title: Millipede

text: Millipedes are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name derived from this feature. Each double-legged segment is a result of two single segments fused together. Most millipedes have very elongated cylindrical or flattened bodies with more than 20 segments, while pill millipedes are shorter and can roll into a tight ball. Although the name "millipede" derives from the Latin for "thousand feet", no species was known to have 1,000 or more until the discovery of "Eumillipes persephone", which can have over 1,300 legs. There are approximately 12,000 named species classified into 16 orders and around 140 families, making Diplopoda the largest class of myriapods, an arthropod group which also includes centipedes and other multi-legged creatures.


title: Millipede

text: Most millipedes are slow-moving detritivores, eating decaying leaves and other dead plant matter. Some eat fungi or drink plant fluids, and a small number are predatory. Millipedes are generally harmless to humans, although some can become household or garden pests. Millipedes can be an unwanted nuisance particularly in greenhouses where they can potentially cause severe damage to emergent seedlings. Most millipedes defend themselves with a variety of chemicals secreted from pores along the body, although the tiny bristle millipedes are covered with tufts of detachable bristles. Its primary defence mechanism is to curl into a tight coil, thereby protecting its legs and other vital delicate areas on the body behind a hard exoskeleton. Reproduction in most species is carried out by modified male legs called gonopods, which transfer packets of sperm to females.


title: Millipede

text: First appearing in the Silurian period, millipedes are some of the oldest known land animals. Some members of prehistoric groups, such as "Arthropleura", grew to over ; the largest modern species reach maximum lengths of . The longest extant species is the giant African millipede ("Archispirostreptus gigas").


title: Millipede

text: Among myriapods, millipedes have traditionally been considered most closely related to the tiny pauropods, although some molecular studies challenge this relationship. Millipedes can be distinguished from the somewhat similar but only distantly related centipedes (class Chilopoda), which move rapidly, are venomous, carnivorous, and have only a single pair of legs on each body segment.


title: Millipede

text: The scientific study of millipedes is known as diplopodology, and a scientist who studies them is called a diplopodologist.


title: Millipede

text: The term "millipede" is widespread in popular and scientific literature, but among North American scientists, the term "milliped" (without the terminal e) is also used. Other vernacular names include "thousand-legger" or simply "diplopod". The science of millipede biology and taxonomy is called diplopodology: the study of diplopods.


title: Millipede

text: Approximately 12,000 millipede species have been described. Estimates of the true number of species on earth range from 15,000 to as high as 80,000. Few species of millipede are at all widespread; they have very poor dispersal abilities, depending as they do on terrestrial locomotion and humid habitats. These factors have favoured genetic isolation and rapid speciation, producing many lineages with restricted ranges.


title: Millipede

text: The living members of the Diplopoda are divided into sixteen orders in two subclasses. The basal subclass Penicillata contains a single order, Polyxenida (bristle millipedes). All other millipedes belong to the subclass Chilognatha consisting of two infraclasses: Pentazonia, containing the short-bodied pill millipedes, and Helminthomorpha (worm-like millipedes), containing the great majority of the species.


title: Millipede

text: The higher-level classification of millipedes is presented below, based on Shear, 2011, and Shear & Edgecombe, 2010 (extinct groups). Recent cladistic and molecular studies have challenged the traditional classification schemes above, and in particular the position of the orders Siphoniulida and Polyzoniida is not yet well established. The placement and positions of extinct groups (†) known only from fossils is tentative and not fully resolved. After each name is listed the author citation: the name of the person who coined the name or defined the group, even if not at the current rank.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes are among the first animals to have colonised land during the Silurian period. Early forms probably ate mosses and primitive vascular plants. There are two major groups of millipedes whose members are all extinct: the Archipolypoda ("ancient, many-legged ones") which contain the oldest known terrestrial animals, and Arthropleuridea, which contain the largest known land invertebrates. The earliest known land creature, "Pneumodesmus newmani", was an archipolypodan known from long fragment that lived 414 million years ago in the early Devonian, and has clear evidence of spiracles (breathing holes) attesting to its air-breathing habits. During the Upper Carboniferous (), "Arthropleura" became the largest known land-dwelling invertebrate on record, reaching lengths of at least . Millipedes also exhibit the earliest evidence of chemical defence, as some Devonian fossils have defensive gland openings called ozopores. Millipedes, centipedes, and other terrestrial arthropods attained very large sizes in comparison to modern species in the oxygen-rich environments of the Devonian and Carboniferous periods, and some could grow larger than one metre. As oxygen levels lowered through time, arthropods became smaller.


title: Millipede

text: The history of scientific millipede classification began with Carl Linnaeus, who in his 10th edition of "Systema Naturae", 1758, named seven species of "Julus" as "Insecta Aptera" (wingless insects). In 1802, the French zoologist Pierre André Latreille proposed the name Chilognatha as the first group of what are now the Diplopoda, and in 1840 the German naturalist Johann Friedrich von Brandt produced the first detailed classification. The name Diplopoda itself was coined in 1844 by the French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville. From 1890 to 1940, millipede taxonomy was driven by relatively few researchers at any given time, with major contributions by Carl Attems, Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff and Ralph Vary Chamberlin, who each described over 1,000 species, as well as Orator F. Cook, Filippo Silvestri, R. I. Pocock, and Henry W. Brölemann. This was a period when the science of diplopodology flourished: rates of species descriptions were on average the highest in history, sometimes exceeding 300 per year.


title: Millipede

text: In 1971, the Dutch biologist C. A. W. Jeekel published a comprehensive listing of all known millipede genera and families described between 1758 and 1957 in his "Nomenclator Generum et Familiarum Diplopodorum", a work credited as launching the "modern era" of millipede taxonomy. In 1980, the American biologist Richard L. Hoffman published a classification of millipedes which recognized the Penicillata, Pentazonia, and Helminthomorpha, and the first phylogenetic analysis of millipede orders using modern cladistic methods was published in 1984 by Henrik Enghoff of Denmark. A 2003 classification by the American myriapodologist Rowland Shelley is similar to the one originally proposed by Verhoeff, and remains the currently accepted classification scheme (shown below), despite more recent molecular studies proposing conflicting relationships. A 2011 summary of millipede family diversity by William A. Shear placed the order Siphoniulida within the larger group Nematophora.


title: Millipede

text: In addition to the 16 living orders, there are 9 extinct orders and one superfamily known only from fossils. The relationship of these to living groups and to each other is controversial. The extinct Arthropleuridea was long considered a distinct myriapod class, although work in the early 21st century established the group as a subclass of millipedes. Several living orders also appear in the fossil record. Below are two proposed arrangements of fossil millipede groups. Extinct groups are indicated with a dagger (†). The extinct order Zosterogrammida, a chilognath of uncertain position, is not shown.


title: Millipede

text: Although the relationships of millipede orders are still the subject of debate, the class Diplopoda as a whole is considered a monophyletic group of arthropods: all millipedes are more closely related to each other than to any other arthropods. Diplopoda is a class within the arthropod subphylum Myriapoda, the myriapods, which includes centipedes (class Chilopoda) as well as the lesser-known pauropods (class Pauropoda) and symphylans (class Symphyla). Within myriapods, the closest relatives or sister group of millipedes has long been considered the pauropods, which also have a collum and diplosegments.


title: Millipede

text: The differences between millipedes and centipedes are a common question from the general public. Both groups of myriapods share similarities, such as long, multi-segmented bodies, many legs, a single pair of antennae, and the presence of postantennal organs, but have many differences and distinct evolutionary histories, as the most recent common ancestor of centipedes and millipedes lived around 450 to 475 million years ago in the Silurian. The head alone exemplifies the differences; millipedes have short, geniculate (elbowed) antennae for probing the substrate, a pair of robust mandibles and a single pair of maxillae fused into a lip; centipedes have long, threadlike antennae, a pair of small mandibles, two pairs of maxillae and a pair of large poison claws.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes come in a variety of body shapes and sizes, ranging from to around in length, and can have as few as eleven to over three hundred segments. They are generally black or brown in colour, although there are a few brightly coloured species, and some have aposematic colouring to warn that they are toxic. Species of "Motyxia" produce cyanide as a chemical defence and are bioluminescent.


title: Millipede

text: Body styles vary greatly between major millipede groups. In the basal subclass Penicillata, consisting of the tiny bristle millipedes, the exoskeleton is soft and uncalcified, and is covered in prominent setae or bristles. All other millipedes, belonging to the subclass Chilognatha, have a hardened exoskeleton. The chilognaths are in turn divided into two infraclasses: the Pentazonia, containing relatively short-bodied groups such as pill millipedes, and the Helminthomorpha ("worm-like" millipedes), which contains the vast majority of species, with long, many-segmented bodies.


title: Millipede

text: They have also lost the gene that codes for the JHAMTl enzyme, which is responsible for catalysing the last step of the production of a juvenile hormone that regulates the development and reproduction in other arthropods like crustaceans, centipedes and insects.


title: Millipede

text: The head of a millipede is typically rounded above and flattened below and bears a pair of large mandibles in front of a plate-like structure called a gnathochilarium ("jaw lip"). The head contains a single pair of antennae with seven or eight segments and a group of sensory cones at the tip. Many orders also possess a pair of sensory organs known as the Tömösváry organs, shaped as small oval rings posterior and lateral to the base of the antennae. Their function is unknown, but they also occur in some centipedes, and are possibly used to measure humidity or light levels in the surrounding environment.


title: Millipede

text: Millipede eyes consist of several simple flat-lensed ocelli arranged in a group or patch on each side of the head. These patches are also called ocular fields or ocellaria. Many species of millipedes, including the entire orders Polydesmida, Siphoniulida, Glomeridesmida, Siphonophorida and Platydesmida, and cave-dwelling millipedes such as "Causeyella" and "Trichopetalum", had ancestors that could see but have subsequently lost their eyes and are blind.


title: Millipede

text: Millipede bodies may be flattened or cylindrical, and are composed of numerous metameric segments, each with an exoskeleton consisting of four chitinous plates: a single plate above (the tergite), one at each side (pleurites), and a plate on the underside (sternite) where the legs attach. In many millipedes, such as Merocheta and Juliformia, these plates are fused to varying degrees, sometimes forming a single cylindrical ring. The plates are typically hard, impregnated with calcium salts. Because they can't close their permanently open spiracles and most species lack a waxy cuticle, millipedes are susceptible to water loss and with a few exceptions must spend most of their time in moist or humid environments.


