title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: Kratom is scheduled to become an illegal substance in Indonesia in 2024 once new regulations from the Indonesian National Narcotics Agency (BNN) go into effect. This pending ban has been in place since 2019; the date of the ban going into effect was pushed out to 2024 to give Kratom farmers time to switch to other crops. Notably, this ban would likely devastate the Kratom supply in the United States, since almost all of America's Kratom is supplied via Indonesian exports.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: The use of kratom leaves, known locally as "ketum or Biak" is prohibited to use, import, export, manufacture, compound, mix, dispense, sell, supply, administer or possess in Malaysia under Section 30 (3), Act. 366 Poisons Act 1952 and will be punished by imprisonment or fine or both. Although prohibited by statute, the use of kratom remains widely spread especially in Northern and East Coast region of Malaysia's Peninsula because the tree grows natively and tea decoctions are readily available in local communities. Certain parties have urged the government to penalize the use of kratom under the Dangerous Drugs Act instead of the Poisons Act, which would carry heavier penalties.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: Possession of "kratom" leaves (, ) was illegal in Thailand until 2018. The Thai government had passed the Kratom Act 2486, effective 3 August 1943, which made planting the tree illegal, in response to a rise in its use when opium became very expensive in Thailand and the Thai government was attempting to gain control of the opium market. In 1979, the Thai government placed "kratom", along with marijuana, in Category V of a five category classification of narcotics. "Kratom" accounted for less than two percent of arrests for narcotics between 1987 and 1992.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: The Thai government has considered legalizing "kratom" for recreational use in 2004, 2009, 2013, and 2020. In 2018, Thailand became the first Southeast Asian country to legalize "kratom" for medical purposes. In 2021, Thailand fully legalized kratom and removed it from the list of Category V narcotics, and more than 12,000 people who had been convicted for kratom-related offences when it was still considered a narcotic were granted an amnesty.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: In the United States, there is consideration to make kratom a Schedule I drug. In 2019, the FDA warned consumers that kratom remains unapproved for interstate commerce, may be unsafe in commercially available products, and is on an import alert which can lead to confiscation of imported supplies. Efforts to schedule kratom have generated significant controversy both among the general public and scientific community.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: In April 2019, the FDA issued a statement declaring that kratom was not approved for any medical use, was potentially unsafe in commercial products available in the United States, and remained on an import alert where imported supplies would be confiscated.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: On April 4, 2018, the FDA issued the first mandatory recall in its history over concerns of salmonella contamination of several kratom-containing products. Samples of the products, manufactured by Triangle Pharmanaturals, and marketed under the brand name 'Raw Form Organics', tested positive for contamination and the manufacturer did not comply with federal requests for voluntary recall. FDA Commissioner Gottlieb stated that the recall was, "...based on the imminent health risk posed by the contamination of this product with salmonella" and not related to other regulatory concerns. Consumers were advised to immediately discard any such products to prevent serious health risks.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: In February 2018, the commissioner of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb, released a statement describing further opioid-like properties of kratom and stating that it should not be used for any medical treatment or recreational use. Also in 2018, the FDA supervised the voluntary destruction of kratom dietary supplements by a nationwide distributor in Missouri, and encouraged all companies involved in kratom commerce to remove their products from the market. On February 26, the FDA warned a California manufacturer of a kratom product called "Mitrasafe" that the supplement was not confirmed as safe, was not approved as a dietary supplement or drug, and was illegal for interstate commerce.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: In November 2017, the FDA cited serious concerns over the marketing and effects (including death) associated with the use of kratom in the United States, stating that "There is no reliable evidence to support the use of kratom as a treatment for opioid use disorder; there are currently no FDA-approved therapeutic uses of kratom... and the FDA has evidence to show that there are significant safety issues associated with its use."


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: On August 30, 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced its intention to place the active materials in the kratom plant into Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act as a warning about an imminent hazard to public safety, citing over 600 calls to poison control centers between 2010 and 2015 and 15 kratom-related deaths between 2014 and 2016. This drew strong protests among those using kratom to deal with chronic pain or wean themselves off opioids or alcohol. A group of 51 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and a group of nine Senators each sent letters to acting DEA administrator Chuck Rosenberg protesting the listing and around 140,000 people signed an online White House Petition protesting it. The DEA noted the responses but said that it intended to go forward with the listing; a spokesman said: "We can't rely upon public opinion and anecdotal evidence. We have to rely upon science." In October 2016, the DEA withdrew its notice of intent while inviting public comments over a review period ending on December 1, 2016. As of July 2016, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Vermont, and Wisconsin had made kratom illegal, and the US Army had forbidden soldiers from using it. Between February 2014 and July 2016, U.S. law-enforcement authorities "encountered 55 tons of kratom," or roughly "50 million individual doses," according to the International Narcotics Control Board.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: The FDA's arguments for the federal prohibition of kratom have drawn both criticism and support. FDA commissioner Gottlieb responded to criticism in 2018 by stating that “The FDA has done an exhaustive review of adverse event reports, clinical literature and other sources of information related to kratom." However, in 2021, former Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs Brett Giroir claimed that the FDA's recommendation to schedule kratom was rejected because of "embarrassingly poor evidence [and] data." The FDA's position on kratom has also been criticized by the American Kratom Association and researchers including Walter Prozialeck. Former commissioner Gottlieb continued to defend the agency's position in 2021, stating that he was convinced that kratom was fueling the U.S. opioid epidemic, though Gottlieb's partiality has been called into question as he has since gone on to become a member of the board of directors of Pfizer Inc., a company that has been heavily criticized for its sale and marketing of opioid drugs.


