title: Parallax

text: Assuming the angle is small (see derivation below), the distance to an object (measured in parsecs) is the reciprocal of the parallax (measured in arcseconds): formula_1 For example, the distance to Proxima Centauri is 1/0.7687 = .


title: Parallax

text: "Diurnal parallax" is a parallax that varies with the rotation of the Earth or with a difference in location on the Earth. The Moon and to a smaller extent the terrestrial planets or asteroids seen from different viewing positions on the Earth (at one given moment) can appear differently placed against the background of fixed stars.


title: Parallax

text: The diurnal parallax has been used by John Flamsteed in 1672 to measure the distance to Mars at its opposition and through that to estimate the astronomical unit and the size of the Solar System.


title: Parallax

text: "Lunar parallax" (often short for "lunar horizontal parallax" or "lunar equatorial horizontal parallax"), is a special case of (diurnal) parallax: the Moon, being the nearest celestial body, has by far the largest maximum parallax of any celestial body, at times exceeding 1 degree.


title: Parallax

text: The diagram for stellar parallax can illustrate lunar parallax as well if the diagram is taken to be scaled right down and slightly modified. Instead of 'near star', read 'Moon', and instead of taking the circle at the bottom of the diagram to represent the size of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, take it to be the size of the Earth's globe, and a circle around the Earth's surface. Then, the lunar (horizontal) parallax amounts to the difference in angular position, relative to the background of distant stars, of the Moon as seen from two different viewing positions on the Earth: one of the viewing positions is the place from which the Moon can be seen directly overhead at a given moment (that is, viewed along the vertical line in the diagram); and the other viewing position is a place from which the Moon can be seen on the horizon at the same moment (that is, viewed along one of the diagonal lines, from an Earth-surface position corresponding roughly to one of the blue dots on the modified diagram).


title: Parallax

text: The lunar (horizontal) parallax can alternatively be defined as the angle subtended at the distance of the Moon by the radius of the Earth—equal to angle p in the diagram when scaled-down and modified as mentioned above.


title: Parallax

text: The lunar horizontal parallax at any time depends on the linear distance of the Moon from the Earth. The Earth-Moon linear distance varies continuously as the Moon follows its perturbed and approximately elliptical orbit around the Earth. The range of the variation in linear distance is from about 56 to 63.7 Earth radii, corresponding to a horizontal parallax of about a degree of arc, but ranging from about 61.4' to about 54'. The "Astronomical Almanac" and similar publications tabulate the lunar horizontal parallax and/or the linear distance of the Moon from the Earth on a periodical e.g. daily basis for the convenience of astronomers (and of celestial navigators), and the study of how this coordinate varies with time forms part of lunar theory.


title: Parallax

text: One way to determine the lunar parallax from one location is by using a lunar eclipse. A full shadow of the Earth on the Moon has an apparent radius of curvature equal to the difference between the apparent radii of the Earth and the Sun as seen from the Moon. This radius can be seen to be equal to 0.75 degrees, from which (with the solar apparent radius of 0.25 degrees) we get an Earth apparent radius of 1 degree. This yields for the Earth-Moon distance 60.27 Earth radii or This procedure was first used by Aristarchus of Samos and Hipparchus, and later found its way into the work of Ptolemy. The diagram at the right shows how daily lunar parallax arises on the geocentric and geostatic planetary model in which the Earth is at the center of the planetary system and does not rotate. It also illustrates the important point that parallax need not be caused by any motion of the observer, contrary to some definitions of parallax that say it is, but may arise purely from motion of the observed.


title: Parallax

text: Another method is to take two pictures of the Moon at the same time from two locations on Earth and compare the positions of the Moon relative to the stars. Using the orientation of the Earth, those two position measurements, and the distance between the two locations on the Earth, the distance to the Moon can be triangulated:


title: Parallax

text: This is the method referred to by Jules Verne in "From the Earth to the Moon": Until then, many people had no idea how one could calculate the distance separating the Moon from the Earth. The circumstance was exploited to teach them that this distance was obtained by measuring the parallax of the Moon. If the word parallax appeared to amaze them, they were told that it was the angle subtended by two straight lines running from both ends of the Earth's radius to the Moon. If they had doubts about the perfection of this method, they were immediately shown that not only did this mean distance amount to a whole two hundred thirty-four thousand three hundred and forty-seven miles (94,330 leagues) but also that the astronomers were not in error by more than seventy miles (≈ 30 leagues).


title: Parallax

text: After Copernicus proposed his heliocentric system, with the Earth in revolution around the Sun, it was possible to build a model of the whole Solar System without scale. To ascertain the scale, it is necessary only to measure one distance within the Solar System, e.g., the mean distance from the Earth to the Sun (now called an astronomical unit, or AU). When found by triangulation, this is referred to as the "solar parallax", the difference in position of the Sun as seen from the Earth's center and a point one Earth radius away, i.e., the angle subtended at the Sun by the Earth's mean radius. Knowing the solar parallax and the mean Earth radius allows one to calculate the AU, the first, small step on the long road of establishing the size and expansion age of the visible Universe.


title: Parallax

text: A primitive way to determine the distance to the Sun in terms of the distance to the Moon was already proposed by Aristarchus of Samos in his book "On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon". He noted that the Sun, Moon, and Earth form a right triangle (with the right angle at the Moon) at the moment of first or last quarter moon. He then estimated that the Moon–Earth–Sun angle was 87°. Using correct geometry but inaccurate observational data, Aristarchus concluded that the Sun was slightly less than 20 times farther away than the Moon. The true value of this angle is close to 89° 50', and the Sun is about 390 times farther away. He pointed out that the Moon and Sun have nearly equal apparent angular sizes and therefore their diameters must be in proportion to their distances from Earth. He thus concluded that the Sun was around 20 times larger than the Moon; this conclusion, although incorrect, follows logically from his incorrect data. It does suggest that the Sun is larger than the Earth, which could be taken to support the heliocentric model.


title: Parallax

text: Although Aristarchus' results were incorrect due to observational errors, they were based on correct geometric principles of parallax, and became the basis for estimates of the size of the Solar System for almost 2000 years, until the transit of Venus was correctly observed in 1761 and 1769. This method was proposed by Edmond Halley in 1716, although he did not live to see the results. The use of Venus transits was less successful than had been hoped due to the black drop effect, but the resulting estimate, 153 million kilometers, is just 2% above the currently accepted value, 149.6 million kilometers.


title: Parallax

text: Much later, the Solar System was "scaled" using the parallax of asteroids, some of which, such as Eros, pass much closer to Earth than Venus. In a favorable opposition, Eros can approach the Earth to within 22  a millikilometersres. During the opposition of 1900–1901, a worldwide program was launched to make parallax measurements of Eros to determine the solar parallax (or distance to the Sun), with the results published in 1910 by Arthur Hinks of Cambridge and Charles D. Perrine of the Lick Observatory, University of California. Perrine published progress reports in 1906 and 1908. He took 965 photographs with the Crossley Reflector and selected 525 for measurement. A similar program was then carried out, during a closer approach, in 1930–1931 by Harold Spencer Jones. The value of the Astronomical Unit (roughly the Earth-Sun distance) obtained by this program was considered definitive until 1968, when radar and dynamical parallax methods started producing more precise measurements.


title: Parallax

text: Also radar reflections, both off Venus (1958) and off asteroids, like Icarus, have been used for solar parallax determination. Today, use of spacecraft telemetry links has solved this old problem. The currently accepted value of solar parallax is 8".794 143.


title: Parallax

text: The open stellar cluster Hyades in Taurus extends over such a large part of the sky, 20 degrees, that the proper motions as derived from astrometry appear to converge with some precision to a perspective point north of Orion. Combining the observed apparent (angular) proper motion in seconds of arc with the also observed true (absolute) receding motion as witnessed by the Doppler redshift of the stellar spectral lines, allows estimation of the distance to the cluster (151 light-years) and its member stars in much the same way as using annual parallax.


title: Parallax

text: Dynamical parallax has sometimes also been used to determine the distance to a supernova when the optical wavefront of the outburst is seen to propagate through the surrounding dust clouds at an apparent angular velocity, while its true propagation velocity is known to be the speed of light.


title: Parallax

text: where formula_4 is the parallax, is approximately the average distance from the Sun to Earth, and formula_5 is the distance to the star.


title: Parallax

text: This "defines" the parsec, a convenient unit for measuring distance using parallax. Therefore, the distance, measured in parsecs, is simply formula_9, when the parallax is given in arcseconds.


title: Parallax

text: Precise parallax measurements of distance have an associated error. This error in the measured parallax angle does not translate directly into an error for the distance, except for relatively small errors. The reason for this is that an error toward a smaller angle results in a greater error in distance than an error toward a larger angle.


title: Parallax

text: where "d" is the distance and "p" is the parallax. The approximation is far more accurate for parallax errors that are small relative to the parallax than for relatively large errors. For meaningful results in stellar astronomy, Dutch astronomer Floor van Leeuwen recommends that the parallax error be no more than 10% of the total parallax when computing this error estimate.


title: Parallax

text: From enhanced "relativistic positioning systems", Spatio-temporal parallax generalizing the usual notion of parallax in space only has been developed. Then, event fields in spacetime can be deduced directly without intermediate models of light bending by massive bodies such as the one used in the PPN formalism for instance.


