title: Linked list

text: In the above example, codice_16 would be set to 2, the location of the first entry in the list. Notice that entry 3 and 5 through 7 are not part of the list. These cells are available for any additions to the list. By creating a codice_17 integer variable, a free list could be created to keep track of what cells are available. If all entries are in use, the size of the array would have to be increased or some elements would have to be deleted before new entries could be stored in the list.


title: Linked list

text: This approach has one main disadvantage, however: it creates and manages a private memory space for its nodes. This leads to the following issues:


title: Linked list

text: For these reasons, this approach is mainly used for languages that do not support dynamic memory allocation. These disadvantages are also mitigated if the maximum size of the list is known at the time the array is created.


title: Linked list

text: Many programming languages such as Lisp and Scheme have singly linked lists built in. In many functional languages, these lists are constructed from nodes, each called a "cons" or "cons cell". The cons has two fields: the "car", a reference to the data for that node, and the "cdr", a reference to the next node. Although cons cells can be used to build other data structures, this is their primary purpose.


title: Linked list

text: In languages that support abstract data types or templates, linked list ADTs or templates are available for building linked lists. In other languages, linked lists are typically built using references together with records.


title: Linked list

text: When constructing a linked list, one is faced with the choice of whether to store the data of the list directly in the linked list nodes, called "internal storage", or merely to store a reference to the data, called "external storage". Internal storage has the advantage of making access to the data more efficient, requiring less storage overall, having better locality of reference, and simplifying memory management for the list (its data is allocated and deallocated at the same time as the list nodes).


title: Linked list

text: External storage, on the other hand, has the advantage of being more generic, in that the same data structure and machine code can be used for a linked list no matter what the size of the data is. It also makes it easy to place the same data in multiple linked lists. Although with internal storage the same data can be placed in multiple lists by including multiple "next" references in the node data structure, it would then be necessary to create separate routines to add or delete cells based on each field. It is possible to create additional linked lists of elements that use internal storage by using external storage, and having the cells of the additional linked lists store references to the nodes of the linked list containing the data.


title: Linked list

text: In general, if a set of data structures needs to be included in linked lists, external storage is the best approach. If a set of data structures need to be included in only one linked list, then internal storage is slightly better, unless a generic linked list package using external storage is available. Likewise, if different sets of data that can be stored in the same data structure are to be included in a single linked list, then internal storage would be fine.


title: Linked list

text: Another approach that can be used with some languages involves having different data structures, but all have the initial fields, including the "next" (and "prev" if double linked list) references in the same location. After defining separate structures for each type of data, a generic structure can be defined that contains the minimum amount of data shared by all the other structures and contained at the top (beginning) of the structures. Then generic routines can be created that use the minimal structure to perform linked list type operations, but separate routines can then handle the specific data. This approach is often used in message parsing routines, where several types of messages are received, but all start with the same set of fields, usually including a field for message type. The generic routines are used to add new messages to a queue when they are received, and remove them from the queue in order to process the message. The message type field is then used to call the correct routine to process the specific type of message.


title: Linked list

text: Suppose you wanted to create a linked list of families and their members. Using internal storage, the structure might look like the following:


title: Linked list

text: Notice that when using external storage, an extra step is needed to extract the record from the node and cast it into the proper data type. This is because both the list of families and the list of members within the family are stored in two linked lists using the same data structure ("node"), and this language does not have parametric types.


title: Linked list

text: As long as the number of families that a member can belong to is known at compile time, internal storage works fine. If, however, a member needed to be included in an arbitrary number of families, with the specific number known only at run time, external storage would be necessary.


title: Linked list

text: Finding a specific element in a linked list, even if it is sorted, normally requires O("n") time (linear search). This is one of the primary disadvantages of linked lists over other data structures. In addition to the variants discussed above, below are two simple ways to improve search time.


title: Linked list

text: In an unordered list, one simple heuristic for decreasing average search time is the "move-to-front heuristic", which simply moves an element to the beginning of the list once it is found. This scheme, handy for creating simple caches, ensures that the most recently used items are also the quickest to find again.


title: Linked list

text: Another common approach is to "index" a linked list using a more efficient external data structure. For example, one can build a red–black tree or hash table whose elements are references to the linked list nodes. Multiple such indexes can be built on a single list. The disadvantage is that these indexes may need to be updated each time a node is added or removed (or at least, before that index is used again).


title: Linked list

text: A random-access list is a list with support for fast random access to read or modify any element in the list. One possible implementation is a skew binary random-access list using the skew binary number system, which involves a list of trees with special properties; this allows worst-case constant time head/cons operations, and worst-case logarithmic time random access to an element by index. Random-access lists can be implemented as persistent data structures.


title: Linked list

text: Random-access lists can be viewed as immutable linked lists in that they likewise support the same O(1) head and tail operations.


title: Linked list

text: A simple extension to random-access lists is the min-list, which provides an additional operation that yields the minimum element in the entire list in constant time (without mutation complexities).


title: Linked list

text: Both stacks and queues are often implemented using linked lists, and simply restrict the type of operations which are supported.


title: Linked list

text: The skip list is a linked list augmented with layers of pointers for quickly jumping over large numbers of elements, and then descending to the next layer. This process continues down to the bottom layer, which is the actual list.


title: Linked list

text: A binary tree can be seen as a type of linked list where the elements are themselves linked lists of the same nature. The result is that each node may include a reference to the first node of one or two other linked lists, which, together with their contents, form the subtrees below that node.


title: Linked list

text: An unrolled linked list is a linked list in which each node contains an array of data values. This leads to improved cache performance, since more list elements are contiguous in memory, and reduced memory overhead, because less metadata needs to be stored for each element of the list.


title: Linked list

text: A hash table may use linked lists to store the chains of items that hash to the same position in the hash table.


title: Linked list

text: A heap shares some of the ordering properties of a linked list, but is almost always implemented using an array. Instead of references from node to node, the next and previous data indexes are calculated using the current data's index.


title: Linked list

text: A self-organizing list rearranges its nodes based on some heuristic which reduces search times for data retrieval by keeping commonly accessed nodes at the head of the list.


title: The Swatch Group

text: The Swatch Group Ltd is a Swiss manufacturer of watches and jewellery. The company was founded in 1983 by the merger of ASUAG and SSIH to move to manufacturing quartz-crystal watches to resolve the quartz crisis threatening the traditional Swiss watchmaking industry.


title: The Swatch Group

text: The Swatch Group is the world's largest watch company and employs about 36,000 people in 50 countries. The group owns the Swatch product line and other brands, including Blancpain, Breguet, Certina, ETA, Glashütte Original, Hamilton, Harry Winston, Longines, Mido, Omega, Rado, and Tissot.


title: The Swatch Group

text: SSIH (Société Suisse pour l'Industrie Horlogère), originated in 1930 with the merger of the Omega and Tissot companies. Swiss watch quality was high, but new technology, such as the Hamilton Electric watch introduced in 1957 and the Bulova Accutron tuning fork watch in 1961, presaged increasing technological competition.


title: The Swatch Group

text: In the late 1970s, SSIH became insolvent due in part to a recession and in part to heavy competition from inexpensive Asian-made quartz crystal watches. These difficulties occurred even though it had become Switzerland's largest, and the world's third largest, producer of watches. Its creditor banks assumed control in 1981.


title: The Swatch Group

text: ASUAG (Allgemeine Gesellschaft der Schweizerischen Uhrenindustrie), formed in 1931, was the world's largest producer of watch movements and the parts thereof (balance wheels, balance springs (spiral), assortments, watch stones ("rubis"). ASUAG had also integrated an array of watch brands in 1972 into a sub-holding company, General Watch Co. ASUAG failed similarly in 1982.


title: The Swatch Group

text: ASUAG/SSIH was formed in 1983 from the two financially troubled predecessor companies, ASUAG and SSIH. Taken private in 1985 by then-CEO Nicolas Hayek, with the understanding of the Swiss banks and the financial assistance of a group of Swiss private investors (in particular Stephan Schmidheiny and Esther Grether), it was renamed SMH (Société de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie) in 1986, and ultimately Swatch Group Ltd in 1998.


title: The Swatch Group

text: The "swatch" brand of watch was launched in 1983, by the ETA SA CEO Ernst Thomke and his engineers. The quartz watch was redesigned for manufacturing efficiency and fewer parts, and the styling and design were updated.


title: The Swatch Group

text: Over the years, the Swatch Group acquired various watchmaking companies, including Blancpain S. A. (founded 1735, bought by Swatch in 1992), Breguet S. A. (founded 1775, bought in 1999), and Glashütte Original (Germany, bought in 2000). The company continued to produce watches under these names.


title: The Swatch Group

text: HW Holding Inc., owner of Harry Winston, Inc., an American jewellery and luxury watch company, was acquired on 26 March 2013 for 711 million Swiss francs. Nayla Hayek became the CEO. The company bought the world's biggest flawless blue diamond, The Winston Blue, on 15 May 2014.


title: The Swatch Group

text: Swatch subsidiary ETA SA, which is based in Grenchen, Switzerland, furnishes many OEM brands, such as LVMH (which markets TAG Heuer, Hublot and Zenith watch lines) and Richemont (which markets amongst others, A. Lange & Söhne, Baume & Mercier, IWC Schaffhausen, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Officine Panerai, Piaget, Roger Dubuis, Vacheron Constantin).


title: The Swatch Group

text: In 1998, Swatch invented "Swatch Internet Time", intended as a global time system, which divides the day into 1000 "beats" in a single worldwide time zone.


title: The Swatch Group

text: In October 2004, Swatch introduced its first smart watch, the Paparazzi, based on Microsoft Corporation's SPOT (Smart Personal Objects Technology.)