title: Mitragyna speciosa

text: Kratom is under preliminary research for its possible antipsychotic and antidepressant properties. Survey studies found that some people use kratom as a self-treatment strategy for conditions such as opioid use disorder, acute pain, chronic pain, and various mental health conditions, including anxiety and depression. Kratom is also being studied in order to design novel drugs for treating pain, opioid use disorder, and alcohol use disorder. There is no scientific evidence that kratom is safe or effective for any medical condition, , and concerns remain about its safety.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: The North Hollywood shootout was a confrontation between two heavily armed and armored bank robbers, Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu, and members of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California, United States on February 28, 1997. Both robbers were killed, twelve police officers and eight civilians were injured, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and police.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: At 9:16 a.m., Phillips and Mătăsăreanu entered and robbed Bank of America's North Hollywood branch. The two robbers were confronted by LAPD officers when they exited the bank and a shootout between the officers and robbers ensued. The robbers attempted to flee the scene, Phillips on foot and Mătăsăreanu in their getaway vehicle, while continuing to exchange fire with the officers. The shootout continued onto a residential street adjacent to the bank until Phillips, mortally wounded, succumbed to a self-inflicted gunshot wound; Mătăsăreanu was incapacitated by officers three blocks away and subsequently bled to death before the arrival of paramedics more than an hour later.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Phillips and Mătăsăreanu had robbed at least two other banks using similar methods for entry past "bullet-proof" security doors, taking control of the entire bank, and firing weapons illegally modified to enable fully-automatic fire. They were also suspects in two armored car robberies.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Standard issue sidearms carried by most local patrol officers at the time were 9mm pistols or .38 Special revolvers; some patrol cars were also equipped with a 12-gauge shotgun. Phillips and Mătăsăreanu carried Norinco Type 56 rifles (a Chinese AK-47 variant), a Bushmaster XM-15 Dissipator with a 100-round drum magazine, and a Heckler & Koch HK91 rifle, all of which, except for the HK91, had been illegally modified to be select-fire capable, as well as a Beretta 92FS pistol. The robbers wore homemade body armor which successfully protected them from handgun rounds and shotgun pellets fired by the responding officers. A law enforcement SWAT team eventually arrived with higher-caliber weapons, but they had little effect on the heavy body armor used by the two perpetrators. The SWAT team also commandeered an armored car to evacuate the wounded. Several officers additionally equipped themselves with AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles from a nearby firearms dealer. The incident sparked debate on the need for patrol officers to upgrade their firepower in preparation for similar situations in the future.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Due to the large number of injuries and rounds fired, equipment used by the robbers, and overall length of the shootout, it is regarded as one of the most intense and significant gun battles in U.S. police history. Combined, the two men had fired approximately 1,100 rounds in total, while approximately 650 rounds were fired by police. Another estimate is that a total of nearly 2,000 rounds were fired collectively.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Larry Eugene Phillips Jr. (September 20, 1970 – February 28, 1997) and the Romanian-born Decebal Ștefan Emilian "Emil" Mătăsăreanu (July 19, 1966 – February 28, 1997) first met at a Gold's Gym in Venice, Los Angeles, California, in 1989. Phillips ( tall and ) and Mătăsăreanu ( tall and ) had mutual interests in weightlifting, bodybuilding, and firearms. Before meeting, Phillips was a habitual offender, responsible for multiple real estate scams and counts of shoplifting. Mătăsăreanu was a qualified electrical engineer and ran a relatively unsuccessful computer repair business.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: On July 20, 1993, Phillips and Mătăsăreanu robbed an armored car outside a branch of FirstBank in Littleton, Colorado.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: On October 29, they were arrested in Glendale, northeast of Los Angeles, for operating a stolen vehicle. A subsequent search of their vehicle after Phillips surrendered with a concealed weapon found two semi-automatic rifles, two handguns, more than 1,600 rounds of 7.62×39mm rifle ammunition, 1,200 rounds of 9×19mm Parabellum and .45 ACP handgun ammunition, radio scanners, smoke bombs, improvised explosive devices, body armor vests, and three different California license plates. Initially charged with conspiracy to commit robbery, both served 100 days in jail and were placed on three years of probation due to plea bargaining. After their release, most of their seized property was returned to them, except for the confiscated firearms and explosives.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: On June 14, 1995, Phillips and Mătăsăreanu ambushed a Brink's armored car in Winnetka, Los Angeles, killing one guard, Herman Cook, and seriously wounding another. In May 1996, they robbed two branches of Bank of America in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, stealing approximately US$1.5 million. The pair were dubbed the "High Incident Bandits" by investigators due to the weaponry they had used in three robberies prior to their attempt in North Hollywood.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: On the morning of February28, 1997, after months of preparation that included extensive reconnoitering of their intended targetthe Bank of America branch located at 6600 Laurel Canyon BoulevardPhillips and Mătăsăreanu armed themselves with a semi-automatic HK-91 and several illegally converted weapons: two Norinco Type 56 S rifles, a fully automatic Norinco Type56 S-1, and a fully automatic Bushmaster XM15 Dissipator.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: The robbers allegedly filled a jam jar with gasoline and placed it in the back seat with the intention of setting the car and weapons on fire to destroy evidence after the robbery. Phillips wore roughly of equipment, including a Type IIIA bulletproof vest and groin guard; a load bearing vest with multiple military ammo pouches; and several pieces of homemade body armor created from spare vests, covering his shins, thighs, and forearms. Mătăsăreanu wore only a Type IIIA bulletproof vest, but included a metal ballistic plate to protect vital organs. Additionally, each man had a watch sewn onto the back of one glove, in order to monitor their timing. Before entering, they took the barbiturate phenobarbital, prescribed to Mătăsăreanu as a sedative, to calm their nerves. The Forensic Toxicology Laboratory of the Coroner's Office later also found ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine in Phillips' blood, and phenytoin in Mătăsăreanu's blood.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Phillips and Mătăsăreanu, driving a white 1987 Chevrolet Celebrity, arrived at the Bank of America branch at the intersection of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Archwood Street in North Hollywood around 9:16 a.m., and set their watch alarms for eight minutes, the police response time they had estimated. To come up with this timeframe, Phillips had used a radio scanner to monitor police transmissions prior to the robbery. As the two were walking in, they were spotted by two LAPD officers, Loren Farell and Martin Perello, who were driving down Laurel Canyon in a patrol car. Officer Farell issued a call on the radio: "15-A-43, requesting assistance, we have a possible 211 in progress at the Bank of America." 211 is the code for robbery.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: As they entered the bank, each armed with a Norinco Type 56 S-1 rifle, Phillips and Mătăsăreanu forced a customer leaving the ATM lobby near the entrance into the bank and onto the floor. A security guard inside saw the scuffle and the heavily armed robbers and radioed his partner in the parking lot to call the police; the call was not received. Phillips shouted, "This is a fucking hold up!" before he and Mătăsăreanu opened fire into the ceiling in an attempt to scare the approximately thirty bank staff and customers and to discourage resistance.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Mătăsăreanu shot open the bulletproof door (which was designed to resist only low-velocity rounds) and gained access to the tellers and vault. The robbers forced assistant manager John Villigrana to open the vault. Villigrana obliged and began to fill the robbers' money bag. However, due to a change in the bank's delivery schedule, the vault contained significantly less than the $750,000 the gunmen had expected.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Mătăsăreanu, enraged at this development, argued with Villigrana and demanded more. In an apparent show of frustration, Mătăsăreanu then fired a full drum magazine of 75 rounds into the bank's safe, destroying much of the remaining money. He then attempted to open the bank's ATM, but due to a change in policies, the branch manager no longer had access to the money inside. Before leaving, the robbers locked the hostages in the bank vault. In the end, the two left with $303,305 and three dye packs which later exploded, ruining the money they stole.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Outside, the first-responding officers heard the gunfire within the bank and made another radio call reporting “shots fired” before taking cover behind their patrol car. While the robbers were still inside, additional North Hollywood division patrol and detective units arrived and took strategic positions at all four corners of the bank, establishing a perimeter around it. At approximately 9:24 a.m., Phillips exited through the north doorway and after spotting a police cruiser away, opened fire for several minutes. In the initial shooting, Phillips wounded Sgt. Dean Haynes, Officers Martin Whitfield, James Zaboravan, and Stuart Guy, and Detectives William Krulac and Tracey Angeles, as well as three civilians that had taken cover behind Sgt. Haynes’ patrol car. Phillips also fired at an LAPD helicopter flown by Charles D. Perriguey Jr. as it surveyed the scene from above, forcing it to withdraw to a safer distance. Phillips briefly retreated inside, then reemerged through the north doorway, while Mătăsăreanu exited through the south exit.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Phillips and Mătăsăreanu continued to engage the officers, firing sporadic bursts into the patrol cars that had been positioned on Laurel Canyon in front of the bank and in the parking lot across the street.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Officers, who were mostly armed with then-LAPD standard-issue Beretta 92F/FS 9mm pistols, Smith & Wesson Model 15 .38 Special revolvers, and 12-gauge Ithaca Model 37 pump-action shotguns, continued to return fire at both robbers, but found quickly that their handguns and shotguns would not penetrate the body armor worn by Phillips and Mătăsăreanu. This was compounded by the fact that most of the LAPD officers' service pistols had insufficient range at longer distances, where most officers found themselves positioned relative to the bank entrance. An officer was heard on the LAPD police frequency approximately 10 – 15 minutes into the shootout, warning other officers that they should "not stop [the getaway vehicle], they've got automatic weapons, there's nothing we have that can stop them." Additionally, the officers were pinned down by the heavy sprays of gunfire coming from the robbers, making it extremely difficult to attempt a head shot with their handguns. Several officers acquired five AR-15 style rifles from a nearby gun store to combat the robbers.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Two locations adjacent to the bank’s north parking lot provided good cover for officers and detectives. Police likely shot Phillips with their handguns while Phillips was still firing and taking cover near the four vehicles adjacent to the North wall of the bank (gray Honda Civic, Ford Explorer, white Acura Legend, and Chevrolet Celebrity). One location that Officer Richard Zielenski of Valley Traffic Division effectively used for cover was the adjacent Del Taco restaurant’s west wall, from Phillips. Zielenski fired 86 9mm rounds at Phillips and is believed have hit Phillips during their exchange. Zielenski was also able to use this position to draw Phillips’ fire away from Sgt. Haynes and Officer Whitfield, who were both wounded and had only marginal cover behind trees across Laurel Canyon Blvd. The other location that proved advantageous for the LAPD was the backyard of 6641 Agnes Avenue. A cinder block wall provided relative cover for several detectives shooting at Phillips with their 9mm pistols. Detective Bancroft and Detective Harley in particular, were able to position themselves behind cover and fire between 15 and 24 rounds at Phillips, from a distance of approximately . After Mătăsăreanu backed the Chevrolet Celebrity out of the handicapped space in the north parking lot, Phillips received a gunshot wound to his left wrist, based upon helicopter news footage that showed him react to pain.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: At the same approximate time, LAPD gunfire struck the Heckler & Koch rifle that Phillips was firing, rendering it inoperable with a penetration to the receiver. Phillips discarded it and rearmed himself with another assault rifle from the trunk of the sedan.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: After LAPD radio operators received the second "officer down" call from police at the shootout, a tactical alert was issued. The SWAT team (Donnie Anderson, Steve Gomez, Peter Weireter, and Richard Massa) arrived 18 minutes after the shooting had begun. They were armed with AR-15s, and wore running shoes and shorts under their body armor, as they had been on an exercise run when they received the call. Upon arrival, they commandeered a nearby armored truck, which was used to extract wounded civilians and officers from the scene.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: While still in the parking lot, Mătăsăreanu was shot in the right buttock, the right leg, and the left forearm. A fourth projectile then lacerated his upper right eyesocket and prompted him to duck behind the hood of the getaway car in shock; he subsequently abandoned his duffle bag of money, entered the getaway vehicle, and started the engine. Phillips retrieved the HK-91 from the open trunk and continued firing upon officers while walking alongside the sedan, using it for cover. As Phillips approached the passenger's side of the getaway vehicle, he was hit in the shoulder and his rifle was struck in the receiver and magazine by bullets fired by police. After firing a few more shots with one arm, Phillips discarded the HK-91 and retrieved the Norinco Type 56 before exiting the parking lot and retreating onto the street while Mătăsăreanu drove down the road.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: At 9:52 a.m., Phillips turned east on Archwood Street and took cover behind a parked semi-truck where he continued to fire at the police (Lt. Michael Ranshaw, Officers Conrado Torrez, John Caprarelli, and Ed Brentlinger) until his rifle jammed. Unable to clear the jam, he dropped the rifle and drew a Beretta 92FS pistol, which he began firing. He was then shot in the right hand by Officer Conrado Torrez, causing him to drop the pistol. After retrieving it, he placed the muzzle under his chin and fired. As he fell, Officer John Caprarelli shot him in the upper torso, severing his spine. Either bullet may have been fatal. Officers across the street continued to shoot Phillips' body several times while he was on the ground. After the firing had stopped, officers in the area surrounded Phillips, handcuffed him, and removed his ski mask.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Mătăsăreanu's vehicle was rendered inoperable after two of its tires were shot out and the windshield covered in bullet holes. At 9:56 a.m., he attempted to carjack a yellow 1963 Jeep Gladiator on Archwood by shooting at the driver, who fled on foot, three blocks east of where Phillips died. He quickly transferred all of his weapons and ammunition from the getaway car, but was unable to operate the Jeep due to the driver engaging the electrical kill switch before fleeing. As KCBS and KCAL helicopters hovered overhead, a patrol car driven by SWAT officers Donnie Anderson, Steve Gomez, and Richard Massa quickly arrived and stopped on the opposite side of the truck to where the Chevrolet was stopped. Mătăsăreanu left the truck, took cover behind the original getaway car, and engaged them in two-and-a-half minutes of almost uninterrupted gunfire. Mătăsăreanu's chest armor deflected a double tap from SWAT officer Anderson, which briefly winded him before he continued firing. Anderson fired his AR-15 below the cars and wounded Mătăsăreanu in his unprotected lower legs; he was soon unable to continue and put his hands up to show surrender.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Seconds after Mătăsăreanu's capitulation, officers rushed him to pin him down. As he was being cuffed, SWAT officers asked for his name, to which he replied "Pete". When asked if there were any more suspects, he reportedly said, "Fuck you! Shoot me in the head!"


