title: Creativity

text: In the Scottish education system, creativity is identified as a core skillset for learning, life and work and is defined as "a process which generates ideas that have value to the individual. It involves looking at familiar things with a fresh eye, examining problems with an open mind, making connections, learning from mistakes and using imagination to explore new possibilities." The need to develop a shared language and understanding of creativity and its role across every aspect of learning, teaching and continuous improvement was identified as a necessary aim and a set of four skills is used to allow educators to discuss and develop creativity skills across all subjects and sectors of education – curiosity, open-mindedness, imagination and problem solving. Distinctions are made between creative learning (when learners are using their creativity skills), creative teaching (when educators are using their creativity skills) and creative change (when creativity skills are applied to planning and improvement). Scotland's national Creative Learning Plan supports the development of creativity skills in all learners and of educators' expertise in developing creativity skills. A range of resources have been created to support and assess this including a national review of creativity across learning by Her Majesty's Inspectorate for Education.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: In Through the Out Door is the eighth and final studio album by the English rock band Led Zeppelin. It was recorded in three weeks in November and December 1978 at ABBA's Polar Studios in Stockholm, Sweden, and released by Swan Song Records on 15 August 1979. Unlike earlier Led Zeppelin albums, "In Through the Out Door" was dominated musically by John Paul Jones. It was the band's last studio release before they disbanded in December 1980 after the death of their drummer John Bonham three months earlier.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The album was a huge commercial success; it went to on the "Billboard" 200 in just its second week on the American chart. It also went to in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The album was named by the group to describe its struggles after the death of Robert Plant's son Karac in 1977, and the taxation exile the band took from the UK. The exile resulted in the band being unable to tour on British soil for over two years, and trying to get back into the public mind was therefore like "trying to get in through the 'out' door".


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The group began rehearsing material in September 1978. After six weeks, they travelled to Polar Studios in Stockholm to begin recording. In contrast to previous Led Zeppelin albums, "In Through the Out Door" features much greater influence on the part of bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones and vocalist Robert Plant, and relatively less from drummer John Bonham and guitarist Jimmy Page, who often failed to show up on time at the recording studio. Bonham was struggling with alcoholism and Page was battling heroin addiction. Jones later said, "there were two distinct camps by then, and we [Plant and I] were in the relatively clean one." Many of the songs were consequently put together by Plant and Jones during the day, with Page and Bonham adding their parts late at night. Jones was inspired by the Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer he had recently purchased, and he was "working closely with Robert, which was something that had not happened before".


title: In Through the Out Door

text: After the recording sessions at Polar, the album was mixed at Page's personal studio at his home in Plumpton. "Wearing and Tearing", "Ozone Baby" and "Darlene"—the latter a boogie-woogie based song credited to all band members—were recorded during sessions for this album, but were dropped because of space constraints. All later appeared on "Coda".


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The music on "In Through the Out Door" is dominated by Jones. Two songs from the album—"South Bound Saurez" and "All My Love"—were the only two original Led Zeppelin songs that Page had no part in writing.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "In Through the Out Door" is the group's only studio album for which Bonham received no writing credits.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "In the Evening" was planned as the opening track for the album as "a full-blown epic", in order to show that Led Zeppelin could still make good music. In an interview, Page explained that he used a violin bow and a Gizmotron effect on his guitar to create the droning sound in the opening section of the song. The track features a contrast between the powerful riffs in the main part of the track, against a relatively quiet middle section.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "South Bound Saurez" starts with a "rollicking piano intro" played by Jones; author Dave Lewis calls it a "track that conjures up the New Orleans bar room feel of the sleeve." Credited to Jones and Robert Plant, it is one of only three officially released original songs by the band not to bear a Jimmy Page composition credit (along with this album's "All My Love", also credited to Jones and Plant, and "Bonzo's Montreux" from "Coda", whose composition is credited only to John Bonham).


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "Fool in the Rain" was an attempt to combine a samba rhythm with a basic rock tune, resulting in a polyrhythm part way through the song. The idea was inspired by Plant explaining that the group must explore new musical territory in order to remain current.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "Hot Dog" grew out of the band's pre-production rehearsals, where they warmed up by playing a series of old Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson covers. Dave Lewis calls it a "rockabilly country hoe-down" that "owes much to the state of Texas and to the state of a particular female in Texas."


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "Carouselambra" is a ten-minute track, dominated by Jones' keyboards and covering a variety of musical styles. Page played his Gibson EDS-1275 double neck guitar, which was normally only used for live performances. The group had intended to play the song live for the planned 1980 US tour, which was cancelled after Bonham's death.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "All My Love" is an unconventional love song composed by Plant and Jones when they were the first to arrive at the studio. It was written in honour of Plant's son Karac, who died while Led Zeppelin were on their 1977 North American tour. Jones played a classically inspired synthesizer solo in the middle of the track.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "I'm Gonna Crawl" is a relaxed blues track. Plant arranged the track to be in the style of mid-1960s soul music such as Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding. Jones contributed a string synthesizer arrangement.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The original album featured an unusual gimmick: the album had an outer sleeve which was made to look like a plain brown paper bag (reminiscent of similarly packaged bootleg album sleeves with the title rubber-stamped on it), and the inner sleeve featured black and white line artwork which, if washed with water, would become permanently fully colored. There were also six different sleeves featuring a different pair of photos (one on each side), and the external brown paper sleeve meant that it was impossible for record buyers to tell which sleeve they were getting. The pictures all depicted the same scene in a bar (in which a man burns a Dear John letter), and each photo was taken from the separate point of view of someone who appeared in the other photos. The photo session in a London studio was meant to look like a re-creation of the Old Absinthe House, in New Orleans, Louisiana.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The album artwork was designed by Hipgnosis' Storm Thorgerson. In 1980, Hipgnosis was nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of Best Album Package for "In Through the Out Door".


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The album was intended to be released before the band's twin concerts at Knebworth in 1979, but production delays meant that it was released shortly after their performances at this event, on 15 August 1979. Plant jokingly referred to the delays at times during the performance on 4 August 1979.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The album reached No. 1 on the "Billboard" 200 in its second week on the album chart, reportedly selling 1.7 million copies within weeks of release. Subsequently, Led Zeppelin's entire catalogue appeared in the "Billboard" 200 between the weeks of 23 October and 3 November 1979, an unprecedented feat, topping their own record in 1975, when all their albums up to "Physical Graffiti" were on the chart. The album remained on the US top spot for seven weeks and sold three million copies by the end of September 1979. It was credited with helping to revive the US record industry, which had begun to struggle. In January 1980, "Fool in the Rain" was released as a single to further promote the album, but it narrowly missed the top 20 of the singles chart. It was the band's final studio release to reach the top of the charts in the United States.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "In Through the Out Door" is the Led Zeppelin album that has spent the most weeks on the top of the charts (tied with "Led Zeppelin II"). To date, the album has sold six million copies in the US.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: "In Through the Out Door" divided contemporary critics and Led Zeppelin fans; some found its synthesizer-influenced music inevitable but forward-thinking while others felt the band had forsaken their heavy, fast sound. According to Jimmy Page biographer Martin Power, "predictably, in the wake of punk, "In Through the Out Door" received a rough ride from some critics, with Zep's veteran status in the music business now used as a stick with which to beat them."


title: In Through the Out Door

text: Reviewing the album in "Rolling Stone", Charles M. Young said Page's diminishing creativity resulted in little good material to work with for Plant, whose lyrics Young found inane, and Bonham, whose drumming was viewed as heavy handed. This brought to the forefront the keyboard playing of Jones, who Young said "functions best behind Page, not in front of him". Chris Bohn from "Melody Maker" said "the impressionable first play" of the record "had everyone in the office rolling around laughing", while accusing the band of being "totally out of touch" and "displaying the first intimations of mortality". By contrast, "NME" journalist Nick Kent argued that the album was "no epitaph", believing its "potential points of departure" deserved further listening. Robert Christgau also wrote positively of the record in "The Village Voice", observing the usual "lax in the lyrics department", but regarding the album as the group's best since "Houses of the Holy" (1973). He said "the tuneful synthesizer pomp on side two confirms my long-held belief that this is a real good art-rock band", while "the lollapalooza hooks on the first side confirms the world's long-held belief that this is a real good hard rock band". At the end of the year, "In Through the Out Door" was nominated for the 1980 American Music Awards, in the category of "Favorite Pop/Rock Album".


title: In Through the Out Door

text: Following the album's release, Plant, Page and Bonham all expressed reservations about the record. Plant later said that he enjoyed the variation in styles from previous albums, though he appreciated the album was "a bit sanitised". Page said in 2004, "we wanted, after "In Through the Out Door", to make something hard-hitting and riff-based again. Of course, we never got to make that album." He is also quoted as saying, "It wasn't the most comfortable album. I think it was very transitional ... a springboard for what could have been." "In Through the Out Door" was Led Zeppelin's final album to be released while all the original members were still living. Drummer John Bonham died the next year on 25 September 1980.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: In "The Rolling Stone Album Guide" (2004), Gaylord Fields said the album was "maligned upon its release a retreat from heaviness" but "now stands as an art-rock oddity with some alluring tangents". Colin Larkin appraised it in his "Encyclopedia of Popular Music" (2006) as "lacking the definition" of the band's previous records, yet "a strong collection on which John Paul Jones emerged as the unifying factor". Neil McCormick, however, reinforced past complaints about the album, ranking it as the band's worst album in a 2014 retrospective on the band in "The Daily Telegraph": "Muddy production, perky synths, jaunty pop rhythms and an orchestral ballad make these songs barely recognisable as the heaviest band in history."


title: In Through the Out Door

text: A remastered version of "In Through the Out Door", along with "Presence" and "Coda" were reissued on 31 July 2015. The reissue comes in six formats: a standard CD edition, a deluxe two-CD edition, a standard LP version, a deluxe two-LP version, a super deluxe two-CD plus two-LP version with a hardback book, and as high resolution 24-bit/96k digital downloads. The deluxe and super deluxe editions feature bonus material containing alternative takes and alternatively titled tracks, "Southbound Piano", "The Epic", "The Hook", and "Blot". The reissue was released with a black and white version of the original album's artwork as its bonus disc's cover. A replica of the brown bag and the colourable line drawing are included in this edition.


