title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: "ABC News" reported in 2009 that the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego disagreed with the decision to cancel the warrant. They were monitoring al-Awlaki and wanted to "look at him under a microscope". But U.S. Attorney Gaouette said that no objection had been raised to the rescinding of the warrant during a meeting that included Ray Fournier, the San Diego federal diplomatic security agent whose allegation had set in motion the effort to obtain a warrant. Gaouette said that if al-Awlaki had been convicted at the time, he would have faced about six months in custody.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: "The New York Times" suggested later that al-Awlaki had claimed birth in Yemen (his family's place of origin) to qualify for scholarship money granted to foreign citizens. U.S. Congressman Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) wrote in May 2010 that by claiming to be foreign-born, al-Awlaki fraudulently obtained more than $20,000 in scholarship funds reserved for foreign students.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: While living in Northern Virginia, al-Awlaki visited Ali al-Timimi, later known as a radical Islamic cleric. Al-Timimi was convicted in 2005 and is now serving a life sentence for leading the Virginia Jihad Network, inciting Muslim followers to fight with the Taliban against the US.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki left the United States before the end of 2002, because of a "climate of fear and intimidation" according to Imam Johari Abdul-Malik of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: He lived in the UK for several months, where he gave talks attended by up to 200 people. He urged young Muslim followers: "The important lesson to learn here is never, ever trust a "kuffar" [disbeliever]. Do not trust them! [Their leaders] are plotting to kill this religion. They're plotting night and day." "He was the main man who translated the "jihad" into English," said a student who attended his lectures in 2003.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: He gave a series of lectures in December 2002 and January 2003 at the London Masjid al-Tawhid mosque, describing the rewards martyrs (Shahid) receive in paradise (Jannah). He began to gain supporters, particularly among young Muslims, and undertook a lecture tour of England and Scotland in 2002 in conjunction with the Muslim Association of Britain. He also lectured at "ExpoIslamia", an event held by Islamic Forum Europe. At the East London Mosque he told his audience: "A Muslim is a brother of a Muslim... he does not betray him, and he does not hand him over... You don't hand over a Muslim to the enemies."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In the UK's Parliament in 2003, Louise Ellman, MP for Liverpool Riverside, discussed the relationship between al-Awlaki and the Muslim Association of Britain, an alleged Muslim Brotherhood front organization founded by Kemal el-Helbawy, a senior member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki returned to Yemen in early 2004, where he lived in Shabwah Governorate with his wife and five children. He lectured at Iman University, headed by Abdul Majeed al-Zindani. The latter has been included on the UN 1267 Committee's list of individuals belonging to or associated with al-Qaeda. Al-Zindani denied having any influence over al-Awlaki, or that he had been his "direct teacher". Some believe that the school's curriculum deals mostly, if not exclusively, with radical Islamic studies, and promotes radicalism. American convert John Walker Lindh and other alumni have been associated with terrorist groups.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: On August 31, 2006, al-Awlaki was arrested with four others on charges of kidnapping a Shiite teenager for ransom, and participating in an al-Qaeda plot to kidnap a U.S. military attaché. He was imprisoned in 2006 and 2007. He was interviewed around September 2007 by two FBI agents with regard to the 9/11 attacks and other subjects. John Negroponte, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, told Yemeni officials he did not object to al-Awlaki's detention.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: His name was on a list of 100 prisoners whose release was sought by al-Qaeda-linked militants in Yemen. After 18 months in a Yemeni prison, al-Awlaki was released on December 12, 2007, following the intercession of his tribe. According to a Yemeni security official, he was released because he had repented. He moved to his family home in Saeed, a hamlet in the Shabwa mountains.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Moazzam Begg's Cageprisoners, an organization representing former Guantanamo detainees, campaigned for al-Awlaki's release when he was in prison in Yemen. Al-Awlaki told Begg in an interview shortly after his release that prior to his incarceration in Yemen, he had condemned the 9/11 attacks.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In December 2008, al-Awlaki sent a communique to the Somali terrorist group, al-Shabaab, congratulating them.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki provided al-Qaeda members in Yemen with the protection of his powerful tribe, the Awlakis, against the government. The tribal code required it to protect those who seek refuge and assistance. This imperative has greater force when the person is a member of the tribe or a tribesman's friend. The tribe's motto is "We are the sparks of Hell; whoever interferes with us will be burned." Al-Awlaki also reportedly helped negotiate deals with leaders of other tribes.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Sought by Yemeni authorities who were investigating his al-Qaeda ties, al-Awlaki went into hiding in approximately March 2009, according to his father. By December 2009, al-Awlaki was on the Yemeni government's most-wanted list. He was believed to be hiding in Yemen's Shabwa or Mareb regions, which are part of the so-called "triangle of evil". The area has attracted al-Qaeda militants, who seek refuge among local tribes unhappy with Yemen's central government.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Yemeni sources originally said al-Awlaki might have been killed in a pre-dawn air strike by Yemeni Air Force fighter jets on a meeting of senior al-Qaeda leaders at a hideout in Rafd in eastern Shabwa, on December 24, 2009. But he survived. "Pravda" reported that the planes, using Saudi and U.S. intelligence, killed at least 30 al-Qaeda members from Yemen and abroad, and that an al-Awlaki house was "raided and demolished". On December 28 "The Washington Post" reported that U.S. and Yemeni officials said that al-Awlaki had been present at the meeting. Abdul Elah al-Shaya, a Yemeni journalist, said al-Awlaki called him on December 28 to report that he was well and had not attended the al-Qaeda meeting. Al-Shaya said that al-Awlaki was not tied to al-Qaeda.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In March 2010, a tape featuring al-Awlaki was released in which he urged Muslims residing in the United States to attack their country of residence.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: After 2006, al-Awlaki was banned from entering the United Kingdom. He broadcast lectures to mosques and other venues there via video-link from 2007 to 2009, on at least seven occasions at five locations in Britain. Noor Pro Media Events held a conference at the East London Mosque on January 1, 2009, showing a videotaped lecture by al-Awlaki; former Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve expressed concern over his being featured.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: He gave video-link talks in England to an Islamic student society at the University of Westminster in September 2008, an arts center in East London in April 2009 (after the Tower Hamlets council gave its approval), worshippers at the Al Huda Mosque in Bradford, and a dinner of the Cageprisoners organization in September 2008 at the Wandsworth Civic Centre in South London. On August 23, 2009, al-Awlaki was banned by local authorities in Kensington and Chelsea, London, from speaking at Kensington Town Hall via videolink to a fundraiser dinner for Guantanamo detainees promoted by Cageprisoners. His videos, which discuss his Islamist theories, have circulated across the United Kingdom. Until February 2010, hundreds of audio tapes of his sermons were available at the Tower Hamlets public libraries. In 2009, the London-based Islam Channel carried advertisements for his DVDs and at least two of his video conference lectures.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: FBI agents identified al-Awlaki as a known, important "senior recruiter for al Qaeda", and a spiritual motivator. His name came up in a dozen terrorism plots in the US, UK, and Canada. The cases included suicide bombers in the 2005 London bombings, radical Islamic terrorists in the 2006 Toronto terrorism case, radical Islamic terrorists in the 2007 Fort Dix attack plot, the "jihadist" killer in the 2009 Little Rock military recruiting office shooting, and the 2010 Times Square bomber. In each case the suspects were devoted to al-Awlaki's message, which they listened to online and on CDs.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki's recorded lectures were heard by Islamist fundamentalists in at least six terror cells in the UK through 2009. Michael Finton (Talib Islam), who attempted in September 2009 to bomb the Federal Building and the adjacent offices of Congressman Aaron Schock in Springfield, Illinois, admired al-Awlaki and quoted him on his Myspace page. In addition to his website, al-Awlaki had a Facebook fan page with "fans" in the US, many of whom were high school students. Al-Awlaki also set up a website and blog on which he shared his views.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki influenced several other extremists to join terrorist organizations overseas and to carry out terrorist attacks in their home countries. Mohamed Alessa and Carlos Almonte, two American citizens from New Jersey who attempted to travel to Somalia in June 2010 to join the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group Al Shabaab, allegedly watched several al-Awlaki videos and sermons in which he warned of future attacks against Americans in the United States and abroad. Zachary Chesser, an American citizen who was arrested for attempting to provide material support to Al Shabaab, told federal authorities that he watched online videos featuring al-Awlaki and that he exchanged several e-mails with al-Awlaki. In July 2010, Paul Rockwood was sentenced to eight years in prison for creating a list of 15 potential targets in the US, people he felt had desecrated Islam. Rockwood was a devoted follower of al-Awlaki, and had studied his works "Constants on the Path to Jihad" and "44 Ways to Jihad".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In October 2008, Charles Allen, U.S. Under-Secretary of Homeland Security for Intelligence and Analysis, warned that al-Awlaki "targets U.S. Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen." Responding to Allen, al-Awlaki wrote on his website in December 2008: "I would challenge him to come up with just one such lecture where I encourage 'terrorist attacks'".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Nidal Hasan visited al-Awlaki's mosque for his mother's funeral, at which al-Awlaki presided in 2002. Hasan usually attended a mosque in Maryland closer to where he lived while working at the Walter Reed Medical Center (2003–09). Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan was investigated by the FBI after intelligence agencies intercepted at least 18 e-mails between him and al-Awlaki between December 2008 and June 2009. Even before the contents of the e-mails were revealed, terrorism expert Jarret Brachman said that Hasan's contacts with al-Awlaki should have raised "huge red flags", because of his influence on radical English-speaking "jihadis". Charles Allen, no longer in government, noted that there was no work-related reason for Hasan to be in touch with al-Awlaki. Former CIA officer Bruce Riedel opined: "E-mailing a known al-Qaeda sympathizer should have set off alarm bells. Even if he was exchanging recipes, the bureau should have put out an alert." A DC-based Joint Terrorism Task Force operating under the FBI was notified of the e-mails and reviewed the information. Army employees were informed of the e-mails, but they didn't perceive any terrorist threat in Hasan's questions. Instead, they viewed them as general questions about spiritual guidance with regard to conflicts between Islam and military service and judged them to be consistent with legitimate mental health research about Muslims in the armed services. The assessment was that there was not sufficient information for a larger investigation. In one of the e-mails, Hasan wrote al-Awlaki: "I can't wait to join you [in the afterlife]". "It sounds like code words," said Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a military analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. "That he's actually either offering himself up, or that he's already crossed that line in his own mind."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Hider Shaea interviewed al-Awlaki in November 2009. Al-Awlaki acknowledged his correspondence with Hasan. He said he "neither ordered nor pressured ... Hasan to harm Americans." Al-Awlaki said Hasan first e-mailed him December 17, 2008, introducing himself by writing: "Do you remember me? I used to pray with you at the Virginia mosque." Hasan said he had become a devout Muslim around the time al-Awlaki was preaching at Dar al-Hijrah, in 2001 and 2002, and al-Awlaki said 'Maybe Nidal was affected by one of my lectures.'" He added: "It was clear from his e-mails that Nidal trusted me. Nidal told me: 'I speak with you about issues that I never speak with anyone else.'" Al-Awlaki said Hasan arrived at his own conclusions regarding the acceptability of violence in Islam and said he was not the one to initiate this. Shaea said, "Nidal was providing evidence to Anwar, not vice versa."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Asked whether Hasan mentioned Fort Hood as a target in his e-mails, Shaea declined to comment. Al-Awlaki said the shooting was acceptable in Islam, however, because it was a form of "jihad", as the West began the hostilities with the Muslims. Al-Awlaki said he "blessed the act because it was against a military target. And the soldiers who were killed were ... those who were trained and prepared to go to Iraq and Afghanistan".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki's e-mail conversations with Hasan were not released, and he was not placed on the FBI Most Wanted list, indicted for treason, or officially named as a co-conspirator with Hasan. The U.S. government was reluctant to classify the Fort Hood shooting as a terrorist incident, or identify any motive. "The Wall Street Journal" reported in January 2010 that al-Awlaki had not "played a direct role" in any of the attacks, and noted he had never been charged with a crime in the US.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: One of his fellow officers at Fort Hood said Hasan was enthusiastic about al-Awlaki. Some investigators believe al-Awlaki's teachings may have been instrumental in Hasan's decision to stage the attack. On his now-disabled website, al-Awlaki praised Hasan's actions, describing him as a hero.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: According to a number of sources, Al-Awlaki and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the convicted al-Qaeda attempted bomber of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on December 25, 2009, had contacts. In January 2010, CNN reported that U.S. "security sources" said that there is concrete evidence that al-Awlaki was Abdulmutallab's recruiter and one of his trainers, and met with him prior to the attack. In February 2010, al-Awlaki admitted in an interview published in "al-Jazeera" that he taught and corresponded with Abdulmutallab, but denied having ordered the attack.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Representative Pete Hoekstra, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said officials in the Obama administration and officials with access to law enforcement information told him the suspect "may have had contact [with al-Awlaki]".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: "The Sunday Times" established that Abdulmutallab first met al-Awlaki in 2005 in Yemen, while he was studying Arabic. During that time the suspect attended lectures by al-Awlaki.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: "NPR" reported that according to unnamed U.S. intelligence officials he attended a sermon by al-Awlaki at the Finsbury Park Mosque. Khalid Mahmood, the Labour MP for Birmingham Perry Barr, a former trustee of the mosque, expressed "grave misgivings" with regard to its stewardship. A spokesperson of the mosque stated that al-Awlaki had never spoken there or had even to his knowledge entered the building.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Abdulmutallab was also reported by "CBS News", "The Daily Telegraph", and "The Sunday Telegraph" to have attended a talk by al-Awlaki at the East London Mosque, which al-Awlaki may have attended by video teleconference. "The Sunday Telegraph" later removed the report from its website following a complaint by the East London Mosque, which stated that "Anwar Al Awlaki did not deliver any talks at the ELM between 2005 and 2008, which is when the newspaper had falsely alleged that Abdullmutallab had attended such talks".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Investigators who searched flats connected to Abdulmutallab in London said that he was a "big fan" of al-Awlaki, as al-Awlaki's blog and website had repeatedly been visited from those locations.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: According to federal sources, Abdulmutallab and al-Awlaki repeatedly communicated with one another in the year prior to the attack. "Voice-to-voice communication" between the two was intercepted during the fall of 2009, and one government source said al-Awlaki "was in some way involved in facilitating [Abdulmutallab]'s transportation or trip through Yemen. It could be training, a host of things." "NPR" reported that intelligence officials suspected al-Awlaki may have told Abdulmutallab to go to Yemen for al-Qaeda training.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Abdulmutallab told the FBI that al-Awlaki was one of his al-Qaeda trainers in Yemen. Others reported that Abdulmutallab met with al-Awlaki in the weeks leading up to the attack. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that according to a U.S. intelligence official, intercepts and other information point to connections between the two:


