remain citizens of the European Union. In the United States, the Alaskan Iñupiat are traditionally located in the Northwest Arctic Borough, on the Alaska North Slope, and on Little Diomede Island.


title: Inuit

text: Many individuals who would have historically been referred to as "Eskimo" find that term offensive, and/or forced upon them in a colonial way; "Inuit" is now a common autonym for a large sub-group of these people. The word "Inuit" (varying forms Iñupiat, Inuvialuit, Inughuit, etc.), however, is an ancient self-referential to a group of peoples which includes at most the Iñupiat of northern Alaska, the four broad groups of Inuit in Canada, and the Greenlandic Inuit. This usage has long been employed to the exclusion of other, closely related groups (e.g. Yupik, Aleut). Therefore, the Aleut (Unangan) and Yupik peoples (Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, Central Yup'ik, Siberian Yupik), who live in Alaska and Siberia, at least at an individual and local level, generally do not self-identify as "Inuit".


title: Inuit

text: Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule people, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE. They had split from the related Aleut group about 4000 years ago and from northeastern Siberian migrants. They spread eastward across the Arctic. They displaced the related Dorset culture, called the in Inuktitut, which was the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture.


title: Inuit

text: Inuit legends speak of the as "giants", people who were taller and stronger than Inuit. Less frequently, the legends refer to the Dorset as "dwarfs". Researchers believe that Inuit society had advantages by having adapted to using dogs as transport animals, and developing larger weapons and other technologies superior to those of the Dorset culture. By 1100 CE, Inuit migrants had reached west Greenland, where they settled. During the 12th century, they also settled in East Greenland.


title: Inuit

text: Faced with population pressures from the Thule and other surrounding groups, such as the Algonquian and Siouan-speaking peoples to the south, the gradually receded. The were thought to have become completely extinct as a people by about 1400 or 1500. But, in the mid-1950s, researcher Henry B. Collins determined that, based on the ruins found at Native Point, the Sadlermiut were likely the last remnants of the Dorset culture, or . The Sadlermiut population survived up until winter 1902–1903, when exposure to new infectious diseases brought by contact with Europeans led to their extinction as a people.


title: Inuit

text: In the early 21st century, mitochondrial DNA research has supported the theory of continuity between the and the Sadlermiut peoples. It also provided evidence that a population displacement did not occur within the Aleutian Islands between the Dorset and Thule transition. In contrast to other populations, the Aleut and Sadlermiut benefited from both geographical isolation and their ability to adopt certain Thule technologies.


title: Inuit

text: In Canada and Greenland, Inuit circulated almost exclusively north of the "arctic tree line", the effective southern border of Inuit society. The most southern "officially recognized" Inuit community in the world is Rigolet in Nunatsiavut.


title: Inuit

text: South of Nunatsiavut, the descendants of the southern Labrador Inuit in NunatuKavut continued their traditional transhumant semi-nomadic way of life until the mid-1900s. The Nunatukavummuit people usually moved among islands and bays on a seasonal basis. They did not establish stationary communities. In other areas south of the tree line, non-Inuit indigenous cultures were well established. The culture and technology of Inuit society that served so well in the Arctic were not suited to subarctic regions, so they did not displace their southern neighbours.


title: Inuit

text: Inuit had trade relations with more southern cultures; boundary disputes were common and gave rise to aggressive actions. Warfare was not uncommon among those Inuit groups with sufficient population density. Inuit such as the Nunamiut ("Uummarmiut"), who inhabited the Mackenzie River delta area, often engaged in warfare. The more sparsely settled Inuit in the Central Arctic, however, did so less often.


title: Inuit

text: Their first European contact was with the Vikings who had settled in Greenland centuries prior. The sagas recorded meeting "", probably an undifferentiated label for all the indigenous peoples whom the Norse encountered, whether , Inuit, or Beothuk.


