title: Operation Bagration

text: A key role in the subsequent collapse of Army Group Center during Operation Bagration was being played by the Soviet Dnieper–Carpathian Offensive in Ukraine. The success of this Soviet offensive had convinced the German High Command that the southern sector of the Eastern Front would be the staging area for the main Soviet summer offensive of 1944. As a result, German forces stationed in the south, panzer divisions in particular, received priority in reinforcements. Furthermore, during this Soviet offensive in the spring of 1944, aimed at the city of Kovel, Army Group Center was significantly weakened by being forced to transfer nine divisions and numerous independent armored formations from its main front to its far right flank, located deep in the rear at the junction with Army Group South. These forces would then be attached to Army Group North Ukraine, the successor to Army Group South. This meant that Army Group Center was effectively deprived of well over 100,000 personnel and 552 tanks, assault guns and self-propelled guns at the start of Operation Bagration.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Operation Bagration, in combination with the neighbouring Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive, launched a few weeks later in Ukraine, allowed the Soviet Union to recapture Byelorussia and Ukraine within its 1941 borders, advance into German East Prussia, but more importantly, the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive allowed the Red Army to reach the outskirts of Warsaw after gaining control of Poland east of the Vistula river. The campaign enabled the next operation, the Vistula–Oder Offensive, to come within sight of the German capital. The Soviets were initially surprised at the success of the Byelorussian operation which had nearly reached Warsaw. The Soviet advance encouraged the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation forces.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The battle has been described as the triumph of the Soviet theory of the "operational art" because of the complete coordination of all the strategic front movements and signals traffic to fool the enemy about the target of the offensive. The military tactical operations of the Red Army successfully avoided the mobile reserves of the Wehrmacht and continually "wrong-footed" the German forces. Despite the massive forces involved, Soviet front commanders left their adversaries completely confused about the main axis of attack until it was too late.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Russian "maskirovka" is roughly equivalent to the English "camouflage", but it has broader application in military use. During World War II the term was used by Soviet commanders to describe measures to create deception with the goal of inflicting surprise on the Wehrmacht forces.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The "Oberkommando des Heeres" expected the Soviets to launch a major Eastern Front offensive in the summer of 1944. The Stavka (Soviet High Command) considered a number of options. The timetable of operations between June and August had been decided on by 28 April 1944. The Stavka rejected an offensive in either the L'vov sector or the Yassy-Kishinev sectors owing to the presence of powerful enemy mobile forces equal in strength to the Soviet strategic fronts. Instead they suggested four options: an offensive into Romania and through the Carpathian Mountains, an offensive into the western Ukrainian SSR aimed at the Baltic coast, an attack into the Baltic, and an offensive in the Byelorussian SSR. The first two options were rejected as being too ambitious and open to flank attack. The third option was rejected on the grounds the enemy was too well prepared. The only safe option was an offensive into Byelorussia which would enable subsequent offensives from Ukraine into Poland and Romania.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Soviet and German High Commands recognised western Ukraine as a staging area for an offensive into Poland. The Soviets, aware that the enemy would anticipate this, engaged in a maskirovka campaign to catch the German armoured forces off guard by creating a crisis in Byelorussia that would force the Germans to move their powerful armoured forces, fresh from their victory in the First Jassy–Kishinev Offensive in April–June 1944, to the central front to support Army Group Centre. This was the primary purpose of Bagration.


title: Operation Bagration

text: In order to maximize the chances of success, the maskirovka was a double bluff. The Soviets left four tank armies in the L'vov-Peremyshl area and allowed the Germans to know it. The attack into Romania in April–June further convinced the Soviets that the Axis forces in Romania needed removing and kept the Germans concerned about their defences there and in southern Poland, while drawing German forces to the L'vov sector. Once the offensive against Army Group Centre, which lacked mobile reserves and support, had been initiated, it would create a crisis in the central sector that would force the German armoured forces north to Byelorussia from Poland and Romania, despite the presence of powerful Soviet concentrations threatening German-occupied Poland.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The intent of the Soviets to strike their main blow towards the Vistula can be seen in the Red Army's (albeit fragmented) order of battle. The Soviet general staff studies of both the Byelorussian and L'vov-Sandomierz operations reveal that the L'vov-Przemyśl operation received the overwhelming number of tank and mechanized corps. Six guards tank corps and six tank corps along with three guards mechanized and two mechanized corps were committed to the L'vov operation. This totaled twelve tank and five mechanized corps. In contrast, Operation Bagrations Baltic and Byelorussian Fronts were allocated just eight tank and two mechanized corps. The 1st Byelorussian Front (an important part of the L'vov-Peremshyl operation) is not mentioned on the Soviet battle order for the offensive. It contained a further six armies and was to protect the flank of the Lublin–Brest Offensive as well as engage in offensive operations in that area.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The bulk of tactical resources, in particular anti-tank artillery, was allocated to the 1st Ukrainian Front, the spearhead of the Vistula, L'vov-Premyshl operation. Thirty-eight of the 54 anti-tank regiments allocated to the Byelorussian-Baltic-Ukrainian operations were given to the 1st Ukrainian Front. This demonstrates that the Soviet plans for the L'vov operation were a major consideration and whoever planned the offensive was determined to hold the recently captured territory. The target for this operation was the Vistula bridgehead and the enormous anti-tank artillery forces helped repulse big counter-attacks by German armoured formations in August–October 1944. One American author suggests that these Soviet innovations were enabled, in part, by the provision of over 220,000 Dodge and Studebaker trucks by the United States to motorize the Soviet infantry.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Most of the aviation units, fighter aircraft and assault aviation (strike aircraft) were given to the L'vov operation and the protection of the 1st Ukrainian Front. Of the 78 fighter and assault aviation divisions committed to Bagration, 32 were allocated to the L'vov operation, nearly fifty per cent of the aviation groups committed to Bagration and contained more than was committed to the Byelorussian operation. This concentration of aviation was to protect the Vistula bridgeheads against air attack and to assault German counteroffensives from the air.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Towards the beginning of June 1944, the German High Command, Army Group Center and the army commands had identified a large part of the concentration against Army Group Centre, although they still considered that the main operation would be against Army Group North Ukraine. On 14 June, the Chief of Staff of Army Group Centre told General Kurt Zeitzler, the Chief of the Army General Staff, that "...the Russian concentration here [in front of 9th Army] and at the Autobahn clearly indicates that the enemy attack will be aimed at the wings of the Army Group". On 10 June the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) adopted the opinion of Army Group Centre in its estimate of the enemy situation:


title: Operation Bagration

text: On 19 June Army Group Centre noted in its estimate of the enemy situation that the concentration of enemy air forces had become greater (4,500 out of 11,000) and that this left new doubts regarding OKH's estimate. OKH saw no grounds for this supposition. Shortly before the beginning of the Soviet offensive, the army commands had detected some enemy forces near the front and had identified the places where the main Soviet attacks would take place, with the exception of 6th Guards Army near Vitebsk. The Soviet strategic reserves were not detected.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The start of Operation Bagration involved many Soviet partisan formations in the Byelorussian SSR, which were instructed to resume their attacks on railways and communications. From 19 June large numbers of explosive charges were placed on rail tracks and though many were cleared, they had a significant disruptive effect. The partisans were also used to mop up encircled German forces once the breakthrough and exploitation phases of the operation were completed.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Stavka had committed approximately 1,670,300 combat and support personnel, approximately 32,718 artillery pieces and mortars, 5,818 tanks and assault guns and 7,799 aircraft. Army Group Centre's strength was 486,000 combat personnel (849,000 total, including support personnel). The army group had 3,236 field guns and other artillery pieces (not including mortars) but only 495 operational tanks and assault guns and 920 available aircraft, of which 602 were operational. Army Group Centre was seriously short of mobile reserves: the demotorized 14th Infantry Division was the only substantial reserve formation, though the 20th Panzer Division, with 56 tanks, was positioned in the south near Bobruisk and the Panzergrenadier Division Feldherrnhalle, still in the process of forming, was also held in reserve. Furthermore, the Germans were supported by collaborationist troops such as the Lithuanian Security Police. The relatively static lines in Byelorussia had enabled the Germans to construct extensive field fortifications, with multiple trench lines to a depth of several kilometres and heavily mined defensive belts.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Besides the pro-German and pro-Soviet forces, some third-party factions were also involved in the fighting during Operation Bagration, most notably several resistance groups of the Polish Home Army. The latter mostly fought both the German as well as the Soviet-led troops. Some Home Army partisan factions regarded the Soviet Union as the greater threat, however, and negotiated ceasefires or even "ad-hoc" alliances with the German occupation forces. Such deals were condemned by the Home Army's leadership, and several partisan officers who cooperated with the Germans against the Soviets were subsequently court-martialed. However, many times Polish Home Army fought Soviet troops in self-defence. Most often, Polish Home Army supported approaching Soviet forces and attacked German troops according to a plan of Operation Tempest. The plan was to cooperate with the advancing Red Army on a tactical level, while Polish civil authorities came out from underground and took power in Allied-controlled Polish territory. The plan failed, as Soviet troops would attack Polish Home Army groups after cooperation against German troops. Many Polish Home Army soldiers were killed in action, enlisted to the Soviet-controlled Polish People's Army, murdered, imprisoned or deported.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Wehrmacht's forces were based on logistic lines of communications and centres, which on Hitler's orders were declared "Feste Plätze" (fortified towns to be held at all costs) by OKH. General Jordan of 9th Army was very worried at how vulnerable this immobility made the army, correctly predicting that "if a Soviet offensive breaks out the Army will either have to go over to a mobile defence or see its front smashed". Because the initial offensive in Belarus was thought to be a feint, the "Feste Plätze" spanned the entire length of the Eastern Front. Army Group Centre had "Feste Plätze" at Vitebsk, Orsha, Mogilev, Baranovichi, Minsk, Babruysk, Slutsk, and Vilnius.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Operation Bagration was launched on a staggered schedule, with partisan attacks behind German lines beginning on 19–20 June. On the night of 21–22 June, the Red Army launched probing attacks on German frontline positions, combined with bombing raids on Wehrmacht's lines of communication. The main offensive began in the early morning of 22 June, with an artillery bombardment of unprecedented scale against the defensive works. The initial assault achieved breakthroughs almost everywhere.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The first phase of Soviet deep operations, the "deep battle", envisaged breaking through the tactical zones and forward German defences. Once these tactical offensives had been successful, fresh operational reserves were to exploit the breakthrough and the operational depths of the enemy front using powerful mechanized and armoured formations to encircle enemy concentrations on an Army Group scale.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Army Group Centre's northern flank was defended by the 3rd Panzer Army under the command of Georg-Hans Reinhardt; the lines ran through marshy terrain in the north, through a salient round the city of Vitebsk, to a sector north of the main Moscow–Minsk road, held by the 4th Army. It was opposed by the 1st Baltic Front of Hovhannes Bagramyan, and Ivan Chernyakhovsky's 3rd Belorussian Front, which were given the task of breaking through the defences to the north and south of Vitebsk and cutting off the salient.


