title: Sailing ship

text: Until the mid-19th century all vessels' masts were made of wood formed from a single or several pieces of timber which typically consisted of the trunk of a conifer tree. From the 16th century, vessels were often built of a size requiring masts taller and thicker than could be made from single tree trunks. On these larger vessels, to achieve the required height, the masts were built from up to four sections (also called masts), known in order of rising height above the decks as the lower, top, topgallant and royal masts. Giving the lower sections sufficient thickness necessitated building them up from separate pieces of wood. Such a section was known as a "made mast", as opposed to sections formed from single pieces of timber, which were known as "pole masts". Starting in the second half of the 19th century, masts were made of iron or steel.


title: Sailing ship

text: For ships with square sails the principal masts, given their standard names in bow to stern (front to back) order, are:


title: Sailing ship

text: Each rig is configured in a "sail plan", appropriate to the size of the sailing craft. Both square-rigged and fore-and-aft rigged vessels have been built with a wide range of configurations for single and multiple masts.


title: Sailing ship

text: Types of sail that can be part of a sail plan can be broadly classed by how they are "attached" to the sailing craft:


title: Sailing ship

text: Sailing ships have "standing rigging" to support the masts and "running rigging" to raise the sails and control their ability to draw power from the wind. The running rigging has three main roles, to support the sail structure, to shape the sail and to adjust its angle to the wind. Square-rigged vessels require more controlling lines than fore-and-aft rigged ones.


title: Sailing ship

text: Sailing ships prior to the mid-19th century used wood masts with hemp-fiber standing rigging. As rigs became taller by the end of the 19th century, masts relied more heavily on successive spars, stepped one atop the other to form the whole, from bottom to top: the "lower mast", "top mast", and "topgallant mast". This construction relied heavily on support by a complex array of stays and shrouds. Each stay in either the fore-and-aft or athwartships direction had a corresponding one in the opposite direction providing counter-tension. Fore-and-aft the system of tensioning started with the stays that were anchored in front each mast. Shrouds were tensioned by pairs deadeyes, circular blocks that had the large-diameter line run around them, whilst multiple holes allowed smaller line—"lanyard"—to pass multiple times between the two and thereby allow tensioning of the shroud. After the mid-19th century square-rigged vessels were equipped with iron wire standing rigging, which was superseded with steel wire in the late 19th century.


title: Sailing ship

text: Halyards, used to raise and lower the yards, are the primary supporting lines. In addition, square rigs have lines that lift the sail or the yard from which it is suspended that include: brails, buntlines, lifts and leechlines. Bowlines and clew lines shape a square sail. To adjust the angle of the sail to wind braces are used to adjust the fore and aft angle of a yard of a square sail, while sheets attach to the clews (bottom corners) of a sail to control the sail's angle to the wind. Sheets run aft, whereas tacks are used to haul the clew of a square sail forward.


title: Sailing ship

text: The crew of a sailing ship is divided between officers (the captain and his subordinates) and seamen or "ordinary" "hands". An able seaman was expected to "hand, reef, and steer" (handle the lines and other equipment, reef the sails, and steer the vessel). The crew is organized to stand watch—the oversight of the ship for a period—typically four hours each. Richard Henry Dana Jr. and Herman Melville each had personal experience aboard sailing vessels of the 19th century.


title: Sailing ship

text: Dana described the crew of the merchant brig, "Pilgrim", as comprising six to eight common sailors, four specialist crew members (the steward, cook, carpenter and sailmaker), and three officers: the captain, the first mate and the second mate. He contrasted the American crew complement with that of other nations on whose similarly sized ships the crew might number as many as 30. Larger merchant vessels had larger crews.


title: Sailing ship

text: Melville described the crew complement of the frigate warship, "United States", as about 500—including officers, enlisted personnel and 50 Marines. The crew was divided into the starboard and larboard watches. It was also divided into three "tops", bands of crew responsible for setting sails on the three masts; a band of "sheet-anchor men", whose station was forward and whose job was to tend the fore-yard, anchors and forward sails; the "after guard", who were stationed aft and tended the mainsail, spanker and man the various sheets, controlling the position of the sails; the "waisters", who were stationed midships and had menial duties attending the livestock, etc.; and the "holders", who occupied the lower decks of the vessel and were responsible for the inner workings of the ship. He additionally named such positions as, boatswains, gunners, carpenters, coopers, painters, tinkers, stewards, cooks and various boys as functions on the man-of-war. 18-19th century ships of the line had a complement as high as 850.


title: Sailing ship

text: Handling a sailing ship requires management of its sails to power—but not overpower—the ship and navigation to guide the ship, both at sea and in and out of harbors.


title: Sailing ship

text: Key elements of sailing a ship are setting the right amount of sail to generate maximum power without endangering the ship, adjusting the sails to the wind direction on the course sailed, and changing tack to bring the wind from one side of the vessel to the other.


title: Sailing ship

text: A sailing ship crew manages the running rigging of each square sail. Each sail has two sheets that control its lower corners, two braces that control the angle of the yard, two clewlines, four buntlines and two reef tackles. All these lines must be manned as the sail is deployed and the yard raised. They use a halyard to raise each yard and its sail; then they pull or ease the braces to set the angle of the yard across the vessel; they pull on sheets to haul lower corners of the sail, "clews", out to yard below. Under way, the crew manages "reef tackles", "haul leeches", "reef points", to manage the size and angle of the sail; "bowlines" pull the leading edge of the sail ("leech") taut when close hauled. When furling the sail, the crew uses "clewlines", haul up the clews and "buntlines" to haul up the middle of sail up; when lowered, "lifts" support each yard.


title: Sailing ship

text: In strong winds, the crew is directed to reduce the number of sails or, alternatively, the amount of each given sail that is presented to the wind by a process called "reefing". To pull the sail up, seamen on the yardarm pull on "reef tackles", attached to "reef cringles", to pull the sail up and secure it with lines, called "reef points". Dana spoke of the hardships of sail handling during high wind and rain or with ice covering the ship and its rigging.


title: Sailing ship

text: Sailing vessels cannot sail directly into the wind. Instead, square-riggers must sail a course that is between 60° and 70° away from the wind direction and fore-and aft vessels can typically sail no closer than 45°. To reach a destination, sailing vessels may have to change course and allow the wind to come from the opposite side in a procedure, called "tacking", when the wind comes across the bow during the maneuver.


title: Sailing ship

text: When tacking, a square-rigged vessel's sails must be presented squarely to the wind and thus impede forward motion as they are swung around via the yardarms through the wind as controlled by the vessel's running rigging, using braces—adjusting the fore and aft angle of each yardarm around the mast—and sheets attached to the clews (bottom corners) of each sail to control the sail's angle to the wind. The procedure is to turn the vessel into the wind with the hind-most fore-and-aft sail (the spanker), pulled to windward to help turn the ship through the eye of the wind. Once the ship has come about, all the sails are adjusted to align properly with the new tack. Because square-rigger masts are more strongly braced from behind than from ahead, tacking is a dangerous procedure in strong winds; the ship may lose forward momentum (become "caught in stays") and the rigging may fail from the wind coming from ahead. The ship may also lose momentum at wind speeds of less than . Under these conditions, the choice may be to "wear ship"—to turn the ship away from the wind and around 240° onto the next tack (60° off the wind).


title: Sailing ship

text: A fore-and-aft rig permits the wind to flow past the sail, as the craft head through the eye of the wind. Most rigs pivot around a stay or the mast, while this occurs. For a jib, the old leeward sheet is released as the craft heads through the wind and the old windward sheet is tightened as the new leeward sheet to allow the sail to draw wind. Mainsails are often self-tending and slide on a traveler to the opposite side. On certain rigs, such as lateens and luggers, the sail may be partially lowered to bring it to the opposite side.


title: Sailing ship

text: Early navigational techniques employed observations of the sun, stars, waves and birdlife. In the 15th century, the Chinese were using the magnetic compass to identify direction of travel. By the 16th century in Europe, navigational instruments included the quadrant, the astrolabe, cross staff, dividers and compass. By the time of the Age of Exploration these tools were being used in combination with a log to measure speed, a lead line to measure soundings, and a lookout to identify potential hazards. Later, an accurate marine sextant became standard for determining latitude and was used with an accurate chronometer to calculate longitude.


title: Sailing ship

text: Passage planning begins with laying out a route along a chart, which comprises a series of courses between fixes—verifiable locations that confirm the actual track of the ship on the ocean. Once a course has been set, the person at the helm attempts to follow its direction with reference to the compass. The navigator notes the time and speed at each fix to estimate the arrival at the next fix, a process called dead reckoning. For coast-wise navigation, sightings from known landmarks or navigational aids may be used to establish fixes, a process called pilotage. At sea, sailing ships used celestial navigation on a daily schedule, as follows:


title: Sailing ship

text: Fixes were taken with a marine sextant, which measures the distance of the celestial body above the horizon.