title: The Swatch Group

text: The Swatch Group started offering their first class in the "Nicolas G. Hayek Watchmaking School" in Miami, Florida, in September 2005. There are other watchmaking schools in Glashütte, Germany; Pforzheim, Germany; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Shanghai, China.


title: The Swatch Group

text: Swiss Timing, under brands such as Omega, Longines, and Tissot, provide timing services for sporting events such as Formula One, Olympic Games, Tour de France, and equestrian events. In 2018 it was announced that The Swatch Group would hold its own watch fair in Zurich, during Baselworld 2019.


title: The Swatch Group

text: In 1994, Swatch entered into a joint venture with Germany's Daimler AG to produce the "Smart" car, but they later withdrew from this project.


title: The Swatch Group

text: Swatch subsidiary "Belenos Clean Power AG" entered into a joint venture with the Paul Scherrer Institut in May 2008 to develop a hydrogen fuel cell for a fuel cell powered car. Swatch began test drives of the car in Switzerland in 2012. However, the Swatch Group abandoned the project for a fuel-cell-powered car in June 2015, to concentrate instead on a new type of battery with high storage capacity.


title: Parliament of England

text: The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised the English monarch. Great councils were first called Parliaments during the reign of Henry III (). By this time, the king required Parliament's consent to levy taxation.


title: Parliament of England

text: Originally a unicameral body, a bicameral Parliament emerged when its membership was divided into the House of Lords and House of Commons, which included knights of the shire and burgesses. During Henry IV's time on the throne, the role of Parliament expanded beyond the determination of taxation policy to include the "redress of grievances," which essentially enabled English citizens to petition the body to address complaints in their local towns and counties. By this time, citizens were given the power to vote to elect their representatives—the burgesses—to the House of Commons.


title: Parliament of England

text: Over the centuries, the English Parliament progressively limited the power of the English monarchy, a process that arguably culminated in the English Civil War and the High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles I.


title: Parliament of England

text: The origins of Parliament can be traced to the 10th century when a unified Kingdom of England was forged from several smaller kingdoms. In Anglo-Saxon England, the king would hold deliberative assemblies of nobles and prelates called witans. These assemblies numbered anywhere from twenty-five to hundreds of participants, including bishops, abbots, ealdormen, and thegns. Witans met regularly during the three feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun and at other times. In the past, kings interacted with their nobility through royal itineration, but the new kingdom's size made that impractical. Having nobles come to the king for witans was an important alternative to maintain control of the realm.


title: Parliament of England

text: Witans served several functions. They appear to have had a role in electing kings, especially in times when the succession was disputed. They were theatrical displays of kingship in that they coincided with crown-wearings. They were also forums for receiving petitions and building consensus among the magnates. Kings dispensed patronage, such as granting bookland, and these were recorded in charters witnessed and consented to by those in attendance. Appointments to offices, such as to bishoprics or ealdormanries, were also made during witans. In addition, important political decisions were made in consultation with witans, such as going to war and making treaties. Witans also helped the king to produce Anglo-Saxon law codes and acted as a court for important cases (such as those involving the king or important magnates).


title: Parliament of England

text: After the Norman Conquest of 1066, William the Conqueror () continued the tradition of summoning assemblies of magnates to consider national affairs, conduct state trials, and make laws; although legislation now took the form of writs rather than law codes. These assemblies were called (Latin for "great council"). While kings had access to familiar counsel, this private advice could not replace the need for consensus building, and overreliance on familiar counsel could lead to political instability. Great councils were valued because they "carried fewer political risks, allowed responsibility to be more broadly shared, and drew a larger body of prelates and magnates into the making of decisions".


title: Parliament of England

text: The council's members were the king's tenants-in-chief. The greater tenants, such as archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and barons were summoned by individual writ, but sometimes lesser tenants were also summoned by sheriffs. Politics in the period following the Conquest (1066–1154) was dominated by about 200 wealthy laymen, in addition to the king and leading clergy. High-ranking churchmen (such as bishops and abbots) were important magnates in their own right. According to Domesday Book, the English church owned between 25% and 33% of all land in 1066.


title: Parliament of England

text: Traditionally, the great council was not involved in levying taxes. Royal finances derived from land revenues, feudal aids and incidents, and the profits of royal justice. This changed near the end of Henry II's reign (1154–1189) due to the levying of national taxation to finance the Third Crusade, ransom Richard I, and pay for the series of Anglo-French wars fought between the Plantagenet and Capetian dynasties. In 1188, Henry II set a precedent when he applied to the great council for consent to levy the Saladin tithe.


title: Parliament of England

text: The burden imposed by national taxation and the likelihood of resistance made consent politically necessary. It was convenient for kings to present the great council of magnates as a representative body capable of consenting on behalf of all within the kingdom. Increasingly, the kingdom was described as the (Latin for "community of the realm") and the barons as their natural representatives. But this development also created more conflict between kings and the baronage as the latter attempted to defend what they considered the rights belonging to the king's subjects.


title: Parliament of England

text: King John () alienated the barons by his partiality in dispensing justice, heavy financial demands and abusing his right to feudal incidents, reliefs, and aids. In 1215, the barons forced John to abide by a charter of liberties similar to charters issued by earlier kings (see Charter of Liberties). Known as Magna Carta (Latin for "Great Charter"), the charter was based on three assumptions important to the later development of Parliament:


title: Parliament of England

text: While the clause stipulating no taxation "without the common counsel" was deleted from later reissues, it was nevertheless adhered to by later kings. Magna Carta transformed the feudal obligation to advise the king into a right to consent. While it was the barons who made the charter, the liberties guaranteed within it were granted to "all the free men of our realm". The charter was promptly repudiated by the king, which led to the First Barons' War, but Magna Carta would gain the status of fundamental law during the reign of John's successor.


title: Parliament of England

text: Henry III (r. 1216–1272) became king at nine years old after his father, King John, died during the First Barons' War. During the king's minority, England was ruled by a regency government that relied heavily on great councils to legitimise its actions. Great councils even consented to the appointment of royal ministers, an action that normally was considered a royal prerogative. Historian John Maddicott writes that the "effect of the minority was thus to make the great council an indispensable part of the country's government [and] to give it a degree of independent initiative and authority which central assemblies had never previously possessed".


title: Parliament of England

text: The regency government officially ended when Henry turned sixteen in 1223, and the magnates demanded the adult king confirm previous grants of Magna Carta made in 1216 and 1217 to ensure their legality. At the same time, the king needed money to defend his possessions in Poitou and Gascony from a French invasion. At a great council in 1225, a deal was reached that saw Magna Carta and the Charter of the Forest reissued in return for a fifteenth tax on "movables" (personal property and rents). This set a precedent that taxation was granted in return for the redress of grievances.


title: Parliament of England

text: In the mid-1230s, the word "parliament" came into common use for meetings of the great council. The word "parliament" comes from the French first used in the late 11th century with the meaning of parley or conversation (compare to the of Ancien Régime France). It was in Parliament, and with its assent, that the king declared law and where national affairs were deliberated. It granted or refused the king's request for extraordinary taxation (as opposed to ordinary feudal or customary taxes), and it served as England's highest court of justice.


title: Parliament of England

text: After the 1230s, the normal meeting place for Parliament was fixed at Westminster. Parliament tended to meet according to the legal year so that the courts were also in session. It often met in January or February for the Hilary term, in April or May for the Easter term, in July, and in October for the Michaelmas term. In the 13th century, most parliaments had between forty to eighty attendees. Meetings of Parliament always included:


title: Parliament of England

text: Other groups were occasionally summoned. The lesser tenants-in-chief (or knights) were regularly summoned to consent to taxation; though, they were summoned on the basis of their status as tenants of the Crown rather than as representatives of a wider class. The lower clergy (deans, cathedral priors, archdeacons, parish priests) were occasionally summoned when papal taxation was on the agenda. Beginning around the 1220s, the concept of representation, summarised in the Roman law maxim (Latin for "what touches all should be approved by all"), gained new importance among the clergy, and they began choosing proctors to represent them at church assemblies and, when summoned, at Parliament.


title: Parliament of England

text: In 1232, Peter des Roches became the king's chief minister. His nephew, Peter de Rivaux, accumulated a large number of offices, including keeper of the privy seal and keeper of the wardrobe; yet, these appointments were not approved by the magnates as had become customary during the regency government. Under Roches, the government revived practices used during King John's reign and that had been condemned in Magna Carta, such as arbitrary disseisins, revoking perpetual rights granted in royal charters, depriving heirs of their inheritances, and marrying heiresses to foreigners.


title: Parliament of England

text: Both Roches and Rivaux were foreigners from Poitou. The rise of a royal administration controlled by foreigners and dependent solely on the king stirred resentment among the magnates, who felt excluded from power. Several barons rose in rebellion, and the bishops intervened to persuade the king to change ministers. At a great council in April 1234, the king agreed to remove Rivaux and other ministers. This was the first occasion in which a king was forced to change his ministers by a great council or parliament. The struggle between king and Parliament over ministers became a permanent feature of English politics.


title: Parliament of England

text: Thereafter, the king ruled in concert with an active Parliament, which considered matters related to foreign policy, taxation, justice, administration, and legislation. January 1236 saw the passage of the Statute of Merton, the first English statute. Among other things, the law continued barring bastards from inheritance. Significantly, the language of the preamble describes the legislation as "provided" by the magnates and "conceded" by the king, which implies that this was not simply a royal measure consented to by the barons. In 1237, Henry asked Parliament for a tax to fund his sister Isabella's dowry. The barons were unenthusiastic, but they granted the funds in return for the king's promise to reconfirm Magna Carta, add three magnates to his personal council, limit the royal prerogative of purveyance, and protect land tenure rights.


