title: Histories (Herodotus)

text: Herodotus is neither a mere gatherer of data nor a simple teller of tales – he is both. While Herodotus is certainly concerned with giving accurate accounts of events, this does not preclude for him the insertion of powerful mythological elements into his narrative, elements which will aid him in expressing the truth of matters under his study. Thus to understand what Herodotus is doing in the "Histories", we must not impose strict demarcations between the man as mythologist and the man as historian, or between the work as myth and the work as history. As James Romm has written, Herodotus worked under a common ancient Greek cultural assumption that the way events are remembered and retold (e.g. in myths or legends) produces a valid kind of understanding, even when this retelling is not entirely factual. For Herodotus, then, it takes both myth and history to produce truthful understanding.


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: "Bennie and the Jets" (also titled "Benny & the Jets") is a song written by English musician Elton John and songwriter Bernie Taupin, and performed by John. The song first appeared on the "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" album in 1973. "Bennie and the Jets" has been one of John's most popular songs and was performed during his appearance at Live Aid.


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: The track was a massive hit in the United States and Canada, released in 1974 as an A-side and spelled 'Bennie'. In most territories the track was released as the B-side to "Candle in the Wind", but spelled 'Benny'. Album artwork (back-cover track listing and center-panel design) consistently lists the song as 'Bennie' while either 'Bennie' or 'Benny' appears on the vinyl album depending on territory. The track was released as an A-side in the UK in 1976, as "Benny and the Jets".


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: The song tells of "Bennie and the Jets", a fictional band of whom the song's narrator is a fan. In a 2014 "Rolling Stone" interview, Taupin said "I saw Bennie and the Jets as a sort of proto-sci-fi punk band, fronted by an androgynous woman, who looks like something out of a Helmut Newton photograph." The greed and glitz of the early 1970s music scene is portrayed by Taupin's words:


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: Produced by Gus Dudgeon, the song was recorded during the "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" sessions in France at Château d'Hérouville's Strawberry Studios, where John and Taupin had recorded their previous two albums "Honky Château" and "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player".


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: John rarely plays the studio arrangement of the song, and often makes subtle or even drastic changes, sometimes including phrases from Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" and closing with the five-note combination from John Williams' score for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". During his live performances, the piano solo has been played in all sorts of variations, from very close to the original to wildly improvised and extended versions, such as the elaborate version during his Central Park concert in 1980, the version from his June 30, 1984 Wembley Stadium performance and another take on it during the "Elton and his band" part of the show recorded in Sydney, Australia on 14 December 1986, his last show before his throat surgery in January 1987.


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: Despite sounding as though recorded live, the song was actually recorded in studio, with live sound effects added in later. Producer Gus Dudgeon explained:


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: Dudgeon mixed in sounds from a 1972 performance of John in Royal Festival Hall and a 1970 Jimi Hendrix concert at the Isle of Wight. He included a series of whistles from a live concert in Vancouver, and added hand claps and various shouts.


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: The song was the closing track on side one of the double album "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", and John was set against releasing it as a single, believing it would fail. CKLW in Windsor, Ontario, began heavy airplay of the song and it became the No. 1 song in the Detroit market. This attention caused other American and Canadian Top 40 stations to add it to their playlists as well. As a result, the song peaked at No. 1 on the US singles chart in 1974. In the US, it was certified Gold on 8 April 1974 and Platinum on 13 September 1995 by the RIAA, and had sold 2.8 million copies by August 1976.


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: "Bennie and the Jets" was John's first Top 40 hit on what at the time was called the "Billboard" Hot Soul Singles chart, where it peaked at No. 15, the highest position out of the three of his singles which reached that chart. The acceptance of "Bennie" on R&B radio helped land John, a huge soul music fan, a guest appearance on 17 May 1975 edition of "Soul Train", where he played "Bennie and the Jets" and "Philadelphia Freedom". In Canada, it held the No. 1 spot on the "RPM" national singles chart for two weeks (13–20 April), becoming his first No. 1 single of 1974 and his fourth overall.


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: In May 2017, the music video for "Bennie and the Jets" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as a winner of "Elton John: The Cut", a competition organised in partnership with AKQA, Pulse Films, and YouTube in honour of the fiftieth anniversary of his songwriting relationship with Bernie Taupin. The competition called upon independent filmmakers to submit treatments for music videos for one of three Elton John songs from the 1970s, with each song falling within a specific concept category. "Bennie and the Jets" was designated for the choreography category, and was directed by Jack Whiteley and Laura Brownhill. The video was influenced by early cinema and the work of Busby Berkeley, portraying characters as participants on a talent show auditioning for Bennie.


title: Bennie and the Jets

text: The song contains the line "She's got electric boots, a mohair suit", which is often misheard as "She's got electric boobs, and mohair shoes". A scene in the film "27 Dresses" shows that this is but one of many mondegreens that listeners have invented for this song.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket. Goddard successfully launched his rocket on March 16, 1926, which ushered in an era of space flight and innovation. He and his team launched 34 rockets between 1926 and 1941, achieving altitudes as high as and speeds as fast as 885 km/h (550 mph).


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard's work as both theorist and engineer anticipated many of the developments that would make spaceflight possible. He has been called the man who ushered in the Space Age. Two of Goddard's 214 patented inventions, a multi-stage rocket (1914), and a liquid-fuel rocket (1914), were important milestones toward spaceflight. His 1919 monograph "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" is considered one of the classic texts of 20th-century rocket science. Goddard successfully pioneered modern methods such as two-axis control (gyroscopes and steerable thrust) to allow rockets to control their flight effectively.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Although his work in the field was revolutionary, Goddard received little public support, moral or monetary, for his research and development work. He was a shy person, and rocket research was not considered a suitable pursuit for a physics professor. The press and other scientists ridiculed his theories of spaceflight. As a result, he became protective of his privacy and his work.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Years after his death, at the dawn of the Space Age, Goddard came to be recognized as one of the founding fathers of modern rocketry, along with Robert Esnault-Pelterie, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and Hermann Oberth. He not only recognized early on the potential of rockets for atmospheric research, ballistic missiles and space travel but also was the first to scientifically study, design, construct and fly the precursory rockets needed to eventually implement those ideas.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center was named in Goddard's honor in 1959. He was also inducted into the International Aerospace Hall of Fame in 1966, and the International Space Hall of Fame in 1976.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Nahum Danford Goddard (1859–1928) and Fannie Louise Hoyt (1864–1920). Robert was their only child to survive; a younger son, Richard Henry, was born with a spinal deformity and died before his first birthday. Nahum was employed by manufacturers, and he invented several useful tools. Goddard had English paternal family roots in New England with William Goddard (1628–91) a London grocer who settled in Watertown, Massachusetts in 1666. On his maternal side he was descended from John Hoyt and other settlers of Massachusetts in the late 1600s.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Boston. With a curiosity about nature, he studied the heavens using a telescope from his father and observed the birds flying. Essentially a country boy, he loved the outdoors and hiking with his father on trips to Worcester and became an excellent marksman with a rifle. In 1898, his mother contracted tuberculosis and they moved back to Worcester for the clear air. On Sundays, the family attended the Episcopal church, and Robert sang in the choir.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: With the electrification of American cities in the 1880s, the young Goddard became interested in science—specifically, engineering and technology. When his father showed him how to generate static electricity on the family's carpet, the five-year-old's imagination was sparked. Robert experimented, believing he could jump higher if the zinc from a battery could be charged by scuffing his feet on the gravel walk. But, holding the zinc, he could jump no higher than usual. Goddard halted the experiments after a warning from his mother that if he succeeded, he could "go sailing away and might not be able to come back."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard's father further encouraged Robert's scientific interest by providing him with a telescope, a microscope, and a subscription to "Scientific American". Robert developed a fascination with flight, first with kites and then with balloons. He became a thorough diarist and documenter of his work—a skill that would greatly benefit his later career. These interests merged at age 16, when Goddard attempted to construct a balloon out of aluminum, shaping the raw metal in his home workshop, and filling it with hydrogen. After nearly five weeks of methodical, documented efforts, he finally abandoned the project, remarking, "... balloon will not go up. ... Aluminum is too heavy. Failior crowns enterprise." However, the lesson of this failure did not restrain Goddard's growing determination and confidence in his work. He wrote in 1927, "I imagine an innate interest in mechanical things was inherited from a number of ancestors who were machinists."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: He became interested in space when he read H. G. Wells' science fiction classic "The War of the Worlds" at 16 years old. His dedication to pursuing space flight became fixed on October 19, 1899. The 17-year-old Goddard climbed a cherry tree to cut off dead limbs. He was transfixed by the sky, and his imagination grew. He later wrote:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: For the rest of his life, he observed October 19 as "Anniversary Day", a private commemoration of the day of his greatest inspiration.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The young Goddard was a thin and frail boy, almost always in fragile health. He suffered from stomach problems, pleurisy, colds, and bronchitis, and he fell two years behind his classmates. He became a voracious reader, regularly visiting the local public library to borrow books on the physical sciences.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard's interest in aerodynamics led him to study some of Samuel Langley's scientific papers in the periodical "Smithsonian". In these papers, Langley wrote that birds flap their wings with different force on each side to turn in the air. Inspired by these articles, the teenage Goddard watched swallows and chimney swifts from the porch of his home, noting how subtly the birds moved their wings to control their flight. He noted how remarkably the birds controlled their flight with their tail feathers, which he called the birds' equivalent of ailerons. He took exception to some of Langley's conclusions and in 1901 wrote a letter to "St. Nicholas" magazine with his own ideas. The editor of "St. Nicholas" declined to publish Goddard's letter, remarking that birds fly with a certain amount of intelligence and that "machines will not act with such intelligence." Goddard disagreed, believing that a man could control a flying machine with his own intelligence.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Around this time, Goddard read Newton's "Principia Mathematica", and found that Newton's Third Law of Motion applied to motion in space. He wrote later about his own tests of the Law:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: As his health improved, Goddard continued his formal schooling as a 19-year-old sophomore at South High Community School in Worcester in 1901. He excelled in his coursework, and his peers twice elected him class president. Making up for lost time, he studied books on mathematics, astronomy, mechanics and composition from the school library. At his graduation ceremony in 1904, he gave his class oration as valedictorian. In his speech, entitled "On Taking Things for Granted", Goddard included a section that would become emblematic of his life:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard enrolled at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1904. He quickly impressed the head of the physics department, A. Wilmer Duff, with his thirst for knowledge, and Duff took him on as a laboratory assistant and tutor. At WPI, Goddard joined the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and began a long courtship with high school classmate Miriam Olmstead, an honor student who had graduated with him as salutatorian. Eventually, she and Goddard were engaged, but they drifted apart and ended the engagement around 1909.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard received his B.S. degree in physics from Worcester Polytechnic in 1908, and after serving there for a year as an instructor in physics, he began his graduate studies at Clark University in Worcester in the fall of 1909. Goddard received his M.A. degree in physics from Clark University in 1910, and then stayed at Clark to complete his Ph.D. in physics in 1911. He spent another year at Clark as an honorary fellow in physics, and in 1912 he accepted a research fellowship at Princeton University's Palmer Physical Laboratory.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The high school student summed up his ideas on space travel in a proposed article, "The Navigation of Space," which he submitted to the "Popular Science News". The journal's editor returned it, saying that they could not use it "in the near future."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: While still an undergraduate, Goddard wrote a paper proposing a method for balancing airplanes using gyro-stabilization. He submitted the idea to "Scientific American", which published the paper in 1907. Goddard later wrote in his diaries that he believed his paper was the first proposal of a way to automatically stabilize aircraft in flight. His proposal came around the same time as other scientists were making breakthroughs in developing functional gyroscopes.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: While studying physics at WPI, ideas came to Goddard's mind that sometimes seemed impossible, but he was compelled to record them for future investigation. He wrote that "there was something inside which simply would not stop working." He purchased some cloth-covered notebooks and began filling them with a variety of thoughts, mostly concerning his dream of space travel. He considered centrifugal force, radio waves, magnetic reaction, solar energy, atomic energy, ion or electrostatic propulsion and other methods to reach space. After experimenting with solid fuel rockets he was convinced by 1909 that chemical-propellant engines were the answer. A particularly complex concept was set down in June 1908: Sending a camera around distant planets, guided by measurements of gravity along the trajectory, and returning to earth.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: His first writing on the possibility of a liquid-fueled rocket came on February 2, 1909. Goddard had begun to study ways of increasing a rocket's efficiency using methods differing from conventional solid-fuel rockets. He wrote in his notebook about using liquid hydrogen as a fuel with liquid oxygen as the oxidizer. He believed that 50 percent efficiency could be achieved with these liquid propellants (i.e., half of the heat energy of combustion converted to the kinetic energy of the exhaust gases).