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Some of the information ... comes from Abdulmutallab, who ... said that he met with al-Awlaki and senior al-Qaeda members during an extended trip to Yemen this year and that the cleric was involved in some elements of planning or preparing the attack and in providing religious justification for it. Other intelligence linking the two became apparent after the attempted bombing, including communications intercepted by the National Security Agency indicating that the cleric was meeting with "a Nigerian" in preparation for some kind of operation.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Yemen's Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Affairs, Rashad Mohammed al-Alimi, said Yemeni investigators believe that Abdulmutallab traveled to Shabwa in October 2009. Investigators believe he obtained his explosives and received training there. He met there with al-Qaeda members in a house built by al-Awlaki. A top Yemen government official said the two met with each other.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In January 2010, al-Awlaki acknowledged that he met and spoke with Abdulmutallab in Yemen in the fall of 2009. In an interview, al-Awlaki said: "Umar Farouk is one of my students; I had communications with him. And I support what he did." He also said: "I did not tell him to do this operation, but I support it". "Fox News" reported in early February 2010 that Abdulmutallab told federal investigators that al-Awlaki directed him to carry out the bombing.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In June 2010 Michael Leiter, the Director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), said al-Awlaki had a "direct operational role" in the plot.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Sharif Mobley had acknowledged contact with Anwar al-Awlaki. The Mobley family claims the contact was for spiritual guidance in further studies of Islam.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: The Mobley family went to Yemen and resided there for several years. They decided to return to the United States and went to the U.S. Embassy to update the family travel documents. While waiting for their travel documents, Sharif Mobley was kidnapped by Yemen Security Services and shot on January 26, 2010. He was then held in Yemen's Central Prison. Mobley disappeared from the Central Prison on February 27, 2014. His current location is known to the U.S. Embassy in Yemen (currently closed 2015) but is withheld from his family and legal advisers based on U.S. State Department Regulations on "U.S. Citizens Missing Abroad".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: All charges related to "terrorism/terrorist activity" were dropped by the Yemen government. There are no charges relating to allegations of "killing a guard during an escape attempt from the hospital" and there are no other legal proceedings against him in Yemen.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Faisal Shahzad, convicted of the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt, told interrogators that he was a "fan and follower" of al-Awlaki, and his writings were one of the inspirations for the attack. On May 6, 2010 "ABC News" reported that unknown sources told them Shahzad made contact with al-Awlaki over the internet, a claim that could not be independently verified.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Roshonara Choudhry, who stabbed former British Cabinet Minister Stephen Timms in May 2010, and was found guilty of his attempted murder in November 2010, claimed to have become radicalized by listening to online sermons of al-Awlaki.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In 2010, after Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, cartoonist Molly Norris at "Seattle Weekly" had to stop publishing, and at the suggestion of the FBI changed her name, moved, and went into hiding due to a "fatwā" issued by al-Awlaki calling for her death. In the June 2010 issue of "Inspire", an English-language al-Qaeda magazine, al-Awlaki cursed her and eight others for "blasphemous caricatures" of Muhammad. "The medicine prescribed by the Messenger of Allah is the execution of those involved", he wrote. Daniel Pipes observed in an article entitled "Dueling Fatwas", "Awlaki stands at an unprecedented crossroads of death declarations, with his targeting Norris even as the U.S. government targets him."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: "The Guardian", "The New York Times", and "The Daily Telegraph" reported that U.S. and British counter-terrorism officials believed that al-Awlaki was behind the cargo plane PETN bombs that were sent from Yemen to Chicago in October 2010. When U.S. Homeland Security official John Brennan was asked about al-Awlaki's suspected involvement in the plot, he said: "Anybody associated with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is a subject of concern." U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein said "al-Awlaki was behind the two bombs."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki's father, tribe, and supporters denied his alleged associations with Al-Qaeda and Islamist terrorism. Al-Awlaki's father proclaimed his son's innocence in an interview with CNN's Paula Newton, saying: "I am now afraid of what they will do with my son. He's not Osama bin Laden, they want to make something out of him that he's not." Responding to a Yemeni official's assertions that his son had taken refuge with al-Qaeda, Nasser said: "He's dead wrong. What do you expect my son to do? There are missiles raining down on the village. He has to hide. But he is not hiding with al-Qaeda; our tribe is protecting him right now."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: The Yemeni government attempted to get the tribal leaders to release al-Awlaki to their custody. They promised they would not turn him over to U.S. authorities for questioning. The governor of Shabwa said in January 2010 that al-Awlaki was on the move with members of al-Qaeda, including Fahd al-Quso, who was wanted in connection with the bombing of the USS "Cole".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In January 2010, White House lawyers debated whether or not it was legal to kill al-Awlaki, given his U.S. citizenship. U.S. officials stated that international law allows targeted killing in the event that the subject is an "imminent threat". Because he was a U.S. citizen, his killing had to be approved by the National Security Council. Such action against a U.S. citizen is extremely rare. As a military enemy of the US, al-Awlaki was not subject to Executive Order 11905, which bans assassination for political reasons. The authorization was nevertheless controversial.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: By February 4, 2010, the New York "Daily News" reported that al-Awlaki was "now on a targeting list signed off on by the Obama administration". On April 6, "The New York Times" reported that President Obama had authorized the killing of al-Awlaki.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: The al-Awalik tribe responded: "We warn against cooperating with America to kill Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki. We will not stand by idly and watch." Al-Awlaki's tribe wrote that it would "not remain with arms crossed if a hair of Anwar al-Awlaki is touched, or if anyone plots or spies against him. Whoever risks denouncing our son (Awlaki) will be the target of Al-Awalik weapons", and gave warning "against co-operating with the Americans" in the capture or killing of al-Awlaki. Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, the Yemeni foreign minister, announced that the Yemeni government had not received any evidence from the US, and that "Anwar al-Awlaki has always been looked at as a preacher rather than a terrorist and shouldn't be considered as a terrorist unless the Americans have evidence that he has been involved in terrorism".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In a video clip bearing the imprint of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, issued on April 16 in al-Qaeda's monthly magazine "Sada Al-Malahem", al-Awlaki said: "What am I accused of? Of calling for the truth? Of calling for "jihad" for the sake of Allah? Of calling to defend the causes of the Islamic nation?" In the video he also praises both Abdulmutallab and Hasan, and describes both as his "students".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In late April, Representative Charlie Dent (R-PA) introduced a resolution urging the U.S. State Department to withdraw al-Awlaki's U.S. citizenship. By May, U.S. officials believed he had become directly involved in terrorist activities. Former colleague Abdul-Malik said he "is a terrorist, in my book", and advised shops not to carry any of his publications. In an editorial, "Investor's Business Daily" called al-Awlaki the "world's most dangerous man", and recommended that he be added to the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list, a bounty put on his head, that he be designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, charged with treason, and extradition papers filed with the Yemeni government. "IBD" criticized the Justice Department for stonewalling Senator Joe Lieberman's security panel's investigation of al-Awlaki's role in the Fort Hood massacre.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: On July 16, the U.S. Treasury Department added him to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists. Stuart Levey, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, called him "extraordinarily dangerous", and said al-Awlaki was involved in several organizational aspects of terrorism, including recruiting, training, fundraising, and planning individual attacks.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: A few days later, the United Nations Security Council placed al-Awlaki on its UN Security Council Resolution 1267 list of individuals associated with al-Qaeda, describing him as a leader, recruiter, and trainer for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The resolution stipulates that U.N. members must freeze the assets of anyone on the list, and prevent them from travelling or obtaining weapons. The following week, Canadian banks were ordered to seize any assets belonging to al-Awlaki. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police's senior counter-terrorism officer Gilles Michaud described him as a "major, major factor in radicalization". In September 2010, Jonathan Evans, the Director General of the United Kingdom's domestic security and counter-intelligence agency (MI5), said that al-Awlaki was the West's Public Enemy No 1.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In October 2010, U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) urged YouTube to take down al-Awlaki's videos from its website, saying that by hosting al-Awlaki's messages, "We are facilitating the recruitment of homegrown terror." Pauline Neville-Jones, British security minister, said "These Web sites ... incite cold-blooded murder." YouTube began removing the material in November 2010.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki was charged "in absentia" in Sana'a, Yemen, on November 2 with plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of al-Qaeda. Ali al-Saneaa, the head of the prosecutor's office, announced the charges during the trial of Hisham Assem, who had been accused of killing Jacques Spagnolo, an oil industry worker. He said that al-Awlaki and Assem had been in contact for months, and that al-Awlaki had encouraged Assem to commit terrorism. Al-Awlaki's lawyer said that his client was not connected to Spagnolo's death. On November 6, Yemeni Judge Mohsen Alwan ordered that al-Awlaki be caught "dead or alive".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In his book "Ticking Time Bomb: Counter-Terrorism Lessons from the U.S. Government's Failure to Prevent the Fort Hood Attack" (2011), former U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman described al-Awlaki, Australian Muslim preacher Feiz Mohammad, Muslim cleric Abdullah el-Faisal, and Pakistani-American Samir Khan as "virtual spiritual sanctioners" who use the internet to offer religious justification for Islamist terrorism.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In July 2010, al-Awlaki's father, Nasser al-Awlaki, contacted the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union to represent his son in a lawsuit that sought to remove Anwar from the targeted killing list. ACLU's Jameel Jaffer said:


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: the United States is not at war in Yemen, and the government doesn't have a blank check to kill terrorism suspects wherever they are in the world. Among the arguments we'll be making is that, outside actual war zones, the authority to use lethal force is narrowly circumscribed, and preserving the rule of law depends on keeping this authority narrow.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Lawyers for Specially Designated Global Terrorists must obtain a special license from the U.S. Treasury Department before they can represent their clients in court. The lawyers were granted the license on August 4, 2010.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: On August 30, 2010, the groups filed a "targeted killing" lawsuit, naming President Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta, and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as defendants. They sought an injunction preventing the targeted killing of al-Awlaki, and also sought to require the government to disclose the standards under which U.S. citizens may be "targeted for death". Judge John D. Bates dismissed the lawsuit in an 83-page ruling, holding that the father did not have legal standing to bring the lawsuit, and that his claims were judicially unreviewable under the political question doctrine inasmuch as he was questioning a decision that the U.S. Constitution committed to the political branches.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: On May 5, 2011, the United States tried but failed to kill al-Awlaki by firing a missile from an unmanned drone at a car in Yemen. A Yemeni security official said that two al-Qaeda operatives in the car died.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: On September 30, 2011, al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Al Jawf Governorate, Yemen, according to U.S. sources, the strike was carried out by Joint Special Operations Command, under the direction of the CIA. A witness said the group he was in had stopped to eat breakfast while traveling to Ma'rib Governorate. The occupants of the vehicle spotted the drone and attempted to flee in the vehicle before Hellfire missiles were fired Yemen's Defense Ministry announced that al-Awlaki had been killed. Also killed was Samir Khan, an American born in Saudi Arabia, thought to be behind al-Qaeda's English-language web magazine "Inspire". U.S. President Barack Obama said:


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: The death of Awlaki is a major blow to Al-Qaeda's most active operational affiliate. He took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent Americans ... and he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda. [The strike] is further proof that Al-Qaeda and its affiliates will find no safe haven anywhere in the world.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Journalist and author Glenn Greenwald argued on Salon.com that killing al-Awlaki violated his First Amendment right of free speech and that doing so outside of a criminal proceeding violated the Constitution's due process clause, specifically citing the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio that "the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force." He mentioned doubt among Yemeni experts about al-Awlaki's role in al-Qaeda, and called U.S. government accusations against him unverified and lacking in evidence.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In a letter dated May 22, 2013, to the chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee, Patrick J. Leahy, U.S. attorney general Eric Holder wrote that


