title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: In 1981, defectors from a moderate faction of the Labour Party, led by former Cabinet ministers Roy Jenkins, David Owen and Shirley Williams, founded the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The new party and the Liberals quickly formed the SDP–Liberal Alliance, which for a while polled as high as 50% in the opinion polls and appeared capable of winning the next general election. Indeed, Steel was so confident of an Alliance victory that he told the 1981 Liberal conference, "Go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government!".


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: However, the Alliance was overtaken in the polls by the Tories in the aftermath of the Falkland Islands War and at the 1983 general election the Conservatives were re-elected by a landslide, with Labour once again forming the opposition. While the SDP–Liberal Alliance came close to Labour in terms of votes (a share of more than 25%), it only had 23 MPs compared to Labour's 209. The Alliance's support was spread out across the country, and was not concentrated in enough areas to translate into seats.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: In the 1987 general election, the Alliance's share of the votes fell slightly and it now had 22 MPs. In the election's aftermath Steel proposed a merger of the two parties. Most SDP members voted in favour of the merger, but SDP leader David Owen objected and continued to lead a "rump" SDP.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: In March 1988, the Liberal Party and Social Democratic Party merged to create the Social and Liberal Democrats, renamed the Liberal Democrats in October 1989. Over two-thirds of Liberal members joined the merged party, along with all sitting MPs. Steel and SDP leader Robert Maclennan served briefly as interim leaders of the merged party.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: A group of Liberal opponents of the merger with the Social Democrats, including Michael Meadowcroft (the former Liberal MP for Leeds West) and Paul Wiggin (who served on Peterborough City Council as a Liberal), continued with a new party organisation under the name of the 'Liberal Party'. Meadowcroft joined the Liberal Democrats in 2007, but the Liberal Party as reconstituted in 1989 continues to hold council seats and field candidates in Westminster Parliamentary elections. None of the nineteen Liberal candidates in 2019 achieved 5% of the votes, resulting in all losing their deposits.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: During the 19th century, the Liberal Party was broadly in favour of what would today be called classical liberalism, supporting "laissez-faire" economic policies such as free trade and minimal government interference in the economy (this doctrine was usually termed Gladstonian liberalism after the Victorian era Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone). The Liberal Party favoured social reform, personal liberty, reducing the powers of the Crown and the Church of England (many of them were nonconformists) and an extension of the electoral franchise. Sir William Harcourt, a prominent Liberal politician in the Victorian era, said this about liberalism in 1872: If there be any party which is more pledged than another to resist a policy of restrictive legislation, having for its object social coercion, that party is the Liberal party. (Cheers.) But liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right, (Hear, hear.) The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes; a Liberal Government tries, as far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do as he wishes. It has been the tradition of the Liberal party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the place where people can do more what they please than in any other country in the world. [...] It is this practice of allowing one set of people to dictate to another set of people what they shall do, what they shall think, what they shall drink, when they shall go to bed, what they shall buy, and where they shall buy it, what wages they shall get and how they shall spend them, against which the Liberal party have always protested.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: The political terms of "modern", "progressive" or "new" Liberalism began to appear in the mid to late 1880s and became increasingly common to denote the tendency in the Liberal Party to favour an increased role for the state as more important than the classical liberal stress on self-help and freedom of choice.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: By the early 20th century, the Liberals stance began to shift towards "New Liberalism", what would today be called social liberalism, namely a belief in personal liberty with a support for government intervention to provide social welfare. This shift was best exemplified by the Liberal government of H. H. Asquith and his Chancellor David Lloyd George, whose Liberal reforms in the early 1900s created a basic welfare state.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: David Lloyd George adopted a programme at the 1929 general election entitled "We Can Conquer Unemployment!", although by this stage the Liberals had declined to third-party status. The Liberals as expressed in the "Liberal Yellow Book" now regarded opposition to state intervention as being a characteristic of right-wing extremists.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: After nearly becoming extinct in the 1940s and the 1950s, the Liberal Party revived its fortunes somewhat under the leadership of Jo Grimond in the 1960s by positioning itself as a radical centrist, non-socialist alternative to the Conservative and Labour Party governments of the time.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: Since 1660, nonconformist Protestants have played a major role in English politics. Relatively few MPs were Dissenters. However the Dissenters were a major voting bloc in many areas, such as the East Midlands. They were very well organised and highly motivated and largely won over the Whigs and Liberals to their cause. Down to the 1830s, Dissenters demanded removal of political and civil disabilities that applied to them (especially those in the Test and Corporation Acts). The Anglican establishment strongly resisted until 1828. Numerous reforms of voting rights, especially that of 1832, increased the political power of Dissenters. They demanded an end to compulsory church rates, in which local taxes went only to Anglican churches. They finally achieved the end of religious tests for university degrees in 1905. Gladstone brought the majority of Dissenters around to support for Home Rule for Ireland, putting the dissenting Protestants in league with the Irish Roman Catholics in an otherwise unlikely alliance. The Dissenters gave significant support to moralistic issues, such as temperance and sabbath enforcement. The nonconformist conscience, as it was called, was repeatedly called upon by Gladstone for support for his moralistic foreign policy. In election after election, Protestant ministers rallied their congregations to the Liberal ticket. In Scotland, the Presbyterians played a similar role to the Nonconformist Methodists, Baptists and other groups in England and Wales.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: By the 1820s, the different Nonconformists, including Wesleyan Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists and Unitarians, had formed the Committee of Dissenting Deputies and agitated for repeal of the highly restrictive Test and Corporation Acts. These Acts excluded Nonconformists from holding civil or military office or attending Oxford or Cambridge, compelling them to set up their own Dissenting Academies privately. The Tories tended to be in favour of these Acts and so the Nonconformist cause was linked closely to the Whigs, who advocated civil and religious liberty. After the Test and Corporation Acts were repealed in 1828, all the Nonconformists elected to Parliament were Liberals. Nonconformists were angered by the Education Act 1902, which integrated Church of England denominational schools into the state system and provided for their support from taxes. John Clifford formed the National Passive Resistance Committee and by 1906 over 170 Nonconformists had gone to prison for refusing to pay school taxes. They included 60 Primitive Methodists, 48 Baptists, 40 Congregationalists and 15 Wesleyan Methodists.


title: Liberal Party (UK)

