title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: When dealing with the dialogue in his novels, Wodehouse would consider the book's characters as if they were actors in a play, ensuring that the main roles were kept suitably employed throughout the storyline, which must be strong: "If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major characters, not even if you have the rest of the troop talk their heads off about them." Many of Wodehouse's parts were stereotypes, and he acknowledged that "a real character in one of my books sticks out like a sore thumb." The publisher Michael Joseph identifies that even within the stereotypes Wodehouse understood human nature, and therefore "shares with [Charles] Dickens and Charles Chaplin the ability to present the comic resistance of the individual against those superior forces to which we are all subject".


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: Much of Wodehouse's use of slang terms reflects the influence of his time at school in Dulwich, and partly reflects Edwardian slang. As a young man he enjoyed the literary works of Arthur Conan Doyle and Jerome K. Jerome, and the operatic works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Wodehouse quotes from and alludes to numerous poets throughout his work. The scholar Clarke Olney lists those quoted, including Milton, Byron, Longfellow, Coleridge, Swinburne, Tennyson, Wordsworth and Shakespeare. Another favoured source was the King James Bible.


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: In 1941 the "Concise Cambridge History of English Literature" opined that Wodehouse had "a gift for highly original aptness of phrase that almost suggests a poet struggling for release among the wild extravagances of farce", while McCrum thinks that Wodehouse manages to combine "high farce with the inverted poetry of his mature comic style", particularly in "The Code of the Woosters"; the novelist Anthony Powell believes Wodehouse to be a "comic poet". Robert A. Hall Jr., in his study of Wodehouse's style and technique, describes the author as a master of prose, an opinion also shared by Levin, who considers Wodehouse "one of the finest and purest writers of English prose". Hall identifies several techniques used by Wodehouse to achieve comic effect, including the creation of new words through adding or removing prefixes and suffixes, so when Pongo Twistleton removes the housemaid Elsie Bean from a cupboard, Wodehouse writes that the character "de-Beaned the cupboard". Wodehouse created new words by splitting others in two, thus Wodehouse divides "hobnobbing" when he writes: "To offer a housemaid a cigarette is not hobbing. Nor, when you light it for her, does that constitute nobbing."


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: Richard Voorhees, Wodehouse's biographer, believes that the author used clichés in a deliberate and ironic manner. His opinion is shared by the academic Stephen Medcalf, who deems Wodehouse's skill is to "bring a cliché just enough to life to kill it", although Pamela March, writing in "The Christian Science Monitor", considers Wodehouse to have "an ability to decliché a cliché". Medcalf provides an example from "Right Ho, Jeeves" in which the teetotal Gussie Fink-Nottle has surreptitiously been given whisky and gin in a punch prior to a prize-giving:


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: The stylistic device most commonly found in Wodehouse's work is his use of comparative imagery that includes similes. Hall opines that the humour comes from Wodehouse's ability to accentuate "resemblances which at first glance seem highly incongruous". Examples can be seen in "Joy in the Morning", Chapter 29: "There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action", or "Psmith", Chapter 7: "A sound like two or three pigs feeding rather noisily in the middle of a thunderstorm interrupted his meditation." Hall also identifies that periodically Wodehouse used the stylistic device of a transferred epithet, with an adjective that properly belongs to a person applied instead to some inanimate object. The form of expression is used sparingly by Wodehouse in comparison with other mechanisms, only once or twice in a story or novel, according to Hall.


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: Wordplay is a key element in Wodehouse's writing. This can take the form of puns, such as in "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit", when Bertie is released after a night in the police cells, and says that he has "a pinched look" about him. Linguistic confusion is another humorous mechanism, such as in "Uncle Dynamite" when Constable Potter says he has been "assaulted by the duck pond". In reply, Sir Aylmer, confusing the two meanings of the word "by", asks: "How the devil can you be assaulted by a duck pond?" Wodehouse also uses metaphor and mixed metaphor to add humour. Some come through exaggeration, such as Bingo Little's infant child who "not only has the aspect of a mass murderer, but that of a mass murderer suffering from an ingrown toenail", or Wooster's complaint that "the rumpuses that Bobbie Wickham is already starting may be amusing to her, but not to the unfortunate toads beneath the harrow whom she ruthlessly plunges into the soup." Bertie Wooster's half-forgotten vocabulary also provides a further humorous device. In "Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit" Bertie asks Jeeves "Let a plugugly like young Thos loose in the community with a cosh, and you are inviting disaster and ... what's the word? Something about cats." Jeeves replies, "Cataclysms, sir?"


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: Wodehouse's early career as a lyricist and playwright was profitable, and his work with Bolton, according to "The Guardian", "was one of the most successful in the history of musical comedy". At the outbreak of the Second World War he was earning £40,000 a year from his work, which had broadened to include novels and short stories. Following the furore ensuing from the wartime broadcasts, he suffered a downturn in his popularity and book sales; "The Saturday Evening Post" stopped publishing his short stories, a stance they reversed in 1965, although his popularity—and the sales figures—slowly recovered over time.


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: Wodehouse received great praise from many of his contemporaries, including Max Beerbohm, Rudyard Kipling, A. E. Housman and Evelyn Waugh—the last of whom opines, "One has to regard a man as a Master who can produce on average three uniquely brilliant and entirely original similes on each page." There are dissenters to the praise. The writer Alan Bennett thinks that "inspired though his language is, I can never take more than ten pages of the novels at a time, their relentless flippancy wearing and tedious", while the literary critic Q. D. Leavis writes that Wodehouse had a "stereotyped humour ... of ingenious variations on a laugh in one place". In a 2010 study of Wodehouse's few relatively serious novels, such as "The Coming of Bill" (1919), "Jill the Reckless" (1920) and "The Adventures of Sally" (1922), David Heddendorf concludes that though their literary quality does not match that of the farcical novels, they show a range of empathy and interests that in real life—and in his most comic works—the author seemed to lack. "Never oblivious to grief and despair, he opts in clear-eyed awareness for his timeless world of spats and woolly-headed peers. It's an austere, almost bloodless preference for pristine artifice over the pain and messy outcomes of actual existence, but it's a case of Wodehouse keeping faith with his own unique art."


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: The American literary analyst Robert F. Kiernan, defining "camp" as "excessive stylization of whatever kind", brackets Wodehouse as "a master of the camp novel", along with Thomas Love Peacock, Max Beerbohm, Ronald Firbank, E. F. Benson and Ivy Compton-Burnett. The literary critic and writer Cyril Connolly calls Wodehouse a "politicians' author"—one who does "not like art to be exacting and difficult". Two former British prime ministers, H. H. Asquith and Tony Blair, are on record as Wodehouse aficionados, and the latter became a patron of the Wodehouse Society. Seán O'Casey, a successful playwright of the 1920s, thought little of Wodehouse; he commented in 1941 that it was damaging to England's dignity that the public or "the academic government of Oxford, dead from the chin up" considered Wodehouse an important figure in English literature. His jibe that Wodehouse was "English literature's performing flea" provided his target with the title of his collected letters, published in 1953. McCrum, writing in 2004, observes, "Wodehouse is more popular today than on the day he died", and "his comic vision has an absolutely secure place in the English literary imagination."


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: The proposed nominations of Wodehouse for a knighthood in 1967 and 1971 were blocked for fear that such an award would "revive the controversy of his wartime behaviour and give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character which the embassy was doing its best to eradicate". When Wodehouse was awarded the knighthood, only four years later, the journalist Dennis Barker wrote in "The Guardian" that the writer was "the solitary surviving English literary comic genius". After his death six weeks later, the journalist Michael Davie, writing in the same paper, observed that "Many people regarded ... [Wodehouse] as he regarded Beachcomber, as 'one, if not more than one, of England's greatest men'", while in the view of the obituarist for "The Times" Wodehouse "was a comic genius recognized in his lifetime as a classic and an old master of farce". In September 2019 Wodehouse was commemorated with a memorial stone in Westminster Abbey; the dedication was held two days after it was installed.


title: P. G. Wodehouse

text: Since Wodehouse's death there have been numerous adaptations and dramatisations of his work on television and film; Wodehouse himself has been portrayed on radio and screen numerous times. There are several literary societies dedicated to Wodehouse. The P.G. Wodehouse Society (UK) was founded in 1997 and has over 1,000 members as at 2015. The president of the society as at 2017 is Alexander Armstrong; past presidents have included Terry Wogan and Richard Briers. There are also other groups of Wodehouse fans in Australia, Belgium, France, Finland, India, Italy, Russia, Sweden and the US. As at 2015 the "Oxford English Dictionary" contains over 1,750 quotations from Wodehouse, illustrating terms from "crispish" to "zippiness". Voorhees, while acknowledging that Wodehouse's antecedents in literature range from Ben Jonson to Oscar Wilde, writes:


title: HAL 9000

text: HAL 9000 is a fictional artificial intelligence character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's "Space Odyssey" series. First appearing in the 1968 film "", HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a sentient artificial general intelligence computer that controls the systems of the "Discovery One" spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. While part of HAL's hardware is shown toward the end of the film, he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red or yellow dot, with such units located throughout the ship. HAL 9000 is voiced by Douglas Rain in the two feature film adaptations of the "Space Odyssey" series. HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, in contrast to the crewmen, David Bowman and Frank Poole.