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: high-level U.S. government officials [...] concluded that al-Aulaqi posed a continuing and imminent threat of violent attack against the United States. Before carrying out the operation that killed al-Aulaqi, senior officials also determined, based on a careful evaluation of the circumstances at the time, that it was not feasible to capture al-Aulaqi. In addition, senior officials determined that the operation would be conducted consistent with applicable law of war principles, including the cardinal principles of (1) necessity – the requirement that the target have definite military value; (2) distinction – the idea that only military objectives may be intentionally targeted and that civilians are protected from being intentionally targeted; (3) proportionality – the notion that the anticipated collateral damage of an action cannot be excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage; and (4) humanity – a principle that requires us to use weapons that will not inflict unnecessary suffering. The operation was also undertaken consistent with Yemeni sovereignty. [...] The decision to target Anwar al-Aulaqi was lawful, it was considered, and it was just.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: On April 21, 2014, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal ruled that the Obama administration must release documents justifying its drone killings of foreigners and Americans, including Anwar al-Awlaki. In June 2014, the United States Department of Justice disclosed a 2010 memorandum written by the acting head of the department's Office of Legal Counsel, David J. Barron. The memo stated that Anwar al-Awlaki was a significant threat with an infeasible probability of capture. Barron therefore justified the killing as legal, as "the Constitution would not require the government to provide further process". "The New York Times" Editorial Board dismissed the memo's rationale for al-Awlaki's killing, saying it "provides little confidence that the lethal action was taken with real care", instead describing it as "a slapdash pastiche of legal theories—some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law—that was clearly tailored to the desired result." A lawyer for the ACLU described the memo as "disturbing" and "ultimately an argument that the president can order targeted killings of Americans without ever having to account to anyone outside the executive branch."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Seth Jones, who as a political scientist specializes in al-Qaeda, considers that the continuing relevance of al-Awlaki is due to his fluency in the English language as well as his charisma, precising that "he had a disarming aura and unnerving confidence, with an easy smile and a soothing, eloquent voice. He stood a lanky six feet, one inch tall, weighed 160 pounds, and had a thick black beard, an oversized nose, and wire-rimmed glasses. He spoke in a clear, almost hypnotic voice."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Awlaki's videos and writings remain highly popular on the internet, where they continue to be readily accessible. Those who viewed and still view his videos are estimated by journalist Scott Shane to number in the hundreds of thousands, while his father Dr. Nasser Awlaqi says that "five million preaching tapes of Anwar Awlaqi have been sold in the West." And thus, even following his death, Awlaki has continued to inspire his devotees to carry out terrorist attacks, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting. According to the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), 88 "extremists," 54 in the U.S. and 34 in Europe, have been influenced by Awlaki. Because "his work has inspired countless plots and attacks," CEP has "called on YouTube and other platforms to permanently ban Mr. Awlaki's material, including his early, mainstream lectures."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: During the FBI investigation of the 9/11 attacks, it was discovered that a few of the attackers had attended the mosques in San Diego and Falls Church with which al-Awlaki was associated. Interviews with members of the San Diego mosque showed that Nawaz al-Hazmi, one of the attackers, may have had a private conversation with him. On that basis he was placed under 24-hour surveillance. It was discovered that he regularly patronized prostitutes. It was through FBI interrogation of prostitutes and escort service operators that al-Awlaki was tipped off in 2002 about FBI surveillance. Shortly thereafter, he left the United States.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In January 2013, Fox News announced that FBI documents obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request showed possible connections between al-Awlaki and the September 11 attackers. According to Judicial Watch, the documents show that the FBI knew that al-Awlaki had bought tickets for three of the hijackers to fly into Florida and Las Vegas. Judicial Watch further stated that al-Awlaki "was a central focus of the FBI's investigation of 9/11. They show he wasn't cooperative. And they show that he was under surveillance."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: When queried by Fox News, the FBI denied having evidence connecting al-Awlaki and the September 11 attacks: "The FBI cautions against drawing conclusions from redacted FOIA documents. The FBI and investigating bodies have not found evidence connecting Anwar al-Awlaki and the attack on September 11, 2001. The document referenced does not link Anwar al-Awlaki with any purchase of airline tickets for the hijackers."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Anwar al-Awlaki and Egyptian-born Gihan Mohsen Baker had a son, Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, born August 26, 1995, in Denver, who was an American citizen. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was killed on October 14, 2011, in Yemen at the age of 16 in an American drone strike. Nine other people were killed in the same CIA-initiated attack, including a 17-year-old cousin of Abdulrahman. According to his relatives, shortly before his father's death, Abdulrahman had left the family home in Sana'a and travelled to Shabwa in search of his father who was believed to be in hiding in that area (though he was actually hundreds of miles away at the time ). Abdulrahman was sitting in an open-air cafe in Shabwa when killed. According to U.S. officials, the killing of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was a mistake; the intended target was an Egyptian, Ibrahim al-Banna, who was not at the targeted location at the time of the attack. Human rights groups have raised questions as to why an American citizen was killed by the United States in a country with which the United States is not officially at war. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was not known to have any independent connection to terrorism.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Nasser al-Awlaki is the father of Anwar and grandfather of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki stated he believed his son had been wrongly accused and was not a member of Al Qaeda. After the deaths of his son and grandson, Nasser in an interview in "Time" magazine called the killings a crime and condemned U.S. President Obama directly, saying: "I urge the American people to bring the killers to justice. I urge them to expose the hypocrisy of the 2009 Nobel Prize laureate. To some, he may be that. To me and my family, he is nothing more than a child killer."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In 2013, Nasser al-Awlaki published an op-ed in "The New York Times" stating that two years after killing his grandson, the Obama administration still declines to provide an explanation. In 2012, Nasser al-Awlaki filed a lawsuit, "Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta", challenging the constitutionality of the drone killings of his son and grandson. This lawsuit was dismissed in April 2014 by D.C. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Tariq al-Dahab, who led al-Qaeda insurgents in Yemen, was a brother-in-law of al-Awlaki. On February 16, 2012, the terrorist organization stated that he had been killed by agents, although media reports contain speculation that he was killed by his brother in a bloody family feud.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: On January 29, 2017, Anwar al-Awlaki's 8-year-old daughter, Nawar al-Awlaki, who was an American citizen, was killed in a DEVGRU operation authorized by President Donald Trump.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki's Islamic education was primarily informal, and consisted of intermittent months with various scholars reading and contemplating Islamic scholarly works. Despite having no religious qualifications and almost no religious education, Al-Awlaki made a name for himself as a public speaker who released popular audio recordings. Some Muslim scholars said they did not understand alAwlaki's popularity, because while he spoke fluent English and could therefore reach a large non-Arabic-speaking audience, he lacked formal Islamic training and study.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: While imprisoned in Yemen after 2004, al-Awlaki was influenced by the works of Sayyid Qutb, described by "The New York Times" as an originator of the contemporary "anti-Western "Jihadist" movement". He read 150 to 200 pages a day of Qutb's works, and described himself as "so immersed with the author I would feel Sayyid was with me in my cell speaking to me directly".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann in 2009 referred to al-Awlaki as "one of the principal "jihadi" luminaries for would-be homegrown terrorists. His fluency with English, his unabashed advocacy of "jihad" and mujahideen organizations, and his Web-savvy approach are a powerful combination." He called al-Awlaki's lecture, "Constants on the Path of "Jihad"", which he says was based on a similar document written by al-Qaeda's founder, the "virtual bible for lone-wolf Muslim extremists". Philip Mudd, formerly of the CIA's National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI's top intelligence adviser, called him "a magnetic character ... a powerful orator." He attracted young men to his lectures, especially US-based and UK-based Muslims.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: U.S. officials and some U.S. media sources called al-Awlaki an Islamic fundamentalist and accused him of encouraging terrorism. According to documents recovered from bin Laden's hideout, the al-Qaeda leader was unsure about al-Awlaki's qualifications.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: The Nine Eleven Finding Answers Foundation said al-Awlaki's ability to write and speak in fluent English enabled him to incite English-speaking Muslims to terrorism. Al-Awlaki notes in "44 Ways to Support Jihad" that most reading material on the subject is in Arabic.


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: Al-Awlaki maintained a website and blog on which he shared his views. On December 11, 2008, he said Muslims should not seek to "serve in the armies of the disbelievers and fight against his brothers".


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In "44 Ways to Support "Jihad"", posted on his blog in February 2009, al-Awlaki encouraged others to "fight "jihad"", and explained how to give money to the "mujahideen" or their families. Al-Awlaki's sermon encourages others to conduct weapons training, and raise children "on the love of "Jihad"". Also that month, he wrote: "I pray that Allah destroys America and all its allies." He wrote as well: "We will implement the rule of Allah on Earth by the tip of the sword, whether the masses like it or not." On July 14, he said that Muslim countries should not offer military assistance to the US. "The blame should be placed on the soldier who is willing to follow orders ... who sells his religion for a few dollars," he said. In blog post dated July 15, 2009, entitled "Fighting Against Government Armies in the Muslim World", al-Awlaki wrote, "Blessed are those who fight against [American soldiers], and blessed are those shuhada [martyrs] who are killed by them."


title: Anwar al-Awlaki

text: In a video posted to the internet on November 8, 2010, al-Awlaki called for Muslims to kill Americans "without hesitation", and overthrow Arab governments that cooperate with the US. "Don't consult with anyone in fighting the Americans, fighting the devil doesn't require consultation or prayers or seeking divine guidance. They are the party of the devils", al-Awlaki said. That month, Intelligence Research Specialist Kevin Yorke of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Division called him "the most dangerous man in the world".


title: Donatello

text: Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi ( – 13 December 1466), better known as Donatello ( ), was a Florentine sculptor of the Renaissance period. Born in Florence, he studied classical sculpture and used this to develop a complete Renaissance style in sculpture. He spent time in other cities, and while there he worked on commissions and taught others; his periods in Rome, Padua, and Siena introduced to other parts of Italy his techniques, developed in the course of a long and productive career. Financed by Cosimo de' Medici, Donatello's "David" was the first freestanding nude male sculpture since antiquity.


title: Donatello

text: He worked with stone, bronze, wood, clay, stucco, and wax, and had several assistants, with four perhaps being a typical number. Although his best-known works mostly were statues in the round, he developed a new, very shallow, type of bas-relief for small works, and a good deal of his output was larger architectural reliefs.


title: Donatello

text: Donatello was the son of Niccolò di Betto Bardi, who was a member of the Florentine Arte della Lana. He was born in Florence, probably in the year 1386. Donatello was educated in the house of the Martelli family. He apparently received his early artistic training in a goldsmith's workshop, and then worked briefly in the studio of Lorenzo Ghiberti.


title: Donatello

text: In Pistoia in 1401, Donatello met the older Filippo Brunelleschi. They likely went to Rome together around 1403, staying until the next year, to study the architectural ruins. Brunelleschi informally tutored Donatello in goldsmithing and sculpture. Brunelleschi's buildings and Donatello's sculptures are both considered supreme expressions of the spirit of this era in architecture and sculpture, and they exercised a potent influence upon the artists of the age.


title: Donatello

text: In Florence, Donatello assisted Lorenzo Ghiberti with the statues of prophets for the north door of the Baptistery of Florence Cathedral, for which he received payment in November 1406 and early 1408. In 1409–1411 he executed the colossal seated figure of "Saint John the Evangelist", which occupied a niche of the old cathedral façade until 1588, and now is placed in the Museo dell' Opera del Duomo. This work marks a decisive step forward from late Gothic Mannerism in the search for naturalism and the rendering of human feelings. The face, the shoulders, and the bust are still idealized, while the hands and the fold of cloth over the legs are more realistic.


title: Donatello

text: In 1411–1413, Donatello worked on a statue of "St. Mark" for the guild church of Orsanmichele. In 1417 he completed the "Saint George" for the Confraternity of the Cuirass-makers. From 1423 is the "Saint Louis of Toulouse" for the Orsanmichele, now in the Museum of the Basilica di Santa Croce. Donatello also sculpted the classical frame for this work, which remains, while the statue was moved in 1460 and replaced by the "Incredulity of Saint Thomas" by Verrocchio.


