title: Ganges

text: The enthusiasm, however, proved to be short-lived. Auckland's successor as Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough, appeared less receptive to large-scale public works, and for the duration of his tenure, withheld major funds for the project. Only in 1844, when a new Governor-General, Lord Hardinge, was appointed, did official enthusiasm and funds return to the Ganges canal project. Although the intervening impasse had seemingly affected Cautley's health and required him to return to Britain in 1845 for recuperation, his European sojourn gave him an opportunity to study contemporary hydraulic works in the United Kingdom and Italy. By the time of his return to India even more supportive men were at the helm, both in the North-Western Provinces, with James Thomason as Lt. Governor, and in British India with Lord Dalhousie as Governor-General. Canal construction, under Cautley's supervision, now went into full swing. A long canal, with another of branch lines, eventually stretched between the headworks in Haridwar, splitting into two branches below Aligarh, and its two confluences with the Yamuna (Jumna in map) mainstem in Etawah and the Ganges in Kanpur (Cawnpore in map). The Ganges Canal, which required a total capital outlay of £2.15 million, was officially opened in 1854 by Lord Dalhousie. According to historian Ian Stone: It was the largest canal ever attempted in the world, five times greater in its length than all the main irrigation lines of Lombardy and Egypt put together, and longer by a third than even the largest USA navigation canal, the Pennsylvania Canal.


title: Ganges

text: A major barrage at Farakka was opened on 21 April 1975, It is located close to the point where the main flow of the river enters Bangladesh, and the tributary Hooghly (also known as Bhagirathi) continues in West Bengal past


title: Ganges

text: Kolkata. This barrage, which feeds the Hooghly branch of the river by a long feeder canal, and its water flow management has been a long-lingering source of dispute with Bangladesh. Indo-Bangladesh Ganges Water Treaty signed in December 1996 addressed some of the water sharing issues between India and Bangladesh. There is Lav Khush Barrage across the River Ganges in Kanpur.


title: Ganges

text: Tehri Dam was constructed on Bhagirathi River, a tributary of the Ganges. It is located 1.5 km downstream of Ganesh Prayag, the place where Bhilangana meets Bhagirathi. Bhagirathi is called the Ganges after Devprayag. Construction of the dam in an earthquake-prone area was controversial.


title: Ganges

text: Bansagar Dam was built on the Sone River, a tributary of the Ganges for both irrigation and hydroelectric power generation. Ganges floodwaters along with Brahmaputra waters can be supplied to most of its right side basin area along with central and south India by constructing a coastal reservoir to store water on the Bay of Bengal sea area.


title: Ganges

text: The Ganges Basin with its fertile soil is instrumental to the agricultural economies of India and Bangladesh. The Ganges and its tributaries provide a perennial source of irrigation to a large area. Chief crops cultivated in the area include rice, sugarcane, lentils, oil seeds, potatoes, and wheat. Along the banks of the river, the presence of swamps and lakes provides a rich growing area for crops such as legumes, chillies, mustard, sesame, sugarcane, and jute. There are also many fishing opportunities along the river, though it remains highly polluted. Also, the major industrial towns of Unnao and Kanpur, situated on the banks of the river with the predominance of tanning industries add to the pollution.


title: Ganges

text: Tourism is another related activity. Three towns holy to Hinduism—Haridwar, Allahabad (Prayagraj), and Varanasi—attract millions of pilgrims to its waters to take a dip in the Ganges, which is believed to cleanse oneself of sins and help attain salvation. The rapids of the Ganges are also popular for river rafting in the town of Rishikesh, attracting adventure seekers in the summer months. Several cities such as Kanpur, Kolkata and Patna have also developed riverfront walkways along the banks to attract tourists.


title: Ganges

text: Human development, mostly agriculture, has replaced nearly all of the original natural vegetation of the Ganges basin. More than 95% of the upper Gangetic Plain has been degraded or converted to agriculture or urban areas. Only one large block of relatively intact habitat remains, running along the Himalayan foothills and including Rajaji National Park, Jim Corbett National Park, and Dudhwa National Park. As recently as the 16th and 17th centuries the upper Gangetic Plain harboured impressive populations of wild Asian elephants ("Elephas maximus"), Bengal tigers ("Panthera t. tigris"), Indian rhinoceros ("Rhinoceros unicornis"), gaurs ("Bos gaurus"), barasinghas ("Rucervus duvaucelii"), sloth bears ("Melursus ursinus") and Indian lions ("Panthera leo leo"). In the 21st century there are few large wild animals, mostly deer, wild boars, wildcats, and small numbers of Indian wolves, golden jackals, and red and Bengal foxes. Bengal tigers survive only in the Sundarbans area of the Ganges Delta. The Sundarbands freshwater swamp ecoregion, however, is nearly extinct. The Sundarbans mangroves ("Heritiera fomes") also grow in the Sundarbans area of the Ganges Delta. Threatened mammals in the upper Gangetic Plain include the tiger, elephant, sloth bear, and four-horned antelope ("Tetracerus quadricornis").


title: Ganges

text: Many types of birds are found throughout the basin, such as myna, "Psittacula" parakeets, crows, kites, partridges, and fowls. Ducks and snipes migrate across the Himalayas during the winter, attracted in large numbers to wetland areas. There are no endemic birds in the upper Gangetic Plain. The great Indian bustard ("Ardeotis nigriceps") and lesser florican ("Sypheotides indicus") are considered globally threatened.


title: Ganges

text: The natural forest of the upper Gangetic Plain has been so thoroughly eliminated it is difficult to assign a natural vegetation type with certainty. There are a few small patches of forest left, and they suggest that much of the upper plains may have supported a tropical moist deciduous forest with sal ("Shorea robusta") as a climax species.


title: Ganges

text: A similar situation is found in the lower Gangetic Plain, which includes the lower Brahmaputra River. The lower plains contain more open forests, which tend to be dominated by "Bombax ceiba" in association with "Albizzia procera", "Duabanga grandiflora", and "Sterculia vilosa". There are early seral forest communities that would eventually become dominated by the climax species sal ("Shorea robusta") if forest succession was allowed to proceed. In most places forests fail to reach climax conditions due to human causes. The forests of the lower Gangetic Plain, despite thousands of years of human settlement, remained largely intact until the early 20th century. Today only about 3% of the ecoregion is under natural forest and only one large block, south of Varanasi, remains. There are over forty protected areas in the ecoregion, but over half of these are less than . The fauna of the lower Gangetic Plain is similar to the upper plains, with the addition of a number of other species such as the smooth-coated otter ("Lutrogale perspicillata") and the large Indian civet ("Viverra zibetha").


title: Ganges

text: It has been estimated that about 350 fish species live in the entire Ganges drainage, including several endemics. In a major 2007–2009 study of fish in the Ganges basin (including the river itself and its tributaries, but excluding the Brahmaputra and Meghna basins), a total of 143 fish species were recorded, including 10 non-native introduced species. The most diverse orders are Cypriniformes (barbs and allies), Siluriformes (catfish) and Perciformes (perciform fish), each comprising about 50%, 23% and 14% of the total fish species in the drainage.


title: Ganges

text: There are distinct differences between the different sections of the river basin, but Cyprinidae is the most diverse throughout. In the upper section (roughly equalling the basin parts in Uttarakhand) more than 50 species have been recorded and Cyprinidae alone accounts for almost 80% those, followed by Balitoridae (about 15.6%) and Sisoridae (about 12.2%). Sections of the Ganges basin at altitudes above above sea level are generally without fish. Typical genera approaching this altitude are "Schizothorax", "Tor", "Barilius", "Nemacheilus" and "Glyptothorax". About 100 species have been recorded from the middle section of the basin (roughly equalling the sections in Uttar Pradesh and parts of Bihar) and more than 55% of these are in family Cyprinidae, followed by Schilbeidae (about 10.6%) and Clupeidae (about 8.6%). The lower section (roughly equalling the basin in parts of Bihar and West Bengal) includes major floodplains and is home to almost 100 species. About 46% of these are in the family Cyprinidae, followed by Schilbeidae (about 11.4%) and Bagridae (about 9%).


title: Ganges

text: The Ganges basin supports major fisheries, but these have declined in recent decades. In the Allahabad region in the middle section of the basin, catches of carp fell from 424.91 metric tons in 1961–1968 to 38.58 metric tons in 2001–2006, and catches of catfish fell from 201.35 metric tons in 1961–1968 to 40.56 metric tons in 2001–2006. In the Patna region in the lower section of the basin, catches of carp fell from 383.2 metric tons to 118, and catfish from 373.8 metric tons to 194.48. Some of the fish commonly caught in fisheries include catla ("Catla catla"), golden mahseer ("Tor putitora"), tor mahseer ("Tor tor"), rohu ("Labeo rohita"), walking catfish ("Clarias batrachus"), pangas catfish ("Pangasius pangasius"), goonch catfish ("Bagarius"), snakeheads ("Channa"), bronze featherback ("Notopterus notopterus") and milkfish ("Chanos chanos").


title: Ganges

text: The Ganges basin is home to about 30 fish species that are listed as threatened with the primary issues being overfishing (sometimes illegal), pollution, water abstraction, siltation and invasive species. Among the threatened species is the critically endangered Ganges shark ("Glyphis gangeticus"). Several fish species migrate between different sections of the river, but these movements may be prevented by the building of dams.


