title: Thelema

text: Three statements from "The Book of the Law" distill the practice and ethics of Thelema. Of these statements, one in particular, known as the "Law of Thelema", forms the central doctrine—and, theoretically, sole dogma—of Thelema as a system of thought. The statement of primary importance in Thelema, the Law of Thelema—"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"—is supplemented by a second, followup statement: "Love is the law, love under will." These two statements are generally believed to be better appreciated or better understood by considering a third statement: "Every man and every woman is a star."


title: Thelema

text: Thelema draws its principal gods and goddesses, three altogether as the speakers presented in "Liber AL vel Legis", from Ancient Egyptian religion.


title: Thelema

text: The highest deity in the cosmology of Thelema is the goddess Nuit (also spelled "Nuith"). She is the night sky arched over the Earth symbolized in the form of a naked woman. She is conceived as the "Great Mother", the ultimate source of all things, the collection of all possibilities, "Infinite Space, and the Infinite Stars thereof", and the circumference of an infinite circle or sphere. Nuit is derived from the Egyptian sky goddess Nut, and is referred to poetically as "Our Lady of the Stars", and in "The Book of the Law" as "Queen of Space", and "Queen of Heaven".


title: Thelema

text: The second principal deity of Thelema is the god Hadit, conceived as the infinitely small point, complement and consort of Nuit. Hadit symbolizes manifestation, motion, and time. He is also described in "Liber AL vel Legis" as "the flame that burns in every heart of man, and in the core of every star."


title: Thelema

text: Hadit has sometimes been said to represent a 'point-event,' and all individual point-events within the body of Nuit. Hadit is said, in "The Book of the Law", to be "perfect, being Not." Additionally, it is written of Nuit in "Liber AL" that "men speak not of Thee [Nuit] as One but as None."


title: Thelema

text: The third deity in the cosmology of Thelema is Ra-Hoor-Khuit, a manifestation of Horus. He is symbolized as a throned man with the head of a hawk who carries a wand. He is associated with the Sun and the active energies of Thelemic magick.


title: Thelema

text: Other deities within the cosmology of Thelema are Hoor-paar-kraat (or Harpocrates), god of silence and inner strength, the twin of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, Babalon, the goddess of all pleasure, known as the Virgin Whore, and Therion, the beast that Babalon rides, who represents the wild animal within man, a force of nature.


title: Thelema

text: According to Crowley, every individual has a "True Will", to be distinguished from the ordinary wants and desires of the ego. The True Will is essentially one's "calling" or "purpose" in life. "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" for Crowley refers not to hedonism, fulfilling everyday desires, but to acting in response to that calling. According to Lon Milo DuQuette, a Thelemite is anyone who bases their actions on striving to discover and accomplish their true will, when a person does their True Will, it is like an orbit, their niche in the universal order, and the universe assists them:


title: Thelema

text: In order for the individual to be able to follow their True Will, the everyday self's socially-instilled inhibitions may have to be overcome via deconditioning. Crowley believed that in order to discover the True Will, one had to free the desires of the subconscious mind from the control of the conscious mind, especially the restrictions placed on sexual expression, which he associated with the power of divine creation. He identified the True Will of each individual with the Holy Guardian Angel, a "daimon" unique to each individual. The spiritual quest to find what you are meant to do and do it is also known in Thelema as the Great Work.


title: Thelema

text: "Liber AL vel Legis" does make clear some standards of individual conduct. The primary of these is "Do what thou wilt" which is presented as the whole of the law, and also as a right. Some interpreters of Thelema believe that this right includes an obligation to allow others to do their own wills without interference, but "Liber AL" makes no clear statement on the matter. Crowley himself wrote that there was no need to detail the ethics of Thelema, for everything springs from "Do what thou Wilt". Crowley wrote several additional documents presenting his personal beliefs regarding individual conduct in light of the Law of Thelema, some of which do address the topic interference with others: Liber OZ, "Duty", and "Liber II"


title: Thelema

text: "Liber Oz" enumerates some of the rights of the individual implied by the one overarching right, "Do what thou wilt". For each person, these include the right to: live by one's own law; live in the way that one wills to do; work, play, and rest as one will; die when and how one will; eat and drink what one will; live where one will; move about the earth as one will; think, speak, write, draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build, and dress as one will; love when, where and with whom one will; and kill those who would thwart these rights.


title: Thelema

text: "Duty" is described as "A note on the chief rules of practical conduct to be observed by those who accept the Law of Thelema." It is not a numbered "Liber" as are all the documents which Crowley intended for A∴A∴, but rather listed as a document intended specifically for Ordo Templi Orientis. There are four sections:


title: Thelema

text: In "Liber II: The Message of the Master Therion", the Law of Thelema is summarized succinctly as "Do what thou wilt—then do nothing else." Crowley describes the pursuit of Will as not only with detachment from possible results, but with tireless energy. It is Nirvana but in a dynamic rather than static form. The True Will is described as the individual's orbit, and if they seek to do anything else, they will encounter obstacles, as doing anything other than the will is a hindrance to it.


title: Thelema

text: The core of Thelemic thought is "Do what thou wilt". However, beyond this, there exists a wide range of interpretation of Thelema. Modern Thelema is a syncretic philosophy and religion, and many Thelemites try to avoid strongly dogmatic or fundamentalist thinking. Crowley himself put strong emphasis on the unique nature of Will inherent in each individual, not following him, saying he did not wish to found a flock of sheep. Thus, contemporary Thelemites may practice more than one religion, including Wicca, Gnosticism, Satanism, Setianism and Luciferianism. Many adherents of Thelema recognize correlations between Thelemic and other systems of spiritual thought; most borrow freely from the methods and practices of other traditions, including alchemy, astrology, qabalah, tantra, tarot divination and yoga. For example, Nu and Had are thought to correspond with the Tao and Teh of Taoism, Shakti and Shiva of the Hindu Tantras, Shunyata and Bodhicitta of Buddhism, Ain Soph and Kether in the Hermetic Qabalah.


title: Thelema

text: Thelemic magick is a system of physical, mental, and spiritual exercises which practitioners believe are of benefit. Crowley defined magick as "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will", and spelled it with a 'k' to distinguish it from stage magic. He recommended magick as a means for discovering the True Will. Generally, magical practices in Thelema are designed to assist in finding and manifesting the True Will, although some include celebratory aspects as well. Crowley believed that after discovering the True Will, the magician must also remove any elements of himself that stand in the way of its success.


title: Thelema

text: Crowley was a prolific writer, integrating Eastern practices with Western magical practices from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He recommended a number of these practices to his followers, including: basic yoga (asana and pranayama); rituals of his own devising or based on those of the Golden Dawn, such as the "lesser ritual of the pentagram", for banishing and invocation; "Liber Samekh", a ritual for the invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; eucharistic rituals such as "The Gnostic Mass" and "The Mass of the Phoenix"; and "Liber Resh", consisting of four daily adorations to the sun. He also discussed sex magick and sexual gnosis in various forms involving masturbation and sexual intercourse between heterosexual and homosexual partners; practices which are among his suggestions for those in the higher degrees of the Ordo Templi Orientis.


title: Thelema

text: One goal in the study of Thelema within the magical Order of the A∴A∴ is for the magician to obtain the knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel: conscious communication with their own personal daimon, thus gaining knowledge of their True Will. The chief task for one who has achieved this goes by the name of "crossing the abyss"; completely relinquishing the ego. If the aspirant is unprepared, he will cling to the ego instead, becoming a Black Brother. According to Crowley, the Black Brother slowly disintegrates, while preying on others for his own self-aggrandisement.


title: Thelema

text: Crowley taught skeptical examination of all results obtained through meditation or magick, at least for the student. He tied this to the necessity of keeping a magical record or diary, that attempts to list all conditions of the event. Remarking on the similarity of statements made by spiritually advanced people of their experiences, he said that fifty years from his time they would have a scientific name based on "an understanding of the phenomenon" to replace such terms as "spiritual" or "supernatural". Crowley stated that his work and that of his followers used "the method of science; the aim of religion", and that the genuine powers of the magician could in some way be objectively tested. This idea has been taken on by later practitioners of Thelema, chaos magic and magick in general. They may consider that they are testing hypotheses with each magical experiment. The difficulty lies in the broadness of their definition of success, in which they may see as evidence of success things which a non-magician would not define as such, leading to confirmation bias. Crowley believed he could demonstrate, by his own example, the effectiveness of magick in producing certain subjective experiences that do not ordinarily result from taking hashish, enjoying oneself in Paris, or walking through the Sahara desert. It is not strictly necessary to practice ritual techniques to be a Thelemite, as due to the focus of Thelemic magick on the True Will, Crowley stated "every intentional act is a magickal act."


title: Thelema

text: The Book of the Law gives several holy days to be observed by Thelemites. There are no established or dogmatic ways to celebrate these days, so as a result Thelemites will often take to their own devices or celebrate in groups, especially within Ordo Templi Orientis. These holy days are usually observed on the following dates:


title: Thelema

text: The number 93 is of great significance in Thelema. The central philosophy of Thelema is in two phrases from Liber AL: "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" and "love is the law, love under will". Crowley urged their use in everyday communications, and himself used them to greet people. Today, rather than using the full phrases, Thelemites often use numerological abbreviations to shorten these greeting in informal contexts, a practice Crowley also applied in his informal written correspondences. The two primary terms in these statements are 'will' and 'love', respectively. Using the Greek technique of isopsephy, which applies a numerical value to each letter, the letters of words "thelema" ('will') and "agape" ('love') each sum to 93:


title: Thelema

text: In this way, the first phrase is abbreviated to "93" while the second is abbreviated to "93 93/93", with the division "93/93" symbolising love "under" will.


title: Thelema

text: Aleister Crowley was highly prolific and wrote on the subject of Thelema for over 35 years, and many of his books remain in print. During his time, there were several others who wrote on the subject, including U.S. O.T.O. Grand Master Charles Stansfeld Jones, whose works on Qabalah are still in print, and Major-General J. F. C. Fuller. Subsequent to Crowley, a number of figures have made significant contributions to Thelema. Each has their own following within the broader Thelemic community.