title: Donatello

text: Between 1415 and 1426, Donatello created five statues for the campanile of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, also known as the Duomo. These works are the "Beardless Prophet"; "Bearded Prophet" (both from 1415); the "Sacrifice of Isaac" (1421); "Habbakuk" (1423–25); and "Jeremiah" (1423–26); which follow the classical models for orators and are characterized by strong portrait details. In 1425, he executed the notable "Crucifix" for Santa Croce; this work portrays Christ in a moment of agony, eyes, and mouth partially opened, the body contracted in an ungraceful posture.


title: Donatello

text: From 1425 to 1427, Donatello collaborated with Michelozzo on the funerary monument of the Antipope John XXIII for the Battistero in Florence. Donatello made the recumbent bronze figure of the deceased, under a shell. In 1427, he completed in Pisa a marble relief for the funerary monument of Cardinal Rainaldo Brancacci at the church of Sant'Angelo a Nilo in Naples. In the same period, he executed the relief of "The Feast of Herod" () and the statues of "Faith" and "Hope" for the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Siena. "The Feast of Herod" is mostly in "stiacciato" (a very low bas-relief), with the foreground figures done in bas-relief, and is considered one of the first examples of one-point perspective in sculpture.


title: Donatello

text: During the period 1425-1430 the "Pazzi Madonna" was created. It is a rectangular marble bas-relief sculpture, also in stiacciato. Its original owner is not known, but the work is thought to have been commissioned for private devotion by a resident of Florence. It is in the collection of the Bode Museum in Berlin, Germany. It was copied frequently and admired for the tender nature of the depiction of the Virgin Mary and her smiling infant child.


title: Donatello

text: Donatello's bronze "David", now in the Bargello museum, is his most famous work, and the first known free-standing nude statue produced since antiquity. Conceived fully in the round, independent of any architectural surroundings, and largely representing an allegory of the civic virtues triumphing over brutality and irrationality, it is arguably the first major work of Renaissance sculpture. It was commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici for the courtyard of his Palazzo Medici, but its date remains the subject of debate. It is most often dated to the 1440s, but dates as late as the 1460s have support from some scholars. It is not to be confused with his stone "David", with clothes, of about 1408–09.


title: Donatello

text: Some have perceived the "David" as having homoerotic qualities and have argued that this reflected the artist's own orientation. The historian Paul Strathern makes the claim that Donatello made no secret of his homosexuality, and that his behaviour was tolerated by his friends. The main evidence comes from anecdotes by Angelo Poliziano in his ""Detti piacevoli", where he writes about Donatello surrounding himself with "handsome assistants" and chasing in search of one that had fled his workshop. This may not be surprising in the context of attitudes prevailing in the 15th- and 16th-century Florentine Republic. However, little detail is known with certainty about his private life, and no mention of his sexuality has been found in the Florentine archives (in terms of denunciations) albeit which during this period are incomplete.


title: Donatello

text: When Cosimo was exiled from Florence, Donatello went to Rome, remaining until 1433. The two works that testify to his presence in this city, the "Tomb of Giovanni Crivelli" at Santa Maria "in Aracoeli", and the "Ciborium" at St. Peter's Basilica, bear a strong stamp of classical influence.


title: Donatello

text: Donatello's return to Florence almost coincided with Cosimo's. In May 1434, he signed a contract for the on the facade of Prato cathedral, the last project executed in collaboration with Michelozzo. This work, a passionate, pagan, rhythmically conceived bacchanalian dance of half-nude putti, was the forerunner of the great "Cantoria", or singing tribune, at the Duomo in Florence on which Donatello worked intermittently from 1433 to 1440 and was inspired by ancient sarcophagi and Byzantine ivory chests. In 1435, he executed the "Annunciation" for the Cavalcanti altar in Santa Croce, inspired by 14th-century iconography, and in 1437–1443, he worked in the Old Sacristy of the San Lorenzo in Florence, on two doors and lunettes portraying saints, as well as eight stucco tondos. From 1438 is the wooden statue of St. John the Baptist for Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice.


title: Donatello

text: In 1443, Donatello was called to Padua by the heirs of the famous condottiero Erasmo da Narni (better known as the "Gattamelata", or "Honey-Cat"), who had died that year. Completed in 1450 and placed in the square facing the Basilica of St. Anthony, his "Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata" was the first example of such a monument since ancient times. (Other equestrian statues, from the 14th century, had not been executed in bronze and had been placed over tombs rather than erected independently, in a public place.) This work became the prototype for other equestrian monuments executed in Italy and Europe in the following centuries.


title: Donatello

text: For the Basilica of St. Anthony, Donatello created, most famously, the bronze Crucifix of 1444–47 and additional statues for the choir, including a "Madonna with Child" and six saints, constituting a Holy Conversation, which is no longer visible since the renovation by Camillo Boito in 1895. The "Madonna with Child" portrays the Child being displayed to the faithful, on a throne flanked by two sphinxes, allegorical figures of knowledge. On the throne's back is a relief of Adam and Eve. During this period—1446–50—Donatello also executed four important reliefs with scenes from the life of St. Anthony for the high altar. He remained in Padua until 1453, when he returned to Florence.


title: Donatello

text: In 2020 art historian Gianluca Amato, as part of his research on wooden crucifixes crafted between the late thirteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century for his doctoral thesis at the University of Naples Federico II, discovered that the crucifix of the church of Sant'Angelo a Legnaia was sculpted by Donatello.


title: Donatello

text: This discovery has been evaluated historically, considering that the work belonged to the Compagnia di Sant'Agostino that was based in the oratory adjacent to the mother church of Sant'Angelo a Legnaia. Silvia Bensì performed restoration work on the crucifix.


title: Donatello

text: Donatello is portrayed by Rhett McLaughlin in the 2014 Epic Rap Battles of History video "Artists versus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", in which he appears working on Gattamelata and is mocked for being less famous than other Renaissance artists.


title: Donatello

text: The "Donatello" Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) built by the Italian Space Agency, was one of three MPLMs operated by NASA to transfer supplies and equipment to and from the International Space Station. The others were named "Leonardo" and "Raffaello".


title: Wisdom tooth

text: A third molar, commonly called wisdom tooth, is one of the three molars per quadrant of the human dentition. It is the most posterior of the three. The age at which wisdom teeth come through (erupt) is variable, but this generally occurs between late teens and early twenties. Most adults have four wisdom teeth, one in each of the four quadrants, but it is possible to have none, fewer, or more, in which case the extras are called supernumerary teeth. Wisdom teeth may get stuck (impacted) against other teeth if there is not enough space for them to come through normally. Impacted wisdom teeth are still sometimes removed for orthodontic treatment, believing that they move the other teeth and cause crowding, though this is not held anymore as true. Impacted wisdom teeth may suffer from tooth decay if oral hygiene becomes more difficult. Wisdom teeth which are partially erupted through the gum may also cause inflammation and infection in the surrounding gum tissues, termed pericoronitis. Some more conservative treatments, such as operculectomies, may be fitting for some cases, yet impacted wisdom teeth are commonly extracted as treatment for these problems, many times before these problems, which might never happen, even occur. Some oppose this prophylactic removal of disease-free impacted wisdom teeth, including among them the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in the UK.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Maxillary (upper) third molars commonly have a triangular crown with a deep central fossa from which multiple irregular fissures originate. Their roots are commonly fused together and can be irregular in shape.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Mandibular third molars are the smallest molar teeth in the permanent dentition. The crown usually takes on a rounded rectangular shape that features four or five cusps with an irregular fissure pattern. Roots are greatly reduced in size and can be fused together.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: There are several notation systems used in dentistry to identify teeth.  The Palmer/Zsigmondy System.  Under the Palmer/Zsigmondy system, the right and left maxillary wisdom teeth are represented by ┘ and └. Whereas, ┐and ┌  symbols are used to represent the right and left mandibular wisdom teeth. Another commonly used method of dental notation is the FDI notational system. Under this system, the right and left maxillary third molars are represented by 18 and 28 respectively and the right and left mandibular third molars are numbered as 48 and 38. According to the Universal Numbering System the right and left upper wisdom teeth are labelled 1 and 16 and the right and left lower wisdom teeth are assigned 17 and 32 respectively.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Agenesis of wisdom teeth differs by population, ranging from practically zero in Aboriginal Tasmanians to nearly 100% in indigenous Mexicans (see research paper with world map showing prevalence). The difference is related to the PAX9, and MSX1 gene (and perhaps other genes).