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The reissue was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 73, based on eight reviews. "Q" magazine said "it's aged remarkably well and 'All My Love' is breathtakingly beautiful", while Tim Batcup from "Classic Rock" observed in the bonus material "a scruffier, rambunctious 'Hot Dog' and a sparser 'In the Evening', the drone intro truncated and Jones's synths high in the mix". "PopMatters" reviewer Andrew Doscas was more critical, especially of the bonus disc: "While "In Through the Out Door" does have some merit, it's cruel of Led Zeppelin to think that anyone, even a dedicated fan, could muster the strength to listen to the album twice in a row."


title: In Through the Out Door

text: The details are taken from the original US Swan Song album (UK edition does not list running times). All tracks written by John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant, except where noted.


Long-term nuclear waste warning messages are communication attempts intended to deter human intrusion at nuclear waste repositories in the far future, within or above the order of magnitude of 10,000 years. Nuclear semiotics is an interdisciplinary field of research, first done by the American Human Interference Task Force in 1981.


title: Long-term nuclear waste warning messages

text: A 1993 report from Sandia National Laboratories recommended that such messages be constructed at several levels of complexity. They suggested that the sites should include foreboding physical features which would immediately convey to future visitors that the site was both man-made and dangerous, as well as providing pictographic information attempting to convey some details of the danger, and written explanations for those able to read it.


text: A 1993 report from Sandia National Laboratories aimed to communicate a series of messages non-linguistically to any future visitors to a waste site. It gave the following wording as an example of what those messages should evoke:


text: The Sandia report further recommended that any such message should comprise four levels of increasing complexity:


text: The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has done extensive research in development of written or pictorial messages to warn future generations. Since today's written languages are unlikely to survive, the research team has considered pictograms and hostile architecture in addition to them. Texts were proposed to be translated to every UN written language. In 1994, Level II, III, and IV messages in English were translated into French, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, and Navajo, with plans to continue testing and revision of the original English text and subsequent eventual translation into further languages.


text: Conceptual designs for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant included an "Information Center" at the geometric center of the site. The building would be an open structure of solid granite or concrete, measuring , and contain Level IV messages. The plans included a suggestion that the building be designed so as to create a "dissonant and mournful" whistling sound when wind blew through it, acting as a Level I message.


text: Working as part of the Human Interference Task Force in 1981, Vilmos Voigt from Eötvös-Loránd University (Budapest) proposed the installation of warning signs in the most important global languages in a concentric pattern around any terminal storage location. As time passed, further signs would be added translating the earlier signs, with the earlier ones remaining in place.


text: The Sandia report explored designs for physical markers which conveyed the concepts of dangerous emanations, shapes that evoke bodily harm, and the concept of "shunned land" that appears destroyed or poisoned. The designs suggested included:


text: To determine how to convey long-term nuclear warning messages, the (Tübingen, Germany) issued a poll in 1982 and 1983 asking how a message might be communicated for a duration of 10,000 years. The poll asked the following question: "How would it be possible to inform our descendants for the next 10,000 years about the storage locations and dangers of radioactive waste?" leading to the following answers:


text: The linguist Thomas Sebeok was a member of the Bechtel working group. Building on earlier suggestions made by Alvin Weinberg and Arsen Darnay he proposed the creation of an "atomic priesthood", a panel of experts where members would be replaced through nominations by a council. Similar to the Catholic church – which has preserved and authorized its message for almost 2,000 yearsthe "atomic priesthood" would have to preserve the knowledge about locations and dangers of radioactive waste by creating rituals and myths. The priesthood would indicate off-limits areas and the consequences of disobedience.


text: Polish science-fiction author Stanisław Lem proposed the creation of artificial satellites that would transmit information from their orbit to Earth for millennia. He also described a biological coding of DNA in a mathematical sense, which would reproduce itself automatically. "Information Plants" would only grow near a terminal storage site and would inform humans about the dangers. The DNA of the so-called atomic flowers would contain the necessary data about both the location and its contents.


text: Lem acknowledged the problem with his idea was that humans would be unlikely to know the meaning of atomic flowers 10,000 years later, and thus unlikely to decode their DNA in a search for information.


text: French author Françoise Bastide and the Italian semiotician Paolo Fabbri proposed the breeding of so-called "radiation cats" or "ray cats". Cats have a long history of cohabitation with humans, and this approach assumes that their domestication will continue indefinitely. These radiation cats would change significantly in color when they came near radioactive emissions and serve as living indicators of danger.


text: To transport the message, the importance of the cats would need to be set in the collective awareness through fairy tales and myths. Those fairy tales and myths in turn could be transmitted through poetry, music and painting. As a response, the podcast "99% Invisible" commissioned musician Emperor X to write a song about ray cats for a 2014 episode about long-term nuclear waste warning messages. The song, called "10,000-Year Earworm to Discourage Settlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories (Don't Change Color, Kitty)", was designed to be "so catchy and annoying that it might be handed down from generation to generation over a span of 10,000 years".


text: Later in 2016, the story of the original project was depicted in the short documentary "The Ray Cat Solution".


text: Vilmos Voigt from Eötvös-Loránd University (Budapest) proposed the installation of warning signs in the most important global languages in a concentric pattern around the terminal storage location. After a certain time span new signs with translations would be installed, but the old signs would not be removed. Newer signs would be posted farther away from the location, thus the warning would be understandable as languages change and it would be possible to understand the older languages through the translation.


text: Physicist from Baden, Switzerland, proposed that terminal storage locations be constructed in such a way that future generations could reach them only with a high technical ability. The probability of an unwanted breach would then become extremely small. Furthermore, cultures able to perform such excavations and drilling would most certainly be able to detect radioactive material and be aware of its dangers.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: Robert Keith McFerrin Jr. (born March 11, 1950) is an American folk and jazz singer. He is known for his vocal techniques, such as singing fluidly but with quick and considerable jumps in pitch—for example, sustaining a melody while also rapidly alternating with arpeggios and harmonies—as well as scat singing, polyphonic overtone singing, and improvisational vocal percussion. He is widely known for performing and recording regularly as an unaccompanied solo vocal artist. He has frequently collaborated with other artists from both the jazz and classical scenes.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: McFerrin's song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" was a No. 1 U.S. pop hit in 1988 and won Song of the Year and Record of the Year honors at the 1989 Grammy Awards. McFerrin has also worked in collaboration with instrumentalists, including the pianists Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Joe Zawinul, the drummer Tony Williams, and the cellist Yo-Yo Ma.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: McFerrin was born in Manhattan, New York City, United States, the son of operatic baritone Robert McFerrin and singer Sara Copper. He attended Cathedral High School in Los Angeles, Cerritos College, University of Illinois Springfield (then known as Sangamon State University) and California State University, Sacramento.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: McFerrin's first recorded work, the self-titled album "Bobby McFerrin", was not produced until 1982, when McFerrin was already 31 years old. Before that, he had spent six years developing his musical style, the first two years of which he attempted not to listen to other singers at all, in order to avoid sounding like them. He was influenced by Keith Jarrett, who had achieved great success with a series of solo improvised piano concerts including "The Köln Concert" of 1975, and wanted to attempt something similar vocally.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In 1984, McFerrin performed onstage at the Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles as a sixth member of Herbie Hancock's VSOP II, sharing horn trio parts with the Marsalis brothers.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In 1986, McFerrin was the voice of Santa Bear in "Santa Bear's First Christmas", and in 1987 he was the voice of Santa Bear/Bully Bear in the sequel "Santa Bear's High Flying Adventure". On September 24 of that same year, he performed the theme song for the opening credits of Season 4 of "The Cosby Show".


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In 1988, McFerrin recorded the song "Don't Worry, Be Happy", which became a hit and brought him widespread recognition across the world. The song's success "ended McFerrin's musical life as he had known it," and he began to pursue other musical possibilities on stage and in recording studios. The song was used as the official campaign song for George H. W. Bush in the 1988 U.S. presidential election, without Bobby McFerrin's permission or endorsement. In reaction, Bobby McFerrin publicly protested that use of his song, and stated that he was going to vote against Bush. He also dropped the song from his own performance repertoire.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: At that time, he performed on the PBS TV special "Sing Out America! with Judy Collins". McFerrin sang a "Wizard of Oz" medley during that television special.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In 1989, he composed and performed the music for the Pixar short film "Knick Knack". The rough cut to which McFerrin recorded his vocals had the words "blah blah blah" in place of the end credits (meant to indicate that he should improvise). McFerrin spontaneously decided to sing "blah blah blah" as lyrics, and the final version of the short film includes these lyrics during the end credits. Also in 1989, he formed a ten-person "Voicestra" which he featured on both his 1990 album "Medicine Music" and in the score to the 1989 Oscar-winning documentary "".


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: Around 1992, an urban legend began that McFerrin had committed suicide; it has been speculated that the false story spread because people enjoyed the irony of a man known for the positive message of "Don't Worry, Be Happy" suffering from depression in real life. But in reality Mcferrin knew the song helped spread the message of positivity to the world abroad and was very proud of the work as a whole.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In 1993, he sang Henry Mancini's "Pink Panther Theme" for the 1993 comedy film "Son of the Pink Panther".