title: Sailing ship

text: Given the limited maneuverability of sailing ships, it could be difficult to enter and leave harbor with the presence of a tide without coordinating arrivals with a flooding tide and departures with an ebbing tide. In harbor, a sailing ship stood at anchor, unless it needed to be loaded or unloaded at a dock or pier, in which case it might be warped alongside or towed by a tug. Warping involved using a long rope (the warp) between the ship and a fixed point on the shore. This was pulled on by a capstan on shore, or on the ship. This might be a multi-stage process if the route was not simple. If no fixed point was available, a kedge anchor might be taken out in a ship's boat to a suitable point and the ship then pulled up to the kedge. Square rigged vessels could use backing and filling (of the sails) to manoeuvre in a tideway, or control could be maintained by drudging the anchor - lower the anchor until it touches the bottom so that the dragging anchor gives steerage way in the flow of the tide.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: Benjamin Keith Davies (born 11 August 1995) is an English professional footballer who plays as a centre-back or left-back for Scottish Premiership club Rangers.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: Davies spent most of his early career with Preston North End, and had loan spells with York City, Tranmere Rovers, Southport, Newport County and Fleetwood Town. He moved to Liverpool in 2021, but never played for the club and was loaned to Sheffield United before he was sold to Scottish club Rangers in 2022.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: Born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, Davies signed with the youth system at Preston North End after being spotted playing for Furness Rovers aged 11. He made his debut for the first team in a home 2–2 draw against Coventry City on 26 January 2013 at the age of 17 years, completing 83 minutes before being replaced by David Buchanan. During the match, he provided an assist for Nicky Wroe's 60th-minute equaliser and picked up a yellow card for a foul on Cyrus Christie. He drew praise from Preston manager Graham Westley, who likened Davies' transition into the first team to that of George Boyd at Stevenage. Davies kept his place for the next match at home against Shreswbury Town. His second match did not go as well as his debut, conceding a 90th-minute penalty (for which he picked up a booking), fouling Marvin Morgan in the penalty box. He was substituted shortly after for Paul Huntington, with Preston to ultimately lose the match. He signed a one-year professional contract at Preston, with an option to extend for a second year, in May 2013, after being named the club's Scholar of the Year for the 2012–13 season.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: Davies joined League Two club York City on 19 July 2013 on a one-month loan. He made his debut in a 1–0 home win over Northampton Town on 3 August 2013, in the first match of 2013–14. On 15 August 2013, his loan was extended until January 2014, having appeared in York's opening two matches. He played 47 times for York City as they qualified for the 2014 League Two play-offs, but lost 1–0 to Fleetwood Town in the semi-final. He signed a two-year contract extension with Preston in May 2014.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: Davies joined Tranmere Rovers of League Two on 19 September 2014 on a one-month loan and made his debut a day later in a 2–1 home defeat to Exeter City. He played in four matches for Tranmere, returning to Preston once the loan ended on 22 October 2014. He joined National League club Southport on 11 September 2015 on a one-month loan, and made his debut a day later in a 2–1 away defeat to Forest Green Rovers. Davies was recalled by Preston on 20 October 2015, to provide cover for injured defensive players, having made nine appearances for Southport.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: On 7 January 2016, Davies joined Newport County of League Two on a one-month youth loan, subsequently extended until the end of 2015–16. He made 19 league appearances for Newport County.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: On 2 January 2017, Davies joined League One club Fleetwood Town on loan for the remainder of 2016–17. He made his debut for the club on the same day, starting a 1–0 away win over Shrewsbury Town. He made 22 league appearances for Fleetwood Town and scored once as they qualified for the play-offs, though Fleetwood were knocked out by Bradford City in the semi-final. Davies signed a new three-year contract in July 2017. He signed a new three-and-a-half-year deal in March 2018. Davies won Preston's "Young Player of the Year" award for the 2017–18 season. He won Preston's "Player of the year" award for the 2018–19 season, as well as the "Sir Tom Finney Player of the Year" award.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: Davies signed for Premier League club Liverpool on 1 February 2021 on a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee, reported to be an initial fee of £500,000, plus £1.1 million in performance-related add-ons. Sepp van den Berg also moved in the opposite direction on loan for the rest of the season as part of the deal. Davies did not make an appearance for Liverpool during the remainder of the 2020–21 season. He joined newly relegated Championship club Sheffield United on 16 August on loan for the 2021–22 season. He scored his first goal for Sheffield United on 23 February 2022 when he came on as a substitute and scored a late winner in a 1-0 win against Blackburn Rovers.


title: Ben Davies (footballer, born 1995)

text: Davies signed for Scottish Premiership club Rangers on 19 July 2022 on a four-year contract for an undisclosed fee, reported to be an initial £3 million, potentially rising to £4 million in add-ons. He made his debut for the club as a substitute against Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise during a UEFA Champions League qualifier loss on 2 August.


title: Casta

text: "Casta" is an Iberian word (existing in Spanish, Portuguese and other Iberian languages since the Middle Ages), meaning "lineage". It is documented in Spanish since 1417 and is linked to the Proto-Indo-European "Ger". The Portuguese "casta" gave rise to the English word "caste" during the Early Modern Period.


title: Casta

text: In the historical literature, how racial distinction, hierarchy, and social status functioned over time in colonial Spanish America has been an evolving and contested discussion. Although the term "sistema de castas" (system of castes) or "sociedad de castas" ("society of castes") are utilized in modern historical analyses to describe the social hierarchy based on race, with Spaniards at the apex, archival research shows that there is not a rigid "system" with fixed places for individuals. rather, a more fluid social structure where individuals could move from one category to another, or maintain or be given different labels depending on the context. In the eighteenth century, "casta paintings," imply a fixed racial hierarchy, but this genre may well have been an attempt to bring order into a system that was more fluid. "For colonial elites, casta paintings might well have been an attempt to fix in place rigid divisions based on race, even as they were disappearing in social reality."


title: Casta

text: Examination of registers in colonial Mexico put in question other narratives held by certain academics, such as Spanish immigrants who arrived to Mexico being almost exclusively men or that "pure Spanish" people were all part of a small powerful elite, as Spaniards were often the most numerous ethnic group in the colonial cities and there were menial workers and people in poverty who were of complete Spanish origin.


title: Casta

text: In New Spain (colonial Mexico) during the Mexican War of Independence race and racial distinctions were an important issue and the end of imperial had a strong appeal. José María Morelos, who was registered as a Spaniard in his baptismal records, called for the abolition of the formal distinctions the imperial regime made between racial groups, advocating for "calling them one and all Americans." Morelos issued regulations in 1810 to prevent ethnic-based disturbances. "He who raises his voice should be immediately punished."In 1821 race was an issue in the negotiations resulting in the Plan of Iguala.


title: Casta

text: The degree to which racial category labels had legal and social consequences has been subject to academic debate since the idea of a "caste system" was first developed by Polish-Venezuelan philologist Ángel Rosenblat and Mexican anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán in the 1940s. Both authors popularized the notion that racial status was the key organizing principle of Spanish colonial rule, a theory which became commonplace in the anglosphere during the mid and late 20th century. However, recent academic studies in Latin America have widely challenged this notion, considering it a flawed and ideologically-based reinterpretation of the colonial period.


title: Casta

text: Pilar Gonzalbo, in her study (2013) discards the idea of the existence of a "caste system" or a "caste society" in New Spain, understood as a "social organization based on the race and supported by coercive power". Joanne Rappaport, in her book on colonial New Granada, rejects the caste system as an interpretative framework for that time, discussing both the legitimacy of a model valid for the entire colonial world and the usual association between "caste" and "race".


title: Casta

text: Similarly, Berta Ares' 2015 study on the Viceroyalty of Peru, notes that the term "casta" was barely used by colonial authorities which, according to her, casts doubt on the existence of a "caste system". Even by the 18th century, its use was rare and appeared in its plural form, "castas", characterized by its ambiguous meaning. The word did not specifically refer to sectors of the population who were of mixed race, but also included both Spaniards and Indians of lower socio-economic extraction, often used together with other terms such as plebe, vulgo, naciones, clases, calidades, otras gentes, etc.


title: Casta

text: In a detailed analysis of Mexican archival records published in 2018, Ben Vinson came to a similar conclusion.


title: Casta

text: Often called the or the , there was, in fact, no fixed system of classification for individuals, as careful archival research has shown. There was considerable fluidity in society, with the same individuals being identified by different categories simultaneously or over time. Individuals self-identified by particular terms, often to shift their status from one category to another to their advantage. For example, both and Spaniards were exempt from tribute obligations, but were both equally subject to the Inquisition. , on the other hand, paid tribute yet were exempt from the Inquisition. In certain cases, a might try to "pass" as an to escape the Inquisition. An might try to pass as a to escape tribute obligations.


title: Casta

text: Casta paintings produced largely in 18th-century Mexico have influenced modern understandings of race in Spanish America, a concept which began infiltrating Bourbon Spain from France and Northern Europe during this time. They purport to show a fixed "system" of racial hierarchy which has been disputed by modern academia. These paintings should be evaluated as the production by elites in New Spain for an elite viewership in both Spanish territories and abroad portrayals of mixtures of Spaniards with other ethnicities, some of which have been interpreted as being pejorative in nature or seeking social outrage. They are thus useful for understanding elites and their attitudes toward non-elites, and quite valuable as illustrations of aspects of material culture in the late colonial era.


title: Casta

text: The process of mixing ancestries by the union of people of different races is known in the modern era as ( , ). In Spanish colonial law, mixed-race castas were classified as part of the and not the , which set Amerindians outside the Hispanic sphere with different duties and rights to those of Spaniards and Mestizos.


title: Casta

text: Certain authors have sought to link the castas in Latin America to the older Spanish concept of "purity of blood", "limpieza de sangre", originating under Moorish rule, developed in Christian Spain to denote those without recent Jewish or Muslim heritage or, more widely, heritage from individuals convicted by the Spanish inquisition for heresy.


title: Casta

text: It was directly linked to religion and notions of legitimacy, lineage and honor following Spain's reconquest of Moorish territory and the degree to which it can be considered a precursor to the modern concept of race has been the subject of academic debate.. The Inquisition only allowed those Spaniards who could demonstrate not to have Jewish and Moorish blood to emigrate to Latin America, although this prohibition was frequently ignored and a number of Spanish Conquistadors were Jewish Conversos. Others, such as Juan Valiente, were Black Africans or had recent Moorish ancestry.


title: Casta

text: Both in Spain and in the New World Conversos who continued to practice Judaism in secret were aggressively prosecuted. Of the roughly 40 people executed by the Spanish Inquistion in Mexico, a significant number were convicted of being "Judaizers" ("judaizantes") . Spanish Conquistador Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva was prosecuted by the Inquisition for secretly practising Judaism and eventually died in prison.