title: Parliament of England

text: But Henry was adamant that three concerns were exclusively within his royal prerogative: family and inheritance matters, patronage, and appointments. Important decisions were made without consulting Parliament, such as in 1254 when the king accepted the throne of the Kingdom of Sicily for his younger son, Edmund Crouchback. He also clashed with Parliament over appointments to the three great offices of chancellor, justiciar, and treasurer. The barons believed these three offices should be restraints on royal misgovernment, but the king promoted minor officials within the royal household who owed their loyalty exclusively to him.


title: Parliament of England

text: Parliament's main tool against the king was to deny consent to national taxation, which they consistently withheld after 1237. Nevertheless, this proved ineffective at restraining the king as he was still able to raise lesser amounts of revenue from sources that did not require parliamentary consent:


title: Parliament of England

text: In 1253, while fighting in Gascony, Henry requested men and money to resist an anticipated attack from Alfonso X of Castile. In a January 1254 Parliament, the bishops themselves promised an aid but would not commit the rest of the clergy. Likewise, the barons promised to assist the king if he was attacked but would not commit the rest of the laity to pay money. For this reason, the lower clergy of each diocese elected proctors at church synods, and each county elected two knights of the shire. These representatives were summoned to Parliament in April 1254 to consent to taxation. The men elected as shire knights were prominent landholders with experience in local government and as soldiers. They were elected by barons, other knights, and probably freeholders of sufficient standing, illustrating the increasing importance of the gentry as a class. Summoning elected knights to Parliament would not become a regular occurrence until the reign of Edward I. However, the events of 1254 reveal that the barons were no longer viewed as the sole representatives of the realm.


title: Parliament of England

text: By 1258, the relationship between the king and the baronage had reached a breaking point over the "Sicilian Business", in which Henry had promised to pay papal debts in return for the pope's help securing the Sicilian crown for his son, Edmund. At the Oxford Parliament of 1258, reform-minded barons forced a reluctant king to accept a constitutional framework known as the Provisions of Oxford:


title: Parliament of England

text: Parliament now met regularly according to a schedule rather than at the pleasure of the king. The reformers hoped that the provisions would ensure parliamentary approval for all major government acts. Under the provisions, Parliament was "established formally (and no longer merely by custom) as the voice of the community".


title: Parliament of England

text: The theme of reform dominated later parliaments. During the Michaelmas Parliament of 1258, the Ordinance of Sheriffs was issued as letters patent that forbade sheriffs from taking bribes. At the Candlemas Parliament of 1259, the baronial council and the twelve representatives enacted the Ordinance of the Magnates. In this ordinance, the barons promised to observe Magna Carta and other reforming legislation. They also required their own bailiffs to observe similar rules as those of royal sheriffs, and the justiciar was given power to correct abuses of their officials. The Michaelmas Parliament of 1259 enacted the Provisions of Westminster, a set of legal and administrative reforms designed to address grievances of freeholders and even villeins, such as abuses related to the murdrum fine.


title: Parliament of England

text: Henry III made his first move against the baronial reformers while in France negotiating peace with Louis IX. Using the excuse of his absence from the realm and Welsh attacks in the marches, Henry ordered the justiciar, Hugh Bigod, to postpone the parliament scheduled for Candlemas 1260. This was an apparent violation of the Provisions of Oxford; however, the provisions were silent on what should happen if the king were outside the kingdom. The king's motive was to prevent the promulgation of further reforms through Parliament. Simon de Montfort, a leader of the baronial reformers, ignored these orders and made plans to hold a parliament in London but was prevented by Bigod. When the king arrived back in England he summoned a parliament which met in July, where Montfort was brought to trial though ultimately cleared of wrongdoing.


title: Parliament of England

text: In April 1261, the pope released the king from his oath to adhere to the Provisions of Oxford, and Henry publicly renounced the Provisions in May. Most of the barons were willing to let the king reassume power provided he ruled well. By 1262, Henry had regained all of his authority, and Montfort left England. The barons were now divided mainly by age. The elder barons remained loyal to the king, but younger barons coalesced around Montfort, who returned to England in the spring of 1263.


title: Parliament of England

text: The royalist barons and rebel barons fought each other in the Second Barons' War. Montfort defeated the king at the Battle of Lewes in 1264 and became the real ruler of England for the next twelve months. Montfort held a parliament in June 1264 to sanction a new form of government and rally support. This parliament was notable for including knights of the shire who were expected to deliberate fully on political matters, not just assent to taxation.


title: Parliament of England

text: The June Parliament approved a new constitution in which the king's powers were given to a council of nine. The new council was chosen and led by three electors (Montfort, Stephen Bersted, Bishop of Chichester, and Gilbert de Clare, 7th Earl of Gloucester). The electors could replace any of the nine as they saw fit, but the electors themselves could only be removed by Parliament.


title: Parliament of England

text: Montfort held two other Parliaments during his time in power. The most famous—Simon de Montfort's Parliament—was held in January 1265 amidst threat of a French invasion and unrest throughout the realm. For the first time, burgesses (elected by those residents of boroughs or towns who held burgage tenure, such as wealthy merchants or craftsmen) were summoned along with knights of the shire.


title: Parliament of England

text: Montfort was killed at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, and Henry was restored to power. In August 1266, Parliament authorised the Dictum of Kenilworth, which nullified everything Montfort had done and removed all restraints on the king. In 1267, some of the reforms contained in the 1259 Provisions of Westminster were revised in the form of the Statute of Marlborough passed in 1267. This was the start of a process of statutory reform that continued into the reign of Henry's successor.


title: Parliament of England

text: Montfort's scheme was later formally adopted by Edward I in the so-called "Model Parliament" of 1295. The attendance at parliament of knights and burgesses historically became known as the summoning of "the Commons", a term derived from the Norman French word "commune", literally translated as the "community of the realm".


title: Parliament of England

text: The role of Parliament in the government of the English kingdom increased due to Edward's determination to unite England, Wales and Scotland under his rule by force. He was also keen to unite his subjects in order to restore his authority and not face rebellion as was his father's fate. Edward therefore encouraged all sectors of society to submit petitions to parliament detailing their grievances in order for them to be resolved. This seemingly gave all of Edward's subjects a potential role in government and this helped Edward assert his authority. Both the Statute of Westminster 1275 and Statute of Westminster 1285, with the assistance of Robert Burnell, codified the existing law in England.


title: Parliament of England

text: As the number of petitions being submitted to parliament increased, they came to be dealt with, and often ignored, more and more by ministers of the Crown so as not to block the passage of government business through parliament. However, the emergence of petitioning is significant because it is some of the earliest evidence of parliament being used as a forum to address the general grievances of ordinary people. Submitting a petition to parliament is a tradition that continues to this day in the Parliament of the United Kingdom and in most Commonwealth realms.


title: Parliament of England

text: These developments symbolise the fact that parliament and government were by no means the same thing by this point. If monarchs were going to impose their will on their kingdom, they would have to control parliament rather than be subservient to it.


title: Parliament of England

text: From Edward's reign onwards, the authority of the English Parliament would depend on the strength or weakness of the incumbent monarch. A strong king or queen would wield enough influence to pass their legislation through parliament without much trouble. Some strong monarchs even bypassed it completely, although this was not often possible in the case of financial legislation due to the post-Magna Carta convention of parliament granting taxes. When weak monarchs governed, parliament often became the centre of opposition against them.


title: Parliament of England

text: The composition of parliaments in this period varied depending on the decisions that needed to be taken in them. The nobility and senior clergy were always summoned. From 1265 onwards, when the monarch needed to raise money through taxes, it was usual for knights and burgesses to be summoned too. However, when the king was merely seeking advice, he often only summoned the nobility and the clergy, sometimes with and sometimes without the knights of the shires. On some occasions the Commons were summoned and sent home again once the monarch was finished with them, allowing parliament to continue without them. It was not until the mid-14th century that summoning representatives of the shires and the boroughs became the norm for all parliaments.


title: Parliament of England

text: One of the moments that marked the emergence of parliament as a true institution in England was the deposition of Edward II in January 1327. Even though it is debatable whether Edward II was deposed "in" parliament or "by" parliament, this remarkable sequence of events consolidated the importance of parliament in the English unwritten constitution. Parliament was also crucial in establishing the legitimacy of the king who replaced Edward II: his son Edward III.


title: Parliament of England

text: In 1341 the Commons met separately from the nobility and clergy for the first time, creating what was effectively an Upper Chamber and a Lower Chamber, with the knights and burgesses sitting in the latter. This Upper Chamber became known as the House of Lords from 1544 onward, and the Lower Chamber became known as the House of Commons, collectively known as the Houses of Parliament.


title: Parliament of England

text: The authority of parliament grew under Edward III; it was established that no law could be made, nor any tax levied, without the consent of both Houses and the Sovereign. This development occurred during the reign of Edward III because he was involved in the Hundred Years' War and needed finances. During his conduct of the war, Edward tried to circumvent parliament as much as possible, which caused this edict to be passed.


title: Parliament of England

text: The Commons came to act with increasing boldness during this period. During the Good Parliament (1376), the Presiding Officer of the lower chamber, Peter de la Mare, complained of heavy taxes, demanded an accounting of the royal expenditures, and criticised the king's management of the military. The Commons even proceeded to impeach some of the king's ministers. The bold Speaker was imprisoned, but was soon released after the death of Edward III.