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In the decades around 1910, radio was a new technology, fertile for innovation. In 1912, while working at Princeton University, Goddard investigated the effects of radio waves on insulators. In order to generate radio-frequency power, he invented a vacuum tube with a beam deflection that operated like a cathode-ray oscillator tube. His patent on this tube, which predated that of Lee De Forest, became central in the suit between Arthur A. Collins, whose small company made radio transmitter tubes, and AT&T and RCA over his use of vacuum tube technology. Goddard accepted only a consultant's fee from Collins when the suit was dropped. Eventually, the two big companies allowed the country's growing electronics industry to use the De Forest patents freely.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: By 1912 he had in his spare time, using calculus, developed the mathematics which allowed him to calculate the position and velocity of a rocket in vertical flight, given the weight of the rocket and weight of the propellant and the velocity (with respect to the rocket frame) of the exhaust gases. In effect he had independently developed the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation published a decade earlier in Russia. Tsiolkovsky, however, did not account for gravity nor drag. For vertical flight from the surface of Earth Goddard included in his differential equation the effects of gravity and aerodynamic drag. He wrote: "An approximate method was found necessary ... in order to avoid an unsolved problem in the calculus of variations. The solution that was obtained revealed the fact that surprisingly small initial masses would be necessary ... "provided the gases were ejected from the rocket at a high velocity," and also provided that "most of the rocket consisted of propellant material.""


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: His first goal was to build a sounding rocket with which to study the atmosphere. Not only would such investigation aid meteorology, but it was necessary to determine temperature, density and wind speed as functions of altitude in order to design efficient space launch vehicles. He was very reluctant to admit that his ultimate goal was, in fact, to develop a vehicle for flights into space, since most scientists, especially in the United States, did not consider such a goal to be a realistic or practical scientific pursuit, nor was the public yet ready to seriously consider such ideas. Later, in 1933, Goddard said that "[I]n no case must we allow ourselves to be deterred from the achievement of space travel, test by test and step by step, until one day we succeed, cost what it may."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In early 1913, Goddard became seriously ill with tuberculosis and had to leave his position at Princeton. He then returned to Worcester, where he began a prolonged process of recovery at home. His doctors did not expect him to live. He decided he should spend time outside in the fresh air and walk for exercise, and he gradually improved. When his nurse discovered some of his notes in his bed, he kept them, arguing, "I have to live to do this work."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: It was during this period of recuperation, however, that Goddard began to produce some of his most important work. As his symptoms subsided, he allowed himself to work an hour per day with his notes made at Princeton. He was afraid that nobody would be able to read his scribbling should he


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In the technological and manufacturing atmosphere of Worcester, patents were considered essential, not only to protect original work but as documentation of first discovery. He began to see the importance of his ideas as intellectual property, and thus began to secure those ideas before someone else did—and he would have to pay to use them. In May 1913, he wrote descriptions concerning his first rocket patent applications. His father brought them to a patent lawyer in Worcester who helped him to refine his ideas for consideration. Goddard's first patent application was submitted in October 1913.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In 1914, his first two landmark patents were accepted and registered. The first, , described a multi-stage rocket fueled with a solid "explosive material." The second, , described a rocket fueled with a solid fuel (explosive material) or with liquid propellants (gasoline and liquid nitrous oxide). The two patents would eventually become important milestones in the history of rocketry. Overall, 214 patents were published, some posthumously by his wife.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In the fall of 1914 Goddard's health had improved, and he accepted a part-time position as an instructor and research fellow at Clark University. His position at Clark allowed him to further his rocketry research. He ordered numerous supplies that could be used to build rocket prototypes for launch and spent much of 1915 in preparation for his first tests. Goddard's first test launch of a powder rocket came on an early evening in 1915 following his daytime classes at Clark. The launch was loud and bright enough to arouse the alarm of the campus janitor, and Goddard had to reassure him that his experiments, while being serious study, were also quite harmless. After this incident Goddard took his experiments inside the physics lab in order to limit any disturbance.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: At the Clark physics lab Goddard conducted static tests of powder rockets to measure their thrust and efficiency. He found his earlier estimates to be verified; powder rockets were converting only about two percent of the thermal energy in their fuel into thrust and kinetic energy. At this point he applied de Laval nozzles, which were generally used with steam turbine engines, and these greatly improved efficiency. (Of the several definitions of rocket efficiency, Goddard measured in his laboratory what is today called the "internal efficiency" of the engine: the ratio of the kinetic energy of the exhaust gases to the available thermal energy of combustion, expressed as a percentage.) By mid-summer of 1915 Goddard had obtained an average efficiency of 40 percent with a nozzle exit velocity of . Connecting a combustion chamber full of gunpowder to various converging-diverging expansion (de Laval) nozzles, Goddard was able in static tests to achieve engine efficiencies of more than 63% and exhaust velocities of over 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) per second.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Few would recognize it at the time, but this little engine was a major breakthrough. These experiments suggested that rockets could be made powerful enough to escape Earth and travel into space. This engine and subsequent experiments sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution were the beginning of modern rocketry and, ultimately, space exploration. Goddard realized, however, that it would take the more efficient liquid propellants to reach space.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Later that year, Goddard designed an elaborate experiment at the Clark physics lab and proved that a rocket would perform in a vacuum such as that in space. He believed it would, but many other scientists were not yet convinced. His experiment demonstrated that a rocket's performance actually decreases under atmospheric pressure.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In September 1906 he wrote in his notebook about using the repulsion of electrically charged particles (ions) to produce thrust. From 1916 to 1917, Goddard built and tested the first known experimental ion thrusters, which he thought might be used for propulsion in the near-vacuum conditions of outer space. The small glass engines he built were tested at atmospheric pressure, where they generated a stream of ionized air.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: By 1916, the cost of Goddard's rocket research had become too great for his modest teaching salary to bear. He began to solicit potential sponsors for financial assistance, beginning with the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, and the Aero Club of America.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In his letter to the Smithsonian in September 1916, Goddard claimed he had achieved a 63% efficiency and a nozzle velocity of almost . With these performance levels, he believed a rocket could vertically lift a weight of to a height of with an initial launch weight of only . (Earth's atmosphere can be considered to end at altitude, where its drag effect on orbiting satellites becomes minimal.)


