title: Nebraska (album)

text: In an interview with "Rolling Stone", Springsteen said, "I was just doing songs for the next rock album, and I decided that what always took me so long in the studio was the writing. I would get in there, and I just wouldn't have the material "written", or it wasn't written well enough, and so I'd record for a month, get a couple of things, go home write some more, record for another month—it wasn't very efficient. So this time, I got a little Teac four-track cassette machine, and I said, I'm gonna record these songs, and if they sound good with just me doin' 'em, then I'll teach 'em to the band. I could sing and play the guitar, and then I had two tracks to do somethin' else, like overdub a guitar or add a harmony. It was just gonna be a demo. Then I had a little Echoplex that I mixed through, and that was it. And that was the tape that became the record. It's amazing that it got there, 'cause I was carryin' that cassette around with me in my pocket without a case for a couple of weeks, just draggin' it around. Finally, we realized, 'Uh-oh, that's the album.' Technically, it was difficult to get it on a disc. The stuff was recorded so strangely, the needle would read a lot of distortion and wouldn't track in the wax. We almost had to release it as a cassette." Another problem arose during mastering of the tapes because of low recording volume, but that was resolved with sophisticated noise reduction techniques.


title: Nebraska (album)

text: Springsteen fans have long speculated whether the full-band recordings of the "Nebraska" session tracks, nicknamed "Electric Nebraska", that took place in the last week of April 1982, will ever surface. Of the theoretical 17 tracks, 5 were not recorded with the band ("Losin' Kind", "Child Bride", "The Big Payback", "State Trooper" and "My Father's House"), and "Born in the U.S.A.", "Downbound Train" and "Pink Cadillac" have been released, leaving nine in the vaults. In a 2006 interview, manager Jon Landau said that the release of the remaining tracks is unlikely, and that "the right version of "Nebraska" came out". But in a 2010 interview with "Rolling Stone", E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg praised the full band recording of the album as "killing".


title: Nebraska (album)

text: The album begins with "Nebraska", a first-person narrative based on the true story of 19-year-old spree killer Charles Starkweather and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, and ends with "Reason to Believe", a complex narrative that offers a small amount of hope to counterbalance the otherwise dark nature of the album. The remaining songs are largely of the same bleak tone, including the dark "State Trooper", influenced by the vocal stylings of Alan Vega and Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop". Criminal behavior continues as a theme in the song "Highway Patrolman": even though the protagonist works for the law, he lets his brother escape after he has shot someone. "Open All Night", a Chuck Berry-style lone guitar rave-up, does manage a dose of defiant, humming-towards-the-gallows exuberance.


title: Nebraska (album)

text: Springsteen stated that the stories in this album were partly inspired by historian Howard Zinn's book "A People's History of the United States". A music video was produced for the song "Atlantic City"; it features stark, black-and-white images of the city, which had not yet undergone its later economic transformation.


title: Nebraska (album)

text: In the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop critics poll, "Nebraska" was voted the third best album of 1982. In 1989, it was ranked 43rd on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. That same year, Richard Williams wrote in "Q" magazine that ""Nebraska" would simply have been a vastly better record with the benefit of the E Street Band and a few months in the studio."


title: Nebraska (album)

text: In 2003, "Nebraska" was ranked number 224 on "Rolling Stone"s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and 226 in a 2012 revised list, and 150 in a 2020 reboot of the list. "Pitchfork" listed it as the 60th greatest album of the 1980s. In 2006, "Q" placed the album at number 13 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s". In 2012, "Slant Magazine" listed the album at number 57 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s". The album was also included in the book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: Nebraska (album)

text: Being a highly influential album, the songs of "Nebraska" have been covered numerous times. Notably, country music icon Johnny Cash's 1983 album "Johnny 99" featured versions of two of Springsteen's songs from "Nebraska": "Johnny 99" and "Highway Patrolman". Cash also contributed to a widely praised tribute album, "", which was released on the Sub Pop label in 2000 and produced by Jim Sampas. It featured covers of the "Nebraska" songs recorded in the stripped-down spirit of the original recordings by a wide-ranging group of artists including Hank Williams III, Los Lobos, Dar Williams, Deana Carter, Ani DiFranco, Son Volt, Ben Harper, Aimee Mann, and Michael Penn. Three additional tracks covered other Springsteen songs in the same vein: Johnny Cash's contribution was "I'm on Fire", a track from Springsteen's best-selling album "Born in the U.S.A.".


title: Nebraska (album)

text: Kelly Clarkson compared her effort to move away from mainstream to edgier and more personal music on her third studio album "My December" to Springsteen's "Nebraska".


title: Nebraska (album)

text: The song "Highway Patrolman" would provide the inspiration for the motion picture "The Indian Runner" released in 1991. The film follows the same plot outline as the song, telling the story of a troubled relationship between two brothers; one is a deputy sheriff, the other is a criminal. "The Indian Runner" was written and directed by Sean Penn, and starred David Morse and Viggo Mortensen.


title: Nebraska (album)

text: The short stories in "Deliver Me from Nowhere", a book written by Tennessee Jones published in 2005, were inspired by the themes of "Nebraska." The book takes its title from a line in "Open All Night".


title: Nebraska (album)

text: The Killers frequently cited "Nebraska" as an influence for their 2021 album "Pressure Machine". Brandon Flowers in an interview would describe recording the track "Terrible Thing" on a Tascam microphone as a direct nod to the album's recording process.


title: Trait theory

text: In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional theory) is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of "traits", which can be defined as habitual patterns of behaviour, thought, and emotion. According to this perspective, traits are aspects of personality that are relatively stable over time, differ across individuals (e.g. some people are outgoing whereas others are not), are relatively consistent over situations, and influence behaviour. Traits are in contrast to states, which are more transitory dispositions.


title: Trait theory

text: In some theories and systems, traits are something a person either has or does not have, but in many others traits are dimensions such as extraversion vs. introversion, with each person rating somewhere along this spectrum.


title: Trait theory

text: There are two approaches to define traits: as internal causal properties or as purely descriptive summaries. The internal causal definition states that traits influence our behaviours, leading us to do things in line with that trait. On the other hand, traits as descriptive summaries are descriptions of our actions that don't try to infer causality.


title: Trait theory

text: Gordon Allport was an early pioneer in the study of traits. This early work was viewed as the beginning of the modern psychological study of personality. He also referred to traits within his work as dispositions. In his approach, "cardinal" traits are those that dominate and shape a person's behavior; their ruling passions/obsessions, such as a need for money, fame etc. By contrast, "central" traits such as honesty are characteristics found in some degree in every person - and finally "secondary" traits are those seen only in certain circumstances (such as particular likes or dislikes that a very close friend may know), which are included to provide a complete picture of human complexity.


title: Trait theory

text: Cultures are widely known and accepted as being different in varying degrees. This can make the study of personality difficult as meaning and the expression of traits may be different within cultural groups. Trait theory uses a hierarchy of traits in order to separate culture from the traits; it can be said the culture is ignored in order to focus on the individual traits and how they are connected to the individual. Gordon Allport's trait theory not only served as a foundational approach within personality psychology, but also is continued to be viewed and discussed by other disciplines such as anthropology because of how he approached culture within trait theory.


title: Trait theory

text: Trait theory tends to focus on the individual over the situation in which they are in. This focus has relaxed within modern studies allowing for a consideration of the external factors outside of the self. As the focus becomes more relaxed (but still prominent as it is a main part of the theory) research expands.


title: Trait theory

text: Both the EPQ and Big Five approaches extensively use self-report questionnaires. The factors are intended to be orthogonal (uncorrelated), though there are often small positive correlations between factors. The five factor model in particular has been criticized for losing the orthogonal structure between factors. Hans Eysenck has argued that fewer factors are superior to a larger number of partly related ones. Although these two approaches are comparable because of the use of factor analysis to construct hierarchical taxonomies, they differ in the organization and number of factors.


title: Trait theory

text: Whatever the causes, psychoticism marks the two approaches apart, as the five factor model contains no such trait. Moreover, psychoticism, unlike any of the other factors in either approach, does not fit a normal distribution curve. Indeed, scores are rarely high, thus skewing a normal distribution. However, when they are high, there is considerable overlap with psychiatric conditions such as antisocial and schizoid personality disorders. Similarly, high scorers on neuroticism are more susceptible to sleep and psychosomatic disorders. Five factor approaches can also predict future mental disorders.


title: Trait theory

text: There are two higher-order factors that both taxonomies clearly share: extraversion and neuroticism. Both approaches broadly accept that extraversion is associated with sociability and positive affect, whereas neuroticism is associated with emotional instability and negative affect.


title: Trait theory

text: Many lower-order factors, or facets, are similar between the two taxonomies. For instance, both approaches contain factors for sociability/gregariousness, for activity levels, and for assertiveness within the higher order factor extraversion. However, there are differences too. First, the three-factor approach contains nine lower-order factors and the five-factor approach has six.


title: Trait theory

text: Eysenck's psychoticism factor incorporates some of the polar opposites of the lower order factors of openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. A high scorer on tough-mindedness in psychoticism would score low on tender-mindedness in agreeableness. Most of the differences between the taxonomies stem from the three factor model's emphasis on fewer high-order factors.


title: Trait theory

text: Although both major trait models are descriptive, only the three-factor model offers a detailed causal explanation. Eysenck suggests that different personality traits are caused by the properties of the brain, which themselves are the result of genetic factors. In particular, the three-factor model identifies the reticular system and the limbic system in the brain as key components that mediate cortical arousal and emotional responses respectively. Eysenck advocates that extraverts have low levels of cortical arousal and introverts have high levels, leading extraverts to seek out more stimulation from socializing and being venturesome. Moreover, Eysenck surmised that there would be an optimal level of arousal, after which inhibition would occur and that this would be different for each person.


title: Trait theory

text: In a similar vein, the three-factor approach theorizes that neuroticism is mediated by levels of arousal in the limbic system and that individual differences arise because of variable activation thresholds between people. Therefore, highly neurotic people when presented with minor stressors, will exceed this threshold, whereas people low in neuroticism will not exceed normal activation levels, even when presented with large stressors. By contrast, proponents of the five-factor approach assume a role of genetics and environment but offer no explicit causal explanation.