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In addition to his vocal performing career, in 1994, McFerrin was appointed as creative chair of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He makes regular tours as a guest conductor for symphony orchestras throughout the United States and Canada, including the San Francisco Symphony (on his 40th birthday), the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and many others. In McFerrin's concert appearances, he combines serious conducting of classical pieces with his own unique vocal improvisations, often with participation from the audience and the orchestra. For example, the concerts often end with McFerrin conducting the orchestra in an a cappella rendition of the "William Tell Overture," in which the orchestra members sing their musical parts in McFerrin's vocal style instead of playing their parts on their instruments.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: For a few years in the late 1990s, he toured a concert version of "Porgy and Bess", partly in honor of his father, who sang the role for Sidney Poitier in the 1959 film version, and partly "to preserve the score's jazziness" in the face of "largely white orchestras" who tend not "to play around the bar lines, to stretch and bend". McFerrin says that because of his father's work in the movie, "This music has been in my body for 40 years, probably longer than any other music."


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: McFerrin also participates in various music education programs and makes volunteer appearances as a guest music teacher and lecturer at public schools throughout the U.S. McFerrin has collaborated with his son, Taylor, on various musical ventures.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In July 2003, McFerrin was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music during the Umbria Jazz Festival where he conducted two days of clinics.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: In 2009, McFerrin and psychologist Daniel Levitin hosted "The Music Instinct", a two-hour documentary produced by PBS and based on Levitin's best-selling book "This Is Your Brain on Music". Later that year, the two appeared together on a panel at the World Science Festival.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: As a vocalist, McFerrin often switches rapidly between modal and falsetto registers to create polyphonic effects, performing both the main melody and the accompanying parts of songs. He makes use of percussive effects created both with his mouth and by tapping on his chest. McFerrin is also capable of multiphonic singing.


title: Bobby McFerrin

text: A document of McFerrin's approach to singing is his 1984 album "The Voice", the first solo vocal jazz album recorded with no accompaniment or overdubbing.


title: BT Group

text: BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broadband and mobile services in the UK, and also provides subscription television and IT services.


title: BT Group

text: BT's origins date back to the founding in 1846 of the Electric Telegraph Company, the world's first public telegraph company, which developed a nationwide communications network. BT Group as it came to be started in 1912, when the General Post Office, a government department, took over the system of the National Telephone Company becoming the monopoly telecoms supplier in the United Kingdom. The Post Office Act of 1969 led to the GPO becoming a public corporation. The "British Telecom" brand was introduced in 1980, and became independent of the Post Office in 1981, officially trading under the name. British Telecommunications was privatised in 1984, becoming "British Telecommunications plc", with some 50 percent of its shares sold to investors. The Government sold its remaining stake in further share sales in 1991 and 1993. BT holds a royal warrant and has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.


title: BT Group

text: BT controls a number of large subsidiaries. BT Global Services division supplies telecoms services to corporate and government customers worldwide, and its BT Consumer division supplies telephony, broadband, and subscription television services in the United Kingdom to around 18 million customers.


title: BT Group

text: A number of privately owned telegraph companies operated in Britain from 1846 onwards. Among them were:


title: BT Group

text: The Telegraph Act 1868 passed the control of all these to the newly formed GPO (General Post Office)'s Postal Telegraphs Department.


title: BT Group

text: With the invention of the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 the GPO began to provide telephone services from some of its telegraph exchanges. In 1882 the Postmaster-General, Henry Fawcett started to issue licences to operate a telephone service to private businesses and the telephone system grew under the GPO in some areas and private ownership in others. The GPO's main competitor, the National Telephone Company, emerged in this market by absorbing other private telephone companies, prior to its absorption into the GPO in 1912.


title: BT Group

text: The trunk network was unified under GPO control in 1896 and the local distribution network in 1912. A few municipally owned services remained outside of GPO control. These were Kingston upon Hull, Portsmouth and Guernsey. Hull still retains an independent operator, Kingston Communications, though it is no longer municipally controlled.


title: BT Group

text: In 1969 the GPO, a government department, became the Post Office, a nationalised industry separate from government. Post Office Telecommunications was one of the divisions.


title: BT Group

text: The "British Telecom" brand was introduced in 1980. On 1 October 1981, this became the official name of Post Office Telecommunications, which became a state-owned corporation independent of the Post Office under the provisions of the British Telecommunications Act 1981. In 1982 BT's monopoly on telecommunications was broken with the granting of a licence to Mercury Communications.


title: BT Group

text: On 19 July 1982, the Government announced its intention to sell shares in British Telecom to the public. On 1 April 1984, British Telecommunications was incorporated as a public limited company (plc) in anticipation of the passing of the Telecommunications Bill. This Bill received Royal Assent on 12 April, and the transfer to British Telecommunications plc from British Telecom as a statutory corporation of its business, its property, its rights and liabilities took place on 6 August 1984.


title: BT Group

text: Initially all shares in the new plc were owned by the Government. In November 1984, 50.2% of the new company was offered for sale to the public and employees. Shares were listed in London, New York, and Toronto and the first day of trading on was 3 December 1984. The Government sold half its remaining interest in December 1991 and the other half in July 1993. In July 1997, the new Labour Government relinquished its Special Share ("Golden Share"), retained at the time of the flotation, which had effectively given it the power to block a takeover of the company, and to appoint two non-executive directors to the Board.


title: BT Group

text: The company changed its trading name to "BT" on 2 April 1991. In 1996 Peter Bonfield was appointed CEO and Chairman of the Executive Committee, promising a "rollercoaster ride".


title: BT Group

text: In the 1990s, BT entered the Irish telecommunications market through a joint venture with the Electricity Supply Board, the Irish state owned power provider. This venture, entitled Ocean, found its main success through the launch of Ireland's first subscription-free dial-up ISP, oceanfree.net. As a telecoms company it found much less success, mainly targeting corporate customers. BT acquired 100% of this venture in 1999.


title: BT Group

text: In June 1994 BT and MCI Communications launched Concert Communications Services which was a $1 billion joint venture between the two companies. Its aim was to build a network which would provide easy global connectivity to multinational corporations.


title: BT Group

text: This alliance progressed further on 3 November 1996 when the two companies announced that they had agreed to a merger, creating a global telecommunications company called Concert plc. The proposal gained approval from the European Commission, the US Department of Justice, and the US Federal Communications Commission and looked set to proceed.


title: BT Group

text: However, in light of pressure from investors reacting to the slide in BT's share price on the London Stock Exchange, BT reduced its bid price for MCI, releasing MCI from its exclusivity clause and allowing it to speak to other interested parties. On 1 October 1997, Worldcom made a rival bid for MCI which was followed by a counter-bid from GTE.


title: BT Group

text: BT sold its stake in MCI to Worldcom in 1998 for £4,159 million. As part of the deal, BT also bought out from MCI its 24.9% interest in Concert Communications, thereby making Concert a wholly owned part of BT.


title: BT Group

text: The reaction to the failure of the deal in the City of London was critical of then Chairman Iain Vallance and CEO Peter Bonfield, and the lack of confidence from the failed merger led to their removal.


title: BT Group

text: As BT now owned Concert, and still wanted access to the North American market, it needed a new partner. An AT&T/BT option had been mooted in the past, but stopped on regulatory grounds due to their individual virtual monopolies in their home markets. By 1996, this had receded to the point where a deal was possible and a deal was consummated in 1998.


title: BT Group

text: At its height, the Concert managed network was extensive. Although Concert continued signing customers, its rate of revenue growth slowed, so that in 1999 David Dorman was made CEO with a brief to revive it.


title: BT Group

text: In late 2000 the BT and AT&T boards fell-out – partly due to each partner's excess debt, and the resulting board room clear-outs – partly due to Concert's extensive annual losses. AT&T recognized that Concert was a threat to its ambitions if left intact, and so negotiated a deal where Concert was split in two in 2001: North America and Eastern Asia went to AT&T, the rest of the world and $400M to BT. BT's remaining Concert assets were merged into its BT Ignite, later BT Global Services group.


title: BT Group

text: In 2000, BT acquired Esat Telecom Group plc, and all its subsidiary companies, and Ireland On Line. It also purchased Telenor's minority shareholding in Esat Digifone. The Esat Telecom Group was split in two with the landline and internet operations were combining with Ocean to become part of BT Ignite. Esat Group was renamed Esat BT in July 2002, and eventually BT Ireland in April 2005. Esat Digifone became part of BT Wireless, before being spun off into a separate independent company mmo2 plc (now Telefónica Europe). EsatBT installed the first DSL lines in Ireland, to try and compete heavily with former state telecoms company Eircom and operate one exchange, in Limerick.


title: BT Group

text: By 2001, BT had a debt of £30 billion, much of which was acquired during the bidding round for the 3rd generation mobile telephony (commonly known as 3G) licences. It had also failed in its series of proposed global mergers, and the funds flowing from its then virtual monopoly of the UK market place had been largely removed. It was also headed by two executives who had little support from the London Stock Exchange, particularly in light of a 60% drop in share price in sixteen months.


title: BT Group

text: Philip Hampton joined as CFO, and in April 2001 Sir Iain Vallance was replaced as Chairman by recognised turn around expert Sir Christopher Bland.


title: BT Group

text: In May 2001 BT carried out corporate Europe's largest ever rights issue, allowing it to raise £5.9 billion. A few days before, it sold stakes in Japan Telecom, in mobile operator J-Phone Communications, and in Airtel of India to Vodafone.


title: BT Group

text: In June 2001 BT's directory business was sold as Yell Group to a combination of private equity firms Apax Partners and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst for £2.1 billion.