title: Ganges

text: The main sections of the Ganges River are home to the gharial ("Gavialis gangeticus") and mugger crocodile ("Crocodylus palustris"), and the Ganges delta is home to the saltwater crocodile ("C. porosus"). Among the numerous aquatic and semi-aquatic turtles in the Ganges basin are the northern river terrapin ("Batagur baska"; only in the lowermost section of the basin), three-striped roofed turtle ("B. dhongoka"), red-crowned roofed turtle ("B. kachuga"), black pond turtle ("Geoclemys hamiltonii"), Brahminy river turtle ("Hardella thurjii"), Indian black turtle ("Melanochelys trijuga"), Indian eyed turtle ("Morenia petersi"), brown roofed turtle ("Pangshura smithii"), Indian roofed turtle ("Pangshura tecta"), Indian tent turtle ("Pangshura tentoria"), Indian flapshell turtle ("Lissemys punctata"), Indian narrow-headed softshell turtle ("Chitra indica"), Indian softshell turtle ("Nilssonia gangetica"), Indian peacock softshell turtle ("N. hurum") and Cantor's giant softshell turtle ("Pelochelys cantorii"; only in the lowermost section of Ganges basin). Most of these are seriously threatened.


title: Ganges

text: The river's most famed faunal member is the freshwater Ganges river dolphin ("Platanista gangetica gangetica"), which has been declared India's national aquatic animal.


title: Ganges

text: This dolphin used to exist in large schools near urban centres in both the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers but is now seriously threatened by pollution and dam construction. Their numbers have now dwindled to a quarter of their numbers of fifteen years before, and they have become extinct in the Ganges' main tributaries. A recent survey by the World Wildlife Fund found only 3,000 left in the water catchment of both river systems.


title: Ganges

text: The Ganges river dolphin is one of only five true freshwater dolphins in the world. The other four are the baiji ("Lipotes vexillifer") of the Yangtze River in China, now likely extinct; the Indus River dolphin of the Indus River in Pakistan; the Amazon river dolphin of the Amazon River in South America; and the Araguaian river dolphin (not considered a separate species until 2014) of the Araguaia–Tocantins basin in Brazil. There are several marine dolphins whose ranges include some freshwater habitats, but these five are the only dolphins who live only in freshwater rivers and lakes.


title: Ganges

text: The Tibetan Plateau contains the world's third-largest store of ice. Qin Dahe, the former head of the China Meteorological Administration, said that the recent fast pace of melting and warmer temperatures will be good for agriculture and tourism in the short term; but issued a strong warning:


title: Ganges

text: In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fourth Report, stated that the Himalayan glaciers which feed the river were at risk of melting by 2035. The IPCC has now withdrawn that prediction, as the original source admitted that it was speculative and the cited source was not a peer-reviewed finding. In its statement, the IPCC stands by its general findings relating to the Himalayan glaciers being at risk from global warming (with consequent risks to water flow into the Gangetic basin). Many studies have suggested that climate change will affect the water resources in the Ganges river basin including increased summer (monsoon) flow, and peak runoff could result in an increased risk of flooding.


title: Ganges

text: The Ganges suffers from extreme pollution levels, caused by the 400 million people who live close to the river. Sewage from many cities along the river's course, industrial waste and religious offerings wrapped in non-degradable plastics add large amounts of pollutants to the river as it flows through densely populated areas. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that many poorer people rely on the river on a daily basis for bathing, washing, and cooking. The World Bank estimates that the health costs of water pollution in India equal three percent of India's GDP. It has also been suggested that eighty percent of all illnesses in India and one-third of deaths can be attributed to water-borne diseases.


title: Ganges

text: Varanasi, a city of one million people that many pilgrims visit to take a "holy dip" in the Ganges, releases around 200 million liters of untreated human sewage into the river each day, leading to large concentrations of fecal coliform bacteria. According to official standards, water safe for bathing should not contain more than 500 fecal coliforms per 100 ml, yet upstream of Varanasi's ghats the river water already contains 120 times as much, 60,000 fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml.


title: Ganges

text: After the cremation of the deceased at Varanasi's ghats, the bones and ashes are immersed into the Ganges. However, in the past thousands of uncremated bodies were thrown into the Ganges during cholera epidemics, spreading the disease. Even today, holy men, pregnant women, people with leprosy or chicken pox, people who have been bitten by snakes, people who have committed suicide, the poor, and children under 5 are not cremated at the ghats but are left to float free, to decompose in the waters. In addition, those who cannot afford the large amount of wood needed to incinerate the entire body, leave behind a lot of half-burned body parts.


title: Ganges

text: After passing through Varanasi, and receiving 32 streams of raw sewage from the city, the concentration of fecal coliforms in the river's waters rises from 60,000 to 1.5 million, with observed peak values of 100 million per 100 ml. Drinking and bathing in its waters therefore carries a high risk of infection.


title: Ganges

text: Between 1985 and 2000, Rs. 10 billion, around US$226 million, or less than 4 cents per person per year, were spent on the Ganga Action Plan, an environmental initiative that was "the largest single attempt to clean up a polluted river anywhere in the world". The Ganga Action Plan has been described variously as a "failure", a "major failure".


title: Ganges

text: The Ganga Action Plan, which was taken on priority and with much enthusiasm, was delayed for two years. The expenditure was almost doubled. But the result was not very appreciable. Much expenditure was done on political propaganda. The concerning governments and the related agencies were not very prompt to make it a success. The public of the areas was not taken into consideration. The release of urban and industrial wastes in the river was not controlled fully. The flowing of dirty water through drains and sewers were not adequately diverted. The continuing customs of burning dead bodies, throwing carcasses, washing of dirty clothes by washermen, and immersion of idols and cattle wallowing were not checked. Very little provision of public latrines was made and the open defecation of lakhs of people continued along the riverside. All these made the Action Plan a failure.


title: Ganges

text: The failure of the Ganga Action Plan has also been variously attributed to "environmental planning without proper understanding of the human-environment interactions", Indian "traditions and beliefs", "corruption and a lack of technical knowledge" and "lack of support from religious authorities".


title: Ganges

text: In December 2009 the World Bank agreed to loan India US$1 billion over the next five years to help save the river. According to 2010 Planning Commission estimates, an investment of almost Rs. 70 billion (Rs. 70 billion, approximately US$1.5 billion) is needed to clean up the river.


title: Ganges

text: In November 2008, the Ganges, alone among India's rivers, was declared a "National River", facilitating the formation of a National Ganga River Basin Authority that would have greater powers to plan, implement and monitor measures aimed at protecting the river.


title: Ganges

text: In July 2014, the Government of India announced an integrated Ganges-development project titled "Namami Gange Programme" and allocated 2,037 crore for this purpose. The main objectives of the Namami Gange project is to improve the water quality by the abatement of pollution and rejuvenation of river Ganga by creating infrastructures like sewage treatment plants, river surface cleaning, biodiversity conservation, afforestation, and public awareness.


title: Ganges

text: In March 2017 the High Court of Uttarakhand declared the Ganges River a legal "person", in a move that according to one newspaper, "could help in efforts to clean the pollution-choked rivers". , the ruling has been commented on in Indian newspapers to be hard to enforce, that experts do not anticipate immediate benefits, that the ruling is "hardly game changing", that experts believe "any follow-up action is unlikely", and that the "judgment is deficient to the extent it acted without hearing others (in states outside Uttarakhand) who have stakes in the matter."


title: Ganges

text: The incidence of water-borne and enteric diseases—such as gastrointestinal disease, cholera, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid—among people who use the river's waters for bathing, washing dishes and brushing teeth is high, at an estimated 66% per year.


title: Ganges

text: Recent studies by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) say that the river is so full of killer pollutants that those living along its banks in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Bengal are more prone to cancer than anywhere else in the country. Conducted by the National Cancer Registry Programme under the ICMR, the study throws up shocking findings indicating that the river is thick with heavy metals and lethal chemicals that cause cancer. According to Deputy Director-General of NCRP A. Nandkumar, the incidence of cancer was highest in the country in areas drained by the Ganges and stated that the problem would be studied deeply and with the findings presented in a report to the health ministry.


title: Ganges

text: Apart from that, many NGOs have come forward to rejuvenate the river Ganges. Vikrant Tongad, an Environmental specialist from SAFE Green filed a petition against Simbhaoli Sugar Mill (Hapur UP) to NGT. NGT slapped a fine of Rs. 5 crores to Sugar Mill also, a fine of 25 Lakhs to Gopaljee Dairy for discharging untreated effluents into the Simbhaoli drain.


title: Ganges

text: Along with ever-increasing pollution, water shortages are getting noticeably worse. Some sections of the river are already completely dry. Around Varanasi, the river once had an average depth of , but in some places, it is now only .