title: Trait theory

text: Given this emphasis on biology in the three-factor approach, it would be expected that the third trait, psychoticism, would have a similar explanation. However, the causal properties of this state are not well defined. Eysenck has suggested that psychoticism is related to testosterone levels and is an inverse function of the serotonergic system, but he later revised this, linking it instead to the dopaminergic system.


title: Francesca Gregorini

text: Born in Rome, Gregorini is the daughter of former "Bond girl" Barbara Bach and businessman Augusto Gregorini Savignano di Romagna from Savignano sul Rubicone. Her mother is of Jewish and Irish descent. Gregorini is also the stepdaughter of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, with whom she is close. After boarding at TASIS, she attended Brown University graduating in 1990.


title: Francesca Gregorini

text: Gregorini contributed two songs to the soundtrack of the film "See Jane Run" (2001), in which she also had a small acting role. She worked as a musician with her first CD "Sequel" (2003), where she sings, and plays the guitar and bass.


title: Francesca Gregorini

text: Gregorini sold scripts to both HBO and Paramount Pictures before co-helming, with Princess Tatiana von Fürstenberg, her directorial debut "Tanner Hall", a coming of age story set in an all-girls boarding school in Rhode Island, starring Rooney Mara. Gregorini and von Fürstenberg also co-wrote the independent film, loosely based on their own adolescent experiences. Gregorini said in an interview, "Naturally there are some autobiographical elements, combined with things we'd witness in boarding school, and many other parts that we made up completely. You will certainly find characteristics of both of us in each of the four main girls and if you spend even a half-hour with us, it will be very apparent to you, which girls are most like me and which ones are most like Tatiana." The film was an official selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Francesca Gregorini

text: Gregorini's film "The Truth About Emanuel"starring Jessica Biel, Kaya Scodelario and Alfred Molinawas selected for the US dramatic competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.


title: Francesca Gregorini

text: In summer 2018, "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote that "Killing Eve" creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge hired Gregorini as a director for the show's second series.


title: Francesca Gregorini

text: In January 2020, Francesca Gregorini filed a lawsuit against "Servant" producers including Tony Basgallop and M. Night Shyamalan, the production companies involved, and Apple TV+, alleging copyright infringement for her 2013 drama film, The "Truth About Emanuel". Basgallop and Shyamalan responded that neither had seen her film and that any similarity is coincidence. On May 28, 2020, a federal judge threw out the copyright lawsuit against Shyamalan and Apple, ruling that the TV show is not similar enough to the film to merit a lawsuit. On July 21, 2020, the court ordered Gregorini to pay the defendants' attorneys' fees of $162,467.30.


title: Francesca Gregorini

text: Gregorini was in a relationship with actress Portia de Rossi from 2000 to 2004. Since January 2014, she has been dating producer Morgan Marling, sister of actress Brit Marling.


title: Roger Avary

text: Roger Roberts Avary (born August 23, 1965) is a Canadian-American film and television director, screenwriter, and producer. He collaborated with Quentin Tarantino on "Pulp Fiction", for which they won Best Original Screenplay at the 67th Academy Awards. Avary directed "Killing Zoe", "The Rules of Attraction", "Lucky Day", and wrote the screenplays for "Silent Hill" and "Beowulf".


title: Roger Avary

text: In 2022, Avary reunited with Quentin Tarantino to launch a podcast called The Video Archives Podcast. The first episode premiered on July 19, 2022.


title: Roger Avary

text: Avary & Quentin Tarantino collaborated on the 1994 film "Pulp Fiction" for which they won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. According to Tarantino, Avary originally came up with the plot of the boxer Butch Coolidge and his gold watch from a screenplay named "Pandemonium Reigns" he had written himself.


title: Roger Avary

text: In 2002, Avary directed "The Rules of Attraction", from his adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, which he also executive produced. "The Rules of Attraction" was the first studio film to be edited on Apple's Final Cut Pro editing system. Avary became a spokesperson for Final Cut Pro product, appearing in Apple print and web ads worldwide. In 2005, Avary, at the request of his friend, actor James Van Der Beek, played the part of a peyote-taking gonzo film director Franklin Brauner in the film "Standing Still".


title: Roger Avary

text: In 2006, Avary wrote a screenplay adaptation to the Konami video game, "Silent Hill" (2006), with French director and friend, Christophe Gans, and "Killing Zoe" producer Samuel Hadida. Avary and Gans being long time gamers and fans of the "Silent Hill" series, collaborated on the film.


title: Roger Avary

text: Avary and novelist Neil Gaiman wrote the screenplay for the 2007 film "Beowulf" which was directed by Robert Zemeckis.


title: Roger Avary

text: In 2021, Quentin Tarantino announced that he and Roger Avary would launch a podcast titled, 'The Video Archives Podcast'. The point of the podcast is to discuss films from the actual Video Archives collection that they would recommend to customers when they worked there. The set is surrounded by actual VHS copies of films from Video Archives that Tarantino bought after the store went out of business. They are joined by podcast announcer, Gala Avary, Roger Avary's daughter. The first episode premiered on July 19, 2022. The duo discussed John Carpenter's Dark Star and Cocaine Cowboys.


title: Roger Avary

text: On January 13, 2008, Avary was arrested under suspicion of manslaughter and DUI, following a car crash in Ojai, California, where a passenger, Andrea Zini, was killed. The Ventura County Sheriff's department responded to the crash after midnight Sunday morning on the 1900 block of East Ojai Avenue. Avary was released from jail on $50,000 bail. In December 2008, he was charged with, and pleaded not guilty to, gross vehicular manslaughter and two felony counts of causing bodily injury while intoxicated. On September 29, 2009, he was sentenced to one year in work furlough (allowing him to go to his job during the day and then report back to the furlough facility at night) and five years of probation. However, after making several tweets about the conditions of his stay on Twitter, Avary was sent to Ventura County Jail to serve out the remainder of his term.


title: Roger Avary

text: In a 2012 interview with IndieWire, Avary said, regarding the crash and incarceration, "Incarceration didn't change me," and after a long pause, "In many, many ways, incarceration galvanized me. The totality of the experience helped me." He went on to say, "I spend every waking moment thinking about how I can live my life in such a way to honor this terrible loss that occurred."


title: Roger Avary

text: In 2019, Avary said about the crash, "When something like that happens and an atom bomb sort of goes off in your life, it either blows you into pieces—if you allow it to—or you use the force of the blast to propel you forward."


title: Ink Master (season 13)

text: Ink Master: Turf War is the thirteenth season of the tattoo reality competition "Ink Master" that premiered on Paramount Network on January 7 and ended on April 14, 2020 with a total of fifteen episodes. The show is hosted and judged by Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, with accomplished tattoo artists Chris Núñez and Oliver Peck serving as series regular judges. The winner was to receive $100,000, a feature in "Inked" magazine and the title of Ink Master. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, the live finale was cancelled and no winner was announced for this season.


title: Ink Master (season 13)

text: The premise of this season was having four teams based on their respective home region with each region being led by an "Ink Master" veteran.


title: Ink Master (season 13)

text: This season saw the return of four veterans; season ten contestants Jason Elliott and Frank Ready, who originally finished the competition in 4th and 8th place respectively, and season eleven contestants Angel Rose and Jimmy Snaz, who originally finished the competition in 11th and 10th place respectively.


title: Ink Master (season 13)

text: There was no winner for the thirteenth season of "Ink Master", due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The three finalists (Bob Jones, Angel Rose and Jimmy Snaz) were awarded an undisclosed value monetary prize instead. The master canvases were revealed on YouTube Live.


title: Ink Master (season 13)

text: The judging panel is a table of three or more primary judges in addition to the coaches. The judges make their final decision by voting to see who had best tattoo of the day, and who goes home.


title: Ink Master (season 13)

text: The artist who wins best tattoo of the day gives his/her respective team and another team the power to put up one artist for elimination.


title: Ink Master (season 13)

text: Each of the three judges can give a pardon to any eliminated artist of their choosing so that they may return to the competition after being eliminated.


title: Peak District

text: The Peak District is an upland area in England at the southern end of the Pennines. Mostly in Derbyshire, it extends into Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Staffordshire, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire. It includes the Dark Peak, where moorland is found and the geology is dominated by gritstone, and the White Peak, a limestone area with valleys and gorges. The Dark Peak forms an arc on the north, east and west sides; the White Peak covers central and southern tracts. The historic Peak District extends beyond the National Park, which excludes major towns, quarries and industrial areas. It became the first of the national parks of England and Wales in 1951. Nearby Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Derby and Sheffield send millions of visitors – some 20 million live within an hour's ride. Inhabited from the Mesolithic era, it shows evidence of the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. Settled by the Romans and Anglo-Saxons, it remained largely agricultural; mining arose in the Middle Ages. Richard Arkwright built cotton mills in the Industrial Revolution. As mining declined, quarrying grew. Tourism came with the railways, spurred by the landscape, spa towns and Castleton's show caves.


title: Peak District

text: The Peak District forms the southern extremity of the Pennines. Much of it is upland above , its highest point being Kinder Scout at . Despite its name, the landscape has fewer sharp peaks than rounded hills, plateaux, valleys, limestone gorges and gritstone escarpments (the "edges"). The mostly rural area is surrounded by conurbations and large urban areas, including Manchester, Huddersfield, Sheffield, Derby and Stoke-on-Trent.


title: Peak District

text: The national park has formal boundaries. It covers most of the Dark Peak and White Peak, but the wider Peak District is less well defined. The Dark Peak is largely uninhabited moorland and gritstone escarpments in the northern Peak District and its eastern and western margins. It encloses the central and southern White Peak, which is where most settlements, farmland and limestone gorges are found. Three of Natural England's National Character Areas (NCAs) cover parts of it. The Dark Peak NCA includes the northern and eastern parts of the Dark Peak and the White Peak NCA most of the White Peak. The western margins of the Dark Peak are in the South West Peak NCA, where farmland and pastured valleys are found with gritstone edges and moorland. Outside the park, the wider Peak District often includes the area approximately between Disley and Sterndale Moor, encompassing Buxton and the Peak Dale corridor. It may also include some of the outer fringes and foothills, such as the Churnet and lower Derwent Valleys. The region is mostly surrounded by lowlands with gritstone moorlands of the South Pennines to the north, separated approximately by the Tame Valley, Standedge and Holme Valley.


