title: Carlos Santana

text: In August 2021, Santana signed a new global record deal with BMG to release his new full-length studio album "Blessings and Miracles". The same month, he performed in New York's Central Park along with Rob Thomas and Wyclef Jean.


title: Carlos Santana

text: Santana played a red Gibson SG Special with P-90 pickups at the Woodstock festival (1969). During 1970–1972, between the release of "Abraxas" (1970) and "Santana III" 1971, he used different Gibson Les Pauls and a black Gibson SG Special. In 1974, he played and endorsed the Gibson L6-S Custom. This can be heard on the album "Borboletta" (1974). From 1976 until 1982, his main guitar was a Yamaha SG 175B, and sometimes a white Gibson SG Custom with three open-coil pick-ups. In 1982, he started to use a custom made PRS Custom 24 guitar. In 1988 PRS Guitars began making Santana signature model guitars, which Santana has played through its various iterations ever since (see below).


title: Carlos Santana

text: Santana currently uses a Santana II model guitar fitted with PRS Santana III nickel-covered pickups, a tremolo bar, and .009–.042 gauge D'Addario strings. He also plays a PRS Santana MD "The Multidimensional" guitar. The Santana guitars feature necks made of a single piece of mahogany topped with rosewood fretboards (some feature highly sought-after Brazilian rosewood).


title: Carlos Santana

text: Santana also uses a classical guitar, the Alvarez Yairi CY127CE with Alvarez tension nylon strings, in the last years from 2009 he uses custom made, semi-hollow Toru Nittono's "Model-T" Jazz Electric Nylon.


title: Carlos Santana

text: Santana does not use many effects pedals. His PRS guitar is connected to a Mu-Tron Wah-wah pedal (or, more recently, a Dunlop 535Q wah and a T-Rex Replica delay pedal, then through a customized Jim Dunlop amp switcher which in turn is connected to the different amps or cabinets.


title: Carlos Santana

text: Previous setups include an Ibanez Tube Screamer right after the guitar. He is also known to have used an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff distortion for his famous sustain. In the song "Stand Up" from the album "Marathon" (1979), Santana uses a Heil talk box in the guitar solo. He has also used the Audiotech Guitar Products 1x6 Rack Mount Audio Switcher in rehearsals for the 2008 "Live Your Light" tour.


title: Carlos Santana

text: Santana uses two different guitar picks: the large triangular Dunlop he has used for so many years, and the V-Pick Freakishly Large Round.


title: Carlos Santana

text: Santana's distinctive guitar tone is produced by PRS Santana signature guitars plugged into multiple amplifiers. The amps consist of a Mesa Boogie Mark I, Dumble Overdrive Reverb and more recently a Bludotone amplifier. Santana compares the tonal qualities of each amplifier to that of a singer producing head/nasal tones, chest tones, and belly tones. A three-way amp switcher is employed on Carlos's pedal board to enable him to switch between amps. Often the unique tones of each amplifier are blended together, complementing each other producing a richer tone.


title: Carlos Santana

text: He also put the "Boogie" in Mesa Boogie. Santana is credited with coining the popular Mesa amplifier name when he tried one and exclaimed, "That little thing really Boogies!"


title: Carlos Santana

text: Specifically, Santana combines a Mesa/Boogie Mark I head running through a Boogie cabinet with Altec 417-8H (or recently JBL E120s) speakers, and a Dumble Overdrive Reverb and/or a Dumble Overdrive Special running through a Brown or Marshall 4x12 cabinet with Celestion G12M "Greenback" speakers, depending on the desired sound. Shure KSM-32 microphones are used to pick up the sound, going to the PA. Additionally, a Fender Cyber-Twin Amp is mostly used at home.


title: Carlos Santana

text: During his early career, Santana used a GMT transistor amplifier stack and a silverface Fender Twin. The GMT 226A rig was used at the Woodstock concert as well as during recording Santana's debut album. During this era, Santana also began to use the Fender Twin, which was also used on the debut and proceedingly at the recording sessions of Abraxas.


title: Carlos Santana

text: After discovering Chinmoy and Yogandanda in 1972, Santana quit marijuana until 1981. In 2020, Santana launched his own brand of cannabis named Mirayo that honours "the spiritual and ancient Latin heritage of the plant."


title: Carlos Santana

text: From 1973 to 2007, he was married to Deborah King, daughter of blues musician Saunders King. They have three children, Salvador, Stella, and Angelica, and co-founded the Milagro (Miracle) Foundation, non-profit organization which provides financial aid for educational, medical, and other needs. In 2007, King filed for divorce after 34 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. On July 9, 2010, Santana proposed to his touring drummer Cindy Blackman on stage during a concert at Tinley Park, Illinois. The two were married in December 2010, and currently live in Las Vegas.


title: Carlos Santana

text: Santana underwent heart surgery in December 2021. He suffered an undisclosed medical emergency on stage at a concert at Pine Knob Music Theatre in Michigan on July 5, 2022, but was able to gain consciousness while being helped off the stage. A statement from his publicist later announced that he collapsed from heat and dehydration, but was being observed at the local hospital and will recover soon. His show scheduled for the day after was postponed. On July 8, 2022, Santana's management company announced that he would postpone his next six concerts out of an “abundance of caution for the artist’s health”.


title: Ra

text: Ra (; ; also transliterated ; cuneiform: "ri-a" or "ri-ia"; Phoenician: 𐤓𐤏, rʿ) or Re (; ) was the ancient Egyptian deity of the sun. By the Fifth Dynasty, in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the noon-day sun. Ra ruled in all parts of the created world: the sky, the earth, and the underworld. He was the god of the sun, order, kings and the sky.


title: Ra

text: Ra was portrayed as a falcon and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus. At times the two deities were merged as Ra-Horakhty, ""Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons"". In the New Kingdom, when the god Amun rose to prominence he was fused with Ra as Amun-Ra.


title: Ra

text: The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its center in Heliopolis and there was a formal burial ground for the sacrificed bulls north of the city.


title: Ra

text: All forms of life were believed to have been created by Ra. In some accounts, humans were created from Ra's tears and sweat, hence the Egyptians call themselves the "Cattle of Ra". In the myth of the Celestial Cow, it is recounted how mankind plotted against Ra and how he sent his eye as the goddess Sekhmet to punish them.


title: Ra

text: The sun is the giver of life, controlling the ripening of crops that were worked by man. Because of the life-giving qualities of the sun the Egyptians worshiped the sun as a god. The creator of the universe and the giver of life, the sun or Ra represented life, warmth and growth. Since the people regarded Ra as a principal god, creator of the universe and the source of life, he had a strong influence on them, which led to him being one of the most worshiped of all the Egyptian gods and even considered King of the Gods.


title: Ra

text: At an early period in Egyptian history his influence spread throughout the whole country, bringing multiple representations in form and in name. The most common form combinations are with Atum (his human form), Khepri (the scarab beetle) and Horus (the falcon). The form in which he usually appears is that of a man with a falcon's head, which is due to his combination with Horus, another sky-god. On top of his head sits a solar disc with a cobra, which in many myths represents the Eye of Ra. At the beginning of time, when there was nothing but chaos, the sun-god existed alone in the watery mass of Nun which filled the universe. "I am Atum when he was alone in Nun, I am Ra when he dawned, when he began to rule that which he had made." This passage talks about how Atum created everything in human form out of the chaos and how Ra then began to rule over the Earth where humans and divine beings coexisted. He created Shu, god of air, and the goddess of moisture, Tefnut. The siblings symbolized two universal principles of humans: life and right (justice). Ra was believed to have created all forms of life by calling them into existence by uttering their secret names. In some accounts humans were created from Ra's tears and sweat.


title: Ra

text: According to one myth the first portion of Earth came into being when the sun god summoned it out of the watery mass of Nun. In the myth of the Celestial Cow (the sky was thought of as a huge cow, the goddess Meht-urt) it is recounted how mankind plotted against Ra and how he sent his eye, as the goddess Sekhmet, to punish them. Extensions of Ra's power were often shown as the Eye of Ra, which were the female versions of the sun-god. Ra had three daughters Bastet, Sekhmet and Hathor, who were all considered the Eye of Ra, who would seek out his vengeance. Sekhmet was the Eye of Ra and was created by the fire in Ra's eye. She was violent and sent to slaughter the people who betrayed Ra, but when calm she became the more kind and forgiving goddess Hathor. Sekhmet was the powerful warrior and protector while Bastet, who was depicted as a cat, was shown as gentle and nurturing.


title: Ra

text: Ra was thought to travel on the Atet, two solar barques called the "Mandjet" (the Boat of Millions of Years) or morning-boat and the "Mesektet" or evening-boat. These boats took him on his journey through the sky and the "Duat" – twelve hours of night which is also the literal underworld of Egypt. While Ra was on the "Mesektet", he was in his ram-headed form. When Ra traveled in his sun-boat, he was accompanied by various other deities including Sia (perception) and Hu (command), as well as Heka (magic power). Sometimes, members of the Ennead helped him on his journey, including Set, who overcame the serpent Apophis, and Mehen, who defended against the monsters of the underworld. When Ra was in the underworld, he would visit all of his various forms.


