title: Northern Crusades

text: The Danes are known to have made at least three crusades to Finland. First mention of these crusades is from 1187 when crusader Esbern Snare mentioned in his Christmas feast speech a major victory from the Finns. Two next known crusades were made in 1191 and in 1202. The latter one was led by the Bishop of Lund, Anders Sunesen, with his brother.


title: Northern Crusades

text: By the 12th century, the peoples inhabiting the lands now known as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania formed a pagan wedge between increasingly powerful rival Christian states – the Orthodox Church to their east and the Catholic Church to their west. The difference in creeds was one of the reasons they had not yet been effectively converted. During a period of more than 150 years leading up to the arrival of German crusaders in the region, Estonia was attacked thirteen times by Russian principalities, and by Denmark and Sweden as well. Estonians for their part made raids upon Denmark and Sweden. There were peaceful attempts by some Catholics to convert the Estonians, starting with missions dispatched by Adalbert, Archbishop of Bremen in 1045–1072. However, these peaceful efforts seem to have had limited success.


title: Northern Crusades

text: Moving in the wake of German merchants who were now following the old trading routes of the Vikings, a monk named Meinhard landed at the mouth of the Daugava river in present-day Latvia in 1180 and was made bishop in 1186. Pope Celestine III proclaimed a crusade against the Baltic heathens in 1195, which was reiterated by Pope Innocent III and a crusading expedition led by Meinhard's successor, Bishop Berthold of Hanover, landed in Livonia (part of present-day Latvia, surrounding the Gulf of Riga) in 1198. Although the crusaders won their first battle, Bishop Berthold was mortally wounded and the crusaders were repulsed.


title: Northern Crusades

text: In 1199, Albert of Buxhoeveden was appointed by the Archbishop Hartwig II of Bremen to Christianise the Baltic countries. By the time Albert died 30 years later, the conquest and formal Christianisation of present-day Estonia and northern Latvia was complete. Albert began his task by touring the Empire, preaching a Crusade against the Baltic countries, and was assisted in this by a Papal Bull which declared that fighting against the Baltic heathens was of the same rank as participating in a crusade to the Holy Land. Although he landed in the mouth of the Daugava in 1200 with only 23 ships and 500 soldiers, the bishop's efforts ensured that a constant flow of recruits followed. The first crusaders usually arrived to fight during the spring and returned to their homes in the autumn. To ensure a permanent military presence, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword were founded in 1202. The founding by Bishop Albert of the market at Riga in 1201 attracted citizens from the Empire and economic prosperity ensued. At Albert's request, Pope Innocent III dedicated the Baltic countries to the Virgin Mary to popularize recruitment to his army and the name "Mary's Land" has survived up to modern times. This is noticeable in one of the names given to Livonia at the time, Terra Mariana (Land of Mary).


title: Northern Crusades

text: In 1206, the crusaders subdued the Livonian stronghold in Turaida on the right bank of Gauja River, the ancient trading route to the Northwestern Rus. In order to gain control over the left bank of Gauja, the stone castle was built in Sigulda before 1210. By 1211, the Livonian province of Metsepole (now Limbaži district) and the mixed Livonian-Latgallian inhabited county of Idumea (now Straupe) was converted to the Roman Catholic faith. The last battle against the Livonians was the siege of Satezele hillfort near to Sigulda in 1212. The Livonians, who had been paying tribute to the East Slavic Principality of Polotsk, had at first considered the Germans as useful allies. The first prominent Livonian to be christened was their leader Caupo of Turaida. As the German grip tightened, the Livonians rebelled against the crusaders and the christened chief but were put down. Caupo of Turaida remained an ally of the crusaders until his death in the Battle of St. Matthew's Day in 1217.


title: Northern Crusades

text: The German crusaders enlisted newly baptised Livonian warriors to participate in their campaigns against Latgallians and Selonians (1208–1209), Estonians (1208–1227) and against Semigallians, Samogitians and Curonians (1219–1290).


title: Northern Crusades

text: After the subjugation of the Livonians, the crusaders turned their attention to the Latgallian principalities to the east, along the Gauja and Daugava rivers. The military alliance in 1208 and later conversion from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism of the Principality of Tālava was the only peaceful subjugation of the Baltic tribes during the Nordic crusades. The ruler of Tālava, Tālivaldis ("Talibaldus de Tolowa"), became the most loyal ally of German crusaders against the Estonians, and he died a Catholic martyr in 1215. The war against the Latgallian and Selonian countries along the Daugava waterway started in 1208 by the occupation of the Orthodox Principality of Koknese and the Selonian Sēlpils hillfort. The campaign continued in 1209 with an attack on the Orthodox Principality of Jersika (known as "Lettia"), accused by crusaders of being in alliance with Lithuanian pagans. After the defeat, the king of Jersika, Visvaldis, became the vassal of the Bishop of Livonia and received part of his country (Southern Latgale) as a fiefdom. The Selonian stronghold of Sēlpils was briefly the seat of a Selonian diocese (1218–1226), and then came under the rule of the Livonian Order (and eventually the stone castle of Selburg was built in its place). Only in 1224, with the division of Tālava and Adzele counties between the Bishop of Riga and the Order of the Swordbearers, did Latgallian countries finally become the possession of German conquerors. The territory of the former Principality of Jersika was divided by the Bishop of Riga and the Livonian Order in 1239.


title: Northern Crusades

text: By 1208, the Germans were strong enough to begin operations against the Estonians, who were at that time divided into eight major and several smaller counties led by elders with limited cooperation between them. In 1208–27, war parties of the different sides rampaged through the Livonian, Northern Latgallian, and Estonian counties, with Livonians and Latgallians normally as allies of the Crusaders, and the Principalities of Polotsk and Pskov appearing as allies of different sides at different times. Hillforts, which were the key centres of Estonian counties, were besieged and captured a number of times. A truce between the war-weary sides was established for three years (1213–1215) and proved generally more favourable to the Germans, who consolidated their political position, while the Estonians were unable to develop their system of loose alliances into a centralised state. The Livonian leader Kaupo was killed in battle near Viljandi (Fellin) on 21 September 1217, but the battle was a crushing defeat for the Estonians, whose leader Lembitu was also killed. Since 1211, his name had come to the attention of the German chroniclers as a notable Estonian elder, and he had become the central figure of the Estonian resistance.


title: Northern Crusades

text: The Christian kingdoms of Denmark and Sweden were also greedy for conquests on the Eastern shores of the Baltic. While the Swedes made only one failed foray into western Estonia in 1220, the Danish Fleet headed by King Valdemar II of Denmark had landed at the Estonian town of Lindanisse (present-day Tallinn) in 1219. After the Battle of Lindanise the Danes established a fortress, which was besieged by Estonians in 1220 and 1223 but held out. Eventually, the whole of northern Estonia came under Danish control.


title: Northern Crusades

text: The last Estonian county to hold out against the invaders was the island county of Saaremaa (Ösel), whose war fleets had raided Denmark and Sweden during the years of fighting against the German crusaders.


title: Northern Crusades

text: In 1206, a Danish army led by the king Valdemar II and Andreas, the Bishop of Lund landed on Saaremaa and attempted to establish a stronghold without success. In 1216 the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the bishop Theodorich joined forces and invaded Saaremaa over the frozen sea. In return, the Oeselians raided the territories in Latvia that were under German rule the following spring. In 1220, the Swedish army led by king John I of Sweden and the bishop Karl of Linköping conquered Lihula in Rotalia in Western Estonia. Oeselians attacked the Swedish stronghold the same year, conquered it and killed the entire Swedish garrison including the Bishop of Linköping.


title: Northern Crusades

text: In 1222, the Danish king Valdemar II attempted the second conquest of Saaremaa, this time establishing a stone fortress housing a strong garrison. The Danish stronghold was besieged and surrendered within five days, the Danish garrison returned to Revel, leaving bishop Albert of Riga's brother Theodoric, and few others, behind as hostages for peace. The castle was razed to the ground by the Oeselians.


title: Northern Crusades

text: A 20,000 strong army under Papal legate William of Modena crossed the frozen sea while the Saaremaa fleet was icebound, in January 1227. After the surrender of two major Oeselian strongholds, Muhu and Valjala, the Oeselians formally accepted Christianity.


title: Northern Crusades

text: In 1236, after the defeat of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in the Battle of Saule, military action on Saaremaa broke out again. In 1261, warfare continued as the Oeselians had once more renounced Christianity and killed all the Germans on the island. A peace treaty was signed after the united forces of the Livonian Order, the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, and Danish Estonia, including mainland Estonians and Latvians, defeated the Oeselians by conquering their stronghold at Kaarma. Soon thereafter, the Livonian Order established a stone fort at Pöide.


title: Northern Crusades

text: Although the Curonians had attacked Riga in 1201 and 1210, Albert of Buxhoeveden, considering Courland a tributary of Valdemar II of Denmark, had been reluctant to conduct a large scale campaign against them. After Albert's death in 1229, the crusaders secured the peaceful submission of Vanemane (a county with a mixed Livonian, Oselian, and Curonian population in the northeastern part of Courland) by treaty in 1230. In the same year, the papal vice-legat Baldouin of Alnea annulled this agreement and concluded an agreement with the ruler ("rex") of Bandava in the central Courland Lammekinus, delivering his kingdom into the hands of the papacy. Baldouin became the popes's delegate in Courland and bishop of Semigallia; however, the Germans complained about him to the Roman Curia, and in 1234 Pope Gregory IX removed Baldouin as his delegate.


title: Northern Crusades

text: After their decisive defeat in the Battle of Saule by the Samogitians and Semigallians, the remnants of the Swordbrothers were reorganized in 1237 as a subdivision of the Teutonic Order, and became known as the Livonian Order. In 1242, under the leadership of the master of the Livonian Order Andrew of Groningen, the crusaders began the military conquest of Courland. They defeated the Curonians as far south as Embūte, near the contemporary border with Lithuania, and founded their main fortress at Kuldīga. In 1245 Pope Innocent IV allotted two-thirds of conquered Courland to the Livonian Order, and one third to the Bishopric of Courland.