title: Parallax

text: Measurements made by viewing the position of some marker relative to something to be measured are subject to parallax error if the marker is some distance away from the object of measurement and not viewed from the correct position. For example, if measuring the distance between two ticks on a line with a ruler marked on its top surface, the thickness of the ruler will separate its markings from the ticks. If viewed from a position not exactly perpendicular to the ruler, the apparent position will shift and the reading will be less accurate than the ruler is capable of.


title: Parallax

text: A similar error occurs when reading the position of a pointer against a scale in an instrument such as an analog multimeter. To help the user avoid this problem, the scale is sometimes printed above a narrow strip of mirror, and the user's eye is positioned so that the pointer obscures its reflection, guaranteeing that the user's line of sight is perpendicular to the mirror and therefore to the scale. The same effect alters the speed read on a car's speedometer by a driver in front of it and a passenger off to the side, values read from a graticule, not in actual contact with the display on an oscilloscope, etc.


title: Parallax

text: When viewed through a stereo viewer, aerial picture pair offers a pronounced stereo effect of landscape and buildings. High buildings appear to "keel over" in the direction away from the center of the photograph. Measurements of this parallax are used to deduce the height of the buildings, provided that flying height and baseline distances are known. This is a key component of the process of photogrammetry.


title: Parallax

text: Parallax error can be seen when taking photos with many types of cameras, such as twin-lens reflex cameras and those including viewfinders (such as rangefinder cameras). In such cameras, the eye sees the subject through different optics (the viewfinder, or a second lens) than the one through which the photo is taken. As the viewfinder is often found above the lens of the camera, photos with parallax error are often slightly lower than intended, the classic example being the image of a person with their head cropped off. This problem is addressed in single-lens reflex cameras, in which the viewfinder sees through the same lens through which the photo is taken (with the aid of a movable mirror), thus avoiding parallax error.


title: Parallax

text: Parallax affects sighting devices of ranged weapons in many ways. On sights fitted on small arms and bows, etc., the perpendicular distance between the sight and the weapon's launch axis (e.g. the bore axis of a gun)—generally referred to as ""sight height""—can induce significant aiming errors when shooting at close range, particularly when shooting at small targets. This parallax error is compensated for (when needed) via calculations that also take in other variables such as bullet drop, windage, and the distance at which the target is expected to be. Sight height can be used to advantage when "sighting in" rifles for field use. A typical hunting rifle (.222 with telescopic sights) sighted in at 75m will still be useful from without needing further adjustment.


title: Parallax

text: In some reticled optical instruments such as telescopes, microscopes or in telescopic sights ("scopes") used on small arms and theodolites, parallax can create problems when the reticle is not coincident with the focal plane of the target image. This is because when the reticle and the target are not at the same focus, the optically corresponded distances being projected through the eyepiece are also different, and the user's eye will register the difference in parallaxes between the reticle and the target (whenever eye position changes) as a relative displacement on top of each other. The term "parallax shift" refers to the resultant apparent "floating" movements of the reticle over the target image when the user moves his/her head/eye laterally (up/down or left/right) behind the sight, i.e. an error where the reticle does not stay aligned with the user's optical axis.


title: Parallax

text: Some firearm scopes are equipped with a parallax compensation mechanism, which consists of a movable optical element that enables the optical system to shift the focus of the target image at varying distances into the same optical plane of the reticle (or vice versa). Many low-tier telescopic sights may have no parallax compensation because in practice they can still perform very acceptably without eliminating parallax shift. In this case, the scope is often set fixed at a designated parallax-free distance that best suits their intended usage. Typical standard factory parallax-free distances for hunting scopes are 100  yd (or 90 m) to make them suited for hunting shots that rarely exceed 300  yd/m. Some competition and military-style scopes without parallax compensation may be adjusted to be parallax free at ranges up to 300  yd/m to make them better suited for aiming at longer ranges. Scopes for guns with shorter practical ranges, such as airguns, rimfire rifles, shotguns, and muzzleloaders, will have parallax settings for shorter distances, commonly for rimfire scopes and for shotguns and muzzleloaders. Airgun scopes are very often found with adjustable parallax, usually in the form of an adjustable objective (or "AO" for short) design, and may adjust down to as near as .


title: Parallax

text: Non-magnifying reflector or "reflex" sights can be theoretically "parallax free." But since these sights use parallel collimated light this is only true when the target is at infinity. At finite distances, eye movement perpendicular to the device will cause parallax movement in the reticle image in exact relationship to the eye position in the cylindrical column of light created by the collimating optics. Firearm sights, such as some red dot sights, try to correct for this via not focusing the reticle at infinity, but instead at some finite distance, a designed target range where the reticle will show very little movement due to parallax. Some manufacturers market reflector sight models they call "parallax free," but this refers to an optical system that compensates for off axis spherical aberration, an optical error induced by the spherical mirror used in the sight that can cause the reticle position to diverge off the sight's optical axis with change in eye position.


title: Parallax

text: Because of the positioning of field or naval artillery guns, each one has a slightly different perspective of the target relative to the location of the fire-control system itself. Therefore, when aiming its guns at the target, the fire control system must compensate for parallax in order to assure that fire from each gun converges on the target.


title: Parallax

text: Several of Mark Renn's sculptural works play with parallax, appearing abstract until viewed from a specific angle. One such sculpture is "The Darwin Gate" (pictured) in Shrewsbury, England, which from a certain angle appears to form a dome, according to Historic England, in "the form of a Saxon helmet with a Norman window... inspired by features of St Mary's Church which was attended by Charles Darwin as a boy".


title: Parallax

text: In a philosophic/geometric sense: an apparent change in the direction of an object, caused by a change in observational position that provides a new line of sight. The apparent displacement, or difference of position, of an object, as seen from two different stations, or points of view. In contemporary writing, parallax can also be the same story, or a similar story from approximately the same timeline, from one book, told from a different perspective in another book. The word and concept feature prominently in James Joyce's 1922 novel, "Ulysses". Orson Scott Card also used the term when referring to Ender's Shadow as compared to Ender's Game.


title: Parallax

text: The metaphor is invoked by Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek in his 2006 book "The Parallax View", borrowing the concept of "parallax view" from the Japanese philosopher and literary critic Kojin Karatani. Žižek notes,