title: Thelema

text: John Whiteside Parsons (1914–1952) was an American rocket engineer, chemist, and Thelemite occultist. Parsons converted to Thelema, and together with his first wife, Helen Northrup, joined the Agape Lodge, the Californian branch of the Thelemite Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), in 1941. At Crowley's bidding, Parsons replaced Wilfred Talbot Smith as its leader in 1942 and ran the Lodge from his mansion on Orange Grove Boulevard.


title: Thelema

text: Parsons identified four obstacles that prevented humans from achieving and performing their True Will, all of which he connected with fear: the fear of incompetence, the fear of the opinion of others, the fear of hurting others, and the fear of insecurity. He insisted that these must be overcome, writing that "The Will must be freed of its fetters. The ruthless examination and destruction of taboos, complexes, frustrations, dislikes, fears and disgusts hostile to the Will is essential to progress."


title: Thelema

text: Parsons conducted the Babalon Working, a magical working intended to invoke the Thelemic goddess Babalon on Earth via a series of ceremonial magic rituals performed from January to March 1946 by Jack Parsons and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. This ritual was essentially designed to manifest an individual incarnation of the archetypal divine feminine called Babalon.


title: Thelema

text: The project was based on the ideas of Crowley, and his description of a similar project in his 1917 novel "Moonchild". The rituals performed drew largely upon rituals and sex magic described by Crowley. Crowley was in correspondence with Parsons during the course of the Babalon Working, and warned Parsons of his potential overreactions to the magic he was performing, while simultaneously deriding Parsons' work to others.


title: Thelema

text: A brief text entitled "Liber 49", self-referenced within the text as "The Book of Babalon", was written by Jack Parsons as a transmission from the goddess or force called 'Babalon' received by him during the Babalon Working. Parsons wrote that "Liber 49" constituted a fourth chapter of Crowley's "Liber AL Vel Legis (The Book of the Law)", the holy text of Thelema.


title: Thelema

text: Kenneth Grant (1924–2011) was an English ceremonial magician and advocate of the Thelemic religion. A poet, novelist, and writer, he founded his own Thelemic organisation, the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis—later renamed the Typhonian Order—with his wife Steffi Grant.


title: Thelema

text: Grant drew eclectically on a range of sources in devising his teachings. Although based in Thelema, Grant's Typhonian tradition has been described as "a "bricolage" of occultism, Neo-Vedanta, Hindu tantra, Western sexual magic, Surrealism, ufology and Lovecraftian gnosis". Grant promoted what he termed the Typhonian or Draconian tradition of magic, and wrote that Thelema was only a recent manifestation of this wider tradition. In his books, he portrayed the Typhonian tradition as the world's oldest spiritual tradition, writing that it had ancient roots in Africa. The religious studies scholar Gordan Djurdjevic noted that Grant's historical claims regarding Typhonian history were "at best highly speculative" and lacked any supporting evidence; however he also suggested that Grant may never have intended these claims to be taken literally.


title: Thelema

text: Grant's wrote that Indian spiritual traditions like Tantra and Yoga correlate to Western esoteric traditions, and that both stem from a core, ancient source, has parallels in the perennial philosophy promoted by the Traditionalist School of esotericists. He believed that by mastering magic, one masters this illusory universe, gaining personal liberation and recognising that only the Self really exists. Doing so, according to Grant, leads to the discovery of one's True Will, the central focus of Thelema. Grant further wrote that the realm of the Self was known as 'the Mauve Zone', and that it could be reached while in a state of deep sleep, where it has the symbolic appearance of a swamp. He also believed that the reality of consciousness, which he deemed the only true reality, was formless and thus presented as a void, although he also taught that it was symbolised by the Hindu goddess Kali and the Thelemic goddess Nuit.


title: Thelema

text: Grant's views on sex magic drew heavily on the importance of sexual dimorphism among humans and the subsequent differentiation of gender roles. Grant taught that the true secret of sex magic were bodily secretions, the most important of which was a woman's menstrual blood. In this he differed from Crowley, who viewed semen as the most important genital secretion. Grant referred to female sexual secretions as "kalas", a term adopted from Sanskrit. He thought that because women have kalas, they have oracular and visionary powers. The magical uses of female genital secretions are a recurring theme in Grant's writings.


title: Thelema

text: James Lees (August 22, 1939 - 2015) was an English magician known for discovering the system he called English Qaballa. in November 1976, Lees discovered the "order & value of the English Alphabet." Follow this discovery, Lees founded the order O∴A∴A∴ in order to assist others in the pursuit of their own spiritual paths. The first public report of the system known as English Qaballa (EQ) was published in 1979 by Ray Sherwin in an editorial in the final issue of his journal, "The New Equinox". Lees subsequently assumed the role of publisher of "The New Equinox" and, starting in 1981, published additional material about the EQ system over the course of five issues of the journal, extending into 1982.


title: Thelema

text: The "order & value" discovered by James Lees lays the letters out on the grid superimposed on the page of manuscript of "Liber AL" on which this verse (Ch. III, v. 47) appears (sheet 16 of Chapter III). Also appearing on this page are a diagonal line and a circled cross. "The Book of the Law" states that the book should only be printed with Crowley's hand-written version included, suggesting that there are mysteries in the "chance shape of the letters and their position to one another" of Crowley's handwriting. Whichever top-left to bottom-right diagonal is read the magickal order of the letters is obtained.


title: Thelema

text: Little, if any, further material on English Qaballa was published until the appearance of Jake Stratton-Kent's book, "The Serpent Tongue: Liber 187", in 2011. This was followed in 2016 by "The Magickal Language of the Book of the Law: An English Qaballa Primer" by Cath Thompson. An account of the discovery, exploration, and continuing research and development of the system up to 2010, by James Lees and members of his group in England, is detailed in her 2018 book, "All This and a Book".


title: Thelema

text: Nema Andahadna (1939-2018) practiced and wrote about magick (magical working, as defined by Aleister Crowley) for over thirty years. In 1974, she channelled a short book called "".


title: Thelema

text: From her experience with Thelemic magick, she developed her own system of magic called "Maat Magick" which has the aim of transforming the human race. In 1979, she co-founded the Horus-Maat Lodge. The Lodge and her ideas have been featured in the writings of Kenneth Grant.


title: Thelema

text: Her writings have appeared in many publications, including the "Cincinnati Journal of Ceremonial Magick", "Aeon", and "Starfire". According to Donald Michael Kraig:


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The manga was originally serialized in Shueisha's "Weekly Shōnen Jump" from December 1990 to July 1994. The series consists of 175 chapters collected in 19 "tankōbon" volumes. In North America, the manga ran completely in Viz's "Shonen Jump" from January 2003 to January 2010. An anime adaptation consisting of 112 television episodes was directed by Noriyuki Abe and co-produced by Fuji Television, Yomiko Advertising, and Studio Pierrot. The television series originally aired on Japan's Fuji TV network from October 1992 to December 1994. It was later licensed in North America by Funimation in 2001, where it aired on popular Cartoon Network blocks including Adult Swim and later Toonami. The television series has also been broadcast in various other countries around the world. The "YuYu Hakusho" franchise has spawned two animated films, a series of original video animations (OVAs), audio albums, video games, and other merchandise.</onlyinclude>