title: Ra

text: Apophis, the god of chaos ("isfet"), was an enormous serpent who attempted to stop the sun-boat's journey every night by consuming it or by stopping it in its tracks with a hypnotic stare. During the evening, the Egyptians believed that Ra set as Atum or in the form of a ram. The night boat would carry him through the underworld and back towards the east in preparation for his rebirth. These myths of Ra represented the sun rising as the rebirth of the sun by the sky-goddess Nut; thus attributing the concept of rebirth and renewal to Ra and strengthening his role as a creator god as well.


title: Ra

text: Ra was portrayed as a falcon adorned with a sun disk between his horns with a Cobra around it, and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus.Ra was represented in a variety of forms. Other common forms are a man with the head of a beetle (in his form as Khepri), or a man with the head of a ram. Ra was also pictured as a full-bodied ram, beetle, phoenix, heron, serpent, bull, cat, or lion, among others.


title: Ra

text: He was most commonly featured with a ram's head in the Underworld. In this form, Ra is described as being the "ram of the west" or "ram in charge of his harem.


title: Ra

text: In some literature, Ra is described as an aging king with golden flesh, silver bones, and hair of lapis lazuli.


title: Ra

text: The chief cultic center of Ra was "Iunu" "the Place of Pillars", later known to the Ptolemaic Kingdom as Heliopolis (,  "Sun City") and today located in the suburbs of Cairo. He was identified with the local sun god Atum. As Atum or Atum-Ra, he was reckoned the first being and the originator of the Ennead ("The Nine"), consisting of Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut, Osiris, Set, Isis and Nephthys. The holiday of "The Receiving of Ra" was celebrated on May 26 in the Gregorian calendar.


title: Ra

text: Ra's local cult began to grow from roughly the Second Dynasty, establishing him as a sun-deity. By the Fourth Dynasty, pharaohs were seen as Ra's manifestations on Earth, referred to as "Sons of Ra". His worship increased massively in the Fifth Dynasty, when Ra became a state-deity and pharaohs had specially aligned pyramids, obelisks, and sun temples built in his honor. The rulers of the Fifth Dynasty told their followers that they were sons of Ra himself and the wife of the high priest of Heliopolis. These pharaohs spent much of Egypt's money on sun-temples. The first Pyramid Texts began to arise, giving Ra more and more significance in the journey of the pharaoh through the Duat (underworld).


title: Ra

text: During the Middle Kingdom, Ra was increasingly affiliated and combined with other chief deities, especially Amun and Osiris.


title: Ra

text: At the time of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the worship of Ra had become more complicated and grander. The walls of tombs were dedicated to extremely detailed texts that depicted Ra's journey through the underworld. Ra was said to carry the prayers and blessings of the living with the souls of the dead on the sun-boat. The idea that Ra aged with the sun became more popular during the rise of the New Kingdom.


title: Ra

text: As with most widely worshiped Egyptian deities, Ra's identity was often combined with other gods', forming an interconnection between deities.


title: Carnivora

text: Carnivora is a monophyletic order of placental mammals consisting of the most recent common ancestor of all cat-like and dog-like animals, and all descendants of that ancestor. Members of this group are formally referred to as carnivorans, and have evolved to specialize in eating flesh. The order is the fifth largest order of mammals, comprising at least 279 species.


title: Carnivora

text: Carnivorans live on every major landmass and in a variety of habitats, ranging from the cold polar regions to the hyper-arid region of the Sahara Desert to the open seas. They come in a very large array of different body plans in contrasting shapes and sizes.


title: Carnivora

text: Carnivora can be divided into two subclades: the cat-like Feliformia and the dog-like Caniformia, which are differentiated based on the structure of their ear bones and cranial features. The feliforms include families such as the cats, the hyenas, the mongooses and the civets. The majority of feliform species are found in the Old World, though the cats and one extinct genus of hyena have successfully diversified into the Americas. The caniforms include the dogs, bears, raccoons, weasels, and seals. Members of this group are found worldwide and with immense diversity in their diet, behavior, and morphology.


title: Carnivora

text: The word "carnivore" is derived from Latin "carō" (stem "carn-") 'flesh' and "vorāre" 'to devour', and refers to any meat-eating organism.


title: Carnivora

text: The oldest known carnivoran line mammals (Carnivoramorpha) appeared in North America 6 million years after the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event. These early ancestors of carnivorans would have resembled small weasel or genet-like mammals, occupying a nocturnal shift on the forest floor or in the trees, as other groups of mammals like the mesonychians and later the creodonts were occupying the megafaunal faunivorous niche. However, following the extinction of mesonychians and the oxyaenid creodonts at the end of the Eocene, carnivorans quickly moved into this niche, with forms like the nimravids being the dominant large-bodied ambush predators during the Oligocene alongside the hyaenodont creodonts (which similarly produced larger, more open-country forms at the start of the Oligocene). By the time Miocene epoch appeared, most if not all of the major lineages and families of carnivorans had diversified and become the most dominant group of large terrestrial predators in Eurasia and North America, with various lineages being successful in megafaunal faunivorous niches at different intervals during the Miocene and later epochs.


title: Carnivora

text: The order Carnivora belongs to a group of mammals known as Laurasiatheria, which also includes other groups such as bats and ungulates. Within this group the carnivorans are placed in the clade Ferae. Ferae includes the closest extant relative of carnivorans, the pangolins, as well as several extinct groups of mostly Paleogene carnivorous placentals such as the creodonts, the arctocyonians, and mesonychians. The creodonts were originally thought of as the sister taxon to the carnivorans, perhaps even ancestral to, based on the presence of the carnassial teeth, but the nature of the carnassial teeth is different between the two groups. In carnivorans the carnassials are positioned near the front of the molar row, while in the creodonts they are positioned near the back of the molar row, and this suggests a separate evolutionary history and an order-level distinction. In addition recent phylogenetic analysis suggests that creodonts are more closely related to pangolins while mesonychians might be the sister group to carnivorans and their stem-relatives.


title: Carnivora

text: The closest stem-carnivorans are the miacoids. The miacoids include the families Viverravidae and Miacidae, and together the Carnivora and Miacoidea form the stem-clade Carnivoramorpha. The miacoids were small, genet-like carnivoramorphs that occupy a variety of niches such as terrestrial and arboreal habitats. Recent studies have shown a supporting amount of evidence that Miacoidea is an evolutionary grade of carnivoramorphs that, while viverravids are monophyletic basal group, the miacids are paraphyletic in respect to Carnivora (as shown in the phylogeny below).


title: Carnivora

text: Carnivoramorpha as a whole first appeared in the Paleocene of North America about 60 million years ago. Crown carnivorans first appeared around 42 million years ago in the Middle Eocene. Their molecular phylogeny shows the extant Carnivora are a monophyletic group, the crown group of the Carnivoramorpha. From there carnivorans have split into two clades based on the composition of the bony structures that surround the middle ear of the skull, the cat-like feliforms and the dog-like caniforms. In feliforms, the auditory bullae are double-chambered, composed of two bones joined by a septum. Caniforms have single-chambered or partially divided auditory bullae, composed of a single bone. Initially the early representatives of carnivorans were small as the creodonts (specifically, the oxyaenids) and mesonychians dominated the apex predator niches during the Eocene, but in the Oligocene carnivorans became a dominant group of apex predators with the nimravids, and by the Miocene most of the extant carnivoran families have diversified and become the primary terrestrial predators in the Northern Hemisphere.


title: Carnivora

text: In 1758 the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus placed all carnivorans known at the time into the group Ferae (not to be confused with the modern concept of Ferae which also includes pangolins) in the tenth edition of his book "Systema Naturae". He recognized six genera: "Canis" (canids and hyaenids), "Phoca" (pinnipeds), "Felis" (felids), "Viverra" (viverrids, herpestids, and mephitids), "Mustela" (non-badger mustelids), "Ursus" (ursids, large species of mustelids, and procyonids). It wasn't until 1821 that the English writer and traveler Thomas Edward Bowdich gave the group its modern and accepted name.