title: BT Group

text: A demerger followed in November 2001, when the former mobile telecommunications business of BT, BT Cellnet, was hived off as a separate business named "mmO2". This included BT owned or operated networks in other countries, including BT Cellnet (UK), Esat Digifone (Ireland), and Viag Interkom (Germany). All networks now owned or operated by mmO2 (except Manx Telecom) were renamed as O2. The de-merger was accomplished via a share-swap, all British Telecommunications plc shareholders received one mmO2 plc and one BT Group plc (of which British Telecommunications is now a wholly owned subsidiary) share for each share they owned. British Telecommunications plc was de-listed on 16 November, and the two new companies started trading on 19 November.


title: BT Group

text: At the end of the series of sales, in October 2001 Sir Peter Bonfield resigned, and was replaced by former Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen.


title: BT Group

text: During Bonfield's tenure the share price went from £4 to £15, and back again to £5. Bonfield's salary to 31 March 2001 was a basic of £780,000 (increasing to £820,000) plus a £481,000 bonus and £50,000 of other benefits including pension. He also received a deferred bonus, payable in shares three years' later, of £481,000, and additional bonuses of £3.3 million.


title: BT Group

text: mmO2 plc was replaced by O2 plc in a further share-swap in 2005, and subsequently bought in an agreed takeover by Telefónica for £18 billion and delisted. In 2004, BT launched Consult 21, a consultation organisation that was to aid BT 21CN in the eventual conversion to digital telephony.


title: BT Group

text: In 2004, BT was awarded the contract to deliver and manage N3, a secure and fast broadband network for the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) program, on behalf of the English National Health Service (NHS).


title: BT Group

text: In 2005 BT made a number of acquisitions. In February 2005, BT acquired Infonet (now re-branded BT Infonet), a large telecoms company based in El Segundo, California, giving BT access to new geographies. It also acquired the Italian company Albacom. Then in April 2005, it bought Radianz from Reuters (now rebranded as BT Radianz), which expanded BT's coverage and provided BT with more buying power in certain countries.


title: BT Group

text: In August 2006, BT acquired online electrical retailer Dabs.com for £30.6 million. The BT Home Hub manufactured by Inventel was also launched in June 2006.


title: BT Group

text: In October 2006, BT confirmed that it would be investing 75% of its total capital spending, put at £10 billion over five years, in its new Internet Protocol (IP) based 21st century network (21CN). Annual savings of £1 billion per annum were expected when the transition to the new network was to have been completed in 2010, with over 50% of its customers to have been transferred by 2008. That month the first customers on to 21CN was successfully tested at Adastral Park in Suffolk.


title: BT Group

text: In January 2007, BT acquired Sheffield-based ISP, PlusNet plc, adding 200,000 customers. BT stated that PlusNet will continue to operate separately out of its Sheffield head-office. On 1 February 2007, BT announced agreed terms to acquire International Network Services Inc. (INS), an international provider of IT consultancy and software.


title: BT Group

text: In February 2007, Sir Michael Rake succeeded Sir Christopher Bland. In April that year, they acquired COMSAT International, followed in October by the acquisition of Lynx Technology.


title: BT Group

text: BT acquired Wire One Communications in June 2008 and folded the company into "BT Conferencing", its existing conferencing unit, as a new video business unit


title: BT Group

text: In July 2008, BT acquired the online business directory firm Ufindus for £20 million in order to expand its position in the local information market in GB. On 28 July 2008, BT acquired Ribbit, of Mountain View, California, "Silicon Valley's First Phone Company". Ribbit provides Adobe Flash/Flex APIs, allowing web developers to incorporate telephony features into their software as a service (SaaS) applications.


title: BT Group

text: In the early days of its fibre broadband rollout, BT said it would deliver fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to around 25% of the Country, with the rest catered for by the slower fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), which uses copper wiring to deliver the final stretch of the connection. In 2014, with less than 0.7% of the company's fibre network being FTTP, BT dropped the 25% target, saying that it was "far less relevant today" because of improvements made to the headline speed of FTTC, which had doubled to 80Mbit/s since its fibre broadband rollout was first announced. To supplement FTTC, BT offered an 'FTTP on Demand' product. In January 2015, BT stopped taking orders for the on-demand product.


title: BT Group

text: On 1 April 2009, BT Engage IT was created from the merger of two previous BT acquisitions, Lynx Technology and Basilica. Apart from the name change not much else changed in operations for another 12 months. On 14 May 2009, BT said it was cutting up to 15,000 jobs in the coming year after it announced its results for the year to 31 March 2009. Then in July 2009, BT offered workers a long holiday for an up front sum of 25% of their annual wage or a one-off payment of £1000 if they agree to go part-time.


title: BT Group

text: On 6 April 2011, BT launched the first online not-for-profit fundraising service for UK charities called BT MyDonate as part of its investment to the community. The service will pass on 100% of all donations made through the site to the charity, and unlike other services which take a proportion as commission and charge charities for using their services, BT will only pass on credit/debit card charges for each donation. The service allows people to register to give money to charity or collect fundraising donations. BT developed MyDonate with the support of Cancer Research UK, Changing Faces, KidsOut, NSPCC and Women's Aid.


title: BT Group

text: In March 2013, BT was allocated 4G spectrum in the UK following an auction and assignment by Ofcom, after paying £201.5m.


title: BT Group

text: On 1 August 2013, BT launched its first television channels, BT Sport, to compete with rival broadcaster Sky Sports. Plans for the channels' launch came about when it was announced in June 2012 that BT had been awarded a package of broadcast rights for the Premier League from the 2013–14 to 2015–16 season, broadcasting 38 matches from each season. In February 2013, BT acquired ESPN Inc.'s UK and Ireland TV channels, continuing its expansion into sports broadcasting. ESPN America and ESPN Classic were both closed, while ESPN continued to be operated by BT. On 9 November 2013, BT announced it had acquired exclusive rights to the Champions League and Europa League for £897m, from the 2015 season, with some free games remaining including both finals.


title: BT Group

text: On 1 November 2014, BT created a new central business services (CBS) organisation to provide customer services and improve operational efficiency levels.


title: BT Group

text: On 24 November 2014, shares in BT rose considerably on the announcement that the company was in talks to buy back O2, while at the same time confirmed it was also in talks to acquire EE. BT subsequently entered into exclusive talks to buy EE for £12.5 billion on 15 December 2014 and confirmed on 5 February 2015, subject to regulatory approval. The deal will combine BT's 10 million retail customers and EE's 24.5 million direct mobile subscribers. Deutsche Telekom will own 12% of BT, while Orange S.A. will own 4%.


title: BT Group

text: In March 2015, launched a 4G service as BT Mobile BT Group CEO Gavin Patterson announced that BT plans to migrate all of its customers onto the IP network by 2025, switching off the company's ISDN network.


title: BT Group

text: On 15 January 2016, BT received final unconditional approval by the Competition and Markets Authority to acquire EE. The deal was officially completed on 29 January 2016 with Deutsche Telekom now owning 12% of BT, while Orange S.A. own 4%.


title: BT Group

text: On 1 February 2016, BT announced a new organisational structure that will take effect from April 2016 following the successful acquisition of EE. The EE brand, network and high street stores will be retained and will become a second consumer division, operating alongside BT Consumer. It will serve customers with mobile services, broadband and TV and will continue to deliver the Emergency Services Network contract which was awarded to EE in late 2015. There will be a new BT Business and Public Sector division that will have around £5bn of revenues and will serve small and large businesses as well as the public sector in the UK and Ireland. It will comprise the existing BT Business division along with EE's business division and those parts of BT Global Services that are UK focused. There will also be another new division; BT Wholesale and Ventures that will comprise the existing BT Wholesale division along with EE's MVNO business as well as some specialist businesses such as Fleet, Payphones and Directories. Gerry McQuade, currently Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Business at EE, will be its CEO.


title: BT Group

text: On 8 June 2017, BT appointed KPMG as its new auditor to replace PwC in the wake of the fraud scandal in Italy that triggered a major profit warning earlier that year. Also in of that year, KPMG fired six US employees over a scandal that calls into question efforts to ensure that public company accounts are being properly scrutinised.


title: BT Group

text: On 8 July 2017, "The Daily Telegraph" reported that BT "has called in consultants from McKinsey to conduct a review of its businesses in the hope of saving hundreds of millions of pounds per year. The work, dubbed 'Project Novator', is understood to include a potential merger of BT's struggling global services corporate networking and IT unit with its business and public sector division".


title: BT Group

text: On 28 July 2017, BT announced organisational changes to "simplify its operating model, strengthen accountabilities and accelerate its transformation" and involves bringing together its BT Consumer and EE divisions into a new unified BT Consumer division that will operate across three brands – BT, EE and Plusnet. It will take effect from 1 April 2018.


title: BT Group

text: On 18 April 2018, BT announced further organisational changes following unification of its BT Consumer and EE divisions, and involves bringing together its BT Business and Public Sector and BT Wholesale and Ventures divisions into a new unified division known as "BT Enterprise". It will also include BT's Ventures business which "acts as an incubator for potential new growth areas of the company" and will report as a single unit from 1 October 2018.


title: BT Group

text: In June 2021, the French telecommunications company, Altice acquired a 12% stake in BT, increasing that stake to 18% in December 2021.


title: BT Group

text: BT Group is a holding company; the majority of its businesses and assets are held by its wholly owned subsidiary British Telecommunications plc. BT's businesses are operated under special government regulation by the British telecoms regulator Ofcom (formerly Oftel). BT has been found to have significant market power in some markets following market reviews by Ofcom. In these markets, BT is required to comply with additional obligations such as meeting reasonable requests to supply services and not to discriminate.