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Rex Wayne Tillerson (born March 23, 1952) is an American engineer and energy executive who served as the 69th U.S. secretary of state from February 1, 2017, to March 31, 2018, under President Donald Trump. Prior to joining the Trump administration, Tillerson was chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of ExxonMobil, holding that position from 2006 until 2017.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson began his career as a civil engineer with Exxon in 1975 after graduating with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. By 1989 he had become general manager of the Exxon USA central production division. In 1995 he became president of Exxon Yemen Inc. and Esso Exploration and Production Khorat Inc. In 2006 Tillerson was elected chair and chief executive of ExxonMobil, the world's sixth-largest company by revenue. Tillerson retired from ExxonMobil effective January 1, 2017.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson is a longtime volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. From 2010 to 2012, he was the national president of the Boy Scouts, its highest non-executive position. He is a longtime contributor to Republican campaigns, but did not donate to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. In 2014, Tillerson, who had made business deals on behalf of ExxonMobil with Russia, opposed the sanctions against Russia. He has previously been the director of the joint United States-Russia oil company Exxon Neftegas.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson became Secretary of State on February 1, 2017. An unconventional choice for the role, Tillerson's tenure was characterized by a lack of visibility in comparison to his predecessors in the traditionally high-profile position of Secretary of State. During Tillerson's tenure, new applications to work for the Foreign Service fell by 50 percent, and four of the six career ambassadors as well as 14 of the 33 career ministers, equivalent to military four- and three-star generals, departed. After their relationship deteriorated, Trump dismissed Tillerson in March 2018, making his tenure one of the shortest in recent history but not as short as Lawrence Eagleburger under President George H. W. Bush and Edmund Muskie under President Carter. Tillerson was replaced by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director Mike Pompeo.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson was born on March 23, 1952, in Wichita Falls, Texas, the son of Patty Sue (née Patton) and Bobby Joe Tillerson, and named after Rex Allen and John Wayne, two Hollywood actors famous for playing cowboys. He was raised in Vernon, Texas; Stillwater, Oklahoma; and Huntsville, Texas. He has two sisters, Rae Ann Hamilton, a physician who resides in Abilene, Texas, and Jo Lynn Peters, a high school educator. Tillerson's father was an executive of the Boy Scouts of America organization, and this led to his family's move to Huntsville. Tillerson himself has been active in the Boy Scouts for most of his life, and in his youth he earned the rank of Eagle Scout.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: At age 14, he began to work as a busboy in the student union building at Oklahoma State University. Two years later, in 1968, he became a janitor working in one of the engineering buildings at the university. On weekends, he worked picking cotton.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson graduated from Huntsville High School in 1970. He was leader for the percussion section of his high school band, in which he played the kettle drums and snare drum, and he earned spots in the all-district and all-region bands during his senior year. Tillerson received a college scholarship from the University of Texas Longhorn Band. He received a bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1975. During his time at UT Austin, he was involved with the Tejas Club (an all-male secret society) and the marching band.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson joined Exxon Company USA in 1975 as a production engineer. In 1989, Tillerson became general manager of the central production division of Exxon USA. In 1995, he became president of Exxon Yemen Inc. and Esso Exploration and Production Khorat Inc.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 1998, he became a vice president of Exxon Ventures (CIS) and president of Exxon Neftegas Limited with responsibility for Exxon's holdings in Russia and the Caspian Sea. He then entered Exxon into the Sakhalin-I consortium with Rosneft.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 1999, with the merger of Exxon and Mobil, he was named executive vice president of ExxonMobil Development Company. In 2004, he became president and director of ExxonMobil. Upon this appointment Tillerson's replacement of Lee Raymond as CEO of Exxon Mobil was implied. His major competitor was Ed Galante, another Exxon executive. On January 1, 2006, Tillerson was elected chairman and CEO, following the retirement of Lee Raymond. At the time, ExxonMobil had 80,000 employees, did business in nearly 200 countries, and had an annual revenue of nearly $400billion.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Under Tillerson's leadership, ExxonMobil cooperated closely with Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and a longtime U.S. ally, as well as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. From 2003 to 2005, a European subsidiary of ExxonMobil, Infineum, operated in the Middle East providing sales to Iran, Sudan and Syria. ExxonMobil leaders said they followed all legal frameworks, and that such sales were minuscule compared to their annual revenue of $371billion at the time. In 2009, ExxonMobil acquired XTO Energy, a major natural gas producer, for $31billion in stock. Michael Corkery of the "Wall Street Journal" wrote that "Tillerson's legacy rides on the XTO deal." Tillerson approved Exxon negotiating a multibillion-dollar deal with the government of Iraqi Kurdistan, despite opposition from President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, both of whom argued it would increase regional instability.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson lobbied against Rule 1504 of the Dodd–Frank reform and protections, which would have required Exxon to disclose payments to foreign governments. In 2017, Congress voted to overturn Rule 1504 one hour before Tillerson was confirmed as Secretary of State.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On January 4, 2017, "The Financial Times" reported that Tillerson would cut his ExxonMobil ties if he became Secretary of State. Walter Shaub, the director of the United States Office of Government Ethics, said he was proud of the ethics agreement developed for Tillerson, who was now "free of financial conflicts of interest. His ethics agreement serves as a sterling model for what we'd like to see with other nominees."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: As the CEO of ExxonMobil, Tillerson has ties with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. They have been associates since Tillerson represented Exxon's interests in Russia, the world's largest producer of crude oil, during Russian President Boris Yeltsin's tenure. Tillerson was responsible for the development of a partnership between Exxon and state-owned oil company Rosneft and the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to acquire a stake in Yukos, owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, before the firm was nationalized after Khodorkovsky's arrest. John Hamre, the president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, of which Tillerson is a board member, says Tillerson "has had more interactive time with Vladimir Putin than probably any other American, with the exception of Dr. Henry Kissinger".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson was a friend of Igor Sechin, the executive chairman of Rosneft, the Russian state oil company, and leader of the Kremlin's "Siloviki" (security/military) faction, who has been described as "Russia's second-most powerful person" after Putin. Exxon owns a dacha next door to Sechin's, and Tillerson would often visit there. Tillerson led Sechin on a tour of New York City, dining on caviar with him and Putin at "Per Se" restaurant. In 2006, Exxon avoided making any government concessions in its Sakhalin-I oil field after Royal Dutch Shell was forced to sell half of its ownership in Sakhalin-II by the Russian government.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In August 2011, Putin attended a ceremony in Sochi where Tillerson and Sechin signed an agreement between ExxonMobil and Rosneft to drill the East-Prinovozemelsky field in the Arctic Ocean valued at up to $300billion. The Rosneft deal also gave the state-owned oil company a 30% stake in Exxon owned assets in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, Canada, and West Texas. The company began drilling in the Kara Sea in the summer of 2014, and a round of sanctions against Russia introduced in September that year due to the Russo-Ukrainian War was to have brought the project to a halt in mid-September. Nevertheless, the company was granted a reprieve that stretched the window to work until October 10, which enabled it to discover a major field with about 750 million barrels of new oil for Russia. In July 2017, the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control fined ExxonMobil $2million for violating sanctions in its dealings with Sechin, leading the company to sue the government.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2013, Tillerson was awarded the Order of Friendship by Putin for his contribution to developing cooperation in the energy sector.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In June 2017, Tillerson said Trump had asked him to "stabilize the relationship (with Russia) and build trust".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2012, Tillerson's compensation package was $40.5million. It was $28.1million in 2013, $33.1million in 2014, and $27.2million in 2015. In late 2016, Tillerson held $54million of Exxon stock, and had a right to deferred stock worth approximately $180million over the next ten years. Tillerson is estimated to be worth at least $300million. When he left Exxon, Tillerson was four months away from retirement, at which time he would have been entitled to a $180million retirement package. He owns two ranches in Texas, where his wife, Renda, raises cutting horses.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On January 3, 2017, ExxonMobil announced they had reached an agreement with Tillerson "to sever all ties with the company to comply with conflict-of-interest requirements associated with his nomination as secretary of state".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: While CEO of ExxonMobil, Tillerson used an alias email address "Wayne Tracker" for eight years and sent thousands of messages. In response to a subpoena issued from the New York State Attorney General's office (part of a state investigation into whether Exxon had misled investors and the public about climate change), Exxon produced about 60 emails associated with the "Wayne Tracker" account, but did not inform investigators that they were Tillerson's. ExxonMobil said the account was "used for everyday business" needs such as "secure and expedited communications" between Tillerson and top company executives.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson's use of the alias became publicly known in March 2017, after New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wrote in a letter to a judge that Tillerson had used the "Wayne Tracker" email for at least seven years. Later that month, Exxon revealed that emails from the alias account from September 2014 to September 2015 were missing; a further search recovered some emails, but none between September 5, 2014, and November 28, 2014. An attorney for Exxon said a "unique issue" limited to that account led to emails being automatically deleted.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson is a trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the American Petroleum Institute. He is also a member of the Business Roundtable. In 2013, he became a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He was a member of the executive committee of The Business Council for 2011 and 2012.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson is a long-time volunteer with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), and from 2010 to 2012 was their national president, its highest non-executive position. Tillerson is a Distinguished Eagle Scout, and his father was a BSA executive. Tillerson is a long-time supporter of the BSA and has said, "I think the highlight of my youth and adolescent years were my achievements in Scouting." In 2009, Tillerson was inducted into the Eagle Scout Hall of Fame of the Greater New York Councils. Ray L. Hunt, a close friend and the Chairman of Hunt Consolidated, told the "Dallas Morning News", "To understand Rex Tillerson, you need to understand Scouting."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: After the end of his term as BSA president, he remained on the organization's National Executive Board. There he played a significant role in the board's 2013 decision to rescind the long-standing ban on openly gay youth as members. According to Center for Strategic and International Studies president John Hamre, Tillerson was instrumental in the change and "a key leader in helping the group come to a consensus".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On July 9, 2017, Tillerson received the Dewhurst Award from the World Petroleum Council in recognition for "outstanding contribution to the oil and gas industry" during his 41 years at Exxon Mobil.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson was first recommended to president-elect Trump for the secretary of state role by former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, during her meeting with Trump in late November 2016. Rice's recommendation of Tillerson to Trump was backed up by former secretary of defense Robert Gates, three days later. Media speculation that he was being considered for the position began on December 5, 2016. On December 9, transition officials reported that Tillerson was the top candidate for the position, surpassing contenders such as Mitt Romney and David Petraeus. His nomination was reportedly advocated by Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On January 20, 2017, shortly after being sworn in as President of the United States, Trump formally sent his nomination of Tillerson as Secretary of State to the United States Senate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved Tillerson's nomination with a strict party-line vote of 11–10 on January 23, 2017.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: The Senate confirmed Tillerson as Secretary of State on February 1, 2017. The Senate voted 56 to 43, with all 52 Republicans in support of his nomination, as well as three Democrats and one independent. He was sworn in on the same day by Vice President Mike Pence.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: The number of votes against Tillerson's confirmation was unusual for a Secretary of State, as the previous record for votes against a nominee for Secretary of State had been fourteen.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On February 15, 2017, Tillerson embarked on his first overseas trip as Secretary of State, to Bonn, Germany, for a meeting with foreign ministers from the G20. In Bonn, Tillerson had meetings with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, as well as his counterparts from Italy, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. Tillerson urged Russia to withdraw from eastern Ukraine, saying "the United States will consider working with Russia when we can find areas of practical cooperation that will benefit the American people. Where we do not see eye to eye, the United States will stand up for the interests and values of America and her allies. As we search for new common ground, we expect Russia to honor its commitment to the Minsk agreements and work to de-escalate the violence in Ukraine." Tillerson also reaffirmed U.S. commitment to defending South Korea and Japan.