title: Northern Crusades

text: At the Battle of Durbe in 1260 a force of Samogitians and Curonians overpowered the united forces of the Livonian and Teutonic Orders; over the following years, however, the Crusaders gradually subjugated the Curonians, and in 1267 concluded the peace treaty stipulating the obligations and the rights of their defeated rivals. The unconquered southern parts of their territories (Ceklis and Megava) were united under the rule of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.


title: Northern Crusades

text: The conquest of Semigallian counties started in 1219 when crusaders from Riga occupied Mežotne, the major port on the Lielupe waterway, and founded the Bishopric of Semigallia. After several unsuccessful campaigns against the pagan Semigallian duke Viestards and his Samogitian kinsfolk, the Roman Curia decided in 1251 to abolish the Bishopric of Semigallia, and divided its territories between the Bishopric of Riga and the Order of Livonia. In 1265 a stone castle was built at Jelgava, on the Lielupe, and became the main military base for crusader attacks against the Semigallians. In 1271 the capital hillfort of Tērvete was conquered, but Semigallians under the Duke Nameisis rebelled in 1279, and the Lithuanians under Traidenis defeated Livonian Order forces in the Battle of Aizkraukle. Duke Nameisis' warriors unsuccessfully attacked Riga in 1280, in response to which around 14,000 crusaders besieged Turaida castle in 1281. To conquer the remaining Semigallian hillforts the Order's master Villekin of Endorpe built a castle called "Heiligenberg" right next to the Tērvete castle in 1287. The same year the Semigallians made another attempt to conquer Riga, but again failed to take it. On their return home, Livonian knights attacked them, but were defeated at the Battle of Garoza, in which the Orders' master Villekin and at least 35 knights lost their lives. The new master of the Order Konrad von Hattstein organised the last campaigns against the Semigallians in 1289 and 1290; the hillforts of Dobele, Rakte and Sidabre were conquered and most of the Semigallian warriors joined the Samogitian and Lithuanian forces.


title: Northern Crusades

text: From 1147 the Polish Duke of Mazovia, Boleslaw the Curly, led many expeditions against pagan Prussia, some of them were successful and the conquest of parts of the Prussian territories.


title: Northern Crusades

text: Konrad I, the Polish Duke of Masovia, unsuccessfully attempted to conquer pagan Prussia in crusades in 1219 and 1222. Taking the advice of the first Bishop of Prussia, Christian of Oliva, Konrad founded the crusading Order of Dobrzyń (or "Dobrin") in 1220. However, this order was largely ineffective, and Konrad's campaigns against the Old Prussians were answered by incursions into the already captured territory of Culmerland (Chełmno Land). Subjected to constant Prussian counter-raids, Konrad wanted to stabilize the north of the Duchy of Masovia in this fight over the border area of Chełmno Land. Masovia became part of Poland in the 10th century but native Prussians, Yotvingians, and Lithuanians were still living in the territories north of Masovia, where no settled borders existed. Konrad's military weakness led him in 1226 to ask the Roman Catholic monastic order of the Teutonic Knights to come to Prussia and suppress the Old Prussians.


title: Northern Crusades

text: The Northern Crusades provided a rationale for the growth and expansion of the Teutonic Order of German crusading knights which had been founded in Palestine at the end of the 12th century. Duke Konrad I of Masovia in west-central Poland appealed to the Knights to defend his borders and subdue the pagan Old Prussians in 1226. Already in 1234, a great expedition began, in which the Polish forces of Konrad of Mazovia and the Teutonic Knights defeated the Old Prussians in the battle on the Dzierzgoń river. After the subjugation of the Prussians, the Teutonic Knights fought against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.


title: Northern Crusades

text: When the Livonian knights were crushed by Samogitians in the Battle of Saule in 1236, coinciding with a series of revolts in Estonia, the Livonian Order was inherited by the Teutonic Order, allowing the Teutonic Knights to exercise political control over large territories in the Baltic region. Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, was baptised together with his wife after his coronation in 1253, hoping that this would help stop the Crusaders' attacks, which it did not. The Teutonic Knights failed to subdue Lithuania, which officially converted to (Catholic) Christianity in 1386 on the marriage of Grand Duke Jogaila to the 11-year-old Queen Jadwiga of Poland. However, even after the country was officially converted, the conflict continued up until the 1410 Battle of Grunwald, also known as the First Battle of Tannenberg, when the Lithuanians and Poles, helped by the Tatars, Moldovans and the Czechs, defeated the Teutonic Knights.


title: Northern Crusades

text: In 1221, Pope Honorius III was again worried about the situation in the Finnish-Novgorodian Wars after receiving alarming information from the Archbishop of Uppsala. He authorized the Bishop of Finland to establish a trade embargo against the "barbarians" that threatened the Christianity in Finland. The nationality of the "barbarians", presumably a citation from Archbishop's earlier letter, remains unknown, and was not necessarily known even by the Pope. However, as the trade embargo was widened eight years later, it was specifically said to be against the Russians. Based on Papal letters from 1229, the Bishop of Finland requested, the Pope enforce a trade embargo against Novgorodians on the Baltic Sea, at least in Visby, Riga and Lübeck. A few years later, the Pope also requested the Livonian Brothers of the Sword send troops to protect Finland. Whether any knights ever arrived remains unknown.


title: Northern Crusades

text: The Teutonic Order's attempts to conquer Orthodox Russia (particularly the Republics of Pskov and Novgorod), an enterprise endorsed by Pope Gregory IX, accompanied the Northern Crusades. One of the major blows for the idea of the conquest of Russia was the Battle of the Ice in 1242. With or without the Pope's blessing, Sweden also undertook several crusades against Orthodox Novgorod.


title: Northern Crusades

text: Livonian missionary and crusade activity in Estonia caused conflicts with Novgorod, who had also attempted to subjugate, raid and convert the pagan Estonians. The Estonians also sometimes attempted to ally with the Russians against the Crusaders.


title: Northern Crusades

text: Wars between the two sides continued intermittently on several occasions, and halted the eastward expansion of the Teutonic Order, but Novgorodian attempt to take Estonia and Livonia also failed, and the area was firmly dominated by Teutonic Order.


title: State of the Union

text: The State of the Union Address (sometimes abbreviated to SOTU) is an annual message delivered by the president of the United States to a joint session of the United States Congress near the beginning of each calendar year on the current condition of the nation. The State of the Union Address generally includes reports on the nation's budget, economy, news, agenda, achievements and the president's priorities and legislative proposals.


title: State of the Union

text: The address fulfills the requirement in of the U.S. Constitution for the president to periodically "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." During most of the country's first century, the president primarily submitted only a written report to Congress. After 1913, Woodrow Wilson, the 28th U.S. president, began the regular practice of delivering the address to Congress in person as a way to rally support for the president's agenda. With the advent of radio and television, the address is now broadcast live in all United States time zones on many networks.


title: State of the Union

text: Starting 1981, Ronald Reagan, the 40th U.S. president, began the practice of newly inaugurated presidents delivering an address to Congress in the first year of their term, but not designating that speech an official "State of the Union".


title: State of the Union

text: The practice arises from a duty of the president under the State of the Union Clause of the U.S. Constitution:


title: State of the Union

text: Though the language of the clause is not specific, since the 1930s, the president has made this report annually in late January or early February. Between 1934 and 2022 the date has been as early as January 3, and as late as March 1.


title: State of the Union

text: While not required to deliver a speech, every president since Woodrow Wilson, with the notable exception of Herbert Hoover, has made at least one State of the Union report as a speech delivered before a joint session of Congress. Before then, most presidents delivered the State of the Union as a written report.


title: State of the Union

text: Since Franklin Roosevelt, the State of the Union is given typically each January before a joint session of the United States Congress and is held in the House of Representatives chamber of the United States Capitol. Newly inaugurated presidents generally deliver an address to Congress in February of the first year of their term, but this speech is not officially considered to be a "State of the Union".


title: State of the Union

text: What began as a communication between president and Congress has become in effect a communication between the president and the people of the United States. Since the advent of radio, and then television, the speech has been broadcast live in all United States time zones on most networks, preempting scheduled programming. Since at least the 1960s, in order to reach the largest audience, the speech has typically been given at 9 p.m. (Eastern Time, UTC-5).


title: State of the Union

text: George Washington delivered the first regular annual message before a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1790, in New York City, then the provisional U.S. capital. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson discontinued the practice of delivering the address in person, regarding it as too monarchical (similar to the Speech from the Throne). Instead, the address was written and then sent to Congress to be read by a clerk until 1913 when Woodrow Wilson re-established the practice despite some initial controversy, and an in-person address to Congress has been delivered nearly every year since. However, there have been exceptions to this rule, with some messages being given solely in writing, and others given both in writing and orally (either in a speech to Congress or through broadcast media). The last president to give a written message without a spoken address was Jimmy Carter in 1981, days before his term ended after his defeat by Ronald Reagan.


title: State of the Union

text: For many years, the speech was referred to as "the President's Annual Message to Congress". The actual term "State of the Union" first emerged in 1934 when Franklin D. Roosevelt used the phrase, becoming its generally accepted name since 1947.


title: State of the Union

text: Prior to 1934, the annual message was delivered at the end of the calendar year, in December. The ratification of the 20th Amendment on January 23, 1933, changed the opening of Congress from early March to early January, affecting the delivery of the annual message. Since 1934, the message or address has been delivered to Congress in January or February.


title: State of the Union

text: The Twentieth Amendment also established January 20 as the beginning of the presidential term. In years when a new president is inaugurated, the outgoing president may deliver a final State of the Union message, but none has done so since Jimmy Carter sent a written message in 1981. In 1953 and 1961, Congress received both a written State of the Union message from the outgoing president and a separate State of the Union speech by the incoming president. Since 1981, in recognition that the responsibility of reporting the State of the Union formally belongs to the president who held office during the past year, newly inaugurated presidents have not officially called their first speech before Congress a "State of the Union" message.


