title: Partial differential equation

text: The nature of this choice varies from PDE to PDE. To understand it for any given equation, "existence and uniqueness theorems" are usually important organizational principles. In many introductory textbooks, the role of existence and uniqueness theorems for ODE can be somewhat opaque; the existence half is usually unnecessary, since one can directly check any proposed solution formula, while the uniqueness half is often only present in the background in order to ensure that a proposed solution formula is as general as possible. By contrast, for PDE, existence and uniqueness theorems are often the only means by which one can navigate through the plethora of different solutions at hand. For this reason, they are also fundamental when carrying out a purely numerical simulation, as one must have an understanding of what data is to be prescribed by the user and what is to be left to the computer to calculate.


title: Partial differential equation

text: To discuss such existence and uniqueness theorems, it is necessary to be precise about the domain of the "unknown function." Otherwise, speaking only in terms such as "a function of two variables," it is impossible to meaningfully formulate the results. That is, the domain of the unknown function must be regarded as part of the structure of the PDE itself.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The following provides two classic examples of such existence and uniqueness theorems. Even though the two PDE in question are so similar, there is a striking difference in behavior: for the first PDE, one has the free prescription of a single function, while for the second PDE, one has the free prescription of two functions.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Even more phenomena are possible. For instance, the following PDE, arising naturally in the field of differential geometry, illustrates an example where there is a simple and completely explicit solution formula, but with the free choice of only three numbers and not even one function.


title: Partial differential equation

text: In contrast to the earlier examples, this PDE is nonlinear, owing to the square roots and the squares. A linear PDE is one such that, if it is homogeneous, the sum of any two solutions is also a solution, and all constant multiples of any solution is also a solution.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Well-posedness refers to a common schematic package of information about a PDE. To say that a PDE is well-posed, one must have:


title: Partial differential equation

text: This is, by the necessity of being applicable to several different PDE, somewhat vague. The requirement of "continuity," in particular, is ambiguous, since there are usually many inequivalent means by which it can be rigorously defined. It is, however, somewhat unusual to study a PDE without specifying a way in which it is well-posed.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The energy method is a mathematical procedure that can be used to verify well-posedness of initial-boundary-value-problems. In the following example the energy method is used to decide where and which boundary conditions should be imposed such that the resulting IBVP is well-posed. Consider the one-dimensional hyperbolic PDE given by


title: Partial differential equation

text: where formula_10 is a constant and formula_11 is an unknown function with initial condition formula_12. Multiplying with formula_13 and integrating over the domain gives


title: Partial differential equation

text: For well-posedness we require that the energy of the solution is non-increasing, i.e. that formula_19, which is achieved by specifying formula_13 at formula_21 if formula_22 and at formula_23 if formula_24. This corresponds to only imposing boundary conditions at the inflow. Note that well-posedness allows for growth in terms of data (initial and boundary) and thus it is sufficient to show that formula_19 holds when all data are set to zero.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The Cauchy–Kowalski theorem for Cauchy initial value problems essentially states that if the terms in a partial differential equation are all made up of analytic functions and a certain transversality condition is satisfied (the hyperplane or more generally hypersurface where the initial data are posed must be noncharacteristic with respect to the partial differential operator), then on certain regions, there necessarily exist solutions which are as well analytic functions. This is a fundamental result in the study of analytic partial differential equations. Surprisingly, the theorem does not hold in the setting of smooth functions; an example discovered by Hans Lewy in 1957 consists of a linear partial differential equation whose coefficients are smooth (i.e., have derivatives of all orders) but not analytic for which no solution exists. So the Cauchy-Kowalevski theorem is necessarily limited in its scope to analytic functions.


title: Partial differential equation

text: In the general situation that is a function of variables, then denotes the first partial derivative relative to the -th input, denotes the second partial derivative relative to the -th and -th inputs, and so on.


title: Partial differential equation

text: In the physics literature, the Laplace operator is often denoted by ; in the mathematics literature, may also denote the Hessian matrix of .


title: Partial differential equation

text: A PDE is called linear if it is linear in the unknown and its derivatives. For example, for a function of and , a second order linear PDE is of the form


title: Partial differential equation

text: where and are functions of the independent variables only. (Often the mixed-partial derivatives and will be equated, but this is not required for the discussion of linearity.)


title: Partial differential equation

text: If the are constants (independent of and ) then the PDE is called linear with constant coefficients. If is zero everywhere then the linear PDE is homogeneous, otherwise it is inhomogeneous. (This is separate from asymptotic homogenization, which studies the effects of high-frequency oscillations in the coefficients upon solutions to PDEs.)


title: Partial differential equation

text: Nearest to linear PDEs are semilinear PDEs, where only the highest order derivatives appear as linear terms, with coefficients that are functions of the independent variables. The lower order derivatives and the unknown function may appear arbitrarily. For example, a general second order semilinear PDE in two variables is


title: Partial differential equation

text: In a quasilinear PDE the highest order derivatives likewise appear only as linear terms, but with coefficients possibly functions of the unknown and lower-order derivatives:


title: Partial differential equation

text: Many of the fundamental PDEs in physics are quasilinear, such as the Einstein equations of general relativity and the Navier–Stokes equations describing fluid motion.


title: Partial differential equation

text: A PDE without any linearity properties is called fully nonlinear, and possesses nonlinearities on one or more of the highest-order derivatives. An example is the Monge–Ampère equation, which arises in differential geometry.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic partial differential equations of order two have been widely studied since the beginning of the twentieth century. However, there are many other important types of PDE, including the Korteweg–de Vries equation. There are also hybrids such as the Euler–Tricomi equation, which vary from elliptic to hyperbolic for different regions of the domain. There are also important extensions of these basic types to higher-order PDE, but such knowledge is more specialized.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The elliptic/parabolic/hyperbolic classification provides a guide to appropriate initial and boundary conditions and to the smoothness of the solutions. Assuming , the general linear second-order PDE in two independent variables has the form


title: Partial differential equation

text: where the coefficients , , ... may depend upon and . If over a region of the -plane, the PDE is second-order in that region. This form is analogous to the equation for a conic section:


title: Partial differential equation

text: More precisely, replacing by , and likewise for other variables (formally this is done by a Fourier transform), converts a constant-coefficient PDE into a polynomial of the same degree, with the terms of the highest degree (a homogeneous polynomial, here a quadratic form) being most significant for the classification.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Just as one classifies conic sections and quadratic forms into parabolic, hyperbolic, and elliptic based on the discriminant , the same can be done for a second-order PDE at a given point. However, the discriminant in a PDE is given by due to the convention of the term being rather than ; formally, the discriminant (of the associated quadratic form) is , with the factor of 4 dropped for simplicity.


title: Partial differential equation

text: If there are independent variables , a general linear partial differential equation of second order has the form


title: Partial differential equation

text: The theory of elliptic, parabolic, and hyperbolic equations have been studied for centuries, largely centered around or based upon the standard examples of the Laplace equation, the heat equation, and the wave equation.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The classification of partial differential equations can be extended to systems of first-order equations, where the unknown is now a vector with components, and the coefficient matrices are by matrices for . The partial differential equation takes the form


title: Partial differential equation

text: where the coefficient matrices and the vector may depend upon and . If a hypersurface is given in the implicit form


title: Partial differential equation

text: where has a non-zero gradient, then is a characteristic surface for the operator at a given point if the characteristic form vanishes:


title: Partial differential equation

text: The geometric interpretation of this condition is as follows: if data for are prescribed on the surface , then it may be possible to determine the normal derivative of on from the differential equation. If the data on and the differential equation determine the normal derivative of on , then is non-characteristic. If the data on and the differential equation "do not" determine the normal derivative of on , then the surface is characteristic, and the differential equation restricts the data on : the differential equation is "internal" to .


title: Partial differential equation

text: Linear PDEs can be reduced to systems of ordinary differential equations by the important technique of separation of variables. This technique rests on a characteristic of solutions to differential equations: if one can find any solution that solves the equation and satisfies the boundary conditions, then it is "the" solution (this also applies to ODEs). We assume as an ansatz that the dependence of a solution on the parameters space and time can be written as a product of terms that each depend on a single parameter, and then see if this can be made to solve the problem.


title: Partial differential equation

text: In the method of separation of variables, one reduces a PDE to a PDE in fewer variables, which is an ordinary differential equation if in one variable – these are in turn easier to solve.


title: Partial differential equation

text: This is possible for simple PDEs, which are called separable partial differential equations, and the domain is generally a rectangle (a product of intervals). Separable PDEs correspond to diagonal matrices – thinking of "the value for fixed " as a coordinate, each coordinate can be understood separately.


title: Partial differential equation

text: In special cases, one can find characteristic curves on which the equation reduces to an ODE – changing coordinates in the domain to straighten these curves allows separation of variables, and is called the method of characteristics.


title: Partial differential equation

text: More generally, one may find characteristic surfaces. For a second order partial differential equation solution, see the Charpit method.


title: Partial differential equation

text: An integral transform may transform the PDE to a simpler one, in particular, a separable PDE. This corresponds to diagonalizing an operator.


title: Partial differential equation

text: An important example of this is Fourier analysis, which diagonalizes the heat equation using the eigenbasis of sinusoidal waves.


