title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The bulkhead between the first and second compartments was traversed by a circular air conditioning duct. The bulkhead should have arrested the blast wave, but in keeping with common Russian submarine practice, the pressurised valve in the ventilation system that traversed the bulkhead was left open to minimise the change in pressure during a weapon's launch. The initial blast set off a fire that was later estimated to have burned at . The government report concluded that the initial explosion and fire in the torpedo room compartment immediately killed all seven crew members within.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The open valve in the ventilation system allowed the huge blast wave and possibly the fire and toxic smoke to enter the second and perhaps the third and fourth compartments, as well. Although the sub was at periscope depth with her radio antennas extended, no one in the command post was able to send a distress signal or press a single button that would initiate an emergency ballast tank blow and bring the submarine to the surface. All 36 men in the command post located in the second compartment were immediately incapacitated by the blast wave and likely killed.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Two minutes and 14 seconds after the first explosion in the torpedo compartment, the fire set off a second explosion of five to seven combat-ready torpedo warheads. Acoustic data from "Pyotr Velikiy" were later analysed and found to indicate an explosion of about seven torpedo warheads in rapid succession. The Type 65 "Kit" torpedo carries a large warhead.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: While the sub was submerged, 78 crew were normally assigned to the first four compartments and 49 to the rear five compartments. Although "Kursk" was designed to withstand external pressure of depths down to , the second internal explosion tore a hole in the boat's hull, opening the first through fourth compartments to the sea. Water poured in at per second. The explosion collapsed the first three compartments and all of the decks. In addition to the crew in those compartments, five officers from 7th SSGN Division Headquarters and two design engineers were on board to observe the performance of a new battery in the USET-80 torpedo, set to be launched second. Anyone who remained alive in those compartments was killed by the second explosion.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The government report confirmed that "Kursk" had been sunk by a torpedo explosion caused when high-test peroxide (HTP), a form of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide, leaked from cracks in the torpedo's casing. The fuel in the torpedoes carried by "Kursk" was inexpensive and very powerful. Ordinarily, the oxygen combines with kerosene fuel in the torpedo engine to propel the missile at higher speed and greater range than conventional torpedoes.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: HTP is normally stable until it comes in contact with a catalyst. It then expands 5,000 times in volume extremely rapidly, acting as an oxidiser, generating large volumes of steam and oxygen. Torpedoes using HTP had been in use since the 1950s, but other navies stopped using them because of the danger inherent in their design. sank in 1955, killing 13 sailors, when an experimental torpedo containing HTP exploded as it was being loaded.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Investigators concluded that the leaking HTP had catalytically decomposed when it came in contact with copper commonly found in the bronze and brass used to manufacture "Kursk"s torpedo tubes. Once HTP begins decomposing, it is impossible to stop until the fuel is exhausted. The of concentrated HTP ruptured the torpedo's kerosene fuel tank and caused an explosion equal to 100–250 kilograms (220–550 lb) of TNT that registered 2.2 on the Richter scale on detectors hundreds of kilometres away. The explosion blew off the internal torpedo tube cover and the external tube door, opening the boat to the sea.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Salvage crews located a piece of the number-four torpedo cover on the seabed behind the main wreckage. Its position, distance, and direction relative to the rest of the submarine indicated that it was deposited there as a result of the first explosion in that tube.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: According to an article that briefly appeared on Thursday 17 August 2000 on the website of the official newspaper of the Russian Defence Ministry, "Krasnaya Zvezda", "Kursk" had been refitted in 1998—four years after it was commissioned—to carry torpedoes fuelled using the cheap HTP. The article reported that some specialists in the Russian Navy opposed use of the HTP-fueled torpedoes because they were volatile and dangerous. The story did not appear in the print edition on Friday 18 August. Instead, the article was replaced with another that speculated the submarine had collided with an "unidentified object". The change was likely due to political pressure. Vice-Premier Ilya Klebanov, chairman of the government commission investigating the accident, had a vested interest in suggesting the disaster had been caused by a collision with a NATO vessel. As head of the defence industries, over the objections of some officers, he had promoted use of the liquid-fueled torpedoes over safer, more-expensive silver-zinc battery-powered torpedoes.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The government's final report found that the officers who had issued the order approving use of the HTP torpedoes did not have the authority to issue that order. The dummy torpedo was 10 years old and some of its parts had exceeded their service lives. Several sources said that one of the practice torpedoes had been dropped during transport, possibly leading to a crack in the casing, but that the weapon was put aboard the submarine anyway. The crane that would normally have been used to load the missiles was out of order, and another had to be brought in, delaying the loading process. This also made the possibility of removing a damaged torpedo more difficult.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Personnel who had loaded the practice torpedoes the day before the exercise noticed that the rubber seals were leaking fuel and notified junior officers of the issue, but they took no action because the exercise was so important to the Russian Navy. Though the leaks on the dummy torpedoes had been detected, the rubber seals were not inspected before the exercise. The crew was also supposed to follow a very strict procedure while preparing the practice HTP torpedo for firing.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Maintenance records revealed that the 65–76 "Kit" practice torpedo carried by "Kursk" came from a batch of 10 manufactured in 1990, six of which were rejected due to faulty welding. An investigation revealed that because the torpedoes were not intended to carry warheads, the welds had not been inspected as carefully as welds on torpedoes carrying warheads. When salvage crews finally recovered the remains of the torpedo and the launch tube, analysis determined that both bore signs of distortion and heat damage that were consistent with an explosion near the middle of the torpedo, very close to an essential welded joint. The official conclusion of the commission was that a faulty weld had led to the explosion.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: In an emergency, personnel in the rear compartments were to move forward to the third compartment along with those in the forward compartments and enter a detachable rescue capsule in the sail (or conning tower), which was capable of evacuating the entire crew. Alternatively, there was also an escape trunk in the first compartment, but the explosion and fire rendered use of it impossible. The rescue capsule in the third compartment was inaccessible, even if it was still usable.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The fifth compartment that contained the boat's two nuclear reactors was built to withstand larger forces than other interior bulkheads. Like the exterior hull, these bulkheads were designed to withstand pressure to depths of . The reactors were additionally encased in of steel and resiliently mounted to absorb shocks in excess of 50 g (gravitational force equivalents). The bulkheads of the fifth compartment withstood both explosions, allowing the two reactors to shut down automatically and prevent a nuclear meltdown and widespread contamination of the sea.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The fifth compartment, in addition to the reactors, contained equipment that automatically recorded the operating activity of the boat. Twenty-two recordings were analysed by specialists from the Saint Petersburg Center of Speech Technologies. They discovered that the system had been turned off the day of the accident, in violation of procedure.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: "Kursk" was equipped with an emergency rescue buoy on top of compartment seven that was designed to automatically deploy when it detected any of a variety of emergency conditions such as a fire or a rapid pressure change. It was intended to float to the surface and send a signal, helping rescuers locate the stricken vessel. While some reports claimed that the buoy had repeatedly malfunctioned and been welded in place, investigators learned that "Kursk" had been deployed to the Mediterranean during the summer of 1999 to monitor the U.S. fleet responding to the Kosovo War. Russian Navy officers, fearing that the buoy might accidentally deploy and reveal the submarine's position to the U.S. fleet, ordered the buoy to be disabled. It was still inoperative when the sub sank.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Despite the many lapses in procedures and equipment, Ustinov said no charges would be filed because the disaster was caused by a technical malfunction and blame could not be placed on specific individuals. He said that all of the sailors had died within eight hours and none of them could have been rescued in the time available. At a news conference announcing the end of the official inquiry, he absolved the torpedo's manufacturer of any fault. "Those who designed the torpedo couldn't foresee the possibility of its explosion." He also said there was no evidence that the torpedo had been damaged when it was loaded onto "Kursk".


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: When Ustinov closed the criminal case without filing charges, family members were angry. Retired Russian Navy Captain Vladimir Mityayev, who lost a son on "Kursk", said "To me, this is a clear case of negligence." In the end, no one was blamed for the disaster and no one was held responsible.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: While the official government commission blamed the explosion on a faulty weld in the practice torpedo, Vice Admiral Valery Ryazantsev cited inadequate training, poor maintenance, and incomplete inspections that caused the crew to mishandle the weapon. The internal tube door was designed to be three times as strong as the external torpedo door, so that any explosion inside the tube would be directed out into the sea. Salvage crews found the internal tube hatch cover embedded in the bulkhead separating the first and second compartments, from the tube. This led investigators to conclude that the internal door likely was not fully closed when the explosion occurred.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The electrical connectors between the torpedoes and the internal tube door were known to be unreliable, often forcing torpedo crews to open and reclose the door to clean the connection before an electrical contact could be established. "Kursk"s crew had not fired a torpedo in three years, and that torpedo was a much simpler battery-powered type. The crew had to complete specific maintenance steps on a regular basis and before firing a torpedo. This included cleaning the torpedo tube of lubricants, metal shavings, and dust that accumulate during long periods of inactivity.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: After the accident, investigators recovered a partially burned copy of the safety instructions for loading HTP torpedoes, but the instructions were for a significantly different type of torpedo and failed to include essential steps for testing an air valve. The 7th Division, 1st Submarine Flotilla never inspected the "Kursk"s crew's qualifications and readiness to fire HTP torpedoes. "Kursk"s crew had no prior experience with and had not been trained in handling or firing HTP-powered torpedoes. Ryazantsev believed that due to their inexperience and lack of training, compounded by incomplete inspections and oversight, and because "Kursk"s crew followed faulty instructions when loading the practice torpedo, they set off a chain of events that led to the explosion. Ryazantsev asserted that signatures on the records documenting that the sailors had been trained in handling and firing HTP torpedoes had been faked. He stated that the warhead fuses on combat torpedoes 1, 3, 5, and 6 were set off when the first compartment collapsed after striking the sea bottom.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The "Komsomolskaya Pravda" tabloid published a report in June 2001 that senior officers in the Russian Navy had engaged in an elaborate deception to cover the actual cause of the disaster. This referred to statements that the boat's captain, Gennady Lyachin, had sent a message to headquarters immediately prior to the explosion, "We have a malfunctioning torpedo. Request permission to fire it," though it is unlikely that, as captain of the vessel, he would have needed to request permission under such circumstances.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The Russian Navy was later criticised as misrepresenting facts and misleading the public. The navy feared that if the submarine were revealed to have blown up because of crew incompetence, Russia's status as a great power would be in doubt. Their response was compared to the Soviet style of cover-up and stonewalling like that of the Chernobyl disaster. Minister of Defence Sergeyev said in interviews on 21 March 2000 that he had never refused any foreign help.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: "The Guardian" wrote in a 2002 review of two books, "Kursk, Russia's Lost Pride" and "A Time to Die: The Kursk Disaster":