text: The political strength of Dissent faded sharply after 1920 with the secularisation of British society in the 20th century. The rise of the Labour Party reduced the Liberal Party strongholds into the nonconformist and remote "Celtic Fringe", where the party survived by an emphasis on localism and historic religious identity, thereby neutralising much of the class pressure on behalf of the Labour movement. Meanwhile, the Anglican Church was a bastion of strength for the Conservative Party. On the Irish issue, the Anglicans strongly supported unionism. Increasingly after 1850, the Roman Catholic element in England and Scotland was composed of recent emigrants from Ireland who largely voted for the Irish Parliamentary Party until its collapse in 1918.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cade Parker Cunningham (born September 25, 2001) is an American professional basketball player for the Detroit Pistons of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He attended Bowie High School in his hometown of Arlington, Texas, before transferring to Montverde Academy in Florida, where he was rated a consensus five-star recruit and among the top players in the 2020 class by major recruiting services. As a senior, he led one of the best high school teams in history and received national player of the year recognition.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cunningham committed to playing college basketball for Oklahoma State, and was named a consensus first-team All-American and Big 12 Player of the Year after his freshman season with the team. He won a gold medal with the United States at the 2019 FIBA Under-19 World Cup. He was the NBA first overall pick by the Detroit Pistons in the 2021 NBA draft.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cunningham was born in Arlington, Texas, to Carrie and Keith Cunningham. He grew up playing football as a quarterback, which he believes helped him become a better passer and leader on the basketball court. Cunningham focused on basketball after watching his brother play the sport in college. He frequently played basketball with his father and brother at a recreation center. Cunningham played the point guard position for Barnett Junior High School in Arlington. Since his childhood, he competed for the Texas Titans on the Amateur Athletic Union circuit alongside future TCU player Mike Miles.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cunningham attended Bowie High School in Arlington. Soon into his freshman season, he became a starter on the varsity team, which also featured Kyler Edwards. Cunningham averaged 15.2 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game, helping Bowie reach the District 6A Region I final. He was subsequently named District 4-6A Newcomer of the Year. In December 2017, early in his sophomore season, he suffered an injury while attempting to dunk at a tournament in Houston. Cunningham finished the season averaging 18.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 5.3 assists per game. He was named District 4-6A co-most valuable player (MVP) and earned Texas Association of Basketball Coaches All-Region honors.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Entering his junior year, Cunningham transferred to Montverde Academy, a school in Montverde, Florida with a successful basketball program. He chose Montverde, whose team was ranked number one in the country by "USA Today", for its academics and coaching. On February 2, 2019, at the National Hoopfest tournament, Cunningham recorded 26 points, nine assists, and seven rebounds in a 76–51 win against Oak Hill Academy, one of the top high school teams nationally. By the end of his junior season, he was averaging 11.4 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game. Following the high school season, Cunningham was named Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL) MVP after averaging 25.1 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game for the Texas Titans in the EYBL regular season. He was teammates with Greg Brown and Mike Miles with the Titans.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: For his senior season at Montverde, he was joined by many more top recruits, including five-star forwards Scottie Barnes and Day'Ron Sharpe. Many analysts regarded his team as one of the best in high school basketball history. Cunningham averaged 13.9 points, 6.4 assists and 4.2 rebounds per game, leading Montverde to a 25–0 record with an average margin of victory of 39 points. He played only 22 minutes per game due to the depth of his team. At the end of the season, Cunningham was honored as Mr. Basketball USA, Naismith Prep Player of the Year, and MaxPreps National Player of the Year. He was selected to play in the McDonald's All-American Game, Jordan Brand Classic, and Nike Hoop Summit, but all three games were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cunningham emerged as a top-25 recruit in the 2020 class at the end of his sophomore season at Bowie. He was a consensus five-star recruit and one of the best players in his class. Cunningham received offers from top NCAA Division I programs, including Duke, Kentucky, and North Carolina, but many analysts viewed Oklahoma State as his likely destination after the program hired his brother as an assistant coach. On November 5, 2019, Cunningham announced his commitment to Oklahoma State. He became the highest-ranked committed recruit in program history and the first five-star recruit to join Oklahoma State since Marcus Smart in 2012. In June 2020, the NCAA imposed a postseason ban on Oklahoma State. Cunningham announced on June 22 that he would still play for the team.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: In his college debut for Oklahoma State on November 25, 2020, Cunningham recorded 21 points and 10 rebounds in a 75–68 win over UT Arlington. On December 8, he scored 29 points, including 13 in the final 91 seconds, in an 83–78 victory over Oral Roberts. On December 12, Cunningham made a game-winning three-pointer with 11 seconds remaining to help defeat Wichita State 67–64. On February 27, 2021, he posted a career-high 40 points and 11 rebounds in a 94–90 overtime win against Oklahoma. The performance helped him earn Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week honors. Cunningham posted 25 points, eight rebounds, and five assists in an 83–74 upset win against top-seeded Baylor in the Big 12 tournament semifinals on March 12, 2021. As a freshman, he averaged 20.1 points, 6.2 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.6 steals per game.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: After his freshman season, Cunningham was recognized as a consensus first-team All-American. He was the first Oklahoma State player to earn the distinction since Bob Kurland (1944–46). He became the fourth player to win Big 12 Player of the Year and Big 12 Freshman of the Year in the same season, joining Marcus Smart, Kevin Durant, and Michael Beasley. He was unanimously selected to the first-team All-Big 12, the All-Freshman Team, and the All-Newcomer Team. Cunningham received major NCAA Division I freshman of the year honors, among them the Wayman Tisdale Award, "Sporting News" Freshman of the Year, and National Association of Basketball Coaches Freshman of the Year.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: On April 1, 2021, Cunningham announced that he would enter the 2021 NBA draft and forgo his remaining college eligibility. Analysts regarded him as the consensus number one pick in the draft.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cunningham was drafted with the first overall pick of the 2021 NBA draft by the Detroit Pistons. On August 8, 2021, he made his debut in the 2021 NBA Summer League in a 76–72 win against the Oklahoma City Thunder in which he posted 12 points, six rebounds, and two assists in 26 minutes. Cunningham lost part of the training camp, all of the preseason, and five of Detroit's first six games due to an ankle injury. On October 30, he made his NBA debut, putting up two points, two assists, and seven rebounds in a 110–103 win over the Orlando Magic. After five games, Cunningham posted his first 40-plus field-goal percentage, and he had an 18-point, 10-rebound double-double in his third NBA game. On November 15, Cunningham became the youngest player in NBA history to tally at least 25 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists with five three-pointers in a game at 20 years, 51 days. He topped LeBron James (20 years, 100 days) and Trae Young (20 years, 163 days). On November 21, he notched a triple-double with 13 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists in a 121—116 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers to become the eighth-youngest player in NBA history to record a triple-double and the youngest in Pistons history.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: On January 25, 2022, Cunningham had 34 points, eight rebounds, eight assists, four blocks, and two steals in a 110–105 loss to the Denver Nuggets, joining Michael Jordan as the only rookies in NBA history to post these basketball statistics in a single game. He was named the NBA Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for games played in January. Cunningham was named MVP of the Rising Stars Challenge on February 18, 2022. He averaged a rookie-best 17.4 points, plus 5.6 assists and 5.5 rebounds, to finish the season. Since March 1, Cunningham averaged 21.2 points on 46.2 percent shooting and 6.7 assists per game. He finished third in Rookie of the Year voting, behind winner Scottie Barnes and Evan Mobley.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: On December 12, 2022, it was announced Cunningham would undergo season-ending surgery to repair a stress fracture in his left shin. Prior to his injury, he averaged 19.9 points, 6.2 rebounds and six assists, shooting 41.5% overall and 27.9% on 3-point attempts in 12 games.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cunningham played for the United States at the 2019 FIBA Under-19 World Cup in Heraklion, Greece. In seven games, he averaged 11.7 points, 5.7 assists, and 4.9 rebounds per game, helping his team win the gold medal. In the finals, Cunningham led all scorers with 21 points, along with seven rebounds and seven assists, in a 93–79 win over Mali.


title: Cade Cunningham

text: Cunningham's father Keith played college football for Texas Tech. His older brother played college basketball for SMU, surpassing the school record for games played, before spending one professional season in Poland. Cannen later pursued a coaching career, becoming an assistant coach for Oklahoma State entering the 2019–20 season. Cunningham has a daughter named Riley, born in 2018. He has been a vegan since 2019.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Kingdom of Aksum (, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in what is now northern Ethiopia, and spanning modern-day Eritrea, northern Djibouti, and eastern Sudan, it extended at its height into much of modern-day southern Arabia during the reign of King Kaleb.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Axum served as the kingdom's capital for many centuries but relocated to Jarma in the 9th century due to declining trade connections and recurring external invasions. Emerging from the earlier Dʿmt civilization, the kingdom was likely founded in the early 1st century. Pre-Aksumite culture developed in part due to a South Arabian influence, evident in the use of the Ancient South Arabian script and the practice of Ancient Semitic religion. However, the Geʽez script came into use by the 4th century, and as the kingdom became a major power on the trade route between Rome and India, it entered the Greco-Roman cultural sphere and began to use Greek as a lingua franca. It is through this that the Kingdom of Aksum adopted Christianity as the state religion in the mid-4th century, under Ezana of Axum. Following their Christianization, the Aksumites ceased construction of stelae.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Kingdom of Aksum was considered one of the ancient world's four great powers of the 3rd century by Persian prophet Mani, alongside Persia, Rome, and China. Beginning with the reign of Endubis, Aksum minted its own coins, which have been excavated in locations as far as Caesarea and southern India. The kingdom continued to expand throughout late antiquity, conquering Meroe for a very short period of time, from whom it inherited the Greek exonym "Ethiopia". Aksumite dominance in the Red Sea culminated during the reign of Kaleb of Axum, who, at the behest of the Byzantine Empire Justin I, invaded the Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen in order to end the persecution of Christians perpetrated by the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas. With the annexation of Himyar, the Kingdom of Aksum was at its largest territorial extent. However, the territory was lost in the Aksumite–Persian wars.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The kingdom's slow decline had begun by the 7th century, at which point currency ceased to be minted. The Persian (and later Muslim) presence in the Red Sea caused Aksum to suffer economically, and the population of the city of Axum shrank. Alongside environmental and internal factors, this has been suggested as the reason for its decline. Aksum's final three centuries are considered a dark age, and through uncertain circumstances, the kingdom collapsed around 960. Despite its position as one of the foremost empires of late antiquity, the Kingdom of Aksum fell into obscurity as Ethiopia remained isolated throughout the Middle Ages.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Before the establishment of Axum, the Tigray plateau of northern Ethiopia was home to a kingdom known as Dʿmt. Archaeological evidence shows that the kingdom was influenced by Sabaeans from modern-day Yemen; scholarly consensus had previously been that Sabaeans had been the founders of Semitic civilization in Ethiopia, though this has now been refuted, and their influence is considered to have been minor. The Sabaean presence likely lasted only for a matter of decades, but their influence on later Aksumite civilization included the adoption of Ancient South Arabian script, which developed into Geʽez script, and Ancient Semitic religion.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The first historical mention of Axum comes from the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea", a trading guide which likely dates to the mid-1st century AD. Axum is mentioned alongside Adulis and Ptolemais of the Hunts as lying within the realm of Zoskales. The area is described as a primarily producing ivory, as well as tortoise shells. Zoskales is also said to have been "acquainted with Greek literature", indicating that Greco-Roman influence was already present at this time. It is evident from the Periplus that, even at this early stage of its history, Axum played a role in the transcontinental trade route between Rome and India.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Kingdom of Axum was a trading empire with its hub in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. It existed approximately 100–940 AD, growing from the Iron Age proto-Axumite period c. fourth century BC to achieve prominence by the first century AD.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: According to the "Book of Axum", the kingdom's first capital, Mazaber, was built by Itiyopis, son of Cush. The capital was later moved to Axum in northern Ethiopia. The Kingdom used the name "Ethiopia" as early as the fourth century.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Empire of Axum at times extended across most of present-day Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, Western Yemen — which it invaded utilizing the dhow designs of Egypt — and parts of eastern Sudan. The capital city of the empire was Axum, now in northern Ethiopia. Today a smaller community, the city of Axum was once a bustling metropolis, cultural and economic hub. Two hills and two streams lie on the east and west expanses of the city; perhaps providing the initial impetus for settling this area. Along the hills and plain outside the city, the Aksumites had cemeteries with elaborate grave stones called stelee or obelisks. Other important cities included Yeha, Hawulti-Melazo, Matara, Adulis, and Qohaito, the last three of which are now in Eritrea. By the reign of Endubis in the late third century, it had begun minting its own currency and was named by Mani as one of the four great powers of his time along with the Sasanian Empire, Roman Empire, and China. The Axumites adopted Christianity as the state religion in 325 or 328 AD under King Ezana, and Axum was the first state ever to use the image of the cross on its coins.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Around the 3rd century (possibly c. 240–c. 260), the Aksumites led by "Sembrouthes" were victorious over the Sesea, with Sesea becoming a tributary of the Kingdom of Aksum."" Around 330, Ezana of Aksum led his army into the Kingdom of Meroë, conquering and sacking the town itself. A large stone monument was left there, and the conquest is also related on Ezana Stone.""


