title: Dutch Republic

text: Until the 16th century, the Low Countries—corresponding roughly to the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg—consisted of a number of duchies, counties, and prince-bishoprics, almost all of which were under the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire, with the exception of the County of Flanders, most of which was under the Kingdom of France.


title: Dutch Republic

text: Most of the Low Countries had come under the rule of the House of Burgundy and subsequently the House of Habsburg. In 1549 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued the Pragmatic Sanction, which further unified the Seventeen Provinces under his rule. Charles was succeeded by his son, King Philip II of Spain. In 1568, the Netherlands, led by William I of Orange, together with Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn, and Lamoral, Count of Egmont revolted against Philip II because of high taxes, persecution of Protestants by the government, and Philip's efforts to modernize and centralize the devolved-medieval government structures of the provinces. This was the start of the Eighty Years' War. During the initial phase of the war, the revolt was largely unsuccessful. Spain regained control over most of the rebelling provinces. This period is known as the "Spanish Fury" due to the high number of massacres, instances of mass looting, and total destruction of multiple cities and in particular Antwerp between 1572 and 1579.


title: Dutch Republic

text: In 1579, a number of the northern provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other in their defence against the Army of Flanders. This was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the provinces from Philip II. Dutch colonialism began at this point, as the Netherlands was able to swipe a number of Portuguese and Spanish colonies, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. After the assassination of William of Orange on 10 July 1584, both Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England declined offers of sovereignty. However, the latter agreed to turn the United Provinces into a protectorate of England (Treaty of Nonsuch, 1585), and sent the Earl of Leicester as governor-general. This was unsuccessful and in 1588 the provinces became a confederacy. The Union of Utrecht is regarded as the foundation of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, which was not recognized by Spain until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.


title: Dutch Republic

text: During the Anglo-French War (1778), the internal territory was divided into two groups: the Patriots, who were pro-French and pro-American, and the Orangists, who were pro-British. The Republic of the United Provinces faced a series of republican revolutions in 1783–1787. During this period, republican forces occupied several major Dutch cities. Initially on the defence, the Orangist forces received aid from Prussian troops and retook the Netherlands in 1787. The republican forces fled to France, but then successfully re-invaded alongside the army of the French Republic (1793–1795), ousting stadtholder William V, abolishing the Dutch Republic, and replacing it with the Batavian Republic (1795–1806). After the French Republic became the French Empire under Napoleon, the Batavian Republic was replaced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland (1806–1810).


title: Dutch Republic

text: The Netherlands regained independence from France in 1813. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 the names "United Provinces of the Netherlands" and "United Netherlands" were used. In 1815, it was rejoined with the Austrian Netherlands and Liège (the "Southern provinces") to become the Kingdom of the Netherlands, informally known as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, to create a strong buffer state north of France. On 16 March 1815, the son of stadtholder William V crowned himself King William I of the Netherlands. Between 1815 and 1890, the King of the Netherlands was also in a personal union the Grand Duke of the sovereign Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. After Belgium gained its independence in 1830, the state became unequivocally known as the "Kingdom of the Netherlands", as it remains today.


title: Dutch Republic

text: During the Dutch Golden Age in the late-16th and 17th centuries, the Dutch Republic dominated world trade, conquering a vast colonial empire and operating the largest fleet of merchantmen of any nation. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most urbanized region in the world. In 1650 the urban population of the Dutch Republic as a percentage of total population was 31.7 percent, while that of the Spanish Netherlands was 20.8 percent, of Portugal 16.6 percent, and of Italy 14 percent. In 1675 the urban population density of Holland alone was 61 percent, compared to the rest of the Dutch Republic, where 27 percent lived in urban areas.


title: Dutch Republic

text: The free trade spirit of the time was augmented by the development of a modern, effective stock market in the Low Countries. The Netherlands has the oldest stock exchange in the world, founded in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, while Rotterdam has the oldest bourse in the Netherlands. The Dutch East-India Company exchange went public in six different cities. Later, a court ruled that the company had to reside legally in a single city, so Amsterdam is recognized as the oldest such institution based on modern trading principles. While the banking system evolved in the Low Countries, it was quickly incorporated by the well-connected English, stimulating English economic output.


title: Dutch Republic

text: During the period of proto-industrialization, the empire received 50% of textiles and 80% of silks imported from the Indian Mughal Empire, chiefly from its most developed region known as Bengal Subah.


title: Dutch Republic

text: The Dutch Republic was a master of banking, often compared to 14th century Florence. When Southern Europe was experiencing poor harvests, surplus grain from Poland was sold by the Dutch for large profits.


title: Dutch Republic

text: The republic was a confederation of seven provinces, which had their own governments and were very independent, and a number of so-called Generality Lands. The latter were governed directly by the States General, the federal government. The States General were seated in The Hague and consisted of representatives of each of the seven provinces. The provinces of the republic were, in official feudal order:


title: Dutch Republic

text: There was an eighth province, the County of Drenthe, but this area was so poor that it was exempt from paying federal taxes, and as a consequence, it was denied representation in the States General. Each province was governed by the Provincial States, the main executive official (though not the official head of state) was a "raadspensionaris". In times of war, the stadtholder, who commanded the army, would have more power than the "raadspensionaris".


title: Dutch Republic

text: In theory, the stadtholders were freely appointed by and subordinate to the states of each province. However, in practice the princes of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau, beginning with William the Silent, were always chosen as stadtholders of most of the provinces. Zeeland and usually Utrecht had the same stadtholder as Holland. There was a constant power struggle between the Orangists, who supported the stadtholders and specifically the princes of Orange, and the Republicans, who supported the States General and hoped to replace the semi-hereditary nature of the stadtholdership with a true republican structure.


title: Dutch Republic

text: After the Peace of Westphalia, several border territories were assigned to the United Provinces. They were federally governed Generality Lands. These were Staats-Brabant, Staats-Vlaanderen, Staats-Overmaas, and (after the Treaty of Utrecht) Staats-Opper-Gelre. The States General of the United Provinces were in control of the Dutch East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, but some shipping expeditions were initiated by some of the provinces, mostly Holland and Zeeland.


title: Dutch Republic

text: The framers of the United States Constitution were influenced by the Constitution of the Republic of the United Provinces, as Federalist No. 20, by James Madison, shows. Such influence appears, however, to have been of a negative nature, as Madison describes the Dutch confederacy as exhibiting "Imbecility in the government; discord among the provinces; foreign influence and indignities; a precarious existence in peace, and peculiar calamities from war." Apart from this, the American Declaration of Independence is similar to the Act of Abjuration, essentially the declaration of independence of the United Provinces, but concrete evidence that the latter directly influenced the former is absent.


title: Dutch Republic

text: In the Union of Utrecht of 20 January 1579, Holland and Zeeland were granted the right to accept only one religion (in practice, Calvinism). Every other province had the freedom to regulate the religious question as it wished, although the Union stated every person should be free in the choice of personal religion and that no person should be prosecuted based on religious choice. William of Orange had been a strong supporter of public and personal freedom of religion and hoped to unite Protestants and Catholics in the new union, and, for him, the Union was a defeat. In practice, Catholic services in all provinces were quickly forbidden, and the Dutch Reformed Church became the "public" or "privileged" church in the republic.


title: Dutch Republic

text: During the republic, any person who wished to hold public office had to conform to the Reformed Church and take an oath to this effect. The extent to which different religions or denominations were persecuted depended much on the time period and regional or city leaders. In the beginning, this was especially focused on Roman Catholics, being the religion of the enemy. In 17th-century Leiden, for instance, people opening their homes to services could be fined 200 guilders (a year's wage for a skilled tradesman) and banned from the city. Throughout this, however, personal freedom of religion existed and was one factor—along with economic reasons—in causing large immigration of religious refugees from other parts of Europe.


title: Dutch Republic

text: In the first years of the republic, controversy arose within the Reformed Church, mainly around the subject of predestination. This has become known as the struggle between Arminianism and Gomarism, or between Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants. In 1618, the Synod of Dort tackled this issue, which led to the banning of the Remonstrant faith.


title: Dutch Republic

text: Beginning in the 18th century, the situation changed from more or less active persecution of religious services to a state of restricted toleration of other religions, as long as their services took place secretly in private churches.


title: Dutch Republic

text: Long-term rivalry between the two main factions in Dutch society, the "Staatsgezinden" (Republicans, Dutch States Party) and the "Prinsgezinden" (Royalists or Orangists), sapped the strength and unity of the country. Johan de Witt and the Republicans did reign supreme for a time at the middle of the 17th century (the First Stadtholderless Period) until his overthrow and murder in 1672. Subsequently, William III of Orange became stadtholder. After a 22-year stadtholderless era, the Orangists regained power, and his first problem was to survive the Franco-Dutch War (with the derivative Third Anglo-Dutch war), when France, England, Münster, and Cologne united against this country.


title: Dutch Republic

text: Wars to contain the expansionist policies of France in various coalitions after the Glorious Revolution, mostly including England and Scotland—after 1707, Great Britain—burdened the republic with huge debts, although little of the fighting after 1673 took place on its own territory. The necessity to maintain a vast army against France meant that less money could be spent on the navy, weakening the republic's economy. After William III's death in 1702 the Second Stadtholderless Period was inaugurated. Despite having contributed much in the War of the Spanish Succession, the Dutch Republic gained little from the peace talks in Utrecht (1713). However, the Dutch had over a period of forthy years successfully defended their positions in the Southern Netherlands and their troops were central in the alliances which had halted French territorial expansion in Europe until 1792. The end of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748, and Austria becoming allies with France against Prussia, marked the end of the republic as a major military power.


title: Dutch Republic

text: Fierce competition for trade and colonies, especially from France and England, furthered the economic downturn of the country. The three Anglo-Dutch Wars and the rise of mercantilism had a negative effect on Dutch shipping and commerce.


