title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Many pre-Columbian civilizations were marked by permanent settlements, cities, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, major earthworks, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European colonies (c. late 16th–early 17th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations and oral history. Other civilizations were contemporary with the colonial period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records. Because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as pagan, men like Diego de Landa burned them, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few hidden documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Many Indigenous peoples in the Americas continue traditional practices while evolving and adapting to the modern world.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The alternative terms precontact, precolonial, or prehistoric Americas are also used; in Hispanic America, the usual term is pre-Hispanic; in Brazil, the term used is pre-Cabraline.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Before the development of archaeology in the 19th century, historians of the pre-Columbian period mainly interpreted the records of the European conquerors and the accounts of early European travelers and antiquaries. It was not until the nineteenth century that the work of people such as John Lloyd Stephens, Eduard Seler and Alfred P. Maudslay, and of institutions such as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University, led to the reconsideration and criticism of the early European sources. Now, the scholarly study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific and multidisciplinary methodologies.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The haplogroup most commonly associated with Indigenous genetics is Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA). Researchers have found genetic evidence that the Q1a3a haplogroup has been in South America since at least 18,000 BC.Y-DNA, like mtDNA, differs from other nuclear chromosomes in that the majority of the Y chromosome is unique and does not recombine during meiosis. This has the effect that the historical pattern of mutations can easily be studied. The pattern indicates Indigenous peoples experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes: first with the initial peopling of the Americas and second with European colonization of the Americas. The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous populations.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Human settlement of the Americas occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line, with an initial 20,000-year layover on Beringia for the founding population. The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region. The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q-M242 (Y-DNA) mutations, however, and are distinct from other Indigenous peoples with various mtDNA mutations. This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later populations.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Asian nomadic Paleo-Indians are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge (Beringia), now the Bering Strait, and possibly along the coast. Genetic evidence found in Indigenous peoples' maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. After crossing the land bridge, they moved southward along the Pacific coast and through an interior ice-free corridor. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout the rest of North and South America.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Exactly when the first people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago. However, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the "short chronology theory" with the first movement beyond Alaska into the Americas occurring no earlier than 14,000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the "long chronology theory", which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at a much earlier date, possibly 50,000–40,000 years ago or earlier.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Artifacts have been found in both North and South America which have been dated to 14,000 years ago, and accordingly humans have been proposed to have reached Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America by this time. In that case, the Inuit would have arrived separately and at a much later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago, moving across the ice from Siberia into Alaska.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded during the Lithic stage. It finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago; climatic conditions were then very similar to today's. Within this time frame, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The Paleo-Indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family. These groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon and ancient bison. Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools, including distinctive projectile points and knives, as well as less distinctive butchering and hide-scraping implements.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The vastness of the North American continent, and the variety of its climates, ecology, vegetation, fauna, and landforms, led ancient peoples to coalesce into many distinct linguistic and cultural groups. This is reflected in the oral histories of the indigenous peoples, described by a wide range of traditional creation stories which often say that a given people have been living in a certain territory since the creation of the world.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Over the course of thousands of years, paleo-Indian people domesticated, bred and cultivated a number of plant species, including crops which now constitute 50–60% of worldwide agriculture. In general, Arctic, Subarctic, and coastal peoples continued to live as hunters and gatherers, while agriculture was adopted in more temperate and sheltered regions, permitting a dramatic rise in population.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: After the migration or migrations, it was several thousand years before the first complex societies arose, the earliest emerging about seven to eight thousand years ago. As early as 6500 BCE, people in the Lower Mississippi Valley at the Monte Sano site were building complex earthwork mounds, probably for religious purposes. This is the earliest dated of numerous mound complexes found in present-day Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Since the late twentieth century, archeologists have explored and dated these sites. They have found that they were built by hunter-gatherer societies, whose people occupied the sites on a seasonal basis, and who had not yet developed ceramics. Watson Brake, a large complex of eleven platform mounds, was constructed beginning 3400 BCE and added to over 500 years. This has changed earlier assumptions that complex construction arose only after societies had adopted agriculture, become sedentary, with stratified hierarchy and usually ceramics. These ancient people had organized to build complex mound projects under a different social structure.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Until the accurate dating of Watson Brake and similar sites, the oldest mound complex was thought to be Poverty Point, also located in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Built about 1500 BCE, it is the centerpiece of a culture extending over 100 sites on both sides of the Mississippi. The Poverty Point site has earthworks in the form of six concentric half-circles, divided by radial aisles, together with some mounds. The entire complex is nearly a mile across.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Mound building was continued by succeeding cultures, who built numerous sites in the middle Mississippi and Ohio River valleys as well, adding effigy mounds, conical and ridge mounds and other shapes.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures lasted from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE. The term was coined in the 1930s and refers to prehistoric sites between the Archaic period and the Mississippian cultures. The Adena culture and the ensuing Hopewell tradition during this period built monumental earthwork architecture and established continent-spanning trade and exchange networks.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: This period is considered a developmental stage without any massive changes in a short period, but instead having a continuous development in stone and bone tools, leatherworking, textile manufacture, tool production, cultivation, and shelter construction. Some Woodland peoples continued to use spears and atlatls until the end of the period, when they were replaced by bows and arrows.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Mississippian culture was spread across the Southeast and Midwest from the Atlantic coast to the edge of the plains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Upper Midwest, although most intensively in the area along the Mississippi River and Ohio River. One of the distinguishing features of this culture was the construction of complexes of large earthen mounds and grand plazas, continuing the moundbuilding traditions of earlier cultures. They grew maize and other crops intensively, participated in an extensive trade network and had a complex stratified society. The Mississippians first appeared around 1000 CE, following and developing out of the less agriculturally intensive and less centralized Woodland period. The largest urban site of these people, Cahokia—located near modern East St. Louis, Illinois—may have reached a population of over 20,000. Other chiefdoms were constructed throughout the Southeast, and its trade networks reached to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. At its peak, between the 12th and 13th centuries, Cahokia was the most populous city in North America. (Larger cities did exist in Mesoamerica and South America.) Monk's Mound, the major ceremonial center of Cahokia, remains the largest earthen construction of the prehistoric Americas. The culture reached its peak in about 1200–1400 CE, and in most places, it seems to have been in decline before the arrival of Europeans.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Many Mississippian peoples were encountered by the expedition of Hernando de Soto in the 1540s, mostly with disastrous results for both sides. Unlike the Spanish expeditions in Mesoamerica, who conquered vast empires with relatively few men, the de Soto expedition wandered the American Southeast for four years, becoming more bedraggled, losing more men and equipment, and eventually arriving in Mexico as a fraction of its original size. The local people fared much worse though, as the fatalities of diseases introduced by the expedition devastated the populations and produced much social disruption. By the time Europeans returned a hundred years later, nearly all of the Mississippian groups had vanished, and vast swaths of their territory were virtually uninhabited.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: When the Europeans arrived, Indigenous peoples of North America had a wide range of lifeways from sedentary, agrarian societies to semi-nomadic hunter-gatherer societies. Many formed new tribes or confederations in response to European colonization. These are often classified by cultural regions, loosely based on geography. These can include the following:


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Numerous pre-Columbian societies were sedentary, such as the Pueblo peoples, Mandan, Hidatsa and others, and some established large settlements, even cities, such as Cahokia, in what is now Illinois. The Iroquois League of Nations or "People of the Long House" was a politically advanced, democratic society, which is thought by some historians to have influenced the United States Constitution, with the Senate passing a resolution to this effect in 1988. Other historians have contested this interpretation and believe the impact was minimal, or did not exist, pointing to numerous differences between the two systems and the ample precedents for the constitution in European political thought.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Mesoamerica is the region extending from central Mexico south to the northwestern border of Costa Rica that gave rise to a group of stratified, culturally related agrarian civilizations spanning an approximately 3,000-year period before the visits to the Caribbean by Christopher Columbus. "Mesoamerican" is the adjective generally used to refer to that group of pre-Columbian cultures. This refers to an environmental area occupied by an assortment of ancient cultures that shared religious beliefs, art, architecture, and technology in the Americas for more than three thousand years.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Between 2000 and 300 BCE, complex cultures began to form in Mesoamerica. Some matured into advanced pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations such as the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, Zapotec, Mixtec, Huastec, Purepecha, Toltec, and Mexica/Aztecs. The Mexica civilization is also known as the Aztec Triple Alliance, since they were three smaller kingdoms loosely united together.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: These Indigenous civilizations are credited with many inventions: building pyramid-temples, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, writing, highly accurate calendars, fine arts, intensive agriculture, engineering, an abacus calculator, and complex theology. They also invented the wheel, but it was used solely as a toy. In addition, they used native copper, silver and gold for metalworking.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Archaic inscriptions on rocks and rock walls all over northern Mexico (especially in the state of Nuevo León) demonstrate an early propensity for counting. Their number system was base 20 and included zero. These early count-markings were associated with astronomical events and underscore the influence that astronomical activities had upon Mesoamerican people before the arrival of Europeans. Many of the later Mesoamerican civilizations carefully built their cities and ceremonial centers according to specific astronomical events.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The biggest Mesoamerican cities, such as Teotihuacan, Tenochtitlan, and Cholula, were among the largest in the world. These cities grew as centers of commerce, ideas, ceremonies, and theology, and they radiated influence outwards onto neighboring cultures in central Mexico.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: While many city-states, kingdoms, and empires competed with one another for power and prestige, Mesoamerica can be said to have had five major civilizations: the Olmec, Teotihuacan, the Toltec, the Mexica and the Maya. These civilizations (with the exception of the politically fragmented Maya) extended their reach across Mesoamerica—and beyond—like no others. They consolidated power and distributed influence in matters of trade, art, politics, technology, and theology. Other regional power players made economic and political alliances with these civilizations over the span of 4,000 years. Many made war with them, but almost all peoples found themselves within one of their spheres of influence.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Regional communications in ancient Mesoamerica have been the subject of considerable research. There is evidence of trade routes starting as far north as the Mexico Central Plateau, and going down to the Pacific coast. These trade routes and cultural contacts then went on as far as Central America. These networks operated with various interruptions from pre-Olmec times and up to the Late Classical Period (600–900 CE).