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson made his first visit to Mexico on February 23, 2017, traveling with Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly. When meeting with Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Videgaray Caso of Mexico, Tillerson acknowledged differences between the U.S. and Mexico on views of border security, but also acknowledged the need for cooperation in addressing migration, as well as arms trafficking. Tillerson recused himself from TransCanada's application for a presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Before the inauguration, Tillerson selected Elliott Abrams to be the U.S. deputy secretary of state. In February 2017, they held an interview with President Trump in the Oval Office. There, Tillerson contradicted the president's criticism of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, advising Trump of Exxon's success in refusing a bribe demand by Yemen's oil minister. The next day, Fox News criticized Abrams, and Tillerson soon told Abrams he would not be nominated.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In mid-March 2017, Tillerson made his first trip to Asia, traveling to Japan, South Korea, and China. Tillerson remarked that diplomatic efforts in the past twenty years to stop North Korea's nuclear development had "failed". Tillerson also stated the United States may need to take preemptive action, remarking, "Certainly, we do not want things to get to a military conflict... but obviously, if North Korea takes actions that threatens the South Korean forces or our own forces, then that would be met with an appropriate response. If they elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe that requires action, that option is on the table."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On March 30, 2017, Tillerson met with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey. Turkey has criticized the United States over its support for Syrian Kurds. In May, protestors and Erdoğan's bodyguards clashed outside of the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington, D.C. Tillerson said the incident was "outrageous" and that the Trump administration has expressed "dismay" over it. He said the administration would await the outcome of an investigation before taking further action.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In mid-April 2017, Tillerson made his first trip to Russia as Secretary of State, meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin. At a news conference, Tillerson remarked that Russian–U.S. relations were at a "low point". Tillerson also warned Russia of the risk of "becoming irrelevant in the Middle East" by continuing to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In June 2017, Tillerson excluded Myanmar, Iraq, and Afghanistan from the list of countries that employ child soldiers in that year's Trafficking in Persons Report, rejecting the unanimous recommendations of staff. Staff then circulated a memo in their Dissent Channel alleging that Tillerson's decision was in violation of the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. In late November 2017, the topic garnered national attention when the Department of State defended Tillerson's actions in the wake of an anonymous complaint by an official to the department's inspector general and the distribution of supporting documents to the inspector general and to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: President Trump's 2018 United States federal budget sought to reduce the Department of State's budget by 31%. Tillerson froze most hiring and sought to remove 2,000 career diplomats by offering them $25,000 buyouts. In June 2017, Tillerson told graduates of the Rangel and the Pickering foreign affairs fellowships that their offers to join the United States Foreign Service were rescinded, and that they needed to repay the $85,000 scholarships or agree to work in temporary positions. Tillerson reversed that decision and allowed the graduates to become full Foreign Service Officers after being asked to do so by 31 members of Congress. Applications to take the Foreign Service entrance exam dropped fifty percent that year.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson and his staff fired career ambassadors Patrick F. Kennedy and Kristie Kenney, and attempted to remove Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who then retired.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson selected Margaret Peterlin to be his chief of staff. Tillerson is reported to have relied heavily on Peterlin, as well as his chief of policy, Brian Hook. Tillerson attempted to centralize much decision making under the Policy Planning Staff.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson initiated the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, focusing on the Department of State's organizational structure. He contracted for management consulting from Deloitte and hired Insigniam to conduct a "listening tour" survey for $1million. Tillerson attempted to reduce inefficiencies within the Department of State, though it was described as a "botched reorganization" that created a hollowed-out and dysfunctional department, reportedly leading to micromanagement and poor morale among career diplomats, yet Tillerson was also praised by one writer for setting the right tone for diplomats.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson made a concerted effort to respond to the Department of State's backlog of Freedom of Information Act requests that reached into Secretary Hillary Clinton's tenure, assigning midlevel diplomats from every bureau to perform document review beside unpaid interns.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: By the end of November 2017, just 10 of the top 44 political positions in the Department of State had been filled. A large number of Senior Foreign Service officers had resigned under Tillerson, with the number of career ambassadors and ministers dropping more than 50%, from 39 to 19, and the number of minister-counselors dropping 18% to 369.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On March 13, 2018, Tillerson commented on the nerve gas poisoning in the United Kingdom of a former Russian spy and his daughter, calling it a "really egregious act" that clearly "came from Russia".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In October 2017, news reports surfaced regarding a deteriorating relationship between Tillerson and Trump. According to reports, in a July 20 meeting, Trump allegedly suggested a tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which would cost trillions and take centuries–reports that were denied by White House officials and by Trump–after which individuals familiar with the meeting told journalists that Tillerson either called Trump a "moron" or a "fucking moron". Additionally, there were well-sourced reports of Tillerson offering to resign his office as Secretary of State, only to be discouraged from doing so by Vice President Mike Pence; however, these were officially denied both by Tillerson and by the White House. Furthermore, on October 1, Trump directly contradicted, via Twitter, Tillerson's policy of negotiation with North Korea; this move was widely panned by experts, who thought such a public undermining of the U.S.'s chief diplomat would weaken his ability to negotiate. On October 10, after Tillerson's alleged "moron" comment was reported in the media, Trump challenged Tillerson to "IQ tests"; three days later Senator Bob Corker from Tennessee, the chair of the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee who had become a vocal Trump critic around that time, remarked that Trump was "publicly castrating" Tillerson.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson was reportedly angered by the political speech President Trump delivered at the 2017 National Scout Jamboree.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: After leaving the Trump administration, Tillerson spoke to Bob Schieffer about his tenure: "It was challenging for me coming from the disciplined, highly process-oriented Exxon Mobil corporation... to go to work for a man who is pretty undisciplined, doesn't like to read, doesn't read briefing reports, doesn't like to get into the details of a lot of things, but rather just kind of says, 'This is what I believe.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Speaking to members and staffers of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in May 2019, Tillerson said he and Trump "shared a common goal: to secure and advance America's place in the world and to promote and protect American values", but he noted they do not share the same "value system". Asked to describe Trump's values, he replied, "I cannot."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In May 2019, Tillerson privately discussed with members of Congress his frustration that during his tenure Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner conducted discussions with foreign dignitaries without advising the Department of State. In one instance, Tillerson entered a Washington restaurant and was asked by the owner if he wanted to meet with the Mexican foreign minister, who was dining with Kushner in the back of the restaurant; Tillerson was unaware the foreign minister was in Washington.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: According to the White House, Trump communicated with Tillerson on March9 and told him he would be replaced. Tillerson cut short a visit to Africa and returned to the United States on March 12. On March 13, Trump announced via Twitter that Tillerson was out. A spokesman for Tillerson, Steve Goldstein, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, was quoted in "The Washington Post" that Tillerson did not know why he had been fired by Trump and only found out about his firing when he read Trump's tweet on the morning of March 13; Goldstein, who was generally perceived within the White House as being anti-Trump, was fired by the White House later that day, reportedly for contradicting the official account of Tillerson's dismissal. A senior Trump administration official cited "upcoming North Korea talks and various trade negotiations" as the reason for replacing Tillerson. Trump later told reporters his differences with Tillerson came down to personal chemistry and disagreements on policy, adding that he and CIA director Mike Pompeo "have a very similar thought process". "The New York Times" reported that Lebanese-American businessman George Nader turned Trump's major fundraiser Elliott Broidy "into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates... High on the agenda of the two men... was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson." UAE and Saudi Arabia lobbied Trump to fire Tillerson for not supporting the blockade of Qatar during the Qatar diplomatic crisis. Robert Malley, former top Middle East adviser to President Barack Obama, said that "senior Qatari officials with whom I spoke were convincedor at least acted as if they were convincedthat Saudi Arabia and the UAE had been planning a military attack on their country that was halted as a result" of Tillerson's intervention.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: John Sullivan, the deputy secretary of state, served as acting secretary until March 31, when Tillerson formally left office. Trump proposed Mike Pompeo (with whom Trump had had a much more positive relationship) as Tillerson's successor and Gina Haspel as the new CIA director. Haspel was confirmed on May 17, 2018, making her the first female CIA director. Tillerson's total time in office was 423 days, making him the shortest-serving secretary of state since Lawrence Eagleburger (1992–93). The last time a president's first appointee to the position served for less time was in 1898, when John Sherman left office after 413 days. Tillerson is also the only secretary of state since at least 1945 to have been fired.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In December 2018, President Trump called Tillerson "dumb as a rock" and "lazy as hell" after Tillerson held a speech where he described Trump as "pretty undisciplined". Trump made similar remarks again in May 2019 after Tillerson reportedly said Trump had been outmaneuvered in a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Trump had previously lauded Tillerson, describing him as a "one of the truly great business leaders of the world" and a "world class player and dealmaker".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In March 2017, Robert Jervis of Columbia University wrote that Tillerson "had little impact on the Trump administration so far" and that his influence would continue to wane. That same month, William Inboden of the University of Texas at Austin defended Tillerson, saying he deserves more time. Daniel W. Drezner of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University was highly critical of Tillerson, calling him an "unmitigated disaster", and "the most incompetent Secretary of State in modern history". Elliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University said Tillerson might be one of the weakest secretaries of state in American history. Elizabeth Saunders of George Washington University said Tillerson's tenure had damaged the Department of State "for a generation" and decreased America's ability to respond to major crisis.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In October 2017, "Politico" reported that Tillerson's major foreign policy positions include "urging the United States to stay in the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate accord, taking a hard line on Russia, advocating negotiations and dialogue to defuse the mounting crisis with North Korea, advocating for continued U.S. adherence to the Iran nuclear deal, taking a neutral position in the dispute between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and reassuring jittery allies, from South Korea and Japan to our NATO partners, that America still has their back".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2014, Tillerson expressed opposition to the sanctions against Russia in response to the annexation of Crimea at an Exxon shareholder meeting. He told the meeting "We do not support sanctions, generally, because we don't find them to be effective unless they are very well implemented comprehensively and that's a very hard thing to do." In 2016, Tillerson said the U.S. should have deployed military units to neighboring states next to Russia in a more "muscular" response. In 2017, Tillerson said Russia's annexation of Crimea was illegal. He also compared China's controversial island-building in the South China Sea to Russia's annexation of Crimea.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: During his Secretary of State confirmation hearings, Marco Rubio asked Tillerson if he would label Saudi Arabia as a "human rights violator". Tillerson declined to do so, saying: "When you designate someone or label someone, is that the most effective way to have progress be able to be made in Saudi Arabia or any other country?" He supported the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson announced in 2009 that ExxonMobil favored a carbon tax as "the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisionsfrom investments made by companies to fuel their requirements to the product choices made by consumers". In October 2016, less than two months before his nomination as Secretary of State, he reaffirmed that ExxonMobil believed a carbon tax would be "the best policy of those being considered. Replacing the hodge-podge of current, largely ineffective regulations with a revenue-neutral carbon tax would ensure a uniform and predictable cost of carbon across the economy... allow market forces to drive solutions... maximize transparency, reduce administrative complexity, promote global participation and easily adjust" to new knowledge in climate science and in the policy consequences of various courses of action.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: An article in "The New York Times" suggested that ExxonMobil's embrace of a carbon tax in October 2009 may have simply been an effort to avoid cap and trade legislation that was then being considered by the U.S. Congress as an alternative method of carbon pricing. A "Time" magazine article in December 2016 asserted that since Tillerson announced his company's preference for a carbon tax, ExxonMobil "has not made a carbon tax a focus of its massive lobbying efforts and has supported a number of candidates and organizations that oppose measures to tackle the [climate change] issue".


