title: Ecology

text: "Complexity in ecology is of at least six distinct types: spatial, temporal, structural, process, behavioral, and geometric." From these principles, ecologists have identified emergent and self-organizing phenomena that operate at different environmental scales of influence, ranging from molecular to planetary, and these require different explanations at each integrative level. Ecological complexity relates to the dynamic resilience of ecosystems that transition to multiple shifting steady-states directed by random fluctuations of history. Long-term ecological studies provide important track records to better understand the complexity and resilience of ecosystems over longer temporal and broader spatial scales. These studies are managed by the International Long Term Ecological Network (LTER). The longest experiment in existence is the Park Grass Experiment, which was initiated in 1856. Another example is the Hubbard Brook study, which has been in operation since 1960.


title: Ecology

text: Holism remains a critical part of the theoretical foundation in contemporary ecological studies. Holism addresses the biological organization of life that self-organizes into layers of emergent whole systems that function according to non-reducible properties. This means that higher-order patterns of a whole functional system, such as an ecosystem, cannot be predicted or understood by a simple summation of the parts. "New properties emerge because the components interact, not because the basic nature of the components is changed."


title: Ecology

text: Ecological studies are necessarily holistic as opposed to reductionistic. Holism has three scientific meanings or uses that identify with ecology: 1) the mechanistic complexity of ecosystems, 2) the practical description of patterns in quantitative reductionist terms where correlations may be identified but nothing is understood about the causal relations without reference to the whole system, which leads to 3) a metaphysical hierarchy whereby the causal relations of larger systems are understood without reference to the smaller parts. Scientific holism differs from mysticism that has appropriated the same term. An example of metaphysical holism is identified in the trend of increased exterior thickness in shells of different species. The reason for a thickness increase can be understood through reference to principles of natural selection via predation without the need to reference or understand the biomolecular properties of the exterior shells.


title: Ecology

text: Ecology and evolutionary biology are considered sister disciplines of the life sciences. Natural selection, life history, development, adaptation, populations, and inheritance are examples of concepts that thread equally into ecological and evolutionary theory. Morphological, behavioural, and genetic traits, for example, can be mapped onto evolutionary trees to study the historical development of a species in relation to their functions and roles in different ecological circumstances. In this framework, the analytical tools of ecologists and evolutionists overlap as they organize, classify, and investigate life through common systematic principles, such as phylogenetics or the Linnaean system of taxonomy. The two disciplines often appear together, such as in the title of the journal "Trends in Ecology and Evolution". There is no sharp boundary separating ecology from evolution, and they differ more in their areas of applied focus. Both disciplines discover and explain emergent and unique properties and processes operating across different spatial or temporal scales of organization. While the boundary between ecology and evolution is not always clear, ecologists study the abiotic and biotic factors that influence evolutionary processes, and evolution can be rapid, occurring on ecological timescales as short as one generation.


title: Ecology

text: All organisms can exhibit behaviours. Even plants express complex behaviour, including memory and communication. Behavioural ecology is the study of an organism's behaviour in its environment and its ecological and evolutionary implications. Ethology is the study of observable movement or behaviour in animals. This could include investigations of motile sperm of plants, mobile phytoplankton, zooplankton swimming toward the female egg, the cultivation of fungi by weevils, the mating dance of a salamander, or social gatherings of amoeba.


title: Ecology

text: Adaptation is the central unifying concept in behavioural ecology. Behaviours can be recorded as traits and inherited in much the same way that eye and hair colour can. Behaviours can evolve by means of natural selection as adaptive traits conferring functional utilities that increases reproductive fitness.


title: Ecology

text: Predator-prey interactions are an introductory concept into food-web studies as well as behavioural ecology. Prey species can exhibit different kinds of behavioural adaptations to predators, such as avoid, flee, or defend. Many prey species are faced with multiple predators that differ in the degree of danger posed. To be adapted to their environment and face predatory threats, organisms must balance their energy budgets as they invest in different aspects of their life history, such as growth, feeding, mating, socializing, or modifying their habitat. Hypotheses posited in behavioural ecology are generally based on adaptive principles of conservation, optimization, or efficiency. For example, "[t]he threat-sensitive predator avoidance hypothesis predicts that prey should assess the degree of threat posed by different predators and match their behaviour according to current levels of risk" or "[t]he optimal flight initiation distance occurs where expected postencounter fitness is maximized, which depends on the prey's initial fitness, benefits obtainable by not fleeing, energetic escape costs, and expected fitness loss due to predation risk."


title: Ecology

text: Elaborate sexual displays and posturing are encountered in the behavioural ecology of animals. The birds-of-paradise, for example, sing and display elaborate ornaments during courtship. These displays serve a dual purpose of signalling healthy or well-adapted individuals and desirable genes. The displays are driven by sexual selection as an advertisement of quality of traits among suitors.


title: Ecology

text: Cognitive ecology integrates theory and observations from evolutionary ecology and neurobiology, primarily cognitive science, in order to understand the effect that animal interaction with their habitat has on their cognitive systems and how those systems restrict behavior within an ecological and evolutionary framework. "Until recently, however, cognitive scientists have not paid sufficient attention to the fundamental fact that cognitive traits evolved under particular natural settings. With consideration of the selection pressure on cognition, cognitive ecology can contribute intellectual coherence to the multidisciplinary study of cognition." As a study involving the 'coupling' or interactions between organism and environment, cognitive ecology is closely related to enactivism, a field based upon the view that "...we must see the organism and environment as bound together in reciprocal specification and selection...".


title: Ecology

text: Social-ecological behaviours are notable in the social insects, slime moulds, social spiders, human society, and naked mole-rats where eusocialism has evolved. Social behaviours include reciprocally beneficial behaviours among kin and nest mates and evolve from kin and group selection. Kin selection explains altruism through genetic relationships, whereby an altruistic behaviour leading to death is rewarded by the survival of genetic copies distributed among surviving relatives. The social insects, including ants, bees, and wasps are most famously studied for this type of relationship because the male drones are clones that share the same genetic make-up as every other male in the colony. In contrast, group selectionists find examples of altruism among non-genetic relatives and explain this through selection acting on the group; whereby, it becomes selectively advantageous for groups if their members express altruistic behaviours to one another. Groups with predominantly altruistic members survive better than groups with predominantly selfish members.


title: Ecology

text: Ecological interactions can be classified broadly into a host and an associate relationship. A host is any entity that harbours another that is called the associate. Relationships between species that are mutually or reciprocally beneficial are called mutualisms. Examples of mutualism include fungus-growing ants employing agricultural symbiosis, bacteria living in the guts of insects and other organisms, the fig wasp and yucca moth pollination complex, lichens with fungi and photosynthetic algae, and corals with photosynthetic algae. If there is a physical connection between host and associate, the relationship is called symbiosis. Approximately 60% of all plants, for example, have a symbiotic relationship with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi living in their roots forming an exchange network of carbohydrates for mineral nutrients.


title: Ecology

text: Indirect mutualisms occur where the organisms live apart. For example, trees living in the equatorial regions of the planet supply oxygen into the atmosphere that sustains species living in distant polar regions of the planet. This relationship is called commensalism because many others receive the benefits of clean air at no cost or harm to trees supplying the oxygen. If the associate benefits while the host suffers, the relationship is called parasitism. Although parasites impose a cost to their host (e.g., via damage to their reproductive organs or propagules, denying the services of a beneficial partner), their net effect on host fitness is not necessarily negative and, thus, becomes difficult to forecast. Co-evolution is also driven by competition among species or among members of the same species under the banner of reciprocal antagonism, such as grasses competing for growth space. The Red Queen Hypothesis, for example, posits that parasites track down and specialize on the locally common genetic defense systems of its host that drives the evolution of sexual reproduction to diversify the genetic constituency of populations responding to the antagonistic pressure.


title: Ecology

text: Biogeography (an amalgamation of "biology" and "geography") is the comparative study of the geographic distribution of organisms and the corresponding evolution of their traits in space and time. The "Journal of Biogeography" was established in 1974. Biogeography and ecology share many of their disciplinary roots. For example, the theory of island biogeography, published by the Robert MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson in 1967 is considered one of the fundamentals of ecological theory.


title: Ecology

text: Biogeography has a long history in the natural sciences concerning the spatial distribution of plants and animals. Ecology and evolution provide the explanatory context for biogeographical studies. Biogeographical patterns result from ecological processes that influence range distributions, such as migration and dispersal. and from historical processes that split populations or species into different areas. The biogeographic processes that result in the natural splitting of species explain much of the modern distribution of the Earth's biota. The splitting of lineages in a species is called vicariance biogeography and it is a sub-discipline of biogeography. There are also practical applications in the field of biogeography concerning ecological systems and processes. For example, the range and distribution of biodiversity and invasive species responding to climate change is a serious concern and active area of research in the context of global warming.


title: Ecology

text: A population ecology concept is r/K selection theory, one of the first predictive models in ecology used to explain life-history evolution. The premise behind the r/K selection model is that natural selection pressures change according to population density. For example, when an island is first colonized, density of individuals is low. The initial increase in population size is not limited by competition, leaving an abundance of available resources for rapid population growth. These early phases of population growth experience "density-independent" forces of natural selection, which is called "r"-selection. As the population becomes more crowded, it approaches the island's carrying capacity, thus forcing individuals to compete more heavily for fewer available resources. Under crowded conditions, the population experiences density-dependent forces of natural selection, called "K"-selection.