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: While most experts agreed that a torpedo had exploded, they differed on what caused the explosion. Many Russians did not believe that "Kursk" could be so easily sunk. The tragedy spawned a number of wild conspiracy theories to explain the disaster. One theory offered was an explosion located in the high-pressure air tanks used to blow the ballast tanks, located near the torpedo tubes. Mainstream publications like "Der Spiegel", "Berliner Zeitung", and the "Sunday Times" claimed to possess documentation proving that the submarine was struck by a missile fired by "Pyotr Velikiy". This was the largest naval exercise that the Russian Navy had conducted in more than a decade, which increased the chances of a friendly fire incident. Other theories included Chechen espionage, human error, sabotage, and that "Kursk" was testing a new top-secret torpedo, Shkval (Squall), capable of speeds in excess of . Another theory was that USS "Memphis" had fired a torpedo at "Kursk".


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The director of the that designed the torpedo, Stanislav Proshkin, challenged the conclusion of the government's official report. He said the weapon could have exploded only after an external event like a fire. He said that the torpedoes are routinely tested during manufacturing and are dropped from a height of without causing damage that could lead to an explosion. He also said "Kursk" was designed with two autonomous, independent control systems that would have detected a rise in temperature while the torpedo was stored on the racks. The sub was equipped with a special drain system that could rapidly drain HTP-fuel from a torpedo into the sea. If a temperature rise were detected in the torpedo tube, the torpedo would have automatically been ejected into the sea. In addition, any fire in the torpedo compartment would have triggered a powerful fire-extinguishing system that would have dumped "tons of water" on the fire.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The Russian government committed to raising the wreck and recovering the crew's remains in a US$65M salvage operation. They contracted with Dutch marine salvage companies Smit International and Mammoet to raise "Kursk" from the sea floor. It became the largest salvage operation of its type ever accomplished. The salvage operation was extremely dangerous because of the risk of radiation from the reactor. Only seven of the submarine's 24 torpedoes were accounted for.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Salvage divers from Halliburton first detached the bow from the rest of the vessel because it might have contained unexploded torpedo warheads and because it could break off and destabilise the lifting. The divers installed two large hydraulic suction anchors into the seabed and attached a high-strength tungsten carbide abrasive saw that was pulled back and forth over the bow between the anchors. Ten days were needed to detach the bow.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: After the bow was cut free, the salvage crews raised several smaller pieces of wreckage. This included a piece of a torpedo tube weighing about a ton, which was analysed to try to learn if the explosion occurred inside or outside the tube. They salvaged a high-pressure compressed-air cylinder weighing about half a ton, to learn more about the nature of the explosion. They also raised a part of the cylindrical section of the hard frame and part of the left forward spherical partition, to determine the intensity and temperature of the fire in the forward compartment. Finally, they brought up a fragment of the sonar system dome.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Mammoet converted the , long, "Giant 4" semisubmersible deck barge to carry the sub. The ship was designed to carry huge loads on its deck, but "Kursk" would ride beneath the ship. "Giant 4" had to be completely modified to retrieve and carry the sub underneath. To raise the remainder of the boat, the salvage team planned an extremely complex operation that required them to design and build custom lifting equipment and employ new technologies. They wrote custom software that would automatically compensate for the effects of wave motion due to the rough Barents Sea, which could sever the cables suspending the sub beneath the barge.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Divers cut a large hole in the barge's hull to allow room for the submarine's sail. Workers fitted the hull of "Giant 4" with large saddles shaped to fit "Kursk"s outer hull. They cut holes through the barge to allow 26 hoisting cables to pass through. The team manufactured 26 giant cable reels to hold the more than of cable to be used to raise the boat. The giant cable reels fed 26 huge hydraulic strand jacks, each mounted on a computer-controlled, pressurised pneumatic heave compensator powered by nitrogen gas that automatically adjusted for sea waves. "Giant 4" was held in position over the submarine by an eight-point mooring system from four twin-drum winches on the main deck.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: "Mayo", a diving platform, was equipped with dive chambers to accommodate the dive teams. They worked in six-hour shifts, and when they were not in the water, the divers remained in the saturation chambers for the entire 28 days the operation took. The divers used hydraulic abrasive water jets to cut 26 holes through both the outer and inner hulls. The salvage divers mounted custom guidance rings around the holes in the sub and lowered guide cables to each through the holes in "Giant 4". The team then used the four guide cables to lower a custom-made giant gripper, similar to a toggle bolt, which were custom designed to fit each hole, and the divers manoeuvred them through the guidance ring.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The crew lowered 26 groups of hoisting cables, each capable of lifting 900 tons, to the submarine and attached them to the grippers. The strand jacks lifted the 26 hoisting cables and slowly raised "Kursk" until it was beneath "Giant 4". On 8 October 2001, 14 months after the disaster, and only five months after the contract had been awarded to them, the salvage team raised the remainder of the boat in a 15-hour operation.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Once the sub was raised and joined to the barge, it was carried back under the barge to the Russian Navy's Roslyakovo Shipyard in Murmansk. Once there, two giant, custom-manufactured pontoons were floated under "Giant 4" to lift the barge to allow it to enter a floating dry dock with "Kursk" attached underneath. Once in the dry dock, the pontoons were pumped full of more air, lifting "Giant 4" and allowing crews to remove the lifting cables and detach "Kursk".