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Around 525, King Kaleb sent an expedition to Yemen against the Jewish Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas, who was persecuting the Christian community there.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: For nearly half a century south Arabia would become an Ethiopian protectorate under Abraha and his son Masruq. Dhu Nuwas was deposed and killed and Kaleb appointed a Christian Himyarite, Esimiphaios ("Sumuafa Ashawa"), as his viceroy. However, around 530 this viceroy was deposed by the Aksumite general Abraha with support of Ethiopians who had settled in Yemen. Kaleb sent two expeditions against Abraha, but both were decisively defeated. Kaleb did not pursue the matter further, and recognized Abraha as his new viceroy.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: After Abraha's death, his son Masruq Abraha continued the Aksumite vice-royalty in Yemen, resuming payment of tribute to Aksum. However, his half-brother Ma'd-Karib revolted.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: After being denied by Justinian, Ma'd-Karib sought help from Khosrow I, the Sassanid Persian Emperor, thus triggering the Aksumite–Persian wars. Khosrow I sent a small fleet and army under commander Vahrez to depose the king of Yemen. The war culminated with the Siege of Sana'a, capital of Aksumite Yemen.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: In 575, the war resumed again, after Saif was killed by Aksumites. The Persian general Vahrez led another army of 8000, ending Axum rule in Yemen and becoming hereditary governor of Yemen. According to Munro-Hay, these wars may have been Aksum's swan-song as a great power, with an overall weakening of Aksumite authority and over-expenditure in money and manpower.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: According to Ethiopian traditions, Kaleb eventually abdicated and retired to a monastery. It is also possible that Ethiopia was affected by the Plague of Justinian around this time.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Aksum, though weakened, remained a strong empire and trading power until the rise of Islam in the 7th century. However, unlike the relations between the Islamic powers and Christian Europe, Aksum (see Sahama), was on good terms with its Islamic neighbours and provided shelter to Muhammad's early followers around 615. Nevertheless, as early as 640, Umar sent a naval expedition against Adulis, the Expedition of Alqammah bin Mujazziz, but it was eventually defeated.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: In the 7th century, early Muslims from Mecca sought refuge from Quraysh persecution by travelling to the kingdom, a journey known in Islamic history as the First Hijrah. However the religion was not established until the arrival of the Ottomans in the 15th century.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Aksumite naval power also declined throughout the period, though in 702 Aksumite pirates were able to invade the Hejaz and occupy Jeddah. In retaliation, however, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik was able to take the occupied parts back and the Dahlak Archipelago from Aksum, which became Muslim from that point on.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: After a second golden age in the early 6th century the empire began to decline in the mid 6th century, eventually ceasing its production of coins in the early 7th century. Around this same time, the Aksumite population was forced to go farther inland to the highlands for protection, abandoning Aksum as the capital. Arab writers of the time continued to describe Ethiopia (no longer referred to as Aksum) as an extensive and powerful state, though they had lost control of most of the coast and their tributaries. While land was lost in the north, it was gained in the south; and, though Ethiopia was no longer an economic power, it still attracted Arab merchants. The capital was then moved south to a new location called Ku'bar or Jarmi. The Arab writer Ya'qubi was the first to describe the new Aksumite capital. The capital was probably located in southern Tigray or Angot, however the exact location of this city is currently unknown.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Eventually, the Rashidun Caliphate took control of the Red Sea and Egypt by 646, pushing Aksum into economic isolation. Northwest of Aksum, in modern-day Sudan, the Christian states of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia lasted until the 13th century before being overrun by Bedouin tribes and the Funj Sultanate. Aksum, isolated, nonetheless still remained Christian.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Famine is noted in Ethiopia in the ninth century. The patriarchates James (819–830) and Joseph (830–849) of Alexandria attribute Ethiopia's condition to war, plague, and inadequate rains. Under the reign of Degna Djan, during the 9th century, the empire kept expanding south, and sent troops into the modern-day region of Kaffa, while at the same time undertaking missionary activity into Angot.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Local history holds that, around 960, a Jewish Queen named Yodit (Judith) or "Gudit" defeated the empire and burned its churches and literature. While there is evidence of churches being burned and an invasion around this time, her existence has been questioned by some western authors. Gudit sacked Aksum by destroying churches and buildings, persecuted Christians and committed Christian iconoclasm. Her origin has been debated among scholars. Some argued that she had a Jewish ethnicity or was from a southern region. According to one traditional account, she reigned for forty years and her dynasty lasted until 1137 AD, when it was overthrown by Mara Takla Haymanot, resulting in the inception of the Agaw-led Zagwe dynasty.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Gudit's origin has been extensively debated. Scholars debate whether she was a Jew, an Agaw, a Beja, and an enslaved servant of an Aksumite emperor who wanted to lead pagans against Christianity. Others argued that she was a daughter of the king of Lasta, situated in Bugna. The Italian scholar Carlo Conti Rossini described her as a Bani al-Hamwiyah, while another source pointed to the Sidama people in the area called Sasu, probably south of the Blue Nile, where Aksumite rulers also obtained caravans for commodities of gold and coin, which are thought the main motive for Gudit's raid.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: According to an oral tradition, Gudit rose to power after she killed the Beta Israel emperor and then reigned for 40 years. She brought her Jewish army from Gondar and Lake Tana to orchestrate the pillage against Aksum and its countryside. She was determined to destroy all members of the Aksumite dynasty, palaces, churches and monuments in Tigray. Her notorious deeds are still recounted by peasants inhabiting northern Ethiopia. Large ruins, standing stones and stelae are found in the area.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Around 960, she attacked Aksum, demolishing churches (the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion was partially demolished), monasteries, buildings and committing Christian iconoclasm. Gudit also killed the last emperor of Aksum, possibly Dil Na'od, while other accounts say Dil Na'od went into exile in Shewa, protected by Christians. He begged assistance from a ruler named King George of Makuria, which remained unanswered. She was said to have been succeeded by Dagna-Jan, whose throne name was Anbasa Wudem. Her reign was marked by the displacement of the Aksumite population into the south.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: According to one Ethiopian traditional account, she reigned for forty years and her dynasty was eventually overthrown by Mara Tekla Haymanot in 1137 AD, who ushered in the formation of the Zagwe dynasty by bearing children with a descendant of the last Aksumite emperor, Dil Na'od.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Another possibility of decline is that the Aksumite power was ended by a southern pagan queen named Bani al-Hamwiyah, possibly of the tribe al-Damutah or Damoti (Damot). It is clear from contemporary sources that a female usurper did indeed rule the country at this time, and that her reign ended some time before 1003. After a short Dark Age, the Aksumite Empire was succeeded by the Zagwe dynasty in the 11th or 12th century (most likely around 1137), although limited in size and scope. However, Yekuno Amlak, who killed the last Zagwe king and founded the modern Solomonic dynasty around 1270 traced his ancestry and his right to rule from the last emperor of Aksum, Dil Na'od. It should be mentioned that the end of the Aksumite Empire didn't mean the end of Aksumite culture and traditions; for example, the architecture of the Zagwe dynasty at Lalibela and Yemrehana Krestos Church shows heavy Aksumite influence.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Climatic change and trade isolation have also been claimed as large reasons for the decline of the culture. The local subsistence base was substantially augmented by a climatic shift during the 1st century AD that reinforced the spring rains, extended the rainy season from 3 1/2 to six or seven months, vastly improved the surface and subsurface water supply, doubled the length of the growing season, and created an environment comparable to that of modern central Ethiopia (where two crops can be grown per annum without the aid of irrigation). This appears to explain how one of the marginal agricultural environments of Ethiopia was able to support the demographic base that made this far flung commercial empire possible. It may also explain why no Aksumite rural settlement expansion into the moister, more fertile, and naturally productive lands of Begemder or Lasta can be verified during the heyday of Aksumite power. As international profits from the exchange network declined, Aksum lost its ability to control its own raw material sources and that network collapsed. The already persistent environmental pressure of a large population to maintain a high level of regional food production had to be intensified. The result was a wave of soil erosion that began on a local scale c. 650 and attained catastrophic proportions after 700. Presumably complex socio-economic inputs compounded the problem. These are traditionally reflected in declining maintenance, deterioration and partial abandonment of marginal crop land, shifts to destructive pastoral exploitation, and eventual, wholesale and irreversible land degradation. This syndrome was possibly accelerated by an apparent decline in rainfall reliability beginning 730–760, with the presumed result that an abbreviated modern growing season was reestablished during the 9th century.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Covering parts of what is now northern Ethiopia and southern and eastern Eritrea, Aksum was deeply involved in the trade network between the Indian subcontinent and the Mediterranean (Rome, later Byzantium), exporting ivory, tortoise shell, gold and emeralds, and importing silk and spices. Aksum's access to both the Red Sea and the Upper Nile enabled its strong navy to profit in trade between various African (Nubia), Arabian (Yemen), and Indian states.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The main exports of Aksum were, as would be expected of a state during this time, agricultural products. The land was much more fertile during the time of the Aksumites than now, and their principal crops were grains such as wheat and barley. The people of Aksum also raised cattle, sheep, and camels. Wild animals were also hunted for things such as ivory and rhinoceros horns. They traded with Roman traders as well as with Egyptian and Persian merchants. The empire was also rich with gold and iron deposits. These metals were valuable to trade, but another mineral was also widely traded: salt. Salt was abundant in Aksum and was traded quite frequently.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: It benefited from a major transformation of the maritime trading system that linked the Roman Empire and India. This change took place around the start of the 1st century. The older trading system involved coastal sailing and many intermediary ports. The Red Sea was of secondary importance to the Persian Gulf and overland connections to the Levant. Starting around 100 BC a route from Egypt to India was established, making use of the Red Sea and using monsoon winds to cross the Arabian Sea directly to southern India. By about 100 AD, the volume of traffic being shipped on this route had eclipsed older routes. Roman demand for goods from southern India increased dramatically, resulting in greater number of large ships sailing down the Red Sea from Roman Egypt to the Arabian Sea and India.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Kingdom of Aksum was ideally located to take advantage of the new trading situation. Adulis soon became the main port for the export of African goods, such as ivory, incense, gold, slaves, and exotic animals. In order to supply such goods the kings of Aksum worked to develop and expand an inland trading network. A rival, and much older trading network that tapped the same interior region of Africa was that of the Kingdom of Kush, which had long supplied Egypt with African goods via the Nile corridor. By the 1st century AD, however, Aksum had gained control over territory previously Kushite. The "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea" explicitly describes how ivory collected in Kushite territory was being exported through the port of Adulis instead of being taken to Meroë, the capital of Kush. During the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD the Kingdom of Aksum continued to expand their control of the southern Red Sea basin. A caravan route to Egypt was established which bypassed the Nile corridor entirely. Aksum succeeded in becoming the principal supplier of African goods to the Roman Empire, not least as a result of the transformed Indian Ocean trading system.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Aksumite population mostly consisted of Semitic-speaking people collectively known as the Habeshas. The Aksumite Empire also consisted of several other ethnic groups, inscriptions from the time of Ezana notes the "Barya" tribes who lived in the western part of the empire, which is believed to be the Nara people. The Aksumites would frequently wage slave expeditions against these barya tribes. The Agaw people were also known to have lived in the southern frontiers of the kingdom and were typically employed in the Aksumite army.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Empire of Aksum is notable for a number of achievements, such as its own alphabet, the Ge'ez script, which was eventually modified to include vowels, becoming an abugida. Furthermore, in the early times of the empire, around 1700 years ago, giant obelisks to mark emperors' (and nobles') tombs (underground grave chambers) were constructed, the most famous of which is the Obelisk of Aksum.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Under Emperor Ezana, Aksum adopted Christianity in place of its former polytheistic and Judaic religions around 325. This gave rise to the present day Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (only granted autonomy from the Coptic Church in 1959), and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahdo Church (granted autonomy from the Ethiopian Orthodox church in 1993). Since the schism with Orthodoxy following the Council of Chalcedon (451), it has been an important Miaphysite church, and its scriptures and liturgy continue to be in Ge'ez.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Before its conversion to Christianity, the Aksumites practiced a polytheistic religion related to the religion practiced in southern Arabia. This included the use of the crescent-and-disc symbol used in southern Arabia and the northern horn. In the UNESCO sponsored "General History of Africa" French archaeologist Francis Anfray, suggests that the pagan Aksumites worshipped Astar, his son, Mahrem, and Beher.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Steve Kaplan argues that with Aksumite culture came a major change in religion, with only Astar remaining of the old gods, the others being replaced by what he calls a "triad of indigenous divinities, Mahrem, Beher and Medr." He also suggests that Aksum culture was significantly influenced by Judaism, saying that "The first carriers of Judaism reached Ethiopia between the reign of Queen of Sheba BC and conversion to Christianity of King Ezana in the fourth century AC." He believes that although Ethiopian tradition suggests that these were present in large numbers, that "A relatively small number of texts and individuals dwelling in the cultural, economic, and political center could have had a considerable impact." and that "their influence was diffused throughout Ethiopian culture in its formative period. By the time Christianity took hold in the fourth century, many of the originally Hebraic-Jewish elements had been adopted by much of the indigenous population and were no longer viewed as foreign characteristics. Nor were they perceived as in conflict with the acceptance of Christianity."