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The earliest known civilization in Mesoamerica is the Olmec. This civilization established the cultural blueprint by which all succeeding indigenous civilizations would follow in Mexico. Pre-Olmec civilization began with the production of pottery in abundance, around 2300 BCE in the Grijalva River delta. Between 1600 and 1500 BCE, the Olmec civilization had begun, with the consolidation of power at their capital, a site today known as San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán near the coast in southeast Veracruz. The Olmec influence extended across Mexico, into Central America, and along the Gulf of Mexico. They transformed many peoples' thinking toward a new way of government, pyramid-temples, writing, astronomy, art, mathematics, economics, and religion. Their achievements paved the way for the Maya civilization and the civilizations in central Mexico.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The decline of the Olmec resulted in a power vacuum in Mexico. Emerging from that vacuum was Teotihuacan, first settled in 300 BCE. By 150 CE, Teotihuacan had risen to become the first true metropolis of what is now called North America. Teotihuacan established a new economic and political order never before seen in Mexico. Its influence stretched across Mexico into Central America, founding new dynasties in the Maya cities of Tikal, Copan, and Kaminaljuyú. Teotihuacan's influence over the Maya civilization cannot be overstated: it transformed political power, artistic depictions, and the nature of economics. Within the city of Teotihuacan was a diverse and cosmopolitan population. Most of the regional ethnicities of Mexico were represented in the city, such as Zapotecs from the Oaxaca region. They lived in apartment communities where they worked their trades and contributed to the city's economic and cultural prowess. Teotihuacan's economic pull impacted areas in northern Mexico as well. It was a city whose monumental architecture reflected a monumental new era in Mexican civilization, declining in political power about 650 CE—but lasting in cultural influence for the better part of a millennium, to around 950 CE.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Initially, the lands that would someday comprise the lands of the powerful Tarascan Empire were inhabited by several independent communities. Around 1300, however, the first Cazonci, Tariacuri, united these communities and built them into one of the most advanced civilizations in Mesoamerica. Their capital at Tzintzuntzan was just one of the many cities—there were ninety more under its control. The Tarascan Empire was among the largest in Central America, so it is no surprise that they routinely came into conflict with the neighboring Aztec Empire.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Out of all the civilizations in its area, the Tarascan Empire was the most prominent in metallurgy, harnessing copper, silver, and gold to create items such as tools, decorations, and even weapons and armor. Bronze was also used. The great victories over the Aztecs by the Tarascans cannot be understated. Nearly every war they fought in resulted in a Tarascan victory. Because the Tarascan Empire had little links to the former Toltec Empire, they were also quite independent in culture from their neighbors. The Aztecs, Tlaxcaltec, Olmec, Mixtec, Maya, and others were very similar to each other, however. This is because they were all directly preceded by the Toltecs, and they therefore shared almost identical cultures. The Tarascans, however, possessed a unique religion, as well as other things.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Contemporary with Teotihuacan's greatness was that of the Maya civilization. The period between 250 CE and 650 CE was a time of intense flourishing of Maya civilized accomplishments. While the many Maya city-states never achieved political unity on the order of the central Mexican civilizations, they exerted a tremendous intellectual influence upon Mexico and Central America. The Maya built some of the most elaborate cities on the continent, and made innovations in mathematics, astronomy, and calendrics. The Maya also developed the only true writing system native to the Americas using pictographs and syllabic elements in the form of texts and codices inscribed on stone, pottery, wood, or perishable books made from bark paper.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: With the decline of the Toltec civilization came political fragmentation in the Valley of Mexico. Into this new political game of contenders to the Toltec throne stepped outsiders: the Mexica. They were also a desert people, one of seven groups who formerly called themselves "Azteca", in memory of Aztlán, but they changed their name after years of migrating. Since they were not from the Valley of Mexico, they were initially seen as crude and unrefined in the ways of Nahua civilization. Through political maneuvers and ferocious martial skill, they managed to rule Mexico as the head of the 'Triple Alliance' which included two other Aztec cities, Tetxcoco and Tlacopan.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Latecomers to Mexico's central plateau, the Mexica thought of themselves, nevertheless, as heirs of the civilizations that had preceded them. For them, arts, sculpture, architecture, engraving, feather-mosaic work, and the calendar, were bequest from the former inhabitants of Tula, the Toltecs.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Mexica-Aztecs were the rulers of much of central Mexico by about 1400 (while Yaquis, Coras and Apaches commanded sizable regions of northern desert), having subjugated most of the other regional states by the 1470s. At their peak, the Valley of Mexico where the Aztec Empire presided, saw a population growth that included nearly 1 million people during the late Aztec period (1350–1519).


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Their capital, Tenochtitlan, is the site of modern-day Mexico City. At its peak, it was one of the largest cities in the world with population estimates of 200,000–300,000. The market established there was the largest ever seen by the conquistadores on arrival.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: By the first millennium, South America's vast rainforests, mountains, plains, and coasts were the home of millions of people. Estimates vary, but 30–50 million are often given and 100 million by some estimates. Some groups formed permanent settlements. Among those groups were Chibcha-speaking peoples ("Muisca" or "Muysca"), Valdivia, Quimbaya, Calima, Marajoara culture and the Tairona. The Muisca of Colombia, postdating the Herrera Period, Valdivia of Ecuador, the Quechuas and the Aymara of Peru and Bolivia were the four most important sedentary Amerindian groups in South America. From the 1970s, numerous geoglyphs have been discovered on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest, Brazil, supporting Spanish accounts of a complex, possibly ancient Amazonian civilization.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The theory of pre-Columbian contact across the South Pacific Ocean between South America and Polynesia has received support from several lines of evidence, although solid confirmation remains elusive. A diffusion by human agents has been put forward to explain the pre-Columbian presence in Oceania of several cultivated plant species native to South America, such as the bottle gourd ("Lagenaria siceraria") or sweet potato ("Ipomoea batatas"). Direct archaeological evidence for such pre-Columbian contacts and transport has not emerged. Similarities noted in names of edible roots in Maori and Ecuadorian languages ("kumari") and Melanesian and Chilean ("gaddu") have been inconclusive.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: A 2007 paper published in "PNAS" put forward DNA and archaeological evidence that domesticated chickens had been introduced into South America via Polynesia by late pre-Columbian times. These findings were challenged by a later study published in the same journal, that cast doubt on the dating calibration used and presented alternative mtDNA analyses that disagreed with a Polynesian genetic origin. The origin and dating remains an open issue. Whether or not early Polynesian–American exchanges occurred, no compelling human-genetic, archaeological, cultural or linguistic legacy of such contact has turned up.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: On the north-central coast of present-day Peru, Norte Chico or Caral (as known in Peru) was a civilization that emerged around 3000 BCE (contemporary with urbanism's rise in Mesopotamia). It had a cluster of large-scale urban settlements of which the Sacred City of Caral, in the Supe valley, is one of the largest and best studied site. The civilization had no knowledge of machinery or pottery but still managed to develop trade, especially cotton and dehydrated fish. It was a hierarchical society that managed its ecosystems and had intercultural exchange. Its economy was heavily dependent on agriculture and fishing on the nearby coast. It is considered one of the cradles of civilization in the world and Caral is the oldest known civilization in the Americas.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Valdivia culture was concentrated on the coast of Ecuador. Their existence was recently discovered by archeological findings. Their culture is among the oldest found in the Americas, spanning from 3500 to 1800 BCE. The Valdivia lived in a community of houses built in a circle or oval around a central plaza. They were sedentary people who lived off farming and fishing, though occasionally they hunted for deer. From the remains that have been found, scholars have determined that Valdivians cultivated maize, kidney beans, squash, cassava, chili peppers, and cotton plants, the last of which was used to make clothing. Valdivian pottery initially was rough and practical, but it became showy, delicate, and big over time. They generally used red and gray colors; and the polished dark red pottery is characteristic of the Valdivia period. In its ceramics and stone works, the Valdivia culture shows a progression from the most simple to much more complicated works.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Cañari were the indigenous natives of today's Ecuadorian provinces of Cañar and Azuay. They were an elaborate civilization with advanced architecture and complex religious beliefs. The Inca destroyed and burned most of their remains. The Cañari's old city was replaced twice, first by the Incan city of Tumebamba and later on the same site by the colonial city of Cuenca. The city was also believed to be the site of El Dorado, the city of gold from the mythology of Colombia.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Cañari were most notable for having repelled the Incan invasion with fierce resistance for many years until they fell to Tupac Yupanqui. Many of their descendants are still present in Cañar. The majority did not mix with the colonists or become Mestizos.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Chavín, a Peruvian preliterate civilization, established a trade network and developed agriculture by 900 BCE, according to some estimates and archeological finds. Artifacts were found at a site called Chavín in modern Peru at an elevation of . The Chavín civilization spanned from 900 to 300 BCE.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Chibcha-speaking communities were the most numerous, the most territorially extended and the most socio-economically developed of the pre-Hispanic Colombians. By the 8th century, the indigenous people had established their civilization in the northern Andes. At one point, the Chibchas occupied part of what is now Panama, and the high plains of the Eastern Sierra of Colombia.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The areas which they occupied in Colombia were the present-day Departments of Santander (North and South), Boyacá and Cundinamarca. This is where the first farms and industries were developed. It is also where the independence movement originated. They are currently the richest areas in Colombia. The Chibcha developed the most populous zone between the Maya region and the Inca Empire. Next to the Quechua of Peru and the Aymara in Bolivia, the Chibcha of the eastern and north-eastern Highlands of Colombia developed the most notable culture among the sedentary Indigenous peoples in South America.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: In the Colombian Andes, the Chibcha comprised several tribes who spoke similar languages (Chibcha). They included the following: the Muisca, Guane, Lache, Cofán, and Chitareros.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Moche thrived on the north coast of Peru from about 100 to 800 CE. The heritage of the Moche is seen in their elaborate burials. Some were recently excavated by UCLA's Christopher B. Donnan in association with the National Geographic Society.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: As skilled artisans, the Moche were a technologically advanced people. They traded with distant peoples such as the Maya. What has been learned about the Moche is based on study of their ceramic pottery; the carvings reveal details of their daily lives. The Larco Museum of Lima, Peru, has an extensive collection of such ceramics. They show that the people practiced human sacrifice, had blood-drinking rituals, and that their religion incorporated non-procreative sexual practices (such as fellatio).