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The Russians initially intended to raise the bow from the sea floor—possibly containing undetonated torpedoes—but then decided it was too risky. Some analysts theorised the Russians may also have wanted to prevent foreign countries from accessing the debris, which had been classified as state secrets. They decided to destroy what was left of the bow where it lay and blew up the remnants in September 2002.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Twenty-four men were assigned to compartments six through nine towards the rear of the boat. Of that number, 23 survived the two blasts and gathered in the small ninth compartment, which had an escape hatch. Captain-lieutenant Dmitri Kolesnikov, head of the turbine unit in the seventh department, and one of three surviving officers of that rank, apparently took charge. Emergency lighting was normally powered by batteries located in the first compartment, but these had been destroyed in the explosion, but the ninth compartment contained a number of independent emergency lights, which apparently worked.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Kolesnikov wrote two notes, parts of which were released by Vice-Admiral Motsak to the media for the first time on 27 October 2000. The first, written at 13:15, 1 hour and 45 minutes after the second explosion, contained a private note to his family, and on the reverse, information on their situation and the names of those in the ninth compartment. The handwriting appears normal, indicating the sailors still had some light.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The newspaper "Izvestia" reported on 26 February 2001 that another note, written by Lt. Cmdr. Rashid Aryapov, had been recovered during the initial rescue operation. Aryapov held a senior position in the sixth compartment. The note was written on the page of a detective novel and wrapped in plastic. It was found in a pocket of his clothing after his body was recovered.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: "Izvestia" quoted unidentified naval officers who claimed that Aryapov wrote that the explosion was caused by "faults in the torpedo compartment, namely, the explosion of a torpedo on which the Kursk had to carry out tests". "Izvestia" also stated that Aryapov wrote that as a result of the explosions, the submarine was tossed violently about, and many crew members were injured by equipment that tore loose as a result. To the Russian public, it appeared that the Russian Navy was covering up its inability to rescue the trapped sailors.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Analysis of the wreck could not determine whether the escape hatch was workable from the inside. Analysts theorise that the men may have rejected risking the escape hatch even if it were operable, and would have preferred to wait for a submarine rescue ship to attach itself to the hatch. The sub was relatively close to shore and in the middle of a large naval exercise. The sailors had every reason to believe that rescue would arrive quickly. Using the escape trunk was risky. The sailors were in a compartment that was initially at surface atmosphere pressure, so they did not risk decompression sickness (the bends) if they used the rescue hoods to ascend to the surface, but the Arctic water was extremely cold and they could not survive long in the water. Also, water was slowly seeping into the ninth compartment, increasing the internal pressure and thus the risk of decompression sickness and death when they ascended to the surface. In addition, some of the men likely were seriously injured and escape would have been very difficult for them.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: When the nuclear reactors automatically shut down, the air-purification system would have shut down, emergency power would be limited, and the crew would soon have been in complete darkness and experiencing falling temperatures.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Considerable debate arose over how long the sailors in the ninth compartment had survived. Russian military officers initially gave conflicting accounts, that survivors could have lived up to a week within the sub, but those who died would have been killed very quickly. The Dutch recovery team reported that they thought the men in the least-affected ninth compartment might have survived for two to three hours, but the level of carbon dioxide in the compartment exceeded that which people can produce in a closed space. Divers found ash and dust inside the compartment when they first opened that hatch, evidence of a fire, but this fire was separate from that caused by the exploding torpedo.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Captain-Lieutenant Kolesnikov, evidently the senior officer in the compartment, wrote a final note at 15:15 in the dark, giving evidence that he was alive at least four hours after the explosion. Other notes recovered later show that some sailors in the ninth compartment were alive at least 6 hours and 17 minutes after the boat sank. Vice Admiral Vladislav Ilyin, first deputy chief of the Russian Navy's staff and head of the "Kursk" Naval Incident Cell, concluded that the survivors had lived up to three days.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: In any event, the Russian rescue teams were poorly equipped and badly organised, while foreign teams and equipment were far away and not given permission to assist. It is unlikely that any rescue by either Russian or foreign specialists could have arrived and reached the sub in time to rescue any survivors.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: While waiting for the boat to be brought to shore, a team of military doctors set up a temporary forensic laboratory at the military hospital in Severomorsk. After "Giant 4" was floated out of the drydock, water was drained from the drydock, exposing the "Kursk's" hull. Salvage teams cut into the compartments to drain water from the interior. Ordnance teams removed the missiles from outside the hull. On 23 October, two investigators and two navy commanders were the first to enter the hull. The next day, 24 October, eight teams of investigators and operational experts began analysing the debris found inside the boat and recovering and identifying remains of the crew. Working from a database of personal identification details, including the crew members' features, dental X-rays, birth marks, and tattoos, the doctors examined the bodies as they were brought to the laboratory.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Salvage team members found a large number of potassium superoxide chemical cartridges, used to absorb and generate oxygen to enable survival, in the ninth compartment. Autopsies of the crew recovered from the ninth compartment showed that three men suffered from thermal and chemical burns. Researchers concluded Captain-Lieutenant Kolesnikov and two others had attempted to recharge the oxygen-generation system when they accidentally dropped one of the superoxide cartridges into the seawater slowly filling the compartment. When the cartridge came in contact with the oily water, it triggered a chemical explosion and flash fire. Kolesnikov's abdomen was burned by acid, exposing the internal organs, and the flesh on his head and neck was removed by the explosion.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The investigation showed that some men temporarily survived this fire by plunging under water, as fire marks on the bulkheads indicated the water was at waist level at the time, but the flash fire consumed all remaining oxygen, so the men still alive after the flash explosion quickly died of anoxia. Water continued to seep into the compartment, and by the time rescue divers opened the compartment, they found only a small air pocket containing just 7% oxygen.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Bodies recovered from the ninth compartment were relatively easy to identify. Those recovered from the third, fourth, and fifth compartments were badly damaged by the explosion. Forensic examination of two of the reactor control room casualties found in compartment four showed extensive skeletal injuries, which indicated that they had sustained an explosive force over 50 g. These shocks would have immediately incapacitated or killed the operators. One sailor's body was found embedded in the ceiling of the second compartment. The bodies of three crewmen were completely destroyed by the blast and fire, and nothing of their remains could be identified or recovered.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: The sinking of the ship, the pride of their submarine fleet, was a devastating blow to the Russian military. "Kursk"s participation in the exercise had been intended to demonstrate Russia's place as an important player on the international stage, but the country's inept handling of the crisis instead exposed its weak political decision-making ability and the decline of its military.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: A year later, Putin commented on his response, "I probably should have returned to Moscow, but nothing would have changed. I had the same level of communication both in Sochi and in Moscow, but from a PR point of view, I could have demonstrated some special eagerness to return."


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Once the human remains had been removed and the hull had been thoroughly investigated, the remainder of the ship was transported to Sayda Bay on the northern Kayla Peninsula. The two nuclear reactors were defuelled and the ship was cut up for scrap.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Finally recognising the hazard of the HTP torpedoes, the Russian Navy ordered all of them removed from service.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Putin accepted the resignation of Igor Sergeyev from his position as minister of defence on 28 March 2001 and made him his assistant on strategic stability. He replaced him with Sergei Ivanov, who had previously been secretary of the Security Council of Russia. The position of minister of defence had always been filled by a professional member of the military. Ivanov had retired from the military in 2000, so his appointment as minister of defence while a civilian shocked the Russian military.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: On 1 December 2001, Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov presented a preliminary report to Putin. Ustinov wrote that the entire exercise had been "poorly organized" and that the probe had revealed "serious violations by both Northern Fleet chiefs and the "Kursk" crew." Shortly afterward, Putin transferred the Northern Fleet commander, Vyacheslav Popov, and his chief of staff, Admiral Mikhail Motsak. As is common in such circumstances, both soon obtained jobs elsewhere in the government. Popov became a representative for the Murmansk region in the Federation Council, and Motsak became deputy presidential envoy for the North-Western Federal District. Popov and Motsak had championed the story that the accident had been caused by a collision with a NATO submarine. When Putin dismissed them, he made a point of repudiating the collision theory. In another example of a lateral transfer, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov had been an outspoken advocate of the theory that the "Kursk" had collided with a foreign submarine. He had also been in charge of the rescue operation and follow-up inquiry. In February 2002, Putin removed him from his position as Deputy prime minister and made him minister of industry, science, and technology.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Putin dismissed the Northern Fleet's submarine commander, Vice-Admiral Oleg Burtsev, and in total removed 12 high-ranking officers in charge of the Northern Fleet. Paradoxically, he said their dismissal had nothing to do with the "Kursk" disaster, but that they had been responsible for "serious flaws in the organizations of the service." However, all 12 had been involved with the exercise, the rescue operations, or the submarine itself. All were transferred to equal positions elsewhere in the government or in the business sector.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: As a result of the disaster, Russia began participating in NATO search-and-rescue exercises in 2011, the first time any Russian submarine had taken part in a NATO-led exercise. The Russian Navy also increased the number of deep-sea divers trained each year from 18–20 to 40–45.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: President Putin signed a decree awarding the Order of Courage to the entire crew, and the title Hero of the Russian Federation to the submarine's captain, Gennady Lyachin.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: Outside the port city of Severodvinsk where the submarine was built, a large granite slab was erected on the sand dunes. It is engraved, "This sorrowful stone is set in memory of the crew of the nuclear submarine "Kursk", who tragically died on 12 August 2000, while on military duty." Other memorials were built in Moscow, Sevastopol, Nizhny Novgorod, and Severomorsk. A memorial was erected in Serafimovskoe Cemetery in St. Petersburg, and the city of Kursk, after which the vessel was named, erected a memorial made from fragments of its hull.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: On 17 March 2009, journalist Tatyana Abramova from the newspaper "Murmanskiy Vestnik" found "Kursk"s sail in the yard of a scrap metal dealer. It had been left there after several years of negotiations had failed to raise the estimated €22,000 for a memorial. The discovery sparked an outcry among citizens in Murmansk and they demanded it be turned into a memorial to the men who died. After considerable difficulty, the memorial was finally completed and dedicated on Sunday, 26 July 2009, Russia's Navy Day. It was placed on the observation deck of the Church of the Saviour on Water in Murmansk, the submarine's home port and location of the Vidyayevo naval base. It is among a memorial to sailors who perished during peacetime. It lists the names of the crew members.