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Before converting to Christianity, King Ezana II's coins and inscriptions show that he might have worshiped the gods Astar, Beher, Meder/Medr, and Mahrem. Another of Ezana's inscriptions is clearly Christian and refers to "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". Around 324 AD the King Ezana II was converted to Christianity by his teacher Frumentius, the founder of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Frumentius taught the emperor while he was young, and it is believed that at some point staged the conversion of the empire. We know that the Aksumites converted to Christianity because in their coins they replaced the disc and crescent with the cross. Frumentius was in contact with the Church of Alexandria, and was appointed Bishop of Ethiopia around the year 330. The Church of Alexandria never closely managed the affairs of the churches in Aksum, allowing them to develop their own unique form of Christianity. However, the Church of Alexandria probably did retain some influence considering that the churches of Aksum followed the Church of Alexandria into Oriental Orthodoxy by rejecting the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon. Aksum is also the alleged home of the holy relic the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark is said to have been placed in the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion by Menelik I for safekeeping.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Islam came in the 7th century at the reign of Ashama ibn-Abjar when the followers of Muhammed were persecuted by the ruling tribe and begun migrating after the first followers got asylum from the King many begun to migrate. All of them returned to Medina in 622.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Ethiopian sources such as the "Kebra Nagast" and the "Fetha Nagast" describe Aksum as a Jewish Kingdom. The Kebra Nagast contains a narrative of how the Queen of Sheba/Queen Makeda of Ethiopia met King Solomon and traces Ethiopia's to Menelik I, her son by King Solomon of Israel. In its existing form, the Kebra Nagast is at least 700 years old and is considered by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church to be a reliable and historic work.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Empire of Aksum was one of the first African polities to issue its own coins, which bore legends in Ge'ez and Greek. From the reign of Endubis up to Armah (approximately 270 to 610), gold, silver and bronze coins were minted. Issuing coinage in ancient times was an act of great importance in itself, for it proclaimed that the Aksumite Empire considered itself equal to its neighbours. Many of the coins are used as signposts about what was happening when they were minted. An example being the addition of the cross to the coin after the conversion of the empire to Christianity. The presence of coins also simplified trade, and was at once a useful instrument of propaganda and a source of profit to the empire.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: In general, elite Aksumite buildings such as palaces were constructed atop podia built of loose stones held together with mud-mortar, with carefully cut granite corner blocks which rebated back a few centimeters at regular intervals as the wall got higher, so the walls narrowed as they rose higher. These podia are often all that survive of Aksumite ruins. Above the podia, walls were generally built with alternating layers of loose stone (often whitewashed, like at Yemrehana Krestos Church) and horizontal wooden beams, with smaller round wooden beams set in the stonework often projecting out of the walls (these are called 'monkey heads') on the exterior and sometimes the interior. Both the podia and the walls above exhibited no long straight stretches but were indented at regular intervals so that any long walls consisted of a series of recesses and salients. This helped to strengthen the walls. Worked granite was used for architectural features including columns, bases, capitals, doors, windows, paving, water spouts (often shaped like lion heads) and so on, as well as enormous flights of stairs that often flanked the walls of palace pavilions on several sides. Doors and windows were usually framed by stone or wooden cross-members, linked at the corners by square 'monkey heads', though simple lintels were also used. Many of these Aksumite features are seen carved into the famous stelae as well as in the later rock hewn churches of Tigray and Lalibela.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Palaces usually consisted of a central pavilion surrounded by subsidiary structures pierced by doors and gates that provided some privacy (see Dungur for an example). The largest of these structures now known is the Ta'akha Maryam, which measured 120 × 80m, though as its pavilion was smaller than others discovered it is likely that others were even larger.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: Some clay models of houses survive to give us an idea of what smaller dwellings were like. One depicts a round hut with a conical roof thatched in layers, while another depicts a rectangular house with rectangular doors and windows, a roof supported by beams that end in 'monkey heads', and a parapet and water spout on the roof. Both were found in Hawelti. Another depicts a square house with what appear to be layers of pitched thatch forming the roof.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The stelae (hawilt/hawilti in local languages) are perhaps the most identifiable part of the Aksumite architectural legacy. These stone towers served to mark graves and represent a magnificent multi-storied palace. They are decorated with false doors and windows in typical Aksumite design. The largest of these towering obelisks would measure 33 meters high had it not fractured. The stelae have most of their mass out of the ground, but are stabilized by massive underground counter-weights. The stone was often engraved with a pattern or emblem denoting the king's or the noble's rank.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: The Aksumite Empire is portrayed as the main ally of Byzantium in the Belisarius series by David Drake and Eric Flint published by Baen Books. The series takes place during the reign of Kaleb, who in the series was assassinated by the Malwa in 532 at the Ta'akha Maryam and succeeded by his youngest son Eon bisi Dakuen.


title: Kingdom of Aksum

text: In the Elizabeth Wein series "The Lion Hunters", Mordred and his family take refuge in Aksum after the fall of Camelot. Kaleb is the ruler in the first book; he passes his sovereignty onto his son Gebre Meskal, who rules during the Plague of Justinian.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one of the greatest figures of the Industrial Revolution, [who] changed the face of the English landscape with his groundbreaking designs and ingenious constructions." Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway (GWR), a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship, and numerous important bridges and tunnels. His designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems. During his career, Brunel achieved many engineering firsts, including assisting in the building of the first tunnel under a navigable river (the River Thames) and the development of the , the first propeller-driven, ocean-going iron ship, which, when launched in 1843, was the largest ship ever built.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: On the GWR, Brunel set standards for a well-built railway, using careful surveys to minimise gradients and curves. This necessitated expensive construction techniques, new bridges, new viaducts, and the Box Tunnel. One controversial feature was the "broad gauge" of , instead of what was later to be known as "standard gauge" of . He astonished Britain by proposing to extend the GWR westward to North America by building steam-powered, iron-hulled ships. He designed and built three ships that revolutionised naval engineering: the (1838), the (1843), and the (1859).


