title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The Serbian Party Oathkeepers (SSZ) had their parliamentary list confirmed by RIK on 20 February, with Milica Đurđević Stamenkovski as its ballot representative. SSZ also nominated Đurđević Stamenkovski as its presidential candidate in early February 2022, while RIK confirmed her candidacy on 8 March, shortly after the proclamation of presidential electoral campaign. Representatives of the party orchestrated a protest on 4 March following the ban of Russian government-owned RT channel in Europe. Đurđević Stamenkovski had also stated that Serbia should establish closer ties with Russia.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The Justice and Reconciliation Party (SPP), led by Usame Zukorlić, submitted its ballot list on 19 February, while RIK confirmed the ballot a day later, with 5,056 valid signatures. On 7 March, Zukorlić stated that he would expect the cooperation between SPP and SNS to continue after the election. During the electoral campaign, the party stated its support to have as many women as possible in management positions, as well as the affirmation of women's entrepreneurship. The party had also stated its support for reconciliation, education reforms and anti-discrimination politics. In late March, the party endorsed Vučić.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The We Must coalition submitted its signatures on 21 February. Its first campaign rally was held on 27 February, during which it announced Biljana Stojković as its presidential candidate. During the campaign period, the We Must coalition received support from German The Left, Danish Red–Green Alliance, and Slovenian The Left.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The Sovereignists coalition, which was mainly led by the Enough is Enough (DJB) party, had chosen Saša Radulović as the ballot representative. The coalition announced Branka Stamenković as its presidential candidate on 28 February.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: One of the representatives of the coalition, Milan Stamatović, stated that "Serbia should not impose sanctions on Russia", while Radulović stated that "it is unfortunate that Serbia sided with NATO" during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During the campaign, Radulović had also stated the coalitions support for "souverainist policies" and its opposition to mandatory vaccination. The Sovereignists had also stated their support for implementing blockchain technology and free textbooks for kindergartens and primary schools. During an interview, Stamenković stated her support for the introduction of mandatory conscription into the army.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: Dveri announced its participation in the upcoming elections under the "Patriotic Bloc", which was formed in December 2021. It opposed the legalization of civil unions, and the coalition has expressed their support towards monarchism, antiglobalism, and abolition of vaccine passports. Its leader, Boško Obradović, was chosen as their presidential candidate in January 2022. Obradović had also participated in talks regarding the formation of a united "Patriotic bloc" that would also include other right-leaning parties, although the talks had stalled shortly after. Dveri leadership announced their support for a joint "patriotic ballot list" on 13 February. Obradović announced on 16 February that Dveri reached an agreement with Žika Gojković-led POKS faction to participate in a joint list. Soon after, Slobodan Samardžić and Duško Kuzović left the coalition. Obradović stated that his campaign would be mainly focused on the restoration of the monarchy. The coalition had received support from Branimir Nestorović.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: Its parliamentary list was confirmed by RIK on 23 February. During the campaign, Obradović stated that one of the coalition's priorities is to enforce economic patriotism and to raise conditions for villagers and agriculturers. Miloš Parandilović, the ballot representative, said that the Dveri–POKS coalition is supportive of breaking up monopolies and to fight against crime and corruption. It had also stated its opposition to NATO.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The Vojvodinians coalition, which is led by the Democratic Alliance of Croats in Vojvodina (DSHV) and Together for Vojvodina, a branch of the League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV), submitted its ballot on 1 March. The ballot list was confirmed by RIK a day later. LSV had also publicly stated its support for the coalition.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The coalition had primarily campaigned on "bringing Vojvodina back to the National Assembly". It had also stated its support for progressive policies and fiscal decentralization, and its opposition to "cutting Vojvodina's forests" and "dirty technologies". Tomislav Žigmanov, the coalition representative, had also stated their support for Serbia to join the European Union and NATO. The coalition began campaigning on 10 March, and during their first rally in Subotica, the coalition had also expressed their support towards multiculturalism.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The coalition led by the Social Democratic Party (SDS) and New Party (Nova) ballot list was confirmed by RIK on 8 March. SDS announced Dragoslav Šumarac as its presidential candidate on 12 March, although Šumarac withdrew his candidature a day later after not receiving support from his coalition partners. During the campaign, the coalition stated its support for adopting a long-term strategy regarding agricultural development. It had also expressed its support towards the accession of Serbia to the European Union, although it also stated its opposition to sanction Russia.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The Party of Democratic Action of Sandžak (SDA S) ballot list was confirmed on 2 March, with around 7,000 valid signatures. Its first campaign rally was held in Novi Pazar on 9 March. The civic group "Stolen Babies", which is led by Ana Pejić, stated their opposition to baby trafficking during an interview on 16 March. Srđan Šajn, the leader of the Roma Party, stated his support for labor rights and his opposition to "unfair privatization". Presidential candidate Miša Vacić expressed his support for introducing mandatory conscription and increasing the rights for war veterans in Serbia. The Russian Minority Alliance, which was primarily led by the Leviathan Movement, was initially rejected by RIK, although after the case got overturned by the Constitutional Court, RIK confirmed their ballot. CeSID claimed that the ballot list did not represent minority rights but far-right politics, while CRTA claimed that they had falsified the signatures.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: Voting stations were opened from 07:00 (UTC+01:00) to 20:00, and there were 6,502,307 citizens in total that had the right to vote in the general elections. According to preliminary results that were published by CRTA and Ipsos/CeSID, Aleksandar Vučić won in the first round of the presidential elections, although his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) also lost its majority status in the National Assembly according to the parliamentary election results. In diaspora, Vučić won more votes than Ponoš. SNS managed to strengthen its presence in suburban and rural areas, although it underperformed in major cities such as Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš, and Valjevo.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: RIK announced that voting will be repeated at some stations, effectively postponing the announcement of final results. Voting was repeated five times; on 16 and 28 April, on 27 May, and on 23 and 30 June, and after which, official results were published online by the Republic Electoral Commission (RIK). The Albanian Coalition of Preševo Valley (KSLP) initially gained a seat following the 28 April repeat election, although following the repeat election on 27 May, it lost its seat to the Socialist Party of Serbia; the coalition only needed 12 more votes in order to retain its seat in the National Assembly. The Administrative Court rejected the results of repeated elections that were held on 27 May, and the fourth repeated election in Veliki Trnovac was set to be held on 23 June. On the day of the election, the voting station in Veliki Trnovac did not open on time and members of the polling station committee did not agree on the division of roles. Additionally, a bomb threat was reported at the voting station, and because of it the election was postponed. RIK announced that the election would be repeated again on 30 June. In the fifth repeat election, KSLP won enough votes to retain its seat.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: Many crowds formed in polling stations across Serbia, mostly due to the simultaneous holding of elections at several levels, which slowed down the process, but also because of increased voter turnout. In the end, the turnout was reported to be at around 59%, making it the largest turnout since the 2008 elections.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: CeSID reported that electoral irregularities occurred in the early hours of the election. Later that evening, CRTA stated that multiple Bulgarian trains occurred during the vote, and that some ballot stations in Belgrade declined to cooperate with electoral observers. OSE, a non-governmental organization, stated that irregularities took place in Novi Sad. CRTA and political activists had also noted that the election day was marked by high tensions, verbal and in several places, such as Belgrade, physical violence. Dveri and the Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP) also reported irregularities in Niš. ENEMO had stated that intimidation and vote buying affected the results of the elections, and that the process of voter registration lacked transparency. Former SNS MP Bratislav Jugović and the leader of the Movement of Free Citizens (PSG), Pavle Grbović, were physically attacked outside of voting stations.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The PACE monitoring mission evaluated that the "fundamental freedoms were largely respected, and voters were presented diverse political options, but a number of shortcomings resulted in an uneven playing field, favoring the incumbents". It further reported that "the combined impact of unbalanced access to the media, undue pressure on public sector employees to support the incumbents, significant campaign finance disparities and misuse of state resources resulted in unequal conditions for contestants". It added that "while media covered all electoral contestants, most public and private broadcasters with national coverage favored the incumbent president and the ruling coalition, limiting the opportunity of voters to make a fully informed choice." It concluded that PACE "welcomed the recent legislative changes, adopted following extensive dialogue among the ruling parties and some of the opposition, included some welcome improvements, but key aspects of the electoral process require further reform and implementation". Kyriakos Hadjiyianni, special coordinator and leader of the OSCE short-term observers, said, "this was a competitive campaign and, importantly, included opposition candidates this time, but the pervasive influence of the ruling parties gave them undue advantage".