title: Millipede

text: The first segment behind the head is legless and known as a collum (from the Latin for neck or collar). The second, third, and fourth body segments bear a single pair of legs each and are known as "haplosegments" (the three haplosegments are sometimes referred to as a "thorax"). The remaining segments, from the fifth to the posterior, are properly known as diplosegments or double segments, formed by the fusion of two embryonic segments. Each diplosegment bears two pairs of legs, rather than just one as in centipedes. In some millipedes, the last few segments may be legless. The terms "segment" or "body ring" are often used interchangeably to refer to both haplo- and diplosegments. The final segment is known as the telson and consists of a legless preanal ring, a pair of anal valves (closeable plates around the anus), and a small scale below the anus.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes in several orders have keel-like extensions of the body-wall known as paranota, which can vary widely in shape, size, and texture; modifications include lobes, papillae, ridges, crests, spines and notches. Paranota may allow millipedes to wedge more securely into crevices, protect the legs, or make the millipede more difficult for predators to swallow.


title: Millipede

text: The legs are composed of seven segments, and attach on the underside of the body. The legs of an individual are generally rather similar to each other, although often longer in males than females, and males of some species may have a reduced or enlarged first pair of legs. The most conspicuous leg modifications are involved in reproduction, discussed below. Despite the common name, no millipede was known to have 1,000 legs until 2021: common species have between 34 and 400 legs, and the record is held by "Eumillipes persephone", with individuals possessing up to 1,306 legs – more than any other creature on Earth.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes breathe through two pairs of spiracles located ventrally on each segment near the base of the legs. Each opens into an internal pouch, and connects to a system of tracheae. The heart runs the entire length of the body, with an aorta stretching into the head. The excretory organs are two pairs of malpighian tubules, located near the mid-part of the gut. The digestive tract is a simple tube with two pairs of salivary glands to help digest the food.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes show a diversity of mating styles and structures. In the basal order Polyxenida (bristle millipedes), mating is indirect: males deposit spermatophores onto webs they secrete with special glands, and the spermatophores are subsequently picked up by females. In all other millipede groups, males possess one or two pairs of modified legs called gonopods which are used to transfer sperm to the female during copulation. The location of the gonopods differs between groups: in males of the Pentazonia they are located at the rear of the body and known as telopods and may also function in grasping females, while in the Helminthomorpha – the vast majority of species – they are located on the seventh body segment. A few species are parthenogenetic, having few, if any, males.


title: Millipede

text: Gonopods occur in a diversity of shapes and sizes, and in the range from closely resembling walking legs to complex structures quite unlike legs at all. In some groups, the gonopods are kept retracted within the body; in others they project forward parallel to the body. Gonopod morphology is the predominant means of determining species among millipedes: the structures may differ greatly between closely related species but very little within a species. The gonopods develop gradually from walking legs through successive moults until reproductive maturity.


title: Millipede

text: The genital openings (gonopores) of both sexes are located on the underside of the third body segment (near the second pair of legs) and may be accompanied in the male by one or two penes which deposit the sperm packets onto the gonopods. In the female, the genital pores open into paired small sacs called cyphopods or vulvae, which are covered by small hood-like lids, and are used to store the sperm after copulation. The cyphopod morphology can also be used to identify species. Millipede sperm lack flagella, a unique trait among myriapods.


title: Millipede

text: In all except the bristle millipedes, copulation occurs with the two individuals facing one another. Copulation may be preceded by male behaviours such as tapping with antennae, running along the back of the female, offering edible glandular secretions, or in the case of some pill-millipedes, stridulation or "chirping". During copulation in most millipedes, the male positions his seventh segment in front of the female's third segment, and may insert his gonopods to extrude the vulvae before bending his body to deposit sperm onto his gonopods and reinserting the "charged" gonopods into the female.


title: Millipede

text: Females lay from ten to three hundred eggs at a time, depending on species, fertilising them with the stored sperm as they do so. Many species deposit the eggs on moist soil or organic detritus, but some construct nests lined with dried faeces, and may protect the eggs within silk cocoons. In most species, the female abandons the eggs after they are laid, but some species in the orders Platydesmida and Stemmiulida provide parental care for eggs and young.


title: Millipede

text: The young hatch after a few weeks, and typically have only three pairs of legs, followed by up to four legless segments. As they grow, they continually moult, adding further segments and legs as they do so. Some species moult within specially prepared chambers of soil or silk, and may also shelter in these during wet weather, and most species eat the discarded exoskeleton after moulting. The adult stage, when individuals become reproductively mature, is generally reached in the final moult stage, which varies between species and orders, although some species continue to moult after adulthood. Furthermore, some species alternate between reproductive and non-reproductive stages after maturity, a phenomenon known as periodomorphosis, in which the reproductive structures regress during non-reproductive stages. Millipedes may live from one to ten years, depending on species.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes occur on all continents except Antarctica, and occupy almost all terrestrial habitats, ranging as far north as the Arctic Circle in Iceland, Norway, and Central Russia, and as far south as Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Typically forest floor dwellers, they live in leaf litter, dead wood, or soil, with a preference for humid conditions. In temperate zones, millipedes are most abundant in moist deciduous forests, and may reach densities of over 1,000 individuals per square metre. Other habitats include coniferous forests, caves, and alpine ecosystems. Deserticolous millipedes, species evolved to live in the desert, like Orthoporus ornatus, may show adaptations like a waxy epicuticle and the ability of water uptake from unsaturated air. Some species can survive freshwater floods and live submerged underwater for up to 11 months. A few species occur near the seashore and can survive in somewhat salty conditions.


title: Millipede

text: The diplosegments of millipedes have evolved in conjunction with their burrowing habits, and nearly all millipedes adopt a mainly subterranean lifestyle. They use three main methods of burrowing; bulldozing, wedging and boring. Members of the orders Julida, Spirobolida and Spirostreptida, lower their heads and barge their way into the substrate, the collum leading the way. Flat-backed millipedes in the order Polydesmida tend to insert their front end, like a wedge, into a horizontal crevice, and then widen the crack by pushing upwards with their legs, the paranota in this instance constituting the main lifting surface. Boring is used by members of the order Polyzoniida. These have smaller segments at the front and increasingly large ones further back; they propel themselves forward into a crack with their legs, the wedge-shaped body widening the gap as they go. Some millipedes have adopted an above-ground lifestyle and lost the burrowing habit. This may be because they are too small to have enough leverage to burrow, or because they are too large to make the effort worthwhile, or in some cases because they move relatively fast (for a millipede) and are active predators.


title: Millipede

text: Most millipedes are detritivores and feed on decomposing vegetation, feces, or organic matter mixed with soil. They often play important roles in the breakdown and decomposition of plant litter: estimates of consumption rates for individual species range from 1 to 11 percent of all leaf litter, depending on species and region, and collectively millipedes may consume nearly all the leaf litter in a region. The leaf litter is fragmented in the millipede gut and excreted as pellets of leaf fragments, algae, fungi, and bacteria, which facilitates decomposition by the microorganisms. Where earthworm populations are low in tropical forests, millipedes play an important role in facilitating microbial decomposition of the leaf litter. Some millipedes are herbivorous, feeding on living plants, and some species can become serious pests of crops. Millipedes in the order Polyxenida graze algae from bark, and Platydesmida feed on fungi. A few species are omnivorous or in Callipodida and Chordeumatida occasionally carnivorous, feeding on insects, centipedes, earthworms, or snails. Some species have piercing mouth parts that allow them to suck up plant juices.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes are preyed on by a wide range of animals, including various reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, and insects. Mammalian predators such as coatis and meerkats roll captured millipedes on the ground to deplete and rub off their defensive secretions before consuming their prey, and certain poison dart frogs are believed to incorporate the toxic compounds of millipedes into their own defences. Several invertebrates have specialised behaviours or structures to feed on millipedes, including larval glowworm beetles, "Probolomyrmex" ants, chlamydephorid slugs, and predaceous dung beetles of the genera "Sceliages" and "Deltochilum". A large subfamily of assassin bugs, the Ectrichodiinae with over 600 species, has specialised in preying upon millipedes. Parasites of millipedes include nematodes, phaeomyiid flies, and acanthocephalans. Nearly 30 fungal species of the order Laboulbeniales have been found growing externally on millipedes, but some species may be commensal rather than parasitic.


title: Millipede

text: Due to their lack of speed and their inability to bite or sting, millipedes' primary defence mechanism is to curl into a tight coil – protecting their delicate legs inside an armoured exoskeleton.


title: Millipede

text: Many species also emit various foul-smelling liquid secretions through microscopic holes called ozopores (the openings of "odoriferous" or "repugnatorial glands"), along the sides of their bodies as a secondary defence. Among the many irritant and toxic chemicals found in these secretions are alkaloids, benzoquinones, phenols, terpenoids, and hydrogen cyanide. Some of these substances are caustic and can burn the exoskeleton of ants and other insect predators, and the skin and eyes of larger predators. Primates such as capuchin monkeys and lemurs have been observed intentionally irritating millipedes in order to rub the chemicals on themselves to repel mosquitoes. Some of these defensive compounds also show antifungal activity.


title: Millipede

text: The bristly millipedes (order Polyxenida) lack both an armoured exoskeleton and odiferous glands, and instead are covered in numerous bristles that in at least one species, "Polyxenus fasciculatus", detach and entangle ants.


title: Millipede

text: Some millipedes form mutualistic relationships with organisms of other species, in which both species benefit from the interaction, or commensal relationships, in which only one species benefits while the other is unaffected. Several species form close relationships with ants, a relationship known as myrmecophily, especially within the family Pyrgodesmidae (Polydesmida), which contains "obligate myrmecophiles", species which have only been found in ant colonies. More species are "facultative myrmecophiles", non-exclusively associated with ants, including many species of Polyxenida that have been found in ant nests around the world.