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: In 2002, Brunel was placed second in a BBC public poll to determine the "100 Greatest Britons." In 2006, the bicentenary of his birth, a major programme of events celebrated his life and work under the name "Brunel 200".


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Isambard Kingdom Brunel was born on 9 April 1806 in Britain Street, Portsea, Portsmouth, Hampshire, where his father was working on block-making machinery. He was named Isambard after his father, the French civil engineer Sir Marc Isambard Brunel, and Kingdom after his English mother, Sophia Kingdom.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: He had two elder sisters, Sophia, the eldest child, and Emma. The whole family moved to London in 1808 for his father's work. Brunel had a happy childhood, despite the family's constant money worries, with his father acting as his teacher during his early years. His father taught him drawing and observational techniques from the age of four, and Brunel had learned Euclidean geometry by eight. During this time, he also learned to speak French fluently and the basic principles of engineering. He was encouraged to draw interesting buildings and identify any faults in their structure.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: When Brunel was eight, he was sent to Dr Morrell's boarding school in Hove, where he learned classics. His father, a Frenchman by birth, was determined that Brunel should have access to the high-quality education he had enjoyed in his youth in France; accordingly, at the age of 14, the younger Brunel was enrolled first at the University of Caen, then at Lycée Henri-IV in Paris.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: When Brunel was 15, his father, who had accumulated debts of over £5,000, was sent to a debtors' prison. After three months went by with no prospect of release, Marc Brunel let it be known that he was considering an offer from the Tsar of Russia. In August 1821, facing the prospect of losing a prominent engineer, the government relented and issued Marc £5,000 to clear his debts in exchange for his promise to remain in Britain.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: When Brunel completed his studies at Henri-IV in 1822, his father had him presented as a candidate at the renowned engineering school École Polytechnique, but as a foreigner, he was deemed ineligible for entry. Brunel subsequently studied under the prominent master clockmaker and horologist Abraham-Louis Breguet, who praised Brunel's potential in letters to his father. In late 1822, having completed his apprenticeship, Brunel returned to England.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel worked for several years as an assistant engineer on the project to create a tunnel under London's River Thames between Rotherhithe and Wapping, with tunnellers driving a horizontal shaft from one side of the river to the other under the most difficult and dangerous conditions. The project was funded by the Thames Tunnel Company and Brunel's father, Marc, was the chief engineer. The "American Naturalist" said "It is stated also that the operations of the Teredo [Shipworm] suggested to Mr. Brunel his method of tunnelling the Thames."


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The composition of the riverbed at Rotherhithe was often little more than waterlogged sediment and loose gravel. An ingenious tunnelling shield designed by Marc Brunel helped protect workers from cave-ins, but two incidents of severe flooding halted work for long periods, killing several workers and badly injuring the younger Brunel. The latter incident, in 1828, killed the two most senior miners, and Brunel himself narrowly escaped death. He was seriously injured and spent six months recuperating. The event stopped work on the tunnel for several years.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Though the Thames Tunnel was eventually completed during Marc Brunel's lifetime, his son had no further involvement with the tunnel proper, only using the abandoned works at Rotherhithe to further his abortive "Gaz" experiments. This was based on an idea of his father's and was intended to develop into an engine that ran on power generated from alternately heating and cooling carbon dioxide made from ammonium carbonate and sulphuric acid. Despite interest from several parties (the Admiralty included) the experiments were judged by Brunel to be a failure on the grounds of fuel economy alone, and were discontinued after 1834.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: In 1865, the East London Railway Company purchased the Thames Tunnel for £200,000, and four years later the first trains passed through it. Subsequently, the tunnel became part of the London Underground system, and remains in use today, originally as part of the East London Line now incorporated into the London Overground.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel is perhaps best remembered for designs for the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol, begun in 1831. The bridge was built to designs based on Brunel's, but with significant changes. Spanning over , and nominally above the River Avon, it had the longest span of any bridge in the world at the time of construction. Brunel submitted four designs to a committee headed by Thomas Telford, but Telford rejected all entries, proposing his own design instead. Vociferous opposition from the public forced the organising committee to hold a new competition, which was won by Brunel.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Afterwards, Brunel wrote to his brother-in-law, the politician Benjamin Hawes: "Of all the wonderful feats I have performed, since I have been in this part of the world, I think yesterday I performed the most wonderful. I produced unanimity among 15 men who were all quarrelling about that most ticklish subject—taste".