title: Partial differential equation

text: If the domain is finite or periodic, an infinite sum of solutions such as a Fourier series is appropriate, but an integral of solutions such as a Fourier integral is generally required for infinite domains. The solution for a point source for the heat equation given above is an example of the use of a Fourier integral.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Often a PDE can be reduced to a simpler form with a known solution by a suitable change of variables. For example, the Black–Scholes equation


title: Partial differential equation

text: Inhomogeneous equations can often be solved (for constant coefficient PDEs, always be solved) by finding the fundamental solution (the solution for a point source), then taking the convolution with the boundary conditions to get the solution.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The superposition principle applies to any linear system, including linear systems of PDEs. A common visualization of this concept is the interaction of two waves in phase being combined to result in a greater amplitude, for example . The same principle can be observed in PDEs where the solutions may be real or complex and additive. If and are solutions of linear PDE in some function space , then with any constants and are also a solution of that PDE in the same function space.


title: Partial differential equation

text: There are no generally applicable methods to solve nonlinear PDEs. Still, existence and uniqueness results (such as the Cauchy–Kowalevski theorem) are often possible, as are proofs of important qualitative and quantitative properties of solutions (getting these results is a major part of analysis). Computational solution to the nonlinear PDEs, the split-step method, exist for specific equations like nonlinear Schrödinger equation.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Nevertheless, some techniques can be used for several types of equations. The -principle is the most powerful method to solve underdetermined equations. The Riquier–Janet theory is an effective method for obtaining information about many analytic overdetermined systems.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The method of characteristics can be used in some very special cases to solve nonlinear partial differential equations.


title: Partial differential equation

text: In some cases, a PDE can be solved via perturbation analysis in which the solution is considered to be a correction to an equation with a known solution. Alternatives are numerical analysis techniques from simple finite difference schemes to the more mature multigrid and finite element methods. Many interesting problems in science and engineering are solved in this way using computers, sometimes high performance supercomputers.


title: Partial differential equation

text: From 1870 Sophus Lie's work put the theory of differential equations on a more satisfactory foundation. He showed that the integration theories of the older mathematicians can, by the introduction of what are now called Lie groups, be referred, to a common source; and that ordinary differential equations which admit the same infinitesimal transformations present comparable difficulties of integration. He also emphasized the subject of transformations of contact.


title: Partial differential equation

text: A general approach to solving PDEs uses the symmetry property of differential equations, the continuous infinitesimal transformations of solutions to solutions (Lie theory). Continuous group theory, Lie algebras and differential geometry are used to understand the structure of linear and nonlinear partial differential equations for generating integrable equations, to find its Lax pairs, recursion operators, Bäcklund transform and finally finding exact analytic solutions to the PDE.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Symmetry methods have been recognized to study differential equations arising in mathematics, physics, engineering, and many other disciplines.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The Adomian decomposition method, the Lyapunov artificial small parameter method, and his homotopy perturbation method are all special cases of the more general homotopy analysis method. These are series expansion methods, and except for the Lyapunov method, are independent of small physical parameters as compared to the well known perturbation theory, thus giving these methods greater flexibility and solution generality.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The three most widely used numerical methods to solve PDEs are the finite element method (FEM), finite volume methods (FVM) and finite difference methods (FDM), as well other kind of methods called Meshfree methods, which were made to solve problems where the aforementioned methods are limited. The FEM has a prominent position among these methods and especially its exceptionally efficient higher-order version hp-FEM. Other hybrid versions of FEM and Meshfree methods include the generalized finite element method (GFEM), extended finite element method (XFEM), spectral finite element method (SFEM), meshfree finite element method, discontinuous Galerkin finite element method (DGFEM), Element-Free Galerkin Method (EFGM), Interpolating Element-Free Galerkin Method (IEFGM), etc.


title: Partial differential equation

text: The finite element method (FEM) (its practical application often known as finite element analysis (FEA)) is a numerical technique for finding approximate solutions of partial differential equations (PDE) as well as of integral equations. The solution approach is based either on eliminating the differential equation completely (steady state problems), or rendering the PDE into an approximating system of ordinary differential equations, which are then numerically integrated using standard techniques such as Euler's method, Runge–Kutta, etc.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Finite-difference methods are numerical methods for approximating the solutions to differential equations using finite difference equations to approximate derivatives.


title: Partial differential equation

text: Similar to the finite difference method or finite element method, values are calculated at discrete places on a meshed geometry. "Finite volume" refers to the small volume surrounding each node point on a mesh. In the finite volume method, surface integrals in a partial differential equation that contain a divergence term are converted to volume integrals, using the divergence theorem. These terms are then evaluated as fluxes at the surfaces of each finite volume. Because the flux entering a given volume is identical to that leaving the adjacent volume, these methods conserve mass by design.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad (Rhinella marina), also known as the giant neotropical toad or marine toad, is a large, terrestrial true toad native to South and mainland Central America, but which has been introduced to various islands throughout Oceania and the Caribbean, as well as Northern Australia. It is a member of the genus "Rhinella", which includes many true toad species found throughout Central and South America, but it was formerly assigned to the genus "Bufo".


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad is an old species. A fossil toad (specimen UCMP 41159) from the La Venta fauna of the late Miocene in Colombia is indistinguishable from modern cane toads from northern South America. It was discovered in a floodplain deposit, which suggests the "R. marina" habitat preferences have long been for open areas. The cane toad is a prolific breeder; females lay single-clump spawns with thousands of eggs. Its reproductive success is partly because of opportunistic feeding: it has a diet, unusual among anurans, of both dead and living matter. Adults average in length; the largest recorded specimen had a snout-vent length of .


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad has poison glands, and the tadpoles are highly toxic to most animals if ingested. Its toxic skin can kill many animals, both wild and domesticated, and cane toads are particularly dangerous to dogs. Because of its voracious appetite, the cane toad has been introduced to many regions of the Pacific and the Caribbean islands as a method of agricultural pest control. The common name of the species is derived from its use against the cane beetle ("Dermolepida albohirtum"), which damages sugar cane. The cane toad is now considered a pest and an invasive species in many of its introduced regions. The 1988 film "" documented the trials and tribulations of the introduction of cane toads in Australia.


title: Cane toad

text: Historically, the cane toads were used to eradicate pests from sugarcane, giving rise to their common name. The cane toad has many other common names, including "giant toad" and "marine toad"; the former refers to its size, and the latter to the binomial name, "R. marina". It was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century work "Systema Naturae" (1758). Linnaeus based the specific epithet "marina" on an illustration by Dutch zoologist Albertus Seba, who mistakenly believed the cane toad to inhabit both terrestrial and marine environments. Other common names include "giant neotropical toad", "Dominican toad", "giant marine toad", and "South American cane toad". In Trinidadian English, they are commonly called "crapaud", the French word for toad.


title: Cane toad

text: The genus "Rhinella" is considered to constitute a distinct genus of its own, thus changing the scientific name of the cane toad. In this case, the specific name "marinus" (masculine) changes to "marina" (feminine) to conform with the rules of gender agreement as set out by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, changing the binomial name from "Bufo marinus" to "Rhinella marina"; the binomial "Rhinella marinus" was subsequently introduced as a synonym through misspelling by Pramuk, Robertson, Sites, and Noonan (2008). Though controversial (with many traditional herpetologists still using "Bufo marinus") the binomial "Rhinella marina" is gaining in acceptance with such bodies as the IUCN, Encyclopaedia of Life, Amphibian Species of the World and increasing numbers of scientific publications adopting its usage.


title: Cane toad

text: Since 2016, cane toad populations native to Mesoamerica and northwestern South America are sometimes considered to be a separate species, "Rhinella horribilis".


title: Cane toad

text: In Australia, the adults may be confused with large native frogs from the genera "Limnodynastes", "Cyclorana", and "Mixophyes". These species can be distinguished from the cane toad by the absence of large parotoid glands behind their eyes and the lack of a ridge between the nostril and the eye. Cane toads have been confused with the giant burrowing frog ("Heleioporus australiacus"), because both are large and warty in appearance; however, the latter can be readily distinguished from the former by its vertical pupils and its silver-grey (as opposed to gold) irises. Juvenile cane toads may be confused with species of the genus "Uperoleia", but their adult colleagues can be distinguished by the lack of bright colouring on the groin and thighs.


title: Cane toad

text: In the United States, the cane toad closely resembles many bufonid species. In particular, it could be confused with the southern toad ("Bufo terrestris"), which can be distinguished by the presence of two bulbs in front of the parotoid glands.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad genome has been sequenced and certain Australian academics believe this will help in understanding how the toad can quickly evolve to adapt to new environments, the workings of its infamous toxin, and hopefully provide new options for halting this species' march across Australia and other places it has spread as an invasive pest.


title: Cane toad

text: Considered the largest species in the Bufonidae, the cane toad is very large; the females are significantly longer than males, reaching a typical length of , with a maximum of . Larger toads tend to be found in areas of lower population density. They have a life expectancy of 10 to 15 years in the wild, and can live considerably longer in captivity, with one specimen reportedly surviving for 35 years.


title: Cane toad

text: The skin of the cane toad is dry and warty. Distinct ridges above the eyes run down the snout. Individual cane toads can be grey, yellowish, red-brown, or olive-brown, with varying patterns. A large parotoid gland lies behind each eye. The ventral surface is cream-coloured and may have blotches in shades of black or brown. The pupils are horizontal and the irises golden. The toes have a fleshy webbing at their base, and the fingers are free of webbing.


title: Cane toad

text: Typically, juvenile cane toads have smooth, dark skin, although some specimens have a red wash. Juveniles lack the adults' large parotoid glands, so they are usually less poisonous. The tadpoles are small and uniformly black, and are bottom-dwellers, tending to form schools. Tadpoles range from in length.