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: The Tiwanaku empire was based in western Bolivia and extended into present-day Peru and Chile from 300 to 1000. Tiwanaku is recognized by Andean scholars as one of the most important South American civilizations prior to the birth of the Inca Empire in Peru; it was the ritual and administrative capital of a major state power for approximately five hundred years. The ruins of the ancient city state are near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca in Tiwanaku Municipality, Ingavi Province, La Paz Department, about west of La Paz.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Holding their capital at the great cougar-shaped city of Cusco, Peru, the Inca civilization dominated the Andes region from 1438 to 1533. Known as "Tawantinsuyu", or "the land of the four regions", in Quechua, the Inca civilization was highly distinct and developed. Inca rule extended to nearly a hundred linguistic or ethnic communities, some 9 to 14 million people connected by a 40,000 kilometer road system. Cities were built with precise stonework, constructed over many levels of mountain terrain. Terrace farming was a useful form of agriculture. There is evidence of excellent metalwork and even successful brain surgery in Inca civilization.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Also known as the Omagua, Umana and Kambeba, the Cambeba are an indigenous people in Brazil's Amazon basin. The Cambeba were a populous, organized society in the late Pre-Columbian era whose population suffered steep decline in the early years of the Columbian Exchange. The Spanish explorer Francisco de Orellana traversed the Amazon River during the 16th century and reported densely populated regions running hundreds of kilometers along the river. These populations left no lasting monuments, possibly because they used local wood as their construction material as stone was not locally available. While it is possible Orellana may have exaggerated the level of development among the Amazonians, their semi-nomadic descendants have the odd distinction among tribal indigenous societies of a hereditary, yet landless, aristocracy. Archaeological evidence has revealed the continued presence of semi-domesticated orchards, as well as vast areas of land enriched with terra preta. Both of these discoveries, along with Cambeba ceramics discovered within the same archaeological levels suggest that a large and organized civilization existed in the area.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Early inhabitants of the Americas developed agriculture, developing and breeding maize (corn) from ears in length to the current size that are familiar today. Potatoes, tomatoes, tomatillos (a husked green tomato), pumpkins, chili peppers, squash, beans, pineapple, sweet potatoes, the grains quinoa and amaranth, cocoa beans, vanilla, onion, peanuts, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, papaya, and avocados were among other plants grown by natives. Over two-thirds of all types of food crops grown worldwide are native to the Americas.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: Early Indigenous peoples began using fire in a widespread manner. Intentional burning of vegetation was taken up to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories, thereby making travel easier and facilitating the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants that were important for both food and medicines. This created the Pre-Columbian savannas of North America.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: While not as widespread as in other areas of the world (Asia, Africa, Europe), indigenous Americans did have livestock. Domesticated turkeys were common in Mesoamerica and in some regions of North America; they were valued for their meat, feathers, and, possibly, eggs. There is documentation of Mesoamericans utilizing hairless dogs, especially the Xoloitzcuintle breed, for their meat. Andean societies had llamas and alpacas for meat and wool, as well as for beasts of burden. Guinea pigs were raised for meat in the Andes. Iguanas and a range of wild animals, such as deer and pecari, were another source of meat in Mexico, Central, and northern South America.


title: Pre-Columbian era

text: By the 15th century, maize had been transmitted from Mexico and was being farmed in the Mississippi embayment, as far as the East Coast of the United States, and as far north as southern Canada. Potatoes were used by the Inca, and chocolate was used by the Aztecs.


title: GEICO

text: The Government Employees Insurance Company (GEICO ) is a private American auto insurance company with headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It is the second largest auto insurer in the United States, after State Farm. GEICO is a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway that provides coverage for more than 24 million motor vehicles owned by more than 15 million policy holders as of 2017. GEICO writes private passenger automobile insurance in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The insurance agency sells policies through local agents, called GEICO Field Representatives, over the phone directly to the consumer via licensed insurance agents, and through their website. Its mascot is a gold dust day gecko with a Cockney accent, voiced by English actor Jake Wood. GEICO is well known in popular culture for its advertising, having made numerous commercials intended to entertain viewers.


title: GEICO

text: Despite the presence of the word "government" in its name, GEICO has always been a private corporation not affiliated with any U.S. government organization. Leo Goodwin Sr. and his wife Lillian Goodwin originally founded the company in 1936 to sell auto insurance to federal government employees.


title: GEICO

text: GEICO also offers property insurance, as well as umbrella coverage which GEICO sells, but the risk on the policies are transferred to third party companies. GEICO manages the policies as the "insurance agent" and has a separate customer care team that handles the property and umbrella policies.


title: GEICO

text: GEICO was founded in 1936 by Leo Goodwin Sr. and his wife Lillian Goodwin to provide auto insurance directly to federal government employees and their families. Since 1925, Goodwin had worked for USAA, an insurer that specialized in insuring only military personnel. He decided to start his own company after rising as far as a civilian could go in USAA's military-dominated hierarchy. The Goodwins funded the creation of GEICO with $25,000 of their own money and $75,000 from Fort Worth, Texas-based banker Cleaves Rhea, with legal assistance from future GEICO CEO Lorimer Davidson. Based on Goodwin's experience at USAA, GEICO's original business model was predicated on the assumption that federal employees, as a group, would constitute a less risky and more financially stable pool of insureds compared to the general public.


title: GEICO

text: In 1937, the Goodwins relocated GEICO from San Antonio, Texas to Washington, D.C. and reincorporated the company as a D.C. corporation after realizing that their business model would work best in the place with the highest concentration of federal employees.


title: GEICO

text: In 1948, the Rhea family sold its 75% stake of GEICO to a coalition of investors, which was led by Benjamin Graham's Graham-Newman Partnership taking 50% (worth $712,000 at the time); this sale accidentally violated a SEC regulation, which forced Graham-Newman to divest a portion of their holdings in 1949, resulting in GEICO becoming a publicly traded company at ~$27/sh. Graham-Newman's investment in GEICO eventually resulted in a position worth $400 million by 1972, which was by far Graham-Newman's best investment and outperformed the rest of their portfolio combined.


title: GEICO

text: In 1951, Warren Buffett, then a Columbia University graduate student under Benjamin Graham, interviewed Lorimer Davidson (then a VP) and named GEICO "The Security I Like Best." From 1948 to 1958, GEICO's market capitalization grew almost 50 times.


title: GEICO

text: In 1958, Goodwin retired and was succeeded by Lorimer Davidson, who grew the company's insurance premiums at a compound rate of 16% annually from $40 million to $250 million over his tenure. Davidson retired and was replaced in 1970 by Ralph Peck (President and COO) and David Lloyd Kreeger (Chairman and CEO), who had been one of the other investors in 1948.


title: GEICO

text: In 1974 under Kreeger's leadership, GEICO began to insure the general public after real-time access to computerized driving records became available throughout the United States. At this time, GEICO was briefly the fifth-largest U.S. auto insurer. By 1975, it was clear that GEICO had expanded far too rapidly (during the 1973–75 recession) when it reported a US$126.5 million loss. Kreeger retired in 1975, although he continued in his role as chairman of the executive committee until 1979 when he was named honorary chairman, and Peck left in 1976 after GEICO's share price had fallen from $42 to $5. To prevent GEICO from collapsing, a consortium of 45 insurance companies agreed to take over a quarter of its policies, and it was forced to issue a stock offering (thus diluting existing stockholders) to raise money to pay claims. It took five years (during which the company shrank significantly) and a massive reorganization (led by John J. Byrne, and supported substantially by Buffett) to set GEICO on the path to recovery. Alvin E. Krause (Retired from GEICO) was given carte blanche by the directors to help bring about a wholesale reorganization of GEICO's underwriting operations—including promotions and dismissals. He helped nurse the insurance firm back to financial health. He was a director of the GEICO Corp. from 1978 to 1983, and was an honorary director at the time of his death. He was chairman of Criterion from 1978 to 1981. Having been with GEICO since 1938.(Washington post Sept 1987, obituary)


title: GEICO

text: GEICO has also offered other types of insurance besides auto, including homeowner's insurance from 1962 to 1996. A sister company, the Government Employees Life Insurance Company (GELICO), offered life insurance from 1975 to 1985. Although GEICO has since focused on its core auto insurance competency (selling GELICO to Legal & General), it uses its established direct sales infrastructure to market homeowner's and other types of insurance underwritten by other companies.