title: Peak District

text: The national park covers , including most of the region in Derbyshire and extends into Staffordshire, Cheshire, Greater Manchester and South and West Yorkshire. Its northern limits are on the A62 road between Huddersfield and Oldham; its southernmost point is on the A52 road near Ashbourne. The boundaries were drawn to exclude built-up and industrial areas; in particular Buxton and the quarries at the end of the Peak Dale corridor are surrounded on three sides by the park. Bakewell and many villages are in the national park, as is much of the rural west of Sheffield. In 2010 it became the fifth largest national park in England and Wales. In the UK, designation as a national park means that planning and other functions are provided by a national park authority, with additional restrictions that enhance protection from inappropriate development. Land within this national park as in others is in a mix of public and private ownership.


title: Peak District

text: The National Trust, a charity that conserves historic and natural landscapes, owns about 12 per cent of the land in the national park. Its three estates (High Peak, White Peak and Longshaw) include ecologically or geologically significant areas at Bleaklow, Derwent Edge, Hope Woodlands, Kinder Scout, the Manifold valley, Mam Tor, Dovedale, Milldale and Winnats Pass. The park authority owns around 5 per cent; other major landowners include several water companies.


title: Peak District

text: Bakewell is the largest settlement and only town in the national park and the site of the National Park Authority offices. Its five-arched bridge over the River Wye dates from the 13th century. Castleton is the centre of production of a semi-precious mineral, Blue John. Eyam village is known for a self-imposed quarantine during the Black Death. Edale is the southern end of the Pennine Way, a 268-mile national trail which traverses most of the Pennines and ends at Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish border. The park also contains the highest recognised village in the United Kingdom, Flash, at . Other villages in the park include Hathersage, Hartington, Ilam and Tideswell.


title: Peak District

text: The towns of Glossop, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Buxton, Macclesfield, Leek, Ashbourne, Matlock and Chesterfield are on the national park's fringes. The spa town of Buxton was built up by the Dukes of Devonshire as a genteel health resort in the 18th century while the spa at Matlock Bath, in the River Derwent valley, was popularised in Victorian times. Hayfield is at the foot of Kinder Scout, the area's highest summit. Other towns and villages fringing the park include Whaley Bridge, Hadfield, Tintwistle, Darley Dale and Wirksworth in Derbyshire, Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire and Marsden and Holmfirth in West Yorkshire.


title: Peak District

text: Several rivers have sources on the moorland plateaux of the Dark Peak and the high ridges of the White Peak. Many rivers in the Dark Peak and outer fringes were dammed to create reservoirs for supplying drinking water. Streams were dammed to provide headwater for water driven mills; weirs were built for the same purpose. The reservoirs of the Longdendale Chain were completed in February 1877 to provide compensation water, ensuring a continuous flow in the River Etherow, which was essential for local industry and provided drinking water for Manchester. In a report for the Manchester Corporation, John Frederick Bateman wrote in 1846:


title: Peak District

text: The western Peak District is drained by the Etherow, the Goyt and the Tame, all tributaries of the River Mersey. The north-east is drained by tributaries of the River Don. Of the tributaries of the River Trent draining south and east, the River Derwent is the most prominent. It rises on Bleaklow just east of Glossop and flows through the Upper Derwent Valley, where it is constrained by the Howden, Derwent and Ladybower reservoirs. The reservoirs of the Upper Derwent Valley were built from the early to mid-20th century to supply drinking water to the East Midlands and South Yorkshire.


title: Peak District

text: The rivers Noe and the Wye are tributaries. The River Manifold and River Dove in the south-west, whose sources are on Axe Edge Moor, flow into the Trent. The River Dane flows into the River Weaver in Cheshire.


title: Peak District

text: There are no canals in the national park, although the Standedge Tunnels on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal run underneath the extreme north of it. Outside the park, waters from the Dark Peak feed the Macclesfield, Ashton, and Huddersfield Narrow Canals and waters from the White Peak fed the Cromford Canal. The Peak Forest Canal brought lime from the quarries at Dove Holes for the construction industry. It terminated at Bugsworth Basin and the journey was completed using the Peak Forest Tramway.


title: Peak District

text: The Cromford Canal, from Cromford to the Erewash Canal, served lead mines at Wirksworth and Sir Richard Arkwright's cotton mills. The Caldon Canal from Froghall was built to transport limestone from quarries at Cauldon Low for the iron industry and flints for the pottery industry.


title: Peak District

text: Most of the area is over above sea level, in the centre of the country at a latitude of 53°N, bringing relatively high annual rainfall averaging in 1999. The Dark Peak tends to receive more rainfall than the White Peak, as it is higher. The higher rainfall does not affect the temperature, which averages the same as the rest of England and Wales at .


title: Peak District

text: In the 1970s, the Dark Peak regularly had more than 70 days of snowfall. Since then the number has fallen. The hills still see long periods of continuous snow cover in some winters. Snow in mid-December 2009 on some hill summits created some snow patches that lasted until May 2010. In the same winter, the A635 (Saddleworth Moor) and A57 (Snake Pass) were closed due to snow for almost a month. Frost cover is seen for 20–30 per cent of the winter on moorland in the Dark Peak and 10 per cent in the White Peak.


title: Peak District

text: The Moorland Indicators of Climate Change Initiative was set up in 2008 to collect data in the area. Students investigated the interaction between people and the moorlands and their effect on climate change, to discover whether the moorlands are a net carbon sink or source, based on the fact that Britain's upland areas contain a major global carbon store in the form of peat. Human interaction in terms of direct erosion and fire, with the effects of global warming, are the main variables they considered.


title: Peak District

text: The Peak District is formed almost wholly of sedimentary rocks of the Carboniferous period. They make up the carboniferous limestone overlying gritstone, and the coal measures that occur only on the margins and infrequent outcrops of igneous rocks, including lavas, tuffs and volcanic vent agglomerates. The general geological structure is that of a broad dome, whose western margins have been intensely faulted and folded. Uplift and erosion have sliced the top off the Derbyshire Dome to reveal a concentric outcrop pattern with coal-measured rocks on the eastern and western margins, carboniferous limestone at the core and rocks of millstone grit between them. The southern edge of the Derbyshire dome is overlain by sandstones of Triassic age, though they barely impinge on the National Park. The White Peak forms a central and southern section with carboniferous limestone found at or near the surface. The Dark Peak to the north, east and west is marked by millstone grit outcrops and broad swathes of moorland.


title: Peak District

text: Earth movements after the Carboniferous period resulted in the up-doming of the area and, particularly in the west, the folding of the rock strata along north–south axes. The region was raised in a north–south line which resulted in the dome-like shape and the shales and sandstones were worn away until limestone was exposed. At the end of this period, the Earth's crust sank here which led to the area being covered by sea, depositing a variety of new rocks. Some time after its deposition, mineral veins were formed in the limestone. The veins and rakes have been mined for lead since Roman times.


title: Peak District

text: The Peak District was iced over in at least one of the ice ages of the last two million years, probably the Anglian glaciation of some 450,000 years ago, as shown by patches of glacial till or boulder clay found across the area. It was not iced over in the last glacial period, which peaked about 20,000–22,000 years ago. A mix of Irish Sea and Lake District ice abutted its western margins. Glacial meltwaters eroded a complex of sinuous channels along this margin of the district. Glacial meltwaters contributed to the formation and development of many caves in the limestone area. Remains of wild animal herds roaming the area have been found in several caves.


title: Peak District

text: Various rock-types beneath the soil strongly influence the landscape; they determine the type of vegetation and ultimately the type of animal inhabiting the area. Limestone has fissures and is soluble in water, so that rivers could carve deep, narrow valleys. These often find routes underground, creating cave systems. Millstone grit is insoluble but porous, absorbing water that seeps through the grits, until it meets the less porous shales beneath, creating springs where it reaches the surface. The shales are friable and easily attacked by frost, forming areas vulnerable to landslides, as on Mam Tor.


title: Peak District

text: The gritstone and shale of the Dark Peak supports heather moorland and blanket bog, with rough sheep pasture and grouse shooting as the main land uses, though parts are also farmed, especially the South West Peak NCA. The limestone plateaus of the White Peak are more intensively farmed, with mainly dairy usage of improved pastures. Woodland forms some 8 per cent of the Peak National Park. Natural broad-leaved woodland appears in the steep dales of the White Peak and cloughs of the Dark Peak. Reservoir margins often have coniferous plantations.


title: Peak District

text: White Peak habitats include calcareous grassland, ash woodlands and rock outcrops for lime-loving species. They include early purple orchid ("Orchis mascula"), dark-red helleborine ("Epipactis atrorubens") and fly orchid ("Ophrys insectifera"), common rockrose ("Helianthemum nummularium"), spring cinquefoil ("Helianthemum nummularium") and grass of parnassus ("Parnassia palustris"). Lead rakes, the spoil heaps of ancient mining activity, form another distinctive White Peak habitat, supporting a range of rare metallophyte plants, including spring sandwort ("Minuartia verna"; also known as leadwort), alpine pennycress ("Thlaspi caerulescens") and mountain pansy ("Viola lutea").


title: Peak District

text: Two endemic vascular plants are found nowhere else in the world: Derby hawkweed ("Hieracium naviense"), found only in Winnats Pass, is a native perennial of limestone cliffs discovered by J. N. Mills in 1966 and described as a new species in 1968; and leek-coloured hawkweed ("H. subprasinifolium"), which was believed extinct until rediscovered on banks beside the Monsal Trail in Chee Dale in 2017. The endemic Derbyshire feather moss ("Thamnobryum angustifolium") occurs in one Derbyshire limestone dale, its sole world location intentionally kept confidential; the colony covers about of a rock face with small subsidiary colonies nearby.


title: Peak District

text: Jacob's-ladder ("Polemonium caeruleum"), a rarish species characteristic of limestone dales in the White Peak, has been Derbyshire's county flower since 2002. It grows on grassland, light woodland, screes and rock ledges, and by streams in Lathkill, Wolfscote, Taddington, Wye Dale and other dales. Pollen evidence from peat bogs shows it was widespread throughout Britain just after the last ice age. Much planted in gardens from where it has established itself in other parts of the area, as a native it is restricted to the White Peak and the Yorkshire Dales.