title: Ecology

text: In the "r/K"-selection model, the first variable "r" is the intrinsic rate of natural increase in population size and the second variable "K" is the carrying capacity of a population. Different species evolve different life-history strategies spanning a continuum between these two selective forces. An "r"-selected species is one that has high birth rates, low levels of parental investment, and high rates of mortality before individuals reach maturity. Evolution favours high rates of fecundity in "r"-selected species. Many kinds of insects and invasive species exhibit "r"-selected characteristics. In contrast, a "K"-selected species has low rates of fecundity, high levels of parental investment in the young, and low rates of mortality as individuals mature. Humans and elephants are examples of species exhibiting "K"-selected characteristics, including longevity and efficiency in the conversion of more resources into fewer offspring.


title: Ecology

text: The important relationship between ecology and genetic inheritance predates modern techniques for molecular analysis. Molecular ecological research became more feasible with the development of rapid and accessible genetic technologies, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The rise of molecular technologies and the influx of research questions into this new ecological field resulted in the publication "Molecular Ecology" in 1992. Molecular ecology uses various analytical techniques to study genes in an evolutionary and ecological context. In 1994, John Avise also played a leading role in this area of science with the publication of his book, "Molecular Markers, Natural History and Evolution". Newer technologies opened a wave of genetic analysis into organisms once difficult to study from an ecological or evolutionary standpoint, such as bacteria, fungi, and nematodes. Molecular ecology engendered a new research paradigm for investigating ecological questions considered otherwise intractable. Molecular investigations revealed previously obscured details in the tiny intricacies of nature and improved resolution into probing questions about behavioural and biogeographical ecology. For example, molecular ecology revealed promiscuous sexual behaviour and multiple male partners in tree swallows previously thought to be socially monogamous. In a biogeographical context, the marriage between genetics, ecology, and evolution resulted in a new sub-discipline called phylogeography.


title: Ecology

text: Ecology is as much a biological science as it is a human science. Human ecology is an interdisciplinary investigation into the ecology of our species. "Human ecology may be defined: (1) from a bioecological standpoint as the study of man as the ecological dominant in plant and animal communities and systems; (2) from a bioecological standpoint as simply another animal affecting and being affected by his physical environment; and (3) as a human being, somehow different from animal life in general, interacting with physical and modified environments in a distinctive and creative way. A truly interdisciplinary human ecology will most likely address itself to all three." The term was formally introduced in 1921, but many sociologists, geographers, psychologists, and other disciplines were interested in human relations to natural systems centuries prior, especially in the late 19th century.


title: Ecology

text: The ecological complexities human beings are facing through the technological transformation of the planetary biome has brought on the Anthropocene. The unique set of circumstances has generated the need for a new unifying science called coupled human and natural systems that builds upon, but moves beyond the field of human ecology. Ecosystems tie into human societies through the critical and all-encompassing life-supporting functions they sustain. In recognition of these functions and the incapability of traditional economic valuation methods to see the value in ecosystems, there has been a surge of interest in social-natural capital, which provides the means to put a value on the stock and use of information and materials stemming from ecosystem goods and services. Ecosystems produce, regulate, maintain, and supply services of critical necessity and beneficial to human health (cognitive and physiological), economies, and they even provide an information or reference function as a living library giving opportunities for science and cognitive development in children engaged in the complexity of the natural world. Ecosystems relate importantly to human ecology as they are the ultimate base foundation of global economics as every commodity, and the capacity for exchange ultimately stems from the ecosystems on Earth.


title: Ecology

text: Ecology is an employed science of restoration, repairing disturbed sites through human intervention, in natural resource management, and in environmental impact assessments. Edward O. Wilson predicted in 1992 that the 21st century "will be the era of restoration in ecology". Ecological science has boomed in the industrial investment of restoring ecosystems and their processes in abandoned sites after disturbance. Natural resource managers, in forestry, for example, employ ecologists to develop, adapt, and implement ecosystem based methods into the planning, operation, and restoration phases of land-use. Another example of conservation is seen on the east coast of the United States in Boston, MA. The city of Boston implemented the Wetland Ordinance, improving the stability of their wetland environments by implementing soil amendments that will improve groundwater storage and flow, and trimming or removal of vegetation that could cause harm to water quality. Ecological science is used in the methods of sustainable harvesting, disease, and fire outbreak management, in fisheries stock management, for integrating land-use with protected areas and communities, and conservation in complex geo-political landscapes.


title: Ecology

text: The environment of ecosystems includes both physical parameters and biotic attributes. It is dynamically interlinked and contains resources for organisms at any time throughout their life cycle. Like ecology, the term environment has different conceptual meanings and overlaps with the concept of nature. Environment "includes the physical world, the social world of human relations and the built world of human creation." The physical environment is external to the level of biological organization under investigation, including abiotic factors such as temperature, radiation, light, chemistry, climate and geology. The biotic environment includes genes, cells, organisms, members of the same species (conspecifics) and other species that share a habitat.


title: Ecology

text: The distinction between external and internal environments, however, is an abstraction parsing life and environment into units or facts that are inseparable in reality. There is an interpenetration of cause and effect between the environment and life. The laws of thermodynamics, for example, apply to ecology by means of its physical state. With an understanding of metabolic and thermodynamic principles, a complete accounting of energy and material flow can be traced through an ecosystem. In this way, the environmental and ecological relations are studied through reference to conceptually manageable and isolated material parts. After the effective environmental components are understood through reference to their causes; however, they conceptually link back together as an integrated whole, or "holocoenotic" system as it was once called. This is known as the dialectical approach to ecology. The dialectical approach examines the parts but integrates the organism and the environment into a dynamic whole (or umwelt). Change in one ecological or environmental factor can concurrently affect the dynamic state of an entire ecosystem.


title: Ecology

text: Ecosystems are regularly confronted with natural environmental variations and disturbances over time and geographic space. A disturbance is any process that removes biomass from a community, such as a fire, flood, drought, or predation. Disturbances occur over vastly different ranges in terms of magnitudes as well as distances and time periods, and are both the cause and product of natural fluctuations in death rates, species assemblages, and biomass densities within an ecological community. These disturbances create places of renewal where new directions emerge from the patchwork of natural experimentation and opportunity. Ecological resilience is a cornerstone theory in ecosystem management. Biodiversity fuels the resilience of ecosystems acting as a kind of regenerative insurance.


title: Ecology

text: The Earth was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago. As it cooled and a crust and oceans formed, its atmosphere transformed from being dominated by hydrogen to one composed mostly of methane and ammonia. Over the next billion years, the metabolic activity of life transformed the atmosphere into a mixture of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water vapor. These gases changed the way that light from the sun hit the Earth's surface and greenhouse effects trapped heat. There were untapped sources of free energy within the mixture of reducing and oxidizing gasses that set the stage for primitive ecosystems to evolve and, in turn, the atmosphere also evolved.


title: Ecology

text: Throughout history, the Earth's atmosphere and biogeochemical cycles have been in a dynamic equilibrium with planetary ecosystems. The history is characterized by periods of significant transformation followed by millions of years of stability. The evolution of the earliest organisms, likely anaerobic methanogen microbes, started the process by converting atmospheric hydrogen into methane (4H + CO → CH + 2HO). Anoxygenic photosynthesis reduced hydrogen concentrations and increased atmospheric methane, by converting hydrogen sulfide into water or other sulfur compounds (for example, 2HS + CO + h"v" → CHO + HO + 2S). Early forms of fermentation also increased levels of atmospheric methane. The transition to an oxygen-dominant atmosphere (the "Great Oxidation") did not begin until approximately 2.4–2.3 billion years ago, but photosynthetic processes started 0.3 to 1 billion years prior.


title: Ecology

text: The biology of life operates within a certain range of temperatures. Heat is a form of energy that regulates temperature. Heat affects growth rates, activity, behaviour, and primary production. Temperature is largely dependent on the incidence of solar radiation. The latitudinal and longitudinal spatial variation of temperature greatly affects climates and consequently the distribution of biodiversity and levels of primary production in different ecosystems or biomes across the planet. Heat and temperature relate importantly to metabolic activity. Poikilotherms, for example, have a body temperature that is largely regulated and dependent on the temperature of the external environment. In contrast, homeotherms regulate their internal body temperature by expending metabolic energy.


title: Ecology

text: There is a relationship between light, primary production, and ecological energy budgets. Sunlight is the primary input of energy into the planet's ecosystems. Light is composed of electromagnetic energy of different wavelengths. Radiant energy from the sun generates heat, provides photons of light measured as active energy in the chemical reactions of life, and also acts as a catalyst for genetic mutation. Plants, algae, and some bacteria absorb light and assimilate the energy through photosynthesis. Organisms capable of assimilating energy by photosynthesis or through inorganic fixation of HS are autotrophs. Autotrophs—responsible for primary production—assimilate light energy which becomes metabolically stored as potential energy in the form of biochemical enthalpic bonds.


title: Ecology

text: Diffusion of carbon dioxide and oxygen is approximately 10,000 times slower in water than in air. When soils are flooded, they quickly lose oxygen, becoming hypoxic (an environment with O concentration below 2 mg/liter) and eventually completely anoxic where anaerobic bacteria thrive among the roots. Water also influences the intensity and spectral composition of light as it reflects off the water surface and submerged particles. Aquatic plants exhibit a wide variety of morphological and physiological adaptations that allow them to survive, compete, and diversify in these environments. For example, their roots and stems contain large air spaces (aerenchyma) that regulate the efficient transportation of gases (for example, CO and O) used in respiration and photosynthesis. Salt water plants (halophytes) have additional specialized adaptations, such as the development of special organs for shedding salt and osmoregulating their internal salt (NaCl) concentrations, to live in estuarine, brackish, or oceanic environments. Anaerobic soil microorganisms in aquatic environments use nitrate, manganese ions, ferric ions, sulfate, carbon dioxide, and some organic compounds; other microorganisms are facultative anaerobes and use oxygen during respiration when the soil becomes drier. The activity of soil microorganisms and the chemistry of the water reduces the oxidation-reduction potentials of the water. Carbon dioxide, for example, is reduced to methane (CH) by methanogenic bacteria. The physiology of fish is also specially adapted to compensate for environmental salt levels through osmoregulation. Their gills form electrochemical gradients that mediate salt excretion in salt water and uptake in fresh water.