title: Casta

text: In Spanish America, the idea of purity of blood also applied to Black Africans and indigenous peoples since, as Spaniards of Moorish and Jewish descent, they had not been Christian for various generations and were inherently suspect of engaging in religious heresy. In all Spanish territories, including Spain itself, evidence of lack of purity of blood had consequences for eligibility for office, entrance into the priesthood, and emigration to Spain's overseas territories. Having to produce genealogical records to prove one's pure ancestry gave rise to a trade in the creation of false genealogies, a practice which was already widespread in Spain itself.


title: Casta

text: This was no impediment for intermarriage between Spaniards and indigenous people, just as it had not been between Old and New Christians or different racial groups coexisting in late medieval and early modern Spain. The result was generations of mixed-race children who were typically considered Spaniards, and many of whom returned to Spain to join the ranks of the nobility, a notable example being Juan Cano Moctezuma.


title: Casta

text: However, starting in the late sixteenth century, some investigations of ancestry classified as "stains" any connection with Black Africans ("negros", which resulted in "mulatos") and sometimes mixtures with indigenous that produced Mestizos. While some illustrations from the period show men of African descent dressed in fashionable clothing and as aristocrats in upper-class surroundings, the idea that any hint of black ancestry was a stain developed by the end of the colonial period, a time in which biological racism began to emerge throughout the western world. This trend was illustrated in eighteenth-century paintings of racial hierarchy, known as casta paintings which led to 20th-century emergence of theories on a "Caste System" existing in Colonial Spanish America.


title: Casta

text: The idea in New Spain that native or "Indian" ("indio") blood in a lineage was an impurity may well have come about as the optimism of the early Franciscans faded about creating Indian priests trained at the Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco, which ceased that function in the mid-sixteenth century. In addition, the Indian nobility, which was recognized by the Spanish colonists, had declined in importance, and there were fewer formal marriages between Spaniards and indigenous women than during the early decades of the colonial era. In the seventeenth century in New Spain, the ideas of purity of blood became associated with "Spanishness and whiteness, but it came to work together with socio-economic categories", such that a lineage with someone engaged in work with their hands was tainted by that connection.


title: Casta

text: Indians in Central Mexico were affected by ideas of purity of blood from the other side. Crown decrees on purity of blood were affirmed by indigenous communities, which barred Indians from holding office who had any non-Indians (Spaniards and/or Black peoples) in their lineage. In indigenous communities "local caciques [rulers] and principales were granted a set of privileges and rights on the basis of their pre-Hispanic noble bloodlines and acceptance of the Catholic faith." Indigenous nobles submitted proofs ("probanzas") of their purity of blood to affirm their rights and privileges that were extended to themselves and their communities. This supported the "república de indios", a legal division of society that separated indigenous from non-Indians ("república de españoles").


title: Casta

text: In Spanish America racial categories were registered at local parishes upon baptism as required by the Spanish Crown. Initially in Spanish America there were three ethnic categories. They generally referred to the multiplicity of indigenous American peoples as "Indians" ("indios"). Those from Spain called themselves "españoles". The third group were black Africans, called "negros" (lit. "blacks"), brought as slaves from the earliest days of Spanish empire in the Caribbean. Although intermarriage was widespread from the beginning of the colonial period, "mestizos" only slowly began to be recognized as a distinct ethnicity 150 years after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, prior to which they had simply been identified as Spaniards.


title: Casta

text: Although the number of Spanish women emigrating to New Spain was far higher than is often portrayed, they were fewer in number than men, as well as fewer black women than men, so the mixed-race offspring of Spaniards and of Black people were often the product of liaisons with indigenous women. The process of race mixture is now termed mestizaje, a term coined in the modern era.


title: Casta

text: In the 16th century, the term "casta", a collective category for mixed-race individuals, came into existence as the numbers grew, particularly in urban areas. Nevertheless, during the first century and a half of the colonial era, the offspring of mixed marriages were registered as Spaniards and only Africans were registered as "Castas". The registry of "Mestizos" as "Castas" rather than "Spaniards" only become widespread in the last century of colonial rule.


title: Casta

text: The crown had divided the population of its overseas empire into two categories, separating Indians from non-Indians. Indigenous were the República de Indios, the other the República de Españoles, essentially the Hispanic sphere, so that Spaniards, Black people, and mixed-race castas were lumped into this category. Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio-economic standard, residence patterns, and other important data.


title: Casta

text: General racial groupings had their own set of privileges and restrictions, both legal and customary. So, for example, only Spaniards and indigenous, who were deemed to be the original societies of the Spanish dominions, had recognized aristocracies. In the population at large, access to social privileges and even at times a person's perceived and accepted racial classification, were predominantly determined by that person's socioeconomic standing in society.


title: Casta

text: Official censuses and ecclesiastical records noted an individual's racial category, so that these sources can be used to chart socio-economic standards, residence patterns, and other important data. Parish registers, where baptism, marriage, and burial were recorded, had three basic categories: español (Spaniards), "indio", and "color quebrado" ("broken color", indicating a mixed-race person). In some parishes in colonial Mexico, "indios" were recorded with other non-Spaniards in the "color quebrado" register. Españoles and mestizos could be ordained as priests and were exempt from payment of tribute to the crown. Free black people, Amerindians, and mixed-race castas were required to pay tribute and barred from the priesthood. Being designated as an español or mestizo conferred social and financial advantages. Men of color began to apply to the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, but in 1688 Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza attempted to prevent their entrance by drafting new regulations barring black peoples and mulattoes. In 1776, the crown issued the Royal Pragmatic on Marriage, taking approval of marriages away from the couple and placing it in their parents' hands. The marriage between Luisa de Abrego, a free black domestic servant from Seville and Miguel Rodríguez, a white Segovian conquistador in 1565 in St. Augustine (Spanish Florida), is the first known and recorded Christian marriage anywhere in the continental United States.


title: Casta

text: Long lists of different terms found in casta paintings do not appear in official documentation or anywhere outside these paintings. Only counts of Spaniards, mestizos, black peoples and mulattoes, and indigenes ("indios"), were recorded in censuses.


title: Casta

text: Artwork created mainly in eighteenth-century Mexico purports to show race mixture as a hierarchy. These paintings have had tremendous influence in how scholars have approached difference in the colonial era, but should not be taken as definitive description of racial difference. For approximately a century, casta paintings were by elite artists for an elite viewership. They ceased to be produced following Mexico's independence in 1821 when casta designations were abolished. The vast majority of casta paintings were produced in Mexico, by a variety of artists, with a single group of canvases clearly identified for eighteenth-century Peru. In the colonial era, artists primarily created religious art and portraits, but in the eighteenth century, casta paintings emerged as a completely secular genre of art. An exception to that is the painting by Luis de Mena, a single canvas that has the central figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe and a set of casta groupings. Most sets of casta paintings have 16 separate canvases, but a few, such as Mena's, Ignacio María Barreda, and the anonymous painting in the Museo de Virreinato in Tepozotlan, Mexico, are frequently reproduced as examples of the genre, likely because their composition gives a single, tidy image of the racial classification (from the elite viewpoint).


title: Casta

text: It is unclear why casta paintings emerged as a genre, why they became such a popular genre of artwork, who commissioned them, and who collected them. One scholar suggests they can be seen as "proud renditions of the local," at a point when American-born Spaniards began forming a clearer identification with their place of birth rather than metropolitan Spain. The single-canvas casta artwork could well have been as a curiosity or souvenir for Spaniards to take home to Spain; two frequently reproduced casta paintings are Mena's and Barreda's, both of which are in Madrid museums. There is only one set of casta paintings definitively done in Peru, commissioned by Viceroy Manuel Amat y Junyent (1770), and sent to Spain for the Cabinet of Natural History of the Prince of Asturias.


title: Casta

text: The influence of the European Enlightenment on the Spanish empire led to an interest in organizing knowledge and scientific description might have resulted in the commission of many series of pictures that document the racial combinations that existed in Spanish territories in the Americas. Many sets of these paintings still exist (around one hundred complete sets in museums and private collections and many more individual paintings), of varying artistic quality, usually consisting of sixteen paintings representing as many racial combinations. It must be emphasized that these paintings reflected the views of the economically established Criollo society and officialdom, but not all Criollos were pleased with casta paintings. One remarked that they show "what harms us, not what benefits us, what dishonors us, not what ennobles us." Many paintings are in Spain in major museums, but many remain in private collections in Mexico, perhaps commissioned and kept because they show the character of late colonial Mexico and a source of pride.


title: Casta

text: Some of the finer sets were done by prominent Mexican artists, such as José de Alcíbar, Miguel Cabrera, José de Ibarra, José Joaquín Magón, (who painted two sets); Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz, José de Páez, and Juan Rodríguez Juárez. One of Magón's sets includes descriptions of the "character and moral standing" of his subjects. These artists worked together in the painting guilds of New Spain. They were important transitional artists in 18th-century casta painting. At least one Spaniard, Francisco Clapera, also contributed to the casta genre. In general, little is known of most artists who did sign their work; most casta paintings are unsigned.


title: Casta

text: Certain authors have interpreted the overall theme of these paintings as representing the "supremacy of the Spaniards", the possibility that mixtures of Spaniards and Spanish-Indian offspring could return to the status of Spaniards through marriage to Spaniards over generations, what can be considered "restoration of racial purity," or "racial mending" was seen visually in many sets of casta paintings. It was also articulated by a visitor to Mexico, Don Pedro Alonso O'Crouley, in 1774. "If the mixed-blood is the offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian, the stigma [of race mixture] disappears at the third step in descent because it is held as systematic that a Spaniard and an Indian produce a mestizo; a mestizo and a Spaniard, a castizo; and a castizo and a Spaniard, a Spaniard. The admixture of Indian blood should not indeed be regarded as a blemish, since the provisions of law give the Indian all that he could wish for, and Philip II granted to mestizos the privilege of becoming priests. On this consideration is based the common estimation of descent from a union of Indian and European or creole Spaniard."