title: Cane toad

text: The common name "marine toad" and the scientific name "Rhinella marina" suggest a link to marine life, but cane toads do not live in the sea. However, laboratory experiments suggest that tadpoles can tolerate salt concentrations equivalent to 15% of seawater (~5.4‰), and recent field observations found living tadpoles and toadlets at salinities of 27.5‰ on Coiba Island, Panama. The cane toad inhabits open grassland and woodland, and has displayed a "distinct preference" for areas modified by humans, such as gardens and drainage ditches. In their native habitats, the toads can be found in subtropical forests, although dense foliage tends to limit their dispersal.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad begins life as an egg, which is laid as part of long strings of jelly in water. A female lays 8,000–25,000 eggs at once and the strings can stretch up to in length. The black eggs are covered by a membrane and their diameter is about . The rate at which an egg grows into a tadpole increases with temperature. Tadpoles typically hatch within 48 hours, but the period can vary from 14 hours to almost a week. This process usually involves thousands of tadpoles—which are small, black, and have short tails—forming into groups. Between 12 and 60 days are needed for the tadpoles to develop into juveniles, with four weeks being typical. Similarly to their adult counterparts, eggs and tadpoles are toxic to many animals.


title: Cane toad

text: When they emerge, toadlets typically are about in length, and grow rapidly. While the rate of growth varies by region, time of year, and gender, an average initial growth rate of per day is seen, followed by an average rate of per day. Growth typically slows once the toads reach sexual maturity. This rapid growth is important for their survival; in the period between metamorphosis and subadulthood, the young toads lose the toxicity that protected them as eggs and tadpoles, but have yet to fully develop the parotoid glands that produce bufotoxin. Only an estimated 0.5% of cane toads reach adulthood, in part because they lack this key defense - but also due to tadpole cannibalism. Although cannibalism does occur in the native population in South America, the rapid evolution occurring in the unnaturally large population in Australia has produced tadpoles 30x more likely to be "interested" in cannibalising their siblings, and 2.6x more likely to actually "do so". They have also evolved to shorten their tadpole phase in response to the presence of older tadpoles. These changes are likely genetic, although no genetic basis has been determined.


title: Cane toad

text: As with rates of growth, the point at which the toads become sexually mature varies across different regions. In New Guinea, sexual maturity is reached by female toads with a snout–vent length between , while toads in Panama achieve maturity when they are between in length. In tropical regions, such as their native habitats, breeding occurs throughout the year, but in subtropical areas, breeding occurs only during warmer periods that coincide with the onset of the wet season.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad is estimated to have a critical thermal maximum of and a minimum of around . The ranges can change due to adaptation to the local environment. Cane toads from some populations can adjust their thermal tolerance within a few hours of encountering low temperatures. The toad is able to rapidly acclimate to the cold using physiological plasticity, though there is also evidence that more northerly populations of cane toads in the United States are better cold-adapted than more southerly populations. These adaptations have allowed the cane toad to establish invasive populations across the world. The toad’s ability to rapidly acclimate to thermal changes suggests that current models may underestimate the potential range of habitats that the toad can populate. The cane toad has a high tolerance to water loss; some can withstand a 52.6% loss of body water, allowing them to survive outside tropical environments.


title: Cane toad

text: Most frogs identify prey by movement, and vision appears to be the primary method by which the cane toad detects prey; however, it can also locate food using its sense of smell. They eat a wide range of material; in addition to the normal prey of small rodents, other small mammals, reptiles, other amphibians, birds, and even bats and a range of invertebrates (such as ants, beetles, earwigs, dragonflies, grasshoppers, true bugs, crustaceans, and gastropods), they also eat plants, dog food, cat food, feces, and household refuse.


title: Cane toad

text: The skin of the adult cane toad is toxic, as well as the enlarged parotoid glands behind the eyes, and other glands across its back. When the toad is threatened, its glands secrete a milky-white fluid known as bufotoxin. Components of bufotoxin are toxic to many animals; even human deaths have been recorded due to the consumption of cane toads. Dogs are especially prone to be poisoned by licking or biting toads. Pets showing excessive drooling, extremely red gums, head-shaking, crying, loss of coordination, and/or convulsions require immediate veterinary attention.


title: Cane toad

text: Bufotenin, one of the chemicals excreted by the cane toad, is classified as a schedule 9 drug under Australian law, alongside heroin and LSD. The effects of bufotenin are thought to be similar to those of mild poisoning; the stimulation, which includes mild hallucinations, lasts less than an hour. As the cane toad excretes bufotenin in small amounts, and other toxins in relatively large quantities, toad licking could result in serious illness or death.


title: Cane toad

text: In addition to releasing toxin, the cane toad is capable of inflating its lungs, puffing up, and lifting its body off the ground to appear taller and larger to a potential predator.


title: Cane toad

text: Since 2011, experimenters in the Kimberley region of Western Australia have used poisonous sausages containing toad meat in an attempt to protect native animals from cane toads' deadly impact. The Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation, along with the University of Sydney, developed these sausage-shaped baits as a tool in order to train native animals not to eat the toads. By blending bits of toad with a nausea-inducing chemical, the baits train the animals to stay away from the amphibians.


title: Cane toad

text: Many species prey on the cane toad and its tadpoles in its native habitat, including the broad-snouted caiman ("Caiman latirostris"), the banded cat-eyed snake ("Leptodeira annulata"), eels (family Anguillidae), various species of killifish, the rock flagtail ("Kuhlia rupestris"), some species of catfish (order Siluriformes), some species of ibis (subfamily Threskiornithinae), and "Paraponera clavata" (bullet ants).


title: Cane toad

text: Predators outside the cane toad's native range include the whistling kite ("Haliastur sphenurus"), the rakali ("Hydromys chrysogaster"), the black rat ("Rattus rattus") and the water monitor ("Varanus salvator"). The tawny frogmouth ("Podargus strigoides") and the Papuan frogmouth ("Podargus papuensis") have been reported as feeding on cane toads; some Australian crows ("Corvus" spp.) have also learned strategies allowing them to feed on cane toads, such as using their beak to flip toads onto their backs.


title: Cane toad

text: Opossums of the genus "Didelphis" likely can eat cane toads with impunity. Meat ants are unaffected by the cane toads' toxins, so are able to kill them. The cane toad's normal response to attack is to stand still and let its toxin kill the attacker, which allows the ants to attack and eat the toad. Saw-shelled turtles have also been seen successfully and safely eating cane toads.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad is native to the Americas, and its range stretches from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas to the central Amazon and southeastern Peru, and some of the continental islands near Venezuela (such as Trinidad and Tobago). This area encompasses both tropical and semiarid environments. The density of the cane toad is significantly lower within its native distribution than in places where it has been introduced. In South America, the density was recorded to be 20 adults per 100 m (109 yd) of shoreline, 1 to 2% of the density in Australia.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad has been introduced to many regions of the world—particularly the Pacific—for the biological control of agricultural pests. These introductions have generally been well documented, and the cane toad may be one of the most studied of any introduced species.


title: Cane toad

text: Before the early 1840s, the cane toad had been introduced into Martinique and Barbados, from French Guiana and Guyana. An introduction to Jamaica was made in 1844 in an attempt to reduce the rat population. Despite its failure to control the rodents, the cane toad was introduced to Puerto Rico in the early 20th century in the hope that it would counter a beetle infestation ravaging the sugarcane plantations. The Puerto Rican scheme was successful and halted the economic damage caused by the beetles, prompting scientists in the 1930s to promote it as an ideal solution to agricultural pests.


title: Cane toad

text: As a result, many countries in the Pacific region emulated the lead of Puerto Rico and introduced the toad in the 1930s. Introduced populations are in Australia, Florida, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Ogasawara, Ishigaki Island and the Daitō Islands of Japan, ,Taiwan Nantou Caotun, most Caribbean islands, Fiji and many other Pacific islands, including Hawaii. Since then, the cane toad has become a pest in many host countries, and poses a serious threat to native animals.


title: Cane toad

text: Following the apparent success of the cane toad in eating the beetles threatening the sugarcane plantations of Puerto Rico, and the fruitful introductions into Hawaii and the Philippines, a strong push was made for the cane toad to be released in Australia to negate the pests ravaging the Queensland cane fields. As a result, 102 toads were collected from Hawaii and brought to Australia. Queensland's sugar scientists released the toad into cane fields in August 1935. After this initial release, the Commonwealth Department of Health decided to ban future introductions until a study was conducted into the feeding habits of the toad. The study was completed in 1936 and the ban lifted, when large-scale releases were undertaken; by March 1937, 62,000 toadlets had been released into the wild. The toads became firmly established in Queensland, increasing exponentially in number and extending their range into the Northern Territory and New South Wales. In 2010, one was found on the far western coast in Broome, Western Australia.


title: Cane toad

text: However, the toad was generally unsuccessful in reducing the targeted grey-backed cane beetles ("Dermolepida albohirtum"), in part because the cane fields provided insufficient shelter for the predators during the day, and in part because the beetles live at the tops of sugar cane—and cane toads are not good climbers. Since its original introduction, the cane toad has had a particularly marked effect on Australian biodiversity. The population of a number of native predatory reptiles has declined, such as the varanid lizards "Varanus mertensi", "V. mitchelli", and "V. panoptes", the land snakes "Pseudechis australis" and "Acanthophis antarcticus", and the crocodile species "Crocodylus johnstoni"; in contrast, the population of the agamid lizard "Amphibolurus gilberti"—known to be a prey item of "V. panoptes"—has increased. Meat ants, however, are able to kill cane toads.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad was introduced to various Caribbean islands to counter a number of pests infesting local crops. While it was able to establish itself on some islands, such as Barbados, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico, other introductions, such as in Cuba before 1900 and in 1946, and on the islands of Dominica and Grand Cayman, were unsuccessful.