title: Ecology

text: The shape and energy of the land are significantly affected by gravitational forces. On a large scale, the distribution of gravitational forces on the earth is uneven and influences the shape and movement of tectonic plates as well as influencing geomorphic processes such as orogeny and erosion. These forces govern many of the geophysical properties and distributions of ecological biomes across the Earth. On the organismal scale, gravitational forces provide directional cues for plant and fungal growth (gravitropism), orientation cues for animal migrations, and influence the biomechanics and size of animals. Ecological traits, such as allocation of biomass in trees during growth are subject to mechanical failure as gravitational forces influence the position and structure of branches and leaves. The cardiovascular systems of animals are functionally adapted to overcome the pressure and gravitational forces that change according to the features of organisms (e.g., height, size, shape), their behaviour (e.g., diving, running, flying), and the habitat occupied (e.g., water, hot deserts, cold tundra).


title: Ecology

text: Climatic and osmotic pressure places physiological constraints on organisms, especially those that fly and respire at high altitudes, or dive to deep ocean depths. These constraints influence vertical limits of ecosystems in the biosphere, as organisms are physiologically sensitive and adapted to atmospheric and osmotic water pressure differences. For example, oxygen levels decrease with decreasing pressure and are a limiting factor for life at higher altitudes. Water transportation by plants is another important ecophysiological process affected by osmotic pressure gradients. Water pressure in the depths of oceans requires that organisms adapt to these conditions. For example, diving animals such as whales, dolphins, and seals are specially adapted to deal with changes in sound due to water pressure differences. Differences between hagfish species provide another example of adaptation to deep-sea pressure through specialized protein adaptations.


title: Ecology

text: Turbulent forces in air and water affect the environment and ecosystem distribution, form, and dynamics. On a planetary scale, ecosystems are affected by circulation patterns in the global trade winds. Wind power and the turbulent forces it creates can influence heat, nutrient, and biochemical profiles of ecosystems. For example, wind running over the surface of a lake creates turbulence, mixing the water column and influencing the environmental profile to create thermally layered zones, affecting how fish, algae, and other parts of the aquatic ecosystem are structured. Wind speed and turbulence also influence evapotranspiration rates and energy budgets in plants and animals. Wind speed, temperature and moisture content can vary as winds travel across different land features and elevations. For example, the westerlies come into contact with the coastal and interior mountains of western North America to produce a rain shadow on the leeward side of the mountain. The air expands and moisture condenses as the winds increase in elevation; this is called orographic lift and can cause precipitation. This environmental process produces spatial divisions in biodiversity, as species adapted to wetter conditions are range-restricted to the coastal mountain valleys and unable to migrate across the xeric ecosystems (e.g., of the Columbia Basin in western North America) to intermix with sister lineages that are segregated to the interior mountain systems.


title: Ecology

text: Plants convert carbon dioxide into biomass and emit oxygen into the atmosphere. By approximately 350 million years ago (the end of the Devonian period), photosynthesis had brought the concentration of atmospheric oxygen above 17%, which allowed combustion to occur. Fire releases CO and converts fuel into ash and tar. Fire is a significant ecological parameter that raises many issues pertaining to its control and suppression. While the issue of fire in relation to ecology and plants has been recognized for a long time, Charles Cooper brought attention to the issue of forest fires in relation to the ecology of forest fire suppression and management in the 1960s.


title: Ecology

text: Native North Americans were among the first to influence fire regimes by controlling their spread near their homes or by lighting fires to stimulate the production of herbaceous foods and basketry materials. Fire creates a heterogeneous ecosystem age and canopy structure, and the altered soil nutrient supply and cleared canopy structure opens new ecological niches for seedling establishment. Most ecosystems are adapted to natural fire cycles. Plants, for example, are equipped with a variety of adaptations to deal with forest fires. Some species (e.g., "Pinus halepensis") cannot germinate until after their seeds have lived through a fire or been exposed to certain compounds from smoke. Environmentally triggered germination of seeds is called serotiny. Fire plays a major role in the persistence and resilience of ecosystems.


title: Ecology

text: Soil is the living top layer of mineral and organic dirt that covers the surface of the planet. It is the chief organizing centre of most ecosystem functions, and it is of critical importance in agricultural science and ecology. The decomposition of dead organic matter (for example, leaves on the forest floor), results in soils containing minerals and nutrients that feed into plant production. The whole of the planet's soil ecosystems is called the pedosphere where a large biomass of the Earth's biodiversity organizes into trophic levels. Invertebrates that feed and shred larger leaves, for example, create smaller bits for smaller organisms in the feeding chain. Collectively, these organisms are the detritivores that regulate soil formation. Tree roots, fungi, bacteria, worms, ants, beetles, centipedes, spiders, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other less familiar creatures all work to create the trophic web of life in soil ecosystems. Soils form composite phenotypes where inorganic matter is enveloped into the physiology of a whole community. As organisms feed and migrate through soils they physically displace materials, an ecological process called bioturbation. This aerates soils and stimulates heterotrophic growth and production. Soil microorganisms are influenced by and are fed back into the trophic dynamics of the ecosystem. No single axis of causality can be discerned to segregate the biological from geomorphological systems in soils. Paleoecological studies of soils places the origin for bioturbation to a time before the Cambrian period. Other events, such as the evolution of trees and the colonization of land in the Devonian period played a significant role in the early development of ecological trophism in soils.


title: Ecology

text: Ecologists study and measure nutrient budgets to understand how these materials are regulated, flow, and recycled through the environment. This research has led to an understanding that there is global feedback between ecosystems and the physical parameters of this planet, including minerals, soil, pH, ions, water, and atmospheric gases. Six major elements (hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus; H, C, N, O, S, and P) form the constitution of all biological macromolecules and feed into the Earth's geochemical processes. From the smallest scale of biology, the combined effect of billions upon billions of ecological processes amplify and ultimately regulate the biogeochemical cycles of the Earth. Understanding the relations and cycles mediated between these elements and their ecological pathways has significant bearing toward understanding global biogeochemistry.


title: Ecology

text: The ecology of global carbon budgets gives one example of the linkage between biodiversity and biogeochemistry. It is estimated that the Earth's oceans hold 40,000 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon, that vegetation and soil hold 2070 Gt, and that fossil fuel emissions are 6.3 Gt carbon per year. There have been major restructurings in these global carbon budgets during the Earth's history, regulated to a large extent by the ecology of the land. For example, through the early-mid Eocene volcanic outgassing, the oxidation of methane stored in wetlands, and seafloor gases increased atmospheric CO (carbon dioxide) concentrations to levels as high as 3500 ppm.


title: Ecology

text: In the Oligocene, from twenty-five to thirty-two million years ago, there was another significant restructuring of the global carbon cycle as grasses evolved a new mechanism of photosynthesis, C photosynthesis, and expanded their ranges. This new pathway evolved in response to the drop in atmospheric CO concentrations below 550 ppm. The relative abundance and distribution of biodiversity alters the dynamics between organisms and their environment such that ecosystems can be both cause and effect in relation to climate change. Human-driven modifications to the planet's ecosystems (e.g., disturbance, biodiversity loss, agriculture) contributes to rising atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. Transformation of the global carbon cycle in the next century is projected to raise planetary temperatures, lead to more extreme fluctuations in weather, alter species distributions, and increase extinction rates. The effect of global warming is already being registered in melting glaciers, melting mountain ice caps, and rising sea levels. Consequently, species distributions are changing along waterfronts and in continental areas where migration patterns and breeding grounds are tracking the prevailing shifts in climate. Large sections of permafrost are also melting to create a new mosaic of flooded areas having increased rates of soil decomposition activity that raises methane (CH) emissions. There is concern over increases in atmospheric methane in the context of the global carbon cycle, because methane is a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more effective at absorbing long-wave radiation than CO on a 100-year time scale. Hence, there is a relationship between global warming, decomposition and respiration in soils and wetlands producing significant climate feedbacks and globally altered biogeochemical cycles.


title: Ecology

text: Ecology has a complex origin, due in large part to its interdisciplinary nature. Ancient Greek philosophers such as Hippocrates and Aristotle were among the first to record observations on natural history. However, they viewed life in terms of essentialism, where species were conceptualized as static unchanging things while varieties were seen as aberrations of an idealized type. This contrasts against the modern understanding of ecological theory where varieties are viewed as the real phenomena of interest and having a role in the origins of adaptations by means of natural selection. Early conceptions of ecology, such as a balance and regulation in nature can be traced to Herodotus (died "c". 425 BC), who described one of the earliest accounts of mutualism in his observation of "natural dentistry". Basking Nile crocodiles, he noted, would open their mouths to give sandpipers safe access to pluck leeches out, giving nutrition to the sandpiper and oral hygiene for the crocodile. Aristotle was an early influence on the philosophical development of ecology. He and his student Theophrastus made extensive observations on plant and animal migrations, biogeography, physiology, and their behavior, giving an early analogue to the modern concept of an ecological niche.