title: Parliament of England

text: During the reign of the next monarch, Richard II, the Commons once again began to impeach errant ministers of the Crown. They insisted that they could not only control taxation, but also public expenditure. Despite such gains in authority, however, the Commons still remained much less powerful than the House of Lords and the Crown.


title: Parliament of England

text: This period also saw the introduction of a franchise which limited the number of people who could vote in elections for the House of Commons. From 1430 onwards, the franchise was limited to Forty Shilling Freeholders, that is men who owned freehold property worth forty shillings or more. The Parliament of England legislated the new uniform county franchise, in the statute 8 Hen. 6, c. 7. The "Chronological Table of the Statutes" does not mention such a 1430 law, as it was included in the Consolidated Statutes as a recital in the Electors of Knights of the Shire Act 1432 (10 Hen. 6, c. 2), which amended and re-enacted the 1430 law to make clear that the resident of a county had to have a forty shilling freehold in that county to be a voter there.


title: Parliament of England

text: During the reign of the Tudor monarchs, it is often argued that the modern structure of the English Parliament began to be created. The Tudor monarchy, according to historian J. E. Neale, was powerful, and there were often periods of several years when parliament did not sit at all. However, the Tudor monarchs realised that they needed parliament to legitimise many of their decisions, mostly out of a need to raise money through taxation legitimately without causing discontent. Thus they consolidated the state of affairs whereby monarchs would call and close parliament as and when they needed it. However, if monarchs did not call Parliament for several years, it is clear the Monarch did not require Parliament except to perhaps strengthen and provide a mandate for their reforms to Religion which had always been a matter within the Crown's prerogative but would require the consent of the Bishopric and Commons.


title: Parliament of England

text: By the time of the Tudor monarch Henry VII's 1485 coronation, the monarch was not a member of either the Upper Chamber or the Lower Chamber. Consequently, the monarch would have to make his or her feelings known to Parliament through his or her supporters in both houses. Proceedings were regulated by the presiding officer in either chamber.


title: Parliament of England

text: From the 1540s the presiding officer in the House of Commons became formally known as the "Speaker", having previously been referred to as the "prolocutor" or "parlour" (a semi-official position, often nominated by the monarch, that had existed ever since Peter de Montfort had acted as the presiding officer of the Oxford Parliament of 1258). This was not an enviable job. When the House of Commons was unhappy it was the Speaker who had to deliver this news to the monarch. This began the tradition whereby the Speaker of the House of Commons is dragged to the Speaker's Chair by other members once elected.


title: Parliament of England

text: A member of either chamber could present a "bill" to parliament. Bills supported by the monarch were often proposed by members of the Privy Council who sat in parliament. For a bill to become law it would have to be approved by a majority of both Houses of Parliament before it passed to the monarch for royal assent or veto. The royal veto was applied several times during the 16th and 17th centuries and it is still the right of the monarch of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms to veto legislation today, although it has not been exercised since 1707 (today such an exercise might precipitate some form of constitutional crisis).


title: Parliament of England

text: When a bill was enacted into law, this process gave it the approval of each estate of the realm: the King, Lords and Commons. The Parliament of England was far from being a democratically representative institution in this period. It was possible to assemble the entire peerage and senior clergy of the realm in one place to form the estate of the Upper Chamber.


title: Parliament of England

text: The voting franchise for the House of Commons was small; some historians estimate that it was as little as three per cent of the adult male population; and there was no secret ballot. Elections could therefore be controlled by local grandees, because in many boroughs a majority of voters were in some way dependent on a powerful individual, or else could be bought by money or concessions. If these grandees were supporters of the incumbent monarch, this gave the Crown and its ministers considerable influence over the business of parliament.


title: Parliament of England

text: Many of the men elected to parliament did not relish the prospect of having to act in the interests of others. So a law was enacted, still on the statute book today, whereby it became unlawful for members of the House of Commons to resign their seat unless they were granted a position directly within the patronage of the monarchy (today this latter restriction leads to a legal fiction allowing "de facto" resignation despite the prohibition, but nevertheless it is a resignation which needs the permission of the Crown). However, while several elections to parliament in this period would be considered corrupt by modern standards, many elections involved genuine contests between rival candidates, even though the ballot was not secret.


title: Parliament of England

text: It was in this period that the Palace of Westminster was established as the seat of the English Parliament. In 1548, the House of Commons was granted a regular meeting place by the Crown, St Stephen's Chapel. This had been a royal chapel. It was made into a debating chamber after Henry VIII became the last monarch to use the Palace of Westminster as a place of residence and after the suppression of the college there.


title: Parliament of England

text: This room was the home of the House of Commons until it was destroyed by fire in 1834, although the interior was altered several times up until then. The structure of this room was pivotal in the development of the Parliament of England. While most modern legislatures sit in a circular chamber, the benches of the British Houses of Parliament are laid out in the form of choir stalls in a chapel, simply because this is the part of the original room that the members of the House of Commons used when they were granted use of St Stephen's Chapel.


title: Parliament of England

text: This structure took on a new significance with the emergence of political parties in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as the tradition began whereby the members of the governing party would sit on the benches to the right of the Speaker and the opposition members on the benches to the left. It is said that the Speaker's chair was placed in front of the chapel's altar. As Members came and went they observed the custom of bowing to the altar and continued to do so, even when it had been taken away, thus then bowing to the Chair, as is still the custom today.


title: Parliament of England

text: The numbers of the Lords Spiritual diminished under Henry VIII, who commanded the Dissolution of the Monasteries, thereby depriving the abbots and priors of their seats in the Upper House. For the first time, the Lords Temporal were more numerous than the Lords Spiritual. Currently, the Lords Spiritual consist of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester, and twenty-one other English diocesan bishops in seniority of appointment to a diocese.


title: Parliament of England

text: The Laws in Wales Acts of 1535–42 annexed Wales as part of England and this brought Welsh representatives into the Parliament of England, first elected in 1542.


title: Parliament of England

text: Parliament had not always submitted to the wishes of the Tudor monarchs. But parliamentary criticism of the monarchy reached new levels in the 17th century. When the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, died in 1603, King James VI of Scotland came to power as King James I, founding the Stuart monarchy.


title: Parliament of England

text: In 1628, alarmed by the arbitrary exercise of royal power, the House of Commons submitted to Charles I the Petition of Right, demanding the restoration of their liberties. Though he accepted the petition, Charles later dissolved parliament and ruled without them for eleven years. It was only after the financial disaster of the Scottish Bishops' Wars (1639–1640) that he was forced to recall Parliament so that they could authorise new taxes. This resulted in the calling of the assemblies known historically as the Short Parliament of 1640 and the Long Parliament, which sat with several breaks and in various forms between 1640 and 1660.


title: Parliament of England

text: The Long Parliament was characterised by the growing number of critics of the king who sat in it. The most prominent of these critics in the House of Commons was John Pym. Tensions between the king and his parliament reached a boiling point in January 1642 when Charles entered the House of Commons and tried, unsuccessfully, to arrest Pym and four other members for their alleged treason. The Five Members had been tipped off about this, and by the time Charles came into the chamber with a group of soldiers they had disappeared. Charles was further humiliated when he asked the Speaker, William Lenthall, to give their whereabouts, which Lenthall famously refused to do.


title: Parliament of England

text: From then on relations between the king and his parliament deteriorated further. When trouble started to brew in Ireland, both Charles and his parliament raised armies to quell the uprisings by native Catholics there. It was not long before it was clear that these forces would end up fighting each other, leading to the English Civil War which began with the Battle of Edgehill in October 1642: those supporting the cause of parliament were called Parliamentarians (or Roundheads), and those in support of the Crown were called Royalists (or Cavaliers).


title: Parliament of England

text: Battles between Crown and Parliament continued throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, but parliament was no longer subservient to the English monarchy. This change was symbolised in the execution of Charles I in January 1649.


title: Parliament of England

text: In Pride's Purge of December 1648, the New Model Army (which by then had emerged as the leading force in the parliamentary alliance) purged Parliament of members that did not support them. The remaining "Rump Parliament", as it was later referred to by critics, enacted legislation to put the king on trial for treason. This trial, the outcome of which was a foregone conclusion, led to the execution of the king and the start of an 11-year republic.


title: Parliament of England

text: The House of Lords was abolished and the purged House of Commons governed England until April 1653, when army chief Oliver Cromwell dissolved it after disagreements over religious policy and how to carry out elections to parliament. Cromwell later convened a parliament of religious radicals in 1653, commonly known as Barebone's Parliament, followed by the unicameral First Protectorate Parliament that sat from September 1654 to January 1655 and the Second Protectorate Parliament that sat in two sessions between 1656 and 1658, the first session was unicameral and the second session was bicameral.


title: Parliament of England

text: Although it is easy to dismiss the English Republic of 1649–60 as nothing more than a Cromwellian military dictatorship, the events that took place in this decade were hugely important in determining the future of parliament. First, it was during the sitting of the first Rump Parliament that members of the House of Commons became known as "MPs" (Members of Parliament). Second, Cromwell gave a huge degree of freedom to his parliaments, although royalists were barred from sitting in all but a handful of cases.


title: Parliament of England

text: Cromwell's vision of parliament appears to have been largely based on the example of the Elizabethan parliaments. However, he underestimated the extent to which Elizabeth I and her ministers had directly and indirectly influenced the decision-making process of her parliaments. He was thus always surprised when they became troublesome. He ended up dissolving each parliament that he convened. Yet it is worth noting that the structure of the second session of the Second Protectorate Parliament of 1658 was almost identical to the parliamentary structure consolidated in the Glorious Revolution Settlement of 1689.