title: Millipede

text: Many millipede species have commensal relationships with mites of the orders Mesostigmata and Astigmata. Many of these mites are believed to be phoretic rather than parasitic, which means that they use the millipede host as a means of dispersal.


title: Millipede

text: A novel interaction between millipedes and mosses was described in 2011, in which individuals of the newly discovered "Psammodesmus bryophorus" was found to have up to ten species living on its dorsal surface, in what may provide camouflage for the millipede and increased dispersal for the mosses.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes generally have little impact on human economic or social well-being, especially in comparison with insects, although locally they can be a nuisance or agricultural pest. Millipedes do not bite, and their defensive secretions are mostly harmless to humans — usually causing only minor discolouration on the skin — but the secretions of some tropical species may cause pain, itching, local erythema, edema, blisters, eczema, and occasionally cracked skin. Eye exposures to these secretions causes general irritation and potentially more severe effects such as conjunctivitis and keratitis. This is called millipede burn. First aid consists of flushing the area thoroughly with water; further treatment is aimed at relieving the local effects.


title: Millipede

text: Some millipedes are considered household pests, including "Xenobolus carnifex" which can infest thatched roofs in India, and "Ommatoiulus moreleti", which periodically invades homes in Australia. Other species exhibit periodical swarming behaviour, which can result in home invasions, crop damage, and train delays when the tracks become slippery with the crushed remains of hundreds of millipedes. Some millipedes can cause significant damage to crops: the spotted snake millipede ("Blaniulus guttulatus") is a noted pest of sugar beets and other root crops, and as a result is one of the few millipedes with a common name.


title: Millipede

text: Some of the larger millipedes in the orders Spirobolida, Spirostreptida, and Sphaerotheriida are popular as pets. Some species commonly sold or kept include species of "Archispirostreptus", "Aphistogoniulus", "Narceus", and "Orthoporus".


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes appear in folklore and traditional medicine around the world. Some cultures associate millipede activity with coming rains. In Zambia, smashed millipede pulp is used to treat wounds, and the Bafia people of Cameroon use millipede juice to treat earache. In certain Himalayan Bhotiya tribes, dry millipede smoke is used to treat haemorrhoids. Native people in Malaysia use millipede secretions in poison-tipped arrows. The secretions of "Spirobolus bungii" have been observed to inhibit division of human cancer cells. The only recorded usage of millipedes as food by humans comes from the Bobo people of Burkina Faso in West Africa, who consume boiled, dried millipedes belonging to the families Gomphodesmidae and Spirostreptidae to which they add tomato sauce.


title: Millipede

text: Millipedes have also inspired and played roles in scientific research. In 1963, a walking vehicle with 36 legs was designed, said to have been inspired by a study of millipede locomotion.


title: Millipede

text: Experimental robots have had the same inspiration, in particular when heavy loads are needed to be carried in tight areas involving turns and curves. In biology, some authors have advocated millipedes as model organisms for the study of arthropod physiology and the developmental processes controlling the number and shape of body segments.


title: Millipede

text: Similar to vermicompost, millipedes can be used to convert plant matter into compost in what has been named millicomposting, which improves the quality of the compost.


title: Aqua regia

text: Aqua regia (; from Latin, literally "regal water" or "royal water") is a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, optimally in a molar ratio of 1:3. Aqua regia is a fuming liquid. Freshly prepared aqua regia is colorless, but it turns yellow, orange or red within seconds due to the formation of nitrosyl chloride and nitrogen dioxide. It was named by alchemists because it can dissolve the noble metals gold and platinum, though not all metals.


title: Aqua regia

text: Upon mixing of concentrated hydrochloric acid and concentrated nitric acid, chemical reactions occur. These reactions result in the volatile products nitrosyl chloride and chlorine gas:


title: Aqua regia

text: as evidenced by the fuming nature and characteristic yellow color of aqua regia. As the volatile products escape from solution, aqua regia loses its potency. Nitrosyl chloride (NOCl) can further decompose into nitric oxide (NO) and elemental chlorine ():


title: Aqua regia

text: This dissociation is equilibrium-limited. Therefore, in addition to nitrosyl chloride and chlorine, the fumes over aqua regia also contain nitric oxide (NO). Because nitric oxide readily reacts with atmospheric oxygen, the gases produced also contain nitrogen dioxide, (red fume):


title: Aqua regia

text: Aqua regia is primarily used to produce chloroauric acid, the electrolyte in the Wohlwill process for refining the highest purity (99.999%) gold.


title: Aqua regia

text: Aqua regia is also used in etching and in specific analytic procedures. It is also used in some laboratories to clean glassware of organic compounds and metal particles. This method is preferred among most over the more traditional chromic acid bath for cleaning NMR tubes, because no traces of paramagnetic chromium can remain to spoil spectra. While chromic acid baths are discouraged because of the high toxicity of chromium and the potential for explosions, aqua regia is itself very corrosive and has been implicated in several explosions due to mishandling.


title: Aqua regia

text: Due to the reaction between its components resulting in its decomposition, aqua regia quickly loses its effectiveness (yet remains a strong acid), so its components are usually only mixed immediately before use.


title: Aqua regia

text: While local regulations may vary, aqua regia may be disposed of by careful neutralization, before being poured down the sink. If there is contamination by dissolved metals, the neutralized solution should be collected for disposal.


title: Aqua regia

text: Aqua regia dissolves gold, although neither constituent acid will do so alone. Nitric acid is a powerful oxidizer, which will actually dissolve a virtually undetectable amount of gold, forming gold(III) ions (). The hydrochloric acid provides a ready supply of chloride ions (), which react with the gold ions to produce tetrachloroaurate(III) anions (), also in solution. The reaction with hydrochloric acid is an equilibrium reaction that favors formation of tetrachloroaurate(III) anions. This results in a removal of gold ions from solution and allows further oxidation of gold to take place. The gold dissolves to become chloroauric acid. In addition, gold may be dissolved by the chlorine present in aqua regia. Appropriate equations are:


title: Aqua regia

text: Solid tetrachloroauric acid may be isolated by evaporating the excess aqua regia, and decomposing the residual nitric acid by repeatedly heating the solution with additional hydrochloric acid. That step reduces nitric acid (see decomposition of aqua regia). If elemental gold is desired, it may be selectively reduced with reducing agents such as sulfur dioxide, hydrazine, oxalic acid, etc. The equation for the reduction of oxidized gold () by sulfur dioxide () is the following:


title: Aqua regia

text: Similar equations can be written for platinum. As with gold, the oxidation reaction can be written with either nitric oxide or nitrogen dioxide as the nitrogen oxide product:


title: Aqua regia

text: Experimental evidence reveals that the reaction of platinum with aqua regia is considerably more complex. The initial reactions produce a mixture of chloroplatinous acid () and nitrosoplatinic chloride (). The nitrosoplatinic chloride is a solid product. If full dissolution of the platinum is desired, repeated extractions of the residual solids with concentrated hydrochloric acid must be performed:


title: Aqua regia

text: The chloroplatinous acid can be oxidized to chloroplatinic acid by saturating the solution with molecular chlorine () while heating:


title: Aqua regia

text: Dissolving platinum solids in aqua regia was the mode of discovery for the densest metals, iridium and osmium, both of which are found in platinum ores and are not dissolved by aqua regia, instead collecting as insoluble metallic powder (elemental Ir, Os) on the base of the vessel.


title: Aqua regia

text: As a practical matter, when platinum group metals are purified through dissolution in aqua regia, gold (commonly associated with PGMs) is precipitated by treatment with iron(II) chloride. Platinum in the filtrate, as hexachloroplatinate(IV), is converted to ammonium hexachloroplatinate by the addition of ammonium chloride. This ammonium salt is extremely insoluble, and it can be filtered off. Ignition (strong heating) converts it to platinum metal:


title: Aqua regia

text: Unprecipitated hexachloroplatinate(IV) is reduced with elemental zinc, and a similar method is suitable for small scale recovery of platinum from laboratory residues.


title: Aqua regia

text: Aqua regia first appeared in the "De inventione veritatis" ("On the Discovery of Truth") by pseudo-Geber (after c. 1300), who produced it by adding sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) to nitric acid. The preparation of aqua regia by directly mixing hydrochloric acid with nitric acid only became possible after the discovery in the late sixteenth century of the process by which free hydrochloric acid can be produced.


title: Aqua regia

text: The third of Basil Valentine's keys (ca. 1600) shows a dragon in the foreground and a fox eating a rooster in the background. The rooster symbolizes gold (from its association with sunrise and the sun's association with gold), and the fox represents aqua regia. The repetitive dissolving, heating, and redissolving (the rooster eating the fox eating the rooster) leads to the buildup of chlorine gas in the flask. The gold then crystallizes in the form of gold(III) chloride, whose red crystals Basil called "the rose of our masters" and "the red dragon's blood". The reaction was not reported again in the chemical literature until 1895.


title: Aqua regia

text: When Germany invaded Denmark in World War II, Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of German physicists Max von Laue (1914) and James Franck (1925) in aqua regia to prevent the Nazis from confiscating them. The German government had prohibited Germans from accepting or keeping any Nobel Prize after jailed peace activist Carl von Ossietzky had received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935. De Hevesy placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. It was subsequently ignored by the Nazis who thought the jar—one of perhaps hundreds on the shelving—contained common chemicals. After the war, de Hevesy returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The gold was returned to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Foundation. They re-cast the medals and again presented them to Laue and Franck.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The island group measures about by and had a population of about 34,000 . The main islands (that is, the "North" and "South" islands, and the thin island that connects them) are the largest coherent satellite island group of Nagasaki Prefecture and the eighth-largest in Japan. The city of Tsushima, Nagasaki lies on Tsushima Island and is divided into six boroughs.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima Island is located west of the Kanmon Strait at a latitude between Honshu and Kyushu of the Japanese mainland. The Korea Strait splits at the Tsushima Island Archipelago into two channels; the wider channel, closer to the mainland of Japan, is the Tsushima Strait. Ōfunakoshi-Seto and Manzeki-Seto, the two canals built in 1671 and 1900 respectively, connect the deep indentation of Asō Bay (浅茅湾) to the east side of the island. The archipelago comprises over 100 smaller islets in addition to the main island.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima is the closest Japanese territory to the Korean Peninsula, lying approximately 50 km from Busan. On a clear day, the hills and mountains of the Korean peninsula are visible from the higher elevations on the two northern mountains. The nearest Japanese port, Iki, situated on Iki Island within the Tsushima Basin, is also 50 km away. Tsushima Island and Iki Island are collectively within the borders of the Iki–Tsushima Quasi-National Park, designated as a nature preserve and protected from further development. Much of Tsushima (89%) is covered by natural vegetation and mountains. Tsushima Island has many mountains such as the Mt. Ohira, Mt. Yatate, Mt. Hokogatake, Mt. Koyasan, Mt. Ontake, Mt. Gogen.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The Government of Japan administers Tsushima Island as a single entity despite the artificial waterways that have separated it into two islands. The northern area is known as Kamino-shima (上島), and the southern island as Shimono-shima (下島). Both sub-islands have a pair of mountains. Shimo-no-shima has Mount Yatate (矢立山), standing high, and Ariake-yama (有明山), at high. Kami-no-shima has Mi-take (御嶽), . The two main sections of the island are now joined by a combination bridge and causeway. The island has a total area of .