title: Wisdom tooth

text: There is significant variation between the reported age of eruption of wisdom teeth between different populations. For example, wisdom teeth tend to erupt earlier in people with African heritage compared to Asian and European heritage.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Generally wisdom teeth erupt most commonly between age 17 and 21. Eruption may start as early as age 13 in some groups and typically occurs before the age of 25. If they have not erupted by age 25, oral surgeons generally consider that the tooth will not erupt spontaneously.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Anthropologists believe wisdom teeth, or the third set of molars, were the evolutionary answer to human ancestors' early diet of coarse, rough food – like leaves, roots, nuts and meats. After the advent of agriculture over 10,000 years ago, soft human diets became more common, including carbohydrate and high energy foods. Such diets typically result in jaws growing with less forward growth than those of paleolithic humans and not enough room for the wisdom teeth.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Wisdom teeth (often notated clinically as M3 for third molar) have long been identified as a source of problems and continue to be the most commonly impacted teeth in the human mouth. Impaction of the wisdom teeth results in a risk of periodontal disease and dental cavities. Less than 2% of adults age 65 years or older maintain the teeth without cavities or periodontal disease and 13% maintain unimpacted wisdom teeth without cavities or periodontal disease. Impacted wisdom teeth lead to pathology in 12% of cases.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Impacted wisdom teeth are classified by the direction and depth of impaction, the amount of available space for tooth eruption and the amount soft tissue or bone that covers them. The classification structure allows clinicians to estimate the probabilities of impaction, infections and complications associated with wisdom teeth removal. Wisdom teeth are also classified by the presence of symptoms and disease.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Treatment of an erupted wisdom tooth is the same as any other tooth in the mouth. If impacted and having a pathology, such as caries or pericoronitis, treatment can be dental restoration, salt water rinses, local treatment to the infected tissue overlying the impaction, oral antibiotics, operculectomy, or if those failed, extraction or coronectomy.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Odontogenic infections are a dental complication originating inside the tooth or in close proximity to the surrounding tissues. There are different types of odontogenic infections which may affect impacted wisdom teeth such as periodontitis, pulpitis, dental abscess and pericoronitis.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Pericoronitis is a common pathology of impacted third molar. It is an acute localized infection of the tissue surrounding the impacted wisdom teeth. Clinically the tissue appears to be red, tender to touch and edematous. The common symptoms the patient’s report are pain ‘that ranges from dull to throbbing to intense’ and often radiates to mouth, ear or floor of the mouth. Moreover, swelling of the cheek, halitosis and trismuscan occur.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Odontogenic cysts are a less common pathology of the impacted wisdom tooth. They are described as ‘cavities filled with liquid, semiliquid or gaseous content with odontogenic epithelial lining and connective tissue on the outside’. However, studies have found cysts to be prevalent in a small percentage of impacted wisdom teeth that are extracted. The most common types associated with impacted third molars are radicular cysts, dentigerous cysts and odontogenic keratocysts.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Practice and maintenance of good oral hygiene can help prevent and control some wisdom tooth pathologies. In addition to twice daily toothbrushing, interdental cleaning is recommended to ensure plaque build doesn’t occur in interdental areas. There are various products available for this – dental floss and interdental brushes being the most common.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Removal of asymptomatic impacted wisdom teeth with the absence of disease and no evidence of local infection as a prophylactic method has been disputed within the dental community for a long time. There is insufficient, reliable scientific evidence for dental health professionals and policy makers to determine if asymptomatic disease-free impacted wisdom teeth should be removed. Therefore, the decision will depend on a combination of clinical expertise and patient preference. If the tooth is retained, regular check-ups to identify any problems that may occur is recommended. Considering the lack of quality evidence at present, more long-term studies need to be undertaken to obtain a reliable scientific conclusion.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) is a postoperative method used to heal the alveolar socket following the removal of the mandibular third molar. PRF is a second generation result of the isolation of platelets, white blood cells, stem cells and growth factors from blood samples. Studies have shown that when used there are improvements in pain sensations, swelling and a decreased risk of developing dry socket. This method was shown to only reduce symptoms and is not completely preventive. To date there is no clear correlation between the use of PRF after a mandibular third molar removal surgery and the recovery of jaw spasms, bone restoration and soft tissue healing. Further studies with larger study samples are needed to validate current theories.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: About a third of symptomatic unerupted wisdom teeth have been shown to partially erupt and be non-functional or non-hygienic. Studies have also shown that 30% to 60% of people with a previously asymptomatic impacted wisdom teeth will have an extraction of at least one of them in 4 to 12 years from diagnosis.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Temporary and permanent inferior alveolar nerve (IAN) damage is a known complication of the surgical removal of impacted lower third molars, happening in 1 in 85 and 1 in 300 extractions, respectively. Studies have shown that certain risk factors may increase the likelihood of IAN damage. Proximity of the impacted third molar root to the mandibular canal, which can be seen in radiographs, has been shown to be a high-risk factor for IAN damage. Alongside this, the depth of impaction of the tooth, surgical technique and surgeons experience are all contributing risk factors for IAN damage during this procedure. Careful case-by-case consideration is crucial to avoid this risk.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Lower anterior teeth crowding has been a common discussion among the orthodontic community for decades. In the 1970s it was thought that unerupted wisdom teeth produced a forward directed force which would cause crowding of the anterior segment. Recent research has shown that there is no agreed opinion and that the cause is due to a variety of factors. This includes dental factors such as tooth crown size and primary tooth loss. Skeletal factors which include growth of the maxilla and mandible and the presence of malocclusions. General factors, including the age and gender of the patient. Overall, recent research has suggested that wisdom teeth alone do not cause crowding of teeth.


title: Wisdom tooth

text: Although formally known as third molars, the common name is wisdom teeth because they appear so late – much later than the other teeth, at an age where people are presumably "wiser" than as a child, when the other teeth erupt. The term probably came as a translation of the Latin "dens sapientiae". Their eruption has been known to cause dental issues for millennia; it was noted at least as far back as Aristotle:


title: Wisdom tooth

text: The oldest known impacted wisdom tooth belonged to a European woman who lived between 13,000 and 11,000 BCE, in the Magdalenian period. Nonetheless, molar impaction was relatively rare prior to the modern era. With the Industrial Revolution, the affliction became ten times more common, owing to the new prevalence of soft, processed, and sugary foods.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Blood alcohol content (BAC), also called blood alcohol concentration or blood alcohol level, is a measurement of alcohol intoxication used for legal or medical purposes; it is expressed as mass of alcohol per volume or mass of blood. For example, a BAC of 0.10 by (0.10% or one tenth of one percent) means that there is 0.10 g of alcohol for every 100 mL of blood, which is the same as 21.7 mmol/L. A BAC of 0.10 by (0.10%) is 0.10 g of alcohol per 100 g of blood (23 mmol/L). A BAC of 0.0 is sober; in different countries the maximum permitted BAC when driving ranges from about 0.04% to 0.08%; BAC levels over 0.08% are considered very impaired; above 0.4% is potentially fatal.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Regarding metabolism () in the formula; females demonstrated a higher average rate of elimination (mean, 0.017; range, 0.014–0.021 g/210 L) than males (mean, 0.015; range, 0.013–0.017 g/210 L). Female subjects on average had a higher percentage of body fat (mean, 26.0; range, 16.7–36.8%) than males (mean, 18.0; range, 10.2–25.3%). Additionally, men are, on average, heavier than women but it is not strictly accurate to say that the water content of a person alone is responsible for the dissolution of alcohol within the body, because alcohol does dissolve in fatty tissue as well. When it does, a certain amount of alcohol is temporarily taken out of the blood and briefly stored in the fat. For this reason, most calculations of alcohol to body mass simply use the weight of the individual, and not specifically their water content.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: The examples above define a standard drink as 0.6 fluid ounces (14 g or 17.7 mL) of ethanol, whereas other definitions exist, for example 10 grams of ethanol.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) define the term "binge drinking" as a pattern of drinking that brings a person's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume five or more drinks, and when women consume four or more drinks, in about two hours.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: There are several different units in use around the world for defining blood alcohol concentration. Measures of mass (never volume) of alcohol per volume of blood or per mass of blood are used. 1 milliliter of blood has a mass of approximately 1.06 grams, so that units by volume are about 6% greater than if mass-based.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: The amount of alcohol on the breath can also be measured, without requiring drawing blood, by blowing into a breathalyzer. The amount of alcohol measured on the breath is generally accepted as proportional to the amount of alcohol present in the blood, at a rate of 1:2100, so blood alcohol can be estimated from a breathalyzer reading. For example, a breathalyzer measurement of 0.10 mg/L of breath alcohol characterises 0.0001×2100 g/L, or 0.21 g/L of blood alcohol (equivalent to 0.21 permille).


title: Blood alcohol content

text: While a variety of units or criteria are used in different jurisdictions, many countries use the g/L unit, clearer than if expressed as a percentage. Usual units are listed below. For example, the U.S. uses a concentration unit of 1% w/v (percent mass/volume, equivalent to 10 g/L or 1 g per 100 mL).


title: Blood alcohol content

text: For purposes of law enforcement, blood alcohol content is used to define intoxication and provides a rough measure of impairment. Although the degree of impairment may vary among individuals with the same blood alcohol content, it can be measured objectively and is therefore legally useful and difficult to contest in court. Most countries forbid operation of motor vehicles and heavy machinery above prescribed levels of blood alcohol content. Operation of boats and aircraft is also regulated. Some jurisdictions also regulate bicycling under the influence.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: The alcohol level at which a person is considered legally impaired to drive varies by country. The list below gives limits by country. These are typically blood alcohol content limits for the operation of a vehicle. Most limits are specified by volume; a few countries use BAC by mass, equivalent to a figure about 6% higher by volume.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: It is illegal to have any measurable alcohol in the blood while driving in these countries. Most jurisdictions have a tolerance slightly higher than zero to account for false positives and naturally occurring alcohol in the body. Some of the following jurisdictions have a general prohibition of alcohol.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: In certain countries, alcohol limits are determined by the breath alcohol content (BrAC), not to be confused with blood alcohol content (BAC).