title: Parliament of England

text: In 1653 Cromwell had been made head of state with the title Lord Protector of the Realm. The Second Protectorate Parliament offered him the crown. Cromwell rejected this offer, but the governmental structure embodied in the final version of the Humble Petition and Advice was a basis for all future parliaments. It proposed an elected House of Commons as the Lower Chamber, a House of Lords containing peers of the realm as the Upper Chamber. A constitutional monarchy, subservient to parliament and the laws of the nation, would act as the executive arm of the state at the top of the tree, assisted in carrying out their duties by a Privy Council. Oliver Cromwell had thus inadvertently presided over the creation of a basis for the future parliamentary government of England. In 1657 he had the Parliament of Scotland (temporarily) unified with the English Parliament.


title: Parliament of England

text: In terms of the evolution of parliament as an institution, by far the most important development during the republic was the sitting of the Rump Parliament between 1649 and 1653. This proved that parliament could survive without a monarchy and a House of Lords if it wanted to. Future English monarchs would never forget this. Charles I was the last English monarch ever to enter the House of Commons.


title: Parliament of England

text: Even to this day, a Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom is sent to Buckingham Palace as a ceremonial hostage during the State Opening of Parliament, in order to ensure the safe return of the sovereign from a potentially hostile parliament. During the ceremony the monarch sits on the throne in the House of Lords and signals for the Lord Great Chamberlain to summon the House of Commons to the Lords Chamber. The Lord Great Chamberlain then raises his wand of office to signal to the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, who has been waiting in the central lobby. Black Rod turns and, escorted by the doorkeeper of the House of Lords and an inspector of police, approaches the doors to the chamber of the Commons. The doors are slammed in his face—symbolising the right of the Commons to debate without the presence of the monarch's representative. He then strikes three times with his staff (the Black Rod), and he is admitted.


title: Parliament of England

text: The revolutionary events that occurred between 1620 and 1689 all took place in the name of parliament. The new status of parliament as the central governmental organ of the English state was consolidated during the events surrounding the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660.


title: Parliament of England

text: After the death of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658, his son Richard Cromwell succeeded him as Lord Protector, summoning the Third Protectorate Parliament in the process. When this parliament was dissolved under pressure from the army in April 1659, the Rump Parliament was recalled at the insistence of the surviving army grandees. This in turn was dissolved in a coup led by army general John Lambert, leading to the formation of the Committee of Safety, dominated by Lambert and his supporters.


title: Parliament of England

text: When the breakaway forces of George Monck invaded England from Scotland, where they had been stationed without Lambert's supporters putting up a fight, Monck temporarily recalled the Rump Parliament and reversed Pride's Purge by recalling the entirety of the Long Parliament. They then voted to dissolve themselves and call new elections, which were arguably the most democratic for 20 years although the franchise was still very small. This led to the calling of the Convention Parliament which was dominated by royalists. This parliament voted to reinstate the monarchy and the House of Lords. Charles II returned to England as king in May 1660. The Anglo-Scottish parliamentary union that Cromwell had established was dissolved in 1661 when the Scottish Parliament resumed its separate meeting place in Edinburgh.


title: Parliament of England

text: The Restoration began the tradition whereby all governments looked to parliament for legitimacy. In 1681 Charles II dissolved parliament and ruled without them for the last four years of his reign. This followed bitter disagreements between the king and parliament that had occurred between 1679 and 1681. Charles took a big gamble by doing this. He risked the possibility of a military showdown akin to that of 1642. However, he rightly predicted that the nation did not want another civil war. Parliament disbanded without a fight. Events that followed ensured that this would be nothing but a temporary blip.


title: Parliament of England

text: Charles II died in 1685 and he was succeeded by his brother James II. During his lifetime Charles had always pledged loyalty to the Protestant Church of England, despite his private Catholic sympathies. James was openly Catholic. He attempted to lift restrictions on Catholics taking up public offices. This was bitterly opposed by Protestants in his kingdom. They invited William of Orange, a Protestant who had married Mary, daughter of James II and Anne Hyde to invade England and claim the throne.


title: Parliament of England

text: William assembled an army estimated at 15,000 soldiers (11,000 foot and 4000 horse) and landed at Brixham in southwest England in November, 1688. When many Protestant officers, including James's close adviser, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, defected from the English army to William's invasion force, James fled the country. Parliament then offered the Crown to his Protestant daughter Mary, instead of his infant son (James Francis Edward Stuart), who was baptised Catholic. Mary refused the offer, and instead William and Mary ruled jointly, with both having the right to rule alone on the other's death.


title: Parliament of England

text: As part of the compromise in allowing William to be King—called the Glorious Revolution—Parliament was able to have the 1689 Bill of Rights enacted. Later the 1701 Act of Settlement was approved. These were statutes that lawfully upheld the prominence of parliament for the first time in English history. These events marked the beginning of the English constitutional monarchy and its role as one of the three elements of parliament.


title: Parliament of England

text: After the Treaty of Union in 1707, Acts of Parliament passed in the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland created a new Kingdom of Great Britain and dissolved both parliaments, replacing them with a new Parliament of Great Britain based in the former home of the English parliament. The Parliament of Great Britain later became the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1801 when the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed through the Acts of Union 1800.


title: Shotgun shell

text: A shotgun shell, shotshell or simply shell is a type of rimmed, cylindrical (straight-walled) cartridges used specifically in shotguns, and is typically loaded with numerous small, pellet-like spherical sub-projectiles called shot, fired through a smoothbore barrel with a tapered constriction at the muzzle to regulate the extent of scattering. A shell can sometimes also contain only a single large solid projectile known as a slug, fired usually through a rifled slug barrel. The hull usually consists of a paper or plastic tube often covered at the base by a metallic head cover which retains a primer, and the shot charge is typically contained by a wadding/sabot inside the case. The caliber of the shotshell is known as its gauge.


title: Shotgun shell

text: The projectiles are traditionally made of lead, but other metals such as steel, tungsten and bismuth are also used due to restrictions on lead, or for performance reasons such as achieving higher shot velocities by reducing the mass of the shot charge. Other unusual projectiles such as saboted flechettes, rubber balls, rock salt and magnesium shards also exist. Slug shells can also be made with specialty non-lethal projectiles such as rubber and bean bag rounds.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Shotguns have an effective range of about with buckshot, with birdshot, with slugs, and well over with saboted slugs in rifled barrels.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Most shotgun shells are designed to be fired from a smoothbore barrel, but dedicated shotguns with rifled barrels are limited to lead slugs or sabot slugs as "shot" would be spread too wide by the rifling. A rifled barrel will increase the accuracy of sabot slugs, but makes it unsuitable for firing shot, as it imparts a spin to the shot cup, causing the shot cluster to disperse. A rifled slug uses rifling on the slug itself so it can be used in a smoothbore shotgun.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Early shotgun shells used brass cases, not unlike pistol and rifle cartridge cases of the same era. These brass shotgun hulls or cases closely resembled large rifle cartridges, in terms of both the head and primer portions of the shotgun shell, as well as in their dimensions. Card wads, made of felt, leather, and cork, as well as paperboard, were all used at various times. Waterglass (Sodium silicate) was commonly used to cement the top overshot wad into these brass shell casings. No roll crimp or fold crimp was used on these early brass cases, although roll crimps were eventually used by some manufacturers to hold the overshot wad in place securely. The primers on these early shotgun shells were identical to pistol primers of the same diameter.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Starting in the late 1870s, paper hulls began replacing brass hulls. Paper hulls remained popular for nearly a century, until the early 1960s. These shotgun shells using paper hulls were nearly always roll crimped, although fold crimping also eventually became popular. The primers on these paper hull shotgun shells also changed from the pistol primers used on the early brass shotgun shells to a primer containing both the priming charge and an anvil, unlike rifle and pistol ammunition, making the shotgun shell primer taller. Card wads, made of felt and cork, as well as paperboard, were all used at various times, gradually giving way to plastic over powder wads, with card wads, and, eventually, to all plastic wads. Starting in the early 1960s, plastic hulls started replacing paper hulls for the majority of shotgun shells and by the 1980s, plastic hulls had become universally adopted.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Modern shotgun shells typically consist of a plastic hull, with the base covered in a thin brass or plated steel covering. As noted previously, paper shells used to be common, and are still made, as are solid brass shells. Some companies have produced what appear to be all-plastic shells, although in these there is a small metal ring cast into the rim of the shell to provide strength. Often the more powerful loads will use "high brass" shells, with the brass extended up further along the sides of the shell, while light loads will use "low brass" shells. The brass does not actually provide a significant amount of strength, but the difference in appearance provides shooters with a way to quickly differentiate between high and low powered ammunition.


title: Shotgun shell

text: The base of the shell is fairly thick to hold the large shotgun primer, which is longer than primers used for rifle and pistol ammunition. Modern smokeless powders are far more efficient than the original black powder used in shotgun shells, so very little space is actually taken by powder; shotguns use small quantities of double base powders, equivalent to quick-burning pistol powders, with up to 50% nitroglycerin. After the powder comes the wadding or wad. The primary purpose of a wad is to prevent the shot and powder from mixing, and to provide a seal that prevents gas from blowing through the shot rather than propelling it. The wad design may also encompass a shock absorber and a cup that holds the shot together until it is out of the barrel.