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: "YuYu Hakusho" has been well received, with the manga selling over 50 million copies in Japan alone and winning the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award for the "shōnen" category in 1993. The animated series won the "Animage" Anime Grand Prix prize for best anime in 1994 and 1995. The anime series has been watched by a large audience in Japan and a wide range of age groups in the United States. The anime has been given mostly positive reviews by critics in North America, complimenting its writing, characters, comedy, and amount of action.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: "YuYu Hakusho" follows Yusuke Urameshi, a 14-year-old street-brawling delinquent who, in an uncharacteristic act of altruism, is hit by a car and killed in an attempt to save a young boy by pushing him out of the way. His ghost is greeted by Botan, a woman who introduces herself as the pilot of the River Styx, who ferries souls to the where they may be judged for the afterlife. Botan informs Yusuke that his act had caught even the Underworld by surprise and that there was not yet a place made for him in either heaven or hell. Thus Koenma, son of the Underworld's ruler King Enma, offers Yusuke a chance to return to his body through a series of tests. Yusuke succeeds with the help of his friends Keiko Yukimura and Kazuma Kuwabara. After returning to life, Koenma grants Yusuke the title of , charging him with investigating supernatural activity within the . Soon Yusuke is off on his first case, retrieving three treasures stolen from the Underworld by a gang of demons: Hiei, Kurama, and Goki. Yusuke collects the three treasures with the aid of his new technique, the Rei Gun, a shot of aura or fired mentally from his index finger. He then travels to the mountains in search of the aged, female martial arts master Genkai. Together with his rival Kuwabara, Yusuke fights through a tournament organized by Genkai to find her successor. Yusuke uses the competition as a cover to search for Rando, a demon who steals the techniques of martial arts masters and kills them. Yusuke defeats Rando in the final round of the tournament and trains with Genkai for several months, gaining more mastery over his aura. Yusuke is then sent to Labyrinth Castle in the , a third world occupied solely by demons, where Kuwabara and the newly reformed Kurama and Hiei assist him in defeating the Four Beasts, a quartet of demons attempting to blackmail Koenma into removing the barrier keeping them out of the Human World.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: Yusuke's next case sends him on a rescue mission, where he meets Toguro, a human turned into a demon. To test his strength, Toguro invites Yusuke to the , an event put on by corrupt, rich humans in which teams of demons, and occasionally humans, fight fierce battles for the chance to receive any wish they desire. Team Urameshi, consisting of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, and a disguised Genkai, traverse through the strenuous early rounds to face Team Toguro in the finals and win the tournament. They learn that Team Toguro's owner, Sakyo, was attempting to win to create a large hole from the Human World to the Demon Plane and allow countless demons through. With his loss, Sakyo destroys the tournament arena, killing himself in the process.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: After the tournament, Yusuke returns home but has little time to rest as he is challenged to a fight by three teenagers possessing superhuman powers and who end up taking the detective hostage. Kuwabara and the others rescue him and learn that the whole scenario was a test put on by Genkai. It is disclosed that Shinobu Sensui, Yusuke's predecessor as Underworld Detective, has recruited six other powerful beings to help him take over where Sakyo left off, opening a hole to the Demon Plane to cause genocide of the human race. Yusuke and his friends challenge and defeat Sensui's associates one-by-one, culminating in a final battle between the two detectives. Sensui kills Yusuke then retreats into the newly opened portal to the Demon Plane. Yusuke is reborn as a partial demon, discovering that his ancestor passed down a recessive gene that would hide until an heir with sufficient power surfaced when his demonic lineage would be revealed. Yusuke travels to the Demon Plane and defeats Sensui with the aid of his ancestor who takes control of Yusuke's body to finish the fight.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: As they return to the Human World, Yusuke is stripped of his detective title in fear that Yusuke's demon blood could cause him to go on a rampage in the Human World. Yusuke, unsettled at having been controlled by his ancestor Raizen, accepts an offer by Raizen's followers to return to the Demon Plane. Raizen, desiring a successor to his territory, is on the brink of dying of starvation, a death that would topple the delicate political balance of the three ruling powers of the Demon Plane. Hiei and Kurama are summoned by the other two rulers, Mukuro and Yomi, respectively, to prepare for an inevitable war. The three protagonists train in the realm for one year, during which time Raizen dies and Yusuke inherits his territory. Yusuke takes the initiative and proposes a fighting tournament to name the true ruler of the Demon Plane, which is agreed upon by Mukuro and Yomi. During the tournament, Yusuke and Yomi meet in the second elimination round where Yusuke is defeated. Yusuke hopes a similar competition will be held every few years to determine the Demon Plane's ruler.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: Two years later, Yusuke returns to the Human World while Hiei stays with Mukuro and protects humans who have accidentally wandered into the Demon Plane. After learning that King Enma was falsifying reports on demon activity against humans in order to justify keeping the two separated, Koenma takes over his father's position and allows access between the Demon Plane and Human World. Genkai dies and leaves her estate to the cast. The story ends with Yusuke and his friends reuniting at a beach.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: Author Yoshihiro Togashi stated that he began working on "YuYu Hakusho" during a period of time around November 1990, though he forgot the exact time. He had recently completed the serialization of his romantic comedy "Ten de Shōwaru Cupid" in "Weekly Shōnen Jump". Having felt somewhat intimidated by some of his more popular fellow authors during this manga's run, Togashi realized he would need to create a fighting manga to both gain popularity and write something he enjoyed. As a fan of the occult and horror films, he desired to write and illustrate a new manga based on his interests. Togashi had previously published an occult detective fiction manga titled "Occult Tanteidan", of which he referenced positive reception from readers as a reason for continuing to create manga. When first producing "YuYu Hakusho", he did not have a clear idea of what he wanted to call it. He used the tentative title "How to be a Ghost" while presenting rough drafts to his editors. Once given the go-ahead to begin publication, Togashi proposed "YuYu-Ki (Poltergeist Chronicles)" for the title, as there would be battles with demons and it would be a play on the title "SaiYu-Ki". Because a series with a similar name ("Chin-Yu-Ki") had already begun publication, Togashi quickly created an alternative: "YuYu Hakusho (Poltergeist Report)". He commented that he could have used "Den (Legend)" or "Monogatari (Story)", but "Hakusho (Report)" was the first thing that came to his mind. He contiguously developed the names of the main characters by skimming through a dictionary and taking out kanji characters he found appealing. "Yusuke Urameshi" is a pun, "Kazuma Kuwabara" is a combination of two professional baseball players, and "Hiei" and "Kurama" are "just names that popped into [Togashi's] head". When he introduced the latter two characters in volume three, the author had early plans to make Kurama a main character but was not certain about Hiei.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The manga's shift from occult detective fiction to the martial arts genre after Yusuke's death and revival in the early chapters was planned by Togashi from the beginning. He took this idea from the series "Kinnikuman", which began largely as a comedy before concentrating more on action. Togashi's intention was to establish the main characters and familiarize the reader with them before placing them in tense, physical conflicts. His editor at the time was nervous of him beginning the manga this way and recommended he transition to a battle-focused plot after about 30 chapters. "YuYu Hakusho" borrows many elements from Asian folklore, particularly Buddhist beliefs in the afterlife. Togashi came up with the concept of the "Ningenkai" (Human World), "Reikai" (Underworld), and "Makai" (Demon Plane) as being parallel planes of existence in the manga's universe. He thought of them as places that one could not easily travel between using modern technology, but rather as a spirit lacking a material body. However, the idea for the "territory" powers from the Sensui story arc was parodied from a separate, unnamed work by Yasutaka Tsutsui. For his drawing materials, Togashi used drafting ink and "Kabura" pens throughout the creation of the series. While his style of artwork began with screentone, he gradually developed into minimalism. As the series progressed, he would draw figures and faces very detailed or "cartoony, sketchy and jumping with action" whenever he desired such effects.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: During the years he worked on "YuYu Hakusho", Togashi would calculate the personal time he had based on a formula of four hours per page without scripting and five hours of sleep per night. He wrote in his own dōjinshi "Yoshirin de Pon!" that he stopped the production on "YuYu Hakusho" out of selfishness. The author had originally wanted to end the manga in December 1993, at the climax of the Sensui arc. Although there was not a large demand from the editorial staff, Togashi was under a great deal of personal stress at certain points of the series' run, particularly during its final six months of publication. He claimed that, beginning with the Dark Tournament arc, inconsistent sleep resulting from overwork was causing him health problems. He noted himself as being very ill while working on the color pages for Yusuke's match with Chu. There were also many instances where he would create nearly entire manuscripts by himself, such as Yusuke's meeting with Raizen and the battle between Kurama and Karasu. The editors of the publication tried to make Togashi reconsider cancelling "Yu Yu Hakusho", though he justified his decision by stating that it would simply be replaced by another popular series. Togashi was relieved at the conclusion of the manga. The author claimed to not have been involved in the production of the "YuYu Hakusho" anime adaptation due to his own work schedule. He stated that he was greatly impressed by Shigeru Chiba's voice depiction of Kuwabara, admitting that the voice actor understood the character better than Togashi himself.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The "YuYu Hakusho" manga series was written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi and originally serialized by Shueisha in the "shōnen" manga magazine "Weekly Shōnen Jump" from December 3, 1990, to July 25, 1994. The manga consists of 175 chapters spanning 19 "tankōbon" with the first one being released on April 10, 1991, and the last one released on December 12, 1994. Between August 4, 2004, and March 4, 2005, Shueisha released the "kanzenban" (complete) editions of the manga. Each of the 15 "kanzenban" volumes features a new cover and more chapters than the "tankōbon" edition. "YuYu Hakusho" has also been published as part of the "Shueisha Jump Remix" series of magazine-style books. Nine volumes were released between December 22, 2008, and April 27, 2009. A "bunkobon" version began publication on November 18, 2010, and was finished on October 18, 2011.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: An English translation of the "YuYu Hakusho" manga was serialized in North America by Viz Media in the American "Shonen Jump" magazine, where it debuted in its inaugural January 2003 issue and ended in January 2010. Viz released all 19 collected volumes of the English manga between May 13, 2003, and March 2, 2010. A total of 176 chapters exist in this format due to Viz treating the extra non-numbered chapter "YuYu Hakusho Tales: Two Shot" found in volume seven (which tells the story of how Hiei and Kurama first met) as the 64th chapter. Viz later re-released the series digitally as part of their digital manga releases between 2013 and 2014 and later added it to ComiXology's digital releases. The "YuYu Hakusho" manga has additionally been licensed and published across Asia and Europe. A French translation from Kana, for example, began publication in 1997.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The "Yu Yu Hakusho" anime adaptation was directed by Noriyuki Abe and co-produced by Fuji Television, Yomiko Advertising, and Studio Pierrot. The series, consisting of 112 episodes, aired from October 10, 1992, to December 17, 1994, on Fuji Television. The episodes were released on 23 video cassettes by Pony Canyon from January 1, 1995, to December 6, 1995. They were also released on 28 DVD volumes by Beam Entertainment, with volumes 8–14 being released on March 25, 2002, volumes 15–21 being released on April 25, 2002, and volumes 22–28 being released on May 25, 2002. The anime differed from its manga source material by containing different levels of violence and profanity, as well as minor variations in art style from one to the other. In early 2001, the series was acquired by Funimation Entertainment for North American distribution as "Yu Yu Hakusho: Ghost Files". Funimation's production saw a significant contribution from voice actor Justin Cook, who not only directed the dub but also voiced the protagonist Yusuke.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The American-produced English dubbed episodes aired from February 23, 2002, to April 1, 2006, on Cartoon Network. Initially, the series was shown on the channel's Adult Swim programming block from February 2002 to April 2003, but was later moved to Toonami. Some of the show's original depictions of mature content including violence, sexual humor, and coarse language, as well as some controversial cultural discrepancies were edited out for broadcast. "Yu Yu Hakusho" was taken off Toonami around March 2005 and moved to an early Saturday morning time slot that October where the series finished its run. It was also aired uncut as part of the Funimation programming block on Colours TV in 2006 and the Funimation Channel in high-definition in 2011. Following Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll, the series was moved to Crunchyroll.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The series was distributed in the United Kingdom by MVM Films and in Australia and New Zealand by Madman Entertainment. In India the English-language version of the series was released as "Ghost Fighter". "Yu Yu Hakusho" was localized in the Philippines as "Ghost Fighter" and aired on IBC in the mid-1990s, as well as on GMA Network in 1999. This version of the dub localized the characters' names, such as changing "Yusuke" to "Eugene".