title: GEICO

text: In 1996, after many years as a publicly traded firm, GEICO became a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.


title: GEICO

text: GEICO generally deals directly with consumers via telephone and internet; however, the local agent program has more than 300 independent offices across the United States. GEICO is now the second-largest writer of private auto insurance in the country.


title: GEICO

text: In 2015, GEICO began offering coverage for drivers of ridesharing companies in select states, including in high-population states such as Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Georgia. The policy, which is issued through GEICO's commercial department, has received praise from insurance experts and quickly launched GEICO as the largest insurance provider for ridesharing company drivers.


title: GEICO

text: In 2016, J.D. Power rated the company #20 out of 24 for overall purchase experience, with a 2/5 score.


title: GEICO

text: In April 2021 a data breach was reported to have exposed customers’ driver’s license numbers through GEICO's online sales application for over a month.


title: GEICO

text: GEICO has many well-known ad campaigns. In 2012 GEICO spent over US$1.1 billion in advertising, or 6.8% of its revenue. All campaigns are made and produced by The Martin Agency in Richmond, Virginia. GEICO ads have featured several well-known mascots, including:


title: GEICO

text: There are also GEICO ads that feature stories from GEICO customers about situations in which the company assisted them, but are translated by celebrities like Little Richard and Joan Rivers. Film trailer announcer Don LaFontaine appeared in one such ad, shortly before his death. The tag announcer for these spots was D. C. Douglas. GEICO is also an official sponsor of the National Hockey League and themed commercials that always feature members of the hometown Washington Capitals.


title: GEICO

text: GEICO has long been involved in motorsports sponsorship. Since 2008, the company has sponsored the Germain Racing team, first in the NASCAR Nationwide Series with Mike Wallace, and later in the NASCAR Cup Series with Max Papis and Casey Mears. Ty Dillon, grandson of racing legend Richard Childress, began driving the No. 13 GEICO Chevrolet in the 2017 season. In 2020, GEICO became a premier partner of the Cup Series, sharing title sponsorship rights with Busch Beer, Coca-Cola, and Xfinity. Germain and GEICO split at the end of 2020, but the spring NCS race at Talladega is still sponsored by them.


title: GEICO

text: GEICO also has presence in the PPL (Pro Pulling League) sponsoring Joe Eder and his Super Modified pulling tractor.


title: GEICO

text: In May 2019, the Appellate Court in California awarded a US$1 million bad faith judgement against GEICO.


title: GEICO

text: In December 2016, a federal Miami jury awarded US$2.7 million to a family who sued the company, claiming the company acted in bad faith.


title: GEICO

text: In November 2015, a jury in Miami awarded a family US$14.5 million after suing the company for bad faith.


title: GEICO

text: In October 2015, the Consumer Federation of California successfully sued the company for US$6 million after alleged discrimination based on occupation, education level, and other personal characteristics.


title: GEICO

text: In October 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a verdict against the company for over US$700,000 in a breach of contract suit.


title: GEICO

text: In December 2010, the family of John Potts, a man who was killed in a traffic accident by a GEICO customer, successfully sued the company for US$8.48 million after the company refused to pay an adequate settlement following the crash.


title: GEICO

text: In June 2022, a Missouri woman was awarded US$5.2 million after she sued the company, claiming she contracted an STD through having sex in a car insured by GEICO.


title: Bantu languages

text: The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀) are a large family of languages spoken by the Bantu people of Central, Southern, and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.


title: Bantu languages

text: The total number of Bantu languages ranges in the hundreds, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect", and is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages. For Bantuic, Linguasphere has 260 outer languages (which are equivalent to languages, inner languages being dialects). John McWhorter said, using a comparison of 16 languages from Bangi-Moi, Bangi-Ntamba, Koyo-Mboshi, Likwala-Sangha, Ngondi-Ngiri and Northern Mozambiquean, mostly from Guthrie Zone C, that many varieties are mutually intelligible.


title: Bantu languages

text: The total number of Bantu speakers is in the hundreds of millions, estimated around 350 million in the mid-2010s (roughly 30% of the total population of Africa or roughly 5% of world population). Bantu languages are largely spoken southeast of Cameroon, throughout Central Africa, Southeast Africa and Southern Africa. About one-sixth of Bantu speakers, and about one-third of Bantu languages, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone (c. 60 million speakers as of 2015). See list of Bantu peoples.


title: Bantu languages

text: The Bantu language with the largest total number of speakers is Swahili; however, for the majority of its speakers it is a second language (L1: c. 16 million, L2: 80 million, as of 2015).


title: Bantu languages

text: Other major Bantu languages include Xhosa with 13 million speakers (South Africa and Zimbabwe), Zulu with 12 million speakers and Shona with less than 10 million speakers (if Manyika and Ndau are included); Zimbabwe has Kalanga, Matebele, Nambiya and Xhosa speakers. "Ethnologue" separates the largely mutually intelligible Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, which together have 20 million speakers.


title: Bantu languages

text: The similarity among dispersed Bantu languages had been observed as early as the 17th century. The term "Bantu" as a name for the group was coined (as "Bâ-ntu") by Wilhelm Bleek in 1857 or 1858, and popularised in his "Comparative Grammar" of 1862. He coined the term to represent the word for "people" in loosely reconstructed Proto-Bantu, from the plural noun class prefix "*ba-" categorizing "people", and the root "*ntʊ̀-" "some (entity), any" (e.g. Zulu "umuntu" "person", "abantu" "people").


title: Bantu languages

text: There is no indigenous term for the group, as Bantu-speaking populations refer to themselves by their endonyms, but did not have a concept for the larger ethno-linguistic phylum. Bleek's coinage was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups frequently self-identifying as "people" or "the true people" (as is the case, for example, with the term "Khoikhoi", but this is a "kare" "praise address" and not an ethnic name).


title: Bantu languages

text: The term "narrow Bantu", excluding those languages classified as Bantoid by Guthrie (1948), was introduced in the 1960s.


title: Bantu languages

text: The prefix "ba-" specifically refers to people. Endonymically, the term for cultural objects, including language, is formed with the "ki-" noun class (Nguni "ísi-"), as in KiSwahili (Swahili language and culture), IsiZulu (Zulu language and culture) and KiGanda (Ganda religion and culture).


title: Bantu languages

text: In the 1980s, South African linguists suggested referring to these languages as "KiNtu." The word "kintu" exists in some places, but it means "thing", with no relation to the concept of "language". In addition, delegates at the African Languages Association of Southern Africa conference in 1984 reported that, in some places, the term "Kintu" has a derogatory significance. This is because "kintu" refers to "things" and is used as a dehumanizing term for people who have lost their dignity.


title: Bantu languages

text: In the 1990s, the term "Kintu" was still occasionally used by South African linguists. But in contemporary decolonial South African linguistics, the term "Ntu languages" is used.


title: Bantu languages

text: The Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in Central Africa. An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them. This Bantu expansion came to dominate Sub-Saharan Africa east of Cameroon, an area where Bantu peoples now constitute nearly the entire population. Some other sources estimate the Bantu Expansion started closer to 3000 BC.


title: Bantu languages

text: The technical term Bantu, meaning "human beings" or simply "people", was first used by Wilhelm Bleek (1827–1875), as the concept is reflected in many of the languages of this group. A common characteristic of Bantu languages is that they use words such as "muntu" or "mutu" for "human being" or in simplistic terms "person", and the plural prefix for human nouns starting with "mu-" (class 1) in most languages is "ba-" (class 2), thus giving "bantu" for "people". Bleek, and later Carl Meinhof, pursued extensive studies comparing the grammatical structures of Bantu languages.


title: Bantu languages

text: The most widely used classification is an alphanumeric coding system developed by Malcolm Guthrie in his 1948 classification of the Bantu languages. It is mainly geographic. The term "narrow Bantu" was coined by the "Benue–Congo Working Group" to distinguish Bantu as recognized by Guthrie, from the Bantoid languages not recognized as Bantu by Guthrie.


title: Bantu languages

text: In recent times, the distinctiveness of Narrow Bantu as opposed to the other Southern Bantoid languages has been called into doubt (cf. Piron 1995, Williamson & Blench 2000, Blench 2011), but the term is still widely used.


title: Bantu languages

text: There is no true genealogical classification of the (Narrow) Bantu languages. Until recently most attempted classifications only considered languages that happen to fall within traditional Narrow Bantu, but there seems to be a continuum with the related languages of South Bantoid.


title: Bantu languages

text: At a broader level, the family is commonly split in two depending on the reflexes of proto-Bantu tone patterns: Many Bantuists group together parts of zones A through D (the extent depending on the author) as "Northwest Bantu" or "Forest Bantu", and the remainder as "Central Bantu" or "Savanna Bantu". The two groups have been described as having mirror-image tone systems: where Northwest Bantu has a high tone in a cognate, Central Bantu languages generally have a low tone, and vice versa.