title: Deism

text: Deism ( or ; derived from the Latin "deus", meaning "god") is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge, and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe. More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority. Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology (that is, God's existence is revealed through nature).


title: Deism

text: Since the 17th century and during the Age of Enlightenment (especially in 18th-century England, France, and North America), various Western philosophers and theologians formulated a critical rejection of the several religious texts belonging to the many organized religions, and began to appeal only to truths that they felt could be established by reason as the exclusive source of divine knowledge. Such philosophers and theologians were called "Deists", and the philosophical/theological position they advocated is called "Deism". Deism as a distinct philosophical and intellectual movement declined toward the end of the 18th century but had its own in the early 19th century. Some of its tenets continued as part of other intellectual and spiritual movements, like Unitarianism, and Deism continues to have advocates today, including with modern variants such as Christian deism and pandeism.


title: Deism

text: Deistical thinking has existed since ancient times, but it did not develop as a movement until after the scientific revolution, which began in the mid-sixteenth century. Deism's origins can be traced to the philosophy of ancient Greece.


title: Deism

text: The words "deism" and "theism" are both derived from words meaning "god": Latin "deus" and Greek "theos" (θεός). The word "déiste" first appears in French in 1564 in a work by a Swiss Calvinist named Pierre Viret, but Deism was generally unknown in France until the 1690s when Pierre Bayle published his famous "Dictionnaire Historique et Critique", which contained an article on Viret.


title: Deism

text: In English, the words "deist" and "theist" were originally synonymous, but by the 17th century the terms started to diverge in meaning. The term "deist" with its current meaning first appears in English in Robert Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy" (1621).


title: Deism

text: The first major statement of Deism in English is Lord Herbert of Cherbury's book "De Veritate" (1624). Lord Herbert, like his contemporary Descartes, searched for the foundations of knowledge. The first two-thirds of his book "De Veritate" ("On Truth, as It Is Distinguished from Revelation, the Probable, the Possible, and the False") are devoted to an exposition of Herbert's theory of knowledge. Herbert distinguished truths from experience and reasoning about experience from innate and revealed truths. Innate truths are imprinted on our minds, as evidenced by their universal acceptance. Herbert referred to universally accepted truths as "notitiae communes—"Common Notions. Herbert believed there were five Common Notions that unify all religious beliefs.


title: Deism

text: Herbert himself had relatively few followers, and it was not until the 1680s that Herbert found a true successor in Charles Blount (1654 – 1693).


title: Deism

text: The appearance of John Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" (1690) marks an important turning-point and new phase in the history of English Deism. Lord Herbert's epistemology was based on the idea of "common notions" (or innate ideas). Locke's "Essay" was an attack on the foundation of innate ideas. After Locke, deists could no longer appeal to innate ideas as Herbert had done. Instead, deists were forced to turn to arguments based on experience and nature. Under the influence of Newton, they turned to the argument from design as the principal argument for the existence of God.


title: Deism

text: Peter Gay identifies John Toland's "Christianity Not Mysterious" (1696), and the "vehement response" it provoked, as the beginning of post-Lockian Deism. Among the notable figures, Gay describes Toland and Matthew Tindal as the best known; however, Gay considered them to be talented publicists rather than philosophers or scholars. He regards Conyers Middleton and Anthony Collins as contributing more to the substance of debate, in contrast with fringe writers such as Thomas Chubb and Thomas Woolston.


title: Deism

text: Other English Deists prominent during the period include William Wollaston, Charles Blount, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, and, in the latter part, Peter Annet, Thomas Chubb, and Thomas Morgan. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury was also influential; though not presenting himself as a Deist, he shared many of the deists' key attitudes and is now usually regarded as a Deist.


title: Deism

text: Especially noteworthy is Matthew Tindal's "Christianity as Old as the Creation" (1730), which became, very soon after its publication, the focal center of the Deist controversy. Because almost every argument, quotation, and issue raised for decades can be found here, the work is often termed "the Deist's Bible". Following Locke's successful attack on innate ideas, Tindal's "Bible" redefined the foundation of Deist epistemology as knowledge based on experience or human reason. This effectively widened the gap between traditional Christians and what he called "Christian Deists", since this new foundation required that "revealed" truth be validated through human reason.


title: Deism

text: Enlightenment Deism consisted of two philosophical assertions: (1) reason, along with features of the natural world, is a valid source of religious knowledge, and (2) revelation is not a valid source of religious knowledge. Different Deist philosophers expanded on these two assertions to create what Leslie Stephen later termed the "constructive" and "critical" aspects of Deism. "Constructive" assertions—assertions that deist writers felt were justified by appeals to reason and features of the natural world (or perhaps were intuitively obvious or common notions)—included:


title: Deism

text: "Critical" assertions—assertions that followed from the denial of revelation as a valid source of religious knowledge—were much more numerous, and included:


title: Deism

text: A central premise of Deism was that the religions of their day were corruptions of an original religion that was pure, natural, simple, and rational. Humanity lost this original religion when it was subsequently corrupted by priests who manipulated it for personal gain and for the class interests of the priesthood, and encrusted it with superstitions and "mysteries"—irrational theological doctrines. Deists referred to this manipulation of religious doctrine as "priestcraft", a derogatory term. For deists, this corruption of natural religion was designed to keep laypeople baffled by "mysteries" and dependent on the priesthood for information about the requirements for salvation. This gave the priesthood a great deal of power, which the Deists believed the priesthood worked to maintain and increase. Deists saw it as their mission to strip away "priestcraft" and "mysteries". Tindal, perhaps the most prominent deist writer, claimed that this was the proper, original role of the Christian Church.


title: Deism

text: One implication of this premise was that current-day primitive societies, or societies that existed in the distant past, should have religious beliefs less infused with superstitions and closer to those of natural theology. This position became less and less plausible as thinkers such as David Hume began studying the natural history of religion and suggested that the origins of religion was not in reason but in emotions, such as the fear of the unknown.


title: Deism

text: Different Deists had different beliefs about the immortality of the soul, about the existence of Hell and damnation to punish the wicked, and the existence of Heaven to reward the virtuous. Anthony Collins, Bolingbroke, Thomas Chubb, and Peter Annet were materialists and either denied or doubted the immortality of the soul. Benjamin Franklin believed in reincarnation or resurrection. Lord Herbert of Cherbury and William Wollaston held that souls exist, survive death, and in the afterlife are rewarded or punished by God for their behavior in life. Thomas Paine believed in the "probability" of the immortality of the soul.


title: Deism

text: The most natural position for Deists was to reject all forms of supernaturalism, including the miracle stories in the Bible. The problem was that the rejection of miracles also seemed to entail the rejection of divine providence (that is, God taking a hand in human affairs), something that many Deists were inclined to accept. Those who believed in a watch-maker God rejected the possibility of miracles and divine providence. They believed that God, after establishing natural laws and setting the cosmos in motion, stepped away. He didn't need to keep tinkering with his creation, and the suggestion that he did was insulting. Others, however, firmly believed in divine providence, and so, were reluctantly forced to accept at least the possibility of miracles. God was, after all, all-powerful and could do whatever he wanted including temporarily suspending his own natural laws.


title: Deism

text: Enlightenment philosophers under the influence of Newtonian science tended to view the universe as a vast machine, created and set in motion by a creator being that continues to operate according to natural law without any divine intervention. This view naturally led to what was then called "necessitarianism" (the modern term is "determinism"): the view that everything in the universe—including human behavior—is completely, causally determined by antecedent circumstances and natural law. (See, for example, La Mettrie's "L'Homme machine".) As a consequence, debates about freedom versus "necessity" were a regular feature of Enlightenment religious and philosophical discussions. Reflecting the intellectual climate of the time, there were differences among Deists about freedom and determinism. Some, such as Anthony Collins, were actually necessitarians.


title: Deism

text: Views differ on whether David Hume was a Deist, an atheist, or something else. Like the Deists, Hume rejected revelation, and his famous essay "On Miracles" provided a powerful argument against belief in miracles. On the other hand, he did not believe that an appeal to Reason could provide any justification for religion. In the essay "Natural History of Religion" (1757), he contended that polytheism, not monotheism, was "the first and most ancient religion of mankind" and that the psychological basis of religion is not reason, but fear of the unknown. Hume's account of ignorance and fear as the motivations for primitive religious belief was a severe blow to the deist's rosy picture of prelapsarian humanity basking in priestcraft-free innocence. In Waring's words:


title: Deism

text: The Thirteen Colonies of North America, which became the United States of America after the American Revolution in 1776, were under the rule of the British Empire, and Americans, as British subjects, were influenced by and participated in the intellectual life of the Kingdom of Great Britain. English Deism was an important influence on the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and the principles of religious freedom asserted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Other "Founding Fathers" who were influenced to various degrees by Deism were Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, Cornelius Harnett, Gouverneur Morris, Hugh Williamson, James Madison, and possibly Alexander Hamilton.


title: Deism

text: In the United States, there is a great deal of controversy over whether the Founding Fathers were Christians, Deists, or something in between. Particularly heated is the debate over the beliefs of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.


title: Deism

text: In his "Autobiography," Franklin wrote that as a young man ""Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."" Like some other Deists, Franklin believed that, "The Deity sometimes interferes by his particular Providence, and sets aside the Events which would otherwise have been produc'd in the Course of Nature, or by the Free Agency of Man," and at the Constitutional Convention stated that "the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men."


title: Deism

text: Thomas Jefferson is perhaps the Founding Father who most clearly exhibits Deistic tendencies, although he generally referred to himself as a Unitarian rather than a Deist. His excerpts of the canonical gospels (now commonly known as the "Jefferson Bible") strip all supernatural and dogmatic references from the narrative on Jesus' life. Like Franklin, Jefferson believed in God's continuing activity in human affairs.