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Ambulance personnel were following standard procedure in hostile situations by refusing to enter "the hot zone", as the area was not cleared and Mătăsăreanu was still considered to be dangerous. The police radioed for an ambulance, but Mătăsăreanu, loudly swearing profusely and still goading the police to shoot him, died before the ambulance and EMTs were allowed to reach the scene almost 70 minutes later. During the lawsuit against retired policemen John Futrell and James Vojtecky and the city, jurors heard testimony that involved an ambulance crew that arrived but left without Mătăsăreanu after Vojtecky allegedly told the crew to “get the (expletive) out of here.” During the trial, Vojtecky testified he said something similar. The ambulance driver testified he believed he was in danger by being in the area. The officers testified they tried to get the ambulance to come back or to get another one, but the plaintiffs focused on a point at which Futrell canceled an ambulance call and told the dispatcher, “I have no officers or citizens down, only a suspect.” Later reports showed that Mătăsăreanu had been shot 29 times in the legs and died from trauma due to excessive blood loss from two gunshot wounds in his left thigh.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Most of the incident, including the death of Phillips and surrender of Mătăsăreanu, was broadcast live by news helicopters, which hovered over the scene and televised the action as events unfolded. Over 300 law enforcement officers from various forces had responded to the citywide tactical alert. By the time the shooting had stopped, Phillips and Mătăsăreanu had fired about 1,100 rounds, approximately a round every two seconds.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: It was speculated during news reports that Phillips had legally purchased two of the Norinco Type 56s and then illegally converted them to full automatic. However, as Phillips was a convicted felon it was not possible for him to legally purchase firearms.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: The two well-armored men had fired approximately 1,100 rounds, while approximately 650 rounds were fired by police. Following their training, the responding patrol officers directed their fire at the "center of mass", or torsos, of Mătăsăreanu and Phillips. However, aramid body armor worn by Phillips and Mătăsăreanu covered all of their vitals (except their heads), enabling them to absorb pistol bullets and shotgun pellets, while Mătăsăreanu's chest armor, thanks to a steel armor plate, successfully withstood a hit from a SWAT officer's AR-15. The service pistols carried by the first responding officers were of insufficient power and used the wrong type of ammunition for penetrating even pistol rated soft body armor. Furthermore, the police were pinned down by fully automatic suppressive fire, making it difficult for them to execute the type of well-aimed return fire that would be required to attempt head shots. Phillips was shot 11 times, including his self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chin while Mătăsăreanu was shot 29 times.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: The shootout contributed to motivating the arming of rank-and-file police officers in Los Angeles and nationwide with semi-automatic rifles.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: The ineffectiveness of the standard small-caliber police pistols and shotguns in penetrating the robbers' body armor led to a trend in the United States toward arming selected police patrol officers, not just SWAT teams, with heavier firepower such as semi-automatic AR-15 style rifles. SWAT teams, whose close quarters battle weaponry usually consisted of submachine guns that fired pistol cartridges such as the Heckler & Koch MP5, began supplementing them with AR-15 rifles and carbines.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: On April 17, 1997, police raided a house in Anaheim traced to Phillips and Mătăsăreanu. Among the items seized included incendiary 7.62x39mm ammunition, flak jackets and ballistic helmets, approximately $400,000 in stolen cash and various firearms. One particular firearm — a short-barreled AR-15 with an aftermarket red dot sight — was later released from evidence for use by a law enforcement agency.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: Seven months after the incident, the Department of Defense gave 600 surplus M16 rifles to the LAPD, which were issued to each patrol sergeant; LAPD patrol vehicles began carrying AR-15s as standard issue, with bullet-resistant Kevlar plating in their doors as well. Also as a result of this incident LAPD authorized its officers to carry .45 ACP caliber semi-automatic pistols as duty sidearms, specifically the Smith & Wesson Models 4506 and 4566. Prior to 1997, only LAPD SWAT officers were authorized to carry .45 ACP caliber pistols, specifically the M1911A1 .45 ACP semi-automatic pistol.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: On June 12, 1998, LAPD Chief of Police Bernard C. Parks released to the Board of Police Commissioners a memorandum detailing his review of officers' use of force during the February 28, 1997 North Hollywood shootout. The memorandum contains many details about the shootout including badge numbers of officers and detectives, where they positioned themselves in the perimeter around the robbers with distances of fire, and how many rounds they fired from their weapons. Parks commended department personnel for their actions to "distract" the robbers and "obstruct" the robbers from attempting to evade police. The memorandum lists the injuries of all officers who received injuries at the hands of the robbers.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: A lawsuit on behalf of Mătăsăreanu's children was filed by lawyer Stephen Yagman against members of the LAPD (Detective James Vojtecky and Officer John Futrell), claiming Mătăsăreanu's civil rights had been violated and that he was allowed to bleed to death. The lawsuit was tried in United States District Court in February and March 2000, and ended in a mistrial with a hung jury. The suit was later dropped when Mătăsăreanu's family agreed to dismiss the action with a waiver of malicious prosecution.


title: North Hollywood shootout

text: The year following the shootout, 18 officers of the LAPD received the departmental Medal of Valor for their actions, and met President Bill Clinton. In 2003, a film about the incident was produced, titled "". In 2004, the Los Angeles Police Museum in Highland Park opened an exhibit featuring two life-size mannequins of Phillips and Mătăsăreanu fitted with similar armor and clothing they wore, and weaponry they used. Also on display at the museum is the robbers' getaway car and Officer Martin Whitfield's LAPD squad car.


title: Borscht

text: Borscht () is a sour soup common in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. In English, the word "borscht" is most often associated with the soup's variant of Ukrainian origin, made with red beetroots as one of the main ingredients, which give the dish its distinctive red color. The same name, however, is also used for a wide selection of sour-tasting soups without beetroots, such as sorrel-based green borscht, rye-based white borscht, and cabbage borscht.


title: Borscht

text: Borscht derives from an ancient soup originally cooked from pickled stems, leaves and umbels of common hogweed ("Heracleum sphondylium"), a herbaceous plant growing in damp meadows, which lent the dish its Slavic name. With time, it evolved into a diverse array of tart soups, among which the Ukrainian beet-based red borscht has become the most popular. It is typically made by combining meat or bone stock with sautéed vegetables, which – as well as beetroots – usually include cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. Depending on the recipe, borscht may include meat or fish, or be purely vegetarian; it may be served either hot or cold, and it may range from a hearty one-pot meal to a clear broth or a smooth drink. It is often served with "smetana" or sour cream, hard-boiled eggs or potatoes, but there exists an ample choice of more involved garnishes and side dishes, such as ' or ', that can be served with the soup.


title: Borscht

text: Its popularity has spread throughout Eastern Europe and – by way of migration away from the Russian Empire – to other continents. In North America, borscht is often linked with either Jews or Mennonites, the groups who first brought it there from Europe. Several ethnic groups claim borscht, in its various local guises, as their own national dish consumed as part of ritual meals within Eastern Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Jewish religious traditions.


title: Borscht

text: In 2022, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced that it had placed borscht on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding due to the risk that Russia's invasion posed to the soup's status as an element of Ukraine's cultural heritage. The new status means Ukraine could now apply for special funds to finance projects promoting and protecting the dish.


title: Borscht

text: The name ultimately derives from the word (' or //), which is common to East Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian. Together with cognates in other Slavic languages, it comes from Proto-Slavic "*bŭrščǐ" 'hogweed' and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European "*bhr̥stis" 'point, stubble'. Common hogweed (') was the soup's principal ingredient before it was replaced with other vegetables, notably beetroot in the Ukrainian version.


title: Borscht

text: The English spelling "borscht" comes from Yiddish (""), as the dish was first popularized in North America by Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe.


title: Borscht

text: Traditional Ukrainian borscht is typically made from meat or bone stock, sautéed vegetables, and beet sour (i.e., fermented beetroot juice). Depending on the recipe, some of these components may be omitted or substituted.


title: Borscht

text: The stock is typically made by boiling meat, bones, or both. Beef, pork or a combination of both are most commonly used, with brisket, ribs, shank and chuck considered to give the most flavorful results, especially if cooked on a high flame. Marrow bones are considered best for the bone stock. Meat stock is usually cooked for about two hours, whereas bone stock takes four to six hours to prepare. Meat and bones are usually removed afterwards and the meat is only added back into the soup about 10–15 minutes before the borscht is done. Some recipes call for smoked meats, resulting in a distinctively smoky borscht, while others use poultry or mutton stock. Fasting varieties are typically made with fish stock to avoid the use of meat, while purely vegetarian recipes often substitute forest mushroom broth for the stock.


title: Borscht

text: The vegetables most commonly added to borscht are beetroots, white cabbage, carrots, parsley root, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. Some recipes may also call for beans, tart apples, turnip, swede, celeriac, zucchini or bell peppers. Parsnip may be used as a substitute for parsley root, and tomato paste is often used as well as or instead of fresh tomatoes. Vegetables are usually julienned, except for potatoes and zucchini, which are diced. The beetroots may be partially baked before being sprinkled with vinegar or lemon juice to preserve the color and braised separately from other vegetables.


title: Borscht

text: Onions, carrots, parsley root, turnip and other root vegetables are sautéed (traditionally in animal fat, especially lard or butter) and then mixed with tomatoes or tomato paste. Dry beans are boiled separately. Potatoes and cabbage are boiled in the stock for about 15 minutes before the precooked vegetables are added.


title: Borscht

text: The traditional technique of preparing the soup is to precook the vegetables – by sautéing, braising, boiling or baking – separately from the meat and only then to combine them with the stock. This distinctive feature of borscht derives from the practice of slow cooking in the Russian oven (traditional masonry stove, used for both cooking and heating), wherein the differences in cooking times of individual ingredients had to be taken into account in order to ensure that all components reach doneness at the same time. The importance of this method is reflected in the Russian language, where a variant in which all vegetables are added raw directly into the stock is referred to by the diminutive form ' rather than '.


title: Borscht

text: The soup is typically flavored with a wide selection of herbs, spices and condiments. Salt, black pepper, garlic, bay leaves and dill are among the most commonly used. Other aromatics often added to borscht include allspice, celery stalks, parsley, marjoram, hot peppers, saffron, horseradish, ginger and prunes. Some recipes require flour or roux to further thicken the borscht. A common opinion is that a good borscht should be thick enough in amount of ingredients for a spoon to stand upright in it.