title: Cane toad

text: The earliest recorded introductions were to Barbados and Martinique. The Barbados introductions were focused on the biological control of pests damaging the sugarcane crops, and while the toads became abundant, they have done even less to control the pests than in Australia. The toad was introduced to Martinique from French Guiana before 1944 and became established. Today, they reduce the mosquito and mole cricket populations. A third introduction to the region occurred in 1884, when toads appeared in Jamaica, reportedly imported from Barbados to help control the rodent population. While they had no significant effect on the rats, they nevertheless became well established. Other introductions include the release on Antigua—possibly before 1916, although this initial population may have died out by 1934 and been reintroduced at a later date— and Montserrat, which had an introduction before 1879 that led to the establishment of a solid population, which was apparently sufficient to survive the Soufrière Hills volcano eruption in 1995.


title: Cane toad

text: In 1920, the cane toad was introduced into Puerto Rico to control the populations of white grub ("Phyllophaga" spp.), a sugarcane pest. Before this, the pests were manually collected by humans, so the introduction of the toad eliminated labor costs. A second group of toads was imported in 1923, and by 1932, the cane toad was well established. The population of white grubs dramatically decreased, and this was attributed to the cane toad at the annual meeting of the International Sugar Cane Technologists in Puerto Rico. However, there may have been other factors. The six-year period after 1931—when the cane toad was most prolific, and the white grub had a dramatic decline—had the highest-ever rainfall for Puerto Rico. Nevertheless, the cane toad was assumed to have controlled the white grub; this view was reinforced by a "Nature" article titled "Toads save sugar crop", and this led to large-scale introductions throughout many parts of the Pacific.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad has been spotted in Carriacou and Dominica, the latter appearance occurring in spite of the failure of the earlier introductions. On September 8, 2013, the cane toad was also discovered on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad was first introduced deliberately into the Philippines in 1930 as a biological control agent of pests in sugarcane plantations, after the success of the experimental introductions into Puerto Rico. It subsequently became the most ubiquitous amphibian in the islands. It still retains the common name of "bakî" or "kamprag" in the Visayan languages, a corruption of 'American frog', referring to its origins. It is also commonly known as "bullfrog" in Philippine English.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad was introduced into Fiji to combat insects that infested sugarcane plantations. The introduction of the cane toad to the region was first suggested in 1933, following the successes in Puerto Rico and Hawaii. After considering the possible side effects, the national government of Fiji decided to release the toad in 1953, and 67 specimens were subsequently imported from Hawaii. Once the toads were established, a 1963 study concluded, as the toad's diet included both harmful and beneficial invertebrates, it was considered "economically neutral". Today, the cane toad can be found on all major islands in Fiji, although they tend to be smaller than their counterparts in other regions.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad was introduced into New Guinea to control the hawk moth larvae eating sweet potato crops. The first release occurred in 1937 using toads imported from Hawaii, with a second release the same year using specimens from the Australian mainland. Evidence suggests a third release in 1938, consisting of toads being used for human pregnancy tests—many species of toad were found to be effective for this task, and were employed for about 20 years after the discovery was announced in 1948. Initial reports argued the toads were effective in reducing the levels of cutworms and sweet potato yields were thought to be improving. As a result, these first releases were followed by further distributions across much of the region, although their effectiveness on other crops, such as cabbages, has been questioned; when the toads were released at Wau, the cabbages provided insufficient shelter and the toads rapidly left the immediate area for the superior shelter offered by the forest. A similar situation had previously arisen in the Australian cane fields, but this experience was either unknown or ignored in New Guinea. The cane toad has since become abundant in rural and urban areas.


title: Cane toad

text: The cane toad naturally exists in South Texas, but attempts (both deliberate and accidental) have been made to introduce the species to other parts of the country. These include introductions to Florida and to the islands of Hawaii, as well as largely unsuccessful introductions to Louisiana.


title: Cane toad

text: Initial releases into Florida failed. Attempted introductions before 1936 and 1944, intended to control sugarcane pests, were unsuccessful as the toads failed to proliferate. Later attempts failed in the same way. However, the toad gained a foothold in the state after an accidental release by an importer at Miami International Airport in 1957, and deliberate releases by animal dealers in 1963 and 1964 established the toad in other parts of Florida. Today, the cane toad is well established in the state, from the Keys to north of Tampa, and they are gradually extending further northward. In Florida, the toad is a regarded as a threat to native species and pets; so much so, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission recommends residents to kill them.


title: Cane toad

text: Around 150 cane toads were introduced to Oahu in Hawaii in 1932, and the population swelled to 105,517 after 17 months. The toads were sent to the other islands, and more than 100,000 toads were distributed by July 1934; eventually over 600,000 were transported.


title: Cane toad

text: Other than the use as a biological control for pests, the cane toad has been employed in a number of commercial and noncommercial applications. Traditionally, within the toad's natural range in South America, the Embera-Wounaan would "milk" the toads for their toxin, which was then employed as an arrow poison. The toxins may have been used as an entheogen by the Olmec people. The toad has been hunted as a food source in parts of Peru, and eaten after the careful removal of the skin and parotoid glands. When properly prepared, the meat of the toad is considered healthy and as a source of omega-3 fatty acids. More recently, the toad's toxins have been used in a number of new ways: bufotenin has been used in Japan as an aphrodisiac and a hair restorer, and in cardiac surgery in China to lower the heart rates of patients. New research has suggested that the cane toad's poison may have some applications in treating prostate cancer.


title: Cane toad

text: Other modern applications of the cane toad include pregnancy testing, as pets, laboratory research, and the production of leather goods. Pregnancy testing was conducted in the mid-20th century by injecting urine from a woman into a male toad's lymph sacs, and if spermatozoa appeared in the toad's urine, the patient was deemed to be pregnant. The tests using toads were faster than those employing mammals; the toads were easier to raise, and, although the initial 1948 discovery employed "Bufo arenarum" for the tests, it soon became clear that a variety of anuran species were suitable, including the cane toad. As a result, toads were employed in this task for around 20 years. As a laboratory animal, the cane toad has numerous advantages: they are plentiful, and easy and inexpensive to maintain and handle. The use of the cane toad in experiments started in the 1950s, and by the end of the 1960s, large numbers were being collected and exported to high schools and universities. Since then, a number of Australian states have introduced or tightened importation regulations.


title: Cane toad

text: There are several commercial uses for dead cane toads. Cane toad skin is made into leather and novelty items. Stuffed cane toads, posed and accessorised, are merchandised at souvenir shops for tourists. Attempts have been made to produce fertiliser from toad carcasses.


title: Cane toad

text: Cane toads pose a serious threat to native species when introduced to a new ecosystem. Classified as an invasive species in over 20 countries, multiple reports exist of the cane toad moving into a new area to be followed by a decline in the biodiversity in that region. The most documented region of the cane toad's invasion and subsequent effect on native species is Australia, where multiple surveys and observations of the toad's conquest have been completed. The best way to illustrate this effect is through the plight of the northern quoll, as well as Mertens' water monitor, a large lizard native to South and Southeast Asia.


title: Cane toad

text: Two sites were chosen to study the effects of cane toads on the northern quoll, one of which was at Mary River ranger station, which is located in the southern region of Kakadu National Park. The other site was located at the north end of the park. In addition to these two sites, a third site was located at the East Alligator ranger station, and this site was used as a control site, where the cane toads would not interact with the northern quoll population. Monitoring of the quoll population began at the Mary River ranger station using radio tracking in 2002, months before the first cane toads arrived at the site. After the arrival of the cane toads, the population of northern quolls in the Mary River site plummeted between October and December 2002, and by March 2003, the northern quoll appeared to be extinct in this section of the park, as no northern quolls were caught in the trapping trips in the following two months. In contrast, the population of northern quolls in the control site at the East Alligator ranger station remained relatively constant, not showing any symptoms of declining. The evidence from the Kakadu National Park is compelling not only because of the timing of the population of northern quolls plummeting just months after the arrival of the cane toad, but also because in the Mary River region 31% of mortalities within the quoll population were attributed to lethal toxic ingestion, as no signs of disease, parasite infestation, or any other obvious changes at the site were found that could have caused such a rapid decline. The most obvious evidence that supports the hypothesis that the invasion of the cane toads caused the local extinction of the northern quoll is that the closely monitored population of the control group, in the absence of cane toads, showed no signs of decline.