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The Smithsonian was interested and asked Goddard to elaborate upon his initial inquiry. Goddard responded with a detailed manuscript he had already prepared, entitled "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes".


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In January 1917, the Smithsonian agreed to provide Goddard with a five-year grant totaling . Afterward, Clark was able to contribute and the use of their physics lab to the project. Worcester Polytechnic Institute also allowed him to use its abandoned Magnetics Laboratory on the edge of campus during this time, as a safe place for testing. WPI also made some parts in their machine shop.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard's fellow Clark scientists were astonished at the unusually large Smithsonian grant for rocket research, which they thought was not real science. Decades later, rocket scientists who knew how much it cost to research and develop rockets said that he had received little financial support.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Two years later, at the insistence of Dr. Arthur G. Webster, the world-renowned head of Clark's physics department, Goddard arranged for the Smithsonian to publish the paper, "A Method...," which documented his work.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: While at Clark University, Goddard did research into solar power using a parabolic dish to concentrate the Sun's rays on a machined piece of quartz, that was sprayed with mercury, which then heated water and drove an electric generator. Goddard believed his invention had overcome all the obstacles that had previously defeated other scientists and inventors, and he had his findings published in the November 1929 issue of "Popular Science".


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Not all of Goddard's early work was geared toward space travel. As the United States entered World War I in 1917, the country's universities began to lend their services to the war effort. Goddard believed his rocket research could be applied to many different military applications, including mobile artillery, field weapons and naval torpedoes. He made proposals to the Navy and Army. No record exists in his papers of any interest by the Navy to Goddard's inquiry. However, Army Ordnance was quite interested, and Goddard met several times with Army personnel.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: During this time, Goddard was also contacted, in early 1918, by a civilian industrialist in Worcester about the possibility of manufacturing rockets for the military. However, as the businessman's enthusiasm grew, so did Goddard's suspicion. Talks eventually broke down as Goddard began to fear his work might be appropriated by the business. However, an Army Signal Corps officer tried to make Goddard cooperate, but he was called off by General George Squier of the Signal Corps who had been contacted by Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, Charles Walcott. Goddard became leery of working with corporations and was careful to secure patents to "protect his ideas." These events led to the Signal Corps sponsoring Goddard's work during World War I.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard proposed to the Army an idea for a tube-based rocket launcher as a light infantry weapon. The launcher concept became the precursor to the bazooka. The rocket-powered, recoil-free weapon was the brainchild of Goddard as a side project (under Army contract) of his work on rocket propulsion. Goddard, during his tenure at Clark University, and working at Mount Wilson Observatory for security reasons, designed the tube-fired rocket for military use during World War I. He and his co-worker Dr. Clarence N. Hickman successfully demonstrated his rocket to the U.S. Army Signal Corps at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, on November 6, 1918, using two music stands for a launch platform. The Army was impressed, but the Compiègne Armistice was signed only five days later, and further development was discontinued as World War I ended.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The delay in the development of the bazooka and other weapons was a result of the long recovery period required from Goddard's serious bout with tuberculosis. Goddard continued to be a part-time consultant to the U.S. Government at Indian Head, Maryland, until 1923, but his focus had turned to other research involving rocket propulsion, including work with liquid fuels and liquid oxygen.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Later, the former Clark University researcher Dr. Clarence N. Hickman and Army officers Col. Leslie Skinner and Lt. Edward Uhl continued Goddard's work on the bazooka. A shaped-charge warhead was attached to the rocket, leading to the tank-killing weapon used in World War II and to many other powerful rocket weapons.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In 1919 Goddard thought that it would be premature to disclose the results of his experiments because his engine was not sufficiently developed. Dr. Webster realized that Goddard had accomplished a good deal of fine work and insisted that Goddard publish his progress so far or he would take care of it himself, so Goddard asked the Smithsonian Institution if it would publish the report, updated with notes, that he had submitted in late 1916.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In late 1919, the Smithsonian published Goddard's groundbreaking work, "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes". The report describes Goddard's mathematical theories of rocket flight, his experiments with solid-fuel rockets, and the possibilities he saw of exploring Earth's atmosphere and beyond. Along with Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's earlier work, "The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices", which was not widely disseminated outside Russia, Goddard's report is regarded as one of the pioneering works of the science of rocketry, and 1750 copies were distributed worldwide. Goddard also sent a copy to individuals who requested one, until his personal supply was exhausted. Smithsonian aerospace historian Frank Winter said that this paper was "one of the key catalysts behind the international rocket movement of the 1920s and 30s."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard described extensive experiments with solid-fuel rocket engines burning high-grade nitrocellulose smokeless powder. A critical breakthrough was the use of the steam turbine nozzle invented by the Swedish inventor Gustaf de Laval. The de Laval nozzle allows the most efficient (isentropic) conversion of the energy of hot gases into forward motion. By means of this nozzle, Goddard increased the efficiency of his rocket engines from two percent to 64 percent and obtained supersonic exhaust velocities of over Mach 7.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Though most of this work dealt with the theoretical and experimental relations between propellant, rocket mass, thrust, and velocity, a final section, entitled "Calculation of minimum mass required to raise one pound to an 'infinite' altitude," discussed the possible uses of rockets, not only to reach the upper atmosphere but to escape from Earth's gravitation altogether. He determined, using an approximate method to solve his differential equation of motion for vertical flight, that a rocket with an effective exhaust velocity (see specific impulse) of 7000 feet per second and an initial weight of 602 pounds would be able to send a one-pound payload to an infinite height. Included as a thought experiment was the idea of launching a rocket to the Moon and igniting a mass of flash powder on its surface, so as to be visible through a telescope. He discussed the matter seriously, down to an estimate of the amount of powder required. Goddard's conclusion was that a rocket with starting mass of 3.21 tons could produce a flash "just visible" from Earth, assuming a final payload weight of 10.7 pounds.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard eschewed publicity, because he did not have time to reply to criticism of his work, and his imaginative ideas about space travel were shared only with private groups he trusted. He did, though, publish and talk about the rocket principle and sounding rockets, since these subjects were not too "far out." In a letter to the Smithsonian, dated March 1920, he discussed: photographing the Moon and planets from rocket-powered fly-by probes, sending messages to distant civilizations on inscribed metal plates, the use of solar energy in space, and the idea of high-velocity ion propulsion. In that same letter, Goddard clearly describes the concept of the ablative heat shield, suggesting the landing apparatus be covered with "layers of a very infusible hard substance with layers of a poor heat conductor between" designed to erode in the same way as the surface of a meteor.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The publication of Goddard's document gained him national attention from U.S. newspapers, most of it negative. Although Goddard's discussion of targeting the moon was only a small part of the work as a whole (eight lines on the next to last page of 69 pages), and was intended as an illustration of the possibilities rather than a declaration of intent, the papers sensationalized his ideas to the point of misrepresentation and ridicule. Even the Smithsonian had to abstain from publicity because of the amount of ridiculous correspondence received from the general public. David Lasser, who co-founded the American Rocket Society (ARS), wrote in 1931 that Goddard was subjected in the press to the "most violent attacks."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: On January 12, 1920, a front-page story in "The New York Times", "Believes Rocket Can Reach Moon", reported a Smithsonian press release about a "multiple-charge, high-efficiency rocket." The chief application envisaged was "the possibility of sending recording apparatus to moderate and extreme altitudes within the Earth's atmosphere", the advantage over balloon-carried instruments being ease of recovery, since "the new rocket apparatus would go straight up and come straight down." But it also mentioned a proposal "to [send] to the dark part of the new moon a sufficiently large amount of the most brilliant flash powder which, in being ignited on impact, would be plainly visible in a powerful telescope. This would be the only way of proving that the rocket had really left the attraction of the earth, as the apparatus would never come back, once it had escaped that attraction."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: On January 13, 1920, the day after its front-page story about Goddard's rocket, an unsigned "New York Times" editorial, in a section entitled "Topics of the Times", scoffed at the proposal. The article, which bore the title "A Severe Strain on Credulity", began with apparent approval, but soon went on to cast serious doubt:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even highest, part of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's multiple-charge rocket is a practicable, and therefore promising device. Such a rocket, too, might carry self-recording instruments, to be released at the limit of its flight, and conceivable parachutes would bring them safely to the ground. It is not obvious, however, that the instruments would return to the point of departure; indeed, it is obvious that they would not, for parachutes drift exactly as balloons do.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: [A]fter the rocket quits our air and really starts on its longer journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left. To claim that it would be is to deny a fundamental law of dynamics, and only Dr. Einstein and his chosen dozen, so few and fit, are licensed to do that. ... Of course, [Goddard] only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: A week after the "New York Times" editorial, Goddard released a signed statement to the Associated Press, attempting to restore reason to what had become a sensational story:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Too much attention has been concentrated on the proposed flash pow[d]er experiment, and too little on the exploration of the atmosphere. ... Whatever interesting possibilities there may be of the method that has been proposed, other than the purpose for which it was intended, no one of them could be undertaken without first exploring the atmosphere.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In 1924, Goddard published an article, "How my speed rocket can propel itself in vacuum", in "Popular Science", in which he explained the physics and gave details of the vacuum experiments he had performed to prove the theory. But, no matter how he tried to explain his results, he was not understood by the majority. After one of Goddard's experiments in 1929, a local Worcester newspaper carried the mocking headline "Moon rocket misses target by 238,799 miles."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Though the unimaginative public chuckled at the "moon man," his groundbreaking paper was read seriously by many rocketeers in America, Europe, and Russia who were stirred to build their own rockets. This work was his most important contribution to the quest to "aim for the stars."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard worked alone with just his team of mechanics and machinists for many years. This was a result of the harsh criticism from the media and other scientists, and his understanding of the military applications which foreign powers might use. Goddard became increasingly suspicious of others and often worked alone, except during the two World Wars, which limited the impact of much of his work. Another limiting factor was the lack of support from the American government, military and academia, all failing to understand the value of the rocket to study the atmosphere and near space, and for military applications.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Nevertheless, Goddard had some influence on European rocketry pioneers like Hermann Oberth and his student Max Valier, at least as proponent of the idea of space rocketry and source of inspiration, although each side developed their technology and its scientific basis independently. In Europe the rocketeers were mainly theorists and visionaries. Goddard was the foremost experimenter, and his report was responsible for encouraging many to build their own rockets. Eventually Fritz von Opel, an automobile manufacturer in Germany, was instrumental in popularizing solid fuel rockets as a means of propulsion for vehicles. In the 1920s, he initiated together with Max Valier, co-founder of the "Verein für Raumschiffahrt", the world's first rocket program, Opel-RAK, leading to speed records for automobiles, rail vehicles and the first manned rocket-powered flight in September of 1929. Months earlier in 1928, one of his rocket-powered prototypes, the Opel RAK2, reached piloted by von Opel himself at the AVUS speedway in Berlin a record speed of 238 km/h, watched by 3000 spectators and world media, among them Fritz Lang, director of "Metropolis" and "Woman in the Moon." A world record for rail vehicles was reached with RAK3 and a top speed of 256 km/h. After these successes, von Opel piloted the world's first public rocket-powered flight using Opel RAK.1, a rocket plane designed by Julius Hatry. World media reported on these efforts, including UNIVERSAL Newsreel of the US, causing as "Raketen-Rummel" or "Rocket Rumble" immense global public excitement, and in particular in Germany, where among others Wernher von Braun was highly influenced. The Great Depression led to an end of the Opel-RAK program, but Max Valier continued the efforts. After switching from solid-fuel to liquid-fuel rockets, he died in May 1930 in an explosion while testing and is considered the first fatality of the dawning space age. As an 18-year-old von Braun also became a student of Oberth and eventually the head of the Nazi era rocket program.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: As Germany became ever more war-like, Goddard refused to communicate with German rocket experimenters, though he received more and more of their correspondence. Oberth had Goddard's 1919 paper translated and Wernher von Braun read it. They therefore knew that efficiencies at least thirty times greater than conventional rockets were achievable with Goddard's engine design. Via von Braun and his team joining the US post-war programs there is thus an indirect line of scientific and technology tradition from NASA back to Goddard.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Forty-nine years after its editorial mocking Goddard, on July 17, 1969—the day after the launch of Apollo 11—"The New York Times" published a short item under the headline "A Correction." The three-paragraph statement summarized its 1920 editorial and concluded:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th Century and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere. The Times regrets the error.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard began considering liquid propellants, including hydrogen and oxygen, as early as 1909. He knew that hydrogen and oxygen was the most efficient fuel/oxidizer combination. Liquid hydrogen was not readily available in 1921, however, and he selected gasoline as the safest fuel to handle.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard began experimenting with liquid oxidizer, liquid fuel rockets in September 1921, and successfully tested the first liquid propellant engine in November 1923. It had a cylindrical combustion chamber, using impinging jets to mix and atomize liquid oxygen and gasoline.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In 1924–25, Goddard had problems developing a high-pressure piston pump to send fuel to the combustion chamber. He wanted to scale up the experiments, but his funding would not allow such growth. He decided to forego the pumps and use a pressurized fuel feed system applying pressure to the fuel tank from a tank of inert gas, a technique that is still used today. The liquid oxygen, some of which evaporated, provided its own pressure.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: On December 6, 1925, he tested the simpler pressure feed system. He conducted a static test on the firing stand at the Clark University physics laboratory. The engine successfully lifted its own weight in a 27-second test in the static rack. It was a major success for Goddard, proving that a liquid fuel rocket was possible. The test moved Goddard an important step closer to launching a rocket with liquid fuel.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard conducted an additional test in December, and two more in January 1926. After that, he began preparing for a possible launch of the rocket system.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard launched the world's first liquid-fueled (gasoline and liquid oxygen) rocket on March 16, 1926, in Auburn, Massachusetts. Present at the launch were his crew chief Henry Sachs, Esther Goddard, and Percy Roope, who was Clark's assistant professor in the physics department. Goddard's diary entry of the event was notable for its understatement:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: March 16. Went to Auburn with S[achs] in am. E[sther] and Mr. Roope came out at 1 p.m. Tried rocket at 2.30. It rose 41 feet & went 184 feet, in 2.5 secs., after the lower half of the nozzle burned off. Brought materials to lab. ...