title: State of the Union

text: Warren Harding's 1922 speech was the first to be broadcast on radio, albeit to a limited audience, while Calvin Coolidge's 1923 speech was the first to be broadcast across the nation. President Roosevelt's address in 1936 was the first delivered in the evening, but this precedent was not followed again until the 1960s. Harry S. Truman's 1947 address was the first to be broadcast on television. In 1968, television networks in the United States for the first time imposed no time limit for their coverage of a State of the Union address. Delivered by Lyndon B. Johnson, this address was followed by extensive televised commentary by, among others, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Milton Friedman. Bill Clinton's 1997 address was the first broadcast available live on the World Wide Web.


title: State of the Union

text: Ronald Reagan's 1986 State of the Union Address was the first to have been postponed. He had planned to deliver the speech on January 28, 1986, but it was delayed for a week following the Space Shuttle "Challenger" disaster that morning. Reagan instead addressed the nation from the Oval Office about the disaster.


title: State of the Union

text: In 1999, Bill Clinton became the first president to deliver an in-person State of the Union address while standing trial for impeachment; the speech occurred the same day that Clinton's defense team made its opening statement in Clinton's impeachment trial, though he did not mention the proceeding.


title: State of the Union

text: On January 23, 2019, the 2019 State of the Union speech by Donald Trump, originally planned for January 29 was canceled after an exchange of letters with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in which she stated she would not proceed with a vote on a resolution to permit him to deliver the speech in the House chamber until the end of 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown. This decision rescinded an earlier invitation from the speaker, reportedly the first time in American history that a Speaker had "disinvited" the president from delivering the address. They later agreed to hold the speech on February 5.


title: State of the Union

text: Because the address is made to a joint session of Congress, the House and Senate must each pass a resolution setting a date and time for the joint session. Then, a formal invitation is made by the speaker of the House to the president typically several weeks before the appointed date.


title: State of the Union

text: Every member of Congress can bring one guest to the State of the Union address. The president may invite up to 24 guests to be seated in a box with the First Spouse. The speaker of the House may invite up to 24 guests in the speaker's box. Seating for Congress on the main floor is by a first-in, first-served basis with no reservations. The Cabinet, Supreme Court justices, members of the Diplomatic Corps, and military leaders (the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Commandant of the Coast Guard) have reserved seating.


title: State of the Union

text: By approximately 8:30 p.m. on the night of the address, the members of the House have gathered in their seats for the joint session. Then, the Deputy Sergeant at Arms addresses the speaker and loudly announces the vice president and members of the Senate, who enter and take the seats assigned for them.


title: State of the Union

text: The speaker, and then the vice president, specify the members of the House and Senate, respectively, who will escort the president into the House chamber. The Deputy Sergeant at Arms addresses the speaker again and loudly announces, in order, the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, the Chief Justice of the United States and the Associate Justices, and the Cabinet, each of whom enters and takes their seats when called. The justices take the seats nearest to the speaker's rostrum and adjacent to the sections reserved for the Cabinet and the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.


title: State of the Union

text: Just after 9:00 pm, as the president reaches the door to the chamber, the House Sergeant at Arms stands just inside the doors, faces the speaker, and waits until the president is ready to enter the chamber. When the president is ready, the Sergeant at Arms announces the entrance, loudly stating the phrase: "Madam [or Mister] Speaker, the president of the United States!"


title: State of the Union

text: As applause and cheering begin, the president slowly walks toward the speaker's rostrum, followed by members of the congressional escort committee. The president's approach is slowed by pausing to shake hands, hug, kiss, and autograph copies of the speech for Members of Congress. After taking a place at the House Clerk's desk, the president hands two manila envelopes, previously placed on the desk and containing copies of the speech, to the speaker and vice president.


title: State of the Union

text: After continuing applause from the attendees has diminished, the speaker introduces the president to the representatives and senators, typically stating: "Members of Congress, I have the high privilege and distinct honor of presenting to you the president of the United States." This leads to a further round of applause and, eventually, the beginning of the address by the president.


title: State of the Union

text: Customarily, one cabinet member (the designated survivor) does not attend the speech, in order to provide continuity in the line of succession if a catastrophe disables the president, the vice president, and other succeeding officers gathered in the House chamber. Additionally, since the September 11 attacks in 2001, a few members of Congress have been asked to relocate to undisclosed locations for the duration of the speech to form a rump Congress in the event of a disaster. Since 2003, each chamber of Congress has formally named a separate designated survivor.


title: State of the Union

text: Both the speaker and the vice president sit at the speaker's desk, behind the President for the duration of the speech. If either is unavailable, the next highest-ranking member of the respective house substitutes. Once the chamber settles down from the President's arrival, the speaker officially presents the President to the joint session of Congress. The president then delivers the speech from the podium at the front of the House Chamber.


title: State of the Union

text: For the 2011 address, Senator Mark Udall of Colorado proposed a break in the tradition of seating Republicans and Democrats on opposite sides of the House; this was in response to the 2011 Tucson Shooting in which Representative Gabby Giffords was shot and wounded in an assassination attempt. Approximately 60 legislators signed on to Udall's proposal; a similar plan for the 2012 address garnered bipartisan seating commitments from more than 160 lawmakers. Efforts to intersperse the parties during the State of the Union have since waned, and by the 2016 address, seating had largely returned to the traditional partisan arrangement.


title: State of the Union

text: The contents of the speeches typically contain information and status updates of the country and federal government during the incumbent president's administration. It has become customary to use the phrase "The State of the Union is strong," sometimes with slight variations, since President Ronald Reagan introduced it in his 1983 address. It has been repeated by every president in nearly every year since, with the exception of George H. W. Bush. Gerald Ford's 1975 address had been the first to use the phrasing "The State of the Union is...", though Ford completed the sentence with "not good."


title: State of the Union

text: Since Reagan's 1982 address, it has also become common for presidents of both parties to honor special guests sitting in the gallery, such as American citizens or visiting heads of state. During that 1982 address, Reagan acknowledged Lenny Skutnik for his act of heroism following the crash of Air Florida Flight 90. Since then, the term "Lenny Skutniks" has been used to refer to individuals invited to sit in the gallery, and then cited by the president, during the State of the Union.


title: State of the Union

text: State of the Union speeches usually last a little over an hour, partly because of the large amounts of applause that occur from the audience throughout. The applause is often political in tone, with many portions of the speech being applauded only by members of the president's own party. As non-political officeholders, members of the Supreme Court or the Joint Chiefs of Staff rarely applaud in order to retain the appearance of political impartiality. In recent years, the presiding officers of the House and the Senate, the speaker and the vice president, respectively, have departed from the neutrality expected of presiding officers of deliberative bodies, as they, too, stand and applaud in response to the remarks of the president with which they agree.


title: State of the Union

text: Since 1966, the speech has been followed on television by a response or rebuttal by a member of the major political party opposing the president's party. The response is typically broadcast from a studio with no audience. In 1970, the Democratic Party put together a TV program with their speech to reply to President Nixon, as well as a televised response to Nixon's written speech in 1973. The same was done by Democrats for President Reagan's speeches in 1982 and 1985. The response is not always produced in a studio; in 1997, the Republicans for the first time delivered the response in front of high school students. In 2010, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell gave the Republican response from the House of Delegates chamber of the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, in front of about 250 attendees.


title: State of the Union

text: In 2004, the Democratic Party's response was delivered in Spanish for the first time, by New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. In 2011, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann also gave a televised response for the Tea Party Express, a first for a political movement.


title: State of the Union

text: Although much of the pomp and ceremony behind the State of the Union address is governed by tradition rather than law, in modern times, the event is seen as one of the most important in the US political calendar. It is one of the few instances when all three branches of the US government are assembled under one roof: members of both houses of Congress constituting the legislature, the president's Cabinet constituting the executive, and the Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court constituting the judiciary. In addition, the military is represented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, while foreign governments are represented by the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps. The address has also been used as an opportunity to honor the achievements of some ordinary Americans, who are typically invited by the president to sit with the First Lady.


title: State of the Union

text: Certain U.S. states have a similar annual address given by the governor. For most of them, it is called the State of the State address. In Iowa, it is called the Condition of the State Address; in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the speech is called the State of the Commonwealth address. The mayor of the District of Columbia gives a State of the District address. American Samoa has a State of the Territory address given by the governor. Puerto Rico has a State Address given by the governor. In Guam, the governor delivers an annual State of the Island Address.


title: State of the Union

text: Some cities or counties also have an annual State of the City Address given by the mayor, county commissioner or board chair, including Sonoma County, California; Orlando, Florida; Gwinnett County, Georgia; Cincinnati, Ohio; New Haven, Connecticut; Parma, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Seattle, Washington; Birmingham, Alabama; Boston, Massachusetts; Los Angeles, California; Buffalo, New York; Rochester, New York; San Antonio, Texas; McAllen, Texas; and San Diego, California. The Mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County in Nashville, Tennessee gives a speech similar called the State of Metro Address. Some university presidents give a State of the University address at the beginning of every academic term. Some elementary and secondary schools and school districts also hold a "State of the School(s)" address at the beginning of each calendar year. Private companies usually have a "State of the Corporation" or "State of the Company" address given by the respective CEO. As well, the commissioners of some North American professional sports leagues, in particular Major League Soccer and the Canadian Football League, deliver annual "State of the League" addresses, usually in conjunction with events surrounding their respective leagues' championship games.


title: State of the Union

text: The State of the Union model has also been adopted by the European Union, and in France since the presidency of Emmanuel Macron.


title: Atahualpa

text: Atahualpa (), also Atawallpa (Quechua), Atabalica, Atahuallpa, Atabalipa (c. 1502 – 26-29 July 1533) was the last Inca Emperor. After defeating his brother, Atahualpa became very briefly the last Sapa Inca (sovereign emperor) of the Inca Empire (Tawantinsuyu) before the Spanish conquest ended his reign.