title: Cane toad

text: In the case of Mertens' water monitor, only one region was monitored, but over the course of 18 months. This region is located 70 km south of Darwin, at the Manton Dam Recreation Area. Within the Manton Dam Recreation Area, 14 sites were set up to survey the population of water monitors, measuring abundance and site occupancy at each one. Seven surveys were conducted, each of which ran for 4 weeks and included 16 site visits, where each site was sampled twice per day for 2 consecutive days throughout the 4 weeks. Each site visit occurred between 7:30 and 10:30 am, and 4:00–7:00 pm, when "Varanus mertensi" can be viewed sunbathing on the shore or wrapped around a tree branch close to shore. The whole project lasted from December 2004 to May 2006, and had a total of 194 sightings of "Varanus mertensi" in 1568 site visits. Of the seven surveys, abundance was highest during the second survey, which took place in February 2005, 2 months into the project. Following this measurement, the abundance declined in the next four surveys, before declining sharply after the second to last survey in February 2006. In the final survey taken in May 2006, only two "V. mertensi" lizards were observed. Cane toads were first recorded in the region of study during the second survey during February 2005, also when the water monitor abundance was at its highest over the course of the study. Numbers of the cane toad population stayed low for the next year after introduction, and then skyrocketed to its peak in the last survey during May 2006. When compared, the two populations side by side clearly show that the onset of the cane toads had an immediate negative impact on the monitors, as their population began to drop in February 2005, which was when the first cane toads entered the Manton Dam Recreation Area. At the end of the study, some scattered populations of water monitors remained in the upper sites of the Manton Dam, which suggests that local extinctions occurred at certain shoreline sites within Manton Dam, but a complete extinction of the population did not occur.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: The Hunt () is a 2012 Danish psychological drama film directed by Thomas Vinterberg and starring Mads Mikkelsen. It is set in a small Danish village around Christmas, and follows a man who becomes the target of mass hysteria after being wrongly accused of sexually abusing a child in his kindergarten class.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: The film gained critical acclaim for Mikkelsen's performance and Vinterberg's direction. Many have described it as one of the best psychological drama films of the last few years. It was competed at the 65th Cannes Film Festival, where Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award for his role, and was also screened at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, among other film festivals. It won the 2013 Nordic Council Film Prize and was one of the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the 71st Golden Globe Awards. It was the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 86th Academy Awards and was selected as one of the final five nominees.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: Lucas is a member of a close-knit rural Danish community. He misses his teenage son, Marcus, who mostly lives with his ex-wife, but he gets along well with the young children at the local kindergarten where he has worked since the school at which he taught closed. When Marcus says he wants to live with Lucas and Lucas starts to date Nadja, a co-worker, his fortunes seem to be looking up.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: Klara, who is the daughter of Lucas' best friend, Theo, as well as a pupil at Lucas' kindergarten, has a tendency to wander off on her own when her parents argue, and Lucas occasionally happens upon her when she is alone and helps her out. He accommodates her aversion to stepping on cracks and says she can walk his dog whenever she wants, and, over time, Klara develops a crush on Lucas. When she kisses him on the mouth and gives him a small gift, he gently rebuffs her and she becomes dejected. Using details from a pornographic picture shown to her by a friend of her older brother, Klara makes comments that lead Grethe, the director of the kindergarten, to believe Lucas exposed himself to her. Grethe invites an acquaintance to interview Klara and, after Klara nods in response to the man's leading questions, Grethe, who does not believe that children lie about such things, alerts the authorities and informs the parents of the children who attend the kindergarten. Klara later contradicts her initial story, but the adults see this as stemming from denial of what happened to her.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: Lucas loses his job, his friendship with Theo is destroyed, and he is shunned by the community as a pedophile and outcast. Due to the vague language used and the secrecy around the investigation, he does not know what specifically he is supposed to have done, but he eventually hears he may have been accused of abusing multiple children. The strain of this revelation leads him to break up with Nadja when he thinks she doubts his innocence.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: Marcus runs away from his mother to be with Lucas. After a trip to the grocery store, where he is told that neither he nor his father are welcome anymore, he sees Lucas being arrested by the police. Locked out of the house, Marcus goes to ask Theo for a spare key and ends up fighting with several adults for confronting Klara and asking why she lied about his father. He is taken in by Bruun, one of Lucas' friends, and his family, who believe Lucas is innocent. Bruun tells Marcus that Lucas has a hearing in the morning and he is hopeful the case against Lucas will be dropped, since he has heard that all of the children's accounts of their abuse mention the same details of the basement of Lucas' house, which does not have a basement.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: Lucas is released from custody, but someone kills his dog and throws a stone through his window, so he sends Marcus back to his ex-wife. On Christmas Eve, he gets beaten up and thrown out of the grocery store when he refuses to leave without his food; however, he headbutts the butcher to get his groceries back. At church, he notices Theo and his wife, who saw him limp out of the store bleeding from his head, whispering during the service, so he challenges Theo to look in his eyes for a sign he is lying about his innocence, since Theo had previously stated he can always tell when Lucas is lying. When Theo goes to put Klara to bed that night, she reaffirms that Lucas did not do anything bad to her. He brings Lucas food and alcohol and the two men sit together to talk.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: By the next fall, tensions in the community have lessened, and Lucas's friends greeting him again as before. He and Nadja have gotten back together. Marcus receives his first rifle at a ceremony at Bruun's house. Lucas and Klara reunite, and he carries her in his arms to take her to Theo.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: After the assembled the adult men go hunting on the surrounding estate. When Lucas is by himself, a bullet whizzes past his head. He turns and watches as the shooter, silhouetted against the sun, reloads his rifle and points it for a moment before he flees.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: The film was produced by Zentropa for 20 million Danish kroner. It received co-production support from Sweden's Film i Väst and Zentropa International Sweden. Further support came from the Danish Film Institute, DR, Eurimages, Nordisk Film & TV Fond, the Swedish Film Institute, Sveriges Television, and the MEDIA Programme.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: "The Hunt" premiered on 20 May 2012 at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was the first Danish-language film in the main competition since 1998. Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award at the festival.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: Given its estimated $3.8 million budget, the film was a financial success. Worldwide, it earned more than $16 million, including $7.9 million in Denmark. In the United States, it was shown in 47 theaters and earned $613,308.


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: The film received universal acclaim. It has an approval rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 134 reviews, with an average rating of 7.82/10; the website's critical consensus reads: "Anchored by Mads Mikkelsen's sympathetic performance, "The Hunt" asks difficult questions with the courage to pursue answers head on." On Metacritic, it has a score of 77 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Hunt (2012 film)

text: "The Hunt" was adapted for the stage in 2019 by David Farr, and produced at the Almeida Theatre in London. The production was directed by Rupert Goold and starred Tobias Menzies as Lucas. The production ran between 19 June – 3 August 2019.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The National Fascist Party (, PNF) was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian Fascism and as a reorganization of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 when Fascists took power with the March on Rome until the fall of the Fascist regime in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism. It was succeeded, in the territories under the control of the Italian Social Republic, by the Republican Fascist Party, ultimately dissolved at the end of World War II.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The National Fascist Party was rooted in Italian nationalism and the desire to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay. Italian Fascists claimed that modern Italy was the heir to ancient Rome and its legacy and historically supported the creation of an Italian Empire to provide "spazio vitale" ("living space") for colonization by Italian settlers and to establish control over the Mediterranean Sea. The party also supported social conservative stances.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Fascists promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes. Moreover, the PNF strongly advocated autarky.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism opposed liberalism, but did not seek a reactionary restoration of the pre-French Revolutionary world, which it considered to have been flawed, and not in line with a forward-looking direction on policy. It was opposed to Marxist socialism because of its typical opposition to nationalism, but was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre. It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people alongside a commitment to a modernized Italy, as well as a solid belief that Italy was destined to become the hegemonic power in Europe.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The National Fascist Party along with its successor, the Republican Fascist Party, are the only parties whose re-formation is banned by the Constitution of Italy: "It shall be forbidden to reorganize, under any form whatsoever, the dissolved fascist party."


title: National Fascist Party

text: After World War I (1914–1918), despite the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946) being a full-partner Allied Power against the Central Powers, Italian nationalism claimed Italy was cheated in the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1919), thus the Allies had impeded Italy's progress to becoming a "Great Power". Thenceforth, the PNF successfully exploited that perceived slight to Italian nationalism in presenting Fascism as best suited for governing the country by successfully claiming that democracy, socialism and liberalism were failed systems.


title: National Fascist Party

text: In 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, the Allies compelled the Kingdom of Italy to yield to Yugoslavia the Croatian seaport of Fiume (Rijeka), a mostly Italian city of little nationalist significance, until early 1919. Moreover, elsewhere Italy was then excluded from the wartime secret Treaty of London (1915) it had concorded with the Triple Entente, wherein Italy was to leave the Triple Alliance and join the enemy by declaring war against the German Empire and Austria-Hungary in exchange for territories at war's end, upon which the Kingdom of Italy held claims (see ).


title: National Fascist Party

text: In September 1919, the nationalist response of outraged war hero Gabriele D'Annunzio was declaring the establishment of the Italian Regency of Carnaro. To his independent Italian state, he installed himself as the Regent (Leader) and promulgated the ("Charter of Carnaro", 8 September 1920), a politically syncretic constitutional amalgamation of right-wing and left-wing politics – anarchist, proto-fascist and democratic republican ideas – which much influenced the politico-philosophic development of early Italian fascism. Consequent to the Treaty of Rapallo (1920), the metropolitan Italian military deposed the Regency of D'Annunzio on Christmas 1920. In the development of the fascist model of government, D'Annunzio was a nationalist and not a fascist, whose legacy of political–praxis ("Politics as Theatre") was stylistic (ceremony, uniform, harangue and chanting) and not substantive, which Italian fascism artfully developed as a government model.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Founded in Rome during the Third Fascist Congress on 7–10 November 1921, the National Fascist Party marked the transformation of the paramilitary into a more coherent political group (the had been founded by Mussolini in Milan's Piazza San Sepolcro on 23 March 1919).