title: Bantu languages

text: Northwest Bantu is more divergent internally than Central Bantu, and perhaps less conservative due to contact with non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages; Central Bantu is likely the innovative line cladistically. Northwest Bantu is clearly not a coherent family, but even for Central Bantu the evidence is lexical, with little evidence that it is a historically valid group.


title: Bantu languages

text: Another attempt at a detailed genetic classification to replace the Guthrie system is the 1999 "Tervuren" proposal of Bastin, Coupez, and Mann. However, it relies on lexicostatistics, which, because of its reliance on overall similarity rather than shared innovations, may predict spurious groups of conservative languages that are not closely related. Meanwhile, "Ethnologue" has added languages to the Guthrie classification which Guthrie overlooked, while removing the Mbam languages (much of zone A), and shifting some languages between groups (much of zones D and E to a new zone J, for example, and part of zone L to K, and part of M to F) in an apparent effort at a semi-genetic, or at least semi-areal, classification. This has been criticized for sowing confusion in one of the few unambiguous ways to distinguish Bantu languages. Nurse & Philippson (2006) evaluate many proposals for low-level groups of Bantu languages, but the result is not a complete portrayal of the family. "Glottolog" has incorporated many of these into their classification.


title: Bantu languages

text: The languages that share Dahl's law may also form a valid group, Northeast Bantu. The infobox at right lists these together with various low-level groups that are fairly uncontroversial, though they continue to be revised. The development of a rigorous genealogical classification of many branches of Niger–Congo, not just Bantu, is hampered by insufficient data.


title: Bantu languages

text: Other computational phylogenetic analyses of Bantu include Currie et al. (2013), Grollemund et al. (2015), Rexova et al. 2006, Holden et al., 2016, and Whiteley et al. 2018.


title: Bantu languages

text: Glottolog (2021) does not consider the older geographic classification by Guthrie relevant for its ongoing classification based on more recent linguistic studies, and Divides Bantu into four main branches (Bantu A-B10-B20-B30, Central-Western Bantu, East Bantu and Mbam-Bube-Jarawan).


title: Bantu languages

text: The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages is the extensive use of affixes (see Sotho grammar and Ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes). Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in European languages. The class is indicated by a prefix that is part of the noun, as well as agreement markers on verb and qualificative roots connected with the noun. Plural is indicated by a change of class, with a resulting change of prefix. All Bantu languages are agglutinative.


title: Bantu languages

text: The verb has a number of prefixes, though in the western languages these are often treated as independent words. In Swahili, for example, "Mtoto mdogo amekisoma" (for comparison, "Kamwana kadoko karikuverenga" in Shona language) means 'The small child has read it [a book]'. "Mtoto" 'child' governs the adjective prefix "m-" (representing the diminutive form of the word) and the verb subject prefix "a-". Then comes perfect tense "-me-" and an object marker "-ki-" agreeing with implicit "kitabu" 'book' (from Arabic "kitab"). Pluralizing to 'children' gives "Watoto wadogo wamekisoma" ("Vana vadoko varikuverenga" in Shona), and pluralizing to 'books' ("vitabu") gives "watoto wadogo wamevisoma".


title: Bantu languages

text: Bantu words are typically made up of open syllables of the type CV (consonant-vowel) with most languages having syllables exclusively of this type. The Bushong language recorded by Vansina, however, has final consonants, while slurring of the final syllable (though written) is reported as common among the Tonga of Malawi. The morphological shape of Bantu words is typically CV, VCV, CVCV, VCVCV, etc.; that is, any combination of CV (with possibly a V- syllable at the start). In other words, a strong claim for this language family is that almost all words end in a vowel, precisely because closed syllables (CVC) are not permissible in most of the documented languages, as far as is understood.


title: Bantu languages

text: This tendency to avoid consonant clusters in some positions is important when words are imported from English or other non-Bantu languages. An example from Chewa: the word "school", borrowed from English, and then transformed to fit the sound patterns of this language, is "sukulu". That is, "sk-" has been broken up by inserting an epenthetic "-u-"; "-u" has also been added at the end of the word. Another example is "buledi" for "bread". Similar effects are seen in loanwords for other non-African CV languages like Japanese. However, a clustering of sounds at the beginning of a syllable can be readily observed in such languages as Shona, and the Makua languages.


title: Bantu languages

text: With few exceptions, such as Kiswahili and Rutooro, Bantu languages are tonal and have two to four register tones.


title: Bantu languages

text: Reduplication is a common morphological phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to indicate frequency or intensity of the action signalled by the (unreduplicated) verb stem.


title: Bantu languages

text: Repetition emphasizes the repeated word in the context that it is used. For instance, "Mwenda pole hajikwai," while, "Pole pole ndio mwendo," has two to emphasize the consistency of slowness of the pace. The meaning of the former in translation is, "He who goes slowly doesn't trip," and that of the latter is, "A slow but steady pace wins the race." Haraka haraka would mean hurrying just for the sake of hurrying, reckless hurry, as in "Njoo! Haraka haraka" [come here! Hurry, hurry].


title: Bantu languages

text: In contrast, there are some words in some of the languages in which reduplication has the opposite meaning. It usually denotes short durations, and or lower intensity of the action and also means a few repetitions or a little bit more.


title: Bantu languages

text: Following is an incomplete list of the principal Bantu languages of each country. Included are those languages that constitute at least 1% of the population and have at least 10% the number of speakers of the largest Bantu language in the country.


title: Bantu languages

text: Most languages are referred to in English without the class prefix ("Swahili", "Tswana", "Ndebele"), but are sometimes seen with the (language-specific) prefix ("Kiswahili", "Setswana", "Sindebele"). In a few cases prefixes are used to distinguish languages with the same root in their name, such as Tshiluba and Kiluba (both "Luba"), Umbundu and Kimbundu (both "Mbundu"). The prefixless form typically does not occur in the language itself, but is the basis for other words based on the ethnicity. So, in the country of Botswana the people are the "Batswana", one person is a "Motswana", and the language is "Setswana"; and in Uganda, centred on the kingdom of "Buganda", the dominant ethnicity are the "Baganda" (singular "Muganda"), whose language is "Luganda".


title: Bantu languages

text: Map 1 shows Bantu languages in Africa and map 2 a magnification of the Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon area, as of July 2017.


title: Bantu languages

text: A case has been made out for borrowings of many place-names and even misremembered rhymes – chiefly from one of the Luba varieties – in the USA.


title: Bantu languages

text: Along with the Latin script and Arabic script orthographies, there are also some modern indigenous writing systems used for Bantu languages:


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The "Oasis" class is a class of 5 Royal Caribbean International cruise ships. The first two ships in the class, and , were delivered respectively in 2009 and 2010 by STX Europe Turku Shipyard, Finland. A third "Oasis"-class vessel, , was delivered in 2016 built by STX France, and a fourth vessel, , was completed in March 2018. As of March 2022, the fifth "Oasis"-class ship, "Wonder of the Seas", is currently in service. A sixth ship, to be named "Utopia of the Seas" has also been ordered by the company. The first two ships in the class, "Oasis of the Seas" and "Allure of the Seas", are slightly exceeded in size by the third ship, "Harmony of the Seas", while "Symphony of the Seas" is the second largest cruise ship in the world. "Wonder of the Seas", which was completed in 2022, is larger than "Symphony of the Seas". As of 2022, all ships of the Oasis class rank as the world's largest passenger ships.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The "Oasis"-class ships surpassed the earlier ships as the world's largest and longest passenger ships. "Oasis of the Seas" is also wider, and with a gross tonnage of 225,282, is around 70,000 tones larger. "Oasis"-class vessels can carry over 5,400 passengers.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: "Oasis"-class ships are split into a number of different themed neighborhoods. Common to all ships are Entertainment Place, Central Park, Boardwalk and Royal Promenade.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: "Oasis"-class ships feature a split structure, with the 5-deck high "Central Park" and "Boardwalk" outdoor areas running down the middle of the ship. These areas feature tropical gardens, restaurants, shops, and a working carousel.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The displacement—the actual mass—is estimated at 100,000 tonnes, equivalent to the displacement of a .


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: To keep the ship stable without increasing the draft excessively, the designers created a wide hull. The cruise ship's officers were pleased with the ship class's stability and performance during the transatlantic crossing when the vessel, in order to allow finishing work to go on, slowed and changed course in the face of winds "almost up to hurricane force" and seas in excess of .


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The ship's power comes from six medium-speed, marine-diesel generating sets: three 16-cylinder Wärtsilä 16V46D common rail engines producing each and three similar 12-cylinder Wärtsilä 12V46D engines producing each. The fuel consumption of the main engines at full power is of fuel oil per engine per hour for the 16-cylinder engines and per engine per hour for the 12-cylinder engines. The total output of these prime movers, some , is converted to electricity, used in hotel power for operation of the lights, elevators, electronics, galleys, water treatment plant, and all of the other systems used on the operation of the vessel, as well as propulsion. Propulsion is provided by three Azipods, ABB's brand of electric azimuth thrusters. These pods, suspended under the stern, contain electric motors driving propellers. Because they are rotatable, no rudders are needed to steer the ship. Docking is assisted by four transverse bow thrusters.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The ship carries 18 lifeboats that hold 370 people each, for a total of 6,660 people. Inflatable life rafts provide for additional passengers and crew.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: There are informally three generations of "Oasis"-class ship. The first generation (2009-2010) consists of "Oasis of the Seas" and "Allure of the Seas". The second generation (2016–18) consists of "Harmony of the Seas" and "Symphony of the Seas". The third generation (2022–24) consists of "Wonder of the Seas" and "Utopia of the Seas".