title: Ganges

text: Illegal mining in the Ganges river bed for stones and sand for construction work has long been a problem in Haridwar district, Uttarakhand, where it touches the plains for the first time. This is despite the fact that quarrying has been banned in Kumbh Mela area zone covering 140 km area in Haridwar.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The Battle of Berlin, designated as the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, and also known as the Fall of Berlin, was one of the last major offensives of the European theatre of World War II.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: After the Vistula–Oder Offensive of January–February 1945, the Red Army had temporarily halted on a line east of Berlin. On 9 March, Germany established its defence plan for the city with Operation Clausewitz. The first defensive preparations at the outskirts of Berlin were made on 20 March, under the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: When the Soviet offensive resumed on 16 April, two Soviet fronts (army groups) attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of Berlin. Before the main battle in Berlin commenced, the Red Army encircled the city after successful battles of the Seelow Heights and Halbe. On 20 April 1945, Hitler's birthday, the 1st Belorussian Front led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, advancing from the east and north, started shelling Berlin's city centre, while Marshal Ivan Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front broke through Army Group Centre and advanced towards the southern suburbs of Berlin. On 23 April General Helmuth Weidling assumed command of the forces within Berlin. The garrison consisted of several depleted and disorganised Army and Waffen-SS divisions, along with poorly trained "Volkssturm" and Hitler Youth members. Over the course of the next week, the Red Army gradually took the entire city.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 30 April, Hitler and several of his officials committed suicide. The city's garrison surrendered on 2 May but fighting continued to the north-west, west, and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on 8 May (9 May in the Soviet Union) as some German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 12 January 1945, the Red Army began the Vistula–Oder Offensive across the Narew River; and, from Warsaw, a three-day operation on a broad front, which incorporated four army Fronts. On the fourth day, the Red Army broke out and started moving west, up to per day, taking East Prussia, Danzig, and Poznań, drawing up on a line east of Berlin along the Oder River.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The newly created Army Group Vistula, under the command of "Reichsführer-SS" Heinrich Himmler, attempted a counter-attack, but this had failed by 24 February. The Red Army then drove on to Pomerania, clearing the right bank of the Oder River, thereby reaching into Silesia.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: In the south the Siege of Budapest took place. Three German divisions' attempts to relieve the encircled Hungarian capital city failed, and Budapest fell to the Soviets on 13 February. Adolf Hitler insisted on a counter-attack to recapture the Drau-Danube triangle. The goal was to secure the oil region of Nagykanizsa and regain the Danube River for future operations, but the depleted German forces had been given an impossible task. By 16 March, the German Lake Balaton Offensive had failed, and a counter-attack by the Red Army took back in 24 hours everything the Germans had taken ten days to gain. On 30 March, the Soviets entered Austria; and in the Vienna Offensive they captured Vienna on 13 April.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: Between June and September 1944, the Wehrmacht had lost more than a million men, and it lacked the fuel and armaments needed to operate effectively. On 12 April 1945, Hitler, who had earlier decided to remain in the city against the wishes of his advisers, heard the news that the American President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died. This briefly raised false hopes in the "Führerbunker" that there might yet be a falling out among the Allies and that Berlin would be saved at the last moment, as had happened once before when Berlin was threatened (see the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg).


title: Battle of Berlin

text: No plans were made by the Western Allies to seize the city by a ground operation. The Supreme Commander [Western] Allied Expeditionary Force, General Eisenhower lost interest in the race to Berlin and saw no further need to suffer casualties by attacking a city that would be in the Soviet sphere of influence after the war, envisioning excessive friendly fire if both armies attempted to occupy the city at once. The major Western Allied contribution to the battle was the bombing of Berlin during 1945. During 1945 the United States Army Air Forces launched very large daytime raids on Berlin and for 36 nights in succession, scores of RAF Mosquitos bombed the German capital, ending on the night of 20/21 April 1945 just before the Soviets entered the city.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The Soviet offensive into central Germany, what later became East Germany, had two objectives. Stalin did not believe the Western Allies would hand over territory occupied by them in the post-war Soviet zone, so he began the offensive on a broad front and moved rapidly to meet the Western Allies as far west as possible. But the overriding objective was to capture Berlin. The two goals were complementary because possession of the zone could not be won quickly unless Berlin were taken. Another consideration was that Berlin itself held useful post-war strategic assets, including Adolf Hitler and the German nuclear weapons program. On 6 March, Hitler appointed Lieutenant General Helmuth Reymann commander of the Berlin Defence Area, replacing Lieutenant General Bruno Ritter von Hauenschild.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 20 March, General Gotthard Heinrici was appointed Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula replacing Himmler. Heinrici was one of the best defensive tacticians in the German army, and he immediately started to lay defensive plans. Heinrici correctly assessed that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the Oder River and along the main east-west Autobahn. He decided not to try to defend the banks of the Oder with anything more than a light skirmishing screen. Instead, Heinrici arranged for engineers to fortify the Seelow Heights, which overlooked the Oder River at the point where the Autobahn crossed them. This was some west of the Oder and east of Berlin. Heinrici thinned out the line in other areas to increase the manpower available to defend the heights. German engineers turned the Oder's flood plain, already saturated by the spring thaw, into a swamp by releasing the water from a reservoir upstream. Behind the plain on the plateau, the engineers built three belts of defensive emplacements reaching back towards the outskirts of Berlin (the lines nearer to Berlin were called the "Wotan" position). These lines consisted of anti-tank ditches, anti-tank gun emplacements, and an extensive network of trenches and bunkers.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 9 April, after a long resistance, Königsberg in East Prussia fell to the Red Army. This freed up Marshal Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front to move west to the east bank of the Oder river. Marshal Georgy Zhukov concentrated his 1st Belorussian Front, which had been deployed along the Oder river from Frankfurt (Oder) in the south to the Baltic, into an area in front of the Seelow Heights. The 2nd Belorussian Front moved into the positions being vacated by the 1st Belorussian Front north of the Seelow Heights. While this redeployment was in progress, gaps were left in the lines; and the remnants of General Dietrich von Saucken's German II Army, which had been bottled up in a pocket near Danzig, managed to escape into the Vistula delta. To the south, Marshal Konev shifted the main weight of the 1st Ukrainian Front out of Upper Silesia and north-west to the Neisse River.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The three Soviet fronts had altogether 2.5 million men (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army), 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars, 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rocket launchers (nicknamed 'Stalin's Pipe Organs'), and 95,383 motor vehicles, many manufactured in the US.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The sector in which most of the fighting in the overall offensive took place was the Seelow Heights, the last major defensive line outside Berlin. The Battle of the Seelow Heights, fought over four days from 16 until 19 April, was one of the last pitched battles of World War II: almost one million Red Army soldiers and more than 20,000 tanks and artillery pieces were deployed to break through the "Gates to Berlin", which were defended by about 100,000 German soldiers and 1,200 tanks and guns. The Soviet forces led by Zhukov broke through the defensive positions, having suffered about 30,000 dead, while 12,000 German personnel were killed.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 19 April, the fourth day, the 1st Belorussian Front broke through the final line of the Seelow Heights and nothing but broken German formations lay between them and Berlin. The 1st Ukrainian Front, having captured Forst the day before, fanned out into open country. One powerful thrust by Gordov's 3rd Guards Army and Rybalko's 3rd and Lelyushenko's 4th Guards Tank Armies were heading north-east towards Berlin while other armies headed west towards a section of the United States Army's front line south-west of Berlin on the Elbe. With these advances, the Soviet forces drove a wedge between Army Group Vistula in the north and Army Group Centre in the south. By the end of the day, the German eastern front line north of Frankfurt around Seelow and to the south around Forst had ceased to exist. These breakthroughs allowed the two Soviet Fronts to envelop the German 9th Army in a large pocket west of Frankfurt. Attempts by the 9th Army to break out to the west resulted in the Battle of Halbe. The cost to the Soviet forces had been very high, with over 2,807 tanks lost between 1 and 19 April, including at least 727 at the Seelow Heights.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: In the meantime, RAF Mosquitos conducted tactical air raids against German positions inside Berlin on the nights of 15 April (105 bombers), 17 April (61 bombers), 18 April (57 bombers), 19 April (79 bombers), and 20 April (78 bombers).


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 20 April 1945, Hitler's 56th birthday, Soviet artillery of the 1st Belorussian Front began shelling Berlin and did not stop until the city surrendered. The weight of ordnance delivered by Soviet artillery during the battle was greater than the total tonnage dropped by Western Allied bombers on the city. While the 1st Belorussian Front advanced towards the east and north-east of the city, the 1st Ukrainian Front pushed through the last formations of the northern wing of Army Group Centre and passed north of Juterbog, well over halfway to the American front line on the river Elbe at Magdeburg. To the north between Stettin and Schwedt, the 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of Army Group Vistula, held by Hasso von Manteuffel's III Panzer Army. The next day, Bogdanov's 2nd Guards Tank Army advanced nearly north of Berlin and then attacked south-west of Werneuchen. The Soviet plan was to encircle Berlin first and then envelop the IX Army.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The command of the German V Corps, trapped with the IX Army north of Forst, passed from the IV Panzer Army to the IX Army. The corps was still holding on to the Berlin-Cottbus highway front line. Field Marshal Ferdinand Schörner's Army Group Centre launched a counter-offensive aimed at breaking through to Berlin from the south and entering (the Battle of Bautzen) in the 1st Ukrainian Front region, engaging the 2nd Polish Army and elements of the Red Army's 52nd Army and 5th Guards Army. When the old southern flank of the IV Panzer Army had some local successes counter-attacking north against the 1st Ukrainian Front, Hitler unrealistically ordered the IX Army to hold Cottbus and set up a front facing west. Next, they were to attack the Soviet columns advancing north to form a pincer that would meet the IV Panzer Army coming from the south and envelop the 1st Ukrainian Front before destroying it. They were to anticipate a southward attack by the III Panzer Army and be ready to be the southern arm of a pincer attack that would envelop 1st Belorussian Front, which would be destroyed by SS-General Felix Steiner's Army Detachment advancing from north of Berlin. Later in the day, when Steiner explained that he did not have the divisions to achieve this, Heinrici made it clear to Hitler's staff that unless the IX Army retreated immediately, it would be enveloped by the Soviets. He stressed that it was already too late for it to move north-west to Berlin and would have to retreat west. Heinrici went on to say that if Hitler did not allow it to move west, he would ask to be relieved of his command.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 22 April 1945, at his afternoon situation conference, Hitler fell into a tearful rage when he realised that his plans, prepared the previous day, could not be achieved. He declared that the war was lost, blaming the generals for the defeat and that he would remain in Berlin until the end and then kill himself.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: In an attempt to coax Hitler out of his rage, General Alfred Jodl speculated that General Walther Wenck's XII Army, which was facing the Americans, could move to Berlin because the Americans, already on the Elbe River, were unlikely to move further east. This assumption was based on his viewing of the captured Eclipse documents, which organised the partition of Germany among the Allies. Hitler immediately grasped the idea, and within hours Wenck was ordered to disengage from the Americans and move the XII Army north-east to support Berlin. It was then realised that if the IX Army moved west, it could link up with the XII Army. In the evening Heinrici was given permission to make the link-up.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: Elsewhere, the 2nd Belorussian Front had established a bridgehead deep on the west bank of the Oder and was heavily engaged with the III Panzer Army. The IX Army had lost Cottbus and was being pressed from the east. A Soviet tank spearhead was on the Havel River to the east of Berlin, and another had at one point penetrated the inner defensive ring of Berlin.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The capital was now within range of field artillery. A Soviet war correspondent, in the style of World War II Soviet journalism, gave the following account of an important event which took place on 22 April 1945 at 08:30 local time:


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 23 April 1945, the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front continued to tighten the encirclement, severing the last link between the German IX Army and the city. Elements of the 1st Ukrainian Front continued to move westward and started to engage the German XII Army moving towards Berlin. On this same day, Hitler appointed General Helmuth Weidling as the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, replacing Lieutenant General Reymann. Meanwhile, by 24 April 1945 elements of 1st Belorussian Front and 1st Ukrainian Front had completed the encirclement of the city. Within the next day, 25 April 1945, the Soviet investment of Berlin was consolidated, with leading Soviet units probing and penetrating the S-Bahn defensive ring. By the end of the day, it was clear that the German defence of the city could not do anything but temporarily delay the capture of the city by the Soviets, since the decisive stages of the battle had already been fought and lost by the Germans outside the city. By that time, Schörner's offensive, initially successful, had mostly been thwarted, although he did manage to inflict significant casualties on the opposing Polish and Soviet units, slowing down their progress.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The forces available to General Weidling for the city's defence included roughly 45,000 soldiers in several severely depleted German Army and Waffen-SS divisions. These divisions were supplemented by the police force, boys in the compulsory Hitler Youth, and the "Volkssturm". Many of the 40,000 elderly men of the "Volkssturm" had been in the army as young men and some were veterans of World War I. Hitler appointed "SS Brigadeführer" Wilhelm Mohnke the Battle Commander for the central government district that included the Reich Chancellery and "Führerbunker". He had over 2,000 men under his command. Weidling organised the defences into eight sectors designated 'A' through to 'H' each one commanded by a colonel or a general, but most had no combat experience. To the west of the city was the 20th Infantry Division. To the north of the city was the 9th Parachute Division. To the north-east of the city was the Panzer Division "Müncheberg". To the south-east of the city and to the east of Tempelhof Airport was the 11th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Nordland". The reserve, 18th Panzergrenadier Division, was in Berlin's central district.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 23 April, Berzarin's 5th Shock Army and Katukov's 1st Guards Tank Army assaulted Berlin from the south-east and, after overcoming a counter-attack by the German LVI Panzer Corps, reached the Berlin S-Bahn ring railway on the north side of the Teltow Canal by the evening of 24 April. During the same period, of all the German forces ordered to reinforce the inner defences of the city by Hitler, only a small contingent of French SS volunteers under the command of "SS Brigadeführer" Gustav Krukenberg arrived in Berlin. During 25 April, Krukenberg was appointed as the commander of Defence Sector C, the sector under the most pressure from the Soviet assault on the city.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On 26 April, Chuikov's 8th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army fought their way through the southern suburbs and attacked Tempelhof Airport, just inside the S-Bahn defensive ring, where they met stiff resistance from the "Müncheberg" Division. But by 27 April, the two understrength divisions ("Müncheberg" and "Nordland") that were defending the south-east, now facing five Soviet armies—from east to west, the 5th Shock Army, the 8th Guards Army, the 1st Guards Tank Army and Rybalko's 3rd Guards Tank Army (part of the 1st Ukrainian Front)—were forced back towards the centre, taking up new defensive positions around Hermannplatz. Krukenberg informed General Hans Krebs, Chief of the General Staff of (OKH) that within 24 hours the "Nordland" would have to fall back to the centre sector Z (for "Zentrum"). The Soviet advance to the city centre was along these main axes: from the south-east, along the Frankfurter Allee (ending and stopped at the Alexanderplatz); from the south along Sonnenallee ending north of the Belle-Alliance-Platz, from the south ending near the Potsdamer Platz and from the north ending near the Reichstag. The Reichstag, the Moltke bridge, Alexanderplatz, and the Havel bridges at Spandau saw the heaviest fighting, with house-to-house and hand-to-hand combat. The foreign contingents of the SS fought particularly hard, because they were ideologically motivated and they believed that they would not live if captured.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: In the early hours of 29 April the Soviet 3rd Shock Army crossed the Moltke Bridge and started to fan out into the surrounding streets and buildings. The initial assaults on buildings, including the Ministry of the Interior, were hampered by the lack of supporting artillery. It was not until the damaged bridges were repaired that artillery could be moved up in support. At 04:00 hours, in the "Führerbunker", Hitler signed his last will and testament and, shortly afterwards, married Eva Braun. At dawn the Soviets pressed on with their assault in the south-east. After very heavy fighting they managed to capture Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrechtstrasse, but a Waffen-SS counter-attack forced the Soviets to withdraw from the building. To the south-west the 8th Guards Army attacked north across the Landwehr canal into the Tiergarten.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: By the next day, 30 April, the Soviets had solved their bridging problems and with artillery support at 06:00 they launched an attack on the Reichstag, but because of German entrenchments and support from 12.8 cm guns away on the roof of the Zoo flak tower, close by Berlin Zoo, it was not until that evening that the Soviets were able to enter the building. The Reichstag had not been in use since it had burned in February 1933 and its interior resembled a rubble heap more than a government building. The German troops inside made excellent use of this and were heavily entrenched. Fierce room-to-room fighting ensued. At that point there was still a large contingent of German soldiers in the basement who launched counter-attacks against the Red Army. By 2 May 1945 the Red Army controlled the building entirely. The famous photo of the two soldiers planting the flag on the roof of the building is a re-enactment photo taken the day after the building was taken. To the Soviets the event as represented by the photo became symbolic of their victory demonstrating that the Battle of Berlin, as well as the Eastern Front hostilities as a whole, ended with the total Soviet victory. As the 756th Regiment's commander Zinchenko had stated in his order to Battalion Commander Neustroev "... the Supreme High Command ... and the entire Soviet People order you to erect the victory banner on the roof above Berlin".


title: Battle of Berlin

text: During the early hours of 30 April, Weidling informed Hitler in person that the defenders would probably exhaust their ammunition during the night. Hitler granted him permission to attempt a breakout through the encircling Red Army lines. That afternoon, Hitler and Braun committed suicide and their bodies were cremated not far from the bunker. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Admiral Karl Dönitz became the "President of the Reich" ("Reichspräsident") and Joseph Goebbels became the new Chancellor of the Reich ("Reichskanzler").