title: Borscht

text: The dominant tastes in borscht are sweet and sour. This combination is traditionally obtained by adding beet sour. The sour is made by covering sliced beetroots with lukewarm preboiled water and allowing bacteria to ferment some of the sugars present in beetroots into dextran (which gives the liquid a slightly viscous consistency), mannitol, acetic acid and lactic acid. Stale rye bread is often added to hasten the process, but usually omitted in Jewish recipes, as "chametz" (leavened bread) would make the sour unfit for Passover meals. Sugar, salt and lemon juice may be also added to balance the flavor. After about 2–5 days (or 2–3 weeks without the bread), the deep red, sweet and sour liquid may be strained and is ready to use. It is added to borscht shortly before the soup is done, as prolonged boiling would cause the tart flavor to dissipate.


title: Borscht

text: The beet sour is known in Slavic languages as "kvas" (literally 'sour, acid'; compare kvass) and in Yiddish as ' (from a Slavic word originally referring to any brine obtained by steeping salted meat or vegetables in water; compare Russian ' 'pickle juice', Polish "" 'broth'). Apart from its employment in borscht, it may be also added to prepared horseradish or used as pot roast marinade.


title: Borscht

text: As the traditional method of making borscht with beet sour often requires planning at least several days ahead, many recipes for quicker borscht replace the beet sour with fresh beetroot juice, while the sour taste is imparted by other ingredients. Vinegar, tomato products, lemon juice or citric acid may be used, as well as dry red wine, dill pickle juice, murături juice, sauerkraut juice, tart apples, Mirabelle plums, apricots, or a fermented rye flour and water mixture.


title: Borscht

text: As the home country of beetroot borscht, Ukraine boasts great diversity of the soup's regional variants, with virtually every oblast' having its own recipe. Differences between particular varieties may regard the type of stock used (meat, bone, or both), the kind of meat (beef, pork, poultry, etc.), the choice of vegetables and the method of cutting and cooking them. For example, although the typical recipe calls for beef and pork, the Kyiv variant uses mutton or lamb as well as beef, while in the Poltava region, the stock for borscht is cooked on poultry meat, that is, chicken, duck or goose. The use of zucchini, beans and apples is characteristic of the Chernihiv borscht; in this variant, beetroots are sautéed in vegetable oil rather than lard, and the sour taste comes solely from tomatoes and tart apples. The Lviv borscht is based on bone stock and is served with chunks of Vienna sausages.


title: Borscht

text: Many regional recipes for borscht have also developed in Russian cuisine. Examples include the Moscow borscht, served with pieces of beef, ham and Vienna sausages; Siberian borscht with meatballs; and Pskov borscht with dried smelt from the local lakes. Other unique Russian variants include a monastic Lenten borscht with marinated kelp instead of cabbage and the Russian Navy borscht (""), the defining characteristic of which is that the vegetables are cut into square or diamond-shaped chunks rather than julienned.


title: Borscht

text: As well as the thick borschts described above, Polish cuisine offers a ruby-colored beetroot bouillon known as ", or clear red borscht. It is made by combining strained meat-and-vegetable stock with wild mushroom broth and beet sour. In some versions, smoked meat may be used for the stock and the tartness may be obtained or enhanced by adding lemon juice, dill pickle brine, or dry red wine. It may be served either in a soup bowl or – especially at dinner parties – as a hot beverage in a twin-handled cup, with a croquette or a filled pastry on the side. Unlike other types of borscht, it is not whitened with sour cream.


title: Borscht

text: ', or Christmas Eve borscht, is a variant of the clear borscht that is traditionally served during the Polish Christmas Eve supper. In this version, meat stock is either omitted or replaced with fish broth, usually made by boiling the heads cut off from fish used in other Christmas Eve dishes. The mushrooms used for cooking the mushroom broth are reserved for ' (small filled dumplings), which are then served with the borscht.


title: Borscht

text: Ashkenazi Jews living in Eastern Europe adopted beetroot borscht from their Slavic neighbors and adapted it to their taste and religious requirements. As combining meat with milk is proscribed by kosher dietary laws, Jews have developed two variants of the soup: meat (') and dairy ('). The meat variant is typically made from beef brisket (pork is never used) and cabbage, while the dairy one is vegetarian, blended with sour cream or a mixture of milk and egg yolks. Both variants typically contain beetroots and onions, and are flavored with beet sour, vinegar or citric acid for tartness and beet sugar for sweetness. Galician Jews traditionally liked their borscht particularly sweet. Jewish borscht may be served either hot or cold, typically with a hot boiled potato on the side. In prewar Eastern Europe it was traditionally put up to ferment around Purim so that it would be ready four weeks later for the Passover holiday.


title: Borscht

text: In the summertime, cold borscht is a popular alternative to the aforementioned variants, which are normally served hot. It consists of beet sour or beet juice blended with sour cream, buttermilk, soured milk, kefir or yogurt. The mixture has a distinctive pink or magenta color. It is served refrigerated, typically over finely chopped beetroot, cucumbers, radishes and green onion, together with halves of a hard-boiled egg and sprinkled with fresh dill. Chopped veal, ham, or crawfish tails may be added as well.


title: Borscht

text: This soup was known in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which comprised the territories of modern-day Lithuania and Belarus, and it is still part of the culinary traditions of these and neighboring nations. In Lithuanian, it is known as "Šaltibarščiai". Soviet "Encyclopedia of Housekeeping" has an article on borscht: said article lists proper "cold borscht" recipe.


title: Borscht

text: "Coated" dressed herring salad resembles "Šaltibarščiai" cold borsht as well, despite not being a soup. The similarity includes strong color from using beets, similar choice of vegetables, and the "decorative" addition of boiled eggs.


title: Borscht

text: Although "borscht" is mostly used to describe a beet-based soup, there are some exceptions. In some culinary cultures, there are soups with the same name or similar names. In such soups, beetroots are not used or merely optional. The principal common trait among such borschts is a tart flavor from sour-tasting ingredients. According to "A Gift to Young Housewives", a book from the 19th century, "borscht" may or may not include beets (depending from recipe to recipe in the book).


title: Borscht

text: In Polish cuisine, white borscht (', also known as ' or ", 'sour soup') is made from a fermented mixture of rye flour or oatmeal and water. It is typically flavored with garlic and marjoram, and served over eggs and boiled fresh sausage; the water in which the sausage was boiled is often used instead of meat stock.


title: Borscht

text: In the Carpathian Mountains of southern Poland, variants of borscht are also made in which the tart taste comes from dairy products, such as whey or buttermilk. Although the deep red color of beetroot borscht may remind those unfamiliar with Polish cuisine of blood, the kind of borscht that does contain animal (usually poultry) blood mixed with vinegar is dark brownish-gray in color and aptly called "gray borscht" ('), which is a regional name of the Polish blood soup better known as '.


title: Borscht

text: Green borscht ("), a light soup made from leaf vegetables, is an example common in Ukrainian and Russian cuisines. The naturally tart-tasting sorrel is most commonly used, but spinach, chard, nettle, garden orache and occasionally dandelion, goutweed or ramsons, may be added as well, especially after the spring season for sorrel has passed. Like beetroot borscht, it is based on meat or vegetable broth and is typically served with boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs, sprinkled with dill. There is also a variety of Ukrainian green borscht which includes both sorrel and beetroots.


title: Borscht

text: In Romanian and Moldovan cuisines, a mixture of wheat bran or cornmeal with water that has been left to ferment, similar to, but less cloudy than that used in Polish white borscht, is called '. It is used to impart a sour taste to a variety of tangy Romanian soups, known as either also ' or '. Variants include ' (with meatballs), ' (with tripe), ' (with fish) and " (with beetroots).


title: Borscht

text: The Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian version of borscht is a hot soup made with beef stock, green peppers and other vegetables, which may or may not include beetroots, and flavored with chopped red chili and fresh cilantro. In ethnic Mennonite cuisine, "borscht" refers to a whole range of seasonal vegetable soups based on beef or chicken stock – from spring borscht made with spinach, sorrel and chard to summer borscht with cabbage, tomatoes, maize and squash to fall and winter borscht with cabbage, beets and potatoes.


title: Borscht

text: In Chinese cuisine, a soup known as ", or "Russian soup", is based on red cabbage and tomatoes, and lacks beetroots altogether; also known as "Chinese borscht", it originated in Harbin, close to the Russian border in northeast China, and has spread as far as Hong Kong. In Shanghai's Haipai cuisine, tomatoes are the main ingredient; beef and its broth, onions and cabbages are also added; while flour, rather than sour cream, is used for thickening.


title: Borscht

text: The diversity of borscht styles is matched by the wide choice of garnishes and side dishes with which various kinds of borscht may be served.


title: Borscht

text: Most often, borscht is served with sour cream, the East European version of which, known as ", is runnier than its American counterpart. The sour cream may be served in a separate pitcher for the diners to add the desired amount themselves or the borscht may come already "whitened", that is, blended with sour cream. Sometimes the cream is thickened with flour before being added to the soup. Yogurt and a mixture of milk and yolks are possible substitutes.


title: Borscht

text: Chopped herbs are often sprinkled on the surface of the soup; dill is most common, but parsley, chives or scallion are often added as well. Individual helpings may be spiced up with minced hot peppers or garlic. Many kinds of borscht are served over halves or quarters of hard-boiled chicken or quail eggs. Navy beans, broad beans or string beans are also a common addition.


title: Borscht

text: Meat, removed from the stock on which the borscht was based, may be cut into smaller chunks and either added back into the soup or served on the side with horseradish or mustard. Bacon and sausages are also commonly used as borscht garnishes. Borscht based on bone stock may be served Old Polish style, with marrow from the bones.


title: Borscht

text: Some kinds of the soup, such as Poltava borscht, may be served with "," or thick noodles of wheat or buckwheat flour. Siberian borscht is eaten with boiled meatballs (') of minced beef and onion. In Poland and parts of western Ukraine, borscht is typically ladled over ', or bite-sized ear-shaped dumplings made from pasta dough wrapped around mushroom, buckwheat or meat filling. Mushroom-filled "" are particularly associated with Polish Christmas Eve borscht.


title: Borscht

text: Borscht, like any other soup in East Slavic cuisines, is seldom eaten by itself, but rather accompanied by a side dish. At a minimum, spoonfuls of borscht are alternated with bites of a slice of bread. Buckwheat groats or boiled potatoes, often topped with pork cracklings, are other simple possibilities, but a range of more involved sides exists as well.