title: BT Group

text: BT runs the telephone exchanges, trunk network and local loop connections for the vast majority of British fixed-line telephones. Currently BT is responsible for approximately 28 million telephone lines in GB. Apart from KCOM Group, which serves Kingston upon Hull, BT is the only UK telecoms operator to have a "Universal service Obligation," (USO) which means it must provide a fixed telephone line to any address in the UK. It is also obliged to provide public call boxes.


title: BT Group

text: As well as continuing to provide service in those traditional areas in which BT has an obligation to provide services or is closely regulated, BT has expanded into more profitable products and services where there is less regulation. These are principally, broadband internet service and bespoke solutions in telecommunications and information technology.


title: BT Group

text: As BT operates in around 180 countries, it owns and leases a range of buildings and facilities in the UK and around the world. In 2001, it sold some of its UK property portfolio for £2.38 billion to Telereal Trillium in a 30-year leaseback. The deal included 6,700 properties and contributed towards alleviating its debt at the time, with the main advantage being flexibility as it allows BT to vacate property over time, so as to adapt to changing operational requirements.


title: BT Group

text: Until December 2021, BT Group's world headquarters and registered office was the BT Centre, a 10-storey office building at 81 Newgate Street in the City of London, opposite St Paul's tube station. In November 2021 BT relocated to new headquarters at One Braham, a brand new 18-storey building completed earlier in 2021.


title: BT Group

text: BT remains one of the largest owners of telecommunications towers in the UK and were a major node in its microwave network. Its BT Tower in London is notable for numerous reasons such as being the tallest building in the UK from its construction in the 1960s until the early 1980s, its revolving restaurant at the top known as 'Top of the Tower' in operation through the late 1960s and 1970s, and remains one of the UK's most important communications nerve centres, the heart of a vast broadcasting and communications network. It carries approximately 95% of the UK's TV content, including live broadcasts and 99% of all live football games as well as pioneering the first international HD, 3D and 4K television transmissions. It serves media production and distribution customers around the world and as part of the Things Connected Network launched in London, it became the highest building in the world to host an Internet of things (IoT) base station in September 2016. Some of its towers are:


title: BT Group

text: BT has the second largest defined benefit pension plan of any UK public company. The trustees valued the scheme at £36.7 billion at the end of 2010; an actuarial valuation valued the deficit of the scheme at £9.043 billion as of 31 December 2008.


title: BT Group

text: Following a change in the regulations governing inflation index linking, the deficit was estimated at £5.2 billion in November 2010.


title: BT Group

text: BT sponsored Scotland's domestic rugby union championship and cup competitions between 1999 and 2006.


title: BT Group

text: On 31 July 2012, it was announced that BT agreed a three-year sponsorship deal with Ulster Rugby and sees BT become the Official Communications Partner. BT's logo will appear on the Ulster Rugby shirt sleeve for all friendlies, Heineken Cup and RaboDirect Pro12 matches as well as a significant brand presence at their home ground; Ravenhill Stadium.


title: BT Group

text: On 29 July 2013, it was announced that BT had partnered up with Scottish Rugby Union in a four-year sponsorship deal with its two professional clubs; Edinburgh Rugby and Glasgow Warriors that will commence from August 2013. The deal involves BT Sport becoming the new shirt sponsor for both clubs as well as being promoted with BT Group at their respective home grounds; Scotstoun Stadium and Murrayfield Stadium.


title: BT Group

text: On 13 May 2014, BT joined Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media as founding partners of Internet Matters, a not-for-profit organisation that provides online safety advice for parents and their children.


title: BT Group

text: On 28 May 2014, it was announced that BT agreed a £20 million four-year sponsorship deal with Scottish Rugby Union which includes BT securing the naming rights for Murrayfield Stadium which becomes BT Murrayfield Stadium, become sponsor of the Scotland sevens team, become principal and exclusive sponsor of Scotland's domestic league and cup competitions from next season, taking over the role from The Royal Bank of Scotland and become sponsor of Scottish Rugby's four new academies that aims to drive forward standards for young players who have aspirations to play professionally.


title: BT Group

text: On 14 April 2015, it was announced that as part of BT's current £20 million four-year sponsorship deal with Scottish Rugby Union that was announced in May 2014, BT has completed its sponsorship portfolio following an additional investment of £3.6 million for the 3 years remaining of its sponsorship deal, to become the new shirt sponsor for the Scotland national teams.


title: BT Group

text: On 27 January 2016, it was announced that BT, alongside YouTube will be the new joint headline sponsors in a three-year deal with Edinburgh International Television Festival. The two companies will "share prominence across all branding of the 41st TV Festival, including the famous MacTaggart Lecture and will work closely with the festival organisers in their bid to reflect new trends in a rapidly transforming industry, from new ways of distributing content to technical innovations such as virtual reality".


title: BT Group

text: BT is the founding and principal partner of the Wayne Rooney Foundation, which was established to improve the lives of children and young people. The Foundation will run events "to raise vital funds to support the work of key organisations dedicated to supporting disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people". These organisations are four chosen charities which are, Manchester United Foundation, NSPCC, Claire House Children's Hospice and Alder Hey Children's Hospital. The first of these events was Wayne's testimonial match in August 2016 between Manchester United F.C. and Everton F.C. which raised £1.2 million. The match was screened live through BT Sport with BT MyDonate being the official fundraising platform for the testimonial, with both online and text options for donations promoted during the match.


title: BT Group

text: On 26 May 2017, it was announced that BT is to sponsor the 2017 British Urban Film Festival (BUFF) and sees BT host every event of the film festival, including the Awards at the BT Tower. BT will also broadcast the awards ceremony on BT.com and will have the opportunity to screen films acquired from the festival on its BT TV store platform.


title: BT Group

text: On 6 September 2017, it was announced that BT had extended its current £20 million four-year sponsorship deal with Scottish Rugby Union that was announced in May 2014, for a further three years beginning from June 2018. The new deal sees BT retain the naming rights to BT Murrayfield Stadium, alongside its role as principal partner of the Scotland national team and Scotland 7s. BT's logo will continue to be displayed on the front of Scotland rugby shirts across the world, in the Six Nations Championship, as well as the summer and autumn test matches. BT will also continue to be promoted at Edinburgh Rugby and Scotstoun Stadium in Glasgow.


title: BT Group

text: In 2001, BT discovered it owned a patent () which it believed gave it patent rights on the use of hyperlink technology on the World Wide Web. The corresponding UK patent had already expired, but the US patent was valid until 2006. On 11 February 2002, BT began a court case relating to its claims in a US federal court against the Internet service provider Prodigy Communications Corporation. In the case "British Telecommunications plc v. Prodigy", the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on 22 August 2002 that the BT patent was not applicable to web technology and granted Prodigy's request for summary judgment of non-infringement.


title: BT Group

text: In early 2008 it was announced that BT had entered into a contract (along with Virgin Media and TalkTalk) with the spyware company Phorm (responsible under their 121Media guise for the Apropos rootkit) to intercept and analyse their users' click-stream data and sell the anonymised aggregate information as part of Phorm's OIX advertising service. The practice, known as "behavioural targeting" and condemned by critics as "data pimping", came under intense fire from various internet communities and other interested-parties who believe that the interception of data without the consent of users and web site owners is illegal under UK law (RIPA). At a more fundamental level, many have argued that the ISPs and Phorm have no right to sell a commodity (a user's data, and the copyrighted content of web sites) to which they have no claim of ownership. In response to questions about Phorm and the interception of data by the Webwise system Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, indicated his disapproval of the concept and is quoted as saying of his data and web history:


title: BT Group

text: Beginning in 2010 the UK intelligence community investigated Huawei, the Chinese supplier of BT's new fibre infrastructure with increasing urgency after the United States, Canada and Australia prevented the company from operating in their countries. Although BT had notified the UK government in 2003 of Huawei's interest in their £10bn network upgrade contract, they did not raise the security implications as BT failed to explain that the Chinese company would have unfettered access to critical infrastructure. On 16 December 2012 the then prime minister David Cameron was supplied with an in-depth report indicating that the intelligence services had very grave doubts regarding Huawei, and that UK governmental, military, and civilian privacy may have been under serious threat.


title: BT Group

text: On 7 June 2013, British lawmakers concluded that BT should not have allowed Huawei access to the UK's communications network without ministerial oversight, saying they were 'deeply shocked' that BT did not inform government that they were allowing Huawei and ZTE, both with ties to the Chinese military, unfettered access to critical national systems. Furthermore, ministers discovered that the agency with the responsibility to ensure Chinese equipment and code was threat-free was entirely staffed by Huawei employees. Subsequently, parliamentarians confirmed that in case of an attack on the UK there was nothing that could be done to stop Chinese infiltration.


title: BT Group

text: By 2016 Huawei had put measures in place to ensure the integrity of UK national security. Specifically their UK work is now overseen by a board that includes directors from GCHQ, the Cabinet Office and the Home Office.


title: BT Group

text: ZTE, another Chinese company that supplies extensive network equipment and subscriber hardware used with BT 'Infinity', was also under scrutiny by parliament's intelligence and security committee after the US, Canada, Australia and the European Union declared the company a security risk.


title: BT Group

text: In September 2012, BT entered into a $23 million deal with the US military to provide a key communications cable connecting RAF Croughton, a US military base on UK soil, with Camp Lemonnier, a large US base in Djibouti. Camp Lemonnier is used as a base for American drone attacks in Yemen and Somalia, and has been described by "The Economist" as "the most important base for drone operations outside the war zone of Afghanistan."


title: BT Group

text: Human rights groups including Reprieve and Amnesty International have criticised the use of armed drones outside declared war zones. Evidence produced by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and Stanford University's International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic suggest that drone strikes have caused substantial civilian casualties, and may be illegal under international law.