title: Inuit

text: After about 1350, the climate grew colder during the period known as the Little Ice Age. During this period, Alaskan natives were able to continue their whaling activities. But, in the high Arctic, Inuit were forced to abandon their hunting and whaling sites as bowhead whales disappeared from Canada and Greenland. These Inuit had to subsist on a much poorer diet, and lost access to the essential raw materials for their tools and architecture which they had previously derived from whaling.


title: Inuit

text: The changing climate forced Inuit to work their way south, pushing them into marginal niches along the edges of the tree line. These were areas First Nations had not occupied or where they were weak enough for Inuit to live near them. Researchers have difficulty defining when Inuit stopped this territorial expansion. There is evidence that the Inuit were still moving into new territory in southern Labrador when they first began to interact with European colonists in the 17th century.


title: Inuit

text: The lives of Paleo-Eskimos of the far north were largely unaffected by the arrival of visiting Norsemen except for mutual trade. The Labrador Inuit have had the longest continuous contact with Europeans. After the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland, Inuit had no contact with Europeans for at least a century. By the mid-16th century, Basque whalers and fishermen were already working the Labrador coast and had established whaling stations on land, such as the one that has been excavated at Red Bay, Labrador. Inuit do not appear to have interfered with their operations, but raided the stations in winter, taking tools and items made of worked iron, which they adapted to their own needs.


title: Inuit

text: Martin Frobisher's 1576 search for the Northwest Passage was the first well-documented contact between Europeans and Inuit. Frobisher's expedition landed in Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island, not far from the settlement now called Iqaluit. Frobisher encountered Inuit on Resolution Island where five sailors left the ship, under orders from Frobisher, with instructions to stay clear of the Inuit. They became part of Inuit mythology. Inuit oral tradition tells that the men lived among them for a few years of their own free will until they died attempting to leave Baffin Island in a self-made boat and vanished. Frobisher, in an attempt to find the men, captured three Inuit and brought them back to England. They were possibly the first Inuit ever to visit Europe.


title: Inuit

text: The semi-nomadic Inuit were fishermen and hunters harvesting lakes, seas, ice platforms and tundra. While there are some allegations that Inuit were hostile to early French and English explorers, fishermen and whalers, more recent research suggests that the early relations with whaling stations along the Labrador coast and later James Bay were based on a mutual interest in trade. In the final years of the 18th century, the Moravian Church began missionary activities in Labrador, supported by the British who were tired of the raids on their whaling stations. The Moravian missionaries could easily provide Inuit with the iron and basic materials they had been stealing from whaling outposts, materials whose real cost to Europeans was almost nothing, but whose value to Inuit was enormous. From then on, contacts between the national groups in Labrador were far more peaceful.


title: Inuit

text: The exchanges that accompanied the arrival and colonization by the Europeans greatly damaged Inuit way of life. Mass death was caused by the new infectious diseases carried by whalers and explorers, to which the Indigenous peoples had no acquired immunity. The high mortality rate contributed to the enormous social disruptions caused by the distorting effect of Europeans' material wealth and introduction of different materials. Nonetheless, Inuit society in the higher latitudes largely remained in isolation during the 19th century.


title: Inuit

text: The Hudson's Bay Company opened trading posts such as Great Whale River (1820), today the site of the twin villages of Whapmagoostui and Kuujjuarapik, where whale products of the commercial whale hunt were processed and furs traded. The expedition of 1821–23 to the Northwest Passage led by Commander William Edward Parry twice over-wintered in Foxe Basin. It provided the first informed, sympathetic and well-documented account of the economic, social and religious life of Inuit. Parry stayed in what is now Igloolik over the second winter. Parry's writings, with pen and ink illustrations of Inuit everyday life, and those of George Francis Lyon were widely read after they were both published in 1824. Captain George Comer's Inuk wife Shoofly, known for her sewing skills and elegant attire, was influential in convincing him to acquire more sewing accessories and beads for trade with Inuit.