title: Ecology

text: Ecological concepts such as food chains, population regulation, and productivity were first developed in the 1700s, through the published works of microscopist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) and botanist Richard Bradley (1688?–1732). Biogeographer Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) was an early pioneer in ecological thinking and was among the first to recognize ecological gradients, where species are replaced or altered in form along environmental gradients, such as a cline forming along a rise in elevation. Humboldt drew inspiration from Isaac Newton, as he developed a form of "terrestrial physics". In Newtonian fashion, he brought a scientific exactitude for measurement into natural history and even alluded to concepts that are the foundation of a modern ecological law on species-to-area relationships. Natural historians, such as Humboldt, James Hutton, and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (among others) laid the foundations of the modern ecological sciences. The term "ecology" () was coined by Ernst Haeckel in his book "Generelle Morphologie der Organismen" (1866). Haeckel was a zoologist, artist, writer, and later in life a professor of comparative anatomy.


title: Ecology

text: Opinions differ on who was the founder of modern ecological theory. Some mark Haeckel's definition as the beginning; others say it was Eugenius Warming with the writing of Oecology of Plants: An Introduction to the Study of Plant Communities (1895), or Carl Linnaeus' principles on the economy of nature that matured in the early 18th century. Linnaeus founded an early branch of ecology that he called the economy of nature. His works influenced Charles Darwin, who adopted Linnaeus' phrase on the "economy or polity of nature" in "The Origin of Species". Linnaeus was the first to frame the balance of nature as a testable hypothesis. Haeckel, who admired Darwin's work, defined ecology in reference to the economy of nature, which has led some to question whether ecology and the economy of nature are synonymous.


title: Ecology

text: From Aristotle until Darwin, the natural world was predominantly considered static and unchanging. Prior to "The Origin of Species", there was little appreciation or understanding of the dynamic and reciprocal relations between organisms, their adaptations, and the environment. An exception is the 1789 publication "Natural History of Selborne" by Gilbert White (1720–1793), considered by some to be one of the earliest texts on ecology. While Charles Darwin is mainly noted for his treatise on evolution, he was one of the founders of soil ecology, and he made note of the first ecological experiment in "The Origin of Species". Evolutionary theory changed the way that researchers approached the ecological sciences.


title: Ecology

text: Modern ecology is a young science that first attracted substantial scientific attention toward the end of the 19th century (around the same time that evolutionary studies were gaining scientific interest). The scientist Ellen Swallow Richards adopted the term "oekology" (which eventually morphed into home economics) in the U.S. as early as 1892.


title: Ecology

text: In the early 20th century, ecology transitioned from a more descriptive form of natural history to a more analytical form of "scientific natural history". Frederic Clements published the first American ecology book in 1905, presenting the idea of plant communities as a superorganism. This publication launched a debate between ecological holism and individualism that lasted until the 1970s. Clements' superorganism concept proposed that ecosystems progress through regular and determined stages of seral development that are analogous to the developmental stages of an organism. The Clementsian paradigm was challenged by Henry Gleason, who stated that ecological communities develop from the unique and coincidental association of individual organisms. This perceptual shift placed the focus back onto the life histories of individual organisms and how this relates to the development of community associations.


title: Ecology

text: The Clementsian superorganism theory was an overextended application of an idealistic form of holism. The term "holism" was coined in 1926 by Jan Christiaan Smuts, a South African general and polarizing historical figure who was inspired by Clements' superorganism concept. Around the same time, Charles Elton pioneered the concept of food chains in his classical book "Animal Ecology". Elton defined ecological relations using concepts of food chains, food cycles, and food size, and described numerical relations among different functional groups and their relative abundance. Elton's 'food cycle' was replaced by 'food web' in a subsequent ecological text. Alfred J. Lotka brought in many theoretical concepts applying thermodynamic principles to ecology.


title: Ecology

text: In 1942, Raymond Lindeman wrote a landmark paper on the trophic dynamics of ecology, which was published posthumously after initially being rejected for its theoretical emphasis. Trophic dynamics became the foundation for much of the work to follow on energy and material flow through ecosystems. Robert MacArthur advanced mathematical theory, predictions, and tests in ecology in the 1950s, which inspired a resurgent school of theoretical mathematical ecologists. Ecology also has developed through contributions from other nations, including Russia's Vladimir Vernadsky and his founding of the biosphere concept in the 1920s and Japan's Kinji Imanishi and his concepts of harmony in nature and habitat segregation in the 1950s. Scientific recognition of contributions to ecology from non-English-speaking cultures is hampered by language and translation barriers.


title: Ecology

text: Ecology surged in popular and scientific interest during the 1960–1970s environmental movement. There are strong historical and scientific ties between ecology, environmental management, and protection. The historical emphasis and poetic naturalistic writings advocating the protection of wild places by notable ecologists in the history of conservation biology, such as Aldo Leopold and Arthur Tansley, have been seen as far removed from urban centres where, it is claimed, the concentration of pollution and environmental degradation is located. Palamar (2008) notes an overshadowing by mainstream environmentalism of pioneering women in the early 1900s who fought for urban health ecology (then called euthenics) and brought about changes in environmental legislation. Women such as Ellen Swallow Richards and Julia Lathrop, among others, were precursors to the more popularized environmental movements after the 1950s.


title: Ecology

text: In 1962, marine biologist and ecologist Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" helped to mobilize the environmental movement by alerting the public to toxic pesticides, such as DDT, bioaccumulating in the environment. Carson used ecological science to link the release of environmental toxins to human and ecosystem health. Since then, ecologists have worked to bridge their understanding of the degradation of the planet's ecosystems with environmental politics, law, restoration, and natural resources management.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen I at Esztergom around the year 1000; his family (the Árpád dynasty) led the monarchy for 300 years. By the 12th century, the kingdom became a European middle power within the Western world.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Due to the Ottoman occupation of the central and southern territories of Hungary in the 16th century, the country was partitioned into three parts: the Habsburg Royal Hungary, Ottoman Hungary, and the semi-independent Principality of Transylvania. The House of Habsburg held the Hungarian throne after the Battle of Mohács in 1526 continuously until 1918 and also played a key role in the liberation wars against the Ottoman Empire.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: From 1867, territories connected to the Hungarian crown were incorporated into Austria-Hungary under the name of Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen. The monarchy ended with the deposition of the last king Charles IV in 1918, after which Hungary became a republic. The kingdom was nominally restored during the "Regency" of 1920–1946, ending under the Soviet occupation in 1946.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Kingdom of Hungary was a multiethnic state from its inception until the Treaty of Trianon and it covered what is today Hungary, Slovakia, Transylvania and other parts of Romania, Carpathian Ruthenia (now part of Ukraine), Vojvodina (now part of Serbia), the territory of Burgenland (now part of Austria), Međimurje (now part of Croatia), Prekmurje (now part of Slovenia) and a few villages which are now part of Poland. From 1102 it also included the Kingdom of Croatia, being in personal union with it, united under the King of Hungary.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: According to the demographers, about 80 percent of the population was made up of Hungarians before the Battle of Mohács, however in the mid-19th century out of a population of 14 million less than 6 million were Hungarian due to the resettlement policies and continuous immigration from neighboring countries. Major territorial changes made Hungary ethnically homogeneous after World War I. Nowadays, more than nine-tenths of the population is ethnically Hungarian and speaks Hungarian as their mother tongue.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Today, the feast day of the first king Stephen I (20 August) is a national holiday in Hungary, commemorating the foundation of the state (Foundation Day).


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Latin forms or ( meaning kingdom); (Kingdom of Mary); or simply , were the names used in official documents in Latin from the beginning of the kingdom to the 1840s.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Hungarian name () was used in the 1840s, and then again from the 1860s to 1946. The unofficial Hungarian name of the kingdom was , which is still the colloquial, and also the official name of Hungary.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The names in the other native languages of the kingdom were: , , , , , , and Italian (for the city of Fiume), .