title: BT Group

text: In 2013, BT was the subject of a complaint by Reprieve to the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, following their refusal to explain whether or not their infrastructure was used to facilitate drone strikes. The subsequent refusal of this complaint was appealed in May 2014, on the basis that the UK National Contact Point's decision did not follow the OECD Guidelines. The issue of bias was also raised, due to the appointment of Lord Ian Livingston as government minister for the department which was processing the complaint: Livingston had occupied a senior position at BT when the cable between RAF Croughton and Camp Lemonnier was originally built.


title: BT Group

text: In February 2017, a review of the telecoms market by Ofcom found that BT's landline only contracts provided poor value to customers. Ofcom ordered BT to reduce their prices but stopped short of demanding that customers were compensated. In January 2021, Law firm Mishcon de Reya filed a claim with the Competition Appeal Tribunal against BT worth £600 million, accusing them of historic overcharging on landlines. The class action law suit claims BT have increased their prices for line-only services every year since 2009, whilst the wholesale cost for delivering these services has reduced. The claimants suggest that customers could be entitled to compensation of up to £500 each.


title: BT Group

text: In 2020, BT was fined £6.3m by the telecoms regulator Ofcom for violating the law on a large public sector deal in Northern Ireland. Under Ofcom's regulations, the BT network shall handle all wholesale customers similarly. In its report, Ofcom found that BT's network violated the rules by failing to supply Eir with the same details on its on-demand fiber-to-the-premises offering as its own rival team.


title: Nick Swardson

text: Nicholas Roger Swardson (born October 9, 1976) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known for his recurring role as Terry Bernadino in the comedy series "Reno 911!", for his work with Adam Sandler's Happy Madison Productions, and for his own personal sketch comedy series "Nick Swardson's Pretend Time". He also had starring roles in the films "" and "30 Minutes or Less" (2011).


title: Nick Swardson

text: A native of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area, Swardson was born to Pamela and Roger Eric Swardson, and is the youngest of three siblings—he has a sister, Rachel, and a brother, John. Roger Swardson (1934–2003) was an editor and journalist—having written for publications such as the "Cincinnati Enquirer" and "City Pages", as well as founding the "Grand Gazette", a former Saint Paul community newspaper. Roger Swardson also invested in land development in Saint Paul, revitalizing Grand Avenue—an area now known as Victoria Crossing. Roger and Pamela divorced in 1989. Swardson has Swedish ancestry.


title: Nick Swardson

text: He attended St. Paul Central High and started acting and performing improv comedy at the age of 16. A mischievous student who struggled with alcohol and drugs, Swardson was expelled from school on four occasions for pulling fire alarms in order to go outside and smoke cigarettes, fighting, posting a lewd sign in class, and for smoking marijuana; he was enrolled in a rehab program while still in school.


title: Nick Swardson

text: After graduating in 1996, Swardson decided to pursue stand-up comedy rather than attend college. Although Swardson was a fan of sketch comedy, he saw stand-up comedy as a stepping-stone to a career in film, more so than he would working within a comedy troupe.


title: Nick Swardson

text: Swardson is an avid Minnesota Vikings fan. He is also good friends with fellow Minnesota resident Josh Duhamel.


title: Nick Swardson

text: Swardson started performing stand-up at the age of 18, attending open mic nights at the Minneapolis comedy club Acme Comedy Co.. Swardson stated in a 2007 interview with "The Portland Mercury" that he did his first open mic "as a goof" but he was encouraged by the club owner to perform again and he went on to win the comedy club's award for the "Funniest Person in the Twin Cities". He also went on to perform regularly at Knuckleheads, a defunct comedy club which was located in the Mall of America. Swardson was also an occasional performer at Balls Cabaret.


title: Nick Swardson

text: After garnering some attention within comedy circles, Swardson was selected to perform stand-up at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival at 20 years of age. The festival, which up to 2007 was held in Aspen, Colorado, was a yearly festival attended by entertainment insiders and was a place for comics and comedic actors to get exposure to the industry. It was once the largest comedy convention of its kind in the US and became the launch pad for many comedians and comedy writers. After Swardson's first performance at the festival comedian Tony Camin, acting as the night's MC, was quoted as saying: "There's a deal waiting to happen. I can see the TV show now: 'An Aspen Kid With Altitude.'"


title: Nick Swardson

text: Swardson eventually left the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area for New York City where he would appear in such venues as the Luna Lounge, then on to Los Angeles where he headlined at many nightclubs. In addition to his stand-up, Swardson began to get work in commercials and in small roles in both TV in film, such an appearance in an episode of the Al Franken sitcom "LateLine" in 1999, and playing the role of a crazed David Bowie fan in the 2000 film "Almost Famous".


title: Nick Swardson

text: In 2001, Swardson's stand-up act was featured in a half-hour "Comedy Central Presents" special. He appeared on the show a second time in 2006 — a performance that was featured on the DVD compilation "The Best of Comedy Central Presents: Uncensored II" released in 2008.


title: Nick Swardson

text: In 2003, Swardson co-wrote the screenplay for "Malibu's Most Wanted" along with the film's star Jamie Kennedy and Adam Small. That same year he took on the role of Terry Bernadino on the Comedy Central series "Reno 911!". A recurring character throughout the series' run from 2003 to 2009 — in addition to appearing in the film "" — Swardson played the role of a flamboyant gigolo who was often seen wearing roller skates. 2003 also marked the beginning of a longtime working relationship and friendship with Adam Sandler. After having seen Swardson's Comedy Central special, Sandler contacted Swardson to ask if he'd be interested in collaborating; Swardson's first project with Sandler was co-writing the screenplay for "Grandma's Boy" — Swardson also co-produced and had an acting role in the film which was released in 2006.


title: Nick Swardson

text: In 2004, Swardson wrote, produced and starred in a TV show pilot for Comedy Central called "Gay Robot", which was based on a comedy bit by the same name that appeared on Adam Sandler's fifth album, "Shh...Don't Tell"; Comedy Central, however, decided to pass on the TV project. Swardson then had intentions on making it an animated show, but the show never came to fruition. A copy of the live-action pilot was however made available on MySpace in January 2007. Swardson also resurrected the Gay Robot character on his Comedy Central Series "Nick Swardson's Pretend Time".


title: Nick Swardson

text: Swardson's sketch comedy show "Nick Swardson's Pretend Time", premiered on Comedy Central on October 12, 2010 and ran for two seasons. The show was produced in conjunction with Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions. On February 6, 2012 Swardson announced via his Facebook page that there would not be a third season; in his post Swardson stated that "the ratings were solid but it was too expensive for the network and tough creatively," and added that he was "developing a new show where I play a ninja."


title: Nick Swardson

text: In 2011, Swardson starred in, co-wrote and co-produced the film "", also produced by Happy Madison Productions. That same year he starred alongside Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride and Aziz Ansari in the film "30 Minutes or Less".


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The "Montana"-class battleships were planned as successors of the for the United States Navy, to be slower but larger, better armored, and with superior firepower. Five were approved for construction during World War II, but changes in wartime building priorities resulted in their cancellation in favor of continuing production of s and "Iowa"-class battleships before any "Montana"-class keels were laid.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: Their intended armament would have been twelve Mark 7 guns in four 3-gun turrets, up from the nine Mark 7 guns in three turrets used by the "Iowa" class. Unlike the three preceding classes of battleships, the "Montana" class was designed without any restrictions from treaty limitations. With an increased anti-aircraft capability and substantially thicker armor in all areas, the "Montana"s would have been the largest, best-protected, and most heavily armed US battleships ever. They also would have been the only class to rival the Empire of Japan's s in terms of displacement.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: Preliminary design work for the "Montana" class began before the US entry into World War II. The first two vessels were approved by Congress in 1939 following the passage of the Second Vinson Act. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor delayed the construction of the "Montana" class. The success of carrier combat at the Battle of the Coral Sea and, to a greater extent, the Battle of Midway, diminished the perceived value of the battleship. Consequently, the US Navy chose to cancel the "Montana" class in favor of more urgently needed aircraft carriers as well as amphibious and anti-submarine vessels.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: Because the "Iowa"s were far enough along in construction and urgently needed to operate alongside the new "Essex"-class aircraft carriers, their orders were retained, making them the last US Navy battleships to be commissioned.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: As the political situation in Europe and Asia deteriorated in the prelude to World War II, Carl Vinson, the chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs, instituted the Vinson Naval Plan. It aimed to get the Navy into fighting shape after the cutbacks imposed by the Great Depression and the two London Naval Treaties of the 1930s. As part of the overall plan, Congress passed the Second Vinson Act in 1938, which was promptly signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and cleared the way for construction of the four fast battleships and the first two fast battleships (hull numbers BB-61 and BB-62). Four additional battleships (with hull numbers BB-63, BB-64, BB-65, and BB-66) were approved for construction on 12 July 1940, with the last two intended to be the first ships of the "Montana" class.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The Navy had been considering large battleship design schemes since 1938 to counter the threat posed by potential battleships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, which had refused to sign the Second London Naval Treaty and furthermore refused to provide details about its s. Although the Navy knew little about the "Yamato" class, some rumors regarding the new Japanese battleships placed their main gun battery caliber at . The potential of naval treaty violations by the new Japanese battleships resulted in the remaining treaty powers, Britain, France, and the United States, invoking the tonnage "Escalator Clause" of the Second London Naval Treaty in June 1938, which raised the maximum standard displacement limit from to .