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima has a marine humid subtropical climate strongly influenced by monsoon winds. The average temperature is , and the average yearly precipitation is 2,132.6 mm. The highest temperature ever recorded on the island is , on 20 August 2013, and the lowest , in 1895. Throughout most of the year, Tsushima is 1–2 °C cooler than the city of Nagasaki. The island's rainfall is generally higher than that of the main islands of Japan; this is attributed to the difference in their size. Because Tsushima is small and isolated, it is exposed on all sides to moist marine air, which releases precipitation as it ascends the island's steep slopes. Continental monsoon winds carry loess, a dust which is a highly fertile mix of clay and sand, from China in the spring and cool the island in the winter.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The island's fauna include leopard cat, Japanese marten, Siberian weasel, and rodents. Otters were discovered to be living on Tsushima in February 2017. Migrating birds that stop over on the island include hawks, harriers, eagles, and black-throated loons. Forests, covering 90% of the island, consist of broad-leafed evergreens, conifers, and deciduous trees including cypress. Honey bees are common, with many used to produce commercial honey. The Tsushima Island pitviper ("Gloydius tsushimaensis") is a venomous snake endemic to the Tsushima Island. The islands have been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because they support populations of Japanese wood pigeons and Pleske's grasshopper warblers.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima Reef, located in the bay between Tsushima and Iki Island, is the northernmost coral reef in the world, surpassing the Iki Island reef discovered in 2001. It is dominated by cool-tolerant stony or Scleractinian "Favia" corals but the observed settling of tropical "Acropora" coral is expected to provide an ongoing indicator for continuing global warming.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The whole island is covered in forest and there are few plains. There are Yoshino cherry and "Chionanthus retusus".


title: Tsushima Island

text: According to a 2000 census, 23.9% of the local population is employed in primary industries while 19.7% and 56.4% of the population are employed in secondary and tertiary industries, respectively. Of these economic activities, fishing amounts to 82.6% of the primary industry, with much of it dedicated to catching squid on the eastern coast of the island. The number of employees in the primary industries has been decreasing, while employee growth in the secondary and tertiary industries has been increasing.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tourism, targeting mainly South Koreans, has recently made a great contribution to the islands' economy. The number of Korean tourists to the island increased greatly after the launching of a high-speed ferry service from Busan to the island in 1999. In 2008, 72,349 Koreans visited the island. Due to a drop in the value of the won, the number fell to 45,266 in 2009. Korean tourists generate an estimated ¥2.1 billion in revenue for the local economy and generate about 260 jobs on the island.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The island expected around 200,000 visitors from Korea in 2013, surpassing the number of visitors from within Japan for the first time. However, a summer pageant focused on a historical event involving Korean emissaries was cancelled that same year. In 2018, 90% of visitors to Tsushima were from South Korea; however, diplomatic issues between Japan and South Korea led to an 88% decrease (1.7 million fewer visitors) in Korean visitors in 2019. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has further reduced and limited tourism.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima has been gaining popularity as a tourist destination thanks in large part to the samurai action-adventure stealth game "Ghost of Tsushima" that was released in 2020, with visitors keen to see some of the places featured in the game, as well as discover what the island is like in "real life". This includes trying local culinary specialties such as rokube noodles, ishiyaki, tonchan and anago conger eel.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima city was established on 1 March 2004, from the merger of six towns on Tsushima Island: Izuhara, Mitsushima, and Toyotama (all from Shimoagata District), and Mine, Kamiagata, and Kamitsushima (all from Kamiagata District). It is the only city of Tsushima Subprefecture and encompasses the whole island.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima Airport has flights to Fukuoka Airport (on All Nippon Airways and Oriental Air Bridge) and Nagasaki Airport (Oriental Air Bridge only).


title: Tsushima Island

text: In Japanese mythology, Tsushima was one of the eight original islands created by the Shinto deities Izanagi and Izanami. Archaeological evidence suggests that Tsushima was already inhabited by settlers from the Japanese archipelago and Korean Peninsula from the Jōmon period to the Kofun period. The "Records of the Three Kingdoms", a Chinese historical text, describes a country called "Duì hǎi guó" () with a population of more than one thousand households, which is commonly identified with Tsushima. It was one of the about 30 that composed the Yamatai union countries. These families exerted control over Iki Island, and established trading links with Yayoi Japan. Since Tsushima had almost no land to cultivate, islanders earned their living by fishing and trading.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Since the beginning of the early sixth century, Tsushima has been an official province of Japan, known as Tsushima Province (today Tsushima, Nagasaki.)


title: Tsushima Island

text: Under the Ritsuryō system, Tsushima became a province of Japan. This province was linked with Dazaifu, the political and economical center of Kyūshū, as well as the central government of Japan. Due to its strategic location, Tsushima played a major role in defending Japan against invasions from the Asian continent and developing trade lines with Baekje and Silla of Three Kingdoms of Korea. After Baekje, which had been aided by Yamato Japan, was defeated in 663 by Sillan and Tang Chinese forces at the Battle of Baekgang, Japanese border guards were sent to Tsushima and Kaneda Castle was constructed on the island.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima Province was controlled by officials called Tsushima no kuni no miyatsuko () until the Nara period, and then by the Abiru clan until the middle of the 13th century. The role and title of "Governor of Tsushima" was exclusively held by the Shōni clan for generations. However, since the Shōni actually resided in Kyūshū, it was the Sō clan, known subjects of the Shōni, who actually exerted control over these islands. The Sō clan governed Tsushima until the late 15th century.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima was an important trade center during this period. After the Toi invasion, private trade started between Goryeo, Tsushima, Iki Island, and Kyūshū, but halted during the Mongol invasions of Japan between 1274 and 1281. The "Goryeosa", a history of the Goryeo dynasty, mentions that in 1274, Korean troops of the Mongol army led by killed a great number of people on the islands.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima became one of the major bases of the Wokou, Japanese pirates, also called "wakō", along with Iki and Matsuura. Due to repeated pirate raids, the Goryeo and Joseon at times placated the pirates by establishing trade agreements as well as negotiating with the Ashikaga shogunate and its deputy in Kyūshū and at other times used force to neutralize the pirates. In 1389, General Pak Wi of Goryeo wiped out Wokou on the island of Tsushima.


title: Tsushima Island

text: On 19 June 1419, the recently abdicated king Taejong of Joseon sent general Yi Jongmu to an expedition to Tsushima island to clear it of the Wokou pirates, using a fleet of 227 vessels and 17,000 soldiers, known in Japanese as the Ōei Invasion. After suffering casualties in an ambush, the Korean Army negotiated a ceasefire and withdrew on 3 July 1419. In 1443, the Daimyō of Tsushima, proposed the Treaty of Gyehae. The number of trade ships from Tsushima to Korea was decided by this treaty, and the Sō clan monopolized the trade with Korea.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In 1510, Japanese traders initiated an uprising against Joseon's stricter policies on Japanese traders from Tsushima and Iki coming to Busan, Ulsan and Jinhae to trade. The So Clan supported the uprising, but it was soon crushed. The uprising later came to be known as the "Disturbance of the Three Ports" ( in Japan and 삼포왜란 (三浦倭亂, Sampo Waeran) in Korea). Trade resumed under the direction of King Jungjong in 1512, but only under strictly limited terms, and only twenty-five ships were allowed to visit Joseon annually.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In the late 16th century, Japanese leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi united the various feudal lords (daimyō) under his command and in 1587, Hideyoshi confirmed the Sō clan's possession of Tsushima. Sō Yoshitoshi (宗 義智, 1568 – 31 January 1615) was a Sō clan daimyō (feudal lord) of the island domain of Tsushima. Planning to unite all factions with a common cause, Hideyoshi's coalition attacked Joseon Korea, leading to the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598). Tsushima was the main naval base for this invasion, and in continuing support of the war, large numbers of Korean prisoners were transported to Tsushima until 1603.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu established a new shogunate; and Sō Yoshitoshi was officially granted Fuchū Domain (100,000 koku) in Tsushima Province.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The Tsushima-Fuchū Domain shipyard was built in 1663 CE. There are still ruins of the shipyard on the island.


title: Tsushima Island

text: After Japan's attempts at conquest failed, peace was re-established between the two nations. Once again, the islands became a port for merchants. Both the Joseon Dynasty and the Tsushima-Fuchū Domain sent their trading representatives to Tsushima, governing trade until 1755.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The island was described by Hayashi Shihei in "Sangoku Tsūran Zusetsu", which was published in 1785. It was identified as part of Japan.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In 1811, for cost reduction, representatives of the Tokugawa shogunate met at Tsushima with ambassadors from the Joseon king ("Joseon Tongsinsa").