title: Carnivora

text: Initially the modern concept of Carnivora was divided into two suborders: the terrestrial Fissipedia and the marine Pinnipedia. Below is the classification of how the extant families were related to each other after American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson in 1945:


title: Carnivora

text: Since then, however, the methods in which mammalogists use to assess the phylogenetic relationships among the carnivoran families has been improved with using more complicated and intensive incorporation of genetics, morphology and the fossil record. Research into Carnivora phylogeny since 1945 has found Fisspedia to be paraphlyetic in respect to Pinnipedia, with pinnipeds being either more closely related to bears or to weasels. The small carnivoran families Viverridae, Procyonidae, and Mustelidae have been found to be polyphyletic:


title: Carnivora

text: Below is a table chart of the extant carnivoran families and number of extant species recognized by various authors of the first and fourth volumes of "Handbook of the Mammals of the World" published in 2009 and 2014 respectively:


title: Carnivora

text: The canine teeth are usually large and conical. The canines are thick and stress resistant. All of the terrestrial species of carnivorans have three incisors on each side of each jaw (the exception is the sea otter ("Enhydra lutris") which only has two lower incisor teeth). The third molar has been lost. The carnassial pair is made up of the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar teeth. Like most mammals, the dentition is heterodont, though in some species, such as the aardwolf ("Proteles cristata"), the teeth have been greatly reduced and the cheek teeth are specialised for eating insects. In pinnipeds, the teeth are homodont as they have evolved to grasp or catch fish, and the cheek teeth are often lost. In bears and raccoons the carnassial pair is secondarily reduced. The skulls are heavily built with a strong zygomatic arch. Often a sagittal crest is present, sometimes more evident in sexually dimorphic species such as sea lions and fur seals, though it has also been greatly reduced in some small carnivorans. The braincase is enlarged with the frontoparietal bone at the front. In most species, the eyes are at the front of the face. In caniforms, the rostrum is usually long with many teeth, while in feliforms it is shorter with fewer teeth. The carnassial teeth of feliforms are generally more sectional than those of caniforms. The turbinates are large and complex in comparison to other mammals, providing a large surface area for olfactory receptors.


title: Carnivora

text: Aside from an accumulation of characteristics in the dental and cranial features, not much of their overall anatomy unites carnivorans as a group. All species of carnivorans are quadrupedal and most have five digits on the front feet and four digits on the back feet. In terrestrial carnivorans, the feet have soft pads. The feet can either be digitigrade as seen in cats, hyenas and dogs or plantigrade as seen in bears, skunks, raccoons, weasels, civets and mongooses. In pinnipeds, the limbs have been modified into flippers.


title: Carnivora

text: Unlike cetaceans and sirenians, which have fully functional tails to help them swim, pinnipeds use their limbs underwater to swim. Earless seals use their back flippers; sea lions and fur seals use their front flippers, and the walrus use all of their limbs. As a result, pinnipeds have significantly shorter tails than other carnivorans.


title: Carnivora

text: Aside from the pinnipeds, dogs, bears, hyenas, and cats all have distinct and recognizable appearances. Dogs are usually cursorial mammals and are gracile in appearance, often relying on their teeth to hold prey; bears are much larger and rely on their physical strength to forage for food. Compared to dogs and bears, cats have longer and stronger forelimbs armed with retractable claws to hold on to prey. Hyenas are dog-like feliforms that have sloping backs due to their front legs being longer than their hind legs. The raccoon family and red panda are small, bear-like carnivorans with long tails. The other small carnivoran families Nandiniidae, Prionodontidae, Viverridae, Herpestidae, Eupleridae, Mephitidae and Mustelidae have through convergent evolution maintained the small, ancestral appearance of the miacoids, though there is some variation seen such as the robust and stout physicality of badgers and the wolverine ("Gulo gulo"). Male carnivorans usually have bacula, though they are absent in hyenas and binturongs.


title: Carnivora

text: The length and density of the fur vary depending on the environment that the species inhabits. In warm climate species, the fur is often short in length and lighter. In cold climate species, the fur is either dense or long, often with an oily substance that helps to retain heat. The pelage coloration differs between species, often including black, white, orange, yellow, red, and many shades of grey and brown. Some are striped, spotted, blotched, banded, or otherwise boldly patterned. There seems to be a correlation between habitat and color pattern; for example spotted or banded species tend to be found in heavily forested environments. Some species like the grey wolf are polymorphic with different individual having different coat colors. The arctic fox ("Vulpes lagopus") and the stoat ("Mustela erminea") have fur that changes from white and dense in the winter to brown and sparse in the summer. In pinnipeds, polar bears, and sea otters a thick insulating layer of blubber helps maintain their body temperature.


title: Carnivora

text: Carnivorans are arguably the group of mammals of most interest to humans. The dog is noteworthy for not only being the first species of carnivoran to be domesticated, but also the first species of any taxon. In the last 10,000 to 12,000 years humans have selectively bred dogs for a variety of different tasks and today there are well over 400 breeds. The cat is another domesticated carnivoran and it is today considered one of the most successful species on the planet, due to their close proximity to humans and the popularity of cats as pets. Many other species are popular, and they are often charismatic megafauna. Many civilizations have incorporated a species of carnivoran into their culture such as the lion, viewed as royalty. Yet many species such as wolves and the big cats have been broadly hunted, resulting in extirpation in some areas. Habitat loss and human encroachment as well as climate change have been the primary cause of many species going into decline. Four species of carnivorans have gone extinct since the 1600s: Falkland Island Wolf ("Dusicyon australis") in 1876; the Sea Mink ("Neogale macrodon") in 1894; the Japanese Sea Lion ("Zalophus japonicus") in 1951 and the Caribbean Monk Seal ("Neomonachus tropicalis") in 1952. Some species such as the red fox ("Vulpes vulpes") and stoat ("Mustela erminea") have been introduced to Australasia and have caused many native species to become endangered or even extinct.


title: Osiris

text: Osiris (, from Egyptian "wsjr", , ; Phoenician: 𐤀𐤎𐤓, ʾsr) is the god of fertility, agriculture, the afterlife, the dead, resurrection, life, and vegetation in ancient Egyptian religion. He was classically depicted as a green-skinned deity with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive atef crown, and holding a symbolic crook and flail. He was one of the first to be associated with the mummy wrap. When his brother, Set cut him up into pieces after killing him, Osiris' wife Isis found all the pieces and wrapped his body up, enabling him to return to life. Osiris was widely worshipped until the decline of ancient Egyptian religion during the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.


title: Osiris

text: Osiris was at times considered the eldest son of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut, as well as being brother and husband of Isis, and brother of Set, Nephthys, and Horus the Elder, with Horus the Younger being considered his posthumously begotten son. Through syncretism with Iah, he was also a god of the Moon.


title: Osiris

text: Osiris was the judge and lord of the dead and the underworld, the "Lord of Silence" and Khenti-Amentiu, meaning "Foremost of the Westerners". In the Old Kingdom (2686 - 2181 BC) the pharaoh was considered a son of the sun god Ra who, after his death, ascended to join Ra in the sky. After the spread of the Osiris cult, however, the kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death – as Osiris rose from the dead, they would unite with him and inherit eternal life through imitative magic.


title: Osiris

text: Through the hope of new life after death, Osiris began to be associated with the cycles in nature, in particular the sprouting of vegetation and the annual flooding of the Nile River, as well as the heliacal rising of Orion and Sirius at the start of the new year. He became the sovereign that granted all life, "He Who is Permanently Benign and Youthful".


title: Osiris

text: The first evidence of the worship of Osiris is from the middle of the Fifth Dynasty of Egypt (25th century BC), although it is likely that he was worshiped much earlier; the Khenti-Amentiu epithet dates to at least the First Dynasty, and was also used as a pharaonic title. Most information available on the Osiris myth is derived from allusions in the Pyramid Texts at the end of the Fifth Dynasty, later New Kingdom source documents such as the Shabaka Stone and "The Contendings of Horus and Seth", and much later, in the narratives of Greek authors including Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus.


title: Osiris

text: Some Egyptologists believe the Osiris mythos may have originated in a former living ruler - possibly a shepherd who lived in Predynastic times (5500–3100 BC) in the Nile Delta, whose beneficial rule led to him being revered as a god. The accoutrements of the shepherd, the crook and the flail - once insignia of the Delta god Andjety, with whom Osiris was associated - support this theory.


title: Osiris

text: "Osiris" is a Latin transliteration of the Ancient Greek , which in turn is the Greek adaptation of the original name in the Egyptian language. In Egyptian hieroglyphs the name appears as "wsjr", which some Egyptologists instead choose to transliterate as "ꜣsjr" or "jsjrj". Since hieroglyphic writing lacks vowels, Egyptologists have vocalized the name in various ways, such as Asar, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, Usir, or Usire.


title: Osiris

text: Several proposals have been made for the etymology and meaning of the original name; as Egyptologist Mark J. Smith notes, none are fully convincing. Most take "wsjr" as the accepted transliteration, following Adolf Erman:


title: Osiris

text: Osiris is represented in his most developed form of iconography wearing the "Atef" crown, which is similar to the White crown of Upper Egypt, but with the addition of two curling ostrich feathers at each side. He also carries the crook and flail. The crook is thought to represent Osiris as a shepherd god. The symbolism of the flail is more uncertain with shepherds whip, fly-whisk, or association with the god Andjety of the ninth nome of Lower Egypt proposed.


title: Osiris

text: He was commonly depicted as a pharaoh with a complexion of either green (the color of rebirth) or black (alluding to the fertility of the Nile floodplain) in mummiform (wearing the trappings of mummification from chest downward).