title: Peak District

text: The Dark Peak heathlands, bogs, gritstone edges and acid grasslands contain relatively few species; heather ("Calluna vulgaris"), crowberry ("Empetrum nigrum"), bilberry ("Vaccinium myrtillus") and hare's-tail cotton grass ("Eriophorum vaginatum") dominate the high moors. After decades of decline due to pollution, "Sphagnum" mosses are returning, with species such as "S. cuspidatum" particularly dominant.


title: Peak District

text: Most Peak District mammals are generalists and widespread across the UK, but the mountain hares on heather moorland in the Dark Peak form the only wild population in England. They were reintroduced in the Victorian era for sporting purposes. A feral population of red-necked wallabies lived around The Roaches from the 1940s onwards, but may now be extinct. Red deer herds, assumed to be derived from animals escaped from deer parks at Lyme Park and Chatsworth, are established in the upper reaches of the Goyt valley and on the moors above Baslow, and a herd on Wharncliffe Crags outside the national park north of Sheffield may derive from hunting stock of Wharncliffe Chase. Biodiversity action plans have been prepared for mountain hare, brown hare, brown long-eared bat, dormouse, harvest mouse, hedgehog, noctule bat, otter, pine marten, polecat, soprano pipistrelle and water vole. The status of the pine marten is unclear, though confirmed sightings have occurred in recent decades in Derbyshire and north Staffordshire and a specimen from an introduced Welsh population was found dead outside the national park on a road between Ripley and Belper in 2018.


title: Peak District

text: As with mammals, many Peak bird species are widespread generalists. The Dark Peak moors still support breeding populations of several upland specialists, such as twite, short-eared owl, golden plover, dunlin, ring ouzel, northern wheatear and merlin. The populations of twite and golden plover are the southernmost confirmed breeding populations in England, and the Peak District Moors Special Protection Area (SPA) is a European designation for its populations of merlin, golden plover and short-eared owl. The Peak District lacks the concentrations of breeding waders found further north in the Pennines, though the moors and their fringes accommodate breeding curlew and lapwing, and less noticeable wading birds such as dunlin and snipe.


title: Peak District

text: Commercial driven grouse shooting occurs on the heather moorlands of the Dark Peak, where the red grouse population is maintained by gamekeepers employed by shooting estates. A population of black grouse became extinct in 2000, but reintroduction was attempted in 2003. Quarries and rock outcrops provide nest sites for peregrine falcon and common raven. Ravens and common buzzards are increasingly found as their British range expands eastwards, perhaps because of general reductions in persecution. Illegal persecution has limited populations of rare raptors such as northern goshawk, peregrine and hen harrier. Following the RSPB's publication of "Peak Malpractice", a 2006 report highlighting wildlife crime, the Peak District Bird of Prey Initiative was set up in 2011 by conservationists and shooting bodies to try to boost populations of birds of prey. The park authorities expressed disappointment at the limited results and the RSPB withdrew from the partnership in January 2018 citing continued efforts by the Moorland Association and National Gamekeepers’ Organisation which together had "frustrated any possibility of progress" on the issue.


title: Peak District

text: Fast-flowing rivers attract specialists such as grey wagtail, dipper, common sandpiper, mandarin duck and goosander. Wooded and semi-wooded areas attract redstart, pied flycatcher, wood warbler and tree pipit, and coniferous plantations house siskin and common crossbill. Upland reservoirs in the Dark Peak are generally oligotrophic and attract few birds, but lower-lying reservoirs on the southern fringes such as Carsington Water and Ogston Reservoir regularly attract rare migrants and wintering rarities such as various waders, wildfowl, gulls and terns. The area is regularly overflown by wintering populations of pink-footed geese moving between East Anglia and Morecambe Bay.


title: Peak District

text: Dipper, golden plover, hen harrier, merlin and short-eared owl are local biodiversity action plan priority species.


title: Peak District

text: Fossil records show that the Peak District was once inhabited by an eclectic mix of species, many of them no longer found in Britain, such as alpine swift, demoiselle crane and long-legged buzzard. Species lost from the Peak District through human activity include hazel grouse, capercaillie and golden eagle.


title: Peak District

text: Amphibians and reptiles such as common lizards, grass snakes, great crested newts and slow worms are found in the district. The eastern moors are a stronghold for adders.


title: Peak District

text: Native fish in the Peak District include Atlantic salmon, brown trout, European eel, bullhead, brook lamprey and grayling. A possibly unique population of "wild" rainbow trout survives on the Derbyshire Wye, following their introduction at the turn of the 20th century.


title: Peak District

text: Butterflies in the region include the dingy skipper, brown argus, small blue and white-letter hairstreak. Moths include the anomalous, broom moth, dot moth, garden dart, mouse moth and white ermine. Other invertebrates include the bilberry bumblebee, broad groove-head spider, mole cricket, northern yellow splinter, shining guest ant, violet oil beetle and white-clawed crayfish.


title: Peak District

text: The Peak has been inhabited from the earliest periods of human activity, as shown by finds of Mesolithic flint artefacts and palaeo-environmental evidence from caves in Dovedale and elsewhere. Signs of Neolithic activity include monumental earthworks or barrows such as the one at Margery Hill.


title: Peak District

text: The Bronze Age saw the area well populated and farmed. Evidence remains in henges such as Arbor Low near Youlgreave and the Nine Ladies stone circle at Stanton Moor. In the same period and into the Iron Age, hill forts such as Mam Tor's were created. The Romans drew on the area's rich mineral veins, exporting lead from the Buxton area along well-used routes. Buxton was a Roman settlement known as "Aquae Arnemetiae" for its spring.


title: Peak District

text: Theories on how the name Peak derived cite the Pecsaetan or peaklanders, an Anglo-Saxon tribe inhabiting the central and northern parts of the area from the 6th century CE, when it belonged to the Anglian kingdom of Mercia. Barrows from the Anglo-Saxon period are present, including Benty Grange, where the eponymous helmet was found.


title: Peak District

text: In medieval and early modern times the area was mainly agricultural, with sheep farming, rather than arable the main activity in upland holdings. From the 16th century, the mineral and geological wealth became increasingly significant. Not only lead, but coal, fluorite, copper from Ecton Mines, zinc, iron, manganese and silver have been mined. Celia Fiennes, describing a journey through the Peak in 1697, wrote of:


title: Peak District

text: Coal measures occur on the Peak's western and eastern fringes. Evidence of past workings can be found from Glossop to The Roaches, and from Stocksbridge to Baslow. The coal measures in the east are at the western edge of the South Yorkshire Coalfield. Those in the west are part of the Cheshire section of the Lancashire Coalfield. Mining started in medieval times, was at its most productive in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and continued into the early 20th century. The earliest mining took place around outcrops, where miners followed the seams deeper into the hillsides. At Goyt's Moss and Axe Edge, deep seams were worked and steam engines raised the coal and dewatered the mines. Coal from the east was used in lead smelting and from the west for lime burning.


title: Peak District

text: Lead mining peaked in the 17th and 18th centuries; high concentrations were found in the area from this period, along with peat on Kinder Scout, suggesting that lead smelting occurred. Lead mining declined from the mid-19th century – the last major mine closed in 1939. Lead is a by-product of fluorite, baryte and calcite mining. Bell pits were sunk to access ore that lay close to the surface.


title: Peak District

text: Fluorite or fluorspar is called Blue John locally, its name possibly from the French "bleu et jaune" describing its colour. Blue John is scarce and now only a few hundred kilograms are mined each year for ornamental and lapidary use. The Blue John Cavern in Castleton is a show cave. Small-scale mining takes place in Treak Cliff Cavern.


title: Peak District

text: Industrial limestone quarrying to make soda ash started around Buxton in 1874. In 1926 the operation of the Buxton lime industry became part of ICI. Large-scale limestone and gritstone quarrying flourished as lead mining declined, and is an important if contentious industry. Of the twelve large limestone quarries in operation, Tunstead is one of the largest in Europe. Total limestone output was substantial: at the 1990 peak, 8.5 million tonnes was produced.


title: Peak District

text: Textiles have been exported for hundreds of years. In the 14th century, the area traded in unprocessed wool. There were several skilled hand spinners and weavers in the area. By the 1780s, Richard Arkwright had developed machinery to produce textiles faster and to a higher standard. The early Arkwright mills were of light construction, narrow, about wide and low, the ceiling height being only and lit by daylight. The new machines were powered by water wheels. The Peak was the ideal location, with its rivers and humid atmosphere. The local pool of labour was quickly exhausted and Litton Mill and Cressbrook Mill in Millers Dale brought in children as young as four from the workhouses of London as apprentices.


title: Peak District

text: As technology advanced, narrow valleys proved unsuited to larger steam-driven mills, but Derbyshire mills remained to trade in finishing and niche products. Glossop benefited from the textile industry. Its economy was tied to a spinning and weaving tradition that evolved from developments in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution. Until the First World War, Glossop was the headquarters of the largest textile printworks in the world, but after the Wall Street crash its product lines became vulnerable and the industry declined.


title: Peak District

text: The Kinder Trespass in 1932 was a landmark in the campaign for open access to moorland in Britain and eventually led to the formation of Britain's national parks. Before the trespass, open moorland was closed to all. Moorland estates were the private property of landed gentry who used them for only 12 days a year and were guarded by their gamekeepers. The Peak District National Park became the United Kingdom's first national park on 17 April 1951. Campaigner Ethel Haythornthwaite played an important part in the development of the national park. The first long-distance footpath in the United Kingdom was the Pennine Way, which opened in 1965 and starts at the Nags Head Inn, in Grindsbook Booth, part of Edale village.


title: Peak District

text: The Peak & Northern Footpaths Society (PNFS) was formed in 1894 to monitor, protect, and improve the footpath network of the Peak District and surrounding areas. The organisation is the oldest existing regional footpath society in the UK.


title: Peak District

text: Saddleworth Moor and Wessenden, above Meltham, gained notoriety after the Moors murders in the 1960s.