title: Operation Bagration

text: In the north, the 1st Baltic Front pushed the German IX corps over the Dvina, while encircling the LIII Corps in the city of Vitebsk by 24 June, opening a gash in the frontline of wide. The Soviet command inserted its mobile forces to begin exploitation in the operational depth. To the south, the 3rd Belorussian Front attacked the VI Corps, pushing it so far to the south that it came under the command of the 4th Army.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The LIII Corps had received permission to retreat on 24 June with three divisions, while leaving one division behind in the "fester Platz Vitebsk". However, by the time the order arrived, the city was already encircled. General Friedrich Gollwitzer, the commander of the Vitebsk "strongpoint", decided to disobey the order and have all units of his corps break out at the same time. Abandoning its heavy equipment, the corps began a breakout attempt in the morning of 26 June but quickly ran into Soviet roadblocks outside the city. Vitebsk was taken by 29 June, the entire LIII Corps of 28,000 men eliminated from the German order of battle.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The 3rd Belorussian Front simultaneously opened operations against the 4th Army's XXVII Corps holding Orsha and the main Moscow-Minsk highway. Despite a tenacious German defense, Orsha was liberated by 26 June, and the 3rd Belorussian Front's mechanized forces were able to penetrate far into the German rear, reaching the Berezina River by 28 June.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The central sector of Soviet operations was against the long front of 4th Army, under the command of Kurt von Tippelskirch. Soviet plans envisaged the bulk of it, the XXXIX Panzer Corps and XII Corps, being encircled while pinned down by attacks from the 2nd Belorussian Front in the parallel Mogilev Offensive Operation. By far the most important Soviet objective, however, was the main Moscow–Minsk road and the town of Orsha, which the southern wing of Chernyakhovsky's 3rd Belorussian Front was ordered to take. A breakthrough in this area, against General Paul Völckers' XXVII Corps, would form the northern pincer of the encirclement. The Minsk highway was protected by extensive defensive works manned by the 78th Assault Division, a specially reinforced unit with extra artillery and assault gun support. Orsha itself had been designated a "Fester Platz" (stronghold) under 78th Division's commander.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Soviet assault on this sector opened on 22 June with a massive artillery barrage that destroyed defensive positions, flattened bunkers, and detonated ammunition stores. Infantry from the 11th Guards Army, 5th Army and 31st Army then attacked the German positions, breaking through the first defensive belt on the same day. The German deployment of its only reserve division was met the next day with the insertion of the massed Soviet tank brigades, which achieved the operational breakthrough. By 25 June, Soviet forces began to advance into the German rear.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Völckers' position was further threatened by the near-collapse of the 3rd Panzer Army's VI Corps, immediately to the north. By midnight on 25 June, the 11th Guards Army had shattered the remnant of VI Corps, and 26 June saw the German forces in retreat. Soviet tank forces of the 2nd Guards Tank Corps were able to push up the road towards Minsk at speed, with a subsidiary force breaking off to encircle Orsha, which was liberated on the evening of 26 June. The main exploitation force, Pavel Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army, was then committed through the gap in the German lines. VI Corps finally crumbled completely; its commander, General Georg Pfeiffer, was killed on 28 June after losing contact with his divisions. Achieving complete success, the operation effectively ceased with the arrival of 5th Guards Tank Army's forward units at the Berezina River on 28 June.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The centre of the 4th Army was holding the tip of the Byelorussian bulge, with the bulk of its forces on a shallow bridgehead east of the Dnieper River. The Mogilev Offensive opened with an intense artillery barrage against the German defensive lines on the morning of 22 June. The goal of the 2nd Belorussian Front (Colonel-General Gyorgy Zakharov) was to pin the 4th Army near Mogilev while the developing Vitebsk–Orsha and Bobruysk Offensives encircled it.


title: Operation Bagration

text: East of Mogilev, General Robert Martinek's XXXIX Panzer Corps attempted to hold its lines in the face of an assault by the 49th Army during which the latter suffered heavy casualties. The 4th Army commander, Tippelskirch, requested that the army be allowed to withdraw on 25 June. When the permission was not forthcoming, he authorised his units to withdraw to the Dnieper; this was countermanded by the Army Group commander, Busch, who instructed Tippelskirch to order the units to return to their positions. This was however impossible as a cohesive frontline no longer existed. With the front collapsing, Busch met with Hitler on 26 June and received the authorisation to pull the army back to the Berezina River, west of Mogilev. The 49th Army forced the Dnieper crossings on the evening of 27 June and fought its way into the city during the night, while mobile units enveloped the garrison from the northwest.


title: Operation Bagration

text: During the day both the German XII Corps and XXXIX Panzer Corps began falling back towards the Berezina crossings. Travel was nearly impossible by day, due to the omnipresence of the Soviet air force, while Soviet tank columns and roadblocks provided constant obstacles. The main body of 4th Army arrived at the crossing on 30 June. It largely completed the crossing by 2 July, under heavy Soviet bombardment, but was retreating into a trap. The Mogilev Offensive fulfilled all its immediate objectives; not only was the city itself taken, but the 4th Army was successfully prevented from disengaging in time to escape encirclement in the Minsk Offensive, which commenced immediately afterwards.


title: Operation Bagration

text: To capture Bobruysk, General Konstantin Rokossovsky proposed during the planning of Operation Bagration a multi-pronged approach by seizing both Bobruysk and Slutsk and ultimately destroying the German 9th Army under Generalfeldmarschall Hans Jordan by attacking both fortress cities with equal priority and strength, with which the Soviet General Staff and Joseph Stalin himself had initially disagreed. However, Rokossovsky stubbornly insisted and promised Stalin that the operation would be a success.


title: Operation Bagration

text: According to Rokossovsky's plan, the 1st Belorussian Front would be divided into two sectors - the Soviet 3rd Army under the command of General Alexander Gorbatov striking from Rogachev and the sector comprising the Soviet 10th, 28th and 65th Armies as well as the Cavalry-Mechanised Group(KMG) under the command of Lieutenant General Issa Pliyev mounting its assault from Parichi. The Rogachev sector would be supervised by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, while the group of forces in Parichi would be commanded by Konstantin Rokossovsky himself. A rivalry formed between the two of the most competent commanders of the Soviet Red Army as the two raced against each other towards Bobruysk.


title: Operation Bagration

text: On 24 June 1944, 7000 guns, mortars and BM-13 Katyusha rocket launchers of the 1st Belorussian Front unleashed their fury of projectiles upon the troops of the German 9th Army, while the Ilyushin-2 Shturmovik "Flying Tank" ground-attack aircraft strafed and bombed the German columns as the Red Air Force firmly controlled the skies of the Belorussian balcony. Following the colossal bombardment which was supposed to shatter the forward defences of the 9th Army, troops of the Soviet 3rd Army launched their assault from Rogachev, but were met with obstinate resistance from the Germans in that sector and sustained heavy casualties, while not many advancements were attained. Meanwhile, the sector under Konstantin Rokossovsky met much less retaliation, as the lines around Parichi were not heavily guarded by the German troops. In a magnificent demonstration of the Soviet Red Army's mastery over the deployment of mobile troops in accordance with the Deep Battle doctrine, the Cavalry-Mechanised Group(KMG) under the command of Lieutenant General Issa Pliev consisting of the 4th Guards Cavalry Corps and the 1st Mechanised Corps swept hastily across the edge of the Pripyet Marshes, subduing the German 9th Army troops defending "fester platz" Slutsk, cutting through the fortress, effectively hindering the bulk of the 9th Army's ability to flee through the south and ultimately sealing the fate of the battle-hardened unit on the lands of Belorussia. It was the ability of KMG Pliev to seize Slutsk and swing south against the 9th Army that truly showed the effectiveness of the combination of the anachronistic horse-mounted Soviet cavalrymen and the fleet of mechanised beasts of the Soviet armoured formations in the form of the Cavalry-Mechanised Group in striking deep into the operational depth of the opponent as envisaged by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky's Deep Battle doctrine.