title: Kursk submarine disaster

text: On 31 July 2012, divers representing the relatives of "Kursk"s crew and the Northern Fleet command placed a -tall Orthodox Cross on the floor of the Barents Sea at the site of the disaster.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: Reservation Dogs is an Indigenous American teen comedy drama television series created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi for FX Productions. It is the first series to feature all Indigenous writers and directors, along with an almost entirely Indigenous North American cast and production team. It is also the first series to be filmed entirely in Oklahoma. The series premiered on Hulu under FX on Hulu branding on August 9, 2021 (International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples). It was renewed for a second season in 2021 and a third season in 2022.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: "Reservation Dogs" has received widespread critical acclaim and numerous accolades, including a Peabody Award, two Independent Spirit Awards, and nominations for the Critics' Choice Television Awards and Golden Globes, and was named one of the best series of 2021 by many critics. In addition, the American Film Institute named it one of the ten best television programs of 2021 and 2022.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: The series follows the lives of four Indigenous teenagers in rural Oklahoma, as they spend their days committing crime and fighting it. After the death of their friend Daniel one year prior to the events of the series, the gang wrestles with a desire to move to California, the way Daniel dreamed of doing. But first they need to tie up loose ends in their lives and community and make preparations to leave.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: In Season 2, the Rez Dogs are still experiencing grief over the loss of their friend, now compounded by the foursome being broken apart and scattered, and missing each other. The "California dream" does not turn out the way they expected, resulting in more feelings of disappointment and abandonment. While they cope using humor, they also face increasingly more adult challenges. Financial and family responsibilities arise as they continue to try to figure out their lives.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: The series was first reported on in November 2019 and was confirmed by Taika Waititi on Twitter shortly after. The initial report announced that Waititi would be co-writing the series with Native American filmmaker Sterlin Harjo, who would also share executive producer and directing duties with Waititi. After the pilot had been shot in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, FX announced a series order for the project in December 2020. The casting for the four lead actors, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Paulina Alexis, and newcomer Lane Factor, was also confirmed at this time, alongside a group of guest stars to be featured in the pilot episode. Filming sites for principal photography for season one, which had wrapped by July 2021, included Okmulgee, Tulsa, Sand Springs, Beggs, Inola, and Terlton, all in northeast Oklahoma. On September 2, 2021, FX renewed the series for a second season, also filmed on location in Okmulgee.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: Discussing their creative partnership and respective roles in the production, Waititi stressed, "I really believe people need to tell their own stories and especially from whatever area they are from", leading to Harjo, who is from Oklahoma, taking the lead on the project and Waititi taking a more supporting role. Additionally, many of the storylines in the show are inspired by events from Harjo's childhood.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: Part of the development process included casting unknown actors from Indigenous communities, and the young leads in particular forming a working rapport, often around their shared love of Indigenous comedy. Jacobs and Alexis added that they bonded over their mutual appreciation of the sketch comedy group 1491s. Four of the five members of the 1491s worked on season one of the series, and with the addition of Ryan RedCorn to the writers' room for season two, all of the 1491s are now working on "Reservation Dogs" as writers and actors, directors, or producers. On September 22, 2022, FX renewed the series for a third season.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: The series premiered on FX on Hulu in the United States on August 9, 2021. In international markets, it is distributed through the Star hub of the Disney+ streaming service. In Latin America, the series premiered as a Star+ original. In India, all eight episodes of season 1 premiered on Disney+ Hotstar on October 2, 2021.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: The first season received critical acclaim. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, it received a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 98% with an average score of 8.2 out of 10, based on 57 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "Aimless afternoons yield absurd delights in "Reservation Dogs", a low-key comedy that deftly captures the malaise of youth and Rez life thanks in no small part to its impressive central crew." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, it received a score of 83 out of 100, based on 22 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim."


title: Reservation Dogs

text: Writing for "The Guardian", Ellen E Jones gave the show a rating of 5 out of 5 and said, ""Reservation Dogs" is able to lay waste stylishly to centuries of myth and misrepresentation due to one simple, crucial, innovation: almost everyone involved in the production is a Native American, offering a perspective which never panders to the often-fetishising gaze of outsiders. Instead, this show tells of the push-pull of home: that simultaneous yearning to both belong and be free." Candice Frederick of "TV Guide" rated the series 4 out of 5, based on the first four episodes and said, "Though it wrestles with some heavy, but not overtly political, themes, "Reservation Dogs" seems to mostly have fun with young life on a reservation." In another 4 out 5 rating, Alan Sepinwall, writing for "Rolling Stone", said, "a show like "Reservation Dogs" feels long overdue. And this exact show? It's awfully good." "Paste" magazine's Allison Keene gave a rating of 9.2 out of 10 and called the series "a perfect summer series, one that takes places on languid afternoons and moves at an unhurried pace."


title: Reservation Dogs

text: Reviewing the first two episodes, Danette Chavez of "The A.V. Club" gave it a "B+" and said, ""Reservation Dogs" is already on track to be one of the best comedies (and shows) of the year." Kristen Lopez of "IndieWire" also gave it a grade of "B+", saying, "["Reservation Dogs"] is a surprising series that illustrates why everyone's story is worth telling" and also praised the four main actors, stating that "the teens assembled here are all fantastic, conveying so much about their characters' true selves even if they don't know it yet." "Vox"s Emily St. James also praised the main actors, calling them "one of the best ensembles of teen characters in recent memory" and regarded the first season as "one of the best first seasons of a comedy in some time." Daniel Fienberg of "The Hollywood Reporter" also praised the cast as well as the "triumph" representation of the Native Americans.


title: Reservation Dogs

text: "The New Yorker"s Doreen St. Félix wrote, ""Reservation Dogs" is a mood piece, and a sweet one, a collection of intertwined and poetic portraiture that focuses not solely on the central cast". Daniel D'Addario of "Variety" said, ""Reservation Dogs" is a lovely, eminently watchable triumph. It's an overdue tribute to a sort of community it doesn't mythologize. Instead, the show treats the reservation and its residents on their own terms, as worthy of being explored for just what it is, and just who they are." "Polygon"s Joshua Rivera praised the series, saying, "like a lot of great art, "Reservation Dogs" challenges its audience with wit and style to look in spaces that have long been ignored, and identify with experiences that are outside their own." Writing for "IGN", Matt Fowler said, ""Reservation Dogs" features characters we like, a community we're drawn to (and may be curious about)." Esther Zuckerman of "Thrillist" praised the series' tone, stating that ""Reservation Dogs" is at times melancholy, and at times deeply irreverent. But whatever mood it's going for at any given moment, it's some of the most unique, enjoyable, and artistically satisfying television available to watch."


title: Reservation Dogs

text: The second season also received critical acclaim. On Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 100%, with an average score of 8.9 out of 10, based on 23 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: ""Reservation Dogs" has bittersweet bite in its sophomore season as it mines more difficult dilemmas than before with its spiky sense of humor, making for a piquant portrait of a community and a place." On Metacritic, it holds a score of 93 out of 100, based on 16 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Reservation Dogs

text: Critics were given the first four episodes prior to its premiere to review. It received an "A" from Manuel Betancourt of "The A.V. Club" and Chase Hutchinson of "Collider", an "A-" from Darren Franich of "Entertainment Weekly" and Brian Tallerico of "The Playlist", and a "B+" from Kristen Lopez of "IndieWire". Betancourt highlighted the way it treats dark materials, such as generational trauma, wounding grief, and systemic inequities, with "winsome humor", without going too far. Hutchinson praised the writing, humor, and performances, particularly Jacobs' and Woon-A-Tai's. Daniel Fienberg of "The Hollywood Reporter" also praised the performances and further singled out Jacobs', particularly in the episode "Mabel". Kristen Reid of "Paste" gave it a 9.3 out of 10 and said, "Just a season and a half in, Harjo and co-creator Taika Waititi have already found their groove with "Reservation Dogs". Inviting us onto the reservation to experience it with this group of quickly beloved kids, [It] feels like a celebration of Native life and a way to inspire change for the better."


title: Reservation Dogs

text: "Variety"s Caroline Framke wrote in her favorable review: "for the hundreds of shows premiering every year, there's still simply nothing else on TV quite like 'Reservation Dogs'. [It] gives voice, time, and flawed dirtbag humanity to Indigenous Americans, who have long been little more onscreen than one-note punchlines. But it also does so with an approach that could only have come from these writers, actors, directors and production crew members. This is a show so self-assured in its own voice and perspective that it's not just gratifying to watch, but a welcome relief." Joe Keller of "Decider" summarized his review by saying, ""Reservation Dogs" improves on its excellent first season by deepening the community on the rez, making it less about the Dogs and more about traditions, people who think they know the traditions but don't, and just how funny and rich life there can be, even if people have to be creative to get by."


title: Reservation Dogs

text: For the season finale, "TVLine" named Woon-A-Tai, Jacobs, Factor and Alexis the "Performers of the Week" for the week of October 1, 2022. The site wrote: "No single actor outshined the others; rather, it was their combined chemistry and the characters’ reliance on each other that made us laugh at their antics and reel in their heartbreak. [...] Jacobs exhibited a wealth of vulnerability in her body language and diction as Elora admitted her fear of letting Daniel go. Woon-A-Tai was brought to tears, as Bear was consumed by love for his friends. Alexis displayed a wealth of fortitude as Willie Jack proved to be both the Dogs' safety net and comedic relief. And after they joined together for a prayer, Factor quivered and choked on his emotions as Cheese revealed his lingering anger."


title: Reservation Dogs

text: Like the first season, the American Film Institute named it one of the ten best television programs of the year.


title: Dean Norris

text: Dean Joseph Norris (born April 8, 1963) is an American actor. He is best known for playing DEA agent Hank Schrader on the AMC series "Breaking Bad" (2008–2013) and its spin-off "Better Call Saul" (2020). He also portrayed town councilman James "Big Jim" Rennie on the CBS series "Under the Dome" (2013–2015) and played mob boss Clay "Uncle Daddy" Husser on the TNT series "Claws" (2017-2022). Throughout his career, Norris has acted in nearly 50 movies and more than 100 different TV shows.


title: Dean Norris

text: Norris has appeared in films such as "Lethal Weapon 2" (1989), "Hard to Kill" (1990), "Total Recall" (1990), "" (1991), "The Firm" (1993), "Starship Troopers" (1997), "The Cell" (2000), "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006), "Evan Almighty" (2007), and "Sons of Liberty" (2015), and has more recently starred in films such as "The Book of Henry" (2017), "Death Wish" (2018), and "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" (2019).