title: Deism

text: Thomas Paine is especially noteworthy both for his contributions to the cause of the American Revolution and for his writings in defense of Deism alongside the criticism of Abrahamic religions. In "The Age of Reason" (1793 – 1794) and other writings, he advocated Deism, promoted reason and freethought, and argued against institutionalized religions in general and the Christian doctrine in particular. "The Age of Reason" was short, readable, and probably the only Deistic treatise that continues to be read and influential today.


title: Deism

text: The last contributor to American Deism was Elihu Palmer (1764 – 1806), who wrote the "Bible of American Deism," "Principles of Nature", in 1801. Palmer is noteworthy for attempting to bring some organization to Deism by founding the "Deistical Society of New York" and other Deistic societies from Maine to Georgia.


title: Deism

text: France had its own tradition of religious skepticism and natural theology in the works of Montaigne, Pierre Bayle, and Montesquieu. The most famous of the French Deists was Voltaire, who was exposed to Newtonian science and English Deism during his two-year period of exile in England (1726 –1728). When he returned to France, he brought both back with him, and exposed the French reading public (i.e., the aristocracy) to them in a number of books.


title: Deism

text: French Deists also included Maximilien Robespierre and Rousseau. During the French Revolution (1789 –1799), the Deistic Cult of the Supreme Being—a direct expression of Robespierre's theological views—was established briefly (just under three months) as the new state religion of France, replacing the deposed Catholic Church and the rival atheistic Cult of Reason.


title: Deism

text: Deism in Germany is not well documented. We know from correspondence with Voltaire that Frederick the Great was a Deist. Immanuel Kant's identification with Deism is controversial.


title: Deism

text: Peter Gay describes Enlightenment Deism as entering slow decline as a recognizable movement in the 1730s. A number of reasons have been suggested for this decline, including:


title: Deism

text: Although Deism has declined in popularity over time, scholars believe that these ideas still have a lingering influence on modern society. One of the major activities of the Deists, biblical criticism, evolved into its own highly technical discipline. Deist rejection of revealed religion evolved into, and contributed to, 19th-century liberal British theology and the rise of Unitarianism.


title: Deism

text: Contemporary Deism attempts to integrate classical Deism with modern philosophy and the current state of scientific knowledge. This attempt has produced a wide variety of personal beliefs under the broad classification of belief of "deism."


title: Deism

text: There are a number of subcategories of modern Deism, including monodeism (the default, standard concept of deism), pandeism, panendeism, spiritual deism, process deism, Christian deism, polydeism, scientific deism, and humanistic deism. Some deists see design in nature and purpose in the universe and in their lives. Others see God and the universe in a co-creative process. Some deists view God in classical terms as observing humanity but not directly intervening in our lives, while others see God as a subtle and persuasive spirit who created the world, and then stepped back to observe.


title: Deism

text: In the 1960s, theologian Charles Hartshorne scrupulously examined and rejected both deism and pandeism (as well as pantheism) in favor of a conception of God whose characteristics included "absolute perfection in some respects, relative perfection in all others" or "AR," writing that this theory "is able consistently to embrace all that is positive in either deism or pandeism," concluding that "panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations."


title: Deism

text: Charles Taylor, in his 2007 book "A Secular Age", showed the historical role of Deism, leading to what he calls an "exclusive humanism". This humanism invokes a moral order whose ontic commitment is wholly intra-human with no reference to transcendence. One of the special achievements of such deism-based humanism is that it discloses new, anthropocentric moral sources by which human beings are motivated and empowered to accomplish acts of mutual benefit. This is the province of a buffered, disengaged self, which is the locus of dignity, freedom, and discipline, and is endowed with a sense of human capability. According to Taylor, by the early 19th century this Deism-mediated exclusive humanism developed as an alternative to Christian faith in a personal God and an order of miracles and mystery. Some critics of Deism have accused adherents of facilitating the rise of nihilism.


title: Deism

text: In Nazi Germany, "Gottgläubig" (literally: "believing in God") was a Nazi religious term for a form of non-denominationalism practised by those Germans who had officially left Christian churches but professed faith in some higher power or divine creator. Such people were called "Gottgläubige" ("believers in God"), and the term for the overall movement was "Gottgläubigkeit" ("belief in God"); the term denotes someone who still believes in a God, although without having any institutional religious affiliation. These National Socialists were not favourable towards religious institutions of their time, nor did they tolerate atheism of any type within their ranks. The 1943 "Philosophical Dictionary" defined "gottgläubig" as: "official designation for those who profess a specific kind of piety and morality, without being bound to a church denomination, whilst however also rejecting irreligion and godlessness." In the 1939 census, 3.5% of the German population identified as "gottgläubig".


title: Deism

text: In the 1920 National Socialist Programme of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), Adolf Hitler first mentioned the phrase "Positive Christianity". The Nazi Party did not wish to tie itself to a particular Christian denomination, but with Christianity in general, and sought freedom of religion for all denominations "so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race." (point 24). When Hitler and the NSDAP got into power in 1933, they sought to assert state control over the churches, on the one hand through the "Reichskonkordat" with the Roman Catholic Church, and the forced merger of the German Evangelical Church Confederation into the Protestant Reich Church on the other. This policy seems to have gone relatively well until late 1936, when a "gradual worsening of relations" between the Nazi Party and the churches saw the rise of "Kirchenaustritt" ("leaving the church"). Although there was no top-down official directive to revoke church membership, some Nazi Party members started doing so voluntarily and put other members under pressure to follow their example. Those who left the churches were designated as "Gottgläubige" ("believers in God"), a term officially recognised by the Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick on 26 November 1936. He stressed that the term signified political disassociation from the churches, not an act of religious apostasy. The term "dissident", which some church leavers had used up until then, was associated with being "without belief" ("glaubenslos"), whilst most of them emphasized that they still believed in a God, and thus required a different word.


title: Deism

text: The Nazi Party ideologue Alfred Rosenberg was the first to leave his church on 15 November 1933, but for the next three years he would be the only prominent Nazi leader to do so. In early 1936, SS leaders Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich terminated their membership of the Roman Catholic Church, followed by a number of "Gauleiter" including Martin Mutschmann (Saxony), Carl Röver (Weser-Ems), and Robert Heinrich Wagner (Baden). In late 1936, especially Roman Catholic party members left the church, followed in 1937 by a flood of primarily Protestant party members. Hitler himself never repudiated his membership of the Roman Catholic Church; in 1941, he told his General Gerhard Engel: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always be so." However, the shifting actual religious views of Adolf Hitler remain unclear due to conflicting accounts from Hitler's associates such as Otto Strasser, Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels, and others.


title: Deism

text: An early April 2018 report of the Turkish Ministry of Education, titled "The Youth is Sliding towards Deism", observed that an increasing number of pupils in İmam Hatip schools was repudiating Islam in favour of Deism (irreligious belief in a creator God). The report's publication generated large-scale controversy in the Turkish press and society at large, as well as amongst conservative Islamic sects, Muslim clerics, and Islamist parties in Turkey. The progressive Muslim theologian Mustafa Öztürk noted the Deistic trend among Turkish people a year earlier, arguing that the "very archaic, dogmatic notion of religion" held by the majority of those claiming to represent Islam was causing "the new generations [to get] indifferent, even distant, to the Islamic worldview." Despite lacking reliable statistical data, numerous anecdotes and independent surveys appear to point in this direction. Although some commentators claim that the secularization of Turkey is merely a result of Western influence or even a "conspiracy," other commentators, even some pro-government ones, have come to the conclusion that "the real reason for the loss of faith in Islam is not the West but Turkey itself."


title: Deism

text: The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) report estimated that between 1990 and 2001 the number of self-identifying Deists grew from 6,000 to 49,000, representing about 0.02% of the U.S. population at the time. The 2008 ARIS survey found, based on their stated beliefs rather than their religious identification, that 70% of Americans believe in a personal God: roughly 12% are atheists or agnostics, and 12% believe in "a deist or paganistic concept of the Divine as a higher power" rather than a personal God.


title: Deism

text: The term "ceremonial deism" was coined in 1962 and has been used since 1984 by the Supreme Court of the United States to assess exemptions from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thought to be expressions of cultural tradition and not earnest invocations of a deity. It has been noted that the term does not describe any school of thought within Deism itself.


title: Jack Palance

text: Jack Palance ( ; born Volodymyr Palahniuk (); February 18, 1919 – November 10, 2006) was an American actor. Known for playing tough guys and villains, he was nominated for three Academy Awards, all for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, receiving nominations for his roles in "Sudden Fear" (1952) and "Shane" (1953) and winning almost 40 years later for his role in "City Slickers" (1991).


title: Jack Palance

text: Born in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, the son of Ukrainian immigrants, Palance served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He went on to briefly attend Stanford University before pursuing a career in the theatre. He made his film acting debut in "Panic in the Streets" (1950). Following his roles in "Sudden Fear" and "Shane", Palance starred as Count Dracula in the 1974 television film "Bram Stoker's Dracula", and played crime lord Yves Perret in "Tango & Cash" (1989). He also served as the host of the ABC television series "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" (1982–1986). In 2006, Palance died at the home of his daughter Holly in Montecito, California.


title: Jack Palance

text: Jack Palance was born Volodymyr Palahniuk on February 18, 1919, in Lattimer Mines, Pennsylvania, the son of Anna (née Gramiak) and Ivan Palahniuk, an anthracite coal miner. His parents were Ukrainian immigrants, his father a native of Ivane-Zolote in southwestern Ukraine (modern Ternopil Oblast) and his mother from the Lviv Oblast. One of six children, he worked in coal mines during his youth before becoming a professional boxer in the late 1930s.


title: Jack Palance

text: Boxing under the name Jack Brazzo, Palance lost his only recorded official match, in a four-round decision on points, to future heavyweight contender Joe Baksi in a Pier-6 brawl (a colloquial term referring to an unsanctioned and particularly rough fight). Years later he recounted: "Then I thought, 'You must be nuts to get your head beat in for $200.' The theater seemed a lot more appealing."