title: Shotgun shell

text: A modern wad consists of three parts, the powder wad, the cushion, and the shot cup, which may be separate pieces or be one part. The powder wad acts as the gas seal (known as obturation), and is placed firmly over the powder; it may be a paper or plastic part. The cushion comes next, and it is designed to compress under pressure, to act as a shock absorber and minimize the deformation of the shot; it also serves to take up as much space as is needed between the powder wad and the shot. Cushions are almost universally made of plastic with crumple zones, although for game shooting in areas grazed by farm stock or wildlife biodegradable fiber wads are often preferred. The shot cup is the last part of the shell, and it serves to hold the shot together as it moves down the barrel. Shot cups have slits on the sides so that they peel open after leaving the barrel, allowing the shot to continue on in flight undisturbed. Shot cups, where used, are also almost universally plastic. The shot fills the shot cup (which must be of the correct length to hold the desired quantity of shot), and the shotgun shell is then crimped, or rolled closed.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Shotgun shells are generally measured by "gauge", which is the weight, in fractions of a pound, of a pure lead round ball that is the same diameter as the internal diameter of the barrel; in Britain and some other locations outside the United States the term "bore" is used with the same meaning. This contrasts with rifles and handguns, which are almost always measured in "caliber", a measurement of the internal diameter of the barrel measured in millimeters or inches and, consequently, is approximately equal to the diameter of the projectile that is fired.


title: Shotgun shell

text: For example, a shotgun is called "12-gauge" because a lead sphere that just fits the inside diameter of the barrel weighs . This measurement comes from the time when early cannons were designated in a similar manner—a "12 pounder" would be a cannon that fired a cannonball; inversely, an individual "12-gauge" shot would in fact be a pounder. Thus, a 10-gauge shotgun has a larger-diameter barrel than a 12-gauge shotgun, which has a larger-diameter barrel than a 20-gauge shotgun, and so forth.


title: Shotgun shell

text: The most popular shotgun gauge by far is 12-gauge. The larger 10-gauge, once popular for hunting larger birds such as goose and turkey, is in the decline with the advent of longer, "magnum" 12-gauge shells, which offer similar performance. The mid-size 20-gauge is also a very popular chambering for smaller-framed shooters who favor its reduced recoil, those hunting smaller game, and experienced trap and skeet shooters who like the additional challenge of hitting their targets with a smaller shot charge. Other less-common, but commercially available gauges are 16 and 28. Several other gauges may be encountered but are considered obsolete. The 4, 8, 24, and 32 gauge guns are collector items. There are also some shotguns measured by diameter, rather than gauge. These are the .410 (10.4mm), .380 (9mm), and .22 (5.5mm); these are correctly called ".410 bore", not ".410-gauge".


title: Shotgun shell

text: The .410 bore is the smallest shotgun size which is widely available commercially in the United States. For size comparison purposes, the .410, when measured by gauge, would be around 67- or 68-gauge (it is 67.62-gauge), The .410 is often mistakenly assigned 36-gauge. The 36 gauge was in fact a .360 diameter cartridge which was in length and is now obsolete.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Snake shot (AKA: bird shot, rat shot and dust shot) refers to handgun and rifle cartridges loaded with small lead shot. Snake shot is generally used for shooting at snakes, rodents, birds, and other pest at very close range. The most common snake shot cartridges are .22 Long Rifle, .22 Magnum, .38 Special, 9×19mm Luger, .40 Smith & Wesson, .44 Special, .45 ACP, and .45 Colt.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Commonly used by hikers, backpackers and campers, snake shot is ideally suited for use in revolvers and derringers, chambered for .38 Special and .357 Magnum. Snake shot may not cycle properly in semi-automatic pistols. Rifles specifically made to fire .22 caliber snake shot are also commonly used by farmers for pest control inside of barns and sheds, as the snake shot will not shoot holes in the roof or walls, or more importantly injure livestock with a ricochet. They are also used for airport and warehouse pest control.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Shot shells have also been historically issued to soldiers, to be used in standard issue rifles. The .45-70 "Forager" round, which contained a thin wooden bullet filled with birdshot, was intended for hunting small game to supplement the soldiers' rations. This round in effect made the .45-70 rifle into a small gauge shotgun, capable of killing rabbits, ducks, and other small game.


title: Shotgun shell

text: During World War II, the United States military developed the .45 ACP M12 and M15 shot shells cartridges. They were issued to pilots, to be used as foraging ammunition in the event that they were shot down. While they were best used in the M1917 revolvers, the M15 cartridge would actually cycle the semi-automatic M1911 pistols action.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Garden guns are smooth-bore firearms specifically made to fire .22 caliber snake shot, and are commonly used by gardeners and farmers for pest control. Garden guns are short-range weapons that can do little harm past 15 to 20 yards, and they are quiet when fired with snake shot, compared to a standard ammunition. These guns are especially effective inside of barns and sheds, as the snake shot will not shoot holes in the roof or walls, or more importantly injure livestock with a ricochet. They are also used for pest control at airports, warehouses, stockyards, etc.


title: Shotgun shell

text: The standard definition of shotgun gauge assumes that a pure lead ball is used. The following formulas relate the bore diameter "d" (in inches) to the gauge "n":


title: Shotgun shell

text: For example, the common bore diameter "d" = 0.410 inches (.410 bore) is effectively gauge "n" = 67.6 .


title: Shotgun shell

text: By 1957 the ammo industry had the capability of producing a nontoxic shot, made out of either iron or steel. In 1976 the Fish and Wildlife Service took the first steps toward phasing out lead shot by designating steel-shot-only hunting zones for waterfowl. In the 1970s lead-free shot shell ammunition loaded with steel, bismuth, or tungsten composite pellets instead of more traditional lead-based pellets was introduced and required for Migratory Bird Hunting (Ducks & Geese). Lead shot in waterfowl hunting was banned throughout the United States in 1991.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Due to environmental regulations, lead-loaded ammunition must be used carefully by hunters in Europe. For instance, in France, it cannot be fired in the vicinity of a pond. In fact, the laws are so complex that some hunters in Europe prefer not to risk getting into problems for firing lead pellets in the wrong places, so they opt for composite pellets in all situations. The use of lead shot is banned in Canada and the United States when hunting migratory game birds, such as ducks and geese, forcing the use of non-toxic shot in these countries for waterfowl hunting (lead shot can still legally be used in the United States for hunting game other than waterfowl). This means that manufacturers need to market new types of lead-free shotgun ammunition loaded with alternative pellets to meet environmental restrictions on the use of lead, as well as lead-based and cheaper shotshell ammunition, to remain competitive worldwide.


title: Shotgun shell

text: The C.I.P. enforces approval of all ammunition a manufacturer or importer intends to sell in any of the (mainly European) C.I.P. member states. The ammunition manufacturing plants are obliged to test their products during production against the C.I.P. pressure specifications. A compliance report must be issued for each production lot and archived for later verification if needed.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Besides pressure testing, shotshells containing steel pellets require an additional Vickers hardness test. The steel pellets used must have a hardness under 100 HV1, but, even so, steel is known to wear the barrel excessively over time if the steel pellet velocities become too high, leading to potentially harmful situations for the user. As a result, the measurement of pellet velocity is also an additional obligation for shotshells in 12-, 16-, and 20-gauges in both standard and high performance versions sold in Europe. The velocity of pellets must be below , and respectively for the standard versions. Another disadvantage of steel pellets is their tendency to ricochet unpredictably after striking any hard surface. This poses a major hazard at indoor ranges or whenever metal targets or hard backstops (e.g. concrete wall vs. a dirt berm) are used. For this reason, steel shot is explicitly banned at most indoor shooting ranges. Any shooters who are considering buying ammo loaded with steel for anything other than hunting purposes should first find out if using it won't cause undue hazard to themselves and others.


title: Shotgun shell

text: However, data supporting the danger of firing high velocity shells loaded with steel shot causing barrel wear has not been published and the US equivalent of CIP, SAAMI, does not have any such restrictive limitations on the velocity of commercial steel shotshells sold in the United States. Similarly, shotgun manufacturers selling shotguns in the United States select their own appropriate standards for setting steel hardness for shotgun barrels and for velocities of steel shotshell loaded ammunition.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Some indoor shooting ranges prohibit the use of steel shot over concern of it causing a spark when hitting an object down range and causing a fire.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Shotshells are loaded with different sizes of shot depending on the target. For skeet shooting, a small shot such as a No.8 or No.9 would be used, because range is short and a high density pattern is desirable. Trap shooting requires longer shots, and so a larger shot, usually #7½ is used. For hunting game, the range and penetration needed to assure a clean kill is considered. Shot loses its velocity very quickly due to its low sectional density and ballistic coefficient (see external ballistics). Small shot, like that used for skeet and trap, will have lost all appreciable energy by around , which is why trap and skeet ranges can be located in relatively close proximity to inhabited areas with negligible risk of injury to those outside the range.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Birdshots are designed to be used for waterfowl and upland hunting, where the game is agile small/medium-sized birds. Their sizes are numbered similar to the shotgun gauges—the smaller the number, the larger the shot (except in the obsolete Swedish system, in which it is reversed). Generally birdshot is just called "shot", such as "number 9 shot" or "BB shot".


title: Shotgun shell

text: There are small differences in size of American, Standard (European), Belgian, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, British, and Australian shot to make matters more complex. That is because some systems go by diameter in inches (American), some go by diameter in millimeters (European), and the British system goes by the number of lead shot per ounce. Australia has a hybrid system due to its market being flooded with a mixture of British, American, and European shells.


title: Shotgun shell

text: For American shot, a useful method for remembering the diameter of numbered shot in inches is simply to subtract the shot size from 17. The resulting answer is the diameter of the shot in hundredths of an inch. For example, #2 shot gives 17-2 = 15, meaning that the diameter of #2 shot is 15/100 or . B shot is , and sizes go up in increments for BB and BBB sizes.