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: Shortly after 23:00 (UTC+01:00), Vučić declared his victory. He announced in a televised victory speech, that he secured roughly 60% of the popular vote, adding, "I am pleased that a huge number of people voted and showed the democratic nature of Serbian society". After the proclamation of the preliminary results, Vučić was congratulated by Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin, Miloš Zeman, Zoran Milanović, and others. Milorad Dodik had also congratulated him, after stating his support for him a few days prior to the election. The Ecological Uprising and Assembly of Free Serbia, who were a part of the We Must coalition, organized a protest in front of the RIK building on 4 April.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: Following the election, Zdravko Ponoš left the People's Party (Narodna). Further disagreements between the coalition partners in the United for the Victory of Serbia (UZPS) coalition broke out, with Vuk Jeremić and his Narodna opposing the meeting between Dragan Đilas and Vučić. Tepić accused Jeremić of populism. Pavle Grbović, the leader of PSG, stated that his party might leave the coalition in order to continue alone, while Zoran Lutovac, the leader of the Democratic Party (DS), stated that "UZPS was just a pre-election coalition and that its fate would depend on the official results for the Belgrade City Assembly election"; he had also stated that he would opt to create a wide alliance of moderate parties. Regarding the parliamentary groups, Lutovac said that the parties would not form a joint parliamentary group that would be composed of parties inside the coalition. In June, Aleksandar Jovanović Ćuta, Biljana Stojković, and Nebojša Zelenović held a founding assembly of their political party, which was named Together.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: The 2022 election was the first election since 2014 in which SNS did not win a majority of seats in the National Assembly, and because of it, SNS would have to form a coalition government. Observers stated that it is unclear whether SNS might form a coalition with the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) due to the their pro-Russian stance that was present during the campaign. Vučić was sworn in again as president on 31 May; during his speech he had stated that the government would be formed by the end of July and that the government would potentially impose sanctions on Russia due to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. SPS confirmed that it would want to extend its cooperation with SNS, while the Democratic Alliance of Croats in Vojvodina (DSHV) and Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (VMSZ) also expressed its desire to join the government.


title: 2022 Serbian general election

text: In late April, Vučić stated that consultations for the formation of the government would begin in late May or early June. Vučić announced that consultations with all parliamentary lists would begin on 14 July. The consultations lasted until 18 July. The first constitutive session of the 2022–2026 convocation was held on 1 August, while the government is set to be formed before November. Prime Minister Ana Brnabić received the mandate to form a new government on 27 August. The composition of her cabinet was presented on 23 October, while the cabinet was sworn in on 26 October.


title: Onision

text: James Jackson (born Gregory James Daniel; November 11, 1985), known professionally by his online alias Onision (), is an American YouTuber. His primary YouTube channel, "Onision", featured sketches and satirical clips; videos posted to his other channels focus on personal stories covering controversial topics as well as discussion with his viewers. His online content has attracted controversy and criticism from online media outlets and viewers alike, as well as many allegations of misconduct in his private life.


title: Onision

text: As of June 2022, Daniel's main Onision channel had received over 2 million subscribers and over 330 million video views; his secondary channel "UhOhBro" had received just under 2 million subscribers and over 370 million video views; and his vlog channel "OnisionSpeaks" had received over 1.4 million subscribers and over 550 million video views. A music video titled "Banana Song (I'm a Banana)", written and performed by Daniel, is his most-viewed video; as of October 2022, it had garnered over 91 million views.


title: Onision

text: Daniel was born Gregory James Daniel on November 11, 1985, in Auburn, Washington. Daniel has told fans that his mother raised him and his older sisters in a rural environment and that they were Seventh-day Adventists. Additionally, in his 2014 self-published "Facts About Onision (Story Time)" video, Jackson states that his mother "filed for divorce once it was made clear that his father was a child predator". During his teenage years, Daniel composed music and worked on web and graphic design.


title: Onision

text: Jackson created his YouTube channel in 2006 but did not upload any content until October 2007. His earliest clips featured a character named Chibi, whom fans interpreted as a parody of Fred Figglehorn. In 2019, "Insider" wrote that Jackson was "best known for his objectifying content and controversial reputation", and detailed that "he rates pictures that women submit to him, gives his opinions on their bodies, and comments on other YouTubers".


title: Onision

text: In 2009, Jackson uploaded "Banana Song (I'm a Banana)", which went viral. The video featured Jackson "jumping around screaming in a banana suit", as well as his first wife, Skye Tantaga. "Banana Song" was featured on Comedy Central series "Tosh.0" as the "Viewer Video of the Week" in 2010.


title: Onision

text: In 2011, Jackson posted a number of clips with his then-girlfriend, Canadian singer Shiloh Hoganson. The clips were scripted but presented in a manner many fans interpreted as unscripted. In some of them, however, Hoganson is seen apparently experiencing transient amnesia; Adrienne Jourgensen, an ex-girlfriend of Jackson's, published a letter stating that Jackson believed Hoganson was lying about her memory loss. Jackson and Hoganson later stated that she was pregnant but suffered a miscarriage. In 2019, a video featuring Hoganson resurfaced online; in it, Jackson is heard telling her, "You know this video is never going to be online, right? No one will ever know how much I abuse you", before throwing candy corn at her and laughing as Hoganson cried.


title: Onision

text: Jackson's on-camera and off-camera activity has received criticism from online media outlets as well as from fellow online content creators. In 2010, "Tubefilter" listed Jackson as one of "5 YouTubers On Their Way Up", alongside Shane Dawson and the Fine Brothers. The outlet described Jackson's channel as frequently updated with a "very rough, in-your-face R-rated style" and called Jackson "the most controversial YouTuber". In 2012, "The Daily Dot" described Jackson as "known for his militant vegetarianism, sex appeal, comedic skits, and controversial views on topics like circumcision." The publication has also criticized his content on multiple occasions; in 2013, James Cook wrote for the outlet, calling Jackson "YouTube's most troubled star".


title: Onision

text: In 2018, Jackson was included on a "Daily Dot"-published list of six YouTubers "worse" than Logan Paul. The outlet opined that "[Jackson's] videos these days [2018] are just as obnoxious and irritating as they were nine years ago when he first struck YouTube gold with a truly terrible song about being a banana." Jackson has also received criticism from fellow YouTubers, notably Daniel Sulzbach (known online as "MrRepzion" or "Repzion"), Strange Æons, and Blaire White. In a 2019 email to "Insider", Jackson shared that "People hated me, with a passion, for my opinions I openly held." In late 2019, "Insider" called Jackson "one of YouTube's most reviled personalities".


title: Onision

text: Daniel was banned from VidCon 2012 due to a video in which he stated that since his then girlfriend Adrienne Jorgensen slept with more than 20 people before she was with him, she is a "slut" and therefore "cannot be raped". The video then received backlash from viewers outside of Daniel's core audience, as noted by "NewMediaRockstars" and "The Daily Dot". VidCon co-founder Hank Green sent an email to Daniel stating "if it is possible that you will not be safe, we will not let you come [to VidCon]."


title: Onision

text: In November 2019, Daniel was banned from Patreon after posting the phone number of Billie Dawn Webb, a fellow YouTuber. Webb was one of several women who claimed Daniel and his spouse had groomed and manipulated them into a sexual relationship or otherwise engaged in harassment and abuse. Patreon confirmed in a statement to "The Verge" that they had banned Daniel "as he violated our Bullying and Harassment [policy] as it relates to doxing." In response to the ban, Daniel uploaded a video of him seemingly contorting himself, screaming, pouring a bottle of kombucha over his head, and shouting, "What am I going to do now? I'm covered in kombucha, and I have no more patrons!" Daniel subsequently opened a new web site where his supporters could re-donate, but shut it down shortly after its launch.


title: Onision

text: In January 2021, following the release of "Onision: In Real Life", Daniel's channels were suspended from the YouTube Partner Program.


title: Onision

text: In 2019, allegations of child grooming and abuse were leveled at Daniel and his spouse, Kai Avaroe, formerly known as Lainey. Jackson responded by stating that "the grooming stuff is absolute nonsense". As aforementioned, Billie Dawn Webb also made allegations of abuse by Daniel and Avaroe, stating that they were sent texts asking them to "be chained to [the] basement wall for a week with a sign around [their] neck that says 'I'm sorry for lying.'"


title: Onision

text: When reached by "Insider" for a comment in response to these allegations, Daniel requested $10,000 for an interview and stated: "I do not want to participate in this circus without compensation, I should be paid to endure to stupidity of the current state of outrage/online culture."


title: Onision

text: In January 2020, Daniel apparently called 9-1-1 on American television journalist Chris Hansen and lawyer Mike Morse in response to them knocking on his door. He described Hansen and his crew as "YouTuber stalkers". Morse, referring to Daniel, stated that "It concerns me that he [has] two kids in the home," and that he "really didn't like what I was hearing about this guy".


title: Onision

text: According to a February 2020 article by "The Daily Beast", Hansen's investigative team alleges that Daniel has exploited his online fame for nearly a decade by grooming young fans and "coercing them into sexually and emotionally abusive relationships".


title: Onision

text: A documentary about Onision titled "Onision: In Real Life" was broadcast on January 4, 2021, during the launch of Discovery+, with Chris Hansen as producer and consultant.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: SAS: Rogue Heroes is a British television historical drama series created by Steven Knight, which depicts the origins of the British Army Special Air Service (SAS) during the Western Desert Campaign of World War II. The storyline is a broadly accurate representation of real events, as described by Ben Macintyre in his book of the same name.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: On 4 December 2022, the BBC confirmed that a second series had been commissioned, based upon SAS operations in the European theatre of war.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: The narrative begins in a Cairo hospital in 1941, when, after a failed training exercise, British Army officer David Stirling has the idea of creating a special commando unit which could operate deep behind enemy lines.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: In March 2021, it was announced that filming had begun on the six part miniseries, with Connor Swindells, Jack O'Connell, Alfie Allen, Sofia Boutella and Dominic West in starring roles. The series was written by Steven Knight and directed by Tom Shankland. In June, César Domboy joined the cast.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: The series made its premiere on BBC One on 30 October 2022 in the UK. It simultaneously made its US debut on Epix.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: Writing in "The Guardian", Anthony Beevor commented that the series was "unmissable viewing", and "achieved the right balance of irreverence and admiration all the way through with a brilliant contrast in characters".


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 100% with an average rating of 8.3/10, based on 12 critic reviews. The website's critical consensus said: "With a terrific cast inhabiting this roster of likeable rapscallions, "Rogue Heroes" is a fun throwback to down-and-dirty adventure stories." Metacritic gave the series a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on seven critic reviews, indicating "Generally favourable reviews."


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: At the beginning of each episode, the viewer is informed that the series is "[b]ased on a true story", and that "the events depicted which seem most unbelievable… are mostly true".