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2010, Tillerson said that while he acknowledged humans were affecting the climate through greenhouse gas emissions to some degree, it was not yet clear "to what extent and therefore what can you do about it". At the 2020 Argus Americas Crude Summit, Tillerson further expressed doubt that humans could do anything to combat climate change.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2012, Tillerson stated concerning climate change that "there are much more pressing priorities that we as aas a human being, race, and society need to deal with... you'd save millions upon millions of lives by making fossil fuels more available" to the world's poor, and that "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2016, Tillerson stated, "The world is going to have to continue using fossil fuels, whether they like it or not."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2013, Tillerson outlined his support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), stating at the Global Security Forum: "One of the most promising developments on this front is the ongoing effort for the Trans-Pacific Partnership... The 11 nations that have been working to lower trade barriers and end protectionist policies under this partnership are a diverse mix of developed and developing economies. But all of them understand the value of open markets to growth and progress for every nation."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In 2012, in an interview with "The Wall Street Journal", Tillerson expressed his impatience with government regulation, saying "there are a thousand ways you can be told 'no' in this country."


title: Rex Tillerson

text: In September 2013, Tillerson wrote an op-ed piece in "The Wall Street Journal" defending Common Core.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: According to OpenSecrets, Tillerson has made tens of thousands of dollars of political donations to Republican groups and candidates. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, he gave a total of $468,970 in contributions to Republican candidates and committees from 2000 to 2016.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: He has contributed to the political campaigns of George W. Bush, as well as Mitt Romney in 2012, and Mitch McConnell. He did not donate to Donald Trump's campaign. He donated to Jeb Bush's campaign during the 2016 Republican primaries.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson has been married twice. He divorced Jamie Lee Henry, his first wife, with whom he has twin boys. In 1986, Tillerson married Renda St. Clair, who has a son from her previous marriage. Tillerson and St. Clair also have a son, born in 1988. Tillerson's twin sons are engineers and hold their bachelor's degrees from the Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. In 2006, Tillerson was named a Distinguished Engineering Graduate.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: Tillerson resides in Bartonville, Texas. Following his appointment as Secretary of State, Tillerson bought a home in Kalorama, Washington, D.C.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: He is a Congregationalist who holds a membership in the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, a mainline Reformed denomination. He and his wife donated between $5,000 and $10,000 to the denomination's "The Congregationalist Magazine" in 2012.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On February 20, 2014, news outlets reported that Tillerson and his wife had joined opponents of a proposed water tower that could lead to fracking-related traffic near their homes. Plaintiffs included former U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Dick Armey and his wife. The Tillersons dropped out of the lawsuit after a judge dismissed their claim in November 2014.


title: Rex Tillerson

text: On May 16, 2018, Tillerson gave a graduation speech at Virginia Military Institute. In an apparent rebuke of President Trump, Tillerson warned that there is "a growing crisis in ethics and integrity". "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom."


title: Creative Commons license

text: A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon a work that the author has created. CC provides an author flexibility (for example, they might choose to allow only non-commercial uses of a given work) and protects the people who use or redistribute an author's work from concerns of copyright infringement as long as they abide by the conditions that are specified in the license by which the author distributes the work.


title: Creative Commons license

text: There are several types of Creative Commons licenses. Each license differs by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002, by Creative Commons, a U.S. non-profit corporation founded in 2001. There have also been five versions of the suite of licenses, numbered 1.0 through 4.0. Released in November 2013, the 4.0 license suite is the most current. While the Creative Commons license was originally grounded in the American legal system, there are now several Creative Commons jurisdiction ports which accommodate international laws.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In October 2014, the Open Knowledge Foundation approved the Creative Commons CC BY, CC BY-SA and CC0 licenses as conformant with the "Open Definition" for content and data.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Lawrence Lessig and Eric Eldred designed the Creative Commons License (CCL) in 2001 because they saw a need for a license between the existing modes of copyright and public domain status. Version 1.0 of the licenses was officially released on 16 December 2002.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The CCL allows inventors to keep the rights to their innovations while also allowing for some external use of the invention. The CCL emerged as a reaction to the decision in "Eldred v. Ashcroft", in which the United States Supreme Court ruled constitutional provisions of the Copyright Term Extension Act that extended the copyright term of works to be the last living author's lifespan plus an additional 70 years.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The original non-localized Creative Commons licenses were written with the U.S. legal system in mind; therefore, the wording may be incompatible with local legislation in other jurisdictions, rendering the licenses unenforceable there. To address this issue, Creative Commons asked its affiliates to translate the various licenses to reflect local laws in a process called "porting". As of July 2011, Creative Commons licenses have been ported to over 50 jurisdictions worldwide.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Working with Creative Commons, the Chinese government adapted the Creative Commons License to the Chinese context, replacing the individual monetary compensation of U.S. copyright law with incentives to Chinese innovators to innovate as a social contribution. In China, the resources of society are thought to enable an individual's innovations; the continued betterment of society serves as its own reward. Chinese law heavily prioritizes the eventual contributions that an invention will have towards society's growth, resulting in initial laws placing limits on the length of patents and very stringent conditions regarding the use and qualifications of inventions.


title: Creative Commons license

text: An idea sometimes called "info-communism" found traction in the Western world after researchers at MIT grew frustrated over having aspects of their code withheld from the public. Modern copyright law roots itself in motivating innovation through rewarding innovators for socially valuable inventions. Western patent law assumes that (1) there is a right to use an invention for commerce and (2) it is up to the patentee's discretion to limit that right. The MIT researchers, led by Richard Stallman, argued for the more open proliferation of their software's use for two primary reasons: the moral obligation of altruism and collaboration, and the unfairness of restricting the freedoms of other users by depriving them of non-scarce resources. As a result, they developed the General Public License (GPL), a precursor to the Creative Commons License based on existing American copyright and patent law. The GPL allowed the economy around a piece of software to remain capitalist by allowing programmers to commercialize products that use the software, but also ensured that no single person had complete and exclusive rights to the usage of an innovation. Since then, info-communism has gained traction, with some scholars arguing in 2014 that Wikipedia itself is a manifestation of the info-communist movement.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Work licensed under a Creative Commons license is governed by applicable copyright law. This allows Creative Commons licenses to be applied to all work falling under copyright, including: books, plays, movies, music, articles, photographs, blogs, and websites.


title: Creative Commons license

text: While software is also governed by copyright law and CC licenses are applicable, the CC recommends against using it in software specifically due to backward-compatibility limitations with existing commonly used software licenses. Instead, developers may resort to use more software-friendly free and open-source software (FOSS) software licenses. Outside the FOSS licensing use case for software there are to utilize CC licenses to specify a "Freeware" license model; examples are The White Chamber, Mari0 or Assault Cube. Despite the status of CC0 as the most free copyright license, the Free Software Foundation does not recommend releasing software into the public domain using the CC0.


title: Creative Commons license

text: However, application of a Creative Commons license may not modify the rights allowed by fair use or fair dealing or exert restrictions which violate copyright exceptions. Furthermore, Creative Commons licenses are non-exclusive and non-revocable. Any work or copies of the work obtained under a Creative Commons license may continue to be used under that license.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The author, or the licensor in case the author did a contractual transfer of rights, need to have the exclusive rights on the work. If the work has already been published under a public license, it can be uploaded by any third party, once more on another platform, by using a compatible license, and making reference and attribution to the original license (e.g. by referring the URL of the original license).