title: Shotgun shell

text: In metric measurement, it is easy to remember that #5 shot is 3 mm; each number up or down represents a 0.25 mm change in diameter, so e.g. #7 shot is 2.5 mm.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Number 11 and number 12 lead shot also exists. Shot of these sizes is used in specialized shotshells designed to be fired at close range (less than four yards) for killing snakes, rats and similar-sized animals. Such shells are typically intended to be fired from handguns, particularly revolvers. This type of ammunition is produced by Federal and CCI, among others.


title: Shotgun shell

text: For hunting, shot size must be chosen not only for the range, but also for the game. The shot must reach the target with enough energy to penetrate to a depth sufficient to kill the game. Lead shot is still the best ballistic performer, but environmental restrictions on the use of lead, especially with waterfowl, require steel, bismuth, or tungsten composites. Steel, being significantly less dense than lead, requires larger shot sizes, but is a good choice when lead is not legal and cost is a consideration. It is argued that steel shot cannot safely be used in some older shotguns without causing damage to either the bore or to the choke due to the hardness of steel shot. However, the increased pressure in most steel cartridges is a far greater problem, causing more strain to the breech of the gun. Since tungsten is very hard, it must also be used with care in older guns. Tungsten shot is often alloyed with nickel and iron, softening the base metal. That alloy is approximately 1/3 denser than lead, but far more expensive. Bismuth shot falls between steel and tungsten shot in both density and cost. The rule of thumb in converting appropriate steel shot is to go up by two numbers when switching from lead. However, there are different views on dense patterns versus higher pellet energies.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Larger sizes of shot, large enough that they must be carefully packed into the shell rather than simply dumped or poured in, are called "buckshot" or just "buck". Buckshot is used for hunting medium to large game, as a tactical round for law enforcement and military personnel, and for personal self-defense. Buckshot size is most commonly designated by a series of numbers and letters, with smaller numbers indicating larger shot. Sizes larger than "0" are designated by multiple zeros. "00" (usually pronounced "double-aught" in North American English) is the most commonly sold size.


title: Shotgun shell

text: The British system for designating buckshot size is based on the amount of shot per ounce. The sizes are LG (large grape – from grapeshot derived from musket shooting), MG (medium grape), and SG (small grape). For smaller game, SSG shot is half the weight of SG, SSSG shot is half the weight of SSG, SSSSG shot is half the weight of SSSG, and so on. The Australian system is similar, except that it has 00-SG, a small-game shell filled with 00 buckshot.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Loads of 12-gauge 00 buckshot are commonly available in cartridges holding from 8 (eight) to 18 (eighteen) pellets in standard shell lengths ( inches, 3 inches, and ). Reduced-recoil 00 buckshot shells are often used as tactical and self-defense rounds, minimizing shooter stress and improving the speed of follow-up shots.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Most modern sporting shotguns have interchangeable choke tubes to allow the shooter to change the spread of shot that comes out of the gun. In some cases, it is not practical to do this; the gun might have fixed choke, or a shooter firing at receding targets may want to fire a wide pattern immediately followed by a narrower pattern out of a single barrelled shotgun. The spread of the shot can also be altered by changing the characteristics of the shell.


title: Shotgun shell

text: A buffering material, such as granulated plastic, sawdust, or similar material can be mixed with the shot to fill the spaces between the individual pellets. When fired, the buffering material compresses and supports the shot, reducing the deformation the shot pellets experience under the extreme acceleration. Antimony-lead alloys, copper plated lead shot, steel, bismuth, and tungsten composite shot all have a hardness greater than that of plain lead shot, and will deform less as well. Reducing the deformation will result in tighter patterns, as the spherical pellets tend to fly straighter. One improvised method for achieving the same effect involves pouring molten wax or tar into the mass of shot. Another is a partial ring cut around the case intended to ensure that the shot comes out tightly bunched along with the portion of the case forward of the cut, creating a 'cut-shell'. This can be dangerous, as it is thought to cause higher chamber pressures—especially if part of the shell remains behind in the barrel and is not cleared before another shot is fired.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Shooting the softest possible shot will result in more shot deformation and a wider pattern. This is often the case with cheap ammunition, as the lead used will have minimal alloying elements such as antimony and be very soft. Spreader wads are wads that have a small plastic or paper insert in the middle of the shot cup, usually a cylinder or "X" cross-section. When the shot exits the barrel, the insert helps to push the shot out from the center, opening up the pattern. Often these result in inconsistent performance, though modern designs are doing much better than the traditional improvised solutions. Intentionally deformed shot (hammered into ellipsoidal shape) or cubical shot will also result in a wider pattern, much wider than spherical shot, with more consistency than spreader wads. Spreader wads and non-spherical shot are disallowed in some competitions. Hunting loads that use either spreaders or non-spherical shot are usually called "brush loads", and are favored for hunting in areas where dense cover keeps shot distances very short.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Most shotgun shells contain multiple pellets in order to increase the likelihood of a target being hit. A shotgun's shot spread refers to the two-dimensional pattern that these projectiles (or shot) leave behind on a target. Another less important dimension of spread concerns the length of the in-flight shot string from the leading pellet to the trailing one. The use of multiple pellets is especially useful for hunting small game such as birds, rabbits, and other animals that fly or move quickly and can unpredictably change their direction of travel. However, some shotgun shells only contain one metal shot, known as a slug, for hunting large game such as deer.


title: Shotgun shell

text: As the shot leaves the barrel upon firing, the three-dimensional shot string is close together. But as the shot moves farther away, the individual pellets increasingly spread out and disperse. Because of this, the effective range of a shotgun, when firing a multitude of shot, is limited to approximately . To control this effect, shooters may use a constriction within the barrel of a shotgun called a choke. The choke, whether selectable or fixed within a barrel, effectively reduces the diameter of the end of the barrel, forcing the shot even closer together as it leaves the barrel, thereby increasing the effective range. The tighter the choke, the narrower the end of the barrel. Consequently, the effective range of a shotgun is increased with a tighter choke, as the shot column is held tighter over longer ranges. Hunters or target shooters can install several types of chokes, on guns having selectable chokes, depending on the range at which their intended targets will be located. For fixed choke shotguns, different shotguns or barrels are often selected for the intended hunting application at hand. From tightest to loosest, the various choke sizes are: full choke, improved modified, modified, improved cylinder, skeet, and cylinder bore.


title: Shotgun shell

text: A hunter who intends to hunt an animal such as rabbit or grouse knows that the animal will be encountered at a close range—usually within —and will be moving very quickly. So, an ideal choke would be a cylinder bore (the loosest) as the hunter wants the shot to spread out as quickly as possible. If this hunter were using a full choke (the tightest) at , the shot would be very close together and cause an unnecessarily large amount of damage to the rabbit, or, alternatively, a complete miss of the rabbit. This would waste virtually all of the meat for a hit, as the little amount of meat remaining would be overly-laden with shot and rendered inedible. By using a cylinder bore, this hunter would maximize the likelihood of a kill, and maximize the amount of edible meat. Contrarily, a hunter who intends to hunt geese knows that a goose will likely be approximately away, so that hunter would want to delay the spread of the shot as much as possible by using a full choke. By using a full choke for targets that are farther away, the shooter again maximizes the likelihood of a kill, and maximizes the amount of edible meat. This also maximizes the chances of a swift and humane kill as the target would be hit with enough shot to kill quickly instead of only wounding the animal.


title: Shotgun shell

text: For older shotguns having only one fixed choke, intended primarily for equally likely use against rabbits, squirrels, quail, doves, and pheasant, an often-chosen choke is the improved cylinder, in a barrel, making the shotgun suitable for use as a general all-round hunting shotgun, without having excess weight. Shotguns having fixed chokes intended for geese, in contrast, are often found with full choke barrels, in longer lengths, and are much heavier, being intended for fixed use within a blind against distant targets. Defensive shotguns with fixed chokes generally have a cylinder bore choke. Likewise, shotguns intended primarily for use with slugs invariably also are found with a choke that is a cylinder bore.


title: Shotgun shell

text: "Dram" equivalence is sometimes still used as a measure of the powder charge power in a shotgun shell. Today, it is an anachronistic equivalence that represents the equivalent power of a shotgun shell containing this equivalent amount of black-powder measured in drams avoirdupois. A dram in the avoirdupois system is the mass of  pound or  ounce or 27.3 grains. The reasoning behind this archaic equivalence is that when smokeless powder first came out, some method of establishing an equivalence with common shotgun shell loads was needed in order to sell a box of shotgun shells. For example, a shotgun shell containing a 3 or 3 1/2 dram load of black-powder was a common hunting field load, and a heavy full power load would have contained about a 4 to 4-1/2 dram load, whereas a shotgun shell containing only a 2 dram load of black-powder was a common target practice load. A hunter looking for a field or full power load familiar with black-powder shotgun loads would have known exactly what the equivalence of the shotgun shells would have been in the newly introduced smokeless powder. Today, however, this represents a poorly understood equivalence of the powder charge power in a shotgun shell. To further complicate matters, "dram" equivalence was only defined for 12 gauge shotgun shells, and only for lead shot, although it has often been used for describing other gauges of shells, and even steel shot loaded shells. Furthermore, "dram" equivalence only came around about 15 years after smokeless powder had been introduced, long after the need for an equivalence had started to fade, and actual black-powder loaded shotshells had largely vanished. In practice, "dram" equivalence today most commonly equates just to a velocity rating equivalence in fps (feet-per-second), while assuming lead shot.