title: Atahualpa

text: Before the Inca Emperor Huayna Capac died in Quito in 1524 (possibly assassinated by the Spanish to claim the treasures or rumored to have died from smallpox, a disease brought by Europeans), he had appointed his son Ninan Cuyochi as his successor. Ninan died of the same disease. Huáscar, another son of Huayna, was named Sapa Inca by the Cusquenian nobles and he appointed his brother Atahualpa as governor of Quito. The Inca Civil War began in 1529 when Huáscar declared war on Atahualpa, for fear that he would try to carry out a coup d'état against him. Atahualpa became Inca emperor in May 1532 after he had defeated and imprisoned Huáscar and massacred any pretenders to the throne.


title: Atahualpa

text: Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro captured Atahualpa in November 1532 and used him to control the Inca Empire. While imprisoned by the Spaniards, Atahualpa gave orders to kill Huáscar in Jauja, thinking Huáscar would use the Spaniards as allies to regain his throne.


title: Atahualpa

text: The Spanish eventually executed Atahualpa, effectively ending the empire. A succession of emperors, who led the Inca resistance against the invading Spaniards, claimed the title of Sapa Inca as rulers of the Neo-Inca State, but the empire began to disintegrate after Atahualpa's death.


title: Atahualpa

text: Throughout the Inca Empire's history, each Sapa Inca worked to expand the territory of the empire. When Pachacuti, the 9th Sapa Inca ruled, he expanded the Empire to northern Peru. At this point, Pachacuti sent his son Tupac Inca Yupanqui to invade and conquer the territory of present-day Ecuador. News of the expansion of the Inca reached the different tribes and nations of Ecuador. As a defense against the Inca, the Andean chiefdoms formed alliances with each other.


title: Atahualpa

text: Around 1460, Tupac Inca Yupanqui, with an army of 200,000 warriors that were sent by his father, easily gained control of the Palta nation in southern Ecuador and northern Peru in a matter of months. However, the Inca army met fierce resistance from the defending Cañari, which left the Incas so impressed that after they were defeated the Cañari were recruited into the Inca army. In northern Ecuador the Inca army met fiercer resistance from an alliance between the Quitus and the Cañari. After defeating them in the battle of Atuntaqui, Tupac Yupanqui sent settlers to what is now the city of Quito and left as governor Chalco Mayta, belonging to the Inca nobility.


title: Atahualpa

text: Around 1520, the tribes of Quitos, Caras and Puruhá rebelled against the Inca Huayna Cápac. He personally led his army and defeated the rebels in the battle of Laguna de Yahuarcocha where there was such a massacre that the lake turned to blood. The alliance of the northern tribes collapsed and finally ended when Huayna Cápac married Paccha Duchicela, queen of the Quitos, making them recognize him as monarch, this marriage was the basis of the alliance that guaranteed the Inca power in the area.


title: Atahualpa

text: After Huayna Capac died in 1525, Atahualpa was appointed governor of Quito by his brother Huáscar. Atahualpa defeated Huáscar's armies, sent because the Inca thought his brother could overthrow him and in the process conquered and ruled the Inca Empire as Sapa Inca. His rule lasted only a few months before he was captured by the army of Francisco Pizarro, who sided with the Cuzco supporters of the executed Inca Huáscar. The Spanish conquerors executed Atahualpa in July 1533.


title: Atahualpa

text: Huáscar saw Atahualpa as the greatest threat to his power, but did not dethrone him to respect the wishes of his late father. A tense five-year peace ensued, Huáscar took advantage of that time to get the support of the Cañari, a powerful ethnic group that dominated extensive territories of the north of the empire and maintained grudges against Atahualpa, who had fought them during his father's campaigns. By 1529, the relationship between both brothers was quite deteriorated. According to the chronicler Pedro Pizarro, Huáscar sent an army to the North that ambushed Atahualpa in Tumebamba and defeated him. Atahualpa was captured and imprisoned in a "tambo" (roadside shelters built for the Chasqui) but succeeded in escaping. During his time in captivity, he was cut and lost an ear. From then on, he wore a headpiece that fastened under his chin to hide the injury. But, the chronicler Miguel Cabello de Balboa said that this story of capture was improbable because if Atahualpa had been captured by Huáscar's forces, they would have executed him immediately.


title: Atahualpa

text: Atahualpa returned to Quito and amassed a great army. He attacked the Cañari of Tumebamba, defeating its defenses and levelling the city and the surrounding lands. He arrived in Tumbes, from which he planned an assault by rafts on the island Puná. During the naval operation, Atahualpa sustained a leg injury and returned to land. Taking advantage of his retreat, the "punaneños" (inhabitants of Puña) attacked Tumbes. They destroyed the city, leaving it in the ruined state recorded by the Spaniards in early 1532.


title: Atahualpa

text: From Cuzco the Huascarites attacked the armies of general Atoc and defeated Atahualpa in the battle of Chillopampa. The Atahualapite generals responded quickly; they gathered together their scattered troops, counter-attacked and forcefully defeated Atoc in Mulliambato. They captured Atoc and later tortured and killed him.


title: Atahualpa

text: The Atahualapite forces continued to be victorious, as a result of the strategic abilities of Quizquiz and Calcuchimac. Atahualpa began a slow advance on Cuzco. While based in Marcahuamachuco, he sent an emissary to consult the oracle of the Huaca (god) Catequil, who prophesied that Atahualpa's advance would end poorly. Furious at the prophecy, Atahualpa went to the sanctuary, killed the priest and ordered the temple to be destroyed. During this period, he first learned that Pizarro and his expedition had arrived in the empire.


title: Atahualpa

text: Atahualpa's leading generals were Quizquiz, Chalcuchimac and Rumiñawi. In April 1532, Quizquiz and his companions led the armies of Atahualpa to victory in the battles of Mullihambato, Chimborazo and Quipaipán. The Battle of Quipaipán was the final one between the warring brothers. Quizquiz and Chalcuchimac defeated Huáscar's army, captured him, killed his family and seized the capital, Cuzco. Atahualpa had remained behind in the Andean city of Cajamarca, where he encountered the Spanish, led by Pizarro.


title: Atahualpa

text: In January 1531, a Spanish expedition led by Francisco Pizarro, on a mission to conquer the Inca Empire, landed on Puná Island. Pizarro brought with him 169 men and 69 horses. The Spaniards headed south and occupied Tumbes, where they heard about the civil war that Huáscar and Atahualpa were waging against each other. About a year and a half later, in September 1532, after reinforcements arrived from Spain, Pizarro founded the city of San Miguel de Piura and then marched towards the heart of the Inca Empire, with a force of 106 foot-soldiers and 62 horsemen. Atahualpa, in Cajamarca with his army of 80,000 troops, heard that this party of strangers was advancing into the empire and sent an Inca noble to investigate. The noble stayed for two days in the Spanish camp, making an assessment of the Spaniards' weapons and horses. Atahualpa decided that the 168 Spaniards were not a threat to him and his 80,000 troops, so he sent word inviting them to visit Cajamarca and meet him, expecting to capture them. Pizarro and his men thus advanced unopposed through some very difficult terrain. They arrived at Cajamarca on November 15 1532.


title: Atahualpa

text: Atahualpa and his army had camped on a hill just outside Cajamarca. He was staying in a building close to the Konoj hot springs, while his soldiers were in tents set up around him. When Pizarro arrived in Cajamarca, the town was mostly empty except for a few hundred "acllas". The Spaniards were billeted in certain long buildings on the main square and Pizarro sent an embassy to the Inca, led by Hernando de Soto. The group consisted of 15 horsemen and an interpreter; shortly thereafter de Soto sent 20 more horsemen as reinforcements in case of an Inca attack. These were led by Francisco Pizarro's brother, Hernando Pizarro.


title: Atahualpa

text: The Spaniards invited Atahualpa to visit Cajamarca to meet Pizarro, which he resolved to do the following day. Meanwhile, Pizarro was preparing an ambush to trap the Inca: while the Spanish cavalry and infantry were occupying three long buildings around the square, some musketeers and four pieces of artillery were located in a stone structure in the middle of the square. The plan was to persuade Atahualpa to submit to the authority of the Spaniards and, if this failed, there were two options: a surprise attack, if success seemed possible or to keep up a friendly stance if the Inca forces appeared too powerful.


title: Atahualpa

text: The following day, Atahualpa left his camp at midday, preceded by a large number of men in ceremonial attire; as the procession advanced slowly, Pizarro sent his brother Hernando to invite the Inca to enter Cajamarca before nightfall. Atahualpa entered the town late in the afternoon in a litter carried by eighty lords; with him were four other lords in litters and hammocks and 5,000–6,000 men carrying small battle axes, slings and pouches of stones underneath their clothes. "He was very drunk from what he had imbibed in the (thermal) baths before leaving as well as what he had taken during the many stops on the road. In each of them he had drunk well. And even there on his litter he requested drink." The Inca found no Spaniards in the plaza, as they were all inside the buildings. The only man to emerge was the Dominican friar Vincente de Valverde with an interpreter.


title: Atahualpa

text: Although there are different accounts as to what Valverde said, most agree that he invited the Inca to come inside to talk and dine with Pizarro. Atahualpa instead demanded the return of every thing the Spaniards had taken since they landed. According to eyewitness accounts, Valverde spoke about the Catholic religion but did not deliver the "requerimiento", a speech requiring the listener to submit to the authority of the Spanish Crown and accept the Christian faith. At Atahualpa's request, Valverde gave him his breviary but, after a brief examination, the Inca threw it to the ground; Valverde hurried back toward Pizarro, calling on the Spaniards to attack. At that moment, Pizarro gave the signal; the Spanish infantry and cavalry came out of their hiding places and charged the unsuspecting Inca retinue, killing a great number while the rest fled in panic. Pizarro led the charge on Atahualpa, but captured him only after killing all those carrying him and turning over his litter. Not a single Spanish soldier was killed.