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: March 17, 1926. The first flight with a rocket using liquid propellants was made yesterday at Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn. ...


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Even though the release was pulled, the rocket did not rise at first, but the flame came out, and there was a steady roar. After a number of seconds it rose, slowly until it cleared the frame, and then at express train speed, curving over to the left, and striking the ice and snow, still going at a rapid rate.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The rocket, which was later dubbed "Nell", rose just 41 feet during a 2.5-second flight that ended 184 feet away in a cabbage field, but it was an important demonstration that liquid fuels and oxidizers were possible propellants for larger rockets. The launch site is now a National Historic Landmark, the Goddard Rocket Launching Site.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Viewers familiar with more modern rocket designs may find it difficult to distinguish the rocket from its launching apparatus in the well-known picture of "Nell". The complete rocket is significantly taller than Goddard but does not include the pyramidal support structure which he is grasping. The rocket's combustion chamber is the small cylinder at the top; the nozzle is visible beneath it. The fuel tank, which is also part of the rocket, is the larger cylinder opposite Goddard's torso. The fuel tank is directly beneath the nozzle and is protected from the motor's exhaust by an asbestos cone. Asbestos-wrapped aluminum tubes connect the motor to the tanks, providing both support and fuel transport. This layout is no longer used, since the experiment showed that this was no more stable than placing the combustion chamber and nozzle at the base. By May, after a series of modifications to simplify the plumbing, the combustion chamber and nozzle were placed in the now classic position, at the lower end of the rocket.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard determined early that fins alone were not sufficient to stabilize the rocket in flight and keep it on the desired trajectory in the face of winds aloft and other disturbing forces. He added movable vanes in the exhaust, controlled by a gyroscope, to control and steer his rocket. (The Germans used this technique in their V-2.) He also introduced the more efficient swiveling engine in several rockets, basically the method used to steer large liquid-propellant missiles and launchers today.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: After launch of one of Goddard's rockets in July 1929 again gained the attention of the newspapers, Charles Lindbergh learned of his work in a "New York Times" article. At the time, Lindbergh had begun to wonder what would become of aviation (even space flight) in the distant future and had settled on jet propulsion and rocket flight as a probable next step. After checking with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and being assured that Goddard was a bona fide physicist and not a crackpot, he phoned Goddard in November 1929. Professor Goddard met the aviator soon after in his office at Clark University. Upon meeting Goddard, Lindbergh was immediately impressed by his research, and Goddard was similarly impressed by the flier's interest. He discussed his work openly with Lindbergh, forming an alliance that would last for the rest of his life. While having long since become reluctant to share his ideas, Goddard showed complete openness with those few who shared his dream, and whom he felt he could trust.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: By late 1929, Goddard had been attracting additional notoriety with each rocket launch. He was finding it increasingly difficult to conduct his research without unwanted distractions. Lindbergh discussed finding additional financing for Goddard's work and lent his famous name to Goddard's work. In 1930 Lindbergh made several proposals to industry and private investors for funding, which proved all but impossible to find following the recent U.S. stock market crash in October 1929.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In the spring of 1930, Lindbergh finally found an ally in the Guggenheim family. Financier Daniel Guggenheim agreed to fund Goddard's research over the next four years for a total of $100,000 (~$ today). The Guggenheim family, especially Harry Guggenheim, would continue to support Goddard's work in the years to come. The Goddards soon moved to Roswell, New Mexico


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Because of the military potential of the rocket, Goddard, Lindbergh, Harry Guggenheim, the Smithsonian Institution and others tried in 1940, before the U.S. entered World War II, to convince the Army and Navy of its value. Goddard's services were offered, but there was no interest, initially. Two young, imaginative military officers eventually got the services to attempt to contract with Goddard just prior to the war. The Navy beat the Army to the punch and secured his services to build variable-thrust, liquid-fueled rocket engines for jet-assisted take-off (JATO) of aircraft. These rocket engines were the precursors to the larger throttlable rocket plane engines that helped launch the space age.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin wrote that his father, Edwin Aldrin Sr. "was an early supporter of Robert Goddard." The elder Aldrin was a student of physics under Goddard at Clark, and worked with Lindbergh to obtain the help of the Guggenheims. Buzz believed that if Goddard had received military support as Wernher von Braun's team had enjoyed in Germany, American rocket technology would have developed much more rapidly in World War II.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Before World War II there was a lack of vision and serious interest in the United States concerning the potential of rocketry, especially in Washington. Although the Weather Bureau was interested beginning in 1929 in Goddard's rocket for atmospheric research, the Bureau could not secure governmental funding. Between the World Wars, the Guggenheim Foundation was the main source of funding for Goddard's research. Goddard's liquid-fueled rocket was neglected by his country, according to aerospace historian Eugene Emme, but was noticed and advanced by other nations, especially the Germans. Goddard showed remarkable prescience in 1923 in a letter to the Smithsonian. He knew that the Germans were very interested in rocketry and said he "would not be surprised if the research would become something in the nature of a race," and he wondered how soon the European "theorists" would begin to build rockets.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In 1936, the U.S. military attaché in Berlin asked Charles Lindbergh to visit Germany and learn what he could of their progress in aviation. Although the Luftwaffe showed him their factories and were open concerning their growing airpower, they were silent on the subject of rocketry. When Lindbergh told Goddard of this behavior, Goddard said, "Yes, they must have plans for the rocket. When will our own people in Washington listen to reason?"