title: Peak District

text: Tourism is thought to provide 500 full-time, 350 part-time and 100 seasonal jobs. It is a major source of employment for park residents (24%). Manufacturing (19%), quarrying (12%) and agriculture (12%) are also important. The cement works at Hope is the largest single employer in the park. Limestone is the most important mineral quarried, mainly for roads and cement; shale is extracted for cement at Hope, and several gritstone quarries are worked for building stone. Lead mining is no longer economic, but fluorite, baryte and calcite are extracted from lead veins and small-scale Blue John mining occurs at Castleton.


title: Peak District

text: The springs at Buxton and Ashbourne are exploited for bottled mineral water and many plantations are managed for timber. Other manufacturing includes David Mellor's cutlery factory in Hathersage, Ferodo brake linings in Chapel-en-le-Frith and electronic equipment in Castleton. Of some 2,700 farms in the national park, most covering less than , 60 per cent are run on a part-time basis by a farmer with a second job.


title: Peak District

text: "De Mirabilibus Pecci" or "The Seven Wonders of the Peak" by Thomas Hobbes was an early touring description published in 1636. Much scorn was poured on the seven wonders by visitors, including Daniel Defoe, who called the moors by Chatsworth "a waste and houling wilderness" and scorned particularly Peak Cavern near Castleton, known as the "Devil's Arse". Visitor numbers did not rise until the Victorian era, when railways provided access and cultural appreciation of the Picturesque and Romantic developed. John Mawe's "Mineralogy of Derbyshire" (1802) and William Adam's "Gem of the Peak" (1843) raised interest in the area's unique geology.


title: Peak District

text: A tradition of public access and outdoor recreation grew up in what is a natural hinterland and rural escape for the people of industrial Manchester and Sheffield, and remains a valuable resource in a largely post-industrial economy. In a 2005 survey of visitors, 85 per cent of respondents cited "scenery and landscape" as a draw.


title: Peak District

text: Buxton became a spa through its geothermal spring, which rises at a constant temperature of 28 °C. It was settled by the Romans around 78 CE, then known as Aquae Arnemetiae – the spa of the goddess of the grove. Bess of Hardwick and her husband the Earl of Shrewsbury "took the waters" in 1569, bringing Mary, Queen of Scots there in 1573. The town largely grew in importance in the late 18th century when it was developed by the 5th Duke of Devonshire in style of the spa of Bath.


title: Peak District

text: A resurgence in the 18th century attracted Dr Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, who were drawn by the reputed healing properties of the waters. The railway reached Buxton in 1863.


title: Peak District

text: Buxton's notable buildings are The Crescent (1780–1784), modelled by John Carr on Bath's Royal Crescent, the Devonshire (1780–1789), the Natural Baths, and the Pump Room by Henry Currey. The Pavilion Gardens opened in 1871. Buxton Opera House was designed by Frank Matcham in 1903.


title: Peak District

text: Historic buildings in the park include Chatsworth House, seat of the Dukes of Devonshire and among Britain's finest stately homes; the medieval Haddon Hall, seat of the Dukes of Rutland; and Lyme Park, an Elizabethan manor house transformed by an Italianate front. Other historic buildings in the park include Eyam Hall, Ilam Hall and Tissington Hall. Many villages and towns have fine parish churches, including the 14th-century Church of St John the Baptist at Tideswell, sometimes dubbed the "Cathedral of the Peak", and the 12th-century Church of St Nicholas at High Bradfield. 'Little John's Grave' is in the churchyard at Hathersage. Peveril Castle, overlooking Castleton, was built by the Normans.


title: Peak District

text: Inside the park, Eyam Museum has displays on the village's history during the Black Death. Castleton has four show caves; Peak Cavern, Blue John, Treak Cliff and Speedwell. In the outer fringes, the area's industrial heritage is represented by the mining museum at Matlock Bath, with the Temple Lead Mine, the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site and Brindley Water Mill at Leek. Preserved railways such as the Peak Rail, Ecclesbourne Valley and Churnet Valley lines, the National Tramway Museum at Crich and the Cromford Canal chart the area's transport history. Matlock Bath also has the show caves and mines of the Heights of Abraham, which can be reached by cable car, and the Gulliver's Kingdom theme park. Buxton has an opera house and theatre, museum and art gallery and Poole's Cavern show cave. Other attractions in the fringes include the Alton Towers theme park and the Peak Wildlife Park.


title: Peak District

text: Well dressing ceremonies are held in many villages in the spring and summer months, a tradition said to date from pagan times. Other local customs include Castleton Garland Day and Ashbourne's Royal Shrovetide Football, played annually since the 12th century. Buxton hosts two opera festivals, the Buxton Festival and the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, and the Buxton Festival Fringe, and the Peak Literary Festival is held at various locations twice a year. Peak District food specialities include the dessert Bakewell pudding, very different from the nationally available Bakewell tart, and the famous cheese Stilton and other local cheeses are produced in the village of Hartington.


title: Peak District

text: An extensive network of public footpaths and long-distance trails of over in total and large open-access areas are available for hillwalking and hiking. The Pennine Way traverses the Dark Peak from Edale to the park's northern boundary just south of Standedge. Bridleways are used by mountain bikers, as well as horse riders. The Tissington Trail and High Peak Trail, which reuse former railway lines, are well used by walkers, horse riders and cyclists. The Peak District Boundary Walk is a circular walking trail around the national park.


title: Peak District

text: Several old rail routes were converted into multi-purpose cycle trails. After the Woodhead Line closed between Hadfield and Penistone, some of the trackbed was used for the Longdendale Trail section of the Trans Pennine Trail between Hadfield and Woodhead. The Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway between Rowsley and Buxton contributed to the Monsal Trail. The trackbed of the Cromford and High Peak Railway is open as the High Peak Trail. The Tissington Trail uses another disused rail line between Buxton and Ashbourne, while the Manifold Way follows the old line of the Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway between Waterhouses and Hulme End.


title: Peak District

text: Local authorities run cycle hire centres at Ashbourne, Parsley Hay, Middleton Top, the Upper Derwent Valley and Hulme End. Wheelchair access is possible at several places on the ex-railway trails, and cycle hire centres offer vehicles adapted to wheelchair users. A project to make footpaths more accessible to less-agile walkers has replaced stiles with gates.


title: Peak District

text: Gritstone outcrops at Stanage Edge and The Roaches, are recognised as some of the finest rock climbing sites in the world. Limestone is more unstable but provides many testing climbs. Thor's Cave was explored in the early 1950s by Joe Brown and others. Eleven limestone routes there are listed by the BMC, ranging in grade from Very Severe to E7, and several more have been claimed since the guidebook's publication; a few routes are bolted.


title: Peak District

text: Caving takes place in the natural caves, potholes and old mine workings found in the limestone of the White Peak. Peak Cavern, the largest and most important cave system, is even linked to the Speedwell system at Winnats. The largest potholes are Eldon Hole and Nettle Pot. Many old mine workings were often extensions of natural cave systems. They can be found at Castleton, Winnats, Matlock, Stoney Middleton, Eyam, Monyash and Buxton.


title: Peak District

text: Reservoirs such as Torside Reservoir, Damflask Reservoir, Carsington Water and Rudyard Lake are centres for water sports, including sailing, fishing and canoeing. Other activities include air sports such as hang gliding and paragliding, birdwatching, fell running, off-roading, and orienteering.


title: Peak District

text: The first roads constructed by the Romans may have followed existing tracks. The Roman network linked the settlements and forts of Aquae Arnemetiae (Buxton), Chesterfield, Ardotalia (Glossop), Navio (Brough and Shatton) and beyond. Parts of the modern A515 and A53 roads, south of Buxton, are believed to follow the routes of Roman roads.


title: Peak District

text: Packhorse routes crossed the Peak in the Middle Ages and some paved causeways, such as the Long Causeway along Stanage Edge, date from that period. No highways appear on Christopher Saxton's 1579 map of Derbyshire. Bridge-building improved the transport network.


title: Peak District

text: Journey times fell with the introduction of turnpike roads from 1731, but the ride from Sheffield to Manchester in 1800 still took 16 hours, prompting Samuel Taylor Coleridge to remark that "a tortoise could outgallop us!" From about 1815, better quality turnpike roads were built. The Snake Pass, part of the A57, was built under the direction of Thomas Telford between 1819 and 1821.


title: Peak District

text: Roads and lanes are often congested and parking is problematic in towns and villages, especially in summer. A congestion charge was proposed in 2005, but was rejected.


title: Peak District

text: Cromford Canal opened in 1794 to carry coal, lead and iron ore to the Erewash Canal. It closed in 1944. The canals and turnpike roads had to compete with the railways after 1825.


title: Peak District

text: The first railway, the Cromford and High Peak Railway from High Peak Junction to Whaley Bridge, was an industrial line. Passenger services followed, including the Woodhead Line (Sheffield to Manchester, via Longdendale) and the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midlands Junction Railway. Several railways succumbed to the Beeching Axe in the 1960s, including passenger services on the Woodhead line. Freight services continued until the line was finally closed in 1981; much of the route has been converted to shared-use paths on the Trans Pennine Trail.


title: Peak District

text: Coach services provide access to Matlock, Bakewell and Buxton from Derby, Nottingham and Manchester through TransPeak and National Express.


title: Peak District

text: Cycle England invested £1.25 million in building and improving cycle routes in the national park for leisure and commuting.


title: Peak District

text: The proximity of the Peak to conurbations and urban areas (some 20 million people live within an hour's drive) poses challenges for the area. The park authority, National Trust and other landowners try to keep the upland landscape accessible for recreation while protecting it from intensive farming, erosion and visitor pressures. Tension exists between the needs of conservation, of 38,000 residents, and of millions who visit.


title: Peak District

text: The uneven distribution of visits creates stresses. Dovedale alone receives about two million visitors a year. Other much visited areas include Bakewell, Castleton and the Hope Valley, Chatsworth, Hartington and the reservoirs of the Upper Derwent Valley. Over 60 per cent of visits occur between May and September, with Sunday the busiest day.