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The increased displacement limit allowed the Navy to begin evaluating 45,000-ton battleship designs, including "slow" schemes that increased firepower and protection over previous designs and also "fast" schemes. The "fast" design evolved into the "Iowa" class while the "slow" design, with main armament battery eventually settled on twelve guns and evolution into a 60,500-ton design, was assigned the name "Montana" and cleared for construction by the United States Congress under the Two-Ocean Navy Act on 19 July 1940; funding for the new ships was approved in 1941. The five ships, the last battleships to be ordered by the Navy, were originally to be designated BB-65 through BB-69; however, BB-65 and BB-66 were subsequently re-ordered as "Iowa"-class ships, and , in the Two Ocean Navy Act due to the urgent need for more warships, and the "Montana"s were redesignated BB-67 through BB-71.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: Completion of the "Montana" class, and the last two "Iowa"-class battleships, was intended to give the US Navy a considerable advantage over any other nation, or probable combination of nations, with a total of 17 new battleships by the late 1940s. The "Montana"s also would have been the only American ships to rival Japan's massive and her sister in size and raw firepower.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: Preliminary planning for the "Montana"-class battleships took place in 1939, when the aircraft carrier was still considered strategically less important than the battleship. The initial schemes for what would eventually become the "Montana" class were continuations of various 1938 design studies for a 45,000-ton "slow" battleship alternative to the "fast" battleship design that would become the "Iowa" class. The "slow" battleship design proposals had a maximum speed of and considered various main gun battery options, including /45 cal, 16-inch/50 cal, 16-inch/56 cal, and /48 cal guns; a main battery of twelve 16-inch/50 cal guns was eventually selected by the General Board for offering the best combination of performance and weight. The initial design schemes for the "Montana" class were given the "BB65" prefix.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: In July 1939, a series of 45,000-ton BB-65 design schemes were evaluated, but in February 1940, as a result of the outbreak of World War II and the abandonment of the naval treaties, the Battleship Design Advisory Board moved to larger designs capable of simultaneously offering increased armament and protection. The design board issued a basic outline for the "Montana" class that called for it to be free of beam restrictions imposed by the extant Panama Canal, be 25% stronger offensively and defensively than any other battleship completed or under construction, and be capable of withstanding the new "super heavy" armor-piercing (AP) shells used by US battleships equipped with either the 16-inch/45 cal guns or 16-inch/50 cal Mark 7 guns. No longer restricted by treaty displacement limits, naval architects were able to increase armor protection for the new BB65 design schemes, enabling the ships to withstand enemy fire equivalent to their own guns' ammunition. In conjunction with the "Montana" class, the Navy also planned to add a third set of locks to the Panama Canal that would be wide to enable ship designs with greater beams; these locks would have been armored and would normally be reserved for use by Navy warships. Although freed of the beam restriction from the extant Panama Canal, the length and height of the BB65 designs had to take into account one of the shipyards at which they were to be built: the New York Navy Yard slipways could not handle the construction of a ship more than , and vessels built there had to be low enough to clear the Brooklyn Bridge at low tide. Consequently, the yard's number 4 dry dock had to be enlarged and the ships would be floated out rather than conventionally launched.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The larger BB-65 design studies would again settle on a main armament of twelve 16-inch/50 cal guns while providing protection against the "super heavy" AP shells. After debate at the design board about whether the "Montana" class should be fast, achieving the high speed of the "Iowa" class, or maintain the 27-to-28-knot speed of the "North Carolina" and "South Dakota" classes, the lower speed was chosen in order to rein in size and displacement. Design study of the BB-65-8 scheme for a 33-knot battleship resulted in a standard displacement of over , a waterline length of , and a requirement of ; by returning the BB-65 design to the slower maximum speed, the standard displacement and waterline length of the ships could be reduced to a more practical and , respectively, as exemplified by the BB65-5 scheme. In practice, the 27-to-28-knot speed would have still been enough to escort and defend the Pacific-based Allied fast aircraft carrier task forces, although the "Montana"s ability in this regard would be considerably more limited compared to the "Iowa"s as the latter could keep up with fleet carriers at full speed. In September 1940, the 58,000-ton BB65-5A preliminary design scheme with a powerplant, the same as the one on "Iowa" class, was refined and subsequently named BB-67-1 after hull numbers BB-65 and 66 were reallocated as "Iowa"-class ships "Illinois" and "Kentucky". Waterline length was reduced from for BB65-5 to for BB65-5A and then increased to for BB67-1.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: By January 1941, the design limit for the 58,000-ton battleship plan had been reached, and consensus among those designing the battleship class was to increase the displacement to a nominal to support the desired armor and weaponry on the ships. At the same time, upon discovering that the propulsion plant was more powerful than needed, planners decided to reduce output from 212,000 shaft horsepower in BB67-2 to in BB67-3 for a better machinery arrangement and improved internal subdivisions. The secondary armament battery of ten two-gun turrets was also changed to mount the /54 cal guns instead of the 5-inch/38 cal guns used on the "Iowa"s. The number of 40-mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun mounts also increased, while protection of the propulsion shafts changed from the extension of the belt and deck armor aft of the citadel to armored tubes in an effort to control weight growth.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: By 1942, the "Montana" class design was further revised to BB-67-4. The armored freeboard was increased by , while the propulsion plant had its power reduced again to ; the standard displacement became and full load displacement was . Aesthetically, the net design for the "Montana" class somewhat resembled the "Iowa" class since they would be equipped with the same caliber main guns and similar secondary guns; however, "Montana" and her sisters would have more armor, mount three more main guns in one more turret, and be longer and wider than the "Iowa" class. The final contract design was issued in June 1942. Construction was authorized by the United States Congress and the projected date of completion was estimated to be somewhere between 1 July and 1 November 1945.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The Navy ordered the ships in May 1942, but the "Montana" class was placed on hold because the "Iowa"-class battleships and the "Essex"-class aircraft carriers were under construction in the shipyards intended to build the "Montana"s. Both the "Iowa" and "Essex" classes had been given higher priorities: the "Iowa"s as they were far along enough in construction and urgently needed to operate alongside the "Essex"-class carriers and defend them with 5-inch, 40 mm, and 20 mm AA guns, and the "Essex"es because of their ability to launch aircraft to gain and maintain air supremacy over the islands in the Pacific and intercept warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The entire "Montana" class was suspended in June 1942 following the Battle of Midway, before any of their keels had been laid. In July 1943, the construction of the "Montana" class was finally cancelled after the Navy fully accepted the shift in naval warfare from surface engagements to air supremacy and from battleships to aircraft carriers. Work on the new locks for the Panama Canal also ceased in 1941, owing to a shortage of steel due to the changing strategic and material priorities.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The final BB-67-4 design for the "Montana"-class battleships was long at the waterline and long overall. The maximum beam was while the waterline beam was due to the inclination of the external armor belt. The design displacement figures were standard, full load, and emergency load. At emergency load displacement, the mean draft was . At design combat displacement of , the mean draft was , and (GM) metacentric height was .


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The "Montana" design shares many characteristics with the previous classes of American fast battleships starting from the "North Carolina" class, such as a bulbous bow, triple bottom under the armored citadel, and twin skegs in which the inner shafts were housed. The "Montana"s overall construction would have made extensive use of welding for joining structural plates and homogeneous armor.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The armament of the "Montana"-class battleships would have been similar to the preceding "Iowa"-class battleships, but with an increase in the number of primary guns and more potent secondary guns for use against enemy surface ships and aircraft. Had they been completed, the "Montana"s would have been gun-for-gun the most powerful battleships the United States had constructed, and the only US battleship class that would have rivaled the Imperial Japanese Navy battleships "Yamato" and "Musashi" in armament, armor, and displacement.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The primary armament of a "Montana"-class battleship would have been twelve /50 caliber Mark 7 guns, which were to be housed in four three-gun turrets: two forward and two aft. The guns, the same used to arm the "Iowa"-class battleships, were long—50 times their bore, or 50 calibers, from breechface to muzzle. Each gun weighed about without the breech, or with the breech. They fired armor-piercing projectiles at a muzzle velocity of , or high-capacity projectiles at , with a range of up to . At maximum range, the projectile would have spent almost 1½ minutes in flight. The addition of the No. 4 turret would have allowed "Montana" to overtake "Yamato" as the battleship having the heaviest broadside overall; "Montana" and her sisters would have had a broadside of vs. for "Yamato". Each turret would have rested within an armored barbette, but only the top of the barbette would have protruded above the main deck. The barbettes would have extended either four decks (turrets 1 and 4) or five decks (turrets 2 and 3) down. The lower spaces would have contained rooms for handling the projectiles and storing the powder bags used to fire them. Each turret would have required a crew of 94 men to operate. The turrets would not have been attached to the ship but would have rested on rollers; had any of the "Montana"-class ships capsized, the turrets would have fallen out. Each turret would have cost US$1.4 million, but this figure did not take into account the cost of the guns themselves.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The turrets would have been "three-gun", not "triple", because each barrel would have elevated and fired independently. The ships could fire any combination of their guns, including a broadside of all twelve. Contrary to popular belief, the ships would not have noticeably moved sideways when a broadside was fired. The guns would have had an elevation range of −5° to +45°, moving at up to 12° per second. The turrets would have rotated about 300° at about 4° per second and could even be fired back beyond the beam, which is sometimes called "over the shoulder". Within each turret, a red stripe on the wall of the turret, just inches from the railing, would have marked the boundary of the gun's recoil, providing the crew of each gun turret with a visual reference for the minimum safe distance range.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: Like most US battleships in World War II, the "Montana" class would have been equipped with a fire control computer—in this case, the Ford Instrument Company Mk 1A Ballistic Computer, a rangekeeper designed to direct gunfire on land, sea, and in the air. This analog computer would have been used to direct the fire from the battleship's main guns, taking into account several factors, such as the speed of the targeted ship, the time it takes for a projectile to travel, and air resistance to the shells fired at a target. At the time the "Montana" class was set to begin construction, the rangekeepers had gained the ability to use radar data to help target enemy ships and land-based targets. The results of this advance were telling: the rangekeeper was able to track and fire at targets at a greater range and with increased accuracy, as was demonstrated in November 1942 when the battleship engaged the Imperial Japanese Navy battleship at a range of at night; "Washington" scored at least nine heavy caliber hits that critically damaged the "Kirishima" and led to her loss. This gave the US Navy a major advantage in World War II, as the Japanese did not develop radar or automated fire control to the level of the US Navy.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The large caliber guns were designed to fire two different 16-inch shells: an armor-piercing round for anti-ship and anti-structure work, and a high-explosive round designed for use against unarmored targets and shore bombardment. The Mk. 8 APC (Armor-Piercing, Capped) shell weighed in at and was designed to penetrate the hardened steel armor carried by foreign battleships. At , the Mk. 8 could penetrate of vertical steel armor plate. For unarmored targets and shore bombardment, the Mk. 13 HC (High-Capacity —referring to the large bursting charge) shell was available. The Mk. 13 shell could create a crater wide and deep upon impact and detonation and could defoliate trees from the point of impact.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The final type of ammunition developed for the 16-inch guns, well after the "Montana"s had been cancelled, were W23 "Katie" shells. These were born from the nuclear deterrence that had begun to shape the US armed forces at the start of the Cold War. To compete with the United States Air Force and the United States Army, which had developed nuclear bombs and nuclear shells for use on the battlefield, the Navy began a top-secret program to develop Mk. 23 nuclear naval shells with an estimated yield of 15 to 20 kilotons. The shells entered development around 1953, and were reportedly ready by 1956; however, only the "Iowa"-class battleships could have fired them.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The secondary armament for "Montana" and her sisters was to be twenty /54 cal guns housed in ten turrets along the superstructure island of the battleship: five on the starboard side and five on the port. These guns, designed specifically for the "Montana"s, were to be the replacement for the /38 cal secondary gun batteries then in widespread use with the US Navy.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The 5-inch/54 cal gun turrets were similar to the 5-inch/38 cal gun mounts in that they were equally adept in an anti-aircraft role and for damaging smaller ships, but differed in that they weighed more and fired heavier rounds of ammunition at greater velocities, thus increasing their effectiveness. However, the heavier rounds resulted in faster crew fatigue than the 5-inch/38 cal guns. The ammunition storage for the 5-inch/54 cal gun was 500 rounds per turret, and the guns could fire at targets nearly away at a 45° angle. At an 85° angle, the guns could hit an aerial target at over .