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The second generation introduced new bars and restaurants from the first-generation "Quantum" class, the Ultimate Abyss dry slide, a new waterpark and an Escape Room. The H2O Zone kids pool was replaced with an upgraded kids facility called Splashaway Bay.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The third generation of ships (described as "Oasis Plus" by some media sources) are marginally bigger, with around 200 additional guests at double occupancy and 100 additional crew. The third-generation includes a refurbished pool deck with a large movie screen and an additional pool on board, though far fewer hot tubs. The adults-only pool area is now enclosed and climate-controlled. It also has a new neighborhood: the Suite Neighborhood. The ship's buffet is located on Deck 15 aft rather than Deck 16 under the funnel and is the largest buffet in RCI's fleet. Other additions include a new playground and new food and drink venues.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: "Oasis of the Seas", the first vessel of the class, was ordered in February 2006 and designed under the name "Project Genesis". Her keel was laid down on 11 December 2007 by STX Europe Turku Shipyard, Finland. The name "Oasis of the Seas" resulted from a competition held in May 2008, and full funding for "Oasis of the Seas" was secured in April 2009. The ship was completed and turned over to Royal Caribbean on 28 October 2009. Two days later, she departed Finland for the United States. While exiting the Baltic Sea, the vessel passed underneath the Great Belt Fixed Link in Denmark on 31 October 2009 at 23:18 UTC. The bridge has a clearance of above the water; "Oasis of the Seas" normally has an air draft of . The passage under the bridge was possible due to retraction of the telescoping funnels, and an additional was gained by the squat effect whereby vessels traveling at speed in a shallow channel will be drawn deeper into the water. Approaching the bridge at , the ship passed under it with less than of clearance. Proceeding through the English Channel, "Oasis of the Seas" stopped briefly in the Solent so that 300 shipyard workers who were on board doing finishing work could disembark, then left on the way to her intended home port of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The ship arrived there on 13 November 2009, where tropical plants were installed prior to some introductory trips and her maiden voyage on 5 December 2009.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: The keel of the second ship, "Allure of the Seas", was laid on 2 December 2008 at the STX Europe Turku shipyard, Finland, during a ceremony involving Royal Caribbean and STX representatives. She was launched on 20 November 2009, with further outfitting taking place while afloat in the shipyard. "Allure of the Seas" was declared complete and formally delivered to Royal Caribbean on 28 October 2010. She left the Turku shipyard on 29 October 2010 at 05:45 UTC, heading directly to her home port of Port Everglades. The ship is equipped with telescoping funnels to pass under bridges such as the Storebælt Bridge, which she passed on 30 October 2010. While media has reported that there was only of clearance, the truth is that at the mean water level it was closer to and the much-advertised squat effect, whereby vessels traveling at speed in a shallow channel will be drawn deeper into the water, did not have significant effect on the draft of the vessel.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: Royal Caribbean confirmed on 25 October 2012 that they were engaged in negotiations to build the third "Oasis"-class ship, which would become "Harmony of the Seas". The ship was officially ordered from STX France on 27 December 2012, after failing to come to an agreement with the Government of Finland for additional financial support to build the ship at the STX Finland shipyard that built the first two ships. Steel cutting began on 23 September 2013, and the ship was delivered in May 2016. The ship is larger than the preceding "Oasis"-class ships at an estimated 227,700 GT, in length, and in maximum width, representing an increase of 2,418 GT and length. The ship has 2,744 passenger staterooms with a capacity of 6,360 passengers (5,488 double occupancy), an increase of 64 passengers over the previous ships in the class, as well as 1,197 crew cabins capable of berthing 2,100 crew. The ship features an expanded adults-only solarium area and three water slides, a first for Royal Caribbean. It cost about €1 billion (US$1.35 billion) and entered service in May 2016.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: In May 2014, Royal Caribbean exercised their option for a fourth "Oasis"-class ship, which would become "Symphony of the Seas" Steel cutting began in February 2015 for the fourth ship, and the name of the ship was announced in March 2017. The ship was delivered in April 2018.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: In May 2016, Royal Caribbean signed an agreement for a fifth "Oasis"-class ship, later named "Wonder of the Seas". Steel cutting began on 24 April 2019, and the keel was laid in October of that year. The ship name was announced on 10 October 2019, and the ship is planned to enter service in the spring of 2022 as the largest ship in the world, initially offering Caribbean sailings from Ft. Lauderdale, FL before repositioning to Europe to offer Western Mediterranean sailings from Barcelona, Spain and Rome, Italy. A hull section was built at Crist at Gdansk and delivered to the yard in November 2019. She was launched on 5 September 2020.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: In February 2019, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. ordered a sixth "Oasis"-class ship. Named "Utopia of the Seas" (the name was announced during the steel cutting ceremony). Steel cutting held in Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard on 5 April 2022, and keel laying held on July 2022.


title: Oasis-class cruise ship

text: Negotiations about a seventh vessel, to be built as B35 to be delivered in 2026, were stopped in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.


title: Kartikeya Gummakonda

text: Kartikeya Gummakonda (born 21 September 1992) is an Indian actor who predominantly works in Telugu films. He made his acting debut in 2017 with "Prematho Mee Karthik" and is noted for his performance in the 2018 romantic action film "RX100".


title: Kartikeya Gummakonda

text: Kartikeya Gummakonda was born and brought up in Hyderabad. His parents own a school in the neighbourhood of Vanasthalipuram. After graduating from National Institute of Technology, Warangal,then he choose to pursue a career in acting.


title: Kartikeya Gummakonda

text: In August 2021, Gummakonda got engaged to his girlfriend Lohitha Reddy whom he met during college days in 2010.


title: Kartikeya Gummakonda

text: Gummakonda made his debut with "Prematho Mee Karthik" (2017), and he starred in a few films, none of which ever got theatrically released. He became noted with "RX 100" (2018) directed by Ajay Bhupathi. The film was a commercial success which earned him recognition. In the consecutive year, he appeared in films such as "Hippi", "Guna 369", "Nani's Gang Leader" and "90ML", with all four releasing in 2019. Gummakonda worked out in order to achieve authenticity in the role of a kickboxer for Hippi. "Guna 369" is about a real incident that took place in Ongole. In a review of the film by "The Times of India", the reviewer wrote that "Karthikeya does his best to pour life into the titular character".


title: Kartikeya Gummakonda

text: Gummakonda made his first appearance as a villain opposite Nani in "Gang Leader". He landed the role after the film's director Vikram Kumar liked his acting in "RX 100", and he received positive reviews for his portrayal of Dev. Despite enjoying the craze, his intent to evolve as a performer was clearly seen in his antagonist role from Nani's Gang Leader. Post the success of it, he's signed to play an interesting lead role in "90ML". In a review of the film by "The Times of India", the reviewer wrote that "Kartikeya gets a role that requires him to dance like a dream and fight like a pro for the most part and he aces it completely." In 2021, he played Basti Balaraju in "Chaavu Kaburu Challaga", a hearse driver who falls in love with a widow. Reviewing his performance, a critic from "The Indian Express" stated: "Kartikeya wins applauds for his depiction of Basthi Balaraju."


title: Kartikeya Gummakonda

text: In 2021, he starred in "Raja Vikramarka" where he plays the role of an NIA officer. Gummakonda played the antagonist in the Ajith-starrer "Valimai", which marks his debut in Tamil cinema.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Along Came a Spider is a 2001 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori. It is the second installment in the "Alex Cross" film series and a sequel to the 1997 film "Kiss the Girls", with Morgan Freeman and Jay O. Sanders reprising their roles as detective Alex Cross and FBI-agent Kyle Craig. The screenplay by Marc Moss was adapted from the 1993 novel of the same title by James Patterson, but many of the key plot elements of the book were eliminated. The film was a box office success, although receiving mixed reviews from critics.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: After Washington, D.C. detective, forensic psychologist and author Alex Cross loses control of a sting operation, resulting in the death of his partner, he retires from the force. He is drawn back to police work when Megan Rose, the daughter of a United States senator, is kidnapped from her exclusive private school by Gary Soneji, a computer science teacher. US Secret Service Special Agent Jezzie Flannigan, held responsible for the breach in security, joins forces with Cross to find the missing girl.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Soneji contacts Cross by phone and alerts him to the fact one of Megan's sneakers is in the detective's mailbox, proving that Soneji is the kidnapper. Cross deduces that the man is obsessed with the 1932 Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. kidnapping and hopes to become as infamous as Bruno Hauptmann by committing a new "Crime of the Century", which might be explored by Cross in one of his true crime books.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Megan's kidnapping proves to be only part of Soneji's real plan: to kidnap Dimitri Starodubov, the son of the Russian president, and guarantee greater infamy for himself.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: After Cross and Flannigan foil his second kidnapping plot, a supposed call from the kidnapper demands that Cross deliver a ransom of $10 million in diamonds. He must follow an intricate maze of calls made to public phone booths scattered throughout the city. Following the ransom directions, Cross ultimately tosses the gems out the window of a rapidly moving Metro train to a figure standing by the tracks.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Soneji later arrives at Flannigan's home and confronts Cross after disabling Flannigan with a taser. As Soneji has not reacted to Cross's verbal comment about receiving the ransom amount (which was incorrect), the detective realizes that the kidnapper is unaware of the ransom demand and delivery. Soneji tries to leave with Flannigan, but Cross kills him.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Cross becomes suspicious and realizes that someone else discovered Soneji long before his plot came to fruition. After searching Flannigan's personal computer, he finds enough evidence to prove that Flannigan and her fellow Secret Service agent Ben Devine used Soneji as a pawn in their own plot to collect a ransom for Megan.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Cross tracks them down to a secluded farmhouse, where Flannigan has murdered Devine and is now intent on killing Megan. He stops her by shooting her in the heart. Cross then takes Megan to her parents.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: One of the primary elements of the book screenwriter Marc Moss eliminated from his script was the fact that Soneji is actually a mild-mannered suburban husband and father suffering from dissociative identity disorder resulting from having been abused as a child. After a lengthy trial for kidnapping and several murders not included in the film, he is found guilty but remanded to a mental institution to serve his sentence. Also missing from the film is a romantic relationship shared by Cross and Jezzie, her trial and eventual execution by lethal injection, and the discovery of Megan (Maggie as she is known in the book), hidden away with a native Bolivian family near the Andes Mountains, two years after her kidnapping.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: A few other minor differences from the original book include: Dimitri (Michael "Shrimpie" Goldberg as referred to in the book) being kidnapped at the same time as Megan (Maggie); Megan's (Maggie's) mother was the more famous of her parents, being a popular actress; when the children are kidnapped they are sprayed with chloroform spray.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Box office receipts totaled US$105,178,561, of which $74,078,174 was from the United States having earned US$16,712,407 in its opening weekend at 2,530 theaters.