title: Osiris

text: The Pyramid Texts describe early conceptions of an afterlife in terms of eternal travelling with the sun god amongst the stars. Amongst these mortuary texts, at the beginning of the Fourth Dynasty, is found: ""An offering the king gives and Anubis"". By the end of the Fifth Dynasty, the formula in all tombs becomes ""An offering the king gives and Osiris"".


title: Osiris

text: Osiris is the mythological father of the god Horus, whose conception is described in the Osiris myth (a central myth in ancient Egyptian belief). The myth describes Osiris as having been killed by his brother Set, who wanted Osiris' throne. His wife, Isis, finds the body of Osiris and hides it in the reeds where it is found and dismembered by Set. Isis retrieves and joins the fragmented pieces of Osiris, then briefly revives him by use of magic. This spell gives her time to become pregnant by Osiris. Isis later gives birth to Horus. Since Horus was born after Osiris' resurrection, Horus became thought of as a representation of new beginnings and the vanquisher of the usurper Set.


title: Osiris

text: "Ptah-Seker" (who resulted from the identification of the creator god Ptah with Seker) thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris. As the sun was thought to spend the night in the underworld, and was subsequently "reborn" every morning, Ptah-Seker-Osiris was identified as king of the underworld, god of the afterlife, life, death, and regeneration.


title: Osiris

text: Osiris' soul, or rather his "Ba", was occasionally worshipped in its own right, almost as if it were a distinct god, especially in the Delta city of Mendes. This aspect of Osiris was referred to as "Banebdjedet", which is grammatically feminine (also spelt ""Banebded"" or ""Banebdjed""), literally "the "ba" of the lord of the "djed", which roughly means "The soul of the lord of the pillar of continuity". The "djed", a type of pillar, was usually understood as the backbone of Osiris.


title: Osiris

text: The Nile supplying water, and Osiris (strongly connected to the vegetable regeneration) who died only to be resurrected, represented continuity and stability. As "Banebdjed", Osiris was given epithets such as "Lord of the Sky" and "Life of the (sun god) Ra". "Ba" does not mean "soul" in the western sense, and has to do with power, reputation, force of character, especially in the case of a god.


title: Osiris

text: Since the "ba" was associated with power, and also happened to be a word for ram in Egyptian, Banebdjed was depicted as a ram, or as Ram-headed. A living, sacred ram was kept at Mendes and worshipped as the incarnation of the god, and upon death, the rams were mummified and buried in a ram-specific necropolis. Banebdjed was consequently said to be Horus' father, as Banebdjed was an aspect of Osiris.


title: Osiris

text: Regarding the association of Osiris with the ram, the god's traditional crook and flail are the instruments of the shepherd, which has suggested to some scholars also an origin for Osiris in herding tribes of the upper Nile.


title: Osiris

text: Plutarch recounts one version of the Osiris myth in which Set (Osiris' brother), along with the Queen of Ethiopia, conspired with 72 accomplices to plot the assassination of Osiris.


title: Osiris

text: Set fooled Osiris into getting into a box, which Set then shut, sealed with lead, and threw into the Nile. Osiris' wife, Isis, searched for his remains until she finally found him embedded in a tamarisk tree trunk, which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast. She managed to remove the coffin and retrieve her husband's body.


title: Osiris

text: In one version of the myth, Isis used a spell to briefly revive Osiris so he could impregnate her. After embalming and burying Osiris, Isis conceived and gave birth to their son, Horus. Thereafter Osiris lived on as the god of the underworld. Because of his death and resurrection, Osiris was associated with the flooding and retreating of the Nile and thus with the yearly growth and death of crops along the Nile valley.


title: Osiris

text: Diodorus Siculus gives another version of the myth in which Osiris was described as an ancient king who taught the Egyptians the arts of civilization, including agriculture, then travelled the world with his sister Isis, the satyrs, and the nine muses, before finally returning to Egypt. Osiris was then murdered by his evil brother Typhon, who was identified with Set. Typhon divided the body into twenty-six pieces, which he distributed amongst his fellow conspirators in order to implicate them in the murder. Isis and Hercules (Horus) avenged the death of Osiris and slew Typhon. Isis recovered all the parts of Osiris' body, except the phallus, and secretly buried them. She made replicas of them and distributed them to several locations, which then became centres of Osiris worship.


title: Osiris

text: Annual ceremonies were performed in honor of Osiris in various places across Egypt. Evidences of which were discovered during underwater archaeological excavations of Franck Goddio and his team in the sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion. These ceremonies were fertility rites which symbolised the resurrection of Osiris. Recent scholars emphasize "the androgynous character of [Osiris'] fertility" clear from surviving material. For instance, Osiris' fertility has to come both from being castrated/cut-into-pieces and the reassembly by female Isis, whose embrace of her reassembled Osiris produces the perfect king, Horus. Further, as attested by tomb-inscriptions, both women and men could syncretize (identify) with Osiris at their death, another set of evidence that underlines Osiris' androgynous nature.


title: Osiris

text: Plutarch and others have noted that the sacrifices to Osiris were "gloomy, solemn, and mournful..." (Isis and Osiris, 69) and that the great mystery festival, celebrated in two phases, began at Abydos commemorating the death of the god, on the same day that grain was planted in the ground (Isis and Osiris, 13). The annual festival involved the construction of "Osiris Beds" formed in shape of Osiris, filled with soil and sown with seed. The germinating seed symbolized Osiris rising from the dead. An almost pristine example was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun. The imiut emblem- an image of a stuffed, headless skin of an animal tied to a pole mounting a pot, was a symbol associated both with Osiris as god of the underworld and with Anubis, god of mummification, was sometimes included among a deceased person's funerary equipment.


title: Osiris

text: The first phase of the festival was a public drama depicting the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search for his body by Isis, his triumphal return as the resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set.


title: Osiris

text: According to Julius Firmicus Maternus of the fourth century, this play was re-enacted each year by worshippers who "beat their breasts and gashed their shoulders... When they pretend that the mutilated remains of the god have been found and rejoined...they turn from mourning to rejoicing." ("De Errore Profanarum Religionum").


title: Osiris

text: The passion of Osiris was reflected in his name 'Wenennefer" ("the one who continues to be perfect"), which also alludes to his post mortem power.


title: Osiris

text: Much of the extant information about the rites of Osiris can be found on the Ikhernofret Stela at Abydos erected in the Twelfth Dynasty by Ikhernofret, possibly a priest of Osiris or other official (the titles of Ikhernofret are described in his stela from Abydos) during the reign of Senwosret III (Pharaoh Sesostris, about 1875 BC). The ritual reenactment of Osiris's funeral rites were held in the last month of the inundation (the annual Nile flood), coinciding with Spring, and held at Abydos which was the traditional place where the body of Osiris drifted ashore after having been drowned in the Nile.


title: Osiris

text: The part of the myth recounting the chopping up of the body into 14 pieces by Set is not recounted in this particular stela. Although it is attested to be a part of the rituals by a version of the Papyrus Jumilhac, in which it took Isis 12 days to reassemble the pieces, coinciding with the festival of ploughing. Some elements of the ceremony were held in the temple, while others involved public participation in a form of theatre. The Stela of Ikhernofret recounts the programme of events of the public elements over the five days of the Festival:


title: Osiris

text: Contrasting with the public "theatrical" ceremonies sourced from the Middle Kingdom Ikhernofret Stele, more esoteric ceremonies were performed inside the temples by priests. Plutarch mentions that (for much later period) two days after the beginning of the festival "the priests bring forth a sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water...and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found (or resurrected). Then they knead some fertile soil with the water...and fashion therefrom a crescent-shaped figure, which they cloth and adorn, this indicating that they regard these gods as the substance of Earth and Water." ("Isis and Osiris," 39). Yet his accounts were still obscure, for he also wrote, "I pass over the cutting of the wood" – opting not to describe it, since he considered it as a most sacred ritual ("Ibid." 21).


title: Osiris

text: In the Osirian temple at Denderah, an inscription (translated by Budge, Chapter XV, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection) describes in detail the making of wheat paste models of each dismembered piece of Osiris to be sent out to the town where each piece is discovered by Isis. At the temple of Mendes, figures of Osiris were made from wheat and paste placed in a trough on the day of the murder, then water was added for several days, until finally the mixture was kneaded into a mold of Osiris and taken to the temple to be buried (the sacred grain for these cakes were grown only in the temple fields). Molds were made from the wood of a red tree in the forms of the sixteen dismembered parts of Osiris, the cakes of "divine" bread were made from each mold, placed in a silver chest and set near the head of the god with "the inward parts of Osiris" as described in the Book of the Dead (XVII).


title: Osiris

text: The idea of divine justice being exercised after death for wrongdoing during life is first encountered during the Old Kingdom in a Sixth Dynasty tomb containing fragments of what would be described later as the Negative Confessions performed in front of the 42 Assessors of Ma'at.