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: Unlike the main trio of Stirling, Mayne, and Lewes, the character of Eve Mansour is fictional. However, Sofia Boutella, who plays the character, points out how her character's creation is influenced by real-life female spies such as Noor Inayat Khan or Virginia Hall.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: As military historian Anthony Beevor noted, whilst events surrounding the creation of the SAS "certainly defy belief", it is true that "some liberties with the precise record" were taken – for example, in the scripting of a romantic association between David Stirling and Mansour, the French intelligence agent. However, his opinion was that these were "mainly additions, fleshing out characters and context", rather than being significant "distortions" of the facts.


title: SAS: Rogue Heroes

text: Billy Foley (writing in the "The Irish News") was somewhat more critical of the artistic license employed, particularly in the depiction of Paddy Mayne. Far from being "a brutish, rough man who was looked down on by the aristocracy of his native Newtownards and despised the toff officer class of the British army", Foley pointed out that the ostensibly working class Mayne was in fact born to a landed family, went to grammar school, played rugby for the British & Irish Lions, and studied at Queen's University Belfast before qualifying as a solicitor. Historian Damien Lewis also said it was "nonsense" to portray Mayne as a "thug and drunken lout", when he "cared passionately for those men he commanded".


title: Jazz fusion

text: Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and keyboards that were popular in rock and roll started to be used by jazz musicians, particularly those who had grown up listening to rock and roll.


title: Jazz fusion

text: Jazz fusion arrangements vary in complexity. Some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a single key or a single chord with a simple, repeated melody. Others use elaborate chord progressions, unconventional time signatures, or melodies with counter-melodies. These arrangements, whether simple or complex, typically include improvised sections that can vary in length, much like in other forms of jazz.


title: Jazz fusion

text: As with jazz, jazz fusion can employ brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone, but other instruments often substitute for these. A jazz fusion band is less likely to use piano and double bass, and more likely to use electric guitar, synthesizers, and bass guitar.


title: Jazz fusion

text: The term "jazz rock" is sometimes used as a synonym for "jazz fusion" and for music performed by late 1960s and 1970s-era rock bands that added jazz elements to their music. After a decade of popularity during the 1970s, fusion expanded its improvisatory and experimental approaches through the 1980s in parallel with the development of a radio-friendly style called smooth jazz. Experimentation continued in the 1990s and 2000s. Fusion albums, even those that are made by the same group or artist, may include a variety of musical styles. Rather than being a codified musical style, fusion can be viewed as a musical tradition or approach.


title: Jazz fusion

text: When John Coltrane died in 1967, rock was the most popular music in America, and "DownBeat" magazine went so far as to declare in a headline that: "Jazz as We Know It Is Dead".


title: Jazz fusion

text: Guitarist Larry Coryell, sometimes called the godfather of fusion, referred to a generation of musicians who had grown up on rock and roll when he said, "We loved Miles but we also loved the Rolling Stones." In 1966 he started the band the Free Spirits with Bob Moses on drums and recorded the band's first album, "Out of Sight and Sound", in 1967. That same year "DownBeat" began to report on rock music. After the Free Spirits, Coryell was part of a quartet led by vibraphonist Gary Burton, releasing the album "Duster" with its rock guitar influence. Burton produced the album "Tomorrow Never Knows" for Count's Jam Band, which included Coryell, Mike Nock, and Steve Marcus, all of them former students at Berklee College in Boston.


title: Jazz fusion

text: The pioneers of fusion emphasized exploration, energy, electricity, intensity, virtuosity, and volume. Charles Lloyd played a combination of rock and jazz at the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1966 with a quartet that included Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette. Lloyd adopted the trappings of the California psychedelic rock scene by playing at the rock venue the Fillmore West, wearing colorful clothes, and giving his albums titles like "Dream Weaver" and "Forest Flower", which were bestselling jazz albums in 1967. Flautist Jeremy Steig experimented with jazz in his band Jeremy & the Satyrs with vibraphonist Mike Mainieri. The jazz label Verve released the first album ("Freak Out") by rock guitarist Frank Zappa in 1966. Rahsaan Roland Kirk performed with Jimi Hendrix at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London.


title: Jazz fusion

text: AllMusic states that "until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate".


title: Jazz fusion

text: As members of Miles Davis's band, Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock played electric piano on "Filles de Kilimanjaro". Davis wrote in his autobiography that in 1968 he had been listening to Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, and Sly and the Family Stone. When Davis recorded "Bitches Brew" in 1969, he mostly abandoned the swing beat in favor of a rock and roll backbeat and bass guitar grooves. The album "mixed free jazz blowing by a large ensemble with electronic keyboards and guitar, plus a dense mix of percussion." Davis played his trumpet like an electric guitar—plugged in to electronic effects and pedals.


title: Jazz fusion

text: By the end of the first year, "Bitches Brew" sold 400,000 copies, four times the average for a Miles Davis album. Over the next two years the aloof Davis recorded more often, worked with many sidemen, appeared on television, and performed at rock venues. Just as quickly, Davis tested the loyalty of rock fans by continuing to experiment. His producer, Teo Macero, inserted previously recorded material into the "Jack Johnson" soundtrack, "Live-Evil", and "On the Corner".


title: Jazz fusion

text: Although "Bitches Brew" gave him a gold record, the use of electric instruments and rock beats created consternation among some jazz critics, who accused Davis of betraying the essence of jazz. Music critic Kevin Fellezs commented that some members of the jazz community regarded rock music as less sophisticated and more commercial than jazz.


title: Jazz fusion

text: Davis's 1969 album "In a Silent Way" is considered his first fusion album. Composed of two side-long improvised suites edited heavily by Teo Macero, the album was made by pioneers of jazz fusion: Corea, Hancock, Tony Williams, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, and John McLaughlin.


title: Jazz fusion

text: "A Tribute to Jack Johnson" (1971) has been cited as "the purest electric jazz record ever made" and "one of the most remarkable jazz rock discs of the era".


title: Jazz fusion

text: According to music journalist Zaid Mudhaffer, the term "jazz fusion" was coined in a review of "Song of Innocence" by David Axelrod when it was released in 1968. Axelrod said Davis had played the album before conceiving "Bitches Brew".


title: Jazz fusion

text: Miles Davis was one of the first jazz musicians to incorporate jazz fusion into his material. His guitar player John McLaughlin branched out, forming his own fusion group Mahavishnu Orchestra. Blending Indian classical music, jazz, and psychedelic rock, they created a whole new style just as Davis had. Davis's live albums during this period, including "Live-Evil" and "Miles Davis at Fillmore", featured McLaughlin.


title: Jazz fusion

text: Davis dropped out of music in 1975 because of problems with drugs and alcohol, but his sidemen took advantage of the creative and financial vistas that had been opened. Herbie Hancock brought elements of funk, disco, and electronic music into commercially successful albums such as "Head Hunters" (1973) and "Feets, Don't Fail Me Now" (1979). Several years after recording "Miles in the Sky" with Davis, guitarist George Benson became a vocalist with enough pop hits to overshadow his earlier career in jazz.


title: Jazz fusion

text: While Davis was sidelined, Chick Corea gained prominence. In the early 1970s Corea combined jazz, rock, pop, and Brazilian music in Return to Forever, a band which included Stanley Clarke on bass guitar and Al DiMeola on electric guitar. Corea divided the rest of his career between acoustic and electric music, non-commercial and commercial, jazz and pop rock, with a band for each: the Akoustic Band and the Elektric Band.


title: Jazz fusion

text: Tony Williams was a member of Davis's band since 1963. Williams reflected, "I wanted to create a different atmosphere from the one I had been in...What better way to do it than to go electric?" He left Davis to form the Tony Williams Lifetime with English guitarist John McLaughlin and organist Larry Young. The band combined rock intensity and loudness with jazz spontaneity. The debut album "Emergency!" was recorded three months before "Bitches Brew".


title: Jazz fusion

text: Although McLaughlin had worked with Miles Davis, he was influenced more by Jimi Hendrix and had played with English rock musicians Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger before creating the Mahavishnu Orchestra around the same time that Corea started Return to Forever. McLaughlin had been a member of Tony Williams's Lifetime. He brought to his music many of the elements which interested other musicians in the 1960s and early 1970s: counterculture, rock and roll, electronic instruments, solo virtuosity, experimentation, the blending of genres, and an interest in the exotic, such as Indian music. He formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra with drummer Billy Cobham, violinist Jerry Goodman, bassist Rick Laird, and keyboardist Jan Hammer. The band released its first album, "The Inner Mounting Flame", in 1971. Hammer pioneered the use of the Minimoog synthesizer with distortion effects. His use of the pitch bend wheel made a keyboard sound like an electric guitar. The Mahavishnu Orchestra was influenced by both psychedelic rock and Indian classical music. The band's first lineup broke up after two studio albums and one live album, but McLaughlin formed another group in 1974 under the same name with jazz violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, one of the first electric violinists. During the late '70s, Lee Ritenour, Stuff, George Benson, Spyro Gyra, the Crusaders, and Larry Carlton released fusion albums.


title: Jazz fusion

text: Jazz fusion formed in the late 1960s when musicians combined styles such as jazz, funk, rock, and R&B (rhythm and blues). It has been popularized by artists like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Pat Metheny, Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Allan Holdsworth, Billy Cobham and John McLaughlin along with many other legends in the jazz world. Jazz and rock music have played an integral part in society throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Jazz populated the airwaves throughout the 1940s and 1950s with artists like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz of the 1940s was commonly referred to as bebop, which is characterized by fast tempo, complex chord progressions, and numerous key changes. In 1959 the breakthrough jazz record "Kind of Blue" was recorded by the great Miles Davis. This record has been described as the "one of the greatest jazz records of all time". Davis recorded it with pianist Bill Evans, saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb. This was the first modal jazz record and shaped the sound for jazz of the 1960s and 1970s. For this record Miles Davis brought sketches to the studio with no sheet music, just telling the musicians to play what they feel and listen to each other. While the record was improvised and loosely sketched, it has sold millions of copies and has become a remarkable staple in the jazz community. Some modal jazz and/or jazz fusion records that followed were "Bitches Brew", "Head Hunters", "Birds of Fire", and "In a Silent Way".