title: Battle of Berlin

text: As the perimeter shrank and the surviving defenders fell back, they became concentrated into a small area in the city centre. By now there were about 10,000 German soldiers in the city centre, which was being assaulted from all sides. One of the other main thrusts was along Wilhelmstrasse on which the Air Ministry, built of reinforced concrete, was pounded by large concentrations of Soviet artillery. The remaining German Tiger tanks of the Hermann von Salza battalion took up positions in the east of the Tiergarten to defend the centre against Kuznetsov's 3rd Shock Army (which although heavily engaged around the Reichstag was also flanking the area by advancing through the northern Tiergarten) and the 8th Guards Army advancing through the south of the Tiergarten. These Soviet forces had effectively cut the sausage-shaped area held by the Germans in half and made any escape attempt to the west for German troops in the centre much more difficult.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: During the early hours of 1 May, Krebs talked to General Chuikov, commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army, informing him of Hitler's death and a willingness to negotiate a citywide surrender. They could not agree on terms because of Soviet insistence on unconditional surrender and Krebs' claim that he lacked authorisation to agree to that. Goebbels was against surrender. In the afternoon, Goebbels and his wife killed their children and then themselves. Goebbels's death removed the last impediment which prevented Weidling from accepting the terms of unconditional surrender of his garrison, but he chose to delay the surrender until the next morning to allow the planned breakout to take place under the cover of darkness.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On the night of 1/2 May, most of the remnants of the Berlin garrison attempted to break out of the city centre in three different directions. Only those that went west through the Tiergarten and crossed the Charlottenbrücke (a bridge over the Havel) into Spandau succeeded in breaching Soviet lines. Only a handful of those who survived the initial breakout made it to the lines of the Western Allies—most were either killed or captured by the Red Army's outer encirclement forces west of the city. Early in the morning of 2 May, the Soviets captured the Reich Chancellery. General Weidling surrendered with his staff at 06:00 hours. He was taken to see General Vasily Chuikov at 08:23, where Weidling ordered the city's defenders to surrender to the Soviets.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The 350-strong garrison of the Zoo flak tower left the building. There was sporadic fighting in a few isolated buildings where some SS troops still refused to surrender, but the Soviets reduced such buildings to rubble.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The city's food supplies had been largely destroyed on Hitler's orders. 128 of the 226 bridges had been blown up and 87 pumps rendered inoperative. "A quarter of the subway stations were under water, flooded on Hitler's orders. Thousands and thousands who had sought shelter in them had drowned when the SS had carried out the blowing up of the protective devices on the Landwehr Canal." A number of workers, on their own initiative, resisted or sabotaged the SS's plan to destroy the city's infrastructure; they successfully prevented the blowing up of the Klingenberg power station, the Johannisthal waterworks, and other pumping stations, railroad facilities, and bridges.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: At some point on 28 April or 29 April, General Heinrici, Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Vistula, was relieved of his command after disobeying Hitler's direct orders to hold Berlin at all costs and never order a retreat, and was replaced by General Kurt Student. General Kurt von Tippelskirch was named as Heinrici's interim replacement until Student could arrive and assume control. There remains some confusion as to who was in command, as some references say that Student was captured by the British and never arrived. Regardless of whether von Tippelskirch or Student was in command of Army Group Vistula, the rapidly deteriorating situation that the Germans faced meant that Army Group Vistula's coordination of the armies under its nominal command during the last few days of the war was of little significance.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: While the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front encircled Berlin, and started the battle for the city itself, Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front started his offensive to the north of Berlin. On 20 April between Stettin and Schwedt, Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front attacked the northern flank of Army Group Vistula, held by the III Panzer Army. By 22 April, the 2nd Belorussian Front had established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder that was over deep and was heavily engaged with the III Panzer Army. On 25 April, the 2nd Belorussian Front broke through III Panzer Army's line around the bridgehead south of Stettin, crossed the "Randowbruch" Swamp, and were now free to move west towards Montgomery's British 21st Army Group and north towards the Baltic port of Stralsund.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The German III Panzer Army and the German XXI Army situated to the north of Berlin retreated westwards under relentless pressure from Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front, and was eventually pushed into a pocket wide that stretched from the Elbe to the coast. To their west was the British 21st Army Group (which on 1 May broke out of its Elbe bridgehead and had raced to the coast capturing Wismar and Lübeck), to their east Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front and to the south was the United States Ninth Army which had penetrated as far east as Ludwigslust and Schwerin.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The successes of the 1st Ukrainian Front during the first nine days of the battle meant that by 25 April, they were occupying large swathes of the area south and south-west of Berlin. Their spearheads had met elements of the 1st Belorussian Front west of Berlin, completing the investment of the city. Meanwhile, the 58th Guards Rifle Division of the 5th Guards Army in 1st Ukrainian Front made contact with the 69th Infantry Division (United States) of the United States First Army near Torgau, on the Elbe River. These manoeuvres had broken the German forces south of Berlin into three parts. The German IX Army was surrounded in the Halbe pocket. Wenck's XII Army, obeying Hitler's command of 22 April, was attempting to force its way into Berlin from the south-west but met stiff resistance from 1st Ukrainian Front around Potsdam. Schörner's Army Group Centre was forced to withdraw from the Battle of Berlin, along its lines of communications towards Czechoslovakia.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: Between 24 April and 1 May, the IX Army fought a desperate action to break out of the pocket in an attempt to link up with the XII Army. Hitler assumed that after a successful breakout from the pocket, the IX Army could combine forces with the XII Army and would be able to relieve Berlin. There is no evidence to suggest that Generals Heinrici, Busse, or Wenck thought that this was even remotely strategically feasible, but Hitler's agreement to allow the IX Army to break through Soviet lines allowed many German soldiers to escape to the west and surrender to the United States Army.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: At dawn on 28 April, the youth divisions "Clausewitz", "Scharnhorst", and "Theodor Körner" attacked from the south-west toward the direction of Berlin. They were part of Wenck's XX Corps and were made up of men from the officer training schools, making them some of the best units the Germans had in reserve. They covered a distance of about , before being halted at the tip of Lake Schwielow, south-west of Potsdam and still from Berlin. During the night, General Wenck reported to the German Supreme Army Command in Fuerstenberg that his XII Army had been forced back along the entire front. According to Wenck, no attack on Berlin was possible. At that point, support from the IX Army could no longer be expected. In the meantime, about 25,000 German soldiers of the IX Army, along with several thousand civilians, succeeded in reaching the lines of the XII Army after breaking out of the Halbe pocket. The casualties on both sides were very high. Nearly 30,000 Germans were buried after the battle in the cemetery at Halbe. About 20,000 soldiers of the Red Army also died trying to stop the breakout; most are buried at a cemetery next to the Baruth-Zossen road. These are the known dead, but the remains of more who died in the battle are found every year, so the total of those who died will never be known. Nobody knows how many civilians died but it could have been as high as 10,000.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: Having failed to break through to Berlin, Wenck's XII Army made a fighting retreat back towards the Elbe and American lines after providing the IX Army survivors with surplus transport. By 6 May many German Army units and individuals had crossed the Elbe and surrendered to the US Ninth Army. Meanwhile, the XII Army's bridgehead, with its headquarters in the park of Schönhausen, came under heavy Soviet artillery bombardment and was compressed into an area eight by two kilometres (five by one and a quarter miles).


title: Battle of Berlin

text: On the night of 2–3 May, General von Manteuffel, commander of the III Panzer Army along with General von Tippelskirch, commander of the XXI Army, surrendered to the US Army. Von Saucken's II Army, that had been fighting north-east of Berlin in the Vistula Delta, surrendered to the Soviets on 9 May. On the morning of 7 May, the perimeter of the XII Army's bridgehead began to collapse. Wenck crossed the Elbe under small arms fire that afternoon and surrendered to the American Ninth Army.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: According to Grigoriy Krivosheev, declassified archival data gives 81,116 Soviet dead for the operation, including the battles of Seelow Heights and the Halbe. Another 280,251 were reported wounded or sick. The operation also cost the Soviets about 1,997 tanks and self-propelled guns. All losses were considered irrecoverable - i.e. beyond economic repair or no longer serviceable. The Soviets claimed to have captured nearly 480,000 German soldiers, while German research put the number of dead between 92,000 and 100,000. Some 125,000 civilians are estimated to have died during the entire operation.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: In those areas that the Red Army had captured and before the fighting in the centre of the city had stopped, the Soviet authorities took measures to start restoring essential services. Almost all transport in and out of the city had been rendered inoperative, and bombed-out sewers had contaminated the city's water supplies. The Soviet authorities appointed local Germans to head each city block, and organised the cleaning-up. The Red Army made a major effort to feed the residents of the city. Most Germans, both soldiers and civilians, were grateful to receive food issued at Red Army soup kitchens, which began on Colonel-General Berzarin's orders. After the capitulation the Soviets went house to house, arresting and imprisoning anyone in a uniform including firemen and railwaymen.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: During and immediately following the assault, in many areas of the city, vengeful Soviet troops (often rear echelon units) engaged in mass rape, pillage and murder. Oleg Budnitskii, historian at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, told a BBC Radio programme that Red Army soldiers were astounded when they reached Germany. "For the first time in their lives, eight million Soviet people came abroad, the Soviet Union was a closed country. All they knew about foreign countries was there was unemployment, starvation and exploitation. And when they came to Europe they saw something very different from Stalinist Russia ... especially Germany. They were really furious, they could not understand why being so rich, Germans came to Russia". Other authors question the narrative of sexual violence by Red Army soldiers being more than what was a sad normality from all sides during the war, including the Western Allies. Nikolai Berzarin, commander of the Red Army in Berlin, quickly introduced penalties up to the death penalty for looting and rape.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: Despite Soviet efforts to supply food and rebuild the city, starvation remained a problem. In June 1945, one month after the surrender, the average Berliner was getting only 64 percent of a daily ration of . Across the city over a million people were without homes.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: All told, 402 Red Army personnel were bestowed the USSR's highest degree of distinction, the title Hero of the Soviet Union (HSU), for their valor in Berlin's immediate suburbs and in the city itself. Marshals of the Soviet Union Zhukov and Konev received their third and second HSU awards respectively, for their roles in the battle's outcome. Combat medic Guards Senior Sergeant Lyudmila S. Kravets, was the Battle of Berlin's only female HSU recipient for her valorous actions while serving in 1st Rifle Battalion, 63rd Guards Rifle Regiment, 23rd Guards Rifle Division (subordinate to 3rd Shock Army). Additionally, 280 Red Army enlisted personnel earned the Soviet Order of Glory First Class and attained status as Full Cavaliers of the Order of Glory for their heroism during the Battle of Berlin. In Soviet society, Full Cavaliers of the Order of Glory were accorded the same rights and privileges as Heroes of the Soviet Union.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: Some 1.1 million Soviet personnel who took part in the capture of Berlin from 22 April to 2 May 1945 were awarded the Medal "For the Capture of Berlin".


title: Battle of Berlin

text: The design of the Victory Banner for celebrations of the Soviet Victory Day was defined by a federal law of Russia on 7 May 2007.