title: Atahualpa

text: On 17 November the Spaniards sacked the Inca army camp, in which they found great treasures of gold, silver and emeralds. Noticing their lust for precious metals, Atahualpa offered to fill a large room about long and wide up to a height of once with gold and twice with silver within two months. It is commonly believed that Atahualpa offered this ransom to regain his freedom, but Hemming says that he did so to save his life. None of the early chroniclers mention any commitment by the Spaniards to free Atahualpa once the metals were delivered.


title: Atahualpa

text: After several months in fear of an imminent attack from general Rumiñawi, the outnumbered Spanish considered Atahualpa to be too much of a liability and decided to execute him. Pizarro staged a mock trial and found Atahualpa guilty of revolting against the Spanish, practicing idolatry and murdering Huáscar, his brother. Atahualpa was sentenced to death by burning at the stake. He was horrified, since the Inca believed that the soul would not be able to go on to the afterlife if the body were burned. Friar Vincente de Valverde, who had earlier offered his breviary to Atahualpa, intervened, telling Atahualpa that, if he agreed to convert to Catholicism, the friar could convince Pizarro to commute the sentence. Atahualpa agreed to be baptized into the Catholic faith. He was given the name Francisco Atahualpa in honor of Francisco Pizarro.


title: Atahualpa

text: On the morning of his death, Atahualpa was interrogated by his Spanish captors about his birthplace. Atahualpa declared that his birthplace was in what the Incas called the Kingdom of Quito, in a place called Caranqui (today located 2 km southeast of Ibarra, Ecuador). Most chroniclers agree, though other stories suggest various other birthplaces.


title: Atahualpa

text: In accordance with his request, he was executed by strangling with a garrote on July 26 1533. His clothes and some of his skin were burned and his remains were given a Christian burial. Atahualpa was succeeded by his brother Túpac Huallpa and, later, by another brother, Manco Inca.


title: Atahualpa

text: After the death of Pizarro, Inés Yupanqui, Atahualpa's favorite sister, who had been given to Pizarro in marriage by her brother, married a Spanish knight named Ampuero and left for Spain. They took her daughter by Pizarro with them and she was later legitimized by imperial decree. Francisca Pizarro Yupanqui married her uncle Hernando Pizarro in Spain, on October 10, 1537—they had a son, Francisco Pizarro y Pizarro. The Pizarro line survived Hernando's death, although it is extinct in the male line. Among Inés direct descendants, with Inca royal blood flowing in their veins, at least three governed Latin American nations during the 19th and early 20th centuries, Dominican President José Desiderio Valverde and Bolivian Presidents Pedro José Domingo de Guerra and Jose Gutierrez Guerra. Pizarro's third son, by a relative of Atahualpa renamed Angelina, who was never legitimized, died shortly after reaching Spain. Another relative, Catalina Capa-Yupanqui, who died in 1580, married a Portuguese nobleman named António Ramos, son of António Colaço. Their daughter was Francisca de Lima who married Álvaro de Abreu de Lima, who was also a Portuguese nobleman.


title: Atahualpa

text: On the façade of the Royal Palace of Madrid there is a statue of the Inca emperor Atahualpa, along with another of the Aztec emperor Moctezuma II, among the statues of the kings of the ancient kingdoms that formed Spain.


title: Atahualpa

text: A myth concerning Atahualpa's death and future resurrection became widespread among indigenous groups, with versions of the tale being documented as far as among the Huilliche people of southern Chile. A rare version recorded by Tom Dillehay among the Mapuche of Araucanía tells of Atahualpa killing Pedro de Valdivia.


title: Atahualpa

text: The burial site of Atahualpa is unknown, but historian Tamara Estupiñán argues it lies somewhere in modern-day Ecuador. She argues he was buried in Ecuador for safekeeping. The location is named Malqui-Machay, which in Quechua translates to "mummy" and stone walls and trapezoidal underground water canals were found in this location. More serious archaeological excavation needs to be done to confirm Estupiñán's beliefs.


title: Atahualpa

text: Atahualpa Inca's conflict with Pizarro was dramatized by Peter Shaffer in his play "The Royal Hunt of the Sun", which originally was staged by the National Theatre in 1964 at the Chichester Festival, then in London at the Old Vic. The role of Atahualpa was played by Robert Stephens and by David Carradine, who received a Theatre World Award in the 1965 Broadway production. Christopher Plummer portrayed Atahualpa in the 1969 movie version of the play. The closing track of Tyrannosaurus Rex's debut album "My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows" was entitled "Frowning Atahuallpa (My Inca Love)"


title: 2021 ATP Tour

text: The 2021 ATP Tour was the global elite men's professional tennis circuit organised by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for the 2021 tennis season. The 2021 ATP Tour calendar comprised the Grand Slam tournaments (supervised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF)), the ATP Finals, the ATP Tour Masters 1000, the ATP Cup, the ATP Tour 500 series and the ATP Tour 250 series. Also included in the 2021 calendar were the Davis Cup (organised by the ITF), the Summer Olympics in Tokyo (rescheduled from 2020), Next Gen ATP Finals, Laver Cup (postponed from 2020), none of which distributed ranking points.


title: 2021 ATP Tour

text: The COVID-19 pandemic affected tournaments on both the ATP and WTA tours. The following tournaments were cancelled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2021 ATP Tour

text: These tables present the number of singles (S), doubles (D), and mixed doubles (X) titles won by each player and each nation during the season, within all the tournament categories of the 2021 ATP Tour: the Grand Slam tournaments, the ATP Finals, the ATP Tour Masters 1000, the ATP Tour 500 series, and the ATP Tour 250 series. The players/nations are sorted by:


title: 2021 ATP Tour

text: The following players achieved their career high ranking in this season inside top 50 (in bold the players who entered the top 10 for the first time):


title: 2021 ATP Tour

text: These are the ATP rankings and yearly ATP race rankings of the top 20 singles players, doubles players and doubles teams at the current date of the 2021 season.


title: 2021 ATP Tour

text: The following is a list of notable players (winners of a main tour title, and/or part of the ATP rankings top 100 in singles, or top 100 in doubles, for at least one week) who announced their retirement from professional tennis, became inactive (after not playing for more than 52 weeks), or were permanently banned from playing, during the 2021 season:


title: 2021 ATP Tour

text: The following is a list of notable players (winners of a main tour title, and/or part of the ATP rankings top 100 in singles, or top 100 in doubles, for at least one week) who returned from retirement during the 2021 season:


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: Open Your Eyes () is a 1997 Spanish film co-written, co-scored and directed by Alejandro Amenábar and co-written by Mateo Gil. It stars Eduardo Noriega, Penélope Cruz, Chete Lera, Fele Martínez and Najwa Nimri. In 2002, "Open Your Eyes" was ranked no. 84 in the Top 100 Sci-Fi List by the Online Film Critics Society.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: The movie's intersecting planes of dream and reality have prompted some critics to suggest comparisons to Calderón de la Barca's 1635 play "Life Is a Dream". An American remake entitled "Vanilla Sky", directed by Cameron Crowe, was released in 2001, with Penélope Cruz reprising her role.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: A handsome young man wakes up to a female voice telling him to open his eyes. He drives to an empty city. He wakes again, this time to a woman in his bed. He tells her not to leave him messages on his alarm clock.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: From a prison cell in Madrid, the 25-year-old man, César (Eduardo Noriega), tells his story to psychiatrist Antonio (Chete Lera) while wearing a prosthetic mask. Flashbacks reveal the following events: Good-looking César is attractive to women. At his birthday party, he flirts with Sofía (Penélope Cruz), his best friend Pelayo's (Fele Martinez) date. Later, he takes her home and stays the night, but they do not sleep together. The next morning, César's obsessive ex-lover Nuria (Najwa Nimri) pulls up outside Sofía's flat, offering him a ride and sex. On the way to her house, however, she crashes the car with the intent to kill them both. César survives the crash but is horribly disfigured, beyond the help of cosmetic surgery, so he decides to wear a mask to conceal his face. Sofía cannot bear to see him and tries to keep her distance.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: After César's disfigurement, he begins to have a series of disorienting experiences. Drunk, César falls asleep in the street. On awakening, everything has changed: Sofía now claims to love him and the surgeons restore his lost looks. But as he makes love to Sofía one night, she suddenly changes into Nuria. Horrified, César smothers her to death with a pillow. Yet everyone else believes Nuria was indeed the woman everyone else calls Sofía, and he is imprisoned for her murder.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: While he is confined to the prison, fragments of his past return to him as if in a dream. It is revealed that, shortly after falling asleep drunk on the street, César signed a contract with Life Extension, a company specializing in cryonics, to be cryogenically preserved and to experience extremely lucid and lifelike virtual reality dreams. Returning to their headquarters, under supervision by prison officers, he discovers they specialize in cryonics with a twist: "artificial perception" or the provision of a fantasy based on the past to clients who are reborn in the future. He committed suicide at home shortly after signing the contract and was placed in cryonic suspension. Duvernois, the L.E. representative who explains César's experiences to him while dreaming, reveals that the era is 150 years in the future and César's time from his awakening in the street onward has been a dream, spliced retroactively into his actual life and replacing his true memories. At the end of the film, César decides to wake and be resurrected by committing suicide. Convinced his life since the drunken night in the street has been a nightmarish vision created by Life Extension, he leaps from the roof of the company's high-rise headquarters, and the film ends, apparently ambiguously, on a black screen with a woman telling him to open his eyes.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: "Open Your Eyes" received mostly positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an 85% approval rating based on reviews from 47 critics, with a weighted average score of 7.39 out of 10. The site's critical consensus states: "Director Alejandro Amenábar tackles some heady issues with finesse and clarity in "Open Your Eyes", a gripping exploration of existentialism and the human spirit". James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three and a half stars (out of four), writing that movies "of this intelligence, audacity, and complexity come along so rarely that it's mandatory to cry out their arrival" and that "those who see it will not quickly forget the experience". Rob Blackwelder of SplicedWire gave the film four stars (out of four), calling it "a jaw-dropping psychological thriller" that's "beautifully orchestrated".