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: Funimation separated the series into four "seasons", that each compose their own story arc, which they refer to as "sagas". In North America, 32 DVD compilations have been released by Funimation for the four sagas, with the first released on April 16, 2002, and the last on July 19, 2005. The episodes have been released in both edited and uncut formats. In addition, DVD collection boxes have been released for all four sagas, each containing all the episodes of that particular saga, with the exception of the Dark Tournament Saga, which was split into two collection boxes. Funimation released season box sets of the anime starting with season one on July 8, 2008, and ending with season four on January 13, 2009. Each set contains four DVDs which have 28 episodes, or one quarter of the whole series. Funimation began releasing the seasons on Blu-ray Disc on May 31, 2011. Cook has stated that the production staff made minor improvements to their recordings, such as redubbing certain lines, cleaning up the dialogue, and removing "arrant anomalies". In Japan, three separate multi-disc DVD box sets were released, as well as 28 DVDs totaling all 112 episodes of the series. Japanese home video distributor Bandai Visual began releasing the series on Blu-ray Disc on October 27, 2009, with the first set containing a picture drama set after the end of the series that saw cast members reunite to record new dialogue.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: Two animated films based on "Yu Yu Hakusho" have been produced. Both films have original storyline content that is not canonical to the manga. The first, simply titled "" was released in Japan on July 10, 1993, as part of a seasonal film festival. In the movie, the protagonists Yusuke and Kuwabara are on a mission to rescue a kidnapped Koenma from a pair of demons who desire the Golden Seal, a stamp used for finalizing the sentencing of souls in the afterlife. AnimeWorks released an English dubbed version of the half-hour film on VHS in both English-dubbed and subtitled formats on May 5, 1998, and on DVD on January 30, 2001. , was released in Japanese theaters on April 9, 1994. The plot revolves around Yusuke and his friends defending the Human World against inhabitants of a fourth plane of existence called the "Netherworld". This full-length feature received its first English dubbed version by Central Park Media, which released it on VHS on March 3, 1998, and on DVD on October 8, 2002, under the name "".


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: A series of "Yu Yu Hakusho" OVAs collectively titled was released in Japan in VHS format between 1994 and 1996. The OVAs feature very short clips that take place after the end of the series. They also contain video montages from the anime, image songs, voice actor interviews, and satirical animated shorts focusing on the four protagonists. The OVAs consist of three volumes as well as an opening and ending encyclopedia. A four-DVD box set containing this series was released in Japan by Pony Canyon on December 15, 2004. Funimation dubbed the OVAs (though not the anime montages) and (re)dubbed the first theatrical film with their original cast from the anime, and released them both in North America in a two-disc DVD bundle titled " Yu Yu Hakusho: The Movie & Eizou Hakusho" on December 13, 2011. This version splits up parts of the OVAs and does not include the Japanese voice actor interviews.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: A brand new OVA of "Yu Yu Hakusho" was released with a Blu-ray box set of the series on October 26, 2018, in Japan. It adapts the "Two Shot" bonus chapter from the manga's seventh volume and the manga's penultimate chapter "All or Nothing". In October 2019, Funimation announced the OVA release with an English dub.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The music for the "Yu Yu Hakusho" anime adaptation was composed by Yusuke Honma. The series has one opening theme, by Matsuko Mawatari, as well as five closing themes: , and "Daydream Generation" also by Mawatari; and and by Hiro Takahashi. When Funimation gained rights to the series, English language versions of each of these songs were produced and arranged by musician Carl Finch. The localized opening theme is sung by Sara White and the closing themes are sung by members of the English cast including Stephanie Nadolny, Jerry Jewell, and Meredith McCoy.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: A number of audio CDs have been released in Japan. The "Yū Yū Hakusho Original Soundtrack" was released in two separate volumes by Pony Canyon on January 18, 1997. The discs contain the show's instrumental tracks and some vocal themes. Also released on that day is "Yū Yū Hakusho: Music Battle", a series of three albums featuring vocal tracks sung by the Japanese voice actors as their corresponding characters. Compilations of vocal songs including "Yū Yū Hakusho Super Covers", "Yū Yū Hakusho Super Dance Mix", and "" were released on December 16, 1995, March 21, 1996, and March 21, 1997, respectively. "Yū Yū Hakusho: Collective Songs" and "Yū Yū Hakusho: Collective Rare Trax", which contain covers of the theme songs performed by the series' voice actors, were both released on March 17, 1999. Two drama albums have been released by Shueisha, the first of which has an audio adaptation of the chapter "Yu Yu Hakusho Tales: Two Shot". A CD soundtrack for the second film and a maxi single with the vocal songs of Mawatari and Takahashi have also been published.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: A number of video games have been developed that tie to the "YuYu Hakusho" series, most of which have been produced for and released exclusively in Japan. Prior to the launch of the franchise in North America, games were released on the Game Boy, Super Famicom, Sega consoles, and various platforms. North America only saw three video game releases. Two releases for the Nintendo's Game Boy Advanced handheld console, and one release for Sony's PlayStation 2 console. A single Mega Drive game, "Yū Yū Hakusho Makyō Tōitsusen", was published in Brazil by Tectoy in 1999 under the title "YuYu Hakusho: Sunset Fighters". When Atari gained publishing rights to "Yu Yu Hakusho" video games in 2003, the company created and released three games in these regions: "", an action-adventure game for the Game Boy Advance; "", a tactical role-playing game also for the Game Boy Advance; and "", a 3D fighting game for the PlayStation 2.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: "Yu Yu Hakusho" characters were also featured in the "Weekly Shōnen Jump" crossover fighting games "J-Stars Victory VS" and "Jump Force". Yusuke, Hiei, and Toguro are playable in both games.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: On December 16, 2020, a Japanese live-action series adaptation was announced, scheduled to premiere in December 2023. It will stream on Netflix worldwide, with Netflix contents acquisition director Kazutaka Sakamoto serving as executive producer and Akira Morii producing the series at Robot. On July 15, 2022, it was reported that Shō Tsukikawa will serve as the series director, with Tatsurō Mishima handling the script and Ryō Sakaguchi serving as the VFX supervisor. The series stars Takumi Kitamura as Yusuke Urameshi, Shuhei Uesugi as Kazuma Kuwabara, Jun Shison as Kurama and Kanata Hongō as Hiei.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: An encyclopedia titled was published by Shueisha on March 4, 2005. It contains extensive character profiles, story summaries, and an exclusive interview with Yoshihiro Togashi. An art book, , was published by Shueisha on April 27, 2005. It is composed of pieces of artwork from the series, including illustrations created for the "kanzenban" edition reprints and an index of print material where each image was first used. Shueisha has also released two volumes of a guide book titled and books based on both films, each containing screenshots organized in manga-style panels. In Japan, various collectibles such as trading figures, plush dolls, and gashapon toys also exist. A collectible card game based on the franchise was released by Movic. In North America, the series saw licensing for apparel from ODM, lines of action figures by IF Labs and Jakks Pacific, a Skannerz electronic toy from Radica Games, and an activities book from Scholastic. Score Entertainment created the "Yu Yu Hakusho Trading Card Game" for release in the United States. An English guidebook to the series titled "Yu Yu Hakusho Uncovered: The Unofficial Guide" was published by Cocoro Books on October 12, 2004.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: A stage play adaptation produced by Office Endless was announced in May 2019. The play is written and directed by Chūji Mikasano, a screenwriter for the "Tokyo Ghoul" anime series. The play ran from August 8 to September 22, 2019, in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Aichi.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: In September 2019, "YuYu Hakusho" joined the Universal Fighting System CCG, this marked the second anime license to make it into the system.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: "YuYu Hakusho" has sold more than 50 million copies in Japan alone, making it one of "Weekly Shonen Jump"'s best-selling manga series. Patricia Duffield, a columnist for "Animerica Extra", acknowledged the manga as "one of the kings of popularity in the mid-1990s" in the region where it saw mass availability from large bookstore chains to small train station kiosks. "YuYu Hakusho" earned Yoshihiro Togashi the Shogakukan Manga Award for "shōnen" in 1993. Towards the end of the series' run, Togashi was publicly criticized for not meeting chapter deadlines and for lower quality art. On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150.000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, "YuYu Hakusho" ranked #17.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: In North America, several volumes of the manga have ranked within the weekly Nielsen BookScan graphic novels list, including volume five at both sixth and ninth in October 2004, volume six at sixth in February 2005, and volume seven at seventh in June 2005. In 2004, the "YuYu Hakusho" manga serialization sparked a controversy when a Florida grade school teacher issued a complaint about material found in an issue of the American "Shonen Jump" magazine purchased by a fifth-grade student at a Scholastic Book Fair. The complaint centered around portions of the manga containing violence, mild profanity, a character wearing a swastika, and another character smoking a cigarette. About 18,000 copies of the publication (out of 120,000) were returned from the fairs as a result of the matter. A Viz spokesperson defended the manga, clarifying that it is intended for older teens and that the alleged swastika is actually a Buddhist "manji".