title: Osiris

text: At death a person faced judgment by a tribunal of forty-two divine judges. If they led a life in conformance with the precepts of the goddess Ma'at, who represented truth and right living, the person was welcomed into the kingdom of Osiris. If found guilty, the person was thrown to the soul-eating demon Ammit and did not share in eternal life. The person who is taken by the devourer is subject first to terrifying punishment and then annihilated. These depictions of punishment may have influenced medieval perceptions of the inferno in hell via early Christian and Coptic texts. Purification for those who are considered justified may be found in the descriptions of "Flame Island", where they experience the triumph over evil and rebirth. For the damned, complete destruction into a state of non-being awaits, but there is no suggestion of eternal torture.


title: Osiris

text: During the reign of Seti I, Osiris was also invoked in royal decrees to pursue the living when wrongdoing was observed but kept secret and not reported.


title: Osiris

text: The early Ptolemaic kings promoted a new god, Serapis, who combined traits of Osiris with those of various Greek gods and was portrayed in a Hellenistic form. Serapis was often treated as the consort of Isis and became the patron deity of the Ptolemies' capital, Alexandria. Serapis's origins are not known. Some ancient authors claim the cult of Serapis was established at Alexandria by Alexander the Great himself, but most who discuss the subject of Serapis's origins give a story similar to that by Plutarch. Writing about 400 years after the fact, Plutarch claimed that Ptolemy I established the cult after dreaming of a colossal statue at Sinope in Anatolia. His councillors identified the statue as the Greek god Pluto and said that the Egyptian name for Pluto was Serapis. This name may have been a Hellenization of "Osiris-Apis". Osiris-Apis was a patron deity of the Memphite Necropolis and the father of the Apis bull who was worshipped there, and texts from Ptolemaic times treat "Serapis" as the Greek translation of "Osiris-Apis". But little of the early evidence for Serapis's cult comes from Memphis, and much of it comes from the Mediterranean world with no reference to an Egyptian origin for Serapis, so Mark Smith expresses doubt that Serapis originated as a Greek form of Osiris-Apis's name and leaves open the possibility that Serapis originated outside Egypt.


title: Osiris

text: The cult of Isis and Osiris continued at Philae until at least the 450s CE, long after the imperial decrees of the late 4th century that ordered the closing of temples to "pagan" gods. Philae was the last major ancient Egyptian temple to be closed.


title: Osiris

text: Khalid Abdalla portrays Osiris in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) television series "Moon Knight" (2022).


title: American English

text: American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce. Since the 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.


title: American English

text: American English varieties include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around the world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic or cultural markers is popularly called "General" or "Standard" American, a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. and associated nationally with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single "mainstream" American accent. The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century.


title: American English

text: The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing a process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain. English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to the diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century, while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased.


title: American English

text: Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant and enslaved speakers of diverse languages.


title: American English

text: Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in the influence of the Scotch-Irish immigration in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers.


title: American English

text: Any phonologically unmarked North American accent is known as "General American" (akin to Received Pronunciation in British English, which has been referred to as "General British"). This section mostly refers to such General American features.


title: American English

text: Studies on historical usage of English in both the United States and the United Kingdom suggest that spoken American English did not simply deviate away from period British English, but is conservative in some ways, preserving certain features contemporary British English has since lost.


title: American English

text: Full rhoticity (or R-fulness) is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme (corresponding to the letter ) in all environments, including after vowels, such as in "pearl", "car" and "court". Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce except before a vowel, such as some Eastern New England, New York, a specific few (often older) Southern, and African American vernacular accents, are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived to sound especially ethnic, regional or "old-fashioned".


title: American English

text: Rhoticity is common in most American accents, although it is now rare in England because during the 17th-century British colonization nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way. The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during the following two centuries) when the Scotch-Irish eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic. The pronunciation of is a postalveolar approximant or retroflex approximant , but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant "r" sound is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South.


title: American English

text: American accents that have not undergone the "cot–caught" merger (the lexical sets and ) have instead retained a – split: a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the lexical set) separated away from the set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent set into a merger with the ("caught") set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the "cot" vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the vowel in the following environments: before many instances of , , and particularly (as in "Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often," etc.), a few instances before (as in "strong, long, wrong"), and variably by region or speaker in "gone", "on", and certain other words.


title: American English

text: The standard accent of southern England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved in other ways compared to which General American has remained relatively conservative. Examples include the modern RP features of a " trap–bath" split and the fronting of , neither of which is typical of General American accents. Moreover, American dialects do not participate in H-dropping, an innovative feature that now characterizes perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England.


title: American English

text: However, General American is more innovative than the dialects of England or elsewhere in the world in a number of its own ways:


title: American English

text: The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Examples of such names are "opossum, raccoon, squash", "moose" (from Algonquian), "wigwam", and "moccasin". American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, "en masse", from French; "cookie", from Dutch; "kindergarten" from German, and "rodeo" from Spanish. Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and the word "corn", used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S.


title: American English

text: Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812, with the opening of the West, like "ranch" (now a common house style). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms "(lot, waterfront)" and types of homes like "log cabin, adobe" in the 18th century; "apartment, " in the 19th century; "project, condominium, townhouse, mobile home" in the 20th century; and parts thereof "(driveway, breezeway, backyard)". Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads ("dirt roads", "freeways") to infrastructure "(parking lot, overpass, rest area)," to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally. Already existing English words—such as "store, shop, lumber"—underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in the U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States. From the world of business and finance came new terms ("merger, downsize, bottom line"), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball. The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America ("elevator" [except in the aeronautical sense], "gasoline") as did certain automotive terms ("truck", "trunk").


title: American English

text: New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish "(chutzpah, schmooze, bupkis, glitch") and German ("hamburger, wiener"). A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from "OK" and "cool" to "nerd" and "24/7)," while others have not "(have a nice day, for sure);" many are now distinctly old-fashioned "(swell, groovy)." Some English words now in general use, such as "hijacking, disc jockey, boost, bulldoze" and "jazz," originated as American slang.


title: American English

text: American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs. Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are "interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation, major," and many others. Compounds coined in the U.S. are for instance "foothill, landslide" (in all senses), ", teenager," "brainstorm, , hitchhike, smalltime," and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in England). Some are euphemistic "(human resources, affirmative action, correctional facility)." Many compound nouns have the verb-and-preposition combination: "stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout, holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover," and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin ("win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to" and many others).


title: American English

text: Noun endings such as "-ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster)" and "-cian (beautician)" are also particularly productive in the U.S. Several verbs ending in "-ize" are of U.S. origin; for example, "fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize," etc.; and so are some back-formations "(locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster" and "enthuse)." Among syntactical constructions that arose are "outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of," etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably "pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae, skeeter, sashay" and "kitty-corner." Adjectives that arose in the U.S. are, for example, "lengthy, bossy, cute" and "cutesy, punk" (in all senses), "sticky" (of the weather), "through" (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as "peppy" or "wacky".


title: American English

text: A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots. Terms such as "fall" ("autumn"), "faucet" ("tap"), "diaper" ("nappy"; itself unused in the U.S.), "candy" ("sweets"), "skillet", "eyeglasses", and "obligate" are often regarded as Americanisms. "Fall" for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year." "Gotten" (past participle of "get") is often considered to be largely an Americanism. Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from the U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include "hire" ("to employ"), "I guess" (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler), "baggage", "hit" (a place), and the adverbs "overly" and "presently" ("currently"). Some of these, for example, "monkey wrench" and "wastebasket", originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives "mad" meaning "angry," "smart" meaning "intelligent," and "sick" meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English.


title: American English

text: Linguist Bert Vaux created a survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms. The study found that most Americans prefer the term "sub" for a long sandwich, "soda" (but "pop" in the Great Lakes region and generic "coke" in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink, "you" or "you guys" for the plural of "you" (but "y'all" in the South), "sneakers" for athletic shoes (but often "tennis shoes" outside the Northeast), and "shopping cart" for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods.


title: American English

text: American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, "An American Dictionary of the English Language", known as Webster's Dictionary, was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings.


title: American English

text: Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs "he ran quick"/"he ran quickly"; different use of some auxiliary verbs; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: "learned"/"learnt", "burned"/"burnt", "snuck/sneaked", "dove/dived") although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE "in school," BrE "at school"); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE "to the hospital", BrE "to hospital"; contrast, however, AmE "actress Elizabeth Taylor", BrE "the actress Elizabeth Taylor"). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other, and American English is not a standardized set of dialects.


title: American English

text: Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as "flavor" for British "flavour", "fiber" for "fibre", "defense" for "defence", "analyze" for "analyse", "license" for "licence", "catalog" for "catalogue" and "traveling" for "travelling". Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology." Other differences are due to the francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred "programme" for "program", "manoeuvre" for "maneuver", "cheque" for "check", etc.). AmE almost always uses "-ize" in words like "realize". BrE prefers "-ise", but also uses "-ize" on occasion (see: Oxford spelling).