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Most of the U.S.'s largest universities were also slow to realize rocketry's potential. Just before World War II, the head of the aeronautics department at MIT, at a meeting held by the Army Air Corps to discuss project funding, said that the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) "can take the Buck Rogers Job [rocket research]." In 1941, Goddard tried to recruit an engineer for his team from MIT but couldn't find one who was interested. There were some exceptions: MIT was at least teaching basic rocketry, and Caltech had courses in rocketry and aerodynamics. After the war, Dr. Jerome Hunsaker of MIT, having studied Goddard's patents, stated that "Every liquid-fuel rocket that flies is a Goddard rocket."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: While away in Roswell, Goddard was still head of the physics department at Clark University, and Clark allowed him to devote most of his time to rocket research. Likewise, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) permitted astronomer Samuel Herrick to pursue research in space vehicle guidance and control, and shortly after the war to teach courses in spacecraft guidance and orbit determination. Herrick began corresponding with Goddard in 1931 and asked if he should work in this new field, which he named astrodynamics. Herrick said that Goddard had the vision to advise and encourage him in his use of celestial mechanics "to anticipate the basic problem of space navigation." Herrick's work contributed substantially to America's readiness to control flight of Earth satellites and send men to the Moon and back.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: With new financial backing, Goddard eventually relocated to Roswell, New Mexico, in summer of 1930, where he worked with his team of technicians in near-isolation and relative secrecy for years. He had consulted a meteorologist as to the best area to do his work, and Roswell seemed ideal. Here they would not endanger anyone, would not be bothered by the curious and would experience a more moderate climate (which was also better for Goddard's health). The locals valued personal privacy, knew Goddard desired his, and when travelers asked where Goddard's facilities were located, they would likely be misdirected.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: By September 1931, his rockets had the now familiar appearance of a smooth casing with tail-fins. He began experimenting with gyroscopic guidance and made a flight test of such a system in April 1932. A gyroscope mounted on gimbals electrically controlled steering vanes in the exhaust, similar to the system used by the German V-2 over 10 years later. Though the rocket crashed after a short ascent, the guidance system had worked, and Goddard considered the test a success.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: A temporary loss of funding from the Guggenheims, as a result of the depression, forced Goddard in spring of 1932 to return to his much-loathed professorial responsibilities at Clark University. He remained at the university until the autumn of 1934, when funding resumed. Because of the death of the senior Daniel Guggenheim, the management of funding was taken on by his son, Harry Guggenheim. Upon his return to Roswell, he began work on his A series of rockets, 4 to 4.5 meters long, and powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen pressurized with nitrogen. The gyroscopic control system was housed in the middle of the rocket, between the propellant tanks.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The A-4 used a simpler pendulum system for guidance, as the gyroscopic system was being repaired. On March 8, 1935, it flew up to 1,000 feet, then turned into the wind and, Goddard reported, "roared in a powerful descent across the prairie, at close to, or at, the speed of sound." On March 28, 1935, the A-5 successfully flew vertically to an altitude of (0.91 mi; 4,800 ft) using his gyroscopic guidance system. It then turned to a nearly horizontal path, flew 13,000 feet and achieved a maximum speed of 550 miles per hour. Goddard was elated because the guidance system kept the rocket on a vertical path so well.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In 1936–1939, Goddard began work on the K and L series rockets, which were much more massive and designed to reach very high altitude. The K series consisted of static bench tests of a more powerful engine, achieving a thrust of 624 lbs in February 1936. This work was plagued by trouble with chamber burn-through. In 1923, Goddard had built a regeneratively cooled engine, which circulated liquid oxygen around the outside of the combustion chamber, but he deemed the idea too complicated. He then used a curtain cooling method that involved spraying excess gasoline, which evaporated around the inside wall of the combustion chamber, but this scheme did not work well, and the larger rockets failed. Goddard returned to a smaller design, and his L-13 reached an altitude of 2.7 kilometers (1.7 mi; 8,900 ft), the highest of any of his rockets. Weight was reduced by using thin-walled fuel tanks wound with high-tensile-strength wire.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard experimented with many of the features of today's large rockets, such as multiple combustion chambers and nozzles. In November 1936, he flew the world's first rocket (L-7) with multiple chambers, hoping to increase thrust without increasing the size of a single chamber. It had four combustion chambers, reached a height of 200 feet, and corrected its vertical path using blast vanes until one chamber burned through. This flight demonstrated that a rocket with multiple combustion chambers could fly stably and be easily guided. In July 1937 he replaced the guidance vanes with a movable tail section containing a single combustion chamber, as if on gimbals (thrust vectoring). The flight was of low altitude, but a large disturbance, probably caused by a change in the wind velocity, was corrected back to vertical. In an August test the flight path was corrected seven times by the movable tail and was captured on film by Mrs Goddard.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: From 1940 to 1941, Goddard worked on the P series of rockets, which used propellant turbopumps (also powered by gasoline and liquid oxygen). The lightweight pumps produced higher propellant pressures, permitting a more powerful engine (greater thrust) and a lighter structure (lighter tanks and no pressurization tank), but two launches both ended in crashes after reaching an altitude of only a few hundred feet. The turbopumps worked well, however, and Goddard was pleased.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: When Goddard mentioned the need for turbopumps, Harry Guggenheim suggested that he contact pump manufacturers to aid him. None were interested, as the development cost of these miniature pumps was prohibitive. Goddard's team was therefore left on its own and from September 1938 to June 1940 designed and tested the small turbopumps and gas generators to operate the turbines. Esther later said that the pump tests were "the most trying and disheartening phase of the research."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard was able to flight-test many of his rockets, but many resulted in what the uninitiated would call failures, usually resulting from engine malfunction or loss of control. Goddard did not consider them failures, however, because he felt that he always learned something from a test. Most of his work involved static tests, which are a standard procedure today, before a flight test. He wrote to a correspondent: "It is not a simple matter to differentiate unsuccessful from successful experiments. ... [Most] work that is finally successful is the result of a series of unsuccessful tests in which difficulties are gradually eliminated."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Jimmy Doolittle was introduced to the field of space science at an early point in its history. He recalls in his autobiography, "I became interested in rocket development in the 1930s when I met Robert H. Goddard, who laid the foundation. ... While with Shell Oil I worked with him on the development of a type of fuel. ... " Harry Guggenheim and Charles Lindbergh arranged for (then Major) Doolittle to discuss with Goddard a special blend of gasoline. Doolittle flew himself to Roswell in October 1938 and was given a tour of Goddard's shop and a "short course" in rocketry. He then wrote a memo, including a rather detailed description of Goddard's rocket. In closing he said, "interplanetary transportation is probably a dream of the very distant future, but with the moon only a quarter of a million miles away—who knows!" In July 1941, he wrote Goddard that he was still interested in his rocket propulsion research. The Army was interested only in JATO at this point. However, Doolittle and Lindbergh were concerned about the state of rocketry in the US, and Doolittle remained in touch with Goddard.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Shortly after World War II, Doolittle spoke concerning Goddard to an American Rocket Society (ARS) conference at which a large number interested in rocketry attended. He later stated that at that time "we [in the aeronautics field] had not given much credence to the tremendous potential of rocketry." In 1956, he was appointed chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) because the previous chairman, Jerome C. Hunsaker, thought Doolittle to be more sympathetic than other scientists and engineers to the rocket, which was increasing in importance as a scientific tool as well as a weapon. Doolittle was instrumental in the successful transition of the NACA to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958. He was offered the position as first administrator of NASA, but he turned it down.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: As an instrument for reaching extreme altitudes, Goddard's rockets were not very successful; they did not achieve an altitude greater than 2.7 km in 1937, while a balloon sonde had already reached 35 km in 1921. By contrast, German rocket scientists had achieved an altitude of 2.4 km with the A-2 rocket in 1934, 8 km by 1939 with the A-5, and 176 km in 1942 with the A-4 (V-2) launched vertically, reaching the outer limits of the atmosphere and into space.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard's pace was slower than the Germans' because he did not have the resources they did. Simply reaching high altitudes was not his primary goal; he was trying, with a methodical approach, to perfect his liquid fuel engine and subsystems such as guidance and control so that his rocket could eventually achieve high altitudes without tumbling in the rare atmosphere, providing a stable vehicle for the experiments it would eventually carry. He had built the necessary turbopumps and was on the verge of building larger, lighter, more reliable rockets to reach extreme altitudes carrying scientific instruments when World War II intervened and changed the path of American history. He hoped to return to his experiments in Roswell after the war.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Though by the end of the Roswell years much of his technology had been replicated independently by others, he introduced new developments to rocketry that were used in this new enterprise: lightweight turbopumps, variable-thrust engine (in U.S.), engine with multiple combustion chambers and nozzles, and curtain cooling of combustion chamber.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Although Goddard had brought his work in rocketry to the attention of the United States Army, between World Wars, he was rebuffed, since the Army largely failed to grasp the military application of large rockets and said there was no money for new experimental weapons. German military intelligence, by contrast, had paid attention to Goddard's work. The Goddards noticed that some mail had been opened, and some mailed reports had gone missing. An accredited military attaché to the US, Friedrich von Boetticher, sent a four-page report to the "Abwehr" in 1936, and the spy Gustav Guellich sent a mixture of facts and made-up information, claiming to have visited Roswell and witnessed a launch. The "Abwehr" was very interested and responded with more questions about Goddard's work. Guellich's reports did include information about fuel mixtures and the important concept of fuel-curtain cooling, but thereafter the Germans received very little information about Goddard.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The Soviet Union had a spy in the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. In 1935, she gave them a report Goddard had written for the Navy in 1933. It contained results of tests and flights and suggestions for military uses of his rockets. The Soviets considered this to be very valuable information. It provided few design details, but gave them the direction and knowledge about Goddard's progress.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Navy Lieutenant Charles F. Fischer, who had visited Goddard in Roswell earlier and gained his confidence, believed Goddard was doing valuable work and was able to convince the Bureau of Aeronautics in September 1941 that Goddard could build the JATO unit the Navy desired. While still in Roswell, and before the Navy contract took effect, Goddard began in September to apply his technology to build a variable-thrust engine to be attached to a PBY seaplane. By May 1942, he had a unit that could meet the Navy's requirements and be able to launch a heavily loaded aircraft from a short runway. In February, he received part of a PBY with bullet holes apparently acquired in the Pearl Harbor attack. Goddard wrote to Guggenheim that "I can think of nothing that would give me greater satisfaction than to have it contribute to the inevitable retaliation."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In April, Fischer notified Goddard that the Navy wanted to do all its rocket work at the Engineering Experiment Station at Annapolis. Esther, worried that a move to the climate of Maryland would cause Robert's health to deteriorate faster, objected. But the patriotic Goddard replied, "Esther, don't you know there's a war on?" Fischer also questioned the move, as Goddard could work just as well in Roswell. Goddard simply answered, "I was wondering when you would ask me." Fischer had wanted to offer him something bigger—a long range missile—but JATO was all he could manage, hoping for a greater project later. It was a case of a square peg in a round hole, according to a disappointed Goddard.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard and his team had already been in Annapolis a month and had tested his constant-thrust JATO engine when he received a Navy telegram, forwarded from Roswell, ordering him to Annapolis. Lt. Fischer asked for a crash effort. By August, his engine was producing 800 lbs of thrust for 20 seconds, and Fischer was anxious to try it on a PBY. On the sixth test run, with all bugs worked out, the PBY, piloted by Fischer, was pushed into the air from the Severn River. Fischer landed and prepared to launch again. Goddard had wanted to check the unit, but radio contact with the PBY had been lost. On the seventh try, the engine caught fire. The plane was 150 feet up when flight was aborted. Because Goddard had installed a safety feature at the last minute, there was no explosion and there were no deaths. The problem's cause was traced to hasty installation and rough handling. Cheaper, safer solid fuel JATO engines were eventually selected by the armed forces. An engineer later said, "Putting [Goddard's] rocket on a seaplane was like hitching an eagle to a plow."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In its 1942 crash effort to perfect an aircraft booster, the Navy was beginning to learn its way in rocketry. In similar efforts, the Army Air Corps was also exploring the field [with GALCIT]. Compared to Germany's massive program, these beginnings were small, yet essential to later progress. They helped develop a nucleus of trained American rocket engineers, the first of the new breed who would follow the professor into the Age of Space.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In August 1943, President Atwood at Clark wrote to Goddard that the university was losing the acting head of the Physics Department, was taking on "emergency work" for the Army, and he was to "report for duty or declare the position vacant." Goddard replied that he believed he was needed by the Navy, was nearing retirement age, and was unable to lecture because of his throat problem, which did not allow him to talk above a whisper. He regretfully resigned as Professor of Physics and expressed his deepest appreciation for all Atwood and the Trustees had done for him and indirectly for the war effort. In June he had gone to see a throat specialist in Baltimore, who recommended that he not talk at all, to give his throat a rest.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The station, under Lt Commander Robert Truax, was developing another JATO engine in 1942 that used hypergolic propellants, eliminating the need for an ignition system. Chemist Ensign Ray Stiff had discovered in the literature in February that aniline and nitric acid burned fiercely immediately when mixed. Goddard's team built the pumps for the aniline fuel and the nitric acid oxidizer and participated in the static testing. The Navy delivered the pumps to Reaction Motors (RMI) to use in developing a gas generator for the pump turbines. Goddard went to RMI to observe testing of the pump system and would eat lunch with the RMI engineers. (RMI was the first firm formed to build rocket engines and built engines for the Bell X-1 rocket plane and Viking (rocket). RMI offered Goddard one-fifth interest in the company and a partnership after the war.) Goddard went with Navy people in December 1944 to confer with RMI on division of labor, and his team was to provide the propellant pump system for a rocket-powered interceptor because they had more experience with pumps. He consulted with RMI from 1942 through 1945. Though previously competitors, Goddard had a good working relationship with RMI, according to historian Frank H. Winter.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The Navy had Goddard build a pump system for Caltech's use with acid-aniline propellants. The team built a 3000-lb thrust engine using a cluster of four 750-lb thrust motors. They also developed 750-lb engines for the Navy's Gorgon guided interceptor missile (experimental Project Gorgon). Goddard continued to develop the variable-thrust engine with gasoline and lox because of the hazards involved with the hypergolics.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Despite Goddard's efforts to convince the Navy that liquid-fueled rockets had greater potential, he said that the Navy had no interest in long-range missiles. However, the Navy asked him to perfect the throttleable JATO engine. Goddard made improvements to the engine, and in November it was demonstrated to the Navy and some officials from Washington. Fischer invited the spectators to operate the controls; the engine blasted out over the Severn at full throttle with no hesitation, idled, and roared again at various thrust levels. The test was perfect, exceeding the Navy's requirements. The unit was able to be stopped and restarted, and it produced a medium thrust of 600 pounds for 15 seconds and a full thrust of 1,000 pounds for over 15 seconds. A Navy Commander commented that "It was like being Thor, playing with thunderbolts." Goddard had produced the essential propulsion control system of the rocket plane. The Goddards celebrated by attending the Army-Navy football game and attending the Fischers' cocktail party.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: This engine was the basis of the Curtiss-Wright XLR25-CW-1 two-chamber, 15,000-pound variable-thrust engine that powered the Bell X-2 research rocket plane. After World War II, Goddard's team and some patents went to Curtiss-Wright Corporation. "Although his death in August 1945 prevented him from participating in the actual development of this engine, it was a direct descendent of his design." Clark University and the Guggenheim Foundation received the royalties from the use of the patents. In September 1956, the X-2 was the first plane to reach 126,000 feet altitude and in its last flight exceeded Mach 3 (3.2) before losing control and crashing. The X-2 program advanced technology in areas such as steel alloys and aerodynamics at high Mach numbers.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: In the spring of 1945, Goddard saw a captured German V-2 ballistic missile, in the naval laboratory in Annapolis, Maryland, where he had been working under contract. The unlaunched rocket had been captured by the US Army from the Mittelwerk factory in the Harz mountains in Germany and samples began to be shipped by Special Mission V-2 on 22 May 1945.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: After a thorough inspection, Goddard was convinced that the Germans had "stolen" his work. Though the design details were not exactly the same, the basic design of the V-2 was similar to one of Goddard's rockets. The V-2, however, was technically far more advanced than the most successful of the rockets designed and tested by Goddard. The Peenemünde rocket group led by Wernher von Braun may have benefited from the pre-1939 contacts to a limited extent, but had also started from the work of their own space pioneer, Hermann Oberth; they also had the benefit of intensive state funding, large-scale production facilities (using slave labor), and repeated flight-testing that allowed them to refine their designs. Oberth was a space flight theorist and had never built a rocket, but he tested small liquid propellant thrust chambers in 1929-30 which were not advancements in the "state of the art." In 1922 Oberth asked Goddard for a copy of his 1919 paper and was sent one though Goddard was distrustful of the militaristic Germans. Later, Oberth erroneously believed that Goddard lacked vision, was interested only in studying the atmosphere, and did not comprehend the future of rocketry for space exploration.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Nevertheless, in 1963, von Braun, reflecting on the history of rocketry, said of Goddard: "His rockets ... may have been rather crude by present-day standards, but they blazed the trail and incorporated many features used in our most modern rockets and space vehicles". He once recalled that "Goddard's experiments in liquid fuel saved us years of work, and enabled us to perfect the V-2 years before it would have been possible." After World War II von Braun reviewed Goddard's patents and believed they contained enough technical information to build a large missile.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Three features developed by Goddard appeared in the V-2: (1) turbopumps were used to inject fuel into the combustion chamber; (2) gyroscopically controlled vanes in the nozzle stabilized the rocket until external vanes in the air could do so; and (3) excess alcohol was fed in around the combustion chamber walls, so that a blanket of evaporating gas protected the engine walls from the combustion heat.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The Germans had been watching Goddard's progress before the war and became convinced that large, liquid fuel rockets were feasible. General Walter Dornberger, head of the V-2 project, used the idea that they were in a race with the U.S. and that Goddard had "disappeared" (to work with the Navy) as a way to persuade Hitler to raise the priority of the V-2.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard avoided sharing details of his work with other scientists and preferred to work alone with his technicians. Frank Malina, who was then studying rocketry at the California Institute of Technology, visited Goddard in August 1936. Goddard hesitated to discuss any of his research, other than that which had already been published in "Liquid-Propellant Rocket Development". Theodore von Kármán, Malina's mentor at the time, was unhappy with Goddard's attitude and later wrote, "Naturally we at Caltech wanted as much information as we could get from Goddard for our mutual benefit. But Goddard believed in secrecy. ... The trouble with secrecy is that one can easily go in the wrong direction and never know it." However, at an earlier point, von Kármán said that Malina was "highly enthusiastic" after his visit and that Caltech made changes to their liquid-propellant rocket, based on Goddard's work and patents. Malina remembered his visit as friendly and that he saw all but a few components in Goddard's shop.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard's concerns about secrecy led to criticism for failure to cooperate with other scientists and engineers. His approach at that time was that independent development of his ideas without interference would bring quicker results even though he received less technical support. George Sutton, who became a rocket scientist working with von Braun's team in the late 1940s, said that he and his fellow workers had not heard of Goddard or his contributions and that they would have saved time if they had known the details of his work. Sutton admits that it may have been their fault for not looking for Goddard's patents and depending on the German team for knowledge and guidance; he wrote that information about the patents was not well distributed in the U.S. at that early period after World War II, though Germany and the Soviet Union had copies of some of them. (The Patent Office did not release rocket patents during World War II.) However, the Aerojet Engineering Corporation, an offshoot of the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at Caltech (GALCIT), filed two patent applications in Sep 1943 referencing Goddard's for the multistage rocket.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: By 1939, von Kármán's GALCIT had received Army Air Corps funding to develop rockets to assist in aircraft take-off. Goddard learned of this in 1940, and openly expressed his displeasure at not being considered. Malina could not understand why the Army did not arrange for an exchange of information between Goddard and Caltech since both were under government contract at the same time. Goddard did not think he could be of that much help to Caltech because they were designing rocket engines mainly with solid fuel, while he was using liquid fuel.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard was concerned with avoiding the public criticism and ridicule he had faced in the 1920s, which he believed had harmed his professional reputation. He also lacked interest in discussions with people who had less understanding of rocketry than he did, feeling that his time was extremely constrained. Goddard's health was frequently poor, as a result of his earlier bout of tuberculosis, and he was uncertain about how long he had to live He felt, therefore, that he hadn't the time to spare arguing with other scientists and the press about his new field of research, or helping all the amateur rocketeers who wrote to him. In 1932 Goddard wrote to H. G. Wells:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: neglect the reasons for it. Some reasons have been noted above. Much of his work was for the military and was classified. There were some in the U.S. before World War II that called for long-range rockets, and in 1939 Major James Randolph wrote a "provocative article" advocating a 3000-mile range missile. Goddard was "annoyed" by the unclassified paper as he thought the subject of weapons should be "discussed in strict secrecy."