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The "YuYu Hakusho" manga publication has received mixed criticism by reviewers in English-speaking regions. Martin Ouellette of the Canadian "Protoculture Addicts" compared the progression of the series to "Dragon Ball Z" and stated, "Togashi's art, while simple, is extremely efficient and the story is really fun." An older article by the same reviewer disagreed with the notion that "YuYu Hakusho" was similar to "Dragon Ball", stating that the former franchise has better developed characters, more interesting action sequences, and more humor. Eduardo M. Chavez of Mania.com enjoyed the manga's artwork and found that the supporting characters tend to be illustrated with more detail than the main characters. He praised Lillian Olsen's English translation, but disliked Viz's use of overlaying English words to translate the expression of sound effects. In later volumes Chavez was dismayed by the transition of the manga from the early detective cases to the Dark Tournament arc. He asserted, "Seeing fight, after fight, after fight gets boring and this seriously is only the start of this trend." Dan Polley, a staff reviewer of Manga Life, gave an average grade to the fifth volume, which entails Yusuke's battle with Suzaku, the leader of the Four Beasts. Although he found some the battle sequences to be engaging, Polley judged the chapters as lacking in characterization and development overall. Polley also discounted the manga's comedy, considering the "bit gags or fairly lame jokes" to be "too much" at times.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The "Yu Yu Hakusho" television series was voted the best anime of the year in the 1994 and 1995 "Animage" Anime Grand Prix and the second best in 1993 after "Sailor Moon". Additionally, the publication declared the series number 53 on its top 100 anime listing in 2001. In a 2006 web poll conducted in Japan by the network TV Asahi, "Yu Yu Hakusho" was voted as the 15th best anime of all time. The Japanese magazine "Brutus" voted it the sixth best anime of all time. The hit show garnered a large number of viewers during its run in Japan. Funimation president Gen Fukunaga remarked that "Yu Yu Hakusho" "came 'out of nowhere' to surprise people with huge ratings", which were just below those achieved by the popular series "Dragon Ball Z". "Yu Yu Hakusho" was frequently watched by several age groups during its early run in North America. When it aired on Adult Swim, the anime, along with others such as "Inuyasha" and "Cowboy Bebop", met with male audiences ages 18–34. During its Toonami debut in May 2003, "Yu Yu Hakusho" placed in seven out of the top 111 Nielsen ratings for Cartoon Network telecasts, with the highest being number 30 on May 13 at a two percent share of all viewing televisions in the country. Atari stated in December 2003 that the anime was one of the top-rated television programs in North America for males ages 9–14. Nielsen additionally reported that "Yu Yu Hakusho" tied with "Dragon Ball GT" as the top-rated Cartoon Network program for the same demographic during the week of September 28, 2004. It was the second highest-rated show among ages 12–17 the same week. Cartoon Network dropped the show from Toonami in March 2005 due to declining ratings. "Yu Yu Hakusho" proved to be popular in the Philippines, where it was rerun several times and managed to draw more viewers in the prime time slot than both local and foreign soap operas.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: The animated series received a generally positive reception in North America. In January 2004, "Yu Yu Hakusho" was named the second best action-adventure anime by "Anime Insider". It was voted by the users of IGN as the tenth best animated series of all time. Critical reviews focused on the series' attempt at a versatile balance of narrative, character development, and action sequences. "Animerica's" Justin Kovalsky defined "Yu Yu Hakusho" as a character-driven series and compared it to other anime like "Phantom Quest Corp.", "Rurouni Kenshin", and "Flame of Recca" in that it successfully combines different ideas such as martial arts battles, character dynamics, the supernatural, and mythology. Allen Divers of the Anime News Network identified "Yu Yu Hakusho" as "one of the best action series out there", and noted consistently good storytelling and character development throughout his critique of key points of the series. Todd Douglass Jr. of DVD Talk declared, "It's a fun show with a great cast, a sense of humor, and a lot of action so there's no excuse not to at least give it a chance." He recommended the first three-season box sets of "Yu Yu Hakusho", as well as the original boxset of the Three Kings Saga, but enjoyed the show's third season more than the others because of its multiple plotlines. N. S. Davidson of IGN concluded that having several concurrent plot branches is not enough for an anime to succeed, but that good writing, interesting characters, and action are also necessary. He proclaimed in his review of the anime's final episodes that "Yu Yu Hakusho" possesses all of these qualities. This was concurred upon by Joseph Luster of "Otaku USA", who summed up his feelings about the universe of "Yu Yu Hakusho" by stating, "Togashi's world is eternally hellish and dark, but wildly varied. The only thing that doesn't change throughout its run is the fact that you'll still be rooting for the well-defined protagonists until the credits run on the last episode."


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: Jeffrey Harris of IGN was more critical when looking at later episodes, and felt that the end of the show's third arc involving the villain Sensui is too similar to the finale of the second arc with Toguro. He described the episodes as trying too hard to draw sympathy from the audience for the anime's villains. Despite his overall praise of "Yu Yu Hakusho", Divers noted in a review about one DVD release that the show "[walks] that fine line of a solid long running series or being a broken record". He also called the artwork of the first few episodes "dated" and pointed out questionable script choices regarding the English dub.


title: YuYu Hakusho

text: Aedan Juvet of Funimation called the anime influential and "timeless" with classic villains, highlighting five villains in the series which helped the anime evolve.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: The Ilyushin Il-76 (; NATO reporting name: Candid) is a multi-purpose, fixed-wing, four-engine turbofan strategic airlifter designed by the Soviet Union's Ilyushin design bureau. It was first planned as a commercial freighter in 1967, as a replacement for the Antonov An-12. It was designed to deliver heavy machinery to remote, poorly served areas. Military versions of the Il-76 have been widely used in Europe, Asia and Africa, including use as an aerial refueling tanker or command center.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: The Il-76 has seen extensive service as a commercial freighter for ramp-delivered cargo, especially for outsized or heavy items unable to be otherwise carried. It has also been used as an emergency response transport for civilian evacuations as well as for humanitarian aid and disaster relief around the world. Due to its ability to operate from unpaved runways, it has been useful in undeveloped areas. Specialized models have also been produced for aerial firefighting and zero-G training.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: The aircraft was first conceived by Ilyushin in 1967 to meet a requirement for a freighter able to carry a payload of over a range of in less than six hours, able to operate from short and unprepared airstrips, and capable of coping with the worst weather conditions likely to be experienced in Siberia and the Soviet Union's Arctic regions. It was intended to replace the Antonov An-12. Another intended version was a double-decked 250-passenger airliner but that project was cancelled. The Il-76 first flew in .


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: Production of Il-76s was allocated to the Tashkent Aviation Production Association in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then a republic of the Soviet Union. Some 860 of the basic transport variants were manufactured. In the 1990s, modernized variants also equipped with Soloviev D-30 turbofan engines were developed (MF, TF), with a cargo compartment long by wide by tall; these larger variants were not produced in significant quantity due to the financial difficulties being experienced by the Russian Air Force, which was the primary operator of the type. The prototype of the Il-76MF conducted its first flight on 1 August 1995.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: From 2004 onwards, a number of aircraft in commercial service were modernized to the Il-76TD-90VD version; this involved the adoption of the newly developed PS-90 engine to comply with European noise limitations. In 2005, the People's Republic of China placed an order for 34 new Il-76MDs and four Il-78 tankers. In June 2013, Russian military export agency Rosoboronexport announced an order by China for 12 Il-76MD aircraft.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: The Il-76 has also been modified into an airborne refuelling tanker, designated the Il-78, around 50 aircraft having been produced. A variant of the Il-76 also serves as a firefighting waterbomber. Its airframe was used as a base for the Beriev A-50 'Mainstay' AEW&C (airborne early warning and control) aircraft; around 25 aircraft were made. Another application for the type was found in Antarctic support flights and for conducting simulated weightlessness training for cosmonauts (akin to the "Vomit Comet" used by NASA). Beriev and NPO Almaz also developed an airborne laser flying laboratory designated A-60, of which two were built, much of this project's details remaining classified.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: It was announced in 2010 that the production of a modernized Il-76, the Il-76MD-90A (also known as "project Il-476" during the design stage), would begin; a proposed new production line would be located in Aviastar's facility in Ulyanovsk, Russia, and be operated in cooperation with the Tashkent works. At that point, the construction of two Il-76MD-90A prototypes had begun at the Ulyanovsk facility. The first Il-76MD-90A was rolled out at Aviastar's Ulyanovsk plant on 16 June 2014. On 29 April 2015, it was reported that the Russian Air Force received the first Il-76MD-90A built at the Ulyanovsk plant "Aviastar-SP" from the 2012 contract for 39 aircraft. The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) received its first serial production Ilyushin Il-76MD-90A airlifter on 2 April 2019. As of late 2022, 27 aircraft are ordered to be delivered in the period up to 2028 and 14 had been built.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: The first aircraft was delivered to the Soviet Air Force in June 1974. Next it became the main Soviet strategic transport aircraft. From 1976 it was operated by Aeroflot.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: Between 1979 and 1991, the Soviet Air Force Il-76s made 14,700 flights into Afghanistan, transporting 786,200 servicemen, and 315,800 tons of freight. The Il-76 carried 89% of Soviet troops and 74% of the freight that was airlifted. As Afghan rebels were unable to shoot down high-flying Il-76s, their tactics were to try and damage it on takeoff or landing. Il-76s were often hit by shoulder-launched Stinger and Strela heat-seeking missiles and large-calibre machine gun fire, but because the strong airframes were able to take substantial damage and still remain operational, the aircraft had a remarkably low attrition rate during this period of conflict. Building on that experience, the bulk of the Canadian Forces equipment into Afghanistan was flown in using civilian Il-76s. In 2006, the Russian Air Force had about 200 Il-76s. Civilian users in Russia have 108.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: On 3 August 1995, an Airstan Ilyushin Il-76 piloted by a Russian crew was forced down by a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan Air Force fighter in what became known as Airstan incident. The crew were imprisoned for nearly a year, but later escaped out of their confinement and managed to sneak into their aircraft still stuck at the airport and fly out of Afghanistan.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: In 2004, a Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) Il-76 carried out a flight mission in Afghanistan, and later in 2011, PLAAF Il-76s were sent to Libya to evacuate Chinese citizens. The two missions were the reported first steps of PLAAF developing long-range transportation capability.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: On 23 March 2007, a Transaviaexport Il-76 was shot down by an anti-aircraft missile while taking off from Mogadishu, Somalia. Everybody on board, seven crew and four passengers, were killed.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: Syrian Air Force Il-76s, operating as civil Syrianair aircraft, have been reportedly used to ship weapons, money, and other cargo from Russia and Iran to Syria, according to a defected Syrian military pilot. Since the start of the war, in April 2011 (and up to July 2012), around 20 military flights have been conducted to and from Tehran, via Iraqi airspace. Further information exposes that since around 2012, Syrian Il-76s have regularly flown to Moscow's Vnukovo Airport to fetch shipments of Syrian banknotes that have been useful to Bashar al-Assad's government to survive Western sanctions.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: On 14 June 2014, a Ukrainian Air Force Il-76 was shot down by ground fire from pro-Russian separatists while on approach to landing at Luhansk, resulting in the deaths of 40 soldiers and nine crew members on board.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: On 30 January 2017, an IL-76 firebomber of the Russian EMERCOM agency was deployed to Chile to assist firefighters. This assignment took 39 days.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: All Il-76 transport aircraft in service with the RF Aerospace Forces will receive anti-missile systems. The aircraft reconfiguration started in the spring 2019.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: On 25 February 2022, during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Ukrainian State Special Communications Agency and US officials claimed that Russian Il-76s were shot down over Bila Tserkva. Until September 2022 no wreckage of the alleged transport planes were ever found.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: On 4 April 2022, photographs of two destroyed Il-76s from the Ukrainian 25th Transport Aviation Brigade were displayed; these cargo planes were destroyed on the ground by Russian forces at Melitopol Airport.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: Military and civil operators in 38 countries have operated 850+ Il-76 in large numbers. While Russia is the largest military operator of the Il-76, followed by Ukraine and India, Belarus' TransAVIAexport Airlines is the largest civilian operator.