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In Austria-Hungary (1867–1918), the unofficial name was sometimes used to denote the regions of the Kingdom of Hungary. Officially, the term Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen was included for the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, although this term was also in use prior to that time.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Hungarians, led by Árpád, settled the Carpathian Basin in 895 and established the Principality of Hungary (896–1000). The Hungarians led several successful incursions to Western Europe, until they were stopped by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor in Battle of Lechfeld.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The principality was succeeded by the Christian Kingdom of Hungary with the coronation of St Stephen I (son of principal Géza. Originally called Vajk until baptized) at Esztergom on Christmas Day 1000. The first kings of the kingdom were from the Árpád dynasty. He fought against Koppány and in 998, with Bavarian help, defeated him near Veszprém. The Catholic Church received powerful support from Stephen I, who with Christian Hungarians and German knights wanted a Christian kingdom established in Central Europe. Stephen I of Hungary was canonized as a Catholic saint in 1083 and an Eastern Orthodox saint in 2000.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Around 11th century, Kingdom of Hungary became a Christian state, and Catholicism in the Hungarian Kingdom was a state religion.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: After his death, a period of revolts and conflict for supremacy ensued between the royalty and the nobles. In 1051 armies of the Holy Roman Empire tried to conquer Hungary, but they were defeated at Vértes Mountain. The armies of the Holy Roman Empire continued to suffer defeats; the second greatest battle was at the town now called Bratislava, in 1052. Before 1052 Peter Orseolo, a supporter of the Holy Roman Empire, was overthrown by king Samuel Aba of Hungary.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: This period of revolts ended during the reign of Béla I. Hungarian chroniclers praised Béla I for introducing new currency, such as the silver denarius, and for his benevolence to the former followers of his nephew, Solomon. The second greatest Hungarian king, also from the Árpád dynasty, was Ladislaus I of Hungary, who stabilized and strengthened the kingdom. He was also canonized as a saint. Under his rule Hungarians successfully fought against the Cumans and acquired parts of Croatia in 1091. Due to a dynastic crisis in Croatia, with the help of the local nobility who supported his claim, he managed to swiftly seize power in northern parts of the Croatian kingdom (Slavonia), as he was a claimant to the throne due to the fact that his sister was married to the late Croatian king Zvonimir who died childless.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: However, kingship over all of Croatia would not be achieved until the reign of his successor Coloman. With the coronation of King Coloman as "King of Croatia and Dalmatia" in Biograd in 1102, the two kingdoms of Croatia and Hungary were united under one crown. Although the precise terms of this relationship became a matter of dispute in the 19th century, it is believed that Coloman created a kind of personal union between the two kingdoms. The nature of the relationship varied through time, Croatia retained a large degree of internal autonomy overall, while the real power rested in the hands of the local nobility. Modern Croatian and Hungarian historiographies mostly view the relations between Kingdom of Croatia (1102–1526) and Kingdom of Hungary from 1102 as a form of a personal union, i.e. that they were connected by a common king. Also, one of the greatest Hungarian jurists and statesmen of the 16th century, István Werbőczy in his work "Tripartitum" treats Croatia as a kingdom separate to Hungary.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Especially Arabic and Byzantine travelers from this time praised the richness country, the dense pastures, the nicely cultivated lands, the plentiful animals in waters and forests. They said that the wheat is cheap, the markets are populous, the cities flourish and the folk are wealthy. Although it's hardly credible that they refer to all layers of society, the documents were inspired by the reality.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In 1241, Hungary was invaded by the Mongols and while the first minor battles with Subutai's vanguard probes ended in seeming Hungarian victories, the Mongols finally destroyed the combined Hungarian and Cuman armies at the Battle of Muhi. In 1242, after the end of the Mongol invasion, numerous fortresses to defend against future invasion were erected by Béla IV of Hungary. In gratitude, the Hungarians acclaimed him as the "Second Founder of the Homeland", and the Hungarian Kingdom again became a considerable force in Europe. In 1260 Béla IV lost the War of Babenberg Succession, his army was defeated at the Battle of Kressenbrunn by the united Bohemian forces. However, in 1278 Ladislaus IV of Hungary and Austrian troops fully destroyed the Bohemian army at the Battle on the Marchfeld.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Árpád dynasty died out in 1301 with the death of Andrew III. Subsequently, Hungary was ruled by the Angevins until the end of the 14th century, and then by several non-dynastic rulers – notably Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and Matthias Corvinus – until the early 16th century.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: When Andrew III's predecessor, Ladislaus IV, was assassinated in 1290, another nobleman was set up as titular King of Hungary: Charles Martel of Anjou. Charles Martel was the son of King Charles II of Naples and Mary of Hungary, the sister of Ladislaus IV. However, Andrew III took the crown for himself and ruled without inconvenience after Charles Martel's death in 1295. Upon Andrew's death in 1301, the country was divided between powerful lords hostile to each other. A coalition of some of these oligarchs first crowned Wenceslaus III, who quickly fled from the anarchy, then Otto III, who was forced to leave by the Kán family. Charles, remaining as the only candidate, was finally crowned King Charles I in 1310. His famous battle at Rozgony, described as "most cruel battle since the Mongol invasion of Europe" by the "Chronicon Pictum", ended his war of reunification.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: He implemented considerable economic reforms and defeated the remaining nobility who were in opposition to royal rule, led by Máté Csák III. The kingdom of Hungary reached an age of prosperity and stability under Charles I. The gold mines of the Kingdom were extensively worked and soon Hungary reached a prominent standing in European gold production. The forint was introduced as a currency, replacing the "denars", and soon after Charles's reforms were implemented, the economy of the Kingdom started to prosper again, having fallen into a parlous state following the Mongol invasion.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Charles exalted the cult to Saint Ladislaus I, using him as a symbol of bravery, justice and purity. He also venerated his uncle, Saint Louis of Toulouse. On the other hand, he gave importance to the cults of the princesses Saint Elizabeth and Saint Margaret, which added relevance to the lineage inheritance through the feminine branches.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Charles restored the royal power which had fallen into feudal lords' hands, and then made the lords swear loyalty to him. For this, he founded in 1326 the Order of Saint George, which was the first secular chivalric order in the world, and included the most important noblemen of the Kingdom.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Charles married four times. His fourth wife was Elizabeth, the daughter of Władysław I of Poland. When Charles died in 1342, his eldest son by Elizabeth succeeded him as Louis I. In the first years of his reign, Louis was advised closely by his mother, making her one of the most influential personalities in the Kingdom.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Charles had arranged the marriage of his second son, Andrew, with his cousin Joanna, the granddaughter of King Robert of Naples, in 1332. Robert died in 1343, bequeathing his kingdom to Joanna but excluding the claim of Andrew. In 1345, a group of noble Neapolitan conspirators murdered Andrew at Aversa. Almost immediately, Louis declared war on Naples, conducting a first campaign in 1347–1348 and a second in 1350. He eventually signed peace with Joanna in 1352. Louis also waged wars against the Serbian Empire and the Golden Horde, restoring the Hungarian monarchs' authority over territories along the frontiers which had been lost during the previous decades.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In 1370 Louis's uncle, Casimir III of Poland, died without male issue. Louis succeeded him, thus establishing the first union of Hungary and Poland. This lasted until 1382 when Louis himself died without male issue; his two daughters, Mary and Jadwiga, then ascended the thrones of Hungary and Poland respectively.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Louis I of Hungary always kept good and close relationships with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg and finally proclaimed Charles's son Sigismund of Luxembourg to succeed him as King of Hungary. Sigismund became a renowned king who created many improvements in the Hungarian law system and who rebuilt the palaces of Buda and Visegrád. He brought materials from Austria and Bohemia and ordered the creation of the most luxurious building in all of central Europe. In his laws can be seen the traces of the early mercantilism. He worked hard to keep the nobility under his control. A great part of his reign was dedicated to the fight with the Ottoman Empire, which started to extend its frontiers and influence to Europe. In 1396 was fought the Battle of Nicopolis against the Ottomans, which resulted in a defeat for the Hungarian-French forces led by Sigismund and Philip of Artois, Count of Eu. However, Sigismund continued to successfully contain the Ottoman forces outside of the Kingdom for the rest of his life.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Losing popularity among the Hungarian nobility, Sigismund soon became victim of an attempt against his rule, and Ladislaus of Anjou-Durazzo (the son of the murdered King of Naples Charles II of Hungary) was called in and crowned. Since the ceremony was not performed with the Hungarian Holy Crown, and in the city of Székesfehérvár, it was considered illegitimate. Ladislaus stayed only few days in Hungarian territory and soon left it, no longer an inconvenience for Sigismund. In 1408 he founded the Order of the Dragon, which included the most of the relevant monarchs and noblemen of that region of Europe at that time. This was just a first step for what was coming. In 1410 he was elected King of the Romans, making him the supreme monarch over the German territories. He had to deal with the Hussite movement, a religious reformist group that was born in Bohemia, and he presided at the Council of Constance, where the theologist founder Jan Hus, was judged. In 1419 Sigismund inherited the Crown of Bohemia after the death of his brother Wenceslaus of Luxembourg, obtaining the formal control of three medieval states, but he struggled for control of Bohemia until the peace agreement with the Hussites and his coronation in 1436. In 1433 was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope and ruled until his death in 1437, leaving as his only heir his daughter Elizabeth of Luxembourg and her husband. The marriage of Elizabeth was arranged with the Duke Albert V of Austria, who was later crowned as King Albert of Hungary in 1437.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Hungarian kingdom's golden age was during the reign of Matthias Corvinus (1458–1490), the son of John Hunyadi. His nickname was "Matthias the Just". He further improved the Hungarian economy and practised astute diplomacy in place of military action whenever possible. Matthias did undertake campaigning when necessary. From 1485 until his death, he occupied Vienna, aiming to limit the influence and meddling of the Holy Roman Empire in Hungary's affairs.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: At the time of the initial Ottoman encroachment, the Hungarians successfully resisted conquest. John Hunyadi was leader of the Crusade of Varna, in which the Hungarians tried to expel the Turks from the Balkans. Initially, they were successful, but later at the Battle of Varna, the Ottomans won a decisive if Pyrrhic victory. Wladyslaw III was decapitated during this battle.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In 1456, John Hunyadi delivered a crushing defeat of the Ottomans at the Siege of Belgrade. The Noon Bell commemorates the fallen Christian warriors. In the 15th century, the Black Army of Hungary was a modern mercenary army, with the Hussars the most skilled troops of the Hungarian cavalry. In 1479, under the leadership of Pál Kinizsi, the Hungarian army destroyed the Ottoman and Wallachian troops at the Battle of Breadfield. The army of Hungary destroyed its enemies almost every time when Matthias was king.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Matthias died without legitimate heir, and was thus succeeded by Vladislaus II Jagiellon (1490–1516), the son of Casimir IV of Poland. In turn, Vladislaus was succeeded by his son Louis II (1516–26).