title: Inuit

text: During the early 20th century a few traders and missionaries circulated among the more accessible bands. After 1904, they were accompanied by a handful of North-West Mounted Police (NWMP). Unlike most Aboriginal peoples in Canada, however, Inuit did not occupy lands that were coveted by European settlers. Used to more temperate climates and conditions, most Europeans considered the homeland of Inuit to be a hostile hinterland. Southerners enjoyed lucrative careers as bureaucrats and service providers to the peoples of the North, but very few ever chose to visit there.


title: Inuit

text: Once its more hospitable lands were largely settled, the government of Canada and entrepreneurs began to take a greater interest in its more peripheral territories, especially the fur and mineral-rich hinterlands. By the late 1920s, there were no longer any Inuit who had not been contacted by traders, missionaries or government agents. In 1939, the Supreme Court of Canada found, in a decision known as "Re Eskimos", that Inuit should be considered Indians and were thus under the jurisdiction of the federal government.


title: Inuit

text: Native customs were worn down by the actions of the RCMP, who enforced Canadian criminal law on Inuit. People such as Kikkik often did not understand the rules of the alien society with which they had to interact. In addition, the generally Protestant missionaries of the British preached a moral code very different from the one Inuit had as part of their tradition. Many of Inuit were systematically converted to Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries, through rituals such as the "Siqqitiq".


title: Inuit

text: World War II and the Cold War made Arctic Canada strategically important to the great powers for the first time. Thanks to the development of modern long-distance aircraft, these areas became accessible year-round. The construction of air bases and the Distant Early Warning Line in the 1940s and 1950s brought more intensive contacts with European society, particularly in the form of public education for children. The traditionalists complained that Canadian education promoted foreign values that were disdainful of the traditional structure and culture of Inuit society.


title: Inuit

text: In the 1950s, the Government of Canada undertook what was called the High Arctic relocation for several reasons. These were to include protecting Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic, alleviating hunger (as the area currently occupied had been over-hunted), and attempting to solve the "Eskimo problem", by seeking assimilation of the people and the end of their traditional Inuit culture. One of the more notable relocations was undertaken in 1953, when 17 families were moved from Port Harrison (now Inukjuak, Quebec) to Resolute and Grise Fiord. They were dropped off in early September when winter had already arrived. The land they were sent to was very different from that in the Inukjuak area; it was barren, with only a couple of months when the temperature rose above freezing, and several months of polar night. The families were told by the RCMP they would be able to return to their home territory within two years if conditions were not right. However, two years later more Inuit families were relocated to the High Arctic. Thirty years passed before they were able to visit Inukjuak.


title: Inuit

text: By 1953, Canada's prime minister Louis St. Laurent publicly admitted, "Apparently we have administered the vast territories of the north in an almost continuing absence of mind." The government began to establish about forty permanent administrative centres to provide education, health, and economic development services. Inuit from hundreds of smaller camps scattered across the north, began to congregate in these hamlets.


title: Inuit

text: Regular visits from doctors, and access to modern medical care raised the birth rate and decreased the death rate, causing a marked natural increase in the population that made it more difficult for them to survive by traditional means. In the 1950s, the Canadian government began to actively settle Inuit into permanent villages and cities, occasionally against their will (such as in Nuntak and Hebron). In 2005 the Canadian government acknowledged the abuses inherent in these forced resettlements. By the mid-1960s, encouraged first by missionaries, then by the prospect of paid jobs and government services, and finally forced by hunger and required by police, most Canadian Inuit lived year-round in permanent settlements. The nomadic migrations that were the central feature of Arctic life had become a much smaller part of life in the North. The Inuit, a once self-sufficient people in an extremely harsh environment were, in the span of perhaps two generations, transformed into a small, impoverished minority, lacking skills or resources to sell to the larger economy, but increasingly dependent on it for survival.