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Work on the Clifton bridge started in 1831, but was suspended due to the Queen Square riots caused by the arrival of Sir Charles Wetherell in Clifton. The riots drove away investors, leaving no money for the project, and construction ceased.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel did not live to see the bridge finished, although his colleagues and admirers at the Institution of Civil Engineers felt it would be a fitting memorial, and started to raise new funds and to amend the design. Work recommenced in 1862, three years after Brunel's death, and was completed in 1864. In 2011, it was suggested, by historian and biographer Adrian Vaughan, that Brunel did not design the bridge, as eventually built, as the later changes to its design were substantial. His views reflected a sentiment stated fifty-two years earlier by Tom Rolt in his 1959 book "Brunel." Re-engineering of suspension chains recovered from an earlier suspension bridge was one of many reasons given why Brunel's design could not be followed exactly.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Hungerford Bridge, a suspension footbridge across the Thames near Charing Cross Station in London, was opened in May 1845. Its central span was , and its cost was £106,000. It was replaced by a new railway bridge in 1859, and the suspension chains were used to complete the Clifton Suspension Bridge.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel designed many bridges for his railway projects, including the Royal Albert Bridge spanning the River Tamar at Saltash near Plymouth, Somerset Bridge (an unusual laminated timber-framed bridge near Bridgwater), the Windsor Railway Bridge, and the Maidenhead Railway Bridge over the Thames in Berkshire. This last was the flattest, widest brick arch bridge in the world and is still carrying main line trains to the west, even though today's trains are about ten times heavier than in Brunel's time.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Throughout his railway building career, but particularly on the South Devon and Cornwall Railways where economy was needed and there were many valleys to cross, Brunel made extensive use of wood for the construction of substantial viaducts; these have had to be replaced over the years as their primary material, Kyanised Baltic Pine, became uneconomical to obtain.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel designed the Royal Albert Bridge in 1855 for the Cornwall Railway, after Parliament rejected his original plan for a train ferry across the Hamoaze—the estuary of the tidal Tamar, Tavy and Lynher. The bridge (of "bowstring girder" or "tied arch" construction) consists of two main spans of , above mean high spring tide, plus 17 much shorter approach spans. Opened by Prince Albert on 2 May 1859, it was completed in the year of Brunel's death.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Several of Brunel's bridges over the Great Western Railway might be demolished because the line is to be electrified, and there is inadequate clearance for overhead wires. Buckinghamshire County Council is negotiating to have further options pursued, in order that all nine of the remaining historic bridges on the line can be saved.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel's last major undertaking was the unique Three Bridges, London. Work began in 1856, and was completed in 1859.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The three bridges in question are a clever arrangement allowing the routes of the Grand Junction Canal, Great Western and Brentford Railway, and Windmill Lane to cross each other.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: In the early part of Brunel's life, the use of railways began to take off as a major means of transport for goods. This influenced Brunel's involvement in railway engineering, including railway bridge engineering.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: In 1833, before the Thames Tunnel was complete, Brunel was appointed chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, one of the wonders of Victorian Britain, running from London to Bristol and later Exeter. The company was founded at a public meeting in Bristol in 1833, and was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1835.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: It was Brunel's vision that passengers would be able to purchase one ticket at London Paddington and travel from London to New York, changing from the Great Western Railway to the "Great Western" steamship at the terminus in Neyland, West Wales. He surveyed the entire length of the route between London and Bristol himself, with the help of many including his solicitor Jeremiah Osborne of Bristol Law Firm Osborne Clarke who on one occasion rowed Brunel down the River Avon himself to survey the bank of the river for the route. Brunel even designed the Royal Hotel in Bath which opened in 1846 opposite the railway station.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel made two controversial decisions: to use a broad gauge of for the track, which he believed would offer superior running at high speeds; and to take a route that passed north of the Marlborough Downs—an area with no significant towns, though it offered potential connections to Oxford and Gloucester—and then to follow the Thames Valley into London. His decision to use broad gauge for the line was controversial in that almost all British railways to date had used standard gauge. Brunel said that this was nothing more than a carry-over from the mine railways that George Stephenson had worked on prior to making the world's first passenger railway. Brunel proved through both calculation and a series of trials that his broader gauge was the optimum size for providing both higher speeds and a stable and comfortable ride to passengers. In addition the wider gauge allowed for larger goods wagons and thus greater freight capacity.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Drawing on Brunel's experience with the Thames Tunnel, the Great Western contained a series of impressive achievements—soaring viaducts such as the one in Ivybridge, specially designed stations, and vast tunnels including the Box Tunnel, which was the longest railway tunnel in the world at that time. There is an anecdote claiming that the Box Tunnel was deliberately aligned so that the rising sun shines all the way through it on Brunel's birthday.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The initial group of locomotives ordered by Brunel to his own specifications proved unsatisfactory, apart from the North Star locomotive, and 20-year-old Daniel Gooch (later Sir Daniel) was appointed as Superintendent of Locomotive Engines. Brunel and Gooch chose to locate their locomotive works at the village of Swindon, at the point where the gradual ascent from London turned into the steeper descent to the Avon valley at Bath.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel's achievements ignited the imagination of the technically minded Britons of the age, and he soon became quite notable in the country on the back of this interest.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: After Brunel's death, the decision was taken that standard gauge should be used for all railways in the country. At the original Welsh terminus of the Great Western railway at Neyland, sections of the broad gauge rails are used as handrails at the quayside, and information boards there depict various aspects of Brunel's life. There is also a larger-than-life bronze statue of him holding a steamship in one hand and a locomotive in the other. The statue has been replaced after an earlier theft.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The present London Paddington station was designed by Brunel and opened in 1854. Examples of his designs for smaller stations on the Great Western and associated lines which survive in good condition include Mortimer, Charlbury and Bridgend (all Italianate) and Culham (Tudorbethan). Surviving examples of wooden train sheds in his style are at Frome and Kingswear.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The Swindon Steam Railway Museum has many artefacts from Brunel's time on the Great Western Railway. The Didcot Railway Centre has a reconstructed segment of track as designed by Brunel and working steam locomotives in the same gauge.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Parts of society viewed the railways more negatively. Some landowners felt the railways were a threat to amenities or property values and others requested tunnels on their land so the railway could not be seen.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Though unsuccessful, another of Brunel's interesting use of technical innovations was the atmospheric railway, the extension of the Great Western Railway (GWR) southward from Exeter towards Plymouth, technically the South Devon Railway (SDR), though supported by the GWR. Instead of using locomotives, the trains were moved by Clegg and Samuda's patented system of atmospheric (vacuum) traction, whereby stationary pumps sucked the air from a pipe placed in the centre of the track.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The section from Exeter to Newton (now Newton Abbot) was completed on this principle, and trains ran at approximately . Pumping stations with distinctive square chimneys were sited at two-mile intervals. Fifteen-inch (381 mm) pipes were used on the level portions, and pipes were intended for the steeper gradients.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The technology required the use of leather flaps to seal the vacuum pipes. The natural oils were drawn out of the leather by the vacuum, making the leather vulnerable to water, rotting it and breaking the fibres when it froze during the winter of 1847. It had to be kept supple with tallow, which is attractive to rats. The flaps were eaten, and vacuum operation lasted less than a year, from 1847 (experimental service began in September; operations from February 1848) to 10 September 1848. Deterioration of the valve due to the reaction of tannin and iron oxide has been cited as the last straw that sank the project, as the continuous valve began to tear from its rivets over most of its length, and the estimated replacement cost of £25,000 was considered prohibitive.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The system never managed to prove itself. The accounts of the SDR for 1848 suggest that atmospheric traction cost 3s 1d (three shillings and one penny) per mile compared to 1s 4d/mile for conventional steam power (because of the many operating issues associated with the atmospheric, few of which were solved during its working life, the actual cost efficiency proved impossible to calculate). Several South Devon Railway engine houses still stand, including that at Totnes (scheduled as a grade II listed monument in 2007) and at Starcross.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: In 2017, inventor Max Schlienger unveiled a working model of an updated atmospheric railroad at his vineyard in the Northern California town of Ukiah.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel had proposed extending its transport network by boat from Bristol across the Atlantic Ocean to New York City before the Great Western Railway opened in 1835. The Great Western Steamship Company was formed by Thomas Guppy for that purpose. It was widely disputed whether it would be commercially viable for a ship powered purely by steam to make such long journeys. Technological developments in the early 1830s—including the invention of the surface condenser, which allowed boilers to run on salt water without stopping to be cleaned—made longer journeys more possible, but it was generally thought that a ship would not be able to carry enough fuel for the trip and have room for commercial cargo. Brunel applied the experimental evidence of Beaufoy and further developed the theory that the amount a ship could carry increased as the cube of its dimensions, whereas the amount of resistance a ship experienced from the water as it travelled increased by only a square of its dimensions. This would mean that moving a larger ship would take proportionately less fuel than a smaller ship. To test this theory, Brunel offered his services for free to the Great Western Steamship Company, which appointed him to its building committee and entrusted him with designing its first ship, the .


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: When it was built, the "Great Western" was the longest ship in the world at with a keel. The ship was constructed mainly from wood, but Brunel added bolts and iron diagonal reinforcements to maintain the keel's strength. In addition to its steam-powered paddle wheels, the ship carried four masts for sails. The "Great Western" embarked on her maiden voyage from Avonmouth, Bristol, to New York on 8 April 1838 with of coal, cargo and seven passengers on board. Brunel himself missed this initial crossing, having been injured during a fire aboard the ship as she was returning from fitting out in London. As the fire delayed the launch several days, the "Great Western" missed its opportunity to claim the title as the first ship to cross the Atlantic under steam power alone. Even with a four-day head start, the competing arrived only one day earlier, having virtually exhausted its coal supply. In contrast, the "Great Western" crossing of the Atlantic took 15 days and five hours, and the ship arrived at her destination with a third of its coal still remaining, demonstrating that Brunel's calculations were correct. The "Great Western" had proved the viability of commercial transatlantic steamship service, which led the Great Western Steamboat Company to use her in regular service between Bristol and New York from 1838 to 1846. She made 64 crossings, and was the first ship to hold the Blue Riband with a crossing time of 13 days westbound and 12 days 6 hours eastbound. The service was commercially successful enough for a sister ship to be required, which Brunel was asked to design.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel had become convinced of the superiority of propeller-driven ships over paddle wheels. After tests conducted aboard the propeller-driven steamship , he incorporated a large six-bladed propeller into his design for the , which was launched in 1843. "Great Britain" is considered the first modern ship, being built of metal rather than wood, powered by an engine rather than wind or oars, and driven by propeller rather than paddle wheel. She was the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Her maiden voyage was made in August and September 1845, from Liverpool to New York. In 1846, she was run aground at Dundrum, County Down. She was salvaged and employed in the Australian service. She is currently fully preserved and open to the public in Bristol, UK.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: In 1852 Brunel turned to a third ship, larger than her predecessors, intended for voyages to India and Australia. The (originally dubbed "Leviathan") was cutting-edge technology for her time: almost long, fitted out with the most luxurious appointments, and capable of carrying over 4,000 passengers. "Great Eastern" was designed to cruise non-stop from London to Sydney and back (since engineers of the time mistakenly believed that Australia had no coal reserves), and she remained the largest ship built until the start of the 20th century. Like many of Brunel's ambitious projects, the ship soon ran over budget and behind schedule in the face of a series of technical problems. The ship has been portrayed as a white elephant, but it has been argued by David P. Billington that in this case, Brunel's failure was principally one of economics—his ships were simply years ahead of their time. His vision and engineering innovations made the building of large-scale, propeller-driven, all-metal steamships a practical reality, but the prevailing economic and industrial conditions meant that it would be several decades before transoceanic steamship travel emerged as a viable industry.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: "Great Eastern" was built at John Scott Russell's Napier Yard in London, and after two trial trips in 1859, set forth on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 17 June 1860. Though a failure at her original purpose of passenger travel, she eventually found a role as an oceanic telegraph cable-layer. Under Captain Sir James Anderson, the "Great Eastern" played a significant role in laying the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable, which enabled telecommunication between Europe and North America.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Britain entered into the Crimean War during 1854 and an old Turkish barracks became the British Army Hospital in Scutari. Injured men contracted a variety of illnesses—including cholera, dysentery, typhoid and malaria—due to poor conditions there, and Florence Nightingale sent a plea to "The Times" for the government to produce a solution.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel was working on the "Great Eastern" amongst other projects but accepted the task in February 1855 of designing and building the War Office requirement of a temporary, pre-fabricated hospital that could be shipped to Crimea and erected there. In five months the team he had assembled designed, built, and shipped pre-fabricated wood and canvas buildings, providing them complete with advice on transportation and positioning of the facilities.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel had been working with Gloucester Docks-based William Eassie on the launching stage for the "Great Eastern". Eassie had designed and built wooden prefabricated huts used in both the Australian gold rush, as well as by the British and French Armies in the Crimea. Using wood supplied by timber importers Price & Co., Eassie fabricated 18 of the 50-patient wards designed by Brunel, shipped directly via 16 ships from Gloucester Docks to the Dardanelles. The Renkioi Hospital was subsequently erected near Scutari Hospital, where Nightingale was based, in the malaria-free area of Renkioi.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: His designs incorporated the necessities of hygiene: access to sanitation, ventilation, drainage, and even rudimentary temperature controls. They were feted as a great success, with some sources stating that of the approximately 1,300 patients treated in the hospital, there were only 50 deaths. In the Scutari hospital it replaced, deaths were said to be as many as ten times this number. Nightingale referred to them as "those magnificent huts". The practice of building hospitals from pre-fabricated modules survives today, with hospitals such as the Bristol Royal Infirmary being created in this manner.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel married Mary Elizabeth Horsley (b. 1813) on 5 July 1836. She came from an accomplished musical and artistic family, being the eldest daughter of composer and organist William Horsley. They established a home at Duke Street, Westminster, in London.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: While performing a conjuring trick for the amusement of his children in 1843 Brunel accidentally inhaled a half-sovereign coin, which became lodged in his windpipe. A special pair of forceps failed to remove it, as did a machine devised by Brunel to shake it loose. At the suggestion of his father, Brunel was strapped to a board and turned upside-down, and the coin was jerked free. He recuperated at Teignmouth, and enjoyed the area so much that he purchased an estate at Watcombe in Torquay, Devon. Here he commissioned William Burn to design Brunel Manor and its gardens to be his country home. He never saw the house or gardens finished as he died before it was completed.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel, a heavy smoker, who had been diagnosed with Bright's disease (nephritis), suffered a stroke on 5 September 1859, just before the "Great Eastern" made her first voyage to New York. He died ten days later at the age of 53 and was buried, like his father, in Kensal Green Cemetery, London. He is commemorated at Westminster Abbey in a window on the south side of the nave. Many mourned Brunel's passing, in spite and because of his business ventures; an obituary in "The Morning Chronicle" noted:


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel was the right man for the nation, but unfortunately, he was not the right man for the shareholders. They must stoop who must gather gold, and Brunel could never stoop. The history of invention records no instance of grand novelties so boldly imagined and so successfully carried out by the same individual.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel was survived by his wife, Mary, and three children: Isambard Brunel Junior (1837–1902), Henry Marc Brunel (1842–1903) and Florence Mary Brunel (1847–1876). Henry Marc later became a successful civil engineer.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: A celebrated engineer in his era, Brunel remains revered today, as evidenced by numerous monuments to him. There are statues in London at Temple (pictured), Brunel University and Paddington station, and in Bristol, Plymouth, Swindon, Milford Haven and Saltash. A statue in Neyland in Pembrokeshire in Wales was stolen in August 2010. The topmast of the "Great Eastern" is used as a flagpole at the entrance to Anfield, Liverpool Football Club's ground. Contemporary locations bear Brunel's name, such as Brunel University in London, shopping centres in Swindon and also Bletchley, Milton Keynes, and a collection of streets in Exeter: Isambard Terrace, Kingdom Mews, and Brunel Close. A road, car park, and school in his home city of Portsmouth are also named in his honour, along with one of the city's largest public houses. There is an engineering lab building at the University of Plymouth named in his honour.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: A public poll conducted by the BBC in 2001 to select the 100 Greatest Britons, Brunel was placed second, behind Winston Churchill. Brunel's life and works have been depicted in numerous books, films and television programs. The 2003 book and BBC TV series "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World" included a dramatisation of the building of the "Great Eastern".


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Many of Brunel's bridges are still in use. Brunel's first engineering project, the Thames Tunnel, is now part of the London Overground network. The Brunel Engine House at Rotherhithe, which once housed the steam engines that powered the tunnel pumps, now houses the Brunel Museum dedicated to the work and lives of Henry Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Many of Brunel's original papers and designs are now held in the Brunel Institute alongside the in Bristol, and are freely available for researchers and visitors.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel is credited with turning the town of Swindon into one of the fastest-growing towns in Europe during the 19th century. Brunel's choice to locate the Great Western Railway locomotive sheds there caused a need for housing for the workers, which in turn gave Brunel the impetus to build hospitals, churches and housing estates in what is known today as the 'Railway Village'. According to some sources, Brunel's addition of a Mechanics Institute for recreation and hospitals and clinics for his workers gave Aneurin Bevan the basis for the creation of the National Health Service.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: GWR Castle Class steam locomotive no. 5069 was named "Isambard Kingdom Brunel", after the engineer; and BR Western Region class 47 diesel locomotive no. D1662 (later 47484) was also named "Isambard Kingdom Brunel". GWR's successor Great Western Railway has named both its old InterCity 125 power car 43003 and new InterCity Electric Train 800004 as "Isambard Kingdom Brunel".


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The Royal Mint struck two £2 coins in 2006 to "celebrate the 200th anniversary of Isambard Kingdom Brunel and his achievements". The first depicts Brunel with a section of the Royal Albert Bridge and the second shows the roof of Paddington Station. In the same year the Post Office issued a set of six wide commemorative stamps (SG 2607-12) showing the Royal Albert Bridge, the Box Tunnel, Paddington Station, the "Great Eastern," the Clifton Suspension Bridge, and the Maidenhead Bridge.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: The words "I.K. BRUNEL ENGINEER 1859" were fixed to either end of the Royal Albert Bridge to commemorate his death in 1859, the year the bridge opened. The words were later partly obscured by maintenance access ladders but were revealed again by Network Rail in 2006 to honour his bicentenary.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel was the subject of "Great", a 1975 animated film directed by Bob Godfrey. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 48th Academy Awards in March 1976.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: At the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, Brunel was portrayed by Kenneth Branagh in a segment showing the Industrial Revolution.


title: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

text: Brunel is a central character in Howard Rodman's novel "The Great Eastern", published in 2019 by Melville House Publishing.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Central Park Tower is a residential supertall skyscraper at 225 West 57th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, along Billionaires' Row. Designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the building rises with 98 above-ground stories and three basement stories, although the top story is numbered 136. Central Park Tower is the second-tallest building in New York City, the United States, and the Western Hemisphere; the 15th tallest building in the world; the tallest primarily residential building in the world; and the tallest building outside Asia by roof height.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Central Park Tower was developed by Extell Development Company and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group. The basement and first five above-ground stories contain a large Nordstrom store, which opened in 2019. The eastern portion of the tower contains a cantilever above the Art Students League of New York's building at 215 West 57th Street, intended to maximize views of nearby Central Park. The residential portion of the tower contains 179 condominiums, spanning on average , with interiors designed by Rottet Studio. There are also amenities spaces on floors 14 through 16 as well as a private club on floor 100.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The site of Central Park Tower was assembled during the first decade of the 21st century; during the acquisition process, the tower was delayed after two buildings at 225 West 57th Street and 1780 Broadway were considered for New York City landmark status. Despite uncertainty about the final design and complications relating to financing, excavations at the site started in May 2014 and above-ground construction started in early 2015. There were several incidents and controversies during the building's construction, including a controversy over the tower's cantilever and the death of a security guard. The building was topped out during September 2019, and completed in 2020. In total, Central Park Tower cost $3 billion to construct.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Central Park Tower is in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, just south of Columbus Circle, on the east side of Broadway between 57th Street to the south and 58th Street to the north. It is one block south of Central Park. The northwestern corner of the building abuts 1790 Broadway, while the southwestern corner is adjacent to 1776 Broadway. Central Park Tower is also near 240 Central Park South and 220 Central Park South to the north; the American Fine Arts Society (also known as the Art Students League of New York building) and the Osborne apartment building to the east; and 224 West 57th Street and 218 West 57th Street (the former American Society of Civil Engineers clubhouse) to the south.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Central Park Tower is one of several major developments around 57th Street and Central Park that are collectively dubbed Billionaires' Row by the media. Other buildings along Billionaires' Row include 432 Park Avenue four blocks east, 111 West 57th Street and One57 one block east, and the adjacent 220 Central Park South.


title: Central Park Tower

text: In the 20th century, the area was part of Manhattan's "Automobile Row", a stretch of Broadway extending mainly between Times Square at 42nd Street and Sherman Square at 72nd Street. Before the first decade of the 20th century, the area was occupied mostly by equestrian industries and was described by "The New York Times" as "thoroughly lifeless". By 1907, the "Times" characterized this section of Broadway as having "almost a solid line of motor vehicle signs all the way from Times Square to Sherman Square". In the late 1900s and early 1910s, several large automobile showrooms, stores, and garages were built on Broadway, including the United States Rubber Company building at 5 Columbus Circle and the Demarest and Peerless Company showrooms at 224 West 57th Street.


title: Central Park Tower

text: On the western side of the building's base is the 12-story facade of the former 1780 Broadway, which formerly contained the B. F. Goodrich Company showroom. There was also an 8-story building at 225 West 57th Street, which contained the Stoddard-Dayton showroom. Both structures were built in 1909 to designs by Howard Van Doren Shaw. 1780 Broadway was one of the most visible buildings on Automobile Row because of the site's elevated topography, and was leased to various automotive firms during the early 20th century. Goodrich came to own both 1780 Broadway and 225 West 57th Street, but by the time the company sold the structures in 1928, they were collectively called the "Goodrich Building". A single-story annex was built for the Lincoln Art Theatre in 1962–1964, and the Goodrich Building became a supermarket in the 1990s before being acquired by Extell in 2006. In addition, the Hard Rock Cafe and Broadway Dance Center occupied the structure at 221 West 57th Street before that building was purchased by Central Park Tower's developer, the Extell Development Company, in 2006.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Central Park Tower was developed jointly by Extell and Shanghai Municipal Investment Group. It was designed by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture. WSP Global was the structural engineer for the project, while Lendlease was the main contractor.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The building has 98 physical above-ground floors and three basement levels. The top story is numbered 136, and several floor numbers are skipped. The tallest habitable story is high, while the roof and architectural tip are above ground level. The use of development rights transferred from other structures nearby, as well as about of mechanical spaces, enabled Central Park Tower to reach a taller height than would have ordinarily been allowed. Central Park Tower is the tallest primarily residential building in the world; the much taller Burj Khalifa has 900 residential units but is mixed-use. Central Park Tower is also the second-tallest skyscraper in the United States and the Western Hemisphere, the 15th tallest building in the world, and the tallest building outside Asia by roof height. Due to its high slenderness ratio, the building has been characterized as part of a new breed of New York City "pencil towers".