title: Battle of Berlin

text: Poland's official Flag Day is held each year on 2 May, the last day of the battle in Berlin, when the Polish Army hoisted its flag on the Berlin Victory Column.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Named after King Louis XVI of France, Louisville was founded in 1778 by George Rogers Clark, making it one of the oldest cities west of the Appalachians. With nearby Falls of the Ohio as the only major obstruction to river traffic between the upper Ohio River and the Gulf of Mexico, the settlement first grew as a portage site. It was the founding city of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, which grew into a system across 13 states.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Today, the city is known as the home of boxer Muhammad Ali, the Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Fried Chicken, the University of Louisville and its Cardinals, Louisville Slugger baseball bats, and three of Kentucky's six "Fortune" 500 companies: Humana, Kindred Healthcare, and Yum! Brands. Muhammad Ali International Airport, Louisville's main commercial airport, hosts UPS's worldwide hub.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Since 2003, Louisville's borders have been the same as those of Jefferson County, after a city-county merger. The official name of this consolidated city-county government is the Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Government, abbreviated to Louisville Metro. Despite the merger and renaming, the term "Jefferson County" continues to be used in some contexts in reference to Louisville Metro, particularly including the incorporated cities outside the "balance" which make up Louisville proper. The city's total consolidated population as of the 2020 census was 782,969. However, the balance total of 633,045 excludes other incorporated places and semiautonomous towns within the county and is the population listed in most sources and national rankings.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) includes Louisville-Jefferson County and 12 surrounding counties, seven in Kentucky and five in Southern Indiana. As of 2019, the MSA had a population of 1,395,634, ranking 43rd nationally.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The history of Louisville spans hundreds of years, and has been influenced by the area's geography and location along the banks of the Ohio River.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The rapids at the Falls of the Ohio created a barrier to river travel, as a result, settlements grew up at this stopping point. The first European settlement in the vicinity of modern-day Louisville was on Corn Island in 1778 by Col. George Rogers Clark, credited as the founder of Louisville. Several landmarks in the community are named after him.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Two years later, in 1780, the Virginia General Assembly approved the town charter of Louisville. The city was named in honor of King Louis XVI of France, whose soldiers were then aiding Americans in the Revolutionary War. Early residents lived in forts to protect themselves from Indian raids, but moved out by the late 1780s. In 1803, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark organized their expedition across America in the town of Clarksville, Indiana at the present-day Falls of the Ohio opposite Louisville, Kentucky.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The city's early growth was influenced by the fact that river boats had to be unloaded and moved downriver before reaching the falls. By 1828, the population had grown to 7,000 and Louisville became an incorporated city.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Early Louisville was a major shipping port and enslaved African Americans worked in a variety of associated trades. The city was often a point of escape for fugitive slaves to the north, as Indiana was a free state.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: During this point in the 1850s, the city was growing and vibrant, but that also came with negativity. It was the center of planning, supplies, recruiting, and transportation for numerous campaigns, especially in the Western Theater. Ethnic tensions rose, and on August 6, 1855, known as "Bloody Monday", Protestant mobs attacked German and Irish Catholic neighborhoods on election day, resulting in 22 deaths and widespread property damage. Then by 1861, the civil war had broken out. During the Civil War, Louisville was a major stronghold of Union forces, which kept Kentucky firmly in the Union. By the end of the war, the city of Louisville itself had not been attacked, although skirmishes and battles, including the battles of Perryville and Corydon, took place nearby. After Reconstruction, returning Confederate veterans largely took political control of the city, leading to the jibe that Louisville joined the Confederacy after the war was over.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The first Kentucky Derby was held on May 17, 1875, at the Louisville Jockey Club track (later renamed Churchill Downs). The Derby was originally shepherded by Meriwether Lewis Clark, Jr., the grandson of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and grandnephew of the city's founder George Rogers Clark. Horse racing had a strong tradition in Kentucky, whose Inner Bluegrass Region had been a center of breeding high-quality livestock throughout the 19th century. Ten thousand spectators watched the first Derby, which Aristides won.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: On March 27, 1890, the city was devastated and its downtown nearly destroyed when what scientists now estimate was an F4 tornado tore through as part of the middle Mississippi Valley tornado outbreak. It is estimated that between 74 and 120 people were killed and 200 were injured. The damage cost the city $2.5 million (equivalent to $69 million in 2019). Established in 1896, Neighborhood House Louisville was the first settlement movement house in the state.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The moniker "Gateway to the South" comes from the large number of African Americans that moved to Louisville during the period of the Great Migration in the beginning of the 20th century. Settling in an area of the city known as Needmore in 1870, it would later be known under the moniker of Little Africa as migration intensified, reaching its height in the 1920s. After urban renewal programs demolished many of the existing neighborhood structures in the 1950s, it came to be known today as the Park DuValle neighborhood.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: In 1914, the City of Louisville passed a racially-based residential zoning code, following Baltimore, Atlanta, and a handful of cities in the Carolinas. The NAACP challenged the ordinance in two cases. Two weeks after the ordinance enacted, an African-American named Arthur Harris moved into a house on a block designated for whites. He was prosecuted and found guilty. The second case was planned to create a test case. William Warley, the president of the local chapter of the NAACP, tendered a purchase offer on a white block from Charles Buchanan, a white real estate agent. Warley also wrote a letter declaring his intention to build a house on that lot and reside there. With the understanding that the Louisville ordinance made it illegal for him to live there, Warley withheld payment, setting in motion a breach of contract suit by Buchanan. By 1917 the US Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of "Buchanan v. Warley". The court struck down the Louisville residential segregation ordinance, ruling that it violated the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: In 1917, shortly after the United States' entry into World War I, Louisville was selected as the site of Camp Zachary Taylor. Camp Taylor was one of the country's largest World War I training camps. It was home of the 84th Infantry Division and trained over 150,000 men by the end of war, including F. Scott Fitzgerald. The camp was closed in 1921. Many of the buildings and infrastructure in the Camp Taylor neighborhood of Louisville are there as a result of the training camp.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: In 1929, Louisville completed the lock and dam in the Falls of the Ohio and the city began referring to itself as "where Northern enterprise and Southern hospitality meet". Between the industrial boom of that year and through the Great Depression, Louisville gained 15,000 new residents, about three percent of them black, most fleeing poverty in rural areas.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Throughout January 1937, of rain fell in Louisville, and by January 27, the Ohio River crested at a record , almost above flood stage. These events triggered the "Great Flood of 1937", which lasted into early February. The flood submerged 60–70 percent of the city, caused complete loss of power for four days, and forced the evacuation of 175,000 or 230,000 residents, depending on sources. Ninety people died as a result of the flood. It led to dramatic changes in where residents lived. Today, the city is protected by numerous flood walls. After the flood, the areas of high elevation in the eastern part of the city had decades of residential growth.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville was a center for factory war production during World War II. In May 1942, the U.S. government assigned the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Company, a war plant located at Louisville's air field, for wartime aircraft production. The factory produced the C-46 Commando cargo plane, among other aircraft. In 1946, the factory was sold to International Harvester, which began large-scale production of tractors and agricultural equipment. In 1950, the Census Bureau reported Louisville's population as 84.3% white and 15.6% black.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Throughout the 1940s, there were more black police officers than any other Southern city, though they were allowed to patrol only black districts. This, in part, made Louisville seem like a more racially progressive city than other Southern cities, although only when black citizens accepted a lower status than white citizens. Many historians have referred to this "veil" of segregation as a "polite" racism. Historian George Wright stated that polite racism "often deluded both blacks and well-meaning whites into believing that real progress was being made in their city". For example, in the city Jim Crow practices were not maintained by law so much as by custom.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Similar to many other older American cities, Louisville began to experience a movement of people and businesses to the suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s. Middle class residents used newly built freeways and interstate highways to commute to work, moving into more distant but newer housing. Because of tax laws, businesses found it cheaper to build new rather than renovate older buildings. Economic changes included a decline in local manufacturing. The West End and older areas of the South End, in particular, began to decline economically as many local factories closed.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: In 1974, a major (F4) tornado hit Louisville as part of the 1974 Super Outbreak of tornadoes that struck 13 states. It covered and destroyed several hundred homes in the Louisville area, causing two deaths.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Since the 1980s, many of the city's urban neighborhoods have been revitalized into areas popular with young professionals and college students. The greatest change has occurred along the Bardstown Road/Baxter Avenue and Frankfort Avenue corridors as well as the Old Louisville neighborhood. In recent years, such change has also occurred in the East Market District (NuLu).


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Since the late 1990s, Downtown has experienced significant residential, tourist and retail growth, including the addition of major sports complexes KFC Yum! Center, Lynn Family Stadium and Louisville Slugger Field, conversion of waterfront industrial sites into Waterfront Park, openings of varied museums (see Museums, galleries and interpretive centers below), and the refurbishing of the former Galleria into the bustling entertainment complex Fourth Street Live!, which opened in 2004.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: On March 13, 2020, four plainclothed officers from Louisville Metro Police Department executed a “no-knock” search warrant which led to the killing of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman. For months afterward, Taylor’s family, members of the local community, and people around the world protested to demand that officers involved in the shooting be fired and criminally charged. These protests and demonstrations coincided and intertwined with the international George Floyd protests, as well as the Black Lives Matter movement and a broader movement of racial unrest. As a result of the incident, the police chief was fired and four officers received federal charges, but no significant systemic changes were made.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville and Jefferson County have a combined area of , of which is land and (4.33%) is covered by water.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville is southeasterly situated along the border between Kentucky and Indiana, the Ohio River, in north-central Kentucky at the Falls of the Ohio. Louisville is an Upper South city located in a Southern state that is influenced by both Southern and Midwestern culture. It is sometimes referred to as either one of the northernmost Southern cities or as one of the southernmost Northern cities in the United States.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville is located in Kentucky's outer Bluegrass region. Its development has been influenced by its location on the Ohio River, which spurred Louisville's growth from an isolated camp site into a major shipping port. Much of the city is located on a very wide and flat floodplain surrounded by hill country on all sides. Much of the area was swampland that had to be drained as the city grew. In the 1840s, most creeks were rerouted or placed in canals to prevent flooding and disease outbreaks.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Areas generally east of I-65 are above the flood plain, and are composed of gently rolling hills. The southernmost parts of Jefferson County are in the scenic and largely undeveloped Knobs region, which is home to Jefferson Memorial Forest.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), the 43rd largest in the United States, includes the Kentucky county of Jefferson (coterminous with Louisville Metro), plus twelve outlying counties—seven in Kentucky and five in Southern Indiana. Louisville's MSA is included in the Louisville–Elizabethtown–Madison, KY–IN Combined Statistical Area (CSA), which also includes the Elizabethtown, KY MSA, as well as the Madison, IN Micropolitan Statistical Area.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Louisville area is near several other urban areas, especially Frankfort, Kentucky (the state's capital), Cincinnati, Ohio (the two cities' metropolitan statistical areas almost border each other), Lexington, Kentucky, Bowling Green, Kentucky, Nashville, Tennessee, and the Indianapolis, Indiana area (especially Columbus, Indiana, to the north of Southern Indiana).