title: Casta

text: O'Crouley says that the same process of restoration of racial purity does not occur over generations for European-African offspring marrying whites. “From the union of a Spaniard and a Negro the mixed-blood retains the stigma for generations without losing the original quality of a mulato." Casta paintings show increasing whitening over generations with the mixes of Spaniards and Africans. The sequence is the offspring of a Spaniard + "Negra", Mulatto; Spaniard with a Mulatta, Morisco; Spaniard with a Morisca, "Albino" (a racial category, derived from "Alba", "white"); Spaniard with an "Albina", "Torna atrás", or "throw back" black. "Negro", "Mulatto", and "Morisco" were labels found in colonial-era documentation, but "Albino" and "Torna atrás" exist only as fairly standard categories in casta paintings.


title: Casta

text: In contrast, mixtures with Black people, both by Indians and Spaniards, led to a bewildering number of combinations, with "fanciful terms" to describe them. Instead of leading to a new racial type or equilibrium, they led to apparent disorder. Terms such as the above-mentioned "tente en el aire" ("floating in mid air") and "no te entiendo" ("I don't understand you")—and others based on terms used for animals: "coyote" and "lobo" (wolf).


title: Casta

text: "Castas" defined themselves in different ways, and how they were recorded in official records was a process of negotiation between the "casta" and the person creating the document, whether it was a birth certificate, a marriage certificate or a court deposition. In real life, many "casta" individuals were assigned different racial categories in different documents, revealing the malleable nature of racial identity in colonial, Spanish American society.


title: Casta

text: Some paintings depicted the supposed "innate" character and quality of people because of their birth and ethnic origin. For example, according to one painting by José Joaquín Magón, a mestizo (mixed Indian + Spanish) was considered "generally humble, tranquil, and straightforward"; while another painting claims "from Lobo and Indian woman is born the Cambujo, one usually slow, lazy, and cumbersome." Ultimately, the casta paintings are reminders of the colonial biases in modern human history that linked a caste/ethnic society based on descent, skin color, social status, and one's birth.


title: Casta

text: Often, casta paintings depicted commodity items from Latin America like pulque, the fermented alcohol drink of the lower classes. Painters depicted interpretations of pulque that were attributed to specific castas.


title: Casta

text: The "Indias" in casta paintings depict them as partners to Spaniards, Black people, and castas, and thus part of Hispanic society. But in a number of casta paintings, they are also shown apart from "civilized society," such as Miguel Cabrera's "Indios Gentiles", or "indios bárbaros" or "Chichimecas" barely clothed indigenous in a wild, setting. In the single-canvas casta painting by José María Barreda, there are a canonical 16 casta groupings and then in a separate cell below are "Mecos". Although the so-called "barbarian Indians" ("indios bárbaros") were fierce warriors on horseback, indios in casta paintings are not shown as bellicose, but as weak, a trope that developed in the colonial era. A casta painting by Luis de Mena that is often reproduced as an example of the genre shows an unusual couple with a pale, well-dressed Spanish woman paired with a nearly naked indio, producing a Mestizo offspring. "The aberrant combination not only mocks social protocol but also seems to underscore the very artificiality of a casta system that pretends to circumscribe social fluidity and economic mobility." The image "would have seemed frankly bizarre and offensive by eighteenth-century Creole elites, if taken literally", but if the pair were considered allegorical figures, the Spanish woman represents "Europe" and the indio "America." The image "functions as an allegory for the 'civilizing' and Christianizing process."


title: Casta

text: Presented here are casta lists from three sets of paintings. Note that they only agree on the first five combinations, which are essentially the Indian-White ones. There is no agreement on the Black mixtures, however. Also, no one list should be taken as "authoritative". These terms would have varied from region to region and across time periods. The lists here probably reflect the names that the artist knew or preferred, the ones the patron requested to be painted, or a combination of both.


title: Maybank

text: Malayan Banking Berhad (doing business as Maybank) is a Malaysian universal bank, with key operating "home markets" of Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. According to the 2020 Brand Finance report, Maybank is Malaysia's most valuable bank brand, the fourth top brand in amongst the Asean countries, and ranked 70th in the world’s most valuable bank brands.


title: Maybank

text: Maybank is Malaysia's largest bank by market capitalisation and total assets and one of the largest banks in Southeast Asia, with total assets exceeding US$203 billion and having a net profit of US$1.98 billion for 2019.


title: Maybank

text: Maybank is also ranked 106th in The Banker's 2020 Top 1000 World Banks (as at July 2020) and is ranked 349th in the Forbes Global 2000 Leading Companies (as at May 2020).


title: Maybank

text: Maybank is the largest public listed company on Bursa Malaysia, the Malaysian stock exchange, with a market capitalisation of US$23.7 billion as of 31 December 2019.


title: Maybank

text: Maybank's Islamic banking arm, Maybank Islamic, is the largest Islamic bank in ASEAN and Malaysia in terms of assets, and was named 2020’s Global Islamic Bank of the Year by The Banker.


title: Maybank

text: Maybank's network spans across all 10 ASEAN nations as well as key Asian countries and global financial centres with a network of 2,600 retail banking branches worldwide with more than 43,000 employees.


title: Maybank

text: Maybank was founded by Singaporean business tycoon Tan Sri Khoo Teck Puat (who died in 2004) & Oei Tjong Ie. The company was led by President and CEO Tan Sri Amirsham Abdul Aziz from 1994 until March 2008 after which he was appointed Minister in the Prime Minister's Department in-charge of the Economic Planning Unit, a post he held until April 2009. Tan Sri Abdul Wahid Omar was President & CEO of Maybank Group from May 2008 to June 2013. On 1 May 2022, Dato' Khairussaleh Ramli was appointed as President & CEO of Maybank Group.


title: Maybank

text: Brand Finance’s Global 500 Brands: Maybank is the only Malaysian bank and one of two brands from Malaysia who qualified to be included in the prestigious Brand Finance’s Global 500 Brands list in January, 2019. Maybank achieved a brand valuation of USD $4.2 billion, a 32% increase from 2018 valuation of USD $3.16 billion.


title: Maybank

text: The Best Malaysian Organization 2018. Maybank was recognized as the 2018 ‘Best Malaysian Organisation’ by Talent Corporation Malaysia Berhad (TalentCorp) through its Life At Work Awards 2018 programme.


title: Maybank

text: The Most Valuable Bank Brand in Malaysia: Maybank has been recognized as the top bank brand in Malaysia for the four consecutive years i.e. 2014-2018 based on the 2018 Brand Finance Banking 500 Brand Value Report issued by global brand valuation and strategy consulting firm, Brand Finance.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Pelli Choopulu () is a 2016 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy film written and directed by Tharun Bhascker and produced by Raj Kandukuri and Yash Rangineni. It features Vijay Deverakonda and Ritu Varma in the lead roles. Partly based on a real-life incident of "Spitfire BBQ" food truck, the film revolves around a boy and a girl who meet during match-making and how their aspirations bring them together forms the rest of the story.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: The film was released worldwide on 29 July 2016 to positive reviews from critics and became a commercial success. The film provided breakthrough for the film's cast and crew. It is considered one of the "25 Greatest Telugu Films Of The Decade" by "Film Companion".


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: The film won two National Film Awards for Best Telugu Film and Best Screenplay, two State Nandi Awards for Best Feature Film and Best Actress, and two Filmfare Awards South including Best Telugu Film. The film was remade in Hindi as "Mitron" (2018), in Malayalam as "Vijay Superum Pournamiyum" (2019) and in Tamil as "Oh Manapenne!" (2021).


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Prasanth goes to Chitra's house for a matchmaking event. He is a guy who completes his B.Tech by clearing many subjects for almost 5 years, but he is also lazy and incapable of doing any work. His dream is to become a chef and open a restaurant, but he doesn't get any support from his father. Chitra is a very focused girl who works hard to fulfil her dreams of going to Australia. However, her father shows no interest, as she is a girl. When both of them meet at the matchmaking event her younger cousin, Subhash, accidentally locks the door which jams very often and they get stuck eventually. To pass time, they talk about their past.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Chitra reveals that she was in love with a North Indian guy named Vikram. They both wanted to start a food truck business. Vikram went to Delhi to talk with his father about their love and business. Meanwhile, Chitra started her plan eagerly, and was ready to surprise Vikram by buying the truck. Then things went wrong and Vikram did not come back overpowered by greed of getting dowry. Chitra and her father waited for him but when they realised Vikram wasn't coming back, her father decided to get her married to someone else.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: On his turn, Prasanth reveals that he was unemployed and always went out with his two friends. He, along with his friends, made cooking videos, as he is passionate about cooking. But it wasn't profitable enough so, they plan to make prank videos and were caught red-handed by Prashant's father, which ended their plan. He then got a job in a call centre after he was recommended by his father. He started going out with a girl to show off to his friends, but she cheated on him. He found out about it only when her second boyfriend called him at work, and quit his job after having a fight with his boss.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: It is then revealed that Prasanth came to the wrong address for his matchmaking event. Later, Prasanth goes to his actual matchmaking event, which was with a rich family. Meanwhile, Chitra tells the guy coming to her matchmaking event that she's not interested in marriage. The family of Prasanth's bride wanted him to be able to run a business, so he and Chitra decide to operate the food truck themselves, with Prasanth as the chef, and Chitra in charge of the business side of things. At first, they face many difficulties, mainly through Prasanth's and his friends' laziness as well as fighting with Chitra and giving up the food truck.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Prasanth visits Chitra's house and informs her father that he should be proud to have such a responsible daughter. He also claims that if he ever gets a child he would wish to have daughter like Chitra and insists him that he let her pursue her dreams. Chitra understands the good nature of Prasanth and later convinces his father that he is a natural cook by cooking them Prasanth's recipe. They kickstart their business with the support from both their parents. After this, their food truck becomes a smashing success. In the process, they fall in love without realising it, but both of them are engaged to other people, so they drift apart. After realising they love each other, they come back together through a radio show organised by their friend, with the support of their family and friends.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: After making numerous short films, Tharun Bhascker made his directorial debut with this film. According to Tharun, "Pelli Choopulu" "is a very urban comedy set in a middle class in Hyderabad. It shows the contrast between the old and young generations and the comedy of errors that can happen within the space." Tharun had this basic idea of two contrasting personalities meeting for match-making, both getting stuck in a room is a metaphor for dating while food truck is a metaphor for live-in relationship.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Ritu Verma who earlier worked in Tharun's "Anukokunda" was selected as lead actress while Vijay Deverakonda who portrayed a supporting role in "Yevade Subramanyam" (2015) made his debut as lead actor with this film. Vijay agreed to do this role as he found it "realistically very lazy" and "so close to my heart because young attitude, irresponsible behavior was a part of my personal life".