title: HAL 9000

text: In the film, HAL became operational on 12 January 1992 at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois as production number 3. The activation year was 1991 in earlier screenplays and changed to 1997 in Clarke's written and released in conjunction with the movie. In addition to maintaining the "Discovery One" spacecraft systems during the interplanetary mission to Jupiter (or Saturn in the novel), HAL has been shown to be capable of speech, speech recognition, facial recognition, natural language processing, lip reading, art appreciation, interpreting emotional behaviours, automated reasoning, spacecraft piloting and playing chess.


title: HAL 9000

text: HAL became operational in Urbana, Illinois, at the HAL Plant (the University of Illinois's Coordinated Science Laboratory, where the ILLIAC computers were built). The film says this occurred in 1992, while the book gives 1997 as HAL's birth year.<ref name="Urbana 1992/7"></ref>


title: HAL 9000

text: In "" (1968), HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew, maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with his human crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays chess against HAL. In the film, the artificial intelligence is shown to triumph easily. However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to prevent more serious malfunctions. The sequence of events and manner in which HAL is shut down differs between the novel and film versions of the story. In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's malfunctioning.


title: HAL 9000

text: In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue his programmed directives. HAL uses one of the "Discovery"s EVA pods to kill Poole while he is repairing the ship. When Bowman, without a space helmet, uses another pod to attempt to rescue Poole, HAL locks him out of the ship, then disconnects the life support systems of the other hibernating crew members. After HAL tells him "This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it", Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps across empty space, reenters "Discovery", and quickly re-pressurizes the airlock.


title: HAL 9000

text: While HAL's motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. (This withholding is considered essential after the findings of a fictional 1989 psychological experiment, Project BARSOOM, where humans were made to believe that there had been alien contact. In every person tested, a deep-seated xenophobia was revealed, which was unknowingly replicated in HAL's constructed personality. Mission Control did not want the crew of "Discovery" to have their thinking compromised by the knowledge that alien contact was already real.) With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.


title: HAL 9000

text: In the novel, the orders to disconnect HAL come from Dave and Frank's superiors on Earth. After Frank is killed while attempting to repair the communications antenna he is pulled away into deep space using the safety tether which is still attached to both the pod and Frank Poole's spacesuit. Dave begins to revive his hibernating crew mates, but is foiled when HAL vents the ship's atmosphere into the vacuum of space, killing the awakening crew members and almost killing Bowman, who is only narrowly saved when he finds his way to an emergency chamber which has its own oxygen supply and a spare space suit inside.


title: HAL 9000

text: In both versions, Bowman then proceeds to shut down the machine. In the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one; as he does so, HAL's consciousness degrades. HAL finally reverts to material that was programmed into him early in his memory, including announcing the date he became operational as 12 January 1992 (in the novel, 1997). When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song "Daisy Bell" as he gradually deactivates (in actuality, the first song sung by a computer, which Clarke had earlier observed at a text-to-speech demonstration). HAL's final act of any significance is to prematurely play a prerecorded message from Mission Control which reveals the true reasons for the mission to Jupiter.


title: HAL 9000

text: In the 1982 novel "" written by Clarke, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship "Leonov".


title: HAL 9000

text: Prior to leaving Earth, Dr. Chandra has also had a discussion with HAL's twin, SAL 9000. Like HAL, SAL was created by Dr. Chandra. Whereas HAL was characterized as being "male", SAL is characterized as being "female" (voiced by Candice Bergen) and is represented by a blue camera eye instead of a red one.


title: HAL 9000

text: Dr. Chandra discovers that HAL's crisis was caused by a programming contradiction: he was constructed for "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics, required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret for reasons of national security. This contradiction created a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", reducing HAL to paranoia. Therefore, HAL made the decision to kill the crew, thereby allowing him to obey both his hardwired instructions to report data truthfully and in full, and his orders to keep the monolith a secret. In essence: if the crew were dead, he would no longer have to keep the information secret.


title: HAL 9000

text: The alien intelligence initiates a terraforming scheme, placing the "Leonov", and everybody in it, in danger. Its human crew devises an escape plan which unfortunately requires leaving the "Discovery" and HAL behind to be destroyed. Dr. Chandra explains the danger, and HAL willingly sacrifices himself so that the astronauts may escape safely. In the moment of his destruction the monolith-makers transform HAL into a non-corporeal being so that David Bowman's avatar may have a companion.


title: HAL 9000

text: The details in the novel and the 1984 film "" are nominally the same, with a few exceptions. First, in contradiction to the book (and events described in both book and film versions of "2001: A Space Odyssey"), Heywood Floyd is absolved of responsibility for HAL's condition; it is asserted that the decision to program HAL with information concerning TMA-1 came directly from the White House. In the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated, while in the book it is revealed that his mind was damaged during the shutdown, forcing him to begin communication through screen text. Also, in the film the "Leonov" crew initially lies to HAL about the dangers that he faced (suspecting that if he knew he would be destroyed he would not initiate the engine burn necessary to get the "Leonov" back home), whereas in the novel he is told at the outset. However, in both cases the suspense comes from the question of what HAL will do when he knows that he may be destroyed by his actions.


title: HAL 9000

text: In the novel, the basic reboot sequence initiated by Dr. Chandra is quite long, while the movie uses a shorter sequence voiced from HAL as: "HELLO_DOCTOR_NAME_CONTINUE_YESTERDAY_TOMORROW".


title: HAL 9000

text: While Curnow tells Floyd that Dr. Chandra has begun designing HAL 10000, it has not been mentioned in subsequent novels.


title: HAL 9000

text: In Clarke's 1987 novel "", Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith.


title: HAL 9000

text: In Clarke's 1997 novel "", Frank Poole is introduced to the merged form of Dave Bowman and HAL, the two merging into one entity called "Halman" after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying "Discovery One" spaceship toward the end of "".


title: HAL 9000

text: Clarke noted that the first film was criticized for not having any characters except for HAL, and that a great deal of the establishing story on Earth was cut from the film (and even from Clarke's novel). Clarke stated that he had considered Autonomous Mobile Explorer–5 as a name for the computer, then decided on Socrates when writing early drafts, switching in later drafts to Athena, a computer with a female personality, before settling on HAL 9000. The Socrates name was later used in Clarke and Stephen Baxter's "A Time Odyssey" novel series.


title: HAL 9000

text: The earliest draft depicted Socrates as a roughly humanoid robot, and is introduced as overseeing Project Morpheus, which studied prolonged hibernation in preparation for long term space flight. As a demonstration to "Senator" Floyd, Socrates' designer, Dr. Bruno Forster, asks Socrates to turn off the oxygen to hibernating subjects Kaminski and Whitehead, which Socrates refuses, citing Asimov's First Law of Robotics.


title: HAL 9000

text: In a later version, in which Bowman and Whitehead are the non-hibernating crew of "Discovery", Whitehead dies outside the spacecraft after his pod collides with the main antenna, tearing it free. This triggers the need for Bowman to revive Poole, but the revival does not go according to plan, and after briefly awakening, Poole dies. The computer, named Athena in this draft, announces "All systems of Poole now No–Go. It will be necessary to replace him with a spare unit." After this, Bowman decides to go out in a pod and retrieve the antenna, which is moving away from the ship. Athena refuses to allow him to leave the ship, citing "Directive 15" which prevents it from being left unattended, forcing him to make program modifications during which time the antenna drifts further.


title: HAL 9000

text: During rehearsals Kubrick asked Stefanie Powers to supply the voice of HAL 9000 while searching for a suitably androgynous voice so the actors had something to react to. On the set, British actor Nigel Davenport played HAL. When it came to dubbing HAL in post-production, Kubrick had originally cast Martin Balsam, but as he felt Balsam "just sounded a little bit too colloquially American", he was replaced with Douglas Rain, who "had the kind of bland mid-Atlantic accent we felt was right for the part". Rain was only handed HAL's lines instead of the full script, and recorded them across a day and a half.


title: HAL 9000

text: HAL's point of view shots were created with a Cinerama Fairchild-Curtis wide-angle lens with a 160° angle of view. This lens is about in diameter, while HAL's on set prop eye lens is about in diameter. Stanley Kubrick chose to use the large Fairchild-Curtis lens to shoot the HAL 9000 POV shots because he needed a wide-angle fisheye lens that would fit onto his shooting camera, and this was the only lens at the time that would work. The Fairchild-Curtis lens has a focal length of with a maximum aperture of 2.0 and a weight of approximately ; it was originally designed by Felix Bednarz with a maximum aperture of 2.2 for the first Cinerama 360 film, "Journey to the Stars", shown at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. Bednarz adapted the lens design from an earlier lens he had designed for military training to simulate human peripheral vision coverage. The lens was later recomputed for the second Cinerama 360 film "To the Moon and Beyond", which had a slightly different film format. "To the Moon and Beyond" was produced by Graphic Films and shown at the 1964/1965 New York World's Fair, where Kubrick watched it; afterwards, he was so impressed that he hired the same creative team from Graphic Films (consisting of Douglas Trumbull, Lester Novros, and Con Pederson) to work on "2001".