title: American English

text: There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences, called "comma splices" in American English, and American English requires that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors the double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here').


title: American English

text: Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, "autumn" is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas "fall" is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation.


title: American English

text: AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE "transportation" and BrE "transport" or where the British form is a back-formation, such as AmE "burglarize" and BrE "burgle" (from "burglar"). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems.


title: American English

text: While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions.


title: American English

text: The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in a complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling, while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another.


title: American English

text: Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England, the Mid-Atlantic States (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent), and the South. As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area, Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the vowel in the mouth toward and tensing of the vowel wholesale to . These sound changes have triggered a series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the "Inland North". The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents) a backer tongue positioning of the vowel (to ) and the vowel (to ) in comparison to the rest of the country. Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker is the variable fronting of before , for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth "Park the car in Harvard Yard".


title: American English

text: Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston, Pittsburgh, Upper Midwestern, and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the vowel with the vowel ( and , respectively): a "cot–caught" merger, which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older "cot–caught" distinction. For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the vowel is particularly marked, as depicted in humorous spellings, like in "tawk" and "cawfee" ("talk" and "coffee"), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal: . A split of into two separate phonemes, using different "a" pronunciations for example in "gap" versus "gas" , further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents.


title: American English

text: Most Americans preserve all historical sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent. The only traditional "r"-dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England, New York City, and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across the country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird," "work," "hurt," "learn," etc. usually retains its "r" pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's "r"-dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from the late 18th century onwards, but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century. Non-rhoticity makes a word like "car" sound like "cah" or "source" like "sauce".


title: American English

text: New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored. Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas, is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent, and is defined by the vowel losing its gliding quality: , the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a "Southern drawl" that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels. The fronting of the vowels of , , , and tends to also define Southern accents as well as the accents spoken in the "Midland": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum.


title: American English

text: Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds:


title: American English

text: In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since the mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame. However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in the Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity, the "father–bother" merger, "Mary–marry–merry" merger, pre-nasal "short "a"" tensing, and other particular vowel sounds. General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in the most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents.


title: American English

text: Although no longer region-specific, African-American Vernacular English, which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans, has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture. Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English, spoken in the West and Midwest, and New York Latino English, spoken in the New York metropolitan area. Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and "Yinglish" are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews, Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana, and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii, though primarily English-speaking, is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin, and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English, beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands; Thomasites first established a variation of American English in these islands.


title: Michael Jai White

text: Michael Jai White (born November 10, 1967) is an American actor, director and martial artist. He was the first African American to portray a major comic book superhero in a major motion picture, starring as Al Simmons, the protagonist in the 1997 film "Spawn". White appeared as Marcus Williams in the Tyler Perry films "Why Did I Get Married?" and "Why Did I Get Married Too?", and starred as the character on the TBS/OWN comedy-drama television series "Tyler Perry's For Better or Worse". White portrayed Jax Briggs in "" and the Cyborg Seth in "". He portrayed boxer Mike Tyson in the 1995 HBO television film "Tyson". He also played the title role in the blaxploitation parody film "Black Dynamite", as well as the animated series of the same name.


title: Michael Jai White

text: White is a martial artist in nine different styles: Shōtōkan, Goju-Ryu (for which he studied under Master Eddie Morales where he learned to sharpen his Goju karate technique), Taekwondo, Kobudō, Tang Soo Do, Wushu, Jiu Jitsu, Kyokushin and Boxing, with a specific focus in Kyokushin Karate (although his style incorporates aspects of many different martial arts forms). White started training in the martial arts at the age of four in Jiujitsu. He next took up Shōtōkan and moved on to other styles later.


title: Michael Jai White

text: White is a former special education teacher and taught students with behavioral problems for three years. He cites his history in education as the reason why, despite his personal love for the music genre on "a lot of levels", he cannot "in good [conscience]" have a positive opinion on hip hop or "excuse some of [its] pervasive and destructive elements", mainly due to his experience with youngsters who had difficulty seeing the difference between it and real life.


title: Michael Jai White

text: White's first major starring role and breakout performance was in the 1995 HBO film "Tyson", as heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson. He portrayed the eponymous character in the 1997 film "Spawn", making him the first African American to portray a major comic book superhero in a major motion picture. His work in "Spawn" earned him a nomination for the "Blockbuster Entertainment Award". White starred opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in "", in 1999. A few years earlier, he acted in Full Contact, with Jerry Trimble. In 2001, he also starred opposite fellow martial artist Steven Seagal in "Exit Wounds". In 2003, he starred in Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey's music video "I Know What You Want". Since 2003, in addition to his on screen roles, White has been doing voice work, including in "Static Shock" and "Justice League". White showcases his martial arts skills in the direct-to-DVD film "". He also appears in Michelle Yeoh's "Silver Hawk" in 2004. He appeared in "", although his role was cut from the theatrical release. His film "Why Did I Get Married?" opened at number one at the box office on October 12, 2007.


title: Michael Jai White

text: White played the role of the mob boss Gambol in the 2008 film "The Dark Knight". He also starred in the film "Blood and Bone" and the blaxploitation homage "Black Dynamite", both released in 2009. White wrote the scripts for both "Black Dynamite" and his upcoming "3 Bullets" in which he stars with Bokeem Woodbine.


title: Michael Jai White

text: On March 30, 2010, White appeared on "The Mo'Nique Show" to promote his film "Why Did I Get Married Too". The two joked about the acclaim that comes with winning an Oscar. In May of that year he appeared in the music video for Toni Braxton's new song "Hands Tied" from her album "Pulse", as well as the Nicki Minaj music video for "Your Love" as Nicki's sensei and love interest.


title: Michael Jai White

text: He also starred in Kevin Tancharoen's short film "", as Jax Briggs, and reprised the role in "", a webseries from the same director. He recently posted on Twitter that he would not be returning to the role for the second season, but would return for the 2013 film.


title: Michael Jai White

text: White made his directorial debut and starred in "", which was released on home video on September 13, 2011.


title: Michael Jai White

text: In October 2019, White announced the spiritual successor to "Black Dynamite" titled "The Outlaw Johnny Black" officially entered pre-production. Despite the Indiegogo campaign not reaching its goal, he was still able to secure enough backers and additional donors to get the project off the ground. It is currently available for pre-order on the official website, although a release date has not been announced or confirmed.


title: Michael Jai White

text: In October 2020, White's latest film "Welcome to Sudden Death" debuted on Netflix and became one of the most watched films on the platform. The Universal Pictures Home Entertainment release is a remake of the 1995 film "Sudden Death" starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.


title: Michael Jai White

text: On July 12, 2021, White laid out a vision for starting a film studio in New Haven, CT called "Jaigantic Studios". He wants to create a studio district on New Haven's Quinnipiac River waterfront.


title: Michael Jai White

text: From 2005 to 2011, White was married to Courtenay Chatman and together they have a daughter named Morgan. In addition, White has two sons. In February 2014, White announced his engagement to actress Gillian Iliana Waters. In April 2015, White penned an open letter via Facebook entitled "Apologies to My Ex's", where he credited Waters for helping him become, "the very best version of myself." In July 2015, White married Waters in Thailand. They appeared together in the martial arts thriller movie "Take Back" (2021), with Gillian White starring as the female lead.


title: Michael Jai White

text: In 2014, White was honored with the Fists of Legends Decade Award at the Urban Action Showcase & Expo at HBO.On November 8, 2019, he assumed "The Mantle of The Black Dragon" from Ron van Clief, Don "The Dragon" Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock, and Taimak, in a ceremony at the 2019 Urban Action Showcase & Expo at AMC 25, NYC.


title: Michael Jai White

text: 22.^https://www.familytreenow.com/search/people/results?first=Michael&middle=Jai&last=White&dobyyyy=1964&rid=asa&smck=FT_juX0AYSsyu_h-lluOXQ Correct date of birth.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Guadeloupe (; ; , ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the two inhabited Îles des Saintes—as well as many uninhabited islands and outcroppings. It is south of Antigua and Barbuda and Montserrat, north of the Commonwealth of Dominica. The region's capital city is Basse-Terre, located on the southern west coast of Basse-Terre Island; however, the most populous city is Les Abymes and the main centre of business is neighbouring Pointe-à-Pitre, both located on Grande-Terre Island. It had a population of 384,239 in 2019.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Like the other overseas departments, it is an integral part of France. As a constituent territory of the European Union and the Eurozone, the euro is its official currency and any European Union citizen is free to settle and work there indefinitely. However, as an overseas department, it is not part of the Schengen Area. The region formerly included Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin, which were detached from Guadeloupe in 2007 following a 2003 referendum.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Christopher Columbus visited Guadeloupe in 1493, during his second voyage, and gave the island its name. The official language is French; Antillean Creole is also spoken.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Christopher Columbus named the island in 1493 after Our Lady of Guadalupe, a shrine to the Virgin Mary venerated in the Spanish town of Guadalupe, Extremadura. When the area became a French colony, the Spanish name was retained - though altered to French orthography and phonology. The islands are locally known as .