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: Richard Scheib of "The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review" also gave "Open Your Eyes" four stars, writing that it is "quite a remarkable film". Holly E. Ordway of DVD Active wrote "I don’t give out “perfect 10” ratings lightly, but "Open Your Eyes" earns one by all accounts". However, Aaron Beierle of DVD Talk gave a more lukewarm review, writing that he "found most of "Open Your Eyes" interesting" but remarked that "there's something about the picture that kept me from being completely involved".


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: In 2016, Alejandro Amenábar said in retrospective that "Open Your Eyes" was his worst film, telling that it had been written by teenagers, who did not know anything about life.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: In Spain, the film was the second highest-grossing Spanish film of the year behind "Torrente, el brazo tonto de la ley" with a gross of $7.8 million. In the United States and Canada it grossed $370,720. Elsewhere it grossed $0.7 million.


title: Open Your Eyes (1997 film)

text: Director Cameron Crowe's film "Vanilla Sky" (2001) is a remake of "Open Your Eyes". It stars Tom Cruise in the lead role (renamed David Aames), Penélope Cruz reprising her role as Sofia, Cameron Diaz as the woman who disfigures David (renamed Julianna Gianni), Jason Lee as the friend (renamed Brian Shelby), and Kurt Russell as the psychiatrist (renamed Curtis McCabe). Transporting the action from Madrid to New York City, "Vanilla Sky" follows its source material's plot very closely, but makes several changes to the ending.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: Princess Isabella of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat (Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe; born 21 April 2007) is a member of the Danish royal family. She is the second child and elder daughter of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: She is the fourth grandchild and oldest granddaughter of Queen Margrethe II and the late Prince Henrik. She was the first girl born into the Danish royal family since the birth of her great aunt, Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, in 1946. Isabella is third in the line of succession to the Danish throne, after her father and her older brother, Prince Christian.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: Princess Isabella was born at Rigshospitalet, the Copenhagen University Hospital, in Copenhagen, to Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary. At noon on 22 April, a 21-gun salute was fired from the Sixtus Battery at Holmen Naval Base in Copenhagen and from Kronborg Castle in North Zealand to mark her birth.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: Her christening took place on 1 July 2007, at the Royal Chapel of Fredensborg Palace where her name, per Danish royal tradition, was revealed to be Isabella Henrietta Ingrid Margrethe, after the Danish queen consort and ancestress Isabella of Austria, the princess's maternal grandmother, paternal great-grandmother, and paternal grandmother respectively. Her godparents were her father's first cousin, Princess Alexia of Greece and Denmark; Queen Mathilde of Belgium (then Duchess of Brabant), Nadine Johnston, Christian Buchwald, Peter Heering and Marie Louise Skeel. Isabella received the Lutheran rite of confirmation in the same chapel on 30 April 2022, which was presided over by Henrik Wigh-Poulsen, the Danish royal Chaplain-in-Ordinary.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: Isabella undertook her first official engagement, the baptism of a ferry – the "M/F Prinsesse Isabella" operating between Jutland and Samsø – named in her honour, on 6 June 2015.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: On 20 December 2007, as he had done the previous year for Prince Christian, Per Stig Møller, Denmark's Minister for Foreign Affairs, formally wrote and signed a hand-written document confirming Isabella's position as third in the line of succession to the Danish throne. The princess's full name, dates of birth and christening, and the names of her godparents were recorded as dictated by the Royal Law of 1799.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: On 13 August 2013, Isabella started school at Tranegårdsskolen in Gentofte, the same public school as her older brother. In January 2020, Isabella and her three siblings initiated a 12-week school stay at Lemania-Verbier International School in Verbier, Switzerland. The stay was eventually cut short and the siblings returned home in March due to the intensification of the COVID-19 situation in Denmark. In March 2022, it was announced that Isabella would continue her education at Herlufsholm School starting in August 2022. However, on 26 June 2022, her parents announced in a statement that Isabella would not start Herlufsholm after all due to revelations of recurring problems of bullying, violence and sexual abuse at the school, and in September 2022, she started 9th form at Ingrid Jespersens Gymnasieskole in Copenhagen instead.


title: Princess Isabella of Denmark

text: Isabella is styled as "Her Royal Highness" Princess Isabella of Denmark, Countess of Monpezat. She has been Princess of Denmark since birth and Countess of Monpezat since 29 April 2008, when Queen Margrethe granted the title to her male-line descendants.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: The Phoenix Metropolitan Area – also the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, or Metro Phoenix (known by most locals simply as “the Valley”) – is the largest metropolitan area in the Southwestern United States, centered on the city of Phoenix, that includes much of the central part of Arizona. The United States Office of Management and Budget designates the area as the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), defining it as Maricopa and Pinal counties. As of the 2020 census, Metro Phoenix had 4,845,832 residents, making it the 11th largest metropolitan area in the nation by population. It anchors the Arizona Sun Corridor megaregion along with the second most populous metropolitan area in the state, the Tucson metropolitan area. The gross domestic product of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area was $255 billion in 2018, 16th largest amongst metro areas in the United States.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: It is also one of the fastest-growing major metropolitan areas, gaining over 650,000 residents from 2010 to 2020, and nearly 1.6 million since 2000. The population of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area increased by 45.3% from 1990 through 2000, compared to the average United States rate of 13.2%, helping to make Arizona the second fastest growing state in the nation in the 1990s (the fastest was Nevada). The 2000 Census reported the population of the metropolitan area to be 3,251,876.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: As for the 2020 Census, the two-county metropolitan area was reported to have a population of 4,845,832. Metro Phoenix grew by 652,945 people from April 2010 to April 2020, making it one of the fastest growing metro areas in the country. This also contributed to the entire state's exceptional growth, as the area is home to just over two-thirds of Arizona's population.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: The Phoenix-Mesa Combined statistical area (CSA) was designated in September 2018 by U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and by the Census Bureau which consists of the entirety of the counties of Maricopa, Pinal and Gila. This includes the Phoenix Metropolitan Area and the Payson, AZ Micropolitan Statistical Area.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: As of April 1, 2020, the Phoenix-Mesa CSA had a population of 4,899,104 making it the fourteenth largest in the nation by population.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: The Phoenix Metropolitan Area comprises Maricopa County (2020 population: 4,420,568) and Pinal County (2020 population: 425,264). It is officially designated by the US Census Bureau as the Phoenix–Mesa–Chandler, AZ Metropolitan Statistical Area. The total population for metropolitan Phoenix at the 2020 Census was 4,845,832.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: The Phoenix Metropolitan Area is hundreds of miles away from any other metropolitan area of similar population size. For instance, the closest metropolitan area with almost the same population size is the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA Metro Area, which is 300 miles away.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: As of the 2010 census, there were 4,192,887 people, 1,537,137 households, and 1,024,971 families residing within the MSA. The racial makeup of the MSA was 73.0% White (58.7% White Non-Hispanic), 5.0% Black, 3.3% Asian, 2.4% Native American or Alaska Native (virtually all Native American) and 16.2% of other or mixed race. 29.5% were Hispanic of any race.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: In 2010 the median income for a household in the MSA was $50,385 and the median income for a family was $58,497. The per capita income was $24,809.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: What follows is a list of places in Metro Phoenix (populations for incorporated places are as of the 2020 census). The Office of Management and Budget defines a metropolitan area as the core city plus its county and any nearby counties that are economically dependent on the core city. However, Arizona has relatively large counties and a harsh, rugged desert landscape. For these reasons, much of the land that is part of the Metropolitan Statistical Area is rural or completely uninhabited. The core part of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area is the Phoenix–Mesa, Arizona Urban Area, which is far smaller than the Metropolitan Statistical Area.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Places that fall completely or partially within the boundaries of the Phoenix–Mesa, AZ US are in bold below.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: As of 2020, the Phoenix Metropolitan area consists of Maricopa and Pinal counties, comprising a total area of about 14,600 square miles. Because of the size of counties in Arizona, even though Maricopa and Pinal counties together contain nearly 4.9 million people, most of the area is uninhabited, which gives the MSA an extremely low density compared to other major MSAs in the nation.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: The average elevation in the city itself is about , with the highest point being in South Mountain Park Preserve .The highest point in the two county area is in the Four Peaks mountain range.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Metropolitan Phoenix is notable for its warm, desert climate. On average, the area receives about 9 inches of rain annually, with less than 1 inch of snow every decade. In total, the region will see about 32 days of measurable precipitation each year. The MSA is one of the sunniest major metropolitan areas, receiving 295 days of sunshine, compared to the national average of 205. The average July high is about 104 °F (40 °C), with the average January low being about 37 °F (3 °C), still above freezing. Bestplaces gives Metropolitan Phoenix a comfort index of 44/100, which is also the national average.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Below is a chart showing climate data collected from Sky Harbor Airport. Note that due to the vast area covered by the MSA, climates vary throughout the valley.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Metropolitan Phoenix has historically been the center of the state's economy. As with the state of Arizona, the area relied on the 5 C's (copper, cattle, climate, citrus, and cotton) for its economic growth and expansion. However, after World War II, the area entered the manufacturing industry, which spurred the growth of what would eventually be one of the largest urban areas in the nation. Currently, the two largest industries are manufacturing and tourism. About 10 million people visit from other states and Canada each year, due to the area's mild winters and long, sunny days. The technology and service industries currently account for almost 77% of total employment in the region. As well as a strong tourism industry, the Phoenix area has a significant business sector. Several Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies have their international headquarters in the area, including Avnet, PetSmart, Apollo Education Group, Republic Services, ON Semiconductor, Insight Enterprises, and Sprouts Farmers Market. Other Fortune 500 companies with significant presence include Banner Health, the state's largest private employer, American Airlines, which merged with Tempe-based US Airways, American Express, Wells Fargo, Boeing, and Intel, which has a large regional campus in Chandler.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: The Metropolitan Area ranks 5th in the nation in economic growth, which is a major comeback from the recession. The unemployment rate of the area is 5.3%, lower than the national rate of 6.3%. It also has slightly higher recent job growth (2.0% compared to 1.2%) and higher projected job growth (38.7% compared to 36.1%). Although the area has significantly higher sales tax rates compared with the nation as a whole (8.3% to 6.0%), income tax rates are lower than the national average (3.4% to 4.7%). The largest occupation by population is in the office/administrative sector, comprising more than a quarter of all jobs in the region.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: New freeways are planned in the future, either through upgrades of existing roads such as SR 74, SR 85, and Northern Parkway; or through the construction of new freeways where no road existed before such as SR 24, SR 30, and I-11.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Most of the arterial roads in the Phoenix metropolitan area are laid out on a regular grid, following the section lines established in the Public Land Survey System. As a result, arterial roads in cities that had once been geographically separate may have been given different names while occupying the same section line. When these roads were extended to accommodate the growth in the area they eventually merged into a single road while the previous segments retained their existing names. This results in several cases of a road abruptly changing names; for example, Dunlap Avenue in Phoenix becomes Olive Avenue west of 43rd Avenue, in Glendale.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Another quirk of a grid system based upon the Public Land Survey System is due to the occasional corrections in the grid caused by the curvature of the earth. This results in arterial roadways deviating slightly from a straight line, as can be seen in many locations where roads abruptly curve either just north or just south of Baseline Road to follow a new section line.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: The majority of the cities in the metropolitan area, as well as unincorporated areas in Maricopa County, observe the addressing system employed by the city of Phoenix. A number of cities, however, retain their own addressing systems with differing reference points, creating the potential for multiple instances of a house number being found on the same named road.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: In terms of numbering systems, some roads that continue through multiple cities will switch numbering conventions several times. Broadway Road, for example, starts and stops multiple times, passing through Goodyear, Avondale, Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa, and Apache Junction, each with their own reference point for address numbering. Though the street does not curve, the direction changes from west to east in each city and back again when moving from one city to the next, causing considerable overlap in numbers.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Most communities in Maricopa County use the Phoenix-County numbering system, with the point of origin at Central Avenue and Washington Street. In the Phoenix-County system, north-south numbered roads labeled "avenue", "drive", and "lane" are West of Central Avenue, while those labeled "street", "place" and "way" are east of Central Avenue. Starting with 579th Avenue in the west near Tonopah the avenues count down with approximately 8 numbers per mile to 19th Avenue and count up again to from 16th Street to 228th Street near Queen Creek in the east. They go, in order from west to east (although not all necessarily exist):