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 32% based on reviews from 126 critics. The site's critics consensus was "Derivative and contains too many implausible situations." On Metacritic the film has a score of 42% based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Elvis Mitchell of "The New York Times" called the film an "overplotted, hollow thriller, which crams in so much exposition that characters speak in fetid hunks for what seems like minutes at a time ... But "Spider" couldn't be better served than it is by Mr. Freeman, whose prickly smarts and silken impatience bring believability to a classless, underdeveloped thriller ... Still, he is wasted in this impersonal, almost inept thriller."


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film a mixed 2 out of 4 stars, calling it "loophole-riddled, verging on the nonsensical". He wrote, "I'm wondering, since Dr. Alex Cross is so brilliant, how come he doesn't notice yawning logical holes in the very fabric of the story he's occupying?" Nonetheless, Ebert thought that Freeman's performance was commendable. "Maybe actors should be given Oscars," he wrote, "not for the good films they triumph in, but for the weak films they survive."


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Robert Koehler of "Variety" felt "the very characteristics that have made Cross so appealing, particularly his mind-tickling abilities to assess and outmaneuver his criminal opponents, are reduced here to the most fundamental and predictable level ... As reliable as any actor in Hollywood, Freeman delivers the requisite gravitas, but the bland script curtails any personal touches he might have inserted were his sleuth character unraveling a truly vexing mystery."


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: However, critic Harvey O'Brien weighed in with the sentiment that "Unlike, for example, the overblown kidnap movie "Ransom", "Along Came a Spider" plays down its sensational elements. It favours the procedural aspects of Cross' investigation which, though infected with the usual 'Eureka' factor of brilliant discoveries by the leading man at regular intervals just when it looked like he was stumped, are largely delivered with sincerity. Freeman has such a strong grip on this kind of determined, middle aged, everyman character by now that he can easily take the audience along for the ride. The film itself is otherwise sincere in general, with no real attempt at smarmy black humour or winks to the audience. It draws you in to a (relatively) realistic depiction of a tense situation in which people behave less like action heroes and more like human beings."


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Compuserve's Harvey Karten argued, "Some critics will tell you that despite Lee Tamahori's overplotting of Marc Moss's adaptation of James Patterson's novel, "Along Came a Spider" is one of those thrillers that allow you to check your brains at the door. Not true. Did the journalists all go for popcorn when Detective Alex Cross and Special Agent Jezzie Flannigan (nice spelling) engaged first in a discussion of psychology and then of philosophy? This may have been Phil 101, but imagine the interest that must have been aroused in the audience with a product placement for university education. Says Cross in discussing what makes us choose our careers: 'You do what you are.' 'Not so,' replies Jezzie, every hair in place, not one gram of makeup disturbed, despite the excitement of the discussion... 'You are what you do.'"


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: Jerry Goldsmith won the BMI Film & TV Award for his original score, and Morgan Freeman was nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture but lost to Denzel Washington for "Training Day".


title: Along Came a Spider (film)

text: There were no further sequels, but the character of Alex Cross was rebooted with a 2012 film adaptation of the novel "Cross" under the title "Alex Cross" starring Tyler Perry in the titular role.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: A Trip to the Moon () is a 1902 French adventure short film directed by Georges Méliès. Inspired by a wide variety of sources, including Jules Verne's 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon" and its 1870 sequel "Around the Moon", the film follows a group of astronomers who travel to the Moon in a cannon-propelled capsule, explore the Moon's surface, escape from an underground group of Selenites (lunar inhabitants), and return to Earth with a captive Selenite. Its ensemble cast of French theatrical performers is led by Méliès himself as the main character Professor Barbenfouillis. The film features the overtly theatrical style for which Méliès became famous.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Scholars have commented upon the film's extensive use of pataphysical and anti-imperialist satire, as well as on its wide influence on later filmmakers and its artistic significance within the French theatrical "féerie" tradition. Though the film disappeared into obscurity after Méliès's retirement from the film industry, it was rediscovered around 1930, when Méliès's importance to the history of cinema was beginning to be recognised by film devotees. An original hand-colored print was discovered in 1993 and restored in 2011.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: "A Trip to the Moon" was an internationally popular success on its release and was extensively pirated by other studios, especially in the United States. Its unusual length, lavish production values, innovative special effects, and emphasis on storytelling were markedly influential on other filmmakers and ultimately on the development of narrative film as a whole. It was ranked 84th of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century by "The Village Voice". The film remains Méliès' best known, and the moment in which the capsule lands in the Moon's eye remains one of the most iconic and frequently referenced images in the history of cinema. It is widely regarded as the earliest example of the science fiction film genre and, more generally, as one of the most influential films in cinema history.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: At a meeting of the Astronomy Club, its president, Professor Barbenfouillis, proposes an expedition to the Moon. After addressing some dissent, five other brave astronomers—Nostradamus, Alcofrisbas, Omega, Micromegas, and Parafaragaramus—agree to the plan. A space capsule in the shape of a bullet is built, along with a huge cannon to shoot it into space. The astronomers embark and their capsule is fired from the cannon with the help of "marines", most of whom are played by young women in sailors' outfits. The Man in the Moon watches the capsule as it approaches, and, in an iconic shot, it hits him in the eye.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Landing safely on the Moon, the astronomers get out of the capsule (without the need of space suits or breathing apparatus) and watch the Earth rise in the distance. Exhausted by their journey, they unroll their blankets and sleep. As they sleep, a comet passes, the Big Dipper appears with human faces peering out of each star, old Saturn leans out of a window in his ringed planet, and Phoebe, goddess of the Moon, appears seated in a crescent-moon swing. Phoebe causes a snowfall that awakens the astronomers, and they seek shelter in a cavern where they discover giant mushrooms. One astronomer opens his umbrella; it promptly takes root and turns into a giant mushroom itself.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: At this point, a Selenite (an insectoid alien inhabitant of the Moon, named after one of the Greek moon goddesses, Selene) appears, but it is killed easily by an astronomer, as the creatures explode if they are hit with force. More Selenites appear, and it becomes increasingly difficult for the astronomers to destroy them as they are surrounded. The Selenites capture the astronomers and take them to the palace of their king. An astronomer lifts the Selenite King off his throne and throws him to the ground, causing him to explode.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: The astronomers run back to their capsule while continuing to hit the pursuing Selenites, and five get inside. The sixth astronomer, Barbenfouillis himself, uses a rope to tip the capsule over a ledge on the Moon and into space. A Selenite tries to seize the capsule at the last minute. Astronomer, capsule, and Selenite fall through space and land in an ocean on Earth, where they are rescued by a ship and towed ashore. The final sequence (missing from some prints of the film) depicts a celebratory parade in honour of the travellers' return, including a display of the captive Selenite and the unveiling of a commemorative statue bearing the motto "Labor omnia vincit".