title: National Fascist Party

text: The Fascist Party was instrumental in directing and popularizing support for Mussolini's ideology. In the early years, groups within the PNF called Blackshirts () built a base of power by violently attacking socialists and their institutions in the rural Po Valley, thereby gaining the support of landowners. Compared to its predecessor, the PNF abandoned republicanism to turn decisively towards the right-wing of the political spectrum.


title: National Fascist Party

text: On 28 October 1922, Mussolini attempted a "coup d'état", titled the March on Rome by Fascist propaganda, in which almost 30,000 fascists took part. The "quadrumvirs" leading the Fascist Party, General Emilio De Bono, Italo Balbo (one of the most famous "ras"), Michele Bianchi and Cesare Maria de Vecchi, organized the March while the stayed behind for most of the march, though he allowed pictures to be taken of him marching along with the Fascist marchers. Generals Gustavo Fara and Sante Ceccherini assisted to the preparations of the March of 18 October. Other organizers of the march included the Marquis Dino Perrone Compagni and Ulisse Igliori.


title: National Fascist Party

text: On 24 October 1922, Mussolini declared before 60,000 people at the Fascist Congress in Naples: "Our program is simple: we want to rule Italy". Meanwhile, the Blackshirts, who had occupied the Po plain, took all strategic points of the country. On 26 October, former prime minister Antonio Salandra warned current prime minister Luigi Facta that Mussolini was demanding his resignation and that he was preparing to march on Rome. However, Facta did not believe Salandra and thought that Mussolini would govern quietly at his side. To meet the threat posed by the bands of fascist troops now gathering outside Rome, Facta (who had resigned but continued to hold power) ordered a state of siege for Rome. Having had previous conversations with the king about the repression of fascist violence, he was sure the king would agree. However, King Victor Emmanuel III refused to sign the military order. On 28 October, the King handed power to Mussolini, who was supported by the military, the business class, the right-wing part of population.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The march itself was composed of fewer than 30,000 men, but the King in part feared a civil war since the had already taken control of the Po plain and most of the country, while fascism was no longer seen as a threat to the establishment. Mussolini was asked to form his cabinet on 29 October 1922, while some 25,000 Blackshirts were parading in Rome. Mussolini thus legally reached power in accordance with the Statuto Albertino, the Italian Constitution. The March on Rome was not the conquest of power which fascism later celebrated, but rather the precipitating force behind a transfer of power within the framework of the constitution. This transition was made possible by the surrender of public authorities in the face of fascist intimidation. Many business and financial leaders believed it would be possible to manipulate Mussolini, whose early speeches and policies emphasized free market and "laissez-faire" economics. This proved overly optimistic, as Mussolini's corporatist view stressed total state power over businesses as much as over individuals, via governing industry bodies ("corporations") controlled by the Fascist party, a model in which businesses retained the responsibilities of property, but few if any of the freedoms.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Even though the coup failed in giving power directly to the Fascist Party, it nonetheless resulted in a parallel agreement between Mussolini and King Victor Emmanuel III that made Mussolini the head of the Italian government. On 15 December, the Grand Council of Fascism was founded and it was the supreme organ of the PNF.


title: National Fascist Party

text: After a drastic modification of electoral legislation (the Acerbo Law), the Fascist Party clearly won the highly controversial elections of April 1924. In early 1925, Mussolini dropped all pretense of democracy and set up a total dictatorship. From that point onward, the PNF was effectively the only legally permitted party in the country. This status was formalized by a law passed in 1928 and Italy remained a one-party state until the end of the Fascist regime in 1943. The new laws were strongly criticized by the leader of the Socialist Party Giacomo Matteotti during his speech in Parliament and a few days later Matteotti was kidnapped and killed by fascist blackshirts.


title: National Fascist Party

text: After taking sole power, the Fascist regime began to impose the Fascist ideology and its symbolism throughout the country. Party membership in the PNF became necessary to seek employment or gain government assistance. The fasces adorned public buildings, Fascist mottos and symbols were displayed in art and a personality cult was created around Mussolini as the nation's saviour called ""Il Duce"", "The Leader". The Italian parliament was replaced in duties by the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations, solely filled with Fascist Party members. The PNF promoted Italian imperialism in Africa and staunchly promoted racial segregation and white supremacy of Italian settlers in the colonies.


title: National Fascist Party

text: In 1930 came the Youth Fasces of Combat. The 1930s were characterized by the secretary Achille Starace, "faithful" to Mussolini and one of the few fascist secretaries from Southern Italy, who launched a campaign of Fascism in the country made up of a wave of ceremonies and rallies and the creation of organizations which aimed to frame the country and the citizen in all its manifestations (both public and private). In order to regiment youth movements, Starace brought the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB) under the direct control of the PNF and the Youth Fasces that were dissolved and merged into the new Gioventù Italiana del Littorio (GIL).


title: National Fascist Party

text: On 27 May 1933, party membership was declared a basic requirement for public office. On 9 March 1937, it became mandatory if one wanted access to any public office and from 3 June 1938 those who did not join the party could not work. In 1939, Ettore Muti replaced Starace at the helm of the party, a fact that testifies to the increasing influence of Galeazzo Ciano, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and son-in-law of Mussolini.


title: National Fascist Party

text: On 10 June 1940, from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia Mussolini announced the entry of Italy into World War II on the side of Hitler's Germany.


title: National Fascist Party

text: On 25 July 1943, following a request from Dino Grandi due to the failure of the war the Grand Council of Fascism overthrew Mussolini by asking the King to resume his full authority in officially removing Mussolini as prime minister, which he did. Mussolini was imprisoned, but the Fascists immediately collapsed and the party was officially banned by Pietro Badoglio's government on 27 July.


title: National Fascist Party

text: After the Nazi-engineered Gran Sasso raid liberated Mussolini in September, the PNF was revived as the Republican Fascist Party ("Partito Fascista Repubblicano" – PFR; September 13), as the single party of the Northern and Nazi-protected Italian Social Republic (the Salò Republic). Its secretary was Alessandro Pavolini. The PRF did not outlast Mussolini's execution and the disappearance of the Salò state in April 1945.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism was rooted in Italian nationalism and Georges Sorel’s revolutionary syndicalism that eventually evolved into national syndicalism in Italy. Most Italian revolutionary syndicalist leaders were not only “founders of the Fascist movement”, but later held key positions in Mussolini's administration. They sought to restore and expand Italian territories, which Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength and to avoid succumbing to decay. Italian Fascists claimed that modern Italy is the heir to ancient Rome and its legacy and historically supported the creation of an Italian Empire to provide "spazio vitale" ("living space") for colonization by Italian settlers and to establish control over the Mediterranean Sea.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates are linked together in associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. This economic system intended to resolve class conflict through collaboration between the classes.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism opposed liberalism, but rather than seeking a reactionary restoration of the pre-French Revolutionary world, which it considered to have been flawed as it had a forward-looking direction. It was opposed to Marxist socialism because of its typical opposition to nationalism, but was also opposed to the reactionary conservatism developed by Joseph de Maistre. It believed the success of Italian nationalism required respect for tradition and a clear sense of a shared past among the Italian people, alongside a commitment to a modernized Italy.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism is based upon Italian nationalism and in particular seeks to complete what it considers as the incomplete project of "Risorgimento" by incorporating "Italia Irredenta" ("unredeemed Italy") into the state of Italy. The National Fascist Party founded in 1921 declared that the party was to serve as "a revolutionary militia placed at the service of the nation. It follows a policy based on three principles: order, discipline, hierarchy".


title: National Fascist Party

text: It identifies modern Italy as the heir to the Roman Empire and Italy during the Renaissance and promotes the cultural identity of "Romanitas" ("Roman-ness"). Italian Fascism historically sought to forge a strong Italian Empire as a "Third Rome", identifying ancient Rome as the "First Rome" and Renaissance-era Italy as the "Second Rome". Italian Fascism has emulated ancient Rome and Mussolini in particular emulated ancient Roman leaders, such as Julius Cæsar as a model for the Fascists' rise to power and Augustus as a model for empire-building. Italian Fascism has directly promoted imperialism, such as within the "Doctrine of Fascism" (1932) ghostwritten by Giovanni Gentile on behalf of Mussolini, declared:


title: National Fascist Party

text: Fascism emphasized the need for the restoration of the Mazzinian "Risorgimento" tradition that pursued the unification of Italy, that the Fascists claimed had been left incomplete and abandoned in the Giolittian-era Italy. Fascism sought the incorporation of claimed "unredeemed" territories to Italy.