title: Tsushima Island

text: Until the Meiji, Tsushima was a frontier between Japan and Korea, heavily dependent on the trade with Korea, with unique institutions/systems of trade which strongly resembled those of Korean, not Japanese, institutions - for instance, measurement system for the taxation of land in Japan, is determined by the production of kokus of rice. Tsushima had a low production of rice, so it was permitted to use a unique survey system () by Tokugawa shogunate. Because it had originated in China Land Survey System (間尺法), it was similar to the system of Korea - gyeolbu (結負制); Tsushima law resembled Korean law in its calculation of finances. "Unfree labor" or slavery for fixed periods of time, always rare in any form in the rest of Japan, existed as an established institution, often as a form of punishment, in Tsushima as it did in Korea. The Tsushima han owned a place of residence in Busan, according to Murai Shosuke, the Japanese was given the title from the Joseon dynasty is called "marginal men", was responsible for security in this residential area. Lewis also cites the official preparations of Sō Yoshitoshi listing some 1,000 Koreans as guides in preparation for Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea to support a "zone of ambiguous boundary qualities" aspect of Tsushima. The islanders spoke the Tsushima dialect and their daily customs, social structure, and economic interactions were in Japanese, with exception of loanwords from Korean in their dialect.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In an episode now known as the Tsushima incident, the Imperial Russian Navy tried to appropriate the island by establishing a base on the island in 1861. In 1860 this plan had been made by Vice Admiral Ivan Likhachev, commanding the Russian squadron in the waters of Japan and the Commander of the Possadnick, Birilev in co-operation with the Russian Consul at Hakodate Goshkevitch. The plan had been discussed with high authorities at St Petersburg who had given the green light to proceed with it. If the plan would miscarry they would deny all knowledge about it. The Russians were forced to withdraw by Vice Admiral John Hope, Commanding the British ships in the waters of Japan on orders of Sir Rutherford Alcock, representing Britain in Japan and the British government. Support at St Petersburg was given by the British Envoy Lord Napier and the Dutch Envoy Baron Gevers


title: Tsushima Island

text: As a result of the abolition of the "han" system, the Tsushima Fuchu domain became part of Izuhara Prefecture in 1871. In the same year, Izuhara Prefecture was merged with Imari Prefecture, which was renamed Saga Prefecture in 1872. Tsushima was transferred to Nagasaki Prefecture in 1872, and its districts of Kamiagata (上県) and Shimoagata (下県) were merged to form the modern city of Tsushima. This change was part of widespread reforms within Japan which started after 1854. Japan was at this time becoming a modern nation state and regional power, with widespread changes in government, industry, and education.


title: Tsushima Island

text: After the First Sino-Japanese War ended with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan felt humiliated when the Triple Intervention of the three great powers of Germany, France, and Russia forced it to return the valuable Liaodong Peninsula to China under threat of force. Consequently, the Japanese leadership correctly anticipated that a war with Russia or another Western imperial power was likely. Between 1895 and 1904, the Imperial Japanese Navy blasted the Manzeki-Seto canal wide and deep; it was later expanded to wide and deep through a mountainous rocky isthmus of the island between Asō Bay to the west and Tsushima Strait to the east, technically dividing the island into three islands. Strategic concerns explain the scope and funding of the canal project by Japan during an era when it was still struggling to establish an industrial economy. The canal enabled the Japanese to move transports and warships quickly between their main naval bases in the Seto Inland Sea (directly to the east) via the Kanmon and Tsushima Strait into the Korea Strait or to destinations beyond in the Yellow Sea.


title: Tsushima Island

text: An imperial ordinance in July 1899 established Izuhara, Sasuna, and Shishimi as open ports for trading with the United States and the United Kingdom.


title: Tsushima Island

text: During the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the Russian Baltic Fleet under Admiral Rozhestvensky, after making an almost year-long trip to East Asia from the Baltic Sea, was crushed by the Japanese under Admiral Togo Heihachiro at the Battle of Tsushima. The Japanese third squadron (cruisers) began shadowing the Russian fleet off the tip of the south island and followed it through the Tsushima Strait where the main Japanese fleet awaited. The battle began at slightly east-northeast of the northern island around midday, and ended to its north a day later when the Japanese surrounded the Russian Fleet. Japan won a decisive victory.


title: Tsushima Island

text: From 1948 to 1949, due to the Jeju uprising, and its resulting suppression and massacre by anti-communist Korean forces, thousands of Jeju residents fled to Japan via Tsushima.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In 1950, the South Korean government asserted sovereignty over the island based on "historical claims". Korea-US negotiations about the Treaty of San Francisco made no mention of Tsushima Island. After this, the status of Tsushima as an island of Japan was re-confirmed. While the South Korean government has since relinquished claims on the island, some Koreans (including some members of the Korean parliament) have periodically attempted to dispute the ownership of the island.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In 1973, one of the transmitters for the OMEGA-navigation system was built on Tsushima. It was dismantled in 1998.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Today, Tsushima is part of Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. On 1 March 2004, the six towns on the island – Izuhara, Mitsushima, Toyotama, Mine, Kamiagata, and Kamitsushima – were merged to create the city of Tsushima. About 700 Japan Self-Defense Forces personnel are stationed on the island to watch the local coastal and ocean areas.


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima is administered by Nagasaki Prefecture. The South Korean city of Changwon also asserts ownership of the island, calling it "Daemado" (; ), the Korean reading of the characters used in the Japanese name ().


title: Tsushima Island

text: Archaeological evidence suggests that Tsushima was already inhabited by settlers from the Japanese archipelago from the Jōmon period (14,000 BCE) to the Kofun period (300 CE). Also, according to the "Sanguo Zhi" in the 3rd century Tsushima was Tsuikai-koku and one of the 30 that composed the Yamataikoku union countries (邪馬台国). This island, as Tsushima Province, has been ruled by Japanese governments since the Nara period (710 CE). According to the Korean history book Samguk Sagi written in 1145, Tsushima is ruled by the Japanese from CE 400.


title: Tsushima Island

text: On 19 June 1419, Japan repelled the Ōei Invasion of king Sejong of Joseon. He sent general Yi Jong-mu to an expedition to Tsushima island to clear it of the Wokou pirates, using a fleet of 227 vessels and 17,000 soldiers. The Joseon invaders suffered casualties in an ambush and the Korean Army negotiated a ceasefire and withdrew on 3 July 1419. Afterwards, in diplomatic exchanges, the lords of Tsushima would be granted exclusive trading privileges with Joseon in exchange for maintaining control and order of pirate threats originating from the island which was the very reason for the original expedition.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The Tsushima Fuchu domain became part of Izuhara Prefecture in 1871. In the same year, Izuhara Prefecture merged with Imari Prefecture, which was renamed Saga Prefecture on 29 May 1872. The island provinces of Tsushima and Iki were merged with the western half of the former province of Hizen and became modern-day Tsushima, Nagasaki Prefecture in 1872.


title: Tsushima Island

text: The South Korean government made a claim in 1948, but it was rejected by US Gen. MacArthur, the then-Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP) in 1949. On 19 July 1951, the South Korean government agreed that the earlier demand for Tsushima had been dropped by the South Korean government with regard to the Japanese peace treaty negotiations.


title: Tsushima Island

text: In 2008, Yasunari Takarabe, incumbent Mayor of Tsushima rejected the South Korean territorial claim: "Tsushima has always been Japan. I want them to retract their wrong historical perception. It was mentioned in the [a chapter of volume 30 of Book of Wei in the Chinese Records of the Three Kingdoms] as part of Wa (Japan). It has never been and cannot be a South Korean territory."


title: Tsushima Island

text: Tsushima Island is the setting for the PlayStation 4 game "Ghost of Tsushima", released by Sucker Punch Productions in 2020. This is based on the Mongol invasion of 1274. In response to the popularity of the game, Nagasaki Prefecture used it to promote tourism to Tsushima. After a typhoon damaged a Shinto torii gate on the island in September 2020, fans of the game helped raise money to restore it. The creative leads of the game, Nate Fox and Jason Connell, were named as tourism ambassadors to the island in March 2021, as those "who has spread the name and history of Tsushima through their works". On March 25, 2021, Sony Pictures and PlayStation Productions announced the development of a film adaptation of the game.


title: Tsushima Island

text: H.J. Moeshart, The Russian Occupation of Tsushima: a Stepping-stone to British Leadership in Japan, in: Ian Neary (Ed.) 'Leaders and Leadership in Japan' (Japan Library, 1996).


The 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election for 292 of the 294 constituencies in West Bengal was held between 27 March to 29 April 2021 in eight phases. Voting for the two remaining constituencies was delayed to 30 September 2021.


title: 2021 West Bengal Legislative Assembly election

text: The incumbent All India Trinamool Congress government led by Mamata Banerjee won the election by a large margin, despite opinion polls generally predicting a close race against the Bharatiya Janata Party, which became the official opposition with 77 seats. The Indian Secular Front won one seat, and the Indian National Congress and the left parties did not win any seats.


text: Outlined in Article 168 of the Constitution of India, the West Bengal Legislative Assembly is the only house of the unicameral legislature of West Bengal, not a permanent body, and subject to dissolution. The assembly term lasts for five years unless it is dissolved earlier. Members of the Legislative Assembly are directly elected by the people, and the tenure of the Sixteenth West Bengal Legislative Assembly was scheduled to end on 30 May 2021.


text: In the 2016 election, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC or TMC) retained its majority in the Legislative Assembly with 211 seats. The Indian National Congress won 44 seats and the Left Front won 33 seats from their alliance, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha won 3 seats each out of the total 294 seats.


text: Since the by-elections held for the Contai South seat in 2017, it became evident that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had overtaken the Left Front as the primary opposition party in the state. According to various political analysts, the shifting of the Left Front and other opposition voters towards the BJP caused the party's vote share to significantly increase. In spite of widespread violence, the BJP emerged as the second largest party in the 2018 elections to the state panchayats mainly due to the shifting of the Left Front's voter base.


text: In the 2019 general elections, the BJP increased its number of Lok Sabha seats from 2 to 18, and took 40% of the vote share, an increase from 11% in the 2016 elections. Trinamool Congress (TMC) was reduced from 34 to 22 seats, Indian National Congress (INC) was reduced from 4 to 2 seats, and the Left Front did not win any seats. Public anger towards the alleged corruption and hooliganism of a section of TMC cadres in rural areas during the 2018 panchayat elections, religious polarisation by BJP fueled by resentment of a section of Bengali Hindu society towards Mamata Banerjee's alleged tactics of Muslim appeasement, and large scale support of the Rajbongshi and Matua communities for granting Indian citizenship to exclusively non-Muslim Bangladeshi immigrants have been cited as important reasons behind the rise of BJP in West Bengal alongside the decline of Left Front.