title: HAL 9000

text: A HAL 9000 face plate, without lens (not the same as the hero face plates seen in the film), was discovered in a junk shop in Paddington, London, in the early 1970s by Chris Randall. This was found along with the key to HAL's Brain Room. Both items were purchased for ten shillings (£0.50). Research revealed that the original lens was a Fisheye Nikkor 8 mm 8. The collection was sold at a Christie's auction in 2010 for £17,500 to film director Peter Jackson.


title: HAL 9000

text: HAL's name, according to writer Arthur C. Clarke, is derived from "H"euristically programmed "AL"gorithmic computer. After the film was released, fans noticed HAL was a one-letter shift from the name IBM and there has been much speculation since then that this was a dig at the large computer company, something that has been denied by both Clarke and "2001" director Stanley Kubrick. Clarke addressed the issue in his book "The Lost Worlds of 2001":


title: HAL 9000

text: IBM was consulted during the making of the film and their logo can be seen on props in the film, including the Pan Am Clipper's cockpit instrument panel and on the lower arm keypad on Poole's space suit. During production it was brought to IBM's attention that the film's plot included a homicidal computer but they approved association with the film if it was clear any "equipment failure" was not related to their products.


title: HAL 9000

text: HAL Communications Corporation is a real corporation, with facilities located in Urbana, Illinois, which is where HAL in the movie identifies himself as being activated: "I am a HAL 9000 computer. I became operational at the H-A-L plant in Urbana Illinois on the 12th of January 1992."


title: HAL 9000

text: The former president of HAL Communications, Bill Henry, has stated that this is a coincidence: "There was not and never has been any connection to 'Hal', Arthur Clarke's intelligent computer in the screen play '2001' — later published as a book. We were very surprised when the movie hit the Coed Theatre on campus and discovered that the movie's computer had our name. We never had any problems with that similarity - 'Hal' for the movie and 'HAL' (all caps) for our small company. But, from time-to-time, we did have issues with others trying to use 'HAL'. That resulted in us paying lawyers. The offenders folded or eventually went out of business."


title: HAL 9000

text: The scene in which HAL's consciousness degrades was inspired by Clarke's memory of a speech synthesis demonstration by physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr., who used an IBM 704 computer to synthesize speech. Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer "vocoder" recreated the song "Daisy Bell", with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews.


title: HAL 9000

text: HAL's capabilities, like all the technology in "2001", were based on the speculation of respected scientists. Marvin Minsky, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and one of the most influential researchers in the field, was an adviser on the film set. In the mid-1960s, many computer scientists in the field of artificial intelligence were optimistic that machines with HAL's capabilities would exist within a few decades. For example, AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon at Carnegie Mellon University, had predicted in 1965 that "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do"


title: HAL 9000

text: The 9000th of the asteroids in the asteroid belt, 9000 Hal, discovered on May 3, 1981, by E. Bowell at Anderson Mesa Station, is named after HAL 9000.


title: HAL 9000

text: Anthony Hopkins based his Academy Award-winning performance as Hannibal Lecter in "Silence of the Lambs" in part upon HAL-9000.


title: HAL 9000

text: The 1993 educational game "Where in Space Is Carmen Sandiego?" features a digital assistant named the VAL 9000, an homage to HAL 9000.


title: HAL 9000

text: Apple Inc.'s 1999 website advertisement "It was a bug, Dave" was made by meticulously recreating the appearance of HAL 9000 from the movie. Launched during the era of concerns over Y2K bugs, the ad implied that HAL's behavior was caused by a Y2K bug, before driving home the point that "only Macintosh was designed to function perfectly".


title: HAL 9000

text: In 2003, HAL 9000 was one of the first robots to be inducted into the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One can experience seeing a physical replica of HAL at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi (; Ecclesiastical Latin: ""Body of Christ"") is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County, it also extends into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio Counties. It is southeast of San Antonio. Its political boundaries encompass Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. Its zoned boundaries include small land parcels or water inlets of three neighboring counties.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city's population was 317,863 in 2020, making it the eighth-most populous city in Texas. The Corpus Christi metropolitan area had an estimated population of 442,600. It is also the hub of the six-county Corpus Christi-Kingsville Combined Statistical Area, with a 2013 estimated population of 516,793. The Port of Corpus Christi is the fifth-largest in the United States. The region is served by the Corpus Christi International Airport.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city's name means body of Christ in Ecclesiastical Latin, in reference to the Christian sacrament of Holy Communion. The name was given to the settlement and surrounding bay by Spanish explorer Alonso Álvarez de Pineda in 1519, as he discovered the lush semitropical bay on the Western Christian feast day of Corpus Christi.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Spaniard Alonso Alvarez de Pineda traveled in 1519 to this bay on the day of the religious Feast of Corpus Christi, so named the semitropical bay Corpus Christi.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Cabeza de Vaca may have passed through Corpus Christi in the 1500s, but the first European to study the Nueces River and Corpus Christi Bay was Joaquín de Orobio y Basterr in 1747. A few years later, José de Escandón organized a colony of about 50 families to settle the head of the bay, though this was short-lived.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: In 1839, the first known permanent settlement of Corpus Christi was established by Colonel Henry Lawrence Kinney and William P. Aubrey as Kinney's Trading Post, or Kinney's Ranch. It was a small trading post that sold supplies to a Mexican revolutionary army camped about west.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: In July 1845, U.S. troops commanded by General Zachary Taylor set up camp there in preparation for war with Mexico, where they remained until March 1846. About a year later, the settlement was named Corpus Christi and was incorporated on September 9, 1852.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Battle of Corpus Christi was fought between August 12 and August 18, 1862, during the American Civil War. United States Navy forces blockading Texas fought a small land and sea engagement with Confederate forces in and around Corpus Christi Bay and bombarded the city. Union forces defeated Confederate States Navy ships operating in the area, but were repulsed when they landed on the coast.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Port of Corpus Christi was opened in 1926, and the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station was commissioned in 1941.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The 1919 Storm devastated the city, killing hundreds on September 14. Only three structures survived the storm on North Beach. To protect the city, the seawall was built. The city also suffered damage from Hurricane Celia in 1970 and Hurricane Allen in 1980, but little damage from Hurricane Ike in 2008. In 2017, the city was affected by Hurricane Harvey then by Hurricane Hanna in 2020. Rough surf from Hurricane Laura caused one death and one injury at a beach in the city in late August 2020, just a month after Hanna.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi is situated on fluvial deposits that are of Holocene—Pleistocene age. Although no solidified rock occurs naturally at the surface, the Deweyville Formation of sand, silt, clay, and gravel, is locally indurated with calcium carbonate (caliche) deposits. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey's storm surge eroded down to shale bedrock at a depth around 40 ft in Packery Channel, an artificial pass cut between North Padre and Mustang Islands. This feature has become a gathering place for game fish, and can be identified from the surface by its whirlpool-like current. The large, shallow bay makes Corpus Christi an ideal feeding place for birds, and this is one reason why Corpus Christi is known as the "Bird Capital" of North America. Consequently, the San Diego Audubon Society has designated Corpus Christi as "America's birdiest place".


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, Corpus Christi has a total area of 460.2 square miles (1,192.0 km), of which 154.6 mi (400.5 km, 33.60%) are land and 305.6 mi (791.5 km, 66.40%) are covered by water.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Since its founding, the city has annexed nearby lands and waters for growth and development purposes. The original area encompassed several city blocks in present-day downtown Corpus Christi with the majority of city expansion occurring in the 20th century.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen: Cfa), with hot, very humid summers and very short, mild winters. In November through February, the weather is the coolest. A noticeable warming trend occurs in March through April. The warmest part of the year is June through September, with August being the peak of summer. October in the city is very warm, but not as hot as the summer. The city itself much like the Gulf Coast of Texas experiences just two seasons, a monsoon summer from April to October and a dry winter from November to March. Corpus Christi is very windy, with wind speeds often reaching with gusts reaching more than . The city's record high temperature is , on September 5, 2000, and the hottest month August 2012 with an average of . Average night-time winter lows in January, the coldest month, are a little less than and its record low is on February 12, 1899, and the coldest maximum on five occasions, the most recent being on January 30, 1951. Winter and early spring are generally dry, and average monthly precipitation is highest in September, when the threat from hurricanes and other tropical weather systems is greatest. The coolest month on record has been February 1905, with a mean of . In December 2004, the city experienced snowfall on Christmas Eve, the city's largest recorded snowstorm at . The snow melted the day after Christmas. The city experienced light snowfall a second time, on December 8, 2017, nearly 13 years later.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Between 1981 and 2010, Corpus Christi averaged of rainfall; however, long periods with very little rainfall are normal, and hurricanes can frequently produce daily falls of over . The wettest day on record is July 2, 2007, with , while the wettest month on record is September 1967, with , including four days with over . Eight months with not even a trace of rainfall have happened, of which the most recent was May 1998, and 21 with merely a trace. The longest spell without measurable rainfall in Corpus Christi has been 55 days from June 23 to August 17 (inclusive) of 1895, and from June 1 to July 25 of 1915, while easily the driest calendar year has been 1917, with a mere . The two wettest calendar years have been 1888 with and 1991 with , although from August 1967 to July 1968, fell, and for the 12 months ending January 1918, only .