title: Guadeloupe

text: The islands were first populated by indigenous peoples of the Americas, possibly as far back as 3000 BCE. The Arawak people are the first identifiable group, but they were later displaced circa 1400 CE by Kalina-Carib peoples.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Christopher Columbus was the first European to see Guadeloupe, landing in November 1493 and giving it its current name. Several attempts at colonisation by the Spanish in the 16th century failed due to attacks from the native peoples. In 1626, the French under Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc began to take an interest in Guadeloupe, expelling Spanish settlers. The Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique settled in Guadeloupe in 1635, under the direction of Charles Liénard de L'Olive and Jean du Plessis d'Ossonville; they formally took possession of the island for France and brought in French farmers to colonise the land. This led to the death of many indigenous people by disease and violence. By 1640, however, the Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique had gone bankrupt, and they thus sold Guadeloupe to Charles Houël du Petit Pré who began plantation agriculture, with the first African slaves arriving in 1650. Slave resistance was immediately widespread, with an open uprising in 1656 lasting several weeks and a simultaneous spate of mass desertions that lasted at least two years until the French compelled indigenous peoples to stop assisting them. Ownership of the island passed to the French West India Company before it was annexed to France in 1674 under the tutelage of their Martinique colony. Institutionalised slavery, enforced by the Code Noir from 1685, led to a booming sugar plantation economy.


title: Guadeloupe

text: During the Seven Years' War, the British captured and occupied the islands until the 1763 Treaty of Paris. During that time, Pointe-à-Pitre became a major harbour, and markets in Britain's North American colonies were opened to Guadeloupean sugar, which was traded for foodstuffs and timber. The economy expanded quickly, creating vast wealth for the French colonists. So prosperous was Guadeloupe at the time that, under the 1763 Treaty of Paris, France forfeited its Canadian colonies in exchange for the return of Guadeloupe. Coffee planting began in the late 1720s, also worked by slaves and, by 1775, cocoa had become a major export product as well.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The French Revolution brought chaos to Guadeloupe. Under new revolutionary law, freedmen were entitled to equal rights. Taking advantage of the chaotic political situation, Britain invaded Guadeloupe in 1794. The French responded by sending an expeditionary force led by Victor Hugues, who retook the islands and abolished slavery. More than 1,000 French colonists were killed in the aftermath.


title: Guadeloupe

text: In 1802, the First French Empire reinstated the pre-revolutionary government and slavery, prompting a slave rebellion led by Louis Delgrès. The French authorities responded quickly, culminating in the Battle of Matouba on 28 May 1802. Realising they had no chance of success, Delgrès and his followers committed mass suicide by deliberately exploding their gunpowder stores. In 1810, the British captured the island again, handing it over to Sweden under the 1813 Treaty of Stockholm.


title: Guadeloupe

text: In the 1814 Treaty of Paris, Sweden ceded Guadeloupe to France, giving rise to the Guadeloupe Fund. In 1815, the Treaty of Vienna acknowledged French control of Guadeloupe.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Slavery was abolished in the French Empire in 1848. After 1854, indentured labourers from the French colony of Pondicherry in India were brought in. Emancipated slaves had the vote from 1849, but French nationality and the vote were not granted to Indian citizens until 1923, when a long campaign, led by Henry Sidambarom, finally achieved success.


title: Guadeloupe

text: In 1936, Félix Éboué became the first black governor of Guadeloupe. During the Second World War Guadeloupe initially came under the control of the Vichy government, later joining Free France in 1943. In 1946, the colony of Guadeloupe became an overseas department of France.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Tensions arose in the post-war era over the social structure of Guadeloupe and its relationship with mainland France. The 'Massacre of St Valentine' occurred in 1952, when striking factory workers in Le Moule were shot at by the Compagnies républicaines de sécurité, resulting in four deaths. In May 1967 racial tensions exploded into rioting following a racist attack on a black Guadeloupean, resulting in eight deaths.


title: Guadeloupe

text: An independence movement grew in the 1970s, prompting France to declare Guadeloupe a French region in 1974. The Union populaire pour la libération de la Guadeloupe (UPLG) campaigned for complete independence, and by the 1980s the situation had turned violent with the actions of groups such as Groupe de libération armée (GLA) and Alliance révolutionnaire caraïbe (ARC).


title: Guadeloupe

text: Greater autonomy was granted to Guadeloupe in 2000. Through a referendum in 2003, Saint-Martin and Saint Barthélemy voted to separate from the administrative jurisdiction of Guadeloupe, this being fully enacted by 2007.


title: Guadeloupe

text: In January 2009, labour unions and others known as the Liyannaj Kont Pwofitasyon went on strike for more pay. Strikers were angry with low wages, the high cost of living, high levels of poverty relative to mainland France and levels of unemployment that are amongst the worst in the European Union. The situation quickly escalated, exacerbated by what was seen as an ineffectual response by the French government, turning violent and prompting the deployment of extra police after a union leader (Jacques Bino) was shot and killed. The strike lasted 44 days and had also inspired similar actions on nearby Martinique. President Nicolas Sarkozy later visited the island, promising reform. Tourism suffered greatly during this time and affected the 2010 tourist season as well.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Guadeloupe is an archipelago of more than 12 islands, as well as islets and rocks situated where the northeastern Caribbean Sea meets the western Atlantic Ocean. It is located in the Leeward Islands in the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, a partly volcanic island arc. To the north lie Antigua and Barbuda and the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat, with Dominica lying to the south.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The two main islands are Basse-Terre (west) and Grande-Terre (east), which form a butterfly shape as viewed from above, the two 'wings' of which are separated by the Grand Cul-de-Sac Marin, and Petit Cul-de-Sac Marin. More than half of Guadeloupe's land surface consists of the 847.8 km Basse-Terre. The island is mountainous, containing such peaks as Mount Sans Toucher (4,442 feet; 1,354 metres) and Grande Découverte (4,143 feet; 1,263 metres), culminating in the active volcano La Grande Soufrière, the highest mountain peak in the Lesser Antilles with an elevation of . In contrast Grande-Terre is mostly flat, with rocky coasts to the north, irregular hills at the centre, mangrove at the southwest, and white sand beaches sheltered by coral reefs along the southern shore. This is where the main tourist resorts are found.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Marie-Galante is the third-largest island, followed by La Désirade, a north-east slanted limestone plateau, the highest point of which is . To the south lies the Îles de Petite-Terre, which are two islands (Terre de Haut and Terre de Bas) totalling 2 km.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Les Saintes is an archipelago of eight islands of which two, Terre-de-Bas and Terre-de-Haut are inhabited. The landscape is similar to that of Basse-Terre, with volcanic hills and irregular shoreline with deep bays.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Basse-Terre is a volcanic island. The Lesser Antilles are at the outer edge of the Caribbean Plate, and Guadeloupe is part of the outer arc of the Lesser Antilles Volcanic Arc. Many of the islands were formed as a result of the subduction of oceanic crust of the Atlantic Plate under the Caribbean Plate in the Lesser Antilles subduction zone. This process is ongoing and is responsible for volcanic and earthquake activity in the region. Guadeloupe was formed from multiple volcanoes, of which only La Grande Soufrière is not extinct. Its last eruption was in 1976, and led to the evacuation of the southern part of Basse-Terre. 73,600 people were displaced throughout three and a half months following the eruption.


title: Guadeloupe

text: K–Ar dating indicates that the three northern massifs on Basse-Terre Island are 2.79 million years old. Sections of volcanoes collapsed and eroded within the last 650,000 years, after which the Sans Toucher volcano grew in the collapsed area. Volcanoes in the north of Basse-Terre Island mainly produced andesite and basaltic andesite. There are several beaches of dark or "black" sand.


title: Guadeloupe

text: La Désirade, east of the main islands, has a basement from the Mesozoic, overlaid with thick limestones from the Pliocene to Quaternary periods.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Grande-Terre and Marie-Galante have basements probably composed of volcanic units of Eocene to Oligocene, but there are no visible outcrops. On Grande-Terre, the overlying carbonate platform is 120 metres thick.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The islands are part of the Leeward Islands, so called because they are downwind of the prevailing trade winds, which blow out of the northeast. This was significant in the days of sailing ships. Grande-Terre is so named because it is on the eastern, or windward side, exposed to the Atlantic winds. Basse-Terre is so named because it is on the leeward south-west side and sheltered from the winds. Guadeloupe has a tropical climate tempered by maritime influences and the Trade Winds. There are two seasons, the dry season called "Lent" from January to June, and the wet season called "winter", from July to December.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Located in a very exposed region, Guadeloupe and its dependencies have to face many cyclones. The deadliest hurricane to hit Guadeloupe was the Pointe-à-Pitre hurricane of 1776, which killed at least 6,000 people.