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: This has been a source of confusion for a few newcomers, who might end up, for example, at 91st "Avenue" and Thunderbird Road, when in fact they intended to go to 91st "Street" and Thunderbird Road, between 30 minutes and an hour away from one another depending on traffic.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: One beneficial quality of this arrangement for unfamiliar travelers is that the major north-south arterial roads are rarely similarly named; the "avenue" arterials in the West Valley are all odd-numbered and the "street" arterials in the East Valley are even-numbered, with the exception of 7th Ave. & 7th St., both being major roadways running parallel and each one-half mile from Central Ave.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Additional confusion can be encountered in Mesa in its urban core, with east-west numbered avenues and drives counting down from 11th Avenue north towards Main Street), and numbered streets and places counting down from 11th Place south towards Main Street. Then, in the eastern part of the city, north-south streets and places count up from 22nd St east of Gilbert Rd, to 112th Street on the Apache Junction border. Numerous trailer parks inside the city limits run their own contradictory variations of the numbered street system.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Most communities in Pinal County use the Pinal County street numbering system, whose point of origin is at SR 287 and 11 Mile Corner Road (the intersection of which is known as "11 Mile Corner"). Exceptions include:


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Apache Junction continues Mesa's convention of numbered north-south street names by having the sequence continue east from 112th St while simultaneously having east-west numbered avenues south of Apache Trail and east-west numbered streets north of Apache Trail.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: In terms of safety, the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ metropolitan area has been ranked 16th most dangerous in the USA, based on its Pedestrian Danger Index, computed on the share of local commuters who walk to work and the most recent data on pedestrian deaths as found in a 2016 report released by Smart Growth America.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Amtrak serves the Phoenix metropolitan area with their "Sunset Limited" and "Texas Eagle" trains—both of which stop in Maricopa, located about 40 miles south of downtown Phoenix. Amtrak's "Stagecoach Express" provides Thruway Motorcoach service from Maricopa station to both Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and Tempe station. Amtrak also provides additional Thruway Motorcoach service from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to Flagstaff station, which is served by the "Southwest Chief".


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Amtrak's Los Angeles-New Orleans "Sunset Limited" served the city of Phoenix directly from 1971 until it was rerouted on June 2, 1996, to a more southerly route between Tucson and Yuma, Arizona, in order to accommodate the Union Pacific Railroad's desire to abandon a portion of its Phoenix-to-Yuma "West Line." This made Phoenix one of the largest cities in the nation without direct passenger service.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: A light rail system (dubbed the "METRO Light Rail") runs more than 20 miles from suburban Mesa, through Tempe and into Phoenix, traveling through the downtown area, offering access to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and linking two of the four metro area campuses of Arizona State University. The light rail began public operation on December 27, 2008, and it was projected to accommodate 26,000 boardings a day, or more than 8 million boardings in its first year. Valley Metro Rail boardings has experienced constant growth since the beginning. In the year 2012, the light rail boarded just over 14 million people.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Many expansions to the METRO system are currently in the early planning stages, and others are under construction. The Central Mesa extension project, which extends the Main Street line 2½ miles from Sycamore to Mesa Drive in Downtown Mesa, finished construction and opened on August 22, 2015. The Northwest rail project opened March 2016. The project extended the 19th Avenue track from its former terminus at Montebello Ave to Dunlap Avenue, 3 miles north. Many more extensions are funded, with further projects being studied for feasibility.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: In 2010, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was the 24th busiest passenger facility in the world and the 10th busiest in the United States, with more than 38 million passengers using the facility. With three terminal buildings encompassing 120 gates, more than 20 airlines offer daily non-stop flights to destinations throughout the world.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport began commercial passenger flights in 2004. The airport provides service to over 40 destinations.


title: Phoenix metropolitan area

text: There are several municipal and regional airports in the metropolitan area that are not used by commercial airlines for passenger flights. They include, but are not limited to, Glendale Airport, Phoenix Deer Valley Airport, Phoenix Goodyear Airport, Scottsdale Airport, Falcon Field, Chandler Municipal Airport, Buckeye Airport, Phoenix Regional Airport, Pleasant Valley Airport, Estrella Sailport, Stellar Airpark, Skyranch at Carefree, Gila River Memorial Airport, Pegasus Airpark.


title: Red mercury

text: Red mercury is purportedly a substance of uncertain composition used in the creation of nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons systems. Because of the great secrecy surrounding the development and manufacturing of nuclear weapons, there is no proof that red mercury exists. However, all samples of alleged "red mercury" analyzed in the public literature have proven to be well-known, common red substances of no interest to weapons makers.


title: Red mercury

text: Red mercury is therefore considered a hoax, perpetrated by con artists who sought to take advantage of gullible buyers on the black market for arms. There have been reports of "red mercury" on the international black markets since 1979, but the hoax seems to have been most common in the early 1990s, with very high asking prices.


title: Red mercury

text: References to red mercury first appeared in major Soviet and western media sources in the late 1980s. The articles were never specific as to what exactly red mercury was, but nevertheless claimed it was of great importance in nuclear bombs, or that it was used in the building of boosted fission weapons. Almost as soon as the stories appeared, people started attempting to buy it. At that point, the purported nature of the substance started to change, and eventually turned into anything the buyer happened to be interested in. As "New Scientist" reported in 1992, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory report outlined that:


title: Red mercury

text: When red mercury first appeared on the international black market 15 years ago, the supposedly top secret nuclear material was 'red' because it came from Russia. When it resurfaced last year in the formerly communist states of Eastern Europe it had unaccountably acquired a red colour. But then, as a report from the US Department of Energy reveals, mysterious transformations are red mercury's stock in trade.


title: Red mercury

text: The report, compiled by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, shows that in the hands of hoaxers and conmen, red mercury can do almost anything the aspiring Third World demagogue wants it to. You want a short cut to making an atom bomb? You want the key to Soviet ballistic missile guidance systems? Or perhaps you want the Russian alternative to the anti-radar paint on the stealth bomber? What you need is red mercury.


title: Red mercury

text: An article in the daily Russian newspaper "Pravda" described in 1993, claiming to be informed by leaked top-secret memos, red mercury as:


title: Red mercury

text: [A] super-conductive material used for producing high-precision conventional and nuclear bomb explosives, 'Stealth' surfaces and self-guided warheads. Primary end-users are major aerospace and nuclear-industry companies in the United States and France along with nations aspiring to join the nuclear club, such as South Africa, Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Libya.


title: Red mercury

text: Two TV documentaries about red mercury were made by British Channel 4 television, airing in 1993 and 1994; "Trail of Red Mercury" and "Pocket Neutron", which claimed to have "startling evidence that Russian scientists have designed a miniature neutron bomb using a mysterious compound called red mercury".


title: Red mercury

text: Samuel T. Cohen, an American physicist who worked on building the atomic bomb, said in his autobiography that red mercury is manufactured by "mixing special nuclear materials in very small amounts into the ordinary compound and then inserting the mixture into a nuclear reactor or bombarding it with a particle-accelerator beam." When detonated, this mixture allegedly becomes "extremely hot, which allows pressures and temperatures to be built up that are capable of igniting the heavy hydrogen and producing a pure-fusion mini neutron bomb."


title: Red mercury

text: Red mercury was offered for sale throughout Europe and the Middle East by Russian businessmen, who found many buyers who would pay almost anything for the substance, even though they had no idea what it was. A study for the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" published in 1997 has perhaps the most factual summary of red mercury:


title: Red mercury

text: The asking price for red mercury ranged from $100,000 to $300,000 per kilogram. Sometimes the material would be irradiated or shipped in containers with radioactive symbols, perhaps to convince potential buyers of its strategic value. But samples seized by police contained only mercury(II) oxide, mercury(II) iodide, or mercury mixed with red dye – hardly materials of interest to weapons-makers.