title: Operation Bagration

text: With the flanks secured by the Cavalry-Mechanised Group and the escape routes of the 9th Army severed, the Soviet 65th Army swung north and soon entered the fortress city of Bobruysk. Heavy hand-to-hand fighting and ferocious urban warfare ensued, but the 65th Army was able to ultimately overcome the German 9th Army, capturing the stronghold by the 29th of June. The 9th Army was destroyed on 28 June after heavy fighting against the 65th Army, while they were unable to escape due to the fact that they had been cut off by the prior Soviet manoeuvres.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Due to the failures of the commander of Army Group Centre, Generalfeldmarschall Ernst Busch, to commit the 20th Panzer Division as a relief force to the 9th Army, he was sacked on the 28th by Adolf Hitler and replaced with the experienced master of defensive warfare, Walther Model.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The success of the Bobruysk Offensive was one that was so stupendous and respectable that Joseph Stalin began addressing Rokossovsky as Konstantin Konstantinovich as a sign of respect, a privilege that was only bestowed upon one other military officer, Boris Shaposhnikov. The vital victory at the crucial railway junction of Bobruysk had also earned Konstantin Rokossovsky the title of the Marshal of the Soviet Red Army, bringing the position and reputation of the former Gulag prionser along those of Georgy Zhukov and Ivan Konev.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The second phase of the operation involved the entire operation's most significant single objective: the retaking of Minsk, capital of the Byelorussian SSR. It would also complete the large-scale encirclement and destruction, set up by the first phase, of much of Army Group Centre.


title: Operation Bagration

text: From 28 June, the main exploitation units of the 3rd Belorussian Front (the 5th Guards Tank Army and an attached cavalry-mechanised group) began to push on to secure crossings of the Berezina, followed by the 11th Guards Army. In the south, exploitation forces of the 1st Belorussian Front began to close the lower pincer of the trap developing around the German 4th Army.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Germans brought back the 5th Panzer Division into Byelorussia to cover the approaches to Minsk, while the units of 4th Army began to withdraw over the Berezina crossings, where they were pounded by heavy air bombardment. After forcing crossings of the Berezina, Soviet forces closed in on Minsk. The 2nd Guards Tank Corps was the first to break into the city in the early hours of 3 July; fighting erupted in the centre, which was finally cleared of German rearguards by the following day. The 5th Guards Tank Army and 65th Army closed the encirclement to the west of Minsk, trapping the entire German 4th Army, and many of the remnants of the 9th Army.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Over the next few days, the pocket east of Minsk was reduced: only a fraction of the 100,000 soldiers in it escaped. Minsk had been liberated, and Army Group Centre destroyed, in what was possibly the Wehrmacht's greatest defeat of the war. Between 22 June and 4 July 1944, Army Group Centre lost 25 divisions and 300,000 men. In the few subsequent weeks, the Germans lost another 100,000 men.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Polotsk offensive had the dual objective of taking Polotsk itself, and of screening the northern flank of the main Minsk Offensive against a possible German counter-offensive from Army Group North.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The 1st Baltic Front successfully pursued the retreating remnants of the 3rd Panzer Army back towards Polotsk, which was reached by 1 July. German forces attempted to organise a defense using rear-area support units and several divisions hurriedly transferred from Army Group North.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Units of the 1st Baltic Front's 4th Shock Army and 6th Guards Army fought their way into the city over the next few days, and successfully cleared it of German forces by 4 July.


title: Operation Bagration

text: As German resistance had almost completely collapsed, Soviet forces were ordered to push on as far as possible beyond the original objective of Minsk, and new objectives were issued by the Stavka. This resulted in a third phase of offensive operations, which should be regarded as a further part of Operation Bagration.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Field Marshal Walter Model, who had taken over command of Army Group Centre on 28 June when Ernst Busch was dismissed, hoped to reestablish a defensive line running through Lida using what was left of the 3rd Panzer, 4th and 9th Armies along with new reinforcements.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Šiauliai offensive covered the operations of the 1st Baltic Front between 5 and 31 July against the remnants of the 3rd Panzer Army. Its main objective was the Lithuanian city of Šiauliai (; ).


title: Operation Bagration

text: The 43rd, 51st, and 2nd Guards Armies attacked towards Riga on the Baltic coast with 3rd Guards Mechanised Corps attached. By 31 July, the coast on the Gulf of Riga had been reached. 6th Guards Army covered Riga and the extended flank of the penetration towards the north.


title: Operation Bagration

text: A hurriedly organised German counter-attack restored the severed connection between the remnants of Army Group Centre and Army Group North. In August, the Germans attempted to retake Šiauliai in Operation Doppelkopf and Operation Cäsar, but they failed.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Vilnius offensive was conducted by units of the 3rd Belorussian Front subsequent to their completion of the Minsk Offensive; they were opposed by the remnants of 3rd Panzer Army and the 4th Army.


title: Operation Bagration

text: Units of the 4th Army, principally the 5th Panzer Division, attempted to hold the key rail junction of Molodechno, but failed. It was taken by units of the 11th Guards Army, 5th Guards Tank Army and 3rd Guards Cavalry Corps on 5 July. German forces continued a precipitate retreat, and Soviet forces reached Vilnius, held by units of the 3rd Panzer Army, by 7 July.


title: Operation Bagration

text: By 8 July, the city had been encircled, trapping the garrison, who were ordered to hold fast at all costs. Soviet forces then fought their way into the city in intense street-by-street fighting (alongside an Armia Krajowa uprising, Operation Ostra Brama). On 12 July, 6th Panzer Division counter-attacked and temporarily opened an escape corridor for the besieged troops, but the majority of them were lost when the city fell on 13 July (this phase of the operation is commonly known as the Battle of Vilnius). On 23 July, the 4th Army commander, Hoßbach, in agreement with Model, committed the newly arrived 19th Panzer Division into a counter-attack with the intention of cutting off the Soviet spearheads in the Augustow Forest. This failed.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Belostok offensive covered the operations of 2nd Belorussian Front between 5 and 27 July, with the objective of the Polish city of Białystok (Belostok). The 40th and 41st Rifle Corps of 3rd Army, on the front's left wing, took Białystok by storm on 27 July, after two days of fighting.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Lublin–Brest offensive was carried out by Marshal Rokossovsky's 1st Belorussian Front between 18 July and 2 August, and developed the initial gains of Operation Bagration toward eastern Poland and the Vistula. The 47th and 8th Guards Armies reached the Bug River by 21 July, and the latter reached the eastern bank of the Vistula by 25 July. Lublin was taken on 24 July; the 2nd Tank Army was ordered to turn north, towards Warsaw, to cut off the retreat of forces from Army Group Centre in the Brest area. Brest was taken on 28 July and the Front's left wing seized bridgeheads over the Vistula by 2 August. This effectively completed the operation, the remainder of the summer being given over to defensive efforts against a series of German counter-attacks on the bridgeheads.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Operation ended with the defeat of German Army Group North Ukraine and Soviet bridgeheads over the Vistula river west of Sandomierz.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The Kaunas offensive covered the operations of Chernyakhovsky's 3rd Belorussian Front from 28 July to 28 August, towards the Lithuanian city of Kaunas, subsequent to their completion of the offensive against Vilnius. By 30 July all Wehrmacht resistance on the approaches to the Neman River had retreated or been annihilated. Two days later the city of Kaunas was under Soviet control.


title: Operation Bagration

text: This offensive covered the operations of 2nd Belorussian Front from 6–14 August, after their completion of the Belostock Offensive, with the objective of the fortified area at Osowiec on one of the tributaries of the Narew River. The very large fortress complex there secured the approaches to East Prussia through the region's marshes.


title: Operation Bagration

text: German forces were able to stabilise their line of defense along the Narew, which they held until the East Prussian offensive of January 1945.


title: Operation Bagration

text: This was by far the greatest Soviet victory in numerical terms. The Red Army recaptured a vast amount of Soviet territory and occupied some Baltic and Polish territories whose population had suffered greatly under the German occupation. The advancing Soviets found cities destroyed, villages depopulated, and much of the population killed or deported by the occupiers. To show the outside world the magnitude of the victory, some 57,000 German prisoners, taken from the encirclement east of Minsk, were paraded through Moscow: even marching quickly and twenty abreast, they took 90 minutes to pass.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The German army never recovered from the materiel and manpower losses sustained during this time, having lost about a quarter of its Eastern Front manpower, exceeding even the percentage of loss at Stalingrad (about 17 full divisions). These losses included many experienced soldiers, NCOs and commissioned officers, which at this stage of the war the "Wehrmacht" could not replace. An indication of the completeness of the Soviet victory is that 31 of the 47 German divisional or corps commanders involved were killed or captured. Of the German generals lost, nine were killed, including two corps commanders; 22 captured, including four corps commanders; Major-General Hans Hahne, commander of 197th Infantry Division disappeared on 24 June, while Lieutenant-Generals Zutavern and Philipp of the 18th Panzergrenadier and 134th Infantry Divisions died by suicide.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The near-total destruction of Army Group Centre was very costly for the Germans. Exact German losses are unknown but newer research indicates around 400,000 casualties. Soviet losses were also substantial, with 180,040 killed and missing, 590,848 wounded and sick, together with 2,957 tanks, 2,447 artillery pieces and 822 aircraft also lost. The offensive cut off Army Group North and Army Group North Ukraine from each other and weakened them as resources were diverted to the central sector. This forced both Army Groups to withdraw from Soviet territory much more quickly when faced with the following Soviet offensives in their sectors.


title: Operation Bagration

text: The end of Operation Bagration coincided with the destruction of many of the strongest units of the "Wehrmacht" engaged against the Allies on the Western Front in the Falaise Pocket in Normandy, during Operation Overlord. After these victories, supply problems rather than German resistance slowed the Allies' advance. The Germans transfered armoured units from the Italian front, where they could afford to give ground, to resist the Soviet advance near Warsaw.


title: Operation Bagration

text: This was one of the largest Soviet operations of WWII with 2.3 million troops engaged, three Axis armies eliminated and vast amounts of Soviet territory recaptured.


title: Raclette

text: Raclette (, ) is a Swiss dish, also popular in the other Alpine countries, based on heating cheese and scraping off the melted part, then typically served with boiled potatoes. Raclette cheese is historically a dish originating from the canton of Valais in Switzerland. This cheese from Valais benefits from an AOP. Raclette cheese is also a Savoyard-type cheese marketed specifically to be used for this dish.