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Blood alcohol tests assume the individual being tested is average in various ways. For example, on average the ratio of blood alcohol content to breath alcohol content (the "partition ratio") is 2100 to 1. In other words, there are 2100 parts of alcohol in the blood for every part in the breath. However, the actual ratio in any given individual can vary from 1300:1 to 3100:1, or even more widely. This ratio varies not only from person to person, but within one person from moment to moment. Thus a person with a true blood alcohol level of 0.08% but a partition ratio of 1700:1 at the time of testing would have a 0.10 reading on a Breathalyzer calibrated for the average 2100:1 ratio.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: After fatal accidents, it is common to check the blood alcohol levels of involved persons. However, soon after death, the body begins to putrefy, a biological process which produces ethanol. This can make it difficult to conclusively determine the blood alcohol content in autopsies, particularly in bodies recovered from water. For instance, following the Moorgate tube crash, the driver had a blood alcohol concentration of 80 mg/100 mL, but it could not be established how much of this could be attributed to natural decomposition.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Retrograde extrapolation is the mathematical process by which someone's blood alcohol concentration at the time of driving is estimated by projecting backwards from a later chemical test. This involves estimating the absorption and elimination of alcohol in the interim between driving and testing. The rate of elimination in the average person is commonly estimated at 0.015 to 0.020 grams per deciliter per hour (g/dL/h), although again this can vary from person to person and in a given person from one moment to another. Metabolism can be affected by numerous factors, including such things as body temperature, the type of alcoholic beverage consumed, and the amount and type of food consumed.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: In an increasing number of states, laws have been enacted to facilitate this speculative task: the blood alcohol content at the time of driving is legally presumed to be the same as when later tested. There are usually time limits put on this presumption, commonly two or three hours, and the defendant is permitted to offer evidence to rebut this presumption.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Forward extrapolation can also be attempted. If the amount of alcohol consumed is known, along with such variables as the weight and sex of the subject and period and rate of consumption, the blood alcohol level can be estimated by extrapolating forward. Although subject to the same infirmities as retrograde extrapolation—guessing based upon averages and unknown variables—this can be relevant in estimating BAC when driving and/or corroborating or contradicting the results of a later chemical test.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Alcohol is absorbed throughout the gastrointestinal tract, but more slowly in the stomach than in the small or large intestine. For this reason, alcohol consumed with food is absorbed more slowly, because it spends a longer time in the stomach. Furthermore, alcohol dehydrogenase is present in the stomach lining. After absorption, the alcohol passes to the liver through the hepatic portal vein, where it undergoes a first pass of metabolism before entering the general bloodstream.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Alcohol is removed from the bloodstream by a combination of metabolism, excretion, and evaporation. Alcohol is metabolized mainly by the group of six enzymes collectively called alcohol dehydrogenase. These convert the ethanol into acetaldehyde (an intermediate more toxic than ethanol). The enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase then converts the acetaldehyde into non-toxic acetic acid.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Many physiologically active materials are removed from the bloodstream (whether by metabolism or excretion) at a rate proportional to the current concentration, so that they exhibit exponential decay with a characteristic half-life (see pharmacokinetics). This is not true for alcohol, however. Typical doses of alcohol actually saturate the enzymes' capacity, so that alcohol is removed from the bloodstream at an approximately constant rate. This rate varies considerably between individuals. Another sex-based difference is in the elimination of alcohol. People under 25, women, or people with liver disease may process alcohol more slowly. Falsely high BAC readings may be seen in patients with kidney or liver disease or failure.


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Such persons also have impaired acetaldehyde dehydrogenase, which causes acetaldehyde levels to peak higher, producing more severe hangovers and other effects such as flushing and tachycardia. Conversely, members of certain ethnicities that traditionally did not use alcoholic beverages have lower levels of alcohol dehydrogenases and thus "sober up" very slowly but reach lower aldehyde concentrations and have milder hangovers. The rate of detoxification of alcohol can also be slowed by certain drugs which interfere with the action of alcohol dehydrogenases, notably aspirin, furfural (which may be found in fusel alcohol), fumes of certain solvents, many heavy metals, and some pyrazole compounds. Also suspected of having this effect are cimetidine, ranitidine, and acetaminophen (paracetamol).


title: Blood alcohol content

text: Currently, the only known substance that can increase the rate of alcohol metabolism is fructose. The effect can vary significantly from person to person, but a 100 g dose of fructose has been shown to increase alcohol metabolism by an average of 80%. Fructose also increases false positives of high BAC readings in anyone with proteinuria and hematuria, due to kidney-liver metabolism.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the Eastern Shore of Maryland / Eastern Shore of Virginia and the state of Delaware) with its mouth of the Bay at the south end located between Cape Henry and Cape Charles. With its northern portion in Maryland and the southern part in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay is a very important feature for the ecology and economy of those two states, as well as others surrounding within its watershed. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Bay's drainage basin, which covers parts of six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia) and all of District of Columbia.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Bay is approximately long from its northern headwaters in the Susquehanna River to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean. It is wide at its narrowest (between Kent County's Plum Point near Newtown in the east and the Harford County western shore near Romney Creek) and at its widest (just south of the mouth of the Potomac River which divides Maryland from Virginia). Total shoreline including tributaries is , circumnavigating a surface area of . Average depth is , reaching a maximum of . The Bay is spanned twice, in Maryland by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Sandy Point (near Annapolis) to Kent Island and in Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel connecting Virginia Beach to Cape Charles.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Known for both its beauty and bounty, the Bay has become "emptier", with fewer crabs, oysters and watermen (fishermen) since the mid-20th century. Nutrient pollution and urban runoff have been identified as major components of impaired water quality in the bay stressing ecosystems and compounding the decline of shellfish due to overharvesting. Restoration efforts that began in the 1990s have continued into the 21st century and show potential for growth of the native oyster population. The health of the Chesapeake Bay improved in 2015, marking three years of gains over a four-year period, according to a 2016 report by the University of Maryland. The bay is experiencing other environmental concerns, including climate change which is causing sea level rise that erodes coastal areas and infrastructure and changes to the marine ecosystem. These changes have already changed the coastline eroding islands like Holland Island or Long Island and threatening local infrastructure and economies.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The word is an Algonquian word referring to a village 'at a big river'. It is the seventh-oldest surviving English place-name in the United States, first applied as "Chesepiook" by explorers heading north from the Roanoke Colony into a Chesapeake tributary in 1585 or 1586. The name may also refer to the Chesapeake people or the Chesepian, a Native American tribe who inhabited the area now known as South Hampton Roads in the U.S. state of Virginia. They occupied an area that is now the Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach areas. In 2005, Algonquian linguist Blair Rudes "helped to dispel one of the area's most widely held beliefs: that 'Chesapeake' means something like 'great shellfish bay'. It does not, Rudes said. The name might have actually meant something like 'great water', or it might have just referred to a village location at the Bay's mouth."


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary to the North Atlantic, lying between the Delmarva Peninsula to the east and the North American mainland to the west. It is the "ria", or drowned valley, of the Susquehanna River, meaning that it was the alluvial plain where the river flowed when the sea level was lower. It is not a "fjord", because the Laurentide Ice Sheet never reached as far south as the northernmost point on the Bay. North of Baltimore, the western shore borders the hilly Piedmont region of Maryland; south of the city the Bay lies within the state's low-lying coastal plain, with sedimentary cliffs to the west, and flat islands, winding creeks and marshes to the east. The large rivers entering the Bay from the west have broad mouths and are extensions of the main ria for miles up the course of each river.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Bay's geology, its present form, and its very location were created by a bolide impact event at the end of the Eocene (about 35.5 million years ago), forming the Chesapeake Bay impact crater and much later the Susquehanna River valley. The Bay was formed starting about 10,000 years ago when rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age flooded the Susquehanna River valley. Parts of the Bay, especially the Calvert County, Maryland, coastline, are lined by cliffs composed of deposits from receding waters millions of years ago. These cliffs, generally known as Calvert Cliffs, are famous for their fossils, especially fossilized shark teeth, which are commonly found washed up on the beaches next to the cliffs. Scientists' Cliffs is a beach community in Calvert County named for the desire to create a retreat for scientists when the community was founded in 1935.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Much of the Bay is shallow. At the point where the Susquehanna River flows into the Bay, the average depth is , although this soon diminishes to an average of southeast of the city of Havre de Grace, Maryland, to about just north of Annapolis. On average, the depth of the Bay is , including tributaries; over 24 percent of the Bay is less than deep.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Because the Bay is an estuary, it has fresh water, salt water and brackish water. Brackish water has three salinity zones: oligohaline, mesohaline, and polyhaline. The freshwater zone runs from the mouth of the Susquehanna River to north Baltimore. The oligohaline zone has very little salt. Salinity varies from 0.5 ppt (parts per thousand) to 10 ppt, and freshwater species can survive there. The north end of the oligohaline zone is north Baltimore and the south end is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. The mesohaline zone has a medium amount of salt and runs from the Bay Bridge to the mouth of the Rappahannock River. Salinity there ranges from 1.07% to 1.8%. The polyhaline zone is the saltiest zone, and some of the water can be as salty as sea water. It runs from the mouth of the Rappahannock River to the mouth of the Bay. The salinity ranges from 1.87% to 3.6%. (3.6% is as salty as the ocean.)