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Tharun shot the entire film in sync sound as he feels it offers freedom for artists to improvise their dialogues. The sync sound equipment from Mumbai, that was used for "Gangs of Wasseypur" was used for this film. The filming was completed within 35 days.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: The film was made on a budget of 60 lakh to 1.2 crore. The producer had spent another 60 lakh on its promotion. D. Suresh Babu acquired the theatrical rights for an amount of 1.50 crore and released it under his banner Suresh Productions across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: The film has collected over 5 crore gross at the AP/TG box office in its opening week. In five weeks, the film has grossed over 30 crore. The film's theatrical rights in the US had been bought for $200,000 and it went on to gross over $1.22 million, making it the biggest overseas hit in terms of return on investment.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Tharun followed character arcs from "Knocked Up" (directed by Judd Apatow). For the food truck business thread, Tharun revealed he drew inspirations from films like "100 foot journey" and "Chef".


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: This film has six songs composed by Vivek Sagar and lyrics are written by Rahul Ramakrishna, Shreshta, Shri, & Nikhil Bharadwaj. Music released on Madhura Audio.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: Vivek Sagar earlier composed music for Tharun Bhascker's short film "Sainma", he revealed that the film's music was conceived only after the film was shot. "With no lip sync songs, the music blended in with the narrative", he said.


title: Pelli Choopulu

text: "Pelli Choopulu" was remade in Hindi as "Mitron" (2018), in Malayalam as "Vijay Superum Pournamiyum" (2019), and in Tamil as "Oh Manapenne!" (2021).


title: SS Great Eastern

text: SS "Great Eastern" was an iron sail-powered, paddle wheel and screw-propelled steamship designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and built by John Scott Russell & Co. at Millwall Iron Works on the River Thames, London. She was the largest ship ever built at the time of her 1858 launch, and had the capacity to carry 4,000 passengers from England to Australia without refuelling. Her length of was surpassed only in 1899 by the 17,274-gross-ton , her gross tonnage of 18,915 was only surpassed in 1901 by the 20,904-gross-ton and her 4,000-passenger capacity was surpassed in 1913 by the 4,234-passenger . The ship having five funnels (which were later reduced to four) was unusual for the time. The vessel also had the largest set of paddle wheels.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: Brunel knew her affectionately as the "Great Babe". He died in 1859 shortly after her maiden voyage, during which she was damaged by an explosion. After repairs, she plied for several years as a passenger liner between Britain and North America before being converted to a cable-laying ship and laying the first lasting transatlantic telegraph cable in 1866. Finishing her life as a floating music hall and advertising hoarding (for the department store Lewis's) in Liverpool, she was broken up on Merseyside in 1889.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: After his success in pioneering steam travel to North America with and , Brunel turned his attention to a vessel capable of making longer voyages as far as Australia. With a planned capacity of 15,000 tons of coal, "Great Eastern" was envisioned as being able to sail halfway around the world without taking on coal, while also carrying so much cargo and passengers that papers described her as a "floating city" and "the Crystal Palace of the sea". Brunel saw the ship as being able to effectively monopolize trade with Asia and Australia, making regular trips between Britain and either Trincomalee or Australia.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: On 25 March 1852, Brunel made a sketch of a steamship in his diary and wrote beneath it: "Say 600 ft x 65 ft x 30 ft" (180 m x 20 m x 9.1 m). These measurements were six times larger by volume than any ship afloat; such a large vessel would benefit from economies of scale and would be both fast and economical, requiring fewer crew than the equivalent tonnage made up of smaller ships. Brunel realised that the ship would need more than one propulsion system; since twin screws were still very much experimental, he settled on a combination of a single screw and paddle wheels, with auxiliary sail power. Although Brunel had pioneered the screw propeller on a large scale with "Great Britain", he did not believe that it was possible to build a single propeller and shaft (or, for that matter, a paddleshaft) that could transmit the required power to drive his giant ship at the required speed.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: Brunel showed his idea to John Scott Russell, an experienced naval architect and ship builder whom he had first met at the Great Exhibition. Scott Russell examined Brunel's plan and made his own calculations as to the ship's feasibility. He calculated that it would have a displacement of 20,000 tons and would require to achieve , but believed it was possible. At Scott Russell's suggestion, they approached the directors of the Eastern Steam Navigation Company with the new design plan. The James Watt Company would design the ship's screw, Professor Piazzi Smyth would design its gyroscopic equipment, and Russell himself would build the hull and paddle wheel.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: Brunel entered into a partnership with John Scott Russell, an experienced naval architect and ship builder, to build "Great Eastern". Unknown to Brunel, Russell was in financial difficulties. The two men disagreed on many details. It was Brunel's final great project, and he collapsed from a stroke after being photographed on her deck, and died only ten days later, a mere four days after "Great Eastern"s first sea trials. About the ship, Brunel said "I have never embarked on any one thing to which I have so entirely devoted myself, and to which I have devoted so much time, thought and labour, on the success of which I have staked so much reputation."