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance was awarded a football scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but left after two years, disgusted by commercialization of the sport.


title: Jack Palance

text: With the outbreak of World War II, Palance's athletic career ended, and his military career as a member of the United States Army Air Forces began. His face was said to have become disfigured while bailing out of a burning B-24 Liberator bomber during a training flight over Southern Arizona (where Palance was a student pilot). His distinctive cheekbones and deep-set eyes were said to have been the result of reconstructive surgery.


title: Jack Palance

text: The story behind Palance's face was repeated numerous times (including in respected film reference works), but upon his death, several obituaries quoted him saying that the entire story had been contrived: "Studio press agents make up anything they want to, and reporters go along with it. One flack created the legend that I had been blown up in an air crash during the war, and my face had to be put back together by way of plastic surgery. If it is a 'bionic face', why didn't they do a better job of it?"


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance (Flight Officer Walter Polanski) was honorably discharged from the United States Army Air Forces in September 1945. Shamokin News Dispatch, September 22, 1945.


title: Jack Palance

text: After the war, he attended Stanford University, leaving just one credit shy of graduating in order to pursue a career in the theatre.


title: Jack Palance

text: During his university years, he worked as a short order cook, waiter, soda jerk, lifeguard at Jones Beach State Park, and photographer's model.


title: Jack Palance

text: His last name was actually a derivative of his original name. In an episode of "What's My Line?", he described how no one could pronounce his last name, and how it was suggested that he be called "Palanski". From that he decided just to use "Palance" instead.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance made his Broadway debut in "The Big Two" in 1947, playing a Russian soldier, directed by Robert Montgomery.


title: Jack Palance

text: His acting break came as Marlon Brando's understudy in "A Streetcar Named Desire", and he eventually replaced Brando on stage as Stanley Kowalski. (Anthony Quinn, however, gained the opportunity to tour the play.)


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance appeared in two plays in 1948 which had short runs, "A Temporary Island" and "The Vigil". He made his television debut in 1949.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance made his screen debut in the movie "Panic in the Streets" (1950), directed by Elia Kazan, who had directed "Streetcar" on Broadway. He played a gangster, and was credited as "Walter (Jack) Palance".


title: Jack Palance

text: The same year he was featured in "Halls of Montezuma" (1951), about the United States Marines during World War II. He returned to Broadway for "Darkness at Noon" (1951), by Sidney Kingsley, which was a minor hit.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance was second-billed in just his third film, playing opposite Joan Crawford in the thriller "Sudden Fear" (1952). His character is written as having been a coal miner, just as Palance's father had been. Palance received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.


title: Jack Palance

text: He was also nominated in the same category the following year for his role as the hired gunfighter Jack Wilson in "Shane" (1953). This film was a huge hit, and Palance was now established as a film name.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance played a villain in "Second Chance" opposite Robert Mitchum, and was an Indian in "Arrowhead" (both 1953). He got a chance to play a heroic role in "Flight to Tangier" (1953), a thriller.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance played the lead in "Man in the Attic" (1953), an adaptation of "The Lodger". He was Attila the Hun in "Sign of the Pagan" with Jeff Chandler, and Simon Magus in the Ancient World epic "The Silver Chalice" (both 1954) with Paul Newman.


title: Jack Palance

text: He had the star part in "I Died a Thousand Times" (1955), a remake of "High Sierra" and was cast by Robert Aldrich in two star parts: "The Big Knife" (1955), from the play by Clifford Odets, as a Hollywood star; and "Attack" (1956), as a tough soldier in World War II.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance was in a Western, "The Lonely Man" (1957), playing the father of Anthony Perkins, and played a double role in "House of Numbers" (1957).


title: Jack Palance

text: In 1957, Palance won an Emmy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Mountain McClintock in the "Playhouse 90" production of Rod Serling's "Requiem for a Heavyweight".


title: Jack Palance

text: Warwick Films hired him to play the hero in "The Man Inside" (1958), shot in Europe. He was reunited with Robert Aldrich and Jeff Chandler when they worked on "Ten Seconds to Hell" (1959), filmed in Germany, playing a bomb disposal expert.


title: Jack Palance

text: He made "Beyond All Limits" (1959) in Mexico, and "Austerlitz" (1960) in France, then did a series of films in Italy: "Revak the Rebel", "Sword of the Conqueror", "The Mongols", "The Last Judgment", and "Barabbas" (all 1961), and "Night Train to Milan" and "Warriors Five" (both 1962).


title: Jack Palance

text: Jean-Luc Godard persuaded Palance to take on the role of Hollywood producer Jeremy Prokosch in the nouvelle vague movie "Le Mépris" (1963) with Brigitte Bardot. Although the main dialogue was in French, Palance spoke mostly English.


title: Jack Palance

text: In 1964, his presence at a recently-integrated movie theatre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, prompted a riot from segregationists who assumed Palance was there to promote civil rights.


title: Jack Palance

text: He played a gangster in "Once a Thief" (1965) with Alain Delon. In the following year he appeared in the television film "Alice Through the Looking Glass", directed by Alan Handley, in which he played the Jabberwock, and had a featured role opposite Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster in the Western adventure "The Professionals". Palance guest-starred in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.", and the episodes were released as a film, "The Spy in the Green Hat" (1967).


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance provided narration for the 1967 documentary "And Still Champion! The Story of Archie Moore". He was in the TV film "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" produced by Dan Curtis, during the making of which he fell and injured himself.


title: Jack Palance

text: In 1969, Palance recorded a country music album in Nashville, released on Warner Bros. Records. It featured his self-penned song "The Meanest Guy that Ever Lived". The album was re-released on CD in 2003 by the Water label (Water 119).


title: Jack Palance

text: His films tended to be international co-productions by now: "They Came to Rob Las Vegas", "The Mercenary" (both 1968), "The Desperados", and "" (both 1969).


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance had a part in the Hollywood blockbuster "Che!" (1969) playing Fidel Castro opposite Omar Sharif in the title role, but the film flopped. Palance went back to action films and Westerns: "Battle of the Commandos" (1970), "The McMasters" (1970) and "Compañeros" (1970).


title: Jack Palance

text: He had another role in "Monte Walsh" (1970), from the author of "Shane", opposite Lee Marvin, but the film was a box-office disappointment. So too was "The Horsemen" (1971) with Sharif, directed by John Frankenheimer.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance supported Bud Spencer in "It Can Be Done Amigo" and Charles Bronson in "Chato's Land" (both 1972), and had the lead in "Sting of the West" (1972) and "Brothers Blue" (1973).


title: Jack Palance

text: In Great Britain he appeared in a highly acclaimed TV film, "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1973), playing the title role. The film was directed by Dan Curtis. Three years earlier, comic book artist Gene Colan had based his interpretation of Dracula for the acclaimed Marvel Comics comic book series "The Tomb of Dracula" on Palance, explaining, "He had that cadaverous look, a serpentine look on his face. I knew that Jack Palance would do the perfect Dracula."


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance starred in the television series "Bronk" between 1975 and 1976 for MGM Television. Following that, he starred in the TV films "The Hatfields and the McCoys" (1975) and "The Four Deuces" (1976).


title: Jack Palance

text: In the late 1970s, Palance was mostly based in Italy. He supported Ursula Andress in "Africa Express" and "L'Infermiera", Lee Van Cleef in "God's Gun", and Thomas Milian in "The Cop in Blue Jeans" (all 1976).


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance was in "Black Cobra Woman"; "Safari Express", a sequel to "Africa Express"; "Mister Scarface"; and "Blood and Bullets" (all 1976). He travelled to Canada to make "Welcome to Blood City" (1977) and the US for "The One Man Jury" (1978), "Portrait of a Hitman" and "Angels Revenge" (both 1979).


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance later said his Italian sojourn was the most enjoyable of his career. "In Italy, everyone on the set has a drinking cubicle, and no one is ever interested in working after lunch", he said. "That's a highly civilized way to make a movie."


title: Jack Palance

text: In 1980, Jack Palance narrated the documentary "The Strongest Man in the World" by Canadian filmmaker Halya Kuchmij, about Mike Swistun, a circus strongman who had been a student of Houdini. Palance attended the premiere of the film on June 6, 1980, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.


title: Jack Palance

text: He appeared in "The Ivory Ape" (1980), "Without Warning" (1980), "Hawk the Slayer" (1980), and the slasher film, "Alone in the Dark" (1982).


title: Jack Palance

text: In 1982, Palance began hosting a television revival of "Ripley's Believe It or Not!". The weekly series ran from 1982 to 1986 on the American ABC network. The series also starred three different co-hosts from season to season, including Palance's daughter Holly Palance, actress Catherine Shirriff and singer Marie Osmond. "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" was in rerun syndication on the Sci-fi Channel (U.K.) and the Sci-fi Channel (U.S.) during the 1990s.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance had never been out of work since his career began, but his success on "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" and the international box-office hit of "Bagdad Cafe" (1987) resulted in a demand for his services in big-budget Hollywood films.


title: Jack Palance

text: He made memorable appearances as villains in "Young Guns" (1988) as Lawrence Murphy, "Tango & Cash" (1989) and Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989). He also performed on Roger Waters' first solo album release, "The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking" (1984), and was in "Outlaw of Gor" (1988) and "Solar Crisis" (1990).