text: With Narendra Modi becoming the only non-Congress prime minister to remain in power for two consecutive terms (amounting to ten years) without depending on the support of the National Democratic Alliance, and the BJP fulfilling the wish of its founder Shyamaprasad Mukherjee by revoking the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and long standing promise of resolving the Ayodhya dispute in favour of Hindus, the party considered the formation of a BJP-led state government in West Bengal for the first time as a means of paying homage to Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who hailed from there. A BJP victory in West Bengal would have also demoralised Mamata Banerjee's attempts of creating a non-BJP non-Congress alliance of regional parties that might play an important role in the upcoming general elections.


text: BJP increased their seats in the assembly from 3 to 53 when the West Bengal Legislative Assembly was dissolved through defections from TMC, INC, and Left Front leaders, and by-elections from 2016 to 2021. A prominent defector in December 2020 was Suvendu Adhikari, who was a long-time associate of Mamata Banerjee, and a state cabinet minister who was dissatisfied over the rising influence of her nephew Abhishek Banerjee in the party. However, Adhikari revealed that he was in contact with the BJP since 2014 after he joined the party. His father Sisir Adhikari, the MP from Kanthi, also defected from TMC to BJP. Another cabinet minister, Rajib Banerjee, also joined BJP.


text: However, the TMC won the Kharagpur Sadar seat from BJP and Kaliaganj seat from the INC, while retaining the Karimpur seat in the by-polls held later in 2019 after Abhishek Banerjee employed Prashant Kishor as the election strategist of Trinamool Congress for the upcoming polls. Elections to municipal bodies of West Bengal (which include 112 municipalities and the municipal corporations of Kolkata, Howrah, Bidhannagar, Chandannagar, Asansol and Siliguri) could not be held as scheduled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India.


text: The pandemic became an election issue. The government was accused of "fudging" the count of positive cases and deaths in the region, and the AITC-led state government and BJP-led union government blamed each other for the surge in COVID-19 infections over the course of the campaign.


text: Modi was accused of holding rallies and flouting COVID-19 rules despite a second wave of the pandemic. Tens of thousands of people attended the rallies, which epidemiologists called a superspreader events. Modi was criticised for praising a large crowd at his rally in Asansol. By 19 April 2021, COVID-19 infections had quadrupled from the start of the month. Modi had insisted that rallying was a constitutional right, and was also accused of misusing the money of PM Cares fund for election purposes. The BJP accused Mamata Banerjee of not attending COVID-19 emergency management meetings held during the months of election campaigning, despite the second wave of infections, and for also holding election rallies. Sanjukta Morcha held the first Brigade rally ahead of polling in West Bengal. In mid-April, TMC requested holding the remaining phases of the elections in a single phase amid the rising number of COVID cases, but it was rejected by the Election Commission of India (ECI).


text: In May 2020, a year before the 2021 elections, Cyclone Amphan hit the state. After it passed, widespread allegations of mismanagement and relief scam were reported. Protests broke out in some districts over the allegations, and the opposition made it an election issue ahead of the Assembly polls.


text: In 2019, the BJP-led Union Government passed the CAA in Parliament, promising citizenship to immigrants and refugees belonging to religious minorities in Bangladesh, and providing them with rehabilitation. The BJP's Bengali booklet released in January 2020 claimed that the National Register of Citizens was implemented to identify allegedly undocumented illegal Muslim immigrants, but religiously persecuted Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains, Parsi, and other religious minorities would be "shielded" by the CAA.


text: Polarisation amongst various religious, linguistic, and caste communities were also likely to play a role in this election. Both TMC and BJP had promised schemes for various communities. Although previously mobilized by Left governments against elites under the "class" narrative, the Dalits of West Bengal began to assert their identity politically. Religious polarization is particularly intense in districts bordering Bangladesh, such as North 24 Parganas. Arguments regarding who are native to the state and constituencies were also likely to impact the elections. Dissatisfaction and defection of many TMC leaders to BJP, allegedly due to rising influence of Abhishek Banerjee and Kishor in party administration was also likely to impact the elections.


text: An event was organised by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in Kolkata's Victoria Memorial to commemorate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's 125th birth anniversary, which was attended by PM Narendra Modi and CM Mamata Banerjee among others. A large number of BJP activists were present in the crowd. Just as Banerjee got up to speak, BJP supporters started chanting "Jai Shri Ram" which prompted the CM to abandon her speech. This incident led to a political slugfest between the BJP and the TMC ahead of the upcoming elections. Meanwhile, Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh made controversial remarks about Netaji. Mamata claimed that the BJP had "insulted Netaji and Bengal" by their actions. The BJP leadership criticised Banerjee while the Left Front and the Congress backed her and condemned the BJP for the incident of Victoria Memorial. Not only political personalities but also non-political people from different levels of the society, including Netaji's grandnephew Sugata Bose, condemned the incident of chanting religiopolitical slogans by BJP supporters which was unlikely for an apolitical event dedicated to Netaji.


text: The election schedule was announced on 26 February 2021, and the election was held in eight phases from 27 March 2021 to 29 April 2021. Votes were counted on 2 May 2021. On the day of announcement, the ECI declared that physically disabled and elderly voters would get the benefit of postal voting and the time limit for voting was extended by one hour. Due to polling abnormalities, re-polling for booth number 88 in Jangipara was held in the fourth phase. The elections in Jangipur and Samserganj were adjourned due to the death of the INC candidate in Samserganj and Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) candidate in Jangipur. Polling for these two seats was originally rescheduled to 13 May 2021, but as that day was Eid, it was pushed back to 16 May. Later on ECI adjourned polling for both constituencies and it took place on 30 September. Repolling at the Amtali Madhyamik Siksha Kendra polling station in Sitalkuchi was conducted on 29 April, after CISF personnel were fired on 10 April.


text: Both factions of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) expressed support for TMC in the assembly election. TMC allotted three seats in the Darjeeling to GJM, but its two factions, namely Bimal and Binoy, declared fielding their candidates in each of the three seats. RJD, Shiv Sena, and JMM also endorsed Trinamool for the election. TMC supported Independent candidate in Joypur after their candidate's nomination was cancelled.


text: On 28 January 2021 Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury announced that seat-sharing talks between the Congress and Left Front had concluded for 193 seats and that the remaining 101 seats would be decided at a later point. Out of the 193 seats agreed upon by 28 January 92 went to Congress and 101 to the Left Front. Left Congress and ISF announced that they would form an alliance called Sanyukta Morcha on 28 February 2021. ISF initially claimed that they secured 30 seats from the Left Front's quota. After the final seat sharing agreement was concluded, it was announced that the Left Front would contest 165 seats, Congress 92 seats, and ISF 37 seats.


text: Left Front chairman Biman Bose announced the candidates for the first and second-phase elections on 5 March alongside INC and ISF leaders, leaving seats for them in the list. INC revealed its first list of 13 candidates for the first two phases on 6 March. Left Front announced its second list of candidates on 10 March, consisting of several new and young faces from All India Students Federation (AISF), All India Youth Federation (AIYF), Students' Federation of India (SFI), and Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), along with ex-ministers of the Left Front government and ex-MPs; Bose also nominated DYFI West Bengal state president Minakshi Mukherjee as the CPI(M) candidate for the Nandigram seat, which was kept vacant in the first list published on 5 March. On 14 March, INC revealed their second list of 34 candidates on 14 March, and ISF their first set of 20 candidates. Sanyukta Morcha announced 15 more candidates on 17 March consisting of 9 from the Left Front, 2 from INC, and 4 from ISF. INC revealed their third list of 39 candidates on 20 March, and two more on 22 March.


text: Five hill-based parties pledged support to BJP ahead of the assembly election: Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxists, Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL), Gorkhaland Rajya Nirman Morcha, and SUMETI Mukti Morcha. Hindu Samhati, a right-wing organisation in West Bengal, had withdrawn their support from the BJP at first to contest the elections on their own, but eventually they supported the BJP. BJP allotted the Amta constituency seat to the president of Hindu Samhati to contest under the symbol of BJP.


text: BJP also allotted the Baghmundi constituency, bordering Jharkhand, to the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU).


text: Shiv Sena initially said that they would contest in around 100 seats, but later on 4 March 2021 announced that they would not contest and would support Mamata Banerjee and TMC.


text: On 27 March, the ECI banned the publication of surveys and exit polls until 7:30 pm on 29 April to prevent influencing voters, but the ban ended half an hour earlier.


text: "NK Digital Magazine" exit poll predicted victory for TMC in general election for the Samserganj seat and by-election for the Bhabanipur seat. "Ekhon Biswa Bangla Sangbad" predicted TMC's victory in all three seats where elections took place on 30 September.


text: A number of pre-poll surveys for the elections were published by different agencies and groups in the span of one year until 27 March. Most polls contradicted each other regarding the possible outcome.


text: "NK Digital Magazine" opinion poll predicted victory for TMC in Jangipur and Samserganj. They also conducted a pre-poll survey across poll-bound Assembly constituencies that predicted TMC's victory.


text: The ECI issued various health guidelines for conducting the elections, including the use of masks, sanitisation of the polling booths, use of thermal scanners before entering the polling booths, maintaining social distancing, and so forth. The maximum number of voters for each polling station was lowered to 1000 from 1500.


text: After COVID-19 cases increased in the state, the ECI issued warnings for all recognised state and national political parties to strictly follow COVID-19 guidelines, and banned all political rallies, public meetings, street plays and "nukkad sabhas" from 7 pm to 10 am starting from 16 April. On 22 April 2021, before the seventh and eighth phases of voting, the ECI forbade roadshows, and added that at most 500 people were allowed in public meetings. On 27 April, they issued a notification over banning victory processions on and after the day the votes were counted.