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: When "A Trip to the Moon" was made, film actors performed anonymously and no credits were given; the practice of supplying opening and closing credits in films was a later innovation. Nonetheless, the following cast details can be reconstructed from available evidence:


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: When asked in 1930 what inspired him for "A Trip to the Moon", Méliès credited Jules Verne's novels "From the Earth to the Moon" (1865) and "Around the Moon" (1870). Cinema historians, the mid-20th-century French writer Georges Sadoul first among them, have frequently suggested H. G. Wells's "The First Men in the Moon" (1901), a French translation of which was published a few months before Méliès made the film, as another likely influence. Sadoul argued that the first half of the film (up to the shooting of the projectile) is derived from Verne and that the second half, the travellers' adventures on and in the Moon, is derived from Wells.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: In addition to these literary sources, various film scholars have suggested that Méliès was heavily influenced by other works, especially Jacques Offenbach's opera-féerie "Le voyage dans la lune" (an unauthorised parody of Verne's novels) and the "A Trip to the Moon" attraction at the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. The French film historian Thierry Lefebvre hypothesises that Méliès drew upon both of these works, but in different ways: he appears to have taken the structure of the film—"a trip to the Moon, a Moon landing, an encounter with extraterrestrials with a deformity, an underground trek, an interview with the Man in the Moon, and a brutal return to reality back on Earth"—directly from the 1901 attraction, but also incorporated many plot elements (including the presence of six astronomers with pseudo-scientific names, telescopes that transform into stools, a moonshot cannon mounted above ground, a scene in which the Moon appears to approach the viewer, a lunar snowstorm, an earthrise scene, and umbrella-wielding travellers), not to mention the parodic tone of the film, from the Offenbach opera-féerie.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: As the science writer Ron Miller notes, "A Trip to the Moon" was one of the most complex films that Méliès had made, and employed "every trick he had learned or invented". It was his longest film at the time; both the budget and filming duration were unusually lavish, costing 10,000 to make and taking three months to complete. The camera operators were Théophile Michault and Lucien Tainguy, who worked on a daily basis with Méliès as salaried employees for the Star Film Company. In addition to their work as cameramen, Méliès's operators also did odd jobs for the company such as developing film and helping to set up scenery, and another salaried operator, François Lallement, appeared onscreen as the marine officer. By contrast, Méliès hired his actors on a film-by-film basis, drawing from talented individuals in the Parisian theatrical world, with which he had many connections. They were paid one Louis d'or per day, a considerably higher salary than that offered by competitors, and had a full free meal at noon with Méliès.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Méliès's film studio, which he had built in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis in 1897, was a greenhouse-like building with glass walls and a glass ceiling to let in as much sunlight as possible, a concept used by most still photography studios from the 1860s onward; it was built with the same dimensions as Méliès's own Théâtre Robert-Houdin (13.5 × 6.6 m). Throughout his film career, Méliès worked on a strict schedule of planning films in the morning, filming scenes during the brightest hours of the day, tending to the film laboratory and the Théâtre Robert-Houdin in the late afternoon, and attending performances at Parisian theatres in the evening.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: According to Méliès's recollections, much of the unusual cost of "A Trip to the Moon" was due to the mechanically operated scenery and the Selenite costumes in particular, which were made for the film using cardboard and canvas. Méliès himself sculpted prototypes for the heads, feet, and kneecap pieces in terracotta, and then created plaster moulds for them. A mask-making specialist, probably from the major Parisian mask- and box-making firm of the Maison Hallé, used these moulds to produce cardboard versions for the actors to wear. Though other details about the film's making are scarce, the film historian Georges Sadoul argued that Méliès most likely collaborated with the painter Claudel on the scenery, and with Jehanne d'Alcy on the costumes. One of the backdrops for the film, showing the inside of the glass-roofed workshop in which the space capsule is built, was painted to look like the actual glass-roofed studio in which the film was made.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Many of the special effects in "A Trip to the Moon", as in numerous other Méliès films, were created using the substitution splice technique, in which the camera operator stopped filming long enough for something onscreen to be altered, added, or taken away. Méliès carefully spliced the resulting shots together to create apparently magical effects, such as the transformation of the astronomers' telescopes into stools or the disappearance of the exploding Selenites in puffs of smoke. Other effects were created using theatrical means, such as stage machinery and pyrotechnics. The film also features transitional dissolves.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: The pseudo-tracking shot in which the camera appears to approach the Man in the Moon was accomplished using an effect Méliès had invented the previous year for the film "The Man with the Rubber Head". Rather than attempting to move his weighty camera toward an actor, he set a pulley-operated chair upon a rail-fitted ramp, placed the actor (covered up to the neck in black velvet) on the chair, and pulled him toward the camera. In addition to its technical practicality, this technique also allowed Méliès to control the placement of the face within the frame to a much greater degree of specificity than moving his camera allowed. A substitution splice allowed a model capsule to suddenly appear in the eye of the actor playing the Moon, completing the shot. Another notable sequence in the film, the plunge of the capsule into real ocean waves filmed on location, was created through multiple exposure, with a shot of the capsule falling in front of a black background superimposed upon the footage of the ocean. The shot is followed by an underwater glimpse of the capsule floating back to the surface, created by combining a moving cardboard cutout of the capsule with an aquarium containing tadpoles and air jets. The descent of the capsule from the Moon was covered in four shots, taking up about twenty seconds of film time.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Color prints were produced for a small percent of Méliès's films and advertised alongside the black-and-white versions at a higher price. From approximately 1897 to 1912, these prints (for films such as "The Kingdom of the Fairies", "The Impossible Voyage", "The Barber of Seville" and "A Trip to the Moon") were hand-colored by Élisabeth and Berthe Thuillier's coloring lab in Paris. The Thuilliers led a studio of two hundred women, painting directly on film stock with brushes in carefully chosen colors. Each worker was assigned a specific color to apply to a frame of film in assembly line style, with more than twenty colors sometimes used for a single film. On average, the Thuilliers' lab produced about sixty hand-colored copies of a film.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Though Méliès's films were silent, they were not intended to be seen silently; exhibitors often used a "bonimenteur", or narrator, to explain the story as it unfolded on the screen, accompanied by sound effects and live music. Méliès himself took considerable interest in musical accompaniment for his films, and prepared special film scores for several of them, including "The Kingdom of the Fairies" and "The Barber of Seville". However, Méliès never required a specific musical score to be used with any film, allowing exhibitors freedom to choose whatever accompaniment they felt most suitable. When the film was screened at the Olympia music hall in Paris in 1902, an original film score was reportedly written for it.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: In 1903, the English composer Ezra Read published a piano piece called "A Trip to the Moon: Comic Descriptive Fantasia", which follows Méliès's film scene by scene and may have been used as a score for the film; it may have been commissioned by Méliès himself, who had likely met Read on one of his trips to England. More recent composers who have recorded scores for "A Trip to the Moon" include Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel of Air (for the 2011 restoration; see the Hand-colored version section below), Frederick Hodges, Robert Israel, Eric Le Guen, Lawrence Lehérissey (a great-great-grandson of Méliès), Jeff Mills, Donald Sosin, and Victor Young (for an abridged print featured as a prologue to the 1956 film "Around the World in 80 Days").


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: The film's style, like that of most of Méliès's other films, is deliberately theatrical. The stage set is highly stylised, recalling the traditions of the 19th-century stage, and is filmed by a stationary camera, placed to evoke the perspective of an audience member sitting in a theatre. This stylistic choice was one of Méliès's first and biggest innovations.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Although he had initially followed the popular trend of the time by making mainly actuality films (short "slice of life" documentary films capturing actual scenes and events for the camera), in his first few years of filming Méliès gradually moved into the far less common genre of fictional narrative films, which he called his "scènes composées" or "artificially arranged scenes". The new genre was extensively influenced by Méliès's experience in theatre and magic, especially his familiarity with the popular French "féerie" stage tradition, known for their fantasy plots and spectacular visuals, including lavish scenery and mechanically worked stage effects. In an advertisement he proudly described the difference between his innovative films and the actualities still being made by his contemporaries: "these fantastic and artistic films reproduce stage scenes and create a new genre entirely different from the ordinary cinematographic views of real people and real streets."


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Because "A Trip to the Moon" preceded the development of narrative film editing by filmmakers such as Edwin S. Porter and D. W. Griffith, it does not use the cinematic vocabulary to which American and European audiences later became accustomed, a vocabulary built on the purposeful use of techniques such as varied camera angles, intercutting, juxtapositions of shots, and other filmic ideas. Rather, each camera setup in Méliès's film is designed as a distinct dramatic scene uninterrupted by visible editing, an approach fitting the theatrical style in which the film was designed.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Similarly, film scholars have noted that the most famous moment in "A Trip to the Moon" plays with temporal continuity by showing an event twice: first the capsule is shown suddenly appearing in the eye of an anthropomorphic moon; then, in a much closer shot, the landing occurs very differently, and much more realistically, with the capsule actually plummeting into believable lunar terrain. This kind of nonlinear storytelling—in which time and space are treated as repeatable and flexible rather than linear and causal—is highly unconventional by the standards of Griffith and his followers; before the development of continuity editing; however, other filmmakers performed similar experiments with time. (Porter, for instance, used temporal discontinuity and repetition extensively in his 1903 film "Life of an American Fireman".) Later in the twentieth century, with sports television's development of the instant replay, temporal repetition again became a familiar device to screen audiences.


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Because Méliès does not use a modern cinematic vocabulary, some film scholars have created other frameworks of thought with which to assess his films. For example, some recent academicians, while not necessarily denying Méliès's influence on film, have argued that his works are better understood as spectacular theatrical creations rooted in the 19th-century stage tradition of the "féerie".


title: A Trip to the Moon

text: Similarly, Tom Gunning has argued that to fault Méliès for not inventing a more intimate and cinematic storytelling style is to misunderstand the purpose of his films; in Gunning's view, the first decade of film history may be considered a "cinema of attractions," in which filmmakers experimented with a presentational style based on spectacle and direct address rather than on intricate editing. Though the attraction style of filmmaking declined in popularity in favour of a more integrated "story film" approach, it remains an important component of certain types of cinema, including science fiction films, musicals, and avant-garde films.