title: Jack Palance

text: I don't go to California much any more. I live on a farm in Pennsylvania, about 100 miles from New York, so I can go into the city for dinner and a show when I want to. I also have a ranch about two hours from Los Angeles, but I don't go there very often at all...But I will always read a decent script when it is offered, and the script to "City Slickers" made sense. Curly (his character in the film) is the kind of man I would like to be. He is in control of himself, except for deciding the moment of his own death. Besides all that, I got paid pretty good money to make it.


title: Jack Palance

text: Four decades after his film debut, Palance won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on March 30, 1992, for his performance as Curly. Stepping onstage to accept the award, the 6' 4" (1.93 m) actor looked down at 5' 7" (1.70 m) Oscar host Billy Crystal (who was also his co-star in the movie), and joked, mimicking one of his lines from the film, "Billy Crystal ... I crap bigger than him." He then dropped to the floor and demonstrated his ability, at the age of 73, to perform one-armed push-ups.


title: Jack Palance

text: The audience loved the moment as host Crystal turned it into a running gag. At various points in the broadcast, Crystal announced that Palance was "backstage on the StairMaster"; had bungee-jumped off the Hollywood sign; had rendezvoused with the space shuttle in orbit; fathered all the children in a production number; been named "People" magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive"; and won the New York primary election. At the end of the broadcast Crystal said he wished he could be back next year, but "I've just been informed Jack Palance will be hosting."


title: Jack Palance

text: Years later, Crystal appeared on "Inside the Actors Studio" and fondly recalled that, after the Oscar ceremony, Palance approached him during the reception: "He stopped me and put his arms out and went, 'Billy Crystal, who thought it would be you?' It was his really funny way of saying thank you to a little New York Jewy guy who got him the Oscars."


title: Jack Palance

text: In 1993, during the opening of the Oscars, a spoof of that Oscar highlight featured Palance appearing to drag in an enormous Academy Award statuette with Crystal again hosting, riding on the rear end of it. Halfway across the stage, Palance dropped to the ground as if exhausted, but then performed several one-armed push-ups before regaining his feet and dragging the giant Oscar the rest of the way across the stage.


title: Jack Palance

text: He appeared in "Cyborg 2" (1993); "Cops & Robbersons" (1994) with Chevy Chase; "" (1994); and on TV in "Buffalo Girls" (1995). He also voiced Rothbart in the 1994 animated film "The Swan Princess".


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance's final films included "Ebenezer" (1998), a TV Western version of Charles Dickens's classic "A Christmas Carol", with Palance as Scrooge; "Treasure Island" (1999); "" (2000); and "Prancer Returns" (2001).


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance, at the time chairman of the Hollywood Trident Foundation, walked out of a Russian Film Festival in Hollywood in 2004. After being introduced, Palance said, "I feel like I walked into the wrong room by mistake. I think that Russian film is interesting, but I have nothing to do with Russia or Russian film. My parents were born in Ukraine: I'm Ukrainian. I'm not Russian. So, excuse me, but I don't belong here. It's best if we leave." Palance was awarded the title of "People's Artist" by Vladimir Putin, president of Russia; however, Palance refused the title.


title: Jack Palance

text: In 2001, Palance returned to the recording studio as a special guest on friend Laurie Z's album "Heart of the Holidays" to narrate the classic poem "The Night Before Christmas".


title: Jack Palance

text: In 2002, he starred in the television movie "Living with the Dead" opposite Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen and Diane Ladd. In 2004, he starred in another television production, "Back When We Were Grownups", opposite Blythe Danner. This was his final performance.


title: Jack Palance

text: He was married to his first wife, Virginia (née Baker), from 1949 to 1968. They had three children: Holly, Brooke, and Cody. On New Year's Day, 2003, Virginia was struck and killed by a car in Los Angeles.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance's daughter Brooke married Michael Wilding, son of Michael Wilding Sr. and Elizabeth Taylor; they have three children. Cody Palance, also an actor, appeared alongside his father in the films "God's Gun" and "Young Guns".


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance painted and sold landscape art, with a poem included on the back of each picture. He was also the author of "The Forest of Love", a book of poems published in 1996 by Summerhouse Press. He was a supporter of the Republican Party.


title: Jack Palance

text: Palance acknowledged a lifelong attachment to his Pennsylvania heritage, and visited there when able. Shortly before his death, he sold his farm in Butler Township and put his art collection up for auction.


title: Jack Palance

text: The novelist Chuck Palahniuk, author of "Fight Club" and other works, has acknowledged in a 2007 interview that he is a distant nephew of Palance.


title: Jack Palance

text: In 1992, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.


title: Jack Palance

text: According to writer Mark Evanier, comic book creator Jack Kirby modeled his character Darkseid on the actor.


title: Jack Palance

text: The "Lucky Luke" 1956 comic "Lucky Luke contre Phil Defer" by Morris features a villain named Phil Defer who is a caricature of Jack Palance.


title: Jack Palance

text: The song "And now we dance" by punk band The Vandals features the lyrics, "Come on and do one hand pushups just like Jack Palance."


title: Jack Palance

text: American comedian Bill Hicks incorporated a reference to Palance in one of his most famous routines, likening Palance's character in "Shane" to how he views the United States' role in international warfare.


title: Jack Palance

text: Novelist Donald E. Westlake stated that he sometimes imagined Palance as the model for the career-criminal character Parker he wrote in a series of novels under the name Richard Stark.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: General of the Army (abbreviated as GA) is a five-star general officer and the second-highest possible rank in the United States Army. It is generally equivalent to the rank of Field Marshal in other countries. In the United States, a General of the Army ranks above generals and is equivalent to a fleet admiral and a general of the Air Force. The General of the Army insignia consisted of five stars in a pentagonal pattern, with touching points. The insignia was paired with the gold and enameled United States Coat of Arms on service coat shoulder loops. The silver colored five-star metal insignia alone would be worn for use as a collar insignia of grade and on the garrison cap. Soft shoulder epaulettes with five stars in silver thread and gold-threaded United States Coat of Arms on green cloth were worn with shirts and sweaters.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: The rank of "General of the Army" has had two incarnations. The first was introduced in 1866, following the American Civil War. It was a four-star rank reserved for the Commanding General of the United States Army, and was held by three different men from 1866 to 1888: Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan. The rank was revived during World War II as the modern five-star rank, and may be awarded to more than one serving officer at a time. It has been held by five different men since 1944: George C. Marshall, Douglas MacArthur, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Henry H. Arnold, and Omar Bradley.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: A special rank of General of the Armies, which ranks above the second incarnation of General of the Army, exists but has been conferred only twice, to World War I's John J. Pershing, and posthumously to George Washington, by proclamation 177 years after his death.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: On 25 July 1866, the U.S. Congress established the rank of "General of the Army of the United States" for General Ulysses S. Grant. His pay was "four hundred dollars per month, and his allowance for fuel and quarters", except "when his headquarters are in Washington, shall be at the rate of three hundred dollars per month." (His combined monthly pay and allowance of seven hundred dollars in 1866 is ). When appointed General of the Army, Grant wore the rank insignia of four stars and coat buttons arranged in three groups of four.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: Unlike the World War II rank with a similar title, the 1866 rank of General of the Army was a four-star rank. This rank held all the authority and power of a 1799 proposal for a rank of "General of the Armies", even though Grant was never called by this title. Despite being titled General of the Army instead of General of the Armies, the Comptroller General of the United States would rule in 1924 that the grade revived in 1866 for Grant (and later William T. Sherman and Philip H. Sheridan) was the same grade that had been proposed for Washington in 1799 and revived for Pershing in 1919.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: In contrast to the modern four-star rank of general, only one officer at a time could hold the 1866–1888 rank of General of the Army. For a few months in 1885, as he was dying, Grant was accorded a special honor and his rank was restored by Congressional legislation.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: After Grant became U.S. president, he was succeeded as General of the Army by William T. Sherman, effective 4 March 1869. In 1872, Sherman ordered the insignia changed to two stars, with the coat of arms of the United States in between.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: By an Act of Congress on 1 June 1888, the grade was conferred upon Philip Sheridan, who by then was in failing health. The rank of General of the Army ceased to exist with Sheridan's death on 5 August 1888.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: As the logistics and military leadership requirements of World War II escalated after the June 1944 Normandy landings, the United States government created a new version of General of the Army. The five-star rank and authority of General of the Army and equivalent naval Fleet Admiral were created by an Act of Congress on a temporary basis when was passed on 14 December 1944, which provided only 75% of pay and allowances to the grade for those on the retired list. The rank was temporary, subject to reversion to permanent rank six months after the end of the war. The temporary rank was then declared permanent on 23 March 1946 by , which also awarded full pay and allowances in the grade to those on the retired list. It was created to give the most senior American commanders parity of rank with their British counterparts holding the ranks of field marshal and admiral of the fleet. This second General of the Army rank is not the same as the post-Civil War era version because of its purpose and five stars.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: The insignia for the 1944 General of the Army rank consists of five stars in a pentagonal pattern, with points touching. The five officers who have held the 1944 version of General of the Army and the date of each's appointment are as follows:


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: The timing of the first four of these appointments was coordinated with the first three of the following appointments of the U.S. Navy's first five-star Fleet Admirals:


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: This was to establish both an order of seniority among the generals and a near-equivalence between the services.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: Although briefly considered, the U.S. Army did not introduce a rank of Field Marshal. In the United States, the term "Marshal" has traditionally been used for civilian law enforcement officers, particularly the U.S. Marshals, as well as formerly for state and local police chiefs. In addition, giving the rank the name "marshal" would have resulted in George Marshall being designated as "Field Marshal Marshall", which was considered undignified.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: Eisenhower resigned his army commission on 31 May 1952 to run for the U.S. presidency. After Eisenhower was elected and served two terms, President John F. Kennedy on 22 March 1961 signed , which authorized reappointing Eisenhower "to the active list of the Regular Army in his former grade, of General of the Army with his former date of rank in such grade". This rank is today commemorated on the signs denoting Interstate Highways as part of the Eisenhower Interstate System, which display five silver stars on a light blue background.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: Arnold, a general in the Army, was the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces throughout World War II, when he was promoted. After his United States Air Force became a separate service on 18 September 1947, Arnold's rank was carried over to the Air Force, just as all Army Air Forces airmen's rank carried over. Arnold was the first and, to date, only General of the Air Force. He is also the only person to have ever held a five-star rank in two branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: These officers who held the rank of General of the Army remained officers of the United States Army for life, with an annual $20,000 in pay and allowances, . They were entitled to an office maintained by the Army along with an aide (of the rank of colonel), a secretary, and an orderly.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: No officers have been appointed to the rank of General of the Army since Omar Bradley (who was also the last living officer of such rank when he died in 1981). The rank is still maintained in the Army's structure, and could be awarded by the president with the consent of the United States Senate.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: Although the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), Omar Bradley, was eventually awarded a fifth star, such a promotion does not come with that office; Bradley's elevation ensured that he would not be outranked by his subordinate, Douglas MacArthur.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: In the 1990s, there were proposals in Department of Defense academic circles to bestow a five-star rank on the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: After the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War, but before his tenure as Secretary of State, there was talk of awarding a fifth star to General Colin Powell, who had served as CJCS during the conflict. But even in the face of public and Congressional pressure to do so, Clinton presidential transition team staffers decided against it for political reasons, fearing that a fifth star may have assisted Powell (a Republican) had he decided to run for office. An effort was also made to promote General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. to General of the Army, although it was not carried out.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: As recently as the late 2000s, some commentators proposed that the military leader in the Global War on Terrorism be promoted to a five-star rank. In January 2011, the founders of the Vets for Freedom political advocacy group published an op-ed in "The Wall Street Journal" calling for David Petraeus to be awarded a fifth star in recognition of his work and the importance of his mission. Earlier, in July 2010, D.B. Grady wrote an article in "The Atlantic" supporting the same promotion.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: The rank of General of the Armies is senior to General of the Army, and the rank by this name has been bestowed on only two officers in U.S. history. In 1919, John J. Pershing was promoted to General of the Armies for his services in World War I. In 1976, during the United States Bicentennial, George Washington was posthumously promoted to this rank for his service as the first commanding general of the United States Army. In 1903, retroactive to 1899, George Dewey was promoted to Admiral of the Navy, a rank equated to that of a five-star admiral. The promotion of Admiral Dewey is the only time an Admiral of the Navy has been named and the rank ceased to exist after his death.


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: Section 7 of Public Law read: "Nothing in this Act shall affect the provisions of the Act of September 3, 1919 (41 Stat. 283: 10 U.S.C. 671a), or any other law relating to the office of General of the Armies of the United States."


title: General of the Army (United States)

text: George Washington was posthumously promoted to the rank of General of the Armies on 15 March 1978 by Secretary of the Army Clifford Alexander. In relation to America's bicentennial celebration, Congress passed legislation on 19 January 1976 urging Washington's promotion and President Gerald Ford approved it in October 1976, but historians found that Congressional and Presidential actions were not enough, and that the Army had to issue orders to make the promotion official. According to , "General of the Armies of the United States" is established as having "rank and precedence over all other grades of the Army, past or present." Thus, Washington will always be the most senior general of the United States. During his lifetime, Washington was appointed a general in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, and a three-star lieutenant general in the Regular Army during the Quasi-War with France.


title: Pondicherry

text: Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry [pʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi] (listen),[Pon-dicherry]), is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the southeast coast of India and is surrounded by Bay of Bengal to the east and the state of Tamil Nadu, with which it shares most of its culture, heritage, and language.


title: Pondicherry

text: Puducherry, formerly known as Pondicherry, gained its significance as “The French Riviera of the East” after the advent of the French colonialization in India. Puducherry is the Tamil interpretation of “new town” and mainly derived from “Poduke”, the name of the marketplace as the “Port town” for Roman trading in 1st century as mentioned in ‘The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea’. The settlement was once an abode of many learned scholars as evidently versed in the Vedas, hence also known as Vedapuri.


title: Pondicherry

text: The history of Puducherry can broadly be classified in two periods—Pre Colonial period and Colonial Period. The Pre-Colonial period started with the reign of the Pallavas who continued to rule the empire from 325 to 900 CE, then came the Chola dynasty for the time period from 900 to 1279 CE, continued by Pandya Dynasty from 1279 to 1370 CE. During the 14th century, it was under the rule of the Naikship of Gingee denoting the Vijayanagar Empire from 1370 to 1614 CE, which was conquered by the Sultan of Bijapur and he continued for the phase from 1614 to 1638 CE. It was during the period of the Sultan when the Portuguese and Danish merchants used the place as the trading center.


title: Pondicherry

text: The colonial period started with Portuguese as they were the first Europeans to trade in textile in 1521 and subsequently with the Dutch and the Danes in the 17th century.


title: Pondicherry

text: The prospering trade of Puducherry attracted the French and the predominant feature of the town was laid by the French pioneer Francois Martin in the form of a French settlement in 1674 CE. In 1693, Puducherry was captured by the Dutch but restored in 1699 CE subsequently with the Treaty of Ryswick.


title: Pondicherry

text: The French acquired Mahe in 1720, Yanam in 1731, and Karaikal in 1738. The British captured the city from the French but returned it following the Treaty of Paris in 1763. This Anglo-French war continued until 1814 CE, when finally France had the control over the settlements of Puducherry, Mahe, Yanam, Karaikal and Chandernagar even during the British period until 1954. It was a reign of one hundred and thirty eight years under French and finally on 31st October, 1954, they left the Indian shores following de facto transfer of power.


title: Pondicherry

text: Nearby places such as Arikamedu, Ariyankuppam, Kakayanthoppe, Villianur and Bahour, which were colonised by the French East India Company over a period of time and later became the union territory of Pondicherry, have recorded histories that predate the colonial period.


title: Pondicherry

text: "Poduke" or "Poduca" (a marketplace) was a Roman trading destination from the third century BCE. "Poduca" has been identified as possibly being Arikamedu (now part of Ariyankuppam), located about from the modern city of Pondicherry. The area was part of the Pallava Kingdom of Kanchipuram in the fourth century. The Cholas of Thanjavur held it from the 10th to 13th centuries until it was replaced by the Pandya Kingdom in the 13th century. The Vijayanagar Empire took control of almost all of the south of India in the 14th century and maintained control until 1638 when they were supplanted by the Sultan of Bijapur.


title: Pondicherry

text: In 1674 the French East India Company set up a trading centre at Pondicherry and this outpost eventually became the chief French settlement in India. The French governor François Martin made remarkable improvements to the city and its commercial ties, facing at the same time strong opposition from the Dutch and the English. He entered into extended negotiations with the sultans of Golconda through the intercession of several roving French merchants and doctors who were in favour with the Sultan. Trading in jewelry and precious stones which had become highly fashionable in European courts was one among many activities. Five trading posts were established along the south Indian coast between 1668 and 1674. The city was separated by a canal into the French Quarter and the Indian Quarter.


title: Pondicherry

text: On 21 August 1693, during the Nine Years' War, Pondicherry was captured by the Dutch. Governor of Dutch Coromandel Laurens Pit the Younger sailed with a fleet of 17 ships and 1600 men from Nagapattinam and bombarded Pondicherry for two weeks, after which Francois Martin surrendered it. At the Peace of Ryswick it was agreed by all parties to return conquered territories and in 1699 Pondicherry was handed back to the French.


title: Pondicherry

text: On 16 January 1761, the British captured Pondicherry from the French, but it was returned under the Treaty of Paris (1763) at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War. The British took control of the area again in 1793 at the Siege of Pondicherry amid the Wars of the French Revolution, and returned it to France in 1814.


title: Pondicherry

text: On 18 March 1954, a number of resolutions were passed by the municipalities in Pondicherry demanding immediate merger with India. Some days later, similar resolutions were passed by the municipalities in Karaikal. The resolutions had the full support of the French Indian Councillors, who are popularly known as Ministers, and the President of the Representative Assembly. These Municipalities represent roughly 90 percent of the population of the French possessions and they called upon the Government of France to take urgent and necessary measures to give effect to the wishes of the people. The Government of India had made it clear that the cultural and other rights of the people would be fully respected. They were not asking for the immediate transfer of the de jure sovereignty of France. Their suggestion was that a de facto transfer of the administration should take place immediately, while French sovereignty should continue until the constitutional issue had been settled. Both India and France would have to make necessary changes in their respective Constitutions. All this would take time, while the demand of the people was for immediate merger without a referendum. The Government of India was convinced that the suggestion which they made would help to promote a settlement, which they greatly desired. They would gladly enter into negotiations with the Government of France on the basis suggested.


title: Pondicherry

text: On 18 October 1954 in a general election involving 178 people in Pondicherry Municipal and Commune Panchayat, 170 people were in favor of merger and eight people voted against. The "de facto" transfer of the French Indian territories from French governance to the Indian union took place on 1 November 1954 and was established as the union territory of Pondicherry. The treaty effecting the "de jure" transfer was signed in 1956. However, due to opposition in France, the ratification of this treaty by the French National Assembly only took place on 16 August 1962.