title: Peak District

text: Footpath users in the more popular walking areas have contributed to serious erosion problems, particularly on the fragile peat moorlands. The use of some paths by mountain bikers is believed to have exacerbated the problem. Measures to contain the damage include diversion of the official route of the Pennine Way out of Edale, which now goes via Jacob's Ladder rather than following the Grindsbrook, and surfacing moorland footpaths with expensive natural stone. Some rights of way have been damaged by legal and illegal use by off-road vehicles such as 4×4s and trail bikes. Campaigners have sought to reduce their impact.


title: Peak District

text: Large-scale limestone quarrying is contentious. Most mineral extraction licences were issued by national government for 90 years in the 1950s and remain legally binding. The park authority has a policy of considering applications for new quarries and licence renewal in the park in terms of the local and national need for the mineral and how unique the source is, in conjunction with the effects on traffic, residents and the environment. Some licences have not been renewed; the RMC Aggregates quarry at Eldon Hill closed in 1999 and was landscaped. Proposals from Stancliffe Stone Ltd to reopen dormant gritstone quarries at Stanton Moor in 1999 became a test case, contested by ecological protesters and residents on the grounds that this would threaten Bronze Age remains at the Nine Ladies Stone Circle and damage the natural landscape. In 2007, negotiations took place to relocate the development to Dale View quarry in a less sensitive area.


title: Peak District

text: From the 1990s onwards there has been an intensification in management of the upland moors for driven grouse shooting. This has involved an increase in the use of rotational burning and predator control. Both practices can be controversial and have led to calls for greater controls over the activities of moorland owners. The Birds of Prey Initiative has worked to link conservation groups with landowners, to improve the prospects for predatory birds in the Peak District. This has led to improvement in the numbers of breeding birds of prey, but overall numbers remain low. The RSPB withdrew support for the scheme in 2018, citing the continued and illegal persecution of raptors by commercial grouse shooting estates, represented within the Initiative by the Moorland Association and National Gamekeepers' Organisation.


title: Peak District

text: The grasslands of the White Peak plateau have been improved for intensive farm and food production. The result has been that most of this grassland is of little value to nature conservation, often with only one grass species present. The best areas that remain are the steep sides of limestone valleys. These have international importance, but are fragmented, which makes them vulnerable to loss. Biodiversity within Britain's national parks has generally fared no better than that in the wider countryside, with similar rates of decline in species numbers. One reason may be that their powers are directed primarily at preventing intrusive development to protect the aesthetic and historic appearance of the park, rather than at land management.


title: Peak District

text: The upland moors of the south Pennines suffered some of the worst ecological degradation of any extensive habitat in the UK. This is due mainly to a history of industrial pollution from neighbouring towns during the industrial revolution, worsened by wild fires and erosion. Work to restore this habitat got underway in the 21st century. While progress has been made, there is more to do to make it a sustainable, functioning ecosystem. The significance of the habitat degradation is compounded by its being a source of atmospheric carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change through global warming.


title: Peak District

text: The landscapes of the Peak have inspired writers for centuries. Various places have been identified by Ralph Elliott and others as locations in the 14th-century poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"; Lud's Church is thought to be the Green Chapel.


title: Peak District

text: Key scenes in Jane Austen's 1813 novel "Pride and Prejudice" are set in the Peak. "Peveril of the Peak" (1823) by Sir Walter Scott is a historical novel set at Peveril Castle, Castleton, in the reign of Charles II. William Wordsworth was a frequent visitor to Matlock; the Peak inspired several of his poems, including an 1830 sonnet to Chatsworth House. The village of Morton in Charlotte Brontë's 1847 novel "Jane Eyre" is based on Hathersage, where Brontë stayed in 1845; Thornfield Hall may have been inspired by nearby North Lees Hall. Snowfield in George Eliot's novel "Adam Bede" (1859) is thought to be based on Wirksworth, where her uncle managed a mill; Ellastone (as Hayslope) and Ashbourne (as Oakbourne) also feature.


title: Peak District

text: Beatrix Potter, author of Peter Rabbit, visited her uncle Edmund Potter at his printworks in Dinting Vale. She copied cloth samples from his pattern book for her characters. Mrs Tiggywinkle's shawl, in The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, is based on pattern number 222714.


title: Peak District

text: Children's author Alison Uttley (1884–1976) was born at Cromford; her novel "A Traveller in Time", set in Dethick, recounts the Babington Plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots from imprisonment. Crichton Porteous (1901–1991) set several books in Peak locations; "Toad Hole", "Lucky Columbell" and "Broken River" take place in the Derwent Valley. Geraldine Brooks's first novel, "Year of Wonders" (2001), blends fact and fiction in the story of the plague village of Eyam. Eyam also inspired "Children of Winter" by children's novelist Berlie Doherty, who has set several other works in the Peak, including "Deep Secret", based on the drowning of the villages of Derwent and Ashopton by the Ladybower Reservoir, and "Blue John", inspired by the cavern at Castleton.


title: Peak District

text: Many works of crime and horror have been set in the Peak. "The Terror of Blue John Gap" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) recounts terrible events at the Blue John mines. Sherlock Holmes investigates the kidnapping of a child in "The Adventure of the Priory School". Many horror stories by local author Robert Murray Gilchrist feature Peak settings. Stephen Booth has set a crime-fiction series in real and imagined Peak locations, while "In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner", an Inspector Lynley mystery by Elizabeth George, is set on the fictional Calder Moor. Another local author who sets crime novels there is Sarah Ward.


title: Peak District

text: Other writers and poets who lived in or visited the Peak include Samuel Johnson, William Congreve, Anna Seward, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Richard Furness, D. H. Lawrence, Vera Brittain, Richmal Crompton and Nat Gould. The landscapes and historic houses are popular settings for film and television. The classic 1955 film "The Dam Busters" was filmed at the Upper Derwent Valley reservoirs, where practice flights for the bombing raids on the Ruhr dams had been made during the Second World War.


title: Peak District

text: In adaptations of "Pride and Prejudice", Longnor has featured as Lambton, and Lyme Park and Chatsworth House have stood in for Pemberley. Haddon Hall doubled as Thornfield Hall in two adaptations of "Jane Eyre" and has appeared in several films, including "Elizabeth", "The Princess Bride" and "The Other Boleyn Girl". The television medical drama "Peak Practice" set in the fictional village of Cardale was filmed in Crich, Matlock and other Peak locations. The world's longest-running sitcom, "Last of the Summer Wine", was filmed in Holmfirth and the surrounding Holme Valley.


title: Zail Singh

text: Giani Zail Singh (, born Jarnail Singh; 5 May 1916 – 25 December 1994) was an Indian politician from Punjab who served as the seventh president of India from 1982 to 1987. He was the first Sikh and the first person from a backward caste to become president.


title: Zail Singh

text: Born in Sandhwan in the princely state of Faridkot, Singh trained to be a granthi and was given the title of giani, meaning a learned man, while training at the Sikh Missionary School in Amritsar. Singh was associated with peasant agitations and the movement seeking a representative government in Faridkot. His political activism in the Praja Mandal, an organization allied with the Indian National Congress, saw him sentenced to solitary confinement between 1938 and 1943. He led the flag satyagraha and formed a parallel government in Faridkot State which were called off only after the intervention of Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel. The stints in jail inspired him to change his name to Zail Singh.


title: Zail Singh

text: After independence, Faridkot was merged with the Patiala and East Punjab States Union and Singh served as its minister of revenue and agriculture during 1949–51 and oversaw the introduction of land reforms in Punjab. Singh was a member of the Rajya Sabha during 1956–62 and member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly during 1962–67 during which time he served briefly as a minister under Partap Singh Kairon. He had served as president of PEPSU Pradesh Congress Committee during 1955–56 and became president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee in 1966 serving in that post until his election as Chief Minister of Punjab in 1972.


title: Zail Singh

text: As Chief Minister, Singh is credited with having established India’s first semiconductor manufacturing unit in Mohali, legislating the Punjab Land Reforms Act of 1972, ensuring reservation for Mazhabi Sikhs and Valmikis in education and public employment and repatriating the remains of Udham Singh which were then cremated in Punjab with state honours. Singh’s policies aimed to undercut the influence of the Shiromani Akali Dal party by championing Sikh religious causes. Following the defeat of the Congress Party in the elections of 1977, Singh and Sanjay Gandhi extended political and financial support to Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, a radical Sikh preacher. Bhindranwale soon became the flagbearer of Sikh separatism and an insurgency seeking the establishment of Khalistan broke out in Punjab.


title: Zail Singh

text: Elected to the Lok Sabha in 1980, Singh was appointed India’s Home Minister by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. His stint saw insurgencies in Punjab and Assam. In 1982, he was elected President of India, succeeding Neelam Sanjiva Reddy. The initial years of his presidency saw the Operation Blue Star, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. After Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister, relations with Singh turned frosty with the Prime Minister refusing to meet with or inform the president on matters of policy and placing curbs on his foreign and domestic travels. Singh hit back by questioning government policy and subjecting proposals sent to him to minute scrutiny. In 1986, he employed a pocket veto on the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill passed by Parliament. Allegations of corruption in the procurement of howitzers from Bofors, the government’s refusal to furnish the documents sought for by President Singh and his much-publicized reproach to the government led to speculation that Singh intended to dismiss the government of Rajiv Gandhi. Singh however retired at the end of his tenure in 1987 and was succeeded as president by R. Venkataraman.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh died in 1994 of injuries sustained in a road accident. His samadhi is at the Ekta Sthal in Delhi. Singh’s memoirs were published in 1997. His birth centenary was celebrated in 2016 where a documentary film and a book on his life were released.


title: Zail Singh

text: He was born in Sandhwan, Faridkot district on 5 May 1916 to Kishan Singh and Ind Kaur, as the youngest of their five children. He was a Ramgarhia Sikh, belonging to a backward caste associated with carpentry.


title: Zail Singh

text: Although his formal education ended with matriculation, Singh trained to be a granthi and studied at the Shaheed Sikh Missionary College in Amritsar where he was given the title of giani as a mark of his knowledge of the scriptures. Although his grasp of English was less than fluent, he was known for his earthy speeches in the Urdu and Punjabi languages. He married Pardhan Kaur with whom he had three daughters and a son. His nephew, Kultar Singh Sandhwan, became Speaker of the Punjab Legislative Assembly in 2022.