title: Red mercury

text: Following the arrest of several men in Britain in September 2004, on suspicion that they were trying to buy a kilogram of red mercury for £900,000, the International Atomic Energy Agency made a statement dismissing claims that the substance is real. "Red mercury doesn't exist," said the spokesman. "The whole thing is a bunch of malarkey." When the case came to trial at the Old Bailey in April 2006, it became apparent that "News of the World"s "fake sheikh" Mazher Mahmood had worked with the police to catch the three men (Dominic Martins, Roque Fernandes and Abdurahman Kanyare). They were tried for "trying to set up funding or property for terrorism" and "having an article (a highly dangerous mercury-based substance) for terrorism". According to the prosecutor, red mercury was believed to be a material which could cause a large explosion, possibly even a nuclear reaction, and whether or not red mercury actually existed was irrelevant to the prosecution. All three men were acquitted in July 2006.


title: Red mercury

text: Several common mercury compounds are indeed red, such as mercury sulfide (from which the bright-red pigment vermilion was originally derived), mercury(II) oxide, and mercury(II) iodide, and others are explosive, such as mercury(II) fulminate. No use for any of these compounds in nuclear weapons has been publicly documented. "Red mercury" could also be a code name for a substance that contains no mercury at all, perhaps another name for the mysterious, but acknowledged, Fogbank compound.


title: Red mercury

text: A variety of different items have been chemically analyzed as putative samples of "red mercury" since the substance first came to the attention of the media, but no single substance was found in these items. A sample of radioactive material was seized by German police in May 1994. This consisted of a complex mixture of elements, including about 10% by weight plutonium, with the remainder consisting of 61% mercury, 11% antimony, 6% oxygen, 2% iodine and 1.6% gallium. The reason why somebody had assembled this complex mixture of chemicals is unknown; equally puzzling was the presence of fragments of glass and brush bristles, suggesting that someone had dropped a bottle of this substance and then swept it up into a new container.


title: Red mercury

text: In contrast, an analysis reported in 1998 of a different "red mercury" sample concluded that this sample was a non-radioactive mixture of elemental mercury, water and mercury(II) iodide, which is a red colored chemical. Similarly, another analysis of a sample recovered in Zagreb in November 2003 reported that this item contained only mercury. One formula that had been claimed previously for red mercury was HgSbO (mercury(II) pyroantimonate), but no antimony was detected in this 2003 sample.


title: Red mercury

text: Red mercury was described by many commentators, and the exact nature of its supposed working mechanism varied widely among them. In general, however, none of these explanations appear to be scientifically or historically supportable.


title: Red mercury

text: Traditional staged thermonuclear weapons consist of two parts, a fission "primary" and a fusion/fission "secondary". The energy released by the primary when it explodes is used to (indirectly) compress the secondary and start a fusion reaction within it. Conventional explosives are far too weak to provide the level of compression needed.


title: Red mercury

text: The primary is generally built as small as possible, because the energy released by the secondary is much larger, and thus building a larger primary is generally inefficient. There is a lower limit on the size of the primary, known as the critical mass. For weapons grade plutonium, this is around 10 kg. This can be reduced through the use of neutron reflectors or clever arrangements of explosives to compress the core, but these methods generally add to the size and complexity of the resulting device.


title: Red mercury

text: Because of the need for a fission primary and the difficulty of purifying weapons-grade fissile materials, the majority of arms control efforts to limit nuclear proliferation rely on the detection and control of the fissile material and the equipment needed to obtain it.


title: Red mercury

text: A theory popular in the mid-1990s was that red mercury facilitated the enrichment of uranium to weapons-grade purity. Conventionally, such enrichment is usually done with Zippe-type centrifuges, and takes several years. Red mercury was speculated to eliminate this costly and time-consuming step. Although this would not eliminate the possibility of detecting the material, it could escape detection during enrichment as the facilities hosting centrifuges normally used in this process are very large and require equipment that can be fairly easily tracked internationally. Eliminating such equipment would in theory greatly ease the construction of a clandestine nuclear weapon.


title: Red mercury

text: A key part of the secondary in a fusion bomb is lithium-6-deuteride. When irradiated with high-energy neutrons, Li-6 creates tritium, which mixes with the deuterium in the same mixture and fuses at a relatively low temperature. Russian weapon designers have reported (1993) that red mercury was the Soviet codename for lithium-6, which has an affinity for mercury and tends to acquire a red colour due to mercuric impurities during its separation process.


title: Red mercury

text: Samuel T. Cohen, the "father of the neutron bomb", claimed for a long time that red mercury is a powerful explosive-like chemical known as a ballotechnic. The energy released during its reaction is allegedly enough to directly compress the secondary without the need for a fission primary in a thermonuclear weapon. He claimed that he learned that the Soviet scientists perfected the use of red mercury and used it to produce a number of softball-sized pure fusion bombs weighing as little as , which he claimed were made in large numbers.


title: Red mercury

text: He went on to claim that the reason this is not more widely known is that elements within the US power structure are deliberately keeping it "under wraps" due to the frightening implications such a weapon would have on nuclear proliferation. Since a red mercury bomb would require no fissile material, it would seemingly be impossible to protect against its widespread proliferation given current arms control methodologies. Instead of trying to do so, they simply claim it does not exist, while acknowledging its existence privately. Cohen also claimed that when President Boris Yeltsin took power, he secretly authorized the sale of red mercury on the international market, and that fake versions of it were sometimes offered to gullible buyers.


title: Red mercury

text: Cohen's claims are difficult to support scientifically. The amount of energy released by the fission primary is thousands of times greater than that released by conventional explosives, and it appears that the "red mercury" approach would be orders of magnitude smaller than required.


title: Red mercury

text: Additionally, it appears there is no independent confirmation of any sort of Cohen's claims to the reality of red mercury. The scientists in charge of the labs where the material would have been made have publicly dismissed the claims (see below), as have numerous US colleagues, including Edward Teller.


title: Red mercury

text: According to Cohen, veteran nuclear weapon designer Frank Barnaby conducted secret interviews with Russian scientists who told him that red mercury was produced by dissolving mercury antimony oxide in mercury, heating and irradiating the resultant amalgam, and then removing the elemental mercury through evaporation. The irradiation was reportedly carried out by placing the substance inside a nuclear reactor.


title: Red mercury

text: As mentioned earlier, one of the origins of the term "red mercury" was in the Russian newspaper "Pravda", which claimed that red mercury was "a super-conductive material used for producing high-precision conventional and nuclear bomb explosives, 'stealth' surfaces and self-guided warheads." Any substance with these sorts of highly differing properties would be suspect to most, but the stealth story continued to have some traction long after most had dismissed the entire story.


title: Red mercury

text: Red mercury is thought by some to be the invention of an intelligence agency or criminal gang for the purpose of deceiving terrorists and rogue states who were trying to acquire nuclear technology on the black market. One televised report indicated that the Soviet Union encouraged the KGB and GRU to arrange sting operations for the detection of those seeking to deal in nuclear materials. The Soviet intelligence services allegedly created a myth of the necessity of "red mercury" for the sorts of nuclear devices that terrorists and rogue governments might seek. Political entities that already had nuclear weapons did nothing to debunk the myth.


title: Red mercury

text: In 1999 "Jane's Intelligence Review" suggested that victims of red mercury scams may have included Osama bin Laden.


title: Red mercury

text: Organizations involved in landmine clearance and unexploded munitions disposal noted a belief amongst some communities in southern Africa that red mercury may be found in certain types of ordnance. Attempting to extract red mercury, purported to be highly valuable, was reported as a motivation for people dismantling items of unexploded ordnance, and suffering death or injury as a result. In some cases it was reported that unscrupulous traders may be deliberately promoting this misconception in an effort to build a market for recovered ordnance.


title: Red mercury

text: An explosion in Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe that killed five people is attributed to a quest to reclaim red mercury from a live landmine.


title: Red mercury

text: In April 2009 it was reported from Saudi Arabia that rumors that Singer sewing machines contained "red mercury" had caused the prices of such machines to massively increase in the Kingdom, with some paying up to SR200,000 for a single machine which could previously have been bought for SR200. Believers in the rumor claimed that the presence of red mercury in the sewing machines' needles could be detected using a mobile telephone; if the line cut off when the telephone was placed near to the needle, this supposedly proved that the substance was present.


title: Red mercury

text: In Medina there was a busy trade in the sewing machines, with buyers seen using mobile phones to check the machines for red mercury content, while it was reported that others had resorted to theft, with two tailors' shops in Dhulum broken into and their sewing machines stolen. At other locales, there were rumors that a Kuwait-based multinational had been buying up the Singer machines, while in Al-Jouf, the residents were led to believe that a local museum was buying up any such machines that it could find, and numerous women appeared at the museum offering to sell their Singer machines.


title: Red mercury

text: There was little agreement among believers in the story as to the exact nature or even color of the red mercury, while the supposed uses for it ranged from it being an essential component of nuclear power, to having the ability to summon jinn, extract gold, or locate buried treasure and perform other forms of magic. The official spokesman for the Riyadh police said that the rumors had been started by gangs attempting to swindle people out of their money, and denied the existence of red mercury in sewing machines.


title: Red mercury

text: In the 1995 PlayStation game "Warhawk", red mercury is used by the mad warlord Kreel in his bid for world domination.


title: Red mercury

text: In the 2006 video game "", Red Mercury is used by the terrorist group JBA, to create multiple nuclear devices intended to bomb three major American cities.


title: Red mercury

text: Charles Stross' 2012 short story "A Tall Tail" uses Red Mercury (as the compound Dimethylmercury) as a key element.


title: Red mercury

text: The 2013 Bruce Willis movie "Red 2" features a nuclear weapon containing red mercury as the main explosive component.