title: Dean Norris

text: Dean Joseph Norris was born in South Bend, Indiana. He graduated from Clay High School in 1981, where he was the class valedictorian. While in high school, he was a member of the award-winning student-produced comedy show "Beyond Our Control", which ran on WNDU-TV. He is a 1985 graduate of Harvard College, where he studied the interdisciplinary concentration of Social Studies and was a member of Hasty Pudding Theatricals. He also earned a diploma from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1987.


title: Dean Norris

text: Norris starred in "Tremors: The Series" and the film "Without Limits". He has had guest spots in other television series including "NYPD Blue", "The X-Files", "The West Wing", and "Lost", and has appeared in films including "Gattaca" and "". He played Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Hank Schrader on "Breaking Bad" from the show's premiere in 2008 to its final season in 2013. Norris' performance on "Breaking Bad" has received critical acclaim.


title: Dean Norris

text: Norris also starred in the CBS series "Under the Dome". He plays selectman James "Big Jim" Rennie, the only town council member in the area which is cut off from the rest of the United States. As of June 2017, he plays mob boss Clay "Uncle Daddy" Husser in the TNT series "Claws".


title: Dean Norris

text: In 2020, Norris reprised the role of Agent Hank Schrader on-screen in the "Breaking Bad" prequel "Better Call Saul" during the show's fifth season.


title: Dean Norris

text: Norris and his wife, Bridget, a former entertainment attorney, live with their five children in Temecula, California. In 2018, the couple opened the Norris Performing Arts Center in Murrieta.


title: Dean Norris

text: Norris was accused of sexually assaulting a 32-year-old woman from Ohio, in June 2017 in New Orleans. However, in February 2018, the New Orleans police declined to charge him, citing "insufficient evidence."


title: Dean Norris

text: In 2019, he helped launch Schraderbräu, Hank Schrader's in-universe home-brewed craft beer, as an official product.


title: Dean Norris

text: In 2022, Dean and Bridget Norris purchased The Swing Inn Cafe, a long-standing restaurant in Old Town, Temecula, for $6 million.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia (, ; ; ; ), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state ("Land") in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state of Germany. Apart from the city-states, it is also the most densely populated state in Germany. Covering an area of , it is the fourth-largest German state by size.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia features 30 of the 81 German municipalities with over 100,000 inhabitants, including Cologne (over 1 million), the state capital Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen (all about 600,000 inhabitants) and other cities predominantly located in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area, the largest urban area in Germany and the fourth-largest on the European continent. The location of the Rhine-Ruhr at the heart of the European Blue Banana makes it well connected to other major European cities and metropolitan areas like the Randstad, the Flemish Diamond and the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Region.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia was established in 1946 after World War II from the Prussian provinces of Westphalia and the northern part of Rhine Province (North Rhine), and the Free State of Lippe by the British military administration in Allied-occupied Germany and became a state of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949. The city of Bonn served as the federal capital until the reunification of Germany in 1990 and as the seat of government until 1999.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Culturally, North Rhine-Westphalia is not a uniform area; there are significant differences, especially in traditional customs, between the Rhineland region on the one hand and the regions of Westphalia and Lippe on the other. As of 2019, the state has the largest economy among German states by GDP but is below the national average in GDP per capita.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The state of North Rhine-Westphalia was established by the British military administration's "Operation Marriage" on 23 August 1946, by merging the province of Westphalia and the northern parts of the Rhine Province, both being political divisions of the former state of Prussia within the German Reich. On 21 January 1947, the former state of Lippe was merged with North Rhine-Westphalia. The constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia was then ratified through a referendum.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The first written account of the area was by its conqueror, Julius Caesar, the territories west of the Rhine were occupied by the Eburones and east of the Rhine he reported the Ubii (across from Cologne) and the Sugambri to their north. The Ubii and some other Germanic tribes such as the Cugerni were later settled on the west side of the Rhine in the Roman province of Germania Inferior. Julius Caesar conquered the tribes on the left bank, and Augustus established numerous fortified posts on the Rhine, but the Romans never succeeded in gaining a firm footing on the right bank, where the Sugambri neighboured several other tribes including the Tencteri and Usipetes. North of the Sigambri and the Rhine region were the Bructeri.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: As the power of the Roman empire declined, many of these tribes came to be seen collectively as Ripuarian Franks and they pushed forward along both banks of the Rhine, and by the end of the fifth century had conquered all the lands that had formerly been under Roman influence. By the eighth century, the Frankish dominion was firmly established in western Germany and northern Gaul, but at the same time, to the north, Westphalia was being taken over by Saxons pushing south.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The Merovingian and Carolingian Franks eventually built an empire which controlled first their Ripuarian kin, and then the Saxons. On the division of the Carolingian Empire at the Treaty of Verdun, the part of the province to the east of the river fell to East Francia, while that to the west remained with the kingdom of Lotharingia.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: By the time of Otto I (d. 973), both banks of the Rhine had become part of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Rhenish territory was divided between the duchies of Upper Lorraine on the Moselle and Lower Lorraine on the Meuse. The Ottonian dynasty had both Saxon and Frankish ancestry.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: As the central power of the Holy Roman Emperor weakened, the Rhineland split into numerous small, independent, separate vicissitudes and special chronicles. The old Lotharingian divisions became obsolete, although the name survives for example in Lorraine in France, and throughout the Middle Ages and even into modern times, the nobility of these areas often sought to preserve the idea of a preeminent duke within Lotharingia, something claimed by the Dukes of Limburg, and the Dukes of Brabant. Such struggles as the War of the Limburg Succession therefore continued to create military and political links between what is now Rhineland-Westphalia and neighbouring Belgium and the Netherlands.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: In spite of its dismembered condition and the sufferings it underwent at the hands of its French neighbours in various periods of warfare, the Rhenish territory prospered greatly and stood in the foremost rank of German culture and progress. Aachen was the place of coronation of the German emperors, and the ecclesiastical principalities of the Rhine bulked largely in German history.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Prussia first set foot on the Rhine in 1609 by the occupation of the Duchy of Cleves and about a century later Upper Guelders and Moers also became Prussian. At the peace of Basel in 1795, the whole of the left bank of the Rhine was resigned to France, and in 1806, the Rhenish princes all joined the Confederation of the Rhine.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: After the Congress of Vienna, Prussia was awarded the entire Rhineland, which included the Grand Duchy of Berg, the ecclesiastic electorates of Trier and Cologne, the free cities of Aachen and Cologne, and nearly a hundred small lordships and abbeys. The Prussian Rhine province was formed in 1822 and Prussia had the tact to leave the lower Rhenish districts in undisturbed possession of the liberal institutions to which they had become accustomed under the republican rule of the French. In 1920, the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were transferred to Belgium (see German-speaking Community of Belgium).


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Around AD 1, numerous incursions occurred through Westphalia and perhaps even some permanent Roman or Romanized settlements. The Battle of Teutoburg Forest took place near Osnabrück and some of the Germanic tribes who fought at this battle came from the area of Westphalia. Charlemagne is thought to have spent considerable time in Paderborn and nearby parts. His Saxon Wars also partly took place in what is thought of as Westphalia today. Popular legends link his adversary Widukind to places near Detmold, Bielefeld, Lemgo, Osnabrück, and other places in Westphalia. Widukind was buried in Enger, which is also a subject of a legend.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Along with Eastphalia and Engern, Westphalia ("Westfalahi") was originally a district of the Duchy of Saxony. In 1180, Westphalia was elevated to the rank of a duchy by Emperor Barbarossa. The Duchy of Westphalia comprised only a small area south of the Lippe River.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Parts of Westphalia came under Brandenburg-Prussian control during the 17th and 18th centuries, but most of it remained divided duchies and other feudal areas of power. The Peace of Westphalia of 1648, signed in Münster and Osnabrück, ended the Thirty Years' War. The concept of nation-state sovereignty resulting from the treaty became known as "Westphalian sovereignty".


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: As a result of the Protestant Reformation, there is no dominant religion in Westphalia. Catholicism and Lutheranism are on relatively equal footing. Lutheranism is strong in the eastern and northern parts with numerous free churches. Münster and especially Paderborn are thought of as Catholic. Osnabrück is divided almost equally between Catholicism and Protestantism.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: After the defeat of the Prussian Army at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 made the Westphalian territories part of the Kingdom of Westphalia from 1807 to 1813. It was founded by Napoleon and was a French vassal state. This state only shared the name with the historical region; it contained only a relatively small part of Westphalia, consisting instead mostly of Hessian and Eastphalian regions.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: After the Congress of Vienna, the Kingdom of Prussia received a large amount of territory in the Westphalian region and created the province of Westphalia in 1815. The northernmost portions of the former kingdom, including the town of Osnabrück, had become part of the states of Hanover and Oldenburg.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The flag of North Rhine-Westphalia is green-white-red with the combined coats of arms of the Rhineland (white line before green background, symbolizing the river Rhine), Westfalen (the white horse) and Lippe (the red rose). After the establishment of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1946, the tricolor was first introduced in 1948, but was not formally adopted until 1953. The plain variant of the tricolor is considered the civil flag and state ensign, while government authorities use the state flag ("Landesdienstflagge") which is defaced with the state's coat of arms. The state ensign can easily be mistaken for a distressed flag of Hungary, as well as the former national flag of Iran (1964–1980).