title: Pondicherry

text: The topography of Pondicherry is the same as that of coastal Tamil Nadu. Pondicherry's average elevation is at sea level, and a number of sea inlets, referred to as "backwaters" can be found. Pondicherry experiences extreme coastal erosion as a result of a breakwater constructed in 1989, just to the south of the city. Where there was once a broad, sandy beach, now the city is protected against the sea by a 2-km-long seawall which sits at a height of 8.5 m above sea level. Whilst there was an early seawall made by the French government in 1735, this was not "hard structure coastal defense" so much as an adjunct to the old shipping pier and a transition from the beach to the city,


title: Pondicherry

text: Today, the seawall consists of rows of granite boulders which are reinforced every year in an attempt to stop erosion. As a consequence of the seawall, there is severe seabed erosion and turbulence at the coastal margin, resulting in an extreme loss of biodiversity within the critical intertidal zone. Whenever gaps appear as the stones fall into the continually eroding seabed, the government adds more boulders. Pondicherry's seawall has also caused beach erosion to migrate further up the coast, to the fishing villages in Puducherry and Tamil Nadu to the north of the city.


title: Pondicherry

text: In 2012, the Ministry of Power inaugurated the "Smart Grid" project in Puducherry. Farming around Pondicherry include crops such as rice, pulses, sugarcane, coconuts, and cotton.


title: Pondicherry

text: In 2016, the Pondicherry State Government Employees Central Federation presented a status paper on the fiscal and social crisis in Puducherry to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. The report stated that a "combination of a staggering debt, stagnant tax revenues and rampant misappropriation of funds has throttled the economy of the Union Territory" and called for measures on a war footing to "deliver good governance and end corruption."


title: Pondicherry

text: The climate of Pondicherry is classified by the Köppen climate classification as tropical wet and dry ("As"), similar to that of coastal Tamil Nadu. Summer lasts from April to early June, when maximum temperatures may reach . The average maximum temperature is . Minimum temperatures are in the order of . This is followed by a period of high humidity and occasional thundershowers from June till September.


title: Pondicherry

text: The northeast monsoon sets in during the middle of October, and Pondicherry gets the bulk of its annual rainfall during the period from October to December. The annual average rainfall is . Winters are very warm, with highs of and lows often dipping to around .


title: Pondicherry

text: According to the 2011 census of India, Pondicherry had a population of 244,377, with 124,947 females and 119,430 males. Pondicherry had an average literacy rate of 80.6% with male literacy at 84.6% and female literacy at 76.7%. In Pondicherry, 10% of the population was under six years of age.


title: Pondicherry

text: The majority speak Tamil in Pondicherry. There is a community of French people and a number of French institutions such as the consulate of France in Pondicherry, the French Institute of Pondicherry and L'Alliance française.


title: Pondicherry

text: The city of Puducherry comprises two municipalities, Puducherry and Uzhavarkarai. Both the Municipalities and the Commune Panchayats in the Union Territory of Puducherry function under the Administrative control of the Local Administration Department. The Puducherry Municipality under the Puducherry District comprises the erstwhile Communes of Puducherry and Mudaliarpet with its headquarters is in Puducherry. It has a total of 42 wards spread over an area of . Wards 1–10 are north of the city. Wards 11–19 are in "Boulevard Town" and remaining wards are southwest of the city centre.


title: Pondicherry

text: There are two proposals by the Puducherry government, firstly to merge Pondicherry and Oulgaret municipalities, and upgrade the Pondicherry municipality into a '"municipal corporation", and secondly to upgrade Villianur and Ariyankuppam commune panchayats into municipalities, which would increase the Pondicherry region's urban area around of the total .


title: Pondicherry

text: Pondicherry is connected to Chennai via the East Coast Road through Mahabalipuram. There are daily bus services from several main stops from Chennai. The Pondicherry Road Transport Corporation runs buses within the city and it runs Volvo buses to Chennai and to various places. The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation operates Volvo air-conditioned bus services from Chennai to Pondicherry.


title: Pondicherry

text: PDY/Puducherry (Pondicherry) is connected by train to all the four major metro cities of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata (Howrah), and Mumbai, as well as other important cities such as Kanyakumari, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Visakhapatnam and Mangalore. Moreover, VM/Villupuram Junction which is at a distance of around (both by rail & road) is connected to several other Indian Cities.


title: Pondicherry

text: Pondicherry Airport is located at Lawspet, an Assembly Constituency in the union territory of Pondicherry. It has direct flights to Hyderabad, Bengaluru operated by SpiceJet Airlines.


title: Pondicherry

text: Pondicherry is a tourist destination. The city has many colonial buildings, churches, temples and statues which, combined with the town planning and French style avenues in the old part of town, still preserve much of the colonial ambiance.


title: Pondicherry

text: While the sea is a draw for tourists, Pondicherry no longer has the sandy beaches that once graced its coastline. The breakwater to the harbour and other hard structures constructed on the shore caused extreme coastal erosion and the sand from Pondicherry's Promenade Beach was permitted to disappear entirely. As a result of the city's seawall and groyne construction, the beaches further up the coast to the north have also been lost. An enormous deposition of sand has accrued to the south of the harbour breakwater, but this is not a commodious beach and is not easily accessible from the city.


title: Pondicherry

text: But recently, the government has been taking steps by constructing a reef and re-dosing sand. The sea is accessible by a small patch of land at the Promenade Beach (Goubert Avenue). Moreover, the beach is one of the cleanest in India and has been selected for Blue Flag certification.


title: Pondicherry

text: The Sri Aurobindo Ashram, located on rue de la Marine, is one of the most important ashrams in India, founded by the renowned Freedom Fighter and spiritual philosopher Sri Aurobindo. Auroville (City of Dawn) is an "experimental" township located northwest of Pondicherry.


title: Pondicherry

text: There are a number of old and large churches in Pondicherry, most of which were built in the 18th and 19th centuries. A number of heritage buildings and monuments are present around the Promenade Beach, such as the Children's Park and Dupleix Statue, Gandhi statue, Nehru Statue, Le Café, French War Memorial, 19th Century Light House, Bharathi Park, Governors Palace, Romain Rolland Library, Legislative Assembly, Pondicherry Museum and the French Institute of Pondicherry at Saint Louis Street.


title: Pondicherry

text: Puducherry Botanical Gardens is located south of the New Bus Stand. Chunnambar Backwater resort is from Pondicherry, along the Cuddalore Main Road. This tropical resort is flanked by a creek on one side.


title: Pondicherry

text: Arulmigu Manakula Vinayagar Devasthanam on Manakula Vinayagar Street is a Hindu temple, which houses Lord Ganesha. Sri Manakula Vinayagar Temple was in existence before the French came and settled in Pondicherry i.e. before 1666.


title: Pondicherry

text: Sengazhuneer Amman Temple at Veerampattinam village is one of the oldest temples in Pondicherry, which is about away from the city centre. The car festival conducted in mid-August is famous in Puducherry and other neighboring states. The festival takes place on the fifth Friday since the commencement of the Tamil month of 'Aadi' every year from the date immemorial. The temple car festival is the only one where the head of the state pulls the temple car right from the days of the French rule.


title: Pondicherry

text: Thirukaameeswarar Temple is one of the ancient temples located in a rural town called Villianur (the ancient name is Vilvanallur, from "vilva marangal niraindha nalla vur"), which roughly translates as nice with archery trees is located about away (towards Villupuram) from Pondicherry. This temple is renowned as "Periya Koil" "Big Temple". The prime god is Lord Shiva and the prime goddess is Goddess Kokilambigai. There are other Hindu gods such as Murugan, Vinayagar, Thakshanamoorthy, Perumal, Bhramah, Chandikeshwarar, Natarajar, Navagrahah, and 63 Naayanmaars. The pioneers in this temple say that the age of this temple is about 1000 plus years. It is thought to have been built by one of the Chola kings. There is also a huge temple pond. The Ther Thiruvizha (chariot procession) is celebrated at this temple.


title: Almaty

text: Almaty (; ; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata (), is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1936 as an autonomous republic as part of the Soviet Union, then from 1936 to 1991 as a union republic and finally from 1991 as an independent state to 1997 when the government relocated the capital to Akmola (renamed Astana in 1998, Nur-Sultan in 2019, and back to Astana in 2022).


title: Almaty

text: Almaty is still the major commercial, financial, and cultural centre of Kazakhstan, as well as its most populous and most cosmopolitan city. The city is located in the mountainous area of southern Kazakhstan near the border with Kyrgyzstan in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau at an elevation of 700–900 m (2,300–3,000 feet), where the Large and Small Almatinka rivers run into the plain. The city, just like Astana and Shymkent, does not belong to any region and is officially a "city of state importance".


title: Almaty

text: The city has been part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the area of music since November 2017. The city was the host for a 1978 international conference on Primary Health Care where the Alma Ata Declaration was adopted, marking a paradigm shift in global public health.


title: Almaty

text: From 1929 to 1936, the city, then known as Alma-Ata, was the capital of the Kazakh ASSR. From 1936 to 1991, Alma-Ata was the capital of the Kazakh SSR. After Kazakhstan became independent in 1991, the city was renamed Almaty in 1993 and continued as the capital until 1997, when the capital was moved to Akmola (renamed Astana in 1998, Nur-Sultan in 2019, and again Astana in 2022). Since then Almaty has been referred to as the 'southern capital' of Kazakhstan.


title: Almaty

text: Almaty remains the largest, most developed, and most ethnically and culturally diverse city in Kazakhstan. Due to development by the Soviet Union and relocation of workers and industries from European areas of the Soviet Union during World War II, the city has a high proportion of ethnic Russians and Uyghurs. The city lies in the foothills of Trans-Ili Alatau (or Zailiysky Alatau) in the extreme south-east.


title: Almaty

text: It has a relatively mild climate with warm and dry summers and quite cold winters. Since the city is in a tectonically active area, it has an endemic risk of earthquakes. Although most tremors do not cause any significant damage, Almaty has suffered some large destructive earthquakes.