title: Jazz fusion

text: The term "jazz-rock" (or "jazz/rock") is sometimes used as a synonym for "jazz fusion". The Free Spirits have sometimes been cited as the earliest jazz rock band.


title: Jazz fusion

text: Rock bands such as IF, Colosseum, Chicago, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Soft Machine, Nucleus, Brand X, and the Mothers of Invention blended jazz and rock with electric instruments. Davis' fusion jazz was "pure melody and tonal color", while Frank Zappa's music was more "complex" and "unpredictable". Zappa released the solo album "Hot Rats" in 1969. The album contained long instrumental pieces with a jazz influence. Zappa released two albums, "The Grand Wazoo" and "Waka/Jawaka", in 1972 which were influenced by jazz. George Duke and Aynsley Dunbar played on both. 1970s band Steely Dan has been lauded by music critic Neil McCormick for their "smooth, smart jazz-rock fusion."


title: Jazz fusion

text: The jazz artists of the 1960s and 1970s had a large impact on many rock groups of that era such as Santana and Frank Zappa. They took jazz phrasing and harmony and incorporated it into modern rock music, significantly changing music history and paving the way for artists that would follow in their footsteps. Carlos Santana in particular has given much credit towards Miles Davis and the influence he had on his music. While Miles Davis combined jazz with modal and rock influences, Carlos Santana combined these along with Latin rhythms and feel, shaping a whole new genre, Latin rock. Other rock artists such as Led Zeppelin, Gary Moore, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and The Allman Brothers Band have taken influences from jazz and jazz fusion and incorporated it into their own music, taking various rhythms, instrumentation, musical theory, and soundscapes from the jazz realm and bringing it into rock music and all that it had to offer.


title: Jazz fusion

text: According to AllMusic, the term jazz rock "may refer to the loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation...jazz rock first emerged during the late '60s as an attempt to fuse the visceral power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational fireworks of jazz. Since rock often emphasized directness and simplicity over virtuosity, jazz rock generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s: psychedelia, progressive rock, and the singer-songwriter movement."


title: Jazz fusion

text: According to jazz writer Stuart Nicholson, jazz rock paralleled free jazz by being "on the verge of creating a whole new musical language in the 1960s". He said the albums "Emergency!" (1969) by the Tony Williams Lifetime and "Agharta" (1975) by Miles Davis "suggested the potential of evolving into something that might eventually define itself as a wholly independent genre quite apart from the sound and conventions of anything that had gone before." This development was stifled by commercialism, Nicholson said, as the genre "mutated into a peculiar species of jazz-inflected pop music that eventually took up residence on FM radio" at the end of the 1970s.


title: Jazz fusion

text: In the 1970s, American fusion was being combined in the U.K. with progressive rock and psychedelic music. Bands who were part of this movement included Brand X (with Phil Collins of Genesis), Bruford (Bill Bruford of Yes), Nucleus (led by Ian Carr), and Soft Machine. Throughout Europe and the world this movement grew due to bands like Magma in France, Passport in Germany, Leb i Sol and September in Yugoslavia, and guitarists Jan Akkerman (The Netherlands), Volker Kriegel (Germany), Terje Rypdal (Norway), Jukka Tolonen (Finland), Ryo Kawasaki (Japan), and Kazumi Watanabe (Japan).


title: Jazz fusion

text: Jazz metal is the fusion of jazz fusion and jazz rock with heavy metal. The genre is closely related to mathcore, progressive metal, and punk jazz, as well as its microgenres. Rollins Band has been known to combine heavy metal with jazz, and starting in the late 1990s, King Crimson began to explore industrial metal, blended with their progressive rock sound. Similarly, Animals as Leaders' albums "The Joy of Motion" (2014) and "The Madness of Many" (2016) have been described as progressive metal combined with jazz fusion.


title: Jazz fusion

text: By the early 1980s, much of the original fusion genre was subsumed into other branches of jazz and rock, especially smooth jazz, a radio-friendly subgenre of fusion which is influenced by R&B, funk, and pop music. Smooth jazz can be traced to at least the late 1960s, when producer Creed Taylor worked with guitarist Wes Montgomery on three popular music-oriented albums. Taylor founded CTI Records and many established jazz performers recorded for CTI, including Freddie Hubbard, Chet Baker, George Benson, and Stanley Turrentine. Albums under Taylor's guidance were aimed at both pop and jazz fans.


title: Jazz fusion

text: The merging of jazz and pop/rock music took a more commercial direction in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in the form of compositions with a softer sound palette that could fit comfortably in a soft rock radio playlist. The AllMusic guide's article on fusion states that "unfortunately, as it became a money-maker and as rock declined artistically from the mid-'70s on, much of what was labeled fusion was actually a combination of jazz with easy-listening pop music and lightweight R&B."


title: Jazz fusion

text: Michael and Randy Brecker produced funk-influenced jazz with soloists. David Sanborn was considered a "soulful" and "influential" voice. However, Kenny G was criticized by both fusion and jazz fans, and some musicians, while having become a huge commercial success. Music reviewer George Graham argues that the "so-called 'smooth jazz' sound of people like Kenny G has none of the fire and creativity that marked the best of the fusion scene during its heyday in the 1970s."


title: Jazz fusion

text: In the 1990s, another kind of fusion took a more hardcore approach. Bill Laswell produced many albums in this movement, such as "Ask the Ages" by avant-garde guitarist Sonny Sharrock and "Arc of the Testimony" with Laswell's band Arcana. Niacin (band) was formed by rock bassist Billy Sheehan, drummer Dennis Chambers, and organist John Novello.


title: Jazz fusion

text: In London, The Pop Group began to mix free jazz and reggae into their form of punk rock. In New York City, no wave was inspired by free jazz and punk. Examples of this style include Lydia Lunch's "Queen of Siam", James Chance and the Contortions, who mixed soul music with free jazz and punk rock, and the Lounge Lizards, the first group to call themselves punk jazz.


title: Jazz fusion

text: John Zorn took note of the emphasis on speed and dissonance that was becoming prevalent in punk rock and incorporated them into free jazz with the release of the "Spy vs Spy" album in 1986. The album was a collection of Ornette Coleman tunes played in the thrashcore style. In the same year, Sonny Sharrock, Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, and Ronald Shannon Jackson recorded the first album under the name Last Exit, a blend of thrash and free jazz.


title: Jazz fusion

text: M-Base ("macro-basic array of structured extemporization") centers on a movement started in the 1980s. It started as a group of young African-American musicians in New York which included Steve Coleman, Greg Osby, and Gary Thomas developing a complex but grooving sound. In the 1990s most M-Base participants turned to more conventional music, but Coleman, the most active participant, continued developing his music in accordance with the M-Base concept. M-Base changed from a loose collective to an informal "school".


title: Jazz fusion

text: Afro-Cuban jazz, one of the earliest forms of Latin jazz, is a fusion of Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban jazz emerged in the early 1940s with the Cuban musicians Mario Bauza and Frank Grillo "Machito" in the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans in New York City. In 1947 the collaborations of bebop innovator Dizzy Gillespie with Cuban percussionist Chano Pozo brought Afro-Cuban rhythms and instruments, most notably the congas and the bongos, into the East Coast jazz scene. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as Gillespie's and Pozo's "Manteca" and Charlie Parker's and Machito's "Mangó Mangüé", were commonly referred to as "Cubop", short for Cuban bebop. During its first decades, the Afro-Cuban jazz movement was stronger in the United States than in Cuba.


title: Jazz fusion

text: According to bassist Randy Jackson, jazz fusion is a difficult genre to play. "I...picked jazz fusion because I was trying to become the ultimate technical musician—able to play anything. Jazz fusion to me is the hardest music to play. You have to be so proficient on your instrument. Playing five tempos at the same time, for instance. I wanted to try the toughest music because I knew if I could do that, I could do anything."


title: Jazz fusion

text: Jazz rock fusion's technically challenging guitar solos, bass solos, and odd-metered, syncopated drumming started to be incorporated in the technically focused progressive metal genre in the early 1990s. Progressive rock, with its affinity for long solos, diverse influences, non-standard time signatures, and complex music had very similar musical values as jazz fusion. Some prominent examples of progressive rock mixed with elements of fusion is the music of Gong, King Crimson, Ozric Tentacles, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer.


title: Jazz fusion

text: The death metal band Atheist produced albums "Unquestionable Presence" in 1991 and "Elements" in 1993 containing heavily syncopated drumming, changing time signatures, instrumental parts, acoustic interludes, and Latin rhythms. Meshuggah first attracted international attention with the 1995 release "Destroy Erase Improve" for its fusion of fast-tempo death metal, thrash metal, and progressive metal with jazz fusion elements. Cynic recorded a complex, unorthodox form of jazz fusion influenced experimental death metal with their 1993 album "Focus". In 1997, Guitar Institute of Technology guitarist Jennifer Batten under the name of released "Momentum" – an instrumental hybrid of rock, fusion, and exotic sounds. Mudvayne is heavily influenced by jazz, especially in bassist Ryan Martinie's playing.


title: Jazz fusion

text: Another, more cerebral, all-instrumental progressive jazz fusion-metal band Planet X released "Universe" in 2000 with Tony MacAlpine, Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater), and Virgil Donati (who has played with Scott Henderson from Tribal Tech). The band blends fusion-style guitar solos and syncopated odd-metered drumming with the heaviness of metal. Tech-prog-fusion metal band Aghora formed in 1995 and released their first album, self-titled "Aghora", recorded in 1999 with Sean Malone and Sean Reinert, both former members of Cynic. Gordian Knot, another Cynic-linked experimental progressive metal band, released its debut album in 1999 which explored a range of styles from jazz fusion to metal. The Mars Volta is extremely influenced by jazz fusion, using progressive, unexpected turns in the drum patterns and instrumental lines. The style of Uzbek prog band Fromuz is described as "prog fusion". In lengthy instrumental jams, the band transitions from fusion of rock and ambient world music to jazz and progressive hard rock tones.