title: Ilyushin Il-76

text: As of April 2018, a total of 80 Il-76 series aircraft have been written off in crashes and other accidents. There were at average two Il-76 crashes or similar accidents per year since 1979, with more than 1000 casualties.


title: Piracy

text: Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, while the dedicated ships that pirates use are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks. Privateering uses similar methods to piracy, but the captain acts under orders of the state authorising the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation, making it a legitimate form of war-like activity by non-state actors. A land-based parallel is the ambushing of travelers by bandits and brigands in highways and mountain passes.


title: Piracy

text: While the term can include acts committed in the air, on land (especially across national borders or in connection with taking over and robbing a car or train), or in other major bodies of water or on a shore, in cyberspace, as well as the fictional possibility of space piracy, it generally refers to maritime piracy. It does not normally include crimes committed against people traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator (e.g. one passenger stealing from others on the same vessel). Piracy or pirating is the name of a specific crime under customary international law and also the name of a number of crimes under the municipal law of a number of states. In the early 21st century, seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US$16 billion per year in 2004), particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore.


title: Piracy

text: Currently, pirates armed with automatic weapons, such as assault rifles, and machine guns, grenades and rocket propelled grenades use small motorboats to attack and board ships, a tactic that takes advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels and transport ships. They also use larger vessels, known as "mother ships", to supply the smaller motorboats. The international community is facing many challenges in bringing modern pirates to justice, as these attacks often occur in international waters. Some nations have used their naval forces to protect private ships from pirate attacks and to pursue pirates, and some private vessels use armed security guards, high-pressure water cannons, or sound cannons to repel boarders, and use radar to avoid potential threats.


title: Piracy

text: A romanticised version of piracy in the Age of Sail has long been a part of Western pop culture. Captain Charles Johnson's "A General History of the Pyrates", published in London in 1724, contained biographies of several pirates of the "golden age" and brought them to public attention. Pirates of the era have been further popularised and stereotyped by many subsequent works of fiction, most notably by the novels "Treasure Island" (1883) and "Peter Pan" (1911), two film adaptions of "Treasure Island" (1934 and 1950) and, more recently, by the "Pirates of the Caribbean" film franchise, which began in 2003.


title: Piracy

text: The English word "pirate" is derived from the Latin "pirata" ("pirate, corsair, sea robber"), which comes from Greek πειρατής ("peiratēs"), "brigand", in turn from πειράομαι (peiráomai), "I attempt", from πεῖρα ("peîra"), "attempt, experience". The meaning of the Greek word "peiratēs" literally is "anyone who attempts something". Over time it came to be used of anyone who engaged in robbery or brigandry on land or sea.The term first appeared in English 1300. Spelling did not become standardised until the eighteenth century, and spellings such as "pirrot", "pyrate" and "pyrat" occurred until this period.


title: Piracy

text: The earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians, Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates. In the pre-classical era, the ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession; it apparently was widespread and "regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living". References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence in many texts including in Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey", and abduction of women and children to be sold into slavery was common. By the era of Classical Greece, piracy was looked upon as a "disgrace" to have as a profession.


title: Piracy

text: In the 3rd century BC, pirate attacks on Olympus in Lycia brought impoverishment. Among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians, a people populating the western Balkan peninsula. Constantly raiding the Adriatic Sea, the Illyrians caused many conflicts with the Roman Republic. It was not until 229 BC when the Romans finally decisively beat the Illyrian fleets that their threat was ended. During the 1st century BC, there were pirate states along the Anatolian coast, threatening the commerce of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean. On one voyage across the Aegean Sea in 75 BC, Julius Caesar was kidnapped and briefly held by Cilician pirates and held prisoner in the Dodecanese islet of Pharmacusa. The Senate finally invested the general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus with powers to deal with piracy in 67 BC (the "Lex Gabinia"), and Pompey, after three months of naval warfare, managed to suppress the threat.


title: Piracy

text: As early as 258 AD, the Gothic-Herulic fleet ravaged towns on the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara. The Aegean coast suffered similar attacks a few years later. In 264, the Goths reached Galatia and Cappadocia, and Gothic pirates landed on Cyprus and Crete. In the process, the Goths seized enormous booty and took thousands into captivity. In 286 AD, Carausius, a Roman military commander of Gaulish origins, was appointed to command the "Classis Britannica", and given the responsibility of eliminating Frankish and Saxon pirates who had been raiding the coasts of Armorica and Belgic Gaul. In the Roman province of Britannia, Saint Patrick was captured and enslaved by Irish pirates.


title: Piracy

text: The most widely recognized and far-reaching pirates in medieval Europe were the Vikings, seaborne warriors from Scandinavia who raided and looted mainly between the 8th and 12th centuries, during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages. They raided the coasts, rivers and inland cities of all Western Europe as far as Seville, which was attacked by the Norse in 844. Vikings also attacked the coasts of North Africa and Italy and plundered all the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Some Vikings ascended the rivers of Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia.


title: Piracy

text: In the Late Middle Ages, the Frisian pirates known as Arumer Zwarte Hoop led by Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijerd Jelckama, fought against the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V with some success.


title: Piracy

text: Toward the end of the 9th century, Moorish pirate havens were established along the coast of southern France and northern Italy. In 846 Moor raiders sacked the "extra muros" Basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Rome. In 911, the bishop of Narbonne was unable to return to France from Rome because the Moors from Fraxinet controlled all the passes in the Alps. Moor pirates operated out of the Balearic Islands in the 10th century. From 824 to 961 Arab pirates in the Emirate of Crete raided the entire Mediterranean. In the 14th century, raids by Moor pirates forced the Venetian Duke of Crete to ask Venice to keep its fleet on constant guard.


title: Piracy

text: After the Slavic invasions of the former Roman province of Dalmatia in the 5th and 6th centuries, a tribe called the Narentines revived the old Illyrian piratical habits and often raided the Adriatic Sea starting in the 7th century. Their raids in the Adriatic increased rapidly, until the whole Sea was no longer safe for travel.


title: Piracy

text: The Narentines took more liberties in their raiding quests while the Venetian Navy was abroad, as when it was campaigning in Sicilian waters in 827–882. As soon as the Venetian fleet would return to the Adriatic, the Narentines momentarily outcasted their habits again, even signing a Treaty in Venice and baptising their Slavic pagan leader into Christianity. In 834 or 835 they broke the treaty and again they raided Venetian traders returning from Benevento, and all of Venice's military attempts to punish them in 839 and 840 utterly failed. Later, they raided the Venetians more often, together with the Arabs. In 846, the Narentines broke through to Venice itself and raided its lagoon city of Caorle. This caused a Byzantine military action against them that finally brought Christianity to them. After the Arab raids on the Adriatic coast circa 872 and the retreat of the Imperial Navy, the Narentines continued their raids of Venetian waters, causing new conflicts with the Italians in 887–888. The Venetians futilely continued to fight them throughout the 10th and 11th centuries.


title: Piracy

text: Domagoj was accused of attacking a ship which was bringing home the papal legates who had participated in the Eighth Catholic Ecumenical Council, after which Pope John VIII addresses to Domagoj with request that his pirates stop attacking Christians at sea.


title: Piracy

text: In 937, Irish pirates sided with the Scots, Vikings, Picts, and Welsh in their invasion of England. Athelstan drove them back.


title: Piracy

text: The Slavic piracy in the Baltic Sea ended with the Danish conquest of the Rani stronghold of Arkona in 1168. In the 12th century the coasts of western Scandinavia were plundered by Curonians and Oeselians from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. In the 13th and 14th century, pirates threatened the Hanseatic routes and nearly brought sea trade to the brink of extinction. The Victual Brothers of Gotland were a companionship of privateers who later turned to piracy as the Likedeelers. They were especially noted for their leaders Klaus Störtebeker and Gödeke Michels. Until about 1440, maritime trade in both the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia was seriously in danger of attack by the pirates.


title: Piracy

text: H. Thomas Milhorn mentions a certain Englishman named William Maurice, convicted of piracy in 1241, as the first person known to have been hanged, drawn and quartered, which would indicate that the then-ruling King Henry III took an especially severe view of this crime.


title: Piracy

text: The ushkuiniks were Novgorodian pirates who looted the cities on the Volga and Kama Rivers in the 14th century.


title: Piracy

text: As early as Byzantine times, the Maniots (one of Greece's toughest populations) were known as pirates. The Maniots considered piracy as a legitimate response to the fact that their land was poor and it became their main source of income. The main victims of Maniot pirates were the Ottomans but the Maniots also targeted ships of European countries.


title: Piracy

text: Zaporizhian Sich was a pirate republic in Europe from the 16th through to the 18th century. Situated in Cossack territory in the remote steppe of Eastern Europe, it was populated with Ukrainian peasants that had run away from their feudal masters, outlaws, destitute gentry, run-away slaves from Turkish galleys, etc. The remoteness of the place and the rapids at the Dnieper river effectively guarded the place from invasions of vengeful powers. The main target of the inhabitants of Zaporizhian Sich who called themselves "Cossacks" were rich settlements at the Black Sea shores of Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate. By 1615 and 1625, Zaporozhian Cossacks had even managed to raze townships on the outskirts of Istanbul, forcing the Ottoman Sultan to flee his palace. Don Cossacks under Stenka Razin even ravaged the Persian coasts.