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: However, Goddard's tendency to secrecy was not absolute, nor was he totally uncooperative. In 1945 GALCIT was building the WAC Corporal for the Army. But in 1942 they were having trouble with their liquid propellant rocket engine's performance (timely, smooth ignition and explosions). Frank Malina went to Annapolis in February and consulted with Goddard and Stiff, and they arrived at a solution to the problem (hypergolic propellant), which resulted in the successful launch of the high-altitude research rocket in October 1945.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: During the First and Second World Wars, Goddard offered his services, patents, and technology to the military, and made some significant contributions. Just before the Second World War several young Army officers and a few higher-ranking ones believed Goddard's research was important but were unable to generate funds for his work.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Toward the end of his life, Goddard, realizing he was no longer going to be able to make significant progress alone in his field, joined the American Rocket Society and became a director. He made plans to work in the budding US aerospace industry (with Curtiss-Wright), taking most of his team with him.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: On June 21, 1924, Goddard married Esther Christine Kisk (March 31, 1901 – June 4, 1982), a secretary in Clark University's President's office, whom he had met in 1919. She became enthusiastic about rocketry and photographed some of his work as well as aided him in his experiments and paperwork, including accounting. They enjoyed going to the movies in Roswell and participated in community organizations such as the Rotary and the Woman's Club. He painted the New Mexican scenery, sometimes with the artist Peter Hurd, and played the piano. She played bridge, while he read. Esther said Robert participated in the community and readily accepted invitations to speak to church and service groups. The couple did not have children. After his death, she sorted out Goddard's papers, and secured 131 additional patents on his work.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Concerning Goddard's religious views, he was raised as an Episcopalian, though he was not outwardly religious. The Goddards were associated with the Episcopal church in Roswell, and he attended occasionally. He once spoke to a young people's group on the relationship of science and religion.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard's serious bout with tuberculosis weakened his lungs, affecting his ability to work, and was one reason he liked to work alone, in order to avoid argument and confrontation with others and use his time fruitfully. He labored with the prospect of a shorter than average life span. After arriving in Roswell, Goddard applied for life insurance, but when the company doctor examined him he said that Goddard belonged in a bed in Switzerland (where he could get the best care). Goddard's health began to deteriorate further after moving to the humid climate of Maryland to work for the Navy. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1945. He continued to work, able to speak only in a whisper until surgery was required, and he died in August of that year in Baltimore, Maryland. He was buried in Hope Cemetery in his home town of Worcester, Massachusetts.