title: Creative Commons license

text: The license is non-exclusive, royalty-free, and unrestricted in terms of territory and duration, so it is irrevocable, unless a new license is granted by the author after the work has been significantly modified. Any use of the work that is not covered by other copyright rules triggers the public license. Upon activation of the license, the licensee must adhere to all conditions of the license, otherwise the license agreement is illegitimate, and the licensee would commit a copyright infringement. The author, or the licensor as a proxy, has the legal rights to act upon any copyright infringement. The licensee has a limited period to correct any non-compliance.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The CC licenses all grant "baseline rights", such as the right to distribute the copyrighted work worldwide for non-commercial purposes and without modification. In addition, different versions of license prescribe different rights, as shown in this table:


title: Creative Commons license

text: The last two clauses are not free content licenses, according to definitions such as DFSG or the Free Software Foundation's standards, and cannot be used in contexts that require these freedoms, such as Wikipedia. For software, Creative Commons includes three free licenses created by other institutions: the BSD License, the GNU LGPL, and the GNU GPL.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Mixing and matching these conditions produces sixteen possible combinations, of which eleven are valid Creative Commons licenses and five are not. Of the five invalid combinations, four include both the "nd" and "sa" clauses, which are mutually exclusive; and one includes none of the clauses. Of the eleven valid combinations, the five that lack the "by" clause have been retired because 98% of licensors requested attribution, though they do remain available for reference on the website. This leaves six regularly used licenses plus the CC0 public domain declaration.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The six licenses in most frequent use are shown in the following table. Among them, those accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation – the public domain dedication and two attribution (BY and BY-SA) licenses – allow the sharing and remixing (creating derivative works), including for commercial use, so long as attribution is given.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Besides copyright licenses, Creative Commons also offers CC0, a tool for relinquishing copyright and releasing material into the public domain. CC0 is a legal tool for waiving as many rights as legally possible. Or, when not legally possible, CC0 acts as fallback as public domain equivalent license. Development of CC0 began in 2007 and it was released in 2009. A major target of the license was the scientific data community.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In 2010, Creative Commons announced its Public Domain Mark, a tool for labeling works already in the public domain. Together, CC0 and the Public Domain Mark replace the Public Domain Dedication and Certification, which took a U.S.-centric approach and co-mingled distinct operations.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In 2011, the Free Software Foundation added CC0 to its free software licenses. However, the Free Software Foundation currently does not recommend using CC0 to release software into the public domain because it lacks a patent grant.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In February 2012, CC0 was submitted to Open Source Initiative (OSI) for their approval. However, controversy arose over its clause which excluded from the scope of the license any relevant patents held by the copyright holder. This clause was added with scientific data in mind rather than software, but some members of the OSI believed it could weaken users' defenses against software patents. As a result, Creative Commons withdrew their submission, and the license is not currently approved by the OSI.


title: Creative Commons license

text: From 2013 to 2017, the stock photography website Unsplash used the CC0 license, distributing several million free photos a month. Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons, has contributed to the site. Unsplash moved from using the CC0 license to a custom license in June 2017 and to an explicitly nonfree license in January 2018.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In October 2014, the Open Knowledge Foundation approved the Creative Commons CC0 as conformant with the Open Definition and recommend the license to dedicate content to the public domain.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In July 2022 Fedora Linux disallowed software licensed under CC0 due to patent rights not being waived under the license.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Due to either disuse or criticism, a number of previously offered Creative Commons licenses have since been retired, and are no longer recommended for new works. The retired licenses include all licenses lacking the Attribution element other than CC0, as well as the following four licenses:


title: Creative Commons license

text: The latest version 4.0 of the Creative Commons licenses, released on November 25, 2013, are generic licenses that are applicable to most jurisdictions and do not usually require ports. No new ports have been implemented in version 4.0 of the license. Version 4.0 discourages using ported versions and instead acts as a single global license.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Since 2004, all current licenses other than the CC0 variant require attribution of the original author, as signified by the BY component (as in the preposition "by"). The attribution must be given to "the best of [one's] ability using the information available". Creative Commons suggests the mnemonic "TASL": "title" -- "author -- source" [web link] -- [CC] "licence".<br> Generally this implies the following:


title: Creative Commons license

text: The "non-commercial" option included in some Creative Commons licenses is controversial in definition, as it is sometimes unclear what can be considered a non-commercial setting, and application, since its restrictions differ from the principles of open content promoted by other permissive licenses. In 2014 Wikimedia Deutschland published a guide to using Creative Commons licenses as for translations and as PDF.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Rights in an adaptation can be expressed by a CC license that is compatible with the status or licensing of the original work or works on which the adaptation is based.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The legal implications of large numbers of works having Creative Commons licensing are difficult to predict, and there is speculation that media creators often lack insight to be able to choose the license which best meets their intent in applying it.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Some works licensed using Creative Commons licenses have been involved in several court cases. Creative Commons itself was not a party to any of these cases; they only involved licensors or licensees of Creative Commons licenses. When the cases went as far as decisions by judges (that is, they were not dismissed for lack of jurisdiction or were not settled privately out of court), they have all validated the legal robustness of Creative Commons public licenses.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In early 2006, podcaster Adam Curry sued a Dutch tabloid who published photos from Curry's Flickr page without Curry's permission. The photos were licensed under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license. While the verdict was in favor of Curry, the tabloid avoided having to pay restitution to him as long as they did not repeat the offense. Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, main creator of the Dutch CC license and director of the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam, commented, "The Dutch Court's decision is especially noteworthy because it confirms that the conditions of a Creative Commons license automatically apply to the content licensed under it, and binds users of such content even without expressly agreeing to, or having knowledge of, the conditions of the license."


title: Creative Commons license

text: In 2007, Virgin Mobile Australia launched an advertising campaign promoting their cellphone text messaging service using the work of amateur photographers who uploaded their work to Flickr using a Creative Commons-BY (Attribution) license. Users licensing their images this way freed their work for use by any other entity, as long as the original creator was attributed credit, without any other compensation required. Virgin upheld this single restriction by printing a URL leading to the photographer's Flickr page on each of their ads. However, one picture, depicting 15-year-old Alison Chang at a fund-raising carwash for her church, caused some controversy when she sued Virgin Mobile. The photo was taken by Alison's church youth counselor, Justin Ho-Wee Wong, who uploaded the image to Flickr under the Creative Commons license. In 2008, the case (concerning personality rights rather than copyright as such) was thrown out of a Texas court for lack of jurisdiction.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In the fall of 2006, the collecting society Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE) in Spain sued Ricardo Andrés Utrera Fernández, owner of a disco bar located in Badajoz who played CC-licensed music. SGAE argued that Fernández should pay royalties for public performance of the music between November 2002 and August 2005. The Lower Court rejected the collecting society's claims because the owner of the bar proved that the music he was using was not managed by the society.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In February 2006, the Cultural Association Ladinamo (based in Madrid, and represented by Javier de la Cueva) was granted the use of copyleft music in their public activities. The sentence said:


title: Creative Commons license

text: On June 30, 2010, GateHouse Media filed a lawsuit against That's Great News. GateHouse Media owns a number of local newspapers, including "Rockford Register Star", which is based in Rockford, Illinois. That's Great News makes plaques out of newspaper articles and sells them to the people featured in the articles. GateHouse sued That's Great News for copyright infringement and breach of contract. GateHouse claimed that TGN violated the non-commercial and no-derivative works restrictions on GateHouse Creative Commons licensed work when TGN published the material on its website. The case was settled on August 17, 2010, though the settlement was not made public.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The plaintiff was photographer Art Drauglis, who uploaded several pictures to the photo-sharing website Flickr using Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License (CC BY-SA), including one entitled "Swain's Lock, Montgomery Co., MD.". The defendant was Kappa Map Group, a map-making company, which downloaded the image and used it in a compilation entitled "Montgomery Co. Maryland Street Atlas". Though there was nothing on the cover that indicated the origin of the picture, the text ""Photo: Swain's Lock, Montgomery Co., MD Photographer: Carly Lesser & Art Drauglis, Creative Commoms" ", CC-BY-SA-2.0"" appeared at the bottom of the back cover.


title: Creative Commons license

text: The validity of the CC BY-SA 2.0 as a license was not in dispute. The CC BY-SA 2.0 requires that the licensee to use nothing less restrictive than the CC BY-SA 2.0 terms. The atlas was sold commercially and not for free reuse by others. The dispute was whether Drauglis' license terms that would apply to "derivative works" applied to the entire atlas. Drauglis sued the defendants in June 2014 for copyright infringement and license breach, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, fees, and costs. Drauglis asserted, among other things, that Kappa Map Group "exceeded the scope of the License because defendant did not publish the Atlas under a license with the same or similar terms as those under which the Photograph was originally licensed." The judge dismissed the case on that count, ruling that the atlas was not a derivative work of the photograph in the sense of the license, but rather a collective work. Since the atlas was not a derivative work of the photograph, Kappa Map Group did not need to license the entire atlas under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. The judge also determined that the work had been properly attributed.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In particular, the judge determined that it was sufficient to credit the author of the photo as prominently as authors of similar authorship (such as the authors of individual maps contained in the book) and that the name "CC-BY-SA-2.0" is sufficiently precise to locate the correct license on the internet and can be considered a valid URI of the license.