title: Piracy

text: Though less famous and romanticized than Atlantic or Caribbean pirates, corsairs in the Mediterranean equaled or outnumbered the former at any given point in history. Mediterranean piracy was conducted almost entirely with galleys until the mid-17th century, when they were gradually replaced with highly maneuverable sailing vessels such as xebecs and brigantines. They were, however, of a smaller type than battle galleys, often referred to as galiots or fustas. Pirate galleys were small, nimble, lightly armed, but often crewed in large numbers in order to overwhelm the often minimal crews of merchant ships. In general, pirate craft were extremely difficult for patrolling craft to actually hunt down and capture. Anne Hilarion de Tourville, a French admiral of the 17th century, believed that the only way to run down raiders from the infamous corsair Moroccan port of Salé was by using a captured pirate vessel of the same type. Using oared vessels to combat pirates was common, and was even practiced by the major powers in the Caribbean. Purpose-built galleys (or hybrid sailing vessels) were built by the English in Jamaica in 1683 and by the Spanish in the late 16th century. Specially-built sailing frigates with oar-ports on the lower decks, like the "James Galley" and "Charles Galley", and oar-equipped sloops proved highly useful for pirate hunting, though they were not built in sufficient numbers to check piracy until the 1720s.


title: Piracy

text: The expansion of Muslim power through the Ottoman conquest of large parts of the eastern Mediterranean in the 15th and 16th century resulted in extensive piracy on sea trading. The so-called Barbary pirates began to operate out of North African ports in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Morocco around 1500, preying primarily on the shipping of Christian powers, including massive slave raids at sea as well as on land. The Barbary pirates were nominally under Ottoman suzerainty, but had considerable independence to prey on the enemies of Islam. The Muslim corsairs were technically often privateers with support from legitimate, though highly belligerent, states. They considered themselves as holy Muslim warriors, or ghazis, carrying on the tradition of fighting the incursion of Western Christians that had begun with the First Crusade late in the 11th century.


title: Piracy

text: Coastal villages and towns of Italy, Spain and islands in the Mediterranean were frequently attacked by Muslim corsairs, and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants; after 1600 the Barbary corsairs occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland. According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary corsairs and sold as slaves in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. The most famous corsairs were the Ottoman Albanian Hayreddin and his older brother Oruç Reis (Redbeard), Turgut Reis (known as Dragut in the West), Kurtoglu (known as Curtogoli in the West), Kemal Reis, Salih Reis and Koca Murat Reis. A few Barbary corsairs, such as the Dutch Jan Janszoon and the English John Ward (Muslim name Yusuf Reis), were renegade European privateers who had converted to Islam.


title: Piracy

text: The Barbary pirates had a direct Christian counterpart in the military order of the Knights of Saint John that operated first out of Rhodes and after 1530 Malta, though they were less numerous and took fewer slaves. Both sides waged war against the respective enemies of their faith, and both used galleys as their primary weapons. Both sides also used captured or bought galley slaves to man the oars of their ships; the Muslims relying mostly on captured Christians, the Christians using a mix of Muslim slaves, Christian convicts and a small contingency of "buonavoglie", free men who out of desperation or poverty had taken to rowing.


title: Piracy

text: Historian Peter Earle has described the two sides of the Christian-Muslim Mediterranean conflict as "mirror image[s] of maritime predation, two businesslike fleets of plunderers set against each other". This conflict of faith in the form of privateering, piracy and slave raiding generated a complex system that was upheld/financed/operated on the trade in plunder and slaves that was generated from a low-intensive conflict, as well as the need for protection from violence. The system has been described as a "massive, multinational protection racket", the Christian side of which was not ended until 1798 in the Napoleonic Wars. The Barbary corsairs were finally quelled as late as the 1830s, effectively ending the last vestiges of counter-crusading jihad.


title: Piracy

text: Piracy off the Barbary coast was often assisted by competition among European powers in the 17th century. France encouraged the corsairs against Spain, and later Britain and Holland supported them against France. However, by the second half of the 17th century the greater European naval powers began to initiate reprisals to intimidate the Barbary States into making peace with them. The most successful of the Christian states in dealing with the corsair threat was England. From the 1630s onwards England had signed peace treaties with the Barbary States on various occasions, but invariably breaches of these agreements led to renewed wars. A particular bone of contention was the tendency of foreign ships to pose as English to avoid attack. However, growing English naval power and increasingly persistent operations against the corsairs proved increasingly costly for the Barbary States. During the reign of Charles II a series of English expeditions won victories over raiding squadrons and mounted attacks on their home ports which permanently ended the Barbary threat to English shipping. In 1675 a bombardment from a Royal Navy squadron led by Sir John Narborough and further defeats at the hands of a squadron under Arthur Herbert negotiated a lasting peace (until 1816) with Tunis and Tripoli.


title: Piracy

text: France, which had recently emerged as a leading naval power, achieved comparable success soon afterwards, with bombardments of Algiers in 1682, 1683 and 1688 securing a lasting peace, while Tripoli was similarly coerced in 1686. In 1783 and 1784 the Spaniards also bombarded Algiers in an effort to stem the piracy. The second time, Admiral Barceló damaged the city so severely that the Algerian Dey asked Spain to negotiate a peace treaty and from then on Spanish vessels and coasts were safe for several years.


title: Piracy

text: Until the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, British treaties with the North African states protected American ships from the Barbary corsairs. Morocco, which in 1777 was the first independent nation to publicly recognize the United States, became in 1784 the first Barbary power to seize an American vessel after independence. While the United States managed to secure peace treaties, these obliged it to pay tribute for protection from attack. Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20% of United States government annual expenditures in 1800, leading to the Barbary Wars that ended the payment of tribute. However, Algiers broke the 1805 peace treaty after only two years, and subsequently refused to implement the 1815 treaty until compelled to do so by Britain in 1816.


title: Piracy

text: In 1815, the sacking of Palma on the island of Sardinia by a Tunisian squadron, which carried off 158 inhabitants, roused widespread indignation. Britain had by this time banned the slave trade and was seeking to induce other countries to do likewise. This led to complaints from states which were still vulnerable to the corsairs that Britain's enthusiasm for ending the trade in African slaves did not extend to stopping the enslavement of Europeans and Americans by the Barbary States.


title: Piracy

text: In order to neutralise this objection and further the anti-slavery campaign, in 1816 Lord Exmouth was sent to secure new concessions from Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, including a pledge to treat Christian captives in any future conflict as prisoners of war rather than slaves and the imposition of peace between Algiers and the kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily. On his first visit he negotiated satisfactory treaties and sailed for home. While he was negotiating, a number of Sardinian fishermen who had settled at Bona on the Tunisian coast were brutally treated without his knowledge. As Sardinians they were technically under British protection and the government sent Exmouth back to secure reparation. On August 17, in combination with a Dutch squadron under Admiral Van de Capellen, he bombarded Algiers. Both Algiers and Tunis made fresh concessions as a result.


title: Piracy

text: However, securing uniform compliance with a total prohibition of slave-raiding, which was traditionally of central importance to the North African economy, presented difficulties beyond those faced in ending attacks on ships of individual nations, which had left slavers able to continue their accustomed way of life by preying on less well-protected peoples. Algiers subsequently renewed its slave-raiding, though on a smaller scale. Measures to be taken against the city's government were discussed at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. In 1820 another British fleet under Admiral Sir Harry Neal again bombarded Algiers. Corsair activity based in Algiers did not entirely cease until its conquest by France in 1830.


title: Piracy

text: In thalassocratic Austronesian cultures in Island Southeast Asia, maritime raids for slaves and resources against rival polities have ancient origins. It was associated with prestige and prowess and often recorded in tattoos. Reciprocal raiding traditions were recorded by early European cultures as being prevalent throughout Island Southeast Asia.


title: Piracy

text: With the advent of the Islam and the colonial era, slaves became a valuable resource for trading with European, Arab, and Chinese slavers, and the volume of piracy and slave raids increased significantly. Numerous native peoples engaged in sea raiding, they include the Iranun and Balanguingui slavers of Sulu, the Iban headhunters of Borneo, the Bugis sailors of South Sulawesi, and the Malays of western Southeast Asia. Piracy was also practiced by foreign seafarers on a smaller scale, including Chinese, Japanese, and European traders, renegades, and outlaws. The volume of piracy and raids were often dependent on the ebb and flow of trade and monsoons, with pirate season (known colloquially as the "Pirate Wind") starting from August to September.


title: Piracy

text: Slave raids was particularly economically important to the Muslim Sultanates in the Sulu Sea: the Sultanate of Sulu, the Sultanate of Maguindanao, and the Confederation of Sultanates in Lanao (the modern Moro people). It is estimated that from 1770 to 1870, around 200,000 to 300,000 people were enslaved by Iranun and Banguingui slavers. David P. Forsythe put the estimate much higher, at around 2 million slaves captured within the first two centuries of Spanish rule of the Philippines after 1565.


title: Piracy

text: These slaves were taken from piracy on passing ships as well as coastal raids on settlements as far as the Malacca Strait, Java, the southern coast of China and the islands beyond the Makassar Strait. Most of the slaves were Tagalogs, Visayans, and "Malays" (including Bugis, Mandarese, Iban, and Makassar). There were also occasional European and Chinese captives who were usually ransomed off through Tausug intermediaries of the Sulu Sultanate. Slaves were the primary indicators of wealth and status, and they were the source of labor for the farms, fisheries, and workshops of the sultanates. While personal slaves were rarely sold, they trafficked extensively in slaves purchased from the Iranun and Banguingui slave markets. By the 1850s, slaves constituted 50% or more of the population of the Sulu archipelago.