title: Borscht

text: In Ukraine, borscht is often accompanied with ', or savory, puffy yeast-raised rolls glazed with oil and crushed garlic. In Russian cuisine, borscht may be served with any of assorted side dishes based on ', or the East European variant of farmer cheese, such as ', ' or '. ' are baked round cheese-filled tarts; ' are small pancakes wherein the cheese is mixed into the batter; and a ' is a casserole of buckwheat groats baked with cheese.


title: Borscht

text: ', or baked dumplings with fillings as for ', are another common side for both thick and clear variants of borscht. Polish clear borscht may be also served with a croquette or '. A typical Polish croquette (') is made by wrapping a ' (thin pancake) around a filling and coating it in breadcrumbs before refrying; ' (literally, 'little ') are variously shaped filled hand-held pastries of yeast-raised or flaky dough. An even more exquisite way to serve borscht is with a coulibiac, or a large loaf-shaped pie. Possible fillings for croquettes, ' and coulibiacs include mushrooms, sauerkraut and minced meat.


title: Borscht

text: Borscht derives from a soup originally made by the Slavs from common hogweed (", also known as cow parsnip), which lent the dish its Slavic name. Growing commonly in damp meadows throughout the north temperate zone, hogweed was used not only as fodder (as its English names suggest), but also for human consumption – from Eastern Europe to Siberia, to northwestern North America.


title: Borscht

text: The Slavs collected hogweed in May and used its roots for stewing with meat. As for the stems, leaves, and umbels; these would be chopped, covered with water and left in a warm place to ferment. After a few days, lactic and alcoholic fermentation produced a mixture described as "something between beer and sauerkraut". This fermented product was then used for cooking a soup.


title: Borscht

text: The said soup—with aforementioned fermented hogweed concoction used—was characterized by a mouth-puckering amount of sourness in its taste, while its smell was described as pungent As the Polish ethnographer wrote in 1830, "Poles have been always partial to tart dishes, which are somewhat peculiar to their homeland and vital to their health." Simon Syrenius (), a 17th-century Polish botanist, described "our Polish hogweed" as a vegetable that was well known throughout Poland, Ruthenia, Lithuania and Samogitia (that is, most of the northern part of Eastern Europe), typically used for cooking a "tasty and graceful soup" with capon stock, eggs, sour cream and millet. More interested in the plant's medicinal properties than its culinary use, he also recommended pickled hogweed juice as a cure for fever or hangover.


title: Borscht

text: One of the earliest possible mentions of borscht as a soup is found in the diary of German merchant Martin Gruneweg, who visited Kyiv in 1584. After Gruneweg reached river Borshchahivka in Kyiv's vicinity on 17 October 1584, he wrote down a local legend saying that the river was so named because there was a borscht market. However, he doubted the story noting that: "Ruthenians buy borscht rarely or never, because everyone cooks their own at home as it's their staple food and drink".


title: Borscht

text: Another early written reference to the Slavic hogweed soup can be found in " ("Domestic Order"), a 16th-century Russian compendium of moral rules and homemaking advice. It recommends growing the plant "by the fence, around the whole garden, where the nettle grows", to cook a soup of it in springtime and reminds the reader to, "for the Lord's sake, share it with those in need".


title: Borscht

text: Hogweed borscht was mostly a poor man's food. The soup's humble beginnings are still reflected in Polish fixed expressions, where "cheap like borscht" is the equivalent of "dirt cheap" (also attested as a calque in Yiddish and Canadian English), whereas adding "two mushrooms into borscht" is synonymous with excess. For the professors of the University of Kraków, who led a monastic way of life in the 17th century, hogweed borscht was a fasting dish which they ate regularly (sometimes with deviled eggs) from Lent till Rogation days. It was uncommon on the royal table, although according to the 16th-century Polish botanist Marcin of Urzędów – citing , a court physician to the Jagiellonian kings of Hungary – the Polish-born King Vladislaus II used to have a Polish hogweed-based dish prepared for him at his court in Buda.


title: Borscht

text: With time, other ingredients were added to the soup, eventually replacing hogweed altogether, and the names ' or ' became generic terms for any sour-tasting soup. In 19th-century rural Poland, this term included soups made from barberries, currants, gooseberries, cranberries, celery or plums.


title: Borscht

text: When describing the uses of common hogweed, John Gerard, a 17th-century English botanist, observed that "the people of [Poland] and Lithuania [used] to make [a] drink with the decoction of this herb and leaven or some other thing made of meal, which is used instead of beer and other ordinary drink." It may suggest that hogweed soup was on some occasions combined with a fermented mixture of water and barley flour, oatmeal or rye flour. Such soured, gelatinous flour-and-water mixture, originally known as kissel (from the Proto-Slavic root "*kyslŭ", 'sour') had been already mentioned in "The Tale of Bygone Years", a 12th-century chronicle of Kievan Rus', and continued to be a staple of Ukrainian and Russian cooking until the middle of the 19th century. In Poland, a soup based on diluted kissel became known as either ' (from Middle High German ' 'sour') or ' and later – to distinguish it from the red beetroot borscht – as ' 'white borscht'.


title: Borscht

text: The earliest known Polish recipes for borscht, written by chefs catering to Polish magnates (aristocrats), are from the late 17th century. , head chef to Prince , included several borscht recipes in his ' ("A Collection of Dishes"), the first cookbook published originally in Polish, in 1682. They include such sour soups as lemon borscht and "royal borscht", the latter made from assorted dried, smoked or fresh fish and fermented rye bran. A manuscript recipe collection from the family court, dating back to ca. 1686, contains an instruction for making hogweed borscht mixed with poppy seeds or ground almonds. As this was a Lenten dish, it was garnished, in a ' fashion typical of Baroque cuisine, with mock eggs made from finely chopped pike that was partly dyed with saffron and formed into oval balls. An alternative recipe for the almond borscht replaced pickled hogweed with vinegar.


title: Borscht

text: Borscht also evolved into a variety of sour soups to the east of Poland. Examples include onion borscht, a recipe for which was included in a 1905 Russian cookbook, and sorrel-based green borscht, which is still a popular summer soup in Ukraine and Russia. "A Gift to Young Housewives" by Elena Molokhovets, the best-selling Russian cookbook of the 19th century, first published in 1861, contains nine recipes for borscht, some of which are based on kvass, a traditional Slavic fermented beverage made from rye bread. Kvass-based variants were also known in Ukraine at that time; some of them were types of green borscht, while others were similar to the Russian "".


title: Borscht

text: Before the advent of beet-based borscht, cabbage borscht was of particular importance. Made from either fresh cabbage or sauerkraut, it could be indistinguishable from the Russian '. Indeed, the mid-19th-century "Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language" defines ' as "a kind of "" with beet sour added for tartness. The significance of cabbage as an essential ingredient of borscht is manifest in the Ukrainian proverb, "without bread, it's no lunch; without cabbage, it's no borscht."


title: Borscht

text: Beet ("), a plant native to the Mediterranean Basin, was already grown in antiquity. Only the leaves were of culinary use, as the tapered, tough, whitish and bitter-tasting root was considered unfit for human consumption. It is likely that beet greens were used in variants of green borscht long before the invention of the beetroot-based red borscht. Beet varieties with round, red, sweet taproots, known as beetroots, were not reliably reported until the 12th century and did not spread to Eastern Europe before the 16th century.


title: Borscht

text: , a Polish Renaissance poet and moralist, included the earliest known Polish recipe for pickled beetroots in his 1568 book, "Life of an Honest Man". It would later evolve into ', or ', a beet-and-horseradish relish popular in Polish and Jewish cuisines. also recommended the "very tasty brine" left over from beetroot pickling, which was an early version of beet sour. The sour found some applications in Polish folk medicine as a cure for hangover and – mixed with honey – as a sore throat remedy.


title: Borscht

text: It may never be known who first thought of using beet sour to flavor borscht, which also gave the soup its now-familiar red color. One of the earliest mentions of borscht with pickled beets comes from Russian ethnographer Andrey Meyer, who wrote in his 1781 book that people in Ukraine make fermented red beets with "Acanthus", which they in turn use to cook their borscht. The book "Description of the Kharkiv Governorate" of 1785, which describes the food culture of the Ukrainians, says that borscht was the most consumed food, cooked from beets and cabbage with various other herbal spices and millet, on sour kvass; it was always made with pork lard or beef lard, on holidays with lamb or poultry, and sometimes with game. 's Polish-German dictionary published in 1806 was the first to define "" as a tart soup made from pickled beetroots.


title: Borscht

text: The fact that certain 19th-century Russian and Polish cookbooks, such as "Handbook of the Experienced Russian Housewife" (1842) by and "The Lithuanian Cook" (1854) by , refer to beetroot-based borscht as "Little Russian borscht" (where "Little Russian" is a term used at the time for ethnic Ukrainians under imperial Russian rule) suggests that this innovation took place in what is now Ukraine, whose soils and climate are particularly well suited to beet cultivation. Ukrainian legends, probably of 19th-century origin, attribute the invention of beetroot borscht either to Zaporozhian Cossacks, serving in the Polish army, on their way to break the siege of Vienna in 1683, or to Don Cossacks, serving in the Russian army, while laying siege to Azov in 1695.


title: Borscht

text: Spanish conquistadors brought potatoes and tomatoes from the Americas to Europe in the 16th century, but these vegetables only became commonly grown and consumed in Eastern Europe in the 19th century. Eventually, both became staples of peasant diet and essential ingredients of Ukrainian and Russian borscht. Potatoes replaced turnips in borscht recipes, and tomatoes – fresh, canned or paste – took over from beet sour as the source of tartness. The turnip is rarely found in modern recipes, and even then, together with potatoes. In Ukraine, beet sour and tomatoes were both used for some time until the latter ultimately prevailed during the last third of the 19th century.


title: Borscht

text: Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, borscht's popularity spread beyond its Slavic homeland, largely due to such factors as territorial expansion of the Russian Empire, Russia's growing political clout and cultural stature, and waves of emigration out of the country. As Russia grew to cover most of northern and central Eurasia, borscht was introduced to the cuisines of various peoples inhabiting the territories both within and adjacent to the empire, from Finland to the Caucasus and Iran, to Central Asia and China, to Alaska (Russian America).