title: Inuit

text: Although anthropologists like Diamond Jenness (1964) were quick to predict that Inuit culture was facing extinction, Inuit political activism was already emerging.


title: Inuit

text: In the 1960s, the Canadian government funded the establishment of secular, government-operated high schools in the Northwest Territories (including what is now Nunavut) and Inuit areas in Quebec and Labrador along with the residential school system. The Inuit population was not large enough to support a full high school in every community, so this meant only a few schools were built, and students from across the territories were boarded there. These schools, in Aklavik, Iqaluit, Yellowknife, Inuvik and Kuujjuaq, brought together young Inuit from across the Arctic in one place for the first time, and exposed them to the rhetoric of civil and human rights that prevailed in Canada in the 1960s. This was a real wake-up call for the Inuit, and it stimulated the emergence of a new generation of young Inuit activists in the late 1960s who came forward and pushed for respect for the Inuit and their territories.


title: Inuit

text: The Inuit began to emerge as a political force in the late 1960s and early 1970s, shortly after the first graduates returned home. They formed new politically active associations in the early 1970s, starting with the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (Inuit Brotherhood and today known as Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami), an outgrowth of the Indian and Eskimo Association of the '60s, in 1971, and more region specific organizations shortly afterwards, including the Committee for the Original People's Entitlement (representing the Inuvialuit), the Northern Quebec Inuit Association (Makivik Corporation) and the Labrador Inuit Association (LIA) representing Northern Labrador Inuit. Since the mid-1980s the Southern Labrador Inuit of NunatuKavut began organizing politically after being geographically cut out of the LIA, however, for political expediency the organization was erroneously called the Labrador Métis Nation. These various activist movements began to change the direction of Inuit society in 1975 with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. This comprehensive land claims settlement for Quebec Inuit, along with a large cash settlement and substantial administrative autonomy in the new region of Nunavik, set the precedent for the settlements to follow. The northern Labrador Inuit submitted their land claim in 1977, although they had to wait until 2005 to have a signed land settlement establishing Nunatsiavut. Southern Labrador Inuit of NunatuKavut are currently in the process of establishing land claims and title rights that would allow them to negotiate with the Newfoundland Government.


title: Inuit

text: Canada's 1982 Constitution Act recognized Inuit as Aboriginal peoples in Canada. In the same year, the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut (TFN) was incorporated, in order to take over negotiations for land claims on behalf of Inuit living in the eastern Northwest Territories, that would later become Nunavut, from the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which became a joint association of Inuit of Quebec, Labrador, and the Northwest Territories.


title: Inuit

text: On October 30, 2008, Leona Aglukkaq was appointed as Minister of Health, "[becoming] the first Inuk to hold a senior cabinet position, although she is not the first Inuk to be in cabinet altogether." Jack Anawak and Nancy Karetak-Lindell were both parliamentary secretaries respectively from 1993 to 1996 and in 2003.


title: Inuit

text: The term "Eskimo" is still used by people, but in the 21st century, usage in North America has declined.


title: Inuit

text: In the United States the term "Eskimo" was, as of 2016, commonly used to describe Inuit and the Siberian and Alaskan Yupik, and Iñupiat peoples. Eskimo is still used by some groups and organizations to encompass the Inuit and Yupik, as well as other Indigenous Alaskan and Siberian peoples.


title: Inuit

text: In 2011, Lawrence Kaplan of the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks wrote that "Inuit" was not generally accepted as a term for the Yupik, and "Eskimo" was often used as the term that applied to the Yupik, Iñupiat, and Inuit. Since then Kaplan has updated this to indicate that the term "Inuit" has gained acceptance in Alaska.


title: Inuit

text: Though there is much debate, the word Eskimo likely derives from a Innu-aimun (Montagnais) exonym meaning "a person who laces a snowshoe", but is also used in folk etymology as meaning "eater of raw meat" in the Cree language. Though the Cree etymology has been discredited, "Eskimo" is considered pejorative by some Canadian and English-speaking Greenlandic Inuit.