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The climate of the area surrounding the Bay is primarily humid subtropical, with hot, very humid summers and cold to mild winters. Only the area around the mouth of the Susquehanna River is continental in nature, and the mouth of the Susquehanna River and the Susquehanna flats often freeze in winter. It is rare for the surface of the Bay to freeze in winter, something that happened most recently in the winter of 1976–77.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay is the end point of over 150 rivers and streams. The largest rivers flowing directly into the Bay, in order of discharge, are:


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay is home to numerous fauna that either migrate to the Bay at some point during the year or live there year-round. There are over 300 species of fish and numerous shellfish and crab species. Some of these include the Atlantic menhaden, striped bass, American eel, eastern oyster, Atlantic horseshoe crab, and the blue crab.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Birds include ospreys, great blue herons, bald eagles, and peregrine falcons, the last two of which were threatened by DDT; their numbers plummeted but have risen in recent years. The piping plover is a near threatened species that inhabits the wetlands.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Larger fish such as Atlantic sturgeon, varieties of sharks, and stingrays visit the Chesapeake Bay. The waters of the Chesapeake Bay have been regarded as one of the most important nursery areas for sharks along the east coast. Megafaunas such as bull sharks, tiger sharks, scalloped hammerhead sharks, and basking sharks and manta rays are also known to visit. Smaller species of sharks and stingrays that are known to be regular to occasional residents in the bay include the smooth dogfish, spiny dogfish, cownose ray, and bonnethead.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Bottlenose dolphins are known to live seasonally/yearly in the Bay. There have been unconfirmed sightings of humpback whales in recent years. Endangered North Atlantic right whale and fin, and minke and sei whales have also been sighted within and in the vicinity of the Bay.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: A male manatee visited the Bay several times between 1994 and 2011, even though the area is north of the species' normal range. The manatee, recognizable due to distinct markings on its body, was nicknamed "Chessie" after a legendary sea monster that was allegedly sighted in the Bay during the 20th century. The same manatee has been spotted as far north as Rhode Island, and was the first manatee known to travel so far north. Other manatees are occasionally seen in the Bay and its tributaries, which contain sea grasses that are part of the manatee's diet.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay is also home to a diverse flora, both land and aquatic. Common submerged aquatic vegetation includes eelgrass and widgeon grass. A report in 2011 suggested that information on underwater grasses would be released, because "submerged grasses provide food and habitat for a number of species, adding oxygen to the water and improving water clarity." Other vegetation that makes its home in other parts of the Bay are wild rice, various trees like the red maple, loblolly pine and bald cypress, and spartina grass and phragmites. Invasive plants have taken a significant foothold in the Bay; plants such as Brazilian waterweed, native to South America, have spread to most continents with the help of aquarium owners, who often dump the contents of their aquariums into nearby lakes and streams. It is highly invasive, and has the potential to flourish in the low-salinity tidal waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Dense stands of Brazilian waterweed can restrict water movement, trap sediment and affect water quality. Various local K-12 schools in the Maryland and Virginia region often have programs that cultivate native bay grasses and plant them in the Bay.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay has had a human presence for over 11,500 years. "Paleoindians," or the first humans in the Chesapeake Bay region, lived off the land by hunting game and living off the earth in small nomadic groups. Archeologists have also noted the presence of “foreign” stones in projectile points that came via trade from other parts of North America. For thousands of years, Native American societies lived in villages of wooden longhouses close to water bodies where they fished and farmed the land. Agricultural products included beans, corn, tobacco, and squash. Villages often lasted between 10 and 20 years before being abandoned due to local resources such as firewood running out or soil depleting. To produce enough food, labor was divided with men hunting while the women supervised the village's farming. All village members took part in the harvesting of fish and shellfish from the local bodies of water.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: As time went on, communities around Chesapeake Bay formed confederations such as the Powhatan, the Piscataway, and the Nanticoke. Each of these confederations consisted of a collections of smaller tribes falling under the leadership of a central chief.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano, (1485–1528), in service of the French crown, (famous for sailing through and thereafter naming the entrance to New York Bay as the "Verrazzano Narrows", including now in the 20th century, a suspension bridge also named for him) sailed past the Chesapeake, but did not enter the Bay. Spanish explorer Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón sent an expedition out from Hispaniola in 1525 that reached the mouths of the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. It may have been the first European expedition to explore parts of the Chesapeake Bay, which the Spaniards called "Bahía de Santa María" ("Bay of St. Mary") or "Bahía de Madre de Dios."("Bay of the Mother of God") De Ayllón established a short-lived Spanish mission settlement, San Miguel de Gualdape, in 1526 along the Atlantic coast. Many scholars doubt the assertion that it was as far north as the Chesapeake; most place it in present-day Georgia's Sapelo Island. In 1573, Pedro Menéndez de Márquez, the governor of Spanish Florida, conducted further exploration of the Chesapeake. In 1570, Spanish Jesuits established the short-lived Ajacan Mission on one of the Chesapeake tributaries in present-day Virginia.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The arrival of English colonists under Sir Walter Raleigh and Humphrey Gilbert in the late 16th century to found a colony, later settled at Roanoke Island (off the present-day coast of North Carolina) for the Virginia Company, marked the first time that the English approached the gates to the Chesapeake Bay between the capes of Cape Charles and Cape Henry. Three decades later, in 1607, Europeans again entered the Bay. Captain John Smith of England explored and mapped the Bay between 1607 and 1609, resulting in the publication in 1612 back in the British Isles of ""A Map of Virginia"". Smith wrote in his journal: "Heaven and earth have never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation." The new laying out of the "Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail", the United States' first designated "all-water" National Historic Trail, was created in July 2006, by the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior following the route of Smith's historic 17th-century voyage. Because of economic hardships and civil strife in the "Mother Land", there was a mass migration of southern English Cavaliers and their servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675, to both of the new colonies of the Province of Virginia and the Province of Maryland.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay was the site of the Battle of the Chesapeake (also known as the "Battle of the Capes", Cape Charles and Cape Henry) in 1781, during which the French fleet defeated the Royal Navy in the decisive naval battle of the American Revolutionary War. The British defeat enabled General George Washington and his French allied armies under Comte de Rochambeau to march down from New York and bottle up the rampaging southern British Army of Lord Cornwallis from the North and South Carolinas at the siege of Battle of Yorktown in Yorktown, Virginia. Their marching route from Newport, Rhode Island through Connecticut, New York State, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware to the "Head of Elk" by the Susquehanna River along the shores and also partially sailing down the Bay to Virginia. It is also the subject of a designated National Historic Trail under the National Park Service as the Washington–Rochambeau Revolutionary Route.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Bay would again see conflict during War of 1812. During the year of 1813, from their base on Tangier Island, British naval forces under the command of Admiral George Cockburn raided several towns on the shores of the Chesapeake, treating the Bay as if it were a "British Lake". The Chesapeake Bay Flotilla, a fleet of shallow-draft armed barges under the command of U.S. Navy Commodore Joshua Barney, was assembled to stall British shore raids and attacks. After months of harassment by Barney, the British landed on the west side of the Patuxent at Benedict, Maryland, the Chesapeake Flotilla was scuttled, and the British trekked overland to rout the U.S. Army at Bladensburg and burn the U.S. Capitol in August 1814. A few days later in a "pincer attack", they also sailed up the Potomac River to attack Fort Washington below the National Capital and raided the nearby port town of Alexandria, Virginia.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: There were so-called "Oyster Wars" in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Until the mid-20th century, oyster harvesting rivaled the crab industry among Chesapeake watermen, a dwindling breed whose skipjacks and other workboats were supplanted by recreational craft in the latter part of the century.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: In the 1960s, the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant on the historic Calvert Cliffs in Calvert County on the Western Shore of Maryland began using water from the Bay to cool its reactor.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: The Chesapeake Bay forms a link in the Intracoastal Waterway, of the bays, sounds and inlets between the off-shore barrier islands and the coastal mainland along the Atlantic coast connecting the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (linking the Bay to the north and the Delaware River) with the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal (linking the Bay, to the south, via the Elizabeth River, by the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth to the Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound in North Carolina and further to the Sea Islands of Georgia). A busy shipping channel (dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers since the 1850s) runs the length of the Bay, is an important transit route for large vessels entering or leaving the Port of Baltimore, and further north through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal to the ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia on the Delaware River.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: During the later half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the Bay was plied by passenger steamships and packet boat lines connecting the various cities on it, notably the Baltimore Steam Packet Company ("Old Bay Line").


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: In the later 20th century, a series of road crossings were built. One, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (also known as the Governor William Preston Lane, Jr. Memorial Bridge) between the state capital of Annapolis, Maryland and Matapeake on the Eastern Shore, crossing Kent Island, was constructed 1949–1952. A second, parallel, span was added in 1973. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel, connecting Virginia's Eastern Shore with its mainland (at the metropolitan areas of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake), is approximately long; it has trestle bridges as well as two stretches of tunnels that allow unimpeded shipping; the bridge is supported by four man-made islands. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel was opened for two lanes in 1964 and four lanes in 1999.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Tides in the Chesapeake Bay exhibit an interesting and unique behavior due to the nature of the topography (both horizontal and vertical shape), wind-driven circulation, and how the Bay interacts with oceanic tides. Research into the peculiar behavior of tides both at the northern and southern extents of the Bay began in the late 1970s. One study noted sea level fluctuations at periods of 5 days, driven by sea level changes at the Bay's mouth on the Atlantic coast and local lateral winds, and 2.5 days, caused by resonant oscillations driven by local longitudinal winds, while another study later found that the geometry of the Bay permits for a resonant period of 1.46 days.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: A good example of how the different Chesapeake Bay sites experience different tides can be seen in the tidal predictions published by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (see figure at right).


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: At the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel (CBBT) site, which lies at the southernmost point of the Bay where it meets the Atlantic Ocean near Norfolk, Virginia, and the capes of Charles and Henry, there is a distinct semi-diurnal tide throughout the lunar month, with small amplitude modulations during spring (new/full moon) vs. neap (one/three quarter moon) tidal periods. The main forcing of the CBBT tides are typical, semi-diurnal ocean tides that the East Coast of the United States experiences.


title: Chesapeake Bay

text: Baltimore, in the northern portion of the Bay, experiences a noticeable modulation to form its mixed tidal nature during spring vs. neap tides. Spring tides, when the sun-earth-moon system forms a line, cause the largest tidal amplitudes during lunar monthly tidal variations. In contrast, neap tides, when the sun-earth-moon system forms a right angle, are muted, and in a semi-diurnal tidal system (such as that seen at the CBBT site) this can be seen as a lowest intertidal range.