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: Goddard received 214 patents for his work, of which 131 were awarded after his death. Among the most influential patents were:


title: Robert H. Goddard

text: The Guggenheim Foundation and Goddard's estate filed suit in 1951 against the U.S. government for prior infringement of three of Goddard's patents. In 1960, the parties settled the suit, and the U.S. armed forces and NASA paid out an award of $1 million: half of the award settlement went to his wife, Esther. At that time, it was the largest government settlement ever paid in a patent case. The settlement amount exceeded the total amount of all the funding that Goddard received for his work, throughout his entire career.


title: Euronext

text: Euronext N.V. (short for European New Exchange Technology) is a pan-European bourse that offers various trading and post-trade services.


title: Euronext

text: Traded assets include regulated equities, exchange-traded funds (ETF), warrants and certificates, bonds, derivatives, commodities, foreign exchange as well as indices. In December 2021, it had nearly 2,000 listed issuers worth €6.9 trillion in market capitalisation. Euronext is the largest center for debt and funds listings in the world, and provides technology and managed services to third parties. In addition to its main regulated market, it operates Euronext Growth and Euronext Access, providing access to listing for small and medium-sized enterprises. Euronext's commodity market includes the electric power exchange Nord Pool, as well as Fish Pool.


title: Euronext

text: Post-trade services include clearing performed by Euronext's multi-asset clearing house, , as well as custody and settlement performed by Euronext's central securities depository (CSD), .


title: Euronext

text: Euronext's registered office and corporate headquarters are situated in Amsterdam and Paris, respectively.


title: Euronext

text: Euronext traces its origins back to the world's first bourses, formed in the Low Countries' shifting trade centres: , Antwerp and Amsterdam in 1285, 1485 and 1602, respectively. In its present form, Euronext was founded by the merger of European Union (EU) stock exchanges at the turn of the 21st century, following the introduction of the single currency and harmonisation of financial markets.


title: Euronext

text: The present day Euronext was spun off from the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in 2014, shortly after ICE's acquisition of NYSE Euronext the year before.


title: Euronext

text: Euronext operates its main regulated market, as well two types of multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) providing access to listing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), titled "Euronext Growth and Euronext Access".


title: Euronext

text: Euronext manages various country (national), as well as pan-European regional and sector and strategy indices.


title: Euronext

text: Euronext provides custody and settlement services through its central securities depository (CSD), , based on Euronext's ownership of previous national CSDs in Denmark, Italy, Norway and Portugal.


title: Euronext

text: As part of its acquisition of the Italian Bourse in 2021, Euronext obtained the multi-asset clearing house "" (CC&G). CC&G was renamed "".


title: Euronext

text: In 1998, the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Börse announced their intention of forming an alliance to fend off competition from the United States, and take advantage from the European Union's (EU) single currency and harmonisation of financial markets. In April 1999 the stock exchanges in Paris, Zurich, Madrid, Brussels, Amsterdam, and Milan signed a memorandum of understanding in Madrid, which formalised plans to include these bourses as well.


title: Euronext

text: Ultimately, only three decided to proceed, and on 22 September 2000 Euronext was formed following a merger of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, Brussels Stock Exchange, and Paris Bourse.


title: Euronext

text: In December 2001, Euronext acquired the shares of the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange (LIFFE), forming Euronext.LIFFE. In 2002 the group merged with the Portuguese stock exchange Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto (BVLP), renamed Euronext Lisbon. In 2001, Euronext became a listed company itself after completing its initial public offering.