text: After several instances of violence, threats, and murders before the polls were announced, the ECI and the Home Ministry ordered twelve companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) to be deployed in West Bengal on 20 February. At least 125 more CAPF troops were dispatched to reach West Bengal on 25 February to focus on sensitive zones. 60 companies of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), 30 companies of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), 25 companies of the Border Security Force (BSF) and five companies each of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). The total number of central forces rose to 725, before a final total of 1,000 companies after the third phase of polling.


text: In the second phase of election, Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was implemented across areas in the Tamluk and Haldia subdivisions. After the fourth phase of polling, the ECI deployed an extra 71 companies of central forces.


text: The election results for 292 constituencies was announced on 2 May 2021 after counting of votes began at 8:00 am (UTC+5:30), while the results for 2 constituencies was delayed until 3 October.


text: On 18 January Mamata Banerjee announced at a rally in Nandigram that she would contest the upcoming assembly elections from Nandigram. Hours later, Suvendu Adhikari said he would defeat the CM by a margin of at least 50,000 votes or quit politics.


text: On the eve of polling in Nandigram, the ECI ordered the transfer of the sub-divisional police officer of Haldia and the circle inspector of Mahishadal in Purba Medinipur district to non-election assignments and imposed Section 144 in that constituency. A day after the polling, stray clashes took place between workers of the TMC and the BJP in some parts of Nandigram.


text: The votes were counted on 2 May. All eyes were set on the updates of high-voltage Nandigram constituency. 17 rounds of counting was to be done before declaring the winner. Mamata Banerjee was trailing in initial rounds. The EC informed that announcement of results for Nandigram would be delayed because of problem in server. In the 16th round, when the counting of votes in Gokulnagar panchayat area started, Mamata fell behind. After the 16th round, the counting of 17th round was delayed by an hour. Postal ballots were being counted at that time. At the end of the seventeenth round, it was announced that Mamata Banerjee had won by a margin of 1,200 (or 3,717) votes. Though later, it was declared that Suvendu had defeated (his) former party leader by approximately 1,956 votes. Mamata banerjee continued to claim that she won Nandigram, Security was beefed up in the vicinity of the Haldia counting centre amid fears of unrest.


text: Mamata Banerjee alleged that the returning officer of Nandigram constituency was threatened and the two observers sitting inside the counting centre were very biased.


text: The ECI wrote a letter to the West Bengal chief secretary and directed them to take all appropriate measures to keep a strict watch and regularly monitor the security provided to the returning officer in Nandigram.


text: Since Adhikari was declared winner, TMC workers protested outside the counting centre. Central Forces protected Adhikari's car while before it left the area. TMC workers alleged that the counting was stopped for three hours, the result was overturned after a power outage, and their agent was assaulted and thrown out from the counting centre by central forces.


text: On 14 July, the High Court issued a notice to Adhikari, the ECI, the state electoral officer, and the returning officer with a direction to keep all election-related records intact until the case was heard on 12 August. Adhikari went to the Supreme Court seeking transfer of Banerjee's election petition case outside the state.


text: On 12 August, Adhikari's lawyers submitted before the court of Justice Sarkar that the legislator has approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the case from West Bengal. In keeping with the respondent's prayer, Justice Sarkar adjourned the hearing to 15 November. On that date, Adhikari filed a petition in the Calcutta High Court seeking adjournment of the case. The High Court asked him to file a written statement explaining the reason for his no-confidence in the High Court by 29 November and it was decided that the next hearing would be held on 1 December.


text: For the first time since the creation of the state through division of Bengal Presidency, the state legislative assembly does not have any members from the INC or Left Front, who dominated and shaped the politics of the state until 1998 when the TMC was founded and overtook the INC as the main opposition party in the state.


text: Opinion polls and exit polls predicted a tight race between the TMC and BJP, and that TMC would win around 150 seats, BJP 140, with the remaining for Morcha. TMC won over 200 seats, while BJP overall performed poorly. According to many analysts the seats that the INC-Left Front alliance won in 2016 went to BJP, with TMC having an equal retention rate.


text: The TMC increased its vote share from 43% in 2019 elections to 48% in the election. Reasons given were:


text: The combined vote share of INC and Left Front fell from 11% in the 2019 general elections to 8% in this elections. Reasons given were:


text: Veteran BJP leader Tathagata Roy lashed out at the party leadership on Twitter for viewing the ground conditions in the state through what he called KDSA (i.e. Kailash Vijayvargiya, Dilip ghosh, Shiv Prakash and Arvind Menon) and questioned the party's decision to field "Nogorer noti"s (), referring to actresses Payel Sarkar, Tanushree Chakraborty and Srabanti Chatterjee, who were seen in a boat ride with TMC leader Madan Mitra in the past. His "Nogorer Noti" remark drew widespread criticism online.


text: The average winning margin of all the candidates in this election stood at 26,964 votes, while the same for AITC candidates was 31,760 votes. This loss was stated by the media to be Modi's personal failure.


text: In view of the popular slogan ""Khela Hobe"", Mamata Banerjee declared that her party would observe 16 August as "Khela Hobe Divas", which the BJP tried to link with Direct Action Day. She also launched a government scheme named ""Khela Hobe"" which granted 5,00,000 INR and free footballs among 25,000 sporting clubs in the state to promote sports in economically poorer sections of society.


text: Countering Shah's claim that BJP would come to power in West Bengal by winning around 200 or more seats out of the 294 seats in the state legislative assembly, Kishor publicly declared that he would resign from his job if BJP managed to win more than a 100 seats in this elections. Although he delivered his promise, Kishor declared his retirement from on being an election strategist on 2 May, citing personal reasons.


text: After results were announced, post-poll violence broke out in some areas of the state. In reality it was continuation of the violence which took place across the state during the election. In recent times, the first occurrence of post-poll violence in the state was recorded in 2019 when BJP members targeted TMC staff and forcibly occupied or vandalised local TMC offices, mainly at the behest of the newly elected Barrackpore MP Arjun Singh.


text: On May 2, the results had just started showing signs of Trinamool returning to power when the men arrived, going house to house, ransacking them, breaking some. By the end of the day, 40 families of a colony located on KPC Medical College grounds in Jadavpur had fled. All BJP supporters or workers say TMC threats had kept them away for two-and-a-half months .


text: Mamata Banerjee took an oath as the Chief Minister of West Bengal for the third time on 5 May 2021 at the Raj Bhawan in Kolkata. She expanded the cabinet on 10 May 2021 when 43 TMC leaders were sworn in as ministers. 17 new people were in the Third Banerjee ministry.


text: TMC candidate Kajal Sinha from Khardaha died from COVID-19 after polling but before the results of the state assembly elections were announced, in which he emerged victorious. The ECI deferred the elections to two assembly seats in West Bengal in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. The polling had been rescheduled earlier to 16 May 2021 due to the death of two contestants from the Samserganj and Jangipur constituencies. Mocking this decision, the TMC said "The Election Commission, though late, finally woke up. But when demands were made repeatedly to arrange the election in one day by combining 2–3 phases, then they remained silent." Two BJP MLAs – Nisith Pramanik from Dinhata and Jaganath Sarkar from Shantipur constituencies – resigned after the election results, as they were sitting MPs from Cooch Behar and Ranaghat, respectively, and wanted to continue as MPs. Jayanta Naskar, TMC MLA of Gosaba, died from COVID-19 on 19 June after testing negative for the disease.


text: Adhikari, with the support of 22 MLAs, was elected as Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly on 10 May 2021.


text: BJP MPs Subhash Sarkar from Bankura, John Barla from Alipurduar, Nisith Pramanik from Coochbehar, and Shantanu Thakur from Bangaon were made ministers-of-state in the Union Caninet after the polls.


text: Incumbent Cabinet ministers from the state, Babul Supriyo from Asansol and Debasree Chaudhuri from Raiganj, resigned from their positions due to their failure in rallying the voters from their respective constituencies to vote for BJP. After the Cabinet reshuffle, Supriyo stated that he was quitting politics and his position as an MP, but after meeting the leaders of BJP, he decided to retain his position as an MP. He later joined TMC, stating that he wanted to remain in politics but his political participation was being restricted by BJP due to his defeat from Tollyganj and the party's poor performance in Asanol.


text: Abhishek Banerjee was promoted from the president of state TMC's youth wing to all-India general secretary.


text: Long time RSS activist and Balurghat MP Sukanta Majumdar succeeded Dilip Ghosh as the president of the state BJP unit, while Ghosh was made one of the national vice-presidents of the party.


text: The Union Home Ministry decided to provide Y+ category security to Sisir Adhikari and his son Dibyendu Adhikari.


text: East Bardhaman MP Sunil Mondal, who had earlier defected from TMC to BJP alongside Adhikari in 2020, declared in August that he was "always with the TMC".


text: Adhikari demanded that the speaker Biman Banerjee dismiss Mukul Roy from the legislative assembly according to the anti-defection law, but TMC stated if Adhikari's father Sisir Adhikari can remain the MP from Kanthi even after switching from TMC to BJP in early 2021, then why Roy should be allowed to as well.


text: Four other MLAs – Soumen Roy from Kaliaganj, Biswajit Das from Bagda, Tanmoy Ghosh from Bishnupur and Krishna Kalyani from Raiganj switched from BJP to TMC following Roy without being disqualified from their membership.


text: All-India president of Congress's women's wing and its national spokesperson and former Silchar MP Sushmita Dev joined TMC, and was followed by Luizinho Faleiro.


text: Two senior Congress leaders of Uttar Pradesh, Rajeshpati Tripathi and Laliteshpati Tripathi, grandson and great-grandson of former UP Chief Minister Kamalapati Tripathi, respectively, joined TMC.


text: The ECI deferred the elections in Samserganj and Jangipur constituencies due to the death of two candidates.


text: AITC MLA Sovandeb Chattopadhyay from Bhabanipur resigned after the election to allow Mamata Banerjee to contest a by-election in the constituency.


text: In the beginning of September, the ECI announced that general elections for Jangipur and Samserganj assembly seats and by-election for Bhabanipur seat would be held on 30 September and votes would be counted on 3 October. The time limit for filing nominations was set from 6 September until 13 September for Bhabanipur only. Mamata Banerjee filed hers on 10 September. A total of 12 candidates contested in Bhabanipur by-poll. Kishor enrolled himself as a voter from Bhabanipur, but he did not cast his vote.