title: SS Great Eastern

text: "Great Eastern" was built by Messrs Scott Russell & Co. of Millwall, London, the keel being laid down on 1 May 1854. She was long, wide, with a draught of unloaded and fully laden, and displaced 32,000 tons fully loaded. In comparison, SS "Persia", launched in 1856, was long with a beam. She was at first named "Leviathan", but her high building and launching costs ruined the Eastern Steam Navigation Company and so she lay unfinished for a year before being sold to the Great Eastern Ship Company and finally renamed "Great Eastern". It was decided she would be more profitable on the Southampton–New York run, and she was outfitted accordingly.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: The hull was an all-iron construction, a double hull of wrought iron in plates with ribs every . Her roughly 30,000 iron plates weighed each, and were cut over individually-made wooden templates before being rolled to the required curvature. Internally the hull was divided by two long, high, longitudinal bulkheads and further transverse bulkheads dividing the ship into nineteen compartments. "Great Eastern" was the first ship to incorporate a double-skinned hull, a feature which would not be seen again in a ship for 100 years, but which would later become compulsory for reasons of safety. To maximize her fuel capacity, stored coal was bunkered around and over her 10 boilers. She had sail, paddle and screw propulsion. The paddle-wheels were in diameter and the four-bladed screw-propeller was across. The power came from four steam engines for the paddles and an additional engine for the propeller. Total power was estimated at . She had six masts (said to be named after the days of a week – Monday being the fore mast and Saturday the spanker mast), providing space for of sails (7 gaff and maximum 9 (usually 4) square sails), rigged similar to a topsail schooner with a main gaff sail (fore-and-aft sail) on each mast, one "jib" on the fore mast and three square sails on masts no. 2 and no. 3 (Tuesday & Wednesday); for a time mast no. 4 was also fitted with 3 yards. In later years, some of the yards were removed. According to some sources she would have carried in sails. Setting sails turned out to be unusable at the same time as the paddles and screw were under steam, because the hot exhaust from the five (later four) funnels would set them on fire. Her maximum speed was . She was involved in a series of accidents during construction, with 6 workers being killed.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: "Great Eastern" was planned to be launched on 3 November 1857. The ship's massive size posed major logistical issues; according to one source, the ship's 19,000 tons (12,000 inert tons during the launch) made it the single heaviest object moved by humans to that point. On 3 November, a large crowd gathered to watch the ship launch, with notables present including the Comte de Paris, the Duke of Aumale, and the Siamese ambassador to Britain. The launch, however, failed, and the ship was stranded on its launch rails – in addition, two men were killed and several others injured, leading some to declare "Great Eastern" an unlucky ship. Brunel rescheduled the launch for January 1858, hoping to use the tide in the next launch attempt.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: In the leadup to the second launch, Brunel and "Great Eastern"'s backers gathered a significant number of chains, jacks, hydraulic rams, and windlasses to assist in launching the ship. Some were obtained from sympathetic engineers, others through returned favours, and yet more for increasing sums of money; so lucrative was renting out of supplies for the ship's launch that engineer Richard Tangye was able to found his own engineering firm (Tangye & Co) the next year, remarking that "We launched "Great Eastern", and she launched us""." Advice sent to Brunel on how to launch the ship came from a number of sources, including steamboat captains on the Great Lakes and one admirer who wrote an insightful description on how the massive "Bronze Horseman" had been erected in Saint Petersburg. High winds prevented the ship from being launched on 30 January, but the next morning a fresh attempt successfully launched the ship around 10:00 in the morning.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: Following her launch, "Great Eastern" spent a further 8 months being fitted out. However, the cost of the fitting out ($600,000) concerned many investors, who had already spent nearly $6,000,000 constructing her. With the building company already in debt, cost cutting measures were implemented; the ship was removed from Russell's shipyard, and many investors requested she be sold. As reported by the "Times", one investor openly proposed that the ship be sold to the Royal Navy, noting if the navy employed "Great Eastern" as a ram, she would easily cleave through any warship afloat. These efforts had mixed success, with the ship eventually being sold to a new company for £800,000, equating to a loss of $3,000,000 for investors in the Eastern Steam Navigation Company. The new company modified parts of its predecessor's design, most notably cutting the ship's coal capacity as it intended to use the ship for the American market. Fitting out concluded in August 1859 and was marked with a lavish banquet for visitors (which included engineers, stockholders, members of parliament, 5 earls, and other notables). In early September 1859, the ship sailed from her dock towards the channel, accompanied by many spectators. However, off Hastings she suffered a massive steam explosion (caused by a valve being left shut by accident after a pressure test of the system) that killed five men. She proceeded to Portland Bill and then to Holyhead, though some investors claimed more money could have been made if the ship had remained as an "exhibition ship" for tourists in the Thames. "Great Eastern" successfully rode out the infamous Royal Charter Storm, after which it was moved to Southampton for the winter. The start of 1860 led to a further change of ownership when the owning company was found to be badly in debt and the value of the ship depreciated by half. This revelation forced the resignation of the board of directors, who were then replaced by a third group of controlling stockholders.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: With the new board in place, the ship was recapitalized to raise an additional $50,000. The new board was determined to finish the ship, but also betted heavily on making large profits exhibiting the ship in North American seaports. To accomplish this, the company played major American and Canadian cities against each other, goading them into competition over which city would welcome "Great Eastern"; the city of Portland, Maine (with additional investment from the Grand Trunk Railroad) went so far as to build a $125,000 pier to accommodate the ship. Ultimately New York City – which had quickly dredged a berth for her alongside a lumber wharf – was decided on as the ship's first destination.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: After some delays, "Great Eastern" began her eleven-day maiden voyage on 17 June 1860, with 35 paying passengers, 8 company "dead heads" (passengers who do not pay) and 418 crew. Among the passengers were two journalists, Zerah Colburn and Alexander Lyman Holley. Her first crossing went without incident, and the ship's seaworthiness was proven again when she easily survived a small gale. "Great Eastern" arrived in New York on 28 June and was successfully docked, though she did damage part of a wharf. The ship was received with great aplomb, with many vessels and tens of thousands of people crowding to see her. In preparation for the crowds, the crew established a bar on deck, spread sand to soak up tobacco juice, and prepared to receive thousands of visitors. However, relations between the crew and New Yorkers began to sour – the public was outraged by the $1 entry fee (similar excursion trips in New York charged 25 cents) and many would-be visitors decided to forego visiting the ship. "Great Eastern" left New York in late July, taking several hundred passengers on an excursion trip to Cape May and then to Old Point, Virginia. However, this too raised issues as the ship did not have enough provisions (a burst pipe in a storeroom had ruined much of the ship's food) to make the short trip comfortable, while the ship's rudimentary bathrooms posed a sanitation issue. Duplicate tickets were sold for some berths, families were separated and remixed in improperly assigned cabins, and five plainclothes police officers (put on by New York to deter pickpockets) were discovered and chased into a livestock pen on deck. After reaching Virginia, the ship steamed back to New York, and from there sailed south again for an excursion cruise in the Chesapeake bay. The ship departed for Annapolis, where it was given 5,000 tons of coal by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. "Great Eastern" remained in Annapolis for several days, where she was toured by several thousand visitors and President James Buchanan. During the presidential visit, one member of the company board discussed sending the ship to Savannah to transport Southern cotton to English mills, but this idea was never followed up on.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: Upon its second return to New York, the company decided to sail from the United States. From a financial perspective, the American venture had been a disaster; the ship had taken in only $120,000 against a $72,000 overhead, whereas the company had expected to take in $700,000. In addition, the company was facing a daily interest payment of $5,000, which ate into any profits the ship made. Hoping to net more profit before returning to Britain, the ship sailed from New York in mid August, bound for Halifax with 100 passengers. However, on approach to the port the ship was hailed by a local lighthouse service, which was empowered by law to collect a toll based on ship tonnage – given the size of the ship, the lighthouse levied a toll of $1,750 on "Great Eastern". Infuriated by the size of the toll, a party went ashore to request that the toll be waived, but the governor of Halifax denied this request. Angered by the refusal, the captain and company leadership ordered the ship to return to Britain immediately, and as such no passengers or visitors were taken on in Halifax.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: With the engineering success but financial failure of the 1860 trip, the ship's ownership company again attempted to turn "Great Eastern" profitable. During the winter of 1860, Scott Russell (who had recently won a $120,000 legal judgement against the ship company) refitted the ship and repaired damage sustained during its first year of operations; during the refit, she once broke free from her moorings and cut off the bowsprit of HMS "Blenheim". She departed for New York in May 1861 (her other potential port, Baltimore, now considered too risky due to the outbreak of the American Civil War), arriving in the port with little fanfare. Taking on a cargo of 5,000 tons of barrelled wheat and 194 passengers, she departed for Liverpool on 25 May, making an uneventful trip. Upon her return to Britain, it was announced that the ship's company had been contracted by the British War Office to transport 2,000 troops to Canada, part of a show of force to intimidate the rapidly-arming United States. After a further refit to carry troops, "Great Eastern" departed Britain for Quebec City carrying 2,144 soldiers, 473 passengers, and 122 horses; according to one source, this number of passengers – when coupled with "Great Eastern"'s crew of 400 – marked the most number of people aboard a single ship to that point in history. The voyage was a success and the ship made it to Quebec, where it took two days for the city's steamers to ferry the passengers from the ship. The crossing was made in record-setting time, taking 8 days and 6 hours. "Great Eastern"'s durable design was praised by the military officers aboard, but soon after her return to Britain the War Office discontinued the contract, and the ship returned to regular passenger service.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: In September 1861, "Great Eastern" was caught in a major hurricane two days out of Liverpool. The ship was trapped in the storm for three days and suffered major damage to her propulsion systems; both her paddle wheels were torn off, her sails stripped away, and her rudder had been bent to 200 degrees and subsequently torn up by the ship's single propeller. A jury-rigged propeller was installed by Hamilton Towle (an American engineer returning from Austria), allowing the ship to steer for Ireland powered only by her screw. Arriving in Queenstown, (now Cobh), she was denied entry to the harbour as it was feared high winds would cause her to smash her anchorage; she was granted entry three days later and towed in by HMS "Advice", tearing the anchor off an American merchant on her way to her berth. The only fatal casualty of the cruise occurred in port when a man was killed by backspin off the helm. Damage caused by the storm and lost revenue from the trip amounted to $300,000.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: The ship continued a cycle of uneventful cruises, cargo loadings, and brief exhibitions from late 1861 to mid 1862. By July 1862, the ship was turning its first noteworthy profits, carrying 500 passengers and 8,000 tons of foodstuffs from New York to Liverpool, bringing in $225,000 in gross and requiring a turnaround of only 11 days. However, as noted by sources, the ship's owners struggled to sustain this profitability as they were heavily focused on upper and middle class passenger service. As such, the ship was not used to transport large groups of immigrants travelling to the United States, nor did it take full advantage of the major downturn in the American clipper industry during the American Civil War.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: On 17 August 1862, "Great Eastern" departed from Liverpool for New York, carrying 820 passengers and several thousand tons of cargo – given the size of her load, she was drawing of water. After outrunning a small squall, the ship approached the New York coast on the night of 27 August. Fearing that "Great Eastern" was resting too low in the water to pass by Sandy Hook, the ship's captain instead chose the nominally safer route through Long Island Sound. While passing by Montauk Point around 2:00 AM, the ship collided with an uncharted rock needle (later named Great Eastern Rock) that stood around below the surface. The rock punctured the outer hull of the ship, leaving a gash wide and long—it was later calculated that the needle was large enough to contact the inner hull, but that the outer hull and strong transverse braces had prevented the inner hull from being breached. The collision was noticed by the crew, who guessed that the ship had struck a shifting sand shoal, and after a bilge check "Great Eastern" continued onto New York without incident. While in port, however, it was noticed that the ship had acquired a slight list to starboard, and so a diver was sent in to inspect the hull. After several days of inspection, the diver reported the massive hole in the ship's outer hull, a major issue as no drydock in the world could fit the ship. The ship's hull was repaired by metalworkers in a cofferdam, but cost the company $350,000 and delayed the ship's return to Britain by several months. She would make one more trip to New York and back in 1863 before being laid up until 1864 due to her operating costs.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: In January 1864, it was announced that the ship would be auctioned off. During the auction, four members of the company board of directors bid $125,000 for the ship and won it, thus acquiring personal control of the vessel. The group then allowed the ship company to go bankrupt, thus separating the ship from the now defunct shipping company and divesting many smaller stockholders. The ship was then contracted out to Cyrus West Field, an American financier, who intended to use it to lay underwater cables. A trend soon emerged in which the ship's owners would rent out "Great Eastern" as a cable layer in exchange for shares in cable companies, ensuring that if "Great Eastern" succeeded in laying cables, the unprofitable ship could be personally lucrative for her owners.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: In May 1865, "Great Eastern" steamed to Sheerness to take on wire for the laying of the Transatlantic telegraph cable. In return for using the ship, her owners wanted $250,000 in telegraph company stock, but only on the condition the wire laying succeeded. To accommodate the of cable she was carrying, "Great Eastern" had some of her salons and rooms replaced with large tanks to hold the cable. In July the ship began laying the undersea cable near Valentia Island, gradually working its way west at a speed of . The effort went relatively smoothly for several weeks, but the cable end was lost mid-Atlantic in an accident, forcing the ship to return in 1866 with a new line. The ship's first officer, Robert Halpin, managed to locate the lost cable end and the unbroken cable made it to shore in Heart's Content, Newfoundland on 27 July 1866.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: Halpin became captain of "Great Eastern", with the ship laying further cables. In early 1869 she laid a series of undersea cables near Brest. Later that year she was outfitted to lay undersea cables in the Indian Ocean; most of the operation's expenses were covered by the British government and banks in India, which hoped to circumvent the unreliable overland cables linking Britain to India. In preparation for operations in the hot climate, the ship was painted white to deflect heat away from the ship's cable tanks. "Great Eastern" departed from Britain in December 1869, arriving in Bombay (now Mumbai) 83 days later to lay her first cable anchor. Upon its arrival in port, "Great Eastern"'s size generated considerable public interest, with the captain offering tickets to view the ship for 2 rupees apiece, distributing proceeds to the crew. Departing from Bombay before the onset of the Monsoon season, she proceeded north to lay a cable between Bombay and Aden. From Aden, she laid another cable to the island of Jabal al-Tair, where a second ship rendezvoused with her to take up the cable to Suez and then on to Alexandria.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: The Suez Canal, which opened in 1869, was a setback for the ship: the ship was too wide for the canal, and going around Africa it would not be able to compete with ships that could use the canal. One famed Arab navigator proposed taking the ship through the canal, but this was never attempted.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: At the end of her cable-laying career – hastened by the launch of the CS "Faraday", a ship purpose built for cable laying – she was refitted as a liner, but once again efforts to make her a commercial success failed. She remained moored in Milford Harbour for some time, annoying the Milford harbour board, which wanted to build dockyards in the area. Many proposals for the ship were raised; according to one source, pubs were full of talk of filling her with gunpowder and blowing her up. The ship was ultimately saved, however, as a dock engineer (Frederick Appleby) was able to build a dock around her, using the ship's massive hulk as a station for driving pylons. During her 11 years moored in Milford, she accrued a large amount of biofouling on her hull. Early marine naturalist Henry Lee (best known at the time for his skepticism towards sea monsters) conducted an extensive study of her hull, calculating she had ~300 tons of marine life attached to her. She was sold at auction, at Lloyd's on 4 November 1885, by order of the Court of Chancery. Bidding commenced at £10,000, rising to £26,200 and sold to Mr Mattos, a city merchant.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: Sold again, she was used as a showboat, a floating palace/concert hall and gymnasium. She later acted as an advertising hoarding—sailing up and down the Mersey for Lewis's Department Store, who at this point were her owners, before being sold. The idea was to attract people to the store by using her as a floating visitor attraction. In 1886 she was sailed to Liverpool for the Liverpool Exhibition of 1886 – during the transit, she struck and badly damaged one of her tugs, the last of 10 ships she would damage or sink. On 10 May 1887, the steamship "G. E. Wood" collided with her in the Mersey.. Sold again after the exhibition, one company considered using her to raise shallow shipwrecks, while one humorist suggested that "Great Eastern" be used to help dig the Panama canal by ramming her into the isthmus. She was, again, sold at auction in 1888, fetching £16,000 for her value as scrap. Many pieces of the ship were bought by private collectors, former passengers, and friends of the crew – various fixtures, lamps, furniture, paneling, and other artifacts were kept. Parts of "Great Eastern" were repurposed for other uses; one ferry company converted her wood paneling into a public house bar, while one mistress at a Lancashire boarding school acquired the ship's deck caboose for use as a children's playhouse.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: An early example of breaking-up a structure by use of a wrecking ball, she was scrapped near the Sloyne, at New Ferry on the River Mersey by Henry Bath & Son Ltd in 1889–1890—it took 18 months to take her apart, with her double hull being particularly difficult to salvage. The breaking of the ship caused a minor labour dispute as workers – who were paid by the ton of ship scrapped – became frustrated with the slow pace of breaking and went on strike.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: After "Great Eastern"'s scrapping, rumours spread that the shipbreakers had found the remains of trapped worker(s) entombed in her hull—likely inspired by tales spread by her crew of a phantom riveter who had been sealed in the ship's hull. The legend was first widely noted on by James Dugan in 1952, who quoted a letter from a Captain David Duff, and many later sources cite Dugan's work. Other authors, notably L. T. C. Rolt in his biography of Brunel, have dismissed the claim (noting such a discovery would have been recorded in company logs and received press attention), but the legend has become widely mentioned in books and articles about nautical ghost stories. In "London and Londoners in the Eighteen-Fifties and Sixties", Alfred Rosling Bennett writes about the skeleton that "it was then remembered that while on the stocks building a pay-clerk had disappeared with a large sum of money... and was supposed to have fled with it", and questions if the remains could have been deposited by workmen who had murdered the man. Brian Dunning wrote about the legend in 2020, noting that while it was technically impossible to prove or disprove, the incident could not have happened given the lack of evidence being found during the numerous times "Great Eastern" was being repaired"."