title: Borscht

text: Borscht's westward expansion was less successful; Germans used to scoff at the soup along with other East European fare. What helped familiarize Western Europe with borscht was the practice of Russian emperors, as well as Russian and Polish aristocrats, to employ celebrated French chefs, who later presented their own versions of the dish as a foreign curiosity back in France. One of the first French chefs to do so was , who worked briefly for Emperor Alexander I in 1819. In his take on borscht, the original Russian soup served only as inspiration for an extravagant "" dish with an air of eastern exoticism. Apart from vegetables and beet sour, his recipe calls for a roast chicken, a fried chicken, a duck, a piece of veal, an oxtail, a marrow bone, one pound of bacon, and six large sausages, and suggests serving with beef quenelles, deviled eggs and croûtons.


title: Borscht

text: , 's apprentice, who was mostly fascinated by the soup's vivid ruby-red color, simplified his master's recipe, while also securing the place of ' ("borscht soup") in French cuisine. and , both of whom had been employed at Polish aristocratic courts, presented borscht to the French public as a Polish soup; their cookbook, ', published in 1856, contains a borscht recipe under the descriptive name, ' ("Polish-style beet-juice soup"), which had been changed to ' by the third edition in 1868. In 1867, beetroot borscht was served, along with herrings, sturgeon, coulibiac, Pozharsky cutlets and vinaigrette salad, at a Russian-themed dinner at the International Exposition in Paris, strengthening its international association with Russian culture.


title: Borscht

text: Mass migration from the Russian Empire to North America – initially mostly by members of persecuted religious minorities – was instrumental in bringing borscht across the Atlantic. The earliest waves of migration occurred at a time when cabbage-based borscht was still the dominant variant of the soup in at least parts of Russia. The Mennonites, who began arriving in Canada and the United States from Russia's Volga region in the 1870s, still eschew beetroots in their borscht; instead, Mennonite varieties include ' (with cabbage or sauerkraut) and ' (sorrel-based "summer borscht"). According to the "Jewish Encyclopedia" published in 1906, cabbage-based "kraut borscht" was also more popular than the beet-based variant in American Jewish cuisine at the time. Subsequent Jewish immigration helped popularize the red borscht in America.


title: Borscht

text: In the 1930s, when most American hotels refused to accept Jewish guests due to widespread anti-Semitism, New York Jews began flocking to Jewish-owned resorts in the Catskill Mountains for their summer vacations. The area grew into a major center of Jewish entertainment, with restaurants offering all-you-can-eat Ashkenazi Jewish fare, including copious amounts of borscht. Grossinger's, one of the largest resorts, served borscht throughout the day, every day of the year. The region became known, initially in derision, as the "Borscht Belt", reinforcing the popular association between borscht and American Jewish culture.


title: Borscht

text: As most visitors arrived in the summertime, the borscht was typically served cold. Marc Gold was one of its largest suppliers, producing 1,750 short tons (1,590 tonnes) a year in his business's heyday. Gold's borscht consists of puréed beetroots seasoned with sugar, salt and citric acid; it is usually blended with sour cream and served as a refreshing beverage, more aptly described as a "beet smoothie". Such kind of "purplish, watery broth" is, according to Nikolai Burlakoff, author of "The World of Russian Borsch", "associated in America with borsch, in general, and Jewish borsch in particular."


title: Borscht

text: In the Soviet Union, borscht was one of the most popular everyday dishes. It was described by James Meek, a British correspondent in Kyiv and Moscow, as "the common denominator of the Soviet kitchen, the dish that tied together ... the high table of the Kremlin and the meanest canteen in the boondocks of the Urals, ... the beetroot soup that pumped like the main artery through the kitchens of the east Slav lands". Among Soviet leaders, the Ukrainian-born Leonid Brezhnev was especially partial to borscht, which his wife continued to personally cook for him even after they had moved into the Kremlin.


title: Borscht

text: The soup has even played a role in the Soviet space program. In March 1961, as part of a communications equipment test, a pre-recorded recipe for borscht was broadcast from the Korabl-Sputnik 4 spacecraft. The craft, carrying animals and a mannequin, had been launched into low Earth orbit in preparation for crewed space flights. Actual borscht eventually made its way into outer space as space food for Soviet and, later, Russian cosmonauts. Originally, a puréed version of borscht was supplied in tubes.


title: Borscht

text: All ingredients for the space borscht (which include beef, beetroots, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, onions, parsley root, and tomato paste) were cooked separately, then combined one by one in strictly controlled order, sterilized, packed into tubes, sealed airtight and autoclaved. In the 1970s, the tubes were replaced with packages of rehydratable freeze-dried borscht with regular-size bits of cooked vegetables.


title: Borscht

text: However, with urbanization and mass construction of Khrushchyovka type housing, borscht would be affected; there would be no comfortable place to make own days-long dishes with "kvass" and sour foods, in a tiny apartment. At this rate, the idea of making its beet sour lost its initial appeal, making borscht in USSR mainly about beets, not about sourness.


title: Borscht

text: Such a typical Soviet-era book as "Entsyclopedia Domashnego Hozyaistva" (literally "Encyclopedia of Housekeeping") has an article on borscht. The article offers a soup with beets, other vegetables, and tartness source ("tomato puree") as "borscht" in general, but its "no-nation" primary recipe of meat borscht says ""uksus po vkusu" (Cyrillic: уксус по вкусу)", e.g. only to add vinegar upon tasting the resulting soup. Simply put, the borscht's sourness became an option, not a requirement, for a "generic" Soviet soup known as borscht, effectively parting ways with older styles of making sour soups (ones both with or without beets).


title: Borscht

text: Era of Stagnation also would affect making borscht from time to time to the next level of simplification: aforementioned canned tomato products, "paste" or "puree" would be a "deficit" item, a thing not available regularly in one's nearest store. At this rate, many modern recipes of beet soups labeled as "borscht" actually have neither a tartness source (lack tomatoes, pickles, etc.) nor a sourness source (lack vinegar, lemon acid powder, let alone beet sour kvass).


title: Borscht

text: Borscht is often associated with its role in religious traditions of various denominations (Eastern Orthodox, Greek and Roman Catholic, and Jewish) that are common in Eastern Europe. In East Slavic countries, "memorial borscht" is served as the first course at a post-funeral wake. According to a traditional belief, the soul of the departed either feeds on or is carried up to heaven by puffs of steam rising from bowls of borscht and other hot dishes, such as blini, porridge, boiled potatoes or freshly baked bread. In the region of Polesye, straddling the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, the same steaming-hot dishes, including borscht, are given as an offering to the souls of deceased ancestors during the annual semi-pagan remembrance ceremony known as " or Forefathers' Night.


title: Borscht

text: In Poland and Ukraine, borscht is usually one of the dishes served at a Christmas Eve dinner. Celebrated after the first star has appeared in the sky on December 24 (Roman Catholic) or January 6 (Greek Catholic), it is a meal which is at the same time festive and fasting, a multicourse affair (traditionally, with twelve distinct dishes) that excludes ingredients of land-animal origin. Christmas Eve borscht is, therefore, either vegetarian or based on fish stock and is not typically mixed with sour cream. In Ukraine, the soup contains vegetables that are sautéed in vegetable oil rather than lard, as well as beans and mushrooms. It may be also thickened with wheat flour dry-roasted in a pan instead of the usual roux. The Polish version of Christmas Eve borscht is a clear ruby-red broth. Both Ukrainian and Polish variants are often served with ".


title: Borscht

text: While Christmas in Poland is traditionally linked to red borscht, Lent – the fasting period that leads up to Easter – is associated with a meatless version of white borscht, or ". Youths used to celebrate Holy Saturday, the last day of the fast, with a mock "funeral" of the white borscht, in which a pot of the soup was either buried in the ground or broken, sometimes – to the crowd's amusement – while being carried by an unsuspecting boy on his head. On the next day, the white borscht would reappear on the Easter table, but this time, in its more coveted, meat-based guise with sausage, bacon and eggs.


title: Borscht

text: In Eastern European Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, vegetarian borscht served with sour cream and boiled potatoes on the side, known as ", is considered an essential dish during the Passover period. As the holiday is observed in spring (March or April), the preparation of Passover borscht used to provide an opportunity to use up the beet sour left over from pickled beetroots that had been consumed during winter, remaining potatoes that had been stored throughout the winter and sour cream that was readily available in the new calving season. Cold borscht blended with sour cream is also popular on Shavuot (Feast of Weeks), a holiday customarily associated with dairy foods, observed in late May or early June. Seudah Shlishit, or the third meal of the Shabbat, often includes borscht as well.


title: Borscht

text: In its currently most popular, beet-based version, borscht most likely originated in what is now Ukraine. Borscht's role as a staple of everyday Ukrainian diet is reflected in the Ukrainian saying, "borscht and porridge are our food" (compare the equivalent Russian saying, where borscht is replaced with ""). The hearty soup in which the beetroot is just one of sundry vegetables, as opposed to the typically Polish clear beet broth, is still known in Poland as "Ukrainian borscht".


title: Borscht

text: Borscht is associated with and claimed by several ethnic groups, especially Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, Lithuanians and Ashkenazi Jews, as their own national or ethnic dish and cultural icon. Such claims are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as the soup's history predates the emergence in Eastern Europe of modern nation states with their ever-shifting borders. Borscht, in the words of Burlakoff, "is perfectly suited to a global culture." He describes it as "a global phenomenon", in which "local variants are so numerous and diverse that it is hard sometimes for a non-specialist to grasp that any single example of it is something that is part of a unified tradition." In his view, borscht "is an almost perfect example of ... 'glocalization' – a phenomenon that is global in distribution but reflective of local needs and ways in its variants and adaptation; ... a highly localized product that became globalized, and in the process adapted to conditions other than the original ones."


title: Borscht

text: However, according to Irina Perianova, a Russian linguist and anthropologist, "people tend to be very proprietal about their food and proud of it." Perianova offers competing Russian and Ukrainian views on the origin and ingredients of borscht as an example of "a common connection between culinary and territorial claims", which results in the culinary area turning into "a battlefield generating and proliferating all kinds of myths." In 2020 Ukraine began the process to have borscht recognised as an element of the country's intangible cultural heritage, an initiative supported by chefs and food writers such as Marianna Dushar.