title: Raclette

text: Dishes of melted cheese were mentioned in medieval texts from Swiss convents as early as 1291. Melted cheese was originally consumed by peasants in the mountainous Alpine regions of the cantons of Valais and Fribourg (Switzerland), and Savoie and Haute-Savoie (France). It was then known in the German-speaking part of Switzerland as "Bratchäs" or "Bratkäse", "roasted cheese". Traditionally, cow herders carried cheese with them when they were moving cows to or from pastures up in the mountains. In the evening, the cheese would be placed next to a campfire for softening, then scraped onto bread.


title: Raclette

text: In Valais, raclette is typically served with potatoes, cornichons (fermented, pickled cucumbers), pickled onions, black tea, other warm beverages, or Fendant wine. A popular French option is to serve it with white wine, such as Savoy wine, but Riesling and pinot gris are also common. Traditionally, it is consumed with black tea, since a warm beverage supposedly improves digestion.


title: Raclette

text: In Switzerland, a scraper continuously serves all in the restaurant from an oven placed in a separated table or near a wood fire. In France, restaurateurs often place a raclette oven directly on the table, in which case the scraping is to be done by the guests.


title: Raclette

text: The name of the dish, Raclette, comes from the French verb "racler" to scrape. It refers to both the type of cheese and the dish it is served with.


title: Raclette

text: Raclette is a dish native to parts of Switzerland. The raclette cheese round is heated, either in front of a fire or by a special machine, then scraped onto diners' plates. In at least one traditional Geneva restaurant the solid cheese is impaled on a spike next to the fire so that it drips. Warm plates with two or three slices of boiled new potato are held underneath to catch the drips and served immediately to patrons, whose bill is calculated by the number of servings they eat.


title: Raclette

text: Traditionally the melting happens in front of an open fire, with the big piece of cheese facing the heat. One then regularly scrapes off the melting side. Some restaurants that serve raclette use a heat lamp to substitute for the open fire, with the cheese being put under the lamp as the customer orders and the melted cheese scraped off, as in the traditional method. The melted cheese is accompanied by small firm potatoes (Bintje, Charlotte or Raclette varieties), cornichons (gherkins), pickled onions, and dried meat, such as jambon cru/cuit, salami, and "viande des Grisons", and to drink, Kirsch, black or herbal tea or white wine from a Valais vineyard (a Fendant wine from the Chasselas grape).


title: Raclette

text: A modern way of serving raclette involves an electric table-top grill with small pans, known as "coupelles", in which slices of raclette cheese are melted. This new way has been used since the 1950s. Generally the grill is surmounted by a hot plate or griddle. In Switzerland the electrical raclette is called "raclonette". The device is put in the middle of the table. The cheese is brought to the table sliced, accompanied by platters of boiled or steamed potatoes, other vegetables, and charcuterie (various meats). These are then mixed with potatoes and topped with cheese in the small wedge-shaped coupelles that are placed under the grill to melt and brown the cheese. Alternatively, slices of cheese may be melted and simply poured over food on the plate. The emphasis in raclette dining is on relaxed and sociable eating and drinking, the meal often running to several hours. French and other European supermarkets generally stock both the grill apparatus and ready-sliced cheese and charcuterie selections, especially around Christmas. Restaurants also provide raclette evenings for parties or dinners.


title: Raclette

text: "Vercouline" is a raclette in which Bleu du Vercors-Sassenage is used. In Franche-Comté, the Bleu de Gex (or "Bleu du Haut Jura") and Morbier, both PDO, are used as variants.


title: LGBT slang

text: LGBT slang, LGBT speak, or gay slang is a set of English slang lexicon used predominantly among LGBT people. It has been used in various languages since the early 20th century as a means by which members of the LGBT community identify themselves and speak in code with brevity and speed to others. The acronym LGBT was popularized in the 1990s and stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender.


title: LGBT slang

text: Because of sodomy laws and threat of prosecution due to the criminalization of homosexuality, LGBT slang has served as an argot or cant, a secret language and a way for the LGBT community to communicate with each other publicly without revealing their sexual orientation to others. Since the advent of queer studies in universities, LGBT slang and argot has become a subject of academic research among linguistic anthropology scholars.


title: LGBT slang

text: During the first seven decades of the 20th century, a specific form of Polari was developed by gay men and lesbians in urban centres of the United Kingdom within established LGBT communities. Although there are differences, contemporary British gay slang has adopted many Polari words. The 1964 legislative report "Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida" contains an extensive appendix documenting and defining the homosexual slang in the United States at that time. SCRUFF launched a gay-slang dictionary app in 2014, which includes commonly used slang in the United States from the gay community. Specialized dictionaries that record LGBT slang have been found to revolve heavily around sexual matters.


title: LGBT slang

text: Slang is ephemeral. Terms used in one generation may pass out of usage in another. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s, the terms "cottage" (chiefly British) and "tearoom" (chiefly American) were used to denote public toilets used for sex. By 1999, this terminology had fallen out of use to the point of being greatly unrecognizable by members of the LGBT community at large.


title: LGBT slang

text: Many terms that originated as gay slang have become part of the popular lexicon. For example, the word "drag" was popularized by Hubert Selby Jr. in his book "Last Exit to Brooklyn". "Drag" has been traced back by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) to the late 19th Century. Conversely, words such as "banjee", while well-established in a subset of gay society, have never made the transition to popular use. Conversations between gay men have been found to use more slang and fewer commonly known terms about sexual behavior than conversations between straight men.


title: LGBT slang

text: In the Philippines, many LGBT people speak with Swardspeak, or "gay lingo", which is a more extensive use of slang as a form of dialect or way of speaking. Other argots are spoken in southern Africa (Gayle language and IsiNgqumo) and Indonesia (Bahasa Binan). More specifically, in a country like Thailand, LGBT slang was always present in their history due to their religious, behavioral, and social nature. Though, before the term LGBT was introduced, the Thai community would use the terms Kathoey and Tom. The term Kathoey was used to describe transgender women who dress, act, or partake in surgery to become female, and the term Tom as well as "handsome girls" in Thai was used to describe women who liked women. Homosexuality and transgenderism has always existed throughout their history, as well as their behavioral nature did not align with heterosexual ideals.


title: LGBT slang

text: The following slang terms have been used to represent various types of people within the LGBT community:


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: Years and Years is a dystopian science fiction drama television miniseries written by Russell T Davies. Taking place between 2019 and 2034, the six-part series follows the lives of the Lyons family, who witness increasingly tumultuous global affairs and the rise to power of Vivienne Rook, an outspoken British celebrity businesswoman turned populist politician whose controversial opinions divide the nation. The series was a co-production between the BBC and HBO, and premiered on BBC One on 14 May 2019 and on HBO on 24 June 2019. "Years and Years" stars Emma Thompson as Rook, alongside Russell Tovey, Rory Kinnear, T'Nia Miller, Ruth Madeley, Anne Reid, and Jessica Hynes as the Lyons family.


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: The series was directed by Simon Cellan Jones (episodes 1–4) and Lisa Mulcahy (episodes 5–6), with Davies, Jones, Michaela Fereday, Lucy Richer, and Nicola Shindler serving as executive producers. It received praise for its writing, characterisation, and exploration of modern political anxieties in a dystopian future. The show received three nominations at the 10th Critics' Choice Television Awards, in the categories of Best Limited Series, Best Supporting Actor in a Movie/Miniseries (for Tovey), and Best Supporting Actress in a Movie/Miniseries (for Thompson).


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: The six-part series follows the Manchester-based Lyons family: Daniel is married to Ralph, Stephen and Celeste worry about their children, Rosie is looking for a new partner, and Edith is engaged in one humanitarian cause after another. Presiding over them all is Gran, the imperious Muriel. All their lives converge on one crucial night in 2019, and the story accelerates into the future, following the lives and loves of the Lyons over the next fifteen years as Britain is rocked by political upheavals, economic instability and technological advances.


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: In June 2018, the BBC announced that Russell T Davies would write "Years and Years", which was described as "an epic drama following a family over 15 years of unstable political, economical and technological advances". Davies noted that he had been aiming to write the drama series for almost two decades.


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: In October 2018, it was announced that Emma Thompson had joined the cast as Vivienne Rook (who shares a name with another of Davies' characters, a journalist in the "Doctor Who" episode "The Sound of Drums"), alongside Rory Kinnear, T'Nia Miller, Russell Tovey, Jessica Hynes, Lydia West, Ruth Madeley, and Anne Reid. "Years and Years" was cast by Andy Pryor. It was also announced that the series would be directed by Simon Cellan Jones.


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: Filming began in Manchester on 22 October 2018 and was completed on 17 March 2019. Locations included Trafford Park for the refugee camp and Altcar Training Camp, Liverpool for the "Erstwhile" site.


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: The series was broadcast on BBC One in the UK, BBC First in The Netherlands and Belgium, HBO in the US, Mexico, Latin America, Poland, and Spain, SBS in Australia, Soho in New Zealand, Canal+ in France, and ZDF in Germany.