title: National Fascist Party

text: To the east of Italy, the Fascists claimed that Dalmatia was a land of Italian culture whose Italians, including those of Italianized South Slavic descent, had been driven out of Dalmatia and into exile in Italy and supported the return of Italians of Dalmatian heritage. Mussolini identified Dalmatia as having strong Italian cultural roots for centuries via the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. The Fascists especially focused their claims based on the Venetian cultural heritage of Dalmatia, claiming that Venetian rule had been beneficial for all Dalmatians and had been accepted by the Dalmatian population. The Fascists were outraged after World War I, when the agreement between Italy and the Entente Allies in the Treaty of London of 1915 to have Dalmatia join Italy was revoked in 1919.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The Fascist regime supported annexation of Yugoslavia's region of Slovenia into Italy that already held a portion of the Slovene population, whereby Slovenia would become an Italian province, resulting in a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory and approximately 327,000 out of total population of 1.3 million Slovenes being subjected to forced Italianization.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The Fascist regime supported annexation of Albania, claimed that Albanians were ethnically linked to Italians through links with the prehistoric Italiotes, Illyrian and Roman populations and that the major influence exerted by the Roman and Venetian empires over Albania justified Italy's right to possess it. The Fascist regime also justified the annexation of Albania on the basis that"—"because several hundred thousand people of Albanian descent had been absorbed into society in Southern Italy already"—"the incorporation of Albania was a reasonable measure that would unite people of Albanian descent into one state. The Fascist regime endorsed Albanian irredentism, directed against the predominantly Albanian-populated Kosovo and Epirus – particularly in Chameria inhabited by a substantial number of Albanians. After Italy annexed Albania in 1939, the Fascist regime endorsed assimilating Albanians into Italians and colonizing Albania with Italian settlers from the Italian Peninsula to gradually transform it into an Italian land. The Fascist regime claimed the Ionian Islands as Italian territory on the basis that the islands had belonged to the Venetian Republic from the mid-14th until the 18th century.


title: National Fascist Party

text: To the west of Italy, the Fascists claimed that the territories of Corsica, Nice and Savoy held by France were Italian lands. During the period of Italian unification in 1860 to 1861, Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, who was leading the unification effort, faced opposition from French Emperor Napoleon III who indicated that France would oppose Italian unification unless France was given Nice and Savoy that were held by Piedmont Sardinia, as France did not want a powerful state having control of all the passages of the Alps. As a result, Piedmont-Sardinia was pressured to concede Nice and Savoy to France in exchange for France accepting the unification of Italy. The Fascist regime produced literature on Corsica that presented evidence of the "italianità" of the island. The Fascist regime produced literature on Nice that justified that Nice was an Italian land based on historic, ethnic and linguistic grounds. The Fascists quoted Medieval Italian scholar Petrarch who said: "The border of Italy is the Var; consequently Nice is a part of Italy". The Fascists quoted Italian national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi who said: "Corsica and Nice must not belong to France; there will come the day when an Italy mindful of its true worth will reclaim its provinces now so shamefully languishing under foreign domination". Mussolini initially pursued promoting annexation of Corsica through political and diplomatic means, believing that Corsica could be annexed to Italy through first encouraging the existing autonomist tendencies in Corsica and then independence of Corsica from France, that would be followed by annexation of Corsica into Italy.


title: National Fascist Party

text: To the north of Italy, the Fascist regime in the 1930s had designs on the largely Italian-populated region of Ticino and the Romansch-populated region of Graubünden in Switzerland (the Romansch are a people with a Latin-based language). In November 1938, Mussolini declared to the Grand Fascist Council: "We shall bring our border to the Gotthard Pass". The Fascist regime accused the Swiss government of oppressing the Romansch people in Graubünden. Mussolini argued that Romansch was an Italian dialect and thus Graubünden should be incorporated into Italy. Ticino was also claimed because the region had belonged to the Duchy of Milan from the mid-fourteenth century until 1515. Claim was also raised on the basis that areas now part of Graubünden in the Mesolcina valley and Hinterrhein were held by the Milanese Trivulzio family, who ruled from the Mesocco Castle in the late 15th century. Also during the summer of 1940, Galeazzo Ciano met with Adolf Hitler and Joachim von Ribbentrop and proposed to them the dissection of Switzerland along the central chain of the Western Alps, which would have left Italy also with the canton of Valais in addition to the claims raised earlier.


title: National Fascist Party

text: To the south, the regime claimed the archipelago of Malta, which had been held by the British since 1800. Mussolini claimed that the Maltese language was a dialect of Italian, and theories about Malta being the cradle of the Latin civilization were promoted. Italian had been widely used in Malta in the literary, scientific and legal fields and it was one of Malta's official languages until 1937, when its status was abolished by the British as a response to Italy's invasion of Ethiopia.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian irredentists had claimed that territories on the coast of North Africa were Italy's Fourth Shore and used the historical Roman rule in North Africa as a precedent to justify the incorporation of such territories to Italian jurisdiction as being a "return" of Italy to North Africa. In January 1939, Italy annexed territories in Libya that it considered within Italy's Fourth Shore, with Libya's four coastal provinces of Tripoli, Misurata, Benghazi and Derna becoming an integral part of metropolitan Italy. At the same time, indigenous Libyans were given the ability to apply for "Special Italian Citizenship" which required such people to be literate in the Italian language and confined this type of citizenship to be valid in Libya only.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Tunisia, a French protectorate since 1881, had the highest concentration of Italians in North Africa and its seizure by France had been viewed as an injury to national honour in Italy at what they perceived as a "loss" of Tunisia from Italian plans to incorporate it. Upon entering World War II, Italy declared its intention to seize Tunisia as well as the province of Constantine of Algeria from France.


title: National Fascist Party

text: To the south, the Fascist regime held interest in expanding Italy's African colonial possessions. In the 1920s, Italy regarded Portugal as a weak country that was unbecoming of a colonial power due to its weak hold on its colonies and mismanagement of them and as such Italy desired to annex Portugal's colonies. Italy's relations with Portugal were influenced by the rise to power of the authoritarian conservative nationalist regime of António de Oliveira Salazar, which borrowed fascist methods, though Salazar upheld Portugal's traditional alliance with Britain.


title: National Fascist Party

text: In 1925, the PNF declared that Italy's Fascist state was to be totalitarian. The term "totalitarian" had initially been used as a pejorative accusation by Italy's liberal opposition that denounced the Fascist movement for seeking to create a total dictatorship. However, the Fascists responded by accepting that they were totalitarian, but presented totalitarianism from a positive viewpoint. Mussolini described totalitarianism as seeking to forge an authoritarian national state that would be capable of completing "Risorgimento" of the "Italia Irredenta", forge a powerful modern Italy and create a new kind of citizen – politically active Fascist Italians.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The "Doctrine of Fascism" (1932) described the nature of Italian Fascism's totalitarianism, stating the following:


title: National Fascist Party

text: American journalist H. R. Knickerbocker wrote in 1941: "Mussolini's Fascist state is the least terroristic of the three totalitarian states. The terror is so mild in comparison with the Soviet or Nazi varieties, that it almost fails to qualify as terroristic at all." As example he described an Italian journalist friend who refused to become a Fascist. He was fired from his newspaper and put under 24-hour surveillance, but otherwise not harassed; his employment contract was settled for a lump sum and he was allowed to work for the foreign press. Knickerbocker contrasted his treatment with the inevitable torture and execution under Stalin or Hitler, and stated "you have a fair idea of the comparative mildness of the Italian kind of totalitarianism".


title: National Fascist Party

text: However, since World War II historians have noted that in Italy's colonies Italian Fascism displayed extreme levels of violence. One-tenth of the population of the Italian colony of Libya died during the Fascist era, including from the use of gassings, concentration camps, starvation and disease; in Ethiopia during and after the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, a quarter of a million Ethiopians died.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism promotes a corporatist economic system. The economy involves employer and employee syndicates being linked together in corporative associations to collectively represent the nation's economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers, as it deems these acts prejudicial to the national community as a whole.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The Italian Fascists' political anthem was called "Giovinezza" ("The Youth"). Fascism identifies the physical age period of youth as a critical time for the moral development of people that will affect society.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism pursued what it called "moral hygiene" of youth, particularly regarding sexuality. Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in youth while denouncing what it considered abnormal sexual behaviour. It deemed homosexuality as deviant sexual conduct. The Fascist State also criminalized the dispersion of birth control as well as abortion and created laws that taxed bachelors. Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation before puberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth. Fascist Italy reflected the belief of most Italians that homosexuality was wrong and even went as far as to create punitive laws against homosexuals. Instead of the traditional Catholic teaching that it was a sin, a new approach was taken based on then-modern psychoanalysis that it was a social disease. Fascist Italy pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce prostitution of young women.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Mussolini perceived women's primary role to be childbearers while men were warriors, once saying that "war is to man what maternity is to the woman". In an effort to increase birthrates, the Italian Fascist government gave financial incentives to women who raised large families and initiated policies designed to reduce the number of women employed. Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as "reproducers of the nation" and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to honour women's role within the Italian nation. In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a "major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment" and that for women working was "incompatible with childbearing". Mussolini went on to say that the solution to unemployment for men was the "exodus of women from the work force".