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: According to legend, the horse in the Westphalian coat of arms is the horse that the Saxon leader Widukind rode after his baptism. Other theories attribute the horse to Henry the Lion. Some connect it with the Germanic rulers Hengist and Horsa.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia encompasses the plains of the Lower Rhine region and parts of the Central Uplands ("die Mittelgebirge") up to the gorge of Porta Westfalica. The state covers an area of and shares borders with Belgium (Wallonia) in the southwest and the Netherlands (Limburg, Gelderland and Overijssel) in the west and northwest. It has borders with the German states of Lower Saxony to the north and northeast, Rhineland-Palatinate to the south and Hesse to the southeast.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Approximately half of the state is located in the relative low-lying terrain of the Westphalian Lowland and the Rhineland, both extending broadly into the North German Plain. A few isolated hill ranges are located within these lowlands, among them the Hohe Mark, the Beckum Hills, the Baumberge and the Stemmer Berge. <br>


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The terrain rises towards the south and in the east of the state into parts of Germany's Central Uplands. These hill ranges are the Weser Uplands – including the Egge Hills, the Wiehen Hills, the Wesergebirge and the Teutoburg Forest in the east, the Sauerland, the Bergisches Land, the Siegerland and the Siebengebirge in the south, as well as the left-Rhenish Eifel in the southwest of the state. The Rothaargebirge in the border region with Hesse rises to height of about 800 m above sea level. The highest of these mountains are the Langenberg, at 843.2 m above sea level, the Kahler Asten (840.7 m) and the Clemensberg (839.2 m).


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The planimetrically determined centre of North Rhine-Westphalia is located in the south of Dortmund-Aplerbeck in the Aplerbecker Mark (51° 28' N, 7° 33' Ö). Its westernmost point is situated near Selfkant close to the Dutch border, the easternmost near Höxter on the Weser. The southernmost point lies near Hellenthal in the Eifel region. The northernmost point is the NRW-Nordpunkt near Rahden in the northeast of the state. The Nordpunkt has located the only 100  km to the south of the North Sea coast. The deepest natural dip is arranged in the district Zyfflich in the city of Kranenburg with 9.2 m above sea level in the northwest of the state. Though, the deepest point overground results from mining. The open-pit Hambach reaches at Niederzier a deep of 293 m below sea level. At the same time, this is the deepest man-made dip in Germany.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The most important rivers flowing at least partially through North Rhine-Westphalia include: the Rhine, the Ruhr, the Ems, the Lippe, and the Weser. The Rhine is by far the most important river in North Rhine-Westphalia: it enters the state as Middle Rhine near Bad Honnef, where still being part of the Mittelrhein wine region. It changes into the Lower Rhine near Bad Godesberg and leaves North Rhine-Westphalia near Emmerich at a width of 730 metres. Almost immediately after entering the Netherlands, the Rhine splits into many branches.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The Pader, which flows entirely within the city of Paderborn, is considered Germany's shortest river.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: For many, North Rhine-Westphalia is synonymous with industrial areas and urban agglomerations. However, the largest part of the state is used for agriculture (almost 52%) and forests (25%).


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The state consists of five government regions ("Regierungsbezirke"), divided into 31 districts ("Kreise") and 23 urban districts ("kreisfreie Städte"). In total, North Rhine-Westphalia has 396 municipalities (1997), including the urban districts, which are municipalities by themselves. The government regions have an assembly elected by the districts and municipalities, while the "Landschaftsverband" has a directly elected assembly.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The five government regions of North Rhine-Westphalia each belong to one of the two "Landschaftsverbände":


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The state's area covers a maximum distance of 291 km from north to south, and 266 km from east to west. The total length of the state's borders is 1,645 km. The following countries and states have a border with North Rhine-Westphalia:


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia has a population of approximately 17.5 million inhabitants (more than the entire former East Germany, and slightly more than the Netherlands) and is centred around the polycentric Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region, which includes the industrial Ruhr region with the largest city of Dortmund and the Rhenish cities of Bonn, Cologne and Düsseldorf. 30 of the 80 largest cities in Germany are located within North Rhine-Westphalia. The state's capital is Düsseldorf; the state's largest city is Cologne. In 2015, there were 160,478 births and 204,373 deaths. The TRF reached 1.52 (2015) and was highest in Lippe (1.72) and lowest in Bochum (1.29).


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The following table shows the population of the state since 1930. The values until 1960 are the average of the yearly population, from 1965 the population at year end is used.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: , 36.3% of the population of the state adhered to the Roman Catholic Church, 23.0% to the Evangelical Church in Germany, and 40.7% of the population is irreligious or adheres to other denominations or religions. North Rhine-Westphalia ranks first in population among German states for both Roman Catholics and Protestants.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: In 2016, the interior ministry of North Rhine-Westphalia reported that the number of mosques with a Salafist influence had risen from 3 to 9, which indicated both an actual increase and improved reporting. According to German authorities, Salafism is incompatible with the principles codified in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany, in particular: democracy, the rule of law, and political order based on human rights.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The politics of North Rhine-Westphalia takes place within a framework of a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic. The two main parties are, as on the federal level, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union and the centre-left Social Democratic Party. From 1966 to 2005, North Rhine-Westphalia was continuously governed by the Social Democrats or SPD-led governments.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The state's legislative body is the Landtag ("state diet"). It may pass laws within the competency of the state, e.g. cultural matters, the education system, matters of internal security, i.e. the police, building supervision, health supervision and the media; as opposed to matters that are reserved to Federal law.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia uses the same electoral system as the Federal level in Germany: ""Personalized proportional representation"". Every five years the citizens of North Rhine-Westphalia vote in a general election to elect at least 181 members of the Landtag. Only parties who win at least 5% of the votes cast may be represented in parliament.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The Landtag, the parliamentary parties and groups consisting of at least 7 members of parliament have the right to table legal proposals to the Landtag for deliberation. The law that is passed by the Landtag is delivered to the Minister-President, who, together with the ministers involved, is required to sign it and announce it in the Law and Ordinance Gazette.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The state has Aachen Cathedral, the Cologne Cathedral, the Zeche Zollverein in Essen, the Augustusburg Palace in Brühl and the Imperial Abbey of Corvey in Höxter which are all World Heritage Sites.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia hosts film festivals in Cologne, Bonn, Dortmund, Duisburg, Münster, Oberhausen and Lünen.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia has always been Germany's powerhouse with the largest economy among the German states by GDP figures.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: In the 1950s and 1960s, Westphalia was known as "Land von Kohle und Stahl" ("Land of Coal and Steel"). In the post-World War II recovery, the Ruhr was one of the most important industrial regions in Europe, and contributed to the German Wirtschaftswunder. As of the late 1960s, repeated crises led to contractions of these industrial branches. On the other hand, producing sectors, particularly in mechanical engineering and metal and iron working industry, experienced substantial growth. Despite this structural change and an economic growth which was under national average, the 2018 GDP of 705 billion euro (1/4 of the total German GDP) made NRW the economically strongest state of Germany by GRP figures, as well as one of the most important economical areas in the world. Of Germany's top 100 corporations, 37 are based in North Rhine-Westphalia. On a per capita base, however, North Rhine-Westphalia remains one of the weaker among the Western German states.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia attracts companies from both Germany and abroad. In 2009, the state had the most foreign direct investments (FDI) anywhere in Germany. Around 13,100 foreign companies from the most important investment countries control their German or European operations from bases in North Rhine-Westphalia.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: There have been many changes in the state's economy in recent times. Among the many changes in the economy, employment in the creative industries is up while the mining sector is employing fewer people. Industrial heritage sites are now workplaces for designers, artists and the advertising industry. The Ruhr region has – since the 1960s – undergone a significant structural change away from coal mining and steel industry. Many rural parts of Eastern Westphalia, Bergisches Land and the Lower Rhine ground their economy on "Hidden Champions" in various sectors.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: As of June 2014, the unemployment rate is 8.2%, second highest among all western German states. In October 2018 the unemployment rate stood at 6.4% and was higher than the national average.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: With its central location in the most important European economic area, high population density, strong urbanization and numerous business locations, North Rhine-Westphalia has one of the densest transport networks in the world.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The regional rail network is organised around the main in towns in Rhein-Ruhr: Bonn, Cologne, Wuppertal, Düsseldorf, Essen and Dortmund. Some public transport companies in this region are run under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr, which provides a uniform ticket system valid for the entire area. The Ruhr region is well-integrated into the national rail system, the Deutsche Bahn, for both passenger and goods services, each city in the region has at least one or more train stations. The bigger central stations have hourly direct connections to the bigger European cities as Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Vienna or Zürich.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The Rhein-Ruhr area also contains some of the longest tram system in the world, with tram and Stadtbahn services from Witten to Krefeld in the VRR zone and Cologne to Bad Honnef and Siegburg via Bonn within the VRS zone. Besides the local public transportation there is an interconnected commuter rail network, with the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn network serving the Ruhr area as well as Düsseldorf and the S-Bahn Köln serving the area around Cologne.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia has the densest network of Autobahns in Germany and similar Schnellstraßen (expressways). The Autobahn network is built in a grid network, with five east–west (A2, A4, A40, A42, A44) and eight north–south (A1, A3, A43, A45, A52, A57, A59, A61) routes. The A1, A2, A3, A4 and A61 are mostly used by through traffic, while the other autobahns have a more regional function.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Both the A44 and the A52 have several missing links, in various stages of planning. Some missing sections are currently in construction or planned to be constructed in the near future.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Additional expressways serve as bypasses and local routes, especially around Dortmund and Bochum. Due to the density of the autobahns and expressways, Bundesstraßen are less important for intercity traffic. The first Autobahns in the Region opened during the mid-1930s. Due to the density of the network, and the number of alternative routes, traffic volumes are generally lower than other major metropolitan areas in Europe. Traffic congestion is an everyday occurrence, but far less so than in the Randstad in the Netherlands, another polycentric urban area. Most important Autobahns have six lanes.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The region benefits from the presence of several airport infrastructure. The main airport is Düsseldorf Airport, world class, which hosts 24.5 million passengers per year and offers flights to many destinations. Düsseldorf is the third largest airport in Germany after Frankfurt and Munich; It is a hub for Eurowings and a focus city for several more airlines. The airport has three passenger terminals and two runways and can handle wide-body aircraft up to the Airbus A380.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The second airport is the international airport of Germany's fourth-largest city Cologne, and also serves Bonn, former capital of West Germany. With around 12.4 million passengers passing through it in 2017, it is the seventh-largest passenger airport in Germany and the third-largest in terms of cargo operations. By traffic units, which combines cargo and passengers, the airport is in fifth position in Germany. As of March 2015, Cologne Bonn Airport had services to 115 passenger destinations in 35 countries. It is named after Konrad Adenauer, a Cologne native and the first post-war Chancellor of West Germany.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Third airport in the region, Dortmund Airport is a minor international airport located east of Dortmund. It serves the eastern Rhine-Ruhr area, the largest urban agglomeration in Germany, and is mainly used for low-cost and leisure charter flights. In 2019 the airport served 2,719,563 passengers.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: Then the airport of Münsterland Münster Osnabrück International Airport, hosting nearly 986,260 passengers per year and Airport Weeze with 693,404 passengers.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The Rhine flows through North Rhine-Westphalia. Its banks are usually heavily populated and industrialized, in particular the agglomerations Cologne, Düsseldorf and Ruhr area. Here the Rhine flows through the largest conurbation in Germany, the Rhine-Ruhr region. Duisburg Inner Harbour (Duisport) and Dortmund Port are large industrial inland ports and serve as hubs along the Rhine and the German inland water transport system. The country is crossed by many canals like Rhine–Herne Canal (RHK), der Wesel-Datteln-Kanal (WDK), der Datteln-Hamm-Kanal (DHK) and Dortmund-Ems-Kanal (DEK) an important role for inland navigation.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: RWTH Aachen is one of Germany's leading universities of technology and was chosen by DFG as one of the German Universities of Excellence in 2007 and again in 2012.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia is home to , with a total of over 500,000 students. Largest and oldest university is the University of Cologne "(Universität zu Köln)", founded in 1388 AD, since 2012 also one of Germany's eleven Universities of Excellence. University of Duisburg-Essen (Universität Duisburg-Essen), is also well known and is one of the largest universities in Germany.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: NRW is home to several football clubs of the Bundesliga including Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund, Borussia Mönchengladbach, 1. FC Köln, FC Schalke 04 and VfL Bochum and the 2. Bundesliga including Fortuna Düsseldorf, Arminia Bielefeld and SC Paderborn 07. Since the formal establishment of the German Bundesliga in 1963, Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach have been the most successful teams with both winning 5 titles. FC Köln won 2 titles, including the first in 1963. Before the league's establishment, North Rhine-Westfalian teams competed for the title of Deutscher Fußballmeister (German Football Champion). Here, FC Schalke 04 brought home 7 titles, while Dortmund and Köln won an additional 3 and 1 title(s), respectively. Fortuna Düsseldorf and Rot-Weiß Essen have each been German Champion once. North Rhine-Westphalia has been a very successful footballing state having a combined total of 25 championships, fewer only than Bavaria.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: The state is also home to several professional basketball teams that currently either compete in the Basketball Bundesliga or have competed there in the recent past. These teams include Telekom Baskets Bonn, Bayer Giants Leverkusen, Paderborn Baskets and Phoenix Hagen.