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In 1526, at the Battle of Mohács, the forces of the Ottoman Empire led by Suleiman the Magnificent annihilated the Hungarian army. In trying to escape, Louis II drowned in the Csele Creek. The leader of the Hungarian army, Pál Tomori, also died in the battle.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Due to a serious defeat by the Ottomans (Battle of Mohács) the central authority collapsed. The majority of Hungary's ruling elite elected John Zápolya (10 November 1526). A small minority of aristocrats sided with Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, who was Archduke of Austria, and was related to Louis by marriage. Due to previous agreements that the Habsburgs would take the Hungarian throne if Louis died without heirs, Ferdinand was elected king by a rump diet in December 1526.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Although the borders shifted frequently during this period, the three parts can be identified, more or less, as follows:


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: On 29 February 1528, King John I of Hungary received the support of the Ottoman Sultan. A three-sided conflict ensued as Ferdinand moved to assert his rule over as much of the Hungarian kingdom as he could. By 1529 the kingdom had been split into two parts: Habsburg Hungary and the "eastern-Kingdom of Hungary". At this time there were no Ottomans on Hungarian territories, except Srem's important castles. In 1532, Nikola Jurišić defended Kőszeg and stopped a powerful Ottoman army. By 1541, the fall of Buda marked a further division of Hungary into three areas. The country remained divided until the end of the 17th century.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: On 1 May 1566, Suleiman I led an Ottoman invasion of Habsburg-controlled Hungary, the Ottoman forces of which was one of the most sizable armies he had led in his rule of 46 years. After reaching Belgrade and met with John II Sigismund Zápolya on 27 June, Suleiman I learned that a Croatian-Hungarian nobleman, Nikola IV Zrinski, Ban of Croatia, accomplished an attack on an Ottoman military camp at Siklós. Suleiman I held off his attack of Eger for the time being, and began to set off towards Nikola IV Zrinski's fortress at Szigetvár. From 2 August to 7 September, the Ottoman forces had laid siege to the fortress with a force, at the least, of 150,000 against Zrinski's 2,300 defenders. While the siege turned into a victory for the Ottomans, it came at the cost of: 25,000 Ottoman soldiers and Suleiman I, who before the final battle of Szigetvár, due to natural causes of old age and illness.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In the following centuries there were numerous attempts to push back the Ottoman forces, such as the Long War or Thirteen Years' War (29 July 1593 – 1604/11 November 1606) led by a coalition of Christian forces. In 1644 the Winter Campaign by Miklós Zrínyi burnt the crucial Suleiman Bridge of Osijek in eastern Slavonia, interrupting a Turkish supply line in Hungary. At the Battle of Saint Gotthard (1664), Austrians and Hungarians defeated the Turkish army.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: After the Ottoman siege of Vienna failed in 1683, the Habsburgs went on the offensive against the Turks. By the end of the 17th century, they managed to invade the remainder of the historical Kingdom of Hungary and the principality of Transylvania. For a while in 1686, the capital Buda was again free from the Ottoman Empire, with the aid of other Europeans.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Rákóczi's War for Independence (1703–1711) was the first significant freedom fight in Hungary against absolutist Habsburg rule. It was fought by a group of noblemen, wealthy and high-ranking progressives who wanted to put an end to the inequality of power relations, led by Francis II Rákóczi (II. Rákóczi Ferenc in Hungarian). Its main aims were to protect the rights of the different social orders, and to ensure the economic and social development of the country. Due to the adverse balance of forces, the political situation in Europe and internal conflicts the freedom fight was eventually suppressed, but it succeeded in keeping Hungary from becoming an integral part of the Habsburg Empire, and its constitution was kept, even though it was only a formality.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: After the departure of the Ottomans, the Habsburgs dominated the Hungarian Kingdom. The Hungarians' renewed desire for freedom led to Rákóczi's War for Independence. The most important reasons of the war were the new and higher taxes and a renewed Protestant movement. Rákóczi was a Hungarian nobleman, son of the legendary heroine "Ilona Zrínyi". He spent a part of his youth in Austrian captivity. The "Kurucs" were troops of Rákóczi. Initially, the Kuruc army attained several important victories due to their superior light cavalry. Their weapons were mostly pistols, light sabre and "fokos". At the Battle of Saint Gotthard (1705), János Bottyán decisively defeated the Austrian army. The Hungarian colonel Ádám Balogh nearly captured Joseph I, the King of Hungary and Archduke of Austria.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In 1708, the Habsburgs finally defeated the main Hungarian army at Battle of Trencsén, and this diminished the further effectiveness of the Kuruc army. While the Hungarians were exhausted by the fights, the Austrians defeated the French army in the War of the Spanish Succession. They could send more troops to Hungary against the rebels. Transylvania became part of Hungary again starting at the end of the 17th century, and was led by governors.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: In 1711, Austrian Emperor Charles VI became the next ruler of Hungary. Throughout the 18th century, the Kingdom of Hungary had its own diet (parliament) and constitution, but the members of the Governor's Council ("Helytartótanács", the office of the palatine) were appointed by the Habsburg monarch, and the superior economic institution, the Hungarian Chamber, was directly subordinated to the Court Chamber in Vienna.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Hungarian language reform started under the reign of Joseph II. The reform age of Hungary was started by István Széchenyi a Hungarian noble, who built one of the greatest bridges of Hungary, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. The official language remained Latin until 1836, when Hungarian was introduced. Between 1844 and 1849, and from 1867 onward, Hungarian became the exclusively used official language.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The European revolutions of 1848 swept into Hungary, as well. The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 sought to redress the long suppressed desire for political change, namely independence. The Hungarian National Guard was created by young Hungarian patriots in 1848. In literature, this was best expressed by the greatest poet of the revolution, Sándor Petőfi.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: As war broke out with Austria, Hungarian military successes, which included the campaigns of the Hungarian general, Artúr Görgey, forced the Austrians on the defensive. One of the most famous battles of the revolution, the Battle of Pákozd, was fought on 29 September 1848, when the Hungarian revolutionary army led by Lieutenant-General János Móga defeated the troops of the Croatian Ban Josip Jelačić. Fearing defeat, the Austrians pleaded for Russian help. The combined forces of the two empires quelled the revolution. The desired political changes of 1848 were again suppressed until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Following the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, the Habsburg Monarchy became the "dual monarchy" of Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian economy changed dramatically during the existence of the Dual Monarchy. Technological change accelerated industrialization and urbanization. The capitalist way of production spread throughout the Empire during its fifty-year existence and obsolete medieval institutions continued to disappear. By the early 20th century, most of the Empire began to experience rapid economic growth. The GNP per capita grew roughly 1.45% per year from 1870 to 1913. That level of growth compared very favorably to that of other European nations such as Britain (1.00%), France (1.06%), and Germany (1.51%).


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The lands of the Hungarian Crown (comprising the Kingdom of Hungary proper, into which Transylvania was fully incorporated, and the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, which maintained a distinct identity and internal autonomy) were granted equal status with the Austrian Empire. Each of the two states comprising Austria-Hungary exercised considerable independence, with certain institutions, notably the reigning house, defence, foreign affairs, and finances for common expenditures, remaining under joint management. This arrangement lasted until 1918, when the Central Powers went down in defeat in World War I.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Hungarian Soviet Republic or Hungarian Republic of Councils ( or "Magyarországi Szocialista Szövetséges Tanácsköztársaság") was a short-lived independent communist state established in Hungary.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: It lasted only from 21 March until 1 August 1919. The state was led by Béla Kun and was not recognized by France, the UK or the US. It was the second socialist state in the world to be formed after the October Revolution in Russia brought the Bolsheviks to power. The Hungarian Republic of Councils had military conflicts with the Kingdom of Romania (see Hungarian–Romanian War), the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the evolving Czechoslovakia. It collapsed on 1 August 1919 when Hungarians sent representatives to negotiate their surrender to the Romanian forces and Béla Kun, together with other high-ranking Communists, fled to Austria.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: A 1919 attempt to form a federation with the Kingdom of Romania also failed, when the Romanian King ultimately refused to accept the Hungarian Crown.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: After the pullout of occupation forces of Romania in 1920 the country went into civil conflict, with Hungarian anti-communists and monarchists purging the nation of communists and others by whom they felt threatened. On 29 February 1920, after the pullout of the last of the Romanian occupation forces, the Kingdom of Hungary was restored, a coalition of right-wing political forces united and reinstated Hungary's status as a constitutional monarchy. Selection of the new King was delayed due to civil infighting, and a regent was appointed to represent the monarchy, former Austro-Hungarian navy admiral Miklós Horthy.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The new borders set in 1920 by the Treaty of Trianon ceded 72% of the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary to the neighbouring states. The main beneficiaries were Romania, the newly formed states of Czechoslovakia, and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, but Austria, Poland and Italy also gained smaller territories. The areas that were allocated to neighbouring countries in total (and each of them separately) possessed a majority of non-Hungarian population, but more than 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians were left outside the new borders of Hungary. Many view this as contrary to the terms laid out by US President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, which were intended to honour the ethnic makeup of the territories. As President Wilson left the conference to emphasize his disagreement, and because the US Congress did not ratify the treaty, the United States of America and the Kingdom of Hungary signed a separate peace treaty on 29 August 1921.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The new international borders separated Hungary's industrial base from its sources of raw materials and its former markets for agricultural and industrial products. Hungary lost 84% of its timber resources, 43% of its arable land, and 83% of its iron ore. Furthermore, post-Trianon Hungary possessed 90% of the engineering and printing industry of the Kingdom, while only 11% of timber and 16% iron was retained. In addition, 61% of arable land, 74% of public road, 65% of canals, 62% of railroads, 64% of hard surface roads, 83% of pig iron output, 55% of industrial plants, 100% of gold, silver, copper, mercury and salt mines, and 67% of credit and banking institutions of the prewar Kingdom of Hungary lay within the territory of Hungary's neighbors.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Because most of the country's pre-war industry was concentrated near Budapest, Hungary retained about 51% of its industrial population and 56% of its industry. Horthy appointed Count Pál Teleki as Prime Minister in July 1920. His government issued a numerus clausus law, limiting admission of "political insecure elements" (these were often Jews) to universities and, in order to quiet rural discontent, took initial steps towards fulfilling a promise of major land reform by dividing about 3,850 km from the largest estates into smallholdings. Teleki's government resigned, however, after Charles IV unsuccessfully attempted to retake Hungary's throne in March 1921. The return of King Charles produced split parties between conservatives who favored a Habsburg restoration and nationalist right-wing radicals who supported election of a Hungarian king. Count István Bethlen, a non-affiliated right-wing member of the parliament, took advantage of this rift forming a new Party of Unity under his leadership. Horthy then appointed Bethlen prime minister. Charles IV died soon after he failed a second time to reclaim the throne in October 1921. (For more detail on Charles's attempts to retake the throne, see "Charles IV of Hungary's conflict with Miklós Horthy".)