title: Ogham

text: Ogham ( ; , later ) is an Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to write the early Irish language (in the "orthodox" inscriptions, 4th to 6th centuries AD), and later the Old Irish language (scholastic ogham, 6th to 9th centuries). There are roughly 400 surviving orthodox inscriptions on stone monuments throughout Ireland and western Britain, the bulk of which are in southern Munster. The largest number outside Ireland are in Pembrokeshire, Wales.


title: Ogham

text: According to the High Medieval "Bríatharogam", the names of various trees can be ascribed to individual letters. For this reason, ogam is sometimes known as the Celtic tree alphabet.


title: Ogham

text: The etymology of the word "ogam" or "ogham" remains unclear. One possible origin is from the Irish "og-úaim" 'point-seam', referring to the seam made by the point of a sharp weapon.


title: Ogham

text: It is generally thought that the earliest inscriptions in ogham date to about the 4th century AD, but James Carney believed its origin is rather within the 1st century BC. Although the use of "classical" ogham in stone inscriptions seems to have flourished in the 5th and 6th centuries around the Irish Sea, from the phonological evidence it is clear that the alphabet predates the 5th century. A period of writing on wood or other perishable material prior to the preserved monumental inscriptions needs to be assumed, sufficient for the loss of the phonemes represented by "úath" ("H") and "straif" ("Z" in the manuscript tradition, but probably "F" from "SW"), "gétal" (representing the velar nasal "NG" in the manuscript tradition, but etymologically probably "GW"), all of which are clearly part of the system, but unattested in inscriptions.


title: Ogham

text: It appears that the Ogham alphabet was modelled on another script, and some even consider it a mere cipher of its template script (Düwel 1968: points out similarity with ciphers of Germanic runes). The largest number of scholars favours the Latin alphabet as this template, although the Elder Futhark and even the Greek alphabet have their supporters. Runic origin would elegantly explain the presence of "H" and "Z" letters unused in Irish, as well as the presence of vocalic and consonantal variants "U" vs. "W", unknown to Latin writing and lost in Greek (cf. digamma). The Latin alphabet is the primary contender mainly because its influence at the required period (4th century) is most easily established, being widely used in neighbouring Roman Britannia, while the runes in the 4th century were not very widespread even in continental Europe.


title: Ogham

text: In Ireland and in Wales, the language of the monumental stone inscriptions is termed Primitive Irish. The transition to Old Irish, the language of the earliest sources in the Latin alphabet, takes place in about the 6th century. Since ogham inscriptions consist almost exclusively of personal names and marks possibly indicating land ownership, linguistic information that may be glimpsed from the Primitive Irish period is mostly restricted to phonological developments.


title: Ogham

text: There are two main schools of thought among scholars as to the motivation for the creation of ogham. Scholars such as Carney and MacNeill have suggested that ogham was first created as a cryptic alphabet, designed by the Irish so as not to be understood by those with a knowledge of the Latin alphabet. In this school of thought, it is asserted that "the alphabet was created by Irish scholars or druids for political, military or religious reasons to provide a secret means of communication in opposition to the authorities of Roman Britain." The Roman Empire, which then ruled over neighbouring southern Britain, represented a very real threat of invasion to Ireland, which may have acted as a spur to the creation of the alphabet. Alternatively, in later centuries when the threat of invasion had receded and the Irish were themselves invading the western parts of Britain, the desire to keep communications secret from Romans or Romanised Britons would still have provided an incentive. With bilingual ogham and Latin inscriptions in Wales, however, one would suppose that the ogham could easily be decoded by at least an educated few in the Post-Roman world.


title: Ogham

text: The second main school of thought, put forward by scholars such as McManus, is that ogham was invented by the first Christian communities in early Ireland, out of a desire to have a unique alphabet for writing short messages and inscriptions in the Irish language. The argument is that the sounds of Primitive Irish were regarded as difficult to transcribe into the Latin alphabet, so the invention of a separate alphabet was deemed appropriate. A possible such origin, as suggested by McManus (1991:41), is the early Christian community known to have existed in Ireland from around AD 400 at the latest, the existence of which is attested by the mission of Palladius by Pope Celestine I in AD 431.


title: Ogham

text: A variation is that the alphabet was first invented, for whatever reason, in 4th-century Irish settlements in west Wales after contact and intermarriage with Romanised Britons with knowledge of the Latin alphabet. In fact, several ogham stones in Wales are bilingual, containing both Irish and British Latin, testifying to the international contacts that led to the existence of some of these stones.


title: Ogham

text: A third theory put forward by the noted ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister was influential at one time, but finds little favour with scholars today. Macalister believed that ogham was first invented in Cisalpine Gaul around 600 BC by Gaulish druids as a secret system of hand signals, and was inspired by a form of the Greek alphabet current in Northern Italy at the time. According to this theory, the alphabet was transmitted in oral form or on wood only, until it was finally put into a written form on stone inscriptions in early Christian Ireland. Later scholars are largely united in rejecting this theory, however, primarily because a detailed study of the letters shows that they were created specifically for the Primitive Irish of the early centuries AD. The supposed links with the form of the Greek alphabet that Macalister proposed can also be disproved.


title: Ogham

text: Macalister's theory of hand or finger signals as a source for ogham is a reflection of the fact that the signary consists of four groups of five letters, with a sequence of strokes from one to five. A theory popular among modern scholars is that the forms of the letters derive from the various numerical tally-mark systems in existence at the time. This theory was first suggested by the scholars Rudolf Thurneysen and Joseph Vendryes, who proposed that the ogham script was inspired by a pre-existing system of counting based around the numbers five and twenty, which was then adapted to an alphabet form by the first oghamists.


title: Ogham

text: According to the 11th-century "Lebor Gabála Érenn", the 14th-century "Auraicept na n-Éces", and other Medieval Irish folklore, ogham was first invented soon after the fall of the Tower of Babel, along with the Gaelic language, by the legendary Scythian king, Fenius Farsa. According to the Auraicept, Fenius journeyed from Scythia together with Goídel mac Ethéoir, Íar mac Nema and a retinue of 72 scholars. They came to the plain of Shinar to study the confused languages at Nimrod's tower (the Tower of Babel). Finding that they had already been dispersed, Fenius sent his scholars to study them, staying at the tower, coordinating the effort. After ten years, the investigations were complete, and Fenius created "in Bérla tóbaide" "the selected language", taking the best of each of the confused tongues, which he called "Goídelc", Goidelic, after Goídel mac Ethéoir. He also created extensions of "Goídelc", called "Bérla Féne", after himself, "Íarmberla", after Íar mac Nema, and others, and the "Beithe-luis-nuin" (the ogham) as a perfected writing system for his languages. The names he gave to the letters were those of his 25 best scholars.


title: Ogham

text: Alternatively, the Ogam Tract credits Ogma with the script's invention. Ogma was skilled in speech and poetry, and created the system for the learned, to the exclusion of rustics and fools. The first message written in ogam was seven "b"'s on a birch, sent as a warning to Lug, meaning: "your wife will be carried away seven times to the otherworld unless the birch protects her". For this reason, the letter "b" is said to be named after the birch, and "In Lebor Ogaim" goes on to tell the tradition that all letters were named after trees, a claim also referred to by the Auraicept as an alternative to the naming after Fenius' disciples.


title: Ogham

text: Strictly speaking, the word "ogham" refers only to the form of letters or script, while the letters themselves are known collectively as the "Beith-luis-nin" after the letter names of the first letters (in the same manner as the modern word "alphabet" derives from the Greek letters "alpha" and "beta"). The order of the letters is BLFSN, leading the scholar Macalister to propose that the letter order was originally BLNFS. This was to fit into his own theories which linked the "Beith-luis-nin" to a form of the Greek alphabet current in Northern Italy in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. However, there is no evidence for Macalister's theories, and they have since been discounted by later scholars. There are in fact other explanations for the name "Beith-luis-nin". One explanation is that the word "nin", which literally means 'a forked branch,' was also regularly used to mean a written letter in general. "Beith-luis-nin" could therefore mean simply 'Beith-luis letters'. The other explanation is that "Beith-luis-nin" is a convenient contraction of the first five letters: "Beith-LVS-nin".


title: Ogham

text: The ogham alphabet originally consisted of twenty distinct characters ("feda"), arranged in four series "aicmí" (plural of "aicme" "family"; compare "aett"). Each aicme was named after its first character ("Aicme Beithe", "Aicme hÚatha", "Aicme Muine", "Aicme Ailme", "the B Group", "the H Group", "the M Group", "the A Group"). Five additional letters were later introduced (mainly in the manuscript tradition), the so-called "forfeda".


title: Ogham

text: The "Ogam Tract" also gives a variety of some hundred variant or secret modes of writing ogham (92 in the Book of Ballymote), for example, the "shield ogham" ("ogam airenach", nr. 73). Even the Younger Futhark is introduced as a kind of "Viking ogham" (nrs. 91, 92).


title: Ogham

text: The four primary "aicmí" are, with their transcriptions in manuscript tradition and their names according to manuscript tradition in normalised Old Irish, followed by their Primitive Irish sound values, and their presumed original name in Primitive Irish in cases where the name's etymology is known:


title: Ogham

text: A letter for "p" is conspicuously absent, since the phoneme was lost in Proto-Celtic, and the gap was not filled in Q-Celtic, and no sign was needed before loanwords from Latin containing "p" appeared in Irish ("e.g.", Patrick). Conversely, there is a letter for the labiovelar "q" (ᚊ "ceirt"), a phoneme lost in Old Irish. The base alphabet is, therefore, as it were, designed for Proto-Q-Celtic.