title: SS Great Eastern

text: In 1928, Liverpool Football Club were looking for a flagpole for their Anfield ground, and consequently purchased her top mast. It still stands there today at the Kop end. In 2011, the Channel 4 programme "Time Team" found geophysical survey evidence to suggest that residual iron parts from the ship's keel and lower structure still reside in the foreshore.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: During 1859, when "Great Eastern" was off Portland conducting trials, an explosion aboard blew off one of the funnels. The funnel was salvaged and subsequently purchased by the water company supplying Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in Dorset, UK, and used as a filtering device. It was later transferred to the Bristol Maritime Museum close to Brunel's SS "Great Britain" then moved to the SS "Great Britain" Museum.


title: SS Great Eastern

text: In October 2007, the recovery of a anchor in of water about from Great Eastern rock stirred speculation that it may have belonged to "Great Eastern".


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Sergei Viktorovich Fyodorov (; born December 13, 1969) is a Russian former professional ice hockey player and the current head coach of CSKA Moscow of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). During his playing career, for which he is best known for his 13 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, Fedorov was primarily a centre, but occasionally played as a winger or defenceman.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Fedorov was one of the first hockey players to defect from his native Soviet Union in order to play in the National Hockey League (NHL). While playing with Detroit, he won the Stanley Cup three times, as well as the Hart Memorial Trophy as the NHL's most valuable player in 1994. After leaving the Red Wings in the summer of 2003, Fedorov played stints with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, Columbus Blue Jackets and Washington Capitals before retiring from the NHL in 2009. He played in over 1,200 NHL games and scored 483 goals in the NHL. He is a three-time Olympian, the first European-trained player to win the Hart Trophy and is considered to be one of the best playoff performers in NHL history. In 2017, Fedorov was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players" in history.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Fedorov was considered one of the best players in the world from the 1990s to the early 2000s. He last played for Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the KHL, where he was made captain in early September 2011. He was also an ambassador for Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Fedorov was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 9, 2015, and to the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 2016.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: When he was just 16, Fedorov was already playing for CSKA Moscow in the Soviet Union with future NHL Hall-of-Famer Pavel Bure and Alexander Mogilny, among others. In 1989, Mogilny became the first Soviet superstar to defect in order to play in the NHL. Less than two months later, Fedorov was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings in the fourth round, 74th overall, of the 1989 NHL Entry Draft. Red Wings general manager Jim Devellano had consulted team captain and future Hall-of-Famer Steve Yzerman about Fedorov, knowing that the two had played against each other in the World Championships. Yzerman told Devellano, "He's better than me."


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Detroit sportswriter Keith Gave was asked by Wings executive vice-president Jim Lites to pass a secret message to Fedorov at an exhibition game in Helsinki where the Soviet national team was scheduled to play a Finnish elite-level club. Gave agreed to the mission, and in August 1989, managed to meet with Fedorov and teammate Vladimir Konstantinov, whom the Wings had also drafted, and slip them each a Red Wings media guide with a letter hidden inside. The letters made it clear that the Red Wings wanted both of them in Detroit and were willing to help them get there.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: By July 1990, Fedorov had decided to defect. The Soviet national team came to North America to play in the 1990 Goodwill Games, and had scheduled an exhibition match in Portland's Memorial Coliseum on July 22, 1990. Jim Lites came to Portland, picked up Fedorov outside his hotel after the game, and brought him to Detroit in Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch's private jet.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Fedorov was described as "three great players in one". In his career, he "once held claim to the title of top player on the planet". Former Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman said Fedorov was the "best skater I've ever seen". During the 1993–94 season, Fedorov's outstanding play earned him the "oldest and most prestigious individual award in hockey", the Hart Memorial Trophy (awarded to the NHL's most valuable player), the Frank J. Selke Trophy (top defensive forward) and the Lester B. Pearson Award (awarded to the most outstanding player as selected by NHL players). He finished second in scoring behind the Los Angeles Kings' Wayne Gretzky with 56 goals and 120 points.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: During the 1993–94 season, being interviewed before his game, Gretzky was talking about a December 17 game between the Red Wings and New York Rangers, saying, "[H]e had never seen a player dominate the game the way Sergei did." Later in the season, Gretzky also commented that he thought Fedorov was "the best player in the game at this point." Fedorov was introduced to Gretzky by Paul Coffey during the 1994 NHL All-Star Game, which led to him staying over at his Los Angeles home with his family for two weeks that year.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Playing in his second game after coming back from an injury, Steve Yzerman was asked about Fedorov's play during the season: "I've only seen two other players that can dominate a game like Sergei, and that's Wayne and Mario ... In my opinion, he's the best player in the League. He is different than Wayne and Mario because he dominates with his speed, and unbelievable one-on-one moves." Red Wings head coach Scotty Bowman was also asked in an interview during the season where he thought Fedorov ranked among the players and teams he has coached in his career: "He's right at the top. He's got the greatest leg strength I've seen in a player. His legs are phenomenal."