title: Euronext

text: In 2005, Euronext introduced Alternext as a market segment to help finance small and mid-class companies in the Eurozone.


title: Euronext

text: Due to apparent moves by NASDAQ to acquire the London Stock Exchange or Euronext itself, NYSE Group, owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), offered €8 billion (US$10.2b) in cash and shares for Euronext on 22 May 2006, outbidding a rival offer for the European Stock exchange operator from Deutsche Börse, the German stock market. Contrary to statements that it would not raise its bid, on 23 May 2006, Deutsche Börse unveiled a merger bid for Euronext, valuing the pan-European exchange at €8.6 billion (US$11b), €600 million over NYSE Group's initial bid. Despite this, NYSE Group and Euronext penned a merger agreement, subject to shareholder vote and regulatory approval. The initial regulatory response by SEC chief Christopher Cox (who was coordinating heavily with European counterparts) was positive, with an expected approval by the end of 2007.


title: Euronext

text: Deutsche Börse dropped out of the bidding for Euronext on 15 November 2006, removing the last major hurdle for the NYSE Euronext transaction. A run-up of NYSE Group's stock price in late 2006 made the offering far more attractive to Euronext's shareholders.


title: Euronext

text: On 19 December 2006, Euronext shareholders approved the transaction with 98.2% of the vote. Only 1.8% voted in favour of the Deutsche Börse offer. Jean-François Théodore, the chief executive officer of Euronext, stated that they expected the transaction to close within three or four months.


title: Euronext

text: Some of the regulatory agencies with jurisdiction over the merger had already given approval. NYSE Group shareholders gave their approval on 20 December 2006.


title: Euronext

text: The new firm, NYSE Euronext, was headquartered in New York City, with European operations and its trading platform run out of Paris. Then-NYSE CEO John Thain, who was to head NYSE Euronext, intended to use the combination to form the world's first global stock market, with continuous trading of stocks and derivatives over a 21-hour time span. In addition, the two exchanges hoped to add Borsa Italiana (the Milan stock exchange) into the grouping.


title: Euronext

text: In 2008 and 2009 Deutsche Börse made two unsuccessful attempts to merge with NYSE Euronext. Both attempts did not enter into advanced steps of merger. In 2011, Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext confirmed that they were in advanced merger talks. Such a merger would create the largest exchange in history. The deal was approved by shareholders of NYSE Euronext on 7 July 2011, and Deutsche Börse on 15 July 2011 and won the antitrust approved by the US regulators on 22 December 2011. On 1 February 2012, the deal was blocked by European Commission on the grounds that the new company would have resulted in a quasi-monopoly in the area of European financial derivatives traded globally on exchanges. Deutsche Börse unsuccessfully appealed this decision.


title: Euronext

text: In 2012, Euronext announced the creation of Euronext London to offer listing facilities in the UK. As such, Euronext received in June 2014 Recognized Investment Exchange (RIE) status from Britain's Financial Conduct Authority.


title: Euronext

text: On 20 December 2012, the boards of directors of both Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and the NYSE Euronext approved an $8 billion acquisition of NYSE Euronext. Under the terms shareholders of NYSE would receive either $33.12 in cash for each share or .2581 IntercontinentalExchange Inc. shares, or a combination of $11.27 in cash per share plus .1703 shares of stock. The acquisition is subject to regulator approval, though since the operations of ICE and NYSE have little in common—ICE is largely devoted to trading commodities, as opposed to NYSE's business of trading stocks and securities—the deal is not expected to be blocked. ICE said that after the deal closed it would sell the Euronext portion of the company, including stock exchanges in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris. The deal went through and Euronext is a sister division to NYSE and part of ICE. ICE CEO Jeffrey Sprecher would continue in that position at the combined company, while NYSE CEO Duncan Niederauer would serve as president. The future of the New York Stock Exchange's historic trading floor under ICE has not been announced. ICE closed the high profile and historic trading floors of its other earlier acquisitions, the International Petroleum Exchange and the New York Board of Trade in New York.


title: Euronext

text: In December 2012 Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) announced plans to acquire NYSE Euronext, owner of Euronext, in an $8.2 billion takeover.


title: Euronext

text: In May 2013, Euronext established Enternext as a subsidiary to help small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs) listed on Euronext outline and apply a strategy most suited to support their growth.


title: Euronext

text: The ICE's deal was approved by the shareholders of NYSE Euronext and Intercontinental Exchange on 3 June 2013.


title: Euronext

text: European regulators and ministries of Finance of the participating countries approved the deal and on 13 November 2013 the acquisition was completed.


title: Euronext

text: Part of ICE's deal to acquire NYSE Euronext was a spin-off for Euronext, which was considered a positive element for European stakeholders. After a complex series of operations, this occurred on 20 June 2014, through an initial public offering (IPO). The former Euronext.LIFFE was retained by ICE and renamed "ICE Futures Europe". In order to stabilise Euronext, a consortium of eleven investors decided to invest in the company as "reference shareholders". These investors owned 33.36% of Euronext's capital and have a 3 years lockup period: Euroclear, BNP Paribas, BNP Paribas Fortis, Société Générale, Caisse des Dépôts, BPI France, ABN Amro, ASR, Banco Espirito Santo, Banco BPI and Belgian holding public company (SFPI/FPIM). They have 3 board seats.


title: Euronext

text: In June 2014, EnterNext launched two initiatives to boost SME equity research and support the technology sector. EnterNext partnered with Morningstar to increase equity research focusing on mid-size companies, especially in the telecommunications, media and technology (TMT) sector.


title: Euronext

text: On 22 September 2014, Euronext announced a partnership with DEGIRO regarding the distribution of retail services of Euronext. Upon publishing the third quarter results for 2014, the partnership was seen as a plan for Euronext to compete more effectively on the Dutch retail segment.


title: Euronext

text: On 14 August 2017, Euronext announced the completion of its acquisition of FastMatch, a currency trading platform.


title: Euronext

text: On 5 December 2019, Euronext announced that it would acquire 66% of the European power exchange Nord Pool. The acquisition was completed on 15 January 2020.


title: Euronext

text: On 23 April 2020, Euronext announced that it would acquire ca. 70% of the Danish Central Securities Depository, . The acquisition was completed on 4 August 2020.


title: Euronext

text: On 18 September 2020, the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) entered into exclusive talks to sell the Italian Bourse (formally 100% of "London Stock Exchange Group Holdings Italia S.p.A."), situated in Milan, to Euronext. As part of the deal, CDP Equity, 100% owned by Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, and Intesa Sanpaolo would become Euronext shareholders. LSEG is selling Italian Bourse as part of regulatory remedies to see through its $27 billion purchase of data provider Refinitiv. A €4.3 bn deal was announced on 9 October, albeit contingent on the European Commission formally stating in mid-December that it will only permit LSEG's acquisition of Refinitiv if the Italian Bourse is sold.


title: Euronext

text: On 29 April 2021, Euronext closed a deal to purchase Borsa Italiana from London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) to acquire Borsa Italiana Group. On 29 April 2021, Euronext announced the completion of its acquisition of the Italian Bourse.


title: The Rape of Nanking (book)

text: The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II is a bestselling 1997 non-fiction book written by Iris Chang about the 1937–1938 Nanking Massacre — the mass murder and mass rape of Chinese civilians committed by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanking, the capital of the Republic of China, immediately after the Battle of Nanking during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It describes the events leading up to the Nanking Massacre, provides a graphic detail of the war crimes and atrocities committed by Japanese troops, and lambastes the Japanese government for its refusal to appropriately rectify the atrocities. It also criticizes the Japanese people for their ignorance about the massacre. It is one of the first major English-language books to introduce the Nanking Massacre to Western and Eastern readers alike, and has been translated into several languages. The book significantly renewed public interest in Japanese wartime conduct in China, Korea, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific.


title: The Rape of Nanking (book)

text: The book received both acclaim and criticism by the public and by academics. It has been praised as a work that "shows more clearly than any previous account" the extent and brutality of the episode, while elements of Chang's analysis of the motivations for the events, Japanese culture, and her calculation of the total numbers killed and raped were criticized as inaccurate because of her lack of training as a historian. Chang's research on the book was credited with the finding of the diaries of John Rabe and Minnie Vautrin, both of whom played important roles in the Nanking Safety Zone, a designated area in Nanjing that protected Chinese civilians during the Nanking Massacre.


title: The Rape of Nanking (book)

text: “…Nanking should be remembered not only for the number of people slaughtered but for the cruel manner in which many met their deaths. Chinese men were used for bayonet practice and in decapitation contests. An estimated 20,000 – 80,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, and nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs, and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them get torn apart by German shepherds. So sickening was the spectacle that even Nazis in the city were horrified, one proclaiming the massacre to be the work of bestial machinery.”


title: The Rape of Nanking (book)

text: The book prompted AOL executive Ted Leonsis to fund and produce "Nanking", a 2007 documentary film about the eponymous massacre.


title: The Rape of Nanking (book)

text: As a child, Chang was told by her parents that during the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese "sliced babies not just in half but in thirds and fourths." Her parents had escaped with their families from China to Taiwan and then to the United States after World War II. In the introduction of "The Rape of Nanking," she wrote that throughout her childhood, the Nanking Massacre "remained buried in the back of [her] mind as a metaphor for unspeakable evil." When she searched the local public libraries in her school and found nothing, she wondered why no one had written a book about it.