title: North Rhine-Westphalia

text: North Rhine-Westphalia is home to DEL teams Düsseldorfer EG, Kölner Haie, Krefeld Pinguine, and Iserlohn Roosters.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Christianity is the most widely professed religion in the United States, with Protestantism being its largest branch, although the country is believed to be "rapidly secularizing". A large variety of faiths have historically flourished within the country. The United States is a substantial outlier among other highly developed countries: uniquely combining a high level of religiosity and wealth, although this has lessened somewhat since the early 1990s. A 2020 "Pew Research Center" survey found that about 65% of Americans report that religion plays an important or very important role in their lives, 43% report attending religious services at least monthly, and 68% report praying daily or weekly. Surveys from the same period found that 28% to 32% of Americans were atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular", proportions which have been growing in recent years. Freedom of religion in the United States is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Historically, the United States has always been marked by religious pluralism and diversity, beginning with various native beliefs of the pre-colonial time, though Protestantism has long been the predominant and majority religion. In colonial times, Anglicans, Quakers, and other mainline Protestants, as well as Mennonites, arrived from Northwestern Europe. Various dissenting Protestants who had left the Church of England greatly diversified the religious landscape. The Great Awakenings gave birth to multiple evangelical Protestant denominations; membership in Methodist and Baptist churches increased drastically in the Second Great Awakening. In the 18th century, deism found support among American upper classes and intellectual thinkers. The Episcopal Church, splitting from the Church of England, came into being in the American Revolution. New Protestant branches like Adventism emerged; Restorationists and other Christians like the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Latter Day Saint movement, Churches of Christ and Church of Christ, Scientist, as well as Unitarian and Universalist communities all spread in the 19th century. During the immigrant waves of the mid to late 19th and 20th century, an unprecedented number of Catholic, Jewish, and Orthodox Christian immigrants arrived in the United States. Protestant Pentecostalism emerged in the early 20th century as a result of the Azusa Street Revival. Scientology emerged in the 1950s. Unitarian Universalism resulted from the merge of Unitarian and Universalist churches in the 20th century.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Since the 1990s, the religious share of Christians has decreased, while Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Sikhism, and other religions have spread, mainly from immigration. When including "irreligion" or "unaffiliated" as a religious category for statistical purposes, Protestantism, historically and currently the dominant form of religion in the United States, ceased to be the religious category of the majority in the early 2010s, though this is primarily the result of an increase in Americans, including Americans of Protestant descent, professing no religious affiliation, rather than being primarily the result of an increase in non-Protestant religious affiliations; Protestantism remains the most common or the majority religion among those Americans who declare a religious affiliation.


title: Religion in the United States

text: The United States has the world's largest Christian population and, more specifically, contains the largest Protestant population in the world. Christianity is the largest religion in the United States, with the various Protestant Churches having the most adherents. The United States has been called a Protestant nation by a variety of sources. In 2019, Christians represent 65% of the total adult population, 43% identifying as Protestants, 20% as Catholics, and 2% as Mormons. People with no formal religious identity form 26% of the total population. However, in the latest Pew Research Center survey (2021), religiously unaffiliated adults rose to 29% while Christianity dropped to 63%, with 40% Protestant, 21% Catholic and 2% other. When consolidating all Christian denominations into one religious grouping, Judaism is the second-largest religion in the U.S., practiced by 2% of the population, followed by Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, each with 1% of the population. Mississippi is the most religious state in the country, with 63% of its adult population described as very religious, saying that religion is important to them and attending religious services almost every week, while New Hampshire, with only 20% of its adult population described as very religious, is the least religious state. The most religious state or territory of the United States is American Samoa (99.3% religious).


title: Religion in the United States

text: According to an average of all 2021 Gallup polling, about three in four Americans said they identify with a specific religious faith. By far the largest proportion, 69%, identify with a Christian religion, including 35% who are Protestant, 22% Catholic and 12% who identify with another Christian religion or simply as a "Christian." Seven percent identify with a non-Christian religion, including 2% who are Jewish, 1% Muslim and 1% Buddhist, among others. Twenty-one percent of Americans said they have no religious preference, and 3% did not answer the question.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Ever since its early colonial days when some Protestant dissenter English and German settlers moved in search of religious freedom, America has been profoundly influenced by religion. That influence continues in American culture, social life, and politics. Several of the original Thirteen Colonies were established by settlers who wished to practice their own religion within a community of like-minded people: the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by English Puritans (Congregationalists), Pennsylvania by British Quakers, Maryland by English Catholics, and Virginia by English Anglicans. Despite these, and as a result of intervening religious strife and preference in England the Plantation Act 1740 would set official policy for new immigrants coming to British America until the American Revolution. While most settlers and colonists during this time were Protestant, a few early Catholic and Jewish settlers also arrived from Northwestern Europe into the colonies; however, their numbers were very slight compared to the Protestant majority. Even in the "Catholic Proprietary" or colony of Maryland, the vast majority of Maryland colonists were Protestant by 1670.