title: Central Park Tower

text: The facade of Central Park Tower was designed by James Carpenter Design Associates and Permasteelisa Group. According to Gill and Smith, the glass cladding was intended to help the tower fit into the skyline. The entrance for Nordstrom is on 57th Street, as is the main residential entrance. A secondary residents' entrance is on 58th Street.


title: Central Park Tower

text: To maximize views of Central Park, Extell built a cantilever extending from the eastern side of the tower. The cantilever starts roughly above the Art Students League building and covers roughly one-third of the total space above that building. Without the cantilever, Vornado Realty Trust's under-construction 220 Central Park South would have blocked the lowest of the tower. The cantilever was constructed in conjunction with an air rights sale in 2013, which shifted 220 Central Park South slightly west. This agreement, in turn, ended a years-long dispute over the site of 220 Central Park South. Since 2019, Central Park Tower has held the Guinness World Record for being the tallest cantilevered building.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The base of the tower along 57th and 58th Streets is made of glass, arranged into fluted panels that are insulated and laminated. The panels are installed in a serpentine "wave" pattern. These glass panels have a total combined surface area of . The panels are set within aluminum frames and locked together with steel plates, fitting between the concrete floor slabs on each level.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The facade for the upper stories is mostly a curtain wall made of aluminum and glass. Over of these materials were used in the facade. According to Permasteelisa, of glass curtain wall is used on the upper floors. The magazine "Informed Infrastructure" states that of glass is used on the facade, comprising over 12,000 panels. Each of the panels measures, on average, tall and across. The residential stories have casement windows, within the curtain wall, that can swing up to outward. In addition, some condominium units have motorized windows at least above the floor. For the eastern facade, which cantilevers over the Art Students League building, a zinc facade was installed to reduce reflections of sunlight onto nearby buildings. Zinc was chosen because it would eventually degrade into a matte finish.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The spandrels between each floor are clad with stainless steel. The curtain wall is subdivided vertically by stainless steel "fins" that are arranged similarly to pinstripes; they resemble mullions but do not project from the facade. The fins were originally designed as oblong ovals, but they were rotated after the contractors conducted simulations and determined that rotated ovals would be better suited for preventing snow accumulation. There are fewer fins on upper stories but, at several places on the facade, tall narrow bands wrap around the building, with the bands on upper stories being progressively larger.


title: Central Park Tower

text: For maintenance of the upper stories' facade, there are six "building maintenance units" on the roof. The facade underneath the cantilever on the building's eastern side, as well as the underside of the cantilever, is maintained by a cart that runs along a monorail under the cantilever. The top of the tower contains narrow, tall slats with vertical strips of lighting. According to Adrian Smith, one of the building's architects, the slats were meant to be "subtle, not garish".


title: Central Park Tower

text: The facade of the B. F. Goodrich Building at 1780 Broadway, dating to 1909, is a New York City designated landmark and is preserved at the base of the tower on Broadway. It was restored as part of the construction of Central Park Tower. The landmark facade, largely composed of brick and limestone, consists of one bay of windows on either side of a wide central bay. 1780 Broadway was initially 12 stories tall, but it corresponds to eight physical stories within the base of Central Park Tower.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The lowest two floors of 1780 Broadway are clad with granite and topped by a granite cornice, which has a peak at its center. Two storefronts were added at ground level in the 20th century and, at some point before 1979, light-toned granite was added to the ground floor. In the late 2010s, marble doorways were added to the ground story. The central window opening of the second floor is flanked by granite columns, while the outer bays contain trimmed rectangular window frames with carved bands. On each of the third through 11th floors, the central bay contains four windows within a granite frame, with a brick surround and a single window on either side. There is a small cornice above the central bay on the third floor and a sill above the 11th floor of the landmark facade. The 12th floor is clad with brick and contains a decorative balcony in the central bay.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Central Park Tower stands on hard bedrock. The foundation consists of reinforced concrete mats as well as spread footings and strip footings. Some parts of the foundation are anchored to the bedrock. Over of rock was excavated to pour the concrete mat, which is thick. The substructure for the three basement levels is built of reinforced concrete as well as composite steel and concrete.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The superstructure is made of reinforced concrete along with a grid of structural steel. The first 12 above-ground stories (comprising floors 1 through 20) contain a reinforced-concrete and composite steel-and-concrete superstructure. Above the thirteenth physical story (floor 32), the superstructure is made of reinforced concrete which is cast in place. Residential and mechanical stories are separated by concrete slabs with a minimum thickness of . The roof consists of a concrete panel thick. Atop the building is a weighting system to balance the building against the wind. The weighting system consists of two suspended tuned mass dampers.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The center of the tower contains a concrete structural core. To create the core, metal formwork was assembled above the eighth floor and lifted to upper floors by crane, where concrete was poured into the formwork to a thickness of . While the superstructure on the first 83 stories was constructed with electronic assistance, the superstructure for the top 16 stories was erected entirely manually. At intervals of 20 physical stories, shear walls connect the core to concrete walls surrounding the tower. Additionally, steel columns and beams transfer loads from these shear walls into the bedrock. On higher stories, the corners contain setbacks and notches that also deflect wind loads. The cantilever on the building's eastern side is not structurally supported from beneath, so large shear walls extend east-west between the cantilever.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The building has a gross floor area of . The first seven floors of the tower are anchored by New York City's first Nordstrom department store, while the next five floors house amenity spaces for residents. Separate mechanical systems, such as power, cooling, and heating systems, are provided for the retail and residential portions of the building. The core of the tower is shifted to the eastern side of the base, creating an open floor plan for the retail floors. Gordon Gill, one of the building's architects, said the core was shifted to the side before the rest of the tower was designed.


title: Central Park Tower

text: There are eleven elevators serving the building. The residential stories are served by four elevators: three for residents and one shared by residents and service workers. Three other elevators are installed within individual suites: one in the duplex on floors 107/108, one in the duplex on floors 127/128, and one on the penthouse on floors 129–131. The residential elevators, developed by Otis Worldwide, travel . There are two additional service elevators in the building, one serving the base and another serving the highest stories. The retail base is served by its own set of elevators. The building has two emergency exit stairs extending its full height, and the retail space has at least three exit stairs.


title: Central Park Tower

text: The building contains 179 condominiums starting on the 32nd floor. Each unit has two to eight bedrooms, with of floor area. The average apartment spans . The cheapest apartment was a $1.5 million studio, as indicated by offering plans in 2017. By contrast, twenty of the largest units were being sold at over $60 million each, and the penthouse was listed at $250 million. The interiors of the building's condominiums were designed by Rottet Studio. According to Gordon Gill, the materials and arrangement of each unit was intended to "address a softer, more sustainable, and sophisticated expression". The units have open layouts and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Central Park or other nearby structures. Some of the units have double-height ceilings. Interior features include Miele and Sub-Zero appliances, custom cabinetry, and white oak floors. A small number of the individual units have their own concrete terraces, but there are otherwise no balconies.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Most residences in Central Park Tower are given a letter designation that is appended to their floor number. Floors 32–38 have studios and two- or three-bedroom units, with four units labeled A–D on floor 32 and six labeled A–F on each of the other stories. Floor 39 contains two condominiums: unit A with three bedrooms and unit B with five bedrooms. Floors 43–49 each have four units labeled A–D, which contain either one or three bedrooms. Floor 53 is a single-story simplex unit with four bedrooms, while floors 54–70 each contain three units, labeled E, N, or W, with two or three bedrooms. Floors 77–96 contain two condominiums each; the unit labeled W has three bedrooms while the unit labeled E has four bedrooms. Floor 109 is a five-bedroom simplex, while floors 110–126 each contain a full-story unit with five bedrooms.


title: Central Park Tower

text: Three of the largest units in Central Park Tower are the seven-bedroom duplex on floors 107 and 108; the eight-bedroom duplex on floors 127 and 128; and the seven-bedroom triplex penthouse on floors 129 through 131. The duplex on floors 107–108 covers ; the duplex on floors 127–128 covers ; and the triplex penthouse on floors 129–131 covers . The $150 million duplex on floors 127–128 has nine bathrooms, a dining room, and an observatory. The penthouse contains its own gym, ballroom, library, and observatory. The three units have their own elevators and elevator lobbies. These units also have their own private staircases.


title: Central Park Tower

text: There are of amenities on the 8th through 12th stories, which are numbered as floors 14 through 18. The Central Park Club on floor 14 contains a lounge, theater, conference room, play area, and "tween lounge". Floor 14 also has an outdoor terrace spanning , which was designed by HMWhite. The terrace contains a outdoor pool surrounded by pergolas and trellises; a central lawn with limestone and granite paths; and two gardens. There are two steam rooms in the changing room on floor 14. On floor 16 are an indoor pool, exercise rooms, spa, gym, basketball court, and children's playroom, as well as men's and women's lockers. The indoor lap pool measures and the pool in the spa measures . The changing room on floor 16 has one steam room, one men's sauna, and one women's sauna.