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Hurricanes seldom hit the city, but those which have were destructive, such as the 1919 Florida Keys hurricane and Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The city also can see tornadoes, with an F2 tornado hitting the area on April 29, 1961.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 317,863 people, 117,789 households, and 79,055 families residing in the city.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: In 2012, Corpus Christi was ranked as the second-least literate city in the U.S. in a study by Central Connecticut State University.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: According to the 2010 Census, 80.9% of Corpus Christi's population was White; 4.3% was African American; 1.8% Asian; 0.1% Pacific Islander; 10.4% of some other race; and 2.5% of two or more races. About 62.23% of Corpus Christi's population was of Hispanic or Latino origin, of any race, and 33.3% of the population was non-Hispanic White, down from 56% in 1970.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: At the census of 2000, 277,454 people, 98,791 households, and 70,437 families resided in the city. The population density was 1,794.2 people per square mile (692.7/km). The 107,831 housing units averaged 697.3 per square mile (269.2/km). The racial makeup of the city was 71.62% White, 4.67% African American, 0.64% Native American, 1.28% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 18.58% from other races, and 3.13% from two or more races. Hispanics of any race were 54.33% of the population.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Of the 98,791 households, 36.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.9% were married couples living together, 15.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.7% were not families. About 23.2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.75 and the average family size was 3.27.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: In the city, the population was distributed as 28.1% under the age of 18, 10.6% from 18 to 24, 29.2% from 25 to 44, 21.0% from 45 to 64, and 11.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 33 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.2 males.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The median income for a family was $41,672. Males had a median income of $31,863 versus $22,616 for females. The per capita income for the city was $17,419. About 14.1% of families and 17.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 22.9% of those under age 18 and 15.5% of those ages 65 or over.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The majority of the population is employed in the services, wholesale and retail trades, and government sectors. Corpus Christi has an unemployment rate of 4.5% as of July 2019.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Port of Corpus Christi, which is the fifth-largest U.S. port and deepest inshore port on the Gulf of Mexico, handles mostly oil and agricultural products. Much of the local economy is driven by tourism and the oil and petrochemicals industry. In 2005, the port was ranked as the 47th-largest in the world by cargo tonnage.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi is home to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, providing 6,200 civilian jobs to the local economy, making it the single largest employer in the city. Corpus Christi Army Depot, located on NAS Corpus Christi, is the largest helicopter repair facility in the world. Additionally located on NAS Corpus Christi is the United States Coast Guard Sector/Air Station Corpus Christi.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi is the original home of the headquarters of Whataburger, a fast-food restaurant operator and franchiser with 650 stores in 10 states and Mexico; the company relocated its headquarters to San Antonio in 2009. Other large employers include CHRISTUS Spohn Health System at 5,400 local employees, the Corpus Christi Independent School District with 5,178, H-E-B at 5,000, and Bay Ltd. at 2,100. Other companies based in Corpus Christi include Stripes Convenience Stores and AEP Texas.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi became the first major city to offer citywide free wi-fi in April 2005 to allow remote meter reading after a meter reader was attacked by a dog. In 2007, the network was purchased by Earthlink for $5.5 million, and stopped being a free service on May 31, 2007.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Various sections of Corpus Christi maintain distinct senses of identity and community from the city proper, especially the Calallen and Flour Bluff areas.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city is home to a number of popular destinations for both tourists and residents. The official visitor and tourism information organization is the Corpus Christi Convention and Visitors Bureau. Some of the most visited attractions are located on North Beach, where the Texas State Aquarium and the Museum on the Bay are located.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: USS "Lexington" was also part of the set for the 2001 film "Pearl Harbor". Corpus Christi's museum district is located near USS "Lexington". Some attractions located in the museum district are the Museum of Asian Cultures, the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History, the South Texas Institute for the Arts, and the Harbor Playhouse Theatre, one of the oldest continually operating community theatres in Texas. Heritage Park is also in the museum district, where a number of older restored houses can be found. The downtown area, of which the museum district is a part, is home to skyscrapers such as One Shoreline Plaza, company offices, various shops, a popular center of marinas, and Mirador de la Flor. Downtown also is home of the Texas Surf Museum, which explores the history of surfing and focuses on surf culture along Texas' coast, as well as K Space Contemporary, a nonprofit art organization promoting and presenting local, regional, and national contemporary art.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Corpus Christi Botanical Gardens and Nature Center, also located in the city, hosts gardening programs from time to time. On Oso Bay near the Pharaoh Valley subdivision, the Hans and Pat Suter Wildlife Refuge is known for seabird-watching. The nearby Pharaohs golf course also serves as a haven for coastal and migratory birds.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Directly east of Corpus Christi are Padre Island and Mustang Island, home to various municipal, state, and national parks, most notably the Padre Island National Seashore. The city is also near King Ranch, one of the world's largest ranches, upon which the movie "Giant" was based.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi has professional sports to offer residents and visitors. The city is home to the Corpus Christi IceRays of the North American Hockey League and the Corpus Christi Hooks are the AA minor-league baseball club for the Houston Astros, which play in the Texas League. The largest venue in Corpus Christi is the 18,000-capacity American football venue named Buccaneer Stadium.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Year-round NCAA Division I collegiate athletics may be found at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi as the Islanders compete in 14 men's and women's sports as a member of the Southland Conference.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Sailing races are held weekly off downtown's T-heads every Wednesday, where spectators watch vessels competing at sunset. Additionally, Corpus Christi is also home to the Corpus Christi Rugby Football Club, which is a member of the Texas Rugby Union, an affiliate of the Western Rugby Union and of the United States Rugby Football Union.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: In 2017, the United Soccer League expanded to Corpus Christi, forming Corpus Christi FC. Corpus Christi FC plays in the Mid-South Division of the USL League Two.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city's location beside Corpus Christi Bay, the Gulf of Mexico, and Laguna Madre provides opportunities for water sports and nature tourism. Waterfowl hunting is available in the region for duck, geese, coot, and teal. White-winged dove and mourning dove are also hunted on private leases. The brushland inland from Corpus Christi is also ideal for hunting feral hogs and white-tailed deer.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Fishing is a popular recreational activity in Corpus Christi, including fishing from various piers around Corpus Christi Bay, wade fishing in Oso Bay, and fishing from the Gulf of Mexico at Packery Channel or at Bob Hall Pier.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city has one of the highest average wind speeds of coastal cities in North America. This, combined with the Bay Front area located along Ocean Drive, makes the city an important destination for wind sports such as kite boarding, wind surfing, kite flying, and sailing. In 1990, Corpus Christi hosted the Windsurfing World Championships. In 2018, Corpus Christi hosted the 2018 Youth Sailing World Championships.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Corpus Christi Skate Park opened on February 17, 2007. It is located in Cole Park on the shoreline of the Corpus Christi Bay near downtown. The concrete park includes a skating bowl and a street course with stairs, railings, and flat surfaces.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Being a coastal city, Corpus Christi is a good spot for seabird watching. Popular spots include Blucher Park in downtown, the Hans and Pat Suter Wildlife Refuge along Oso Bay, Hazel Bazemore County Park along the Nueces River in Calallen, and the South Texas Botanic Garden and Nature Center along the Oso Creek.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: In 1852, the City of Corpus Christi was incorporated. Texas' 31st Legislature chartered the city as a political and corporate municipal entity in 1909. By ordinance, the city possesses power to "fix, alter and extend its boundaries."


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi is under a council-manager municipal government. The elected city council is the primary authority in municipal matters such as enacting local legislation, determining policies, and appointing the city manager. Together, the city council and city manager execute laws and administer the municipal government. Organized by governmental sectors of city council, city management, city secretary, and several city departments, Corpus Christi is seated in Nueces County. The city council currently consists of these elected members:


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Peter Zanoni, former deputy city manager of San Antonio, was appointed city manager in May 2019. Upon appointment, Zanoni created two new positions in his leadership team and appointed Michael Rodriguez as his Chief of Staff and Constance Sanchez as Chief Financial Officer. The city manager works alongside Assistant City Manager Steven Viera. The city's intergovernmental relations director is Tammy Embrey. Rebecca L. Huerta serves as the city secretary.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Former City Manager Margie C. Rose was appointed in 2016 and served as the first African-American city manager in Corpus Christi. Rose resigned in 2018. Selman served as interim city manager in 2018 following Rose's resignation and until the appointment of Zanoni.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Corpus Christi City Charter was adopted by public referendum in 1987, with amendments to the entire charter conducted January 19, 1991, and April 3, 1993. Further revisions to the charter were conducted on November 2, 2004, November 7, 2006, and November 8, 2016. The charter consists of 10 articles and 41 sections regarding stipulations of home rule government, city council and city manager procedures, administration, planning, boards and commissions, etc. The Code of Ordinances of Corpus Christi was codified through Ordinance No. 028493, and adopted Feb. 23, 2010.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: From 2012 to 2016, Nelda Martinez was mayor of Corpus Christi, the first Hispanic woman to the hold the office.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: On January 19, 2017, Corpus Christi Mayor Dan McQueen resigned from office after 37 days, an outgrowth of a comment by McQueen claiming that the city council members were only high school graduates and he was an engineer. He does not have an engineering degree and some college graduates are on the city council.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice operates the Corpus Christi Parole Office in Corpus Christi.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The United States Postal Service operates the Corpus Christi Post Office, the city's main post office, and several station post offices.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi is home to several institutions of higher learning: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Del Mar College, Saint Leo University-Corpus Christi and numerous vocational schools, including Southern Careers Institute, South Texas Vo-Tech, Career Centers of Texas-Corpus Christi, and Vogue Cosmetology School. The city is also home to Stark College and Seminary (formerly known as the South Texas School of Christian Studies) located on Ward Island alongside Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi is a component of the Texas A&M University System. It was formerly known as Corpus Christi State University, Texas A&I University at Corpus Christi, and the University of Corpus Christi.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Saint Leo University-Corpus Christi Education Center is located at Corpus Christi's Naval Air Station.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Del Mar College is a local community college designated for the entire Corpus Christi city limits. It began in the 1940s at a location behind Wynn Seale Jr. High School. The main campus began with the administration building, which was constructed after World War II on Del Mar. The college grew to encompass a good portion of a residential addition called Southmoreland built from the Bohemian farmlands in the late 1930s. Del Mar now includes a west campus located in the area of Corpus Christi that once was Cliff Maus Airport. Del Mar College is expanding their footprint with the unveiling of their new Southside Campus near Oso Creek. The new Southern branch campus will serve the recent growing Southside area.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Southern Careers Institute offers career training at two Corpus Christi locations, primarily in the medical, business, and cosmetology fields.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: In 2015, WalletHub ranked Corpus Christi near the bottom, 138 out of 150 cities in America, for its low educational level and low-income opportunities. To improve literacy levels in the city, a multiyear effort has been made to promote reading through annual literacy festivals. Started by First Lady Laura Bush and the Texas Book Festival, a series of book festivals is held each spring.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Seven school districts provide primary and secondary education for residents of the city limits, within Nueces County:


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The portion of Corpus Christi in Kleberg County is within the Riviera Independent School District. The portion in San Patricio County is in the Ingleside Independent School District.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The Roman Catholic Diocese of Corpus Christi provides the primary and secondary education for Catholic schools. Several Open Enrollment Charter Schools are in Corpus Christi. These public schools are: Accelerated Learning Center, Cesar E Chavez Academy, Corpus Christi College Preparatory HS, Corpus Christi Montessori School, Dr ML Garza-Gonzalez Charter School, GCCLR Institute of Technology, Premier HS of Corpus Christi, Richard Milburn Academy, School of Science and Technology, Seashore Learning Center, and Seashore Middle Academy .


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Corpus Christi is served by Corpus Christi International Airport and Interstate 37. Interstate 69E/U.S. Highway 77 connects the city to Brownsville and Victoria. Texas State Highway 44 is a main thoroughfare that connects Corpus Christi to Laredo and the western part of South Texas by way of Interstate 69W/U.S. Highway 59, Interstate 35, and U.S. Highway 83. The inner-city public transportation is provided by Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authority with its 28 bus routes. Corpus Christi once had a streetcar system functioning from 1910 to 1931 and a railway station (passenger service ended in 1965). Despite the convenience of a large harbor, the city does not have a passenger port.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city of Corpus Christi has a lower than average percentage of households without a car. In 2015, 8.5% of Corpus Christi households lacked a car, and decreased slightly to 7.9% in 2016. The national average was 8.7% in 2016. Corpus Christi averaged 1.77 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: The city is accessed by two major bridges, the Harbor Bridge (US 181) and the John F. Kennedy Causeway (PR 22). Both bridges are maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation.


title: Corpus Christi, Texas

text: Drinking water for the city is supplied by three reservoirs, Lake Corpus Christi, the Choke Canyon Reservoir, and Lake Texana. Through an effective regional partnership with the Nueces River Authority and the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, a pipeline was built which transports water from Lake Texana to the city's O.N. Stevens Water Treatment Plant. It was named the Mary Rhodes Pipeline, after the late mayor. Phase two of the pipeline is underway to draw water from the Colorado River. All reservoirs are outside the city limits, but Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon Reservoir are managed directly by the public utility of the City of Corpus Christi. To support future water needs, plans are being completed to build a desalinization plant.


title: FIFA World Player of the Year

text: The FIFA World Player of the Year was an association football award presented annually by the sport's governing body, FIFA, between 1991 and 2015 at the FIFA World Player Gala. Coaches and captains of international teams and media representatives selected the player they deem to have performed the best in the previous calendar year.


title: FIFA World Player of the Year

text: Originally a single award for the world's best men's player, parallels awards for men and women were awarded from 2001 to 2009. The men's award was subsumed into the FIFA Ballon d'Or in 2010 while the women's award remained until 2015. After 2015 both men's and women's awards became part of The Best FIFA Football Awards.


title: FIFA World Player of the Year

text: During the men's era, Brazilian players won 8 out of 19 years, compared to three wins – the second most – for French players. In terms of individual players, Brazil again led with five, followed by Italy and Portugal with two each. The youngest winner was Ronaldo, who won at 20 years old in 1996, and the oldest winner was Fabio Cannavaro, who won aged 33 in 2006. Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane each won the award three times, while Ronaldo and Ronaldinho were the only players to win in successive years. From 2010 to 2015, the equivalent men's award was the FIFA Ballon d'Or, following a merging of the FIFA World Player of the Year and the France Football Ballon d'Or awards. Since 2016, the awards have been replaced by The Best FIFA Men's Player and The Best FIFA Women's Player awards.


title: FIFA World Player of the Year

text: Eight women's footballers – three Germans, three Americans, one Brazilian, and one Japanese – have won the award. Marta, the youngest recipient at age 20 in 2006, has won five successive awards, the most of any player. Birgit Prinz won three times in a row and Mia Hamm won twice in a row. The oldest winner is Nadine Angerer, who was 35 when she won in 2013; she is also the only goalkeeper of either sex to win.


title: FIFA World Player of the Year

text: The winners are chosen by the coaches and captains of national teams as well as by international media representatives invited by FIFA. In a voting system based on positional voting, each voter is allotted three votes, worth five points, three points and one point, and the three finalists are ordered based on total number of points. Following criticism from some sections of the media over nominations in previous years, FIFA has since 2004 provided shortlists from which its voters can select their choices.


title: FIFA World Player of the Year

text: From 2010 to 2015, the award was merged with the Ballon d'Or to become the FIFA Ballon d'Or in a six-year partnership with "France Football". In 2016, FIFA rebranded the award as The Best FIFA Men's Player.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a state-sanctioned practice of killing a person as a punishment for a crime. Historically, capital punishment has been used in almost every part of the world. Currently, the large majority of countries have either abolished or discontinued the practice.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The 193 member states of the United Nations, and the two observer states, are usually divided in four categories based on their use of capital punishment:


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Since 1990, ten countries (China, Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan, Sudan, USA and Yemen) have executed offenders who were under the age of 18 or 21 at the time the crime was committed, contravening the Convention on the Rights of the Child.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: In 2013, public executions were carried out by the governments of Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: In some countries, the practice of extrajudicial execution outside their own formal legal frameworks occurs sporadically or systematically (e.g. the Philippines, see Philippine drug war).


title: Capital punishment by country

text: In Africa, many countries still have capital punishment. However, Algeria, Cameroon, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Tanzania, and Tunisia have moratoria that have been in place for over a decade making the countries abolitionist in practice, but retain the death penalty in law. Capital punishment in Nigeria is in some states de facto abolitionist and in some states retentionist. In 2018, Burkina Faso repealed death for civilian crimes, and the Gambia announced a moratorium as a first step toward abolition. Chad abolished capital punishment in 2020, Sierra Leone in 2021, and the Central African Republic and Equatorial Guinea in 2022.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: In the Caribbean countries, the death penalty exists at least "de jure", except in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which abolished it in 1969 and 1987, respectively. Grenada is abolitionist in practice, and its last execution was in 1978. The last execution in the Caribbean, and the last in the Americas outside the United States, was in Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2008. In Central and South America, the death penalty exists in Belize and Guyana, though it has not been used since 1985 and 1997. In Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru, executions are only legal in specific circumstances, such as war crimes, and were abolished for civil crimes. Opinion polls stating sentiment for governments to return to capital punishment remain high in many Caribbean countries, and pressure on politicians to retain it is high.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Most executions worldwide take place in Asia. China is the world's most active death penalty country; according to Amnesty International, China executes more people than the rest of the world combined each year. However, not all of China is retentionist, as Hong Kong and Macau have abolished it for all crimes before their handover to China. In Iran and Saudi Arabia, the numbers of executions are also very high. Of the 12 countries/region with a "very high" Human Development Index which practice executions, 10 are in Asia: Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, although since 2018 Malaysia does have a moratorium. In 2017, Mongolia repealed the death penalty for all crimes and in 2021 Kazakhstan, that was already abolitionist for ordinary crimes, abolished it also for crimes under special circumstances. India executes criminals rarely. 30 executions have taken place in India since 1991. The latest execution was that of four perpetrators of a gang rape and murder case on 20 March 2020.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: According to a 2017 report by the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, 709 prisoners in 26 prisons across the country have had death sentences commuted to life imprisonment.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The European Union holds a strong position against the death penalty; its abolition is a key objective for the Union's human rights policy. Abolition is also a pre-condition for entry into the European Union. In Europe, only Belarus continues to actively use capital punishment.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Capital punishment has been completely abolished in all European countries except for Belarus and Russia, the latter of which has a moratorium and has not conducted an execution since 1996. The absolute ban on the death penalty is enshrined in both the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (EU) and two widely adopted protocols of the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe, and is thus considered a central value. Of all modern European countries, San Marino, Portugal and the Netherlands were the first to abolish capital punishment, and now only Belarus still uses capital punishment. In 2012, Latvia became the last EU member state to abolish capital punishment in wartime.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Russia retains the death penalty in law, but there has been a moratorium since 1996, making it de facto abolitionist. The last execution on Russian territory was in Chechnya in 1999. Of the other former Soviet republics, only Belarus and Tajikistan have not formally abolished capital punishment, and only Belarus uses it in practice.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: It was in the Kingdom of Tahiti (when the island was independent), in 1824, that for the first time in the world, a legislative assembly abolished the death penalty. Tahiti commuted the death penalty to banishment. Nearly all countries in this region have abolished the death penalty as a form of punishment, and the last country that still has it in law (Tonga) has not used it in many decades and is considered de facto abolitionist. The last known executions in this region took place in Tonga in 1982.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: There are 65 sovereign states with a very high human development according to the 2021/2022 Human Development Report, of these:


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Singapore has the highest Human Development Index of all the countries that use the death penalty, while Japan has both the highest inequality-adjusted HDI and the highest planetary pressures–adjusted HDI.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Precise numbers are not available for many countries, so the total number of executions is unknown. Other countries like Libya have conducted extrajudicial executions.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Many African countries have carried out no executions for over 10 years, but are not believed to have an abolitionist policy or established practice.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Nigeria is only retentionist in the northern states that use sharia law, and in some southern states such as Imo. Many southern states are abolitionist in practice due to a moratorium that has been in place since 2004.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The countries in Africa that most recently abolished the death penalty are Equatorial Guinea (2022), Central African Republic (2022), Sierra Leone (2021), Chad (2020), and Guinea (2017). Burkina Faso abolished the death penalty for civil cases in 2018.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Many Caribbean countries have carried out no executions for over 10 years, but are not believed to have an abolitionist policy or established practice.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Currently (2022), the United States is the only country in the Americas to conduct executions for civil purposes. However while capital punishment applies nationwide on the federal level, only some states can be considered retentionist for ordinary crimes, as federal death penalty only applies for crimes committed in exceptional circumstances. Of the 50 states and one federal district, 23 are abolitionist for ordinary crimes and 2 are abolitionist in practice for ordinary crimes. Also 5 states have imposed formal moratoriums and 1 state has imposed an informal moratorium, but cannot be considered abolitionist in practice for ordinary crimes, as the moratoriums have been in place for under a decade. The last execution elsewhere in the region was in Saint Kitts and Nevis in 2008.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The countries in the Americas that most recently abolished the death penalty are Suriname (2015), Argentina (2009), and Bolivia (2009). Guatemala abolished the death penalty for civil cases in 2017.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The information above does not include Taiwan, which is not a UN member. Taiwan practises the death penalty by shooting, and conducted one execution each in 2016, 2018, and 2020.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Hong Kong and Macau are also listed below (they abolished the death penalty before their handover to China), but they are not included in the figures above as they do not have UN membership separate from China. This makes China retentionist only in the mainland.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Iraq also has a regional variety of retentionism and abolitionism, as Iraqi Kurdistan is de facto abolitionist for ordinary crimes due to a moratorium that has been in place since 2007. The rest of Iraq (the majority of the country) is fully retentionist.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Indonesia has an informal moratorium and Malaysia a formal one, but both have been in place for under a decade (both since 2018) and therefore executions resuming are still very possible. Neither Indonesia nor Malaysia have plans to abolish it. Between May 2018 and March 2019, Malaysia's government, which was then led by a progressive coalition, did previously consider abolishing the death penalty, but relented under public pressure and decided to just have plans to abolish mandatory capital punishment.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: On 25 July 2022, Myanmar carried out its first executions since 1988, making the country retentionist again.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The countries in Asia that most recently abolished the death penalty are Kazakhstan (2021), Mongolia (2017), and Uzbekistan (2008).


title: Capital punishment by country

text: In 2019, Asia had the world's five leading practitioners of capital punishment: China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Executions in Asia in 2019: Bahrain (3), Bangladesh (2), China (Unknown), Iran (251+), Japan (3), North Korea (Unknown), Pakistan (14+), Saudi Arabia (184+), Singapore (4), Syria (Unknown), Vietnam (Unknown), Yemen (7+).


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Abolition of death penalty is a pre-condition for entry into the European Union, which considers capital punishment a "cruel and inhuman" practice and "not been shown in any way to act as a deterrent to crime".


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Since 1999, Belarus has been the only recognised country in Europe to carry out executions. 2009, 2015, 2020 are the first three years in recorded history when Europe was completely free of executions.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The countries in Europe that most recently abolished the death penalty are Bosnia and Herzegovina (2019), Latvia (2012), and Albania (2007).


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The countries in Oceania that most recently abolished the death penalty are Papua New Guinea (2022), Nauru (2016), and Fiji (2015).


title: Capital punishment by country

text: The table below lists in chronological order the 110 independent states, that are either UN members or have UN observer status, that have completely abolished the death penalty. In the hundred years following the abolition of capital punishment by Venezuela in 1863, only 11 more countries followed, not counting temporary abolitions which were later reversed. From the 1960s onwards, abolition became far more popular. 4 countries abolished capital punishment in the 1960s (a record up to that time for any decade), 11 in the 1970s, and a further 10 in the 1980s. After the end of the Cold War, many more countries followed. 36 countries abolished capital punishment in the 1990s, with 9 in 1990 alone, 23 in the 2000s, 11 in the 2010s, and 6 so far in the 2020s. Since 1985, there have been only five years when no country has abolished the death penalty: 2001, 2003, 2011, 2013, and 2018.


title: Capital punishment by country

text: Note: Where a country has abolished, re-instated, and abolished again (e.g. Philippines, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy) only the later abolition date is included. Countries which have abolished and since reinstated (e.g. Liberia) are not included. Non-independent territories are considered being under the jurisdiction of their parent country – which leads to unexpectedly late abolition dates for the UK, New Zealand and the Netherlands, where Jersey (UK), the Cook Is (NZ), and the Netherlands Antilles, were the last territories of those states to abolish capital punishment, and all were rather later than the more well-known abolitions on the respective mainlands. References are in the continental tables above and are not repeated here.


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: Veeramachaneni Jagapathi Rao Chowdary (born 12 February 1962), professionally known as Jagapathi Babu (), is an Indian actor known for his works predominantly in Telugu cinema. He has also appeared in a few Tamil, , Kannada and Malayalam films. In a career spanning 33 years, Babu has appeared in 170 feature films, and has received four Filmfare Awards and seven state Nandi Awards.


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: He has worked with noted directors like Kodi Ramakrishna, S. V. Krishna Reddy, Ram Gopal Varma, Krishna Vamsi, E. V. V. Satyanarayana, Gunasekhar, Chandra Sekhar Yeleti, A. M. Rathnam, K. Raghavendra Rao, Radha Mohan, Mohan Raja, J. D. Chakravarthy, Boyapati Srinu, and Sukumar.


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: Jagapathi Babu was born on 12 February 1962 in Machilipatnam to veteran producer-director V. B. Rajendra Prasad. He was brought up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu before making a mark in Telugu cinema. He married Lakshmi and has two daughters.


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: Babu made his debut in Telugu with the movie "Simha Swapnam" (1989) which was produced by his father and directed by V. Madhusudhana Rao. That same year, he starred in "Adavilo Abhimanyudu". His first commercial success came with "Peddarikam" released in 1992. He had his breakthrough in the form of "Gaayam" directed by Ram Gopal Varma in the year 1993. In 1994, with the super hit film "Subhalagnam", he reached family audience and also established his star status. He won the Nandi Award for Best Actor in 1996 for his role in the movie "Maavichiguru" directed by S V Krishna Reddy.


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: 1997 saw runway hit films like "Subhakankshalu" and "Pelli Pandiri". In 1998, he won the Nandi Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film "Anthahpuram". In 2000, he won the Nandi Best Actor Award for his performance in the thriller "Manoharam". In 2003–05, he did runway hit films like "Kabaddi Kabaddi", "Athade Oka Sainyam", "Pedababu" and "Anukokunda Oka Roju". In 2006, he appeared in "Samanyudu" and "Pellaina Kothalo". He received the Nandi Best Supporting Actor Award for the second time in the year 2007 for his role in the film "Lakshyam" in addition to a won Filmfare Award. In 2011, he received the Kala Bhushana Award for his contribution to cinema by TSR Lalitha Kala Parishat.