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 89% based on 66 critics' reviews, with an average score of 7.30/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Years and Years" scathingly critiques the present with a nihilistic projection of the future, leavening the devastating satire with a buoyant sense of humour and characters who are easy to become invested in." On Metacritic, the series has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Years and Years (TV series)

text: The series has been banned in China. Shortly after the premiere of the first episode, the show received an excellent rating of 9.5/10 on Douban, the largest movie review aggregator website in China, before being banned across Chinese search engines and social media. Relevant entries and posts, or even references to the name of the show, were filtered or promptly deleted from websites like Baidu and Weibo. Files with names containing "Years and Years" were taken down from the cloud storage service Baidu Wangpan. It is commonly believed that the censorship was due to the depiction of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the military confrontation between China and America in the South China Sea, which are deemed sensitive topics in China.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Inland Empire is a 2006 experimental horror film written, directed and co-produced by David Lynch. The film's cinematography, editing, score and sound design were also by Lynch, with pieces by a variety of other musicians also featured. Lynch's longtime collaborator and then-wife Mary Sweeney co-produced the film. The cast includes such Lynch regulars as Laura Dern, Justin Theroux, Harry Dean Stanton, and Grace Zabriskie, as well as Jeremy Irons, Karolina Gruszka, Peter J. Lucas, Krzysztof Majchrzak, and Julia Ormond. There are also brief appearances by a host of additional actors, including Nastassja Kinski, Laura Harring, Terry Crews, Mary Steenburgen, and William H. Macy. The voices of Harring, Naomi Watts, and Scott Coffey are included in excerpts from Lynch's 2002 "Rabbits" online project. The title borrows its name from a metropolitan area in Southern California.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Released with the tagline "A Woman in Trouble", the film follows the fragmented and nightmarish events surrounding a Hollywood actress (Laura Dern) who begins to take on the personality of a character she plays in a supposedly cursed film production. An international co-production between the United States, France, and Poland, the film was completed over a three-year period and shot primarily in Los Angeles and Poland. The process marked several firsts for Lynch: the film was shot without a finished screenplay, instead being largely developed on a scene-by-scene basis; and it was shot entirely in low-resolution digital video by Lynch himself using a handheld Sony camcorder rather than traditional film stock.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: "Inland Empire" premiered in Italy at the Venice Film Festival on 6 September 2006. It received generally positive but polarized reviews from critics, with attention centering on its challenging and surrealist elements. It was named the second-best film of 2007 (tied with two others) by "Cahiers du cinéma", and listed among "Sight & Sound"s "thirty best films of the 2000s", as well as "The Guardian"s "10 most underrated movies of the decade".


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: In a hotel room, the Lost Girl, a young prostitute, cries following an unpleasant encounter with a client while watching a television show about a family of surrealistic anthropomorphic rabbits who speak in cryptic statements and questions.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Meanwhile, in Los Angeles actress Nikki Grace auditions for the lead role in the film, "On High in Blue Tomorrows". In her mansion, she is visited by a neighbor, who asks about the film and then tells "an old tale": a boy passed through the doorway into the world, causing a reflection that gave birth to evil that followed him. Then she tells a variation: a girl was lost in the marketplace "as if half-born" while the alley behind the marketplace was the way to the palace. The woman is certain that Nikki will get the role, and insists, despite Nikki's claims to the contrary, that the plot involves murder. The next day, Nikki celebrates having won the role as her Polish husband Piotrek watches on.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: During the first rehearsal involving Nikki and the film's lead actor Devon, the actors are interrupted by a disturbance on the set. Devon investigates, but finds nothing. Shaken by the event, director Kingsley Stewart confesses that they are shooting a remake of a German film entitled "47", based on a Polish folk-tale. Production was abandoned after both leads were murdered, creating rumors of the film being cursed.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: After filming the first few romantic scenes between their respective characters Sue and Billy, Nikki and Devon begin an affair, despite earlier protestations that their relationship would be strictly professional and despite Piotrek warning Devon of "dark consequences" for "wrong actions". Nikki starts to have difficulties distinguishing between real life and scenes from the film. Entering a door marked "Axxon N." in an alley, she finds herself walking onto the set and causing the disturbance during the first rehearsal weeks earlier. Nikki runs away and enters a prop, which turns into an actual house. Inside the house, Nikki sees her husband going to bed. She hides from him in a closet, where she encounters a troupe of prostitutes.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: At this point, various plotlines and scenes begin to entwine and complement each other, with the chronological order and the distinction between characters unclear. Some scenes show her joining the (modern-day) prostitutes, while other scenes depicts prostitutes and pimps in a wintery Łódź in the 1930s. She is also shown to live a troubled marriage with her poor husband "Smithy". In another set of scenes, Nikki/Sue is talking to a policeman in a room above a nightclub. She tells him how she was sexually abused in her childhood and how her husband joined a traveling circus from Poland as a gamekeeper. She also speaks of the Phantom, a hypnotist who worked at the circus and then disappeared.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: In one scene, Sue confronts Billy in front of his family, professing her love. She is sent away and slapped by Billy's wife Doris. It is now revealed that Doris was the woman who earlier told a policeman that she had been hypnotized to kill someone and found a screwdriver sticking in her own stomach. Doris remembers that the Phantom hypnotized her to kill Sue.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Feeling stalked by the Phantom, Nikki/Sue arms herself with a screwdriver. Walking down Hollywood Boulevard she notices her doppelgänger and Doris and meets with the policeman above the nightclub. Outside, she is eventually stabbed by Doris with her own screwdriver. Nikki/Sue collapses at a bus stop next to two homeless women. One tells all kinds of strange stories about her friend Niko, while the other holds a lighter in front of Sue's face until she dies. Kingsley yells "Cut!" and the camera pans back to show this has merely been a film scene.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Kingsley informs Nikki that her scenes for the film are complete. In a daze, Nikki wanders off set and into a nearby cinema, where she sees not only "On High in Blue Tomorrows" but events that are occurring in real-time. She follows a man upstairs and enters an apartment marked "Axxon N". Confronted by the Phantom, Nikki shoots him. The Phantom transforms into a grotesque figure before dying. Nikki flees into Room 47, which houses the rabbits on television - though she fails to see them - and then meets the Lost Girl. The Lost Girl escapes from the hotel and into Smithy's house, where she happily embraces her husband and son. Nikki is back at her mansion.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: The film ends with a celebration involving the troupe of prostitutes, a one-legged woman mentioned earlier, Niko and her pet monkey and others. The women dance to Nina Simone's "Sinner Man", while a lumberjack saws a log to the beat.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: "Inland Empire" is the first Lynch feature to be completely shot in digital video; it was shot in standard definition with a hand-held Sony DSR-PD150 by Lynch himself. Lynch has stated that he will no longer use film to make motion pictures. He explained his preference, stating that the medium gives one "more room to dream", and more options in post-production. Much of the project was shot in Łódź, Poland, with local actors, such as Karolina Gruszka, Krzysztof Majchrzak, Leon Niemczyk, Piotr Andrzejewski and artists of the local circus Cyrk Zalewski. Some videography was also done in Los Angeles, and in 2006 Lynch returned from Poland to complete filming. Lynch then edited the final results in Final Cut Pro in his home office over six months. He did not work with frequent collaborator and editor Mary Sweeney because "there wasn't a real organized script to go by and no one knew what was going on except him."


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Lynch shot the film without a complete screenplay. Instead, he handed each actor several pages of freshly written dialogue each day. In a 2005 interview, he described his feelings about the shooting process:


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: "I've never worked on a project in this way before. I don't know exactly how this thing will finally unfold ... This film is very different because I don't have a script. I write the thing scene by scene and much of it is shot and I don't have much of a clue where it will end. It's a risk, but I have this feeling that because all things are unified, this idea over here in that room will somehow relate to that idea over there in the pink room."


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Interviewed at the Venice Film Festival, Laura Dern admitted that she did not know what "Inland Empire" was about or the role she was playing, but hoped that seeing the film's premiere at the festival would help her "learn more". Justin Theroux has also stated that he "couldn't possibly tell you what the film's about, and at this point I don't know that David Lynch could. It's become sort of a pastime—Laura [Dern] and I sit around on set trying to figure out what's going on." In an NPR interview, Dern recounted a conversation she had with one of the movie's new producers, Jeremy Alter. He asked if Lynch was joking when he requested a one-legged woman, a monkey and a lumberjack by 3:15. "Yeah, you're on a David Lynch movie, dude," Dern replied. "Sit back and enjoy the ride." Dern reported that by 4 p.m. they were shooting with the requested individuals.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Lynch financed much of the production from his own resources, with longtime artistic collaborator and ex-wife Mary Sweeney producing. The film was also partially financed by the French production company StudioCanal, which had provided funding for three previous Lynch films. StudioCanal wanted to enter the film in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Instead, it premiered at Italy's Venice Film Festival on 6 September 2006, where David Lynch also received the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award for his "contributions to the art of cinema". The film premiered in the United States on 8 October 2006 at the New York Film Festival. The film received a limited release in the US beginning on 15 December 2006; distribution was handled by the specialist company 518 Media.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Lynch hoped to distribute the film independently, saying that with the entire industry changing, he thought he would attempt a new form of distribution as well. He acquired the rights to the DVD and worked out a deal with StudioCanal in an arrangement that allowed him to distribute the film himself, through both digital and traditional means. A North American DVD release occurred on 14 August 2007. Among other special features, the DVD included a 75-minute featurette, "More Things That Happened", which compiled footage elaborating on Sue's marriage to Smithy, her unpleasant life story, the Phantom's influence on women, and the lives of the prostitutes on Hollywood Boulevard. 15 years after the North American DVD release, The Criterion Collection announced a 2 disc Blu-ray that was scheduled to release on 21 March 2022.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Lynch contributed a number of his own compositions to the film's soundtrack, marking a departure from his frequent collaborations with composer Angelo Badalamenti. His pieces range from minimalist ambient music to more pop-oriented tracks such as "Ghost of Love". Polish composer Marek Zebrowski wrote music for the film, and acted as music consultant. The soundtrack includes the following musical pieces:


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: When asked about "Inland Empire", Lynch refrained from explaining the film, responding that it is "about a woman in trouble, and it's a mystery, and that's all I want to say about it." When presenting screenings of the digital work, Lynch sometimes offers a clue in the form of a quotation from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad:


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: We are like the spider. We weave our life and then move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream. This is true for the entire universe.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: New York Film Festival official Richard Peña summarized the film as "a plotless collection of snippets that explore themes Lynch has been working on for years", including "a Hollywood story about a young actress who gets a part in a film that might be cursed; a story about the smuggling of women from Eastern Europe; and an abstract story about a family of people with rabbit heads sitting around in a living room." "The Guardian" critic Peter Bradshaw called the film "a meditation on the unacknowledged and unnoticed strangeness of Hollywood and movie-making in general", adding that Lynch "establishes a bizarre series of worm-holes between the worlds of myth, movies and reality." Critic Mark Fisher wrote that the film "often seems like a series of dream sequences floating free of any grounding reality, a dream without a dreamer [in which] no frame is secure", but argued that "it is the "film" that is mad, not the characters in it ... it is Hollywood itself that is dreaming". He also commented that "to see Lynch's worlds captured on digital video makes for a bizarre short-circuiting: as if we are witnessing a direct feed from the unconscious".