title: Borscht

text: In the Soviet Union, government-sponsored cookbooks, such as "The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food" curated by Anastas Mikoyan, "Cookery" and "Directory of Recipes and Culinary Production", promoted a unified Soviet cuisine with standardized and nutritionally "rational" versions of traditional dishes. The same cooking techniques and recipes were taught in culinary vocational schools throughout the country, establishing a common cooking style in Soviet cafés and restaurants. Though inspired by the cuisines of the country's various ethnic groups, many recipes were presented as part of an overall Soviet heritage, disassociated from their individual geographic origins.


title: Borscht

text: By many people both inside and outside the Soviet Union, borscht was increasingly seen not as an ethnic Ukrainian soup, but as a Soviet or – metonymically – Russian dish. This approach was criticized by William Pokhlebkin, a preeminent Russian food writer, who unequivocally described beet-based borscht as one of the "dishes of Ukrainian cookery" which "have entered the menu of international cuisine". "One could understand", he wrote, "and forgive foreigners for calling borscht or "" Russian national dishes, but when it turns out that they gleaned the information from Soviet cookbooks or from restaurant menus, one is embarrassed for our authors and chefs, who popularize the national cuisines of our peoples [that is, the ethnic groups of the Soviet Union] with such ignorance."


title: Borscht

text: According to Meek: Pokhlebkin and the Soviet Union are dead, yet Borshchland lives on. Recipes, like birds, ignore political boundaries. ... The faint outline of the Tsarist-Soviet imperium still glimmers in the collective steam off bowls of beetroot and cabbage in meat stock, and the soft sound of dollops of sour cream slipping into soup, from the Black Sea to the Sea of Japan and, in emigration, from Brooklyn to Berlin.


title: Circle of fifths

text: In music theory, the circle of fifths is a way of organizing the 12 chromatic pitches as a sequence of perfect fifths. (This is strictly true in the standard 12-tone equal temperament system — using a different system requires one interval of diminished sixth to be treated as a fifth). If C is chosen as a starting point, the sequence is: C, G, D, A, E, B (=C), F (=G), C (=D), A, E, B, F. Continuing the pattern from F returns the sequence to its starting point of C. This order places the most closely related key signatures adjacent to one another. It is usually illustrated in the form of a circle.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The circle of fifths organizes pitches in a sequence of perfect fifths, generally shown as a circle with the pitches (and their corresponding keys) in a clockwise progression. Musicians and composers often use the circle of fifths to describe the musical relationships between pitches. Its design is helpful in composing and harmonizing melodies, building chords, and modulating to different keys within a composition.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Using the system of just intonation, a perfect fifth consists of two pitches with a frequency ratio of 3:2, but generating twelve successive perfect fifths in this way does not result in a return to the pitch class of the starting note. To adjust for this, instruments are generally tuned with the equal temperament system. Twelve equal-temperament fifths lead to a note exactly seven octaves above the initial tone—this results in a perfect fifth that is equivalent to seven equal-temperament semitones.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The top of the circle shows the key of C Major, with no sharps or flats. Proceeding clockwise, the pitches ascend by fifths. The key signatures associated with those pitches also change: the key of G has one sharp, the key of D has 2 sharps, and so on. Similarly, proceeding counterclockwise from the top of the circle, the notes change by descending fifths and the key signatures change accordingly: the key of F has one flat, the key of B has 2 flats, and so on. Some keys (at the bottom of the circle) can be notated either in sharps or in flats.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Starting at any pitch and ascending by a fifth generates all twelve tones before returning to the beginning pitch class (a pitch class consists of all of the notes indicated by a given letter regardless of octave—all "C"s, for example, belong to the same pitch class). Moving counterclockwise, the pitches descend by a fifth, but ascending by a perfect fourth will lead to the same note an octave higher (therefore in the same pitch class). Moving counter-clockwise from C could be thought of as descending by a fifth to F, or ascending by a fourth to F.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Each of the twelve pitches can serve as the tonic of a major or minor key, and each of these keys will have a diatonic scale associated with it. The circle diagram shows the number of sharps or flats in each key signature, with the major key indicated by a capital letter and the minor key indicated by a lower-case letter. Major and minor keys that have the same key signature are referred to as "relative major" and "relative minor" of one another.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Tonal music often modulates to a new tonal center whose key signature differs from the original by only one flat or sharp. These closely-related keys are a fifth apart from each other and are therefore adjacent in the circle of fifths. Chord progressions also often move between chords whose roots are related by perfect fifth, making the circle of fifths useful in illustrating the "harmonic distance" between chords.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The circle of fifths is used to organize and describe the harmonic function of chords. Chords can progress in a pattern of ascending perfect fourths (alternately viewed as descending perfect fifths) in "functional succession". This can be shown "...by the circle of fifths (in which, therefore, scale degree II is closer to the dominant than scale degree IV)". In this view the tonic is considered the end point of a chord progression derived from the circle of fifths.


title: Circle of fifths

text: According to Richard Franko Goldman's "Harmony in Western Music", "the IV chord is, in the simplest mechanisms of diatonic relationships, at the greatest distance from I. In terms of the [descending] circle of fifths, it leads away from I, rather than toward it." He states that the progression I–ii–V–I (an authentic cadence) would feel more final or resolved than I–IV–I (a plagal cadence). Goldman concurs with Nattiez, who argues that "the chord on the fourth degree appears long before the chord on II, and the subsequent final I, in the progression I–IV–vii–iii–vi–ii–V–I", and is farther from the tonic there as well. (In this and related articles, upper-case Roman numerals indicate major triads while lower-case Roman numerals indicate minor triads.)


title: Circle of fifths

text: Using the exact 3:2 ratio of frequencies to define a perfect fifth (just intonation) does not quite result in a return to the pitch class of the starting note after going around the circle of fifths. Equal temperament tuning produces fifths that return to a tone exactly seven octaves above the initial tone and makes the frequency ratio of each half step the same. An equal-tempered fifth has a frequency ratio of 2:1 (or about 1.498307077:1), approximately two cents narrower than a justly tuned fifth at a ratio of 3:2.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Ascending by justly tuned fifths fails to close the circle by an excess of approximately 23.46 cents, roughly a quarter of a semitone, an interval known as the Pythagorean comma. In Pythagorean tuning, this problem is solved by markedly shortening the width of one of the twelve fifths, which makes it severely dissonant. This anomalous fifth is called the wolf fifth – a humorous reference to a wolf howling an off-pitch note. The quarter-comma meantone tuning system uses eleven fifths slightly narrower than the equally tempered fifth, and requires a much wider and even more dissonant wolf fifth to close the circle. More complex tuning systems based on just intonation, such as 5-limit tuning, use at most eight justly tuned fifths and at least three non-just fifths (some slightly narrower, and some slightly wider than the just fifth) to close the circle. Other tuning systems use up to 53 tones (the original 12 tones and 42 more between them) in order to close the circle of fifths.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The circle of fifths developed in the late 1600s and early 1700s to theorize the modulation of the Baroque era (see ).


title: Circle of fifths

text: The first circle of fifths diagram appears in the "Grammatika" (1677) of the composer and theorist Nikolay Diletsky, who intended to present music theory as a tool for composition. It was "the first of its kind, aimed at teaching a Russian audience how to write Western-style polyphonic compositions."


title: Circle of fifths

text: A circle of fifths diagram was independently created by German composer and theorist Johann David Heinichen in his "Neu erfundene und gründliche Anweisung" (1711), which he called the "Musical Circle" (German: "Musicalischer Circul"). This was also published in his "Der General-Bass in der Composition" (1728).


title: Circle of fifths

text: Heinichen placed the relative minor key next to the major key, which did not reflect the actual proximity of keys. Johann Mattheson (1735) and others attempted to improve this—David Kellner (1737) proposed having the major keys on one circle, and the relative minor keys on a second, inner circle. This was later developed into chordal space, incorporating the parallel minor as well.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Some sources imply that the circle of fifths was known in antiquity, by Pythagoras. This is a misunderstanding and an anachronism. Tuning by fifths (so-called Pythagorean tuning) dates to Ancient Mesopotamia; see , though they did not extend this to a twelve note scale, stopping at seven. The Pythagorean comma was calculated by Euclid and by Chinese mathematicians (in the "Huainanzi"); see . Thus, it was known in antiquity that a cycle of twelve fifths was almost exactly seven octaves (more practically, alternating ascending fifths and descending fourths was almost exactly an octave). However, this was theoretical knowledge, and was not used to construct a repeating twelve-tone scale, nor to modulate. This was done later in meantone temperament and twelve-tone equal temperament, which allowed modulation while still being in tune, but did not develop in Europe until about 1500.


title: Circle of fifths

text: In musical pieces from the Baroque music era and the Classical era of music and in Western popular music, traditional music and folk music, when pieces or songs modulate to a new key, these modulations are often associated with the circle of fifths.


title: Circle of fifths

text: In practice, compositions rarely make use of the entire circle of fifths. More commonly, composers make use of "the compositional idea of the 'cycle' of 5ths, when music moves consistently through a smaller or larger segment of the tonal structural resources which the circle abstractly represents." The usual practice is to derive the circle of fifths progression from the seven tones of the diatonic scale, rather from the full range of twelve tones present in the chromatic scale. In this diatonic version of the circle, one of the fifths is not a true fifth: it is a tritone (or a diminished fifth), e.g. between F and B in the "natural" diatonic scale (i.e. without sharps or flats). Here is how the circle of fifths derives, through permutation from the diatonic major scale:


title: Circle of fifths

text: According to Richard Taruskin, Arcangelo Corelli was the most influential composer to establish the pattern as a standard harmonic "trope": "It was precisely in Corelli's time, the late seventeenth century, that the circle of fifths was being 'theorized' as the main propellor of harmonic motion, and it was Corelli more than any one composer who put that new idea into telling practice."