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: His first Tamil movie was "Madrasi", and in 2012, he appeared as the antagonist in Tamil film "Thaandavam". Subsequently, he played the lead role in "Jai Bolo Telangana", which won five Nandi Awards. In 2012, he debuted in the Kannada film "Bachchan" as a cop.


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: Since 2014, Babu took a complete turn-around in his choice of roles, in what he terms a "second-innings." Babu, who until then was a lead actor, decided to play antagonistic and supporting roles to maintain his career graph. The first of which is the Nandamuri Balakrishna-starrer "Legend" (2014), where played an antagonist for the first time. His performance as Jitendra, a ruthless don was hugely praised and also won many accolades. In the same year, he played a negative role opposite Rajinikanth in "Lingaa". In 2015, he played Mahesh Babu's father in "Srimanthudu". In 2016, Babu played a London-based billionaire in Sukumar-directed Nannaku Prematho starring Jr NTR was also appreciated. He played antagonist in "Ism" and "Jaguar". He also played opposite Mohanlal in Malayalam film, "Pulimurugan". In 2017, he played Naga Chaitanya's father in "Rarandoi Veduka Chudham".


title: Jagapathi Babu

text: In 2018, "Rangasthalam," also directed by Sukumar, Babu played an oppressive president of the eponymous village. Grossing more than 2 billion, "Rangasthalam" was the highest grossing Telugu of that year. Alongside this, he played a Bangladeshi-terrorist in "Goodachari", which became a sleeper hit. His role Trivikram Srinivas-directed "Aravinda Sametha Veera Raghava" (2018) is termed as one of finest performances of his career. In 2019, His notable works were "Maharshi" along with a crucial role in "Sye Raa Narasimha Reddy".


title: Sports in the United States

text: Sports are an important part of culture in the United States. Historically, the national sport has been baseball. However, in more recent decades, American football has been the most popular sport in terms of broadcast viewership audience. Basketball has grown into the mainstream American sports scene since the 1980s, with ice hockey and soccer doing the same around the turn of the 21st century. These sports comprise the "Big Five". In the first half of the 20th century, boxing and collegiate football were among the most popular sports after baseball. Golf, tennis, and collegiate basketball are other spectator sports with longstanding popularity. Most recently, Mixed martial arts, has been breaking records in attendance and broadcast viewership for all combat sports.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Based on revenue, the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada are the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Soccer (MLS). At $16 billion in revenue, the NFL is the most profitable sports league in the world.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The market for professional sports in the United States is roughly $69 billion, roughly 50% larger than that of all of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa combined. All these leagues enjoy wide-ranging domestic media coverage and, except for Major League Soccer, all are considered the preeminent leagues in their respective sports in the world. Although American football does not have a substantial following in other nations, the NFL does have the highest average attendance (67,254) of any professional sports league in the world. MLS has the second highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S. (21,789), followed by MLB with an average of 18,900. Of these five U.S.-based leagues, all but the NFL have at least one team in Canada.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Professional teams in all major sports in the United States operate as franchises within a league, meaning that a team may move to a different city if the team's owners believe there would be a financial benefit, but franchise moves are usually subject to some form of league-level approval. All major sports leagues use a similar type of regular-season schedule with a post-season playoff tournament. In addition to the major league–level organizations, several sports also have professional minor leagues, active in smaller cities across the country. As in Canada and Australia, sports leagues in the United States do not practice promotion and relegation, unlike most sports leagues in Europe.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Sports are particularly associated with education in the United States, with most high schools and universities having organized sports, and this is a unique sporting footprint for the U.S. College sports competitions play an important role in the American sporting culture, and college basketball and college football are nearly as popular as professional sports in some parts of the country. The major sanctioning body for college sports is the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Colleges collectively receive billions of dollars from TV deals, sponsorships, and ticket sales. In 2019, the total revenue generated by NCAA athletic departments added up to $18.9 billion.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Based on Olympic Games, World Championships, and other major competitions in respective sports, the United States is the most successful nation in baseball, basketball, athletics, swimming, lacrosse, beach volleyball, figure skating, tennis, golf, boxing, diving, shooting, rowing and snowboarding, and is all time one of the top five most successful nations in ice hockey, wrestling, gymnastics, volleyball, speed skating, alpine skiing, bobsleigh, equestrian, sailing, cycling, weightlifting and archery, among others. This makes the United States the most successful sports nation in the world. The United States has been referred to by some as the Hegemon of World Sports. The United States has placed first in the Summer Olympic medal table 18 times out of 29 Summer Olympics and 28 appearances. Unlike most other nations, the United States government does not provide funding for sports nor for the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee.


title: Sports in the United States

text: American football, indoor American football, baseball, softball, and indoor soccer evolved out of older British (Rugby football, British baseball, Rounders, and association football) sports. However, basketball, volleyball, beach volleyball, racquetball, pickleball, skateboarding, snowboarding, Ultimate, wind-surfing, and Water Skiing are fully American inventions, some of which have become popular in other countries and worldwide.</ref>


title: Sports in the United States

text: In colonial Virginia and Maryland, sports occupied a great deal of attention at every social level. In England, hunting was severely restricted to landowners. In America, game was more than plentiful. Everyone—including servants and slaves—could and did hunt, so there was no social distinction to be had. In 1691, Sir Francis Nicholson, the governor of Virginia, organized competitions for the "better sort of Virginians onely who are especially in the South. It involved owners, trainers and spectators from all social classes and both races. However, religious evangelists were troubled by the gambling dimension, and democratic elements complained that it was too aristocratic, since only the rich could own very expensive competitive horses.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee for the United States. U.S. athletes have won a total of 2,522 medals (1,022 of them being gold) at the Summer Olympic Games and another 305 at the Winter Olympic Games. Most medals have been won in the sport of athletics (track and field) (801, 32%) and swimming (553, 22%). American swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, with 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The United States has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games except the 1980 Summer Olympics hosted by the Soviet Union in Moscow, which it boycotted because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.


title: Sports in the United States

text: American athletes have won a total of 2,673 medals (1,075 of them gold) at the Summer Olympic Games and another 305 (105 of them gold) at the Winter Olympic Games, making the United States the most prolific medal-winning nation in the history of the Olympics. The US is ranked first in the all-time medal table even if all the incarnations of Russia and Germany are combined, leading the second-placed Russians by 402 gold and 917 total medals. These achievements are even more impressive considering the fact that the American Olympic team remains the only in the world to receive no government funding.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The United States hosted both Summer and Winter Games in 1932, and has hosted more Games than any other country – eight times, four times each for the Summer and Winter Games:


title: Sports in the United States

text: Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics for a third time in 2028, marking the ninth time the U.S. hosts the Olympic Games.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The United States has won the most gold and overall medals in the Summer Olympic Games, even if the medal totals of the Soviet Union/CIS and Russia are combined, and has topped the medal table 18 times. The country has won the second most gold and overall medals in the Winter Olympic Games, behind Norway, but has topped the medal table only one time, in 1932. If all of Germany's and Russia's incarnations are combined, the United States slips to fourth in the all-time Winter Olympic Games table.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The exclusion of professionals caused several controversies throughout the history of the modern Olympics. The 1912 Olympic pentathlon and decathlon champion Jim Thorpe was stripped of his medals when it was discovered that he had played semi-professional baseball before the Olympics. His medals were posthumously restored by the IOC in 1983 on compassionate grounds.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The advent of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession, but all of whom were in reality paid by the state to train on a full-time basis. The situation greatly disadvantaged American athletes, and was a major factor in the decline of American medal hauls in the 1970s and 1980s. As a result, the Olympics shifted away from amateurism, as envisioned by Pierre de Coubertin, to allowing participation of professional athletes, but only in the 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its influence within the International Olympic Committee.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Major international competitions, such as the Formula One Grand Prix series and MotoGP are generally less popular in the United States than they are in the rest of the world. However, some Americans have achieved great success in these international series, such as Mario Andretti and Kenny Roberts. In the United States, the dominant form of auto racing is oval track racing, especially stock car racing, with other homegrown motorsports also having local popularity.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Americans, like the rest of the world, initially began using public streets to host automobile races, but these venues were often unsafe to the public as they offered relatively little crowd control. Promoters and drivers in the United States discovered that horse racing tracks could provide better conditions for drivers and spectators than public streets. This, in turn, was succeeded by board track racing (which was short-lived as many of the tracks were highly flammable and difficult to maintain) followed by oval track racing, which remains the dominant form of racing in the United States but is not used in the rest of the world; road racing has generally waned. However, an extensive, albeit illegal street racing culture still persists.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Historically, open wheel racing was the most popular form of U.S. motorsport nationwide. However, an acrimonious split (often referred to by many as "The Split") in 1994 between the primary series, CART (later known as Champ Car), and the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (the site of the Indy 500), Tony George, led to the formation of the Indy Racing League, now known as INDYCAR, which launched the rival IndyCar Series in 1996. From that point on, the popularity of open wheel racing in the U.S. declined dramatically. The feud was settled in 2008 with an agreement to merge the two series under the IndyCar banner, but enormous damage had already been done to the sport. Post-merger, IndyCar continues to run with slight viewership gains per year. However, as a result, the only post-Split IndyCar race that still enjoys widespread popularity among the general public is the Indianapolis 500.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The CART-IRL Split coincided with an enormous expansion of stock car racing, governed by NASCAR, from its past as a mostly regional circuit mainly followed in the Southern United States to a truly national sport. NASCAR's audience peaked in the early 2000s, and has declined quite a bit ever since the implementation of the Chase for the Cup in 2004, though it continues to have around 2–4 million viewers per race. Among NASCAR's popular former drivers are Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Richard Petty. Among NASCAR's popular active drivers are Kevin Harvick, Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, and Kyle Larson. NASCAR's most popular race is the Daytona 500, the opening race of the season, held each year at Daytona Beach, Florida in February.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Notable sports car races in the United States are the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, and Petit Le Mans, which have featured in the World Sportscar Championship, IMSA GT Championship, Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, FIA World Endurance Championship, American Le Mans Series, Rolex Sports Car Series and currently the IMSA SportsCar Championship.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Another one of the most popular forms of motorsports in the United States is the indigenous sport of drag racing. The largest drag racing organization is the National Hot Rod Association.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Several other motorsports enjoy varying degrees of popularity in the United States: short track motor racing, motocross, monster truck competitions (including the popular Monster Jam circuit), demolition derby, figure 8 racing, mud bogging and tractor pulling.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Golf is played in the United States by about 24 million people. The sport's national governing body, the United States Golf Association (USGA), is jointly responsible with The R&A for setting and administering the rules of golf. The USGA conducts four national championships open to professionals: the U.S. Open, U.S. Women's Open, U.S. Senior Open, and the U.S. Senior Women's Open, with the last of these holding its first edition in 2018. The PGA of America organizes the PGA Championship, Senior PGA Championship and Women's PGA Championship. Three legs of the Grand Slam of Golf are based in the United States: the PGA Championship, U.S. Open and The Masters. (The Open Championship, known in the U.S. as the British Open, is played in the United Kingdom.)