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: As prime minister, Bethlen dominated Hungarian politics between 1921 and 1931. He fashioned a political machine by amending the electoral law, providing jobs in the expanding bureaucracy to his supporters, and manipulating elections in rural areas. Bethlen restored order to the country by giving the radical counterrevolutionaries payoffs and government jobs in exchange for ceasing their campaign of terror against Jews and leftists. In 1921, he made a deal with the Social Democrats and trade unions (called Bethlen-Peyer Pact), agreeing, among other things, to legalize their activities and free political prisoners in return for their pledge to refrain from spreading anti-Hungarian propaganda, calling political strikes, and organizing the peasantry. Bethlen brought Hungary into the League of Nations in 1922 and out of international isolation by signing a treaty of friendship with Italy in 1927. The revision of the Treaty of Trianon rose to the top of Hungary's political agenda and the strategy employed by Bethlen consisted by strengthening the economy and building relations with stronger nations. Revision of the treaty had such a broad backing in Hungary that Bethlen used it, at least in part, to deflect criticism of his economic, social, and political policies.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: The Great Depression induced a drop in the standard of living and the political mood of the country shifted further toward the right. In 1932 Horthy appointed a new prime-minister, Gyula Gömbös, who changed the course of Hungarian policy towards closer cooperation with Germany. Gömbös signed a trade agreement with Germany that drew Hungary's economy out of depression but made Hungary dependent on the German economy for both raw materials and markets. On 2 November 1938, as the result of the First Vienna Award parts of Czechoslovakia – Southern Slovakia and a part of Carpathian Ruthenia – were returned to Hungary, an area amounting to 11,927 km and a population of 869,299 (86.5% of which were Hungarians according to the 1941 census). Between 5 November and 10 November, Hungarian armed forces peacefully occupied the newly transferred territories. Hitler later promised to transfer all of Slovakia to Hungary in exchange for a military alliance, but his offer was rejected. Instead, Horthy chose to pursue a territorial revision to be decided along ethnic lines. In March 1939, the Czecho-Slovak Republic was dissolved, Germany invaded it, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was established. On 14 March, Slovakia declared itself to be an independent state.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: On 15 March, Carpatho-Ukraine declared itself to be an independent state. Hungary rejected the independence of Carpatho-Ukraine and, between 14 March and 18 March, Hungarian armed forces occupied the rest of Carpathian Ruthenia and ousted the government of Avgustyn Voloshyn. By contrast, Hungary recognized the Nazi puppet state of Slovakia led by the Clerical Fascist Jozef Tiso. In September 1940, with troops massing on both sides of the Hungarian-Romanian border, war was averted by the Second Vienna Award. This award transferred the northern half of Transylvania to Hungary, with a total area of 43,492 km and a total population of 2,578,100 with a 53.5% Hungarian majority according to the 1941 census. By dividing Transylvania between Romania and Hungary, Hitler was able to ease tensions in Hungary. In October 1940, the Germans initiated a reciprocity policy between Romania and Hungary which was continued until the end of World War II. The region of Sub-Carpathia was given special autonomous status with the intention that (eventually) it would be self-governed by the Ruthenian minority.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: After being granted part of southern Czechoslovakia and Subcarpathia by the Germans and Italians in the First Vienna Award of 1938, and then northern Transylvania in the Second Vienna Award of 1940, Hungary participated in their first military maneuvers on the side of the Axis powers in 1941. Thus, the Hungarian army was part of the invasion of Yugoslavia, gaining some more territory and joining the Axis powers in the process. On 22 June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Hungary joined the German effort and declared war on the Soviet Union on 26 June, and entered World War II on the side of the Axis. In late 1941, the Hungarian troops on the Eastern Front experienced success at the Battle of Uman. By 1943, after the Hungarian Second Army suffered extremely heavy losses at the river Don, the Hungarian government sought to negotiate a surrender with the Allies. On 19 March 1944, as a result of this duplicity, German troops occupied Hungary in what was known as Operation Margarethe. By then it was clear that Hungarian politics would be suppressed according to Hitler's intention to hold the country in the war on the side of the Nazi Third Reich because of its strategic location. On 15 October 1944, Horthy made a token effort to disengage Hungary from the war. The Germans launched Operation Panzerfaust and Horthy's regime was replaced by a fascist puppet government under the pro-German Arrow Cross leader Ferenc Szálasi, thus effectively ending the possibility for independent actions in the war. However, the form of government was only changed to a republic two years later.


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: Following its occupation of Hungary in 1944, the Soviet Union imposed harsh conditions allowing the Russians to seize important material assets and control internal affairs. After the Red Army set up police organs to persecute


title: Kingdom of Hungary

text: "class enemies", the Soviets assumed that the impoverished Hungarian populace would support the Communists in the coming elections. The Communists fared poorly, receiving only 17% of the vote, resulting in a coalition government under Prime Minister Zoltán Tildy. Soviet intervention, however, resulted in a government that disregarded Tildy, placed communists in important ministries, and imposed restrictive and repressive measures, including banning the victorious Independent Smallholders, Agrarian Workers and Civic Party. In 1945, Soviet Marshal Kliment Voroshilov forced the freely elected Hungarian government to yield the Interior Ministry to a nominee of the Hungarian Communist Party. Communist Interior Minister László Rajk established the ÁVH secret police, which suppressed political opposition through intimidation, false accusations, imprisonment and torture. In 1946 the form of government was changed to a republic. Soon after the monarchy was abolished, the Soviet Union pressed Hungarian leader Mátyás Rákosi to take a "line of more pronounced class struggle." What emerged was a communist state lasting until 23 October 1956 when the Soviet Russian occupation was swept away by the Hungarian uprising, victorious until 10 November 1956. The Soviet occupation was then restored, lasting until 1989 when the Communists agreed to give up their monopoly on power, paving the way for free elections in March 1990. In today's republic, the Kingdom is regarded as one long stage in the development of the state. This sense of continuity is reflected in the republic's national symbols such as the Holy Crown of Hungary and the coat of arms of Hungary, which are the same as when the monarchy was still in place. Several holidays, the official language (Hungarian), and the capital city Budapest have also been retained. The official Hungarian name of the country is "Magyarország" (simply Hungary) since 2012; it was also the common name of the monarchy. The millennium of the Hungarian statehood was commemorated in 2000 and codified by the Millennium Act of 2000.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: The Saxon Stories (also known as Saxon Tales/Saxon Chronicles in the US and The Warrior Chronicles and most recently as The Last Kingdom series) is a historical novel series written by Bernard Cornwell about the birth of England in the ninth and tenth centuries. The series consists of 13 novels. The protagonist of the series is Uhtred of Bebbanburg, born to a Saxon lord in Northumbria. He is captured as a child and adopted by a Danish warlord. The name of the fictional protagonist comes from the historical Uhtred the Bold; Cornwell is a descendant of this family.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: The story begins with the conquest of all but one of the major Saxon kingdoms by the Danes, with Wessex, the last kingdom, nearly overrun. Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, rallies his forces and begins the long struggle to fulfill his ambition of uniting all English speakers in one realm. Uhtred, despite his inclinations otherwise, repeatedly fights and schemes to bring about Alfred's dream over the course of a long life.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: The first ten novels in the series were adapted for five seasons of the television series "The Last Kingdom", starring Alexander Dreymon. The first two seasons were made by the BBC. A third, fourth and fifth season were produced by Netflix. Cornwell subsequently posted a note on his web site that ""The Warrior Chronicles"/"Saxon Stories" had been renamed "The Last Kingdom" series".


title: The Saxon Stories

text: In an interview with Emerson College, Cornwell said: "Years ago, when I was at university, I discovered Anglo-Saxon poetry and became hooked on that strange and often melancholy world. For some reason the history of the Anglo-Saxons isn’t much taught in Britain (where I grew up) and it struck me as weird that the English really had no idea where their country came from. Americans know, they even have a starting date, but the English just seemed to assume that England had always been there, so the idea of writing a series about the creation of England was in my head for a long time." The historical setting is the big story; writing historical fiction needs a little story so the history can be the background. When he was in his fifties, Cornwell met his birth father, named William Outhred (or Oughtred), and learned the story of his own descent from the Saxons who owned the fortress of Bebbanburg (now Bamburgh Castle). Thus was born Uhtred, the protagonist of the fictional tales.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: In the interview, he revealed that there is a plan to adapt the series for television, in answer to a question of how many more books are planned for the series. "I wish I knew! I don’t know how the chapter I’m writing now will end, let alone the book, and the series? No idea! I suspect there will be a few more; I just heard that BBC Television have commissioned a series that will follow Uhtred’s escapades. The company that makes "Downton Abbey" will make the programs, which is wonderful, and I’ll need to keep them supplied with stories (I hope). So? Six more? Eight more? I just don’t know."