title: Ogham

text: Of the five "forfeda" or supplementary letters, only the first, "ébad", regularly appears in inscriptions, but mostly with the value K (McManus, § 5.3, 1991), in the word "koi" (ᚕᚑᚔ "here"). The others, except for "emancholl", have at most only one certain 'orthodox' (see below) inscription each. Due to their limited practical use, later ogamists turned the supplementary letters into a series of diphthongs, changing completely the values for "pín" and "emancholl". This meant that the alphabet was once again without a letter for the 'P' sound, forcing the invention of the letter "peithboc" (soft 'B'), which appears in the manuscripts only.


title: Ogham

text: The letter names are interpreted as names of trees or shrubs in manuscript tradition, both in "Auraicept na n-Éces" ('The Scholars' Primer') and "In Lebor Ogaim" ('The Ogam Tract'). They were first discussed in modern times by Ruaidhrí Ó Flaithbheartaigh (1685), who took them at face value. The Auraicept itself is aware that not all names are known tree names: "Now all these are wood names such as are found in the "Ogham Book of Woods," and are not derived from men", admitting that "some of these trees are not known today". The Auraicept gives a short phrase or kenning for each letter, known as a "Bríatharogam", that traditionally accompanied each letter name, and a further gloss explaining their meanings and identifying the tree or plant linked to each letter. Only five of the twenty primary letters have tree names that the Auraicept considers comprehensible without further glosses, namely "beith" "birch", "fearn" "alder", "saille" "willow", "duir" "oak" and "coll" "hazel". All the other names have to be glossed or "translated".


title: Ogham

text: According to the leading modern ogham scholar, Damian McManus, the "Tree Alphabet" idea dates to the Old Irish period (say, 10th century), but it postdates the Primitive Irish period, or at least the time when the letters were originally named. Its origin is probably due to the letters themselves being called "feda" "trees", or "nin" "forking branches" due to their shape. Since a few of the letters were, in fact, named after trees, the interpretation arose that they were called "feda" because of that. Some of the other letter names had fallen out of use as independent words, and were thus free to be claimed as "Old Gaelic" tree names, while others (such as "ruis", "úath" or "gort") were more or less forcefully reinterpreted as epithets of trees by the medieval glossators.


title: Ogham

text: McManus (1991, §3.15) discusses possible etymologies of all the letter names, and as well as the five mentioned above, he adds one other definite tree name: "onn" "ash" (the Auraicept wrongly has "furze"). McManus (1988, p. 164) also believes that the name "Idad" is probably an artificial form of "Iubhar" "yew", as the kennings support that meaning, and concedes that "Ailm" may possibly mean "pine tree," as it appears to be used to mean that in an 8th-century poem. Thus out of twenty letter names, only eight at most are the names of trees. The other names have a variety of meanings, which are set out in the list below.


title: Ogham

text: Monumental ogham inscriptions are found in Ireland and Wales, with a few additional specimens found in southwest England (Devon and Cornwall), the Isle of Man, and Scotland, including Shetland and a single example from Silchester in England. They were mainly employed as territorial markers and memorials (grave stones). The stone commemorating Vortiporius, a 6th-century king of Dyfed (originally located in Clynderwen), is the only ogham stone inscription that bears the name of an identifiable individual. The language of the inscriptions is predominantly Primitive Irish; the few inscriptions in Scotland, such as the Lunnasting stone, record fragments of what is probably the Pictish language.


title: Ogham

text: The more ancient examples are standing stones, where the script was carved into the edge ("droim" or "faobhar") of the stone, which formed the stemline against which individual characters are cut. The text of these "Orthodox Ogham" inscriptions is read beginning from the bottom left-hand side of a stone, continuing upward along the edge, across the top and down the right-hand side (in the case of long inscriptions). Roughly 380 inscriptions are known in total (a number, incidentally, very close to the number of known inscriptions in the contemporary Elder Futhark), of which the highest concentration by far is found in the southwestern Irish province of Munster. Over one-third of the total are found in County Kerry alone, most densely in the former kingdom of the Corcu Duibne.


title: Ogham

text: Later inscriptions are known as "scholastic", and are post 6th century in date. The term 'scholastic' derives from the fact that the inscriptions are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript sources, instead of being continuations of the original monument tradition. Unlike orthodox ogham, some medieval inscriptions feature all five Forfeda. Scholastic inscriptions are written on stemlines cut into the face of the stone, instead of along its edge. Ogham was also occasionally used for notes in manuscripts down to the 16th century. A modern ogham inscription is found on a gravestone dating to 1802 in Ahenny, County Tipperary.


title: Ogham

text: In Scotland, a number of inscriptions using the ogham writing system are known, but their language is still the subject of debate.


title: Ogham

text: It has been argued by Richard Cox in "The Language of Ogham Inscriptions in Scotland" (1999) that the language of these is Old Norse, but others remain unconvinced by this analysis, and regard the stones as being Pictish in origin. However, due to the lack of knowledge about the Picts, the inscriptions remain undeciphered, their language possibly being non-Indo-European. The Pictish inscriptions are scholastic, and are believed to have been inspired by the manuscript tradition brought into Scotland by Gaelic settlers.


title: Ogham

text: A rare example of a Christianised (cross-inscribed) Ogham stone can be seen in St. Mary's Collegiate Church Gowran, County Kilkenny.


title: Ogham

text: As well as its use for monumental inscriptions, the evidence from early Irish sagas and legends indicate that ogham was used for short messages on wood or metal, either to relay messages or to denote ownership of the object inscribed. Some of these messages seem to have been cryptic in nature and some were also for magical purposes. In addition, there is evidence from sources such as "In Lebor Ogaim", or the "Ogham Tract", that ogham may have been used to keep records or lists, such as genealogies and numerical tallies of property and business transactions. There is also evidence that ogham may have been used as a system of finger or hand signals.


title: Ogham

text: In later centuries when ogham ceased to be used as a practical alphabet, it retained its place in the learning of Gaelic scholars and poets as the basis of grammar and the rules of poetry. Indeed, until modern times the Latin alphabet in Gaelic continued to be taught using letter names borrowed from the "Beith-Luis-Nin", along with the Medieval association of each letter with a different tree.


title: Ogham

text: The spelling of the names given is a standardisation dating to 1997, used in Unicode Standard and in Irish Standard 434:1999.


title: Ogham

text: Modern New Age and Neopagan approaches to ogham largely derive from the now-discredited theories of Robert Graves in his book "The White Goddess". In this work, Graves took his inspiration from the theories of the ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister (see above) and elaborated on them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham alphabet encoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle East in Stone Age times, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Moon goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument is extremely complex, but in essence, he argues that the Hebrews, Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in the Aegean, called 'the people of the sea' by the Egyptians, who spread out around Europe in the 2nd millennium BC, taking their religious beliefs with them. He posits that at some early stage these teachings were encoded in alphabet form by poets to pass on their worship of the goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) in a secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, via the druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets of early Ireland and Wales. Graves, therefore, looked at the Tree Alphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the tree folklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of the letters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic". Although his theories have been discredited and discarded by modern scholars (including Macalister himself, with whom Graves corresponded), they were taken up with enthusiasm by some adherents of the neopagan movement. In addition, Graves followed the BLNFS order of ogham letters put forward by Macalister (see above), with the result taken up by many New Age and Neopagan writers as the 'correct' order of the letters, despite its rejection by scholars.


title: Ogham

text: The main use of ogham by adherents of Neo-druidism and other forms of Neopaganism is for the purpose of divination. Divination with ogham symbols is possibly mentioned in "Tochmarc Étaíne", a tale in the Irish Mythological Cycle, wherein the druid Dalan takes four wands of yew, and writes ogham letters upon them. Then he uses the tools for what some interpret as a form of divination. However, as the tale doesn't explain how the sticks are handled or interpreted, this theory is open to interpretation. A divination method invented by neopagans involves casting sticks upon a cloth marked out with a pattern, such as Finn's Window, and interpreting the patterns. The meanings assigned in these modern methods are usually based on the tree ogham, with each letter associated with a tree or plant, and meanings derived from these associations. While some use folklore for the meanings, Robert Graves' book "The White Goddess" continues to be a major influence on these methods and beliefs.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and many other countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: From the mid-16th century nursery rhymes begin to be recorded in English plays, and most popular rhymes date from the 17th and 18th centuries. The first English collections, "Tommy Thumb's Song Book" and a sequel, "Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book", were published by Mary Cooper in 1744. Publisher John Newbery's stepson, Thomas Carnan, was the first to use the term Mother Goose for nursery rhymes when he published a compilation of English rhymes, "Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle" (London, 1780).


title: Nursery rhyme

text: The oldest children's songs of which we have records are lullabies, intended to help a child fall asleep. Lullabies can be found in every human culture. The English term lullaby is thought to come from "lu, lu" or "la la" sounds made by mothers or nurses to calm children, and "" or "bye bye", either another lulling sound or a term for good night. Until the modern era lullabies were usually recorded only incidentally in written sources. The Roman nurses' lullaby, "Lalla, Lalla, Lalla, aut dormi, aut lacta", is recorded in a scholium on Persius and may be the oldest to survive.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: Many medieval English verses associated with the birth of Jesus take the form of a lullaby, including "Lullay, my liking, my dere son, my sweting" and may be versions of contemporary lullabies. However, most of those used today date from the 17th century. For example, a well known lullaby such as "Rock-a-bye, baby on a tree top", cannot be found in records until the late-18th century when it was printed by John Newbery (c. 1765).