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism believed that the success of Italian nationalism required a clear sense of a shared past amongst the Italian people, along with a commitment to a modernized Italy. In a famous speech in 1926, Mussolini called for Fascist art that was "traditionalist and at the same time modern, that looks to the past and at the same time to the future".


title: National Fascist Party

text: Traditional symbols of Roman civilization were utilized by the Fascists, particularly the fasces that symbolized unity, authority and the exercise of power. Other traditional symbols of ancient Rome used by the Fascists included the she-wolf of Rome. The fasces and the she-wolf symbolized the shared Roman heritage of all the regions that constituted the Italian nation. In 1926, the fasces was adopted by the Fascist government of Italy as a symbol of the state. In that year, the Fascist government attempted to have the Italian national flag redesigned to incorporate the fasces on it. However, this attempt to incorporate the fasces on the flag was stopped by strong opposition to the proposal by Italian monarchists. Afterwards, the Fascist government in public ceremonies rose the national tricolour flag along with a Fascist black flag. However, years later and after Mussolini was forced from power by the King in 1943 only to be rescued by German forces, the Italian Social Republic founded by Mussolini and the Fascists did incorporate the fasces on the state's war flag, which was a variant of the Italian tricolour national flag.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The issue of the rule of monarchy or republic in Italy was an issue that changed several times through the development of Italian Fascism. Initially Italian Fascism was republican and denounced the Savoy monarchy. However, Mussolini tactically abandoned republicanism in 1922 and recognized that the acceptance of the monarchy was a necessary compromise to gain the support of the establishment to challenge the liberal constitutional order that also supported the monarchy. King Victor Emmanuel III had become a popular ruler in the aftermath of Italy's gains after World War I and the army held close loyalty to the King, thus any idea of overthrowing the monarchy was discarded as foolhardy by the Fascists at this point. Importantly, Fascism's recognition of monarchy provided Fascism with a sense of historical continuity and legitimacy. The Fascists publicly identified King Victor Emmanuel II – the first King of a reunited Italy who had initiated the "Risorgimento" – along with other historic Italian figures, such as Gaius Marius, Julius Cæsar, Giuseppe Mazzini, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour, Giuseppe Garibaldi and others, for being within a tradition of dictatorship in Italy that the Fascists declared that they emulated. However, this compromise with the monarchy did not yield a cordial relationship between the King and Mussolini. Although Mussolini had formally accepted the monarchy, he pursued and largely achieved reducing the power of the King to that of a figurehead. The King initially held complete nominal legal authority over the military through the "Statuto Albertino", but this was ended during the Fascist regime when Mussolini created the position of First Marshal of the Empire in 1938, a two-person position of control over the military held by both the King and the head of government, that had the effect of eliminating the King's previously exclusive legal authority over the military by giving Mussolini equal legal authority to the King over the military. In the 1930s, Mussolini became aggravated by the monarchy's continued existence due to envy of the fact that his counterpart in Germany Adolf Hitler was both head of state and head of government of a republic; and Mussolini in private denounced the monarchy and indicated that he had plans to dismantle the monarchy and create a republic with himself as head of state of Italy upon an Italian success in the then-anticipated major war about to erupt in Europe.


title: National Fascist Party

text: After being removed from office and placed under arrest by the King in 1943 and the Kingdom of Italy's new non-fascist government switching sides from the Axis to the Allies, Italian Fascism returned to republicanism and condemnation of the monarchy. On 18 September 1943, Mussolini made his first public address to the Italian people since his rescue from arrest by allied German forces, in which he commended the loyalty of Hitler as an ally while condemning King Victor Emmanuel III of the Kingdom of Italy for betraying Italian Fascism. On the topic of the monarchy removing him from power and dismantling the Fascist regime, Mussolini stated that "[i]t is not the regime that has betrayed the monarchy, it is the monarchy that has betrayed the regime" and that "[w]hen a monarchy fails in its duties, it loses every reason for being...The state we want to establish will be national and social in the highest sense of the word; that is, it will be Fascist, thus returning to our origins". The Fascists at this point did not denounce the House of Savoy in the entirety of its history and credited Victor Emmanuel II for his rejection of "scornfully dishonourable pacts" and denounced Victor Emmanuel III for betraying Victor Emmanuel II by entering a dishonourable pact with the Allies.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The relationship between Italian Fascism and the Catholic Church was mixed, as originally it was highly anti-clerical and hostile to Catholicism, but from the mid to late 1920s anti-clericalism lost ground in the movement as Mussolini in power sought to seek accord with the Church as the Church held major influence in Italian society with most Italians being Catholic. In 1929, the Italian government signed the Lateran Treaty with the Holy See, a concordat between Italy and the Catholic Church that allowed for the creation of a small enclave known as Vatican City as a sovereign state representing the papacy. This ended years of perceived alienation between the Church and the Italian government after Italy annexed the Papal States in 1870. Italian Fascism justified its adoption of antisemitic laws in 1938 by claiming that Italy was fulfilling the Christian religious mandate of the Catholic Church that had been initiated by Pope Innocent III in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, whereby the Pope issued strict regulation of the life of Jews in Christian lands which reduced their status to essentially perpetual slaves, Jews were prohibited from holding any public office that would give them power over Christians and Jews were required to wear distinctive clothing to distinguish them from Christians.


title: National Fascist Party

text: The National Fascist Party model was very influential beyond Italy. In the twenty-one-year interbellum period, many political scientists and philosophers sought ideological inspiration from Italy. Mussolini's establishment of law and order to Italy and its society was praised by Winston Churchill, Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw and Thomas Edison, as the Fascist Government combated organised crime and the Mafia with violence and vendetta (honour).


title: National Fascist Party

text: Italian Fascism was copied by Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, the Russian Fascist Organization, Brit HaBirionim, the British Union of Fascists, the Romanian National Fascist Movement (the National Romanian Fascia and National Italo-Romanian Cultural and Economic Movement), whereas the Dutch fascists were based upon the "Verbond van Actualisten" journal of H. A. Sinclair de Rochemont and Alfred Haighton. The Sammarinese Fascist Party established a government in San Marino with a politico-philosophic basis that was essentially Italian Fascism. In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Milan Stojadinović established his Yugoslav Radical Union, which was based on Fascism. Party members wore green shirts, Šajkača caps and used the Roman salute. Stojadinović also took to calling himself "Vodja". In Switzerland, pro-Nazi Colonel Arthur Fonjallaz of the National Front became an ardent Mussolini admirer after visiting Italy in 1932 and advocated the Italian annexation of Switzerland, whilst receiving Fascist foreign aid. The country was host for two Italian politico-cultural activities: the International Centre for Fascist Studies (CINEF — "Centre International d’ Études Fascistes"), and the 1934 congress of the Action Committee for the Universality of Rome (CAUR — "Comitato d’ Azione della Università de Roma"). In Spain, the writer Ernesto Giménez Caballero, in "Genio de España" ("The Genius of Spain", 1932) called for the Italian annexation of Spain, led by Mussolini presiding an international Latin Roman Catholic empire. He then progressed to be closely associated with Falangism, leading to discarding the Spanish annexation to Italy. In India, Italian Fascism and particularly the Opera Nazionale Balilla, influenced B.S. Moonje and the Hindu Mahasabha. In Brazil, Italian Fascism played a role in inspiring and financing Plínio Salgado's Brazilian Integralist Action.


title: National Fascist Party

text: Although the National Fascist Party was outlawed by the postwar Constitution of Italy, a number of successor neo-fascist parties emerged to carry on its legacy. Historically, the largest neo-fascist party was the Italian Social Movement ("Movimento Sociale Italiano"), whose best result was 8.7% of votes gained in the 1972 general election. The MSI was disbanded in 1995 and was replaced by National Alliance, a conservative party that distanced itself from Fascism (its founder, former foreign minister Gianfranco Fini, declared during an official visit to State of Israel that Fascism was "an absolute evil"). National Alliance and a number of neo-fascist parties were merged in 2009 to create the short-lived People of Freedom party led by then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which eventually disbanded after the defeat in the 2013 general election. By now, many former members of MSI and AN joined Brothers of Italy party led by Giorgia Meloni.


title: Pepperoni

text: Pepperoni is an American variety of spicy salami made from cured pork and beef seasoned with paprika or other chili pepper.


title: Pepperoni

text: Prior to cooking, pepperoni is characteristically soft, slightly smoky, and bright red. Thinly sliced pepperoni is one of the most popular pizza toppings in American pizzerias.


title: Pepperoni

text: The term "pepperoni" is a borrowing of "peperoni", the plural of "peperone", the Italian word for bell pepper. The first use of "pepperoni" to refer to a sausage dates to 1919. In Italian, the word "peperoncino" refers to hot and spicy peppers.


title: Pepperoni

text: Pepperoni, an Italian-American creation, is a cured dry sausage, with similarities to the spicy salamis of southern Italy on which it is based, such as "salsiccia" or "soppressata". The main differences are that pepperoni is less spicy, has a finer grain (akin to spiceless salami from Milan), is usually softer in texture, and is usually produced with the use of an artificial casing.


title: Pepperoni

text: Pepperoni is made from pork or from a mixture of pork and beef. Turkey meat is also commonly used as a substitute, but the use of poultry in pepperoni must be appropriately labeled in the United States.


title: Pepperoni

text: Curing with nitrates or nitrites (usually used in modern curing agents to protect against botulism and other forms of microbiological decay) also contributes to pepperoni's reddish color, by reacting with heme in the myoglobin of the proteinaceous components of the meat.


title: Pepperoni

text: According to "Convenience Store Decisions", Americans consume 251.7 million pounds of pepperoni annually, on 36% of all pizzas produced nationally. Pepperoni has a tendency to curl up from the edges in the heat of a pizza oven. Some pepperoni is produced in thicker slices, so that the edges curl intentionally.


title: Pepperoni

text: Pepperoni is also used as the filling of the pepperoni roll, a popular regional snack in West Virginia and neighboring areas.


title: Pepperoni

text: In the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, deep fried pepperoni served on its own (usually with a honey mustard dipping sauce) is common pub food.


title: Andy Dalton

text: Andrew Gregory Dalton (born October 29, 1987) is an American football quarterback for the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL). Nicknamed "Red Rifle", Dalton previously played for the Cincinnati Bengals, Dallas Cowboys, and Chicago Bears. He played college football at TCU, where he became the school's leader in quarterback wins and won the 2011 Rose Bowl.