title: Shotgun shell

text: A secondary impact of this equivalence was that common shotgun shells needed to stay the same size, physically, e.g., 2-1/2 or 2-3/4-inch shells, in order to be used in pre-existing shotguns when smokeless powder started being used to load shotgun shells in the place of black-powder. As smokeless powder did not have to be loaded in the same volume as black-powder to achieve the same power, being more powerful, the volumes of wads had to increase, to fill the shotgun shell enough to permit proper crimps still to be made. Initially, this meant that increased numbers of over powder card wads had to be stacked to achieve the same stack-up length. Eventually, this also led to the introduction of one-piece plastic wads in the late 1950s through the early 1960s, to add additional wad volumes, in order to maintain the same overall shotgun shell length.


title: Shotgun shell

text: Dram equivalence has no bearing on the reloading of shotgun shells with smokeless powder; loading a shotgun shell with an equivalent dram weight of smokeless powder would cause a shotgun to explode. It only has an equivalence in the reloading of shotgun shells with black powder.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schultze and Weaver, which was completed in 1931. The building was the world's tallest hotel from 1931 until 1963 when it was surpassed by Moscow's Hotel Ukraina by . An icon of glamour and luxury, the current Waldorf Astoria is one of the world's most prestigious and best-known hotels. Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts is a division of Hilton Hotels, and a portfolio of high-end properties around the world now operates under the name, including in New York City. Both the exterior and the interior of the Waldorf Astoria are designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission as official landmarks.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The original Waldorf–Astoria was built in two stages along Fifth Avenue and opened in 1893; it was demolished in 1929 to make way for the construction of the Empire State Building. Particularly after its relocation, the Waldorf Astoria gained international renown for its lavish dinner parties and galas, often at the center of political and business conferences and fundraising schemes involving the rich and famous. After World War II, it played a significant role in world politics and the Cold War, culminating in the controversial World Peace Conference of March 1949. Conrad Hilton acquired management rights to the hotel on October 12, 1949, and the Hilton Hotels Corporation finally bought the hotel outright in 1972. It underwent a $150 million renovation ($ in dollars ) by Lee Jablin in the 1980s and early 1990s. The Anbang Insurance Group of China (later absorbed into Dajia Insurance Group) purchased the Waldorf Astoria New York for US$1.95 billion in 2014, making it the most expensive hotel ever sold. The Waldorf was closed in 2017 and its upper-floor hotel rooms were converted into 375 condominiums called The Towers of the Waldorf Astoria. The renovated structure will retain 375 hotel rooms on the lowest 18 floors.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The Waldorf Astoria and Towers has a total of 1,413 hotel rooms as of 2014. In 2009, when it had 1,416 rooms, the main hotel had 1,235 single and double rooms and 208 mini-suites, while the Waldorf Towers, from the 28th floor up to the 42nd, had 181 rooms, of which 115 were suites, with one to four bedrooms. Several of the luxury suites are named after celebrities who lived or stayed in them such as the Cole Porter Suite, the Royal Suite, named after the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the MacArthur Suite, and the Churchill Suite. The most expensive room, the Presidential Suite, is designed with Georgian-style furniture to emulate that of the White House. It was the residence of Herbert Hoover from his retirement for over 30 years, and Frank Sinatra kept a suite at the Waldorf from 1979 until 1988. The hotel has three main restaurants: Peacock Alley, The Bull, and Bear Steak House, and La Chine—a new Chinese restaurant that replaced Oscar's Brasserie in late 2015. Sir Harry's Bar, also located in the hotel, is named after British explorer Sir Harry Johnston.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The name of the hotel is ultimately derived from the town of Walldorf, which lies in south-west Germany, close to Mannheim and Heidelberg. Walldorf is the ancestral home of the prominent German-American Astor family who originated there. In German, "Waldorf" (with one l, like the hotel) means "Whale Village" (Wal = whale, Dorf = village), and "Walldorf" (with two l's, like the town) means "Rampart Village" (Wall = rampart). The name of the town, however, formed through an elision: "Walddorf" (with two d's), meaning "Forest Village" (Wald = forest), became "Walldorf". An oak tree in the coat of arms of the town refers to this etymology.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The hotel was originally known as the Waldorf-Astoria with a single hyphen, as recalled by a popular expression and song, "Meet Me at the Hyphen". The sign was changed to a double hyphen, looking similar to an equals sign, by Conrad Hilton when he purchased the hotel in 1949. The double hyphen visually represents "Peacock Alley", the hallway between the two hotels that once stood where the Empire State building now stands today. The use of the double hyphen was discontinued by its parent company Hilton in 2009, shortly after the introduction of the Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts chain. The hotel has since been known as the Waldorf Astoria New York, without any hyphen, though this is sometimes shortened to the Waldorf Astoria.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The original hotel started as two hotels on Fifth Avenue built by feuding relatives. The first hotel, the 13-story, 450-room Waldorf Hotel, designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh in the German Renaissance style, was opened on March 13, 1893, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 33rd Street, on the site where millionaire developer William Waldorf Astor had his mansion. The original hotel stood high, with a frontage of about on Fifth Avenue, with an area of . The original hotel was described as having a "lofty stone and brick exterior", which was "animated by an effusion of balconies, alcoves, arcades, and loggias beneath a tile roof bedecked with gables and turrets". William Astor, motivated in part by a dispute with his aunt Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor, had built the Waldorf Hotel next door to her house, on the site of his father's mansion. The hotel was built to the specifications of founding proprietor George Boldt, who owned and operated the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, a fashionable hotel on Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with his wife Louise. Boldt was described as "Mild-mannered, undignified, unassuming", resembling "a typical German professor with his close-cropped beard which he kept fastidiously trimmed... and his pince-nez glasses on a black silk cord". Boldt continued to own the Bellevue even after his relationship with the Astors blossomed.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: At first, the Waldorf appeared destined for failure. It was "Astor's Folly", with the general perception of the palatial hotel being that it had no place in New York City. Wealthy New Yorkers were angry because they viewed the construction of the hotel as the ruination of a good neighborhood. Business travelers found it too expensive and too far uptown for their needs. In the face of all of this, George Boldt decided that the hotel would host a benefit concert for St. Mary's Hospital for Children on its opening day. The hospital was the favorite charity of those on the Social Register. The ballroom filled with many of New York's First Families, who had paid five dollars for the concert and dinner at the Waldorf. It soon became a major success, earning $4.5 million in its first year, exorbitant for that period.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: William Astor's construction of a hotel next to his aunt's house worsened his feud with her, but with Boldt's assistance, Waldorf's cousin, John Jacob Astor IV, persuaded his mother to move uptown. On November 1, 1897, John Jacob Astor IV opened the 17-story Astoria Hotel on an adjacent site, and leased it to Boldt. The hotels were initially built as two separate structures, but Boldt planned the Astoria so it could be connected to the Waldorf by an alley. Peacock Alley was constructed to connect them; it was named so by New Yorkers for the parade of well-dressed, well-to-do people who strutted between the two fashionable buildings. The hotel subsequently became known as the "Waldorf-Astoria", the largest hotel in the world at the time.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: With a telephone in every room and first-class room service, the hotel was designed specifically to cater to the needs of the socially prominent "wealthy upper crust" of New York and distinguished foreign visitors to the city. The hotel became, according to author Sean Dennis Cashman, "a successful symbol of the opulence and achievement of the Astor family". It was the first hotel to offer complete electricity and private bathrooms. Founding proprietor Boldt, whose motto was "the guest is always right", became wealthy and prominent internationally, if not so much a popular celebrity as his famous employee, Oscar Tschirky, known as "Oscar of the Waldorf", "maître d'hôtel" from the hotel's inauguration in 1893 until his retirement in 1943. Tschirky had arrived in the United States from Switzerland 10 years prior to applying for the position at the new Waldorf, and over the years grew to possess a great knowledge of cuisine. He authored "The Cookbook by Oscar of the Waldorf" (1896), a 900-page book featuring all of the popular recipes of the day, including his own, for which he garnered great acclaim, such as Waldorf salad, eggs Benedict, and Thousand Island dressing, which remain popular worldwide today. James Remington McCarthy wrote in his book "Peacock Alley" that Oscar gained renown among the general public as an artist who "composed sonatas in soups, symphonies in salads, minuets in sauces, lyrics in entrees". In 1902, Tschirky published "Serving a Course Dinner by Oscar of the Waldorf-Astoria", a booklet that explains the intricacies of being a caterer to the American and international elite. Tschirky had an excellent memory and an encyclopedic memory of the culinary preferences of many of the guests, which further added to his popularity. In 1937, for instance, he recalled the opening night and notable people present at the old Waldorf, a guest at the old building known to the public as Buffalo Bill, and spoke at length about the planning for the Panama Canal that took place at the Waldorf-Astoria.


title: Waldorf Astoria New York

text: The Waldorf gained significant renown internationally for its fundraising dinners and balls, regularly attracting notables of the day such as Andrew Carnegie, who became a fixture. Banquets were often held in the ballroom for esteemed figures and international royalty. The Waldorf Astoria was influential in advancing the status of women, who were admitted singly without escorts. George Boldt's wife, Louise Kehrer Boldt, was influential in evolving the idea of the grand urban hotel as a social center, particularly in making it appealing to women as a venue for social events. On February 11, 1899, Oscar hosted a lavish dinner reception that the "New York Herald Tribune" cited as the city's costliest dinner at the time. Some $250 was spent per guest, with bluepoint oysters, green turtle soup, lobster, ruddy duck, and blue raspberries. One article that year claimed that at any one time, the hotel had $7 million worth of valuables locked in the safe, testament to the wealth of its guests. In 1902, a lavish dinner was organized for Prince Henry of Prussia, and in 1909, banquets attended by hundreds were organized for Arctic explorer Frederick Cook in September and Elbert Henry Gary, a founder of US Steel, the following month.