text: A total of 52 central forces companies were deployed to the three poll-bound Assembly constituencies' booths. Section 144 was enforced in Bhabanipur on 28 September. On the eve of polling, the Commission deployed an additional 20 companies of central forces in Bhabanipur.


text: On 28 September, the ECI announced that remaining by-polls would be held on 30 October and votes counted on 2 November.


text: On 30 September the first report of violence came from Samserganj, and Congress candidate Jaidur Rahaman was accused of carrying out a bombing in this constituency. TMC activists raised "go back" slogans surrounding him while he inspected booths on polling day. Central forces were accused of kicking TMC leader Habibur Rahman, the outgoing councilor of Ward 20 of Dhulian Municipality under Samserganj Assembly. Priyanka Tibrewal, BJP candidate of Bhabanipur, was accused of violating the ECI's model code of conduct by travelling across the area with many cars and people at once. After she claimed to have caught fake voters, Firhad Hakim pointed out that as a candidate she had no right to check their identities. BJP leader Kalyan Chaubey's car was allegedly vandalised in Bhabanipur and BJP blamed TMC for the act. Police released CCTV footage of the incident, claiming it had nothing to do with politics. BJP claimed that Chaubey was their candidate's election agent but according to Commission sources, he was the agent of a Hindustani Awam Morcha candidate. The vehicle he used to get to the polling constituency was not registered by the EC. BJP lodged a total of 23 complaints against TMC over the voting process in Bhabanipur, but the ECI dismissed all of them. A total of 697,164 voters were eligible to cast their votes in the three constituencies. The voter turnout for Samserganj, Jangipur, and Bhabanipur was recorded at 79.92%, 77.63%, and 57.09% respectively.


text: Results were announced on 3 October, with TMC winning the three seats. Mamata Banerjee won the Bhabanipur Assembly seat by a margin of 58,835 votes over the BJP candidate. TMC led in all wards of Bhabanipur, including wards 70 and 74, where BJP led in the last assembly polls. On the same day, TMC officially announced a list of candidates for upcoming assembly by-elections to four seats.


text: The Model Code of Conduct was imposed in Nadia, Cooch Behar, Khardaha, and Gosaba. The ECI initially deployed 27 companies of central forces for the remaining by-elections. A week before the by-elections, an additional 53 companies entered the state. Later, the ECI decided to deploy a total of 92 CAPF companies.


text: On the last day of the Dinhata by-election campaign, Dilip Ghosh and Sukanta Majumdar met the deputy inspector general of police, Shailendra Kumar Singh, at the Border Security Force sector headquarters of Sonari in Cooch Behar. This was controversial because the Chief Minister could not even hold administrative meetings with Cooch Behar district officials, as the model code of conduct was in effect. Reacting to this, Hakim said "Recently, the Ministry of Home Affairs has increased the jurisdiction of BSF to 50 km. Taking advantage of this, the BJP leaders went to pull the BSF chief over to their side." TMC lodged a complaint with the ECI. A TMC deputy went to the district magistrate's chamber and complained that the BSF-BJP meeting had violated the model code of conduct.


text: On polling day, central forces were accused of intimidating voters at booth 296 in Dinhata and some other booths in Kharadaha and Gosaba. In Kharadha, the central forces prevented TMC candidate Sovandeb Chattopadhyay from entering a booth, who alleged that they unfairly demanded to see double vaccination certificates from voters. The problem was resolved after informing the matter to the presiding officer. During the election campaign, Joy Saha, BJP candidate of Khardaha, used a picture of the deceased TMC leader Kajal Sinha in his campaign. On election day, he claimed to have caught two fake voters red-handed, which was proven false. When he claimed to have caught a fake voter and BJP supporters started harassing the man, a fight broke out between the TMC and the BJP over the incident. Joy Saha's personal security guards baton charged TMC activists, injuring the Sinha's son in the process. Gosaba registered highest voter turnout among four constituencies.


text: The results of the four constituencies was announced on 2 November, with TMC winning all seats. TMC's Sovandeb Chattopadhyay and Subrata Mondal won Khardaha and Gosaba, respectively, by huge margins. Udayan Guha, who lost the Dinhata seat by a margin of 57 votes during the assembly election, won the seat in the bypolls by a margin of 164,089 votes. TMC also won the Santipur seat, where Braja Kishor Goswami was the TMC candidate, from the BJP by a considerable margin of votes.


title: Xander Berkeley

text: Alexander Harper Berkeley (born December 16, 1955) is an American actor and voice actor. Since beginning his career in the early 1980s, he has appeared in over 200 film and television projects. His film roles include "" (1991), "Candyman" (1992), "Barb Wire" (1996), "Air Force One" (1997), "Gattaca" (1997), and "Shanghai Noon" (2000). He also appeared in the crime drama "Heat" (1995) after being cast in "L.A. Takedown" (1989), an earlier rendition of the film's script, although he played two different characters on the two different films. On television, he headlined the Citytv psychological thriller "The Booth at the End" (2010–2012) and was a series regular on the Fox action drama "24" (2001–03) and The CW action thriller "Nikita" (2010–2012). As a guest star, Berkeley portrayed Sheriff Thomas McAllister on the CBS drama "The Mentalist" (2008–13) and Gregory on the AMC post-apocalyptic horror "The Walking Dead" (2016–18).


title: Xander Berkeley

text: Berkeley was born in Brooklyn and raised in New Jersey. He is of English and Scottish descent. He attended Hampshire College, and worked in theaters at the Five Colleges, including Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst and the University of Massachusetts. He worked in regional and repertory theaters in addition to Off-Broadway in New York City. A casting agent spotted Berkeley in a play written by Reynolds Price called "Early Dark" and encouraged him to move to Hollywood.


title: Xander Berkeley

text: Berkeley began playing roles in 1981, with early appearances in "M*A*S*H", "Cagney & Lacey", "Remington Steele", "Miami Vice", "Moonlighting", and "The A-Team". His later television roles included "The X-Files", "", "ER" and "Law & Order".


title: Xander Berkeley

text: On screen, he has appeared in "North Country", "", "Mommie Dearest", "Phoenix", "Kick-Ass", "A Few Good Men", "The Rookie", "Candyman", "Apollo 13", "Leaving Las Vegas", "Gattaca", "The Rock", "Air Force One", "Sid and Nancy", "Amistad", "Shanghai Noon", "Barb Wire" and "Timecode". He appeared in the television film "L.A. Takedown" in 1989 and its 1995 acclaimed theatrical remake "Heat", directed by Michael Mann. Several of his earlier roles were in films directed by Alex Cox.


title: Xander Berkeley

text: In 2001, Berkeley became a recurring guest star (and later a series regular) on "24" in the role of George Mason, the head of the counter-terrorist unit. He portrayed the mysterious John Smith on the CBS drama "Jericho".


title: Xander Berkeley

text: In 2010, he received one of his best-known roles, Percy Rose on The CW action-thriller series "Nikita". He portrayed the character as a series regular and "de facto" main antagonist of its first two seasons. He also played Sheriff Thomas McAllister on "The Mentalist".


title: Xander Berkeley

text: Berkeley portrayed Gregory on AMC's "The Walking Dead" as a guest star in season six and a series regular in season seven.


title: Xander Berkeley

text: In 2018, he portrayed Peter Lockwood, the father of Sam Lockwood on the fourth season of "Supergirl".


title: Xander Berkeley

text: Berkeley provides voice-work and voice-over for several animated series, such as "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters", "Gargoyles" and "Teen Titans". He also voiced Quentin Beck / Mysterio on "The Spectacular Spider-Man", Captain Atom in "" and Dr. Kirk Langstrom in "Son of Batman".


title: Xander Berkeley

text: In 2013, Berkeley won the Streamy Award "Best Male Performance, Drama" for his starring role in the acclaimed web series "The Booth at the End".


title: Xander Berkeley

text: Berkeley is a make-up artist, painter and sculptor. He met actress Sarah Clarke on the set of "24" in 2001 and married her the following year. The two live with their daughters, Olwyn Harper (born in 2006) and Rowan Amara (born in 2010), in Maine and Los Angeles.


title: Epstein didn't kill himself

text: "Epstein didn't kill himself" is a phrase referring to multiple conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Jeffrey Epstein that dispute the official but contentious ruling of suicide by hanging. Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender with connections to powerful and wealthy people, and his reported suicide led to numerous hypotheses about the nature and cause of his death. The phrase became a now very famous and widely accepted colloquialism as well as an internet meme, gaining traction in November 2019 as more of the circumstances around his death became public. The most common theory asserts that the true cause of his death was homicide, via strangulation, arranged by one or more co-conspirators to silence him. As a result, some people have used the verb "epstein" to refer to the scenario of powerful criminals arranging for people with compromising information to be murdered while having officials rule their deaths as suicides.


title: Epstein didn't kill himself

text: The meme "Epstein didn't kill himself" is often inserted into unexpected contexts like a photo caption of the painter Bob Ross or at the end of a social media post as a non sequitur. The meme has appeared at multiple televised sports games in the form of signs and painted bodies. Several people have also randomly interjected the phrase at the end of interviews. It is used by individuals of all sides of the political spectrum without agreement on the specific details of Epstein's death.


title: Epstein didn't kill himself

text: On August 10, 2019, American financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found unresponsive in his Metropolitan Correctional Center jail cell, where he was awaiting trial on new sex trafficking charges. According to the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons official statement, "He was transported to a local hospital for treatment of life-threatening injuries and subsequently pronounced dead by hospital staff." The New York City medical examiner ruled Epstein's death a suicide by hanging. Epstein's lawyers challenged that conclusion and opened their own investigation. Epstein's brother Mark hired board-certified forensic pathologist Michael Baden to oversee the autopsy. In late October, Baden announced that autopsy evidence indicated homicidal strangulation more than suicidal hanging. Both the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general conducted investigations into the circumstances of his death, and the guards on duty were later charged with conspiracy and record falsification.


title: Epstein didn't kill himself

text: Due to violations of normal jail procedures on the night of Epstein's death, the malfunction of two cameras in front of his cell, and his claims to have compromising information about powerful figures, his death generated doubt about his apparent suicide and speculation that he was murdered.