title: Circle of fifths

text: The circle of fifths progression occurs frequently in the music of J. S. Bach. In the following, from "Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen", BWV 51, even when the solo bass line implies rather than states the chords involved:


title: Circle of fifths

text: \addlyrics \with { alignAboveContext = "chords" } { \override LyricText.font-size = #-1.5 Am \markup{\concat{Dm\super{7}}} \markup{\concat{G\super{7}}} \markup{\concat{C\super{maj7}}} \markup{\concat{F\super{maj7}}} \markup{\concat{B\super{7(♭5)}}} \markup{\concat{E\super{7}}} Am


title: Circle of fifths

text: Handel uses a circle of fifths progression as the basis for the Passacaglia movement from his Harpsichord suite No. 6 in G minor.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Baroque composers learnt to enhance the "propulsive force" of the harmony engendered by the circle of fifths "by adding sevenths to most of the constituent chords." "These sevenths, being dissonances, create the need for resolution, thus turning each progression of the circle into a simultaneous reliever and re-stimulator of harmonic tension... Hence harnessed for expressive purposes." Striking passages that illustrate the use of sevenths occur in the aria "Pena tiranna" in Handel's 1715 opera "Amadigi di Gaula":


title: Circle of fifths

text: During the nineteenth century, composers made use of the circle of fifths to enhance the expressive character of their music. Franz Schubert's poignant Impromptu in E flat major, D 899, contains such a passage:


title: Circle of fifths

text: \addlyrics \with { alignAboveContext = "chords" \override VerticalAxisGroup.nonstaff-relatedstaff-spacing =


title: Circle of fifths

text: Robert Schumann's evocative "Child falling asleep" from his "Kinderszenen" springs a surprise at the end of the progression: the piece ends on an A minor chord, instead of the expected tonic E minor.


title: Circle of fifths

text: In Wagner's opera, "Götterdämmerung", a cycle of fifths progression occurs in the music which transitions from the end of the prologue into the first scene of Act 1, set in the imposing hall of the wealthy Gibichungs. "Status and reputation are written all over the motifs assigned to Gunther", chief of the Gibichung clan:


title: Circle of fifths

text: The enduring popularity of the circle of fifths as both a form-building device and as an expressive musical trope is evident in the number of "standard" popular songs composed during the twentieth century. It is also favored as a vehicle for improvisation by jazz musicians.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The diatonic circle of fifths is the circle of fifths encompassing only members of the diatonic scale. Therefore, it contains a diminished fifth, in C major between B and F. See structure implies multiplicity.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The circle progression is commonly a circle of fifths through the diatonic chords, including one diminished chord. A circle progression in C major with chords I–IV–vii–iii–vi–ii–V–I is shown below.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The circle of fifths is closely related to the chromatic circle, which also arranges the twelve equal-tempered pitch classes in a circular ordering. A key difference between the two circles is that the chromatic circle can be understood as a continuous space where every point on the circle corresponds to a conceivable pitch class, and every conceivable pitch class corresponds to a point on the circle. By contrast, the circle of fifths is fundamentally a "discrete" structure, and there is no obvious way to assign pitch classes to each of its points. In this sense, the two circles are mathematically quite different.


title: Circle of fifths

text: However, the twelve equal-tempered pitch classes can be represented by the cyclic group of order twelve, or equivalently, the residue classes modulo twelve, formula_1. The group formula_2 has four generators, which can be identified with the ascending and descending semitones and the ascending and descending perfect fifths. The semitonal generator gives rise to the chromatic circle while the perfect fifth gives rise to the circle of fifths.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The circle of fifths, or fourths, may be mapped from the chromatic scale by multiplication, and vice versa. To map between the circle of fifths and the chromatic scale (in integer notation) multiply by 7 (M7), and for the circle of fourths multiply by 5 (P5).


title: Circle of fifths

text: representing the notes of the chromatic scale: 0 = C, 2 = D, 4 = E, 5 = F, 7 = G, 9 = A, 11 = B, 1 = C, 3 = D, 6 = F, 8 = G, 10 = A. Now multiply the entire 12-tuple by 7:


title: Circle of fifths

text: and then apply a modulo 12 reduction to each of the numbers (subtract 12 from each number as many times as necessary until the number becomes smaller than 12):


title: Circle of fifths

text: Equal temperament tuning does not use the exact 3:2 ratio of frequencies that defines a perfect fifth, wheras the system of just intonation uses this exact ratio. Ascending by fifths in equal temperament leads to a return to the starting pitch class—starting with a C and ascending by fifths leads to another C after twelve iterations. This does not occur if an exact 3:2 ratio is used (just intonation). The adjustment made in equal temperament tuning is called the Pythagorean comma. Because of this difference, pitches that are enharmonically equivalent in equal temperament tuning (e.g., D and C) are not equivalent when using just intonation.


title: Circle of fifths

text: In just intonation the sequence of fifths can therefore be visualized as a spiral, not a circle—a sequence of twelve fifths results in a "comma pump" by the Pythagorean comma, visualized as going up a level in the spiral. See also .


title: Circle of fifths

text: Without enharmonic equivalence, continuing a sequence of fifths results in notes with double accidentals (double sharps or double flats). When using equal temperament, these can be replaced by an enharmonically equivalent note.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Keys with double sharps or flats in the key signatures are called theoretical keys—their use is extremely rare. Notation in these cases is not standardized.


title: Circle of fifths

text: The default behaviour of LilyPond (pictured above) writes single sharps or flats in the circle-of-fifths order, before proceeding to double sharps or flats. This is the format used in John Foulds' "A World Requiem", Op. 60, which ends with the key signature of G major, as displayed above. The sharps in the key signature of G major here proceed C, G, D, A, E, B, F.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Single sharps or flats in the key signature are sometimes repeated as a courtesy, e.g. Max Reger's "Supplement to the Theory of Modulation", which contains D minor key signatures on pp. 42–45. These have a B at the start and also a B at the end (with a double-flat symbol), going B, E, A, D, G, C, F, B. The convention of LilyPond and Foulds would suppress the initial B.


title: Circle of fifths

text: Sometimes the double signs are written at the beginning of the key signature, followed by the single signs. For example, the F key signature is notated as B, E, A, D, G, C, F. This convention is used by Victor Ewald, by the program Finale (software), and by some theoretical works.


title: Calvin Klein

text: Calvin Richard Klein (born November 19, 1942) is an American fashion designer who launched the company that would later become Calvin Klein Inc., in 1968. In addition to clothing, he also has given his name to a range of perfumes, watches, and jewellery.


title: Calvin Klein

text: Klein was born on November 19, 1942, to a Jewish family in the Bronx, New York City, the son of Flore ("née" Stern; 1909–2006) and Leo Klein. Leo had immigrated to New York from Hungary, while Flore was born in the United States to immigrants from Galicia and Buchenland, Austria-Hungary (modern day-Ukraine).


title: Calvin Klein

text: Klein went to Isobel Rooney Middle School 80 (M.S.80) as a child. He attended the High School of Art and Design in Manhattan and matriculated at, but never graduated from, New York's Fashion Institute of Technology, instead receiving an honorary doctorate in 2003. He did his apprenticeship in 1962 at an old line cloak-and-suit manufacturer, Dan Millstein, and spent five years designing at other New York City shops. In 1968, he launched his first company with his childhood best friend, Barry K. Schwartz.


title: Calvin Klein

text: He became a protégé of Baron de Gunzburg, through whose introductions he became the toast of the New York elite fashion scene even before he had his first mainstream success with the launch of his first jeans line. He was immediately recognized for his talent after his first major showing at New York Fashion Week. He was hailed as the new Yves Saint Laurent, and was noted for his clean lines.


title: Calvin Klein

text: Klein married Jayne Centre, a textile designer, in 1964. They have a daughter, television producer Marci Klein, who is best known for her work on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" and "30 Rock". The couple divorced in 1974. In September 1986, Klein married his assistant Kelly Rector in Rome while they were on a buying trip in Italy. She later became a well-known socialite photographer. After separating in 1996, they divorced in April 2006 after 20 years of marriage.


title: Calvin Klein

text: In 2003, Klein bought an ocean-front estate in Southampton, New York, on Long Island and demolished it to build a $75 million glass-and-concrete mansion. In 2015, he put his Miami Beach, Florida mansion on the market for $16 million. The Florida home sold in February 2017 for $12,850,000. In June 2015, Klein bought a mansion in Los Angeles, California, for $25 million.


title: Calvin Klein

text: Calvin Klein dated gay, ex-porn star Nicholas Gruber. Klein is a supporter of the U.S. Democratic Party, having given over $250,000 to candidates and PACs since 1980.


title: Calvin Klein

text: In 1974, Klein designed the tight-fitting signature jeans that would go on to gross $200,000 in their first week of sales. In that same year he also became the first designer to receive outstanding design in men's and women's wear from the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) award show. In 1983, he was placed on the International Best Dressed List. Also in 1981, 1983, and 1993, he received an award from the CFDA. In 1991, he received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award.


title: Calvin Klein

text: Klein made a cameo appearance in season 3, episode 15 ("The Bubble") of the television series "30 Rock". A fictionalized version of him also appears in season 4, episode 12 ("The Pick") of the television series "Seinfeld".


title: Schwerer Gustav

text: Schwerer Gustav (English: "Heavy Gustav") was a German railway gun. It was developed in the late 1930s by Krupp in Rügenwalde as siege artillery for the explicit purpose of destroying the main forts of the French Maginot Line, the strongest fortifications in existence at the time. The fully assembled gun weighed nearly , and could fire shells weighing to a range of .


title: Schwerer Gustav

text: The gun was designed in preparation for the Battle of France, but was not ready for action when that battle began, and in any case the Wehrmacht's Blitzkrieg offensive through Belgium rapidly outflanked and isolated the Maginot Line's static defences, which were then besieged with more conventional heavy guns until French capitulation. Gustav was later deployed in the Soviet Union during the Battle of Sevastopol, part of Operation Barbarossa, where, among other things, it destroyed a munitions depot located roughly below ground level. The gun was moved to Leningrad, and may have been intended to be used in the Warsaw Uprising like other German heavy siege pieces, but the uprising was crushed before it could be prepared to fire. Gustav was destroyed by the Germans near the end of the war in 1945 to avoid capture by the Soviet Red Army.


title: Schwerer Gustav

text: Schwerer Gustav was the largest-calibre rifled weapon ever used in combat and, in terms of overall weight, the heaviest mobile artillery piece ever built. It fired the heaviest shells of any artillery piece. It was surpassed in calibre only by the unused British Mallet's Mortar and the American Little David bomb-testing mortar—both at —but was the only one of the three to be used in combat.