title: Sports in the United States

text: The PGA Tour is the main professional golf tour in the United States, and the LPGA Tour is the main women's professional tour. Also of note is PGA Tour Champions, where players 50 and older compete. Golf is aired on several television networks, such as Golf Channel, NBC, ESPN, CBS and Fox.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Notable American male golfers include Walter Hagen (11 majors), Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus (record 18 major wins), Arnold Palmer, and Tiger Woods (15 major wins). Notable female golfers include Patty Berg (record 15 major wins), Mickey Wright (13 majors), Louise Suggs and Babe Zaharias.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Tennis is played in the United States in all five categories (Men's and Ladies' Singles; Men's, Ladies' and Mixed Doubles); however, the most popular are the singles. The pinnacle of the sport in the country is the US Open played in late August at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. The Indian Wells Masters, Miami Open and Cincinnati Masters are part of the ATP Tour Masters 1000 and the WTA 1000.


title: Sports in the United States

text: The United States has had considerable success in tennis for many years, with players such as Don Budge, Billie Jean King (12 major singles titles), Chris Evert (18 major singles titles), Jimmy Connors (8 major singles titles), John McEnroe (7 major singles titles), Andre Agassi (8 major singles titles) and Pete Sampras (14 major singles titles), and Ricardo Alonso González (14 major singles titles) dominating their sport in the past. More recently, the Williams sisters, Venus Williams (7 major singles titles) and Serena Williams (23 major singles titles), have been a dominant force in the women's game, and the twin brothers Bob and Mike Bryan have claimed almost all significant career records for men's doubles teams.


title: Sports in the United States

text: USA Track & Field is the governing body for track and field in the United States. It organizes the annual USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and USA Indoor Track and Field Championships. The Diamond League currently features one round in the United States, the Prefontaine Classic; the series formerly included the Adidas Grand Prix as well. Three of the World Marathon Majors are held in the United States: the Boston Marathon, Chicago Marathon and New York City Marathon. The Freihofer's Run for Women is also an IAAF Road Race Label Event. Amateur organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association and Amateur Athletic Union sanction cross-country running in fall, indoor track and field in winter, and outdoor track and field in spring.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Jesse Owens was a notable US track athlete who achieved international fame at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, by winning four gold medals: 100 meters, long jump, 200 meters, and 4 × 100-meter relay. He was the most successful athlete at the Games and, as a black man, was credited with "single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy", although he "wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either".


title: Sports in the United States

text: Americans have frequently set world standards in various disciplines of track and field for both male and female athletes. Tyson Gay and Michael Johnson hold various sprint records for male athletes, while Florence Griffith Joyner set various world sprint records for female athletes. Mary Slaney set many world records for middle-distance disciplines.


title: Sports in the United States

text: A turning point occurred in US track in the running boom of the 1970s. After a series of American successes in various distances from marathoners Frank Shorter and Bill Rodgers as well as middle-distance runners Dave Wottle and Steve Prefontaine, running as an American pastime began to take shape. The U.S. win in the 1976 Olympic men's decathlon, achieved by then-Bruce Jenner, made Jenner a national celebrity. High school track in the United States became a unique foundation for creating the United States middle-distance running talent pool, and from 1972 to 1981 an average of 13 high school boys in the United States would run under 4:10 in the mile per year. During this time, several national high school records in the United States were set and remained largely unbroken until the 2000s. The number of high school boys running the mile under 4:10 per year dropped abruptly from 1982, and female participation in many distance events was forbidden by athletic authorities until the 1980s. However a renaissance in high school track developed when Jack Daniels, a former Olympian, published a training manual called "Daniels' Running Formula", which became the most widely used distance training protocol among American coaches along with Arthur Lydiard's high-mileage regimen. Carl Lewis is credited with "normalizing" the practice of having a lengthy track career as opposed to retiring once reaching the age when it is less realistic of gaining a personal best result. The United States is home to school-sponsored track and field, a tradition in which most schools from middle school through college feature a track and field team. Owing to the number of American athletes who satisfy Olympic norm standards, the US holds national trials to select the best of its top-tier athletes for Olympic competition.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Boxing is an iconic sport in the US and is the focus of the most successful sporting movies both critically and commercially with Oscar winning films like Rocky, Raging Bull and The Fighter. As with many sports it has allowed Black Athletes to breakthrough to become major figures of US culture, with Joe Louis, Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali all becoming known on the world stage.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Boxing in the United States became the center of professional boxing in the early 20th century. The National Boxing Association was founded in 1921 and began to sanction title fights.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Joe Louis was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 to 1949, and is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time. In 2005, Louis was ranked as the best heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization, and was ranked number one on "The Ring" magazine's list of the "100 greatest punchers of all time". Louis had the longest single reign as champion of any heavyweight boxer in history.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Louis is widely regarded as the first person of African-American descent to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States, and was also a focal point of anti-Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II. He was instrumental in integrating the game of golf, breaking the sport's color barrier in America by appearing under a sponsor's exemption in a PGA event in 1952.


title: Sports in the United States

text: In the 1960s and 1970s, Muhammad Ali became an iconic figure, transformed the role and image of the African American athlete in America by his embrace of racial pride, and transcended the sport by refusing to serve in the Vietnam War.


title: Sports in the United States

text: In the 1980s Mike Tyson emerged as a serious contender. Nicknamed "Iron Mike", Tyson won the heavyweight unification series to become world heavyweight champion at the age of 20 and the first undisputed champion in a decade. Tyson soon became the most widely known boxer since Ali due to an aura of unrestrained ferocity, such as that exuded by Jack Dempsey or Sonny Liston. His career culminated in Evander Holyfield vs. Mike Tyson II where he famously bit off a piece of Holyfield's ear.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Since the late 1990s boxing has declined in popularity for a myriad of factors such as more sports entertainment options and combat alternatives such as MMA's UFC amongst a younger demographic. Lack of mainstream coverage in newspapers and access on major television networks. Also the lack of a US Heavyweight world champion.


title: Sports in the United States

text: It was hoped in 2015 that the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight would re-invigorate interest in the sport in the United States but because the fight was disappointing it was perceived as doing further harm to the image of the sport in the United States.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Mixed martial arts in the United States largely developed in the 1990s, and has achieved popularity in the early 21st century. Many companies promote MMA cards, with the U.S. based Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) the most dominant.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Traditional "folkstyle" wrestling is performed at the scholastic and college levels. High school wrestling is a popular participatory sport in the United States, with college wrestling and the Olympic wrestling styles of freestyle and Greco-Roman having a spectator following. The Olympic styles of freestyle and Greco-Roman are performed at all age levels in the United States and in international competition.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Judo in the United States is not very popular and is eclipsed by more popular martial art forms like karate and taekwondo.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Swimming is a major competitive sport at high school and college level, but receives little mainstream media attention outside of the Olympics.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Surfing in the United States and watersports are popular in the U.S. in coastal areas. California and Hawaii are the most popular locations for surfing. The Association of Surfing Professionals was founded in 1983.


title: Sports in the United States

text: Five separate national governing bodies (NGBs) make up USAS: USA Swimming, USA Diving, United States Synchronized Swimming, USA Water Polo, and U.S. Masters Swimming. Of the five, only U.S. Masters Swimming (USMS) is not a member of the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USMS's main aim is adult swimming, exclusive of Olympic-swimming which is the domain of USA Swimming).