title: Creative Commons license

text: In July 2016, German computer magazine LinuxUser reported that a German blogger Christoph Langner used two licensed photographs from Berlin photographer Dennis Skley on his private blog Linuxundich. Langner duly mentioned the author and the license and added a link to the original. Langner was later contacted by the "Verband zum Schutz geistigen Eigentums im Internet" (VGSE) (Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property in the Internet) with a demand for €2300 for failing to provide the full name of the work, the full name of the author, the license text, and a source link, as is required by the fine print in the license. Of this sum, €40 goes to the photographer, and the remainder is retained by VGSE. The Higher Regional Court of Köln dismissed the claim in May 2019.


title: Creative Commons license

text: Creative Commons maintains a content directory wiki of organizations and projects using Creative Commons licenses. On its website CC also provides case studies of projects using CC licenses across the world. CC licensed content can also be accessed through a number of content directories and search engines (see Creative Commons-licensed content directories).


title: Creative Commons license

text: After being proposed by Creative Commons in 2017, Creative Commons license symbols were added to Unicode with version 13.0 in 2020. The circle with an equal sign (meaning "no derivatives") is present in older versions of Unicode, unlike all the other symbols.


title: Creative Commons license

text: These symbols can be used in succession to indicate a particular Creative Commons license, for example, "CC-BY-SA" (CC-Attribution-ShareAlike) can be expressed with Unicode symbols codice_1, codice_2 and codice_3 placed next to each other: 🅭🅯🄎


title: Creative Commons license

text: In December2020, the Creative Commons organization launched an online database covering licensing case law and legal scholarship.


title: Molon labe

text: It is among the Laconic phrases reported by Plutarch, attributed to King Leonidas I in reply to the demand by Xerxes I that the Spartans surrender their weapons. The exchange between Leonidas and Xerxes occurs in writing, on the eve of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC).


title: Molon labe

text: The phrase is in the Classical Greek of Plutarch, and does not necessarily reflect the Doric dialect that Leonidas would have used. The form is recorded in Doric as the aorist for , "to go, come".


title: Molon labe

text: The phrase is participial, and the translation would be "when you come, take it!” This use of the participle is known as the circumstantial participle in the grammar of classical Greek, i.e. the participle gives a circumstance (the coming) attendant on the main verb (the taking). It is a form of hypotaxis, where English would use parataxis, the conjunction of two verbs, "come and take". This construction normally (but not always) occurs within narrative literature.


title: Molon labe

text: The first word, (, "having come") is the aorist active participle (masculine, nominative, singular) of the Greek verb (, "to come").


title: Molon labe

text: The aorist stem is (the present stem in being the regular reflex of , from a verbal root reconstructed as , , "to appear"). The aorist participle is used in cases where an action has been completed, also called the perfective aspect. This is a nuance indicating that the first action (the coming) must precede the second (the taking).


title: Molon labe

text: The second word, , is the second person singular aorist imperative of "take; grasp, seize". The entire phrase is thus in the singular, i.e. Leonidas is depicted as addressing Xerxes personally, not the Persian army as a group.


title: Molon labe

text: Plutarch cites the phrase in his ("Sayings of Spartans"). The exchange between Leonidas and Xerxes occurs in writing, on the eve of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC):


title: Molon labe

text: When Xerxes wrote again, 'Hand over your arms,' he wrote in reply, 'Come and take them.' (trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, 1931)


title: Molon labe

text: The exchange is cited in a collection of sayings by Leonidas before the Battle of Thermopylae (51.2–15).


title: Molon labe

text: The main source for the events of the battle is Herodotus. According to his account, the Spartans held Thermopylae for three days, and although ultimately defeated, they inflicted serious damage on the Persian army. Most importantly, this delayed the Persians' progress to Athens, providing sufficient time for the city's evacuation to the island of Salamis. Though a tactical defeat, Thermopylae served as a strategic and moral victory, inspiring the Greek forces to defeat the Persians at the Battle of Salamis later the same year and the Battle of Plataea one year later.


title: Molon labe

text: Modern use of as a military motto appears to originate in the Kingdom of Greece during the First World War or the Greco-Turkish War.


title: Molon labe

text: The motto is on the emblem of the I Army Corps of Greece and the Second Infantry Division of Cyprus (1940). The phrase was inscribed on the Thermopylae monument (1955), using an archaic script that would be appropriate for the time of the Persian Wars.


title: Molon labe

text: During the Cyprus Emergency between Greek Cypriot insurgents and British troops, Cypriot leader Grigoris Afxentiou on 3 March 1957 became surrounded by British forces outside his secret hideout near the Machairas Monastery near Lazanias, Nicosia. The British troops requested that he surrender his arms, but Afxentiou shouted in reply. Unable to flush him out and sustaining several casualties, the British forces resorted to pouring gasoline into his hideout and lighting it.


title: Molon labe

text: Allusion to the phrase in an English translation ("come and take it!") is recorded in the context of the Revolutionary War, noted in 1778 at Fort Morris in the Province of Georgia, and later in 1835 at the Battle of Gonzales during the Texas Revolution where it became a prevalent slogan.


title: Molon labe

text: In the United States, the original Greek phrase and its English translation are often heard as a defense of the right to keep and bear arms and opposition to gun control legislation.


title: Molon labe

text: Use of the original Greek in the United States is more recent. Its use by militia organizations is reported for the 1990s or early 2000s. It is the motto of the Special Operations Command Central (SOCCENT).


title: Tina Ambani

text: Tina Ambani (née Munim) is a former Indian actress. She is married to Anil Ambani, Chairman of Reliance Group. She is actively involved in many foundations and charities. Many of these were established in the memory of her in-laws, Dhirubhai and Kokilaben Ambani. Her work ranges from elder care to promotion of Indian art.


title: Tina Ambani

text: Ambani was born Tina Munim on 11 February 1957. She graduated high school in 1975 from the MM Pupils Own School in Khar, Bombay. The same year, she was crowned Femina Teen Princess India 1975 and represented India at the Miss Teenage Intercontinental contest in Aruba, where she was crowned second runner-up.She subsequently enrolled in Jai Hind College for a degree in arts. Later in 70s, she joined the Hindi film industry and had a successful career as a leading actress, for thirteen years.


title: Tina Ambani

text: On 2 February 1991, she married Anil Ambani, the younger son of Indian business tycoon Dhirubhai Ambani who founded Reliance Industries. They have two sons Jai Anmol (born in December 1991) and Jai Anshul (born in September 1995). The eldest, Jai Anmol married Khrisha Shah on 20 February 2022. Munim's brother-in-law is Asia's richest man, Mukesh Ambani who is the chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). Nita Ambani, founder of Reliance Foundation, and wife of Mukesh,is her sister-in-law.


title: Tina Ambani

text: Munim made her debut in Hindi films with filmmaker "Dev Anand's" Des Pardes. Her other films with Dev Anand include "Lootmaar", and "Man Pasand." She was cast opposite Amol Palekar in Basu Chatterjee's "Baaton Baaton Mein."


title: Tina Ambani

text: With the aim to offer young artists a platform to exhibit alongside seasoned veterans and acknowledged masters, she organised the first Harmony Art show in 1995. In 2008, Harmony Art Foundation showcased upcoming Indian artists at Christie's in London, drawing attention to the wealth of talent in India. She has served on the board of trustees of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, which is the oldest continually operating museum in the US since 2008.


title: Tina Ambani

text: In addition, she has served on the advisory board of the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai and the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. She was also nominated to the reconstituted General Assembly of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). She has been actively associated with several welfare activities such as Aseema, an NGO engaged in the rehabilitation of street children, and the restoration of Elephanta Island, a World Heritage Site near Mumbai, with the Archaeological Survey of India and UNESCO.


title: Tina Ambani

text: In 2004, Ambani established Harmony for Silvers Foundation, a Mumbai-based non-government organisation that seeks to enhance the quality of life of the elderly. Its activities have included "Harmony – Celebrate Age", the magazine, now in its 14th year; the portal www.harmonyindia.org; Harmony Interactive Centre for Silver Citizens, in South Mumbai; the Harmony Research Division; the Harmony Silver Awards; and the Harmony Senior Citizens’ Runs at the Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru marathons.


title: Tina Ambani

text: In order to bridge the gaps in Indian healthcare, Ambani launched the Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital & Medical Research Institute (KDAH) in Mumbai in 2009, a quaternary care facility. It is the only hospital in Mumbai to receive accreditation from the JCI (Joint Commission International, USA), NABH (National Accreditation Board for Healthcare, India), CAP (College of American Pathologists, USA) and NABL (National Accreditation Board for Laboratories, India). Other standouts include the first comprehensive centre for liver transplant and the first integrated centre for children's cardiac care in western India; its robotic surgery programme; the centres for rehabilitation and sports medicine; and its initiative to open 18 cancer care centres in rural Maharashtra.


title: British passport

text: A British passport is a travel document issued by the United Kingdom or other British dependencies and territories to individuals holding any form of British nationality. It grants the bearer international passage in accordance with visa requirements and serves as proof of citizenship. It also facilitates access to consular assistance from British embassies around the world. Passports are issued using royal prerogative, which is exercised by His Majesty's Government; this means that the grant of a passport is a privilege, not a right, and may be withdrawn in some circumstances. British citizen passports have been issued in the UK by His Majesty's Passport Office, an agency of the Home Office, since 2014. All passports issued in the UK since 2006 have been biometric.