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In the lockout-shortened 1994–95 season, Fedorov finished second on the Red Wings in points with 50 (20 goals and 30 assists) in 42 games. That season, in a game against Los Angeles on February 12, Fedorov scored all four of Detroit's goals in a 4–4 tie. Although the Red Wings lost the Stanley Cup Finals that year to the New Jersey Devils, Fedorov led the playoffs in all scoring with 24 points (seven goals and 17 assists). He also led the Stanley Cup Finals in goals and led the Red Wings in points.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Fedorov won another Selke Trophy in 1996 after scoring 39 goals and 107 points in 78 games, while playing stellar defensively. He finished in the top five for Hart Trophy voting and led Detroit in scoring, and helped them win the Presidents' Trophy. That season, Detroit set an NHL record for wins in a season with 62. He also signed a four-year deal that season to become the first non-North American spokesman for Nike, in which he made the "white skates" famous. The skates were different due to their unique colours and design, and he promoted it through a series of commercials for Nike. Steve Yzerman, speaking to a reporter on Fedorov a few weeks after turning the tide on a January 30 game that season that ended in a 4–2 victory for the Red Wings over the Toronto Maple Leafs, said, "Sergei is a game-breaker for us anytime he's on the ice ... He's the most talented player I've ever seen." The Red Wings' season ended in disappointment when they were defeated by the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Finals, four games to two. Fedorov finished tied for the team lead with 20 points in 19 playoff games.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In the 1996–97 season, Fedorov played before the preseason started in August and September for Russia at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey. Later in the NHL season, he was a member of the Red Wings' first Stanley Cup championship team since 1955, leading the team playoff scoring with 20 points in 20 games, including 8 goals. He led the Stanley Cup Finals in points and in goals for a second time. Goaltender Mike Vernon won the Conn Smythe Trophy, "but many hockey insiders believe that Sergei deserved that honor". During the regular season, Fedorov had achieved the rare feat of scoring five goals in a single game, as he registered all of Detroit's goals in a 5–4 overtime win against the Washington Capitals on December 26, 1996. It was also the first time in NHL history that a player completed a quintet of goals in overtime, a feat since equaled only by the Rangers' Mika Zibanejad on March 5, 2020, also against the Capitals.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In the mid-1990s, Fedorov became part of the Red Wings' Russian Five, together with Igor Larionov at center, Vyacheslav Kozlov at left, and Viacheslav Fetisov and Vladimir Konstantinov on defense. The Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997 and 1998.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: After a lengthy holdout to start the 1997–98 season, Fedorov, a restricted free agent, signed an offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes worth up to $38 million, including bonuses. The Red Wings matched the offer on February 26, 1998, ending Fedorov's holdout. The offer included $14 million for signing and $2 million for 21 regular-season games. However, the most controversial part of the contract was a $12 million bonus payable immediately if Fedorov's team reached the 1998 conference finals—at the time, Detroit was already a Stanley Cup contender while Carolina was almost certain to miss the playoffs, so the clause was criticized for creating an unfair disadvantage for Detroit. Nevertheless, the Red Wings matched the offer and paid the bonus. The $28 million Detroit paid Fedorov for 43 total games in 1997–98 remains the largest single-season amount paid to an NHL player. Fedorov led the playoffs in goals and helped the Red Wings win their second consecutive Stanley Cup.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: On February 14, 1999, Fedorov announced his entire base salary for the 1998–99 season—$2 million—would be used to create the Sergei Fedorov Foundation, a charity to assist Detroit-area children. During the 1990s, Fedorov was third in playoff scoring with 126 points, behind only Mark Messier (126) and Mario Lemieux (136). Fedorov is only the third player in NHL history to have four consecutive 20+ point playoffs, along with Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier. He also led the NHL in plus-minus in the 1990s with a +221.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In 2001–02 season, Fedorov played with a star-studded roster that included newcomers Dominik Hašek, Luc Robitaille and Brett Hull, culminating with Fedorov winning his third Stanley Cup, where he led the Stanley Cup Finals again in points for a second time. During an interview with Hull days after the Red Wings' 2002 Stanley Cup championship win, he commented on Fedorov as a player and person: "[Fedorov's] maturity—not only on the ice, but off the ice—has grown immensely, and, like Stevie said, there's not too many guys in this league, if any, that have the skill that he does. And he's learned to use it over the years. I think everyone can see that." In the 2002–03 season, Steve Yzerman was injured for most of the season, and Fedorov led the team in scoring with 36 goals and 83 points in 80 games, also winning the inaugural Kharlamov Trophy, at the time awarded yearly to the top Russian player in the NHL.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: At the 2002 NHL All-Star Game SuperSkills Competition, Fedorov slapped the puck 101.5 mph in the net to win "Hardest Shot". Dominik Hašek later remarked of Fedorov's shot, "I know his shot, and I'm not surprised that he won it ... He can shoot from the blue line and he can score from the blue line." After an October 25, 2002, game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit, talking to reporters about Fedorov, Mario Lemieux said, "He was awesome. The way he skates, he's just dominating out there. Especially in the neutral zone, he picks up a lot of speed. You can't defend against that."


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Fedorov signed a free-agent contract with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim for less than the Red Wings offered him after Detroit lost to Anaheim in the first round of the playoffs in 2003. Fedorov is currently fourth all-time in many offensive categories in Red Wings history, behind Gordie Howe, Steve Yzerman and Alex Delvecchio. Only Howe, Yzerman, Delvecchio, Nicklas Lidström, Tomas Holmström and Kris Draper have played more games as a Red Wing than Fedorov.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In the 2003 off-season, Fedorov signed with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim after a long contract dispute with the Red Wings in which he rejected five-year, $50 million and four-year, $40 million contract offers. On December 3, 2003, Fedorov returned to Detroit for the first time since signing with the Ducks; he was booed heavily by Detroit fans every time he touched the puck in an eventual 7–2 Red Wings victory, during which he scored one of Anaheim's goals. He remained with Anaheim from 2003 to 2005. It was with the Ducks that Fedorov registered his 1,000th point in the NHL, becoming the first Russian-born and fifth European-born player to do so.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Some hockey legends in interviews throughout the years have commented on Fedorov's abilities, such as former Red Wings teammate Nicklas Lidström: "I think he's the best player in the League. He's real tough to defend against. He's got quickness to best you if you step up to him. It's tough to stop him." Former Boston Bruins legend Ray Bourque once said, "Sergei is a dominating player, a franchise player. When he makes a move on you, he has the ability to maintain his speed or even go faster. There aren't many defensemen who can keep up with him." Steve Yzerman and Wayne Gretzky speaking to Fox Sports columnist and Detroit radio host Art Regner in past interviews said they thought "Fedorov is the most talented player they've ever seen." After leaving the Red Wings (his first season with Anaheim, in which he scored 31 times), Fedorov had multiple injuries and his tally of 18 goals in 2006–07 was the most he scored until his retirement from the NHL in 2008–09.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In an unanticipated move, on November 15, 2005, Fedorov (along with a fifth-round draft pick) was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for forward Tyler Wright and rookie defenceman François Beauchemin. As a Blue Jacket, Fedorov played his 1,000th NHL game on November 30, 2005, becoming the 13th European-born player to reach 1,000 NHL games and the 205th player overall to do so.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Brian Burke, who had just joined the team as general manager, found that Fedorov was less interested in contributing to the team, as he had with the Red Wings, than he was enjoying the nightlife in Los Angeles where he would be riding back in limos at 3 to 4am even on game days. Burke was so concerned that Fedorov 'was a bad influence in the dressing room,' and that 'other players were starting to follow his lead,' that he sent rookies Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry to the Ducks' AHL minor league team solely to get them away from Fedorov.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In a 2006 interview, former Detroit Red Wings head coach Scotty Bowman said, "[Fedorov was] one of my favorite players as a coach because he can do anything [asked of him on ice]." Bowman coached nine of Fedorov's 13 seasons with Detroit. During the late 1990s, Bowman experimented by using Fedorov on defense and pairing him with Larry Murphy. Red Wings Senior Vice-President Jim Devellano said, "I'm convinced if we left him there, he'd have won a Norris Trophy." Although he was effective playing defense, Fedorov stated he would rather play as a forward, though this did not prevent then-Blue Jackets head coach Ken Hitchcock from moving Fedorov to defense on occasion.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Approaching the NHL trade deadline in 2008, Fedorov was traded to the Washington Capitals in exchange for prospect Theo Ruth.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: The following summer, Fedorov signed a one-year, $4 million contract with Washington. In 2008–09, what would become his final season in the NHL, Fedorov passed Alexander Mogilny for most goals scored by a Russian-born hockey player, a record previously held by Mogilny, who scored 473 goals.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In a 2009 interview, Scotty Bowman recalled a conversation between Wayne Gretzky and himself: "I talked to Wayne Gretzky about that six or seven years ago and he said to me: 'I couldn't play forward and defence. Mario couldn't do it. Jagr couldn't play defence. But Sergei could. He was a hell of a player.'" A few years later, in a 2015 interview, Bowman stated he thought Fedorov "could have been an all-star defenceman, but he developed his offensive skills".


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: On April 28, 2009, in one of his final games in the NHL, after scoring the game-winning goal in the 2009 playoffs against the New York Rangers in a 2–1 Game 7 contest, then-Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau stated in a press conference, "Let's face it, sometimes experience pays off. He knew what he had to do, when to do it, and that's what makes him one of the greatest players, ever." Teammate Alexander Ovechkin added, "He's our leader ... He's our best guy in the locker room. He showed it. He's our best guy. He has more experience than anybody in this locker room. He knows how to play like that. He just shows his leadership."


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In his book, Jeremy Roenick spoke about Fedorov being one of his top ten favourite players to play against: "He was a horse, bigger than you'd think he was. He could skate, handle the puck like a magician, and check you until you hated him. You didn't get a break when you played centre against Detroit in those days." He added, "Today we talk about Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin, but neither of those guys could skate with [Alexander] Mogilny or Fedorov or [Pavel] Bure."


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: For the 2009–10 season, Fedorov returned to Russia, signing a two-year deal with Metallurg Magnitogorsk. He said that he wanted to fulfill his father's lifelong dream of having his two sons play on the same team. Early in the season, Fedorov scored his 1,500th point in official games.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: Fedorov announced he would be returning to CSKA Moscow as a player on October 9, 2013. "The legs are still good," and, "I still train twice a week," Fedorov said in response to questions of him continuing his playing career. He would appear in his last two games of his career for CSKA at the 2013 Spengler Cup, registering three shots and one goal. However, he never appeared in a KHL game for the team.


title: Sergei Fedorov

text: In the (U-20) 1987 World Junior Championships, Fedorov made his national team debut for the Soviet Union. The Soviet team was ejected (as well Canada) for their part in the infamous "punch-up in Piestany" bench-clearing brawl during the final game. The fight is famous for officials having turned off the arena lights in a desperate attempt at ending the 20-minute melee. He played again with CSKA Moscow teammate Alexander Mogilny in the 1988 World Junior Championships; both made the tournament All-Star Team, finishing with a silver medal.