title: Piracy

text: The scale was so massive that the word for "pirate" in Malay became "lanun", an exonym of the Iranun people. The economy of the Sulu sultanates was largely run by slaves and the slave trade. Male captives of the Iranun and the Banguingui were treated brutally, even fellow Muslim captives were not spared. They were usually forced to serve as galley slaves on the "lanong" and "garay" warships of their captors. Female captives, however, were usually treated better. There were no recorded accounts of rapes, though some were starved for discipline. Within a year of capture, most of the captives of the Iranun and Banguingui would be bartered off in Jolo usually for rice, opium, bolts of cloth, iron bars, brassware, and weapons. The buyers were usually Tausug "datu" from the Sultanate of Sulu who had preferential treatment, but buyers also included European (Dutch and Portuguese) and Chinese traders as well as Visayan pirates ("renegados").


title: Piracy

text: Spanish authorities and native Christian Filipinos responded to the Moro slave raids by building watchtowers and forts across the Philippine archipelago, many of which are still standing today. Some provincial capitals were also moved further inland. Major command posts were built in Manila, Cavite, Cebu, Iloilo, Zamboanga, and Iligan. Defending ships were also built by local communities, especially in the Visayas Islands, including the construction of war ""barangayanes"" ("balangay") that were faster than the Moro raiders and could give chase. As resistance against raiders increased, "Lanong" warships of the Iranun were eventually replaced by the smaller and faster "garay" warships of the Banguingui in the early 19th century. The Moro raids were eventually subdued by several major naval expeditions by the Spanish and local forces from 1848 to 1891, including retaliatory bombardment and capture of Moro settlements. By this time, the Spanish had also acquired steam gunboats ("vapor"), which could easily overtake and destroy the native Moro warships.


title: Piracy

text: Aside from the Iranun and Banguingui pirates, other polities were also associated with maritime raiding. The Bugis sailors of South Sulawesi were infamous as pirates who used to range as far west as Singapore and as far north as the Philippines in search of targets for piracy. The Orang laut pirates controlled shipping in the Straits of Malacca and the waters around Singapore, and the Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo.


title: Piracy

text: In East Asia by the ninth century, populations centered mostly around merchant activities in coastal Shandong and Jiangsu. Wealthy benefactors, including Jang Bogo established Silla Buddhist temples in the region. Jang Bogo had become incensed at the treatment of his fellow countrymen, who in the unstable milieu of late Tang often fell victim to coastal pirates or inland bandits. After returning to Silla around 825, and in possession of a formidable private fleet headquartered at Cheonghae (Wando), Jang Bogo petitioned the Silla king Heungdeok (r. 826–836) to establish a permanent maritime garrison to protect Silla merchant activities in the Yellow Sea. Heungdeok agreed and in 828 formally established the Cheonghae (淸海, "clear sea") Garrison(청해진) at what is today Wando island off Korea's South Jeolla province. Heungdeok gave Jang an army of 10,000 men to establish and man the defensive works. The remnants of Cheonghae Garrison can still be seen on Jang islet just off Wando's southern coast. Jang's force, though nominally bequeathed by the Silla king, was effectively under his own control. Jang became arbiter of Yellow Sea commerce and navigation.


title: Piracy

text: From the 13th century, Wokou based in Japan made their debut in East Asia, initiating invasions that would persist for 300 years. The wokou raids peaked in the 1550s, but by then the wokou were mostly Chinese smugglers who reacted strongly against the Ming dynasty's strict prohibition on private sea trade.


title: Piracy

text: During the Qing period, Chinese pirate fleets grew increasingly large. The effects large-scale piracy had on the Chinese economy were immense. They preyed voraciously on China's junk trade, which flourished in Fujian and Guangdong and was a vital artery of Chinese commerce. Pirate fleets exercised hegemony over villages on the coast, collecting revenue by exacting tribute and running extortion rackets. In 1802, the menacing Zheng Yi inherited the fleet of his cousin, captain Zheng Qi, whose death provided Zheng Yi with considerably more influence in the world of piracy. Zheng Yi and his wife, Zheng Yi Sao (who would eventually inherit the leadership of his pirate confederacy) then formed a pirate coalition that, by 1804, consisted of over ten thousand men. Their military might alone was sufficient to combat the Qing navy. However, a combination of famine, Qing naval opposition, and internal rifts crippled piracy in China around the 1820s, and it has never again reached the same status.


title: Piracy

text: In the 1840s and 1850s, United States Navy and Royal Navy forces campaigned together against Chinese pirates. Major battles were fought such as those at Ty-ho Bay and the Tonkin River though pirate junks continued operating off China for years more. However, some British and American individual citizens also volunteered to serve with Chinese pirates to fight against European forces. The British offered rewards for the capture of westerners serving with Chinese pirates. During the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion, piratical junks were again destroyed in large numbers by British naval forces but ultimately it wasn't until the 1860s and 1870s that fleets of pirate junks ceased to exist.


title: Piracy

text: Pirates in the Ming era tended to come from populations on the geographic periphery of the state. They were recruited largely from the lower classes of society, including poor fishermen, and many were fleeing from obligatory labor on state-building projects organized by the dynasty. These lower-class men, and sometimes women, may have fled taxation or conscription by the state in the search of better opportunities and wealth, and willingly joined local pirate bands. These local, lower class individuals seem to have felt unrepresented, and traded the small amount of security afforded them from their allegiance to the state for the promise of a relatively improved existence engaging in smuggling or other illegal trade.


title: Piracy

text: Originally, pirates in the coastal areas near Fujian and Zhejiang may have been Japanese, suggested by the Ming government referring to them as “"wokou" (倭寇),” but it is probable that piracy was a multi-ethnic profession by the 16th century, although coastal brigands continued to be referred to as "wokou" in many government documents. Most pirates were probably Han Chinese, but Japanese and even Europeans engaged in pirate activities in the region.


title: Piracy

text: Pirates engaged in a number of different schemes to make a living. Smuggling and illegal trade overseas were major sources of revenue for pirate bands, both large and small. As the Ming government mostly outlawed private trade overseas, at least until the overseas silver trade contributed to a lifting of the ban, pirates basically could almost by default control the market for any number of foreign goods. The geography of the coastline made chasing pirates quite difficult for the authorities, and private overseas trade began to transform coastal societies by the 15th century, as nearly all aspects of the local society benefitted from or associated with illegal trade. The desire to trade for silver eventually led to open conflict between the Ming and illegal smugglers and pirates. This conflict, along with local merchants in southern China, helped persuade the Ming court to end the haijin ban on private international trade in 1567.


title: Piracy

text: Pirates also projected local political authority. Larger pirate bands could act as local governing bodies for coastal communities, collecting taxes and engaging in “protection” schemes. In addition to illegal goods, pirates ostensibly offered security to communities on land in exchange for a tax. These bands also wrote and codified laws that redistributed wealth, punished crimes, and provided protection for the taxed community. These laws were strictly followed by the pirates, as well. The political structures tended to look similar to the Ming structures.


title: Piracy

text: Pirates did not tend to stay pirates permanently. It seems to have been relatively easy both to join and leave a pirate band, and these raiding groups were more interested in maintaining a willing force. Members of these pirate groups did not tend to stay longer than a few months or years at a time.


title: Piracy

text: There appears to have been a hierarchy in most pirate organizations. Pirate leaders could become very wealthy and powerful, especially when working with the Chinese dynasty, and, consequently, so could those who served under them. These pirate groups were organized similarly to other “escape societies” throughout history, and maintained a redistributive system to reward looting; the pirates directly responsible for looting or pillaging got their cut first, and the rest was allocated to the rest of the pirate community. There seems to be evidence that there was an egalitarian aspect to these communities, with capability to do the job being rewarded explicitly. The pirates themselves had some special privileges under the law when they interacted with communities on land, mostly in the form of extra allotments of redistributed wealth.


title: Piracy

text: Pirates, of course, had to sell their loot. They had trading relationships with land communities and foreign traders in the southeastern regions of China. Zhu Wan, who held the office of Grand Coordinator for Coastal Defense, documented that pirates in the region to which he had been sent had the support of the local elite gentry class. These “pirates in gowns and caps” directly or indirectly sponsored pirate activity and certainly directly benefitted from the illegal private trade in the region. When Zhu Wan or other officials from the capital attempted to eliminate the pirate problem, these local elites fought back, having Zhu Wan demoted and eventually even sent back to Beijing to possibly be executed. The gentry who benefitted from illegal maritime trade were too powerful and influential, and they were clearly very invested in the smuggling activities of the pirate community.


title: Piracy

text: In addition to their relationship with the local elite class on the coast, pirates also had complicated and often friendly relationships and partnerships with the dynasty itself, as well as with international traders. When pirate groups recognized the authority of the dynasty, they would often be allowed to operate freely and even profit from the relationship. There were also opportunities for these pirates to ally themselves with colonial projects from Europe or other overseas powers. Both the dynasty and foreign colonial projects would employ pirates as mercenaries to establish dominance in the coastal region. Because of how difficult it was for established state powers to control these regions, pirates seem to have had a lot of freedom to choose their allies and their preferred markets. Included in this list of possible allies, sea marauders and pirates even found opportunities to bribe military officials as they engaged in illegal trade. They seem to have been incentivized mostly by money and loot, and so could afford to play the field with regards to their political or military allies.


title: Piracy

text: Because pirate organizations could be so powerful locally, the Ming government made concerted efforts to weaken them. The presence of colonial projects complicated this, however, as pirates could ally themselves with other maritime powers or local elites to stay in business. The Chinese government was clearly aware of the power of some of these pirate groups, as some documents even refer to them as “sea rebels,” a reference to the political nature of pirates. Pirates like Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong accrued tremendous local power, eventually even being hired as naval commanders by the Chinese dynasties and foreign maritime powers.


title: Piracy

text: Pirates who accepted the Royal Pardon from the Chola Empire would get to serve in the Chola Navy as "Kallarani". They would be used as coast guards, or sent on recon missions to deal with Arab piracy in the Arabian Sea. Their function is similar to the 18th century privateers, used by the Royal Navy.