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Dennis Lim of "Slate" described the film as "a three-hour waking nightmare that derives both its form and its content from the splintering psyche of a troubled Hollywood actress", and commented on Lynch's use of digital video, describing it as "the medium of home movies, viral video, and pornography—the everyday media detritus we associate more with ... intimate or private viewing experiences than communal ones", adding that the film "progresses with the darting, associative logic of hyperlinks". Scholar Anne Jerslev has argued that the film "constitutes multiple and fractured modes of perception in a world of digital screens". Other critics have argued that the film features "formal similarities with a website's hyperlinked layering of screens/windows, constantly disclosing new worlds from new points of view", but according to theorist Steven Shaviro "it also builds on cinematic codes, even as it deconstructs them". The scholar Delorme argues that the film is oriented around the issue of adultery, while "[t]he narrative is constructed on strange characters brought together by a similar terror".


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: The film was screened at several film festivals around the world, most notably the Venice Film Festival in Italy, New York Film Festival in New York, United States, the Thessaloniki Film Festival in Greece, Camerimage Film Festival in Poland, Fajr International Film Festival in Iran, International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands and the Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo de la Ciudad de México in México City, Mexico.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: "Inland Empire" was released and distributed by Ryko to the United States on 14 August 2007. It was released on 20 August in the United Kingdom, 4 October in Belgium and the Netherlands, with distribution by A-Film and 6 August 2008 in Australia, with distribution by Madman Entertainment.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: 518 Media released "Inland Empire" to two theaters in the United States on 6 December 2006, grossing a total of $27,508 over its opening weekend. It later expanded to its widest release of fifteen nationwide theaters, ultimately grossing $861,355 at the American box office. In other countries outside the United States, "Inland Empire" grossed $3,176,222, bringing the film's worldwide total gross to $4,037,577.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 72% based on 109 reviews, with an average score of 7.20/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Typical David Lynch fare: fans of the director will find "Inland Empire" seductive and deep. All others will consider the heady surrealism impenetrable and pointless." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 73 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: "The New York Times" classified "Inland Empire" as "fitfully brilliant" after the Venice Film Festival screening. Peter Travers, the film critic for "Rolling Stone" magazine wrote, "My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on." "The New Yorker" was one of the few publications to offer any negative points about the film, calling it a "trenchant, nuanced film" that "quickly devolves into self-parody". Jonathan Ross, presenter of the BBC programme "Film 2007", described it as "a work of genius ... I think". Damon Wise of "Empire" magazine gave it five stars, calling it "A dazzling and exquisitely original riddle as told by an enigma" and Jim Emerson (editor of RogerEbert.com) gave it 4 stars and praised it: "When people say "Inland Empire" is Lynch's "Sunset Boulevard", Lynch's "Persona" or Lynch's "8½", they're quite right, but it also explicitly invokes connections to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining", Jean-Luc Godard's "Pierrot le Fou", Buñuel and Dalí's "Un Chien Andalou", Maya Deren's LA-experimental "Meshes of the Afternoon" (a Lynch favorite) and others". However, Carina Chocano of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote that "the film, which begins promisingly, disappears down so many rabbit holes (one of them involving actual rabbits) that eventually it just disappears for good".


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Dern received near universal acclaim for her performance, with many reviews describing it as her finest to date. Lynch attempted to promote Dern's chances of an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination at the 2007 Academy Awards by campaigning with a live cow. She was not nominated for the award.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: "Inland Empire" was restored and remastered by Janus Films in 2022, and will be screened in theatres. The restoration of the film and soundtrack was overseen by David Lynch. For the restoration the original upscaled HD footage from the editing process was first downscaled back to standard definition to discard “false detail,” then converted to 4K using an AI upscaling algorithm.


title: Inland Empire (film)

text: Motion in the release might appear jiggery to some since the original camcorder footage was shot in 60i on MiniDV tapes while the restoration is supposedly in sourced from a HDCAM 24 frames per second master, meaning that there are 6 frames missing on every second of the film (12 frames when counting the field rate of interlaced source material).


title: Making a Murderer

text: Making a Murderer is an American true crime documentary television series written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. The show tells the story of Steven Avery, a man from Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, who served 18 years in prison (1985-2003) after his wrongful conviction for the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen. He was later charged with and convicted of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach. The connected story is that of Avery's nephew Brendan Dassey, who was accused and convicted as an accessory in the murder of Halbach.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The first season mainly chronicles the period between 1985 and 2007, portraying Avery's 1985 arrest and conviction, his subsequent exoneration and release in 2003, the civil lawsuit Avery filed against Manitowoc County, his 2005 arrest, and his ensuing trial and conviction in 2007. It also depicts the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Dassey, focusing on the accusations of coercion and attorney ineptitude.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The second season explores the aftermath of both Avery's and Dassey's convictions, focusing on Avery's and Dassey's families, the investigation and findings of Avery's new attorney Kathleen Zellner, which supported the thesis of Avery's innocence and him being framed for the murder of Halbach, and Dassey's legal team's efforts in arguing that his confession was coerced by prosecutors and his constitutional rights were violated.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The first season premiered on Netflix on December 18, 2015. It was filmed over the course of 10 years, with the filmmakers moving back and forth from New York City to Wisconsin during filming. To promote the series, Netflix released the first episode concurrently on YouTube and on Netflix, which it had not done for any other original programming.


title: Making a Murderer

text: In July 2016, Netflix announced the second season, to explore the aftermath of Dassey's conviction and the numerous appeals that had taken place. The 10-episode second season was released on October 19, 2018.


title: Making a Murderer

text: "Making a Murderer" won several awards, including four Primetime Emmy Awards in 2016. As a production, the series was favorably compared to the HBO series "The Jinx" and the podcast "Serial". "Making a Murderer" was widely viewed and has generated considerable controversy, both in Manitowoc County, the setting of events, and nationwide. A petition in December 2015 to the White House to pardon Avery garnered more than 500,000 signatures. The White House's statement noted "the President cannot pardon a state criminal offense."


title: Making a Murderer

text: "Making a Murderer" details the life of Steven Avery, a man whose family owned an auto salvage yard in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin. In 1985, Avery was arrested and convicted of the sexual assault of Penny Beerntsen, despite having an alibi. After serving 18 years in prison, Avery was exonerated with the aid of the Innocence Project, when the DNA in the case was matched to another man. After Avery was released from prison in 2003, he filed a $36 million civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County and several county officials associated with his arrest and conviction.


title: Making a Murderer

text: Two years later, in 2005, Avery was arrested and charged with the murder of Teresa Halbach, a photographer who disappeared after she photographed a vehicle at Avery's salvage yard. The handling of the Halbach murder case was highly controversial. Steven Avery and his lawyers argued that he had once again been "set up". Bloodstains recovered from the interior of Halbach's car matched Avery's DNA. Avery maintained that the murder charge was a frameup, promulgated to discredit his pending civil case. His attorneys accused Manitowoc officials of evidence tampering after a vial of Avery's blood, stored in an evidence locker since the 1985 trial, was found with broken container seals and a puncture hole in the stopper, suggesting that blood from the vial could have been used to plant incriminating evidence in the victim's vehicle. The Avery tube contained ethylenediamine-tetraacetic acid (EDTA), which prevents blood coagulation and degradation. EDTA is not naturally present in human blood, and the defense argued that if EDTA was found in the crime scene blood, it would prove the blood was planted. While the tampering charge was never substantiated, accusations of prosecutorial misconduct have persisted. The series further explores issues and procedures in the Manitowoc County Sheriff's Department that led to Avery's original conviction, and suggests that the department had a conflict of interest in investigating Halbach's murder.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The series also covers the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Avery's nephew, Brendan Dassey, who was accused and convicted as an accessory to the murder, based largely on his confession under interrogation. The series depicts his trial, along with subsequent accusations of coercion and ineffective assistance of counsel.


title: Making a Murderer

text: On August 12, 2016, Dassey had his conviction overturned by a federal judge on the grounds that he was unconstitutionally coerced by the police into confessing to the murder, and this was the only substantial evidence in the case. On November 14, 2016, Federal District Court Judge William Duffin ordered Dassey's release from prison within 90 days if Wisconsin prosecutors did not move forward with a retrial. On November 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit blocked Dassey's release while the appeal was being heard. A three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit affirmed Judge Duffin's decision to release Dassey, and stated that Dassey should be freed unless the state chose to retry him. In December 2017, an en banc panel of seven judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled in favor of upholding the original conviction, in a split vote of 4 to 3, ruling that police had properly obtained Dassey's confession. In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Dassey's appeal of the 7th Circuit's en banc decision.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The story of the crime for which Avery was initially charged and imprisoned was featured in the "Radiolab" episode, "Are You Sure?" (airdate March 26, 2013), in the segment "Reasonable Doubt". The show featured an interview with Penny Beerntsen, the subject of the attack for which Avery was wrongfully convicted.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The series was written and directed by filmmakers Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. They met as graduate students in Columbia University's film program. The two learned about Avery after reading a 2005 article in "The New York Times" about his 2003 exoneration and 2005 arrest for murder. Both thought that his case could be an interesting subject for a documentary.