title: The Saxon Stories

text: When the television adaptation of the first two novels aired in autumn of 2015, Cornwell reiterated how the idea took shape in his mind when he met his birth father in Canada. Cornwell's paternal ancestors were traced to the time of Alfred; the family holding Bebbanburg was betrayed in the 11th century and fled to Yorkshire.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: Uhtred, the protagonist, is the second son of a Saxon lord who rules from the nearly impregnable fortress at Bebbanburg (modern-day Bamburgh) in the kingdom of Northumbria. Danish raiders kill first his older brother, then his father. Uhtred himself is spared only because the Danish leader, Ragnar the Fearless, is amused when the youngster attacks him. Ragnar takes Uhtred home and raises the boy like one of his own sons. Uhtred abandons Christianity in favour of Danish pagan beliefs, such as the gods Thor and Odin, Valhalla, and the Norns. In particular, he believes that ""Wyrd bið ful āræd"" ("Fate is inexorable").


title: The Saxon Stories

text: When he is an adult, that fate drives him to serve Alfred the Great, whom he dislikes but respects, and Alfred's dream of uniting all English speakers into a single kingdom, Englaland. To his great disgust, Uhtred finds himself saving Alfred's Christian kingdom of Wessex (and other Saxon kingdoms) time and time again from those who threaten it, primarily the pagan Danes who have settled in Britain, despite despising Christianity and admiring the Danes. When Wessex is overrun and Alfred is at his lowest point, a fugitive with few followers hiding in a marsh, it is Uhtred who convinces him to fight back rather than give up and go into exile.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: Uhtred's overriding ambition, however, is to take Bebbanburg, stolen from him by his uncle after his father's death.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: The story is told almost entirely from Uhtred's first-person perspective. The reader knows only what Uhtred knows or learns. (The first few chapters of "The Empty Throne" are written from the perspective of Uhtred's second son, before reverting to Uhtred's viewpoint.)


title: The Saxon Stories

text: Cornwell provides a "Historical Note" at the end of each novel in which he clarifies which characters and events are based on actual history and what liberties he took with them.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: The series is frequently compared to "The Warlord Chronicles", not only because of similarities between the two protagonists (both were orphaned), but also in the similarities between the foreign menace in the form of the Danes in "The Saxon Stories" and the Saxons in "The Warlord Chronicles". Alfred also resembles Arthur in his mission as the only man to save his kingdom (England for Alfred, southern Celtic Britain for Arthur) from an unstoppable threat.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: The main character, Uhtred of Bebbanburg (the old Saxon name of Bamburgh Castle), is an old man telling tales of events that took place decades earlier, starting from his childhood and going on, his story intertwining with the story of the British Isles in the end of the ninth century. He intersperses the narrative with often acerbic comments regarding the events and characters he describes. It is notable that the Saxon-born Uhtred, baptized Christian three times, has a very critical view of the Christian religion throughout the entire series. Though he takes an oath to serve Alfred, he admires the Danes, their way of life and their gods. This offers the reader a balanced picture of the tumultuous times, when it was uncertain whether there would be an England or a "Daneland" in the southern and central parts of the island of Britain.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: This series of novels is known by several names. "Saxon Stories" and "Saxon Tales" were the first titles in the US and the UK editions for the first five novels, and those titles continue in use for later novels. Starting with "The Death of Kings", the UK editions bear the series title, "The Warrior Chronicles". The series is also known as "The Saxon Chronicles" on US editions. In the autumn of 2015, a series of television programs based on the first two novels and using the title of the first novel – "The Last Kingdom" – has led booksellers to link the novels to the television series by referring to them as "The Last Kingdom" novels. The author renamed the series "The Last Kingdom", according to a news notice at his website.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: Bernard Cornwell mentioned in the historical notes at the end of "The Lords of the North" (third novel) that he intended to continue writing "The Saxon Stories". On his website, Cornwell states "I need to finish Uhtred", the main character in "The Saxon Stories". On 5 March 2020, Cornwell announced on social media that the 13th book, "War Lord", would be the final novel in the series.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: In July 2014, the BBC announced that production would begin in autumn 2014 on a television adaptation of "The Saxon Stories", to be titled "The Last Kingdom". Stephen Butchard is the writer. A series of eight 60-minute episodes was produced. BBC Two, Carnival Films and BBC America are involved in the production. The series premiered on BBC America on 10 October 2015 and on BBC Two in the UK on 22 October 2015.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: In an interview, Cornwell said he did not believe that the success of "Game of Thrones" led to the decision to produce "The Last Kingdom". "I don’t think so, ["Game of Thrones"] is fantasy, unless the appeal is brutal men in chain mail and leather beating the shit out of each other ... I can't see anything else we have in common. This is rooted in reality. And even though Uhtred didn't exist as I have written it, there is always that big story ... in the background". The big story, in Cornwell's terms, refers to the history of Alfred and the start of England.


title: The Saxon Stories

text: Two series had aired by early 2018. The third, fourth and fifth, each with ten episodes, were released exclusively by its sole producer Netflix; the BBC was no longer involved. Following the airing of the fifth season, Netflix announced that the series was cancelled and would be followed by a two-hour feature film, "Seven Kings Must Die", which finished filming in March 2022 in Hungary. The movie is expected to be aired on Netflix in late 2022 or early 2023.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris is a 2022 historical comedy-drama film directed and produced by Anthony Fabian, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Carroll Cartwright, Keith Thompson, and Olivia Hetreed. It is the third film adaptation of the 1958 novel "Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris" by Paul Gallico. The film stars Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista, Lucas Bravo, Ellen Thomas, Rose Williams, and Jason Isaacs. The film enjoyed strong box office result in the United States arthouse circuit. Manville received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for her performance.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: In 1957 London, Mrs. Ada Harris, a widowed cleaning lady, becomes obsessed with one client's "haute couture" Dior dress; it inspires her to buy her own Dior dress. After suddenly receiving a war-widow's pension, she travels to Paris to do so. She stumbles into a showing of Dior's 10th anniversary collection and is befriended by André, the Dior accountant, and Natasha, a Dior model. However, the Dior director, Claudine, resents Ada's intrusion into the exclusive world of "haute couture".


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: Dior has fallen on hard financial times, and, because Ada will pay in cash, they reluctantly agree to make her a dress. While in Paris for fittings, she stays with André and encourages him to express his affection for Natashawho shares his interest in existential philosophy.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: When Claudine is forced to sack several Dior workers for financial reasons, Ada organises a strike and forces Claudine and Christian Dior to hear André's ideas to modernise and make the business profitable.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: Ada returns to London with her dress. She lends it to her client, Pamela, a struggling actress, who wears it to an event. It catches fire and is ruined. Ada's Dior friends read about the disaster in the newspaper and send her another dress, one she initially coveted more than the purchased one.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: In October 2020, it was announced Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Jason Isaacs, Lambert Wilson, Alba Baptista and Lucas Bravo had joined the cast of the film, with Anthony Fabian directing and producing the film, from a screenplay he co-wrote alongside Caroll Cartwright, Keith Thompson and Olivia Hetreed, based upon the novel "Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris" by Paul Gallico. Manville was set to be the executive producer.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: Principal photography began in October 2020. Filming took place over 40 days in Budapest, before production moved to London and Paris.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: In March 2021, Focus Features acquired worldwide distribution rights to "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris" for approximately $15 million and will distribute the film in the United States, while parent company Universal Pictures will distribute it internationally. It


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: was released theatrically in the United States on 15 July 2022, though it was originally scheduled to be released on 6 May. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 30 September 2022, in Hungary on 6 October 2022, and in France on 2 November 2022.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: The film was released for VOD platforms on August 2, 2022, followed by a Blu-ray and DVD release on September 6, 2022.


title: Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

text: In the United States, the film made $2 million from 980 theaters in its opening weekend; 44% of its audience were women over the age of 55. The film eventually grossed more than $10 million in the United States theatrically. "Deadline Hollywood" described the film's box office performance as "strong."


title: Harry Chapin

text: Harold Forster Chapin (; December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981) was an American singer-songwriter, philanthropist, and hunger activist best known for his folk rock and pop rock songs. He achieved worldwide success in the 1970s. Chapin, a Grammy Award-winning artist and Grammy Hall of Fame inductee, has sold over 16 million records worldwide.


title: Harry Chapin

text: Chapin recorded a total of 11 albums from 1972 until his death in 1981. All 14 singles that he released became hits on at least one national music chart.


title: Harry Chapin

text: As a dedicated humanitarian, Chapin fought to end world hunger. He was a key participant in the creation of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger in 1977. In 1987, Chapin was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his humanitarian work.


title: Harry Chapin

text: Harry Forster Chapin was born on December 7, 1942 in New York City, the second of four children of legendary percussionist Jim Chapin and Jeanne Elspeth, daughter of the literary critic Kenneth Burke. His brothers, Tom and Steve, would also become musicians. He had English ancestry. The earliest Chapin to come to America was Samuel Chapin, who was the first deacon of Springfield, Massachusetts in 1636. His other great-grandparents on his mother's side had immigrated in the late 19th century. His parents divorced in 1950, with his mother retaining custody of their four sons, as Jim spent much of his time on the road as a drummer for Big Band-era acts such as Woody Herman. Chapin's mother married "Films in Review" magazine editor Henry Hart a few years later.


title: Harry Chapin

text: Chapin's first formal introduction to music was trumpet lessons at The Greenwich House Music School under Mr. Karrasic (sic). Harry's younger brothers Tom and Steve were choirboys at Grace Episcopal Church in Brooklyn Heights, and through them Chapin met "Big" John Wallace, a baritone with a five-octave range, who later became his bassist, backing vocalist, and straight man onstage. Chapin began performing with his brothers while a teenager, with their father occasionally joining them on drums. Chapin graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1960 and was among the five inductees in the school's Alumni Hall Of Fame for the year 2000. He briefly attended the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado and was then an intermittent student at Cornell University in New York State, but did not complete a degree.