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The downtown business district of Louisville is located immediately south of the Ohio River and southeast of the Falls of the Ohio. Major roads extend outwards from the downtown area in all directions. The airport is about south of the downtown area. The industrial sections of town are to the south and west of the airport, while most of the residential areas of the city are to the southwest, south, and east of downtown. In 2010, the 22,000-seat KFC Yum! Center was completed. Twelve of the 15 buildings in Kentucky over are located in downtown Louisville.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Another primary business and industrial district is located in the suburban area east of the city on Hurstbourne Parkway.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville's late 19th- and early 20th-century development was spurred by three large suburban parks built at the edges of the city in 1890.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The city's architecture contains a blend of old and new. The Old Louisville neighborhood is the largest historic preservation district solely featuring Victorian homes and buildings in the United States; it is also the third-largest district containing such architectural distinctions in the United States. The style, which originated in Great Britain, spread to the Commonwealth and eventually to the United States, including the rapidly growing city of Louisville. Many modern skyscrapers are located downtown, as well as older preserved structures, such as the Southern National Bank building. The buildings of West Main Street in downtown Louisville have the largest collection of cast iron facades of anywhere outside of New York's SoHo neighborhood.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Since the mid-20th century, Louisville has in some ways been divided into three sides of town: the West End, the South End, and the East End. In 2003, Bill Dakan, a University of Louisville geography professor, said that the West End, west of 7th Street and north of Algonquin Parkway, is "a euphemism for the African American part of town" although he points out that this belief is not entirely true, and most African Americans no longer live in areas where more than 80% of residents are black. Nevertheless, he says the perception is still strong. The South End has long had a reputation as a white, working-class part of town, while the East End has been seen as middle and upper class.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: According to the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors, the area with the lowest median home sales price is west of Interstate 65, in the West and South Ends. The middle range of home sales prices are between Interstates 64 and 65 in the South and East Ends, and the highest median home sales price are north of Interstate 64 in the East End. Immigrants from Southeast Asia tend to settle in the South End, while immigrants from Eastern Europe settle in the East End.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen "Cfa"), typical of the Upper South, and is located in USDA hardiness zones 6b and 7a. Springlike conditions typically begin in mid-to-late March, summer from mid-to-late-May to late September, with fall in the October–November period. Seasonal extremes in both temperature and precipitation are not uncommon during early spring and late fall; severe weather is not uncommon, with occasional tornado outbreaks in the region. Winter typically brings a mix of rain, sleet, and snow, with occasional heavy snowfall and icing. Louisville averages 4.5 days with low temperatures dipping to ; the first and last freezes of the season on average fall on November2 and April5, respectively. Summer is typically hazy, hot, and humid with long periods of temperatures and drought conditions at times. Louisville averages 38 days a year with high temperatures at or above . The mean annual temperature is , with an average annual snowfall of and an average annual rainfall of .


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The wettest seasons are spring and summer, although rainfall is fairly constant year round. During the winter, particularly in January and February, several days of snow can be expected. January is the coldest month, with a mean temperature of . July is the average hottest month with a mean of . The highest recorded temperature was , which last occurred on July 14, 1936, and the lowest recorded temperature was on January 19, 1994. In 2012, Louisville had the fourth-hottest summer on record, with the temperature rising up to in July and the June all-time monthly record high temperature being broken on two consecutive days. As the city exemplifies the urban heat island effect, temperatures in commercial areas and in the industrialized areas along interstates are often higher than in the suburbs, often as much as .


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville is in the Eastern Time Zone. Some distance to the west, in both Kentucky and Indiana, is the border where the Central Time Zone starts.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Between 1970 and 2000, Louisville lost population each decade. As of the 2000 census, Louisville had a population of 256,231, down from the 1990 census population of 269,063. Due to the city-county merger that occurred in 2003, which expanded the city limits, the city's population increased to 597,337 at the 2010 census count.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville is the largest city in Kentucky, with 17.1% of the state's total population as of 2010; the balance's percentage was 13.8%. In 2010, over one-third of the population growth in Kentucky was in Louisville's CSA counties.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The 2007 demographic breakdown for the entire Louisville Metro area was 74.8% white (71.7% non-Hispanic), 22.2% black, 0.6% American Indian, 2.0% Asian, 0.1% Hawaiian or Pacific islander, 1.4% other, and 1.6% multiracial. About 2.9% of the total population was identified as Hispanic of any race. During the same year, the area of premerger Louisville consisted 60.1% white, 35.2% African American, 1.9% Asian, 0.2% American Indian, and 3.0% other, with 2.4% identified as Hispanic of any race.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Of the 287,012 households, 29.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 45.2% were married couples living together, 14.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.2% were not families. About 30.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.37 and the average family size was 2.97.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The age distribution is 24.3% under the age of 18, 8.9% from 18 to 24, 30.4% from 25 to 44, 22.8% from 45 to 64, and 13.5% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females, there were 91.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.60 males.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The median income for a household in 2017 was $51,960. For non-family households the median income was $32,446, and for family households was $67,965. In 2017, males had a median income of $36,326 while females had a median income of $30,464. The latest available data for per capita income comes from 2006, and was $23,304 for the county. About 9.5% of families and 15.1% of the population were below the poverty line in 2017, including 23.5% of those under age 18 and 8.2% of those ages 65 or over.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville hosts religious institutions of various faiths, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and the Baháʼí Faith.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The 135,421 Roman Catholic Louisvillians are part of the Archdiocese of Louisville, covering 24 counties in central Kentucky, and consisting of 121 parishes and missions spread over . The Cathedral of the Assumption in downtown Louisville is the seat of the Archdiocese of Louisville. Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey, the monastic home of Catholic writer Thomas Merton, is in nearby Bardstown, Kentucky, and also in the archdiocese. Most of Louisville's Roman Catholic population is of German descent, the result of large-scale 19th-century immigration.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Bellarmine University and Spalding University in Louisville are affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: One in three Louisvillians is Southern Baptist, belonging to one of 147 local congregations. This denomination increased in number when large numbers of people moved into Louisville in the early 20th century from rural Kentucky and Tennessee to work in the city's factories; some of these migrants also formed Holiness and Pentecostal churches and Churches of Christ.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: German immigrants in the 19th century brought not only a large Catholic population, but also the Lutheran and Evangelical faiths, which are represented today in Louisville by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, and the United Church of Christ, respectively.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The largest Methodist Church in Kentucky, Christ Church United Methodist, is located in Louisville, and the city has boasted a large Methodist population since the cities founding.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The city is home to two megachurches. Southeast Christian Church, with its main campus in Middletown and three others in the surrounding region, is, , the seventh-largest church in the United States. St. Stephen Church is the 38th largest in the US, and has the largest African American congregation in Kentucky.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The city is home to several religious institutions: the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville Bible College, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and the denominational headquarters of the Presbyterian Church (USA).


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Jewish population of around 14,500 in the city is served by five synagogues. Most Jewish families emigrated from Eastern Europe at the start of the 20th century; around 800 Soviet Jews have moved to Louisville since 1991. Jewish immigrants founded Jewish Hospital in what was once the center of the city's Jewish district. From 2005 to 2012, Jewish Hospital merged with two Kentucky-based Catholic healthcare systems to form KentuckyOne Health, which later in 2012 announced a partnership with the University of Louisville Hospital. A significant focal point for Louisville's Jewish community is located near Bowman Field, where there are two Orthodox synagogues (including Anshei Sfard, founded in 1893), the Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family and Career Services, and an affordable housing complex.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Since 1996, every May, the Festival of Faiths, a five-day national interfaith gathering, is held featuring music, poetry, film, art and dialogue with internationally renowned spiritual leaders, thinkers and practitioners. The festival is organized by the Center for Interfaith Relations and is held at Actors Theatre of Louisville.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville first welcomed the Baháʼí Faith in 1920. The Spiritual Assembly of the Baháʼí of Louisville was formed in 1944 when their community reached the required amount of nine adult Baháʼís. The first Baháʼí center opened in Louisville in 1967 in Crescent Hill. When the community outgrew the space in 1985, it was sold and another center opened in Buechel in 1998.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville today is home to dozens of companies and organizations across several industrial classifications. However, the underpinning of the city's economy since its earliest days has been the shipping and cargo industries. Its strategic location at the Falls of the Ohio, as well as its unique position in the central United States (within one day's road travel to 60 percent of the cities in the continental U.S.) make it a practical location for the transfer of cargo along its route to other destinations. The Louisville and Portland Canal and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad were important links in water and rail transportation.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville's importance to the shipping industry continues today with the presence of the Worldport global air-freight hub for UPS at Louisville International Airport. Louisville's location at the crossroads of three major interstate highways (I64, I65, and I71) also contributes to its modern-day strategic importance to the shipping and cargo industry. In addition, the Port of Louisville continues Louisville's river shipping presence at Jefferson Riverport International. As of 2003, Louisville ranks as the seventh-largest inland port in the United States.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville is a significant center of manufacturing, with two major Ford Motor Company plants, and the headquarters and major home appliance factory of GE Appliances (a subsidiary of Haier). The city is also a major center of the American whiskey industry, with about one-third of all bourbon whiskey coming from Louisville. Brown-Forman, one of the major makers of American whiskey, is headquartered in Louisville and operates a distillery in the Louisville suburb of Shively. The current primary distillery site operated by Heaven Hill, called the Bernheim distillery, is also located in Louisville near Brown-Forman's distillery. Other distilleries and related businesses can also be found in neighboring cities in Kentucky, such as Bardstown, Clermont, Lawrenceburg, and Loretto. Similar to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail that links these central Kentucky locations, Louisville offers tourists its own "Urban Bourbon Trail", where people can stop at nearly 20 "area bars and restaurants, all offering at least 50 labels of America's only native spirit".