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The cancellation of the "Montana"-class battleships in 1943 pushed back the combat debut of the 5-inch/54 cal guns to 1945, when they were used aboard the US Navy's s. The guns proved adequate for the carrier's air defense, but they were gradually phased out of use by the carrier fleet because of their weight. (Rather than having the carrier defend itself by gunnery, this would be assigned to other surrounding ships within a carrier battle group.)


title: Montana-class battleship

text: While the "Montana" class was not designed principally for escorting the fast carrier task forces, they would have nonetheless been equipped with a wide array of anti-aircraft guns to protect themselves and other ships (principally the US aircraft carriers) from Japanese fighters and dive bombers. If commissioned, the ships were expected to mount a considerable array of Oerlikon 20 mm and Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft weapons.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The Oerlikon 20 mm anti-aircraft cannon was one of the most heavily produced anti-aircraft guns of World War II; the US alone manufactured a total of 124,735 of these guns. When activated in 1941, these guns replaced the .50 in (12.7 mm)/90 cal M2 Browning MG on a one-for-one basis. The Oerlikon 20 mm AA gun remained the primary anti-aircraft weapon of the United States Navy until the introduction of the 40 mm Bofors AA gun in 1943.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: These guns are air-cooled and use a gas blow-back recoil system. Unlike other automatic guns employed during World War II, the barrel of the 20 mm Oerlikon gun does not recoil; the breechblock is never locked against the breech and is actually moving forward when the gun fires. This weapon lacks a counter-recoil brake, as the force of the counter-recoil is checked by recoil from the firing of the next round of ammunition. Between December 1941 and September 1944, 32% of all Japanese aircraft downed were credited to this weapon, with the high point being 48% for the second half of 1942. In 1943, the revolutionary Mark 14 gunsight was introduced, which made these guns even more effective. The 20 mm guns, however, were found to be ineffective against the Japanese kamikaze attacks used during the latter half of World War II. They were subsequently phased out in favor of the heavier 40 mm Bofors AA guns.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft gun was used on almost every major warship in the US and UK fleet from about 1943 to 1945. Although a descendant of German, Dutch, and Swedish designs, the Bofors mounts used by the US Navy during World War II had been heavily Americanized to bring the guns up to the standards placed on them by the Navy. This resulted in a gun system set to British standards (now known as the Standard System) with interchangeable ammunition, which simplified the logistics situation for World War II. When coupled with hydraulic couple drives to reduce salt contamination and the Mark 51 director for improved accuracy, the Bofors 40 mm gun became a fearsome adversary, accounting for roughly half of all Japanese aircraft shot down between 1 October 1944 and 1 February 1945.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The propulsion plant of the "Montana"s would have consisted of eight Babcock & Wilcox two-drum boilers with a steam pressure of and a steam temperature of feeding four geared steam turbines, each driving one shaft with ; this would result in a total propulsive power of , which gave a design speed of 28 knots at 70,500 tons displacement. While less powerful than the powerplant used by the "Iowa"s, the "Montana"s plant enabled the machinery spaces to be considerably more subdivided, with extensive longitudinal and traverse subdivisions of the boiler and engine rooms. The machinery arrangement was reminiscent of that of the , with the boiler rooms flanking the two central turbine rooms for the inboard shafts, while the turbine rooms for the wing shafts were placed at the after end of the machinery spaces. "Montana"s machinery arrangement combined with increased power would eventually be used on the . The "Montana"s were designed to carry of fuel oil and had a nominal range of at . Two semi-balanced rudders were placed behind the two inboard screws. The inboard shafts were housed in skegs, which, while increasing hydrodynamic drag, substantially strengthened the stern structure.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: To meet the high electrical loads anticipated for the ships, the design was to have ten 1,250 kW ship service turbogenerators (SSTG), providing a total of 12,500 kW of non-emergency electrical power at 450 volts alternating current. The ships were also to be equipped with two 500 kW emergency diesel generators.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: Aside from its firepower, a battleship's defining feature is its armor. The exact design and placement of the armor, inextricably linked with the ship's stability and performance, is a complex science honed over decades. A battleship is usually armored to withstand an attack from guns the size of its own, but the armor scheme of the preceding "North Carolina" class was only proof against shells (which they had originally been intended to carry), while the "South Dakota" and "Iowa" classes were designed only to resist their original complement of Mk. 5 shells, not the new "super-heavy" Mk. 8 armor-piercing shells they actually used. The "Montana"s were the only US battleships designed to resist the Mk. 8. They were designed to give a zone of immunity against fire from 16-inch/45-caliber firing 2,700 lb shell, between and 16-inch/45-caliber firing 2,240 lb shell, between away.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: As designed, the "Montana"s used the "all or nothing" armor philosophy, with most of the armor concentrated on the citadel that includes the machinery spaces, armament, magazines, and command and control facilities. Unlike the previous "Iowa" and "South Dakota" classes, the "Montana" class design returned to an external armor belt due to the greater beam providing sufficient stability while having the required belt inclination; this arrangement would have made construction and damage repairs much easier. The belt armor would be Class A face-hardened Krupp cemented (K.C.) armor mounted on Special Treatment Steel (STS), inclined at 19 degrees. Below the waterline, the belt tapered to . To protect against potential underwater shell hits, the ships would have a separate Class B homogeneous Krupp-type armor lower belt, by the magazines and by the machinery, that would also have served as one of the torpedo bulkheads, inclined at 10 degrees; this lower belt would taper to 1 inch at the triple bottom and be mounted on STS. The ends of the armored citadel would be closed by Class A traverse bulkheads thick in the front and in the aft. The deck armor would be in three layers: the first consisting of STS laminated on STS for a total of STS weather deck, the second consisting of Class B laminated on STS for a total of , and a third splinter deck. Over the magazines, the splinter deck would be replaced by a STS third deck to protect from spalling. Total armor thickness on the centerline would therefore have been 9.925 in (252 mm) over the citadel and 10.3 in (262 mm) thick over the magazines. The outboard section would have had Class B laminated on STS for a total of second deck and a splinter deck. The total thickness for the outboard section of the deck would have been 8.1 in (206 mm).


title: Montana-class battleship

text: The main batteries were designed to have very heavy protection, with turret faces having Class B mounted on STS, resulting in thick laminated plate. The turret sides were to have up to Class A and turret roofs would have Class B. The barbettes would have been protected by up to Class A forward and aft, while the conning tower sides would have Class A.


title: Montana-class battleship

text: "Montana"s torpedo protection system design incorporated lessons learned from those of previous US fast battleships, and was to consist of four internal longitudinal torpedo bulkheads behind the outer hull shell plating that would form a multi-layered "bulge". Two of the compartments would be liquid loaded in order to disrupt the gas bubble of a torpedo warhead detonation while the bulkheads would elastically deform and absorb the energy. Due to the external armor belt, the geometry of the "bulge" was more similar to that of the "North Carolina" class rather than that of the "South Dakota" and "Iowa" classes. Like on the "South Dakota" and "Iowa" classes, the two outer compartments would be liquid loaded, while two inner ones be void with the lower Class B armor belt to form the holding bulkhead between them. The greater beam of the "Montana"s would allow a higher system depth of compared to of the "North Carolina"s.