title: Inuit

text: In Canada and Greenland, "Inuit" is preferred. "Inuit" is the Eastern Canadian Inuit (Inuktitut) and West Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) word for "the people". Since Inuktitut and Kalaallisut are the prestige dialects in Canada and Greenland, respectively, their version has become dominant, although every Inuit dialect uses cognates from the Proto-Eskimo "*ińuɣ" for example, "people" is "inughuit" in North Greenlandic and "iivit" in East Greenlandic.


title: Inuit

text: Inuit speak Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, and Greenlandic languages, which belong to the Inuit-Inupiaq branch of the Inuit-Yupik-Unangan language family. The Greenlandic languages are divided into: Kalaallisut (Western), Inuktun (Northern), and Tunumiit (Eastern).


title: Inuit

text: Inuktitut is spoken in Canada and along with Inuinnaqtun is one of the official languages of Nunavut; they are known collectively as the Inuit Language. In the Northwest Territories, Inuvialuktun, Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut are all official languages. Kalaallisut is the official language of Greenland. As Inuktitut was the language of the Eastern Canadian Inuit and Kalaallisut is the language of the Western Greenlandic Inuit, they are related more closely than most other dialects.


title: Inuit

text: Inuit in Alaska and Northern Canada also typically speak English. In Greenland, Inuit also speak Danish and learn English in school. Canadian Inuit may also speak Québécois French.


title: Inuit

text: Finally, deaf Inuit use Inuit Sign Language, which is a language isolate and almost extinct as only around 50 people still use it.


title: Inuit

text: The Inuit have traditionally been fishermen and hunters. They still hunt whales (esp. bowhead whale), seal, (esp. ringed seal, harp seal, common seal, bearded seal), polar bears, muskoxen, birds, and fish and at times other less commonly eaten animals such as the Arctic fox. The typical Inuit diet is high in protein and very high in fat – in their traditional diets, Inuit consumed an average of 75% of their daily energy intake from fat. While it is not possible to cultivate plants for food in the Arctic, the Inuit have traditionally gathered those that are naturally available. Grasses, tubers, roots, Plant stems, berries, and seaweed ("kuanniq" or edible seaweed) were collected and preserved depending on the season and the location. There is a vast array of different hunting technologies that the Inuit used to gather their food.


title: Inuit

text: In the 1920s, anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson lived with and studied a group of Inuit. The study focused on Stefansson's observation that the Inuit's low-carbohydrate diet apparently had no adverse effects on their health, nor indeed, on his own health. Stefansson (1946) also observed that the Inuit were able to get the necessary vitamins they needed from their traditional winter diet, which did not contain any plant matter. In particular, he found that adequate vitamin C could be obtained from items in their traditional diet of raw meat such as ringed seal liver and whale skin (muktuk). While there was considerable skepticism when he reported these findings, the initial anecdotal reports were reaffirmed both in the 1970s, and more recently.


title: Inuit

text: Modern Inuit have lifespans 12 to 15 years shorter than the average Canadian's, which is thought to be influenced by factors such as their diet and limited access to medical services. The life expectancy gap is not closing and remains stagnant.


title: Inuit

text: The ancient art of face tattooing among Inuit women, which is called "kakiniit" or "tunniit" in Inuktitut, dates back nearly 4,000 years. The facial tattoos detailed aspects of the women's lives, such as where they were from, who their family was, their life achievements, and their position in the community. When Catholic missionaries arrived in the area in the early 20th century they outlawed the practice, but it is now making a comeback thanks to some modern Inuit women who want to honor the practices of their ancestors and get in touch with their cultural roots. The traditional method of tattooing was done with needles made of sinew or bone soaked in suet and sewn into the skin, but today they use ink. The Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project is a community that was created to highlight the revitalization of this ancient tradition.