title: British passport

text: The legacy of the United Kingdom as an imperial power has resulted in several types of British nationality, and different types of British passport exist as a result. Furthermore, each of the Crown dependencies and Overseas territories issue their own variants of British passports to those with links to their jurisdictions, which have small differences from the UK-variant passport. All British passports enable the bearer to request consular assistance from British embassies and from certain Commonwealth embassies in some cases. British citizens can use their passport as evidence of right of abode in the United Kingdom.


title: British passport

text: Between 1920 and 1992, the standard design of British passports was a navy blue hardcover booklet featuring the royal coat of arms emblazoned in gold. From 1988, the UK adopted machine readable passports in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organization standard 9303. At this time, the passport colour was also changed to burgundy red, to bring it into line with the European Community passports of the other member states. The previous blue hardback passport continued to be issued in tandem with the new design until stocks were exhausted in 1992. March 2020 saw the introduction of a new navy blue passport with a continuity design based on the previous blue passport last issued in 1992. This design was phased in over a number of months, and when introduced, the plan was that all passports issued should be blue by mid-2020. All passports are now issued with the blue design and they are made by Thales DIS (formerly Gemalto) in Poland.


title: British passport

text: Since the introduction of biometric passports in 2006, a new design has been introduced every five years.


title: British passport

text: King Henry V of England is credited with having invented what some consider the first passport in the modern sense, as a means of helping his subjects prove who they were in foreign lands. The earliest reference to these documents is found in the Safe Conducts Act 1414. In 1540, granting travel documents in England became a role of the Privy Council of England, and it was around this time that the term "passport" was introduced. In Scotland, passports were issued by the Scottish Crown and could also be issued on the Crown's behalf by burghs, senior churchmen and noblemen. Passports were still signed by the monarch until 1685, when the Secretary of State could sign them instead. The Secretary of State signed all passports in place of the monarch from 1794 onwards, at which time formal records started to be kept; all of these records still exist. Passports were written in Latin or English until 1772, then in French until 1858. Since that time, they have been written in English, with some sections translated into French. In 1855, passports became a standardised document issued solely to British nationals. They were a simple single-sheet hand-drafted paper document.


title: British passport

text: Some duplicate passports and passport records are available at the British Library; for example IOR: L/P&J/11 contain a few surviving passports of travelling ayahs from the 1930s.


title: British passport

text: Starting in the late 19th century, an increasing number of Britons began travelling abroad due to the advent of railways and travel services such as the Thomas Cook Continental Timetable. The speed of trains, as well as the number of passengers that crossed multiple borders, made enforcement of passport laws difficult, and many travellers did not carry a passport in this era. However, the outbreak of World War I led to the introduction of modern border controls, including in the UK with passage of the British Nationality and Status of Aliens Act 1914. Thus, in 1915 the British government developed a new format of passport that could be mass-produced and used to quickly identify the bearer. The new passport consisted of a printed sheet folded into ten and affixed to a clothed cardboard cover. It included a description of the holder as well as a photograph, and had to be renewed after two years.


title: British passport

text: In October 1920, the League of Nations held the Paris Conference on Passports & Customs Formalities and Through Tickets. British diplomats joined with 42 countries to draft passport guidelines and a general booklet design resulted from the conference. The League model specified a 32-page booklet of 15.5 cm by 10.5 cm (6.1 inches by 4.1 inches). The first four pages were reserved for detailing the bearer's physical characteristics, occupation and residence.


title: British passport

text: The British government formed the Passport Office in the same year and in 1921 began issuing 32-page passports with a navy blue hardcover with an embossed coat of arms. "BRITISH PASSPORT" was the common identifier printed at the top of all booklets, while the name of the issuing government was printed below the coat of arms (e.g. United Kingdom, New Zealand, Hong Kong). Cut-outs in the cover allowed the bearer's name and the passport number to be displayed. This format would remain the standard for most British passports until the introduction of machine-readable passports in 1988. It continued to be issued in the United Kingdom until the end of 1993.


title: British passport

text: As with many contemporary travel documents worldwide, details were handwritten into the passport and (as of 1955) included: number, holder's name, "accompanied by his wife" and her maiden name, "and" (number) "children", national status. For both bearer and wife: profession, place and date of birth, country of residence, height, eye and hair colour, special peculiarities, signature and photograph. Names, birth dates, and sexes of children, list of countries for which valid, issue place and date, expiry date, a page for renewals and, at the back, details of the amount of foreign exchange for travel expenses (a limited amount of sterling, typically £50 but increasing with inflation, could be taken out of the country). The bearer's sex was not explicitly stated, although the name was written in with title ("Mr John Smith"). Descriptive text was printed in both English and French (a practice which continues), e.g., "Accompanied by his wife (Maiden name)/Accompagné de sa femme (Née)". Changed details were struck out and rewritten, with a rubber-stamped note confirming the change.


title: British passport

text: If details and photograph of a man's wife and details of children were entered (this was not compulsory), the passport could be used by the bearer, wife, and children under 16, if together; separate passports were required for the wife or children to travel independently. The passport was valid for five years, renewable for another five, after which it had to be replaced.


title: British passport

text: Renewal of a passport required physical cancellation of the old passport, which was then returned to the bearer. The top-right corner of its front cover was cut off and "Cancelled" was stamped into one or both of the cut-outs in the front cover, which showed the passport number and the bearer's name, as well on the pages showing the bearer's details and the document's validity.


title: British passport

text: For much of the 20th century, the passport had a printed list of countries for which it was valid, which was added to manually as validity increased. A passport issued in 1955 was valid for the British Commonwealth, USA, and all countries in Europe "including the USSR, Turkey, Algeria, Azores, Canary Islands, Iceland, and Madeira"; during its period of validity restrictions eased and it was endorsed "and for all other foreign countries".


title: British passport

text: A new simplified type, the British Visitor's Passport, was introduced in 1961. It was a single sheet of cardboard, folded in three so as to consist of six pages the same size as those of a regular passport, and was valid for one year. It was obtainable for many years from Employment Exchanges, as agents of the Passport Office, and later from a Post Office. It was accepted for travel by most west European countries (excluding surface travel to West Berlin), but was dropped in 1995 since it did not meet new security standards. A cancelled passport, which was returned to the bearer, had its top-right corner cut off, which had the effect of removing a corner from every page.


title: British passport

text: After the passport standardisation efforts of the 1920s, further effort to update international passport guidance was limited. The United Kingdom joined the European Communities in 1973, at a time when the Communities was looking to strengthen European civic identity. Between 1974 and 1975, the member states developed a common format. Member states agreed that passports should be burgundy in colour and feature the heading "European Community" in addition to the country name. Adoption was by member states was voluntary. While most of the Community adopted the format by 1985, the UK continued to issue the traditional blue booklet.


title: British passport

text: Rapid growth of air travel and technological change led to the International Civil Aviation Organization defining a new international standard for machine-readable passports, ICAO Doc 9303, in 1980. An ICAO standard machine-readable passport was a significant departure from the traditional British passport layout, and the British government did not immediately adopt it. In 1986, the United States announced the US Visa Waiver Program. The concept allowed for passport holders of certain countries to enter the US for business or tourism without applying for a visitor visa. The UK was the first country to join the scheme in 1988; however, a requirement was that the traveller hold a machine-readable passport. Thus, the British government was, after nearly 70 years, forced to retire the traditional navy blue League of Nations format passport.


title: British passport

text: With the move to machine-readable passports, the UK decided to adopt the European Community format. On 15 August 1988, the Glasgow passport office became the first to issue burgundy-coloured machine-readable passports. They had the words 'European Community' on the cover, later changed to 'European Union' in 1997. The passport had 32 pages; while a 48-page version was made available with more space for stamps and visas. Two lines of machine-readable text were printed in ICAO format, and a section was included in which relevant terms ("surname", "date of issue", etc.) were translated into the official EU languages. Passports issued overseas did not all have a Machine Readable Zone, but these were introduced gradually as appropriate equipment was made available overseas.


title: British passport

text: While other British territories such as Hong Kong and the Cayman Islands were not part of the European Community, they also adopted the same European format, although "British Passport" remained at the top rather than "European Community".


title: British passport

text: In 1998 the first digital image passport was introduced with photographs being replaced with images printed directly on the data page which was moved from the cover to an inside page to reduce the ease of fraud. These documents were all issued with machine-readable zones and had a hologram over the photograph, which was the first time that British passports had been protected by an optically variable safeguard. These documents were issued until 2006 when the biometric passport was introduced.


title: British passport

text: In the late 1990s, ICAO's Technical Advisory Group began developing a new standard for storing biometric data (e.g. photo, fingerprints, iris scan) on a chip embedded in a passport. The September 11 attacks involving the hijacking of commercial airliners led to the rapid incorporation of the group's technical report in to ICAO Doc 9303.


title: British passport

text: The Identity and Passport Service issued the first biometric British passport on 6 February 2006, known as Series A. This was the first British passport to feature artwork. Series A, version 1 was produced between 2006 and 2010, while an updated version 2 with technical changes and refreshed artwork was produced between 2010 and 2015.