title: Religion in the United States

text: The text of the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It guarantees the free exercise of religion while also preventing the government from establishing a state religion. However, the states were not bound by the provision, and as late as the 1830s Massachusetts provided tax money to local Congregational churches. Since the 1940s, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment as applying the First Amendment to state and local governments.


title: Religion in the United States

text: President John Adams and a unanimous Senate endorsed the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 that stated: "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."


title: Religion in the United States

text: Expert researchers and authors have referred to the United States as a "Protestant nation" or "founded on Protestant principles," specifically emphasizing its Calvinist heritage.


title: Religion in the United States

text: The modern official motto of the United States of America, as established in a 1956 law signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, is "In God We Trust". The phrase first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864.


title: Religion in the United States

text: According to a 2002 survey by the Pew Research Center, nearly 6 in 10 Americans said that religion plays an important role in their lives, compared to 33% in Great Britain, 27% in Italy, 21% in Germany, 12% in Japan, and 11% in France. The survey report stated that the results showed America having a greater similarity to developing nations (where higher percentages say that religion plays an important role) than to other wealthy nations, where religion plays a minor role.


title: Religion in the United States

text: In 1963, 90% of U.S. adults claimed to be Christians while only 2% professed no religious identity. In 2016, 73.7% identified as Christians while 18.2% claimed no religious affiliation.


title: Religion in the United States

text: The United States federal government was the first national government to have no official state-endorsed religion.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Modeling the provisions concerning religion within the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, the framers of the Constitution rejected any religious test for office, and the First Amendment specifically denied the federal government any power to enact any law respecting either an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise, thus protecting any religious organization, institution, or denomination from government interference. The decision was mainly influenced by European Rationalist and Protestant ideals, but was also a consequence of the pragmatic concerns of minority religious groups and small states that did not want to be under the power or influence of a national religion that did not represent them.


title: Religion in the United States

text: The most popular religion in the U.S. is Christianity, comprising the majority of the population (73.7% of adults in 2016), with the majority of American Christians belonging to a Protestant denomination or a Protestant offshoot (such as Mormonism or the Jehovah's Witnesses.) According to the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies newsletter published March 2017, based on data from 2010, Christians were the largest religious population in all 3,143 counties in the country. Roughly 48.9% of Americans are Protestants, 23.0% are Catholics, 1.8% are Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Christianity was introduced during the period of European colonization. The United States has the world's largest Christian population.


title: Religion in the United States

text: The Southern Baptist Convention, with over 16 million adherents, is the largest of more than 200 distinctly named Protestant denominations. In 2007, members of evangelical churches comprised 26% of the American population, while another 18% belonged to mainline Protestant churches, and 7% belonged to historically black churches.


title: Religion in the United States

text: A 2015 study estimates some 450,000 Christian believers from a Muslim background in the country, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism. In 2010 there were approximately 180,000 Arab Americans and about 130,000 Iranian Americans who converted from Islam to Christianity. Dudley Woodbury, a Fulbright scholar of Islam, estimates that 20,000 Muslims convert to Christianity annually in the United States.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Beginning around 1600, Northwestern European settlers introduced the Anglican and Puritan religion, as well as Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Quaker, and Moravian denominations. Historians agree that members of mainline Protestant denominations have played leadership roles in many aspects of American life, including politics, business, science, the arts, and education. They founded most of the country's leading institutes of higher education. According to Harriet Zuckerman, 72% of American Nobel Prize laureates between 1901 and 1972, have identified from Protestant background.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Episcopalians and Presbyterians tend to be considerably wealthier and better educated than most other religious groups, and numbers of the most wealthy and affluent American families as the Vanderbilts and Astors, Rockefeller, Du Pont, Roosevelt, Forbes, Fords, Whitneys, Morgans and Harrimans are Mainline Protestant families, though those affiliated with Judaism are the wealthiest religious group in the United States and those affiliated with Catholicism, owing to sheer size, have one of the largest number of adherents of all groups in the top income bracket if each Protestant denomination is divided into separate groups (though the overall percentage of Catholics in high income brackets is far lower than the percentage of any Mainline Protestant group in high income brackets, and the percentage of Catholics in high income brackets is comparable to the percentage of general Americans in high income brackets.)


title: Religion in the United States

text: Some of the first colleges and universities in America, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Pennsylvania, Duke, Boston, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury, and Amherst, all were founded by mainline Protestant denominations. By the 1920s most had weakened or dropped their formal connection with a denomination. James Hunter argues that:


title: Religion in the United States

text: Several Christian groups were founded in America during the Great Awakenings. Interdenominational evangelicalism and Pentecostalism emerged; new Protestant denominations such as Adventism; non-denominational movements such as the Restoration Movement (which over time separated into the Churches of Christ, the Christian churches and churches of Christ, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)); Jehovah's Witnesses (called "Bible Students" in the latter part of the 19th century); and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism).


title: Religion in the United States

text: While the Puritans were securing their Commonwealth, members of the Catholic church in England were also planning a refuge, "for they too were being persecuted on account of their religion." Among those interested in providing a refuge for Catholics was the second Lord of Baltimore, George Calvert, who established Maryland, a "Catholic Proprietary," in 1634, more than sixty years after the founding of the Spanish Florida mission of St. Augustine. The first US Catholic university, Georgetown University, was founded in 1789. Though small in number in the beginning, Catholicism grew over the centuries to become the largest single denomination in the US, primarily through immigration, but also through the acquisition of continental territories under the jurisdiction of French and Spanish Catholic powers. Though the European Catholic and indigenous population of these former territories were small, the material cultures there, the original mission foundations with their canonical Catholic names, are still recognized today (as they were formerly known) in any number of cities in California, New Mexico and Louisiana. (The most recognizable cities of California, for example, are named after Catholic saints.)


title: Religion in the United States

text: While Catholic Americans were present in small numbers early in United States history, both in Maryland and in the former French and Spanish colonies that were eventually absorbed into the United States, the vast majority of Catholics in the United States today derive from unprecedented waves of immigration from primarily Catholic countries and regions (Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom until 1921 and German unification didn't officially occur until 1871) during the mid-to-late 19th and 20th century. Irish, Hispanic, Italian, Portuguese, French Canadian, Polish, German, and Lebanese (Maronite) immigrants largely contributed to the growth in the number of Catholics in the United States. Irish and German Catholics, by far, provided the greatest number of Catholic immigrants before 1900. From 1815 until the close of the Civil War in 1865, 1,683,791 Irish Catholics immigrated to the US. The German states followed, providing "the second largest immigration of Catholics, clergy and lay, some 606,791 in the period 1815-1865, and another 680,000 between 1865 and 1900, while the Irish immigration in the latter period amounted to only 520,000." Of the four major national groups of clergy (early and mid-19th century)—Irish, German, Anglo-American, and French—"the French emigre priests may be said to have been the outstanding men, intellectually." As the number of Catholics increased in the late 19th and 20th century, they built up a vast system of schools (from primary schools to universities) and hospitals. Since then, the Catholic Church has founded hundreds of other colleges and universities, along with thousands of primary and secondary schools. Schools like the University of Notre Dame is ranked best in its state (Indiana), as Georgetown University is ranked best in the District of Columbia. 12 Catholic universities are also ranked among the top 100 universities in the US.


title: Religion in the United States

text: Eastern Orthodox Christianity was present in North America since the Russian colonization of Alaska; however, Alaska would not become a United States territory until 1867, and most Eastern Orthodox Russian settlers in Alaska returned to Russia after the American acquisition of the Alaskan territory. However the native converts and a few priests remained behind, and Alaska still is represented. Most Eastern Orthodox Christians arrived in the contiguous United States as immigrants beginning in the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century. During the 19th century, two main branches of Eastern Christianity also arrived to America. Eastern Orthodoxy was brought to America by Greek, Ukrainian, Serbian, and other immigrant groups, mainly from Eastern Europe. In the same time, several immigrant groups from the Middle East, mainly Armenians, Copts and Syriacs, brought Oriental Orthodoxy to America.


title: Religion in the United States

text: The strength of various sects varies greatly in different regions of the country, with rural parts of the South having many evangelicals but very few Catholics (except Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, and from among the Hispanic community, both of which consist mainly of Catholics), while urbanized areas of the north Atlantic states and Great Lakes, as well as many industrial and mining towns, are heavily Catholic, though still quite mixed, especially due to the heavily Protestant African-American communities. In 1990, nearly 72% of the population of Utah was Mormon, as well as 26% of neighboring Idaho. Lutheranism is most prominent in the Upper Midwest, with North Dakota having the highest percentage of Lutherans (35% according to a 2001 survey).


title: Religion in the United States

text: The largest religion, Christianity, has proportionately diminished since 1990. While the absolute number of Christians rose from 1990 to 2008, the percentage of Christians dropped from 86% to 76%. A nationwide telephone interview of 1,002 adults conducted by The Barna Group found that 70% of American adults believe that God is "the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe who still rules it today", and that 9% of all American adults and 0.5% young adults hold to what the survey defined as a "biblical worldview".


title: Religion in the United States

text: Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Eastern Orthodox and United Church of Christ members have the highest number of graduate and post-graduate degrees per capita of all Christian denominations in the United States, as well as the most high-income earners. However, owing to the sheer size or demographic head count of Catholics, more individual Catholics have graduate degrees and are in the highest income brackets than have or are individuals of any other religious community.