title: Guadeloupe

text: On 16 September 1989, Hurricane Hugo caused severe damage to the islands of the archipelago and left a deep mark on the memory of the local inhabitants. In 1995, three hurricanes (Iris, Luis and Marilyn) hit the archipelago in less than three weeks.


title: Guadeloupe

text: In the 20th century: 12 September 1928: 1928 Okeechobee hurricane; 11 August 1956: Hurricane Betsy; 22 August 1964: Hurricane Cleo; 27 September 1966: Hurricane Inez; 16–17 September 1989: Hurricane Hugo; 14–15 September 1995: Hurricane Marilyn.


title: Guadeloupe

text: With fertile volcanic soils, heavy rainfall and a warm climate, vegetation on Basse-Terre is lush. Most of the islands' forests are on Basse-Terre, containing such species as mahogany, ironwood and chestnut trees. Mangrove swamps line the Salée River. Much of the forest on Grande-Terre has been cleared, with only a few small patches remaining.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Between of altitude, the rainforest that covers a large part of the island of Basse-Terre develops. There we find the white gum tree, the acomat-boucan or chestnut tree, the marbri or bois-bandé or the oleander; shrubs and herbaceous plants such as the mountain palm, the balisier or ferns; many epiphytes: bromeliads, philodendrons, orchids and lianas. Above , the humid savannah develops, composed of mosses, lichens, sphagnum or more vigorous plants such as mountain mangrove, high altitude violet or mountain thyme.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The dry forest occupies a large part of the islands of Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, Les Saintes, La Désirade and also develops on the leeward coast of Basse-Terre. The coastal forest is more difficult to develop because of the nature of the soil (sandy, rocky), salinity, sunshine and wind and is the environment where the sea grape, the mancenilla (a very toxic tree whose trunk is marked with a red line), the icaquier or the Coconut tree grow. On the cliffs and in the Arid zones are found cacti such as the cactus-cigar (Cereus), the prickly pear, the chestnut cactus, the "Tête à l'anglais" cactus and the aloes.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The Mangrove forest that borders some of Guadalupe's coasts is structured in three levels, from the closest to the sea to the farthest. On the first level are the red mangroves; on the second, about from the sea, the black mangroves form the shrubby mangrove; on the third level the white mangroves form the tall mangrove. Behind the mangrove, where the tide and salt do not penetrate, a swamp forest sometimes develops, unique in Guadeloupe. The representative species of this environment is the Mangrove-medaille.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Few terrestrial mammals, aside from bats and raccoons, are native to the islands. The introduced Javan mongoose is also present on Guadeloupe. Bird species include the endemic purple-throated carib and the Guadeloupe woodpecker. The waters of the islands support a rich variety of marine life.


title: Guadeloupe

text: However, by studying 43,000 bone remains from six islands in the archipelago, 50 to 70% of snakes and lizards on the Guadeloupe Islands became extinct after European colonists arrived, who had brought with them mammals such as cats, mongooses, rats, and raccoons, which might have preyed upon the native reptiles.


title: Guadeloupe

text: In recent decades, Guadeloupe's natural environments have been affected by hunting and fishing, forest retreat, urbanization and suburbanization. They also suffer from the development of intensive crops (banana and sugar cane, in particular), which reached their peak in the years 1955–75. This has led to the following situation: seagrass beds and reefs have degraded by up to 50% around the large islands; mangroves and mantids have almost disappeared in Marie-Galante, Les Saintes and La Désirade; the salinity of the fresh water table has increased due to "the intensity of use of the layer"; and pollution of agricultural origin (pesticides and nitrogenous compounds).


title: Guadeloupe

text: In addition, the ChlEauTerre study, unveiled in March 2018, concludes that 37 different anthropogenic molecules (more than half of which come from residues of now-banned pesticides, such as chlordecone) were found in "79% of the watersheds analyzed in Grande-Terre and 84% in Basse-Terre." A report by the Guadeloupe Water Office notes that in 2019 there is a "generalized degradation of water bodies."


title: Guadeloupe

text: Despite everything, there is a will to preserve these environments whose vegetation and landscape are preserved in some parts of the islands and constitute a sensitive asset for tourism. These areas are partially protected and classified as ZNIEFF, sometimes with nature reserve status, and several caves are home to protected chiropterans.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The Guadalupe National Park was created on 20 February 1989. In 1992, under the auspices of UNESCO, the Biosphere Reserve of the Guadeloupe Archipelago ("Réserve de biosphère de l'archipel de la Guadeloupe") was created. As a result, on 8 December 1993, the marine site of Grand Cul-de-sac was listed as a wetland of international importance. The island thus became the overseas department with the most protected areas.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The archipelago is crossed by numerous geological faults such as those of la Barre or la Cadoue, while in depth, in front of Moule and La Désirade begins the Désirade Fault, and between the north of Maria-Galante and the south of Grande-Terre begins the Maria Galante Fault. And it is because of these geological characteristics, the islands of the department of Guadeloupe are classified in zone III according to the seismic zoning of France and are subject to a specific risk prevention plan.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The 1843 earthquake in the Lesser Antilles is, to this day, the most violent earthquake known. It caused the death of more than a thousand people, as well as major damage in Pointe-à-Pitre.


title: Guadeloupe

text: On 21 November 2004, the islands of the department, in particular Les Saintes archipelago, were shaken by a violent earthquake that reached a magnitude of 6.3 on the Richter scale and caused the death of one person, as well as extensive material damage.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Guadeloupe recorded a population of 402,119 in the 2017 census. The population is mainly Afro-Caribbean. European, Indian (Tamil, Telugu, and other South Indians), Lebanese, Syrians, and Chinese are all minorities. There is also a substantial population of Haitians in Guadeloupe who work mainly in construction and as street vendors. Basse-Terre is the political capital; however, the largest city and economic hub is Pointe-à-Pitre.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The population of Guadeloupe has been decreasing by 0.8% per year since 2013. In 2017 the average population density in Guadeloupe was , which is very high in comparison to metropolitan France's average of . One third of the land is devoted to agriculture and all mountains are uninhabitable; this lack of space and shelter makes the population density even higher.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The most populous urban unit (agglomeration) is Pointe-à-Pitre-Les Abymes, which covers 11 communes and 65% of the population of the department. The three largest urban units are:


title: Guadeloupe

text: Medical centres in Guadeloupe include: University Hospital Centre (CHU) in Pointe-à-Pitre, Regional Hospital Centre (CHR) in Basse-Terre, and four hospitals located in Capesterre-Belle-Eau, Pointe-Noire, Bouillante and Saint-Claude.


title: Guadeloupe

text: The "Institut Pasteur de la Guadeloupe", is located in Pointe-à-Pitre and is responsible for researching environmental hygiene, vaccinations, and the spread of tuberculosis and mycobacteria


title: Guadeloupe

text: The relative wealth of Guadeloupe contrasts with the extreme poverty of several islands in the Caribbean region, which makes the community an attractive place for the populations of some of these territories. In addition, other factors, such as political instability and natural disasters, explain this immigration. As early as the 1970s, the first illegal immigrants of Haitian origin arrived in Guadeloupe to meet a need for labour in the agricultural sector; alongside this Haitian immigration, which is more visible because it is more numerous, Guadeloupe has also seen the arrival and settlement of populations from the island of Dominica and the Dominican Republic. In 2005, the prefecture, which represents the State in Guadeloupe, reported figures of between 50,000 and 60,000 foreigners in the department.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Created in 1963 by Michel Debré, Bumidom's objective was to "[...] contribute to the solution of demographic problems in the overseas departments". To this end, its missions were multiple: information for future emigrants, vocational training, family reunification and management of reception centres. At the time, this project was also seen as a means to diminish the influence of the West Indian independence movements, which were gaining strength in the 1960s.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Between 1963 and 1981, an estimated 16,562 Guadeloupeans emigrated to metropolitan France through Bumidom. And the miniseries Le Rêve français (The French Dream) sets out to recount some of the consequences of the emigration of West Indians and Reunionese to France.


title: Guadeloupe

text: An estimated 50,000 Guadeloupeans and Martinicans participated in the construction of the Panama Canal between 1904 and 1914. In 2014, it was estimated that there were between 60,000 and 70,000 descendants of these West Indians living in Panama. Other waves of migration to North America, especially to Canada, occurred at the beginning of the 20th century.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Together with Martinique, La Réunion, Mayotte and French Guiana, Guadeloupe is one of the overseas departments, being both a region and a department combined into one entity. It is also an outermost region of the European Union. The inhabitants of Guadeloupe are French citizens with full political and legal rights.


title: Guadeloupe

text: Legislative powers are centred on the separate departmental and regional councils. The elected president of the Departmental Council of Guadeloupe is currently Guy Losbar (1.7.2021); its main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school (collège) buildings and technical staff, and local roads and school and rural buses. The Regional Council of Guadeloupe is a body, elected every six years, consisting of a president (currently Ary Chalus) and eight vice-presidents. The regional council oversees secondary education, regional transportation, economic development, the environment, and some infrastructure, among other things.