title: Almaty

text: The name "Almaty" has its roots in the medieval settlement "Almatau", that existed near the present-day city. A disputed theory holds that the name is derived from the Kazakh word for 'apple' (алма), and is often translated as "full of apples".


title: Almaty

text: There is great genetic diversity among the wild apples in the region surrounding Almaty; the region west of the Tian Shan mountains is thought to be the apple's ancestral home. The wild "Malus sieversii" is considered a likely candidate for the ancestor of the modern domestic apple.


title: Almaty

text: During 1000–900 BC in the Bronze Age, the first farmers and cattle-breeders established settlements in the territory of Almaty. During the Saka period (from 700 BC to the beginning of the Christian era), these lands were occupied by the Saka and later Wusun tribes, who inhabited the territory north of the Tian Shan mountain range. Evidence of these times can be found in the numerous burial mounds (tumuli) and ancient settlements, especially the giant burial mounds of the Saka tsars. The most famous archaeological finds have been "The Golden Man", also known as "The Golden Warrior", from the Issyk Kurgan; the Zhalauly treasure, the Kargaly diadem, and the Zhetysu arts bronzes (boilers, lamps and altars). During the period of Saka and Wusun governance, Almaty became an early education centre.


title: Almaty

text: In the 15th–18th centuries, the city was in decline as trade activities were decreasing on this part of the Silk Road. European nations were conducting more overseas trade by shipping. This period was one of crucial ethnic and political transformations.


title: Almaty

text: The Dzungar invaded, dominating the Kazakh people for a period. The Kazakh fought to protect their land and preserve independence. In 1730 the Kazakh defeated the Dzungar in the Anyrakay mountains, northwest of Almaty. During the eighteenth century, the city and region was roughly on the border between the Khanate of Kokand and Qing Empire. It was then absorbed as part of the Russian Empire in the 1850s.


title: Almaty

text: To defend its empire, Russia built Fort "Verny" near the Trans-Ili Alatau mountain range between the Bolshaya and Malenkaya Almatinka rivers. Construction began on 4 February 1854 and was nearly completed by the autumn of that year. The fort was a wooden palisade, shaped like a pentagon, with one side built along the Malaya Almatinka. Later, the wood fence was replaced with a brick wall with embrasures. The main facilities were erected around the large square for training and parading.


title: Almaty

text: In 1867 Verniy Fort was developed as a town called "Almatinsk"; the town soon returned to the name Verny.


title: Almaty

text: By 1906 the population of the city had grown to 27,000, two-thirds of whom being Russians and Ukrainians.


title: Almaty

text: In 1918 following the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the Bolshevik government, Soviet power was established in Verny. The city and the region became part of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (RSFSR). On 5 February 1921, Verny was renamed Alma-Ata, one of the city's ancient names, by a joint consultation of regional government representatives, professional trade associations, and local faith-based groups.


title: Almaty

text: In 1926, the Council of Labor and Defence approved the construction of the Turkestan–Siberia Railway that was a crucial element of the future growth of Kazakhstan, especially in the east and southeast of the region. The Turkestan–Siberia Railway construction also had a decisive economic impact that strongly influenced the destiny of Alma-Ata as the capital of the Kazakh ASSR. In 1930 the construction of the highway and railway to Alma-Ata was completed.


title: Almaty

text: On 29 April 1927, the government decided to transfer the capital of the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from Kyzyl-Orda to Alma-Ata, within the RFSFR. This attracted more trade and people working with the government, stimulating intensive development in the city.


title: Almaty

text: On 31 January 1928, Leon Trotsky, leader of the 1917 October Revolution, accompanied by his wife Natalia Sedova and his son Lev Sedov, was exiled to Alma-Ata by Joseph Stalin, then head of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in Moscow. Trotsky was expelled from Alma-Ata to Turkey in February 1929, and went into exile in Mexico City.


title: Almaty

text: The Alma-Ata airport was opened in 1930, opening up a direct connection from Alma-Ata to Moscow, the center of the Soviet government. Alma-Ata became the main entry by air to Kazakhstan, a status which it retains today. Transformation of this small town into the capital of the Kazakh SSR was accelerated by the large-scale construction of new administrative and government facilities and housing. The Great Purge of 1936–38 extended to Kazakhstan, where numerous intellectuals, activists, leaders, teachers and others were killed. The Soviet government dominated the population. During the 1930s Kazakh nomads suffered starvation after disruption of their traditional living patterns. (see: Asharshylyq)


title: Almaty

text: In 1936 the Architecture and Planning Bureau developed a plan to enhance Alma-Ata as the new cultural capital of the Kazakh SSR. The plan was based on the existing rectangular system of districts. They were to be strengthened and reconstructed.


title: Almaty

text: During World War II the government dramatically affected the city's population and structures. To better organize the home front and concentrate industrial and material resources, the government evacuated 26,000 people and numerous industries from the European theatre of war. Alma-Ata hosted over 30 industrial facilities removed from the European section of the USSR, eight evacuated hospitals, 15 institutes, universities and technical schools; and around 20 cultural institutions. Motion picture production companies from Leningrad, Kyiv, and Moscow were also moved to Alma-Ata at this time. This brought in so many ethnic Russians that the Kazakhs became a minority in the region.


title: Almaty

text: During the years 1941–1945 the industrial potential of the city increased significantly. Development increased during the postwar years. The population of the city grew from 104,000 in 1919 to 365,000 in 1968. By 1967 the city had 145 enterprises, with the bulk of these being light and food industries.


title: Almaty

text: The main industries in Alma-Ata were: food processing (36% of gross industrial output), based largely on locally abundant fruit and vegetable raw materials, light industry (31%), and heavy industry (33%). The main products of the region were:


title: Almaty

text: From 1966 to 1971, 1,400,000 square metres of public and cooperative housing were built. Annually, around 300,000 square metres of dwellings were under construction. Most of the buildings constructed during this time were earthquake-proof multi-story buildings. The Soviet government tried to diversify architectural forms to create a more varied cityscape. During this period, many schools, hospitals, cultural, and entertainment facilities were constructed, including Lenin's Palace, the Kazakhstan Hotel, and the Medeo Sports Complex.


title: Almaty

text: The supersonic transport Tupolev Tu-144 went into service on 26 December 1975, carrying mail and freight between Moscow and Alma-Ata in preparation for passenger services; these began in November 1977. The Aeroflot flight on 1 June 1978 was the 55th and last scheduled passenger flight of the Tu-144.


title: Almaty

text: Alma-Ata was the host city for a 1978 international conference on Primary Health Care. The Alma Ata Declaration was adopted, marking a paradigm shift in global public health.


title: Almaty

text: On 16 December 1986, the Jeltoqsan riot took place in the Brezhnev Square (now Republic Square) in response to General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev's dismissal of Dinmukhamed Kunayev.


title: Almaty

text: On 7 September 1988, the subway Almaty Metro project started construction; the subway was opened on 1 December 2011 after 23 years.


title: Almaty

text: Kazakhstan declared its independence from the Soviet Union on 16 December 1991 (Kazakhstan Independence Day), and one year later, on 28 January 1993, the government renamed the city from the Russian "Alma-Ata" to the Kazakh name "Almaty".


title: Almaty

text: In 1997 the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev approved the decree to transfer the capital from Almaty to Astana in the north of the country. On 1 July 1998 a law was passed to establish the special status of Almaty as a scientific, cultural, historical, financial, and industrial centre.


title: Almaty

text: The new general plan of Almaty for 2030 was released in 1998. It is intended to create ecologically safe, secure, and socially comfortable living conditions in the city. The main objective is to promote Almaty's image as a garden-city.


title: Almaty

text: It proposes continued multi-storied and single-housing development, reorganization of industrial districts or territories, improving transport infrastructure, and expanding the Almaty Metro. The first line of the Almaty metro was launched on 1 December 2011, two weeks ahead of schedule. The extension of the line to Qalqaman was opened in 2015.


title: Almaty

text: Nevertheless, Almaty has developed a major problem with air pollution. Already in 1995, particulate emissions, then mostly from the city's thermal power station, exceeded Kazakh and EU standards by over 20 times. In 2008, Almaty was ranked the 9th most polluted city in the world. A 2013 study identified cars as a major source of pollution, and it was noted since 2003 and 2013 morbidity had increased by a factor of 1.5, and that the city takes the first place in the republic on respiratory, endocrine and blood diseases, cancer and bronchial asthma, even though there are no major industrial installations. An independent local air quality monitoring system with a mobile app was launched in 2017.


title: Almaty

text: The area of the city has been expanded during recent years with the annexation of the suburban settlements of Kalkaman, Kok Tube, Gorniy Gigant District (Mountain Giant). Numerous apartment blocks and office skyscrapers have transformed the face of the town, which has been built into the mountains. Squatter settlements such as Shanyrak have resisted eviction in the face of these development plans.


title: Almaty

text: Almaty was the site of a notorious terrorist attack in July 2016, when Jihadist Ruslan Kulikbayev killed eight police officers and two civilians in a shootout and car chase. Kulikbayev was wounded during the shootout and later sentenced to death for the attack.


title: Almaty

text: Almaty is located in south-eastern Kazakhstan, almost 1000 km from the capital Astana. Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek is 190 km to the west, while Ürümqi in China is almost 1000 km east.


title: Almaty

text: The region is also home to the Mynjylky mountain plateau, an elevated plain located at the source of the Malaya Almaatinka river at an altitude of 3000 meters above sea level.


title: Almaty

text: Almaty has a humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification: "Dfa") with hot summers and cold winters. It is characterized by the influence of mountain–valley circulation. This is especially evident in the northern part of the city, located directly in the transition zone of the mountain slopes to the plains.