title: Zail Singh

text: In 1938, Singh founded the Praja Mandal, a political organization allied to the All India States Peoples' Conference, in Faridkot. The Mandal sought the establishment of an elected government in the princely state - a demand rejected by its ruler, Sir Harinder Singh Brar. Singh was jailed between 1938 and 1943, spending time in solitary confinement in a Faridkot prison. Upon his release in 1943, he was forced to leave Faridkot but took up the cause of the people's movement in Faridkot outside the state.


title: Zail Singh

text: It is during his time in prison that Singh changed his name from Jarnail Singh to Zail Singh. In 1946, he launched a satyagraha against the Faridkot government and was involved in the Flag agitation of that year for which he was imprisoned. The flag agitation ended with the Nehru-Harinder Pact by which the maharaja agreed to the formation of political associations in the state and revoked the ban on hoisting the Congress flag in Faridkot. The maharaja's failure to fully implement the pact led to a renewed agitation in the state in 1948 when Praja Mandal activists besieged the state's secretariat and Zail Singh declared the formation of a parallel government in Faridkot. The agitation ended only after the intervention of Sardar Patel with the maharaja agreeing to free Singh and three other ministers of the parallel government from prison besides Praja Mandal activists arrested for their participation in the agitation. In 1948, the States Ministry of India merged Faridkot with the other Phulkian states of Punjab to form the Patiala and East Punjab States Union.


title: Zail Singh

text: In January 1949, Singh became minister for revenue in the government of PEPSU under Chief Minister Gian Singh Rarewala. The Rarewala ministry however was replaced with a caretaker government within ten months of its formation owing to political dissension. In 1951, Col. Raghbir Singh became the Chief Minister and Zail Singh was appointed minister for agriculture. His actions as minister include the repeal of the Criminal Tribes Act, the promulgation of the Political Sufferers ordinance and changes introduced to land laws that abolished the right of the Raja of Faridkot to seize lands of the peasants and removing the privileges enjoyed by landlords under existing land laws. He piloted the Biswedar Abolition Ordinance that provided for the appropriation without compensation of land owned by the landlords and tenancy rights to the cultivators.


title: Zail Singh

text: In the elections of 1952, Singh lost from the Kotkapura Jaito constituency. He became president of PEPSU Pradesh Congress Committee during 1955-56 when it was merged with Punjab.


title: Zail Singh

text: During 1956 to 1962, he served as Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha. He resigned his membership in March 1962 to contest the Punjab state assembly elections and won from the Faridkot constituency. He briefly served as a minister in the Partap Singh Kairon ministry but resigned in the wake of the 1962 war with China and the reduction in size of the ministry. In 1966, Singh became president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee a post he held until his appointment as Chief Minister in 1972. Although he did not contest the election of 1967, he was re-elected to the Punjab Assembly from Anandpur Sahib through a byelection in 1970.


title: Zail Singh

text: In the 1972 elections to the Punjab Legislative Assembly, Singh was elected from Anandpur Sahib constituency. The Congress Party won a majority and formed the government with Singh as Chief Minister. He and a ten member ministry were sworn in on 17 March 1972. Singh was the first Other Backward Class leader and the only non-Jat Sikh to be elected Chief Minister of Punjab since its reorganization in 1966 until 2021 when Charanjit Singh Channi, a Dalit Sikh, became Chief Minister.


title: Zail Singh

text: From the outset Singh projected himself as a champion of the Sikh religion, in part, because he did not belong to the dominant Jat caste and also to counter the Akali Dal party. As part of this policy, he inaugurated the Guru Gobind Singh Marg – a highway linking Punjab’s most prominent gurudwaras, renamed several government hospitals after Sikh gurus, started the Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar and renamed a town near Chandigarh after one of Guru Gobind Singh’s sons. In response to their electoral setbacks, Akali politicians gathered at Anandpur Sahib in October 1972 and passed a resolution demanding greater autonomy to Punjab and self-determination for the Sikhs.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh’s government enacted the Punjab Land Reforms Act, 1972 which fixed land ceilings at 18 acres per family. Several key provisions of the Act were struck down the following year by the Punjab and Haryana High Court prompting a further appeal by the state government in India's Supreme Court. The Act, which also provided for redistribution of surplus land, failed in its implementation and consequently there was little change in land ownership.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh introduced a scheme for life-long pension for participants in India’s independence movement. In 1974 Singh repatriated the remains of Udham Singh from the United Kingdom which were then taken in a procession to Punjab, cleverly utilizing the media attention and popular interest in it to burnish his credentials. The remains were cremated in Sunam with full state honours and Singh himself lit the funeral pyre. He also took to honouring the legacy of Bhagat Singh, declaring a gazetted holiday on his birthday, converting his ancestral home at Khatkar Kalan into a museum and honouring his mother with the title of ‘Punjab Mata’.


title: Zail Singh

text: He was also responsible for getting the Department of Electronics to establish the Semiconductor Complex Limited at Mohali in 1974 overriding their preferred choice of Madras. This was India’s first semiconductor fabricating unit. It became operational in 1983 and manufactured integrated chips using American knowhow. In 1975, Singh introduced a reservation of fifty per cent of jobs for Valmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs under the quota of jobs reserved for the scheduled castes. The move aimed to consolidate the dalit vote behind the Congress Party and enhanced his own standing amongst them.


title: Zail Singh

text: Following the imposition of the Emergency of 1975, Singh zealously implemented the policies of Sanjay Gandhi’s five point program. The national population policy with its focus on compulsory sterilization was implemented often through coercive steps of the police and administration. Singh was forced to implement the policy, in part, to retain favour with Sanjay Gandhi, whom he had once described as his savior, and to stave off the challenge to his leadership from other Congress leaders of Punjab, notably Mohinder Singh Gill who was the party’s president.


title: Zail Singh

text: In the general elections of 1977 that followed the Emergency, the Congress party for the first time failed to win even a single seat from Punjab. Singh’s tenure as Chief Minister ended on 30 April 1977 when Punjab was placed under President's rule. In the elections to the state assembly held in June 1977, the Shiromani Akali Dal was elected to office winning 58 out of 104 seats in the Legislative Assembly.


title: Zail Singh

text: The defeat of the Congress Party in the elections of 1977 led Sanjay Gandhi and Zail Singh to look for a Sikh leader who would weaken the Akali Dal by espousing a strident stand on matters of Sikh faith thus undercutting the Akalis. The tactic was inspired partly by Partap Singh Kairon who, as Chief Minister, had propped up Sant Fateh Singh as a counter to the Akali leader Tara Singh during the 1960s. Their choice was Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who was then a little known Sikh preacher but would go on to be a Frankenstein's monster for his patrons. Bhindranwale came to limelight in 1978 when a clash between his followers and Nirankari Sikhs led to the death of a dozen people. The Congress party lionized Bhindranwale and helped him establish the Dal Khalsa party. In the general elections of 1980, Bhindranwale even campaigned for Congress candidates.


title: Zail Singh

text: In the general election of 1980, which the Congress Party under Mrs Gandhi won, Singh was elected to Parliament from Hoshiarpur. He was inducted into the government as Minister of Home Affairs on 14 January 1980 continuing in that post till 22 June 1982. The Punjab government under Parkash Singh Badal was dismissed and the state brought under President’s rule in February 1980. In the elections held in June, the Congress Party won a majority in the Assembly and Darbara Singh, a political rival of Zail Singh, was appointed Chief Minister. The out of power Akali Dal now revived the demands in the Anandpur Sahib resolution and allied with pro-Khalistan forces abroad. The factionalism in the Congress and the political feuding between Zail Singh and Darbara Singh further complicated the situation in Punjab and prevented resolute administrative action against the insurgents. Bhindranwale was able to use the discord between the central and state governments to his advantage. Bhindranwale was suspected of involvement in the murders of the Nirankari guru Gurbachan Singh in April 1980 and of the newspaper magnate Lala Jagat Narain in September 1981. Even though arrest warrants were issued against him, Bhindranwale, who was then in the state of Haryana, was able to escape to his gurudwara in the Punjab in an official car provided to him by the Chief Minister of that state on the instructions of Singh. Bhindranwale gave himself up for arrest later that month but was released from jail in October following widespread unrest in the Punjab and after Singh declared in Parliament that Bhindranwale was not involved in Narain’s murder. In each of these instances even as Darbara Singh wanted to crack down on Bhindranwale, Zail Singh intervened on his behalf in the hope of using him as a pawn in his political battle against Darbara Singh. Bhindranwale's release served to demoralize the Punjab Police as they now became targets for Sikh extremists and furthered emboldened Bhindranwale. Similarly, requests to ban the Dal Khalsa by the state government were stonewalled by the Union Home Ministry before the Prime Minister intervened to have the ban imposed. Singh’s tenure as India’s Home Minister has generally been viewed unfavourably. He was seen as a weak and inept minister who was appointed to prevent him from developing strong base in Punjab and as someone who mishandled crises in the Punjab, Kashmir and the North East.


title: Zail Singh

text: In June 1982, Singh was chosen by the Congress party to be its candidate for the presidential election to succeed Neelam Sanjiva Reddy, rejecting a proposal by the opposition to have a consenus candidate. A group of ten opposition parties decided to field the Communist politician Hiren Mukherjee as their candidate. Singh’s nomination was seen as a gesture to the Sikhs at a time when the separatist agitation for Khalistan was gaining popularity. However, it was also aimed at keeping Singh out of active politics allowing Singh’s bête noire Darbara Singh to run the Punjab government without interference from the Centre. Singh’s loyalty to the Prime Minister was another reason for his nomination as the Congress party was unsure of its prospects in the general elections scheduled for 1985. The opposition’s original candidate was dropped as Mukherjee was not a registered voter, which is a prerequisite for any person contesting a presidential election. Hans Raj Khanna, a former judge of the Supreme Court of India who had defended fundamental rights and championed the inviolability of the basic structure of the constitution during the Emergency and was subsequently overlooked for appointment as Chief Justice, became the opposition candidate. The election was held on 12 July 1982 with the electoral college comprising 756 members of parliament and 3827 members of legislative assemblies. When the votes were counted on 15 July, Singh emerged the winner with 7,54,113 votes, or 72.7 per cent, against Khanna’s 2,82,685 votes and was declared elected the same day by the returning officer. Singh won a majority in each of India’s state assemblies except for West Bengal and Tripura.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh was sworn in the seventh President of India on 25 July 1982. He was the first Sikh as also the first person from a backward caste to become president.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh was known for his loyalty to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and had remarked that he would pick up a broom and become a sweeper if she were to ask him to do so. It was reported that Singh would walk down to the South Court of Rashtrapati Bhavan to receive her when she called on him, even opening her car door in breach of all protocol.