title: Making a Murderer

text: Before meeting with Netflix, Demos and Ricciardi met with executives at PBS and HBO, but neither network was interested in the project. Netflix originally planned an eight-episode first season, but later expanded its order to 10.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The show's graphics and main title sequence were completed by Santa Monica–based design studio Elastic.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The series alternately received praise and criticism from critics. Some praised its comprehensive nature, and the first season has an approval rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 8.65 out of 10. The site's critical consensus describes "Making a Murderer" as "a spellbinding slow burn that effectively utilizes the documentary format to tell a twisty mystery." On Metacritic, the first season has a weighted average score of 84 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Lenika Cruz, writing for "The Atlantic", commended the series for its "sense of total immersion". Mike Hale, for "The New York Times," described it as giving an:


title: Making a Murderer

text: Some critics, however, have described "Making a Murderer" as one-sided and emotionally manipulative. Prosecutor Ken Kratz claimed that key evidence from the trial was omitted from the documentary, claiming that, on one of Halbach's previous visits, Avery had come to the door in his towel, and that Halbach "said she wouldn't go back because she was scared of him."


title: Making a Murderer

text: "Making a Murderer" has been compared to "The Jinx", a miniseries on HBO, and "Serial", a podcast. All three series investigate criminal cases: "The Jinx" detailed murders allegedly committed by Robert Durst. The first season of "Serial" dealt with the Killing of Hae Min Lee.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The second season received positive reviews from critics, although less acclaimed than the first season. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 71% approval rating based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 6.52 out of 10. The site's critical consensus is, ""Making a Murderer"s return may not yield closure for this maddening saga of crime and punishment, but the series' exploration of the U.S. justice system remains riveting." On Metacritic, it has a score of 67 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Making a Murderer

text: The series gained a very large international audience. Some celebrities, including Alec Baldwin, Ricky Gervais, and Mandy Moore, praised the series on social media.


title: Making a Murderer

text: A petition to the White House that requested pardons for Avery and Dassey garnered more than 128,000 signatures. The White House responded that, as the convictions were made in state court, the President had no authority to pardon either defendant. Then-governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin said he would not consider a pardon.


title: Making a Murderer

text: Dassey is being represented by the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern University. Appeals within the state courts failed, but his conviction was overturned in federal district court on August 12, 2016, by a Magistrate Judge, based on the unconstitutional coercion of his confession. His defense team had petitioned the court to hear his case on "habeas corpus" grounds. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit granted a stay of the release on November 16, 2016, pending resolution of the appeal.


title: Making a Murderer

text: As of January 9, 2016, Avery was being represented by Kathleen Zellner, a noted Chicago-area attorney, and Tricia Bushnell, legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project. In April 2019 Bushnell stopped representing Avery.


title: Making a Murderer

text: Local reporter Angenette Levy was interviewed after the series and said: "I did notice there were some parts of the state's theory, and some other things that weren't discussed in the documentary," but she also noted that it was a six-week trial with much evidence reviewed in court. She said she was surprised that the trial, which she found compelling on many levels, had not received more national attention when it was being conducted. She found Dassey's conviction "tragic," as was Avery's wrongful conviction in 1985 but did not comment on the conviction in the Halbach case. TV reporter Diana Alvear wrote on her blog that she believed Halbach's life and character deserved more coverage in the series. Other local reporters said that the case still weighed on them nearly a decade after the trial.


title: Making a Murderer

text: In an interview with the Manitowoc "Herald Times Reporter," Sheriff Robert Hermann criticized the series, calling it "skewed" and not objective, but he admitted he had not watched it.


title: Making a Murderer

text: According to Fox local news, Ken Kratz, the former Calumet County district attorney who prosecuted Avery, said that he had not been able to give his side of the story. In another interview, he said that in 2013 Demos and Ricciardi denied him an opportunity for an interview. The documentary makers said this statement was false, as it was Kratz who refused an interview.


title: Making a Murderer

text: In an interview with "People" magazine, Kratz has said that the Netflix documentary left out key pieces of evidence against Steven Avery. He said Avery used a fake name when requesting Halbach as a photographer, and that he had placed three calls to her cell phone on October 31. Kratz said Halbach's cellphone, camera and PDA were found near Avery's trailer. He noted other physical evidence that was found in the firepit on Avery's property, and that Avery's DNA was found on the hood latch of the victim's car. A ballistics report indicated that the bullet found in the garage was fired by Avery's rifle. In an email sent to The Wrap"," Kratz alleged that while in prison for the rape conviction, Avery told another inmate of his intent to build a "torture chamber" to use for young women when he was released.


title: Making a Murderer

text: In February 2017, Kratz published a book titled "Avery: The Case Against Steven Avery and What "Making a Murderer" Gets Wrong".


title: Making a Murderer

text: The filmmakers have said that they gave prosecutors an opportunity to answer questions, but that Kratz refused invitations to be interviewed for the series. Demos and Ricciardi said they believed the documentary was fair and included the most significant evidence of the six-week trial, including much of the state's key evidence. Demos said that Kratz "is going on television and lodging accusations against us. Much of what he says, simply his facts are not true. It's not about 'do we include it, do we not include it', they simply are not facts." The filmmakers maintain that their documentary was thorough, accurate, and fair.


title: Making a Murderer

text: Dean Strang, one of Avery's attorneys for the Halbach trial, stated the filmmakers did "a good editorial job" with the documentary. Strang noted that the trial lasted for six weeks and featured approximately 200 to 240 hours of evidence. Strang believes that showing the full trial would have been too long for audiences and that only the most significant points on both sides could be shown. He disagreed that significant evidence was left out.


title: Making a Murderer

text: Jodi Stachowski, a former fiancée of Avery's, defended him in the documentary. But, during an interview on HLN's "Nancy Grace" in January 2016, she was asked whether she believes Avery killed Halbach. She said, "Yes, I do, because he threatened to kill me and my family and a friend of mine." Stachowski also said that Avery forced her to lie to Netflix producers, threatening that otherwise she would "pay for it." She quoted other alleged comments by him.


title: Making a Murderer

text: The Halbach family stated they were "saddened to learn that individuals and corporations continue to create entertainment and to seek profit from their loss." In a "People" article, Kay Giordana, Halbach's aunt, was quoted as saying that the documentary was "terrible" and "unfortunate", and


title: Making a Murderer

text: not even close to what really happened. Everybody has their own side of a story. That is the Avery family's side of the story. I wouldn't expect it to be different. They think he is innocent. I am not surprised. I am surprised that someone would put that together in that way and have it [be] one-sided." She added that Avery is "100 percent guilty. No doubt about it."


title: Making a Murderer

text: Halbach's cousin-in-law, Jeremy Fournier, described the documentary as "very one-sided" and feels that viewers are "only getting one side of the story."


title: Making a Murderer

text: Beerntsen, whose testimony contributed to the wrongful conviction of Avery for rape, declined to be interviewed for "Making a Murderer." Beerntsen had previously apologized to Avery, in 2003, after learning of his exoneration; they later met and collaborated on The Forgiveness Project. In a 2016 interview, Beerntsen said she had watched the show and that its portrayal of her case was accurate. However, as to the murder of Halbach, Beerntsen expressed that she was "not convinced" of his innocence, and that she had refused to speak to the documentary's producers for being "too close with Avery’s family and attorneys".


title: Ryan Roslansky

text: Ryan Roslansky (born December 4, 1977 in South Lake Tahoe, California) is an American entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) of LinkedIn, a business-related social networking website, since June 2020 stepping up from his previous position as Senior Vice President. He started with LinkedIn in 2009 and was instrumental in the $1.5 billion acquisition of Lynda.com in 2015, the largest acquisition in LinkedIn's history at that time. In 2021, he was named to Forbes CEO Next list.


title: Ryan Roslansky

text: Roslansky left college in his sophomore year to focus full time on the company he and two roommates created. He became CEO of the company, Housing Media, and in 1999 it was acquired by USHousing.com. He went to Yahoo!, where he met and worked under Jeff Weiner for five years. After a short stint at Glam Media, Roslansky went to LinkedIn in 2009 as one of Weiner's first hires. Weiner named Roslansky his replacement as LinkedIn CEO on February 5, 2020.


title: Ryan Roslansky

text: In June 2020, Roslansky was named CEO of LinkedIn, replacing predecessor Jeff Weiner. Ryan joined the company in May 2009 and held leadership roles in every part of LinkedIn’s business. He led the evolution of LinkedIn’s products into a global ecosystem of more than 756 million members, 57 million companies, 120 thousand schools, and 38 thousand skills. He launched several new initiatives for the company including the Influencer program (which includes Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and Bill Gates, among others,) and founded the editorial team which today boasts 75+ writers and editors. In 2015, Roslansky was a key part of the $1.5 billion acquisition of Lynda.com, the largest acquisition in LinkedIn's history at that time.


title: Ryan Roslansky

text: In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Microsoft and Linkedin pledged to upskill 25 million workers and in 2021, has surpassed that number.


title: Ryan Roslansky

text: In 2021, Roslansky partnered with John Kerry on an effort to address Climate Change through a focus on job creation.


title: Ryan Roslansky

text: In 2021, Roslansky coined the term Great Reshuffle to describe talent shifts occurring through data on the LinkedIn platform.


title: Ryan Roslansky

text: Roslansky is an investor and advisor to companies including Wealthfront, NerdWallet, UserTesting, Deal.com, Cricket Health, Darwin Homes, Fortella, ScoreBeyond, and more. He is also on the board of directors of GoDaddy.


title: Microcontroller

text: A microcontroller (MCU for "microcontroller unit") is a small computer on a single VLSI integrated circuit (IC) chip. A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs (processor cores) along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of ferroelectric RAM, NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a small amount of RAM. Microcontrollers are designed for embedded applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used in personal computers or other general purpose applications consisting of various discrete chips.


title: Microcontroller

text: In modern terminology, a microcontroller is similar to, but less sophisticated than, a system on a chip (SoC). An SoC may connect the external microcontroller chips as the motherboard components, but an SoC usually integrates the advanced peripherals like graphics processing unit (GPU) and Wi-Fi interface controller as its internal microcontroller unit circuits.