title: Nursery rhyme

text: A French poem, similar to "Thirty days hath September", numbering the days of the month, was recorded in the 13th century. From the later Middle Ages there are records of short children's rhyming songs, often as marginalia. From the mid-16th century they begin to be recorded in English plays. "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man" is one of the oldest surviving English nursery rhymes. The earliest recorded version of the rhyme appears in Thomas d'Urfey's play "The Campaigners" from 1698. Most nursery rhymes were not written down until the 18th century, when the publishing of children's books began to move from polemic and education towards entertainment, but there is evidence for many rhymes existing before this, including "To market, to market" and "Cock a doodle doo", which date from at least the late 16th century. Nursery rhymes with 17th century origins include, "Jack Sprat" (1639), "The Grand Old Duke of York" (1642), "Lavender's Blue" (1672) and "Rain Rain Go Away" (1687).


title: Nursery rhyme

text: The first English collections, "Tommy Thumb's Song Book" and a sequel, "Tommy Thumb's Pretty Song Book", were published by Mary Cooper in London in 1744, with such songs becoming known as 'Tommy Thumb's songs'. A copy of the latter is held in the British Library. John Newbery's stepson, Thomas Carnan, was the first to use the term Mother Goose for nursery rhymes when he published a compilation of English rhymes, "Mother Goose's Melody, or, Sonnets for the Cradle" (London, 1780). These rhymes seem to have come from a variety of sources, including traditional riddles, proverbs, ballads, lines of Mummers' plays, drinking songs, historical events, and, it has been suggested, ancient pagan rituals. One example of a nursery rhyme in the form a riddle is "As I was going to St Ives", which dates to 1730. About half of the currently recognised "traditional" English rhymes were known by the mid-18th century. More English rhymes were collected by Joseph Ritson in "Gammer Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus" (1784), published in London by Joseph Johnson.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: In the early 19th century printed collections of rhymes began to spread to other countries, including Robert Chambers's "Popular Rhymes of Scotland" (1826) and in the United States, "Mother Goose's Melodies" (1833). From this period we sometimes know the origins and authors of rhymes—for instance, in "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which combines the melody of an 18th-century French tune "Ah vous dirai-je, Maman" with a 19th-century English poem by Jane Taylor entitled "The Star" used as lyrics.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: Early folk song collectors also often collected (what are now known as) nursery rhymes, including in Scotland Sir Walter Scott and in Germany Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim in "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (1806–1808). The first, and possibly the most important academic collection to focus in this area was James Orchard Halliwell's "The Nursery Rhymes of England" (1842) and "Popular Rhymes and Tales" in 1849, in which he divided rhymes into antiquities (historical), fireside stories, game-rhymes, alphabet-rhymes, riddles, nature-rhymes, places and families, proverbs, superstitions, customs, and nursery songs (lullabies). By the time of Sabine Baring-Gould's "A Book of Nursery Songs" (1895), folklore was an academic study, full of comments and footnotes. A professional anthropologist, Andrew Lang (1844–1912) produced "The Nursery Rhyme Book" in 1897.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: The early years of the 20th century are notable for the illustrations to children's books including Randolph Caldecott's "Hey Diddle Diddle Picture Book" (1909) and Arthur Rackham's "Mother Goose" (1913). The children's writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter also provided two collections, "Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes" (1917) and "Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes" (1922). The only known full set of Potter's four original watercolour illustrations to "This Little Piggy" sold for £60,000 in 2012. The definitive study of English rhymes remains the work of Iona and Peter Opie.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: Many nursery rhymes have been argued to have hidden meanings and origins. John Bellenden Ker (1765–1842), for example, wrote four volumes arguing that English nursery rhymes were actually written in 'Low Saxon', a hypothetical early form of Dutch. He then 'translated' them back into English, revealing in particular a strong tendency to anti-clericalism. Many of the ideas about the links between rhymes and historical persons, or events, can be traced back to Katherine Elwes's book "The Real Personages of Mother Goose" (1930), in which she linked famous nursery-rhyme characters with real people, on little or no evidence. She posited that children's songs were a peculiar form of coded historical narrative, propaganda or covert protest, and did not believe that they were written simply for entertainment.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: There have been several attempts, across the world, to revise nursery rhymes (along with fairy tales and popular songs). As recently as the late 18th century, rhymes like "Little Robin Redbreast" were occasionally cleaned up for a young audience. In the late 19th century the major concern seems to have been violence and crime, which led some children's publishers in the United States like Jacob Abbot and Samuel Goodrich to change Mother Goose rhymes.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: In the early and mid-20th centuries this was a form of bowdlerisation, concerned with some of the more violent elements of nursery rhymes and led to the formation of organisations like the British 'Society for Nursery Rhyme Reform'. Psychoanalysts such as Bruno Bettelheim strongly criticized this revisionism, on the grounds that it weakened their usefulness to both children and adults as ways of symbolically resolving issues and it has been argued that revised versions may not perform the functions of catharsis for children, or allow them to imaginatively deal with violence and danger.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: In the late 20th century revisionism of nursery rhymes became associated with the idea of political correctness. Most attempts to reform nursery rhymes on this basis appear to be either very small scale, light-hearted updating, like Felix Dennis's "When Jack Sued Jill – Nursery Rhymes for Modern Times" (2006), or satires written as if from the point of view of political correctness in order to condemn reform. The controversy in Britain in 1986 over changing the language of "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" because, it was alleged in the popular press, it was seen as racially dubious, was apparently based only on a rewriting of the rhyme in one private nursery, as an exercise for the children.


title: Nursery rhyme

text: It has been argued that nursery rhymes set to music aid in a child's development. In the German "Kniereitvers", the child is put in mock peril, but the experience is a pleasurable one of care and support, which over time the child comes to command for itself. Research also supports the assertion that music and rhyme increase a child's ability in spatial reasoning, which aid mathematics skills.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: Alliance 90/The Greens (, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens (formed in West Germany in 1980) and Alliance 90 (formed in East Germany in 1990). The Greens had itself merged with the East German Green Party after German reunification in 1990.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: Since January 2022, Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour have been co-leaders of the party. It currently holds 118 of the 736 seats in the Bundestag, having won 14.8% of votes cast in the 2021 federal election, and its parliamentary group is the third largest of six. Its parliamentary co-leaders are Britta Haßelmann and Katharina Dröge. The Greens have been part of the federal government during two periods: first as a junior partner to the Social Democrats (SPD) from 1998 to 2005, and again with the SPD and the FDP following the 2021 German federal election. In the incumbent Scholz cabinet, the Greens have five ministers, including Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The party holds seats in all of Germany's sixteen state legislatures except the Saarland, and is a member of coalition governments in eleven states. Winfried Kretschmann, Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, is the only Green head of government in Germany. The Landtag of Baden-Württemberg is also the only state legislature in which Alliance 90/The Greens is the largest party; it is the second largest party in the legislatures of Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg, Hesse, and Schleswig-Holstein.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: Alliance 90/The Greens is a founding member of the European Green Party and the Greens–European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament. It is currently the largest party in the G/EFA group, with 21 MEPs. In the 2019 European election, Alliance 90/The Greens was the second largest party in Germany, winning 20.5% of votes cast. The party had 125,126 members in December 2021, making it the fourth largest party in Germany by membership.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The Green Party was initially founded in West Germany as "Die Grünen" (the Greens) in January 1980. It grew out of the anti-nuclear energy, environmental, peace, new left, and new social movements of the late 20th century.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: "Grüne Liste Umweltschutz" (green list for environmental protection) was the name used for some branches in Lower Saxony and other states in the Federal Republic of Germany. These groups were founded in 1977 and took part in several elections. Most of them merged with The Greens in 1980.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The West Berlin state branch of The Greens was founded as "Alternative Liste", or precisely, "Alternative Liste für Demokratie und Umweltschutz" (AL; alternative list for democracy and environmental protection) in 1978 and became the official West Berlin branch of The Greens in 1980. In 1993 it renamed to Alliance 90/The Greens Berlin after the merger with East Berlin's Greens and Alliance 90.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The Hamburg state branch of the Green Party was called "Grün-Alternative Liste Hamburg" (GAL; green-alternative list) from its foundation in 1982 until 2012. In 1984 it became the official Hamburg branch of The Greens.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The political party The Greens () sprung out of the wave of New Social Movements that were active in the 1970s, including environmentalist, anti-war, and anti-nuclear movements which can trace their origin to the student protests of 1968. Officially founded as a German national party on 13 January 1980 in Karlsruhe, the party sought to give these movements political and parliamentary representation, as the pre-existing were not organised in a way to address their stated issues. Its membership included organisers from former attempts to achieve institutional representation such as and . Opposition to pollution, use of nuclear power, NATO military action, and certain aspects of industrialised society were principal campaign issues. The party also championed sexual liberation and the abolition of age of consent laws.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The formation of a party was purportedly first discussed by movement leaders in 1978. Important figures in the first years were – among others – Petra Kelly, Joschka Fischer, Gert Bastian, , Rudolf Bahro, Joseph Beuys, Antje Vollmer, , August Haußleiter, Luise Rinser, , Christian Ströbele, Jutta Ditfurth, and Baldur Springmann.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In the foundational congress of 1980, the ideological tenets of the party were consolidated, proclaiming the famous Four Pillars of the Green Party:


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In 1982, the conservative factions of the Greens broke away to form the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP). Those who remained in the Green party were more strongly pacifist and against restrictions on immigration and reproductive rights, while supporting the legalisation of cannabis use, placing a higher priority on working for LGBT rights, and tending to advocate what they described as "anti-authoritarian" concepts of education and child-rearing. They also tended to identify more closely with a culture of protest and civil disobedience, frequently clashing with police at demonstrations against nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, and the construction of a new runway () at Frankfurt Airport. Those who left the party at the time might have felt similarly about some of these issues, but did not identify with the forms of protest that Green party members took part in.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: After some success at state-level elections, the party won 27 seats with of the vote in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, in the 1983 federal election. Among the important political issues at the time was the deployment of Pershing II IRBMs and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles by the U.S. and NATO on West German soil, generating strong opposition in the general population that found an outlet in mass demonstrations. The newly formed party was able to draw on this popular movement to recruit support. Partly due to the impact of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and to growing awareness of the threat of air pollution and acid rain to German forests (), the Greens increased their share of the vote to in the 1987 federal election. Around this time, Joschka Fischer emerged as the unofficial leader of the party, which he remained until resigning all leadership posts following the 2005 federal election.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The Greens were the target of attempts by the East German secret police to enlist the cooperation of members who were willing to align the party with the agenda of the German Democratic Republic. The party ranks included several politicians who were later discovered to have been Stasi agents, including Bundestag representative Dirk Schneider, European Parliament representative Brigitte Heinrich, and Red Army Faction defense lawyer Klaus Croissant. Greens politician and Bundestag representative Gert Bastian was also a founding member of , a pacifist group created and funded by the Stasi, the revelation of which may have contributed to the murder-suicide in which he killed his partner and Greens founder Petra Kelly. A study commissioned by the Greens determined that 15 to 20 members intimately cooperated with the Stasi and another 450 to 500 had been informants.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: Until 1987, the Greens included a faction involved in pedophile activism, the short for (approx. "working group "Gays, Pederasts and Transsexuals""). This faction campaigned for repealing § 176 of the German penal code, dealing with child sexual abuse. This group was controversial within the party itself, and was seen as partly responsible for the poor election result of 1985. This controversy re-surfaced in 2013 and chairwoman Claudia Roth stated she welcomed an independent scientific investigation on the extent of influence pedophile activists had on the party in the mid-1980s. In November 2014 the political scientist Franz Walter presented the final report about his research on a press conference.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In the 1990 federal elections, taking place post-reunified Germany, the Greens in the West did not pass the 5% limit required to win seats in the Bundestag. It was only due to a temporary modification of German election law, applying the five-percent "hurdle" separately in East and West Germany, that the Greens acquired any parliamentary seats at all. This happened because in the new states of Germany, the Greens, in a joint effort with Alliance 90, a heterogeneous grouping of civil rights activists, were able to gain more than 5% of the vote. Some critics attribute this poor performance to the reluctance of the campaign to cater to the prevalent mood of nationalism, instead focusing on subjects such as global warming. A campaign poster at the time proudly stated, "Everyone is talking about Germany; we're talking about the weather!", paraphrasing a popular slogan of Deutsche Bundesbahn, the German national railway. The party also opposed imminent reunification that was in process, instead wanting to initiate debates on ecology and nuclear issues before reunification causing a drop in support in Western Germany. After the 1994 federal election; however, the merged party returned to the Bundestag, and the Greens received 7.3% of the vote nationwide and 49 seats.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In the 1998 federal election, despite a slight fall in their percentage of the vote (6.7%), the Greens retained 47 seats and joined the federal government for the first time in 'Red-Green' coalition government with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Joschka Fischer became Vice-Chancellor of Germany and foreign minister in the new government, which had two other Green ministers (Andrea Fischer, later Renate Künast, and Jürgen Trittin).


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: Almost immediately the party was plunged into a crisis by the question of German participation in the NATO actions in Kosovo. Numerous anti-war party members resigned their party membership when the first post-war deployment of German troops in a military conflict abroad occurred under a Red-Green government, and the party began to experience a long string of defeats in local and state-level elections. Disappointment with the Green participation in government increased when anti-nuclear power activists realised that shutting down the nation's nuclear power stations would not happen as quickly as they wished, and numerous pro-business SPD members of the federal cabinet opposed the environmentalist agenda of the Greens, calling for tacit compromises.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In 2001, the party experienced a further crisis as some Green Members of Parliament refused to back the government's plan of sending military personnel to help with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called a vote of confidence, tying it to his strategy on the war. Four Green MPs and one Social Democrat voted against the government, but Schröder was still able to command a majority.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: On the other hand, the Greens achieved a major success as a governing party through the 2000 decision to phase out the use of nuclear energy. Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Jürgen Trittin reached an agreement with energy companies on the gradual phasing out of the country's nineteen nuclear power plants and a cessation of civil usage of nuclear power by 2020. This was authorised through the Nuclear Exit Law. Based on an estimate of 32 years as the normal period of operation for a nuclear power plant, the agreement defines precisely how much energy a power plant is allowed to produce before being shut down. This law has since been overturned.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: Despite the crises of the preceding electoral period, in the 2002 federal election, the Greens increased their total to 55 seats (in a smaller parliament) and 8.6%. This was partly due to the perception that the internal debate over the war in Afghanistan had been more honest and open than in other parties, and one of the MPs who had voted against the Afghanistan deployment, Hans-Christian Ströbele, was directly elected to the Bundestag as a district representative for the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East constituency in Berlin, becoming the first Green to ever gain a first-past-the-post seat in Germany.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The Greens benefited from increased inroads among traditionally left-wing demographics which had benefited from Green-initiated legislation in the 1998–2002 term, such as environmentalists (Renewable Energies Act) and LGBT groups (Registered Partnership Law). Perhaps most important for determining the success of both the Greens and the SPD was the increasing threat of war in Iraq, which was highly unpopular with the German public, and helped gather votes for the parties which had taken a stand against participation in this war. Despite losses for the SPD, the Red-Green coalition government retained a very slight majority in the Bundestag (4 seats) and was renewed, with Joschka Fischer as foreign minister, Renate Künast as minister for consumer protection, nutrition and agriculture, and Jürgen Trittin as minister for the environment.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: One internal issue in 2002 was the failed attempt to settle a long-standing discussion about the question of whether members of parliament should be allowed to become members of the party executive. Two party conventions declined to change the party statute. The necessary majority of two-thirds was missed by a small margin. As a result, former party chairpersons Fritz Kuhn and Claudia Roth (who had been elected to parliament that year) were no longer able to continue in their executive function and were replaced by former party secretary general Reinhard Bütikofer and former Bundestag member Angelika Beer. The party then held a member referendum on this question in the spring of 2003 which changed the party statute. Now members of parliament may be elected for two of the six seats of the party executive, as long as they are not ministers or caucus leaders. 57% of all party members voted in the member referendum, with 67% voting in favor of the change. The referendum was only the second in the history of Alliance 90/The Greens, the first having been held about the merger of the Greens and Alliance 90. In 2004, after Angelika Beer was elected to the European parliament, Claudia Roth was elected to replace her as party chair.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The only party convention in 2003 was planned for November 2003, but about 20% of the local organisations forced the federal party to hold a special party convention in Cottbus early to discuss the party position regarding "Agenda 2010", a major reform of the German welfare programmes planned by Chancellor Schröder.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The November 2003 party convention was held in Dresden and decided the election platform for the 2004 European Parliament elections. The German Green list for these elections was headed by Rebecca Harms (then leader of the Green party in Lower Saxony) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, previously Member of the European Parliament for The Greens of France. The November 2003 convention is also noteworthy because it was the first convention of a German political party ever to use an electronic voting system.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The Greens gained a record 13 of Germany's 99 seats in these elections, mainly due to the perceived competence of Green ministers in the federal government and the unpopularity of the Social Democratic Party.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In early 2005, the Greens were the target of the German Visa Affair 2005, instigated in the media by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). At the end of April 2005, they celebrated the decommissioning of the Obrigheim nuclear power station. They also continue to support a bill for an Anti-Discrimination Law () in the Bundestag.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In May 2005, the only remaining state-level red-green coalition government lost the vote in the North Rhine-Westphalia state election, leaving only the federal government with participation of the Greens (apart from local governments). In the early 2005 federal election the party incurred very small losses and achieved 8.1% of the vote and 51 seats. However, due to larger losses of the SPD, the previous coalition no longer had a majority in the Bundestag.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: For almost two years after the federal election in 2005, the Greens were not part of any government at the state or federal level. In June 2007, the Greens in Bremen entered into a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) following the 2007 Bremen state election.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In April 2008, following the 2008 Hamburg state election, the Green-Alternative List (GAL) in Hamburg entered into a coalition with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the first state-level coalition in Germany. Although the GAL had to agree to the deepening of the Elbe River, the construction of a new coal-fired power station and two road projects they had opposed, they also received some significant concessions from the CDU. These included reforming state schools by increasing the number of primary school educational stages, the restoration of trams as public transportation in the city-state, and more pedestrian-friendly real estate development. On 29 November 2010, the coalition collapsed, resulting in an election that was won by SPD.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: Following the Saarland state election of August 2009, The Greens held the balance of power after a close election where no two-party coalitions could create a stable majority government. After negotiations, the Saarland Greens rejected the option of a left-wing 'red-red-green' coalition with the SPD and The Left ("Die Linke") in order to form a centre-right state government with the CDU and Free Democratic Party (FDP), a historical first time that a Jamaica coalition has formed in German politics.


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: In June 2010, in the first state election following the victory of the CDU/CSU and FDP in the 2009 federal election, the "black-yellow" CDU-FDP coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia under Jürgen Rüttgers lost its majority. The Greens and the SPD came one seat short of a governing majority, but after multiple negotiations about coalitions of SPD and Greens with either the FDP or The Left, the SPD and Greens decided to form a minority government, which was possible because under the constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia a plurality of seats is sufficient to elect a minister-president. So a red-green government in a state where it was defeated under Peer Steinbrück in 2005 came into office again on 14 June 2010 with the election of Hannelore Kraft as minister-president (Cabinet Kraft I).


title: Alliance 90/The Greens

text: The Greens founded the first international chapter of a German political party in the U.S. on 13 April 2008 at the Goethe-Institut in Washington D.C. Its main goal is "to provide a platform for politically active and green-oriented German citizens, in and beyond Washington D.C., to discuss and actively participate in German Green politics. [...] to foster professional and personal exchange, channeling the outcomes towards the political discourse in Germany."