title: Zail Singh

text: In 1983 New Delhi hosted both the seventh summit of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip arrived on a state visit in November 1983, as the guests of President Singh and stayed at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.


title: Zail Singh

text: As President, he spoke out against the Akali Dal’s assertion that Sikhs were being discriminated against in India, challenged the rule of jathedars and the role of religious leaders in the separatist movement in Punjab, and criticized the use of Sikh shrines as sanctuaries by criminals. In June 1984, the Indian Army launched Operation Blue Star to neutralize Sikh militants based in the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. Singh was not appraised of these plans neither when Punjab was brought under President’s Rule nor when Prime Minister Gandhi met him for a routine briefing the day before the operation was launched. When Singh visited the Golden Temple complex on 8 June, he was shot at by a sniper. Although he was not hit, his security officer was seriously injured. Singh was deeply upset at the damage done to the temple complex. Singh later justified Operation Blue Star saying bloodshed could have been avoided had militants surrendered and urging all Sikhs to ensure that their temples would not in the future be used to house arms and material not sanctioned by Sikh tradition. In September, the Akal Takht, the highest temporal body in Sikhism, condemned Singh for his alleged role in Operation Blue Star and held him guilty of religious misconduct. He was exonerated 24 days later by the Sikh high priests after he expressed contrition and sought forgiveness before the Akal Takht for the ‘unfortunate incidents’ that had happened there.


title: Zail Singh

text: In August 1984, Rashtrapati Bhavan became the venue of an unusual political gathering when N. T. Rama Rao, who had been dismissed as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh by the Governor, met Singh with over 160 Members of the Legislative Assembly. The Governor, Thakur Ram Lal, had appointed N. Bhaskara Rao as the new Chief Minister and provided him a month’s time to prove his majority in the assembly despite the ousted Chief Minister’s claim of being able to prove his own majority in two days’ time and evidence that he was supported by a majority of legislators. Following widespread protests, the Governor was recalled and NT Rama Rao returned as chief minister following a vote of confidence. The Singh presidency saw similar dismissal of state governments and imposition of President’s rule in Jammu and Kashmir and in Sikkim.


title: Zail Singh

text: Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated on 31 October 1984 by her Sikh bodyguards. Indira’s son Rajiv Gandhi and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee were in West Bengal campaigning for upcoming assembly elections while Singh was on a state visit to North Yemen. He returned to Delhi the same evening and visited the All India Institute of Medical Sciences where Indira Gandhi had been admitted. The presidential cavalcade was pelted with stones en route and violence against Sikhs began in Delhi. After the deaths of Prime Ministers Nehru in 1964 and Shastri in 1966, the President had appointed the senior most Cabinet minister as the acting Prime Minister while the Congress Parliamentary Party went about electing a new leader who would then become Prime Minister. That convention would have required Singh to appoint Pranab Mukherjee as the acting prime minister. However, the Congress Parliamentary Board, which is the executive committee of the parliamentary party, nominated Rajiv Gandhi for appointment as Prime Minister. Accordingly, Singh swore Rajiv Gandhi in as Prime Minister in the evening of 21 October 1984. The choice of Rajiv Gandhi was unanimously approved by the Congress Parliamentary Party three days later.


title: Zail Singh

text: Indira Gandhi’s assassination was followed by anti-Sikh rioting across India which lasted for four days till 3 November 1984. Although constitutionally the supreme commander of the Indian armed forces, Singh was unable to act to stop the violence.


title: Zail Singh

text: Tarlochan Singh, President Singh’s Press Secretary, later alleged that although the President had tried to talk to the Prime Minister regarding the rioting in Delhi, Rajiv Gandhi never got back to him and that the Home Minister, P. V. Narasimha Rao, told him that the government was busy arranging Indira Gandhi’s funeral. Singh later admitted that his commitment to the Congress party and to the Indian constitution were severely tested by these events but he chose to remain in his post.


title: Zail Singh

text: Rajiv Gandhi soon called for parliamentary elections which were held between 24 and 28 December 1984. The Congress Party won 404 out of the 514 seats, the highest number ever won by a party in India’s general elections. Gandhi and a forty member council of ministers were sworn in on 31 December 1984.


title: Zail Singh

text: However, the relationship between President and Prime Minister quickly turned sour. Rajiv Gandhi viewed Singh as a rustic parvenu whose actions were partly responsible for the imbroglio in the Punjab that had led to his mother’s assassination. As Prime Minister, Gandhi called on Singh only once before the elections and dispensed with the practice of calling on the President to discuss matters of state entirely. Following his cue, Union Ministers too stopped calling on Singh, a situation that lasted for almost two years before Gandhi gave-in and called on Singh in March 1987. The Prime Minister stopped briefing the President about matters of domestic and foreign policy. Gandhi also refused to sanction official visits abroad for Singh and Congress governments in the states began to put off visits by the President. Singh retaliated by subjecting all proposals sent to him to minute scrutiny, seeking explanations from the government on not formulating a policy on judicial appointments, questioning its television coverage policy and cautioning the Governor of Andhra Pradesh, Kumudben Joshi, to desist from interfering in the state’s politics besides seeking an explanation from the Chief Election Commissioner of India about delay in holding scheduled elections in the state of Haryana. These interventions caused the government considerable embarrassment.


title: Zail Singh

text: However, Singh is best remembered for his stance on the Indian Post Office (Amendment) Bill, 1986. The bill, passed by both houses of Parliament, empowered central and state governments to intercept, inspect and detain any items in the post perceived to be a threat to national security. In effect, the bill gave the government unbridled powers to surveil postal communication and violated citizens’ rights. Singh, instead of returning the bill to the parliament for its reconsideration, decided to withhold his assent to it. If the bill were to be sent back parliament, in which the Congress party held an overwhelming majority, it could have reiterated its support for the bill which would have forced Singh to give it his assent. As the Constitution places no time limit within which Presidential assent is to be given to legislation sent to him, Singh decided to keep it in abeyance – thus effecting a pocket veto. The bill remained unsigned even by his successor who returned it to the Rajya Sabha for its reconsideration.


title: Zail Singh

text: During 1986-87, as allegations of corruption began to surface in the procurement of Bofors howitzers by the Indian government, Zail Singh sought information regarding the matter from the Government. Prime Minister Gandhi took the stance that the President did not have the right to know every classified matter made available to the Prime Minister or the Council of Ministers and the Cabinet passed a resolution rejecting Singh’s demand. In Parliament however Gandhi stated that the “president was being fully informed”, a patently false statement. Singh responded by writing to the Prime Minister narrating specific instances where no information had been furnished despite repeated demands. A copy of the letter was leaked to the press. This allegation by the head of state against the head of government served to further reduce the government’s credibility.


title: Zail Singh

text: By 1987, it was widely speculated that President Singh intended to dismiss the Rajiv Gandhi ministry and appoint in its place a caretaker ministry under either R. Venkatraman or P.V. Narasimha Rao. As Singh’s tenure was drawing to a close, it was thought that such a move would lead to a second term in office for him with support from the opposition and members of the Congress party opposed to Rajiv Gandhi. Gandhi, who had strained relations with the Chief of the Army Staff General Sundarji and his Defence Minister Arun Singh, was opposed to giving Singh a further term in office. Singh however never acted on the plan and decided not to seek a second term as he failed to get the open support of the opposition and feared it could lead to an army takeover.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh led state visits to Czechoslovakia, Qatar and Bahrain in 1983, to Mexico and Argentina and to Mauritius, North and South Yemen in 1984. Singh was in Aden, Yemen when Indira Gandhi was assassinated. He also made visits to Nepal, Yugoslavia, Greece and Poland in 1986. As the relationship between Rajiv Gandhi and Singh soured, the government began sending Vice President R. Venkataraman on trips abroad in place of Singh. Even visits to nations which were customarily made by the head of state began to be made by the vice-president or the prime minister and some, such as a visit to Zimbabwe, which had been finalized were cancelled. Consequently, Singh became one of the least travelled Presidents of India.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh was succeeded to the presidency by R. Venkataraman, who was sworn in on 25 July 1987. Singh chose to spend his retirement in Delhi where the government provided him with a bungalow on Circular Road.


title: Zail Singh

text: Singh was severely injured in a road accident when his car collided with a truck at Kiratpur Sahib in the Ropar district of Punjab on 29 November 1994. Singh was admitted to the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in Chandigarh where he died on 25 December 1994 aged 78. The Government of India declared 7 days of national mourning. His cremation was held on 26 December in Delhi where his samadhi is located at Ekta Sthal.


title: Zail Singh

text: A commemorative postage stamp was issued by India's Department of Posts on the occasion of Singh's first death anniversary in 1995. The Giani Zail Singh Campus College of Engineering and Technology, Bhatinda is named after him. The birth centenary of Singh was celebrated in 2016 at which a documentary film on his life and a book were released in his honour.


title: Massacre

text: A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when perpetrated by a group of political actors against defenseless victims. The word is a loan of a French term for "butchery" or "carnage". A "massacre" is not necessarily a "crime against humanity". Other terms with overlapping scope include war crime, pogrom, mass killing, mass murder, and extrajudicial killing.


title: Massacre

text: The modern definition of "massacre" as "indiscriminate slaughter, carnage", and the subsequent verb of this form, derive from late 16th century Middle French, evolved from Middle French ""macacre, macecle"" meaning "slaughterhouse, butchery". Further origins are dubious, though may be related to Latin "macellum" "provisions store, butcher shop".


title: Massacre

text: The Middle French word "macecr" "butchery, carnage" is first recorded in the late 11th century. Its primary use remained the context of animal slaughter (in hunting terminology referring to the head of a stag) well into the 18th century.


title: Massacre

text: The use of "macecre" "butchery" of the mass killing of people dates to the 12th century, implying people being "slaughtered like animals".