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Not typically known for high tech outside of the previously identified industries, Code Louisville, the city's public–private partnership for teaching people entry level software development skills, received recognition in 2015 from then-President Barack Obama.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville prides itself in its large assortment of small, independent businesses and restaurants, some of which have become known for their ingenuity and creativity. Several major motion pictures have also been filmed in or near Louisville, including "The Insider", "Goldfinger", "Stripes", "Lawn Dogs", "Elizabethtown", and "Secretariat".


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville is home to many annual cultural events. Perhaps most well known is the Kentucky Derby, held annually during the first Saturday of May. The Derby is preceded by a two-week-long Kentucky Derby Festival, which starts with the annual Thunder Over Louisville, the largest annual fireworks display in North America. The Kentucky Derby Festival also features notable events such as the Pegasus Parade, The Great Steamboat Race, Great Balloon Race, a combined marathon/mini marathon and about seventy events in total. Esquire magazine has called the Kentucky Derby "the biggest party in the south".


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Usually beginning in late February or early March is the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville, an internationally acclaimed new-play festival that lasts approximately six weeks.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The summer season in Louisville also features a series of cultural events such as the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival (commonly called "Shakespeare in Central Park"), held in July of every year and features free Shakespeare plays in Central Park in Old Louisville.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Also in July, the Forecastle Festival draws 35,000 visitors annually to Louisville Waterfront Park in celebration of the best in music, art and environmental activism. Past performers include The Black Keys, The Flaming Lips, Widespread Panic, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Avett Brothers, The Black Crowes and hundreds more.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Kentucky State Fair is held every August at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville as well, featuring an array of culture from all areas of Kentucky. In places, the African American community celebrates Juneteenth commemorating June 19, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in the western territories learned of their freedom.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: In September, in nearby Bardstown, is the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival, which celebrates the history and art of distilling bourbon whiskey. The suburb of Jeffersontown is also the home of the annual Gaslight Festival, a series of events spread over a week. Attendance is estimated at 200,000–300,000 for the week.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The month of October features the St. James Court Art Show in Old Louisville. Thousands of artists gather on the streets and in the courtyard to exhibit and sell their wares, and the event is attended by many art collectors and enthusiasts. The show typically brings in a crowd of over 150,000 people and $3 million in sales.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Another art-related event that occurs every month is the First Friday Hop. A free TARC bus takes art lovers to many downtown area (especially East Market District/NuLu) independent art galleries on the first Friday of every month.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: A Louisville locale that highlights this scene is Bardstown Road, an area located in the heart of the Highlands. Bardstown Road is known for its cultural diversity and local trade. The majority of the businesses along Bardstown Road, such as coffee shops, clothing stores and art galleries, are locally owned and operated businesses. Though it is only about a mile (1.6 km) long, this strip of Bardstown Road constitutes much of the city's culture and diverse lifestyle, contributing to the unofficial "Keep Louisville Weird" slogan.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: In downtown Louisville, 21c Museum Hotel, a hotel that showcases contemporary art installations and exhibitions throughout its public spaces, and features a red penguin on its roof, is, according to "The New York Times", "an innovative concept with strong execution and prompt and enthusiastic service".


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Louisville is home to a thriving indie music scene with bands such as Love Jones, Tantric, Squirrel Bait, CABIN, Slint, My Morning Jacket, Houndmouth, Young Widows and Wax Fang. Acclaimed singer-songwriters Will Oldham, who performs under the moniker "Bonnie 'Prince' Billy", is a resident, as was country/rock singer-songwriter Tim Krekel. Cellist Ben Sollee splits his time between Louisville and Lexington. Long running rock/jazz fusion band NRBQ also formed in Louisville in the late 1960s as well as 1980s psychobilly band Bodeco. Post-grunge band Days of the New, at one time including future breakout pop star Nicole Scherzinger, formed in Louisville in the mid-1990s. Popular local singer Bryson Tiller paid homage to Louisville is his chart-topping T R A P S O U L with the song "502 Come Up", referencing the city's area code, and rapper Jack Harlow also calls the city home.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Louisville music scene reaches a crescendo every July during the Forecastle Festival, a three-day music, art and environmental activism festival taking place at Louisville Waterfront Park.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Especially catering to Louisville's music scene is 91.9 WFPK Radio Louisville, a local public radio station funded, in part, from local listeners. The station features not only national and international musicians common to public radio, but also local and regional talent. The station also hosts summer concerts on the waterfront from April until July, where up-and-coming alternative artists are brought to stage.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The West Main District in downtown Louisville features what is locally known as "Museum Row". In this area is the Frazier History Museum, which opened its doors in 2004 as an armaments museum, featuring the only collection of Royal Armouries artifacts outside of the United Kingdom. Since then the Frazier has expanded its focus to broader history. The Frazier Museum has three floors of exhibits, an education center and a tournament ring, which presents daily performances, as well as event spaces available for rent, including a rooftop garden featuring native plants and 4th floor loft-style space that accommodates up to 360 people seated.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Also nearby is the Kentucky Science Center, which is Kentucky's largest hands-on science center and features interactive exhibits, IMAX films, educational programs and technology networks. The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, opened in 1981, is a nonprofit organization. The Muhammad Ali Center opened November 2005 in "Museum Row" and features Louisville native Muhammad Ali's boxing memorabilia.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) is a patriotic, historical, and educational non-profit organization and a leading male lineage society that perpetuates the ideals of the American war for independence and the founding of the United States. The SAR opened its National Genealogical Research Library in 2010 along Louisville's Museum Row next door to its national headquarters, with an on-site American Revolutionary War Education Center expected to be completed soon.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Speed Art Museum opened in 1927 and is the oldest and largest art museum in the state of Kentucky. The museum was closed for three years, re-opening in 2016 with 220,000 sq. ft. of renovations. Located adjacent to the University of Louisville, the museum features over 12,000 pieces of art in its permanent collection and hosts traveling exhibitions. Multiple art galleries are located in the city, but they are especially concentrated in the East Market District (NuLu), immediately to the east of downtown. This row of galleries, plus others in the West Main District, are prominently featured in the monthly First Friday Hop.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Several local history museums can be found in the Louisville area. The most prominent among them is The Filson Historical Society, founded in 1884, which has holdings exceeding 1.5 million manuscript items and over 50,000 volumes in the library. The Filson's extensive collections focus on Kentucky, the Upper South and the Ohio River Valley, and contain a large collection of portraiture and over 10,000 museum artifacts. Other local history museums include the Portland Museum, Historic Locust Grove, Conrad-Caldwell House Museum, the Falls of the Ohio State Park interpretive center (Clarksville, Indiana), Howard Steamboat Museum (Jeffersonville, Indiana) and the Carnegie Center for Art and History (New Albany, Indiana). The Falls interpretive center, part of the Falls of the Ohio National Wildlife Conservation Area, also functions as a natural history museum, covering findings in the nearby exposed Devonian fossil bed.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: There are also several historical properties and items of interest in the area, including the "Belle of Louisville", the oldest Mississippi-style steamboat in operation in the United States. The United States Marine Hospital of Louisville is considered by the National Park Service to be the best remaining antebellum hospital in the United States. It was designed by Robert Mills, who is best known as the designer of the Washington Monument. Fort Knox, spread out among Bullitt, Hardin and Meade Counties (two of which are in the Louisville metropolitan area), is home to the U.S. Bullion Depository and the General George Patton Museum. The previously mentioned Locust Grove, former home of Louisville Founder George Rogers Clark, portrays life in the early days of the city. Other notable properties include the Farmington Historic Plantation (home of the Speed family), Riverside, The Farnsley-Moremen Landing and the restored Union Station, which opened in 1891. The Louisville area is also home to the Waverly Hills Sanatorium, a turn-of-the-century (20th) hospital that was originally built to accommodate tuberculosis patients, and subsequently has been reported and sensationalized to be haunted. The Little Loomhouse maintains historical records of local spinning and weaving patterns and techniques, and also offers tours, hands-on activities, and professional-level classes and materials.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Kentucky Center, dedicated in 1983, located in the downtown hotel and entertainment district, features a variety of plays and concerts. This is also the home of the Louisville Ballet, Louisville Orchestra, Bourbon Baroque, StageOne Family Theatre, Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, which operates the oldest professional outdoor Shakespeare festival, and the Kentucky Opera, which is the twelfth oldest opera in the United States.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: The Louisville Orchestra was founded in 1937 by conductor Robert Whitney and Charles Farnsley, then Mayor of Louisville, and was a world leader in commissioning and recording contemporary works for orchestra from the 1950s to 1980s. The Louisville Orchestra today performs more than 125 concerts per year with a core of salaried musicians and is recognized as a cornerstone of the Louisville arts community.


title: Louisville, Kentucky

text: Actors Theatre of Louisville, is in the city's urban cultural district and hosts the Humana Festival of New American Plays each spring. It presents approximately six hundred performances of about thirty productions during its year-round season, composed of a diverse array of contemporary and classical fare.