title: Microcontroller

text: Microcontrollers are used in automatically controlled products and devices, such as automobile engine control systems, implantable medical devices, remote controls, office machines, appliances, power tools, toys and other embedded systems. By reducing the size and cost compared to a design that uses a separate microprocessor, memory, and input/output devices, microcontrollers make it economical to digitally control even more devices and processes. Mixed signal microcontrollers are common, integrating analog components needed to control non-digital electronic systems. In the context of the internet of things, microcontrollers are an economical and popular means of data collection, sensing and actuating the physical world as edge devices.


title: Microcontroller

text: Some microcontrollers may use four-bit words and operate at frequencies as low as for low power consumption (single-digit milliwatts or microwatts). They generally have the ability to retain functionality while waiting for an event such as a button press or other interrupt; power consumption while sleeping (CPU clock and most peripherals off) may be just nanowatts, making many of them well suited for long lasting battery applications. Other microcontrollers may serve performance-critical roles, where they may need to act more like a digital signal processor (DSP), with higher clock speeds and power consumption.


title: Microcontroller

text: The first multi-chip microprocessors, the Four-Phase Systems AL1 in 1969 and the Garrett AiResearch MP944 in 1970, were developed with multiple MOS LSI chips. The first single-chip microprocessor was the Intel 4004, released on a single MOS LSI chip in 1971. It was developed by Federico Faggin, using his silicon-gate MOS technology, along with Intel engineers Marcian Hoff and Stan Mazor, and Busicom engineer Masatoshi Shima. It was followed by the 4-bit Intel 4040, the 8-bit Intel 8008, and the 8-bit Intel 8080. All of these processors required several external chips to implement a working system, including memory and peripheral interface chips. As a result, the total system cost was several hundred (1970s US) dollars, making it impossible to economically computerize small appliances.


title: Microcontroller

text: MOS Technology introduced its sub-$100 microprocessors in 1975, the 6501 and 6502. Their chief aim was to reduce this cost barrier but these microprocessors still required external support, memory, and peripheral chips which kept the total system cost in the hundreds of dollars.


title: Microcontroller

text: One book credits TI engineers Gary Boone and Michael Cochran with the successful creation of the first microcontroller in 1971. The result of their work was the TMS 1000, which became commercially available in 1974. It combined read-only memory, read/write memory, processor and clock on one chip and was targeted at embedded systems.


title: Microcontroller

text: During the early-to-mid-1970s, Japanese electronics manufacturers began producing microcontrollers for automobiles, including 4-bit MCUs for in-car entertainment, automatic wipers, electronic locks, and dashboard, and 8-bit MCUs for engine control.


title: Microcontroller

text: Partly in response to the existence of the single-chip TMS 1000, Intel developed a computer system on a chip optimized for control applications, the Intel 8048, with commercial parts first shipping in 1977. It combined RAM and ROM on the same chip with a microprocessor. Among numerous applications, this chip would eventually find its way into over one billion PC keyboards. At that time Intel's President, Luke J. Valenter, stated that the microcontroller was one of the most successful products in the company's history, and he expanded the microcontroller division's budget by over 25%.


title: Microcontroller

text: Most microcontrollers at this time had concurrent variants. One had EPROM program memory, with a transparent quartz window in the lid of the package to allow it to be erased by exposure to ultraviolet light. These erasable chips were often used for prototyping. The other variant was either a mask programmed ROM or a PROM variant which was only programmable once. For the latter, sometimes the designation OTP was used, standing for "one-time programmable". In an OTP microcontroller, the PROM was usually of identical type as the EPROM, but the chip package had no quartz window; because there was no way to expose the EPROM to ultraviolet light, it could not be erased. Because the erasable versions required ceramic packages with quartz windows, they were significantly more expensive than the OTP versions, which could be made in lower-cost opaque plastic packages. For the erasable variants, quartz was required, instead of less expensive glass, for its transparency to ultraviolet light—to which glass is largely opaque—but the main cost differentiator was the ceramic package itself.


title: Microcontroller

text: In 1993, the introduction of EEPROM memory allowed microcontrollers (beginning with the Microchip PIC16C84) to be electrically erased quickly without an expensive package as required for EPROM, allowing both rapid prototyping, and in-system programming. (EEPROM technology had been available prior to this time, but the earlier EEPROM was more expensive and less durable, making it unsuitable for low-cost mass-produced microcontrollers.) The same year, Atmel introduced the first microcontroller using Flash memory, a special type of EEPROM. Other companies rapidly followed suit, with both memory types.


title: Microcontroller

text: Nowadays microcontrollers are cheap and readily available for hobbyists, with large online communities around certain processors.


title: Microcontroller

text: Over two billion 8-bit microcontrollers were sold in 1997, and according to Semico, over four billion 8-bit microcontrollers were sold in 2006. More recently, Semico has claimed the MCU market grew 36.5% in 2010 and 12% in 2011.


title: Microcontroller

text: A typical home in a developed country is likely to have only four general-purpose microprocessors but around three dozen microcontrollers. A typical mid-range automobile has about 30 microcontrollers. They can also be found in many electrical devices such as washing machines, microwave ovens, and telephones.


title: Microcontroller

text: Cost has plummeted over time, with the cheapest 8-bit microcontrollers being available for under in 2018, and some 32-bit microcontrollers around for similar quantities.


title: Microcontroller

text: In 2012, following a global crisis—a worst ever annual sales decline and recovery and average sales price year-over-year plunging 17%—the biggest reduction since the 1980s—the average price for a microcontroller was ( for 4-/8-bit, for 16-bit, for 32-bit).


title: Microcontroller

text: In 2012, worldwide sales of 8-bit microcontrollers were around , while 4-bit microcontrollers also saw significant sales.


title: Microcontroller

text: In 2015, 8-bit microcontrollers could be bought for (1,000 units), 16-bit for (1,000 units), and 32-bit for (1,000 units, but at for 5,000).


title: Microcontroller

text: In 2018, 8-bit microcontrollers could be bought for , 16-bit for (1,000 units, but at for 100 or for full reel of 2,000), and 32-bit for (1,000 units, but at for 5,000).


title: Microcontroller

text: In 2018, the low-priced microcontrollers above from 2015 were all more expensive (with inflation calculated between 2018 and 2015 prices for those specific units) at: the 8-bit microcontroller could be bought for (1,000 units) or 2.6% higher, the 16-bit one for (1,000 units) or 21% higher, and the 32-bit one for (1,000 units, but at for 5,000) or 33% higher.


title: Microcontroller

text: On 21 June 2018, the "world's smallest computer" was announced by the University of Michigan. The device is a " wireless and batteryless sensor system with integrated Cortex-M0+ processor and optical communication for cellular temperature measurement." It "measures just to a side—dwarfed by a grain of rice. [...] In addition to the RAM and photovoltaics, the new computing devices have processors and wireless transmitters and receivers. Because they are too small to have conventional radio antennae, they receive and transmit data with visible light. A base station provides light for power and programming, and it receives the data." The device is th the size of IBM's previously claimed world-record-sized computer from months back in March 2018, which is "smaller than a grain of salt", has a million transistors, costs less than to manufacture, and, combined with blockchain technology, is intended for logistics and "crypto-anchors"—digital fingerprint applications.


title: Microcontroller

text: A microcontroller can be considered a self-contained system with a processor, memory and peripherals and can be used as an embedded system. The majority of microcontrollers in use today are embedded in other machinery, such as automobiles, telephones, appliances, and peripherals for computer systems.


title: Microcontroller

text: While some embedded systems are very sophisticated, many have minimal requirements for memory and program length, with no operating system, and low software complexity. Typical input and output devices include switches, relays, solenoids, LED's, small or custom liquid-crystal displays, radio frequency devices, and sensors for data such as temperature, humidity, light level etc. Embedded systems usually have no keyboard, screen, disks, printers, or other recognizable I/O devices of a personal computer, and may lack human interaction devices of any kind.


title: Microcontroller

text: Microcontrollers must provide real-time (predictable, though not necessarily fast) response to events in the embedded system they are controlling. When certain events occur, an interrupt system can signal the processor to suspend processing the current instruction sequence and to begin an interrupt service routine (ISR, or "interrupt handler") which will perform any processing required based on the source of the interrupt, before returning to the original instruction sequence. Possible interrupt sources are device dependent, and often include events such as an internal timer overflow, completing an analog to digital conversion, a logic level change on an input such as from a button being pressed, and data received on a communication link. Where power consumption is important as in battery devices, interrupts may also wake a microcontroller from a low-power sleep state where the processor is halted until required to do something by a peripheral event.


title: Microcontroller

text: Typically micro-controller programs must fit in the available on-chip memory, since it would be costly to provide a system with external, expandable memory. Compilers and assemblers are used to convert both high-level and assembly language code into a compact machine code for storage in the micro-controller's memory. Depending on the device, the program memory may be permanent, read-only memory that can only be programmed at the factory, or it may be field-alterable flash or erasable read-only memory.


title: Microcontroller

text: Manufacturers have often produced special versions of their micro-controllers in order to help the hardware and software development of the target system. Originally these included EPROM versions that have a "window" on the top of the device through which program memory can be erased by ultraviolet light, ready for reprogramming after a programming ("burn") and test cycle. Since 1998, EPROM versions are rare and have been replaced by EEPROM and flash, which are easier to use (can be erased electronically) and cheaper to manufacture.


title: Microcontroller

text: Other versions may be available where the ROM is accessed as an external device rather than as internal memory, however these are becoming rare due to the widespread availability of cheap microcontroller programmers.


title: Microcontroller

text: The use of field-programmable devices on a micro controller may allow field update of the firmware or permit late factory revisions to products that have been assembled but not yet shipped. Programmable memory also reduces the lead time required for deployment of a new product.